My friend who sells real estate has one of the coolest laptops you’ve ever seen.

And I know you’ve seen it.

It is the Thinkpad x220, the model on all the TV and YouTube video commercials that shows a guy jumping out of an airplane with this laptop to prove it can boot in under 10 seconds.

But this model has another very cool feature: the screen swivels and transforms into an iPad. That means you can work on the laptop all day, then transform it into an iPad to make sales presentation to clients.

With the rapid-boot drive, the touch-sensitive swivel screen, and the extended 9-hour battery, the total price came to about $2,000.

And it sits on the desk every day like a plain-old PC. No client has ever seen it.

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by Ted Suss, Prism Photo

Is the money you’re “saving” really costing you more and not allowing you to grow your business?

Are you printing your own? Have you become a lab? Be honest; how much time are you really spending making prints and how much money are you really saving?

As a photographer, you make the most money and grow your business by marketing, shooting and selling. Everything else is secondary and non profitable. Here’s why:

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Our ___ is the only ___ that ___ .

Can you fill in these blanks for your business in 2012?

Here at JD, we’re constantly thinking of new products and services for you to offer your clients. But let’s be honest: anything we make can be purchased somewhere else. Every pro lab has the same list of products in ROES. And yes, we know it’s cheaper at Walmart.

Fortunately, our goal isn’t to compete with other labs – or even Walmart. A long time ago, we decided to focus on helping our clients – that’s you – build your business. So again in 2012, our answer to the first sentence will be:

Our lab is the only one focused on helping pro photographers make money.

While this is a pretty bold statement, we believe it is true. From our experience on both the lab and studio side of the business, to our focus on training and marketing, to our knowledgeable customer service folks, every aspect of our business is centered on helping you to build your photography business. And in 2012, you’ll see even more.

Google Places lets potential clients find you based on what they are searching for in Google. For example, if you’re a photographer in Fenton, and someone searches for “photographer fenton mi” they should see you on the first page of Google.

By default, every business in America has a Google Place linked to Google Maps. However, only those businesses that take the time to create a Google Places account, update the information, and encourage reviews will rise to the top of the list.

In addition, if you have a studio or business location, it is more important than ever that you monitor your Google Places account. Google now lets strangers “update” your account information that potential clients would see on Google Places page or Google Maps when searching for your studio.

For example, someone could post on your places account something as useful as “closes at 5pm” to something as evil as “business closed.” If you’re not monitoring your account, you’d never see this.

This is even worse if you haven’t yet claimed your Google Places account. By default, Google lists every business in the United States in Google maps, typically using information gleamed from the Yellow Pages. If your contact information is missing or outdated, potential clients won’t be able to find your business.

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Click for larger version.

If you’ve ever paid a bill like this one, chances are you’re a victim of an Internet scam designed to take advantage of small business owners who have websites.

I know, because it happened to us. Fortunately, we didn’t pay the bill.

Here’s how it works.

Unscrupulous companies will look up your website’s domain name expiration date, and just before it expires, send you an official-looking “bill” via first-class US mail. They hope you will pay it without reading it first.

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Power failure during a sunny day, broken-down cars, dogs eating the media cards…think it can’t happen to you? Those are all events that do happen to photographers. Sooner or later, something could go wrong with one of your client assignments. Here’s the good news:

If you’re ever accused of negligence, you’ll be happy to know that PPA has your back with the Indemnification Trust, a new exclusive benefit for PPA members.*

The purpose of the Indemnification Trust is to protect you when allegations of negligence arise from an assignment, such as:

• Digital image data loss (corrupt media card or hard drive failure) relating to a paid, contracted assignment
• Failure of the photographer to be at the event or assignment at the specified time
• Missed or missing images
• Client dissatisfaction with services rendered during an assignment or as contracted

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Two years ago we wrote about the hidden fees banks charge you to take credit cards. Finally, something is happening.

If you take credit or debit cards, you are probably aware that in addition to a 1-4% transaction fee, most banks take up to 44 cents as a hidden “processing fee”. Pretty amazing when you consider that it costs them less than 4 cents to process a debit or credit card.

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I remember back in the day when film was still king. As a Kodak lab, we bought almost every one of Kodak’s latest products the moment they came out: film scanners, digital printers, CD recorders and digital cameras. These weren’t just Kodak-branded products. These were things Kodak engineers invented.

The CD recorder was brilliant. Although it was the size of a briefcase and cost several thousand dollars, it made a perfect CD recording every time. It was perfect for archiving digital images. Nothing else was like it.

So why doesn’t every PC in the world use a Kodak CD burner?

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A realtor friend of mine recently showed me a book entitled, Magnetic Real Estate Photography. I was less impressed by the contents of the book and more impressed by the idea. The author took a series of several “before and after” photographs, described them, and created a book she sold on Amazon.

Two things immediately struck me about the book:

1. 1. It was a soft cover photo book – just like the ones we make every day here at the lab.
2. 2. Every page had a few sentences, but the important part was the photography.

Which made me wonder, why couldn’t a professional photographer do the same thing?

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This was one of the first newsletter articles we published back in 2008. I believe it is still relevant today.

Recently I listened to an outstanding PPA online pricing seminar. As the pricing expert spoke, I imagined how my customers must feel listening to someone tell them that if you include labor, the real cost of a 8×10″ paper print to the photographer is $51 dollars.

As the expert explained labor costs, I thought about how so many photographers consider all the time they spend copying, sorting, color correcting, and uploading digital files as “free”, then consider the $1.80-$3.00 dollars paid to the lab as the most expensive part of the order. The expert argued that a photographer’s time is worth much more than an 8×10″ piece of paper.

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