What got your business going?

so you dont do anything to remind them of you? The guy we bought a car from has been sending us Christmas cards and a couple other notes through out the year, even after 4 years. If he was to give us a free gift, that would be awesome and def make us go back to him the next time we need a car.

im not talking about the possible customers you have, but the customers youve already had.

GerryDavid wrote in post #15214438
so you dont do anything to remind them of you? The guy we bought a car from has been sending us Christmas cards and a couple other notes through out the year, even after 4 years. If he was to give us a free gift, that would be awesome and def make us go back to him the next time we need a car.

im not talking about the possible customers you have, but the customers youve already had.

No, we check up con customers that have bought on us all the time, to see how their doing, and what not, but we don't offer photo services... We're a car dealership... we specialize in cars.

I think your missing my point, but thats ok.

btw the guy I was talking about is the manager of that nissan branch now.

Networking. That's the biggest skill for me. I went to a bunch of different events where I got to meet different industry people. Through those I was able to find people to hire and people hired me as well.

I talked to a realtor friend that is a few states away recently about this gift certificate idea and she loved it. She actually did something like this not that long ago and the realtors loved giving a gift to new and old customers alike, and the customers received it very warmly. Although they are in the business of selling homes and not portraits, they were open to this and it worked out great.

glumpy wrote in post #15216429
I really think rather than just asking people for details of Everything mentioned that was successful and then rejecting and justifying your own thing, You wuld do well to open your mind a lot and take a few risks in actualy trying what is suggested to you and putting 100% effort into following the plan rather than modifying it to your own way of doing things.

I love to hear other people's experience and opinions. I absorb what I can and customize it to my situation. What I am doing is almost exactly how Sue Bryce got started, and shes now bringing in a bigger paycheck than most of us on these forums while working 2 days a week. She did the gift certificate thing with 20 local businesses and in the following 2 or 3 months she made something like $30k but was working like crazy to keep up with demand.

I think what irritates you is I would rather do quality over quantity, do something I enjoy and makes good money, than something that just brings in a ton of cash, and use real and quality backdrops than gimmicky green screen drops. oh look, im in paris, no im in london, and now im holding a pyramid. I realize gs can look good but its not the look im going for right now with the type of customers im going after. I realize it might be a better option for events like reunions and parties but right now I dont do enough of those to bother with it.

Doing events like swim schools and what have you may be great for you, but I want to focus on seniors and beauty *which are related* and do something different like weddings, pets and gymnastics on occasion to keep things interesting and still make good money while doing it.

I would rather have one portrait session and make over $1000 doing it, than go to a swim school and make that much *I realize it could be more* but having to take 50-100 portraits and selling them for $10 or $20 each to get quantity sales. For one thing this works better with my schedule, I am not available to work until 5:30pm in the evenings.

What I do find interesting is you talk a lot but you don't post many pictures.

----

So lets make this thread more useful, and forget about the smaller things I was pursuing in the past like the pets and dance studios, and focus on my main objective, beauty portraits.

Who: my target market is ladies over 21 that have a higher than average income and values quality items.

What: my goal is to get these ladies aware of and interested in my photography services.

How: How am I going to reach these ladies? This is the magic question.

One thing I want to do is make this an experience and not another sale.

What im planning on doing is getting the stores that these ladies shop at to promote me to them. It wont just be one sided, im working on building a relationship with these merchants and be mutually benefitial.

I'm working on a long list of merchants that they shop at, a couple were discussed above such as the realestate and higher end hair salons as well as car dealerships. I have 17 other places on my list, with the top 5 not listed here. I dont want to share it in case anyone here is in my area. you never know.

If you have better suggestions on how to reach this target market and get them aware and interested in my beauty portrait services, Id love to hear it.

What I expect to hear though is how its better to do quantity events than quality, how we dont need to process pics for hours and green screen is the way to go.

glumpy wrote in post #15217036
You are wrong.

What irritates me is the people that ask questions and want people to take the time to tell them how they did something and made money then give a load of excuses as to why the idea is no good because it doesn't fit into their so far failed approach.

Umm, the only thing that you have suggested that I have declined *for now, said that many times* is the green screen.

glumpy wrote in post #15217036
So would I.
Tell me how many times a week/ month are you currently doing that?

As said, that is my "goal". I do $800 a portrait often during the summer.

glumpy wrote in post #15217036
NOW the penny drops.
I gotta admit, now I feel stupid. It completely escaped me you are not a full timer.
You got me on that one!
That puts a SOOOO many things into perspective. Now I know your playing tiddly winks instead of real life business, so much is clear.

You do realize you dont have to be available at 9am to be a full timer? I look after my son while my wife is at work and ive discovered that working while he is awake doesnt work for now since he is 1 year old. But starting at 5:30 I am available to go and do portraits and considering most work until 5:30 this works out quite well. I try to schedule things for 7pm, that way people have a chance to finish work and get something to eat. Then I am up until about 2am working on what needs to be done, marketing, processing, customer relations, etc. Minimum 50 hour weeks is not uncommon for me.

glumpy wrote in post #15217036
What I find interesting is how people that disagree with me drag that old chestnut up every time they want to score a few bottom of the barrel points .
Can you PLEASE tell me with detail and precision Exactly WTF posting pictures on forums has to do with making money and running a successful full time photo business?

Its not weird to want to see the work of someone that claims to be professional but seems to have more advice than skill. seeing pictures helps us see they really are who they say they are.

glumpy wrote in post #15217036
Perhaps you could post links to all the pics you regularly post up here because looking through your post log, finding any seems to require a lot more interest and effort in Discovering them than I have. I guess you must have plenty of them posted as otherwise you could be taken as a hypocrite.

Check out the "how to photograph a senior" thread, I have many in there. I also have a few in the last year in the people category, just search for threads started by me and in that category if you want to see them badly enough. I dont post them often because I am my own worst critique. But when I get something im particularly proud of I like to join in that thread.

glumpy wrote in post #15217036
HAHAH!
I made my FULL TIME living out of glamour work for 10 years. I still get referals about every 3-4 months and average $1200-1500 for a days work on them.
I could direct you to my online folio of that work but that would only be another waste of time because it inevitably wouldn't meet your lofty criteria.

I could tell you EXACTLY how to reach this market and how I'm about to do it again this summer. You probably would also find fault and reject my single marketing strategy that brought me 50+ Clients every time I did it.
I even have pictures of what I did but as I'm not about to post them, I guess you'll reject I did it at all.
Such is life.

Its rather convenient that you don't want to contribute to this thread that would be on topic, and something useful instead of complaints.

glumpy wrote in post #15217036
Unfortunately any info or advise I could provide would be just be another waste of my time because unless my name was Sue Bryce, you would be just as close minded as you have been in the past and be too busy telling us all about your ideals rather than your interest in making money. I guess that's a luxury you have when you have a full time job and play shooter on the weekends.

Also sorry that your not my role model Ive seen Sues work and can see how she can get $3k a portrait, and she was kind enough to share how she did it.

If your as good as you are you really should seek out the seminar's to share your wisdom. oh wait you'd have to show your work and actually give details, nm.

GerryDavid wrote in post #15217604
Ive seen Sues work and can see how she can get $3k a portrait, and she was kind enough to share how she did it.

Then why aren't you doing that, instead of asking people you seem to think have inferior business and photography skills?

Glumpy isn't very touchy-feely in the way he comes across, but he certainly has given you good advice.

umm, I am. and its what glumpy is saying doesnt work.

I didnt say people here have inferior business or photography skills, I was just questioning glumpys photography skills since he wotn share his work. and I love to hear new marketing ideas. some work in some areas and some may not work in others, but its interesting to hear what everyone is doing. and what may not work in this area might be twisted to fit and work.

the advice hes giving works for event photography, but things like green screen doesnt apply to outdoor senior portraits, or the beauty portraits I am doing. it works great for event photography which isnt my focus right now. he talks to the various swim schools and regular schools to get the contract, but that doesnt apply to beauty portraits since they are out of school. It would work for the senior portraits but I dont want the school contract. you dont have time to get creative and your reputation goes down the drain because of it, and I would have to work during school hours and loose time with my son and have to put him into day care and I dont want some baby sitter to raise him.

I do like his bit of advice where you talk for 55 minutes about general stuff, and then 5 minutes of business.

I would love to hear this marketing plan that guarantees 50 new glamour customers but I doubt it will ever get shared.

Woo, this thread has become a bit too intense. In all reality I believe that "GerryDavid" is just looking for a way to make a buck in the industry. He's just hungry, and want's to do this as a full time career.

Yah, I think we've gone a completely different direction here. This wasn't supposed to be an argument thread.

glumpy wrote in post #15220111
IF you're not interested in events, why are you asking about them??
No, ignore that question, The inevitable excuse of a response will be entirely predictable.

as ive said before, events, pets, etc are not my priority. I enjoy doing them and its nice to do something different out of the ordinary once in a while but they are not the focus of my business. the focus is seniors and beauty.

How's your idea of shooting your clients Beauty portraits in the local Hospital Cancer ward waiting room working out?
Has that helped get the beauty side of the business going for you?

glumpy wrote in post #15217036
Can you PLEASE tell me with detail and precision Exactly WTF posting pictures on forums has to do with making money and running a successful full time photo business?

Well, for one, if we think you suck beyond belief then your market isn't our market so your advice may not necessarily apply. On the flip side, if we think you're at a level similar to or higher than ours we might think it makes complete sense and be something worth aspiring to achieve.

The mere ability to generate revenue isn't the ONLY factor in success. There are various business models to that end, and we all have our own ideas about how we should get there.

You could say Verizon and Virgin Mobile both generate revenue in the cell industry but they both have completely different approaches. As far as I know they're both profitable and therefore both valid options.

glumpy wrote in post #15220111
I don't see why you would be interested in any ideas I have anyway.

Generally speaking, you usually just offer it regardless of what people say or think of it. You say we're dismissive of you, but you're as equally dismissive of those of us who don't subscribe to your way of thinking.