There has been a lot of talk on forums lately about the merits of outsourcing your production and in particular things like printing and creating DVD slideshows. So I thought that this might make a great topic for discussion. Here's my take.....
I have been running a successful wedding/portrait studio for almost twenty years so I can speak from experience. Coming from a fine art background I have branded myself as "a fine art photographer that is available to document your wedding" and my clients greatly appreciate my personal attention to the creative process. I market that issue related to custom designing their albums and slideshows personally. I outsource the more pedestrian issues like printing and online proofing. I am paid well and part of that I know comes from the positive reaction my clients have to my personal involvement. For example, yesterday I sold a typical "custom designed" storytelling album where I selected all the images, the bride made one change, and the final sale for the album was $4800. My clients tend to be busy professionals and they hire me for my hands-on creative process. FWIW, it took me about 90 minutes to select the images and design that album. Therefore, marketed properly, I do not view "DIY" as a totally negative concept. I DIY where it benefits me and outsource the rest. What works well for me of course might not be the best solution for someone else.
I'll add though that any new studio has two key factors that they have to constantly balance; their personal time and their available revenue. In the early stages of a business, since there are not as many receivables from many weddings, etc. their available revenue to build the business usually comes from other household income or credit cards. IOW, it is paid out but not replaced immediately from receivables. Therefore the wise studio owner is very careful about what he spends his available funds on. Use it to buy gear and the many other things needed to build the business like computers and marketing items before drooling over the latest Canon body because the new body in of itself does not add to the revenue stream, it just depletes the available capital.
The other factor that the studio has an over-abundance of is available time. Not a wedding every weekend yet gives the studio more time to grow the business and maximize the return on every sale by possibly a DIY solution rather that paying out for that service. Of course the most valuable use of the time is in marketing but even after marketing it is likely that there will be plenty of time left to be used for other projects. Another example; I create my own slideshows and can finish one with all the transitions and audio in 10-15 minutes including printing the label for the DVD as well as the case. I have created templates for both of the labels so I just change the names and print. By using the templates I also keep a constant branding for my studio. The only real time needed to make your own DVD is in the exporting out (rendering) of the software to create the DVD. While my program is rendering in the background I am off doing other things. Because I am DIY and have no revenue invested in producing the show I can also use these DVDs for marketing. I send them to my wedding planners who referred me and surprise my clients on their first anniversary. Both gestures have resulted in additional bookings and great image building for my studio. Of course, my time is money so I usually create these shows in less than 5 minutes by letting the software set the pans and zooms automatically and then dropping in the audio.
Bt comparison, I looked at an outsource solution for creating and burning a DVD show and even ordered one. I FTP the images and they create and burn the show. The sample was very nice but I still wanted to have the creative input to make the show myself and since I can do that so quickly I saw no advantage to paying $45+ for every DVD because it really cut into my profit should I decide to market these DVDs. I believe their fee for creating the entire show from scratch and making a DVD with packaging was $49. I found another source that will do the same thing starting again at $45 and for $75 you get many other features and two DVDs.
Rick
