The business side of photography
A Toronto model agency includes these terms for booking any of its talent:
• Models don’t work for free.
• Minimum one hour booking and the time is rounded up to the next full hour. Model gets paid for the full time booked and not necessarily the actual time for the shoot.
• Model gets paid for travel time and preparation time.
Earlier this week, British journal Occupational Environmental Medicine published an article with the catchy title: “The psychosocial quality of work determines whether employment has benefits for mental health: results from a longitudinal national household panel survey”.
This Australian study looked at the relationship between the mental health of 7,155 people and the quality of their employment. The study suggests that a bad job may be worse than no job at all:
Overall, unemployed respondents had poorer mental health than those who were employed. However the mental health of those who were unemployed was comparable or superior to those in jobs of the poorest psychosocial quality.
The study concluded:
Work of poor psychosocial quality does not bestow the same mental health benefits as employment in jobs with high psychosocial quality.
Of course, most photographers already knew this.
This is why professional photographers don’t accept bad contracts or ridiculously low-paying jobs. It’s never wrong to turn down a bad deal. Bad deal => bitter photographer => stress and poor mental health.
Photographers, who love what they do, must respect their profession by charging proper fees. Doing anything less harms the photographer both financially and mentally.
A well-known saying from an unknown source:
“We lose money on every sale but we make up for it with volume!”
There are several web sites which sell discount vouchers to groups of online shoppers. A business will publish a discount offer on such a site and as long as a certain minimum number of folks buy it, the discount vouchers are e-mailed to the buyers. If there aren’t enough buyers, the discount is cancelled and no one’s credit card is charged.
This volume discount voucher system can work well for a company that sells “widgets”, meaning anything where the marginal cost is very low. It can also be good for a business such as a sports, theatrical or other event that needs to unload unsold tickets. Unloading leftover or end-or-line product at a discount can help reduce a loss.
But…
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“We don’t hire you because of your beautiful, wonderful, terrific photographs,” says corporate communications director Greg Thompson. He goes on to explain that a company hires a corporate photographer to be the “solution to their business problem.”
In a video interview (and shown below) by journalist Stanley Leary, Thompson offers some advice for photographers who are trying to transition from photojournalism to corporate photography.
“It’s about how you do the job, not the job you do.”
There are two ways to sell your products or services:
Option A: Make your customers smarter. Let them know how and why you do what you do. Educate them on what to look for and what to avoid. Help them know what’s possible, what questions to ask and what to expect. Smart customers are informed customers who, in turn, are good customers.
Option B: Make your customers dumber. Don’t let them know about your products or services. Don’t tell them about variables, options or warranties. Don’t give them choices. Dumb customers are helpless customers who, in turn, are good customers because they will always run to you for help.
Option B is the easiest and that’s why many businesses do it. You could choose this option and be successful, but only until a competitor decides to go with Option A. When this happens, Option B is no longer an option.
Basketball coaches seem to yell a lot. They yell to get the attention of their players, they yell when arguing with the referees and sometimes they yell for no apparent reason.
Basketball arenas are very noisy with non-stop loud music, shouting arena announcers and screaming fans. It would seem that the only way to be heard above the ambient noise is to yell.
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Hard work or work hard
Pay more or buy more
Price or worth
Efficient or effective
New idea or new effort
Follow up or follow through
Lack of resources or lack of resourcefulness
Revise or refine
Adopt or adapt
Maximize or optimize
A part or apart
Propose or oppose
Prepare or repair
Compare or contrast
Complicated or complex
Correct or perfect
Zero in or zero out
Speak up or speak out
Fit in or stand out
Tear down or build up
I think or I believe
Idea or dream
Push or pull
Customer service or customer appreciation
Receptionist or rejectionist
Money or wealth
Picture or image
Change or opportunity
Setback or step back
Shortcut or detour
Bridge or tunnel
Aspire or inspire
Create or complete
Success or achievement
Profit or progress
