1. What's the significance of an increasing rate of referrals and WOM? Healthy signs of a growing business, no more nor less, recession or not.
2. After so many years in this trade it's hard not to notice that some of the most successful photographers don't win awards.
3. And that some award-winning photographers don't know how to translate their abilities into cash.
4. “The average client just wants good believable pics that are vibrant & clean & candid. The challenge is to give them that + more by way of making sure that we include some masterpieces that are beyond the ability of the semi pro masses.”
Right on! Like the poor, the weekend warrior is always with us, and you can’t beat ’em on price. The challenge is, what do YOU do to add another zero to what they charge.
5. Years ago, Ivan McLellan, who founded New Zealand’s premier pro lab (now part of Queensberry) used to tell his clients that you could market to the Carriage Trade or the Bottom End, but the market in the middle was disappearing. Good advice for decades.
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2 comments:
Hello...Love the blog....
I'm an aspiring photographer (won't say professional until I feel I've earned it) just writing to defend the "weekend warrior" (pretty much because I am one, for the time being hopefully).. Not everyone can afford to study photography, go to art school, or pursue photography full time, and for me, its my day job that pays for classes, equipment, workshops, and more equipment so that I can learn and eventually do what I love full time... Some of us have to make do with 2nd shooting/assisting on the weekends until we've paid our dues...its not necessarily that I want to undercut anyone's prices, its just that everyone has to start somewhere.... Don't be so hard on the weekend warrior, we're trying to make it too : )
I never knock weekend warriors, but I see why you might think I was. Almost every successful career photographer was a WW once. My point is that ONCE you've made it, and I hope you do, there will be lots more like you trying to knock you off your perch - and generally by undercutting your prices.
Cheers, Ian
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