Serving Seattle since 1945
THE CONTACT SHEET
PUBLISHED BY THE SEATTLE PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHERS ASSOCIATION April 2009 Issue No. 4
JUL
July
7th, SPP 3-9:00 Wat A Pi p.m ch f c . or t nic he E vite !
YM EET ING
“SPPA is your lifeline to success!
SPPA President Ozzie Wiese
Code of Ethics: Education . Integrity . Ethical Behavior . Mentoring . Sound Business Practices
SPPA Picnic hosts NOTICES
HELPING ASPIRING PHOTOGRAPHERS Do you have unused equipment just sitting around waiting to be used? Call Jenny Southard at Highline Schools Foundation for Excellence and donate to the photography program. This organization was started by Ann Crossler and the foundation has been helping teenagers learn the art of photography for several years! Consider finding a new home for your well loved equipment, you’ll be glad you did.
Ken Whitmire July’s meeting is all about having fun at the SPPA Summer Picnic and this year our special guest speaker is Ken Whitmire! In the late 1960’s Ken Whitmire made a decision to re-identify and plan the direction of his portrait career. It was time to encourage and help lead a 200-year-cycle back to the popularity wall portraiture enjoyed in the 18th and 19th centuries. Starting with this goal, a direction was set, and carefully followed. The results are acknowledged throughout North America. Ken and his team of portraitists produce and sell wall portraits and they specialize in it. Each year they provide the Wall Portrait Conference and share methods with leading portraitists and portrait consultants from throughout the continent. It is an experience that is one-of-a-kind. We are lucky enough to have Ken Whitmire in our backyard and this year at our picnic! This will be a great get together and we hope to see you there!
The Contact Sheet Nancy Treder, Editor. 206.380.4000 or nancy@nancytreder.com
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News from the Top
President Ozzie Wiese “ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY?” Are you sitting comfortably or are you still looking for the miles and miles of pretty client smiles, all telling you they can hardly wait to give you their hard earned dollars for your exquisitely produced photographic creation? And your answer is_____??? For most of us the easy chair has gotten a bit uneasy, and the miles of
smiles have probably been reduced to a portion of what was previously enjoyed. So now is the perfect time to put yourself into the “uneasy zone” and get uncomfortable – if only for a little while. In the past did you just photograph weddings or perhaps just portraits or maybe just (your specialty inserted here)? Now is the time to take your current photography world and venture into another hemisphere. While uncomfortable for a while, your
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photographic survival may depend on it. Remember, we all love the smiles. Research documents the fact that it takes more muscles to frown than smile, so the evidence is clear, we all need to work harder to bring the smiles back. Take a look back into the closest mirror, reflect for bit (if only a moment) and now move into your new success zone. Your positive attitude with a smile attached can take you where you want to go.
Seattle Professional Photographers Association
www.SeattlePPA.com
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Mayor Nickels at the PHG Groundbreaking ceremony, May 14th, 2009. Seattle.
Digging in.
SPPA SPEAKERS CALENDAR 2009
SPPA continues to bring you an exceptional lineup of speakers for the rest of the year. July Mark your calendars for Tuesday July 7th from 3-9pm as Ken Whitmire does a presentation on Family Portraiture at our July Picnic. Location divulged upon payment! Watch for your Evite and SPPA email blast. August It's not too early to plan for Christmas especially where Santa is concerned. In August Rob Resing will show us how to create a successful Santa Claus campaign this season.
September In September you will have the priviledge of meeting Mitch Graf who will share his words of wisdom on marketing. October In October we will present a program on Babies and Mommies. November In November you'll learn how to prepare your competition prints. December In December, get ready to BOWL! and find out who the Photographer of the Year is.
Program ideas? If you have an idea for a program or a speaker that you’d like to hear, let the board members know. We all gain by participating. Thanks!
Seattle Professional Photographers Association
www.SeattlePPA.com
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How we did it
business planning for success Featured in PPA Magazine May 2009
Jamie and Todd Reichman set out to photograph weddings, not childrenʼs portraits. But 2006, their first full year in business, found them filling their schedule with portrait sessions while their wedding dreams melted away. “I wanted to quit portraits, but how could we justify that when we were spending all our time on them?” says Todd. “We simply assumed portraits were bringing in the majority of our income.” “We were operating out of fear,” Jamie admits. “We were scared to make changes because we were afraid of losing business.” The Reichmans were flying blind. They had no clear business plan or financial goals, and no way to evaluate the studioʼs financial health. Theyʼd started their photography business in 2005, operating out of their home in Dunlap, Ill., both of them holding down full-time jobs for the first few months. In August 2006, they leapt into the venture full time, and spent $98,000 on a retail space that had formerly housed the townʼs post office. They took any business that came through the door.“Our only plan was to keep shooting,” says Todd. In retrospect, says Jamie, “The biggest mistake we made was not t r a c k i n g o u r n u m b e r s p r o p e r l y, n o t establishing goals for ourselves.” The Reichmans owned Successware studio management software, but felt they couldnʼt take the time away from shooting to enter the required financial data. “We kept track on an elaborate Excel spreadsheet and filed our expense
receipts in a shoebox,” says Todd. They were painfully aware that it wasnʼt working. Todd thought back to a seminar on managerial accounting heʼd attended, one given by Scott Kurkian, PPA chief financial officer and founder of PPAʼs Studio Management Services (SMS). “I remember thinking, ʻI really donʼt want to learn this stuff, but I understand how vital it is.ʼ” The couple signed on with SMS in late 2006. “We viewed managerial accounting as something we had to do,” says Todd. Then came the light bulb moment. “SMS showed us that if we tracked our numbers better, we could use that information to build our business on what we wanted to do,” he adds. To get up to speed, the Reichmans had to hire someone to enter the initial data into Successware. They agree it was money well spent. “What I love about SMS is how they helped us structure our business, set goals, and make them happen. We realized shooting portraits took 80 percent of our time, but brought in only 10 percent of our revenue,” Todd continues. “That analysis showed us it was foolish to keep doing portraits. The process we went through helped us focus on the work we wanted to do, the work that fit into our brand.” That first year in business, Reichman Photography booked maybe 10 weddings and almost 100 portrait sessions. The score these days, weddings: 25 to 30 a year, portraits: zip.
www.SeattlePPA.com
Seattle Professional Photographers Association
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By the first quarter of 2008, the Reichmans could afford a loan-free, fullscale renovation of the 1,200-square-foot studio theyʼd set up for portraits, to create a dynamic meeting and sales area for wedding clients. They over hauled their branding and marketing as well. “We were getting a number of e-mail inquiries about wedding photography [via our website], but very few bookings. We started to panic,” says Todd. Should they sink more cash into Web advertising and search engine optimization? By now they could track sales data from previous bookings. “We found that the vast majority of our best clients came from client and vendor referrals. Almost no bookings came from those Internet ads,” he says. Eye opening. Slashing the Internet advertising budget, they focused their marketing efforts on relationship building. It improved their booking percentage overall. “Everything is clearer now. It was a difficult, scary changeto make, but having the numbers in place took away the guesswork,” says Jamie. “SMS has done a great job of pushing us to the next level.” “The evidence shows that typically studios make the most amount of money in the least amount of time by shooting portraits,” says Todd. “But we didnʼt want to do portraits. We always loved to do wedding photography, and to do it really well.” Go to www.ppa.com for more information about SMS. www.reichmanphoto.com.
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Business Planning tips by Todd Reichman
Just two years after their business posted a 12-month loss, Jamie and Todd Reichman were able to pay salaries to themselves and their one employee, and finance a $33,000 studio renovation solely with their 2008 net profits.
How they did it
KNOW THY NUMBERS: TODD’S CHECKLIST 1. Get your financial information entered into a trackable studio management software system. 2. Analyze how you currently match up to PPA’s SMS Benchmark survey—where are you overspending or under-earning? (To learn about the SMS Benchmark Survey, go to ppa.com.) 3. Set goals on where you want to be for the coming year. 4. Regularly track and analyze your actual data against your goals and adjust when necessary. “Once you know your numbers, it becomes infinitely more possible to achieve your goals.”
Seattle Professional Photographers Association www.seattleppa.com
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ROADSHOWS
Small group networking; big benefits
SPPA members are hosting roadshows which a small group meetings that focus on a specific topic. In May, Kerri Kirshner hosted a Marketing roadshow at her cute little studio in Bothell. Nine members attended and gleaned some great marketing tidbits from some of the big names in photography. Here are a few comments: Business cards: need to look great, they are your calling card. Networking: you’ve got to get out there and tell people that they need photography. Show what you sell: update your products and show what you want to sell. On your own terms: don’t do things that you don’t want to do, or aren’t comfortable doing. Offer specials to fill your slow times. Happy Hour during the weekdays. Outsourcing: if you can’t do something really well, let someone else do it. Create a business plan: if you have a road map, it’s easier to get where you are going. We’ve heard most of this before, but now more than ever the basics are very important.
June & July roadshows
June 24th, Ingrid Pape-Sheldon Business portraits hands-on workshop on how to create business images with impact. Ingrid is a frequent contributer to Seattle Woman Magazine and UW publications.
Networking helps all of us.
July 13th Pacific Color Lab tour This local lab is SPPA friendly lab is very willing to help you with your marketing and photographic needs. They will share their lineup of products and services to help us all streamline and build our business. July 27th Barbara Roser Add framing to your product mix Barbara has been producing beautiful portraits for East side families for many years and she is going to share her techniques for selling frames to increase your sales.
www.SeattlePPA.com
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Membership has it’s privileges
(Just some reasons to be a part of the oldest photographic association in the state of Washington)
Seattle Professional Photographers Association
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www.SeattlePPA.com