torie and david - the parsons
another lovely wedding by the parsons, and another beautiful album? perfect.
virginia and todd - sean flanigan
get ready for album upon album of greatness. this is only part one. stay tuned.
visit sean flanigan’s blog here.
Rad Rad Rad
This is my version of the popular things I love posts. Standing out.
Grizzly Bear Modern
Husband and wife co-bloggers of raditude.
He puts out mixtapes and blogs, and she posts rad DIY things. Love it.
N.A.S.A - Gifted (feat. Kanye West, Santogold and Lykke Li)
How can you hate Kanye? I don’t care if he dissed T-Swift. He’s Kanye. Respect.
Rad Photgraphers
I’ve had the opportunity to do a bunch of albums for some RAD, yeah, RAD photographers recently and I’m excited to share the radness with you. Check later this week for some RAD to the face.
The importance of caring
Caring is important.
From a utilitarian standpoint, customers will feel appreciated if they’re cared for and that will result in increased profit.
So, caring becomes a smart business decision instead of caring.
Then, there’s caring because you love people. Caring because you, well, care. Care about your clients that way. Care because you like being cared for.
Why we no longer edit JPEG
Hey guys! So, some of you may have noticed that we no longer offer JPEG editing for our post-processing services. The reason for this is because we want to keep things simple, and think that RAW images allow us to provide for our clients better quality images.
JPEG white balance is relative to the temperature that it was shot at, where as RAW white balance is a universal standard. If you shoot entirely outdoors and never overexpose, JPEG is fine, but for those of you who may have overexposed images and/or shoot indoors RAW will give you a better quality.
Sure, it will cost more for memory cards, but the overall product is worth it. :)
Feel good about saying no
Everyone wants special treatment. But, if everyone GOT special treatment, businesses would be working hours and hours to satisfy the small minority of customers who really do not contribute that much to your bottom line. They eat away at your bottom line.
The bride and groom that want to edit their own images to save money, or the ones that redesign their album 8 times before deciding they don’t want to order one.
It’s alright to say no to these people. It’s not rude. It’s perfectly acceptable. Business that say yes too much eventually bend to the will of every customer. Imagine if Apple had listened to their customers, who just wanted computers and not an iPod because they already had a walkman.
Here’s a excerpt from 37 Signal’s book Rework on saying no:
“It’s so easy to say yes. Yes to another feature, yes to an overly optimistic deadline, yes to a mediocre design. Soon, the stack of things you’ve said yes to grows so tall you can’t even see the things you should really be doing.
Start getting into the habit of saying no—even to many of your best ideas. Use the power of no to get your priorities straight. You rarely regret saying no. But you often wind up regretting saying yes.
People avoid saying no because confrontation makes them uncomfortable. But the alternative is even worse. You drag things out, make things complicated, and work on ideas you don’t believe in.
It’s like a relationship: Breaking one up is hard to do, but staying in it just because you’re too chicken to drop the ax is even worse. Deal with the brief discomfort of confrontation up front and avoid the long-term regret.
Don’t believe that “customer is always right” stuff, either. Let’s say you’re a chef. If enough of your customers say your food is too salty or too hot, you change it. But if a few persnickety patrons tell you to add bananas to your lasagna, you’re going to turn them down, and that’s OK. Making a few vocal customers happy isn’t worth it if it ruins the product for everyone else.
ING Direct has built the fastest-growing bank in America by saying no. When customers ask for a credit card, the answer is no. When they ask for an online brokerage, the answer is no. When they ask if they can open an account with a million dollars in it, the answer is no (the bank has a strict deposit maximum). ING wants to keep things simple. That’s why the bank offers just a few savings accounts, certificates of deposit, and mutual funds—and that’s it.
Don’t be a jerk about saying no, though. Just be honest. If you’re not willing to yield to a customer request, be polite and explain why. People are surprisingly understanding when you take the time to explain your point of view. You may even win them over to your way of thinking. If not, recommend a competitor if you think there’s a better solution out there. It’s better to have people be happy using someone else’s product than disgruntled using yours.”
Learn to say no. Feel good about it. Feel great about it.
Jennifer and Mike - Troy Grover Photography
This album is awesome. While picking images for the album, I noticed that the wedding had an In-N-Out truck catering to some of the guests. Awesome? Yes. I love In-N-Out.
Check it out!
Images by Troy Grover Photography
Peacock Marketing
Male peacocks have large beautiful tails that attract attention for the sole reason that they are stunning in color and design. However, if they kept to themselves and didn’t associate with a community that would eventually give them attention, what would be the point? They put themselves in a position to be noticed once they have a great tail to show off.
Let people come to you because you are remarkable, but make yourself available to see how great you are. There’s a fine balance.
Bucking the trend
I’m about 100 pages into Rework by the founders of 37signals. If you haven’t got it go pick it up right now.
The main idea behind the book is to stop following trends. Don’t follow common wisdom of entrepreneurship (they even hate the word entrepreneur.) Don’t expand, plan, or focus on anything else that isn’t essential.
So you’re a photographer. Focus on your art. Make that remarkable and unreplaceable and people will talk. Share your knowledge. Teach. Get people talking and let them advertise for you. I’ve said this before, but showing up first in google isn’t going to help you if you haven’t focused on making your art remarkable, and by that time you’ll show up high in the rankings regardless.
Figure out your workflow once you’re knee-deep. If there’s an itch or a hole in your workflow that no product is filling, create your own and sell it.
Be a remarkable “you”, not a half-assed “someone else”.
