TIPS60 - Charging a "Sitting Fee" for the Family Portrait

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on family portraits and sitting fees. I'm John Harrington. We love doing portraits, with a couple, with the whole family, where we get to sit down and talk to them about how they would like to have this timeless moment with either, just a couple or an entire family memorialized, because it really is going to become a family heirloom. So when we do that and the time that we invest in sitting down with them and talking to them the time that we spend actually taking the picture, we do charge a sitting fee for and it's important. Sitting fees can be as little as you know $200 to as much as $500 when you're working with a couple. It locks in your time. It does compensate you for your time working with them beforehand and also when you there on the day of the shoot, taking those pictures. If, after the fact, the couple or the family doesn't like any of the pictures they still have to pay for the sitting fee, but if they do like their pictures then that's when they have to end up paying for the enlargement.

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TIPS60 - How to upsell prints for Family Portraits.

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on helping your client select the right size family portrait after you've done the photography. I'm John Harrington. Now, when you sit down with a client and talk to them about what size do want, you really shouldn't be talking in sizes, 8x10, 11x14, 16x20 because in most people's mind 8x10 is as large as they need. So I would encourage you to use sizes like desk size, small wall size, medium wall size, large wall size. That really helps the client understand where the picture's going to go, helps you understand what they're looking for and gets everybody away from this 8x10 figure that nobody seems to want to go above. Sometimes you can bring a portrait that you've done for somebody else into a home and show it up on a wall for the client to see how that size would look in their home and help them decide based upon size commensurate with the wall and not just based upon the numbers.

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TIPS60 - Administrative fees as a tool to encourage timely payment

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on administrative fees. I'm John Harrington. We deal with a lot of clients who may not be paying in thirty days or even sixty days or gosh, even ninety days. The problem is that all of our vendors require thirty day turnaround. As such, we've implemented and have been using successfully for about twenty years an administrative fee where we pre-bill the client a 10% surcharge and allow them to take it as a discount if they pay on time. This is also a great opportunity, when a client says, ""Hey,I'm a non-profit, what can you do?"" You can say, ""Well we'll give you a 10% discount if you pay on time."" We always pre-bill these administrative fees, however, because unlike the electric company, we can generally not be adding on an administrative fee after the fact to the next bill, because that really doesn't work that way in the client relationship that we have. So administrative fees are a great solution for helping you keep your bills paid on time.

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PDN's PhotoPlus Expo - 30 Years and Counting

This year marks the 30th Anniversary of the PhotoPlus Expo, which takes place in the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. There slogan this year is "Honoring the Past, Envisioning the Future", and it's quite appropriate for an event as storied as this. Each year tens of thousands of professional photographers, those that aspire to be professional, and yes, on Saturday, the weekend-warriors make it out to see the latest and greatest in what is out there for photographers to better be in business.

There are some that suggest that everything they need to know or learn about when it comes to technology, class-style learning, and so on, can be garnered from online resources. Yet, as connected as we are, the PhotoPlus Expo really delivers an excellent signal-to-noise ratio that cuts through all the posturing and gives you a hands-on experience like you can't get many other places.

There are many vendors that I find that I never would have, save for the opportunity to walk the aisles and discover interesting things. Here's one.

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PhotoFlashDrive.com is a really cool vendor that lets you deliver customized USB drives with your logo, along with customized packaging. One that piqued my interest was the crystal drive that really is slick. Here's one of their displays.



The seminars are another great place to get that hands-on connection that YouTube and Vimeo just can't give you. Make your way down to Javits if you're here in town. If not, it's an inexpensive bus-ride or quick train trip into town.

Your future will thank you.

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TIPS60 - On Quickbooks - Professional Photographers Expense Categories

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on how to best set up your Quickbooks software for use as a photographer. I'm John Harrington. Setting up your Quickbooks properly is critical to understanding your business how it's running, where the money is going, where it's coming from, and how to best manage it. I can't stress enough the importance of doing this. Setting it up properly makes sure that your expense categories and the chart of accounts are correct. PPofA Professional Photographers of America has a really great resource, if you simply Google PPofA Quickbooks categories or follow the link below, you'll get there, there's a whole host of information on how to set up your Quickbooks. It's a really great resource and checking it out, making sure that your system is set up to a standard to make sure that all your finances are right really will set you apart, make your accountant happy, and really let you understand how your business is running.

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TIPS60 - What Exactly is a Purchase Order?

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:If you're a photographer, or any business for that matter that is doing business with other businesses, a purchase order is something that you're probably, if you haven't already seen it, will likely see very soon. If you're doing direct business to consumer, if you're dealing with the general public as your clientele, if you're a wedding photographer, if you are doing family portraits of some sort or even senior portraits, you're not gonna see purchase orders. Purchase orders are when you're doing business with corporation "X" or corporation "Y" and it is essentially an approval to pay you once work has been performed. It's a document. A purchase order you'll be often given a purchase order number. Sometimes you're asked to sign a purchase order. The problem with purchase orders, if you're not careful, is that there can be contract language on that purchase order that transfers ownership of your creative endeavors, your photography, to the company as a part of their boilerplate purchase order. So you need to make certain that your purchase order language has been reviewed, make sure that none of those things are on there that are egregious, changing the rights that you have on your existing contract.

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TIPS60 - iPads and tablets as client review tools

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on tablet computers in your photography business workflow. I'm John Harrington. iPads and tablets are great because they allow the client to see the images you're shooting when you're shooting, whether you're transferring images wirelessly from your camera straight over to the tablet or whether you're shooting tethered from the camera in the tablet, especially when you don't have a full-blown digital workstation setup for the client to see. Sometimes when you're working on the fly or working in a tight environment, you don't actually have the ability to set up a complete digital workstation so a tablet is great. In addition, especially if you're shooting wirelessly as you're shooting, as you're working, it gives the client the opportunity to review the images you're shooting, make certain that you're delivering exactly what they need, what they want, and give you requests or say, ""Hey, I this is a great, but I need you to shoot this as well."" Having a tablet, having an iPad for client review is really a great tool to make certain that the clients happy with everything you're delivering.

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TIPS60 - How to be an invaluable assistant

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on how to be an invaluable assistant. I'm John Harrington. When you're assisting a photographer, your role is to make the photographer's job easier, to make it possible for the photographer to focus on making the pictures. That means you need to do what you're told, when you're told and exactly how you're told, and don't complain about it. If you're asked to do something, if you don't do it, the photographers going to end up having to do it or another assistant going to end up having to do it. So the thing you need to do is focus on making photographer's life easier. Carrying equipment, thinking two, three, four steps ahead of photographer, anticipating what might be happening. Make yourself invaluable, the photographer will call you again and again. But it's important for you to understand that you're not there to socialize with the client, you're not there to socialize with the photographer, you're there to get a job done and help the photographer get the job done right and make that photographer look good. Any questions, any dialogue between the client and you, you need to defer to the photographer.

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TIPS60 - The science of choice - how many packages do you offer?

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on the science of packaging your photography. I'm John Harrington. Whether you are doing weddings or family portraits packaging up the services you provide, the number of reprints, an album, a large wall portrait, is something that you definitely want to consider offering, but the question is, how many. Well if you offer four packages, for example, most clients are not going to choose what is, Charles J. Lewis, who is a old well-regarded lecturer, speaks about called the ""whopper package"" or the biggest package. Most people are not going to choose that package, so you always wants to design a package at the top end of the scale that is something that is highly unlikely that any client will ever choose. Then you want to look, and most clients are also not going to choose the cheapest package. You put that down there as kind of the bare-bones package. So you often have one or two, probably two packages right in the middle that offer two different types of services or quantities of products in there. Understand that that is your sweet spot, those are the two packages your clients are going to choose from.

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TIPS60 - Your mobile phone number should be yours

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on transitioning from staff to freelance and your cell phone number. I'm John Harrington. When you find yourself unexpectedly transitioning from staff to freelance one of the things that people are going to try to reach out to you and talk to you whether they are perspective future employers, friends, colleagues, or even family members, is to reach out to you and call you on your cell phone. Now the problem is if your cell phone belongs to the company, is owned by the company, and the company also owns the number, the likelihood that you can actually walk away with that cell phone number is not very high. Now it's even less if you left the company unexpectedly because somehow you're fired for whatever reason. So the key thing to do is to have that cell phone be a cell phone that you pay for, your company reimburses you for. The company may give you an option to reimburse you for your cell phone or pay for it yourself. Make certain that the company reimburses you for it and not that the bill automatically goes to the cell phone company, excuse me, automatically goes to the company itself. By doing so, that lets you keep your cell phone number when you transition from staff to freelance.

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