Not Your Normal School of Photography
Free Business Success Course
Introduction and Full Enrollment Information
Get started in the business of people and pet photography!
The following photos and commentaries are from the original printed version of...
Special note — Pam originally took the following photos in color, but we printed them in black and white in the original “Secret of” book.
You’ll get to see some of Pam’s color work in future lessons...
You can start right now by throwing all your old tired ideas about portrait photography out the window!...
Pictures like these can make you money.
Yes, the dog in the presents took some patience (that’s why you’ll be getting the big bucks), but it’s not really that hard when you know the simple tricks!
By the way, the type of picture shown above can generate a lot of reprint ($$$) orders for Christmas cards!
The photo shown below is Pam’s “toboggan pose.”
She uses it in various forms constantly.
A top key to success in this business is having an “arsenal” of poses that are easy to learn, set up, and attract clients willing to pay you top dollar for your knowledge and skill.
Showing relationships and intimacy are key elements of Not Your Normal photography®
Pam uses only white or black backdrops.
This keeps the photos clean and simple, makes the people (or the pets) the stars, and has a side benefit of keeping your backdrop expenses low!
How could you even think of not doing this business when there are skads of wonderful children like this, close to where you live, along with parents who will pay you well?
The market for child photography is insatiable.
I don’t care where you live, you’ll be able to find people who will pay you well to take the kinds of pictures you see here.
All the technical knowledge in the world won’t help you get a money-making shot like this.
Knowing how to setup the shot; knowing what to say to the subject; and paying close attention for “the right moment” will.
Many of the “NYN” poses are adaptable to all ages...
...some require the energy and strength of youth.
Getting up close...
...and getting the whole family are important parts of Not Your Normal Photography®...
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The Secret Of Making $2,970.00 In One Short Weekend Taking Pictures Of People And Pets
Dedicated to all aspiring photographers (whether you’ve been shooting for 5 minutes or 50 years!) who are not afraid to venture forth, unleash their creativity, and live the life of their dreams.
by Jeff Farr
Work from your home, studio, or on location...
Be open when you want...
Use marketing secrets that’ll have
pre-sold customers calling you!
You do not need to have previous experience to do this.
This is the perfect business to unleash and develop your creativity; build your confidence!
Plus, even if you decide not to do this as a business, you’ll still discover how to vastly improve your photography and win the adoring admiration of friends, relatives, and business associates...
~ CHAPTER ONE ~
How exaggerated is this $2,970.00 in one weekend — pretty much whenever I want to — working out of my home or studio?
I suppose it sounds a little outrageous to someone not here, not seeing it first hand. But $2,970.00 is, in fact, what my wife Pam earns in one “short” weekend taking pictures of people and pets, and I’m convinced that anyone with a strong interest in photography, and the dedication to follow her example, can do the same thing.
Even if you are not now an accomplished photographer.
As you look through our materials, and some of Pam’s pictures, please keep in mind that Pam started from zero. So, no matter where your abilities are now, they can’t possibly be lower than Pam’s when she started — with no training, in our basement, using the cheapest equipment and materials we could find.
So put “I can’t do this” out of your mind right now!
On the flip side, if you’re an accomplished photographer, maybe with your own studio, and you’re thinking “I can do all this already,” can you? Do you? Make close to 3 grand in a couple of days when you want to? Take months off if you want to? Work out of your home if you want to? Do you have a waiting list of people anxious to have you take their pictures for a large fee?
$2,970.00 in a “short” weekend...
The reason I mentioned a “short weekend” — a Saturday and Sunday — is because I know most people will start this part time. Pam, however, rarely just books up a weekend. Instead, she prefers to do her sessions in larger blocks and then take larger amounts of time off in-between.
For example, as I write this, we are accepting reservations for her next block of sessions which will consist of 6 sessions on one weekend (Pam will only do 3 sessions per day, tops), 5 sessions during the following weekdays (1 per day), and 6 sessions the next weekend. Only five days ago, I sent out 210 invitations for these sessions and so far we have 12 bookings. Pam charges $495 per session, so that’s $5,940.00 worth of business — so far. Yesterday, I mailed out another 191 invitations.
All in all, if we book Pam solid, which is a sure bet, we will take in $8,415, plus reprint orders, which could bring the total to over $10,000. It doesn’t take a financial genius to figure out that we can do this as little as every other month and still make a nice living — especially when you consider that we don’t have studio expenses and our advertising and promotional costs are next to nothing. More on that later.
Now, as much as I’d like to, I can’t promise you’ll do as well as Pam does. Your success will depend on you and what you do with the information we give you.
What I can promise is that I will tell you the truth about what we do, give you the tools you need to be successful — all laid out for you in a clear and concise way — so you can put them to immediate use.
I can also guarantee you won’t find this information anywhere else. Pam’s sessions and our marketing of them is unique — knowledge of what we do and how we do things gives you an extreme competitive advantage in the marketplace.
No one starts at the top,
but everyone at the top got started!
At this point in time, Pam is a top level photographer who is well-known and in demand in our area — but — it wasn’t always that way.
Pam started out knowing nothing and I can assure you her first photo sessions were less than good. And while she is confident of her abilities now, it wasn’t too long ago her “pre-session nervousness” gave her severe gastrointestinal upset before every session!
So I don’t want you to think that Pam is some one-in-a-billion creative genius that one day magically started doing this.
Quite to the contrary, it’s been a long hard road with lots of screw-ups. One of the reasons we’re able to teach you so effectively and short cut your path to the top is because, at some point on our climb, we’ve been right where you are now.
What you want will determine what you get!
In many ways, the way you operate your photo business will be determined by the life-style you want to live.
When we started our photography business — “Not Your Normal photography®,” — the first thing we did was sit down and make a list of how we wanted our life-style to be, so we could design the business to accommodate it.
This is extremely important and I strongly suggest you do the same. Most people let their businesses and jobs determine how they live, rather than the other way around.
You now have the opportunity to get it right — the way you want — because what you’ll learn from us can be bent, shaped, and molded to your life in virtually any way you like.
For example, here’s what was important to us... our “requirements” for going into business...
We didn’t want to work all the time, only when we wanted to.
We wanted (within reason) to take off whenever we felt like it... nice day? — go out and play!
We didn’t want the hassles and expense of owning a studio and having a business phone.
We didn’t want employees.
We didn’t want people calling and bugging us for stuff we don’t do — like weddings.
We didn’t want to do any sales. No cold call “telemarketing,” no having to sell people when they called in, no trying to “upsell” people into large reprint orders.
Sounds like an absurd bunch of demands, doesn’t it?
Well, we finally got what we wanted! The only absurd part was all the work and trial and error that went into figuring out how to get to the “easy part.” And that’s why I wrote this book, to help you get to the “easy part” infinitely quicker than we did.
Now I realize your goals and our goals might not be quite the same. You may want a studio with employees and the whole bit. Perhaps you want to own a chain of studios and become fabulously wealthy instead of just making a nice living working part-time.
If that’s the case, you’re still on the right track. The photographic and business techniques we teach will help you become as big or as small as you want to be.
You can make a great living doing this,
but this is not just about money
Over the years, probably just like you, I’ve seen a lot of “opportunities.” And to my disappointment, the “make money with your camera deal” often turns out to be some boring routine having little to do with real photography. I don’t know about you, but selling medical IDs, or taking pictures of houses for real estate agents, is not my idea of creative photography. If I’m going to have do stuff like that to make a living, what the hell, shoot me right now and get it over with.
There’s just no substitute for doing something you love doing — you simply feel better, have more energy, — you even need less sleep because you can’t wait to get up in the morning...
By reading this book, you are taking an important first step to making a living doing what you love to do. What we teach is fun, creative, and doable, not one of those “mirage” opportunities that only looks nice from a distance...
I just want to say one thing about the various “opportunities” out there. It’s about what I call “the dream” that is sold over and over again. It pops up in various forms, but the one that sticks out in my mind the most is the guy who took a picture of the Dallas skyline and made huge amounts of money from it. You probably know the one.
Of course, no doubt, the story is true. But it’s also true that the picture was a fluke, and not easily repeated, which is why it made all that money. That way of making money — going out and taking pictures and then trying to sell them to agencies, magazines, galleries, at art fairs, you name it — is a hard road to take, difficult to systemize, glutted with competition, and inherently unreliable as a steady source of income.
Artists, authors, musicians and photographers all fall prey to “the dream” which is used by marketers to sell books and equipment — it’s the dream that you will be “discovered,” that your work will be sought after by millions, that you will spend your life in tropical paradises taking pictures of beautiful models.
The truth is, that does happen, but how often? The world is swimming in great photography. You can buy CD roms packed full of it. Practically every art and street fair has photographers — good photographers — trying to sell their work. Go to any bookstore, check out all the great work in calendars, books, and magazines, and ask yourself, “Do I really want to compete with this to make a living?”
That’s not to say you shouldn’t try achieving “the dream.” As a photographer and a graphic artist, I’ve taken that route as a “back burner” project and now it looks like some of my work may be carried in several retail chains nationwide and, of course, I’m thrilled.
But even as good as that sounds, the money is unreliable, slow to arrive, and probably won’t be enough to live on (lots of markups between me and the consumer). It’s just not something you would want to rely on to get you started and provide you with a steady stream of cash. For that, you need...
The power of a starving crowd
In his high-priced ($7,000+) seminars, marketing expert Gary Halbert asked, “If I were to set you up in the fast food business and give you one advantage, what would it be?”
Some will say “A secret sauce,” “A good location,” or “Lowest prices.”
Gary Halbert says he’d want “a starving crowd.”
Learn how to find and feed a starving crowd and you’ll never go hungry — ...let that sink in for a second... — because that’s the key to what we do; what makes it all work. We have found a starving crowd and developed a systematic, repeatable way to “feed” it. Forget having to push your pictures into a saturated market, these people are ready and waiting for you to provide them with what they want!
I wish you could have been at the “pet parade” benefit for the Humane Society who had asked Pam if she would display her photos. (We don’t usually do those kinds of events, but find it hard to say no to the Humane Society!) There must have been a dozen other booths there — with no one around them because they were all crowded around Pam “oohing and aaahing” — and generally going nuts — over her pictures. And it’s like that every time someone sees them.
It’s truly amazing to watch the reactions. And I know Pam loves the rave revues she gets. But, this is not a book about Pam, it’s about you and how you can have your own starving crowd surrounding you, giving you very nice chunks of money to take pictures of their family and pets.
Yes, you can learn to take the kinds of pictures shown in this book and yes, people will pay you well to take them.
I think you’ll find the next chapter interesting. It’s about how Pam and I got started and how we got to where we are now. You’ll see that we are just regular people who, partly by accident and partly by design, came up with a very nice way of earning a living that’s fun and fits our life-style, and there is no reason on earth why you can’t duplicate our success...
~ CHAPTER TWO ~
How a complete lack of formal training led to the discovery of Not Your Normal Photography® and how the simple gift of a camera led to Love, Happiness, Truth, Justice, and The American Way
In 1983, Pam was working as a flight attendant for TWA, and had absolutely no idea she had any photographic abilities.
She didn’t even own a camera.
However, the idea of getting one started to “cross her mind” while she was visiting a flight attendant friend of hers in Kansas City. (Her friend had just bought a Canon “Sure-Shot” — one of the first “point and shoot” cameras that actually did a credible job of taking pictures.)
When Pam got home to Chicago, she told me about the Sure-Shot and that she was thinking of buying one. We were just starting to date, so I thought I’d score some points, and suggested that, instead, she borrow a “real camera” — my 35mm SLR — and see if she liked it.
As it turned out, Pam had a great time with my camera taking shots around her house. Of course, still being early in our relationship I was quite complimentary on her work (actually, her pictures weren’t bad for someone just starting out!). This was all Pam needed to go wild taking pictures. This period of our lives is very well documented!
For her birthday (and because I wanted my camera back!), I bought her a used camera and a zoom lens. (I know, it’s a darned nice birthday present, but I definitely scored some points with that one!)
Over the next few months, Pam continued to take a lot of pictures, mostly of her dog and cats. From time-to-time, she’d take them to work (TWA) to show her flight attendant friends, and somewhere along the line, one of them asked Pam to take pictures of their kids.
Now, up to this point, taking pictures professionally was the furthest thing from Pam’s mind, and she had no idea of what to do or how to start, but being asked peaked her interest.
I told Pam that if she wanted to give it a try, I could check the photo stores in downtown Chicago (where I worked) and see if I could get a cheap lighting system and some backdrop paper — which I did — and showed up with it the night before Pam’s first paying session. (By now, we were getting along very nicely — who says a camera can’t get you love and happiness?)
Pam went on a 12-hour lighting cram-course and did the session the next day. The pictures were pretty bad, but the person still ordered a few prints, and Pam proved that you can turn pro after only a few months of practice, and it is possible to learn enough about lighting to get started in 12 hours or less!...
Key point — although Pam didn’t go to photo school, or spend a lot of time preparing and was scared of screwing up the job, she still dove right in and gave it a try. Had she not done that, she wouldn’t be living the creative, fulfilling, and profitable life she lives today.After her first session, Pam decided she had better learn a little more about photography and quickly found out that most of the books on photography were pretty worthless. Either the information was too sketchy, unclear, and incomplete, or just too complicated for a regular person without a Ph.D. in physics to figure out.How about you? Will you spend your life dreaming and “getting ready” or are you ready to dive right in and live your dreams? Ultimately, being successful has less to do with talent, and everything to do with action and a willingness to do something!
Going to photography school was out of the question because we lacked the money and the time. Besides, Pam didn’t want to spend years getting ready to get started — she wanted to start now.
So here’s what happened. With the help of a few books and a lot of experimentation (with our cheapest-of-the-cheap lighting system), Pam figured out a simple, basic, lighting setup that worked well. It’s the same set up she still uses today to pull in large session fees (although we no longer have the “cheapo” lighting system. After a few years, when it finally “blew up,” we replaced it with a moderately-priced “professional” system).
At the same time Pam was experimenting with her lighting setup, she started looking through all sorts of magazines — TV Guide, Ladies Home Journal, Vogue (just about anything with ads and pictures) — for ideas and poses she could “steal.” When she found something that appealed to her, she would tear it out and put it in her “swipe file.”
Most of the poses she tore out were very different than what you would find in a “normal” portrait studio — much more “loose” and “fun.” I don’t think Pam actually knew, or cared, what went on in a regular, “normal” portrait studio and that turned out to be a very good thing.
Because Pam didn’t have anyone telling her how things are “supposed” to be done, she started with a clean slate and was able to turn her energies to finding what she liked, and as it happily turned out, what her clients liked...
Key point — by not having any formal training, Pam was never taught the “right” way to do things. Instead, she followed her own heart, did what she liked, and what her clients liked.
By modifying and adapting the poses in her “swipe file” to her liking, and combining them with her simple lighting setup, Pam’s Not Your Normal style of photography was born and it was a hit...
During the next 7 years Pam operated part-time out of our basement while still flying for TWA (which reminds me, in 1988 we flew to Las Vegas and got married so I could get airline passes — hey, it was a fair return-on-investment for the camera I gave her!).
Meanwhile, I was working 10–14 hours a day at my design typography business in downtown Chicago. I enjoyed being in business for myself, but the hours and deadline pressures were ridiculous — we would get ads in at 2pm that had to be at the paper by 5pm, and the work that came in at 5pm, had to be delivered by 8am the next day.
Craziness. So, in 1991 I sold the business and bought a 45-acre “former” farm (it used to be a farm but we don’t farm it) in North Carolina where I am sitting at my computer right now writing this book!
People always ask what possessed us to up and leave Chicago and buy a farm in the middle of North Carolina. I tell them it was an “impulse buy” and it’s the honest truth. Right after I sold my business, we were visiting some friends here, and just by accident, found this place, fell in love with it, and “bought the farm.”Moving down here was the start of a new life, and this time, I wanted to make sure I didn’t get stuck working all the time. I wanted to enjoy “The Farrm.”
And although I had no idea of what I wanted to do, I had a clear picture of what I didn’t want to do, and that was — have a job. Or have a store. Or any kind of business that had regular hours. Basically, I wanted to work out of my house, when and only when I wanted to, and I decided I would either do it, or go broke trying.
Well, I almost did go broke (that’s a whole ’nother story), but obstinance and necessity are the mothers of invention...
Key point — knowing what you don’t want is as important as knowing what you do want, and being obstinate and uncompromising, in these matters is a virtue. Eventually it all works out.When we first moved to North Carolina, Pam continued to work for TWA, commuting from Raleigh to St. Louis, to get to work. But that got old real fast — Pam wanted to enjoy The Farrm, too — so she decided to “throw in the towel” on TWA and fire up the old photo business.
So now we were both out of work and faced with starting Pam’s business from scratch.
By doing a mailing of around 200 flyers, she picked up a couple of clients, who, in turn provided a few referrals, who provided a few referrals — it was obvious her clients liked the work, which was nice, but it wasn’t generating enough money to live on.
Basically there were two problems — not charging enough, and not getting enough business. The first problem was easily solved by raising our prices... once we got over the fear of losing the few clients that we already had.
We made an interesting discovery about pricing, too — many people will use you because you’re expensive. At the higher price points, your work has a higher perceived value.
Key point — (this could be worth many thousands of dollars to you) Even if you're a truly great photographer, if you charge too little, you will be perceived as being only an average photographer.So — bottom line — we raised Pam’s prices from $175 per session to $495. That took care of problem #1.
The second problem — not enough business — was not as easily solved, at least on our terms. Remember, we didn’t want a full-time studio, a yellow pages ad, a business phone, and we didn’t want to do any telemarketing or have to sell people on the phone.
Consequently, we relied totally on referrals and word-of-mouth advertising, which was fine as far as it went, the problem being... it just didn’t go far enough.
It didn’t take too long for our cash reserves to dwindle to a dangerous level. Pam started looking for a waitressing job and it looked like we’d be back to being working stiffs in no time.
That’s when I got mad (mostly at myself). Here was Pam, doing work so good that it literally causes mothers to break into tears of joy when Pam delivers their packages, and we can’t make ends meet. I knew there had to be a way to make all of this work the way we wanted it to work — the product was great, our marketing just sucked.
So, that’s when I went nuts reading every marketing book I could get my hands on, going to expensive seminars (on borrowed money!), looking for every tip, trick, and secret that would allow us to make a nice living without having to open up a “real” studio, shell out big money for traditional advertising, and so on.
When I look back on it, I can’t believe I spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours trying to figure out how we could live the “easy life.” But that’s what I did, and by implementing the tricks, tips, and secrets I learned, Pam’s business exploded to the point that now we have a waiting list and can set up blocks of sessions practically whenever and wherever we want.
And I now know how to control the marketing “intensity” to either put the business on “simmer” or bring it up to “full boil.”
~ CHAPTER THREE ~
The Four Keys to Success
If you read our little story in the previous chapter, you know how our business almost tanked because we ignored one of the important keys of success. (We did OK on the first three, but we blew it big time on Success Key #4 — knowing how to market)In this chapter, we are going to go over each important success key because they’re critical to your success. And ultimately, I want to be able to brag about your success, not hear about how you “almost” made it...
Success key #1 — Take Pictures that are In High Demand
We’ve all heard the old saying “build a better mousetrap and they’ll beat a path to your door.” Well, that’s simply not true.
You can build “better” all day long, but if nobody wants it, you’ll go broke. I can assure you that there are a ton of photographers who are technically “better” than Pam and at least as creative. They’re also starving — unable to use their skills to lead a fun, creative, and profitable life.
Pam takes pictures people want. I know that sounds simple, but if I asked you to put together a portfolio of pictures that would cause people to drive nearly 250 miles round-trip (that’s how far some people drive just to have their photos taken by Pam), would you even know where to start? (special note — we’ll cover developing a style that sells in Lesson 3 of the 6-day e-course!)
Success key #2 — Keep It Simple
If your techniques aren’t second nature to you, if they aren’t 100% reliable and repeatable, if you’re always bent on just showing off your technical abilities, you simply won’t be able to fully concentrate on what’s important — producing pictures that customers want.
Let me put it this way, your clients won’t care if you can properly light up a fly’s butt in the middle of the night. They do care if you caught them at just the right moment, and doing that requires concentration on the moment, and using simple techniques that you can “forget about.” (more on this in Lesson 2 of the 6-day e-course!)
Now don’t get me wrong, technique is important. It’s just that (at least in our lucrative little business), it’s perhaps 5% of the equation. The other 95% is in knowing how to set up the shot, how to work with your subjects, and knowing when to “push the button.”
Success key #3 —Take a lesson from your neighborhood heart surgeon and Specialize
Most photographers learn a little about this and a little about that. Consequently they do a little bit of everything and make a little bit of money by working a lot.
But they never get to charge the big bucks.
They don’t get to work a weekend and take the rest of the month off. They never make a “name” for themselves. Or create a “controlled stampede” for their work. They never get the honor and recognition that comes with being at the top of the heap.
That takes specialization — what Napoleon Hill refers to in his all-time classic book Think and Grow Rich, as “specific knowledge.” (By the way, if you haven’t read this book, do yourself a favor, no, promise me that you’ll get to the library and check out a copy. That way, even if you don’t go any further with us than reading this book, at least I’ll sleep better knowing I have given you another important tool for success.)
Specialization is critical to earning the most amount of money in the least amount of time. Do one thing, or at least be known for doing one thing so well that people are literally forced to come to you and pay what you ask.
Pam, for example, only does family photography — people and pets. She doesn’t do sports, product, glamour, advertising, or weddings. Just people and pets and only in her “Not Your Normal” style.
If you try to be everything to everybody,
you’ll wind up being nothing to nobody!
We’ll talk about this more in the 6-day e-course, but for the moment, just keep in mind that specialization is what you need to charge high prices. This doesn’t mean you can’t “branch out,” but doesn’t it make sense — especially when you’re first starting out — to concentrate on doing one thing well, instead of doing a variety of things half-assed?
Success key #4 — None of the above will matter, if you don’t Know How To Market
As a professional photographer, there will be little correlation between the talent you have and the amount of money you make. Your success as a business and a professional photographer will be nearly 100% determined by your skills as a marketer. As in most endeavors, the most successful photographers are the ones who know how to effectively market themselves.
Never forget this.
You may remember from chapter two that, at one point, despite Pam being a very good photographer, it looked like she would have to get a waitressing job.
That’s when we learned how to market.
There are basically 2 reasons why photographers screw up the marketing part.
One is a lack of knowledge.
But it’s also common — and this is the second reason — for “creative” people to think that marketing is “beneath them,” or that their talent will automatically bring people to their door.
Nothing could be further from the truth. And thinking this way, will only put a thick impenetrable wall between where you are now, and where you want to be.
Fact is, you will achieve success much quicker if you learn to think like a promoter first, and a photographer second. Because learning to be a marketer is what allows you to be a professional photographer.
This doesn’t mean you should compromise the quality of your product. Far from it. It does mean that if you spend all your time practicing your photography — and consequently become the best photographer in the world — it won’t matter.
Because unless you can market yourself effectively, you’ll have to do something else for a living. Your talent and your hard work will be wasted and the people who could have benefited from your skills will be losers, too.
Learning to market, therefore, is as important as knowing how to turn on your camera.
Now, it’s a rare person who likes “selling.” And it’s an even rarer person who likes to be “sold.” Our system of marketing is extremely unique in that it provides a steady stream of clients without having to personally sell them. We’ve simply learned ways to attract the people we want and let them sell themselves.
OK, now we know the success basics, let’s get to some business specifics...
~ CHAPTER FOUR ~
The business of Not Your Normal Photography®
So far, we’ve learned that it is possible to make a nice living working part time out of your house while avoiding most of the hassles of an ordinary business. And we’ve gone over the critical elements needed for success — high demand photos — simple techniques — specialization — and marketing.
In this chapter, we’re going to get down to “brass tacks” and give you a clear overview of how we put these elements together.
As I’ve mentioned previously, you can take Pam’s high-demand style of photography and my automatic marketing techniques and apply them just about any way you like. You can add them to an existing business. You can work from your home or your client’s home. Open up your own full or part-time studio. Work as much or as little as you like. It’s entirely up to you and how you choose to live your life.
Here are some of the “elements” you have to work with...
Producing high-demand photos
allows you to charge high prices
People have actually called us and said, “I don’t care what it costs.” That’s high demand. An isolated incident, you say? A couple of days ago someone called us and said, “I told my husband I don’t care if it costs $5,000 I’m going to have Pam do my baby pictures!” True story and I don’t tell you this to brag, but to point out that for these people, price is not a major issue. They want what they want, and Pam can deliver it.
Charging high prices
allows you to make more money
Sort of a no-brainer — if you’re going to do a day’s “work,” (a reminder: this is a very fun business, calling it work is a stretch) would you rather make a lot or a little?
You can make more money in a short period of time by booking in “clusters”
The most efficient way to make money in this business is to cluster your sessions and get them “out of the way” all at once. Pam books sessions in groups — 3 sessions-a-day for a weekend or more. In other words, she is only “open” when she wants to be.
Sure, you’ll lose some “spontaneous” business by not being available all the time, but as long as you have enough business, who cares?
If you make more money in a short period of time,
you can take more time off
This, of course, is the big plus for us. As I write this, spring is not too far off and then my “office” moves to under the magnolia tree. Expect to hear birds in the background if you call me.
If you’re not working all the time,
you don’t need a full-time studio
How would you like a business you could open and close whenever and wherever you feel like it? That’s literally what we do, and I’ll tell you a little story about how that came about...
For a while, Pam was renting a room in a house for her “studio.” The nice part was that she always had a place to do photo sessions. The bad part was that she had the ability to do them whenever a client wanted, which meant that she would never really know when she would be working, plus we had to pay rent every month.
Then, one day, right before the holiday busy season, we found out that our landlord had sold the building and “forgot” to tell us. We had to be out in 2 weeks. Suddenly, Pam had no studio, and we sent out a letter saying Pam would not be doing any sessions for a while.
Well, her clients literally went bezonkers when they found out Pam wasn’t available for doing photo sessions. One of her clients even offered to let Pam use her house for a weekend. We said OK, and Pam had eight sessions booked instantaneously (word got out, they called us).
Normally Pam would have had sessions all throughout the holidays (and she would have done more than eight). But this way, Pam got them all done within a few days, no muss, no fuss. We took all of December off and said, “Hey, this is kind of nice!”
So that’s what gave us the idea of doing “cluster bookings,” and now that’s the only way we do it.
If you don’t have a full-time studio,
you eliminate a lot of the hassles of being in business
Some people like to have a “store” and like to go to work every day. We don’t. To me, it’s one big hassle with a bunch of unnecessary overhead. If you want to take a month off, and people are used to coming to your studio anytime they want, it’s a problem. And at the very least, you’ll be paying rent, or mortgage, or utilities even when you’re not using it.
Chances are, you have a room in your house you can use for a “studio.” Currently we are using the dining room here at The Farrm.
And most of the time it stays a dining room. Since we book in clusters, it only gets turned into a “studio” every now and then. By doing it this way, you don’t have to dedicate a room for exclusive use as a studio.
And if you don’t have a room you can use, or you live in an apartment, or you just don’t want clients coming to your house, there are lots of other options, too — places where you can rent a room for a short period of time. Or you can do sessions in your client’s homes.
And now, a word about the “automatic” marketing system
that makes it all work...
If I’m starting to sound like a broken record on this, good, because it’s too important — no clients, no money, no business. So there. You can take high-demand pictures — you can charge high prices — you can book in clusters — you can work from your home — you can do all of those things — and none of it will do you any good if you can’t get any clients.
And most photography businesses would die a short, mean death if they didn’t have a studio, an expensive yellow pages ad, and a business phone.
Yet we thrive on “none of the above.”
...
There were a few more pages in the orignal book that described our courses at that time, so this is probably a good time to move on. Lesson one of the 6-day e-course should have been delivered to your in-box already — or you can jump to it now...
...see you in Lesson One!
Jeff Farr, co-founder and director of the
Not Your Normal School of Photography