Author: Leslie Burns

Selina Maitreya is coming here to San Diego next week to give a presentation. The talk, I Know This Much Is True, is being offered by both APA and ASMP–a joint effort of which I am very excited. The more pro groups do together, the more they build the concept of camaraderie and break down the concept of competition.

Also, in that spirit, I will be a special guest in the second half of the event, as Selina and I (and many others) believe that we are not so much competition as colleagues. Our goals are similar–to help our clients as best we can and make our livings doing what we love. We know that working with one of us is an intimate thing and that no one consultant is the right consultant for every client out there. You may be a better “fit” with my skills and personality, or hers, or Suzanne Sease, or someone else; and how can we best serve the photo community as consultants if part of our advice is not “work with the right consultant for you, even if that is not me”?

With that in mind, I would like to encourage any of you who are looking for good advice to book an individual consultation with Selina while she is here in San Diego. You’re sure to gain knowledge that will enhance your business (and easily pay for the cost of the meeting). For locals, I’m usually here and accessible, but Selina is traveling from the other side of the country–doesn’t make sense to take advantage of her knowledge while she’s here?

Today I sent out the latest Free Manual in Your Email…and promptly had about 5% of them bounce because my server (the hosting company, that is) has been placed on some obscure spam list. Yarg.

This is particularly frustrating because the company I use is, if anything, pitbull-like in its anti-spam policies. In fact, I can’t do things I would like to do marketing-wise, because it would violate their rules–which are considerably more strict than the law requires. And yet, their machines are popping on spam lists and, as a consequence, my emails get blocked.

This is not the hosting company’s fault, nor is it mine. It is, however, a result of the hyper-vigilance of some people. I think some of these people are the same people who dress their kids like the Michelin Man before they go play anything active outside and/or who won’t take crap images off their sites because there may be some potential buyer who won’t hire ’em because of what they are not showing.

This is all fear.

Yes, spam is a pain in the butt. I get loads too and even with all the blockers, etc., it seems the worst of the worst always find a way through. The legitimate marketers, like me, get blocked. This just proves you can’t protect against everything.

In fact, protecting often has worse effects than the original problem. Look at antibiotics–we started using them like aspirin and now there are formerly simple bacteria that we can’t kill because they are now resistant.

What does this have to do with you and your business? Well, besides possibly not getting your Manual when I send ’em, over-protection is bad in business. Minimizing risk is touted by some as a positive, but when it goes from buying insurance (good) to not trying something new, it goes too far.

For example, the stock industry is changing rapidly these days. Companies like Getty and Corbis are falling all over themselves to lower prices to compete with microstock which is resulting in unhappy photographers and buyers who are getting crappy service because the stock houses don’t care about anything but their price-points. We have technology today that makes managing and selling your own stock a viable option to these huge companies. I think taking the risk of pulling your images from Getty (etc.) and marketing/licensing them yourself is better than staying with those same companies.

You might take a hit in the short term. It might not even work in the long–but I think the chances are good enough and the potential payoff is big enough that it’s worth taking that risk.

To be successful in business, you need to be willing to take some risks. No one got rich sitting on their hands. Like all things in life, you have to look at the chances something won’t work, the potential rewards if it does, figure the “pot odds,” and then make a decision to check, bet, or fold.

Two things you need to sign up for:

1) The next Free Manual in Your Email will go out on Monday. If you’re not on my list yet, sign up now by clicking here. Please make sure to include a web address or some info in your email so that I know you’re a real person and not some ‘bot/evil phisher-spammer.

2) ASMP’s Strictly Business 2 events! The site is now live, so you can get full info, pricing, etc., straight from the fine ASMP folks themselves. Click the link above for info, and sign up for a great program. Don’t forget the short consultations available (at a very small extra charge) with each of us main speakers.

I consider it like a Photo-MBA in a weekend. On top of everything you’ll learn (especially the negotiation role-playing and practice!), the opportunity to meet all the teachers, the keynote in each city, sponsors, and your colleagues is too fantastic to be missed.

Also, I will be available for longer-format individual consultations in each SB2 city, after the events. You can get more info about those by contacting me directly either via email or calling 619.961.5882 (during Pacific Time biz hours).

Business Week has a major article on the current situation in stock photography, focused on Getty. It’s worth a read.

There are a few errors–referring to photos that are “non-copyrighted” (pg. 3) is the most blatant. For the record, ALL [new, US] photos are copyrighted there Bucko–but they may be (ick) royalty-free. And they don’t talk about Getty’s new pricing for web usage–$49 for any image (yes, any, for wide-ranging web-based use).

More importantly, this article brings to the mainstream the ideas of stock, payments, usage, and how photographers are getting screwed by companies like Getty. People will understand our industry better, and that builds compassion for our struggles.

The article also mentions how Getty has lost any concept of personal service for its clients, and there, I think, is its most easily exploitable flaw. Rather than rail at Getty for it’s $49 new pricing–saying something like “drop this program or will stop providing images”–just stop working with companies like this that exploit your talents.

You don’t need them.

In today’s techno-groovy world, self-marketing and selling of stock can be much more doable either completely in-house or via Digital Railroad (as mentioned in the article). If you offer great images AND you give fantastic, personal service to your clients, you don’t need stock houses like Getty or Corbis to create a good stock-based income stream. Clients will appreciate you taking into account the details of their projects when you price, working with them to make a fair deal for you both, and they will come back for more (and share your info with their colleagues).

I think the time is right for photographers to take back control of their images. Dump companies like Getty who, as the article states, is essentially the Wal*Mart of photography–abusing its suppliers and using fear to get photographers to provide the images it needs to make its money. Set up your own stock companies. Market the hell out of your work and your service.

And keep more of YOUR money, rather than letting uncaring corporations get 60+% of your sales.

Stewart Cohen is quoted in the most recent edition of ASMP Bulletin (the Best of issue) saying something I think every creative should internalize. When asked what he considers his most important business decision, he replied:

[…] my career shouldn’t be left in the hands of my clients. If I was going to be a great photographer, it couldn’t depend on the jobs I had or did not have. My fate would be totally up to me.

I think that is fantastic. Cohen recognized early on that he had the power to control only himself (not his potential clients) and, as an artist, it was incumbent on him to make his art. If he didn’t make his art, it wouldn’t be the fault of any client or lack of client.

In fact, throughout his mini-interview Cohen talks about control. Control is an issue I see often in our industry and it is usually misunderstood and/or misapplied. Photographers seek to control their market, buyers, the media, and even each other. However, they can do none of those things. No one can.

You can only control yourself–your own actions.

But that is all you need. When you shift the locus of control to yourself, you stop being a victim of the world around you. It’s no longer “people underbid me so I don’t get jobs” or “I can’t afford to shoot the places I want” and the like; instead it’s “I’ve done all I can–I will get this project or I won’t” and “I can find new ways to reach out to potential clients” and “I will find a way to make those images in Nepal that I have always dreamed of making.”

You stop wasting time being frustrated you don’t get a project or can’t do X or Y. You might follow up to learn from a “no” from outside, but it’s no longer “Why not me?”–at most it’s “What can I do next time to improve my chances of getting a project with you?” You find ways to make things happen instead of waiting on someone else to make it happen for you. You figure out that by saving $20 a week you can make that Nepal trip in two years so you drop the Starbucks from your ritual.

More importantly, focusing on yourself and what you can control encourages you to be more confident, more accepting, and more likely to make your own art anyway–all of which will help you get projects down the pike.

I keep hearing the argument presented that if one separates one’s usage licensing fee from one’s creative fee, that photographer “runs the risk” of losing money if the client changes its mind on the usage. For example, if the deal is struck for 1 year local print ads and the client changes its mind to 6 months local prints ads, the photographer would be forced to change the usage licensing fee and, by this argument, lose money.

I think that it is better to be fair and equitable in business than to make every dollar possible in every situation. Thus, I have no problem with a photographer changing the usage licensing fees to reflect a reduction in usage license to be granted, or even refunding payments already made (though most folks won’t get paid so quickly)–with one major “if.” Here is the big if: If the change comes within a set period expressed in all the paperwork (terms and conditions), for example, within 15 or 30 (or whatever) days of the invoice date. After that pre-set period (chosen by the photographer, mind you!), the deal is done-done and the client has the original bigger license which it can choose to exercise in whole or in part. No more chances at changing the deal, no more potential refunds, after the “changeable” period expires.

Look, why shouldn’t the photographer reduce the usage licensing fees and/or refund (if payment has already been made) if the license needed is reduced (within the parameter I just set out above)? If the license was expanded by the client, the photographer would demand (rightly!) greater fees–so why do some people have an issue with being fair on the other side of that equation?

Clients will understand the limits of the refund/reduction window–they understand business and contracts. And, more importantly, they will appreciate the fairness you show in how you run your business–which will build trust.

I did this with my photographers when I repped, and I was repeatedly thanked for it AND given additional projects for my guys because of this. I think it happened something like 3 times total in my years of repping. This is not something that happens often, but if you set out a policy for how to handle it and do so with fairness, the long-term good you will gain will far outway the short-term loss of money that may occur.

Running your business with fairness and compassion will get you much farther than running it our of fear or greediness.

First, a bit of linguistic fun courtesy of Åsk at Adland. Note in particular “Buzzard” and “Fart Director.”

*****

In more important news, just when you might be thinking creativity isn’t worth as much as you think it is, two news bits (re)confirm your suspicions–it’s worth loads.

This article from Business Week notes how more and more creatives are becoming significant executives in major companies–something almost unheard of not too very long ago. They do suffer from one common problem, though: a lack of business knowledge.

Sound familiar? 🙂

And, even more encouraging, there is this piece of news about the creators of South Park… Love it or loathe it, South Park is clearly original and its creators have constantly followed their own creative voices, rather than conforming to what others told them they should (or, more likely, should not) do. And now, by making a unique product and holding on to their creative rights while working out a very interesting licensing deal, those two guys are expected to make $75 million in the next three years.

Huzzah!

MP screwed up and screwed up big. Every photographer in the US is probably aware by now of MP’s stupid business move in striking a deal with iStockphoto. Every photographer should be aware that MP has not only apologized for that and the incredibly crappy email they sent promoting it, they have, in fact severed the relationship.

In other words, they made a bad business decision and they have fixed it as much as humanly possible. I think that deserves a second chance.

Years ago, when I first got into this business, the studio I worked for sent film to a lab. They screwed it up–we didn’t find this out until we picked up the film. Rather than admitting it, they said “you must have fogged it” and would not do anything to fix the situation. The same thing happened (different processing error, but you know what I mean) at a different lab later, and they called us before we picked up the film and said “one roll fell off in the processor–we’re sorry, what can we do to make this right?”

We never used the first lab again, but we were loyal to the second lab–because they copped to it and tried to make it right.

If this incident had been a regular pattern of MP’s, I would have been the first one calling for heads to roll. But it wasn’t. Someone, a human being or a couple, made a bad choice and then executed the bad choice poorly.

Besides all of the above, which one of us has never made a bad business decision, deliberately or not, that we wish we could take back?

Someone on one of the forums wrote that MP should “live by the sword/die by the sword.” How many of us can honestly say “I make my living based on copyright but I have never, ever used software I didn’t buy legally or copied/downloaded a song without paying or watched a video someone (illegally) emailed me, etc.”

How about having one too many and driving–any of us ever wake up in the morning knowing we shouldn’t have been behind the wheel the night before?

And how many of us have made a mistake/bad choice based on ignorance that, when pointed out, we tried to fix? I think that’s what happened here. I do not believe MP meant any harm–they just (admittedly stupidly) didn’t see the consequences of their actions. When it was pointed out to them, they woke up and are trying their level-best to fix it. And I bet it’s costing them plenty to do so–canceling a deal like that is not usually possible without some sort of financial hit. They are not “getting away easy” by any means.

On top of that, some photographers will never go back. That is their choice. But if we, as a group, continue to punish MP for screwing up EVEN AFTER THEY HAVE TAKEN THE BEST STEPS TO FIX IT POSSIBLE, then we, as a group, lose credibility. What company in the future is going to try and make it better when they screw up with us, if we can’t forgive and move on now? None. They will say “Why should we do anything? So we can get treated like MP did after they did all they could to make good? Hell no.”

APA and ASMP are trying to work with MP to find ways to make sure something like this never happens again. I think we should back them in that and show our humanity by giving MP another chance. MP has a long history of supporting photographers and I don’t think that history should be thrown out for one (albeit big) error.

Also, forgiveness is a choice, and one I encourage. It is good for the forgiver. You only need to Google “quotes forgiveness” to see that it is a virtue worth pursuing. For me, I’d rather trust and forgive and run the risk of occasionally getting burned than live in fear and paranoia.

In the movie Moonstruck there is a scene where the main character’s father is telling how he got some yuppies to buy new copper pipes for their new (older) home. He gives the yuppies their options, telling them that this pipe or that pipe are possibilities, but that he doesn’t even use any of them because of their negatives in the long run and he explains those negatives. Finally he comes to copper. Almost sighing he says, “It costs more…it costs more, because it’s worth more” and explains how it will last “forever.” The yuppies look at each other, nod, and he gets the sale.

While I am loathe to make plumber/artist comparisons, there is a lesson to be learned here. Just as in our industry, there are always cheaper options. But if you can articulate the value of your (more expensive) offerings, the right clients will not only understand, they will respect and be eager to buy.

Think about luxury items–real luxury items, not the ones you can get at any fine mall anymore, but things like Maybachs. They make two models–that’s it–and the low-end starts over US$335K. Buyers get put on waiting lists for these (and similar) cars. This holds true for many luxury items. Luxury item companies are making more and more money–profit–than their cheaper counterparts who sell many times more vehicles. Think about all the trouble GM and Ford have been in though they have sold a gazillion vehicles, while companies like Lamborghini QUADRUPLED profits in 2006–selling less than 3000 cars total (please note differences between revenues and profits in those stories, btw).

This is about mindset as much as it is about product. Yes, to be in the upper tier of creatives you need to have strong work, but you also need the mindset that your work is of high value to your clients. Then, your marketing needs to articulate that value.

There’s been more talk lately, both on this blog and on some of the photographer forums, about the media buy percentage system. As we all know, I advocate using it whenever possible to price your licenses. Others say it is untenable and that the license should be priced based on “value” and “creativity” and other nebulous terms.

Hey, I wish there was a better way, I really do, to determine an image’s value to a client, but the price of the media has been setting the value for advertising since advertising has been around. And, until we can find a better system (heavy on the word “system” there), this is the best I can figure.

How many of you know that the creative used to be free in advertising? Yup, early agencies made all of their money on their media commissions. They threw in the creative as a value-added service. Then they started marking up their outside costs and getting commissions. Then, one sad day, the media buying part of agencies started leaving the agencies.

Today, most agencies without media buying are still struggling to find the best way to price and bill their services. But the media companies still make lots of money selling media space. In fact, media companies are now giving away free creative for their clients as a value-added service (or doing it for cheap)–cutting the agencies out entirely.

So, it’s come full-circle; creative is being given away again but this time by the media companies.

The only constant? The selling of the media space.

So, that’s why I look to those numbers (which have generally remained constant or gone up over time, taking inflation into account–several economists see ad spending at or higher than GDP growth) as an effective constant upon which to base a pricing system. As I have said repeatedly, it isn’t a perfect system, but at least there is math and logic involved.