14
Working Smart

THE SUCCESS HABIT: FOLLOWING THROUGH

Some might say that there’s no big secret about how to succeed as a stock photographer. You simply take good pictures. They’ll sell themselves.

Wrong.

For every picture that sells itself, there are about 100,000 waiting in files unsold because the photographer believed the above. Good pictures are only half of what you need; The other half is working smart.

Photomarketing is a business. The principles that help businesspeople make a success of their efforts also will help you. Imagine your business as a locomotive. It rides on two rails. One rail is the quality of your photos; the other your business know-how. One parallels the other.

Knowledge is useless unless it’s applied. That’s the first thing novices learn when they venture into the business world. Photographers who succeed do so not because of their knowledge of photography or photomarketing, but because they apply what they know.

Sounds simple, but wisdom in business is not a one-time move; it’s a continuing movement, a momentum, a follow-through, until it becomes habit. If you take the principles in this chapter and make them habits of your photo-marketing lifestyle and work style, you will be on the road to success.

Setting Goals

Where is your ship headed? Are you on a fishing expedition, heading out in the bay hoping to get a bite? Or do you have a definite destination, a well-researched spot where “they’re bitin’?”

The Small Business Administration, www.sba.gov, tells us that most newcomers venture into a new business as if they were going fishing. They have a lot of anticipation and enthusiasm and most of their emphasis is on externals instead of on precisely where they want to go and how to get results.

Your chances of getting your stock photos published and your photographic talent recognized will be excellent if you form the winning habit of setting goals for yourself before you make a move in your business development.

Getting Organized

Could you imagine entering a sailing race without checking for torn sails, sizing up your competition, charting the course, figuring what currents and marine traffic you’ll have to buck, knowing when and where to tack, and being prepared to adjust to the vagaries of the weather, sandbars or reefs? An organized and efficiency-conscious person will be through the race and back on the dock, enjoying wine and cheese, while the person who thinks he can enter the race without setting goals and making plans will still be out in the elements attempting to get to shore, paying the price for his lack of preparation.

As you build your photo-marketing business, set your goals and follow through. Be prepared when opportunity beckons. These are the secrets of creative success.

Time Your Goals

Set short-term and long-term goals. Make them realistic.

For a short-term goal, aim to send a certain number of pictures by a certain month. Aim to cut your processing costs by a certain percentage within the same month (by shopping for the best price and streamlining your buying procedures—e.g., order by mail, the Internet or phone rather than in person, and order in quantity).

For a long-term goal, aim to sell, within two years, three times the number of pictures you are currently selling.

Goals need not be rigid and inflexible. They can be changed—upward or downward—depending on many variables. Write them down though. Spoken goals don’t have the same impact.

Write down a few dream goals also. They’re free.

I’d advise you not to share your written goals with anyone, save your spouse or cherished friend. Few people will share your enthusiasm. Friends, colleagues and relatives often are experts at giving advice, though their experience and personal life situations may not justify it. Keep your goals to yourself, and share them by accomplishing them.

Is It Easy? A Survival Secret

Probably the most frequent question put to me is, “How can I become successful at publishing my pictures?” The answer is simple, though it’s not the answer most photographers expect. That may be one reason why the answer is so elusive to so many.

We might expect the answer to be, “Be born with talent” or “Work hard!” Having talent and working hard can help, of course. However, we all know photographers with a lot of talent who are going nowhere. We also know a lot of hard workers who are headed for the same place. To get to the point: If your desire to become a published photographer is so strong that your personal constitution will allow you to “put up with and do without,” then success is just around the corner.

Whenever I follow up with photographers who in the past expressed dreams and aspirations of publishing their pictures, I find that the ones who have met with success are the ones who have persisted and endured.

First of all, they have “put up with” the unglamorous chores inherent in this business. As they faced each day, they didn’t avoid the tedious tasks. They had true grit. They knew that if they avoided an irksome job, it wouldn’t go away but would grow into a larger problem the next day, and by the end of the month, it could be an insurmountable barrier.

What are these unpleasantries? As a stock photographer, you face them daily: rewriting a poorly composed letter to a prospective photo editor, rescanning a slide, making a phone call that will straighten out a disagreement, maintaining and updating your photo database, filing your transparencies, packaging photos, sending digital previews to prospective clients, licking stamps.

If you’re new to the field of stock photography, you’ll recognize a parallel in those drudgery jobs that it takes to run a smooth, comfortable household. Every uncleaned paintbrush or tool unreturned to its shelf, every unanswered letter in that pile of important letters, that unbalanced checkbook—all are examples of things we don’t like to do, things that if we’re not careful can pile up until it becomes a habit to not get them done. That habit, then, becomes our style, or us. Wishing away drudgery jobs never works. We cannot become a success at anything until we face the fact that a goal or a purpose must be worth more than the inconvenience of tackling the chores most people just don’t like to do.

In my experience I find that stock photographers who throw in the towel do so not for lack of talent, but because they are victims of their own failure to recognize this essential point: They must put up with the drudgery.

The second dictum: Do without the creature comforts. Hopefully this will be necessary in only the initial stages of your career. How long you will do without depends on the goals you have set for yourself. Some goals are short range and easily attainable. Other goals are long range, worthwhile and rewarding to the soul, but they’re not necessarily immediately rewarding to the pocketbook.

To get established as an editorial stock photographer, one must frequently do without the conveniences that Madison Avenue continually reminds us we “must” possess: a flat-screen TV, the latest-model car, a Blu-ray player, an extensive wardrobe. To meet processing or postage costs, or to purchase a new computer, we often must change lifestyle or supermarket habits to economize. We must do without.

If you begin today to economize and tackle each drudgery chore as it comes along, you’ll be surprised to find that you’ll get into the habit of successfully meeting challenges. A task that you once found annoying will become joyous for you because you’ll welcome and recognize it as another milepost on your journey to becoming a successful stock photographer. If you persist and develop the inner constitution to “put up with and do without,” you will begin your success where others failed.

“Victory belongs to the most persevering.”—Napoleon

Think Small

In a few pages I’ll be asking you to think big, once you get your stock photo-marketing operation rolling. However, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Aim high in your photography aspirations, but aim low in your sales targets—initially. Make your first mistakes where large audiences and your later-market photo buyers won’t see them.

I’m not proposing mediocrity; I’m simply advising you not to fall into the “glory” trap: You’ll run up against the wall built by experienced competitors, only to become discouraged and end up taking that lucrative job offer at the local car wash. The result: You’ll become another name in the Directory of Also-Rans. Work smart = Think small in the early stages. Give yourself production and fee goals that are immediately reachable and then move along in steps on your way to thinking big.

DON’T MISDIRECT YOUR WORK

Working smart includes not working on projects or not working in directions that offer little promise. If you gauge in advance what to avoid, you can save yourself money and time.

As an editorial stock photographer breaking into the markets, assess beforehand the degree of difficulty you will face when approaching a particular magazine or publishing company. Is the market crowded? Is it a closed market for you, such as Time, People or National Geographic? Or is it wide open? (Open markets include local magazine supplements for Sunday newspapers; denominational publishers [listed in Photographer’s Market under Book Publishers], which publish dozens of magazines and periodicals; association and organization magazines like The Rotarian or Kiwanis magazine.)

What is the supply/demand ratio involved for each type of market? Some photographers don’t learn the answer until they have uselessly spent a fortune trying to market pictures to a virtually closed market. Read the clues: “No use for this type of photography.” “We’re overstocked on those.” “Bring more detail into your pictures if you want to sell to us.” “We have a photographer who does those and don’t need any more.”

When you fill in your yearly assessment of your best markets, you’ll know which markets to cross off your list. With each sale you’ll gravitate closer to your ideal markets.

Typically, closed markets are the calendar, greeting card, photo product, postcard, poster and place mat areas. These markets are glutted with fine photographs and fine photographers, many of whom have worked for a particular company for decades. Why try to drive through a stone wall for infrequent sales when lucrative avenues await you? Magazine and book publishers with $10,000, $20,000 and $30,000 a month budgets for photography await the editorial stock photographer who has discovered her own PS/A (Photographic Strength/Areas) and zeroed in on a specific Market List.

Your research and personal experience will determine which markets are closed to you. If the situation doesn’t look promising in light of your current degree of expertise or depth in a certain photographic area, don’t knock fruitlessly at a door that isn’t ready to open to you yet. Put your energies and your dollars into tapping the lesser-known markets first. You’ll save money, gain experience, build your picture files and sell photos—that’s working smart.

Draw up a weekly report that tallies work activity scores, such as how many submissions you sent, how many pictures you sold and so on. Analyze these on a continuing basis to see if your sales are growing and to find out what categories and which submissions have been most successful. Continue to revise your Market List priorities from these figures.

You Manage the Business—Not the Other Way Around

Being one step ahead of the competition, whether in a footrace or a pass pattern in football, makes all the difference between winning and losing. In business it works the same way. If you get behind, you lose control and get “behinder and behinder.” The business begins to manage you. You can be out front, even if it’s by inches, if you adopt the winning habit of keeping your ship on course each day.

In stock photography this applies especially to the routine you establish to get your submissions to photo buyers. Establish a written plan (this will help crystallize your thinking), and follow through with it.

If you’re not a self-starter, here’s a technique many people have used effectively: Hire a part-time assistant to come to your office certain days of the week to send out shipments of pictures. To keep your helper productive, you must always have new work ready to send out.

A Self-Evaluation Guide

How do you tell if you’re making any progress? By measuring it. Too often, photographers and other creative people find one year running into the next without ever analyzing their efforts to see if they’re really moving or just running in place. If you have a well-received exhibit or a local TV interview, it might create an illusion of success, but if the bottom line shows zero at the end of the year, it’s time to reassess your efforts.

Your measuring system doesn’t have to be elaborate, but it should encompass at least a three-year span to be an effective, meaningful basis of comparison. (Quarterly or monthly assessments, based on your photo submissions in/out ledger, will be helpful until you reach the three-year mark.)

You will want to keep a running tally on four areas: pictures sent out; pictures bought; money received; and film, processing, mailing, telephone and computer supplies costs. Chart these monthly, and at the end of three years, you will see your progress. (Pictures bought in one month may include many pictures actually sent during previous months.)

How to Measure Your Sales Strength

Here’s how to chart your sales strength areas your first year. A spreadsheet program on your computer will tally these figures for you. Otherwise, use a simple ledger sheet and a pencil. Start with any month of the year.

1. Assign a code number to each of your sales areas.
2. Make a sales slip (use carbonless paper, a photocopy or a computer form) that includes a blank space for:
   Date:
   Amount:
   Code Number:
3. Each time you receive a check for one of your pictures, record the previous information. If one check is for two or three different sales areas (code numbers), make two or three sales slips.
4. File your sales slips in a drawer until the end of the month.
5. At the end of the month, enter information from the sales slips onto a chart (ledger) similar to the example in Table 14-1.
6. Total the previous months and the current month for a year-to-date total.

Your sales totals are your best marketing teacher. Which code area(s) shows the highest income? By monitoring these statistics, you will be able to accurately document which areas you should concentrate your sales efforts on.

View a text version of this table

Pictures Just Aren’t Selling?

Working smart includes reevaluating your working procedures now and again, too. Start with your packaging presentation. A trick you can use to ensure that you’re maintaining top quality is to ask the person closest to you to be your quality-assurance specialist. Every so often, when you prepare a package for a photo editor, don’t let it out of the house until your quality-assurance specialist has given it the go-ahead. Let this person critique it, acting out the role of photo buyer. Painful as it might be, you’ll form the habit of giving your best to every detail of your presentation.

THE FIVE REASONS FOR REJECTION

If you’re not getting the sales you feel you ought to be getting, give the following points some serious thought. Often, success can be a process of elimination. By avoiding failure, you succeed. Get back to the basics, and watch your marketing sales spiral upward.

Photographs are rejected for five basic reasons. If you’re guilty of any of them, you should reassess your marketing methods:

1. Poor presentation. Are you mailing in a crisp, white, thick cardboard envelope? Are you using a professional label or an imprinted logo? Did you include an SASE with your submission (if you’re a new contributor to the publication)? Are your transparencies packaged in protective sleeves or sheets? Will the slides fall out if the page is inverted? Are your photos clearly identified? Have you verified the publication’s address and the contact person’s name? Is your cover letter a professional-looking printed form letter (which saves you and the editor time) rather than a rambling handwritten letter?

   It may seem unfair that the outside appearance of your package is so important, but photo editors are busy and have found through experience that amateurish packaging usually reflects the contents. Often they relegate a sloppy package to the return bin—without opening it. If you want first-class treatment from photo buyers, give them first-class treatment.

2. Off-target and unrelated submissions. Does the material you’ve submitted meet the buyer’s request? Do your pictures hit the mark? Or has the buyer asked for pictures of waterfalls, and you’ve submitted pictures of brooks and streams just in case the buyer might want to see them?

   Are your pictures cohesive in style? Do the pictures themselves have a consistent, professional appearance? That is, do they all look like they came from the same photographer? To test the professionalism and cohesiveness of your pictures, gather editorial stock photos from magazines and periodicals on your Market List. Lay about twenty of them on the living room floor, and then place your pictures beside them (or if you deal in slides, project them on a screen with the tear sheets taped to a nearby wall). Do your pictures fit in? If so, you’re on target. If not, retake the same pictures, incorporating what you’ve learned from this exercise.

3. Poor quality. Look at your pictures again. Assuming you are using top-quality equipment, is your color vibrant and appropriate for the mood and scene? Have you properly filtered your indoor shots where fluorescents are involved? If you’ve used flash or lights where appropriate, have you avoided hot spots?

   Published pictures must go through several steps before they reach the printed page. Your pictures must be appropriately in focus, with good film resolution (sharpness), no grain (unless appropriate) and no camera shake; these faults will be magnified in your published picture.

   If you’re submitting digital images, have you cleaned up your scans and/or the photos from your digital camera? Is there visible dirt or dust at a high (or normal) magnification? Are you using a high enough resolution? Have you submitted according to the procedure the photo buyer wants digital submissions to follow?

   All of the previous elements provide a photo buyer with quick evidence of your craftsmanship and reliability. Whether you score high or low is up to you.

4. Outdated pictures. Outdated pictures can be another enemy to your sales. Photo editors expect a fresh batch of new pictures from you on each shipment. Some pictures are long-lived and timeless: Fifty years from now, your heirs could continue to benefit from their sales. The majority of pictures, however, are short-lived because they reflect the now. In a matter of years (usually between five and ten), you will want to extract these pictures from your files because they are dated by clothing and hair styles, equipment, machinery, furnishings and so on.

   Some stock photographers have attempted to circumvent this problem by eliminating anything from their pictures that would date them. This generally means excluding people; however, the most essential element in a successful photo illustration is people. Exclude them, and sales diminish.

   Putting your dated pictures out to pasture is not an enjoyable prospect. Be as objective as possible in your weeding-out process. If you find it difficult to eliminate pictures, ask a friend to look through a group of pictures and guess what year they were taken. Your friend’s objective assessment will be similar to a photo buyer’s.

   We all tend to rationalize our pictures’ usefulness and stretch their life spans beyond marketing reality. At the risk of sounding like dial-a-mortician, I’m asking you to be realistic. Photo editors are. Outdated pictures will outdate your business operation and will possibly eliminate you from the photo buyer’s roster. Move these outdated images to your historical file. It’s practical and sensible. You’ll make occasional sales when requests for how things used to be come in, and these photos may find new life as digitally modified images.

5. Poor composition. Assess the composition of your pictures. Do your compositions adhere to the P = B + P + S + I formula? (See chapter two.) Do you zero-in on your subject matter with the appropriate emphasis for each situation? When you work with people in your pictures, do you orchestrate the scene so that the results are natural and unposed? In other words, are you producing marketable editorial stock photos?

If this section on why pictures fail to get published is discouraging to you, it shouldn’t be. Remember that editorial stock photographers successful at photomarketing are not those who occasionally produce a brilliant photograph, but those who periodically assess and evaluate their progress. If they find deficiencies, they take the next step: They do something about it.

Please be cautioned that some photographers take my suggestions for avoiding failure to extremes. These folks are perfectionists. “Do it right or not at all.” This admonition is certainly well founded, and many successful stock photographers can trace their success to adherence to such good rules. The paradox is that many unsuccessful stock photographers can trace their failures to them, also. Why? The procrastinator, under the guise of perfectionism, accomplishes nothing for fear of not doing it flawlessly.

Procrastinators spin their wheels reading about and studying cameras and equipment and how to take pictures. They keep telling themselves they don’t know enough to start, that their pictures aren’t good enough yet to send to an editor.

If you find yourself justifying procrastination, ask yourself to redefine quality. You can pride yourself on quality presentations without crippling yourself by equating quality with perfection.

A Potpourri of Additional Aids in Working Smart

When you get upset with a photo buyer, remember the Law of 125. Each person you deal with influences 125 other friends, neighbors, relatives or business colleagues. It works this way: If you produce a good product for a person, that person will probably tell five people (5), who may each tell five people (25) who may tell five people (125).

1×5 = 5×5 = 25×5 = 125.

If you turn a prospective customer away with an angry remark or letter or a poor attitude, you may be turning away 125 prospects.

INSURANCE

Are you insurance-poor? That is, are you putting a disproportionate amount of your dollars into insurance instead of photo and computer supplies? Don’t allow yourself to be talked into equipment-insurance plans that will put you in a bind. Talk with other photographers. If you hear of many instances of stolen equipment, then a solid equipment or business protection plan might be in order for you. Reexamine your policy from time to time. Some of your equipment may have depreciated to the point where it isn’t cost-effective to continue to insure it. If you’re a member of ASMP (150 North Second Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106, (215) 451-2767 www.asmp.org), you are eligible for a comprehensive insurance package. The cost ranges from $650 to $850 if you’re living in New York City. Rates will vary according to where you live.

Your camera equipment usually can be insured as part of your business insurance package, or a broker who handles your other insurance, such as your homeowner’s policy, can negotiate it. An example of a broker who will handle photographer’s insurance is The Hoffberger Insurance Group, 5700 Smith Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21209, (410) 542-3300, www.hoffberger.com.

Buying insurance is like gambling. You play the odds. However, some careful research on your part can establish how much insurance is enough for you. Shop around. If you’re quoted disproportionately different rates, read the fine print and investigate the company through Consumer Reports or your local Better Business Bureau.

The best insurance is the daily habit of prevention. That’s affordable.

1. Know the high-risk areas for thievery in your location and photographic destination.
2. Don’t tempt thieves with flashy camera bags or unlocked car doors.
3. Invest in a monitored burglar-alarm system or a dog that likes to bark.
4. Inscribe your name on your equipment. Your local police department will help you with this.
5. Ask for references from the people you consider hiring.
6. Keep receipts and serial numbers for all your equipment.

LOW-COST EQUIPMENT

New camera equipment can dent your budget. Several companies sell used camera equipment. Two that come highly recommended are B&H, www.bhphotovideo.com, in New York and KEH, www.keh.com, in Smyrna, Georgia. Also check out eBay on the Web.

If you’re looking for office equipment, check with your state to see if they have auctions where surplus equipment is sold. You can normally save at least 50 percent compared to buying new.

TOLL-FREE NUMBERS

The telephone is an important resource for the stock photographer. For toll-free numbers available to you, call the toll-free information operator at (800) 555-1212 or your local phone company and ask if the company you’re trying to reach has a toll-free number. You’ll save on your phone bill, and you’ll get your answers from the experts, fast. The major photography magazines often list toll-free numbers in the ads for camera equipment and film processing. A toll-free directory is available from AT&T. Companies sometimes will change their toll-free numbers. If this happens, just call (800) 555-1212 and ask for the new numbers. Note: If the business has a toll-free number with an 888, 877 or other toll-free area code, you would still dial (800) 555-1212 to find it.

SEARCH THE WEB

Another resource available to use for searching for information is the World Wide Web (www). Using your computer, you can find the latest gadget, research arcane subject matter and find answers to highly specific questions.

Some excellent search engines are:

Google (www.google.com)

Dogpile (www.dogpile.com)

Lycos (www.lycos.com)

Yahoo (www.yahoo.com)

These search engines are excellent tools for finding information, whether it be small business tips or research on an assignment location. Use the search engines also to locate addresses I’ve listed in this book if you find they might have changed recently.

GRANTS, LOANS, SCHOLARSHIPS, FELLOWSHIPS AND AID ASSISTANCE

These are available to photographers at local, regional and national levels. The funds come from state and federal agencies as well as from private corporations and foundations. The monies usually are awarded for specialized photographic projects. If your idea is accepted, the grant can boost your supply of stock photos in one of your PS/As.

To apply, photographers propose a photographic project. If selected, they receive stipends ranging from $500–1,000 a month for a period of several months.

You can learn more about how to write proposals for and receive such funds through the following books and organizations:

Foundation Center, 32 Old Slip, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10005, (212) 620-4230, www.foundationcenter.org

Free Money for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs by Laurie Blum, www.amazon.com

Grants in Photography: How to Get Them by Lida Moser, www.barnesandnoble.com

National Endowment for the Arts, 400 7th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20506, (202) 682-5400), www.arts.gov

The ultimate in working smart, of course, is doing work that you don’t consider work at all. If you’ve defined your PS/A well and tailored your Market List to markets that offer you the best potential, you’ll find that you’ll automatically be working smart.