Author: Leslie

I think one of the best ways we can create strong relationships with our clients is to try to understand our clients better. What are their biggest problems? What are their motivating forces? Try to put yourselves in their shoes, and suddenly that “unreasonable” request starts to be more, well, reasonable (or at least understandable).

Creativity online has a great piece right now–a creative round-table discussion on the advertising (deign, interactive, etc.) industry(ies). It’s quite eye-opening for those of us on the periphery. Please note the issues of intellectual property and monetization and keeping great creatives at the firms (about half-way down). 

Read this piece and you’ll have a better idea of the issues your clients are facing in their business. Now, how can you help be a part of the solutions?

 

The dark saying of no good deed goes unpunished is reigning over at APE. He posted his loathing of being virtually stalked and the crowd went wild. People took his head off for his helpful opinion (and one I mostly agree with–I say track who goes to your site, but don’t freak out your targets by telling them you know they’ve been on your site, etc.). He offered what he thought was helpful info, and some people bit his head off for it.

Heather Morton gets some sometimes too. In fact, everyone I know who offers help gets kicked in the teeth fairly regularly for it, and it sucks. 

Now, I could understand going after me–this is how I make my living and challenging what I have to offer could be seen as acceptable under the concept of “prove you know what you’re talking about, Lady, or I’m not buying what you’re offering!” but even then it should be done respectfully. 

Unfortunately, too many photographers out there are getting downright nasty about disagreeing. I’ll tell you flat out, it hurts to offer opinions and help, with all the best of intentions, only to get bitch-slapped for it. 

But let’s say you just don’t give a shit about hurting the other person–you’ve got an opinion and damn it, you’ve got every right to express it! Okay, fine, yes, you certainly do have that right. Using that right, well, that’s your choice and I’m telling you that sometimes it’s a bad one. Forget about hurting other people, you are hurting yourselves with some of these posts.

You think only photographers read these blogs? Hell no. Your clients/targets do. And every time you sound like an aggressive jerk, you are hurting your reputation with your clients/targets. It’s hard enough to build a decent reputation–to get people to recognize your name enough to want to look at your work and call you for the next great project–why screw that up just to vent a bit on some blog?

And this stuff lives forever on the ‘net. People aren’t getting jobs or getting into grad school, etc., because employers/administrators are googling applicants and when they find negative stuff–boom, no gig (fwiw, pictures from Spring Break are particularly damaging for regularly employed folks).

So please, learn to write more gracefully, compassionately, and diplomatically or just shut up when you disagree with someone on their blog. Better yet, take a step back and think “Why is s/he writing this? Maybe there is some truth in there I need to learn.”

 

Okay, not to toot my own horn too much, but I think Heather Morton’s post today is not only incredibly helpful to photographers, it also goes to show that I’m not just making up the stuff I’m telling you folks. 

To summarize, when doing your marketing to art buyers, keep the following in mind: send regularly; keep it simple; it’s all about the images; don’t be a jerk; most promos end up in the bin but you have to send ’em; don’t ever expect to hear anything back; most emails get deleted but you have to send ’em; have I mentioned, it’s all about the images; consistency is important; so is patience; don’t stalk; don’t whine; meetings are rare but important; calls work if done right; offer instead of ask; and, oh yeah, it’s all about the images.

…but the voice is still shot. You all will be able to hear it in all its froggy goodness if you listen to the newest Creative Lube podcast I just posted.

This episode is on building your team. Why team? Because photographers are a solitary lot for the majority but those who build good teams tend also to be more successful and happier. Good for your head and vital for your business. Go team. 🙂

 

Okay…I’m still a sickie so instead of a contemplative post, how about a list of a few other resources you should be checking out?

http://creativity-online.com/  

http://www.adweek.com

http://adage.com/

http://www.commarts.com/

http://www.howdesign.com

http://www.creativelatitude.com

http://www.fastcompany.com/

Why these? Why not more photo-oriented stuff? Because these are the people who (often) hire you. The better you understand them, the better you can connect with them. The better you understand their context, their struggles, their needs, etc., the better you can frame your solutions. 

There is a new Manual available (if you didn’t get it in your email already, by being on my list). There are also a few other minor changes and additions to the BAP site. If you haven’t been in a while, now is a good time to check it out.

That would be me. I got back from my travels and lost my voice. At first I thought it was just strain from all the SB2 lecturing, but it seems it was just the start of a bad cold or something. Ick. So, anyway, I’m not on my A-game and thus know better than to write anything too significant. 🙂 Instead, how about some links to some interesting stories…

For all of you who say they have to shoot digital, that they could never have a career if they shot film, I say shoot film if you want. This guy is making his career out of shooting tintypes.

This guy competes in freehand circle drawing. No kidding.

And are you in need of a hug? This shirt can do it for you.
(hat tip to Amul Kumar whom I met at SB2 Chicago)

I’m off to drink tea, juice, and take lots of Vitamin C to get over this nasty bug. 

Some of these are brilliant…take an old photo of you as a kid and recreate it now. I’d love to do this, but it would require a hill, one of my brothers, and a G.I. Joe doll (the other brother could take the pic of course, as before).

[hat tip to åsk from Adland]

Late this morning, my last train chugged into Union Station here in San Diego, and now I’m playing catch-up with the piles on my desk and in my email in-box. It’s amazing what can accumulate over a week (okay, 9 days) and add to that the connections made at SB2 and my usual work, and I’m going to be a busy girl for a while. But, as Stewart Smalley might say, that’s okay. It’s a good busy. Articles to write and new friends and clients to get to know better, etc., I can hardly think of a better way to spend my working hours.

One thing I have been missing is keeping up with this blog. During my presentations at SB2 last weekend, I’m afraid I may not have made clear just how important regular posting is if you have a blog–verbal or photo. These can be great tools, especially the photoblog for photographers (your clients don’t care so much about your words and thoughts in verbal form, they’d rather just see more images), but if you don’t keep up with them, they won’t do you any good at all. 

So, if you are going to blog, in any form, you must post regularly and fairly often. If someone comes to your blog once, likes it, and then comes back only to find that there is nothing new, you stand a good chance of losing that newly-minted “fan.” Twice, and they will almost surely bail. Of course, you can mitigate this by posting “I’m going on vacation” or “I’ve got a big shoot and won’t be able to post for a week” or “I’m going to be traveling for a speaking engagement” and people will forgive the lull, but generally speaking, you’ve got to give your fans something new.

Hopefully, you will enjoy the process. If you don’t, you shouldn’t blog. I know it’s one of my favorite parts of what I do, so when I don’t get to, it bothers me. But now I’m back, and back at it. 

Thanks for your patience during my absence. And thanks to everyone from the SB2 Chicago event–it was amazing. More on that…well…in another post. 🙂

I’ve been wanting to post about this but have been completely ensconced in the final SB2 until now–Giulio Sciorio in Phoenix is an interesting person and photographer. He is always thinking and he has come up with an idea that is going to piss off some people, but I bet it gains him a bunch of recognition. How it all will pay off in the end? Who knows. The idea? Take a hi-res version of one of his images and “remix” it yourself and share the results. More on his blog here.