Steve Spalding tells us “Your competition doesn’t exist”. In his article by the same name he explains that we are wasting our time competing and worrying that someone else is going to steal our next big idea and it makes sense! He urges us to look at what makes us special…
The fact that there are dozens if not hundreds of other people doing something similar to you only means that you need to be absolutely sure that you establish what it is that you actually do, what makes you “special” and why you got into the space to begin with.
Holy cow, he just gave away one of the biggest secrets of all! Sell yourself and instead focus on networking or what he calls collaboration.
Putting too much effort into competing is also an extraordinarily destructive force for a small business owner. Not only are you wasting energy and resources trying to make yourself look better by making someone else look worse, you are also closing yourself off to the opportunity to collaborate.
Hey I’ve got a crazy idea! Why not join a PROFESSIONAL wedding photography community and network with like 5000 other photographers?
HINT: I’m talking about the DWF.
2 Comments at "Competing With Others Is Destructive"
Competition doesn’t exist? As important as networking is, I have to disagree when it comes to my area. Price point and features (and of course quality) seem to be the main deciding factors for brides.
Organizations around here that hire wedding shooters as private contractors and then farm out the post processing to a number of individuals and labs have been known to feature the cream of the crop in terms of photo quality on their face, making a crap shoot as to the actual product couples receive. I’ve had friends who’ve been burned (as clients) by the whole operation.
The organization must get clients via wedding shows. In the past, they may have had some good stuff to choose from, but with more photographers out of work lately, I guess they’ll hire on for less- kind of important when the organization wants to make the bottom line and attract clients when those in the market are being more discerning about price.
In this case, a specialized kind of “networking” did help the photographers in the short term, but I’ve got the feeling reputation may drive clients away from the group, leaving participating photographers hurt by this networking.
How did the anecdotal relate to my first point? Not much, but I do make a point to say that competition can be done through networking. As to how effective it is, I think that should be evaluated on a case by case basis.
So how’s business? How has digital cameras effected the market for the professional photographer?
Sure, I get the phone call once in a great while. “We’re canceling our appointment because we’re trying to save money. We’re going to give our cousin Fred a shot at taking our senior pictures.” “We’ll call you if it doesn’t work out.”
A phone call or two like this doesn’t get me down, it makes me stand up and be a more excellent photographer. It also gets me motivated to educate. If the average person doesn’t know what a professional can do for them, they don’t know what they are missing.
There are so many elements to consider when making a professional portrait. Here are some factors to consider when making a portrait:
Composition, color and design.
Direction, quality and color of lighting.
Personality, attitude and experience of the photographer and the model.
Aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings.
Direction, angle and placement of the camera position to the model.
Focal length of lens and how it effects distortion of the image or background compression.
Notice how I haven’t mentioned what type of camera or how many mega pixels you should have? Having a good keyboard doesn’t mean that you’ll write good books.
Many years back, I got a chance to fine tune one of these elements. A man arguing with his son in my front lobby, to say it was heated argument was a great understatement. The father stormed into the camera room and pointed his finger at me and shouted “and we’re not buying pictures from you unless he smiles” and slammed the door on the way out.
I stood there shocked and amazed at what just had happened and thought “how in the world am I going to get that to happen?” I told the boy I would give him some time and I left him alone and felt so bad for him. I didn’t even care if I got to do pictures at this point; I just wanted his situation to change.
A good five minutes passed by and I came back and had a coffee talk with him, shared a little bit about my life and how I got started in business and some real life challenges I went through. I got him in front of the camera and told him he didn’t have to smile. I took a few shots and jokingly said “but if you smile once, I promise to end the session immediately”. He did, it ended and they bought pictures.
I was preparing to teach a photography class a week or so ago and the thought arose “why am I teaching people to do their own pictures, when I want them to hire me?” I also thought briefly that the other professionals in the community may criticize me and think this would hinder business. By the time I finished the outline for the class, I rested secure. I realized I could teach and teach and teach as much as I wanted, but the students still have to go through what I have been through the past 20 years since I started photography.
You can’t put a price tag on education and experience. No matter what digital imaging has done to the photography market and who has what mega pixel camera, photography is still technical and is still an art form.
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