From the course: Running a Photography Business: Pricing Your Work

Knowing what's hot and what's not

From the course: Running a Photography Business: Pricing Your Work

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Knowing what's hot and what's not

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- The bottom line to everything is, you build your business, your packages, your pricing, you've got to know what's hot and what's not. And I have a lot of fun with this picture on the right here which some of you may have seen in one of my previous videos This is by Carey Schumacher. Google Carey Schumacher or Barefoot Memories. She's based out of San Diego, she is a phenomenal children's photographer. Again, because she's in San Diego, she's got one of the most scenic beaches and places to photograph in the world and does a lot of family sittings. And it'll give you some more ideas from a very well-respected and talented artist in the industry. Now in terms of knowing what's hot and what's not, right off the bat you've got to pay attention to new products That's a reason to be able to hit as many conventions as you can, that's a reason to subscribe to a lot of company corporate newsletters and vendor newsletters that are out there. The point is that by building those relationships with your manufacturers and vendors you've also got a chance to know what's hot and what's not when it comes to new gear. Now, new technologies and applications. They are changing all the time. If you go back just a few years ago, in order for you to incorporate video into a hybrid slideshow, you'd be shooting with two different cameras. Today you've got the ability to go back and forth between still images and video and be able to put that all together in terms of great slideshows. PhotoDeck I mentioned earlier, companies that are out there creating great software. You've got to understand the technologies. And again, you want to know what's hot because by knowing what's hot you're presenting new ideas to your client base that the average consumer wouldn't normally see. It's also important, the only way you're going to know what's hot and what's not, is to keep building relationships There we are again, it's UnMarketing with Scott Stratten, you've got to build relationships. That is the strongest tool you've got, for your business, for your network, for everything that you're doing is always going to boil down to the relationships you've built whether it's with the clients or the vendors, or for that matter other photographers, your competitors. Build a relationship so that you're competitors, but you're also friends. And you can share information and work together because the two of you together, even though you might be fierce competitors, you've got the ability to really stimulate the market and create some excitement and awareness for photography. And the last thing is understanding consumer trends. It's so important for you to know what's hot and what's not. And as a great example, if you go back probably about, if I remember right it's probably about 15 years ago, there was a Tylenol ad and it was all in black and white, and in the end of the ad, they used selective color and the little Tylenol tablet came in, in yellow and red. Consumers get their ideas from the television shows, the online shows, the newspapers and magazines they see. It's not necessarily photographers that are setting the trend, but the information that consumers see every day. So you need to understand and pay attention to consumer trends. Walk through a mall, and look at the way major stores display their products. Look at the way Tiffany's for example, displays jewelry in a window. They don't show you everything they sell, they only show one or two items that's in a showcase, they're well lit, and then you've got that trademark turquoise bag that is so representative of Tiffany's. So when you're out shopping, pay attention to the way products are displayed because it's going to help you understand consumer trends and the way you need to present your work.

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