We Have Kidnapped Santa Claus!

48 Hour Sale Starts Now
ENDS Saturday at Midnight!

We have captured Santa Claus! That's right! He was out making his rounds of checking the naughty and nice and i nabbed him and stole his bag of goodies. I found lots of great things in there: Photoshop Actions, Lightroom Presets, Photoshop/Lightroom Tutorials, Heather Bookout Sessions on DVD - even the famed RIPE Conferences in a DVD Box Set!

Well, I let the fat man go, but i kept all his wonderful toys and I'm making them available for purchase. You're going to have some time off for Christmas, so you might as well get something to do that's going to make you smarter during the holidays - viola! - RIPE Products! Learn everything that Heather Bookout does and how to incorporate it into your own unique image that will set you apart in the marketplace.

Since I feel bad about lifting these off St. Nick, I am going to offer a huge deal that will curl your Christmas stockings. If you buy any DVD Package*, you will get all of our Editing Tools for FREE! The Sale only lasts for 48 Hours - Ends Saturday at Midnight!



BUY ANY DVD PACKAGE* & RECEIVE our $350 EDITING TOOLS FOR FREE!
Guaranteed Delivery for Christmas!


*
DVD Packages that we have available:
(click on any of the following packages to go directly to the shopping cart)
Phothoshop/Lightroom Tutorials Package (sit in with Heather as she takes her images from start to finish in 15 lessons)

Heather In Action Package (follow Heather on 15 full portrait sessions)

RIPE Conference Package (6 life-changing topics recorded Live at the RIPE Conferences)


Your FREE Editing Tools (worth $350) when you buy a DVD Package include:
Photoshop Image Actions (22)
Lightroom Color Presets (over 25)
Lightroom Toned Presets (5 with 25 variations)
Book Template Designs (5x5, 8x8, & 10x10 Coffee Table Books)
Storyboard Actions (16)

48 HOUR SALE STARTS NOW! ENDS SATURDAY AT MIDNIGHT!
BUY ANY DVD PACKAGE AND RECEIVE OUR EDITING TOOLS FOR FREE!
GUARANTEED DELIVERY BEFORE CHRISTMAS



Merry Christmas, Everyone!!!

-Ben Bookout
www.ripephotographer.com
shop.ripephotographer.com
www.ripephotographer.blogspot.com
Bookout Studio & Design
7500 South Memorial Pkwy
Huntsville, Alabama 35802
256-881-3151

NEW BLOG

I've just done some re-vamping to the blog. I've posted some of my favorite entries from the past year below. And I'm working on a new entry now. I don't know - it takes me a long time to write these things - don't pressure me!

DOES MARKETING EVER STOP?

by Heather Bookout

Does Marketing Ever Stop?

When your marketing stops it causes a chain reaction that will eventually bring your business to a grinding halt. It’s kind of like a contagious disease. Your marketing stops and pretty soon it spreads to your phone - it stops ringing. Then you wonder why your phone stops ringing. You may even dial your business line from your cell phone just to make sure its still working. Next the epidemic spreads to your bank account. You wonder why the deposits have stopped. Help! It’s The PLAGUE! No, you’ve just stopped marketing. I want to talk about a few of the reasons that we as photographers sometime fail to market adequately. And I want to share with you some ways that I have found to overcome these obstacles.

The reason “The Plague” happens to some photographers is that the effects of “not marketing” don’t happen immediately. You don’t see the results until a month or so later. Marketing is very important, but it is not urgent. It’s what Steven Covey calls “a Quadrant 2 activity” in his wonderful book: First Things First. When things are urgent, they are sure to get done. Like when a client shows up at the door - there is an urgency. You immediately welcome her to your studio, help her in with her things and begin the shoot. But sending out a piece of direct mail to get the client to show up at your door? – there is no urgency (even though it’s just as important). What else is not urgent? Planning out your week . . . Coming up with promotion ideas . . . Building synergy with other businesses . . . Learning new shooting or editing techniques? All important stuff . . . but there is no urgency to doing them.

To overcome this problem, I set a whole day of the week aside that is just for planning and thinking. All the leadership gurus do this: John Maxwell, Stephen Covey, Napoleon Hill. It was very hard for me to do it at first because I felt like I was giving up a whole day of work. But in reality, if you do not set up adequate planning time you will be working on the wrong things throughout the week. Would you rather get a lot of “things” done, or would rather take the time to come up with beneficial ideas for your business? It’s all about my favorite rhyme: “Work Smarter – Not Harder”. We use Monday as our planning day. We have a creative meeting with the staff and then we spend time thinking and planning on our own or in specific teams. The results of the planning time turn up activities that can then be put on the calendar (in stone) and then they are assured to get done. And equally important as setting aside a complete day is using the first hour of every day to focus and plan the rest of your day. This concept has so totally revolutionized my business that I cannot stress the importance of it enough. All of my best ideas, all of my best marketing strategies and all my staff’s great ideas have emerged as a result of the planning time, and has taken the business to a “whole . . . nother . . . level”.

Another thing that happens to us is that we think, “If only I offer the highest quality work, I will have tons of business.” Not true at all. The best marketer, not the best photographer, wins every time. It doesn’t matter how good of a photographer you are if no one is there to take a picture of. Taking pictures is a great hobby, but if you want to have a successful business, you have to give up the hobby. Don’t get me wrong, I still love, love, love to take pictures – actually NOW more than ever. But that is a small part of what I do. Like my husband’s hero, Chuck Lewis, always says about going from hobbyist to business, “We are no longer photographers. We are marketers of Photographic Services.” It’s so true. Probably 5% of my time is spent doing shoots. And marketing is where I spend the majority of my time. But I love it all. It’s not always fun, but I have learned to love the challenge. So, my advice is that you should have a realistic expectation of what you should spend your time doing if you want to have a successful studio.

The next obstacle that I have observed in marketing is something that happened to me rather recently. I got so comfortable with my word-of-mouth advertising, that I laxed in other areas of marketing. We get in danger of succumbing to this one after we have built a large database of clients. But the majority of our marketing should be to attaining new clients. Even as much as 80% of our advertising needs to be toward first-time clients. Referrals from clients are important and will continue to be our #1 source of bookings, but we can’t lose sight of creating new clients or our business will eventually fail. Our goal, and this should be every studio’s goal, is to build up as much demand for our business as possible. Then we can set our prices higher and limit the amount of clients we take. So if we get so comfortable that we stop marketing, we will not be increasing our demand and therefore will not be able to eventually raise our prices. In a nutshell, market the heck out of your business to new clients, create a huge demand, charge high prices, and you’ll have to do less work. (P.S. We raise our prices 2 times a year. )

I hope you enjoyed me sharing what I have learned about marketing in my short 7 years of business so far. Remember to take the time to plan. Think about which day you will set aside for planning right now. Remember that you are a marketer first and then a photographer. And remember to never stop marketing to new clients, creating that huge demand. Well, I’ve got to go do some marketing. I am outta here . . . . .

OUR SPOOF COMMERCIALS on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4sbej86L_4

We showed these videos to clients at our Open House event. It got lots of laughs and really drives the point home of why custom photography is always better than chain studios and moms with cameras.

THE POWER OF SPECIALIZING

Take light!
Light from the sun brightens Earth.
Light from a bulb illuminates the room.
But light from a laser . . . can cut through anything (just ask Han Solo).
So why is light normally safe and harmless letting us enjoy the day or read a nice book, but in the form of a laser can be deadly?

The answer is: FOCUS. Lasers are just 'focused light'. They show us the power of focus. Imagine how much more powerful your business would be if all your time and energy were more focused. "Specializing" in your business gives you the power of focus. I'm going to tell you a few ways that specializing has helped us succeed in our business and I hope it helps you see the advantages you can enjoy by focusing yours.

Pick up your yellow pages and look at the Photographers in your area. I bet most of their ads say that they do everything: “portraits, children, weddings, sports, babies, seniors, animals, bar mitzvahs, landscapes, toadstools (okay, I’m exaggerating, but you get the point). It seems like a good idea to offer everything, right? I mean you don’t want to turn away business . . . do you?

Here’s the problem with offering everything. Imagine a radio station that played every kind of music: rock, classical, Christian, rap, country, reggae, & blues. Would you listen to that station (would anyone?), or would you find one that specializes in the kind of music you want? Radio stations have figured this out – you only hear stations today that specialize. So if you put yourself in the place of an excited young bride who is looking through the phone book, would you want a photographer who does everything? Or would you want someone who specializes in weddings? If you were an adoring new mother, would you want a “baby specialist”, or would you be content with someone who mentioned “babies” in the middle of a list of things they can do? So you see how it’s very easy to get passed over when you do offer many types of photography. In trying to catch everybody . . . you end up gaining nobody.

Besides attracting more clients, "specializing" allows you to do what you love to do. I’ve talked to lots of new photographers who do weddings . . . who HATE to do weddings. I can see the relief in their eyes when I suggest they specialize in something they love. We all know that we do a better job when we work on something we love as opposed to something we just happen to be “good at”. Like John Eldredge says in his book Wild At Heart, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Sometimes it takes a little bit of “doing everything” to find out what exactly you want to specialize in. But once you find the type of photography that makes you “come alive” . . . that is what you need to build your business around. That is the only way to succeed and enjoy every day of work.

[So don’t just agree to do any session that people request of you. It’s okay to tell people, “I’d love to help you out, but it’s really not my specialty. I would recommend Studio Blank for that – they are awesome!” Also, keep in mind that it’s fine to do the occasional gig that might be outside your specialty – just don’t advertise that you do it, and don’t put the images on your website.]

Another thing that is great about specializing is that it simplifies your marketing. Pretend that you work for a marketing firm and a client hires your services. You ask her who her target market is and she says, “New mom’s, expecting moms, to-be-brides, people who play sports, people with pets, people with families, high schoolers, and Jewish moms with young sons.” After your heart attack, you would probably decide to drop the crazy client. But that is the job for the photographer who does everything - their advertising budget is very high and spread very thin. But when you focus your business on one target market, you increase the power of your advertising. All your time, energy, money and brainpower can be locked onto one target, creating a laser that cuts through anything.

What specialties are there to choose from? When we started Heather Bookout Photography, we specialized in the first year of life: maternity, babies and children. We concluded that this is a narrow enough specialty because there are only a couple of months separating our clients who go from maternity to baby. And there’s only a couple of years separating babies from children (repeat clients). That specialty has worked very well for us. Getting people on baby plans is the huge payoff for our niche. I know very successful wedding photographers and I know photographers who just do families and make a great living. So there is no short-list of specialties – it’s only limited by what you want to do the most. Hey, invent your own specialty.

After we had achieved some success with HBP we decided to add another photographer. (you may have or may be thinking about partnering with another shooter). The way we made it work was to choose another specialty for our new photog (this prevents clients from being concerned about which photographer they will get). So we invented “Studio B” for high school seniors, starring Amy Douglass. We marketed it as a separate business to avoid watering down our brand and keeping the benefits of specializing. After all, what senior wants to go to a baby photographer? (They’re already sensitive about being treated like a baby). The way we structured it was to form Bookout Studios which houses 2 photography studios (HBP & Studio B), 1 video production studio (Bookout Films) and whatever specialty we decide to add later. Everything marketed as a stand alone business. Every manager responsible for their own marketing ideas and execution. Thus, not losing the power of focus and maintaining laser-like precision from each artist.

Think about your business like the first Star Wars movie. The whole Rebellion Fleet was focused on one thing: shooting one laser into one tiny hole to destroy the Death Star and win the war. They sent everyone on the one mission. They lost all their fighter jets except one. But because of their single-mindedness and perseverance, and focused plan, young Skywalker made it through and blew up the space station. So when you focus on a single purpose – at least 1 of your ships is going to make it through.


So that’s my viewpoint on specialization. Hope it helps you in building a profitable business and in finding your passion. So stay on target . . . stay on target . . . and keep your focus.

WHAT SHOULD I CHARGE? (3 parts)

WHAT SHOULD I CHARGE?

Part 1

I love the story about Picasso, who later in life painted portraits in the park for passersby. One afternoon as he was sketching a woman, he studied her for just a moment and created her portrait in a single brush stroke. She was thrilled until he announced his price: $5000! She argued, “$5000? But it only took you a few seconds.” To which Picasso replied, “Madam, it took me my entire life.”

How long did it take you to create your latest portrait? I don’t mean an hour of shooting and an hour of editing. I mean how long did you study your camera settings until you finally “got it” one day. How many nights did you spend unengaged from family activities learning Photoshop – frustrated in front of your computer? How many free sessions did you do building your portfolio and creating your website? That’s what it took for you to create your latest portrait. And you are charging HOW MUCH for an 8x10? I’m going to talk about how some of us are guilty of under-pricing our artwork and discuss a few ways we can all overcome the cerebral and emotional hangups that keep us from really charging what we are worth.

A DIFFERENT WAY TO LOOK AT IT: When clients come to you, they are commissioning an artist to capture their family in a completely unique fashion which they cannot get anywhere else. They are NOT going somewhere to “get some pictures took”. They can go to Target for that. But when they choose you, they are choosing to invest in art – so you CANNOT charge Target prices for that unique ability that only you can give them. You are a rare commodity. And people pay top dollar for rare commodities.

When Target sets their prices, they figure in their cost of photo paper, printing ink and labor, then they multiply it by 3 and PRESTO they have their prices. You and me both know that if we set our prices like that, we would go broke very soon. Even if we multiplied by 10 – we would get nowhere fast. “Markups are just not the way to go to set prices on your enlargements – we’ll just throw that idea out the window right now. What we pay the lab to produce a 30x40 is totally insignificant. It’s almost as insignificant as setting the price of the Mona Lisa based on how much the canvas and paint cost. Your portraits are YOUR ARTWORK! Your clients are paying for YOU – for YOUR ability – YOUR talent. Your prices are not based on a markup!



WHAT SHOULD I CHARGE?
Part 2

Jill started a photography business a couple of years ago. It was going good for a while, but she started running into financial problems. Jill was always very generous - I mean she would do free sessions for her friends & family, let people pay her later and never force clients to abide by her policies to the letter. She was so nice. She would also donate her talents to a local charity when she could afford to give up her time, but she became so busy with her business that it left little opportunity for that. She wasn’t making a lot of money, but she decided she didn’t really need THAT much money. She just needed enough to pay the bills and keep the business afloat. Besides, she didn’t want to become one of those rich, controlling-types like her uncle. Eventually, she got fed up with all the financial stress and decided to close her business and just do it on the side as a hobby. Does anyone know this lady?

Knowing good business practices and adopting a good pricing structure will only get you so far if you have some “emotional roadblocks” holding you back from really pushing through and making your business profitable. Last time, we talked about valuing yourself and your art enough to charge what you are worth. While that is a huge emotional and mental battle to win, there is also a key battle with “how you feel about money”. Until that is dealt with in our lives, there will be an invisible shield that keeps us from getting ahead no matter how well we build our business.

In the story about Jill she was having a few issues going on that are common to a lot of artists starting a business. She wanted everyone to know that she was generous, nice and not greedy. And she definitely had something personal against making money. I would like to take a look at all these issues and show you how Jill’s thinking was “all jacked up” and actually causing all of her problems with the business.

Let’s talk about generosity. Do you want to be generous in your business? Of course – we all do. But who do you want to be generous to? Your friends and family who want free pictures? . . . or people who REALLY need it? There are lots of people out there that we can bless with our talents who are in REAL need: foster children, terminally ill children, infant remembrance, the critically ill, those in ministry, deployed military – just to name a few. Isn’t it SO great to use your photography to bring love into these people’s lives? Don’t you want to be able to do as much of it as possible? It kind of puts doing “freebees” for our friends into perspective. If we are not making any money in our business because we always “give away the farm”, then we cannot bless those who have a greater need.

My wife, Heather, charges a lot of money for her photography skills and she has strict policies regarding payment and never waffles when clients (or friends) whine about prices. She’s really “mean” isn’t she? And because she’s so “mean” she can afford to do infant remembrance sessions, free sessions for foster kids, free sessions for military, go to the homes of terminally ill children and host free conferences to equip other photographers to build successful businesses. All of these cost money, gas, editing time and (most costly) the time spot given up for paying clients. And she LOVES it! A great man once said, “Be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves.” -Jesus. And I’ll leave this topic with another challenge – we can’t be generous to our own children, if we are unbalanced in our “generosity” to others.

In the story about Jill, she wanted just enough money to pay her bills and take care of her family. Noble, right? Actually, it’s kind of selfish if you think about it. She just wants to bless herself and her own. If she has no money left over, how can she be a blessing to anyone? How can she give to a good cause? How can she give offerings at church? How can she afford to take off time from work to do anything for anybody? For that matter, how can she afford to surprise her own family with nice gifts.
The bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 9:8 (Amplified Bible)
8And God is able to make all grace (every favor and earthly blessing) come to you in abundance, so that you may always and under all circumstances and whatever the need be self-sufficient [possessing enough to require no aid or support and furnished in abundance for every good work and charitable donation].
It’s actually God’s will that we are blessed beyond our own needs so that we can bless other people. It is really a selfish thing to desire only enough money to pay your own bills.




WHAT SHOULD I CHARGE?
Part 3

Charlie didn’t mean to, but he dropped the whole carton of eggs on the kitchen floor. He looked up into his mother’s eyes to see her look of horror and disappointment. He thought she must be so angry that she couldn’t even speak to him. She finished bringing in the rest of the groceries by herself while Charlie lay in tears on the couch. He made a vow right then and there that he would NEVER make a mistake again! Today Charlie is grown with kids of his own. And he NEVER makes any mistakes. If an accident happens, it’s always someone else’s fault. Charlie can never apologize to anyone because that would be admitting a mistake. He never takes any healthy risks with his business because that would be inviting a possible misstep. So his vow became a self-fulfilling prophecy – he NEVER makes mistakes. And boy, let me tell you, his wife and kids just “love” him for that.

How powerful are our words? The bible says that “Life and death is in the power of the tongue”. I think we can all see the evidence of this in our own lives. Words spoken to us or that we have spoken ourselves seem to trap us into a certain ways of life we were never meant to live. Even seemingly good vows end up causing us problems. The guy who said “I will ALWAYS be on time” ends up driving like a maniac everywhere he goes. The girl who said “I will NEVER look stupid” ends up never asking questions important to her success. Do you notice any of these in your life? Are their things you try to change about yourself that you just can't seem to? Can you see how these things are a detriment to your business?

Pronouncing a vow over ourselves is actually a sinful response to emotional wounds that we receive. It’s not that a vow is evil - coming from a morally bankrupt person, its just that instead of relying on God to heal our wounds, we decide that we can take care of it ourselves by issuing a self-reliant decree based in pride and arrogance. Instead of saying “I need you God, please help me to be more punctual and to be considerate of other people’s time”. We say, “I will NEVER be late.” The focus is on ourselves and our human power. It’s walking by the flesh instead of the Spirit. And so we pursue OUR way until we get all tangled up in our own web, and then God comes along and asks the famous Dr. Phil question: “How’s that workin’ for ya?”

God doesn’t punish us for making vows. They just come back to bite us because they are birthed out of the flesh in the first place. And "flesh" stuff never ends up good. Check out these 2 scriptures:

John 6:63 "It is the Spirit Who gives life [He is the Life-giver]; the flesh conveys no benefit whatever [there is no profit in it]." (Amplified Bible)

Romans 8:6 "Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored." (The Message)

Remember our friend Jill from Part 2? I mentioned that she was okay with “not making money” partly because she had a negative view of rich people. Her great uncle was a very rich and successful businessman. He was the only one in Jill’s family that had lots of money. She was wounded very deeply by him when he sought to control where she would go to college by offering her parents the money to pay for it. After experiencing this and other manipulative behaviors from her uncle, Jill (not wanting to be anything like her uncle) made a vow: “I will never be rich”. Now she is trapped by her own words. She can’t allow herself to be successful (subconsciously) because it goes against her own vow. She can’t charge the prices that she knows she needs to because an invisible force is holding her back.

A vow that's keeping you from prosperity could take many other forms - here are some common vows: Someone who grew up without money might vow, "I will NEVER be poor." Hello workoholic! If you experienced the neglect of a workoholic parent you could vow, "I will not EVER work hard" Hello, lazy bones! If you had a perfectionist father, a vow might be, "I will ALWAYS do things right." Can you say anal-retentive! Again, some of these things sound positive, but there is no such thing as a positive vow - they are ALL binding. We even start to find comfort in our vows even though we know they are screwing us up. Vows trap us in such a powerful way that they weave their way into the fabric of our life – it’s not a habit that we can simply break. To get free of their grasp we must go to the root of the vow and break its power over our life.


The first step in breaking a vow is admitting that it is sin. Until you come to that conclusion and ask God to forgive you for it, you can never be free from it. Then you must ask God to set you free from the power of your words and to heal the emotional wounds related to the vow. And you can use the power of your own mouth (you know, the thing that got you into trouble in the first place) to break the power of the vow. Only this time, you are speaking in Spirit and Truth. Here’s how a prayer might go:

“Father God, please forgive me for making the vow that I will never be rich. It was a sinful response to an emotional wound and I ask you to forgive me for not relying on You to heal my heart. Please heal my heart that was wounded by my uncle's control and manipulation and please restore all that has been lost because of this vow I made. With the power of my tongue, I bind the reaping of this vow in the name of Jesus. The power if this vow is broken off of my life and the consequences of my sin are totally vaporized by the power of the cross.”

For more on this subject, there is a great book called “I Will Give You Rest” available at : www.divinelydesigned.com
This book has helped my wife and I tremendously!

So, what does any of this have to do with photography business or knowing what you should charge? Well, knowing what you should charge and being able to do it are 2 very separate things! And I have a feeling that many of us know we should be charging a lot more, but something is keeping us from doing it. So, sorry I had to get all spiritual on you in this issue. But this topic of pricing really would not be complete or beneficial without tackling these all-important emotional and spiritual issues. And if you don’t really have a relationship with God or even believe in the power of Christ . . . “How’s that workin’ for ya?”