To Call or not to Call...

I'm a freelance photographer and so by association I'm also a designer, business owner, tweeter, data collector, account manager, artist and last but certainly the most important, marketing consultant.  The sheer amount of 'how-to' marketing information is daunting to approach.  Careers are built around this single subject, which can be broken into countless subcategories; market research, data collection, pull and push systems, long term strategies, market share, guerrilla tactics, logos, vision statements, 5 year plans, email promo cards and the most hated of them all, cold calling.  Do a cursory Google search on cold calling and you'll get the full spectrum of it being a waste of time to it being a foundation of marketing systems.  The old adage being it's better for them to come to you then vice versa, which is true.  If that happens they've already made that most advantageous connection of you having the necessary skill set to solve their problem.  But this only happens if they hear about you, and this is an example of what repeat clients are all about.  To get that client in the first place, the first connection, either they need to hear about you passively (through colleagues, work with competitors, articles, blogs, twitter, etc) or directly (which comes down to either email or a phone call).  The first connection is always awkward and uncomfortable, but once that's over with, even if nothing comes from that initial contact, you are no longer a stranger.  Here are my simple tips to make cold calling more fun, that's right I said fun and why shouldn't it be.  Why should any marketing be a bane, a nuisance, especially the uncomfortable parts of it.



-Be yourself, let your personality come through, connect with them as a human, not as a customer.
-If it helps to have a script, have one, but practice it so it doesn't sound like you're reading.
-Understand your potential clients, where their coming from, their needs not yours.
-Ask more than tell.  Listen.
-Keep the 'tell' short and simple; who you are and why you're calling.
-Get to know their particular problem(s) and figure out how to solve them.
-Smile while talking, it comes through in your voice.
-You're not going to make a sale with a cold call, that's not the point.  The main point is making a connection, an introduction, and if all goes well a face-to-face meeting.
-I like to stand when I'm on the phone, it keeps energy up and allows me to get my whole body into it.
-You are a distraction for their day, accept it and move on with your conversation.

This is a first step in the relationship building process, which is how it should be viewed.  A strong relationship with a client will have them coming back for more and referring you to peers and colleagues.

Cheers all!

Buildings, Spaces and Interiors

The past month and a half has been a hotbed of architecture activity.   I've shot, edited and shot some more.  Traveled from Napa to Stanford and many spots in between to re-brand my commercial portfolio.  From research centers to museums, houses to office spaces, I've shot a little bit of everything. Outside, inside, big vistas and small details.  I'm extremely happy with these new images and with this direction.  The visual elements are very similar to landscape photography in terms of light, composition and design.  I've been meeting with architects, interior designers and builders to get the word spread around.  This particular portfolio will be updated quite frequently as I'm photographing fresh images almost daily.  Stay tuned...

New Directions

I've decided focus on a new commercial direction with my photography, architecture photography.  I feel it could be a wonderful commercial outlet for this humble landscape artist.  After all it's essentially urban landscape, using a lot of the same techniques as photographing the natural environment.  San Francisco is a hotbed of cool architecture; classic, contemporary and ancient.  I plan on taking full advantage of this.  This is one area of photography I never considered.  I had always envisioned my commercial outlet to be a combination of nature and people, but as the years have gone by I've photographed thousands of landscapes but no people.  Unequivocally telling me perhaps I don't like to photograph people.  The brain can be such a powerfully manipulating device.  So far it's been fantastically interesting and I'll post fresh images as I shoot them.  The morning after thinking about this I went out and photographed a few buildings at sunrise, nothing spectacular, but as I grow into this new role I think they'll be getting much better.  Landscape artist, architecture photographer.

                                 The Academy of Sciences Building
Cheers All!

Interpratation not Replication

I've never liked the word belief, it's used to back fallacious arguments and close the door on open discussion.  So I'm not going to use it here, but instead use 'opinion', which hopefully will invite some discussion.  One of my opinions is photographic art is about interpretation not replication, which for me equates to snapshots.  A snapshot is just that, a frozen replicated moment, shot to reinforce the future memory of the event.  Art is as much about the artist as it is their medium.  I was in the National Gallery in Washington DC a few years back and under a series of stunning Monet paintings was a little plaque with a quote from him, "what I want to reproduce is what exists between the motif and me".  Photography has always been an outsider in the realm of the visual fine arts.  It's the one medium most everybody participates in.  And yet photographic artists are constantly being chided for over manipulation.  The comments, is this Photoshop'd, how's this manipulated, did it look like that in real life, and so forth abound during all photo discussions.  This is even evident on the photographers side, I've been in numerous galleries that stress how the images shown are as close to replicating the scene as possible, or how no filters were used, etc.  I could care less how an image was produced.  I like the final.  I want to feel what the photographer did, not see what he saw.  Show me more than a mere replication, show me your interpretation.  Because lets be real, all photography is manipulation, and I mean all.  Every photographic decision is a departure from reality; from shutter speed to saturation.  When a viewer once came rushing up to Ansel and said my god your images are so realistic, he simply laughed and so no, they are not.  The sky was not black, these images are how I felt, not what I saw.  That's right on.  So burn, dodge, add contrast, saturation to your hearts content.  Stand out and show your interpretation of what you saw, not simply what was there. 

Even Starbucks Has To...

We came across this NY Times article about a Starbucks in Seattle that at first glance isn't a Starbucks.  Even if you rarely, if ever, step inside one I bet you can conjour up what they look, feel and smell like.  That cookie cutter image, spread across the globe, is one thing that has built their brand and reputation.  You know exactly what you're getting when you go into one and I bet you can even recite their trademarked drink sizes, but even Starbucks has felt the econ pinch.  Well, this new Starbucks is a prototype for a possible brand shift in the direction of perceived local-ism.  I feel like 'local' is fast becoming the 'organic' word of the 21st century, which like true organic products can offer a real positive shift in how we make purchasing choices.  I'm 100% for buying as much locally as possible, but I'm getting away from myself.  The point I'm trying to make here is even a corporate giant like Starbucks has to reevaluate their brand, develop new strategies and maybe offer a decent cup of coffee.  Don't become stale in your own business.

Cheers All...

Pull Marketing

I wrote last week about starting a twitter account, I know revolutionary right, along with half a million other businesses.  But it's all part of a serious new system we're implementing here called pull/engagement marketing.  I didn't coin these terms but am very excited about where they're taking us.  This is all about building a following behind your work, your expertise, your brand.  Because lets face it, the 1-2% return rate on sending out mass promo emails doesn't seem to return the same amount you put into it.  I'm not suggesting you stop pushing promo pieces onto your prospective clients, but maybe you do it in a way to get them interested in not just your images but also you as a person and you as a brand.  How many times have you talked with someone who seems to be rolling in work about their marketing strategy, only to have them give you a blank stare or a sheepish grin and say they haven't marketed a day in their life.  I don't know about you but this drives me crazy, especially because I've put my time in cold calling, cold emailing, etc etc.  But now I think these seemingly lucky photographers actually have the best marketing you can have, they have their potential clients coming to them.  How does that happen?  It happens through referrals, providing consistent results, building a solid brand thats trusted, by being a professional, and by targeting the very people they want to work for.  The twitters, blogs, forums, linkedin's are all brilliant platforms for you to engage with potential customers, to talk about your work, to answer questions and to build your brand into a powerhouse or predictability.  So yeah, I'm liking the twitter.  twitter.com/scottmansfield

Cheers All!

Poppies!

Hey, it's The Wife here, I've hijacked the blog today..or rather, I'm 'guest blogging', for a dose of craft&design crossover.  Scott's Flora prints Etsy shop has been nominated for a Poppy.  What is a Poppy you ask? A well known and well respected design blog out of Vancouver called Poppytalk has created The Poppies...an award of sorts...but really it's an opportunity to get to know some new talent in different areas of handmade goodness.  Scott's Flora images are bright, fun, and affordable...and there are even poppies :)

If you have a moment please vote for Scott HERE...and check out his Flora print shop HERE.
Cheers,
Sara

The E-Myth

One of my clients gave me a book called "The E Myth, Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It" by Michael Gerber.  I'm definitely not a connoisseur of business literature but I ended up reading it in about a night.  I know I must be late to the game on most of his ideas, as it says on the cover more than a million copies sold, but to me they are eye opening.  What I took away was the foundation of most small business failure resides in the owner approaching the business undertaking as a technician and not an entrepreneur, as the expert in the 'thing' being sold.  It's good to be an expert if you are working for someone else, but as a small business owner you need that kind of dedication to the running of the business as well.  The technician gets in over their head and soon doesn't know which was is up.  He strongly advises to not only understand and use the different hats you must wear, but also approach the organization of your business from a strict by-the-book protocol, that you the owner invent and implement.  Treat your business as a model that could be copied a thousand times in a thousand different locations worldwide.  It's important to have predictable service and goods, the customer needs to have trust that what they are getting is the same as before.  I now see that business trust is predictability. 

I am however having a bit of a problem coming from the perspective of an artist/business owner.  I fully appreciate the multiple hats I must wear, but the foundation of my business is my creativity, and that ladies and gentlemen cannot be franchised.  Perhaps though, my organization can.  If the underpinnings of my business are run in a predictable manner, it would leave me in a better position in the future to have office staff to operate that end of it, leaving me more time to do the thing I love the most; making images.

Your thoughts would be wonderful to hear; are any of you having a difficult time being a small business owner, having to juggle the myriad of positions you hold.  Drop me a line, I'd love to talk one on one about it!
scott@scottmansfield.com

Cheers to you all...

Now I've Done It

Well I went ahead and did it.  What you ask, I've joined the masses and have myself a Twitter account.  Well, it's good for business, and strangely fun I must admit.  Many thanks to my dear loving wife for giving me the complete Twit breakdown.  She runs two:
slimartsgirl - her personal musings
photogwife - being the wife of a photographer is a 24 hour job, here are her thoughts on it

And for my newly discovered online personality, there isn't a lot on there yet, but there will be!

scottmansfield - thoughts, ideas, notes, musings, links and tid-bits

And now it's off to the twitter to mention this post, it's a never ending updating cycle,
Cheers to you all!!!

Your Brand

Branding seems to be an ongoing struggle with a lot of photographers.  I for one have struggled with a consistent brand, how to market my brand effectively and how to build on it without losing the core ideas.  It's more than a cool logo or letterhead, font choice or website colors.  I believe it's has as much to do with why you shoot, how you shoot, your ethos, and personality as it does the visual interpretation of these.  Especially because as a photographer you are the face of your business, how you talk with a prospective client can be as important as the font layout of your marketing media.  I firmly think all these play a vital role in building a successful brand.  I myself am in the middle of an important and much needed brand/business direction re-adjust, I say re-adjust and not re-vamp because I don't want to fully scrap what I've built but make it clearer, cleaner and much more refined.  A wonderful blog I read call Black Star Rising recently had an inspirational post on the importance of developing a consistent brand, check out the piece here (link to article).

Latest Job

I was hired to supply the images for an investment firm and ended up shooting the portraits and group shot as well.  It was really quite fun selecting images that would represent them from my library of landscape work.  They were all wonderful people to work with and please take a peak at their new site (the logo is linked), it looks beautiful!

When Change is Needed

When routine becomes ritual. When the same produces no results, when cynicism overrides the positive and when negative feedback loops are all you encounter.

Have you ever done anything, perhaps stepping out of character, that breaks the daily mold, only to have that ‘thing’ become a source of inspiration and excitement. That is the change I’m talking about; unplanned, spontaneous, fresh.

Is it good to throw away what you know, to start from scratch, to take a new leap? Yes, when a new perspective is needed, when a new direction is needed, when change is needed.