Photo Success

A Place to Grow

After 22 years of marriage I finally taught my wife to curse…

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I’ll never forget it.

My mom was hanging a picture or something.
I do remember her holding a hammer.

I think I was all of 14 yrs old, me and my four younger sisters, running around, making life chaotic, loud as only a family of five kids can be loud.

My mom stopped, turned at us and yelled: “If you kids don’t F*CKING keep quiet…”…

Stunned silence.

Crickets.

The sound of a hammer rustling and grip tightening in her hands.
Our jaws hanging in shocked awe, eyes bursting wide with fear.

Never, we never, ever heard our mom swear. Ever.

It sure makes a room go quiet.

On that note, I noticed my wife started ‘cussin in the last year or so.

Finally. But I do feel bad, somewhat. She is not one to descend into vulgarities and bad taste. That’s my department.

See, I like swear words. It’s a habit of mine. I find it refreshing.
Cleansing. Offensive.

Sorry, is what it is. I know, I know, I’m a bad influence on her.

It’s one of the eventual side effects of being married over time.
You become to some degree the other person.

It’s the same with branding your photography business. (Not that being a potty mouth is a smart move around your clients. No no…)

But, good branding will eventually sink in. It takes time. Just like teaching your innocent sweet wife to go biker mouth.

Branding means in large part becoming a part of their hearts, minds and souls.

They think warm, positive, fuzzy feelings about you and your studio. They believe
in you. The feel committed. They love you and your product.

This is achieved over time, through years of sessions, offers, affiliation marketing, promos, events, displays (offline and online), sales room experience, reception rooms, publicity, networking, ads….you get the picture.

It takes time. A lot of time. And keeping your mouth clean of course.
Save the curse words for home when you’re with the kids and you absolutely must have silence.:)

Yours in photography and success,
Robert Provencher

“If you want to be a profitable and successful photographer, then study profitable and successful photographers.”
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How and why I teach photography 101 in my community

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I was asked a few years ago to teach a photography 101 class at our local library.

At first I was repulsed by the idea. But after some consideration I gave it the green light with a few conditions:

*The class had to be for serious amateurs. I didn’t want a basic 101 for those
with zero experience
*The class size limited to 12 attendees

Fine. They set a date, announced it, filled up the class with about 20 on a waiting list.

Whoa….ok. The interest is there.

After I ran my first series I noticed a few things:
* the students were eager. They ALL showed up consistently and ALL did their assigned
homework
* I really enjoyed teaching it.
* My style of teaching seemed to be a hit.

Go figure. It was working.

And I had NO idea what I was doing insofar as exactly what to teach. I made it up as I went along, following certain parameters:

*I did NOT want to go all techie, you know, let’s look at ALL the camera settings, file types, bla bla bla
*I wanted to PUSH the students to learn to SEE light, learn composition and create a style their own

This of course required some serious distractions. And this was of paramount importance to me.
Teach them to see, and they’ll learn for a lifetime.

I bombarded them in each class with establishing my credibility (showing images I created), going over the basics of exposure (ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speeds) and how tones & light works (source, distance, angle,shadows, mid tones, specular highlights).

Rinse, repeat….over and over. And do the same while going over the images they submitted each week.

This worked. NO endless rambling about camera settings. Just pure learning the art of “seeing”.
My version of tough love.

They never asked about histograms, file types, camera types, lenses or any other academia distractions.
The way I see it, those questions will arise and get answered organically as they master the art of seeing.

I wouldn’t want to teach this any other way. It wouldn’t be fair to them, and it won’t be nearly as fun to teach.

So when Kirk Saint asked me how I taught these classes, I offered to run a webinar style meeting. Which I recorded, and placed in the forum.

That, AND my powerpoint files for members to use as models in case they want to teach something similar in their community.

Members access HERE.

Yours in photography and success,

Robert Provencher

“If you want to be a profitable and successful photographer, then study profitable and successful photographers.”

“…it was not going to be easy street being a photographer, in case I had any illusions…”

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Let’s go back in time. Way back.

I was a mere 19 years old and I recently discovered photography and the darkroom, that mysterious magical place where images came to life.

I was at the time in college, taking a bird course of sorts, trying to figure out life.
(Photography was one of the courses we needed in order to pass said bird course.)

Photography changed my life, my destiny. But more than that, the two people I met while in this course mattered even more.

The first one was Karl, the photography prof.

Now Karl was not loved by everyone. He was scary, brash and loud. I, however, put him on a pedestal. He was outspoken, brash and he knew photography.

He also had no tolerance for sloppiness or lazy work. I admired that and respected him for it.

I naively asked him if I also bought a Leica (his brand) camera if I too would become a good photographer.

He laughed. It’s not about the camera. Okay, got it.

He set the pace for my career. I knew back then there was no room for being less then your best or being sloppy.

And while some students cowered and crawled in the  corner when he came storming in the darkroom, I stopped and listened.

I was not a good student overall. But I was a good student where it mattered. And it mattered as far as Karl was concerned.
He knew his stuff. And I was eager to learn.

To this day, and I think we can all learn from Karl, being a good student matters.

No ego. No sensitive snowflakes too afraid to “get their feelings hurt”, always opting for political correctness over quality teaching.

Sad. But true for many. Their loss.

I decided to quit that program and pursue photography full time. Enter Fritz Grottoli.
Mr.Grottoli, the head of the program, sat me down in his office and gave me a one-on-one talk that to this day still resonates.

He warned me it was not going to be easy street being a photographer, in case I had any illusions.

He told me I was going to starve, and live every day in doubt and uncertainty.

Good thing. If he told me it was going to be easy, I might have believed him.
He set the pace.

They both did. And to this day I am grateful. It was the BEST education I could have ever asked for.

Every single successful photographer I know, and there are many of them, in spite of what the doomsayers and pessimists say, all have this one thing in common.

They were good students. And still are, no matter their success.

They pushed forward. Eager. Wide-eyed and ambitious. Burning with passion and they showed up. Day after day, month after month, year after year.

Success is like that. You don`t accidentally find it one day. You pursue it with dogged determination.

Truth is, nothing much has changed, has it? The business of making it in photography is still very challenging. As it was then, so it is today.

And you learn the one thing that neither Fritz nor Karl knew, or failed to mention at the time, but I discovered because I never gave up….. that marketing, and becoming a marketer of photographic services was the missing link.

Yours in photography and success,
Robert Provencher

“If you want to be a profitable and successful photographer, then study profitable and successful photographers.”

How to get from incompetent to competent….

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The substance of what makes a business run and what makes it great isn’t on the surface (design, image etc etc).

The true substance is much deeper. IN the grueling, disciplined sweat. pain, blood and turmoil……PLUS,  a few secret ingredients.

I’ll get to those in a second.

First, take my story as example…

I had acquired by some weird twist of fate a beautiful large home studio.

I was terribly wet behind the ears and as green as grass when it came to running a pro photography studio.

I did however have big dreams, hopes and ambitions. And, in the grand scheme of things, knew enough about taking decent photographs to get me started in my own business…barely…and…largely because I had the balls to get out there and do it.

I had several years as a darkroom techie….almost one year managing a chain like studio and….better yet….

…several years photographing schools….which did more for my self-confidence than anything else.

And I was only 25.

I had a ways to go. I knew little about management, accounting, selling and all those essentials.

I did my best. I took a night course at our local college on running a small bid’ness…

I asked my landlord, the dude who gave my this amazing opportunity, for some tips on setting up the books and all thing accounting.

The key = I asked for help. This attitude got me far in life.

I hate bookkeeping with a passion and eventually did what I feel most photographers should do…

I farmed it out.

Paid a lady $50.00 a month to come in. On busier months, she’d want more. I paid her whatever she wanted.

It meant I was getting busier.

But I was glad not to be doing the books…yeessshhhh.

In studio management, it occurred to me years later how incompetent I was in this area once I married my wife and she and I started working together.

She as manager, me as photographer and marketing director. Two essential jobs I loved!

We were now competent. A team. And the studio skyrocketed!

This whole idea came to light a few years ago when I booked Maggie Habieda as a speaker for the Inferno workshop.

Maggie, as I was dealing with her, when it came to payments and anything non essential, had me communicate with her studio manager, Ian Cuthbert.

Everything was run very professional. She delegated.

I noticed this and thought, one of the reasons she is so successful is because she brought someone like Ian into the picture to help her studio grow.

And grown it has!

She not only was the most popular and energetic speaker, she showed us how she grew her studio in a matter of a few years.

Amazing story. Great news when so many are saying the days of the full time studio are numbered.

Phhhoeeeyy! Don’t believe it for a second.

Just because there are hot dog and lemonade stands popping up all over doesn’t mean there isn’t a market for something better.

People want gourmet and fine dining.

It’s a huge market.

And that’s the market I cater to. As well as many successful photographers I know who are crushing it. Photographers like Maggie.

Remember a while back I said:

“I asked for help. This attitude got me far in life….”

Newbie or old timer, we all need to ask questions, learn, and seek out deep, meaningful answers.

And who you ask is important. You don’t want bad advice or opinions. Everyone’s got ’em.

You want real, solid information from qualified photographers like Maggie.

Wish I had a Maggie way back when. We can all access Maggie and her super powers in the photography forum HERE.

Maggie at the inferno 2013 HERE

Maggie at the Inferno 2014 HERE

The journey to competence starts by asking the right questions and asking the right people.

Yours in photography and success,
Robert Provencher

“If you want to be a profitable and successful photographer, then study profitable and successful photographers.”

Don’t fall for these 3 profit killing traps in your photography business…

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The list of profit killing traps is much bigger, but here’s three big ones off the top of my beanie little head:

*Free shoots for friends
*Online proofing
*Giving clients too much time to “think about it”

It’s all about value, and how it gets perceived.

The truth is, we get SCARED and LAZY. It’s why we give shit away. This includes
giving away control.

The antidote is courage and work. We’ll be talking about these items, plus a bunch more in the next Marketing Mastermind meeting for June 2017.

Stay posted, stay frosty. Dates and details coming soon.

Meanwhile, members can go grab previous Mastermind Meetings HERE.

Yours in photography and success,
Robert Provencher

“If you want to be a profitable and successful photographer, then study profitable and successful photographers.”
JOIN US
P.S. I am raising the cost to join this forum. Seriously, at $20bucks (Canadian funds no less) I am INSANE… and everyone tells me so. And I know it. SO, in ONE week I am adding a $97.00 INITIAL SIGN UP FEE.

Unless you’re already a member or sign up this week. (You’ll be ‘grandfathered’ as they say…..)

Are you a prima donna? 3 BIG pitfalls to avoid when you fall into this trap….

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One of the worst things you can do is get a great big ego in business.

You know, a prima donna….lead ballerina….I been there.

My  head got so big I lost focus of what really mattered….profits and business.

I lost touch with reality. Thought I had wizard-like talents and God-given magical powers.

To succeed in business, especially in the photography business, one needs to be grounded, focused and realistic.
Above the fray, as they say.

Many struggle with this. Hence why I am here to hit you over the head with solid grounding advice.

Seriously, our market is saturated with egos and prima-donnas.
Musicians suffer this too.

I imagine not so with industries like plumbers, accountants and butchers who don’t nearly have this to the same degree we do.

Can you imagine? Joe the rockstar plumber? Awards and medals. Plaques too.

But not us’em photographers. It’s like it’s a built in our DNA reaction.

We start getting good, and dang-it, we’re good! Time to start wearing cool hats like those gooroos.

Time to walk on water. And we wonder why we’re not making any sales.

The solutions is to stay focused. Get over myself.

Don’t let my ego get the better of me like a wild stallion bucking out of control.

The truth is, most successful photographers are serious and dedicated.

They avoid drama, whether in forums, flakebook or elsewhere, and are too busy running their studios.

Being a prima-donna is all about trying to make an impression.
A false one, but one nevertheless.  And we wonder why we’re not making any sales.

“Work under the radar, and above the fray.”

Wiser words have never been uttered, except maybe, was it that ancient
Greek dude when he said it simply: “Know thyself.”

Be not ye a prima donna……:)

Yours in photography and success,
Robert Provencher

P.S. Last night we had our May Marketing Mastermind…REPLAY is in the forum.

P.P.S. Tomorrow afternoon we’re having our Lighting Mastermind with special guest Maria Sampao, where we’ll be going
over and tweaking lighting for fairy portraits (Maria had her first ever Fairy Day…wait’ll you hear her sales…..)
REGISTER

“If you want to be a profitable and successful photographer, then study profitable and successful photographers.”
JOIN US

Freedom 55 is a load of bull…

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Three years ago I turned 55. I know! I can hardly believe it myself.
I made it this far. Who’d a thunk.

Three years I also had what I now call my existential beach crisis.

It all started when I was standing in our spacious, open concept kitchen, looking across to our dining room, a “family room”, and over the other way, the official family room, complete with leather furniture. PLUS, we had a fully decked out room in the downstairs area,  with a 60 inch plasma screen TeeVee, ping pong table and sauna. The whole dealeo.

I stood there, pondered: “Do we really need three living rooms? Really?”

Thus began my crisis. We sold the house, with studio, cleaned out about 90% of our possessions, and started spending more time in Costa Rica, where my beach crisis began.

I have NO regrets minimizing our possessions. It’s a cool exercise, and I’d do it again in a flash.

However, I was without a studio for about 1.5 years. That part got to me.

WHY?
I realized I am what I am….a photographer. I need my studio.

So, first opportunity came up and we jumped back into a studio. Last week we completed the wall samples, lighting and furniture (I know, I know…). Signage, window dressing, new flooring, paint and such. Ready and good to go!

Feelz like I’m starting over. Luv it!

Why do I bring this up?

Two reasons….one, we can’t predict what the future is. Even with best laid retirement plans, we may get hit with something out of our control. (How many folks do you know who retired and either dropped dead or got seriously ill)

And two, why retire?

I means seriously? Who came up with that lame-ass idea?

I think retirement is for pussies and the delusional.

Stick with me on this one. I have good news.

Remember that commercial from some evil insurance company that promoted some lame idea that they called “Freedom 55”

What?

Freedom?

From what?

What kind of a hellhole do you have to be in to think that some day, down the road, maybe if you’re really lucky, you can “retire” and stop doing whatever big freaking mess you created for yourself in the first place, and “break free”.

And do it by age 55….I mean c’mon…..who they trying to kid?

Here’s my deal.

I ain’t retiring. Not now, not never.

Ever.

I love working. And work loves me. If you don’t love it, I have some advice….QUIT!
And do something else.

It ain’t worth the price you’re paying. I don’t care how much your paycheck and benefits are. How big your house is. How many toys you got.

It means nothing, NOTHING if you aren’t doing something that fulfills you.

And every day, most days that is, I feel fulfilled doing what I’m doing.

If I get old and feeble, and can’t work no more, hell, I’ll go down to the old age club and volunteer. Or kick some ass…..something. Do something!

But that’s a long way away for me.

You see, I feel 25. Many people are amazed at my health, my energy. Many think I’m younger. My wife wants me to grow up. Ain’t happening anytime soon….

Nope…I’m having too much fun. And loving it.

All because I’m creating, making money, growing a business…all in photography.

I feel in my heart that the biggest reason we stay in our self -made rut is simple.

It’s fear. Nothing more, nothing less.

Be honest with yourself.

On that note, tonight I am running the monthly marketing mastermind meeting for noBs photo success inner circle members.
AND, I’ll be talking marketing, showing some images from my new studio decor and we’ll answer, tackle YOUR questions.

But you gotta be a member….Here’s the link…:
https://photosuccess.com/forums/nobs-digital-shop-talk/mastermind-marketing-meeting-may-23rd-join-us/

The mastermind meeting is one of the most important activities you can
participate in for success, prosperity and health.

Not a member?

Yours in success in photography,

Rob

How to annihilate the “we don’t give digital files” argument forever

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Clients were in the front reception area of our studio, settling in with my wife, as she was about to show them the results from their fairy day session.

It’s been like that all week, since we just had another successful sold out Fairy Day promotion the Saturday prior.

I could hear excitement, energy, enthusiasm.

Me like. There’s NOTHING like clients in my place who are happy.

NOTHING.
$
It occurred to me this emotion is the most POWERFUL antidote to the negative energy that sometimes afflict clients.

You know, the whiney, price shopey, complaint-filled, bitter, no-show, late, haggle or try to get a great deal on FILES ONLY client. You know the type.

I overheard one client say something to the effect of: “You guys do AMAZING work..”

This, before she even saw her images.

Why did she say this?

My quick list:
*our reception area rocks. Well light, music, smells, and many high impact samples on
the walls.
*we gave her and her children an AMAZING experience during their photo shoot
*we managed all their expectations
*we have ‘market position’, AKA…branding (if you want to call it that)

When all pistons are running on these main points, you have a winning combo.

And I plan on digging deeper into this next Tuesday, May 23rd, 9:00PM when I host
our monthly marketing mastermind meeting.

For members of nobs photo success…go here.

Not a member? Join us.

This could be the very thing that you need to hear to point your photography business
in teh right direction.

Works for me. And many others….It’s why I am an open book with my members.
I want you, I want them to succeed.

Yours in photography and success,
Robert Provencher