Posted by Scott on Mar 10, 2010 in
Marketing Let’s see are you the boss of your photography business? Would you rather be a farmer or in the mafia? Well then why the hell are you playing stupid games on facebook when you should be working? I get it you want to play imaginary games where you see your hard work pay off right away but finding a damn cow or earning some quick imaginary cash when you should be working is frickin stupid. Would you let your employees sit around playing retarded facebook games while they were at work? Then why do you let yourself do it?OK play your games at night if you must but don’t do it at the expense of your business. I know, two posts in two days of me ragging on facebook, but facebook has cost you more business than any mwac ever did! Your loss in productivity because of your Mickey mouse games is a big problem. I really think that the government should do a study to see if Facebook has actually caused the recession. 
loss of productivity x 100 million people everyday… I’m a genius for figuring that one out! Now if I could just learn how to spell and use good English language skills I would be…. Actually I would be boring so don’t worry about that.
You are allowed one 10 min break for facebook every 4hrs worked. And no facebooking until your homework is done! I know you want to be your own boss and all but this shit your doing now just ain’t working. Time for me to crack the whip on you and get you back on track! This has been a facebook intervention brought to you by myspace… Come back to myspace where we can give you one on one sexual predator attention. Myspace home of the click here to see my other pictures… OK I’m slap happy already today this should be a fun day!!!
Posted by Scott on Mar 9, 2010 in
Marketing You pray it doesn’t happen to you, because you never want to be that person walking out of a public restroom obliviously dragging a streamer of toilet paper behind them. Why? Because people look at you funny and think you are a big dork looser that’s why… Think about this… Is your business walking around with TP stuck to it’s shoe? I have looked at several photographers websites lately that are total dog crap. The Impression that they are making is worse than dragging TP behind them right infont of their potential clients. Pretend for a moment that your business has feelings too and stop embarassing it in public! Get your shit and shit paper together and make your businesses image to a higher level. This has been a public service announcement brought to you by charmin… Squeeze this!
Posted by Scott on Mar 9, 2010 in
Marketing We are closing in on the $20,000 mark so far this year in money raised for these kids. I need to sit back for a minute and really get a grip on what we have accomplished already. Why are we doing this? I really don’t know why? But damn does it feel good to do it! People always said it’s better to give than to receive, but who really thought that was true? I would love to get some sponsors to help us out with some auction items. SPA spartists.com is going to help us, I want to call H&H, and maybe I will call my friend Charlie at graphic authority… I have a whole list to call but no time to call them plus everyone is at wppi this week. If you are a vendor of something and you read our blog contact me about donating an item for auction. I am certain that we will break the 20k mark this month. We are meeting Maggie next week for her check presentation… I’m excited about that and want to thank all of you for your support!
Posted by Scott on Mar 8, 2010 in
Marketing Last time I auctioned off some 1 hr phone consultations we had three bidders right away… So here we go again.
I will offer three one hour phone consults for $100 each being donated to Sam.
Sign up here is the comments… first come first serve I even have some special free marketing gifts for the three special people that take us up on the offer.
If you could please post about the birth announcement templates available on your facebook for photographers and or on some of the other forums that you might be on for us to that would be AWESOME for SAM!!!
Posted by Scott on Mar 8, 2010 in
Marketing Times change and what’s the latest and greatest today will be obsolete and the butt of some jokes in a year or two… Facebook seems to have taken over our industry. However what is your return on time invested on facebook? Are you spending 4hr per day on facebook? Are you really taking full advantage of your contacts on facebook? What is your mission statement for what you hope to accomplish by your facebook efforts? Do you even have a clear focus of what you wish to get out of fb?
In real life no one really knows how many friends you have but on facebook everyone knows? Is your facebook page like a popularity contest for you? Like in life 3 great friends are way more important to you than 300 friends that are really just acquaintances. Which ones will help you move? Those are real friends… Great now you understand the concept right? Well now it’s time to get your business to move so find your three best friends and let them help you get it moving. Let’s get a strong connection with a few and go go go. I once lived on the third floor of a walk up and several friends helped us move. Is your business on the third floor? Do people not want to help you because it’s too hard to help you? Make it easy for your clients to help you. Everything is frickin Internet related and facebook has taken over the world… People like to be handed a physical printed marketing piece with their friend images on it. The success of our Entourage program is using physical marketing pieces that get handed to real friends in the real world. Are you even marketing in the real world? Or is your business stuck in the Matrix? People are closer together now then ever before because of the Internet but we are also further apart because of it. What am I saying??? I have no idea I typed this post at 3:00 am..
Posted by Scott on Mar 6, 2010 in
Marketing We have just added our newest addition to our shopping cart. We are starting off the 5×5 birth announcement collection for only $25 for all of these high res templates, and donating it to Sam. They can be converted into grad cards and other printed add pieces very easily. They are layered PSD files. You will need to act fast to get them at the $25 price. We are limiting the downloads to 100 at that price. The entire $25 purchase price will be donated to Sam. They are now available for download on www.shop.anatomyofcool.com
Posted by Scott on Mar 6, 2010 in
Marketing Our March donations are now being raised for Mr. Sam! Sam is a cool little dude from Indiana, and the son of a photographer. He is fighting brain cancer that just so happens to be the same type that AJ had. Sam in now half way through his big Chemo and that will continue until I think Erica his mom said until the middle of the summer. I know she said sam is all ready planning to have a post chemo party…. Your kids look forward to other kinds of party’s but not sam he has been having all kinds of unusual celebrations along his journey. I talked to Erica for a long time on the phone the other day. She told me their family story for about an hour. She is an amazingly strong woman and mother. She had me in tears just listening to her and never a crack in her voice as she described Sam’s cancer and his treatment. Even as she described the moment she learned of his brain tumor and how he was rushed off for surgery, and just to let you know that up to that moment her life was just like yours and mine. She is strong for Sam and an amazing person in my book. Sam had been nauseousand taken to the Dr. they figured it was a bug or virus. The Dr’s asked if he had been having any balance issues but he had not. They tested him for every stomach issue and other stuff until one day while ridding his bike Sam ran straight into a mailbox. His mom said he had always been a bit clumsy but she saw him do this and was concerned. She took him in for the Cat-Scan that the Dr’s mentioned they could just to check to make sure everything was OK a few days earlier. And from that moment on everything changed…
Proving that the world is a small place one of Erica’s best friends was my nextdoor neighbor for like 20yrs when I was a kid back in the Chicago area. Erica and I were introduced through Christy Marks Aj’s mom. Read more about Sam on his blog… http://ericarobinsonphotography.com/samsblog/ Watch for some really cool products coming soon for Sam.
Posted by Scott on Mar 5, 2010 in
Marketing Everyday in our business we come to a crossroad, and probably multiple times. Sometimes we catch a red light and other times we just coast right on through. Have you ever tried out the side streets? They can be fun to drive your business down. The main street has way too much traffic on it, start driving around on the side streets and enjoy all the pretty sights in the neighborhoods. Be careful not to always turn the same way because two wrongs don’t make a right, but four right hand turns make a circle and you end up back where you started but with a lot less gas in your tank. Don’t always travel on the same road. Take a chance… All roads lead somewhere, and everywhere. Is this too deep philosophically for you today? OK fine try this… *You can turn right on red! Don’t wait for the light to change just turn right.
* unless otherwise posted :)
OR,
” I want to turn my business around 360° “ OK dumb-ass but two problems with that… #1 you are just going in circles and #2 you end up heading in exactly the same direction you were before you decided to change your direction. Is altering your course 5° enough to get a change in your business? How about 1°? 90°? What direction do you really want to go?
Personally I want to go to the ”Boutique” extreme for our business. We are really excited about the new location and the new direction that the new place will allow us to go. Have you ever asked yourself why you want to go a certain direction with your business? Can you tell by today’s post that I’m really thinking about change? Everything must change, either you choose the change or one will be chosen for you without your input!
Ask yourself these questions….
Why do you want to change?
What exactly do you want to change?
What steps need to be taken and in what order for the change to take place?
Posted by Scott on Mar 5, 2010 in
Marketing I want to put together a Photoshop Action Set for our charity item this month. I am looking for submissions of actions that any of you all have created that you think might add some value to this action pack. Please don’t give me an action that you purchased from someone else I don’t want to distribute stolen material. But if you have a cool action that you think we may like to add to our $25 charity action set please send it to me today. info@avonpicturethis.com subject “Action for charity” I would love to have at least 25 actions in the action pack. Please send them in today!
Posted by Scott on Mar 4, 2010 in
Marketing Only after posting the Biggest Sale info on our blog we booked 3 sessions today. I have not even sent out the email blast yet. Crazy
I Downloaded a new app for my iPhone that will allow us to run our credit card transactions from my iPhone now. That’s kind of cool. The software upgrade also allow us to do it from our computer and to set up reoccurring payments for clients on payment plans automatically. Total cost $10 per month fee + our regular processing fees the fee is slightly higher since we are not swipingthe card 2.019% + .25 transaction fee. No set up or other charges. I just called our processor company and asked what they had available. It will be great for when we sell at trade shows. Verifone has a swiper that attached to the iPhone but I didn’t want to sign a contract that they wanted to use that I’ll just key it in for now.
Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. I had an order today from a session that we used in our workshop for a newborn baby. The dad was all covered in tatoos and mom just got released from the hospital on her way to the studio so she was not looking her best. They bought our $1259 collection and dad talked on and on about how many people he knows that he’s going to send our way. He was teasing me about why I made him take off his Mavado watch for the session and what’s up with that. I told him it was too big… then I told him the last Sprint Cup Driver I photographed I made him remove his big ass Rolex for his portrait with his baby… LOL They’ll be back they loved thier images big time… They were really nice people.
