**Great news! We’re hard at work updating this guide and will be re-releasing it shortly. In the meantime, check out The Photo Life Social Media Guide!** Happy Holidays TPL friends! Can you believe 2012 is quickly coming to a close? How’d your business fare? Whether it’s been a fantastic year of growth or a frustrating year of decline, now is the time to reflect on 2012 and look ahead to identify ways that you can make 2013 your best year yet. Consider running away from it all? Actually, that’s one of the smartest things you can do to improve your business: schedule a retreat. Make plans to get away (even if you don’t go far) and take time for focused and productive business planning. Use this Field
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The Perks and Pitfalls of Getting Published
**Great news! We’re hard at work updating this guide and will be re-releasing it shortly. In the meantime, check out The Photo Life Social Media Guide!** Photographers everywhere are talking about getting published. How to do it, what magazines to submit to, and “secrets” to getting an “in” with editors are all popular discussions. BEFORE YOU JUMP ON THE BANDWAGON… And start spending valuable time trying to get published, it’s important to understand why! WHAT’S INSIDE Reasons to get published Shooting and workflow tips for getting published Keys to leveraging relationships with publications What editors want Tips for streamlining the submission process
Unsatisfied with Your Size? Your Business Size, that is!
**Great news! We’re hard at work updating this guide and will be re-releasing it shortly. In the meantime, check out The Photo Life Social Media Guide!** Today thousands of smart photographers got the latest Dispatch from The Photo Life. Inside is a guide for expanding your photography business. In addition, the Dispatch is sporting a sleek new design. What you’ll get: 1) Strategies for Expansion 2) Case Studies from Two Top Photographers who Successfully Added Associates to their Businesses
The Mashable Movement Part 2
**Great news! We’re hard at work updating this guide and will be re-releasing it shortly. In the meantime, check out The Photo Life Social Media Guide!** What if Photographers Stopped Trying to Combat Change and Embraced it Instead? It’s a question worth asking again and again. And again! That’s why this Dispatch seems familiar to you. It is. Re-releasing “The Mashable Movement” is a challenge to you to consider this inescapable question and find your unique answer. What if YOU stopped combatting change and embraced it instead? What would that look like in your unique business? Let’s take a look together. What’s Inside: A challenge to look at your photography business in a different way, to see your clients as collaborators rather than consumers. Inside you’ll also
The Mashable Movement
**Great news! We’re hard at work updating this guide and will be re-releasing it shortly. In the meantime, check out The Photo Life Social Media Guide!** How Collaboration Changes the Way Photographers Do Business Aristotle was onto something. When he said that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” he set the stage for collaborative business models. What Aristotle accurately observed was that a cohesive group working together outperforms even its best individual member. What if photographers started working with their clients to create a more valuable result than either could create on their own? Fill out this form to receive monthly Dispatches right to your inbox. We won’t sell or distribute your email address, we’ll guard it like a national treasure!
Your Holiday Sales Guide
**Great news! We’re hard at work updating this guide and will be re-releasing it shortly. In the meantime, check out The Photo Life Social Media Guide!** Sales is More than the Act of Selling December 1: cue consumer chaos. Dare to venture into a mall anytime after Thanksgiving and you’ll be bombarded by brash, blingy sales messages. They’re everywhere screaming, “More, More, More” and “Buy, Buy, Buy!” It’s downright maddening. Savvy small business owners know that sales is more than the act of selling. It’s an art that starts with selecting the right products and services to offer your clients. In fact, the act of selling is the last step in the sales process. Knowing your clients and carefully curating products and services you offer
The Photographer’s Guide to Content Marketing
Just as your sales process should gently guide your clients toward a common goal, so should your blog. Your blog is an effective marketing tool when you use it to connect with ideal clients and guide those clients to a common destination. This Dispatch will explore the principles of Content Marketing, a concept that uses valuable content to turn potential clients into clients, and clients into repeat clients. WHAT’S INSIDE: The Content Marketing Field Guide by The Photo Life An In Depth Look at Your Sales Funnel by The Photo Life You Don’t Fit Into a Box by Elizabeth Villa Creating a Client Focused Content Strategy by Erin Youngren 5 Tips for Killer Content by Katie Humphreys TAKE A LOOK: When you started your photography
In-Person Sales for Portrait Photographers
**Great news! We’re hard at work updating this guide and will be re-releasing it shortly. In the meantime, check out The Photo Life Social Media Guide!** Be a Shepherd, not a Salesperson. Don’t be shy, get to know your clients. Help them fall in love with you. Guide them gently. Portraiture is a high-touch genre of photography that requires rapport. The more time you spend personalizing the photographic experience for your clients, the more you’ll sell. Rather than assume the role of salesperson, think of yourself as a guide, shepherding clients through an important acquisition. The photographs you create for them are significant milestones in their family history, so they deserve expert attention and customized care from a professional photographer like you. Imagine you’re sensitively
Get Your Life Back: A Simple Guide for Organizing Your Business
**Great news! We’re hard at work updating this guide and will be re-releasing it shortly. In the meantime, check out The Photo Life Social Media Guide!** Passion and Productivity Can Coexist Balancing passion and productivity is a hallmark trait of successful creative professionals. When our workday becomes driven by extraneous elements and dangerous distractions, both passion and productivity suffer. How do we combat distractions and channel our creative energy into meaningful, productive work? Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison advises her students that discovering when they are at their best creatively is one of the most important things they must learn. She prompts them with some questions: “What does the ideal room look like? Is there music? Is there silence? Is there chaos or serenity?
Social Media for Grown Ups
The Revolution will be Tweeted/Facebooked/Instagrammed…please RT! I’m an early adopter. Ok, some might say I’m a social media geek. It’s true. Hopping on the social media bandwagon wasn’t hard for me. Within weeks of joining Facebook, I was exhilarated by the possibilty of connecting with new and old friends. It seemed stunningly simple. “Friending” someone was more than a fun novelty; it satiated my craving for community. That universal human need for community is exactly why the operative word in social media is “social.” Real leaders in social media don’t use tools like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to opportunistically build their businesses. They use these tools to build genuine relationships. Social media is not productive – or powerful – until it transforms a loose group