Wise words...

“Photography is not about cameras, gadgets, and gismos. Photography is about photographers. A camera didn't make a great picture any more than a typewriter wrote a great novel.”

- Peter Adams, photographer (Sydney, 1978)

Don't have enough time to get everything done?

Have you ever complained that you just don’t have enough hours in the day to get your work done – whether that’s taking pictures, tinkering on Photoshop, meeting with clients, or marketing your business?

Of course… we all have. But it’s important for people to take their blinders off, examine how they live our lives… and then make the necessary changes. With no excuses. No rambling justifications.

Just do it, baby.

To give you a sense of how this works… let’s suppose that every day for an entire year, you:

> Watched 30 minutes less television
> Spent 10 minutes less in the shower/bathroom
> Slept 20 fewer minutes each night
> Cut 15 minutes off your lunch break

Now, these things are simple… and possible to do, if you set your mind to it. But when you do the math, it’s astonishing. Follow this faithfully and you’re actually creating…

456 extra hours per year! No matter how you break it down, it’s impressive. This is the same as:

> (57) 8-hour workdays per year
> (38) 12-hour workdays per year
> (19) 24-hour days per year

Imagine how much more productive you could be if you were given 19 more days every year.

And then… just did it, baby.

Why you shouldn't hand out your business card...

Jason “Profit” Moffett (http://www.jasonmoffatt.com/) is a successful internet marketer who refuses to hand out business cards at seminars. Instead of trying to network, he prefers “schmoozing at the bar and making genuine friends.” He wrote this on a forum a couple years ago, and it stuck with me:

“I'm trying to make a powerful impact that no business card could ever do. I'm building real world relationships that makes the card pretty much irrelevant.

“And I'll tell you the secret...

“It's all done with great storytelling. If you can get 10 guys in a circle and have them all intensely listening to your story, you don't need cards. People remember enthusiastic and outgoing people that make them smile.

“I'm not saying business cards don't work for some, cuz they do. However, you should see people's faces when I say that I'm strongly against giving out business cards. At first they think it's weird, but after they hear my explanation they usually want my contact info even more than before.”

It doesn't matter how good a photographer you think you are...

It matters how good other people think you are that will make them hire you.

Suppose I'm in the market for a really talented portrait photographer.

If you come and tell me you're the best portrait photographer on the planet... I have absolutely no reason to believe you. And I probably won't give you the time of day.

Now, if my best friend tells me you're the best portrait photographer on the planet... I might be interested in seeing your work.

And if my best friend, my mother, and the local photography critic tell me you're the best portrait photographer on the planet... I'm definitely going to want to see your work.

But if 35 of my closest friends, all of my relatives, and the top 100 photography critics all tell me you're the best portrait photographer on the planet... I'm going to stop what I'm doing and hire you on the spot.

The moral of this story? Get a testimonial from every single client you work with. And then use these testimonials in all of your marketing materials.

Because there's simply no better marketing tool than other people saying how great you are.

In the beginning...

I was all set to christen this blog with some profound, elequent words about photography... but my mind is in a purple haze because my wife went to Wal-Mart to get some toilet paper and instead came home with a 9-week old puppy!

So I'm on puppy duty tonight, so the profound, elequent words about photography are going to have to wait.