One Day Seminar

Three of the past students and franchisees that are coming to answer questions at the seminar had a very successful week last week. Their sales were £4680, £4595, and £4360!!! Added to this one had a single sale of £2550, and another had two sales over £1000. There are no other seminars where you can meet past students, with no previous photographic experience, who are achieving such remarkable success. Call 01603 629 739 to book your place early because this time spaces are limited.

During all of our courses we try to emphasise how important it is to learn to run a business if you are going to maximise earning potential with your camera. So many photographers never learn this with unfortunate results.

Alex Polizzi, who stars on the TV program The Hotel Inspector and more recently The Fixer where she attempts to turn round family businesses, finds it frustrating when people will not listen to her advice. People will always blame someone or something else other than themselves if they are not successful.

It does not seem to occur to them that there are successful hotels, photographers, family businesses while they do badly. It's not the activity that causes a problem. It is those running the business. Alex Polizzi's best advice tip: "if your feeling overwhelmed, don't look at the bigger picture, deal with one thing at a time."

One Day Seminar

Our next One Day taster day is coming soon! We at the Arden Hotel (near to the airport and station in Birmingham) on Sunday March 25.

Once again several franchisees and students have kindly agreed to come along to chat to anyone who attends so that you can find out what the wedding and portrait courses are really like and, for those interested in a franchise just what the benefits are.

This is a perfect opportunity for anyone to discover just how they can earn considerable amounts of extra money from their camera or possibly make photography a full time career. Phone 01603 629739 to book a place which costs just £25 including lunch.

Average Sales

Because we have so many links, in various ways, with so many studios it is possible for us to monitor averages and trends.Familly sittings that have been bought by that family are the best sittings to have, baby sittings next, Family sittings bought as a gift, then Makover and lastly Boudoir. Of course there will be variations from studio to studio, but this is the average. Far from average sales reducing this year we have found them to be increasing by an average of 18.5%! Secondary marketing to past data, or customers, is proving particularly succesful. All of this knowledge is shared with our students on our courses. We have just completed another Friday, Saturday and Sunday training in Ware and received this comment from Sam Herron from Northern Ireland: "Just wanted to say Thank you! Really enjoyed the weekend, learned a surprising amount. The business element being a case in point. There's got to have been 5 years worth condensed in the two days. Just wanted to impart my sincere gratitude. Thank you again." Thanks Sam glad you enjoyed it. One interesting fellow student of Sams is a professional ballet dancer but owing to injury is having to change career. We really do meet some interesting people.

Planning

The most important aspect of a photographic business is not photography!!It is planning. Actually this is true of every business. By failing to plan you are, in reality, planning to fail.So each business needs to forecast how many portraits, and how many weddings, they are going to do in a year. It is necessary to know what your average sale is going to be, and a realistic list of all your outgoings. This needs to be done for every month of the year and then carefully monitored within a few days of the end of each month. Monitoring is crucial to any plan you make. For example, keeping a food diary, or weighing yourself each day, will help you lose weight. Keeping track of your purchases will help you spend less.

The more carefully you track the better. Weighing yourself every week is good, every day is better, and writing down a record better still. Besides offering immediate encouragement, monitoring let's you improve your long term planning. If you keep records you can frequently check how far you have come, so that you can set realistic goals for the future. When your business has done well you will feel excited and motivated. When not so well you will be able to take action quickly to change things round.The computer games companies have made millions out of designing games with incentives to go to the next level so that they become a compulsive activity.

Planning and keeping financial records can have the same effect with a business. On a computer game the player does not think that they have failed, they just think it is a matter of time until they succeed. So we teach that in order to have a successful business you must plan and monitor .....
No matter how good you are at photography or sales!

Online Discount Sites

A recent report by Deloitte predicts that hundreds of online coupon businesses will fail in 2012, while those that survive will have to operate on much slimmer margins. "They may need to accept lower commissions on sales of coupons to entice retailers to use their services as well as shifting their focus to value."
Groupon has been caught up in a string of conflicts with small businesses who have used Groupon but ended up in overstretching themselves. (One photographer offered a one hour sitting and a CD of all the images for £15 and received 670 buyers.  Not surprisingly the photographer did a runner!)
A couple of days ago Groupon shares fell 10% on declaring a fourth quarter loss of $42 million.
Last year the Office of Fair Trading launched an investigation into Groupon after the business was found to have broken advertising regulations nearly 50 times in a year. (This report was in The Daily Telegraph).

Sales

Last week saw the continuation of very buoyant sales for ex students and franchisees. 50% up on last year!! In January alone there were nearly 700 baby sittings booked. Our Platinum Network officially starts on March 1st. and we have over 50 top studios taking part. Only the very best studios in the UK are invited to join so that we are able to place all the family portrait appointments we receive. It is important that customers do not have too far to travel. For those readers of this blog that are already involved in the industry it is with some sadness that we have to say good bye to Chris Kay who has left Loxley's, the colour lab. we use. Thank you Chris for all that you have done for us in the past and the best of luck in whatever else you go on to do.

Baby of the Month competition

December Baby of the Month has been chosen. Each image is voted for by our customers and users of the Barrett & Coe Portraits website (www.barrettandcoeportraits.co.uk) We receive an around 2,000 votes each month, with some images receiving over 100 votes each.

A selection of images and winning photo, taken by Paul Jones (who runs a Barrett & Coe studio in Staffordshire) are shown below:

December Baby of the Month - Photographed by ex student Paul Jones

Photographed by ex student Paul Jones

Photographed by ex student Paul Jones

Photographed by ex student Paul jones

Photographed by ex student Mark Hopwood

Photographed by ex student Jonathan Holt

Photographed by ex student Paul Milsom 

Photographed by ex student Caroline Brocklehurst

New Franchise Enquiry

Last year I gave a presentation at Photokina in Cologne to a cosmopolitan audience from all over the world including Russia, Brazil, Italy, Chile, France, Belgium, Mexico etc. The presentation was given for Hewlett Packard on photography marketing for their Indigo machine. As a direct result of that the Hewlett Packard director recommended us to his brother in law who is French and has been working in the UK for sometime. Now wishing to change careers he is proposing to open a studio in UK by taking a Barrett and Coe franchise!

Emmas Diary

The other main source of baby data is supplied by Emmas Diary for which Barrett and Coe have the exclusive contract.  The difference between Bounty and Emmas Diary is quite considerable.

Firstly the data is collected through a booklet given out by GP doctors and produced on behalf of The Royal College of General Practitioners to which 80% of GP doctors belong.  Mums fill out a form requesting offers, or fill in a form on the web site, rather than being approached in the hospital just after the baby has been born.

Secondly, the data is only available to one photographer not four!

Thirdly, each photographer may decide their own offer to Mum and in many cases a telephone number is supplied.  Contact maybe made over a year as against once in a single month.

Sales last week by Barrett and Coe ex students are flying.  100% up on last year!  The average per sitting  increased by 28%. With ten more studios just about to open 2012 looks like being a bumper year.

Baby Photography

Babies form and important part of most portrait photographers sales. Do a good job and you have a customer for years to come. Future sittings may include siblings, family portraits, weddings, anniversaries etc. The leading company in the baby field is Bounty which was featured in this weekends Sunday Times list of fastest growing equity backed companies in the UK.

With profits of £13.5 million the turnover increased by 66% with the fourth highest margin in the league table. 100's of portrait photographers are supplied with information and details of young Mums by Bounty, who collect the data from the young Mum in the hospital just after the baby is born. Bounty was bought by Barclays Capital and the management in 2009 for £54 million and with profits improving from £4 million in 2009 is now worth a great deal more.

The result is not so good for photographers with Bounty now selling the data to one company as pregnancy data, another new born 0 to 12 weeks, another 12 weeks to 24 weeks, another 24 weeks to 48 weeks, and another after 1 year! It is all the same data! Before the buy out, for the previous 20 years, the data was sold exclusively to the trade body The Master Photographers Association for the use of their members on the Cherub scheme. Bounty have probably very much increased their income from photographers in the midst of a recession. This is a situation that is unlikely to continue.

Induction Days

Following the franchise meeting six of the ten students who have just opened, or are about to open studios, had intensive induction days on Thursday and Friday. Thursday started at 8.30 am and they were still going at 8pm! Every single apect of the business and systems is covered.

Todays group even had the privelege of a meeting, and short talk with Colin Buck, CEO of the Master Photographer Association!

L-R: Andrew Luck, Gill Alexander, Sue Rollason, Colin Buck, John Briscoe, Maggie Clothier, Bernie Ramsay

Franchisee meeting

Following an intense three days doing courses last weekend there was no let up. On Wednesday we had a franchisee day which covered many areas but primarily the financial side of running a studio. Two accountants gave presentations on various ways of doing financials, VAT, bookkeeping, Sage etc.

A number of different options were suggested and the paramount importance of having regular management accounts immediately to hand following a month end.

So often small business owners tend to rely on their sales figures and bank account to gage their progress, only to find that when their accountant gives them their figures a couple of months after the year end, that they have not done as well as they thought, or even worse they have lost money.

Neglecting this side of your business can only end in disaster sooner or later.