INTERVIEW W/ JARED BAUMAN FROM SHOOTDOTEDIT

I've written a few things about Photographer's workflows before.  It's an area of passion for me, for several reasons, but mostly because I believe it's an area where Photographers struggle - not because they have trouble making their photos look great - but because it's an area where they struggle to create a good system.  A lot of photographers spend a LOT of time on editing - time they could spend on their business, doing things that actually make them money.

One of my good friends, Jared Bauman, is the Co-Founder + CEO of ShootDotEdit, the industry leader in post-processing for wedding photographers.  He's also one of the sharpest guys I know - and a great photographer as well.  I had a chance to ask him a few questions recently, and thought I'd share with you our conversation.

Disclaimer: I am a ShootDotEdit customer, and have spoken for their workshop tour, but was not compensated in any way for this post.  ShootDotEdit has partnered with my workshops, but only by providing valuable "stuff' for attendees.  They don't pay me, and I just thought you should know :)

What is ShootDotEdit? 

ShootDotEdit is the First Choice Post Processing Partner for the Wedding Pro, and everything they shoot (engagements, portraits, boudoir, etc).

Where did the idea for ShootDotEdit come from? 

Garrett Delph, another professional wedding photographer, and myself were having fish tacos at the Brigantine in North County San Diego, commiserating about all of the editing we had to do to keep caught up.  We brainstormed hiring an editor, and training him to each of our individual studio profiles.  Thus, ShootDotEdit was born!

How is ShootDotEdit helping make photographer's lives a little easier?

When you consider that the average wedding photographer spends around 15 hours editing a wedding, ShootDotEdit has come in and removed that burden.  With ShootDotEdit, the photographer can focus on shooting and marketing.  In addition, because ShootDotEdit specializes in post production, most photographers find that their work is edited with an increased consistency.

How is ShootDotEdit different from other outsourced post-processing options for photographers? 

ShootDotEdit specializes in the wedding pro, and is optimized to take care of their intimate needs.  In addition, ShootDotEdit boasts the fastest turnaround time in the industry, with events completed as fast as 48 hours!  Fast is Best, and no one is faster.

What if I'm scared to have someone else edit my photos? 

Well, that's very common.  We have a couple of Services in place to help:

Color Wizard: this where you communicate to us your color preferences, so we edit your images to your style.

DotPreview: we will provide you a sample of 10 images from throughout the day, edited to your Color Profile.  Like it? Just click Approve and you're on your way!  Don't like it? We'll keep working with your DotPreview until you're happy.  Its our guarantee :).

Does it matter if I use Aperture or Lightroom?

We have Aperture and Lightroom workflows specifically tailored for the wedding pro.  Our workflows have been set up by the industry leaders (Apeture - Sara France; Lightroom - Jared Platt)

What does the process usually look like?

Once your have your Color Profile set up, you'll receive your images back as fast as 48 hours! 

Okay, how do I get started?

Quite simple.  Sign up for Free (https://secure.shootdotedit.com/) and set up your Color Profile (3 minutes or less).  All of our jobs are a la carte, and ordering takes less than one minute on average

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I just want to add, as a ShootDotEdit customer, I love how simple and easy it is to have my images processed consistently every time.  With a family of three little ones at home, my experience has been that letting someone else deal with the post-processing gives me back time to do things that matter - both for my business, and for my life!

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5 WAYS TO MAKE MORE MONEY SELLING ALBUMS

For many photographers, selling albums is something that can be a burden and a hassle.  Our clients are often more interested in simply having all of their images on a disc, and don't really see the value of an album.  In addition, it's common for photographers to struggle with the systems, pricing and process involved in selling albums that are profitable.  The result is that many photographers don't see albums as profitable - or worth their time.  Unfortunately, that often means that they are missing out on what can be a huge profit center for their business.  Here are 5 ways to make more money selling albums.

1. Include an album, or a credit, before you give a disc.  

This is really about creating expectations (which is really the key to almost any sale).  The bottom line is that you should help clients understand that a wedding album IS the finished product - not just a collection of digital files.  You can help them see the value based on the way that you include an album.  In my studio, every client receives a credit that will get them a base album.  This communicates to them that I think the album is the most important thing - because everyone gets one.  

Even in our Associate Brand - where we offer varying packages - the album enters the packages before the disc of images.  That way, if a client wants a disc, they are already getting the album.  The album doesn't compete with the disc, and clients don't get the idea that the disc replaces the album.  In fact, the opposite is true - the disc is an add-on, where as the album is what's really important. 

2. Shoot for the album 

One of the biggest differences for me, was when I started changing my approach to photographing a wedding.  Instead of simply trying to catch every moment, or every detail, or everything that happened around me - I started to think about the story that I wanted to tell on behalf of my clients.  I started to think about the way the story would unfold in an album. 

Now, when I shoot, I'm thinking about the story, and how each moment fits.  As a result, I shoot much less, but I end up keeping - and using - far more shots.  By the time I'm finished with a wedding, I have a pretty good idea of what the album design is going to look like, which leads to... 

3. Pre-design your clients albums.
One of the things we tell clients upfront, is that we don't sell different sized albums. I don't sell a certain number of pages, or sides, or whatever - because I have no idea what kind of story we're going to tell until we shoot it. I make it clear to my clients that their wedding commission includes a credit for a base album, but that I will custom design their album to tell their story. I also tell what that usually means, so they know what to expect. For example, our album credit in a wedding commission would purchase a 10x10 album with 10 spreads, but most of our clients end up with somewhere between 25 and 35 spreads. 

Not only does a pre-design give me the freedom to create the album that best tells their story, it also helps move the process along. Often, clients biggest complaint about their wedding photographer is that it took forever (sometimes a year or more) to get their wedding album. This can be the result of many things, but I think one of the biggest is that the process of asking a client to pick an arbitrary number of images to fill some set number of pages, is just inviting delay and problems. Clients aren't album designers - you are. They aren't the expert here - you are. Provide them value and service by creating the album they've asked you to design when they hired you. 

4. Show the album first. 

Make it a goal to have your pre-design done in less than 2 weeks.  Yes, this means you have to keep up with your workflow, but this will allow you to make the album pre-design (which is the representation of the story) the first thing your client sees.  The result is that it's also the first thing they develop an emotional connection with.  You want the album to represent the way they remember their wedding day.  It's easy for clients to get lost in the hundreds (or thousands, in some cases) of images you post online.  Not only do they get lost, but so does their excitement and energy about their wedding photos. 

Instead, show them the album pre-design, and then let them see everything else.  I actually post a few teaser images online within a few days, then share the pre-design at 2 weeks.  It's at this point (at my studio) that they actually order their album.  Only then do I release the full gallery of images - after they've paid for their final album.

5. Sell the album in person.

There's no substitute for face-to-face sales. I bring my clients to my studio, where they watch their album design on a 55" plasma display.  We watch it together, and then talk about it.  We talk about what they like, and what they'd want to change.  We talk through their options, and then they make their final decision, and place their album order.  When they leave the studio, they've completed the album ordering process, and approved the final album design.

By meeting with them in person, I'm able to talk with them, understand how they feel about their album, and guide them through the process.  Instead of waiting weeks to order their album (or not ordering at all), clients make their order right then, and are making the purchase before they move on to other things in their life.  I'm also able to handle any objections, concerns, or questions they have - and make sure that they're clear on expectations.

I get that not everyone has a studio - or a space that is conducive to in-person viewing sessions.  If that's the case, I suggest looking into a solution like www.swatdesigner.com from KISS, or www.albumexposure.com.  These online presentation options are, in my opinion, the next best thing to in-person, if that's not practical for you.  In fact, I use them for all of our destination clients that are unable to come to our studio for a viewing session.

BONUS #6. Eliminate options.

One more thing, which may actually make more difference than the other five combined: If you want to sell more albums, offer less options.  We so often think that by giving people many choices, that everyone will find something they want - which means more sales right?  Wrong!  Instead, when faced with an overload of choices, clients are unable to choose - a situation known as analysis paralysis.  So they choose nothing.  As a result, you loose out on sales, simply because clients are overwhelmed by the number of choices they have to make.

For example: I used to offer a lot of different Album options.  I used to offer tons of different cover options, and sizes, shapes, etc. I'd ask clients up front to choose the type of album they wanted.  They had to pick the size and number of images before the wedding was even shot. When it came down to it, most of my clients asked me "what do you recommend?" or "what do most of your clients get?" The answer - a 10x10 or 12x12 book with black or brown leather.  That's what most of my clients ended up with.  Sure, there were a lot of options, but that's where most of them ended up.

So I made things simple. I offer two book types - Signature Books (flush mount) in 10x10 or 12x12, or Classic Books (matted) in 9x9 or 12x12. That's it.  Oh, and you get to pick black or brown leather. That's it. Really.  No one complains, and no asks for more options.

How about you?  Are you selling albums?  If so, what have you found to work well?  If not, what do you struggle with? 

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A FEW DAYS WITH THE NEW SWAT DESIGNER FROM KISS

Wow.  I've been playing with the new SWAT album designer from KISS for a few days now, and the first impression I had is still the same... wow.  Now, you should understand that designing beautifully simple albums is a huge part of our business.  It's also a very efficient part of our business - which means it's a very profitable part of our business.

I have used Aperture as not only an image organization and editing tool for the last few years - but I've also taken advantage of it's best in class book designer to create the albums we provide our clients.  

I'm a pretty tough critic of album design tools.  If I'm going to make a change in my workflow it has to make me more efficient and be better at doing it's core function than what I'm already using.  Aperture has been the perfect tool for me, but I've been excited about SWAT ever since I first saw what it can do.

Now, as an Alpha tester, I can't show you much (or anything really!). What I CAN do is tell you this:  It's super simple (surprise, surprise), it's wicked cool, and it's extremely intuitive.  In fact, it will do 90% of the work for you.

Even in this early stage, I love how easy it is to create beautiful books.  I love that even though it's a web based software tool, everything behaves exactly the way you'd expect - even your very first time logging in.  I love that it's fast.  I love that our clients will be able to leave feedback and we'll be able to dialogue with them about their album design. 

The two reasons most photographers aren't making what they should on their albums is that they don't have a simple tool for creating beautiful books, and they don't have a good way of presenting their albums to their clients to allow for feedback.  

There are some solutions that at least partially solve one of these problems - but this is by far the first to solve BOTH for photographers!  It takes the stress out of designing albums, and makes it super easy to present them and SELL THEM to your clients. It's a robust, yet simple tool that makes designing albums easy, fast, and cool.  

To be completely fair, the only two drawbacks I see, compared to what I currently use (Aperture), are that you 1) can't make instant changes to your native images (processing, b/w conversion, etc) because it's hosted online, and 2) you can't add images to your design after you've started, quite as easily as Aperture.  

It's hard to call these drawbacks though - because it's not a fair comparison really.  Aperture is an application that runs on my machine and already has all of my native RAW files and all of their changes right in it.  

It's also hard to count these against SWAT since 99% of all other album design solutions suffer the exact same issue.  There is no other album design tool that lives natively in your editing software (like Aperture) so if you're currently using ANYTHING else (photoshop, photojunction, indesign, page gallery, etc), SWAT will be a HUGE improvement.

Oh yeah, and FREE!