Three tips to land MORE clients

Posted on February 22, 2012 by pesh

3355551036 157267135b m Three tips to land MORE clients How many times have you been asked for the name of your mechanic or dentist? Well, I have been asked probably a million times, mostly because my trucks are ALWAYS looking boss, and so are my teeth How many times have you reached out to a friend to let them know why they should use your CPA? I do that a lot for MY CPA, he really is awesome and even though his last name is Covert, he is honest and thorough and will forever have my business.

I realized that I do not get a ton of referrals and in thinking about referrals, I saw that a referral comes from one of two groups:

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5 Simple steps to better accountability

Posted on February 9, 2012 by pesh

4101603579 eb62d6d022 m 5 Simple steps to better accountability Hi all! I wanted to go a little deeper into what I have done around my own accountability.

I have been working this way since about mid 2011 and since it works for me, maybe it could work for you too

I didn’t get to this point over night, it started with me feeling overwhelmed with what I wanted to do. You’d think it’d be easy to have a family, work for a large corporation, work out and pursue a dream – but I am here to tell you that it ain’t… just kidding, you knew that already.

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Decisions and Accountabilty – The Worlds Best Productivity System

Posted on February 3, 2012 by pesh

Did you get up out of bed today? Did you shower? Eat? Did you stop for gas or keep going? Did you buy that new lens? Did you book your trip to WPPI?

Decisions, decisions!!!

Our days are filled with them and so is our business. As a small business, we make tons of them, and when your business is as small as mine, EVERY decision counts, from stamps to trips to the Apple Store.

I have been thinking a lot about decisions lately. I think I am pretty good at choosing something, I normally hate having the pressure of a big decision hang over me so I find that I can rush things. But I am learning to be a little wiser in my days – after all, I have over 35 years of decision-making experience, I am becoming a decision yoda – slowly

If you are like me, sole proprietor, CEO/CFO/Designer/Photographer/Mail Clerk/Wearing all hats, you HAVE to make the decisions. It really all falls to you and on your capable shoulders Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great and Built to Last says:

“No major decision we’ve studied was ever taken at a point of unanimous agreement” Jim Collins

He writes so much about decision making but this point really hit home with me. I tend to take some time to ask my “Brain Trust” their thoughts on certain decisions. For example, my “Brain Trust” is a group of people that are friends of mine that either run a business, are in sales, work as an engineer, deal with law and accounting. When I am considering a corporate career move, I reach out to JB and Sean. When it is a bigger business decision I bounce it off Jason and Brian.

“I make a decision, and if it’s wrong, I make another one.” Dave Ramsey

The key for me is to MAKE A DECISION, one way or the other, choose! Nothing happens without making a choice and I cannot progress.

No matter what though, if it is a substantial decision, I ALWAYS run it through the “Heather Filter”. There is something to be said about women’s intuition…

Accountability

Now to the fun part! I know, how fun can accountability be? On it’s own, it isn’t but the results and the process are for me!

It all started with an accountability partner. We’ve all heard this. “If you wanna go tot he gym and can’t seem to motivate your self and stay disciplined (you wuss!!!) get someone to commit to meet you there…” Peer pressure STILL works!

Well, for this, it’s a little different. It is still based on having a partner but there is, or should be, less sweat and dehydration

I meek weekly with a trusted friend and we have a simple, hyper-focused, hour together. We meet for a breakfast and spend the time going over our projects and milestones. There are 2 keys to making this work for us:

It is simple
Be a supportive challenge
We make bets

We have to keep ourselves from getting in our own way so we ALWAYS make sure to keep it simple. If we overcomplicate it, we would end up not doing anything! Know what I mean?

Out of LOVE, we challenge each other… we make sure that the other is adequately aligning their milestones with the project and we give a little push.

On top of that, we make bets… EACH of our milestones have a dollar amount tied to them and their completion. If I do not complete a milestone by the due date, physically hand money across the table! Talk about a motivator! We even challenge the amount of the bet so that we are motivated to accomplish the most important milestones over the lesser ones.

Over the past few months (since November), this process has helped me out a lot!

I could write a TON about both of these topics I think. Maybe soon, I will break them down a little more, but for now, that’s all I got! Plus, Grace is up now and the sounds of Marry Poppins’ “Just a Spoonful of Sugar” is pulling me out into what I am sure is a cute scene in the living room!

Take care, have a great day and thanks for deciding to read this post

My Superpower – Invisibility

Posted on January 30, 2012 by pesh

“If you could have ANY super power, what would it be? “

Disinterest has been my joking response – It used to show on my google profile until they revamped them My REAL answer would be super speed, so that I could get all my things done and still have time for fun and other things. That would help me be really productive…

BUT, after reading Quitter by Jon Acuff (Here’s a link) – I actually listened to the audio version, GREAT book! And there was something in there that rang true to me:

“Invisibility is a blessing – Jon Acuff”

In context, that had to do with his advice around blogging… and boy am I glad that I am INVISIBLE right now I have been struggling with getting content up on the blog, but I am about to challenge myself again. I have been struggling with changing my routine to give me the time and focus to get content up on the blog… That schedule goes something like this: Wake at 5, work on this until 6, gym until 7 or so and then off to Dell I go!

XBOX and other passive forms of entertainment typically keep me up late into the night so imagine how easy it is to wake up at 5 I was all set to be up at 5 today but Grace wandered into the room at about 3:30AM with a slight case of Croup… I didn’t get up in time today but I will tomorrow. And for now:

My superpower is INVISIBILITY!

You have the powere to see through my invisibility though – If you think that I have some useful things to share, pass this site along to your friends, and hold me accountable!

Pesh

Just an FYI, if you click the link above for Jon Acuff’s book “Quitter”, and decide to buy it from amazon, I will get a small commission. The FCC made me tell you that

Airport Security and Slapping My Head

Posted on January 16, 2012 by pesh

This always happens – seriously, sometimes it is small but I always leave something behind when I travel. this time, it was my photo editing machine, my music library, my podcasts, our family budget and finances, al my personal passwords. the sleek sexy silver link to my dreams – my personal laptop. my macbook pro, my connection to all things outside of my work at dell.

I was good last night, I packed before I went to bed – that’s responsible right? I made a list of the things I wanted to make sure I grabbed ont he way out, my toothbrush and razor, synch the iphone with the most recent podcasts, and sunglasses. But I didn’t write down “YOUR OWN LAPTOP, YA BIG DUMMY!” I also meant to grab my purple belt and travel card for jiu jitsu but since it wasnt on my list, like a bad marine, I left it behind!

I only noticed it when I went through security – which I am GREAT at by the way. I can zip through there quicker than most, and I’d even challege you! shoes off (check), belt off and in back pack (check), iphone in the pocket of my backpack (check), liquids out of the roller bag (check), work laptop (check), personal laptop (che…), “what the what?!?!?”, where’s the…. ohhhhh” Forehead slap and my normal speedy assault of the security line ground to a halt. On the inside, I wanted to cry a little, on the outside, I did but it was hard. Only for a second though, after all I’m a professional traveler and I needn’t hold up the whole line of prepared travelers behind me.

The thought of fedex-ing it to me was an option but I didnt want to hear the fee involved, plus tomorrow is a holiday, so I probably wouldn’t get it until Tuesday, I return Wednesday! Strike one. If I were only flying out of John Wayne airport, my darling wife would be able to run it to me (at 6:30 am: see how sweet she is!) but I am at LAX. Strike two – I’m out. I was
playing a weird game where I had only 2 strikes and I lost

I’ll be fine, I have this heavy paper-filled object in my backpack that might be able to keep me occupied on the 12 total hours of flying to and fro. The things is called “book”, an odd item… it’s rather tactile and course, not at all like an ipad. There’s no buttone or stereo sound or ANGRY BIRDS! I guess I’ll kick it old school on the flights.

I am trying to ask myself lately, after things dont go as planned, “what did we learn?”. it’s too soon to tell, we are only about 45 minutes out and 36,000 feet up. for now, I am glad that is was ONLY my personal laptop, not anything dell related, I think I would have tossed my cookies had I left the work laptop! I am able to improvise and get this post drafted. I am
looking forward to reading the Financial Peace Revisited by Dave Ramsey and maybe doing a little journaling.

I know I won’t die without my own laptop but it would have felt nice to tackle the new budget layout in excel, the photo editing for a.skate and the php coding project that I have begun for a small personal project for Dell.

Stay tuned and I’ll fill you in on how the forced tech detox went. It’s a good thing I am flying to Hawaii… I have some options for entertainment.

So tell me, what do you normally forget to pack when you travel? what’s the biggest thing you left behind? have you ever put yourself on a tech detox?

How do you revive your passion

Posted on January 13, 2012 by pesh

I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday – does FaceBook chat count? and we briefly talked about how to recover your passion when you are feeling passion-less. Here is what I shared with her:

Whenever I get to that place where I feel that I have lost my passion for photography, I do a couple things. First, I SLOW DOWN. I have to step back mentally and take a deep breath, actually a few deep breaths! I try to find my happy place – like the cave with the penguin in the movie “Fight Club” – and remind myself that photography is fun, actually it’s a BLASTY-BLAST and that I truly enjoy making photographs!

The second thing I do that really helps is to SIMPLIFY. In practical terms, that means, grab my full fram DSLR of choice (Nikon D3), slap on the ever-so-trusty 50mm, head out to a place in public with people and just SIT there. I hang out. I watch, maybe even stalk a little bit, but I am still and I observe for a while. I am looking for the interactions between people and especially watch the youngest kids and the oldest (they both intrigue me).

So it boiled down to those two things, when I am lacking passion in my work, I slow down and simplify.

What do YOU do when you feel bogged down or lacking passion for your dream? Let me know in the comments!

- on a side note, I’m trying to get my night-owl behind up early in the morning to spend time on this. Last night I fell asleep to Modern Family on the DVR after midnight and got up at 6:30. I like being up to spending time with this part of my life first and it reminds me of the the concept of the 6 o’clock club in Frank Bettger’s book “How I raised myself from failure to success in selling” – read it or grab the audio if you can – it’s a gem, nay a classic and you wil learn something from it!

Repost – 3 reasons to have Focus

Posted on January 12, 2012 by pesh

I have been thinking about this topic again lately, with all that has been going through my mind, I forgot until I sat down to look at my blog… That’s when I saw it again – my focus filter! I have a link at the end of this post… Now for the original post.

5917289031 4895406f8b m Repost 3 reasons to have Focus

Photo by --mike-- on Flickr.com

I am a busy person, sometimes too busy to make sure that everything gets done. Recently (Last February) I had a friend tell me something while we were brainstorming…

He said that I was juggling too much - I had too many balls in the air – and I needed FOCUS.

He had a point. We were talking about an idea I had for a piece of software for email marketing specifically for photographers and it was the perfect time for him to spring this one on me. I mean here I am, an ALREADY over-scheduled person – coming up with ANOTHER idea/project/business – bringing my overall total of ideas/projects/business to roughly a gazillion…

That night, I came up with what I call my “Focus Filter”.

This thing is printed off, hanging in front of my face, at my desk and IS a constant reminder to FOCUS. It helps me to put my thoughts into an area to “do it now” or to hold off form “someday” later.

I need this tool and rely on this tool to:

Guide my decisions and keep me on track for my overall goal – creating a solid Photography brand and company.
Help to limit my new, non-important ideas that lead to work.
Show me how much can actually be deferred to later.

It’s all a choice (life, work, recreation, etc.) but having a framework helps me all the time to make an appropriate decision on where to spend my time.

I would like to share this with you, I hope that it proves helpful to you as well. Take the idea and make a Focus Filter your own… and follow it! Set boundaries for yourself and I am certain that you will see improvements, just like I have.

You can download the Focus Filter here!

Why model and workshop shoots teach you nothing

Posted on January 12, 2012 by pesh

Model and workshop shoots teach you NOTHING!

They ARE fun, but everything is staged, and to me, that is not the ideal place to learn. It’s a great place to practice

The real learning happens when things are not perfect, a wedding is hardly perfect… A family portrait session at 1 in the afternoon is not perfect but you CAN be proficient – even AWESOME – in those places.

Just like a sport – take basketball for example – it’s easy (well, easier) to hit a jumper from the baseline with no pressure and little defense compared to having to drain it in a real game.

The same goes for photographing your clients. If you take the time to practice and practice a lot, you will have no problem snapping away confident that you are getting things right.

Sticking to my comparison, in basketball you might need to know the triple-threat position, how to dribble, how to pass, how to make a layup, a short jumper a nid-range jumper and the 3-pointer. You won’t have to be the best at ALL skills but you will eventually have to do one of those things.

For photography, I believe you need to know how to shoot with the subject front-lit, side-lit and back-lit, in the morning light, non-day sun and golden hour, indoors with multiple light, posed portraits, candids and KIDS!

Each one of these areas should be worked on and practiced but I think that when you take the initiative to focus only on one of them at a time, you will learn. Last summer I challenged myself to make some photos during my lunch hour – portraits of my wife and after a couple days in a row of shooting, downloading and evaluating, I was able to find a couple situations that gave me more success. Although shooting at noon is undesirrable, I have been forced into that time slot… and for a paying bride and groom! What I learned while I was focusing and practicing paid dividends. I was confident that if I could get my clients as backlit as possible (so they are not squinting) and position them where something neutral was in front of them for the light to bounce off (a sidewalk, a wall – NOT grass! That’s a whole different story) I would end up with pretty darn good photos of them or the group.

As I said, model and workshop shoots are fun. It’s great to work with someone that is not afraid to look into my lens and knows how to position their body and is actually aware of the light hitting them… but that is the time for me to play! All the stars are aligned and I can shoot and shoot and shoot, but when I really want o learn, I grab one of my rowdy, fidgety kids and put them in less than desirable light and find a way to MAKE it work

How do you learn the best? Have you ever done a small project or challenge in an attempt to better your photography? Let me know in the comments!

2 Things I HAVE to do NOW!

Posted on January 9, 2012 by pesh

Hi all,

Here goes – I am going to blog from now on, A LOT. My goal is to start with bogging every day for a week. That’s number 1. The 2nd is to make sure to share honestly – I am too caught up with trying to come up with perfectly AWESOME things to talk about but get hung up in the details and NEVER post anything. I have lived a busy life, I have lived in the deep south and the midwest and the west coast and overseas. I have worked for golf courses, toy stores, self-service car washes, the US Marines, IBM and most recently Dell – I have a TON that I can share, but I have to get out of my own way.

The aim of this site is to share with you how I chase my goal to build a photography business, while at the same time keeping a corporate career.

Please don’t expect a whole lot, I am not the best writer – I’m NOT a writer I will likely have some video with poor audio and lighting – but my goal is to share SOMETHING every day, starting now…

I’M OVERWHELMED!

Here’s the snapshot: I have been a “professional” photographer since 2006, that is to say that I have been getting paid to make photos. I want to keep that part of my life going since it is a nice outlet for creativity and I believe that it is a way that I can help others and serve. It is also a nice additional income that my family needs. I have a wonderful wife and 3 kids and THAT part of my world keeps me busy with financial talks, vacation plans, planning for our future, where to move next, Jordan’s basketball, Grace’s ballet and gymnastics and Mikey’s growing.

In addition to all this, I have a great career in sales now with Dell and the pressure is HIGH! We are a new group setup to sell software within a hardware company and there are demands all over the place! I find myself traveling a bit, October 2011 had me on the road all but 4 working days, and January / February 2012 are set to put me in Phoenix, Hawaii, Denver and Austin. (Kinda looking forward to Hawaii and Austin!)

I feel like I have no time to complete it all – I am working to be the best that I can be for Dell but my off hours are filled with thinking of ways to continue to earn more, do more and provide more for us through photography.

I know what I need to do – I have to build some systems – but I am NOT a “systems” guy! I need to make time to slow down and plan, and break things down into manageable chunks with EVERY part of my life – Family, Dell and Photography. I have a couple beginnings to systems and as I grow them, I will share them.

Helping Jordan with 8th grade English has reminded me that I need to write a conclusion… but I am not sure how to end the post that is really a beginning…

Please share your thoughts with me!

My clients are also clients of others’…

Posted on October 4, 2011 by pesh

I wanted to share a marketing strategy with you. Since I have a limited amount of time that I can spend marketing my work to people, I appreciate a way to make my efforts scale. I love when I can take a strategy and get it to work FOR me. This is one of those strategies.

Have you ever gotten a gift from someone? Didn’t you love it? I mean, assuming it was a cool or thoughtful gift?

Well, I love getting gifts, so I got to thinking about how I could offer the gift of photography to a bunch o’ new people. After thinking about it, it seemed to me that there were a lot of small business that I frequented that I had become friends with…. hmm… What if I offer those business owners a gift card for my services for them to give AS A GIFT to their patrons???

I ran this by my Chiropractor and he fell in love with the idea. For him, it was a way to reward his most loyal patients during a down economy. I have a realtor friend that has great relationships with his clients and he perked up immediately too! For him, it was another way to stay in touch with past and future clients. On top of that, they both felt that they were giving a great valuable gift!

My first round of this 3rd Party Marketing was all manual. I made beautiful cards on some gorgeous art paper – they were sweet! I provided 100 for my Chiropractor and he got busy giving them to his most loyal patients. He quickly ran out of the cards and in the end, I got 2 calls and I booked them both. It was about a break-even and we are now going back through the people that got the cards to remind them to use this gift!

Two precent (2%) is not great, I was hoping for more like 10% – heck HIGHER since these gift cards were handed directly from my Chiropractor to his patience along with a “thank you” and a recommendation of my services. I was praying for about a 90% response rate

So, in an effort to improve, I was keeping an open mind when I sat down with a friend and discussed it all… it hit him and then me… let’s do this on the web. So that’s what I am rolling out now.

Essentially, the content of the card is on a special page on my site that the Chiropractor (or any other) can share with their clients. The page is setup for the person referring people to me… Here is an example http://www.peshphoto.com/client-access/drrick/. That one is tailored for Dr. Rick ONLY.

You’ll see that in order to redeem this gift, the person on the page needs to fill out the form. This does a couple things:

Gets the referral directly to me
Puts the next step on my shoulders
Does not have a limit to how many can be given
I am able to see EXACTLY how many people are sent my way – The best part!

I am just rolling this out but I have good expectations for the results…

I put together a quick and dirty video on how I did this using my site running WordPress and a free plugin for the contact form – check it out!

Open it in full screen for the best view

Photographer with a W-2

mikepesh.com