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Careers: Photography/Portrait Studio Chain Growth Strategies

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Expert: - 10/15/2009


Question
John,

My wife and I own three studios in the United States. We've been hit hard by the recession and I'm constantly considering ideas which I hope will help keep my business going. I'm considering adding custom frame services for my portrait customers. Any thoughts about this? Any ideas you can offer me to help bring in new business? I'm sorry for not going into much details but I prefer to remain anonymous. I've read several of your other answers and I'm impressed with your advice and ideas. Thank you very much for your help. Please let me know if you are available for private business consultations.

James

Answer

Bride at The Grandview
Hi James,

Thank you for your questions about portrait studio growth strategies. I am available for business consultations. For the sake of other AllExperts readers I will share some thoughts about surviving in this current down economy.

First, you probably should NOT consider custom frame services.  Yes, there can be really good money to be made with custom framing services. As you mentioned, I don't have many details about your particular situation. But generally speaking if your main objective is to sustain or even generate new business (especially without lowering prices) I think you should reflect upon the very reasons you entered the portrait studio business to start with.

The fact is, there is even MORE money to be made selling portraits (photographic paper) than there is selling frames. The retail price of frames and what portrait studios may charge for frames is basically set by your market and competitors.  But what portraits CAN be sold for is based on "artistic value" and other such factors which essentially means you can sell an 8x10 sheet of paper for $50 depending on factors I will address in a moment.  But the wholesale/retail price ratio for frames is nothing like great studio portraits.

Here in Chattanooga Tennessee when I go through the yellow pages I find there are approximately 20 picture frame businesses.  There are several more but they chose not to be listed.  There are actually around 35.  I also know that about half those businesses have been around over 10 years and have grown relatively significant customer bases.  I also know the vast majority of Chattanooga consumers purchase their picture frames from Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby and Michael's. The smallest source of frames are hobbyists with their own small wood working shops.  Essentially, the Chattanooga picture frame business is over-saturated. To start a custom frame shop business especially in this current economy is not a good investment. Also remember that frames, especially custom frames, are purchased for....exceptional portraits. And people only have so many walls in their homes to prominently display framed exceptional portraits! Which means custom frames do not represent any where near as much repeat business as portraiture itself. The better investment . . .

What do you do that has been the major contributing factor to your success?  The answer to this question is extremely important.  When considering what you can do to stay in business and maybe even grow, you MUST first recognize what it is that you do best and FIRST try to do that better!  Trying to "expand" your business when the main reason for your business is suffering is counter-productive and can be both very costly and time-consuming.  If you tried it, you could end up feeling like you are running in place because for every small step forward with your new business line your original main business will be pulling you back a few steps.

Stay focused. Your business is portraits.  We already know that well done portraits can be sold at very high profit margins.  They are "art" and they can demand premium prices WHEN PERCEIVED BY CONSUMERS in that manner.

For these reasons, my general advice to most chain portrait studio operators is to simply, "recognize what you do best and find ways to do it better than you ever thought possible".  This could be where my consultation services could help.

A few facts to keep in mind to help you stay focused when planning strategies:  While some studios seem to "brag" about capturing the smiles, it is actually professional quality LIGHTING RATIOS, props and backgrounds which bring people into studios for portraits!  In this day of digital photography, if people only cared about smiles, they can very very very easily do that themselves and probably even better and a lot cheaper!  Many children respond best to their own family members for smiles etc., and so people can capture great smiles often better than a studio photographer the child has never seen before.  So make no mistake about it - PROFESSIONAL QUALITY PORTRAITS which are exceptional in the execution of their creation using higher-end props and background including optional DIGITAL BACKGROUNDS is the best investment for most chain studios.  In other words, if you truly believe in the abilities of your photographers - than provide them the necessary TOOLS to create high-end exceptional studio portraits.  Configure the equipment in your camera room(s) to be easily adjustable, movable and fast for one photographer to shoot with creative and technically accurate lighting ratios.

Most chain studios need to DISTINGUISH themselves from their cookie-cutter five-and-dime competitors.  Do NOT permit your studio to be indistinguishable from your low-end competitors!  If consumers perceive you as CHEAP AND the quality of your portraits as cheap - you are losing a battle you will not win.

Also, to distinguish yourself from your competitors does NOT mean broadcasting a bunch of promotional rhetoric which consumers do in fact have the ability to recognize.  Don't make a blow-hard out of yourself.  Don't talk a big game with all kinds of promises and descriptions of great service UNLESS with such claims you present other FACTS which virtually substantiates your promotional claims.  In other words, do NOT write promotions which ASSUME your readers are going to blindly believe every claim you make! Even worse, do NOT write promotional rhetoric that sounds like you EXPECT your readers to believe everything you are saying when they don't know you from Adam. Do not insult their intelligence!

So, another way to distinguish yourself from your competitors is to back up your promotional claims with objective and verifiable FACTS!  So many sales brochures are written like this that consumers glance at them and throw them in the garbage with all their junk mail.  Consumers don't have time to CARE about another bunch of promotional babble about how great some photographer thinks he or she is!  Your studio is no different. Portraits reproduced in any promotional pieces SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES. You must NOT waste time talking about how great your portraits are. When customers SEE portrait samples reproduced in your promotional pieces they will decide for themselves if that is what they want.

Finally, if you want to go the "extra mile" then consider a large format printer or two in each studio (at least as soon as business levels make it cost-feasible) and provide an area where customers may order everything from wallets to very large wall portraits.  The vast majority of portrait consumers today really appreciate the convenience of this. And perhaps more importantly, portrait consumers show they appreciate Pro Quality portraits which have been created in a fun and relaxing atmosphere and delivered quickly to them by paying top dollar!  

Then the next product - hard cover book-style image wrap cover albums! Great for family albums and baby albums! In these you can also provide magazine style album page designs for higher-end customers.

To summarize: Get back to portraits. Invest in high-end props, backgrounds and optionally offer digital backgrounds. Provide your photographers with the tools necessary to "paint with light" using simple, quick and actually rather inexpensive studio lighting arrangements to create exceptional studio portraits. It can be amazing what a simple little $70 battery powered slaved flash can do for hair and for special effects such as light beams across certain background props. Lighting ratios are much easier to learn today thanks to digital cameras. Also don't forget that digital cameras today can be equipped with wireless transmitters to send pics as they are shot to a computer viewing station. Even better, those images can be enhanced etc., by lab techs as they are being transmitted so that by the time a session is completed, superior images may be presented to the customer. These are just some of the options available. Which might work best depends on your specific situation.

In order for me to intelligently offer you some real working solutions, I will need to know specific facts about your situation. Please feel free to email me at my website to get started. No charge unless I can do something for you.

Wedding Photographer John Wilson
Chattanooga, Tennessee
http://www.weddingphotographics.net

Wedding Photographics

Expertise

I have over 30 years of wedding photography experience. I can comprehensively answer questions relating directly to the art, science and business of wedding photography. Photoshop and other photo editing software and wedding album design and assembly. My website http://www.weddingphotographics.net

Experience

Over 30 years wedding photography and wedding album design and assembly experience.

Education/Credentials
I have attended numerous wedding photography workshops, seminars and photography conventions over the years. I constantly self-study from over 100 books on wedding photography, wedding video, digital photography, photoshop, fotofusion and other photography and multimedia educational materials.

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