How to make more than $2k/day with Mike Newton


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Today’s PhotoProfit, my guest today is Mike Newton. He’s from www.hackingphotography.com. He’s a very successful commercial photographer and he share a lot of secrets on his podcast about how to get started, what are the things to look for when you’re doing commercial photography and how to make it a success? I actually notice 2 big mistakes that I’m making in my commercial photography which probably costing me a lot of money.

Enjoy! Brent

In this Episode
01:46 Distressed mall $200 ($1500 1 day)
05:21 The anatomy of 100k commercial photo estimate
07:05 Trade leads – clients with other photos
08:27 Choosing a niche
16:47 How to get clients?
18:15 Staying in touch
25:17 Tools Mike uses
27:58 Qualification – are they your ideal client
29:15 Needs analysis – what exactly do they need?
33:01 Value proposition – selling yourself – video
36:51 Proposal price quote
47:15 Contract review call
51:37 Deposit
58:45 Follow-up

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Introduction

Brent: Hey guys Brent Mail here from Photo Profit, the business photography podcast. My guest today is Mike Newton from hackingphotography.com. He’s a commercial photographer. A very successful commercial photographer and he share a lot of secrets on his podcast about how to get started. What are the things to look for when you’re doing commercial photography and how to make it a success? I actually notice 2 big mistakes that I’m making in my commercial photography which probably costing me a lot of money. Just remember all the show notes from today’s show go to photoprofit.net and you can grab all of them there. Awesome let’s jump right into it.

Getting to know Mike Newton

Brent: How did you get into commercial photography? Just kind of fill us in your story or your progress.

Mike: Absolutely, I’ve been shooting really just for fun. I think since 2007 and I always had a camera even back in the film days when I was a kid shooting a little point of shoot but moved to my first digital SLR back in 2007. Just learn everything I could; really get into lighting and all of those fantastic websites. And just kind of fill into occasional random photo shoot like “hey I need headshots”, “hey I need to update my LinkedIn photo, can I send you 50 bucks” you know random stuffs like that. And I was working at a startup for a number of years; a technology company in Sand Diego; and a lot of other photographers. And it was probably 2012 that I started to pick up and people asking to do family photos and things like that. I kind of fell completely backwards into one photo shoot and a friend actually the co-founder of our company; his sister in law worked for a firm I think in Wisconsin and they do commercial real estate. So it’s a publicly traded real estate company just acquiring 50 distressed malls all over United States. So their business is to buy distressed properties, fix them up and make them profitable. So the interesting challenge they had was this company was responsible on a high level to secure photographers in 50 different locations within a 2 week period and have the shots done so they could go into their yearly updated stock documents. And I was fortunate enough that they say “hey I know Mike has a camera, I bet he could do it” and I was about the only qualification apparently I needed it at that time but they asked me if I could shoot it and at that point you know the charge was maybe a hundred bucks per shoot. And they said that the pay isn’t much it’s only for a 4 hour day and its 1500 bucks. And to me my mind was blown away. I didn’t even know you could do that aside from shooting at weddings. So we lined up the shots and really just needed about 10 final images at the property. I was there for hours. It was actually over a super bowl Sunday at a football which is great for me. The place was totally empty so it was a lot easier to shoot that without a bunch of people in it. You know I had all the images done and uploaded within 24 hours. They were super stoked. They kind of got me down to the path of really opening up my mind to what images could be worth if there was a commercial viability behind rather than just family photos which that is consumer photography but that really opened up my eyes and it’s kind of how I got into it.

Brent: That’s really interesting. So I mean you’re expecting to get 200 for the day and they got you 1500 as a starting but do you think you could actually could’ve gotten more if you negotiate a little bit?

Mike: Well the nice thing about that and probably later in this we’ll get into pricing but this was nice because it was budgets take it or leave it. So there wasn’t really a lot of negotiating and at that time I had no idea of what I was doing so I was just “yeah I’m in” and I didn’t really consider you the value of those images would be. I didn’t even look up or even write a license agreement you know. They kind of line it all up in the contract. So everything was nice and button up cleaned. But I still definitely opened up my mind of what’s possible and definitely shape the way I looked at it; photography for pay. I really enjoy shooting non-moving objects. As I jump round and about. So that’s kind of how I got into real estate, architectures, interiors and things to that nature.

The Anatomy of 100k Commercial Photo

Brent: Awesome, so from there what or where did you go? I mean you obviously fired up a lot in your head saying “Okay I could actually make money out of photography doing what I love” so what did you do after that?

Mike: So I started to kind of looking into a little bit more because you know as anyone who’s kind of hope thru the web for whatever reason a lot of photographers tend to be secretive about commercial photography. There’s not a lot of great information out there. I think a lot of people don’t put it out there because it makes more difficult to people to compete with them. You know which I understand but it doesn’t really matter coz people shoot a different category. So I started looking into things and I found a blog post that even further opened up my eyes. I’ll send this to you after we’re done recording. And it was called the Anatomy of a $100,000 Commercial Photography Estimate. And wait a minute you got my attention, speak again. It was by Gary Martin who is a writer for F Stoppers. And it essentially broke down, here’s how he charge; a $100,000 for a commercial client and the final deliverable was 8 images. So that’s just totally opened up my mind to the value of an image could worth. And think in today’s society when everyone has a camera and everyone kind of consider themselves a photographer. And I say that in the best way not a discouragement. I think realizing if you shoot the right content the images can have a huge amount of value to the company because as someone once perfectly said, I wish I could give credits to this but I forgot who it was but he said that people don’t buy things on the internet. They buy photos of things on the internet. And that was like a big “WOW” for a client that’s kind of haggling over price we could put our feet down because ultimately if you’re shooting a company, if you’re shooting something that is designed for advertising whether a print web, a TV or whatever. Those images can make someone a profit. So it’s okay to ask for a licensing or what not. So the way that kind of left out was around 2012. I kind of randomly picking out some more shoots. Part of the benefit of befriending other photographers around in your area is you can trade leads and trade clients back and forth. So I found that I was very interested in shooting architectures and interiors whereas a lot of my friends would shoot you know headshots or other little things like that. And when a lead came to me like a wedding I didn’t want to shoot it so I just handed it off to a friend. And when they would get a request for doing an interior or building or some kind of architecture they will just pass it to me. So developing this kind of relationships or partnerships were huge to make you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars just depending on who you end up in getting relationship there.

Brent: And that’s a great point Mike. And a lot of photographers I guess maybe they’re scared a little bit of the competition in the area and you know everyone got the pie mentality that there’s a certain size of the pie and they get the chunk of the pie of the piece of the pie instead of collaborating with other photographers that are in your area and say “hey you know what I’m the commercial guy, I do real estate in commercial photography. If someone asks me about a wedding I’ll send them your way if you do weddings and portraits or whatever.” I think that’s just a different mindset really. You know to collaborate instead to compete.
Focusing on Referral Partners

Mike: Right and it also comes down to choosing a niche, it’s from a marketing perspective. You know when we’re new I did this just like everyone did this. Especially if you’re asking for money, you take any shoot like “yeah I can shoot this, I can shoot headshots I can do buildings”, “product, never done it before but I’m in” and the problem with that is it’s much harder to market yourself as doing everything rather than being the guy or the gal who does one thing. So very quickly I made that my focus. I decided that I would turn away everything else that wasn’t architecture, real estate or buildings or sometimes you know food products. Basically things that didn’t move. I really like that because I was able to play around with kind of complex lightings in the area like my kind of stuff. So 2012 a referral partner of mine my buddy Bradley Schwyt he had been shooting longer that I had and he had so much overflow and he couldn’t take it. So he would just send me a bunch of shoots that were out of my ally and it was enough that by the end of 2013 I look back on how much money I made and amazed me that it was almost as much as my regular job just part time. And that’s when really it kind of hit me as “okay I can do this”. So I didn’t quit the job without having an existing business. So that’s another big tip I built that while I’m still working. So that I already had a client based. I already have a name, I had referral partners and so I was able to leave and very comfortably and form a profitably and transition to a full time photographer.

Brent: And that’s really good. That’s a really good piece of advice. I did it the opposite way Mike.

Mike: I admire your confidence.

Brent: I was working as an engineer and I also had my portrait studio set up. And what happen was actually burnt out. I’ve totally burnt out. I ended up in bed for 3 weeks with bronchitis because I burnt myself out of working too hard seven days a week with two jobs basically two full time jobs. I actually had to give up the job that was giving me the money and then actually go for the work that I was passionate about which is photography, the thing that I love. But I haven’t figured out how to make money out of it yet. But when that’s your only thing you figured out pretty quickly. And you’ve got 8 grand on your credit card and you don’t have any leads and the phone isn’t ringing. But you’ve figured out pretty quickly. I would suggest to anyone listening to this don’t do it the way I did it; do it the way Mike did it. Work the second job on the side until you’re making the same or more than your regular job and then you can quit your regular job. I think the only problem with that is that actually you’re earning twice as much as your regular job because you got 2 sources of income. And then when you quit your regular job you go back to half the pay.

Mike: Although I will say as an asterisk this may not be typical that my income skyrocketed as soon as I left because I started doing much higher pay to shoots. And from a business sense it helped that my background was business development. So at the start up that’s what I did. I did sales, I did marketing, I did you know putting quotes proposals together. I was comfortable going in and pitching an entire audience. So to me that just came a second nature. So I think a lot of people when they go out into the photography realm to make it a business then that’s the most important thing that it’s a business. First it’s an art outlet, second unless of course if you’re a fine arts photographer you’re selling in galleries. But even then you still have to have a very fine business. I think a lot of people underestimate the amount of time. You know the resources that are going to advertising yourself. And go into creating relationships. And following up with proposals and doing licensing agreements and all those things that aren’t fond of you know shooting photography just for fun.

Brent: And a lot of people don’t actually realize that when it comes to the business photography it’s actually business is 90% and photography is 10% at least that’s my experience running a portrait photography studio. When actually looking at the hours I spent and we’ve spent between 8-1- man hours per client from start to finish for family photo shoots. The photo shoot was only one hour. Other that the rest was marketing and talking to clients and selling to them and getting prints ready. There’s a lot of other work that people don’t realize. So that’s really good point there the business of photography not the photography of business. Yours is actually is a photography of other businesses.

Mike: Exactly and there’s another important point as well when looking at or to get a definition of commercial photography I’m just gonna make my own I’m sure there’s other one out there but really all commercial photography means is that photography aimed at having a business. So you can be a wedding photographer which is shooting the individual people’s wedding but you could be a commercial photographer and shoot a wedding that was made for an advertising campaign. So the difference in there is almost how it’s used. It’s not necessarily the medium itself. So commercial photography is just essentially means you’re shooting for business rather than individuals. So I like to look at it as commercial photography versus consumer photography. So in your case you know shooting families that was consumer photography. That was for getting families and their loved ones and commercial photography is just shooting for a business as clients instead.

Brent: Yes that’s business to business instead of business to consumer. And then so after 2013 when you quit your job and you really focus on your commercial photography everything skyrocketed for you. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Mike: Sure, I had a really easy transition. And I don’t know if it’s or I guess what I’ve contributed to that is that I’ve spent the last year or two kind of building a business meanwhile I had a great referral partners. Because a lot of my business came from referrals because I focus on being the guy in San Diego but if you’re in a restaurant and the thing about San Diego restaurant scene is it’s very competitive. You put a huge amount time and a lot of money. And it’s not uncommon to spend a million dollars opening a restaurant or more.

Brent: Yeah that’s the smaller ones.

Mike: So there’s very real need to have high quality images when you put that much money into something to make it work. And to really sell all the crazy design that they put in to these things. So it was kind of a cool turn around and in that my friend Bradley Schwyt that I recommended that I refer to earlier up into that point he even kind of carrying me along by sending me all this work and the beautiful part was October 2013 when I quit my job and moving to 2014 suddenly I had so much business and I was able to handle it all. And I was able to send a lot way back his way so much way that he was able to quit his job to get full time in photography. It was a beautiful turn around. And it was the perfect thing. We didn’t ask each other for referral fee. He was just a buddy recommending another buddy who you knew who’s gonna take care of the client. It’s just really good.

How to get clients?

Brent: Mike can we dig a little bit deeper into how you actually get your clients. So you’re talking back referrals where you’ve got a network of photographers who or businesses who actually refer you to a business looking for a commercial photographer. How does that work and when you’re talking about referral fees or I mean is that like a fee or like a 10% of the cost of the job. How does that work or what would you recommend people who wanna start out? How do they get that first client?

Mike: Sure, so a couple things. So the first client for me didn’t come from the industry I end up then. So it was just amazing to me that I would go out and shoot a headshot. I was like a crazy photographer. I was just so into it when I was learning. My camera was with me everywhere. And this was the 5D Mark II with a speed light with a grip and always carried it into my arm. I go to a club in the middle of the night. I go to a bar and I’m that dork with the giant camera rig taken photos coz I wanted to learn how to do nightlight photography. And I’m just carrying business around. You’d be amazed that all the people you’d stumble into and the next day they’d give you a call. I did even consider getting a site like café press and just making a shirt with giant bold letters that says photographer for hire and wearing it around if I could pick up business. I may have to do that. But honestly just being everywhere with the camera helped. I think that with today social media is so big that water marking images and just telling clients that if their gonna share and things like that on Facebook or Instagram or whatever if they wouldn’t mind. Think I would send them to download links one of the gallery that’s full of whatever you’re doing and then the one with a water marker at least give me a shout out. And I got a lot of referrals that way as well and also following up with people so I think that a lot of photographers make a mistake that once they get to shoot that’s it. They just wait to hear back from a client. Whereas I had specific reminders every single month and every other week you know take time to reach out to my previous clients and just developed that relationship you know how the things are going, how the shoot come across with the images. How are they used you know “can I help you with anything else.” Staying in touch with people is so critical. So much business left on the table that people just loose because they never follow up after the initial shoot or even worst you know when someone says no. It’s just gonna happen, the timing off is just isn’t right. You’d be surprise how often it’s you know like two or three months later “oh hey we actually need someone right now I’m so glad you reached out” and I get the job or otherwise it will be given to other photographers.

Brent: So how did you do that? Do you have like one day a week to specifically reach out to people in network?

Mike: I like to do that. I’m really big on putting it on a calendar. I think when you run a business there so many things are happening as you can assess it too. But it’s easier to forget. So if it’s not on my calendar it’s not gonna happen. So you know even once a month writing all of your previous customers just a touch base is just good business. It’s not really even good business but it’s like building relationships with people. You know like just grab lunch with the client like “I’m in the area next Tuesday”, “I’m around let’s grab lunch” or “let’s go grab a beer after work” you know people become good friends of mine. It’s more than just a business but relationships. When you take that extra step you go on extra mile you stay top of mind as you should.

Brent: What about networking communities like over here we got like a business network with people hand out leads. Would you suggest people do something like that?

Mike: I think maybe if you’re beginning you can but personally I’ve never been a fan of that. Again my background was business development so I had no problem calling the clients I want and pitching them cold on working with me. I’m comfortable with that and I think that not a lot of people are. But even if done by email I think it’s important that people get comfortable with reaching out to the clients that they want. So being able to at least and it’s not pitching that say “hey can I shoot for you right now?” You can reach out to people and just introduce what you do. It certainly helps if you can ask previous clients if “ hey who else would you know who would be a good fit” or “who else do you know that does this kind of thing” or “that is opening a restaurant” and you’ll be surprise with the tightening some of these communities are no matter what you’re shooting in. That can get you a lot of businesses by just asking for it. Sounds so simple but a lot of people aren’t comfortable or they just forget to just ask.

Brent: Okay so just thinking from someone about a job into commercial photography what are the things that they need to have in place before actually reaching out to people? I’m thinking maybe a website like a business name. A couple of shoots under your belt that you can actually show it to people. What do you think is like the minimum that you actually need to get started?

Mike: Well in my case you just need a friend who needed a camera.

Brent: There we go.

Mike: I think to be honest the reason why I joke around about that you know commercial photography I think a lot of it times is misconstrued as being shooting a million dollar campaign for Nike or Apple. When it could be something as simple as doing a $200 shoot for a local restaurant so I don’t think there’s a bare minimum; I think with any business obviously you had to have a website. Mine is not flashy. You can go to mikenewton.com it’s just a simple smug mug website. I kept it as minimal as possible. Because I don’t think a lot people need tons of stuff you know. I made a mistake. I’m usually having 15 different galleries with 15 different subject types on there. And right now pretty basic. It’s the only things that I shoot. So that way if they don’t see whatever they won’t reach out to me. And I don’t want them to because that’s not what I shoot. So I think a bare website with just a handful showing what you’re capable of. And you always want your best images. You don’t want a ton of images. I think that’s a mistake a lot of people make. Your clients don’t need to see every shoot you’ve ever done. They just need to see that “okay these are awesome” and that’s all I need to know.

Brent: How many a dozen?

Mike: I think it just depends. You know I’ve tried both. I had 10 super solid images in each galleries so an architecture gallery I’ve had just a handful. And on the local restaurants side another hand. You can look up my restaurant gallery and there’s probably 60 or 70 different individual galleries showing the full of every restaurant I shot. And I like to do a testing on my own business and in that case because it’s local. That helps me close a lot more business. Whereas if it’s simple products I don’t really need to have a whole lot; whereas if it’s a local market I can help you to see “oh wow he shot every freaking place in the last year and half year coz they all know each other since it’s a tight community. I used to carry around business cards but I don’t even carry them around anymore. I think it’s just easier for me to add them on LinkedIn on my iPhone. I use new cards which are fantastic and when you’re new so it’s a good idea. Literally anyone you talk to hand him a card. Whether or not they ask if you’re a photographer hand him a business card coz you’d be surprise when they pass it to someone that just happens to bring up photography.

Brent: Okay that’s a really good tip. I’ve actually found business cards some where I am or no good anymore. You know people just kind of loose them or something but that is if I find a potential client. I get their number and their contact details and then I’ll send them an email and follow up with them. If you actually leave it to someone else to follow you up you’re gonna be waiting on the phone forever.

Mike: That is such a great point. I think that bold it of highlight it because a lot of people go lapse over that is that as a photographer especially one working with businesses it’s your job. You are the one need to be following up with people in staying on top of them. It’s not their job to follow up with you. So just always try to put yourself in the business’ shoes to reign in business. And if it’s a small business you’re doing a million things all at once. So definitely staying on top on that is helpful.

Getting the Best Tool

Mike: I suggest the tool real quick. It’s free. There’s a tool called zoho.com and it’s a CRM system. It’s a customer relationship management system. And this is what I used back when I was with the tech start-up company. Basically that enabled me that if I met someone I could go into Zoho. I can add their contact information and their email and their name. And then I could create opportunity with them. An opportunity that is essentially had we discussed the shoot. I entered that in. What’s the potential sale, price of that and then what step of the sale are we in. I’ll go and just meet them. The value building stage, the price quotation stage, the final closing stage and that is beautiful. Because you can at one quick glance you can get an idea on perspective timelines for shoots. You can start to forecast your income revenue. And you can see all these people are at the interest stage and they’ll take the next step and starts talking about an actual shoot or these people are you know with the value billing stage and needed someone to quote. It’s just that once you start juggling a lot of clients it’s really easy to let things up to the crack and can be very costly. So it’s how you can set a ping reminder “hey don’t forget to send this person this thing” like I said if it’s nit on my calendar it’s not gonna happen. So being able to track and forecast that is crucial.

Having Different Stages of Sale

Brent: Let’s just jump quickly into your system there. So you said there’ different stages, so interest value building, just really quickly the interest stage is when somebody contacts you and say “hey I’ve got a restaurant that we are opening up and we’re looking for a commercial photographer” is that correct?

Mike: Right or I reach out to them probably more likely. You know at this stage a lot that I don’t mind doing outbound phone calls, emails that’s what I’m comfortable with. And I think therefore it’s gonna get more shoots than competitors because a lot of people honestly a lot of people just wait around for the phone to ring. In the business that’s deaf.

Brent: It never gonna happen.

Mike: Right so being comfortable with running and ad campaign or Facebook or just pick up the phone and hangout to someone. Go into someone’s office. In my case go into a restaurant and eating and ask for the manager. So those things add up pretty quickly.

Brent: Normally they ask for a manager because there’s something on their food.

Mike: Exactly so they always come out.

Brent: So that’s the interest stage reaching out to potential clients, right or then getting all of you?
The Qualification Stage

Mike: So that stages are actually laid out inside Zoho so literally I walk them through. I’m in the system right now. So there’s qualification that means maybe you’d met with the client or whatever. Are they qualified prospect? So if I go and chat with a product company or a restaurant or incorporate buildings and I found out that there’s no budget or the budget is 200 bucks when it should be 10 times that or there’s not gonna be a good fit then they don’t pass the qualification stage. So they’re not qualified. That’s important coz there’s a lot of people make mistakes and just assuming everything’s good to go. Get really fall out of line and lots of emails back and forth and then they found out “oh wait this person is not qualified” either maybe this person is not qualified to make the decision or getting the right decision maker or there’s none appropriate budget or timeline’s off or whatever the case may be.

Brent: Okay how do you know what the budget is? You just ask them?

Mike: I typically do. Once you done this enough you get comfortable in cutting to the chase because you need to know if they can afford you. And vice versa you know they need to know if they can afford you.

Brent: Okay so what do you say “hey Joe I know you want to photograph your restaurant, what budget has you put out there in the commercial photography?”

The Needs Analysis Stage

Mike: Right so to jump back in to the stages the next one is a needs analysis. And that’s what’s going to lead to if there’s a budget available. So qualifications just mean do they fit your qualifications for a good client. Then there’s need for analysis which is taking a time to actually learn what they need. So for example I have an email sitting in my inbox right now from a company to tech start up that makes this cool. Have you ever seen or you might have seen advertised on Facebook it’s called a Tile. It’s not a tile company but it’s a little tin tag that you can put on you tees, on your backpack or whatever. And you can track it through GPS. So you won’t lose your keys, you don’t lose your phone or whatever it’s attached too. It’s awesome. And there’s a company in San Diego that’s doing this to their start-up company and their looks so fantastic so you attach it to your bag, you attach to you whatever you don’t wanna lose in the house and you can pull it up on a map so you can see exactly where it is and how close you are. It’s pretty awesome. So in the needs analysis I’m going to reach out to them. We’ve been going back and forth on email. It’s always preferable if you can do a phone call. It’s kind of an old school but a lot of people mistakenly go back and forth for an email which can just stretch things out and take too long. You can build more rapport and build a relationship over the phone. In the needs analysis I’m learning. What exactly do you need? So for example I’ll send out a document just give me an idea of what you need and fill this out or help kind of come up with an appropriate budget. So how many final images do you need? Wat are the locations of the said images? In this case they need 4 different product shoots. They want a beacon thing attach to a laptop bag, backpack, set of keys. All these different items but they’re all in different locations so 3 final images will be on 2 different items in a coffee shop. Then several will be at the gym, then one from the library, one at the school. And I need that because it can impact the time it can take me to do that shoot. So we’re talking 5-6 locations that can stretch out over 2 days with travel time, set up, lighting, and all those things. If I don’t do that in advance it’s not good because it might set me up for failure and maybe they had a $500 budget and I’m gonna propose 5,000 and they’re gonna run a national ad campaign or whatever the case maybe. So the needs analysis really gonna give a clear idea what the client needs. Everything from the number of final images, locations, timeline, who signs off on this, whatever the licensing needs so having a long direct conversation will tell you everything you need to know in order to come up with an appropriate quote.

Brent: Awesome and you can probably like you said do that over the phone and actually I find talking to someone is so much better than email because you can hear the tone of voice so if you ask him a question and he’s kind of “ahh I’m in or a little bit about it” you know you say “is this a $500 budget or is this 5 grand budget” and they’re like “ahh hmmm probably half in between” then you already know but that’s sometimes hard to get by email because I’ll send you back something like corporately and like “well you know we’ll give you the budget hen we’re ready to release it” or something like that. So I think the phone call can save a huge amount of time and get more information than emails but anyway that’s just my own experience.

Mike: You’re entirely right. I think that a lot of people missed that because we’re all so used to digitally communicating but we miss those finer details of voice inflection and building rapport and building relationship over the phone and getting them to enjoy your company.

The Value Proposition Stage

Mike: So then there’s value proposition which comes after needs analysis that’s just you pitching yourself on why you’re worthwhile. What can you bring to the table? And ultimately we’re kind of lucky in that most of our value proposition has to do with the quality of the image. So you got to have the goods.

Brent: That’s basically selling yourself right?

Mike: Exactly, the quality of your images has to good. You don’t have to say “I’m the greatest thing in the world”. Most of the time they just needing to see if the quality of your image or even more importantly with the ability to differentiate yourself if your style of the image fits to what they want to do and that’s where we can differentiate ourselves is once you shoot long enough to develop your own recognizable style that’s when you can really charge more than your competition.

Brent: What about testimonials at this point? Would it be good to show to client a testimonial from a past client?

Mike: Absolutely yes and especially if you can and this is something where I’m missing the boat here where you bring that up thanks for reminding me. I should have testimonials on my site with the final client images and a photo of the client. That makes it real. That makes them a real person not someone that you could type up not that you would do that but again it’s just the one that actually putting someone’s face and the image if they’re okay with that. These things could go very long way.

Brent: And you know what’s even like even better than that Mike is to get a video testimonial from your client even if it’s just on your iPhone with some decent audio and then cut it and then actually put the client’s images in between when they’re talk about it and then post that in your website or even just have it in your phone when you meet face to face with a potential client and you actually show them someone that they know or someone similar in the industry a video in your phone with the actual person talking about you, how good you were, and how you actually help their business improve or get the profit they wanted or the right images to sell it. And with the actual images I mean a 2 minute video you can sell yourself just by having someone else sell you to them.

Mike: That’s huge. That’s probably the biggest tip so far. I don’t know. I might have to experiment on this. You made me think of something I haven’t tried before which is actually pulling the phone out and recording informally of course; recording me and the client during the shoot itself.

Brent: And actually the best time to get testimonial is right after the shoot or after you’ve delivered the images to the client. If you can get face to face with them and you actually show them your big screen or whatever to present them the images. And then you say “hey would you mind if I just do a quick little recording, I’ll just pull out my phone and just say to our potential client of mine you know how did I do?” And then you start recording the person and obviously they’re excited. They love the images and then they’re gonna say really good things about you and you say “thanks man, is it okay if I put that in my website?” “Go ahead”, good done.

Mike: That’s huge. That’s really huge in addition to showing how those final images were use. It’s probably the last kind of nail in the coffin that you need for value building. So in my case you know it’s called the tear sheet. It actually means showing the image, how is it used in an ad or in a magazine or on a billboard or whatever the final medium was coz that makes it real. It’s not just “here’s a pretty photo” or “here’s you pretty photo sitting on a billboard on the highway” or “here’s the cover of the magazine” you know it’s very helpful. Those kinds of things or even “here’s an ad on the newspaper” or the local magazine or even on that person’s website. You know those things make it real then you can finally see the final value where that image ended up.
The Proposal and Price Quote Stage

Brent: Awesome so after the value proposition is that when you give them the quote?

Mike: Yes, the value propositions after you get into proposal and price quote and again I’m literally just going thru this in order for my Zoho shows. Yeah the proposal and the price quote usually I can knock that out the next day or two. And everyone’s price gonna change here. It’s market dependent. So in San Diego I can probably charge more within my hometown of Colombia in Missouri that has a 100,000 of people. That said it cost more to live in San Diego. So what I like to do and I will actually include there was a really helpful blog post on F stoppers. And I already have this in my email. I’m gonna send it to you in a minute. I want you to share it with everyone that was so helpful to me. I don’t even know if I reached out to this guy but I feel like I did in that time because it was such a revelation. It was an F stoppers post on how to price yourself as a commercial photographer. And the concept was like a day rate. That really change the way I thought. I used to think an hourly term coz as an employee that’s kind of how I was paid. The commission was little different but you get this mind set of what I’m worth per hour whereas on a day rate or a fraction of a day rate to your point earlier that 90% of your business is not photography. You know realizing that if I need to make x not for the year I probably not gonna be shooting 40 hours a week. I probably be shooting 5-6 hours a week and the rest is all gonna be business. So how do I price myself appropriately so that I can make up for that? So a day rate for me is an amount that for the day you know on average I’m probably gonna shoot one day a week on full day or 2 full days or whatever you can typically get. You know that’s your base amount to live, survive and you can do business. Not even profitable but just to run the business that is not a loss.

Brent: Is that including post processing?

Mike: No that’s just for my time to shoot. So then once I have that day rate that’s just me showing up and create the images. After that then I’ll add in line items for the time that it’s gonna take me to edit the images. And here’s I think where a lot of people miss the boat is we need to charge every second that you’re doing something for the client. They’re used to it.

Brent: Even when you’re thinking about them.

Mike: Exactly. All those times watching TV set the editing. I was joking.

Brent: Me too.

Mike: You know it comes down to time shooting for 8 hours. Then let’s say that there maybe 10 final images. I need to be able to provide a quote based on my past experience on how long it’s going to take me to edit those 10 images. And then also little things like how long does it take me to upload those images to Lightroom, how long it’s gonna take me to through, choose them, flag them, categorize them, add them to catalogues, how long’s gonna take me to back them up, how long it’s gonna take me export them to my site to get download link ready for the client. All of those things count. And all of them take your time. And commercial clients typically if you’re shooting for businesses they’re used to being charged that way. That took me a long time to get thru my head because if you ever talk to a lawyer luckily so far I don’t have to but if you gonna pick up the phone and talk to them they’re gonna charge you for that. There are no freebies. And for photographers there shouldn’t be either. So you just needed to be able to appropriately add all of these things so some of my line items and things like you know course image editing. And again the price there is per hour is just gonna be different per person in club market. And you’ll eventually find this out. But that blog post that I refer to earlier will help you identify how to charge this thing. Things like if you need to rent gear so let’s say if you’re an architectural photographer and you just starting out you know maybe you don’t wanna go and spend $5,000 just to get a 17 millimeter and a 24 millimeter lens. So maybe you’re gonna rent those for a hundred bucks total in a local rent’s place.

Brent: You just passed it on the pros?

Mike: Absolutely, I pass all the gear rentals. Now at this point I pretty much have all of the gear that I needed. But you can still charge them for that because you still gonna have wear and tear in your gear and again it’s dependent but it’s gonna take you time to load up all car full of a bunch of different stuffs and depending on your set ups and how much lighting you’ll use. So yeah sometimes I still charge for gear even if I had it. That’s a standard commercial practice. You got yourself to log It around and wear for depreciation and I have to replace all those things so what else do I pass on? Sometimes I need a photo assistant. I used to have a concept that was a “hoydi toydi” thing you know and have someone to carry and umbrella over me and “get me water”, “get me a cup of coffee” but there’s lot of times where all used and add assistant into the shoot if time’s gonna be a factor and if budget’s gonna be a factor. So if I have an assistant to help me set up lights, bright things down, you know moved thing around like one of the case maybe. You know charging 100 bucks or 50 bucks rather whatever you want to charge an hour for an assistant is probably a lot better used than charging 250 or 300 an hour for me by the time you break down on a day rate for me if I have to do it by myself.

Brent: Definitely and you know what I call that Mike? I call that remote control light stand.

Mike: Exactly so I have a quote for a publicly traded a company who sells pet supplies. They’re probably the biggest in the world. Let’s say an architect that is designing their new headquarters a 200,000 sq. ft. place in San Diego I’s huge so I’m going into the process right now of creating a quote for them. And part of that quote is that they needed a ton of images. It’s 200,000 sq. ft. that take me awhile so I’m budgeting in for an assistant for 8 hours for the whole entire day because I can knock out a lot more and a lot quicker. You know that’s a line item. I’m not gonna pay that out of my pocket because that cuts in the profit.

Brent: For sure and also if you’re renting for a studio or you obviously pass it on too. So you said you put that in the line item. So you obviously putting your day rate and then underneath that a quote you put in the extra things that you have to get for this specific shoot.

Mike: Exactly, everything is listed out and that’s the point in doing an excellent need analysis then you have all those information. Someone who does and goes “how much it’s gonna cost?” or “how much for a photo shoot?” or “how much for a house?” It’s a suggestive question. You need to kind of know if someone is looking for before you can quote properly. I mean there’s a lot of a thing that you can quote for. If there’s other material that you need let’s say you’re gonna do a food shoot and they need some kind of custom background or they need 7-10 different materials backdrop you’re gonna use throughout the day. If you’re buying those out of your pocket then you’re gonna need to charge the client for that. Anything that affects your bottom line the client should be charge for that.

Brent: And obviously I’m getting that the quote is super important. Probably 2 reasons and firstly I don’t wanna under quote and you got a business because you’ve put in all this work and you got to deliver now and you haven’t charge enough and you’re not gonna make a profit and then the second one is you got to come in a t the right price for the customer for their needs too. So if you’re too expensive they’ll go to someone’s cheaper. If you’re too cheap then maybe not even consider you because you don’t see value in what you’re doing like “oh this guy’s obviously doesn’t know what he’s doing because this guy is too cheap”.

Mike: You bring up a really good point there. You know undercharging is a critical mistake that I think almost all made a mistake and admittedly when we’re first starting because maybe we have a place enough value of what we do yet or we’re uncomfortable with the idea of charging whatever we consider a lot for some people like to be charging 500 bucks per shoot is too much right? Some people won’t even touch the shoot if less than 500 grand. It’s interesting how that bar keeps climbing along when we’re doing this but I think an important point to make and this is really I think were the commercial photography differs quite a bit is that there’s a lot less competition the higher up the ladder you go so now this I contingent upon you having the goods. Your images have to be damn good. That’s the first point with any photography to be able to charge more than your competitors because at this point it’s not about price it’s about the quality of the image that is the most important factor. When you look at a client whose job is to make money of the photos you’re creating for them that’s what they care about most. They can’t have sub part images that they went cheap on.

Brent: Yeah definitely. I mean it comes down to value. Are you providing value to your client? You know if you’re charging a lot and they actually get the exposure that they want and get the people to but their product its good value. If you’re charging a little bit and it’s sub-par image and they’re not gonna get the clients because the image isn’t good enough they’re not gonna get value either so that’s a great tip over there. So you’ve qualified your client, you find exactly what they want, you’ve sold yourself, you used your video testimonial to sell yourself that you’re the right person for the job, give them a quote and that’s gonna make you a decent profit and it’s kind of in the ball park for the client budget is. What do you do next?

Negotiation and Review

Mike: So I like to do a contract review call. This is something that was really helpful in my days in business development with the technology company. You can’t just place something on the price over and wait for a yes or no because there’s a lot that goes into a quote. Imagine yourself you’re not a photographer. And you’re discussing these things with a photographer and they send a quote over and you don’t know what the hell an assistant is, does or why I need this. What are these business fees for? And then you don’t know what gear rentals are or you don’t know what you know we’re talking in our own lingo in our own lexicon here and may not understand all these things why you need them. Why they are important for their end goal is getting that shot or those shots that they need so I think it’s helpful to have a contract review call.

Brent: Do you do it straight after? After you send the quote to them? Do you give them a call and say “hey can I explain what’s in that quote so you’ll understand it?”

Mike: Yeah I mean it’s helpful if you can preschedule that and say “hey I’m gonna sent the agreement can we schedule a call to go over this so that I can explain what everything is, why everything is” you know it’s preferable I mean I do a lot of this over the phone but if they are a local company by all means it’s helpful if you can meet with them in person. That’s ultimately gonna close more business than anything unless someone’s comfortable with it because it’s business. You do these things in person. If you’re working for an agency that’s half the world away that’s a different story but if you can meet with someone you’ll definitely on higher propensity to close business for sure.

Brent: Definitely and I think this is the big mistake that I made on my life’s quote. With my last commercial quote I never called them after and I think that’s why I never got it. Great tip there. And then once you’ve spoken to them and then know everything on the quote what happens next?

Mike: So then you typically get into negotiation and review which is the net stage in Zoho so it’s kind of combination type of thing. Negotiation is okay as long as it’s fair. So a lot of times you’re dealing with the final decision maker. But they have their own constraints as well. So sometimes they’re just saying “well it’s over our budget” because they’re just negotiating and that’s just how it goes. But sometimes there is a very hard and very real budget. Sometimes I can’t do over insert price here. I can’t like literally my conscience is telling me I have 2500 bucks for this. That’s all we can do which is fine. I quote them like 4,000 bucks and all they can do is 2500 and a lot of people might as well go away. But what they should really do here is just change the agreement so that it reflects their budget.

Brent: Yes so you take out a few things.

Mike: Exactly and that’s the point of charging from those line items is “okay if your budget is only 2500 then let’s do this”. Let’s remove the assistant. I’m only gonna do x not of editing. I’m going to only bring us smaller amount of gear to work with. You know I’m only gonna this and I’m only gonna be there for 4 hours instead of 8 then we’ll just try to get what we can while I’m there. Then a lot of times they go “well do we need that?” Yes if we need the initial quote but you guys are on a budget for that. So we’re just gonna have to do without it. And have been able to talk successfully my back up. Just because you are able to explain what those things are, why they need them so on and so forth. So a lot of times that’s just negotiation. Which is we could probably do a whole night of a call just for negotiation.

Brent: Totally.

Mike: But typically it’s pretty simple. It’s not like you’re sitting across the table and you’re fighting over it. It’s more of a conversation back and forth. They’re not trying to fight you on price. You’re not trying to fight them. You’re just trying to find that happy middle. And I’m happy too you know when they’re half in a budget, I’m happy to work out the time and make it appropriate for that. It’s totally cool.

Brent: Definitely and just finding the middle ground on what you agree on right?

Mike: Exactly.

Payment Arrangement

Brent: And then so once you’ve come up with an agreement that suits you, do you take a deposit for the shoot?

Mike: I do and in fact in most cases now this again comes from experience and comes from being on the market all the time. I prefer to have client pay me upfront for everything but I think the most common is probably the more to do is 50% deposit and then you hold on to the images until that second deposit is paid. To do it in a 2 week time period. A month tops if it’s a bigger company because they have accounting systems to go through. You know it’s not like working with a family or consumer photography where you’re getting a cheque straight from their wallet or they’re sending you through PayPal or whatever. Sometimes there’s more bureaucracy in their payment system so some big companies only do payments every 2 weeks through their accounting teams which may be in a whole different state. Some of the restaurants I shoot for they’ve seen a lot of my work online and reach out from across the country. And they’re opening new place in San Diego and I’m the guy because they’ve found that my niche and I stand out a lot more. Company on that size typically have a lot more kind of systems that have to go through. And that’s fine.

Brent: So when you say you hold the images until final payment, do you actually give them a copy of the images so that they can start marketing or start using them but you hold the originals? How does it work?

Mike: They get absolutely nothing from me until I’m paid. And that also has to do with licensing agreement as well. Another line item that’s actually more of a paragraph is a photo license. That would take a step back because it’s crucially important. When you’re looking at an image for business it has a direct financial impact to that business. You would never considerably take a song for an artist, musician or whatever you wanna say and then throw it in a commercial and not expect to be sued. You just can’t do that. That said the value of that song in that commercial is dependent upon how wide the audience is and how far it runs. So let’s say I’m going to license Beatles song coz I’m gonna go for the top tier.

Brent: You got a big budget.

Mike: If I’m Apple right then I can do that. If it’s a worldwide campaign I’m gonna run that song and introducing the next iPad worldwide and doing hundred markets that’s gonna have a different price than using a local band for a local car company that’s gonna run for a month on 3 television stations. The value is different. Number one because obviously the reach is different. It’s important to know in the needs analysis on how images are gonna be used specifically so once you starting getting into images it’s no longer “here’s your images, do whatever you want with them”. It’s knowing “okay is this going to be for pint?” or “is this gonna be for web?” “So how much would you suggest for both?” That really makes them think through this. It’s not just an “end all or be all” “here’s the images” full unlimited license forever thing to pay what they’ve used for. Just like that song is paid for what it is used for. The Beatles will just go “here we go” with a local band doesn’t go “here we go you can use it however you want forever”. No, they’re gonna pay based on how long is the run of that image. What mediums does it come to doing that’s what link to that software so helpful for?

Brent: I think this is the big mistake I made right in the beginning too Mike. I’ve sold a few of my landscape images to a local resort where I live. And I think I’ve sold them for a couple of hundred bucks. Just because I was starting and “oh cool someone’s gonna pay me money for images, great” and I just gave it to them with no contract or anything. Well you know they’re still using it 10 years later. Like today I’ve seen a couple of my images on big billboards. Now the person I gave it to is long since moved on from a big company. And I was wondering like maybe I’ll just send them an invoice and say “here’s my yearly usage price for images” because they probably don’t even know. I don’t know. It’s probably not ethical right?

Mike: It’s tricky and that’s the point of having a good contract. And again that takes some time as well just dialing your own contract or what not. But having that usage agreement is important because you also recognize for an image. They’re not gonna use that image forever and ultimately the value of that image might degrade over time depending. Sometimes it’s evergreen constantly yours. They’re not gonna use it forever but you should be paid on that. It’s not uncommon to have a yearly license or every other year for instance. And then you could create a recurring residual business from your images by just what we owe one anyway. So the value of an image is enough and if it’s a good image you can use forever then that’s great. They can choose to renew it or not. And that can really add up on business as you keep building it.

Brent: Alright and then so we got to the taking a deposit. You give them the image as once you receive the full payment; anything else that we might’ve missed from the whole process there Mike?

Mike: So the way I tend to deliver the images again I’m a smug mug user. So it’s as simple as uploading the final images to whatever resolution that we have agreed upon. And again that’s another thing that needs to be figured out in the needs analysis. With that offer you can dial in what size and resolution image that they’re gonna need. So it’s only that they’re gonna use it for web there’s no reason you should them a 6,000 x 4,000 and pixels by 300 bpi image because that’s almost setting yourself up for an issue later when you see it on a giant billboard coz they have a full image right? Once I do that smug mug and a bunch of other stuff work is the same thing then it’s time for me to create a download link that lasts 14 days and delivers the images upon one click. Simply click the image or click the link in the email I sent them. It downloads the image to their computer. And they have them ready to go for a format that we agreed upon.

Staying in Touch and Follow Up

Mike: And after that like I discussed earlier that’s when the follow up starts. Not just going “okay call me next time you need something or you wanna buy something” it’s a terrible idea like to keep a relationship going. You got to keep the romance right?

Brent: Yeah totally

Mike: You go to let it stay. You got to keep yourself in front of the client. It could just be something as simple as when you get to know them. You know if they’re into something. If they’re into fishing or wine you know whatever it may be. Again this is what that CRM system is for. As you can type notes about the client. Once you typed that in you put a reminder in a month like “hey send Jared an article about California wines.” “Send Samantha an article about Italy.” You know whatever the case may be you just keep those notes about the client so that you will never forget anything. And you will be forever remembered if you do something like that. Major points if you mail something physically to them. Cut an article and mail it. “Are you kidding me? No one does that anymore.”

Brent: That’s a really good tip. I just like the kind of way you send an article coz that doesn’t cost you too much. It’ll cost you a little bit of time finding something that person is interested in and email it to them. You know I’ve never even thought about that. But I thought more about physical products by sending them a bottle of wine.
Mike: Right, it’s something simple as “hey you know I read this and I thought about you. I thought you might enjoy this.” “Oh someone is thinking about me?” I mean it doesn’t happen right?

Brent: Just finding excuses to actually send something to them to stay in contact really.

Mike: Absolutely, it’s doesn’t have to be a big giant long thing. Just a quick sentence or two and you’d be amazed how far that goes. You know that’s just being a good person. That’s nothing to do with material motive. Maybe if I send this they’ll book again. Of course that’s always there but that’s not the entire purpose. You just want to build a good relationship.

Brent: Well Mike it’s been awesome. We’ve got to wrap up pretty soon. I now we’ve been chatting for a long time and you’ve given me some really good stuff here.

Getting Testimonials from Clients

Brent: Let me do just a quick little wrap up of what we’ve gone through or did you wanna keep going or is there something else you wanna say at the end of the process that you run through after the follow up?

Mike: I’d say that to your point to be helpful to get testimonial after which I haven’t done merely as well as I should have. And I think that it’s also helpful to follow up and just to take to care and ask “how the images went over?” If it’s an ad campaign or if it’s a local commercial or if it’s an editorial license they can submit it to some local magazine to see if their place can pick up. You know ask me how it went. See how it went and also possible get a copy, get a tear sheet so that you can use that on your website “yeah actually it did go well, in fact they got your image on a cover on a hospitality design which go out to every possible one of our clients in the entire country.” “That’s good to hear, would you mind writing a testimonial about that”

Brent: Or jump on and hang on “hey can I talk to you about that and record it?”

Mike: Even better. See I’m not doing this.

Brent: Well I love talking to people who got some similar interest with me coz I love business and I love the business of photography. That’s awesome Mike so let’s just run through what we’ve spoken about today. So you’ve gone through your story of how you started with the distress more and thought you’re getting paid 200 and you get 1500 for one day’s work. And then kind of opened up your mind to the potential money you can make in commercial photography and how you actually enjoy shooting things that don’t move. Let’s have a look here. You’ve also talked on how you get clients. How to network, collaborate instead of compete with your photographers in your area. If you got a niche or I think you’ve obviously suggested that you should choose your niche. And become really good at one area of photography and then hand off clients to other people that wants a shoot that’s not in your nature then you get them referring people to you and then you quit your job once you’re making enough money through commercial photography and once you actually focus on commercial photography that’s when things went really worked really well for you. We’ve run through even more how to get more clients. And then we’ve gone through the whole system or the whole process of your commercial photography. How to qualify a client, the needs analysis, the value proposition, the quoting, and the contract negotiating, the licensing, when to take money, when to release the images to the client and then also how to deliver the images and then what to do after that so it’s been an amazing call Mike. You gave me so much information. I’m sure the listeners gonna love this. Some actually wants to get into commercial photography. One last thing is the action step for someone listening to this. What’s the thing that you need to do now? Like if they want to get into commercial photography. They think that they’re good enough you know you’ve got the images, you’ve taken a couple of commercial images and you wanna start charging. This is the kind of business that you wanna get. What’s the action step that you would suggest they do?

Mike: I think the first step is to take the initiative. And reach out and find client. It’s no different than starting any other type of business. Let’s say that have their niche identified. Call 20 people. Send an email to 20 different businesses in town. “Hey I just want to introduce myself. Here’s what I do.” “Here’s my gallery.” You know “I’m just starting my business here.” “Just want to put myself up there.” “If you’re looking for a xyz type of photography I’d love to shot with you at some point.” I mean it’s just simple as that like getting on people’s radar. Start talking about it with everyone that you know. It helps if you can go and shoot that type of content even if it’s on spec. What I mean by that is you can just walk into a business and depending on the business I should quote myself there. You’re not gonna go into a doctor’s office and shoot a medical professionals. I thin whatever it takes to get yourself into that type of niche is helpful so example is I knew pretty quickly that I want to shoot architecture. And I didn’t know right away that I was gonna be doing restaurants. So I ended up finding a local website well they’re national but they have a place in San Diego called eater.com and in my area its sandiego.eater.com and essentially what they do is they do a lot of editorial around all the bars and restaurants in San Diego area. Here’s a new place that’s open up. This place is closing down. The chef is moving here. Here’s the new cocktail menu. I thought it was very interesting coz I’m a geek about food and cocktails and what not so I reached out and I noticed that they had photos of the places that I talked about. And apparently they are also had the need for a photographer at that time. The one that they had used was leaving. And so I reached out to them and they were paying a whopping $50 per shoot which is amazing. You know considering I just quit my job. So the angle though the reason why this worked in here most people don’t see the value. And here’s why my photography buddies didn’t think I was the brightest of doing this but I turned out to be quite huge thing for me. Professionally I looked at it as I was being paid 50 bucks for a lead gem. So I could go in to a new restaurant that hadn’t been opened yet. Photograph their interiors quickly. Those were just quick; bring in the tripod, next to a light only. Long exposure works really fast in and out 10 minutes. I was able to get in front all the new restaurants and either one or two things happen. I was either the first photographer that they don’t even thought about photography coz I been doing a million things getting the business started. So I was the first one they call when they wanted new photos. And I booked to the entire top to bottom shoot of their restaurant space; the interior, the exterior, the food, the cocktails. You know that could be the full half day shoot or more or sometimes which is even better they will just go “hey we saw the photos n Eater, we loved them, how can we get a copy?” And I would just literally skip the process of doing another shoot and would just sell them the license of the images that I already shot. So I’d be in and out in 10-15 minutes and then I could sell a license to 500 bucks or more. Depending on the restaurant and what they’re gonna use it for. And you do over a 60 – 70 shoots in addition to having that create a portfolio and get you in front of everyone in town and be that guy for them. You can just be a local editorial magazine that doesn’t even pay. I’m not huge or not working for “no pay” but if have the content you need to find it somehow.

Brent: That’s a great tip Mike.

Mike: For lead gen that was really big ticket.

Brent: So they are actually paying you to advertise yourself. I like that.

Mike: In some places only the last thing which was really cool. The beauty of having a commercial value to your image this was totally unexpected to me. There were some places that I photographed that I get paid for Eater and would sell license to the images to restaurants themselves. And get booked to come back when they updated their interior. But there are some places that I would actually get unsolicited emails from the company who did the custom lighting fixtures inside. “Hey we saw the images. Can we use those for our website?” And I would sell 5 or 6 images from the same shoot to 5 or different companies who put together things inside the restaurant.

Brent: That’s really smart.

Mike: So make sure your shoots go a lot further as well to put commercial value to them.

More Information about Mike Newton

Brent: That’s awesome Mike so thank you so much for being on this photo profit podcast Mike. If people want to get a hold of you and find out more information, where do they go?

Mike: The best site to reach me is hackingphotography.com and they can reach me via email if they want to shoot an email directly which is [email protected] and that’s the site which I teach people basically I call it a week for photography but it’s essentially the 80/20 rule of photography; how to find the quickest short hacks and get the best impact as possible.

Brent: Perfect, love it and I believe you’re working on a commercial photography course but we’ll probably mention that in another podcast.

Mike: Right and I think I’m long overdue for that. But I’ve learned so much on the backs of other great photographers That I’ve shared the information with me and I wanted to kind of pay forward and create a top to bottom product on everything that I’ve learned to make it a real career.

Brent: Awesome Mike and thank you so much for being on the show and I’m sure we’ll talk in a few months or few weeks’ time and there’s lot of information that I’d like to extract out of you.

Mike: And vice versa. You have like 10 good ideas today man. And I will spend a couple of days implementing. Thank you for having me on the show as well.

Brent: Awesome, thanks Mike. Catch you later.

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MAKE MONEY FROM PHOTOGRAPHY COURSE

Learn to Make Money from your Photography in Just 10 Days!

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