The job you are considering is basically like saying .. ok I'm going to show the client how to do what I do that way I will never have the chance of gaining a repeat client. BAD CHOICE !!!! .. You're kinda put in a spot now because it's a friend and you've already made steps at offering a service to them. I personally would not do it .. if it's a super duper close friend who would give you a kidney if you needed it then you might do it the one time and make them swear not to tell anybody that way you don't end up getting a call from Companies X, Y and Z asking for the same service. You'll never get anywhere offering services like that.

Sure it's a nice image but it's not a business woman on a headset smiling if you get my drift.

LOL .. nice job you just summed up the backbone of micro in one sentence. 

Do you realise what you are saying? That means if you have a nominal overhead of say $1000 per month for your studio, equipment, printing, etc then you have to be generating $41K per month to maintain a profit margin of 4000%.
To achieve your 'original pricing structure which will be more like 7000%' you would need to generate $850K per year with an overhead of just $12K.

Yeah. I can see those in other countries not being able to understand that but Americans should have no problem grasping it at all. We have created mainstream multi-billion dollar areas of portraiture here that are not possible anywhere else. However that is not to say that everybody can't learn and use their heads to create better business models that return higher profits.
Don't wait for a good business to just land in your lap .. you gotta put some effort into it. If a person lives in a location where a photo business won't cut it or where rent is to high or where the economy is low .. then they have two choices .. move to where their business can grow and return high profits or they can sit around and cry about it and not believe the people who do it.

Randy, with profit margins like that , don't you get slaughtered by the IRS? 
I take a big tax beating every year because my expenses are only 15% of my revenues, but with your margins you must be getting killed on taxes! 
Unless I am missing something, or unless the profits you are telling us are different from the ones you are reporting??

Spend more time creating "paper expenses" you know everything that can be considered a legal deduction but doesn't actually create a physical expense. Look for ways to turn a non-photo expense into a photo expense. Find a way to rack the crap out of mileage. How often are you out for a drive and while you're driving you keep an eye out for interesting things to photograph? That's classified as location scouting and a required part of the business therefore a perfectly acceptable deduction. If you fire off a few shots it's even better.  Start making a log book because mileage can turn into a $10-20K deduction at the end of the year without even trying hard. Keep track of eating on the go and everything you can think of.

Quote from: Randy McKown on July 01, 2010, 20:25

Quote from: RT on July 01, 2010, 17:57

Quote from: Randy McKown on July 01, 2010, 14:44

Quote from: louoates on July 01, 2010, 09:38

Hmmm. 20% of one million sounds an awful lot like a profit of $200,000.

Which can be looked at two ways ... I made $200,000 over the course of an entire year .. or .. Hmmm I just lost $800,000 

$1,000,000 gross - $800,000 costs = $200,000 profit ........ where exactly have you lost any money?

ok I'm going to invest into expenses in order to run a business .. smart idea moving on .. So I'm working with $800,000 capital .. now I'm going to invest it all on expenses .. year is over and now how much do I have in my pocket? $200,000 ... it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you are losing money and need to take a serious look at your business model. Would have been better off not working at all and hanging on to the capital and maybe using it to pay for some business classes.

Randy,

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. If I invest 800k every year and clear $1M every year, I'm happy. There are many businesses that do much worse than 20% net margin. Even google and microsoft run at ~40%. This would mean they take $600k and produce $1M in revenue therefore $400k in profit. Are you saying that no business that has less than 50% net margin is a crappy business?

What am I missing?

Rahul

I'm not talking about a website or any other market. I'm talking about photography. You are going to take $800K out of pocket .. and wait a year so you can make a $200K profit and be happy As a photographer that's just insane !!!

Quote from: Randy McKown on July 01, 2010, 14:56

I'm not sure what version you got LMAO !!!! ... It sounds pretty stupid. When you go get a haircut is the stylist required by you to carry $2 mill in insurance in case they snip their finger while cutting your hair? If I go to the store and the bagger pulls a muscle lifting my case of bottled water can they sue me for millions? LOL But hey their bad business paid off for you. Congrats on the deal !!!

Ditto on the congrats. And I had the same thoughts as Randy. You aren't employed by them, you are a contractor. If you fall off your chair in your office, your insurance or you will pay for the injuries/damages. I suppose there are some who would try to sue the company they happened to be doing work for while in that chair, but I'm sure thinking it wouldn't fly even in a court of law. But hey, a woman sued McDonalds because she spilled hot coffee on herself, scalded herself, and won (claiming the coffee was too hot). So....

LOL yeah .. Gee your honor I never would have guessed that the hot coffee would be served hot. 

Thats a from paragraph in the contract about me having insurances about damages that may occur while working for them, or something.   


If I edit a photo for them, and fall back on my chair crushing a shoulder as an example, I need insurance against bodily injuries and property damage covering no less than $2000000 in a combined single limit.

That�s not possible to get in Sweden:)

Ofcourse I�ve got insurances, but would never get new ones for a single job...

I guess I got the American version of the contract:)

I'm not sure what version you got LMAO !!!! ... It sounds pretty stupid. When you go get a haircut is the stylist required by you to carry $2 mill in insurance in case they snip their finger while cutting your hair? If I go to the store and the bagger pulls a muscle lifting my case of bottled water can they sue me for millions? LOL But hey their bad business paid off for you. Congrats on the deal !!!

If you want to attack it like a business then forget about what your monthly sales are and look at your monthly, 1/4, year profits. $3500 a month might sound impressive to some people but what goes in your pocket? A person could make a million dollars but if they're operating on a 20% profit then they are actually failing horribly. How much money you bring in doesn't mean anything  ... it's how much you keep.

"When a request is made, Getty Images reviews the photographer's work. If it's suitable for the program they'll contact the Flickr member and help handle details like permissions, releases and pricing."

4 billion images (3.9 billion of which probably wont pass QC at 100%) .. can anybody say ... duh

I'm sure it saves them a hella lot of time because now they only need to invest time into images where an immediate sale is involved. However, it's also just one more notch in the timeline that adds to the total confusion of what is professional photography, value justification, consumer ignorance and overall bull#$% ... can you imagine how many idiots are gonna be running around making claims to be a Getty Photographer.

Here's an idea for a good poll ... how many CEOs and primary decision makers in the stock industry were actually skilled career photographers before becoming the people who determined it's future.

Quote from: Randy McKown on June 15, 2010, 14:31

back orders suck .. that's crazy .. Have you only looked online for one? I could drive to Wal-Mart for you and pick up the T2i w/ 18-55 for $850 and be back in 20 mins. I doubt they keep a 55-250 in stock though .. you could also look at Best Buy .. they carry those camera models in store too and both places are never out of stock .. at least around here.

Just checked my closest Best Buy, Randy ... BACK ORDER.  That new ad campaign must be working.  

BTW ... There is NOTHING within 20 minutes of where I live.  Buying groceries is a day trip.  

EDIT: to add:
isn't it disgraceful that camera companies like Nikon and Canon would produce anything that could be labeled "a joke?"  There was a time when they took such pride in their product.   

Crap I thought I had a good idea to help you spend your money before the finance minister changes her mind .. I guess I'm spoiled here .. you can run into Best Buy and say ok I got $3,000 and I want to blow it on just a body .. no lenses .. and they'll just say "Are we sending you home with a Canon or a Nikon?" LOL .. I love that store.

back orders suck .. that's crazy .. Have you only looked online for one? I could drive to Wal-Mart for you and pick up the T2i w/ 18-55 for $850 and be back in 20 mins. I doubt they keep a 55-250 in stock though .. you could also look at Best Buy .. they carry those camera models in store too and both places are never out of stock .. at least around here.

Don't think of every agency rule as law .. it's company policy. For example some sites will not take an image of a lego product ... however you can run into a cheap discount store and buy generic building blocks nearly identical to legos and these are technically ok to shoot .. but will all agencies accept your lego knock-off? No because their rules are company policy not law. Is it confusing .. LOL ummm yeah but that's microstock.

Quite right Randy. Didn't RF stock used to be the dumping ground of shoot leftovers?

pretty much. I know lots of people who use to do that ... and still do.

To be honest, when I tell pro photographers that I shoot for microstock they are  all disgusted in some way. On the other hand, they all say they used to earn more few years ago, and they are not satisfied now. So, it seems that most people are not satisfied with their current earnings, at least when photography business is in question.

I'm primarily a traditional photographer, that's where my income is from but micro doesn't disgust me. In fact to some of the other pros that I talk to regularly I have mentioned them getting into micro. However, when we talk about it we are talking about using it not as a major income stream but as a way to balance our current income/expense/tax deductions. Do you mean pros current earnings in non-stock fields? Because those continue to raise every year. Average consumers are more eager to spend than corporate clients to be honest. A corporate client will say ok this is our new budget and that is final. A consumer will say crap my budget isn't enough for what I want so I'm gonna spend double my budget and figure it out later .. man those pictures are nice .. ok I'm gonna triple my original budget .. oh wait you have a payment option on larger prints !!! .. who needs a budget anyway. That's the type of clients we traditional pro shooters deal with so that's why you get some attitude when you mention micro to them. Next time bring up the fact that they can not put much work into it and create some major deductions to offset their studio taxes and they will be more interested in talking about micro.

Professional quality cost more in every business...
Is important that big companies do not use our images for their hobbies,they use for  their promotional purposes on their web sites...

So, subscription plan can remain as a kind of an offer in Microstock, but RF licenses HAVE TO be quite different for any kind of business promotion,not strictly commerical...
Is a big difference between example in my first post here and some student's blog....

I'm not happy when I see my picture (my 25 cents) at the site of some large corporation, where  2-inch near ad-space cost thousands of dollars...

No professional quality does not cost more .. an established recognized professional costs more. Big difference. If McDonalds adds crab legs and high dollar items to their menu I'm not going to buy them .. I'll head over to Red Lobster because they are the local pro sea food place. When I want a cheap nasty burger for a dollar to hold me over on my way home I'll go to McDonalds .. because that's all they are worth. Same concept and when big corporations are looking for cheap images they are going to head for micro. Do they see micro as a pro resource? No they see it as a cheap one. So you use it for what it's worth. Look for advantage in the disadvantage and if a person is dead set against seeing a wealthy corporation using a 25 cent image ... then don't sell 25 cent images.

Quote from: Randy McKown on May 26, 2010, 22:41

LOL yeah we have those apps blocked on all our FB accounts. They annoy the crap out of me. I have one personal FB account that I could live without but I'd die without the business ones.

Question about the personal/business accounts. I first had a personal account. Then I wanted to created a Page for my cathyslife (business) stuff. The cathyslife page is tied to my personal account and personal friends. I never wanted it to be but couldn't find a way to separate the two. Meaning I don't necessarily want my family to be fans of my business site. Short of creating (and I think you have to pay for) an ad to bring in more fans, is there a way to have a separate business account?

I'm not sure if there is another way but here's the way we use FB .. create a personal profile that is more or less for business use then create the page attached to that profile. We direct people to both from our website. We encourage potential clients we are targeting to become a friend so that we can build on the personal relationship with the client through direct contact which creates bigger sales / loyal return clients. Then we get them to fan the page to maintain professionalism. Using the two profiles in conjunction creates the perfect FB marketing program ... For family and friends you don't want trying to chat you up when you are networking you can either group them as family & friends then turn off the chat for that group while working or you can do what a lot of people do and just create another account for personal use.
FB ads are a waste of time I think. We invested into a 3 month trial run on them last year and they honestly didn't produce. They didn't cost hardly anything but they didn't return a profit either. Might depend on your target audience though. Some fields may produce better results.