By Jen Basford of Seniors Ignite
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‘The senior portrait industry is dead.’ ‘You can’t make a living doing senior pictures.’ ‘Everyone has a camera now and I can’t compete with their low prices – they are putting me out of business.’ And so on.
Maybe you’re even one of the ones who feel this way.
I’ve cringed every time I heard this for so long, simply because I know it’s not true. It’s actually not the case at all. [Click to read more]
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Check out the deals below, buy them and save yourself some money, then tell a friend about the deals!
As always, thank you for purchasing through the links on this site. I receive a commission if you use them (without any extra cost to you), so it’s a great way to say “thanks” for the info you’ve learned here! I appreciate it!
Save $50 off (up to 85% off!) all our digital products here at The Modern Tog through Monday, 11/30/15. Check them out here!
Sorry, no refunds or price adjustments on past purchases.
Details: $199 (60% off)
When: Tuesday, 11/24/15 – Friday, 11/30/15
Code: BIGSALE
SmartAlbums is the absolute best tool I’ve seen for album creation. You can create 30-page album designs in an hour or less, as it’s one of the most intuitive and easy to use softwares I’ve seen.
If you want to increase your sales by adding albums to your lineup but you’re not sure if you can make them affordable, this software will help because of how quickly you can whip out an amazing, professional album. Buy it now while it’s 60% off. If you’re still not sure, click here and read how I use it for successful album sales.
Click here to get this seriously sweet deal.
Details: 30% – 60% Off Your First Year of ShootProof
When: Monday, 11/23/15 – Monday, 11/30/15
Code: No Code Necessary
If you want a modern looking proofing gallery that is easy-to-use and offers automation to help you get more sales with less work on your part, sign up for Shootproof. I personally use them and recommend them highly. For Black Friday only, get 60% off your first year, get 50% off on Saturday the 28th, 40% off on Sunday the 29th, and 30% off for Cyber Monday (Monday, December 3rd).
Details: 40% off all products
When: Friday, 11/20/15 – Wednesday, 12/2/15
Code: JAMIE2015
I had to put SimpleSLR’s photography guides near the top of my list because the lighting and photography guides are super hands-on with helpful examples and reference charts, and they are ridiculously cheap. I truly believe each of these should be at least double or more the regular price, so with the sale price it’s a no-brainer. You can buy all 6 guides in a bundle for only $39 (that’s 60% off what you’d pay if you purchased them separately).
I highly recommend them.
Complete Bundle of 6 Ebooks: Get the wedding lighting guide, portrait lighting guide, camera guide, and all three portrait recipe volumes – Only $39 for all (save 60% off full retail price if purchased separately!)
Wedding Photography Lighting: All about wedding photography lighting – save 40%
Portrait Photography Lighting: Portrait Photography lighting guide, plus all three portrait recipes – save 40%
Lighting Bundle: Get the wedding photography lighting guide plus all three portrait recipes – save 40%
Beginner’s Camera Guide: Learn how to harness the power of your DSLR by taking it off of auto – save 40%
Details: $65 off + 2 months free
When: Friday, 11/27/15 – Monday, 11/30/15
Code: No Code Necessary
People are addicted to their phones. Mobile marketing is a great way to get ahead of your competition, and no one does this better than
StickyAlbums.
StickyAlbums is a mobile app that allows you to make a digital album of all of your clients’ images. Clients love it because it’s customizable and you can put their picture on the app, and because it makes it super easy for them to show off their pictures to their friends and family. And photographers love it because it makes word-of-mouth advertising super easy for their clients.
Details: 50% off all products
When: Friday, 11/20/15 – Friday, 12/4/15
Code: No Code Necessary
Photography Concentrate makes extremely practical (and FUN!) photography tutorial guides. They’ve got guides for a multitude of topics like camera skills and shooting, composition, light, photo editing and retouching, album design, documentary photography, how to backup your photos, etc. I’ve personally used their guides before and love them. Their guides are all super reasonably priced to begin with too, so 50% off is a steal.
While all their guides are good, I especially recommend the Fantastic Fundamental Light Skills to learn how to see light better (and have more control in all lighting situations) only $17.47 and Backup or Die, which will walk you through how to protect your images from hard drive failure (which will happen eventually if you are a photographer long enough!) for only $9.97!
Details: 30% Off
When: Friday, 11/27/15 – Monday, 11/30/15
Code: BF30
Rachel Brenke, author of the Law Tog, is a Photographer and Lawyer who offers legal products for photographers at a fraction of the price you’d pay an attorney to draft them from scratch for you. She has everything from contracts for portrait and wedding photography to school portrait and commercial photography and sales tax guides to shed some light on the laws in your state. If you don’t have a contract or aren’t sure how tax works, now’s the best time of year to pick them up (because saving even more money than usual rocks!)
Details: 50% Off
When: Monday, 11/23/15 – Monday, 11/30/15
Code: No Code Necessary
Business Brilliantly: It is time to start doing Business Brilliantly – and this program with Christine Tremoulet will help you come up with a solid plan for your blog & social media, a clear picture of the client that you want to work with – and how to reach them – and a push to get you rolling.
No more intimidation by those blogging & social marketing tasks – you will no longer resent, avoid, or just plain not understand them when you’re done!
Details: 25% Off All Themes
When: Monday, 11/23/15 – Sunday, 11/29/15
Code: MODERNFRIDAY
Flothemes makes gorgeous, mobile-friendly websites for photographers. Not only are they great at showing off your work, but they also come with a ton of features, including the ability to upload blog posts straight from Lightroom. I highly recommend them if you are looking for a professional photography website but aren’t sure where to start.
Click here to get the deal.
Details: $50 – $109 Off
When: Friday, 11/27/15 – Monday, 11/30/15
Code: No Code Necessary
Jenika from Psychology for Photographers is down-right brilliant, and her products are full of practical information to help you make more money. She rarely does sales, so I highly recommend picking them up now. If you put what you learn from them into practice, you will make far more money than you pay for them. Worth every penny, even at full-price (or more).
Irresistible Website: Regularly $159, sale price $109 – save $50
Irresistible Words: Regularly $249, sale price $199 – save $50
Business Library Pack (bundle): Retail for both would be $408, sale price $299 – save $109
Details: 50% Off
When: Monday, 11/23/15 – Monday, 11/30/15
Code: No Code Necessary
Boudie Shorts makes some of the best products for boudoir and portrait photographers on the market. Everything from how to market boudoir, shooting and lighting techniques, and even tools for how to build your portfolio without working for free (yes, it’s possible!). Each day of the week leading up to Black Friday all the way through Cyber Monday she’s featuring a different product for 50% off. But it’s only available for that day! You can check out her products here to see everything she offers.
Details: 50% – 60% Off
When: Friday, 11/20/15 – Tuesday, 12/1/15
Code: No Code Necessary
Zach Prez has helped thousands of photographers get more clients and make more money. He’s got great advice and presents it in a way that is super easy to understand, even if it’s a bit technical. And on top of that, he’s also a super nice guy. Check out his stuff below.
SEO Cookbook for Photographers: Regularly $99, sale price $49 – save 50%
SEO Course for Photographers: Regularly $299, sale price $119 – save 60%
Details: 25% Off + Free Shipping for US, Canadian, and EU Orders
When: Thursday, 11/26/15 – 11:59PM ET Friday, 11/27/15
Code: BLACK25
Photo Flash Drive makes really awesome, custom flash drives that add a great personal, high-end touch to your clients’ orders. They make more than just flash drives too, and even make custom boxes and containers, gift boxes, album boxes, and tons of other great stuff.
Best part is, there’s no minimum order. So you can order a custom drive for each and every client you have if you want to. Pretty cool.
Details: 30% Off
When: Friday, 11/27/15 – Monday, 11/30/15
Code: BlackFriday2015
If you’ve been trying to get into in-person portrait sales but don’t want to come off like an 80’s high-pressure car salesman, Matt and Katie’s guide to In-Person Portrait Sales is where you want to start. Learn the ins and outs of in-person sales, including suggestions for package pricing, what to say and when to say it, and even how to set up your sales room.
Details: 40% Off
When: Friday, 11/27/15 – Monday, 11/30/15
Code: No Code Necessary
Photocrati’s website themes are built for photographers with some amazing built-in SEO features so you can make sure you get found by your potential clients. There’s also built-in eCommerce options so you can quickly and easily sell your photos. Plus, each theme is mobile friendly, which is absolutely essential if you want to be found online when people are searching for a photographer.
Details: 70% off the Simplified Photography Pricing Formula
When: Wednesday, 11/25/15 – Monday, 11/30/15
Code: No Code Necessary
In this 9 module webinar course, you’ll learn how to set profitable prices so you can move on and make a living doing what you love…..Photography! Not only will it help calculate the numbers, but you’ll learn pricing strategy that will help you get more clients and make more money for the lifetime of your business. This course is normally $799, but right now you can get it for only $239.70 (that’s a savings of over $550!)
Details: $10 Off
When: Friday, 11/27/15 for 24 hours only
Code: No Code Necessary
YouProof is an in-person proofing app, which is perfect for in-person proofing and sales sessions. It’s portable too, and works great on portable devices like iPads. You can even take down their order and email copies of the order right from the app.
Details: Varies
Code: No Code Necessary
Amazon has a ton of deals for photographers, like these cheap SD cards (you can never have too many!). Check them out now, and browse around to see the rest of their deals.
Details: Varies
Code: No Code Necessary
Adorama has a ton of camera and photography gear. Lighting, cameras, lenses, accessories – really, anything you could almost ever need. So if you’ve been eyeing a new lens or a new softbox, now is the time!
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Yet I know of lots of photographers who open up a set of mini-sessions and then can’t fill them.
Then there are others who fill their sessions, but then don’t actually get repeat clients from them and don’t get any additional sales beyond what was in the initial package.
So what is going wrong? Why aren’t your mini sessions successful? What can you do to rock them?
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Seems impossible with all the competition out there, but this post is going to give you one of the most useful tools out there to have the best possible chance of being that first result. Not only that, but it’s completely free.
Even better, lots of people are ignoring this tool because they don’t want to deal with another thing. Yet it’s one of the most effective ways of showing up on top for people in your area looking for a photographer.
You’ve got to use Google+ and their local pages to help you on your quest for first page Google ranking for your business in your area.
This is not nearly as difficult as you may think. You can easily take advantage of this even if you break into a sweat just thinking about doing anything technical. It’s all about including relevant words and locations in setting up your Google+ business profile. After all, who knows your relevant business words better than you? Use your location and knowledge to your advantage! So let’s jump right in!
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Since Facebook went public as a company, they’ve instituted a boatload of changes to make it harder to market your business on a Facebook page without paying for promotion.
Yes, you still get some free exposure, but they took something that was super-effective and changed it into something that was hardly effective at all, making anyone who relied on Facebook for their marketing strategy rather upset. Last year’s algorithm change was particularly destructive.
But this week, Facebook changed their promotional guidelines for the better.
No, really. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true.
So lets dive in and see what this means for your business and how you can use it to get more clients.
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Thanks for watching this live webinar replay with Nate Grahek of StickyAlbums and myself as we explore the best way to share images, get new clients, and still make money when people are becoming more and more tied to their mobile devices.
In this free webinar replay, we talk about
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The response was overwhelming.
I got three main types of reactions to it.
First, people were emailing thanking me for the insight, saying that it made them see that they can’t keep competing for the low-end of the market and that they are finally ready to take the steps towards profitable pricing. Totally makes all the tips I share worthwhile.
Second, people were thanking me for all the daily nuggets that I share for free that never end up here on the blog. (If you’re not on it, you’re missing out big time. Sign up for them using the form at the end of this post).
Third, lots of people shared how they were thinking about throwing in the towel and closing down their business, because no matter how hard they tried, they just couldn’t get the clients they needed or make the money they were hoping to make even after several years sometimes.
If this is you, you’re not alone.
I just want to sit down with these people, give them a hug, and then do a brutally honest business consultation. We’d dig into each aspect of their business and help them create a plan to turn their businesses around.
Unfortunately, my schedule just won’t allow it right now. There’s just not enough time at the moment.
So instead, I’m writing this post to share at least the first few things you need to be thinking through if you’re considering closing your doors. It’s not everything, it’s not even close to touching all the aspects that it could, but they are some of the most common mistakes I see photographers making that could turn things around.
So let’s dive right in.
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This week’s post is a guest post by Lea Hartman.
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You’re not alone.
I’d guess that the majority of photographers prefer email to phone contact any day.
However, the phone is a great way to set yourself apart from the rest of your competition and get a great first impression of you in their minds before your competitors.
So today I’m going to talk about how to use the phone to your advantage so that YOU can get the booking!
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Besides all the client work you have to do, there’s all the business stuff as well. From essentials like paying taxes and updating your finances to brand development, planning, and visioneering, it’s hard to know what has to be done now and what can wait.
Too often, we waste our money and time in areas that aren’t actually helping to grow our businesses simply because we want to or because we think it’s what we need to do.
So today I want to share with you a few common places that you may be wasting your money and time so that you can focus on what’s really going to help you grow instead. [Click to read more]
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In a perfect world, you’d be able to charge whatever you wanted, people would be willing and able to pay it, and you’d have all the clients you could ever want.
There’d also be rainbows and unicorns prancing around every day. And perfect light. And no client complaints. And more hours in the day. And free gelato for all (yum!).
But that’s just not how it is.
It’s really hard to run a profitable photography business.
If you haven’t ever looked at the numbers, it’s likely far more expensive than you think.
In fact, to be both “affordable” and yet still charge enough to make it worth it to you without your business going under is difficult. However, I’ve heard from several people lately who want to be both.
So I’m going to tell you exactly what you need to do in order to be affordable and still keep your business afloat and profitable. [Click to read more]
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With lots of people promoting products all the time, it’s hard to know what is worth buying and what is simply a waste of money.
I’m a huge proponent of learning and of buying educational products because they are a great way to grow your photography business faster, giving you more money sooner.
However, there are several instances when buying something is a mistake, even if it’s an awesome product.
So I’ve compiled a list of 7 tips to help you know when you should buy and when you should “just say no” and save yourself some money. This is a list you can use for all business purchases, not just educational ones. [Click to read more]
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