Photography Tools Archives

How to Get Clients to Stop Texting at 2am

Clients often expect to be able to communicate with you 24/7 via Email, texts, Facebook messages, or any other way they find to contact us.

Some photographers don’t offer clients the ability to contact them by phone. But putting up walls for clients makes it harder for them to book you, and some people prefer to use the phone. So today I am going to share one tool that will make it easier for you to use the phone in your business, stop getting annoyed by client calls and texts at all hours of the day, and how to make it effective even if you prefer not to talk to clients on the phone.

Google Voice has been an indispensable tool for me in my photography business for the last eight years.

It’s even free, only requiring a Google account. When you sign up, Google will assign you a phone number (with some input preferences from you first).

Here is why I believe every photography business owner should be using Google Voice. [Click to read more]

Photographer’s Pricing Guide Series: Overview of How to Price Photography

It’s confession time: I think that the majority of pricing guides for photographers are lame.

That’s not to say that they don’t work, or that they aren’t worth the money that people sell them for. It’s just that most of the pricing calculators have some major flaw that makes them not nearly as effective as I think they could be. It’s for this reason that I decided to create an easy and straight-forward photography pricing guide for photographers that shows you how to price photography.

[Click to read more]

Quick Tip to Turn More Inquiries Into Clients

These days, everyone is busy.

There’s nothing more frustrating than finally setting aside some time to get something done, only to find out that you have to wait several hours (or even a few days) in order to be able to finish it.

This is what we are doing to our prospective clients when they start shopping for a photographer to hire.

They check out our websites, then they use our contact forms, and finally they have to wait for an email from us to get the information they really want in order to make an informed decision.

So if you can find a way to get that information to them more quickly (while still capturing their contact information so you can follow up with them), you’re going to be more likely to book them than if they have to wait to hear from you again.

So let’s talk about how to turn more inquiries into clients without having to have email open all the time.
[Click to read more]

How to Sell Albums Successfully

I have a love-hate relationship with albums.

I love the money I make selling them. My first album sale was over $6000 (they ordered a huge album plus 3 large parent albums) and that was back when I was only charging around $2400 for a wedding. The income potential blew my mind.

I love how well they protect my clients’ images. The fact that they are gorgeous and can sit in a closet for decades just waiting for their grandkids to find it is fantastic.

And I love how beautiful our images look printed on big pages, and how well it markets our work when our clients show their album to all their friends and family.

But the process of creating and actually selling albums to clients can be difficult.

You have to clearly communicate the value of an album to your clients.

Designing and making revisions to albums can be a huge time suck.

Getting clients to send you their feedback and finalize the album design can take far longer than you dreamed and can be a communication nightmare.

And pricing albums can be tricky.

So in this post, we’re going to talk about how to successfully sell albums without all the stress. Then I’ll give you some additional free tools and bonus materials at the end that you can use in your business to make your album sales successful. Let’s dive right in. [Click to read more]

How Much Does It Cost To Start a Photography Business?

Let’s face the facts: there are a lot of people “pretending” to be professional photographers without actually starting a legal photography business.

They get a camera, start a Facebook page, and start shooting their friends and family for little or nothing in the hopes that they can “test the waters” before actually getting legal.

Not only are they putting themselves at a great financial and legal risk by doing this, it’s simply not possible to “test the waters” and see if it’s really going to work.

This is because people are not going to take your business seriously until YOU take your business seriously.

So how much does it actually cost to start a photography business and do things right? What do you really need to start a photography business the right way and start getting real, paying clients through the door right away? That’s what I’m going to walk you through in this post.

[Click to read more]

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Photography Deals

It’s time for our annual Black Friday through Cyber Monday Photography Deals! This is the best time of the year to save some money and help buy some tools to make more money in your photography business.

Check out the deals below, buy them and save yourself some money, then tell a friend about the deals!

Thank You!

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!

Thanksgiving Sale from The Modern Tog:

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!

Learn More about the Easy Client Manager

Learn More about the Photographer’s Pricing Guide Workbook

Learn More about the Easy Client & Money Manager

Learn More about the Profitable Portfolio Builder

Learn More about the Go-To Guide for Client Emails

Sorry, no refunds or price adjustments on past purchases.

Black Friday through Cyber Monday Photography Deals Around the Web

SmartAlbums

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.

ShootProof

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).

Click here to get the deal.

SimpleSLR

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%

Click here to get the deals.

StickyAlbums

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.

Click here to get the deal.

Photography Concentrate

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!

Click here to get the deals.

The Law Tog

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!)

Click here to get the deal.

Christine Tremoulet | Business Brilliantly Group Program

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!

Click here to get the deal.

Flothemes

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.

Psychology for Photographers

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

Click here to get the deals.

Boudie Shorts

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.

Click here to get the deals.

Photography Spark

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%

Click here to get the deals.

Photo Flash Drive

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.

Click here to get the deal.

Matt and Katie | Photographers

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.

Click here to get the deal.

Photocrati

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.

Click here to get the deal.

Joy Of Marketing

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!)

Click here to get the deal.

YouProof

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.

Click here to get the deal.

Amazon

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.

Click here to get the deals.

Adorama

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!

Click here to get the deals.

Shoot and Burn vs. Shoot and Share:
How to Make Money in an Increasingly Mobile-Based Marketplace

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

Is it okay to sell digital images?
Why do in-person sales when you can just send an online gallery?
Why is it so important to think about mobile apps and how it affects your business?
How do clients use their mobile devices and what does this mean for our business?
What is the best way to deliver images to your client?

[Click to read more]

Just Say No! 7 Ways to Tell When Buying a New Product is a Mistake

The number of products available for photographers right now is downright overwhelming.

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]

3 Tax Audit Tips Every Photographer Should Know Before Ever Being Audited!

How would you feel if you found out you were getting audited tomorrow?

When most people think of going through a tax audit, panic sets in. They fear a scary government agent coming to steal from them or find some costly mistake that will cause lots of stress and anxiety for them or their family.

Here’s the thing: a tax audit is not scary. And it’s not a shakedown.

If your books are clean, you have nothing to fear.

An audit is just a formal examination of the business records. You should be doing that normally anyway, so letting someone else look at them shouldn’t be a problem.

In fact, many large businesses have audits each year to make sure everything was accounted for properly and to be make sure there isn’t any internal theft.

In other words, tax audits are a good thing.

However, if your books are a mess, an audit could be a very unpleasant experience and cause immense stress on you and your family.

So here are 3 Tax Audit tips that you should know before ever being audited. They won’t prevent you from being audited, but they will make your tax audit go as smoothly as possible. [Click to read more]

3 Easy Tips for Stress-Free Photography Accounting

A psychologist teaching a stress management course raised a glass of water and inquired: “How heavy is this glass of water?”

Answers ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.

She replied, “The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.”

She continued, “The stresses in life are like that glass of water. Think about them for a while and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and they begin to hurt. And if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralyzed – incapable of doing anything.”

We All Have Our Own Glass of Water

I tend to put off things I don’t like to do. It’s true.

The longer I put them off, the less I want to do them.

But as time goes by, the stress builds up and starts to impact me, my other work, and my personal life (as I steal time away from my wife to work more).

How about you? What is your “glass of water”?

Do you procrastinate doing your business finances and get totally overwhelmed by the time tax season comes around? You’re not alone.

When you put off doing updating your books, you have no idea where they stand during the year and will have to spend a few hectic days preparing anytime you owe the government money. It’s just as important as doing any of these other tasks that help you grow your business.

I want to show you how to overcome this ugly cycle and be free from the stress it brings. Not only that, but you’ll be able to make better business decisions when you know exactly how your business is doing. Here are 3 easy tips for stress-free photography accounting! [Click to read more]

How to Get Legal With Your Photography Business

I’m a little bit strange.

I love spreadsheets, paying bills, tracking expenses and making sure my forms are all properly filed with the IRS.

If you’re like the 95% of the rest of the world, that stuff drives you up the wall or it scares you so bad that you try to avoid it at all costs. And you think people like me are crazy!

I may be crazy BUT I am going to show you how easy it is to get organized and take care of the financial side of the business.

In fact, over the next three weeks we’re going to cover the basics of getting your business money organized so that you never have to stress out about it at all.

No more last-minute scrambling to update your books, no more stress, and no more worrying about getting everything organized at tax time or forgetting something important. It will change the way you run your business. So let’s jump right in and get all your ducks in a row.

[Click to read more]