“Pushy” Is A Marketing Excuse. Stop Using It.

Scene opens:  You’re at a beachfront lounge, waiting for a friend to arrive. (Play along with me for this one.  Your task:  To point your finger at the screen the moment you read something that would irritate you.  Simple.) You’re sitting at a table, enjoying the music.  Enter waiter. Waiter:  Would you care for a…

Read More

You’re Losing Money If You’re Not Doing This When You Sell

So we’re standing in this rug shop in Tunisia, with colorful carpets lining the walls and overflowing into dusty stacks in the corners. A friend and I had climbed a swirling, tiled staircase, and emerged, blinking, into this visual feast of hand-knotted Berber rugs.  But for a few buzzing fluorescent lights overhead, we could easily…

Read More

Responding to Clients Who Kindly Ask You To Violate Your Policies

Clients.  We love them.  We’re constantly thinking about how to get more of them.  But once we do….we find a whole new set of issues cropping up!  Most of the issues aren’t horror-story-esque, but the subtle difficulties are often the hardest to handle. One reader sent in a question asking what to do in situations…

Read More

Selling the Future – Today

We face a big problem with what we sell. When we market our photography, we tell people we’re capturing memories – but memories they’ll want to have later.  We’re essentially selling the future.  We’re telling them, “trust us, these are going to be important to you in a few years.”  “Trust us, your wedding photos…

Read More

The Secret Side of Discounts

In 1875, a spectacled man named John Wanamaker bought an abandoned railroad freight depot and turned it into America’s first grand, dazzling department store. Like any big retailer, he had to hire more store clerks around Christmastime every year to accommodate the swell of holiday shoppers.  However, all the extra help became unnecessary in January…

Read More