Summary: Welcome to the Photo Report Podcast where we talk to top-level Pro Photographers about the business behind their craft, their journeys to get them, where they are and the lessons they've learned along the way. This is Season 2 of the Photo Report; but Season 1 for the Podcast portion of things, you can go online to thephotoreport.com to see past video interviews as well as the videos from this season. And season 3 is already in the works but what we have for this season is a couple of handfuls of talks by Photographers, Bloggers, Editors at the Richard Photo Lab Booth that was held at W PPI conference out in Vegas; they're packed full of valuable info of what basically you wouldn't get unless you attended one of their workshops. So, we're really excited to share these talks with you and think you're going to love them as well. During this season of the Photo Report, the interviews are hosted by Alan Cohen from Richard Photo Lab, episode one is with French Photographer, Greg Fink; his work is stunning but the insight in this talk, coming from a business background and 10 years plus working in the marketing department of a massive US company is incredibly helpful in thinking through the intentional strategy he has in his Photo Business. Hopefully, you can take some of these lessons and apply them to your own business before we get into this episode though, this podcast is brought to you by Film Supply Club; it's partly the reason why it took so long to get these WPPI videos live because I spent the first half of the year launching it but Film Supply Club is the best place for you to get film, if you're a film shooting photographer; it's a member based community where once a member you get access to discounted prices on film and other photo related products and services like Richard Photo Lab, Cloud Spot, Lens Pro To Go, Bench Accounting and a lot more to come. But ultimately, it's here to strengthen our Photography Community and save you all as much cash as possible. Now, onto the show… Host - Elan Cohen of Richard Photo Lab: Greg Fink, sexy and handsome French Photographer, featured on Style Me Pretty and on Wedding Sparrow, named as Harper’s Bizarre Wedding Photogs of the year 2016. Elan Cohen: So, tell us a little bit about your story, how you got into photography. Greg Fink: So, basically I've always been a photographer, I got my first camera in the hand when I was 12, I was lucky enough to have a dark home at home when I was a kid because my dad just loved that so he taught me how to process my negatives, how to do my prints. So, I've always done that but then my parents told me that I should get a real job so I went to Business School and I worked 10 years for Procter & Gamble as a Marketing Manager in Paris and I was kind of very sad in that life. So, I started shooting Wedding 7 years ago when I was still working another job, first for friends, then friends of friends and all of a sudden you realize you can have a market. So, I quit my job 3 years ago so I've been full-time since. Elan Cohen: I always tell this story to people that are just starting out; I was really impressed when we first started working together I remember you wanted to do the Book Project and the way you went about it was completely different than other clients do, where you told me this is my budget for the book, this is what I'm looking for, how many books can I get? As opposed to most people who will say: “Okay I need a hundred of this book” and then we give them the price. So, I thought that was really impressive, can you kind of explain a little- talk a little bit about how your prior experience in business has helped your photography business? Greg Fink: Yeah, so my prior experience in business really helps on a daily basis; whether it is branding or accounting, managing a P&L, everything and you need to realize that 70% of Photographers- Wedding Photographers are going to be out of the market in 3 years, 70%. And in 10 years only I think it's 2 or 3% Elan Cohen: 2%, yeah. Greg Fink: That is still going to be in the market after10 years and the main reason of that is because people don't make money out of it. So, of course, it's a passion and of course your first driver needs to be the passion for photography and for people because you're shooting weddings but you still need to make money out of it otherwise you're going to be out of the market. So, it was really important to me and as I said, I've shot my first wedding 7 years ago and I only went full-time 3 years ago because that was a long transition for me because I wanted to take the time to sustain my business and be sure that I can make a living out of it and then when I go to the market, I'm ready for it and this is financially sustainable. So, what business really taught me before is that you cannot invest money and don't expect a return on investment; a lot of people tell me "I judge by the contacts, I'm going to shoot Fuji and I'm going to be a Destination Fine Art Photographer” whatever that means? And that's great but you need to be absolutely aware of all of the costs that are going to come with it because what's expensive is not just buying the contacts, everything that implies after that like shooting, processing, everything. So, when I decided to do these books, that was a marketing investment to me and I say “Okay, what’s the budget I can invest on this item this year?” because I have a business plan and I heard it in mind it was like I don’t know $2000 and I came to Cohen and say “okay, what can I have with that amount of money?” Elan Cohen: And it turned out it was a really random number of books if I remember correctly it was like 62. [Laughs] Greg Fink: And then I negotiated 63 and… Elan Cohen: And then we threw in for 64 and he agreed to speak so… Greg Fink: [Chuckles] It all worked out and after- and a year after that he told me “Oh, by the way, we had ten remaining” Elan Cohen: Thank you. So, can you tell the story that you were telling me the other day, kind of touching on what you were talking about on having a return on profit, when at one of your workshops you were reviewing- um with one of the attendees and how she started crying when she figured out that she had actually lost money on a wedding, she didn’t realize what was going into that? Greg Fink: Yeah, what's really important to me with pricing because most of the Photographers will come and talk to me are wondering about their pricing. I am not- is it your case always like thinking “I am a cheap enough” “I am expensive enough” and everybody is wondering about this pricing. My vision of pricing is that you need to know what amount of money you want to make every year for yourself and that number is going to be personal to you; maybe it's going to be 100,000 for you, maybe it's going to be a million for you but that number is personal; so I'm no one to tell you your pricing should be 5 grand, 10 grand, 15 grand, it depends on your number and from that vision you're going to implement your pricing then. Let's say you need 100,000 a year and you want to shoot 20 events, that probably means you should have a pricing around 5,000. The problem with Photographers today is that they approach pricing by looking at the market and say “Oh I'm going to judge my quality myself and I think this is quite comparable to this Photographer which is worth like 3 grand, so I'm going to be at 3 grand too” and I had this photographer coming to me for one-on-one session and I told her what is the wedding you're the most excited about in your portfolio? So, she shows me that wedding and I asked her: “How much did you charge on that wedding?” And she tells me $2,000. I say “How many rolls of film did you shoot?” So, she gave me the numbers, when we make the calculation and I say “How many assistants did you have on, how much did you pay them?” And we make the calculation and I just proved to her that she lost $700 on that wedding and she started crying. Losing money on the wedding is not a problem, what is the problem is not knowing about it because everybody can make investments shooting a destination weddings; I mean sometimes you have this inquiry in Bali, in Thailand, whatever and you say: “Okay let's do a holiday, so I’m going to compromise on my pricing” and that's fine, that's fine if you have an objective be on it, if you want to develop your portfolio in Asia, whatever but it's important that you know if you're making money or not. Elan Cohen: How long before you actually were able to turn it- turn the business into a profit center as opposed to an investment? Greg Fink: Almost five years and to me that is the biggest mistakes that the Wedding Photographers do today. Wedding Photography is an amazing job, it's a passion, you can work from home, you can manage your own schedule and you have a very few investment needed. The problem is if you look at the company we succeed, none of them don't invest, if you want to succeed with a company, you need to invest and the biggest mistakes that wedding photographers make is that they think that they can work from home, just invest like 5 grand on equipment and they're going to succeed. That doesn’t work that way because you're going to need to invest and I'm not telling you to invest tons of money in marketing, in advertising because I don't really believe in it; especially- except if it's like very focused to your niche market but my investment was rising my pricing in a year-on-year until the moment where I can make a living out of it, which was only last year even though my first wedding was shot seven years ago. So, to me, the problem with Wedding Photographers today, who get out of the market, is because they didn't plan that; they quit that job, they expect that they’re going to make a living out of it in like a year or 2 years, it doesn't work that way. Look at all of the names you follow on social media and ask yourself for how long these people have been on the market and most of the time it's going to be 5years,10 years. Zoe has been here for like 15 and longevity to me is the biggest competitive advantage that you can have, you cannot succeed to me, in that market in just 2 years. Elan Cohen: What do you consider to be a healthy profit margin? Greg Fink: Once again that number is going to depend on what you want to make as a living. If you want to make 50 grand per year, if you want to make 200 that's not the same, but it's really important that when you answer an inquiry and you decide to accept a wedding or not you know exactly the bottom line, so whether this catch on to shooting a roll of medium format film cost me $29. Elan Cohen: And that's when you factor in the cost of the shipping, the cost of the flying and then what we charge. Greg Fink: And I include everything in that; meaning processing, the cost of the film, the cost of shipping from France- any DHL package from Paris cost me $150 dollars, so I know that in average I'm going to be included 50 rolls in a package that’s $3.00 per roll on top, so $29 is my number. I want to know on a wedding exactly what's going to be left in my pocket at the end of the day. So, let's say I'm going to shoot 60 rolls, 70 rolls, 80 rolls times 29 plus the cost of my packaging, plus the cost of my album, plus the cost of shipping my packaging to the clients because I deliver prints that number at the end of the wedding, you need to know exactly what that is. And I'm not here to tell you this is a good margin, this is a bad margin because that number once again needs to be personal depending on the fact that you're going to shoot 10 weddings a year or 50 weddings a year but you need to know that number and not a lot of photographers know that; I mean know that number Elan Cohen: Do you go into the wedding with - because it seems like it's really thought out and the kind of a producer's background - Do you go in knowing the exact amount of rolls that you're going to shoot per wedding or at least have a general idea of how many rolls? Greg Fink: I do have a general idea, I don't limit myself because you always have the possibility to have the wedding of the year that very day and if you have to limit yourself to 30 rolls you're going to be really pissed. So, I don’t limit myself and I always take more roles that- than not enough but what I realized this year I shot this wedding it was a 5 million dollars budget wedding, John Legend was at the ceremony- crazy stuff and the Wedding Planner is putting so much pressure talking about that wedding like “Oh my God! 5 million dollars! John Legend... blah, blah, blah, I shot 200 rolls on that wedding, 200! An average wedding for me is going to be more like 60, so I shot 3 times more than a regular wedding. If you look at the final results, it's more like I put pressure on myself, just shooting frantically just because there was so much fuss around that day. And if I look at the best weddings I’ve shot to me, that I've been published, its weddings where I’ve shot my average 50/60 rolls. So, I'm not saying you need to limit yourself but you still need to have your number in mind, you need to know “Okay, I am confident in delivering a great wedding with 30 rolls, 50, 80” and if you realize that you're going out of the way on a wedding, like shooting 150 or 200, you will realize that most of these photos are just doubles, triples and it doesn't really make any sense when on the final product. Elan Cohen: What are action steps that photographers can take to get to the path of profitability? Greg Fink: I think the first one is having a business plan. Too many Photographers I meet don't have a Business Plan and when I speak about Business Plan, people are already scared because they imagine that 100 pages booklets and I'm not speaking about that, I’m just thinking about having very easy access spread sheets with your numbers, which is, what is the revenue you want to make in 2017? And that revenue depends on how many events. Once again, let's be really simple, let's say you want to do 50 grand; you want to shoot 20 weddings, that probably means you're going to need to charge in average 2500 and that can be as simple as that and once you have that business plan you need to do everything to stick to your objectives and targets. People don't like it when I say that but to me shooting weddings, I shoot between 25 and 30 weddings per year; so basically, I have 30 clients per year, that's not a lot. I mean if you look at most companies, we don't have like 30 clients a year; they have really more than that. I have 30 clients per year, shooting 30 weddings a year to me is execution of my Business Plan; its execution of course and I love it, but to me, 80% of my job is finding the 30 persons. Elan Cohen: You said 80% of your job is finding the 30 clients? Greg Fink: I tend to believe that and people don't really like it because they say: “You're a photographer you need to enjoy shooting weddings” And I do but if I don't find this 30 persons, I am not shooting anything, I'm not booking and I will be out of the market. So, I try to dedicate 80% of my resources to networking, social media, communicating, featuring, whatever to find these 30 clients; this is my main objective as a wedding photographer. So, 20% shooting is execution but that's only my opinion. Elan Cohen: What has been the most successful to help you find these clients? Greg Fink: Relationships with vendors and that's something else people don't like that I say. I tend to think that my client is the Wedding Planner. The bride and groom who are going to book me- 100% of my weddings are books through Planners. So, the planner who is contacting me usually displays work to the clients and they say “Yes or No.” The bride and groom in 99% of the time have been very happy with the results and these guys- of course, you can have some word of mouth and the friends of these guys are going to see your album on the coffee table but they are customers, they're coming once. The wedding planner, if you develop a relationship with them, if they love your quality, if they love your style, if you love your professionalism. First, you're going to book one client with them, a year after that you're going to book 3, a year after that you're going to book 5. I have these Wedding Planners in France, we started at the same time like shooting 5 years; I mean she started 5 years ago, I started shooting 5 years ago- like real weddings 5 years ago. I started 7 years ago but the first 2 years was basically $500 wedding and we started kind of at the same level. She tested me on one wedding, the year after I got 2, last year I got 4, this year I got 8; 8 is 30% of my business, I'm [ Unclear word 18:48] 25 that's huge. So, sometimes that's scary because I say “Oh my God! If I have a problem with that Planner, what am I going to do?” But developing in these relationships; so first you have one Planner you really work well with, then you have 2, then you have 5; maybe not a Planner, it can be a venue. I have 5 weddings in the same venue this year because they really liked a wedding I shot there like 2 years ago, now they refer me to the clients. So, to me, the most profitable investment in this industry is to develop these relationships. I'm not saying you cannot make marketing investments but it needs to be very focused. The main reason why I did these books is because I want to send them to the Planners I really work well with and you don't want to be working with everybody; I mean I’ve had bad experiences with Planners, I don't want to work with them anymore and it's fine because once again all you need is- In my case, it's 30 clients per year and my market is wherever my clients want to fly me. Elan Cohen: At what point did you feel that your business was healthy enough to start taking on other endeavors, like the workshops and one-on-ones and that sort of thing? Greg Fink: I didn't launch the workshop for telling myself “Okay, my business is sustainable enough, so let's do a workshop.” Everything that I do in my business needs to be profitable, so the workshop to me was for about the workshop it was a way to say “Okay I can add more profit to my business” but I didn't wait for the Wedding Business to be sustainable because my first workshop- that was 3years ago and I still didn't make any money out of weddings back in those days. So, what's important is that you monitor every action that you make and for example, I'm still questioning the workshop today even though it's been the 3rd edition because it's a huge investment in terms of timing and I basically don't make a lot of money out of it. So, every year I'm like “Okay should I still keep on doing it?” because it's so much investment in terms of time. What's important is that you can do anything you want as long as it's in line and it serves your branding. The workshop to me, I knew that the first year I will not make any money out of it but it was the opportunity for me to design my own style shoots because usually when you collaborate with Planners and statutes, it's your vision of course but it's also theirs and nice that my workshop was the way for me to say “Okay, let's show the world what I can do if I'm the Art Director.” Obviously I- that was the main reason why I launched it. So, basically you can do anything as long as it serves your brand and it's profitable. Elan Cohen: So, for you it's twofold; it's the workshop but also it's the chance to kind of art direct the whole thing? Greg Fink: Yeah because even though I have a mixed feeling about style shoots, there are- very difficult today to be featured because there are so many out there. A lot of people do the same thing and the workshop for me was my-my workshop was also the way to express myself and say “Okay, I want to do is Style Shoot but I want to do it differently, I just don't want it to be the bride and a nice table.” So, every year I have this like crazy theme going on up nowhere. So, for example without telling any secrets the next one's going to be Alice in Wonderland because we want to adapt Alice in Wonderland to the wedding industry and that's going to be so fun and so different. So, that was my vision behind the workshop; show my vision of what we can do differently but then you still need to have the profitable side of it in your mind because of you if you don't make any money out of something you need to have a very good reason to keep on doing it. Elan Cohen: We have all their business cards, so if anybody steals the Alice in Wonderland idea from you, we’ll know how to find them. Anybody have any questions for Greg? Question: So, the question was from Anna. Once you had the 62 books, how did you decide who and where you were going to send them? Greg Fink: That's a very good question and honestly I was like “Oh my God! I could send more than that but it was a good exercise also because you don't want to be communicating to the mass because once again 30 clients a year, where are these people? Where are we going to buy the dress? And for example let's take Ramones as an example, she is a Bridal Designer and we don't have a single common client because most of our market is in France and the price of her dress is between $4-5000, my clients tend to invest more than that in their dress, so, for example, I at this book on her shelf for a year and I didn't book any client out of it. So, it was a good exercise for me to say “okay I have only 62 books, what am I going to do with them? So, probably 35 are going to be to Planners, who are this Planner? Am I sure that they operate in my market which is also France, Italy; I mean I can still send one out of the blue in Germany, in London and maybe it will work but there are high chances that it won't. But if I'm sending that to these planners I don't work with yet, who operates in the South of France and we're going to see images that speak to them, then maybe that's going to take. So, you want to know where your clients are going to their venue, which Planners they're going to be using, which dress they're going to buy, you need to know that. For example, I have a very specific profile of my client and if I look at my wedding- 80% of my weddings are usually the same type of couple, it's usually between 30 and 35- the groom is older, he might be divorced, he already has kids, they're paying for the wedding by themselves, he is in finance, usually Wall Street or making tons of money, it's always the same profile. So, you need to know where these guys are going to buy their dress, which Planner etc. You don't want to be like sending money because that's money just anywhere. How do I charge for travel? Very easy, I have this expert spreadsheet, the first line is flight, second line is transferred to airport, the third line is going to be hotel, car, gas, food, and in France sales tax is 20%, so to the sum of all of it I need to add 20% and the reason why I do that is that for years I've not charged enough for travel. 2015, I remember the number I charged 15,000 Euros for travel, I spent almost 30- the double and that's another problem to me, for Wedding Photographers because most of the time they're so scared of selling their package that they forget that if they don't charge enough for travel, that's going to be a huge loss in terms of profits at the end of the wedding. So, I'm making this very simple calculation and usually, the number is scary. And I have this bride- I just booked a wedding in the South of France and I had this bride telling the Wedding Planner: “Does he fly first-class?” And I explained to her the calculation and I don't make any profit out of the travel but if you add everything; for example I live in Paris, going to the airport is going to be 60 Euros, back 60 Euros usually that is something you don't have in mind because you just think about the price of the flight, you're going to have food for the 2 days wedding; you need to buy food, if you rent a car you need to have toll, you're going to need gas, everything you need to include. Question: So, are you up charging if you have to come a day earlier anything like that even though you're not shooting; time away from home basically? Greg Fink: No, I don't charge. I don't charge time away from home but I shoot 5 or 6 weddings a year in the US and for example I was not charging enough for the US because like staying in the US for three days, basically, it cost me between $3000 - $4,000 and when you think about that number, see that's huge! But that's what it actually cost me, but no, I don't charge- if I travel for 5 days or time away from home, I don't charge and my pricing for destination wedding. I only have one price list, destination is not more expensive than shooting in Paris. So, the cost of travel is not included in my pricing because I found it very confusing because I might still have a wedding in Paris or South of France, it's an hour flight I can leave in the morning, be back the next day, that's going to be $700 compared to if I fly to the US that's going to be $4,000. So, I feel bad of integrating just like one average pricing in my - one average travel pricing.
