BUILDING BUSINESS Building and holding business, or getting and holding a patronage or following of customers, is something in which we are all vitally inter ested, and our efforts along that line determine whether we are a drifter or a success. Statistics prove that a man in business cannot stand still, he is either going forward or drifting backwards. None of us wants to say he is drifting backwards, so we are intensely interested in how to push forward.
The commercial photographer conies mostly in contact with business men. Therefore, the methods employed by the portrait photographer in dealing with what might be termed family matters, are totally unfitted in establishing a commercial business. In meeting business men, we must be acquainted with business methods, and everything that is considered sound in general business methods is equally applicable to a commercial photographic place of business.
Big business men are finding out more and more every day that strength of character, integrity and all that goes with it, such as truth and honesty, are the foundation of good business, so we, as commercial photographers, must be prepared along those lines.
The business man, to get new business, uses advertising, personal solicita tion, personal letters and his own personal contact with people. Now, let its analyze that system of getting business as applied to the commercial photog rapher. To my mind, personal soliciting is the one best way to obtain business for the commercial studio. Advertising works very nicely for accumulative effect, but I know of very few of the large commercial photographers who use newspaper advertising to any great extent. It seems to not reach the people they want to interest.
A man in this business, in the course of a year, meets a good many people both in and out of business. The more people he meets out of business the more he will eventually meet in business, so it can be considered a mighty good thing to belong to several good clubs if the opportunity arises. I know from personal experience that it helps.
Of course, everyone cannot have a good personality, but personality plays a great part in the success or non-success of most businesses. If the operator
employed is of pleasing personality, he is more liable to he called upon again than the operator ,who has an eternal grouch, although the grouch may have the best of the other fellow on ability.
Another effective way of helping to build a business is by sending out special appeals, or letters, you might say, to a select mailing list once a month.
Now this may take several forms. I know of one large company which does somewhat of a national business, and which takes for one month all of the piano manufacturers within a working radius of their studio, sending each one a very small photograph of insert size, very beautifully made, of a piano. This particular print I have in mind was a glossy, double weight print of a piano, with a vignetted base, accompanied by a clever form of letter, which letter, together with an actual example of piano photography, going to piano manufacturers, made quite a hit. The same thing was carried on through several other lines, but, of course, such a procedure could only be posssible in a studio able to cover a large territory. The man in the smaller city will have to hit sotnething in a happy medium and send it out once a month.
I know from my own experience that this is a very effective way of bringing attention to yourself and arousing interest. But it must be followed up by qual ity work and service, for, no matter how clever you are in advertising and soliciting, if you fall down on quality or your service, which means promising delivery and knowing a few things about the customers' wants, all your adver tising and building efforts go for naught.
Ouality of work has a great deal to do in building business. I know of many fair-sized studios whose managers think it is economy to employ mediocre operators, kid printers and sleepy delivery boys, and wonder why a paying business is not done. It is becoming known through the business world that the best men you can hire are the cheapest in the long run. Cheap labor means generally poor labor, poor results and WASTE, a tremendous item in these days of efficiency.