Ian Ivey
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 p.5 #16 · What Workshop Are You Doing this Off Season? | |
Tom wrote:
For those who have attended classes that were beneficial to their business; I would love if you could provide a short synopsis
I did TRR's Sexy Business workshop a couple weeks ago. This was the second running of the workshop, though Todd and Jamie have been doing branding and business work with other photographers for some time.
Tony wrote:
Sexy Business was described to me as the best money someone had ever spent on their business. I don't doubt it. Branding is something that I think is critically important that most lack. I'd bet that most Sexy Business grads would have paid double or triple if they had known what they'd learn there.
I concur. In fact, some did. One couple flew from Australia to attend the December workshop, making it a $10,000 investment. I watched them develop their vision for their business, and am certain that they will recover their investment promptly.
What the seminar covers
The Sexy Business seminar is a 3-day seminar (I believe they're running it in Vegas in the few days ahead of the WPPI convention in mid-February) that focuses on three main areas: business operations (understanding costs, managerial accounting, pricing), vision, and branding/marketing the vision. Other issues come up, but these are the main topics.
The business ops side of the workshop is very useful for studios struggling to get a handle on (or who are sort of just ignoring) costs and profit margins. This is a helpful walk-through of each attending studio's actual numbers, with some challenging questions tossed around where necessary. The more help you need in this area, the more time Todd and Jamie will spend on it, to ensure you're comfortable looking at your business by the numbers, rather than just by the pretty pictures.
The remainder of the workshop is a series of intensive (and--crucially--repeated) exploratory discussions of what distinguishes you from the ocean of wedding photographers. All wedding photographers "will tell the unique story of your day by capturing the special moments with the highest quality images using a documentary or photojournalistic style while becoming great friends with you because, you know, we're just so damn fun to spend time with that you'll seriously invite us over for drinks before and after the wedding and wish you'd met us years ago."
Todd and Jamie -- well, I was going to say they're two sides of a coin, but really Jamie is one side of a coin, and Todd is the edge of the coin. Or maybe Jamie is the chocolate and Todd is the peanut butter.
They draw you through a self-analysis, with the benefit of the friendly observations of other non-competitor studios who get to know you by spending e v e r y s t i n k i n g w a k i n g h o u r with you for three days. Todd, Jamie, and everyone else in your cohort all study you, take you apart, and help you identify and articulate your motives, and your comparative and competitive advantages.
The end result: you leave the seminar with actionable business goals, knowing how you will distinguish yourself from the crowd by establishing and delivering on your brand.
It's not just a branding exercise, like so many other seminars that offer generic "how to" advice. This workshop is a deep examination of your own business, in particular, with a chance to look into a few other people's businesses and learn from their challenges as well. It is very likely that you'll never get another chance to study the inner workings of other studios this way, not to mention trust people to look so carefully at your own.
While discussing pricing strategies, Todd said, "No one will ever come to you and give you permission to charge more -- no customer will tell you your prices are too low and you should charge them more." Perhaps true, but they will tell you that you should charge other people more, and that's exactly what we all did. The $1,500 fee is, in fact, too low for the benefit. I'd absolutely have paid double or triple that amount and been well satisfied with the value. I'll be stunned and a little disappointed in them if they don't increase this fee after February.
Sexy Business is unique among photography workshops because it's not a bunch of generic advice; it is incredibly and specifically personal, yielding a branding plan that will work for you, and only you.
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