McDonald's is not high-class French restaurant

McDonald's is not high-class French restaurant

Yesterday I had visited a pizza restaurant which specialised in perhaps the best pizzas in Christchurch with a good fast service.

They had changed their recipe of success to attempt to go slightly more upmarket, and no longer could you order at the counter, but you sat at a table and placed your order with a waitress. So what started out as as something you could go in and get a good meal in a hurry, to one that you could get a good meal slowly.

I wonder if they had ever looked at what their differential advantage was!

I wonder if they had ever looked at why people came to them, over going anywhere else.

It also reminded me of many photographers that I've met over the years that have started off with humble beginnings, have produced good simple work, fast, and a good simple price (cheap), and had then decided to upgrade their images, either from their existing premises, or from one close to their existing premises, and somehow they visualise that the prospective clients will pay two to three times the price of their cheap price at the other studio, with the only thing that has changed is the premises.

The photographer does not even dressed up in a suit when he photographs in his Deluxe's Studio and then he wonders why the well-heeled customers he is hoping to attract don't flocked to him in droves.

It is the same reason why then Austin produced a car built like a Rolls-Royce, with all of the Rolls-Royce features it bombed dramatically because nobody could believe that Austin could produce a high-priced car.

So if you don't like where you are in your business and you would like to go upmarket, you can, but it will not be easy.

There are two ways you can do this,

1. one could perhaps be a simple way, sell your business, moved to another town and buy a more upmarket business, but you'll have to still do many of the things I mention in choice two

2. a. The other option is to upgrade your existing business to a Deluxe studio and the by upgrading your product and your price.

b. First you must learn to produce work that is of a much higher standard than what you are currently producing right from the photography through to the final product. Now maybe the De Luxe finish you may not be be able to use at the beginning but you must have all of this planned and ready to drop into action at the appropriate time.

c. You must upgrade your premises from a basic studio to one that is in appearance very expensive and very exclusive, perhaps you may even have to make arrangements for new larger premises.

d. Now it is time for your own upgrade, you must decide on what sort of expensive look you're going to achieve. Perhaps to get assistance in this you may have to rely on your wife, or perhaps a clothing stylist. Now I do not suggest you have to go to a top hat and bow tie, but I do suggest that your clothing has got to spell money.

e. Now there's no use doing all of these things, and driving round in a 1939 Ford prefect, perhaps a 1939 Rolls-Royce would be okay if you want an old car, but a sports car of the Porsche, Ferrari, BMW, Mercedes stables will complete the picture.

f. Now once you have all of these things ready to roll, perhaps now it is time to do a series of high-class photographs of all the prominent people in town. These will all be done on an invitational basis, with no attempt to try to make a sale.

g. Okay, your new studio is ready to open, you have a new image ready to put on in your wardrobe, you have your new car in your Garage, your new style of photography is ready to be launched with all of your high-class invitation portraits, your expensive print finishing and your new price lists, business cards, letterheads and everything else has been produced. Now and only now are you ready to launch your Deluxe studio.

h. At this point you send an invitation out to all of the prominent people in town for a grand opening to view the prominent people of your town. If you have been smart, amongst these prominent people will be the newspaper editor, the prominent radio announcer, television frontperson, members of Parliament, councillors, all the service club presidents, it would be good to have 50 to a 100 portraits for exhibition. Now at this point you may ask "where am I going to get the money" well who said success was easy! If it was easy "everybody would be a success"! It will be substantially less money than if you were to buy a successful studio at this new level, which it is your other alternative and this new studio still may not be the way you would design it and that means more money.

i. You will telephone each one of the prominent people and ask them how many invitations would they like for the grand opening of your new studio and the unveiling of their portraits.

j. At the opening you will spare no expense on food or wine, you are building a first-class new studio, so the food and wine must be first class. You cannot serve McDonald hamburgers and Diet Coke.

k. Have the opening of your new studio done by the most prominent person you can find, the Governor General, Prime Minister, Leader of the opposition, and so on down the list until you get somebody that will do the job, of course there must be a portrait of them as well.

l. You will have a well-dressed documentary photographer to record the whole opening, to photograph you with the prominent people in front of their portrait, from which you will produce a framed photograph with the signwriting on it saying " Lord George Smith with Shota Photo on the occasion of the opening of Le Shota Portrait Studio"

m. Now you have your new portrait studio, your new image, your new wheels, your new price list, but if you're not careful the people of your town will remember the old image. This means that new image, (you're new clothes) must be worn at all times. If you must go to the rubbish tip, go in your Porsche, and your new clothes, to unload the trailer load of rubbish. Then people that had known you in your old image will say " Hell I saw Shota at the tip dressed up in his Porsche, with a trailer attached". Who said success was easy? You have a new image and that image must be on show at all times for people to believe that the image is true and not just fancy dress.

n. Naturally you have determined that your town and its area can support the class of studio that you have designed, and naturally you will have produced a marketing plan that will allow you to be as busy as you require to achieve the income you require. It is not as simple as I have laid out, and will be a lot of other things you have to do, but this is merely the first draft of a comprehensive plan that you will need to produce if you wish to go on this route.

Good luck with whatever level of photography you wish to pursue and I wish you well