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Both
the negative bag, Work sheet and the summary sheet have been
reduced by 50% to get them all on the one sheet of paper. The negative bag is shown as darker because it is brown
manila.
The
example shown here is from Kieran's Studios who has activated
this system.
You
will note that he has a large Job number on the negative bag
which matches the costing card. You will also note that there is a black spot on the
month and the reason for this is that it is easier to identify
the month being used by colored spots (like we use on the first
run) so that when the jobs are sitting in the proof-out section
of your negative filing system, and you have red as being January
and you are already in May, all the reds are certainly stand
out like sore toes.
TIME
ITEMS Each
item you spend on the job gets recorded on your card. Every time you receive money of some sort from your customer
it gets recorded on the card. Every time you spend some time
either talking to your customer, working with the negatives,
doing something in connection with the job the units get recorded
on the card. You
don't need a stopwatch, but you will always have a vague idea
on how many units of time you have used. For goodness sake don't cheat, because you are only cheating
yourself.
AT
THE END You'll
have a different summary sheet for every different type of job
i.e. weddings, portraits, family groups, pets etc., again set
your own parameters.
On
this summary sheet you will record the job number, how much
money came in, how much money gone out, and your gross profit,
record the time for your staff and yourself in units and then
you will be able to see just how many units of time you've worked
for how many dollars of income.
I
do feel that it is important that you do this costing on every
job that goes
If
you find that you are working for peanuts on a particular type
of work then you will have the opportunity of increasing that
particular part of your activity, you'll be able to put your
prices up, or alternatively you'll be able to look at it and
decide that you're spending too much time on it and will therefore
have to reduce the amount of time you're spending with your
customers, BUT if this is the action you decide to take first
make sure your profits wont be affected.
By
costing every job religiously like this, you will have your
pulse on your business and you will be able to react the moment
for some reason the costs get out of hand. If you don't record all the time the money that you are
spending and just record the money coming in, something may
change that you are not aware of which will effect your profitability
which may not show itself up for six months. Should anybody need any further explanations on this
costing system don't hesitate to contact the writer.
NEWSLETTER
FOR FEBRUARY 1988 VOLUME No 96
PROFESSIONALISM They
engaged a very good professional photographer one of my customers)
and they were extremely pleased with the photographs.
On
the grooms side he had a relation that was a practicing professional
photographer and is now employed in photography working for
a company.
Evidently
this friend did photography over the professionals shoulder,
went on back home had some 10 x 8's run off and sent them on
down to the parents of the bride and groom, all for no charge.
He
obviously thought he had done nothing wrong or he would not
have done it, I guess the photographer that had covered the
wedding would not treat it quite so lightly, and I guess when
this guy was a practicing photographer he looked upon it without
any sense of humor. However
because it was not now affecting him, he probably thought he
was doing the bride and groom a favor. They certainly thought he was as they had all of these
wonderful photographs for FREE.
The
brides parents are a reasonably intelligent set of people and
now they know that if they shop around a little bit there is
always someone who will do the photography for nothing and will
give them the photographs, and it is all because this photographer,
who must have a pin for a brain, decides to play the big image
with his friends.
I
would suggest that if you ever get invited to a wedding you
leave your camera at home.
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If
you get asked to bring your camera along to take some snaps
and you know a professional has been engaged, forget to take
it, or if you do take a camera take a 110 or something like
that.
If
you consider yourself to be a professional just ask yourself
have you seen any doctors performing operations at parties?
If
you consider yourself to be tradesman do you often see a plumber
installing a sink at a party?
Ethics
is the subject and you should have a strong set of ethics whilst
you are operating a business.
PRICING This is a good technique but it has a few drawbacks but let us work our way riqht through it First
of all the factor, you can obtain this factor from the balance
sheet by seeing how much money you spend at the lab, divide
that by your turnover and that gives you your factor. If you make the factor a larger number it will give you
more money in your pocket. If you make the factor a smaller number it will give
you less money in your pocket.
Once
you have this factor and let us say it is 6 (I am not recommending
this figure, I could have just have easily chosen 5 or 10). If you apply the factor of six to the sizes of 20x16
and larger and you include the price for the lab to do the mounting,
you work out the Prices.
You
will find that between a 25x20 and a 30x40 there is a reasonably
large step and if you are trying to sell a person a 30x40 print
and they cannot quite afford that much and they make a decision
to spend less money in spite of all of your efforts, the next
size down is $200+.
Now
they might be prepared to go down $50.00, however by going down
to your next size print they drop $200+ and they are very happy
and you lose out.
The
way around this is to introduce new sizes for your price list,
so that instead of having four sizes you in actual fact have
eight.
20x16, 22x18, 25x20, 27x
22, 30x24,
32x26, 35x28, 40x30
I
have given you some examples below however you may wish to come
up with your own. I
have shown them in inches to make it easier for you to follow.
Now
you can achieve these variations in sizes by realizing that
you are selling at a retail level. Your price structure will naturally be guided by what
the market dictates and so on some sizes if you are using a
factor of six you may be able to up that factor to nine and
make the steps between the sizes $120.00 and in other cases
you may have to take your margin down to four.
It
completely depends on what your particular market circumstances
are.
To
carry on with these new four sizes, if you make your pricelist
have easy steps on it so that your customers can easily step
from one size to the other, it will also allow you to increase
the price of your largest size print.
Now
if you are selling a 30x24 print and they feel that is a fraction
expensive you step down now to a print that is a fraction smaller
and has a differential of $120.00. If this is still too expensive you step down to the next
size smaller which has another $120.00 off it and so on down
the price list, I achieve this by multiplying out my straight
lab sizes then dividing steps between the standard sizes and
dividing the price evenly amongst those.
BUSINESS
GROUPS
You
are so used to doing sports teams why not carry the group photo
concept on into the commercial field.
In
your town you have a lot of businesses that employ people and
each one of these businesses at some stage will be a prime sitter for a group photograph.
Here
are a few suggestions, Accountants, Lawyers, Factories, Truck
Companies, Manufacturers, Farm Produce Companies, the list is
endless.
If
you are photographing the local Trucking Company you may need
to be there early one morning or over the weekend and you will
probably need a high vantage point, looking down on all the
trucks with the drivers outside the drivers door. Possibly a cherry picker may be the answer to get high
enough or they may
have a two story building which you can shoot out of the window.
Once
you have done the group photograph then move in and do a photograph
of each "Truckie" with his truck.
Be
prepared for some big groups, our local Accountants have 50
on the staff, others of course may have just three or four.
Do
not ignore the local retail merchants, this may call for a 35mm
camera to photograph the three or four of the staff just outside
their shop.
The
local engineers with their fitters and turners etc, perhaps
you should always include the company vehicle, perhaps whilst
you are doing that you do an interior of the business to record
this particular point in time.
And
whilst you are there do not forget the concept of doing a roll
of 35mm film with a wide angle lens, just process it only and
give it to them to keep at home in case of fire. If this happens all they need to do is get the film printed
and they have a record of what is in every nook and cranny so
they can make a suitable insurance claim. This could be an assignment for you to do on a yearly basis.
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