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The Dead Pixels Society podcast
Mastering Efficiency and Profitability in Sports Photography: Bob Kenward's Journey to Success
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Discover the transformative journey of Bob Kenward from Fluvanna Sports Photography as he details his shift from action sports to mastering team and individual portraits. In a candid conversation, Kenward reveals the pivotal moments that turned his initial skepticism of team photos into a profitable niche focusing on smaller leagues, and how composite photography became a game-changer for his business. Listen as we uncover the practical benefits of this technique, from simplified setups to weather independence, and why it's a perfect fit for his business model.
Kenward and host Gary Pageau of the Dead Pixels Society dive into the nitty-gritty of business essentials that every photographer should know—think taxes, data protection, and the finesse required in handling customer service challenges. Rounding out the discussion, Kenward turn to the digital revolution of online ordering and its impact on revenue. Embracing platforms like GotPhoto can not only streamline your business but also open up a world of marketing opportunities, from automated reminders to targeted email campaigns. He also shares strategies for growth without overextending, ensuring the business remains viable, as well as why opportunities like the GotPhoto Summer Camp are golden tickets to enhancing your business acumen.
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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
Edited by Olivia Pageau
Announcer: Erin Manning
Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast, the photo imaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, gary Pegeau. The Dead Pixel Society podcast is brought to you by Mediaclip, Advertek Printing, and Independent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau:Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast. I'm your host, Gary Pageau, and today we're joined by Bob Kenward of Fluvana Sports Photography in Palmyra, Virginia. Hi, Bob, how are you today?
Bob Kenward:I'm doing great, Gary.
Gary Pageau:Thanks for having me on so Bob you are a longtime sports photography, I want to say expert industry figure, just a figurehead in the industry. But how did you get started in it?
Bob Kenward:Well, I've made every mistake that you can possibly make. So, yeah, I started in about 2006. I actually started doing just action photography. My son was playing travel soccer and I thought, well, that'll be fun, so I started taking some pictures of him and sharing them with the rest of the team. A couple of people encouraged me oh, you could sell these. And I'm like, oh yeah, that seems reasonable. So I started out doing action photography. My business was formed on January of 2006.
Bob Kenward:And I did just action for a few years maybe three years or so and during that time a few people asked me about doing team photos and I had absolutely no interest in doing it. I'm like that's boring. I like the action, it's fun, I like watching the game up close. And I did baseball and softball and soccer and all that stuff. Finally, grudgingly, I did one small league for team photos. And you know traditional team photos. You know standing in the grass with the ball on your knee and the team on the bench and the whole bit. It was OK, I seemed to go well. And then I looked at the paychecks that I got from that, the money, the orders that rolled in. I'm like wow for the amount of time I put into that versus sitting down at baseball fields all day and sweating. That was really lucrative. So I realized that, you know, that was probably a better angle to go. So I started out just kind of cherry picking very, very small leagues.
Bob Kenward:I'm a solopreneur, it's just me. I don't even take on a league or a job where I would have to set up two cameras. I just do it. If it's a one camera job, it's my size. So I specialize now in leagues that are about 300 kids or less that I can do in one camera setup, one setting. So that was about 2009 when I took that first league, I think, and then probably within four years or so. That's primarily what I was doing was team and individual. I still always did a little bit of action up until a couple of years ago.
Bob Kenward:And then I kind of just decided I'm not going to do that anymore. There's another photographer in my area, very talented, and he loves action and that's what he does. So now, every time somebody contacts me for action, I just steer it to him and he takes care of it. So, um, yeah, that's how I got started, and now all I do is team an individual. I also transitioned to composite photography about six, seven years ago, and from traditional um, and now that's all I do. I just do composite.
Gary Pageau:So that's my story I just think it's funny. Funny how you just said traditional, which I've been in the industry long enough. That used to mean film. Oh yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's a very different. Traditional team photo is actually, like you said, sit them in the grass and now composite them, which is easier for everybody.
Bob Kenward:I like the composite format. It's I mean traditional photos and there's some, there's a lot of photographers out there that still do it the traditional way and it the stuff looks so good. It's killer, but for me, I just like the ease of the composite. I like being able to set up inside. I don't have to worry about changing lighting conditions. I set up, I lock everything down and and I'm just going from there. Um, kids don't have to be there at the same time and all it's for me, it's just for my business model. It's the way to go. My area seems to like the composite photography, um, but that said, the folks that do traditional, um, there's some very, very, very good photographers out there and the stuff looks so good and it looks I really really like it. But I just for me. I just don't want to take the time and effort and sit out in the weather to do it.
Gary Pageau:Yeah, I mean, of course you always get the one kid who shows up late. Of course there's always that or miss the shoot and you've got to get them in any way and it's, it's, yeah, it's almost a. You know you're gonna end up doing composing and then in any way, shape in some cases. Yes, so you know, it's funny how you got when you said you got into this to be an ash, because it seems like that's a very common theme when I talk, it is photography, right, but there's very few people have been figured out how to actually make money at it without you know having a side gig or another, or you know your main job or whatever, just because you know you put up a gallery and you just kind of hope they buy. You know the spray? Were you doing like the spray and pray thing where you take pictures of everybody? Yes, yes, I was.
Bob Kenward:Like I said, I've made every mistake in the business. I've made them mistake in the business. I've made them all um spray and pray. And then when I started to do team and individual, I, you know, did paper order forms and that was that worked fine, but it's a lot more work. And then I used to um, take each photo and hand crop it to the size I needed and put it in a folder. And so if Sally's mom ordered an 8x10, a 5x7, and wallets, I made three copies of that photo and then put in a big rose order to my lab and got back a stack of photos and sorted them and separated them and delivered them. And then I found out you could do rose events and you get them back pre-packaged and I thought that was just great. But then I still had to deliver them or mail them or, like I said, I've done everything.
Bob Kenward:Now I am extremely streamlined, so it's composite. I shoot on a highlight backdrop like a Lastolite or the Knockoff Angular brand. So a highlight backdrop. So I'm a backdrop, two lights, tripod and a bucket to sit on, and that's pretty much it. And then I do online ordering. Only my composites are. I do online through GotPhoto and my composites are done by NextGen Photo Solutions.
Gary Pageau:Which is now part of GotPhoto.
Bob Kenward:Right. So all I do is I go to the photo shoot, I take my pictures, I upload my straight out of camera JPEGs, I transfer them to NextGen, I get back a proof, I approve it, the images automatically transfer back to my gut photo gallery. I hit sell. So it's very streamlined. Now All shipped to home. Parents order. It's just great For me. It's the way I like to do it.
Bob Kenward:I like to outsource as much as possible. I'm not a photographer, by the way. I'm not a photographer, by the way. I'm not a photographer at all. I've never trained in photography, I'm an engineer by trade.
Bob Kenward:I was going to ask you and before I discovered online ordering and everything, it was like working two full-time jobs. It was just insane. And then I discovered you could do the online stuff and that helped a lot but still was very busy because I was picking up leagues here and leagues there, people constantly, and I wasn't reaching out to them. They were coming to me because they liked the quality of the product that I was providing in the area. It just got to the point where I was like, wow, this is crazy.
Bob Kenward:And I reached my minimum retirement age and decided I could do this and do it full time and I retired at the end of 2018 and then exponentially grew since then, but still just doing it myself. So I'm at the point now where, like in the spring especially, I'm saturated. I can't take on any more leagues. I don't want to take on any more leagues. I'm plenty busy. I got a ton of travel teams that I work with and it just keeps me totally busy. And then summer is a little dead time, which is what I like.
Bob Kenward:And then winter and fall are busy, but not as crazy as spring.
Gary Pageau:So I'm just curious in Virginia, what are the big sports there? Because it seems like there's a regional aspect.
Bob Kenward:Absolutely yeah. So baseball, softball, soccer, football, basketball in the winter, that's pretty much it. We don't have a lot of lacrosse. There's some lacrosse but, like in Maryland, lacros, pretty much it. We don't have a lot of lacrosse. There's some lacrosse but, like in Maryland, lacrosse is everywhere, right, and here there's some. Um, I don't think we have any rec field hockey Maybe. Again, I'm in between Charlottesville and Richmond. Um, so I'm, and again, because I target smaller leagues, I don't do a lot of work in Richmond or Charlottesville because they tend to be larger leagues and they I know that, you know they may have, like Richmond, I would expect, has a lacrosse league, but it's probably larger than something I'd want to take on. But yeah, those are primarily the sports and I do that's, that's primarily what I do.
Gary Pageau:So I'm curious about your, your, your technical background. You're an engineer. I'm curious about your technical background. You're an engineer. So certainly the technical aspects of photography, I imagine, are what kind of drew you to it right, you're probably somewhat of a gearhead, I imagine.
Bob Kenward:Yes, yeah, absolutely, and my engineering background and just the way my mind works. I'm very workflow and efficiency oriented, which is exactly what volume photography is. It's.
Bob Kenward:It's a lot of business with a little bit of photography you know the volume photography world and it's all about processes and workflows and efficiency and making that work as quickly and smoothly as possible. You know if you have to touch an image after you've taken it. If you have to individually touch an image, you're wasting time and you're losing money. It's okay if you might. You know like I do a global edit on my images when I bring them in, but it's just one click and it applies to all the images I took that day because they're all exactly the same lighting. There's no changing.
Bob Kenward:If you have to go in and like remove glass glare on one image, you're wasting your time. You just outsource that. There's no need to go and do that. Anytime you touch an image individually, you're costing yourself time and time is money. So for me it's all about workflow and that's one of the things I kind of excel at and I've been helping a lot of people with that lately over the past couple of years with just efficiency in the workflow and efficiency in how they run their business and how to do things smoothly and maximize profit with less effort.
Gary Pageau:Because I think that's one of the things that's kind of interesting about the photography business as a whole, whether it's volume photography, whether it's a retailer or a photo lab or something like that, they get into it because they like photography.
Bob Kenward:a photo lab or something like that, they get into it because they like photography but to stay in it, you kind of need to accentuate all the other skills, right, yeah, and I was gonna say business skills are critical and I'm I'm not a business guy, but I've learned and I've talked to lots of people who are focused on the business side and that's very, very important. There's a lot of photographers that get into this because they love what they do, but they don't know anything about the business side and many times are operating, you know, borderline illegally on, you know as far as taxes and the way they handle things and protection of data and things like that. So it's very, very important to make sure you have your ducks in a row when you start your business. I mean, a perfect example is you know, I started my business January of 2006.
Bob Kenward:And I filed with and I didn't take any money in for the first couple of months. I just kind of said, okay, my business is established January 1st and I worked on getting it all set up and I filed with the state of Virginia to pay sales tax and did that in March. I said, oh, I'm set up my account and they said, when did you start your business? I put January 1st and then they proceeded to send me a penalty bill for not filing for January and February I had taken no money in mind you, but because I put January 1st and hadn't filed, they penalized me.
Bob Kenward:I paid like $25 in penalties because I didn't file the first two months when I made no money. So it's little things like that. The best thing you know when you get ready to do this is to consult a CPA, ideally, or at least somebody who's smart in business, to tell you about the gutches. Yeah, the gutches yeah.
Gary Pageau:And what's interesting is I had a friend of mine who had a photography but he was like a wedding shooter, you know, weekend guy, and he says nothing kills your love of photography faster than being in a photography business.
Bob Kenward:Yeah yeah, it kind of depends on how you approach it. If you're not smart about it, it can. It can kill you. The stress and the way you operate can just drive you into the ground. You also have to have thick skin because you're going to have a lot of customers, especially in the volume world. You have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of customers and there's always someone who's going to complain about something. Hopefully you don't get too many complaints, but sometimes, when you do, you cannot take it personally. You just can't take it personally. You have to have a thick skin and just be professional and and work through the problem with the customer and make sure they're they're happy, but not to the point of giving away the farm. You know you got to. You got to control your business too and have your. You know your own methodology of doing these things. But yeah it, it can be stressful. It can be stressful.
Gary Pageau:So what would be an example of that type of feedback you get from a customer? Is it because the kid doesn't look right, or they don't like your pricing, or you're not offering the products they want in terms of output? I'm just kind of getting an idea of a typical complaint someone might have.
Bob Kenward:I mean, I've gotten the occasional complaint about a pose, or that's not her real smile. I don't know what a real smile looks like, so it's a smile to me. You know those little things. You know you can offer to do a makeup photo or something like that. I certainly refund their money. That's actually the easiest thing to do if they've ordered and they don't like it. But that kind of harkens back to the days of prepay and where they didn't see the photos before they.
Bob Kenward:Yeah, I was going to say these now it's all post, it's all post-sale, so they're looking at the photo before they pay. So I tell them, if they don't like it and we can't, you know it's not easy for me to do a makeup or something like that Like it's an optional purchase, you don't have to purchase it. You know you haven't paid me any money and you don't have to purchase it. So but other things are sometimes the user errors. You know I had one this morning.
Bob Kenward:They ordered a big package and then they did an add-on where it gives you all individual photos, digital of all individual photos in the package. So they got their individual, their digitals. And she wrote to me she says I'm missing two photos. And I said, well, what are you missing? And what was two in my favorites that I thought I was getting? I thought I was getting all my favorite photos, not just the ones in the package. You know it's fine, it's just user error.
Bob Kenward:And in that case, because the order was so large in the initial order, I'm like no problem, I got you covered. And order, I'm like no problem, I got you covered and I just sent her the two digitals. They cost me zero to do that and she's very, very happy, but the order was, you know, close to $200 to start with, so I really didn't have a problem doing that. If she put in a $20 order, I would not have sent her the two high-res digitals, you know for free, so you just got to kind of decide and pick your battles where you want to, if you want to battle against someone requesting something.
Bob Kenward:But you know, it's little things like that. Sometimes you'll get a special request where especially because I do composite you know they'll have two kids One plays baseball in middle school and the other one plays softball in middle school. Well, can you put the two of them together in one photo so that I can order that? You know, because they're already cut out in composite and I'm happy to do that. But I charge a design fee for that. So I charge them, you know, $25 or $30. They pay me to do it. Then I put the photo in their gallery and then they're free to order it. So you got to learn to get paid for your time and be careful about what you agree to do, because once you agree to do something for someone or something for a league, sometimes word gets around and everybody will want the same thing. So you have to be very, very careful about that. Yeah.
Gary Pageau:One of the things that the people who do and I'm doing air quotes here traditional teamwork is, you know, the buddy photo thing, right, you know? I mean that's a hot thing where you get like the two sisters on the team or the two brothers or best friends or whatever, and that's a great way to add on a sale, but it's but for your workflow it's can be a challenge, I imagine.
Bob Kenward:We do those all the time actually, but we the best way to do it is exactly the way the traditional photographer does it, and that is, put them all both together in the frame and take a single picture and then they're extracted and put on the background. We do not want to have to take two individuals.
Gary Pageau:Well, that's what I was asking. That's a lot more work.
Erin Manning:Yeah, yeah.
Bob Kenward:That's why I charge for that. But if no, if they're there at the photo session, we do buddy photos all the time. Coach and son, coach and daughter, two players, you know that kind of thing.
Gary Pageau:But you're not compositing those.
Erin Manning:No, no, no.
Bob Kenward:Well, no, no, well, I do. They're composited in that they're extracted, but they're shot together. So yeah no, putting two individuals together. Yeah, ok, cool.
Gary Pageau:Yeah. So I find it interesting how you know you've made it a conscious decision as a business that you're going to limit what you're going to do, right? You can't be all things to all people, you can't do. You maybe do the photography, maybe do the workflow well, but you're not going to do, you know, a 17 team soccer tournament if you can't do it all in one day by yourself, right? So what was your thought process on making that decision for your business? Because a lot of photographers are thinking growth, growth, growth. I need more, more, more more. So clearly, you know your costs are going up. Your, you know your overhead is probably, you know everything's increasing now. So how are you increasing your profits and sales without doing more?
Bob Kenward:Yeah. So the background on that choice is the fact that one for the first several years I was working a full-time job along with this, so I just wanted to limit myself and my career in the government. I was a supervisor for the last 12, I don't know maybe 12 or so years, so I have supervised people and dealt with employees and for a long time and one thing I didn't want to do in my second business and now my primary business was deal with that again. I mean it was a great thing I didn't. I didn't really have any bad experiences, but I know how difficult it can be, so I made that choice. I'm also very, very lucky in the fact that I have a good retirement, I have a pension, I have healthcare at a good price that you know because I was a government employee. So I'm very lucky in the fact that I have a good retirement, I have a pension, I have health care at a good price because I was a government employee. So I'm very lucky that I can be picky in what I choose to do.
Bob Kenward:A lot of other photographers do not have that luxury and they really they need to take on what they can. They need to grow. I always tell photographers when I'm speaking you know you have to think about your future and your and your lifestyle as you build your business. You know, do not, I tell them, don't forget about retirement. If photography is the only thing you do and you don't have any other income or other you know 401ks or something I said you have to fund your retirement. You must fund your retirement, you know, or you will regret it when you, when you're ready to, when you're ready to part, and I said you know health care, you have to have that, you know. So there's all kinds of things that I'm lucky that I have covered by other means so I can afford to be picky on that.
Bob Kenward:And it just for me, it's, it's how I want to, I want to be, it's I'm. It's not right for everybody. Other photographers want to grow. They want to have multi-bay stations and that's all great. But it actually has been a benefit to me because a lot of the larger companies that do team and individual in my area they don't look for the leagues that I do.
Bob Kenward:They want the 1500 kid league, the 2000 kid league, because it's more efficient for them to go and set up on a Saturday and set up you know three bays or four bays and knock out that league, whereas if they have a league that's small, it's just less efficient for them. So I'm able to kind of cherry pick these smaller leagues and build my portfolio with that as far as increasing business and to cover costs and stuff. Like I said, I'm not fully, fully busy except in the spring, so I can always add on something. I do a lot of travel teams, so I press hard with the travel teams and they're just simple, little one teams, two teams and we push them to do banners and the parent sales are great and so those are a great source of income that you can do even if you're not doing leagues and such.
Gary Pageau:So let's talk about the transition from paper, from traditional, which is probably you thought. I'm getting into this. I need a form, I need to take checks, I need to do all these things to a digital process, to the online process, because you, you know, your wife was with you at these shoots to start with, to do that piece of it. Now you do it on your own. What was your evaluation process? And looking at the different platforms, because there are different platforms.
Bob Kenward:Absolutely so, yeah, so, like I said, I did the traditional paper order forms and sales table for many years and my wife ran that sales table and she excelled at it. And then I started learning more about the online platforms because I was I was still, you know, building, you know, collecting the orders and separating them in some cases and delivering them to the leagues and stuff, and and we always had problems with kids not getting photos. The coach still had him in his trunk, you know the whole, the whole thing like that. So I just kind of wanted to move away from that. And so, as the online platform started to mature this would have been back in 20, I don't, I don't even know, I lose track of time 2014, maybe, or so the online platform starting to come along.
Bob Kenward:I looked at it. I'm like I want to give this a try. I want to, I want to move to this kind of a model and see if I can eliminate that job from my work day. So I did. I transitioned a small league over to that. Of course, remember too, with paper order forms, you're generally shooting one pose. It's one and done, because the parent is paying you in advance and you're going to take one pose and that's the pose you're going to deliver to them. And if you take more than one pose and then you deliver to them pose A and they saw you take pose B, they'll start come back to you and say, well, I really wanted the other pose when you fill their order.
Bob Kenward:So most traditionals take the single pose if they're doing prepay and order forms. When I transitioned online, I knew that one of the successes for online was being able to offer multiple poses, multiple looks. You know, smile and game face, different poses. And so I took a small league and I transitioned it to online ordering using one of the providers and did multiple poses and while my percentage of parents ordering was lower as it almost always is when you transition the order of each order value, the value of each order was higher, so the amount of revenue that I made was more than I made on paper order forms with fewer orders. I also raised my prices a little bit because I had to cover, you know, the fee that the online provider is going to take for that. So I raised them up a little and it was fine. But it was so much easier and, you know, even if I had broken even and I made no more money, I still would never look back because it's so much easier, so much less work for me.
Bob Kenward:So within the course of a season and I by a season I mean I think it was a fall I went from you know one league. I went from you know one league doing online, and by winter I transitioned everything to online ordering and multiple poses, and that meant that I could fire my wife as an employee because I did not need an order table anymore. So she was. She was both happy and heartbroken about that. The unfortunate thing for me is that now, if I take her on a photo shoot which is very, very rare, but occasionally I'll need her to help posing or something I have to pay a consultant fee which is far more expensive than what I was paying her.
Bob Kenward:So anyways, yeah it. You know, it made my life so much easier. And now the parents see the photos first. So they pick the photos they want, they pick from multiple poses, they place their order, ship to home it just it couldn't be easier from that standpoint. I thought for sure I'd have people complaining about paying shipping because I used to always deliver to the league. I literally had no complaints. I transitioned you know probably 10 leagues from delivering to the league to online ordering and I didn't have any complaints out of all those people. So it was great.
Gary Pageau:Didn't you get any pushback? Because I've talked to a lot of smaller firms who are kind of still doing this. Are people still doing the paper forms? Absolutely their big concern is you know what they aren't going to buy. Prepay is great and you trialed it. I mean, you did the smart thing where you you said I'm gonna pick a league, we're just gonna try it if it. If it doesn't work, we go back, no problem. I'm just curious about did you get any kind of feedback from parents going? You know, I really I really like this, or the coach saying I like handing out the pictures or anything like that. No, in short no no.
Bob Kenward:I really didn't. I had no the leagues. The league liked the moving to online because they didn't have to distribute big packages of photos to the coaches. The coaches like it because they didn't have to worry about getting them to the, to the, the customers, and they weren't floating around in their trunk for weeks. And the parents like it because now they know when they order, within a week they have their photos in their hand. Rather than I had some leagues that I would. I would do their photos early in their season and then deliver all the photos, you know, a week or so later. So, and then they play for six more weeks and I'd get all these calls from parents about where are our photos? Where are our photos? I'm like, well, I delivered them to the league five weeks ago. They were holding them until the end of the year party to distribute and I'm like this is insane. Yeah.
Gary Pageau:So I mean why did you work that hard to get them done in a week, right?
Bob Kenward:So I had the short is, I had no pushback and I've done so well with online ordering. And yeah, I think it's regional, though I think there are areas where maybe, if you transition, you won't do as well. But the key thing is, if you're going to try it, you try it on some kind of a smaller league or account and you do multiple poses and multiple looks and you let the parents go from there. The money does not come in all at once, that's for sure. Paper order forms you know you got it all the day of you went home and you let the parents go from there. The money does not come in all at once, that's for sure. Paper order forms you know you got it all the day of you went home and you had this stack of money and everything was great. And with online, it is not that way at all. You know it dribbles in over a couple weeks or a month or two months.
Bob Kenward:I do my online e-commerce through GotPhoto and I just I love the platform. It is the most feature-filled platform, I think, of all the providers out there and it has a number of capabilities that drive revenue and drive an increase in revenue for the photographer One of the things that it offers is the ability to archive galleries. I think most of them do. But the nice thing about GotPhoto is I can say that I'm going to archive them on a certain date and all the emails go out about archiving them on a certain date and this is your last chance to order, or things like that. But then you can actually just not archive it and it just stays up. You can even change the price list at that point. So what I've done is I've modified the communications that go out when my gallery is about to archive and I say that basically it's going to archive and to save paying an archive fee ie higher prices, order now and it drives an incredible number of sales within that last few days before the gallery archives.
Gary Pageau:And you can see it. Can you reach out to people? I mean, is the email program sophisticated where it says hey, I'm just going to target non-buyers, and that kind of?
Bob Kenward:thing? Yeah, you can set it up any way you want. There's a number of triggers. You could set it up to send emails to everybody who has already bought and offer them like a discount for a second sale. You could send it to people who haven't bought yet. You can send it to everybody with photos. You could send it to only the ones who haven't logged in yet.
Bob Kenward:It's incredibly capable. I mean, there's just so much configurability and the ability to customize things to your own liking. That's one of the many reasons that I love the platform it just if you, as a volume photographer, if you have something that you want to do, you think I would really like to do this. Right, got photo probably can do it, and if they can't do it within the platform, I doubt any other platform can, because I think they have more features than any other platform and as far as you know fees and costs, it's it's all comparable. They're, all you know, roughly about the same. Got photo has. You know Gotphoto.
Bob Kenward:If people are interested, I can give you a breakdown of comparisons between platforms and where the break-even point is as far as annual revenue and stuff. Basically, you just kind of lay out what it's going to cost you per year or per month and you can figure out which platform is best from a cost standpoint. But that's not it. You don't want just cost, you need everything else that goes with the platform capability and customer service and all of those things. And to me GotPhoto has all of those things covered and more so I'm very, very happy with it.
Bob Kenward:Can I circle back? I have one thing. So back when you were asking me about increasing revenue, here's another way to increase revenue. When you don't want to take on necessarily more work, you feel like you've got enough work.
Bob Kenward:I look also at the performance of a league and how the revenue is from that league, and if it's low and in my area there are some sports that are just low, like soccer, and I can find another league to replace it, like a softball or something like that then I will just stop servicing that lower revenue league and replace it with a higher revenue league. So I had that this year, a big soccer league that I do and it actually takes me two weekends to do it because it's big and I don't generally have a lot of leagues like that. I don't have any. That's the only one. But the actual revenue is not all that great Not bad, but not great. I replaced it this year with a flag football league and a softball league. I made far more than I would have made on the soccer league. So yeah, yeah, that was the other point, huh.
Gary Pageau:That's interesting. It is interesting how different sports kind of have different values to them right?
Bob Kenward:Oh yeah, the more they wear, the more they spend, the more the parents pay, the more they spend. So, for instance, baseball is a good sport, but travel baseball even better, because they have to pay. They try out and they pay. Football always good, soccer not so much. Swim definitely not so much. Swim definitely not so much. But then again, that's my area. I talked to other photographers. I just talked to one on facebook a couple days ago and for her swim, one of her best sellers.
Gary Pageau:So it depends, it's regional yeah, you got to know your market you got to know your market absolutely so let's talk a little bit about kind of how buying behaviors kind of changed a little bit with these, with the capability now that you can market Because I remember I'm again, I'm been around for a while, I've seen a few things you as a volume photographer never used to get to market to the parents really directly. I mean everything was on the form right. But now you can actually reach back out to them and remarket things and actually like maybe suggest products. I mean, I've heard of photographers who've done actually very well with hey reminding people around the holidays would you want junior's baseball picture on a ornament for grandma? You know stuff like that. Do you do any of that?
Bob Kenward:I don't do as much as I should. There are some photographers that excel at that. I've done it a couple of times. I do like a Black Friday sale. I do a sale in the middle of summer. I've offered the Christmas ornaments and, yeah, those things all drive an increase in sales.
Bob Kenward:And because it's all online, you have this huge database of customers and you know. You know what sport obviously they're attached to, where their child plays, whether they've purchased or not. You can set up your tar. You know, if you, if you have a real business marketing mind, then you can set up your communication to target the group that you want and the sport that you want, and whether they purchased yet or not. So, yeah, there's all kinds of ways to do that. And those are the kinds of things that I think are great to kick around at conferences and things like that with other people who are in the same business, because everybody has a different idea, a different take, a different thing that they do, a different promotion, and I'm not really good at that. So I'm always willing to learn and that's why. So that's one of the things, too, I would offer up to, especially to any volume photographer out there is make sure you attend conferences, invest in your business, invest in yourself, go to a conference you know and pick the right conference for what you do, just volume sports, for instance. If you do just volume sports, um, then something like spac in in las vegas in january is ideal, because that's it, it's volume sports and volume schools. If you do seniors, and you do a lot of seniors and do a little bit of sports, then maybe sync in florida in february is better because it it's much more focused on seniors right than anything else. You know. If you do just school, so your big school accounts, then I think the spoa is is one of the ones that you would go to. So, you know, you just got to pick the right conference. Um, I will.
Bob Kenward:I will point out that, um, if you're doing volume photography, sports or schools or whatever, um, and especially if you're a gut photo user but you don't have to be the gut photo summer camp coming up, um j June 20th to the 22nd in Chicago is going to be a great event. It's a three-day event. The agenda, I think, is going to drop today, the day we're recording this, so by the time you hear it the agenda will be out. I'm sure I've seen kind of a preview of that and it is packed. I mean the first day. If you're a Got Photo user, the first day is ideal because it's beginner, intermediate and advanced topics on all things GotPhoto Gutphoto. So all these capabilities and ways to do things are all going to be talked about that day and there's classes you can go to and meet with the developers and the marketing people. They'll do an account review. You know a whole bit. It's great for streamlining your marketing and setting up your business to maximize your revenue. And then the next two days are all packed with everything volume photography, it doesn't matter, and those would be applicable whether you were a gut photo user or not. We're going to do posing and lighting and and composite work and traditional work at all kinds of things like that. So I would encourage everybody to check out the agenda and and think about going to that if you want to go to Chicago in June. So it's going to be a good event, yeah, and you will be there. I will be there.
Bob Kenward:I am one of the speakers. I have a couple of talks that I'm giving, one of the other things that are done there that I think is different from other conferences we do knowledge exchanges and there's a bunch of those. Those are small, in a conference room with maybe 15 or 20 people and you pick a topic, the topic is on the agenda and you go in and that's the topic you discuss and it's just everybody participates. It's not a lecture or a presentation, it's a participation. So something like specials you know marketing, how do you market your photos is a perfect knowledge exchange topic. You know what promotions do you do through the year and how do you maximize revenue, how do you get additional sales when you've already gotten the sales from the first round? So it's things like that that we talk about in those. So I highly recommend attending. I think it's a really great value and the educational opportunities are unmatched.
Gary Pageau:And it's really not something you can get from a Facebook group or some of the other things that are out there. That's really where I find the value in conferences is because I go to quite a few in the course of a year is just that informal exchange. You run into somebody in the hallway and you say I've got a problem and they've got the answer right there absolutely.
Bob Kenward:I think when you're doing that at a conference and you're getting advice from people I won't say 100, but the majority of the time and and and far more than 50 of time let's say 90% of the time you're getting good advice from somebody who is like-minded and in the business, whereas in a Facebook group I've seen a lot of bad advice in.
Gary Pageau:Facebook.
Bob Kenward:I mean I've seen some good advice but I've seen a lot of bad advice and you're not there one-on-one with the person looking at them and so you don't get the feel for that confidence factor. And if you just blindly trust what you get in a Facebook group for information, you could be really going down a wrong path pretty quickly. So yeah, a big fan of conferences and I think if you're running any kind of a business and you want to improve and you wanna be successful, then picking a good conference to attend and you don't have to go every year but go every couple of years. Pick a conference and invest in it and invest in yourself, invest in your business and go. You will pay dividends tenfold easily.
Gary Pageau:So for the folks who are interested in the GotPhoto Summer Camp, it's gotphotocom slash summer dash camp, if you're interested, and that's June 20th through the 22nd in Chicago. Bob, where can people go to find more information about you and what you're doing and if they want to reach out to you for some advice?
Bob Kenward:One more thing on Got Photo Summer Camp, though, if you use the coupon code Bob20, capital, b-o-b-2-0, you'll get 20% off on your registration. So, as far as me, I have a website, but it's it needs work, so I don't recommend everybody go there. But my, my daughter-in-law is working on it, but she's very busy so it's not. It's not ready yet, but it's there. Fluvanna photoscom and you can find me in the Got Photo Facebook group and a lot of the other volume photography Facebook groups.
Bob Kenward:I help people all the time with all kinds of things related to composite photography or in tag system or Got Photo or whatever all these different topics, and you can just reach out to me with Facebook Messenger or you can text me. But I'm not going to give you my cell phone here. But I will take it. Just don't call me, because I'm going to let it go to voicemail if I don't know who it is. But if you do call and it goes to voicemail, just leave a message and I will call you back.
Bob Kenward:I return all my calls, all my messages. I don't ghost anybody. If I'm too busy, I'll tell you hey, I can't talk now. We're going to have to talk tomorrow. So yeah, I'm kind of an open book as far as helping people. I speak at conferences now and it's amazing because I'm a huge introvert. As an engineer, I've always been an introvert, but being a supervisor and being a volume photographer, I've learned to be extroverted at least somewhat. I've learned to be extroverted at least somewhat. So I'm happy to help people and if you run into me at a conference, I'm definitely happy I'll sit with you all night and talk over a beverage and help you in any way I can.
Gary Pageau:Well, great Bob, it's been great talking with you. Hopefully, I will see you in person at an upcoming event and look forward to sharing more information with you later.
Bob Kenward:Great Thanks for having me on, Gary, I appreciate it.
Erin Manning:Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixels Society podcast. Read more great stories and sign up for the newsletter at wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
