Last year, Fstoppers produced a tutorial with Monte Isom, which has helped numerous photographers including Gregg Shipman. In this video, Shipman details how he earned an extra $31,000 in just one photoshoot using the knowledge gained in the tutorial.
I first became aware of Monte Isom some years ago when he spoke at an ASMP-Austin/San Antonio event. I was struck by not just how clearly talented he is, but how open, thoughtful, and deliberate he was about how he ran his business. I've long been an advocate of the viewpoint that a photographer is really a businessperson whose product happens to be imagery. Meaning, if you want to be a successful photographer, you need to treat your business as a business where the product or service just happens to be photography.
Hearing Monte Isom and Gregg Shipman discuss what went into this shoot really gives a better understanding about the thought that Shipman had to put into his bid and how he was able to use the tutorial and accompanying Facebook group to help him price it correctly so that he could not only win the bid, but also make clear with his bid that he was the type of photographer that could handle this type of corporate shoot.
Stories like this are inspirational to me as a photographer, not just to see a photographer succeed, but also to see a successful photographer continuing to better their education in all facets to better their business as a whole. I hope this story will be inspiring to you as well.
Nice success story. Congrats to Gregg for taking the leap and doing it professionally. Waiting for more inspiring case studies like this! :)
One of the best, mot informative articles I've ever seen on F Stoppers. I've been in a similar situation on a few occasions and this has validated many of my decisions along the way. Cheers to both of you!
Great article and informative. No fluff, excellent story and well worth the time. Probably the longest I've stayed tuned in to an fstoppers video.
Excellent real life example. Instructive and inspiring. One area i would disagree with is the straight billing with no markup on assistants. This ignores the concept of overhead absorption in a business. Even a 10% mark up should cover insurance and other transaction costs of dealing with the talent. You should recover the time spent managing the talent, negotiating rates, making payments, etc. I do understand the hesitancy with a new client and I might have absorbed that for a 1st time quote to secure the business. But, IMO, it needs to be part of the billing model.