021: Brian Chapman – How To Have A Profitable Portrait Photography Business and Happy Clients

021: Brian Chapman – How To Have A Profitable Portrait Photography Business and Happy Clients

Andrew Hellmich: I always kick-off these interviews saying 'I'm excited to have today's guest', but today I really am excited because I've got Brian Chapman here from Family Image Photography. I'm excited because Brian's actually sitting straight opposite me. We've just had a cup of coffee and some morning tea that Linda baked for us, and he proceeded to tell me that the sales technique I'm using for the members or the Premium Members of the podcast basically sucks. He also then went on to tell me that when we go, when we go through today's interview, he wants me to ask about numbers and business, because that's what's been lacking from the podcast, and that's what we need to delve into today. So Brian, mate, I'm really, I am really excited to have you here, mate. Thanks for coming up and welcome to the podcast.

Brian Chapman: Thank you. Thank you. I just want to say that you can't see us so both of us are actually sitting here naked. Just to prove it, Andrew's legs are shaved, and I can see that, and he won't deny it either.

Andrew Hellmich: I've got no idea where these interviews going to take us today.

Brian Chapman: Face for radio, haven't we?

Andrew Hellmich: We do. This is why I do these interviews via Skype, mate. Let's kick things off now I know that as far as business people go, you, you are the businessman of photography. I mean, I know that when you when you talk about photography in business, it's all about numbers for you. So let's dive into the numbers straight away. Can you give us an idea of how many portrait shoots you're doing, what your average sales are, and why the numbers are so important?

Brian Chapman: Sure, I like, I like direct questions. I'll tell you first why I like numbers. Okay, is that years ago, when I first started, when we were doing portrait photography and weddings and anything else we could get any other kind of work, we started making up what our prices were and if we got a sale of, you know, a few $100 we consider that a success. And we thought things were going well. And it wasn't until I went along to a seminar with the industry body in Australia, the AIPP Australian Institute of Professional Photographers, and I heard a speaker there from Premier Studio in Perth. Her name was Janet Craig, and she started sharing how their studio is actually going and, and she told us what their turnover was. She told us what their average sale was and for me, hearing those figures, it was the first time I that really heard another photographer really share actually how things were going and what the real numbers were. And for me to hear that, it gave me a goal. It gave me, I guess, a benchmark, to realize that where I was aiming at for getting a few $100 on a sale was way too low, that there was, there was so much more potential than that, and so we started changing our business. As a result, I actually got mentored by Janet as well, which I'm really grateful for, and it turned our business around. And that's why today I'm not afraid to actually talk about our numbers and where we're at, because hopefully it will just help other photographers to know, yeah, you can do this, and what are they doing better than us, or whether they are, you know, still got a bit more to go on the journey. I think it's great to have that benchmarking to know where you're at. So we do, I think it's about 180 portraits a year, our average sale is up around $2,800 and our turnover this year, we've just finished, is $550,000 and last year was, I think, 520,000 so we've managed to do that two years in a row in a very down economy, which I've been really happy with.

Andrew Hellmich: That is awesome. That's awesome. So when you started out and you had that sort of, that 3-4-5, $100 sale, and you saw the seminar with Janet, what did you do next to take those sales up to this 2800 average?

Brian Chapman: Okay, I walked up to her, and back then I didn't really know many people. It was one of my first AIPP events. I walked up here and said, "I so need to hear that. And will you be my mentor?" And I think she was caught on the spot, and amazingly enough, she paused and said, "Yes." And before long, was only, I don't know, maybe a few weeks later, I got on a plane, flew over to Perth. It was actually my first flight on a plane ever. So for me to do that was a big, brave step. And basically landed over there and spent a week with her, and she was very kind and helped me and guided me, and it really helped us to turn our business around. And we're still great friends now, and she shares our journey and cheers us on.

Andrew Hellmich: You went over there, you learned from the best. What did you come home? What was the first thing you did, or the first few things you did when you got back after that week?

Brian Chapman: The exciting thing about it is that we were, the concept that we have with our studios, that we have a, my background originally was, I was a landscape designer. That's what my qualifications were. Got a degree in horticulture, and we'd already started this idea of landscaping a property especially for photography. So rather than traveling around, people would actually come out to us and we'd do photos in the gardens. We didn't know of anyone else doing this. It was a totally new idea. It was a big risk. And I met Janet and discovered on the other side of Australia that she was doing something quite similar, and it was working. And so that just gave me the courage to keep going. You know, my wife, Kaylin and I, who works in the business as well, I just said, "Look, if they can do it in Perth, we can do it." And so I went and spent time with them, and saw that we needed to raise our prices, that we needed to change over to projecting images and showing clients in a viewing room and creating a wonderful experience for them, and being proud of our work and being excited about it, and that's what I came back and I spoke to my parents about it, and they were kind enough to help me with some money, and did a bit of a loan to buy a new projector and some other equipment to upgrade our gear, and we put systems in place, and we saw radical change as a result of that.

Andrew Hellmich: So did you change your photography style and shooting, or was it more about the numbers?

Brian Chapman: No, we didn't change the photography style of shooting. I don't think it was still probably pretty much the same. It was just a case of changing over to projecting, to looking at using sales software. At the time, it was a different program that Janet was using, but the program today, the only one you really should be using is ProSelect, highly recommend that and just valuing your work instead of, you know, selling a set of, I don't know, 20 or 30 images for a few $100. Value each and every photo as an individual print, and start projecting and showing photos on the wall and set up a bit of a gallery. And there was so many different things, and it's what we do today with our business.

Andrew Hellmich: So really, that influence from Janet that's carried through all the way, you really haven't swayed off your path, have you?

Brian Chapman: No, no. So as a studio, we're one of the few ones that don't sell digital files. We only sell finished prints and..

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so let me play devil's advocate here. On the client, "Brian, you've just done an amazing shoot. I've spent $3,000 on photos. Why can't I have my digital files?"

Brian Chapman: "Because I would have already told you that before the shoot so you knew, so you wouldn't be disappointed at this stage." But I consider us as a professional studio. I find it crazy that photographers spend so much time on their gear and their passion and getting the great shot and then retouching that shot and everything beautiful and doing a wonderful job. I need to hand it over to a client who has no idea how to print it. They don't have a skill in that area. They don't have professional gear. The guy at Harvey Norman or Big W you know, he's usually a younger, younger person, maybe a teenager, working in that section. He doesn't really know or care. And then it gets printed, and then it goes on their wall. And then someone says, "Oh, where'd you get your photos done at?" And they say, "Oh, Family Image Photography." Now, actually, that's not my work on their wall. That's part of my work, but that's not my finished result. That's not something I would be happy with. In fact, that print on the wall is something that would have got rejected on our checking bench, and if I would reject it in my studio and the checking bench as part of our process, what is it doing up on their wall? Now, a lot of photographers are telling me, "You can't run a business. You can't actually get work these days without selling digital files." Well, you can, all right, and I can speak confident that, because we've got numbers to prove it. You know, we're getting the jobs we're doing well. Our average sale, I believe, is quite high in the industry, and we've got very happy customers. And so just because clients are saying, "Oh, I want the digital files, I want the files on disk", which we every second call for us, is like that nowadays. It doesn't mean you have to do it, all right?

Andrew Hellmich: Well, let's step back a bit then. So instead of me having had the shot with you, the shoot with you, and spending $3,000 on that. On the phone call, "I want to book you guys for my family shoot. I love your work. I've seen it. And Brian, I want you to photograph our family. But look, I really want the digital files." And how do you answer that?

Brian Chapman: I'll tell you exactly. So if someone was asking that question, say, "Oh, look, sorry. We don't sell the digital files. We only sell a finished print. And I tell you, why is that? You know, when you when you're paying for professional photos, paying for a professional photographer, you want a good result. And you know, we will do a great job in the shoot give you a great experience. But if I then give you the files and you go and get them printed somewhere else, and it's not done well. You've paid for a professional result, but you're getting an amateur result. All right? You're not getting the job done to completion, and that's the, one of the main reasons." I tell them "The second reason is, obviously, we make money on selling prints. That's how we make a profit."

Andrew Hellmich: So you'll tell the client that?

Brian Chapman: Absolutely, I'm always very upfront. With a client, I tell them that, I tell them that we guarantee all of our work. We have a full 100% money back guarantee. So we stand by work if they're not happy with the shoot, if they're not happy with a photo, if they're not happy with retouching, the framing, anything like that, we will redo, we will reshoot, we will refund and so that they are thrilled with the end result. Now that's hard to do because you're selling an emotional product that not necessarily everyone will love, but we stand by our work and we give them such a good experience that they can be confident that they're going to love what we give them. They're going to love those final photos. We're not a 'do it yourself' studio. We're a full service studio, so we even do the framing as part of that service as well. I don't want them walking away with just a disk. Now, there's a whole lot of other reasons as well as to why we don't sell digital files, and there's these issues along the lines of, if you sell a digital file, it usually then gets used for our purposes as well, potentially. So you've kind of lost control of that file a little bit as well, so it can get printed in multiple places. It can get used on advertising, which you didn't actually agree with. It's very hard to actually keep a check on that as well. There's other problems with often, families will never get around to printing the photos, and so they've paid for good quality photography, but all they've got in the drawer is a disc. They never got it printed, because that's not their expertise. They're busy. They go back into their daily life. And so when they're talking about having going to professional photographer, let's say in six months’ time, the husband and wife having a chat and like, someone comments about photos, and the husband says, "Yeah, we got photos done, but the disc is still sitting in the drawer", and so they may have spent two grand on that disc, but they don't have a good feeling about it. Whereas I know my clients will talk about their photos, and their friends will point it on them or wall and make a good comment, and they'll feel good about spending that money, even though it was stretched for them at the start, they can see it on their wall, and they feel good about their family, and that grows in value over the years.

Andrew Hellmich: That's a good answer, because I was thinking as you're as you're giving me your answer, I'm thinking to myself, "Well, why do you really care, if I've spent 3000, if I'm going to spend $3,000 Then shouldn't you just be happy to have the shoot?" But you're looking at the long term, I guess, value of the client, and making sure that they're happy.

Brian Chapman: Yeah, I've been a photographer for 20 years, and we've been doing families as our main focus for, I think it's nearly 15 years. So we get this stage, we've got a lot of repeat clients, people coming back after a few years, or after five years, or even longer nowadays. It's quite amazing. People say, "Oh, I came to you know, it was eight years ago that we had photos, and it starts to make us feel old", but it's pretty cool, they've remembered us, and they want to come back for that next season. Though, even though they spent thousands of dollars with us, even though they didn't get any digital files, they're still willing to come back to us, and that excites me, and that they start talking about their photos and how many comments they've got about the photos on the wall. So you know, photographers these days, we're so focused on Facebook and getting likes and everything else, but I tell you, those photos within three weeks, everyone's forgotten them.

Andrew Hellmich: On Facebook?

Brian Chapman: On Facebook. The new feeds come up. It's gone. Your photos are gone. It's the next family, or it's the next moment, or it's the next story or the next holiday they're on or whatever else. My photos being on that client's wall are seen every week. Every time they have friends over, they talked about, even our clients now, our new clients will say, "Oh yeah, I remember my friend had photos with you. I saw their photos on your wall, on their wall", I should say, and it's a positive experience. And yeah, they love their experience with you. So it's a constant reminder all the time. I know on our wall, like Andrews, you took our family photos a few years ago now, and so we have them in our in our dining room. And so we see them all the time. So every time I look at those photos, I think of you, honestly. I think of you. And that day I remember it as clear as can be. I remember it was a bit of a cloudy, overcast day. It wasn't great conditions, but we still had a great time. I remember the waves coming up. I remember you joking around with the wave coming up behind you, and Jimmy laughing and pointing to the wave at my son. And I remember all those little moments. I remember throwing rocks with my son at the water's edge. I see that in every time I look at that photo. All right now, if that was a digital file, I wouldn't see any of that. If I hadn't got around to printing it, I wouldn't see any of that. But I see it on the wall. In fact, you know, it says that your name down the bottom is assigned, and it also has the date on it, so I remember what date it was. We know it is. And those photos are significant to me. Even as a photographer, they are significant to me.

Andrew Hellmich: That's awesome. You bring in a tear to my eye as you describe it, and I've got to say, yeah, I've got the same feelings when I walk into my lounge room and I see the photos that you did for my family. And also remember that the way you stitch Linda up with a sale. I'm joking, Matt. Look, I really. Want to delve right into the more into the pricing and more into the business side of things, but I think it's important that listeners get a little bit more of an idea about you and your setup, because it's a little bit different, because most portrait photographers that I know of are going on location, some studio, but you have a different setup, and you've also had to move that setup. So you just want to talk about the situation you're in and the way you are doing business?

Brian Chapman: Okay, so because of my background in horticulture and landscape design, so I've got skills in that area, we used to travel around the parks like most photographers do, and you get there and there'd be issues there, there'd be people in the background or, you know, be indies in the grass or rubbish or whatever else. And so we already had a nice garden started as part of my home. And I thought, "Well, how about we did photos actually in our garden?", and that just developed and developed. And then we started experimenting with building different themed gardens and different settings. And we had an acreage property at Kellyville in Sydney's Northwest that were leasing, and we landscaped a lot of that and built our studio building there. And then, over time, that's being developed for housing that area. And so we had to find a new location. And so we bought a property at Dural, which is also in Sydney's Northwest.

Andrew Hellmich: Hang on, mate, you just glossed over that pretty big point there. So this studio that you had set up, you put blood, sweat and tears.

Brian Chapman: Absolutely, absolutely.

Andrew Hellmich: How much do you think you want to spend on that place?

Brian Chapman: Couple 100,000, would have put into it easily, probably 300,000.

Andrew Hellmich: And it was your family home and where you ran the business from?

Brian Chapman: Yes

Andrew Hellmich: And it was getting taken away.

Brian Chapman: Getting taken away. So that ,that for us, was a really hard period to go through, a lot of uncertainty and, yeah, really emotional time for us, but because that stage, we couldn't afford to buy anything else for it. You know, property in Sydney is very expensive, acreage property in Sydney is very expensive, especially to get something that's close enough that you can get people in Sydney to actually drive to and so after years of working at it, and I mean, it was really hard, I am glossing over it, and if I actually drew up all those, drew back on all those memories, it was a really hard time for us. And you know, we're thankful that things all came together. And through the business growing and us working our butts off, making a good profit. We were able to just, only just get finance to be able to purchase a property, five acres in Dural, and then spend money on actually landscaping it. And that was about four years ago, four and a half years ago, that we bought that, and I'm so glad we did. It's a beautiful spot, and we're shooting there. We've been shooting there for the last year and a half, and it's going really well. You know, we're still kind of stuck between the two properties. At the moment, our office and production area is still at the Kellyville location, and we do all our shooting at the Dural location, which is also where I live.

Andrew Hellmich: So you'll go over, so you'll shoot at home, and then take the files over to Kellyville?

Brian Chapman: Yeah, over to Kellyville to process them. Yeah. So we've got a few staff now. So we have Christelle and Beck, who are fantastic girls, and they have been with us for quite a few years. Christelle actually started with us at school, so she came out, I think, on excursion or something with her to see us from the local school, and started working as assistant and continued on, and now she's actually one of our lead photographers, and does a lot of the shoots and does a brilliant job. In fact, she just got married a couple of months ago as well. She's in her mid 20s, and Beck also is one of our main shooters as well, and has been with us for several years. And beautiful girls, I couldn't do it without them. And then we also have my son working in the business, assisting on shoots, and my wife, Kaylene, and then another lady, Diana, she's recently started with us. She looks after graphic design as well. So we have a bit of a team.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. Now, you tell me if I'm out of line here, but when you moved into the Dural place, or when you took that on, you went in there with a lot of debt, or you took on a lot of debt.

Brian Chapman: Yeah, we still have a huge amount of debt. Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: So, I mean, I'm thinking, I mean, you didn't have to throw figures at me, but I'm thinking in my head that most photographers would have folded them, but that'd be too much, too much to take on if you're doing $500 portrait shoots.

Brian Chapman: Well, just to clarify that, the $500, the changeover to high sales, sales figures, was before that. Well before that.

Andrew Hellmich: No, no, yeah, I understand. I'm saying so the general photographer out there, they might be getting this $500, $1,000 sale.

Brian Chapman: You couldn't do it.

Andrew Hellmich: So is, is having that loan? Is that, is that forced you to be successful?

Brian Chapman: Has it ever. The, I cannot stop. I cannot stop. Our overheads are high. You know, most other photographers, when I talk about our overheads, they just, they just go, "I couldn't do that. I just couldn't cope with that pressure all the time." And I've had to learn to manage that. Initially, it was really tough, but I've learned to realize they're just numbers. They're just zeros. And I've actually changed my thinking to not focus on the numbers so much, even though I'm happy to talk about them, I don't focus on the dollars. I focus on getting the shoots in knowing that we've got a systemized approach that gets us a good average sale. So all I have to do is I know that if I get this many shoots, our average sales already this level, that means I'll get this much turnover. By changing my thinking round to then. Now, I'm focusing on how many shoots do I need to book, how many leads do I need to get, to get those shoots, and so on. So if I focused on the money, I'd fall apart. I would like, if I started actually thinking about I've got to come up with that much money this month, I'd fall apart.

Andrew Hellmich: The question in my head now, and I'm thinking, if I'm thinking this, listeners are thinking this too, why not just have a small house and not in a nice suburb and go and shoot back on location?

Brian Chapman: Yeah, I could, but this is part of our passion and part of our dream, and we've always wanted to have an acreage property, so there's a lifestyle thing in there as well. And my business at the moment is, you know, at that half million mark, but my goal is definitely that million mark to get it up to a full million. And so ,whilst I know that, you know, we are doing well compared to probably a lot of studios, as far as you know, the numbers where we're playing with. My goal is a million dollars and has been for a while, so I feel like I'm only halfway there. So it sounds funny, but in some ways, I feel like I'm failing a little bit still. I'm not there yet. So whereas I know a lot of my friends, you know, they might only have a turnover somewhere in the low hundreds or two hundreds and you know, it's taken them a lot to build up to that level, because my goal is a mil, 500 is only halfway. So let's keep going. Let's keep pushing along. And I love business. I love business as much as photography. In fact, I'd be quite happy running a business and not even shooting.

Andrew Hellmich: Well, you've had to do that recently because you hurt your knee.

Brian Chapman: Yeah, I had. Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: How did business go when you weren't shooting?

Brian Chapman: It went really well, because there was a few things that kind of falter a little bit, and they were a bit weak, and it showed some, some weak link, weak links in the chain. But overall, the business kept ticking along. You know, for listeners, I dislocated my knee on a shoot. I don't recommend it. It's incredibly painful experience, and it's a slow recovery process. I was in bed for weeks. I'm still doing physio. Apparently it takes about six months in total till you get your full mobility back. And it meant that I couldn't do any outdoor shooting, so none of the family shoots, because I can't walk on uneven ground. I can't squat down and get back up again and stuff like that. And with kids, you've got to be able to be able to move fast to do that. And so my other two photographers, Beck and Christelle, stepped up to the plate. They were already doing, you know, half the shoots anyway, they stepped up to the plate and just continued on. And from our customers point of view, everything just kept going along.

Andrew Hellmich: Must be refreshing to not, well, nice to know that bit of security is there.

Brian Chapman: Yeah, yeah. We need it, though, because, as my bank manager pointed out when we first got the loan, you know, he's saying that at the moment, "All the income is being produced by you, Brian." So at that stage, I think we had a business turning over 400,000 and every shoot I did, and every sales session I did, I think it was from memory, and that meant, if I got sick, we're in big trouble, all right. And so we had to start changing things around and getting the girls trained up more. They'd already been assisting on shoots for a few years. They knew the systems well. And so I had to look at ways so we could systemize as much of the business as possible so it keeps running without me.

Andrew Hellmich: Let's switch gears a little bit. Let's talk about pricing. Because one of the main emails I get from listeners is, "How should I price my prints? I'm stuck. I don't know, how I want to get. I want to get I want to be more profitable, but I'm stuck with my pricing."

Brian Chapman: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: How should, well, how do you approach pricing? How do you come up with the prices that you come up with for your prints?

Brian Chapman: Look honestly, the way I first did it is I told you, you know of Janet's studio. I looked at their price, it was higher than mine, and I thought, I need to aim higher. I didn't go as high as her. I can't remember exactly what it was back then, but I think maybe, maybe a five by seven might have been 80 or $90 or something like that. And so I came in at 65 or 70 or something like that.

Andrew Hellmich: Because you just didn't, well, why?

Brian Chapman: Because I wasn't game enough. I wasn't brave enough to do 95 yet. And that was way above what I was charging before, which might have been, say, 15 or 20.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay

Brian Chapman: And it took a lot of guts to do it, I'd say. But we did it. We got a couple of people complaining who were previous clients. But I had to make the decision that, "Am I in business or not? Am I in doing this to make money?" At that stage, there was no possible way that we could have bought an acreage property like we have now.

Andrew Hellmich: So you always had that as the goal, wasn't it?

Brian Chapman: We always wanted to have an acreage property to live on. We've always liked that lifestyle. We've been leasing other people's properties and paying money to them all this time. We wanted to have one of our own, but there's no way you can do that if you're not earning a decent income, and so we had to set big goals. We had to make changes. And I'm thankful we did.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. So you came back and you set these prices a lot higher than what you were, in your head. And I think I would go through this, I'd be thinking, "Well, hang on, is my is my website up to scratch? Is my marketing up to scratch? Is my brand up to scratch?"

Brian Chapman: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: Did you come back and then make adjustments?

Brian Chapman: Yes. So we built a new website.

Andrew Hellmich: Let's just go through this step by step. So you come back from Janet, and you're going to make these changes. So you were there without Kayleen.

Brian Chapman: Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: So you've come home like a whirlwind, I imagine.

Brian Chapman: Absolutely, I've been communicating with her from there, but, but, you know, that's why I went over there, and, you know, I'm a little bit embarrassed by how I did it, and I've apologized to Janet since. I was just so keen, because we were desperate, really, to make change. And she had said "I could come over." And I rang her up and, and I think I'd already booked flights for like, the following week or something. And keep in mind, I've never even been on a plane before, so just the thought of doing that, was everything was scary. And, she goes, "Oh, maybe not next week, because, you know, we've just had someone else visiting and it's been a bit busy." And I'm like, "I've already booked the flights, and I'll stay somewhere else, whatever else, anyway", I went over and stayed in her house, and she was so kind, and I had a great time with her, and I've told her since, I'm just so thankful that she allowed me to do that. And in, you know, I apologize for doing it a short notice, but please don't do that to Janet, all right, you know, that goes talking Janet, but it really helped me, and it just gave me the confidence to come back and go for it.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so what did you do? You came back, what were the first changes that you made?

Brian Chapman: All right, so I researched what projector I was going to buy.

Andrew Hellmich: So that was the big thing then. So are you still projecting now?

Brian Chapman: Absolutely

Andrew Hellmich: Because a lot of photographers have gone away from that.

Brian Chapman: Yep.

Andrew Hellmich: So why do you still project? Why not just have a 30 inch monitor?

Brian Chapman: Well, because it works, because I sell wall portraits, because I don't sell digital files, because I want to be able to project to scale using the ProSelect, scale or the room features. I want to create a nice experience that when people come into that viewing room, although really it's just a fancy lounge room. They walk into it and they go, "Wow, this is nice." It's all dimmed. There's curtains around. There's a lounge. I bring them out popcorn and drinks. I make a joke, because they say, "Oh, all we need is popcorn and drinks." And like, 30 seconds later, I walk into the room, "Here's the popcorn.", and they're like, "Oh, we're only just joking." But of course, we do that for every client. It's part of what we do.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah

Brian Chapman: But it makes the experience special for them. And they sit back and I show them the slideshow, and we go through that whole process, and I want every, every part of that process to be fun and memorable, and including paying the bill.

Andrew Hellmich: So this room is this viewing? Is this all that, also known as the sales room for you?

Brian Chapman: Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: So do you have images all over the wall, all different sizes?

Brian Chapman: Yeah, yeah, framed photos on the wall.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so it's not set up like a lounge room that you would have at home with just a few wall prints you've got.

Brian Chapman: It does have, it does have a gallery of photos.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay

Brian Chapman: With different sizing. If I was doing it again, and in our new place, when we set it up, I probably will set it up a little bit more like a lounge room, or it's still going to be a theater. So movie theater feel, but maybe not to have so many different sizes, but have examples of how you would place a photo in the context of a room. So for example, let's say it had a fireplace or something, and I'd have a 20-30 or something above that to show that that looks in proportion to that space, or, you know, might have above her side table, and have a print on the side table, and then one that ties in well on the wall. So just incorporating a bit more, I guess, of the interior decorating style that we really should get good at as photographers as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. All right, let me take you back. Steve, come home, you've gone shopping for a projector. You found your projector.

Brian Chapman: We upgraded and bought a decent digital camera, lenses, cards.

Andrew Hellmich: So you came home and spend a fortune.

Brian Chapman: We did, like I said, I borrowed money from my parents. They, I'm thankful, like my parents have been really supportive of us over the years. And you know, they're not real well-off, so they're not in a situation where they can just splash money out with me, but I think they could see that passion. They know I worked hard, and they knew I also had that mentor and someone who had already done it, so it gave them confidence as well. And so they lent us money to do that, and you know, I've paid all that back, but that was a big help for us, and we needed that as well, so.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so you geared up.

Brian Chapman: Yep, create a price lists. Built a website using a template.

Andrew Hellmich: And so you already had, you already had a website.

Brian Chapman: I can't remember then and we might have, I'm not sure, just been upgraded.

Andrew Hellmich: I remember, was really nice.

Brian Chapman: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: It was really nice. So I know it was a template version, but it was nice. And, yeah, you've always had prices on your website.

Brian Chapman: Yeah, I have, yeah. That was something I learned from Janet as well. Other photographers weren't doing that, and she was always proud to tell her prices, and she wasn't afraid to sell a photo, a photo of $95 and again, for me to see that, it gave me courage to the same.

Andrew Hellmich: So when you say for 90, you think, you're five by seven.

Brian Chapman: Yeah, it's ludicrous. It really is. It's a piece of paper with dots on it. Now if I, this is the funny thing now, if I have a photo, let's say Andrew had a photo of my kids or someone else's kids, same five by seven, and I tried to sell that to you. It's worth absolutely nothing to you, absolutely nothing. It's not even worth $1, all right? Absolutely nothing. But as soon as it's got your child on it, it's worth a lot more, and that's what I had to learn. Even though that photo is not worth anything to me, personally, it's just a piece of paper with dots on it, to that person, it's worth a lot. And as long as you're up front and you tell them the price beforehand, before showing them their photos, I'm okay with that, because then they go, "I know the price. I know what you do, and this is the price I'll pay." What I'm not okay with is when you show them beautiful photos, but you haven't told them your prices, and then you put pressure on them, and then they're in an awkward situation, and they may not be able to afford that. And that comes into the whole other topic of ethics and selling, which is a really big one for me, but it was about changing my thinking. It was my, it was my limited thinking, which was limiting our business, and it still is today. We're at a $500,000 business now, because of me, I limit that, and I know that. So the only way we're going to get bigger is if I continue to grow and I'm willing to tackle more things and face more challenges.

Andrew Hellmich: So I want to come back to the shooting. But when you talk about growing to a million, is that going to be as a result of doubling your prices again or having more shooters?

Brian Chapman: No, it's a process of doing more shoots.

Andrew Hellmich: More shoots.

Brian Chapman: Yeah, more shoots. We could handle more shoots than we are, but it's a case of getting more shoots and then being able to handle the production well and still produce a consistent, excellent product.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, let's talk a little bit more about the sales process, and take it even back a bit further to the shooting time, because you must be shooting, I think I actually saw a blog post of yours, some I know it was an article in the AIPP magazine. You have a specific way of shooting to encourage sales, don't you? It's not 10 shots of the same thing.

Brian Chapman: No. So we shoot to sell. So we approach that shoot with a systematic approach, there's thought behind every shot. Why we do every shot, the numbers and my team knows that, in fact, when I'm on a shoot, if I haven't covered a particular shot that we would normally do, they're prompting me "Having you need to do another one of those. We haven't got another second shot of the siblings together", and they're just whispering to me because they know the system, because part of their job is to cull down the images and then to prepare the file for selling to the client, which is using ProSelect. And so they create layouts within ProSelect, for example, say, a series of three pictures of that child. Now, if I haven't shot three pictures, three different shots, they can't do it. If I, if I don't give them enough variety, they can't make a good arrangement that is going to sell well. And so the strategic approach to how we actually shoot every time. So what we do is we go for all those shots and we do those and if and if the family is going well and they're cooperative and it's been a good shoot, then we might push it more and do a few more arty shots that we might use, say, for our marketing and advertising. But the go to shots are the ones that actually are the ones that clients like, they're the ones that sell and they're the ones that make us money.

Andrew Hellmich: So what about the photographers that you hear saying that "That doesn't sound very creative. You just you're shooting to a formula?"

Brian Chapman: Yeah, absolutely, I am, absolutely, because I'm doing this business to make money.

Andrew Hellmich: So do you enjoy photography?

Brian Chapman: Yeah, I do. It's okay to make money and actually enjoy what you do. Now, if I want to go out myself and shoot my own projects and do my arty party shots, that's fine. But if we're in this to make money, and that's what we're doing, that's why you're in business. If not, it should go back to being a hobby. You're in business to make money and to pay the bills and to pay your staff and all those responsibilities, and so, yeah, there's a formula that goes into that definitely.

Andrew Hellmich: I love, I love what you just said. It's okay to love what you do and to get paid well for.

Brian Chapman: Yes

Andrew Hellmich: True, isn't I think photographers forget.

Brian Chapman: Yeah, I there's too many photographers I see that are struggling, that aren't earning a decent income, and they could be. A lot of them are great photographers. In fact, a lot of them better photographers than me. You know, I look at their work and go, those shots are better than what I've taken, but they haven't got their business stuff together. They haven't progressed in that side of things and learned the skills and the sales skills and how to get your business organized and systemized, and that's, that's what I love, and that, you know, that's why, kind of, I run workshops and we teach that, so that other people can have successful businesses. We want to see other people succeed. We want to see the industry become reputable again. We want to see ethics being used in business and not pushy, manipulative sales techniques. We want to see photographers take pride in being a photographer again and not have to be sneaky to get jobs. You know, I have a big problem with that.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, and it's, I mean, the whole industry gets a bad reputation when it goes that way?

Brian Chapman: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: I just, I still want to just deal a little bit more into this pricing.

Brian Chapman: Sure

Andrew Hellmich: Because I'm just thinking that the listeners out there, they're hearing how you, you came back, you saw Janet, and you just basically tripled your prices or quadruple. Is that what listeners should do if they're not, if they're not making the profit that they want to be making? Do they just increase the prices?

Brian Chapman: Okay, have a look at my website. Have a look at my work. Decide if your work is at the same level as mine, or better or close, and if it is, you can probably increase your prices to somewhere near ours, if you're a lot lower. There's no reason that you don't need to be able to increase your prices. Now there's a risk you'll go, "Oh, we won't get any work." Now I get the same thing. I have people that will say no to us because we're too expensive. But fortunately, there's enough other people in Sydney that actually can afford your services, and we're not real high end by the way. In our area, we'd probably be the most expensive photographer, but across Sydney, I know some of my competitors are nearly double my prices.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow.

Brian Chapman: And so, you know, I'm not too worried about my competitors. A lot of them are much cheaper. A lot of them are selling digital files. But, you know, we do a good job. We guarantee it. We have a great unique selling point, which is our garden studio. But also other factors, like having two assistants with a photographer on every shoot to make sure everything goes smoothly. You know, we guarantee all of our work, absolute 100% money back, guarantee which we stand by. We have a great reputation in the community, as well as having great referrals and testimonials as well. So I can I speak confidently saying this, because we've been doing it long enough. We've written it out, we've gone through the changeover from negatives to digital, and we're still going and we're still growing, you know? And, yeah, so I'm not afraid to say it works. You don't need to sell-off everything. You don't need to sell a disk of images, even if that client is saying, "Well, the next photographer did that." You know, how am I going to get work if the next photographer is selling digital files, I was still getting work. All right, I don't really mind if the next photographer is doing that, because I know I don't want to offend people by saying this. But if you really cared for your work, really cared for your work, you wouldn't be selling digital files. Now, I'm looking at someone in the face at the moment who sells digital files.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, I do.

Brian Chapman: So and look, if we had to ask the same question five years ago, probably you, Andrew, wouldn't have sold digital files. I don't know how many years ago, but ..

Andrew Hellmich: Probably less, three years ago.

Brian Chapman: Three years ago, but a lot of talkers, there's no way they would have sold digital files. They would take pride in their work, and they there's no, I'm not doing that. And now suddenly it's changed. It's suddenly, it's like, I'm the odd one out, not selling digital files. But the key to business is not to actually be the same as everyone else, the key is to stand out. Now, I'm standing out because I don't sell digital files, and I'm actually selling a finished product that goes on the wall. I'm providing a full service, whereas all my competitors are cutting it short and just selling off a disc.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. I mean, I'll put you into my shoes for a minute and. Um, most of my income comes from weddings.

Brian Chapman: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: More so than portraits. And we did stick to our guns. We didn't give away the digital files and so much to the point that some business was declining.

Brian Chapman: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: We were, we were losing business.

Brian Chapman: Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: And although I didn't have as big a debt as your farm, there was still, I was in it for business.

Brian Chapman: Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: So what would you say to photographers like me? What advice would you give me?

Brian Chapman: Yeah, hey, it's really hard for wedding photographers, especially because so just about every photographer that I know of in wedding has switched over in desperation. They're selling the digital files off.

Andrew Hellmich: And the couples would literally say, "Sorry, Andrew, we really love your work, but you know Shannon down the road, she's giving away digital files."

Brian Chapman: You know what that tells me is that you haven't differentiated yourself from Shannon down the road.

Andrew Hellmich: I agree.

Brian Chapman: All right, what that says is they cannot see any difference between you and Shannon, except that you don't give digital files and she does, or he does, and that's why they'll go for them.

Andrew Hellmich: No unique selling point.

Brian Chapman: Yeah, with us, we've always been very big on unique selling points. Now we do boudoir photography as well. So boudoirimage.com.au.

Andrew Hellmich: Great plug.

Brian Chapman: Yeah, I just wanted to slip that in. Although we're advertising to photographers. I have photographed quite a few photographers for boudoir shoots, so don't rule yourself out.

Andrew Hellmich: Me too, can go for it?

Brian Chapman: No, no, no, we don't do dude boudoir. Okay, so with our boudoir shoots, we differentiated with the style that we're shooting. If you have a look at our website, you'll see. And we built a number of different sets that nobody else has. And so people, ladies travel from all over Australia for our boudoir shoots. I'm amazed. I had, I did not think that was going to happen when we set it up, but we have a number of ladies that have come from Melbourne, from Brisbane, Perth, Orange. We've had two from Asia. We've had one from Dubai. Have flown over. I've been stoked. And the average sales have been great because we have something that nobody else does the same way as we do, and that's the unique selling point, and that's what businesses need to get better at, is stop trying to copy each other and do just what the other person's down the road is doing. And go, what makes me unique? What makes me different, what defines my photographic style compared to the next person, and then you need to show that off a lot. Need to focus on that. You need to bring it out. Okay? Now there's people in our industry that are doing really well, and I believe, aren't selling digital files. I'm not sure. For example, do you know if Jerry would sell digitals?

Andrew Hellmich: I wouldn't. I wouldn't think so.

Brian Chapman: I don't think he does.

Andrew Hellmich: I did interview him. I can't even remember if I ask. I think I did. I have to get back and check the archives.

Brian Chapman: I don't think he does. All right, I may be wrong. And would anyone say, "No, I'm not getting Jerry because he doesn't sell digital files." No, because they want Jerry, because he does a brilliant job. He's a brilliant photographer. He has the creative eye. He's the MacGyver in the photography world, in a sense, you know, and he does, so people are willing to pay top dollar. They're willing to abide by his rules to get him. In fact, you know, he's only in the country for part of the year, so you've got to actually schedule your wedding to see when he's in Australia.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, those three months.

Brian Chapman: Right? He has a unique selling point, and he's stuck by it. He hasn't gone "Everybody else is doing it. My business is gonna go down." He's gone, "I'm gonna stand out even more."

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, but hang on. So all the listeners now thinking, "Hang on. I'm not Jerry."

Brian Chapman: I'm not Jerry.

Andrew Hellmich: I'm not Jerry, I can't..

Brian Chapman: Neither am I though. In fact, Jerry's, you know, won so many awards and an Wedding Album of the Year, and he deserves every one of them. And I have known any of that, I don't even enter them. And so I don't have, I don't have, you know, the rock star status as far as winning awards or, you know, being popular in that but we still managed to get the work, because my clients don't really care if I've won any awards or not. They want to know if I'm going to do something good for them. That's what they want to know.

Andrew Hellmich: I love it.

Brian Chapman: They're focused on themselves. And I don't mind that. I tell you, look, I want to bring up something that I've noticed, that I think we're failing at as an industry, in regard to the digital files and everything else, okay? This is really important. I just started thinking about this recently. When I first started in photography, I approached NT photographers, Simon Mitrovich. He was the first person I worked for, and again, I'm really thankful that he took me in. Back then, no email, no websites, long time ago, 20 years, all right. Yeah, I'm getting old. I went and knocked on his door. I was at uni doing horticulture. I'd had to photograph plants, so I'd started photogDDraphing them using my uncle's camera and was enjoying that the photos were going well, probably better than my marks in the uni course. And I thought, "Oh, maybe I could work for a wedding photographer." So I went and knocked on his door, and thankfully he said yes, I can come on as an assistant. Now, he had a shop front down near Parramatta, and when you went to the shop front, on the walls, there was framed photos, there was albums to look at and touch and see. So if you wanted a photographer, you would go the other pages, and you would go and visit their studio, and you go and look at their work, and you would see the photos on the wall and frames, and you would talk about that, and talk about the prices and what you were going to get and the coverage of the day. And I didn't see a single negative in the whole room, all right? I didn't see a single negative in the whole room. There was no talk about the film or the negative at all. Okay? Now we come to today, and it's changed over to digital. Say, "Oh, it's a modern age. We need to do everything digital. Everyone wants everything digital", but people's eyes still work the same, and their hands still work the same, and they still have walls in their home, and they still hold and touch albums, and they still have the same emotions. All that's changed is the capture method, all right. It's a bit like a carpenter has changed from using a hammer to a nail gun. He still produces a house, doesn't he? He's still, end product is the house. It's not the hammer, it's not the nail gun. All right, they're just the tool. And our method of capture is the tool and is the digital file, is just a change in the method of capture. Our end result is still a finished product that you can touch and see. And yet, back then, you went into the studio and you looked at photos on the wall, you looked at frames and everything else. But now, what do we show? What as photographers do we show now? What do you show on your website?

Andrew Hellmich: Digital files.

Brian Chapman: Absolutely. Do you show products on your website?

Andrew Hellmich: No, just show photos. Same as the, same as Facebook. Same with Twitter.

Brian Chapman: I think is the biggest key that we've stuffed up with. We've gone, changed over to websites, and we've filled them just with images. And so clients look at those and go, "Well, that's what I want to buy." What you show is what you sell. I don't know of any other industry that doesn't, that shows something different to what they actually want to sell.

Andrew Hellmich: So we should be showing images in an album.

Brian Chapman: Yes, we should be showing frame pictures on walls. We should be showing couples opening finished albums. You know, when you go into a dress shop, there's dresses on mannequins to show what it looks like on someone's body, right? There's no material roles in the corner is there? They don't show the material. They don't go, "Here's the materials. You can go and make it yourself." Cheaper, yeah. That's where we've screwed up. That's where we've stuffed up. We've forgotten that our product is these finished artworks that we've been lazy and we've just shown off the actual files because we've been so infatuated with Photoshop and retouching and quickly showing off as fast as we can what we've just done, that we've stopped showing what we actually want to sell them, which is a finished product on the wall. And I think we need to get smarter and all change our websites to actually start showing products. And I think when you show products, people will start asking for products.

Andrew Hellmich: All right, I'm going to try it.

Brian Chapman: I think it's..

Andrew Hellmich: Do you think it'll take more than one photographer to do it, or do you think everyone has to do it?

Brian Chapman: I think it'll be, I think even if you do it, it'll be a big start. All right, so for example, David Oliver, brilliant photographer, does a lot of black and white work. So he shows black and white photos a lot. When you go to studio, there's black and white photos on the walls, framed in stylish frames. What do you think he sells most of? Black and white photos. I show a lot of color photos. What is it I sell most of? Color. I sell hardly any black and whites. All right? I show lots of colors, even though people may have come in said, "I love black and white photos." They see the color ones on the wall. I love that. I'm going with that. And that's all we need to do for a start, just for a starting point is we need to stop showing digital files, showing our latest retouching, everything else, and focusing so much on the digital side of it, and actually start showing finished products that are beautiful. And I think that would help our industry a lot.

Andrew Hellmich: I love it. Really good stuff, mate. Mate. I think we're going to dive into these 10 quick questions.

Brian Chapman: Already.

Andrew Hellmich: But just before we do that, because it will, no doubt we'll run astray when we when we're covering these 10 quick questions?

Brian Chapman: No

Andrew Hellmich: You told me when before we started recording, that..

Brian Chapman: I must preface, we talked about a lot of things before we started recording. I'm bit scared now.

Andrew Hellmich: You told me, I've a, it's a crap business model, pretty much, this podcast thing, and that I'm doing the wrong thing in regard to promoting or selling the premium membership. Now today..

Andrew Hellmich: I sound pretty arrogant when I said that, didn't I?

Andrew Hellmich: That was cool. I can take it. I can take it.

Brian Chapman: Okay

Andrew Hellmich: Got big skill, I'm a photographer. So what I'm going to ask you to do is you let the listeners know about the premium section today, because that's going to be with you.

Brian Chapman: Oh, okay, all right.

Andrew Hellmich: And what we're going to cover, yeah, is how you actually get some of your bookings.

Brian Chapman: Okay

Andrew Hellmich: Some of your marketing techniques. So we haven't had time to do that now.

Brian Chapman: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: That's we're going to cover. So you, I want you to tell me how I should be selling this premium section today.

Brian Chapman: Okay, all right, he's put me on the spot. This is not planned at all.

Andrew Hellmich: It doesn't have to be word for word. You just tell me the approach I should be, showing me how I could be taking it.

Brian Chapman: Okay

Andrew Hellmich: And I'd love to hear listeners feedback as well.

Brian Chapman: Well, what I'm hoping is that, but what we've already talked about today, that's enough for your eyes, your mind, to start going, "Okay, maybe I could rethink a few things. Maybe the way I'm doing things isn't necessarily the best way, just because it's the same as what my other photographer friends or my competitors are doing. Maybe there's an alternative way that can make this work." And I know him, in my life, when I'm looking for inspiration, I look to leaders. I look to other people around me that are doing well. So for example, in my case, it was Janet. Janet Craig, and I looked at her and she's doing better than me. Instead of me going, "Well, that's not going to work. I can't do this." Or, you know, "She doesn't know what she's talking about." I bite my lip and I go, "Hang on, she's doing better than me. All right, don't be so stubborn. What's she doing differently? What can I learn?" And I stop and I listen, and I've always loved feedback. I've always really loved feedback. I've never been offended by someone critiquing my work. Maybe early on, I was, I find it very difficult to attach to it, but now, I welcome anyone critiquing my work, anytime.

Andrew Hellmich: You give it well.

Brian Chapman: Yes, I'm happy to give it. Happy to give it. If someone asked me, I've always taken attitude of telling the truth in obviously, just in my opinion. But if someone asked me for feedback, they're asking me, so I'm not going to lie to them. I'm not going to say something different to what I really feel. So my photography friends, it's funny, because sometimes they might show an image and they know that I'm direct and I'll give feedback, so they'll show everybody else, but then they'll say, "Oh, not you, Brian", because they're not, not in an emotional state to maybe cope with it at the moment. But you know, sometimes that's hard when, like, even a customer, like in the viewing room, in the sales room, a customer will ask me, "What do you think, Brian?" and I just pause and go, they've asked me. And I say to them, I preface and say, "Look, I just want to let you know that if you ever asked me a question, I'm going to tell you honestly what I feel. Okay?" And they go, "No, that's what we want. That's what we want." And so I said them, "Look, I don't think it works", or, you know, "I don't think, and I explain why, I said, look at that, colors not working with this, and that's not tying in well together." And people appreciate that. They appreciate the honesty. And at times I'm just cringing because it's just a policy that I've done for myself, that I will, I won't lie. I will tell you honestly and truthfully what I feel. And, you know, sometimes it gets me in hot water, for all the time it helps people. And sometimes I've had people come up to me six months later and goes, "You know, you know, you said to me those six months ago, and I was really offended at time, but you were right. And I just wanted to say that, you know, I made those changes, and it's really helped." And that just encouraged me. "Okay, keep Brian, that's, that's what you do." And what I want to bring back to, in regard to selling, is that if you've got something out of today, and you're going, "Well, my business is at this level, and I wanted to grow it, you know, to a next level, or, you know, or I want to go beyond what Brian's doing. You know, his goal of million dollars is not enough." You know, you know you want to go to two million. Go for it. I encourage you, bring it on. You know, you need to open yourself to new ideas. You need to go, "I want to hear from people that are already doing it now", and now, this is a case of, that's our business turnover now. That's not five years ago when things were going good, for example. That's now, right now. And that's our average sale right now, all right, and that's exciting, because we're in a down market to still be ticking along and going well, when everyone else is scaling back. Something's different. Something's got to change here. And so I encourage you to open your mind and go, well, "I need to learn more." And so by looking at the content, where you're paying a bit extra to do that, that's where we're developing an idea more and he started, and, you know, Andrew's introduced it and said, "We're going to talk about marketing and how I get an action our actual jobs". And you might be surprised is that I don't use the methods a lot of photographers are using. I don't use the methods Andrews using. Well, you some of them, but I know a major, we're just talking about it before, a major part of his marketing that he does has fallen through recently. You know, I didn't use that technique. I won't. I don't agree with it, all right? Now, it didn't fall through because of that reason. It fell through with other circumstances. But I think marketing is very important to me, and the ethics of marketing very important to me. And I tell you, the reason we get a good average sale is because we focus on attracting the right customer. We don't just want bums on seats. We want the right customer. And that's what we're going to talk about in the extra content.

Andrew Hellmich: I love it. I dare you not to come and listen to that.

Brian Chapman: I think I want to listen to it.

Andrew Hellmich: I can't wait. All right, let's get into these 10 quick questions. You ready to go?

Brian Chapman: Absolutely.

Andrew Hellmich: 10 quick questions, 10 quick answers, 3-2-1, go! Canon or Nikon?

Andrew Hellmich: What was your first ever camera?

Brian Chapman: I think I need to tell a story in this. This is very important. When I was in university doing horticulture, I had to photograph the plants. I said it was back in the film days. I didn't have an SLR. Had never really had a camera before. My uncle had one. I borrowed his, took photos of it, started learning how to use it manual. Can't remember what was but it was just a basic SLR camera. But something bad happened. I was in the cafeteria one day, ordered my lunch. Some other uni kid stole the camera. All right. Now this was an SLR camera worth a lot of money. I was a university student, no money, very bad situation. I had to explain it to my uncle that I had his camera stolen and I did the right thing and gave him, I remember, was $500 to cover getting another camera. Now, my parents saw that I did the right thing, saw that I had an interest in photography and was enjoying that, and then went and bought me a camera, and that's what got me started. So the fact that someone stole my camera was turned around for good, and I had my own camera. I think it was a Pentax SF7, from memory, might be wrong, but something like that sounds impressive, and that's what got me started.

Andrew Hellmich: Awesome. What a great story.

Brian Chapman: Yeah, my uncle got a better camera, so he was happy.

Andrew Hellmich: It was good all around. All right, what's your favorite lens to shoot with today? And why?

Brian Chapman: It's 80 to 200, 2.8 image stabilizer, the go to lens that we use for all of our family shoots. We're photographing kids and families. You know, we have an 85 1.2 that, you know, the beautiful lens, you know, we've got some of those, but they're impractical for shooting kids, for what we do, moving around fast. There's too many out of focus shots. We need to make sure that shots in focus. So we need a lens and the gear that works well.

Andrew Hellmich: So do you shoot the 2.8 lens wide open most of the time?

Brian Chapman: No, we don't. We often shoot five, six, f8, for groups and I'm encouraging the girls now to actually start shooting more at 2.8, they've been playing very safe. A few years ago we had issues with we're shooting on 5D Mark II, which, thankfully they've replaced it with newer cameras, and the focusing just didn't work. It wasn't reliable. I complained to Canon about it, and I guess I'm never going to get Canon sponsorship as a result of this now. But, you know, I complained to Canon about it, and they basically said to me, you know, "Look, it really never was designed to be a pro camera. It was a high end consumer camera", and just all the pro started taking it up because it had some great specs, but the focusing wasn't great. Now, you know, Canon did help me in the end, and they encouraged me and to get the 1D model, which is excellent. I'm very happy with that, and I wouldn't go back. So yeah, what I was going to say is that we had issues with the 5D and focusing, so we had to play it safe and shoot at f8 or five six all the time just to get things in focus, whereas nowadays that, you know, works a lot better and we can actually shoot at 2.8 every so often, and it's still in focus.

Andrew Hellmich: I've got a big smile on my face because being a Nikon shooter, first of all, it's funny. The other reason is, I just recorded an outro for an earlier podcast this morning, and I have got to listener in the States, Joey Joyner.

Brian Chapman: Okay

Andrew Hellmich: And he thinks there's a bias towards Nikon shooters on this podcast.

Brian Chapman: All right.

Andrew Hellmich: And here you are a Canon shooter complaining about Canon.

Brian Chapman: Yes

Andrew Hellmich: I love it.

Brian Chapman: Yes, yes, yes.

Andrew Hellmich: I love it.

Brian Chapman: But hey, look, they're just a tool.

Andrew Hellmich: Did you just call me a tool?

Brian Chapman: Yeah, you were going... well, not true, but they are just a tool. If they work, I don't care what the brand is.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah

Brian Chapman: Unless one of them wants to come and sponsor me or something. But look, I am actually very happy with Canon now, it was just the 5D Mark II I wasn't happy with and wasn't with camera, but the 1D are excellent, and I believe the 5D Mark III is excellent too. So, but yeah, it's just a tool. That's how we got to treat it, not be infatuated by a gear. You know, I don't believe that carpenters get together and say, "Which now going to you, got you, got the pass load or the such and such?"

Andrew Hellmich: Damn right, I do. Not, this is terrible, even that same podcast outro I was recording this morning, I was also doing intro..

Brian Chapman: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: Talking about a new camera I got. How excited I am about my new..

Brian Chapman: I am so, I do not get into buying camera gear. In fact, I don't like spending money on it.

Andrew Hellmich: No, I know that. I've actually said, I've got to say that. Well, you would have heard this by the time you hear this podcast, but I was more excited about the little play camera I've ordered, rather than the pro camera.

Brian Chapman: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: Family shoot I'm shooting. Well, let's move on. Do you shoot JPEG or RAW for your business?

Brian Chapman: RAW

Andrew Hellmich: RAW, okay. What do you think? I probably know the answer for this too. What was the biggest breakthrough in your business?

Brian Chapman: Yeah, I think again, spending time with Janet and just opening my eyes to new ideas and..

Andrew Hellmich: So do you think listeners, if they're in that same stage that you were, is it a good idea to find a mentor, not Janet, but a mentor?

Brian Chapman: Yeah, please don't stop Janet. If I can clarify with Janet and the mentor is that I spent a week with her, but and then occasionally we'd chat via email or a phone call or anything. But it wasn't like a structured relationship where I met with her regularly or anything like that. She was too busy to do that.

Andrew Hellmich: Let me put it this way. Do you think you could get the same information and the same boost to your business by listening to a podcast or to going to a workshop or a seminar? Or do you need to have a mentor that you go and can live with?

Brian Chapman: No, no, I don't think you need to do that. I needed a jolt like that at the time, and it certainly helped me. But a mentor could be someone you've never even met. It could be a great leader, like, you know, a lot of people say that, you know, it's topical at the moment with Nelson Mandela, you know, who's been ill, and he's a great leader, and he can be a mentor to people. You can look at his life and see what he's done and the changes he's made and the way he speaks and inspires people, you know. You can get mentors that way as well. I have many mentors in my life. Janet was just an example of that, but at the same time, relating to workshops. Now, we run workshops, so it's a kind of a bit of a plug, but what I want to say about that is, if you're going to go to a workshop, you need to do a bit of background research first, you know, you need to actually find out, "Do I really agree, or want to learn from this person?" And that's quite topical. I was listening to some of the other podcasts you've done, and, you know, talking about that rockstar mentality with, you know, workshops and everything else an, you know, you can't just go "Well, this person appears to be doing well. I'm going to go and follow their business techniques", because I know from speaking to a lot of them that their business is not going real well, and sometimes that's why they're doing the workshops. I'm not saying that's for all them, by the way, okay, but you need to do the research and find out.

Andrew Hellmich: So if a listener or I was looking at doing a workshop, it shouldn't be just because I like their photos, unless I want to go and learn how to shoot.

Brian Chapman: Yeah, if you want to learn how to shoot like them and you like their photos, that's fine. But if you're going along to learn business practices and their business is not going real well itself, that doesn't make sense.

Andrew Hellmich: Could I send an email and ask, "What's your turnover?"

Brian Chapman: I would.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay.

Brian Chapman: I would, if you're going to want a serious workshop, like, I'm not just talking about a little seminar, but like a, you know, a couple of day workshop where you're paying some decent money, I'd want to know, yeah, I'd want to know how many shoots you're actually doing now. And I had someone, for our workshop just recently. I sent out an email. They had inquired expression of interest, and he wrote back and said, "I loved it." He goes really directly, "What teaching experience do you actually have? Because I've been to a workshop before. That was a big name, and they were just a terrible presenter. They might have been a great photographer. They were terrible presenter. "And I loved it. I'm like, "I love that direct question." So then I was able to explain to him, you know, what I've been doing for the last three years, and helping other studios, and my passion for teaching and, yeah, bring it on. I love that kind of direct question.

Andrew Hellmich: So if someone's listening in the States or the UK and they're looking at a workshop, ask those questions before they sign up for something?

Brian Chapman: Yeah, if the person's not prepared to answer that, that's an alarm bell for me.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah

Brian Chapman: Absolutely.

Andrew Hellmich: All right.

Brian Chapman: These are not quick questions.

Andrew Hellmich: I know that's okay.

Brian Chapman: They're quick questions, but they're really slow answers.

Andrew Hellmich: That's why we started early with you. If you move to a new area.

Brian Chapman: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: Tomorrow, other side of the country, actually, maybe not. That's a Perth, yeah, overseas, yeah, and you're going to start again?

Brian Chapman: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: As a photographer, what would you do to start kick things off?

Brian Chapman: I'd investigate, if I had money, if I had savings built up, I'd probably do exactly what I'm doing right now.

Andrew Hellmich: So build a garden studio.

Brian Chapman: Build another studio. The model works for me. If I didn't have money, I couldn't do that, because it's really expensive to set up a garden studio, and I'd have to look and go, "Okay, well, I can use local parks", and I'd use the same process. The garden studio is not the bit that's essential. That's what makes us unique and but that you don't need to do that. And I encourage you, please don't go and copy us for the garden studio. All right, that's not why we do an interview.

Andrew Hellmich: So would you go in and set your, would you be prepared to go and set your prices as they are now, even if they were the highest in this new town?

Brian Chapman: As long as I was able to differentiate myself and show why we're worth that much.

Andrew Hellmich: What software do you use for your batching, editing, renaming and renumbering?

Brian Chapman: We use Photo Mechanic. It's simple, cheap, fast. It works fast, faster than Bridge.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you watch what other photographers are doing?

Brian Chapman: Yeah. Yeah. I'm always checking out the photographers.

Andrew Hellmich: Business wise or shooting wise?

Brian Chapman: Both.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, really?

Brian Chapman: Yeah. I'm always looking.

Andrew Hellmich: Because I don't see, I don't see other photographers influence your work because you have your strategy or techniques.

Brian Chapman: I'm not looking at them intensely to copy things, but I'm always interested, you know, I'm interested on how other photographers are working and people are in our workshops. I'm interested in their work and giving them feedback and , you know, sometimes I'll look at photographers overseas, particularly, say, with our boudoir, I'd be looking for some kind of, I just look for inspiration, an idea. I go, "Oh yeah, that's a nice angle. That's a good, I haven't done that." Or sometimes I look at and go, "That's a terrible angle. Make sure I don't do that." And, you know, thankfully, over time, there's a little bit more of that happening. That sounds a bit negative, but you know, in that you're, you're kind of going, now we've, we're doing that part well, but we could improve on this bit.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you learn your business stuff, or do you take inspiration for you, the business side of your business, from other business people or only photographers?

Brian Chapman: Business people and photographers. So I like to read books on marketing, read articles. I spend a lot of time just thinking, working out business strategy. I have a notebook that's just jam packed with thoughts. And what I did, it's like a five section notebook, and I divide it up into sections, like for me, is thoughts about the studio, thoughts about marketing, thoughts about business numbers, and so on. And whenever I have a thought, I go, "Okay, what's that thought relate to marketing?" Okay. I go straight to the marketing section. I scroll notes down in the marketing section, a new display idea or a new brochure, or a website idea or something that I've heard or read or thought about, and I have quite a short term memory. I tend to forget things very quickly, so I have to write it down all the time.

Andrew Hellmich: So you just have a notebook with you?

Brian Chapman: It's always in my bag. Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: What do you wear when you're shooting your normal shoots? Just jean? Oh, you tell me.

Brian Chapman: Yeah. So we're just smart casual, so jeans, collared shirt, usually.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, even though you're rolling around dislocating knees and rolls?

Brian Chapman: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That particular day that I dislocated my knee, I was, I wasn't even shooting. Christelle was doing the shoot, and I was assisting. And it was 10 children, 10 young children as a gift for the grandpa. Yeah, it's just, it was a hard shoot, and I was jumping around and trying to get these kids going. And before that, I had been doing commando roles on the ground, singing Mission Impossible, you know. And I was jumping over the top of these boys as they were having their photo taken, and just being a total goose, you know. And then there was this moment where there's this quieter child, and he leaned on the fence and looked across towards the chickens and the veggie patch. And I thought, "Oh, there's a great shot of that kid." And so I said, "Christelle, quick, give me the camera." So she grabs gives me the camera, put it around me. I literally took three photos, stretched my legs into a wide position, slipped on the gravel, knee went the other way, and then I was down, camera up in the air, and she goes, "I told you shouldn't have taken the camera off me."

Andrew Hellmich: Don't you love assistance. But so in summertime, would you wear shorts?

Brian Chapman: Yeah, sometimes.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, cool, even with those legs?

Brian Chapman: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, I don't shave them like yours.

Andrew Hellmich: All right, what is your most embarrassing photography moment or stuff up?

Brian Chapman: These have been really interesting to listen to. Doesn't make me feel so bad. Mine is when I get tired, I mix words up and start talking fast. And I was directing a big family group, you know, grandparents, the whole lot, you know, extended family. And I was getting stuffed. I was exhausted. And my brain was thinking, let's take a breather. My mouth was thinking, let's have a rest. So in a big, loud voice, I said, "Okay, everybody, let's all take a breast", and I said it very loud so there was no backing out. My assistants were just laughing. The people in the family were just looking a bit shocked. Grandmother's just like this and I'm just like, "Sorry. I meant rest."

Andrew Hellmich: I love it.

Brian Chapman: It was awkward.

Andrew Hellmich: That's very good mate. It's been an absolute pleasure. You got to tell people how they can find you and check out your work and your price lists more importantly.

Brian Chapman: Yeah, so our price lists are always on our website, just to give you a basic run through our print start at 95 for a five by seven, go up to 770 for a 30 by 45, that's print only, no frame, no digital file.

Andrew Hellmich: Awesome

Brian Chapman: Even if you ask for it nicely.

Andrew Hellmich: Even for me?

Brian Chapman: By the way, we are happy to give them low res images like for Facebook. I don't mind that. I'm happy for them to share them on a screen or anything else. I just don't want them printing them badly.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you watermark those ones?

Brian Chapman: Yeah, we'll put on Facebook, we'll put a logo on them, generally, if it's going to go out. And we do have a slideshow product, like on a USB so they can watch it on their HDTVs, computers and things. But it's not for printing. It's for viewing on the screen. It looks beautiful.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. And are they, are they chargeable items, or are they slideshow?

Brian Chapman: Yeah, it's a chargeable item, $550.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay

Brian Chapman: It's a lot of money for it, but people pay it and they value it so, but they can only buy it after they spent $1,500 on prints. We introduced that about six months ago because we didn't have many, but we had a couple of people just come in and go, "I'll just buy the slideshow", which is heartbreaking for us. I don't want them to walk out with just this little USB stick of a slideshow and lower res images. I want them to have a finished print that they on the wall or albums they're going to hand down to their children in the future. And I believe in that. I know it's going to be important. And so we introduced it and said, "Well, you've got to spend $1,500 on prints before you can actually purchase, not get it free, but purchase the slideshow." And since doing that, people have done that. They've obviously read that. And I'll go, “ Oh, we're up to, we've passed the $1,500, we can get the slideshow now, can't we?" I'm like, "Absolutely." Now, what took was for me to make that change in the wording and believe in it. And people were happy to pay it. Sorry, so question.

Andrew Hellmich: Website

Brian Chapman: Website. Okay, so we've got our brand names. It's familyimage.com.au, is our main site. You'll see the Gerald Garden Studio and our team on there. By the time you hear this interview, hopefully the new website will be out. There's a new one being launched at the moment. It's very informative. So I encourage you, if you go to the website and it just looks kind of normal, then come back again another two weeks and see the new one. Important, we've made some big changes. Boudoir Image for our boudoir photography. It's spelt B-O-U-D-O-I-R image.com.au, unusual word. And then we also have Baby Image as well. We haven't talked about that much because it's not our main part of our work, but we have those three brands. They're three different markets, three different styles, in a sense, but we all have the same back end systems and the same prices behind them. Then we've also got, can I jump in as well? Yeah, I'm going to say for our workshops, for our business workshops. So Kayleen, my wife, and I teach business workshops focused on photography, but not about teaching how to be a photographer, but teaching how to be a good business person as a photographer and make money from your photography. So the website for that is called thebusinessofphotography.com.au, check that out. You can see what workshops are coming up for that as well and what content we'll be covering in that thebusinessofphotography.com.au.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice one. So obviously, that's a come to you sort of seminar and not online.

Brian Chapman: It is. No, no, it's definitely it's a, at the moment, it's a three day seminar, three day workshop. It's full on, as you probably guess. I could talk for three days. I do give you breaks in there, try and keep you awake, and lots of question interaction as well. But we don't leave anything unturned. I don't, I don't skip any issues, topics. I'm happy to talk about any prices, happy to go through that work, and I teach you things like how to sell nicely, how to get a good sale, but be nice to people and have them paying the bill and smiling at you, which just sounds impossible when they're spending that much money, but they do, and they write to us later.

Andrew Hellmich: I know you do it perfectly, because Linda walked away with the biggest smile that day we came and saw you.

Brian Chapman: That's good.

Andrew Hellmich: I know we sort of just ran through the motions that day, but that would have been a huge sale. Brian, thanks again, mate. It's been an absolute pleasure. If you're a premium member, you do not want to miss this next section. If you're not, I'll talk to you soon.

 
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