Tag Archives: motivation
THE PART WHERE I SEE YOU IN 2010
I’ll be perfectly honest with you, lovely. My life is insane right now. Lots of scurrying and hurrying, wrapping, baking, scheduling, ordering, printing, packaging, prepping, and otherwise busy-fying. You don’t need brand advice right now. You need five minutes of rest and (let’s be honest!) a six-pack of your favorite beer. So here’s me, sending [...]
PORTRAIT SESSION ORDERING TIPS
I love getting questions from Brand Camp blog readers! From a lovely photographer in Dallas… Here’s the way it works for my business. I do an in-home client proofing session with projector and large screen. I post them online and give them 10 days to place their orders. I nag them if they don’t. This [...]
SALES BEGIN WITH RESPECT.
I’ve heard all the excuses in the book. My clients are awful. They don’t buy enough. They don’t buy when I want them to. They buy greeting cards and frame them instead of purchasing prints. They scan the prints they bother to purchase. They put my images all over Facebook without my permission. I once [...]
CONSIDER THIS YOUR PERMISSION.
In the midst of Brand Camp consults (which should actually be called ‘Business Therapy’), I often find myself giving an artist permission. Permission to believe in herself, permission to raise prices, permission to fail, permission to be true to her artistic style, permission to get rid of a blog, permission to delete weddings from the [...]
CELEBRATE YOUR PROGRESS
I’ve been watching too much Ace of Cakes, obviously. Last night I decided that building a gingerbread house can’t be *that* difficult and went to work with royal icing and a slightly-deformed icing bag. Um. The coffee table is covered in a thin layer of icing. The front Christmas tree is leaning to the right. [...]
LOOKING SIDEWAYS
A photographer told me my new website is boring. I said “Thank you” and sincerely meant it. You see, my old website was built entirely on trying to one-up other photographers in the U.S. (Not my region or the state, mind you, but THE COUNTRY.) And to one-up the whole country, to ‘do what’s never [...]
INCREASE YOUR PRODUCTIVITY WITH ONE SIMPLE CHANGE
I hate grocery shopping. I loooooove to eat, but grocery shopping? 14 choices of toaster pastries laden with calories, while I force myself to reach for something healthy? Ick. Sometimes I convince my husband to go by himself, then jump up and down at my ingenuity. Yesterday’s grocery excursion wasn’t that bad, though, and here’s [...]
HOW TO KNOW WHICH WORKSHOPS WILL WORK FOR YOU
The great thing about being an artist is, no formal education is required. Many of us learn by a combination of trial and error, talent, mentoring with those we admire, and taking classes or reading books like a fiend. The bad thing about being an artist is, no formal education is required. So if we [...]
WHAT ABOUT THE NEWBIES?
Had an e-mail from a lovely photographer this week, and promised a public response. So I bought the audio from a very well publicized call-in teleconference last week. And, don’t get me wrong, a lot of it is excellent and I consider my money was well spent. But the deal is that a lot of [...]
IT'S EVOLUTION, BABY!
It seems that people think there’s a magic bullet to branding. Like, ‘Kristen, as soon as I figure out my logo, my brand will be complete! WOOOO!!! I’m gonna go do a keg stand!’ Truth is, branding is a constantly evolving process. Yep, evolving. Like, it’s never done. Ever. An example: In March, my portrait [...]
