If you build your business on In-Person Sales, you have a huge advantage over competitors who can't — or won't — do the same. Online is great to get your name out there, great to sell prints to friends and family, fantastic for high volume, low price print sales … but, for high-end sales, getting face-to-face with your clients, in your studio, is best. In future posts, we'll talk more about sales strategies. This post is just about the benefits of buying Studio Boxes in bulk, by which we mean carrying your own stock of mats and boxes in To View More >>

Just a quick reminder that this weekend is our cut-off date to guarantee you receive your album orders before our end-of-year closedown. Don’t worry too much if you think you might miss the deadline by a day or two, but do get your order in as soon as possible! We’ll be working really hard to get everything out before the holidays — even orders placed in late November/early December. And unlike our competitors we don’t charge rush fees. The advantage of ordering earlier is that you get to the top of the queue and we have more time to make sure everything's correct and to To View More >>

CHOICE, TRUST AND TECHNOLOGY Has your lab stopped offering traditional silver halide printing? It’s sad to see such a gloriously refined technology abandoned. With forty years pro lab experience, and chemicals in our veins, we aren’t ready to turn our backs on traditional photographic printing just yet. In fact we think it retains an important place, and we’re committed to the technology. But here’s why the Big Boy Labs are selling the line that silver halide is finished. Their top priority is, and must be, internal efficiency. They have expensive, high-volume machines to To View More >>

Remember the little domestic drama about how my briefcase and laptop were stolen? And how, to judge from my own buying behaviour, not everyone is going to downgrade to cheap and nasty just because of the recession? Well, yes, I bought the most expensive laptop bag I came across, but... I asked for a discount. You're not to know this but I'm a shrug-and-pay guy. It's my role in life to pay full retail, so for me to ask for, let alone get, 10% off is unusual. But what struck me was how the store projected itself. There wasn't a sale sign anywhere. Nothing to suggest times are tough, or please make To View More >>

"I'm going to interview Simon Whitten while I'm in the UK," I said to Heather, "Short story - what springs to mind?" "Stately homes ... panoramic images ... simple, classic album designs," she said. Simon has established a solid business at the very top of the UK wedding market, and what struck me about our conversation was his confidence and clarity in talking about it. To succeed in this business requires a lot more than photographic passion and skills. You need a clear understanding of your market position, your clientele and where they come from, your brand and how you project it. The low end To View More >>

Chances are you've never been to Marfa, but as it happens we have. It's a tiny town set in the vastness of West Texas (population 2000+) and obviously thriving. Halfway between El Paso and the awesome Big Bend Park, Marfa is surrounded by towns in decline. It used to be a water stop on the railway, and a massive army base, but the trains went diesel and the army left town. So why isn't the town dying, like most of its neighbours seem to be? A minimalist artist called Donald Judd came to town in search of a spectacular landscape to display his massive artworks. An interesting guy ... and other To View More >>

Click the screenshots to view them full size Workspace is constantly evolving. If you haven't tried it lately you haven't tried it! This week we’re excited to announce that we’ve just upgraded Workspace slideshows for smartphones and tablets. On iOS and Android devices your image collections now display like mobile apps, which on iOS your customer can even install easily on their home screen. Scroll down for demos, and click the big gold button for an introductory offer! Here's the back story... From Day One our goal for Workspace has been to make it super-easy to host and display your To View More >>

A little over 6 years ago I returned to my office after a meeting with staff to introduce a design audit and branding project. My phone rang and a man introduced himself and said he was from Apple. At first I thought I was being punked - all through the presentation the consultants had compared us to, and suggested we benchmark ourselves against, not our competitors, but great companies like Apple. This gentleman proceeded to tell me he was from Cupertino and that his boss was Steve Jobs. I tried to act as if I took calls like this everyday. He said they wanted to develop a premium book, and would To View More >>

No-one likes piracy, so how can you stop people stealing your digital images? There is only one sure method: Store your data on a computer in a secure office - and don't connect it to the internet. I'm not kidding. I was speaking to a commercial lawyer friend who deals with multi-million dollar litigation, and if his stuff is super-confidential, that's exactly what he does. Recently we had an irate client complain that some of her images had been pirated from Workspace, and ask how we could let that happen. She explained how it was done (I'm not going to tell you) and she was quite right. Within To View More >>

This is a long post, so I’m starting with the short story! Some people are upset about the terms of trade for our new web-based lab service, Queensberry Print. We want to clarify that, yes, Queensberry Print products are available to both professional photographers and end-consumers. Certainly, “consumer” means “everyone”, but in reality we believe these products will only be of real interest to professionals, serious amateur photographers, and people who received digital files from a professional and who really care how their photos are printed. Our existing range To View More >>