This was hosted on http://petapixel.com a few days ago.
http://petapixel.com/2014/04/29/ryan-brenizers-full-presentation-wedding-event-season-seminar/
I found it pretty interesting, but a few people I’ve shared it with have found it a bit long and struggled to get to the interesting parts, so I thought I would attempt to sum up some of his major points ( I’d recommend watching the whole thing though ).
- He shoots 70+ weddings a year, which brings in enough income to allow him to delegate the jobs he hates to other people..giving him even more time to do the stuff he enjoys ( shooting, a bit of editing ). He hires someone to answer his emails, and put together albums, that sort of thing.
- To get that turnover, he charges slightly less than he could, but it means he gets more weddings. More weddings = more referrals, which means a more stable, reliable income, even in lean years. A lean year for him is 50 weddings, which is still enough to pay the bills. This way of working smooths out the ups and downs of the business in terms of reliable income, at least, that’s my take on it.
- Money may not make you happy, but you can buy cake with it, which will ( probably ) make you happy. Internet fame won’t make you happy and won’t even buy you cake.
- Photographers are not famous, except to other photographers, who are probably not potential clients ( exception – if you are selling training this could work – this is my experience and not part of the talk ). A girl who takes selfies of herself in yoga pants is more famous on the internet than you will ever be as a photographer.
- He gets up really early, as a lot of photographers are night owls. This improves his social life and allows him to get a lot more done before most other photographers even get out of bed.
- Answering emails promptly is really, really important and will get you more bookings than almost anything else. If you are not good at this, hire someone to do it for you.
- Keep pushing yourself to try new things, don’t shoot weddings the same old way hundreds of times. That doesn’t mean take risks with the key shots, take risks when you already have the key shots in the bag.
- The more weddings you do, the better you will get at shooting weddings, which is one reason he shoots so many.
- You don’t have to be a better photographer than the competition, just a better business person. This is easier than competing with people on a photography skill level, as most photographers are really bad at business.
This is what I took from the presentation, I hope this encourages you to go watch it in full,as its pretty entertaining and inspiring and there is a lot more to it than my brief summing up here.