Excellent Photographers Need Only Apply.

“School is a great place to photograph kids, an amazing place. In a very quick moment you can create a quality portrait, build a child’s perception of being photographed, please a parent AND make money.

Mugshots School Photography represents some of the most talented photographers in the business. Becoming a Mugshots photographer is not easy as our qualifications are comprehensive.  Our training program is rigorous but once you are certified you have the power of many at your back!

Why Photograph in Schools?

It is fun, profitable and a great way to expand your higher end portrait business.  Talk about “target marketing”! Having diversity in product line in an economy like today can represent the difference between success and failure as a photographer.  The seasonality of the work complements wedding photographers especially.  Your weekends are free and most days you are finished by early afternoon.

What does it take to photograph schools?

Besides an excellent eye, keen sense of timing, a genuine love of children. and the water retention of a camel, you need systems.  No matter how great your photographic skills your success will completely depend on systems and back-end production. Matching name and image data, ordering information, time deadlines require military precision.  The last thing a busy photographer wants to do is manage the production demands of volume photography.  It will erode your creativity and suppress your desire to shoot.  Mugshots has created the tools and technology infrastructure so our fabulous photographers can really shine!

The Mugshots School Photography model is unique.  It encompasses both art and commerce.  We teach photographers how to harness their skills into the pinpoint precision of consistentency and the flexibility of creativity.  We provide you with tips, tricks and tools.  We educate you in lighting needs, crowd control and the posing skills that will make you royalty in the wedding circles.

How do you get the jobs?

The Mugshots marketing machine is fun and focused.  We have a fully branded identity that is proven.  Our marketing materials are creative and effective.  We work with you to target your schools and teach you how to best obtain access to those jobs.  As the power of our network continues to grow, each of our photographers success supports your growth.  Education is key to understanding the needs of both schools, parents and kids. Mugshots cares about ALL of our clients and we provide you with that knowledge as well.  We work with our photographers to best present their talents and put a high level of professionalism on their school product offering.  If you want to compete with the large school photography companies you need to have a strong sales team at your back.  Mugshots is that team.

Consumer Sales

Mugshots uses a combined system of sales- traditional school placed orders as well as online.  There are many online image galleries available to the professional photographer but very few that are focused on the unique needs of photographing in the schools.  This is an emerging market and Mugshots is at the forefront of meeting and expanding this sales engine.  Trust us, you can’t just upload a bunch of images and see successful sales.  We have the experience, knowledge and technology to provide a positive journey to purchase. We also have the customer service number that keeps your studio phone ringing with jobs, not complaints.  Let’s face it, out of 200 students photographed someone isn’t going to be pleased, you may have stood on your head to get that expression but if the hair wasn’t parted on the left side… don’t want that call?  Good, cause we are there to handle all customer communication as it relates to orders and school services.

I am a business book reader. I read them like many people read mysteries or westerns. They are self-help books that don’t ask you to look at your relationship with your mother. A great business book consists of biography, inspiration, mystery and astrology. Well maybe not actual astrology, more like the old single scene “what’s your sign?” Only what is your business?

I can never read business books before bed. They rev me up too much. I get all excited and want to scurry down to my office and start…typing or something. To keep myself in my chair I keep fancy, very feminine, journals next to me at all times. Sometimes I even use a highlighter, with some guilt attached, as it feels a little like I am soiling the grail. The most, most, mostest exciting book I have read this year is Trading Up by Michael J. Silverstein and Neil Fiske. It was a Businessweek bestseller. Subtitled “Why Consumers want New Luxury Goods-and How Companies Create Them.

My copy is a glow in the dark version it has so much highlighter applied. Each chapter reinforced for me that changing (yep, here it comes-Mugshots) school photography from the “same old commodity product” to a more valuable, consumer friendly product is not only possible it is timely. Redefining School Photography offers 1) Genuine differences and innovations 2) It is aspirational-parents thank us for creating it 3) Mugshots is unique in the marketplace 4) Our core consumers long for a change 5) We contribute strong performance benefits 6) Not only consumers but experts in our field see the potential of the product 7)We have a strong prototype 8)Offering school photography by local portrait professionals expands the ladder of benefits from volume pricing to customized luxury 9) We have a next generation of innovation in progress now and will be ready to launch as soon as volume allows.

These are the factors that Silverstein and Fiske use to determine whether a product is a viable opportunity. The last 2 points are do we have “influencers” are we passionate about the product. Clearly I feel passion…any influencers out there ready to rock and roll????

So you are a great photographer with a savvy business sense?  You excel at your craft and take pride in your work. Your clients are loyal and say great things about you. So why on earth would you want to photograph under the Mugshots Brand? Why not “Linda Russell’s School Portraits” or “Happy School Photography, by Linda Russell” or how about Linda Russell’s “Cheap and Fast Head-shot Taken At Your Child’s School?

Well, when you put it like that…it doesn’t even make sense to photograph in the schools does it? Mugshots is designed to offer you a clear product differentiation. Think, Banana Republic, The Gap, and Old Navy- same owners different marketing and pricing. Marketing minds and economic guru’s recognized that market diversity gained them a strong hold on customer loyalty and ability to up sale. They didn’t define themselves as Economy GAP, GAP and More Refined GAP.

Okay, so instead of using my name I’ll just find my own cute economy name. Worked for Linda, why not me? Great, come up with a cute name- register it, dba, LLC, hire a talented full time designer (I’m clever, I can do that myself-in my spare time) design a second website, create a marketing campaign-email, printed collateral, design new products, research labs, research hosting. Create unique packaging, product lines. Make alliances with other companies. Educate myself to the school photography industry-what are service items? Create a portfolio aimed at those services. Devise price lists, sales materials, envelopes, proof sheets. Posters, reminders- etc.
Time to make a portrait. Shall I print my own packages? I could save money by doing that myself as well. This seems like a lot of work- maybe I will just let Lifetouch or one of those other big companies keep this billion dollar market and I will keep doing my thing. OR you could work with Mugshots keep the profitable part and share the expenses with other like minded photographers.

By being a part of Mugshots you are a link in a chain that will change school photography. Every beautiful portrait you create will make it possible for another photographer in a different city to do the same. By working together under the same Brand we will be able to help our fellow artists crack the 89% market giant. By networking among ourselves we can support, share and encourage each other photographically as well as business-wise. By combining our resources we grow faster with better service, exemplary packaging, marketing and buying power.

Or you could do it yourself, I did. Which is why I am building a company so others won’t have to work nearly as hard bush-wacking the path. Come on…let’s create a network of success instead of continuing stepping over dollars to save nickels.

So, it’s time for some meat, enough fluffy newsletter stuff. What about pricing?  Next to my bed is a basket of books, a novel or two but mostly business books. Pour Your heart Into it-the Starbucks story by Howard Schulz, Small Giants, Blog Marketing and the Art of Pricing all currently have bookmarks. After over 16 years in business I am still a student looking for teachers, especially when it comes to pricing.

What do all these books have in common? They represent my search for the answer on how to grow and sustain Mugshots Photography. Common knowledge in the school photography industry is it is all about price. How cheap can you go, still survive and compete with the “big national”. Some companies do this by restructuring the commission structure basically by retailing prints. Some do it by undercutting, or bottom-feeding which usually leaves them with a higher gross and a barely survivable net, this usually works on the schools that the “big national” has identified as not profitable. A few companies, the most successful ones have worked out a formula that matches price and stretches for as much volume as they can wrestle in the contract season. These contracts tend to switch back and forth between these 2 or 3 companies when that year’s temp hires were disappointing. The bottomline on this is that school photography business has become a commodity.

Here’s what Rafi Mohammed Ph.D, director at Simon-Kucher & Partners, in his book “The Art of Pricing” has to say about commodities:

“Mention the word commodity and most people almost reflexively start moaning about “low prices” and “no pricing power.” Commodities are products that are identical in every aspect (characteristics, service, distribution, etc.) to those of your competitors…many competitors experience the unpleasant reality of their products becoming commoditized-they face market environments in which their products are losing pricing power. In this situation, companies selling commoditized products end up having their products prices dictated to them by the rivals who are selling similar goods. If you don’t match the competition, your customers disappear.”

Now that is the school photography industry in all it’s glaring truth. Mohammed goes on to say, ” If your product is becoming commoditized…you have a strategy problem. Pricing cannot remedy this. You have to develop a new strategy (e.g. differentiation) that will distinguish your product and thus free your prices from their dependence on those of your competition.

Ah, there it is the opportunity… differentiation. Now while Mr. Mohammed goes on to discuss a multi-price structure as a short term prospect he sees the long term prospects as poor. The only way out of a situation like this is to recognize customer’s different valuations and meet those needs. So in photographer language… you can only use complicated print packages so long to trick the client into spending more money. This is especially true in our new digital world where scanning is as easy as a copy machine only much better quality. Not to mention my pet peeve, why are we commoditizing our children? Again, why are we commoditizing our children? Why wouldn’t parents want to spend more money on better photos of their most sustaining legacy? My experience with Mugshots has shown this fact to be true but it is still an uphill battle as it regards a massive re-education program for school administrators. Is this pricing restructure necessary? Absolutely! For many reasons all of them good- most of all for the parents, kids and community-based photographer.

Now that we have properly identified that school photography has become a commodity requiring a new strategy, “…a significant and time-consuming endeavor” it is important to look outward for inspiration. I chose coffee. Enter Howard Schultz. One day while ordering a Mocha (I only drink coffee drinks with chocolate and foam) in a Starbucks in Redding on my way to a school photographer’s summit, I realized, in a much different financial market than my home-base Marin County, I was paying the same $3.45 for my Mocha. Then the next day,while breakfasting with my colleagues, I mentioned I needed to walk down the street for my much needed Mocha and 4 women joined me walking by pots of freshly brewed FREE coffee because they too need foam at the top. Coffee, the commodity, had been transformed into a daily luxury item! The model for transforming our industry was right downstairs, around the corner…Starbucks!

Love them, hate them, Starbucks has been a boom for coffee. No longer a commodity it has re-energized an industry in more than caffeine. Read “Pour your Heart Into It” and “The Art of Pricing” and think School Photography. And of course.. contact Mugshots so we can use our combined energy to break the price barrier.