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Lesson Info
42. Three Things You Need To Know Before Pitching
Lessons
Intro
1Workshop Intro
03:18Foundations
2Gear
12:14 3Gear - My Camera Bags
08:00 4Mastering Camera Settings
07:41 5Blue Hour, A How-To
10:45 6Photos That Move Us
07:19Visual Storytelling 101
07:51 8Endurance In A World Of Sprinting
06:27 9Keeping Your Ideas Fresh
08:31 10Building Your Story Arc
06:44 11Shooting More: Action Plan
02:01 12Conveying Emotions
07:52In the Field
13The Assignment: Himalaya Pre-Pro
12:08 14In the Field: The Himalaya Defender Shoot
20:29 15The Assignment: Canon Pre-Pro
10:25 16In the Field: Canon USA Shoot
15:06Editing
17Keywords & Organizing Images
06:42 18Commercial Grading
04:47 19Masking & Radial Filters
12:33 20Perspective Correction
05:39 21HDR (Hand-Held)
03:37 22Black & White Edits
07:00 23Before & Afters
01:33 24Moody Grading
13:15 25IG Export Settings
04:00 26Web Export Settings
02:44 27Clone Stamping & Patch Tools
05:51 28Grading in Lightroom
06:45 29Hand-Held Panoramas
03:41 30Radial Filters Pt 2
02:38 31Delivering Files to Clients
12:33 32Archiving & Organizing Images
10:15 33My Favorite Software
03:44Business
34Let's Talk Business
01:03 35Building A Desirable Portfolio
11:17 36How to Contact Clients
12:00 37Prospecting: Finding Brands That Fit You
04:16 38Getting Clients To See Our Value
10:16 39Paid to Travel the World
14:48 40The Art of Making Moodboards & Treatments
08:09 41Keys To A Fulfilling Career
07:40 42Three Things You Need To Know Before Pitching
06:19 43Finding Your Value Proposition
08:02 44Media Kit: A Walk Through
08:06 45How I Built My Audience
07:46 46Social Media Landscape
07:32 47Module Recap
03:08Bonus - Everything To Know About Filters
48Do You Need Lens Filters?
09:36 49Filters in The Field
12:40Bonus - Find Your Path
50Find Your Path
07:44Bonus - How To Print Your Work
51Why Print or Sell Photos
23:21 52Preparing Photos for Print
06:44 53Reviewing Major U.S Printers
06:57Lesson Info
Three Things You Need To Know Before Pitching
(gentle music) Here are three things you need to know before you start pitching clients. (camera shutter clicks) What's the difference between ad agency and client? I'm gonna try to clear the air. So the ad agency works for the client, AKA, the brand. The brand hires the agency to come up with ideas and run campaigns for them. The brand, on the other hand, has a marketing team that hires that agency. The agency has a social media creative team, visual team, account directors, account managers. And usually, you are talking to them as a creator. Let's take the example of Canon. Canon has an agency called Gray. Gray is responsible for coming up with the creative of all of Canon's digital campaigns. So the way it works is Canon is releasing a new camera. They're gonna tell Gray, Hey, Gray, come up with ideas on how to promote this camera based on the product specs, client's needs, demographics. Now Gray comes up with a creative campaign, takes that to the client. Literally, it's pitched,...
or it's a deck that they pitch to the client. And then the client, Canon, approves it or rejects it, and then it goes back to Gray. Once it's approved, Gray starts to reach out to people like us, photographers and filmmakers. And they're like, "Hey, we have this campaign and we want you to shoot it." That's usually how it works. That is how inbound works, typically. When you, on the other hand, wanna take your idea to a brand, I recommend going directly through the client. From my experience, agencies are not there to be pitched ideas. They're the ones who are paid by their clients to come up with their own ideas and own them. So if you wanna increase your chances of success, it's best to pitch the client directly. (camera shutter clicks) Number two, image licensing terms. And this is a bit boring, but you need to know what licensing means, like the terms, the lingo, and the codes of that. So I'm gonna give you a quick rundown. You've already had to talk with clients who are throwing all kinds of technical licensing terms to you, like OOH or POS. By the way, OOH means out of home, and POS means point of sale. If you wanna command higher rates and earn your clients' trust, you need to be familiar with the structure and the lingo. Like I said, it's not very exciting. But one day, when you're on the phone with an agency who wants to get answers ASAP 'cause usually, it's like, "We need the answer in five minutes," you'll be happy you listened to this episode. Either your photos are rights-managed or royalty free. Meaning you either manage the licensing of your images with the terms I'm going to go over, or you simply just sell the image to the client, and they have unlimited use of it. If you wanna build a recurrent revenue stream as a photographer, you want to do rights-managed. It's obviously more work because you have to keep tabs of the images. You have to quote, you get an invoice, but you can command significantly higher rates. Type of rights, exclusive or non-exclusive. If the client wants the image really bad, they will probably get an exclusive license, meaning that they are the only ones who get to use it for the duration of the license. These type of terms are pretty rare to come by. But when you get them, they're like the golden egg because they're worth two times more. Why? Well, because you can't license that image somewhere else, so they gotta pay for that. So duration, that means how long the licensing is for, six months, one year, two years, one week. It all depends. Region, so the license will typically include the regions that the client is allowed to use the image, worldwide, USA, or Europe, and the more regions, the more cost for the client. And then lastly, it's usage. Some clients will wanna license your image for all media, meaning they can do anything they want with your image. And here's a pretty exhaustive list of all the kind of usage situations you will face. Commercial or editorial. So is it a business or is it a magazine? Then the type of usage? Where will the image be shown? Is it digital? Is it print? Is it billboard? Is it brochure? Is it for private meetings, either for POS, POP, point of sale or point of purchase, like in a store? Before we wrap up licensing terms, let's go through a few scenarios. So first one, I'm licensing a photo to Google for example. They want the image exclusively for one year. Well, if they want it for all usage, like all media usage and regions, worldwide usage, exclusive that should be at least 30,000 bucks. If your coffee shop downstairs wants to license your image to have their menus and on their website for a year, and they don't want exclusive thing, it's probably gonna be a couple 100 bucks. If they're a chain of coffee shops, it's different, it might be a few more. The point is that with these things, it's such a wild jungle, and you gotta adapt to your client. But so I want you to know these terms because being able to talk this language, understand what's being requested of you will just get you to command higher rates. (camera shutter clicks) And then the last and third point I wanna talk about in this episode is that you need to know what you want. I've attended hundreds of meetings in my career, and some of them went pretty okay. Some of them were amazing, and some I just totally bombed. And when I look back at what made the biggest difference in the outcome of a meeting is knowing what I wanted. It's too common for creatives to prep for a meeting an hour before, jot down some talk points on an notepad, and then hope for the best, but that's not enough. To increase our success rate, we better come prepared and know specifically what we want out of this meeting, out of the client. What is the outcome we desire and what do we want the client to do at the end? Do we them to say yes? Do you them to say maybe? Sounds very simple, but knowing what you want from the beginning will just make it so much easier for your client to sort of tag along with you. So when my goals are crystal clear, the meeting is way more productive. And when I think about it, the golden ticket is when your goals align with the client's goals. And that's where preparation comes in handy because we have to gather as much information as we can from the client, and we can draft goals that make us both win. (camera shutter clicks)
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Jon
Not What I Was Expecting Let me just start by saying that the workshop was very good. There were lots of things that I learned and many insights I took away. Perhaps the greatest bit of wisdom imparted to me was not anything Alex said but how he approached every subject he talked about. I felt that he was talking to me as a friend, very personal and open book. This was both a blessing and a curse as the course tends to meander around and is not as structured as others I've taken. Alex's passion for the highest quality, and craftsmanship in every aspect of his business, is very evident. From the premiums he charges, to the attention to detail in client deliveries. This is where my review is going to give some hopefully constructive criticisms. For someone so focused on a premium experience I was a surprised to find the course a bit sloppily assembled, and the videography and editing lackluster. This is coming from a videographer and someone with a lot of experience in online training. A few short examples to illustrate my point include: repeating segments of the edit (in some instances the exact same segment), poor framing. Colors changing between cuts, and my biggest pet peeve, not leaving photo examples on for long enough to see them. These are all small things, but they add up, and along with the topics meandering, left me a bit disappointed. I'm curious who you would say this class is aimed towards. Amateurs, mid-level, or experts? The assumption of who you are addressing changes throughout the course. I feel like with a bit of work from an instructional designer, and some editing cleanup, you could help hone this course to be one of the best out there. I feel like I need to do a more in depth review than will fit here, to actually explain this well. Let me know if that would be helpful to you. One other note: When I signed up for a workshop on Adventure Photography, I honestly thought it would be more field focused. The field examples were all shoots for products, and not shoots documenting an adventure. I guess I had just hoped to learn that side of the storytelling process more. Getting into the nitty gritty of being wet, cold, and dirty, and still shooting bangers. The section on filters (going out and building the snow cave) was more what I thought this course was going to be. Anyhow, with all that said, I still found it valuable and worthwhile. To summarize, the course feels a bit unpolished and in some ways unfinished though there is still great value. I've taken Jimmy Chin's Masterclass on adventure photography and it felt very structured and highly polished. I purchased "Adventure Pro" on the "finish in a month" discount. I would have felt ripped off if I had paid full price with the course in its current state. Thanks for reading and I hope my criticisms come as helpful. As I've already mentioned I'd be happy to further elaborate.
Topher Hammond
One of the best photography investments I'm only 1/4 of the way through Alex's course and I feel like I already have a loose plan on how I can move forward in my own career as a photographer. I felt like my work was lacking a specific feeling. The way that Alex articulated ideas on how to convey emotion in your imagery and building that overarching story arc for your own life narrative were super helpful to focus on how to make my work better. Super looking forward to the rest of this course. Thanks Alex and team!
Sergi Mas de xaxars Rosell
Great Workshop I learned quite a lot with this workshop. Because I'm in the industry for 5 years now, there were a few things I already knew. On the other hand, Alex showed me different and more effective ways to improve my business. I like the way he gives the lessons, always in a personal and close way. This is the knowledge I wish I had when I started. Totally worth it!
Student Work
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