Lessons

Lesson Info

Establishing Goals

All right so day one we're gonna talk let's get started on establishing goals specialist first generalised pricing and packaging and then the evolution of my own pricing and of course I think pricing and packaging is the hottest topic no matter when we talk about it no matter where you are alright so setting goals establishing goals for business sounds easy enough all right set some goals I wanna make I wanna make a million dollars this year awesome right how you gonna do it and without it we're going to struggle it is your gps so the goals you set are the gps for your business that's what should march you're marching to the beat when you give people perspective in my office at home I've got a little whiteboard on my uh by my desk and on there it has my goals written out so for twenty fourteen how many weddings do I want how many seniors dough I want how many babies do I want so that I'm looking at it every single day and if I'm not marching to the beat I'm a failure it's a it's a toug...

h world we live in we've got to understand that what are you doing to achieve your goals are you just talking about it man talk is cheap okay don't be like all those other photographers out there and studios out there where you refused to look in the mirror and acknowledge your own shortcomings if you're failing it's nobody else's fault put yourself so it's tough love man and so you've got to be able to look out and realize these are my goals and I'm not doing crap to get there. And so the first thing is, where are you today? So if you're at home and here I'm gonna start picking on you in a second. Where are you today? In regards to your goals, where are you? And this is gonna be different for everyone. We're all at different stages, right where I'm at don't look at my studio and be like, oh, I'm horrible because he's got forty weddings, okay? So for next year, we already have twelve weddings on the books, maybe that's a good number for something, maybe that's a bad number for me? I'm not happy with that number. I know next year we want over forty weddings in our studios, so have twelve it's great start that's not where I want to be but if you're a newbie, you're probably sitting there scratching going man, just get twelve. I would love it right and that's fine. Okay, so no right or wrong answer. You could be five five weddings today wanting fifty you could be a zero weddings wanted ten you could be a fifty two wanting forty you could want to go backwards you could want to start down south sizing but the real question is how will you get there? Okay, so jules let's talk we talked last segment right? Where are you as of now changes you made where you today as we look let's talk weddings where you for twenty thirteen we are where we've always been last year we were down a little bit but now we're back up to that okay? We're already booking for next year so you're already book in twenty fourteen what is twenty four? Fourteen look like you mean actual number we have three so far we have three books that's good that's fine that's great for us we've we've never book that many this early in the year. That's interesting. So the marketing it we'll talk more about this. All the tricks we talked about the last time you were here that you're implementing the marketing tips and tricks that starting work because now you're already booking six months to a year in advance and that's awesome to hear because my business is that way I'm typically booking ten to twelve months in advance where's that I meet a lot of drivers like I don't typically book weddings until four months out wrong client the right client the one that sees photography is a priority is not waiting till four months before their wedding because when they get engaged, the first thing they want is wedding. What is the goal for twenty fourteen twenty to twenty five so we want twenty to twenty five we got our work cut out for us. What is the what's? The average what's the average you have for twenty thirteen whatyou mean, average sales average or cop total average what's each wedding worth your business for twenty thirteen? You don't know this number? I do I have it written down. I just can't think of a head that's why? I don't mean to put that kind of way everybody in the audience is like, oh, I can tell you that it is more than it was last year that's good and twenty fourteen he's even more than it is because you've raised your prices. Okay, this becomes a very important thing. So good here's why I'm asking her these questions, everybody because I'm forcing her okay? And if you watched jules last time she was on, I'm forcing her to start thinking about her business like a business, not run it emotionally and so wherever you are today, we have to look at where we want to be next year, okay, tomorrow, if you will and how do we get there that's the big thing, right? So for me two thousand seven two thousand eight time frame those were our first two years in business. I was in the fifteen to twenty years twenty wedding mark twenty twelve we did fifty two weddings nearly killed me, right? I didn't have a staff of twenty shooters doing him those air weddings I was photographing so majority of those weddings were me. Taylor had a small percentage of those weddings. Well, now fast forward to twenty fourteen my goal, right? So even I'm still writing goals down there on our board forty to forty five weddings split between taylor myself that becomes more manageable. So now that we're husband and wife team, I'm doing twenty twenty five she's doing twenty. I'm totally okay with that. I'm even okay with her doing fifteen and me doing twenty five. Thirty okay, but man, when you're one person trying to do fifty fifty some weddings it's killing you there were weekends and we had a couple this year where it was friday. A wedding on friday. Two weddings on saturday one wedding on sunday that's brutal those are brutal days to go through, but we're even setting these goals. What about averages? Right? So that's where I want you that's what this is what I want everybody doing right now, including you right here, where are you today? Because if we don't know where we are today, I'm gonna sit here and talk to you for three days, and you're not gonna get anything out of it because you have no context. You don't know what you're even trying to apply it to, and so we need to know where you today, how many seniors do you have? Write this number frickin down! Stop procrastinate e how many families? How many glamour? How many weddings? Some of you may be saying none. I have none. Right? A couple of you here have no weddings. I want to start breaking into weddings. That's totally fine. Someone like jewels. She's at four weddings for next year, right? She's got an established wedding. But no matter where you are in your career, you have to start focusing on this. It's. Nothing to be ashamed off right where you are is where you are, there's. No reason to be s me or anybody else around. You write down actual numbers like I always think it's like playing golf. I don't know if anybody plays golf, right? But I play golf. I got a couple of friends, man, they swear they're scoring in the seventies, but I played with them. Right there, not scoring in the seventies, man, they're swinging their club. My father in law does this right. He doesn't claim to be in the seventies, but I love my father in law to death, but he'll swing five times a day at a ball. He hits it once he only counts the one time he hit the ball like dad that's not how it works, right? So you have to understand is that when you're writing these numbers down, the only person you're fooling is yourself, right? So if you're truly want to grow your business, start being real with yourself on where you are and where you want to be. If you're doing weddings for free, I don't know if you count that or you don't count it, okay? But you've got to start giving yourself cem cem reality reality check it really is about where you want to be. I'm less concerned with where you are right now first, where you want to be in the future, that's the one thing that matters right? Because that's, what we can do today, we can control where we're going. We can't control where we've been, where we've been is where we've been, but if we go, if we come back and we run into that same wall next year, we'll start wondering about you. Right like dude then we make this mistake last year why are we making the same mistake again? I hold my team to that same standard any mistake is in okay mistake right? I'm never happy about mistakes. None of us are but if you keep making that same mistake over and over again I got to start worrying about the level of intelligence of the people that are around me ok, you've got you've got to be honest with yourself something you're chuckling you're like I've been there I ran into that wall like five times right? So you've got to start running running to a new wall I don't know what the wall is just turn around run run a different direction and that will usually get you in a better place than you are today. Where do you want to be, robin let's talk about you for a second you were on last time yes, since that time you have things have exploded for you, right? You've been in constant contact with me on facebook you got you went from no space, right? So talk a little about that you had to what? Yeah, before I was working on my house um and we're meeting people at coffee shops that serve ninety five percent of people out there still dio that way all started there yeah, I know you have tio and we three months ago we got our studio right downtown gig harbor perfect you both stuff not a huge room but it's perfect decline, son. So well, because of that happened why? Because I forced you to start thinking about where am I going? Right and what? What is next for my for my business so in the spirit of that now you've got a space what's next what's going what's the next six twelve months gonna look like where do you want to be? Where you with weddings today? Um we have about fifteen booked for two thousand thirteen you might sneak one or two more in there before any year yeah, what? Uh next year we have three on the books, but what's the target twenty twenty and so I want everybody out there to understand just because they're throwing numbers around don't be like, yeah, well, how's he going to do that that's the ultimate goal that's why we're here that's why we're talking so these aren't just random numbers that people are pulling out of thin air, these air numbers that we have a plan in place to go after and so even you out there all of you define success differently, okay? So as we're growing our businesses, we need to understand what is this exercise all about it's not it's, not an exercise that's for no reason, the exercise is to get you to write down on paper, on a white board where you want to be and over the next three days, how am I gonna get there? And hopefully we're gonna give you all those ideas on how to get there, but where robbie wants to be and where michelle wants to be our completely different in their businesses, both are right and that's the key to understand success is defined by you. You might define success as making an extra ten thousand dollars a year, right? You got a full time job, you just want to you just want to make an extra ten thousand dollars a year. Maybe that success for you that's totally fine, right? So just make sure you're defining what that successes so let's talk about scp today twenty, thirteen, thirty five weddings, fifty seniors. We had some setbacks as usual. I'm always willing to share real world scenarios and our own dirty laundry. We had setbacks were two photographers quit, so I two photographers that out a ton of weddings booked under them. The business was exploding but was going in the wrong direction. Our business was built on customer service on a high end brand, and when we started adding all these photographers underneath me because I could only photograph so many weddings the customer service the experience started going downward and not down like a little bit that I would be ableto except down by a lot so suddenly the name salvador cicada it's started online you could start seeing people go well, did you work with sal or did you work with one of his other photographers? That is not the message I want out in my community, right? Well, if you work with sally, you're gonna get a great experience, but if we work with one of his other shooters, they're not that good couldn't have that happen, so they were kind of worked out of the business quick left us holding the bag with a lot of a lot of baggage that we had to deal with. We had to forfeit a school contract so we had worked for three years to win a high school contract in our area for one of the local private schools. We won the contract after three years, I had to call the principal up and let him know we were not going to be able to deliver on that contract. Not a good conversation tohave, as you can imagine, not good for my business, not good for our name, but I had to weigh that out right? I could have hired some temporary shooters to fill that contract. Do you think I would have done a good job I did a half ass job, right? I would have shooters who don't really know our business nor brand I would have dumped him in there out of being greedy I would have got the money from the kids from the families but ultimately these air families in our community that have been with us for five or more years I couldn't let them down I refused to do that, so I balanced out and I said, you know what? I'd rather I said this to the principal I'd rather you be mad at me now, but at least I'm being honest withyou verse I get six months into this contract and I've let you down multiple times and the principal said, you know what, you're absolutely right you I would rather right now I'm not happy there's no doubt about it he was with the truth is I'd rather you do what you're doing now and be straight with us and let us know what happened and I was completely honest with him. I don't come up with a b s answer I told them what happened and I said I'd rather just walk away from this and let you get someone in there who can deliver for you who can give you the attention and your kids the attention they need and do it right and so that was a huge setback for us video delivery so we started doing cinematography for clients were actually very good at cinema here's what were horrible about delivering it, okay, if any of you have gone out there and try to do video, you know what I'm talking about? Post production on video is brutal, brutal there's almost two hours of work for every minute, a final footage, we were over twelve months and not delivering video to our clients twelve months, so now they're coming in and seeing their wedding pictures in two weeks and then yeah, then they're like, what do we see the video we're like? Oh, yeah, we're working on it working on it. We'll get it too soon. We'll give you a soon as we can. Twelve months goes by, people are not frickin happy, okay? And here was the challenge with that it was we couldn't find the right people to edit the video. I'll tell you what I thought photographers were bad business people, video people are bad business people, they just you will I will call people up like I have money to give you two at it this video can you come get the hard drive so you can edit it, right video editors in our area uh, yeah, we'll be there, we'll come get it this week four weeks goes by they're still not picking it up it's just these are the kind of challenges we're running into his finding video editors that were willing teo work actually work and get things done and so now we've figured that out service in general was going downhill just we weren't hitting our delivery targets the way we wanted to what do you think you guys have been following me what you think happened in twenty thirteen growing too quick so every every business in the world no matter what kind of business you're in if you grow too quick there's casualties of war okay and that's what started happening for us right? And I'm pointing to this in twenty thirteen but the reality is a lot of it's part of twenty twelve and so for twenty thirteen we wanted to take a step back, take a deep breath and refocus our energy on getting back to basics. So think about it here's a business that's five, six years in business and I'm talking about getting back to basics and that's why, no matter where you're at don't tune out when we're talking about the basics the fundamentals because they are important amount of what stage your business here in what went right though it wasn't all bad that we didn't do all these things horrible, but I do I'm always honest with myself about what we're doing right what we're doing wrong well we got a new building right? So if you haven't seen it online excuse my uh horrible instagram picture here it's a little grainy but you get the gist for those of you been following online there's a brand new twelve thousand square foot building yes the entire building is ours the first floor is a on the right side of the building is our camera rooms that's where we're doing our photoshoots that aaron dorm or commercial stuff left side is actually sales room you're looking at the entryway on the bottom left and then behind there there's actually a room so in theirs are taylor's presentation room and we'll do a full photoshoot off the building and share it with everybody second floor that's our offices there's a balcony their third floor is going to be more of a soundstage and it's an employee jim we have a employee kitchen we have a coffee bar cereal bar so it's kind of cool all the up alighting it was very important to me so for me coming from new york I wanted to have something that was a little bit more look more like something you'd see in soho rights was all lit up and if you come through our town this is the only building in our town lit up this way it's on one of the busiest st st st in our town and so this is something I think went right this is a sign that our business is growing it's it's a beacon off success for entrepreneurs and for photographers we had time to regroup and refocus this year and of course get back to basics and I think sometimes in your business no matter where you are just pausing, taking a deep breath and think about where you want to be is a good thing for business, right and that's the that's, the yin and yang of having a husband and wife team right taylor's the one man pulling me back slow down we're growing too quick uh things are suffering and she was selfish in our motivations, right? Because as I'm out conquering the world growing she's the one who has to deal with customers sad issues she's the one wants to deal with clients not being happy things of that nature so that's that that yin and yang is this making sense questions everybody, how are we doing here? Yeah, I think people are actually really appreciating you being like open and honest about that sort of stuff there like we like seeing that you know, it's realistic, you know that that you're not perfect, that is my biggest pet peeve manage an educator is just I try to not be I don't know a fraud, I want to make sure that people see that behind the scenes we we believe just like everybody else because I truly do believe that that's the only way to grow right is you see that hey I'm not the only one having this issue somebody else is having that issue but here's how he solved that problem that to me is the is the most valuable lesson of all because if I can show you how I solve the problem the next time you hit that problem maybe it doesn't go sideways for you maybe you're like is what sounded here is the best way to solve it let's move forward you want to take a couple questions? Absolutely all right let's take a question this is from a t colbert photography who says I'm just starting out and I'm and I currently have a day job I'm trying to find a point where I can leave my day job and move into photography full time trying to find realistic goals is hard any advice would help yeah so if you're just starting out realistic goals are you know it's a little bit a little bit of this right? I mean what are your goals? Where do you want to be? So let me tell you when I started out what I thought were realistic goals my number one mission in life was to quit my job that was my number one mission and so the goals were easy what's the number of wedding seniors, family sports whatever you're you're niches that you need to hit in order to quit your job, that should be if you're just starting out your number one goal in life, right? Get full time in this because once you get full time in this, then you can start focusing on the other things all of you are all of you full time or working? No, you're working another job, okay, so let's pick on you a little bit. You didn't always pick on your day when you submitted your video, you're ready. All right, so the question I have for you is where do you need to be? And you might not know the answer and if you don't that's part of what has happened over these three days, where do you need to be in order to quit your job? And more importantly, do you want to quit your job? I don't know I'm an art teacher full time, so I mean it's kind of related and I like the whole just like you like the whole being able to share your passion for photography with students, you know, I'm kind of in that same boat, so I right now, I hadn't even thought about it, and I'm now just entrepreneurial love, yeah, you want to quit your job? I mean, I have the the curse or the blessing I guess that whatever I get involved and I just have to just go on, go on, go and I just get involved in everything and so my plates really full like everybody's is so yeah I mean given the right circumstances, I don't know you just kind of thrust yourself into whatever you're doing so you don't know if you want to quit your job, right? So for you this becomes more of a part time thing and maybe it does eventually transition that's that's an honest answer real answer and that's all that's all I want every else doing photography full time you're not doing it full time but he is so you what do you want to yes that's our goal do you think he's maybe being selfish by making you work while he's at home playing on the no there's a there's a definitely a good story behind everything but we're doing what we have to right now and eventually but what's the goal so let's let's explore this right so it's a little bit different than the question that came in question came in is by a person who is working but it's still relevant? Where do you know where you need to be for the book for you to actually quit your job what's that number two hundred thousand two hundred thousand gross yes yeah yeah best start so wedding wise what does that look like that is your core right yeah so how many weddings is that it's a lot of frickin wedding's going to be about twenty wings as we do a lot of portrait okay so if you get to twenty wedding mark that becomes the punch point for you to leave because we're leaving right it can't be even here's the biggest mistake everybody makes out there right so let's go back to my story and it will relate toe toe where you're at when I was I was at microsoft right I was making benefits stock options you name it I was making a damn year over two hundred grand a year there was no way for me to go okay in order for me to quit microsoft I have to make two hundred grand to quit that won't work it will never ever happen here's here's why as I'm working at microsoft let's say it could happen let's you say time was unlimited and I had all the time in the world I'm making two hundred grand a year microsoft right and then let's say I go okay I'm going build my business to two hundred grand and then I'm going to quit what's the reality here I'm now making four hundred thousand dollars a year you understand so now I can't quit microsoft was the minute I quit I've just cut my income in half that's why it will never, ever happen that way because we start getting greedy we start living at that level of income in the minute you quit your job now you've just lost half your income so the way all of you out there have to start thinking about this is where's the pivot point and here's how I looked at it microsoft I said the minute I get to twenty weddings at a three thousand dollar average, by the way, that's all I was looking to be, I knew that gave me enough money to just pay bills, right? I wasn't greedy, so I don't know your story. I don't know your financials writing no party of story, but I don't know your financials. I think two hundred grand might be greedy to get you out of out of work that's why I say maybe he's being a little selfish she's just playing on computers all day, we'll talk offline about that number instead, what I want you thinking about all of you out there is where is the pivot? Because once you quit your job, you now have one hundred percent of your effort to focus on your business does not make more sense once like if we get to two hundred, I would not quit and be that stable point of a couple of years that once we had that mark and we consistently have it for one to two years, but now your income is based on two hundred grand from the photography and whatever you're making yeah, which we'd play around and figure it out. Okay, but that's important that's important for everybody out there to this is what they're struggling with. You have to find that point that launch point and that's what it was for me, I knew if I had sixty grand coming in all right, even though I'm telling you my income was over two hundred grand benefits, stock options, all these things, I knew that that would keep the lights on that's all I was worried about my first year two in business can I keep the light on? And then I had one hundred percent of my time to now focus on growing the business right? And that would be seniors, families, babies, all these other lines of business that I had time to grow. So hopefully that answers a question out there hit me with another one. Absolutely. We've got ronal, a photography who wants to know what's the best advice you can have for not growing too fast and getting ahead of yourself. I find that's my problem right now, too, not at your level, but it's getting harder to get all the work completed you would be one of the few people in the world who wants to complain about growing too quickly, right? So that is a very, very good problem to have the challenges is just trying to is put bumpers around it, right? So as we're growing the one thing because that's, what happened? I would say going from think about the time line for us where we were in two thousand seven toe where the studio is today, right? So salvador cincotti photography is a million dollar studio, and so I want everybody to understand what I'm saying when I say that number, I don't want you to believe that that's, everything we do that does not include education that is not include virtuoso that is not include evolve edits that does not include signature collection albums, that is our studio, our brand, our photography that is what that's making go back to two thousand seven, two thousand seven we almost went bankrupt, and so in that four five year window, we built this studio during the middle of a recession in a very competitive market where everyone's a photographer, I would say we grew quickly and in some cases very quickly. And so with that comes growing pains. And so the thing you want to be concerned with is just putting some bumpers around that and make sure you have a scale ability plan. All of you need that scalability plan, and that is typically going to come in the form of outsourcing. Outsourcing can't be a dirty, dirty word because it really is, and I don't understand why in our industry it turns into one. Do you do your own county? I don't got time for that, right? Do you do your own legal work? I don't have time for that. I was pretty long. I could probably make a damn good argument on anything I had too, but that's not what I'm good at. Do you do your own web site development? I don't I don't have time for that, okay, you don't have time for marketing and shooting that's where my time and energy needs to be spent, and so if your business is growing and you feel like it's starting to get out of control, look to scale, hire temporary workers, right? So I would I like to do is I get a new role in my business, I outsource it, and then when I'm spending enough money outsourcing and it makes sense. That's when I might hire ah body right? So where a cz we grow that's our scale ability plans so don't be afraid to grow man growing growing is a good, good thing especially where everyone's a photographer. Now people are really enjoying this taught australia said in the lounge that he's really enjoying the honesty it is being presented from everybody too. So that's also much appreciated that's just how it is house, how old we roll. Honestly, all right. I have a couple good questions here, and this is a very serious subject. So this is from darby, kate and as as well as photo gal darby kate says, how do you pay yourself properly? I'm set up as an l l c and have not been paying myself. I've only been keeping traffic track of expenses and photo, gal says, how much do you really pay yourself? When you're in business? By yourself, you would need to know that to figure out your goal to leave your job. That's a that's a really good point so let's go back to honesty and transparency. So there is a number were set up is an s corp. Okay, don't zone out on me focuses is really deep business questions so it's it's good stuff we're set up is an escort, not an llc on I'll talk tomorrow or later about maybe the benefits of each I didn't have it working on my presentation, but I'll put something together for maybe tomorrow, but we're an escort, right? And what that allows us to do is I am fifty percent shareholder of the company tailors of fifty percent shareholder of the company but as an ass corp I mean, but honestly, my fifty percent is worth more than her fifty percent I can say that she's not in the room, so I can say whatever she thinks she's listening she's being tomorrow so mission may argue with that, but I'll see reason we're set up as shareholders, right? And so fifty percent of the company's mine fifty percent of the company is taylor being an escort saves us in being taxed twice we don't tax twice and so on, and what that means is you don't want the corporation to pay taxes, so a true corporation okay would be taxed and then as an employee off the corporation your tax again so you don't want to set your business up that way so it's an escort, we're not individually, we're taxed individually, so whatever I'm paid individually, I get taxed then at the end of the year, because I'm a shareholder taylor's a shareholder, whatever the profits are paid out as dividends, that's actually really, really important don't underestimate this even if you're just starting out and so those dividends get taxed differently. This is totally legal way to set up your business, it's actually very intelligent way to set up your business so dividends are not going to pay the same level of taxes, and I don't know all the tax implications, but it might be things like medicare, things like that don't get taken out at the same rate as do salary requirements. Now, as a million dollar company, you're gonna look whatever its size company you are, by the way doesn't matter. You want to work with your account to pay yourselves all honesty, the least amount you have to salary wise, okay, so, for example, as a million dollar company, I don't pay myself a salary of four hundred thousand dollars a year that doesn't make any sense whether the business could afford it or not, because we're going to be taxed as employees on that four hundred thousand dollars, right? So same thing applies to you, whether you're making fifty thousand dollars a year or a million dollars a year. You want to pay yourself the minimum amount right? You want to you want to hire a very good account that's why I said you should not be doing your own accounting you outsource that as you grow you hire an accountant you could explain to you ok based on your income level for your business here's amount you should pay yourself and here's what dividend should look like and that's going to save you money because now you're you're structured the correct way right? So it's all legal don't act like what I'm suggesting to you is somehow working the system right? You're a business owner you have to understand the laws that apply to your business so that's a very good good question but it's war is getting to that number I'm sorry I can't give you ah better answer I would say in my business I'm severely underpaid ahs faras what's on the books you know I need to be paid more I need a raise. What is it like ten percent? Is there a ballpark figure? Ten percent of all my accountant very closely on this stuff and I'm always like he's like you need to make more I'm like I don't want to make his little it's possible and the reason for that is simple as you're growing and starting new businesses and buying equipment if you're bleeding your business of money to put in your own pocket, you're actually hurting your business. I leave as much money in my business is possible so that I can continue to grow my business. Think about it. This particular building is ours. We own it. Okay, in order to buy this building, this is a one point, one million dollars project for us in order to buy this building, I to put down two hundred eighty thousand dollars cash to buy this building. If I were paying myself all that money, I wouldn't have the cash right if I were living at the level. There's the other thing, this is a question nobody asked that you should be asking as you start making money and finding success, do you live at your means? Where do you live below your means that's the biggest challenge for all of us, isn't it? And so I like is we've grown in the last five years, I actually live below our means. Okay, I want to do nice things, I want to travel, I want nice clothes, I want buy shoes, it's, all within reason. You've got to balance the same thing as well as you're growing. Just because you have that money doesn't mean you should spend it instead, look for opportunities to grow these for us was it's an asset? So buying a building eventually for you right that's hopefully the ultimate goal right is not renting from someone is getting your own space uh this is an asset for you so now over time the mortgage gets paid it's a tax deduction we got a tax credit on the building so now when we go to file taxes at the end of this year I get a massive tax credit because we just restored historical building these are all things you have to start thinking about a cz you're growing and I'm telling you man, if you're that newbie and you're in the two year mark don't discount what I'm saying to you and be like oh that's so far into the future I never saw this happening opportunity presented itself because I left money in my business I was able to take advantage of this so we have about a half hour till break you want to keep going with question one more question I'm good one more question luis morales photography what's the average of gold difference between gross income and net net income what should your overhead percentage be managed to holy crap all right, that one we may have to just get to over the course of three days perfect but that is a awesome question so let me give you some food for thought right now hard cost of goods okay, so for every dollar you sell something for hard cost a good should not exceed fifteen percent and I want to make sure everybody understands what I'm referring to because what I'm not going to do is be like, oh your electric bill should be, you know, point zero percent that's way too granular for me, hard costs of goods is probably one of the single biggest expenses we have in our business, right? Meaning client buys a campus, we have to go by that campus for them to fulfill the order so for every dollar of income coming in hard cost of goods product should not exceed fifteen percent if it does, you're going to run into problems and you might think yourself whoa! So that means you know what eight by ten only cost me ah buck or two from the lab so that means that if I sell it for two bucks and I'm gonna make a lot of money no, if you're selling eight by tens there's actually a business model out there suggesting that you should sell your eight by tens for four dollars so I don't want to pick on any companies, but if you're shooting burner and there's a side out there where you could fulfill your orders and they're now fulfilling print orders for you for four dollars, get ready to go out of business because that is the most ridiculous business model I've ever seen in my life on I would love to have a face to face conversation with anybody who's gonna explain to me how photographers are going to make a living ah successful living selling eight by tens for four dollars it ain't gonna happen you're going out of business so if you want to go out of business, keep doing what you're doing if you want to be in business, tune in get focused all right let's keep going s c p twenty four twenty fourteen I'm sharing with you my goals for next year so again, if you don't believe we're real photographers and I'm actually standing up here lying to you because these are my actual goals forty to forty five weddings fifty plus seniors fifty plus portrait sam sessions that's families glamour these are my goals I am the primary shooter for salvador cincotti photography I want to launch a headshot line this is new for me, right? Twenty fourteen the gloves are off, I can start new businesses esso I want to launch a headshot line why I'm finding that in my community you may find it in your community is well, really bad headshots have you ever seen that doctors and lawyers and the stuff that comes in the mail there's a billboard home and I feel bad there's a billboard I drive by every day and it's like this I don't know eighty foot it's got to be monsters I don't know how big billboards are but it's huge and there's this horrible head shot of a guy for a car dealership and he's standing there and he's going like this he's pointing it's just horrible like I'm like why didn't he spent so much money on this billboard could I not have gotten a couple of hundred bucks from him for a good head shot I think I can and so we want to launch this head shot line because guess what I've got that great new space great new commercial area everybody's driving by it all the day so every day so why couldn't I create this kind of headshot area where people just come in well it's lit up just beautifully we define our own look for headshots right? I'm not talking about just like main phil let's do something cool and created for head shots so I want to launch a headshot line better video turn time listen we turn our images around in two weeks our clients are seeing their weddings seniors, families, babies two weeks okay why can't I do something with like that with video and I don't know what the answer is man I'm still trying to figure it out I got a couple of months but twenty fourteen that is one of my top goals can you imagine if in two weeks the client came in not only saw their pictures, but it opens up with a highlight reel of their video in two weeks they would be blown away. I want to get to a point where we're doing movie premieres for clients. How cool would that be? We actually debated this, right? Can you imagine if you're doing video and you're out there, you're get into it. Maybe this is a big dream, maybe it's too big man, I don't know. Can you imagine if you were able to rent a movie theater and do their video premiere in the movie theater? How badass would that be for your client's, right? Even if it was on an off day for the theatre, even if it was early in the morning for the theatre or late at night for the theater, you could be surprised what you'd be even negotiate with. And now they walk in and it's like this hundred foot giant screen stadium seating boom! Your logo comes up on the screen and you're showing them that that's where I want to go, man, that's that next level stuff I'm talking about best of breed customer experience that is what health my business girl, there is nothing else, man when you see something to show you pictures that I took back in two thousand seven, two thousand, a man is bad is really bad I can not believe I own a business right now they are so bad so we'll take a look at that but what made us grow? What allowed us to grow best of breed customer experience man, there is no one in our area offering a better experience than salvador cincotti photography we have to maintain that edge and I'm going to show you products services things were doing that are allowing us to not only maintain but leapfrog our competition and that's the way you have to start thinking all of you here, all of you out there where's your competitive spirit man where you've gotta want to win at all costs and as artists we tend not to think that way where it's like I just want peace in the world in harmony and I want everybody to love me I don't want anybody to love me I want money that is my goal, right? So it's me against you I love all of you here I love all of you out there I love you in st louis but at the end the day I want to steal your lunch money that is the ultimate goal today we can see it we can have a cup of coffee together, but it is on men and there's nothing wrong with being competitive and friendly I love my fellow photographers, that's, why I teach. I love my photographers in st louis, I'll get drinks with them, I'll get coffee with them, I'll share with them. I've had people in st louis come over to our space and just be like, hey, man, can I still five minutes of your time? I'm running into an issue, and I give him five minutes of my time, but when we're on the field, right, because I'm an athlete, I was in college, and I played football, and I played baseball on any of you out there who got that athletic spirit. You know what I'm talking about on the field, you are ready to kill each other, you're like gladiators, but dude, off the field after it's over you like high five, my good game, right, that's, kind of my mentality, and that has to be your mentality.