Picture Monday!

If you have been reading the blog, you may remember a few weeks back when I talked about building vendor relationships. Here are a couple samples that I worked up from Baxter and Taylor's wedding that I plan to bring to the florist and the cake vendor just to give you an idea what I was talking about. Now I just have to get them off to the printers!

The Why's and How's of Vendor Relationships

There are certain vendors that you will work with again and again, either the vendors that you use for your products and services (album companies, print labs, etc.) or vendors that are hired by your clients (florists, cake designers, dress shops, and venues). Though you will probably have different types of relationships with the two types of vendors, they can all potentially be part of your "team". I emphasize the word "relationship" here, because that is what everyone is trying to achieve. You and your vendors all want to build quality relationships with each other that can be beneficial to all parties involved. The best way to do that, in my opinion, is to focus less on "what can they do for me?", and more on "how can we help each other?"

Let's break down the two groups and detail the relationships a bit more. The first group is your vendors that you use for products and services. The great thing about these folks is that they really want to help you succeed. Their job is to get you all of the help and information that you need to create an awesome product for your client. The better that they do, the better you do (which makes you look good) and the better that you do the more people who are exposed to their products. Win-Win. These vendors also do things like promotional tours. They come to your area to let you touch and feel and learn hands-on. A lot of times the vendors (particularly album vendors) will do this in conjunction with a workshop or speaking engagement with a photographer. If you can get in good with the vendors, you have an open audience to hear you speak, come to your workshops, and you have a much bigger budget than your own doing the advertising for you. Now, not just anyone can walk up to the vendor and have this happen overnight, but it never hurts to have a strategic plan and goals in place to move you in that direction.

The next group of vendors are your peers who also provide services for the bride and groom on their big day. While you are at a wedding (whether as the official photog or as a guest - and especially the ones in your local area) be sure to spend some time getting shots of the vendors products such as flowers, cake, and of course the venue. One of the first things that couples book is their venue and the coordinators at the venue are a great source of referrals. After you shoot a wedding be sure to get the information of the vendors and then keyword all corresponding photographs for easy retrieval. Edit them up, make them look pretty and perfect, and then you can contact the vendor and use your photographs as a way to introduce yourself to them. My conversation would be something along the lines of "Hello. My name is Mollie Tobias, I am starting a wedding photography business in the area and I recently attended the wedding of (bride and groom). The (flowers, cake, etc.) were amazing. I really liked..... While I was there I took some photos of your product and I would like to set up a time to come and show them to you as well as introduce myself. What time is convenient for you?" When you are there you can either give them prints or a cd of the digital files for display at their place of business or use in their promotional materials. These are not something that I would ever charge the vendor for (you were already paid by the bride and groom after all). During the meeting you can show them a portfolio of your work, and if possible see samples of their work as well. Once again, you are building relationships, not bribing them to give you referrals. If they like your work they will tell people about it. If you like their work, return the favor and tell people about it.

Here's the deal, you can negotiate and say that if they can guarantee you with x number of referrals per month that you will give them y in return (a sample album for instance). I find that the people I refer the most are the ones that I like. Not because we have an arrangement, but because they have always been good to me and are nice to work with. People like to work with people that they like. So, I try to always be nice to people even if they may not be as nice back. I always try to deliver what I promise and if possible, more. I think that matters to people a lot more. That's just how I feel about it, I'm not a marketing guru, but that is what makes sense to me.

Hope that you all have a wonderful Wednesday!

Classic. Elegant. Perfect.

I had the good fortune to be invited to the wedding of a friend of mine yesterday evening and I have to say that I have a wedding crush. If I do ever have an real wedding, I would want it to be just like this one. Well, perhaps not the Episcopalian ceremony (nothing against them, I was just raised Methodist and a sudden switch for the sake of a wedding would be somewhat odd).

Since I was a guest, however, and not official, and therefor do not have a contract or a model release I can not post any people pictures until after the happy couple return from their honeymoon and I can ask permission. I am hopeful that they will be happy to share, so look forward to more in a few weeks...fingers crossed.

But, what I can post is pictures of products from the vendors...which gave me the idea to give this weeks posts a vendor-scentric theme. So, today I have some photographs of the flowers and cake and on Wednesday I will give some thoughts about cultivating vendor relationships.

So, without further ado, here we go...

The cake

The bride's bouquet

Each table had similar arrangements, but they were also each unique in some way. Normally I find weddings that are all black and white to be boring, but the flowers here had touches of blue (to match the bridesmaid's dresses), green, and pink and against the wooden interior of the fair barn and the twinkling white lights it was absolutely LOVELY. The whole wedding was simple and classy, but with touches of the bride and groom's personalities clearly shown.

There was a great jazz band playing, shrimp and pulled pork on the buffet along side potatoes and caviar, and (love this) a white guitar was their guest book. I have yet to see a wedding absolutely more perfect for the couple.

Enjoy the pictures and come back on Wednesday for more on vendors...