Archive for January, 2009

Interview with Alicia Caine; Easy as Pie

Posted by admin

January 20, 2009

I have just recently had the privilege of meeting Alicia online! Wow does she know her stuff!! I immediately knew that I wanted to share her with all of you! An accomplished photographer, mother of 4 kids under age 7 and the main bread winner in her home!

I finished reading her PDF “Easy as Pie” today and I am convinced that raising my prices will work! I love how she has it all laid out, the pros, the cons, the formulas and how to keep it positive. You will definitely want to check it out, her release is this Friday Jan 23th!!

Here is a little about her;

Name: Alicia Caine
Website(s)
www.aliciacainephotography.com
www.served-up-fresh.com (Easy As Pie!)
www.escentualframe.blogspot.com (custom framing)

1. How long have you been in business? Tell us about yourself.

I am the mommy to 4 kiddos- ages 7, 5, 2.5 and 8 months- who I don’t
photograph enough of!!

I started my business in May of 2007. My husband left the air force to go to
college and I decided to pursue this business full time so that he didn’t
have to work on top of his workload as our family time was very important to
us. My business became 100% of our source of income in May of 2007 and my
business did not start producing until August of 2007.

I specialize in babies and children (newborns being my favorite!) I opened a
little natural light studio in October of 2008 which I use only for newborns
and babies.

2. Where do you find inspiration?
When I first stared- EVERYONE was an inspiration to me because I was so bad!
Lol I found myself reproducing other’s styles and struggled to find my own.
I still don’t think I have found my own style…but that’s a whole other
topic! Lol

3.If you had one thing that you would have done differently when you started

out what would it be?

Obviously, it would be my pricing. Would I go back and change it- probably
not- I learned a ton from the experience….but I wish I would have known
then what I know now.

4.What is the BEST thing you have done for your business?
Raised my prices. (do I sound like a broken record yet). My business would
not be a business if it wasn’t for my prices. I would have died a long time
ago without them.

5.Can you tell us what your favorite products/vendors are?

Jill-e camera bag!
I love to rent lenses from Paul at www.lensprotogo.com
Design Aglow— but have you heard of anyone who doesn’t like this site???
LOVE my finao albums
I can’t do without my paper-source packaging- luvs it!
I love LilyBlue actions and recently played around with the Totally Rad set
that I am loving!

6.One thing you cannot live without ( for your biz).

My 5D- I adore it. I look back at the quality of my work when I was shooting
with the 20D and cringe.

7.What other photographers do you admire?

Right now, I probably drool over Carrie Sandavols work the most as I am
spending a lot of time shooting newborns- I love to see what she comes up
with- it’s never dull!

I have a huge list of photographers that I always admire for different
reasons— I really have no favorite because there are so many amazing ones
out there.

8. Tell us about “Easy as Pie”
I had the huge privilege of mentoring over 40 photographers last year using
my pricing information that I had accumulated since the start of my business
and I developed a program where it could work for any photographer no matter
where they were in their business and where they wanted to go with it. I
call it common sense pricing because once you learn it- it just clicks— it
makes so much sense! Some people are natural with this kind of things while
others dread this part of their business. It was my desire to remove the
trial and error and give something that would take the pain out of the
process. The best part of all- I LOVE hearing the success of other
photographers when they take this information and apply it to their
business. I’ve had a couple achieve over $4K in sales immediately after the
changes took place and it makes me giddy knowing that the potential was
there the whole time- they just needed a little direction and they blossomed
on their own. It’s an amazing thing to be a part of!!!

9.What’s one thing you thought would never go over well that has been a huge

hit?

Hhmm….that’s hard to say! I usually don’t do anything unless I am
convinced that it will be successful. This is also my downfall because I am
hesitant to try new things because I hate going through the process of
failure and try to stay as far away from it as possible.

10.How do you stay current with trends?
Selling digital files. I never thought I would do this and now it is my
biggest sales maximizer. You won’t seeing me turn down a digital file sale!

Client Service Sites

Posted by admin

January 18, 2009

Hey guys! I wanted to tell you what I did~ I have wanted to have all of my information about proofing, policies, pricing, contracts etc all in one place to have clients go to. I just get so busy I have a hard time remembering what I sent and what I did not lol.
So a friend of mine had a site she was working on and I asked my favorite web designer to work on one for me!
Last yr I bought an html client site and never finished it ( I am so not good at html)
So I had kim make me a blog to use as a client site. I plan on sending clients there when they book, they can pay their session fee online with paypal etc.
I also bought machforms ( which kim does too) so I could make the forms for policies, model release etc and have them right on there to fill out and they get emailed right to me.

Anyway I am super excited to have everything in one place! Kim is now offering custom client service sites for 350.00 totally worth it.
http://kimtown.com/2009/01/introducingclient-information-sites/

She has just a screen shot of mine on there, after what happened with the stolen images I am not sharing my private information but you guys have pricing and such anways from the guide.

If you decide to have her make your life easier and want one tell her I sent you please!

Kim said she would do a group buy! 10 people and you can get the custom site for 200.00!! Contact her and let her know who sent ya!

Natalie