Help again

[pieinthesky]

Hi again,

Told you I had two questions.

A new potential customer is setting up a photographic studio and wants some of his work framed for display and with luck this should lead to further work for me. I haven't seen the photos yet, but from what I understand they will mainly be weddings, portraits, family groups etc. He is asking my advice about mouldings mounts etc.. Now, while I normally have no problem in helping customers and 99% of the time they are happy (or at least they say they are), I am a little concerned about this. Not only do I have to please my customer, I also have to please his potential customers.

I have some ideas and have discussed them with him and he seems happy - but would love to know how you might think of going. Budget - while a consideration - won't be too important. His main criteria is to use his framed photographs for a Wow factor and bring him lots of business!

If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them. My main supplier is Arqadia, but am happy to consider others.

Thanks again

Anne

[GeoSpectrum]

One persons 'wow' is another perosn '...oh'.

My advice would be to keep it simple. Find a cotempory range that has three width options and a traditional with the same and offer those at a stated price ( or price range) with the proviso that others are aviailable but not at the stated price.

Keep the mount choice simple too. Arquadia Hayseed should do it.

Don't be too tempted to cut a deal on the promise of futre work. It often never happensI and if you need to keep the price down consider using polcore or whatever the Arquadia version is.

Hope that helps.

[Roboframer]

My advice would be to keep it anything BUT simple - simple is boring, simple is definitely not 'WOW' - bite the bullet!

Arqadia hayseed - it's like air on a 'G' string - sock some colour to 'em - give 'em the flight of the bumblebee!

[youtube]y-QrSc_Jw3g[/youtube]

..... and don't stop there ....

What Arqadia does on a scale that no-one else does, is mount slips, here are their own http://www.arqadia.co.uk/vcat11/#/200/ and in addition to those most every Larson Juhl range they do has a matching mount slip .... which although designed to match the ranges, also matches or at least complements many other (cheaper but still 'nice') mouldings.

[Steve N]

Totally agree with GeoSpectrum, keep it simple, a choice of half a dozen frames, white/off white mount, with some under-mount colours , make up samples of mounts as double mounts. Don't be fooled regarding more work to come, give a small discount to start with and increase if and when the photographer brings in more work.
Since the introduction of more affordable digital cameras and the likes of PhotoShop there seems to be more "Professional Photographers" springing up, not many last the course, most want to copy Venture and that could be their downfall

[prospero]

Work out a bog-standard simple design. But no harm in doing some jaw-droppers. Then people can opt for either. But in my exp, once they see the jaw-droppers compared to the basic, they go for the jds. Even if they are 3 times the price.
Don't assume that everyone is a cheapskate.

[pieinthesky]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. What I had decided was reasonably simple for most and one 'jawdropper', and glad that most seem in agreement with that.

Regarding discount - been there and done that. I have learnt the hard way that untill the work is in my hand it means nothing. I even allowed one 'photographer' to talk me into it twice - but not again. I was more annoyed with myself for being gullible than anything else.

thanks again,

Anne

[Graysalchemy]

In my experience most photographers want the dogs danglies but only want to pay shirt bottons, so end up with cheap and cheerful.

[stcstc]

i have to disagree, i specialise in photo printing and mounting.

i have a good business based on these photographers )

[Graysalchemy]

Where and others scoreis that you are offering printing and you have a photographic back ground.

Photographers are my least profitable customers. Perhaps because of your printing you are attracting customers who actually give a duck not the ones who go to DS colour labs and pay less than a pound for a 16 x 12 print.

[stcstc]

ya maybe your right ag

i spend no time with art type stuff cos i dont have a clue about it

I am the chairman of my local camera club, and known through a lot of them, and i think this helps a lot

also on social media outlets i get recommended all the time