April Meeting - Summary

Hey Everyone!

What a great meeting we had for April. Not only did we have a great round-table discussion on WPPI and any accompanying elements, but we also had an out of town guest, Victor Sizemore. I met Victor while at WPPI and I knew he was going to be in town for the April TCPPA meeting. While talking with him, I said that we should get together while he was in town. When I got home I thought he may enjoy meeting some additional people and invited him to our meeting. Not only is he a great photographer who is building a really successful business, but is simply a really likable guy. He had a lot of good points that he shared with the group as a whole and some that he gave out on a more one-on-one basis. I thought it was a lot of fun having a guest and would like to say thanks to Victor for coming, and those of you who gave him a warm welcome (Picture compliments of Sue Austin).


As for WPPI, all the attendees tried to share some of their experiences. I talked a bit about the importance of WPPI from a networking standpoint and the sheer number of people you can meet. Not only is it my contention that you should network with new photographers but also your vendors. It is always good to strengthen any relationship (business or otherwise). David Drufke shared his thoughts on some common themes: branding, business savvy, "finishing" vs. outsourcing, etc. The number one thing he came away with is that you have to be true to yourself. Do what you want to do. If you are setting your own trends and walking that path, your only "real" competition is yourself. Bjorn Meisner talked about how he always gets a lot out of WPPI plus and the business institute. He also mentioned that after attending the David Williams presentation on architectural album design, he has started to look at the entire wedding process differently. All in all, I think everyone who went got a lot out of it and came back with new thoughts, ideas, and friends.

As an aside, we found out that our PUG had the second highest attendance increase for the March contest, plus we won $250 towards a meeting for having the most creative idea. Stacey and I along with Pictage would like to thank all of you who attended and getting the word out. I would also like to once again thank Janet from Minnesota Bride and Mike from Mike Colon Photographers for helping make the contest such a success.

Items of Interest:
1) Be sure to participate in the April Gift Card contest! The region with the highest percent of events released in April with preregistered gift credits win Joe Buissink! How cool would that be?!
2) Don't forget to wish Tanya Villano a happy birthday on Friday the 18th. Hope you have a GREAT day Dear:)
3) Wendy Blomseth would like to encourage everyone to attend the St. Paul Art Crawl (see image below)

4.) Shared studio space available:

Wendy is also looking for someone to share space with her in St. Paul. Here are the
details...

Lastly, Katrina Hannemann mentioned that there is shared consulting space available at
the CW Lofts on Stinson Blvd. Contact Heather@adagioinc.com if interested.

Thank you to all who attended. It was great seeing all the usual suspects and a few new faces too.

Stacey and Jason Thon

Victor Sizemore.

WOW.
If you missed it last night, I'm sorry.
Victor Sizemore did a fabulous job of
inviting us into his world of wedding
photography. Didn't start that long
ago and has built himself a pretty nice
collection of weddings near and far.

His work is tasteful and fun, his ethics
are spot on, and yes, his boots were
sexy!

Victor is a family man and makes time
for that as well.
He travels a ton and gets the job done.

We were lucky to have him schedule
this speaking engagement for our TCPPA
(Thanks Amy Zellmer) and I hope he comes
back for more in the future.

I won a pack of "Totally Rad" actions
for being the only one in the audience
with a Mark III (yay me!) and I'm looking
forward to playing with them.

Victor also go into the basics of
Lightroom. That was cool. I'm not
using mine just yet but I will now!

Many of us PUGgers that were
in attendance want to get together
soon in a group and discuss what works
best for us and what actions and presets
we like best..a show and tell, if you will.
Let's get that on the books!

Hope you all can make it to tonight's PUG!
We'll be going over some WPPI stuff.

TCPPA's Super Monday

(the following was pulled from my blog today)

Yesterday, TCPPA put on "Super Monday".
A day dedicated to education and all proceeds
went to our TCPPA chapter's charity,
Operation Smile.

I met Dave Johnson from National Camera yesterday
at the Hopkins Hennepin County Library to go
over work flow. The weather kept the other guy from
showing so I got at private 1 on 1 lesson from
a master of task handling. It was awesome!
We went straight from 10am to almost 4.
I learned so much and can't wait to start putting
my new found actions to work for me.
Dave is a folder guy and a list guy. yay!

I'm also now armed with the resources to leave
and delegate someone to do my work for me.
Well, should it come to that someday. God knows
I'd love to get someone else to do my post for me!
Hey, perhaps Gary would like to help me out
in the winter months when he's off (HA!).

Anyway, I was surprised to see that no one else was
signed up for this class. Maybe everyone else
has a perfect work flow or is outsourcing their
post. I'll be able to do it now on my own, faster
and get to the next project.

Dave recommends that you list what you do and
how much time you spend doing it...like a daily
time clock, so that you can see where your
"bottle necks" are and if you can actionize them.

What are your biggest tasks?
From start to finish...can you actually divide
how much time you spend on each event into the
money your are charging and determine if you
made money or lost money? CRAZY, I know..
Start with the first call and go to final delivery
of product. Where do you sit?
What's in your wallet!?

Don't get FOOLED today!