Latest / the Visual Historian - "A Photographer's Journey" / This is important for quality purposes.

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This is important for quality purposes. · the Visual Historian - "A Photographer's Journey"

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, last weekend was Labor Day weekend.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Did you do any labor?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or did you just barbecue with the kids?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get to it in a minute.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have a lot to talk about today.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be talking about with the word quality.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Quality.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So uh my my question to you is uh oh sorry, by the way, welcome back to the Visual Historian Podcast.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you can uh listen to your boy GK over here speak about everything from the photography world, the business world, my personal life, my motivation, my positivity, my marketing strategies, my business as it is still going and thriving.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we are all in this boat together.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you are honestly any kind of business can relate to a lot of the things that us photographers are doing uh these days to be relevant, to stay in front of people's minds, you know, get on their stories, and you know, when that phone goes to their face, you need to pop up somewhere, you know.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: The whole idea of uh searching for people, you know, people still do that, but it's very different these days when everything is right there on the phone.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a Doom scroller.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I know you are too.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So when certain people come up in the feed over and over again, you can't help it but remember them.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, there's there's your business lesson of the day.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: But today I want to talk about the word quality.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is because I have been seeing this everywhere I go, whether it's restaurants, whether it's car washes, whether it's church.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: I even noticed something in church last week.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: I have always been taught what quality was, and I'm not sure if that's being done anymore.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you uh when I say kids, uh in your 20s, okay, I'm not worried about a teenager because your parents are still paying for everything, you know, and when they are paying for everything, you just know what quality is through them.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if your grandma isn't still around and she explained to you, um, you know, the higher the thread count, the softer the sheets and the more expensive they are, then you don't have anything to justify what is good quality.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So when it comes to the world that we live in today, things uh you can get cheaper, and you know darn well when you're getting Timu stuff or um Sheen, which is Shein, by the way.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's not Sheen.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Go look at the documentary.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um you expect cheap to be I'm gonna wear it once.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh these lights I got from Timu in the yard, if they last six months, it's worth the really super duper cheap price.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's my phone.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um I wanted to talk about what are you being taught today as far as quality?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I say 20s, because when you're in your 20s and higher up, you know, you start earning your money, you start valuing your money, you start valuing your time, how much you're spending, how much you don't have to spend, maybe you have a ton, maybe you do not.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: My point is what is quality to you?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I personally think the word quality applies to different people in different ways.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you always have a more lesser quality something to compare to, then whatever is above it, it basically is higher quality from what you're used to.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't mean it's the highest quality in that field, whatever it is that you're talking about.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where it gets very difficult when we start talking about artists in business, like photographers, like florists, like painters, you know, somebody hanging there art their photography in an art gallery, you start coming across this conversation that you kind of sort of can't really have with people because their versions of what is higher quality is different for each person, you know.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when they say art is in the eye of the beholder, that's kind of what they mean.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you grow a client base that believes in you, believes in your work, um, wants more of you, you're at a fair price, and wash, rinse, repeat.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's how we stay in business.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what we're not staying in business by being the best, we're staying in business by that wash, rinse, repeat, which is a lot more difficult than people realize.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: To continuously create good things in general.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just say good things.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're not even talking about photography.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: This could be anything, you know.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's where we are today.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, how many things could you pay less for um and get the same quality?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: I would normally say you get what you pay for.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think in the photography world these days, there's some beginner photographers who are really good, you know, and they should charge more.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's hard to push somebody that deserves more when they don't believe it in themselves.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I was that guy, you know, going back 30 something years, um, if you didn't go to seminars, you didn't go to pay PPA events, professional photographers of America or PPLA, where I am in Louisiana, professional photographers of Louisiana.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, if you didn't have a community that that showed you the way, kind of sorta, or helped you believe in yourself, it's it's kind of wild.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because not everybody is right.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know what I mean?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you can't listen to your best friends or your mom and dad.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's not where you're getting your that's not where you should be getting your compliments from.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: It should be from the average Joe.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: It should be from, you know, somebody that does not know you personally.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's kind of like if you're losing weight and somebody throws you an unsolicited compliment, meaning they haven't seen you in a while, and they're just kind of like, hey, you look fantastic.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Did you did you do something?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Did you lose some weight?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: That feels so much better than you fishing for a compliment.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Janine.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good to see you.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, girl, it's been hard not eating pizza for three weeks.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you do look pretty good.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God, thank you so much.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's fishing for a compliment.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: So as a business, you're thriving on unsolicited compliments.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you get them, you get them in reviews, you you get them from people talking about you, honestly.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: That referral business is so important.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: It may be more important than anything that you do in your career, to be honest.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know how to nurture the human interactions in your business, I could see it being more difficult, you know, unless you're selling a widget online and I guess the lowest denominator does win on that one, as long as the quality is the same on both widgets that you're comparing.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, I'm just curious.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: I have a question for anybody out there that I'm gonna use an example here that has a shed in their backyard.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like a shed, like a custom build shed, you know.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we recently got a shed, and I'm not gonna use names because as a business, I don't I always hate it when people throw out negative things on another business, because there's always a lot at play.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's more things behind the scenes than what you realize, and it could be a one-case scenario, or is it every time?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I this is so silly, but I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you this.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a custom-built shed, okay, whether you did it yourself or you paid to get it done, I want you to go to your shed.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to open a door, I want you to walk in.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to look up.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: When they put the roof on, and that nail gun was clickety-clickety-clickety.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: When you look up, do you see nails through the roof?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like the sharper part of the nail is what you're looking at because it's like two centimeters past the little insulation or whatever it is that's on top.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you look up, does it look like um a Tommy gun went off in there with a machine gun?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it looks like holes, but they're not holes, they're little little nails poking through.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm just curious because it happened to me, same company, different city, called that person that I know that got one a couple years ago, and I said, Hey dude, go take a picture inside your shed, you know, pointing up.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just curious.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, What am I looking for?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, just go shoot it.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: So he shoots it, he takes a picture, he sends it back to me, and he goes, What am I looking at?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I said, You have it too.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, What?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Well, ironically, we both use the same company, but it's a huge, huge company.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And those nails came through the roof part.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Okay.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Alright, I'm just being dumb here, but doesn't that create a hole?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, eventually over time, and the wood relaxes and it's you know, expand, contract, expand, contract.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Don't those little holes widen or deteriorat or something, and eventually you're gonna get a leak?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm actually asking you.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, you know, I never thought about that.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't gotten a leak yet.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, yeah, you got you got your shed two years ago.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's new, you know.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm very curious.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you have one of these suckers at your house, go inside, look up.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see nails coming through the top part of your ceiling or not?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my father-in-law was over at Home Depot and he went inside one of those little sheds outside that they're, you know, showing off.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, granted, the ones that are outside, I wouldn't even think twice about it because they're just very quickly made to show you to give you an idea of what this shed could look like.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's not a professional install for outside a Home Depot.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: So when he took the picture, he sent it to me, and they're sure enough, they're through the they're through the ceiling.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: They're coming through too.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, yeah, but I would expect that again.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Quality, you know, outside Home Depot, some employee having a task of putting this darn thing together, and it's only like a third, right?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: They usually do like a facade.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they show you the whole thing, sometimes they don't.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, I would imagine that's what's happening.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think the company itself is coming to install these things.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so quality-wise, I would expect it in front of Home Depot.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I would not expect it custom built on my property.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: You follow me?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just I'm very I'm asking like so many people today, because I am gonna go call my sales associate that handled us with this.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, send him the I want to email him the pictures, and I want him to be aware of all these holes that are coming through the roof.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: So when I have a leak, they're gonna have to do something about it.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: If.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope not.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it'll never have a leak.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just a consumer.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just the guy that paid for something, and uh the quality in my head seems like it could have been paid attention to a little bit more than what it is.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know you can get nails in different sizes, like the lengths, you know.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's no reason why they still couldn't do the roof, but you know, an inch smaller, like literally just an inch smaller would not come through the roof, you know?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, you see, we're talking about quality.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I'm talking about.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Would you pray or would you would you how would you feel paying a premium for something like this?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you get results less than what you thought.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, that's the quality conversation we're really having is do you feel good paying what you did with the results you received?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, as a photographer in business, um, I deal with a lot of commercial, corporate, high-end itineraries and things on the list that needs to get done a certain way.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um, they're great to work with.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: I love all my people.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is the level I like rolling at.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're all in the same boat, top quality, good, you know, delivery time, wash, rinse, repeat.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I was just curious, if you own a business, what quality do you think you're producing for your people?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and look, it's okay if you know darn well you have this uh clothing store boutique thingy, and you know darn well you're buying your stuff from the same place as Sheen, you know that quality.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: So if you feel good about the prices you're charging, and hopefully they're matching what Sheen is charging, if that's where you're getting your clothes from.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you see where I'm going with this.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, is your grandma hand stitching the uh hems in these gowns, or is it just super duper cheap and that's why the hem comes apart?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, but this is the quality conversation.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: So as you are doing what you do today, what I would like you to do is put a positive spin on this conversation.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the next time you're in something very simple, like a drive-thru, a coffee shop, you know, those just know those workers there, you know, they're not getting paid a ton.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: So if somebody gives you good service, somebody says thank you, and they're smiling, and they make sure they wipe the drip on the cup before handing it to you.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one, a tip would be great, but it's okay.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I understand if you don't have the tip money.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: However, stopping to acknowledge that person, just say, excuse me, I just gotta be honest with you.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And she's gonna look, he or she's gonna look at you like, uh-oh, what'd I do?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, you are absolutely fabulous.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: I hope this company understands what they have every time you come to work.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you were one of my employees, I would treat you the best.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's you're just amazing.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: That is better than any dollar tip, you know?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: It just is.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of places that are less quality performing better than custom branded name brands.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we're in this world of Amazon returns and Sheen and you know, just all kinds of.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: We have so many options these days, and that's just it.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have so many options.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And when they're not local options where you can just drive to the store and put your hands on something, talk to the salesperson or the owner, have some questions, you know, not having so much of that anymore, I think, is the real thing that we're kind of going through.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like my generation, Generation X, that grew up on this kind of conversation, and we knew what to look for for quality, we knew what good service was, we knew um products that lasted longer than 10 years.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like your refrigerator lasting three years is BS.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: They were lasting 15 before we had kids.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: My dad used to sell them.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Everything was made better.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why, but their product matched the quality and matched the price they were selling it for.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, if you are one of these businesses, I just want you to be aware of what are you doing, what are you delivering.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Are you proud of what you're delivering, or in the back of your head, do you know you uh you need to talk to you, people working for you and level it up a little bit?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um, us consumers notice everything.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: When we're at a restaurant, we look up, we look at the ceiling, we look at the vents, we look at um the airflow.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: When it's super duper dusty, like, is that gonna fall on my food?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're not coming back.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're not.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna say, oh, that was delicious, but we're not gonna come back.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes when it's uh slower than usual, maybe look inside first.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, look into what you're doing first before you assume everything else on the outside is affecting, you know?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, all right, I am gonna get out of here.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: I have um more to come.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm happy to say I have a photographer that is gonna be on the show that his work is um published, um, like printed published, um, not just internet.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's a whole nother conversation with me, by the way.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, man, his stuff is in our galleries, and he's getting more and more uh known for what he does, the quality of what he produces.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell all my guests, okay, I love having people on here, but I do want you to understand that I created this podcast because I think there's a lot of conversation behind the scenes that is extremely valuable to the new person trying to start a career in any creative industry.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to just be a photographer, okay.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: So hearing other owners, hearing other artists and their stories of how it was bumpy, how did they succeed, you know, what are they still doing to stay relevant?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think those things that are very simple to you and I are worth its weight and gold to somebody who's in between um careers, they're in between a major in in college and they want to do something creative, but they have nobody to help them out.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think hearing the conversation of what are the possibilities, and look, a lot of people's stories don't apply to you and they won't.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: But there's usually a fact or two that was, oh, I should have grabbed my little notebook because that was that was money, you know.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're gonna come be a guest on the show, I'm very happy that I would uh like to promote your product or your service or whatever it is that you're coming on the show for.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: However, equally, I would like it balanced to where we're educating our listeners um just as much, if not more, than buy my book, go to my website and buy my program.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't dig that, you know.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get paid when people come on the podcast yet.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um still a a baby, a baby podcast, but um I'm growing.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: The numbers are looking great.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, coverage is all over the place, and I'm getting emails from people all around the country.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it's really neat because providing something of value is the kind of quality I want to have on this podcast.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, you guys.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: See you in the next one.