For those of you on the Nashville Smug Mug mailing list, I sent out details last week for our February meet up.  All photographers are welcome–no need to be a member!  Just RSVP here to confirm your spot, as seating is limited.

We will be meeting in the theater of the Westhaven Residents club this month at 6:00. If you’ll be getting off work and can’t make it until 6:30, that is no problem–please come anyway! The residents club closes at 8:00, so we’re just setting the start time at 6:00 so that we have plenty of time for everyone to talk and meet each other before it gets started, and then get through everything and finish by 8:00. After that, we’ll probably all be going out for dinner somewhere nearby, and you’re all invited to hang out for as long as you’d like!

Part 1:

Please email up to 15 of your favorite images from 2009 to sean@mclellanstyle.com. We will be putting together a slideshow featuring everyone’s favorite work from last year and playing it beginning around 6:30 – 6:45.

Part 2 (Win a free one year subscription to Smug Mug Pro!)

Please bring a print of one of your photographs to this meeting, as well as a penny (please don’t put any identifying marks on the front of the image). We will be setting the images out and you will vote for the one that gives you the strongest emotional reaction by placing your penny on top. The image with the most pennies at the end will win a one year subscription to Smug Mug Pro!

Can’t wait to see you all again!

For any last minute updates/details, keep an eye on this meetup page, as well as Nashville Smug leaders Sean & Mel on twitter:

http://twitter.com/seanmclellan

http://twitter.com/melmclellan

Mel and I have been so excited about this wedding ever since we first met with Bonnie & Daniel and they told us they were planning on going all out with a vaudeville/steampunk inspired theme!

We speak quite a bit about trying to be unique, do something different, push the limits.  As soon as Bonnie & Daniel shared their ideas with us, we immediately started thinking of what we could do for unique display pieces and unique ways to share their wedding imagery with their friends and family.  One of the display ideas we came up with is a new take on the “McLellan Style Vintage Cinema” stop-motion montage we posted a couple of years ago and we’re so excited about how it turned out!

One really great thing about the wedding was that Bonnie & Daniel were able to get all their guests into the theme as well!  Between them dressing for the turn of the century period, most of their guests dressing for the period, and the perfect venues they chose (Union Station Hotel and Cannery Ballroom) it all came together to create something really beautiful.

When we finished, we couldn’t wait to share it with Bonnie & Daniel!  We did this three months ago and they told us they were going to surprise their friends and family with it as a group over New Years. We didn’t want to spoil it so we’ve been waiting to post it publicly until now.

Make sure your sound is turned up!

Thanks for looking–and thank you Bonnie & Daniel for going all out, and getting your friends and family involved!

3. Network with other vendors

The truth is that ads no longer work like they used to. We’re inundated with them. For real success, you need to be building relationships. And the best part is, the more you help other people, the more they will help you.

I realize that everyone is saying “network” right now, and I feel like the word “networking” has got somewhat of a bad feeling attached to it. I think that one of the reasons for this is people are just going through the motions because someone told them to. Often times they don’t really care about making real connections or really helping someone, it’s just about passing out as many business cards as you possibly can. Have you been to a corporate sponsored “networking event” where someone rushes up to you and says “Hi, my name is John, here’s my card, will you refer me?Thanks!” and then they immediately move on to the next person without another word? I intentionally left no space between the question and “Thanks!” because they didn’t even leave a second for you to even respond to them.

When I say “networking,” I’m not referring to the cold, lifeless cousin of speed dating that I just mentioned. I’m talking about real relationships. Have you had success in your business? Can you help another vendor who is struggling? Can you make some time to get together with other vendors and just go do something non work related? How many of you have essentially become your business? It might be a huge help to you to just go out and have some fun, and at the same time it could be a big gift to another vendor in your same situation who just needs someone to show up and make it happen for them.

What do you do with all of those extra leads that come in for days that you’re booked? Leads that are outside of your travel area? Leads that are outside of your beginning pricing? Make a strong recommendation that they check out your friends. It’s one thing to just send an email that says “we’re booked, good luck calling XYZ photography.” What if you actually talked to the potential clients to find out what drew them to your style? What if you found out some more details about their wedding—where is it? What sort of budget are they working with? Tell them you’ll make some calls and find someone who’s available for them, rather than sending them on the never-ending vendor search.

We’ve had people we’ve gone the extra mile in making personal recommendations for, and they were so thankful for the extra time we spent with them, that they referred their friends to us later, even though they didn’t hire us. This does take some extra time, but it’s more than worth it. We’ve also been developing the world’s first intelligent networking tool for wedding professionals that is designed to do exactly this, but it removes the legwork. I’m not going to go into details on that right now, but we’ve been beta testing for a few months now, and it’s been nothing short of fantastic!

I have ridiculous amounts of ideas on the specifics of how to go about networking with people, and I will be sharing those—this topic could go on forever. In the meantime, to get you started, just keep in mind the foundation: that it’s about real relationships, and really helping people out. “Go out to lunch” with other vendors is a great start that I hear all the time; but don’t expect that because you ate a sandwich with a wedding planner that they are going to magically start sending you a mountain of referrals.  Invest time and effort into people, and they will invest time and effort into you.