Today I want to take a closer look at what you need to make stock work, using a fairly simple formula to quantify your ‘performance’ in a number of key areas.

I call it the Stock Photography Triangle

I’m suggesting you look at your Stock Photography business as being a triangular structure, with three distinct sides: Quality, Content & Volume.

If you then look at your Sales Potential as being the surface area of that triangle, you can see that your potential is at it’s greatest when all three sides are equally strong.

The message here is, no two sides of the business are ever going to be enough on their own. You have to consciously work all three for maximum returns.

• It doesn’t matter how good your photos are, if the subject is weak or you don’t have enough of them, your potential is limited.
• You can have thousands of images ready to go, but if they quality is poor or the content doubtful, the volume won’t do you any good.
• You can have strong, saleable content, but without perfect execution and a reasonable volume, you will struggle to get sales.

Pretty straight forward really isn’t it?

The problem is, as photographers we tend to keep working on those areas where we’re already strong, and avoid those that could really use our attention.

Basically we like to keep doing what we’re ‘good’ at, and avoid working on those areas where we’ve got problems. (Come to think of it, maybe that’s a human trait and not just photographers!)

So anyway, the purpose of today’s article is to introduce the next three we’ll be sending. These are going to cover … you guessed it … Quality, Content & Volume, and specifically we’ll give you a few simple strategies and systems for improving your performance in each of those areas.

Obviously these ideas won’t interest everyone and a lot of people will probably be thinking they just don’t need them. That’s OK. I’ll just ask that you look them over.

We’ve had some great feedback on all this in the past, and we’ve had more than a few ‘long time pros’ who felt compelled to let us know just how surprised they were to find them so useful!

In the mean time, just as an exercise, I want you to write down three numbers … three scores out of ten … for where you are at right now with the following aspects of your Stock Photography:

1. Photo Quality?
2. Stock Content?
3. Work Volume?

Here are a few guidelines …

Photo Quality

10 Your photos are clearly superior to anything you’ve ever seen published of similar subjects!
7 Your photos are as good or better than most of those you see published of similar subjects
4 Your photos are close to the quality of the ones you see, but you can also see differences
1 You wonder how the photographers produce work like that?

Stock Content

10 You see photos with similar content, composition and style published all the time!
7 You see photos with similar content, composition and style published regularly
4 You see similar photos, but they just look really different somehow?
1 You’ve never seen a published photo that could have been one of yours?

Work Volume

10 1000+ images ready, plus 100+ more every month!
7 500+ images ready, plus 50+ more a month being added!
4 100+ images ready & 20 more being added most months
1 <20 images and not many chances to add new material

Give it some serious thought and be totally honest with yourself, then write it down on a sheet of paper you can post beside your computer.

The next few emails will include a series of exercises, systems and strategies that address one or more of these aspects. Basically I want to give you the tools to get these numbers to where they need to be for you to make stock work.

The good news is they don't have to be all 10's for you to start as long as you are prepared to keep working on your weaker areas after you do make a start. In fact, it's actually a lot easier to improve some of these aspects when you are actively involved in selling your work! More on that later though.

For now, take a moment now to accurately assess just where you are for each of them, and which areas you need to work on if you're going to make stock work.

Do it now!



]]> http://stockphotographyprofits.com/tutorials/assess/feed 0