4 - A short History of how the Marketing Mastery Workshop on DVD came to be
The idea for the Marketing Mastery Workshop on DVD came about when I realized that my previous marketing tutorials --such as the Marketing CD, my essays on Selling photographs, or even my Marketing Seminar-- where far from being comprehensive tutorials about how to sell your photographs. These were useful tutorials, but a complete course on selling photographs was necessary. This was made clear through the countless emails I received asking me questions that the CD, the seminar or the essays did not answer.

My second motivation for the Marketing Mastery workshop on DVD was that more and more photographers want to sell their work. There are several reasons for this. For some photographers it is because their work is good enough to be sold. For others, it is a way to either supplement their income or to generate their entire income. For others selling their photographs is a dream they have had for years, a dream they want to make happen now.

The economic situation plays an important role as well. A number of photographers have either lost their jobs or seen their income drastically reduced through pay cuts in recent years. Layouts have become common, and losing a job that one expected to keep until retirement has become an unfortunate reality for many

The collapse of the stock market in past years and the uncertainty of investments in general has furthered photographers distrust of traditional forms of additional income such as bonds, stocks or even money market accounts. Finally, the current mortgage crisis has placed the last nail in the coffin of financial security for many of us. For most, owning a house, or owning investment properties, something that once was a guarantee of financial well-being, has become a financial nightmare at worst or a dormant asset at best.

All this has contributed to photographers seeing a strong income potential in their photographs, in their body of work, and in their knowledge of photography. Unfortunately, something is missing and that something is the knowledge of how to sell your work. While we have many tutorials on how to take photographs, there are no tutorial that covers how to sell photographs and operate a photography business from A to Z.

Furthermore, the few "marketing photography" tutorials that exists were written prior to the digital age and are therefore no longer valid today, because they are based on the now-outdated marketing model of selling film photographs. This model was developed prior to the existence of the web, email, google, digital capture, inkjet printing and so on. In other words, the few tutorials that exist tell you how to sell photographs in a world that no longer exists. They are simply no longer useful.

Finally, I don't know of any tutorial that actually tells you precisely how a successful photographer sells his (or her) work. This is hard to do, because a business is by nature personal. However, creating emotional photographs and finding a personal style are just as personal. Since I have been teaching the two later subjects for years, and since I have also been teaching marketing for years, I saw no problem creating a tutorial in which I "open the doors of my photography business" so that you can learn exactly how and why I do what I do.

More importantly, in the Marketing Mastery DVD I show you exactly how you can do it too. That, eventually, is the number one goal of this tutorial. If you cannot do it to, then what is the point, right? So I focus on giving you clear directions about how to do what I do. I even designed and included a step-by-step chart at the end of the DVD whose purpose is to get you started by helping you make the first steps towards selling your work, by teaching you how to set specific and realistic goals, and by having you make a success contract with yourself.

The result is a DVD tutorial that will shave years off your learning curve. Instead of learning all you need to know at the "school of hard knocks," you will learn it from someone who has already attended this school and who is saying: "Do this, not that, because this works while that doesn't. I know, I tried both."

Why would I teach all that I know? Because I think that this country is large enough to accommodate a few more successful photographers. We are far from having reached the saturation point. There are many local markets that I do not plan to target and that you can target :-)

Furthermore, digital is a very young medium and, as I explained, many photographers continue to sell their work by following the marketing model developed for film photography, a model that is now outdated. Few know the ins and out of marketing in the digital world. Again, here too there is room for competition and growth.

Finally, I feel bad seeing photographers sell their work for next to nothing because they do not know how to get a good price for their work. You cannot run a business that way because the profits are either too small or there are no profits at all. In this DVD tutorial I teach you a precise method of pricing your work, one that takes into account all your costs and that allows you to price your work fairly for your customers while allowing you to make a good income. For me the growth and the respect of digital photography as a business depends on teaching solid marketing skills to photographers who want to sell their work.

5 - Quicksteps
I decided to include many unique files on the DVD, files that are not available anywhere else. These files include a concept I developed and created that I call Quickstep Files. Quickstep Files are printable documents that describe each step I go through step by step, in a simple and precise manner. Quickstep files are comparable to notes you would take while listening to the tutorials (there are over 100 tutorials on the DVD) or reading one of the essays or the PDF files (over 100 PDF tutorials are on the DVD). However, these notes have already been taken for you, and all you need to do is follow them to complete each step on your own. You can even print them if you like and place them in a binder or use them as you study and practice each step. There are 29 Quicksteps on the DVD, one for each Step.

A list of all the software, hardware and the supplies I use is provided, together with links to each manufacturer's website. This link is a treasure trove of information, one that took me years to assemble. As it is, you do not need to do anything except click on the links to see exactly what I use and where I get it from.

6 - DVD Updates
Updates of the 29 steps and 100 sub-steps will be posted to a private area of my website. You will receive a link to this area, together with a user name and password, when you order your Marketing Mastery DVD package. These updates will be in the form of new tutorials in audio, video and PDF format. The updates area is located on this site and can be accessed at any time by using your name and password. There are no limits regarding how often you can visit the updates page.