School Contracts - Some basics please

[DougAxford]

[quote=ChrisPerry;435943]So you price your packages/prints based on?
quote]
Prices are based onwhat the traffic will bear.

Schools want you in & out with no parent complaints. You need to supply DVD with images for their database in the EXACT format they need and that depends upon what software they are using. If your image database isn't correct, you will have to make it correct. A few might still be on the old paper photos, but not likely.

Some will need ID cards with barcodes (sometimes magnetic stripe), some not. For a typical school of 1,400 kids, we would spend 14 man-hours on pulling money from envelopes (checks & CCs are slow), another 5 on entering into database, 7 on packaging and 2 on sorting and bundling, plus a dozen more hours in sales, getting envelopes to the school, phone calls, etc. Add your photo, editing, printing, etc. to that. Then, you've got re-take day, dealinf with parents that don't like the fact that their kid is a complete brat and it shows in the photo, the kid that came home and says the photographer told them just about any lie in the book, ... it just keeps going.

So.. after all of that, if you are interested, go for it. If you want more answers, the best bet is to work for someone else shooting schools to see how it's done, then go on your own. Honestly, the kind of questions you are asking tells me that you are interested, but you're at step 1 and you've got another 100 to go. Photo Day itself is probably about step 40.

Good luck, doug

[ChrisPerry]

Step 1 of 100? The longest journeys' begin with the first step!

Okay, so far what I know is that of the four school districts I've gotten info on, all use different photogs.

I talked for about 20 mins today with a retired teacher - ran the yearbook at one of the local HS's for 27 years. Each school does it differently he says, and that's why i can't get answers when I call - no one knows. At his school it was totally up to him, and no contract at all. The local photog mentioned 'my seniors sales are down, so next year i'll have to charge you.' - he went and found a photog that would not charge the school. So apparently nobody here is paying the schools. He suggests I send a proposal to the school board and offer to pay them a percentage of the undergrad shots and shoot some of the sports for free and suspects i'd get a good bit of biz out of this. My wife suggests going thru the PTA - offer them 20% and get htem as my ally to make this happen.

So i've got a lot to learn - assuming I can't shoot for my competetion, what's the next best way to learn the necessary stuff? Any books on this? Seminars, DVDs, etc?

[DougAxford]

Something seems VERY strange on this. The only markets I know of that aren't competitive are the ones no one wants. Sometimes the affluent schools are bad news. I've walked from 2 high schools that had rich kids and the numbers absolutely STUNK. School photos are strictly are numbers game. If your buy% or per sales% or kickbacks are up by 10%, you walk real fast unless there's a good reason. This is assembly line stuff. The guys that approach this trying to get award winning stuff always fail.

The organization that I would check out is PSPA, which is part of PMA (Photo MArketing Assn.). PSPA has a convention together with PMA in Vegas in early March. They should be at Photo Marketing Association International for full details. The cost is very low compared to what you will learn.

I would never offer 20%, or even 1% unless you need to. Most seniors in US are photographed non-contract at local studios. So that means the contract guy has to photograph all seniors after taking their mug shots a few months earlier and produce the Class Composites and yearbook CDs. If you've got a local photog that has enough seniors share, you're left with the bottom of the barrel.

I would join PSPA, get to their convention and probably consider hiring an outside consultant to review your game plan. There are a few good ones. Chris Wunder comes to mind first. Sorry, don't know an email off the top of my head, but he'll be a PSPA member and you can get member #'s through PMA office in Mich.

IF - caps on purpose - you can run a smooth system, there is very good money. If you don't, well it's an expensive lesson. Shooting 1,500 kids in one day requires military-style planning and delivery.

Doug

[ChrisPerry]

My local district is 1100 k-6 I think, and 1000 in MS/HS (7-12). 190 seniors maybe. not sure what percentage buy anything of course, but senior averages here are $400 or more - depends on the studio of course. That is what one does, i shoot from home and don't do a view and choose projection deal and get $325 or so. A studio that works it well about an hour from here averages closer to $900 and he teaches what he does.
There are 11 districts in my county I think - some not worth having, some are. I saw what the little league parents bought and what it sells for, so the locals will apparently spend.

All i really want is access to the seniors . I'm not that interested in production line photography, but you do what you gotta do. Tell me how to get to the seniors and i'll skip all the hard work

I live in backwards area - websites? Many photogs don't have them, or have ones that have not changed in 2 or 3 years! I'm motivated to make a good living and willing to work to do it. I can get labor cheap (under $10/hour no prob - $7-8 probably, but i'm willing to pay more for competance)

I'd only want to pay a percentage of what the parents buy on the headshot packages, after a base sale, for a 3 year contract - i'd get the proms and senior mailing list (hell -the whole school's list!) and team photos (team sports posters have been done here, but i don't see them often - they sell well elsewhere) - it's up to me to market it and sell it, and have a product they want to buy.

My issue would be if i got a lot of senioir biz I'd not be able to run it from my home, so my costs would take a jump - hence wanting a contract.

[RickArnold]

I have a very small studio in the Midwest and did a school for the first time last year. I got in good with the Principal and thats all it took. She confided in me that she would do just about anything to get Lifetouch out. She also told me they come in and undercut everyone to get the contract. Then they get them to sign for 3 to 4 years and the 2nd year they have a 50-100% price increase. Lifetouch pictures are amatuerish at best.

We were winging most of it as we went along since this was the first time doing anything like this. We took only 300 K-8 kids over 2 days on blue screen with myself as the only photog. Between Fall and Spring pictures and the other special items we netted $10K. Mind you thats Midwest money. We didn't have any expense for help as we got several parents to help and paid them in pictures. We had 90% order rate for Fall and 50% for spring. Spring orders were much higher $ wise since we did multiple poses. Fall pictures rate was high because if they ordered over a certain amount they recieved a free yearbook.

We give 5% to the School and 5% to this tuition assitance program for the people the order. Children are given a proof of thier pictures with 2 choices for the 8th graders. We had password protected online ordering. Since we took a little extra time with each child we managed to have less than 1% retakes.

Things I am doing differntly this year is having 2 photogs to do it in one day and I am going to gel for background choices and won't do digital background replacement.

One of the extra services I offered them that they really like is they can give me a calendar of thier little special days and prioritize them and I will have someone go take shots for thier yearbook. This works out really nice for me to so I have really good high res images for the yearbook and not some crap one of the teachers took with thier friends camera... you know the ones... out of focus, overflashed and no idea what the subject is

[maderemark]

Email me at mark@spectralight.com and I'll send you a proposal I did for my high school. I didn't get the contract but I think the proposal was well written. You can use it for a guide.

Mark

[Albert Kadosh]

I just did a small school (about 160 kids)
20% to the school.
Pricing: ROUGHLY $10 per 8x10 unit (different packages were a bit less)
We photographed about 50 kids in 2 hours, but it could have gone faster. It was a matter of teachers getting their classes out to the playground on time. We did about 4 shots per child to select the best one for each (reduces retakes).
89% of the kids bought photos. Average sale approx USD $17.00
Contract is on a year to year basis. This was my second year with them.

Big "L" IS in this area, they did the big schools....

I would be most interested in discussing strategies to penetrate school markets with anyone on this forum. Albert Kadosh 480-282-8541 ak@spectrum77.com