Kevin Casey, CEO of Collages.net at the "Finding Your Blue Ocean" interactive workshop 2009.

Last night I attended Collages.net’s “How to Find Your Blue Ocean” interactive workshop in Houston, Texas. CEO Kevin Casey lead the interactive workshop. I was there representing The Studio.

I was invited by my good friend Dustin Meyer who has been a longtime customer and advocate of Collages.net. Honestly, I didn’t know quite what to expect, but it was only a 3 hour car ride from Austin (each way) and Dustin volunteered to drive a group of four in his Prius. So, I hopped in, brief case, sunglasses, ballcap, and iPhone in hand ready to see what adventure may bring.

After an entertaining drive down filled with tips and advise, one-liners, and quiet electric powered downhill coasting, we arrived at the Houston Hobby Holiday Inn. After a little elbow rubbing and cake stuffing (Collages is celebrating their 10th anniversary), we were ready to begin the presentation.

The premise of the talk was ‘Finding YOUR Blue Ocean’. Being that I like laying around on the beach I was game to check it out.

The following is from Collage’s blog:

What Profitable Studios are Doing
Understand what is working in the most successful professional photography studios across the U.S.

What to STOP Doing
Conquer your fear of change and see the most common mistakes that studios have stopped making in order to increase their profitability.

What to START Doing
Take away at least three new ideas that you will be able to implement immediately.

What your Finances Really Mean
Hear highlights from PPA’s benchmark survey of 250 studios to help you measure your studio’s financial strength right from Kevin, a PPA board member.

How to Plan for the Future
Discover easy steps that successful studios are taking toward improving the financial management of their studios.

The session was informative and I walked away with executable ideas to help our studio and lot’s of ideas that seem like newby tips but I bet most studios still aren’t doing.

Here’s a few:

1. Create and give out referral cards to your clients and reward them with a free sitting.
2. Network with your local realtors, they know everyone!
3. Send clients a ‘thank you’ gift print so that they can see your print quality.
4. Meet with potential clients in person.
5. Be personal in your blog posts so that potential clients will already feel like they know you… less warm-up time in first time face-to-face meetings.
6. Use pay-per-click advertising. You can turn it off and on and track it.
7. Make nice vendor albums.
8. Post ‘sneak peeks’ on Facebook and create incentive for clients to share them.
9. Create strategic alliances with other vendors.
10. Focus on your strengths and don’t get bogged down in the details of running your business.
11. Create ‘employee reward cards’ for your strategic partners’ employees. Make them look like they are from the employer.
12. Treat your employees, partners, and clients like gold.