Bret's Biztalk posts

Annual Marketing Calendar

I'm finally using a marketing calendar and I'm so excited about how it's coming along I wanted to share!

This year is my first year I've actually sat down and created a marketing calendar. I have monthly events, contests, sales, and other types of things I use to constantly try to keep the demand up for my business.

The biggest thing I've found so far, is that having this written marketing calendar is a daily reminder to keep me on task and I'm actually acting on things instead of thinking about doing them. I'm a somewhat disorganized person, so before I had a box full of notes with ideas on what to do but I rarely acted on them. This calendar is proving to be a HUGE help.

What I did last month was convert all my notes and past promotions to a Word document calendar. It was nice but took a long time to do and I was dreading the fact that I'd have to repeat most of it for next year.

I've been looking for good appointment software and through the recommendation of others here I think I've settled on updating to Outlook 2007. What is cool about using Outlook is I can enter the marketing calendar in the calendar and click on the option to make it an annual event. So the majority of my marketing items are scheduled to happen at the same time like clock work year after year. I then gave my marketing related items their own color code.

For example I'm having a Halloween special on the 30th, and 31st. I'll do this every year. I have the third Monday of September marked to photograph the sample photos. The third Friday of September to create the direct mail cards and send them to the printers. The Second Monday of October is set up to send the cards out, and add the event to my blog and local paper. Next year it's already on the calendar.

Also through the recommendations of Biznik members I'm using Plaxo to sync this calendar online with my Google Calendar. It also has it's own calendar and syncs with others. A big added bonus is it will sync the calendar to your other computers. Oh yeah...it's free!

Anyone else use a marketing calendar and have any tips or suggestions?

Bret Percival
Percival Photography
Maple Valley, WA
(http://www.percivalphotography.com/theblog/)

Want list: ability to preview our post

Ok minor request:

I'm not very good at proofreading what I'm babbling about in the little text box. It would be nice if there were a preview post option so we can see what we type and the format it has before we hit the submit button.

I'm sure this isn't a minor thing to implement, but I just wanted to throw it out there.

Is what you do as easy as it looks?

This is a little bit rant, and a little bit conversation. It's about the "I can do that..." syndrome.

As a photographer I'm frequently hearing things like "Wow that's a great photo, I wish I had a camera like that." The response in my head is I wish I had a really nice keyboard so I can write a novel... or I wish I had a really nice hammer so I can build a new house.

I recently read a post suggesting that if you can't afford a commercial photographer all you have to do is take lessons from them and you're golden. That it's not hard, and other photographers won't admit that. OK... you can't afford to hire someone but you can afford to spend thousands on education and years of time... thousands on equipment... and then more time in the school of hard knocks learning how things are really done. All to save a few bucks instead of hiring a professional to start with? I'm I missing something here?

The point I'm making is I'm sure a lot of different professions hear things like this all the time. Some one that is good at what they do will naturally make that task look simple. They invested in a lot of different ways to become the professionals they are. We pay that person not only for the materials and time, but for the knowledge, experience, and skills that they bring to the table.

I've seen some horrible web design, graphic design, photography, construction, (endless list) that someone paid for trying to save a few bucks. The motivational speaker/life coach that really works at McDonalds. The financial planner that just graduated High School and read a 20 page pamphlet. They maybe cheap but are you really getting what you need? If not, are you really saving any money?

There are a lot of talented people on Biznik, check them out and keep in mind that there's more involved with most professional skills than may originally meet the eye.

Bret Percival
Percival Photography
Maple Valley, WA
Percival Photography Studio Blog

Client/appointment software

I'm looking for some options for a good client management and appointment/calendar program. Right now I use an inefficient mixture of MS Outlook, Quickbooks, Google Calendar, my paper calenders, and a ton of paper notes. I'm a mess...

What I'd love to have:

Something (software) that integrates my appointments, my to do list, and keeps my client contacts and other contacts. I'd like to to sync with my Blackberry/i-phone that I don't own yet but plan on purchasing in the near future. I'd also like it to either be able to send the appointments out to Google or some other online calendar program so I can look it up anywhere online.

I use direct mail so I'd like to be able to create mailing lists.

Any suggestions? Maybe not everything I mentioned... maybe even better?

Organization and time management are a huge issue with me, I'm hoping something like this can help me out a bit.

Thanks for any advise!

Bret Percival
Percival Photography
Maple Valley, WA
(http://www.percivalphotography.com)

any way to correct our google map on the profile

For some reason my Google map on my profile is off. For some reason when I put the same address in the full size Google page it works fine.

I know this is probably outside the scope of biznik, but if anyone knows how to correct it that would be great.

Thanks,

Bret Percival Percival Photography

Hello Everyone! Biznik looks very interesting!

Hello!

My name is Bret, and I am a photographer in the Seattle Area. My studio is actually in the S.E. area of King County in Maple Valley. I'm primarily working as a portrait photographer (Families and H.S. Seniors) and photograph about 20 weddings per year.

I also have recently formed a second business dedicated to event photography, geared more towards corporate events, holiday parties, and PR events.

I look forward to meeting many of you online and hopefully at some events!