getting to know you

In 1997, a dozen years ago, a rep friend of mine told me what he thought a health photography career was.

He said it was the rules of 3:

• you want to have 3 books out (aka called in,) all the time
• you want to be estimating 3 projects, all the time
• you want to get 33% of all the projects you bid on, all the time

Okay. I am not sure I actually subscribe to his ideology, but I find it interesting nonetheless.

In 2009...

the good news: Over the years I have been awarded right at 50% of the jobs I have estimated. So, in that respect I am ahead of the curve, great! It seems like when people call me, it means they want to work with me, awesome! Not that they are just pitching & triple bidding.

the um, bad news: People just do not call in books like they used to. It is a drag, because I really like my real portfolio. It is a budget thing and it is a web thing; I get it.

silver lining: On the positive side, even though people might call my book in less, they are looking at my website more. More than last year; and way more than the year before that. We are getting tons of quality traffic.

I digress: Yet, I miss those ‘early in the project development’ phone calls. I met a lot of people that way, by getting to know each other over the phone, during conversations and brainstorm sessions. It seems that now, by the time someone calls (Re: emails,) they are checking availability dates and and it is down to crunching numbers. So I guess my website has done my talking for me. Okay. Wow. Cool, I have already made it through the selection process and it’s ‘award time.’ Well... at least there is a 50% chance that it’s ‘award time.’