ASMP has been putting on the Strictly Business series for a while now and having attending the last two, I can heartily recommend it.  Many photographers have the mistaken notion that just becoming a better photographer is all you need to do to improve your business.  While the 10,000 hours of practice theory that Malcolm Gladwell has posited in Outliers is true, you still need to know the business side as it’s not enough today to just be a great photographer.

Some of the most valuable information was about SEO, negotiations, licensing, estimating and video.  There was so much to learn that it’s almost overwhelming, but as far as value is concerned, you would be wise to invest in this conference.  The weekend was a blur, but aside from the great education, it was so nice to meet fellow photographers that you can have ongoing relationships with and help each other implement the ideas presented at SB3.

A few cool learnings:

– Push yourself to a zone of discomfort – that’s where the real creative juices get flowing

[Sean Kernan]

– “It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you” – in relation to social media and networking [Blake Discher]

– “If you don’t like change, you’re gonna like irrelevance even less.” [Judy Hermann on strategic reinvention]

– know how people view content – people are now time slicing and day parting (e.g. during the commute they may listen to podcasts or radio, on their lunch breaks they check out Facebook – so you need to be where the audience is) [Tom Kennedy]

– “Differentiate with value or die on price.” [Blake Discher]

– Audio is everything (in video) [Gail Mooney]

There was so much more but as I type things out I realize it won’t do it justice.  We’re preparing to share this information with our internal team here and I’d be happy to speak with anyone else who’s interested but your best bet is to attend SB3!