Wayne Barksdale Marketing 201

Back by popular demand, Wayne Barksdale is the president of Barksdale School Portraits. It is the oldest school photography company in the USA. He will lead us through the development and implementation of a professional school marketing plan. Yes, boys and girls, he will be talking about ass in the seats or feet on the streets. There is more to life than just showing up and throwing up. A great marketing plan will save you time and money and give your business the edge to not only survive, but grow into the future.

How to build a winning sales presentation that will get you more schools with less effort. ABC (always be closing)

Skip Cerier is the founder and president of SchoolPictures.com. With a KU Business School/Accounting background, in his 35 year career, entrepreneur Skip Cerier has founded four photography related businesses, the most recent of which was SchoolPictures.com. He will have a panel of professional sales people from successful school picture companies spilling their trade secrets. Become the sales person you need to be to succeed in the intensely competitive business.

New trends in Senior Portraits that wow the clients and win the sales.

Lou Coopey, of All Pro School Photography will lead us through the cutting edge of the most profitable aspect of the school picture industry. He will lead a panel of seasoned senior portrait photographers that will look at the ever changing landscape of this treasured tradition. Don't be a follower. Be the leader in your area. Lou Coopey is Arizona's Premier Independent Photography Studio. It has been family owned scene 1967.

The Senior Portrait business is changing every year. What is the new reality and how are we adapting? A panel of Senior Photographers will attempt to shed some light on the matter.

Senior panel members for SPAC:
Lou Coopey – Moderator
T.J. Rak – Online Ordering
Glenn Bottomly – How to become your own Yearbook Publisher
Calvin Harrell – Volume Seniors on Location
John Coopey – Volume Contract Seniors in Studio
Amanda Rak – Social Media Management for the Senior Photographer

New Technology and the School Photographer. Keep up the latest and greatest time saving developments.

Calvin Harrell Jr., president of ABC School Portraits in Northern California, will lead a panel of Geeks that will speak in real English and explain the new trends in technology. All successful photographers must be life long learners. Don't let the fear of the unknown hold you back. If we are real lucky, Lifetouch might be able to talk about their Expression First Program.

Taking Sports Photography to the Next Level

Bill Champion, has been a photographer and studio owner for 19 years. Now a Production Coordinator & Workflow Strategist with Pictures Plus/Studio 60 and as Marketing Manager and Technical Advisor to Champion Digital Design, Bill creates and manages the workflow protocols for school and sports photography. He specializes in the development and incorporation of cutting-edge graphics into production workflows to create new innovative products on a volume basis. Pictures Plus/Studio 60 presently photographs over 60 schools in 3 states and more than 60,000 heads in sports photography each year. Bill has developed innovative unique products, workflow scenarios and marketing strategies that are focused on increasing sales and cutting waste.

Program outline
Gain & Retain: Growing Business Without Increasing Costs

Growing your sport business without increasing costs—mission impossible? Not with Bill Champion's advice! Come learn how to use dynamic graphics and creative workflow strategies to acquire and retain school and sports contracts while decreasing your production costs. You will see numerous ways you can set your business apart from the competition, including:

• How to attract new customers and retain old customers with unique products that don't increase production cost.
• How to redefine "old standard products" to set you apart and make you the school or sport photographer clients look for.
• Demonstrations of how complex, highly customized products can be
• produced on a volume basis.

Take a peek inside Artona's social media and sales platform

Amanda Rak and TJ Rak,will share what Artona's seniors are looking for when they use social media, how Artona's social media team monitors and maintains the company's online presence and personality everyday, and how email marketing directs traffic to their Facebook and Twitter pages and e-commerce platform. Find out what has and hasn't worked for them and how leveraging online technology has saved and made money in customer service, photography, and production.

Business tips for the School Photographer. Streamline your workflow to keep more dollars by spending less and working smarter.

Linda Carter, president of Fox' School Portraits, will host a group of speakers that will focus on saving you money.  She will have tips from professional school photographers that have developed production techniques that will keep you more profitable and competitive in these challenging days. What you will learn at his session will more than pay for your expense of attending SPAC.

In this session Chris Wunder will walk you through the process of how do you set your prices for your picture and products for the highest profit. Marty Brown of Excel photographers will give a report about the cost of production vs. profit obtained with the traditional ways of selling school pictures.  We will look at different programs such as the Pre-Paid picture program, a Spec (pre-printed) program and the Proof programs.  Robert Ste-Marie from 36pix will talk about the world of online hosting and sales.  All are real world photographers sharing real world experiences.

Lifetouch's buyout of Herf Jones

John Brinkman, former regional sales manager for Herf Jones, currently with Interstate will lead a forum about what happens to the accounts when a major change is made.   For example what happens when Lifetouch buys out a competitor?  He will talk about how it affects their products and services they are accustomed to receiving? How do you contact them, what do you say? What might be the long and short term effects? Also, what not to say or focus on.

Adding to your Market Mix

Jeremy Cady, from Cady and Cady Studios will lead a forum that will focus on new profit centers and products that school photographers will be able to add to their market mix to maximize profit at each school.  Bob Winkler from Lumapix and Patrick Scherling from Scherling Imaging along with other will be their ideas about the evolution of the school photographer’s market.

How to compete against Lifetouch's Expression First program

On Friday after noon SPAC will lead off with a photographer’s forum that will focus on the advancement of Lifetouch’s Expression First program.  If you are not aware of what the Lifetouch has done to advance school photography, you will need to find out what is lurking in your future.  If you are currently serving a market that Lifetouch is offering this program you need to know how to compete.  This is game changing technology that you must be ready to match up with or you will soon need to find another profession.

You’ve Worked Hard For Your Money, Learn How To Make It Work For You!

You’ve worked hard all year and now you have some cash in your pocket.  Will you spend it all, or save some for your retirement?  Attend Ray Lucia’s Buckets Strategy program and learn how to make your money work for you in the years to come, work to provide you with a comfortable retirement income.

Ray Lucia is not your average financial advisor. He is an accomplished money man whose intelligent input and charismatic nature has helped make him one of the nation's leading experts in the fiscal world of financial, tax, and retirement planning... not to mention he's a best-selling author, an engaging radio and TV personality, a highly sought after public speaker, and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ practitioner.

Throughout his career in the financial services industry, Ray Lucia, CFP® has made it his lifework to help thousands invest for retirement utilizing his widely recognized Bucket Strategy™ method for retirement. His dynamic public speaking skills enable him to cover an array of monetary topics including: asset allocation, social security, pensions, investments, annuities, insurance and taxes.

Ray is largely recognized for his nationally syndicated radio show, "The Ray Lucia Show", aired daily from 12:00-3:00 pm Eastern Time in most of the country's top radio markets. Ray and his "Brain Trust" field questions from live callers who have real money issues. Furthermore, Ray is also a TV personality who is featured nationally on networks such as FOX News Channel, FOX Business, CNBC, NBC's The Today Show, and Bloomberg.

Ray Lucia's Bucket Strategy™

On Friday from 4:00 – 5:30 Ray Lucia will offer in valuable investment ideas.  If you're like most retirees or pre-retirees, you hunger for stability, yet yearn for growth to rejuvenate your portfolio that may have been battered over the past few years. Ray Lucia's Bucket Strategy™ concept offers a reassuring strategy that aims to give investors both growth and income.

Stripped to its simplest form, here's the premise of the Bucket Strategy™: You organize your investments into three main groupings, or "buckets" and take the majority of the risk in Bucket No. 3, largely with stocks and real estate. You live by spending down the first two, relatively "safe" buckets; meanwhile, you don't touch that third bucket.

The strategy is designed to "buy" time by having reliable sources of income in retirement while you allow your stocks and real estate to grow for 15 years or more, all with the aim of reducing the risk that's inherent in stock-market investing.

This program is co offered by SPAC and Photolynx and will be held after Photolynx’s  seminar in their classroom space.