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Testimonials
June 2008
JOHN: Today we are in the studio with Steve Lucas of Steve Lucas Photography of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and your listening to VTalk Radio’s Photography Spotlight. Welcome to the program, Steve, and can you tell our listening audience how MorePhotos.com has helped your business. STEVE: They’ve been great. We have a work with them from I think the beginning of when we started digital photography and that's probably been, I'm thinking, five or six years. We post every image that we photograph onto our website so our clients can view it. It’s very easy to do. They love it. A lot of times, when I'm doing an executive portrait by the time they get back to their office, their image is already online. We also use the sales features for a lot of the groups. We're doing…I just photographed yesterday, I think it was two choral groups with about 40 kids in each group, and when I post those images online, I will sell right from that website and that has been amazing. It's so nice to come in the morning and have orders there waiting for you, it collects the information, collects the data and it's just been a tremendous asset and continuous to be. Lucas Photo Steven Lucas 952.949.0578 www.lucasphoto.com
DAMIEN ALLEN: You are listening to the VTalk Radio’s Photography Spotlight. I'm your host Damien Allen, and today we're speaking to Wayne St. John owner of St John Photography in Pineville, North Carolina. Good afternoon and welcome to the program, Wayne. WAYNE : Thank you very much. DAMIEN: Could you tell us please how has www.MorePhotos.com helped your business? WAYNE : We started with MorePhotos a few years ago when we were at a real cross point. We wanted the parents who order our school photos to be able to purchase pictures online. To this day, I think we may be the only school photographer who actually does that. I think why more school photographers don't do it was with parents and kids being online, there is a certain level of security. People don't want anybody just going on the computer and seeing photographs of their kid. So, we went for MorePhotos for the first couple of weeks that we started out with them and they have an incredible system that allows us to give each parent a 6 digit code. So when they go to the website, they put in their code, and their kids photos come up and nobody else's. And that code is embedded with the school so somebody can't just type in six random numbers and just happen upon a kid. So, it's really a fool proof system that's worked well for us for a couple of years. When we first thought about doing it though we had what I call the suits come in and give us a price on building our own website. We do have our own website that is more of a calling card or a business card I say or brochure that has sample photos on it, but what we just wanted was a shopping cart where people could go online and purchase photos. So the suits came in and they said, Wayne , it's going to cost you about $10,000.00 for us to do a one week analysis of what you're going to need for your website. And, then it's going to cost you about $50,000.00 or $60,000.00 for us to actually build the shopping cart that you need. And my thought was everybody has a shopping cart on their website. This is crazy. Why are we paying this much to reinvent the wheel. A shopping cart is very common. Can’t we get some out of the box, plug in shopping cart that everybody uses that we can customize for ourselves. That’s when we found out about MorePhotos. I called up Mike Connors, he is the owner and he’s a great guy and I’ve spoken to him personally many times, and he actually worked with us to customize it even a little more than it's already customized so that it's going work for our needs. To this day we have thousands and thousands of photos on the MorePhotos shopping carts that we have at any one time. I think that sometimes we have 50,000 or 60,000 photos, and it has worked flawlessly for us, and it has generated thousands and thousands of dollars. We really do believe that when someone orders school photos just on a paper form, they order certain amounts, but when people go online at 11:00 at night and start clicking away they tend to order a little bit more. So we feel our online orders have been higher than paper orders. I think the first season we started doing it too about a third of all of our orders came from online the first season we started doing it. So that was amazing to us. Wayne St. John St. John Photography 704.889.7800 www.stjohnphotography.com
JOHN: Today, we are in a studio with Peter Pecci of Pecci Photography of Naples, Florida, and you are listening to VTalk Radio. Peter, how has www.vtalkradio.com helped your business? PETER: I found that putting a copy of the interview on my about section of my home page did several things. One is it validated me as a professional. It separated me from my competitors. I gave my clients the opportunity to put a voice with the written material that is in my home page which really worked out well. To get an opportunity to learn about me, and what we do, and how we do it, and what we can do for them. And it's good for both national and international business. We've has some inquiries as being destination weddings photographer. That’s been a good thing. Past and present clients also when they're talking me up, referring me to other clients, they used that as a reference point. It does it all. It’s real easy. It also brings people to the rest of my home page…all the pictures of the past weddings and engagements and a lot of the services. So, now we have pictures, we have verbiage, and the best thing the frosting on the cake is the actual verbal interview. I would have to say it's probably the best single marketing tool that has impacted my business. I was very honored that you thought of me to talk that day, and I think it's very helpful. I certainly recommend it to anybody. Peter Pecci Pecci Photography 239.596.8100 www.pecciphotography.com
JOHN: Today we are in the studio with Richard Clark of TruLife Images Digital FX Studio, Inc. of Millersburg, Pennsylvania, and you are listening to VTalk Radios Photography Spotlight. Today, I want to ask you, Richard, how has www.MorePhotos.com helped your business? RICHARD: Oh MorePhotos has been great. I tell you, you know, in this age of internet, connectivity and being plugged in as we call it now-a-days, it's very important for photographer to have the ability to show his proofs and true quality of this work online and MorePhotos has come through and has come through for several years for us now in a big way. MorePhotos has been the kind of organization that really tailors to the photographer. They allow us to put up as many images as we want, giving events separated by events or by category, they were able to apply our own price lists and everything to a full service ordering facility for our photography business and that's what MorePhotos brings to the table, They've done a great job at providing those services as well as unprecedented phone support whenever we need to call them with question or have an issue. They're ready to respond and they've done just a fantastic job of making life much easier and allowing us to focused on our core products and that is taking pictures. Richard Clark TruLife Images Digital FX Studio, Inc. 717.982.2877 www.trulifeimages.com
JOHN: Today on VTalk Radio Photography Spotlight, we have award winning photographer, Robert Blanken of Blanken Photography Studio Limited of Bethesda, Maryland. Welcome to the program today, Bob. Can you tell us how www.MorePhotos.com has helped your business? BOB: Oh absolutely. Over the years when I first developed an online presence and had a website, I knew I needed to expand it, and get what is it, E-commerce, you know, being able to have people go online, look at the pictures and buy them. That's when I got involved with MorePhotos, and they were able to wrap their technology around my website which is quite large. I have a big website with lots of information on it and lots of pages and they were able to integrate all the e-commerce work into my website and gave me everything I needed to modify and change it as I wanted to add things. Expand the website, add photographs, and it was extremely easy. And they're wonderful on the technology side to being able to give me the support I needed. Robert Blanken Blanken Photography Studio 301.320.8714 www.blankenphoto.com
DAMIEN: Good afternoon and welcome to the VTalk Radio Photography Spotlight, today we have with us via the telephone, San Antonio photographer, Julie Farivar of American Photography and Video. Good afternoon and welcome to the show, Julie. Could you please tell our listening audience how is MorePhotos.com helped your business. JULIE: Sure, they're very helpful in the sense that they provide our customers with a very useful tool which is having all their pictures online. We used PhotoManager that they provide and also our emails to them, and if you have any sort of technical difficulties, they are very quick to help and that’s definitely very useful for us, and we think that MorePhotos is great to use and great asset to have for any photo business. Julie Farivar American Photography & Video 210.699.9687 www.american-photography.com
JOHN: You are in the studio today with, Kalin Scharnbeck with KMS Photography of Charlottesville, Virginia, and you are listening to VTalk Radio’s Photography Spotlight. Welcome to the program Kaylynn. Can you tell our listening audience how MorePhotos.com has helped your business? KALIN: MorePhotos has been a great partner in my business actually. They have been awesome about working with us to accommodate our clients, you know, as far as being able to put images for them with different events. They just have been open to our suggestions and have tried to work with us to really make us look great with our clients. They've added new features throughout the years that have really enhanced the experience that our clients have when they go on to view their images. And, you know, are still open to improving their product which I really have appreciated, you know, as a client of theirs as well as what they do for my clientèlle so they've been great. Kalin Scharnbeck KMS Photography 434.973.1740 www.kmsphotography.com
JOHN: Today on VTalk Radio’s Photography Spotlight we have Phoenix, Arizona, photographer Patty Kaufman of Its You Photography. Welcome to VTalk Radio’s Photography Spotlight, Patty. How has MorePhotos.com helped your business? PATTY: MorePhotos is a delight to work with. To start with their technical staff is absolutely the best. They’re the best. They walk you through even if you are asking them the silliest question, they walk through, and have you do everything right there with them so they know that they have you trained, and you know what you're doing and you're just not left in the dark. So they're fabulous, fabulous, fabulous in the technical aspect. Also they're their site makes it so easy to put together your website. They have all the hosting things right on there so you just go ahead and you build your website right there, nothing hard. And you can stick the beautiful color and the different skins that you want. It is so easy. You can build your website in a matter of moments. So they really, really are very helpful that way. Plus for my client's usage it's very easy to maneuver through the site, very easy to get to the check out stand which is very important for photographers to be sure people can check out easily, and it's easy for them to go ahead and go through with their shopping cart. MorePhotos is definitely a delight to work with definitely makes everything very easy. Patty Kaufman It's U Photography 602.866.8328 www.itsuphoto.com
JOHN: Today we are in the studio with Toronto Canada photographer David Haskell of Haskell Photography, welcome to VTalk Radio's photography spotlight David. Thanks for having me on. Tell us how has MorePhotos.com helped your business? DAVID: MorePhotos has been fantastic. You know our studios themselves are 1000 miles apart, but our clients are basically from Canada to Denver. We have clients all part of states, all the parts of Canada, and so it makes it so great when you’re working to people. They can go on, we can custom price list for them, they can look at their pictures, they can give us feedback, comments, order their photographs, and, you know, I would say for a fact that sales have increased because we've had it. And the convenience, you know, these days for everybody, time is money whether it's a business or, you know, a family. The ability for them to sit at home on their own time, look at their photographs, order their pictures, and know that their order is secure and have it come back to us is fantastic. And from our end, it just streamlines things. We actually use the MorePhotos system almost as a filing system up and until the point of our clients’ work being completed and then we take our images from there and we file them away once the customer is completely finished with them. But we use the system for everything from portraits and portfolios to corporate events and it’s been fantastic by the way.
JOHN: Today we're in the studio with Glenn Martin of Martin Photography of Lawrenceville, Georgia and you're listening to VTalk radio's photography spotlight. I want to thank you for joining us today, Glenn. Can you tell all the listening audience how MorePhotos.com has helped your business? GLEN: MorePhotos has been the unique product for us. We've done a lot of research in looking for an online photography sales site and the one thing that took us to MorePhotos was the fact that since we worked with the School situation where we have multiple events where people are wanting to purchase picture from MorePhotos allows our clients to combine photographs from several events into one shopping cart. Not something that we found with any other photographic online vendor that and really makes things enjoyable for our clients to not have to shop this ball game, check out through a shopping cart, then go to another ball game, then go to their sports portrait proofs. By being able to combine multiple events in one shopping cart, we've found the product that really encourages our clients to purchase even more. Their service is great, they help us when we need help, we just really think MorePhotos is a great product and a great business partner for us in selling online pictures. We'd recommend them to anybody. Glenn Martin Martin Photography 770.995.7399 www.martinphotography.com
JOHN: Today, we understood with Jerry Beebe of Seashore Photos of Marmora, New Jersey, and also on the board walk on Ocean City, New Jersey, and you’re listening to VTalk Radio’s Photography Spotlight. Jerry, welcome to the program and could you kindly tell our listening audience how MorePhotos.com has helped your business. JERRY: Well, we do a lot of vacationing families who Ocean City, New Jersey, a tourist community. They come to Ocean City, New Jersey, in summer and they really want to have beach portraits done. The problem is that many of these people or actually most of these people live 3 to 4 hours away. And so it's not convenient for them to be able to come back into the studio to see their pictures. Plus, you know, you don't want to spend your vacation, 3 or 4 hours of your vacation in a photographer’s studio, you want to spend it out on the beach, in the water, you know, walking up and down the boardwalk. So what MorePhotos has done for us, is given us a way to display our customers’ pictures in a way that is easy for them to check them out, and they can go online, they can see their pictures when they get home, they can make the choices of the images that they want, they can order online securely, and of course, then we fulfill the order, have it printed and sent out to them. MorePhotos does a couple of things that has really helped our business. Number one, they offer a multi-image packages and not a lot of websites do that. What this means is with our local high school, we put those pictures up on the web as well. We can offer packages that have a better value…more prints for the individual student if they can, you know, keep there choices to 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 images. And not a lot of websites offer that, it's a fairly sophisticated thing for web ordering, but MorePhotos does that. I'm also very pleased with MorePhotos tech support. They are really knowledgeable. They seem to constantly be phasing in new ideas and new upgrades that make the website easier for the customers and easier for us. So I'm very happy with the MorePhotos website platform. It certainly has helped our business with so many transient customers. Customers who come in and leave; they can see their pictures from anywhere in the country that they happen to live. But what's surprising is not only do our people from 3 or 4 hours away also go on to see it, by and large most of the local people also prefer to see their pictures online, and I guess people would much rather go online at 2 in the morning in their pajamas in the comfort of their own home and choose their pictures then come into the studio. And for a photographer, that makes it easier for us, but you know, in the end it's what is ultimately best and most convenient for our customers and MorePhotos makes it happen for us. Gerald Beebe Seashore Photos 609.391.7755 www.seashorephotos.com May 2008
WALTER: Thank you. JOHN: Can you tell our listening audience how MorePhotos.com has helped your business. WALTER: Actually MorePhotos has been a terrific thing for our studio. We’ve been using their services for about a year now, and it’s just given us an opportunity to get our images out to the people who live far away. We’ll have many situations where we’ll have a family come in where somebody is in from out of town, and not everybody can come in to view the images at the studio, because some have had to fly home to some far off distant land and by using the MorePhotos’ service, we have been able to meet first of all with the local people and make some of the basic decisions and then take all of the favorite images, post them online so that with a password protected part of our website everybody has been able to go right onto the web from their own computers in their own homes at their own convenient time, not only see the images, but actually place orders online so they can order direct without actually coming back to Winnipeg to visit the studio. So that’s been terrific. It also brings more people to the websites, because your linked through your own website. So they go to our website, Janzenphotography.com and in our case you click on client login, enter a password that has been pre-determined to give them and by going direct through our website they get to their images on the MorePhotos’ Service, but while they are in our tendency to also stop and view the different galleries of different images we have. What we found is it’s brought a lot more traffic on a daily basis to our site while people are looking to see their families and friends and what not. Walter Janzen Janzen Photography 204.669.9300 www.janzenphotography.com Interview with Frank Harrison of Timepiece Photography and Spotlight Photographics of Paducah, Kentucky JOHN: Welcome to VTalk Radio’s Photography Spotlight. Today we are in the studio with Paduka, Kentucky, photographer, Frank Harrison. He is also the operations manager of both Timepiece Photography and Spotlight Photographics which is changing the image of photo day for professional photographers. Welcome to the program, Frank. Would you tell our listening audience how MorePhotos.com has helped both of your businesses. FRANK: MorePhotos has absolutely come up with the most ingenious way for a photographer like ourselves to be able to up load our images to the website, provide our customers with a very easy way of being able to view and purchase their photos. MorePhotos also offers us a very flexible way of being able to offer multiple price lists and image descriptions of what we offer to the customers as well as be able to provide our products to their network of photographers throughout the country and the world, because they do offer their services I believe in 8 different countries. Frank Harrison Spotlight Photographics 270.443.2151 www.spotlightphotographics.com
JOHN: Today we are in the studio with Sun Peak, British Columbia, Canada, photographer, Adam Stein, of Alpine Images and you are listening to VTalk Radio’s Photography Spotlight. Thanks for joining us today, Adam. Would you kindly tell our listening audience how MorePhotos.com has helped your business. ADAM: Oh it’s absolutely unbelievable. I have to say their a fantastic company. Truly I do a lot of event photography and showcase and sell a lot of my photography online. We’ve used other companies in the past, and since I’ve found MorePhotos, it made a huge difference. Their software is very user friendly. They think kind of like professional photographers think. It’s not an add-on for the general public; it’s really professional photography specific company. Their help line are fantastic. The guys there definitely know what they’re doing, and they get back to you in a timely fashion when you’re in a bit of a panic and you need to get things organized, and I have to say they’ve made an absolutely huge difference in my e-commerce. Adam Stein Alpine Images 250.578.0424 www.alpineimages.ca
JOHN: Today on VTalk Radio’s Photography Spotlight we have Helen, Georgia, photographer, Gary Zuyus and wedding coordinator, Angela White of Magnolia Terrace Wedding Chapel. Welcome to the program you two. Can you tell our listening audience how MorePhotos.com has helped your business. GARY: Well as a photographer I’ll tell you my sales tripled. I’ve been using them for about a year and a half now and started off a little slow, but once we got them going, it was fantastic. Again, my sales tripled and if there is a little problem…you have a technical problem…you call them up and they get on it immediately. You talk to someone in the United States who speaks English and help you right through it and you’re back up and running again. We’ve had very few glitches; very few problems. So far, again, we couldn’t be happier and here’s Angela she works with them as well. ANGELA: It’s a wonderful tool for families who can’t attend weddings. The bride just simply tells them what site to go to, and we have never had any problems with our photos coming in and them having to order it. It’s just been a wonderful, wonderful tool to have for our business. Gary Zuyus Magnolia Terrace Wedding Chapely 706.878.3588 www.magnoliaterrace.com
JOHN: Today we are in the studio with Reedley, California, photographer, Denny Nelson, of Blossom Trail Photography. You’re listening to VTalk Radio’s Photography Spotlight. Denny, thank you for joining us today. Would you kindly tell our listening audience how MorePhotos.com has helped your business. DENNY: Well actually I’ve been using their service for about 5 years and I hook it into my main website to display photographs. When I take pictures of people that’s how I shoot so that I can upload the proofs online and the beautiful thing about their service is that people can’t copy the pictures. I love that so much because that just eliminates that problem for me altogether. And they’ve done a really great job of adding features. Michael Connors the owner takes the time to…I’ve called in and he’s just a great guy. He’s all about marketing, and he loves just telling me new things that I can do to help my business to market more. So I appreciate that personal attention, and I just really love their website and their service. It’s very reasonably priced. I’ve priced out some other services which are 3, 4, 5 times more expensive and they’ve kept their prices really very reasonable so I appreciate that too. So, anyway, I just love their service. Denny Nelson Denny Nelson Photography 559.637.4222 www.blossomtrailphoto.com Interview with Mark Youngblood of Youngblood Studios of Haerstown, MD JOHN: We are in the studio today with Hagarstown, Maryland, photographer, Mark Youngblood, of Youngblood Studios, and you’re listening to VTalk Radio’s Photography Spotlight. Welcome to the program, Mark. Can you tell our listening audience how MorePhotos.com has helped your business. MARK: It’s just helped me streamline my business as I don’t have to sit down and meet with every client to show them proofs. With my wedding photography, I’m doing an engagement session before their wedding and what I’m doing with that session is making a wallet size card that has their engagement photograph on one side and then on the other side it’s going to have directions to tell all the guests at the reception on how to look at this couple’s wedding photographs. So I make enough of those and hand all those out at the reception so I’m doing 30 weddings a year and most weddings that I do have 300 guests, and you do the math on that of how many people that drives to my website and not only am I selling photographs to family, at that point I get to sell photographs to pretty much all their friends too that were at the wedding. When I get into my family photographs, I’m using that to upload the photographs. All the family members can not only go online and look at the photographs, but they can pass the website all around to all their family and friends and say hey look at my photographs I just had done and so there you’ll have other people buying photographs also other than just the immediate family that you photographed so it’s been a really good toll for my business. It’s amazing how many hits I get on my website when I look at the site count. It just blows me away at how many people are going out and looking at my photographs and even past brides that I photographed four or five years ago are still going to my site just looking to see who I’m photographing, because they just looking at my photographs that they’re just going and checking out my website. It’s a great sales tool. Mark Youngblood Youngblood Studios 301.739.7250 www.youngbloodstudios.com
GREG: Well thank you, John. Yeah, their hosting services booted sales by being able to put my images and sell them online. Their website templates…very easy to use; easy to customize. It attaches to just about whatever credit card service you use, if you use a credit card, you don’t have to. I use my own lab so you don’t have to rely on whatever lab they’re affiliated with. You have the choice…your hands aren’t tied like in some other situations. They’re rates are excellent. I’ve been really, really pleased. I have a connection with Wedding Details which has got me some connections on doing a few jobs. Their whole organization works well together, and I’ve benefited from it so I’m tickled pink. Greg Ishmael IM Images 580.477.2215 www.imimagesphotography.com
JOHN: Today on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, we have Long Island, New York, Photographer, Chris Montgomery of Long Island Image joining us. Thanks for coming on the program today, Chris. Can you tell our listening audience how morephotos.com has helped your business? CHRIS: MorePhotos has been a tremendous asset to me. Prior to MorePhotos I just had a simple website where I couldn't integrate and actual shopping cart, but with MorePhotos, I've been able to use their template to build a website that's completely unique that's completely integrated with a shopping cart. They have a fantastic viewing gallery. They're also integrated with Pay Pal or you can bring in your own merchant account. Their technical services are outstanding. It's not just a phone call to far away; they're really great people who I've gotten to know several of them very well. The site themselves is very easy to use, their site, their image program, their order manager. They offer, I believe, about a dozen different vendors that I can use so it's actually opened up my range of photo products to sell and it's really taken a lot of the work off of me for order fulfillment, because I just click a button and the order's filled. So, I have to say it's one of the better decisions I've made as far as a website goes. Chris Montgomery Long Island Image 516.822.3030 www.longislandimage.com
DAMIEN: Good afternoon and welcome to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. I'm Damien Allen and today we have with us in the studio via phone, Don Puckett of Camelot Barefoot Portraits in Fair Hope, Alabama. Don, how has morephotos.com helped your business? DON: MorePhotos has gave me good access to the web, gave me a vehicle to be able to post my pictures online for clients which are mostly out of town that go online and look at the pictures, place the order. Gives me a convenient printout once I've got the order in so I've got a hard copy of it that way there are no mistakes. I know what the client has ordered. Any questions I can follow-up with them. My web access is if you do a Google search on beach photography, Fair Hope or beach photography, Gulf Shores, Alabama, you'll see Camelot Barefoot Portraits coming up one, two, or three and I figure MorePhotos is the reason for that. My search engine, my key words we use through them just I've just had good experience with MorePhotos. I've been with them 3 or 4 years and just love it. I would recommend anyone to go with More Photos. Donald Puckett Camelot Portraits 877-980-2322 www.camelotphotography.org
JOHN: Today on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, we have Orlando, Florida, photographer, Maurice Rodriguez of Mr. Maurice Photography. Welcome to the program, today, Maurice. Can you tell our listening audience how morephotos.com has helped your business? MAURICE: Well it's helped my business tremendously. Mainly because it's broadened my customer base from just not being local to being, well, worldwide through the internet which is a wonderful thing. They built and designed my website which is very, very impressive, and it's the first thing that people generally see. I give them a business card and nowadays people go straight to the website then they check out your stuff and see what you've got going on and they've built a really nice website for me and it also enables me to share my photography with other people as well as they can purchase it if they'd like and it's just made a big, big difference in my business because it's really expanded way beyond the city limits per se. Maurice Rodriguez Mr. Maurice 407.629.9900 www.mrmaurice.com
JOHN: Today on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, we have London, England, photographer, Jeremy Nako of Nak Photography joining us today. Welcome to the program, Jeremy. Can you tell our audience how morephotos.com has helped your business? JEREMY: Well I approached them at a trade show about a year - 18 months ago. I'd been looking for a company could deal with our gallery situation and integrate sales concisely for us. They impressed me with what they had to offer. It's one of those for me that I had to give it a try and see what came out of it, and I've used them ever since. They've never let me down. They offer the service that we require at the price we require so from that perspective why would I go anywhere else? Jeremy Nako Nakphotography +44.2087.420.626 www.nakphotography.co.uk
JOHN: Today on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, we have New York, New York, photographer, Jennifer Davis, of Jennifer Davis Photography. Welcome to the program, Jennifer. Can you tell our audience how morephotos.com has helped your business JENNIFER: MorePhotos has been an amazing part of my business. It allows me to get the prints up online and, you know, family members and guests from all over the country are able to order prints through me. They don't have to go through the bride and groom and choose. I also love it because the order comes straight to me through me email so I get the order in and I'm in full control of the prints and the quality that's going out. Now I'm able to package up the prints and my logo boxes and everything. Jennifer Davis Jennifer Davis Photography 917-734-8159 www.jenniferdavisphotography.com February 2008
CRAIG: Well, I tell you, with the digital revolution, they've been very instrumental in helping our business thrive in this digital age, and we owe them a big thank you for that. Craig Bumgarner Craig Carroll Photography 515-232-1209 www.craigcarrollphotography.com
TATE: Absolutely. I've been using MorePhotos now going on my third year here. MorePhotos is set up really integrated in from my website as my only proofing system. In other words, all my clients see all the work that I do for them through my MorePhotos interface. It has been extremely easy to use. The customer service has always been great in terms of I almost always get somebody to answer live, and if not they all ways call back right away. Typically, you have an answer for whatever concern I have right away. It's a really easy system for clients to use. They think it's really cool and the nice thing about it when I say it's integrated into my system, they think it's my system. It looks just like my website so they think it's part of my website and something that I put together and it's just very sophisticated, very intuitive system to use and very user friendly. I've been very pleased with it. Tate Siemer Cloud Nine Photography 801.699.4532 www.cloud9photo.com Interview with Ruth Harper of Happily Every After from Minneapolis St. Paul, Minnesota DAMIEN: Ruth could you tell us how MorePhotos.com has helped your business. RUTH: You know I have been a MorePhotos customer for years. They are the only online proofing company that I have ever used, because they're the best. The main thing that I really like about More Photos is they're integrated into my website so when clients click on the link that I have that says online proof it looks like they're still in my website. A new page will open up, it's been customized by the guys at MorePhotos to completely match the design of the rest of my site so when the clients find they're still on my website and the entire list of every event that I have posted online comes up so it's been a really great marketing tool for me, because brides will call and say something like have you ever shot at such and such a location, and I can say sure and as a matter of fact I have a whole wedding online right now if you'd like to look at it. So they're able to come in and look at an entire wedding which usually sells them before they ever walk in the door. The clients like it as well, because they can save all of their favorites, make little packages for themselves. It just works out great and I recommend MorePhotos to everyone that I know. Ruth Harper Happily Ever After 651.335.8198 www.happilyeverafterphoto.com December 2007 Kat Gebauer of 3 forks photography from Whitefish, MT It's kat from 3 forks photography again. I was just wondering if there were any problems with the domains. I just checked to see if they were working yet, and they weren't. Does it take a little while for them to start after purchasing a domain? I really really really appreciate the support help at MorePhotos. Im definately pointing all my photography friends in your direction! Thanks soooo much, I couldn't have done it without Tom (I believe that was his name). Thanks again for making such a scary experience that much more enjoyable! Kat Gebauer 3 forks photography 405.253.8715 www.3forksphotography.com November 2007
RON: MorePhotos has provided me the opportunity to have a website that is easy to maintain. I can maintain it myself and update it myself which allows me to present a fresh contemporary view to the public. When people are looking for a photographer and then come across my site, they have a site that's attractive, easy to navigate, and that has worked well for me. Ron St. Jean Ron St. Jean Photography 603.742.0660 www.ronstjean.com
AMANDA: Well, MorePhotos was pretty much a Godsend for me. I ran across the website. I was at a seminar in Minneapolis and the gal that was sitting next to me, we of course, were talking and this is before I quit my job and so I was mostly doing photography on the side, but one of my big hurdles was the website. And I had been looking for a class that I could take locally where I could design my own website. I had certain things that I wanted it to do and I didn't want it to be complicated. I knew that it would have to be updated frequently to keep current on what I was doing, what was going on. I knew that I wanted my customers to be able to do their photos online and I didn't want it to be time consuming for me to take care of keeping it up to date and all of that. I wasn't having any luck finding any course locally that I could take and I was pretty overwhelmed by the whole thing, but luckily I was talking to this gal at the seminar, and she gave me her card and was telling me that More Photos was the website that she used. I got back home, and I checked it out and I was really impressed right away at how easy everything was. I believe that it was only a couple weeks after that I got signed up and the people were very helpful on the phone. You know, I had a choice of getting a custom designed one or using the templates that they had. I took a risk and I wanted to get it up and running as quickly as possible so I went with the templates and they helped me with getting the domain name set up so I didn't really have to do anything for that. They took care of that once I found a name that wasn't taken already and it was such a relief to have this company that was going to take care of everything that I basically had been dreading doing for so long and it was so easy and affordable really, and it did everything that I needed it to do. They've constantly made improvements and keep updating. I just updated my site again with new colors and a new layout and I think that's important so new customers don't get bored. I have a lot of customers that go and they just look at my pictures all the time. So, it's nice to be able to change the colors and the layout from time to time just so people don't get bored with looking at the same thing and the improvements that they keep adding is just wonderful. Now I'm taking credit cards and they can even take that information, it's pretty easy for the customers to use, you know, not hard for them to figure out how to get in and look at their pictures and place their orders and it's just been great for my business and a time saver because I didn't have to learn how to write code for making my own site, and I think it looks good, and my customers think it looks good. It does what it's supposed to do. I've been very happy with the service they have provided me. Amanda Litts Digital Designs 715-938-0938 www.digitaldesignsbyamanda.com
STEVE: Absolutely, we are making sales that we never would have been able to reach out and touch in the other ways that we used to sell. For instance, we have everything from grand parents that are in Rhode Island or San Diego or Seattle that can get online through the way that MorePhotos lets us display the images and actually look at and enlarge picked images that they'd like to have. They can place them in their shopping cart right then and can go immediately to checkout. They can pay by Paypal or credit cards or send us a check once it's done. If you consider though we would not have been able to reach those people in a more conventional way such as mailing out proofs or waiting till the grand parents came to visit or things like that. Absolutely, our sales have gone up a whole lot thanks to MorePhotos, and we found MorePhotos to be easy to use as far as organizing and uploading our images as far as building pricing lists and options that people can make. If you visit our website, you can actually go through and look at the different kinds of albums that we offer, the different kinds of printed cards we offer, and you can pick and chose and marry images to those different things right there online and it's basically because we found MorePhotos to be very easy to use from our point. Steve Tarver Steve Tarver Photography 281.446.3906 www.stevetarverphotography.comm
CINDY: I love MorePhotos.com. I switched over from a company that I had a long time ago to MorePhotos and they've been very helpful. Customer service is great. I can call them and they talk me through stuff and help me through the back page of my website. I like my website, but I can go on the back page and change wording and change images. That's a big plus for me being a photographer is to keep my images fresh and new on my website. You can change colors; they help you with templates and layouts so you can create your own specific style in your website. I like the fact that I can download all my images from a wedding and have my customers and everybody who came to the wedding go online and look at all the images that I have produced from that wedding, and they can order on there. I like the email. My customers can email me from my website, and they can also get newsletters from my website. So, the website handles all my business needs. Cindy Romano Cindy Romano C. Romano Photography 815-568-1181 www.cromanophotography.com
JOHN: Bob, would you tell our listeners how has MorePhotos.com helped your business? BOB: I started with MorePhotos, oh gosh, a few years ago. I can't tell you how long it's been, but they host my website for me. My clients find it very easy to order their images and stuff from there. It tells me a lot because it's so easy for everything. It's a one-stop for me, because they host my site and they do the retail end of it for me, and they just email me when the clients get an order from me, and it just works out really wonderful. I've recommended it to several of my compares' and no one's ever complained yet, so I think it's just a wonderful thing. Bob Sargent Sargent Photography 813-930-7390 www.sargentphotography.com
JOHN: Gordon, could you kindly tell our listeners how has MorePhotos.com helped your business? Gordon: Well we use MorePhotos.com to help us streamline what we want to do in the studio. There is so many different ways to use MorePhotos.com, but we use it for those sessions, to proof those sessions that we don't see to be sales opportunities. Pretty much we're an in studio projection studio where we don't let proofs go out. We want to do the sale and help the client right here in the studio, but every now and then let's say there's a re-shoot situation.oh the client needs something for the yearbook on a blue background, they've already come in and placed their order, they just found out that the school's changed the requirements, they need something on a blue background now. It's really not going to be a sales opportunity for us, so rather than take up a projection room for the client to have to come all the way back in just to look at 6 or 10 different head and shoulder shots on a blue background, we'll just pump it up on our website through MorePhotos.com and let the client go in and look at it and just call us with the number that they want to choose. Now, that's just one way we use it. There are other things we do where there are not sales opportunities, but maybe more of a benefit to a client where we're not going to try to sell them portraits, we just want them to be able to able to view what we've done. Let's say recently I've done all the policemen in Evanston. We wanted them to see all their images, but we're not trying to sell them as a community service we provide. So rather than have each police officer have to come back in to our studio and view their six or eight choices, we can just upload them all to the website. They all can get on at their convenience, even get on anywhere in the world. Family members in Florida can look at it, and consult with people and then they can call us with their final choices. Sometimes business publicity will use it for that where the client has prepaid for a package and they just simply need to pick out their favorite one image and so we can upload the 20 or 30 choices that they have, they can look at them and then call us back. It's very convenient for the business client to not have to come back and then also be able to consult with other people that they want to bring in on the decision before they make a final decision. So that's how we use MorePhotos.com. There's just a whole host of ways you can use it. We are entertaining thoughts of different ways to use it, but it's nice to know it's there any time we want to use it. Gordon Geraci Elite Photography 513.554.0300 www.elitephotography.com
JOHN: Jeff, could you kindly tell our listeners how has MorePhotos.com helped your business? JEFF: Well MorePhotos.com has really changed the way that we do business. MorePhotos allows us to put all of our images up online so our clients can view their images remotely, not only view them, but look at them larger, change them to black and white, put images into a favorites folder, order images online. It has taken a lot of the labor out of our hands and made it simpler for not only the client, but for us. Jeff Dyer Photo Expressions LLP 860.628.2169 www.pixography.com
JOHN: Jim, could you kindly tell our listeners how has MorePhotos.com helped your business? JIM: Well they've helped us in a multitude of ways. We've gotten some pretty good marketing ideas from them. We've also been able to offer to our customers because we have a lot of individual smaller studios where sometimes people are working out of their house or small location where they rent areas, and by using MorePhotos, we have been able to set them up with their own websites. They have been able to do the online hosting of events such as family portraits all the way up to weddings, and this allows them to be able to compete with the bigger guys. It helps them to offer their services in today's modern technology and to take advantage of the online ordering systems, the marketing, having to their own website. So it really helps our clients tremendously to be able to do this affordably and also competitively with the bigger guys who have the little, deeper pockets. They've got the server, they've got the big, fancy web designers, and it gives them the little edge that they need to succeed. Jim Pierce Downtown Pro Photo 815-788-9100 www.dtphotoonline.com
JOHN: Mark, can you tell our listeners how has MorePhotos.com helped your business? MARK: Well, you know, I tell you, there has been one business, More Photos, that has helped me more than any other business that I've worked through. For one, I have my online photo galleries through them. My client's get to order their photos right through them. They can either fulfill the prints and ship them to my clients, or I can fulfill them and ship them to my clients. And they're knowledge of photographers, their helpfulness. what they have done for me with their little hints and clues of my business has streamlined my business tremendously, and I just very much appreciate what they do for me and how they have treated my business. Mark Frapwell Mark Frapwell Photography 858.369.9888 www.markfrapwell.com
JOHN: Don, can you tell our listeners how has MorePhotos.com helped your business? DON: It has helped me in quite a few ways. The biggest advantage with MorePhotos is we're able to get our images out to be seen by far more people than what could have been seen back when we used to do paper proofs. This way if your grandma lives out of town, she can see them, aunts and uncles can see them. When we're doing weddings it is extremely important that we do have our own email addresses. We do send out an email to all the brides and everybody, all the attendants also. This way they can go on the website and they can take a look at the wedding photographs. One thing that we have noticed over the years is that bridesmaids and groomsmen and grandparents and things like this nature here, very seldom get to see the professional images that are taken by a photographer. By using MorePhotos we are able to go and we're able to catch that group of people. We're able to go ahead and show them the photographs and it's reaped its good rewards as far as orders that come back from a shoot. We have been looking around to many, many, many different online companies. We found MorePhotos as with all the other companies we have been looking at, we gave them a call. We had certain perimeters that we wanted. We wanted to do this, we wanted to do that, we wanted to do something else. I had talked to Michael Connors, and he was just unbelievably counseled. My first visit with MorePhotos, I was on the phone for almost 2 hours with them. The next day, I was back on the phone for another hour with them with more questions and getting information from them exactly what they could do, and he was showing me what they could do and how they do it. The following day, again, I was on the phone an hour with him trying to find out a little bit more details. Finally when we had decided to go with MorePhotos, that's decision we have not regretted. The changes that are continuing to happen in the industry, MorePhotos is right on top of it. They are right there assisting the photographer. If you have any needs or wants or suggestions, MorePhotos is more than happy to go ahead and take those suggestions and help the photographer. They've often said that if a photographer does not sell a photo, there's no reason for them to be in business. That's what they're purpose in business is to assist the photographer in getting to the public and to sell their images. I had to laugh about Mike after I got to know him quite well, that once we finally decided to go ahead and sign up, and he went back into his office staff and said, Ok, you got the associates they're signing up. Now we have to keep them for about two years in order for us to even make any type of profit for the amount of time I spent with them on the phone. Now, I don't know very many businesses that will take the amount of time and the effort that they do to assure that that phone call was being taken care of and they've been taken care of in a professional manner. I can not speak highly enough for MorePhotos. They are, in my opinion, the leading online company. There are several companies out there, and I look all the time at different companies. It's just amazing how much more advanced that they are and ahead of their competition. Don Farquhar The Associates 913.897.5744 www.assoc-studioandgallery.com Interview with Michael Smith, co-owner and general manager of West Michigan Photo Works from Holland, MI JOHN: Michael, can you tell our listeners how has MorePhotos.com helped your business? MICHAEL: John, we've been partnering with MorePhotos for I think about 6 years already. Very shortly after they started up in Traverse City, Michigan, we started partnering with them. For several years, we partnered with them through their lab images program which allowed us to offer their web hosting services to our customers through somewhat of a cost effective arrangement to our customers and to us. Now this was a great benefit to us in that we didn't have to reinvent the wheel for web hosting for our customers. I think that MorePhotos' web hosting services is probably the premium service out there. They're strictly a web hosting company and that's the thing I like most about them. They don't force the photographer to fit into a box. They don't force the photographer to lose control of their own branding. At every point in the MorePhotos process the photographers work is branded with his own name on it. You're not going off to another site for ordering. You're not going off to another site for payment. Everything is done in the photographer's name, and I think that that's critical for a photographer to build his own brand. At no time should the photographer be forced to lose the focus of hey this is my work and I'm in control, you're dealing with me. I think that's very critical. So we've partnered with them for 5 or 6 years and it's been a very positive experience. Our customers are very happy. They use their web hosting, both at the whole philosophy and that the cost effective nature of it. No recently, and this has been going on for about the last year, we have also become an integrated vendor for MorePhotos. And what that means is that all of MorePhotos' Customers, which I believe at last count there was around 3,200 or 3,300 are able to use our lab to fulfill their orders for their customers. And this has really been exciting for us because of course it's offered our services directly to folks without us having to find them and spend a lot of money to find them, but it's also enabled MorePhotos to be able to offer the services of a professional lab to their customers. It's been a real great, symbolic relationship. We're very happy with it. It's resulted in us being able to grow significantly through new customers, and it's like I said, allowed MorePhotos to be able to offer the services of a lab with confidence. And being able to offer this in an integrated fashion, just means its easier for the photographer, because now instead of having to go through a lot of steps in getting an order, charging a customer for an order, and then going through putting an order together, going to our local lab, run it through a CD, doing all the cropping and what have you, now all they need to do is upload an order and really the MorePhotos' system can take it from there. More Photos has built in real-time processing for credit card collection so the photographer doesn't have to worry about the money, and the ordering software just allows the photographer with a couple of clicks of the mouse to send the order to us for fulfillment with the complete information as far as what to print, how many to print, what sizes and what have you, as well as the complete information on who to send it to. So it really couldn't be easier for the photographer. It's working great for MorePhotos. It's working great for us so we've been very, very happy with the relationship, and not only that, they're just nice people. My wife and I visited them a couple months ago at their offices in Traverse City, and had a tour around, and they're just good people to deal with. They are as dedicated to customer satisfaction as we are and I think that's unusual to find today. Michael Smith WMPhotoWorks 616.928.0250 www.wmphotoworks.com
JOHN: Welcome Rafael, can you tell our listeners how has MorePhotos.com helped your business? RAFAEL: MorePhotos.com is an incredible company to work with. Their customer service is excellent. They really have partnered with me to market my business, and they've always been there. Unfortunately, I haven't taken advantage of all their services at different periods, but their always there for me. It's a company that I trust, and I just can't speak highly enough of them. Great rates. Very competitive. Just truly again a great company. I was actually one of the first people to sign up with a company, I won't mention the name, the letter starts with a "P" and ends with an "E", but it just kind of, you know, it just didn't work. Worked out a lot of bugs and, you know, it just didn't help me. It helped them with their profit margin, but it surely didn't help me and MorePhotos is all about my success, and again, I just can't speak highly enough of them from the customer service to Mike Connors who is a just a leader there, it's been incredible and we will continue to have a great working relationship and this interview, again, is another service that they've provided for me, and I'm very excited. Rafael Guajardo Rafael Photography 949.939.7297 www.rafaelphotography.com
JOHN: Bill, tell us how MorePhotos.com has helped your business?
October 2007 I wanted to get back to you concerning your internet services for my studio. Since I have switched over to MorePhotos.com I have seen a dramatic increase in customer activity. The automated upload and ordering has made it so easy for my clients to communicate their wishes to me. I have been better able to upload and keep track of all of my assignments and the customers actions. The "album" section allows the editing comments I have only been able to acquire with wasted time by the customer, me and my assistants. I also want to commend your technical staff for making the simple switch especially easy. When I ran into a problem I was competently assisted and had a virtually seamless transition to the new site that you host. I will be at the local affiliate PPA association (past president) meeting tonight and will let everyone know that I endorse your service. Stan Stan Ruddie ASI Photosy 410.643.0302 www.asiphotos.com
Interview with Tom Holloway of Pro Image Photography of Niceville, Florida
JOHN: You are listening to V-Talk Radio Photographer Spotlight. We are
in the studio with Tom Holloway of Pro Image Photography in Niceville,
Florida. Tom, can you tell us how MorePhotos has helped your
business.
Interview with Dave Rafftery of Trotter Photo of Manchester, Missouri
JOHN: You are listening to V-Talk Radio Photographer Spotlight. We are
talking with Dave Rafftery of Trotter Photo of Manchester, Missouri.
Welcome, Dave. Can you tell us how MorePhotos has helped your
business.
Interview with Pat Dorgan of Pat Dorgan Photography of Streamwood, Illinois
JOHN: We are in the studio with Pat Dorgan of Pat Dorgan Photography
of Streamwood, Illinois
Interview with David Myers of David Myers of Treasured Images of Slidell, Louisiana
JOHN: We are in the studio with David Myers of Treasured Images of
Slidell, Louisiana.
Interview with Carl Brown of Southern Exposure of Red River, New Mexico
JOHN: We are in the studio with Carl Brown of Southern Exposure of Red
River, New Mexico.
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