Joe Buissink in action.
Now that I’ve had a chance to catch up on my sleep, I’ve had a little time to reflect back on WPPI. In a way, WPPI helped me understand our success, and how to keep us going in the same direction. By listening to dozens of extremely successful photographers tell us how they run their companies, and hearing them all contradict each other, I realized that there is no “right way” to do things in this business. Industry leaders told us their opinions on upselling and packages, raw vs. jpeg, 5-minute Photoshop vs. reaching for perfection, Nikon vs. Canon, and posed vs. natural. Everyone had their opinion, but from the overwhelming wealth of information, I’ve come to a few realizations about why each of these very different studios and artists have all reached a similar level of success.
1) Personality is extremely important in our industry. It’s very apparent from watching these great photographers and businessmen that none of them would be where they are today without the charismatic personalities that they all have.
2) Each of these industry leaders really believe in what they are doing. They are good at their way of doing things and attract clients who respond to them as individuals. Their imagery and personalities each attract a client who is looking for exactly what these photographers will give them.
These points really reinforced in me why Kristen and I have become so extremely successful in our business thus far. I leave almost every meeting I have our potential and future clients excited. I’m excited because of how much I like the couples that meet with us. I am genuinely excited to not only photograph their wedding, but also to get to spend the day with them.
Our work and personality attracts the type of people we like to be around. Most of our clients are not self-conscious, fake, or negative, but are instead natural, beautiful, and incredibly nice. Most are very successful, or on the road to success. I think our style of photography attracts those who are confident, who would rather be followed than led; those who’s self-confidence makes them even more beautiful than they already are. Most work in creative or detail oriented industries, and appreciate our perfectionist tendencies in our images. Most of all, our clients like to have fun and want their weddings to reflect their personalities. They see people like themselves in our sample weddings. They see couples who are so in love that the emotions drip from the pictures. They see people having the kind of fun that they want to have in their weddings.
Kristen and I are truly blessed to do work like this, and work with these type of people. Thank you for providing us with this opportunity.
-David Drufke
