Lots of posts today. sorry I'm excited.

I'm adding some images from the past 9 months that I really loved. If you click on any of the photos in this blog you will see the full size image.

Marianna is looking for a car. Its driving me absolutely crazy. We are sitting at the dining room table. Think of one of those old Italian lacquered sets that seat 8 people. She is at one end with the iMac and I'm way at the other working on my laptop.

So everytime she sees something new on auto trader or BMW, Audi or Infiniti's website she goes wooowwww that beautiful... Wooooo sooooooooooexpensive.

I have hear the above sentence a lot with -- wow I like I like wooowwww that beautiful -- stunning oh I like that one, then she tells me everything about the car - leather seats, cd etc -

then




then
Wooooo sooooooooooexpensive. hhhhuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnn.

Yikes.

So it been fun reviewing my blog. Mostly because nearly everything I had planned on doing over the past few months. The web site has been rebuilt. The slide shows kick ass. We have booked tons of weddings in January February and March. TorontoHomeMovies.com has increased market share every month for the past 7 months and will be going nation wide as CanadaHomeMovies.com starting in less than 11 days. The kids are doing great. Sammy is in his last week of camp - guys - this camp is unbelievable. I can't describe it without tearing up. What a lucky bug. Isaac is toilet trained!!!!! Only a few accidents a week. (very cool)

We are moving again - not the studio. We purchased a place at Baturst and Hwy 7. Most likely our last move for the next 3-4 years, except for Florida of course. I've lost 17 lbs in the past 6 weeks - yippee. I've been going to the gym - 5 days a week. Started with walking on the tread mill and on Friday ran 2 miles in 23 minutes. Slow but the pounds are coming off. South Beach diet has helped.


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Enough looking back.


So we have turned away 37 couples so far for 2007. Now we are entering booking season again I want to set my goal today. OK. We have improved the site. We have a new video demo almost ready. Need to clean up the dgvideo.ca - theatre.

The goal for the end of October is to increase the turn away number to ---- 67.

Let me clarify what we mean by our turn away number.

We know we're good. Very good. But in this business it's not enough. There are tons of good photographers and the schools are training more. And the differences between a great photographer and a good photographer are not usually known until after the event. Our job is to convince potential customers that our experience combined with their view of their special day - match.

When a customer inquires if we are opened for their day we do not count this as a turn away. We get 10-15 inquires like this every week (30-40 in sept,oct, jan and feb). No a turn away is when I get a message like I received a few days ago.

"Hi Jean!! We loved the job you did at _____ wedding a few weeks ago. And we decided we want to go with you for our wedding next year. Could you give us a call back so we can come in and give you a deposit and book the day."

Seriously, as soon I realize that we are not available for their day I'm really sad. Not because of the lost business but I really get to know everyone at the weddings we do. I learn their names, I get to know about their dreams, I am part of their family's memories. I know that I am missing out. There's nothing so cool as shooting a wedding with 5 or 6 other couples attending the wedding and knowing that I shot their weddings too. It shows, they truly believe we are the best choice.

Now the business person in me LOVES to turn away business. It means we are doing things right. We are going to see nearly 200 couples in September/October/November. As of today we have only so many spots. (gotta check exactly) So supply and demand means that based on our high booking rate people are going to be turned away. So, rather than emulate other photographers that concentrate on booking numbers we work on turn away numbers. The difference is the RAVE factor. I'll talk about this another time.


I notice I'm jumping all over the place. This usually happens when I get excited, or overworked. I think I'm both.