Being an Educated Photographer: (Part 3) The Full-Time People Manager
Being an Educated Photographer, a series on the business of photography (other than the f-stops)
There are many types of people that you will be working with throughout your career as a photographer, but the most important people that directly affect the success of a photographer are the photographer’s team and staff.
The Full-Time People Manager
‘A consistently highly creative person is generally irresponsible.’
— Theodore Levitt
When I first saw this quote, I had to laugh to myself. As creatives, we tend to get into our own world when we’re creating – Time passes quickly, late evenings turn into early mornings, alarm clocks become a part of our dreams (and not the signal to wake up). So how do we present a “responsible” front and keep all things that must be sane in line? In my opinion, it’s by putting together an amazing staff to push forward for us when we tend to delve into our “creative realm”.
In his book, “Best Business Practices for Photographers“, John Harrington discusses hiring his first “employee”:
Within a year or so, I realized that incurring the additional expense to have someone in every day of the week was really going to have an impact. This impact would be felt in sending and getting back signed contracts as well as serving clients needs, but also because in the downtime between doing these things, the person I hired could work on projects that I needed to get done but just couldn’t find the time to begin, let alone complete.
(By the way, I HIGHLY recommend John Harrington’s “Best Business Practices for Photographers” it is a great read and will make you think a lot about how you run your business. I’ve read it 5 times now.)
Eventually, a photographer’s business gets to that point where they just can’t do it alone — there’s not 200 hours in a week and too many things start to fall through the cracks. My studio has been growing steadily over the last several years to the point where I just couldn’t do it all alone. It’s a big step to hire someone – you are now responsible for providing the income that they need to live. My first couple payroll periods were rough. As the first of the month got closer, I started monitoring the company bank accounts a little more and being a little more frugal with money. I have to agree with Mr. Harrington though, hiring my first employee was one of the best things I ever did. I now have three full-timers and four part timers, in addition to the 3-4 interns that we have every semester. Fewer important elements of the business fall through the cracks and I can do more than ever before.
YOUR TEAM
The other “type” of people you will be managing is your creative team; the hair stylists, makeup artists, fashion stylists, etc. The more creative times tend to be a bit harder to manage.
The first issue you immediately come across is that they’re all freelancers, meaning they’re not necessarily dedicated to you, and will not always be available just because YOU have a shoot coming up; So you’re dealing with schedules – lots of schedules. My production team can sometimes spend a full day on the phone going back and forth between the different freelancers that we work with trying to put together the right team for our clients.
Secondly, and we’ll discuss this a little bit more in another part of this series, the egos. As one of my favorite makeup artists, Chris Lanston, said in a recent interview, “Everyone thinks they’re the best. Everyone thinks they should be on top.” It’s true, in this business you must constantly be selling yourself and your talents – it’s only natural for ones ego to get a little big. Once you get past the ego issue, the photographers job is to bring everyone’s ideas together and create with a joint vision. It’s not always the easiest task to handle. Even after several production meetings, creatives always come up with new ideas as the shoot approaches and even on set – as a photographer, you must find the gems in those ideas and know when it is the right time to push forward with the original plan.
‘You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world, but it requires people to make the dream a reality.’ – Walt Disney.
As photographers, we are only one person. We can dream until we’re blue in the face, but we need people to make our “dreams” come true.
BEING AN EFFECTIVE PEOPLE MANAGER
While some have this innate ability to lead many of us photographers just want to create. The fact of the matter is there is much more that goes into being an effective photographer than just shooting, you must lead, inspire, motivate and encourage everyone that you work with. You will have to make hard decisions whether to call a specific freelancer in on the next job, after a “not so great” previous shoot. You will have to hire, fire, discipline or give performance appraisals employees and your freelance team. You must find the right moment to play “leader” or to inspire, you must find the right moment to “manage” or dictate, and you must know when it’s time to “facilitate” or moderate a discussion. These things don’t come naturally to most, but there are some great articles, books and seminars that can help you start to think like a “people manager”.
• Five Main Functions of the Manager
• Managing Creative People: Taking the Right Approach to the Right Brained (BusinessCoach.com)
• Ten Tips for Managing Creative Types (AllBusiness.com)
Books:
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
• Managing Creative People: Lessons in Leadership for the Ideas Economy
• Management and Creativity: From Creative Industries to Creative Management
The best advice I can give, if you’re having problems building teams or getting the results you want from your shoots is to STOP, take a deep breath, and look at yourself. Are you the best “People Manager” that you can be?
Current Articles In This Series:
Being An Educated Photographer: (Part 1) The Introduction
Being An Educated Photographer: (Part 2) The Full-Time CEO
Being An Educated Photographer: (Part 3) The Full-Time People Manager
Coming Soon:
The Full-Time Counselor
The Full-Time Accountant
The Full-Time Sales Executive
The Full-Time Marketer
The Full-Time Student
Category: Opinion
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