We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Roger Cotton. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Roger below.
Roger, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today It’s easy to look at a business or industry as an outsider and assume it’s super profitable – but we’ve seen over and over again in our conversation with folks that most industries have factors that make profitability a challenge. What’s biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?
Some photographers think “Other Photographers” are the biggest challenge to profitability. An up-and-coming photographer starts posting on social media and advertising $50 photo sessions with unlimited images, and crazy low prices that an established photographer simply can’t compete with. There’s plenty of work to go around, and those new photographers will either burn themselves out of the industry, or raise their prices to market. Either way, they don’t impact our profits that much.
To me, the biggest challenge is finding clients who understand and recognize the value in the digital product. In today’s digital society, people, in general, don’t assign any value to digital photos. In their minds, it didn’t cost the photographer anything to make it. The photographer pressed a button. Without a tangible physical product in their hands, there is no monetary value to the image. People have no guilt about taking a digital image and sharing it with friends, family, social media, or even using that “valueless” image to go create a physical product, whether that be prints, t-shirts, mugs, or any of the photo products available online.
I’m primarily a live events and sports photographer. A lot of my sports work is on spec, meaning I’m not paid to be there. I’m granted access to the field, but only make money if people purchase the images after being posted to our web site. I’ve had people email me asking me to remove the watermark and branding from the images they see on our web site. They see the price list and ordering information, for prints or digital files, and yet they still contact me to remove the watermark so they can save the files. They do not place a value on a digital image.
People need to understand that even without a physical product in their hands, there are real money expenses just to produce that image. Aside from the $10,000 worth of gear used to produce the image, there is the cost of doing business … taxes, fees, licenses, software, etc. Don’t forget about the time investment. For a high school football game, kickoff is at 7 PM, meaning I’m leaving to drive to the field at 5:15 so I can be there for warm-ups and pre-game activities starting at 6. The game ends, on a good night, at 9:30. I get home at 10:45 PM, offload the images from the cards to the computer, and then cull those images down to the best ones. They get basic edits for cropping, composition, color and noise before being published to the web site for viewing and purchase. Then email blasts go out to the school, boosters, and media, along with social media posts to let everyone know their action photos are ready. It’s midnight before I’m done, sometimes later. That’s 6+ hours of my time invested, and I do this every Friday night during the season.
I think every photographer will tell you, people stealing digital images is their number one challenge to being able to profit in this industry.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
We are a home-based photography business, and it is a business. That means we have business licenses, collect and submit sales taxes to the State, insure all of our equipment, carry liability insurance, pay property taxes on our of the equipment, etc. A lot of photographers collect money for their services and products, but do not bother with the aspects of legally operating a business. That gives us an edge when it comes to being hired by other businesses or government agencies. They want to see copies of your business license and liability insurance.
As for how this all started, that goes all the way back to high school where I was a photographer for the yearbook, and photographed a lot of sports. That was using film, manual focus cameras, manual settings. I never really let go of the hobby. Once digital cameras advanced to the point they were no longer just for consumers and could produce professional results, we started our photo and video production business. Over time, we dropped the video and streamlined our photography to a niche, centering on sports and live events. That doesn’t mean we won’t do other photography, but we are at a point where we can pick the work we want to do. I love doing collaboration with other artists, cosplayers, athletes, etc. If you pitch me an idea, and I get excited about it, we’re definitely going to to that!
We have several long-term clients. I’ve been photographing one football league for 13 years this season. Our clients love us because they know they don’t have to manage us. We just handle it. We make their lives easier because we just go get it done, and we have enough partners in other industries that we can be a one-stop-shop. If you’re hosting some crazy event and tell me, “I want balloon arches, a balloon twist artist, an amazing DJ, a foam party, an aerialist, and a pack of life-sized dinosaurs running around and interacting with our guests.” Believe it or not, I’m going to say, “I’ve got people for every bit of that.” And it’s true! Do you want to meet a velociraptor?
We are a well known, respected, premium brand. It’s my name on the company, so I can’t hide behind a corporate logo. Our clients know we produce a premium product, at a fair price, and have the experience and know-how to make it happen.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
How we funded and started our business is such a great story, and I love telling it. When I worked for a local Audio/Visual corporation, part of my job was going to the client’s location after a sale. I would set up their equipment, and do several days of training on how to use it. I developed a great working relationship with one of the clients, and we kept in touch after I left the A/V company.
I had a small video editing business at the house where we would make basic productions, video slide shows, training videos, things like that. The clients provided the footage, we did the editing. His company wanted to produce a series of videos, and he called one day to hire me. I thanked him for thinking of me, but I didn’t have the equipment to take on such a task. He called me again, “We *REALLY* want you to do this project.” Again I had to remind him that I didn’t have the equipment, and didn’t have the funds to purchase everything I would need. I didn’t have a pro video camera, lights, wireless mic, etc. He asked me, “How much would that cost?” I made a shopping list, gave him the cost, and waited. He called me the next day, “Send me a contract to produce the series. I’ll send you a check for half as a deposit so you can buy the equipment.”
That man, Mike, had so much faith in me. He wanted me to do the project. He wanted me to succeed. That spoke volumes to me. For someone to have that much determination, to provide financial backing and get me started, that just amazed me. We started our business, and we’ve grown year after year, all because of one guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
The most difficult time in our business journey was definitely the COVID pandemic. Our photography business is centered around sports and events. When the pandemic hit, all sports and events were canceled. I was the photographer for our local minor league baseball team at the time, and the entire season didn’t happen. It was like that everywhere. All sports and events were canceled for over a year. During the second year, some of the events started coming back, but no outside people were allowed to attend. Games took place in empty stadiums and only staff members were allowed to attend. No photographers. Class reunions, corporate holiday parties, Breakfast with Santa, awards ceremonies …. all these things … canceled until further notice.
For 2 years, we basically had zero income from our photography business. Like everyone else, we were trying to stay afloat, racking up massive debt, waiting for the pandemic to end. The government was giving out huge grants to large corporations, but as a very small business with no employees on payroll, we didn’t qualify for assistance. We were left to survive on our own. And we did exactly that, we survived. As the restrictions were lifted, games and events started happening, and a semblance of normality was returned. We were right there, ready to resume our duties.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.RogerCotton.com
- Instagram: @RogerCottonPics
- Facebook: @RogerCottonPics
- Twitter: @RogerCottonPics
Image Credits
Roger Cotton Photography