SuccessWare
A Weekend Visit
October/29/2007
This past weekend at Deep Creek, I had a wonderful visit with Jeff and Judy Grann of Successware, along with their 5-year-old twins and my daughter and her family. We reviewed some exciting additions to SuccessWare that presently are in the pipeline. More about that later.
It was a wonderful Indian summer weekend, and just before the Granns headed home, I grabbed this photo of the family together.
It was a wonderful Indian summer weekend, and just before the Granns headed home, I grabbed this photo of the family together.
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Are You Using Payment Plans?
September/20/2007
No matter where I teach, I always learn something from the students, and my recent Guerrilla Management Class was no exception. The most interesting thing I learned this time is how important payment plans have become as a means of increasing sales, and how much clients appreciate the opportunity to spread their payments over a designated period. The studios with baby plans were the most experienced with payment plans, which they say are a great fit for parents who want quality portraits of their children, but who have so many current expenses associated with the arrival of the baby.
Implementing a payment plan might seem like a daunting task, but it is not for SuccessWare users. The software now includes a tab associated with the Client Order function that allows you to automate payment plans through credit card processing. This is possible because SuccessWare is connected to EFS Net, a merchant service company. Your client's primary credit card is stored securely in SuccessWare, along with as many back-up cards as the client wishes. With the client's permission, SuccessWare automatically charges their credit card on the pre-arranged due date. This new feature allows you to create any number of payment schedules according to your needs or the client's wishes. The feature also allows you to update client records and view pending payments. To learn how the payment plan feature works, click here to go to SuccessWare's "What's New in SuccessWare 4.3" page. Click on the second movie on the list.
According to class members, one of the most important benefits of a payment plans is it encourages repeat business. Traci Brennan, a workshop participant from Mundelein, IL, put it this way: "Once a parent sets up a payment schedule with you for a baby plan, when the plan is finished, it's easy for parents to decide to have you continue additional sessions, as your studio is already part of their family budget."
The same is true for wedding clients. Since bridal couples typically book their photographer as much as a year or more before the wedding, why not set up a payment plan for the couple? A payment schedule greatly facilitates your ability to sell more expensive wedding services and to add substantially to after-sales totals. Remember the old adage: Money spent is money forgotten.
The experience of these class members more than convinces me that payment plans are a wonderful tool for photographers!
Implementing a payment plan might seem like a daunting task, but it is not for SuccessWare users. The software now includes a tab associated with the Client Order function that allows you to automate payment plans through credit card processing. This is possible because SuccessWare is connected to EFS Net, a merchant service company. Your client's primary credit card is stored securely in SuccessWare, along with as many back-up cards as the client wishes. With the client's permission, SuccessWare automatically charges their credit card on the pre-arranged due date. This new feature allows you to create any number of payment schedules according to your needs or the client's wishes. The feature also allows you to update client records and view pending payments. To learn how the payment plan feature works, click here to go to SuccessWare's "What's New in SuccessWare 4.3" page. Click on the second movie on the list.
According to class members, one of the most important benefits of a payment plans is it encourages repeat business. Traci Brennan, a workshop participant from Mundelein, IL, put it this way: "Once a parent sets up a payment schedule with you for a baby plan, when the plan is finished, it's easy for parents to decide to have you continue additional sessions, as your studio is already part of their family budget."
The same is true for wedding clients. Since bridal couples typically book their photographer as much as a year or more before the wedding, why not set up a payment plan for the couple? A payment schedule greatly facilitates your ability to sell more expensive wedding services and to add substantially to after-sales totals. Remember the old adage: Money spent is money forgotten.
The experience of these class members more than convinces me that payment plans are a wonderful tool for photographers!
How to KNOW if Your Marketing is Working
July/20/2007
It drives me nuts to know how many SuccessWare users are not taking advantage of the Inquiry Sales Report function of the software. What this great feature does is calculate how much income you are receiving from each of your major marketing sources. Thus you can say with certainty whether or not your marketing is paying off.
The report itself is found under the Reports menu. Pull down to Inquiry Sales Report.
. . . And here's what you get:
Now you can see exactly which marketing resources are paying off for and which are not. This allows your decision making about how to spend your precious marketing dollars to be made based on reality, not on hunches.
It's easy to add the data. Simply go to the Inquiries menu and pull down to Add Inquiries. It takes just a few seconds to add the information you need to receive reports that are vital to effective management.
The report itself is found under the Reports menu. Pull down to Inquiry Sales Report.
. . . And here's what you get:
Now you can see exactly which marketing resources are paying off for and which are not. This allows your decision making about how to spend your precious marketing dollars to be made based on reality, not on hunches.
It's easy to add the data. Simply go to the Inquiries menu and pull down to Add Inquiries. It takes just a few seconds to add the information you need to receive reports that are vital to effective management.
Need Help Learning SuccessWare?
May/24/2007
SuccessWare is an incredibly powerful management tool, but you can't be expected to learn to implement all of its features at once. The learning curve is far less when you familiarize yourself with the many resources SuccessWare has to help you along the way. The key to understanding which resources will be most helpful for your learning style can be found by clicking on the Support link of the SuccessWare website.
You'll find descriptions and links to every type of support that SuccessWare provides, including training movies, web demos and live web training, what's new movies and tours, tips and tricks, schedules for multi-day live training classes, and the opportunity to view SuccessWare's powerful User Guide information right on the web.
I find the User Guide to be a wonderful resource. It pays to take the time to browse through the wealth of information it contains. To do so, you can simply click on one or all of the links below:
Another excellent resource for SuccessWare users is the SuccessWare Support Forum. You can register for this active online community by clicking on the icon below:
You'll find descriptions and links to every type of support that SuccessWare provides, including training movies, web demos and live web training, what's new movies and tours, tips and tricks, schedules for multi-day live training classes, and the opportunity to view SuccessWare's powerful User Guide information right on the web.
I find the User Guide to be a wonderful resource. It pays to take the time to browse through the wealth of information it contains. To do so, you can simply click on one or all of the links below:
Another excellent resource for SuccessWare users is the SuccessWare Support Forum. You can register for this active online community by clicking on the icon below:
SuccessWare Leasing . . . The Way to Go!
May/05/2007
I'm often asked whether it's best to lease or purchase SuccessWare. To me the answer is a no-brainer: Leasing is definitely the way to go. Leasing assures that you are always working on the current version of SuccessWare, which is preferable for software applications that are critical to your business operations. The monthly single-user leasing fee of $49 includes all future upgrades as well as continuous technical support. Multi-user is only $79 per month. Judy Grann, SuccessWare vice president, tells me that since the company introduced leasing in 2003, over 90% of their new clients have chosen the leasing option, and many other SuccessWare users have moved to leasing so that they are fully upgraded and also retain access to continued support.
If you have questions about leasing or wish to switch to leasing, you can email Successware at info@successware.net or phone them at 800-593-3767.
Why SuccessWare?
April/26/2007
Back in the mid-1990's, I got a call from Jeff Grann, who asked me if I would be willing to consult with him on the development of a comprehensive studio management software application. I had met Jeff through his wife, Judy, who was one of my first (and best) business students. As a brand-new photographer in her early 20's, Judy was highly motivated to move her fledgling studio business from her townhouse basement to a retail location so that Jeff could use the space at home for a pool table. As cumbersome as business planning was back then—you had to do all your calculations by pencil, paper, and adding machine—Judy understood that a financial and marketing plan were the only option for achieving her goal. I've never seen anyone attack a business plan like Judy did. She made the plan, then worked the plan, and soon she was in a lovely studio space in downtown Fairfax, VA.
In those days Jeff was working in Washington as a TRW computer engineer, and I was struggling with how to automate my monthly accounting chores. I showed Jeff the home-made management system that I had cobbled together from three off-the-shelf applications, and he set up something similar for Judy's studio. Jeff was amazed that no one had developed a true financial management software for the photography industry. In those days there were some systems that handled income and client data, but nothing that integrated all the elements that photographers need to run a studio using a single data file. So when I got Jeff's call I was intrigued that he and Judy had decided that her business was sufficiently profitable that Jeff could quit his lucrative software development job to work full time developing what would become SuccessWare. I was particularly pleased that the software would include not only tracking features, but also business planning and pricing modules. We began a series of meetings so that Jeff could understand exactly what financial management features photographers needed to help them make more money, doing so according to industry standards for financial management. During those early meetings, I could never have envisioned that SuccessWare would become the incredible multi-faceted tool that it is today. In fact, SuccessWare has added so many mind-boggling features since those early days when I was in weekly contact with Jeff and Judy, that I have vowed to attended one of their SuccessWare "immersion" classes before the year is out.
Knowing that I was involved in the early development of SuccessWare, I get lots of questions about SuccessWare and why I believe SuccessWare is essential for profitable studio management. Here's the answer I give:
SuccessWare is the industry's ONLY fully integrated financial and business management software that encompasses all of your studio business needs—business planning, product pricing, scheduling, client and prospect tracking, order tracking, bill paying and complete financial management and reporting. Everything you need is always in one place: no double entries, hunting for cheat sheets, etc. I've lived through the days when you had to do daily hand entries and then spend three days each month to hand-create your financial records. Things improved with computers, but you still had to work in 3 or 4 applications and create your own personalized reports. With SuccessWare, once you enter data and pay your bills, reports are automatic, and this is the way it has to be for busy, successful people. When you look around and see who's making money in this industry, it's not a coincidence that most of them are SuccessWare users.
You can learn a great deal more about SuccessWare by going to their website (SuccessWare.net). You'll find all kinds of resources—from video tours to a free download demo. Just click here to take a look.