My wife is a photographer, and she was appalled by the story of him yelling at the bride. I also showed her his website, and she had to leave the room she couldn't stand it so much. As a photographer, he's actually not very good either. Maybe that's why he's offering the cheap video too.

I feel really bad for anyone who hires him.

Yeah, that really is sad. I feel bad for the victims, that 25 years from now won't have anything worth looking at, from one of the most important events of their lives.

He has a link to his site stats on his main page....

I've only emailed the link to 3 or 4 people, between yesterday and today, and his page views have been 80% above average the past two days. He doesn't know what to think about the recent boost in traffic.

The boudoir section is great. I like how the girls have the same blue and white striped shirt on.

You're cracking me up here.

Robert, have you come across the info on sales strategy yet. I'd love to read it.

Robert, I'm also interested in that if you don't mind sending it along

Hey, post it on DVInfo, I'm sure there are many people that would benefit from it

I've got to take some time and write it out. It's a matter of putting down in writing concisely, what I've managed to gather over a long period of time. I've got a pretty fair amount of marketing, advertising and sales background, with a variety of products/services.

Nick - Drop me an email, so I have your email addy, and I'll CC you, when I get it done.

I’ll try to get working on it a bit tonight guys.

The core concept here, to absolutely burn into your mind, is that “price” is simply NOT your product - plain and simple as that. (Mr. Rotten Tomato Award winner sells “price” - not you.) Your product/service is professional quality wedding video production. When a prospective client asks you “how much” right off the bat, they are simply not asking the correct question (because it isn’t really what they are seeking - hopefully, they are seeking a professional wedding video production - AND, “price” is simply not a commodity you deal in anyways - you deal in making professional quality video), so you need to help them out a little, by asking them questions to get them to tell you what it is that they really want, in a video of their wedding and the events that surround it, to help determine if what they really want is something suitable for you to provide to them. Done perfectly, you will make the sale (the prospect decides to buy from you) before price is even discussed. Price only comes into play, once they’ve decided what they want YOU to provide them with (key concept: once they’ve decided they want YOU to do the providing), to make informed decisions on what they can afford. Then you sign a piece of paper and take a check.

sounds like a good plan. we will see how well I can execute it.

First thing is to take those prices down. Your prospects, when first viewing your website, simply don't know enough about what it is you do, and what they really want, to be able to make any sort of informed decision on what they can afford. Prices can be okay sometimes, for products/services that a prospective client already has a good understanding of, but with wedding video production, that's pretty rare to start off with prospects that even have much of a clue.

To the guys here thinking about going to HD for weddings
 

I just got my FX1 yesterday, have fiddled with it just a little, and I'll just say that my first impression is a good one and believe this will be a very workable camera for weddings.

Say, I hope I haven't come off arrogantly or anything. This is a great bunch of folks at dvinfo. I really appreciate the things you guys teach me and I'm more than happy to share some of the stuff I've managed to learn along life's journey, from being in a number of marketing/sales/advertising related jobs and being involved in a few business ventures over the years. I've also got something of a computer background (build em, fix em, program em), so I try to offer what I can there sometimes too. My dad was a computer programmer from way back to almost the stone age (he's long since retired), and had me writing my first program (to play tic-tac-toe) back in the early 1960s, when I was like 7 or so, so I got exposed to computers pretty early in life, way before they were commonplace.

One of the things that's worked pretty well for me over the years is to sort of analyze sales, as a process you engage in, and break the components of the process down so you can find strategies and tactics to maximize the efficiency of getting sales and increase the odds of making those sales good deals for both buyer and seller (not just volume, but quality).

I'm 48 now, and I've decided I want to do something I really enjoy from here on out. I'm a bit of a maverick, and not the type to work for somebody else in an office very long (it's just not for me). And I enjoy making video immensely, so that's what I've set my mind to doing. I want to do it well and make a good living at it, just like you guys do, and just like most folks at dvinfo. You guys do some great work, and I'm learning a heck of a lot from you. I appreciate it.

- Bob

I don't think you have come off arrogant. Just supportive which is really what this place is all about.

I'm glad you guys see the problem I had to deal with, and you havn't even met or worked with the guy... I'm sure we all have or all will have to work with someone similar to this at some point. You just have to shrug your shoulders, laugh it off, and make the best of it.

We've seen his website Matt (and that alleged "video"), so it's difficult to imagine you were exaggerating much ...LOL.