Today's Guest: Daniel Ross of
Today's Host: John Bentley
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Daniel Ross Expert PageANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio's Spotlight is sponsored by morephotos.com the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide. Welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN: Today we are in the studio with Daniel Ross. He is the owner of Essence Photo and Video of Schaumburg, Illinois. Welcome to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight this morning, Dan.
DAN: Thank you, John. It's a pleasure to be here.
JOHN: Now you have a photography business that specializes in weddings, correct?
DAN: That's correct. We do 100% weddings.
JOHN: Tell us a little bit about it.
DAN: Well, I think photography and video started actually as a parent company was my partner which is my cousin. We are a family run business. He started back in 1992. He was a disc jockey. Over the years he started adding some photographers and by about 2000 the photography business had eclipsed the wedding disc jockey business, and at that point he made the switch over to be a fullfleged photography and video company only. Since then we've introduced a lot of innovative service packages and products in the Chicagoland market, and we've grown quite nicely. We've actually...the biggest challenge we've had is to slow our growth. We've had some very popular items that the customers absolutely love, and our challenge is to make sure that we keep the growth slow enough so that we continue to service our customers at the level that we want to. We get over 40% of our business from customer referrals, and that's our top priority.
JOHN: Certainly. Now I'm sure that you guys are quite busy in the Chicago area doing this, doing weddings. What are some of the facilities, perhaps, that you use in the area?
DAN: Well Essence services the entire Chicagoland area, and that's pretty much dictated by the customer. Where there church is, where they've chosen their reception hall. We've performed at every major venue in the Chicagoland area. Some of the areas that we help our customers with, there's a time between the ceremony and reception that the majority of our customers like to go out and do a photo shoot in between the ceremony or reception. These usually result in some of the most artistic and fun photos of the day, and we have a lot of location suggestions. There's an Arbritum called Morton Arbritum down in Naperville. There's various parks that we've worked at, and we recommend our customers to. It becomes such a popular question for us that we actually created a page on our website under our photography tab that our customers, actually any customer can go to and get a list of every park district in the area. All of our favorite locations to go shoot at, our favorite parks under the photography tab called locations so. Really we don't dictate which locations for the main parts of the ceremony or reception, we help them with the in between stops that they like to do and those are some of the most fun photos.
JOHN: Now when you do a wedding, do you have more than one photographer on location?
DAN: That usually depends on the customer. We have one and two photographer packages. The one photographer package usually we like to max out at about 225 - 250 attendance maximum. Above that we do require that they have a second photographer. It's really dependent on the size of the wedding and the needs of what the customer is looking for.
JOHN: And what about the equipment? What kind of cameras, lenses are you using?
DAN: Well it all depends on the photographer. It's kind of like Ford versus Chevy. Each photographer has their personal choice. The two most popular brands that we use will be either the Canon or the Nikon and the Canon and Nikon cameras and lenses and all the equipment that we use it's a little bit different than what the average customer would understand. They don't go to the local electronic store and buy their Canon Rebel. All the photographers we have use a professional grade equipment product. So you're looking at something that has more intelligence in the camera, faster speed, because we are a photo journalistic style studio, our photographers require a professional grade camera in order to get the shots that they need to quickly.
JOHN: Now you mentioned that you have a number of photographers working for you. How many photographers do you have working for you?
DAN: We have 17 photographers on staff currently; however, on any given date the maximum number of events we will go out and shoot will be 15, because we do require at least 2 backups for each event day.
JOHN: And what do you suggest to clients when they hire a photographer? What are you going to give to them?
DAN: Well we have a number of things when a client decides to go with Essence that we work with the customer on. Firs off, we created an in-house proprietary software system that we call e-net and this particular software system sends out all kinds of automatic updates so that the customer is always informed every step of the way from the time that we meet with them and the initial consultation from the time that we deliver the final products, usually they primary album or their parents' wedding albums. Every step along the way, they are are informed automatically. That reduces any human error. It also, it's something that the customers get used to so every time they get an email from Essence they know it's something important. The biggest thing that we suggest the customers do before the wedding is take the time to sit down and take a look at the course of the day. We actually have a number of planning worksheets that we provide them, and the initial consultation. We actuatally have an entire information booklet...it's about 40 pages that every potential customer will receive, but the biggest issue here is to sit down and look and understand that if you want X and Y type of photos, do you have the time and the day to do it. For example, if you want to get three different poses of every bridesmaid at the bride's house before they go to the ceremony and a number of getting ready type of shots, well you need to a lot enough time for that. Fifteen minutes isn't going to do it so we just make the customers aware, you know, if you want to do that allot at least 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes so when we arrive, make sure the bride is ready to start taking photos. Along with in between the ceremony and reception, allot enough time for your photographer/videographer and other wedding services that you're going to be having so that you don't get to the day and go oh shoot I"m supposed to be doing four different things at once today. So that's one of the biggest things that we really encourage our brides to take a few minutes and sit down and take a look at. Along with that after the wedding is really where we have the most interaction with our brides and groom. Before the wedding we help them with that. We also have a process before the wedding...they put down all their interests and all the different special things that they want on the day that is then communicated with us and the photographer, but after the wedding is really where we spend the most time, because now we have typical customers will receive anywhere from 700 to 900, sometimes even more photos per wedding. So with all those photographs, there's a number of different options and with technology today, customers have more than just getting a wedding album and a parent album option. Coffee table books are extremely popular nowadays. The new digital style format templates for everything from their canvases that they can get for the wall, for the albums, themselves, for the parent albums, for the coffee table book. It takes a lot of interaction with the customer, and so we really have a system set up. We have multiple meetings with the customer after the wedding to really make sure that we understand what they're looking for so when they receive their final product, they're really happy and they tell their friends. We have a saying around here at Essence, we love happy customers that tell their friends. We don't like unhappy customers tell their friends. So we do everything we can to make every customer happy.
JOHN: Sounds good, Dan. we are in the studio today with Daniel Ross. He is the owner of Essence Photo and Video of Schaumburg, Illinois, and you're listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. We're going to step aside for these important messages, do stayed tuned.
ANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio Spotlight is sponsored by morephotos.com, the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide.
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ANNOUNCER: Did you ever wonder why the groom is supposed to carry the bride over the threshold? What does the saying something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue mean? Visit www.weddingdetails.com and click on the lore and tradition section. We've got culture and tradition information from around the world. Visit www.weddingdetails.com tonight.
ANNOUNCER: We now return you to the VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN: We are back in the studio with Daniel Ross. He is the owner of Essence Photo and Video of Schaumburg, Illinois. Welcome back to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, Dan.
DAN: Thank you, John.
JOHN: Now we've been talking about your wedding photography business. You have a package that you offer to your brides and grooms called the All Inclusive Wedding Photo Package. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?
DAN: Sure. The All Inclusive Wedding Photo Package is something that we introduced about three years ago in 2002 or 2003. I can't even remember, but it's something that's become very popular and now all of our competition is trying to copy it. What it basically is is that the brides were coming in and it used to be in the wedding industry you would come in, you would pay a certain fee for the photographer, you would pay a certain fee then to get your album, you would pay a fee maybe if you wanted to receive the digital negatives and then you would buy something else something and something else separate. The online hosting of your photos was an extra amount of dollars. So what we did is we, and actually the brides were telling was they're really sick of being nickel and dimed to death, it was so confusing. It was so difficult to plan the photography for their weddings. They really wanted a simpler, easier way. So we created the All Inclusive Wedding Photo Package that really includes all the most popular items that most brides and grooms want for their wedding. So, for example, most brides and grooms who have a wedding in this day and age, they not only want their photographer to come, shoot their photos, they want their album, but they also want their photos hosted online so that all their friends and family can see especially out of town guests. We also include a proof book with ever package. It used to be you would have to buy the proof book separately. Well who doesn't want a complete record of their day? So there's a number of items that we've included in there that used to be you would have to pay individually. So the All Inclusive Wedding Photo Package just makes it a lot simpler, a lot easier for a bride who's got ten million things to plan for her wedding anyways. She knows when she books the All Inclusive Wedding Photo Package she's safe with photography. Also the nice part about the All Inclusive Wedding Photo Package is we don't have a system like a lot of the traditional old school studios where you have to pick the exact package, the exact items you're going to get before the wedding. It's really difficult, because how do you know exactly what you're going to want until you see your photographs. So what we've done is we've set up a composite structure that most of the payments come after the wedding. The only payment we take before the is the deposit. Therefore, they can let the photos dictate which package they choose, not the other way around, and they have to fill their package with the different photos that they wound up getting. So it really gives, again, the customer more flexibility, more choices, more options, and the ability to pick a package within their budget after the wedding once they've seen how much all their other expenses are as well as the all important how many gifts they got, it's actually the most fun part of the wedding is opening up all the envelopes after the wedding to see who gave you what. So it really helps them from a financial perspective to understand what they can afford and let the photos dictate which package they get so they're ultimately the happiest customer.
JOHN: And that is what it is all about isn't it, Daniel. Now you guys have recently won an award. Tell us a little bit about that.
DAN: The award is from the industry leader in weddings. It's called TheKnot.com. Any bride who's listening to this will know who TheKnot.com is. They are the largest online wedding planning resource out there. And what TheKnot.com did is they said, ok we have literally hundreds of thousands of members to The Knot community, and they've set up some forums and message boards and things like that, but, you know, it really didn't get detailed enough and it didn't give the brides a list of the different vendors that have proven over time that they have a high customer service level. So they created what they call the Best Of Group. So Essence Photo and Video was awarded the Not Best Of for 2007 in Chicagoland. What they did to come to who won this award is they surveyed all the brides that were members of The Knot. In Chicagoland, I believe alone, they had about 16,000 different brides comment on their vendors. They rated them on, I believe, it was about 12 - 14 different metric; everything from did they show up on time, were they professional, were you happy with this, were you happy with that. Essence, obviously, made the cut, was awarded the Not Best Of 2007. We're really proud of this, because this shows that, not only do we think that we're doing a great job, but the customers themselves right from the horses mouth telling an independent third party company The Knot that yes Essence was one of the best photography studios in Chicagoland. We're really proud of it because it shows that a lot of the things that we've done over the past two to three years, we've instituted all sorts of quality control programs for further enhancing the photo journalistic abilities of our photographers for the training of the photographers on an ongoing basis, not just when they come on board, but then on an on going basis to keep up with new trends, new great shots. It's really worked out. We've invested a lot of capital in our infrastructure to better prepare our photographers to work with customers, and The Knot just validated that. It's a very prestigeous award. Anyone who has one it will prominently display it, because it is something that shows that the brides do appreciate what you're doing.
JOHN: Well congratulations on the award, Daniel.
DAN: Thank you.
JOHN: Now we have to end this interview, but I want to get your website information and contact information out before we do so.
DAN: Our website is called www.essencewedding.com. We can be reached toll free at (888) 777-7011. We are available for in studio meetings, not only in our Schaumburg studio, we do also have a Naperville/Warrenville location and in 2008 we'll be opening an Orland Park, Illinois, and somewhere on the north shore in late 2008.
JOHN: Excellent. Well thank you for joining us today, Daniel Ross. Appreciate your time and good luck with your business.
DAN: I appreciate it. Thank you, John.
JOHN: We've been in the studio with Daniel Ross. He is the owner of Essence Photo and Video of Schaumburg, Illinois, and you've been listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. Have a great afternoon everyone.
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