If you set aside a half-hour aside every business day to call just five new client contacts, at the end of the year you will have made contact with over 1,250 new potential clients.

Jim Cavanaugh is an architectural and aerial photographer based in Buffalo, NY. He is President of ASMP.

LinkedIn has become my most important tool for identifying new clients. While not as popular or user friendly as facebook, LinkedIn has a different culture and is much more about business.

Every time I have a new person “link in” with me in LinkedIn, I will add their e-mail address to my Constant Contact mail list. I will also add the person and their company information to my database. I look up and bookmark their company website and review it to learn more about their company and how they use photography to tell their story. All of this information is available on their profile page.

I will also send them a brief introductory letter thanking them for adding me to their LinkedIn network and telling them a little about my company.  Along with the letter, I include a mini portfolio of five (5) 6”x9” promo cards. This is followed up a few days later with a phone call to introduce myself and learn more about them. The end goal is a portfolio presentation.

But the real power of LinkedIn is that as you add each new person into your network, you can also research each of their contacts. Unless they have a privacy setting enabled to prevent this, you can view each of the people in their network.  (I find this privacy setting is rarely used.)

On average, I have about twenty-five to thirty-five new contacts link in with me each week. One evening a week I review all of their contacts. This can be well over a thousand names. I will generally invite about a hundred new people to link in with me each week from these lists. These people are in companies I want to work with and in positions to be a decision maker about hiring a photographer. I am selective as to who I invite.

LinkedIn also suggests people you may want to add to your network based upon “shared connections”. This can also be an effective tool for expanding your network.

Your contacts are also adding people to their network on a regular basis. The update feed on your home page will list all of you contacts new connections in real time. I check this every day so I don’t have to revisit current contact’s full lists.

This powerful social networking tool has allowed me to add close to 500 new contacts in the last three months!

Jim Cavanaugh is an architectural and aerial photographer based in Buffalo, NY. He is 1st Vice President of ASMP.

Facebook has grown to be one of my most important business resources.  Once you move beyond Farmville, horoscopes and what your long lost high school friend had for lunch, there can be a wealth of information and the ability to reach out to and build relationships with current and prospective clients.

If you are like me, many of your facebook friends are likely other professional photographers. A good number of these photographers will post links to blogs, technology news, industry information and promote local and regional events of interest. This is an effective tool for you to become more informed because they have already reviewed the information and deemed it important enough to share. You should make sure you are doing the same.

If your clients or prospective clients are friends on facebook it can help build a personal connection between you. They will learn more about you and you will be able to get a better insight into them on a personal level.  It is critical that you, as a business person, use prudence in what you post on your personal site. Use the same care in replying to others posts. Remember, that reply is being seen by an even broader audience.

A separate Business site is also a must. This facebook presence should be limited to business related information only. News about your business, selected examples of your work, behind the scene views, client highlights and links to your blog, videos and e-newsletters. Make the posts about the projects and your clients. A story with general interest to a broader audience is more likely to be shared.

Jim Cavanaugh is an architectural and aerial photographer based in Buffalo, NY. He is 1st Vice President of ASMP. You can follow him on facebook at http://tinyurl.com/36yry45

Ask most photographers about Creative Commons and they will likely respond that it is just a tool for people to use images without having to pay for them. At first glance this may seem true. Creative Commons allows people to use photographs and other intellectual property created by others in several broad categories of use. These are broad licenses where creators receive no compensation. This is the part that most photographers see as a devaluation of copyright or “giving images away for free”.

But is it? Creative Commons does offer licenses. They may not be the kind of licenses we want to grant for our work, but they are licenses none the less. What do they do? The facilitate licensing. They provide a mechanism for a copyright owner and an end user to negotiate specific uses and operate with respect for current copyright laws. In essence, the end user obtains a proper license that the copyright owner grants for the use of their work. As long as the user abides by the limitations granted in the Creative Commons license, they may use the image without fear of infringing the copyright owner’s copyrights.

While the current range of licenses available through Creative Commons does not address the licensing needs of most transactions between professional photographers and their clients, it does offer a model to build on. The strength of the model is that it is fast, easy, available and widely recognized. The traditional process of obtaining licenses from photographers tends to be slow, complicated and without standards. However,  the PLUS Coalition has done tremendous work in trying to bring standardization to this process.

Technology has changed the expectations of how users expect to obtain content. Creative Commons may not meet our commercial needs and is geared to specific markets. However it is an important first step in solving the issues on how users of content can easily and quickly obtain legal rights to utilize that content.

Can Creative Commons model be a guide for us to build or utilize new infrastructure to license our work?

Part of being a business owner is dealing with occasional disputes that will develop with clients, suppliers and assistants. Often times the problem will pop up unexpectedly in the form of a terse e-mail, pointed letter or angry phone call. Human nature has us tend to react defensibly to the situation, especially if it’s a complaint or an accusation.

I have found, rather than reacting with the fight or flight response, that I will have a much better perspective on the situation if I have had a day to cool off and sleep on it. A conflict that may seem major when you first learn about it, may seem very minor the next day. So step back, don’t react, sleep on it. Then resolve it the next day with a fresh perspective.

I can’t tell you how many of my photographs I have seen used without a license or permission from me. When I find one or more of my images infringed I take immediate action. My first step is to contact the company or person in writing. I lightheartedly call this letter “You probably didn’t know, but”.

The tone of the letter is professional and frank, not stern or threatening. If someone liked my image enough to use it, they may be a potential new client. While I intend to be paid, I don’t want to promote unwarranted conflict.

I let them know that I am the owner of the copyrighted images, that the copyrights are registered with the United States Copyright Office and that they have been used by them without permission. I enclose a copy of the infringed work. I also state that I am giving them the benefit of the doubt and understand they may have not known that they needed to get permission and pay a fee to use my image.

Along with the letter, I enclose an invoice for the use or uses I have discovered. I tell them that I will grant them a “retroactive license’ upon payment of the fee that they would have paid had they contacted me for a license. However, I also clearly state that they must pay the invoice within 10 days and also disclose any and all other uses of my images they may have made. I caution them that if they fail to pay, or fail to disclose other uses I discover later, then I will consider the infringement “willful” and seek full damages allowed under the United States Copyright Act.

In almost every case, this professional, frank approach has brought quick settlement, and in some cases, new clients.

Photographers often cite one of the barriers to regular copyright registration is assembling the submission of images. In the old film days, it was a significant challenge to get physical copies of all your work in an acceptable form for registration.

In today’s digital world it is much easier to assemble a registration, especially if you’re taking advantage of the Copyright Office’s electronic registration or eCO. All that is required for the majority of submissions is a small j-peg copy of each image you would like to register.

Creating these j-peg images as part of your regular assignment workflow will make timely registration much easier. Most Image processing software’s common automation features can be used on large numbers of RAW files or other formats to create the smaller j-peg files.

Here is what I do. On each assignment, I create a web gallery for my clients to review using Adobe Bridge CS4. This web gallery is created from the edited raw files that have had global color and exposure corrections made. Once the gallery is created, I simply copy the j-peg files from the web gallery folder (Resourcses-Images-Large) into my copyright registration folder. At the end of each month, I register all of the images in the copyright folder.

A special note, creating the flash based web galleries in Bridge CS4 deletes all metadata from the j-peg files. I have a copyright registration metadata template with my contact and copyright information that I apply to all of the images.

When I was a Chapter President, I would often get calls from angry members who found that one of their photographs had been infringed. They wanted the name of a copyright attorney so they could sue the infringer. I was always stunned when I asked about what the person said after they contacted them about the infringement. In virtually every case, I got the same answer, “Oh, I didn’t contact them, they used my photograph with out permission, I’m gonna sue them!”

Well, in 35 years as a working photographer, I’ve never been in a courtroom except to photograph it. I have made it 35 years without suing anyone. And I have had countless images infringed during the same time. I simply look at situation differently.

If someone “stole” one my images,  it seems to me that they liked my image or they would not have used it. Are they a potential new client? Can a negative be turned into a positive? Filing a law suit certainly will not let that happen.

Before you run to an attorney, contact the company and let them know that you are aware that they have used one of your copyrighted photographs without the required permission and payment and that you would like to resolve the situation fairly so that they may continue to use the image. And, perhaps license more in the future.

How many times have you heard people lament “I can’t get a hold of anybody. All I ever get is voice mail”. It can be frustrating until you realize that voice mail is really a perfect way for you to get your message to a client in a clear, concise manner. Just be mentally prepared with your best “elevator briefing” if you get dropped into voice mail. Keep it brief, who, what, why, where, when and how. Make sure you speak clearly and be sure to repeat your phone number.

Most photographers spend countless hours developing and implementing marketing programs, direct mail campaigns, e-mail, web communications and social networking all designed to make clients aware of them and their work.

But clients are only part of your business. What about other key support people like your banker  or your CPA? What about your insurance agent, internet service provider, camera shop, printer, design firm and delivery service? All of these key partners play an important role in your business by providing service and advice. Are you keeping them informed? Are they on your e-mail list? Do they receive your promo pieces? Are they linked to you on social networks?

Make sure they are and let them know what your business is doing. If they understand your business, they will be better poised to advise and help you in their areas of expertise.