Tuesday 21 February 2006

Hi,

I owe you an apology. When you signed up at my website (or when I signed up for you) I promised I'd send you a fascinating newsletter on at least a semi-regular basis. It's now been THREE MONTHS (and four days) since the last newsletter.

So even by the most generous definition of 'semi-regular', I haven't done too well, have I?

The thing is, it's been kind busy around here!

The year is only seven weeks old and here's just some of the stuff we've been up to:



We've had a lot of fun and taken some great pictures, but we still have some capacity in the last week of February and also in March. The following dates are still available:

Tuesday 28 February
Wednesday 8 March
Thursday 9 March
Wednesday 15 March

As always, these are strictly on a first come, first served basis, so do get in touch right away if you have a project coming up that you'd like us to help with.

Why a bit better is MUCH better

Last Friday night Jen (my lovely wife) and I had dinner at Taxi Dining Room at Fed Square to celebrate Jen's birthday.

Now, Taxi is not a cheap restaurant. There are more expensive places around, but twenty bucks for an entree ain't cheap in my books.

How can one place charge double what another does? Is it twice as good? Of course not.

Here's a clue. If you enter your racehorse in the Melbourne Cup and are good enough to win, you can pocket a three million dollar prize. Second place, which could be a hundredth of a second behind, wins $750,000.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with winning $750k. My point is, being one hundredth of a second faster than the next person (well, horse) QUADRUPLES the prize money!

Well, it's the same with restaurants, or anything else.

At Taxi, our glasses of water were always topped up - we never had to ask. While we were looking at the menus we were not just offered bread rolls, but a choice of white or wholemeal. Our table was brushed of crumbs between our entree and our main course... you get the picture. (Oh, and the food was pretty nice, too!)

By being consistently a little bit better than normal, the perception for diners is of a substantially better experience - one worth paying double for.

I always strive to apply this to my own business - and I hope you are able to integrate this principle into what you do, too.

(By the way, if you've ever worked with photographers that do anything better than us, please let me know!)

Blogging is not a fad

I've finally succumbed to the blogging bug.

Actually, I've had a blogger account since August 2002, and I've been experimenting sporadically with it since then (but mostly procrastinating).

Well, friends, I can tell you, blogging is here to stay. It's the simplest, quickest, cheapest form of one-to-many two way communication that exists right now.

Which is why I have now added a blog to our website. You can find it, unsurprisingly, at www.stevenpam.com.au/blog

It means I'll be writing mostly much shorter stuff, more often. So it's a great way for you to keep up to date with what's happening in my world and how it might affect you.

Please take a look and feel free to leave a comment on any article.

In the next few days I'll be posting a short article on getting free media coverage - or how to double the chance of getting your news release run (no prizes for guessing what it involves).

What is all this nonsense, anyway?

If you've just subscribed and you're wondering my newsletters usually look like, the back issues are online at www.stevenpam.com.au/news. Enjoy!

Cheers,



Steven Pam
Steven Pam Photography