Its been an amazing few days at South Point Casino Las Vegas, and an honour for me, to be keynote speaker at the inaugural Photo Booth Expo.

Thanks for all those that came and listened to my talk! I just wanted to recap a few points for you, and leave with you all with some extra information.

The opposite of creativeness

“If you want to be original, be ready to be copied” Coco Chanel.

I just want to get this one thing out of the way first. Im really open to sharing ideas and helping people in their businesses. Please, if you need help, just reach out to me.

I totally get that there are only so many ideas in the world and very little is 100% original. But there is inspiration, and then their is well, theft. Theft is the opposite of creativeness. Let us inspire you… but if you want to be truly successful you need to find your own way forward. It will be so much more rewarding.

Sadly, we’re a bit of a target and have had our designs, website, marketing material copied exactly, many times. Have a look around,  and use anything we do as inspiration to be more awesome – but keep it original kids.

Anywho… back to the fun stuff.

The Golden Circle

If you haven’t seen this Tedx talk… watch it now. You’re welcome.

You need cohesion

Everything you do in your business needs to make sense, it needs to work together – cohesion.

Your booth should match your props -> match your website -> match your staff -> match your business cards -> match how you talk to clients -> match what you wear – match your photo strips -> match your business systems. Yeah, its your brand, but, its more than that.

These things (plus more) are the soul of your business. If you could lay all these things out, and put them in a room – how would it look? What would look out of place? Which things would work together?

Everything needs to work together.

Creative Industry

Yes – we work in the events / wedding  / entertainment / photo booth / whatever industry. But that’s the problem – we all work in the same industry, and many of us approach things the exact same way. Turn things on their head.. and start thinking about being in a Creative industry. And start asking yourself how to bring creative solutions in to your business.

Change your outlook. We work in a creative industry.

Find your unicorn

Find that thing that makes you, and your business uniquely you. In truth, it probably won’t be just one thing, but perhaps a series of things. And it probably has nothing to do with photo booths.

What is it that you do that really puts a smile on your face when you think about it? What is it that gets you so excited, that you will tell everyone that will listen about it? What is it that you do, that your friends go “Oh, that is soooo you!”.

Are you doing things just because you think your customers will like it? Or are you doing them because you truly believe in it.

When you look at your business, at your photo booth, your website, your prop selection – is it pretty much the same as the other photo booth company down the road? Does it represent who you are?

Don’t do something unless you can make it uniquely you.

Cracks me up every time.

Inspiration Board

Stop looking inwards at the photo both industry for inspiration! Stop it. Right now.

Try this: create yourself an inspiration board on Pinterest (and if you have a business partner, or team, add them to it).

Start adding the stuff that YOU love to it. It could be a book you love, a photo of your dream home, a movie poster, a photo of a delicious looking meal – anything. You’ll start seeing a bit of a recurring theme – these things represent who you are.

You need to inject more of your own personality in to your business.

The Photo Booth Guys, very closely reflects who Sophie, Nick, Jess and myself are as people. I really believe that.

Create a visual board of the stuff that you love.

Details Matter

You better believe it. People appreciate and notice the small details. We could easily manufacturer our photo booths for much cheaper than we do.. but, the people we want to impress would notice. We could save a tonne of money, but not using brass hardware. We could save a tonne of money by varnishing them, instead of having them oiled by hand – but, boy, do those things make a difference.

Do you do things because they are easy, and cheap? Or because you really care about the end result.

People notice the small details.

Systems Matter

This is a topic I would have loved to have spoken about in some depth – but unfortunately I didn’t have all day to talk.

We use a system called Tave to manage our business and really, I can’t understate how important Tave is to our business. If you are doing more than a handful of events each year, you need to have some sort of system in place to keep things running smoothly.

Tave manages our leads, quotes, contracts, bookings, payments, job scheduling and a whole heap more. Best of all, it’s web based, so we can run the business from anywhere. We would be screwed without it.

nb: sample dashboard from Tave.

A strong, efficient system, will be your best marketing tool. And I don’t mean because it enables you to send follow up emails, anniversary email etc etc I mean because it enables you to deliver the ultimate in customer service.

For us, Tave makes the whole process of dealing with The Photo Booth Guys, dead simple and extremely, massively, hugely efficient – and clients notice that. Time and time again, we hear that we were “by far the easiest vendor to deal with”.

Props Matter

Let me be blunt here.

You need LESS props. I dont even know how many props you have, but you probably have too many. More is not more. Too many props creates a messy, confusing experience – where by, the props become the focus, and the people become just accessories**.

If you have 10 hats, 10 bowers, crazy ties, ginormous sun glasses, lips and mos, signs etc etc…. (and you know this next bit is true) – people will try and put them all on… at once.

Don’t get me wrong – you need props. But, if you want to bring out the creativity in people (which will give you the best and most memorable photos), give them less to work with. It creates an environment where they need to think a little more about what they want to do.. instead of just grabbing everything in sight.

Oh – and choose your props carefully. They reflect you and your brand.

People are the props. Props are the accessories.

** You can’t stop clients from bring their own props and ultimately, you can’t control everything people do. I get that. Im not suggesting that you be the fun police.

Photo Booth Software

This is a bit of a plug. We use Breeze software pretty much exclusively in our photo booths. More so than ever before, as a photo booth operator, you have a lot of choice when it comes to what software you use.

No doubt, there are systems that are probably more user friendly in the back end than Breeze. But I would say there are none that are any where near as flexible and powerful. Use it to your advantage. If you take the time to learn it, you will have the ability to offer creative solutions that no one else can.

And a huge bonus – Breeze is also rock solid. AND you dont need a super powerful computer to run it.