Digital cameras in the workplace: most people have no idea of how valuable these tools are. You don’t need a $1,000 camera to help your business. I started out with a good starter camera: 1.2 mega pixels with a 3-½ inch floppy disk as the memory card. I have since moved up to an 8.5 mega pixel camera.
Digital benefits
First of all, a digital camera allows you to record residential or commercial job conditions while you are building your bid or proposal. You can save images to a job file to bid now or at a future date – and keep the images on hand to make sure you have not missed anything. This evidence will help clear up a misunderstanding with the client during this process. It simplifies communication, since you can e-mail your client a picture showing precisely what you need to discuss.
Second, you can take progression pictures during the installation, enabling you to talk to your installers during the installation and correct or praise them for doing a good job. Since the installation is in process, this is a great time to teach. I show pictures of other jobs to all my employees to familiarize them with the job before they even arrive on site. And with digital photos, you can direct crews to a poorly marked or remote jobsite.
Picturing problems saves jobsite trips
I give my employees cameras so they can record problems or challenges that may occur. This can save needless trips to the jobsite. Sometimes a problem seems monumental to an employee, but could actually be easily solved with the help of a picture. Daily jobsite photos also allow you to assess your worker’s productivity, without having to visit the jobsite. Their productivity might be a little higher if they are showing what they are doing every day.
Photograph what’s on the punch list to save hours in warranty work. How many times has a crew missed an item because they did not know where the item needed to be corrected? Making needless trips because an employee did not look carefully enough is one of my pet peeves. To avoid this, I show pictures of all the areas and print out the ones that they may have difficulty with, so there is no question about missing something.
Show, not just tell
We all want to handle our businesses in the most professional manner. We also want to impress our clients. Showing pictures of past and current jobs helps in your presentation, illustrating your sense of organization – a real plus to a client.
In addition, showing pictures separates you from the other guys. I guarantee that they would have a camera if they knew how it could benefit them. I have built a PowerPoint presentation with pictures and never have to say a word. The oohs and ahs say everything. How powerful are “before and after” pictures? We all have these pictures in our minds – with digital photography, now you can convey them to a client or potential one.
Kudos to you
Winning or placing in a competition is a great way to show off your work and elevate your credibility far above your competition. Plus, it’s a way to put money in your pocket due to your heightened presentation of professionalism and recognition in your trade.
I ask the homeowners if I can take “after” pictures and give them copies to share. Then I ask them to do one thing in return: tell people who did the tile work. I cannot tell you how many jobs I have received because new clients saw -- not heard -- of the type of work we do.
Suppliers hear of work that contractors do, but seldom see it. I burn CDs and give them to the suppliers so they can show their staff and customers. This ensures my company’s name is going to come up time and time again. There is nothing better than a supplier gloating about workmanship, but unfortunately they often hear of the bad jobs far too often compared to the good tile jobs.
We are currently working on an interactive CD for potential customers that will essentially be a mini website. This will take the place of expensive and cumbersome brochures. More on this in a future column, since it’s just in development. But pictures will populate this presentation as visual aids to sell both the work and the company.
Worried about money? Forget about film!
It could be argued that much of this photography could be done with a regular film camera. But with digital photography, there are no processing fees if you do not like your pictures. If you want printed copies, just remove the memory card out and take it to a photo lab, Kinko’s or Walgreen’s to print what you want or even use an ink jet or laser printer if you have a good one. You also can print photos on your black and white printer. How many times have you had your 35 mm film developed and liked only one or two pictures but had to pay for the whole roll? With digital photography, the costs will be substantially less.
If you like your pictures they can be stored on a hard drive forever. I have an exterior hard drive that I store my pictures on so it does not slow down my computer. Simply delete images you don’t want. And once you download your photos to your computer, hard drive or a CD (warning – CDs are not permanent storage), you are ready to shoot again. It will save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars in the long run. (Ed. note: I have a Canon PowerShot A630 with a SanDisk Extreme III high-speed, high-capacity 2 GB SD memory card. I’ve been shooting photos on this card since the summer – and this includes ALL the photos for Total Solutions, as well as the Florida Tile plant opening, plus holidays, birthdays, events and scenery since early summer 2007. I STILL have 520 pictures to go before the card is full!)
The benefit I enjoy the most is taking pictures of family events, trips, or interesting scenery. When we went to Florida for Total Solutions I took some great shots of the sunsets. (Ed. note: See story starting on page 60 for some great shots by John Cox). I received a lot of ribbing for the positions under leaves and foliage I had to get in to get the shot I wanted, but once I showed the pictures to my colleagues, everyone wanted a copy! Check out the Total Solutions story in this issue for examples! So...what are you waiting for? Go get a camera and start shooting.
