In business, as in life, there now and then comes a day that is pivotal to one's future. Whether it bodes ill or well, its importance is often recognized only through the reversed lens of distant hindsight. Such was not the case for Tom Hayes, owner of Visual Image Photography Inc. (www.vipis.com), Cedarburg, Wis.
A lucrative partnership
The day in question came back in the late 1970s when a man named Ron Christopher of Scottsdale, Ariz. appeared in Hayes's office with a portfolio of 16-by-20 sports team photos to show and a marketing plan to sell. Hayes became one of the early dealers for Visual Sports Network Inc.
'The prints were gorgeous, like nothing I had ever seen before,' Hayes says. They were printed from 6-by-7cm negatives, not 35mm film.
Hayes, too, used Mamiya RB medium-format SLRs until he converted his studio to 100 percent digital capture.
In exchange for sending his high-volume team photos to a color lab located in San Diego, Calif., Hayes bought a protected territory--his entire home state, actually--and enjoyed a lab that couldn't he bettered on quality or price. Hayes and his partner expanded their territory to include the greater Chicago area in 1981.
The lab charged its photographer clients $4.58 for a color 16-by-20 team photo, which the studio would then sell to parents for $9.00.
'It was a great margin if you created a high enough volume, but not enough to do just 16-by-20s every day,' Hayes jokes.
But we are getting a bit ahead of the story. After attending the University of Wisconsin School of Business Administration (Milwaukee), and finishing basic training in the U.S. Marines Corp Reserve, Hayes joined the family portrait-wedding business in 1970.
During college he had worked part-time in the family studio, located in Shorewood, Wis. Courtney Hayes Lutz, Hayes's daughter, now helps him run VIP, making it a three-generation family business.
In 1972, Bill Hayes (Tom's father) opened a second studio in Fond du Lac, Wis., and sold his son the Shorewood business.
In 1980, two years after starting his sports specialization, Hayes closed down the portrait side of the business to concentrate on adding to his growing school photography client list.
Today, VIP covers about 160 high schools and close to 500 youth sports leagues. Through a confluence of rare events, Hayes also has taken team portraits of the Milwaukee Brewers, Milwaukee Bucks, and Milwaukee Admirals.
VIP now offers schools an entire list of services, from the standard school photos, to seniors, team photos, events, and yearbook candids.
A new approach
In the early years as a Visual Sports Network dealer, Hayes approached high school and college coaches with his sports photography portfolio, rather than school administrators.
Today, VIP works with athletic directors and other school administrators to secure its position as a vendor with their various customers.
'The 16-by-20s were so good, coaches immediately asked 'when and where,' not 'if or how.''
From 1978, through 1985, his company was growing almost too fast.
'We had no competition for 6 or 7 years,' Hayes says. 'Nobody else was doing what we were doing. We were flying under the radar for a long time.'
Though the nearly 100 percent margin on 16-by-20s was quite attractive, sales couldn't be sustained forever. Hayes added more sizes for team photos, as well as individual options.
As another inducement, anyone who bought a 16-by-20 for $9.00 could also buy a standard print package for $1.50.
'We called it a bonus pack, and it included one 5-by-7, two 3.5-by-5s, and four wallet prints, for $1.50.'
Better still, the coaches never asked for any commissions. The quality of the product and service was enough of an incentive for them.
By the mid-1980s, however, other studios were beginning to hear about what Visual Sports Network was doing; but they could not design a plan to meet their prices and quality and still make a profit.
The agreement between Hayes and Christopher included the stipulation that all film and print lab orders were to be sent to him, and he would forward the work to the California lab.
At the time, Visual Sports Network had dealerships all around the country. They would meet regularly to discuss product and marketing strategies.
The proactive advantage
In an age of rapid technical change, Hayes has never expanded into new areas as a way to compensate for dollars lost in the transition from analog to digital photography.
'We have been blessed in that regard,' says Hayes.
Back in the 1980s, however, some labs were beginning to see the potential for doing some image-capture on their own.
Fast-forward some 20 years, and it's easy to see how strategically savvy Hayes and his former partner were back then by deciding to install their own lab.
Initially, he and his former partner did their processing in the latter's darkroom located in the basement of his house. They produced some of the service work their customers' needed quickly.
'We began attending PMA Trade Shows in 1990 to look at the processing equipment,' Hayes explains. A PMA member, Hayes also belongs to the Sports Photographers Association of America, a PMA member association.
In 1994, the company made the leap into producing its own work and purchased several VPII analog package printers, film processors, and the production machines needed for cutting package print orders.
Enlargements were made on an Omega enlarger. With this move, Visual Sports Network in the southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois market became Visual Image Photography Inc.
In the year 2000, Hayes purchased a stand-alone 13,500-square-foot building in Cedarburg, Wis., which today is home to three Kodak Professional RP 30 laser printers, two Kodak Professional HR 500 film scanners, a 20-inch Kodak Pegasus printer, a Fujifilm Frontier digital minilab, and an Epson Stylus Pro 9600 inkjet printer for larger prints.
Staying in-house with his lab work--first analog, and then digital--Hayes says he was quite fortunate at the beginning to find a very knowledgeable lab manager.
'It took us about 3 years to fully regain the workflow and comfort level we had before,' Hayes says. 'It was a rough time for us, but our customers never suffered lost print quality during our transition. To them, our transition was invisible.'
Like all early adapters, VIP was a hybrid studio for several years, while waiting for manufacturers to introduce pro-quality DSLRs.
Even then, Hayes's full-time photographers were supplied with Canon DSLRs; but freelance photographers, which every school photography studio of decent size must hire during the peak season, also use DSLRs.
'All the freelance school photographers we hire must own their own DSLR,' Hayes says. 'We require a camera just one step up from the digital Canon Rebel, and a film camera can be used for a backup.'
While VIP photographers use laptop computers on location, they aren't used for instant proofing or posing. They serve as a depository storage device.
Photographers in the VIP school picture division use their laptops on the job for posing and storage.
The photographers can quickly download images from their cameras, and keep on shooting without the need to use--and possibly lose--memory cards.
Back at the lab, storage has become a matter for careful consideration. Archiving all digital picture files and negative scans requires memory high enough to give the faint-hearted a nosebleed.
'We save sports picture files for 3 years, after which we discard them,' says Hayes. 'In all my years in business, we have rarely received an order request for a picture more than 3 years old.'
As up to date as VIP is technically, Hayes still prefers the on-site order coin envelopes for team and individual print orders.
Because customers are buying prints sight unseen, VIP also offers a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee. Action orders completed online are fully viewed before a purchase is made.
VIP was chosen as the official photographer by the Illinois High School Association and the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association 5 years running to do the action photography during state finals. VIP has recently added the state associations in Iowa and Ohio to their list of satisfied customers.
With its solid reputation for both action and team sports photography, Hayes re-entered the wedding and portrait business in 1999. This traditional portrait studio, located in Wauwatosa, Wis., is similar to the one he closed on 1980.
Wedding, sports action, and team photos can be purchased online from the Visual Image Photography website at www.vipis .com.
Given the production capacity of his in-house digital lab, VIP is easily able to cope with the added volume from portraits and weddings. It's another benefit of the forward-thinking decisions made at leisure years earlier.
