All posts in March 2018

Regular Photography Business Is Dying. Birthing Of 3d Photography Business!

By blogger on

Of course I understand that the sentence “Regular photography business is dying” in this article title is too strong. The most talented photographers will be in business forever. I used it just to grab your attention to the problem that regular photography business got recently after starting a digital era.
Nowadays photo companies like Canon, Nikon and others are making simple to operate yet more and more advanced photo cameras and lenses, adding more new and useful features to the cameras, improving quality, sensitivity, noise reduction while at the same time cutting the price. Now everybody can buy a Digital SLR photo camera, read a photography book and take pretty good quality photos. Now we have more very affordable ink jet photo printers available in the market that can produce decent prints. There are many powerful photo editing programs for improving the images and making nice looking collages. The entire process of making nice pictures today is not difficult compared to the same process 10 years ago and much less expensive. That is good for the consumer but has put a great pressure on the professional photography business. Today anyone can buy computer, DSLR camera, ink jet photo printer and call themselves a professional photographer.
Today many people prefer to invite a friend to take their wedding photographs rather than use a professional wedding photographer. Those that do use a professional are expecting lower expenses as there are many standard photographers to choose from.Now many people prefer to make the photos by themselves without going to professional photographers and photo studios. That is why we can say that regular photography business is under huge pressure.
Over the years digital photography has become common place and technology has simplified and improved the resulting pictures to the point where even large companies in the photo processing industry are closing down outlets. Those that remain are trying to regain business by offering large format prints or prints on canvas, things the general public cannot produce. Many large stores which do not offer those services do not have photo departments anymore where previously they had big profitable photo departments.
But there is a new way for photo business, the business that is not easy to repeat by everybody and with very attractive product for customers! I am talking about 3D photography business.
3D Photography Business
There are several ways for taking 3D pictures and for most of them the viewer needs some special glasses for seeing 3D effect. That is not convenient for customers and not good for business. However there is one technology that does not need any kind of glasses. That is 3D lenticular technology.
3D lenticular technology is the most suitable for customers because people can hold the picture in the hands and see 3D, without crazy “crossing eyes” or having the special glasses. 3D lenticular pictures have the regular colors like regular photos; they can be in any sizes from small wallet size to big size for putting on a wall, they look like the regular photos just more alive because of the depth. That is why regular people prefer 3D lenticular images compare to other types of 3D pictures.
One of the main problems of making 3D lenticular images is a difficulty of taking the pictures and a very long and labour-consuming process of creating the pictures. For example,even couple years ago we spent at least 2-3 hours before getting an image, because almost all stages of process of creating 3D picture were manual.Of course, it is not acceptable for business because the price of each picture was very high. But luckily now, with modern 3D lenticular technology we can receive 3D lenticular picture in just 10 minutes and even less and most of this time is spending on printing because almost all steps of lenticular technology are automated now, for example, process could be so automated that period of time between triggering 3D camera and starting printing could be as low as 40 seconds. This In-Depth Image System was developed for covering all technology steps in process of producing of 3D lenticular pictures from taking the frames to creating 3D image. This system is easy to operate, for example, we can teach the people how to work with In-Depth Image System and produce 3D lenticular images during 3-4 hours and people do not have to be the experts in photography or in computer.
In-Depth Image System can be successfully used in many different photo market niches. There are:

Portrait photography;

School and graduation photography;

Event photography;

Pets photography;

Advertisement photography and so on.

In-Depth Image System could be used for establishing of 3D photo business because:

In-Depth Image System produces High Quality 3D Lenticular pictures in different sizes;

This system is simple to operate;

In-Depth Image technology of producing 3D lenticular images is easy and rapid;

There is no necessity to have very experienced staff;

The prices on 3D pictures are very competitive with the prices that ask regular photo studios for regular flat pictures;

It is almost impossible to repeat this process by customers themselves, so you will be the only expert in making 3D lenticular pictures in your area;

It is profitable.

Please, look at the real sample picture that were made by In-Depth Image System below. Unfortunately that is impossible to show the depth on that picture because computer monitor can show the flat images only. That is why I created animation GIF file from the frames taken by our system. Originally we shot 12 – 18 frames, so 3D lenticular pictures are much smoother and without any rough jumping like on animation pictures.

Characteristics Of Business Phone Services

By blogger on

Businesses put much accentuation on cutting their operational costs of which the business telephone bill is a significant cost. This issue might be appropriately tended to with a scope of cheap business phone alternatives, each one conveying distinctive rental arrangements and diverse service quality.
The ordinary phone line, likewise alluded to as the landline is suitable for an office with few connection utilized by ten workers or less.
The brilliant business broadband or the fiber optics broadband connection.
The internet subordinate Voip connection for a lessened call cost
The superfast fiber optics connection is not key for little businesses as lower number of connection and clients permit the conventional choice to perform well without bargaining the quality or proficiency of service.
The fundamental characteristics of business phone services are:
Cheap Rates:
The most paramount concern while choosing cheap business phone services are the call expenses caused. Business phone lines, particularly landlines are cheaper than local landlines. Business landline bundles accompany an assortment of gimmicks which infers that the expense of the bundle will extraordinarily fluctuate as indicated by the peculiarities chose.
Rental Cost: Most business landline bundles accompany a fundamental rental charge, which is the cost that is brought about to utilize the telephone set and link charges.
Landline Types: Vendors offering cheap business phone services by and large different sorts of landlines including single and numerous simple lines, Isdn2e, a great single and Isdn30, a various channel advanced line.
Different Lines: Some businesses require more than one landline connection and merchants of business phone connection have cheaper rental arrangements with expanded number of connections.
Call Rates: Different cheap business phone bundles offer distinctive call charges in the classifications of nearby landline, portable, national and global calls, off-peak and peak calls.
Arrangements: Customized bundles made up of a blending of call decisions for instance rental charge, nearby call, portable or off crest call alternatives. For instance, if a business makes more universal calls, a global call cost saver bundle could be picked.
Topped Call Charges: Some business phone line sellers offer the alternative of topping or altering a specific kind of calls, for instance, if a business makes more call to portable numbers, the bundle could be modified to settle those calls at a specific rate.
Simple to Remember Numbers: On unique solicitation, business phone service suppliers can give simple to recall contact number for clients and for printing on the business leaflet.
Upkeep and Support: Though for most business managers the call expenses are an essential concern, for some the accentuation is put on the help service accessible with the phone connection. Business connection by and large get more elevated amount of help service contrasted with household lines as a couple of hours of downtime can mean considerable budgetary misfortune to the business.
For more information about Business Phone Line, Business Landline and Business Broadband please visit the website.

Making Business Labels Look Real And Enticing

By blogger on

Printing labels is not just about printing your business products and services with your business name on it. Printing these great print materials is also about making good and long lasting impression to clients and customers. Therefore, it is very crucial for you to enhance or improve your print materials especially if you want to make your customers have a good impression of you. There are several things that you can do to improve the look and appeal of your materials. Below are some of the tips and ideas that can aid you to make great print materials for your business needs.

Color is the very first thing that you should keep in mind for you enhance the look and appeal of your business labels. Colors are the best way to enhance the print materials that you have in your business. These colors will make the design of your materials very clear and visible. To make it real, you can use energetic and unique colors so that your clients and customers will notice your materials easily. Distinct colors can be the identity of your materials that will make your clients and customers attracted to them.

The texture of your print materials is another thing that you should always consider. The image effect is the perfect option that you can choose every time you will add texture to your print materials. You can also use sketched effects, poster filters and also painting to make your materials look creative and artful. Instead of enhancing your labels, the texture of can be a great way to add identity to your material.

The sharpness of the image that you will use on your labels also plays a very crucial role in adding enhancements to your print materials. For you to do this process, you can use image editing tools before you print them. However, it is always a must for you to make sure that you will make a perfect lighting and shadowing to the image on your print materials. If you do this process right, you will soon see that your materials will appear solid and they will stand out more in the crowd.

With this, you will be able to make your clients and customers impressed with your materials. Moreover, the lighting and shadow effect will be two of the most crucial things that you must pay attention to in order to enhance the appeal of your print materials. They will always aid you and especially the design of your materials to come out and look real. This is a very effective technique to make your labels look alive and enticing.

Those are just some of the things that you should always consider every time you will enhance the look and functionality of your label printing. Always follow these tips and ideas and you will soon notice the positive effects and benefits they will bring to your business.

Although not a popular marketing tool like brochures or business cards, labels are great for branding your business. It can help you build your identity and come out easily recognizable in the market. So, be sure to put enough attention in creating the labels you will put in your products and services. They can easily bring your business to new heights when done effectively.

Home Based Business Success

By blogger on

Building a successful home business IS possible, if the recipe for success contains the right ingredients!

With so many opportunities available for the home business entrepreneur, it’s hard to decide where to start.

It takes a few key ingredients to be successful with your home based business, these ingredients will make your income rise…

1. You must have a solid company, a lucrative pay plan with no hurdles to jump each month so that you are not restricted in compensation in any way.

2. A product that is consumable, that will be used each and every month so that you have repeat business, a long term customer base will produce a long term residual income.

3. A mentor or coach, who can support you both Online and Offline to grow your business quickly and efficiently.

4. A team of like minded individuals to support you during your first few months of learning how to build your business. Friendly support and encouragement from others who are also building the business will help you as you initially grow your business until you become a mentor yourself.

5. Marketing tools, such as a free online marketing system to market to your potential customers, working for you 24 hours 7 days a week. Online training resource center, with information about your business that will help you grow.

6. Training Calls, either teleconferencing or online conferencing where you can connect with your team for support or bring new prospects to grow your business.

All these key ingredients are required to build a successful home business, however, the MOST important ingredient is YOU!

If you are not willing to invest the time needed to learn, market, and build, your home business will never grow.

Set your hours, set your goals, stick to them and If you add all the above ingredients, including you, together… watch your income rise!

Shedding Light on Menu Engineering’ in Terms of Growing a Business

By blogger on

Menu engineering is an interdisciplinary approach in the deliberate and strategic construction of menus.

Sometimes called -Menu Psychology’, the term menu engineering is generally adopted as a standard Best Practice within the Hospitality and Restaurant Industries. The objective with menu engineering is to maximize a concept’s profitability by leading the customer to certain purchases, and avoiding others, in addition to -engineering’ recipes to maximize profits at the product and category level.

Menu Engineering is comprises of five key areas

Psychology (perception, attention, emotion/effect)

Recipe construction and the best balance between quality and cost

Managerial Accounting (contribution margin and unit cost analysis)

Marketing & Strategy (pricing, promotion)

Graphic Design (layout, typography)

Psychology of menu engineering

Visual perception is inextricably linked to how customers read a menu. By strategically arranging menu items and categories within the pages of the menu, operators can promote high profit dishes while allowing less profitable dishes to be understated. This strategy enhances the sales mix, profitability, and thus represents a key element in the business strategy.

Managerial accounting

The primary goal of menu engineering is to encourage purchase of targeted items, generally the most profitable items, and to discourage purchase of the least profitable items. With this in mind, restaurants should first calculate the true cost of each menu item, (including condiments and non menu foods such as salt, pepper, oil, etc.) therefore extending to all items listed on the menu, and reflecting all costs incurred to produce and serve [each item]. Optimally item costs should include: food cost (including wasted product and product loss), incremental labor (e.g., cost in on site production, dessert production, or additional preparation), condiments and packaging. Only incremental costs and efforts should be included in the item cost, as there will be a static labor requirement in all cases.

After an item’s cost and price have been determined (see pricing in the Marketing section), evaluation of an item’s profitability is based on the item’s Contribution Margin. The contribution margin is calculated as the menu price minus the cost. Menu engineering then focuses on maximizing the contribution margin of each guest’s order. Recipe costing should be updated (at least the ingredient cost portion) whenever the menu is reprinted or whenever items are re-engineered. Some simplified calculations of contribution margin include only food costs.

Marketing (price & promotion)

By using guest demand (also called the menu mix) and gross profit margins, the relative performance of each menu item is determined, and assigned one of the following terms (based on the BCG Matrix):

Stars

Stars are extremely popular and have a high contribution margin. Ideally Stars should be your flagship or signature menu item.

Plow Horse

Plow Horses are high in popularity, but low in contribution margin. Plow horse menu items sell well, but don’t significantly increase revenue.

Puzzles

Puzzles are generally low in popularity and higher contributions. Puzzle dishes are very difficult to sell, but have a high profit margin.

Dogs

Dogs are low in popularity and low in contribution margin. Basically, they are difficult to sell and when sold they are not particularly profitable.

In general, items within a relevant comparable set (for example, entrees, or chicken entrees) should be priced to have similar contribution margins – this way, the restaurant would make the same amount of money, no matter what item the guest chooses to order.

Additional considerations

While the practice of menu engineering has been around now for about 30 years, and focuses on the combined menu sales mix and item profit, additional factors can come into play in an effort to enhance profitability through careful menu analysis. A primary area to evaluate is purchasing, as poorly executed purchasing can often lead to substantial over payments – for example; buying from a large distributor, while providing ease of purchase and convenience, can add up to 50% more on certain ingredient costs thus making a substantial increase in overall food cost, (not to mention the elevated carbon footprint). By using local and specialist purveyors, restaurants can often reduce their ingredient cost and enhance quality.

The Next Idea demonstrated this exact point when engaged to review the menu of a themed restaurant brand. Through its discovery stage, it became apparent that, in an age where the consumer was becoming increasingly aware of product quality and value, this client was failing on both accounts, as the menu was essentially provided by a national US Distributor, and ingredients were purchased frozen and simply re-heated on site, resulting in a lack of differentiation, high menu prices and mediocre customer satisfaction. TNI challenged the food production and supply chain process (which was typical for the industry). Our proposal was to produce food from scratch, within the kitchens, which we had concluded, would enhance quality and substantially reduce costs. After considerable analysis and trials, we were given the approval to implement this new operational approach across the portfolio. The result was a 12% higher customer satisfaction rating, 2% reduction in labor cost, and massive 4% reduction in food cost.

In summary: Menu engineering has been employed by food service professional industry for many years now, and operators generally possess a sophistication level where work in this area is both very helpful and critical to support a profitable business. It is important to note that, like all other management strategies, menu engineering is not something that can simply be purchased. Success depends on the right mix of products and services, and of course the necessary expertise. In the end, a well-implemented menu engineering program will represent a significant tactic to elevate food and beverage profitability.

About The Author

The author is associated with The Next Idea. The Next Idea provides all cafe interior design, cafe logo, photography, restaurant Interior design, menu engineering, etc. Our restaurant design capabilities include: exterior restaurant marketing display design and manufacturing, restaurant marketing display design, and restaurant decor theme creation.