Question to Fabian and everyone.
 

What % of your staff, in or out house are pornographers?

As opposed to "Technicians" be they programmers, marketing, editing etc.

It just made me think reading what Fabian is saying that his company is more a "Technical" company now. To sell meat you neat meat eaters in the staff.

This really only applies to sponsors and producers. Still a traffic pusher needs to know what's hot and will sell and what's not. Seeing some of the replies on the pics threads here, I have my doubts. :winkwink:

hmmmmmmmmmmmm

Poor business people never seem to understand that it doesn't matter. A product is a product. A service is a service. Sales is sales. Management is management. Marketing is marketing. A buyer is a buyer. The economics of the business are the economics of the business.

Everything in this biz or any biz can be distilled into formulas and equations to be executed against.

With all your "experience" no one here believes you are anything but an average photographer... but you are definitely a sub par business person, hence your mediocre success even through the good years.

what is your obsession with Fabian? And why do you think you have to school him, because he and his company are making millions and you never did?

Judging by what some older producers tried to pass off as exgf content, I'd say producers do not automatically understand what's hot and what sells. :)

When I was first getting started, Randy West told me to shoot what got me off and my audience would find me. He was right. Anytime I've tried to shoot what someone else wants and not myself, it doesn't sell as well. When I shoot what I like, it does very well.

That said, you still need to know what it is you are selling.

No way, it was his speech that made me wonder about this.

That and us having a secret love affair, but please keep it to yourself. :1orglaugh

Seriously you are stupid.

Unless you are so big and employ the people under you with the knowledge, you need to know what people want. So lets just look at a few examples. And think of when they started.

Did Mark Zuckerberg understand the idea of people wanting to communicate with each other?
Did Bill Gates understand the concept of the programs people wanted?
Did Steve Job understand the idea of the PC people wanted?

And so the list goes on. When you reach the size of these companies, yes you're dead right. Still you need people under you to manufacture with the customer in mind, market understanding the market and sell understanding customers needs.

'roll tube'

Of course you need to understand what the customer wants. That never changes and is true for any business. However, it doesn't require that any real portion of employees understand.

It's not like it takes an office full of people who have been doing something for 20 years to understand. A product is a product. Marketing is marketing. Management is management. Sales is sales. A service is a service etc.

Did Mark Zuckerberg understand? Doubtful... he started doing something as a kid in college and it took off because of myspace decline and the exclusive nature of the site and for a myriad of reasons that have little to do with filling a need or having some innate understanding of how people want to communicate. That need was always being filled by other sites and mediums of digital communication before facebook.

Did Bill Gates understand? Well... I think many would argue "no". DDOS was ordered by IBM... which launched Microsoft. Windows and Microsoft's bloated products have been successful for the most part, because they are forced on people and because they maintained a monopoly for 3 decades.

Did Steve Jobs understand? Sure, he proved time and time again to be a true visionary to bring people what they want, before they understood what they wanted.

This is having a bad ass fucked up effect.

If by pornographers you mean people that shoot porn (I don't see how else you could define one). So the answer would be : whatever ratio of producers to other employees he has.

Obviously the producers aren't the ones coding the sites, setting up the banners, tracking stats, marketing the product on 3rd party sites and optimizing the campaigns based on stats.

Where he talks about being more of a techy team means that the product "just doesn't sell itself". He carefully analyzes each and every bit of information he gets to understand his traffic and display exactly what his traffic wants based on that data.

Doing so takes alot of people and ressources, but doesn't require the people who shoot the content or get off on the content in order to sell it.

They can't turn off the bit in their brain that is yelling must have perfect lighting and a bland sparkling clean and tidy set

Hi Paul, hoping to have many models in the studio soon, Natalie & I, the designer & webmaster. Maybe some day a whole sales team....

Which brings me onto my point of posting... You do not need to be a meat eater to sell meat. You have to trust in the product you are selling. Be real, live for the product & believe in the product.

If you sold female lingerie, something you didn't like, but this was the kind of product that your wholesaler sold, you wouldn't try to get him to buy something you liked. You find the product that the person purchasing likes best.... I.E niche. Then sell your product of it!

Even though you have many gloryhole websites, my gloryhols pay site would sell more if marketed correctly, as the material is slightly different, more down to earth & real, with our parties & camshows live during the filming. It's not fake & yet still has great lighting, great quality to the film & still has a hot bird sucking & fucking cock, spunked over & in..

I could sell this to someone that likes gloryholes, yet if another guy wants spandex from a solo model or a girl held down & out of control with BDSM, I'm not going to have much joy selling it, whether my guys like gloryholes or I do.

Now I can try to convert him, or offer these scenes as extra to the held down footage of Natalie on a BDSM board, being fucked by a few guys... now It could sell.

A sales man does not need anything apart from belief & he doesn't need to own, eat or have his own product :2 cents:

Do you have a union Markham ?

Another winning thread by Ben kenobi

We don't need a photographer to tell us what our customers want. With the technology we have, we can tell exactly what the people want. We can nail it down to a certain model, a certain set, and a certain photo.

Best advise. :thumbsup

Many of my friends are amazed that the content we shoot sells, and there is a demand for it. Average girls next door, clothed, sucking toes and tickling. But it does. Both conversions and retention.

There are people out there like myself who this is what they want. G/G, girl next door foot worship. They are not interested in hammer time in the shoe feet, or strippers or crack head girls covered in tats. They want women who look attainable.

If you 'hit the spot' with what you are shooting, your audience will not only find you, but they will send you a lot of email and feedback to help you sharped the sword. Essentially making your life easier, and increasing sales.

For me, I get to take a hobby and personal fetish and turn it into a business that returns something like a 1000% profit. When you are not shooting high end models, or porn stars, and you keep your costs low, you can make money hand over fist. It takes some time and tweaking to get the formula right, but if you enjoy living this lifestyle, it works out nicely.

:2 cents:

no offense to you guys - and you seem to be doing pretty good for yourselves - but you dont run companies with dozens or even hundreds of employees.

i'm afraid the times of a single pornographer - no matter how dedicated he is - to grow something into an empire by himself are over

and for the rest i refer to Nowheres post - he works with a company that is pretty much proof of what i said above

Did you watch the whole video on youtube or just the first 5 minutes Paul?
He has something better as "meateaters".
He uses facts based on statistics that are gathered. People switch banners and landingpages and results are being calculated and put against each other based on large numbers of traffic.
It all comes down to doing the math and that was basically the message he was trying to bring across...

No offense taken champ. Not everyone is looking to build an "empire".

You do not need a dozen, or a hundred employees for that matter, to clear six figures a year. I think many on this forum would agree that even low six figures is more than enough for them to make a decent living no matter where they live.

:2 cents:

their formula is simple: rent cheap motel, pay streetgirl to shower and pose on bed, then fuck cameraman, and then resell content.

its funny how people think that if they shoot content somehow they are above those who dont. or that they know marketing in adult more than others? hardly. content shooters do what they do, but the rest of us are who SELL the porn,... i market and promote porn. No desire to shoot it

LOL

affiliates aren't pornographers, yet they still manage to sell. go figure.

It's funny how some affiliate(s) have that same mentality you just described.

:2 cents:

absolutely

i wouldnt want to be in Fabians shoes - i was already going beserk when i had a job where i had 15 employees. i quit because i cant handle people - so probably my chances of becoming filthy rich are limited :1orglaugh

You make reasonable points when not having to spend all your time defending yourself and your um interests :2 cents:

i hope you dont think that applies to all content producers :winkwink:

and it was me who got the What's pornography? ball rolling paul ;)

my first job was telemarketing for state troopers selling stickers for people to put on their cars. my skills peaked when i was top salesman for the Dont Drink and Drive campaigns for 2 years straight...at 16 i was working on commision working 3 hours a day making more than my friends working all week at mcdonalds...

i used to sell those stickers for $200 on some nights... a salesman can sell anything.

Or as my mentor taught me, "how to sell water to a drowning man" instead of selling cars I chose to get into adult hehehe

:thumbsup

i recently saw him in grocery store after 15+ years and thanked him for all the sales knowledge he gave me. he is on my facebook now too.

of course not but as someone who worked in porn valley, california for so long ive seen it all.

hell i used to put out fliers to find talent for them LOLOL i found talent for babenet and VCA back in the day recruiting.

Agreed.

It is an idea you have to wrestle with. Do you want to become an industry leader and spend the time and resources to get that big, which means a lot of overhead and responsibility. Or do you want to stay small and live a better quality of life. At some point, you have to decide just how much ego plays into it, and what your life's goals are. Is the money and freedom enough? Or do you want more, and willing to make that sacrifice?

I think many people in this industry over think just making a good product. I can think of literally dozens of local area websites (as an example) and ideas that could make money. There is a lot more work involved with 'some' of them (like face to face meetings with business owners) that keep me on the sidelines for those local website ideas (been there done that).

That being said, many are simply happy being their own boss, making their own hours, and clearing six figures annually. It makes a comfortable life for them and family with low stress. How does that cliche go? Find a job you love, and you'll never have to 'work' a day in your life.

:2 cents:

Congrats toe you fine sire. :thumbsup

I am not discounting your point of view however. There are some guys who are ONLY content shooters. They basically pass off the baton after their work is complete. Then there are those who are like Robbie, myself, among many others who basically do it all themselves. From shooting the content, to running the website, marketing and promotion, etc. and so forth.

There are plenty of affiliates who know, and can sell, everything if there is a need and a good product to plug in. There are content shooters who 'hit the sweet spot' in regards to content to a surfer, and it converts and retains nicely.

Everyone has their place, or role. I am not sure where the ego plays into it. But I suppose there will always be someone who thinks one piece is more important then the next. That debate has been going on since the beginning in regards to content or traffic being king.

:2 cents:

right and clearly my comments are not aimed at people like Robbie, i got nothing but mad respect for the guy and have hit him up previously because i liked what he was doing on his sites LOL

im talking about the "i shoot content" and think i know it all hotel dwellers, or those who never really sold porn, just took pictures of naked girls... theres world of difference. ;)

in fact people like you and Robbie who do it all, how could I do anything but respect that? Im specifically talking about the other side of spectrum yo. those who think holding a camera makes them something more than a photographer.

if that was the case when you graduate with a degree in marketing, youd also be given a degree in photography just for fun... doesnt work that way. I was a marketer/salesman long before i sold porn...

You would never call many of the people at the heads of great porn houses shooters, Larry Flynt for one. But he's a pornographer. It's someone who understands the product, knows his customers needs. Simply a consumer of porn like his customers are, not the guys who take the free stuff, the guys who put their hands in their pockets.

I've met many shooters who shoot porn. but wouldn't call them pornographers. Just guys who know how to take a nice picture or video.