WEBVTT
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The Dead Pixels Society Podcast is brought to you by Media clip, Advertek Printing, and Independent Photo Imagers.
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Welcome to The Dead Pixels Society Podcast, the photoimaging industry's leading news source.
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Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
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Hello again, and welcome to the Dead Pixel Society Podcast.
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I'm your host, Gary Pageau, and today we're joined by Adam Ward, who is a consultant, business expert, and lean process expert.
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And he's coming to us from Columbus, Ohio today.
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Hi Adam, how are you today?
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Hi Gary, thanks for having me on the show.
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I'm great.
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So, Adam, tell us a little bit about your journey in the business to become a process and lean process consultant.
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Yeah, that's funny.
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I growing up, I always played with Legos kind of inventorish thing.
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And my first job, I designed cars and I really liked that.
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I thought I was going to stay that for the rest of my career, but I only lasted a dozen years there.
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And I found out that skill set is highly sought out by businesses.
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And then I didn't even know what it was called.
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So I started reading books on it and found out there's lean and process and operational excellence and all this other stuff.
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And I have a natural drive for constant improvement.
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Okay.
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Whether that's who I am or the childhood trauma I experienced, but that natural drive for improvement really helps me when I work with organizations.
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And I love doing it.
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I love seeing unlocking people's mind to possibilities.
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I love removing waste so people can add value.
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And so now here I am 31 years later and loving it.
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Wow.
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So you were in the auto industry for you said 12 years.
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What time period was that?
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Because as someone from Michigan will tell you, we've seen a lot of changes in the auto industry in terms of the transition from sedans to SUVs to crossovers to trucks, now to EVs and all these things.
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And there's always been a legacy system sort of approach, being a boat anchor, and then you have disruptors like a Tesla or Rivian who can come in without that baggage and innovate.
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So, kind of where did you get your start and where do you see that?
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Where do you see that imp being impacted?
00:00:09.839 --> 00:00:17.359
The Dead Pixels Society Podcast is brought to you by Media clip, Advertek Printing, and Independent Photo Imagers.
00:00:17.359 --> 00:00:23.920
Welcome to The Dead Pixels Society Podcast, the photoimaging industry's leading news source.
00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:26.239
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
00:00:27.359 --> 00:00:30.480
Hello again, and welcome to the Dead Pixel Society Podcast.
00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:41.039
I'm your host, Gary Pageau, and today we're joined by Adam Ward, who is a consultant, business expert, and lean process expert.
00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:44.000
And he's coming to us from Columbus, Ohio today.
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Hi Adam, how are you today?
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Hi Gary, thanks for having me on the show.
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I'm great.
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So, Adam, tell us a little bit about your journey in the business to become a process and lean process consultant.
00:01:00.239 --> 00:01:01.280
Yeah, that's funny.
00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:07.040
I growing up, I always played with Legos kind of inventorish thing.
00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:11.200
And my first job, I designed cars and I really liked that.
00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:16.400
I thought I was going to stay that for the rest of my career, but I only lasted a dozen years there.
00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:20.400
And I found out that skill set is highly sought out by businesses.
00:01:20.400 --> 00:01:22.480
And then I didn't even know what it was called.
00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:29.280
So I started reading books on it and found out there's lean and process and operational excellence and all this other stuff.
00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:33.920
And I have a natural drive for constant improvement.
00:01:34.079 --> 00:01:34.400
Okay.
00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:45.040
Whether that's who I am or the childhood trauma I experienced, but that natural drive for improvement really helps me when I work with organizations.
00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:46.159
And I love doing it.
00:01:46.159 --> 00:01:50.480
I love seeing unlocking people's mind to possibilities.
00:01:50.480 --> 00:01:53.280
I love removing waste so people can add value.
00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:57.840
And so now here I am 31 years later and loving it.
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Wow.
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So you were in the auto industry for you said 12 years.
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What time period was that?
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Because as someone from Michigan will tell you, we've seen a lot of changes in the auto industry in terms of the transition from sedans to SUVs to crossovers to trucks, now to EVs and all these things.
00:02:18.479 --> 00:02:32.159
And there's always been a legacy system sort of approach, being a boat anchor, and then you have disruptors like a Tesla or Rivian who can come in without that baggage and innovate.
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So, kind of where did you get your start and where do you see that?
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Where do you see that imp being impacted?
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Yeah, no, I so I actually started at Honda and in '95, and they were establishing an RB system here in America for Americans to design cars for Americans.
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And so I was one of the early Americans working with the Japanese.
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Didn't fit Americans in it.
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We didn't have any SUVs and stuff back then.
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We have any capability at all.
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So we were developing that entire capability.
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And it it was a good time for us back then.
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And you if you fast forward and go into the SUV industry and everyone going into EVs and then having to back out and taking billions of dollars of losses last year, yeah, because the market wasn't there, legislation changed.
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What's so hard with the auto industry, and a lot of industries are like this too, is that they get set on a certain way, and the cost to shift is monstrous.
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Right.
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Whether that's film to digital or whatever, or back, and yeah, yeah, yeah.
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So you can't pivot and then you carry legacy costs.
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And I think that's hard to maintain that flexibility and do well at the same time.
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It's very difficult.
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Yeah, we've definitely experienced that in the photographic industry because you had people who had these giant capex expenses on film processing equipment, and then they migrated to digital, and there was some crossover, right?
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Or so much, and then the weird thing that happened over the last five years is film has come back.
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Ah, yeah.
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So they've got to find ways to resurrect either this old equipment, or actually, there's people coming back in the industry with equipment.
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But the big question is how do you gauge demand?
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Right?
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Is this going to be a long experience where film is just going to continue to kind of grow at three to five percent a year now that it's bottomed out, or is it just a fad that's gonna peter out?
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I know the folks who are at Eastman Kodak who are wondering the same thing because they sit on this this production, I want to say gold mine, but it's really just great cash flow because they've already built, they already have everything in place to make film, they just have to run the process, and now it's like, well, how long is this gravy train gonna last?
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Right, right, right.
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Is it a phoba tea store or is it a soft sort of ice cream shot, right?
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Exactly, exactly.
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So, so what are some of the indicators you can look at in a marketplace in that sort of condition, right?
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Because if you're talking about keeping your business ongoing, once you've made that investment, then you gotta figure out, oh my gosh, I want if I gotta if I'm taking out a loan on a piece of equipment and it's a three to five year deal.
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Yeah, I think the toughest piece on this is a lot of people will build for unknown demand, and that can that's really scary.
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And then you say, Well, what if demand just all of a sudden jumps up?
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Well, I think it you can probably react to that better than under demand.
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Right, good point.
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So if we're always looking at some, I don't know, scenario planning, maybe like if A were to happen and we could do this, if B were to happen, we could do this.
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I think if people get stuck under a lot of fixed costs, the decisions go away.
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So you can think about this in your personal life.
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If you were to get a certain house upgrade or a higher lease payment on a car and a vacation opportunity comes up, if you want to pay cash and you don't have it, or your card, one of your cards are maxed out and you can't afford it, it limits your options there too.
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Right.
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So you're you're placing your bet, it's how big of that bet do you want to place up front?
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The second thing is everyone talks about economies of scale, right?
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Right.
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But what I rarely see in businesses are people scaling to actually reduce prices as quantity goes up.
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Most people scale and increase cost as it goes up because they're building waste into their system.
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So if you're doing it in a least waste way, which is kind of friction-free way, right?
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Then you are leaving options on the table for yourself.
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If you're doing it in a very wasteful way, and sure this AI hype is a perfect example of that.
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Absolutely.
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Just automating trash.
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If you're automating trash, it doesn't help.
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Right.
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So make sure you get the trash out, and then you know it makes your system or your business a lot more capable to deal with those fluctuations and changes.
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Because one of the things that I see is I'll go to a conference and someone will come out with a piece of a printing equipment, right?
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It's a it's a sure, it does something, it it's a it's wider or different color gamut or whatever.
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They get excited about the technology and they want to invest in it.
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They think, oh, I can now sell to this market that I'm not actually servicing, but I now have a thing that will make things for those people.
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And then they, like you said, they've committed to a lease or something, and then they realize, oh my gosh, I don't have the volume for that.
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What are some of the metrics that someone can use to evaluate those circumstances?
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Oh man, so I'm so I'm an engineer, that's my background, and nobody loves tech or advancement like I do, and I would always be the person who's like, let's do it because it's cool.
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Yeah.
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And okay, yeah, let's figure out a way.
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So, and I've had thousands of colleagues think the same way, but I ended up going back to school getting my MBA because I wanted to know why are people buying the things that I'm designing.
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Right.
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And how do I find out if I'm actually selling the things that they want?
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Right.
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So fast go over a 10-year period where I'm doing this constant reflection with every single customer, with every single client, with every everything that happened that period.
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And what I found out is customers can rarely articulate more than half of what they actually want.
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Right.
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And they're usually articulating a solution that they know exists.
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If we're actually listening to the pain point, and I love when Steve Joubs said, you know, nobody asked for the iPhone.
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Right.
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Right.
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And Henry Ford, if I would have asked my customers, they would have wanted faster horses.
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Right.
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So we can't listen to the solution-based side.
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We have to listen to the frustrations that our customers are having.
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Sure.
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If they're having a color gamut issue, okay, or a format or a width or a size issue, fine.
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Right.
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What Honda taught me was there's a very there's a segment of the population, very small segment of the population.
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The population is like we're talking this that can tell the differences on most product releases.
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Right.
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And you need a professional in that area that's specifically paying attention to those little things.
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Most of us can handle, like we know what junk is, we don't have to worry about that.
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But there's this tight range, right?
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There's this tight range where everyone is, are you delighted with it or are you expecting it?
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Right.
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And if you're delighted, you can sell.
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If you're not delighted, you're probably not going to sell unless you're competing on cost.
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And when you compete on cost, then you're losing from the beginning, right?
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Anyway.
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And I think in a cre in the creative space, right, your value is pure differentiation.
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Yeah.
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And so you should be investing into things that like those needs where that differentiation is high and not the stuff that's like you can brag to your friend you implemented.
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Yeah, that's a great point because one of the challenges we have in the photography industry is if you go back to the analog days, we were providing four by six inch prints to consumers from 35 millimeter film, not because we wanted it or the customers demanded it, but because that was the size of paint the paper width came in, right?
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And then what's happened with the digital revolution is yes, four by six prints are still out there, but there are other print formats available and also now different substrates.
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You can do canvas, metal, wood, mud, yeah, aluminum, places, and it's increased the amount of choice, but it's also kind of problem because it's now not an automatic purchase.
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We've took the taking the simplicity out of it, right?
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By increasing the amount of choice, you've also increased the amount of friction.
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Yeah.
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Well, and I think too, it's like going to the cheesecake factory and you open a menu and you're like, What do I want?
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I don't know, it's a hundred pages long.
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And there's not that much cheesecake variety, it's all on this other stuff.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And then you then you have a page of cheesecake, 100 cheesecakes you could get.
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But I think that overwhelms a lot of people having so many choices.
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You look around my office, like, I don't have any four by six prints in here, right?
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Right?
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Like everything now I print is custom to a frame size or something that I want, or something that I come across.
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Right.
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While I oh my gosh, that was a gorgeous print on aluminum.
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And they're like, Well, it costs this much money.
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Who cares?
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Like the way it looks is like for this room is perfect, yeah.
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And so I think a lot of that, yeah, there's probably like awareness things around feelings that people want to have when they're looking at a printed product that we don't that we don't know, and that's hard to get into.
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And but I think that's a probably a gold mine.
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Well, everyone thinks it is until they realize there's a bunch of hurdles, right?
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Because the challenge we have with photography and printing is, and I'd be interested in your insights and how to overcome this because no one's figured it out.
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Maybe Adam from Columbus, Ohio has, but it's it's one of the few consumer products where to create it, the customer has to actually input their own media and do something with it and make a series of choices along the way.
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That's not the that's not the same with just ordering, even ordering a C D or something like that.
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You've got to decide, oh, this is a picture.
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I'm going to I'm going to do something with it.
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That's a decision process right there.
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Then I have to choose from 17 different photo printing services that I'm aware of, other than the hundreds are how do I want that delivered?
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Do I want that?
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Do I want to pick it up in the store?
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Do I want to have it delivered to my home?
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Okay, then I decide that.
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Then I decide what I'm gonna do with it.
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Oh, I want a book or uh this, that, and I have to go.
00:13:02.080 --> 00:13:05.040
Then I have to maybe tweak the images, right?
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Because I want to get it perfect.
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And then do I use AI for that?
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Do I do that before I upload?
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Do I use the onboard systems?
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Is the color right?
00:13:35.210 --> 00:13:42.810
So there's a that's a lot of decisions that when you're just buying can of liquid death, you don't have to worry about.
00:13:43.289 --> 00:13:43.850
Right.
00:13:43.850 --> 00:13:46.649
Or monster ultra strawberry dreams.
00:13:46.649 --> 00:13:49.450
This is replacement.
00:13:49.450 --> 00:13:51.769
I'm not sponsored by that.
00:13:51.769 --> 00:13:57.129
So so okay, so I'm just thinking of a parallel example of what I use right now.
00:13:57.129 --> 00:14:02.730
So one of the things that I struggle with is I don't know how to dress myself well.
00:14:02.730 --> 00:14:13.930
I it would be a default for me to just I don't know, have a Walmart t-shirt and Walmart pair of shorts and flip flip flops.
00:14:13.930 --> 00:14:23.289
And I but I so I have to work really hard too on colors, on outfits, on all of this stuff, and there's a million store options.
00:14:23.289 --> 00:14:46.409
So what I've done is I've taught one of my AI programs the feeling that I want, the like the persona that I like, right, and I tell them the price point that I want to operate in, and it'll create outfits, it'll tell me stores locally to go to, it'll and then I can take pictures of all the outfits and it's like mix this with this.
00:14:46.409 --> 00:14:51.930
And so it simplified me in order to build that profile off of me.
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Right.
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So when I think about when I think about the camera thing, like I'll open Google Photos, right, on my phone, and it'll say, Oh, maybe you're interested in this edit.
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Right.
00:15:02.490 --> 00:15:10.169
And I'm like, wow, that that was a really creative expression of that photo that I never would have thought about.
00:15:10.169 --> 00:15:21.129
Now, if that I know Google Photos not necessarily gonna do that simply, but like I'll take a picture of this shirt right here and I'll say, tell me what to do with this shirt.
00:15:21.129 --> 00:15:27.930
So if I had a photo, I'm like, I love this photo, but I don't know, tell me what my options are, right?
00:15:27.930 --> 00:15:30.330
And and it'll build stuff off of that.
00:15:30.330 --> 00:15:35.529
And I can even like with Amazon, I could open up Amazon and say, What does it look like in my room?
00:15:35.529 --> 00:15:36.409
Right, yeah.
00:15:36.409 --> 00:15:38.009
So I don't know.
00:15:38.009 --> 00:15:44.090
I think a lot of us that aren't that creative, like photographers are, need to be shown a handful of things.
00:15:44.090 --> 00:15:48.409
This is actually what you could do with that photo, and it's not a coffee mug, right?
00:15:48.409 --> 00:15:54.250
Right, which is where we're gonna go, or a calendar, or something that's like super boot, like just cheesy.
00:15:54.649 --> 00:15:57.370
Yeah, hey, this industry's built on coffee mugs.
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I'm just telling you.
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This is well, look, there are coffee mug worthy photos.
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There are, there are.
00:16:03.529 --> 00:16:06.169
So, well, that yeah, it's interesting because it's one of those things.
00:16:06.169 --> 00:16:20.649
I like to talk to people outside the industry about their experiences with just regular normie photography because a lot of times inside the industry, we've had some of the smartest brains on the planet try and solve this thing, and there's they're trying different things, AI assistance and everything else.
00:16:20.649 --> 00:16:26.970
And it's just a question of getting back to your original thesis about investment, right?
00:16:26.970 --> 00:16:32.490
Well, you can spend a crazy amount of money on AI tokens and all these things, right?
00:16:32.490 --> 00:16:45.289
And there's the whole privacy issue of looking at people's pictures, and yeah, there's a lot, and I'm not saying there's a lot, but it's a great business, like you were saying, it's just has some some secular issues to deal with, sure.
00:16:45.289 --> 00:16:46.810
So let's flip that.
00:16:46.810 --> 00:16:49.529
You've got an online experience, which you've talked about.
00:16:49.529 --> 00:16:54.090
What would you suggest for like an in-store experience, right?
00:16:54.090 --> 00:17:04.009
Let's say, for example, I'm in col you're in Columbus, Ohio, and you go to your local camera store, whom I sadly I've not looked up to find out who's local in your area, but I'm sure there is one.
00:17:04.009 --> 00:17:09.529
And oh, there are a great picture, you don't know what to do with, you've got it on your phone.
00:17:09.529 --> 00:17:15.210
What would you want that experience to look like in-store with a real human?
00:17:15.210 --> 00:17:16.250
Right.
00:17:16.410 --> 00:17:22.810
So I got my first Amazon.com account, I want to say around 2001.
00:17:22.810 --> 00:17:29.930
And that was when I was going to grad school, and it was like, hey, I need to buy a textbook, go to this website.
00:17:29.930 --> 00:17:35.130
So now we fast forward, they've overhauled retail, right?
00:17:35.130 --> 00:17:41.849
I've got Walmart Plus, I've got Amazon Prime, like things show up to my house an hour or two after I order them.
00:17:41.849 --> 00:17:45.849
If I want, we've got Uber East, we've got all of these options.
00:17:45.849 --> 00:17:54.809
When I go to a bricks and mortar store now, I want speed and expertise.
00:17:54.809 --> 00:17:59.769
So if I can get speed and expertise, then I'm gonna go to you.
00:17:59.769 --> 00:18:15.609
If that expertise does not rival what my fingers can do, and honestly, I think clicks have made an order, have made it easier because they've all gone to these silly AI chats that have gone to call centers, outsourced call centers, and I don't want to deal with them anymore.
00:18:15.609 --> 00:18:16.089
Right.
00:18:16.089 --> 00:18:23.930
So so I will go to a bricks and mortar now because I don't want to deal with the customer service experience of a clicks and order business anymore.
00:18:23.930 --> 00:18:30.490
So when I'm going to a counter, I want someone who knows, can look at it, can say, Here are your options.
00:18:30.650 --> 00:18:30.890
Right.
00:18:31.049 --> 00:18:33.210
These are the three best things I would recommend.
00:18:33.210 --> 00:18:36.569
And look, maybe it's this, maybe it's that.
00:18:36.569 --> 00:18:36.890
Right.
00:18:36.890 --> 00:18:38.809
Here's what you could expect from us.
00:18:38.809 --> 00:18:47.370
And I want to talk to a if I pick up the phone and dial 614, whatever, I want them to say, Yeah, come in at this time and I'll talk to you.
00:18:47.370 --> 00:18:55.289
And I think if you could do that, you you've got you've gone back to the value proposition that existed pre-Amazon.com.
00:18:55.289 --> 00:18:55.690
Right.
00:18:55.849 --> 00:19:02.490
Because one of the challenges the industry has, it's a good challenge, but it's also a challenge that a lot of industries are struggling with.
00:19:02.490 --> 00:19:08.410
It's certainly in the auto industry and fast food and everything else is everything's great, right?
00:19:08.410 --> 00:19:12.089
I mean, it used to be when you were processing film.
00:19:12.089 --> 00:19:22.890
If you chew, if you chose like a really cheap mail order of processing, me you knew the stuff wasn't going to be great, but if you took it to a custom one-hour lab, every coup picture is going to be color corrected or whatever.
00:19:22.890 --> 00:19:26.650
These days with digital technology, you're starting with usually a great picture, yeah.
00:19:26.650 --> 00:19:28.970
That's been AI enhanced in the camera, right?
00:19:28.970 --> 00:19:33.210
But really, the out so you're not really so quality really isn't a decision.
00:19:33.210 --> 00:19:35.370
And honestly, cars are the same thing, right?
00:19:35.370 --> 00:19:39.049
You know, hard is great, forge great, they're all great.
00:19:39.049 --> 00:19:41.370
You're not making a quality decision anymore.
00:19:41.370 --> 00:19:44.329
No, you're making an experiential decision, yes.
00:19:44.329 --> 00:19:50.089
But once you make an experiential decision, the challenge is you're not mass market anymore.
00:19:50.410 --> 00:19:52.329
You're not, yeah.
00:19:52.329 --> 00:20:02.650
So, so how do you reliably create something unique after something unique and make money, right?
00:20:02.809 --> 00:20:10.730
Right, yeah, because part of the challenge is people have found a way to make money processing film these days when clearly it was not a mass market product anymore.
00:20:10.730 --> 00:20:21.930
Now it's a niche product, and as a result of that, you got to charge more for film, you got to charge more for processing, and people are gladly paying it because it's their passion to do this.
00:20:21.930 --> 00:20:32.170
And but I've heard a lot of people saying, I can't believe that I'm I can charge $25 to process a roll of film when in back in the day that was four dollars.
00:20:32.410 --> 00:20:37.769
Yeah, definitely drop it off whenever we know, but but by the nature of doing that, right?
00:20:37.849 --> 00:20:46.009
By the nature of defining your market that way, you're just excluding a whole another segment of the market, which is difficult for people to do.
00:20:46.009 --> 00:21:03.529
I think what would be probably be a great exercise, I think this for every single business owner, and I'm saying it's a universal issue, whether it's whether it's everybody's how do you decide I'm going to exclude the majority of human beings whom well.
00:21:03.609 --> 00:21:07.370
This is the gap that I don't think we think about.
00:21:07.370 --> 00:21:18.250
The gap that we don't think about is what and I hate to say the word mission statement because people dummy it down or come up with long lines.
00:21:18.569 --> 00:21:21.370
Their eyes glows over, and yeah, yeah, eyes goes over.
00:21:21.529 --> 00:21:24.890
But what is that one thing that you're delivering to the customer?
00:21:24.890 --> 00:21:36.730
And I would say if you are in the photography business and you were to boil it down to that deliverable to the customer, what is it that you're delivering?
00:21:36.730 --> 00:21:41.210
Now, you're probably gonna get 10 people, 10 slightly different variations, right?
00:21:41.210 --> 00:21:55.769
But if you focus on that, so as an outsider, and I this is not the accurate statement, but let's say that I'm the only purpose that I exist is so that people can experience happiness and reliving a memory.
00:21:55.769 --> 00:21:57.049
I don't know if that's right or not.
00:21:57.049 --> 00:21:58.970
That's that's a great way.
00:21:58.970 --> 00:21:59.370
Okay.
00:21:59.370 --> 00:22:12.410
So if I'm going to be able to deliver that to a customer, and there was a moment so special that it was captured on film, digital, whatever, and it's not I enhanced.
00:22:12.410 --> 00:22:14.730
What is the best way that I can do that?
00:22:14.730 --> 00:22:23.930
And I think the creative piece of it is in the development of that solution, not in the solution itself.
00:22:23.930 --> 00:22:24.490
Right.
00:22:24.490 --> 00:22:32.250
So that's I don't I would challenge people to spend some time just reflecting on what is that thing that they're gonna deliver.
00:22:32.809 --> 00:22:50.009
And then deliver that and then be happy with it because you're going to differentiate more on that than you are on anything else, especially with well, this is a great point because I I I come across this as I mentioned before I do a little teaching about entrepreneurship, and that is one thing I mentioned to my students.
00:22:50.009 --> 00:22:55.049
I talk about that, is that you really have to understand what your core business really is.
00:22:55.049 --> 00:23:06.730
Like when you look at Walmart, their core business is not low prices, their core business is efficiency, and the result of that is low prices.
00:23:06.970 --> 00:23:08.089
Yes, exactly.
00:23:08.329 --> 00:23:20.490
And so if you get into a business to do something, just understand you're fulfilling a need that you may not even think is obvious to you, right?
00:23:20.490 --> 00:23:46.490
You may be if you're that print you're making could be helping someone can reconnect with their family, or it could be something there's usually a feeling that needs to be attached to it, and yeah, and as a business that traditionally is focused a lot on technology, megapixels and flash drives and write speeds and iso and all these things, they don't really focus on this.
00:23:46.490 --> 00:23:57.130
Is how you're gonna read this is how you're gonna maintain your heritage or pass on your family legacy through this, and you need to do a lot of it and print it, darn it.
00:23:57.130 --> 00:23:58.490
Yeah, yeah.
00:23:59.130 --> 00:24:05.529
But come on, I have all these people who talk to me about data centers going up, and I'm like, stop taking pictures with your iPhone.
00:24:05.529 --> 00:24:09.930
And like, yeah, if you want them to disappear, then stop taking pictures with your iPhone.
00:24:09.930 --> 00:24:10.890
Yeah, exactly.
00:24:10.890 --> 00:24:19.690
Or if you have a print photo, who knows who goes to their Google photos and says, Oh, yeah, I've got 15,000 of them, and um guys probably do, but consumer, and you're like, these are the great ones.
00:24:19.690 --> 00:24:21.450
No one does, they're just dumped up there.
00:24:21.450 --> 00:24:28.890
And but if I have it sitting on the wall right there in a frame, then I'm getting to love that thing and enjoy that thing every single day.
00:24:29.130 --> 00:24:45.450
Part of the challenge, and may and can you I know it would be great if you could address this, is because you can see your images on a phone or on a screen or a tablet or even your TV now, there's not a drive to print.
00:24:45.450 --> 00:24:46.809
Yeah, right.
00:24:46.809 --> 00:24:48.569
There, there isn't that.
00:24:48.569 --> 00:24:51.210
Hey, listen, this thing's gonna disappear, right?
00:24:51.210 --> 00:24:52.410
It's not like Snapchat.
00:24:52.410 --> 00:25:07.289
This thing is on it's on the cloud somewhere, it's using up those data centers, and it's so how would you suggest people talk to customers to get them to activate them to print?
00:25:08.009 --> 00:25:18.650
Yeah, so so again, this is gonna go back to what is the experience that you're delivering for them and and what would the advantage of something printed be?
00:25:18.650 --> 00:25:19.529
Right, right.
00:25:19.529 --> 00:25:23.930
So if I'm in a screen, I already know I gotta pick up my phone to do it.
00:25:23.930 --> 00:25:30.730
And then I know I'm gonna have to open at least one app, and then I know I'm gonna have to sort through something, right, to get to what I want.
00:25:30.970 --> 00:25:31.130
Right.
00:25:31.289 --> 00:25:47.930
And so let's say I'm here in my studio and I'm looking out over the lake, and I'm like, well, what is something that would like that I would print it here when I'm sitting here to feel and where would I want it?
00:25:47.930 --> 00:25:54.089
So I have a 27-inch iMac that's sitting right here in front of me that's blocking most of the window.
00:25:54.089 --> 00:26:04.410
But if someone were to say, you know, Adam, but we could capture some experiences and you can put them right across that two and a half inch strip that's on the bottom of your Mac.
00:26:04.410 --> 00:26:11.849
You're not limited to the four by six, or you're like, okay, well, what you you have homemade wood furniture?
00:26:11.849 --> 00:26:16.650
What if we were to do something that blended in with that and the image, like right?
00:26:16.650 --> 00:26:28.970
So I think when we're finding places that we can actually put stuff that are being the non-traditional, of course, I have the framed photos, but what are things that I could put in non-traditional places that are going to evoke that emotion when I want it?
00:26:28.970 --> 00:26:29.769
Right, right.
00:26:29.769 --> 00:26:30.170
Yeah.
00:26:30.170 --> 00:26:48.170
And I so I think if we talk about downboard, obviously the key chains and the coffee mugs have places for that and the t-shirts and the things, but I just don't think people are slowing down long enough to think about if I were to have that there, that'd make my day every every single time I sat down.
00:26:48.410 --> 00:26:48.809
Right.
00:26:48.809 --> 00:27:02.089
Because it's funny because yeah, a printed object with your personal image on it is a different tangible experience than viewing it on a screen.
00:27:02.089 --> 00:27:06.329
There's been tons of studies about this, yep, and it's how do you unlock that?
00:27:06.329 --> 00:27:12.329
That's one of the reasons why among the Gen Z crowd, the instant prints are huge, right?
00:27:12.329 --> 00:27:23.529
They're my daughter carries a ton of instacks because of the the ability to generate a non-social network related print.
00:27:23.529 --> 00:27:29.210
Yep, yep, and there's so there's no social networks of refrigerator, yeah, right?
00:27:29.210 --> 00:27:34.009
Or what the challenge for the industry, of course, is growth, right?
00:27:34.009 --> 00:27:34.970
Obviously, right?
00:27:34.970 --> 00:27:52.970
Fuji films growing on that, Polaroids growing, there's all kinds of people making accessory printers, but it's still a matter of gosh, people are shooting a ton of pictures, like you said, a trillion a year, probably in the United States alone, and it's just but a small fraction of those are monetized in a what I would call a meaningful way.
00:27:52.970 --> 00:27:58.009
A lot of them are being monetized in a meaningless way through advertising and other things, yeah.
00:27:58.009 --> 00:28:02.970
But in a meaningful way, I think as an industry, we need we could do a better job of that.
00:28:03.690 --> 00:28:11.690
Yeah, I think you have to, and again, you've used a four by six reference, we have to get out of that four by six reference mentality, right?
00:28:11.690 --> 00:28:15.130
And in a creative field, people should be creative.
00:28:15.130 --> 00:28:22.089
So, from a lean standpoint, like standardize all of the stuff you don't have to think about, and focus your energy on that creative piece.
00:28:22.089 --> 00:28:25.849
So many people will push people to solutions that they can easily provide.
00:28:25.849 --> 00:28:31.529
What are we pushing people solutions that are actually going to change the customer experience?
00:28:31.529 --> 00:28:32.730
And yeah, that's interesting.
00:28:32.730 --> 00:28:36.410
So much more.
00:28:36.730 --> 00:28:47.529
What's interesting is that because, for example, in a small retail shop, a lot of the people pulled out their photo kiosk, which generally generated just normal four by six prints.
00:28:47.529 --> 00:28:50.569
And it's like, well, and I kept pushing back on people who did that.
00:28:50.569 --> 00:28:52.970
Well, I'm more of a higher-end custom experience.
00:28:52.970 --> 00:29:08.410
I said, Yeah, but you're telling those people who just want prints not to go there, and you're not giving them the opportunity to see all the other stuff you have, just having, like you said, just that normal, routine, functional product.
00:29:08.410 --> 00:29:12.970
You don't have to invest a lot into it, you don't have to create a marketing campaign about it.
00:29:12.970 --> 00:29:14.809
You don't even probably have to spend any money, right?
00:29:14.809 --> 00:29:18.410
Once you've got the quote lean unquote process out, right?
00:29:18.410 --> 00:29:23.130
That's your lean thing, but then you want the custom boutique experience to be unique.
00:29:23.609 --> 00:29:24.250
Yep.
00:29:24.250 --> 00:29:25.769
Yep, absolutely.
00:29:25.769 --> 00:29:32.410
The pharmacies don't exist at Walmart to deliver medicine, they exist to get person people in there to buy other stuff, right?
00:29:32.410 --> 00:29:33.210
Yeah, right.
00:29:33.210 --> 00:29:37.289
So, what's your four by six that gets them in the door to give them fill in the blank?
00:29:37.289 --> 00:29:44.170
Yeah, like you can't overlook some of those easy cash cows, it's it'd be almost silly not to do that.
00:29:44.410 --> 00:29:47.930
Yeah, sometimes I think people want to aspire.
00:29:47.930 --> 00:29:51.130
A small business person wants to aspire to a higher level, right?
00:29:51.130 --> 00:30:00.089
They want that they want that bigger basket, the higher ring, the bigger margins, and they're willing to forsake just the bread and butter products, right?
00:30:00.089 --> 00:30:02.250
And I've seen that in other parts of retail, right?
00:30:02.250 --> 00:30:08.250
We've had people in who are mass marketers who have exited photo just for that reason, right?
00:30:08.250 --> 00:30:14.089
It wasn't as high margin as other things, so they pulled out their kiosk, they pulled out their things.
00:30:14.089 --> 00:30:20.890
It's just like, yeah, but you're losing that customer touch point, you're giving you're taking away a reason for them to go there.
00:30:21.690 --> 00:30:23.690
Yeah, exactly.
00:30:23.930 --> 00:30:25.769
Yeah, it's and it's an interesting thing.
00:30:25.769 --> 00:30:37.370
So, so if you were to prescribe a a recommendation to someone who is in that thing, so in terms of maybe it's not capital expenditure, right?
00:30:37.370 --> 00:30:44.250
Because you probably have the equipment, but where would you invest to try and to create that boutique experience?
00:30:44.250 --> 00:30:48.089
Where would you look to start that in your store?
00:30:48.490 --> 00:30:55.130
Man, I think what you do is you need to pull a few customers in and chat with them.
00:30:55.130 --> 00:31:06.089
And you need to when I talk with customers the first 20 minutes, they're it's all rainbows and sunshine.
00:31:06.089 --> 00:31:07.289
It's just they won't go.
00:31:07.289 --> 00:31:08.730
They don't want to hurt your feelings, right?
00:31:08.730 --> 00:31:24.490
They don't want to hurt your feelings, but then you dig in and they're like, Man, it would really be nice if, or I would love it if, and then you start to get to the meaningful discussion, and then that's when they're not articulating it exactly how right they should, but you can make that transfer function.
00:31:24.490 --> 00:31:36.410
I like people to do about five to ten customer an hour with the customer, and and then gather that five to ten and see what are the themes.
00:31:36.410 --> 00:31:43.690
And if you're doing transcription, like AI transcription, and you can dump that back in and say, tell me the patterns that you're hearing.
00:31:43.690 --> 00:31:57.130
Long ago when I first started doing that, we had to type out the entire interaction, and then we had to look for patterns ourselves, and it was a weeks long process, and you can do that in in like five minutes now.
00:31:57.130 --> 00:31:58.970
Yeah, so there's no reason not to do it.
00:31:58.970 --> 00:32:05.529
That's there's no reason not to do it, it's not any skin off your back, it's super easy, and it's a good experience for the customer as well.
00:32:05.529 --> 00:32:08.009
Put some pizza out there, coffee out there, whatever.
00:32:09.289 --> 00:32:18.569
So if people wanted to start there, if people wanted to put out some pizza and talk to you, how would they reach out to find and engage with Adam Ward?
00:32:18.569 --> 00:32:19.930
How do they find you?
00:32:19.930 --> 00:32:21.049
Oh, me?
00:32:21.609 --> 00:32:24.170
Adam Ward, Adam M Ward.com.
00:32:24.170 --> 00:32:25.769
Uh is my website.
00:32:25.769 --> 00:32:28.089
Yeah, or yeah, that's where you could find me.
00:32:28.089 --> 00:32:31.210
I have my phone numbers on there and emails on there too.
00:32:31.450 --> 00:32:32.329
Awesome, awesome.
00:32:32.329 --> 00:32:36.329
And you just you're just ready and available to talk to people about their business.
00:32:36.569 --> 00:32:37.769
I that's what I do.
00:32:37.930 --> 00:32:38.730
That's what you do.
00:32:38.730 --> 00:32:39.930
Well, it's this has been fun.
00:32:39.930 --> 00:32:41.289
I've I got a lot of great ideas.
00:32:41.289 --> 00:32:46.650
It's good that that people can use some of the things you're looking about just in everyday things.
00:32:46.650 --> 00:32:56.569
I think when when people talk about things like lean processes and capex and all these kinds of things, their eyes glaze over because it's not why they got into business, but it's absolutely necessary.
00:32:56.569 --> 00:32:58.170
Thank you so much, Adam, for your time.
00:32:58.170 --> 00:32:58.730
Appreciate it.
00:32:58.970 --> 00:32:59.609
Gary, thank you.
00:32:59.609 --> 00:33:00.970
It's been a pleasure.
00:33:03.609 --> 00:33:06.970
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel Society podcast.
00:33:06.970 --> 00:33:14.329
Read more great stories and sign up for the newsletter at www.the dead pixels society.com.