Don’t get hung up on the title of this column. I chose it mostly because that’s what popped in my head when I began writing, and it sounded good. The term foie gras, however, does refer to a luxury French food, and I do want to talk about something that requires some luxury, or more accurately, quality.
In today’s day and age of high-tech smart phones and their many capabilities – specifically how good the cameras on them are – there is no reason you shouldn’t be taking advantage of having them in your engine shop. Do you currently take pictures and videos of your engine builds? Do you photo document your best builds to show off to current and prospective customers? Do you take photos of your shop and its engines for social media and your website?
If you said no to any of these, you need to start. The excuses for not being accessible online, on social media and visible to the public, no longer carry any relevance. The truth is, you have no excuse. Maybe you just don’t care enough?
Now, if you said yes, then I don’t have to tell you just how easy that all really is. Don’t get me wrong – I fully acknowledge that taking photos while on the job is a time commitment – but it is a very worthy commitment! Photography is one of the most important aspects of marketing your engine shop, your engine builds and your services.
In this industry, we see the full spectrum of photography – blurry, too far away, too close, some are decent, and some are perfect photos. The same goes for photo file sizes. We often get submitted photos that are the LITERAL size of a thumbnail! That’s not good for an 11-inch piece of magazine paper! We need high quality, large photos for what we send to your mailbox every month. And we don’t just want that for ourselves… we want it for all of you too. Large, quality photos posted on social media, on websites and in magazines help draw eyeballs. Eyeballs equate to engagement, and engagement equates to potential customers.
Not to beat a dead horse, but photos are one of your best marketing tools – second to word of mouth in my opinion. So, get out that smart phone, and rather than simply scrolling through other peoples cool engine images online, start making it happen for yourself. Trust me, it’s easy and the phone does most of the work.
Our pals Mitchell Wilson of Engineered Performance, Aaron Yaghoubian of Arlington Machine, Michael Norris of Precision Engine Machine Co. and Luke Wilson at 4 Piston Cylinder Heads, are just a few engine builders doing a superb job of documenting their builds with excellent photography. Look them up on Facebook and Instagram and see what you’re missing out on!
Now, some of these guys might be using true, professional cameras, but the fact is, your phone will work great too. It’s time to stop making excuses and do this stuff for the sake of your business. You build cool, quality, awe-inspiring, performance pieces of engineering, and people love looking at it.
We want to help you share your work too. Those great photos can end up in the pages of Engine Builder magazine, in one of our Engine of the Week articles, on our social media channels, and best of all – they could lead to more business.
There’s an old saying: you don’t want to see how the sausage
(or foie gras) is made – but in the engine building world, the inside story is
the front row seat.
Are you ready for your
close up?
