3. Make meetings productive with an agenda and a report. Whether it’s an internal staff or client meeting, keep it on track with an agenda. Nothing gets accomplished in staff meetings without a focus, and an agenda helps with that. Make sure every agenda has a short time allocated to discuss new business. After meeting, write a report, or minutes, so everyone is on board with decisions made during your time together.

4. Get it in writing. This is a basic tenet of business, but we all forget it from time to time. Don’t let someone pass you in hall at office and ask you to do something – tell them to send you an email. Have clients sign off on work by emailing or faxing their approval. Put everything in writing and make sure that anyone affected by actions in document are aware of their role and that they put it in writing, too!

5. Don’t rely too much on technology. Who hasn’t been victim of a crashed hard drive, a cell phone dropped in a coffee cup, a misplaced PDA or a stolen laptop? As great as technology is, backup systems are imperative. Be sure you have yours in place!

Any business guru will tell you that better communication means fewer delays, upset customers and improved productivity. That means a better bottom line and a lot fewer headaches!

Flat Rate - this term isn’t quite at common but it is similar to royalty free. Usually this means that you pay a one time fee for an image, but it can only be used for one purpose by one person. Pricing will be higher than royalty free but less than rights managed.

Copyright - even with royalty free you are still only purchasing right to use an image not image itself. All images are property of agency or photographer who owns them. How do you know who owns them, there is usually a © symbol with date and name of person or agency who owns image. No matter what you paid for image you are NOT owner of image. This means you cannot remove copyright information, alter photo, use it as part of a logo that you own a copyright, or resale image as your own.

These terms will get you started but remember there can be differences in these definitions from agency to agency and photographer to photographer. Every agency and photographer selling stock images should have a legal or license page to explain these terms and any others that they use, if they don’t you may want to move onto another site. Be aware, read all information, and know what you are buying.

Copyright 2004 Kelly Paal