Customer Spotlight: Snowflake Photo Booth

At Imaging Spectrum, we consider it an honor to provide supplies and support to the top names in the photo booth industry. Previous “Customer Spotlight” segments of our newsletter have featured a wide variety of top-shelf industry professionals, oftentimes from larger metropolitan markets. But what about all those small town booth companies? We love them too!

Some of our favorite clients we speak to each day are in small towns and manage a successful photo booth business part time. This month we travel to the mountains of Colorado to visit Michelle Lessard Burt and Courtney Hampton, the owners of Snowflake Photo Booth, to find out what it takes to succeed in the towns around Summit County. 1. What inspired you to start a photo booth business?

Michelle is a manager at the largest package delivery company in the world with an excellent benefit package. On the side, she has a small business that she had grown. The growth didn’t make sense, so she decided to scale back. She was looking for a new investment. Courtney is a full time DJ. Her clients were asking her for a photo booth. Courtney mentioned to Michelle that she was looking for an investor for a photo booth.

A few months later, Michelle’s husband and daughter attended a Father Daughter Dance with a photo booth. Her husband stood in line for most of the event to get that precious photo strip. The experience and the photo were a disappointment. When Michelle saw the photo strip (actually a 4x6, landscape with 4 photos that had more black curtain than people in them), she knew that she could offer a better experience AND better quality photo strip. Michelle jumped into the market research. The numbers looked good.

When the two considered Courtney’s existing client base and Michelle’s experience in technology and sales, a photo booth made sense. Michelle called Courtney to say, “Let’s do this!”

By the way, next month, Courtney and Michelle will be providing the photo booth for that Father Daughter Dance for the 3^rd year in a row.

2. What advice might you give to someone just starting out, who wants to do this part time?

Being in a small town is unique. Being a business owner, full time or part time is not.

As a business owner:

• Do your research. Have a business plan. Be realistic. Does it make sense?
• Set a budget and goals.
• Be prepared for requests to donate your booth.
• Accept that you are not an expert at everything. Build a team of experts.
• Be disciplined. Set a schedule. Work comes first during work hours. Make time to play.
• Network, network, network.
• In a small town:
  • Your reputation is everything.
  • Offer a high quality service.
  • Stay small, keep it all.

We can’t emphasize networking enough! We know the event planner of that Father Daughter Dance. We asked her how and why she chose that booth. We approached her with a better implementation and photo and got the event for the next year. Through Courtney’s DJ network, we found our booth. Our booth builder introduced us to Imaging Spectrum and the forums. The combination of everything led us to try Darkroom Booth.

3. One of the things we appreciate about Snowflake Photo Booth is your technical knowledge of the equipment you use. Cameras, printers and software. Oftentimes you reach out to others and offer help on public photo booth forums (awesome of you to do that). How did you learn all of this? Was it trial and error? Did you have a mentor?

The forums are like life: the more you give, the more you get. What you see publicly is just the tip of the iceberg. Advice and favors are traded via personal message all the time.

It is 2015, we have tools like the forums to learn from each others trial and error. We learn from others and pay it forward by sharing what we have learned and passing along the possible solutions as similar questions pop up.

Sure, we have mentors for each part of the business. We have found a lot of experts in different facets of the industry. There’s too many to list, we’d surely forget someone!

4. You are also a big fan of the green screen feature in Darkroom Booth Software. Do you do much green screen work? If so, how has the Darkroom Green Screen helped with your workflow?

We love to provide green screen! We have used other software, and that’s why we KNOW Darkroom Booth Software is THE BEST! We tested our 2 software programs side by side for hours. By the time the testing was over, we realized two things:

1. We will never get those hours of our lives back.
2. All we need is Darkroom Booth and a green screen; no extra lights, no extra effort.

The Darkroom Booth algorithm forgives shadows and wrinkles. The lighting from our booth and the flash is sufficient. This is one of those things that people can over think. Here’s our trial and error advice: If anyone is thinking about green screen, don’t over think it. Start with Booth - it is plug and play!

5. What is your printer of choice these days and why?

Good question! We started with DNP RX1s, but we have to say, the Brava 21 has become our favorite. As 5’6” women, we appreciate the smaller size and weight. In addition, we have repeat business from event planners who require something new and fresh each year. We can use the Brava 21 for 4”x6” and 2”x6” just like the RX1. But now we can also offer sticker prints (in either traditional size) as well as 5”x7” photos or super-size and super-fun 2 ½”x7” photo strips. The variety adds to our arsenal of services and competitive edge!

Remember that Father Daughter Dance? The first year we did photo strips, the second year we did 4”x6” red carpet photos, this year we are doing stickers. If we didn’t offer something new, the planner would look for someone who does.

6. There must be challenges with getting around those mountain ranges at altitude when the roads are full of ice and snow. How do you handle those weather challenges in terms of transporting your booth?

We are on top of the Rocky Mountains. We get to work in some unique venues. At some venues, guests arrive via gondolas or chairlifts. We transport the booth in our AWD Astrovan. In the summer it has enough clearance for 4x4 roads to reach the venues on mountain tops. In the snow, it has amazing traction.

It can snow in July. This is one of the reasons we try to stay in our small community. When we do have to drive over a mountain pass, we keep our eyes on the weather forecast for a few days. Storms tend to slow down when they hit the Rockies. We use websites and social media for road conditions and the frequent closure of the interstate. As professionals, and long-time mountain mamas, we use our best judgment to travel when the road is open and safe, even if that means leaving 6 hours early for an event.

7. Of all the places to buy supplies for your photo booth… Why Imaging Spectrum?

There is a very clear line between training and tech support. If training involves more than providing a manual, it isn’t available with other companies.

We hand-picked our team of suppliers through networking and trial and error. Our current team always goes WAY above and beyond to train us when we take on new endeavors (green screen, graphic list options, printer settings, new technology). The Darkroom YouTube videos are a great place to start. But when something goes wrong, we know there are people smarter than us on the other end of the phone when we call our booth builder, Imaging Spectrum or Darkroom Software.

Company Bio: Snowflake Photo Booth, LLC adds a flurry of excitement to your unique event! We are a boutique photo booth company offering a large variety of photo booth services in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Planning a special event? We get that! www.snowflakephotobooth.com