howdy folks,

last sunday I attended a seminar from Sandy (a.k.a. Sam) Puc in Tulsa. (her last name is pronounced “puch” – like much with a “p”).

What a great experience!

The session covered family portraiture ranging from posing, marketing ideas, shooting techniques, marketing strategies and gear to extensive marketing plans.

Did I mention marketing?  This seemed to be the seminar’s greatest strength. Packed with marketing ideas by topic (portraits, seniors, weddings, etc…) and  by monthly or event based or seasonal ideas, this tour is definitely worth the admission. When I came into work on monday, I told some co-workers about it and now they are looking at attending one of her other sessions.

Now for the bad… As it was the first session, it was pretty disorganized. I didn’t receive the promised literature (session catalog?), nor did I get a t-shirt that was promised for signing up for sam’s world university – a marketing strategy website  from sandy that has monthly updates with multiple marketing campaigns and other resources. We were informed that we would receive a pdf of the catalog and I was promised a shirt to be mailed.  From what I saw in the session and from watching Sandy speak for 5 to 6 hours, I feel pretty secure that they will honor those offers.

As a speaker, she was very emotional and just plain passionate about photography.  She gave a lot more credit than she took and showed a deep level of knowledge on being extremely efficient in shooting, sales and marketing. She also held a deep commitment to charitable work and spent around an hour of the show just on that topic (it’s way better than it sounds). Not once did I lose attention or get bored. My only real complaint was that “I felt that I missed quite a bit of the presentation from having to take notes as I didn’t know what the literature we were supposed to receive contained”. I was so worried that the literature wouldn’t have something that I thought might be important, that I wrote down the content of almost every slide and specific content she talked about.  If I could afford another day off, I would attend the Kansas City seminar just to see what I missed.

From her own presentation, Sandy said this was the third year in the series and there would be at least 8 more annual tours in the future. I plan to see all of them if I can.

So here it is, in a nutshell.

PROS:

  • best marketing education I’ve ever seen in a seminar.
  • lots of product ideas
  • easy, efficient shooting techniques with great results
  • she is passionate, articulate, and knowledgable

CONS:

  • A little chaotic and unprepared (probably just first “on the road” show technical problems)

Update: I received my catalog a few days after this post. Unfortunately it really is just a catalog. I was extremely disappointed with the content. Although the presentation of Sandy’s tour is second to none, the lack of a decent handbook severely diminishes my opinion of the value of her show.

Update: It has been over a month since the show and I still haven’t received the t-shirt that I was promised for signing up for Sam’s World University. The email I sent two weeks ago has never been acknowledged. I am extremely down on the whole experience at this point.