Pest Management Professional, May 2017

Added VAlue Photo Ray Johnson By Ray Johnson Contributor O ne of my favorite hobbies is photography Ive always had an interest in taking good photographs but in the past two years my pursuit of taking great photos has risen to a new level of importance Thats when I joined a local photo club the Leconte Photographic Society Its a great group of dedicated folks who are just like me and want to learn how to capture the moment in a photograph Each meeting we have competitions and judge one anothers photos We submit our photos in divisions that include beginner advanced and star They are displayed on a large screen but no one knows whose photo is being presented until the end of that particular competition Judges for the month are members who did not submit a photo for that meeting At the end of judging for each division first second and thirdplace awards are given So are critiques from the judges to suggest improvements of ones image or to confirm the quality of the image Members also may request a critique after the judges scores are tabulated even on the photos that did not make the cut The entire process has been eyeopening for me I have learned so much from the critiques on what I did wrong and how I could have made the photo I submitted better What does all this have to do with running a pest management business Well after each industry conference or meeting I attend I try to critique myself about what I am learning from others as they share their experience in the business We all are eager to gain new information on how to make You can reach Johnson a past president of the National Pest Management Association NPMA president of Sevierville Tenn based Johnson Pest Control and founder of ACES for Business at ray@ johnsonpestcontrol com our organizations the very best they can be But what will we learn if we have our heads in the sand and dont attend local state or national conferences Basically were only learning from our own mistakes Sound familiar Now back to photography and using a single focus point Many times I have come back from an industry meeting with a ton of ideas Theres a lot of excitement about getting the new concepts Ive learned to work for me as fast as possible The problem however is that there are too many new ideas We as owners get overwhelmed and either try to do too many at one time or we just get frustrated and dont do anything at all This is where we need to use a single focus point I think its fine to sometimes divide up these new ideas among our different teams and assign a team a specific project but we must ensure that progress is getting done Personally I think its better if I only focus on one game changing project at a time I know that it will have a better outcome and I wont stress out our entire team by changing too much too fast pmp use a single focus point In January on a very cold 10 F evening I went downtown to photograph the Sevier County Courthouse at sunset with my Nikon d 810 camera and a wide angle lens If youve not been to our Smoky Mountains at least you can see a photo of our courthouse and our dolly Parton statue I welcome any critiques on the photo as I am always eager to learn in photography and in business 96 May 2017 pest management professional mypmp net