A Day in the Life

By Steve Hendrix, Atlanta Sales Manager

What is life like at Capture Integration? Well…it’s crazy, crazy busy. We’ve added two additional staff members in the past 3 months as our business continues to expand at a doubling pace of last years record sales numbers. Since we’re not a traditional camera store, how do we spend our days?

 

8:15am – 8:45am

I’m in a little earlier than usual due to receiving a $122K PO from one of my education clients late yesterday. I need to put that together for ordering. This order has many, many items from numerous vendors, including Mamiya, ProFoto, Manfrotto, Broncolor, and Sinar. Karen Friedman, our first accountant, is here, she’s always first in. Starting to put together the order from the big school PO. At 8:25, one of my more technical clients calls and we discuss some aspects regarding using the spacer that accompanies longer lenses with the Arca Swiss RL3D and the KaptureGroup Sliding Back. He is heading to the desert for some shooting and requests a 3rd backup cable to be overnighted to him.

 

8:50am

Everyone’s in the office. Dave Gallagher, owner of Capture Integration has a particularly challenging day as he has two outside appointments to handle in addition to running the company and catching up all of his own sales activity.

I’m investigating with our sources what will be happening with trade-in values towards the Phase One IQ backs after March 31 (those trade-in values are due to expire on that date). We’ve also placed a banner ad on Luminous Landscape, but our ad seems to have disappeared. Looking into exactly what the terms were for this and also checking with Doug Peterson, our Technical Services Manager to see if there’s a glitch of some sort on our end. Checking another source (one of my clients) who tells me another dealer’s former employee has allegedly been arrested for selling stolen property.

Checking emails from overnight. One of my clients who bought a used lens from a different dealer was not happy with the experience. Stated that they were very limited and rigid in their policies. I hold my tongue, but do confirm our flexibility on some of the points he was concerned about with the other dealer.

 

10:00am – 10:45am

I check Fedex tracking for a Tennessee client who expected yesterday to receive some Phase One batteries we shipped. A client calls to discuss the shipping arrangements for their Leaf AFi-II 12, which has arrived at our location. I call a local client to schedule a visit to his new studio location. He’s just moved back into town and is excited about his new space. I check inventory for a P40+ to perform a test with a 35mm Digitar lens to see how far it can be pushed and what sort of anomalies I can produce (if any).

Progress is slow on putting together the school order. I realize as I look at the clock I’m passing a progress point gauge for the day – 10:45am. Once 10am or so has passed, there’s always a concern that the day will get away from you and if you have anything really time consuming that needs to be completed before the end of the day, it will be a challenge.

Before diving back into the educational order, I spin a quick email to Martin Vogt of Arca Swiss, trying to catch him before his day ends.

 

10:45am – 11:30am

A prospective client specializing in aerial photography calls and we discuss voltage output from sync ports and hot shoes and sustained capture rates and mid-wide angle lens resolution falloff. A discussion of mtbf rates of various body and lens shutter combinations takes place. We make a plan to meet the following Tuesday for some real world testing to narrow down our options. Starting point will be the Leaf Aptus-II 12 and the Phase One P65+, both on Phase One camera bodies.

 

Doug Peterson, our Technical Services Manager, chats to confirm that Leica has shipped back an M9 unit that needed a repair for one of my clients. He forwards tracking information and I confirm the status. I call my client. The tracking information comes not a minute too soon. He’s going out of town this weekend. Everything appears to be on target for him being able to take his refreshed M9 on his trip.

 

Rachel, my lovely wife, calls and tells me the plumber she has left work to meet at our house says the faucet that is leaking has internal components that have been “re-glued back together”. Well, we thought this was a dealer we could trust when we bought it, but I guess not. I feel so fortunate that she’ll have me.

 

 

11:30am – 11:37am

Five emails hit, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam between 11:30 and 11:35. Backordered status email from Manfrotto. Upgrade inquiry from P30 to P45+/IQ140 (client is torn on the best path forward). It will very much depend on the type of work he does and plans to do and how he currently employs his P30. Some ProFoto demo items have become available. A client in Charlotte wants to know if I have March 30 open for some Capture One training for him and his staff.

 

A client texts me regarding a problem with their LaCie display. Taylor Lupton, our Rental & Equipment Manager, emails me a question about a rental client of mine. Doug Peterson responds back with a location for where I would enter general contacts in our non-newsletter database, so I don’t lose their contact information.

 

11:50am

I receive an email that tells me the Phase One batteries have been delivered to my Tennessee client. I deviate from the large school order to put together an order for another of my Leaf AFi clients, who is upgrading from AFi-7 to the AFi-II 12. This is one of my favorite clients, he’s had some challenges with service for his AFi system, but we’ve gotten through it together.

 

12:30pm – 1:21pm

A client emails me his log-in info for the support record on his LaCie RAID that he purchased from us. I requested this to check on the progress as there’s been a couple nagging technical issues that have not been resolved. These are complex networking technical issues, which have moved past our technical level of support. However, we still manage the service provided by the vendor and ensure that the outcome is to the satisfaction of this client, who is beginning to question it. Therefore, I’m going to ask Doug Peterson to review the case to see if there’s grounds for replacing his unit with a brand new one.

Martin Vogt of Arca Swiss calls from France. We discuss the spacer issue with the RL3D and the KG sliding back and we both realize there’s no issue, we can use the spacer from the 4×5 cameras. We also discuss some issues that can cause confusion with ordering and he agrees to make some changes on some of the product part numbers. I bring up a couple of unique client situations in terms of product delivery times.

I’ve put together all the pricing on the school order by now, but somehow all the items on the PO are not matching the total from the items on the order. I’ve made a mistake somewhere. Back at it. Two clients contact me 15 minutes apart (one via email, the other calls) about the Cambo Wide-DS on our demo page for $1,000 and they both ask for a digital back below $7,000 to mount to it. I just received (2) Phase One P25+ units, so I have options for both. LaCie indicates the client who has the issue with the display ran out of warranty 21 days ago. I push the issue and bump it to another level.

 

1:45pm – 3:30pm

Lunch at my desk. I order pizza for the office. When I started at Capture Integration nearly 2 years ago, I inherited a little plant by the window. I am generally a death sentence to any plant I get near and so I pretty much ignored this guy. Last fall, he started fading. I asked Dave if he knew what kind of plant it was and he said it belonged to his wife Christine. Egads, I can’t let the plant die! So I call Christine and she tells me it’s a money tree. I do some research and decide to adopt it. At this point, it was down to 3 leaves, and clinging to life. Every morning now, I come in and think some positive thoughts towards it, and I’ve pulled it away from the window and scheduled the watering to about once a week. Now look at him! Sometimes, beings just need a little love (and water).

 

A Carolina client calls in and wants to order a DC Power Supply for their Phase One DF Camera and wants it shipped overnight. A prospect calls in looking for a P30 and an H2 camera. She is firm in wanting the H2 and does not want a Hasselblad H3D-31 or H4D-31. Instead, she wants a P30 or P30+, but she is quite budget challenged. I tell her I’ll check to see what we have or what Chris or Dave are working on to see if a P30 is imminent. I have a P45+ coming in from one of my clients in a few days, but no P30’s at the moment. We agree that I’ll check back with her.

 

3:30pm – 4:15pm

Someone calls for Dave. They obviously ask how he is, and he goes….”Ah…tired”. Don’t people know not to ask how we are? We’re tired, man! A client calls from St. Louis. We’ll be doing a workshop there in June and they may host the workshop. We discuss some logistical issues, along with some Capture One questions regarding renaming. We agree to follow up next week.

I call a client and finalize their order for some Visatec Monolights, which we will outfit with a Broncolor adapter so they take all the Broncolor modifiers and accessories. Trying to get as many orders to Karen as possible before she’s done for the day, although Sam Mai, our second accountant, typically comes in and stays later than Karen. I take a call from our Broncolor rep who re-affirms the pricing on some of the items for the school order. I ask about the new Senso pack delivery date, and it is still projected for April.

Doug chats me that LaCie is confirming they will accept our push for in-warranty service even though the product is out of warranty and will provide a next day replacement. I check with the client who tells me they’re out the next day but they’ll return the day after. I chat Doug to request 2nd day service instead of next day.

 

5:10pm

The P30 searcher calls back and asks my opinion of a dealer who has what she is looking for. She didn’t get “warm fuzzies” from him when she spoke to him and said he also wanted full payment before shipping, which she felt was not reasonable. She asked me if I would trust him. I told her this person had been in business for quite some time, and while maybe not the warmest, fuzziest person, would not have lasted this long if he was not a trustworthy dealer to do business with. And requesting payment before shipping an item is certainly reasonable on his part, considering he had never had contact from her before. We try not to bash our competitors.

 

I discuss incoming inventory with Dave and what kind of pricing we’ll have on the trade-in units (pre-owned P45+V arriving and Aptus-II 12 Contax new in the box for inventory, among other notables…).

 

5:40pm

Speaking with a client about the delivery dates for the Phase One IQ180. He’s interested in ordering, but wants to know when their unit would arrive. With the massive amount of orders we’ve taken, I feel that June is starting to look overly optimistic on anyone ordering today, assuming our pre-existing orders won’t begin shipping until late April/early May. In the middle of our conversation, my iPhone drops the call. Thank you AT&T! My 2 year contract expires in August, right about the time iPhone 5 will be announced (on Verizon). I can’t wait.

 

6:15pm

Dave announces – Remember, we chose this career! I ask him when are we going to begin staffing our 2nd shift?

 

6:30pm

Dave is leaving early tonight – his daughter Emma is performing in a school play and that (always) has priority. Usually, Dave and I battle it out for last person in the office. Tonight I win.

All columns finally match on the $122K school order. Yay!!! Now I can present it to Karen for ordering.

 

6:40pm – 7:05PM

Client calls in who purchased a 2nd hand Canon 1DS about a year ago. Of course, I remember him – You live in Rome, Ga, right? That’s right, he says. He needs a copy of his original receipt, can we provide this for him? Of course, not a problem. The 4th of the Arca Swiss RM3Di systems that arrived this week needs to be shipped out before we leave. I gather all the items and put them on my desk. Taylor would normally handle this, but he has left, after handling all the shipping earlier. Client calls who I spoke with 2 days ago. We discuss options for architectural capture. After we hang up, I contact another client on the west coast who is shooting architecture with a Sinar F (the poor guy!) and wants to switch to the RM3Di, but hesitant about the long delivery times. We discuss projections and my call earlier from Martin who felt he  might have 2 additional units for us within about 10 days.

 

7:20pm

Client called who is traveling to Africa in 2 days. He wants a Phase One AF camera with some accessories and backup products. We discuss the differences between the AF and the Phase One DF, as well as the difference between Mamiya and Phase One cameras (there aren’t any), as well as sync speed limits, practical use for his purpose, etc. Sam our second accountant, is still here, so we’ll ship out overnight. It’s 7:20PM, and our second accountant, who would normally leave at 6:00PM, is still here! We have an amazingly dedicated team.

 

7:35pm

Rachel calls, asks about dinner plans. I tell her she’s on her own, and I’ll be home in a bit.

 

7:50pm

I do a last minute email check. All good. In addition to all the other activity from today, I sent out 76 response emails. Not a bad day.

 

8:15pm

Dropping off last minute packages to our friends at Fedex. I grab the delivery receipt so I can email my client with the tracking number when I get home to Decatur.