Without a sale, you don't have a business. You have a hobby. Which, by itself may be where you want to be, but most readers of Tiffinbox are either professionals or aspiring professionals, so I figured I give you a head's up on this short video by Kristen Kalp introducing her new product offering called Sales Without Shame.

Some of you may recall that I reviewed Kristen's e-book, Circus Circus. If you follow Kristen's popular blog – BrandCamp Blog – you'll immediately grasp what she is trying to convey thanks to her lucid writing and her humor.

Sales Without Shame promises to be another remarkable and useful guide for those of us who are shy about in-person selling. If your online sales are off the charts, then you may not even need this guide. If, however, you are not seeing great results with that strategy and want to try selling your services and products to your clients face-to-face and don't know how, Kristen's guide is your ticket.

Personally, I do very little online sales. All of my portrait clients now expect to come in to meet with me after their session so that they can see all of the images I created for them and it gives them an opportunity to fully describe what it is they are looking to buy. Selling, to me, isn't about pushing products on unsuspecting clients. It's about having a good understanding of what my clients may need now and in the future and then suggesting a few valuable options to them.

While I have not had a chance to see the final version of Kristen's new guide, I mention it here because I find her writing and advice for photographers so very valuable. I trust that Sales Without Shame will teach me a few more ways to help my clients better appreciate the art that I create for them. And lucky for you, if you order Sales Without Shame, you get to learn from her as well.

So, here's what you should do next: Go to Sales Without Shame and enter your email address. Once you do that, you'll be sent a “sampler,” which in itself is chalk-full of great info that you can put to use in your business today. Then, at the tail end of this month (May 29th or so), you'll get an email inviting you to purchase the full version. Bingo!

UPDATE: Sales Without Shame launches on May 30th for $247, until June 8th when it goes up to $447. So jump to it!

Tara Gentile, a thought leader and creative business coach. She brings creative thinking to branding, product development, and marketing that incorporates both strategy and high touch design. Her approach to business in the You Economy resonates with MBAs, PhDs, and graduates of the school of life. She writes frequently for the Daily Worth, Design*Sponge, and Etsy. Bestselling author, Jonathan Fields, named her blog a Top 22 Single-Voice Business Blog of 2012. She’s the author of several popular digital guides including her latest on the relationship between personal art and money, The Art of Earning.Visit her websites: Reclaiming Wealth and KickStart Labs

1) You project a tremendous sense of discipline. Who do you attribute this trait to? Your mother, as you say, instilled in you the habit of saving. So, she would be my first guess.

I think you're right – my mama taught me discipline. Her business – she supported my brother & I as a seamstress – was driven by her values & personal priorities. She wanted to be present in our lives as much as humanly possible: picking us up from school, attending softball games, being there when we were sick.

So naturally, she found the discipline to work at the wee hours of the morning to get a batch of alterations complete or the strength to canvass the wealthy neighborhood a few minutes away with flyers about her business.

I think her disciple also emanates from just how much she loves & is challenged by her work. She still owns a sewing business even though she doesn't need to work. She truly wants to be at her sewing machine crafting new garments & altering old.

My discipline is very much the same. I want to work as hard as I do. I want to provide for my child. I want to model entrepreneurship & self-determination for my child. I'm also driven to discipline by my clients because I want to serve them at my highest level all the time.

But my personal discipline is also paired with a deep appreciation for time off. I don't push myself through “not feeling like it.” If I don't feel like it, there's a reason and I respect that reason. I do something else instead — even if that something looks frivolous on the outside.

I work hard & I play hard. It's a good life and one I'm happy to lead.

2) If I can speak for photographers as a collective, I would say we sincerely believe we can be both profitable and pursue our art. But we also a lot that gets too easily derailed. What would your advice be to stick to the path we initially imagined we would be on?

First, make sure you're not trying to do more than you can for the sake of money. Photographers (and web designers and web developers) all fall into the category of trying to work too much. As in, you try to accumulate too many billable hours. You work more to make more money because that seems to be the easy way to do it.

How can you make more money working less? Charge more for what you do. Create other revenue streams (i.e. sell prints at the right price, create books, diversify your services). Run your business smarter (i.e. create systems for referrals)

Second, make sure you're differentiated within the market. If where you shine is taking pictures of families with small children, make sure everyone knows that's your specialty. If you're the master of black & white, show that on your website and have a “no color” policy. You'll be able to charge more for your best work instead of making less doing more things.

The average joe doesn't know the difference between you and the 50 other photographers in your geographic area. Make it obvious. Show average joe that you understand his unique needs. Be the best match or tell him to go somewhere else.

3) In your seminal ebook, The Art of Earning, I get the feeling you are giving us artisans permission to pursue our dreams, which includes honing our craft and creating a sustainable lifestyle for ourselves and our families. Am I reading that right?

Yes! And right there you've hit the nail on the head. It's a two fold mission in becoming a thriving artist:

a) Hone your craft. Get better at what you do. Don't just learn about business — learn to become a better artist! Keep up with trends, invest in equipment, learn new skills.

b) Create a sustainable lifestyle. Make the money you need to live the way you want to live. Nothing is out of your grasp if you name it & work towards it. Don't aim for getting by, don't aim for working 100 hours per week. Aim for sustainable and thriving.

4) You say “transformation is valuable” and I agree. But who gets to place value on that transformation? Let's say a wedding client of mine is looking at a picture I took of her and her late grandmother on the dance floor. How does one put a dollar value to that emotion the bride is feeling at that moment? And how is that value conveyed to my client without sounding like a used-car salesman?

This is one statement from the book I might back pedal on a bit today. Not because it's untrue but because it needs context.

People don't actually buy “personal transformation.” No one believes there is a lump sum of money they can plop down & become better, smarter, richer, or prettier because of the service they've just bought. However, overall transformation is something that can be broken down into its parts. Those parts can be bullet-pointed, named, and price tagged.

For a photographer, transformation may be seeing yourself as you've never been seen before. It might be capturing the beauty of friends & family gathered 'round. It might be providing the best souvenirs from a moment in a child's life.

No kidding, there is no set fee for “the bride & her late grandmother on the dance floor” but that doesn't mean the fee should be low just because it's a beautiful moment either. Charge what you need or want to charge and then back it up with the language that you use to describe the service that you offer.

Break what you do down into tangible bits. Let people feel into having you as their photographer and give them a sense of what both the experience of being photographed & the experience of seeing the photos will be like.

Don't worry about sounding like a used car salesmen. This is ridiculous! You're not a used car salesmen. You weave beautiful stories when you talk to friends about what you do – weave those same stories for your potential clients.

Then say with confidence, “This is my fee.” And give them the space that they need to say, “Yes.”

5) Is having or making that “third choice” – beyond saving/investing or spending it on “stuff” – the driving force behind the art of earning? Also, do you recommend you declare this third choice to your clients so that they understand WHY you are doing what you are doing for you and your business?

Yes, the art of earning is always about earning with purpose. It's not about earning more for the sake of earning more — and it's not about earning enough to “get by” or “have just enough.” If you've built your business with a big ambition, and I hope you have, then earning money is a byproduct of working towards that big ambition.

The more you serve, the closer you come to your ambition, the greater your realize your purpose, the more money you stand to earn. Not in a drain-'em-til-they're-dry way but in a whole-hearted people-see-the-value way.

6) In a world where there are other artisans also providing a similar service, how does one distinguish oneself? Is it by clearly defining how we will deliver either an experience or product full of meaning to the client?

First – let me say – differentiation is so important! It's probably the biggest thing standing in between you and more money, you and better clients, you and full artistic self-expression. It's true!

I could talk all day about differentiation but I want to define it in two ways today:

First, your values define you. What are your values? How do you prioritize? What makes you stand up and say “yes!”? My values include wisdom, excellence, and equality. I know I resonate with someone else's work when I see those same values echoed back at me. I can instantly align with both their purpose & their modality.

Talk to me in values. Tell your story in values. Explain your process in values. Give me something to say “yes!” to.

Second, your value drives you. What are you really selling? What are people really paying for? Understand your value from your customers' perspectives. Interview them about how they received your services and what was important to them in the experience.

Don't paint in broad strokes. Use fine detail. Share others' experiences and allow me to see myself in their examples.

7) How much does faith personally direct you to help people?

Great question. Up until about 6 months ago, I didn't realize how much my faith & my previous academic study of that faith had carried over into my business. My faith not only directs me to help others but has shaped my whole outlook on business & the commercial system.

Especially observant folks have noticed that I have “Bonhoeffer chick” in my Twitter bio. Bonhoefferchk was my first blogging handle. But the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is also the theology I ascribe to personally. That theology has also directly impacted my approach to business.

Bonhoeffer posited that “Jesus is a being for others.” Jesus' sole purpose was to live his life for others. While great self-love & self-acceptance is a necessary part of that kind of faith, it manifests itself outwardly in service. That's the kind of business I know seek to run and the kind of business I direct my clients to run, as well.

Yes, you must self-express through your great work. Yes, you must have a high self-worth to increase your net worth. But in the end, it's service of others that pushes you onward. It's service that defines your success. Your work exists for others not merely for yourself.

Those are the kind of businesses I want to see in control of the new economy.

Are YOU part of the “new economy” that Tara mentions? I highly recommend you follow Tara Gentile on Twitter. Sound off below to tell us what you thought about this interview. If you would like more such interviews, please help me spread the word. Thank you!

It was well past his bed time, but that didn't matter to him or me. Somewhat unusually, my son Ketan and I started to watch television documentary a couple of night's back.

The submarines in the deep blue ocean had both of us hypnotized. Moving gracefully and carefully from one section of the ship to the next was a robot. Ketan's jaw dropped. Boys will be boys, right? The guys in the submarine were ecstatic on what that camera on the robot was sending them back visually. Not fully realizing what was going on, my son laughed too.

Then came the animations and talk of an iceberg, a collision and the ultimate sinking of a ship. The tone changed and I could see a shift in Ketan's body language. He nuzzled up to me, looked at my face for approval and then returned his gaze back to the television.

On April 15, 1912, a 100 years ago in a few days, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg and sank; finding its final resting place two and a half miles deep. 1,514 people died in that tragedy.

Please watch this clip from the documentary:

Bill Sauder is not a photographer. His name probably won't ring any bells unless you watched the recent National Geographic special on the Titanic. He is the Director of Research for RMS Titanic, Inc. and has worked closely with James Cameron, the movie director behind the movie “Titanic.”

What struck me most about Mr. Sauder was how, even as he was breaking down in that clip, he was so very clearly able to articulate his ‘WHY' – his reason for doing what he loves to do. His dedication to the Titanic project, was less about the stuff that could be brought up to the surface and more about the people behind those things.

He says that upon opening those perfume vials found on the Titanic, “… for those few minutes, the ship was alive again.”

As photographers, I feel there is a valuable lesson here. Speaking for myself, I know I am not a photographer to create tchotchkes for people, but to tell their stories through images that they can treasure. For me, like for Mr. Sauder, photography will always be about the human condition – who we are, how we relate to each other and what we find important to celebrate as a global community.

Even for Director James Cameron, the pitch he made to the Hollywood producers was simple and effective – “Romeo and Juliet on a boat that sinks.” It was about a love story and the tragedy that befell the people on the ship. If you think about it, the ship itself is really a backdrop in the movie. We are more interested in the people – their mannerism, the class structure or distinction and their social sensibilities. Sure the movie is a bit much in some spots, but there is a reason why it was the biggest grossing film for 12 years, not to mention the first movie to surpass the $1 billion mark in ticket sales worldwide. There is power in telling stories. There is even more power in telling people's stories.

The tangible products we produce need to be of such quality that a 100 years or more from now, people looking at them or feeling them in their hands can think about the people behind them. I want my client's future families to relive moments that they may or may not have experienced themselves. For the images to be truly successful, they must help reconnect them to their parents, grandparents, uncle, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews. To be the one to create this artifact, no, family heirloom, is such a huge honor and a responsibility for us photographers. What's more, there is no way of telling what real impact those images may have down the road.

When I watched the documentary with my 4 year old son, I couldn't help get a little choked up too when I heard Mr. Sauder describe those perfume vials. For Mr. Sauder, it's a sense of smell that reconnects him to the people on that ship.

I had to ask myself, when my clients receive their prints or albums, do they experience that fragrance of heaven too? Isn't that what they truly deserve? Should we not take the time to educate our clients about the work we do, why we do it and how they will be remembered and celebrated? I think we owe them that much.

Sound off below to tell us what you thought of the clip above or whether you know your WHY. In all honesty, I haven't fully defined mine yet but this book by Simon Sinek called Start With Why, is helping me get there. It's an interesting journey.

As a photographer – whether you are just starting out or you are a seasoned pro – you can be easily overwhelmed by the dizzying array of Photoshop actions available in the market. I have used Kevin Kubota's actions for a very long time and for good reason. Here is why I LOVE Kevin's actions: they evolve.

Most other Photoshop action producers are quite happy churning out actions and then they stop making them better. No, not Kevin and his incredible team at Kubota Tools. Every photography convention I have met them, they are sure to show me how they have evolved their actions – made it beter and more efficient to run with the newest operating system or the latest version of Photoshop. And they constantly innovate too, bringing to us such options as a Dashboard for their actions, to make it easy for us to find, select and apply these actions. For this alone, I applaud them.

Now you are probably wondering what the headline is all about, right? Well, I just got an email from Kevin's team today saying they were temporarily dropping the price on some of their products, until the end of April. Yeah, totally nuts because they are easily three or four times their value IF you use them on a regular basis like I do. The Dashboard, for instance, allows me to use not only Kevin's actions but others as well.

Those who know me and know Tiffinbox also know that I typically don't promote products that I haven't personally owned or used extensively in my own photography business. Yes, as an affiliate, I do make a small commission. But I would be remiss if I did not at least alert you to this special sale going on only through the end of April.

Feel free to click on any of the product images below to order your own Kevin Kubota Photoshop action sets or the Dashboard, I've mentioned above. It's all good!

These artistic and production tools have saved me oodles of time:

These are also some of the products I highly recommend:

So, if you do buy one or more of the products listed, above, would you please come back here and tell us (1) why you bought it and (2) if you have used it for a couple of weeks, what your feedback would be for these products? Your opinion matters!

Kirk Mastin and I connected through Twitter. It was only when I spoke to him (scroll down to see the video interview), that I discovered he and I shared a passion for story-telling and a background in photojournalism. Kirk uses film cameras of all types.

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In my interview, I ask him about that and the purported demise of film (especially as Kodak is now officially bankrupt). I also ask him about his experiences photographing wedding and engagement sessions. Check out his responses.

I caught up with Kirk when he was visiting San Francisco. So, the only connection to the Internet he had was through his iPhone. Please bear in mind that the interview has its moments; where I am convinced Kirk is in a kung-fu movie and the audio and video didn't quite sync up.

“The only thing I am selling is my vision, my art.”

Got questions for Kirk, ask them below in the comments section or on his Formspring page.