The Dumbest Questions You Can Ask Your Photography Prospects

As a new business owner, your mind is filled with every last detail of your business. And with so much to learn, you probably don’t spend a lot of time mastering each piece. In many aspects, that comes along the way.

So you jump right in and do things as they happen. When a prospect comes in, you have an honest conversation. You tell them your opinions, your attitudes, and how you really feel. You ask questions and provide the answers you think you would like to hear? What’s wrong with that?

Yet in sales, if you ask the wrong questions, you may not only turn a prospect away, you may alienate future customers as well. Here’s why.

Smart questions build up the relationship you are forming with a prospect. Dumb questions fill a customer with doubt and self-questioning.

Smart questions make a prospect think about the answer and how you fit into it. Dumb questions leave everything open, guaranteeing they will turn to someone else for solid answers.

Here are the dumbest questions you can use to bring in photography clients and why they are dumb. [Read more…]

10 Ways To Love Your Photography Clients

“A customer is the most important visitor on our premises.
He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him.
He is not an interruption in our work – he is the purpose of it.
We are not doing him a favour by serving him.
He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to serve him.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi spoke those words back in 1890. And in every way they still apply today.

The most important thing within your business is your list – your customers – the people that can give you the opportunity to run a successful business for as long as you choose to stay in business. If you want them to choose to spend their money in your studio, here are 10 ways to stand out from your competition.

1. Don’t set up your packages and promotions based on what you want to sell. Set them up based on what your customers want to buy. Listen to what they say. When you truly listen to your customers and modify things to make your products and services that much better, they will love what you do.

2. Go beyond order taking and showcase your expertise within the industry. Anyone can take orders. But a real professional will prove their artistic talent by building relationships and directing people on what to do next. Collages, albums, montages – you are the artist and show your clients how your vision is put together through your photographs.

3. Make reliability a key ingredient to your mission. When you do as you say and often times go the extra mile without having to be asked, your clients notice. [Read more…]