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The One Sales Tactic You Should Never Do To Reach Photography Clients

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What if someone gave you these statistics:

  • Do this and you’ll have 98% rejection rate
  • Do this and you’ll have 100% of the people annoyed with you from the beginning
  • Do this and you’ll have 100% of the people talking about you – in a VERY bad way

With those kind of statistics, would you do it?

Of course not. Yet many, many people in business still do this every day.

What is it? Cold calling.

Cold calling was once a popular method of getting your foot in the door and building a relationship with a potential customer. Then things started changing – namely the Internet came around. And with social media, we changed the way we find things to buy. And we changed the way we build relationships.

Yet millions of people with old school ideas still believe in old school strategies. Some people pick up the phone and cold call. Some people knock on the door and cold call. Still others drop an email or a post and cold call.

And guess what? None of them work.

Cold call by phone and you’ll likely be hung up on. Cold call in person and you’ll likely be shoved out the door. Cold call online and you’ll likely be banned, deleted, screamed at, or worse, have your information go viral and influence your business in a very BAD way.

The One Sales Tactic You Should Never Do To Reach Photography Clients

What should you do instead?

Build relationships. Your number one potential for more business is the people you already do business with. Send them newsletters and postcards. Visit them. Send them birthday cards. Give a quick phone call of congratulations when you see them in the news. Send gifts. This is your number one source of potential revenue – treat it like its your pot of gold. [Read more…]

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Are You Missing Your Most Obvious Customer?

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Every week you attend a networking meeting. Every week you go you talk about what you do. Every week you say hi to “Joe” and chat about the weekend.

Then one day you decide to meet Joe for coffee. After a ten minute conversation, he says “sign me up”.

Wow. That was easy, right?

Yet in many cases, that scenario plays out all over the world time and time again.

Why?

Because we simply fail to reach out and connect with the most obvious person that can use our services: the people we know best.

This happens for two reasons.

1. We get busy and don’t take the time to connect on a personal level with those around us.

2. We don’t go into enough detail when explaining what we do.

Connect

To solve the first problem is easy. Think about all the people around you. People you network with on a regular basis. People you run into when you’re dropping your kids off at school. People you worked with at the last event you attended.

This week – right now – pick out one person and call them up and invite them out for coffee. Don’t try and sell them. Simply meet them for coffee and talk about anything and everything. Get to know them on a more personal level.

Then when you’ve had coffee with that person, think of another. Call that person up and invite them out for coffee in the next week. Get to know them on a more personal level.

And so on. [Read more…]

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If You Are Selling A Photograph, Tell Me You Are Selling A Photograph

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Have you ever been a part of a leads or referral group? Leads groups are different than networking groups. In a networking group, you simply visit on a regular basis, hang out with the people there, and chat with a variety of people to hopefully find someone to do business with. With a leads group, you meet regularly – usually once per week – with the same people from different industries, provide your “1 minute commercial” over and over again, and hopefully build strong relationships with the members so they will find referrals for you. Leads groups are more time intensive, yet the rewards can be phenomenal.

We’ve belonged to a leads group for close to 10 years now and love the results.

Yesterday I attended a meeting and one member in particular stood out.

She got up for her 1 minute commercial. For one minute, she talked about having a Facebook page and how they are trying to build up their fan base. She asked if everyone in the group would friend her and possibly drop a testimonial on her wall.

1 minute.

She never said what she did. She never asked for any type of new client. She never stated how she’s looking for new business or what we can do to help her.

In 1 minute of time, she spoke to 30 other members and a handful of guests, asking them to follow her. Then the other 30+ got up to do their 1 minute commercial.

How many people remembered to friend her on Facebook? How many did it?

Yep, I’m betting the answer is zero.

A more effective 1 minute commercial may have been: (we’ll assume she was a photographer)

“Have you seen the spring trees and flowers? How would you love to incorporate them into a family portrait? If its been years since you’ve photographed your family and the photo hanging on your wall shows your now 17 year old when he was 10, its time for an update.”

That motivates you. It allows you to “see” something and think of who fits that description. Or maybe you could say:

“Who here knows a high school junior getting ready for his last year of high school? Senior portrait season is from May through September, and the best dates go fast. If you know a high school junior, send them my way.”

Again, its specific. We know exactly who you are and what you are looking for. It also allows me to quickly go through my list of contacts and think about who I know. Images can quickly come to mind and I can easily pass along the information. [Read more…]

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7 Easy Ways To Bring More Money To Your Bottom Line

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As a photographer, you ultimately have three ways to make money.

1. Bring in new clients

2. Sell more to each client

3. Bring in the client again and again

family portrait Bringing in new clients is your most difficult way of selling. Because they have no experience with you, they’re less likely to trust you. It takes awhile to build that trust.

Once a client is happy, it’s easier to bring them in again and again for more shoots. They know you, trust you, and understand the entire process. Yet in this economy, even bringing in existing client may be a little more difficult to do.

Instead, make 2009 the year you sell more product to each of your clients. If they are in your studio, like what they see, it’s your job to sell them what they truly need. Let’s look at 7 ways you can increase the bottom line of each and every client.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Blog, Sales Tagged With: , ,