More Than A Phone Connection – Connecting With Your Prospect
#4: They know how to focus…
Summary: "More Than A Phone Connection – Connecting With Your Prospect"
Have other wedding photographers noticed a decline in enthusiasm from prospective brides about their own weddings, making it even more difficult to make an emotional connection with them during the sales call?
This week, I talked to several prospective brides on the telephone about their forthcoming weddings in 2011, either in response to emails from them, or as a result of them calling the studio directly.
None of those calls ended well, and I wasn’t able to book a consultation from any of them. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you how frustrating that can be in the current economic climate! The problem didn’t appear to be the cost of my wedding collections, as they all agreed that the price was reasonable for what was included.
Even so, I was unable to convince any of them to take the time to visit with me to look at sample books, chat in more detail, and consider taking the next step towards hiring me to photograph their wedding.
I Have To Ask Myself Why?
After going back over each call in my mind, replaying the questions and answers from both sides, I came to the conclusion that it all comes down to one simple problem:
Lack Of Enthusiasm…
Not wishing to sound as though I blame the prospect, I honestly feel that the apparent lack of enthusiasm was not on my part (at least at the beginning of the call), but rather on their side. The odd thing was that none of these prospective brides was in the least bit excited about her wedding! I really hadn’t experienced this too much in the past, as most the brides I’ve talked to have been bubbling over with excitement over their wedding. Now, I had several brides in a row who sounded more like they were searching for a dentist for a root canal than a wedding photographer.
During these calls, I tried everything I could think of. I offered my sincere congratulations on their engagement, asked them about the proposal and their romantic boyfriends, asked them emotional questions about their plans, the color schemes, flowers, venues etc. All I got back in response were flat, unexcited and distinctly boring answers that didn’t give me anything to feed the conversation with. Like a fire starved of oxygen, the conversation quickly suffocated and died.
The sad part is that each of these brides had weddings at least a year out, in premium locations, and talked about large bridal parties with fancy trimmings – all indicators that they probably planned to spend more than average on their wedding. In short, they would probably have been good prospects (at least from the point of view of being able to afford my services).
In the end the only thing I was left with was to present my basic collection and cost and go from there to see if I could encourage them to visit the studio…
No such luck.
Making More Than A Phone Connection
I know that a successful sales call requires making more than a simple phone connection with the prospect. I understand that it takes an amount of rapport-building to generate enthusiasm and desire for what we can do for them. However, in these instances, all my usual techniques failed to produce the usual result.
Next time, I’ve made myself a mental note to try harder and to talk on an even more emotional level with these brides to see if that will work. I’ll have to wait and see!
For other wedding photographers reading this, how does this compare with recent experiences at your own studio? Has the economy beaten the consumer down so much that they no longer have any enthusiasm left even for their own weddings?
Or, perhaps you think there’s a lot more we can do to make them enthusiastic about searching for their wedding photographer.
Any ideas, comments or suggestions?
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