There are so many passionate and talented photographers out there working today, including YOU. I know that many of you struggle every day to ensure that you don’t lose sight of the passion that constantly drives you to become a better photographer than you were yesterday… but…

Being A Professional Photographer Is Not Easy

You and I both know this to be true. Running a business, any business, where we have to pour our hearts and souls into what we do for our clients, is difficult. It’s a daily challenge; we test ourselves from the moment we wake up in a morning until we fall asleep that night, often mentally and physically exhausted from the effort we put into our work.

Sometimes, we don’t see the immediate results of those efforts. I don’t mean the photographs, as we edit them in Photoshop or Lightroom; I don’t mean the finished prints, the canvas wall portraits, or completed wedding books…

I’m referring, of course, to the look in our client’s eyes when she sees and feels the fruits of our labors for the first time. I’m thinking of the tears of joy as she looks at the portrait of her child, or the smile she gives us as she says a simple, “thank you”…

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Personal Zen business success, motivation, positive attitude

Facebook pages are all about creating engagement with your brand so, as marketers, it’s in our best interests to offer incentives and rewards to those people who show a direct interest in what we have to offer. Our Facebook page allows us to do that by giving us the ability to show different content to fans and non-fans.

Here’s How – Using IFrame Apps

From March 11^th 2011, the old system of using FBML (Facebook Markup Language) to create custom page tabs will be deprecated, and all new custom tabs will be produced using IFrames instead. Put simply, an IFrame can be thought of as a browser window that’s embedded within another web page.

Custom Facebook tabs will now display their content inside an IFrame, which means we can include just about any other web page without relying on any of the code being served by Facebook itself.

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Photography Website SEO facebook apps, facebook pages, IFrame app

My thought experiment for today is, “What does it mean as a human being to be in business, and where does the human factor fit in with our marketing?” This is an interesting question that stirs up some of the mud at the bottom of our deep-seated preconceptions about business and our place in the world…

“Welcome To The Machine”

Apart from being a great song from the 1975 album, “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd (playing now as I write this, actually), this simple statement embodies the collective notion of “The Corporation” as an entity devoid of what many have historically considered to be the weaker elements of emotion, empathy, compassion, integrity and humility.

This idea of the corporation as a machine was born out of the industrial revolution and the great factories it spawned, each operated by masses of expendable people. The human element was mostly eliminated or repressed at every level, from the machines on the factory floor on up to the financially driven masterminds sitting on the board…

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Personal Zen authenticity, business and marketing, motivation, social media

Are you a wedding photographer, struggling with a decline in positive responses from brides on the telephone? Do you find it difficult to encourage them to talk freely about what they might be looking for in a photographer, or even how much they might be willing to invest? Do you wrestle with the challenge of how to book weddings?

Don’t worry – you are not alone! Many photographers find it difficult to get past that initial question of “how much do you charge” to find the important information and discover if the prospect would be a good fit for their business.

Ask Questions First, Shoot Later

One of the key tenets of good salesmanship is to ask questions – lots of them! If you think about it, the person in control of the conversation is usually the one asking the questions (although this is obviously not intended to invoke any comparison with an interrogation, of course!). In order for the salesperson to make a sale or convince a potential bride to commit to an in-person consultation, the salesperson must be in control of the conversation at all times.

The most effective way to achieve this is by asking the questions.

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Sales & Marketing photography business, salesmanship, telephone sales

Another photographer asked me an interesting question the other day: “How much text should I write for my web page or marketing piece? Surely, my photos are enough to sell my work for me.” After some discussion, I felt this might make for an interesting post.

What Is “Copy” Anyway?

The term “copy” is simply marketing-speak for the text we use to convey our message, be it the wording of a sales letter, an offer on a postcard, or the text on our photography website. Copywriting is actually a specialized form of writing, requiring skill, detailed knowledge of the intended readership, and a varied vocabulary. For the purposes of this article, I’ll be talking mostly about website copy, but these principles are just as applicable to sales letters, postcards and any other form of written marketing.

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Sales & Marketing long copy vs short copy, marketing copy, website text

How would you rate your overall success on the telephone? Of all the prospects you talk to on the phone, what percentage of them agree to meet with you for a face-to-face meeting or consultation? Are you happy with the average response?

You might find this surprising, but your inner state of mind and even your body language while talking with them on the telephone can have a profound effect on your success rate.

Non-Verbal Communication

I’m sure you’ve heard the statement that most of our communication occurs through non-verbal means, and that the actual words we use account contribute a small amount of the meaning the other person discerns from what we’re saying.

This is easy for us to understand in the context of face-to-face communication, but how about conversations where the two parties involved can’t see each other?

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Photography Business Ideas body language, photography sales, telephone sales

LinkedIn is one of the “Big Three” social networking sites, alongside Facebook and Twitter, and aims itself squarely at the business and professional world. For photographers whose target market includes those with a higher than average income, LinkedIn is a great place to be.

The most recent statistic I saw suggested that the average income of users on LinkedIn is $109,000 per year, making it a great network to be a part of.

Not Just For Job Seekers

If you’re under the impression that LinkedIn is just a place for people seeking jobs, then you need to think again – it’s actually a great potential source of referrals and leads, as long as we know how to create the best impression. The place we need to start with is our profile, and to make sure we set it up in the most appropriate way.

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Photography Website SEO LinkedIn, photography business, social media

When we jump in the car to head out somewhere, it’s a fair bet that we have a clear idea of where we want to go, even if the exact route may be a little sketchy. Rarely do we drive away with absolutely no idea of our destination, or how we’re going to get there.

Being in business is no different, yet too many of us start a photography business with little or no clue of the direction the business should take them. Why do we do this? How can we reasonably expect to be successful running a business that, to all intents and purposes, has no direction or destination?

Where Do You Want To Go?

Your adventure in business is a journey; you start with nothing more than an idea, which manifests itself as a physical business, gaining momentum as you attract more clients, finally arriving at a state you consider to be successful and self-sustaining. That’s the point at which you can take a deep breath and say, “I’ve arrived!”

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How To Be A Professional Photographer motivation, photography business, professional photographer

Facebook, in just a few short years, has literally transformed the way humans communicate on a massive scale. The power of social media to effect revolutionary change in the real world has been repeatedly demonstrated, perhaps most notably by the recent and ongoing unrest in the Middle East.

No doubt remains that Facebook and social media are here to stay, and they will continue to make fundamental changes to the way we interact on many levels.

Facebook Marketing Is Essential

It seems almost inconceivable that anyone can be in business these days, and not have a Facebook presence of some kind. To be on Facebook is as essential as having a website, email address or telephone number. However, the manner in which we manifest our presence on Facebook should be a major concern if we wish to market our business and services effectively.

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Photography Website SEO facebook, facebook pages, photography marketing

Do you have a website for your photography business? Silly question, I know, but there are still some successful photographers out there who don’t have a website or a blog as yet. However, the point of this particular post is to table the question:

“Do You Know Why Your Website Exists?”

When you first designed and created your website for your professional photography business, what were the major factors you considered for the layout, text and images? What results and goals did you expect to get from it?

Other photographers to whom I’ve posed these questions have answered that their website is a means to “get their name out there” or to “showcase their work”, both of which don’t really mean too much, when it all boils down. Getting our name out there does little more than add another name to the already long list of names, and showcasing our work only serves to illustrate to prospects what we’ve done in the past, and not what we can do for them now, or why they should hire us.

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Photography Website SEO photography marketing, photography website, web design, website, website copy

Do you view marketing as being stuck in a maze where you’re constantly backtracking, trying new avenues, and hitting dead ends?

Do you sometimes feel as though there’s no real solution to attracting more clients to your photography business or that you’re going around in circles?

Do You See Marketing As Positive Or Negative?

I came across a great video from the TEDx series the other day, and thought I would share it with you here. This is Rohit Bhargava speaking about the idea of reinventing marketing and he asked two interesting questions at the beginning that I think all serious marketers should ask themselves:

How many of you feel that marketing adds something positive to the world?

More than a few agreed with that sentiment… then came the second question:

How many of you are in the business of marketing?

More hands, but mostly the same people that agreed to the first one!

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Sales & Marketing marketing, photography business, Rohit Bhargava, TED Talk

Imagine for a moment that someone comes to you with the exciting message, right out of the blue, that in five minutes time you could fill every seat of a theatre with people who are interested in every word you have to say about your professional photography business. What would that feel like?

Picture it in your mind – there are at least several hundred folks all eager for you to tell them how to hire a photographer for their portrait or wedding. Pretty exciting, right?

Do You Know What You Would Say To Them?

This scenario would be a dream come true for many small business owners, to be able to communicate their message to so many willing people at once, yet few of us actually know what we would say in any real detail.

It would certainly be a surprise if someone called you and said something like, “We’ve got an amazing opportunity! 500 people showed up for a presentation but the presenter got stuck and can’t make it. These people love photography, but there’s no one to talk to them. Get in there, it starts in 5 minutes!” How prepared would you be? What might you say?

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Sales & Marketing marketing, photography business, photography marketing