Projecting The Right Image For Photography Sales
Summary: "Projecting The Right Image For Photography Sales"
How do you sell your portraits to your clients? Are you projecting the right image and selling by projection, or posting the photographs online for the client to make their choices at home? Not engaging the client personally in the sales process by using projection sales could be really hurting your business and doing a disservice to the client.
As much as we all love the art of photography, as much as we get caught up in the excitement of the session to capture the smiling faces and powerful emotions of our clients, it’s vitally important that we make sales at the end of it so that we can stay in business long enough to go out and do it all again for the next client.
The sales part of the photography business is the one area that many photographers seem to face with mortal dread.
Surely, it would be much easier if the photography just sold itself so that we can get on with the stuff we really enjoy doing! Sadly, that doesn’t happen, so we’re left with having to deal with the “selling” monster.
The Challenges Of Selling
Portrait and wedding photographers are the ones who face the most difficult challenges when it comes to selling their work. The whole reason for producing someone’s portrait, whether it be a family, child or radiant bride, is to give the client a piece of art they will treasure for a lifetime, and display proudly in their home.
I don’t believe too many photographers embark on a session with the thought of doing their absolute best to capture portraits that the client can enjoy for life as a magnificent 8 x 10 print that will live in the bottom of a drawer somewhere!
Yet, this is the disappointing end for too many sessions. Images and portraits, all carefully composed, beautifully lit, artfully enhanced and lovingly created, end their lives as a discarded print in the corner of someone’s room or, worse still, languishing forever as nothing more than a magnetic signal on the photographer’s hard drive.
How sad is that, after all the love, creativity and dedication that the photographer poured from their soul into the creation of those images?
Frustrating and, frankly, painful isn’t it?
Yet, this is the depressing reality for so many photographers who have failed to embrace, understand, and value the power of the sales process in their business.
How Are You Selling?
Does the story above ring any bells for you and your photography business? Are you one of the unfortunate ones facing the constant disappointment of going through the portrait process only to find that the client buys nothing more than a few small prints?
The truth is, the only ones we can blame for this lackluster performance is ourselves. Yet it’s so easy to come up with perfectly reasonable-sounding “reasons” why we’re not making the sales we want.
The list of excuses I’ve heard to “justify” these poor sales is quite extensive:
- The client can’t afford to invest in wall portraits
- There was no room in the client’s home for a wall portrait
- I don’t believe in “pressure” sales
- The client said she’ll wait for a “better time” to invest in a wall portrait
- The client didn’t want anything “big“
- I can’t force people to buy stuff they don’t want
- And so on…
Really?
It’s time to face the reality that the real reason we’re not helping our clients become proud owners of beautiful wall portraits is because we’re bailing out of the sales process by taking the route of least resistance.
Too many photographers don’t want to deal with the task of communicating to the client the value wall portraits can bring to their lives because it comes with the unsettling attachment of having to sell them on investing in a higher price tag.
Then there’s all the other baggage that comes along with it – handling the objections, dealing with sticker shock, maybe even a fundamental lack of confidence in the value of our own work, and the inability to separate ourselves from our client in terms of what we think they can afford…
Projecting The Right Image
The art of sales is governed by a very simple law: “You Sell What You Show“. People want to see whatever it is that you expect them to buy, and will naturally tend not to invest in something larger or more expensive that you haven’t already shown them first.
In other words, if a 5 x 7 sized paper proof is the first thing they see, they are then unlikely to invest in a 16 x 20 even if you show them one. The 5 x 7 has already set the benchmark in their mind, and the 16 x 20 is simply too much of an uphill climb at that point for most people.
The answer is to show them their portraits in the largest possible size first, so that their initial impression is of a magnificent wall portrait size, say around 30 x 40. They can see every detail in the image, and the emotional impact is tremendous.
The way to do this is by projection, into a framed white canvas over a fireplace or sofa. This gives the client the perfect idea of how their photographs will look in their home, while the furniture and surroundings provide a sense of perspective and scale.
I can honestly say that switching to projection sales was the one change that made the most difference to the bottom line of my own photography business, and I know of many other photographers who can say the same thing. Average sales made a tremendous jump once I started to sell by projection, and the projector paid for itself in just two sales.
Now, instead of clients ordering a “big” 8 x 10 and a few 5 x 7 prints, the usual order is for a 16 x 24 canvas with some 8 x 10′s and 5 x 7′s as gift prints.
But The Internet Makes Selling So Easy!
Projection sales requires that you actually spend time with the client, together in the same room, personally showing them their images, and guiding them through the sales process – a process that does require some time, of course.
In this fast-paced society we live in, with its “I want it now” mentality, there is a huge temptation to put the client back in control of their own sales process by either giving them a CD to take home, or setting up a gallery web site that they can peruse at their leisure.
Of course, the Internet is a wonderful and powerful medium through which to show people what you can do, but I’m afraid that it’s no place to sell wall portraits and make the sales you should be making, and which your client deserves.
The law of “you sell what you show” is still in force – if you’re showing small photographs, this time as images on a computer monitor, that’s all you will sell. The order you get back from the client (if you even get one at all) will be nothing more than 4 x 6′s, 5 x 7′s and maybe a few 8 x 10′s if you’re lucky.
Such a shame, when you could have given the client a so much better experience by presenting the photographs to them in person and helping them to see the value of investing in portraits of a more appropriate size.
But My Clients Are Busy People!
Everyone is busy these days, but if these portraits are at all important they will make the time to come to you to view them properly. If they still refuse to come to your studio or home for the projection appointment then it probably means that they weren’t an ideal client for you in the first place – something you should have taken the time to learn during the initial consultation phase.
But I Don’t Have A Physical Studio
Many photographers are working from home these days, an ideal solution to the high overheads that a retail studio can incur.
If you are running a photography business from home, then you need to ensure that it looks professional, and is a safe and comfortable place for your clients to visit in order to consult with you and also view their finished photographs.
In the case where you don’t want clients to come to your home, then the only thing left to do is to take the projection to them, and I know that there are quite a few photographers who are successfully doing just that. It’s simple enough to take a laptop, projector, framed canvas and a stand to their home and do the projection appointment right there for them. I might even go so far as to suggest that sales conducted in the client’s own home might even be better, because they are on their own turf and feel more at ease.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, we are professional photographers, not just photographers, right? To me, it’s important to be as professional as possible in every aspect of the business – from the moment we first make contact with the client to the time they receive their finished photographs, and beyond that.
Succumbing to our own insecurities about selling, taking the easy way out by posting images online, or failing to educate our clients about the true value of wall portraiture, is doing a terrible disservice to both our clients and the industry as a whole.
What Do You Think?
How do you feel about the thoughts presented here? Do you sell by projection yourself and have some ideas that I’ve missed here, which might help others? Are you still unsure whether or not this is the way to go for you, and do you have questions that weren’t answered here? Maybe you disagree with the ideas. Either way, please do share your comments – I read every one posted here. Thanks for reading, and I wish you peace in your business!
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Makes a lot of sense! I plan on giving it a try.