It’s always very enlightening to hear advice and tips from other professional photographers, and there’s certainly no shortage of interviews with some of the more well-known personalities in the photography industry to be found.
However, I believe we also have a lot to learn from the experiences of others who are with us side-by-side in the trenches – from photographers who are experiencing some of the same challenges that we are.
I also think that listening to some of the creative ways that photographers have discovered for overcoming common challenges can be both instructive and very inspiring to those who are in a similar position. Therefore, I’m thrilled to bring you this wonderful interview with newborn and wedding photographer Lisa Otto…
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Interviews
client relationship, photography business, photography style
In my work as a business coach for professional photographers, one of the recurring themes I hear is that we, as an industry, are charging far too little for our work. Whatever the reason is for each individual photographer, the end result is the same – lack of personal satisfaction, poor sales, inability to maintain a healthy business, struggle and hardship, diminishing confidence, and low morale.
Self-Sabotage Is Business Suicide
In most cases, this is unintentional. After all, who would seriously sabotage their own business deliberately? However, the effect is most certainly real, and can be caused by a variety of reasons:
- Lack of business expertise and knowledge
- Poor understanding of effective pricing
- Lack of confidence in their own ability
- The “I’m new to the business” excuse
- Personal issues surrounding the need to ask for money
- Poorly defined studio policies
- Lack of a proper studio pricing system
- Being too easily influenced by the outcome of each sale
Take a look at this short video on the vendor-client relationship, which I came across the other day. I believe it really illustrates the absurdity of allowing our own clients to rule the roost when it comes to how we price and sell our work.
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Sales & Marketing
client relationship, photography pricing, photography sales
Have you ever stopped to take a look at your photography business from the point of view of your prospects and clients? If you did, you might be shocked and surprised at what you learn. You could gain some valuable insights into why you aren’t as successful as you would like…
You might even discover that you’re slowly committing business suicide with some of the things you’re doing, and learn how those things are sending odd, and sometimes conflicting, messages out to your target market.
Lets’ pretend for a little while that I’m a prospect looking to hire a photographer for an important family portrait… how far down the line will I get before the photographer trips up and commits business suicide?
One thing I can pretty much guarantee is that the majority of professional photographers are falling into at least one or more of nine the deadly traps listed below… are you?
- Poor Search Engine Optimization
- Confusing Web Design
- Too Much Pricing Information Online
- Undeveloped Telephone Sales Skills
- Not Giving A Stellar First Impression
- Attitude And Approach Needs Some Work
- Poor Choice Of Sales Techniques
- Lack Of Good Communication
- Client Relationship Mismanagement
Let’s take a look at some of these “suicide traps” in more detail. We’ve all fallen into most of them at some point in our photography career, so it’s worth revisiting these to make sure we don’t stumble into them again in the future!
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Photography Business Ideas
client relationship, photography business, photography sales
What does it really take to make a client truly happy with us and the services we provide? Surely, if we do what we say, when we say we’re going to, that should be enough, right? The answer is, “probably not!”
A Blurred Line
As consumers ourselves, we can be pretty sure about the kinds of things that might make us (and, presumably our own clients) unhappy, but it can be a little trickier to see clearly what lies on the other side of the dividing line. It’s as though the line itself is blurred and fuzzy. Yet we need to make sure we are on the right side of that line if we are to keep our clients thrilled with us.
Exceptional Service Means Exceptional Care
The key to being on the best side of the line is to be exceptional and to provide a level of service and attention to detail that the client would never expect…
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Photography Business Ideas
client relationship, customer service, exceptional business, photography business
To lead into this post, let me ask you a quick question. Do you, as a photographer, have a system in place to really find out from your clients how satisfied or thrilled they were with the experience of working with you?
If the answer is “no” then you could be missing out on a vital piece of the “success puzzle” for your photography business.
A necessary component of most complex systems is a feedback mechanism to either keep the system in check or to make a process more efficient over time. Without feedback, we can’t learn and it makes improvement harder.
For example, if a child touches something hot, the feedback of pain provides the necessary information for her to learn not to do that again.
It’s the same with our business – we need feedback from our clients to understand how well we’re doing. By feedback, I don’t mean a passing comment when you hand over the prints (“I love these”, “these are awesome”) and basic things like that. I mean a systemized approach to information gathering that can really tell us over time how we’re doing, but that also allows the client to say what they really feel without worrying about upsetting us or hurting our feelings…
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How To Be A Professional Photographer
client experience survey, client feedback, client relationship, professional photography
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