Zenologue

Wedding photography is not an easy service to sell – we have to work hard at attracting prospective clients before we even have a chance to try to book them. Bridal shows, advertising, marketing campaigns – and many more avenues – all require huge amounts of effort just to get brides to notice that we’re there.

Then, the really hard work starts.

If we’re lucky enough to get a living, breathing, talking bride on the telephone we have the chance to find out as much as we can about their wedding plans, the kind of client they might be and whether or not they would be a good match for our business.

After all that hard work, we arrive at the end of the conversation and suggest that they meet with us for a consultation only to hear the response, “I need to talk to my fiancé or parents about this and then I’ll call you back to set up a time…”

Many of us at this point say, “Oh, okay, no problem. Talk it over and then call me back. I look forward to talking to you again soon. Bye.”

Of course, it’s more than likely that we’ll never hear from her again.

For a long time, I thought there was no solution to this problem. I assumed that I was being nice by not pressuring the bride and that they really would talk it over and call back.

Little did I realize that what they’re really saying is something like this: “I like what you’ve said so far, but you haven’t established a real connection with me or convinced me that I should hire you. There’s also another reason why I’m not sure about this, but I don’t know you or trust you enough to tell you what it is, so I’m going to make up an excuse to get off the phone…”

Knowing this, we can now see that the fault is entirely of our own making. Maybe we didn’t take the time to build enough rapport with her, or perhaps we forgot to find out what the most important thing about her wedding is. Did we educate her about the factors that separate us from the other photographers in the area?

Did we ask enough emotional questions? Did we show true interest in her and her wedding? How excited and passionate did we sound? Did we take the time to find out what the most important buying decision is for her?

More importantly, who was in control of the conversation? Usually, that’s the person asking the questions, which should be us. Even more importantly still, ask questions and then listen to the answers. It’s a fact that successful sales people spend more time listening than talking.

Now, when asked to arrange a face-to-face consultation, if they respond with, “I need to talk to my fiancé or parents about this and then I’ll call you back to set up a time…”, there are ways to find out what they really mean.

For example, you might reply with something like, “I understand what you mean. But, if I may ask, what do you feel they will say when you talk to them about what we’ve discussed today?”

This gives them the opportunity to voice whatever real concerns they might have. For example:

• The price is too far outside our budget
• You don’t offer something that we really want
• We’re looking for something very specific
• I’m not really ready to book yet

Now you have a chance to either address the problem or let them go based on the fact that they might not be qualified clients. I’ve come to the conclusion that every phone consultation I have should either result in a definite face-to-face meeting or a mutual agreement that I’m probably not the photographer for them. This eliminates all the frustration of waiting for people to call back, or having to chase them up with fruitless phone calls that waste both my time and theirs.

This can all be achieved without resorting to aggressive sales techniques or being pushy. Simply talking to the client, asking appropriate and emotionally based questions, and listening to the answers are all it takes 

Remember, though, that we can’t work with every single person that calls us – we have to send some people away for one reason or another. Just knowing that puts us more in control of things and takes away some of the pressure we put on ourselves to be successful.

Sales professional photography, Sales, selling, wedding photography

If you’re a wedding photographer, you don’t need to be in business very long before a prospective client comes back to you with something like this: “I have an old friend who wants to get into wedding photography and has agreed to photograph my wedding for a great price… 

What can we say to this? Is there anything we can do to win this client back? Or is the sale lost forever? Worse still, can we rescue this client from the possible dangers of working with a non-professional?

I believe the best solution to this issue is to be proactive and deal with it before it happens. This can be achieved through the process of educating our prospects about the reasons why it’s a good idea to hire a professional rather than a friend, family member etc.

But, if they do come back with the news that a friend or family member has offered to photograph their wedding, is there anything we can say to counter it?

To start with, the one thing we don’t want to compete on is price. Don’t make the mistake of turning this into an issue about price by offering them a big discount to try to win the sale back. Just as importantly, don’t make the equally bad mistake of criticizing the other photographer’s work – this does your image no good at all.

If you feel that this client is a good fit for your business and that they’re simply making a genuine mistake (probably because they don’t want to hurt their friend’s feelings), then there are ways to attempt to persuade back into your camp.

The key is to emphasize those points that set you apart from the casual or “friend of the family” photographer, which make the choice of working with you more beneficial to the client.

For example:

• Your guarantee
• Your status as a full-time professional photographer
• Your legal status (proper business licenses, sales tax registration etc.)
• Your liability insurance coverage
• Experience in the business
• Membership of professional bodies (PPA, WPPI, RPS etc.)
• Your policies on delivery times
• Easier for them to be honest with you than with a friend in the event they’re unhappy with the photographs
• Backup equipment
• Assistants
• Access to professional print labs
• Professional backup of the finished images

Will this work every time? Of course not. But it might occasionally save a sale that would otherwise have been lost. Better still, you will have helped your clients make the choice that is right for them.

Sales professional photography, Sales, selling, wedding photography

This is a short overview of Photovision #73 from www.photovisionvideo.com, hosted by Ed Pierce, a periodical educational DVD for professional photographers. To be clear about this article – I am not affiliated with Photovision in any way and the overview is intended as my opinion only.

2009 is well underway and time is going by faster than expected already! I always look forward to receiving my Photovision DVD in the mail every two months and issue #73 is the first one to appear in my mailbox for this year.

As usual, the DVD is well presented and very professionally put together with just under two hours of great material on it. In addition to some information on the sponsors and some industry news, this issue has five major sections: 

1. Sarah Petty – “Feather Angel”
2. S. Antisdel & K. Bondurant – “Senior Boys Insight, Part I”
3. Parker Pfister – “Kentucky Wedding, Part 3″
4. John Ridgeway – “The Baby Whisperer, Part I”
5. Tim & Bev Walden – “Studio Tour” 

Sarah Petty – “Feather Angel”

For any professional photographer who creates portraits of children, this is a delightful piece that really shows how creative and innovative Sarah can be when it comes to this type of work. The video follows Sarah and her assistants as they create some beautiful portraits of a young girl outdoors, using a bed as a set.

My first reaction was that a bed seems quite unexpected and incongruous in an outside setting, but it really does work very well. The final images are simply amazing and I’m sure the child’s parents were thrilled with them.

The open shade of Sarah’s garden setting provided wonderful lighting where the only modifier needed was a reflector to fill in the shadows. It was interesting to see how Sarah made the best use of the natural light as well as different perspectives to create these beautiful portraits.

Working with children is an art, and Sarah clearly demonstrates how she maintains interest and focus by constant communication with her subject and her quick mode of shooting. I was left with the very clear impression that the young girl had a blast with it, especially as she was able to throw feathers all over the place!

I have watched this several times already and I always seem to get something new out of it. Of course, Sarah makes the whole process look deceptively easy, which we know it isn’t, however I believe being able to learn from her and others in this way makes it more achievable for the rest of us.

S. Antisdel & K. Bondurant – “Senior Boys Insight, Part 1″

I really enjoy working with young people and senior portraiture is a challenging and exciting area of photography to be in, so it’s great to see a section on it here on the DVD. In this particular episode we see the first part of a boy’s senior portrait session and learn not only the techniques of lighting and posing, but also how these two photographers approach the whole subject of senior portraits.

They start by explaining how they construct a personality profile of their subject – everything from what their parents do for a living to their hobbies and other interests. They then take this information and use it to really accentuate the subject’s personality in the portraits, to great effect. In the short time we get to work with many seniors, having a personality profile like this is a great asset in helping us get to know the subject and finding ways to bring out their character in the finished photographs.

The studio itself looked a lot larger than it really is, by virtue of the number of different sets they had managed to fit into it, and the session was made a lot easier to handle without having switch locations.

I noticed that they used primarily natural light with a reflector to create the portraits, which looked great on the screen – I’m sure they are even more impressive in the flesh, as it were.

All in all, this was one of the highlights of this issue and I’m looking forward to seeing part 2.

Parker Pfister – “Kentucky Wedding, Part 3″

I’ve been a fan of Parker Pfister’s wedding photography since I first came across him through earlier editions of Photovision and, as a wedding photographer, I thoroughly enjoy being able to watch him at work on an actual wedding. Parts 1 and 2 of this wedding were on previous editions of the DVD, and this one followed Parker as he captured the wedding itself and part of the cocktail hour that followed.

The video clearly demonstrates Parker’s method of working very unobtrusively at the wedding, yet still producing some amazing images – from almost classic portraits to candid photographs, to even the smallest details.

Then, we get to spend a little time back in the studio as Parker discusses some of his post-processing techniques with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, with some hints on organizing workflow.

John Ridgeway – “The Baby Whisperer, Part 1″

Although I don’t photograph babies myself (at the moment, at least – never say never!), I certainly enjoyed this insight into the studio, equipment and philosophy of John Ridgeway as he describes his approach to baby photography.

This segment introduces us to Mr. Ridgeway and his studio setup, with the variety of sets and equipment that he currently uses. Then we see how he approaches the task of sending the baby to sleep for the photography session – truly amazing.

I’m looking forward to seeing part 2 of this to see the actual photography session itself.

Tim & Bev Walden – “Studio Tour”

One of the many things that Tim & Bev Walden excel at is branding themselves as a high-end studio, and this short tour of their photography studio really highlights the ways that they’ve successfully created well-branded product lines as well as a distinctive brand for their studio as a whole.

In these interesting economic times in which we find ourselves, I believe it is more important than ever to make sure we communicate a solid and consistent brand to our clients and prospects. I would recommend watching this segment over and over until every last scrap of the wealth of information here has been absorbed.

All of the brands in their studio are very different from each other, yet they fit together comfortably in one cohesive whole, which is a great achievement.

Conclusion

For me, the real benefit of these DVDs is the ability to see into the lives of successful working photographers, people who are leaders in their field, or to accompany them on a live photography session – and to be able to do it again and again whenever I want to.

One of the few annoyances, for me at least, is the bias towards Canon photographers, which is unsurprising since Canon is one of the main sponsors of Photovision. I’m have nothing against Canon at all, they do have some great gear, but I feel we might be missing out on the benefit of learning from other wonderful photographers simply because they use Nikon equipment rather than Canon.

It would also be nice to see coverage of some examples of engagement or bridal portrait sessions in addition to actual wedding photography.

All in all, this was a very good issue and I’ll be watching it again and again, I’m sure, as I look forward to issue #74.

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