A lengthy post, but well worth the read…

I’m going to start this post by saying this is going to be just one of many features to follow on sales and marketing philosophies that will enable you to grow your business in 2010 and beyond.  2008 was a great year.  So was 2009.  2010 is going to be a great one, too.  I know those are tough words to swallow in these economically challenging times, but read on.  I personally photographed 60 weddings in 2008, 54 in 2009 and will end 2010 with about 45 weddings under my belt.  It’s a shrinking trend but it is exactly where I want it to be.  Even though the number of weddings I photograph every year is declining, my revenues are steadily increasing.  I have managed to raise my prices steadily through tough economic times while maintaining a strong client base.  I’m willing to bet that every one of you would like to earn more money while doing less work so I’m here to share some of the things that will enable you to increase your revenue, attract a more affluent clientele and free up more of your time to pursue other activities in your personal life.

I will admit that I’m working harder at my sales efforts today than I ever had in the past.  I used to book 90% of the potential clients I sat down with, now it’s more like 65%.  The reasons are many.  Yes, we’re in a recession and some clients are scaling back their budgets when planning a wedding.  Some simply can’t afford my services and I accept that.  Yes, there is more competition in our craft these days.  The digital technologies we enjoy today, and the relatively low start up costs for photographic equipment when compared to film-based gear, has opened the floodgates of new talent into our industry.  Over time myself and my guest authors will be talking about various ways to stay ahead of the competition and grow your business.  Today I’m going to talk about the beginning of the initial sales consultation.

I’m going to preface this feature with a great quote:  “It’s not WHAT you have, it’s WHAT YOU DO WITH WHAT YOU HAVE that matters”.  For more than 20 years I had a brick and mortar storefront on the main mercantile road in my home town.  I had a beautiful 2,000 square foot gallery with a magnificent 900 square foot camera room and I catered not only to my wedding clientele, but also to retail portrait customers, seniors, maternity sessions, editorial photography for magazines in the motorcycle industry, etc.  In 2006 I underwent a complete reorganization of my business and changed my entire business model.  I gave up my storefront and decided to work from my home.  I gave up my retail portrait business to focus completely on high end wedding photography on location, my fine art photography and photographic education.  I was apprehensive, at first, about being taken seriously without a boutique studio storefront, but have found that it’s my images and my personality that my clients are contracting me for…not my real estate.  Here I am, not even four years later, grossing more revenue that I ever had in the past with none of the fancy storefront overhead eating away at the profits.

First Impressions are important and when prospective clients come to see me for the first time they walk into the scene pictured above.  The small living room in my home is set up as my gallery.  It is warm, inviting and showcases some of my favorite wedding images, hanging gallery style, on one wall.  The room is eclectically furnished and kept spotlessly clean.  An assortment of my fine art photography images are beautifully framed and showcased on walls adjacent to the gallery wall and two of my most prized possessions, two wonderful sculptures, are displayed on the mantle of my fireplace under low-voltage spot lights.  The entire area is understated, intimate and reeks of my passion for art and my sense of design.

There is no television in this room…nor do I use any audio-visual programming in my sales consultations.  I don’t deny the effectiveness of romantic slide shows or video presentations, they just don’t fit into my scheme of things.  Let me explain…

I want my customers to feel like they’re sitting around the kitchen table with me.  A great salesman once told me that the living room is where you entertain company, or the life insurance salesman…the kitchen table is where you hang out with friends.  I don’t want my prospective clients to feel like they’re being force fed a professionally tailored sales program.  Instead I encourage conversation and I make my clients comfortable.  When my clients first come in I tell them to relax, to leave their checkbooks and credit cards in the car.  I tell them right upfront that I have no intention of “closing a sale” and that I am just going to educate them and send them off to make their decision.  A relaxed client is a lot easier to get through to than one who is on their guard.  Under no circumstance should there be a desk between you and your clients…unless you want to make them feel like they’re about to square off with a car salesman.

Once seated I leave my clients to peruse some sample albums at their leisure.  Again…no A/V presentations.  I sell wedding photography packages that include custom bound albums of exquisite finished images.  I need to show them those albums.  Any photographer that is just shooting weddings and burning images to disc for their clients to tinker with is missing the boat.  The proper enhancement and merchandising of your images in elegant bound albums will triple the revenue you receive over simply “shooting and burning”.  If you’re serious about building a long standing, profitable photography business you can’t afford to leave this money on the table, and, more importantly, you can’t leave the production values of your images up to your clients.  My images are not going to wind up at the 60 minute photo counter in Wal-Mart!

So what do I show my prospective clients?  First I steer them towards a compilation album…a beautiful book full of my favorite images from the last year or so.  Keep your samples current, folks.  Hopefully you are improving at your craft every day…show your freshest work, not the stuff you were shooting years ago.  Here’s a short video of what my guests see inside the cover of this first album:

The music for this video slideshow was provided by Triple Scoop Music.  Photographers that are looking for an amazing source of licensed music for use in their video and slide show programs, as well as on their web sites, are encouraged to visit their web site.

This album, like all of my custom albums, was bound by the artisans at Leather Craftsmen, Inc.  This particular album features the finest of Leather Craftsmen’s offerings:  a striped edition cover of Distressed Brown leather and Sand Top Grain Cowhide, an inset cover photograph, branding in lieu of imprinting and cork end lining treatment.  It is a work of art.  Any photographer seeking to upgrade their album offerings should look no further than the folks at Leather Craftsmen, Inc.

I steer my clients next to a complete wedding album…a 255 picture design from one wedding.  This particular album was featured on this forum previously in the post entitled “First And Foremost We Sell Images”.  I invite you to read that post for more insight on our sales philosophies.  I usually leave two or three additional wedding albums on the table for my guests to view.

When my clients have finished looking at my work at their own pace I return to the gallery and continue with the initial sales consultation.  In a later post I will tell you what goes on next.  For now I encourage you to take a good look at what you are doing at the start of your sales consultations and make sure that you are making a great first impression.