Photography Business

I know I just blogged about Do You Have Phone Skills? but I have another post related to your communication skills. I just had a woman call me about getting portraits of her 18 month old. Now this is something we personally don’t focus on. We specialize in Seniors and that’s who I target. Our pricing structure is also built around that. However, I have no problem booking a child or family session. Was I expecting a call about 18 month old pictures when I picked up the phone? Not really but I was prepared for it.

I picked up the phone this morning and started to call a mom back about senior pictures for her daughter. Then I thought hmmmm what could I improve on when talking to clients on the phone. I personally like talking to people in person rather than on the phone, but I take care of all the callbacks so it’s something I have to do anyway.  You got  to know how to get portrait clients on the phone. So, my little self assignment this morning was to sit outside on the deck before starting my day and work on my phone skills.

I like to keep a close eye on my competition and you know what I hate seeing? Photographers who don’t have a clue at pricing their work. Yes you got to start somewhere but that somewhere is NOT $10 for an 8×10. Photographers start pricing their prints and think . Competitor X is charging $70 for an 8×10 and Competitor Y is charging $50 and Photographer Z is charging $25 .. so if I charge $10 the world will flock to me and I will get my big mansion in the hills. Right???

Every successful photography business starts with a single goal. You want to WOW your client. You want them to be return clients. You want them to brag about you to all their friends and bring in more business. A great way to do this is to exceed their expectations. The first thing a lot of photographers think at this point is “I’m going to give them AWESOME portraits that they can’t get from my competition and then they will brag about me all over the place.” Sorry to disappoint you but that won’t cut it. This is about marketing your photography not taking a good picture.