Lessons

Lesson Info

Sales

this is my priceless right I showed you this priceless before my sales advice to you is to shut up and get out of the way now I could not sell a four hundred dollar product because I was marketing teo a four hundred dollar client when I started to mac took mac to a four thousand dollar client I started tio I produced a four thousand dollar product okay that does not mean that everybody spent four thousand dollars my studio average in the studio that we built was eighteen hundred and only went up to three grand when I went out on my own so eighteen hundred dollars was my studio average that was my basic priceless but the point wass is in order to sell portrait all I had to do is educate my client at the first touch point which is when they contacted me I had to educate them on the experienced sell the experience and I had to sell my priceless to them with the experience at the same time then what happens is they will come in for the viewing and I have done a phone conversation our consu...

ltation or a visual consultation with them if you do visual consultations where they come into your space have a look at the space and talk about how they want to be photographed you have a higher booking right if you do a phone comp consultation and you connect with them via the phone you have a drop off rate because they have not made a connection with you they may have spoken to you but they have not seen you and megan made the effort to come to your studio so it does work better to have a visual consultation with them about what it is that they want out of this now if you have them into your studio and they've already heard the basic price list and then you show them your priceless again you give them of physical prices to take away with you and then you show them your product and say this is my beautiful image here is six hundred dollars on the wall and this is my beautiful folio box here and you put it in the hands because when women touched something they want to own it and when they hold it it's the years and all of a sudden they're holding a folio there looking at these beautiful images of women they're imagining themselves in those images the same way a bride does when she sees a bridal album that she wants to hire you she wants to be that beautiful bride she's imagining herself in that fairy tale and all of a sudden she's hearing the price she's well educated as to how much it's going to cost that is the third time you have educated here once and once when she first contacted you in the consultation when she comes back for her shoot that's the third time you educate her you're going to ask these questions in educator at the same time so you're going teo first sell your business educate her sick and they do the consultation get all excited about the shoot get are invested in the chute and educate her when she comes in for the shoot you are going to talk about what you want her to create what what do you want me to create for you what do you love about my work do you like the war portrait so you're more interested in a folio you're talking about these things before she's being photographed you were making it quite clear that you're producing a result you're educating here is to what she can have and what you can create for here and at the same time you're asking her what it is that she wants so that you know what it is that you can create for her so she could bite off you it's not a mystery we're not sitting there just trying to shoot the hell out of it and hope that she buys something that's how we used to wig just um living in a small community um I'm about twenty five minutes into the city would it make sense for me to go to them for the consul now no because I'm not that they're not gonna want to travel the half hour they do it on the fine yeah okay yeah people flight from different countries to be photographed by me now I used to think people would not drive to me to have a consultation but I can really talk on the phone but if you can't talk on the phone you need to find a way to either get better at talking on the phone or pay someone who is because I can do I can do a connection and defined consultation on the phone but not a lot of peep you can so you need to set aside that time to make that consultation the most valuable connection that you have with them because that's when you're really educating them so they come in for the shoot and as they leave the shoot you give them a booking time to see their images and you give them and a physical prices to take home with them so at that point that's basically four times you happen to have mentioned cost but it's not all about the money have also talked about a million other things to educate them in the experience of what they're gonna have and what they're gonna do and how they're gonna have to hear makeup if you take that time to sell your service the sale at the other end is already done what you then do when you come to my studio is you know what you're going to buy you just sit down and view those images and pick the ones that you're going to go home with I believe the selling work is already done now I've beena studios long enough to know I've also all of my best friends of photographers and they specialized newborn family weddings some of my friends judge fifteen thousand dollars to shoot a waiting uh two of my friends that our family portrait studios in an excess of one point two million dollars a year from their family portrait they did that through the whole crisis so when people tell me that they are struggling and I'm looking at my friends who I know how much money they're making the reality of it and they are doing high volume average sales of eleven hundred dollars then that tells me that there's still a market out there and there's still money out there they have money in the bank the good savers and they have solid marketing now really really important they're educators l whole philosophy with all of my best friends earth you educate people on the price and they feel uncomfortable with the price they won't come to you and if they feel comfortable with the price and if they feel comfortable with the venue they will buy from you without thinking twice about it but but I also know is a photographer I used to hide my price list because I was too afraid to say what I was with and it used to equate to people not purchasing from me because they would say what how much and I'ii stick it that all the time instead of saying this is what I caused what am I going to create for you you know let me tell you what I want to create for you okay now I've simplified my price list so it's all about this beautiful folio bucks I've simplified the war portrait's I've simplified the nine frame I've created a desirable product if my client is educated and excited and invested it is a given it is a given that I have sold the portrait already done right it is a given all I have to do now is go out and look for more clients and educate my next one treat her well with really great service and were there straightaway there now ask me christian's up before I go on I just want to tell you a little story when I first added my uh business and we predicted to make four to six thousand dollars a week and expand it we're making twenty thousand dollars weeks we shooting volume my sales were very low and I went to a very well known portrait photographer beautiful woman in new zealand I was teaching her staff photo shop and she's twice my my price and I was selling less work and she's twice my price and she was fully booked and I said to her what am I doing wrong and she said so you do realize you tell people how much you cost and then you take beautiful photographs and then when they come back in you sit them down and you say here is my price list again these your beautif well photographs what would you like to order and I thought wait a minute catch he's dismayed it sounds too easy I'm over complicating things I'm talking to match I'm I'm cutting down my price list when they object or they hesitate I instantly start cutting back the shoot I'm down selling my packages I'm not pre selling my package I'm not educating my client it all suddenly dawned on me shut up and get out of the way because let's say muff warner and I are sitting down viewing map whose images she's head the priceless three times she knows how much it costs she's looking at her images and I say right now you're a twenty five images which is three thousand three hundred dollars with a beautiful print on the wall stop talking because she say they're going to say two things that's too much or really I get all of that for three three done and if she says it's too much we can start talking about taking this sale down but why would we start filling the space with words the next person who talks is buying it and this you want to buy the photos back shut up and get out of the way now what I used to do was I was so uncomfortable with my value that when they would go quiet I would instantly assume that they were horrified okay that's my perception that's not the truth that is just my idea and this is how I worked through it one day my sister and I we're talking and my sister said I need a hundred campuses about this big for an exhibition I'm doing for school she's a school teacher I said co you can go to the girl that does my campuses she charges like I think seventeen dollars for that size my sister works out one hundred campuses it seventeen dollars seventeen hundred dollars yeah I can afford that so I ring lynn up and I say hi linnet so bryce my sister wants these canvases at this size just wondering helmer and she goes um I can do that campus size for seventeen dollars and which is exactly what I've told my sister right now as she says this my sister goes actually I need a hundred and thirty now I can do the maths on a hundred times seventeen but to do the math some one hundred and thirty times seventeen you're just gonna have to give me nineteen seconds so I pause and I go to get the final dollars she mistakes my hesitation my pores as an objection and she counters it with but I could do them for seven dollars so I say thanks that would be great so I hang up and I say well she's gonna do one hundred thirty canvases it seemed dollars each my sister's just saved you know fifteen hundred dollars and she's like really that's weird I was like I know and then I learned that when somebody objects to something and they go quiet what you think they're thinking is not your business they could be thinking if I transferred some money from my savings account and use a thousand dollars on my credit card then I could pay for that now but you think that they're thinking that's too much that's henry listen I'm not going to buy it now when I went and picked up those canvases and paid lin I took a bottle of wine and a packet of biscuits and I put them in the studio with her in her little lad there and I said can I talk to you for a moment and she said sure and I said I want to tell you a story and I told her the story about how I was prepared to pay full price and she mistook my objection my quietness for objection and she instantly undercut herself instantly undercut yourself by almost two thirds and she lost potentially a thousand dollars that day but grain gained the greatest listen and her business and I learned a lesson that I had been doing for years in my business we do not put our personal idea of what people value our work and we have no value for ourselves on our work the people who value their time and their work make money the people who have no value for it do not because they're too busy putting their own lack of venue in their own work and worrying about what they're not giving people on wearing about what they are giving people are worrying about who down the road is giving what to somebody else for what price that they've actually stopped loving the business and being enthusiastic about it and they simply working from a place of need and a place off you know struggle and all of a sudden I value now my time my gift and uh I hopefully communicate that to other people and when you educate them is to the cost of it because they're attracted to a desirable product they're educated easily with basic system basic product and then you follow it through with outstanding service then you can sustain an income is a portrait photographer because you will get so much referral and repeat business that it will all be worthwhile