Lessons

Lesson Info

10:45 am - Why People Buy

Owning the sale why do people buy? Here is a very interesting adage, which many people may or may not have heard but is pretty significant people love to buy, but they hate to be sold tio right, what do we focus on? Especially artists? People hate to be sold to what basic, major part of that sentence are we missing out on people? Love to buy people loved to buy? We're being so intensely focused on these old stereotypes of how people used to sell about how the worst sales people do it, the ones that don't succeed over time, we're so caught up in that that we're missing out on the fact that people actually do love to buy. I want to talk a little bit about why people buy in general, but more specifically, what we care about more is, why did they buy from you? These the people that I mean, of all the reasons people buy, they kind of fall under these buckets? We'll talk a little bit about each of these, but, you know, to fulfill basic needs out of desire to fill a void, having experience, k...

eep up with the neighbours, charity and astrology, I want to stop time, I want to be more comfortable, I want to have more energy and comfort security wanna save time. I want to save money on a boost energy I have a belief and I want to pay to support it these anything you can think of that you purchases for one of these reasons it's falling into these categories here the reasons people by photography of all those things I was like I'm not going to make it I'm not going to play the make it fit game I'm gonna dump some things things out the list which I actually don't think our reasons people by photography but here's some really key reasons out of desire do you think photography can fill a desire absolutely right if you think about the fact that you have a desire to be seen as beautiful photography could do that if you have a desire to have a family and be able to see them all together and happy and belonging as one photography is a great way to fulfill that need to fill a void so if you have heard some of statistics in my work life balance about what we do to fill the void of our absence this is a really key one we were talking about the fact that a lot of times we will give stuff to our children for instance because we can't give them what they really need just more of us it's like a painful truth that plays out daily photography is a way to fill a void many people most people feel that they can't spend enough time with the people they love there is a void in their lives and photography is a wonderful ways to say here it is this is you and the people you love or in the case of when you talked about doing head shots and photographs more glamour photography here is you this is how amazing you are. This is a void that we all have and it's a major reason people turn to photography one photographer want to keep imagery toe have an experience I firmly believe that photography the whole part of photography should be experienced you shouldn't be grinding through a shoot just to get results the shoot itself should be an experience where you're out and you're engaging and you're having fun and you're all teaming up to make this work this is very much experience that's being purchased not just the end results to keep up with the joneses a huge amount of referrals come from people who want to have the stuff on their walls to like their neighbors d'oh have you guys ever been referred by somebody who they saw somebody else's work and yeah, uh, charitable reasons there's a million amazing reasons t do charitable work, but when I contribute to auctions that is a major source of our constant stream of referrals it's wonderful to be able to support a cause you really care about but in addition separately from that you are associating with a good cause when people bid on your by your work and it's I think we have something like thirty auctions this year they were committed to and that was after calming it down a little bit that means thirty new clients are coming in and everybody they know I think the average number is about seven people get told about a good experience the goal is to have a good experience it's much, much worse when they have a bad experience I think five hundred people here we have a bad experience but terrible marking I think that is just a gigantic part and it should be if it's not a big part of your business it really should be for nostalgia we own nostalgia were photographers we own nostalgia to stop time way on that two way totally dio to increase security this is really interesting because when you first think of this a lot of reasons people will make purchases to increase security. What do you think that means? What springs to mind for you near mike's you want to just throw out an idea of what you think ah purchase would be to increase security an alarm on your house and alarm in your house perfect when you when you're looking at bringing new people into your family, whether it's a wedding and that is building a new family together or if you have a child, a newborn, if you bring in a child through adoption, photographs are showing are shown to be in a major reinforcement for bonding, and which was really interesting about this because when we adopted our first child, I was a photographer, and I was reading about the fact that one of the number one tips for bonding is to take a lot of photographs of your new child with their new family and put it everywhere where they can see it so they can have this visual reinforcement that I am with them, and we are together, and this is bonding, I thought, that made so much sense, and this is, by the way, when we get into clearing objections and stuff like that, this isn't I don't believe in like, oh, you have that objection, let me give you the answer. I don't really work that way, but it does. I do think about the things that worked for me in my own life, when our youngest came home at age three and a half that became even more critical that she could see very quickly, that I am part of this family. When we met her, when we were in the orphanage in ecuador, she had a drawing on her wall that showed her how family worked in functional life as opposed to in the books, complete with our names next to him and showing how she was in the middle holding hands with us and that she was in the middle of this family and she was part of this family. And so the two months we're in ecuador, we took so many photographs were always showing her how she was in with us, how we were all together, and to me, I think that increased security this is massive. One of things were all kind of dealing with in this day and age is how we stay connected to each other and these visual reinforcements shown displayed in your home not buried in your computer, not a hidden on a hard drive somewhere but shown and celebrated, I think is really significant. And I speak to that a lot when it comes to the buy a disc question, I speak to the fact that, like, why do you want things on your wall? It's? Not just a core. What does it mean to you? Let's, go a little bit deeper here. I think photography is a wonderful way to meet this need of increasing security. Create excitement. Okay, I think again, going back to experience, there should be a lot of excitement in photography when you talk about wedding photography, weddings are very exciting they're crazy exciting doing a show for creative life is shockingly exciting you should have seen us the first five minutes this started there's a lot of excitement in these experiences and if you're bringing to the experience it's even that much more impactful I think of this photograph I took years ago this photograph to me is very exciting it's very interesting think about things that you can bring in shooting women as a stand alone for glamour, portrait it's or head shots that can be so exciting invigorating engagement sessions can be really fun an exciting family shoots should be you should be going after these kids and chasing them and throwing them to the ground that's exciting, you know don't do don't do that please just think site boosting energy we're going to do a section at the end of today that has to do with boosting energy because I believe great sales take a lot of energy great shooting takes a lot of energy great living takes a lot of energy it does that is why I have so much coffee but I think if you're talking about this whole idea are boosting energy there's very little like it when you're talking about sitting down to client going through things and getting them jazz up about the people that they love those pre consultations we talk about however you do them you're talking about why do you want this photography? It's not just like what do you want to do with the picture and where you gonna put it and where is it going to fit on your wall why do you want it the hopefully what you're doing is incorporating it within them this thought process that gets going that is all about energy do you guys understand what I mean by that makes sense hopefully what you get them thinking about early on isn't where am I going to put that paper? What section of my wallet I gotta put that paper on hopefully you've got them thinking about is why do I even care to show us together and why does it matter? What am I coming to you because I want you to really show us not just this is my head this is his head this is his head I want you to show us that should be part of your process and lastly to support a belief I think this may be the closest fit of all who do you believe in mohr then the people you love and surround yourself with? I think this is our core belief photography fits these things it's just not so like you don't think security like that like why would that's my security knew that that's an alarm but photography fits these and if you can work these in to the conversation away that's true for you that's relevant for you we're gonna do that. We're gonna brainstorm how do you make it true for you? You do not want to be out there reciting words. I think the worst way to answer objections is to give canned responses that's the worst way I did that for a while. That is a one hundred percent failure rate, especially there's somebody who struggles with being inauthentic in any way the best way to be able to respond as things is to say, you know what I have thought this through? This is how I see this connecting and to be able to support it in a way that's genuine that is overcoming objections. So there's, um upholding this, ok? Say the word I know I couldn't do it. I tried four times and I said, I'm gonna just get somebody else to say it czech hosts what's this word multitudinous again faster multitudinous oh, so many reasons to buy photography this is good news, all right? One of the things that your clients are balancing or anybody is bouncing when they're considering making a purchase, their balancing desire, need and security it really comes down to those strings when those three things I'm thinking I want to purchase something I've got to figure out how does this all balance if I'm driving down the road and my car runs out of gas and I've gotta walk three miles holding a kid and maybe a grocery bag with soy ice cream that is melting to see I made it and I'm going and I finally get to the gas station. How much of me is going to say maybe I'll find something cheaper in a mile? I haven't need, don't I? I have a need and I'm gonna buy I'm not going to sit there and think about it. I'm just going to purchase if I'm about to go on a live show, and I suddenly realized that I lost the dress that I thought I packed, I didn't have it do you think I'm going to try to go to seventeen stores and find the right one? Or I'm gonna walk into nordstrom's and just buy something yesterday? Yes, I did, you have a need and you're not going to like, sit there and just waffle on things you're just going to say what I don't have a lot of time, I haven't needed any to philip, what is something that most of our clients don't have a lot of time, they do not. That is something we wrestle with sometimes we're like, well, it's hard to get these meetings set up and this and that that can also be to our advantage, they don't have a lot of time. And when the major benefits you can give them is a way to streamline their time in the most effective way possible, and they will appreciate that they will thank you for that, they will tell you they appreciate that. So if you say, for instance, are walking past the apple store and you see the new mac air and you're like, I have a desire for that, that is that that's a choice you're making? I have a desire for that mac air because it's it's even smaller than the last one and it goes even faster and that's just pure desire you have to say, but really do I need to pay for that right now? Do I need it? No, no, you are balancing in your weighing and you're making the decision to walk on past because it didn't fit that balance. But if you look at that new mac air, it looks beautiful and you think to yourself, my computer is getting old, and if I get that one, I could get a lot more work done. I can close more deals, I could make a ton more money and my initial investment will be made back in two months or less that that weighing has now shifted dramatically, you now are knocking completely out of desire and then you're going to need and even into security so you purchase if you're thinking about these things if you're thinking to yourself I'm on li worried about what my clients are thinking about paying you're only looking at one of threes these three things that they're always balancing if you're thinking well I wouldn't buy so why would they you're taking an account in your lifestyle your background how much time you have maybe normally you wouldn't run in and grab something unorthodox but if the need is there it's a whole different equation and you can't always be having them making these assessments that they're goingto make these decisions based on where you are today and what you're looking at today because they have different standards now let's ask the question apartment rodney that's all he's a student here from here creative life, he asked it sounds to me like selling starts from the first meeting phone call with the client I would like to find out how to help the client feel that they are collaborator in the process seems like closing the cell would be easier if the client feels like they're invested in the whole process and not simply another customer and then and so the question is how do you make that happen? Yeah so when you get to is we're going to step the process I have identified eight or nine steps that we go through every sale we dio if you remember seeing the first workshop back in two thousand ten like dinosaur years ago compared to the production value of the show and everything else it's crazy way you whipped out that white board spent two hours talking about business and he wrote all these things down when we came back to taking care of business we put them in a format from start to finish one of the sections in there was sales in this class we're going to say here's every step you d'oh in sales no matter who you sell to and how long it takes and here's where within that sales prosecution process you should be investing your time traditionally I think most people when they have a lead and they have that initial call it's a conversation it's data exchange it's setting them up and then as you go through most of the conversation is when you're interacting during the shoot. Would you say that most people have that when you find that your deal of the client most of the time you're talking to them is when you're shooting right on on an everyday client that comes in the door and you don't you don't know from anywhere and you've got to start from the beginning most of that effort should be right away establishing that collaboration and so if the intention is I know that that will help me I already know that I would be convinced of that then I think we're getting to the question of what exactly do you say? Is that correct? Is that where we are then what do you say to make that happen? So for me, what I do and you know what? I'm gonna be ableto a zip past this when we get to this part in the sales process, what I will say is right away. I will talk about how did how did most sales calls start? Somebody calls you and said hi I'm looking for to get my family's photograph how much you charge? Do you find that? Yeah, right. How much is it? A lot of the times that is how that sales situation starts. That's how the relationship starts to me. I think that's immediately putting all the perspective on me as a commodity compared to everybody else is a commodity. What do you do? What do you do and how are you different? Why do I want to buy from you versus anything? Anybody else? What do you want to create? For me, that might be worth more that's where you need to get the dialogue started just in order to even close the deal. The dialogue dialogue needs to start with if I'm talking to you and I know you want this, let me tell you what my version of this is and as we go through this, you're going to ask more questions I'm not going to know tell you the price, but I'm gonna make sure you hear a little bit about what ideo so one of the great ways to do that is to say absolutely love to send you over all our pricing I'm gonna go ahead and do that right now what we're talking on dyken give you an idea of what we dio and then you just start saying, you know, we get to have the shoot we do that either your home or on location, my favorite thing to do is find out what specifically works for you so almost immediately the emphasis is off pricing and it's on experience in a very natural, genuine way we're going to say, I'm not there's no way I'm going to say to you, I know you had the price, but I'm going to tell you right now as annoying, I'm going to say, oh, absolutely, I will get that to you and while that sending let me give you a little bit over you in the process sadly, we're most of us walking cyborgs, so we're going to get the email immediately in front of us with an x amount of time and even better they're not sitting there in from their computer it's going take a little while to get to them I will say if you haven't gotten that yet by the time I get done pitching the process, which I'll tell you about in a second but I'm saying we'll meet we'll do this and kind of give them the whole idea of what to expect again they're buying in there getting a sense of experience overpricing and then towards the end of that I'm not going to make it a thirty minute pitch it's a few very really minutes this is what you can expect let me get you sold on why I'm different I'm not one more person selling coke and then I'll say I don't know if you got that yet okay? You haven't yet okay? Well specifically the session fee is five hundred dollars that doesn't involve anything else we what I love the do is step through each of the images with you and come up with something that's really specific to you, andi you know and you can give people an idea of what average sales prices are you're not going to sit there and list every single price on your price list that's just going ahead and exploding the deal right there it's horribly boring but you you're transparent but you start out with experience does that make sense for you, teo? Huge sense that and I'm gonna tell you like it an average conversation with that might be okay so another question is this is just a quick one from miss mrs tademy, when you donate your services to charity, are you donating just the session cost? And are they also purchasing the products afterwards? So how how does that fit for your business plain? Yeah, so specifically what it nearly always is is the session fee and one prince and it's usually an eight by ten eleven by fourteen or so, but instead of saying you get one session fee and you get one eight by ten it's a value up two and you put the dollar figure out there so the dollar figure might be five hundred eighty five dollars or six hundred eighty five dollars what that does and it's different if you own a studio with associates or shooting by yourself, it could be a different animal if you're shooting with associates, you do want to have a dollar figure out there because it could be either you or somebody else doing the shoot, but what it does is you say, ok, that actually covers the session when they call in that covers the session being this print on dh, you know, obviously what I think of the session fee isn't the two, three hours you're spending together, it's everything that takes that you take to get there and the way that you're creating experience during the session but for the general marking so it includes those specific things and then it gets them in your system. And again, I have found that most people who come through us through terrible marketing efforts actually tend to spend more because by the time they come in for the session, the purchase of what they donated to the cause has faded a little bit and they're starting fresh and again they have a positive associate association with you linked to the organization often they bought from in order organization that they want to support. So I see a lot of upside to this and I think this is a very interesting point because a lot of photographers and ones that I have actually hired I do not see it that way they see well, why am I giving away free shoot? Their thing is well, you know what? I'm waving my session completely and giving the print that's a lot of cash just give away I need money to and what's being missed with that frame of mind is you are getting an opportunity to be introduced to a new client who's starting out with a really positive association with you who when you do great work for them you now get to sit down and as a partnership sell the work and then have them tell the next seven people they love how much they love you that's what every new shoot is the session fee is valuable for a lot of reasons, but it goes out the window in relation to the overall sale do you mind if I ask a question about them don't terribly along with that charitable donation and kind of gift certificates in this same category is sometimes the client doesn't know that there's going to be an additional expense with the products so because you were not part of that beginning pre consultation process when you when it's a charitable auction item do you know what I mean? I'm sorry, can you clarify that? So so if it's if it's something that you're donating the session fee at a charity, then if the person bids on it, they might not have been aware that they're going to spend a certain amount in the end. Oh, so you're saying there's a possibility that they may think that covers everything? No, not really it's just that they're not aware that they're going to be end up dropping a lot more money okay might have thought it was like they were just not aware of your prices because they just saw that I was ok I'm going to get this session and not really understand that right that the prints are going to cost them right on the money and you know, yeah, no, I hear you, I actually I haven't had that experience, but I think if I ever did at that experience I would have a clarification on their this includes this amount and this mountain you can purchase, you know, additional prints at your leisure or something like that maybe even put the pricing of your all of your prints right there on the auction table. I wouldn't do that, I wouldn't do that no, and let me tell you why I don't I have never had pricing on my website, not since the very beginning I don't have pressing my web site because, again, I want to get in a situation where I'm having a conversation because like people who just email you versus when you have a conversation, they just email an inquiry that booking rate to when you get them on the phone and you are actually having a relationship now you're having conversation, you have an opportunity to work together. The booking rate is nine days it's pretty ridiculous how low the booking rate is when you're just answering an inquiry with the price list versus let let me tell you what we're going to go. I'm really excited about this and I think you will be doing, but hopefully don't talk like that because then you sound like a maroon, but however it is that you convey your passion for your work and again has to be you mind tends to come out a little dorky but you know, going to live with that in this situation specifically, I want to make sure that I have them face to face and you know, we're in the door together the piece that I just see it missing in gift certificates in charitable donations is the pre consultation to get them to buy this session, why that missing? You're still doing that? Oh, you still do that now so still do it, but they're just not as I just feel like they're not as much aware of what they're getting into the expense that they're getting into after the session is done okay, so you're afraid that you might be doing something to them yeah now like, oh, an eight by ten is that much? When I thought of a portrait session, I didn't think of that yeah, maybe I'm you know, we need to have you had that experience? Is that a fear that you may have the experience? I think I've had that with giftcertificates like, oh, I got this for a present, but oh, I didn't know that I would that covered the session fee and I wasn't aware that I'm now going to spend five hundred dollars on prints they don't have to I would be very clear about saying, oh no, you absolutely your session is completely waved the normal cost of five hundred dollars two hundred dollars, one hundred fifty dollars has been purchased for you has been waived for you we're going to have a cyber the shoot together we're going to go and together we're gonna have a lot of fun and if you choose to select more images after the fact, I'm gonna give you a great walk through of what you can get right but no that's waived the shooting, the shoot is definitely going to be done and you're able to see them and decide what you want to do next. There is a big gift of matt thank you sure you still have a hesitation? I think seventy five dollars is this something that they will have to spend after especially the session? These yeah, they're having their on and I and I and I mean that genuinely they don't have to spend anything right there getting an opportunity to basically see this amazing we're keep created right? This this frozen in time, nostalgia that you built for them that they didn't have before and now they can, but they don't have to by anything or they could buy some things exactly where I don't have any any minimum requirements on my gift pieces or auctions, right? I never would I wouldn't say you have to buy this and then you have to buy that right there is zero need for them to purchase, and I will never be in a situation where I'll say, why aren't you buying more, right? Never, but I will start at the beginning and position all of this in a way that is meeting their needs, finding out what they want that they really care about. The goal isn't to be afraid of pushing anything on anybody any time the goal is to be creating experience where you're inviting them to share it, too, and they have an opportunity to invest further, right? And if they get this this opportunity as a gift from somebody, then that's something that they should be really grateful for, you know, I think I just have been looking at it like from a different perspective, I need ship my thinking, do you see? How can I get a perspective? I definitely d'oh, and I was thinking of it as like, a gift certificate happen to them, and now they're spending this, so I think I've been sort of often my thinking, yeah, honestly, that little just that little shift what that's going to do going back to the very beginning? What that's going to do is take you from a mindset where you feel nearly apologetic as opposed to completely enthusiastic and excited moving yourself out of passion and excitement for what you're what you're selling it is basically putting yourself in the category to fail and that's why it has to start up here it really does and I want you guys to bring up these things that we go along and I'll tell you one thing right now the number one thing probably actually the number one thing that I hear most people ask questions about when it comes to sales starts out with but what if dot dot dot and then what's listed next is something that's either never happened to them or happen one time or they read about happening on a forum this one time it's always these kind of dramatic worst case scenarios that rarely happened and yet they're putting all their energy into preparing for this possibility that might occur because one time on a website somebody said they saw somebody who had this experience happened to them so they need to be super prepared in case this might happen and that's putting all your focus on this dot when you've got this whole landscape that's sitting there waiting for you of how it will probably happen most of the time, I understand wanting to be prepared and not wanting to face a situation blind and getting shocked I understand that need for security, but at the same time if you're funneling everything towards that you're literally missing the big picture tamara I just wanted to say south cicada is chased out so we love cell, he says tamara what's up girl hey says this is a question our stress point taber made a great point on pricing never put it on your website I have to get to the call asked her to really drive this point home to everyone that's where we see the innards making steak that's true because again, if there were browsing, I need a photographer here's ten photographers these ten generic names I don't know because I'm not in the industry you know where I'm new to this town or I've I haven't had photos taken in two years the person who did take my photos has gone or whatever the case may be I'm just gonna browse these ten photographers who have very little differentiation in my eyes and I'm going to see how they all cost what they all cost and probably comes up somewhere out in the middle I want to pay the most expensive one out there I don't want to go with the chief is because they're probably the worst this is how mindset goes where is somewhere in the middle and maybe it's a little up our little down based on how I normally make my purchases and it's got nothing to do with you individually they're not having a chance to meet you they're not having a chance to understand what you care about doing what you care about giving them that whole opportunity is completely cut out of equation. When you just list your prices, or you just email a price list and there's, nothing more with it.