Lessons

Lesson Info

3:15 pm - More DOs and DON'Ts

Don't don't focus so much on managing objections that you forget that this is a conversation who hears then called by telemarketer who didn't want to hear no and just kept telling every time you an injection, they had something back. Yes, what do you feel when you're having those conversations? You feel like you're not listening to me? You're just turning to page eight in your book and saying this this thing back to me if you don't want to be perceived that way and nobody wants to be perceived that way, I don't think that objections are things you need to respond to it's a conversation make it a natural, unique to each situation conversation do set your intention for the meeting? Do you know what you're going into and why you're going into this meeting? What are you trying to accomplish here? Are you simply trying to make sure that after the product sales are over and they walk out with a certain amount of dollar mountain, it's at least this much and yea, that's a win? Or is your whole...

goal to be able to get closer and closer to this client? To make sure you have a lot of referrals in this, an ongoing process? What is your intention when you sit down with the client? It seems so basic set your intention. And yet a lot of us fly into this and just go without thought that the thought process that we should had ahead of time of like what do I want to accomplish here do show them what you see? One of the biggest problems with online proofing is that you have no way to control how they're seeing the images you created how to literally see the images that you created you could be looking at such different imagery simply because you don't know what kind of monitor there looking on you don't know how it's calibrated you don't know if they're looking on a tiny iphone and barely seeing all the effort you took into getting point catch lights in this big eyes I mean so much of as out of your control and it's not just like warping and distortion of images they could be coming up and we've seen that the same web site on a seventeen inch monitor looking dramatically different in the thirteen inch monitor looking very different on the apple versus a pc there's the's such wide variances and if you're putting so much effort into color correction and beautiful toning and all the little things that we care so much about post processing don't lose the advantage of that perfection that you put into your images because you don't know how the before looking at them this is a great reason to control that they're seeing what you created do talk about the additional client service you now offer if you are currently doing projection sales or you're doing something where you're taking the orders set it up so that when you transition when you transition tio a sales situation that will what will probably turn around. By the way, when I transitioned from online sales two in person sales, I had eleven hundred percent increase in profit, one one zero, zero percent increase in profit, and that was in my first year that was just comparing how had been doing to how I could have done, and it went after that as I started shooting a little bit less and putting a lot more focus into what I was doing, it is not I don't know, I'm trying to think of I've heard of any examples or somebody switch from online ordering and then really focused a lot of effort into the in person sales I don't mean tried it a couple times, their eyes squeeze shut and wanted to jump back because it was uncomfortable. I mean, really got into it and didn't see this big uptick in sales and profit there's so many considerations that are being met that have been missed when you're just putting it online and waiting for an order. So if one of your concerns about transitioning to a new system is that you're afraid that your clients they're going to say to you, I want to go meet with you again, I just saw you for the shoot like aha, if that is the concern there's two issues going on, first of all, lots of that is the noise in your head and hopefully has very little to do with other client actually feels, but number two it should be positioned in a way that you are letting them know that you are now offering an additional service to them for no additional charge. I want to make sure that you get the best experience possible and we make this quicker for you. Yeah, in person sales are actually quicker than how much time goes back and forth you do online sales is that quick to you? It takes forever. It takes forever because of britney's you're busy, they're busy and trying to actually wait for their response and then finding a moment to write back to them and it just takes it's so drawn out. Untiring yes, exhausting. I would say yes was a bigger word than tiring is the thing is, we think we don't take our client's time by asking them to sit down with us. But the other option, this online proofing, especially when you're going back and forth, you have questions, you're sending things over for them to double check. Did you mean this, or are you saying that? Well, that's actually not what I meant? Can you show me the other one that was right next to it? I think that I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think it was the one where he's looking out the window, maybe I mean, this process becomes so administrative on wednesday, we talked a lot and work life balance about the idea of having an administrative experience of your life versus an active, participatory role in your life. They are night and day, we get more into these administrators when you're in a role where you're just going back and forth over email, and you're eventually coming to some sort of conclusion, which really doesn't satisfy either view that tremendously, that takes a lot of time, not to mention it kills the joy of the experience don't make them wait to get their questions answer this ties into the going back and forth. If someone saying, what was that? I'm gonna wait for about an hour to you checked your email, and then you get to that one, and then maybe maybe you get back to me. Two hours and then I'm running around I'm getting kids maybe I'll get back to you in four hours thiss degrades the entire experience don't lose them to distractions okay I talked earlier about the fact that you don't know what they're looking at you don't know what kind of monitor they're looking at when they're doing online proofing let's take it a step further you don't know what they're surrounded by when they're looking at the pictures do you when when you're sitting down with him face to face whether it's in your studio or their home or your home or a cafe or whatever the case might be you can set some tone for how we're going to handle distractions you can say what I talked about earlier let's put up the phones away let's get everything else that's just focus let's be here this experience this was hug and then when they leave in an awkward, disheveled state like that was weird don't lose them to distractions because you don't know that when they're saying I'm going to go home and look at the pictures tonight tonight means in the kitchen on the desk while they're making dinner and the phones ring in the kids were asking for help and there's a skype chat request coming in in a facebook chat requests coming in and then their kids are like feed me and all this stuff kids do show them how much can be done I was joking earlier about how thie extreme personal way weaken sometimes take client requests, you know, for like, you know, you don't crop it that way or whatever, but what you d'oh and what you miss out on with online proofing is you do say, wait a minute, where you going to rule that image out because of one small thing in it? Do you know how often this happens when we just wait for an order to come in? We send out a print a session? Bruce from a session client opens it up say there's forty images in their maybe their favorite image in the whole group is the family together with dad, but he's got his iphone in his pocket and she's like I would have loved that image, but he had the iphone on he didn't want to be at the shooting of correcting kind of mad at him anyway. Next image, if you're sitting down together and the image comes up and the client says I would have loved that image, but he had his iphone, his pocket and I'm mad at him and he didn't want to come at the shoot anyway, you have so much control at that point to turn things around, let's put the emotional thing over here let's just talk about the iphone in the pocket what you can say it that very moment is oh, I conclude that out here let me show you what I can do real quick this distraction thatyou thought killed the images now no longer a part of it or I love that image but you know what? The checks on his shirt was kind of a little jarring with the thing in the background and when I think those colors went together I don't think they look great in my home but I love his expression okay let's look at that in black and white that's minimized attractions maybe we can do a little softening around some of those sharper elements that you don't like a crop in a little bit more. Okay, what do you think of this image? I didn't know you could do that. We have this idea because we joke around about our clients I was telling us to photo shop things we have this idea that our clients are aware of all the things we can dio and have already made decisions around that when they choose to not order something more frequently, they don't know all the things we can do because they don't do this night and day they're not obsessed with creative I've and they don't play with photo shop for fun they don't take instagram photos of the seattle skyline at night when they can't sleep it's not what they do all the time we live and breathe it and somehow now assume that they get what we can and can't do, and I've already ruled it out logically and that's why they haven't decided for the photo that they want to go with the photograph, they need us to show them this is what I can dio and hear the fees associated with it don't script sail once he made it, let me explain this. I was sitting at whole foods the other day where I go to a lot and having lunch and catching up on a little bit of work and the guy next to me, I heard him take this meeting, I'm going to acknowledge here there was totally listening. I was totally losing their conversation because it was interesting to me, the guy I met, this woman who'd been waiting to meet with him and they sat down, and basically she owned some products that she wanted to get into whole foods. He ran the southeastern whole foods, andi, he was out of atlanta in north carolina and happened to be there that day and had was going meeting after meeting after meeting, she sat down and just said, hey, I know you've seen some more stuff, I just want to see if we could carry it in our store he had already made the decision that the answer was yes he said you know what? I looked through your paperwork everything looked great we've got an order just keep in mind this this and this ran through a couple of considerations she'd have to remember as a future distributor with whole foods and it was her she said I'll send you the contract tonight we're all set she sat there for another at least fifteen minutes confirming that she did indeed have this right to get into a whole foods and the contract would be coming tonight and if you had a camera on me next to them I'm the creepy girl listening I was thinking farther and farther down the booth thinking, oh, stop it, stop it, you're ruining it, you've got the sale, she just kept saying, so I'll get the contract tonight and he was like, physically getting up to go and stuff and she's ok, I just want I mean, I just know that, you know, a huge fans that I wanted to get in here for this is a really big deal to me. And so tonight when I get home, you know, probably like seven, eight o'clock or something and I'm thinking to myself, get out of there because he is now starting to think I don't want to be in business with somebody who keeps him I'm going to have this interaction every time I talk to her and that sounds like a one off weird conversations, but how many times have you been conversation on how many times have you been in a situation where that talk went on forever? You felt like you've gotten the important like ok, we'll see later now and then one more thing comes up one more coming and then you say, well ok, no but really I got to go now is there any chance you might be inadvertently doing some of this in your interactions if you have the sale anything's going great, let them get on with their life do be straightforward about your pricing when I asked somebody for a price and they hammer hall or they're nervous so they apologize my genuine thought is what's that why they fired the head sitting so much? Just tell me what's the price picture that if you walk into a furniture store and say, how much is this couch because well, it's you know it's a really great couch and so they put a lot of that is not the same thing as like, oh, this couch is priced at five hundred dollars to start with there's a lot of additional things that go into it I'm going to go through that with you in a second the reason why is give me an explanation getting excited let me learn about it and then give me the whole price that is very that is do you see the difference between hemming and hawing and kind of you know, I've heard photographers on the phone actually have this thing where they're asked directly about price and they clam up or they get nervous they feel weird saying it have you guys ever had that? Yes, you wouldn't tell us a little bit about that like what what do you so in the beginning when people would ask me my prices pricing it's almost like I didn't value what I was pricing I was thinking I'm too expensive will never want to pay that for a print so they would ask me and I would stumble I wouldn't be able to say it with confidence and what you just did this perfect that if I ask somebody you know, quote me for painting my room and if they stumbled I would think that they were inept and that they wouldn't be good at painting my room right? So or they were trying to hide something exactly that they respect you come away with yeah, exactly so yes in the beginning I was uncomfortable and I tried very hard to just say the price and stop talking yeah you all right don't ignore your nerves this is a good one here too, because according to psychologist the number one fear that we all have that we all share top of the list of all the fears if one of your fears is snakes on a plane, this is higher than that here public speaking which is crazy people are more afraid of public speaking than dying dying is lower on the list snakes on a plane lower than this that is true that is true but you're going to say dying that's what you're gonna know public speaking dying being caught with the mailman snakes in the plains the mailman when I made up snakes on the plane was just a movie if you are nervous when you go into presentations give consideration to the fact that perhaps you're not nervous about sales you're not nervous about your photography you're nervous about the fact that you're physically presenting something to someone and you feel like they're watching you and it's a form of public speaking and that might be the source of your awkwardness this could be a possible breakthrough for you holly crab I'm not afraid of photography sales I'm afraid of talking that's good news try to assess what it is you're really nervous about do you see the bigger picture picture when it comes to small things? Okay I talked earlier about the fact that I really really love my content to be very fresh the story I'm about to give to you was from six p m last night I got in a cab with my kids and I told the cab driver where I wanted him to go get out! The cab is about twenty dollars cab fare. Hayes told me that, and I pulled out my credit card and what do you think he did? Did he say, oh, yeah, I'd love to pay with your credit card and the transaction fees associate id anybody here about a taxi driver annoyed with you when you tried to play by credit card? He said to me, literally, he said, uh, gonna make me pay all these fees and everything you have any cash? I don't know I did this, he actually put it through one of these snipers that this wasn't new york, he actually put it through the paper swipe fee, and I went home, and I thought about the fact that when I got out of the cab, I went to tip him and I tipped him ten percent because a that was a really jerk kind of thing to d'oh, I'm not exaggerating when I tell you his tone and his vehemence with with she said it never to my kids were there, and my by ten year old gets a little nervous around that kind of energy, and she literally clung to me because she felt like we're being yelled at and I didn't like that, and so I get out the cab, I did the bear ten percent and I went and I factored it in and then I went online and looked up average transactional credit card costs so on a twenty dollars cab ride the average credit card fee that he would pay and that's including all of it the purse wipe the percentage of the feed your monthly transactions broken down to thirty days was about on average two point eight percent two point eight percent so for twenty dollars he had me pay fifty six again to pay fifty six cents in thes average tips range from nothing to the more standard ten, fifteen or twenty percent for taxis on a twenty dollars cab fare, a ten percent tip was two dollars a twenty percent tip, which, by the way is what I normally always tip on cab fare was four dollars, so to say fifty six cents he lost the two dollar difference and honestly, if I hadn't had my kids there and if I were in the worst mood, he got nothing that have been four dollars, so four dollars he would have lost to save fifty six cents and he didn't just lose me. He lost anybody else who might ever have recommendation about that cab driver or me ever going back to him again. And if you look at new york city the average month in new york city there's about ten million taxi fares that are collected, I'm off so take that same logic and say that they wiped out their tip to save that fifty six cents they lost four dollars that's forty million dollars in lost revenue. That's what I'm talking about the bigger picture for these small little things, we hold on to the conclusion to this story it pays to be nice, but it does right? We are always finding this little stumble that talked earlier about building trust that getting the frame pieces back in and knowing there's a short term hit for a long term game it's the same thing if he had been so friendly and so nice if he had said to me, well, it's sometimes struggle a little bit with paying the transaction fees, but of course I want you to be comfortable this the best way to pay you got it, I would have absolutely hands down, no doubt given him at least a twenty percent tip, I probably would have given a more cause. I kind of feel a little bad about it, but he said, in such a nice, sweet way, I empathize versus felt attacked don't give up the big picture for these small things. If you give a little gift as a thank you can go a long way if you waive little fees and make and make sure they know about it like I talk about, I don't charge for black and whites, and I talk about that. It can go a long way. This is something I see. People get tripped up all the time. They want to hang on to these little possible things and then lose the bigger thing.