So how can photographers get better paying gigs? There are three things to keep in mind when convincing a customer to pay more than your asking price: how well you can communicate value, the quality of your work, and how much value it provides.
If you already have a strong website that showcases your photography portfolio, displays your services, and keeps your social media presence active, you will almost always have a meeting to finalize the deal on your last touchpoint.
Main Benefits of Meeting with Clients
Even the most powerful referrals will still require a capable deal-closer. This is where meetings are often most effective. You can express your distinctive point of view and expertise in person. You may also obtain a verbal commitment from your client that will psychologically strengthen the arrangement before it is signed, in addition to verbal commitments.
Photographs can be booked in person as opposed to via email or with an attached quote. Many offers have been fielded, and your prospect will probably select whoever left the greatest impression.
How to Structure Your First Meeting: Main Tips
Your primary objective during your initial meeting is to convince your client that you’re the best choice for their unique demands. You want to allay any reservations they may have about their project (budget, time, feasibility) and persuade them that you’re the best fit. You may structure your initial meeting as a discovery phone call in order to get to know your client, or you may turn your initial contact into a sale call, in which you advertise your finest work and demonstrate your process. You’ll want to incorporate the following seven steps in every face-to-face or online customer engagement:
- Screen your client
- Talk about your process
- Explain why your experience is relevant
- Narrow the focus and set expectations
- Negotiate agreeable terms
- Get a commitment
- Use a special calendar app
1. Screen Your Client
A wedding photographer may take a drone shot of a pelican migration, but a bar mitzvah will be a stretch. A potential client might ask you to work on projects that are outside your area of specialization. A meeting can help you clarify any misunderstandings or misconceptions.
Your job should be within your area of expertise, you should charge a reasonable price, and your schedule should allow it. It might not have included the time it would take to photoshop the face of a drummer who’d fallen out with the band’s lead singer a week before the band’s music video was released.
Before sending out a Goth-themed glamour series, you should research your target audience to see if it’s a good match for them, as well as learning about their business if they’re a business. You can then take what you’ve learned and try to echo their branding in your pitch.
2. Talk about Your Process
The value of a garbage truck company’s stock photo is subjective, as it comes from the garbage truck company itself. It’s important to explain your process to your prospects, because it helps them understand why and how you do what you do.
This is why your process is so critical to their success. If they are interested in the project, you can go into more detail, or you can give them a more comprehensive idea of what it will entail. If they’re not so keen on the nitty-gritty stuff, you can show them that you have a vision that closely aligns with their goals.
Keeping the conversation going and keeping your prospects engaged is an art in itself. In order to get better at it, you’ll have to book even more meetings.
3. Explain Why Your Experience Is Relevant
Even if you’ve got a specialty in macro Lego photography that few other photographers offer, you’ll have to explain why you’re the right person for the job if your clients aren’t just seeking online booking. You don’t have to have a unique experience.
Just as convincing as a photograph of Princess Diana is a long list of satisfied customers, so is having a large number of loyal clients. You will only convince them that you’re the right choice if you carefully consider and address their priorities. Your potential client knows you can complete the job once they’ve seen your portfolio.
The purpose of your meeting is to convince them that you are the best choice. They will perceive that you are genuinely interested in their thoughts and that you will provide a superior quality service if you provide them with what they have indicated.
4. Narrow the Focus
Your prospects often ask you to help them solve a problem that they’ve created themselves. They may have failed to consider certain aspects of the job properly or quoted far too little. Rather than turn down the occupation right away, you can slim down the job, scale back the budget, and reposition the job so that you and your client agree on the resulting outcomes. A single meeting may transform a pie-in-the-sky proposition into a realistic project that has everyone’s support.
If you’re working with a prospect, you can casually mention any partner service providers you think would be beneficial or ask for information about their existing team composition (if they have one). An email thread can be a lot to process, so it’s best to bring all the crucial stakeholders together and make real progress when discussing your work in the proposed assignment. You’ll be the No. 1 photographer to work with the next time they order online since such a reasonable strategy is certain to impress their clients.
5. Negotiate Agreeable Terms
It’s more challenging to turn down an in-person request. It’s both easier and more challenging to deal with clients from a business standpoint. While keeping your client enthusiastic about your service, you should ask for terms that are beneficial to you. Email messages are usually brief and consist of a list of demands rather than an ongoing discussion.
If you go to the table armed with information about your client, an estimate of the cost of their project, and notes about your prior dialogues, you’ll be a better negotiator. You can usually tell whether your prospect is interested or just wants to get out of the meeting and book a photographer online as fast as possible.
During your meetings, test your client’s boundaries by proposing additional services that he or she might like. Once you’ve established where you can tread lightly, you’ll know which areas you’ll have to be careful around.
6. Get a Commitment
It’s imperative to finish every meeting with a tangible next step, whether it be to send a quote or an invoice, set up a future meeting, send a contract draft, or summarize what was covered in a concise list of bullet points that will help the consumer remember and feel more confident about making a fast decision.
7. Use MeetFox for Booking a Meeting
You’ll need the right tools to photograph a meeting. For that, you should use time management software such as MeetFox to book appointments using your email signature or a link on your social media pages. You can also create a booking page on your website to allow your potential customers to book a meeting with you as soon as they are interested. A daily planner is also a great way to organise your appointments. You can host a video conference without installing anything in your browser by sharing a link to do so. It just works.
Your clients will be impressed by how simple it is to connect with you. MeetFox can be customized with your corporate identity to include your logo, colours, and design, so you can look like a cutting-edge photographer in comparison to those who appear to be trapped in the Netscape era.
