If you take the photos that you know people are going to buy then you are going to take a lot less photos. Selling your photos is a skill you must learn if you want to stay in the game long term.
Show people what they want to see
One of the things I learnt a long time ago was not to take photos people didn’t like or ones that didn’t sell very well, I worked this out by through hundreds of photo shoots and finding the common denominator.
We started to see patterns forming and it became quite easy to see that certain photos sold more than others, so we put two and two together and created a shot list out of all of the most popular photos, the photographers they started using that shotlist so we could test this theory and as it worked out we were right. Perhaps you need to start by seeing if you are charging enough for your photography.
Increase your sales
We started to see an increase in sales, people were buying more photos because the ones we were showing were similar to others which sold well so guess what we did, correct … we created system.
I talk a lot about being the expert in every situation in your business and this is just another example of displaying your professionalism.Selling your photos is a skill that you have to learn if you want to stay in the business long term
Don’t be a machine gun shooter
If you were the one being photographed and the photographer is taking hundreds and hundreds of photos, you would have to ask the question wouldn’t you ‘why are they taking so many photos?.
Be quick, clean and efficient
When I’m shooting, the clients hardly have time to standstill. It’s a busy, frenetic environment, I don’t take 15 photos of the same thing, generally I take one, I also don’t stand there looking at the back of the camera, I will quickly look at it to make sure the photo is in focus and then move on.
Surprise them with skill
Your clients will be surprised and many times I heard them say things like ‘is that it’, ‘have you finished already’ and when I hear them say that I know that the system is working correctly again.
I’m Mark Lait and I developed a system of shooting that guarantees you will have a higher average sale. There’s all sorts are free tips on the website and a link to that below to get you there but if you want to grow your photography business, subscribe to my YouTube channel, give the video a like and also give us a thumbs up.
Get it done quickly
A fast photo shoot is a good photo shoot, and a good photo shoot is one where you know what you’re doing ahead of time, and if you wanna know what you’re doing ahead of time you will use a shot list and what’s a sure shotlist? it’s a system of course.
But what about the craft?
A lot of photographers are gonna say that I don’t care about the art photography but nothing could be further from truth, I care about the art so much that I’ve researched what people like hundreds of times and when you do that, when you start to see that trend, you know you’re on the right track so don’t stop — because you’re on a winner.
Give them the best possible choice
I give my clients the best possible choice when it comes to their sales presentation, there is no guesswork, and if I can refer back to another lesson where I talk about people doing what people do and not wanting to be different, this is another good example of that.
People do what people do
People will buy what people will buy so if you can work out what they will buy, just keep selling that. The art is still there in the photography but it’s yours, these are your unique photographs, this is your style, it’s what you created so be proud of it.
What is your system like?
All I’ve done is create a system where you take your best photos every time, you just do it with each new client, it’s pretty simple really.
When you’re in control, you can predict the outcome
I know other business owners who give their photographers free reign to do whatever they want in studio and they’re also very successful, but if you want an out of the box solution you can’t go past a system which shows you what to do everytime. It’s just a rinse and repeat.
I’ll know the photo when I see it
Do you think that’s a mercenary approach? I don’t … I hear photographers say ‘I’ll know the photo when I see it’ and I have no doubt that they will but if you want my opinion, that is not a system, that’s guesswork. This is a system. Every photo shoot is different, and every client is different but you can still take the same photos of every client and if you know which ones are the most popular you’ve put yourself way ahead of the game.
Give yourself every opportunity to sell
This will have a positive impact on your sale. There’s no guarantees of course, but I think that you’ll find that you have a more consistent sale average using this method. Next week I’m gonna talk about who the best buyers are, you might be surprised to learn that is not the wealthy. See you then.
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