This week, I thought I would post how I get images ready for the Sales Appointment. Above, you see a before and after. Below, I show the Before, two in-between steps and the After to show the progression. The reason I do this prep is because people are visual, so I want to put my best foot forward in the Sales Room to show what a wall canvas will actually look like or at least, get it close.
As it does take more time, I do a simple and quick prep on a group of my favorite images and do this extensive work only on the one or two I suggest for the wall pieces. Once clients see the “fixed” image(s), they are sold! Some of you are thinking you don’t have the time to sort and then work on a few images that you suggest, but my thought is I would rather take the time in private, before the sale, to sort, eliminate and work on these few suggested images and then, the sale is much shorter and much less confusing and tiring. On the sales audio I recorded called “Solving the Puzzle of Successful Sales”, I talk about the three things that kill a sale; confusion, frustration and fatigue. You want to avoid these things at all costs!
The four image details:
1. the Original image has just been cropped and nothing else.
2. Image 2 has been retouched to remove the red blotch on the bridge of her nose and a few stray hairs and then I applied the Imagnomic Portraiture filter and brought the opacity down to where it looked soft, but still natural.
3. Image 3 has been vignetted and had the edges blurred using Tim’s palette from Ron Nichols. Even though named Tim Walden’s Black and White Darkroom palette, it works beautifully for color imagery as well.
4. Image 4 has the eye work applied and also other highlights bumped up as well as a few lashes added and the darks enhanced which include the pupil and the ring around the iris. When all was done, I darkened the entire image a bit.
Hope you enjoy this post! Check out Tim’s palette at www.ronnichols.com and my Sales mp3 audio on our website under Educational Products.
Last week, I promised I would share our color work from Studio B, our Associate-Run division of Walden’s. Tim and I are not involved in the photography of Studio B; it is the sole responsibility of our associate photographer, Laura. Although we are both under the same roof, we each have separate galleries in order to clarify what we do. We even have separate entrances into the building. Just to refresh your memory, Walden’s does the Black and White Fine Art Relationship portraits, Color Studies and Beau Visage paintings. Studio B also has three categories; High School seniors, Bebes and Kids which also include Furry Kids!
Today, I am going to discuss Studio B Kids and Furry Kids. We knew we needed to have definite dividing lines between Walden Color Studies and Studio B Kids in order for the public to understand each “brand.” We took the Studio B Kids in the direction of a more colorful and interactive portrait while Walden’s Color Studies remain classical and more posed. We also changed the product mix to accommodate the more colorful and playful approach and introduced the collage of 9 images which has been a huge hit. The Showcase idea was carried over from Walden’s to allow the client to purchase a variety of images without taking up wall space as the set sits on a table easel, but we still get our numbers up where we want them. The other product which is a perfect fit for Studio B are the 4×10s framed in GW Moulding frames which are very reasonably priced. It is a perfect add-on sale.
We do very different marketing with Studio B, utilizing Facebook much more to communicate our message and emailing more than calling our clients. The typical client for the Studio B line is a bit younger and more into technology although we have a lot of crossover between Walden’s and Studio B which answers the age old question of a long-time client, “What can I do next that is different?” We can now offer a wider variety without diluting the long-established Walden brand.
Studio B has been a huge hit in our community and has been received very well. To learn more about Walden’s and Studio B, why not make this the year you attend Walden University and take your studio to the next level! We would love to have you…we have extended the Early Bird Registration until March 15th, so be sure to sign up by the deadline and save $100.00!
I have been teaching sales principles for many years now and one of the most important concepts that seems to be the hardest to understand is “simplicity”! How ironic! What do I mean by simplicity? It is this…how complicated is your sales process? As a matter of fact, how complicated is it to do business with you? We are constantly working on making it very simple to be our client, from the beginning of the process to the end. When you keep it simple, you can spend your time and energy on providing an “experience” instead of explaining your processes!
The sales appointment is where it can get complicated; I understand that! What I say here could be controversial, but all I can tell you is it works for us! I love to share ideas with you, but you need to sift through them and apply them as they fit you and your business. Here are some thoughts on our sales process that keeps it simple for us at Walden’s:
1. Each price list (ie: Color, B&W, Senior, Bebes, etc) MUST fit on ONE 8.5×11 sheet. If it won’t, we have too many things and it becomes too complicated, so we subtract something! Keep in mind that we segregate our shooting into Color, B&W, Senior, Bebes, etc. and don’t mix them together. Our clients choose which direction they are going at the Design Appointment. For more info on our “divisions”, you can go to our studio website at www.waldensphotography.com. With this process to do only one type of portraiture each time, we keep it simple.
2. We edit the images down to only the best ones which is approximately 25% of what was shot. We use ProSelect to then group the images with the 25% left being the most images we keep. We create another group called Favorites with even less and then we select from Favorites to formulate our Suggestions. See our VideoCap on Selling with Suggestions for details on this process. At this point in the sales, we present to the client what they should do with their images such as which pose and what size. With less images, we keep it simple.
3. We don’t offer packages and specials; that can get really complicated and takes lots of explanation! In our history of over thirty years, even going back to when Tim’s dad ran the business, we have never offered packages or discounts. It works for us, but you need to decide these things for yourself. What I can say is that I don’t have to spend a lot of time explaining our prices and products. Instead, I spend that time experiencing the images with my clients, oohing and ahhing over the wonderful images on the screen. It creates an emotional atmosphere and is a wonderful way to connect with clients. By pricing a la carte, we keep it simple.
Our goal is to spend 90-95% of the sales appointment experiencing the images with our clients and only 5 % explaining pricing and products. It requires taking a close look (be honest) at your price lists and product offerings…what can you do to make it more simple to do business with you?
PunishmentPolicies…are you scaring potential clients off?
Awhile back when we did a seminar, a photographer handed me a price list and asked me to critique it. I started to read it and quickly realized it had many issues. What really struck me at the time, though, were what I call punishment policies.
What are they?Let me giveyou some examples:
“We have set aside this time for you sale. However,if we need to do an additional sale, there will be a fee of $100.00 charged.”
“If you have to cancel your session, please do within 48 hours. If you cancel it after that, your pre-paid session fee will be forfeited.”
“If proofs are not returned within 48 hours of the time they are checked out, you will be billed for the entire proof album.”
and so on…
We always put a positive spin on everything here at Walden’s. It is so important! Instead of answering a question that we would have to say no to, we say instead, “If I could do it for anyone, I would do it for you. However, let me tell you why it is impossible at this time.” This catch-all phrase really softens the “blow” to our client and they are gracious and accept our answer.
Also, think of your response in a contentious or negativesituation like a sandwich.First, say something positive (bottom piece of bread), then say whatever might be negative (meat), and follow this with another positive comment (the top piece of bread).
So, take a look at your brochures and price lists, find any punishment policies you have in them and then think of better and more positive ways to spin them. It will make a difference in how your clients feel about your business.
As I was thinking about what to write about this week, I read a statement from Seth Godin, author of Purple Cow and other awesome books. He was describing the difference between “What do you need?” as opposed to “Here’s what you need!” It struck me that great salespeople have this level of confidence when they say “This is what you need!” In fact, our clients appreciate the fact that we can guide them without wavering.
This is not the same as strong-arming someone. Please understand that we meet with our clients and have many conversations about their home, their spaces and their vision long before we get to the sales room, so we are not just shooting in the dark! It reminds me of a dinner we had with Tim Kelly, our friend in Orlando, Florida. He mentioned a friend he had who had this particular personality trait…if he liked something, he would make sure everyone around him knew it and more than that, he made sure everyone bought it. In fact, Tim said, his friend would help load whatever it was he was selling into people’s cars. He was just that confident that everyone should have it (whatever it was)!
Our Sales Room idea of selling with Suggestions is the way we show our confidence. We pre-select the images, sizes, etc for our clients in a well-thought out “Suggestion” presentation so that our clients aren’t asked the question “What do you need or want”. Instead, we show them our Suggestions and say “Here’s what you need”! This is so helpful in the salesroom as it keeps the pressure off of the client to make a decision that they may not have a clue about and instead, as the experts, we give our opinion. The thing that makes this work is our integrity and reputation-our clients trust us! Also, they ALWAYS have the power to veto any and everything we have presented if they don’t feel it is right for them at this time. It is a wonderful working relationship in the sales room and we have seen our sales increase significantly since doing the Suggestions. We have received many testimonials as well from other photographers who started using our Suggestion methods and saw their sales increase many-fold.
If you want to learn more about Suggestions and how we use them as well as learn more about selling, you can download my mp3 recording, “Solving the Puzzle of Successful Sales” from our website for $79.99. Go to Products/Educational Products to select or click here.
I wanted to follow the Design Appointment blog with the link above to a Design Appointment html web document that we use when someone is out of town or just cannot make it in. Of course, the best thing is for everyone to come in and do it in person as we can make more intimate connections when we meet face to face as well as showing the upcoming client around our facility. However, there are always a few who can’t make it.
We also believe in repeating information several times-you know as well as I that clients sometimes cannot absorb a lot of information all at once, so this web document builds in a redundancy factor for us.
I thought this would be a great follow-up for the longer blog I posted last week-feel free to use any wording from it for your own documents. Also, notice that we give this link instead of having the client download anything as most people are a little nervous about downloading things onto their computers, so we felt this would be better received by everyone.
Design appointments are critical at Walden’s since we want to tightly script every session for success. Many obstacles to creativity and success are overcome at the Design Appointment. Since most people come to us for milestone portraits and pay a premium price for their purchase, they want to be on the same team with us and they listen to our suggestions. Even our repeat clients come in for Design Appointments for every session. As Tim states, “Design Appointments are to script each session for a particular outcome, not to learn how to be a Walden client.”
As we often say, there are many enemies of creativity, and the Design Appointment is the time to overcome them! Let’s first look at a HUGE enemy-young children in the same portrait with no parents, especially if the combination is an infant and young toddler (or two)! It becomes a session where the main goal is to get the children looking the same way at the same time with a decent expression and not crying. It is never the great, magical portrait the parents think it will be! It doesn’t matter how many degrees you have at this point-we all look the same with this set of circumstances.
So, our number one goal in a Design Appointment is to ask the parents to agree for us to photograph each child individually (with or without parents) if they have more than one child and they are under five years old. We can divide and conquer and guarantee a stunning portrait if we can work with each child alone or with a parent. When you add several siblings together without parents, especially under five, it is chaos in the camera room and creativity goes out the door!
The next enemy to overcome are parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nannies, etc. in the camera room, distracting the child. So, the next suggestion we make is to ask the parent if they are ok with leaving the camera room if we feel we can get better results without them. When we ask them ahead of time instead of in the heat of the battle during the photo session, they are never offended and very willing to help. Many times, children are better when we interact with them alone rather than with an audience. With too many people around, children lose their focus.
Another function of the Design Appointment at Walden’s is to learn the client’s story. Why are they coming in at this time? Is it to celebrate a birth, birthday, anniversary or adoption? We also find out the personalities of each subject so that we know how to best photograph each subject. We often ask the question, “If this portrait were a chapter in a book on your life, what would the title of this chapter be?” This question reveals exactly where the emphasis should be put in the upcoming portrait session. It also challenges us as photographers to dig deep and portray their story through our portraits! In the Sales Room, this information helps us to know what to suggest to our clients to purchase as well. Our Video Cap entitled “The Secret Power of Emotion in Marketing” takes this premise a step further and explains how we use our client’s stories in our marketing pieces, especially those with emotion. Check it out in our Video Cap section-you can even watch a preview before purchasing!
After we have chatted for awhile, we show an AV presentation that is very emotional. You can view our Black and White Relationship and Color Study shows in this blog at the bottom. Notice that we don’t emphasize props, clothing, backgrounds or poses. Instead, we go straight to the heart! Our clients know when they leave that they are in good hands and this portrait will go deeper than a camera smile. It will be a very special reflection of their family and the relationships between its members.
We also use this time to feel our clients out as to what they want to purchase. Many clients mention wanting a portrait for over the mantle or to hang in the formal living room. Whatever they mention is noted on the paperwork that is filled out so that the sales person will be able to steer them in the right direction during the sale.
Finally, if you would like to see the information we tell our upcoming clients, you can go to our website at www.waldensphotography.com, click on Walden’s, go to About Walden’s and then click on Design Appointments. Although we do have this on the website, we encourage each client to come into the studio and talk to us in person. We also recently implemented sending a “Preparing for Your Portrait” PDF document to clients from out of town that just could not get here to do a Design Appointment in person, however, face to face is always better, so don’t use these types of things as a crutch.
We feel very strongly that the outcome of each portrait rests on doing a Design Appointment for each session-it is very important to our continued success! Enjoy the shows! Just remember that they are lower resolution for the web; our clients watch them if full resolution and they are beautiful!
