We just received a note from a fellow photographer who was really struggling in his business…that hits home with all of us! As educators, we know there is no quick fix for the economic mire we are in right now. However, what we do know and teach are principles that have proven to be true  and we are living those principles day in and day out in our own business. Most of the time, what we teach are ideas that take time to start producing, but for us, they are the right ideas for building long term success.

What I would like to accomplish in this blog is to hear some ideas that are working for you right now to get customers through the door in your business.  Let’s all pitch in with ideas to help each other in this time of need!

I will start by sharing one idea that is working well for us to generate new business. We decided that starting January 1st, we were going to re-energize our efforts to get business partners in our community to align with us and help us find new clients. In order to do this, we decided to close on Monday and dedicate that day strictly to this effort. That is one-fifth of our work week, but it shows how important we feel it is! We found two new children’s clothing stores in our area that were suited for each of our divisions…one is perfect for Walden’s (more classic) and one is perfect for Studio B (more contemporary and colorful)!

We visited each store and pitched our ideas about partnering with them and shared our thoughts on clients. Of course, it needs to be beneficial for both of us to work. Whenever we approach a new business about partnering with us, we always ask two questions. “What can we do for you?” and “What can we do with you?” Then we work out the details of each question to everyone’s satisfaction. We do offer to photograph the owner’s children and/or family in order for them to experience Walden’s or Studio B, but we clarify how long we would like them to use that sample in their business before taking it home. We want it to be a win-win situation for all parties. We then design custom cards with those portraits and a few other portraits we feel are appropriate from our files that have a gift of a Session Fee from us that they can give their best clients. From there, we play it by ear as far as what we will do for that business.

Some things we are doing for our partners at this time:

~We visit a few times each month, take them treats (or take them to lunch) and talk about ideas to work together on.

~We set up drawings a few times per year (ie: Mother’s Day, Easter, etc) and from these drawings, build a data base of names and emails that we can market to. Besides the main winner of the drawing, we have the store owner select 10-15 additional clients they feel would be a good fit for us, and we send them Gift Cards worth $300.00. The amount given has to be enough to entice that person to call. If you just give a few dollars or an 8×10, it is not enough to create a successful call to action. We also put an expiration date on these cards with a 30-45 day window.

~We make them custom clothing tags with images of their children and both of our logos. We use WHCC’s Rep card template for these as they are economical and come in larger sets.

~We show up at store events with a snapshot camera and take a few shots (just because), have them printed and give the images to the store owner.

~We make sure to change out images often and if we photograph any of their best customers, we use those as their samples.

So, this is one idea to generate new business. What are some of your ideas? I really would like to hear from all of you who read this blog:-) Let’s help our fellow photographers out with some of your great ideas!

Have a great week! Bev

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