Most professional photographers have struggled when it comes time to selling their killer images to their clients. It can definitely be scary!

You don’t want your clients to think you’re pushy and selling them something they don’t want. But at the same time, you know your art is worth what you’re asking them to invest and that they will LOVE it hanging in their home. So what do you do?

We’re giving away a scholarship to a program that can help you master selling your photography without being pushy!

One of the most profitable photography studio owners in the US, Sarah Petty, has developed an in-depth, online workshop where she teaches you exactly how to increase your sales averages without feeling like you are high-pressure selling. It’s a process she has mastered over 11 years of selling fine art portraits.

Just go here to sign up to win a scholarship to the 4 week online course!

Good luck!

It was a great opportunity to share with so many of you through the PhotoBiz webinar recently. I had some great feedback, especially in regard to selling images. It seems as if no matter what aspect of my business I choose to discuss, the subject more often than not turns back to the selling of images.

Selling images is a process that we began with the purchase of our first digital camera. It only made sense from a business standpoint when we ran our numbers and figured what the profit margin was on a digital file. It also made sense to me from a creative standpoint because it forced me to be a better, more creative photographer. The more images I could sell, the more profit I could make, therefore, my images needed to be unique and different, creating a sense of urgency to buy from the consumer. I could no longer get away with one or two good images and hoping to make the profit on multiple prints of each.

If you choose to sell images, it needs to be done with great care and thought, keeping the ultimate goal in mind – to sell prints later. For us, the selling of images has become secondary because our clients have learned over the course of many years that our ability to print through a professional lab is far superior to any print that they can hope to make on a home printer and our efficiency for printing far outweighs any time they would spend sitting at a kiosk in a box store. Quite simply, we can do it better.

Also remember that when you price those images, you need to get a “fair” price for both yourself and your client. There is no way of telling what an image is “worth” because unless someone wants it, it really has no value and many customers understand that. They also know that the only market you have for that image is to them – there is no other buyer who might be willing to pay a higher price. Therefore, set a price that creates a harmonious relationship with your client and encourages them to purchase several images as well as to make plans for a return session sometime in the future. We have a target sale average that we like to hit with every sale and do so by pricing our images at a point where our clients believe they get a good quantity of product for the price.

Not every session results in an image sale and there are different types of sessions – promotional sessions especially – where we do not even offer an image sale. If you’re considering selling your images try a test run first before jumping in with both feet. Offer a family or other type of portrait special where the client can purchase the image if they desire and give it a test drive. If you find that it doesn’t work in your market or if you have difficulty wrapping your head around it, then that type of sale is probably not for you.

In the meantime, take advantage of everything PhotoBiz has to offer. With the price of gas on the rise, there is no better sales tool than your website and no better provider than PhotoBiz.

As a professional photographer, you’re not just competing with cheap, shoot, and burn photographers. You’re competing with FREE! Anyone with a nice camera may consider himself a professional and can find clients who are willing to pay for their services. Competition is increasingly fierce for you, as a professional, to find clients who are willing to pay you for your artwork.

So how can you find these clients who value photography and want to invest in your art? In my 25 years of marketing experience at Coca-Cola Enterprises along with my career as an advertising agency marketing director and photography business owner, what I’ve found is that it all starts by developing a strong brand.

Your brand is how people feel about you. To charge what you’re worth, it’s essential to carefully craft and manage your reputation for being the best at what you do before you start marketing. Yet as photographers, many of us fail to develop a strong brand before we begin trying to attract clients and that’s where we go wrong.

We recently had the privilege of working with Daniel and Clare Troutman of Troutman Photography in Salem, Oregon to give them a brand makeover on creativeLIVE.  The Troutman’s had been struggling to find an identity that truly represented their photography style for the last 18 months. While they KNEW who they were, their brand wasn’t accurately communicating that to potential clients. Like many small business owners, Clare and Daniel were using several logos throughout their website and marketing materials. And while ranking high in search engines, their website that didn’t reflect the style of their photography.

As part of their brand makeover, a professional graphic designer created a new look and feel for their brand that reflected their photography style. But that new logo needed to be reflected every place a potential client came into contact with Troutman Photography so PhotoBiz provided them with a new FLASH+ Portfolio Site with an HTML Mirror, plus a mobile mirror. And the results have been incredible.

If your business looks different every time a client sees you (i.e., your style, signage, marketing pieces versus website, look, personality), you’re making it very hard for them to trust you. And without trust, it’s hard for a client to fall in love with your brand or even refer you to their friends. So what’s to stop them from going next door for the cheaper products of your competitors?  Your brand – when it’s strong – can keep your clients loyal and referring you.

Your brand lays the foundation for attracting the right clients and increasing the results of your marketing efforts. Your fantastic, reliable brand will put you ahead of the competition, whether the competition looks like a huge corporation or the brand-challenged mom-and-pop next door.

Your brand is worth more to the long-term success of your company than most other things. Don’t hand it off just because you don’t know how to manage it. You have the ability, unlike shoot and burn photographers who are focused on volume, to directly oversee the management of your identity and reputation with every single impression. From your logo design to your business card, price menus, marketing materials and website, the bottom line is, your identity and brand are worth protecting and investing in.

I’ll also be doing a webinar with PhotoBiz next week on Tuesday, January 8 at 2 PM EST, so make sure to tune in and learn How to Create Value for Your Photography So You Can Charge What You’re Worth.

Creating a successful sales strategy is no easy task. It takes lots of planning, practice, and then the inevitable feedback loop from your clients. However, one this is for sure, without a sales process, your sales are going to leave a lot to be desired for both you and your bank account.

When putting together a sales strategy, there are two types of strategies to consider. One for in-studio selling coupled with an online presence for additional sales from family members. Your second strategy is used for strictly online sales with clients who are from out of town or used because you do not have a studio meeting space. No matter what you decide to do, there needs to be some thought before you start selling images.

If opting for an in-studio approach, we use PhotoBiz for our online web solution. Its quick, easy, and our clients love it. We walk the client through their images in our studio and then offer the web gallery as an add-on so that they can share their images with friends and family. This will almost always drive additional sales. One thing I love about the PhotoBiz solution is it gives us the ability to have various pricing tied to the client and the package they chose in our studio.

If you opt for a pure online sales strategy, PhotoBiz again provides a strong solution. The website is professional and easy-to-use for our clients. It offers the ability for us to select our featured images. The featured image comes in handy when the client logs in to see their pictures, this section highlights what I refer to as our “photographer’s select” images. We explain to the client – these are the images that we felt would look best in your home as art work. In addition, it provides the ability for a client to zoom in to the image to check expressions and the finer details of the image.

To learn more about our online sales strategy, watch this free online photography training webinar at www.behindtheshutter.com.

We all know it’s important to have a color palette on your website that is pleasing to the eye. But how many of you know how important color really is to your business? The colors you choose for your company logo and your website affect the overall experience your customers have when they see your products or services. Therefore, I encourage you to watch our latest webinar Color Theory and Design, and follow these guidelines when developing a color scheme or branding for your company.

1. Research colors that convey the value of your company

Different colors evoke different emotions. For example, if you are a baby photographer pastels are a great choice. However, if you own a hair salon, you may want to go with more neutral colors like gray or tan. Do some research and see what colors other companies in your same industry are using.

2. Go against the grain

After you have done some research, figure out how you can set yourself apart from the other companies in your industry. If everyone else is using blues and greens, try going for purple! Just be sure not to stray too far away from the norm though. For example, if you are a children’s clothing store, you may not want a fire red, black and dark grey color scheme. This doesn’t exactly convey playfulness and happiness when it comes to children.

3. Use your colors wisely

There are so many shades of colors you can choose from when deciding your color scheme. 

Try mixing various shades of primary and secondary colors to see what you like. Also, try throwing in some neutral tones too. You can make just about any color combination look great by just picking out the correct shades.

4. Be consistent

Make sure you are using the same color scheme throughout your business. This means you should use the same color palette for your website, logo, business cards, etc. Nothing is more confusing than seeing a different logo or website design and/or color scheme every week. Small subtle changes are good for keeping things fresh, but if you are redesigning something within your company too often, you won’t be able to maintain a brand identity.