So, What’s the Competition Up to Anyway?

One day I decided to check out a local photography studio and see what they offered, what their studio looked like, how they marketed to potential clients, etc.

I walked downstairs to the basement and immediately noticed it was cold, dark and small. Cold in the Fahrenheit sense. It was very claustrophobic, not even remotely close to “homey” or “fuzzy warm”, and their studio was behind a curtain with not much room with lots of clutter.

There was one woman at the studio who greeted me.  I told her I was just walking around, checking out all the shops in the plaza since I had never been there before despite my living here the past year and a half. (Note to self: opportunity to talk more and with and engage the client)

She immediately started talking about herself, asked if I was interested in having any family photos, asked if I was interested in a bridal show (WHAT???), if I had any pets, if I had any services (because they were doing an upcoming bridal show in the area and had a booth and were looking for other people to share the table), told me she had a Bachelor’s Degree in Photography from a specific college in California, moved to the area with her husband, had 2 kids, was from Vancouver, had just turned the heater on, apologized for the floor having salt on it – in other words – ALL OVER THE PLACE except for being focused on me…

All in the span of 10-15 minutes. She never even stayed on one topic but rattled off one thing after another after another.

I took mental notes and of what not to do and how she was making me feel as a prospective client. Now you may be thinking,  Audrey, you just told her you were only checking out her studio amongst the other stores. You’d be right, except that I have the choice to skip stores and I chose to visit hers. I still ended up there.
Now I asked her a few questions to get to know more about her (practicing my skills as a marketer and I even asked her the price of a couple of canvases and showed interest –hit over the head buying cue. When I asked her how much (opportunity for her to learn more about me) she simply answered (for 2 different sizes I was looking at), that they were “custom made” and she’d “have to look them (the prices) up in the book”.

Doht!

Well duh, at least look them up in the book and quote the price to me. (Sorry but this lady is never going to get business if she continues in this manner).

She did find out I had dogs (only because I deliberately volunteered this information to see what she would do with it and where she’d take the conversation) and she told me to bring them in for a photo. Didn’t ask, just told me to bring them in and get a photo done. And when I made an objection – which is what you want so you can address client’s fears and figure out if you can work with the client – that my dogs would never behave and be too stressed out to come to the studio – she just continued to say I should bring them in. She could have said one of her unique factors was that she works all the time with pets or in this case, with dogs, in the studio and knows how to get them to be calm.

Nope. She continued to look for a quick sale by blanketing me with a list of potential reasons of why I might come in and have a portrait done by them.

Suffice it to say, the only thing she knew about me was that I had dogs, not how many, not what kinds, not how old – just dogs.

And that conversation lasted about 15 seconds.

I threw her a bone and she totally missed it – no pun intended. Oh, but she did manage to sell me a $1 raffle ticket (tried to sell me $6.00 for more chances) for a local high school in my state (Vermont – her studio is in New Hampshire) for a chance to win some cash.

Oh boy, that’s the most exciting thing I’ve heard so far. I get something for a buck.

I gave her a buck. Too bad it had nothing to do with her business.

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Now on the flip side:

After that experience, I stopped at my local post office to pick up my mail. I noticed a man in a truck with a beautiful Bassett Hound, his truck clearly was in an accident on the back right passenger side because the bumper was ripped up. But I noticed this Bassett Hound and thought, “If this man is still out there in one minute when I come back, I’m going to approach him for my pet project.”

He was still out there, I knocked on his window, complimented his dog, petted his dog, found out the dog’s name and the owner’s name, found out he is local and told him I was a local photographer working on a pet project, etc, and if he was interested I’d give him my info so we could talk more and set up a time to photograph his dog in his home.

The guy was beaming from ear to ear and so proud of his dog and how I loved the dog (I really did or I would not have bothered him). As I went in to get my mail I prayed my business cards came in. They did not. He asked me for a business card.

Darn.

I wrote on a piece of paper my name, telephone # and website so he could check me out as being legitimate.

Ask them questions and more questions to find out what they want and what their motivating factor is for wanting a portrait created. And then ask them more questions after that until they think “Wow, she does care and is listening to my wants and needs. I really like her. Let’s do this.”

Unfortunately there are too many stories of businesses who practice no people skills or have ineffective methods – or Don’t be the woman described in the first story – showing outright desperation and grasping at anything I might want a photograph of . You must stay focused on what’s important – the customer.

Always listen for the opening, the chance to get them to talk more and open up. They will give you plenty of opportunities as I purposefully gave that woman many in the 15 minutes I was there. But she was talking so much about herself and everything else that I didn’t care she had a Bachelors in photography – which, by the way, she practically shouted out to me as I walked into the other room and gave me all her credentials of having gone to school for 7 years, oh and by the way, she does commercial photography and did I have a business and any products I want photographed. All desperation speaking.

Yikes. I can make my head spin without any help from someone I am potentially going to pay, thank you very much.





Bottom Line: You are not in the photography business – you are in the PEOPLE business, the marketing business and you must treat it as such to develop those relationships and get to know your clients, their details and let them do all the talking. In the next 7 days, think like a marketer. Bring a pen and paper with you and as you patron various businesses, write down and take notes of what you like and don’t like. What would you change if it were your business? Then write down under each entry what you would do to improve client relations to make them feel more like a VIP in your presence.

Time Commitment: Tape to your bathroom mirror or on your computer –  “It’s never about me. It’s ALWAYS about the client.” What steps do I need to take to show my clients they are my most important asset? Sometimes you need to be the outsider looking in to see what’s really going on.

Photo Credits:
Photographer: Tony Dowson