The Business of Photography

From a post on a local photography forum, I saw this piece of advice: “Tap your “network” Mom, Dad, cousin, classmates etc. We live in a country that’s it’s who you know and not what you know anyway. *sigh*”

I beg to disagree with the above statement, because I believe that sales leads can come from “cold knocking.”

Before graduating from college, I sold encyclopedias. We were told NOT to call on relatives or friends but to do “cold knocking” which meant going door to door, knocking on the doors of people we did not know. Because it can be very discouraging walking the streets, knocking and being turned away, (some people can be very cold-hearted toward salespeople), we were always reminded by our managers to pick ourselves up after each rejection and to continue knocking.

When my husband, John, and I started our little photography business, we did not know anybody. Although he’s Chinese, he was not connected with the Chinese community. Because I went to U.P. and did not join any sororities, I did not have a “network” of college friends. So I did what I had learned before – I did some “cold knocking.” I picked up the Yellow Pages and started calling ad agencies. I told them that we were interested to do advertising photography and may I present our portfolio to them?

I knocked on many, many doors. Some were receptive and some were not. One agency took seven years to return my call, but they are one of our best clients now. I always trusted in the advice I received at my first sales job to work hard to improve the ratio – to bring down the number of rejections, but to accept that rejections were part of the game – that every rejection brought us closer to the sale. I also learned this from Tom Hopkins (Official Guide to Success) who welcomed every rejection because they brought him closer to his success. 1, 2, 3, …96, 97, 98, 99.. hurray! here comes the 100th. Finally, a sale!

Thirty four years later, our business has grown, we have our regular clientele but we still do cold knocking. I believe that there are many prospective clients who need to hear about us, but if we don’t initiate the call, how would we ever meet? We have to seek them out, walk the street, so to speak. We continue to pick up the phone book, buy trade directories, join online fora, print business cards and give them away.

Zig Ziglar (author of various books on selling) said he would give himself a quota of 20 cards a day to give away. At the end of one particular day, he was about to go home. He loaded gas and saw two cards still in his wallet. So he handed them to the gasoline attendant and requested him to give his cards to two customers of the gasoline station who look like they needed new cars. The following week, he got a call from someone who said he received Ziglar’s card from the gas boy. He made a sale.

Once I tried doing that. I was at the Enterprise and saw one food stall that looked like they could use better photos. I bought my lunch there and offered my card to the cashier, and said, “if you need good photos of your food, please ask the owner to give us a call.” She said, “Mam, si boss po ang nagshoot nito.” (“Mam, my boss did the photos.”) When I was no longer within hearing distance, I gave out a sigh, and told myself, “you can’t win them all” and counted “no. 99.”

Could a new client be waiting for me? Could he be just one cold call away? There is only one way to find out. Knock, knock…

1. Don’t jump in. Try to determine clients’ budgets – by asking questions either directly or indirectly. For example, if you are a wedding photographer, knowing where the wedding ceremony and reception would be held and how many guests they are expecting can give you a hint as to how much you can charge. In advertising, ask about usages. if it’s a big campaign, then they may have a big budget for print photography. Or, if the talent is a big movie personality or an imported talent, then your fee should at least be higher than your usual. Understand requirements fully before submitting quotes. Discourage giving quotations on the phone.
2. Learn to negotiate. Sometimes, you just really need to make clients realize your unique value as a photographer. What can you offer that nobody else can?
3. Know your breakeven costs, or a feel for it. Set your targets.
4. When clients’ budgets are way too low, you must be willing to walk away from a job. Keep your self-respect, but keep the door open. They may want to come back to you if they were not satisfied with their cheaper photographer.
5. If you lost a bid, don’t jump into the conclusion that the other guy underbidded. It might be your photography or you whom they don’t like.
6. When you lose, remember that you win some, you lose some. Move on.
7. “If you are winning all the bids, then your pricing is too low.”
8. “A low-priced job is better than nothing” is not correct. You can use your time to learn better photography, marketing, or negotiation techniques.
9. If you need to lower your prices, write your disclaimers to indicate that this is a special offer, and should not be used as basis for future jobs.
10. I hope you never get desperate, but if you are ever, match, don’t underbid your competitor’s.
11. If you need to lower prices or give discounts, see what concessions you can get – more prompt payment, fewer set ups to shoot, fewer prints or CDs to submit, other expenses can be charged to client.
12. Know how your competitors are pricing. You don’t need to follow their pricing, you just need to know and be guided by them. Don’t ask your clients for your competitors’ pricing – they have a vested interest to keep it down. If you client is using another photographer’s quotation for leverage, ask nicely for proof – a rate sheet or cost estimate bid so you can compare not just the bottom line, but all the elements of the bid. Maybe you’re not comparing apples and oranges.
13. Study your billings – check your highest, average and lowest billings. Aim to raise them. Aim to break records. Aim to be better this month than last month. Better this year than last year. Grow your clients’ business with you, totals and single project billing. Aim to break records for total billings, for total collections, percentage of collections to billings, highest single billing etc.

14. Make sure you offer good value for the prices that you quote.