← Book More Photography Clients Podcast | Photography Business, Photography Leads, Marketing
Book More Photography Clients Podcast | Photography Business, Photography Leads, Marketing
How to Double Your Bookings Without Lowering Your Prices or Living on Social Media
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Welcome to the Book More Clients Photography Podcast. You can stop spending hours on Google and YouTube because you just found your number one resource for growing a profitable and sustainable photography business. Hi, I'm Brooke Jefferson. I'm a believer wife, mama to two and Oklahoma family photographer. I left the classroom in 2018 to pursue my photography career full time. Now I'm here to help you do the same. In this podcast we're covering the most asked about topics including pricing, marketing, client experience and all things systems and workflows. You won't find any fluff or BS here. Just tried and true strategy. Are you ready? Grab your kids some snacks and charge those camera batteries. It's time to jump in. Foreign Last week's episode we had a little bit of a tough love conversation and we were really getting to the root of the reason that you feel stuck in your photography business. Why you don't have the bookings that you want and why your bank account doesn't reflect the goals that you have for yourself. And today I want to dive into what you can actually do about it. I want to walk you through how to double your bookings without dropping your prices or feeling like you have to live on social media when photographers experience slow bookings. There are two actions that I see take place. The first is that they panic and drop their prices, maybe run a sale, maybe come up with the mini session idea and and the second thing I see is that they go in full overdrive mode on social media and they start coming up with all these different ideas and promoting a bunch of different types of sessions. That is not going to solve your problem. It might feel productive, it might give you a quick win, but it is not going to create long term sustainability or profitability in your photography business. And so that is what we are going to cover today is okay. Brooke, I realize that I have some of the problems that we talked about in last week's episode and I do want to book more clients and I see that there's room for improvement. But how do I actually do this? So if you're ready, let's dive in. When you decide to drop your prices in panic mode because you're slow, because it's been months since you've seen a booking or weeks since you've had an inquiry, I've got to encourage you that lowering your prices is simply not the answer. And I don't want you to. I don't want you to rely on this strategy anymore because every time you drop your prices you are having to start all over building clientele when you drop your prices, you are attracting the wrong clients. You're attracting people that don't want to pay you very much for what you do. You're devaluing your work, you're devaluing your talent, and, of course, your time. And I don't want you to do this because this is the quickest way for you to experience burnout. And when you are in a burnout mode and state of mind, it makes you want to quit your business. Ask me how I know. I have been there time and time again, and you. I just dropping your prices, guys, is not the answer. I want to tell you a personal story. This is like, true, true story here. I went from being a brand new, on the scene, $50photographer back in, let's see, 2014, I believe. Yes, 2014. And that only lasted me so long because what I realized was that I was burning myself out. I was not being valued. I was not really even making any money. Let's be honest. It was almost like people were just tipping me to take their photos. And then I had this moment of realization that, oh, this, this is not going to work. Like, if I want to make real money from this, and if I want to create the photography work and have these amazing clients that are truly my dream clients, I'm gonna have to raise the bar. And so part of that was tripling and then quadrupling, and then I'm not a math wizard. But eventually, you know, we're going up hundreds and hundreds of dollars from where I started, and I had to learn how to attract a whole new caliber of clientele. And that's exactly what I did. I. I had to learn. Okay, well, how do I go from attracting the $50 client to the $400 client to the $2,000 client? Right? How. What does that look like? And so I want to paint a clear picture of what it is and what it's not. When it comes to your pricing, first, you have got to get into the mindset that your goal is not for you to be affordable to everyone. We have all seen the Facebook group post and the. I'm looking for a photographer that doesn't charge an arm and a leg. Those are not your people. Okay? Everyone is entitled to their budget, but people are going to learn very quickly that when they don't want to pay a lot, they're not going to get a lot. And you have to let people make that mistake on their own. Let them. Let them, you know, live and learn. Because the number one thing that I see that Happens is I will get inquiries that will tell me, oh my gosh, you're out of my budget. But your work is so beautiful. You know, it's nothing against you, I just can't pay that. And I'm like, I totally understand, like having a budget. I hope to work with you guys in the future, I kid you not. One, two, and sometimes three years later, guess who is back knocking on my door because they were burned or they didn't have the experience they wanted, or they realized that when they paid X amount to a cheap photographer, it was nothing compared to what they could get if they paid me to do their pictures. And that's not to say that I'm the best photographer. I don't know how many times I've said on this podcast, I am not. I am not the most talented, I am not the most skilled. I still fumble my way around in Photoshop when I need to, you know, do something extra on top of my wife room edits. But you know what I have. I know how to run a business. I know how to communicate with people. I know how to put my heart and soul into it. And I'm a, you know, I'm a pretty good photographer. I don't have to be the best. I just have to give an amazing service that makes them want to use me again and again. And so moral of that story is that you can go from being a cheap photographer and attracting cheap clientele to actually getting paid really good money and working with the best clients on earth. It is totally possible for you and you can, you can go from one spectrum to the other. And if anything, I just hope that this is that moment for you that I had for myself back in my one to two years of business. Someone else painted me this picture that. You know what, Photography doesn't have to be this thing on the side. It can be the thing if you want it to be the thing. And so I've experienced doing all of this. And so if this is your light bulb moment, I'm honored. I'm honored that you just had that moment for yourself and that now your eyes are opened and you feel like you have fire under your feet and you're ready to go. That's what I hope for you. You are not going to be affordable to everyone. And that is okay. So when you are experiencing lower bookings, do not lower your prices. Don't throw up a flash sale, don't throw up a mini session just because you're in panic mode and you really want to make money. That is the worst thing that you can do for your business. Don't lower your prices. That is a short term fix and it's going to create long term problems for you. So don't lower your prices. All right, we have beat that horse. All right, next, let's talk about why the second action is not your answer either. When you panic and you immediately run to social media and now you are just posting to and you're putting bait out there for anybody to take. You know, on Monday you're talking about seniors. On Tuesday you're talking about families. On Wednesday you're running that flash sale. On Thursday, you now have a mini session. No posting more and also posting crazy like that is not going to equal more bookings. There was no strategy, there was no foundation there. There was nothing but panic and you just throwing things out into the atmosphere, hoping somebody will latch onto it. This is not to shame you. We have all done this. Okay, if you're not willing to admit that you have done this, then we got some work to do because we all have panicked posted. I'm just being honest with you. Even I have done this. You just, you get scared and you throw something up because you're like, oh my gosh, like, what does this say about me? Am I not a good enough photographer? And so that is not the answer either. Social media is also just one channel. It is not a strategy all by itself. You need to be showing up in way more places than just social media and definitely don't be panic posting. So if you are making those two actions right, you're making these two mistakes. All I'm doing is I'm giving you a hug and I'm telling you that there is a better way. And I hope that you will no longer do these two things, but that you will also have clarity at the end of this as well. So what actually gets you bookings? It's gonna come down to three things. And I've designed this to kind of be like, like a quiz style for you. Because it's one thing for me to just list the three things and tell you about it, it's another for me to ask you questions that you'll immediately know in your gut if it's a yes or a no or a wow, I really need to work on this. Or a, I feel really good in this area. And so I wanted it to be very like interactive and quiz style for you. And so there's going to be questions in each of these sections because I want you to not just listen to me not just multitask by listening to my episode. I want you to really listen. So if you're doing laundry or whatever, go grab a notebook. If you're driving, I want you to really tune in and hear me here so that you'll know exactly what you need. Okay? It comes down to these three things we're going to talk about. Visibility, bookability, and consistency. These are the three things we're talking about, so let's talk about visibility. If someone in your area searched for a photographer right now, would they find you? So ask yourself, if someone was searching right now in my area for what I do, would they find me? If you hesitated or you said no, then I want you to highlight visibility. Visibility has nothing to do with how talented you are or how popular you are or anything like that. It just means, do enough people know about you? And if the answer is no, we can totally fix this problem. You really can. Most photographers that are not booking enough, it comes down to this one right here. It's visibility. So I expect you're probably going to say, yeah, I need to. I need to write down visibility. Second one is bookability. If someone landed on your website or your Instagram right now, would it be obvious how they can book you and why they should? So one more time. If someone landed on my website or Instagram right now, would it be obvious how to book me and why they should? If your answer is no or I'm not sure, then you probably have a bookability problem, which we'll. We'll definitely dive deep into in just a second. Being found means nothing if someone can land on your stuff, but they have no idea what to do next, or if they land on it and they go running in the other direction. Right. You can be really visible and have a really big following on Instagram or have a lot of website traffic, but if people are not converting, you have a book. A book ability is what I'm calling it a bookability problem. You have a booking problem, also known as a conversion problem. And then the third one is consistency. Are you showing up regularly enough that your ideal client sees you more than once before they decide to book? So are you showing up regularly enough so that when your ideal client sees you, they're seeing you over and over and over again, and that is helping them decide to book you? If you're posting sporadically or you're going silent in busier seasons, you likely have a consistency problem. I'm. I literally am feeling this one right now, and I'm thankful that I have 12 years under my belt to where I have built a lot of momentum, a lot of word of mouth, a lot of marketing strategies in other ways. And I will be honest, I am just. I'm lucky. And also, unfortunately, in a season where there's going to be times when social media, for me, I just have to press pause. And here's really where this comes down to. As a side note, just so you understand that I'm never going to coach you to do something that I'm not doing myself. But that's the thing. The reason that my photography business sometimes gets a little quiet is because I am so invested into your marketing and coaching the photographers in both of my programs that I. I literally will hit pause because they're more of a priority to me than me posting on my social media. Because I am, like I said, I am lucky enough. I worked really hard to where I'm still like, marketing my business six other ways. It's just that sometimes social media takes a hit for me. And that's what I want to teach you. I want to teach you how to. To do this. So if you feel like people rarely book the first time they see you, or you're just not even hearing inquiries, or, you know, you're not showing up enough in more than just social media, but you're just not showing up marketing in general, then you have a consistency problem that we have to deal with. So can you change these things? Absolutely. Do all three of these things work together? Yes, they do and yes, they should. They are all fixable. This is exactly what we touch on all the way in depth, holding nothing back in both the membership, the market, like a tog membership, and in my fully booked method. And so I, I like to plug these. I know you guys are like, oh, we know, we get it. But I like to just remind you that I do have the full A to Z solution available for you outside of this podcast. This podcast is absolutely meant for me to help you, but I can only go so far on the free stuff to where eventually you're gonna have to put your money where your mouth is, right, and invest in yourself. And I have invested thousands upon thousands of dollars in my own business. So I feel completely okay with telling you this. I do, because I have. I have done this every year. I invest in something. So that way I am always on my game. I'm always being pushed to be the best version of myself. So now let's get into visibility, bookability and consistency before we round all of this out. So now you know the Three factors that help you double your bookings. And now you know which one of those probably the number one one that you need to work on. Right, we're going to talk about those. So what is visibility? Visibility looks like your website working for you through SEO. It looks like Google putting you on page one or page two. When people type in keywords or that SEO search terms that they're looking for and you pop up. That's, that's one way of visibility. It looks like you showing up in your community, right? You actually being someone in your community that people know and have a relationship with. It looks like email marketing. It looks like showing up on social media. Visibility is where you've got multiple platforms, multiple strategies that are pushing you in front of people's eyeballs. That's all that it is. Visibility can happen in multiple ways that don't require you to live on social media. 24, 7. So social media is important, but it is not the end all, be all. And if you don't start diversifying the way that you're showing up and you're only relying on social media or maybe one other marketing channel, all you're doing is just leaving the bookings on the table for bookability. This is when they find you, do they actually book you? So this part is one that a lot of us, we just skip over. We just don't even think about. We're so busy coming up with the best reel to throw up on Instagram that we're not even thinking about, okay, is this actually going to convert somebody? And if they do like that reel, and if I do somehow go viral, are people going to end up booking me? And this is the piece that I see that gets skipped over. Is your website clear? Is it professional and is it easy to navigate? Do you have call to action buttons on it? Are you confident that if someone came to your website, they found you from Google or wherever it was that they would be able to book you? Is your pricing easy to understand? Does it make sense and is it going to be sustainable in your market? Does your inquiry process feel seamless or does it feel clunky? Are you recreating that wheel over and over and over again? Do you have email templates to help you get back to somebody? Do you have automated workflows to where nobody has to guess if their contact form was submitted? What does that inquiry process look like? Do you know how to follow up with people? Do you have testimonials and social proof visible on multiple marketing channels so that people can see that not only do you call yourself a great photographer, but that other people do, too. That's all bookability. You can be the most visible photographer on the Internet and you still won't book people if this piece is broken, Right? It's one thing for people to say you do beautiful work. It's another to say you do beautiful work and you're the photographer for us. Book me today. Right? Completely different. Completely different. And the last one is consistency. Who is tired of hearing this word back in the day? I don't. I don't know how long you've been listening to this podcast, but it's been around for a really, really long time. Years and years. And there was one point when I think for about a year or two, I actually had used some of my branding and messaging to incorporate whiskey, just because I've always been like a whiskey girl. And it's just so funny hearing this come out of my mouth because guys, I like, barely drink anymore. You literally, special occasions are like one drink out at dinner when my husband and I go on a date, right? Like, it's just. It just does not happen anymore. But I bring this because I always want to joke every time I say consistency. Take a shot. Because I know that I say it all the time and. But this is the key to everything in life. Any goal you have, what do you think it takes? It takes consistency. My workout goals, they take consistency. So when I skip three days, I can't be mad, you know, I can't be mad that the workout's not working because it's me that chose not to work. Right? Same thing. When it comes to your bookings, you've got to be consistent. It's small, consistent actions that are repeated over time that are going to equal you doubling your bookings. Bookings, the photographers who stay fully booked, they're. It's not that they're doing anything super flashy. There's no secret. They're literally showing up multiple days in a row for we multiple weeks in a row that. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's over and it's over and it's over again. They are committed to showing up to their business. Consistency builds trust, and trust is what books you clients. That's exactly what it takes. So what does that look like in real life? Think about something outside of your business that you have a goal. Is it paying off debt? What is that going to take? It's going to take consistency to your budget, to paying off your debt, to making payments, to saying no to things that you want in the moment, but that are not going to help you get to your goal. Use practical real life examples to give yourself analogies for what it's going to take in your business. If you truly want to make X amount of dollars this year in your photography business, what is it going to take? What is it going to take? You don't have to be perfect. That's not what consistency is. It doesn't mean you can't take a day off. It doesn't mean you have to do this 365 days a year. I just want you to show up on a regular basis and commit to it. No excuses. So again, the three things that are going to get you more bookings, visibility, bookability and consistency. You don't need to lower your prices, especially when you're in a panic and you don't need to go throw up random panic posts on social media. Those are not the answer when you are slow. You need a smarter strategy and you need the dedication to stick with it. I'm not yelling at you. I'm saying all of this in love. I'm literally pulling up a mirror and I'm saying, here it is, right? It's, it's not. Don't, don't go follow all the people who tell you how to go viral. That is not going to help you in this industry. What's going to help you in this industry is hearing the, the real strategy on how it works, right? And so I'm holding up a mirror and I'm showing you, here's maybe some of the mistakes that you're making and here is the formula for you to actually get past that and, and build it the right way. Book those sessions the right way. Next week we're going to talk about how to market your business, even if you genuinely hate marketing. And I promise you, within the first five minutes of that episode, you're gonna hear something that will change the way you market your business forever. I promise you it is going to be one of those moments where you go, wow, I wish I would have heard this five years ago. So I'm so excited for you to listen to that next week. If you are like, yes, yes, and amen to everything that was said today, I'm ready for the strategy. I don't want to mess around anymore. I have two programs for you to choose from and I'm just going to tell you about them really quickly. The first one is called the fully booked method. This is specifically for the photographer that wants literally the A to Z strategy. On how to build a profitable and sustainable photography business and see their bookings double in 90 days. This is my whole system. This used to be a lot of the strategy that I taught in my blueprint program. I retired that out and now I have the fully booked method. You do get weekly coaching with me via email. And so it's, it's flexibility in your own time, but also you're submitting something to me every week. Every time you complete a module, you're filling out a form and then I'm coming in and I'm giving you feedback. Sometimes it's through video and sometimes it's through email. So that is the fully booked method. The other one is the market, like a tog membership and this is specifically for you. If you feel like marketing and messaging are your number one hang ups, then this is the membership you want to get into because I am making your marketing every month easier. We're giving you content prompts or giving you email templates. I'm giving you bonus trainings where I'm actually teaching marketing strategy to you. In March, I have already released two bonus trainings which is so so and so. If you're listening to this in real time, that is available to you when you join. So come check it out. Both of those can you can find both of those programs. Brookejefferson.com and also I've got them linked in the show notes for you. All right, get ready for next week's episode and I will catch you on the next one. Sam.