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All right, my friends, welcome to the last episode in our Summer Essentials series. I hope you have enjoyed this walk down memory lane as much as I have. Today's episode is the oldest that I've shared. It goes all the way back to 2021, but I saved this one for last because it might be the one that's held up the best. The premise of this episode is simple when it comes to your business model, your pricing, your offers, your client experience. Most clients don't actually know what they want, and that isn't a criticism. It's just the truth that I have learned over many years of doing this. And that truth presents you with a golden opportunity. So if you have ever found yourself changing a package because a client tells you they just want digitals, or taking on an extended family session, even though you hate extended family sessions or any of the other things that we do because we feel like we have to, you know, give the people what they want, this episode is going to give you something important to think about.
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Welcome to this Can't Be that Hard. My name is Annemie Tonkin and I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it and I can show you how.
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I talk to a lot of photographers who say that they would love to sell products, but their clients just don't want products. Right? They only want digital files. Or I talk to photographers who are like, ugh, I hate doing mini sessions, but my clients love mini sessions. They always buy them, so I do them. Or photographers who are like, you know what, I'm so into documentary photography. That's really what I want to do. But everybody in my town wants posed photos, so that's what I end up doing a lot of. And I get it. When someone's waving money in your face, it is really hard not to give them what they want. And while it's good business to give people what they want, it's great business to show them what they need. All right, I am going to date myself here, but if you know, when I got my first cell phone, I was actually fresh out of college. My children would die if I made them wait that long. But I had just moved to New York and I got one of those clamshell style silver sprayed Samsung flip phones phone numbers and I gotta tell you, I felt cool as hell Walking around the West Village carrying my fancy cell phone. And so this was back in 2001, and I distinctly remember noticing one day that there was this little envelope icon on my very small screen and I was like, huh, I wonder what that is. And that little text message notification sat on my phone for about six, six months before I heard what text messaging was and realized like, oh, I can click on this button here and it'll open it up. And I had this six month old message from my friend Todd. So this is the time period that we're talking about. Anyway, so I had that phone for a while. And I know that because I remember when the Razr, the Motorola Razr came out a few years later, and that was the first time since I had gotten my Samsung that I had like phone envy about somebody else's phone. Because those little razors, the first generation razors, were super cool. And if you, Again, if I've got anybody who is around at that point listening, and I know I do, you, you'll remember, like they came in all these fun colors. It was super thin. When you flipped it open, this like cool blue light came on the inside. It was a, it was a snazzy little phone at the time. So why am I talking about the phone that I had 20 years ago? Right? Because if you had asked me in 2001 or, you know, 2003 or whenever the RAZR came out, what features I would like in the next phone that I purchased when I was ready to upgrade from my Samsung, if you had done market research with me, I would have told you that, you know, maybe I would like a shorter antenna because that Samsung had one of those extendable kind of wire looking antennas. Or maybe I would have asked for better reception. Or I would certainly after seeing the razor, I would have been like, ooh, I would like it to be thinner and I would like to have color options like the razr. But you know what I wouldn't have asked for? I wouldn't have asked for access to the Internet in the palm of my hand. I wouldn't have had a clue that maybe I could ask for maps on my phone that would take me anywhere I needed to go. And God knows I wouldn't have asked for a camera that was smaller and better than any that I had used at that point. The thing is, I didn't even know that those things would one day be possible. And nobody did, I guess. But if the designers at Apple had called me on my flip phone and asked me about the features that I wanted and then focused on delivering what I said I wanted, what I thought I wanted. We would all be carrying around colorful flip phones that require 1000 button pushes to write a 10 word text message. And here's the thing, in your job as a photographer, you are like the designer at Apple and your customers or your potential customers are walking around with their Samsung flip phones. Don't get me wrong, like I said before, it is important to listen to your customers and to truly sort of go deep with them about what it is that they are trying to solve when you're working for them or what pain points they are trying to address by hiring a photographer. The trick though is not to let what they think they want get in the way of you blowing their minds with what's possible, how you can solve problems that they didn't even really realize they had. So I wanted to give you kind of a practical approach, as I like to do, to helping your clients move past what they think they want into what it is that you can offer. The sort of secret sauce that makes your business stand out that will eventually get you a following of loyal ideal clients who are, you know, demanding exactly what you want to give to them. So step one is to only show what you want to sell. Obviously that's not my saying, it's not my idea. It's basically sales and Marketing 101. But I see photographers break this rule all the time. If you're a documentary photographer or a would be wishful documentary photographer, but you are populating your Instagram feed and your website with photos of, you know, families smiling at the camera. Or if you're a wedding photographer and you want to be more documentary, but you're still posting photos of somebody's ring arranged just so you're shooting yourself in the foot, you are attracting future clients who want those kinds of photos. They want the family smiling at the camera. They want, you know, the flat lay of their stationery which did not just randomly fall that way in that pretty light, right? And if you are a photographer who currently is selling mostly or entirely digital files and you really want to get into selling products, you need to show people those products. You need to purchase some of those products and photograph them, you need to gift an ideal client of yours with a product and you know, like, let's say it's a frame and you go to their house and you help them hang it and then you photograph it in their house and talk about that experience and get them to talk about how much like they had no idea the difference between what you were able to provide them versus what they were trying to order for themselves before. Or, you know, even better, if you have a client, like we all do, who you delivered digital files to, and that client never did anything with the digital files they thought they were going to, but they didn't, and you interview them and get some like wording or if you did like a video interview or like an Instagram Live where you chatted with one of your clients, like all of those things are great ways to have the conversation with your potential clients about why they should want what it is that you want to sell. Like establish a little bit of FOMO or build that desire. So step one, only show what you want to sell. Step two is an oldie but a goodie. And that is to make sure that you are getting on the phone with your prospective clients. Now, when I say get on the phone, I mean you can get on the phone. You can get on a zoom call. I know some of my students have said that they prefer to pre record a video, but in each case you are at least having a more personal kind of a conversation. I prefer a live call of video or audio call because I think that it gives you more of an opportunity to listen, obviously than a video that you make for someone. But in one way or the other, it is more personal. The benefits to a call, and my simple sales students know all about my obsession with this, but the benefits to the call are just huge. So number one, you get to listen, you get to hear what someone is saying and then you can sort of, the better you get at these calls, the better you are able to derive what it is that they say they want versus what it is that they really want. You can ask those kinds of questions to dive deeper into why they want what they say they want. You know, if somebody says, I just want all the digital files because I'm about to move from New York City to Tokyo, that's a different objection than somebody who is just trying to cut financial corners by, you know, they think that, oh, it'll be cheaper if I just get digital files and don't get myself stuck buying products from someone. Right? That's a different conversation. And you can't have that conversation if somebody's just getting. If you're just sending a price list to somebody in an email so you can listen and then you can educate. So based on what they're saying, based on what their pain points are, you can start to talk about why your method or your process or Your policy or whatever it is going to help solve that problem for them. It's going to ease that pain point for them. And in so doing, you are going to start to show value. When someone starts to believe that they. That you are capable of solving their problem and that you are, what you're offering is going to exactly fulfill what it is that they're hoping for. Their budget gets a lot softer. They stop comparing what you're offering with what Susie Q. Down the street is offering, because you have just demonstrated that what you are offering is valuable in a specific way. And then at the end of that call or throughout that call, you're able to address their objections. Now, not everybody is going to come out and say on the phone, these are my objections. You can ask, you know, in a soft way like, hey, does that sound good? And then if they say yes, they may or may not have any objections, but they also might say, well, it does sound good. But, you know, does this mean that X, Y and Z. And when they go a little bit deeper, what you're getting are their objections. And when you're on the phone, again, unlike an email that's giving you an in, you have the ability to continue to have that conversation with them. Now, as an aside, you've probably heard me talk about phone calls before. If you have taken my Simple Sales masterclass, I go into a little bit more detail about that. If you haven't taken the Simple Sales masterclass, ladies and gentlemen, if you're not familiar with how Simple Sales works, that phone call is sort of the first step of a bigger thing. And I would highly encourage you to go. The masterclass is free. You just go over to thiscan'tbethard.com simple and sign up. It comes directly to your inbox. It's about an hour and a half and it's got tons of great info in there. So I highly encourage you to take that, especially if you haven't heard me talk about phone calls before or if you're not familiar with simple sales. But step number one, only show what you wanna sell. Step number two, get on the phone with all of your prospective clients so that you can listen, educate, show value, and address their objections. And then step three is the hardest part, and that is to keep your eyes on the prize. So, you know, if you have taken the time to talk to a potential client and educate them and they continue to say, that's not what I want, you know, you're describing documentary photography and why you love it and why it captures the essence of a family and versus, you know, you're capturing who they are instead of what they look like and all that sort of stuff. And you've given them all that language and they're still saying, yeah, I want pictures where we're all smiling and we look good. And also, can you do head swaps? If somebody doesn't look right, that's not your client and you need to be able to let them go. My friend Erin, her mom, who has all these amazing sayings, one of them that she quotes a lot is you get what you settle for. And we all know people, she talks about that in terms of relationships a lot. But we all know people who are in bad relationships because they're afraid basically that if they leave that relationship, they either won't find someone else and they'll be miserable or they will find somebody else and that'll be worse. But the fact of the matter is, if they're in a bad relationship, they're not going to be able to find a good relationship. Right? You can't develop a new relationship with a better person while you're still in the bad one. You kind of have to take that leap of faith and say, this one isn't right. I'm going to wait for the one. That is a potential client's power, their sort of power of choice is that they have alternatives to working with you. You're not probably the only photographer in your market, but you have power too. You have the power and the ability to walk away if that client isn't the right fit for what you do. And when you say no to what you don't want, you're making space for what you do want and you get what you settle for, right? If you are willing to be patient and you're willing to put in the time to educate people and spend time showing what it is that you want to sell, you are eventually going to find your market and then that market is going to start to mushroom. The Apple designers, back to our first example, would never have had time to create the smartphone if they had been letting the current market back in, you know, 2003, 4, 5, dictate where they spent their time and their creative energy. And I don't want you to let your clients, who do not know what they want 95% of the time, dictate how you spend your time and your creative energy. Have a great week.
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Well, that's it for this week's episode of this can't be that Hard. I'll be back same time, same place, next week. In the meantime, you can find more information about this episode along with all the relevant links, notes and downloads@thiscantbethard.com learn. If you like the podcast, be sure
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to hit the subscribe button.
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Even better, share the love by leaving a review in itunes. And as always, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week.