Do You Have a Low Risk Product?

A low risk product is something either offered for free or for a very small amount. It’s a low risk so your clients can try it out at minimum financial investment.

A good example of a low risk product for a wedding photographer could be a free or half price engagement shoot. A commercial photographer who photographs restaurants could offer a week’s worth of social media posting images say 10-12 images. This then allows the restaurant to see for themselves how much more engagement they receive when professionally created images are posted as opposed to their own taken on a member of staffs I-Phone.

An interior or property photographer could offer an estate agent or architect one free residential shoot,may be a high-end home which they can photograph to showcase all the aspects of their services, including the use of interior and exterior photography and if you have drone photography you can offer this in the package also.

The estate agent or architect need to see the benefits in using your services. Let them see for themselves the wide angle views taking in an entire room, the quality detail and close up features of a beautiful fitted kitchen, the perfectly balanced view looking out from the interior windows of a country home.

All these elements the agent would have trouble producing themselves, but these aspects of your service can really create a stir with their potential clients and certainly lead to quicker property viewing and sales.

Remember, the idea of a low risk offer is that you can build a relationship with the client. You can’t expect a client to jump straight in and go for your top high-end package until they know you, trust you and believe in what you do.

A small low risk offer can also create clients for life, so think of the potential value in giving an hour or so of your time for free, it could be worth thousands.

What can you offer your clients at a low risk or zero risk to encourage them to have a go at using your services?

Check out my YouTube Video below for even more top tips and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for regular free marketing hacks and advice.

Are You Thinking Ahead for Christmas?

As a photographer it’s a good idea to think 2-3 months ahead at any one time. As the end of the summer approaches with October now here it’s a great time to start thinking about your Christmas offers.

Never leave it to the last minute, don’t put your Christmas offers out a couple of weeks before December - get them out early, start your followers thinking now, because a lot of people like to spread the cost of Christmas.

Many of people start Christmas shopping in September so get your offers out there. Also many businesses will already be gearing up for Christmas and fresh imagery will be at the forefront of any festive online campaigns.

Notably the hospitality trade are always very proactive in putting their Christmas offers out early - ensuring their restaurants and guest rooms booked in advance. They send their information out across social media, getting clients to think about Christmas at an early stage with the same old message, book early or lose out. You need to be doing the same, take a leaf out of the hospitality trade’s book.

Start promoting ideas for your Christmas portraits to your clients early. Remember some of your network may need to be reminded two, three maybe four times before they actually engage and either pick up the phone or jump on an email and book that portrait session – so start now.

Whether you are a commercial photographer or lifestyle photographer or a wedding photographer start thinking of packages and offers you can put together ready for the Christmas period. If you start now I’ll guarantee you can maximise Christmas a lot better.

Check out my You Tube Video below for even more top tips and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for regular free marketing hacks and advice.

Too Many Photographers use Facebook as a Selling Tool

Facebook should not be used as a selling tool.

The only way you can sell on Facebook is by social selling and building relationships with your fans. If you try and use Facebook just to sell then people will start unliking your page and your followers will move away. Your Facebook page should be a hub of information, it should be there to give value to all of your followers.

If you are a wedding photographer, you should not just be selling your wedding services on Facebook you need to be talking about the best places to get dresses, the best venues for weddings in your area, what’s the ‘in’ thing to have – the must have thing this season, the current wedding trends etc.

Share funny videos from Google of weddings gone wrong, share wedding quotes, share wedding fashion tips, images from celebrity weddings this is the sort of content your followers will love because it appeals to them. Make your Facebook page the place to go for people who are getting married or planning a wedding in your area.

Once they see your Facebook page is a valued source of information then they will hold you in a higher regard because you are not just trying to sell to them on a regular basis. Followers are more likely to recommend your Facebook Page to others and share your posts with their friends because it’s a real source of information that helps other people in planning a wedding too.

Start to think of Facebook as a more information giving service other than something where you can try and promote and sell photography on a daily basis. Ideally you should only be promoting or self-promoting by doing adverts or trying to sell something on Facebook once every ten days. So, if you are posting once a day would mean that every one post out of ten should be selling meaning every other post should be informative, telling stories, showing emotions or sharing pictures from other people’s weddings.

I’m putting together a great Facebook Training Guide for Photographers within my Awesome Photographers Private Mentoring Group, I’ll be covering Facebook Posting, Content Marketing and sorting out your Facebook Advertising once and for all.

For more information about this amazing Group and how it can turn your business around with fantastic mentoring support and all your essential questions on pricing, branding, website marketing and much more then come a give us a trial for 30 days at www.22s.com/theawesomephotographersgroup

Check out my You Tube Video below for even more top tips and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for regular free marketing hacks and advice.

Top Tip 12: How to get Children to Pose

Over the years I've photographed 10,000s of babies, toddlers and kids in the studio, client’s homes and nurseries. We used to do over 60 private nurseries per year, that’s a lot of children!!

I've certainly experienced it all, from the little smilers to the crying tantrums. Yes, kids can be very unpredictable at times, so if you haven’t had a great deal of experience with photographing children then here’s a few little tricks I’ve learnt over the years.

One of the biggest mistakes photographers make is to try and push the child who doesn't want to sit for a photograph, this is never going to work.

The first thing you need to realise is, yes, the child will most probably sit for a photograph but it will often be on their terms!!!

Here are a few ideas that will make the shoot a whole lot easier.

1/ Firstly put the camera away

Let the child get used to you and tell the parents NOT to intervene, it only makes things worse if you have a mam and dad trying to bribe or give the child an ultimatum.

2/ Get down to their level

Sit on the floor next to the child and get a conversation going, ask about their favorite toy or TV show - anything that strikes up a bit of chat going between you both.

3/ Add a bit humor

Once you find something the child is happy to talk about start adding a bit of humor to the conversation, this is great for breaking down barriers. And, yes talking about breaking wind is essential!!

4/ Photograph someone else and ask them to help

If the child is still unsure you can always start by photographing mam or dad or better still a brother or sister, involve the child and ask them to help you. Show them the results on the back of the camera and ask them if they'd like to see their own photograph on the camera too.

5/ Don’t rush, take your time

If the child still won't sit then don't push them. Encourage them to play with a few toys carefully placed in an ideal spot for a photograph. As the child starts to play take a few photographs and show them the results.

Sometimes you may only get the natural photographs of the child at play, but then sometimes these are the perfect photographs that the parents totally love. If this works then bring the family to the child and create a natural family portrait around the child's play.

One great secret weapon is a bubble machine, you can pick them up on eBay for £10 and they've turned many screaming crying kids into little smiles for me.

If you do have any tips to add I love to hear them, we all have our own little tricks maybe you have a great one that I’m missing out on too.

Thank you, Jeff

Top Tip 7: SET YOUR GOALS

START SETTING GOALS, DON’T PUT IT OFF!

How often do you hear yourself say, “I’m going to do that one day” or “I’ve always wanted to do that”.  The problem is there are 2 major factors that stop you achieving your goals but these are both under your control and you can change that today.  The two major factors are YOU and LIFE.

Firstly, YOU are the only person who puts limitations on yourself.  Once you start removing these self-imposed limitations from your thinking then you are free to start taking the steps towards achieving your goals.

Secondly, LIFE gets in the way, that’s another great excuse.  Ok, I guess its valid to a point but in the same context it’s also a load of bullshit, pardon the French.  Does life get in the way of you eating, breathing, sleeping, watching TV or playing on your phone?  Of course not, we all do it some more than others but these are habits and actions we still make time to do.

In order to make a big change today I want you to list your 10 business goals that you’d like to achieve by 12 months from today’s date.  Write them down on a piece of paper or print them out and next to each goal I want you to place 10 tick-off boxes horizontally.  Each one of these boxes represents a 10% completion of your business goal, 10 boxes = 100%.

Stick your goals to your desk or where you can see it each day and every week do an action that brings you closer to completing each goal.  Even if its just an email or a phone call, you are still taking action towards your goals.

We all have dreams and we all have goals but if you don’t take action then dreams are all they will remain.  So now look at that goal list and change the completion date from 12 months time to 3 months time and here’s why.

For over 3 years I’ve wanted to write a book but my limiting belief that being dyslexic and that I did not have the time, stopped me from taking action.  However, when I added it to my goal chart and made the point of writing just 1000 words per week, I had a book finished, published and into the Best Sellers chart in only 4 months.

Another idea on my goal chart was to set up an international joint venture program, running my workshops and seminars overseas.  Again, I added this to my goal chart and started the slow process of sending out a load of emails and connections requests on LinkedIn.  Out of all my goals for 2018 I thought this one would be the last to come off.  Within 3 weeks of taking just a few little steps towards it I connected with Dan M Lee, an award wining New York photographer, its now taken us less than 6 weeks to form SuccessfulphotographyUSA.com and launch our first seminar date for New York this September.

The one BIG point to take away from this is start taking action NOW.  Don’t put off your dreams because you think they are too big to take shape, put them on your list and start moving towards them.  When the momentum hits and things start to kick in, your dreams can become reality pretty damn fast.

Now just to share another quick one with you, the Six Steps to Success Program was put together in one weekend and all because I told a little white lie and said I had such a program in place.  A photography marketing course supplier in India asked me to get him the details over in an email, so I had to frantically piece together all the individual training programs into one complete course in just a weekend.  AND SO…the 6 Steps to Success was born which has now gone on to help 1000s of photographers around the world.

What’s going on your goal list, I’d love to hear?  Drop me a message and I’ll send you my goal tracking and time management sheets, they are a huge help. 

Check out my You Tube Video below for even more top tips and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for regular free marketing hacks and advice.

Top Tip 5: BE PRODUCTIVE

IS BEING BUSY STOPPING YOU FROM BEING BUSY?

Answer me this simple question, do you plan out your day or week in advance?

Most of the photographers who sign up for my mentoring program tell me they have just been far too busy to concentrate on any form of marketing but when we get deeper into it they are often just busy being busy.

As photographers a large chunk of our working day is spent in front of a computer with our mobile phones sitting on the desk next to us just waiting to distract us at any given moment.  It’s just far too easy to get taken away from the job in hand by a text message or an email that really could have been dealt with later in the day.

When I work with photographers on my One 2 One training programs the first thing we cover together is goal setting and time management.  You need to have goals because without them you’ll never reach your full potential and when you know your goals it’s essential that each week you do one task towards a goal each day.

It’s all too easy to write a big “to do list” then start by doing all the little jobs so it looks like you achieved a lot but in business our success is measured by the brand we create and income we build.  Often we put off the bigger jobs because they look like a mammoth task but if you assess each and every job on your “to do list” by whether it will either bring you closer to your goal or generate more income then you’ll soon realise which jobs you need to start first.

Its better to complete one task that will bring you closer to your goals than 10 little tasks that really could of waited.  No sooner are those little tasks crossed off then you’ll find more menial tasks to replace them and again these will stand in the way of you achieving your goals and making a lot more money.

Plan out your week every Sunday evening, make a point of putting your social media posting and income generating tasks or goal achieving task on your AM (Morning) “to do list”.  These must be completed before lunch or before you go on to do any of the smaller “to do list” items, what I call non-essential jobs.

Get into a habit of posting to social media every morning before checking your emails or responding to messages.  Then once you have posted and after following up on any enquiries, do just one of your goal achieving or income generating tasks.  Don’t over load your “to do list”, break big goals down into smaller daily steps.  For example, if you are building a new website, Monday just complete the Home Page, Tuesday the About Page, Wednesday the Weddings Page, Thursday the Contact Page and Friday your SEO.

When I started to write my first book, a job I’d put off for 2 years, I decided to just write about a side of A4 per day.  An easy and achievable task, then in just 8 weeks I had a finished and published the book which is ranked on the Amazon best seller chart and earns me an income each month - all that from about 60 minutes a day.

If you have any questions on time management or goal setting for your business, then drop me a message I’d be only too happy to help you out.

Check out my You Tube Video below for even more top tips and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for regular free marketing hacks and advice. 

Top Tip 4: WHAT WE PUT OFF

ARE YOU PUTTING OFF SUCCESS

I work with photographers around the world from all walks of life and all photography backgrounds, from commercial to weddings, portrait to fine art and we are all guilty of doing, or should I say NOT doing, the same thing.

As photographers we will happily sit for hours and hours endlessly editing photographs, often spending far too long over editing the final product in our strive for perfection.  But who are we editing for, is it ourselves?  Because I can bet you now that 9 times out of 10 the client probably would have been happy with the original or a very lightly edited and cropped version of it.  We spend hours of our precious time correcting what we imagine to be faults when in our clients’ eyes these faults are quite simply invisible.

Time is our most precious resource, the less time we spend editing the more time we can be shooting jobs and marketing our business.  However for one reason or another to most photographers marketing is probably one of the most complicated and uninteresting tasks on the planet, but without marketing and without a brand you’ll never truly succeed.

Marketing doesn’t need to be complicated but it does need to be consistent, if you aren’t posting on social media daily, if you aren’t uploading images and telling stories that engage with your fans and followers then you are losing out massively.

As part of my 6 Steps to Success Program I teach photographers how to really manage their time effectively, you can actually get more done in less time and still market your business every single day.

When you know exactly what to post, when and how to post it on social media then you’ll realise that just 45 minutes a day spent getting out your message and building your brand can totally transform your business in a matter of months.  I’ve had clients make tens of thousands in just a matter of 4 to 6 weeks and all it took was putting out the right message to the right people on a daily basis. 

You can be the best photographer in the world, with the best kit and beautifully edited photographs but if your phone’s not ringing and the email bookings aren’t coming in then what is the point.

Don’t think of it as marketing, think of it as telling your story or better still telling your clients’ story.  Get posting daily, upload stories, ring clients for testimonials and spread them everywhere, let the words and stories of others really sell your services because believe me this shit really does work.

Do your posting first thing on a morning, don’t even check your message, keep away from your email because its full of distractions.  Post to social media first, make your connections on LinkedIn, upload your short videos to You Tube and Facebook then you’ve done your marketing for the day.

If you take one thing away from this article, start to form a habit of doing your social media marketing first before anything else and its done.  Because if you don’t you’ll get too taken in with editing photographs, answering emails and doing the tasks that really could be left until later.

Form this habit and do it right and I guarantee the magic will happen, be consistent and do it every day - NO EXCUSES.

If you’d like me to review your website and social media drop me a message I’d be only to happy to give you a few pointers in the right direction.

Check out my You Tube Video below for even more top tips and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for regular free marketing hacks and advice.