Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hi and welcome to episode 136 of sustainable photography. We're now in August and I've had the whole of July off from podcasting and I'm so ready to be back. There's so much I want to talk about, and I can't wait to have more talks and discussions with you in my DM's on Instagram as well. Today I want to talk about an issue of not not making enough money, but not from the perspective of not having high enough prices or not having control of your finances, but simply from not getting enough bookings. If you have the resources, it does help to have an on brand website, to outsource your social media marketing to someone who knows what they're doing, and to have someone help you to analyze and then tweak everything that's going on in your business to reach your goals. But having someone do everything for you is not realistic for most of us. We will need to look at some of these things ourselves. Whatever you can outsource, definitely do. But let's just look at different things that you can do something about and let's go through them one by one. If you're not booking enough, then the first thing I would look at is your booking process, meaning people are getting in touch with you, but they're not signing up. So to improve that, first you need to take a look at how you're doing things today.
[00:01:28] Are you doing booking calls or are you just doing emails? And is your contract simple to understand for your clients? Can you make it easier in some way? Are you making it clear what the next step is for your potential clients to make in order to actually book you? Because your clients can't read your mind, you have to make the process clear. You have to let them know what the next step is. And I've worked with a lot of different people where I've been the client, and it's very rare actually, that the professional part, the business owner, is making it clear what the process is. And if you're letting it be your client's responsibility to ask what the next step is or what they need to do, then you're really missing out. And if you're struggling with not getting enough bookings, then this is where you need to start, by streamlining your booking process to make sure that your booking calls or booking emails, your process is effective and working well and practice it. Just get a business friend and do this together. Ask someone if they can reach out to you and don't be afraid to give each other feedback. I see this so often where a lot of people think that being nice and only giving compliments is the nice and right thing to do. But constructive criticism should really be something that you're asking for because it is the best way to improve things. The next thing that I want to talk about is that you might have the wrong offer.
[00:03:19] A lot of the times we start doing something that we enjoy and we're not really worried about if there's anyone interested at all. So before you decide what you want to offer, make sure that you do some market research. Make sure that there actually are people who are interested in what you're doing. Or if maybe you have to tweak your offer, maybe you can still have your offer, but you have to target someone else to actually have different clients. Because if you're trying to reach anyone and everyone, that's probably not going to work. Your offer has to be tailored to the people that you actually want to work with. Also, you can't just create something and expect it to work. You have to make sure that there are enough people interested who can and want to pay for it. Kind of related to this is that you're reaching the wrong people. Maybe you're not reaching enough people, but you could also be reaching the wrong people. Maybe you're not standing out enough so that whoever is seeing you or coming across you realizes that, oh, it has to be you. You're the right person for me. You're the photographer that I want. And you might not be focusing enough on your values. Make sure you talk about your values and make sure that your values and your clients values are similar or the same. Something that binds you together. So when I mean that you're not reaching the right people, maybe you are reaching them and you're not being clear enough about the fact that you are the right photographer for them, or that you're simply not getting the people that should be finding you to actually find you. The fourth thing that might be stopping people from booking you is that you're not clear enough about the value that you are offering. One thing that I've talked about so many times that you're probably sick of it by now, but talking about how much time you spend working, how much time one assignment takes you, or what kind of equipment you use, or how much it costs that is not relevant to your client. What your client needs to know is what are they going to get? Why is it worth it to them? Not why you've set the price tag that you have. But why should they pay? Why is it worth it it could simply be that you're not talking about what they're going to get. You haven't mentioned the fact that every single anniversary for the rest of their lives they're going to be flipping through their wedding album. Or the fact that your kids are going to grow up with their photos on their walls. And that's going to be an amazing connection for you to have in your family.
[00:06:17] Or the confidence boost that your boudoir clients are going to get after having a session with you that is worth paying for. But having a photographer for x number of hours, that's not necessarily so interesting for people.
[00:06:34] And of course, you have to make sure that your brand is good enough and that the quality is what someone would expect for the amount of money they would have to pay.
[00:06:45] It could also be that you're not being clear enough as to how someone can book you. Maybe your website isn't good enough in terms of your client experience.
[00:06:58] Maybe you're not mentioning on Instagram that you can actually be booked and how you can be booked. Maybe you don't use calls to action in your bio or your posts. And maybe you don't have any highlights or pinned posts on Instagram. With your process and prices, that can help you a lot because people tend to check things out before sending random DM's. Of course, some people will still send a DM, but you're really missing out if you're not making the process clearer and letting people know how things work when working with you. One thing that you might not be doing that can also help you is to have retargeting ads. Meaning if someone is on your website a day or maybe two days later, they'll start getting ads from you and kind of reminding them that you exist and why they should book you. Maybe they're going to get an ad with a link to a blog post or to a download that they should have. Just little things like that can really help in terms of keeping you top of mind. Finally, and maybe most importantly, it's about mindset. You have to believe that you can do it, but you really can't be desperate.
[00:08:18] If you want to book clients so bad that you'll do anything to make it happen, clients will sense that and they won't book you. It should not be about you and has to be about your clients. And if you're at that place where you're feeling really desperate and you need to book every single person who gets in touch with you, then you need to find a way to resolve that. Maybe you need to get another job. Maybe you need to raise your prices. Maybe there's something else that you need to really calm down and get rid of that desperation.
[00:08:55] What I want from you is to decide that it's going to work. Decide that you are going to make it happen, that you're going to book this many clients or make this much money or whatever it is that you want and just trust that it will happen and do what it takes to get there. I understand that that is easier said than done.
[00:09:22] And I understand that it might sound like kind of like a quick fix, but when you believe that it's possible, when you have decided that it's going to happen, you're going to do whatever it takes to get there.
[00:09:39] And that's also why paying for education or for VA or outsourcing things also can sometimes help. Because you've actually put money into it. You have something to lose, so you work even harder at making it worth it. Having someone in your corner to back you up, whether that's a business friend, a mentor, a coach of some sort, is going to make a huge difference for you. So I really hope that you have someone there with you who can help and back you up. And if you don't, you can always send me a DM on instagram. You'll find Melkolnes and we can talk about what might help you. That was it for this week. I'll see you again next week.
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