Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hi and welcome. This is Sustainable Photography. I'm Ingrid Kolness and this is episode 164. Have you ever spent hours customizing an offer for a client only for them to ghost you or say that you're too expensive? I have, more than once. And it's never fun. And I think that happens because we don't want to say no.
[00:00:26] We want everyone to be happy and we want to not turn anyone away. And I think it happens because we want to make everyone happy. It's completely natural, but it doesn't mean that it's necessarily a good idea for your business. When you try to please everyone, you will waste a lot of time trying to tweak your offers for for clients. Sometimes they will probably book and sometimes they won't. But you do spend a lot of extra time doing it. And you have to remember that there was a reason why you ended up hopefully. Hopefully there was a reason why you ended up with the offers that you have today. Because oftentimes when you want to modify offers for a client, it's because they want to pay less. So then you're spending this extra time creating a custom offer for someone who wants to pay less. And that's not the best way to spend your time.
[00:01:28] Also, when we try to make everyone happy, we often end up with way too many offers. There are so many possibilities and we don't want to leave anyone out.
[00:01:39] So we create an offer or we create many offers so that they can fit many different kind of people. But the problem is that when you offer too many things, the people who your offer was supposed to be the best fit for, they won't necessarily find that because there's so many offers and they're gonna end up being confused.
[00:02:04] And that's not what we want. Confusing our clients is one of the worst things that we can do.
[00:02:09] You have to remember that in your field, you are the expert. You know what works best, you know what people really need. So when you give them too many options, then it's not so easy for your clients to feel guided.
[00:02:28] Something else might happen. If you are open to negotiate your prices, you might attract clients who don't appreciate what you do.
[00:02:37] And again, you're devaluing your own work and your own prices and you're kind of opening up to question other things about the way you do your work as well.
[00:02:51] And that leads to a less than fun client experience down the road, as well as you not really enjoying your work.
[00:03:00] So many things can go wrong if you keep trying to please everyone. And create something for everyone, then you're most likely working too hard and you're probably also losing some of your inspiration and trying to to fit around what everyone wants. Definitely listen to your clients and hear what they want, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea to tweak all of your offers to each of your clients.
[00:03:29] If you're a bit stuck on figuring out what you should focus on, then I want you to think about what kind of photography excites you the most and what kind of clients you enjoy working with. I would probably also think about if that niche is something that is viable as a business.
[00:03:49] Because often I hear like, oh, I want to work with these people doing this, but they don't pay. Then I would say that's not really going to work as a business. Maybe it would work fine as a side project, a personal project, but not for your business.
[00:04:03] Once you've figured out what kind of photography you want to do, I would actually urge you to take it a step further.
[00:04:11] If you're a wedding photographer, maybe you want to specialize in adventure elopements. If you're a portrait photographer, maybe you want to focus on branding sessions for female entrepreneurs. If you're a family photographer, maybe you want to offer at home documentary sessions for new parents.
[00:04:32] The clearer you are about what you're offering, the harder it's going to hit for the people who want it. If you're the photographer for anyone, then that's that. No one can know that that is really them. It's not going to be very effective marketing, even though it's probably true. You could photograph anyone and it'd be fine.
[00:04:56] Nowadays we kind of need more. There's a lot of competition and most people have their own camera. So just taking photos isn't enough anymore for most of us. We need to add something more to it, which is usually a good client experience and a bigger promise. But we also need to have a harder hitting marketing, which we can only get if we're very clear on what we're offering. When it comes to your offers, instead of creating custom quotes for your inquiries, try to have clear packages.
[00:05:34] And again, it's your job to make sure that what you offer is clear. Because confused potential clients, they're not going to book you. So make it easy for them to figure out what is right for them.
[00:05:48] Even though that is the structure you have with clear offers clearly defined for specific people. That does not mean that you can't take on custom projects, but you don't have to market to everyone just because you're clearer and have narrowed down who you work for.
[00:06:10] I am already hearing resistance on the other side. I know that it sounds scary to narrow your focus. I know that it sounds scary to get rid of some of your offers. You might feel like if you do fewer things, you're going to lose business.
[00:06:31] But I actually think it creates more opportunities. I think that if you're clearer about what you do, you're going to attract more of the right people because people will understand what they can expect from you. I also think that instead of you offering photography for wedding couples and new moms and business owners and pet owners and families and children and everything, that you can have more of a focus on the few things that you do instead of everything.
[00:07:06] Just remember that if someone is looking for someone really good, they they always look for a specialist and not a generalist. There is nothing wrong with having more of a general focus. But if that is not getting you to where you want to be, then it is time to change. If you have a lot of clients in different areas and you want to keep those clients, you can even talk to them, you can message them or invite them to a conversation. You can say, hey, we've worked together many times and I've really enjoyed that and I still want to keep working with you, but just so that you know, know for the sake of my business outwards, this is what I'm going to focus on. But definitely reach out as soon as you want more photos, because as soon as you know who you want to work with, what you want to do, it's time to speak up. Talk to those people on your website, on your social media, make it clear that you understand them and that you can help them get whatever result they're looking for. The clearer you are, the easier it's going to be for you to attract the right clients for you. And also bonus, the less competition you're going to get because the more specific you are, the fewer other photographers are out there doing the same thing. So I hope this was motivating and I hope it could give you a bit of a different perspective and maybe even a nudge to get some clarity on what you really want.
[00:08:35] If what you're doing today isn't working well enough for you as a bit of a challenge today, I want you to review your offers. I want you to see if there's anything you can take away or anything you can clarify to make it easier for your perfect client to book you after reading what they're going to get. I'd love to know if there's anything I can help you with. So don't hesitate to reach out to me on Instagram. You'll find me at Ingvilkolnas. That's Ingv I L D K O. Well. And yes, I'll talk to you next week. Bye.
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