Newfoundland and Labrador Workshop - whales, icebergs, lighthouses, Gros Morne Natonal Park and more

 

 

We begin our time together as we live the life of a lighthouse keeper overlooking “Iceberg Alley”.

Hear the Killer Whales’ call echoing off massive icebergs in our own private cove and hopefully awaken to the sounds of the Humpbacks calling you across vast stretches of the North Atlantic. From this location we will explore the rugged landscape made famous in “The Shipping News”, the Pulitzer prize-winning novel and Kevin Spacey movie.

Imagine the feel the salt spray in your face as you journey out to remote Quirpon Island amidst the dolphins and whales. As you land in the cove, imagine you are returning home to the sod huts, thousands of years old, which lay undisturbed here. Forge a link with ancient humans as you stand in the remains of their huts overlooking the cove and picture the tiny beach coming to like as it was eons ago.

This is your home for the next few days. It lies atop the cliffs at the northern tip of this deserted island. The contrast of the rugged beauty of the island and the cosy luxury of Quirpon Lighthouse Inn will bring back your childhood feelings of laying by the fire as a storm raged outside. Imperceptibly your priorities in life will shift as you become part of the primal connection between humans and the remote reaches of the sea.

You are now in the best spot on earth to visit with whales and icebergs. At dawn, be certain to introduce yourself to your only neighbours – the whales migrating past your doorstep. An abandoned fishing village near the lighthouse is your hiking destination today. Learn of the tragic but romantic mass murder and suicide that inevitably lead to its demise.

View the “vast cathedrals of ice”. On sunny days they appear lit from inside. On dull days other senses take over as they seem to grow in size. Their chilling effect spreads to your mind and you feel a timeless empathy for sailors who have dreaded these giants for millennia.

Europeans first arrived in North America 500 years before Columbus. These Vikings settled in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of L’anse aux Meadows. As you visit, one question will fill your mind- Why here? Be sure to ask resident Vikings who work here today. Join them in their huts and sample cuisine from ten centuries ago.

From here we will sail to Labrador where a 12 year old child was lovingly laid to rest in North America’s oldest grave – 8,000 years ago. Visit Basque whaling site where a boat from the 1500’s raised from the frigid waters shows how little technology has changed in 500 years. A photogenic location at any time of day and your photos, chronicle history very few ever visit.

Heading south along the Viking Trail you might experience time travel visiting isolated fishing villages which have hosted civilizations for thousands of years, capturing lighthouses during golden hours and at the Port au Choix National Historic Site, learn how little we differ from our ancient forbearers. Take time to linger and photograph the memorable sights along the seaside… because you will be busy spotting the thousands of moose and caribou in Gros Morne National Park amidst some of the most breathtaking scenery the east coast of Canada has to offer.

If you think the shoreline to this point has been spectacular, wait until your boat tour of Western Brook Pond in Gros Morne. This landlocked fjord was left as a slash in the cliffs when the last ice age ended. 2000 vertical faces slowly come together as your journey on the purest lake in the world. This voyage is guaranteed to give you memories to savour back in the real world. Afterwards, stretch your legs on a valley of ancient earth’s mantle that has made this park a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The landscape evokes images of the moon more than the earth, but this geological wonder has its own charms. You will enjoy it from sun up to sun down through the lens.

Before our trip together ends, you can have the choice of completing our odyssey with a taste of other experiences unique to out corner of the globe. Kayak with the bergs and whales or hike into a falls for another photography walk to capture the golden light landscapes and local wildlife.

Dates of Workshop:  June 1, 2014 to June 10, 2014

Price of Workshop:  $3890USD is your price ($4250 on my website) – shared accommodation

Photographic Leader(s):  Kevin Pepper

Maximum Number of attendees: max 5, min 4 (2 spots already taken)

Deposit to secure space in workshop:  $750USD

What is Included: 9 nights’ shared accommodation (including 4 at Quirpon Lighthouse Inn). 6 breakfasts, 2 lunches, daily snacks, juice and water, 5 suppers (including 1 dinner theatre). Western Brook Pond boat tour. Ferry to Labrador. All park and site passes. Transportation. Minimum of three editing sessions

What is not included: anything not mentioned as included, items of personal nature, travel insurance.

 

Here is the link on my website. http://northof49photography.com/newfoundland-and-labrador

 

More details on the locations

We will be staying in a reclaimed lighthouse, Quirpon lighthouse on a private island, and in some hotels.

We will be spending time whale watching, photographing icebergs, photographing lighthouses on the northern shores of Newfoundland and Labrador and spending a fair bit of time in Gros Morne National Park on the North West coast of Newfoundland.

We will also head over to Labrador to see the original settlement of Vikings in North America, do some shoots along the seaside and visit some of the oldest fishing villages in Eastern Canada.

You will be shooting seascapes, lighthouses, old fishing villages, hopefully some of the tens of thousands of caribou and moose in Gros Morne (if we can see them), some migratory birds, landscapes, whales and icebergs

 

 

 

 

"Street Photography" techniques

Street photography is a type of documentary photography that features subjects in every day and candid situations within public places. Usually photos include such things as streetscapes, parks, benches, malls, and other settings.

This type of photography tends to place the photographer at a distance from its subject matter, and often concentrates on a the human moment; catching a moment in time if you will. On the other hand, a lot of street photography takes the opposite approach and provides an extremely personal rendering of the subject matter. This gives the audience a more up-close and experience of daily life.

The key to successful street photography is to blend into the surroundings in the attempt to not draw attention to yourself and the camera hanging around your neck. People use most kinds of portable cameras for street photography, digital SLRs, point and shoot cameras and now smart phones.

A commonly used focusing technique is called “zone focusing”. This is where you set a fixed focal distance on your camera and shoot from that distance only. This is used as an alternative to autofocus, particularly using wide angle lenses with their increased depth of field. Zone focusing facilitates shooting "from the hip" i.e. without bringing the camera up to the eye. Alternatively, todays swivel view finders allow for composing the shot and/or adjusting focus without bringing attention to the photographer.

Some people "zone focus" at a fixed focal length, while others set the focus on manual and set the focal distance to "infinity".

If you are shooting homeless people, and you do not want to intimidate them, leave the DSLR at home and take a point and shoot. A DSLR camera screams, "I am taking photos of you" and will intimidate any potential subject matter, it may also entice them to want to take that camera from you. A point and shoot is less intimidating and a lot easier to give up if a desperate homeless person decides they want that camera.


So now that I laid out the ground rules and gave you some general rules to follow, here are a few quick tips to follow while out on your street photography adventure...

1 – Keep moving. If you stand still you will bring attention to yourself and your camera.

2 – Do not hesitate. Take the shot. How many times have you wished you clicked the shutter and didn’t. This is amplified in street photography. Everything moves so fast on a busy street that if you are not clicking, you’re missing the action.

3 – Don’t look like a professional. A trick is to fiddle with your camera, look like you are making adjustments and click the shutter while in manual focus at a fixed focal length. People will be caught off guard and not know you are taking their photo because they will think you are fiddling with your camera.

4 - Always have our camera in your hand and ready to shoot. Don’t just have your camera around your neck or in your pocket, which can cause a delay in you shooting. If your camera isn’t in your hand, you’re not ready to take a photo.

You can always join us on the ultimate street photography workshop in Paris, France. See details of these workshops here.

Workshop #1 in Paris

Workshop #2 in Paris

Safe and Happy Shooting,

Kev

Connect With Your Customers On Facebook and Grow Your Business Socially

You should continually strive to ensure that your customers know, like and trust you. How do you do that though? It usually doesn’t happen during the sale, it’s what you do after that makes all the difference. That’s where Facebook comes in handy, and the fact that over half of all the people in Canada are on facebook, half of your customers will have one as well, and what that really means is that you have a way to become part of your customers online social graph. Below you will learn a simple, yet powerful way to connect with your customers on Facebook and at the same time, through the Law of Reciprocation, earn a testimonial and a recommendation.

1. First, take a picture of yourself, next to your customer. Ask your customer if it’s okay if you tag them in it on Facebook. You’re playing the odds here and the odds are pretty good that they have a Facebook page and the odds are even better that they will say yes to tagging them. This photo will then link to your customers profile page and place the picture on their wall (their profile page).

2. If you can, connect with your customer with their help, that way you can ensure that you have found their profile and not somebody else with the same name.

3. Tag them in the picture.

4. Go to the picture sitting on their wall that you placed and say something along the lines of, “It was really great working with you. I really enjoyed the time we spent together at my workshop (or at your wedding), you are the reason why I enjoy what I do. Thank you for being one of my favorites!”

Because of the Law Of Reciprocation, which states that we, as human beings, feel an obligation to repay an action with a like action, your customer will return the favor and say something like, “It was great working with you as well! We’ve never had such a positive buying experience in our entire lives!”

Now take a look at what you have. There is a picture of you and your customer sitting on their Facebook wall for all of their friends to see. On top of their friends asking them questions about it they see the kind words that the said about you. Think about how powerful that is and the fact that one peer testimonial is worth two hundred traditional media impressions… that’s one awesome testimonial!

5. Don’t stop there. Go back to their page a few days later, thank them and say something along the lines of, “As you know it’s important to me that my customers feel comfortable enough with the way I treated them to send referrals my way. Let me ask you, do you feel comfortable enough, should the need ever arise, to refer somebody you know to come see me?”

Of course their going to say yes and now you have both a testimonial and a recommendation AND all of their Facebook connections can see it!

That’s powerful stuff and 80% of the time it works just like that.

Kev

The importance of an analytical tool for a photographers website

Analytics… without a measurement “yard stick” how are you ever going to know what is working on your website and what is not working? Are you ever going to know who is looking at your photos? Do you know what visitors do when they look at your content on your website? Where are your website visitors coming from? Have you ever wondered why people are looking at my photos or services, but not buying anything from you? Are you posting the proper size of photos online to fill up a user’s entire screen? What programs are your users using to access the internet with, and is your site optimized for various web browsers?

If you would like to know the answers to these questions, you should consider an analytics tool to help you get those answers.

Let’s think of it this way… You take a photo and are proud of it. You blast out a photo to your Twitter followers, you then post that same photo on your Facebook profile for all your friends to see, and maybe you have a Google+ account that you want to share your photo on… OK, done, you did all that… now what?

If you are serious about photography as a business, you should know exactly how many people clicked on that link you put out on those three websites, what these people did on your site when there, and ultimately did they contact you to buy something.

Of course, the above paragraph is simplified, but basically, that’s what you want to be doing. I know that every time I post a blog entry on Twitter I get 8% to 9% of my followers coming to my website to read my BLOG. I know how long they spent reading, I know if they looked at anything else, and I monitor the questions or comments that come from this online traffic.

I also know that every time I post a link on Linkedin of a new BLOG post that I get on average of 30 views within the first day of posting it on LinkedIn. I then track the residual visits over the next 30 days. I see that every time I post on LinkedIn I average 100 people coming to read that blog post. Plus, I track what else they did.

Without going into a longer dissertation about all the places I post and what traffic I get to my website; let’s just say that I have it down to a science. I know, within a small margin of error how many website visitors I will get by throwing website content out into the internet on various places.

To add to this, every time I sell something, a photo, get a client for a workshop or a mentor program; I ask one simple question, “How did you find me?”

By asking that question I put the final piece of the puzzle together, my conversion ratio. By doing that I know what social media and what mass marketing initiative is working. It then becomes a numbers game. The more I focus on what’s working, the more money I make, the more camera gear I can buy, the closer I get to achieve my goal.

So how the heck can you get that kind of measurement on your website?

Google Analytics provides you, the photographer, a powerful tracking for monitoring your web presence. It's one of the most effective and free, web analytics solutions on the market today.

Google Analytics shows you how people found your site, how they explored it, where they came from and where they went after they visited your website. Through this information you will spot trends and you will be able to adjust how your content is displayed and inevitably enhance their visitor experience, ultimately improving your return on investment, increase conversion ratios, and make more money on the web.

As a business owner you will be able to understand (1) which marketing initiatives are being most effective, (2) what are the traffic patterns on your website and (3) which customer segments are most valuable to you for generating revenue. Throw on your marketing hat and you will be able to see where your visitors are coming from and what they do while they are on your website, help you understand how to convert more visitors to customers and which marketing spend is most effective in sending people to your website.

To sign up for Google Analytics, you should ensure you have an account with Google and visit this page, GOOGLE ANALYTICS SET-UP

Once you begin to register your website for Google analytics you must first ensure that you place your Google Analytics tracking code on your web pages. Between Google and you’re your website provider, they will help you. Google Analytics code is a small JavaScript snippet that needs to be added to each page of your site, either manually or through the use of plugins or tool.

For the more advanced web user, you want to install this code manually into your pages, copy and paste the code segment into the bottom of your content, immediately before the body tag of each page that you wish to track.

For a person that just read this previous sentence and didn’t understand what I just said; get your webmaster involved. However, sites like smugmug have a simple interface where you can just grab your analytics code from Google and paste it into a place on your smugmug account. It will not be immediate, but in a day or so, your account will be live and you will be tracking visitors to your site in a much more advanced and effective way.

To conclude, measurement is key to success. It helps you obtain goals, it aids you in creating a better user experience, and it will ultimately help you generate more income.

I hope this helps give you some direction with analytics and puts you on a better path for success. If you would like to hear more, please contact me on twitter @kpepphotography or email me on my Contact Me! page of my website.

How do you handle a "Negative Online Review"

So you are doing what I call, "Reputation Management". You are doing searches online for your name and company name. You want to find out what people are saying you and your company on all your social media websites, Google Place Page, blogs or forums that you might belong to.

In the process of doing this search you find a negative review posted somewhere online. Someone has posted a negative experience about dealing with your company… it’s out there for everyone to see and you are faced with what to do.

You have three decisions… (1) Ignore it and hope that no one sees the post online. (2) Try and get it deleted from the site it is on. (3) Address the negative review with a response as the owner of the business.

If you choose to ignore the post online you run the risk of it going viral and costing you business.

If you choose to get it deleted the person that wrote the negative review has not been dealt with. You run the risk of irritating them and posting negative reviews in even more locations.

But, if you choose to address the negative comment online in a straight forward and honest way, addressing their concerns, point by point, offering a refund or a discount you may just win over a client that was spreading negativity. Plus, others that see the original post and your response. They will see that you care about your clients concerns and want to make good to anyone that feels an injustice has been done.

I have seen examples of this all the time… addressing the concern head on and leaving it online is always the best policy.

Of course, you can choose to deal with a negative review online however you want. But based on my 10 years of experience, mentoring and teaching businesses to be successful online, point #3 is my suggestion.

Creating an "Email Signature"

One of the most overlooked ways to increase traffic to the information you have online is the "email signature". You send out dozens, if not hundreds of emails each week; to family, to friends, business associates and clients.

You should have an email signature on every email, and not just your contact information either, you should have deep links to relevant content that you want to expose.

This post is going to show you how to create an email signature that is designed to increase click thru to your online content.

My email signature looks like this.

Check out the new website... Visit KPep Photography's website!

See some of my Recent Photos!

Read a recent interview with Canadian Professional Photographer Kevin Pepper!

Looking to become a better photographer yourself? CLICK HERE
Follow Me On Twitter @kpepphotography
Do you like our work or are you already a happy client? Please write a review on our Google Place Page


The intent is to link someone to specific content, not just the homepage of your website. So give it a try and see if it helps drive more traffic to your business.

To create a link, please see the example below. In this example the link will open in a new window and ensure when someone clicks on your embedded link the original email they received stays open. This would be important for someone using a web based email service like "hotmail" or "yahoo".

To set up this kind of link use this HTML coding found on w3schools website

Thanks for reading and good luck,

Kev

Clients habits have signifigantly changed

I thought I would simply put up a graphic to illustrate how much our clients buying habits have changed.

I hope it helps you understand just how much the internet has effected our business.

A Tip For Photographers... How to Build A Brand.

So I am just going to throw it out there and duck and cover in case I offend anyone…

Many of us photographers start their business at the same time they’re starting to learn to be an artist. We expect to create beautiful images people will want to buy at the same time we are launching a new small business. Yet, on occasions we often lack the skills necessary to do either, and end up failing miserably.

If this is you I do not mean to offend, I am actually trying to help. Ideally you would have gone to school and got a degree in marketing or business, or received the necessary work experience to run a small business. Then learned how to take fantastic photos that people will consider art.

But hey, if life was perfect we would all be hailed as a modern day Ansel Adams and be living the dream… :-)

So let’s work on getting you one step closer to that dream and help you build a better brand… and a more successful photography business.

“Branding” is a word that often gets thrown around quite a bit in the photographic community; but what does it really mean?

Generally when people think of branding, they think of a great logo, a memorable website, or business card. While these are all parts of a successful brand strategy, they aren’t the whole picture.

What you should be thinking about when you consider “branding” your business is actually building a brand around “YOU”, the talent and your own photographic style… or should I say “your own Art”.

In other businesses we would be describing the way a person feels about a product or service. But in a photography business this feeling is about you and your business. You will influence their purchasing decisions. You will determine whether or not they trust you and, you will ultimately determine whether or not they hire you.

For the successful photographers, they are the brand. Everything they do, from how they respond to inquiries, to how they act at a photo shoot, to how they have refined their art to differentiate themselves communicates the character of their brand.

So how can you get the most out of your brand and your art?

Have Confidence
Its gut check time… let’s be honest with ourselves. At one point in all of our photographic journeys, we were insecure about our abilities; we questioned whether or not you were as good as more recognizable names.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but if you cannot get over this hurdle you will never be successful. If you do not believe in your own abilities, how are you ever going to convince a client of your talent?

So get over it, start to build a brand around your name and images and move forward without looking back.

Be Social
What you say and write has a direct effect on your clients’ opinion of you, which has a direct effect on your business and will decide what your bottom line looks like. This is an important thing to remember in the age of social media. Before you send out a tweet or a blog post, consider if it will build your brand or stick a fork in it. Your voice should be consistent across your client communications – blog posts, emails, social media and printed materials. Is your brand friendly? Formal? Flexible? How do you want people to feel about your business? Your voice should match who you are in person when interacting with clients.

Think of it this way… lets take a moment to look at a few of the blogs you follow regularly. Without looking at the header, can you tell which one is which? If they have a unique voice, a certain tone, one that’s personal to them, you should be able to identify the author.

Be Consistent
Building a brand means being visually consistent. You should have the same logo on your website, your printed materials, and your business cards. It takes people several impressions before they remember something and seeing the same logo repeatedly will build recognition and create top of mind recall.

This is why Nike is able to use their swoosh graphic without the name – after years of seeing the logo, you don’t need to see the name anymore to know that it’s Nike. If a client is looking at several photographers, they should be able to tell which material is yours at a glance. Every impression the client has from you should reinforce your brand. When they pick up your business card and go to your website, it should be immediately obvious that those two things belong to the same person. Make sure everything that you put out there reflects your brand.

Building your brand also means being consistent in the way you deal with clients – how they book you, change an order, or set up meetings. If I refer you to a friend, I should be able to tell them what kind of experience to expect. You want clients to feel that when they come to you, from start to finish, they know who they’re dealing with. They know what sort of service and quality they can expect from you.

Differentiate
The most important part of your branding is you and your product: yep, that’s right, your photographic skills and the “Art” you produce.

Ideally, prospective clients should know it’s your “Art” before they ever see the logo. Define your own style of shooting, and identify what makes you different from your competition.

I would encourage photographers to find their niche in any industry. If a client is looking for a wedding photographer, would they be more likely to hire someone who only shoots weddings and is really an expert in that style of photography or someone who shoots a bit of everything?

This isn’t to say you can’t shoot more than one subject. There are people who do so very successfully. Hey, look at me… a landscape and nature photographer at heart that also likes to shoot urban landscapes.

I learned that in order to be successful with my art I had to market my different art as completely separate businesses.

So if you want to shoot weddings and fine art landscapes. Just remember that the audiences you’re trying to reach for each of these are very different, and the branding and marketing for each has to be approached separately.

Toot Your Own Horn… and toot it loudly.
No one is going to do this for you… so do it for yourself.

Become a publicity animal! Unless you’ve got potential clients standing at your front door right now, then you have to do what it takes to get them there. In past posts I have addressed many ways to do this. I encourage you to go back and read these posts. For this post I want to mention press releases… the purpose of a press release is not only to promote your “Brand”, its also to reinforce all your efforts in a neatly structured letter to people in your local and extended community.

Whenever you have a significant advancement in your company, send out a release. When you do send out a press release, try to include a photo of you involved with somebody in the community that’s relevant to the topic. Plus, don’t forget to send it to companies and organizations outside the local paper. For example, Chamber of Commerce, local business leaders, corporate clients etc.

Deliver, or should I say “Over Deliver”
Clients won’t book you, or refer you to their friends, if you don’t deliver. Your brand is a promise to the client. Trust comes from meeting, and exceeding, the expectations you’ve set up for your client.

This is the single most important step in your branding, because the best marketing in the world won’t get you the job if the work isn’t there.

I hope this post helped you think of one or two more things to help build your photography business.

Kev

How to Set Your Pricing and Generate Profits - The question on many photographer's minds

Pricing your photos is one of the greatest hurdles for photographers looking to turn their passion into a business. We are often insecure at this point in our personal photographic growth and may not believe we are as good as others believe... so how could we ever believe people would pay good money for our images?

It can be especially nerve wracking when a client asks you why they have to pay so much for your photos and services. Especially if you have not done your homework and you just stole some pricing from some other local photographer’s website as a quick fix.

You HAVE to understand that you are now a small business owner, you have to separate personal feelings and let go of the personal connection with your images, then charge a fee where you are generating a profit margin. You need to calculate and understand what you are charging; and be confident that you are worth what you are charging.

You see, you need to not only know the worth of the services you are providing, but you need to know how to articulate what you’re worth and why you’re worth it. Make sure you’re equally versed in the business practices as you are in your photography skills. If your images are of a certain quality and you have the confidence to negotiate the value proposition of your company with confidence, you give your client confidence as well.

The following should provoke some thought and give you some ideas on how to better price your images and services and generate a profit.

Know What You are Worth

Before we go any farther... you have to know and believe what you are worth.

Scenario #1... This is your full time job
The first step is to do your research and find out what the competition is charging for what they are offering. This will give you some confidence at coming up with your own prices. But do not just cut and paste their pricing. People do not only buy on price alone... they buy relationships and value.

The first step you could do to determine what you are worth is by calculating your Cost of Doing Business (CODB). Your CODB is what it takes at the end of every month for you pay your bills. Be realistic here, you’re likely not going to be bringing in a lot of money during your first few years of business.

You could reach your CODB by a few simple calculations. Take all the expenses you need to run a business for the month – website hosting fees, insurance, rent, insurance, food, travel etc., add a salary, and then divide that figure by the number of jobs or images you think you’ll book or sell during any given month. Keeping in mind that you may have to lower your salary or overhead in order to achieve new business.

Scenario #2... You have a full time job and you are also in the development phase of building a photography business
I have a full time job that I love doing at this point. But I am also a nature photographer by heart and sell my images and run workshops for people of all levels looking to be better photographers or need help growing their business.

When I first started out I would determine that an image will be for sale, I took into account what it cost me to take a specific image. For example, I drove 50 miles, slept over at a hotel, had breakfast and dinner and came home with a couple hundred images. It took me one hour of editing time, and the result, I have one image I deem good enough to sell. So my hard costs were:
$25 in gas,
$15 in food
$75 in hotel accommodation,
$40 for my one hour of editing time
Total hard costs to produce image was $155.

I then determined that i will sell this image no less than 10x. That leaves a hard cost of $15.50 per image sold before I print. I then add a cost to print which could be $75 for a canvas print. That leaves $90.50 as my hard cost to produce the finished print. On top of that I always ad $50 for my profit and that leaves the price of that particular image at $140.50. A few different variables may come into play with lowering my hard costs, things like, I did not stay overnight, I came away with two images that I could sell... you get the point.

Now that I have been doing this for a few years and I can now average my prices by size and know I am generating enough profit for every image I sell. I also use a formula that determines ROI from my marketing efforts and you can read that in my blog posting about converting clients using social media.

For my workshops I simply charge what I believe my time is worth. I offer three different types of workshops. The first a quick one hour camera tutorial for people that just received their camera as a gift and want to know what the camera does.

The second is a four hour workshop where i give a price break on my time for multiple hours, but maintain a decent profit margin based on my experience and tenure.

The third type of workshop is a mentor program. I know how many hours it takes to be a mentor and I price it out based on hours spent with each client.

For any workshop I can justify the expense by the added value that I offer and the quality of my own work. As I do more workshops and my images elevate to another level, I will increase my price and be able to justify it easily.

How to Articulate Your Worth

Now that I gave you some sort of idea on how to charge for your images and services. The next thing you have to be able to do is to be able to articulate why you charge what you charge. A good way to do this is to create marketing materials that can be described as a “sales pitch”. It is simply a page of the features and benefits of doing business with you. This is the “why are you worth it” document.

A good example of this is the following... I have been to Paris six times in my life. I have stayed in 4 different districts and know people that live in the city. I know what time of year is good to visit certain attractions and how to get deals in order to get into a maximum amount of venues for anyone attending a photography workshop in Paris. I also know where to stand to get better images and what times of the day work best for specific attractions.

Is that not more appealing to a potential client than simply going on a Parisian photography workshop with another photographer that does not know the city like I do? I offer a lot of extra value by coming with me.

Another good way to get the price you want from a client and subsequent referrals is to under promise, over deliver. I’m not telling you to down play what you bring to the table and definately not exaggerate what you can do for a client. Negativity can spread like wild fire. Just go the extra mile to really deliver on your promises – you’ll not only create a happy client, but the referrals will already come to you sold on your services.

Here is a real world example of mastering this art form. I sold two images to a gentleman and he paid me the price that I was asking. I also had a third image from the same series of images he wanted. Understanding that the images were for his father for X-Mas, I sent him a third image in digital format as added value. He had to print the third image, but he got more bang for his dollar by buying the images from me than he would have if he bought from anyone else.

Listen to Your Clients and Watch For Buying Signals

OK, so now you know your worth, you’re prepared to articulate it with confidence, and now it’s time to discuss the importance of listening to what clients are telling you. This is important step in being able to adapt your photos and services to your clients’ needs.

Every client may be different, so you need to be able to adjust your offerings. Especially today in a very competitive market. Your clients know more today than they ever had, and even some may be amateur photographers that have their own opinions.

You also need to understand buying signals... watch for the body language and not so much their words. People are conditioned not to say “no” when you are sitting down with them. People generally hate confrontation. You may walk away from a client meeting and think you sold them, when really, they just didn’t say “no” to your face and save it for a phone call of email when you follow up.

You have to learn to recognize the hidden signals and not just the verbal ones. If you’ve got a client leaning forward, engaged in what you are showing them and nodding a lot while you’re talking, chances are you’ve sold them. If you find them leaning backwards in their chair, hands crossed ... or even taking phone calls, chances are they are just going through the motions with you.

Engage them, ask questions, overcome objections and ask for feedback. God gave you two ears and a mouth for a reason, listen twice as much as you are talking when selling a client... If you give them what they want and can agree on a price... then show them how you are going to over deliver on what was discussed. I guarantee your chances of success will increase.

Last, ask for the order. Never be afraid to ask the client for their business more than once. If you don’t ask, you are never going to get!

Say it Ain’t So...

Yep, sometimes you are going to have to walk away from a client. You will have clients that want everything for nothing

It’s never fun to have to know that you walked away from work. It goes back to those inner thoughts, “Am I good enough to be charging this?”

If you are this far, than I would say you are good enough, and you should walk away. Unless of course there are strategic reasons to do something for little money, or business is so bad you have to take it.

Compromising on price is a slippery slope. If you discount too much, people will find out about it and the next client that walks through the door will come expecting a discount instead of seeing the value in what you offer. Why, cause the referral they got was that you were talented and your prices are inexpensive.

What I offer here are guidelines and examples... food for thought if you will... The lessons here are... (1) to know what you are worth, (2) be able to defend it, (3) give value and be smart about what clients you do take.

I wish you all luck in your own photography business. If there is any way I can help, please contact me through my website here.

Good luck in 2012, and I thank you for all your continued support over the past year,

Kevin