Business

Open More Doors Through Better Sales Messaging

Sales can be scary. Sales means different things to different people. For some, sales can feel pushy or slimy. What comes to mind when you think car salesman? This is not the most positive way to look at sales. It can create internal challenges when it is time to sell your own services or products. We reframe selling as sharing, which is a much more positive approach to sales. If you have a good product or service and believe it can help others, why wouldn’t you want to share it? If you hold back on sharing, you might prevent someone from having a good experience. When you look at selling as sharing, it shifts your mindset that selling is a good thing that you need to do in your business, and it doesn’t have to be so daunting. Selling begins with your message and how you share what you have to offer. When the messaging is done correctly, your potential clients will be seeking you out for more information.

02/01/2018

Taking Care of Your 20%: How to Take Care of Your Top Clients

Business

Taking Care of Your 20%: Taking Care of Your Top Clients

In business, the 80/20 rule means that 80 percent of your business comes from 20 percent of your clients, so it makes sense that we should take extra special care of our clients. Look back through all of your clients from 2017. Who were your best clients? They could be the ones who spent the most with you, the ones who worked with you the most frequently or the the ones who spent an okay amount with you but were the exact people or companies you want to work with. These are the ones you want to pay special attention to. Here are some ways to take care of your 20 percent.

02/01/2018

Marketing

How to Win the Clients You Want

Let’s be real: Bad clients do not really exist. If anything, a bad client would be one who never knocks on your door in the first place. The most frequent question I hear is: Fabio, what should I do to get better clients? First, how do we define a good client? Most of us agree that a good client is one who pays more and understands the value of our work, and does not price-shop among our competitors. If you want to know how to get better clients, start by looking at yourself. How are you procuring and then working with your clients? A common mistake is that photographers don’t effectively communicate their “value perception.” That’s how others perceive the value of the work and services we provide.

02/01/2018

Business

Making Money in Your Pajamas: Using Marketing to Influence Sales

Sales and marketing are two things that professional photographers struggle with at some point in their career. If the two were easy to master, the percentage of failing small businesses would be a lot lower. When you market your business efficiently, the sales part becomes a lot easier. What is marketing? It’s basically the action or business of promoting and selling products or services. You can’t sell anything until you promote it. Promotion is marketing. How you promote ties directly into sales.

02/01/2018

Business

8 Ideas For Your Next Photography Blog Post

It’s a slow time of year for business for many of us, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be busy. In fact, it’s just the opposite. The first quarter is the perfect time for you to lock in your plans for the year ahead, starting with your blog. Here are some ideas for your next photography blog post.

02/01/2018

Business

Creating the Perfect Sales Machine in 2018

It is not an easy journey from part-time photographer to full-time photographer with a successful studio. It is incredibly difficult to establish yourself in a new market, and it is even harder to maintain your status. 2017 marked a year where more businesses in the United States closed their doors than ever before. Facing a sea of competition, businesses have to fight for every customer they get, and that will never change. So with all of these challenges facing you, what is the recipe for success? The answer comes in three flavors, and today we are going to tackle them.

02/01/2018

Marketing

4 Ways to Make More Money

I’ve always said the best way to make more money is to work more with the clients you already have—the ones who love your work, trust your judgment and have already given you their business. It’s much less work than finding new clients. Sometimes just by offering more to existing clients, not even doing full-blown sales sessions, you can earn tons. It made me about $20,000 the first year I gave it a try. Here are four ways you can make more money without spending any money at all.

02/01/2018

Marketing

The Top 5 Marketing Mistakes You Need to Stop Making Now

You’re a photographer, not a salesperson. Cut yourself a break. Pour out the chai/coffee/wine/absinth (no judgment) and listen up. You don’t need a master’s in business to become a successful photographer. But if you don’t immediately cut out a few things, you will turn into the cliché of the starving artist that your right-wing Uncle Barnie loves to mock, asking you at family gatherings, “So when are you going to get a real job?” To that I say, “Sit your fat ass down, Uncle Barnie. I’ve got this.” Stop pulling your hair out trying to employ these five marketing strategies everyone tells you to do but that bring in zero ROI.

02/01/2018

Shutter Magazine

Better Sales Through Variation

Most of the articles I see on increasing sales revolve around pricing strategies, approaches to marketing and, especially, in-person sales because of their immediate and considerable impact. But these articles don’t get to the heart of why we have trouble increasing sales: There might not be enough sellable images.

02/01/2018

Post Production

Branch Out With Beauty Retouching in ON1 Photo RAW 2018

Shooting and editing Raw files is a major part of my workflow. Editing in a Raw processor is a must for me, and I am always trying new programs from software companies that are always seeking the edge with new capabilities. From a beauty retouching perspective, there has always been such a dependency on Photoshop’s layers. Working in Lightroom, the closest thing I get to layers are local adjustment brushes and editing pins. These lack in skin retouching, requiring me to export the Raw file to another program just to smooth skin. On1 Photo RAW offers a nondestructive Raw processing alternative for retouching.

02/01/2018

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Behind the Shutter

Photography training and education for the modern photographer

In today’s competitive landscape, quality online photography training and education is priceless to your growth. Unfortunately, most publications contain a ton of fluff. No real meat to their content. Not at Behind the Shutter. We are committed to the photography community and improving professional photography by providing current, insightful, and in-depth educational content.

Training topics include photography lighting techniques, photography off-camera flash tips, photography posing guides, photography business concepts and marketing strategies, Facebook for photographers, boudoir and glamour photography training, high-school senior photography concepts, IPS (In-Person Sales) strategies, family photography, Lightroom tutorials, Photoshop how-tos, and much, much more.

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Photography training and education for the modern photographer