Finding and Keeping Clients

In February I go to Hawaii to teach in a photography school. We’ll cover Lighting, the heart of photography, and Business Practices in Photography, the lifeblood of the business. Below are some of the points we’ll cover that might work for you in your industry.

Finding Clients

Before you start building a database of names determine your niche. Targeting the specific audience you need to address will make your research and set-up time more productive.

Get Organized

Software programs such as Microsoft Outlook (PC) or Entourage (Mac) are helpful in organizing your material. Also, these programs are integrated with Microsoft Word and facilitate emailing.

What To Do With Collected Contacts

Set-up files in a database for the name of the company, the personal contact’s name, their address and phone numbers, email and website address. Assign each contact to a category.

I specialize in photographing people, but setting up a category for companies who hire photographers that photograph people is too broad. By assigning a contact to a category such as “Education” I can send a promotional piece to only those contacts in the education field. Assigning multiple categories to individual contacts further refines target marketing.

Contact management software has space for making notes. Keep this up-to-date as new information about your client comes to light. Use this field for their Facebook page and other information that don’t fit in any other field.

Time To Party

Parties (some parties) are a good way to build your database. Attend the “after-hours” events many civic and trade organizations sponsor that are designed to promote getting to know people and businesses in the area. Usually held monthly these events are great ways to meet a lot of folks and have fun doing so. It beats sitting at home with a computer.

Work The Room

Be sure you know your two-minute “elevator talk” about your business. Find someone you know. Get them to introduce you to the person to whom they are talking. Exchange business card and ask if you can follow up at another time for coffee or lunch. Be sure to give that person your full attention while you are with them, but move on after about five minutes. Remember, almost everyone in the room is there for the same reason you are, to meet people and find clients.

Be Relevant/Current

I recommend to the students to read industry magazines. Photo District News helps keep photographers informed on happenings in the world of photography. It is filled with the latest trends and techniques, business and legal news and new product reviews.

Contact information for magazines that might be interested in your work can usually be found in the masthead. Many magazines are online today. Read some back issues before contacting them. Offer a story idea to the editor. If you did your homework your idea should reflect the trends that are going on in the industry or plug into the style of that magazine.

Investigate – Dig Deep

Put on your investigative reporter hat and dig around for your niche. Use Google and type in your categories. Combine them with the word “organizations” and you will find many of the trade associations. When you find their websites click on the “About Us” section. It often will help you know the image the company is trying to convey. This is invaluable if you contact them and land an appointment.

Dale Carnegie said it best; “You can close more business in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you.”

Qualify Your Lead

I know of a photographer who contacted a designer for a couple years. The photographer sent out beautiful newsletters and promotional material. One day the photographer dropped off a portfolio and met the designer. He asked if he was the person that hired the photographers. He said no, that his boss picked the photographers; he just designed the pieces.

Connecting With A Client

If you find common interests with a prospect, you can establish a business relationship. In a prospect’s office look at: pictures and plaques on the wall; the books on the shelf; anything that shows their interest. Commenting on that interest is a good way to start a conversation. People love to talk about their interest. Try to find common ground for a friendship. People are more likely to buy from a friend than a salesman.

Sales consultant Jeffrey Gitomer says, “If you establish common ground with the other person, they will like you, believe you, begin to trust you, and connect with you on a deeper level; a ‘things-in-common’ level. The best way to win the connection is to first win the person.”

Finding clients is hard work. Keeping them is all-important.

Are all your eggs in one basket?

To "put all your eggs in one basket" is to risk losing everything all at one time. For me this applies to two aspects of my business.

First, if you have a niche’ market it is good to develop a second niche’. Kodak saw the writing on the wall years ago and diversified beyond making film products only. If they hadn’t they would no longer be around. For me I have my interests directing my photography. I love sports and this is really where I first started in photography. In college shooting all the college sports was exciting. I didn’t out grow this interest, but added other areas.

My faith has always been what drives much of my passion. I have worked for Christian denomination’s mission organization covering missions around the world and continue to do so today. I really enjoy things that challenge my heart the way my faith does for me.

I also love technology. This challenges my mind. I love to figure how things work and how to fix things. This has driven my interest in research and technology photography through the years. All three of these loves exist in higher education. This is why I have helped many schools, colleges and universities through the years with their recruiting and public relations photography.

There are times when each of these has peaks and valleys through the year. By diversifying a little and yet still being niche driven and not all over in my work I have been able to keep my eggs in separate baskets with my work.

The second area where I have divided up my eggs is in marketing of my services. One of my best marketing is done through networking. This is getting me involved in my communities. By joining a photography association I learn from others and plug into friends who occasionally get over booked and refer to others they know in the industry. I have joined the Atlanta Press Club because many of those who are members go to the social events and meetings that I would not meet anywhere else. I have been able to meet people who not only might hire me, but become good friends.

I have gone to the library and found every list of people in the markets I am interested in working with to build a database. This database of 3,500+ names is categorized. I have categories for family, clients, prospects, and broken into almost every imaginable group I can think of. I have phone numbers, mailing addresses and emails. Each of these is a different way to contact the people. I call them, I send postcards and I send out an e.newsletter as well as individual emails.

When someone writes me back to unsubscribe to my e.newsletter I don’t delete their name—I add them to my no newsletter category. They still get postcards and occasional phone calls.

Lately I signed up for a new cell plan that lets me make unlimited phone calls as long as I am using the Wi-Fi feature of the phone. This lets me make lots of phone calls. I am learning how to have meaningful short conversations with many people. They are meaningful because I really do care about each person. If you don’t feel genuinely interested in people you have to be one incredible actor (which I am not) to pull this off. This is why I work hard to find as many new people I can to add to my list. If you are not genuinely interested in a person, it is important to have someone else to talk to if they don’t exist.

One of the gifts I have which I have learned to use more each day is my memory. For some reason once I learn something (really learn it) I usually don’t forget. This has helped me in ways I am now only beginning to realize. When I meet someone I haven’t talked to in a long time I can remember so much about them I can almost remember our last conversation. So, I tend to ask how they are doing and how something we talked about last time is going. I know others who call a lot for business need to write down something about a person when they talk to them to remind them to do this later when they call them again. I started to do this to help me and just by writing it down once I remembered it, so when I met them again in a grocery store and not planning on contacting them, I remember to ask about how they are doing with what we talked about last. This isn’t asking like I am doing therapy and they have a problem. It usually is asking about something exciting that has been going on in their life.

When you think you have done all you know how to do in a particular niche’ in your field try to apply those principles to a new niche’. When you are trying to find a new client or knowing how to keep your present ones, remember dating. Be persistent and try many different approaches.

What’s the biggest room in the world? Room for improvement.

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Photojournalism Is a Life of Research Papers

My favorite thing to do when I was in school was the field trip. I remember going to the fire station when I was in kindergarten and getting to sit on the firetruck and see the firemen go down the sliding pole.

I can remember so much from these trips because I could see what I was learning about. Sometimes I even got to sample things -- like a hot dog in a meat-packing plant.

As a photographer/photojournalist, I get up each day and go on a new field trip. Each time I learn something new. The excitement I feel while on these adventures is what I hope to capture with the camera. I need to take the readers of publications to places they may never go in their lifetimes, but can experience through photographs to expand their world.

As a photographer you must tune in with your ears and eyes. You must try to understand as much as you can and then capture those things which help not just document what you saw, but grab the excitement you felt when learning about the place.

Assignments also can be a little overwhelming -- like trying to write a term paper the day before it is due. In these cases, it helps to have some knowledge of the subject before you arrive. If you have done research in advance, you will be able to use the experience as icing on the cake and not the cake itself.

Doing research before every assignment is not always possible, and this is why it helps to find your niche or expertise. Formal education in a subject can be one of the ways to become an expert.

I studied social work to understand people better. I later did my master's in communication at a seminary, which helped me in working with people of faith. Another subject I have devoted a lot of time to is sports and, specifically, basketball. I enjoy playing basketball, and this gives me insights into the game that as a spectator alone I would probably not appreciate as much.

In school, we all did research papers. For me, learning to do papers on my hobbies or interests was what made it enjoyable -- and also made for a better paper.

This is true for photographers, too. After you have mastered a subject, transfer your skills to a new topic and in time you will have diversified your clientele and turned your passion into a career.

The Integrated Photographer

When the camera merged with the computer to give us digital photography, the skills to be a successful photographer changed dramatically. Prior to digital photography, the professional photographer only had to know how to use a camera.

Almost everyone who was working prior to the computer becoming commonplace has experienced this phenomenon. The computer was integrated into many people's jobs. Everyone has had to learn how to do word processing and e-mail. Using the computer to maximize your efficiency for work depended on your comfort level with computers.

There were those who didn't handle this transition well. They always had to ask the office's resident "computer guy" to help them with everything -- mail merge, printing envelopes, attaching documents to e-mails, and so on. Because they didn't learn, they became less valuable employees, while the computer guy became more valuable.

In 1990, the publication industry took a big hit. I was laid off due to the recession. Many of my friends also lost their jobs since newspapers were dropping like flies; many two-newspaper towns lost one of their publications.

Fortunately for me, I had computer skills to fall back on. These skills helped me to sell computer systems to corporations in Long Island for Tandy Corporation. I used my knowledge to help design networks for clients, and to create databases for mass marketing. I enjoyed the photography forums on CompuServe long before 1993, when the World Wide Web was created. I took a class at Georgia Tech on designing Web sites and created my own Web site back in 1995.

In the early 90's I was scanning transparencies and film to digitize photos for publication. Once the digital camera surpassed the quality from this process, it was easy for me to make the transition. Today I speak to my peers at conferences and workshops as an expert on digital photography and on how to use the computer to run their businesses.

Ever since I moved from a staff position to a full-time freelancer, I have watched my business average 20 percent annual growth. Many of my friends have been losing their businesses and staff positions during this time. I've come to realize that the greatest single factor in my success is the knowledge of computers as it relates to photography. Those who have failed have generally not kept up with technical developments.

The successful photographer today is the integrated photographer. In technology, "integrated" refers to two or more components being merged together into a single system. The integrated photographer is the professional who has merged mastery of the camera with mastery of the computer.