Nicole (00:00)
In this episode we are talking sales, so if you're in business and you sell photography it's a must listen. So stay tuned.

Nicole Begley (00:09)
I'm Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer turned pet and family photographer. Back in 2010, I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six-figure business by 2012. Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses. I believe that achieving $2,000 to $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six-figure businesses;

that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full-time passion or a part-time pursuit, profitability is possible. If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place. With over 350,000 downloads, welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast.

Nicole (01:08)
Welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Begley, and today we're talking about the sales process and how to confidently guide your clients to a profitable sale.

Now, this sales process is a little bit of an extension of that inquiry process that we talked about at the last episode. So if you haven't listened to that, I highly recommend you pausing this one, going back an episode and listening to that inquiry process because without a strong inquiry process, you're going to be hard pressed to have a strong sales process. So if you've done that, let's dive in.

So have you ever had this happen? You've done the session, your images are beautiful, it's time for the sale, you get to the sales process, it seems to go really well, and then all of a sudden, the client at the end says, let me think about it. And then they leave and that sale never actually happens. That is super frustrating and something that's happened to just about all of us.

So when that happens, we tend to go all dark and spiral and start blaming our pricing, our entire business. Are we really cut out to do this? Why did this happen? And often it is because it's somewhere during the process there was a disconnect. So there is one rule that I stand by no matter what in my sales process.

And that is that my clients see the pricing long before they get to the sales room. I know there are photographers out there at the run their business, not sharing pricing until the sales session. I personally am not a fan of that. It feels yucky to me. And then if I'm feeling that way, my clients feeling that way, it's just not comfortable for anyone. And so I want to make sure that my client knows what to expect, what things cost long before they get to the sales session.

so that when we're together in the sales session, it is just pure fun. We're looking at these images, we're choosing their favorites, we're creating this beautiful artwork that they get to enjoy for a lifetime, and they already have an idea of what things cost now. There's still gonna be times when you're doing this and they know and they're ordering things and you're getting up to be one of your largest sales and your brain is gonna start.

You know, red alarm in here, like red alert, red alert. Did they actually read this price guide? Do they know what this is about to cost them? Oh my gosh. And your brain will panic or at least mine does. Is it just me? But every time that happens, I'm like, do they know what this is going to cost, right? So anyway, making sure they have that information prior is really helpful. But just know that when you do get to experience a larger than average sale,

that is likely going to happen to you too. And your job is just to remain calm, continue to serve your client, and then they can make a decision at the end how they want to go forward. So I think that is actually one of the biggest things about sales. And that is we need to change our mindset because so many of us look at sales and we think, my gosh, slimy used car salesman.

bait and switch, like we have all these negative connotations around sales. And so no wonder we get stressed out about this part of the process. No wonder we go into it thinking that our clients are thinking terrible things about it because we're thinking terrible things about it. So your number one goal, and this is if you have just started to sell your very first photography session or if you've been doing this for 10 or 20 years.

Your number one goal is to focus on the service. We are here to serve. We are not here to sell. We are not here to trick anybody into buying anything, to convince them to buy anything they don't need. We are literally here to create beautiful images for them, show them those beautiful images, and help them decide how they are going to get the most enjoyment out of it. That's it. So if you start to get stressed about this part of the process,

Just switch that mindset from sales to service. We are here to serve our client. And the easiest way to do that is to listen. It is to just go ahead and make suggestions. You are the expert. You can make suggestions as you go through this process.

All right, before we dive into the details of the sales session, I want to take a minute just to talk about in-person sales versus online galleries

and which sales method is right for you.

Now, spoiler alert, I am a big fan of what I like to call live sales. So this can be IPS, also known as in-person sales, where you're getting to be in the same room as your client, walking them through everything. I call it live sales now because a lot of people do this over Zoom, so they might make a Zoom appointment where they're helping walk their clients through. Whether you're meeting in person or on Zoom, the process is exactly the same. It's just whether you're doing it through a computer screen or in person.

So that's why I've been calling it live sales. And then online galleries is delivering your images via an online proofing gallery where they can select and purchase products on their own. Now, there's pros and cons to each one. And I think that there is a place in some businesses for an online gallery. Generally though, if you are wanting to have two to $3,000 average sales or larger, I think online galleries can be very challenging. Now,

We did have one guest on our podcast, Courtney Brason, who has been doing a hybrid sales session with her clients in terms of doing an online gallery, but with a like pre online gallery loom video. So in my inquiry process, you know, I talked about loom videos for that inquiry process. So clients could get to know you, but with the

online sales or in-person sales. If you were just to put up an online gallery, clients often can be pretty overwhelmed and clients in an online gallery are going to buy what they know, which is going to be prints and digital files. They are not confident enough to select their own artwork. Generally. They're not sure about the albums. These price points are a little bit higher than what they would like pay at Shutterfly or Costco. And so they can get just kind of really nervous about it they're not really sure what to do. So

With what Courtney was doing, it's episode 277. If you want to check that out from the freedom focus photography podcast, she walks you through her entire process, but she is basically creating. remember our sales session starts our inquiry process. So going through the process, she knows what her clients want to purchase. And then after the session, she's creating a loom video that for them to watch with instructions on how to go through.

Their online gallery, their online gallery has wall mockups, album mockups. It has a lot of the details that they need to choose. and then she has still having $6,000 average sales using this hybrid method. So it is possible. However, as a general rule, if you are just going to take photos, put them in an online gallery, send them off to your client. Generally that is not going to be that successful for you because clients

tend to get overwhelmed. Just think about it. If you've got a gallery with 60 beautiful images, then like figure out what you want. You're going to look at it. You're going to be really excited. And then what happens when we don't know what to do next, or there's just a lot of decisions to be made. Like your clients have likely been at work all day, or, you know, if it's the weekend, they've still been running around all weekend and they're fatigued. They can't sit down and make all these decisions of something.

They're not used to making. Maybe for us, it's pretty easy for us to look at a gallery and choose our favorites because we do this kind of thing all the time. Your client doesn't. So they would get this gallery, look at it and be like, I don't know. I like these. I like that one. But which one would be better for the wall? How big should that be? Oh, like 11 by 14 is a big one. What's this 20 by 30? That seems insane. Oh my gosh. And then look at that price point. We'll just get a couple of prints. So

Generally, what happens when you send an online gallery for a regular boutique full type session is it's going to take a while for people to make the decisions. They're going to, you you're probably going to have to remind them a few times and then like a few sales of some prints or digital files will come in, likely being way lower than what your average sale hopes are, causing you to be really frustrated and also causing your client to not have the best experience. Whereas if you were to do an online

person or in-person sales or a live sales option with your client, then you can walk your client through the process. The process is easier for your client. Your client gets your suggestions as the artist, as the professional to know that, it's okay to put this big, beautiful image on your wall. Here's the different finishes. It just makes it so much easier for them.

I highly recommend in-person sales. Now there are a couple of situations in which an online gallery can work. And that is generally if you are selling like all inclusive type packages. So kind of like a wedding photographer would have package A, B and C, or maybe you have one package, but your sessions are all inclusive. So your session is, you know, $2,000 and includes an art piece and includes 15 images and an album. And it includes X number of digital files. So.

If that's what everybody's getting, okay, then an online gallery could work fine for you that you can send that to them and they make those choices because they know what they need to pick out. But if you are doing a session fee and then they choose all the things that they want, I'm telling you, it can be very, very challenging for them to do so. So another place where online galleries can work well is mini sessions or like micro session type things where you're doing, you know,

20 sessions in a day, they're five minute sessions, they're just gonna get a couple digital files or prints from it. Those types of things can work well for it. Even mini sessions, if there's artwork involved, I still feel that doing some sort of live sales is going to come out more profitable for you at the end and your client is going to have a better experience. So to recap.

In-person sales are what I like to call live sales because it could be via Zoom too, is when the client meets with you in person or on Zoom for a guided ordering session. You walk them through a slideshow, you walk them through selecting their images and their favorites and their artwork, you process the order and payment at the end of the session. It keeps it contained. All the decision-making is done there. You are able to assist them with that decision-making.

And generally, it's going to result in higher sales for you and a better satisfaction for your client. You guys don't forget this. We often are scared of in-person sales because we think we're going to be pushy to the client or like, we're asking too much of them to spend some more time. You're actually saving them time because they're not going to have this to-do list or this to-do item over their head for a week or two at a time.

just telling themselves numerous times a day, my gosh, I need to get in that gallery. I need to choose my images. I need to get back to her. Like you're actually doing them a favor and you're making it easier for them. So many of my clients said that that was the favorite part for them. It was the easiest part for them. It's my favorite part because we get to create the artwork, which is why I do this. It is a great time of the process. Just remember that it's service.

and we're just listening and offering suggestions. We're not selling. So remove the selling from your vocabulary so you can feel better about it, but it is a really great part of the process. So what are some of the pros? Higher sales averages, clients will spend significantly more when guided through the sales process. And again, it's not about tricking them to spending them more. It is just giving them the service.

so that they know what they're going to enjoy the most and they're going to get more enjoyment out of the images you guys created together. They're going to see their images at their best on a large screen or printed proofs, not on their phone. You can also lead them towards premium purchase instead of them defaulting to the lowest price option or remind them of any sort of bonuses that you have available, which leads to more value for them. It's going to give them a stronger emotional connection.

when they experience a slideshow, the emotions are gonna be really on point because they're there, they're experiencing it, they're not trying to watch it while they're making dinner. They're giving their full attention to that experience.

And people make better buying decisions when they're emotionally engaged like that. It also prevents decision fatigue and overwhelm without guidance. Like I said, clients could feel really overwhelmed with too many choices, decide to think about it, gets pushed down the to-do list. A couple of weeks later, there's no longer that emotional connection with the images. They might just get a couple of things and move on. Or they're, you know, they're suffering from that analysis paralysis because there's so many images to choose from.

Orders are also placed immediately, so you're not waiting for orders. You don't have all these open sessions, just like open loop hanging over your head, you know, waiting for those to come in to be done. You can, you know, just get it all done then and quickly. It educates clients on the artwork. They've never done this before. They don't know how this works. So, and they also don't know what they want until they see it. And even if they see it and they like it and they want it, they sometimes still need that.

that okay from you that yes, that size is correct. Yes, this is gonna look amazing. So they can leave the session excited about what they purchased and not confused about what to order because this is a more personalized service. We're giving a luxury service, remember. So this is a luxury piece of this to make the service feel high end and come full circle.

Some of the challenges of the online galleries are really just the opposite of all those. So they tend to have lower sales averages. There could be delays in ordering or not ordering at all. There's less emotional connection because they see it so many times. Or then it's just like a to do thing. They have to go over and do it. Clients can screenshot and not buy anything. With these new AI tools, it is really easy for anybody to remove watermarks from images, even if they don't have Photoshop experience. So

It's really important that you take that into account. If you've just taken $200 for a session fee and now you're putting all these images in an online gallery that they can just screenshot at home, they're going to have all the images. Even if they have a big copyright symbol on them, they still have them to look at them. That's just something to consider. Then of course, there's really no control over the buying process.

You're leaving that for them to figure out on your own. And it often leads to fewer products purchased or just a couple of prints and digital files. So highly recommend in-person sales, as I mentioned. So what does that look like? Let's start to kind of walk through this. Now, remember, as we talked about in the last episode, lots of the sale stuff happens before the actual session happens. So we need to set our clients up for success.

We need to pre-frame the investment. from our very first inquiry, our pricing should be transparent and we should talk about it as an investment. So letting them know that most of my clients spend between X and Y on their final artwork, everything's custom designed and I will be there to help you choose the perfect pieces. You can use that pricing guide that educates not just list prices. Do not send your client a page that just has numbers, sizes and numbers, no photos.

No details about what it is. Remember when we're selling things we want to share, we can share the features, but what we really want to be sharing is the benefits of those features. For instance, if I am selling one of my archival desk prints, I would not just say it is a five by seven luster print with a UV coating, styrene mounted linen texture.

People would have no idea what the heck I'm talking about, even if they're looking at it, where instead I can focus on the benefits and I can say it's the five by seven print. It's on a beautiful Fuji paper. This has this plastic backing so that it will never bend. I have a UV coating on it so it will never fade. And we have that linen texture because it just really adds to the beauty of the product. So that they can understand. So make sure when you're talking about your products, you're doing so in that way.

Also make sure that you're showing pictures, you're showing samples. If you are doing a zoom sale session, make sure you've brought samples of your products to your session. At some point during the process, your client needs to see, touch, hold, feel these different products because especially as we move the price point up, these are high end products. You know, our costs for these albums can be four to $500 for us, for our cost. They are beautiful.

and your clients need to be able to hold them and see them and feel the difference between that and what they would order on Shutterfly.

plant the seeds for what we're going to order. So we need to talk about what we're going to create long before we even shoot the session. this is happens to me really at our first inquiry, we talk about what's most important to them, what they want to do with their images, how they would most enjoy them, where they want to hang them. I'll find out what kind of decor choices they have in their home, what colors are in that home, what types of finishes they might be interested in.

We'll talk about the options for the collection of images, whether albums or folio boxes, digital files, things like that. And then we'll kind of really kind of plan what they're going to do with those images before we even shoot. So then when we get to the sales session, we can just dig into, all right, you were thinking about X, Y, Z. Is that still what you're thinking? Great. OK, let's choose that. So again, that sales done. So when we get to the sales session, we're really just looking at images and choosing finishes and getting paid. It's really

the most fun of the entire experience.

All right, so what does this actually look like? What's the workflow of the sale session? And remember, this is the same whether you're in person or on Zoom. If you are on Zoom and you're showing a slideshow, make sure you check the little box at the bottom that says, play sound. Otherwise there won't be any sound on your viewers or your client's side of things. So make sure you don't miss that check mark. Okay, but no matter which way you're doing it, that's how I start off is, well, of course I start off with greeting them.

a little bit of chit chat. Are you excited to see your images? And then I'll let them know, okay, I have a slideshow. Now for me, I don't do full edits before they're ordered. I do some global edits in Lightroom. I might do some, if there's any big Photoshop stuff, like if there was a group shot that I need to merge images or big head swaps, I'll do that before my clients see the final images. But if the dog was on leash for the whole session, I'm likely not removing leashes until those images are ordered.

Um, because it just depends. Maybe a client's going to just do a big wall piece and 10 images and I don't need to, to, you know, edit all 50 of them. So, uh, that's how I prepare. And so we come in, we sit down and I let them know, okay, I have a slideshow for you. Now please note that all these images are not fully edited. The ones that you choose, I'm going to go do final edits, remove leashes and just do my final edits to make them sparkle and make them perfect.

What I want you to enjoy here is just enjoy the slideshow and we're going to be looking at the expressions and just the feelings of these images of the ones that you love. But right now, just enjoy the slideshow and then I'll play the slideshow. And then they usually get a little emotional and they love it. And we talk about that for just a second of like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad you love them. Okay. Are you ready for the next step?

And I preface this with them. say, this is the hardest part, but remember none of it's permanent. What we're going to do is we're going to go through individually and mark our favorite images. Now I don't have them say no or yes. I just have them say favorites because I don't want them focusing on the ones they don't want. I just want them to kind of mark the ones they do love. So we'll go through and do favorites. You know, and sometimes there is a client that's like, no,

You know that that wants to say no's too. So sometimes I'll mark them, but I generally try to steer them in a way that we're just going to go through and choose our favorites and I let them know. Listen, there's not a certain number you need to choose. There's not a certain percentage you need to choose. I have some clients that choose, you know, 70 % and some that maybe choose 15%. So don't worry about going through and choosing a favorite and thinking, wait, was there another one that I kind of liked as much? Like if you love it, just market.

We can go through again and whittle down or look for the ones that are similar. This is just a first pass. Nothing's permanent. Then we go through and we do that. And then at the end of that, I let them know, congratulations, that was the hardest part. And then we start to just really design what it is they want to purchase. So I will ask them, you know, during our pre-consultation, you said you wanted to create a big art piece for the living room.

and then potentially also a folio box. Is that still what you're thinking? And they'll say yes. I'm like, OK, great. Well, and then I'll say I took the liberty of doing some mockups so you can get a picture of their wall and then actually use different softwares in order to put the picture of their their pictures on their wall at the proper size so they can see the sizing. They would see what it would look like in that room. It's really fantastic. There's a variety of different

software that you can use for that. We'll have those links down below in the show notes.

So then we're just going through and we're finalizing what image, what size, what finish. Okay, so great, that's done. We move on. I asked them if there's any other artwork they'd like to hang in other areas of their house. So if there is, we'll continue to design all the artwork. And then we'll finish that and we'll be like, okay, so we have all these other images that you enjoy, that you loved. How would you like to display those?

And then I let them know, I showed them the albums, I showed them the folio boxes, I let them know of the digital file collections if they'd rather just add that on. I would say probably 60 % of my clients are doing an album or folio box, 40 % end up just adding on digital files. It really just depends how you have your pricing set up and what you want them to purchase. But that's kind of the next step is to figure out what to do with all those other images that they love. So we'll do that.

And then we'll just kind of see, there anything else that you would like to purchase? Maybe you have some little desk prints or some other little small add-on type things. Maybe then you offer additional digital files, offer an additional purchase to purchase the rest of the digital files, whatever it is, just kind of do those finish those last offers. Remember, we talked about the art of pricing, so kind of whatever art of pricing.

piece you want to implement in your business. This is kind of where you would make sure that you mentioned that. And then at the end, we are just going to close and by closing, we are going to go over and just say, all right, let's go over everything. And I go over and I say, you know, we have this art piece and you know, this is the price. And I have an actual order form that I just write everything down. It's just a like carbon copy paper type thing that I write everything down. The size, the finish, the image, the price.

And so then I'm looking at that with them and I'm just showing them, okay, so we have this artwork and you know, and then this is the price and we have this and this and we're just going down the list. And so then I say, you know, I add it up and I say, okay, the total with tax is X. If they had a session fee that they paid that's applied towards it, I let them know. And then, you know, we take off the $500 you've already paid. So the total due would be X. And then I just shut up. We.

Photographers, humans are going to want to have a running dialogue in our head of, my gosh, well, my gosh, it's quiet. I'm uncomfortable. What are they thinking? They're thinking I'm ripping them off. They're thinking, how dare I? They're thinking that I shouldn't be paid this much. They're thinking this is ridiculous. They're thinking that they hate me. They're thinking that they're going to go tell everybody that I just tried to rip everybody off. Like you go into this whole entire spiral of all these thoughts that they're thinking where,

Your clients very well might just be thinking, huh, which credit card do I want to put that on? Which one will I get more points on my credit card for using? Do I need to move some money from savings to cover this? Do I need to do a payment plan or am I just going to pay this all off now? Like they might just be thinking of the logistics of what it looks like to pay you. So just let them, just let them know the total, ask them how they would like to pay and then shut up, let them be. And then if they say, you know,

That's maybe a little bit more than I expected to spend. Just it's fine. You're not going to get mad. You're just going to say, okay, totally understand. Let's look at, you know, how we can adjust that. So maybe it's downsizing an album, taking some images out, downsizing the wall art a little bit. make sure that you do like, don't just give in and be like, okay, well I'll just give you these things. No, take some things away. you

can still be nice and be like, my gosh, OK, maybe it comes with 10 images, but they really love 12 and it's still past your target session average of what you need to make. And you want to just be like, let me just give you those two extra images. You can do that. But what I don't want you to do is just giving them extra things from a place of feeling not worthy or feeling like you're taking advantage of them or like feeling like you need to because they maybe had some price.

We're thinking that they wanted to take some things off. Just breathe and let them choose what they want to purchase. It is okay. Remember, you're not selling, you're serving. People value what they invest in. When they invest in their images, they're going to appreciate them more. Selling them just ensures that they're going to put them on their wall. They're going to enjoy them. Remember, you guys, we're running a business.

We have bills, our cameras are expensive, our insurance is expensive, education is expensive. Like everything is expensive to run a business. We need to be paid for it. So if you're listening to this series, you likely want to get paid for it. So please remember that.

I hope this sales session overview has helped you feel a little bit more confident in your sales. And I hope this pricing series is helping you feel more confident in selling your work. I will see you soon for our next episode.