The Sale Before The Sale

Your photography sale is won or lost before the client ever enters the salesroom.

The portrait consultation is a huge portion of your sale.

How you educate your client during the photography session is a huge portion of your sale.

And then there are the preparations you do in the salesroom before your client arrives. These make or break your sale.

Today I want to talk about the preparations I make before each sales session.

The Day Before Your Photography Sale

My sales prep actually starts the day before the sale, with a reminder call. It’s always best to connect with the client the day before. And, if they’re going to call you to reschedule, you’d rather know the day in advance, right?

Why am I calling the client?

I’m calling to make sure that we’ve got the appointment time correct. I’m calling to remind them to send me pictures of their walls (and to repeat the best way to take those pictures). I’m calling to make sure that all of the decision makers are attending the appointment. I’m calling to get them excited. I usually do this call while I have the images up in front of me. If I can remind them about a cute moment during the sale it adds to their enthusiasm.

At our studio we don’t sell online, we only do in-person sales, so first-time clients may need a little refresher of how that works. Not being able to take the pictures home and talk to their spouse about their photography purchase can throw people, so it’s best to provide the reminder (and if necessary, a new appointment) before the day of the sale.

Preparing for the sale

I use Proselect software (more on Proselect here) for selling my photography and I love it. All 60+ images are loaded into Proselect and then I run through a slideshow of the images looking for images that don’t hold up, or are too similar. As I’m reviewing the images I’m thinking about what was happening when each picture was taken. Anecdotes of what was transpiring on the sidelines or in between the pictures builds camaraderie and takes us all back into that moment. It also helps a parent that couldn’t make it to the photography session understand what we love about the images. It helps include them in the event.

At this point I walk back through the pictures picking out my 7-15 favorites. From those files I layout 3 different styles of canvas collages:

A) One that forms a perfect square or rectangle, something comfortable and “normal”.

B) One design that is all square canvases and thus can hold vertical or horizontal images in any location. This option offers visual interest with the placement of the images and is our most commonly purchased photography canvas collage. I also explain to my clients that this is the most commonly purchased collage and why the square canvases work so well for so many families.

Note: Always be educating your clients when you are selling - you know what they should want, you know what is their best option, they don’t. They don’t work with pictures every day and shouldn’t be expected to carry all of the decision making. They WANT (most of them) to know what you think. You’re the professional. Do your job. Have an opinion, be willing to share it and then let them make their own choices.

C) The final canvas collage I share is either a stair stepper style or an unfinished style canvas collage - they hold more images and allows for conversation of how each collage style makes us feel. This allows us to talk about what style designs feel best in each room in the home.

D) I also design a framed piece of 5 5x7s (sometimes black and white) and a 9-up image framed collage and choose matching frames for each.

Finally I choose either a torn edge mounted and/or framed print or a mounted metal.

This assortment allows me to explain the pros and cons of each style of product and educate the client about what will best suit their needs based on where they want to hang their artwork, their ceiling height, the colors in their home etc.

After I am done picking out their images for my designs I swap the pictures’ order in ProSelect so that the images we see stay in a vertical or horizontal direction as long as possible without losing our storyline. During the slideshow it’s less jarring if we aren’t changing perspective frequently, and when reviewing pictures in groups it’s nice to already have them laid out by orientation. I only move pictures that don’t throw off the vibe, I.E. I don’t want the client to notice I’ve changed anything. It’s like good Photoshop - if you do it right, they’ll never know.

Finally I brainstorm my “best sale”. What do I want to sell to my incoming client? I lay it out. I even write up an order sheet.

I got into the habit of doing this several years ago. I was working with a photography sales mentor - and he asked me how I was going to make a 10K sale. And I looked over my price list - and I couldn't. My pricelist didn’t have enough high ticket items on it to logistically sell 10K to one client. So I shredded my price list and I started over.

My advice to you is that you take your best sale thus far and AT LEAST triple it - how can you achieve that $$$? What about quadrupling your best sale? What can you sell to achieve that goal?

All of this matters, because doubt causes insecurity and insecurity makes us all freeze up - we grab the easiest decision, and bail. We all do it. As photographers and salespeople we want to eliminate doubt for your client. Your customer needs to feel safe so they are comfortable in investing in their portraits. Otherwise you end up with a sale of 4 8x10’s. And a disappointed bank account.

Thanks everybody. As usual you can leave a message below if you have a question or concern. And don’t forget to check out our YouTube page https://www.youtube.com/c/thesmashcake.

- Clare