In a recent column, I talked about things that make you feel a certain way and what resonates with you. But what about your clients? What do they feel, and are their feelings similar to your philosophies? If they aren’t, then you may have trouble connecting or even creating work that is meaningful to them. To truly satisfy a customer’s wants and needs, I believe it’s paramount to understand what drives them and what makes them feel.
When Ronan Ryle, our industry advisor, joined the PPA board of trustees, he handed out T-shirts that said, “Creating a healthier society through photography.” I thought it was a cute catchphrase but didn’t think much more about it until recently. During our last meeting at PPA headquarters in Atlanta, I had the chance to sit with him and several other board members during some downtime to discuss that and other related issues. It’s a philosophy that he very much believes in, that photography is capable of creating feelings that can prompt societal change. A question he asks of his clients is, “How does your work make your clients feel?” It’s a question, he says, that very few can actually answer, and he had some great insights on why.
Most of us get into photography because we want to learn to create beautiful images, sometimes for ourselves and sometimes for clients. While photographing for ourselves, we know what we want, what we like, and how it makes us feel, but we may seldom transfer that to client work and ask those same questions of them. We might ask, “Where and how will this image or these images be displayed?” or, “How many people will be in the photograph?” We may even ask, “Why are you having this portrait created?” but it’s typically a superficial question that might generate an answer like, “This is the first time in years we’ll all be together.”
My studio always did in-person sales for this reason. Selling when the emotions were at their height made it not only easy to do, but easier for the client to identify exactly which images they connected with.
Mark Campbell
The question doesn’t (in my opinion) go deep enough. It might be more beneficial to know how the image or images will make them feel when they look at it. If it’s a high school senior, they will possibly feel pride in seeing how their child is turning out and demonstrating the fruits of their parenting. A family portrait might evoke the same feeling, as well as nostalgia for how things were when viewed in the future. I can tell you from personal experience that most of the images I have displayed in my home bring back memories of when they were created and the happiness that surrounded that time. Having this knowledge could be an aid in creating images that will push all the right buttons when viewed by the client and make the sale an easy one.
My studio always did in-person sales for this reason. Selling when the emotions were at their height made it not only easy to do, but easier for the client to identify exactly which images they connected with. A day with a sales session on the calendar was payday, and we looked forward to that not only because it was going to be good for us, but because it was also a great experience for the client.
We learned how to do this from some of the best in the business at the time. Two tips I’ll never forget came from Charles Lewis, who said, “I had to learn to do the things I didn’t want to learn” to become successful, and Michael Redford, who taught me to ask, “How would you like to pay for that today?” and then stop talking! There is a wealth of business and sales knowledge available to PPA members today and I urge you to take full advantage of it.
Mark Campbell owns Prestige Photography in Wheeling, West Virginia.