Making The Sale With Your Wedding Photography Clients

photo by blog.jmc.bz from Flickr

I guess the most critical time for a wedding photographer comes, not when you get an appointment, but at that final decision making time, when your client has to decide either to go with you or "keep looking" and how to encourage your wedding photography clients to close (with YOU) on the booking/sale.

So what are some good ways to "make the sale"? I'm going to share a few that I have learned but I'm really looking for you guys to help me with some good ideas so please leave me a comment or advice on how you would do it.

So, when you've shown your client all of your portfolios and have given your sales pitch, its down to your potential client making their final decision. I've been reading just some general sales articles and ideas that could apply to wedding photography, so try some of these:

1. "Does this sound fair to you?" / use final closing phrases. Read this great article from the Missouri Small Business Development Centers for some great tips on closing a sale.

2. Ask them which package they would be interested in. Giving them choices helps put them in the mindset of having already made the right choice of YOU!
   

3. Offer to beat the price of any competition... even if its by $50 or $100. (I've gotten 2 wedding bookings this way!)

4. Offer to add freebie's if the negotiation is going sour... (free or discounted engagement shoot, free 8x10, etc...)
5. "Do you think that this (option) would be something that you would be interested in?"
6. Know you client's potential "wants" as well as their needs. (ie. Brides want to look like models in a magazine, needs would be: Traditional group photos for grandma's picture window.)
7. Don't be too anxious or nervous. People can smell desperation. Be yourself. Be honest. Let them know upfront what they are getting. Write out and practice some key selling points that you will talk about ahead of time if you are the nervous type.
8. Finally, be prepared for the close. "Let's get this paperwork out of the way, so I won't waste any more of your time..." (actually have all the paperwork printed out so that its easy for the client to fill out and it answers all your questions about the "when" and "where")

In closing: Be organized, be yourself, know how to provide a solution to your client for their needs AND wants, then know and practice closing.

Please leave me a comment if you have any other good suggestions for closing a sale and I'll add them on here!

Digital Camera Buying Advice For Christmas for Non-Geeks

How do I buy the right digital camera for my budget? Which brand is better? How many megapixels do I need. What the heck is a megapixel?

These are some of the questions that I will try to answer for you guys here on The Horse this holiday season.

A common problem that non-geeks have when buying a digital camera is the wide range of choice and brands available in point and shoot and DSLR cameras. Well, I'm going to help you out by giving you some definitions that you can use on your salesperson to sound (and actually become) more knowledgeable about digital cameras:

Point and Shoot: this is a still camera designed primarily for quick and simple operation. Most of them use an easy autofocus system for focus and automatic systems for exposure and whitebalance as well. Most are relatively inexpensive and manufacturers are adding more and more features as time goes by. These are very popular and a great buy for the casual photographer.

DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex): a digital camera that uses a mechanical mirror system and pentaprism to direct light from the lens to an optical viewfinder on the back of the camera. DSLRs are often preferred by professional still photographers because they allow an accurate preview of framing close to the moment of exposure, and because DSLRs allow the user to choose from a variety of interchangeable lenses. Most DSLRs also have a function that allows accurate preview of depth of field. (from Wikipedia)
Most of these bad boys are fairly expensive (start at around $500) but are well worth the trade-off in features and speed. More on these in a later post...

Optical Zoom: The ability to physically zoom the camera with the mechanics and glass of the lens. This amount is measured in "X" (ie. 4X Optical Zoom)

Digital Zoom: this type of zoom is actually a cropping of the sensor in your camera and the software interpolating the digital resolution of the cropped area. Because interpolation disturbs the original pixel layout of the image, as captured by the camera's image sensor, it is usually considered detrimental to image quality. Also measured in "X".

Josh's Camera advice: Digital=BAD, Optical=GOOD. You want more optical zoom on your point and shoot.

Flash Memory (and other storage media): this is the place where your pictures will be stored on your camera. Most are small cards, some less than one inch in length that are removable. Flash memory can be erased and programmed many times. Some types of flash memory are:

• SD Flash (very common, comes in "Mini" and "Micro" versions)
• Compact Flash (older but still used in some Nikon cameras)
• Memory Stick (Sony proprietary)
• xD (Olympus and Fuji proprietary)

Be sure to know what kind your new camera has and how to use it or transfer you pictures to a computer or printer.

Megapixel: A megapixel is 1 million pixels, and is a term used not only for the number of pixels in an image, but also to express the number of image sensor elements of digital cameras or the number of display elements of digital displays. For example, a camera with an array of 2048×1536 sensor elements is commonly said to have "3.1 megapixels" (2048 × 1536 = 3,145,728). (from Wikipedia)
This may sound nerdy, but basically, the more megapixels the camera is rated the higher resolution you can take pictures at. Of course there are downsides to a larger megapixel rating:

• larger memory storage card needed (more expensive)
• each picture takes up more room on you memory card
• longer transfer times and slower shooting times on a P&S
  

What it boils down to is: Unless you are printing out 8x10's or larger, the normal consumer needs no more than 6-8 Megapixel sensor to print out very sharp 4x6 photos.

Josh's Camera advice: don't splurge on the bigger megapixel rating on a point and shoot. 6-8 Megapixels will be enough.

So, to finish off, some of the best new point and shoots for this season in my opinion are:

1. Nikon Coolpix S series
2. Canon PowerShot series
3. Sony CyberShot series

Other great picks are: the Kodak EasyShare series and Fujifilm FinePix. But research your camera before you buy it using your new knowledge (above) and get the best features for the best price for your giftee (which may just happen to be yourself ;-)!

Enjoy, and I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!
Remember the reason for the season...