Your Photography Business Isn't About Creating a Product
In case you haven't ready the About Me section on my contact page, you may not know that I am an extreme Type A personality - I love organization, I can't live without my planner, and I'm an compulsive list-maker. I am also what Don Clifton's Strengths Finder classifies as an Achiever - I start my day at zero and have to do at least one thing productive every single day, or else I feel dissatisfied. I love checking things off of my lists, because it genuinely makes me feel better.
For this reason, I quite often tend to operate under a "once and done" and "out of sight, out of mind" attitude. Once I cross something off my list, my brain considers it done, over with, and forgotten. Which perhaps became an environmental response to keep me sane after years of busy schedules, commitments, and responsibilities.
But there's one thing about running a photography business - it's not once and done.
At least, you shouldn't be operating your business in that model. Once and done takes on the mindset of creating a product for a client, and once handed over, the transaction is complete.
But photography as a business isn't about creating a product. It's providing a service. And once you take that mindset to heart, everything about the way you run your business changes. Your focus shifts from the product to the person.
Suddenly, the goal isn't to take the most perfectly posed image, but rather to capture the raw, natural state of being in the relationship between two individuals. Suddenly, you aren't bringing the standard set of props to your favorite location to shoot, because you're instead asking the couple how they met or what they're favorite things are, and incorporating what means the most to them to create images that they'll keep framed forever.
There's a well-known quote that says, "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” This rings true as a basis for what we do. Clients may forget where you took them to shoot, or what blanket you wrapped them up in...unless it was the location of their first date, or their grandmother's handwoven blanket. Clients will forget what exact pose you had them do during an hour shoot - but they'll remember if they felt extremely uncomfortable doing it. Clients may not remember exact points of conversation you had during the hour shoot, but it will make a lasting impression if you ask them about personal details you remember from their emails.
The more attention you pay to your clients and the details of their shoot, the more comfortable they will be, feeling that you're attentive to their needs. You're developing a relationship with them that could last, quite literally, for generations. Because the way you make them feel determines their opinion of you and the likelihood that they'll return for future business.
I have a fellow photographer friend, Jill Stiffler, who I know I've mentioned in previous blog posts. Jill once told me the saga of one family who used her for their engagement photos, wedding, and newborn shoots of their two kids. Jill has been able to follow this family through their biggest life moments, documenting each because of her cultivation of a relationship with those clients.
I have started to see this happen with some of my own clients. One friend of mine asked me to secretly capture the moment he proposed to his girlfriend back in 2016, resulting in me also doing engagement photos on the rooftop, and then photographing their wedding earlier this year. A fellow classmate from high school asked me to do a family shoot as a gift to her parents in November, and then got engaged the following month, resulting in her immediately contacting me to shoot engagement portraits over Christmas and book for a wedding in 2020.
The benefits of cultivating these relationships with clients are twofold: 1) You have the pleasure of watching two people become one, and begin the journey of creating a family together, and 2) you're investing now into a family that will potentially contact you for numerous shoots in the future.
If you're serious about building a long lasting business, you have to take the steps today to ensure future success.
