“I’m in shock. Thank you Elizabeth for not sugar coating it.” -Shannon
“Thanks for your insight, and much needed swift kick in the pants!” -James R.
I’m pretty straight-up. Like zero sugar coating, but LOADS of E numbers {E for Elizabeth – har har}. I’m the kind of friend who will tell you if your tag is hanging out. Or if you have toilet paper on the bottom o’yer shoe. So let me be frank.
The reason you’re not selling your photogrpahy is that you’re too busy selling the idea of photography.
Say what?
Yea. Totally. Photographers who make money do it by selling their photography printed on stuff. Like ya know…pictures? And another thing…it’s YOUR fault that all your clients want is a disk. Because all you’re doing is selling them on the idea that their session with you is meant to result in a bunch of screen-optimised digital files to plaster allover Facebook. Because that’s what YOU do, dummy!
What gives me the right to talk to you like this? Because I gave myself this same speech when I was hit in the middle of a bottle feeding with -like- the biggest epiphany of my business-woman-life:
I’m not selling clients on prints because I’m selling them on digitals
How am I selling digitals? By plastering them allover my goshdarn website. And my goshdarn Facebook page. WE are guilty of selling the idea that this is what our images are for. So people who see your work will either…
a.} Look at it and think “ooh that’s a pretty mass of pixels on my screen” and move on or
b.} Look at it and say “Oh my. I must hire that photographer so I can have pretty pixels of me in the internets, too!”
So how do we remedy this problem? How do you FINALLY start MAKING MONEY with your business? How do you start actually selling your work for -ya know- money? You need to…
- Find the products you love. Just love prints? That’s fine! Want to offer a limited number of different products? Keep it simple? That’s FINE! (but don’t just offer them. SELL them!)
- Start producing these products.
- MOST IMPORTANTLY become a product photographer. Photograph your products. Post pictures of those on your Facebook page. Blog about them. Rave about them. Make them look sexy, baby! Because that’s what you’re supposed to be selling, right? Not the idea of photography. But actual photography. As in…photographs. As in your work actually printed on paper and hung. on. someone’s. wall.
- And here’s the other MOST IMPORTANTLY…you NEED to be selling these in person. There is no way around it. These are your excuses, this is why you need to do it now, and this is how you can learn how to do it today so you can start doing it tomorrow.
