Best Business Practices for Photographers [27]
Conveying Your Plan to a Prospective Client Can Win You the Assignment
Many times during the initial client dialogue—especially when you're an unknown quantity to the client—one of the client's concerns is, "Can this photographer do what I need, when I need it, how I need it?" Of course, the client will try to whittle down prospects by reviewing portfolios, websites, and the like. When the client gets a referral from a colleague, you're even further along the way to winning the assignment.
A few years back, I was called in after a portfolio review to discuss the details of the shoot and do a little brainstorming about it. I wanted to be careful because I didn't want to give them my creative suggestions, only to see them presented as if they were ideas from the client to another photographer, who then would bring the ideas to life. The task at hand was to produce portraits of the CEO and president of a company in three distinct portrait settings, two on location and one in a studio. The challenge was to accomplish all three in less than 60 minutes, including travel time.
During the meeting, I outlined how I would make this work—two assistants in each location, additional rented lighting, a generator, catering at all three locations, a location manager for the two on-location portraits, permits, and so on. I pitched a few nebulous creative ideas for each of the locations, and the client liked them. More important, the client was taken with my grasp of their needs and my solutions to making all three photographs happen within the client's time constraints.
During the course of the conversation, I learned that not only was I bidding against two good friends of mine, but I was also the highest-priced photographer. At the conclusion of the meeting, I knew I had made my best proposal, but I was slightly concerned that the client would go with a lower-priced photographer. In the end, they called the next day to say I was their choice for their five-figure assignment, and they faxed back my contract. We completed all three shoots in 48 minutes, with results better than the client expected.
I find that outlining a scope of work and approach can allay the client's concerns about your capabilities. And if the conversation goes well enough for a mini-relationship to begin to build, the client has told you enough, and you've had a good conversation, they have invested enough in you (in terms of explanation, objectives, and so on) that they say, "I'm just going to give you the assignment." This means that no one they called and left messages with or whom they spoke to and requested a bid from is going to win the assignment.
I find this to be the case quite frequently. One situation was an assignment in which the client was looking for a photographer using the search term "ESPN Magazine cover photographer" on Google. Fortunately, I rank fairly high for these search terms. I note this not for a point about marketing, but because I did not come to be known by this client by any trusted means (referrals, the client having seen my work elsewhere, and so on), but rather from a web search. We began to discuss the shoot, and within a short period of time, an e-mail came though saying, "You can have this assignment. Let's talk today." Bingo! Shoot's mine! Now, this wasn't a small editorial shoot. It was a cover assignment, and the group photograph of players on a basketball court earned roughly $3,000. This was not only a nice "get" that validated the critical nature of my website; more importantly, it illustrates the value of conveying your plan to a prospective client.
When a Seven-Minute Shoot Becomes Three, What Do You Do?
Short answer: Make pictures first, ask questions