Today’s Post by Joe Farace
A successful sales career requires determination to act, not a tendency to procrastination—The Quote Doctor
Sales are the life’s blood of any photograph business but it’s especially critical for the independent photographer where regular transfusions of cash keep the business from flat lining. Yet many shooters are not as good at making sales as they are in creating the kind of innovative images that originally built their business.
How I Made this Photo: When I was shooting in Prospect Colorado, the weather was quite overcast, like a giant helmet of clouds over the sky, which created dark shadows under this arch, making it a perfect candidate for HDR capture. Shooting a three-shot bracket and processing the files in HDR Efex produced this result. The Tamron 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di lens’ VC feature made sure all three shots aligned perfectly, without requiring a tripod. The nominal exposure in AV mode was 1/250 sec at f/4.5 and ISO 320 with the lens set at the 23mm focal length.
Two Categories of Salespeople
The “know-it-all” initially impresses you with their product knowledge but this Herb Tarlick can only talk the talk. Recently I went into a specialty store, the kind that is the last bastion of Mom-and-Pop enterprises in this country. The salesperson seemed to know all about the products but his non-stop gobbledygook and superior attitude resulted in an argument when I asked a technical question about one of the products. Rather than fight, I left the shop with no sale. Part of this problem seems to be the death of civility in today’s society and some people’s need to bust the balls of anybody who disagrees with them. In a salesperson, this is anathema.
The other category is the “born salesperson” who are naturally gregarious without being irritating and are honestly interested in the customers they deal with. They believe they are doing the people a genuine service and get up each day fired up about meeting new people and making money. This last part is important and may be their main motivation. One of the best of these born salespeople was a mature lady who worked for the photo studio where I apprenticed. She loved talking with the brides and grooms, who she treated like her own children, and cared about making sure their photographic order met their needs. It also made her and the studio lots of money.
To be sure there are some an in-betweeners, but the most important question you need to ask yourself is: Which one are you? Let’s face it, not everybody is good at sales. (I’m not; Mary is.) If you’re not a good salesperson, you’ll need to hire’em. Be sure to offer a generous compensation package that includes commissions and bonuses for reaching goals.
Most importantly don’t let you or your non-sales staff become jealous when the sales people make more money than anybody else in the studio. Without sales, there is no business.