Tuesday, March 4, 2014

My Favorite Sales Tools

Too many photographers think that a particular software is all they need to make great sales! That's like thinking the right camera will make them a great photographer!

We learned--these last 15+years with Jerry Deck and Sondra Ayers of BuzzworthySuccess.com--that sales begins with the seeds we plant WAY before the phone rings:

Your website--great images and NOT putting your price list on the web!!

Your business cards--with great images--custom high-end cards that don't say vista print on the back!
These are a few of our "Let Me Send You" pieces.  The off-set press materials (life cycle information and wedding brochure) are printed at H&H Color Labs, and 4x9 Rack and Business Cards are printed at AmericasPrinter.com and all of the pieces were designed in house by my wife, Kathi.




Here is a new business card tri-fold we have recently added, printed at Marathon Press and the layout designed in house by my wife, Kathi.

The WORDS you use places value on what you sell.  We CREATE IMAGES--they aren't SHOTS.  And we don't SHOOT kids, families, and certainly not horses! We sell WALL DECOR or at least WALL PRINTS not Photos and certainly not SHEETS!

IN PERSON SALES PRESENTATIONS--don't sabotage your sales by doing them ONLINE!

The tool you use for presentations ( we call this their PREMIERE ) depends on the size of your sales room. When we had a larger room we used projection and now that we have a smaller room we're using a 50" TV and the results have been better sales because:

Placed all around this room are our most important sales tools--OUR FINISHED PRODUCTS. Directly above the 50" TV is a 50" CANVAS WRAP ( of an adorable group of five sisters ), plus FOUR more prints in 30x40" or 24x36" all framed or in STAND-OUT MOUNTS placed around the room. There are 14 prints on display in different styles and finishes--with NOTHING SMALLER on the wall than 16x20''.

Then, we DO NOT hand them our price list until AFTER they have viewed their premiere slideshow and have picked their favorites( they already know our price range and  "what most of our clients spend" from previous conversations--to avoid sticker shock!) and are ready to start selecting final images. 

Then we hand them our price list and remind them that our special "discounted" COLLECTIONS are ONLY AVAILABLE TODAY.
In addition we offer them a special "discount" on A-LA-CARTE wall prints on this day as well. Narrowing down favorites to the final selection before you give them a price list of collections will help them narrow down images according to their budget or type of wall portraits or wall collections they are looking for. 

These are some of the TOOLS that not only MAKE US MONEY, but puts great images on our client's walls.

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Jerry Venz M.Photog., CPP