Today I'm continuing my series for photographers in which I share tips for organizing and systematizing your workflow. And when I say "workflow," I don't mean it in the narrow sense of post-processing. I mean the entire customer experience and set-up of our businesses. If you're just joining us, click here to find a complete list of the posts in The Workflow Series and get caught up!
I was once told to leave a bridal room by a mother of the bride.
It was early on in my career, and she was feeling anxious about having photos of herself taken before she had her makeup on. I reassured her that we wouldn't take any unflattering photos of her, but she still ended up practically yelling, "Al-right, that's it! Photographers out!" about 15 minutes after she arrived. I was SO sad and fought back tears as I left. The last thing I ever want to do is make someone feel uncomfortable on a wedding day.
That night, during the reception, I showed a slideshow of some of the photos I'd taken from that day. As I was passing by, a groomsman stopped me and pointed to the slideshow and said, "NOW I know what you were doing when you were taking a photo of the shoes. It all makes sense now. I thought it was so weird that you were taking photos all day, but now I see that you were telling the story. That's so cool!"
I drove home that night wishing that I could somehow make those closest to the bride and groom -- the ones who are around all day -- understand what I'm doing and TRUST me before the wedding -- instead of only after viewing the slideshow. I already have the trust of my clients, but there would be SUCH a benefit to having the trust of everyone closest to them on the wedding day. Maybe seeing the photos ahead of time would have helped this mother of the bride feel more comfortable having us in the room as she was getting ready. Then I came up with an idea. I know I can't show the bridal party and families of my clients their own photos before the wedding. But at least getting some photos from another wedding I've photographed in front of them before the wedding might help. So I drafted up a tip that I added to my "Tips for Getting Your Best Wedding Images" packet that I give potential clients before they even book. I titled the tip, Prepare your family and friends for the style of photography you have chosen. This tip encourages my clients to communicate their excitement about their choice for photography to their family and friends. I suggest that they write them an email and include my website, encouraging them to take a look. My hope is that when they see examples of my work, they will better understand and be prepared for what I am doing on the wedding day. They will hopefully feel more comfortable around the camera. It's also helpful when my client encourages their family and friends to ignore me as much as possible. I strive to be unobtrusive and my super-power IS invisibility (it comes and goes on the wedding day but a lot of times people don't even see me) but it still helps if people ignore me. If the people who are most intimately involved in the wedding do these things, I get much more natural shots.
I give my clients this tip because I really do believe that it helps everyone to enjoy the day (because they are better prepared ahead of time) and makes the photos better (because everyone is more at ease and therefore, more natural). Ever since I started asking my clients to educate their family and friends up front, I have never again run into a scenario like the one mentioned above. And instead of the mother of the bride ordering me out of the room on the wedding day, she is giving me a huge hug when she sees me because she is excited to have me there, has gotten to know me through my website and blog, and trusts that I will do a great job capturing her daughter's wedding day.
This is just one example of how I've successfully fixed a problem by educating my clients up front. There are countless others. Hopefully this story illustrates for you the importance of educating clients up front. There are SO MANY areas where our businesses and clients can benefit from doing this well. If you've ever run into an issue and thought, "I wish I could figure out a way to never have this happen this way again", you have the perfect opportunity to come up with a strategy to do just that. But coming up with the strategy is only the first step. Next you need to systematize the implementation of it so that this piece of education happens for every client every time.
There are a number of ways you can systematize the educating of clients up front. You can use email templates at different points in your workflow to educate clients at key points along the way. If there is a lot of content for some of these points of education, you can organize it in a .pdf and attach this same .pdf to an email template at a specific juncture. You could also develop an educational packet to give clients at the very beginning of your relationship with them so that they are prepared and know what to expect when working with you. My Tips for Getting Your Best Wedding Images that I mentioned above, it just that for me. Each of the four tips contained in this 3-page packet resulted from a frustrating or negative experience. The titles of my four tips are:
Tip #1: Plan out the timing of your wedding thoughtfully
Tip #2: Communicate to me any "must have" shots
Tip #3: Prepare your family and friends for the style of photography you have chosen
Tip #4: Trust me
Each of these tips is fleshed out in more detail in the packet. I include a beautiful, full-color version on card stock in my new client kit pictured above. I give this kit to clients during our initial meeting, before they even book me. During the meeting, I talk through the first tip in detail with them and the second tip I quickly mention as well. Then I encourage them to look over the rest of it when they get home. If for some reason I don't meet with a client in person, I make sure to email a .pdf version of my tips to the client upon booking. I've found this tool SO HELPFUL for getting on the same page with clients and making sure their wedding day runs smoothly and is as enjoyable as possible for them, while also setting me up to get the best possible photos of their day.
You can purchase a .pdf copy of my complete Tips for Getting Your Best Wedding Images here if you'd like some help getting started. But you can also develop your own. And I would encourage you, even if you do purchase mine, to customize them for your needs. To do so, simply sit down and think of any pain points or common frustrations either you or your clients have had during the entire client experience. Now, not every problem can or should be fixed through client education. Sometimes you just need to change the way you do things. But for those issues that can be improved by client education, you should brainstorm ideas for how to educate your clients so that they don't come up again. Decide where these opportunities for education would best fit into your process -- when you first meet with your client? After they book? When you first release their images online? Create email templates and .pdfs to execute your plan and make sure your materials are all branded and laid out in a graphically interesting and clean way.
Once you complete this initial brainstorm and execution of your plan, you will feel so accomplished and will start seeing results. But I guarantee, before long, another problem or issue will arise. There's really no end to them in business. But the keys to dealing with these issues are to learn from them, figure out a way to avoid having them happen again, and systematize the solution into your workflow structure. When you are consistently improving and updating your processes and client education, you know you are running a business that will likely stand the test of time, and that your clients will refer with confidence.
I hope you've found this post helpful! If so, I would appreciate if you'd pass it on through Facebook or Twitter using the buttons below. To purchase my Tips or find out about more resources I offer photographers, click here!
Click here to read part 11 of the series -- Wedding Info Sheet.
I was once told to leave a bridal room by a mother of the bride.
It was early on in my career, and she was feeling anxious about having photos of herself taken before she had her makeup on. I reassured her that we wouldn't take any unflattering photos of her, but she still ended up practically yelling, "Al-right, that's it! Photographers out!" about 15 minutes after she arrived. I was SO sad and fought back tears as I left. The last thing I ever want to do is make someone feel uncomfortable on a wedding day.
That night, during the reception, I showed a slideshow of some of the photos I'd taken from that day. As I was passing by, a groomsman stopped me and pointed to the slideshow and said, "NOW I know what you were doing when you were taking a photo of the shoes. It all makes sense now. I thought it was so weird that you were taking photos all day, but now I see that you were telling the story. That's so cool!"
I drove home that night wishing that I could somehow make those closest to the bride and groom -- the ones who are around all day -- understand what I'm doing and TRUST me before the wedding -- instead of only after viewing the slideshow. I already have the trust of my clients, but there would be SUCH a benefit to having the trust of everyone closest to them on the wedding day. Maybe seeing the photos ahead of time would have helped this mother of the bride feel more comfortable having us in the room as she was getting ready. Then I came up with an idea. I know I can't show the bridal party and families of my clients their own photos before the wedding. But at least getting some photos from another wedding I've photographed in front of them before the wedding might help. So I drafted up a tip that I added to my "Tips for Getting Your Best Wedding Images" packet that I give potential clients before they even book. I titled the tip, Prepare your family and friends for the style of photography you have chosen. This tip encourages my clients to communicate their excitement about their choice for photography to their family and friends. I suggest that they write them an email and include my website, encouraging them to take a look. My hope is that when they see examples of my work, they will better understand and be prepared for what I am doing on the wedding day. They will hopefully feel more comfortable around the camera. It's also helpful when my client encourages their family and friends to ignore me as much as possible. I strive to be unobtrusive and my super-power IS invisibility (it comes and goes on the wedding day but a lot of times people don't even see me) but it still helps if people ignore me. If the people who are most intimately involved in the wedding do these things, I get much more natural shots.
I give my clients this tip because I really do believe that it helps everyone to enjoy the day (because they are better prepared ahead of time) and makes the photos better (because everyone is more at ease and therefore, more natural). Ever since I started asking my clients to educate their family and friends up front, I have never again run into a scenario like the one mentioned above. And instead of the mother of the bride ordering me out of the room on the wedding day, she is giving me a huge hug when she sees me because she is excited to have me there, has gotten to know me through my website and blog, and trusts that I will do a great job capturing her daughter's wedding day.
This is just one example of how I've successfully fixed a problem by educating my clients up front. There are countless others. Hopefully this story illustrates for you the importance of educating clients up front. There are SO MANY areas where our businesses and clients can benefit from doing this well. If you've ever run into an issue and thought, "I wish I could figure out a way to never have this happen this way again", you have the perfect opportunity to come up with a strategy to do just that. But coming up with the strategy is only the first step. Next you need to systematize the implementation of it so that this piece of education happens for every client every time.
There are a number of ways you can systematize the educating of clients up front. You can use email templates at different points in your workflow to educate clients at key points along the way. If there is a lot of content for some of these points of education, you can organize it in a .pdf and attach this same .pdf to an email template at a specific juncture. You could also develop an educational packet to give clients at the very beginning of your relationship with them so that they are prepared and know what to expect when working with you. My Tips for Getting Your Best Wedding Images that I mentioned above, it just that for me. Each of the four tips contained in this 3-page packet resulted from a frustrating or negative experience. The titles of my four tips are:
Tip #1: Plan out the timing of your wedding thoughtfully
Tip #2: Communicate to me any "must have" shots
Tip #3: Prepare your family and friends for the style of photography you have chosen
Tip #4: Trust me
Each of these tips is fleshed out in more detail in the packet. I include a beautiful, full-color version on card stock in my new client kit pictured above. I give this kit to clients during our initial meeting, before they even book me. During the meeting, I talk through the first tip in detail with them and the second tip I quickly mention as well. Then I encourage them to look over the rest of it when they get home. If for some reason I don't meet with a client in person, I make sure to email a .pdf version of my tips to the client upon booking. I've found this tool SO HELPFUL for getting on the same page with clients and making sure their wedding day runs smoothly and is as enjoyable as possible for them, while also setting me up to get the best possible photos of their day.
You can purchase a .pdf copy of my complete Tips for Getting Your Best Wedding Images here if you'd like some help getting started. But you can also develop your own. And I would encourage you, even if you do purchase mine, to customize them for your needs. To do so, simply sit down and think of any pain points or common frustrations either you or your clients have had during the entire client experience. Now, not every problem can or should be fixed through client education. Sometimes you just need to change the way you do things. But for those issues that can be improved by client education, you should brainstorm ideas for how to educate your clients so that they don't come up again. Decide where these opportunities for education would best fit into your process -- when you first meet with your client? After they book? When you first release their images online? Create email templates and .pdfs to execute your plan and make sure your materials are all branded and laid out in a graphically interesting and clean way.
Once you complete this initial brainstorm and execution of your plan, you will feel so accomplished and will start seeing results. But I guarantee, before long, another problem or issue will arise. There's really no end to them in business. But the keys to dealing with these issues are to learn from them, figure out a way to avoid having them happen again, and systematize the solution into your workflow structure. When you are consistently improving and updating your processes and client education, you know you are running a business that will likely stand the test of time, and that your clients will refer with confidence.
I hope you've found this post helpful! If so, I would appreciate if you'd pass it on through Facebook or Twitter using the buttons below. To purchase my Tips or find out about more resources I offer photographers, click here!
Click here to read part 11 of the series -- Wedding Info Sheet.
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