Hi

Kev’s a donut aficionado – he can distinguish between all the supermarket brands, and he analyses his donuts for flavour of filling, dough consistency and sugar coating.

Sure, as you’d expect, Kev’s kinda round, but if you feed him a ‘wrong’ donut, he won’t accept your lack of donut savvy as an excuse – he’s offended.

Last week I gave Kev a Krispy Kreme.

I heard him tell six people about it – he thinks I’m wonderful.

What's that all about? To me there’s only two sorts of donut – with jam in the middle or a hole!

How about you and your clients?

It’s frustrating when it’s what you sell.

Your client’s who don’t ‘get it’ often assume their clients don’t ‘get it’ too.

But what about products and services you buy?

If you don’t ‘get it’ do you also assume your clients don’t ‘get it’?

That can damage your business.

I know I still struggle – especially with donuts.

But it’s a mistake you should work hard to avoid.

Here’s an analogy I sometimes use to make it easy for my clients to understand the differences in photography.

Maybe something similar can work for you and your business:

My photography’s a bit like food

Sometimes you nip into Nisa and get a tin of baked beans – it hits the spot.

Sometimes you go a bit further, cook and something tasty – I like this – takes about hour from carrier bag to table
2 chicken pieces each person, oil and rub with salt
Chunky Mediterranean veggies – courgettes, aubergines, peppers, shallots, maybe a few small potatoes too.
Half a head of garlic each split into cloves
Herbs you fancy.
Put in a roasting tray
Pour over good olive oil and fresh black pepper.
In the oven till cooked, leave to cool for 5 minutes before eating slowly with friendly conversation and good red wine (Rioja’s my favourite)

Sometimes you produce a banquet and spend a whole day or more shopping, preparing and cooking.

My portrait photography’s a bit like food – you need to decide what you need to serve to your clients -Beans, Chicken or a banquet?

Beans: Photography on the run, it’ll probably look like it too, but you may get lucky.

• Budget: Free - don’t call me, just do it yourself – it’s probably going to look cheap so it may as well be!

Chicken: I get to know who you are, what you do and how best to get that into a photograph – it take a bit of time, lots of skill and experience plus a passion and love for what I do.

• Budget: About £100, bit more if there’s just you, bit less if there’s a few more portraits.

Banquet: Just like the chicken, but maybe several locations, maybe a variety of formal and casual images – it’s the full Monty – a portfolio of corporate portrait images

• Budget: From £300 to whatever it takes.

You need to determine the style of food, or photography, your client expects from your business, not the food, or photography, that suits you.

This food analogy also links into last week’s newsletter about expressing your personality and my plan to find clients I like and who like me and my work.

If you enjoy sitting round a table, relaxing with good honest friends, eating good honest food – maybe we have the basis of a good honest client-photographer relationship – you certainly sound like the sort of person I’d like!

Call me – 07947 67 31 67 – let’s talk about how we can work together to develop your business’s image and personality though photography.

Best

Alan

P.S. Kev’s not a professional donut eater, he’s a professional SEO specialist – Call XP Web Services on 08445 048 388 – talk to him over a coffee . . . and a DONUT