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RULE #3 (pt. 2) For A Successful Photography Business
by: Charles J. Lewis
m.photog., cr.
In my last Quick Tip, I began talking about Photo Success Rule #3 which is "As hard as it is to believe, people always judge a book by it's cover. So plan and control your "cover" very carefully - especially in this economy."
Let's continue with the remaining two key points about this Success Rule:
You must Act successfully to become successful!
This involves your mind-set. How would you act if you were really tremendously successful? Now, we aren't talking about being arrogant here. Or talking down to our prospects and clients. No way. But you are constantly sending out messages to people, so you need to be careful what that message is. Let me give you a few examples.
**Your attitude must always be positive and optimistic. If you aren't positive, people wonder what's wrong, and assume business is not good, and shy away from doing business with you.
**You must always be excited and enthusiastic. Enthusiastic people are successful people. (This also helps you sell better, as people love working with and buying from enthusiastic people.)
**You must never act like you "need" the business. You WANT to work with someone, but you don't "NEED" to work with them. So you are enthusiastic, excited, and looking forward to meeting them and working with them. But you are not desperate. You don't need this client in order to pay the bills. There's a real fine line here - but you need to understand this. It's important. On an emotional level, you really want to work with this client, because of what you can create for her. But, you aren't going to go hungry if you don't work with her.
Indeed, part of building a successful business is acting as if you are already truly successful - without being arrogant. You're really nice. You really care about your clients, but it's just "obvious" that you are really successful already (even if you aren't as successful as you want to be!)
You must sound successful, to be successful
You need to talk as if you are already successful. Again, I don't mean you are arrogant - but that what you say sounds very successful.
This also involves how you refer to your craft, product and service. But this is so important, that I will devote an entire article to this area in a future Quick Tip.
Here's a few examples of how to sound successful:
When people ask you how you are doing, you ALWAYS respond with "Terrific!"
When people ask you how business is - you ALWAYS respond that business is fantastic. Always.
When you are talking on the phone, and you get to the point where you are going through your appointment book looking for a time for someone, you always rustle the pages, and say something like, "Wow, we sure are booked up. Let's see, there's got to be a place somewhere...... " (pause as you continue to look for an available time and continue rustling the pages loudly so she can hear the pages turning on the other end of the phone.) ... "Oh! Here's one! How about next Tuesday, at 3:30?"
By the way, this is an area where "technology" can really hurt you. If you do all your scheduling on your computer, or your Blackberry, the prospect on the other end of the phone can't hear the sounds as you are looking for a time. So you have to play up the words you say even more - so she realizes you are really looking hard to find an available time.
I realize that the things we discussed here may not seem all that important to you at first - but trust me - I learned this the hard, painful way - they are REALLY IMPORTANT if you want to become tremendously successful and financially well off.
Always remember, NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE THE APPEARANCE OF SUCCESS! You must look, act, sound and dress AS IF you are already successful, and then you will become successful. Strange, but very true.
All the best,
Charles J. Lewis, M. Photog., Cr.
Photography Marketing & Sales Secrets
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