Most photographers go through a slow period, or two, during the year. Perhaps it’s the time from Christmas to the end of January or maybe it’s during a summer month. It depends on what type of photography you do. So what should a photographer do during a slow period?
What not to do
• Don’t panic (too much).
• Don’t use a slow period to catch up on your TV viewing.
• Don’t buy new gear. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that if you buy a new camera or lens, you’ll get more business. New gear won’t help.
• Don’t have a fire sale. Unlike a retail store, photographers don’t have marked-up merchandise on their store shelves that can be discounted. You have only time on your “store shelf” and, unlike a tangible product, time can’t be restocked.
Instead of lowering prices, try to sell more. For example, rather than offering, let’s say, 40% off your $400 business portrait, promote the fact that the cost of four headshots is only $250 each (which happens to be your normal four-person rate).
• Don’t do nothing. If business is slow, it might be due to something you’re not doing. Problems don’t fix themselves.
It’s not a slowdown, it’s an opportunity
Use the slowdown as an opportunity to examine and refocus your business:
• Refresh or completely redo your web site. Rethink every sentence and every photo on every page. Look at your web-site statistics and see which pages are popular and which aren’t. Make any necessary adjustments to the less popular pages.
• Adjust your marketing. What’s working and what’s not? Perhaps last year you shot very few business conferences. Is this something you still want to pursue? If not, then reduce your emphasis on it and increase your efforts on your other photography. But if you do want to continue doing conferences then you must change your marketing since, obviously, your current strategy isn’t working.
• Do tasks that you’ve been putting off. Do your cameras need to be sent for cleaning and adjusting? Does your computer operating system or any other software need to be updated? Do you need to catch up on your accounting? Any other office chores?
• Get a new headshot of yourself. Remember that you’re a photographer and you should be setting a good example for your customers.
• Learn something new such as how to do a panorama, HDR, focus stacking or video. Improve your retouching skills. Practice your existing skills.
• Read a few books on business marketing. That’s books not web sites. Books are more thorough, more thought-out and better researched. Choose books that have little to do with photography but everything to do with (small) business. If you read only photography-related books, you’ll get only the same-old information. Go to a library (e.g. 1, 2, 3) – yes, they still exist – or a book store.
• Create a database of your customers. You may have many years’ worth of old invoices and estimates but that’s not good enough. Use spreadsheet software, FileMakerPro or other suitable software to record each customer’s business information as well as job descriptions and invoice numbers.
You might also record some notes about each customer, for example: “Often wants square crops for social media. She has a son in high school and she likes to play the piano.”
Having a searchable database means you can track both your work history and pricing history with each customer. You can also track your pricing history for each type of photography that you do.
Having customer notes means you can say, “I’ll remember to send some square crops for your social media,” or ask, “So how’s your son? He’s in grade ten, isn’t he?” This will show the customer that you’ve been paying attention to them. During a slow period, you might e-mail this customer a suitable web link along with: “I know you like to play the piano. Did you see this funny video of a penguin playing the piano?” This will get the customer thinking about you.
• Visit an art gallery – not a photo exhibit – and be inspired by the paintings. An art gallery will force you to see slightly differently than a photo exhibit.
• Consider a local pro-bono project. But you must be earnest and dedicated to this. It can’t be something you do just to kill time or something you’ll drop the moment a paying customer shows up.
Slow periods happen to most businesses and most photographers. The trick is to be prepared ahead of time before the slowdown happens. This way, you won’t panic and you might actually welcome the slowdown because it gives you the time to work on the business half of a photography business.
