Sales Strategies for Photographers

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Antone’s Department Store in Zebulon, North Carolina, November 1939. (Marion Post Wolcott/Farm Security Administration/US Library of Congress)

This same store today sells beauty supplies.

(This post is mostly for new photographers doing corporate or commercial photography rather than retail photography.)

Unlike a department store which sells hundreds or even thousands of products, a photographer basically sells one product – themselves – and that comes in a very limited supply. A retail store’s business model is based on volume. A store has an unlimited supply of products to sell to dozens or hundreds of customers each and every day. A store gets a steady stream of money from lots of small purchases.
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Low Prices: A Cautionary Tale

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This isn’t just a picture of nearly frozen waterfalls in Niagara Falls, February 2015. The photo shows science in action! Normally you don’t see clouds being created right in front of you because the point of creation is much higher in the atmosphere. But here, with the relatively warm mist from the falls, warm sunlight and ice cold air, clouds quickly formed at ground level (okay, at water level) and rose into the sky.

This is another view-from-my-office photo.

A photographer asked me to take at look his recent food photos (mostly photos of product packaging). His customer wasn’t happy with the pictures. The photographer wanted a second opinion before replying to his customer.
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Photo Retouching of Clothing

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Photo retouching of business portraits isn’t just about the person’s face. Retouching can also fix clothing mishaps such as a crooked tie, a loose collar, wrinkled clothing, a missing button, an open zipper, a twisted pocket flap, etc.

Clothing mishaps aren’t a big deal in personal photos but they shouldn’t be ignored in a business headshot. If it looks like the person doesn’t care about their appearance, then how much do they care about their job?
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Retouching Business Portraits

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If something doesn’t work as it’s supposed to, you might be able to fix it. But if it’s beyond repair then you’ll have to replace it. (US Library of Congress)

If your business photos don’t function properly, retouching might be able to fix them. Otherwise you’ll have to replace them with better quality images.

Business headshot photography has been part of my business for about 30 years. Over the years, I’ve learned that some companies understand the function of business headshots and some don’t.
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Contractually Obligated

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Two tennis fans wait for the rain to stop during a Canadian Open tennis tournament in Toronto, 2017. All other spectators left their seats to find shelter inside the stadium. These two were prepared for a rainy day.

This is another view-from-my-office photo.

Yesterday I was exchanging e-mails with a photographer who shot a commercial job two months ago. The photography has been completed, the photos have been delivered, and the customer has paid. Two months ago. His customer is using the photos in transit ads. The photographer asked if he should now charge more for this usage.
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Getting Paid

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If you don’t print your own money then you have to make money the old fashion way by having a job. But a job works only if you get paid. (National Film Board of Canada / Library and Archives Canada circa 1955-1956.)

There have been only three times when I had difficulty getting paid. All were in the mid-1980s when I was just starting out:

1)   My first corporate customer was a small pharmaceutical company. The company wanted the photos shot on transparency film because the images were for a slide presentation. I asked if they also wanted prints. No, they did not want prints, only slides. The job was done and the slides were delivered. The customer refused to pay because I did not deliver prints.
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Saving For The Future

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This is another view-from-my-office photo from a Canadian Open men’s tennis tournament in Toronto, 2012.

How long should you save image files after they’ve been delivered to the customer?

A photographer should inform customers about their photo archiving policy. How long will you keep the photos? Can a customer depend on you, for years to come, to redeliver the photos? If you promise to archive photos but you lose them, can a customer sue you?
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