If you’re just starting out, then I would suggest that you role play first with someone. Practice how you will greet your callers.

First, make a list of every question you can think of that will be asked of you. Make sure you can answer each of these questions without hesitation. If you hesitate in your answers, you may come across as a novice.

Keep in mind that each time you answer the phone you might be seconds away from making the biggest sale you have ever made. Smile before you pick up the phone. Have a pen and paper at the ready. Write down the caller’s name and use the name throughout the conversation.

Make a phone script and constantly change it to perfect your phone skills. Keep track of how many calls you convert into consultations. Only change one thing in your phone script at a time so you can better identify if the changes you have made are working for you.

Let’s go over some questions that might be asked of you and some suggested responses. When someone calls, for the most part, they will always ask one of the following questions:

• Do you have my date available?
• How much are your packages?

It is important to understand why these two questions are asked more than any other question. The people who call and inquire about your wedding photography services have more than likely never shopped for a wedding photographer before now. This means these are really the only two questions they can think of to ask. While you need to give the person calling you the answers to their questions, keep in mind if you answer with a direct response the conversation will be over.

When someone asks if you have their date available, inform the caller that you are looking up their date. While you are looking up their date, tell them you would love to know how they heard about you. Always ask how the caller heard about you and keep records of this information. This will help you to calculate cost per lead.

If the caller asks about their date first, their second question will be about price. It is important to understand that the caller really does want more information than just your price. They want to be educated as to what they can expect. They want to know all the questions they should ask in order to protect themselves and hire the best photographer they can within their budget.

Divert the conversation slightly. Ask a few questions yourself. Can I get your name? How did you hear about us? Can I tell you a bit about our products and services? Have you thought about what you would like as a final product? These are all great intros into a long passionate conversation.

Your goal, however, is to have a face-to-face conversation. Tell them that they really need to come in and see some of your award winning albums in person in order to get a real understanding of what you are all about.

Ask the caller where their wedding and reception are taking place. Have you photographed at either or both of the facilities? If so, tell a story about the last time you photographed at the facility in question. Inform the Bride-To-Be if she and her fiancé would like to come into your studio to further discuss their needs, you will have a slide show presentation ready of the last wedding you photographed at the facility in question.

Give them two or three times that you are available to meet. If you only offer one time, they will either say yes or no.

Answering Your Phone and Email is a post from: The Pro Photo Business Forum

You must be able to calculate the efficiency of your advertising efforts. When wedding photographers say their advertising is working, they generally just know that they are receiving calls and booking weddings. You must know more than this.

You must know if your marketing is efficient or not. The best way to give yourself the answer to this question is through the use of statistics. As a business owner that wants to succeed, you have a responsibility to track the statistics of your business. Through marketing you begin to attract individuals to your business. These individuals are inquiries, and you must ask each inquiry one basic question in order to create the statistics you need:

How did you hear about us?

Keep track of the following after your initial contact with your inquiry:

1. How many of your inquiries did you convert into consultations?
2. How many of these consultations did you convert into paying customers?
3. How many of your paying customers have you converted into repeat customers?

The answers to these questions will show you where you are the least efficient. If you see that you are only converting 10% of the inquiries you receive into consultations and 90% of the consultations you have are converted into paying customers, you know you must change the language used when answering your phone or replying to people inquiring about your services via email.

Tracking each and every inquiry will also tell you where your paid advertising is failing or succeeding. You do not need to focus on the ads that are doing the best until you have addressed the ones that are doing the worst.

You should be able to find out the “cost per lead” for each of the ads you have purchased. For example, if you paid $1000 for an ad somewhere and you received 10 phone calls from that ad, your cost per lead is $100. Think of it this way, when that phone rings, you are spending $100.

Being able to find your cost per lead for each of your paid ads is essential to becoming more efficient. This information will allow you to make educated decisions when the contracts for your ads expire. You will know which ads to keep and which to drop. You may decide to change the language in one ad to see if you can create different results. You may decide to take the money from one ad and use it to increase the size of another ad that is working better. If you do not have a system in place allowing you to track your cost per lead, you are just shooting in the dark, wasting your money and time. That is inefficient.

This next point is important. If you do decide to change an element in your weakest advertisement, make sure you only change one thing at a time. In the long run, this will give you clearer understanding as to whether or not the changes you have made are working. If you change too much all at once, you have no idea what specific alteration created the change, good or bad, and it will be harder for you to repeat the action in the future.

Become Efficient By Tracking Your Results is a post from: The Pro Photo Business Forum

As a wedding or event photographer, make sure to take very flattering images of every reception facility that you find yourself in. Make prints of these images, making sure to tastefully include your company name and contact information on the image itself, and then send the images to the facility free of charge. Include an invoice with the images. Show the value of the images on the invoice, and then show a 100% discount. List the reason as “professional courtesy”.

If the images are of good enough quality, then possibly the facility manager will use your images as a sales tool to reserve couples for their facility. The facility manager in essence becomes your agent. When you have made your vendor images, make sure to deliver them in person. Use the opportunity to build a professional relationship and contact. Let them meet you face to face.

Now that you have this general idea of vendor prints, put it to good use. Send images to the florist. Who made the cake? Who made the dress? Who sold the wedding bands? I’ll bet they would love to show your images.

One last thing to keep in mind with vendor prints is the pecking order in which a wedding is planned. A couple will almost always book their ceremony and reception facility first as this solidifies the wedding date. After their facilities have been reserved, the bride and groom will begin to look at vendors that can only be in one place at one time. These include the band, the officiant, and, of course, the photographer.

What does this tell us? It tells us that the most beneficial people to give vendor prints to are the facility managers and the facility catering directors. For me, referrals from cake makers are few and far between.

While photographing an event, make it a point to find the facility manager and introduce yourself. Ask for their business card. When you make an appointment to drop off the images to the facility, try to schedule your meeting with the manager you met. During your meeting, ask if the facility has a preferred vendors list that they hand out to their perspective clients. When you return to the studio, send a thank you card to the manager, thanking them for their time. Direct them to your website so they can see the quality of your work. This will make them more willing to add your company to their preferred vendors list.

Vendor Prints. A Great Marketing Tool For Event Photographers. is a post from: The Pro Photo Business Forum