There is SO much that isn’t taught to you when you start your photography business. One of those things is getting clients to stop backing out of sessions. When I was first starting out in my business, I felt like I had NO idea what I was doing. I just went through the motions & pretended like I knew what I was doing.

Sound familiar?

Some of the ways I had to learn by making a lot of mistakes. One of my biggest hopes is that you don’t have to feel that way. You don’t have to go through the motions and pretend like you know what you’re doing. Instead, I want to walk you through some of the mistakes & fears I had to personally walk through & how I resolved the problems at hand in order to grow.

Here’s the problem: Getting Clients to Stop Backing out of Their Sessions

Solution #1: Legal Contract

I’m not talking about a contract you found via Google Search here You know the ones where you copy/paste and do the mad lib thing where you take out their information & plug your information in. That is not a legal contract, you don’t know where that contract came from.

Make the investment and get a legal contract. Find an attorney that can draft a legal contract for you. You can also go to one of the incredible online sites that you can shop from, too.

Solutions #2: Non-Refundable Retainer

A lot of people call this a deposit, it’s not a deposit because it is non-refundable. This is a non-refundable amount of money that your clients have to put down to book their session with you. I’m not going to tell you how much you need to charge, but I am going to tell you this, if it’s not enough for someone to bat an eye at, they’re still not going to commit. If you make this retainer a non-refundable amount of money that most people wouldn’t want to lose out on, they will be fully committed to booking their session & showing up.

A retainer price, 20%-40%, of your total session needs to be due at booking or within 24 hours of booking a session with you.

The easiest way to implement this is to use have a solid client booking system, like Iris Works, which allows you to set up an automated system that when a client books their session, they are automatically sent a contract & an invoice for the retainer of their session.

Sidenote: If you decide to check our Iris Works & end up loving it after your free trial, I can save you 20% on any of their available plans at purchase. Simply visit Iris Works and use code: BROOKE

BONUS TIP: What do you do if they need to reschedule?

Here’s what I do ~ I allow ONE reschedule when it’s something out of their control. Anything more than that (if it’s on them to need to reschedule), I have them pay another retainer or their session in full to reschedule with me.

Do you want to dive deeper into getting your clients to stop backing out of their sessions? Head on over to the Book More Clients Photography Podcast to listen now!

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