Today I’m sharing tips & tricks for new photographers. We’re chatting about building clientele, scouting locations, getting clients to follow your styling advice & finding your confidence. If you’re in the beginning stages of your photography business or feel as if you’re starting over because of 2020, this is for YOU!

1. Building Clientele

I’m going to take us back to when I first started my business. Obviously, I started out at zero clientele. I recommend starting with who you know. I know that seems like an obvious choice, but that really is where you have to start, right? So, I want you to envision yourself tossing a pebble into a pond and watch the ripple effect that happens. When you drop the pebble into the pond, you’ll notice that it has rings of water around it. That is exactly how your clientele will build.  You have to start with who you know first and that is your smallest circle.

The next thing I want to do is give you an action step.  If you are a brand new photographer or starting at ground zero, seek out people that you know in your circle. Then, ask them if you can photograph them. Take creative control and treat it like a model session. When you reach out, be sure to lay down the rules. 

2. Scouting Locations

The next thing is we’re going to talk about scouting locations for sessions. When you’re looking for locations, keep your style and your vision in mind. When I first started, I was using buildings downtown, alleyways and public parks. And then I started branching out. I started really looking in different areas and traveling. I started traveling a little bit further and getting more creative.

We all start at zero clients and zero skills if we’re being honest, right? As the time goes on, we gain you the skills, clients and cool properties to shoot on. I just want to remind you that building a business takes time. I know that’s the one thing that we hate to hear, because we just want to instantly have a booming clientele and all of these amazing properties to shoot on. 

When scouting locations, I really want you to get creative. I want you to turn an unlikely location into something spectacular and breathtaking. When you are trying to find locations, I don’t want you to count something out just because it looks rundown. I really want you to dive in there, get creative and find strategic angles.  I did that with my seniors. We went to a lot of rundown places, and I only needed like a small portion of that wall to get the texture behind them to give them amazing headshots.  

3. Client Styling

How can I use your style guide template and showcase what I want my clients to wear when I don’t have those ideal clients? Like I don’t even have a session where people showed up wearing what I would want someone to come wearing again, right? I dealt with this all the time. 

If you guys have purchased my style guide, you know that one of the things in there that we talked about is to not show up in your jeans and your white t-shirts. No offense if you love that style, but I do not. I will not ever ask my client to wear that unless we are doing some real creative styled shoot.

My client ‘s closet is not just modeled on the beautiful hangers and not just the stock photos that came from where I purchased it from. I used real people in a real location that I would shoot at. I had over 20 women and girls come over to my house. They went through the client closet and were able to model multiple outfits as I photographed them. We got movement in the dresses. I have noticed a difference already in my clients wanting to wear the dresses after seeing them on real bodies. I’ve had almost every single client so far ask for something for my client closet. I spent all this money and invested all this time into getting this client closet perfect and it’s working.

One thing that you could do that is going to help you get your name out there is to ask 5 to 10 girls in the sizes that you have to come help you do a styled shoot. I did one completely for free. I simply required them to share and tag me on social media and just to continue to refer people to my business. Then, use those images throughout your style guide until your clients start wearing them on a regular basis.

4. Confidence

Your confidence is not something you will ever wake up with. Confidence for anybody has never come from sitting there waiting for it to hit you. If you talk to athletes, their confidence doesn’t come from sitting on the bench watching other people play their game. It comes from them taking action, then making mistakes and falling forward over and over and over again.

5. Organization

The other thing is how to stay organized, you have to have systems and workflows and processes. A lot of you are always saying, you want more clients in my business. I hear you and I know that’s what we want. We want more clients, more money and more of everything. Here’s the thing, some of you are not ready for more clients. Some of you are not even ready for three paying clients yet, so that is what I am going to be touching on in the Boost Your Bookings Bootcamp coming up. 

Wrap Up

I am so excited to get to know you, your business and your goals. I can’t wait to help get you set up to be this organized, creative, confident and profitable photographer. Hope to see you inside of the Boost Your Bookings Bootcamp. 

Want to hear even more tips specifically for new photographers? Then, head over to the Book More Clients podcast. You can also find the podcast on iTunes and Spotify.

Looking for a place to connect with and learn from other photographers? Join my Facebook Community!

If you are interested in working directly with me as your coach, click here to apply for 1:1 Mentoring!