You're Missing An Opportunity If You Don't Contact The Client When You DON'T Get The Job!
Yesterday’s post reminded me of a message from a good friend who’s a realtor and spoke at one of the programs I was doing several years ago. Here’s the scenario: The real estate market is very similar to photography. It’s all about people skills. It’s about relationships, trust and communication.
Realtors obviously want you to list your house with them. If they’re the listing agent, their commission is going to be higher than if you buy a house listed through another broker. But here’s the twist. Every time my buddy loses a listing to another broker, which isn’t very often, he calls the client and asks the following:
“I know you listed with another agent, but it would really help us a lot to find out what you felt we were missing.” Then he’s just quiet and listens. The information he gets in response is incredibly valuable.
Years ago, (A LOT of years ago) I was a marketing manager at Polaroid. I wrote some pretty decent marketing programs for Polaroid’s specialty dealers (camera stores). People used to ask me how I came up with all of the marketing ideas. The truth is, none of the ideas were ever exclusively mine. I would ask the retailers, “What would you need from Polaroid to double your business with us next year?” Then I’d ask the sales rep in the field what they needed to beat quota by 100%. All the answers were out there. All I had to do was listen!
Retailers would tell me they needed better pricing, better terms of payment and more advertising or special programs to get more people into their stores. Sales reps would tell me they needed rebates for their accounts, new products and better advertising. Every now and then I’d even get a suggestion for a new product to hit a special target, like the teen market.
Nothing has changed today except it’s even easier to learn more about your target audience, thanks to the Internet and social media. If you’ve read Who Moved My Cheese, you know the premise is simply if you sit and wait for somebody to put the cheese back you’ll starve, but go out and look around for new cheese and you’ll survive, as well as grow.
So, start talking to those clients who didn’t hire you. Approach them in a way that’s disarming. At programs in the past I’ve suggested you start by sending them a thank-you note when you didn’t get the job. Just thank them for their time, consideration and wish them good luck.
Everybody always thinks they lost the job because somebody undercut them on price. But maybe it wasn’t price. They might have liked the albums they saw at another studio better. Maybe they’ve read or heard more about the other photographer they hired. If you’re a wedding photographer, maybe the other photographer offered them a product you don’t include, e.g. an engagement session, a facebook page of images, etc. The list could go on and on, but you won’t know if you don’t ask!
Well, go ahead, take a shot and start to contact a client or two who didn’t hire you – you might be surprised at what you learn. And, what you learn will help you create a blueprint for how to grow your business! Just like back in my Polaroid days – all the answers are out there!
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This post has 3 comments
November 13th, 2009
Problem with asking for that feedback is that people will white lie in answering to save face or to not hurt your feelings or to not feel embarrassed by the true answer. If it was your body hygiene or bad teeth or obvious hairpiece (not that any of these apply to me!), for example, that turned them off, they may be reluctant to tell you that, telling you instead that their “mother’s friend recommended another photographer that they couldn’t turn down” or some other bogus answer, and off you go thinking that was the definitive answer and you’ll still encounter the same problem, but every time you get feedback it takes you down a different path, any other path but the true one.
The better way to conduct research is to not conduct it at all, at least, not verbally. Look for other clues via behavior and circumstances. For example, when a phone inquiry ends with “I have to speak with my fiance to find out when we can make an appointment”, my “research” is not based on that being a fact and listing “uncertain schedule” as one of the major reasons people don’t make appointments, which in turn might lead me to determine their schedule availability earlier in the phone call. Instead, I understand it’s the excuse they create for not going ahead with an appointment, meaning that they’ve decided against making an appointment, and understanding it to mean that, then leads me to examine what happens during the phone call that makes them decide they’re not going to make an appointment.
November 13th, 2009
I agree with everything you said, except, “every time you get feedback it takes you down a different path, any other path but the true one.” You’re absolutely right, people will not get into personal issues and they will often sugar coat their answer, but I’ve also found that just the effort to contact them becomes a positive experience. You didn’t just disappear in a shower of rejection, but cared enough to follow-up. Thanks for the comments!
December 16th, 2009
I think a lot of clients use that,”can’t afford you” line even if it’s not true. Most people wouldn’t say how your work is not good enough compared to other photographers or photographers charging the same price.