Thinking About Your Promotional Calendar

Here is a question I received from T.Q. in Minnesota: "I am just getting started doing Photography for Income. I am a hot mess when it comes to planning. I get busy, then things cool down and I think that I should have some kind of promotion, but then it is too late! I need some cash coming in and there's no business to be found...HELP"

I laughed to myself as I read this, because I was EXACTLY like this when I started in business. Then Kodak - back when they used to think professional photographers were important to their business - came out with "The Toolbox." It was basically some promotions and some user testimonials, but the real GEM was the Promotional Calendar. When I discovered this, you would have thought I had found the Holy Grail...it was genius!

I am going to give you a stripped down version here:

1. Buy a LARGE wall calendar with all 12 months on it. These are available for 2015 at office supply stores now. A dry erase model is best. You want 4 different colors: Black, Red, Green, Blue

2. Next, think about what promotions you will have for the upcoming year; perhaps:

January - Continue Home for the Holiday Special; Snow Days Special
February - Valentine Special; Kiddie Kontest
March - High School Senior (HSS) Reorder Special; Spring & Summer sports
April - Spring Special; HSS Ambassador/Model Program; Proms & Dances
May - Continue Spring Special
June - Moms & Memories; World's Greatest Dad
July - Red, White & Blue Children's Special, Your Best HSS
August - SCHOOL STARTS SOON/TIME'S RUNNING OUT SPECIAL for HSS
September - $1 Session fee special for HSS weekdays between 9 AM and 2 PM
October - Preschools; Fall Family Special; It's Not Too Late to Start thinking CHRISTMAS!
November - Veterans' Day Family Special; Christmas Special
December - Home for the Holidays Special

3. Now, think about how you want to promote these specials:

Direct mail - Newsletter
Direct mail - Color post card
Direct mail - two or three color post card
Direct mail - fliers
Fliers handed out at the studio or placed in each order
FlIers handed out in high traffic areas
Displays
Sandwich board (employee or temp wears a Sandwich board and visits high traffic areas)
Bird dogs
Door Hangers
School Newspapers and/or radio stations
Networking
Radio
TV
Social Media
YouTube
Your Web Site
Email your customer list
Local Newspaper
Billboards

4. If you want to run a promo in January, you have to start planning it in October. Yeah, I hear some of you now: "OMG, that's too early, I'm busy, wah, wah, wah..." If you want to get off the income roller coaster, this is how it gets done. It takes discipline. You have to have enough lead time for design, printing, mailing, etc. Trust me: if you decide on December 2nd to do a Christmas special, you are wasting your time.

5. In the month you plan to have the promotion, write it down in GREEN (for go). If the promotion is going to last one week, write the name across that week.

6. Three months PRIOR to the promotion, write the promo name with PLANNING in front of it, such as PLANNING Kiddie Kontest. Write this in RED for the number of days it will take to plan and create the media you plan to use.

7. Two months before the promotion, write PRODUCTION OF Kiddie Kontest; write this in BLUE. Include your day of mailing if using direct mail and circle it. Remember if you are using bulk mail (now called Presort Standard or Standard Mail), the post office may hold this mail up to THREE DAYS before delivering it. Build this into your mailing time. If you do several mailings per year, you'll want to purchase a Bulk Mail Permit. If you are new to this, you may want to hire a mailing company to do it for you. Even most small towns have a mailing service.

8. If you are not sure if Standard Mail is right for you, you might consider EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail). This lets you reach customers in targeted neighborhoods without having to provide names or street addresses, and no permit is required! Ask your local Post Office for details on EDDM-retail or EDDM-BMEU options. A lot of photographers overlook this service!

9. To be considered successful, you promotion should bring in at least 8 times the cost of promotion. If it costs you $500 to advertise your Kiddie Kontest, it should bring in at least $4000 in gross receipts.This is another way to say the cost of Promotion was 20%. As you get more skilled at this, you can try for your cost of Promotion to be 10%.

"This is great, but where do I learn more about the promotions?"

You'll want to get on my mailing list to be among the first to get my book, "PROMOTIONS: How Photography for Income is Done."  Send an email to steve@bohne.com.

Until next time...may all of your PHOTOGRAPHY be FOR INCOME.

Making a Sales Presentation? Don't Make These Mistakes!

Lord have mercy, where did the summer go! The leaves are turning color, falling off the trees, and messing up my 2.5 acres...which I now have to clean up! Fall often means quoting church directories, school directories, school and/or sports photography for next year (yep, it is normally done this far in advance), and other photography events...All prime candidates for Photography for Income.

As photographers, we don't normally have to have real sharp presentation skills, but when you are doing Photography for Income, the time may come where you have to put them into play.Years ago, I was doing a presentation for a church. We were pitching a church directory.

There was a photographer from a local studio, and a representative from a national church directory chain. The local guy stumbled and bumbled...he was CLEARLY out of his comfort zone. The guy from the chain outfit was slick and polished. He went through his presentation smoothly. 

Amazingly, BOTH presentations were very close in content! 

1. Who is "Our Studio?"Company and what is our history?

2. Overview of Our Studio Products and Services.

3. What Your Church's needs are.

4. The solution and how Our Studio can help Your Church.

5. Display of portrait samples.

6. How Our Studio will deliver results.

7. The support Your Church will receive

8. How we will manage your account

9. How Our Studio Innovates! (the future of Our Studio & Your Church)

10. Benefits of working with Our Studio.

11. How we will launch Your Church Directory:

• Program and launch planning.
• Recruiting congregants as appointment setters.
• Scheduling portrait sessions, photography, and sales
• Target Delivery Date.
• How Our Studio will deliver portraits to Your Church.

12. Your Church's feedback and results

13. Our Studio will now open this to Your Church for Q&A

What a snorefest! The board making the decision was bored just 10 minutes into the thing (no pun intended, by the way). Here's why: they didn't give a rat's ass about the first NINE topics of discussion! What they WERE interested in were items 10 through 13...and I am being kind by including #12.

Here is what needed to be done: they needed to focus on the prospect’s issues and concerns (and their studio history sure as hell isn't one of them!). So why didn't these people speak directly to the prospect’s concerns? Well I am only guessing, but I would guess that they felt the still had to sell the church on their company, and by talking about their company they would sell the church on their business and eliminate any nagging concerns the church board had..

I have yet to encounter an executive team or decision making board who was interested in a person’s company--decision-makers don’t care! All they want to know is:

1. That you understand their problem/concern (or want/need/desire), and

2. How you can help them resolve that issue.

I walked in and said, "Wow! You asked for a drink of water and you got Niagara Falls! (chuckles and guffaws). Look, you know who I am, you know what I do, and you know I am the best at doing it. I am going to get your church directory appointments set in one week using volunteers from the church. I will photograph all 600 families in one week. That's right, one week, not three like the people before me stated. The photography will be finished before October 15th, the viewing and sales done before Halloween, and the finished portraits delivered before Thanksgiving. 

"Your finished directories will be delivered before Valentine's Day, barring any unforeseen events such as mechanical breakdown or labor disputes...I have no control over those, so I'd be lying to you if I said I could guarantee it 100%. Now does anyone here have any questions, or do you just want to authorize my studio to get this going? (again chuckles and guffaws)

"Why are you laughing? You want to stretch this thing out until Memorial Day with these people, or do you want things done right, done right the first time, and done right now? Does anyone have any questions?"

I answered 4 questions. After that, it took 7 minutes for the board to make a decision.

Afterwards, the guy from the big chain outfit offered me a fairly decent amount of money to come work for the place he worked for. "Thanks, but no thanks...travel 44 weeks out of the year doesn't appeal to me."

The other studio owner didn't talk to me--he was pissed. It didn't matter...his studio didn't make it to prom time the following spring.

Look, the next time you have a sales presentation - or even a sales call - invest some time finding out what your prospect wants and focus your efforts on those things. Skip the yadda, yadda, yadda about your company and tell them exactly how you will help the prospect achieve their objectives.

This approach saves time and really sets you apart from you competition. Not only that, but you will never hear someone complain that you took two hours to explain what could have been done in fifteen minutes. And if you are doing Photography for Income, that is a big plus.

Until next time!