Why it's good to repel people
You may have spent your entire life trying to get people to like you, and the blog post just before this one talks about the psychological concept of "Liking" as a key element for clients in deciding to work with you. You may be thinking: Lucy, what gives?
It's extremely important for people to like you, but let me qualify by saying that it's extremely important for the right people to like you. We've all heard the expression that we can't please everyone, and yet when we hang out our shingle we seem to cast a wide net and want to appeal to everyone who comes our way.
Have you ever been contacted by a client that isn't truly someone you'd like to work with? They aren't fully listening when you speak, or they are already asking for exceptions. Yet you tolerate it because IT'S A CLIENT! You may not have any other clients, so IT'S A CLIENT! Every time your email dings and it's from them, you eyeroll and wonder what you'll have to put up with next, and it's agonizing. We've all been there, desperate to drum up business.
It's good to repel people because by the flip side of that coin, you attract other people. You don't want to cast a wide net; you want to cast a tiny net and you want it to catch a very certain someone. Who? Your ideal client.
You may think I'm now going to make you face a huge fear - telling that wrong client that you can't work with them. The horror of that confrontation! But no, I'm going to tell you the secret of avoiding that (as much as possible anyways). Why waste time entertaining anything from the wrong person, to then have to shut it all down in the end or to slog through your days until the job with them is done?
You repel people by channelling every ounce of your energy - up front- into attracting the right people. From your choice of images on your landing page, to your portfolio, to your tone and communications, to the personality quirks that make you you, down to font choices and how you tailor your marketing materials - even the policies of working with you. You set up all these gatekeepers to attract some, and thus by the same token, repel others. And once you've set up the system, it may just need a revisit once in a while as your business evolves. This is otherwise known as building a brand.
So who are you trying to catch? If you're not sure, start by trying to figure out who you don't want to catch and that may help - reverse things, then move on to profiling the right person. Essentially, catching the right people requires a bit of reflection, but write down a few points - I want to catch a 25-35 female, who loves to shop, spends money on herself, loves her lattes and evening drinks with her girls. She has a chic apartment and is not a DIY-er. Next, how might you speak to her? Well, the website is clean and minimalist with eclectic touches - like her favourite coffee shop. Modern fonts. Clean, crisp images that make her the centre of attention - hubby or boyfriend is the prop. Only a starter price on the website, suggesting upscale mystery. When you speak to her on the site about products and services, the emphasis is on beautifully designed albums and wall art delivered straight to her door - all she has to do is point at her favourites and pull out a credit card - no DIY! Truffles as a thank you gift that she'll tell her girls about while at the wine bar, showing off her fab album that they now all want.
If you have all that in place, then the DIY lover who hangs in the pub and plays pool, classifies her place as 'messy chic' and wears converse may hit on your site, and immediately know she's in the wrong place - there is a style mismatch. She will likely move on without ever contacting you, thus eliminating the need for awkward client breakups. Of course, life isn't clear-cut and there is a chance that she can still fall in love with your work and may get through the gatekeepers. And there is also a chance that she could still work out as a client (maybe she dreams of being more like your target but it's just not her current lifestyle), or maybe not and you'd have to cue "It's not you, it's me" speech. You want to attract the right person as hard as you can, and then there may be some clients in the periphery that are 'right enough', but hopefully you've repelled most of those who don't want anything to do with what you're selling. We have to stop the mentality of lack - the I-can't-alienate-anyone-because-I need-someone thinking. When you push out what you don't want, you make space for what you do want.
Front-loading the work effort is more desirable - the work to attract is far more fun and better for business than the work to repel when it's too late. Often we are too quick to slap together some basic business elements so that we can get to the photography part which we love most, but we don't realize how that lack of effort and our misplaced energy in this area can eventually make us put down the camera just to troubleshoot and resolve situations with clients who are the wrong fit. I recently had a bride literally copy and paste my tagline for my ideal bride from my website, into her inquiry email and said "this is me". How much more magical could things be?
Do you need some marketing help? I've put together a readymade marketing plan for photographers. I've done most of the work, you just tweak to suit. Find it here.
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