3 Things Photographers Need to Successfully Network
Plus, 5 Objectives to Guide Your Networking
Monday, June 2 — If you want to grow your photography business you must learn this one secret to success: Network!
It sounds easy, and in some ways it is, but if you can learn to effectively network every day your photography business will see huge results from your efforts.
Successful networking really can change your business. This week we’ll look at
3 Things Photographers Need to Successfully Network and then next week I’ll share
10 Rock-Solid Places for Photographers to Network.
Networking, in it’s simplest form, is simply a combination of social skills and sales skills. When you start combining the two to reach as many people as possible, you’ll see a real difference in the amount of business you get and your referrals should skyrocket too!
Bonus Content: Before we dive into the 3 things you need, here are 5 Objectives Guide Your Networking. As you start consciously increasing your networking efforts keep these objectives in mind.
1. Make more contacts.
2. Develop contacts into more prospects or partners.
3. Build better relationships with prospects, customers and partners.
4. Improve your reputation.
5. Close more sales.
3 Things Photographers Need to Network
Finally, here are the three things you need to be able to network. Work on the first two this week because next week I’m going to share
10 Rock-Solid Places for Photographers to Network and you’ll want to be prepared!
1. Your 30 Second Lead-in
Some call this an elevator speech, but I want to encourage you to develop a lead that’s more dynamic than a speech or commercial. Develop a creative and innovative way to tell others about what you do that will engage them. The goal is to get them asking questions! By getting contacts to share more about themselves, it will help you determine if these contacts are prospects, partners or something else. (See No. 2 above.)
Partners will be business people or other photographers who might not become clients, but can still be an asset to your business. These people might be able to mentor you, give business advice or partner with you on special promotions. These contacts are just as important as sales prospects.
Sales prospects are simply future customers. By building genuine relationships with these prospects you’ll not only easily convert them into customers (aka future sales), but you’ll also increase your referrals and likely keep the customer for life.
2. The Willingness and Desire
Networking means you are going to have talk to a
lot of people, develop a
lot of relationships and likely change the way you’ve been living. You’ll have more friendships, more contacts and you’ll be adding new people to your life on a daily basis. For some people this can be exhausting. If you don’t have the willingness and desire to change your life, you’ll have a very difficult time growing your business through networking.
3. A Solid Plan
Finally, you need a plan. When and where will you meet all these new people? Don’t worry. I’ll help you. Next week’s Marketing Minute will outline
10 Rock Solid Places for Photographers to Network. Once I tell you where, you’ll just need to schedule the when!
Take Action!
If you’re willing and have the desire to increase your networking, then work on your 30-minute lead in! Feel free to share it with us in the comments below!
Share with us!
Do you have a 30-second lead in you’d like to share? Are you already networking? Has it changed your business?
Check back next week for 10 Rock-Solid Places for Photographers to Network.
We want to hear from you! Leave us a comment.
Monday’s Marketing Minute
Being a great photographer is as much about running a great business as is it is about taking great photos! We are starting a new weekly blog post called the “Monday Marketing Minute”. The idea is to provide you with a few actionable (and practical) steps you can implement each week to grow your photography business.
With each Monday Marketing Minute we will offer at least one actionable step you can take. Plus, we’ll ask you to share at least one thing you are doing/want to do related to that week’s topic. By sharing we can all learn and grow! Bonus! You might find your idea on a future Monday Marketing Minute.
