Why Photographers Shouldn’t Shy Away from the Telephone

Most photographers shy away from using the telephone when it comes to sales and marketing, instead relying on email and word-of-mouth. By not factoring the telephone into their sales routine, photographers may be missing the proven benefits that it can bring to their businesses.

We recently published a free guide called “The Photographer’s Guide to Selling Like a Pro” – a very unique educational approach for photographers from the PhotoShelter Research Department. To give insight into the sales process, we interviewed people who are sales experts outside of the photography world – and applied their wisdom and advice to the photography business.

Matt Singer is one of the sales experts we interviewed, and his approach to sales and maintaining relationships with clients is profiled in the guide.

Listen to the 7-minute interview with Matt Singer, here:

Matt’s first sales job was selling on QVC, the at Home Shopping Channel. His live on-air experience, and how effective video could be in the sales process, made him wonder why more people weren’t using the power of video to sell products.

So in 2007 he founded “The Talk Market“, a company that creates automatic video editing software that makes it easy for people create their own high quality videos quickly and at a low cost. Matt heads up the company’s sales efforts, and also gives a lot of advice to his clients about creating effective sales videos for their own business.

One part of the interview that I felt was interesting was when Matt talked about using the telephone during the sales process. This is of interest to me because I know a lot of photographers shy away from using the telephone, and rely on email alone when it comes to sales and marketing.

There’s no question that word-of-mouth is an important factor in the marketing and sales process, but Matt cautions us not to rely too heavily on it. He says that during a phone call, you can tap into a reassuring WOM-feeling by mentioning companies you’ve worked with before.

Having a positive attitude is really critical too. Matt made several really valuable comments on staying positive, upbeat and optimistic no matter what happens, and that this indicates how you’ll react to situations if/when a potential client actually hires you.

Thanks to Matt Singer for his willingness to share this great information with us.

You can read the full profile on Matt, as well as 4 other expert sales people, by downloading “The Photographer’s Guide to Selling Like a Pro“.