Almost every client wants their digital image files nowadays, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they want the high-res originals to reprint.

In fact, most clients are simply looking for low res digital images to display online.

Instead of fighting this trend (and losing business), you can use this to your advantage by offering clients a CD of images “perfectly sized for Facebook, for cell phones, or for sharing with friends.” Then using Photoshop, follow the steps below to quickly build a folder of re-sized images you can email or burn to a CD.

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JD Photo Imaging and Kirk Russell will present a new series of online webinars this fall to help you supercharge your marketing. The first is scheduled for September 12, 2011.

We’ll have more details next week, but for now, make sure you save the date on your calendar.

Register for free online, then click the 3L Webinars button on top for access to our previous webinars and to be notified of upcoming dates.

The client is across the table, the proofs have been looked over, and it’s time to discover whether you’ll be making a $1,000 dollar or a $2,000 dollar sale.

No matter how good (or bad) you are at closing, here are 3 timeless tactics every salesperson knows. Keep them in mind and you’ll have bigger average sales.

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I know a professional photographer who has a side business many photographers ignore. She does professional head shots. Now I’m sure you are thinking “I can do head shots too,” but are you getting any business?

Here’s how she does it.

The client pre-sets an appointment with the studio, comes in, has 3-4 shots taken, and picks the best pose off a monitor with the photographer. Within a few minutes, an assistant color corrects and emails the image to the client. The entire process takes less than half an hour, and costs $50 cash, check or Visa for each image selected. No prints. No billing.

Could this work for you? Every professional needs a current head shot, but most don’t have one.

Why not?
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(c) Sam Sarkis

You’ve got the wedding party lined up with the bride and groom in the center, bride’s maids and groomsmen all in a row, and the lighting is perfect. You’re ready to take the shot when…Uncle Joe arrives.

Uncle Joe just got a brand-spanking new Nikon Coolpix with a pop up flash and he’s ready to start snapping pictures.

What do you do?

I listened to some veteran wedding photographers discuss this situation, and they had some great advice I thought was worth sharing with you.

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If you don’t take credit cards, or if you’d like to take credit cards at an event, you should check out a new service called Squareup.

Squareup is an application that runs on any iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or Android phone that is connected to the internet. It lets you scan a credit card with the free Squareup credit card reader, then submit the payment online. You get a response if the credit card was accepted, the customer will get a receipt via email, and in a few days, the payment will be deposited into your bank account.

I can think of a dozen ways you could use Squareup. For example, you could take print orders from guests during a wedding reception, an event, or while shooting families in the church for portrait directories.

Here’s what you need to get started:

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One of my pet peeves is answering the same question twice. For example, I hate registering for a hotel online, then getting asked the same questions when I arrive. If it is so important to ask for my address the first time, why don’t they keep it?

Now I’m sure that the hotel’s online team told them they needed to collect my address for marketing, and the reservation desk folks needed it for billing. Two reasonable management decisions, but evidently no one ever actually registered at their own hotel to learn how frustrating it was for customers like me.

The same thing happens in our businesses every day. We make logical business decisions that seem perfectly normal to us, but are frustrating to our customers. For example, how many of us ask for a phone number on our website contact form, and ask again when we write the contract?

So how could you discover these frustration points your customers face when doing business with you?

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A potential huge client will be in the studio in the next few minutes. If all goes well, this could be your biggest sale of the year. It could put your studio in the black again. The importance of the job begins to make you perspire a little bit, and your mind begins to race around the studio looking for things to tidy up.

So with 15 minutes until the client arrives, how should you spend your time?

According to Sian Beilock in her new book Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To, panic under pressure happens to everyone. One of the secrets is to not feed the panic with negative thoughts about bad possible outcomes (the client is really broke, they don’t like your work, etc.).

So how can you apply this to your business?

I suggest you make a scrap album of all your best work, the stuff you’re most proud of. The album isn’t for anyone else but you. Fifteen to thirty minutes before the client arrives, look at each page in the album. Pause and remember the pride and accomplishment you felt when you took that image. Focus you on accomplishments, not worries.

Once you’ve settled down, walk though the entire sale in your mind. Imagine the feeling of confidence as you tell your story, handle any objections, and close the sale. Imagine always saying the right thing, and being proud of how well you will serve your new customer.

Then when the big client arrives, put the book away, and go meet them. You’ll be ready.

by Kirk Russell, 3lenses.com

Imagine the following: You’ve just created the perfect website. But as with many studios’ sites, at the end of the quarter, sales haven’t increased.

What happened? You created a beautiful site. It has galleries that feature your best images. Your web address is featured on all your marketing materials. You hire a company to register your web address with all the search engines, and to make sure your site will rank high enough to appear on the first page, if not the first one or two results of a search. And you get hits, a trickle at first, and then hundreds. You feel great. Your new marketing effort is a huge success!

It’s easy to explain. You got people interested in your photography, and then left them on their own to figure out how to buy it.

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I read an interesting article on thinkvitamin.com where a business was able to double their online customer response rate by changing the words in their website’s call to action.

You have a call to action on your website today, even though you may not realize it. It probably says something like “call now for your free consultation” or “call us today”. It is the thing you want your visitor to do after reading about your studio.

The problem with a phone number call to action is that it is really a ploy to get a potential client in the studio and sell them a package before they know what the price will be. Folks who shop online are smart enough to know this. They don’t want a high pressure sales pitch (remember free vacations in Florida if you watch a condo presentation?), so they go to the next website.

So instead of their original call to action Free Trial they tried See plans and pricing. Their response rate doubled.

If you wanted to duplicate this test, put the words “See plans and pricing” on every page on your website with a link to a new page or a one-page downloadable PDF file with your package prices. Then put your phone number on that page. If you have a second line, use that number to keep track of calls, or you can name your packages something special like prix réduit, service complet, and extraordinaire (budget, full-service, and deluxe in French). Always offer 3, most folks choose the middle one.

Try it for a month, and see if putting your prices online generates more calls.