Last week we discussed what a marketing campaign was, and how to get in front of clients that may need your services.
And any company that makes something, sells a product or service needs photographs. Yeah, they can find bad stock photography and even great stock photography for free. But free is not exclusive, and it can be very dangerous to build a brand on non-exclusive imagery.
In addition, try finding a well-made founder’s shot, hero product shot, or facilities shot on Unsplash. Go ahead, we’ll wait.
True, assignment-based photography is exactly what the word says… assignment based.
We have discussed the stuff you need to have, and how you need to approach those marketing system tools. Now we have to face the actual execution of that work.
This is the rubber on the road, the nose to the grindstone, the excrement/fan blade introduction moment.
Getting it done.
And it is where way too many stop.
They think “Oh hell, I cannot spend all day making phone calls or licking stamps. I cannot imagine spending my days in libraries and bookstands looking for emails. I want to be a photographer and make a living doing what I love, not sending emails that may bounce and sitting at a desk all day.”
Cool… because no one is asking you to.
You are seeing the totality instead of the chunkiness of the tasks in front of you.
Instead of getting depressed and locked into fear of the abyss of marketing efforts staring you in the face, we are going to break it down to an easy to follow, simple method for starting small and growing to a powerhouse.
I am not going to ask you to start spending all day building lists and mailing postcards, I only want you to do one at first.
Find one new email for a client (3 minutes)
Make one cold call (2 minutes)
Send one postcard (1 minute)
Send one email (1 minute)
That is a total of 7 minutes doing the work here. I guarantee you that is a high number, it will most likely not take you a minute to address a prestamped envelope. (You do pre-stamp them, right? Just get about 30 of them ready to go so all you have to do is grab one and address it or attach the label coming off your printer… snap!)
I understand that when I say you need 250 names to get started it seems daunting, overwhelming, and seriously time-consuming.
But I also know how bad you will feel if someday you are sitting at the local flea-market selling your gear because you could not bring yourself to make a phone call or spend five minutes a day looking for clients.
Imagine explaining that to your kids or your spouse.
So here is our plan… just one per day.
Four days per week. We do nothing on Fridays in this script. (If you want to do something on a Friday, you could mail a postcard and find a new client to email, but no cold calls or emails on Fridays.)
Cmon, this is much easier isn’t it.
Just ONE!
Start here and follow this plan.
— — — — —
WEEK ONE
DAY ONE (MONDAY)
ONE new email address.
ONE cold call.
ONE postcard sent.
ONE email sent.
DAY TWO
ONE new email address.
ONE cold call.
ONE postcard sent.
ONE email sent.
DAY THREE
ONE new email address.
ONE cold call.
ONE postcard sent.
ONE email sent.
DAY FOUR
ONE new email address.
ONE cold call.
ONE postcard sent.
ONE email sent.
NONE ON FRIDAY
WEEKEND
— — — — —
DAY FIVE (MONDAY)
ONE new email address.
ONE cold call.
ONE postcard sent.
ONE email sent.
DAY SIX
TWO new email address.
ONE cold call.
TWO postcard sent.
ONE email sent.
DAY SEVEN
ONE new email address.
ONE cold call.
ONE postcard sent.
TWO email sent.
DAY EIGHT
TWO new email address.
ONE cold call.
TWO postcard sent.
ONE email sent.
NONE ON FRIDAY
WEEKEND
— — — — —
DAY NINE
TWO new email address.
ONE cold call.
TWO postcard sent.
TWO email sent.
DAY TEN
ONE new email address.
ONE cold call.
ONE postcard sent.
TWO email sent.
DAY ELEVEN
TWO new email address.
TWO cold call.
TWO postcard sent.
TWO email sent.
DAY TWELVE
ONE new email address.
ONE cold call.
ONE postcard sent.
ONE email sent.
NONE ON FRIDAY
WEEKEND
— — — — —
DAY THIRTEEN (MONDAY)
TWO new email address.
ONE cold call.
ONE postcard sent.
TWO email sent.
DAY FOURTEEN
ONE new email address.
TWO cold call.
TWO postcard sent.
TWO email sent.
DAY FIFTEEN
TWO new email address.
TWO cold call.
THREE postcard sent.
THREE email sent.
DAY SIXTEEN
TWO new email address.
TWO cold call.
THREE postcard sent.
TWO email sent.
NONE ON FRIDAY
WEEKEND
— — — —
DAY SEVENTEEN (MONDAY)
THREE new email address.
TWO cold call.
THREE postcard sent.
TWO email sent.
DAY EIGHTEEN
TWO new email address.
TWO cold call.
TWO postcard sent.
THREE email sent.
DAY NINETEEN
THREE new email address.
THREE cold call.
THREE postcard sent.
THREE email sent.
DAY 20
THREE new email address.
THREE cold call.
THREE postcard sent.
THREE email sent.
NONE ON FRIDAY
YOU ARE NOW DOING 12 CONTACTS PER DAY.
And taking less than half an hour to do them. We have eased into the work with small, bite-sized chunks that build on each other.
This is a winning strategy and we have gently slipped into it by chunking it out in incremental pieces.
(I am happy with three contacts per day, but we have elevated you slowly to four times that.)
In this five-week time period you will have:
34 new contact emails.
Made 30 cold calls.
Sent 36 postcard mailers.
Sent 35 emails.
Some of these may be to the same people – (find a new client and send an email that day), but you have definitely touched more than 40 clients in this time.
FORTY POSSIBLE CLIENTS!!!
And it was a gentle process. One designed to minimize stress.
It may be difficult for you to start out by doing twelve per day… but you simply do not have an excuse to not do one.
Right?
ONE.
So stick with the 3 each concept every day after that. You have proven you can do it, so let’s start doing it.
IMAGINE… 40 OR MORE CLIENTS TOUCHED…
You will be so far beyond most of your competition with this simple, easy to follow method that it will astound you.
BTW, by doing 3 each of these marketing actions (finding clients, sending email, sending postcard, cold calling) each day four days per week, you will be doing 180 client touches per month, while finding 48 new clients to contact… so within three or four months, you will have your list and then you will be simply maintaining it – removing inactive clients to be replaced by good clients you are going to meet along the way.
And if you do this… you will be working.
You will most definitely be working.
For those of you who are still concerned about the effort because of other commitments, see these posts:
“It’s a Numbers Game, Part One”
“It’s a Numbers Game, Part Two”
See you next week.