Lessons

Lesson Info

Expanding Your Client Base

So this is a so called shell fie and philip sent me this little note and he said he went from terrified two terrific and philip will tell you his story but first I want to show you what philip does and you will never believe what I did before excellent beautiful I feel like how are you today great hello from sunny scotland is beautiful in here today okay, very good. I know you're going to want to talk to him about how he's going to pronounce what is calling in from bennett? This is john on one of the hosts here. How do you say adam broke? I think I'm the only one who pushes it but what's new for you so philip I want to just talk about your story a little bit will you please tell everybody in the life audience and all over the world where were you first when you met me for the first time? Okay, so actually when I when I got to know that they actually I had left the carrier as theoretical physicists as an academic I mean I had the faculty jobs in the united states of september age and fi...

nally I just andi I talked him into signing a visualization which actually got me to take the tie with years of army again on dh since I think in increasingly satisfied with my job which involved more and more no boring I'm industry this task I decided to make a switch I don't uh just getting too I usually when I first talked to be out there I thought I was going to be just a regular a commercial photographer and offer just business to speeches and so on but then I found out the department with that it was really that why is your passion just in conversational leading that you know, other people there is a lot of people that simply do not appreciate the good photography andi I thought it was next to impossible to convince these people of the value good photography and of course the people we do that you get a dog if he already had their photographer and so actually hired me instead of the person they used to so it was really the I think the in conversation with they became clear essentially being able to differentiate myself from the competition is really cute andi think what time lives really allows me to do because they're obviously far fewer time after time portrait or waiting for or other types of parents right? So that was really the key that you know it actually they aren't they convinced me that time lines was the way to go because initially initially probably a cz usual as usual but you know actually now when I think of it it was kind of embarrassed because initially I was reluctant about time lives because I just couldn't see howto be a market for it but when I became really convinced differentiation what's the way to go timeless you know the timelines were speaking of this water and so way started really researching the potential clients and so you know essentially as you can I think it was probably the really convince you time lives he's just really really good for showcasing locations I mean it is just so much better than video poker is a ten second video clip of a landscape or a city seeing it's very boring nothing happens so we speeded up a few hundred times it's much much more interesting okay let me let me allow me to interrupt you for a second because I want to make a few points there so just to repeat some of what he was saying so in the beginning you know philip thought he was going to be a regular you know, regular commercial photographer not unlike unlike you barbara where he I wanted to do portrait's and provide you know things for for for business and did all the right stuff he did the networking and then what we found is that that we were really struggling sort of with his differentiation factor and as philip was doing more and more research about customer profiles and philip talk a little bit about how you created your customer profiles and sort of where your customer profile is right now and what you found out okay, so yes oh wait. So the thinking process started again you know, thinking about what? What is time what's really good for obviously showcasing location and I said, well, what kind of people would have you know we could use you know would have the problem of showcasing the location b then it occurred to me that obviously the tourism industry which is one of the biggest industries on the planet where really needs to showcase particular location now obviously we were going to go after the whole tourism industry eso initially I decided to target tourism boards right on dh so we constructed a pish essentially hard time lapse good to help it arisen wass dr more visitors to the region or the city and so we did some research on the way to find out that I've got some studies and ninety percent of the people actually potential holidaymakers actually searched their whole lives online, right? So the finch went along like weston's ninety percent of the people research the holly online obviously they want to see what their location looks like. We support the decision to burn on. Of course you can showcase your location in the best possible light unintended which time lapses so bitter then obviously the potential the researchers we're going inside look at your city and with very favorable impression of you city and therefore will be more likely to validate that therefore time lapse is going to help them drive more visitors to the region which is the problem that they're trying to solve very good and then um I also would like you to share the story that we talked about the last time way we're speaking where you said that you found sort of almost by accident yet another customer profile ah higher and market that might be more lucrative yeah so it's actually after me is something only they could get me to do which was to teo get on the phone and call those people at all and I call the tourism boards and I found that these organizations were really slow to move forward the decision printmaking processing to the very slow because they're probably involved by few people so we started to think about you know, maybe more nimble adaptable organization that could make decisions quickly right? And so I'm going to be some more research I found that there were a lot of cos that would rest luxury villas in spain italy, southern france, morocco, turkey, thailand the caribbean malicious etcetera so I thought that will be another talking market that could be very promising because I don't think there are many I don't really have that much complication in that arena well so that was another continent profile and I think also the problem I found with the tourism board is that as you mentioned, you come decision with your the one you're found students on creating life that the tourism board seem to have a project problem, the sweat so where I think the companies that offer these treasury laugh for rounds probably have a lot more money to spend on promotion. So chocolates on many million leader accounts. Phillip, we're talking castles. Yeah, I mean, we're talking friend castles that go for forty thousand pounds a week. So, do you think that somebody who is renting a castle of forty thousand dollars a week, that they might be spending some extra money to advertise the region? Forty thousand pounds? So is about sixty thousand sorry, my my bad, yes. And so, you know, so part of his strategy now is and this is why I wanted philip to come in is to, you know, there's an educational process involved with government and tourism boards. That doesn't mean that that's not gonna happen. But, you know, at once at one point, you start to have the conversation and now he's doing, you know, his marketing to them, and then, as you know, these people become a familiar with this work somewhere down the road, the first one's going to come and then the first one and then he's going to go to the competitors off the first one, it says, well, they're doing it and now, you know, and then it's going to start I mean it's not uncommon for a particular type of businesses to do some education. Phillip, why is time lapse such a powerful marketing tool compared to photography? But compared to photography? Well, I think it depends on if you're really targeting the other thirty people, they're much, much more into video and then then still photography the other. Actually, I found that out from times of experience because I part of my automatic education was working with parents on dh well, I had a lot of trouble getting advanced before issue. It was much easier for them not convinced and teach music here, so I know that the young generation on much national into deals thing askew, askew, askew witness with my clit really the time last also a video apology for a soundtrack so music is is very interesting into people's emotions, where in fact, you know in movies they use music to sound try, you can use it very effectively to completely change in all those feeling the scene so no, you can use the striking visuals essentially time lapses, justus much visual aesthetic appeal at landscape photography, good landscape photography but you can also add an emotional santa that is going to believe thank you for that and then I have one final question for you how did you feel before we first talking has started talking about this about cold calling and how do you feel now how did you get from terrified too terrific yeah so I think well I had was that I was terrified I think for the same reason a lot of people are very excited about picking up the phone and calling the police I think we've all had those horrendous experiences those knowing people calling us selling your stuff really a lot so I think that is the reason these people are annoying because they haven't done any research know about what problems their services or product actually s'all right for us how we could, how they can actually help us buy so but once you actually do your customer research on dh, then you know really try to construct a noggin why I know how you can actually help them things change in almost miraculous fashion that actually I think is really really important first to convince yourself you know honestly believe that you can really have your potential clients because of course if you don't believe you can help them, are they going to believe you can help them? Probably not right? So this is really essential that you do the research so you can convince yourself you you can really help them and when you don't you can help them then something really amazing happens because instead of thinking it be rude to call them you think it'd be rude not to call but I mean if you have if you have a friend who's moving house but it be really not to offer to help so when you know when you know you can help, then you know you feel you know and you know the thing I actually father you know, I came up with this other thing that another reason I think people are terrified of a cold calling is the fear of rejection now, you know, one thing with rejection is really unavoidable and I can state that I have a phd in physics and I probably have speed tht is in rejections I've seen so many times on dh I never you know, I don't know anybody who likes it, but the thing about rejection is that it's so much easier to, you know, to deal with that if you can get over it quickly and the thing is what actually happens is that since I know I can help the people I call I really I can help them but and so if they turned me down, then I know I'm not the one making the mistake they are and that respect is it makes it so much easier to deal with rejection because you know, there's nothing wrong with, you know, the other one making the mistake. So I think thiss no being able to handle the rejection better makes it easier to pick up the phone and call people. Thank you so much, philip. But I think this was absolutely amazing. I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you, thank you.