Wedding Workshop One | Communication, Planning, & Happy Clients: Know Your Audience

Know Your Audience | Transcription

Before we jump in, I want to mention this, that I want you all to know your audience. What this means is once again, I mentioned this in the last video when we kind of discussed what we’ll be discussing in this chapter in the intro. I feel like most of you probably just skipped that video, so I’m going to say it again here. Tailor the message. Be present, and we’re going to talk about presence in just a moment, but be present and tailor the message, and the first thing that you’re going to do is avoid the information dump.

This is the one thing that is probably the biggest and most notorious problem with every one of our shooters that comes in and starts with basically lead associate bookings. When they’re in their initial meetings, they are just dumping information left and right without actually gauging the interest of the client in the information that they’re giving. Watch their expressions, look at their focus, their attention, gauge what interests them the most by asking the right questions, and modify the message to tailor that. What you’re going to do is remember that you don’t need to cover all the information that we’re going to be covering here.

Again, we’re giving you all the information that is relevant to be discussing in an initial meeting, or at least not all, but most of that information, or the information that we typically use. We cater that information to each individual client, meaning that if a client is in the point, if they’re at the phase where they are planning their wedding and the timeline is what matters the most to them, that’s what we spend the majority of our initial meeting discussing. If they’re in the phase where they’re thinking about doing an engagement session, that’s what we spend the majority of our initial meeting discussing. We tailor the message so that we’re always talking about the key pieces that are most relevant to them. Remember that throughout this entire course and throughout your entire relationship, and that framework with a client, you’re going to have multiple touch points. You don’t need to communicate everything at this phase.

By the way, this is our little initial meeting icon right there. You’re going to see it through all these slides, that means that we’re in an initial meeting. We’re going to make sure that the arrows kind of point and reference which part of the process that we’re in throughout. Yes, I designed those pieces. I am so happy.

Number two is to stop interrupting the clients. Again, one of the biggest issues that we see with new associates that are getting used to the whole sales process is they tend to talk too much and not listen enough. Stop interrupting, stop talking, let the clients say what they want to say, give them opportunity to speak, and so forth.

Next I want you to focus on relevant education. What this means is it goes back to avoiding the information dump, and this whole thing is about tailoring the message. What we’re doing is we’re avoiding just dumping information on them. We’re going to stop interrupting them, we’re going to ask targeted questions. Questions to help us understand their needs, their wants, and then we’re going to tailor that message by allowing them to speak around what questions they have, what is most relevant to their needs.

The last thing that I want to mention is that this is not a sales/closing course. What I mean by that is that the content that we’re covering here in this course will indeed crossover and it’s going to benefit you a lot in terms of sales and bookings, but the sales and booking process begins before the initial meeting. It goes through the initial meeting and we discuss a lot of things including price and budget, creating different budgets, creating different quotes, sending them out, and that entire process, in and of itself, would merit a five, to six, to seven hour course. It’s really beyond the scope of what we’re discussing here.

Be on the lookout for that course because here we like to focus on communication, planning, and creating this overall framework that will help you to deliver consistently amazing images for every shoot and every client.