[00:00:00] Hey, real quick, do you remember how you first found this podcast? Maybe it was from a tweet. Maybe a friend sent it to you, or you saw it on an Instagram story. This podcast only grows through word of mouth. I don't run ads, I don't have sponsorships, so I don't make any money off this podcast. So my ask of you is to please pass this onto another creative out there, a podcast review, a post on Instagram or Twitter, or maybe a mention to a friend.
It would mean a lot to me and might help another entrepreneur. Are out there, so thank you. Let's get into the episode. How would I start a portrait photography business? If I was starring from scratch? What are the exact steps I would take so I could secure client after client with the goal of doing this full-time?
I've been doing purely pro photography for the past three years, and I've learned a lot about client acquisition and running a creative business. I'm confident that with the knowledge I've gained, I'd be able to start a successful portrait photography business from scratch. Here's how I do it. Welcome to the Creative Biz Launch Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your creative business and scale to six figures.
Whether you're a photographer, filmmaker, or designer, you'll [00:01:00] find something of value here.
My name is Chris Pieta and I run Creative BIS Launch and education company, helping creative entrepreneurs start and scale their businesses. And I also run a product photography company. Now, how would I actually start a portrait photography business? This was a really fun episode for me to think about.
It got me thinking about the creative business stuff, and that's my favorite thing to do. We're gonna be talking about the business model, the steps to take. Early on and how to get clients and what to do after you get the client. So the business model as a product photographer, when I pitch a project, it isn't just for one or two photos of their product, it's for 10 or 20 photos.
We're gonna be doing the same thing for headshots, but Chris, no one wants 20 different headshots. Yeah, I know. That's why our clients aren't going to be individuals. They're going to be businesses. That's right. We're not going to try and gain individuals as clients. We're trying to work with businesses that have a handful of employees, what would normally be a $300 headshot session turns into a multi-thousand dollars [00:02:00] project.
It. This is how I would do it. I'm using all the lessons I learned in my pro photography business to implement this new business model. I thought long about this and I'm confident that this would lead to success. This episode is assuming that you're already good at portrait photography. The biggest struggle I hear from port photographers is that they're not getting any clients Portrait photographers struggle to get new clients.
If we can eliminate that worry, then portrait photographers will be able to focus on what they love doing. Making people look best in their photos. Additionally, we're not going to have our own studio space. This is a startup cost that just doesn't make sense. Early on in your photography career, studio spaces are expenses are big expenses that you don't wanna have to worry about when you're just starting out.
Instead, when you're working with businesses, you'll be able to go to them to photograph their staff. This will even be a plus for them when you're pitching them. You can say your staff doesn't have to even go anywhere. I come to you with my professional photography setup. You save money here and you provide a better [00:03:00] customer experience, win-win.
You will need a mobile photography setup with lights, backdrops, and all that other stuff, but that's really simple to build out and pretty cheap. There are plenty of YouTube videos that go into that kind of stuff, so I'm not gonna talk about that here. Where do we actually find businesses to work with?
Well, we're going to get into that in just a second. But first, when you set up some things to help guarantee our success, before you can start taking photos for businesses or making any money, you're going to need a website. This is where your potential clients can go see what you're all about. This is where your portfolio will live.
This is where past client case studies will be. Clients that visit your website have an idea of what type of work you can do for them. If you're just starting out and don't have any headshots, then you need to build up that portfolio. Post on Instagram saying that you're offering inexpensive headshots or free headshots.
Take photos of your friends for free. Go to a college campus for a few hours and offer $10 headshot for students on the quad. Whatever you need to do to build up that portfolio and build up your credibility as a portrait photographer, you have to do that. [00:04:00] Do you have pretty pictures from Yosemite or the sunrise or awesome photos of the Chicago skyline?
Well, that's great, but do not put those on your website. You're here selling your portrait photography services, not your landscape photography. Everyone that goes to your website should see that you're a pro in a specific niche of photography. People wanna hire a specialist, and as a specialist, you're gonna come off as more of an expert and you'll be able to make more money after you've got your website.
You're gonna need to create a compelling offer with headshots. It's pretty straightforward. When a client asks how much this is gonna cost, what are you gonna say?
You can start low and increase your rates as you get more and more clients. But for your first clients, you can say you charge a hundred bucks a person and everyone gets three headshots. From there, you can charge 200 bucks for the next client and keep raising those rates until you get pushback. If you wanna be more convincing, say that you also offer free Photoshop, retouching, and unlimited revisions.
That normally costs 50 bucks, but you're including this in your base price for free. The client sees they're getting extra value for the [00:05:00] photos and your offering becomes that much more compelling. I personally offer a money back guarantee for my clients, but if you're doing these kinds of headshots, I probably wouldn't recommend doing that for this.
Okay. We have our business model. We have our website, we have our offer. Let's go and get some clients. We're gonna be taking an approach that I use to get all of my product photography clients. Now, this is not the typical way that portrait photographers get clients, but I think this will be highly effective.
What we're gonna be doing is targeting businesses for headshot of their staff. This way, instead of gaining one client at a time, you'll be gaining five or 10 or more. One business can have a huge staff working for them. Let me break down exactly how my client acquisition system would work for this. By the way, if you want a more detailed breakdown of this client's acquisition system, plus the whole blueprint for starting your creative business, go check out Creative bis launch and description below.
Okay, so the whole system starts with cold outreach. This can be cold email, cold calling, or cold approaching businesses. My personal favor is cold email. [00:06:00] By doing cold outreach, you're essentially turning your client acquisition system into a predictable sales pipeline. You're no longer going to be waiting for clients to come to you.
You'll be finding them. Your goal will be finding businesses around you that need headshots, and then email those businesses, start in your local area, and then expand. These first businesses can be coffee shops, restaurants, bike shops, really any business that can benefit from having some portraits down their staff.
If a bike shop has portraits of their staff on their social media or their website, that can build trust, the customer can put a face to who's working on that bike. Use this in your pitch, but let's go back to that cold outreach method. You're gonna be making a list of all these businesses in your area and then finding their emails or phone numbers on their website or social media pages.
Organize all these in a Google Doc to keep track of everyone. Next is time to compose your email. Your email will always have, Three main components, a hook, a credibility statement, and an ask. It's important to keep these emails personalized, especially when you're starting out. If you're looking to help a local coffee [00:07:00] shop with your services, you can start your email off with something like this.
Hey there, I live just on the street from Chicago Coffee, and I love your cold brew. I was browsing your website and I noticed you don't have any headshot on there. I'm reaching out because I'm a portrait photographer working with local businesses. I just wrapped up a project with Hank Spike Shop where I took portraits of their entire staff for their website and social media.
I'd love to do the same for your coffee shop. Any interest in talking more about how businesses I work with use headshots to help get more customers in their door. I'm happy to set a call, even come to the shop. This is a super compelling cold email. It's a really great copy and I use a very similar version of it to get all my product photography clients.
Let's break down why this email's effective. We start off by saying, I live just on the street from Chicago Coffee. I noticed there's no headshots on your website here. We make an immediate connection to the coffee shop. We state there where we're local, we visit the business, we create a need for your service, all in the intro.
If a business doesn't have any headshots or has old headshots on their website, [00:08:00] you've just identified a prospect that can benefit from your service. We did our research, so we were able to put them in our email.
Next, we have our credibility statement. Here we explain why we're reaching out and why we're trustworthy. You explain who you are and what types of customers you work with. In this case, you're a portrait photographer that works with local businesses. If this isn't your first client, you'll be able to include a credibility statement here as well.
Casually mention who you've worked with in the past. Bonus points if they're local and they're actually using your headshots on their website. You mentioned how you've helped other clients, so this new prospect is able to see that in your email. And finally, we have our ask. Notice how we don't say. Any interest in you headshots.
This statement makes it about you. Instead, you wanna make it about them. We say Any interest in talking more about how businesses I work with use headshots to get more customers in their door. Here we explain that the end result of getting headshots is getting more customers in their door. They can see that this might be a [00:09:00] positive return on investment.
For them, making them more likely to actually respond to this email. Finally, you end the email saying that you're flexible to either talk on the phone or even come in to talk in person. And that's it. Make sure to send this from a Google Workspace email address. Never use a Gmail address. You don't wanna come off as an amateur by using something like five star [email protected].
That screams amateur. Get an actual domain and make your email john five star hotshots.com. This tip alone. Will make your open rates go up like crazy. I know so many photographers that refuse to use a Google Workspace address because they don't wanna pay the six bucks a month, but they're missing out on thousands of revenue because they wanna save that money.
You look like an amateur if you use a Gmail account. Do not use that. Go get a workspace account like John five star headshots.com. Also, you should read up on all the canned spam laws to make sure that you're compliant because those fines can get really hefty. We talk about this stuff inside. I've created Biz Launch, so if you need help, just enroll below.
After you've done all this, go [00:10:00] ahead, start saying these personalized emails. You're gonna need to send a lot of these to get responses and book clients, so don't get discouraged if no one responds. At first, you'll need to send dozens of emails to get that first client, and once you get one, the rest will come easy.
One second here. If you're a photographer or videographer that's struggling to land paying clients, I've got a free 60 minute workshop. That's the missing piece of the puzzle here. I've designed this workshop to provide you with the essential tools and strategies. To get your first paying clients, we'll cover everything from pitching your offer to transforming your $1,000 clients into $10,000 clients.
Don't wait to take your business to the next level. Click that link in the description and join the free workshop now. Okay, so after someone responds to your email, You need to actually get something in writing with a project scope. You also need payment terms and all the other small things. Now, this episode isn't really getting into the nitty gritty here, but let's talk about pricing real quick.
It's gonna take some experimenting on urine to actually find a good price point. That businesses will say yes to. [00:11:00] If you normally charge 200 bucks a headshot for individuals, you're gonna have to lower this. For businesses. I would start low and raise your rates rapidly. Start at a hundred bucks a person for three headshots, and then if you get a yes, double that rate
a hundred bucks. A person with a 10 person business is already a thousand bucks. Feel free to adjust these prices as you want, but I, this is just where I would recommend starting. Now, if a client tells you that you're too expensive, ask them what their budget is or what they're willing to pay for this early on.
Take on as much work as you can for even super low prices. This allows you to build up your portfolio and build case studies after every successful client. You want to ask for that Google review for your business, and if you have 10 plus reviews from local businesses saying you're taking great head shots.
That speaks volumes to what you're able to do. It makes the client acquisition process that much easier, and that's really it. Keep repeating the process, raise your rates, and provide a great service. Over time, you'll be able to go from working with small coffee shops to doing portraits for the Starbucks corporate office.[00:12:00]
And as your expertise grows, so, so do the clients that you get. My name is Chris Pieta. I teach Create Business and Photography. I'll talk to you in the next one. If you have an extra 10 seconds here, please give the show our rating. That's the only way we grow with you, the audience, so thank you.
