Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait photographers to uniquely brand, profitably price, and confidently sell their best work. Allison has been doing just that for the last 15 years, and she’s proven that it’s possible to create unforgettable art and run a portrait business that supports your family and your dreams. All it takes is a little ReWork. Episodes will include interviews with experts from in and outside of the photo industry, many workshops, and behind the scenes secrets that Allison uses in her portrait studio every single day. She will challenge your thinking and inspire your confidence to create a profitable, sustainable portrait business you love through continually refining and reworking your business. Let’s do the ReWork.
Allison Tyler Jones: Hi friends and welcome back to The ReWork. We’ve all had experiences with clients that have made us question our career choice. Interactions that leave you feeling angry, upset, or just defeated. We replay those interactions in our head over and over again, trying to see where did we go wrong. This is also usually when we come up with all the words that we should have said in the interaction, but just didn’t have at our fingertips at the time.
Allison Tyler Jones: So what’s a nice portrait photographer supposed to do? I mean, after all, aren’t we in the happy business? Why would anyone get mad at us, nice little us in the first place? Aren’t we just trying to do our best to create beautiful images for our client?
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, no matter what business you’re in or how long you’ve been in that business, you are eventually going to have some kind of conflict with a client. It’s inevitable. They’re paying you money for a service, and expectations come with that exchange.
Allison Tyler Jones: So knowing ahead of time that conflict will happen, and expecting it can help us to not completely freak out when it happens. There are ways, however, to get out ahead of problems so that you can, for the most part, avoid them altogether. There are also ways to manage difficult situations once you’re in the thick of them, so that they don’t spin completely out of control. And that’s what this episode is all about, the five C’s of dealing with difficult clients.
Allison Tyler Jones: So let’s begin by questioning our assumptions, and being a little bit more careful about clarifying the words that we’re using. What makes a client difficult? I’m using air quotes here. Define difficult.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now, most of us are sensitive souls, and prefer to avoid conflict in any area of our life. And if you are that kind of person, you might find many people difficult. It can be hard to sell your own work. It feels many times, like we’re putting our baby out there in the cold, cruel world, and it can be easy to get our feelings hurt. But we do need to develop a bit of a thick skin if we’re going to handle difficult situations in a professional manner.
Allison Tyler Jones: So I find it helpful to first define what difficult is not. To me, a client who is detailed, maybe a bit OCD, and a little demanding in a respectful way is not difficult. They just want what they want.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now, this is after 18 years of experience. I used to think of this type of person as difficult or picky. But now, I’ve found that I love a client who is direct in their requests and clear in their communication.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now, not to be sexist, and I realize this is a gross overgeneralization. But in my experience, men are often better at this than women. I’ve had many female photographers complain to me about “the husbands” and how difficult they can be, but I actually find that most husbands are direct and don’t want to waste time, so they can come off as more abrupt. Their softer skills sometimes lack a little bit. They may also just want to get down to brass tacks and talk money more quickly or earlier than a woman would. This isn’t difficult, it’s different. I’m also going to refer you back to our episode number 58, How to Speak Husband for more details on that topic.
Allison Tyler Jones: So don’t confuse different with difficult. If you’re a very emotional person who likes a lot of verbal interaction, a more abrupt person is going to feel difficult for you. Conversely, if you’re a brass tax person and a client comes in that needs more handholding, you may actually interpret them as difficult or needy. They’re just different than you. They aren’t difficult.
Allison Tyler Jones: Another thing to keep in mind is that difficult situations don’t mean that the client is difficult, but we’ll talk about that a bit later. For now, let’s just define what a difficult client is.
Allison Tyler Jones: So difficult to me is someone that is rude or condescending to me or my staff, someone who just will not play by the rules or the process of my business, or someone who is just never going to be happy no matter what you do for them.
Allison Tyler Jones: The best solution to deal with people like this, I have found, is to make sure that they actually never become your clients in the first place. Our entire process in our studio is set up to weed out people like this, and I call this the five C’s of dealing with difficult clients or preventing them from becoming clients in the first place. Clarity, consultation, conversation, confrontation, and closure.
Allison Tyler Jones: So let’s start with clarity. Being very clear from the very beginning. And from the very beginning, I mean on your website, on your Instagram feed, all your social media, it’s very clear what you do and what you don’t do. If you look at my Instagram feed or you look at my website, you’ll see it’s very obvious that I want a relationship with my clients and that I have a lot of repeat clients. It’s very obvious that we create finished product for our clients’ homes or custom designed albums. It’s very, very clear. You can’t look at even the first page of our website and think that you’re going to hire me to do a bunch of digital files for you. It’s just very clear that what we’re creating is large scale art for our clients’ homes.
Allison Tyler Jones: And that acts as a weeding out mechanism. There are calls that I never get, because it’s clear what I do and what I don’t do. And I am grateful for that, because I am a human being just like anybody else. And when somebody calls me, and they are confused, and they want something that I don’t do, it takes emotional energy to have that conversation and to weed them out verbally. And that is harder for me, because of course we’re pleasers. We want everybody to love us, and we want to be able to serve as many people as we can. And so that can take you down a rabbit hole and make you feel like, “Maybe I shouldn’t be doing business the way that I’m doing it.” And you start to doubt yourself, because you’re having to have these adversarial conversations just to qualify somebody.
Allison Tyler Jones: But honestly, if your communication is clear, your social media, your website, those people don’t call you, and then you don’t have to deal with it. So number one, clarity of communication is the way to go. The biggest mistakes that I see photographers making on this issue of clarity is beautiful images being posted without any context of what you are going to do with those images.
Allison Tyler Jones: So for those of you who are wanting to sell finished product, wall art albums to your clients, and you’re not interested in just selling a bunch of digital files, you have to communicate that before, before the client ever calls you.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So number two, conversation. Our entire sales process is set up to get somebody on a phone call as soon as possible. So I want to have an actual conversation with the client or with the prospect, so that they can hear my voice and how excited I am to work with them. I can hear their voice, and hear what their needs are. I want to communicate with them in a casual, open way about, “This is how we work, this is what we do, this is what we don’t do.” So I’m clarifying even further than what my website or my social media has done in this first conversation, but I’m repeating the same information over and over again, and driving that message home in every interaction.
Allison Tyler Jones: The biggest mistake I see here, photographers making in the conversation realm is just you’re busy, you’re overwhelmed. It’s hard to get ahold of people on the phone. People don’t like to answer the phone. So just shooting off an email of a price list or a brochure, and thinking that the client’s going to read it, understand it, or share it with their spouse. They don’t. They don’t do any of those things, and that results in trouble for you later on. So that first conversation is so important to have. I would refer you to our episode number three of The ReWork about that first phone call. Very, very helpful.
Allison Tyler Jones: So getting the client on the phone and having a conversation with them, “Tell me about your project. What is it that you’re thinking of doing?” And just feeling them out about what it is that they want, you’re immediately going to see whether you’re a fit or not.
Allison Tyler Jones: And a quick tip for getting somebody on the phone, a couple of quick tips for getting somebody on the phone. One is if the second that you get either a DM or an info at message off of your website, as soon as you possibly can, call them while the iron is still hot, while they’re still thinking about it. So as soon as that comes through, I try to contact them immediately if possible.
Allison Tyler Jones: The other tip that I have is that, as I said before, people do not want to talk on the phone anymore. And if they don’t have your number programmed into their phone, they’re not going to answer some random number.
Allison Tyler Jones: So very often, I’ll text them right before I call them. So I’ll text them and say, “Hey, I got your request for information. Would love to chat with you about your project. Is now a good time to talk? I could call you right now, otherwise let’s set up a time to talk.” And then if we go back and forth and we’re going to set up a time to talk, if I’m not going to talk to them immediately, I’ll say something like, “Go ahead and put this number in your phone so that when I call you, you recognize it.” Okay, so we’re being clear. We are having a conversation.
Allison Tyler Jones: Next, we want to have a consultation before we shoot this session. Before we even book the client sometimes, we want to have a client consultation, because the consultation is going to help us manage expectations so that people don’t become difficult, situations don’t become difficult. We want to get a game plan for the session. I want to quote pricing to my clients. And this is kind of like the finest weave in the sieve, right? This is where we are going to weed people out, because it’s better not to book them at all, than to do all the work and have the whole thing burn down later.
Allison Tyler Jones: The biggest mistake I see photographers making in the consultation, and the biggest mistake that I make is I’m getting too caught up in talking about how we’re going to shoot the images, like what are we going to wear? What background are we going to use? What location are we going to? What lighting? What are all the concepts, and talking about all the how, and what we’re going to shoot, and not talking about what we are doing with these images, and where are they going to live in our home. So that’s something that will weed out people, but it’s also going to clarify the project going forward.
Allison Tyler Jones: So if you do nothing else in that consultation, of course they want to talk about clothes. Of course they want to talk about, we want to do dad and the girls, and mom and the boys, and the dog, and all of the different breakouts, but where are those images going to live? What are we doing with these images?
Allison Tyler Jones: The fourth C is a toughie, confrontation. I don’t know many people that love confrontation. That’s a rarity. But the kind of confrontation that I’m talking about is bringing up areas of potential conflict before there’s a problem.
Allison Tyler Jones: So discussing pricing before you shoot anything, talking about that you don’t sell printable digital files before you’ve already shot an entire session for a client, if that’s how you want to do business.
Allison Tyler Jones: And then also, really listening to what the clients are saying. Are they using minimizing language? Are they saying, “Well, I just need a little, I only want like an 8 x 10 or a couple of 5 x 7’s, and maybe some holiday cards.” And you’re spinning dreams of wall art in your head, and you’re not listening to what they’re saying. Or maybe they’re talking about, you’re laying down your process and how the whole thing works, and they keep talking about how they don’t want to do that. But you’re so excited to have a client, that you’re not listening to the fact that they don’t want to play by the rules.
Allison Tyler Jones: So it’s very important that when somebody is… Say you’re explaining, “We specialize in finished product, and it’s so great, and we come and install it on your walls,” and the client is saying, “I really just want some digital files that I can print my own canvases and design my own Christmas card.”
Allison Tyler Jones: So rather than ignoring that and thinking, “When they see these images, they’re going to be so beautiful, that they’re just going to fall in love with them and they’re going to do it my way.” It’s not going to happen. They’ve told you what they want, and you need to listen to that, and you need to address it before you shoot the session.
Allison Tyler Jones: If they really don’t want the thing that you are selling, in the way that you are selling, listen to that. Clarify with them, and make them explain what they mean rather than thinking that you understand.
Allison Tyler Jones: So confront. So when a client uses that minimizing language, “I just need a couple of five by sevens for my grandma and maybe some holiday cards,” or, “I just want digital files,” and you don’t know exactly what to say or how to confront it, one really easy way to confront is to just say, “Tell me more about that,” and then let them talk.
Allison Tyler Jones: And you might find that they really don’t want that. That’s just what they think they should say, or that’s what they thought they were getting when they called you. But they didn’t realize that there’s a whole other possibility for them, that they could have beautiful portraits on their walls or in custom designed albums. They didn’t even realize that was a possibility. They just have been used to dealing with shoot and burn photographers forever, and they thought that they had to do everything.
Allison Tyler Jones: So we’re not confronting in a negative way like, “Well, I don’t do that. No, I will not sell you digital files, and I have to do everything because I’m so special and great.” No, you’re painting the picture of how great the services that you do and the clients that you serve.
Allison Tyler Jones: Many of our clients love wall art for their homes. We work with their interior designers to design for a specific spot in their home, and then we deliver and install it on their walls. And so you’re painting the picture in a happy way, but you’re also letting them know, “This is what it is that we do.”
Allison Tyler Jones: If you’re a portrait photographer, you know the next few months are going to be crazy. This is our busy season. And how to make the most of that busy season is to make sure that our client communication is in order, that we are not having clients showing up with the wrong clothing, that we are not having clients shocked in our sales appointments by our pricing, and needing to go home and measure, or going home and asking their husband, and then sales burning down, and our clients not getting what they need, and we not being able to build a sustainable business. So how are we going to make sure that this season is the most successful that it possibly can be?
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, it starts by getting on the same page with your clients, so that nothing is left to chance. And how I’ve done this is that I’ve spent the last 13 years revising my own internal consultation form, which by the way, you can download the consultation form that I use in my business absolutely free.
Allison Tyler Jones: But I realized after tweaking that form for about 13 years, that I needed something more. And it wasn’t just a pretty brochure, and it wasn’t a price list with no context. Because we all know you can send a price list to somebody, and they’re still shocked by the price because they never looked at it, or they have no idea what those prices even mean. It’s happened to all of us.
Allison Tyler Jones: What I realized is I needed a single printed piece for my client to take away with them, that would leave nothing to chance, and that it would allow me to educate my clients about the price range of my products. It would help them to understand what we would and wouldn’t be shooting for during their portrait session, like actually creating a game plan for what is it that we’re actually going to be shooting for, and let’s prioritize that.
Allison Tyler Jones: And then also, something that would allow the clients to feel confident about selecting the clothing for their session, and a printed piece that would allow them to share with their spouse and be able to put together the game plan for their session.
Allison Tyler Jones: So I needed it to be part brochure, part getting ready guide, part last minute checklist, and part consultation form, because my consultation form was internal. I was keeping that form, but I wanted this printed piece to go with my clients. And I wanted it to be sexy and good looking, and that they felt completely and totally cared for. So I wanted all of this in a single booklet that the client would take with them at the end of their consultation.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now, I’ve been using this, I created about five years ago. It’s called the ATJ Game Plan Booklet, and I started off by using it in my studio, and I’ve been revising it for the last five years. And now for the first time ever, I’m offering it to the ReWork community to use in your portrait studio.
Allison Tyler Jones: So what’s included? In that in this course, it’s a little mini course, not a big long course, there’s a video lesson with me on how to use the Game Plan Booklet in your consultation. You will also have a video recording of an actual client consultation with me and a client, using the booklet in real time. And then you’ll have layered PSD files of the Game Plan Booklet that we use in our studio every day, as well as a PDF version of the latest and greatest ATJ consultation form.
Allison Tyler Jones: So all of that is included for just a one-time payment of 295. Just 295 to completely change the way that you interact with your clients, the information that they have, how taken care of they feel by making things transparent to them. Putting together the game plan for the session, so that everybody’s on the same page. We all know what we’re shooting for, we know how much it’s going to cost, they know what to wear. Everybody’s on the same page. This is the document. This is the booklet that has changed my business, and I want you to have it too if it works for you.
Allison Tyler Jones: So go to dotherework.com/gameplan, that’s dotherework.com/gameplan, and download that booklet and start using it in your business this busy season. I know that the Game Plan Booklet will be a game changer for your business.
Allison Tyler Jones: The biggest mistake that portrait photographers make is thinking that the clients are going to fall in love with the images so much, that they won’t care about the price or they won’t care about the fact that you don’t want to sell them digital files. They will care, and they will be mad at you, because you’re great at what you do. And you will create all these beautiful images of the people they love most, and they will want them all. But because you didn’t put together a realistic game plan of what they told you they wanted, or you didn’t clearly tell them how much it would be, or you didn’t clearly let them know that they couldn’t get printable digital files, they are stuck with wanting everything, and it’s way more than they thought it would be. And guess whose fault that is? It’s yours, because you weren’t direct and you didn’t confront a misconception right when it came out of their mouth.
Allison Tyler Jones: You were too busy. By you, I mean me also. We were too busy being so excited, spinning our own fairytales about how great this was going to be, and not listening to the reality of what was happening in front of us.
Allison Tyler Jones: This, by the way, isn’t a difficult client or even a different client. It’s a disappointed client, and that is not good. You can avoid this type of situation altogether by all the C’s we’ve talked about at this point. Clarity, consultation, and then confronting in a positive way. Getting out ahead of their questions, letting them know how you work, knowing that they’re going to ask about price, knowing that they’re going to ask about digital files, and talking about those things even before they ask for them.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now, what about when a problem arises that you haven’t anticipated? So for example, the nasty text, email, voicemail, upset, angry client. This is ulcer inducing. Nobody likes this. This is a day ruiner or a week ruiner. We are in the happy business. Remember, we don’t want to disappoint our clients. We want to make this great for them. But every now and then, you’re going to have something come through, some piece of communication where the client is not happy.
Allison Tyler Jones: So this is where confront is very important. Don’t let it fester. Don’t let a negative message go for days or even hours. Call them immediately or contact them immediately.
Allison Tyler Jones: I’ve mentioned before on the podcast here and there I think, but I want to call this out again. Steve Jobs, when he was setting up customer service for Apple and they were training their customer service people, he had a concept called no big deal or the end of the world. And so he maintained that when a client or a customer calls in and there’s been a problem, something’s gone wrong in their estimation, you can take two stances. One is this is no big deal, and you try to minimize it. Or, oh my gosh, this is the end of the world. Whichever stance you take, the client is going to take the other one.
Allison Tyler Jones: So if they call in and you’re saying, “Ma’am, you just need to calm down. This is really not that big of a deal,” they are going to burn you to the ground. If on the other hand, you take the end of the world stance, what sounds something like a client calls and has had a problem, and you are immediately taking responsibility, “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry this happened. There is no excuse for this. We will handle this immediately. I am going to have that employee executed at dawn by firing squad.” Not really, you’re not saying that, but you’re taking it very seriously and going over the top as far as how you’re going to rectify this.
Allison Tyler Jones: Then that allows the client to kind of back off of their anger. They see that you are going to take their problem and their disappointment very seriously. That allows them to relax a little bit and let you take the ball to fix the problem. They don’t feel like they have to keep pounding you with it. So whichever side you take, they’re going to take the other. This works really good in interpersonal relationships as well.
Allison Tyler Jones: So let me give you an example, a recent example we had in our studio. We had this lovely, large generational family portrait that we photographed. We were so excited to do it. They were great people. And this was more than they had ever spent on portraits in their life, but they were very excited to do it. They had a lot of kids, a lot of grandkids.
Allison Tyler Jones: And so we had done the consultation. They were very thoughtful and very considered about how they proceeded. They were concerned about the price, but at each point along the way, they considered it. We educated them about how the process worked and they moved forward. But this was a big deal.
Allison Tyler Jones: So we delivered and installed a couple of weeks ago, and we were just so excited for them. So I sent my installer, one of my employees out to install. And right after they hung that on the wall, I got the text that no one wants to get. Apparently, there was a white speck, or spot. It wasn’t just a speck, on a black dress of one of the granddaughters, and somehow we had missed it in our quality control.
Allison Tyler Jones: So I texted the employee that had gone on that install and said, “Go right back over there. Look at that. See if it’s something that, maybe it was just a piece of dust that could be brushed away or whatever. Just evaluate it and find out what was going on, and then we’ll figure out what we need to do to fix it.”
Allison Tyler Jones: So she returned and looked at it. Well, when she came back and reported to me what had happened, she said the husband was just… His hair was on fire, just like, “What did I pay all this money for? This is totally unacceptable.” He was just really, really upset.
Allison Tyler Jones: And so I thought, “That is so interesting,” because he didn’t seem like that kind of guy at all. That just wasn’t their shtick. I didn’t know where this was coming from.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, upon further investigation, I found that the conversation with our employee didn’t quite go as we had wished. What had actually happened is she had taken a bit more of a no big deal approach. So she was trying to calm the client down, which again, in the interest of calming them down, she was saying, “Oh yeah, don’t worry. It’s not that big of a deal. We can fix that.” Well, in their mind, they’re like, “No, there’s a big white spot on our dress. We want this reprinted.” And so she was kind of like, “Well, there’s things that they can do.”
Allison Tyler Jones: And so she was trying to take the NBD approach, the no big deal approach, when she should have just been saying, “I am so sorry. This will be handled immediately.” You don’t have to say how you’re handling it immediately. You just need to handle it. They don’t need to know the details. “Let me take this off the wall and we will handle it immediately.” Well, that didn’t happen. She hadn’t done this intentionally, but she had minimized. She had no big dealed their situation, and the client was very upset.
Allison Tyler Jones: So as soon as I learned this, I had an ulcer, and then I picked up the phone, and I called, and just let her know just to the client. As soon as I learned this, I immediately got the client on the phone. And I just said to the client, “Client, I am so sorry this happened. There is absolutely no excuse for this, and it will absolutely be handled. We will take care of it. No matter what it takes, it will be perfection.”
Allison Tyler Jones: So I allowed her to kind of process it verbally. “We were so excited, and then they brought it in.” And so she was telling me the story of what had happened, and I just let her talk, let her go on. And then at every turn, “I’m so sorry. There’s no excuse for this. We’ll absolutely have it handled. We hope that their mistakes don’t happen, but they do, and we will handle it. We will take care of it.”
Allison Tyler Jones: So the other reason why they were upset was because they had had their family scheduled to come over and see the portrait that evening, the evening of the installation. So they didn’t want us to take it away right then. So I said, “Look, just leave it there, enjoy it. And then we will reprint, and then we’ll come and pick it up when we’re ready to have it reframed.” So she was fine with that, and I said, “Please convey to your husband that I’m so sorry.” So same thing. It’s the end of the world, and we’re going to take care of it.
Allison Tyler Jones: When our production team called to go pick it up, and my husband is that production team. So he went to pick it up. He talked to the husband and let him know same thing. “We’re so sorry this happened. I’m so sorry that you’re going to have to live without this for another couple of weeks. We are going to get this taken care of and make sure that it’s perfect. It’s been reprinted.” Same thing. Very serious, taking it very seriously.
Allison Tyler Jones: So now, I received another text from the client over the weekend. We haven’t reinstalled it yet. It’s at the framer being reframed, and this is what the client said to me. She said, “I’m even more excited for the portrait. After we’ve had it for a time in our home, it has already made an impact and has taken up its home space like it was always there and meant to be. Our empty wall is just a reminder of how much we love this new symbol of the love we have for our family. So no worries. This experience has actually been neat for us. I’m sure you are saying beg to differ on your side of things. Such a bummer for you. I wish it had not happened more for your sake, but we sure appreciate the way you have handled the situation. You’re first class amazing, and so is your staff.” So sometimes when things go wrong, the way you handle it can be great marketing. It can be a great way to cement your relationship with the client.
Allison Tyler Jones: And really, when you think about every relationship you have, that’s true as well, right? When something gets stressed or something goes wrong, and you show up for each other, and you take care of things, that actually makes the relationship stronger.
Allison Tyler Jones: So there’s no downside here. If you are willing to take responsibility and confront the situation, whether it’s ahead of time so that they don’t have misconceptions and they understand the process all the way through, or when mistakes inevitably will happen, you confront it immediately. You take it seriously. It’s the end of the world, and you are willing to do whatever it takes to fix that problem. You’re going to cement that relationship with that client, and actually turn a difficult situation into a very positive, relationship affirming interaction.
Allison Tyler Jones: The last C is closure. So no conflict or difficult situation is finished in our studio until we reach the closure phase. And this involves a postmortem of the entire situation. So this is assessing sometimes as a group, maybe just me one-on-one with an employee, “Okay, what went wrong? How could this have been prevented?”
Allison Tyler Jones: So what went wrong might be, is this a difficult client, or is this a disappointed client, or is this a different client? So when we’re feeling a little bit, maybe one of my employees is like, “Oh my gosh, they’re driving me crazy.” “Okay, hold on. What actually went wrong? Are they really being difficult, or are they just, have a different style than you do?” If it is a problem and they really are being difficult, how could this have been prevented? Was there something that we failed to disclose early on in our conversations? First phone call, consultation, whatever. Is there somewhere where we dropped the ball?
Allison Tyler Jones: How was the situation handled when it came up? Did we take the NBD, the no big deal approach? Did we fail to take the end of the world approach? And then how can we do better next time? How can we make sure that this doesn’t happen again? Do we need to have a script by the phone? Maybe we have a new employee that missed a couple of steps. How can we make sure that this happens better the next time?
Allison Tyler Jones: So there’s no wasted experience we have, unless we neglect to learn from it. In fact, as just this last example proves, mistakes handled properly can be some of our best marketing, but that’s a podcast for another day.
Allison Tyler Jones: So before your next difficult client situation, evaluate all these areas in your business. First, define difficult for yourself. Is this client really difficult, or do they just communicate differently than I do? Clarity. Is it clear on all your channels what you do and don’t do? Are you weeding out actual difficult people so they never become clients? Get on the phone and have an actual conversation, instead of texting or emailing information that requires explanation and a context.
Allison Tyler Jones: Are you having targeted, informative client consultations, and getting your game plan together and quoting prices to the client, letting them know what the “rules” are, how you work, how you don’t work? Next, take the bull by the horns and confront the issues you know clients always have questions about, whether that’s pricing and policies or digital files.
Allison Tyler Jones: And don’t let complaints fester. Don’t let those negative texts or a negative email languish in your inbox for days, because they’re still spinning about it until you get back to them. Confront the issue and deal with it immediately. Lastly, closure. Evaluate every client interaction to see how what wasn’t great could be prevented, and how you can do better the next time.
Allison Tyler Jones: Good luck friends. We are in the thick of it over here at ATJ Photo, and it is going to be a race to the finish to get everything done for the holidays. But one thing I know for sure is that taking care to communicate clearly and confidently attracts the very best kinds of clients for our business, and I know the same will be true for you.
Allison Tyler Jones: Have you had a difficult situation with a client that you’d like to share with us or you need some help with? How can we help? Shoot me an email at support@dotherework.com or DM me @do.the.rework, or @atjphoto. I’d love to hear how you’re doing and the problems that you’re confronting.
Allison Tyler Jones: And if you have a minute and can give us a review wherever you listen to your podcast, it really helps out little podcasts like us to reach more photographers and help them find us. Because the more photographers there are building better businesses, the better for our industry and the world. Thank you so much for being here.
Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison at dotherework.com and on Instagram @do.the.rework.
