There’s a reason behind my madness. Like every business, you want to make sure that you are staying consistent with every client that inquires and then enters into your business. The reason for this is that once you give one client one experience, your other clients are going to begin to want this to.

Consistency is the biggest thing to do in business. It’s the same reason that when you go to a Starbucks in Seattle, WA and a Starbucks in London, England that you will have a similar experience. They have a process and a workflow that they go through. Without this, it would not be the same experience and their brand would become diluted and confusing. The same goes for you in your photography business.

My workflow is what allows me to make sure that every client is getting a similar experience and has allowed me to build an identifiable brand because of this.

The Initial Inquiry

This is perhaps the most important part of your workflow. This is when you get an inquiry and how you respond to them. For this, I knew that this was my time to capture their attention even more so than I already had it. When someone inquires, this means that they are interested in working with you and you want to make sure that you are capitalizing on that.

For every inquiry, I make sure to send them out a visually rich email. What this means is that I am including lots of images and it’s more of a visual display than an email. This also includes a link to a much more in-depth informational guide where they can view what it’s like to work with me, what to expect, pricing and more. By doing this, I am making sure that I’m covering the same thing with every senior and highlighting my differentiating factors. If you were to send out a different email for every client, chances are you would miss out on telling people a little bit more about you and why you’re different than the other photographers that they are also inquiring with.

Follow-Up

The next step in my workflow is to follow-up. My guess is that a large majority of photographers are not following up with their clients. They send out the information, wait for an email and if it doesn’t come, it doesn’t come. I make sure that I am following up with every single inquiry. The reason? Your clients are busy! That email may still be sitting in their inbox and they have completely spaced on replying even though they want to book you! This shows that you are a photographer that has not forgotten about them and want to make sure that they are valued as a potential client of yours.

I use Iris Works personally to accomplish this. I have a million things going on especially around the times that clients are inquiring. I love how Iris Works automatically sends out a follow-up email even during my busiest times. This in itself is a huge lifesaver.

Client Workflow

After a client books, they are officially added into my workflow through Iris Works! I used to do this all manually, but it became too big of a hassle and over time I was falling down on the job. I was forgetting to send things out or it wasn’t in a timeline that I was happy with.

Each client gets a series of emails. This could be things like a link to my senior style questionnaire so I can better personalize their session, session reminder, tips about how to come prepped for hair and makeup, what to expect after the session and more.

I do this to help inform them and make sure that my clients aren’t feeling like I left them hanging. As a photographer, it’s your job to help inform them about your process and be there with them throughout the entire session timeline.