need ipad app for sales session - recommendations?
GerryDavid
Registered Users Posts: 439 Major grins
I finally got an ipad and I want to do sales sessions on it instead of lugging my laptop to the studio. What app's are great for this?
Right now I use LR on a laptop, they say "yay" or "nay" to a picture and I go through the yay's to narrow those down to their absolute favorites. then I show them the price guide and let them chose what package/items they want.
I would also love an app that would combine a "customer information form" and a model release, auto filling the client info from the first part into the model release.
Is there an app for that?
Right now I use LR on a laptop, they say "yay" or "nay" to a picture and I go through the yay's to narrow those down to their absolute favorites. then I show them the price guide and let them chose what package/items they want.
I would also love an app that would combine a "customer information form" and a model release, auto filling the client info from the first part into the model release.
Is there an app for that?
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Comments
How big is your laptop?
More over, why don't you have one already there or at least a Desktop? I had a SFF machine that sat on a bracket that held it up under the coffee table where the clients sat and was controlled by a wireless KB and mouse. I then went to a laptop with a separate screen so I can see the laptop screen and the clients can see the 26". I can turn their screen off if I don't want them to see me going through files or writing notes etc.
I really don't understand why you would want to use an Ipad for showings in the studio though?
It's totally counter productive. Practically, how would you do that anyway? Do you hold the thing awkwardly while the clients lean forward and huddle over the thing to see the pics, do they hold it and you try to peer at what they are seeing and start and stop and zoom the thing or does it sit on the coffee table with everyone huddling over the thing trying to get a decent view and reaching awkwardly hoping to hell your ( and their) mouthwash and deodorant is cutting it.... ??
Sounds like amateur hour to me.
You should at least be presenting on a 50-60" LCD as a minimum but realistically anything less than using a projector these days is selling yourself very short. I have been doing some work in the country where I have a holiday flat I set up last year. Small place but nice and new and a great getaway for a week or weekend. I have only a medium size LCD TV in there and set the wireless feature up so I can beam the images from the laptop on it to do presentations. If the shots are mainly vertical portraits, I spin the screen to take advantage of the vertical format and make the pics bigger.
Even that blows people away every time. I have done portraits, weddings and glam presentations like that and seeing the place is in one of these bemoaned Country areas where unemployment is high and people supposedly won't pay city prices, I do every bit as well as I do at home in the city with the exception of I think the people spend more readily. I was thinking of getting a bigger TV for up there however the reality is the one I have is doing all I want now and I don't watch a lot of TV anyway so the one that is there is good enough. The point is you don't need much to do a lot and make a BIG impression.
There is a program which I forget the name of that allows you to project actual size images on the screen.
You can show them everything in say 60x40 and then zoom to say a 20x24 to show how relatively small it looks and how that 8X12 is really a bedside postage stamp. It has the facility to mark the liked shots and come back to them and do comparisons and groupings etc. do the order, pricing etc.
It's a very complete solution. There are probably a few of them out there now.
A friend of mine uses it and the effect on his sales from day 1 was the stuff dreams are made of. I don't think he has done a sub $2500 portrait session in years now and I know he averages above 5K.
And no, he's not in a rich area and yes, people in your area ( wherever it is) WOULD pay a lot more than you are getting and will certainly get showing on an Iplod, -IF- you present your work with max sales and professionalism in mind rather than trying to be gimmicky, trendy or modern with some little portable thing that was designed for net surfing.
I would also highly recommend going through the shots before each presentation and doing a slide show. I set the computer to scroll through ALL the pics fairly quickly at the start to let the clients see what has been taken and leave them alone ( To make Coffee) to talk between themselves while that is happening. I then come back and say I went through and picked out some favorites and put them together as a slide show as a potential sample to other clients if they are OK with me showing their pics. ( never had anyone say no yet. )
I have a small sound system in the studio and utilise music with the Show effects. If they are not crying or freaking out when it's done, They will be the first. This uses extra senses to involve them emotionally in the pics and it takes the mentality from Evey pic they choose costing them extra to every one they eliminate is something lost from the magic they just saw.
The Shows are so popular, I made them a product on their own some years back and sometimes that's the main thing I have sold. I get real good money for it so I'm fine with it.
You maybe one of these shooters that thinks they can only sell prints and that is all that does their precious work justice, blah blah, that's up to you if you want to make the show a product but it has great potential.
All I do is a quick selection of the better pics, run automated effects and transitions, Put a title slide at the front and some cheesy words at the end, tell the program to match the show to the chosen songs and that's it. Takes a couple of minutes for the machine to process and I'm done. From image selection to burnt DVD in 15 min flat.
The thing is though, flicking through pics on a pissy iplod screen is going to have no where remotely near the sales generation ability nor the power to emotionally evolve the clients like even a large monitor screen let alone a pic projected onto a wall with some emotionally inspiring music playing.
Of course the other thing you have already touched on it there is already software out there to do everything you want and more without having to search for crapps that may not even exist as yet.
At the end of the day, While an Iplod may be a great tool out in the field, you can do SOOOO much better in the studio with about anything else. It makes no sense to me to put effort into your pics from planning the shoot to editing etc and then to present them on some pissy little devise that is foregoing so much sales potential as well as profit generation.
No one in our game these days can afford to do anything than get the max returns on every job we do and while it may seem trendy or whatever these days to use an iplod for presentations, it's about 100 miles away from being the most productive or profitable way of presenting your work and that's what should be the absolute priority.
Using an ipad for a sales tool isnt an original idea, many photographers do it, so far in my research suggested apps are preveal *about $75, pretty pricey for an ipad app* and youproof *about $35*. Preveal lets you insert a picture or two of the clients home and show them what it would look like to put your pictures on their walls, allegedly helping you get those wall portrait sales. But im not sure if it helps you in the narrowing down process.
Basically you load up the ipad with the software and pictures, hand it to them and let them go through it and mark the ones they like. same a what I do now but eliminates the middle person. then you go into sales mode. two or three people holding an ipad would have the same viewing size as a huge projector on the other side of the room. and you move at their pace.
I am willing to give this a try on a handful of sales sessions to see how it goes. I dont particularly want to spend $75 on an ipad app to try this out. Which is why I am asking this group of professionals to see what apps they recommend.
Lots of photographers do lots of things ( like regularly go out of business) so I don't think because other people do it is much of a reason.
I'd be genuinely interested to understand what you see as being the advantage to your sales and overall marketing and presentation and how an Iplod would make you more money than other way of doing business as you put it.
From my POV, it seems you are wanting to give the clients a lot of control of the presentation and ordering. I find that frequently, especially when doing wedding album layouts, a couple may not be particularly fussed on a pic but when I show them how it compliments others and tells a story with other pics that could be placed on the same page, their appreciation for the pic quickly changes from a throw away to a must have.
Well I know from my friends setup that having the ability to project a full size pic onto a wall DEFINITELY goes a very long way to getting wall portrait sales. I can't see how anything else could match the detail, definition and WOW factor of showing a full size image on a wall. I'm pretty sure the software he uses can do exactly the same thing and would certainly think myself that the bigger you could show that image the more the clients could relate and get emotionally involved with it.
So are you saying that when you "go into sales Mode" You will have everyone holding a machine and then you control the presentation as in the machines being linked or do they just follow on? If that is the case, How would everyone see a Multi pic layout or compare images?
From your post I was under the impression you just had one machine. If Multiple, do they link together so everyone sees the same thing or is everyone able to look at what they want and hopefully they will keep up with what you are talking about as you go?
If you are just going to have one, isn't that going to be kinda cumbersome with everyone trying to peer at the one little screen and you are trying to change pics and do the ordering etc? I'm just not clear on how the nuts and bolts of it would actually work?
Perhaps there is something I haven't thought of or missed as others may have that could be an advantage in getting higher sales and profits from our clients.
I was wondering why you were hesitant to invest $75 to try out the software. I thought it's such a piddly amount, why would anyone be concerned if they thought this was going to increase their orders and sales. Then I went to the website and had a look.
Seriously?
All it does is allow you to put layouts on the clients wall? And they go on with all these glowing comments about how it increased other shooters sales? Stuff me! Takes me right back to my comment about other people using it not being much of a reason. If their sales increased so much through using this software on an Iplod, they must have had their heads up their backsides before when doing sales is all I can think.
And again, it's just showing the pics on a piddly little Iplod screen to sell a wall print. I don't see that as being near such a powerful tool as they make out.
Anyway, I'd be interested to hear what you see as the benefits with the Iplod presentation system and what you think you can capitalise on using an Iplod with whatever software you end up with.
There has to be something I'm ignorant to and missing here!
A person isnt going to go out of business because they use an ipad for sales, and as I said I am wanting to give this a trial run to see how it goes. If for some reason my sales go below my average then Ill go back to the laptop.
Its not about making more money, its about making things easier. Right now I have to hear their "yay" or "nay" and a lot of the time they are pretty quiet so I have to double check, if they hold the ipad and control the selections that eliminates that issue.
This isnt for weddings, its for seniors, beauty, parents of a newborn, and engagements. Usually there are 1 person in charge *the senior, the bride to be* that will hold the ipad and their parent or fiance or husband will sit next to them and give their input. I do offer albums for them but they just choose what pictures they want and I design the book after they leave and show them the proofs next time.
Anyways, lets back back on topic.
For those that use an ipad for their sales, what programs do you use?
I have wondered about bringing my large collapsible white background and stand and buying a projector with the goal of displaying from iPad to projector for much larger and more impressive display. Just a thought but I've not researched how possible this is and of course the projector must display high quality and high color rendition - don't want the images displayed horribly.
http://mrhoni-photography.com
My only problem is I am extremely bored during the sales now. Before I was doing something the entire time, now im just sitting there watching them flip and rate pictures, only doing something in between each set.
Im using youproof for the main narrowing down and then iphoto for the final stage. Youproof is good but not worth the $35, it lacks a lot of features that iphoto has which is only $5.
And its def been nice bringing just the ipad, and not a laptop. One less thing to carry which may not seem like much but I like doing everything in one trip from the car and all the camera stuff really adds up.
Imagine what your sales could be if you took charge of the presentation and actually sold your work as a professional rather than sitting there as a bored onlooker! Maybe for the photo sessions you can get a remote control for your camera and tripod head and just give those to the clients and let them take their own pictures while you sit back bored with nothing to do. May as well give them the shots they choose as straight unedited files and let them photoshop them ( at their own pace) as well. Really cut down your workload. I really can't see a difference between that and letting them do their own sales presentation of the pictures.
For the life of me, I cannot see why you are letting the clients control the presentation. Sorry but I just can't believe I'm reading ( and re reading to make sure I haven't made a mistake) you saying you are sitting there bored while the clients go through their pics at their own pace and not hear the alarm bells ringing that there is so much wrong with that! Well actually I can, it's because you don't know how to really ( as in the proper professional sense) know how to sell. But even so, for someone that is so intent on watching all these training Vids, and trying to be a gun shooter, I can't understand how this is the way you have chosen to sell your work. Surely you must realise this is just doing yourself such an injustice. You said" many" photographers do it that way but who are they? I'm guessing its not your revered Sue Brice or anyone of her Calibre because a person don't make the big bucks by letting the clients run the show. If they are people that are making a wage, maybe, from their businesses and nothing more, the only think you want to know about what they are doing is not to make the same mistakes!
From your posts I have read, you bust a gut to educate yourself to take the best pics you can possibly give your clients, yet you drop the ball right at the end and don't follow through on the money end. Frankly, it's nuts! Unless you maximise the sale, You may as well take snapshots on a P&S camera because so much of what you have done up to the point of the sale is wasted. Have you ever really done any worthwhile amount of educating yourself in sales? And I'm not just talking about watching a photographer talk about how to do it, I mean learning the principals and what makes it tick so you could sell anything you had to.
THAT is being a professional and distancing yourself from wannabe's with a camera.
I would SO love to be able to go into some like yourself's studio again and sell their work and see how much I could get over their averages. I have done it before and I know I'm not all talk, a guy that sells photocopiers or light bulbs could do it if they were a true professional sales person and not just an order taker.
It's certainly your tea party Gerald and you can host it how you want but it just does my head in when I read things like this when people just don't see what they are missing out on. You could make your life and that of your family so much easier and more content if you maximised your returns from every client without changing another single thing. It's not about stitching people up, Good sales is about doing the right thing by the customer so they are happy to pay you well above what they expected to but because they are happy, they will come back and tell their friends. People always assume everyone has no money but how many times have you heard someone say " It wasn't cheap but it was worth it! ?" They are not unhappy people and neither is the person they bought off.
I love the sales game. And that's just what it is, a game. I just spent a few days with my father in his country wrecking yard visiting and giving him a hand. In one day I sold an engine, a tailgate and a garnish for a total of $690 over the price he quoted me when I asked what they were worth just by qualifying the client to get as much info as possible. When I had something to work on, I could do some value adding with free delivery ( had to take something else right past their doors) and telling them we would include things like engine accessories and lights which saved them time in fitting them. Made the parts more valuable to them and got in extra money for things that had no value to us ( had a heap of those parts anyway lying round) .
When you know how to play the game in any playground, it's fun and valuable to you. I didn't even get to tell my father he had to take me out to dinner that night for the extra I made him that day, He told me before I got to it.
Anyway..... /rant
You ignored the fact that the sales were slightly higher than they were when I "was taking charge" of the meeting. The only difference between using an ipad and projector is they get to move at their own pace on the ipad, instead of verbally relaying yes or no to me. Sorry im not doing it exactly as you would, which means its the wrong way of doing it in your eyes.
Yeah, That's OK. I kinda figured you'd read it and it would fall on deaf ears but as multiple people read posts, I responded anyway hoping maybe the penny will drop for someone else and they will see they can work smarter and more profitable by helping clients make decisions.
Sometimes on occasion people message me about things I post ask me for more info and I'm happy to help them where I can and sometimes they even tell me the suggestions I have made are useful to them. Maybe someone will benefit from the bit of time I spent writing here, maybe not.
No, I didn't miss the fact you are now getting slightly higher averages than before. That point was as worrying as it was scary. Unfortunately you seem to ignore the fact that you are letting your clients down by not helping them by using your experience and knowledge to make suggestions and show them how they can arrange different layouts etc as well as letting yourself down by not up selling your work.
All I can say is if letting the clients pick their pictures " at their own pace" with no input from you, is resulting in higher sales than when you did the presentation, then I sure wouldn't be bragging about that nor think I had achieved anything. There is quite clearly a LOT of improvement that can be made there.
You don't have to be sorry, doesn't affect me in the slightest. It's you and your family that are missing out, not mine. It does reflect on the industry however and is one of the reasons photography as an industry is in the decline. I think being unprofessional is wrong in most people's eyes, not just mine but of course some people are quite happy with conducting business in an amateurish manner and will come up with all sorts of defences for it.
Maybe to stop getting bored when the customers are choosing their pics you could take a book or magazine in with you to read?
Anyway, good luck with your sales.
I see the problem, you assume the ENTIRE thing is automated. Just the first step where they are narrowing things down is where im bored and have nothing to do. The sales has two parts, the first part is where they narrow the pictures down to their absolute favorites and then the 2nd part where they figure out what they want to buy. the first part is where they are going through them, and hitting "yes" or "no", going through them 2 or 3 times. I have no input on this since its their decisions and preferences. If they cant decide between 2 similar shots Ill give my input then. The 2nd part is where I help them decide what they want. I show them what I have available product wise, then I will show them my price guide and packages and let them figure out which package best fits their needs. If they are on the border of two packages Ill explain the perks of getting the bigger package and that usually brings them there.
I can see your misunderstanding, if the entire thing was automated I would just do it online and save myself a fair bit of time and gas.
Its true, im not the best sales person out there. Some people can sell ice to eskimo's, others cant or feel bad taking advantage of fellow humans. I dont want to make a family on a budget spend money they dont have on something that is a want. My sales technique is to let the pictures sell themself, which they do a pretty good job. And if they dont then I didnt do my job. and the pricing follows accordingly, if they go for package A *$200* then my turn around time is much faster and I'm able to schedule someone else in. If they go for package D *$1350* then I have to take less appointments to fulfill that order, but I'm more than compensated for my time.
But in terms of sales Ive been pretty blessed and happy. It took me a while but thanks to those educational classes *havent really watched them for the last year, I have been to busy* I discovered the business pricing calculator to figure out what my average needs to be based on how many portraits I want to do a year, and what my expenses are. I was doing good with the sales before the ipad, and with it the client is happier and tends to spend a bit more than before, could be coincidence, could be something to do with making it more enjoyable for them to narrow the pictures down.
Sales, advertising and business is like anything else, including photography. You have to put the time and effort into learning and practising it to become proficient.
It's a common defence and misconception to equate sales to taking advantage of people. If you pick up any good/ reputable sales book and read it, you see that the first half of the book is how to get new customers and the 2nd half is about going back to people you have already sold to and getting referrals off them. It's a hell of a lot cheaper and easier to sell to a previous customer than it is to a new one but not if you did the wrong thing by them in the first place.
I have yet to ever read anything on sales that even hinted at taking advantage of people. You can sharpen a knife to cut tomatoes nicely or you can sharpen it to cut someone's head off. If someone use's sales skills to take advantage of people, it's no more the fault of sales techniques than it is of the knife or the whetstone for Murder.
When you know about sales, you understand it's about overcoming objections and fears and showing people how your product or service will benefit them the most. The better you explain, the more they are enlightened. There is also the overcoming of indecision and fear factor.
Haven't you ever gone to buy something and someone asked what you wanted to do with it and then said, This one costs a bit more but is better for what you want to do because of this and that and you paid the extra, went home and was satisfied and even thankful that you spent the extra money and the person showed you the different model, brand or alternative? Guess what? You were " sold" and were probably better off and bloody happy because of it.
Saying being a good sales person is taking advantage of people is like saying you should do crap photography so people won't want to give you their money for photographs instead of paying more off the mortgage or spending it on toys for their children.
It never occurred to me the process with the iplod was automated. I wasn't sure at what point you told them price and did the order but even still, The idea of just sitting there like a shag on a rock without going through the pictures with them and not getting feedback and reactions is missing out on a hell of a lot of useful information for them and you.
I hear alarm bells ringing when you say the Iplod is "making it more enjoyable for them to narrow the pictures down." WTF would you want to make it more enjoyable for them to throw pictures away and Not buy them? I take it if they were no good they wouldn't be there for them to look at in the first place so why would you want to make it easier for them to buy less rather than trying to work out how to make it easier for them to buy more?
I'll guarantee they aren't spending more because they are enjoying not buying the pictures.
It's amazing the difference in our outlooks as to how you can state something as a good or positive thing and it just freaks me out as being quite the opposite and vice versa. :0)
I'm more than confident I could walk into your studio, get a big increase over your average sale and have the clients walking out happy as Larry and recommending you to all their friends. I really would enjoy being able to put my money where my big trap is just to prove I do know something even just to myself.
Sales is not something I learned in 10 Minutes any more than it's something anyone else also couldn't learn for themselves.
At the end of the day it's your business and you say you are happy so again, good luck with it.
There's a difference between being a photographer and running a photography business.
www.acecootephotography.com