Guestbook for your business

I talk a lot about technique, share images and videos etc. on this blog but sometimes I also want to give a slightly different tip, a tip that can make your business as a photographer grow. Sometimes these are the tips that are kept secret or that people are not willing to share because they think that someone else will steal some of their market. Well in reality it’s of course all about YOU, and not about the things that you add to the “experience”, in the real end people have to like YOU for who YOU are, and believe it or not in second place is often the quality, although I won’t say that quality is not important of course, it is, but reality is that you can be the best photographer (or any other profession) and a real jury and nobody will hire you and if your competitor is slightly less gifted but a general great guy he/she will land the job. I’m sorry but that’s reality.

I however strongly believe that the whole experience the customer gets when he/she visits your studio is very important, and that’s why we do something that’s always very much appreciated by our clients. At the end of each shoot we hand them our guestbook, I make a quick polaroid image from them and glue that into the guestbook and let them write in their own words their experience in our studio. They will get a whole page without any lines (so pure white paper), the only thing on the page is their polaroid. Some people will just write a few sentences, others will use 2 pages with drawings and stories, some will kiss the book leaving big red lips on the page etc. everyone does it differently from very business like to cartoons playing out their day.

The real fun thing about this is that it’s not only fun for the customer, but it’s also big fun to read back later yourself.
It makes the experience a lot more fun for both you as a business owner as for the client. In todays society it’s often a matter of “give me your money and I will do what I promised, and no go away”, ok that’s a bit rude but I often do get this feeling when I’m in a store, and going back to my first remark about being a “nice guy”, I for example am more than willing to spend a little bit more for a nice experience than for an experience where I really feel it’s all about being a number that creates money for their business (although I have to add that I won’t take lesser quality, but again am willing to pay more if the company really fits my feeling).

By giving the customer/model the option to write something in your guestbook makes them feel special and we have been doing this now for some years and never ever got a negative response about this, only positive. So for today that’s my “business tip”, oh and by the way…. if you have the space think about for example dedicating a part a wall for this where everyone can see it when they enter your studio.