008 Consistency Means More Bookings

We cover why you need to show up consistently, be consistent in your marketing and have photography that is edited the same so you clients know what they are buying.

How do you do this? Listen to this podcast to find out how to do this while pricing your photography for a profit and successfully running your photography business.

Need a portfolio review? Going the FB group to get a portfolio review to make sure you are drawing in the right clients and not pushing them away.

Here's the episode show notes:

I remember when I first started my photography business and I had a ton of headshot clients coming to me. It was amazing. But the reason they were coming to me and my calendar was getting so booked up, was because my photography was good… and I was charging basically nothing. 

Most photographers start their business by charging basically nothing. And while that’s OK for maybe like a month or two, it is not a way to create a business that’s profitable and sustainable. 

So let’s talk about how you can create a profitable photography business that can give you the lifestyle you are dreaming of. 

I’m talking about how you can book your dream clients and have a consistent flow of inquiries every single month. Sounds amazing right? Maybe it sounds too good to be true, but I promise you it isn’t. You can have this too.

There is one specific piece to the puzzle that must be in place for this to happen. Luckily I know what it is and I’m sharing that with you today! 

If you are part of our Facebook community group and then you know that I am serious about consistency in work, so much so that I offer free portfolio reviews once a year in the group.

That’s because consistency in your work is one of the easiest ways to get booked out. When a potential client comes to your Instagram page or website and instantly understands what you do and how you do it, that’s when they are excited to book with you. 

On the flipside, if they see a wide variety of styles in the photography, a wide variety of skin tones, a wide variety of lighting, and a wide variety of subjects, that’s when they don’t know what they will get from you and they start booking. 

I’ve talked a lot about niche photography, and that just means choosing one thing that you want to be really great at and going after it. You will see on my photo feed @kelliannejordanphoto, that I am a lifestyle Family and Branding Photographer. While I do think that they should be separated in feeds I also know that my branding clients want photos of their families in their feeds and that a lot of my family clients also have personal brand businesses so they do work together.

What you won’t see anymore is my wedding photography. It’s not in my feed anymore, because my clients are typically already married. They don’t need to see my wedding work. And to be honest I don’t want to shoot weddings anymore, so why should I show them? 

While I am a lifestyle photographer and have a few different niches, you only see two of them in my feed. My product photography is also something that stays in my stories for the most part and not in my feed. 

But here’s where it gets fun, I have a different website for each of my specific niches. If you have a Showit website then this is super easy to do. You can also simply have different landing pages on your current website or your different niches so that you can send people directly to the page that talks all about what they are specifically interested in. This way you show them that you are the best at that one thing. 

Let’s go back to consistency. Consistency is all about having the same color tones and editing throughout all of your images. The best way to get the same color tones and editing is by shooting the same at every session. I created shooting rules for every single session that I do no matter what time of day it is and no matter what the weather is like. Because I know how shooting affects my editing, I also know exactly how to get what I want when I am at a session. 

Do you want to know how I do it?  Here are my secrets. If it is sunny I keep the sun at a 45° angle to my client back lighting them, but keeping the sun out of my lens. I also make sure that there is light reflecting back into their face from the ground (not from green grass). That’s it friend. If I can do this then I know that I’ll be able to edit really well. I also love shooting an open shade. On overcast days I will shoot with the sun directly on their face, occasionally. But that’s only because the sun is going through a giant softbox. And even on these days I tend to stick to my 45° rule more often than not. The only reason I switch it up is for a specific background. 

Here’s the thing, I will be launching my behind-the-scenes backstage pass with Kellianne Jordan soon.. I am so excited about this because you are going to see not only how I shoot an entire session, but you will also see all of my editing tricks so that you can do this in your business. 

While we’re talking about editing let’s talk about your style. Every photographer has their own style. When you are editing you want to make sure that you have the same settings applied to each image and that you make adjustments to make sure they look correct. 

Just like how I have shooting rules I also have editing rules. When I look at my images I want to make sure:  

• It has some kind of a background and that it’s not blowing out too much,
• I want to make sure that my skin tones are warm and creamy, 
• I wanna make sure that my images aren’t too heavy in the shadows. 

If I can make all three of those goals happen then I know that I’ve got a great image. I also occasionally pull up my Instagram feed or my website to make sure that all of my colors are consistent with the rest of my work. Do you do that? It’s a really easy way to make sure that everything is staying consistent. 

If you are having trouble with editing in Lightroom and staying consistent then, I’d highly suggest using presets. Presets used to drive me crazy because you apply it and honestly if you’re not shooting exactly how the designer of the preset wants you to be shooting, then you’re not going to get the same look that they had planned because using presets only creates consistency when you have consistency in shooting. And guess what? Every photographer is going to have different shooting rules, different lighting and styles. 

How can you go above and beyond for even more consistency? You may choose to make sure that your clients only wear a certain set of colors to sessions so that when you show the images on your website and in your feed everything looks consistent. 

I love sending out my style guide to my clients to help them choose the right outfit for their session. While some of them choose to wear reds and oranges, I choose not to show those on my website or in my Instagram. Because I am the artist and I get to decide what people see. They only see what I want them to. And what I want them to see is what I want to shoot more of. It’s also what I want them to know me for. 

So what is it that you wanna be known for? What is it that you want to see more of in your portfolio and how can you show that to people now so that they book that specific type of session with you?