I’m happy to be posting a review on Lara White’s new book, “Photography Business Secrets: The Savvy Photographer’s Guide to Sales, Marketing, and More.” I’ve been a fan of Lara’s blog (PhotoMint.com) and her book has tons of informative tips, suggestions and firsthand experience on everything from how to wow the client in a sales session to when to choose a graphic designer for your branding.
Based out of San Francisco, Lara and her husband Geoff run the studio Geoff White Photography. What I appreciated about the book is she’s very candid and uses her own examples from the studio, which is always helpful to hear what works and what doesn’t from someone else’s experiences.
Broken down into four easy-to-read sections, the book covers the following:
- Moving from a Hobby to a Business
- Business Fundamentals
- Sales & Growth, and
- Marketing.
Lara writes about the difference between your niche and market and I like the real-world examples she provides. In discussing selecting the right niche for you, Lara talks about how her and Geoff debated adding a portrait niche to their studio. By talking about experience, she really brings up some good questions for those photographers just starting out and also for those thinking of adding other lines of business to an existing studio.
In the business section, she states you’ll spend on average of 20% of your time on photography and 80% on business and stresses the importance of knowing how to sell yourself and your products, adding that good people skills are a must for success! There’s a lot of important points in this section, in particular Lara stresses the need for a business plan.
One of my favorite parts of the book is when Lara touches on selling and sales tools. She’s got great tips for everything here. I won’t get into specifics but this chapter is key–underline her tips for planting seeds with the client for higher sales. There’s also a lot of information on how to help the clients relax, have fun and enjoy their sales session, ultimately helping you to get their full attention and sell better.
There are some guest appearances and interviews with other photographers, which are fun and include more of that firsthand experience and advice. Lara’s book is enjoyable to read and I particularly appreciated those anecdotes about Lara & Geoff’s studio. I find those real-world nuggets of information very useful and I think you will, too.
To read an excerpt from Lara’s book, check out this month’s Rangefinder. Also, you can grab a copy here on Amazon.
