ALJACOBSLADDER.com     

MOTIVATION

TWO KINDS OF MOTIVATION

Artificial Motivation (incentives) have short sustaining powers and they are more inherently dependent on more and more for less and less productive effort. They become ends in themselves. These are artificial.

• Money
• Promotions  
• Acceptance  
• Appreciation  
• Recognition

 

True Motivation is created by an internal drive force. Physiological and psychological fulfillment.

• Sense of Excellence  
• Duty  
• Responsibility  
• Accountability  
• Self-Development

 

UNMOTIVATED INDIVIDUALS - DEGENERATION

This pertains to those who are either in the business full time or work for others, "the day job".    

•  Personal appearance deteriorates.
•  Complaints start to pop up and not attended to.
•  Griping and swearing become more disrupting.
•  Back stabbing becomes a modus operandi.
•   Fewer calls per day and per week are made.
•   Paper work becomes sloppy, including expense accounts.
•   Paperwork for calls made becomes phony.
•   Personal health deteriorates ... sick leave of absence.
•   Personal life interjects itself into business life. 
•   Criminal conduct is manifested ... something is stolen.
•  Person is now becoming desperate for relief from his conflict. 
•   Person sees himself as the victim with everyone out to get him including his best friends.
•   Person beats his mate or children.
•   Person experiences a tragic accident at home ... or in his car.
•   Person abandons his (her) family.
•   Person commences heavy drinking, gambling, cheating.
•   Person becomes compulsively and self-righteously religious.

 

WHAT DO WE SEE IN WINNERS

•   He has the ability to handle rejection and regenerate his motivation.
•   He believes in himself and that he is entitled to all he earns. A  materialistic attitude.
•   He proves that there is no limit to what one can earn.
•   He has the ability to grasp the reality of a situation.
•   He leads rather than follows the customer.
•   We can relate his beliefs in his product to the customer effectively.
•   He understands that people buy for need, variety, profit, status,  investment, ego etc.
•   He knows that people buy what something does, not what it is.
•   He knows when and how to create emotional highs in people.
•   He understands certain words offend people.
•   He can relate on common ground.
•   He knows how to turn procrastination into action.
•   He knows how to relate good thoughts.
•   He has a fine value of himself and charges for it.
•  He is aware of his surroundings, himself,  and his clients and.
•   He maintains thoughtful, ethical business relationships.
•   He creates a desire in his customer by selling them more product, better than they needed.
•  He uses lots of physical action to show his product.
•   He involves as many of his customers senses as possible.
•   He uses questions to control the selling situation and to involve the customer.
•   He uses questions which answer in the positive.
•   He uses deductive questioning which makes the customer come up with the correct answer.
•   He uses active questioning which require a response.
•   He takes notes to be accurate.
•   He knows the power of phrases.
•        By the way..............The great interrupter
•        Tell me.....................Demands an answer
•        Say, did I tell you... Adds new thought
•        Did you know.........New questioning
•  The professional salesperson controls the buying process with questions and answers.

 

SUCCESSFUL ATTRIBUTES

• DEPENDABILITY
• INTEGRITY 
• KNOWLEDGE
• SELF-DISCIPLINE
• ORGANIZED   
• SINCERE   
• RESPONSIBLE  
• TAKES INITIATIVE
• UNDERSTANDING   
• GOOD JUDGEMENT   
• HEALTHY ATTITUDE   
• COURTEOUS
• DETERMINED   
• FRIENDLY   
• RESOURCEFUL   
• PERSUASIVE

 

SELF-DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONNAIRE

•  Do I really want to be successful?
•  Am I ready and willing to exert the necessary effort? 
•  Am I willing to sacrifice some of my time and pleasure?
•  Is my attitude right?
•  Do I have a clear picture of my objective?
•  During adverse conditions  do I double my efforts to succeed?
•  Am I respected by my subordinates, associates, and superiors?
•  Can I discuss intelligently/ without anger / differences of opinion and criticism?
•  How is my dress?
•  How are my manners?
•  How is my health?
•  Do i have any bad habits such as excessive smoking, drinking, gambling?
•  Do I appear friendly?
•  Am I courteous?
•  Could I improve my public speaking?
•  Do I become discouraged easily?

CONFIDENCE  — 
What I have been implying thus far is that there are basically two approaches to selling:  The sales person concerned about "what is in it for him" (sales oriented selling)   The sales person who has his customer's "best interests at heart" (customer-oriented selling)

Selling is an art using persuasive communication to obtain a customer's commitment to purchase or use a product or service.  First of all, he purchases an item because it fulfills a specific need or desire he has. This principle holds whether he purchases a tie, an automobile or a loaf of bread. Purchases, therefore, are made to satisfy needs. Moreover, purchases in a consumer-oriented society also contain a therapeutic aspect as well. 

CUSTOMER-ORIENTED APPROACH
Buying something makes people feel good.  Hence, in order to make a sale, the professional sales person must discover the specific needs of his customer and then show him how the product or service will fulfill those needs ... be they real or imagined. 

A sales approach which emphasizes an UNDERSTANDING of the specific needs, desires and goals of the customer, then, is referred to as the customer-oriented sales approach and the person is more confident in his ability to deal with people. What's more, he is genuinely interested in learning as much as he can about the, customers needs, wants and desires. Selling for him is SHARING IDEAS which he skillfully directs toward a goal which is beneficial to both him and the customer. 

A successful sales person is always aware of the following:

•   •  The buyer wants to feel he is an active participant in the selling process.
•   •  The buyer wants to feel his opinions are respected ... that he is important.
•   •  The buyer wants to be satisfied in his own mind, regardless of what the sales person thinks.
•   •  The buyer wants to feel that the decision to act is his own.
•   •  The buyer wants to feel the sales person has his best interests at heart.

SALES ORIENTED APPROACH
Conversely, when the sales person arbitrarily chooses what HE feels are the basic needs of the customer without regard for the customer's desires ... then proceeds to sell the customer based on these ASSUMED NEEDS, this approach is called the SALES-ORIENTED APPROACH.

 MARKETING

It appears. that "going after the business" takes a back seat to waiting for it to come to you.  If business has to find you, you are in the HOPE part of the business, you HOPE  the phone rings or you get an E-mail.  Lets look at the way business finds you.

•  Hoping your Website does the job. You and fifty other guys all using the same program.

•  Your ads placed in the local paper. Unless you have a coupon attached for a free something it will get trashed.

•  Showing at a Wedding Show. Give away a free Keychain, Gift of some sort with your name and phone number.

•  Networking through co-workers, friends and relatives.  Make them partners, like a nice dinner if they recommend you.

•  Just being asked to shoot a Wedding because it's a friend or relative is more of a favor than a career. We all understand that.  

•  Promoting yourself with Wedding Gown sellers, Hairdressers, Wedding Stylists and Consultants, Flower Sellers, Catering Halls, Church Planners and other people of position that might help you.  

WHAT ARE YOU DOING

• So, what are you doing to promote yourself?  It appears that you are having to go after the business.  So here are some ideas I gathered.  First, contact all the local vendors in your area and invite them to take a look at your work on our website and have offered to come and meet them to find out more about what they do. Networking face to face.
• For those you like and who's style of business products fit your own ideas offer a reciprocal website linking, 
• You can also  your couples with an 'approved Vendors pack' which contains cards and brochures from all the vendors in our area that we'd have no hesitation in recommending, so also offer to include their information in this pack.
• When attending wedding fairs make a conscious effort to meet and introduce ourselves to the other exhibitors...even competing photographers/studios.
• I think it's important to appear friendly and professional. It helps networking and build invaluable contacts, and you might meet nice competing wedding photogs and studios who you can recommend to future clients for days when you are already booked.  What goes around will come around, so hope that this is something that will benefit all in the long run.
• I work with a photographer who has a pretty established business in the San Diego area. He is a good photographer and an even better businessman, and I am learning a lot from working with him. We do a lot of referral work for him now.

ETHNICITY SIDEBAR

• AS A SIDE EFFORT, ONE OF MY BLACK BOX USERS, STARTED aggressively targeting the ethnic South Asian community; as he and his spouse are both of South Asian descent.  Let me put it this way, he was extremely successful.
• TO MY INDIAN FRIENDS IT makes sense to target their contacts as their Weddings are long, complex, and require an understanding of the sequencing and rituals.  They are tough sometimes to deal with, not as tough as some Jewish Weddings I have done,  but very loyal customers and the last one we did lasted three days.
• LEAVE BUSINESS CARDS AT VARIOUS ETHNIC SHOPS, FORMED informal referral rings with LA based videographers and DJ's, and also designed posters to be hung in shops and ads to be printed in countywide publications that reach various ethnic sub-communities.
• REFERRALS ARE A GREAT WAY TO GET BUSINESS, so you have to strive most importantly to aggressively secure weddings through people you know, and to then work at a level that exceeds client expectations. In so doing, you will generate a lot of buzz in the community. Offer a family portrait for someone who refers and gives you their wedding to shoot.
• FLORISTS:  What I have done for florist is to shoot their entire stock of flowers and create a slide show for them to give away to their potential client, hoping that if they get a potential client, that they will recommend me. 
• ETHNIC GROUPS  — Working a niche or specific ethnicity or group. Large extended families area great referrals and usually those large groups "literally take you in" as part of and that can build a very successful following. 
• HAIR STYLISTS  —  A really goods source of referrals if you give away a couple head shots. My partner has two stylists who send him a good amount of business. Women talk a lot at these places. They know who is and who is not getting married and many women listen to their personal hair dresser more than their personal psychiatrist.
• BRIDAL SHOWS —  Love or hate relationship, the bridal shows will bring you a few clients if you stay out of the cat fights. Many will steal your ideas or badmouth you. Bridal shows are also designed for the wholesale bride, looking for a bargain, maintain your stance, your personna and offer pricing stressing quality not quantity but you do have budget arrangements.   Only 60% of a cow is usable meat, the rest they call hamburger.
• DOOR KNOCKING  —  I tried the hair dressers, churches, bridal dress shops, caterers etc. The only vendor that ever seemed to have any serious influences were bridal planners and DJs.  Either a caterer's opinions don't carry much weight-- OR brides tend not to ask certain people about who to hire for photographers.  Most were only interested in what their referral was worth to you, how much.
• BRIDES TO BE  —  Once I get a bride as a client, I keep her contacted and excited. I get her to talk about me. Once she gets her stuff, I find as many ways possible to keep her excited about the pics to show them off. And offer a yearly family shot.
• TALK IT UP EVERYWHERE —  I shoot all sorts of things. Kids soccer, the local newspaper, charity dinners. It is the NUMBER ONE way I get clients outside of my website. The occasional 8x10 or 4x6 given out to a mom, works into "Hey my niece is getting married, do you have a card?”
• FINALLY  —  Finally, the best marketing device you have, is you. This is your mantra. Believe in it and it will come true. Some people just have that certain "it" quality that makes people want to hire them.
  Promote as much as you can.
  Make sure your name is in the top local magazine, at local bridal shows and charity events.
  As a full time photographer you have to have shoots. It is your business and I treat it like a business.
• SHARING —  Now I'm against money, that always comes back to haunt you but a Gift Certificate for a referral that pays off is always welcome. I usually give a 35 dollar dinner at a casual place like Outback, Bennigans, T.G. Fridays, with a cute thank you card. Listen 35 dollars won't get the filet mignon and champagne but it will get you at least two burgers with all the trimmings. Nothing too fancy, just a thank you they'll remember every time they are hungry.