I was not ready for that.
The business of content creation can be a minefield.
And today I'm going to be meeting my friend,
Steven at his studio to find out more
about looking for your first client.
So here we are with Steven,
do you want to tell us more about yourself.
So I'm a full time photographer
and videographer as well.
I'm shooting advertising for major brands worldwide.
What are the key things that
we're going to be talking about today?
Well, I will try today to give my best tips
for photography beginners to find clients,
keep them, convince them to work with them,
attract them, and I'm going to give my two strategies.
One strategy is to push my works, to sell it,
and another strategy is to pull people towards me,
like to communicate in order to attract people,
and you're going to see, it's super efficient.
So when finding your first clients,
what is the mindset that you need to have?
So you don't have a portfolio,
you don't have a reputation,
you don't have experience,
you don't have a network.
Just accept that and just go find your jobs
knowing it's going to be the hardest
time of your career.
You then send that first email,
you know, to all the clients and stuff.
What do you do whilst you wait for that response
and how do you deal with the fear of rejection?
So first thing is,
it's not going to work out with one email,
reach out to many people and accept that
it's part of the process.
When you're waiting for them to get back to you,
what do you do in the meantime?
So I try to make it as minimalistic as I can, like a few days
a month I shoot for money and all the rest I
shoot to improve, I shoot for fun, I shoot to enjoy
because it's my passion at the same time.
How do you approach equipment?
I would say there is two major things to look at.
First, choose your brand.
I chose Canon 15 years ago because I wanted a brand
that is efficient, minimalistic, powerful, and
there is a huge range of lenses.
So once you buy your first lens you have
the possibility to evolve
and then choose your piece of equipment.
And here my tip would be to invest in the
most expensive one you can afford
and then once you start to get a few jobs
and get more money, you can buy
one other piece of equipment one by one.
I find that as a content creator I'm not the best at selling.
Any tips on how to sell yourself?
Yeah to be honest, I was not the best as well until
I discovered one thing.
If you want to sell, you need to inspire people,
you need to create a connection with them.
And in the end, for me, the act of selling
is just convincing someone that there is
no risk working with you and that
you are the best choice.
So you've found that client that you want to work
with and you want to sell yourself to,
what's the best way to communicate with them?
I try to be a little bit mysterious,
so I don't pitch the whole thing.
I just pitch like, you know, some tips,
a hook, yeah like, Hey guys
been a huge fan of your brand,
I have a super cool concept,
can I have the contact of your marketing director?
And how do you stand out in the field of,
you know, so many content creators?
They must be getting all these emails in
saying, I want to work with you,
how do you make sure that you
stand out from the crowd.
I try to create my own signature.
So I would say, step one imitate the best ones
in your field just to progress super fast,
but as fast as you can,
try to find out what differentiates you to the crowd.
I guess the next step is communication.
What do you mean by communicate?
You know, to me, a good communication is the ultimate
way to build your reputation, your brand,
and finally, to get clients.
Which which platforms do you recommend
when it comes to pushing the work out
so people can see your portfolio?
So basically, it goes to identifying
where your clients are.
You need to adapt to the platform
to speak the same language.
That's perfect, I like what you said there,
speak their language, go where they are.
That brings me to the next step, which is the
quality of your work.
How important is that?
To me, it's the most important thing.
Your portfolio is your CV,
and you want to show your potential
clients what you're capable of.
And that's where the quality comes in.
Do you have any tips and tricks when it comes to
actual real world putting all this in to action?
Yeah, the best client for you is the one
you would almost choose for free.
Like you would be able to work for them
without any form of payment.
Of course, the best clients will pay you
so it's not even a matter.
Second tip would be that,
in my experience, all the clients, all the best
clients at least, are people I have a connection with.
So try to build it as early as you can
in your career.
And third point would be that my
best way to sell is to have
someone refer for me, and my best referrals are
my actual clients because a good client, a happy one
is going to talk about you to everyone.
So try to serve your clients super
good, it's going to come back to you.
So as we've gathered,
finding your first clients can be daunting.
But there are ways to get that
up and running very quickly.
And those are things like, having the right mindset,
selling yourself, producing quality content
which allows clients to want to work with you
and obviously putting them into practice.
Absolutely and also, most importantly,
enjoy the process.
It's a passion job, so just have fun all the way.