Why People Hire You

The biggest mistake creatives make when pitching their services, is pitching the actual photos and videos instead of pitching the dream outcome.

Clients don’t care how pretty your pictures are, or how awesome your video is, or how sick the lighting was in a scene. They care about how that image is going to convert and the return on investment (ROI) of working with you.

Why does it seem that some photographers can land clients easily while others struggle and struggle to land just one or two? It all comes down to ROI.

When a potential client is looking at a photographer or videographer, they’re looking at it in terms of ROI.

How do they know they’ll get their money back and then some if they choose to go with one photographer over the other?

Let’s take a clear example of ROI - brand photography. Product photography is great because when a brand hires you, they’re hiring you with the end goal of profiting off your photos. If you can convince the brand that your photos will make them more money, then they’re going to want to work with you.

Let’s look at a coffee company launching a new canned cold brew. The assets they use to launch will either make or break that product. If they invest a couple thousand in your work, and your work is good, then they might be able to sell out their initial launch and make back 2-10x or more of their investment. That’s a high ROI. That makes convincing brands to work with you that much easier.

Now if you’re a headshot photographer you can take a similar approach. If you work with actors, your headshots can be the difference between them being selected for a casting call or tossed aside.

What about portraits? If you’re in the right niche (ie single dudes dating) your headshot can land that guy some dates. The ROI is not financial here, but instead, it provides someone happiness.

At this point, you can start to see how thinking in ROI can help you serve more clients.

Sell the result, not the service