LTR! Podcast Episode #8
Brought To You By - BOUTiQUE RETOUCHING

How To Find Retouching Clients And How Not To!

My inbox is full of emails I will never open. In today's world, you have to make some effort in order to create some business opportunities for yourself. We talk about the dos and donts.

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My inbox is full of crap!

we will go over a few topics how you should and should not reach out to possible clients,

We all need work! First contact and your approach to a possible client are crucial steps for establishing a long-term work-relationship. You wanna get more work, you wanna get better jobs and more leads turning into customers?

Here are a few reasons why you might get new clients or how you might drive them away

How I get approached:

  • Post-production studios mostly eastern offering cutouts, clipping path, and high-end retouching for USD $5
  • people asking me to hire them
  • business dev people who want to posh cheap services
  • headhunters looking for high-end retouchers for in-house work – mostly catalog work
  • photographers asking for a price list

Wrong approach!

Issues I found with people trying to reach out to create business opportunities:

  • Reaching out to the wrong contact (no target group analysis, no contact research)
  • They do not value the contact’s time!
  • Cold Calling or Cold Emailing
  • Email Automatization
  • Nothing to offer but asking for business
  • misjudgment in terms of their own abilities

Questions you should ask yourself before approaching someone

  • Am I addressing the right person to pitch to?
  • Can I offer something of value?
  • What is expected of me?
  • Can I meet quality and time expectations?

 

Before Approaching Higher End Clients

  • practice and build a portfolio first
  • Consider applying for an in-house job for experience
  • get some experience by offering low priced services via freelance websites (pressure is on)
  • Built your online presence: portfolio website, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. Be present and active.
  • Reach out to possible clients and offer to work for free. This can build trust. Must have something to show for first!

How To Reach out

Places where you can find possible clients:

  • trade shows
  • social media
  • local photographer meetups
  • magazines
  • google

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2 Responses

  1. Hello,

    I am a professional freelancer and have expert-level experience in photo retouching. I am in a financial crisis these days due to losing my Fiverr.com profile so I cannot find new clients for retouching.

    Please help me with how I can find direct clients from Google via email marketing.
    Currently, I am scraping emails of photographers from Google and trying to send emails.

    If you have any better and effective way to get more clients for photo retouching please help me, I am in great trouble due to lack of money.

    Thanks.

    1. Hey, I hear you. It is not easy to build client relationships.
      I can only tell what works for us and those are no short term solutions either.
      The best ways to build out your client list may be:
      – working on your portfolio (working for free can build trust and lead to a working relationship when deciding to work with the right people)
      – work on your website and seo, but also social media presence
      – go and connect via online channels to potenital customers, follow them, interact with them and slowly start building a relationship
      – when approaching potential clients, avoide asking for something. They must get to know you and see value in connecting to you.
      – preferrably go after a few clients that can send you work regularly than to go after quick sales and one-off projects.

      hope that helps <3
      - Daniel

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