Before booking any client for a shoot, it’s important that both parties are the right fit for each other. Chemistry is important when clients are looking for a prospective photographer. And vice versa.

Your corporate portfolio is important for your prospective client to understand the work you do. But in order to create really successful images, there are a few things you should know about your client before agreeing to a shoot.

These questions not only ensure your clients are well prepared prior to their session but can serve as an inspiration for you and your photography. This will bring your creativity to life and ensure the clients get what they really want.

1. What is your budget?

While a sensitive question for some, it is an important question nonetheless.

After some casual conversation with your prospective client, getting down to business means knowing what their expectations are. Having a clear understanding of their budget will ensure you deliver on those expectations. It also gives you a framework to what is needed come the day.

This insight allows you to inform your client of what you can reasonably deliver. Knowing the budget, even one that’s severely limiting, allows you to educate your client on what is possible and what isn’t.

In today’s age of digital photography and smartphone photography “professionals”, communicating rates and budget ensures everyone’s expectations are managed.

2. What do you hope to get out of the experience?

If your prospective client has seen your photos, then this will be an easy question to answer. Most prospective clients will respond with an image in your portfolio that has struck a chord with them. Clients who are familiar with your style of photography and are happy with it encourages good chemistry between both parties.

This question also helps you understand the endgame of your client. Answering this question will tell you a lot about the right services your client will require. It will also inform you about client expectations such as time frame, image format delivery, must-have photography moments, and poses.

3. Who will be attending the session?

Understanding the desired experience is one thing. But it’s a whole different ballgame when it comes down to session attendees. It could be a family of four,or maybe it’s an engagement shoot, or even an expecting couple.

There are challenges to every shoot and knowing ahead of time who will be attending is paramount to creating an experience that’s pleasant for everyone involved. This will determine the potential locations or backdrops to prepare for. This also allows you to decide on what time of day is best to shoot your clients.

4. What is so special about this time in your life?

Photography is more than just capturing subjects in specific poses set against specific backdrops. It serves as a witness to important events in our lives. From birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, and everything in between, photographs are passports to the special moments in our lives.

Knowing why this certain window of time is special to your client allows you to go the extra mile when delivering a memorable experience. The images you shoot during this special time in their lives will serve as a wondrous reminder when they peruse through them months and years after the shoot. Knowing why this is a crucial time for them allows you to produce a better end product.

5. What do you like about my images?

As a photographer, part of your job is interpreting what your client really wants. Asking this question before shooting ensures you understand why they choose you as a photographer against someone else. You need to know exactly why they chose you.

Perhaps it’s the lighting you used or the color scheme you chose. It could even be the perspectives that your shots were taken in or the concept and feel of your photography style. Asking this question allows you to get in the mind of your client. This ensures the end product perfectly interprets what they want out of the experience.

This is why it’s important to have a portfolio your prospective clients can pour over. Your clients can point out certain aspects of your images that they want to recreate in their experience.

6. How did you hear about us?

This question is usually answered through the inquiry email you’re sent from a potential client. But if it isn’t, it’s important to ask this question. You need to know how your clients find you.

Your business will only continue to thrive if new clients can successfully find your work and engage with your business. Knowing whether or not your marketing efforts are going to waste is important in determining how to spend your marketing budget. This question can also reveal additional sales opportunities you may not have considered.

Don’t be afraid to ask this question. Beyond its marketing benefits, this question frames how your business is being perceived by potential clients.

7. Why did you choose us?

Last, but certainly not least, ask “Why me?” It may be an awkward question to ask, but no consultation meeting should finish without first asking this question. To protect yourself and your business, you need to know why your potential client wants to take you on as their photographer.

Remember, potential clients are not your clients yet. Knowing how you appeal to prospective clients can become a gateway to convincing them to trust their special occasion in your lens-toting hands. While price can be a factor in determining the right type of photographer, the best type of photography experiences is born out of relationships.

As a photographer, these questions are the necessary due diligence that are crucial to ensure you’re the right fit for creating the type of experience your prospective clients wants. You want your clients to walk away satisfied. The only way to perform such a service is to discuss these questions. So ask away!

This is a guest post by Alethea Cheng Fitzpatrick, NYC based architect, interior designer, photographer AND mom! Alethea has her own business, alethea cheng fitzpatrick photography.

I hear photographers talking about digital images all the time.

I've noticed that portrait photographers tend to be the ones bemoaning the fact that their clients “just want the CD”. Mostly it's because those same clients also think that the CD should be really inexpensive, because it “didn't cost the photographer much” to make.

Wedding photographers, on the other hand, often celebrate the fact that their clients don't really want albums any more. They claim that it's hard to make money off albums because they take so long to design and cost so much to make. They are quite happy to wow their brides and grooms by having an iPad pre-loaded with all their photos waiting on their doorstep when they return from their honeymoon.

The different perspectives are interesting, and there's a simple reason for the difference – wedding photographers typically charge up front for a package and include the high resolution files because they are already assured of the sale. Portrait photographers depend on post-session sales and, unless properly priced, high res files undercut their other products.

But regardless of the type of photographer you are, in both cases I strongly believe that you are doing your CLIENT a disservice if you only give them the CD. It is not in their best interest!

Here's why.

Fifty years from now, where is that iPad going to be? Where is that CD going to be?

What about a hundred and fifty years from now? Or longer?

Technology is going to COMPLETELY change, I don't need to tell you that, but have you thought about how your super fancy high resolution digital images of today… might not look so good on technology down the road, or might not be viewable at all? Now, I do not have any expertise in “future proofing” digital files, but then, you probably don't either, and nor do your clients. And a quick Google search seems to show that … no one really knows, and one recommended strategy is to make hard copies of important documents and photos!

Yes, your clients may upwardly convert their files, but do you want to depend on that?

Prints and albums (of archival quality – which of course you are going to provide) are your most future proof medium. They can sit on a shelf for years and still be viewed with no additional effort required by anyone.

But even aside from the future proofing issue, even assuming that the format you pick for your digital images is readable forever, is that really the only way you want your clients to experience your images?

Forget 50 years from now, even tomorrow, does viewing a digital images come anywhere close to the experience of holding viewing an actual physical piece of artwork in person?

Honestly? If you think it does then, seriously, you are not getting your prints made at the right lab!

I love my prints – love love LOVE them, and so do my clients. In fact, some of my clients start out thinking they just want the high resolution files but after they see the artwork products I offer (including museum quality framed and bamboo mounted prints, custom designed heirloom photobooks on presentation stands and beautiful notecards), they “get it”. Often they end up with everything BUT the high resolution files they started out so concerned about and are very happy about it.

Why?

Well, first of all, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying DON'T offer digital files. I absolutely understand the importance and value of digital files and I offer them to all my clients. I'm just saying that to ONLY provide digital files is doing your clients a disservice. I follow the recommendations that Alicia Caine makes in Easy As Pie (I highly recommend this resource by the way – well worth the investment). I offer high resolution files but a la carte, they are the most expensive item on my price list, and it's actually less expensive for clients to purchase high resolution files AND a proof box. I also offer low resolution web-sized watermarked files but only after a minimum purchase of other artwork has been made. Basically, my pricing is structured in a such a way that no client ends up with only digital files.

So how do clients end up changing their mind about the high resolution files?

Well, first of all, a big reason people want digital files is so they can share them online and via e-mail, and the low res web files take care of that. It helps that I offer my low res web files in the form of a finished product – an online digital storybook that is a cohesive presentation, designed and paced to tell a story, and set to licensed music. It can also easily be shared in a matter of clicks.

Secondly, they want them for archival purposes, but as we've discussed, hard copies are better for that.

Finally, they want the freedom to make their own prints in the future … and those that are really motivated to have this option available are willing to pay for it (or I am just not the right photographer for them). But most clients, when it comes down to it, and presented with the beautiful artwork options I offer, plus the fact that I sit with them and help them select their images and put together their order, not to mention frame, deliver and install their custom designed wall gallery, know deep or even not so deep down that they will not make such beautiful artwork themselves, and even if they had the resources and knowledge to do so, probably would never get around to it.

Think about it. If you hand your client a CD, they have to put it in their computer, open it up, download them to their desktop, sort through the images, select the ones they want to print, upload them to a printing service, collect or receive their prints, get them framed, buy the hardware to hang them, and then hang them.

Yes, some clients are very motivated and will do this. But most of my clients are busy professionals and they want to spend their spare time hanging out with their kids, not traipsing to a framer or a hardware store.

And how many clients can design an album? How many will?

My high resolution digital files are my highest priced a la carte product, because if they were any less, I would be underselling all my other products. But I feel that my clients get a LOT more value out of ordering artwork and albums from me, and after a certain spend level, I actually throw in the high res files at what works out to be pretty much for free as part of a collection.

Many photographers follow a “shoot and burn” model I know, and if it works for you, great. But if you're doing it because you think that is what clients want, consider whether it really is in their best interest, not to mention yours. You know how I feel about it – please don't just give them the CD!

How do you handle high resolution files for clients? How about low resolution files? What is your take on delivering just the digital images and nothing else to clients? Who wins and why do your clients almost always lose?