When you’re early on in your career as a photographer (and by early, I mean the first 5 – 10 years) you probably are going to find yourself asking *Why* a lot.
And that’s good.
Knowing the *Why* of what you do helps you in so many ways. Not only will it give you confidence, knowing your own motivations, but it can help you oodles in areas like marketing and sales as well.
You see, there’s this nifty concept called the Unique Selling Proposition, or USP, that suggests that a business needs to provide a unique benefit to their customers to get sales.
That’s a really big idea, and one that we’ll dive more into in further posts, but the first step towards figuring out your USP is figuring out your *Why*.
So today we’re going to start with a couple simple steps to get your mind thinking about this stuff.
Step 1
Answer this poll. You can go with your gut, or stop and think. Pay attention to how you make your decision.
Step 2
Now, in the comments below, explain why. Don’t skip this step. You need to be able to verbalize what it is that you love about that type of photography.
If you’re too shy to comment, just write it down for yourself, but dig deep and figure out what it is that you love about that type of photography so much.
Why?
Well, it’s going to help you create honest, compelling, and exciting marketing. Chances are that the one type of photography that you would shoot forever is the type that you are most passionate about. And passionate people are the driving force behind great businesses.
So, comment now and explain *Why* you would shoot that type of photography.
Write it down for yourself as well. You’ll need that information as we dive deeper into your USP and more marketing and sales concepts!
We’ll kick things off: We both would choose Families, because we love shooting portraits and interactions, and have an absolute blast photographing kids with their parents. Family portraits let us tell a story, and it’s a story that we think is incredibly important.)
P.S. for our Hobbyist friends: Your decisions might not necessarily relate to marketing and sales (at least not yet. Who knows, you might decide you are so passionate that you’d like to start a business!), but your choice will likely show what type of work you will excel at. You need a LOT of passion for the genre to do great photography.
Now comment away!!!
