Professionalism is soooo important when running a business. It can mean the difference between an incredible client experience (aka returning business) and a horrible client experience (aka bad reviews and no referrals from friends). The little things really do matter. They add up to equal a client’s overall thoughts in working with you. We want to blow them away with our professionalism every time! These five simple steps can help improve your professionalism today, thus increasing your client experience.
Establish professional and proper business boundaries
This may mean setting up your business’s office hours, changing the ways in which you communicate with clients (like no more texting/DMing), blocking certain days of the week off from any type of work, etc. Check out this blog post for more suggestions on business boundaries.
Use a custom email address
This means using an email address linked to your domain name (i.e., hello@yourname.com) instead of a Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo email address. This is really easy to set up once you purchase your domain name. You can use a custom email address even if you don’t have a website set up yet, so don’t let that deter you! I suggest either your first name or hello@domainname{dot}com instead of something like “info,” because they’re more friendly.
Send a contract…
and enforce it when applicable. Contracts are important for service providers because they outline the terms of the job and will help you to know what to do should an issue arise. If you’re a photographer, you really need to use a contract for every. single. session. From portraits and mini sessions to weddings and branding sessions. I even have models sign a contract for a free session just to make sure they’re aware of what they’re getting. Contracts not only protect you, but they also protect the client if the service provider doesn’t uphold his/her end of the agreement. I highly recommend purchasing your contracts from The Legal Paige.
Send an invoice through your CRM
No more Venmo, Zelle, Cash App, or PayPal. I use Stripe for all payments, which integrates with my CRM, but Square is also great. If you use QuickBooks for accounting then you can also send invoices via QB. I use and love 17hats for invoicing! You can save 50% on your first year with my referral link.
Follow through
Reliability and responsibility are non-negotiable character traits when you’re running a small business. When you say you’re going to do something, do it. Even better, do it earlier than you said you would! This will blow your clients away in all the good ways. When you book a client for a service, show up early and don’t even think about cancelling or rescheduling unless you absolutely have to. Families make a lot of sacrifices when booking a photo session, including taking time off work, shopping for new outfits, paying for expedited shipping, planning months in advance for hair & makeup appointments, etc. It’s important that we respect and honor their time.
So what do you think? I think you’re ready to tackle these tasks and improve your professionalism, don’t you? Would you add anything to the list? Have questions about the points above? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear from you!!
