5 Common Booking Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Fumbling a photography lead and losing out on a client is painful. There are so many things that can go wrong in the booking process, and knowing how to avoid fatal mistakes comes with experience in the industry. Instead of waiting to learn from your own mistakes, you can learn from this blog post and stop scaring away your leads!

Common Mistake #1: Waiting TOO Long to Respond

In the age of instant gratification and perpetual connectivity, customers are looking for service providers who can respond to their inquiries quickly. Regardless of how your potential clients contact you, the best practice is to respond within 24 to 48 hours.

Of course, no one can be available 24/7, and you should absolutely set healthy boundaries and clearly define office hours to avoid burnout. But make sure your leads receive an automatic reply or some indication of how long they should expect to wait to hear back from you. If they are left waiting too long, they are more likely to move on to the next photographer.

Here’s a tip: If you’re going through a slow period and not getting many leads, have a friend test your website’s contact form or the call buttons on your website and social media to ensure everything is in working order. I’ve had issues before with my own email server failing to deliver emails from leads coming through my website, and who knows how many bookings I missed out on by not responding quickly enough!

Common Mistake #2:  Planning the Entire Session BEFORE Booking is Complete

Getting excited about a potential session and giving away too much of your creative energy too soon is a booking mistake that can lead straight to heartbreak. Most people will respect you as an artist and won’t take your ideas to a different photographer, but all it takes is one unscrupulous person to ruin the fun for everyone.

Before you start sharing specific ideas about locations, themes, outfits, etc., make sure your lead is fully booked. For most photographers, that means a session fee is paid, and a contract is signed before any session planning takes place!

Common Mistake #3: “Booking” without Payment Up Front

The best way to waste your own time is to book a session without requiring payment in advance. While there are always exceptions to this rule (such as photography for corporations that operate on a Net 30 invoicing system), the vast majority of sessions should be paid for in full in order to be scheduled. Truthfully, when clients are not financially invested in a service, they are less likely to value it or take it seriously. That means they may show up late or not at all, with little to no communication.

The first time this happened to me was the last time I booked a client without getting paid in full before touching my calendar.

Common Mistake #4:  Booking More than You Can Handle

Listen, I know you may feel like you are superhuman and can handle anything. Same here! But there is a limit to how many sessions you can handle with care, simply because there is a limit to human attention spans. The more sessions you book in a short period, the less attention you can give to each of your clients. And I know the last thing you want is for your clients to feel like they are not getting the best customer service you can offer.

Be extra careful about accidentally double-booking or simply overloading yourself to the point where you miss a scheduled session. This is more than just a booking mistake: it’s a booking nightmare! Know your limits and keep a close eye on your actual availability when adding a session to your calendar.

Common Mistake #5: You Don’t Follow Up After Booking

Remember to put yourself in your client’s shoes. Most people only book a photographer a handful of times in their lives, at best! They likely have a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about the whole process. Remember to follow up with them periodically, depending on how far in advance they’ve booked their session, to make sure they have all the information they need. If they feel like you’ve taken their money and then stopped contacting them, that will just cause unnecessary stress.

Get out in front of that icky feeling by checking in every so often and letting them know you’re there for their pre-session jitters!

Check out how our top strategies to get clients to book on the spot!

Ultimately, mistakes happen! No one can be the perfect photographer and business owner all the time, and sometimes, those mistakes will cause you to miss out on a client. But with a bit of knowledge and preparation, you can avoid these common booking mistakes and make your clients happy!

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Written by Jesi Cason | Photographs by Jesi Cason Photography