Sarah Petty: Finding clients is the number one thing photographers ask me for help on, and it’s the thing we spend the most time on with my top coaching students. One of my students, Allie Cline, came to me with this concept of the five zone method for finding perfect photography clients. I had to share it. Allie, what made you create this?
Allie Cline: There’s this TikTok that was going around about the hot crazy scale for women, and then a bunch of women jumped on and did it for men. I thought it was hilarious and thought it could totally apply to clients that we have.
Sarah Petty: Allie, let’s walk through this together. Talk to me about each zone.
Allie Cline: Zone one is your no-go zone. So, anyone who values you at a five or below, no matter how much money they make, they’re not your right-fit client, and they’ll probably still want free and cheap.
Zone two is the danger zone and they might have shown interest, but they aren’t your right-fit because they’re not loyal to you. They don’t value your time, and it doesn’t matter who their photographer is, they just want someone to do what they want for them.
Zone three is the fun zone. This is where you’re going to find your average value clients and where you’re going to meet people and network. You might be doing events, headshots, different things like that and meeting these people who are going to eventually help us out in our business. So, we’re just having fun.
Zone four is your Bobby zone. Bobby is your person who is going to bring you business. They might not necessarily have the most income and might not be able to invest in you and what you offer, but they are the ones that are helping you grow, shouting you out to all of their friends and customers. They’re the ones that you want to hold onto, love, and give back to them as much as they’re giving back to you. They’re a great partner in your business.
Zone five is your joy zone. So, the income might not always be the most expendable, but they are willing to invest what they have in what you do because they believe in it so much and they value you. They’re willing to tell others about their experience. This is where we want to say, “These are our perfect fit clients.”
Sarah Petty: They just make life happy, don’t they? We love them and they love us. They gush on us.
Allie Cline: That’s what I call our rainmaker zone. These are like “Julie’s” to the 10th. They have a lot more expendable income and they love everything we do. They’re going to share everything we do, and they’re going to bring us new clients. They’re like Bobbies and Julies combined. Sarah Petty: That was amazing. Thank you so much, Allie!
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