Stewart had an awesome day yesterday as Van Outen stopped in Bristol for day five of the tour, and he hung out with the wonderful Mr Brett Symes who was our tour pal for the day. Brett stayed for hours happily chatting about everything photography and photography business with anyone who wanted to discuss any thoughts or ideas, and giving advice to those who wanted a little bit of guidance.
Stewart is an avid listener of business audiobooks, and quite soon the business themed conversations turned on to the literature that is out there. One of these books Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely seemed to spark a very interesting discussion. The book challenges the assumptions that we, as the reader, have about making decisions that we believe are based on rational thoughts. The book aims to show how everyone is predictable in their decisions, and the discussions in Bristol centred around how you guys (as the photographer) can use these ideas to influence clients into buying certain packages or choices that you would prefer to sell. One of the main themes discussed was the use of decoy options to influence the intended buyer into selecting the option that you want them to choose, or even about minimising the options available to further aid the chances of the client selecting your preferred package.
The other book that seemed to interest the Bristol attendees is Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation by Sally Hogsgead. This book aims to make fascination something that can be utilised in a practical manner to shape the ideas and opinions of those around you, as well as your relationships with these people, and how to turn these things to your advantage. It discusses the idea that fascination is a better tool than marketing or advertising for enticing the customer to buy the product that you want to sell, and how to utilise the triggers needed to get the result that you desire.
It seems like business talk was definitely high on the agenda in Bristol! Since these books were not discussed at this scale on the other tour dates, Stewart is going to put a post up on the lounge on each of the texts in turn so that everyone else can get an idea of what these books propose, and whether there is something that you could utilise for your business. [If the interest is there we could even make this a regular feature of the Lounge!]
Now onto a different kind of work – shooting. Yesterday’s model, Corrin, seemed to make quite an impression on all of those who booked a slot in the ‘Get the Picture’ shoot. The photographers who were at The Cross Hands both networked with each other and with the lovely Corrin. Many of the photographers who got snaps of her booked Corrin for a follow up shoot – after seeing these photographs that Stewart took on the X-Pro1 it is not hard to see why!
On today’s tour video Stewart gives a review of the Fuji X-Pro1, it’s been with Team Folio for a couple of weeks now, but after 5 days on the tour here’s the lowdown of our Tour Tech!
Today Stewart and Van Outen are in West London for day six!