Now that is a bit of a click-bait style of blog title but it is essentially what I wanted to make this blog post about.

Its all very well having the latest camera, drone, gimbal and the smoothest of slider techniques and a slick post production editing style.  However it can all be for naught if you don’t have any paying business coming through the door.  I am of course referring to those of us that do this commercially.

We are heading into winter down here in the Southern hemisphere which means for me that the demand for shooting real estate videos goes down and my coffee consumption goes up!

Its a good time to tie up loose ends, admin, gear maintenance and re-visit my marketing and sales material.  I am no sales and marketing expert and often have to re-learn lessons I should remember and I had a meeting this morning which really bought home one of the most effective ways of getting new or continuing business to me.

And that is the tried and tested, non-technical method of a good ole face to face meeting with potential clients.

I shoot a lot of Real Estate Video for the Sotheby’s Realty franchise down here in my neck of the woods and are fortunate to have the head office here.  So this week I arranged a meeting with the marketing director to met and a have a chat which got changed several times but with perseverance finally happened.

I can’t re-iterate enough the value of face to face meetings in this age of texts, email, skype etc etc  In the meeting I really only had one main question and that was “what are your requirements for producing great videos for your company?”  I then pretty much spent the rest of the meeting listening and here’s a statement from the Sotheby’s marketing director that resonated the most with me….

“You are the only videographer in the area that has made the effort to come and talk with me!”

Surprisingly none of my competition has made the effort to go and talk with the company which puts me in a strong position going forward to getting  a good share of their real estate video production business.

I still obviously have to deliver the goods but again because of this meeting the marketing director told me what their requirements are, what they like and don’t like in their videos and more.  All this helps making it easier for me to met and exceed their requirements.  Again giving me a leg up on the competition who may not be aware of their particular preferences.

Another action from the meeting is that the marketing director wanted a list of recent videos I have done (will obviously put my best forward) and my latest price list which gets circulated amongst the Sotheby’s sales agents.

If you are anything like me you will often get tied up when busy and tend to put off thinking about how to generate more business.  In freelance video work its very common to neglect getting future business when you are busy now but when the “busy now” work finishes you can find yourself twiddling your thumbs with no business coming through the door.  It can be a real roller coaster ride of work and revenue which after all these years of being in the freelance video business still affects me on a regular basis.

So that is my number one top tip for getting new business or perhaps getting continued business, get some face to face meeting time with potential clients.  I know its often easier said than done but virtually every time I’ve done it (which is not often enough) its paid dividends.

Now I just need to get schedule another meeting with another client who has gone quiet and hopefully get things moving along there again!

Happy Shooting.