Getting Started by Giving Back

by Juli Cialone and Sean Kelley

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Starting a business can be a daunting task. Perhaps you’ve had a career change and decided to pursue photography, perhaps you only were a photographer part time and now are seeking to be pursue it as a full time business. Either way, building a client base that is going to be loyal and that is going to give you respect can be quite difficult.

Where should you start? Some say building a client base and then pleasing those clients will build the respect you need to keep them. But in our case, we built our business on the reverse philosophy. We asked ourselves; why not first build respect in your community before building our client base? Why not go out in the community, donating our services to worthy causes, and showcasing our talent to the very people that need us most? In fact, not only were we correct in doing so, we found that the latter concept actually brought in more clients who are loyal to us to this day and who have become referral voices for us.

So why is this so?

We believe that charitable marketing is one of the most powerful ways to earn new clients. By giving and giving and then giving more of yourself (and your skills) to worthy causes in your area, you will find that people are watching and appreciating what you are doing. You are earning the notoriety, not of a salesperson, but of a generous artist. You are putting your efforts in front of a watching community who are also giving of themselves to these causes. And by doing this you are gaining respect and prestige from those who are being helped and by those who are contributors as well.

So this sounds complicated?

It’s very easy! That’s what’s so great about it. And often it costs nothing but your time. Most charities need digital files for brochures, websites or posters, not prints. If they need prints, they often have a company that donates those services, so all you need to do is supply the imagery they need. We have photographed everyone from doctors, to children, to dogs, to celebrities. Our images have been plastered all over walls, on huge highway billboards, emailed to every contributor, etc… Our name is on all of them. That is all we ask. We are proud of our work and want to be recognised for it. We never have had a charity say no to this request – why would they?

How to start?

We did a press release announcing our intentions to donate our services to any charity in need of photography services. We stipulated that the charity could not be a religious organisation (with some exceptions of course) because we didn’t want to get every church and temple qualifying. We also stipulated that it couldn’t be a school, unless the school helped children with illnesses or children who were underprivileged. This helped us avoid every wealthy private school calling us for work. We think it is very important to set guidelines because there are organisations that can take advantage of your generosity, although we did not experience any major issues. Once we set the guidelines we submitted the press release to several local newspapers from dailies to weeklies. The daily newspaper ran a front page story in the local section and it was read by everyone while the weekly put us in the “people to watch” section.

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Photo Quote: We must remember that a photograph can hold just as much as we put into it, and no one has ever approached the full possibilities of the medium. - Ansel Adams