A Good Sales Effort is the Key to Building a Youth Sports Photography Business

August 19th, 2010  |  Published in Booking, Photo Day

Letters of the President

There is much more to being successful in the youth sports photography business than taking good pictures.  Good photography is necessary but won’t get you the business alone.

It is my observation that the most successful youth sports photographers are the ones with the best sales efforts and the best marketing system. By “sales effort” I mean the task of booking the teams or leagues.  Booking must have a dedicated effort that does not stop each time there is preparation needed for a big shoot.

You must have teams scheduled to photograph before good photography even comes into play.  I know MANY good photographers who don’t do much business as they simply do not spend the necessary time booking teams.

There is an almost endless number of “sports teams” you can photograph.  People often think that the “major sports” for boys like football, baseball, and basketball are the only teams worth shooting. The reality is that “sports” is a MUCH broader category than that.

Any activity that has some sort of team, class or group concept may fall into the “sports” category.  That includes sports like gymnastics, dance schools, marching bands, martial arts and cheerleading.

We have seen that girls’ sports and activities offer as much or more sales potential as boys’ sports.  For example, some of the very best sales we have seen (both in size of an average order and in the percent buying) are shooting dance schools.

There are also youth leagues for soccer, indoor soccer, virtually year round basketball, t-ball, softball, baseball, hockey, football, flag football, and swimming. They are everywhere!

In high schools there are teams for both boys and girls.  The “major sports” are important, but I have seen sales from girls’ basketball exceed boys’ football in some cases.  Recently, I saw a group picture of a girls’ track team that had 147 girls in it!  A typical high school will have over 20 sports teams that you can shoot.

There are hundreds, or even thousands, of potential “teams” you can shoot in any city.  You could spend all of your time booking teams…..and some people do.

Creating lists of prospects in your area and then actually contacting the people is THE KEY to building a successful youth sports photography business. Consider creating a matrix of potential clients in your area. This matrix would include the school or league name, the number of teams (for each sport) within that school or league and the number of participants on each team. You can further expand your matrix by filling in the typical average order and typical percent ordering to determine the sales potential of each team, league or school.

You can make MANY sales contacts in a day.  Some will be new calls and other will be follow-up calls.

Contacts can be made in person, by phone, or online.   The method is not as important as JUST DOING IT.