Here are some of our photo booth success stories from the month of September!
Another month has gone by and we couldn’t be happier with all of the progress that we have been seeing with all of the PBI Family members. As you know, our exclusive Facebook community has been popping from all of the activity that you guys have been up to. We would like to highlight some of our favorite stories and photo booth success we noticed this month!
Our Top Contributor This Month in the Facebook Group
Congrats To Zoraida C Alvarez For The Top #PBIfamily Contributor Of The Month Of September. Who Will Win This Month?
Zoraida is new to the PBI Family but she is doing well already with her business, Pics and Tales Photo Booth. She is continuously gracing us with great news about her business inspiring new and old members alike. We are happy to see her utilizing the group for help in her own business, and giving help to others. We are happy to have you in our family, and wish you even more success with your photo booth business!
Oh Snap, All Snap is Here! Congrats Guys on Your New Branding.
First Gigs with their New PBI Photo Booth Equipment
Thanks for sharing your first gigs guys! We know that the first few gigs are a really exciting milestone. It proves to us that this concept can really work. Keep working hard and you can grow your business to be as big as you want.
Kristel and Michael Rogers had a great first gig this September. Congrats guys!
Tharaneka Sparrow was also kind enough to share their first event with us as well! We look forward to seeing the rest of your success to come!
Winner of Our Media Kit Prize Raffle!
EddyGee won our Media Kit Prize from our raffle. Enjoy!
Make sure you sign up for all of our contests so you can be our next winner. Find out about them in our Secret PBI Family Photo Booth Success Facebook Group!
September Big Wins
#PBIFAMILY
We like to acknowledge people when we see them making strides or having particularly big wins. This month have have two.
First we saw Alejandra Charles head out for a 3 event night. He was running 2 weddings and 1 quinceñera. That truck looks packed.
The other good thing we saw was that Brian Burns did $6100 worth of business.
We wish you all even greater success this month as you keep developing and growing your businesses!
How to Build a Brand Image, and Stand Out From Your Competition.
Branding, Frontpage ArticleWhat Do I Do When My Photo Booth Malfunctions or Breaks Down?
StrategyIn this article we will be discussing what to do when a photo booth breaks down, or malfunctions.
Picture yourself at an event, you have 20 people in line and your photo booth begins to keep restarting on its own. What do you do?
A better approach is to say that you are just restarting the system, or giving it a little break. This will buy you time as you figure out a solution. Also turn off the lamp to let people know that the photo booth is off. Hopefully you know your booth inside and out, and if you don’t… Now is time to learn, not during an emergency.
So obviously, if a situation that requires troubleshooting is going to inevitably happen, make sure that you know your booth really well. If you are hiring booth tenders to service your events, make sure that they know it well too.
A common thing that we see people struggle with is actually heat. They will place their booth in direct sunlight and expect it to work as if it is inside under AC. That is simply not the case with electronics. If you leave your phone in the hot sun, it will act the same. Plenty of ventilation, and shade are required to keep things running smoothly. Make sure to plan for that if you are going to be doing outdoor events. This will help with a lot of the random shut downs and restarts that systems do to protect themselves.
Even when indoors, heat can be a major issue. Make sure to keep your system as cool as possible to avoid heat related issues.
Another common problem we see people is with glare. Especially with outdoor events. The fix for this is really a covering. Outdoor events are best serviced within some sort of enclosure, and don’t forget to pack a good fan to keep not only your photo booth cool, but to keep yourself and your guests cool too. You can say it is for dramatic shots and flowing hair if you want to score extra points with your customer ?.
What we are going to talk about now is your DSLR settings. Obviously, this will be a little different for every type of camera but this is what we will mention here. Write down the default settings that you know work in normal situations for your camera. This will help you out a lot if yours or someone else’s kids starts to play with it and adjusts everything. Keep your settings list somewhere and laminate it. It might come in handy on a day where your photos are coming out black after you have just set up an event.
Something that is very often a problem with people’s machines are actually the connections. Is the power steady to your machine? Sometimes we share a power plug with a DJ, and they have a dimmer that lowers the power to that bar… Not very good for photo booths. Get your own plug.
There is also a fundamental and old troubleshooting technique to try. It is very simple: Check connections.
The last thing we will talk about here is if all else fails, turn to communities on Facebook and YouTube for support. YouTube is good, because maybe there is a video to help you with your problem already with a step by step tutorial. Facebook is good because you have people there on site to help you in real time. Your photo booth manufacturer might also be a good resource if you are having an emergency, and your event is during their working hours.
A good thing we find that works well is to write down the solutions to any known problems that other people have had with your booth setup and how to fix it ahead of time. Keep that for yourself and for anyone that you hire to service events for you.
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How to Get More Customer Reviews For Your Photo Booth Business
StrategyGet Social Proof with Customer Reviews
In this article I am going to be writing about how to get more customer reviews on Yelp, Google, Facebook, and everywhere else. As I am sure that you are already well aware, customer reviews are an integral element for modern business, especially a gig based business like ours. A common habit for so much customers is to find a service, then instantly check Yelp for reviews. It is just a reality.
The good news is that just a few reviews can help guide someone’s decision to go with us, as long as they are good ones obviously. The good news is that getting reviews is probably a lot easier than you might have thought previously.
Here is Secret #1 in Getting Customer Reviews.
Too often people in the photo booth industry spend more time focusing on getting clients than they do thinking of ways to really impress the clients that they already have. Wow them into leaving you a review. My general attitude is to deliver as much value as possible. If I am going to be there working anyway, I might as well spend that time being the best version of myself possible. This especially includes presentation and interaction with the customer. It isn’t just you either. Your business should be branded, period. This includes every interaction your customers have with your business, from your initial contact, to every email, to every phone call, to the event its self. Your business needs a “feel” to it.
Go Above and Beyond
This is what I really believe to be the holy grail, and it takes very little time. It is called, over-delivering. I like to, without exception, deliver something for “free” for every job that I do.
It is usually something that is free, and only takes me a minute or two to do, but people love it when you do something free for them. I think that this is especially true in our industry since a photo booth rental is not a cheap thing. Delivering something free confirms to people that they made the right decision in hiring you. It also gives a client something to brag about to their friends when recommending you or leaving you a review.
Another nice thing about doing something free is that people will subconsciously feel like they owe you a favor. Which leads me to my next point…
Use your Followup Email Correctly
When you deliver the images to your clients, they will be at the height of their excitement about your services. Never beg for reviews, but add a little link for them to click at the bottom. You will be surprised how many of your customers will leave you a stunning, rave review.
You get special bonus points if you offer your “free” thing to them in this section.
“I decided to include a special album of selected photos that I processed the images for you since I had such a great time with you guys. By the way, if you had fun with my company, if you would please leave me a review here ;).
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