Crafting a Luxury Experience with Jai Mayhew
Luxury appeals to the senses. High-end boutiques use scent profiles to relax and engage you when you walk in the door, and five-star hotels are decorated to ensure that every corner of every room is a visual feast. Nothing about luxury is functional. It engages our senses and uses them to elevate the moment, creating an experience we’re unlikely to forget It’s extravagant, it’s delightful, it’s decadent.
The ability to sell luxury is in itself an art form. In my studio, I serve women who won’t be satisfied by the commonplace, walk-in-and-smile, “here’s your Christmas card photo” kind of experience. I cater to a unique clientele of women who come to me looking for a luxury experience. They want hair and makeup artists and champagne and wardrobe styling. They want concierge service all throughout the planning process and amazing printed products at the end. Do I invest a lot of time into each session? Absolutely. Do my clients invest heavily in their portraits? Absolutely.
Interested in adding some luxury to your studio? Read on to learn a few of the ways you can elevate your client experience.
Let’s start by emphasizing the fact that you’re curating an experience that matters. Your client is coming to you not only to have portraits taken, but to enjoy the photoshoot. So let’s make it an event to remember.
When a client is interested in booking, we have a phone consult call (usually 30 minutes) so that I can tell her more about my sessions, but mostly so that she can tell me what her dream shoot looks like. I want to know what excites her, what she’s most looking forward to. I want her to know how much work I’m going to put into bringing her dream shoot to life. After the call, I send her my Portrait Questionnaire, which is a form on my website that asks her all kinds of specific questions to help me know her more. I ask her: What is your favorite facial feature? What is your favorite body feature? Is there anything you typically don’t like about photos of yourself? What color palettes do you gravitate towards?
