You can only be profitable as a photographer if you have clients. Customers are the good and bad points of being an artist. On the one hand, you get paid to do what you love, but on the other hand, they often don’t care about the things you care about. In this article, I will tell you exactly what your customers want from you.
Let me start by saying that all your clients are different and this article will be a broad overview of what I find to be true. At the same time, I would be surprised if your particular customers weren’t interested in what you do, when you do it, and for what purpose you do it. So the only thing your client wants from you is you: deliver images that are concise, on time, and within budget. They don’t want anything else from you. With this in mind, allow me to explain any needs.
By far the hardest thing to ask an artist to do is put yourself in the shoes of the client. I ask you to be open-minded and read this article with a cool head.
When someone hires a photographer, they are looking to get the picture. So all you do in their eyes is provide files that they can later use for visual purposes. Customers are paying for this because it is a product. This product, like any other on the market, is expected to follow a few basic rules. It has to be what they want and when they want it.
Let’s look at a simple example: Canon cameras. If you have the budget to spend $1,000 on a mirrorless camera and you need it next week, you’ll find a store that can fulfill your requirements. You don’t necessarily care how the product is made or how much research is done on it. Now that there is a situation that you can relate to, let’s apply this situation to photography.
Timely
Nothing makes people angrier than being late to something. I hate when someone I pay late. Your customers are also likely to hate missing deadlines. If you are working on a commercial project, there is a high chance that the people who have hired you also have deadlines to meet and higher level people to meet. Time is of the essence to your customers and they want time to continue to be. Plan accordingly and don’t be afraid to take an extra day if you feel comfortable. Remember that it is often better to provide images sooner rather than later. Also, if you ship too quickly, it looks like you didn’t put in enough effort or didn’t pay attention to the image. Simply deliver on time or a day earlier, but never later. As an extra note, everyone and everything in the fashion world is late, so don’t worry if you’re late to work, but don’t be late. 
Summary
Customers who come to you likely have something specific on their mind. The degree to which something particular changes. Your job is to find out what they want in as much detail as possible. Ask questions, listen to answers, take notes. Your client comes in with a problem they need you to solve and you need to be an expert in the problem and solution. The summary can be vague at times; for example, if someone asks for “soft light, hard light”. Such a thing does not exist. The client may refer to low-contrast hard light or high-contrast soft light. Asking for a visual reference is always a good idea.
On large commercial missions, you might be working alongside a team of videographers and they are also working on summaries. You will need to work with them to ensure that the two teams can produce high-quality work while not distracting or interfering with each other.
In the budget
Money is not an infinite resource. It will be very frustrating if you have to go over budget or cut expenses due to budget constraints. Of course, there is a reasonable budget at each level of work; However, I recommend that you make sure there is enough budget for the job before you submit your estimate. A useful entry in the estimate might be a buffer of several hundred dollars (or thousands, depending on production) for unexpected expenses like parking, extra hire, accidents, and other things that can did not go as planned. Depending on what your values are on this, you can also include discounts or rebates for customers. I don’t like doing it because it implies that I’m overestimating my work, which I don’t like. 
Budget vs budget summary
In 99.9% of situations, the customer is either “this is what we want, how much will it be?” or “this is how much we have, what can you do?” In either case, you need to be careful with coming up with a budget or summary and make sure you can do it with the money you’re given. If a client comes with both, rethink one over the other and add a timeframe.
Everything else
If you are going to comment that the customer is interested in something else, feel free. However, I wanted to address some of the things they didn’t want to hear.
Gear
There’s no easier way to upset someone than talking about the gear you’re using or breaking the crazy light-year setup you’ve created. Sure, you take pride in how you create the image. I’m in the same boat, but be aware that the customer may not care what you say about the device. Talk to them about cars, their kids, or the weather if you really don’t understand. Even if they are a photography enthusiast, it is unlikely that they already know or understand what you are doing. 
Remember what I said earlier: you don’t care about the specifics of how your iPhone is made, at least not to the extent that an Apple engineer does. This also applies to photography.
