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Marketing Part 2

Lesson 49 from: 28 Days of Portrait Photography

Sue Bryce

Marketing Part 2

Lesson 49 from: 28 Days of Portrait Photography

Sue Bryce

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Lesson Info

49. Marketing Part 2

Lessons

Class Trailer

Day 1

1

First 2 Years: The Truth

1:23:37
2

Teaching 2 Photographers in 28 Days

1:10:45
3

Rate Your Business

1:05:08
4

Year One in Business

1:00:34

Day 2

5

28 Challenges

1:21:39
6

Fear

1:04:07
7

Price & Value

1:10:17
8

Checklist, Challenges, and Next Steps

26:35

Day 3

9

Day 1: The Natural Light Studio

38:09

Day 4

10

Day 2: Mapping Your Set and Outfits

1:54:32

Day 5

11

Day 3: One Composition - Five Poses

35:49

Day 6

12

Day 4: Flow Posing

49:31

Day 7

13

Day 5: Posing Couples

55:55

Day 8

14

Day 6: Capturing Beautiful Connection & Expression

40:47

Day 9

15

Day 7: The Rules - Chin, Shoulders, Hands

56:24

Day 10

16

First Weekly Q&A Session

1:00:15
17

Day 8: Rules - Hourglass, Body Language, Asymmetry, Connection

28:39

Day 11

18

Day 9: Styling & Wardrobe

40:50

Day 12

19

Day 10: Shooting Curves

48:40

Day 13

20

Day 11: Posing & Shooting - Groups of 2, 3, and 4

28:46

Day 14

21

Day 12: Posing & Shooting Families

28:36

Day 15

22

Day 13: Products & Price List

56:53

Day 16

23

Day 14: Marketing & Shooting the Before & After

41:20

Day 17

24

Day 15: Phone Coaching & Scripting

52:56

Day 18

25

Second Weekly Q&A Session

1:02:21
26

Day 16: Posing Young Teens

43:02

Day 19

27

Day 17: Marketing & Shooting - Family First Demographic

33:14

Day 20

28

Day 18: The Corporate Headshot

1:05:43

Day 21

29

Day 19: Glamour Shoot on Location & Shooting with Flare

53:56
30

Photoshop Video: Glamour Shoot on Location & Shooting with Flare

11:06

Day 22

31

Day 20: Photoshop - Warping & the Two Minute Rule

1:22:22

Day 23

32

Day 21: Posing Mothers & Daughters

42:22

Day 24

33

Third Weekly Q&A Session

1:31:41
34

Day 22: Marketing & Shooting - 50 & Fabulous Demographic

1:04:00

Day 25

35

Day 23: Shooting into the Backlight

58:22
36

Bonus: Shooting into the Backlight

06:52

Day 26

37

Day 24: Marketing & Shooting - Girl Power Demographic (18-30s)

39:17
38

Photoshop Video: Girl Power Demographic (18-30s)

1:07:21

Day 27

39

Day 25: The Beauty Shot

46:32
40

Bonus: Vintage Backdrop

04:54

Day 28

41

Day 26: Marketing & Shooting - Independent Women Demographic

49:40

Day 29

42

Day 27: Sales & Production

54:30

Day 30

43

Day 28: Posing Men

52:19

Day 31

44

Bonus: Pricing

42:32
45

Introduction

11:36
46

Photography, Style, Brand, and Price Part 1

1:06:49
47

Photography, Style, Brand, and Price Part 2

47:24
48

Marketing Part 1

38:01
49

Marketing Part 2

1:12:04
50

Money: What's Blocking You?

49:15
51

Bonus: The Folio Shoot

52:29

Day 32

52

Photo Critiques Images 1 through 10

23:11
53

Photo Critiques Images 11 through 27

25:01
54

Photo Critiques Images 28 through 45

30:19
55

Photo Critiques Images 47 through 67

36:47
56

Photo Critiques Images 68 through 84

23:22
57

Photo Critiques Images 85 through 105

36:01
58

Photo Critiques Images 106 through 130

34:49
59

Photo Critiques Images 131 through 141

13:45
60

Photo Critiques Images 142 through 167

25:27
61

Photo Critiques Images 168 through 197

29:13
62

Photo Critiques Images 198 through 216

25:51

Day 33

63

Identify Your Challenges

35:06
64

Identify Your Strengths

22:16
65

Getting Started Q&A

22:54
66

Rate Your Business

31:29
67

Marketing Vs Pricing

33:26
68

Facing Fear

23:45
69

The 28 Day Study Group

15:02
70

Selling Points

40:35
71

Interview with Susan Stripling

18:03
72

Emotional Honesty

29:09

Day 34

73

Sue's Evolution

18:36
74

28 Days Review

15:14
75

Student Pitches

11:28
76

28 Days Testimonial: Mapuana Reed

09:02
77

How to Pitch: Starting a Conversation

37:28
78

Your Block: Seeing is What You're Being

35:30
79

Your Block: Valuing and Receiving

37:09
80

Building Confidence: Your Own Stories

20:45
81

Building Confidence: Your Self Worth

36:05
82

Pitching An Experience

34:16
83

Pitching An Experience: Your Intentions

18:15
84

Pitching An Experience: Social Media

30:14
85

Final Thoughts

24:35

Lesson Info

Marketing Part 2

Instantly, what happened, is I stopped and you all came up and either asked a question about the PDF, talked about the PDF or said, "Could you critique my PDF?" Okay, Jessica was very lucky in the sense that she riled me up last Monday. Don't think by riling me up, I'm going to critique your PDF. I cannot critique PDFs. I would love to, but you see, I'm a portrait photographer. So I'm not a PDF critiquer or an educator full time. I shoot, I run a business and when I stop talking on CreativeLive, I go back to work tomorrow. And that's how it happens for me. So I would love nothing more than to critique all of your PDFs and I'm unable to do that. So what I will do, is in the workbook which is, the workbook is all those images that you saw with bullet points on how to work through each challenge on the 29th bonus challenge, which is here, let me just take you through and that is the one where you saw the beautiful black and white PDF when I talk about the folio. When I get to the end of t...

his challenge, I will include all of those designs in there so that you can model that PDF and I will give you the bullet points that I want you to hit in your PDF, I want it to accurately communicate who you are, do you put your picture on your PDF? Up to you, did I want Jessica's picture on her PDF? Yes, I felt, with Jessica, that her images are not as strong yet as her experience message so I felt by including her, I tie in, now, they're good enough to buy, good enough to shoot, good enough to sell but they're not in the sense, like mine that are telling all the story without me even being there. So I needed to incorporate her whole deal. Do you understand? Whereas with mine, I'm at the level now, where I don't need to but back when I was at Jessica's level, I was on the back of my PDF. I was on the last page because I felt like if you resonated with me, you would resonate with my brand and my mission. Now my images can speak for themselves but I've been shooting for 23 years, so I've got a head start on you in terms of shooting and communicating with my images but that doesn't mean she can't communicate. When the workbook finishes, the workbook finishes here at men and I bullet point all of the men shooting rules and make sure you're working towards the challenge in the workbook, the workbook's just part of the course. You'll get it over this week when I finish it. I want it to be a proper ebook. I want it to be something you flip through every day when you need help, inspiration, a wake-up call and the three points that we were talking about: product, selling, marketing, we're gonna talk about this afternoon, they're the ones that people wanted more, more, more of. and how to design this PDF, on the folio, on the last bonus chapter, I will write all the criteria that I want to create a PDF and I will include my PDF in there so that you can model your PDF on it, just model it and I will give you all of the points that I gave Jessica. I wanna see you and your advertising. I wanna hear about what your experience is. I want you to tell me in the least amount of words you can, what you do, how you do it and what you're doing for me and I want you to tie it all together in a basic PDF. Now at this stage here, if you do not print this, if you do not pay for the printing, you still have only, it's only cost you your time because 50 bucks says you already have Photoshop and that you're a good photographer, you're good enough to advertise your work. So this is a free medium in which you can advertise and market yourself, so that's the 29th video, bonus video going out tomorrow. And I will add that as the 29th chapter on the workbook, with the criteria so when people are going about how, what do I do, I'll just make sure I list the criteria that I gave to Jessica so you can tick it off. All right, now the workbook was really just to hold you accountable and at flip, you can go to any chapter and get what you need from each chapter in the fastest version and when you have the time at night, you sit down and watch the video. So if you're doing the posing two, three and four, you can flip to the two, three and four posing page, get the bullet points that you need to remember. Remember they're all on the same plane, remember up and over, remember weight on the back foot, all of those basic rules, remember hands connect through the hands, build a triangle, there's a diagram, there's an image to show you and that night, you can watch the video, that video, and then you can go into your shoot tomorrow and you can master it. That's what a workbook is for. So I'll put all of that and that criteria on the 29th video. So from here, dum, dum, dum. So sue, I just wanna make sure that everybody understands what the workbook is because you have spent the entire weekend, putting this together, it's gonna be over 100 pages or something of the sort. I did 32 hours on it, so far, just pulling the images and looking at the criteria of each challenge and then really just bullet pointing what the challenge stood for, like I can say it to you but this is what you keep as in, you work through it so it's a work action box. So there are like checklists, there are, do you guys have any questions because there are some questions and I just wanna make sure that everybody understands. So people are wondering, when you talk about, like for example, OV Photog, is the voucher template included in the workbook or is it just an example of it in the PDF? And same with the folio at the end and the PDF, is it the PDF itself? There are no marketing templates. The marketing templates, we did 28 templates for showreels. Part of that course that you can purchase. And they still exist in showreels. You don't need a template to do a full page please. What you need to learn to do is how to extend a background, if you're not shooting horizontally. So you don't need a template to design that and you don't need a template to design that. I did put a highlight there and a shadow there like a magazine but that's your choice. You do not need to do that. You can just do white one side, and the text, I just apply on Photoshop. So T for text, short, pick a font and I went to, there's a million font places that I've bought my own fonts for $3 and free fonts. And every font website has free fonts as well as fonts that you buy. I think I spent $24 and I got something like 40 fonts, all different or magazine style because that's my look. You can be more flowy, you can be more twirly, it's up to you. You don't need a template to do this. You just need criteria. Jessica did not need a template to create any of this. In fact when you look back, yes, Jessica has a logo but I don't have a logo. So Jessica managed to do this, in a morning, on Saturday morning without templates and so when I look at that, that was her logo on a white page, full bleed image, extend that background just so that it's not a box. And full bleed image, full bleed image, extended background. So this was shot horizontally and background was extended and all you have to do in Photoshop is go canvas, size, extend the canvas and it becomes white. Go to your brush tool, sample the background, marquee tool, edit, fill, foreground color, done. And then clone it, you don't need a template for that. You don't need a template for full bleed images and she certainly didn't need a template for that. So she's set enough to do that on her own and then chose a color that matches that like an ink instead of it being white so that's smart. Two fonts, much better than five, Jessica. Simple, easy to understand and she's working on those prices. So you do not need a template to design a PDF. You need 10 of your best images, eight is good. You need to simplify your words, your packages and make sure that the images you're using are accurately describing what you do. So that workbook will have all of that criteria in it but you do not need a template. Secondly, that workbook, when you buy the course, the workbook for me is this reason, I'm time-poor, constantly time-poor, like that's the story of my life. So when somebody says to me, "I've got to do a shoot tomorrow, family posing." I'd had to go to the family posing video and watch it. I would have to allocate the time to do that or I can pull the posing manual that comes with the workshop or I can pull a workbook and the posing manual, have a quick reference and then I have all three options. I'm working through the poses, I have the manual there. Most of the shoots come with a printable manual. You don't have to print it, it can stay online, you just download it and that in itself, is worth more than 199, so that workbook is just an easy reference for me. That's great, thank you so much for clarifying that. I'm all about product. Exactly, people are saying, Yasmin says, "I can't wait for the workbook." And then Cristina Chipola says, "I've never been so excited about a book." But then, GMP says, "The workbook is a great idea. "I won't have to flip through hours of video "to find exactly what I want." And so again, like you said, it is complementary. It is just another way, a reference guide, where you can look at it bullet points in addition to having that video-- And then, if you need to go in depth, you can watch the video because each video is broken down to an hour anyway. So you can go straight to that day video challenge, 24, look at the challenge, look at the bullet points and then go, "Right, I'm gonna watch that again "for my shoot tomorrow." All right, thank you. I can't make it easier for you to learn. That's how I learn. I need to visually see what I'm doing. So when Aaron, who's produced this workshop for me, Aaron is so different in his brain than me, he's a producer and an organizer. I'm a creative visual creative. So I sat down with Aaron for the very first time a few months back to produce a workshop and I drew diagrams of where I wanna stand, what I want on the wall, what I wanna say, a keynote and I diagrammed and drew the entire creative process. Now Aaron doesn't work in images, he works in words so he looked at my process and was like, "I do not understand this woman." Then he took what I gave him and he wrote an Excel sheet and he sent it to me and when I opened it, I felt this pain lance in my temple and I was like, "I can't even read that, I'm sorry I do not know "what you were talking about," and we laughed and then we learnt. He works in that format and I work in a visual format. That's how I learn, it's also what I see, it's is what I learn so I figured that if I made it that easy, you could reference that, you could thumb through it, reference it, watch the video if you need to and then it's right there for you in your archive, any time for you to reference. So it just, it's the fastest way and I will make the PDF your final challenge, I will make that on the 29th, I will write all the criteria for it. If you email me your PDF, I cannot critique it. If I critique yours, I have to critique 11,000 others. I cannot physically do that anymore. So I mean, there's no way to actually open that up because even if I said give me $10 to critique it and I'll spend the rest of my year critiquing your PDFs, it's not what I wanna do or where I wanna be so you just have to learn the bullet points and work your way through it and then see if it works and ask the people but really, what I did ask Jessica and this is interesting, I said to Jessica, the first question I asked her is, "When you designed this PDF, were you happy with it?" And she said, "Yes." It wasn't until I pointed out what I thought was obvious flaw, that she realized there was a flaw. So that means you're going to get tripped up in designing your PDF and you're going to think you're communicating a certain way and there's only one way I can really describe this and I don't know if this will resonate with you or sit comfortably with you, the truth is is how you feel about money and how you feel about your service and your brand and your product, how you feel about the give-and-take, the ebb and flow, whether you're seeing struggle or positivity or abundance or opportunity, how you feel is going to somehow translate in your PDF. So I didn't need to know anything about Jessica before I saw that PDF, I could have read it because that's what I do and now you all will read it the same way but it's subliminal to some of you and it's obvious to others. Because it's my thing, I read it immediately for its faults and saw what it was saying, it was selling money not photography so it was very easy for me to critique. So you need to find somebody like me that can look at the mood of something and say, "This PDF is speaking this way to me." Do you understand that or am I being too esoteric? I feel like the feeling and energy around it, the energy around the PDF, well it's definitely giving me a feeling of pushing monies away. I feel like I'm being really hmm, but it is a mood. Why do you look at some brands and are repelled by them and why do you look at others and feel just distinctly drawn to them. Why do you look at something and say, "I want that. "It has created a feeling of desire in me. "I want that folio I want to be part of it. "I want an experience like that." If my folio just reeks of beauty and desire and wanting that, yours can too. Maybe that's how I feel. Maybe that's translated in what I project out through my media. Maybe that's why I refuse to write bitching, whinging or moaning comments on Facebook. You're not interested in hearing me bitch or whinge or moan, you're interested in either being amused by me, laughing by me or sharing something with me. That's what I wanna be, that's who I wanna be, that's what I wanna give. It's very important that that translates through. Who has followed somebody on Facebook or Twitter and then unfollowed them because all they do is bitch and moan? Oh my god, I followed this really high profile photographer in our industry and I don't know what it was because I tried rereading her tweets but I actually went through her Twitter feed and just read 100 tweets because I was like every day, I get this feeling when she tweets, that it's a horrible feeling and yet she's not necessarily saying much but it just seems to be negative like even when she says something positive, it has a snarky connotation so I went and I read 100 tweets. Go and read your last 100 tweets, read them like a story, read your last 100 Facebook status updates and you will hear either negativity, bitchiness, yeah but, reread it, it's intriguing, I did it. I copied my last 100 tweets and I read them as a story like I read them just like sentences and that accurately tells me where I'm at in my life. You wait until you do that. That is the feeling people get around you. So if you're telling me blah, blah, blah, also be very careful what you write in forums because that very accurately describes where you're at as well, because I believe if you're saying it, you're being it. So if you think people are ripping people off, you're ripping people off. If you think there's no money out there, you think that. If you think people are being possessive and stingy, you're being possessive and stingy. So careful when you reread it, it'll give you a fright. Now, so I'm gonna put the PDF on the end, let's move on. Marketing is the ability to share it, the ability to share yourself. So once you've created that PDF and you think it accurately describes your brand and communicates who you are, now you have to share it with people, who do I share with? Don't you love that? Who do I share it with? The average human being has 648 friends on Facebook, it's an average, some of us have more, some of us have less. But if you are looking to build your Facebook and you have any profile whatsoever in terms of being either a photographer or joining any group, stands to reason, you are going to have people on your Facebook. You need to decide, is my facebook for business or is it personal? If it's personal, then you do not accept clients onto your Facebook page, you open a business page. If it is business, you no longer post personal quotes. I get personal on my Facebook page but I don't get as personal as I would if they were just my friends. So I'll write something that you might deem as being personal or funny or stupid or on the nose but I'll do it in an amusing way. I always wanna put a funny spin on anything I do because I'm quirky and stupid things happen to me, I tucked my skirt into my tights so I fall over, I have random experiences and I enjoy sharing them because I marvel at how crazy my life is sometimes. So if you're going to differentiate between a personal Facebook and a business Facebook, I'm telling you right now, your greatest marketing right now is happening on your social media. Now, not everybody has a social media personality. Some of you simply do not come up with funny things to say, you're not that clever with things to write, you're not posting your images in a way that's connecting and sharing and building a community. If that is not your thing, stands to reason, you're probably not a blogger either. So I can only hope if you're not a blogger and you're not smart enough to come up with a quirky spin on your social media that you have other skills in other areas and if not, you might wanna go and get a job. It's okay, it doesn't mean you can't be in our industry, it just doesn't mean you're gonna stand out advertising yourself on social media. You need to find another way to do that. There are millions of ways to work in our industry and not be self-employed, working from home with your own social media. I mean my social media, my business page hit 34,000 hits this week and my personal pages is at 5, with 10,000 subscribers, my Twitter is at 13,000. I'm like, I speak to a lot of people when I tweet and Facebook but can I just say, I got 12,000 likes on my Facebook page a year ago, my first CreativeLive, so that means the other 22, have come over the 12 months that I've been actively pushing that. Every day, I Facebook twice. Every single week, I put at least two to three images on my Facebook because images bring more people than quotes, than writing. So you post your images, and I don't mean 20 images, just one from a shoot, talk about it, link into blog. I actively pursue followers on Facebook and Twitter, unbelievable resource for connecting, networking. If something happens to my computer, I just put it on Facebook and I have 150 answers in five minutes on what to do. I find that community, for me, amazing to build and I'm gonna keep building it and giving on my social media, you can do the same. It's up to you but you do need to differentiate. So marketing is the ability to share what you've created. Now, it seems odd to me that you would wanna be in business as a photographer, you take photographs and then you would put a PDF together to advertise who you are and what you do, you would not put yourself on that advertising in any way, shape or form, you would not feel comfortable about the price that you are putting on it and that then you would feel awkward about putting that out there and showing people what you do. Isn't that an oxymoron? It's kind of crazy, right? You love being a photographer but too scared to show anybody your work in case they criticize it. You want to be in business but you're not prepared to tell anybody what you're worth, so you're not really in business. So that's what you need to decide. To get the balls to do that, I had to be at rock bottom. I had to put myself out there do-or-die, I'm down to my last 20 bucks, if I don't make this happen, I'm dead, I'm getting a job. So I'm trying to understand what you think your block is there. So when I talked about self hate and the horrible voice of self hate that comes up whenever you feel challenged, then you go to the video and watch the fear video. It had over 4000 views in the last four weeks and it's an hour long, I mean, I watched it. And you know what, I watched it and I learnt something. That chick, she really hit home when she talked about a small mind because when I heard her say that, I was like, "I have a small mind. "I think small in my goal-setting and it's time I opened up "to a bigger goal setting." But to have the confidence to do it, to have the fight to do it, to have the fight to say, "I am going to not only make a PDF that shows my best work, "I'm gonna price it, I'm gonna feel comfortable with it, "I'm gonna believe it and then I'm gonna put it out there "and if anybody tells me it's shit or it sucks "or it's not good enough, I will just accept "that the worst thing that somebody can say is this, "You're not good enough to make money, "you're not good enough to put that out there "and you're not worth $800." Oh, ouch, don't you already say that to yourself. So somebody else is gonna say it out loud to you and all of a sudden that's unacceptable? But you say it every single day to yourself and that's okay, stay at home, keep saying that to yourself. Don't put it out there so that nobody else notices that you suck and you're not worth $ because what they will do is you will hear it from someone else, you will acknowledge that those are really your thoughts. You will acknowledge that you're the one that believes that. Suddenly that will shift inside you and then it will be gone. And then you will sit there and go, "Remember when I first started putting this out there "and I thought I was shit and I wasn't worth $ "and then a few people told me I was "and then I realized it wasn't that bad, "when they told me and that was the worst thing "that could happen to me?" And then you realize you're the one saying it and if you just go, "Ah, that was self-hate." Because my place of fear is when self-hate comes up, tells you you can't do something and then you realize that you can and it has nothing to do with you whatsoever and it has nothing to do with fear because there is no fight-or-flight response, there is only action and mirrored behavior and I was just seeing in other people what I believed in myself. And as soon as you address it and hear it, you no longer feel it. It was like when I did my first CreativeLive, I always talk about this, what was the worst thing you could say about me? She's got no education, she's fat, she's old, she Photoshops her images too much, she is uneducated, yeah, I thought about what were the worst most horrible things you could stand in front of me and say? And I was like, "How do I know that?" Because those are the things I say to myself. They were what I was saying before I got there. I'm too old for this, I've got to stand up in public, I should lose weight, I'm not good enough, oh my gosh, people probably think I shoot glamour and that I'm really shallow and pathetic and I told myself all of that and you know what, somebody did say every one of those things. Across the year, somebody did return every one of those insults to me over some platform and when I heard them, I was like, "Oh that's okay, I get that you would think that, "because I'd already reconciled it in myself." Yes, you are shit and you are not good enough. You decide that, once you decide to get over it, you'll be fine and you know what, it'll hurt when somebody says it, it's like a really, really hard bitch-slap but not as hard as the bitch-slap that I will give you if you don't try. And not as hard as a bitch step you'll get when you fail because you were too scared to ever put yourself in the position where you would hear the worst part of yourself because you're already saying it. You're already saying it, you're already living it and that'll stop you so you will find your value in your confidence this month and you will put it down and you will hear the worst that somebody says about you and that will be one or two people because then 20 people will tell you the best. And they will tell you also the truth because there's truth in something that everybody says. There's truth in the negative, there's truth in the positive. The point is not to be swayed by either. You're the best photographer in the whole country. I know, right? You're shit, you're not worth $800. (sobbing mockingly) I'm gonna give up. You're the best photographer. Neither are true, you're not the best, you're not the worst. You're just doing your best, turn it into service, make it happen. Your shoot session, if you are not educating your client with that PDF on how much it costs and then you show your product and you give service, you do that at the shoot. You don't do that in your PDF. Your PDF is to introduce your dollar amount and show the experience of what you give. The rest is done after you've enticed them into your studio. And then with our viewing and sales session, if you have failed to educate them on the cost of your product or you still have blocks around money and value, which we're gonna go through this afternoon, we're gonna smash some money blocks, then you're gonna struggle. Let's talk about it, 50 ways to market your business, Here's 20, I've got it here, 20. But I could write a book called: 50 Ways to Market your Business and I could design 50 templates to market your business. Do you want me to do that? Do you want me to make it that easy for you? I'll do it, if you want me to do that, I will do that. I'll make it my next CreativeLive. Hell, I'll stay on CreativeLive (members of the audience giggling) until I watch this industry start achieving the way you should be but I tell you something right now, I could do that for you. I could do it tomorrow; in fact, it would bring me great joy. Marketing excites me now because I'm no longer afraid of it. Like any creative, it excites the hell out of me. You know, as a photographer when you get a client walk in and they're really hot, really hot, like there's this cute girl and then there's holy cow, she's got 20 outfits and she looks at you with big open eyes and you know that camera goes on her, you're shooting the folio of your dream. That's how I feel about marketing, that feeling you get when I say, this is gonna be so easy. And now I used to be terrified of marketing and now I'm like, "50 ways to market your business, "I can think of it right now." I was this like, 50 ways! ♪ There are 50 ways to leave you lover ♪ I keep thinking of 50 ways to market my business, I get so excited by that. I will nail that book for you, I'll put 50 templates in it. You know what, nothing will change for you if you don't shift inside. Nothing will change for you, you will not put it out there, you will not finish the design, until you confront why you will not do it. You will not put it out there confidently, you will be afraid, even though you know there is no fear, you will still choose to stay in self-hate instead of push it aside and say, if that doesn't matter self-hate, I'll do it anyway. You will still choose it, you will have a book of 50 templates that you have paid for and nothing will change for you until you shift your own mind about money, fear, value and confidence. And we're giving you the tools to do that, you've had the tools to shoot it. You've had the tools removed for your fear. This afternoon we're gonna remove your money blocks. Your fear and your money are the two things, the two things stopping you from walking that path, walking that true path and you've got to clear it away every day, default set, clear it away again. When I asked you to do a 50-50, everybody has, can you think of one friend that you would ask to do the 50/50 shoot? Is anybody here, does not know a photographer? Does anybody here not know, you don't know any photographers? I am going to do a trade with a videographer, like we've already scheduled it but I don't know a photographer. (chuckles) No, a videographer is even better. Yeah, so you do, you know videographer but you know what, our community is pretty tight. In your area, if you ask me, so I need a 50-50 trade, I'd Facebook that for you and get you 20 photographers that would 50-50 trade you. I wrote four by four shoot out, do you know what that means? I grab three other photographers, hire a makeup artist, two make up artists between you, cost you about $75 each, go to the best studio of the four of you and shoot each other. Feel the poses, practice the poses, do a shootout on each other, build a folio, use the folio, critique each other's images, retouch together, build a folio on your own images, use a profile shot on your PDF or advertising, shoot it out together, do it as a group. Because you can't tell me that you guys don't share, you guys share everything. They're In Bed with Sue page, it's incredible. You could go on In bed with Sue and ask for a photographer in your area and you'd get 30. The good thing about us is we're everywhere because everybody's a photographer these days. Being less concerned about the photographer on Groupon that's selling a $39 Groupon and giving away 50 images, they will not live long and they will not feed themselves for long, that's not your business. Stay away from the negative critical and just focus on what you're doing and how you're doing it. So I want you to go and make your 50-50, book it now, four by four shoot out, book that in and have fun doing it. And protect yourself, sign a model release, work with each other on what's good, what's not good, what we want, what we're doing for each other. All right, let's talk marketing. When I built my business, I gave away free gift vouchers to get people in the door. I have an a la carte menu that started at $ for a five by seven. After the first two years, I removed the five by seven. I realized that the person who was most afraid of starting at 275 was me. I gave away free vouchers and a free makeover and I employed a makeup artist full time and it was all or nothing. I had to make it work and I couldn't even afford to pay her a wage so I said, "For the next two months, "while I'm building money and you're training, "can I pay you $100 a week?" And she said, "Yes." So for eight weeks she worked for $100 a week and within two months, I could afford to pay her then what I did was, I trained her to be a retoucher and we gave away 1,200 vouchers because I went to 10 businesses in my local area, remember that story? Then what happened was we photographed them all, fast forward, four months down the track, we've got $80,000 in the bank and we have got no shoots booked because we were so busy shooting and retouching and learning how to sell, we'd stopped marketing our business because that's what happens, you just go in big urban flows. And all of a sudden, I went to send out 10 more letters and I didn't have anywhere to send because I'm from a small town and I saw a lack instead of opportunity. So there's 180,000 people in my small country town and I had exhausted the local gym, the local spa, the local hair salon, the tanning clinic, the nails, who would I ask next? I had not built a relationship with those businesses. I had used their database and stupidly, not followed it through with anything. So do you think they were happy to see me again? No, what did I give them? Nothing, I didn't build a relationship or a network. I was young and stupid and I didn't know the difference. I wasn't that young, I was 33. So the whole point was is that I got to this marketing plan out of pure desperation. I stood in my studio and I thought right, marketing is creative and I have a creative brain and surely I can think of a creative way out of this. So that's when I got the 20 bits of paper and I sat on my floor and I said, "Give me 20 avenues to market my business." And I wasn't looking at a how, just give me 20 avenues and I wrote this: Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Christmas, hallmark holidays. What's coming up next everybody? Mothers' Day, how soon? Okay, one month. Who's designed a marketing campaign for Mother's Day already? Okay, four of you, five of you. Okay, five of you ready to go. I haven't done mine yet but this is usually about when I posted on my blog from last year and say who's starting their Mother's Day campaign and you will go, "Oh, Mother's Day." Only the biggest free Hallmark holiday, advertising opportunity of the year for free, you could do a Mother's Day PDF for free, pull out the best mother and daughter images you have, blog them, talk about them, tell stories. I could write a story about Victoria, she's a mother. I could write a story about my mother. I could write a story about pretty much anything to do with moms and start putting that out there, linking it onto my Facebook but I'm not gonna put on Facebook: Mother and Daughter Special, $75, six weeks because once you've thrown that out there, you can't keep throwing that out there, that's spam. So what I'm gonna do is talk about the mom, what does it mean to be a mom, find amazing quotes and images on Pinterest, link them to my Facebook page with the source from where they came from, talk about the mom, why the mother and daughter shoot is so powerful, why it's my biggest selling genre, why I love shooting it so much, talk about being a mom, choosing not to be a mom. I'm faux mom, I'm an auntie. It's called sparent, I'm a spare parent. I'm the one that gives the children too much sugar and excessive gifts like iPads and iPods when they're seven and eight years old. By the way, my seven-year-old nephew, I bought him an iPod and he smashed it the next day but this is the best part. Here's auntie Sue, I'm giving them and give the baby some iPods and here you go, you can have one too and he looked at me and he goes, "I wanted a truck." I just spent $375 on an iPod so I put it behind my back and I said, "Well, I can go and buy "you a $20 truck if you want." And he thought about it. I should have known, in that moment, he didn't want an iPod. He wanted $20 truck. So I'm a sparent but that still makes me a pseudo mom. That makes me a faux mom. I love my brothers and sisters' kids like my own children and if something happened to one of them, I would take them, they would be my own. I love them like my own so I'm included in the Mother's Day, I'm a sparent, I can think of a million ways to spin it. I could think of my friends who have lost their moms and that they don't get to have them in their photographs or their generational photographs and any of my friends would tell that story. I photographed this beautiful girl and afterwards, she bought a glamour shoot from the 80s that she had with her mom and she since lost her mom and that's all she has of her and it is the most beautiful thing, this glamour shoot of her and her mom. How priceless, I could talk about that. Think about it, I want you to spin me 50 ways. Now I just gave you at least five really strong avenues just for that one there. So when you tell me there's no opportunity in your marketing, let's look at it further; charity functions. I just did a beautiful video for Jill for breast cancer. I could pretty much go to any breast cancer charity foundation in the world right now and give away gift vouchers there. It would be my honor to do that. The women with breast cancer, I could do that as well but to the people that are there to support breast cancer, the paying clients. I can go to expos and pay to be there and if I'm going to an expo and I find out there's gonna be five other photographers there, I find out who they are, I find out what they're selling and I make sure I am different to them, in what way? Do your research don't just turn up and not be good enough. Turn up and be the best. I can do private events, luxury raffles, gift bags, champagne parties, online gift vouchers, gift with purchase, social media. Social media, I've just put as opening an entire avenue. YouTube is the second largest search engine on the planet right now and most of you did not make a show reel, most of you did not even go to the effort to make a slideshow to music which potentially would have cost you $40 to upload and you could have tagged the hell out of it on your website, on yourself and linked it back to your website. Most of you did not even go to the effort to do that. YouTube is the second biggest search engine on the planet and Pinterest is the third. Pinterest now is so strong, now that they are taking video, it actually overran YouTube's share last year. So more people are on YouTube but more people are sharing their Pinterest videos because you can just pin straight off boards. I'm not even on Pinterest because I don't have a studio team here. I work on my own and I travel. I can't even fathom starting another social media and yet that social media is becoming more powerful than Facebook. Wow! So luxury raffles, incentives and reward programs to your current database, to your staff, to the people around you, referral systems, a community book, database alliances. How do I approach another business? You, for starters, go there and shop. Now at some stage, no matter how broke you are, you need to either get your hair cut, you need to go and do something, you need to buy something small. If you are a consumer, you will get more attention in a business than if you cold call them and try and pitch and sell something. So you have two choices: you can walk in as a consumer confidently and say, "Hi." What was it? "I'm Jessica Adler, boudoir photographer," bam. Not, "Hi, it's Jessica here and I've got this "really great opportunity for you "to give away vouchers to your," and they're already out. Cold call, who wants a cold call? Nobody, but when I pay to get my hair done, the person doing me hair, I have their undivided attention and when they say, "What do you do Sue?" And I say, "I'm a photographer." That's it, I'm already done, home and hosed. "Really, how interesting? "What sort of photography do you do?" Like this, I call it pamper marketing. Really, it's just about marketing on the periphery, marketing yourself and putting yourself constantly when you're in a position to meet a new market. Now Jessica was like, "How do I break into a new market?" You don't have to break into a new market. You break into a new market every day, when you get into an elevator, the people in your elevator are a new market, when you go to a business, when you go to a hair salon, they're potentially a new market. When you go to the gym, the people at the gym, the people going to the gym, they're potentially all new markets. Right there, question? My biggest fear when it comes to marketing is no response and I have... My Mother's Day special, when I posted it, people liked the images, they said, "Oh, I wish I had this with my mom, "I wish I could do this," one inquiry. Okay, did you give away a gift voucher for them to come and do the shoot. So it was the perfume gift with purchase that you did, same idea, so $300 mother-daughter shoot with the perfume. That only works in person, the gift with purchase. Why do you do a gift with purchase? So that you can leave with something. Only works when you're buying a shoot and taking the perfume with you, doesn't work on social media. What works on social media is you connecting to the mother and daughter shoot and then connecting to the stories and everything about it and then finding a way to collect the interested people so the people that are, "Oh my god, "this is a beautiful story," send them a private message with $100 gift voucher and say, "Then do it, "come and do it with me." But you're never gonna get a gift with purchase across social media, that's spam. The gift with purchase only works when you're actually, they're paying for something, why would I pay for that? Because I'm gonna get an $80 bottle of perfume. Oh my goodness, thank you and then you're walking away going, "I got perfume and a $300 photo shoot." So like at a, you've done big... Expos. Expos, yeah, okay. So the gift with pictures with the perfume, we sold close to 200 vouchers that weekend and 200 bottles of perfume. Okay, so think about how you would shop online, what would it take to get you in and you know what, if you did do really beautiful mother and daughter shoots, told stories around it, created a competition, gave away gift vouchers, whatever you did around mother and daughter and you are not getting any response, just from your Facebook, you need to go and talk to people. Now as a photographer who's launched a business, there are women's groups, you can go to breast cancer, you can go to charities, fundraisers, they have amazing dinners where you can go and speak for 10 minutes or half an hour, you don't even have to pay for this. You can go and join those networks in order to talk about it. The first thing I did when I went to the Gold Coast was struggle when I first moved there and then I went to a woman's business group and they said you are not allowed to solicit yourself in the group, they told me after I got there and I'd bought like 100 vouchers in my bag so I thought to myself: you're not allowed to solicit so you're not allowed to go to a woman's group and pound on all the other people there but then I thought to myself, hang on, I can solicit myself in another way, what do you do Sue? I'm a glamour portrait photographer and then I showed my card and they were like, "Oh my god, can I keep this?" Was I soliciting myself? Yes, I guess I was but I didn't do it in a way where I was making people feel like they were being sold to. I did it in a way where I just told people what I did and I just happened to have a kick-ass voucher. You know, I booked a group of women sitting at my table that day that spent $7,000 with me and that shoot saved my bacon because I was down to my last dollars and I was ready to go home. I had really gone back to a mentality of lack, struggling with money, watching money drain out of my account and I can't do this. So I had put myself in that position and I was failing at it and that shoot really saved my bacon. So at an event like an Expo, you actually sell the voucher, for how much? Well, there's the thing, my gift voucher is worth $190 because it's a double makeover and photo shoot plus $100 to spend on photographs. Sorry, 290, the value is and so what I did was I sold that package for $79. And I figured nobody would pay $ for something they weren't getting so I gave away an $80 bottle of perfume but I bought at wholesale for $38. So I figured there was a mentality there and the mentality was I bought 200 bottles of perfume for $38 and we sold 179 double shoots at $79 and we sold 179 bottles of perfume and then the rest we gave away, the last 21 bottles, we just gave away, they stayed in a box in the studio. And the point was is that people felt like they were getting something for their money, that's when a gift with purchase works, when somebody is purchasing something and getting a gift. Because if you look at it from the social media aspect, you were selling money again and giving perfume. You weren't selling portraits, you were selling perfume. Why would you wanna buy perfume that I haven't smelled online? Would you buy a perfume online, if you never smelt it before, why? Why wouldn't you buy a perfume online? Come on. You can't smell it but-- You wouldn't buy a perfume you can't smell. Yeah, right. You wouldn't book a photo shoot you don't see, would you? And you certainly wouldn't book an experience nobody's showing you. Show, don't tell. Don't tell me your perfume was worth buying, let me smell it. So you chose the wrong medium but the right track. It's all right there, let's tie it all up. Okay, staff incentive, rewards program, faces contest, referral system, billboards, business networks, multimedia product, YouTube. The strongest thing that I could do in my business whether you're a la carte, whether you're a package is to create a gift voucher if you need to get your shoots cranking. You need to create the gift voucher. The gift voucher is the conversation that everybody's been struggling with because everybody says the same thing. What if they come in and do the makeover and they don't buy anything. Okay, that might happen to you but it will not happen to you 90% of the time. It'll happen to you maybe once or twice. At that stage there, their shoot and their makeover has been paid for but they still have to purchase their images so if you educate that well, they will purchase their images. They're just getting an incentive to come in. What happens if they do the makeup and don't buy the photographs, then you either failed to educate them or you failed to take photographs that they want because that did happen to me once or twice and every now and then, you don't take the photographs that people think they're gonna get and they won't buy from you, that's the law of averages. That's okay, let them go but the free voucher was the single fastest way to get people into my studio. So what if I did a Mother's Day campaign and I gave everybody a complementary voucher? The trick is to stay away from the word free. Nothing is free, it's not a free shoot. It's a complementary photo shoot and it has more value when it's given away from a third party. Because that means they paid for it, not you're giving it away for free. And that was one of the ways I built my business then as I started to do expos, where people were touching my product and seeing it, I could start selling my product, I could start selling that shoot at a cheaper cost and I still then put a gift with purchase on it. I became a gift with purchase so for Mother's Day, go to a florist, go to anywhere you would think of a Mother's Day gift and ask them, for everybody who spends $50 on flowers, "Can I give you a $200 voucher to spend money in my studio?" Now, it doesn't have to be for a free shoot and free makeover, it just needs to be money towards being spent with you as a photographer. So you could just give studio money and you could say $200 to spend at suebryce.com and if they look and say, "Well, what am I gonna spend for $200?" I'm saying, "Well, that's gonna get you a shoot "and a $100 towards photographs." And then I'm saying it's paid for the shoot, you're gonna get $100 towards photographs and then whatever you buy after that, you already have a complementary shoot and $100 off. Good play on words, right? Okay, let's talk about that because I know that that's gonna be a subject everyone wants to say something about. Also do you want to charge for a sitting fee, a bigger amount and then upgrade your packages or do you want to charge a lesser amount for your shoot? You see, I've never, even when I've charged for shoot, I've never really charged for shoot because when I do the $79 with the perfume, that's a cheap amount but I've never done that more expensive amount for the shoot because I always felt that if they paid $190 for the shoot, then they'd have to pay me again when they choose their portraits and I feel like they're paying me twice. So to me, it was either a complementary gift voucher or a $79 sale with the package, educated in with that service. That was one of the questions I had. Do you feel that since you started out with a gift voucher that you kind of make yourself have to go down that road like I'm afraid that if I start with a gift voucher, everyone's always going to expect that, they're never gonna want to actually come-- Everyone that you've already photographed will expect that and everyone you've already photographed should never pay you for another shoot. Because everybody you've already photographed should get free access to you all the time to rebuy and the point is, is that anybody who has seen you as free and then sees you as priced was only like, "Are you doing anymore of those free vouchers?" But they'll never say, "I was gonna go to her, "she used to be free and now she's $79," will they? Because that's not what happens. So you're pretty much dedicating yourself to do the vouchers but knowing that if you're doing it the right way they're gonna come back to you anyway but for any new clients that you bring in, you're always going either the voucher route or a gift with purchase or is there always some kind of-- Yes, spin, there's always a spin on the come in because it's something everybody wants to do and never gets around to doing. And you don't just wake up tomorrow even when you've got limited income and say I think I'm gonna go and spend $2,000 on photographs tomorrow. You see the experience and you go, "Wow, I've always wanted to do that, "I get the opportunity to do it and yes I love them so much, "I bought them and I'm paying them off." That's just the way it goes, yeah. So would you recommend that we send free vouchers to our past clients? No such thing as as a free voucher. No, but the complementary session vouchers. Absolutely, why wouldn't you? Those people spent money with you. Every year, send them a $300 gift voucher. So what would be the excuse, like should we send it on their birthday? Excuse? No, but us suddenly out of the blue sending them cards. A gift, you're a valued client. Okay. Here's $300, little Johnny must be so grown up now. Here's $300 towards your next portrait shoot, loved working with you last year, warm regards. Handwrite it in a card if you have to. Nobody hits their current database, nobody. I see it, hundreds and hundreds of photographers all doing the same thing, none of them hitting their current database. Alright Sue and just so you know, I think we have about only 15 minutes before our next break. Yes. Okay, cool. So Brenda from Brazil, where in Brazil, Brenda? We hope to know. My struggle with the gift voucher, which I have been using, is they have no commitment to come in because they didn't pay for it. Even if you talked to them about the outfit, et cetera, if something comes up the day of the shoot, there's no commitment. Then you just lost a shot, yeah, you did. And that's exactly right, even if they pay, they sometimes don't turn up but very rarely does that happen, it does happen though. You just roll with the punches. Unfortunately, that is the way of it. Well, and not believe that that's gonna happen every time. Yes, and you know, again, I say it a million times. How many dress shops do you walk into, you try on a dress and you don't buy it? Or you just don't go to an appointment. You had your hair, you had every intention of being there, something came up and you canceled your hairdresser at the last minute? What happens is we hold so tight to that photo shoot that when we lose it, it's game over, life's over, they didn't turn up, I am clearly not good enough as a human being! And I know that you were probably relying on their income, just because somebody booked with you with a free shoot, doesn't mean they're gonna turn up, doesn't mean they're gonna spend money, that's life. I found that when I got more money in the bank, I cared less about who showed up or not. In fact, when I got more money in the bank, it didn't matter, when people would cancel, I'd be like, "Yes, I get a day off." I actually thought that when I got more money in the bank and I realized there's a very different mentality when you've got money as to when you don't. And I'm gonna talk about that after this break because that is a huge one. Another comment from the chat room: Lesley M said, "Did the gift with purchase a few weeks." Oh, "I did the gift with purchase a few weeks ago "at a trade show and gave away bottles of perfume exactly "as you did and it failed. "Most women were so excited that for 80 dollars, "they got a perfume and a makeover with their best friend "but were not interested in the photo shoot. "What did I do wrong?" Okay, did she take really good photographs of them? Did she advertise it as a free makeover, double makeover, did she put the word free in there? Did she advertise the makeover or the photo shoot? Did she show behind the scenes of the shoot? Did she show the price list of the shoot? Did she give it and say, "This gives you $ "to spend on photographs?" Because then the only reason that you would not get that is if you didn't deliver the photograph. Nobody takes the time to come and get the hair and makeup done for $80, trust me on that one. It's not worth it, people don't do that. You can go to the MAC counter for 30. You just do not do it. What they want is they come in hoping they'll get great photographs, if they don't get it, you've fallen down in one of those areas, which one? If she goes back, tell her to break it down? I'm gonna tell her. Was it free, did you say the word free? Did you advertise the makeover but not the shoot? Did you show behind the scenes of the shoot? Did you show before and afters of the shoot and process? Did you show the after package, right then and there? Did you give the price list right then and there? And when you booked the shoot for the perfume and the makeover, did you sell the shoot or did you sell the free makeover? Because when she said it failed, I wanna know how many booked, I wanna know if anybody spent or if they all were no sales and how many were no sales. Because in order for it to fail, she would have had to have had, how many people buy perfume, how many people turn up for shoot, nobody to purchase and she still didn't fail because they paid for their perfume. So she actually failed nowhere. She just failed to make any sales out of it and there was something she did wrong just like Jessica's saying, "It wasn't my fault." So if she breaks it down, I guarantee you, and she takes off those boxes, she went wrong in one of those areas: the way she sold it, the way she communicated it, the way she offered it and what she offered and then did she ask them how they wanna be photographed, did she deliver the product and did she show the product that she was gonna deliver or did she make it about the perfume and the makeup? Because it sounds like they got excited about the makeup, they got excited about the perfume but they never got excited about the photos so she either didn't deliver the service or she simply failed to educate them on that they're gonna have photos taken, she was just so busy giving away the perfume and the makeup to try and entice them. In fact, I would go so far as to say that she didn't believe her product was that good so she tried to sell her product by selling the perfume and the makeup and that's why she sold perfume and makeup that day and not herself. In fact, I would go so far as to say that when she did it, she probably felt in herself that if she pretties up her shoot by giving away makeup and perfume, then she can avoid the fact that she had to sell herself at all and do you know how I know that? Because I already done it, been there. If I avoid the fact that I can't value my own work, I can put a whole lot of pretty bows and bells and whistles on it but I do not value myself enough to sell myself as a photographer. I've been there and done that and you know what, I sold a whole lot of perfume and pink bows and not a lot of photography. I'm excited to hear what Lesley has to say. Yes, so do I. You're not safe at home everyone. You might think that you're safe at home but you are not. You are not safe at home, you are not safe at home if you are talking to me on that chat. Whoosh. Any questions? Isn't it funny, we're talking about marketing and what does it come back to? Value, can't market anything. I talked about fear, I filmed to talk about fear. We put it up on the course page, it's even on YouTube. It's easy to find this on my blog, it's an hour long. I'm gonna listen to it again. When I wrote that keynote, that was the only notes that I took, I figured that these were the blocks. It came down to failure, apathy/non-action, small thinking, negative voice, self hate, a victim mentality and competition and ego. Those were pretty much the words, everybody circled their one word. Mine was self hate and small thinking. I've dealt with the self hate, when it comes up, I stop it. I've been in competition and ego, I've been a victim, not one anymore, I've had the negative voice, which is really just self hate. I've done the apathy and non-action which is really just victim mentality and failure's not really a word because you don't fail at anything, you learn. So is failure really failure? No, she didn't fail at all, she just learned to listen and she'll now correct it and then she will win. You don't win either, it's just work. Alright, there's neither. So the truth is that was the only thing I wrote, I spoke for an hour about that. So now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna speak for an hour about money. And I'm gonna speak to money the same way I spoke about fear in a really confronting uncomfortable way that's gonna make you assess how you feel about it, how you attract it, what you want with it, why you're struggling with it, why you're giving it away, why you give it away, why you don't receive it, why you don't think you're good enough to have it and then you're going to go and do what I did when I first heard all of this. You're going to go and change it and attract it into your world by selling your photography but before we go to the break and we do that, this is the last chance you get to talk to me about marketing and I need you to talk to me about this: in order to hold myself accountable in a studio that had all of these staff, I wrote a one-year plan for my marketing that was based on a linear time line and that was that there. That time line held me accountable throughout the year. The first one, the dark blue line, see, I even color-coded it, oh and by the way, just a heads up everybody, sees my Photoshop videos on 28 days and they're like, "How does she get those rainbow colors?" So if you're in Photoshop and your actions are press, play, you need to go to the top right of that box of your actions box and there's like four little lines, press set, right click on those four little lines and hit button mode, and it goes to button mode and you can color code them in rainbows like mine. Most people don't know that and then you hear a collective, ah, around the world whenever I say that because I get so many questions about that. I hold myself accountable by going, these are the different types of marketing that I can do throughout the year in my business: celebration marketing, which is really Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day and Christmas. And what I'm trying to do is hit Mother's Day for May about here so I can action and start a Mother's Day voucher, Mother's Day PDF, a Mother's Day campaign on Facebook and start doing it four weeks before, which is right about now, everybody's gonna start their Mother's Day campaigns this week after they do their pricing PDF because you're not gonna have a PDF to send out if you don't do both. However, what you could do is a pricing PDF that's around the mother demographic, which is either family first, 50 plus or the mother and daughter shoot, plan it for Mother's Day, get that out there and then you've got a month up your sleeve of shooting incredible mother and daughter portraits until you have to redesign the PDF without mothers and daughters and them not to mention, the amount of folio build you're gonna get over the next month, woo! Then Father's Day was the least interesting of the four and not because it's Father's Day but because at the end of the day, Mother's Day is easy campaign and Valentine's Day is an easy campaign. Father's Day is not as big as the other four but it's still a free Hallmark holiday, a Hallmark holiday dedicated to a billion, 332 billion dollar revenue around the world will occur on that day there and you can be part of it by simply designing a voucher and starting to put those stories out there. The second one was show marketing, expos, trade shows, audience orientated gift with purchase and that was about Girls Day Out, The Home Show, Fashion Week and Big Boys Toyz. These Expos cost us between three and $10,000 per Expo but this one here would net us around $180,000. This one here would give me enough work to get to July because Girls Day Out is an expo for young women and I would get the young women come in with their mothers and that throw marketed the perfume, Expo, giveaway on-site. Home Show was just about home wares, Fashion Week, great expo, not as big in revenue, would cost us around $4,000 to be part of and it would net us around 70,000, half of Girls Day Out, half the cost to be there. This line here, most of you cannot cannot do in a studio is afford to buy these Expos. I'm talking, this was in the second year of my business, taking $10,000 out of that first $80, in our first year of business to do that show was a huge risk for me. That was a huge risk but I did it and it was a massive chunk of our first income and it paid off exponentially. However, I was smart, I looked at my competition. I chose to be in the best position place, I looked at who they were and what they normally offer and what they would offer again. I found out what color their stands were because I asked the show organizers, they were all black, I went white, I put white glossy paper on the walls and made it look like white, I couldn't afford the white glossy walls, that was like another four grand. I was doing my MacGyver Kiwi ingenuity. They all had lots of small framed images. I chose eight massive 30x45s mounted. I took the white leather couch from the studio, I made it look different and then I bought the perfume and I blitzed every studio and their Expo that year and they knew that I was in town because that's the difference, is when you study it and you wanna be better than everybody else and you want to bring something to the table that everybody else didn't have. Charities, events, fundraisers, private, public events. This was all about business to business alliances and then that was multimedia product that I was creating and 98% referral rate, viral marketing campaign on Facebook. This down there when I wrote this. So this was not close to eight years ago, this is now at the top tier, so eight years ago, I wasn't on Facebook and yet I had written this as one of my streams of marketing. So really interesting, isn't it? So when people say how, let's start with your PDF, let's just start there. Start by designing it and communicating it well. All right, once you finish that and you get that out there, then you can start looking at all of these other avenues to share what it is that you do and if you are communicating that accurately, you attract based on what you're enticing people to you and then you get the opportunity to service them, prove it to them, sell it to them, make income. The only thing that's gonna stand in your way here is any blocks that you have around value and money. So let's address them next. Marketing questions before we go? A follow up comment from Lesley M, who said, in all caps, "Sue, you are so right. "We did not sell the photography." She says, "I did love the photos that were displayed "before and afters were great, did not give a price list." "It was so much easier to sell a makeover." (gasps) She was selling someone else instead of herself. She stood there and sold bloody perfume and makeup and the worst thing about that is she did it so greatly, that's what she did, she sold perfume and makeup and never once did she sell herself. Oh, I know that feeling. I know it, and then I watched the perfume and the makeup people just thrive and I got nothing. (members of the audience laughing) Lesley, I hear you, I feel your pain but you are worth more than that. Do not cloud your studio, do not cloud your service with hair and makeup, add it as an add-on to an amazing package that is you. And that is your beautiful before and afters. I cut her off, what else did say? Lesley, you really got Sue fired up here. She said that she sold about 20 bottles and followed up with all the people, only six wanted to actually come in and she's still in the middle of those shoots so she does not have the full results yet. Okay, she didn't fail, she got six shoots. Yes. She has the opportunity to turn that around if she shoots them well. If she listens to them and communicates with them, she could get $1,000 average. She's made $6,000, she could do that, she could get more than that if her process is structured well, I don't know what level she's at but she has not failed. In fact she has learned the most powerful lesson of them all, she has the power to sell, she just sold somebody else instead of herself. Now she turns the power into her own value to sell itself, then she's already there. She is already there, we all have the power to sell when we believe in something. She just didn't believe in what she was selling so she sold something else. Is that obvious, was that obvious when she said it? I did the perfume thing, it was an epic fail, no, it was not an epic fail by any stretch of the imagination. Do you wanna take one more question? Yeah. Okay. One final question, this is from Bridget Lopez from Florida, what if a prospect wants to book but has a specific budget that is lower than your break-even charge and tries to negotiate your product in price, would you still offer the voucher and experience and hope that they will purchase more? No, why would I? I am what I cost. So if my bottom line is 1200 and they try and negotiate 900, I have this joke, because I'm a la carte, so I'm not putting a price in front of people, so people would come into the studio and I had this one woman come into my studio and she said to me, "I know you're expensive "so I've got a budget and it's $1,000." And I could have shot to accommodate that $1,000 budget and just let her go early but I thought, no, you watch. I reckon, when somebody tells you they're gonna spend $1,000, you can at least double it if not triple it because if somebody's already telling you they're gonna drop a grand on you, then they're gonna drop three grand on you. If they're telling that before they see the photograph and so I photographed this woman and her daughter and she was just a peach, I loved this woman, she came back in for the shoot without her daughter which is awesome and I started selling to her and she goes, "I'm over my budget, right?" And I was like, "Yeah, you are," and it was $6,3000. And she goes, "How far over my budget?" And I went, "$6,300," because I was a newbie photographer, shooting in my garage, it was one of my biggest ever sales until the week later when I did my first $9,000 shoot and then I was like, I had garage roller doors, remember? Like dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, those ones, not like (humming) I ways like dig dig dig dig dig dig, bang, with like cobwebs up the side. I used to roll right up so nobody would see that they were actually garage doors and then the doors would be open so I had to put a screen up, just, oh my gosh. So I did $6,300 and she's like, "I'm over my budget, right?" And I was like, "$6,300." And she was like, "Oh well." And I remember thinking, I'd never done anything like that but the truth is is when somebody tells you a price, you can just say, "Ah, but my package is 1,200, "and trust me, you don't have to buy it "if you don't like them." Oh, that's a big one, isn't it? The idea is that I'm a photographer and I've gotta take a photograph of you that you like so much, you wanna spend money on them and my package is worth $1,200. I feel really comfortable with that so when I photograph you, you're gonna say, "Oh my god, these are the best photographs I've ever seen." And it's 1,200 bucks and you get 42 images or whatever your package is and you sell it but trust me, I'm gonna try and blow you away so that you have to give me your firstborn or remortgage the house, make a joke out of it if you have to but value it until they say yes. And if they say, "I can't afford you right now," say, "Ah (snaps fingers) next time, "you know where I am." It's like internet dating, right? You look, you look, you look, no, no, oh, I like that one. Maybe it's a right fit, maybe it's not but the other ones that you passed over aren't crying about it, it's just numbers.

Class Materials

bonus material

Business Checklist
Keynote Part 1
Keynote Part 2
Posing Guide: Set Map and Outfit
Posing Guide: Flow Posing
Posing Guide: Couples Posing
Posing Guide: Curves
Posing Guide: Teen Posing
Posing Guide: Family Posing
Posing Guide: Over 50 Demographic
Posing Guide: Beauty Shot
Posing Guide: Posing Men
Workbook
How It Works
Styling and Wardrobe

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

I have purchased four of Sue's courses and love them all. I have learned so much. I found the lesson on connecting with people thru their eyes has made a huge difference in my photos already. Her before and after's made me cry. I want to be able to take these kinds of photos for my family and friends. I just love what she does. She is such a great teacher. I learn much better seeing things done, so this was the perfect choice for me to learn. I love Sue's humor, her honesty, her detailed teaching and sweet and wonderful personality. Her sessions will or should not disappoint anyone. It is the best money I have ever spent on self-help teaching. Thanks a million creative live. You GOTTA LOVE SUE!

katie
 

Pure gold. Sue Bryce is likable, talented, funny, and an amazing teacher. She calls you on your BS (your excuses for why you aren't succeeding), gives you business, posing, marketing, pricing and LIFE advice. The class is 58 hours long - and you spend the majority of it looking right over her shoulder, through her lens and watch her walk through many, many photoshoots. She verbally and clearly repeats several critical formulas for success so it's imprinted in your mind. Her advice is crystal clear and your photography will dramatically improve after this class. Before Creative Live, you'd NEVER have had the opportunity to shadow a photographer of her quality... hands down the best photography class I've ever taken.

JRomkee
 

I have just began this course and I am excited to see how following her model will help me to improve and get my business started. I have been through the first two days and there is lots of information to absorb and things to get in order before I begin the actual challenges. I am thankful that there are photographers out there who are will to reveal there secrets ad are truly invested in others improving themselves in all aspects of their life and not just their photography skills. Thanks Sue Bryce for your passion for empowering woman and your knowledge of creating and sustaining a business by being true to who you and commitment to the improvement of others! I am excited to grow myself and my business, I am confident this will be worth every penny! Were the templates for the email PDF included in this course

Student Work

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