Lessons

Lesson Info

Baby Plans and Beyond & Limited Editions

Let's continue on. We quickly went through the graduate program and again, I do want to remind you we taught bellies and babies here. Still a program that's available. We taught tots to teens here, so we've covered these two very well in depth, and they're both available on creativelive the full extended versions. But for me, this is my company, and I'm trying to show show you what works. So we've got through the age of five, and I kind of explained that we don't market generally are marketing works up until about the year at eight. And typically the reason we say eight is really just for communion pictures and things like that. We market through the age five and then we'll probably see the Children again if they're going to do communion. After that, we honestly don't see them very much. It's like you see them every year of their life, sometimes up to three times a year, and then they kind of fade away and and that part used to always scare me. But I really, even after raising my own C...

hildren, realize that you go through phases. Photography is really important. When the under five I think photography is important all the time. But I think we kids get busy with their activities, their school. You have school pictures you have. You know, you have those little benchmarks. So it so portraiture is not as important. I feel like after that communion, I see them. Some I have clients were very religious. Every year they do a family portrait, some that every two years, some every four years. What I started seeing about four years ago was high school seniors that were coming back. And they were all of the sudden, the kids that I photographed is my first clients in Colorado, the first baby. So so to me, that's fruition, knowing that maybe they disappeared for a few years. But they never forget you. They never forget what you've done for them. They come back, asshole school seniors. And they know And I hear this almost every day I photograph a senior, they'll say, Well, we weren't gonna go anywhere else. We knew we were gonna come to you. And that's always exciting to know that that that that that full circle has happened. So so going back to the five year old six year olds kind of that end phase that five to even early teens. If you are photographing kids in their early teens, that's when they sort of get into that really that niche of clothing and style, and they're really excited to be there. And I should note to that. I say we market till eight. I do have a lot of clients that have only Children, and I have a lot of clients that I photographed every year because they're an only child. So they come in religiously through eight and nine and 10 and 11 and 12. The one that I've had the longest you Will Be will be doing her 17th picture this year, photographed every year of her entire life. But she is an only child and iconic. I realized a few years back that the only people that go beyond that eight years really are people that have only Children. So if I could come up with a marketing campaign called, you know you love your child the most or you know something I just can't find a way to like politically correctly say, you know, because you're an only child, because those people tend to invest a little bit more a little bit longer. That is their baby. It will always be there, baby, and I see a little bit more longevity with them. Otherwise, the majority of my clients are done by the time they're eight years old. Throughout those stages, though, from 54 to 5 through 13 all of a sudden clothing is really more to the child. They have more opinions on what they are. Their personalities have actually evolved to toe where they even the clothing they choose is very much who they are. I have everything from little tomboys, toe super foofie, little girls that love everything, you know, that's that's all dress up. So So for me, that's when I could start emulating their personality. That's when we were actually really get to know them more so than what their mom or grandma bought for them for their other sessions. It's really important for me on those sessions to know what the final presentation is, where we're gonna hang this on. We very much and very heavily promote the five year portrait as being a major milestone that it does deserve a wall portrait. We also promote three years. Also to me that really pinnacle time. So if we can get a client to invest in a three year portrait, we do for sure by the time they're five, if they're in ourselves room, we're gonna really counsel them that this is the time, especially if they have multiple Children, that this is a great time to invest in an heirloom portrait something larger 24 by 20 by 24 minimum that you can start a Siri's that you have every child when they're five years old. Because that is sort of that big turning point where they're going to start losing teeth and losing those little chubby cheeks. And and that's kind of for me that the last big pork isn't the last big portrait I want to sell them, but it's one that I don't want them to miss, and so we weigh heavily instigate that that emotional connection to why they should do that. This is also fun time because the child can participate in the session and they could make decisions while you're shooting them as well. Now, as far as what sales If I had an entire three days to talk about actual sales and portrait's and what, what clients by what, you know what they're connected to. I would love to do that, but that obviously this is not a sales program. So I just wanted to throw out some of the things that are very popular in our studio wall murals, metal murals, galley wraps, flow amounts. All of these collection type things. Typically, when we show a session a sale to a client, we actually show them not only finished, but we do show them complete gallery collections with their images in them. There are lots of software programs out there that can do this for you. We've created our own templates. They're not templates we sell. We just use them in our studio. They work well for our work, but we have different things. Like, for instance, this is one of our whimsical these the frames that you're looking at are available on You can do, but this is one of the really popular collections. These air, hand drawn little frames and they work great for kids in the 4 to 5 year old range. I don't think I could ever sell those. If I put them on the wall, but they sell consistently when I put my clients Children in them and they see them in their cells. Ishan because all of a sudden they're like, Oh my gosh, that's so cute. I have a wall like that in my house or have a place in my area in my home that I could do that as well. We also sell a lot of albums. We'll talk about that Maurin the senior program. But in addition to regular albums, we have everything from basic line albums, which we use a Bay photo as well as video, and I'll be showing some of those albums in a minute. But this would be what we would consider a standard album, really basic basic cover. Bake basic Inside. These are very popular. We use this type this style album quite a bit for this type of work. ABC and 123 books. I always want people to think out of the box. I know that not every client's gonna invest $2000 an album are albums that I'm going to show you later. They started around $2000. So how do I give the client a benefit of having an album on and not necessarily spending $2000 every single stage in their baby's life. Albums like this work great for the ABC and 12 threes because we're able to give them a lower in product. Both the ABC and 12 threes are things that people start when their babies are newborn and it's a little it's kind of an add on to a regular session. They don't pay more for it, but if they want to do something like this, we just need to know so that we shoot for it. So at each of those stages, Newborn three months, six months, one year were actually pre planning, we'd say, Okay, this is a L T. And Q. And so we have props available for those letters we'll photograph that was a newborn, and then the next one is be so on and so on. That's a three months, six months, one year. So by the time we hit that one year mark, they have a complete album of their child's first year in growth. It also becomes an educational tool. I know when you go to church or the store play group or something. You're always looking for things that your kids can read or do. There's nothing better than a child looking at their own face, their own pictures, and there's nothing better than creating an economical price to do that. So things like this of a client just wanted to buy this. They're expensive. If they're investing in collections and buying other things. We discount this so that we can say, Look, we want you to ultimately have a wall portrait If you're buying a wall portrait, this is, you know, whatever discount price you want it to be to give them the advantage because he's also become marketing campaigns. You understand that when somebody's at church and they're showing their friend their cute baby album and somebody saying, Where did you get that done? That's so cute. That's marketing, and we always want to go back to that. But the most important thing in anything you create is you want to make sure that you have your logo on it. If you're not selling yourself, you're selling yourself short. Honestly, our logo goes on everything that we produce, Period. Nothing will leave the studio without our name and our contact information, which would be our website and our phone number as well. So any type of album program that you can start is great Having a couple different lines so that you could hit all markets as well. With us, we're all about creative album design cover. I'm gonna show you some in a few minutes, but their senior related. So I'm gonna let you wait until we get into seniors. But they do have you could see the ones behind me are beautiful. Everything from classic to trendy to modern templates or the way to go. I mean, I definitely feel like, you know, if somebody can make it easy for you, let them, honestly, I mean, I get customization, but there are some people like I know Madison. We're gonna show her show a little bit later. But when we didn't Madison's her My story, which will talk about We made a beautiful Western sort of album for her. Well, we custom made that album because she had such a cute, eclectic look. That album now is an option for my clients and not taking away from Madison. We would never take a new client just copy her album. We would customize that as well. But now we have the template so we could move things around. Make it unique to that person without redoing reinventing the wheel every single time. Now one of the things that before we move on, I want to talk about because we talked about creating reasons why clients will come back to the baby program. Great version, the graduate program, baby diplomas. A great reason why people will come back to you. But during those programs we want to instigate more sales. We want to investigate more options. Aziz. Well, so one of the things that we're known for our limited edition specials, these air things that we dio during our slow season. We always kind of go back to that. I talk about that a lot. Limited editions are the the I would say, the second bread and butter of my company, Baby plan baby and baby Graduate plan is sort of the foundation of what ideo. But the limited editions have always been that extra fund money on did. It's something that you have to realize this is not a one hit wonder. This is not gonna be. You do this campaign and you're gonna have hundreds of people riding up. This is a bill just like charities. We're gonna talk about later. You have to sort of earn this possibility. So the most important thing with with the limits additions, they have to look realistic. This is something that the mawr riel they look, the more the client is gonna buy into it. But more than that, the more the child is gonna buy into it, they're going to feel like they're a part of something really special. When you're designing sets, you want to make sure that these sets allow for posing options, especially when you're working with big sets. You have to sort of in your mind. No, I'm gonna put the child here, here and here without moving things around. Set building is is time consuming and you don't want to go in and go. Oh, my gosh, that doesn't work. Push things out of the way. Now you've kind of messed up your set. And the biggest thing is nothing in the picture should draw attention to the fact that it's a prop. When I taught fairies, which I believe the next image shows a very when I taught. I won't get a sense Those those two girls are going to show up in a legacy video later her. So remember their faces there in the last video of the day when I originally started teaching fairies, this was probably 13 years ago, Probably more than that. Like 15 years ago, we started shooting fairies and ferries. I, the original creator of the fairies, I over probably a $1,000,000 Honestly, because her idea from that I went Holy cow, this is a gold mine started creating my own, and I built a little dynasty of limited editions off of her concepts and ideas. Now, the one thing that I really caught on quickly as you can't fake it, you have to put a little time and effort and energy and financially invest in these Well, I'm gonna teach you some today that are just a few $ I'm gonna teach you some that are several $1000 Like the ferry set. However, the ferry set has paid for itself. Ah, hundredfold. I would I would never stop doing varies. So for me it was about creating realism and making the kids feel like it was really now I've had. I was about to say, I have students that will come to me and say, You know, I tried your fairy idea and it doesn't work and also you don't send me some of your images soon as I get him. It's a little leotardo with a strapped on little wings with little white, some elastic band showing in a crazy wreath with garlands hanging down. And you know nothing matches and it's very eclectic and there's no realism to it. And right out of the gate, I mean, the problem is not the concept. The problem is the creativity, the effort that somebody puts in. There's no easy button we send up before. It's not just gonna happen. You have to put some energy into it. So so using a set is important. And again, I don't want to overwhelm me with these big sets because I'm going to show you for less than $100 1 of the top three sets that we do is the ballet set. You could get into that for less than $200. It is in the top three moneymaker rehab Bell A sessions sales averages around $1600. So I mean, no matter what your price point is, they are popular items. The fund really is in the fantasy. One of the things we do, even when you're looking at my work, you can't see it. But within this said, I mean, there's a mirror on the floor that creates the realism of water. Well, past the cameras. I there are frogs. There are birdies. There are little bumble bees. There are magical little animals all throughout that set, 90% of which will never be seen in an image. But when a child walks in that room and they see this magical set and all of sudden their eyes get really big and you right out of the gate or saying things like, Oh, my goodness, do you see that frog over there? And they're all into the frogs never gonna make it in a picture. But that frog is a big deal to that child. By the time I get them excited about the set, even a nervous child, I can turn to them. And I could say, All right, now you know what we're going to do is we have this water. Do you see that water right there? Now, don't touch it cause it's magic water. So what I have to do is I have to Sprinkle a little bit of fairy dust on you, and then you could walk on the water, okay? And these kids, they're, like, starry eyed, like freaking out going. Oh, my gosh. Are you serious? So we've got these toddlers in here, and we're, like, faking sprinkling dust. And we're like, Okay, now you can walk on the water and I'll hold their hands, walk them slowly across the mirror, and I swear to you can feel like that squeeze on their hand who and just their eyes get something the minute there toe touches because to them they are walking on water, and it is so exciting. So by the time I get them across the mere they're tiptoeing. I put them up there and they're looking back that their mom going Oh, my gosh. Did you see that? I just walked on water and I was at the qualified. Now, don't ever do this at home. OK, Walking on water only works here, but it's fun because they get very emotionally connected, and then by the time they're sitting in the spot, I need them. They're looking for the bugs. They're looking for the bees. They're looking for that next exciting thing. They don't care about the pictures. That's really secondary toe. Why they're there. They're in at the moment and they're living a fantasy, and it's so real to them. And that's that's why it's such a joy when it comes to building a set, you're gonna have Teoh, you're gonna have to get clothing, and there's some things that you'll need to do, so I try to make it easy, especially this size is a lot of people struggle with. How many do you buy, what to buy, what sizes. So this one's pretty easy because you to start really simple and expand. My first clothing in photography that ever bought were the overalls that you see here and little simple white slip dresses. They'll come up in a little while. I got them all at consignment stores. All of them were used. I spent less than $100 by farming. These were two and $3 items. I bought the sizes that you see, so I'll explain them. 3 to 6 months is one size, and you can write these down, so that's standard size 3 to 6 months. One size 6 to 9 months is one size. 12 months is one size. 18 months is one size. Then you move into the toddler sizes two t 40 and then we go into the bigger kids 68 10 and 12 and then a 14 or a small adult if possible. Most of the work I do. We do not include shoes. There are a couple specials. I have work boots for train days and for the little train days, Fireman and our little construction guys. Eso if you do need to. I also have formal shoes for the we do. Ah, a formal portrait with like full gowns and everything in tuxedos for the little boys. So the shoe sizes that we get from both boys and girls a three of five and 8 10 12 1 and a three and those sizes will cover any child any age. For the most part, the reason I recommend the small adult, I do want to clarify to that the one thing you want to do is you need all of these sizes. In fact, I always recommend a couple of the sizes. The 6 to 9 month and 12 month, if it all possible, get to you will always have twins. Show up, and you will always have Children that are bigger, like you could have a one year old that's the size of a two year old on a six month old sizes of a three month old and sometimes the older sibling smaller than the bigger one. So having a couple extras of the middle sizes are a good idea on the small adults size. You have to keep in mind that sometimes, you know, I've worked with eight and 10 year olds that proportionately are the size of adult. I mean, even a 10 to 12 year old that fits in adults clothing. And you have to realize that when a child comes in, especially at that age, it's a child whose heavy said, or who is struggling with weight. You already know they're going through a life, you know that they probably had some emotional trauma at school, and things have been said, and the very worst thing you can ever do is have a child walk in. That's thinking they're going to do one thing and then not have clothing that fits them because they've already been through that a 1,000,000 times in their lives and they don't want to be the one that can't do something. So I always recommend getting as many sizes that you can just so that no matter what, you can cover all the sizes and that's been put to the test. I've had little girls that air heavyset that I just know that I have an adult's costume that's gonna work even with some pins and things that look beautiful when they feel beautiful. And then they get into the moment and they're not feeling like they're crammed into a small outfit. I've had even a a woman that found me this was years ago, but she found me late in her Children's life, and she was very emotionally distraught because she saw these specials that we do, and she wanted to do them all. She had Children in the ages of 3 to 14 but she felt very obligated that they all needed to participate. So we had a a Renaissance special. That was princesses and little princes. And thank heavens, for whatever reason, I bought a set of male leotardo, You know, like the prints outfit. To get back to this 14 year old boy that shows up on his mom is like, you're gonna be a prince. And he's like, I'm not putting those on me. He had put leotardo on and you just know it. 14. That's not where you want to go. I was horrified for this child, but had clothing fit him that when I almost wish I didn't so he could get out of it. But she insisted that he be in there. So what? I did as she was honestly. So I had to say neurotic. But she was one of those incredibly overbearing parents to where she was all over the place with her kids. He was miserable and angry and frustrated, and I knew that it would trickle right back to my session that I was gonna struggle. And so finally I turned a mom and this is a technique I used all the time, said, Hey, you do me a favor. There is a refrigerator down the hall. Can you go get everybody some water. I just needed to step out for just a minute and she looked at me and she could tell. I was saying No, excuse yourself. So the second she walked out the door, I turned to this kid. I said, Look, to be honest with you, I know you don't want to wear what you're wearing, and I know you are very uncomfortable, but I give you my word. If you will just do what I say, I will make this very fast. You will never have to stand up. Nobody will ever see your midsection. You will be sitting down and I will put your brother and sister on top of your on your lap so you'll never be seen that all you have to do is look at me and give me sauce most. Can you do that? And he looked at me and I said, I'll tell you another thing. If your mom licks your hair one more time, I'm gonna kick her out of here and he bursts out laughing. He's like, really, I'm like, Oh, yeah, I said, She's on my list. So you just sit there and ignore her And if she could someone have some kicking her out and he was like, all right, he was so happy. And And it's not that I want to you know, I'm not trying to get myself in trouble or call Mile, but this kid was that he was so angry of me, like the venom he was projecting towards me and his siblings were really excited. And I just knew this was gonna wreck the whole thing. And as soon as I connected with him on that level and I said, Look, I'll kick your mom out of here He was all on team me and I mean and that it was awesome because he he knew that I wasn't gonna let him down. I was never going to embarrass him, and I just had to say it like it was. I had to say, Your midsection will be covered because, you know, you got a 40 year old standing there in tights. They feel done Honestly, they feel really dumb, and I just wasn't gonna let him go through that. It's painful, and it's not. Sometimes it's not fair that Children have to be subjected to what their parents vision is so just keep in mind that having all of those sizes really are an investment well spent. I told you I'd give you several different versions of specials that you consider. This is one of the economical ones because right out of the gate, the ballet session is something that costs very, very little and sells extremely well. This is one of our highest sellers. It's in the top three. Fairies, Fairies, ballet and fireman are our top three cellars. Just so you know, trains follows a very close fourth. Andi, I think those come up in this show soas faras props for ballet. Very simple things, like a background. It doesn't have to be a fancy when it could be a white wall, if that's all you have need leotardo and tights and all those sizes that we gave you. Ballet shoes are great. If you can get them some tool flowers, a teddy bear in a curtain. That's all we have that and with minus the background, if you're not gonna invest in expensive one, we're talking a few $100. A lot of these things you can get it consignment stores, like usually a tarts and tights. Just make sure you clean him up and running through the wash, and I don't have any problem with that. Are Clinton? We've got some great outfits. We do have laundry in our studio. We have a washer and a dryer. We wash everything every day, but you can see as faras poses very simple. The nice thing about these images, these are very classic images. These air, easy to sell is 24 by thirties, 30 by forties and 40 by fifties. People will invest in them because they look like art. We do have options for oil and changing. You know the texture and look of them. But for the most part, you know ourselves averages air really high on these now for little boys. I mentioned little fireman That's also a great special. In a perfect world, I would love to go to a firehouse and have a real fire truck, etcetera. I've had the ability to do that on rare occasions when I'm photographing somebody who's, you know, the fireman's Children. But other than that, they really won't let you have you know they won't let you make money off of their fire trucks or hang out at the fire station, so it's never really been an option. Now that's a bigger city scenario. I know a lot of my students that I've taught they live in rural towns with like a local fireman is the same guy that was your neighbor that you grew up with, and it's no problem to go have a day at the firehouse. So ideally, the best scenario would be to have real fire trucks. But we don't have that as an option. Now the only thing that you really need for this that we use are the little outfits and those we found online. And I know that my staff is in the chat room, so I'm gonna have them hopefully throw up a link toe where we get those they're not. It's just we find them online and I don't know the name of the place will try to get that to your will. Post it on Facebook. You can watch for it There it's Sandy puts fans, and we'll get it there. So we have the outfits. We have the flag in the background as faras the hose in the helmets that you see. I had a fireman friend that gave me some of those things that were leftovers. We do have real fireman jackets, riel, fireman hoses. We do have real fireman hats, but what we find those way probably £20. You put that on a two year old and they're like So we also have the little fake plasticky hats that are a little bit better for the kids. You know, for the for the younger kids. But the older kids, the real helmets look really, really cool. Very, very popular session. I mean, we've done everything with gels and fog machines and stuff like that, but, um, these sell extremely well. This is also a big player in the game. I skipped this one, but actually the number one this is that I should have said 23 and four were fireman, ballet and fairies because the number one and we don't even consider this really a special. And that's why didn't name it is number one, because this is ongoing year after year. I mean, month after month after month. We call it Spring Special. We start June 15th but we have people in August. That air, like I saw my friends pictures, and they were in these little linen dresses and they were out in the field and it's fallen leaves air coming down. But we're still pulling out the linen dresses and the tea parties and the tea sets and things like that. The swing sets because this is a very, very popular Siri's. So this is actually my number one special. It just doesn't have deadlines. Like the others. Fireman is two or three days a month, one month out of the year, so two or three days total Bali babies we do once year fairies. We do twice a year, spring in a fall ferry spring special. We started in spring, and then it becomes false. Special kind of rolls into itself because people like it. It's so popular now, the props for that. This that outfit, these office that you're looking right here. Those were the first outfits I ever had in photography. Those air, the overalls and the little white slip dresses all about it. Consignment stores to get the sizes that we looked at were well under $100. I made more money off of overalls and little white slip dresses than any costume I've ever had, and to this day I still have to pull them out. I hate overalls and little white dresses by. It's like the punishment, but I really don't. But it's but it's just one of those. This is 25 years of photographing the same outfits over and over again. But I will have people that say, You know what? My my mom's mom brought her kids, they're like grandkids, you know that we're being being brought in and they want the same thing. So So we definitely do our best to continue that, and I don't. But every year we add new clothing, Um, so that for me, I have some new variety, but almost always it ends up going back to their a few little tips you can't really see it in This image is well, but ah, lot of times like Colorado doesn't have a field of flowers. So things that we do to make that happen, we buy like those little fake daisies like tons of them. And then in the morning when I start shooting, I just walk out and I just hurled them in the ground like harpoon them into the ground and all of a sudden you gotta feel the flowers. So almost every picture you ever see if kids in a field of flowers in my studio their man made flower fields and it works because remember, you're only shooting in a small area, so it gives it that depth and that dimension that clients are looking for. So very simple. Overall linen dresses, flowers, tea sets, hat wreaths, wagon swings. Its not up there, but fishing poles. We also do a lot with fishing poles in this series, so you can kind of see some of the dresses and things different. A variety of things that we have now those feel the flowers. I did not harpoon all those in there. I should say that one is not but the other little girl on the swing. You can see a few little white daisies there that kids in the upper corner with the swing Little white daisy. So So this just becomes the endless special, and this stuff stays in my truck at all times. I always have these customs always have these props because any day it will save me. If if I a client shows up with polka dots and very rarely do Con Station, so it doesn't happen very often. But if their idea of a good outfit is not in line with what I feel is going to sell a wall portrait, I will photograph, respectful either outfit. And then I will switch them out a little bit later. So Spring special is very popular. Another one that is in the top five is Field of Dreams. This is a little baseball special, these outfits, the original ones we designed. And then we found a couple companies to design them for us. And I'm not even sure Barnes Portrait Clothing carries them. And they were one of the companies that picked up the line, and there was another company called etcetera, and I don't know that they're in business anymore. But the outfits try Barnes. They were definitely a great resource after we designed them. They we said them to them and they made identical copies of them, which is really nice. So so the nice thing about the baseball is it has that vintage look, and this is very popular with the dad's dad's love, the whole baseball theme. It's cute because the little girls can participate, too. It's nice every set we have Congee, boy or girl Fireman. We put girls environment with braids all the time. Super great seller. Most of the people that come to the specials are like fireman. 80% of the sessions we shoot they their dad as a fireman, Grandpa was environment there. A fireman. That room is in a fireman motif. They have something to do with the fire department baseball usually is tied into. Dad loves baseball. He loves baseball. Grandpa loves baseball. The kids go with grandpa, watch baseball. So there's always an emotional connection to all of these. For the most part, I haven't met anyone. That's a fairy yet, but im sure theres some emotional. But otherwise the rest of them there's always something behind it. Now the prop list again. Super simple. Besides the uniforms. Ah, ball about a glove, some baseball cards of flag. Um, it, I mean, it's pretty simple, extremely popular. The clients love them. It sells really well. We always shoot for collages, collections, things that are going Teoh, you know, are going to create impact in that are going to create out on sales as well. So So that's kind of it. I mean, there's only five of we have over 23 specials that we run. I don't run them every year. Some of them we toggle off way, have a lot of clients that get into the baby program. And by the time they get in graduate program, they will ask us to map out their Children's specials because they always say, When is the best time to do this? And you know, like I want to do the You know, the Little Harley special. I want the fireman. I want the train museum. And what kind of say, Well, this age, this is easiest cause it's indoor and their little And then at this age, it's outdoor. We could do this so we actually start to map out people and they'll put it in. Their client knows they'll say Okay, they want to do this. This and this, and then we keep record and we can call them and say, Hey, don't forget, you know he's four this year, a great time to be the train special. So So we're very proactive in getting people to committees because we know that it's easy to forget us. We don't want people to forget us, so we try to follow through