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Branding and Marketing Overview

all right, so we're 15 years again. We're kind of like I said, We're creating stepping stones here and we're creating What I for me, it's exciting because want to get to the end of this day. I know that tomorrow is coming in. Tomorrow is where we get into marketing. What I'm really known for in this industry is marketing. People peg me in the baby and Children world, but the truth is, I kind of shared some numbers. And again, it wasn't to brag and boast. But what does it take to make a $1,000,000? You can have all the passion and vision in the world, but if you don't understand marketing, you can't do it. And my company's success was all based on marketing the 1st $1,000,000 that we ever want to cross that $1,000,000 mark. I didn't do any teaching. There was no cause. Everybody always says, Oh, well, she's a speaker. She makes millions doing that. That's not true. The 1st 1,000,000 I made, I was just a photographer and so it can be done. But it all circled back to marketing good market...

ing, strong practices, and that's where we're going. But In order to do that, you have to have a business foundation. You have to have a name for your company. You have to have the paperwork done. You have to have a business plan and so on and so forth. So this gets exciting because now we're gonna slowly evolve into things that I think you're gonna really enjoy. It's kind of the fun side of this. I do want to remind all of you though, that take the time that you've been given today, especially you folks, because you're here in the studio. You have a gift of time right now and you can use it two ways. You can go to bed early because you're exhausted. You go out and play, which I don't blame you. This is such a beautiful city, funky city, but a beautiful city. Craziest energy ever. Or you can take this special time and use it to build your business. And that's really why you're here. So if you need help, I'd love to stop by and at least chat with you and hang out and we'll have some fun. But let's let's get really serious here. We'll save our fun night for the last night. So moving forward, we're gonna talk a little bit about branding where it's gonna come be covered mawr tomorrow in marketing because they kind of tie hand in hand. But let's just at least that the ground working we've got some homework for you because it wouldn't be simply didn't so, first of all, with branding, it all has to do with your style. Who are you working to try to create an identity? An identity is an extension of who you are. If you were to look at me just based visually off of what you see, I guarantee you could pull a color palette Adami, for sure. So you probably could pull a genre out of Mia's Well, like a styling or sort of Ah, look, I have been wearing black since 1980. Something I've been I was truly the little punk rock girl you know, Salt Lake City punk way back in eighties, and and I, for whatever reason, have always had the need to get attention into stand out a little bit. Eventually, I realized that I didn't have to be a tough kid or, you know, I didn't have to stick my neck out there all the time that I could do it in other ways which building a business was one fun way to do it. Teaching and giving back is also a way this this definitely feels my need for attention. I'm sure the funniest part about that is I'm actually and this is the honest truth. Anybody that knows me will tell you I'm not just an introvert. I'm an extreme introvert. I am very uncomfortable. One on one with people. I have a really hard time. I get nervous and uncomfortable. You put me in a room of 1000 people asked me to talk to talk about photography. No problem. Asked me just to talkto one person about something just everyday average life. And I get very, very nervous. I'm one of those intense people that sits at a dinner table and says something and then the whole rest of the dinner I'm like, Why did you say that? You sounded so stupid. Oh, my gosh. You have. You know, just go home. You look so dumb. So you know, it's that extremes. I'm always on that extreme. So So part of my branding and looking style. I had to look outside of myself and say, OK, this is what I think I am. This is what I think my clients think I am. They're actually very different. My clients, like most of my students, actually think I'm a very outgoing, gregarious, fun person. It's not that I'm not, but my natural tendency would be to pull back and avoid people in situations. So so taking parts and pieces of what I think I am, what they think I am in building a brand in the style, I'm wagering a bed. If you try to figure out what my look of colors were, you'd probably go with a dark blacks and reds, probably and and dark, neutral colors. You're correct. Earthy, browns, dark, anything earthy that feels home and warm. It is nice to me. Other people I tried. I tried to convince myself about five years ago that I was gonna totally mix it up and go light and bright and all white and blue and different colors. We didn't even get through the design phase in that, and I was like, This is not me. This is. I mean, I'm trying to be all these photographers like if you look at magazines and there's lots of great magazines right now and lots of women type magazines and things and I don't fit into that bubble, I sometimes think I want to cause I feel like the outsider. I'm so old school and you guys were all not and you kind of feel the same way. But I'm just not that girl. All these actions and fluffy, you know, I'm a portrait artist have been for a long time. I have a look in a style, and I have to kind of take ownership of that. So we want to talk about your branding. Each of you know, I could look at you and I could tell you a lot about yourself, what we do as photographers. We actually read people, and we read them very well. I can look into your souls right now on. You wouldn't be here if you weren't beautiful people. Because I believe that energy collects energy. And I believe the people I surround myself with are beautiful people. And I'm very particular. You were all chosen. And believe me, you were chosen because of what you said something you said touched me and made me. And don't start crying again. You're killing me. Look at that. She is going right now because something you said touched me and I felt you were supposed to be here. So you know, it's Muchas. It's a gift to you. It's a gift to me because I'm taking from you, too. Um, I don't know how we're getting down that path. I'm leaving on emotional kick here, but it's really important. Understand that as you as you place your foot in the branding pool, you want to make sure that you're honest and true and are are really good to yourself because I tried to be somebody else. It's just a waste of time. You have to have to be true to you. So your marketing has to have a consistent look, a design in a style, and it has to be true to you when it comes to branding. Everything about your studio and marketing should have a consistent looker brand from the color palette used in your studio decor to the design elements used in your marketing pieces. Everything should reflect the brand you are putting forward. Branding is really your benchmark. Its how you create that 12th you know, wow factor Branding makes it easy for consumers too readily recognize your brand when they see it. It also dramatically increased increases. The stickiness of your marketing message Stickiness is a word I want you to remember, because stickiness is how they determine where they're going to go now. Used to be old school marketing rules where people had to see you three times before they would make a connection with who you were and what your brand stood for, They say. Now, in the world that we live in, it's up to five times people have to hear about. You have five times before it sticks in their brain. So the question is, how do you get your name out there five times? How do you get people to see you five different times tomorrow we're going to cover all of that. It's through good foundational marketing like displays and Bert mention a lot of things, he said. Displays are huge referral, marketing, etcetera, teaching. There's just so many ways that you can get your stickiness toe happen, and by tomorrow I'm gonna give you about ways and you're gonna pick three or four and you're gonna commit making some of those happen. So stickiness is really, really important. We want to make sure you stick, because ultimately your response rate is going to be based on how they remember you on but who you are. And it's and it's a personality issue more than it is a business issue. So I'm not gonna go. As I said, we're gonna cover branding and marketing mawr tomorrow and all day long tomorrow. But do you want to be a little piece of homework? Because it's kind of a fun when everything else that done business plan is daunting in depressing. So let's get some pretty artsy stuff and that way already like me. Still, because that's ultimately what it's all about is people liking you, right? So what we want to do is I want to challenge you to design a color palette we call the mood boards or color boards that represents you, that that is a reflection of who you are now in the old school way. We used to teach. This is we would bring in 10,000 magazines and give you all scissors and we'd spend an hour and 1/2 playing, you know, cut and paste craft, which we don't have to do this now because with digital technology, it's super easy to just grab. Open up a word document, pull some pretty colors and some things that reflect You're looking your style and start building them. So this is kind of a fun exercise, but both for you and the virtual audience I would love tohave. You find a mood board and find a color. One of the best places T Mood shop is Pinterest. You can cheat and you confined whole entire boards. They're set up and you say, That's me and just copy it. But I would really love for you to emotionally connect to the visual pieces that you're seeing, because ultimately that sort of all intertwines into who you are. It's easy to say I like purple, so let me just pick all these purple things. But why do you like purple? Is it because your grandma used to grow lavender bushes and that reminds you of your grandma? I mean, there's there's more to it than just then just picking a color. It's It's a whole lot more than that. So here are This is this is that time that I was trying to be light and fluffy and this is what this at that time, that was my graphic artist. I said, Let's do something totally not me. Let's go out of the box here. And so they came up with these mood boards and I guarantee you can already tell which one I would go with Natural. And it's still not dark enough. But this is the one that I immediately was drawn to because this felt like and it was more of one of those the best of the worst. Because if you put me in a light and bright area, probably go for the darkest thing in the room. But this is the one that I felt like representative me. So if you were to go to my website right now, Sandy pushed dot com, you would see a lot of this reflected in that because this is the design palette that we were using for the studio at the time, we were doing a full renovation of the studio where currently and now that I'm moving now, I have to decide am I gonna I still like this, but I'm not gonna come up with a new mood board because to me, it's a new change that I want to start all over again. And even though we never got anywhere officially with this except the website, you know, it already feels like it's time t try something else. So So this is your homework. The last piece for you tonight. You're all going to design a mood board. I don't have to get too fancy honestly, A word document and drag and drop some things in the word document. It's very simple. It's actually really fun. I would love to see the final pieces for you. If you could even posted on Facebook, we could pull it off of there and I can stick it in the show. So maybe some of the virtual audience could see what you guys come up with. You guys are gonna be up a long time tonight, right? This is a fun one, and I would love for the virtual audience as well to see if they come up with the mood boards. We'd love to see as much of this homework on our site. as well as creative life side. It's on Facebook, Sandy pushed fans is our Facebook page. But I don't get to the Creative Life site as much as I check my own Facebook all day long. So I'd love some feedback there as well. If you posted, please realize that will probably stick it in the show. So you be comfortable. I think if you put on Facebook, you gave it to the universe anyway, So I can't have any guilt over there. But we do want you to post it on Facebook. Even you are all eligible toe win. So if you guys want to get it done and posted up on Facebook, we're gonna be giving away some prices tomorrow. We'll make a quick little announcement in the show as to who posted. So we're going to, ah, homework review in a minute, and we'll hopefully get all of you guys doing that. So that's, uh, homework number four or five, I think is a five who? Sorry. It gets easier. The last ones, like cookies and milk. It's not even that hard. All right, so when it comes to marketing literature again, we're gonna go into marketing heavy, heavy tomorrow, but the things that are most important to me, it has to be professionally written. That is why I created as few are forum because we had professional writers that write the literature we produce for photographers. If you do not work with templates or professionally written uh uh, templates, then I strongly encourage you to find somebody you know that writes well. If you have an English teacher, that's a friend or somebody that you know is really articulate. It's so critical toe have things checked and double checked because you have to understand when you mail something out, it represents you. And a simple dramatic error can make you look very foolish. There's nothing worse than having a client point out an error. You could. You feel dumb once, and then you have to think about the other 1000 people. You send it to that you look probably dumb to them, and it might be minor, but people take that very serious. If you sound uneducated in your literature, people will assume that you're uneducated, and that's something that it's an easy fix. Just asking somebody to proof, read it and then maybe ask a second person or you can obviously hire somebody. The first people I ever hired to do professional literature were professional writers that could get a little pricey. Honestly. So now they have places like Craigslist. You could find writers that do things like that for pretty reasonable price. Your your literature should be clean and simple. It should have a consistent look and feel throughout it. And the one of the other important things is showcasing your best work whenever I dio mentorships with people that they do our private classes. One of the first things I asked this See their website? Because I'll tell you, if I get to your website and I see tons and tons of pictures of the same child, I know it's yours. So it's like and you have to understand that if I know it's yours, then you're the consumer does, too, and no offense to moms or dads with cameras. But if your website is nothing more than a bunch of pictures showcasing your Children, your client's gonna see through that. They're going to see that as you're just a mom with a camera dad with the Cameron and we're looking for a professional message. I would rather you take one a strong image of your child, and then I don't even if you only had three beautiful strong images. I'd rather see three really powerful images than 50 mediocre to average images. And that's where you really have to get become a strong editor. Don't get me wrong. I stick my Children in as many places as I can, but I try Teoh. I try to balance it with other work and other families. If you don't have any for just starting out, you don't have other models. It's okay to use your family, but I guarantee you, if you're really dedicated, there is a whole lot of people that would let you abuse them as models. And you may have to sacrifice a little time, sacrificed a little money, but it will give you that stronger portfolio. Here's some examples of some business kits these air just kids that we have on you can do. But just to give you an idea of not so much the palate but what is included in that as faras. If you're creating a business kid, you're gonna wanna have everything from your referral card your thank you card. You're labels your frame stickers, your postcard, your business cards, envelopes, brochures. Everything has that same consistent that continuity throughout it. So when you look at that piece, you recognize that photographer you recognize that brand way have different styles, but you can see there's a style for everybody out there, and you want to create your own unique brand, your own unique look. But you need the continuity across the board. One of the questions I get with SP we produce all your marketing for you, and we produce different marketing literature all the time. People always say, Well, everything so eclectic Are we supposed to use all this? And what we tell them is Look, all of these air based on they're templates so that you can customize it to your color palette. They all are layered Photoshopped files. So you do want Oh, just because we create something like I have my artist. They create something cute that's Pink and Brighton fun, and I think it's adorable. But I reckon I realize that it's not my style, like you really want to stay true to your style. So when you're shopping for templates, out there in the universe try to keep a consistent message. The bottom line with branding and building a marketing structure is really it's all about the attitude. It's all about what you believe and how you project. I don't mean to offend anyone, but I always say Those of you who say it can't be done shouldn't interrupt those of us who are doing it because that's I don't sound. But it's true. I have a naysayer. I'm the 1st 1 to say No, it won't work. My clients wouldn't do it. I did that for years and years. I could go through every single major change in my company that made us money. That was an increase. Things like prepaid session fees, things like going to projection with cells. Those were all things that I swear my clients would not do the Saturday thing. There's no way my clients will leave me. You know what all I did when it happened When I made that change, I just made more money. Every single one of them brought more to the bottom line or gave me more time, which to me is more valuable, so so they can be done. There is something to be said about people who? The pioneers before you. I mean, people like, burnt myself. We've been there, done that. And we've already made the mistake. So definitely learn from our mistakes. You are your business. You never know when you're gonna come face to face with a client or have an opportunity to gain a new one. And that's that's that whole encompassing. You are your business. You are your brand. Your name, your look your style right down to the things you wear. Believe me, people are going to recognize you, like at the airport with no makeup on yesterday, Thank you very much. And I got off the plane going go to the bathroom, putting makeup on, and then I thought, No, I'll just get to the hotel. So there is actually one student in this room that knows what I look like without a face on. Still shaken about that whole thing. I can't even look at you, but you just never know. You never know when you're gonna meet somebody. I went into a store the other day and I went to pay for something. It was it was one of those places that pre make the males. And I was trying to cheat, and I had it on my credit card and she looked up at me and she's like you. That photographer and I was standing there in shorts and a T shirt, feeling like a dummy, but, you know, she recognized the name. And then we got into a great conversation, and from that conversation, standing there in shorts and a T shirt, we got into a display conversation and she wants to put up a display temporary display to dio prize drawing. So so you just really never know. Not that you have makeup on it all the time, but it's something to think about. All right, we have a pop quiz. So for those of you who have the book go to page 23 to we're gonna go through now again. Normally, in my longer classes, we would actually have you draw homework out of this, But I don't want you have plenty of homework for tonight, so we don't have all the time in the world, so I'm just gonna go through these. These are goals and affirmations. If there are some of these that you feel very strongly about. You can make them a commitment, put them in your salsa box and make it happen. Number one I have written down my dreams, goals and ideas in an organized and detailed list. Number two. I have created reasonable deadline and listed them next to each item. Number three. I've researched and understand how to create a solid business plan Number four. I have completed my business plan, and it includes the business description, marketing, finances and management number five. I understand my business structure. I am forming my business as a You fill in the blank blank. What type of company? LLC, etcetera. Number six. I have selected a name that tells my clients who I am, and it will not be dated. My business name is blank. Fill in the blank blank Number seven. My business name clearly defines what I do. Number eight. I have registered my business with the state government. Number nine. I have designed my studio space, and I have planned a reception area studio, a dressing room production area and a sales or consultation room. Number 10. I have decided to have a home studio or commercial studio number 11. I'm a member of P p A. Or have researched information about becoming a member number 12. I've established room to display my work. I understand that you sell what you show, and the display sizes are appropriate for the spaces I have designed. Number 13. I've created a system to organize all aspects of my business, including studio space, client tracking and order tracking. We talked about that today. Order Tracking will talk about on Day three. Number 14. I've invested in studio management software software, and I understand how to use it. Number 15. I have researched insert insurance options and I have proper coverage, including. And of course, we listed all of these types from business liability to key employees. Number 16. I have selected an accountant that understands photography and works with similar business sizes and types. Number 17. My C p. A. Is licensed. I have interviewed them and they're good fit for my company. Number 18. I have set up a business account specifically for my business number 19. I have saved up the money or acquired any loans I may need to start my business number 20. I have identified my target market, and I practice regularly to become an expert in my chosen niche. Number 21. I have applied to the IRS for an employee identification number. Number 22. I have researched my state and local requirements for permits and licenses related to my business number. 2023. I have an educational plan that includes reading, webinars or attending events that will further my business growth like creative life. Edit that 24. I plan on becoming a certified photographer by and set a deadline. 25. I'm sorry, 25. I have started a branding plan and I have collected samples and ideas for marketing. That's your color board. And 26. I have a great attitude. I love my job, and I look forward to great success. So I know that we spew those out really quick. You guys have this listed? The reason we put this in this order is you are supposed to go through this and check mark these and fill in the blank. So if you get stuck on something, that means that's what you should be working on for a virtual audience. I know that's really fast. And again, if we had 50 days, we do these together. Wanted it time. But take what you can out of that. If if two or three things stood out as things you need to be doing than those air, probably what should be your next tasks. So let's work on those together. I would love to hear some feedback on what people choose. That's why I picked the homework. Instead of telling you usually I would say you picked the ones you want to work on. I picked the five things that I felt were most important for you.