Lessons

Lesson Info

Creating a Workflow

we always say, just like the marketing calendar. In order to figure out your process, started the end and work your way back to the beginning. So we do that sort of methodically we're gonna deliver Portrait's. Well, how are we gonna deliver? We're gonna put in packaging, So when we're going to get them from the lab, we document that and bring it out. There are two things I am going to throw out there that I do think are important that our Khanna sales base or or client base that we're not gonna go too deep into is we do have a client invoicing system. Clients are assigned a unique number. We do track the Children's names and ages and birthday so that we can keep track of. It's great for the senior marketing so that you can see who these babies are and when they grow up. The most important thing that I wanted you to get out of this, though, is that model release every single point. When I said that every client will do a consultation 10 times that every client will sign a model release.

I will not photograph a session without a model release Signed period ever. Never, no way, no how it has to be addressed. Addressing the consultation because I certainly don't want somebody standing in my lobby all dressed up with five kids ready to go and battling that they're not going to sign a model release. The only people to ever bottle it are, ironically, or lawyers. They always come in and have a beef with it, and they always start crossing things out. And I have to tell them, you know, it was mentioned in the consultation, and our associates have to check off that they've had that conversation will say it has to stand. Is is there concern is usage of their Children's images. I explained to them that I would never blatantly use their Children's images. I explain in my marketing materials and the things that I do in the studio. I do not ask permission. However, when I go national or international travel and teaching, I do ask permission. But no matter what, I'm protected. No matter where I use my work, no matter what I'm using four. I am protected now on the other side of that, I would never take advantage of a client. If somebody like Cannon contacted me and wanted an image for a magazine, I would never just pick a cute child. Even with the model release and use them, I would contact the parents and ask permission. So keep in mind that I consider my studio marketing fair game anything I'm marketing for the studio. I have a model released anything that's commercial base that I would be selling or using on a global level. I always go back in and ask permission. But you know what the bottom line is, No matter what I know every single image. I'm protected. I have a record of it. And I if I had more time, I would tell you stories that are just, you know, that the clients get very, very adamant about this. I do have on rare occasions, clients who are very well. It's not rare occasions, but I have some clients who are very well known who do not want their images used publicly and so we do make them sign their release. But we also sign a commitment form that we're not guaranteeing this. But the minute there session is done, we will destroy all of their files. There will be no record of them whatsoever in the world. So we make it very clear whatever you're going to buy, you need to buy now because these will be destroyed. Much as I love famous people, and I would love to show them off and show people that I photographed them. I would never want Teoh harm or put somebody in harm's way. And if they feel adamant that it is a dangerous situation, I wouldn't do that. Most of the sports figures and the people that I work with, they can always come in with with the whole. You can't use my work and then after a few sessions there, like absolutely do what you want. I mean, we become friends, and that's when you feel like you've really made it so So the only thing I really wanted to get out of this was that model releases critical. You guys have it in the book. It's already in there and foreign formatted for you. Moderate leases could be found online as well. Just make sure you have a lawyer in your community. Look it over cause every city, state and region is a little bit different on what you can and can't do. I mentioned it before, but I do. Since this is not a sales seminar, I do recommend that everybody go to pro selected, downloaded. It's free 30 day trial. It's the best software out there when it comes to sales, so check it out. This is what we use for all of our sales. We've used it for, I believe, 10 years now on, I wouldn't really recommend anything else in our offers. They did have a 20% off the purchases and upgrades as well. So we've kind of skipped the sales part and I apologize. I think we made it clear that we wouldn't be going into that. So now let's just assume that we've worked with our client. They place their order. Now we're gonna do the production piece to this. So we talked about this already, but we use color coded job tickets. Everything is color coded so you can see that we have events, reorder seniors, families. We recognize what they are and what they mean. Anything in a red folder is a V I. P. And so, of course, we keep track of them by months, you can see are very fancy cardboard dividers. I used to spend hours cutting out pretty dividers and, like I wanted him all perfect and using highlighters and making them all pretty. After a while, I realized that they sit there for a year and then we box them up and have to put them in storage. And so now I just use the cardboard that comes from the lab because it's just easier, cheaper, and I don't lose any waste any time on something that no client ever sees. The whip been is what we use. Once a client goes, once a client has placed the order goes and whip, which is work in progress. One of the things that we teach our students is we have two bins for work in progress, the current month and the previous month. And what happens is when we place orders with the lab lab. Turnaround time is what 4 to 8 days, usually no more. So when the current month or all the current orders, we've said toe lab, Well, if it becomes the next month, we move those over to the previous month, and then what happens is we start filling up this been this one should empty itself. And if about a week and 1/ into the month, if there's still any orders and there something's wrong, this is a little safeguard. I know it sounds silly, but that little safeguard has saved us so many times. Come Christmas time when you see ah hanging folder over here that doesn't like it's Why is why do we not have this back from the lab? It's gonna become a flag to you. You're gonna look it up. I mean, I have to tell you, there's been Christmases where somebody grabbed a stack of folders and file them as finished orders and they never went toe lab. You don't want that on December 23rd you know somebody calling you and you going? Oh, my gosh, we never took the celebs simply having those two boxes as silly as it sounds. What happens is within a two week period, we know that, OK, that months done, everything is good and everything's there's no problems there. So these are the little things that you learn over year have two year of the year. We do have an imaging department which Of course, we have their three different people that sit in this room on different on the different areas, and they do all the emerging kind of explain what you're looking at. But those air those the roots of trees and up above the rooms, the graphic room above had all the trees. So these are the vampires. They live in the dark. So the image So those little holes, you see the ceiling, those air wormholes. So we have a lot of fun decorating and making messes of things, and it all makes sense to us. Everything is very well documented. When a frame, like of a client orders of frame A soon as the client is ordered, the sales associate is not done until she's gone through and ordered all of the product lines that are supposed to be anything additional, like a frame has to be put on the frame sheet and has to be ordered. We need to order our frames before a same time that the job is going toe lab. That way, the frame which takes longer is back in time. If you're gonna do that, if you're gonna sell frames, you have to have a place to store them. So keep that in mind. You're gonna have to have some frame storage. The good news is we've already talked about this signing your prints yesterday if you were with us, we talked about signing your prints with a stick or a pen or the pilot pen on. Extra fine point on. And you can see that we hand sign anything 11 by 14 and larger. So we do have a small framing area available to do that. And then, of course, I'm sorry. The first bins that we showed you were the going toe lab. These are the sent to a lab, odd and even months. So as things come back in, we file them to be to be processed, to go to the client. So just to give you an idea of what the what the whole production room looks like. You can see our big print, sir, in the upper files. And then I'll show you in just a second. Where are smaller prints? Go. So we have a framing table, which is that first table? We have a packaging table. We have a computer for checking in and then of course we have storage. But keep in mind, we're a big studio. We process a lot of work. All of this was in my master bedroom in my living room when I worked out of my home. So So it's nice to have this kind of in for this kind of space. I can tell you right now that the building I just secured that I'm moving into the production room is about 1/3 less. Somehow, I told you, I'm condensing Go that garage. Still you guys were all shopping at. Please take my stuff because I got too much. But it is kind of refreshing to start all over because you start to realize that you do collect stuff. There are things on shelves in that room that haven't been touched for the five years we've been in there. And that's where you start to go. Okay? Do I really need this? All right. And finally remember those ticket those job tickets from you line these air the bigger version there. Big packaging. And this is what we put our files in that come back from the lab. These hold 11 by 14 and larger. So when they come in from the lab. We check them in on the computer and slide them into these color coded folders. Red is V. I, p blew his family green, a senior and so on. Anything at the front of the bin is a V I. P. Always because that's usually they were missing a five by seven. Or we need to re order something So those always sit in the front because those are the things that need to be a processed first. Then, of course, I showed you how the frames glance. Never see this. But when a client comes to pick up the thing, I want you to notice those little boxes those air also purchased at you line. They are slightly larger than 11 by 14 and about two inches thick. This is again one of those. Like if you do this, your life becomes so amazing. These boxes hold 11 by 14 and smaller. Most of our orders are 11 by 14 and smaller with one large wall portrait. So what happens is when we process in order, I will show you everything goes into the box that will deliver the order. The paper bag tissue paper, the prince, the whatever, the any certificates of survey. All of that goes into that box, and then it's nicely stored on that shelf. So when our client comes in, all we have to do is go. It's alphabetical. We go OK, Mrs Smith, pull her name out, open the box, put it together and delivered to her. Does that make sense? So instead of having boxes and things and all over the place, it's a very nice delivery Also, One thing I do want to note is on the side of the box. Just is as a recycling thing. We take a shipping tape and running around the short edge, and that way we can put labels on it with the client's name, and you can recycle them. You pull the label. Often you keep using them over and over and over again. As long as you put that shipping tape on there. When we pull the labels off, we stick him on their invoice, and it just goes. It's filed away. Just as a note, you can see a few pink labels at the bottom through interspersed anybody with a pink label. They owe us money so It's a great flag for us to say, Hey, you owe us money. We're not letting you out of here without it. And it was a really bright orange ticket. There was a lot of money and got out of here without it paying us one time. It's not gonna happen twice, So we have one client in there that does that somehow got away without paying, and they won't get away another time. So those little things like I said, all those little things. You have that information in here. But I want to make note of it because that's again year after year of going who Here's a better way, and it'll just circumvent sort of that learning process. So, of course, here is what it looks like all packed up. This is our old packaging andan, of course. Delivery boxes, bags, tissue papers, kind of going with that style. Here's a closer look at the the boxes from you line and get united. That label is just a custom label that we print in our studio, but you can see that how you could just keep using that box and you don't abuse that box as much And then finally those invoices that we showed you those hold the CDs, the receipts, everything goes in those and then they are finished. Filed in a filing cabinet, So same thing alphabetically. We keep three years in the studio, and once it's three years, we pack them up, they go to storage on. We do have a retrieval fee if somebody wants to reorder. So we try to get people to order while they're on the spot. Yes, ma'am. What do you use for your other packaging? Like your bags and paper? Jeffers it you line for everything. We have a couple different companies rice studio supplies when we use in the past. And I wish I had the name of the new people that were working with cause I found some new products that they do color imprinting, color logos, which is cool. So if you hit me up on Facebook or something, I'll throw that up there because it's a new one. I don't I can't back the company, but I'm gonna give him a shot on. Then, for bigger packaging, we have a shrink wrap machine that we shrink wrap all of the wall portrait's and we also by portrait bags. So there everything is shrink wrapped that's bigger than an 11 actually, Every 11 by 14 and bigger issuing grab. And they're all delivered in soft fabric bags. So they're a little more pricey. But us. Once somebody spending 1000 or more dollars, we want to have that final delivery taking care of. All right, we're gonna go through the last bit of homework, and I have some housekeeping. We're just gonna finish up, and then I would love to share with you what I was very excited to share. First of all your homework today was the intake sheet. You also the phone consultation script, those to kind of go hand in hand. We also have the client consultation packets and then the 10 question survey, And then the last one is going to be the charity. When we get there, we're gonna talk about selecting a charity to work with Andi, making a commitment to do something for your own community.