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Day 1 Wrap-Up

This is what all of you who are watching should be accomplishing. If you miss the show today, you do have to stay up all night long and watch it again. Because if you could take two out of these five things and get them done, I would be really impressed. I would be really excited. If you could do three or four in this evening, I would be blown away. If you don't do them now, you will never, ever do them. You will take this home, they'll sit on a shelf and it will be one more thing that you invested your time in and had no return. So the mission statement, you're gonna write it? That one's pretty easy. You could knock that out tonight. It's 50 or so words on who you are. A statement on what your business is. The salsa box. You ladies have this already. Those in the audience, it doesn't take a lot. You can grab a file box. Just some folders. Whatever it is doesn't have to be too fancy. It just has to get done. Take a picture of it posted on Facebook and you may win a price to we're gonna...

be giving some of those away tomorrow. The business plan is a big one, and I don't want to say that you can kick it out tonight because you can't. I would like to have you at least look at it. Take that form that I provided you and start the process. So you get a feel for it. I'd love to see two or three pages. Basic outlines started Would be nice for this group. Session count chart. You have that already. So you just have to do your homework. You have to go and pull your session counts and add that you could get that done from January to now. It shouldn't be that hard. If somebody could give you that information for those of you at home, you easily can get that information. Just pull it up and create a session count chart. And then the last one is the fun one, the branding color or mood board. Everybody should be able to get that one done, and we're gonna put a price on that one as well. So post that one on Facebook. You ladies can do that as well. I would just love to see what your personalities are based on your mood boards, so that would be a lot of fun. Tomorrow we're gonna build an entire marketing structure. We're actually going to take a calendar. We're gonna create a marketing structure for you. So this is something that if you would like to be prepared, you can have a paper calendar. You also need to have some pencils, some colored markers and a happy heart. This is how this is back in the salsa box days. This is part two of I created a salsa box. Then I created the marketing calendar, and a lot of you will recognize that it's the same one we use on the forum that all of our SPU students are on. And I'm gonna give a big thank you today to creative life for having us back. It's been very different. This is obviously I usually, you know, my other shows have been fluffy, talking about babies and photographing. This is a little more intense, but the reason I'm able to photograph those fluffy babies is because I spent my life working on this part. So I'm excited to be able to offer this and to provide that. So that being said, I think I am done. I'm gonna go take a nap. You guys are gonna go do your homework and I'm gonna turn it back over to creative life. Also, you guys are doing so great over here to see that you're just like soaking in all of this information on the edge of your seat listening, Sandy. But do any of you have questions? Go ahead. It's just going back to the sale sessions. Do you feel that you lose any kind of the intimate relationship if you pass them to a different sales associate? That's a great question. Now, yes and no. Because good quality trained sales associate to me makes me more money than I can. Honestly, because they're very good at what they do. However, there is that time with the client. That's that extra quality time that you get to spend it with them. When I worked out of my home, that's exactly what I had. It was very intimate. The PB and J Crew. It felt like we were friends. Now my clients, it's a little different, like they have. It's a little more formal, so to speak where I am the photographer. But you know, the entire thing is a build. What happens is from the receptionist saying, Oh, my goodness, you're going to be with Sandy to the sales associate saying, Oh, my gosh, standing to this, they build it up, t make the experience that they were working with me. Does that make sense? So So the clients very excited. I always whenever possible pop in the sales room, check out what they're ordering. I give them my two cents in my feedback. We're gonna talk tomorrow about suggestion sheets and how, since I can't be in the cells room, I know that my time is best spent behind a camera. Since I can't be in the sales room, we pre select. I go in and edit my own work. I still do that. And I picked my 8 to favorite images and I mark them. They say they actually say on the file that the client's gonna see their slide show. It says artists suggestion. So what that does is it tells the client I'm not there, but it tells them Sandy picked this image because she loves it. Our associates will back it up and say, Oh my gosh, Sandy loves this images is one of her favorites that clients gonna go of Sandy picked it. That's what I gotta have. So So there are ways in that whole sales process to make the client feel like you're still a part of that on Dino. Without a doubt that my I believe myself associates make far more than I would. Because I have that emotional connection where I know what I can give, and I know what I can sacrifice. So So for me no, I think that they I think they make more money than I would for some people, though I think it's more personal, and you need to maintain that relationship. I actually have a question from the Internet that pertains to that. Nick Panteli Photography would like to know if the salespeople make a percentage of sales or if that is a great question on, we're gonna cut. Well, I don't think we have time to cover all that's again. That three day sales program that I'm gonna have. Can I wear my way back in for a few more cause we just do nine days straight to do three days of seven. So commission sales. I've tried everything, and right now my sales associates right now are hourly. They're paid, well, hourly. We've tried bonus ing where Let's say you sell a frame. It's a dollar bonus. And there were certain products that we said If you sell these, you get a little bit more. We have tried commission. Unfortunately, when I was a big studio, the last time I tried, Commissioner had lots of sales associates. We became a very catty, very negative place. People started to really become the arguments where you take all the good clients. You spend too much time. That's why you don't make much money. I mean, it just became very, very catty. And I found that the best thing for us is to benefit the whole business. Besides, why should the sales associate get a bonus when all of us worked really hard? Takes a good image. Artist takes a good photographer, takes a good marketer. So my ideas create a family scenario where everybody benefits from the sale, we're gonna have a bonus. I'd rather everybody commission does produce a certain type of sales person. They tend to be very good at what they dio, but they tend to be very transparent. People can see that they're being sold, too, and that scares me. I have another question going back to hiring staff and finding the right employee. I know you mentioned Craigslist. Are there other avenues that you find for advertising your ad? And have you ever used, like a staffing company to find people for you mentioned that earlier staffing company costing more. But in the long run, it protects you more. We have, I've tried to hire. I always say, Never hire enemies or never hire your friends because one will become the others. Oh, try to be very careful. I have hired a lot of my employees are clients of mine because they appreciate the value of what I do. What you're looking for, though, is a professional person. What I found is there's always a mom out there, and I'm not picking on Mom's for having sex. But there's always somebody out there that loves photography, and she wants to. She wants to work for you, but her kids are in school. She could only be there. 93. You're gonna get hit with that all the time. That's not the right employees. You need somebody who needs a full time salary if you can afford that, because you need somebody dedicated to making money because they're going to be committed to being there. It's not a hobby. This is your life, and you don't want to turn it over to a hobbyist, so to speak. So so I think that we have put ads out. In fact, we're about to put an ad out, send it out any blast to our client base, asking for some help. We're looking for another sales person, so I'm going to start with my clients. But I'm very particular about that. If that doesn't work, then we will probably go the route of Craigslist as a secondary. I've never been really happy with employment agencies for sales people. For some reason, I always get a very stiff, more of get great receptionists from employment agencies. Sales people are very motivated. They don't have a hard, good sales. People don't have a hard time getting a job. So usually through agencies, it's people who are have a harder time getting the right job. Does that make sense so those were really my honest picks my clients, Craigslist type situations and then professional agency. You have so much knowledge thinking in I just wanna make sure everybody was, um I have a question back to our the fun stuff CPS accountants and that, um the difference in my particular studio in the past between just breaking even and actually making a profit has been charitable contributions. I have a huge problem saying no to anybody. Um, do you have a separate account allotted for charitable contributions and how do you determine which ones? I mean, I know you have your own, but before you did, how do you determine which ones? Well, with your charitable contributions of those cash contributions or donating products and service products and services, Okay, because honestly, just like yourself, I think you guys know me well enough to know that I don't turn anybody down. I mean, it doesn't matter what the foundation. It's a legitimate foundation of school and event. Something like that. We will give a certificate to it, period. So, honestly, I'll be really honest with you. My c p a. Does not we have a giant folder that we keep all of our receipts of our donations. My c p A. Does not even include them in my taxes or includes very, very few of them there, so many that it's actually a red flag. It's It's something that could get me audited because they're going to say nobody gives away that you guys know products and services. It's not like, you know, unless they show up, it doesn't really hurt you. But if you're giving away, you know, $50,000 in products and service and you're only making 100 they're going to start to question you, so I know it sounds crazy, but in my case, we don't even for tax purposes. We don't even claim a lot of that stuff just because we give away too much. So so that's something that you have to realize. If it's not hurting your company, we will talk about charitable marketing on the third day. It's not hurting your company and you enjoy doing it. Follow your heart and do it. But when it comes to tax side of it and claiming that with the c p. A. Be honest with them and say Look, I do this because a lot of these people don't show up. A lot of these people, I don't know. I give out 100 certificates because 20% or 5% are gonna come in. So is it Is it a good idea for me to claim all of this because they might counsel you didn't. Just not What you do is you don't claim it, but you keep it in a folder and then someday, when you're ordered to say, OK, that's fine. You're right. You know what? I did let my nails, you know, I was letting the company pay for getting my nails done. However, here my $50,000 worth of contribution, I think we're even right. You know, that's what my c P. A kind has that backup plan that if you ever get audited, then we have that as an option. So that's how we have to do it. Because, like yourself, I give too much. You are just a wealth of knowledge is amazing. I'm so excited for a coming two days we have with you too. But it is. We are out of time for today. There's tons more questions coming in. But I think we're all prepared for the next two days coming up. Thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge. And thank you. Studio audience. You would have been so wonderful and engaging all day and asking great questions. Thank you for participating everyone out there on the Internet. Thank you for joining us today. You are the reason we are here. So please join me in giving Sandy a global creative live round of applause. Theo, A quick quote from the interweb. And it is from Jenny Lens on Facebook. She says I love Sandy. She was saying all the things I know. I must do it yet so many don't have a clue. I want to work with other photographers and turn mawr onto her now and later, as well as creativelive Really superb class. Enjoy so much. Jenny So great is all different photographers. It's not just Oh, the reason this class is so great. I think Sandy is because it is applicability toe all star for So I mean everything that you've covered today, it could be any type of photography can absolutely excel from this information, so I really appreciate that about this course for $149. It doesn't really matter if you are a new photographer and you're just building your business. This is a perfect course for you because you can build your business correctly. And if you have been in business for a long time, 5 to 10 years or longer, you know you might want to reconstruct the business that you have to make it more successful. Like Sandy said. She's had to re build or reconstruct her business so many times over the years, and that is really how you become the most profitable that you can be. So for $149 I think it's a great investment for any photography business, and it is $99 if you purchase it while the courses live. So while we go out today, go ahead and purchase. The course is a buy button under your screen, and with that we will see you same time. Same place tomorrow at 9 a.m. Pacific standard time. See then