Lessons

Lesson Info

Introduction

Yeah, all right. Now we have to show pretty pictures before you can get started. Right To qualify yourself as a photographer. All right, well, thank you guys, for being here. This is going to be really exciting. Before we get too far into this, I want to introduce myself. I know I've been here before, and I know a lot of you I recognize from shows and from being on our show, the SP TV tagging in and posting in. But I want to give everybody out there in the virtual audience a little idea of who I am. First of all, I'd like to consider myself the happiest person I know. I'm kind of an intense person. If you don't know me. I know people are very always sort of not sure of me. I'm actually a really, really nice person. Very tenderhearted. I cry often as you know. So that's my biggest flaw here. I'll just say it right here. We're gonna get it right out. There's not much I can say without getting emotional out. If you talk about my clients, my kids, my life, I think that pretty much covers e...

verything. I'm probably going to get seriously emotional about it. But the difference is I really do what I love and I make a profit, and that's something that we all have to consider. I've been very blessed. I have been in this industry for 27 years. This will be my officially going into my 28th year, which is kind of hard to believe, since I'm only, like, what, something or something. So I started my company when I was 17 years old. I got my business license when I turned 18. And so this is the only thing I have done my entire life. Unless you consider Kentucky Fried Chicken a major career move, then this is it for me. So I started in New York City, and then I moved to Utah. That's where I'm from originally, and it made it there about a year, just enough to have two Children and hopped over to Colorado. It seemed like a better place at the time for my family. And so I started my business in Colorado about 20 years ago, almost 21 years ago and just like most of you, I started from the ground up. I had bounced around quite a bit the years previous to that. So it was like a lot of people. Do you start a business move start. Another business move eventually landed in Colorado, and I had no idea where it was gonna go, But just like everybody else, I started working out of my home. My first studio was a little apartment on the kitchen, and then the 2nd 1 was a triplex, the basement with those awesome seven foot ceilings. So it was a little crowded. Then, from there, the majority of my home based business. I spent about almost nine years in a small house. I turned the master bedroom into the studio. So it was a long, skinny room. And if I had to photograph more than four or five people actually go back up and stand in the bathroom, had to crawl in the sink, lean on the mirror, shoot through the door, Okay? Andi was a disaster. But I did that for almost eight years, so I really had the ability to work in any situation. From there. I opened my first studio. It was 2000 square feet. I was the only employees, except for the loyal and lovely Erin, who, by the way, I have to read out of the gate, Give credit for everything you ever see of my work or of my shows. Aaron has had a handed. Aaron started with me almost 17 year over 17 years ago, working out of my home. She was my nanny. Originally, she's now the person, the only person that touches my work as far as on the art side of it. She's the digital artist. So we started building the company out of my home, eventually moved into that 2000 square foot space. And that's really where I feel like I launched the business, the official business I have always at the time when I opened my business. I'm also a foster parent. We had six foster Children, and I was I just had No, I was pregnant with my fourth biological child, so Number 10 was on the way. So when I say I'm intense, I'm not kidding. I do everything in large quantities. So Number 10 was on the way and we opened this studio. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I just knew that my company had grown so big in my home that it was just out of control. Having number 10 on the way and having a small master bedroom where you ran everything was a little bit intense, so we did open that up. That is where I started hiring my first employees. And we'll talk a lot about that later. How I got into that process. But that was it. It was pretty much just me and Aaron watching the kids and very quickly knew I needed help. And we started to market and grow from There are growth was very rapid. We started really maintaining the marketing structure that we're gonna teach you tomorrow. But having that commercial space gave us more, it wasn't public view. We were actually on the backside of a liquor store, so I mean, it was like a hadn't passed the liquor store and Albertsons to get to us. You would never drive by and find us. But we had created a foundation in my home that I had a good enough client base that I was ableto move into their continue to market and still build that business so very quickly we started growing. I went from zero employees to one, then two, then three. Then we were up to eight. In 2000 square feet, we expanded to 5000 square feet. From there, we continue to grow. We went from 8 to 12 to 15 to 28 employees A. To a height of that time. We were up to 32 employees in 5000 square feet. We had borrowed 2000 square feet that we had temporary offices before we moved socially. All about that a little bit later. But part of that growth and part of what I've done in the last 27 years, I've been every type of photographer you can imagine. I've been the stay at home mom, photographer, mom, times 10. So I qualify there. I've had the small studio space. I've had a bigger studio space. I've had small staff. I've had incredibly large staff. At the height, we had 32 employees. That was the biggest we ever were. I went every year, and we'll talk a lot about numbers later. By the way, we're gonna be very honest here about numbers. I want people to really understand the process, what you're capable of doing here. So I started, I think my first official year in my home studio. I did like 70,000 and then from there we continue to grow and we'll talk about how we crossed over the $1,000,000 Mark Andi where we went from there. So that's just a little bit about my history. If you have questions, you're welcome to ask them along the way for I know a lot of you can relate to this, but I use this quote often because this is me. Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends. Tell me where to get more wax and you guys feel like that life is intense. I mean, there's just no way people constantly ask me about balance. How do you balance everything? How do you have so many kids and how do you have a studio? How do you travel the world? It's life is not about balance. It's impossible to balance anything. It's just absolutely impossible. I think that's the whole idea behind life. It's not supposed to be easy, so you have to work a little at it. So I'm not a perfectly balanced person. It's all about choice and sacrifice, right? That's the truth. We give up something toe, have something else, and we have to decide what our priorities are now. I was very blessed. My husband was able to retire a long time ago and he was able to raise the kids, so that gave me the ability to do what I do. That also meant that I was the full time sole provider of my family, and that was a big deal. Having opened my studio, just open my studio. When this happened, it was pretty intense. It was something that all the sudden I had this burden of everything that is, you know, for kids are going to eat. I have to make sure that happens. So when people ask me how I did it, it was one bite at a time. It's that elephant analogy eating one bite at a time because it was impossible to do it all at once. I didn't have a great responsibility, but I also was very blessed because I had passion. I knew I loved what I do, and I knew that I would get to do that every day, so it made it a lot easier so for me, it's really more about less about balance than more about choices and sacrifice if you and we'll talk a lot about this later, so I want to get too far into it. But if you want something, you can you can do anything you want. You just have to believe in and you have to go find it. But you will be giving up something else to do it. And you have to decide what you want to give up. Now we're gonna do a bunch of housekeeping real quick. A lot of you already know how to find me and where to follow so you could jump in on any of these places. And resource is, please do. We will be giving away some other additional prices just for some feedback on Facebook. So if you go to Facebook just like our page, and then tell us what you think of the show, we love the quotes of the feedback to We love to keep up with creative live, but you guys get so many comments and things that it's hard for us to keep up. So we'd love to hear from you as well, and we will be giving away prices, which I'll mention all day long as well. Now, the other question is, why am I here? Well, the idea behind this show is really to share knowledge. It's taking me 27 years to learn that I pretty much construe anything up if you give me a chance. So this is actually not how I did every everything, right? 101 This is how I did everything wrong. One a one. So we're gonna break it down to the mistakes I made how I rectified the mistakes and those learning curves. And my hope is that hopefully I will be able to circumvent some of those problems that you'll have because it is pretty intense. Mistakes cost money and they cost time. And believe me, I've done plenty of both and more than any any time I think in any class I teach, it's easy when you're talking about babies and Children and all the fluffy stuff, just to make everything seem easy and everything seemed pretty. But when you're talking business, there's a sense of riel that you want. You guys especially are gonna want to hear cause you're not gonna want to hear how easy it was to make my 1st $1,000,000 just go do it. If you just go make a 1,000,000 you'll be so happy. It doesn't work like that. It's actually there's a whole process there that we have to go through in order for you to understand what it took to do that. And so we want to make sure you have that happen. Now. The truth is, the real reason that I'm here are these four adorable people. These are my biological Children. All of my foster Children are long grown up. I have several grand babies, so I have all of my foster Children in their thirties. But these air the last four of my own kids, the oldest to our course in college. They both go to University of Utah, which is kind of crazy having to in college and then the youngest to are still at home ones. In one, Nick Nick is in high school, and the youngest, Giuliana, is in junior high. Nick is the legacy. My legacy will be neck. He is my future. He is an incredible shooter. I think a lot of you know him. He's been shooting since he's 11. And if you really want to make his day, go to Nikolai. Push photography on Facebook. It's an I k o l ai puc photography dot com and check out his work. He he has something I don't have, which will talk about tomorrow, which is natural talent. I had to learn everything. He picked up a camera at 11. I've never taught him anything, and he is just he just has these visions. So he just had. Somebody gave him V I. P passes to shoot a GoPro event. So he comes back. He goes by himself. He's 15 years old, goes by himself, shoots the whole thing, and I was blown away at the work that he actually captured. So you get a chance. I think he posted on Facebook. You can check it out. So he's my future and photography. The other three, definitely the oldest one, is going to law school. The 2nd 1 engineering the youngest one, is just going to drive me crazy. I'm pretty sure. So she's actually my punishment for being me when I was young, so and it's fair. I think it's fair. So she at 13. She's actually delightful. She's most beautiful person, will. But she has my spirit. Intense energy. Everything is just beyond intense. So I'm actually really enjoying just watching this all play out because, you know, I figured by her age I had my head shaved in a Mohawk. She still has hair, so there's gotta be some benefit there. It's all gonna work out. I have told many stories over the years of my Children and this what is actually one of my favorites. We've told this before, I won't go into depth. But if you know this story, you know that on the other side of those faces are three out of four crying Children, because mostly I snapped at them and told them to turn around because they were all fighting. And that is a beautiful portrait that hangs many years ago of my Children, and I still to this day get so many compliments. People come in and they see it hanging, and they're like, Oh, my gosh, that's so beautiful. They have no idea the torment and torture and magnitude of pain that went into getting that. So that is definitely something that I refer back to often because again, life is about choice and sacrifice. I wanted the beautiful, smiling kids at sunset. I got the backs of their bodies. Lucky that they're all four still alive. So that's, you know, that's what you get. But I do have a story this year about them because we're gonna be talking a lot about you. And your choice is the things that you want to do. And one of the things that I want to talk about is last year, 2012 was the hardest year of my life. I went through a lot of personal things. It was very emotional. Lot of you know, the stories behind this, but it was a very, very tough year. So my oldest to were coming home from college this year, and I promised myself that this summer I would dedicate any and every second that I could to them and that I would focus on them. In fact, I had been reading a lot of books. As you know, I read a lot and I had read something that really struck me, and that was about living in the here and now that making sure that you are living in the moment and not worried about what has happened to you and not worried about what's going to happen to you. And so I promised myself that this summer would all be about my kids because having the oldest to home, um, you know, is really a privilege. When they're 20 and 21 it's not gonna happen to many more times. So I wanted to make that make that what it was all about. So I sat him down right out of the gate. Actually, within a couple days of them being home, they had called. My oldest daughter had called me and she had asked me to go to ice cream, and it was like, nine or 10 o'clock and I that was in bed in my pajamas and I was typing. And so she colleges like mom, you know? Of course they call, even though they're downstairs, by the way. So I'm like, Why are you calling me like we want to get ice cream? And I said, No, I'm tired. I'm in bed, etcetera, etcetera. And so they all went to ice cream without me. And the next morning I woke up. I felt terrible. I thought, Well, there was my moment. I should have just gotta put on the clothes and went to ice cream. So I started all four down and I said, Look, here's the deal. I made a promise that I was gonna be here for you and that I will live in the here and now. So explain to them the whole process of here and now and how anything they wanted, if I could, As long, you know, I gave him parameters. You can't interrupt work there, things I have to do. But if there's time to do it, I want to live in the here and now. Of course. I thought this was a big emotional moment with them sharing this how I was gonna be there and how we're gonna have this incredible summer. Well, it wasn't even like, seven minutes later that I started getting that backfiring. It it was okay, Mom, you gotta live in the here and now we're going ice cream now, you know. So it became the biggest show. I think I've heard the word hair now 1000 times. Anything they want, they come up and say, Hey, we wanna go to the movies here and now. Mom, let's go to the movies here. Oh, so it's just been really funny because now it's like the family joke. Andi, it's actually been really incredible. It's definitely a kick in the head. Every time you don't realize how many opportunities you have to actually ignore the people that you love because you're busier. You saying Just a minute, Just a minute. Hang on. I'll be back. I'll be back. So it's been really, really, really funny. Toe watch them. In fact, they're constantly drive me crazy. This is a quick little video clip. I'm just gonna talk over here because this is I was trying to use my cell phone and they're like, Why are you on your phone, Mom? Here and now here. Now we're right here right now. So thistle is what they oldest to constantly or in my face. Anytime I'm on my phone there, like, put your phone down, put phone down, live in the here and now. So so I'm getting it all over the place. Another thing that has been really important to me is that my youngest has gone through. She's been going through some year old times, too, and she actually taught me something that I thought was really cool. And it was the things you're grateful for. So she every time I have a bad day or something's not quite right. She she makes me repeat the 10 things I'm great before. And it's very hard if you can. If you can actually repeat 10 things you're grateful for. I promise you nothing is bad anymore. She actually has been an incredible asset to get me through all of those emotional times just because she has spend so, so positive and so so willing. Teoh sort of lift us all up as needed. So that was who I got through that one. That was when I was afraid of most. So now we can get to business here before I go too much further. I do want to thank the people who got me here today. After 27 years, it would be impossible to actually sit back and say thanks Every speaker, every every mentor in my life that has changed my life. I do want to make sure you understand that everything I'm teaching you really is a product of something else. I don't believe there's anything revolutionary in this world. It's been done before. It's been said before. I taught a baby program a year and 1/2 ago. Here have been 1000 baby programs before me, and there will be 1000 after me. The difference is how you make it your own, how you take it and revolution ISAT and how you give it character and you build off of it. So So this is my, um, you know, my global thanks to all of the people who have made a difference. And it's not just mentors and speakers. It's people like yourself students. I probably learned more from my students nowadays than I ever did from sponsors and mentors and teachers, because the truth is, it's my students that are are really craving that new knowledge, that new energy, and they're the ones that are ahead of the curve. And so when we have these tight unplug type forums or when we do SP TV and we have the chance to talk, it's always fascinating to see the little tidbits that come out that I'm like, why I should have known that before so big things to all of those people. I also want to thank all of our sponsors. Of course, we are on the road all of the time. We teach all over the world, and we're very, very grateful for these folks and what they do to make this happen also want to thank, Of course, our super heroes. These are the folks that keep me on the road and keep us going. You all know Brandon because he's wherever I am. He is Aaron. That's the official. Aaron Aaron's been with me for 17 almost 18 years. Sisi has been with me. 10. Almost every employer have has been with me more than five years, most over 10 years. So you can imagine we're very much a family. Of course, we have the mysterious Jennifer and Rocky. We swore we would get their pictures, take it and still didn't. Someday they'll have faces. Jennifer handles SPU. So if you remember of SPU, she's the girl that make sure all the templates get to you every month. Rocky is social media. He keeps everything out there in the public. So all of which are great people. And also Tosh is not up here. She's actually used to be an employee, but helped us out to get this book revamped and so big things to Tosh if she's watching as well. All right, so let's talk a little bit about what we do. Our goal is to create an artistic experience, which results in Portrait's. Now that seems very simplistic, but the truth is, we want to create experience is the key word there. We want to give people something that they remember. I can't wait to get to Day three and tell you how powerful that really is. But ultimately the final end result is a portrait. Whether it's a digital file or a piece of paper, we're going to give them a memory. We're going to stop time, and that's our goal. However, we also, for our benefit, wanna provided income that allows us to choose what we want to be, what level of life we want to live Now. That's important because photography unlike most careers, you have complete and total control. You can literally be anything you want. You could be a part time parent, stay at home parent, just working on the side for a few $100. You can have a part time semi professional business. You can have a full fledged commercial studio space. You can make it what you want you can and very few careers. Like if you're a doctor, a brain surgeon? Probably not. People are. If you're doing this part time on the side on the weekends, probably not gonna buy into it. Where with photography do you have that option? That also does create an influx in this industry, and we'll talk a lot about the industry problems and what people fear and why they shouldn't. Yes, digital capture changed everything. Having been at this for 27 years, I feel like I have the authority to say, Get over it. Honestly, it's OK. Photography is not dying. It's not going anywhere. It's not the end of the world. Yes, there are 10 times more photographers than ever. And who cares? Honestly, the people who make it to the top of the people who put their hearts into it, period, if you put if you make sacrifices and choices, you're going to get there. So keep that in mind. It's It's not the end of the world, however, even myself. I've had to work 10 times harder to understand the industry than I ever had. All that does is it sort of fuels that fire and keeps you passionate about what you do get really boring. Honestly, if you have millions of dollars coming in every year, wouldn't that be done seriously, like boring? There's like No. Okay, we'll make you a $1,000,000. Then how is that? All right, so why are we here? What? We are here to identify the elements that are necessary in the development of a creative experience. The truth is, we're selling an experience. The ultimate to our clients is we did this incredible session and we got these incredible portrait's. What goes into that? They have no idea. That's why there's that that miscommunication when a client says it doesn't even cost you anything its digital. You know I'm a and they want the files for free because it's free. They have no idea the labor and the effort in the intensity of what goes into building a business irony is probably they have some sort of career or business, and they probably if they own their own business, they should absolutely understand and respect that there's a lot more to it. But for some reason, photography gets dropped into this. Like what? An amazing easy job. It's free and you just get lots of money. And so so it's hard for our consumers or customers. Understand why we charge what we charge, how we justify it. Andi. It's really ours to educate them and help them understand that. So so again, the goal is the creative experience. But there are elements there, things we're gonna have to do. And it's a lot of things that we have to do in order to get there. I use this quote as well quite often, but it really is true. The world is full of flat squirrels that just couldn't make up their minds. So, honestly, if you guys, this is probably gonna be one of the most intense courses I've ever taught. Most of you know me as the photographer that is very passionate about what she does, cries often and can shoot anything, anytime, never see me sweat. Well, there was that one time that I was nervous. But But the truth is, today, it's all about intensity. You guys, your hands are gonna hurt. When this is over, you're gonna have a lot of note taking. You do have the book I've provided for you, so it's gonna save you. In fact, a lot of times for my in studio, I'm gonna be telling you, Don't write it down because you have own it already. A lot of people have this book and got it in advance is well, and I'll explain that in a second. But the bottom line is anybody can do this, but you have to be proactive and you have to make decisions. You can't sit there anymore and say, I don't know, should I shouldn't. I should, because if you do that, somebody else is going to do it and they're gonna run you right over. And that's really where we want to make sure that you understand that you have to make choices today. And in order to create a foundation, a successful business foundation, we're gonna have to create a lot of homework, and we're gonna have to create a lot of building blocks and we're gonna have to do not just talk. And that's the hardest part. Is the doing we're gonna give you every single day, 4 to 8 pieces of homework. You guys should be able to get a decent amount of it. We have a little study group here, so you're gonna have to get some of this done tonight. Because if you don't do tonight, you're gonna go home and you're never going to do it. For audience are virtual audience. They need to do the same thing. If you're gonna commit to building a business, you're gonna have to do and not just write notes because it's not gonna It's not gonna work if we don't get after, I'd rather you take two things and get him done tonight. Then take notes on this entire course. Honestly, So we'll cover that quite a bit. So a little bit about my studio history? I have mentioned this. I shoot from the heart. I definitely dedicated to superior image. I want to provide my clients the best of everything. Little historic recap here. This is the 1st 2000 square foot studio. I can assure you it did not look like that when I first moved in. That was the very last few days before I moved into my current buildings. So at this point, that was five years into it. I had figured out art and design and look in style. When I first moved in, it was industrial carpet and ugly tables and desks, and it took me a lot of years to find myself to understand that art was you know, what the picture taking was one thing, but being an experience was a completely different thing from there from this 5000 square foot studio. This was 2000 and then we expanded it to ad sales rooms, which we'll talk about later. Eventually bought this building, which we're currently housed, and this is just under 10,000 square feet. It is very similar, Phil. Obviously, we continue to work along very similar furniture. Some of that's recycled. These are examples of the sales, and we're not gonna go a lot into sales in this course because sales to me, is an additional three day class. We would have to do it from bottom up, but I so I did want at least for you to see what a sales this is. The gold room. This is the blue room. You can see there, each kind of set up a little differently, depending on who were selling to. I purchased this property because I fell in love with the idea of having a studio on location. Remember, I've done everything I've had home, studio, and then my first commercial space was in a strip mall. So there wasn't anywhere to take my clients. So I fell in love with the idea of having a little bit of property to take them out on. And so I purchased this. We put a lot. We invested a lot into the landscaping I own all the way back into. Just where you see that that line of trees where my trailer is back there. We did put in a pond and there was pretty big investment there. I wish you could see it now that all this is when we first put it in. But now that all the flowers grown, it is beautiful. So of course I've been there for five years and just is the anxious soul that I am. I thought this was gonna be home forever. The truth is, I sacrificed the inside of the building for what I thought was I needed, which was the outside. That little bit of space in that pond, I thought was going to be the thing. Now granted, that pond has certainly paid for itself over and over. But what I sacrificed in the studio where low ceiling walls I went from 14 feet back down to 10. Um, spatially, this was a business office. So a lot of it is community, a community space. So it's bathrooms and halls, a lot of small rooms. It really wasn't what I really wanted. I just wanted to be somewhere that I owned. And so I went for it because I had no choice. I had a little bit of money and needed to spend. It took me five years to realize that I sacrificed the thing that was probably most important, which was the studio space and that that I spend were in Colorado. We get snow, so there's at least six months out of the year. I have to be inside. And so at that point, we have decided, shockingly enough, we swore we'd never move again. We're moving yet again. So I found a new building which has 360 degree windows around the whole into. There's so much light. It's ridiculous. It's so beautiful. The whole thing I can't figure out is their dark windows. I'm gonna have to replace some of them for the studio. But this building is about 6500 square feet, so slightly smaller, but it's actually 10 times more usable. It also has higher ceilings, etcetera. But what I really fell in love with is I went from my pond to see that lake back there, so I just write that is literally the building that the path. If I walk, you know, right down that path, it's not even a two minute walk. We have a lake in our backyard and you can see the Rocky Mountains and the sunset. If you've seen my work, the picture of the three kids that was up earlier. That's another location. But this one, now is is my backyard. And so I think I feel like I'm getting the best of both worlds. On top of that, it from a business management standpoint. The building that I currently own, all the A C units are going out. That's about $100,000. The windows need to replace. That's 50,000. So you start to do the numbers and you start to *** who might working for the windows in the air conditioning or my clients. So it really made sense. This is a much newer building and a much better choice. So that's just to give an idea of my path and how every time I swear I'm not doing something, I do it again. So we're moving. Actually, we start moving July 1st when I get back on D will be moving August, September and October. So hopefully I'll have something new to show you and new chaos in my life. All right, so a couple things before we get started A good plan today at far outweighs a great plan next week. I would rather you do one thing today than nothing at all. Everything is worth a try. If I say anything that you question or you don't think it'll work for you, grab me and ask me questions. We're gonna get a lot of Q and A through the program as well. So I want to make sure that you understand that nothing is sacred. I will be as honest as I can. This is the one time I don't ever get up on stage and brag about numbers or, you know, talk about what I make, etcetera. But people are curious because I travel so much because I teach so much, they wonder if I'm even really still a photographer. I can assure you I am. We're gonna be very honest about that and talk about that. The only other disclaimer I have is if you already know everything, you probably should just go get cookies for everybody and just chill. Because if you do, we have nothing to offer here, everybody, including myself. I learned from these shows because of the feedback and the questions that I get from you as well.