Lessons

Lesson Info

Mentorship: Introduction and Overview

We're here today with amazing new model here Creativelive. It's a group mentorship. Grow your wedding photography business with Susan Stripling. Susan is what I like to call our badass wedding photography world class instructor here a creative life. So, Susan, welcome now much I'm so excited about today. So I need to let you know that there's so many benefits toe to this workshop and that I can't even keep a little confused. You just tell me what? What is this group mentoring? Basically, what happened was after I did 30 days of wedding photography, I realized people still had a lot of questions and they understood what I was saying and they got it. But they were having trouble actually implementing it into their own businesses, and they needed a helping hand. So creative live in their infinite wisdom. I decided to put together a mentoring program so you could come to me with the things that you're having problems with. I will help you, and we'll take you through everything you need to ...

know and kind of get a get some feedback, get a helping hand, get a community around you in a way that the other classes don't dio and more. Yeah, and my favorite thing about this is it's absolutely private. Once you purchase. Once you sign up, it's just you guys out there, all right, let's talk quickly about today. Let's talk about through the segment. Segment one, segment one. You're basically going to get an overview on what this group mentor ship is. What I will expect from you, sort of what the assignments were going to be because there are so many questions about this, because this is a totally new format for Creative Live. I know a lot of people are still scratching their heads out there, so the first thing is to really get it explained, talk you through the three months ahead and get going. So you guys are gonna have a 1,000,010 questions out there in the audience. Susan's gonna cover it all. But if you do have any questions, feel free to go in the chat rooms and do your questions. Now. The Missing Day of the Third Way realized after 30 days the biggest question that people still had was, Can you tell me more about social media marketing like, Yeah, you know, you touched on it a little bit, but how do you actually do it? So we're gonna pretend that 30 days was really 31 days, and we're gonna give you that missing sort of 90 extra minutes. That's going to be our second part of the day is gonna be all about how to Social media marketing? No, Segment three. My thing that I think is most amazing about this workshop is the fact that people have a tap to Susan stripping a direct happy critiques office hours in the Facebook group. Let's talk about our third segment today. So what? The third segment is that you're going to actually get a taste of what it will be like if you're a part of the group. So at the end of each month, I come back for a live day. If you look at the course page, you see that there are three other days that I'll be here live. You only get to see those three days. If you're part of the program, you'll be turning in homework assignments over the course of the month and that live day at the end of each month will be where I go through your homework assignments one at a time and give you actual constructive feedback and help you. And what we're going to do for the third segment today is we're gonna do a little bit of that. A Ziff. It were the shooting month. So we've reached out to people who are students already. We asked them to send in pictures that they were struggling with, and I wanted to critique them so that you'll kind of get a sense of what that would be like Should you join us and we hope you do. All right, let's do it. All right. So we have a lot to talk about, per usual. And I talk really fast, so we should probably just get started. I'm not gonna bore you guys by telling you my entire bio. I know a lot of people watching this sort of came to it after watching 30 days of wedding photography. Just give you a very brief overview. I've been doing wedding photography for 13 years. It's pretty much all I dio thes air. My kids, they are amazing. This is my family. They're all so amazing. That's pretty much all I've got for you on the about me front. I feel like if you really desire to learn my entire bio, you can hit my website and read it. So since the past six months or in the past six months since I was here closing 30 days, just wanted to kind of bring everybody up to speed on what's going on with me. Per usual like shot, a good 1,000,000 weddings. I've got 46 weddings this year, which humorously enough for me is a light year. Oh, yeah? So I'm getting my way through that busy summer fall is coming up, and then I might actually get a weekend off eventually. So no one of the things that I said when I closed 30 days Waas you know, Would you ever open a studio? Would you ever go back to having a studio again? I was like, Absolutely not. There is no way whatsoever. I never want a studio. I never want to work in a studio. I have a studio now. I'm not really sure kind of how that one went down. But I was thinking about things that I could do in my own business to diversify because it's very dangerous to put all of your eggs in one basket financially speaking and was sitting around talking my friend supervise, who looked at me and said, Well, why have you never done boudoir? I said, I I mean, I just never thought about it. And she's like, You should open a studio And I said, Totally open a studio and all of a sudden it seemed like a brilliant idea. So if I don't want to shoot 46 weddings a year, I need to do something else to make up the money. So I started sort of turning towards the boudoir side of things and wondering if I could make a go of it shooting that Ah, very fortuitously. At about the same time, my friend Geoff Mosher, who is a wedding and head shop photographer in New York, was ending his lease on his studio was looking to find something a little closer to home, and he said, Hey, if I find a studio in Brooklyn, would you want to share? And I said, Yeah, it sounds pretty good. So I share a studio with another photographer. We have an office that we actually work in where I sit and do the computer stuff, and then we have a shooting space that we take turns using. He does his head shots there. We share a calendar. I get kind of all of the benefits of having a studio without having to shoulder it all on my own. And why not? I can't really tell you how the boudoir thing is working because I am still formulating it. I don't believe in just opening a studio and jumping out into it and hoping it'll stick. I shot for my portfolio. I have been developing my marketing materials. I didn't want to do any thing marketing wise during the summer because everyone is traveling. And so now I'm working this fall to start promoting it out there and, you know, hoping it'll stick. I wrote a new book because I don't know what to do with myself when I have 46 weddings and a new studio. It's just so much empty time on my hands. I have to fill it somehow. So I wrote a business and marketing workbook, which is really slick. Those of you who do sign up for this course, the mentorship program, you will receive a free copy of the book. You get the digital download, so that's a free $69 kind of bonus for those of you who join our family here because a lot of what's going on in the first month that business and marketing workbook is your textbook for the first month. But it is out there. It is actually on sale this week for $59 So if you want it, go to my website. Click for photographers and it's there for you. I also made any website with again all of my free time. I was very thrilled with the people that I was working with for my website. I had been with infinite design for almost 10 years, but there reached a point where I wanted to do some S e o optimization and some customization that I couldn't do on my end. Everything that I needed to do had to go back and forth with them, and it wasn't it wasn't very good use of my time and just really kind of needed something a little bit different. So I felt like I was divorcing a husband, leaving them because they have been so good to me and I would work with them again in a heartbeat. This is my new website. It is, I think, beautiful. I have over 100,000 words of sdo optimization in there. I wrote captions for every single photograph. I titled every single photograph because the company that so graciously helped me with this website wouldn't let me do it any other way than perfectly. And the thing that I like about it so much is that you can do it all yourself. You don't have to hire a designer to do it for you. And if I get tired of the you know this main page layout of my site with all of the little grids, I can go in and just choose a different layout for the home page. And all of a sudden I have any website I can edit everything myself. You upload high rez pictures to this instead of, you know, it's used to drive me crazy. I would have to pick the pictures on my website and I would have to size them down. I would have to size them the right way. Not only do you upload high res pictures here, but you can actually go into the interface, change the crops of all of them and then change based on the size of the browser. People will be looking at your safe areas. It's it's ridiculous, like it's brilliant. It has an anti theft on it, so people can't just go take your pictures. It has anti theft on your text. So every single person out there who stolen my frequently asked questions is gonna have to work a lot harder because you literally cannot copy and paste off of it. Um, I've been doing work in the studio, and it's been sort of experimental work. I have been getting models in, um, this woman right here. Her name is Sarah Renee. She's currently in Pippen on Broadway, and I managed to get at her through. A friend of a friend of a friend reached out to her, asked if she'd come dance in my studio, and she did. Andi, I've just been working with different models, getting friends in shooting real people. This is Blondie Brooks. She's a photographer, sort of in the Philadelphia Delaware area, and she is gorgeous. Bought a fog machine, really exciting things like that. And right now I'm just playing in the studio, working on my samples, getting comfortable in there, getting the feel of being back in the studio, working with the medium format, digital, just trying to continually push myself above and beyond. So enough about all of that. We're here today to really talk about the group mentoring on what that is and what it means for the people who have already signed up for it and the people who are sitting there at home going. Yeah, I have no idea what you're doing, because this is something super new for creative life. Creativelive never done a class that is locked and last for three months. Apparently 30 days was not enough. I had to come back for days, Andi jokes the other day. That, on my next course will be the rest of your life with Susan Stripling. Andi. I would not be surprised if somewhere in Creativelive someone is going. That's a great idea. But this group mentoring really came about because I needed a way Teoh interface with people one on one, because after 30 days, people were emailing either, like, listen, I heard what you said about ring shots, but I'm just still not getting it like this is what I'm shooting and it doesn't look right, right? Can you help me? And I was like, I want to help you But I also have clients that I have to help, like, what do we do to give people the one on one help that they need in an environment where they feel safe and they feel safe sharing and we can give them a community? That's where the Facebook group came in. So what will all of this entail for everyone at home who's thinking, You know, I really want to do this, but I still don't get it. First of all, there will be three private broadcasts because there will be three months of education and I'm going talking through each of these months. In just a few minutes, you will have the business and marketing month. You will have the shooting month, and you will have the workflow and kind of post production client care month. And if you're sitting there in your thinking, well, that's kind of how 30 days went. You're right, because that's the natural three act process. of getting a wedding booked and done. So at the end of each month, you will get a full day of literally what you're looking at right here of me thing. Okay, let's look at your homework assignments and let me help you with, um you know, we've all done our package pricing calculators. Now, let me see what individual problems you guys air having and see what I can do to help you. And this is where you're really going to get out of it, what you put into it. I can't come to your home and make you do the homework assignments. But if you do them and you turn them in, you will get help, and you will get feedback. So you've got to actually do the work access to a private Facebook group, which obviously you can only the end If you're part of the class, that's going to do several different things for you. First of all, it will give you a community, and I know that for a lot of photographers who are starting out, maybe they know one or two other photographers in their town, but they don't know anyone internationally or nationally. or someone one state over or they don't really have a global community of photographers. And this will put you all in touch with each other. There are people in there now who are introducing themselves, and here's my website. And here is my work and oh, my God, You live in my town. I didn't know you lived in my town. You're gonna get a community, you know, we're gonna give you hundreds of brand new friends all overnight. And how the Facebook Group is going to work is every Friday, I or one of the creativelive administrators were going to come in there and say, OK, you've been working on these assignments for a week. What are you struggling with this week and you'll be able to go in and post under there about your individual struggles on that week's assignment? I'll take a look at that over the weekend, and I will make you a video somewhere between 30 and 30 minutes in an hour for the whole group. It will get uploaded to you sometime on Monday. So if you ask a question in that thread, you'll get an answer. So it's kind of like many feedback, right? Like I'm working my pricing calculator. Should I really Do you think I should include shipping for the album in it, or should I charge separately, right? Like it's one of those little questions that you need an answer to before you can keep going. So you ask it there. I will address it in the video and you'll be like, Cool. Now I can keep moving so that video will come to you on Mondays on Tuesdays, I'll spend about 90 minutes of office hours in the Facebook group just reading over everything and trying to wrap up any loose threads or anyone who's, you know, maybe having trouble. Still, after watching the video, right? Like you've asked your question. You've watched the video and you're like, Oh, God, your answer just gave me a new question. Ask it and I'll be in there live for 90 minutes answering. So you're not just on your own for the month. Like I don't just throw homework assignments at you and then just say, All right, cool. I'll see you guys in a month. There is ongoing personal feedback through the month and again you'll get out of it what you put into it. Weekly videos. When all of you guys go home today and the cameras go off, I'm going to stay here at creative Lives and record a weekly video for you That will explain what every single one of those assignments are and what I will expect from you out of them. And then, like I said before, you're going to get weekly assignments for the very first month, you know, get out your calculator because we're gonna be doing a lot of spreadsheets and you're gonna be writing a lot of things and you're gonna thank God, this is just like college and yes, yes, it is good. It's kind of what we're going for. The second month, you're gonna have shooting assignments, and they will be assignments that even if you don't have weddings during those periods, you'll still be able to go out and do them. You don't need a wedding to practice your off camera flash, get your friends, get your kids, get a stuffed animal and go to town. We're just working on the principles. In fact, don't try these things Had a paying wedding. If you're still struggling with them, because experimenting on your client's time is just in general a super bad idea. So again, a lot of questions people were having is how much time will this take? Well, it's gonna take some time, right? Like any sort of educational endeavor, you're going to have to put time into it. This is not a 40 hour a week job, but you can put as much time into it as you need. For example, you might get your assignments for the first week, your 1st 7 things that you need to dio and look at them and say I don't need to do two of these I've done them already or like this is my specialty area. I am solid on these, so don't do those. I'm not checking all of your homework assignments. I'm checking what you turn in to me. So if you have already written your mission statement and it is this glorious shining thing, just check over it, and if it's good, you want to do it again, right? So some things will take you longer. To do that, it will take other people to Dio. Some things will be super fast at it. While someone else is still struggling. If I had to estimate, I would say he put about an hour to 90 minutes a day into it, you'll be good to go. But again, you'll be pre given your assignment. So if you wanted to do all of them in one day, you can. So the homework is as homework is on your own time. How much feedback will you get? Well, again, you will get out of it what you put into it. If you do the homework, if you turn it in, if you send it in, I will give you feedback. If you ask a question, I will answer it. If you ask a question and I don't answer it specifically, it's because someone else asked virtually the same question, right? Like if we're doing the shooting segment and 10 of you give me ring shots that were all shot at 2.8 in the ring is out of focus. I'm gonna pick one of them. I'm gonna say, Listen, I got a bunch of them that had the same problem. We're trying to maximize our time but still get everybody's questions answered. And if you ask the question in the Facebook group, and for some strange reason, I don't answer it. Ask it again. You know, coming on Tuesday during office hours and say, Hey, I asked this question. I don't really see that you addressed it in the video. Can you address it again? Of course I can. I don't want anybody to think that they're doing the work and they're being ignored because you won't be all right. What if I don't have a bunch of weddings to shoot over the next three months? That's cool. You have any weddings to shoot over the next three months? You're still gonna be fine. These air still gonna be assignments. Like I said already that you can dio the shooting assignments even if you don't have a single wedding to shoot just by an army of teddy bears and be ready to set them up throughout your living room are not kidding. Like my friend Parker Fister has a mannequin in his studio in Nashville that he uses to test light in our studio. We have Belinda. She is a Styrofoam head that we literally set on an apple crate and I move the light around until it looks how I wanted Teoh doesn't have to be a human. What if I'm just starting my business or what? If I've been in business for 10 years, who is this geared towards geared towards everyone? If you're struggling in any way, this is geared towards you. The very first assignment you will get is what are you going to name your business? For someone that's going to be a monumental question. And for someone else that's going to be Ah, dude, I did that like 10 years ago, and that's fine. So there will definitely be something for everyone. And as I have mentioned, everyone has strengths and everyone has weaknesses. Some things will be very easy for you, but something that will be hard for you will be easy for somebody else. What if I live in another country? Will this help me? I got asked this a lot, like when I'm talking about taxes and stuff like that. If you're not in the US, some of the tax stuff won't be directly applicability to you. But I am certain that you will have something in your area that will be of the same vein. So while I can't tell you what sort of taxes you have to pay. If you live in Switzerland, you will have taxes to pay of some kind, right? So, yes, I'm going to be talking about us based taxes. But it's not geared towards photographers who are only based in the U. S. Marketing is marketing, social media, marketing and social media marketing. Every area has their own little things, but it is very universal. And I've been very careful to make it as such before we move on and we start going a month by month questions about what this is, or literally any questions whatsoever about anything I've talked about so far. Internet, anybody, we're doing good. I would throw a quick question at you on, and we may come back to this later. But Megan Allen would like to know. Is your new book something that would complement this three month mentorship? Yes, the new book, Actually, yes. But let me explain. The new book is regularly $69. If you purchase the course, you'll get it for free. So that's a huge added value in the course, because that workbook basically is your month. One textbook now can you buy the book without buying the course? Of course you can Just He really did their course. She can. Wow, I am extra punny this morning. Um, you can buy the book, but it would be exactly like going and buying a textbook for a class and never going to the class. So if you buy the book and you want someone to tell you how you're doing with your answers, sign up for the class and get it for free, otherwise by it and go to town. I just can't help you with it after the fact. And the book does have it has spreadsheets. It has calls to action you will be doing. You'll basically be getting the homework assignments that you're getting here, but nobody will be helping you with them. And that's only month. One months, two and three or a completely different animal. So, yeah, I guess it would be like buying a textbook for the 1st 3rd of a semester and then never going to class out there if you want it