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Lesson Info

The Portrait Process

going to start talking about the portrait process we've been talking about marketing and getting clients in the door and how toe get yourself known. Now it may be somebody met you at a festival or at the Halloween event, and they want to know more about you when they want to come in. So it's a trestle portrait. Business makes most of its revenue post sale brother than post portrait rather than like a wedding where you're charging up front. So you need a good sale strategy and the strategy is a threefold. We always say airport to process is a three bold process the consultation, the shoot and the ordering session. The consultation is where you're gonna be talking to them setting, getting your first impression, setting their expectations, shooting, discussing, shoot specifics, all of that sort of thing, thes shoot, shooting with the end in mind. And even in the shoot, it's also sales. You're getting them excited about the images and what they're gonna get. So even while you're shooting, ...

it's still a sale session. And then finally, the ordering session. I call it the order to session because that's what I am expecting. My client toe order, not a sale session. And you want to have sales with an emotional impact. And we're gonna talk about that a little bit. So you start with the complication and I like to say for the consultation, have a comfort, a conversation, not a presentation, Since I can't talking e o. But I think what happens is when you get a new client in the door, it's intimidating. Sometimes you don't you're not sure of yourself or your prices of your products. And and you want to start talking to show them what you have. And instead of just sitting back and listening to why they're here, why did they come in? So you start asking some questions like, What do you love about photography? What can I do for you today? Why are you here? And that helps you to start a conversation with them as you can stop and listen and hear what it is that they want. I think listening helps build trust to They feel like they're being heard so you can help them start talking by asking some pointed questions to why do you Why would you like us to photograph you like what your thoughts about that and then not just being prepared to the whole spiel about what you can offer them, but being willing and committed to just listening. Sometimes it's hard to sit with your own silence, but having some questions in mind that you start with it is good for starting the conversation. And we like to say what something you love about your child right now that you don't want to forget. And what's something that you guys like to do as a family, and that sort of starts a conversation about who they are, and it can resonate with who you are and you can start talking about. Maybe you have kids at the same age, and you just went through that phase or whatever e think. What's important for that kind of photography, though, is that you want to start creating photography that will have an emotional impact on them. So you're you're photographing things that they already connect with it that are already important to them. It's not just a portrait, but maybe it's a portrait of them making the pie that they make every single year or some piece of the child. Remember we've had people tell us ago. I love it when she describes her hands and she is so excited. And then you know things that look for later when you're shooting, it can be a fun conversation. Joy prefers to do them in person, and and here's a few. Well, actually, I want it. I want to ask the general audience here about the complication part, and I feel like that is the most for me. It could be the most awkward part because that's when your first meeting them. But if you've known them before because you've had these ever reasons for them to come in or opportunities to meet them, it makes that first consultation a must, less awkward sort of situation. So what do you do? Do you have consultations? Were you way? Start with the phone company. We do everything we can to get him on the phone and then try to bring them into a consultation. So we dio a little bit of a chat on the phone and try to get them in for a consultation prior to the shooting. Where I struggle with is separating How much computation to do on the phone and then if I do too much in the phone, would have laughed in the person. So that's just sort of what I'm still trying to sort of like, Where did I say, right? Come on, come on in and chat some more versus Let's keep chatting. Phone. I have a really hard time getting controlling the phone. I get e mails and Facebook messages, and I'm like, Great, you know, give me a call if you want. You know, it's taking me a call, your numbers, you know, or if you need to do it over, you know, because I know a lot of people aren't comfortable talking on the phone. I don't know. I love talking. That's something I struggle with. But that's a week. A good point that you made that. If they've already met you because you're in the community because you're doing these things, then it's less awkward for them, and they're more likely to say, Yeah, but I don't ever do anything in person. No, this is We were just talking about this last night. Somebody and I said that was something I needed to work on was the pre session stuff. If I'm contacted for new work. I will. Just the first thing I say is let's schedule a consultation. I want to talk to you. I just I think that everything pre shoot should be done in person. I just I just feel like it's that visual connection like yours looking at your subjects for the first time, and you're getting inspiration from just seeing them and getting to know them. And, um, so important, I feel like that's just so important. Well, I think you go back to the whole intimacy thing about photography, that if you make a personal connection with them and that one excuse for them to come in might be you have some new products you want to show them. And I think that even if you don't have a studio where you could put things on the wall, you could bring samples. So where do you meet with people? Looks you mean might start back? Starbucks seems to be a popular studios not consider. Just do you share like getting a place and partnering with other photographers to share space so that your sharing the rent, the cost of the rent and then each one gets a wall to put things up. I mean, way have people now who share our studio space of this, and it's been actually really fun, you know, Um, getting your clients a previous client back in for another consultation seems to be a problem. Like they already know. Already got through the whole, the whole thing, ordering and everything. And then it's the next year. What do you think? What would you do? Well, I would probably try, you know, Let's go have coffee. Find out what time he's into this year and kind of, you know, what would you want to different this year? So you don't have the exact same photographs with last year kind of thing, But a lot of a Muggle that, you know, they just want to have That is a quick phone conversation versus everything. Maybe they have been preconditioned the year before. Being on the phone is okay. Who do you think you know? I agree. I think it depends on the client and a lot of the for a new client. What you're doing is you're educating them. You're creating value around your photography and you're studying their expectations. So with a returning clients. I think you can engage how you do that. I love the idea. I can. Let's just go for coffee and talk about what's he into this year. And I have this new product I wanted to show you that I think is gonna build really great into your wall. Something like that. Do that. Jules and I have, Ah, a little acronym that we invented. And it's way. Why am I talking? We've said that before, but we do have a tendency to tall way have that little acronym to remind ourselves not to talk this much. Just a wait and listen. And I think the goal and those consultations to gather valuable information. So if you give yourself a chance to listen, you're going to say something. We try hard to say like, Well, why am I talking like, What is the purpose of this? Next thing I'm gonna say, Maybe if you listen, you'll be given the opportunity to hear something that maybe if you were talking, he wouldn't have learned, like when I mentioned earlier about the clapping or when they talk about what's important to them things that you learn it. The consultation will help you, not only during the shoot to know what to shoot for, within, also with products, what kind of products that they're gonna purchase. And Joy likes to have a lot of that stuff already predetermined to that. When she gets to her ordering sessions, she'll say, OK, remember the book that you wanted? This is a layout that we put together. It's not like Do you want a book? It's already been predetermined, but also, like you said about the clapping, they may if you engage them in conversation and they say My daughter, so keep magical abs and it's just there. I just love this. And then you capture that little girl clapping. They think you're a genius, right? Right, because they say these things as parents. But then, when you really hear them and put them into action, there's amazed you can crosses just a genius that you I think that's the point of just stopping and listening. Rather than trying. Teoh, you know, immediately inform them of your price lift in your products just to sit back for a second and say, like, let's talk about this. We'll add the human touch to that we were we've been talking about all day. I only have a handful of those kinds of clients that, like continue to come to me and I want more because I love them. They they're 100% supportive of my work and they have him on their walls in their house of love, hearing that I love hearing that. It's just it makes my job very rewarding. And, um, it's it's hard. They're hard to find in this, you know, coupon site driven world that we live in. You know, repeat business is is as hard to develop. I think the other thing is that people don't like the word sales. I don't feel like they want to push products on people. But if you're listening to them and you just stop and ask them questions, then you're actually helping them make decisions about what they want. I mean, they came to you for a reason. There you've gotten them in the door, so just sit back and listen, and this way you can help them. And so it becomes less of a sales and more a service that you're helping them Teoh decorate their home or commemorate their child in the way that it is important that so move on that we're talking now about setting expectations. So after the listening, when you do need to do some talking in consultation because what we're trying to do is make the actual sales session, which I call the order in session is a narc. Korda's possible. So what you're trying to do is eliminate many decisions as possible on that day. So for setting their expectations. One of the things that you're doing is priced conditioning. And we were talking about that before about how much you charge. And if you have an event where you're charging West, is there gonna be sticker shock later? So you want to make sure that they're aware of your prices and you do that? One of the best sentences you can say is most of our clients generally spend about whatever you want them to spend. And so what that does is it sets in their mind like Okay, this is about what I'm in for here. This is about how much I spend. I can anticipate spending and on everything that this does is it might determine that they're not the client for you because that's not the rains that they're going to be spending. And they bolted that like, Oh, I don't think that's what it Maybe you can tell it was have a good friend who who hadn't done this type of thing and hadn't given her clients an idea what they might be spending went through. The whole shoot had a whole ordering session, and at the end, when she pulled her prices out, a client nearly fell over and left and didn't shouldn't end up selling anything. And I think it just ended up being a bit of a waste of everybody's time. And I think it's like going to the Ferrari dealership. Really, I love it'll. Take it and then they run. Yeah, but it's this much. Oh, like I didn't realize. And I think so. I think that it's important toe set expectations and, like I said, be okay with letting people go. If it's not the right match because you don't want to spend a bunch of wheels and then just have it be someone who couldn't ever be a repeat client or maybe even, you know, yesterday is staging the first time you're seeing your bracing usually unless, like with the about join jewels that were given out. There are some little pieces of structure in there. It's not everything, but it's a like a baseline, necessarily already booked, right. It could be to get booked a book, You okay or they've already booked and you're coming in to set expectations. But usually they're coming in because they want to book. And I'm nothing. I've ever had a book, actually, but so I click on there. One of the things I wanted to say was that you don't want to sell yourself on Price and you don't want to lose a client because of price, Which is why going back to the beginning, where we're listening, creating value about photography and your photography in particular, the money is worth it. It's an investment to them, so you've already created value, and now you're moving to the next step where you're showing them some products that they might not know even exist. So, for example, these are some really beautiful books that we sell, and a lot of times parents don't really think about getting a book. They're just thinking about maybe getting a picture for the wall. And so if they see this book, they might consider like, Oh, that's actually kind of cool. And this is just one photo session we didn't have. This isn't a baby's Percy or anything, but if you show what you want to sell, that's most likely what you will be selling. And I've noticed that if you show canvases you tend to sell canvases of you show frames. You tend to sell frames, and I think that there's a few reasons for that people by what they see. And they also I don't like to make decisions. Decisions causes anxiety, people not liking Zaidi. And so your job is to you, dissipate the anxiety as much as possible and help them with as many decisions as possible. So have you found that to be the case that you showed some something and that's what they end up buying? You can steer people that way what your enthusiasm for a product typically translates, and then they're like, Oh yeah, she really loves it. That's true, Thea. Nothing is that we create collections that they might not know about, or something unique in different so that that can also create a desire for in them to want this product. So, for example, here we have some canvas clusters and we give them little cute names like this one's called the Nine up. This is the family pack. And so then we can start talking about him like that, like I really like that nine. OK, so you like the nine up, and it's kind of fun. It's symmetrical and you conduce, um, some close ups or you can talk about what you could do with that, and so that gets in their finally start thinking about this could be fun. And so now you're you're eliminating other decisions as you go as you're showing your products to give one more creative. The name thing isn't one of my favorites. This is a canvas. It's a long and skinny canvas like 10 by 30 and, um, it's custom designed jewels. Custom designs them herself with their own presets and templates. And when people see these, it's just something so unique that they can't create themselves. I think that that's one issue today that there's a lot of places you could get a canvas print for pretty cheap, so canvas prints now are harder to sell for more, even though the image that you create is not an image that they could necessarily get that campus printed someplace else. But if you can create something that's unique and different, that they can't get anywhere else than that creates even more value for that image. And joining sold a lot of these because they are different. And what we'll do is if they've shown some interest in them in the initial consultation, then we'll work, went up with their specific information. When we have the ordering session and be like, You know, we're the names like that you like This is what it would look like are possible way that it would look and they're very easy. Teoh cut, customize. So if we've done, they shoot at their house. I already know the colors of their house, so I can customize it to something that would really work well there and there, there really popular. So it's fun to have something like that that they haven't seen in other places, and there's lots of products that I'm curious. Actually, anybody has something that they have found that's sort of unique, that that I'm a graphic designer to So I do a lot of custom custom cards and boutique cards and stuff like that. And no, and I love selling them there and people love them like one that sticks out of my head was This was a a set of twins that turn run. And the mom contacted me and she said that she wanted to thank you. Have a custom, thank you card. And, um So I made to science One said, Thank the other. Said you and said the twins, you know, in her backyard. And one was holding, you know, Actually, I ended up sticking him in the ground because they were like, flapping around and stuff and you couldn't You couldn't couldn't see the signs, but they turned out really cute and they loved them and they sent him out to all the guests and they were a hit. And I think I don't know. That's just I think, being clear about what what you're passionate about creating for your clients, and I think that's where I need to work on is like making a list of what I want to sell. And you know, that is one of the things that I like to sell. But you get energy from that. So then, yeah, and give you more energy about around prisons. Have you were doing things that you really didn't like to dio? You have to spend time doing those things and just bring your life down. And I think there's another way that you stand out amongst the crowd of photographers is your unique product that you can offer. And I think the thing about that is that a lot of times you need to educate the clients that those products even exist something maybe they didn't know about an acrylic block. But you show them the acrylic block and they think, Oh, that's pretty cool. And also, when you're going into the shoot, you have a better idea of what you're shooting for. So if you know that they want a big portrait on their wall, you can shoot a more environmental shot so that they're smaller and it could be a bigger frame. I always shoot to design. I, um, in that, you know? No, not everybody has that background, but we're not. Whenever I'm sure whatever I'm shooting, I think what can I? How can I lay this out? Like what? Colors will complement this. Like, how can I create a story so that I'll have somethingto layout? Yeah, exactly. So if I know ahead of time that they wanted that family pack when I could No the size of mentions of those campuses and to shoot for those, like Okay. No, I want to get a family shot. I know they want that. I know they want individuals of each child so that it helps you go into the chute love plan with the planet. Thank you so much.