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Marketing, Networking and Advertising

We're going to start today off by talking about marketing, networking in advertising, So I know this is a big one. You guys were all excited for this. I have a lot of information to cover. I don't do paid advertising. Like I was saying yesterday, There are things that I pay for, such as art displays, but I don't do traditional paid advertising. All of my advertising and marketing is really based around building relationships. So relationship marketing, it's a term that kind of gets thrown around. I know a lot of people when they hear relationship marketing like sounds like so much effort, Can you just give me a quick fix? I just want to take a pill and everything works. But the thing to create lifetime clients, you need a have good relationships with local businesses with your clients, and I always suggest, with the rescues and shelters in town, So there are ways that you can get your phone to ring right away if you just need. I need sessions now. I need sessions tomorrow. You can do l...

ittle model searches. You can do port, full deal building sessions that are complimentary things like that and give them a little credit and try and Upsell them. But to create lifetime clients that are loyal to you, you need to have good relationships. If I could give you guys one piece of advice for marketing its to realize that people wanna work with people, they like Twitter. People wanna work with people they like. When you guys were doing business cards. Website marketing materials is they're all really important. People are basing your photography studio on those pieces before they know you, right? So they're basing it on your work. They're basing it on the quality of those pieces. What your website looks like once do you meet them? Once you do a consultation, want you to your first session with them. It's no longer about any of that. It's about you. You are selling you for the rest of your relationship with those people. People want to work with people they like. So that took me years to realize cause I always thought I'm pushing the photography and pushing the photography and your work has to be good. It does. It has to be consistent. Like I said yesterday, you have to be able to produce what you're putting on your website. That's what people expect. That's what you should be doing for them. But it's about you. People are going to come back to you because of you, not so much because of the specific work that you're creating. So it's just something to keep in mind that yes, you know, your studio and all that is important. But it's really all about you. So with that said, you need to get involved. And I know this is hard for people, and this is what relationship marketing is based on. But I'm like the laziest person. Sometimes the thought of like going out like dressing up and going out and like that's exhausting. I just want to stay at home and like, PJs and like, hang out with my dogs. I've always enjoyed being behind the scenes and not necessarily having to be up in the front and be, you know, involved in everything. But if you guys wanna have an art display with someone, if you wanna have get involved with the rescues and shelters, if you wanna have businesses refer business to you, you need to get involved. You need to do things you need to dio attend their events. So if they're having parties, anniversary parties, fund raisers visit their booths at outdoor events, use their services. I'm gonna go into all of these, buy their products, interact on their Facebook page. So let me tell you a story. There is a lady. A few years ago, she was a pet sitter in Las Vegas, and I had my studio and she stopped by one day with a stack of business cards. She introduced herself. So she gave me a stack of cards and says that your pet sitting I would love if you could refer people to me. Can I have some Your card so I can refer people to use. Great. So cool she came. And instead of just sending me an email, she came in person, so that was perfect. What about every three months she would stop by the studio. Here's another stack of business cards. Well, about the fourth or fifth time, I just started throwing her cards away. I don't know you. I'm not gonna refer clients to you. Yeah, you made an initial effort, but coming in and giving me a bunch of cards, I'm not going to send my clients is someone I don't know. There is a marketing rule. I'm sure you've heard the rule of seven. People need to see or hear your message at least seven times before they can even consider making a move on it. So when people talk about direct mail marketing, you can just mail one time. If you want to do magazine advertising, you can just advertise one time. That's why they always say, you need to do it six or seven times in a row to even see if it's gonna work for you. And the first time I heard that, I thought, You're just trying to sell me and get me to commit $ a direct mail marketing So I do it for six months in a row with you. But then we're a research. I did, and just the more you think about it, my clients are not just seeing my images at a vet office and picking up the phone and calling me. They see it there they see that the dog wash. Oh, they saw it on the Nevada Especies website cause there's animals for adoption and over time their like. We just see you everywhere. But if they just see that one time unless you're a cheat business If you're charging $25.10 dollars come in $50 package, you get everything you need. Totally. People can just pick up the phone, call you and do it. It's not that huge oven investment, but where we're talking talking about what you guys want to dio and when I'm doing is charging, creating art. People aren't just gonna pick up the phone and call to invest $2000. They need to see your work multiple times. You need to see your image. Multiple times people want to work with people they like. I'm only going to refer from my business to my clients. I'm only gonna refer them to people that I trust. And it takes time for people. Teoh like you, first of all, So first get to know who you are and then takes time for them to get to like you. And then it takes time for them to trust you. So again, this pet sitter kept coming by over time. I just threw her business cards away. Hasn't like I just I don't know you. A couple months later, there was another pet sitter who came to my thing is like a three year anniversary party for a studio. So she showed up. She introduced herself. She's mingling. Same thing gives me some cards. Can I have some of your business cards? Well, the very next day she came back and she said, Here's a disc of images. I just took some snapshots and like, Oh, that's so great Cause in higher photographer to photograph it. And I was busy Cool behind the scenes shots and I love it. Thanks for doing that was so nice of you. And then we had an outdoor booth and then she showed up and she said, Hi to me. How's it going? Everything good? How's business? Can I take some more cards? My clients just love what you do Christmas rolls around. She was a gift card for one of her top clients from my studio, and she kept doing this and about the seventh time, not on purpose, but just because generally about the rule of seven. I trust her because took time to get to know her took time for me to like her, and now I trust her. And she's absolutely someone that I started referring business to. And my client's got her business cards. Yes, it takes time. Yes, it takes effort, but you need to get off your butt and attend events, and you can do things on their Facebook page but interacting on businesses. Facebook Page isn't posting your portrait special interacting on their pages. Wow, that's really cool. Love that little thing that you're doing. I'm gonna share it with everybody or liking things. Comedy is not about you. It's about them. When you're doing that, you need to make sure that you're not using their page toe. Just advertise yourself, obviously by their products. This is another story. I saw photographer speak once, and someone said, How do you get art displays? And I'll talk about that a little bit, But she said, You know what we did? There is this boutique in town, very chic Children's boutique, and they wanted an art display there. And if you just go up to business and go high, have a photography studio. I'd love to have an art display here. Even if you're gonna pay for it. Are they gonna go? Yeah, absolutely. Know why? Because they don't know you. They don't like you yet, and they don't trust you yet. So they put in their budget for advertising. They took $400 a month from their advertising budget and went shopping there. So there's two business partners. So one of the business partners went shopping every week. She spent about $100. Should go in there. And she by all these little things on a little frame. Oh, in a little something. Well, she's becoming one of their top clients, so they get to know her. You know her name Now, over time they go your handbags. Really cute or those. Your kids? Oh, yeah. We own a photography studio. These are my kids. Is that the portrait's that we took? Wow, that's really beautiful. Okay, well, then the next time she comes back, they chat about a little bit more. Eventually, she got an art display with them because she went to their events because she shopped at their store. She bought their products. So, in my biggest art display that I have that we were talking about yesterday, that I get the most referrals from. That's my personal vet. It wasn't my vet before had the art display. I switched vets to become their clients, and they were okay doing business with me because I do business with them. So the place that I have another art display, the soggy dog. I buy all of my food from there. So it's just something to think about that people don't know you and don't trust you, and what am I getting out of it? But I am a client of theirs. I'm giving them business myself, So it takes time for these things. It's not like overnight. You're gonna be able to go out next week and get 10 art displays. You can do that, but they're probably not gonna be productive for you when I put art displays in businesses generally. And I don't take this negatively because it's sometimes depressing when you hear. But it takes about a year to get any business from doing an art display, and sometimes you're investing like $2000 because you're paying for all the canvases. But it takes about a year. I've realized to get any business at all because those clients aren't just going Oh, look, unless they've seen you at six other places and now they're seeing you going, I really need a book, a session at that place. And when you start spreading everything out like that and you start being all over town, then it will turn over faster. But when we were in, like, Summerlin for the first time, which is completely opposite of Henderson, no one up there newest. I didn't have any other art displays. I didn't do advertising up there. So it took about a year before I got any clients from that. And now we get clients regularly from it. So that's the biggest piece of advice I can give is just get involved. It doesn't take any money. It just takes time. I get it. I want to sit at home, my pajamas with my dogs, too. I'm gonna get really into the details on art displays is that we're gonna ask. Go ahead. What's your question? So how, um, if it takes a year about to build relationships with different places, um, and it doesn't necessarily take a year to build the relationship, But I'm just saying that's about what I've seen with getting clients referred to me once the art display goes up okay. Yeah. Seems like is there like a transitional thing that you can do, like maybe, uh, put together a black and ask if you can put your book in their waiting room and then, uh, I don't know. I'm just thinking, like the initial a meeting with different bet places or doggy day care or whatever. Um, and continue building that, but also being able toe that give the people a chance to see your work as well, Like on a continual big system and the customers as well. Okay, let me talk about our displays. And then I can Syria question, because the way I'm understanding your question is, can I take a book of my work and give it to the vet and put in their waiting room? You're not gonna get anything out of that. The only way we're gonna get something out of it is if you have a relationship with them. If you have a great relationship with them and they know who you are. But if you just put a book in there, it's just a book sitting there. Yeah, maybe someone randomly would be looked well, this was really good and go to your website and then fall in love with your work. But if that business is not on board and when they're flipping through the book Oh my gosh, her work is so beautiful. You need to go to her website. She's amazing, that person automatically. It's not just like, Oh, I don't know who this is. I don't know them. I don't trust them. I don't like them, but she's telling me they're amazing And I like her because this is my vet, you know? So they're all of a sudden there on board. They trust you. My last question. What if the what if the place already has artwork from another artist or photographer? I think it depends what the art is like. Like your heart is completely different from mine. You do paintings. I think it would be okay. Toe have my stuff with your stuff, but maybe, like my stuff with Darcy stuff. Maybe not because it's so sits outdoor work in studio work, but it's still so similar in style. I don't want people to get confused that my stuff is his stuff, so that I'm the same way when, um, we're photographing Calendar for one of the rescues in town and people were donating money to be in the calendar. We were donating our time to shoot it. So all 12 months and the cover well, one person couldn't come to the studio, and she said, and the rescue called me and said, We don't want to put you out. You're already doing so much for us. We're just going to send someone to go to her house and take the picture. Absolutely not. I do not want people confusing whoever takes that picture. I don't care how good or bad it is. I don't want them confusing that with my work. So I think it would be OK if the work is totally different. But not if it's normal. Just photography. Arka before you. But I just want to reiterate your great Twitter quote there. Some questions in the chat already quotes. Yes, it's right there. Two people want to work with people they like, and what I love about this approach is that it's it's really organic. There some questions online about I feel like I'm selling. How how do they know they're gonna think I'm just trying to sell them lately, but it's all about give and take and reciprocity. And so thank you for that, just showing how simple that could be just by getting genuinely involved. And I'll say it later today because we're going to get into doing events and doing limited edition specials. And one of the things I do is I shoot Portrait's at local businesses. So, like the soggy dog, a dog wash or like a dog bakery or something if they're watching, I'm sorry. I don't like doing it. I don't It's so much work and I do it for profit. Sometimes we do it for raising money for a rescue, a shelter, but usually we just do it for profit. It's a little like Christmas thing. The only reason I do it is to keep them, keep them happy, foster that relationship and once a year, I'll go there and do Christmas. Portrait is very discounted. It's 42 $99. We have little packages that you can dio on again. I don't enjoy it. It's not a lot of money that I make, but I'm doing it for that business to make them have because they send so much business to me and I only do it once a year. I'm not going to go there six times a year and do special because I'm not going to get any clients coming to my studio. I do it that one time a year. It's a three hour time slot, so if you can't make it that day, either wait till next year or come into the studio. But they were first, so much business to me and our cause. Amazing. You should see her work. Oh my gosh. And there's all that buzz. So I do continue to do things like that, and I think that kind of goes to what? The comment that you make, you know that people want to work with people they like, and sometimes there's events they don't want to go to. But my top clients air inviting me and they give so much business to me, I don't really want to go to that thing. But I'm gonna go to it for a couple hours because it's important and it means something to them that I did it and they're gonna keep sending people to me and keep coming to me, his clients, because I put the effort in. So let's talk about art displays. Okay? Art displays with the right businesses. So, like I said yesterday, don't do art displays with every business. There's a lot of people that approaches because we've kind of have our work everywhere now. So there's a lot of vets who call us. Usually when people contact me, there's a fee, because if everybody contacted me and I just said, Yeah and great, it's free, I wouldn't have any money. So if they contact me, there's usually a fee. If I'm contacting them, I'm not gonna approach them and go hit. It's gonna cost you this much and I'm approaching them. I really wanted are just play with them. So it's going to be something that's complimentary. So again our displays of the right businesses that this makes me think of. A couple years ago, there was a gentleman who came to the studio super excited. I mean, someone who's just passionate about your work and he gets it. And he was. I'm interior designer. I'm working with this business in Las Vegas was a pet related business and I'm decorating it for them. They're opening soon. And I saw your art at another vet office. We have a budget for it, but I love to work with you. If we can work something out, he said, I can't pay full price, Obviously. I mean, I have a small budget, but I don't want to goto HomeGoods or wherever and by art. I'd rather have your stuff. So we were talking about it. I went down there to meet with him, took my measuring tape. My note pad, took pictures of the walls. All that. So we're chatting. And he said, The owner is gonna be here, too. It's a great of course I want to meet him. And this is how we do art displays. We always photograph the owner and staffs pets. We never put random images on the wall ever, and I'll explain that a little bit more. So I'm telling him, this is what we do. He's all on board with it. Well, the owner of the business walks in really flustered, probably having a bad day. But he walked in and he's like, Oh, yeah, you're the photography lady. Come and he's like, what does your work look like again? Well, okay, what brought a gallery book with me? Because I always do when I go do art displays just so we can talk about colors and I want to make sure that we picked backgrounds were shooting the sessions to match your decor and all that. He's like, OK, I mean, I have a poster for my mom, so I mean, I have to put that one up this dog in the bathtub, but, like, I'm gonna put that one on this wall, so I don't know, they do whatever you want, but, like, just don't make them too big and, like obnoxious. I mean, if you just want to put a couple, like, maybe 11 my fourteens or something. Absolutely not. I don't care if they're going to even pay wholesale, and it doesn't cost you any money. No, I'm not wasting my time shooting all those sessions. So work with the business like that. The interior designers not gonna be there once the job is complete. That owner, it's just a waste of time for because I'm not gonna get any business from him, So don't just think. Oh, cool. I got this art display. Where'd you get it? With who would you get it with? Do you like them? Do they like you? They like you. They know you. They trust you. So just keep those things in mind. So I called him back and said, Absolutely not. I'm not, You know, I just called him and I just said, If you guys wanted to do, Portrait's with me Totally fine. This is my pricing, But I'm just very picky about who I work with. And it's a big investment for me to shoot all of these sessions for free. And I just got a really bad vibe from him. And so I wasn't talking to the owner directly. I was talking to the interior designer. Um, yeah, but there's just times that you have to make that call and, you know, it wasn't being negative. It was just This is what's best for my business. So and another thing, I just don't want my business associate ID, if that's how he is. If he's on the front line interacting with clients, he might be giving them that feel to just that icky like negative. I just don't want my images interact, associate ID with negativity and people that I don't get a good feeling from relationship marketing. We're talking about what you can do for me, but that's also a relationship to that. You had to deal with somebody personally in person to understand what their motivation is, and you can't get that through an email or through Facebook. And I think sometimes social media is really great. But we're afraid to actually humanize things. And I think that maybe that's one of the absolute foundations of your successes. Your human humanized everything. Not the pets, obviously, but you humanized the relationships, and then that's where it comes from. But not to be afraid to actually talk to people for yourself in order to sell. But to receive this well, absolutely and again you're pitching it to them is not. Let me put images up so I can advertise my business. No, let me decorate your walls with your animals. They love that. So again, I'm always photographing the owners and the staff's pets. The reason for this number one is I want them to go through the photography experience. If I just took a snapshot of their dog at the vet, even if it was a good image. Even if I brought lights. Even if I did that, they didn't get the photography experience that images up on the wall. Yeah, it's a good image, and I'm probably gonna get referrals from it. But if I make them come to the studio, come down there, have some tea. Relax. Can I get you some water? Can I have some water down for the dogs? Shoot the portrait's Let's pick a background I want also pick a background that's gonna look good for your home, just in case you want something. If that's not the same as the vet office, let's pick a different background. But they go through the whole experience and realize that it was just so great. And I didn't think my dog from this. It's still and they did, and it was wonderful. And she told me what to wear. And I'm really happy with the portrait that was my holiday cards. So they get it, they know who we are and they get it. So if you just put random images up like I was saying yesterday, if someone comes in and goes, wow, That's beautiful. Okay, hopefully the front desk persons and like Oh, yeah, that's the lady down the street. But they might just be like, Oh, yeah, there's no reason for them to say anything else about it. If that's their dog, that's my dog. And I want the girl who works the front desk. I want her image in the lobby because that's my dog and she's gonna tell everyone about it. So it's just that again they know you. They like you. They trust you some 100% complementary or 90% off retail. So this is usually what I do. Do whatever works for you guys. But I normally do. My art displays 100% complimentary. I pay for them. But I really have to, like, you really have to be on board with you. I'm not gonna meet you once and be like, Yeah, great. Let's do it. I usually talk to some of my clients if I know that they go to their business. If they go to their vet. Hey, do you like it? There is a good whatever. I just I just want to know that it's a good business before I make that commitment 90% off retail. The only reason I do this and pick the number that works for you. But I do because I want them to almost cover my wholesale cost. But I don't want to tell them my wholesale cost. I don't want anyone to know what my wholesale cost is if I say, Oh, you get wholesale. Everyone in town knows your wholesale like that's just not cool. So if you pick a big number like that, um and you can even tell him it's 90% off retail and I'm gonna share the wholesale cost with you because it's advertising for me as well. But I want, you know, I want you to get a huge discounts. You can have your walls decorated, so usually people approach me. That's what I say is 90% off retail. If you want to do 80 85 whatever it is, it's gonna cover your wholesale. It might be 75 but whatever number I just the reason for that is just so I don't say my wholesale price contract for art displays. I just put a little contract together just saying I still own the art. This is not a gift. It has to be agreed upon where the images are going to be displayed. Always display. Always hang the images yourself, always go and install them yourself, and the reason for that is because I've done it before where I just mailed it to them. I'm busy. I don't want to drive across town. You mail it and I've literally had pictures put up behind a tree and they left the tree in the corner and it's on the wall we talked about, but they didn't take the other picture down that they're supposed to take down these cramp them all in there together, and there's just not a good way for my art to be represented. There's another time we did a collage, so we had to horizontal to vertical. So I think this little cool squares what it was supposed to look like. But it just ended up being this weird, funky thing. There was like this much space in between the images, and it just didn't look good, and they have to go back and go. I kind of don't like that. Can I re hang in? And there's holes in the wall and the whole thing, So just do it yourself. They're gonna be happy that you did it. I take my husband cause I don't know what I'm doing with the drill. So if you have to, like, hire someone to go with you or whatever, but just install it yourself. Are we gonna not displace to be further questions? Yeah. Do you have a minimum size that you have in mind? That's a really good time. I will not do eight by tens. 11 by 14 is absolutely not. It's wall portrait's. We're doing wall portrait. So, Mike, I usually do canvases 99% of the time. I always do canvases one just so there's no thinking. You don't have to worry about framing and matching and the whole thing, so canvases air just easy. My canvas is starting a 20 inch. I don't offer anything smaller than a inch 20 inches, a little bit small for me, for an art display. That image that you see on the screen, though, with the squares, those air probably 20 inches or even smaller. But there's four, so it's OK, but I wouldn't want to just hang 1 20 inch on the wall. So I try and make them as big as I can in the vet hospital, where, like the dog that has his head down above that, My question is a 30 inch at the 24 by 30. So in the other lobbies, I have 30 by forties as big a. So let me put him as big as I can put him without being obnoxious. Yeah, so even if they're paying 90% off retail, you still own them. How did you feel about that? Actually, no, I'm glad you brought that up to, um, they they own them. If they pay for them, it's only I own them if I paid for them. But in the contract with the 90% off retail, I still do have a contract saying the images. We have to agree on the space where it's displayed, Um, and it has to be up for a minimum of a year. If you don't want it after that, then give people the option to purchase it. But it has to be a minimum of a year, or they have to reimburse me for everything they have to pay for the session fees that were complimentary. They have to pay for the prince, so but I've never had an issue with it. The one issue I will tell you I had once with a vet office was office managers at that office. Is a lot of times run the place that kind of run the show. And if you ask the vet what's going on there like, talk to Susan? Not sure you know. So she came to my studio. The office manager booked everything, set everything up. Everything was great. She was on board. Did five free sessions. One girl brought her whole family. Whatever. Just you're here to the family portrait. It's not supposed to be how it is, but it's fine. Anyway. Do all the prints we do have canvas and half framed, so I deliver everything set a time. Show up. The vet was there. It was my first time meeting him. My mistake. Don't do that. You need to meet everyone who's addition Decision Maker In that business, he didn't like canvases. He hated it. He thought they looked unfinished. He says, if you want to put the frame runs up, but I don't like the canvases and I pulled the contract out and he said, Why? I've never seen that before. And at that point, you just kind of gotta go do I pulled the whole thing or do you just go find? Just leave the frame prints in there and that's that. I've never gotten a single referral from that business. The frame printer, and they're still to this day. Been there for four years. Never gotten a single referral, not a single person. So that's whether relationships are so important. Like I said yesterday, take business cards, but don't just go there for yourself. You're going there for them. I'm here to deliver cookies. I'm here to deliver cupcakes. I'm here to bring you a fruit basket. Hey, do you guys in the business cards Are you all stocked up? Are you good? So again, always make it about them. But harvest those relationships once you get those are displays. You're not done. You still have to do what we were talking about. You still have to interact on their Facebook page. You still have to attend their events. You still have to visit them at their outdoor booths. Yeah, Okay. Booth said outdoor events. So be picking about the events that you attend. No first year events. So all the things that we're talking about right now, we're always that I market my studio without spending a lot of money aside from art displays. But you make that back in one sale. So again, I spent $2000 are just waiting. I'm gonna get it back in one sale, maybe to sales. How many people attended the event last year? I don't do for steer events. That's just me personally, because I'm picky. I want to know if it was good. I don't wanna waste a Saturday. Most events here on a Saturday. That's my busiest shooting day. I don't want to compromise and not take three sessions of the studio to go to an event that was in a little tiny neighborhood with five neighbors there. So I just don't do first year event, so as long as the second year inventor later. But I want to see images. Can you send me some images? I want to see if the tables look like yard sales, or if the tables looked beautiful and put together that matters to me so if it's people just show up and have a table and throw their stuff out like a yard sale like I want to be associated with that, you know? But if they have a beautiful tent and everyone's matching and we're all white or world, whatever IT ISS, I want to go to an event like that. Is it your target market? I mentioned this yesterday. Pet Appaloosa Biggest pet event in Las Vegas. They attract 15,000 people. I think something crazy. dogs and they have music and food, and it's hugely advertise its $800 for a booth for one day, which is outrageous for an outdoor event. But they advertise it super heavily. They get a bunch of people there. It's not my target market. I don't do it. I just don't go to that event. And people who don't understand that are always like How do you not go to PETA pollutes. It's the biggest petty event of the year. How do you miss that? You're missing so much business. But we tried it for three years in a row and we got we got a couple people from it, but not enough to make it worth not going to the studio on a Saturday and taking those three sessions and paying $800 for a booth and just being around people who weren't our clientele and being associated with other businesses that aren't at our level. That sounds so snobby, and Sergio entered a win drawing. When we have outdoor booths, we do and enter to win drawing because we want to collect email addresses. You don't just want to go and hand out business cards. That's not fun. And that's another thing I actually have my girls who work for me. They dio a lot of my booths and I tell them like You don't have business cards out. You not stand there because it's here, trash here, trash. We have it on the table and we force people to ask for it. If you want a business card, you can ask for it. It's it's kind of hidden behind all the other things. But did you have a card? Absolutely not as likely. It's going to get thrown away, so just maybe your cards or cheap. But I have a five by five trifle. That's 50 cents apiece for my cars, and I don't want to just hand out 50 cents apiece, cars that are going to get thrown away to people that are just taking it because they're trying to be nice. But enter doing, drawing what we do. It's the same thing that we offer for a silent auction, which is our next slide. It takes care of the session fee. So the 1 25 classic session, if he is covered in that and you get a $100 portrait credit, so explain in the next slide why we do that amount. But that's what we give away at our booth so people can enter to win on and again that we were collecting email addresses. All of those people that enter to winter on our email list now shoot for charity outdoor events like this, where they have food, music, the whole thing, a lot of time to set up a mini studio, and we raise money for the animal rescue groups and shelters. So again, this is a little bit more themed. It's a little bit more cute. See, it's a 25 $30 prints and the way that we work it just a case. You guys want to do events like this, We make the rescue or the shelter provide us with a volunteer. I'm not gonna have my employees come out cause I'm not gonna pay them. If they do come out the money for their payroll for that day has to come out of the portrait funds. Im donating my time. That's all I'm donating. I'm not gonna donate money out of pocket. I'm just donating my time for shooting for editing, for mailing the prints for retouching, for doing all that. So I was make sure they provide a volunteer for me who takes care of the money, takes care of the order forms. People have to fill out their address on a hard envelope. I want them to fill it out specifically. So there's no errors and mailing because if we write it and it gets mail than it was the wrong address, like they have to fill it out. It's their handwriting. There address. We do an order form and I photograph it before I do each session. So I take a picture of it, put in my little been and I do the session so later. If my order forms got mixed up, I know who everyone is, what I'm going through. An editing. So just a little tip. Make sure that you're photographing the order form and try and include someone in it. Try and include the person or the dog or someone who is in that shot. So you know who it's associated with. We normally take $5 out of every shoot to cover wholesale. So again, I don't want to be out of pocket for it. I'll totally donate my time, but we're charging or $30 for a print. It's the same price for an eight by 10 horrified by seven or eight wallets. It's so nickel and dime minutes ago. This is 25 this is and it's the same amount of work to print in eight by 10 as it is defined by seven. So I make him the same price. I take $5 out at the end, so that covers the $2 of postage, the wholesale printing that was $2 then the dollar mailer. So that's what we do there. It's a silent auctions on. This is a great way to advertise your business. Silent auctions Air Wonderful. Because you're not having to invest money and do a huge commitment when you're doing like a magazine type of thing. Advertising you have toe commit. I'm gonna spend $500 on this. Spent $800. Hopefully, I get something out of it. When you're doing the silent auctions, you're donating gift card to a charity who's having Agulla or an event or a luncheon or whatever they're doing. We specifically do silent auctions and not raffles. We just flat out say no to raffles of people approaches like, Hey, we have a raffle you donate. Is there a silent auction as well? Or is it just a raffle? There's not what? Any time you guys have a silent auction, let us know we're happy to donate. But we do just say no to raffles. People are spending $2.5 dollars for a raffle ticket, and sometimes it's not. They're not even picking what they want. It's just a random big raffle. That person spent $ they're getting your $250 gift card. That's not okay with me. It's not a qualified client for me and you're not raising any money for the rescue. You raised $ for them, like that's no fun. If you do silent auctions, you're getting a qualified client cause someone is bidding specifically on your thing. A lot of times they make it a minimum. So they say bidding starts at $50 or bidding starts at $75. It's raising way more money for the organization, and you're getting someone qualified. So always do silent auctions. We do $100 portrait credit and a free session. The reason we do $100 you need to adjust this for what you're pricing is if you're pricing, it's $50 for an eight by 10. Ah, $100 is too much because they're getting two prints, so you should do it. Or I always like to do it where they're getting one complimentary print and there's a little bit left over. Not enough to get something else completely, but there's a little bit left over, and I specifically do a portrait credit, not an eight by 10 because there's no thinking involved. If you go, here's your session. Pick your eight by 10 you're going to get people who go and pick my by 10. And I'm done where, if you force them and put them through the consultation. That's the lady yesterday. Easter Bunny Ear lady. She was a silent auction person, so she came in. Well, how do you want to use your $100 portrait credit? You can use it towards gallery wrap. You can use it towards a piece of jewelry. She used it towards photo pillows. That's fine, but force them to think about it. Don't just give them a print, forcing to think about what they want. So if you're pricing $50 an eight by 10 maybe you want to do it as a $60 credit or $75 credit. So they get that. But they have to have a little bit left over, and they want to spend it. How did they want to spend it? Organization picks up the gift cards. We don't mail it. If you don't have a studio storefront, just mail it or you can meet them in person. For us. We invested so much time and money into designing our studio, and it's such a big part of who we are. They do have to pick it up. We don't mail it. So whenever they email us or call us, we just say Yes, we have everything ready for you were open Tuesday through Friday. Did you want to step an appointment this week? We just would love if you could pick it up because we put a little display together. So again, it's not about us. It's not. Can you pick it up because you want you see our studio? We put a beautiful display together for you, as opposed to just giving you a piece of paper saying This is what it is. So we always put a couple holiday cards in with our silent auction gift that way, because for the first few times we did silent auctions, we gave them our gallery book and they said this would be wonderful. You want to display your work, and then it took two weeks to get it back. Then you couldn't get in touch with them. And that's my gallery, buck. And sometimes when you're printing these wholesale, I mean it's like depending who you're pretty and it's a couple $100. I don't want that just out there. So we always do holiday card because any time like White House, for example, Ah, lot of times they print more than 25 the print 27 or 28 you have a couple extra left over, so just stick those in with it. I don't need them back their samples of my work so you can see it. My work looks like that there better than just giving a business card because they're actually showing your work, and they can just stand it up like a tent next to the gift card. So that's how we actually show our work at silent auctions. All right, gift cards for partner businesses. This is the same thing that's with the silent auction. But we give this to Oliver art display people. So are businesses that we want to have a really good relationship with. We give this of them and say here, Kathy, from the barking dog. Give this to your top three clients and what it is. A session and $100 portrait credit. Tell him whatever you want. You can tell him we gave it to you and you wanted to give it to your top line and you're picking them. They're gonna feel great about it. Or you can tell him you bought it. I don't care so that we were getting a qualified client. We're not giving it to someone random. And Kathy looks great, because whether she told him she watered or not, they're like, Oh, my gosh, you're picking us is one of your favorite clients. Like, thank you so much for this gift. We had someone used it the other day. We just posted the picture on our Facebook page on photography. And if you don't, if you guys saw it, it was the wedding couple. So the husband and wife, they just got married a month ago and they couldn't bring their animals to the wedding. So they came back to the studio month later to do a shoot in their wedding outfits with their dogs and their cat wearing little bow ties and flowers, and it was super cute. So when she went to check out and I said, Oh, I know you had a gift card. Do you have it with your Where'd you get it from? And, um, I knew that ahead of time I just don't look at the notes on the girl's book. The session. They make sure they know that. How did you hear about us? But she had her gift card and I said, All this is from Kathy and she's like, Yeah, so I said, Oh, and you have $100 portrait credit on here, too. So I'll put it in the system for next time. And she's like, Oh my gosh and shielded her husband. She's like and she bought us $100 portrait credit on top of that that was so nice of her. Perfect. Kathy looks great. We get a new client, they get a free, complimentary session. Everyone's happy. So this is brilliant. And I hope you're all taking notes that I can not say that right now. I hope all of you are taking notes is amazing advice. And again, it's not a huge out of pocket expense. If they just come in and use the $100 credit doesn't happen often because you're going to give him a whole experience. You're going to give him a consultation. You're gonna build value and they're picking their top clients. It's not likely someone who's just gonna be a one print client. But if it did happen, that that's all they got. You shot the session you invested in our doing that and you gave him $100 credit, which is maybe a $15 wholesale cost. So it's not a huge out of pocket loss for you is totally, totally awesome. Um, we were talking a dinner last night after yesterday's stuff about a lot of us do a lot of work for free, hoping that it turns into two paid clients and stuff. So I see that you are giving away a lot of free sessions and free stuff, but it's very direct, very, very targeted. Very. Instead of a shotgun, I'm just gonna work for free for everybody and hope that it turns into something you're very specific about. Sure, ill give away eight sessions knowing that there's a instead of a 1% chance there's a 80% chance you're gonna make two or three sales off of that. That's some, Yeah, it's totally just my mind's just spinning in the opportunities that are out there and again, this doesn't cost you any money. It's your time. It's just the time in the studio, which I'm doing for free anyway, Some as well do it with a purpose. Totally. And maybe $10 wholesale if all they got was the credit. It's fantastic. Um, the other thing that I thought of when you said that. Um what were you saying? See, I always lose thoughts when I'm talking to you, man. It's the haircut. My accent. It must be my accent. I had a really good thought. Oh, no. Okay, thank you. My thought was So there's certain rescues like there's a beagle rescue on day were the example that I was using yesterday where they wanted to do the doughnut shop dress up thing. I'm not doing that. I'm just I want to help you guys. I want to support you. But the following month, we did a special in our studio. Where was that same pricing that we do it like barking dogs that I don't totally enjoy doing. But $40.99 dollars for the packages and we shot it at our studio. So everyone had to come to our studio, so I still wanted to do something with them. I still wanted to raise money with them, but I wasn't gonna do it and don't shop parking lot. I was ended in my studio where everyone could have my experience. Well, I think the experience, I think that that keeps coming back over and over This whole workshop is giving the clients the experience. I think it was you said that the saying, No, you appreciated the fact that you say no, and I think that's really important. You know your business. You know what you're doing. You know what you're trying to get to and like, there are situation like that where I've done something I really didn't want to do. And I hate it hasn't resulted in any business. So it's OK to say no. Yeah, it is. And even if it's in a case like that, words for a rescuer shelter you can tell people. It's not that I don't want to donate a gift to your raffle. I love you guys. I want to support you, but that's going to raise $5 for you. I want to raise $200 for saying no. In a positive, you're showing a lot of things to them. It's not just about me. This is about you, right? Mutually beneficial. But in the end, you're in business to make money. Yeah, Okay, let's see. Next slide. So special offer and adoption packets. So we do this for we do adoption Portrait's and I might get so that depending on what kind of time we have in this section, but I am going to get it today to it today. If it's not in this section, we do adoption portrait of the rescues and shelters. So we actually give thes little coupons, and we staple it. We just printed on wallet size images like through White House. We just designed this, that we were not having to invest, because sometimes when you print like marketing pieces, you have to order, like at a time or 1000 at a time. This way, if you do it on wallets, it's like $2 a sheet or whatever, and you get eight. So that way just quick. It's easy. It's fast. We just staple it to our brochure. Congratulations in your adoption receive a complimentary mini studio portrait session and eight wallets. It's a $90 value. It has to be done within 30 days of the adoption. So you're putting a time stamp on it, giving not just here. Do it any time they call you in a year wanting to use it. So it's within 30 days. We do a mini sessions specifically again, less time commitment, same subjects in every shot. That's our mini session, and we specifically do eight wallets. Because, of course, I want them to get other things. But if they don't, I wanted to at least be marketing for my studio. If I give them an eight by 10 that's gonna sit in their home and no one's going to see it except for the family. If I give them eight wallets, at least seven other people will see it, and they'll have to give it to seven other people. So we usually only do this with the rescues that we do. Complementary adoption Portrait's with We don't do it with just any rescue, because again, if you do it to every rescue, they don't know who you are. You don't like you. They don't know you. They don't trust you. They haven't worked with you before, so I only do it with the rescues who We're gonna talk us up our cause. Amazing. She does, Oliver. Adoption Portrait's. They're so great that dogs get adopted really quick. They're not doing it to do me. A favor they're doing is they're generally Hercus. Awesome. That's how they feel. So again, that's part of that relationship question. Okay, You've just paid for my flight home here and home. Yeah. Actually, I can come back for another creative life. I take a vote, Let's say 2000 Portrait's a year. You said that the shelters. Yeah, and this is nothing. I didn't have to go toe White House, right? I can just get this at, you know, FedEx get it printed that FedEx just to make it look nice right on. It would be a very beautiful and, um, that's done. And also, I already have beautiful portrait's done off their pet already that they've adjusted totally so they can sessions done so they can buy that. It's already done, so I don't have to invest time for them, and they get other things. But if they've zone, at least they have a wallet. So they're handing out to other people. It's a $2 investment for you. to print eight wallets for them. Sales. There you go. Okay, all right. Annual portrait fundraiser. We do this every year, so we're coming up in this in July. We do this specifically in July because it's 100 and 20 degrees in Las Vegas, and no one wants to do Portrait's. No one wants to leave the house that it's our slowest month of the year, so we do a portrait special. So what it is you donate $75 to your favorite Las Vegas rescue grouper shelter, and you receive a complimentary petting family portrait session at our studio. So our normal session fee This is a classic session. It's a full classic session, not a mini session. It's all the combinations. You're at the studio for an hour. It's the entire experience. It's normally 25 throughout the year, in July, at $75 that entire $75 goes to whatever rescuers shelter you select. So it's a win win for everyone. It's a win win for the client because they're getting a discount. So win win for the rescues and shelters because they're getting $75 for every single person who does a session with you, and it's a win win for us because we're raising money for rescues and shelters and we're getting I don't know how Maney we shoot 50 new clients a lot of times a repeat. Clients were shooting 50 sessions in the month of July, when we would normally do for because it's 100 20 degrees in Las Vegas. So it's like a holiday season month for us. It's like a November December. Where were crazy were booked. We have a waiting list. We turn people away. We don't roll it over into August because we've been doing it for so many years. It's gonna be the seventh year that we're doing it. So many people know that we're doing it. If you don't book early, we cut it off. If you're doing Portrait's in August, it's normal. Full price has nothing to do with this, so and that's another thing with saying No, just sorry we were booked. It was greatly raised. All this money you can do a portrait special next year if you want to wait for it, or you can do regular portrait's for full price. Now the portrait are full price. It's a regular session after the donation is made. It's a completely regular experience. We do the consultation. We do the ordering session. They're ordering off the regular product menu. There's no portrait's included in this. It suggests that $75 donation instead of paying 1 25 So this I should have said when I started. If you're into graphic design, you're probably cringing because it's the ugliest, most busy. There's so many words, and I get it. People are like, Have a graphic designer do that? But what I've learned over the years, I've tried a different ways. And if I'm not extremely detailed in this fire, everyone's confused. I di donated the money to them. So I'm calling you. I did. I book the session through them. I mean, there's just so much confusion. So we just laid it out word by word. So sorry, Graphic designers. This is what my flyer looks like. So you call the studio? We have tried it before where we didn't want to deal with the money because we're taking in so much money for the $75 session fees, and then we have to give it all away, and that's what it's for. That's why we're doing it. But it's kind of like taxes. If you don't take the money out, you're like, Darn, I kind of felt like it was mine. And then now I'm giving all that money away. So we tried it one year where we I'm actually had the people make the donation directly to the rescuer shelter and just said, Just show us proof that you did it. Every the rescue let their money. It was all good. But the problem is we didn't get any recognition for what we did. And if the rescue is going to get the money anyway, then why not at least get recognition for doing it? So we do collect the money, we just drop it into a separate account. Every time someone pay 75 we just drop it into an account so we don't have to worry about feeling like, Oh, we just drain their account $5000 giving that money away. It was never ours anyway, but it still feels like you're giving it away. So we do collect the money directly, we lay it out. This is when we're shooting the sessions they have to be shot by the state were writing checks of the rescues and shelters on the state, but its greatest. Our average is a little bit lower on these are averages probably around $ in sales, compared to our normal between one and $ that normal clients are spending. But it's still for being that slow in July and then being able to make that much money and just having that big bump in the middle of the year and raising money for rescues and shelters. We've gotten a ton of press off of this portrait special because it looks, you know, everyone else is looking at it going. Wow, that's so great You're raising all this money. It's not just five or 10 or $20. You're raising $75 a person, and you're doing 50 sessions in that month. So one of things I wanted to talk about this is when I mentioned yesterday with some of the press that we've gotten. I don't pay for magazine articles and you can't pay for this anyway. If you wanted an article like this written on you, you can pay for an advertisement. You can't pay for them to write an article about you. That's just how it works in media. So me and my studio manager sat down because it was about a year that had gone by that we hadn't gotten really any press studio was doing fine. Everything's good, but it's just nice to be able to have those. You know, things on the wall those little memorabilia is and people Oh, you know, everything's good with us. So I said, Let's right in America's awesome letter So we sat down and wrote An Erica is awesome letter and it was all about not just us, but all about the rescue work that we do. We do tens of 15 adoption portrait sessions every single week, and we do this. We're helping these animals find homes and if not there on death row and if not there, sitting in the shelters for eight months. And this is the type of experience that we offer our clients and we're just great. So we did this whole thing and of course she's writing it from her perspective because I can't write that and go, I'm awesome. But she's ready and going, you know, and she's so humble. But yet she does all this stuff and she deserves to be recognized for it. So if you guys don't have a studio manager, you can have someone else do that for you can be a client. It could be a friend. It could be anyone who's just going. This person needs to be recognized cause they're so great. Even if you're writing it with them, we send it to everybody, every press outlet, every newspaper contact that we had. And like I said yesterday, we sent its Oprah. We sent its Ellen. I mean, we were just like You can't There's nothing to lose, you know? Send it to everyone. We followed up. We made a phone call, every single person that we send it, Teoh and half the people were like, No. Did you send me something? I didn't see an email. You guys can't just send an email. I hear from so many photographers. I want to work with this rescue or I'm trying to get a little event put together with this boutique, and I sent them an email but haven't heard back from them. But then I sent him another email this morning. And then you guys just get so discouraged going? I don't know. I just can't get the business off the ground. Nothing's working. Really? You spent 10 minutes writing an email and you've come to the conclusion that nothing's working. Get off your booty, Go to events, get involved. Do things like this distant cost us any money? It took time. We sat down. But be creative. We sent this out. We followed up with everyone. We got three huge newspaper articles in Las Vegas. This was in the review journal. When you open this. It was this ridiculous page and 1/2 spread. And who knows, You know, they interviewed us and we thought, Oh, maybe they'll do this little thing on us. It was a page and 1/2 spread in the Review journal, and we have it on their wall we can put on your Facebook page, and it just looks amazing. This was just another one. All three of these things I'm showing you were from the Erica's awesome letter. So right and Darcy is awesome. Letter. Send it to everyone. But let's do questions. Yeah, we can definitely jumped in the questions. Are there any questions in studio before we go online? I just wanted to say about the getting off your booty. That's a little differently, but and going and asking to work with shelters can't just necessarily ask, because there's always a lot of training if you're going in and taking, but so requires a lot of work and commitment. And I've had and I've been training some photographers and they're fabulous. And after two weeks, they're gone, and it just it's wonderful experience, but you're gonna do it. Do it. Thanks, very rewarding. It's really were writing, not financially, but it really is rewarding. But if you're going to do it and you want to be trustworthy and they like you and trust you as well, you have to you have to follow through your taking the words out of my mouth. When we talk about adoption portrait, it's I am very harsh about that. It is a huge source of her furrows. It's a great way market your business, but do it for the right reasons. Don't do it for marketing. Do it because it's the right thing to dio do it because it's saving animals lives. If you are going to stop doing adoption Portrait's because you're not getting referrals, do not do adoption Portrait's. So do it for the right reasons. You are going to get a lot out of it. But I'm very stern about that. Do it for the right reasons not because, oh, I want to see if I can get new clients out of this. If you want to just get new clients, do it different ways. You can do things like this with media articles. You can do relationship marketing, but when it comes to the animals like that, I'm with you. Do it for the right reasons. We'll talk about that. I'll get on my high horse later about that. All right, Beth, he had asked. Are there other photographers that do photos for the rescues as well? Or do you make it so that you are the only one? No. It's something that I offer toe all the rescues and shelters. If they choose to use someone in addition to me, however again it's maybe my work is getting confused with theirs. But in that case, it's not an art display that's just trying to help animals save lives. I have my logo in the corner of every image when we do the adoption portrait. So no, it's not like a contract thing, like you have to use me for everything. So they usually do, because sometimes they'll have other people who help. And they're like they're trying to be nice and they're trying to help. The pictures really aren't that good. So no, it's not. Whatever whatever works for them. Yeah, and going back Teoh Art Displays We have a question from Colleen Carnival and also from Sun Dog Pet Photography when a staff member leaves. So this is talking about when you were taking pictures of each staff member's pet. So when they leave, does that person take the image of his or her animal with her? Does the office owner or does it go back to you? So I'm glad you asked that question and cleared that up earlier. If people are buying in a discount, they do own it. As long as it was up for a year, they can't take it down before a year, so a year has expired. They do own it. If they did the 85 or 90% off retail and got the discount. If it was 100% complementary and I paid for, it's still my art. It's not a gift. Eso If that staff member leaves, they have the option to buy at a discount so they can buy it and it's You can do whatever half off for whatever you want, but if not, it stays there, but they can buy it at a discount. But it's not a whole it's not. I wouldn't sell it for wholesale. It's not worth it. You're not making anything off of that. If you're going to sell it to them in that situation, I would sell it and make a profit. It doesn't have to be full price, but and if you follow questions, you have model releases for other people's pets. It's a fine A. I have people signed model releases. There's nothing specific to the pets, but I think technically I should know this. But I think like in the legal world, I think pets or people's property, so with the pets, it's it's there, they're actually considered property. You guys, you're nodding. Yeah, you don't take yeah, right way Do model releases for all of our clients. Everyone has to sign one time. Talk about that later today, too. But everyone does sign one. So if you don't sign and it's OK, we just need to know if you say no, I don't give you a model release. We just flag your folder and say, No model released. Never pull images from this folder. They can't be used for anything. So OK, great, thank you. Call the shots. Asked when working with a new vet office, Do you ask them out to coffee, make an appointment to see them, or just wait till they see you at your appointment with your pet? Um, however, I mean the art display that I I probably have seven or eight art displays in Las Vegas, the one that I refer to with my biggest art display. It probably took five different times, maybe like running into them. How's everything going? I know we talked about wanting to do this. Nothing ever happened. Saw them again. Hey, did you want me to come measure the walls? I can actually come take some pictures if you want me to, and I can actually superimpose images on there and kind of just show you what it would look like. Yeah, I know that. I'm just really busy. Can I call you? Totally. I'm not gonna push it. If they're not jumping on board, I'm not gonna push myself on them, cause if you push yourself in there, you're not gonna get referrals out of it. They really have to want it. They have to be on board and wanted from you. So, um, I would say with that vet with the question they're asking, I don't know, probably took three or four months of just, you know, And I said, Can I come take pictures of all I'm busy on? And then we had an event. They came to our event, we went to their event and they said, We really need to do this. And I said, I'm just gonna come by and take images. You don't even need to be there. I'm just gonna take the images and I'm going to email them to you. And then I followed up with the email. They said it looks great. I said, we can start shooting the sessions and we started shooting the sessions and had that, so I know that's not a direct answer to that. It's just it's again the rule of seven. The whole you have to make. They're not just gonna Sometimes maybe they just jump on it the first time. But you want it to be the 5 6/7 or 10th time because they just jumping up the first time. They might not be people who referring you all the time, but if they're people that you know and like and trust and they know one like and trust you, then I think that's good. I feel like I've seen that question come up a lot, Yeah, about getting into, Yeah, just relationship. You have to have a relationship with them. And even if it's not your vet, I have 45 vets. I don't go to 45 vets. I just goto one vet, but it's still once you start building that report and having your images everywhere attending their events, when they do things, there's one of our vets who put on a event, and it just it's raising money and they do these comedy things, and I attended every year. I don't go to his office. I don't give him money. I don't buy his products, but I at least attend his events. And I'm involved still like that. And they sent us a lot of business, so Well, we have a question. What percentage of people bite in a silent auction? Generally used the session that they purchased. So they're saying, Are there people who get the silent auction gift her to never use it? Totally. Don't even track it. I don't. We donate about 50 silent auction gift cards a year. So sorry. If that's a bad answer, I don't track it. I just don't. But we donate about 50 a year, so we basically don't say no to a silent auction. It doesn't have to be a pet related business. And if you guys are people aren't approaching, you totally approached them. No charity is going to go. No, we're good on gifts. Thanks. Right. And it sounds funny, but just all you need to do is call them, call them, email them, put everything together for them. If you go to the event, we do 50 a year, so I don't go to 50 events a year. But if you go to the event you're going to get such a bigger shout out because you're there and they're gonna thank you and maybe even offer to shoot the event. If you want to. For free, you get a shot up. So yeah, but I don't track it. So another serve operations. Same question from Angie. What software to use for booking thes air? All the questions we talked about yesterday offset. I used the software called Insight. It's a salon software. It's not designed for photography. It was just because my pos system that I had five years ago was a pos. Early on, I had to buy a new system, so I just came across this one and I just found it and I liked it, and it's like I said, it's a salon software, but it keeps all of our clients. We have all of their purchase history in there. We say their credit cards in the system. We have all of their notes. I have very detailed client notes. Long I mean, we keep notes of everything. So, like I was saying yesterday, if I see something on Facebook and something has happened, we know that that's happened. So if they reach out to us. We know what's going on in their lives were actually a five minute meeting every morning because I have employees. If you don't have employees, don't need to do that. But if you have people working for you, we have a five minute meeting every morning and there's things on it that other people might think. It's silly. But hey, so and so. Speaking of his portrait today, Um, just so you know, he got in a car accident yesterday. He's totally fine. Everything's good, but just so you know, and all those little details seem like they might be silly. But when he comes in, Hey, is everything going good? I heard you were in access. Everything. Oh, good, as opposed to just like, Hey, Bob, what's going on here? Your stuff. See you later, you know, So it's just that, like relationship and you care, and it's important. And even if it's their dogs allergies, you care. So insight is the software that I use success. Where is something that I know a lot of other photographers use come to keep everything. I don't use it myself. I've never tried it, but that's another popular one that. I've heard of a question that came up yesterday when we were talking about software. Was Is that what you use for, like, your financials as well? And I don't I have QuickBooks separately from insight, but I can do all of my reports on their cause. You bring everything up through insight so I could do all of my reports and tax reports Are sales for the week sales for the month, sales for the day? What products are selling? How maney? Eight by tens. We've sold. How many? 30 by forties. We've sold. So that's all in there. Okay, great. And Westway studio s What do you do with all the email addresses? How often do you email your clients? If you dio What do you talk about them? Okay, I do want email a month. I don't overwhelm people. I personally when I haven't my email with other businesses. I don't want an email every week. I don't want an email twice a week. It's just I don't care about your business that much. It's overwhelming. It's kind of annoying. I just have to delete everything. So we do want email a month. It's I'm not religious with it. Sometimes it might be like a month and 1/ but it's about once every month, and it's just usually are portrait specials. I'm not usually if we have, like an article like this, I don't send it out. So okay, everyone, we had article. I might include this if we have something else going on. Hey, it's our seventh annual rescue shelter portrait fundraiser. And did you see this? So I kind of throw it in there so I'll include things like that. But it's not just like a shout out like they were also look at us. You know, it's like, Hey, there's this fundraiser going on or hey, we're doing Christmas in September. It's just for, you know, the month of September. Here's a special, and if there's other things, like if I spoke a creative live, let's attach a link or something like that. But it's not just a Hey, I'm cool. Look at me. Email question came up actually kind of about yesterday. I love Chihuahuas says Yesterday, you mentioned how you got a $200,000 alone and open the studio without knowledge of photography, etcetera. Who would do that I love these questions. Kind of big picture questions. If you had to do it again, how would you do it differently? And I know you kind of touched on that a little bit, but I just can't say I would because it worked out so well. I mean, I just I don't recommend it for anyone, but I just I wouldn't change anything that happened. I would never want to be back there like thinking about being back in that place and knowing nothing like not even anything about business or market. I don't even know shutter speed like I knew nothing. So just the thought like being back there is just terrifying just how much I've learned over time. So I don't I mean, if I could do it all over again, I guess I would just get more education, take business classes, understand business more not just the photography end of things, but how to run a business. And not just how to put pricing together how to do portrait specials but understanding the numbers of the business. What your cost of goods should be, what you can afford for your employees, what your overhead can be if you're gonna make X amount of dollars. But I went into its signing a lease. I didn't even do the basic like, Okay, you're rents going to be $4000 a month times 12 which is like, I didn't even do that basic math. I was just, like, cool. I'm a sign, at least some good. So I think just if I could do it all over, if I had to do it all over again, I would just be a little more cautious and prepared about it. But I'm happy with how it turned out. And I'm blessed with where I am and I've learned a lot, and I've worked hard and didn't just happen. It's not like it just all came to me. I mean, I've been a student, and I will always be a student of photography. Um, since I started so all right, we'll ask one more question before we go to break a future frame photography asked, Are you are you Facebook friends with all of your clients? And we're talking about networking and marketing? I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you social media Yeah, to Network. I am doing my best with Twitter. I'm trying. Every time I post on Facebook, I'm, like, post on Twitter. I don't understand Twitter. I'm like, I was trying to find your guys videos for the audition, and I'm like, I don't even know how to find this stuff. So I'm trying to get better on Twitter, and this is not the best way to get okay. I love you guys. I'm on Twitter all the time. You're gonna find out what I'm eating at night. What did you tell him? What your twitter handle is and everybody follow. Twitter is at our door if you're not already. All right. On Facebook, we actually started a photography Facebook page is When I first started, it took me a long time to get on board with Facebook because I'm like, one more thing already have a 1,000,000 things going on. And I have to go to these events and I have to update my website and I need to do Facebook and like its learning curve in the whole thing. So when I did get on board, I just did. Archive was not about to do two pages because it was business and a personal. So I just did business. But I've gotten to the point where I have split them. So I have my personal page and I have my facebook dot com ford slash photography eq Shout out page. So yes, everyone go to her Facebook page now and give her like if you have not already and the Facebook pages again. Photography ik photography So spell it for us p E T O G r A P H I Q U E. Okay. And we'll drop that link into the into the chat rooms to so that you guys were like pet photography boutique. So when we started our business, we said, Is anyone gonna screw the name up? No, it's pet photography. Booty photography EQ You know, we get PETA graphics way Get everything. So if you have people actually say, Oh, you're from photography, come like bless your heart for saying that, right? Thank you so much. So I have separated them. I have some such a softy. I can't say no to people like on Facebook. When people friend, may I just say yes to everybody So But if you friend me on Facebook on Erica my personal page. I don't post anything about the studio. Nothing is photography that related. That's just like my personal life. So that's like, Hey, I'm in Hawaii. Hey, my dog sitting on the stairs. Hey, Harley, my guinea pig in the base. So that's the kind of stuff I posted my personal page, but everything studio related. If you're interested like the workshops we do, if you're interested in adoption Portrait's we do interacting with clients. That's all in my photography EQ page. I get more emails through Facebook than I do e mails clients that are interested in booking sessions. So I get more messages through Facebook. So you're clearly in becoming an expert in building relationships across the foot spaceport piece book platform to. And it's one of those things that when you're doing things like adoption portrait's because you're gonna do them for the right reasons, and not just for marketing reasons. But when you're doing things like that, people love you. People want to send business to you, people like you, because you're doing that. So when we post all of our adoption portrait's, which repost a couple times a week on there, I mean it's It's our work. It's advertising our work. People are seeing what we do, and we're marketing ourselves. But we just look like the good guys because we're helping on these animals. Get a better Yeah, Thank you. That's great.