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The Pet'ographique Experience

Lesson 20 from: Pet Photography

Arica Dorff

The Pet'ographique Experience

Lesson 20 from: Pet Photography

Arica Dorff

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Lesson Info

20. The Pet'ographique Experience

Next Lesson: Adoption Portraits

Lesson Info

The Pet'ographique Experience

we're gonna talk about the photography experience, so I want to walk you guys through kind of beginning to end what I'm doing. In the experience that my clients are getting. I want to inspire you guys to create a high end experience for your clients so you can set yourself apart well, adding value to your clients investment. So notice that I'm not saying set yourself apart from other studios or set yourself apart from competition. Just set yourself apart, period. There is a client that we had recently who came into the studio. She was just telling us a story, she said. I was at a business the other day trying to buy a gift card for a massage for her friend for her birthday or something, and she's like and I walk in and they don't even greet me. And then they charge me the wrong price, and she's like, Can you just be more like photography on? That's like, obviously in her head. She's saying that, but it's such a compliment for her to say that, and there's people who have heard clients b...

efore, say they want to got ice cream, and there's like this new place in Vegas that's doing like, really cool ice cream, and they're like, It's like the photography EQ of ice cream shops. So it's just so cool. So, like I said, it's not just setting yourself apart from photography studio. Set yourself apart from everybody. If you set yourself apart, people can't compare you. If you're just like everybody else, you could be compared to everybody else. Do I have eight by tens? Yes, I have eight by tens, but it's eight by tens with this whole experience and gloves and hot tea to go with it. You can't compare that to a floppy. Eight by can make a comment about that going back to the first segment today. Um uh, just the one slide about the silent auctions. What struck me is the picture that you had put of one of your little set up. So if you see you had the gift bag with the logo and then the I can't remember all the little things, but it just struck me as right out of the door. Somebody doesn't even know you from a silent, silent auction. It's gonna look at that and go well, this person knows what they're doing, where they're going, why they're doing this. And it's so well branded and just bam in your face that it's high end, like just high and right off the start, so nobody's gonna bid on that. If they're looking for a $50 session, they're just totally gonna say, Wow, this is Ah, I know what I'm getting into right off the start. Yeah, And that's why it's so important with silent auctions. Because if you don't give them all of those things on the holiday cards and the nice gift card packaging, and we actually put a little print saying what's included with the gift card if you don't give all of that to them and just go, you know, here's the flat gift card in envelope. All they're gonna do is print out their little bid sheet. That they do for everybody in the top. Just has regular fonts saying photography. This is what they donated in the next business. This is No one knows who you are, so you have to provide all those things for them. So the things that we're talking about today are just like that. They're just little touches it doesn't take a whole lot of extra effort. It just takes a little bit of extra thought, a little bit of extra care. So you have to be consistent. All the things I'm showing you these are the things that worked for me. They might not work for you guys. I do, You know, elegant tea and these white porcelain cups that matches my studio style. Maybe you guys wanna have bright orange genteel mugs because that matches your branding, so whatever matches your style, But whatever you do, you have to be consistent. When I was in college, I used to Waitress. So is going to school, is playing softball. I was waitressing, and I learned when I was waitressing, people would come in and they would sit in my section all the time. They would request to sit there, and I started to get favorites and people that I really liked. And I go, I'm gonna comp their drinks. It's just like a nice teen soda. It's like a dollar 50 or whatever, but I'm not gonna put it on their bill. I'm just gonna given their soda, so I would do that and then someone else and like Oh, I don't know use. I'm gonna put that on your bill. Well, after a while, I'm like, I don't know who I charge drinks, too and who I didn't. And it's such a silly thing because it's a dollar 50 and who cares? They can pay for it. But it's the principle that if you did it once and then you don't do it again, then it makes them feel bad. Like, Oh, why did you put it on this time? And it's almost like if you comp your clients wallets like I'm just gonna go com wallets. If you don't do that for everyone and you don't remember to do them for the next time, they can pay 20 fire 40 bucks to get their own wallets. That's not the issue. It's the principle that you weren't consistent. So I took that waitressing concept. When I open my business, I said, I'm just going to be consistent. I don't have discounts. I don't give things away for free. The things that I'll show you are things that we do consistently. If animals owners animal dies, we have gifts that we give them. But besides that, we're not just like, Oh, I'm just gonna throw that gifted for you that create by 10 because I'm not going to remember who I did it for, so I'm just consistent. We don't have discounts. This is our product menu, and it's not to be harsh. It's just to be consistent because people are going to come to you. Like we said before, people wanna work with people they like. Those people weren't sitting in my section when I was waitressing because they were getting free drinks. It was $3 off their bill. That's not where they were sending their sitting there for me. They wanted to see me. They wanted to work with me. So your clients are coming to you for you, not because you're giving on those little comp wall. It's not cause you throw in a little eight by 10. They're coming to you for you. So just whatever you do, just make sure you're consistent. All right, so let's start off with email confirmations. So when I first started my business, like I was saying, we didn't do consultations, people just kind of showed up. Here's all your stuff and we realized because I don't require consultations. We realize when people weren't doing consultations with us, those few people, they were like the old clients because I didn't have time to prep them. They didn't get the tea and the gloves, and they just didn't get that experience because they didn't talk to us on the phone and do the pdf thing email link with us. They didn't get this experience in our studio to go. Whoa, this is a big deal. So what we did was we created a, um, the next, you know, we took their 1 25 credit card, and then the next time we saw them was at the session. So what we did was recreated an email confirmation. We're a bunch of different templates, so there's different emails for every sessions. If it's a mini session, here's a template. If it's a people with no pets, we have a template for that. If it's an outdoor session, but it's just so simple. It takes a couple minutes of your time to do after you run their card, but it sets you apart, and it's one more step to help prepare the client. So it's a lot of the questions on here. I know this is small, but it's a lot of the questions that we're asking during the consultation. What to wear. Keep in mind these things contrast with your pets, solid colors, toys and treats. Please keep them hidden until our past for them. And there is even something on there that says, If your dogs need a potty break, let us know and then we can have you go in the back were in a retail center. It's just prefer the dogs party in the back and all these little things. But that was our way to go. Yea, tea and gloves without them actually coming to the studio. So brand this. When you do this and create the template to match your branding. This is what matches our style. So again, yours might be colorful and bright or whatever it is, but it takes a couple minutes to do, and it's that one more step that you know they're not gonna show up unprepared because you did that. One more thing. We have our product menu at a glance on the rights. The left side is you know, thanks so much for choosing photography's were so excited we can't wait to create this art for you. What's expect during your portrait session? How to prepare for your portrait session the big day and have fun envisioning your portrait's. We look forward to creating your images with you. So again, it's just trying to make it like it's a big deal. Here's the time on we have our little disclaimer and their creation fees are non refundable. We require a 48 hour notice if you need to reschedule. So that's just one more little thing. And there we said it over the phone. But now it's in writing. So on the right, we have our product menu at a glance. So this was just kind of This is what our wall portrait start at This'd is our canvas gallery reps. They range from this price of this price on the bottom. We just have a couple things just for people to go acutely do holiday cards. Oh, look, they do handbags, just in case they didn't see that. So again, this is really important for people who don't do consultations, but anything that you can do along the way, you want to eliminate confusion, confusion equals negativity. So if your clients are confused and it could be something as simple as your portrait will be ready in three weeks and they're calling you in a week going, Are they in yet? No, they take three weeks. Oh, now they're let down because I thought they were going to be here this week. So maybe for you guys, that would be after the portrait session. You know, here's an email with a link to see your images online. If you do that, the's air, the dates that your portrait, they're gonna be ready to pick up. Thanks so much. And that way, it's just one more thing that you eliminated confusion. So there's no negativity. So for us, this was just a way to eliminate confusion and for people who weren't doing consultations and not seeing our pricing on our website cause, like I said, I posted all online there for everyone to see. But that way it didn't shock people. They didn't come in and be like, Oh, it's like $78 for an eight by 10. There was one more way for them to see it, and you said it before about how many images you send. Confusion equals negativity. I my cousin, just She's in Toronto. She had portrait's done of her family and they're lovely. But the photographer center 1100. No pictures to choose from. And she family portrait, Zahra, Wedding Family Portrait. Well, I like this. Look in this. They're lovely. But she said, I just I email her and tell her that you love them and they're beautiful. So it started off. But ask her to select 30 and then you can narrow it down because you can't choose. And but she was She was just gonna go with just like an eight by 10 and not continued order. Yeah, knowing that stuff that's overwhelming. And you don't want to overwhelm your clients. So some people have asked. I mean, it's not often, but I have had people that go. Can we just see everything? You can't see everything. You don't get to see everything I shot and you don't want to. I'm not gonna put you through that. That's not what we do here. That's not what you're paying. Before you're paying me. Edit these and take my time and make them beautiful for you to see and make them look magical. The magic is gone when you see everything I shot. So no, that's great. Yeah, eliminate confusion. And it's not just with email confirmations. Like I said, it's any step along the way where you can eliminate confusions. Like I said yesterday, if there's something that's happening in your business that you're not happy with, do something about it. Stop blaming your clients. It's so easy to sit there and just go. Oh, like, how did they like? They knew they were coming in for an ordering session. How did they not know what they wanted? And we talk to them when we asked them what they wanted and we told them to measure their walls and they didn't what did you do? Everything you could to try and get them to really measure their walls. And did you do everything you could see eliminate their confusion cause they didn't know what the pricing was of your gallery wraps or whatever it ISS. So, yes, you are gonna have clients who are just confused. Sometimes you are gonna have clients who just aren't prepared. And no matter how much you do, you will have one or two of those here and there, but eliminate confusion and make it as easy as you can for your clients. And don't just blame them. Look at yourself and say, Is there something I could have done? Could I followed up with a phone call? Could I have done this? Could I have you know, So just look at yourself and see is there something that I could have done? Okay, so we're gonna talk later about the phone call. That's a good one. So later, before we do our live shoot, we're actually going to say how to answer the phone. I want to show you guys how to answer the phone, and that sounds so silly. But when people call and go Hi. How mature eight by tens. So many people don't know what to say. They just go. Um, there. $50. So I'm gonna show you how to properly answer the phone and get your clients to fall in love with you. But let's say we book the session already. We've sent their email confirmation. We've done a consultation. We talked about that yesterday, right. And we scheduled the session. I'm sorry. We've shot the session. So let's say we've done all of these things. So what we dio, um, at after the portrait session that day, when they're booking their sessions to come back in order, we give our clients a tissue paper packet, and our tissue paper packet is a bunch of tissue papers folded up in all of the different sizes that we offer. So there's anything from eight by 10 in their 16 by 2011 by 14 30 by 40. It's not actually every size we offer, but it's a huge range of sizes and we give it to clients. And we say, Put these on your wall tape. It's your wall. Step back and figure out what size you want to do in your home for the space that you're thinking of. It's instead of giving them a measuring tape because that's like, I don't know, honey, is this good? You know you tape, it's your wallets. Tissue paper. It's OK. If you ruin it, you step back and go home. That would be a good size bringing into the studio with you to your ordering session. You already know that they want to do a family portrait that's the most important. You already know that needs to be horizontal. Now you know what size it is. They've measured their walls. It's a bunch of different ways. You can do this. This is the way we do it. We have seen people do string. They give their clients a bunch of different sizes of string. So, like this is a inch, This is a 14 inch. This is a 20 inch I just like the full size we ordered from a company called Archival Methods. And I'm just throwing that in there cause I know everyone's gonna ask, but you can do it from anybody. It's pre cut tissue paper in eight by 10 11 by 14 16 by 2020 by 24 My girls love me cause I used to buy a roll of 40 inch paper by 1000 feet, and they had to cut eight by tens. 11 by 14 60 might seriously be like, Oh, tissue paper packets are running low. Ashley, are you coming in today? So we just fire him now? We actually did the math because I was like, No, it's cheaper. This is what we're doing. We did the math on I pay you X amount of dollars per hour. It takes you this long to cut the paper, then package the paper. It's cheaper to buy it. Pre cut. That's what we do. Just a little plastic sleeve that we throw it in. How we always ask our clients when they leave the ordering. I'm sorry. Leave the portrait session. Do you have a style on or David Preference on wall portrait style like the canvas? Or do you like the signature portrait's? So if you can find this out ahead of time, that's great. But for the consultation, it's not necessary for me because I don't shoot differently. I shoot differently if you need certain products. I don't shoot differently if you want canvas or if you want framed, that doesn't matter. That's just a style preference. So I don't want to overwhelm people. If they've already given me all that information and we've done the session, now I can go is their style that you like better. That's in the notes. When they come in for the ordering session, we know what size they want. We know what images most important, they bring their tissue paper in and we know what style wall portrait they want. Easy. I'm gonna show you what the tissue paper packet looks like. So the front part, it's kind of like our email confirmation. Yea T gloves creating art for you all are little wording, and then we have a little section that says, Here's some ideas for where you could display your art pieces on and jot down on here So it's like a worksheet that can actually right. Oh, in my bathroom. This size fits in my bedroom This size tissue paper fits and this is a tissue paper folded up. When you open the tissue paper, this is what it looks like. We have little stickers. This is an eight by 10 this 11 by 14. This is a 60 my 20. So the back of the email confirmation sheet is the same thing as I'm sorry. The back of the tissue paper packet is the same as the email confirmation product menu at a glance. So it's one more time we're showing them our pricing just again. So there's no confusion, so you don't get the people who go. Oh my gosh, that's your pricing because so many people go, you paid 25 for recession. How much did you expect the eight by tends to be. Stop blaming your clients. It's not their fault. So many people go. But I know. But 25 is the price that you would pay for all your portrait's when you go to fast food photography. So that was just their session fee. Why did they expect? Don't blame your client. So it's one more place where you can eliminate confusion in our tissue. Paper packets. All right, so ordering session. So you book the session shot. The session gave him a tissue paper packet, so they already know. Like I said, which images are most important? What products they want to get already know where they want to display the portrait. It's and we know what style wall portrait they like. That little trade that, you see Is there a little tea tray? So when we ask clients if they want t we carry a little tray, we have a little tea party. Go. This one is the Paris T and this one is a floral tea that blossoms. I like tea. So if you don't like to you don't duty, but I like teeth. In the ordering session, we do the regular sideshow. So here's your slideshow of images 25 images. But at the end of the slide show, like what I showed you with the German shepherds, Here's the image of them together. Here's the two headshots on the side. Those are the types of things that we put into the slide show. I don't just want to show you images. I want to show you how you can use all of your images. So many people go. OK, here's 25 images and then don't show the clients how to use it. We have albums, and then the other ones. You can do jewelry, pieces, the other ones you conduce. So, um, handbags or whatever it is. But show your clients how they can use all of their images, so they're not just going okay. There's only one wall portrait. There's 24 images left that are beautiful that they're not going to ever have. So these are things that you'll see at the end the slide show on, especially if clients have said I'm interested in photo jewelry. That's definitely going in the slideshow. Here's your image and four different styles that we have, even if they don't get that style. But it's just seeing it visually, as opposed to holding a random dog in their hand. It's like, That's it. That's what I want. That's beautiful. This is a collage on the bottom, right? You can tell the client. Oh, here's three images. We could do a really cool collage. But if you take an extra five minutes to put it together and they see it 99% of the time, you don't even need to change anything. They're just like, Oh, just that I just need to pick the size that I want. So show your clients how they can use all their images. We use pro Select when we're doing on sale sessions. So Pro Select is a software Ah, lot of photographers use it. One of the biggest benefits to pro select as you can show actual size. So if you could get together with your clients, obviously, if you have a studio doing ordering session, show actual size, but you can get creative. There's a lot of photographers who do things on location and do ordering sessions at clients homes. And if there's a certain size that they're thinking of in a certain wall that they want to put it on, project the image and actual size. This is what it's gonna look like in this size on your wall and correct me if I'm wrong. If anyone uses Pro select here, but I believe you can actually do it from your laptop. For an IPad, you can actually collect a connect. They have, like portable little projectors nowadays. I mean, it's technology so, but that when you can actually take it with you. If you're traveling, you don't have a set studio like me. Go to your client's home and do the ordering session there. Just find a blank wall and kick everything up. But if you're showing them actual size, if you're showing them images on a screen this big, which I did for the first year of my business, they're gonna buy Portrait's this big because it looks good. Well, that's what what size is that it's an eight by 10 that's perfect on a screen that's 104 inches, which is what I show my images on its 104 inch projection screen that I painted on and I showing eight by 10 on that. That's an eight by 10. Yeah, that's an eight by 10 and they're sitting 20 feet away from it, not right in front of the computer screen. That's this big show. What you want to sell. If you want to sell big prints, you need a show. Big Prince I never sold well, Portrait's my first year business because I didn't have a projection screen projectors will pay for themselves. Having a system like Pro Select and having a projector will pay for itself. In your first sale, you'll sell a lot large, well, portrait. So again you're trying to prep your clients ahead of time. They've measured their walls, but some people will be like, Gosh, that's just so beautiful. I'm gonna find a spot for the upgrade to a different size, but you have to show them the size that you want. You can't just say, here's your image in an eight by 10 but it would look really good in a 60 inch. So that's the one benefits of pro select. Having professional invoices with thumbnails. I don't know how I don't know how anyone does their invoices without something like Kroslak, cause that's what I've always used. I've never used anything else, but this is what I hand the client. This is physically what I print out and give her when she goes home. I have all over information. There's thumbnails for every shot, which just makes it so much nicer. It says image number, quantity, size, style of portrait price. And that's what I give her to take home. Ah, lot of the wives that we work with are like, Can you print one without pricing on it So I can take it home to my husband, so engrossed like you, just under the price. So you have all everything else and they can take it home and they don't have to tell their husband how much they spent. So, um, but it's a really and this is what we use for. That's what we get to our clients. And when I'm sending orders to print, that's what I'm looking at. I don't just want to look at an image number that says black and white, cause I'm gonna forget. But if I can see the physical Oh, That's the image, and it was converted to black and white. It's just less error on my end, UM, printing, approval, model release and copyright notice. I'm not getting into details with ease because they're things that I've written myself. They're not legal documents. Is anyone interested in, like the legal documents for model releases and things? I'll just say it if you are? Um, Rachel Bronchi is a photographer who spoke at the spotlight event creative spotlight, and she's gonna have her own program on Creativelive. And she's a lawyer as well as a photographer. So she does contracts. That's like what she specializes in. So she's a really good person toe, keep up, keep up with and look into if you want, like an official legal documents mine. I've written myself, so I don't want to share them with us because I've just Google that I know that sounds good for a copyright, so I'm not saying that's the way to go, but that's what minor. But the reason I have it on here is because you can append the message. I'm pro select, and I have my printing approval model release and copyright print out with the notice like this and we sit there and tell clients Have them sign everything. So this is our pretty approval. If you consign this, it's just saying that you understand what your order is. You understand what size is you're getting, you understand their horizontal or vertical. You understand your orders nonrefundable. If you decide if you change your mind. We don't send this to print for 24 hours, but it is not refundable. So if you do change your mind and your new total comes out to be less than your original total, we save the credit on file for a year. So once you give me a credit card and I run it, no money comes back to you. And that's just for our time. Just a guarantee cause you guys don't want to take $1000 order. The wife freak out and go, Oh, my gosh, my husband so mad that I spent this much money. Let me just do the 48 by tens and not the wall portrait. Do you guys want to refund them $800? That money is spent in 48 hours. That money is gone like I don't want to give you back $800 so it is not refundable. Like I said yesterday, though, I stand behind my products in my service is 100%. If you're not happy, I'm going to make make sure you're happy. There's a reason that you're not gonna be happy. And it can't just be money if it's money. Sorry, but if there's something wrong with the portrait's itself, if you're not happy with the lighting, if you're not happy with the texture of the print, something like that, I'm gonna make sure that you're happy. But it is not refundable model release. This is just what I have people sign. Just so I know if I can use their images or not, some people say dogs only cats only know people and whatever that is. But the images on the hard drive I file everyone by last name my clients, and if they say no model release, I actually changed the file of their name Dorf. No model release. So if I ever want to pull images for Facebook, twitter, those types of things, if I go to that folder, I go, Oh, yeah, can't use that Clients images cause if not, you're not gonna look through all your model releases to find out. So I actually change the name of the client's file. Are you finding that you need to have both husband and wife a 10? Um, the meeting in which you're selecting portraits are because I know you get that competition of one person not wanting to spend that much of the other one that does. Then you get that confusion again. Sure, I just tell people make sure all decision makers are present. So sometimes it depends on their specific relationship. Some wives were like, Oh, they don't care. I'm good. I decide for everything. But some people are like, No, I can't make a decision without him. So make sure all decision makers are present in our tissue paper packet. We actually have a little blurb in there that says one ordering session is included in your 1 25 creation fee or not even 1 25 just in your creation fee. One ordering session is included. Additional ordering sessions or $50. We've never charged anyone $50 before because every time people call us and go Hey, I wanted to come in and order isn't. Do I have to pay $50? Oh, as long as you're placing an order, there's no charge. There's a but we do that to eliminate what you're saying. Oh, you're not sure what you want. Order. There's a fee. Sorry for you to come back again. We've never charged anyone, but it's just you need to know what you want to order. We've gone through the consultation. We've shot your products. Decision makers need to be present. So on the tissue paper and your cell iffing bag, are you getting those at the same place that no cellophane will to know the plastic holders? Just I'm not sure where they're from there. Just online. If you just google. Yeah, there's thousands of places that sell just and it's just a little holder. A little string My studio manager would know. She orders everything so alright, and just copyright notice. This is when we're getting the client signature. Just saying we underwent understand your copyright. We understand that your images can't be copied, reproduced all those fantastic things. So we had them on file. We keep it on file forever. Alrighty. This is in the ordering session. This is our product menu. If your clients ever asked, can I take this home with me? Hint. Your product menu is not nice enough. So if you're showing your clients pamphlets that they can take home with them, like handing out your brochures in your pricing totally different. I'm talking about when you're having your clients come in and you're charging the prices you want to charge and you print out your price list on his Iraq's piece of paper and go here. Is there a price list? Really, it's not that hard to use a company like White House and get a beautiful product menu printed. So we do everything in a book. It's an actual album, so we hand it to a client. And it's not a priceless David Price list. Absolutely. The may go grab our product menu. Here's our product menu, and we're showing you everything and it feels good. It looks good. It's on Pearl paper. It's worth more money. It's not a floppy piece of Xerox paper. So if you guys were using something and I'm saying that as a joke. But really, if your clients ever say, can I take this home with me. Yeah, it's probably not nice enough. Let's print on something a little bit nicer. So and that doesn't mean card stock. It doesn't mean all men apart on card stock. And, said a Xerox paper, There's so many products that you can get creative with and it's beautiful and it doesn't cost a lot of money. If you guys are asking the kind of prices that you should be asking that you want to ask your product, money should be on a nice thing. A nice book, a nice something, a nice folio, anything like that. This is actually an image of our ordering room. This is from the clients view, so that's 104 inch screen that you're seeing. We have all kinds of samples. We have framed prints, collages. There's framing. We always have tissue because half our clients cry when they see the slide show. But we always have it because people were like, What's that for him, like you need it in a minute. Don't worry, it's good, but you can see the coasters on. There are coasters air from H H color lab, and they're beautiful tumble tile posters I think they have a couple different cells, but tumble tile coasters air really beautiful When we serve tea to our clients, Here's a coaster. It's a photo coaster. It's not just the napkin. It's one of our products on this couch. Like I said yesterday, we have a photo, whoa woven blanket and a photo pillow photo Pelham. And they're everywhere they look. There's photo jewelry. There's brag, books, everything that you see her products that you could get your portrait on. So it's just more branding. Okay, so pick up. Appointment. So you've gone to the whole thing. Clients ordered. We do everything by appointment. You're not allowed to just show up. We do everything by appointment because people look a lot different when they get portrait, stun, get their hair makeup down there, all dressed up when they come and pick up their portrait's and they're in like yoga pants and a hat. And you're like, Hi, Can I help you? Hi, I'm the client who just spent $2000. You don't know who I am. Cool, that's not fun. So if you know who your clients are, you know to expect them are girls. The girls at work for me if they didn't actually meet a client. They actually go through their pro select album and flip through their images. And a lot of times I actually shoot toe, have an owner in the shot, even if they're not in the portrait just when they're standing on the side helping just to make sure that we have facial recognition so they can look and go. Okay, that's what the client looks like. So they walk in there like, Hey, is this Martinez walking in? Yep, that's them cool. They know who they are and that cli again. They just spent $2000 with you. They shouldn't have to be like, Hi, I'm Mrs Martinez. I'm here to pick up Portrait. It's, you know, they just walk in were like, high. We have everything out for you. We always lay everything out. That's the other reason we do appointments. It's not fun to go. Hi, I'm here to pick it up. Oh, cool. Let me tear the tape off and get the cardboard box out. That's not pretty, but if they walk into your studio, or if you want to deliver things totally fine. But doing as a presentation. Put on a show. It's OK, but we lay everything out when they have a wall portrait. Put it on the easel so they walk in and they're like most of time is walking and walk over to the east and go, Oh, my gosh. But how is that reaction that so much they don't care about how much they spent in that moment. Oh, my gosh, look at everything. Here's your white gloves. We order them from you. Line you line dot com all of our clients. Whether you get an eight by or you spend $5000 you get white gloves with your portrait. It's and we just say, I'm here some white gloves to take with you When we're holding their portrait's you're not allowed. Our employees are not allowed to touch clients. Portrait's with their hands if there's ever clients around. So even if we're grabbing something off the wall, it's just a studio sample have probably dropped the thing before. I don't really care about fingerprint, but if there's a client around, you're wearing gloves because we're touching our art, so it's just putting that in their head that this is important. We tell clients, you know, if you get fingerprints on the portrait, it's But we do have clients who, like I said, I lost my gloves. What di dio my family was like Don't doesn't want to look at my album doesn't want put gloves on So but that's how we actually present the images. If you guys were doing things on location, if you're dropping things off of your clients, it's so easy. Like I said, these aren't things that take a lot of effort. They just take a little bit of care and a little bit of thought. You can drop off their canvas to them and have it wrapped with gloves tied with a little bow, and they have to open as opposed to like you're walking in there and it's in little plastic. And you bumped it on the door on the way in, and you're like, here it is, and you show it to them through, you know, through plastic. Maybe you can bring an easel with you. If you're dropping it off at their home, set it up. Hold on. Don't look at it yet. I'm gonna set it up for you and put it on the easel. And of course you're taking your easel back with you. But it's just the fact that it adds value. All of these things add value to what they've invested with you. Packaging. This is so important. I won't spend too much time on it. But just make sure when we first opened we weren't doing a whole lot of packaging. We were just like, you know, well, however, it comes from the lab. That's good enough. My husband was helping me at the studio one day and, like White House, will send their prints in just little like sleeves. Paper sleeves. Well, we were leaving them out with the intention of when the client comes, you show it to them. Then you put it in our packaging and leave. Well, it's my husband. Bless his heart. He was sitting at my front desk covering my studio for the day, and I'm shooting and they came and picked up these clients. And then I saw the packaging was sitting there and he didn't put it, and he just gave it to them. Like here you go. Here's your stuff, you know, and it just sounds so funny to me now, but it makes such a big difference when clients open this and we put their gloves out and they like open and like this and there's tissue paper and it's leopard print and matches our style, whatever your style is. But it adds value. It makes it different. They can't compare you when they can't compare you. You're better than everybody else, not just photographers. You're better than all the other businesses. This is what we used to give our wall portrait's like. So this is how most of our labs send our wall. Portrait's to us and there's tape and they write on it and they're stickers. And we used to be like Here you go, Here's your $1000 print That's my studio manager were being funny, but put it in a pretty bag. Yeah, they're expensive. It's like $9 a bag for that. But they spent $1000 on that print. What's $9? So up your prices $9 then sell the same prints to cover the bag. But it just it's that touch Then we have clients with a client the other day who came by to drop the bag off. And he said, Here, if you guys want to reuse this, he goes, I try to go grocery shopping and I just didn't work. So it's cute, but it is on. We order these bags from Rice Studio Supply. That's where we get all of our boxes as well. You can order boxes and bags and that from anywhere, but they actually imprint our studio logo on it. So just a nice touch just makes it more important. So you're not giving her client's car board? The cardboard is in the bag, but the bag's pretty you met. Frown upside down. Yeah, thank you cards. So again, like I said earlier, be consistent. Don't start something. Don't start doing thank you cards and then stop doing them. Don't start giving those free drinks those clients sitting in your section and then stop doing it. You need to be consistent with whatever you do. So when you go back home after this workshop, don't go. I need to start this This this this and this and feel like you need to revamp your business in a week. You need to do things that your pace, that you're comfortable with that, you know that you can consistently do. When I first started the business, I had one session, my two backgrounds. I did unframed Portrait's no framing that was too complicated. I d canvasses and headed holiday cards. That's all I did for like, three years. And then slowly, I was like, I've seen photo handbags at WPP I, the trade show for three years. Maybe I should look into doing that, and then I add a jewelry. And then I added framing, and I added all these other things. But it takes time to find vendors that you're happy with. And it's such a headache if you try and add so many vendors on at the same time, and they're not coming through for you on your orders. So if you guys have questions about who my vendors are, please ask. I'd be happy to tell you I love all my vendors that I work with, but just be consistent. So yes, I got There was a question from Tamara, who had asked who had said. For someone that's just starting out. This is just too much to think about. And if you could make some brief notes about your really your first step. So can you just recap what the first things that you did were in my business? I brought money without knowing what I was doing. Everyone do that. But you just kind of listed off the first things that you started. So when I started, I had one session that I offered. I had a couple different backgrounds. Unframed prints, canvases, holiday cards. I ordered a mall from White House. I'm not going to branch out to other labs. I'm not gonna branch out to other designers whatever they offer, cause I know they're a good lab. That's what I did. And I didn't offer everything they offer. That's the thing that some people run into their like, Well, my lab offers mugs and mouse pat and jewelry, and they go on around so they offer to all their clients and it's overwhelming. It's too many images. It's too many products. So pick things that you know we're going to sell well and that your clients are gonna like. But just the answer to her is just incorporated slowly. Just do things. If it's overwhelming to you, do what you can along the way. You know, maybe you want to start with email confirmations and maybe you want to start with consultations, whatever the things there that you want to start with, but just add them on so you can do them consistently. So if you have too much on your plate, don't do thank you cards because you're not going to send them. They're gonna pile up and be like that six months old. Kind of silly if I send it now. So yeah, and just get in a system, like for me. I don't write Thank you cards just cause I don't have time. So we decided, if we want to keep doing thank you cards, the girls need to write it for me. So the girls actually write the thank you cards and sign all three of our names. Go ahead. So you get your loan and you set up. Tell us who was your first client and how you got that client in what you did with that very first client? Yes. First clients. Name was Sparky. He was a poodle. Miniature poodle. You know what I did? I was so naive, but And this isn't the answer. that ever wants to hear. But the truth for me was, if you build it, they will come. I built a storefront and I got clients. I'm not saying the answers to build a store from, but that's what happened for me. I wasn't advertising. I wasn't doing art displays. X. I didn't know anybody. I just had a storefront. And this lady Beverly walked in with Sparky and we did his portrait, and it's just kind of grown from there. And of course, now we're at where we are now, in all these little systems that we have. But I winged it in the beginning. How many hours after you open the door, Sparky? Come in the first week? Well, I was cleaning and organizing anything you were doing. Nothing. I'm setting up our voicemail, but it took a week. Yeah, I would say after we opened. So don't sit there and cross your fingers in a week that something's gonna happen. Do your relationship marketing. And I mean, if you can build those relationships ahead of time, if you wanna have a retail studio storefront, build all of those relationships. So when you open, everybody knows about it. and you're gonna have a huge grand opening party and you're gonna have a table for all those people who you love and who love you. Excuse me. So the vet has a table and the dog washes a table and they're gonna market to your clients and it's buzz because they're gonna put something in a raffle and you're going to raise money for rescues and shelters that night. So people want to attend and they want to donate. And you're gonna have a photo booth and people gonna do pictures and you're gonna have buzz. So just build those relationships ahead of time. If I could give any advice, changing the topic a little bit going back, I would like to know who your suppliers are for your photo blankets and your pillows and your jewelry and your bags and all those things that aren't the normal portrait art stuff rattling off, ready. And that's a great question. We've been getting a lot of questions online about that. I think I'm gonna start with Planet Jill. They are my photo jewelry designer. They're the best photo jewelry designer we actually give away. We have a couple giveaways at some point today from Planet Jill. Um, I had Planet Jail is my fifth jewelry designer for photo jewelry. That was exhausting to go through four other jewelry designers, but no one was coming through for me consistently. The products weren't showing up when they were supposed to. Theo. People weren't returning my emails and my phone calls and Planet Jill dead on every time. I've never had a late order from them, and I've never had to return anything to them. Everything shows a perfect they do. Sterling silver Jewelry. I think the product they're giving away today is a pewter dog bone. It's really cool. Took a photo and then a dog woman like a key chain. Little things that's unique to pet photography, but they dio bracelets, necklaces, all kinds of things. But it's beautiful. Jury and love them. Love plan a job. Photo handbags. Gina Alexander does Oliver handbags. She's a great designer. Hey, you're going to re watch the course. You're good, you got it. But she does beautiful handbags, and there's a bunch of different designs. And like I said, that can cross the cheesy line when you get people sometimes on there, young kids were OK. The older the kids get kind of the creepier it gets. So with pets, it's like cool all the time. But that is my biggest marketing piece. My photo handbag. I walk around town of my photo handbag and everyone stops me. I probably have 10 people stop me a day in the grocery store when I'm out shopping and they're like those your dogs? Yeah, actually own a pet photography studio. Here's a card. Do you have dogs, too? So non threatening? It's not me going up to someone going. Hey, have a pet for terrorist. You do have pets Card. What's going? They approached me. They started the conversation cause I was carrying my photo handbag. It is the best marketing piece ever. If you could, like, do one thing, you have to start carrying a messenger bag. She has a men men's messenger bag shoes, amended wallet. There you go. Yeah, but it's seriously the best marketing piece ever is walking around. It's a walking billboard, and everyone is going to stop you toe. Ask you what it is and you're handing out business cards to people. Love it. Um Yep. So you commenting Teoh, the in studio audience, saying, I'll get you a list of all of my vendors. Was I commenting? You did say Teoh them. I'll get I'll get you a list of all the vendors later. So that's kind of open the floodgates in the chat room. Everybody around the world yet you know, you're vendors. Do you want to go? Do you want to just give us a rundown? Yeah, I want to go through every nitty gritty one, but yeah, go a little faster. Okay, So Jean Alexander, Photo handbags, Planet Joe's Air jewelry. I actually spread my labs out a little bit. I love White House, but just for personal reasons, there's, like, a couple things that I like better and like, I kind of like canvases. Sorry. White House from other people. But White House is the best customer service in industry. If you're looking for a partner for customer service, they are dead on there. Always going to be there for you. If you need something the next day, they're going to make it happen. They're amazing. So if I had to pick the most reliable, but they have the best press pendant products. I like all their holiday cards. But I do also use Miller's lab, and I do also use HH color lab. So a change color love does Oliver prints and specifically they do our prints because in Vegas it's so hot and it's so dry that styrene doesn't really work for us. There styrene kind of separates because the plastic on Gator board just tends to work better for me. There's other people around the country who don't have that problem. And White House is like, no one has that problem besides you so but just for our prints in Vegas, I do Gator board from a change color lab. Right? Studio supply was the people who do our bags, and all of our packaging are stickers that we're putting on our bags because I don't want to order custom bags every time cause you have to wait like two weeks for them to make it. So I just get stickers so we always have them, and then we just order the plane bags and put our sticker on it. That's from enhanced images. Who does? Her stickers? Um, photo blankets is, um, her name's Robin because the lady that I email. I believe it's things from the wood. Things from the woods is her. E mail is her name. That's not like a superficial, and it's kind of a mom and pop one that I go through on that. But I will make sure I get, like the rial Lincoln at its on the list. Yeah, I kind of put you on the spot there. I don't know. It's good on what other products do I have? HH does a lot of yeah, they a change color lab is doing. Our coasters are mouse pads. We do the tumble tile, the six inch tiles as well from them, so people don't want to get a wall portrait or they're tired of wall Portrait's and kind of one alternative. It's like a little six inch tile that can sit like on a little weasel. Yeah, think of other products to I'll keep telling you. Thank you for that, too. Yeah, I'm gonna change the subject from products. Now go back to marketing your mind. What is your advice on someone starting out like the name is Tamara that asked about your first customer or and getting started. If you've been practicing so much, too, with friends and family. And then you're getting referrals and you've been doing it for free to get the practice in. How do you change that? What your advice on that has a tough transition. My advice for that is Teoh. Come up with your price list, what you're comfortable with and then have a friends and family discount and then all the people that you've already done. I would keep them unless they're just random people that really aren't friends and family. But I'm assuming most of them are friends and family. I would just give him the friends and family discount for us. That's half off. That's like my brother like you get friends and family discount like my best friend you, the friends and family discount. And of course, there's like certain people like my very best friend. Like I go to California, photograph her baby, and I give her a disc totally different. My one friend, you know, But I would come up with the friends and family discount for me. It's half off and everybody else just transfers over to your regular price list. So you're still giving them something that way. they're not having to pay the full price. And you're just go. Sorry. All or nothing, But just Hey, I'm running a business now. This is something that I'm not just doing as a hobby. This is something that I'm actually gonna do to try and provide for my family. I'm not spending time with my family to do this for you, so they should have to understand that you need to make money doing it. And it's not just for fun. For you. Thank you. Yeah, if I can get more detailed on that, if I need to. But, um yeah, and a compromise to cause a lot of people always ask, How did I go from, like, the high rez disk to, like, not wanting to do discs anymore. And maybe for those people that you've been because the problem with the disks, it's not just the whole printing thing and all that. It's also that you have to edit all those images. How exhausting. They're only gonna use four of them. But you edited 30 of them, and you spent all night doing it. So instead of doing that, the compromise could be maybe do prints for them and say, Hey, I still wanted to. Your portrait's for you. You totally get are discounted rate on. I'd be happy to do like four complementary prints or four prints at this kind of a discount. So that way they're still getting something. But you only had to do those one or two or four images, not 30. When you started, you jumped into it wholeheartedly. You went right into the portrait. While you never did images, right? You never did discs for any that I think, a lot of digital photographer starting out. It's the easy solution, because printing can be very scary and very intimidating. Unless you're using a place like White House, it's not scary, right? So, like, I think that it's great to see that you can do it. You can print. You can do it on your own. There's all this support out there, and vendors and stuff got to do because I think that when you see pictures in print large, there's a completely different feel in that connection that you make with the pets really comes alive on the wall instead of just on a little computer screen. Absolutely, and it's it's doing your clients of favor, even though people don't see it that way. Even though people want the disc, you're doing them a favor because they're not going to do anything with the disc. There's a stick in a drawer and they're never gonna print it. Is doing them a disservice? Totally agree? I love seeing my work huge on a wall. So why deny the client that share? No. Absolutely. Um, have you ever done packages? I mean, lots of photographers use packages and give the packages at a discount. Or do you have you always use just kind of the L A car have always heart, and that's just I've never tried packages. I'm not against them. I've just never tried them because Allah cart has worked for me on what we do with our pricing is we have all over Wall Portrait's and we have a gift print collection because most of our clients are buying gift prints. Eso we have our $78 gift prints, but we offer a gift print collection, which is six gift prints, and any time you purchase a wall portrait, you qualify for the gift print collection, and you're getting that as a discount. So even though we don't have packages, that kind of gives people directions ago because they're like, OK, I decided to do a inch print And of course, I just do the gift print collection getting a discount. So let's just pick out six images. So it's just easier than just going all ala carte and like get one of these on one of these and I guess I'm good, you know? So it's It's not a package, but it is a collection, so it kind of guides them, and you at least kind of know, you know, they're going to get a wall portrait gift collection. Who doesn't? So eso top client gives This is another thing that we dio again. It's gonna set you apart from everybody, not just competition, not just photographers from everybody, cause who does this? You go buy a car from someone a luxury car you spent 40 50 60 $90,000. You don't get a little gift from them, but you come to a photography EQ and you get a little gift, so it's just setting yourself apart. What it is is, it's always a surprise thing that we do in January, and we always tell clients we sent with a note saying Thank you for being one of our top clients or not top. I'm sorry we don't use that word. Thank you for being one of our favorite clients in so sometimes most of the people on this list have spent $1200 or more. But there are people on that list who spent seven or 800. But they really, truly our favorite clients. They haven't spent the most, but their cheerleaders for a business. And they're positive, and they tell all their friends about it, so they make it on the list, too. So once we get under 1112 $100 we do start kind of hand picking if we want to add people on there because those people in your business who are cheerleaders, even if they don't come to you every year, you know if they don't spend the most, they're so powerful and so useful cause they're telling all their friends, and that is so much more powerful. That was the dog park once, and I ran into a friend and she saw her friend and said, This is our cause. She's the one that does the pet photography she saw in May. So she goes on and on. Well, her friend leaves, and she's like, I'm sorry, you're probably tighter Hearing that and they go No, I love that because I can't do that for myself. I can't go up to someone and go high I ark. I'm the most amazing pet photographer. I offer the best products. I mean, you can't do that, But someone else can do that for you. So that's so powerful to have those cheerleaders, so definitely reward them. So like I said, it's always in January. The reason we always do it in January and not with the clients gift, because they're gonna forget. We're doing so much for them. With the tea and the gloves and the easel and the unveiling and the thank you card, I actually missed something on her. Thank you card. We send eight little wallets. I'm gonna go back. The image that you see up there, that's a wallet size image. We pick a favorite image from the session and put our website on the bottom so they get eight of them, and we put it in with the thank you card. The reason that we do this is because one it costs us $2 but to it's a gift. It's not just cause I hate getting thank you cards. It's kind of like when people send holiday cards and it's not a photo, that happy holidays and like in the trash, like I don't know what to do with your holiday card that you signed your name on. I'm sorry, Grandma, but you know so with something like this with thank you cards when you just send a thank you card, it's like, Well, that was nice of them. But when you send them a gift, cost you $2 they're gonna market you cause they're gonna hand out seven of them to their friends with your big website on it. I don't print my logo like this on clients paid wallets, but these air free I can do anything. I want art displays. They're free, they're complimentary. I could do anything I want when I pay for it. I can do whatever I want, but I always give that to them so they have a gift and I get so many people who call us or email us your Facebook us and go Oh, my gosh. We see received our wallets in the mail. What a surprise. Thank you so much. And it's just that extra touch that you went that extra mile that you cared. And we're writing a specific note on there because we have so many notes. You know, Baxter did so great or whatever it is. So thank you. Cards, top client gifts we always do in January. If we do it with the order, they're gonna forget because, like I said, there was so much there was a thank you card. There was the gloves. There was all those things. And there's that one extra thing. If you wait six months and they get this special thing going thanks for being one of our favorite clients in 2012. How special is that? And we always pick something that's gonna market our studio. If the client's gonna enjoy it anyway, we might as well get marketing out of it. So we don't do an eight by 10. We're doing things like mouse pads that they're gonna see every day we do things like Brag books. We always order Bragg books from White House, and they do him in a set of three. But for client gifts, we order them from Miller's, because at Miller's you can order three different designs. You have to order a minimum of three brag books, but you can order three different designs. So that way, and said, I mean, when we're doing client gifts, I don't want to spend $24 on every client and given three books. But I'm totally OK at Miller's spending $8 it's still $24 for a set of three to give it to our clients. That's a lot of work. We did it one year. My girls were like, Please never do bright books again because there's 10 images instead of picking like a mouse pennant doing one image went to do 10 images, but they're taking it toe lunch with them. They're showing all their girlfriends it's their their marketing, your studio, a calendar that's just a print that we print on styrene. We do the styrene for this cost. Irene is prettier than Gator board. Gator board is meant to be framed. Styrene. You can get away with not framing, and obviously they're not gonna frame A calendar like this is just meant to be kind of stuck up on something so you can do a magnet on the back on. We did a ribbon with it, but it's $10 photo note pads. We ordered these from Vista print. It's not like a typical photography lab, but it was $7 it was We'd custom designed it, and it was just no pets that our clients can use all year long. They see their dog's face and they see our logo on there. So those were just some ideas that what things that we have done for our top clients. We always try and make it a gift that can fit in the flat mailer. I don't want a male and spend $5 on every single client mailing cause it's just gonna add up. So we get the flat mailers, so it's $2 they've already spent, you know, 10 to $20 on them already. So 10 or $20 per client times 50 clients. It's 500 to $1000 a year. One sale will pay for that for you to make 50 clients. Happy to remember you to market you throughout the year to go. Wow. Photography is awesome. $50. $500,000. Cool on that. Okay, Okay. Gets for clients when pets passed away. This is a big one. We deal with this a lot. We actually do emergency sessions all the time at the studio. And basically, what that means is if there's an animal, cat dog, whatever kind of animal and you're not sure how much time they have left? We will fit your session in any time today at midnight, at six. In the morning, I will fit it in. I will be at the studio, and I'll be there. Normal clients. You know, the ones who were calling like, I need a session tomorrow. No, no, no. You can come in next week, but emergency sessions, we will fit in any time. I don't even care how much they're spending. If they spend $1000 if they get an eight by 10 will fit them in. But when our clients have pets that pass away, it's just a nice little touch. We order these from H H Color Lab. and they're 10 to $12 apiece there tiny little charms. Their amazing quality for how small they are are fine jewelry. Like I said, we do the print planet Jill that. So I recommend if you're gonna have a photo necklace in a photo bracelet and something that's gonna last for a lifetime, but something that you're going to gift your client cause you don't want to spend $50 on a gift like that. 10 to $12. We stick it in a little card, a regular 44 cent stamp. Write a little note. We just wanted you to have due to carry with you around forever, you know, and send it to them. And it's just an extra little touch, so they know that we care, because we dio So details matter. So again, for you guys, this could be the colorful mugs, but for us, these are just some of the things that we do Custom post. It's so when clients could sometimes clients on the phone there talking to someone and they're just like and you handed like an ugly piece of paper, like have a nice little no pad and doesn't cost that much have post its have no pets when they write a little. No, it's on a nice something that they're taking with them, not tear my paper in half and give it to you. We have custom pens. Those products are all from gimmes dot com g I m m e s. I think that's how it's spelt, but they just do promotional products for and everything. I mean hats and mugs and T shirts and one of those companies. So we do all their post its and pens and things through them. The top right is an image of our hand towels in a restroom. It's just an extra little touch. That's what they have at the Four Seasons. That's what they have it all. The high end luxury hotels, other places. So in its hand out with its easy go to Costco, go to Sam's Club by a pack of towels, fold them up. They last forever because clients usually don't use them. They're usually using paper towels, but it's just the fact that they're there and it's beautiful and it's pretty again. That's how we just when clients or drinking tea here is a coaster, and that's a picture of the photo handbag. I'm sorry, photo blanket

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Pet Photography Slides.pdf
AricaDorffPhoneCallScript.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

I've watched A LOT of CreativeLIVE courses and Arica is by far the most effective and talented instructor I've seen. She's also got an extraordinary ability to photograph animals and their humans while remaining calm and in control. Even if you're not a pet photographer, this is a fabulous resource. Putting aside how amazing it is to watch her photograph in what seems like impossible situations and get the shot time after time, she also gives a lot of great information that applies to any professional photographer, whether they photograph pets or not. She's truly an amazing talent and I hope she does many more workshops -- I'm not a pet photographer but I'll watch all of them.

CB
 

Arica's presentation was extraordinary. Such an incredible amount of valuable, practical information on everything from the basics of how to run a business profitably to how to attract and maintain value-oriented clientele to actually working with and photographing a variety of pets and their people. Arica demonstrated time and again during the live shoots that she was in mastery of both her techniques and her subjects, and in a way that felt simultaneously relaxed/casual and businesslike. That last session with the horse, duck, chicken, rabbits, dogs and people was a challenging balancing act and she pulled it off flawlessly. Finally, I appreciate all the detail she provided, such as names of vendors and how and why she uses each one. Absolutely no filler, all substance. I am in the process of taking my own pet photography from sideline business/ volunteer work to profit-making status and the timing of this program could not have been better for me. I'm a huge fan and look forward to more from her although it’s hard to imagine that there is anything left for her to cover about this topic because in this course, she did it all. A natural talent: smart, great on-screen presence, honest and a true teacher. Thank you, Arica!

a Creativelive Student
 

Hi I am an aspiring pet photographer. I own 6 dogs and 4 cats that have been rescued in some way. I have learned a lot just by practicing with them. Arica's course today and yesterday showed me what I was doing wrong and everything that I was doing right. I impressed myself that I actually was doing very well. lol. I do have a web site http://squeakynes.wix.com/lisas-creations ,and if you can review it and give me some positive critism, it would just be terrific. There is a tab titled pets etc. My email address is under contact me. Thank you in advance. I tried to watch other courses but none of them would keep my attention. I had no problem with Arica AT ALL. I definitely will attend all and any other courses she offers. Her courses made me realize this dream of mine is just what I am suppose to do in life. I have a lot of the same qualities as Arica and my passion for animals. But...............I WILL NOT photograph snakes, no way. lol Arica, you TOTALLY ROCK. I look forward to the next one. xoxo

Student Work

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