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Lesson Info

Pitching An Experience

would you Don't knock and cold. Cool. I'm gonna give you some choices to pitch. Would you like to Lin Had a door knock and co call Or would you like to create a cast video for you? Tube are really nobody wants to cold call on nobody. Yeah. So why you crying About cold calling when you could be making amazing videos. Okay, if you can't afford a video or a camera that shoots video to and you find around, it's been, what, $4? 99 on film Akpro. You can even focus and exposed to different buttons. Shoot it this way. Do it on your IPad. Edited on my movie in a motor Unlimited. Come on. What would you rather do and tell? May a story about your pitch Can you think of a story right now that you could make a video off? I'll give you a couple of options just to prompt you. I shot a mother and daughter shoot on Friday. I was photographing the little girl because she's an actress nine years old for her acting folio. And I said to the mother, Can I photograph you too? And her husband says all This w...

ill be fun and I looked at him and I said Why? And I guess because she hates all photos of yourself. So I look at the mother and I go, You hate photos of yourself and she goes all years much better behind the camera. It's like, OK, that's my story. That's my story. So I filmed it myself. Nothing fancy. I'm not a videographer. I filmed the shoot. I took the photographs. I'm making a video full photo week on Enomoto to show you how easy it is to tell a gut reaching story. And on the video, you see me in the video taking the shots. But you know, it's not about May. It's about the woman who's standing beer in there, having a portrait taken, who is hiding behind the camera, watching her door to be photographed over and over again. But when I look at that woman and I say when your daughter's grand out, what was she? Owner view? What photos does she have cause you throw them all away? Do you think that makes every woman in the room cry? Every woman who had Children, every woman had lost a mother every woman who head walked away from a camera over and over again because they didn't feel worthy of having a photograph taken. You know, I think that is a story. I'm gonna pitch that. So I recorded it, and I voiced over how I felt about it. And you're gonna see that next month. And I'm so I want to show you today and I can't. But you know what? That is A pitch. Why are you crying? I was just thinking that, you know, when you lose somebody toe have beautiful, like, said earlier to have beautiful portrait of them and priceless. And I can't wait to see your video. Yeah, and I'd rather have a video like that. And I shot somebody and we're promoting the event, and I was just thinking of I could video and we videoed it. But I don't have the voiceover. You see that? And I thought, you can do it after and redo the video with her telling her story, and it really made an impact in her life. Yeah, and that would be really touching. And you know, the basic Pat Jamie, it's your pitch. So it's not your not relying on talent or a story to tell your pitch. You're relying on a strong visual component to an incredible message that comes from your heart. That is true in that Israel. And you can put that music into a video on an MP three and recorded on Garrett Band. Susan, I've done it. We recorded it talking into a laptop computer on Garrett Band on the map and they dropped it in and in the audio was good enough. Not bad was good. You know, the truth is, is today I know that a lot of people are looking for pitching. They're looking for 2 May When when I said pitching for work, people were looking for confidence, permission, ideas, um, self belief, some information that would help them get to the next level. I feel like this is a humongous hurdle pitching, but I feel like the results or maybe the solutions to pitching were actually quite small once I started to break them down. So a breakdown more for you because this to May is like, Why would I talk? He threw cold calling when you could just make this video. It would get way more traffic than cold calling would, and you'll actually get it done. Would you rather I'm gonna give you another choice? Go in, print teen 1000 pamphlets and deliver them in your car with your child running alongside the car, putting them in the litter boxes or you running along when your husband's driving the car or you walking the dog and dropping pamphlets and that will get you 0.1 phone calls or return. And I think that number's even gone down since they invented the Internet. Um, or would you rather speak it on and beaten? I just heard a whole lot of people go drop off the pamphlets. I would rather drop off the templates. Yeah, I would run next to the car gets, um, exercise. Honey, we're printing pamphlets were pretty pamphlets. I got to tell you a funny story. I went to speaking event long before I could speak it events and they said right, you could stand up on stage and just prison for five minutes without a key night. So I didn't have any photographs to stand behind. I couldn't stand up and hold up my card, so I had to get up and talk. So what I did was I did what most reasonable people would do when they reject. Didn't have been like that. I lift. I didn't know what else to do. I lift. I stopped at a garage down the road. I bought a meat pie. I'm not kidding. A meat pie in the Pegasus. The greats. I ate the pie because my face reaction waas to eat something. But I wasn't Olympic Ader for a while there. So that was just my you know, that was my kickbacks. I was like, I ate the pie promptly, pulled over on the freeway and throw it up because the journal and my God went Oh, not a good Toby Pie. So I was like, Hey, this pie really fast. Don't know why I was eating pie throughout the on the side of the right. Got in the car. Still panicking was driving towards my health. Like I'm now 15 minutes away from the event that my entire studio was set up at. I smoke a cigarette gag because I've given up smoking five years before and not so good. I'm sitting in the nights I went often on ramp I went off an off ramp and back on an on ramp to go back towards the event. So I drove 20 minutes away, drove back again throughout my pie, smoked cigarettes constantly until I gagged on them. Walked back into the abandoned that like you're on in five minutes. I'm like, OK, that's what I did. I could go into the toilet and just prepared myself, But no, I was prepared to run and eight and smoke. Then I got up and I gave the worst five minute talk of my life and didn't book a sinning. It was brilliant. I think about that moment. Oh, my goodness. You can go to Toastmasters. I was a member of toast mistresses now called EITC for many years. But the at least in Vegas, it's like 10 people, you know. So But, you know, team people in a 10,000 people, no different. And I got to say, um what it takes is, uh, you gotta find your authentic voice. You've got to stop. You've got to stop Any idea that people are gonna judge you because they are? Yeah. So what I did for my first creativelive was the night before he just shut down. And I was like, I can't do this. I'm not good enough to do this. I'm not smart enough. I'm not educated on I'm old, I'm overweight. I went through the whole of reasons why I was going to get knocked down and every one of those things did come up. But I also went to this public toilet to go to the toilet. And there was this graffiti inside the toilet that said I speak heart and I took it Instagram mother. And that became my mantra. And so whenever I felt scared or losing confidence in myself, I would say I speak hot like I speak with my hat. I speak through my heart. I speak the truth. I speak, you know, and sometimes I don't speak so good. You know, I don't have the based allocution. I don't even have a high school education. I've made no secret of that. But I thought if I tell people the truth off what it was like to be in business and what it was like to struggle on what it was like to feel fear, then surely people will resonate with the truth. Not that I have, You know, an MBA. It sounds so. And it I also don't have a high school education. I also didn't have a student loan. So put that in your MBA pipe and smoke it. You know, the man I was like and then I was you know, it's It's it's okay. Just find your truth, find your true voice, but in public speaking is crippling. But I'm telling you right now there are so many opportunities to sheer there are woman's groups. Ive free where there are groups everywhere. What you're trying to do is a marketer is pitched to an audience. The more people you can pitch to and sell to, the more chance you have of booking work, you almost have to overcome that notion, um, off fear in order to eggs elop business. Because I will say one thing. We're pretty incredible that we hide in our studios or at home in our homes and right on Facebook count. It's not working up for you. And when I ask people directly what they're actually doing, Teoh, give them work. They can't tell me. So I'm always like, hang on, you're not actually doing anything and it's the idea of doing something is can make you more fearful than actually doing it. Right. Okay. I could be another option. Would you rather hope your clients were for you and complain on Facebook when they don't or sponsor an evangelist? Ok, do you currently have anybody that you've photographed that is sending you lots of business? How many I'm going to say I probably have about eight now, Riel of Angeles. I mean, these women are big talkers, big, big, big shears. And does anybody here have one that you can think in your mind? You need to call him every year. You need to shoot them for free, and you need to see them a gift. You maintain that relationship and you, uh, home and host. Do you know how many people ask me for stuff? I get it. People think I'm, you know, very generous. All they think I'm a moneybags or they think I'm something. But people email me daily asking me for things. If only you could fly to here and photographed my daughter because she's had a trouble to. And I would do that in a heartbeat. If it waas a viable business model, but I can't work for free. It's not how it works. I will do a free shoot every now and then. But you know what we did with Jill? I can't do that. I could do that once a year and find somebody and photographed them like that. So people ask me for things a lot. But it's the people that maintain a friendship balance with May that have stayed in my life. You know what a main You've got to give something to get it. And so many people ask for staff. But what am I getting out of it? So the best business advice I could give you right now and think of this when you're pitching is what's in it for me. Okay. Best business advice you could have right now. Put it on your computer. What's in it for me? When somebody says I want you to come and photographed this event for free, you say cool. What's in it for May? Well, I've just told you, I can't pay you. And I was like, But you can give me other things. You can give me context. I could give vouchers out to all the people in the audience. You can introduce me to somebody who will. You can auction a shoot. You can give away a shoot. You can give away 100 vouchers to your database, to your friends, to everybody coming to this event. What's in it for May? That's balance. If you're not asking what's in it for May, then you've missed the point of business. So the best advice I ever got, Robert Kohli told me that I changed my world. Okay, so when you're pitching to somebody, imagine they're thinking, What's in it for you? What's in it for May? And if they're thinking that, you got to tell them what's in it for you Like I'm asking you for something right now, Jeffrey, and you're thinking what's in it for May. So I better tell you what you're going to get out of this. And if you think that's a viable exchange, you're gonna say yes, right? If you don't, you're going again. I'll think about it and you're not gonna call me. So I kind of think to myself, right? What's in it for me is one of the biggest things we can learn. Lumet, Leonidas business person. Luna. When you're pitching points in it from a what am I getting? I recently had the incredible experience of shooting for a large commercial company or lay what was so incredible about it is I got to photograph women everyday women, no talent. So it was my client towel, but through a commercial client, um, and they immediately put me into media training. I've never had anything like that. I've never had speaking training. I've never had media training. I was blown away by the experience of having the media training. One of the first things they teach you in media training is how to bring your words back to campaign. Okay, so let's say I'm a movie star and you're interviewing me about my movie and you know that I'm secretly dating the husband of another star from my movie. And so you want to keep trying to get off the campaign and campaign is to sell my movie. They teach you how to go back around and come back to campaign and just keep bringing up the campaign. So in your pitch when you're talking, it's really important that you keep coming back to your campaign. Okay, be careful, because are you talking or are you selling? So this is an experience that I recently had to tell me if you're doing this. A guy winning photographer said when he was doing Expose, he was struggling to get people at the expo to engage. I got around that by giving a gift with purchase. Right? Remember I did that. I bought the whole gift with purchase thing because it made people come up to the table. And then I had ah, periphery to advertise on instead of just selling the shoot. I was like, If you buy this beautiful gift today, you get a double makeover and photo shoot with $ blah, blah, blah. That was my pitch. But he was like, Okay, so I talked to them about the wedding day and I said, Okay, let's do a role play. I'll be a bride And he said to may tell me about your dream wedding day and he said it just like that. And I kind of throw up in my mouth and then swallowed it and I went, That's what you open with. He was so offended. He's like, yes, and I was like, Are dude, can I give you a couple of pointers? And he was that yen eyesight? What date? He getting married. Tell me about your dress. How many bridesmaids you having? What color they wearing? Have you picked your shoes yet? Where's your venue? How many guests are you having? Ah, your parents still to get Ah, hell, cool is bad. All you've cooked your grandparent's Ah, interesting conversation. And all of a sudden they tell me about your dream wedding day. Just so wrong and so sleazy. We want to talk about ourselves. We want to talk about what we're doing. We want to talk about it. You're pitching without pitching. You're selling without selling your connecting easily by asking interesting questions. Really interesting questions, right? Are you excited or are you reciting? The problem is that everybody wanted me to write a script. If I write a script, he will read it. It sounds something like this is the anybody you would like to be photographed with. Uh, what I mean by that is included in the price of your sitting. You could be photographed with your sister, your mother, your best friend, your partner for no extra charge. And I was like, OK, I know it well enough to not read it, but these are the key words and phrases that you need to head on. But you cannot recite this. You recite it. You you're doing yourself a great disservice. I want you to practice and practice and practice and practice and practice and practice until you believe it. All right, We're gonna finish this segment with doing this. These are all of our pictures. A consultation is about designing the shoot in pre selling with education. Now, do not tell May that your client didn't buy anything if you don't educate them correctly on what your finished product is and how much it costs. But the idea of how you pitch your consultation is about how you want to be photographed. So the focus off my pitch is How do you want to be photographed, Nikki? What do you wanna wear on your shoot? Marijuana. Different? How do you How do you want to be photographed with? Because you're sitting can be with somebody out. She could bring in your partner, your family members, anybody, your Children. Are you interested? Richard and getting war portrait, it's or folio box because I sell both. So if you're interested in the war portrait So I have this really neat thing called the nine up and now would be a good time to show, because if you want to do some dancing shots, this takes nine images like this and I ask them how they asked them the questions that relate to a finished product. Okay, without sounding like you're selling or pitching, try it. It really Wicks. Imagine that you're imagining instead of them thinking it's too expensive. Imagine that. They're imagining that they're very excited about being photographed, and you're really interested about creating a photo shared that they're gonna love. Okay, what we're gonna do, Erin, is Defar is designed your shoot. So let's talk about how you want to be photographed. Let's talk about what you and your husband gonna wear. Like I did a really great shoot. That was really kind of Calvin Klein ISC. They had white boxer shorts and it was you saw a lot of skin, and clearly you're both heart, so you could do something like this or if you want something more conservative, I photographed this couple in black polo necks and did this black backdrop your gorgeous blonde here. You know Barbara Black design it. Like it Metas like you're putting all this if it into shooting them. But don't not talk about money, but just make your focus about them to get it. So, you know, shift the focus of the pitch to what you're getting and then add the education. So, Aaron, the shoot that you're going to do with your husband Do you think you'd like a beautiful war portrait of the two of you together in your lounge or you kind of more of a folio? I don't want to show this off sort of person. Okay? The good thing about the folio box is you can actually pull images out and frame them. You can hide it under the bed if you want 60 raunchy images and just make that a folio bucks for you to, or you can put them on a gorgeous little easel and switch around the images and you have 20 images and that folio, so I'm building the value of the folio box. Now let's say I don't go through there. Let's say I say, Are you interested in a folio or a war portrait? You say follow its $1800? Okay, that's what people do. They're more worried about the money, then actually talking about the product or the value of it, or that she's gonna love or that she can frame it or use it or hide it or what is she getting its $1800? And it's kind of like, Do you know what I think when people say that? Okay, I'm gonna own up to something else. I don't know if I've ever said this. I might have said this. I don't think I have. I have a I have a Phillip Lim bag that I bought at Macy's, a gold one. I never take it anyway because it's really gold and really ostentatious. I paid $700 for it. I can't believe I paid $700 for a gold piece that I don't even use. But I did it because the woman treated me like I couldn't afford to buy it. My name is Sue Prize, and I was being $700 on that Phillip Lim bag because of woman treated me like I was worthless and I wanted to prove to him that I could afford to buy. It isn't humiliating. I should have taken it back. And then I found out that even if you return it, she still got the commission. So I keep it. Yeah. Oh, every time I look at that Phillip Lim bag, huh? Can I just say the other day I got it out and I put it in my lounge so that when you walk into my apartment, it's actually on the right hand side on a stand and everybody that walks and goes, Wow, look at that Nice. I guess it's a Phillip Lim beg. It's to remind me to value myself and people go Funny story. Yeah, all right. I feel like when people focus on money, they're telling me I can't afford it, and I instantly feel either really rejected and repelled or so defensive. I have to spend money, but I'm not happy about it. And I certainly don't to put any energy off. I own this incredible bag. I bought it because I'm with it in value. It on dso don't bully people into giving you money and also don't talk about money in the way because people get very offended by what we think. Now the reason I spent the $ on the Philip Limburg stupid. I'm not stupid. I don't spend money on things that I don't need. You know, I'm I'm not frugal, but I'm also not stupid. I saved my money. I'm clever with my money. It was a stupid thing to do. I I bought it for the wrong reasons. I bought it cause she looked at me like I could not afford it and look down. Who knows? It may and then I thought afterwards, and it's probably good self tactic, but it didn't make me like the experience doesn't make me want to go back there. Doesn't make me proud of that bag. Doesn't make me feel good about spending the money. So overall negative experience. Even though I got the $700 bag. So when you talk about money with people and you don't talk about what you're getting, I'm the one soothing you. You're paying me for their honor. I'm serving you. I'm pitching to you. The pictures. What are you getting? The pictures? And it's $1800. The pictures. It's an incredible box. I get the made by Celtics for Nao. It holds 20 images. They're all self mounted is a beautiful ribbon. I pack it up, I give it to my clients. I show them I get them to hold it. I'm proud of it. I love it. I've given teen reasons why it has value before. I've seen how much it is. Okay, One thing I've noticed in the pitch, which is kind of eye opening as you're putting them in the experience versus just saying you get this and this and this and this and this is how much it is. You're actually drawing them in with the conversation, like how we've been going over to get that conversation started. But this is the week Pat's just if you eye opening. If you say to May I want to do a photo shoot. I'm already assuming you want to do a photo shape, wouldn't you? No. No, seriously. So you think what you're saying right now is perfect Because most people are like, right now I've got a tech dance and I'm gonna do this dance, and I've gotta make her want me you've already cold? Yeah. Nobody calls you unless they want something. So what they're doing is looking for an excuse to just be pushed over that age to do it. So I look at it like this, right? From the moment you say you're interested in my work, I'm gonna ask you questions as if you have booked with May as if you want to shoot with May as if right of them. You have called me to do this. I said to my girls one day, all of my staff in New Zealand If somebody emails you or cause you on fire and you don't book a shoot, you dropped the ball because nobody calls your emails here and they say they want to do it. That's something you did. You either didn't answer quickly enough. You either talked about money. You pitched wrong. You didn't follow through. You know, you were in confident in some way. How do we know that I've done all of those things. Whenever I don't make a sale, I have done something wrong. Either in the preparation in the execution or in the in the preparation, the execution or the education of my client. If my client does not buy with may I have done something wrong in one of those three areas. Okay, I have done that because from the moment you're attracted to somebody, you want what they've got. And there's really no reason that somebody shouldn't book with you once you instantly giving them save us all right, gives you the power. You know, a lot of us feel powerless in that situation, like the client has all the power. But when it's your responsibility and you're doing something wrong along those three lines, when you lay it out like that, it's really it's only up to you if you meet a guy when you go back to dating day 16 years ago, before you got married, you meet a guy, you don't spend the whole energy thinking. I hope he likes me. What if you don't like him? I mean, you know, it's kind of like, Oh, oh, this is a two way thing. Yeah, we so work from the wrong place. Let's go through a list. So a consultation is about designing the shoot, pre selling with the education, pre selling, meaning I'm going to talk about my products as if you are going to buy them. But I'm doing it in a way that you actually are gonna buy them, because that's the result. I take incredible photos, you buy them. It's a good business model, kind of wicks. The shoot is about experience in connection and building a relationship. Let's talk about that. I'm no longer selling in the shoot. If I'm selling in the shoot, I'm gonna probably be a little bit a little bit repelled. So the shoot is about you in your husband. Okay? I have to manage really good people skills here because let's say has been turned up and he's not that into it. Okay, I've got to make you feel comfortable and make him win him over at the same time. I've got to use all of my power and skills to relax, both of you. Enough to make this sort of photographs that you're gonna want to buy. I've got to educate him on the price because he didn't come to the consultation. And I have to assume that if I fail in the education and or the execution of this photo shoot right now that I will not get a sale. Let's say he's into it. Home and host. I've done all my selling. All I have to do now is get you to back give you great service and get to my next pitch, which is the viewing. And the viewing is about delivering what you promised in what you wanted. So if I deliver in the viewing exactly what you wanted in your shoot beautiful photographs in the outfits that we designed together in the style that we spoke about and I've already educated you on cost. The sale is already done. You don't do any real selling when When they're they're doing the shoot, I tend to at the end of the shoot, get go for the tax tile sort of version and give him the box. Because many times they get to see the box and a pdf. I talk about the box. So I take that moment to let them touch you feeling the always in the box? Yeah. Good, because, right. So then and then I tell him, Look, let's not worry about you know what you have to select now. You're gonna come back for the few, and then you selected But this is how the box is gonna look to let them down. The consultation on the phone. They haven't touched the box until they come in for the shoot. So I go. This is the box that I was telling you about. Right? Well, instantly hold it in the beginning of the end. Would you have a preference? In the beginning, I walked them through on. I say, this is This is my viewing wearing, which is say these the boxes I told you about, but that you really liked in These are the ones either. The war portrait I was telling you about Valeron. I just showed them everything. Walk them through it. Yeah, The viewing is about delivering what you promised on what they wanted. Six. The pickup. The pickup is We get referrals. All right? Don't bother trying to get referrals at the sale. Do you know how disgusting it is to try and get $2000 out of someone? And you already asking them if you can give them to your friends at the sale? Um, the person's like, Isn't this about May? And already you want my friends? No, you are not to do the pitch on referrals at your cell. Titian, you do your pitch on the pick up when they holding the product and they happy cause you've delivered exactly what you sold, all right. And you do it promptly and you do it. Well, then you sit with them. You don't seemed it off. Don't seemed it off to them. Sit with them and say it was so great meeting you. It's great. Included some vouchers if you want to give them to friends. I've got this. I got there. Feel free to come back with your spouse at any time. If you want to do girls day out shoot. I do this really amazing day If you've gotten a next and, you know when you when you end up getting pregnant. Mag, make sure you come back next year and do some opportunity shoots. There's a 1,000,000 different referrals in that moment, and that's when you pitch for referrals. Now something that I've always priest is. If you do not follow up with this product and you don't deliver what you say, you're going to deliver them. The first thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna fail it. That pick up, and when you fail it, the pick up the angry cause they've paid for a product that they're not getting, that you've screwed around and taken too long, and they're not going to send you anywhere Ferrell's.