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Lesson Info

Pricing Phone Call Example

so I have not scripted this. I'm gonna get picked on Cam, I suppose, and let Kim beat a mom with me, and so were on the phone. And what is some of the stuff you're gonna ask for, right? Let me just so we're gonna start. You typically start with the greeting customer. Ask most probably. How much is a bet you're gonna see kind of what I typically read. Bebe Riel. You can't hurt my feelings. This is live. It's no big deal. Just my reputation. Oh, God. So I need to make an appointment to have my daughter. Senior Portrait's done. Let's go. Kim Houma, Central Love. You know what I love about Central? What's that? Everybody from Central is attractive. How do you all do that? It's just awesome also. But I'm sorry I'm getting off track, Let me tell you, tell me about tell me about what you're looking to do. Well, I just I need to have some really nice portrait's done. My last child and we've already went spent a lot of money on our other kids and, you know, money's tight, so just really kind of...

need to get a feel of how much this puppy is gonna call? Yeah, realistically, I will cut you off, and I'm not going to force you to script this. But that's not what she would say. She would really, truly say, How much is your sitting? But we kind of sort of addressed that earlier on. I would say, Well, we don't do sitting face. That's great that you don't do that. Yeah, I don't do sitting fees, because why would you pay someone to sit down? Good friend. Think about it, Kim, If you go to the doctor who really fixes you, The doctor or the pharmacist before my Yes. If there was a way to bypass the doctor wouldn't do that. I sure want. This is what I do. I'm not going to charge you just to take the pictures. I am that confident in what I do that I know. You're gonna love the pictures. So there is no city thief. So sitting is totally free. However, there is a minimum order and the minimum order is based on the number of outfits and 100 to 1 52 100 Once I already told you how I do that, and I explained it to the mom. This is all we do. The sittings so and then from there, it depends on what you want. You want to buy a bunch? A but tens. No problem. You run by a bunch of wallets. No problem. You want about just a bunch of five sevens or maybe a wall port? No problem. At this point, you're buying exactly what you want. As opposed to what some photographer out there thinks you might want. Well, that sounds great. Yeah, make an appointment. So that that's a very common typical phone conversation. All right, Now, if I can work it in on the phone, I'd much, much rather do it face to face much. Rather. Amma, get as close as I can here. Okay. I'd much rather do it face to face. Then do it on the phone. But let's say you have already made your appointment. Pickle. Monica, Monica, do it. Who wants to give me I need? If he's become a fear of God dog. Monica Iken do that right. Come up here. Give me bring the patent pins. Thank you. I'm gonna use yours as an example. We're gonna add this up I need all the math people to do the adding for me because I can't add quick. So if I'm taking pictures and this is Mom, and I'm going clearly Clickety click and senior girl, she's got the blue outfit on and I'm going clear to clear, to click. And we're having a big dog time and I go, Okay, go put on the green outfit. Okay. Should Yeah. And she goes off to put on the green outfit. I'll say, Mom, you saw the pictures of back camera. You like him so far? Oh, I know. See, the whole reason she went to school for 12 years was so I could take the pictures because, you know, it's all about me, OK? Not just kids. All right, So here's the thing. I bet you wondering how much this is going to cost you Stop. Who is going to say No. No, I don't need the answer to that question. Nobody. Right. Okay. So good. Yeah. Yes, it's kind of starting to worry me. Okay, Good, good, good. Good. Because here's what I want to do. I want to have a little pretend session with you again. I much rather do this face to face because I get much better results. Okay? We scripted. There's do we script is no July. Okay. Totally unscripted. Good. I'm very sure is to see how you do it. So be riel. Okay. Don't tell me what I want to hear. It could be really right for your area. All right, So let's pretend that you have all the proofs in your hands right now. And we did four outfits right back to our original scenario. We did four outfits. I shot 24 shots. Everyone of not we've already done one. The blue outfit. And you look back at camp and you love them, right? Yep. Okay. So you can kind of get a feel that when the pictures are gonna come in, they're all gonna be Oh, my God. Drop dead gorgeous. Right. OK, good. She wouldn't come to me. Okay, so here's what I want you to dio imagine. Imagine you have the pros in your hands right now and that they all just Oh, my God. Drop dead gorgeous. You know, looking around like, you know, we sell Big Fortress like that. Portrait's like that. Important. So what is the biggest. Just the one biggest picture that you're gonna want. How big do you think? No, maybe 11. My court. I'm assuming one. Yeah, but over the fire. Beautiful. Beautiful. 1 by 14. Now, just just a side note. Mom Going. Let me write that down 1 49 by the way. Um, let me write that down. But just as a side note, here's the cool thing I want you to think about. You know, I'm gonna go ahead and write the 1 11 but 14 down. But I want you to consider the fact that we do have specials from the lab on clusters, and you probably don't even know what a cluster is. But a cluster is that over there that that thing over there, that's a cluster. She's not really looking at anything she's pretending. Okay, that's a cluster and way have specials. You may think when this comes in, you may think all car just wouldn't want this Whatever. But for now, I'm going with your 11 before team that we're gonna put up. And by the way, that always looks good over a fireplace. In fact, we have one specific to a fireplace okay, real quick. Just just stop for a minute. You get pause there, mom. Okay, You catch what I'm doing. Did you hear you? Yeah, I'm up selling already. I'm just simply give throwing just like I did with the red Dye. I'm throwing this. You know what, everybody else and this is gonna be a sale. And it's awesome. Deal. And it's okay. All right. So good. We got your number 14. Now, the next size, down from a limbo 14 is eight by tens. About size of a piece of paper. Alright, How many's usually, you know, Mom's grandparent's dad's office? How many of those do you think you might want? Can you not commit yourself to anything? We're just pretending. All right. I know what you think. Like you committed just pretending. So grandparent's or yeah, maybe five. Make that 66 deal. 68 by tens. How much of 16? calculated people. That's 100. 1010 to 4. To 3 Thanks. Yeah, I get that. Calculated 3 30 Okay, so I'm write that down $55 times six. I don't tell that to the parent. By the way, I just write the number. Don't Don't. That's that's a mistake. Don't say Okay. Now, that was 330 this was one party. Not Don't do that. Just simply say Okay. 68 10. Let me write that down. Follow. Okay, good. All right. So the next size, down from a but tennis five by seven, that's about half the size of a day, but 10 half the size of a page. Usually that aunts, the uncles, the boyfriend, you know, the teachers sometimes want something that kind of stuff. So how many 57 do you think you might want? Maybe 88 Okay, let me write that. Eight. Time. numbers, people. 10 45 3 63 60 over again. I'm not telling her that number. Have a calculator in front of me. Okay, so 36 Write that down. Mom. Now, the next most difficult thing to calculate is the proofs. Okay, because I may end up shooting around 24 proofs today. Are you the Are you the Yeah, we bind them all. Or are you the I know We're just gonna get the good ones. Oh, and the proofs, probably one of the most Everybody else buys. I do. OK, don't catch that. Did you hear what I just said? Most Everybody else. Wicked. Wicked. Alright, so 24 Sunday is 24 times 81 90 to 1 92 proofs. Write that down now, Mom, the next The next crazy difficult thing to figure out his wallets because, you know, she's got four different outfits. Oh, hey, you come on back. I'm gonna tell Mom you have to time this perfectly with the senior coming out. Because here's this is very powerful, okay? Because these two people or enemies okay, enemies, I tell you. All right, they scream and holler at each other, and But at this moment in time, they are your best friend. Okay, so my old shoes you Hey, come on out. Let me ask something. Um, I noticed the cheerleader outfit band, Anything like that track track. Oh, awesome. Who knew? Yeah, Bob, you shoot the breeze real quick at this point, Figure out all the stuff she's into. Oh, my God. Mom, she is popular. Okay, here's the thing I have found the more popular years your girl is, the more while it she's gonna need now. Do you know how evil that is? It's evil. It's beyond evil because I just let Mom know if she keeps it out. You're saying you don't have a popular child? Okay, I did. I say that? No, but did I imply that? Did I let that seed grow and fester? Yes, I did. So, Mom, it's the most difficult thing to calculate. First of all, before we start talking about trade with your friends and popularity and all that stuff are you planning on putting while it's in the announcements or anything like that? Oh, I hadn't thought about that, you know. How many announcements did you order? What is she going to say? They all say 100. I was like a law. Something out there. Okay, well, you know, I don't really have price, mom, but I do have a 108 price. I'm gonna and write that down. Is that okay? I'm assuming you want to put the same picture in all of them. Or do you want to different ones? Sure. Okay. Let me put that 100 while it's so this is all one image. Yeah. Just one image you know, a lot of times, everybody I mean, am I right? Since you everybody's cool, does Yeah, everybody does it. And what they do is they put one wallet, like in the announcements. Unless, of course, you want grad cards. Which, of course, we sell that, too, and ends up being pretty close to the same price where you buy the announcements from me. But you already bought while that's right. Now again, I want to hit pause with you and talk to the world again. Is that in my world by time they come to me in October. They've already been hit up by all the different Internet and not Internet vendors. You know, they get the green people in the in the in the little name card people, and they bought all this stuff. So usually my quote unquote grad card sales stink Know how great they look, but because they already have this. But every now and then they go, Oh, man, just look so much better. I'm going to give this to people. I don't like an order this for people. I do like So I do some grad card sales. So just think about You know, that's just on alternative at this point. If you and your timing is such that you can get to the scene senior before all these vain vendors get to the senior, your grad card sales may actually be higher. In which case, right now, you're not saying put 108 wallets you're saying, Am I right? Sure that you're gonna need around 100 grad cards? Oh, everybody gets grad court. I know. You know, Look, let me miners ogle. And so it's gonna be this month. And so I didn't write 100 down. Is that okay, Mom? And so it's the same thing. In my case, it's 100 While it's in someone else's case, it may be 100 grand. Courts cool so far. All right, moving on. So now the next most difficult thing is trade with your friends wallets. Now I have found Mom that on the average on the average, I mean, some get actually considerably mawr and some get less that you need around 56 wallets for each outfit that she has. And correct me if I'm wrong. So thank you. When you go to school and you So show your friends your wallets and you have, like, four different wallets and you show them to your friends. And you say, Do you see my images? They go. Oh, my God, that is so awesome. I want one like this one, like this one. Like this. Am I right? Am I right? And look, let me tell you something. Hit. Pause Right here. Do you know how ridiculously powerful this is? Okay, you're all doing it. Just didn't realize you were doing it. Just me going like this. Your body starts repeating. What? I'm doing it. I'm going. You're not really gonna want to ever go, and no, I'm not. I'm assuming you want. Yeah, I do. So it is unbelievably powerful, and it's so subtle. It is so subtle. So you want them to do something? You start saying I'm assuming that what you're gonna want like everybody else. And if you're going, you really want to go? Do I can't believe you would want to. You see what I'm getting at? So it takes a little bit of Cajun ingenuity, if you will. I know you got to kind of get used to it because it can come office fake, but if you practice, it can happen. OK, so I will tell mom that. And so, yeah. So you see what happens is I can hear your brain thinking right now you're thinking Oh, my God, Kirk! 56 56 5200 200 Wallace. She didn't even know 200 people. But what happens is there gonna take one from each and thus is not really 200. It's like only 56. And I'm assuming you got at least 56 friends. My goodness. Track cheerleader. You at school? All dime. You, like popular? You have to tell your friends. Only one pixel. That's that's cool. I don't listen to hush up. Listen, I don't want your fighting right now. Seriously? No fighting, because we're just pretending right now, Mom. So for the sake of pretending, can I write down 56 56 56 56. Or do you want to write 56 3 times or what do you look? Listen, I just want to make you happy. What do you want me to do? Let's compromise with two. Okay. 56 56. Okay. 56. All right and 56. Okay. Okay. 33 for dessert. I know, I know, I know. Okay, so 56 56. All right, so thus let me review you said 1 11 to 14. You said 68 by tens. You said You said all the proofs You said 108 wallets are grad cards. You said 56 56 56 while it's to trade with your friends. Oh, yeah. Am I right? Oh, yeah. OK, cool. I'm gonna turn this over to do you add this up for me real quick. Like we keep talking about 10. Okay, so that is very, very much Mama finished talking when you're sitting in your seat. That is big hand. Big Internet hand. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. That is very, very real in my world. What she just did. That's very really It's almost always a limbo 14. Almost always. It's Whatever. A But tens six is the most common answer. For 57 Every now and then, I'll get 10 and then the 56 56 56. Come steal this back. Thank you. Ok, so Here's what I will do again. I have the calculator inside, you know, in front of me. And I'm typically doing this right in front of Mom and also Okay, Mom, let me go and add that up real quick. All right, Good. See? So let me see Mom, just like that, you spent $ Okay? She lost. Did you catch that? The catch time. Whoever speaks first, she she did it way too fast. At this point, whoever speaks first loses. And here's where photographers go wrong, they'll go. Okay, Mom, that's $1307. Now, seriously, you don't say anything. That's $1307. But, you know, we could do some stuff with that. We could like, you know, give you give you get all those five or seven, that many five sevens, we could give you one free. And of course, you know, we could instead of charging you $99 for the grad cards because we could do this. And, you know, if you get 56. 30 I could give you one set of free with, and so thus they would end up really only costing you like 967 dollars. But yeah, you just you just did it to yourself. Don't do that Shot up. Shut up! That's my advice. When you say $ e I was doing It just cracks me up if you cannot so hard sometimes. But if you can outwait them, they will. Absolutely. Because it gets weird and they go well, that's what I figured. No, if they mentally commit to $1307 that we easily spent two. And if they do that to me when they'll go well, that's what I figured. I will then say Now look, we haven't even started. Begun to stories is yours. We have not even drive the camera. Dude's crazy. All right, we have not even begun to talk, Mom. If she goes remember, she says, Well, that's what I figured, I will say, because we haven't even started talking about thes panel things. And don't forget albums. Oh my goodness. Almost every senior that comes into my studio ends up with an album. I got the big, big big album. I got the medium album had a little bit out of many, many, many albums. And so, you know, you're gonna probably want one of those. And then, of course, there's the clusters. We talked about the clusters, so I mean, that could easily add, you know, 5 $600 to the thing. And so, you know, shoot, man, you might be looking at 2000. They never do it three times a way. Well, this if, on the other hand, the mom goes Oh, okay. There's no, there's no way I go. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Remember, we were just pretending which is pretending. I mean, who's to say that she ain't gonna end up with 28 but tends instead of four? Who's to say that you might end up with just two or three? 5% are known, you know, Like you said, you baby have to compromise. You just get two sets of 56 instead of three. So a listen won't call. Now we're just pretending, and it costs anything to pretend. My objective here is I want you to understand that when you get all this in your hands, if you can pretend without ever seeing an image that is gonna cost $1300. And when you realize that she's leaving the house going to college and she's not your baby no more, you realize that you, you know, think about I mean, what this means and what this represents. You could easily spend twice that much. But I'm saying that that's not what I'm saying. You could. It's totally up to you what you spend. So did I. Was that helpful to you? Yes. OK, and now that's what they all do and what Mom does at this point she goes into Okay, how am I gonna sell this? The dad mode. That's what she really does. Okay, she starts thinking about Well, I could put that on this credit card and that credit card, this credit card, and you will never know about that. That's literally what Mom typically does. So don't be afraid to talk pricing ahead of time. It absolutely. This is the most powerful way to prevent the whole buyer's remorse problem. So that is what that is all about. And I say in Kurt, what you were just saying about the wife are the mother putting it on the green. Three different credit cards. It's exactly what I was doing with my three seniors when they graduate. Absolutely school. I was like, Okay, he won't know if I do hear. Hear? Yep. Yeah. Good. You had a You had another question about this? No, no, no, no. This is my most favorite time to do. This is right at the end of the first outfit as she goes off the change into the next outfit. And I'll go, Mom, I bet you wondering how much this puppy's gonna cost you. And she goes, I do see that's my most favorite time because she's already got a little taste. She's already seen six of them, and at this point is when you know she's gone, there's gonna cost our money. What's that? She's already started the process that do they ever like, shut down after you started talking about her? They still excited because they don't want kids to the kids changing. Mostly accepted a while it port. Okay, that's why that's what I want the kid to come back. You have a question. It's coming first. That was amazing, is very good. And my question is basically these questions like a is always on the first, no matter how many. Or if you know, that no five outfits used to bring on the first. That's my favorite moment to do it. Yes, if there is no always okay? I mean, seriously, there's no such thing as a during a session. Yes, I love doing it during the session because after I sometimes I'll do before, especially if I get the mom who comes in the studio. And there, there, this in this boy, this is some powerful stuff. See this right here? They walk in like this. That's their way of getting away from you, crossing the arms, looking watch for that. They walking like this and they're saying, I believe this is going to happen. Yeah, and so that's when I will sit there and say, OK, well, let's have a little pretend session if you worried about if you confused, you know about how much this puppy is gonna cost. That's what you really want to know, right? And a so far is the pretend phone call. A lot of times, if they start asking this question and that question, I don't understand what you mean. No sitting Fiallos, but I want. But how much is your package? But but I don't get it. How much you? But how much is your package? I'll say, Well, hey, listen, let's just have a little pretend session And that's what I call it where you pretend to make a five pictures and let's see how much it's gonna cost and that when you get an idea for how much it's gonna cost Is that OK? Yeah, and we'll do it on the phone. So there's all kinds of places where you could do it. But my favorite right after that first outfit, it seems to work the best. That's just bang for the buck. So have you ever had any appearance when you say that when we were doing, like our little thing up there? Say, Well, when you ask if they know how much it's gonna be or whatever you can, they go, Yeah, it's gonna be the $600 I put down already, you know, Have any of them say I'm keeping it to this limit that I tell you what I did have a mom do whenever I said $1,301, Just like I did what you do with you. She went. I can tell you right now, there's no why we're spending $1300. Don't do this to me. I'm telling you, I get You know where I become like, Oh, yeah, You don't know what I can do. And this girl had a birth defect. She had this thing with one eye where there was no hair on her eyelid or her eyebrow halfway down, one eye towards the outs outside. Now you may think yourself big beef, but do you know how weird that looks when it's not there? We get so used to looking at people, you know, because we all got the same parts. Wise nose, eyebrows, lips, teeth we all get and you get used. And when suddenly it's not there. It's weird. Well, that's how this girl's situation Waas No. Hey, uh, middle of the eye out, I drew every image hair into those eyelids and eyebrows, and I made it look good. The little girl comes in to get her proofs. She's boo hooing before she walks out door. If they cried a by Okay, I hate to be so cold, but it's true. She's boo hooing before she gets out door. Mom comes in and places the order. It's $1600 Okay? And this is May the faces I told you so I told you so. And she's writing the check. And this is her writing the check. She's like this. She looked That is true. That is absolutely true story. And I'm like, No, I told you that's why I did this. But she hated me when she loved me, because then bridges will awesome. Awesome. So okay, I bet there's some questions out there. Always. There's a lot of Kirk. You're great and I know what I'm gonna be calling everybody sugar after 19 sug a cantina do says I love Kirk's larger than life personality and then firecrackers shut up. So we didn't have a question. How can you up cell if you don't do in person ordering? And as an addendum to that, If you're doing phone like a phone consultation, are there any tricks that you used to like? Make your voice somewhere outgoing or I think you're naturally outgoing, But I think any anything else you can about that I will say that nobody in the studio can do it like May. That's the truth, and I'm the best at it, but they try to do what I do, but they never good as I am. So that's just a compromise, because I can do every one of them. Um, and it tricks. No, I got nothing for you there. I don't know. It's just from doing it up. Selling is, as I said, while I'm shooting, it's not uncommon for me to go click, Click like this. Mom Click Click, she said, 02 you're gonna have to settle for, to know he's not because I'm going to click like I'm like, Oh, I don't know how she's gonna settle for two, Mom, because look at Mom. Would you look? I mean, look how Stacy is right here. Could you not see that would be the best, the best or whatever. But you all look whatever you decide. Whatever you do, it's up to you and click. Oh, here's another one. Here's another one. And so it's It's not uncommon for me to up sell while shooting, because again, nobody could do it quite like I do it. And so I don't know. That's that's what I say. And basically, from that point we take orders. Now. It does happen occasionally where someone comes in and they are in a limbo. and one of the girls or whoever they'll say something along the lines of UK. You do know that 11 before team let me see a limbo 14 0 way down there at the bottom of the shelf. Yeah, the one on the floor. That's it. That's an 11 by 14. Um, well, I thought that was 11. 14. People sometimes get hung up in the numbers, and that's a mistake we make is they'll say, I wanted to let my 14 And the trick beyond that is to go. What isn't 11 before team, By the way, Show me with your hands and it will. You know Number 14. Google will. Actually, that's actually a 16 by 20. No, I want one. You know, Number 14 like that. So that's 1/3 of authority. Oh, uh, yeah. How much is that? And that's how that conversation goes. Cool. Yeah, that's great. Very organic. Once again. Sure, there's another question here. Speaking of a shooting with mom sitting in the room. Senior Lake is wondering What are the rules for shooting kids by themselves? Should parents be present as well as a former teacher always was mourn never to be alone in the room with a student. My advice. I mean, whenever someone asked me about that whenever parents is, can we come? And if I'm on the phone, I don't know that all the girls do this. But if I'm on the phone and Mom says, by the way, can I can I watch? I will say to the mom, If a photographer ever says You can't watch leave, that's my advice to you, Mom, So I can watch. Absolute. Not only are you gonna watch, I'm putting you but the work. So you're gonna be doing some stuff for me. I need you to hold lights and various things like that. Really? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Let's go. I want you in the room. And so I have in my studio security cameras for this reason, and I don't know if you want to go to that extent or not, but I have security cameras in the studio toe wear there. It's all being recorded, kind of like y'all little camera appealed with my head that records all this and during breaking stuff. That is for the simple reason that if these three words are ever spoken, I am out of business. If somebody was to say he touched me, that's horrible, you know, And I'm But that's the world we live in. I'm going to say you touch me unless you give me blah, blah, blah. I mean, that's the crazy world we live in, and it's a shame that we live in that world. But for that reason, I have a huge, wonderful security system toe hopefully prevent anything. I don't know if that really addresses that question, but my deal is I want mom and Dad in that room and the sister and the cousins in the afternoons. And for the most part, that's Louisiana. I mean, it's just a big family affair, you know, we all show up everything. So they follow up question from dude of honor in regards to the parents being there in the room. Does that ever raise the question of what about parents taking a photo with their own phone or point and shoot? Last year was the first time. It never happened to me where I was shooting to the IPad. And the mom proceeded to take with her phone every picture I did on the I. It was so shocked. I got to tell you, was like I saw you haven't heard the stories about the dude. They see a UFO and I got a camera on the neck and I go, Why didn't you take a picture? I was just so many doctors don't back. That was me. I was completely shocked that she was doing it. I was like, I just let her do it. And I was like when it was all said, I was like, Why did I say something like, Excuse me, What are you doing? I thought I was so shocked. So it's only happened to me once, and I guess when it happens again, I'm going to say something. But when they take their camera and I have it all set up and they and their way back here because I shoot with the 7200 most you'll see me again. The more and they take the camera, you and I'm like, right here and there, There, right here and they take a picture. What is that really gonna look like? He's going like dirt. So I don't care if they do that. That's what my wife does with my daughter. And so God bless him. You know, it makes him show this whole experience and just have fun with it.