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Fitting eProducts into your Current Sales

we're gonna we're gonna take advantage as best we can of how we're going toe educate our customers. And what I want to do is I want to show you some of the tools that we have available because we know that it's it's going to be a challenge to be able to tell your customers what hybrid photography is. What's an e product? What do you do with any product? How do you sell it? How do you shape it? How are you going to use this and future generations how to use it to generate dollars? What I want to do is I want to share a page with you. Please. I have a page on hybrid photo dot Pro also has the name of Discover Mirror Elice. So don't be afraid. If you see appear by the way you can go toe hybrid photo dot pro he discovered Muralist doesn't matter. This is, by the way, how you get in touch with the coach, right? I am the coach of the Hybrid Heroes and the hybrid heroes we're about to expand, and you can see if you go to discover Marylise dot com or hybrid photo dot com slash hybrid heroes. Y...

ou'll see that there's a whole bunch, including course we saw jasmine mash ins a little bit earlier today. My girl, Jessica Wallich has done a great job. But of course, one of the finest photographers in all of the Northwest, by the way, happens to be the Panasonic wrap in Portland. His name is Mark Toll. Scott Jr genies terrific, Of course, we already know Patty Bradley. We got my boy, Steve Lynch. Rick Farrell's inside there, Robbie D's in there, but I wanted to pay special thanks to one of the just just angels of this entire movement. And hybrid photography would not have been been moved into the area that it has without one very special photographer. And her name is Susanne Allen, and she is a dear friend of mine, and she is on tour course with Panasonic all over the universe, and she's never forgotten about us. This kid is bright and she knows how to put things together. And, you know, what's kind of funny is there's a long, long time ago that I met this young, little squeaky Ural and she was from Alaska and she was helping me as an assistant at A PP event in Pasadena, California, and she didn't know anything, and she was bright and she had a lot going on for, and she tagged along with me. Guess what? She reminded me a lot of Louis and I kept in touch with her and I kept her with me and I kept Ricana coming along. And next thing you know, she turned into Suzanne. Alan and Susan Allen is one of the most talented hybrid photographers in the world. It's really I don't take any credit over that stuff. Course Joe Smith Burger. There has been a terrific guy, too, but let's talk about something that's a little more important. We've got a section in here called the Hybrid PD A. And this is going to be where you're going to pick up information on info that you can use to develop your own verb ege. And this is the problem. Burbage. What words do you use to describe hybrid photography to your customers? What words do you print? What words do you write? What words do you have at the ready? Any time for you to deliver in order to get your point across. Well, that's what the hybrid PD A does. It's filled with what is hybrid photography, right? What is an e product? What is an e template? How do I learn Maura about hybrid? Do you need a special camera for hybrid? Do I need to shoot into a template sized environment? What is pre processing? Um, I gonna lose all my talent when I do that. What's all the fuss over mirror lists? What? What's the deal? Well, let's take a look at something. Justus. Simple as what is an e product? I'll make this full screen here when we combine still photos and movement of still photos with video clips and audio clips and graphics and MAWR, we end up with one video file that we call an e product on e product can be viewed and shared and shown on any screen that you could ever imagine. And an e product can also be distributed by a link. That's right. Take a look at this. This is actually a leak from one IPhone to another phone hand. When you click on that link, it takes you directly to that e product that plays so an electronic product and e product is what we think the future of photography is about. As print sales decline in the world of professional photography, we're gonna replace those sagging sales with e products that leap off a screen. All the products are basically the shell of a video file filled with anything. We want to get our message our thought are feeling, or for commercial photographer like me, the idea of what a product conduce do across to anybody, any time on any screen e products rock. So when you're looking for Vour Bridge, when you're looking for a little bit of help when you're looking for maybe even a piece of video, hang on your own website. Look, you're more than welcome Any of the content that's on here. That's why it's on here. There's well over 700 video posts on our video channels that we allow people to literally have access to. If you want the full size version of that for something and you want to re edit it, all you got to do is email over. Typically, you get ahold of Louis. If you go to info at whatever it is a Louis, it's Lorenzo. Listen I need a full size version of this video. You send them the link. Guess what? You get it. It's all yours. Sure, there's copyright stuff, all that other nonsense. If you need me to write to release the copyright, I'll be glad to take it with you, buddy. Take it. Take it. You have to learn this. We have to learn what is all these different terminologies and what these phrases are gonna be? How do you describe hybrid photography? Really good video and audio recording abilities on our pro still cameras instead of just one still photograph to capture a moment, we can now add movement and sound to that photo hybrid photography blends photo and video and audio and graphics and whatever else we can cram into a video file to create an image that leaps off of the screen off of an IPhone off of, ah, Facebook page off of your IPad. Anything we can take the still images that we shoot for hybrid photography and make beautiful prints, of course. But then we can take the stills and turn them into a slide show video. Or we can take the stills plus video plus audio and turn them into what we call an e product. Hybrid Photography is the future, and customers love it. It is the future, and customers do love it. So grab it. Take it, take every piece of it. If you're looking for beyond that, if you've got a special customer and you need to learn more about that, then the best thing to do is to go to a group that cares. The group that cares is the linked in group. It is mere Elice photography of sorry hybrid photography using mirror less cameras. And at that group you will learn riel quick that there are plenty of photographers that are going through the same dharam thing you are, and there's no reason for you to have to struggle and worry about that at all. They're really not at all one one piece. I do want to show you that I think is super important, and that is that when you get your hybrid photography system in place, you need to be able to introduce it, and you also need to remember that people are going to be uncomfortable with the idea. But when they're coming in to get their pictures taken. Think about that. I think about the first time you got dressed up and your mom made you go to some photographer. Do you remember the first time you went to a professional photographer? Lorenzo Ben Chance Some, You know, I was probably, like, 89 10 years old. I guess you can kind of remember I don't want to get dressed up there. I know that. Yeah. Did you end up getting you had? So you went and you had your fam with you, right? And you ended up getting a family portrait taken. How painful was the process? It was like, you know, because it was like, it seemed like an hour, hour and 1/2 drive. We had to go when you had to get dressed up. You have to go drive. I would die and he had to sit and wait and smile. Smile, smile. You got an hour and, you know, some change. Drive back by the time your whole day is shot. Just like Okay, going down. I can't go outside and play now. So the aim wasn't Wasn't too fun of an experience. And it's still your drawn enough to photography that that didn't kill your passion for what you want to do. That is very true. Something goes to speak about how things changes, we grow. Chris, do you remember the first time sort of a similar kind of experience, I guess. You know, a little bit of anxiety and, you know, as a youngster, you know, um and I got to get in all these clothes and hike out there and all that, but, uh, yeah, I think I think looking back on it now, I think now we can kind of see with the you know what with the wisdom of our age. Here is just say, how can we change that? How we make it a more enjoyable experience. I think like Patty had said, It's all about the experience, you know, that's that's a big part of what we do. It's just and you don't, Chris, you're right. It was Patty that told me it's all about the experience and I said, No, no, no, no. It's all about the end result. And when they're done with the end result, when they look at it, are they happy that they went through the process because you don't need a family portrait, right? You need groceries, you need to pay the power bill. You don't need to have a family portrait. We find that when we do promotions particularly do those promotions with the big benefit folks that those air given as gift. So not so much by themselves. A lot of times when Monta dad decide that they want, ah, family portrait of their grandkids and they don't seem to have one that they're not afraid to spend $1000 toe and HIV charity get a picture that they're basically going to get one and that they don't really care at that point, so they know it's not gonna goto waste. 12. We we want to make that experience a little easier and a little nicer. Now, as you can tell, over the past couple of days, the experience particularly there's kids involved. I totally dig kids, right? If there's pets involved, I totally dig pets. Um, I do have to tell you I have had one experience and was with Louis, which is the Louis was the two of us. It was a very cold winter day, and we had the experience of a young lady who was in on a gift she had gotten her parents or something had gotten a coupon, and she came in, so she had no money involved in this whole thing. And basically, the coupon was to come on in and you get a whole hour of the studios time to create one portrait, be color black and white. You would every like, and you get to choose what you want, and then you get whatever size print that you like between, you know, the size of this size. And then, uh, your own little gallery. You're sharing gallery for a whole year. So your basic classic session for Crockett, right? And she comes in and this girl just kind of had trouble written all over her. She had plenty of money, and she had very nice clothes, and she had a Fendi bag on, and she had really, you know, Jimmy Choo shoes. So, you know, this girl was doing okay, right? Well, she came in and all of a sudden she decided that she had Louis how money when he was at seven different changes that she wanted to do, like nine dying and different changes Yeah, well, I wanted to honor that as best they could write. If it well, OK, it's not that bad. I figured out, you know, they say nine don't really mean nine. So we decided that we would say, Well, which one would you like to do first? And she's well, first I just need a head shot. A corporate headshot said, Oh, you know, Tell me what you know what you need to use it for And she gave me this weird kind of look. Well, I just saved for my linked in profile is so great. Well, that tells me a lot. Told me what size it needs to be and that tells me what size I need to give you because linked in doesn't want a picture. This big head shots going to be this size and it's gonna end up being square. That's it's good. So I get start set up and should put moving around, start posing around. I kind of get thes facial reactions from her that she was really uncomfortable and actually somehow annoyed, and I didn't quite understand that Patty wasn't around to help me with that is usually wanna have trouble like that. I go right to Patty and I go petty. There seems to be something wrong here. So Louis was really busy working on something else. And he was just hearing that there was some problems with Crockett. So he said, uh, a crock. You okay? And I said, I You know, I think I think so. I'm not quite sure. So she had a very pretty black dress on, and I started turning her around and doing doing the pose there. She Unfortunately, she was the little broad shouldered and she had a pretty little shape, but she's a beautiful girl. So you know what? The camera position you're at, We put the lighting off to this side, Not to this side. Of course. She had a black dress on. I took it. I darken the backdrop to make sure that it was dark, but it still had a little bit of a pattern into it. And I started turning our around this way and typically for me, when we don't want those type of things, I'm gonna take her this way, and I'm gonna take this this this elbow, and I'm gonna put the hand down this way, and I'm going to tell her to move this album. What that's gonna do is that's just gonna change that shoulder. So when I talk about the camera shot, the camera shots only going to be this way and all this elbow is doing is it's just changing the position where the shoulder is going to be, right? You know, she started to yell at me. She said, I don't understand what this has got to do with anything to do with this picture. Here, it's Whoa, whoa. Hey, you know what? I've been doing this for 30 years. I've been taking a lot of these pictures, so I don't really need you to learn how to do all that type of stuff. So eventually it got to the point where it it was time for her to go. I said, You know, I'm really sorry, but I think there's other photographers that could do a much better job of taking a picture than you did. Louis was a gas, he said. Did you just do it? I think you did. I said I did. I said, Louis, do me a favor. Find out what she paid in order for her taxi fare to come on over here and all I had was $100 bill and I gave her $100 bill and I was very nice and said, Listen, here showed taxi fare and I want to let you know that if you'd like a list of photographers that could do a much better job and I could've said let me know and I'll give you a list of exactly who it Wasit off it went, Do you feel? Wow? And after she left, she was confused. He wasn't such matters. She was confused. What? Louis and I had a question about what happens in the dynamic of a studio when all of a sudden something goes terribly wrong. Is there any way to recover and get a great picture? And I don't know. I don't think that the answer is it's possible now. Maybe if Patty was there, it would have saved it. Well, Patty had a brilliant idea, she said. She said, Hang on a second will, Why don't you have a video that explains to people a little bit more about who you are and manages their expectations before they get there? and I go. That's brilliance. So let's switch back to T or you were were TV. Let's take a look at this. This is what what we use on our website toe let people know what their experience is and what it's going to be. Watch questions get asked quite a bit. Is are those models on our website or those real people? Well, I can tell you every one of them are really folks just like me and you that come in for our Chicago style family or business or talking Portrait's as a couple things that separate us from other places that can create a family or business portrait. First is the fact that, well, we have our own style. We call it Chicago style. It's a big, bold black and white or warm color portrait that's also printed on museum grade exhibition grade prints. We don't get our images printed. It Walgreens. We actually have an on site lab. That's the same type of prints that we use in galleries and museums all over the globe. And maybe the most important reason that people come and come back to Chicago portrait dot pro is the fact that We're Chicago's first hybrid portrait studio. That's right. We don't use flash anymore. We use. Led is for continuous life. We have the ability to shoot still photos, as well as moving photos with audio with sound pretty cool. Right We typically create Are talking portrait's or R E products, if you will, for business customers. Take a look on our website here for R E product. We're also using the technology that we have in our studio to make beautiful talking portrait like this one. E I love you. Problem solved. Problem solved. How do we define who we are? What we are, what? Our point of view is, what you should expect. What kind of people are we? What are you going to get when you come in there? It's so funny that now that we finally added video to our photo, that photographers can now solve problems even if you're not shooting hybrid products. If you're not an e product, photographer doesn't mean anything. I created a quick little piece of video there. In fact, actually, Louise shop that I live it, but Louis shop that darn thing for us to be able to define what your experience is gonna be so maybe one of the most important pieces of information that I can share with the audience with a photographer that wants to gently move into hybrid photography. Say, if you want to be able to make that graceful transition from shooting on, Lee still photo into shooting photo plus video plus audio is to define yourself and define yourself using the medium that you want to work in right. The first thing that I suggest and we've already done this is suggest that if you're going to sell e card pros, for instance, make an e card pro of yourself that you can use a sample. But more importantly, if you're going to shoot pocket Portrait's like that one of sky. That's money right there. That's money. Those are the easiest ones to sell. We're soon inches away. Jasmine mash ins that we mentioned one of the hybrid heroes has actually worked with Dan to develop a new piece of technology where the time of that video doesn't matter. That's in between, right? You've got that graphic of sky where you've got hi twinkle, twinkle, twinkle scouts Guy age three. It's gotta photos. It's got a background to it. Well, then, that's going to change. Two of its going Dissolve into the piece of video in that piece of video right now has to be a specific amount of time. Must be specific. Link full on five seconds, then the 2nd 1 is actually nine seconds, and then it goes to a graphic. And then it's the photo. Well, you know, Dan, because he's day and Foster has figured out a way now that it doesn't matter what time that video length is that it will be able to recognize when the person stops talking. Then it will see that the audio is dropped off to a level that's a certain peach peak, and then it will then count off half a second or 2/3 of a second, whatever it needs. And then that it will become the end point, and then it will auto edit itself backwards that way. Wow, that's huge. You know that? Does that opens up the door for us to take a multitude of different templates and do anything we want to with him. The open door to hybrid photography is here. I was joking with George Nakis here who is one of the sales folks for a creative life here, and I have been friends for a long time. I said, Giorgio, it's funny about photography because he's been around a long time to I said, the thought of doors that open and doors that close. Unfortunately, the doors open quietly, and they closed loudly said that there's a handful of photographers that say When the doors opened, they go. That door's open. I get a chance to run right through it. Yet there's other folks that wonder I don't know. And then when the door closes, they complain that it's really allowed. Have you ever heard me complain that the door is loud? Never when I see an opportunity like this hybrid stuff coming my way and I see how my customers react to it and I see how other photographers react to it. And when I go speak to those big conventions and I get a chance to tell these photographers that these tools are ready to go, I get two different kinds of photographers. I get photographers that will give you reasons why they won't do it. Reasons why their customers won't buy reasons why It's not gonna sell reasons why it's not profitable. And then I get other photographers that do it and they send me an email or they call me two or three weeks later and they go, Hey, bro, I just want tell you Thanks for what? You show me what you need to show me. What you showed me was right. Well, thanks, man. Thanks for joining us. So what we did in these past three days was allowed to have a platform that bigger than any platform than I've had and to tell what needs to be told. And that is that professional photography is far from over. It's far from dead. There's tons of things that we can do, and you could be a still photographer and be a successful still photographer. There's plenty of room for still photographers. You could be a still photographer that uses a DSLR, and you can use the still. Photography could be a still photographer. The uses a medium format camera. You could still shoot film. You can use medium format. You can use iconography. You can use IPhone. Ah, graffiti. You can use whatever ah graffiti want to. But as long as you understand how to create an image that a customer wants to buy your photographer. My suggestion is to keep an open mind and order to be able to deliver what you think is right now. Day in and day out. I'm shooting these portrait's I really am. So I want to know. I tell Louis every day, said Louis. I'm building this company here for you, said Louis Aiken. Build a portrait business back. I could build it. I know how to do it. It's not a problem. We're lucky we've got this space. I know how to do all this stuff. Those smiles on those people's faces, those air, genuine smiles. They're really smiles. Why I connect with people. That's a professor from the Northwestern University. We can chitchat. I connect with him. Those were a couple of kids that came in there almost because they didn't want their picture taken. I can connect with them, right? That's Louise Louise, Buddy, I don't even know it. James. Of course, I wasn't there when he took picture, but this check was really kind of cool to write all those other people. Same thing Well, as photographers, we do have the ability to connect, but we've also got the ability to do more than connect. So let's connect photo on. Let's connect video on. Let's connect that together with making not always pieces that we want to make a photographer's. But let's come to connect them the pieces that actually make money. So as we grow together, it's hybrid photographers. Let's do the best we can to stick together. And let's help support places like hybrid of Sorry, like Creativelive for having the guts to be able to say, Wow, we're gonna go against the green just a little bit here and we're going to say, Guess what? This guy's selling. None printed products because, you know, there are places that won't allow us to speak that true. There are places that say, if you're not going to be printing product, then we don't want that message and that's a shame. So platforms, great photographers rate the Internet. Great. You know what's even greater? Our ability to come up with great ideas and make them happen. So you two guys, you know what I'm looking for? I'm looking for a couple of more great ideas. So in 60 days I want to see some great ideas coming out my way. I want to keep in touch with you guys. I also want to keep in touch with everyone out there that wants to learn more about hybrid photography. Come on with us. And hopefully, pastor, that creative folks longer get us to come on back and maybe even bring some of our other hybrid heroes with us too. So from the folks here on this side of the table, I just want to tell you Thank you so very, very much for having me here. It's been an honor. It's been a pleasure. I've enjoyed every second. And if you don't think for one second this crew is a blast, you gotta meet him in person. They're always really great. So thank you. Thank you very much.