← Book More Photography Clients Podcast | Photography Business, Photography Leads, Marketing
Book More Photography Clients Podcast | Photography Business, Photography Leads, Marketing
Q+A Session: Answering Your Top Photography Questions
00:30:45
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
Brooke Jefferson
If you guys can look up in your area, if you have a chamber of commerce, or if you have something that's similar where it's literally a group or a nonprofit organization made for businesses, go get involved in those things. Because that is what is going to help you not only connect with other people in the community, but then also you're going to get right in front eye to eye with your ideal client. Welcome to the Book More Clients Photography podcast. You can stop spending hours on Google and YouTube because you just found your number one resource for growing a profitable and sustainable photography business. Hi, I'm Brooke Jefferson. I'm a believer wife, mama to two, and Oklahoma family photographer. I left the classroom in 2018 to pursue my photography career full time. Now I'm here to help you do the same. In this podcast, we're covering the most asked about topics including pricing, marketing, client experience, and all things systems and workflows. You won't find any fluff or BS here. Just tried and true strategy. Are you ready? Grab your kids some snacks and charge those camera batteries. It's time to jump in. Welcome to our very last episode of 2024. Wow. Can you even believe it? What a year 2024 has been. I thought that I would round out this year by compiling some of your top photography questions and answering them. These questions were collected on Instagram and also in our Facebook community. And so I grabbed eight of the most popular questions. These are questions that were asked multiple times or that a lot of people said, ooh, I want to know the answer to this. And so I've pulled eight of those for you. I'm going to go through each one, give you my answer, my opinion, my thoughts. So if you're ready, let's dive in. Question number one, what is your opinion on mini sessions? Man, this seems to be such a controversial topic in the photography community for a multitude of reasons, but I just want to remind you that you are your own business owner. You chose to be a photographer and run your business like a business, right? And so you ultimately get full control on whether you do mini sessions or you. So I want to add in that caveat that mini sessions itself is a very neutral thing. Mini sessions aren't good. Many sessions aren't bad. Mini sessions are mini sessions. Now, how you feel about mini sessions is what's going to drive your decision to do them. My opinion on mini sessions for my business in particular is that I really do enjoy offering mini sessions, but I typically don't offer more than three mini sessions a year and There's a reason for this. I the way that I build out my business and the way that I want to be profitable is I want my clients booking me for full price sessions. I don't want to constantly do mini sessions and it's not all about the money for me. I truly love spending that hour with each of my clients. Or more right. Depending on what we're doing. But I love spending that hour because I'm able to not rush and I'm able to really get in there and, you know, storytell and get to know personalities and really get those those images that my families and my seniors find so captivating. So with that, yes, I am a fan of mini sessions when they are done correctly. There's a lot of talk on how to do mini sessions and I'm not going to teach on this episode again. I really just want this to be my opinion and giving you a little behind the scenes in my own business. But the reason mini sessions don't work for some of you is because you are not running them correctly. You're not positioning it correctly in your business. So for me, like I said, I offer about three mini sessions a year. I typically try to do a mini session in the late spring and then in the fall I will do two different ones. One is for Christmas and one is for fall. This past year I did pumpkin patch minis and I absolutely plan on doing this again. They were so fun and I dare I even say easy. Yeah, crazy, right? So many sessions for me. I do love them for my business. I will also say that if you're someone that wants to profit from full price sessions in your business, you need to be very aware of how often you are using discounts and mini sessions because if you're not hitting your goal, this might be why. So I'm a fan on mini sessions when they're done correctly and used sparingly. Question number two, what gallery hosting site do you use? I use Cloud Spot. I have used cloudspot now for off the top of my head, I'm going to say three years. It might be longer than that, but I'm pretty sure it's been at least three. I want to say that I had Cloud Spot even back in 2020 and so if I'm not wrong about that, I've actually had it for four. But anyway, I use cloudspot. Before I use cloudspot, I was using Pixie Set, right? Very popular. Everybody knows what that is. And at the time Pixie Set didn't have all the bells and the whistles. That it has now, it was very basic and there was not a lot going on. And so when Cloud Spot came on the market or when I learned about Cloud Spot, I really loved how beautiful their stuff was and how easy it was. And they seen. I will say this about cloudspot, I think that they have been like ahead of the game for a really long time. And then a lot of the other gallery hosting sites kind of came in and they one by one all started to look the same. And so again, Pixie Set wasn't what it was when I had it. And so Cloud Spot was this new shiny thing. And guys, I really, I still love it. I actually make more stories, more orders out of using Cloud Spot than I ever did out of Pixie Set. Could that be because I've gotten better at setting that process up? Maybe. Could it be that cloudspot is really user friendly and they just have a way, they have like different features over in their store to where more people want to purchase maybe so as well. So that's what I use. If you have never heard of Cloud Spot, definitely go look them up. And then if you decide that you want to use Cloudspot, you can go to brookejefferson.com cloudspot and that will take you over there and you can save some money as well. So I will put everything in the show notes if you're interested in checking it out. I also might if I can get this done. I know we are like it's December, we're ready for a break. I'm ready for a break. But I, if I get some time, I might even do like a quick little behind the scenes tour and I will link that in the show notes as well just so you can kind of see what it looks like. All right, question three. What kind of gifts do you send your clients and when do you send them? I love this. Client experience is one of my signature topics to talk about. And when I say client experience, this doesn't just mean gifts, but the client gifts is a part of your client experience. And I am a gift giver by nature. So I really like, I love it. I love to give gifts. I don't love spending money but I love to buy gifts for other people. So I guess that works out. Now for my gifts to my clients. I have always been this way and I have always gifted every client at the end of the year. I like to buy everything in bulk, I like to ship it in bulk and that is like my last hoorah write off for the year. So in years past I Have done everything from branded ornaments. So, you know, if you guys know what the clay earrings are, I'm actually wearing a pair right now. Wish you could see my face that that would be super helpful. But I'm wearing a pair right now. And one of my friends was making these clay earrings, and she ended up making me these clay ornaments where she had basically, like, pressed my logo into them. And then we got to do my branding colors out of clay. Anyway, those were really fun. So I've done ornaments. I have also done branded koozies. That's kind of like my signature thing. People know me for my koozies, and I see them everywhere, and I continue to get tagged in the photos and the stories all year long, which I just love that. I love it so much. But this year, I really wanted to. I wanted to do something different. I didn't want to give another branded koozie, because while they're awesome, I don't know about y'all, but we have a basket where koozies are just overflowing. Because like, every wedding you go to, every business gift, like, there's just koozie galore. And so I wanted to do something different. And so originally, my idea this year was to gift my clients these 8 by 11 wall calendars. And I found this company, and I thought it was going to work out, and they offered an insane, like, deal on it, which I thought was so amazing. But due to a bunch of, like, back and forth communication, we just could not get it together. And I ended up having to basically ask for a refund because it was. It wasn't turning out the way that I wanted it to. And I could not find another company where these gifts were going to be less than a minimum of a thousand dollars. I have 90 clients that I have to give from 2024, and there's just no way. So I. At first I was like, what am I gonna do? Because I had spent two weeks preparing these calendars and doing a lot of design work on the back end and all the things, and it ended up, like, falling. Falling through. So at the very last minute, I ended up finding this other company, and instead of doing the big, pretty calendars that I wanted, where I'm having to basically settle for these desktop calendars, which are still great, don't get me wrong. They're great. They're beautiful. My clients are not expecting this. They're probably expecting another koozie, to be honest, or nothing at all, probably. But I went ahead, and so I am gifting my clients these Calendars. I'm nervous. I'm gonna. I don't have them yet. I have not shipped them out. It is still mid December. I'm waiting on the company to ship them out. And I'm not going to lie, I am nervous. Hopefully I'll remember to give you an update or at least talk about it on Instagram stories after my clients have received them. But man, I really hope these turn out good because the proof, like, it's blurry. You can't see it. They're like, hey, here's a screenshot. And I'm like, okay, is it blurry on your end? Anyway, I'm hoping that these go over well. And I know these are going to be a little more expensive on the shipping end, but again, it's last two raw. It's my. It's. It's another write off. So here we go. So I send mine at the end of the year. It's just, it's my favorite thing to do and I think it's really fun for the clients that I had even back in January, February, March, like, they don't even remember, most likely. So whenever they get a gift that arrives in their mailbox or on their doorstep, they're reminded like, oh my goodness. Wow, this is so thoughtful. This was like a year ago. So that is what I do. And those are some of the most popular gifts that I have given. Question number four. What in person networking have you found most successful or worth the time? First of all, I love that you are asking about in person networking. And I also know that every introvert just went, right, listen, you're okay, it's okay. I get it. In person networking, even for the extroverts, is nerve wracking. Because who wants to, you know, get up, get dressed, go in a room with people you don't know? I completely get it. And I am someone, like, I'm a people person. I love talking to people, but I am like very nervous walking into a room. I feel like the older I get, the worse it gets for me. And so anyway, what I have done this year in particular, and then I want to give a couple of notes on this. I joined my local Chamber of Commerce. And guys, I am telling you, it has paid off. Like, that was one of the best business decisions I've ever made. I was telling my husband, literally, this is one of the best business decisions I've ever made was joining the Chamber of Commerce. You pay a yearly fee. Every Chamber of commerce is different. They have different levels of membership and the levels of membership equal like the levels of exposure. And I didn't even do like a super high one. I just kind of did like a basic beginner level to try it out. And I went to. So the chamber of commerce hosts some in person events throughout the year. And they host like this welcome wagon for new military in the next town over, which is where the chamber of commerce is, if you remember, if you don't know if you're new around here. I mean some of you are like, yeah, we've heard you talk about like you live in this little small town where there's more cows and people. Some of you are brand new. You've never heard me say that. So the town I live in, I think we have a population of 2,000 or less. There are more cows than there are people. And I used to say a one stop light town. Well, they took the stoplight out. So now I don't even live in a town with a stoplight. There's just a four way stop. So with that being said, we don't have anything here like that. And so I'm constantly trying to get connected to the bigger cities around us. And yes, it's always a sacrifice of a drive on my end, but I would do that 10 times over to earn these connections that I, that I have. So anyway, so I joined the chamber of commerce that's 32 miles away from my town and literally it's been so amazing. So again, they host this welcome wagon like event where all the different businesses in the chamber of commerce, they get a booth, you get to set it up however you want to. And then all the newcomers, they get to walk around, they get to meet you, they get to see what you offer. And then each business donated one item for a giveaway just to make it fun. It was like a really fun raffle. Everybody got a ticket at the door and then they, we all drew for prizes at the end. And so I gave a session credit gift certificate away. Super, super fun. And I ended up walking away with like three booked clients from that event. It was amazing. So when you're looking for in person networking, a couple of things. One, make sure is your ideal client the one that's walking the room. If they're not walking the room, then maybe it's not the best for you. I know a lot of us want to go to like business coffee chats and I'm not knocking that at all. But also make sure you're getting in the room with your actual client. If you guys can look up in your area. If you have a Chamber of commerce or if you have something that's similar, where it's literally a, a group or a organ, nonprofit organization made for businesses, go get involved in those things because that is what is going to help you not only connect with other people in the community, but then also you're going to get right in front, eye to eye with your ideal client. So that is what has worked best for me. And yes, it has been worth it. And I'm so excited. I actually just got the opportunity because of this to do the Chamber of Commerce's headshots. And so they all came to my studio and I got to serve them at the chamber. It was amazing. It was amazing. So please go join an in person networking event that is going to be so helpful for you. All right, next question. Oh, this one's a big one. So y'all just prepare yourself. How do you work a full time job and run a photography business? Oh, can we just have a minute? This question is it like so many emotions come up for me because here's the thing. In every season we're going to have things that we have to sacrifice or put on the back burner every single season. Some seasons, the number one thing that needs our time, energy, attention, and all of us. Sometimes it's our marriage, sometimes it's our motherhood. Especially if you are pregnant or you are in the newborn toddler years. A lot of times your motherhood, it has to come first. Sometimes it's your business. There are seasons where your business is going to get every bit of you. And some of the relationships may be a friendship, whatever. Some of those get put on the back burner for a season anyway. I can go on and on. There's just seasons where there's always going to be a sacrifice that's never going to change. So I want you to understand that, first of all, I am doing both of these things, but I am sacrificing some things as well. For me, I think the thing that's getting sacrificed the most would be friendships. I think my bucket is probably running, running on empty in that department. But I'm not in a season where I'm like depressed about that. I'm just in a season where I understand. Like, I just don't. I just can't. Right? I just can't. The most I can give is a text and a phone conversation. That's it. And so I have friends who are very understanding. Like, they're in the thick of it. They have toddlers. It's fine. Then I would say my physical health has been the other thing that I have put on the back burner for sure. So I am just now creating a new routine where I am like actually at least walking 15 minutes a day, which seems so small, but even that makes such a difference. I. I'm not in a sweaty workout season. I hope to get back to that in January, but I, I'm just not there right now. And busy season took everything out of me. Like I was editing here at the full time job and I would go home and I would still be working. Like it, it was just a lot. But I will say that family life, I felt like that was doing. That was doing pretty good. So yeah, my, the things I want to say here that are keeping me on task and grounded in doing both is one, sticking to a schedule. I like, I have to hold myself to the schedule. And yes, I am a type a person to where like this is something that I crave anyway. I love a schedule. I love a routine. I do like, I thrive off of that. At the same time, I really miss white space. I miss being able to just like go home and turn it all off and just do nothing. And I mean I'm getting so close to being able to have a whole week off where I will not be working at all. I'm not coming to the full time job, I am not working the photography business. I am not doing any of it. I'm going to declutter my house, all the things. But to do both, I have to know what I'm focused on. And so I run my business with a business management software, which is Meister Task. So I run literally my whole life is on that Google Calendar. And then just knowing what my top three every day are, what are the top three things that have to get done and then what are the things that I could put to the side. So for example, while I'm recording this podcast, this podcast does have a deadline and I need to get it to my editor so she doesn't have to edit during Christmas time. Right. And she probably wouldn't anyway. But I have to be like very mindful of that. Meanwhile, I have other things that are pressing too. I've got a couple more galleries that I would love to wrap up and I also need to go finish an email that I can send out to you guys. So there's like three pressing things. So it's like, what do you do first? And I just don't have to do all three. So I just picked one. We're Knocking this off the list and then I'm gonna go do the other two. So yes, it's a lot. This is not a sustainable thing. I'm just going to be very honest. This is not a sustainable way. Like this is not going to be how it is for like three years. There's just no way. There's no way. So we are kind of in a little bit of a survival mode. I am learning to be better about my routines and about my schedule and about what priorities that I am pouring into. But I am not perfect at this. And not everything in my life is getting a 10 out of 10 right now. So that's the biggest thing that I want to say. Just know what you have to do. Don't take on more than you can handle. Like if you're in a 9 to 5 job, your full time job, that's probably where the bulk of your income is. Mine's actually backwards. I know it sounds so crazy, but we could talk about finances later. But anyway, mine's a little bit backwards. But your 9 to 5 job is most likely your anchor. That is the number one thing you have to give your focus to. And then, and then comes your business. Your business is what is the supplement. Right? And so that is something that you need to pay attention to and you need to fulfill your duties in your nine to five. And then you can go and you can work on your photography business. But if you're trying to, you know, if you're going home every night and you have a session every single evening, that's just not sustainable. And that's not something that I would recommend. Okay, next question. My prices are higher than the other photographers that I've looked at. Do I lower my prices to match or do I stick to mine? Oh, okay, you guys. Wow. This question, believe it or not, was asked multiple times in multiple ways. And so here's the thing. You're not competing with the people that are charging less than you. Like that's whatever they're charging. It's none of your business. It's like that's one of my favorite things to say. It doesn't matter what I'm charging. It doesn't matter what your best friend is charging. It doesn't matter. Susie down the street is charging. Right? That is none of our business. The only thing that we need to look at when it comes to pricing is a couple of things. One, your financial obligations and goals come first. So what do you need to bring in to be able to cover your life and your business bills and Responsibilities, that is the very first thing. That's what I take you through in the pricing for profit formula. And so that is number one. Number two from that is going to be looking at, you know, what all are you including what is your business model? That's going to be another thing that's going to be dependent. And then the third category, and it's one that I don't talk about often, but it absolutely matters. And that is your experience and your quality. Are you a beginner and your images like death, like, you can't come out of the gate swinging at $500 a session because your editing is just not there? Guys, this is a reality, okay? This happens all the time. So you need to take a good hard look. This isn't like, oh man, I question my editing all the time. And really like, you have amazing photos and photographers have told you this all, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's not what we're talking about. I'm talking about do you actually know what you're doing? Do you have camera knowledge? Do you have camera confidence? Are you shooting in manual mode? Do you know how to edit? And are you actually providing high resolution photos to where if someone tells you, hey, I'm gonna go buy the biggest canvas print I can find, you're not going to have a heart attack wondering if your image is going to be blurry, you know what I'm saying? So that's one thing. And then of course, it's the experience. It's the experience you want to give, it's the experience you have as a photographer. All of these things matter. But just because you feel the pressure of competition, like, oh, wow, well, everybody else I'm looking at, you know, they're only charging a hundred, two hundred dollars a session. Should I take my pricing down? Absolutely not. Especially if you're going to cut out of your profit. Like, that does nothing for you and it does not do anything for the industry either. So my answer to that is no, you should keep your pricing. If you heard one of those things that I talked about and you're like, actually, I really don't know. I'm questioning myself. Then this is where hopping on a strategy call with me, we're going to answer this. You're going to get my, my unbiased opinion. I'm going to be able to tell you we're going to work out your pricing, we're going to create you packages and we're going to get you on your way so you don't have to keep Questioning what you should be charging. Okay, next question. How far in advance do you book sessions for? Ooh, I love this. Okay. I would say on average I'm typically booking about three months at a time. So about every quarter I'm ready to give my calendar. But then I would also say sometimes I do six months. So right now, at the time of this recording, I was booking for January and February only. The only reason that I'm waiting is because I'm waiting for my husband to get his calendar so I can see when his on call days and weekends are so that I don't overlap those. Right now I just basically took a shot in the dark. Guess. And so January and February, but when I open my booking calendar for the rest, I will probably go ahead and do it through May. So January through May is when what will be on my booking calendar. And then I will do another one that goes through August. So I'll come back and I'll add June, July, August, probably around March. And then after that I'll open the calendar for the rest of the year. And I typically release that in July or August. So that's what I do. I also, I kind of want to answer this as a secondary, like a secondary question. Secondary answer. I don't have people really book me last minute. I just don't. I would say the shortest thing that people will typically book me for is like a one year portrait session at the studio. And that's usually because they were going back and forth between, you know, party or studio, like, what are we going to do? Right. Which they end up doing both. But I say that because like they typically already have their decor, they already have outfits, whatever. So I don't have families that book me last minute anymore. I, I think that's just a part of my marketing. I think I have just really put in what I teach you guys on this podcast. I've actually put that into play and people know that I, that I book up pretty quickly. So if you don't get on my calendar, you're risking not having a session with me at all. Okay, last and final question. How do you price a brand new offer? For example, I want to start photographing fresh 48 sessions, but I haven't done one before. I'm a newborn photographer. Okay, love this question. This is a good one. And this is a great, great timing for this question as well. Because it is the end of the year. You guys are looking ahead to 20, 25. Some of you probably are switching things up. Maybe you are switching your niche or picking something up or taking something off, or we want to try out a different bundle or a service or whatever. So when you have a brand new offer, first things first. I would do the very first one. I would almost run that as like a model call where they pay you a hundred dollars deposit and then you give it back to them. Or you could even, I just recommend. I really think that the best thing you can do for yourself is to either do it free, because much like the wedding industry, those of you who have never photographed a wedding, but it's something that you want to become, you need to like, get some experience. And so you would go either second, shoot for someone. And guys, there's nothing wrong with doing things for free. When you're learning. When you're learning, we're not gonna go in January and go have seven free sessions just because we can't get clients. That's not what we're doing. But when you have something that's brand new and you literally have never done it before, it is better for you to offer the very first one completely free of charge so you can get the experience. You have no pressure, there's no monkey on your back, right? It's just you getting that experience, getting the images for your portfolio, and then delivering whatever you promise to that client. So my recommendation first is to do it for free. Then you will be able to see exactly what you need to charge because you're going to have a better idea of how long did this actually take me? What all is this going to entail? What am I going to do about travel fees? If it's something that I have to travel for, what do I want to promise? Right? And so after you do it for free, you could do maybe a couple more at a discounted rate again, just to get some more exposure, more portfolio work for sure, for your marketing. And then after that, you should know it's no different than pricing yourself for profit. And then tack on how much longer it took you to do something, what this is worth to you doing a little bit of that competitor analysis. And the only reason that we do this is because we just want to see, like, where do we fall on a scale? Not okay, everyone's charging a thousand, so I should charge a thousand. That's not why we do that. So that is my answer to how do you price a brand new offer? First you go do it for free. You get the experience, you see what it's like. Then you can do some discounted ones. And then you should know how to price yourself. For profit. All right, you guys, that's it. That was all of the top eight photography questions. I hope that you have had an incredible year. If you missed my most profitable year yet workshop, it's completely free. You are winding down. You are wanting to close out your year. You are wanting to look at the data and you are wanting to actually plan in a real strategic way for 2025 to make that your most profitable year yet. I'm going to link that workshop in the show notes. So go there and you can access that workshop completely for free. That's my year end gift to you guys. I hope you have an amazing rest of your year the remaining days and I will see you in 2025.