← Book More Photography Clients Podcast | Photography Business, Photography Leads, Marketing
Book More Photography Clients Podcast | Photography Business, Photography Leads, Marketing
Start Booking Out Your 2025 Photography Calendar With These Strategies
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You are given an opportunity on Facebook and on Instagram to show up for free capital F R E E free and say, hey, let me tell you about my business. Let me show you how I serve people. Here I am the solution that you have been searching for. So utilize it. Be grateful that we have this because one day they could strip free away from us and we could have to pay for every single thing to get our business name out there. 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 trustrategy. Are you ready? Grab your kids some snacks and charge those camera batteries. It's time to jump in. Hey friend, welcome back to to another episode and welcome to the Book More Clients Photography Podcast. I know I have a little bit of explaining to do. If you listened to the small little bitty episode I dropped on Tuesday, you already have insight into what is going on. But in case you're like, okay, wait, what the heck is going on? I am going to do a little bit of explaining. But before I do that, or I should say after I do that, we're going to get into some nitty gritty strategies that are going to help you start booking out your 2025 photography calendar. So that is all the good stuff coming up, but really fast. I want to give a little bit more of a backstory into this roller coaster year that 2024 has been. So I started the year off super confident and I. I loved it. January, February, March. I loved it and I loved what I did. I loved what I had to put out there. However, this year has just been really hard mentally for me. I think it was a culmination of a lot of things. I think it was going on year seven in education. So when you do something for a long time, it is so natural to experience burnout. It doesn't mean that you don't love what you do. It just means that it just kind of becomes mundane and you really just need to be shaken up. So that's one reason. Another reason, obviously is for political reasons because it was an election year, man. The media, scare tactics out there. We're not going to get into all of that. And I respect everyone for their own opinion and their own beliefs, but I think we would be. I don't. I don't even know the word. I just. We can't deny that the election did not somehow affect our business for those of us here in the United States. So there's just been a lot of different things. And I just kind of reached a point where, yeah, I was just. I was just in it and I was at that burnout stage. And so, you know, I just started to kind of pray on it. And that's when, about April, May, I really felt like the Lord was giving me an invitation to lay it all down, to surrender the business, which at that point I didn't realize that it was technically the death of a business in a way. I shut down my Facebook group. I eventually stopped, like, putting out new episodes on the podcast for a little bit. A lot of the episodes that I recorded earlier this year, they were batched well in advance. And so while to you, you're like, what are you talking about? You were here every week, I wasn't really, because I would record a lot of those episodes at once. And so in my actual reality, I had stopped podcasting consistently, in my opinion, because I'm used to always having episodes ready to go for you guys. Whereas, like, these last few weeks, I've literally been doing it like the week before, which is great. There's pros and cons to all of it. But I just want you to know, you know, there really was a time when I did press pause on everything. With all of that being said, I watched my income. There's a whole story, another podcast episode you can listen to this story on. I think it's the one where I talk about working full time or why I got a full time job. But I watched my income basically decrease in half month after month after month, until now. I think there's just a couple hundred dollars coming in from that business through some payment plans that some students are still on for my blueprint program. And, yeah, and I'm super blessed. But I'm just trying to give you the whole backstory here. It's been crazy. I have also been in a mastermind this year where it's a. It's a faith and business mastermind. And so we work on our faith. The biggest thing that held me back this year was unbelief, unbelief in limiting like a. Like a Limited mindset. It's scary. And if you have them, which we all do, if you have them, they are literally holding you back. And so I think because of that unbelief, I've really just bought into lies. That maybe this industry isn't for me, it's too saturated. Maybe it's time for me to branch out and do something different. And then, of course, when God stripped the business away from me, I was like, who am I? Right? Like, who am I? If I don't have this business and I'm not this photography educator, then what am I doing? What is my purpose? All of that to be said. It's been a lot. It's been a lot. And I don't want to keep saying that. And I don't want you back. Okay, Brooke, get to the point. The point is this. Over the last six, seven months, it's been a journey and it has been a very messy one. I have done a lot of ping ponging around and at least it feels that way to me. Maybe it looked a little more polished on your end. Maybe for you guys, it looked like a quick wrong turn and I just made a U turn right back. And I really hope that that's the case. But all of that to be said through all of the prayer and all of the wrong turns and the sitting there and the trying to figure out who I am, I really did grow my relationship with the Lord. And I have such a confidence that I've never had before. And I know that this industry is for me. I know that I have a purpose in being here, in talking to you here on this podcast and serving you in new programs that are going to be coming. And so all of that to say, I am here. I am so excited. I'm so excited to walk into the rest of 2024 and 2025 with the best photography education business yet. It's going to be amazing. And I'm so thankful that you are sticking around, hanging around, and I know that we're going to have so many of you that are brand new, that have never heard of me before, that are going to join us in this new chapter. And I am just super excited. So I want to say thank you for being here, thank you for your grace, thank you for welcoming, welcoming me back, and I'm just really excited to continue to pour in and help you grow a profitable business. So with that being said, let's get into this photography topic. Okay? We're gonna have. I hope you're excited because these next few podcast topics that are coming out are so good. We're going to be talking about booking out your 2025 calendar, what you should be focusing on in your slow season, and kind of how to avoid a slow season. We are going to be talking about some goal setting. I'm going to take you behind the scenes of my own 2025 goals for this business. I'm also going to be giving you some things to update on your website. So those are the next few topics that are going to be coming out. So make sure that you stay tuned in December. I think you're really going to love it. I do. I think you're really going to love it. I'm telling you that this is the best the podcast has ever been. So thank you, thank you, thank you for being here. All right, I have five different strategies that I want to talk through with you on how you can start booking out your 2025 photography calendar. So, believe it or not, I've actually already had 2025 sessions booked since October. I know that's crazy. Now I'm not booked out or anything. But here is the first strategy of how I made that possible. Number one, create a wait list. So I know for a lot of us, it's really hard when we're in 2024 to even think about 2025. Now, if you're a wedding photographer, you're used to booking out one to two years in advance, and that's great. That is not for me. I cannot operate that way anymore. I am Bas 90 days to maybe 6 months out is really what I feel comfortable with. And even then, I tell my people they just have to be really flexible. I really like to schedule within a 90 day period. So with all that being said, I like to create a wait list. So when people reach out to me and they say, hey, I really want you to do our family photos in like, March of next year. Can I go ahead and book with you? Instead of just being like, no, I'm not. I'm not currently booking people. But if you want to circle back, you know, at the beginning of 2025, listen, people are never going to remember that conversation. So I like to get people right then and there and I like to add them to my wait list. So I do this two different ways. One, I do it through the notes app on my phone. I know it's crazy. It's. It's actually stupid simple. But I do that because the phone is always with me. So in my notes app, and I'm pulling it up right now. So I can kind of tell you what it looks like and what it's called. So in my notes app, I titled it 2025 Photography Wait List. I know, Genius. And then I pin it. So I don't know if you know this, but in your notes, you can pin certain notes to the very top of your notes list. And so that's exactly. It's the top one that's pinned. 2025 photography waitlist. And so anytime people talk to me about sessions that they're wanting to have, I add them here and I say, okay, yeah, I'm so excited. So, for example, I have someone that wants a maternity session in February. So I write their name, their first and their last name, the type of session that they're wanting to book, and then around the time frame or the month that they're wanting to book it. So this one has her name, it says maternity, and it says February. So what I told her at the time was, I haven't started booking dates yet for 2025, but I do have a waitlist. I'm adding it to you right now and will hear from me. You know, at the end of December 2024, I'm going to send a calendar over and you can actually get it on my calendar. They're like, amazing. Okay, great. That's all you have to do. The other thing that I like to do is I like to have a wait list through my email list. And so what you can do, I use flodesk, and I have a segment that basically says the exact same thing that the notes app says. 2025 photography wait list. Or I also had a generic one before that, before I got more specific and I just called it bjp. So, Brooke Janae Photography Interest. And then I would just dump people that haven't been clients before. I would just dump them into that segment. And then that way they're all right there and they're going to continue to get my emails. Or I could just send a mass email out to all of those people and I could say, okay, my calendar is ready for you to book and then send it out. And then people can manually book. That way you can do it however you want to. But number one is just to create that wait list. Now you want to bring attention to that wait list. So, yeah, of course it's great when people reach out and they start talking about next year. But what if nobody is reaching out to you about 2025 yet? Then I want you to talk about it. Use your marketing methods. So however you market your business, I want you to use those methods, and I want you to draw attention to this wait list. One of the easiest things that I have done year after year after year, and I haven't even done it this year yet, which is wild to me. But go on your personal Facebook page or your photography Facebook page, or if you're really active on Instagram, then use Instagram. But what you're going to do is you're going to make some kind of a piece of content that says, if you are planning on booking with me for any reason in 2025, will you comment below or shoot me a message and let me know what kind of session you're thinking and about what time next year you're wanting that? That's it. I do this every year, and I'm telling you, that's how I grow this wait list. The wait list ends up being 20, 30, sometimes 40 different people. Guys, that's amazing. That's amazing. That's like half the clients I need for the whole year. So if you have not created a wait list, take one of these waitlist ideas that I went over and then go make a post asking that question. Now, I'm going to give you one more tip, okay? And use this at your discretion. But Facebook has a way where you can comment on your own post. And you do the AT sign and you type the word highlight, and then you click the one that says highlight, and it'll say some of your friends or whatever will receive this. And then you post that comment. Then it's going to notify a lot of your Facebook friends. So that's another little tip. I only use this two times a year in two posts only. There are some people that use it all the time, and it gets super annoying. But if you will use this one or two times a year for something big like this, because you want a lot of people to see it, then you can use that little trick. All right, that was strategy number one. Strategy number two, I want you to really use the holiday season or a promotion or a sale to gain bookings for 2025. Now, what I'm not saying is, I am not saying don't go have five days of sales where you slash all your prices and everybody gets a discount for 2025. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, like, let's get creative. Obviously, there's Black Friday. This is airing. Oh, my gosh, when is this? Okay, this is airing on Thanksgiving, so that's pretty handy. So Black Friday is tomorrow. But utilize like, a Black Friday and I have Black Friday ideas. You can go check our Facebook group or you can go on to my Instagram and there is a post on my feed. You can even take some of those Black Friday ideas. Even if you're not participating in Black Friday, you can take some of those ideas and you can use them in December. So you can take one of those ideas you love and you can actually do a sale just like that. And you don't even have to call it a sale. You could call it a promotion. Let's say that you're creating a brand new package and you're super excited about it and you can't wait to get it out there. Amazing. What if you did that in December? What if you launched this new package and you made a really big deal about it and maybe you said for the first three people that book this type of session, you're going to get X. Or for everybody that books this package by this date, you're going to get X. Either percent offer, you're going to get a bonus or whatever it might be. So utilize the holidays when people are already in a buying mindset, use that to get bookings for 2025. Okay, I want to give you another idea that falls into this category. So around the holiday is people love to shop local, they love to buy Christmas gifts locally and they want to use small businesses. So this would be a great time where you could offer, you could offer gift certificates or if you hate gift certificates, kind of like me, then you could offer a little promotion where, hey, if you go ahead and get this gift card, it's fully paid and you know you have X amount of weeks to get back to me and actually book that session that really helps people utilize their gift cards. Then you could do that. So you could have gift certificates that you are giving out. So you're giving people the reason to buy. And it's four sessions that happen in 2025. So that's just another option. But utilize your holidays to really push those bookings for 2025. Okay, number three, come up with creative ideas to get some winter bookings. Slow season doesn't have to be slow season. I'm not going to go on that rant because the next episode we are going to talk about how to utilize a slower season. I don't think slow seasons are bad. And I think for some of you, after a really busy fall season, you are craving a slow season. But you don't have to have a dead season. And so if you are still wanting to get winter Bookings. First of all, I know it's frigid out there. It's so cold outside. So how are you supposed to book sessions if you do all of your shoots outside? So this is when you just have. You have to get creative. Number one, I do think that you still could photograph outside in some areas. In some areas. I think in other areas, yeah, y'all would be crazy. And I probably would never even go outside either. But some of you can. And so you just kind of have to, like, just try it. Just see if you get bookings. The other thing is, I want you to utilize a studio or indoor sessions or something like that. So thankfully, I have a studio. I haven't always. In fact, I didn't have a studio until 2020. I think it was 2020 when we moved into the current house we live in. And we just used the extra bedroom, which now I use as my office. We used that, we transformed that into a super tiny studio space. But it worked and people loved it. And some days I still miss that little room rather than the studio that I have. And now I have. I'm blessed to have a little studio space in our downtown, our little small town. It's downtown building. And so that's been awesome. And I love that. But I utilize that and I really push those bookings. I used to give myself all kinds of excuses on, oh, my studio is too small. I can't do family shoots in there. So this is really only good for newborn or cake smashes or something like that. And while those are great and I still push those sessions, of course, I've actually figured out how to utilize and how to edit better and how to extend my walls so that I can get family sessions in there. And that has just been a game changer. And so I've just had to get outside of my own comfort zone. I've had to kind of push myself technically as well to be able to pull this off. If you don't have a studio, could you rent a studio space? Guys, I used to book out hotel suites and do. Do boudoir photography. Like, you just have to think outside the box. What can you offer that is still related to your niche in some way? That example was not O, but at the time I was still shooting anything and everything. And you just have to get really creative. Could you do indoor sessions? Could you collaborate with a venue and book that out? I'll give you an example. There is a beautiful downtown building in El Reno. I can't remember what it's called. We had A photography conference there one time. And people book that space out all the time because it's beautiful, natural light, it's big and spacious. And so people would book that out and they would do family shoots and it was beautiful. So how can you think outside the box? Think about, you know, some wedding venues, they're not booked very much in the winter, so could you book out like a barn venue and go do indoor shoots? Think outside the box. You can get winter bookings, but again, you've got to get creative. You've got to get outside of your comfort zone and you have to quit making exceptions, excuses. So that's number three, come up with some creative ideas for your winter bookings. Number four, focus on local collaborations and finding ways to get your business name out there. So this is all about advertisement, getting more involved in your local community. I will tell you the biggest game changer, and I can't believe it took me so long to join, but I joined my Chamber of Commerce back in the spring and it has been the single most best decision I've ever done. I have booked so many clients from getting my name out there, from going to a networking event, from just literally having them share a post of mine. It's like Christmas minis. It was just amazing. So if you have a chamber of commerce or a networking group that's similar or community group, go get involved. Go get involved. Our Chamber of Commerce is not free. You do have to pay a yearly membership. It is well worth it. I completely paid for my membership on the very first event that I ever went to. And it's. It's just well worth its weight and gold because people trust that. They trust it. And so if you have a very active Chamber of Commerce where everybody knows everybody, you're going to get in with other business owners. I think it's the best thing that you can do. Other local collaborations, I have tons of podcast episodes. I will link one of those podcast episodes in the show notes so you can listen to that next. If you just need a refresh of some local collaborations for you to get involved with for the winter and even the spring, I mean, it really goes for any time of the year. But that is another great way to boost those bookings for 2025 is to get in front of new faces, new people, and get the network relationships going with other businesses. Okay, number five, this one is. This one's a little tough love for you because, you know, this is how I am. I'm going to tell you like it is because we're here to grow a business, you've got to get consistent with showing up. I don't mean posting on social media 365 days. I mean get consistent about your business. If you're serious about your business, you're going to treat it like a business. You've got to show up. You have to show up and you have to think a really big way for your business to be seen is through all these different marketing channels. Now I'm not saying let's do all of them. I'm saying let's pick a couple, let's put them in our little basket. So we're not putting all of our eggs into one channel, but we're spreading them out through a couple of different channels. So for example, all of us have social media and we need to be utilizing that because yes, while it can feel frustrating that we're not being seen, we're not getting engagement. Maybe it feels like you're not even getting bookings. All of those things can be fixed. You are given an opportunity on Facebook and on Instagram to show up for free capital F R E E free and say, hey, let me tell you about my business. Let me show you how I serve people. Here I am the solution that you have been searching for. So utilize it. Be grateful that we have this because one day they could strip free away from us and we could have to pay for every single thing to get our business name out there. Another way is if you're utilizing your SEO right, utilize that, know what keywords we're going to talk about some of this stuff and if we don't get into all of it and you really want the nitty gritty on it, I am creating a brand new program. That's another little side note that I wanted to talk about earlier. So just for two seconds, I just wanted to say the previous business, all of those offers are now off the table and I'm starting over. So right now we have this podcast and I hope that you will binge it through these next couple of months to really help you with your business because this is where I'm showing up. I'm giving you my best strategy right here on this podcast. And I'm also behind the scenes creating a brand new program that is literally going to be like Chef's kiss your A to Z on everything you could possibly need to grow a photography business. Whether you want that to be a really profitable part time thing or you want this to replace your full time job income, it's going to be amazing. Again, remember, everything's 2.0. So that is in the works. I just wanted to take a side note to tell you that with that being said, I need you to really hear me and I need you to show up. If you're not showing up to your business every day and you're not giving people an opportunity to see you, you're not really marketing. You're not taking it seriously. If all you're doing is just kind of throwing up a post here and there, you're not going to see the results that you want to see. Like, you're not going to see that. So you have to start taking your business seriously. I want to give you a metaphor. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Pretty sure this is a metaphor. Okay, here's the metaphor. If your photography business had a storefront and you had a building, and that's where you did your business, you would have to show up there every single day to let people walk through your door and work with you. Right? You wouldn't just say, I'm just not going to go into work today. It'll be all right. I'm not going to go to work for, like, the next two to three weeks. I'm just really busy. You wouldn't do that because you know that you wouldn't get any clients. There'd be no leads walking through your door. There would be no money exchanged. There would be nothing because nobody would be able to do business with you because your doors are locked. That's what it's like when you don't take your business seriously. And I'm not just talking about social media, I'm talking about all of it. When you fail to really communicate with your clients, when you fail to even put your name out there, when you decide that you're not going to do any of these strategies that I tell you about on this podcast and you listen to it, you're like, yeah, that was a great episode. That was awesome. And then you go right back to doing the same thing that you've been doing. You have got to show up in your business. If what you did in 2024 did not get you the ultimate result you were looking for, and you Repeat that in 2025, that is insane. You are not going to see the results that you want to see. So I just want to encourage you, if you want better results, you're going to have to take better action. And so I know you're like, wow, this was some tough love. This is not really a strategy. It absolutely is a strategy. It's a strategy because if you don't use this one, if you don't do this and you go do the first four strategies we talked about, it's going to fall flat. It's only going to get you so far. Okay, really quick recap and then I'm signing off for the day. Number one, create a waitlist. Number two, use the holiday season to push those bookings for 2025. Number three, come up with creative ideas to get you some winter bookings. Number four, collaborate with your local businesses. Join your chamber of commerce. And number five, get consistent and show up every single day like you work at a building. Okay, that's all I have for you today. So excited to be back, guys. Get excited because all of December, you are going to be hit with some amazing strategy. So share this with a friend, please. My biggest ask. My biggest ask. You don't even have to come tell me how much you love this episode. Will you just share this with another photographer or go throw this in a photography group that you're in on Facebook and say, hey, I just listened to this episode. It really, really helped me. Or it gave me the kick in the booty that I needed. And I just really want to share it with you guys. We all do that for me. I would so appreciate that. Okay, I'll see you guys on the next one.