Steve Saporino (2:38)

You were looking for 5 inches of space, weren't you?

Janine McLeod (2:40)

Yeah, Yeah. I was thinking, oh, you know, we might clear up a little bit of space. You know, people who have moved, people whose kids are older now, you know, whatever. But when I saw this visual stack, and I. It's interesting because I think a lot of times we are so used to running digital reports, right? And so we might run a report in our CRM of clients who, you know, haven't had an invoice in, you know, two years, and you get an Excel spreadsheet and that. Yeah, okay. But let me tell you, seeing a stack of files taller than you, you're faced with the fact that maybe your systems aren't as good as you thought they were. And so, I mean, that's a lot of people who haven't been back to the studio. And I'm, like, staring at it. I'm like, huh, paying a lot of money for Facebook to bring me in new clients. Maybe I should just have a. Have a gander at all these people who haven't been in. In five years.

Steve Saporino (3:32)

Almost as bad as remembering your top sale and making that your average.

Janine McLeod (3:36)

Yeah. Yeah. Almost as bad as that. Yeah.

Steve Saporino (3:38)

Wow. So what does that say to you?

Janine McLeod (3:41)

Well, it tells me that my systems clearly aren't as good as I thought they were. And I think it's interesting. I think that we get. We get so focused on bringing in new clients that we often tend to take the eye off of the clients that are already ours.

Steve Saporino (3:58)

Yeah. Which is why I love the conversion sheet we've had a few people start using. Well, we've implemented it, you know, a while ago, but recently we've had some new members come in and they've implemented it, and they're like, oh, we always forget about calling our VIP clients. Calling our. Actually, at first I asked, what's a VIP client? And of course, it's. It's those. Those people that have been great clients and have spent money with you, and it's about inviting them back. And now that they've implemented the call conversion sheet and they've started to focus on it, they're booking two, three, sometimes four clients a week just from using that as a lead source and the beauty. And I mean, you know this, Janine, because, you know, you pride yourself that this is.

Janine McLeod (4:45)

This is, you know, this is what we do. And yet. And in fact, clearly we missed all these people,

Steve Saporino (4:53)

but they're already educated. They already value, value what you have done for them, they're tried and proven. They've spent money with you before. And they're the clients that are easy to get a hold of. Normally. You don't have to chase them for four weeks, right? You don't need 10 calls to get to them. They will normally return your call or pick up. And so it's a quick turnaround. So I think it gets back to understanding. You know, I always bang on about this. The three ways to grow a business. The first way is to get more clients. And we have to do that. We always need to get new clients. We need that new, fresh supply of clients that'll never end. But there are three ways, and I feel as though most people are only focused on the first way, which is, you know, trying to get new clients rather than trying to get their clients to use you more often and to get them back again and again. Having that. That system where you are reaching out to them, you are in touch with what's happening in their lives, and you're reaching out and giving them a reason to come back. So that's important, too. And obviously the third one is increasing your average sale. And that's the biggest lever, you know, getting your systems down to increase your average sale. Really, that's. That's the biggest lever. But interesting that you said that because it seems to be the focus of quite a few members of reaching out to their VIP clients. We're not going to call them past clients because they should be. Because they should be your current clients. They should be part of your client base. And, you know, every other business has clients come back. I remember talking to somebody a few weeks ago, and they said that they were using the sheet and they called somebody from six years ago. And I think people's biggest fear is they're not gonna remember me. What am I gonna say to them? But this client was so excited to hear from her and could not stop telling her about what's happening in the family, that her son is now, you know, at university, but he's decided recently that he's gonna come back and work on the farm. And she was just so, so, so, so excited to hear from. From her photographer and of course, convinced herself that she needed another experience because her son's coming back. Her daughter's now, now working. They're about to move out of home. She's met a. Met a guy, the daughter's met a guy. And so it's all become important again. And often people say, well, what am I gonna say? Am I just gonna pitch a new. A new shoot? But the reality is when people start talking about their families, they realize that now is a good time.

Janine McLeod (7:40)

So it's interesting you said that the fear that they wouldn't know who you were is a common fear. I've also heard, and I've experienced this anxiety myself, that you'll. That you're going to be embarrassed because you haven't reached out to them yet. Right. So you're looking through that list and you're like, oh, my God. Like, I'm facing this, like, with this folder, stack of folders. I'm like, wow, like, there's some people in here and I'm embarrassed that I haven't physically talked to them in six years.

Steve Saporino (8:06)

Can we talk about that? Like, there's this stack that is taller than you. How is that not translating to excitement of so much opportunity of people that you haven't got back to yet?

Janine McLeod (8:19)

It is excitement, but I'm telling you, there's also the. I'm calling you, Steve, and I haven't talked to you in five years, and it's a little embarrassing. Like, oh, my gosh, Steve, I can't believe I haven't, like, reached out to you, like. And my fear is not that they're not going to remember me. My fear is that they're going to be like, how come you haven't called sooner?

Steve Saporino (8:39)

But I, I think that a lot of people are just going to be grateful and so happy to hear from you. Um, I don't think that you should let that stop you. I mean, if you, you know, that example of six years ago, the client was so excited. I mean, the first thing you need, you, you need to say is, I've just realized it's been five years, six years, 10 years.

Janine McLeod (9:00)

Like, yeah. The fact that 2020 is now six years boggling, because I still think of it as, like, you know, it's when we all met. Right. I still think of it as, like, yesterday. And it's like half a fricking decade. More than half a decade. Yeah.

Steve Saporino (9:15)

So I think. I don't think you should have that fear at all. And I think once you've made your first view, you should find that that fear is probably something that is made up in your made up in your head.

Janine McLeod (9:28)

Yeah, as are most fears. Right. And I mean, I think that could go to any fear that people might, who are listening to this podcast might have about picking up that phone, that that fear is, is in their own head. It's not on the other end of the, of the other end of the, the phone line.

Steve Saporino (9:45)

We have this habit of creating all of the reasons why not. Right. The minute we try, going to try something new, all of the scenarios that could potentially go wrong, we need to run that through our system to embrace the fear and live through something that potentially may not ever happen.

Janine McLeod (10:10)

Right? Yeah.

Steve Saporino (10:12)

So why are we torturing ourselves? Doesn't make sense,

Jonathan (10:18)

does it?

Janine McLeod (10:21)

Does not make sense.

Steve Saporino (10:23)

But we know that, you know, it's human nature to do that.

Janine McLeod (10:27)

So Steve, like how would you systemize this? Like if you were advising or coaching a, a client on they're faced with this, right? Well, one, going forward, making sure it doesn't happen ever again, that you end up with a six year gap but going backwards, like, like you got to put a plan in place. Otherwise you're going to sit and stare at your to do list every day and it's not going to be systemized. You're going to randomly pick people. Right. So you like if. And I find that if I don't have a system in place. That's why I love the call conversion sheet, right. Because it gives us a daily system of what needs to happen and a daily reminder of what should be happening. So if you don't have a system in place, it just, you're not going to do it. You're end up going to do the shiny object, you're going to do the busy tasks, you're going to do the. I think we said this earlier, right? Busyness is the new currency. So we'll end up doing busy tasks, we'll end up doing what's challenging and intriguing. I have to battle this, right? Like I've even talked to Jonathan. Like I want to test a new landing page and I hear like here I am doing it myself, right? Like I want to test this. I really should take that time and call 10 more clients. Right. You know, I probably will convert more than testing this new but I'm going to, I'll end up doing both. But it's that, that concept of it's like exciting to test new. Maybe that's because I have a marketing mind. So I'm not sure if I'm just speaking for myself or other people find it exciting or if they use it as a procrastination. Method not to have to pick up the phone.

Steve Saporino (11:55)

So I'd rather pick up the phone than create some new marketing.

Janine McLeod (11:59)

Yeah, you would rather pick up the phone than create new marketing. I think a lot of people try and automate their marketing to the point that they don't have to pick up the phone. So I think you have a lot of that going on. But what would you advise our listeners and clients on. On. On systems? Right. Like you, you have to have a system in place or you'll end up with this. I have systems in place and I still have a stack taller than me of people that haven't come in since 2020. So what is your advice on that?

Steve Saporino (12:25)

Well, I think as of now, as of today, as clients are coming in and you begin to identify those perfect clients that you want to work with again that you know are going to be great, you have to tag them.

Janine McLeod (12:41)

Yeah, I got to flag them somehow.

Steve Saporino (12:42)

Yeah. So. And that's why the CRMs are so incredible. You know, in the engine you can put a tag on it, a tag on them. But I used to use multiple tags. So if I knew that, they mentioned to me something about Mother's Day, right. Maybe their sister's coming. So I would have Mother's Day general and Mother's Day for that year. Because on the lead up, you know, Mother's Day's over, right? And now we're into the next Mother's Day. On the lead up to the next Mother's Day, I would then, you know, have one for each year. And then, as people were telling me, even things for Valentine's Day or Mother's Day or whatever it is, you know, they would get a tag because they're a VIP client. We want to work with them again. Potentially there could be a business partnership or alliance. There'd be another tag. And then if. If they needed to be contacted for the next Mother's Day, then they would be tagged for that. And then that way it's all organized. But I think the biggest thing, Janine, is having that core conversion sheet. So that way it's always top of mind. Because if it's there in front of you, then you know that every day what's supposed to happen is, is that you're meant to be reaching out to your VIP clients. And I think what a lot of people haven't done is set themselves goals around how many VIP clients are you going to excite enough to want to book? Who will want to come in and have another experience with you? You know, sometimes it just sits on the page. But we're so. We've got our blinkers on and we're so focused on new clients. New clients, New clients that we have become. What do you call it when you see. What's it called when you see something so often that you then begin to ignore it? Disassociated, maybe know, you just become desensitized. You become desensitized to actually seeing that column anymore. But, you know, you have to set your goals for that daily ask and look at each of those columns as a. As a daily goal for you to achieve. And I think that's. That's going to help a lot because then it's top of mind and then it's something that you're doing daily and then you're not left with a stack of files that is taller than you.

Janine McLeod (15:00)

It's a visual. I know everybody listening can have an idea of this visual. Jonathan, you've been very quiet. You have to have an idea or a thought on this topic.

Jonathan (15:14)

No, I've just been reflecting.

Steve Saporino (15:15)

Listening, reflecting and listening. He's a deep thinker, our Jonathan.

Janine McLeod (15:20)

He. Yeah, you're in deep thought.

Steve Saporino (15:24)

But I think, I think this is also what makes our business valuable, Janine, where when we have loyal clients and we have that, you know, and I'm putting my accountant's hat on, when you have a certain percentage of return clients that are coming back to you every year, it's pretty much guaranteed income. And that's what makes your business valuable, makes it attractive to, you know, any, you know, if ever you did want to sell your business, that increases the value of your business because you have some level of brand and some level of, you know, repeat business where it's increasing the value of your business. So that's important to, to build on as well.

Jonathan (16:09)

What's really fascinating to me as well though is like, we gotta be thinking of. You mentioned like selling business. What's actually fascinating in today's world is when you look at the data, less and less businesses are being sold. And one of the reasons why is AI. So AI is actually taking the power away from building big companies or like even small companies that can be sold and empowering the creative entrepreneur to do more with less. So I think even like when, as you approach this mindset, I think you gotta approach the mindset of maximizing value for yourself and realizing that, you know, what companies are now moving towards is not hiring, it's not adding people, it's actually the opposite. And what they're trying to do is they're trying to find ways. They're not trying to. They are finding ways to, you know, work on their use AI, to work on their processes and their experiences in their company to reduce the need of people. And the reason why is so that they can focus on doing the more valuable tasks. Like we talk about, like with interacting with clients, calling current VIP clients. And I think it's important that, you know, we realize that this notion, we see it all the time, that, you know, you don't have a real business unless you have staff. That's a whole lot of cods well up. And I think it's a way of boosting your own ego.

Steve Saporino (17:42)

Do people believe that, though, Jono, that you don't have a business unless you have 100%?

Jonathan (17:46)

I can think of five photographers who've all been members who seek validation from the number of staff they have. So if you're listening, listen. And I think what makes a business a business is how much money you make, not how many people you employ.

Steve Saporino (18:01)

Well, profit also, even the money you make.

Jonathan (18:06)

Yeah. So I think, you know what's important to note with this. Yeah. How much money you get to keep. What's the bottom line? Revenue is vanity. And that's another point, like on this, like, there's so much opportunity for now, especially with AI, for people to, you know, free up their time from the things that don't bring or add value and to call those clients.

Steve Saporino (18:29)

You're adding to Janine's embarrassment. You know, there's no excuse, Janine.

Janine McLeod (18:33)

There's no excuse. I know I'm in. But now I'm like, thinking of AI, an AI thing I can design, to run, to scrape my database, to figure out who I should be calling.

Jonathan (18:42)

Yeah. And that, I mean, that's the kind of thought and the thinking that we need to be doing. Because we gotta. The most expensive part of any business is people. And we gotta be thinking about how can we, like, give our clients the best possible experience with. By focusing our time on the highest value tasks, the client facing tasks, and using automation and AI. Because you asked about, how can I automate this? How can I systemize this? Right. So that's how I'd be thinking I'd be looking at. Okay, how can I use AI to actually help me with this? Because the value is not in those, you know, the systems or the tech or the plugins or all this, these fun APIs and integrations. There's no value in that. The value is in delivering experiences for the client and all the client Facing stuff, the marketing, the sales. Well, marketing and sales are what drive any business. But yeah, so I'd be thinking systemization, thinking of that. Like, how can I leverage AI to do what most of the bigger companies have started doing? You look at McKinsey, they're like the biggest consulting company in the world. They consult with the best of the best, you know, the Forbes 500 list or whatever it is called these days. And for them, as a company, they say, okay, we have 60,000 employees, 40,000 are human and 20,000 are AI agents. And it's. They focus on that, on introducing that. And I think that there's a huge opportunity for solopreneurs, for geopreneurs, for smaller teams to do that because there's less politics, there's less friction, there's less, you know, it's not a big of a web. Like, imagine them, 60,000, 40,000 humans to try and, you know, work through that. Whereas if you have yourself or, you know, a husband or wife or partner or maybe you have, you know, a couple of people on the books, way easier, right? So when you're thinking of systemizing, you gotta think of how you can leverage modern technology to help you do that.

Steve Saporino (20:46)

There's less resistance too. So, Janine, you mentioned something, you mentioned something that was intrigued me when you said, you know, I should get AI to scrape my database and give me a list of people. If you could do that, and the AI said, call these people. These people are hot. How would you approach that? Would you be confident? Would you be.

Janine McLeod (21:09)

I would be confident I would call those people. AI told me to, Steve.

Steve Saporino (21:14)

Right. So if, if that was the case, and it said, here, here's some hot. These are the hot ones for today. Make these four phone calls. Would you do it?

Janine McLeod (21:28)

Yes.

Steve Saporino (21:28)

What. And with what sort of energy would you do it? Because we know that when we believe in something and we know that if we believe, you know, this is a great. Going to be a great client, or these leads, which, you know, we don't really call them leads, they're potential clients. But these, these clients are going to be awesome. It's amazing how when we approach those calls with that mindset, how we create that and make that happen so interesting. When you said that, that's what sort of flashed in my mind. Anyway, I had to share that because I honestly think that if AI did tell you to do that, you would just kill those calls.

Janine McLeod (22:07)

Yeah, I agree. And it ties into what. I was going to crush those calls. Yeah, I heard. I listened and read so many Things I'm not sure where I heard it or read it this morning. And it couldn't have even, it could have even been Jonathan telling me. So, Jonathan, if this was you, you know, take the credit. But I had heard something that was. If you look at your, your pro, like your processes, your systems as human at the beginning, like your human touch at the beginning, AI takes and does all of the middle and then your human touch is at the end. So like the, like you were saying, Jonathan, like, all of our efforts should be on that human facing creating a better experience for our clients and then using AI to get rid of all that middle stuff so I don't have to spend a week going through those files manually. Right. Like I can have tools in place to do that for me so I can spend the time making more phone calls. Right. So it's the human at the front creating the human at the end with the interaction and using the tools that we now have in the middle. Was that you don't or did I hear that on a podcast somewhere? I don't remember.

Jonathan (23:05)

No, you probably heard on the podcast.

Janine McLeod (23:06)

Okay. But I think it's brilliant. It fits right in with what, what we're talking about because if we can systemize the middle, then we can create the idea of the calls and we can make more phone calls and we can connect with more clients and in the end create more difference making experiences for the people we photograph. That's what it's all about.

Steve Saporino (23:27)

So now you need to make sure your notes are all intact. And so that way when the AI is scraping all the notes that you've made, picking all the best clients and picking up on, picking up on the fact that they mentioned somebody who was going to come and visit in a certain month. So there's now scheduling that for you. Yeah, that'd be so cool. So, so cool.

Janine McLeod (23:48)

And now as we, you know, as we, we wrap this podcast into an ending, clearly once you call these clients and get them back into your studio, you need to deliver them a different maker type experience.

Jonathan (24:01)

Right, Jonathan, look at you trying to team me up. It's a bit wet out there for. For golf. A bit wet outside here for golf. Maybe I need to cut seat, visit.

Steve Saporino (24:11)

Does rain ever stop an Irishman from playing golf?

Jonathan (24:14)

A hundred percent, unfortunately.

Steve Saporino (24:17)

I've been to the golf courses in Ireland and there's people in their wellies out there and umbrellas, wet weather gear, they look like.

Jonathan (24:26)

Yeah. So Janine, what you're talking about is if you're not in the inner circle already, then you're probably crazy, because you should be. So all you need to do is click the Apply now button below this video apply to join the inner circle. We do not let everybody, everybody in. So maybe if you are not crazy enough, you won't be allowed in. Or maybe if you're too crazy, you won't be allowed in. But regardless, you have to be the

Janine McLeod (24:50)

right amount of crazy.

Jonathan (24:52)

Right amount of crazy. Click that button below and we will help you to build the business of your dreams.

Steve Saporino (24:59)

Exciting. Thanks, everyone. That was a great discussion, Janine. Good one.

Janine McLeod (25:03)

Yeah. Thanks, guys. Have a great day.

Steve Saporino (25:06)

Time to pick up the phone, Janine.

Janine McLeod (25:07)

Yeah, time to go pick up the phone. Ring, ring.

Jonathan (25:10)

See you next week. Bye for now.

Janine McLeod (25:12)

Bye.

Steve Saporino (25:12)

Bye, everyone.