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Booking More Portrait Sessions

Lesson 17 from: Master the Business of Photography

Sal Cincotta

Booking More Portrait Sessions

Lesson 17 from: Master the Business of Photography

Sal Cincotta

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Lesson Info

17. Booking More Portrait Sessions

Lessons

Class Trailer

Day 1

1

Class Introduction

19:49
2

The Agenda

24:35
3

Why You Will Fail

39:49
4

The Changing World We Live In

18:57
5

Biggest Competitors For Weddings and Portraits

42:41

Day 2

6

Defining, Understanding, and Connecting to Your Clients

56:15

Day 3

7

Legal Issues

1:09:43

Day 4

8

Shoot and Share vs Shoot and Sell

56:18

Day 5

9

Pricing Your Work Part 1

57:12

Day 6

10

Pricing Your Work Part 2

1:10:02

Day 7

11

The New World of SEO

40:58

Day 8

12

Social Media - Facebook

48:42

Day 9

13

Social Media - Instagram & Pinterest

36:23

Day 10

14

Building a Better Portfolio & Attracting the Right Clients

1:04:59

Day 11

15

Proactively Developing Vendor Relationships

35:41

Day 12

16

Get More Publicity

47:28

Day 13

17

Booking More Portrait Sessions

37:23

Day 14

18

Booking More Weddings

52:39

Day 15

19

Understanding the Initial Sales Consultation (In-person vs Skype)

46:25

Day 16

20

The Engagement Shoot - Shoot To Make Money.

48:46

Day 17

21

Engagement Pricing and Sales

47:13

Day 18

22

Destination Shoots

47:46

Day 19

23

Working With & Training Second Shooters

1:04:10

Day 20

24

Growing An Alternate Brand

58:07

Day 21

25

The Wedding Day Timeline

42:00

Day 22

26

Managing The Wedding Day

54:03

Day 23

27

Post Wedding Sales and Pricing

36:07

Day 24

28

Post Production - A Real World Workflow

54:21

Day 25

29

Wedding Albums - Their Importance, New trends & Selling Them

31:22

Day 26

30

Ways Not To Suck At Customer Service

58:34

Day 27

31

Video - The Future of Story Telling for the Photographer

47:15

Day 28

32

Packaging & Final Delivery To Your Clients

47:20

Day 29

33

Lessons Learned - Where I Have Failed Over The Last 8 Years

35:10

Day 30

34

The Journey Of You

16:24
35

The Journey Of You: 30 Day Plan

25:00
36

The Journey Of You: 60 Day Plan

27:11
37

The Journey Of You: 90 Day Plan

24:49
38

Student Examples

14:31
39

Interview with Warren McCormack

26:16
40

Interview with Lenny and Melissa Volturo

19:24
41

General Q&A

26:26

Lesson Info

Booking More Portrait Sessions

This is one of those segments where you know it's not gonna be this hour long segment it's really just powerful information that you've got to get your head wrapped around so that you can walk out of here so if you've got your workbook at home because you've bought the course, take that workbook out because you got to start writing some of this stuff down and more importantly, you gotta put your execution plan together and how you going to do some of this? So you know, the next segment coming up is about five ideas to book more weddings on, so right now I'm gonna talk about ideas for booking more portrait's and so I want some feedback from you guys because I'm pitching this to you, I want to know I want to hear you tell me why this can't work right? And I don't think you're gonna have a reason these are ideas that will cost you little or nothing it's more about time that's that's the big part here and so marketing overall I think is not that complicated people tend to complicate market...

ing and I can't quite wrap my head around why right? We think too much about it we just we over complicated you just have to think outside the box and so for me you've heard me talk about this over and over again throughout the days here is I consider myself a connoisseur of business I really love the spirit of being an entrepreneur probably more than I love being a photographer I just love business I love tinkering with things I loved building things I love coming up with an idea and seeing it come to fruition I love coming up with an idea and seeing it failed okay I know that sounds like a crazy thing but when it fails I learned from that failure right I go okay that didn't work let's try something new that didn't work let's try something new and so it's the spirit of that if you're really a connoisseur of business you understand how important it is to be okay failing I think you have to like it you have to understand it's gonna happen that's the nature of business don't make it personal we'll be like oh my god I saw you I have a lot of creative people around me and some cannot take the pressure off failing right eso when I have conversations my designer the she she's awesome she's young she's green on dh when she gets feedback and she personalizes it right because can you imagine working for me I'm not that guy was like it's okay you're almost good no I'm like okay this sucks this is really bad this socks don't ever do it again that's more the conversations you're having with south and so I'm not here to coddle you I'm here to help you get get it together and get to that next level. It doesn't mean I mean spirited, I'm not mean spirited, but if I were, I wouldn't be helping people but it's more along the lines of I want to get from point a to point b as quickly as possible. And so again, in the spirit of that, we can't complicate things just think outside the box think differently on dh think about what motivates you, especially when it comes to marketing here's what I want you to every time you watch a tv commercial or an ad it's just start thinking about how is this making you feel? What is it motivating you to do? What are they trying to get you to do if the really the real tell between a good commercial and bad commercial least if we talk about tv is, you know, when local commercials come on tv, every market has the local commercials, I have no idea what they're what they're selling you on there, just bad commercials, there's just somebody on there, the used car dealerships are the worst, right? The car dealerships period are really, really bad. I have no idea what they're talking about, what they're doing, and why is that? Because nobody's writing this script no one's putting this together but then you see a more polished campaign maybe it's for like a maybe it's for nike maybe towards a bigger company and there's a purpose that commercial comes on there's a message when that when that commercial's over you've gotten something from it they've clearly tried to get you to a point that's where I want you to start seeing things because that's the part you have to incorporate into your business so pay attention to the mail tv the direct mail pieces that arriving in your mailbox there's a big difference between one that's been put together by your local dentist and the one that's come from a national chain right one looks like it came from a local mom and pop shop and one looks like it came from a national chain you obviously don't want to look like it came from a mom and pop shop you want to look like you're a polished established business tv email magazines point of sale you know when you walk into a store and they've got those point of sale displays in the mall they have point of sale displays pay attention to things and I'm afraid you're not paying you don't even understand what I mean when I say pay attention to things right I don't want you to look in and by god that's cool out no no look at it a little bit differently look at the ad and go where's the price where's the price in the ad that's the kind of things I want you to pay attention to how much copy is on the ad writes thereby no copies that's the words that are on the on the bed when you're looking at an ad how much copy is there on that ad overloaded with lots and lots of words or is it just like one sentence these are the kind of things I'm looking for you to pay attention to see I'm not looking for you to just looking at that school analysed dissect each add what makes that at a good ad it's clean there's a few words in there there's a powerful call the action book now act now do something now what makes it a bad at you know you get those dentist ads I know what makes it a bad ad there's four different types of fonts five different colors for the fonz images have no cemetery to them they're all over it just looks like somebody threw up on a page if that's your ad for your business that's wrong that's why you got to start getting in tune with this stuff? People are inundated with ads that's the key so few days ago a few seconds ago we talked about we talked about for you ashley you put that picture that edgy picture of a family right and so she put a picture of an edgy family out there and that worked that motivated them and the reason it motivated them was why? Because people are inundated with ads so all they keep seeing is the same same same same same whoa what's that oh that's ah wow that's a family oh well it's a it's a puppy right it's just something different caught their attention that's how you have to start looking at this thing what made it grab your attention so when I'm walking through the mall when I'm walking through uh fifth avenue in new york city I just walk I just do my thing but if I see something and it catches my attention I'm mohr intrigued by what got me to stop you see what I'm saying I'm genuinely curious what got my attention on that ad that's the color the color got my attention everything in there is black but man that that's that's read that got me they got me to see something it got me to stop or it's bright blue right big bold funds what got me tio stop and pay attention to that it's that curiosity that motivates everything I do. So now I take what I see in the real world and I go okay, well, if that worked on me I think I'm representative of the population I think I can make it work in my business you with me so we gotta become genuinely curious so here are five ideas that I think you can walk out of here right now and start executing on immediately, okay? Some of them are brand new ideas, so there's absolutely no reason you can't walk out of here and go do this and if you're at home again, I'm gonna drive you to work book start writing this stuff down in a way that is dissect a ble don't just start throwing up on a page you'll never get to those notes I've met so many people who've come up to me it's, shutter fast or other events and you're like I got your the south's and kinda notebook it's like one hundred pages of just notes, how are you gonna process that that's where this workbook comes in the play? Use the workbook and start breaking this out into manageable chunks? What are we doing in the next thirty days? What out of this? This is more important. What out of the five ideas I'm about to give you? What can you do in the next thirty days to start making making that phone ring so headshots everybody needs headshots? I mean everybody, even people don't think they need headshots, need head shots and so start targeting insurance agencies, real estate agencies, doctor's offices, team pictures anyone who has anything to do with sales needs an updated headshot okay, this is the world we live in there, using it on facebook. They're using it on their linked in profile and on and on and on. And so if you buy into that, this is an opportunity for you almost immediately and it's an opportunity that I think is timely and relevant. We're going too slow season. We're going in the winter months and most of the united states, so you're not going to get out there and start booking a whole lot of weddings in the next thirty days. It's not gonna happen, right? Booking weddings takes time. This is stuff that can happen literally in the next thirty to forty five days, and you can start making money. I get about one hundred fifty to two hundred dollars per head shot. We have a couple of clients that come to us every other year for an updated headshot, an updated team shot. We have a doctor's office that we work with in st louis. They spend between twenty, five hundred three thousand dollars. Every time we do a team shoot for them, they bring all their staff. They want to do something completely different. I love them, they're are there gynecology, office, o, b, g y ends, right? And then we go in and we and we do, uh, we do this bad ass shot of, like, the four mean doctors there, right? All females and their whole tagline is not your mother's o b g y n I love it. And so in st louis on billboards on freeways, our images are up there that we've taken off them that they used for a publicity, right? So they're really aggressive company my client, and then we do a head shot of their staff as well, so they're updating their websites all this thing. So it's a real modern progressive company boom that's the kind of people that I'm looking for you can do this one anybody doesn't have to be on that scale, right? We do plenty of people where we just do three, three headshots routine. We have a real estate office, they come in again every other year, so we got these companies coming in on a cycle where they'll come in every other year. Hey, we got new staff, we need new head shots and they come in, they come into our studio, if it's five or more, I'll go to them really, really easy just go to their location, set up bringing your studio lighting your soft boxes, make it easy for him five or more five or less it's not worth my time. I'm not going to go. You come to me and we'll do it that way. You with me? This gets better. Here's a campaign you can run. I think this is a pretty cool idea. Isn't it time you updated your headshot, I think it's cool idea because I want to do it. And so I'm giving you an idea that I want to run within my market. I've just been too busy to execute on it, isn't it? Time you updated your headshot, and so I'm seeing this direct mail piece go out to all the local businesses, okay? Even if you walk in and drop these off, isn't it time you updated your headshot and what I'm envisioning is showcasing some horrible head shots. I mean, like, going back to the nineteen seventies and just getting those really bad headshots, right? Where people are just looking off in the wrong direction, just things like that, right? Just get those buy from a stock agency, okay? That's what they're there for, and so use those pictures to showcase that isn't it time you updated your headshot and in showcase what a new headshot would would look like or come up with something you're you know something clever on your own it's all about this? Where were you in the eighties? Isn't it time your headshot caught up with you just something like that? Just something clever. I made this up last night and so these are the kind of things we can do that will get their attention. It's clever it's, witty it's, short it's to the point and get somebody to go yeah, I do need I do need my headshot updated, right? Especially if you're working with doctors, offices, insurance agencies, team pictures, things like that you got to get past the front garden. The front guard is not you're not hitting the doctor directly, you're hitting their right there admin you put something clever like that in their hands if they're going to laugh and then they're gonna go hey, you know what you need? You need to get your head shot updated and so you could do this for ninety nine dollars, ninety nine dollars headshot run a one week special or promotion something like that, but attack all your local businesses. I think that makes it much more relevant, right? I'm not looking for you to go around the country trying to get all these headshots I'm looking for you to just go locally hand these out, put him at point of sale, write anything and you've got a ton of opportunity. Ten head shots is a grant if you do it at ninety nine dollars a pop, ten head shots two thousand dollars into your business almost immediately, most companies have that air going to come to you have five to ten employees and so that's the direction you're going to want to be going in. I mean, it's just absolutely a lot of money to be made in head shots. That's just ninety nine dollars these companies out there that are charging a thousand dollars for it for a head shot that's fine, I'm not there. I don't get to charge that much money, but I'm happy with my buck. Fifty excuse me, a buck fifty two hundred bucks for that headshot start off in ninety nine dollars, a huge opportunity. You can do this on facebook, right? You can do targeted ads on facebook so that maybe that's, you know you can do some of that stuff. Make sure whatever images you use, you've got rights to use and promote that way. Most of stock agencies when you buy those images. Are clear that's what you can use those images for so do that you're just looking for some a couple old headshots and if you have one of yourself, use one of yourself right? If you got a really bad old head shot of yourself, you use that as well. Facebook every local business fliers two sided make sure it's a two sided flyer when it comes to flyers there's two pleat places I would recommend uh marathon press really makes good flyers on then four over is another company I used the number four o v e r dot com really, really good pricing on high volume, you know? So if you're just doing a short run maybe like fifty pieces for over might not be the place for your marathon might be a better place, but if you're doing a large run of any kind of marketing pieces like maybe a thousand or more, the pricing that you're gonna get from four over is incredible and everything's automated so you'll order something and your proof usually arrives in your inbox in like twenty four hours you'll have the proof that pride less I think probably eight hours they'll have that proof sitting in your inbox you can improve it usually the next day it's already shipping to you so really cool process this making sense headshots any ideas that you can add do you want to add to yeah, um, actually just did this recently with a, uh with a gym uh partnered with the owner of a gym. I went in and did the team head shots for all of them. I didn't charge her to do it, and I also produced some metal prints toe hang on their wall, but since the time that I did this and we're only talking, like, two weeks ago, I have three phone calls already from people who are interested in, like, family photos and stuff because they've come in and actually seen the head shots got a brilliant desk that is really, really brain. Yeah, so is another way. So give me a little bit more information on this. You went you went out and did this for the gym is just cross promotion because you wanted to have your kind of your picture's up in there. Are the pictures even up yet? Yeah, I already have had imprinted I had. I did there's ah, five team members. So I did five, eight by tens on then I did a fifteen by thirty panel, old metal had him all printed and obviously old brandon with my logo watermark. So and then I went in myself and told us that they're all in I got him all you know, when I came in and just put up the whole nice display on their wall that's gold yeah, you should take that to the next to the next level with them, right? So just thinking out loud as you're talking, especially with the gym, why not do mohr environmental head shots of them meaning why not take, like bringing a studio set up whether it's outdoors or inside and do like hard hard edge lights? Yeah, I gave that with them working out, yep gave it to them and told them that they can use that for, you know, facebook and promotional stuff that's awesome, yeah, that's the kind of stuff I want to see so anybody have any feedback on this? You feel like this is something you can walk away and do or any concerns any clarification we good? All right, so the next one I want to walk into and by the way, everything I'm talking about or things I feel based on the time of year, right? Because we're in the november december time frame based on the time of year, the climate around the states and the opportunities we have in front of us. These are the things these ideas I'm sharing with you are things I feel like we can do now, right? So if I were to talk to you and say, yeah, go after high school seniors that's great high school seniors your you have to wait until april may of next year to really start going after you got to start doing some planning now but the reality is that cash register is not going to start ringing till then but I'm trying to give you ideas for your cash or just sort of ring now in the next thirty days right that's what I want that's my goal for you so for ah for the senior market let's come up for that age group that sixteen it's not just seventeen year olds, right? Fifteen year olds want to be cool to fifteen sixteen, seventeen eighteen year olds go after something called the fashion experience and so I want you to target teens ok in the winter maybe even go with the flat session fee maybe the session fees for ninety nine and that includes a sixteen by twenty four print one eleven by sixteen print I want you to teo do it indoors but you gotta work with lighting. Gotta work with studio stroke is not natural light it's gotta have that high fashion look maybe it's a ring flash rent one borrow one uh you know, something that's going to give it that hard, edgy high fashion look, I think like a n f think like all the teen fashion magazines right who's your client what are they being influenced by maybe you can even work with local vendors like a clothing store. Hmm. Buckle born and on down the list. You're right. Ama crombie, right. Go down the list, banana republic of all these stories that you could possibly work with in your mall and let them know what you're going to give them his free pictures for the store. Okay, now, if you go after a banana republic, more likely they don't care. They don't want your pictures in the store but figure out a way to make this work where they're working with local community because a lot of stores do wantto work and be off the community. Maybe it's kind of ah, joint effort between the store in the mall. Maybe the mall gives you some places to display these images, right? That you took using three clothing companies from them. All right, so I'm just talking out loud here, and I'm thinking outside the box and thinking of ideas we can do so each kid pays a flat session fee. You knew one of two ways. They're paying you the session fee or you can turn it into a marketing effort. We're going to do it for free, you can coordinate all in the back end. Right so let's forget the marketing effort where we're going to publish it and all that other stuff we had a ton of other ideas let's focus on getting your cash or just sort of rain and so we're gonna advertise this too fifteen, sixteen seventeen year olds can use facebook right to connect directly to him we can promote to our existing target based client base parents on we want to give them the fashion experience three outfits three concept's cool iding makeup is included wardrobe is included okay so you're gonna have to go there and work with local vendors maybe maybe you're just giving them free pictures maybe you're not giving them anything for free maybe it's just about building relationships and they're willing to give you some wardrobes h and m really inexpensive I don't know if you have hmm around you but lots of clothing there right so just figure something out maybe the wardrobe you're getting is from the this is where the kids get their prom dresses maybe that's where you're getting wardrobe from right but I don't want to see everything in a prom dress I wanted to have this high fashion experience maybe you're producing headpieces for them like we did with with elissa where we did that down in our shoot in brazil right that's becoming popular to the kids are seeing that in fashion magazines right so here's yet another idea that we can execute on almost immediately right and tweak it doesn't have to mean my exact idea I'm just offering up free ideas based on the time of year and things that I know we can actually execute on and so those are the kind of things I want I want to do where we're making money on we're finding easy ways to get our name out there and shoot, shoot, shoot it's winter season, right? So we're into the winter months things were gonna get slow really quick, especially if you're a wedding photographer from me. The most dangerous time for my business is in that december through march time frame that three or four month window is brutal have no income coming in most of us don't yet it's a time of year where we're spending the most money, right is you're ramping up your business that's where when you're spending money, at least I am I'm going to trade shows, right? I'm looking at all the new toys I'm looking at all the new things I need that's what I'm spending my money but that cash register doesn't really start ringing until march april, when the kids start coming through and family start coming through and things like that this one I think is really cool I call it the empty nester you got to go after a different target that forty something kids are off to college now he's finally got the kids out of the house for the last eighteen or nineteen years it's been all about the kids never about her right everything they're doing the kids we're sending the soccer camp baseball camp all camp camp camp camp camp we're spending all this money now spending money to send him in school it's time for me to do something for myself and that's what this programme is about so the empty nester eyes maura about putting the other glamour style I shoot and you can define what that is right because when you start having the conversation about glamour and boudoir oh man it itjust ranges in you know conversation about what it actually is I don't care what you do it's a sexy shoot that's it right so you want to do something that's a little bit more sexy and you're targeting that forty something you're not targeting the twenty something that's not who you're going after here so your target here is someone who does have money okay she's later in life maybe she's going backto she's probably working working professional or husbands established these are people who established when you're twenty something years old you're not established don't really have a lot of money but by the time you're forty hopefully you've been working for twenty years you've been in the work force you have a full time stable job so now you've got you're going after somebody who's got money here's the campaign it's your time isn't youthful isn't it? Time you focused on you these air kind of just two little taglines I came up with have him use him stealing they're yours okay it's your time isn't it time you focused on you use it however you want direct mail use one piece of it not the other facebook but here's where I want to see you expand this idea local salons goldmine this is where you know your bribe no, not bright know your target your target here is a forty something right she's going to the sands to get their hair done their nails done getting her roots colored in she's dying her hair whatever that whatever you do you girls do when you hit your forties you know they're doing it and so where am I going to go and go after these people it's gonna be at the salon the salon's what I would do with this is used the hairstylist that air there at the salon's as your test subjects very similar to what rob did where he went into the gym and he took people of all the employees I would recommend doing that with this sell the idea there so now at every salon station should be a picture that you've taken from this session if they're not willing to do it that's fine then they don't they don't get the picture but the whole point is to put it on display take us take don't just take something that's sexy and overly revealing right remember we start having the conversation of glamour and boudoir we could go all over the place with what it is you can take a sexy picture and it's just a head shot right you can do something that's sexy and just to do ah nice bust head shot maybe that's what's being put on display there and then you do the rest for them and that's what's that's what's selling for you so now it's just selling themselves every time somebody sits in that chair they're looking at that picture for an hour you're gonna love that picture or not now you'll have a point of sale there let them just give out a card give him a kickback for every one who books there's all sorts of ways we can do this now there's a car and it says referred by susie or there's a special number on it whatever the case may be and now they hand that card great yeah I worked with this photographer south san kata absolutely amazing. So now the hairstylist the beauty stylist is talking firsthand knowledge about this idea about this whole concept so who's selling they're selling for you all you got to do is have something like this go uh you know pulled together I think there's a brilliant idea this is something we can walk out and start doing so these air three ideas now that we can walk out and start putting putting together and again tweak the idea if you don't like the the idea in its in its entirety that's okay pick and choose parts of this idea that you like and can execute on but good valentine's day all boy so here we said in november if you're not thinking about valentine's day at this point give it up because it's over you're not going to get them in you are not going to think about it on january fifteenth and be like oh shit valentine's day's coming right then you start panicking I gotta figure out what I'm getting my wife my husband whatever you're doing and then you forget everything else because by the time that comes it's too plate lead time for this is now and so what I want you to do is basically if you want to talk about who your target is every female on the planet is your target for something like this but the reality is I want to see you go after three segments of the market rights to be right typically when you were a bride to be your in some of the best shape of your life right there on their diets they're tanning they're doing everything they got to do to get ready for their wedding great let's document that perfect opportunity twenty five to thirty years old I think is a good good target to be going after but then I want to go after the forty something I kind of like the other campaign which we just talked about again here's some chat taglines for you do whatever you want with him get sexy that's a that's a tagline I like that I can see that in a marketing piece I can see that in marketing collateral just bam get sexy yeah I want to be sexy right? So that's what I'm thinking there give him something he'll remember really cool really, really cool tagline simper simple clean to the point here is what I'm envisioning for products it's a print you're not going to sell a twenty by thirty campus for the valentine's day issue that's not gonna happen she's not reality I had one time ah client did put she was pregnant and she wanted to do ah kristina remember christina aguilera when she was pregnant shed light on this skimpy leather jacket she was naked and she was just holding her belly something like that she wanted to do that and then she drew like a hard on her belly and lipstick whatever she did it she she put a twenty by thirty on her wall of that I thought it was the oddest thing in the world because it's just not what I would have envisioned doing but hey it's your money I'll tell you whatever you want but ultimately again a majority of your clients are not going to buy something that big typically I think if you go with ah press printed or art paper print maybe deck old edge matted and put in a print box so can you imagine opening up ah print box can you give me that box and so can you imagine any your clients something like this would box okay? And then they open it up, okay? And here we have an album but they open it up so this and you can go with a smaller box or something like that. I'm just trying to give you perspective in this box it's in their room it's private okay, you open it off, you take off the box and in there is a ten by ten matt with a five by five print ok? And now they can take that up. Maybe they're standing up on the back they're putting it on a little weasel in the bedroom it's gotta have that level off privacy that's the kind of stuff I want to see you uh you doing all right so that's what I'm envisioning here, where do you go in and market this stuff lingerie shops, plastic surgeons fitness centers facebook these are the kind of places I would go to try and market this hey, if somebody's going to a plastic surgeon, they care about the way they look right? If somebody's having, you know, breast enhancements, facial surgery, liposuction and all these things, they really care about the way they look. I've seen people have jackpot opportunities by having a point of sale display in a doctor's office like that writes just there it's a flyer, they grab it, they don't grab it whatever they want to do lingerie shops and when I say lingerie shops, I'm not talking about victoria's secret you're never going to get in there that's just not gonna happen when I say lingerie shops, I'm talking about like local vendors in your area that sell lingerie, we have them just in o'fallon, illinois there's, local bra shops and things like that what a cool place toe put a point of sale and then bring into this everything else that I've been teaching you right? So if you go into a place like this and they go, well, now we don't really want to put a point on display up, look around their walls, you know, something else I could do for you is if you can give us some of your lingerie, we can provide pictures for you right? And I wouldn't be putting people's faces I would be cropping it and things like that but we can put pictures up here kind of victoria's secret style upon your walls free of charge I would absorb that for the swamp, right? So now you're starting to see this ecosystem of ideas work together so if this idea in its entirety doesn't work, figure out a way to take all the other things I've been teaching you along this journey to get it to work that's the key we've got to get it to ah point toe work um the ad has to be alluring, okay, we can't just put an ad there that's just like cheeseball central it has to be you have to understand your target you have to understand what they're looking for. You have to understand what they're looking to do please for god's sakes don't put a bunch of hearts and red ribbons on everything you're doing for valentine's day, right? That's that's not your brand at least is not my brand right? This should be the I would be looking to emulate something like victoria secret something that's sexy but not trashing you gotta figure out what that is for you, for everybody it's different but that's where I would be looking to go in with stuff like this maybe there's wardrobe tied to it but without a doubt there should be hair and makeup maybe you can sell a flight session fee, so we do stuff like this in our studio, we sell it for nine, ninety nine and so it's nine, ninety nine it's all inclusive tear makeup and then they get a box with print with matted prince in it makes it easy we don't have to bring him in for heavy post product sales any of that stuff, we're not trying to sell him a million different things on under his son. This is the only thing they're getting from that if they come back to us and they're like, hey, I want a campus great, but at least going into it, they know exactly what they're getting there getting that box, they're getting a ten by ten matt right with a five by five opening okay, and that's the prince that air going in there so that we're shooting for that makes it much easier. It's easy to shoot for square bored to deliver a square print when you're shooting for a square print, it forces you to think that way, it's just you know what do you want? And now I'm screwed because I got all these wide shots, eh? So that's the kind of stuff I would be doing makes sense this one this I've actually done and so this we've done it's worked it's been very successful and it has made me a lot of money. This is called generations, and so I don't care what target you go after it's either. All girls, all boys that's the whole point. So imagine getting great, grandma gramma, mom, daughter, siblings, everybody, all the females together in any given family imagine what that what that would do it's actually a powerful, powerful photography that you can put together and so you can take it of just you start putting all these grouping together. So imagine, you know, we do this actually for a list his family. We did this we did it free for them. It was our gift for them, but we did it for them for free. And what we did was we had, uh, her grandma and her grandmother hominy e mails. How many daughters does the grandmother have? And so we took grandma and she had all four of her daughter's there. Then we took we kept building the group's. Right then we had all the daughters and all all their children. And so we just kept trying to build all these different groups, and we talked each daughter with her daughter on, so now we start showing just this generational shot that is really cool is a photographer to be able to produce something like that for a family to have I know I don't have anything like that. I don't have anything with my dad, my brother, my grandfather. I have nothing like that in existence. And so I think that's a really cool thing. And everyone we explain what this is too on the consumer side is like, oh, my god, that's amazing. Yes, we want something like that and so off. This will build family pictures and things like that. But you pitch it as generations, and so it could be a flat fee or just a session fee. The average sale, if you do this right, is going to be anywhere from fifteen hundred two, three thousand dollars. Because if you have an entire family in their females, okay and let's say you go for generations, all right? So let's say, you go like great grandma, grandma her daughter's, right? Because then you could start having multiple levels at each level unless it is won kid in each generation, right? But if it's grandma and she had four kids and each of those four kids had two kids start splintering out really, really quick that's what ends up happening is you sell to the group in total but you start making individual kind of packages that makes sense and what ends up happening is a stale sales get quick really, really quick or really, really fast but because they're split across five families it's super easy every is like okay it's five hundred dollars on what we did was we put together packages that everybody gets one giant family portrait, okay? And then they can fill that package with smaller prints from their individual sessions you see what I'm saying it would be like great grandma, grandma all the daughters, all the kids boom one giant twenty by thirty campus so everybody gets a twenty by thirty campus and then everybody gets twenty five gift prints, ten gift prints on top of that, so everybody chips in for the package and now everybody's picking because not everybody wants the same pictures, right? But the whole point is to create the generational shot for everybody that makes sense this could be a powerful, powerful thing that you can get out there and do it's all about the groupings can be somewhat traditional can be somewhat artistic is well, so you've got to figure out what your style is with this, it tends to be a little more traditional when you're doing something like this you're in a studio, you're in a fixed environment rarely are you doing this kind of in the spring, wendy would that be something that you would do the sail immediately following the session than if their home for the holidays or how would you handle that? That's a great question. No, I would not do the sail immediately after that. I would actually, I want to take this back and edit thes foreshore because what's gonna end up happening is you're going to show this picture, right? Especially if you've got like, this just called ten people in the shot trying to get ten people to agree to this one single shot that they're all getting is gonna be a nightmare and you don't want to do that real time when you want to do step away and there's gonna be some photoshopping involved, right? So, it's a really good question what I had, what I had to do every time we do one of these is we take the group shot, and then I might grab a face off somebody from one picture from another picture so that everybody has the best possible expression. You're never gonna do that real time, because then your whole time, you're going to try and explain to them okay, we'll edit that out, we'll edit that out, we'll edit that out, I don't have that conversation, so the people who are usually home for the holidays are not usually the power people write the people spending money, but if you do it right, there's no reason why you can't turn this around, you know, in a five day window, knowing that you're up against that holiday clock, I think you can do it it's gonna be a hustle, but there's, a lot of I promise you, there is a lot of money behind this. You're looking at a fifteen hundred two, three thousand dollar sale every time you do something like this, but say generations to someone, they have no idea what it is. So you've got to get out there and start promoting this and getting this out there and getting this going. S o that people, people are excited about it if you if you don't, they're never going to know what it is, right? So there's got to be that marketing tied to it again. What I want to do with this is even though part of the groupings are going to be super traditional it's, just to be expected, think vanity fair, but have you ever seen some of the vanity fair spreads they do, where they have like ten celebrities in a single picture, maybe it's the cast of a tv show? Rarely are they all just sitting there? In the perfect you know triangle now come on man get creative do something different maybe if they've got a really big family maybe you talk to them do they have a house eyes their location in your local market that you can kind of get access to so that you can do some of this cool you know cool stuff look what I did with that t j oshie shoot that I showed you guys right? We just kind of worked within this hotel and what they gave us in the environment to try and do some cool stuff there's no reason you can't do something like that not either. So anyway I'm I'm just thinking outside the box with you guys ultimately at the end of the day you got to do something right that's that's what this is all about and so if you're out there and your photographer and you're starting up and you're just getting started or you're establishing your career but you're watching sales not be quite where they are I just gave you five ideas if you're telling me you want not one of them resonates with you just give it up to stop just don't be a photographer except the fact that you're an enthusiast ah hobbyists and you'll be fine there's nothing to worry about but I'm giving you re a ways to actually go make money right now and so you've got to get up do something. Stop waiting around for the phone ring it's not gonna happen if you just waiting around for referrals to drip in uh in some marketing piece that you put in a doctor's office to pay off it's not gonna happen. Listen, being an entrepreneur is about the constant hustle. It is a constant hustle if you want a guaranteed paycheck, go back to corporate america and work there and every week that paycheck will hit whatever that amount is good, bad or indifferent it's gonna hit you're gonna have your job until you lose it, okay, but if you want to be an entrepreneur than you have to get ready, you have to process it is a daily, weekly monthly yearly hustle I've been hustling for the last eight years. Every day I wake up and I'm hustling, trying to make money trying to book more business trying to grow my business it's not easy no one's gonna hand it to you so you've got to get this through your head. We've got to take care or control our own destiny. No one's gonna control a force no one's gonna hand us money no one's gonna hand us free business no one is going to feel bad for us, and so we have to we have to be willing to step up and do this and ultimately I truly believe in my heart. Every idea. I just pitched. You can be executed on immediately, at least one of them. And so you can walk out of here and execute these ideas absolutely immediately, and put your own tweak on it.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Master the Business of Photography - Workbook
Master the Business of Photography Slides
5 Tips to Finding and Booking Your Client

Ratings and Reviews

Brandon D
 

Sal isn't disgruntled and angry like someone below said, and he doesn't have time for people constantly whining about why their business isn't going good. He's from Brooklyn, so he can come across as harsh at first, but after watching several of his classes and even getting to meet him in person and talk a bit I can tell you he is a really nice guy who truly does want you to succeed. He was very encouraging to me after I thanked him for helping me and my business get to where it is now. Growing up, I can remember photographers grabbing us and posing how they wished. They are often in a hurry to get things right, such as at a wedding, so I am not sure why one reviewer stated he would dismiss them. Sounds like he is just looking for a reason to feel powerful. Anyway, this is a great class to get you on track with your business. Yes, its a bit wedding heavy, but the concepts are the same no matter what. Just apply them to your niche and you are good to go.

Sean
 

Amazing course. Sal is such a great photography educator. Terrific course. I'm not usually big on watching business courses, but this course as taught by Sal was terrific. Down to earth, entertaining, packed with real life experiences do's, don'ts and lessons learned. This courses business A to Z and Sal is very entertaining to watch/listen to. Thanks CreativeLive for getting Sal.

fbuser 0af5cf47
 

I have been a long time fan of Creative Live and have sat on the fence with all of Sal's classes because I already attend Shutterfest every year and get loaded with valuable information there, so it was hard to pull the trigger on a $300 course that was filmed 5 years ago. Also, in my earlier days of hearing about Sal, I'd heard a lot of negative opinions about how he comes across. Still, I'd heard he's a marketing guru, and my background is in marketing as well, so I really wanted to see what this class was all about. Now that I've finally gotten it, I'm completely blown away. There is just SO MUCH MATERIAL in this class that its actually difficult trying to decide what to implement first! It is good stuff too. It is all about marketing, sales, and workflow. If you're looking for a class teaching you how to take better photos, this one is not it. This is the class that teaches you how to get your work where everyone is seeing it and convincing people to book you and tell their friends about you! Now as far as others have already said... this class is definitely geared toward wedding photographers. Yes there are bits of information that work for other types of photography, but it is so heavily wedding oriented that there might be a better fit out there for another type of photographer. If you do weddings though, this is an amazing class! As far as Sal's personality goes.... he's a New Yorker transplanted to St. Louis. So expect that NYC no BS type of attitude. Susan Stripling is another one of my favorites and she is similar in attitude (and also extremely talented), so if you like her, you should like this. If you have a hard time with her, you might have a hard time with this. Regardless, its stuff y'all need to hear and implement to be successful. Obviously because the class is a bit older, you may have to make small tweaks to a few things (even though he says don't jack with the recipe), but the marketing principles are solid and timeless. Shoot this course is worth it for the SEO advice alone. Just buy it already!

Student Work

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