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Post Wedding Sales and Pricing

Lesson 27 from: Master the Business of Photography

Sal Cincotta

Post Wedding Sales and Pricing

Lesson 27 from: Master the Business of Photography

Sal Cincotta

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Lesson Info

27. Post Wedding Sales and Pricing

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

Post Wedding Sales and Pricing

Right now I want to dive into post wedding sails right? So again we're following the progression everything's happening logically sequentially for a reason and we're building the momentum here as we head into the post wedding sales and so post wedding sales it's another opportunity for you to make a lot of money you're leaving money on the table it's not done I know what you're thinking waits out they just spent all this money on the wedding there broke my clients are broke nope no they're not that that little gift box there where people shoving in lots of envelopes with lots of money so they have money I promise you unless I'm just lucky and have a bunch of clients who happened have money after the wedding our clients are spending upwards of two thousand dollars after the wedding and you're spending it on large prints and they're spending it on extra pages in the album and so that's the part I really want to dig into and talk to you about it so let's just dive right into it so put whe...

n it comes to post wedding there's still more money on the table we have to close strong if we're gonna offer our clients and and and service a complete service we gotta finish strong right? So we don't want to leave that money on the table just go here's your cd I'm done peace that's not what I want to do we've got to finish the cycle let's all from trying upgrade the album maybe before the wedding they were in our middle package okay don't give up on him after the wedding try and get him up to the big album yet again okay and let's review this we're going to review sales processing timeline and then walk through those packages and I need you to ask some questions because you should have questions on the difference between that package and previous packages that we've shown so post wedding easy is just handing over the images on a cd on a thumb drive that's easy super easy I just be done handed to him move on, but they're gonna go print we've already established right there they're spending that money what is it? Shutterfly snapfish wherever they're going for this stuff seven hundred million dollars they're going to take it somewhere in printed, they're reaching out to evolve, they're reaching out to us directly they're going to go printed somewhere. I'm telling you you should be getting the money, not shutterfly you should be getting that money hard is spending time with them and helping them complete the process that's what's hard hard is spending another hour and a half to two hours walking through the process, but you're going to be rewarded for that hard work so money's there, we've got to make it easy for them to spend on it should be easy. By the way, if you're shooting and you're following the shot list, I'm telling you to and you get your second shooter in order on your both in st getting him that extra page is the album should be super easy. I mean, really, really easy there's going to be very hard for them to now of those pictures down that's the part you got to keep in mind. And so, um, the day after the wedding, taylor's already trying to schedule living to come in so, you know, if their weddings obviously on a saturday by the by the sunday or the monday, they have an email in their in box with terror saying, hope you had a great time with sal on your wedding. I want to get your scheduled to come in as soon as possible. I've got the fourteenth at seven p m the fifteenth, and it goes back and forth. Some clients come in right at two weeks. Some clients take three weeks, possibly four weeks, but we I have to be ready to turn those around in two weeks, that is just how it has to work, you're going to get backlog, okay, bring everyone in, we want wine, champagne all that stuff we want them we want to complete the experience forme I love when they bring siblings that were at the wedding I love when they bring grandparent's I love when they bring thea out both sides of the family. A lot of times it'll just be one side of the family but bring the other side, bring his parents her parents make it an experience because you'd be surprised what happens much easier to spend money that way daughters there she wants the bigger album I know she does, but she may be she doesn't have the money. You know what, dad? No, dad loves the pictures he's seeing he's going to make that investment is going to reach into his pocket and do it. I've seen it happen over and over again just wants a baby girl to be happy. Okay, he's gonna give her one last gift. That's fine, I wanted to come from my studio pricing goes out with the emails so they understand the process that at this point right they've seen it happen with their engagement session or they seen it happen with a glamour session. I've seen it happen with the initial consultation they understand when you come in there's money to be spent there been trained at this point and so that email with pricing goes out when taylor's trying to schedule them to come in minimum, they have to come in to make final album choices cover leather, whatever the case may be, they have to come in and so they love at this point we don't get any resistance. So if that's going on in your head like case out, what do you do when clients don't want to come in? We don't have that happen. They really are looking forward to come in at this point remember, I've been working with him for a year. These aren't complete strangers, and so these are people we have a relationship with this point at this point, so after a year they're just looking forward to coming in, they can't wait to come in to see their pictures toe to enjoy it and so that's what we're working on a tte that point getting them in making final decisions, having some champagne, having some wine? Ah, super super easy stuff right should be casual. They're going to walk into a signature at it on the screen that's it that's very, very important that said it has to be there something that's gonna wow them has to be on the screen. I don't care if you do it yourself, I don't care if you outsource it, it doesn't matter but figure out a way tow have that bad ass at it on the screen right after that image terror's gonna pour champagne we're going talk how was your honeymoon right there going to be there for fifteen or twenty minutes before anything ever happens then what we're gonna do is we're gonna play that slide show so in the previous segment we showed pictures from our wedding day that slide show would have just played tail would have some music playing in the background people are drinking wine champagne uh and that's playing on the screen that's all that's happening at that point okay nobody's talking nobody's selling they're just doing and I ng and they're laughing maybe we're showing silly pictures that were happening the kids were pinching their cheeks we showed that picture in the last segment when it's all over teller's gonna ask them if they love them then she's going to hand them a pricing sheet to review the emails she's gonna walk them through everything again so if you remember we were talking about the engagement pictures she's gonna hand in this folio again on there is gonna be linen paper okay it's a it's a custom folio linen paper all the pricing is going to be there she's going to put this in their hand and she's going to let them enjoy make it high end that's the key so what you don't want to do is just give him again a flimsy piece of paper put it on this folio it's super easy to do and what we're gonna do is we're gonna walk him through the packages one at a time. Now, something you're going to notice right out of the gate as you look at this there's, only two packages, no three everything I've been telling you up until this point time is there's three packages the reason there's no third package here, it's because they're getting a cd or a thumbnail of all their digital files. And we've already established that they can print those digital files up to eight by twelve. Well, normally my base packages all small prince. Well, why would I put a small package together when I know no one's gonna buy it? They're going to go print that stuff themselves. Instead, we're putting packages together that are all large print. So we start with two packages. We started the mid level at eleven ninety nine, and I'm gonna dig into these packages and then we jump to our black label, which is twenty four, ninety nine. Okay, so we're taking big jumps here in these packages, and we're gonna walk through each one of these. But again, everything's on one sheet of paper, not by accident, we have it on one sheet of paper because I don't want them flipping back and forth between pages. I want them to just be able look at one page see what the ala carte prices see what the package prices and it just makes it really easy really streamlined to do it that way all right? So let's look black label it's come back to basics again you guys here in the audience everybody at home this is the part I need you to pay attention to because this is where you seem to be following our formula our framework really, really well up until this point up until where I see a lot of people falling apart is his post wedding part of the process black label twenty four ninety nine fifty, five hundred dollar value once again the price on the value right next to each other here we're allowing them to upgrade to our sicilian siri's album now in the previous segment where I was showing albums I didn't have this stuff too to show you this is an album twelve by eighteen in size monster album it's going we offer it both in horizontal and portrait okay this's two tone leather with a metal inlay and so just breathtaking album now you open this up okay don't know if the camera can see it you feel this crushed velvet they go nuts there's no other album company doing stuff like this I want them feeling this I'm putting this in their hands again if they didn't get this before the wedding I want them to feel this again and so now I'm going to go through and I'm going to show this to them and they're going to see pictures that are just blown across two pages monster images right? And they're going to see this album and they're going to fall in love with it and they're going to see the clean design okay, nice clean design we're not putting a million images on each individual paige nice clean designed for them two tone leather all the way around right? They are falling in love with this it's a heavy album okay, I'm gonna put this in your hands I'm gonna let you flip just go through it passing around don't get any pen marks on it breaking you break it you buy it okay, so I'm gonna put that in their hands I'm gonna let them feel that quality I'm gonna let them enjoy it again as I'm walking them through this. So I say the black label comes with its an upgrade to the sicilian albums I put it in their hands also it comes with ten extra pages. So now that album comes with forty pages, not thirty pages and then I'm hitting them and I'm going the ten extra pages are important because you're gonna want your gonna want you have a lot of great images you're gonna want to add more images to albums yeah I can just remember does that album come with ee black label wedding package status correct so then what happens what's the give on that than if they were already getting that out think of black label both ways in what happens if they were black label before the wedding this package would be different this package would include at twenty additional pages okay I'll have to look up exactly what's in that and that package can you bring that up a listen just feed me what's in that package if they're black label post what would happen if they're black label or black label pre what would happen if they're black label after so it's gonna be more than likely like a twenty by thirty acrylic and then upgrade at twenty pages to your album right the value still has to be high for this is assuming this package that they went platinum before the wedding middle package I don't want to give up I still want to try and pull pull them up uh to do that and so it's going to come with a twenty by thirty acrylic so a nice big portrait that signature at it we show them this particular couple on the last segment that I showed you okay they went black label post wedding so they got the signature siri's album they got the panel they get all that other stuff twenty by thirty acrylic, ten gifts sizes a dvd slideshow that's going to be that an emoto sideshow and then a facebook posting, right, so we're going to whatever pictures they order. We're gonna post to facebook for them, then we're gonna offer additional discounts as you go through this you can all read what's there it's, just random stuff but what I love there's two pieces here I want to highlight for you one is we give them the ability to upgrade to two forty page albums so they get to create volume one volume two in their albums and so something clients will do. I'm going to steal this from you one more time. Let's, take this back. I'll give it back what clients do when they go with the volume, whatever leathers they choose for two tone, they reverse it. So what would happen is and it's beautiful when they're sitting side by side together. So if this is blue with a white stripe, they would go with white, and then I would have a blue stripe through it and they go absolutely. I mean, they're so gorgeous when you see them side by side that's. So we look at that for nineteen, ninety nine, okay, a lister, you know, did you find it? It's going right in that folder you have no right we'll come back to it the middle the middle or bottom package in this case after the wedding is a platinum collection it's at eleven, ninety nine right? So there's a significant price jump between the two of you and let me come back to this for a second. The other thing that we I said here they can add an identical parent album for nine ninety nine so they all they gotta do is hit the number two on that and they'll get a parent album for nine ninety nine that's been a huge up south force now on that nine, ninety nine I might only have one hundred fifty dollars profit margin I'm okay because that's all add on all I got to do what I'm ordering the album's hit number two I'm willing to take one hundred fifty or two hundred bucks extra to just hit number two that's really easy stuff and so I'm trying to make it easy for him to add that parent album and so maybe in about twenty percent of our parents add the big parent album that's okay, right, houston extra several hundred boxes for hitting the number two on it platinum collection that's going to come with a sixteen by twenty four no acrylics, no upgrades to the albums no canvas thes heir prince sixteen by twenty four fifteen by thirty panel two eleven by sixteen's maybe they give the parents each one in eleven by sixteen. Seven gifts sizes dvd slideshow, facebook posting. Okay, notice collections cannot be altered. All right, so, elissa, take me through it. If we go to the black label, pay attention because I'm gonna verbalize this to you. So it's, they went black label before the wedding, okay? Because this is assuming they went platinum before the wedding. They went black label before the wedding. What do these packages look like? Black label post wedding. They went black label before the wedding. That's what I need so they get twenty additional pages thirty by forty acrylics. So we're going with a monster acrylic, right fifteen by thirty panel campus just like in here. Ten gifts sizes, facebook posting so everything else is the same what's in the plot same thing's sixteen by twenty four fifteen thirty so if they're black label before the main difference is going to be twenty extra pages in the thirty by forty uh acrylic that's the big pole for rights got to be expensive stuff you've got to keep that value super hi, jonathan. I'm a little confused the black level of the first part and in the black label of the second part because it has the same name this's really like a black label upgrade yeah, I'm so glad we're having this conversation. This is why everybody who follows our methodology this is where they're failing right here. They don't understand it. So let's build on this, jonathan everybody understand black label the way we name our package. Think of it as a package one package to package story. Just keep it simple. You coming to the engagement session? You still got package one package to package three. You coming after the wedding? You still have package one package to package three calling. Okay, what I've done is instead of calling a package one, I just name it black label. So before the wedding, our top package is called black label that's how we operate in our business, you could call it gold. You can call it whatever you want. What I don't want to do is call before the wedding black label after the engagement session platinum after the wedding. Fuchsia, right? Because I'm not building any branding what I'm doing by calling it black label is I'm training my clients to understand that no matter where they are in the sales process, if they're black label, they're getting the best of the best is that make sense? Yeah, some point you're going from a twenty page book. To a thirty page book or no a thirty page book to a forty page book that's right are you doing that prior to them going to the poses and figure hominy hominy images that they want in that book so you're saying this part right here yeah what point are you bringing this up this's after their wedding they're coming into our studio to see their wedding pictures for the first time okay so as they're sitting down and they're seeing all their wedding pictures now they have decisions to make what prints or they're going to buy for their for their wall and now they have an option to add more pages to their album you with me right but they were looking at eight hundred images and they know that those fifteen hundred sitting there yeah and how do they know they want thirty versus forty they don't have to we're not picking album pictures right? So make sure we understand that so we're making this decision now that's right? We're making this decision now because you just looked at eight hundred pictures your god is going to tell you oh my god how am I ever going to decide your guts going to tell you that you don't need to sit there and analyze it and go ok there's only thirty two pictures I like what's just happened is is if you as you've watched eight hundred pictures coming from in front of you you're going to love it love it love it love it love it yes we need more that's what's happening okay and so the other thing you're making the decision on is I want the black label album I was getting this right so if this is a client that was platinum they were getting this so now they're sitting there and I'm saying to them for one last time you have an opportunity to go from this it's cool to this I mean this alma right? So you now have an opportunity to go from this to this that's what you're looking at that's really the decision that has to be made not what pictures are going in the album even the pages the number of pages in the album that's just an ancillary it on at that point this is the decision you're making right here right now did they see both of those images are both of those albums when they came in to enquire they did when they came in to enquire they saw this first in the black label pre wedding but that's in a thousand dollar package okay, then I serve them this this is a five thousand dollar package and he said we can't afford this right now so now they went with this well now they're coming after the wedding I don't want to give up I'm gonna keep trying to sell him this but now it's more real now their pictures they're sitting there right on the screen and I'm saying I'm giving you one last opportunity because once we start designing your album once I designed for this you cannot get this so I'm giving you one last opportunity to go to this eighty percent of the time jonathan they're pulling the trigger eighty percent of the time okay, so I think I got it and then if they went with the platinum at the beginning that's right and in that they're also receiving the custom iphone album twenty five percent off video um the personal website for sixty days um david slideshow um they're still getting all that that's right when they go for an upgrade for twenty four, ninety nine for black label post wedding that's right? But they're getting the upgraded album ten extra pages you got it bingo great drop both sell as you know I mean I use your album so your signature collection albums I follow your system and there's something that we that we're not touching on that to me is really important and that is if you go back to somebody who's in on a platinum collection and then you bring them in and pretty wedding pre pre wedding platinum and you bring them in on a post sale and you have the opportunity to up sell black label to upgrade the album now this is like extra almost like extra marketing for you because when they get that album back as opposed to having the middle album now when all their friends and family see you want them to see your best you want them to see the biggest album so to me it's like it's just like built in like advertising built in marketing they're in friends and family get to see that without it out there's no doubt thank you because you are doing it we know you're doing it there's no doubt in my mind that when they're just showcasing that big album and they're showing all their friends and family people are blown away by what they're seeing right? Because that's not your typical um it's an expensive album but it's affordable you can put it in your packages so from that perspective that's the kind of stuff that's going to blow people away but this is the part I know off my system that most of you are struggling with is this confusion so all the questions you were asking jonathan like I don't get it you're doing black label before you're doing black label after yes it's just a name that's all it is it's signals it's our highest package that's the key to understand it's all making sense when do you have another question I did when they first initially book you for the wedding at what point are you taking final payment for that package that they're green that's a really good point. So payment from for a wedding the payment is happening. Uh is do thirty days before the wedding. Okay, so thousand dollar deposit secures a date thirty days before the wedding payment's due in full, and then there's a whole conversation that starts happening around that. Right? So a thirty days terror is contacting them for final payment. She shall send him an email then if she gets no response the next week, right? We're not gonna hound them like uh uh, bill collectors next week terror's gonna call them, leave them voicemail if we don't hear from them again now we're two weeks out of the wedding. Taylor is going to send them an e mail something to the effect of hey, guys, we haven't been able to get ahold of you. We haven't heard from you as faras right now. We don't even know if the wedding's still on. If we don't hear from you were more than likely not gonna be there on your wedding day. Within an hour, the phone's ringing we finally hear from somebody to get payment. And so things like that you've got to make sure payment's done beforehand. You don't want to wait and start collecting money on the day of the wedding or after one more question, then on the post wedding sale when we upgrade them to the twenty four, ninety nine black label then are you taking payment in full for that that is correct or not you're not putting that over a payment plan no unless they asked me to that's actually really good what you're asking so more than not they're paying right that right then right there now if they can't if we see them wavering this is when you've got to become good at reading body language if you see they'll sit there and they'll talk like this they do it all the time it's funny husband wife are sitting there and she's you could see where her hand is she's just doing this she's not even talking right she's just doing this and he's sitting right next door right and he's doing this he wants to be here she wants to be here and they're going on their whispering they're talking right we don't let that awkward to sit sit there we don't go out of the room and it's a vast us for can we have a minute or anything like that? And so what ends up happening is if taylor senses that awkwardness she'll say to him, hey guys, I don't know where you're at but it sounds like you're thinking about you want to go to the black label I don't know if this will help you I can break payments up into so now I've just made it easy for them to spend money with us now the reality is nothing's getting delivered until we have payment in full right? Because they've already committed to this we've already swiped their right then and there they have to pay for half so they'll pay for half right then and there and then in thirty days taylor's automatically gonna build the same card again and she'll tell them that she goes, I'll do a payment today and then I'll do a payment next month this same date is that ok don't go yes, perfect and let me know if anything changes right and we'll go from there so we want to make it easy for them to get there and if splitting a payment to gets him to that bigger package I'm all about it split the payment to get them there. What else about this there's? A whole black label thing makes sense there's a whole difference in packages makes sense we don't want to offer the same package after the wedding if they went platinum as if they had gone black label before the wedding there's a difference in what's coming there so we have to offer different items in that package your packages are living, breathing documents they have to be changed unaltered for matching parents do do you allow them to do a different color scheme for on the album for you for the leather and you make it seem like it has to be a duplicate the discount I imply it has to be a duplicate for the discount but we all know that the reality is when we goto order it there's not there's little if no price difference for the leather to be red or black right there's no real price difference just from a simplicity thing I just try and keep it because then what happens is the leather is the least of my words now they changed the leather well, can we just change the design then? It's a nightmare now I'm pushing out two or three different album designs now I'm doing a feedback loop with my bride on what she likes I'm doing a feedback loop with the mother of the bride on what she likes and then if his parents get in on it so we try and say no guys it's got to be the same for all now if it depends right client by client you've got to figure out what works for you what out what other questions around this? Yeah, from the bridal session at this time or flake if they hold off on it but sometimes I got people that want to do it after their honeymoon do you hold off on the wedding pictures or do you show it to different yeah, they would see that, so in that particular case, they may not have even seen if I know they're going to do a bridal session in this black label session section, it will actually say can be filled using bridal session pictures that's another reason to pull them up here islamic sense. So at this point, two weeks after their wedding, ninety percent of the time they have not taken their bridal session. If they're doing a bridal session, very rarely do they do with the day after. So a lot of times, if we're gonna do a bridal session for our clients it's usually like, okay, we want to do it in a farm, we want to do it in another city it's really something cool that they want to do that's great. So when they come to this point, if I don't address that, they're going to go wow, we should probably wait to see what we get from our bridal session boom an objection that just stalled your sale. The only way to overcome that objection is to inject what I'm telling you and put in there and go can be used to feel from pictures with pictures from your bridal session, and then all of a sudden that becomes a pull through, right? Um, so if before they were going to go with the platinum okay, now they go well let's just go black label and we know we can order pictures from our bridal session I'm okay with that too good question yeah so in the beginning when they come for the initial consultation book the wedding do you tell them about thes additional packages at the post sale no no not at all so if they bring up anything about well how come the packages don't include wall portrait's that's a great conversation we'll have that conversation and that's a question I get quite often how come these packages don't come with any pictures? The reality is this is your contracting me for my time and talent on your wedding day we're giving you an album we believe that's your first family heirloom but after your wedding the truth is we don't even know what we're going to get from your wedding day and so until we know what you're going to get on what kind of images we're gonna get we really wouldn't know what size prints to offer you and so after wedding you're going to come back in and we're going to show you all your pictures and at that point we can decide ah what images you want where in your home we're going to put them and will help guide you through the whole process right fluid just offered up I've been saying it a lot of years johnson the dvds were starting about the shows the sledges? Yeah. Are you doing this dvd of the oneness playing at the wedding and the one of the eight hundred images that they just saw? No, I would never produce that. Eight hundred images in a slide shows too much some of those images air just duplicated s o the images they're going to get in that side show are the ones I did on the date night of the wedding that an emoto slideshow, right? The one I produced the night of the wedding. I'm going to come home. That psycho has already been done. If their wedding was on saturday that psycho's done on sunday, we're uploading it already makes sense. Have you ever come across somebody? They came back after the wedding? This happen to me a few times were all of sudden you're charging hard bills, hit them before the actual place order and then they have no cash is what the claim, no cash after the wedding you're saying, yeah, I mean, that happens from time to time remember we spoke earlier. Every sale is not going to be a grand slam for me. I'm all about averages, so we have sales that are three thousand dollars after the wedding, I have sales that are two hundred dollars, after the wedding zero after the wedding, none of that matters to me when you're running a business, the footing the number I want you to focus on average is what is your average post wedding sail? Our average post wedding sale is two thousand dollars, so do the math on this. What does this tell you? If my platinum is eleven, ninety nine and my black labels twenty for ninety nine and I'm running a two thousand dollar average that's telling you that a majority of my clients maybe sixty percent our seventy percent are ending up in black label thirty percent, forty percent or either ending up in platinum? Or I'm sure there's some level in there that are just zero don't spend anything and I'm okay none of that matters to me, but that average average is that is the one that matters biggest post wedding sale, sixteen thousand dollars based post wedding sale ever was in indian wedding okay, I celebrated, I went did something nice, taylor and I bought some nice stuff and we enjoyed it, but my business isn't built on that, right? All too often, a lot of educators will get up on this platform and you'd be like the average client my studio spends twenty two million dollars no, no, they don't you had one sale big sale, congratulations, that's awesome those air, the fish tale stories we all tell each other reality is, our businesses have to be run and based on average, is that's what's gonna help you get through everything so don't don't get depressed if you have somebody come through your studio and they spend zero it's going to happen now, eighty percent of the people coming through your studio spending zero now we have a problem. We have to fix that. Never worry about the twenty percent it's. A little blip to hiccup. It's okay, it's gonna happen. All right? This is good discussion, so but I want to do now is get into other parts of the of the wedding. So I'm gonna jump over here on my laptop, and I want to get into other parts of the, uh, of the actual wedding. Ok, so we do, uh, sticky album. And so this is the kind of stuff that you can be doing is well ah, that's going to help? You just had more value, right? And so we sent this to them. It's a sticky album. We send it to them right after the wedding on. It was viewed three hundred times in the first week, right? Just a little sticky album. Clients go absolutely nuts for this, but what this is it's, his app for your phone? And so now you can deliver these mobile aps to your clients, okay, with their pictures now the right way to do this if you really want to get them excited is surprised him with it. So after the wedding go through, your image is real quick, it's easy for me to do it because I've already edited them for a slide show to get back at them really quick, just pick five images from each part of the day. Bridal prep room prepped ceremony reception creatives you can scroll through in light room relatively quickly and pick five images ok call correct the make him all black and white for all I care, it doesn't matter pick those images throw twenty five to forty images in a sticky album sent him off to the client. So this is giles. This is a real wedding. They were on their honeymoon and she gets the link to download this tour phone so it's her own mobile app, she gets the link for this and this is it. So you're scrolling through there on their honeymoon there on a beach, and they're seeing pictures from their wedding day in this mobile app format and now the right you can click on this picture, okay, I can go next. So I can look at it full screen remember you're looking this on my laptop this would be on their mobile phone on their ipad on their iphone on their android so it works on all those platforms okay my logo's on it it's a branded I can control the color all this stuff on it's just absolutely beautiful for them to be there on their honeymoon looking at this stuff real time you want to talk about excitement you want to talk about building momentum and this this is one of those things that it's not expensive two ninety nine or whatever it is a year it's not that expensive especially when you consider the cost of what it is to spread across all your all your wedding seniors, families, babies this is a huge marketing tool for your business okay, so now they get they can see all these pictures you can put his many as you want there but one of my favorite features with all this the share option this is huge, right? This becomes viral. Like I said in the first week, this was viewed over three hundred times that's more than there were guests at the wedding that means she's sharing it. That means people keep going back and looking at it and what do they see a completely branded experience on that mobile out she can share via facebook twitter, pinterest or email it so she sending it to her friends and family, check out my pictures. I love it. This is marketing at its best. And so now what do we do after the wedding? Can we go back to ah, ma and the good guys are fast. What do we do after the wedding? Okay, we've got a post it post images online, and so when it's all said and done, will you shoot proof for the gallery especially important for clients that are not in town in town? So we're gonna do this. We're going to post them online, we could tag our favorites so that they can see what images we think should look good as wall art for them, we're going to help them through the process. They can also pick images for their album that way so they can actually flag their favorites in shoot proof. And then we can go in the back end and see all those images that they've picked for the album. And the best part is we can actually download those images straight from shoot proof so that we can give them to our album designer to design the album it's a real nice work flow to get that to go to goa right allows people that order on the back end. They have a favorite feature. We've talked about that. Uh, they have a new program for unlimited images. Ok, so you can upload as many images is you want to these galleries? No commission that's the best part. So if you're out there and you're using any kind of hosting solution that's taking anything on your sales that's insanity, that is absolute insanity. I would rather just pay a flat fee. First service, I get it. Everybody's business has got to make my what irks me, though, is I don't want to give up a commission, um, for anybody else and so let's go. I want to go and let's go back to my computer, my browser. And so this is the actual web web gallery or landing page and I would send somebody too. And this is absolutely gorgeous. I love the way they designed this interface. The web gallery. Most web galleries got that kind of, you know, early two thousand web look and feel this is just real clean, real simple. I feel like it's a brandon experience the hussein wedding up top left. This is a wedding. We did both photography and video for super slick design. I'm proud to send klein's here. To look at this right now I can go in, I can view the gallery and when I get into that gallery, I even love the way everything's laid out in here. Uh, I mean it's just really, really fluid the way it's laid out. And as you can see, we took a lot of pictures at this wedding. So nine hundred sixty one images from this rights going it's gonna upload give it a second here and now look at the way those images are laid out. Rights got this, like, tile look and feel from it. I love the way they're rolling in. I can now just favorite one of my images just by hitting that right. So now I can favor that. I mean, just really, really slick design to the tool we can order from here. It's a shopping card, right? That's what it's gonna look like if I click on it, my logo's on it. So just a super, super slick tool for hosting. So we switched over to this, uh, quite a while ago, I think. And so we switched over to it from another hosting solution we're working with and our clients love it. That's the most important part is I want it to be easy for my client's, right? So is usually a disconnect between what we think is too cool and what they think is cool.

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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