Lessons

Lesson Info

Sales Session with ProSelect

Why we're going to talk about today or right now is, um sales part the pricing part and then I'll talk about a few other like programs and things but we use for our business actually before we even get started right now we've got the we've got pro select up on our screen so I kind of walk you through some of the basic things we do in a sale I'm not gonna actually a normal sale I spent an hour and a half and dog days of summer sale like said it might be the dog days of summer so she's sort of fifteen, twenty minutes in a normal limited edition we allow, you know, a thirty, forty five minutes for that sale but it's all still done with pro select and in fact we just loaded this on and it's a newer version than I have from pro select so I apologize if I stumble through a little bit but the great thing about pro select is it very user friendly it's very intuitive that it actually is working even better than the older version I have it's been updated, but I just want to show you the key thin...

gs my my whole part when I talk about anything software wise the way I feel about photoshopped light room pro select success where which is my business software you could do entire workshops just on those programs so I'm not trying to show you everything in twenty minutes but I wanted to tell you the most important things and it's actually to me with any software unless you're going to like go and start using it right away I could give you all kinds of information but until you actually like, dig in and start using it that's when you're going to really learn so I want to share with you why I use the programs I used the key things that are most important in some key things that I do in the sale um while I brought up really quick success where I don't wantto leave that out success where is the business software that I use on dh like said that when I first started using I took like a three or four day intense class. So the important thing is that you're using some sort of software that helped you run your business for the first four years of my business, I'd say is about four years I did not I just kind of guy if I don't know my numbers, they don't exist kind of thing and that doesn't work out so well uh and that's when I first heard the term cost of sales I had no business background or schooling so that's when I started understanding that had to raise my prices based on the type of business that had created or was wanting to create um, but the cool thing about success where I just went to it does three things it's broken down of success, planning, success, pricing and success tracking what I use every day, day in, day out is success tracking and that's basically, your calendar that's, my client list, my prospect list, and it basically that's all I used, we don't use quick books or anything. It's, it's, everything, it's all my reports, I can actually look at any given time. Okay, how many pet clients did we do in this month? Last year? How many pet clients have we done this year? What was my goal? You know, because you actually before section called success planning, which is all your goal setting for the year. So how many sessions did I plan on sooty shooting this year? And what type of sales averages did I think I was going to have? So it can help you make smart business decisions before things are too late, if that makes sense, like, oh, wow, we're not where we thought we were going to be or were really down from last year, and then you can decide, hey, let's, try to implement one of these marketing events or do something to boost sales, so that's, really the most important part of success where and I don't use all of it I mean, you put all your pricing in there too. So that's how we do our invoicing if you guys remember that session envelope from that, I put it off that has the release form. We do that through success where? And I actually even think going back to pro select the toucan work hand in hand, we actually still d'oh I moved my papers, but we still actually have a hand written order sheet that actually you guys in the audience have that in your packet. But it's, just a hand written order sheet. Prasad does this much. We use this much of it, and I'm not even saying that in a bad way. Six success where does this much we use this much photoshopped? Does this much? We use this much so you can pick and choose what makes sense for your workflow there's a tire for ron nichols? He has an entire like workflow, even with your retouching for images that works with pro select, we use press select for one reason and it's amazing and it's. The main reason I would tell you to get it it's for your projection, it shows your clients their images in the real size you're trying to sell them on the wall and I walk through this and I'll point out some of the amazing things it does and even some new things that as I'm playing with it this is a new version that it does so the very first thing is that in your sail you want it to be simple you don't want it to be complicated you don't want to overwhelm your client and so for sake of time I mean we were able to just load these but if you were the client and so we were able to settle our preferences and everything but basically you can go into your preferences and there's a couple things you want to dio the first thing you're gonna want to dio is in um preferences let me just look really quick if I can find it um was it right there? Um you only have to do this one time uh here you go this is the most important thing you could do in pro selection this's all ugo um this top left you see has just display calibration you actually will go up when you have your projector and your screen all set where it's going to be um and if you go into the client's home and sell by projection, you will need to do this every time, so if you're gonna have some of that static and isn't moving, you'll have to do this one time you actually take a tape measure and you measure this line and then you entered in how many inches it wass what that's going to dio is when you are actually and I'll show you this showing your images to your client and you could say this is what a thirty forty looks like or like what is it? Twenty twenty four look like you can show him actual size so they visually see it that is what I mean when I say educating the client like I feel very confident and comfortable and I'm giving them it's ok? If they don't order it, I'm okay with that I just want them to know what it looks like. I don't want them to be thinking I want that big eleven by fourteen and they're looking you know what it is twenty twenty four thinking that's an eleven by fourteen so the easiest way to show him is to actually have it um on the screen showing him what it looks like. So anyway so that's the definitely the one main thing I would suggest you dio and then there's another thing and preferences you khun change somewhere that that to a bar on the left actually disappears so all your clients are seen is the full screen image for sake of teaching and showing I want you guys to see everything I'm doing, but you can set the preference and that actually eliminates that confusion like when people tell me they sell out of a photo shop and different things I feel like there's just too much moving around that the clients see like I know you khun show a lot of stuff but I don't want to do photo shop in front of my clients anyway and this does so much and it simplifies a process and it really helps with the sale so a couple key things about this I've got images loaded in it's really easy just drag and drop them in there then everything's icon driven it's very intuitive there's a little camera view here you actually khun sync up your itunes music for showing the images in a slide show so I'm just gonna play it just kind of talk you through it I'm not even gonna play the whole slide show I just don't get the idea of the functionality of it thes air actually images we shot just a couple days ago here in seattle that you'll see we made a little video you guys are going to see tomorrow so on location but basically these images it's the same thing the's are really how a clinton see them these air not retouched these air either just a quick action run on them or proofing action just really really simple I don't even have to be involved one of my employees could do this a very quick work flow and so then again tomorrow I'll show you how jed would retouch thes imagesmore for just those couple favorites. So anyway imagine you're the client you came in you guys know I told you seven to ten days later or two weeks later everything's been um uh scheduled ahead of time so we have it all pulled up on the screen so you come into the sales room who offer you something to drink? Your image is up on the screen big in fact, jen will show you how we do our title slides at the temple you just drag and drop the first image would be in that title slide and then I don't say much really in the sales sales you actually don't need to like talk too much really let them kind of make this decision so just welcome welcome them tell me really excited turn the lights down and we press play and I tell you don't worry about picking any of your images right now just enjoy this treat it like a movie you want to see all the images get a feel for what you're choosing between so we're just going to just I'm quite I'm off to the side so mom and dad or mom or whoever is there is just enjoying laughing and talking they might be saying, oh, I really like that one I don't like that one, you know there's just some some banter kind of going back and forth and so assumes the slide show ends. Um, I'll actually go back to all of them, and I'll just explain, I know there are probably more here than you're going to be able to do anything with and it's my job to kind of help narrow down to some of the favorites if and when we had the other sales person, all this is shifted from me in the last two months. This is where she would say vicky's picking out some chosen some of her favorites. Here is the artist suggestion. So here is the artist suggestion, and I'll talk about this once we get out of perspective. This is when she would actually hand this cute little pamphlet of some of the favorites that I chose hand it's the client gave him a few minutes to look it over on, and then basically, at that point, I would just say to the client, you know, you've seen our work on the walls and a couple of these that were my favorites. We've actually spent more time on retouching that could be gallery portrait we need to go through these one by one, he was going to tell me, yes, no, or maybe we're not really getting rid of these. Don't worry like I'm not deleting them we're just hiding them on and also don't make any decisions based on it's cropped if it's black and white if you see a funny strike hair you want removed because those are things on your finished image everything is custom everything is retouched it's going to be like what you see here on the walls so you're building the value into your product what's uh interesting if you think about it if you're one of those people that state till two in the morning making your images look drop dead gorgeous, beautiful before the client ever sees them and I'm not saying not to do it I friends who do this and they've great businesses just get paid up front like make sure you are getting crazy good averages or you're paying a lot of front for that time I'm definitely not saying don't do it, but what I love about the way we do it is we spent very little time it's all automated and we built value into what we offer is a service different than the guy across the street who just gives people a disco or a bunch of proofs because they're getting it there saying, oh my gosh, wow like all my images like were this but they're going to actually look like this like there there's value into what you're doing to your images versus if they just see them and they all look amazing the think they look amazing they're still not gonna order all of them probably and they just think they look that good right? Like they don't have to understand that as the artist part of what they're paying for is that custom retouching and the custom work we're spending on their images so that's kind of the thought process of why we do it that way so now we're going to go through and do the yes no or maybe courtney do you want to be the client? We'll just take this for just a minute so just basically offering do is you're just goingto say yes yes no or maybe and what's great let me point out one thing there's a smiley face neutral face and a sad face eso basically that just means yes no or maybe so I'm literally hitting the keys one two or three and that is putting them into that folder I can always bring them back out so we're not going to go through all of them for sake of discussion, but just so you get the idea so I'll bring them up one by one on the screen so love it yes, no or I look fabulous area yes he looks so different I know it was a great hair day from yes love it yes, yes, that was probably gonna be one of the wall portrait. No. Yes, yes. Okay, so you guys get it? I get it's just that process. So let's say start off and you showed him forty images. Ok, then through that process, it really depends on the client. Some people get it down one time threw down to twenty. Some people get it down to, you know, last some people the hard time and they all were like maybes I'll be honest for you, the maybes I don't even put in the neutral face I actually leave him in the smiley face because it maybe means they're still considering it, but I let them kind of go through the thought process. Yes, no maybe so at that point, let's just let's say, you know, I'm gonna hide just for right now, so we don't have to have all this let's say we've narrowed it down to these images. Um, and there has been discussion during either before the session during the session or my pre selling I've done if you do a consultation, but where I kind of probably have an idea of what this client might be wanting or purchasing and so I have an idea, like if they said, I know I want an album or a book like I actually no, we don't want to narrow down the images as much because I'll need access to those images, but I have no problem with actually hiding them and bringing them back say I still do wanna focus on the wall portrait's first, so you can also again for taking time and loading them adjust for here. I wasn't able to do it, but if, say, a client said, I want a nine opening collage, I want a cloud you're psyching up actually could have in fact, I do one I was just playing with, they have layout, so just dragging and dropping and images two seconds after you've loaded on you can change in black and white once they're in the program, but, you know, taking that that's not what our nine open and look nine openings look like like we do, an image faded in the background, but it would just be an idea for the layout and to understand how images could group together so you could have that actually done ahead of time before they come in. If you wanted the other thing I would suggest is loading your images all in color because in pro select you, actually we can, um, you can actually turn him. Black and white color cpu could even load your own um actions and things in there so I still would run on my perfections but then you could leave him all in color unless again because we kind of do the pre cana consul talking of a client look, I know I want black and white images I would still show them seven color but I would have pre made quite a few of them in black and white so you knew sepia color or black and white or go back to original you can even make copies of them so if you want to keep one is the original one in black and white so if you've gone through that process then what I would just say courtney let's talk about um you know, your main images you're really favorite ones that you want to do for wall portrait's couple key things did I say well, portrait orwell portrait she might just be doing one but I'm going to say well portrait you know may be one for the office or living room we offer a lot of the like organic bloom frames or wild survey frames the bright colors to decorate kids rooms so that's kind of like an add on sale so we just we need we want to talk about your very favorite ones so can you, um tell me which ones some of those are and if you need to weaken bring up some side by side so this will be a time were like she may have it like by looking at the screen can you bring these six up I could bring them all up and then we can bring a couple up side by side if you love the top right okay and the bottom the middle second one from the left love those two and then the top the close up of the two of us so let's go so I can bring him up like that I can let's say after you seem in that view um you said well I know it's going to be well I should let you talk I'm just say yeah let's quit the forty by sixty on the yeah tha which one this bottomland okay so we know where one of our wall portrait's she's thinking forty sixty for sake of discussion let's say corny said I want that really big a bite what that really big eight by ten for above above the couch and you know the living room or something so this is this is the killer on the sale and why pro select will pay for itself in the first time you use it in my opinion and projection so you saw how big that image was initially write when and this is sorry this is actually something that there we go um is a little different function wise okay, so you saw how big it was originally that's how you've been seeing your your mind acclimated to this large image that felt very comfortable to you that's how you've seen images this is why I'm okay with putting images online like, say, with smugmug or whatever, but it should be after any time possible after they've seen these, so because of your initial time doing them there this big on a screen like you don't have this experience where they're really big, so after you've narrowed it down, we figure you order we don't do a smug mug gallery for additional orders or whatever wedding great, but you said a huge eight by ten so I will start at the forty sixty now again, if we have everything with the preferences calibrated, see how the numbers down there that would be actual size forty sixty and it'll tell me whatever size it really is, so when we calibrate that so I would go down till says, so is this that this is made by ten you want above your couch? Yeah, I mean, like an again that is not tricking someone like that is really like that's educating them if I didn't show her that she might have still spent a few hundred dollars a few thousand dollars getting smaller prints thinking I'm gonna have these images like I saw the gallery like that's just how our minds work like I even sometimes like the images claims to say what size is that? And I'm wrong like I don't know just you think I'd know like I've been working with images for a long time but it's just a client just doesn't know and a lot of cases they just don't know and so unless I show you then you're just you don't you don't get it and so now you get it like I didn't it's not a hard sell I'm not having to be pressuring that you just said oh that's two small like I didn't have to say oh why don't you go bigger? Yeah that would actually look really great though in the barbie dream house well yeah so so courtney courtney do you have a picture of the barbie dreamhouse there's that have images that you can actually project on and it will still say the accurate size so now I have an image in your home that you can show the actual size without will look like in your house you don't say you don't have images of their home I mean this could be a snapshot this could be a quick little snap shot that your client sent to you or this is where when you were asking matt yesterday about your in your basement how do you have this hiring process well, you go to the client's home into a pre consult take pictures while you're there and then when you edit the images and you go and have the sale and that could be in their home or if you want to do that your studio you're showing them the images on the wall and actually this functionality of this right now this is actually super excited about this because this is a lot easier to use than the room function in the last person I was using like this is pretty slick so you could do collages on here while groupings pop frames around uh that is what educating the client is in my opinion and I don't know how else you could do it. I mean that so that's why I say pro select could do all of this but even if this is all I use I mean that's all I that's all I really need because you can do all your ordering in here it can export out to success where you know you could do book layouts you khun d'oh so let's just say we did a couple of all portrait that way you got the idea we can crop we can show him in different rooms but then we could do all kinds of clashes if you want it or wall groupings I'm just gonna grab stuff so you kind of get the idea and once they're in there you can move him around um and you could do that with books and albums too so I would go through that process that we talked about the wall portrait then we talked about some of these products and frames and what we actually have done we could we design like a lot of our temple it's like we're gonna offer ah christmas card template for our special or come up with a product that we're gonna offer for our pets and eclectic template for our dog days of summer you can actually load that in here as a dragon drop template so then you're dropping them just so you can actually that pre made to show the clients before they ever even come in so it's a very powerful it's only going to you know as much as you use it you know um we don't always use all those functions but it's capable of an awful lot and this is where I want people to know no they can work smarter not harder because there's a lot of people I talked to you like I'm getting really burn out of my business I'm just working like a dog I you know I'm shooting all the time I am editing all the time and I need this is my big thing I need teo get a space and hire employees so I can have more time I'm getting so big I would actually say we will have a weight like you may want a new space that that actually made it be the direction you need to go but let's look at all the other functionality all the other things in your business first because what if we double your prices and you sell by projection instead of putting them online you might be able to double or triple your sales shoot half or a third of the sessions or shooting make the same money doesn't that sound nice? You know, like so I think a lot of people fall into that that cycle so if your goal is to tio not necessarily just shoot a whole bunch but make more with the people you're working with offering him this type of experience and this is again this goes back to yesterday this is selling experience like this is a really positive great experience for my clients this helps them like this is great so so that would be really the main function ellie we use of it there's all kinds of things you can they've got great tutorials online you can watch him pro select about all the other things that it khun dio but that's really I would sell from the wall prints to the products and the gift prints which I have slides in mikey no, we'll go back to that actually have the priceless and some things I want to to talk about while those those slides are up but in fact let's let's um we think there's anything else I wanted somebody to question actually sorry that's before I leave this when you project is in your studio do you do it above a couch or something to give scale no way actually way just have a room set up that there they are like like if I'm the I'm just a white wall I'm where it's being projected you guys or the couch in the clients and you guys are the sales person or be like our room set up kind of in this triangle so the images are just being projected I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing I actually have a spot where we could probably do I send it found the right piece like some sort of like slower coffee table sort of thing the way our space is set up it wouldn't work to actually put a couch but that wouldn't necessarily a bad thing I don't necessarily think that's like you have to do that I think just actually showing them their image above a couch in a room you know the actual size would would do the job but but that would look nice I think to do something like that um so a couple of things before I jump out of this program um would be I'm just trying to think of a few little we'll talk about the gift prince I know I didn't bring up eight by tens and smaller we'll talk about that keynote um oh uh so as far as kind of the, um under promise over deliver we would tell him it is an eight week turnaround time we've kind of covered ourselves with that just because of all the products that we offer now and they did zain time it could take an approval process I'm not that we won't give them those products earlier one of my mentors I studied under early on tim kelly I remember him saying, um because he early on was like printing his own prints digitally before a lot of people were even like going digital and stuff that he he said client comes in and orders and I like have it done like I could have it done in a day or whatever, but I put it on a shelf and give it a shelf life of like four weeks or whatever because quality takes time, right? Like you go too fast food like it's cheap you want something higher under nicer it's going to take time, so even if you could deliver it really quickly like I don't want to be fast food, I don't wantto quick I would actually have it take longer even if I could get it back sooner so um just something something to think about um with that another thing is when um your clients when you're done when you complete the order we actually I like that we have just it's like a duplicate yellow white copy um in fact when you guys have that was you can show it to me sorry show the audience but uh that we just are riding on and taking notes during the whole process because I can keep engaging with them and talking to them that's why I don't worry about going into success for or using any of the ordering process in the program because as soon as we've like closed the sale I've actually got a sheet right here that's all written up its hand written does this all look okay? I print off I can you can print off a little proof sheet we just print about black and white little small thumbnails and then they get a copy I copy and there's a spot a spot that they sign off on that that was the order and so that's really then after they leave then we enter it all in the success for but I don't want to sit there and be like entering things in the computer in front of them like this just is a lot cleaner smoother to me in the process how we've done it we like that um and so at that point though I would ask how they would like to pay for it I don't say half down us half if you say and trainers to say, how would you like to pay for that? You actually get people paying flood in full on sometimes which is good for cash flow and then again you position yourself as the good guy for the client who says, oh, can I only pay half or can I do a payment plan or because I would take payments in any amount of increments? Um if it meant they weren't going to, like, start cutting things out of, you know their order, and so then I said, oh, yeah, you could do half or well, you know, if you want to just pay, you know, x amount down, we can't process your order till we get half down, but as soon as we have done will process your order, you guys all know that's covering us that covering me that if by chance something would happen that they wouldn't get up like we didn't lose money, so our costs have been covered, what do you do? How do you handle someone who needs it right away like you have rushed charges? Yeah, so basically we know there's a lot of stuff we don't put in writing because I like as a small business owner to just have that choice and that flexibility to do things for people if we want so if it's somebody he's being really difficult to work with and I want to charge a rush fee I can and that's ok? And if it's somebody who's been a longstanding great client, they're getting something for their husband for birthday there's a timeframe and weaken rush it in great. So yes, we charge rush fees and we haven't if it's in the winter when we're slow, I'm not going to charge a rush fee if it's in october, you're probably gonna be paying a rush me, so we would just tell them kind of deal with that as it happens, my other big thing I feel like a lot of people ask and how I would handle it would be the client saying, oh, I need I need to take the images or I need to show my husband or I'm not ready to close the sale there's a couple ways I would look at that one. I have a lot of empathy actually for this people, I'm not a real hard sell ir because I'm pretty indecisive myself in life, so I'm sort of like thiss persons like talking about spending, you know, two, three thousand dollars like I just can't say, oh, you have to decide this right now, I just can't do it, but I could do things to control that sale, aiken still get a deposit? I can s oh, that would be the one thing I would recommend is like I always home right away if you want, go ahead and put half down we've we've taken all this time to narrow it down. We got your favorites if you decide you need to make a change that's okay, just going to pay half down and then that way, if you call me back and say it's a go, we're done let's get georgia process if you have a few changes that are easy, we can do that over the phone. If you have bigger changes, you're going to need to come back in which they don't really want to do it's a convenience thing. So you're getting paid still, um, which will prompt them to not hold off on ordering because you do have half of their money? Thie other thing is the question about putting online we get asked that question every year. We can ask that question more than the year before my clients who I'm shooting out of state or it's just I would rather actually put it online, and I mean, people that will drive down from chicago. Two and half hours to a session to drive back there's no way a sale would be good to tell them to stay with their two year old or their dog and try to do a sale. Plus we wouldn't be able to do our prep work how we prepped the images, so at that point we would put them online, but they tell them I really would recommend you know you're not you said you're not coming back in town for two months to go ahead and I'll do an order with you over the phone and walk you through everything, and I make sure I spend plenty of time with them right then at the session or after the session, looking all the products, talking about stuff more than I do, even with other clients and even recommend they still come down to place the order. So sure if you need to be oh, you know, like this I get that, but I really would recommend you coming back to the studio still to place the order. And so a lot of people do that if they say they need him online and it's not that situation in that wall grandma wants a seam in florida. Whatever anybody who's actually placed their order and needs him online, I'll do what I can do a smug mug gallery but it's only the ordered images and that is a beautiful thing if you start throwing everything out there now you might get grandma ordering an image that wasn't already retouched the cool thing is if it's all there ordered images they're already retouched they look better online already and the family members already narrowed down to their favorites so why are you like re like starting over with this process with them online for graham and now orders that at that image there's no there's no workflow involved for us it was already ordered just send it to the lab done or haven't fulfilled through smuggling so that's how we would handle that same thing uh let's say uh wife she's in there trying to place the order and says I think this is what I want does the half down thing and says but my husband's traveling for two weeks can you put him on line so you can see him where he's travelling or whatever and I would do the same thing I'd say yes we can it is only going to be the images we narrowed down to it's not putting the whole gallery online because that you've already done all the work we've already narrowed it down so it may only be like eight images were putting online not forty um so those would be my main pro selecting so I'm gonna actually jump out of this program unless someone has a specific pro select question can you you said you could put up templates and stuff like that so let's say you're doing a christmas card and you show him the picture in new york template can you export right to print the white house? Um I think you can we don't use that function that would actually I actually think you can senator I think there's different versions you come by that you could do more the workflow or the sails but I wouldn't be comfortable asked by quoting me on all of that I would actually go to pro select site and double check that but I know there's entire work clothes you can do with this so yes, I know you can export files that are workable I don't know about directly to the lab kind of thing I keep saying the term, but I really think that's the best way for me to think about sales is educating the client um and we're talked about it pro select and sales by projection and needing to show itself like that image that sits by the client that's a fifty inch print so we don't sell a lot of fifty inch prince I'm not like I actually lots of thirty forties for, you know, forty sixties large print, but that means I'm actually going to sell more twenty four thirties and you know I'm only showing sixteen twenties I'll probably signed more pretends eleven by fourteen so it's not that because the client saw that size that's actually what they're getting, but it makes them more comfortable with people want toe kind of in the middle, like, feel like they're being maybe like, okay, I didn't get, like, very, like, biggest one, you know? I went with the twenty four thirty, you know? So give him options. We do lots, not lots of options, but that concept of three options, you know? Good, better best. A lot of people mostly will be in that middle range for that reason we talked about smugmug, that's what we actually have, ah, separate website just for client is that they can go to we've given the link to view there to view the images when we have to put him online. You guys have this, but for the viewers online, they did not see it. This is what our art a suggestion looks like and we talked about this is where we've taken the time to pick out the favorites and helped direct the sale, and these will also be the images that the, um the images that we'll have spent a little extra time potentially doing some re touching, too.