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Purpose: Review Putting into Practice

Lesson 31 from: Pricing and Sales for Photographers

Julia Kelleher

Purpose: Review Putting into Practice

Lesson 31 from: Pricing and Sales for Photographers

Julia Kelleher

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Lesson Info

31. Purpose: Review Putting into Practice

Lesson Info

Purpose: Review Putting into Practice

Sale system five piece well, let's get you there let's review pre consultations products, pricing, projection policies and purpose remember all those last three days we've been talking so in depth about all of these and I know it seems overwhelming and like I said, it's not a straight line to this process. It's not a one, two, three, four, five, six if I get this all done in order, it'll be great. It's the circle there's points on the circle for consultations, products, pricing, projection policies, purpose move in on the circle, make a list of tasks that you need to do, prioritized them and then work on one thing at a time. If you keep taking strides, eventually, you'll get to china it's true, keep moving forward. Don't give up in journalism and television news. I was a reporter in a meteorologist you can look me up on youtube. It's actually quite funny. My last name used to be rad lik r a d, l, c, k and that's before I was married that's when I was in tv. But if you youtube my name j...

ulia rad, like, you'll see one of my weather cast, so you'll get to see me doing the weather, which is kind of funny, uh and I was also reporter and this is how my day wass every day and when I was a reporter we would come in and we had a nine o'clock news meeting so this is where we all gathered around a table on decided what we were going to cover for the day for the news for the five and six o'clock news that night okay, so each reporter was assigned a story this meeting dragged on forever. It was probably ten, ten thirty before I got out of it between ten thirty and five pm so what is that? Six and a half hours I had to contact all sources for the story maken appointment with them that morning go interview them, get b roll I'll call down my video and pick my sound bites, write the story handed off to my editor and have it all done by four thirty so I could get out the door to the live location and be at the live shot by five. Those first phone calls were always the most challenging and nerve gut wrenching parts of the day because if you were doing a controversial story where no one wanted to talk to you and they would hang up on your face no, I'm not gonna talk about this you had to take whatever path you could possibly take to find someone who would talk to you about this issue and there was no, no, you couldn't take no for an answer. You had to find a route somewhere, because if you have a black hole in your story of five o'clock news, you were fired. You screwed your producer, he screwed your editor, you screwed everybody in the newsroom if you didn't have that story done so you can imagine the deadline pressure to find a result quickly no matter what the path took, what that taught me was that perseverance pays off if you keep putting one foot in front of the other and don't say no and always try to circumvent it always try to find a solution to your problem. You're going to find a solution that may not be the best one, but you'll find one. There were times when I had stories that were just junk I mean one interview, barely any b roll we were struggling to tell the story, but we got it on the air. Do you think I'm saying perseverance pays off? And so when you are looking at your circle of all these six piece, when you put those tacks on the piece of paper it's going to seem overwhelming, you're going like, oh my gosh, where do I start one of the time and there's no there's, no deadline, you don't have to do this by five o'clock okay, just keep plodding forward and it doesn't matter how fast to go just keep moving around your circle and you'll start to feel better about yourself start like camping done I'm getting this down and building my business I'm growing and then you'll start to see success and results and then I'll really motivate you to keep going up the spiral keep going up keep going up until you finally hit yes, this is what it's all about and all you gotta do is worry about marketing and getting clients through the door. Every client will go through the same process you will be able to forecast your revenue in your income when we talked about that in the very beginning you khun give yourself a steady paycheck steady paycheck every month you'll be able to plan your other budgets marking employees equipment, budget things like that for the entire year you can forecast your growth, you can show profitability your biggest job will be just to get clients through the door you will not worry about how much they're going to spend your level of customer service will go up your word of mouth referrals will go up, your client return rate will increase, your anxiety will go down and you will have happy customers sounds nice doesn't it sounds really nice you could do it purpose why do you do what you do? You know what? Why why do you get out of bed in the morning? Wash anyone care that you get out of bed in the morning? Why should your clients care that you do your job? What is your cause? Why does your business exist? Those are the purpose questions that you should ask yourself okay, the next thing I'm going to get into is a lot about purpose and if you want to go more on this, a lot of what I'm going to say is on par with what simon cynic said in his two thousand nine ted talks so I want to make sure I give him full credit for this great cos they think the act and they communicate differently they really do a simon used the analogy of apple, martin luther king and the wright brothers and he said all these people cos I think in a different way they think they're acting to communicate differently and he coined a term called the golden circle and it's a brilliant, very simple concept and I was so in love with it I had to tell you guys the same thing every company knows what they do portrait photography everybody knows how they do it with the d a hundred in this type of look with this kind of problem with this kind of color uh with this kind of training etcetera, etcetera very few companies know why they do what they do okay, most businesses start their communication efforts and their actions and the way they think by saying we produce this great product, this is how we do it. You want to buy one thing about that way, produce this great product. This is how we do it with this innovative, beautiful technology. Do you want to buy one? Great businesses go the other direction? So most businesses like, you know, if apple was most businesses, it would go well, we make great computers, we have simple design, innovative technology and their beautiful do you want to buy one? But apple does not do that. How did they do that? They do it like, yeah, we challenge the status quo, we advanced human thought we dare to think different. We do. That was simple design, innovative technology and beautiful technique, and we happen to make great computers. Do you wanna buy one? What a difference? What a difference in that message! And like I said, this is simon's message, so I can't take credit for this at all. I don't expect to, and I don't want to. I know I strongly suggest that you go to his website and watch his little ted talks it's, an eighteen minute speech that he gives and it's brilliant, really. But I want to educate and when something resonates with me like this I want to scream it to the world and this really did resonate with me okay when you start from your why and move outwards people don't buy what you do they buy why you do it apple is a classic example okay? And then he also gave the analogy of the wright brothers okay the wright brothers were the first ones to fly power man flight right in north carolina somewhere kitty hawk, north carolina well, at the time they were just a couple of bicycle shop owners who figured out how to fly manpower flight they had no money they used to spare bicycle parts to fix things. Why did they managed to do it? And the guy who had all this funding the new york times following him he didn't do it his why was for profit and and you want to be famous? Ok, I forget the name simon says I forget his name but anyway the wright brothers think and act differently their purpose was to free men they believed in the in the glory of flight and the power it could have for the world to change the way we we act the way we travel the way we see each other their purpose was so deep and the people who work for them had no education they had no training, nothing and all the people for the other guy were the best of the best they had the highest degrees they were the best minds of the world and they could not do powered flight with all that money before the wright brothers why is that the wright brothers think and act and communicate differently than anybody else they speak from there why this other guy just wanted the money into prince simon says to prove that once the day the wright brothers figured out human powered flight and became public he quit if he was truly speaking from his purpose he would have said how can I make it better how can I improve upon what you've done let's take this money and make it even better but he didn't he quit so that should tell you a little bit about how purpose what you do simply proves what you believe okay it really does so I want you to step back and look at your big picture your business why you get out of bed in the morning and really dig deep down and think and go why don't I do what I do? Why do I love this so much? Why did I quit my corporate cage to be a starting photographer because I want to relish the feeling of the first day you become a parent and you have a new reason toe live the rest of your life and your purpose is defined being a parent and so other parents in the world who believe that are going to buy what I believe they're going to buy my product pretty consulates product pricing projection and policies can all be integrated into your perp us so think about when you're developing these peas in your studio how your purpose can be communicated with in all of them and how you khun do a better job at pre concert products pricing production policies by considering your purpose as you designed these elements these peace in your studio I think you guys know I'm no longer talking about vegetables I'm talking about things that could really make your business explode okay so the big picture do you want higher averages? Are you client short? Are you ever worked? Do you want the niche? What does your ideal business look like your dream business what does it look like? So he has a dream in her head I know we've talked about it what does that business believe? Close your eyes all of you even you at home close your eyes and ask yourself what does my business believe? And since you're artists you have it a little bit easier because really what your business believes is what you believe so picture your ideal business in your head and ask yourself what you believe about that thing that you do okay? How will you communicate that? How will you communicate those beliefs okay, in a way, that draws air client in and helps them see that and, you know, this is just dawned on me, susan, that guy who was asking about commercial work, apple is a great example for him. Apple believes in innovative technology, thinking different and advancing human thought. What does he believe and how can his work prove that? So I don't think that even when you're you're a photographer in an industry that's not necessarily emotional. I mean, how emotional compete computers b really a computer's inanimate object? It doesn't have any emotion, but apple sells it with this belief and emotion doesn't have to be a belief, or maybe a belief doesn't have to be on an emotion. It can be all kinds of things. Okay, what are your strength? What do you do best? What do your weaknesses and can you live with those weaknesses? Or should you change them? Should you should you work hard to overcome those we can you know what your weaknesses are? All four of you know what your weaknesses are? Can you live with them? Or do you really want to change them? And if you really want to change them, you're gonna have to plod one foot in front of the other and just keep going and do it. And persevere. And if you fall down, just get up, fall down, get up! You can do it. Okay, what will kill your business if you don't fix it? Sometimes there are weaknesses that are so great that if you don't fix it right now, you're going down the drain. What will soar your business? If only you applied yourself and you have to make that decision to want to apply yourself, and you have to tell george to go take a permanent vacation, okay?

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Complete Vendor Marketing Bundle
Julia's Studio Resource List

Free Downloads

6Ps of Selling - Get Started Kit

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

This was the first class I have ever purchased from CreativeLive in the 6 months I've had it and watched as I could. With a toddler and six yr old on top of a hubby serving overseas I was attempting to watch ten minutes of this when my toddler just wasn't allowing me to watch haha. After just a few minutes I had already told myself if that had happened it would be okay because I was won over already. I knew I not only needed to buy this because there was no other way I could watch it, but it was something I knew would be the BEST investment EVER! Pricing & Sales has been something even my amazing photography group has kept somewhat hush hush and I was dreading the $150-200 for a course in person not knowing if it'd have everything I needed and let's face it, I do this part-time and my husband is military so we didn't have much to throw in the way of me learning more since I'm obviously already upside down with my 'business' haha. This has been so incredibly worth it and if there were ever a course I would buy and recommend to anyone ever again it would be this one. You are so amazingly smart and talented Julia and if CreativeLive had not done this webinar I would have never learned about you this way and learned such valuable information that I cannot wait to implement in my business. Also for any moms wondering, it's worth the cost not just to pause and continue with munchkins throughout the day but it is the best thing you can buy that has so many different tips and ideas to help save your business from becoming a hobby again which mine was about to haha. Thank you so much again for this!!!

a Creativelive Student
 

Okay, I've finally watched this course all the way through and can review it. I wasn't able to watch the live broadcast but the topic was one that I really wanted to learn more about so I decided to purchase it without watching. I will be watching it again as there are great nuggets of information. Julia presents some wonderful insights about the art and psychology of pricing, how to deal with difficult clients and even a bit of in person sales. I liked Julia's take on how she packages her products so that she can reach and beat her sales goal. Those were all great tips! For the most part I liked this course but I wish a few things had been done differently. Because I am not a newborn photographer, and this wasn't a newborn class, it wasn't useful to me to see a newborn shoot - even though I know the point of that was to show how Julia plants the seed of the sale. But I feel that time could have been better spent demonstrating a pre-session consultation and what to discuss with clients, how to overcome objections, etc. The pre-session consultation is a big part of the pricing and sales process but I felt like it was glossed over. Julia talked a bit about how she has clients fill out a form on her website after the consultation to reinforce what she's explained to them. These are all things I would have liked more in-depth information on because they are crucial to the sales process. The in person sales session also went pretty fast - the couple was super quiet so I guess that made things much easier. The materials that came with the course have a lot more to do with marketing your studio through displays and gift certificates. They are beautiful templates - but again, I purchased this class to learn sales and pricing and would have really hoped to see materials related to the sales or pricing process - her client questionnaire, responses to common objections, her list of studio policies as it relates to sales, usage of images, etc. Also, one of the items in the bundle requires signing up for her email list. I don't mind - I just don't expect to do that if I bought a course that should have those materials included. That's my take on the good an the bad - just my opinion.

Jennifer Koskinen
 

Seriously? Where to start! I stumbled upon this, my first CreativeLIVE course, and ended up purchasing it I loved it so much and know it will provide not only great tips as I restructure some of my own business, but also endless inspiration for taking things to the next level. Gratitude ABOUNDS for Julia's candor, adorable personality, humility and willingness to share the "tough" lessons, as well as her unbridled passion and respect for the business of photography... On a more personal note, she introduced me to the concept of separating our inner critic from ourselves and calling him "George." Pure brilliance. Hands down THE best life skills tool I've ever heard in a photography workshop!! THANK YOU, Julia and CreativeLive!!

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