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Day 9: Styling & Wardrobe

Today's challenge is about wardrobe and education. This is one of the most important challenges that you can have in the studio. The more effort you put into educating your client and having them bring in the best wardrobe for them, the more committed they are to their shoot and the better they come prepared. So you take better photographs and they simply buy more. It's that easy. What I need you to know, is how to educate them to do this. So I'm going to give you lots of different cool ideas on how you can do this, the best possible way, with images, with a PDF, email, and lots of visual, visual stimulus. So that they see it, they want to go shopping, and they want to turn up for your shoot committed, excited, and ready to take amazing photographs. After 23 years of being a portrait photographer, and working in a portrait studio, I know one thing to be true, and that is the more educated your clients are, the more excited they get, and the more committed they are to turning up in your...

studio. So today we are going to talk about the style PDF. I really need you to educate your client on how much it cost, what's going to happen, and what they need to bring to your shoot. And let's break that down and make this the most enticing and incredible part of your marketing and your service. Okay, so today I'm going to do some designs for you. I'm going to talk about the PDF. I'm going to talk about the language we use around it. And I'm going to talk about how you can educate your clients to bring in the right clothes. So that they go and borrow, they lease, buy, they borrow friends or they come in with bought clothes, especially for your shoot. Because you know that the more effort they're gonna put in to being photographed, the more effort they are gonna put in to both turning up and buying their photographs. Now, this applies across the board to even family portraiture. It's not just about glamour or boudoir. So a lot of boudoir photographers are coaching their clients in bringing in lingerie, or you might just be telling people to bring in lingerie. Trust me this is something we really need to focus on, in terms of getting better result in our shoots. And getting a better show up rate for our studio. If you are giving away vouchers, giving away free shoots, or selling cheap shoots, there is a chance that you're going to have a no show up rate. And we want to stop that from happening. So let's talk about it. The pre-consultation is one of the most important things you can do. I now spend more time doing pre-consultations than I do in any part of my business, because I've realized the more effort I put into this part of my business the better it is for everybody all around. So now, I want you to shift your service to making your pre-consultation one of the most important things that you can do. Remember, nobody should come into your studio blind. Everybody should know exactly what's gonna happen, how much it's gonna cost, and exactly what they're gonna wear and bring. But you've gotta do it in a way that everybody is really excited about doing that. So let's have a look. If they book a shoot with you on email, you need to get them on the phone straightaway. Really important that you connect with them personally. Too many photographers are telling me that they're getting people that are turning out for shoots, and they're either not prepared, or they've done something wrong. They've been drinking, they've brought a friend who's not educated. And I always ask the same question, "Did you talk to them on the phone?" Rule number one, here it is, did you talk to them on the phone? Once you've spoken to them on the phone, you have two choices. You can either do the consultation via the phone, and then send them a PDF on email, so that they can read it and they could even open the PDF and read it while they're talking on the phone. And you can talk them through this PDF. This applies to your initial PDF, which is a contact point on this is what happens in my shoot, to entice them in. And then a second PDF, this is how you prepare for your shoot. No, I would not create one full PDF with all of that information on it. People can't retain that sort of information, you know that. And they're going to get bored and stop reading it. You can either put this in a design PDF, like the one that I've been teaching you how to create, that advertises your business and price list. Or you can create a PDF just for getting ready. And you can also do this on video. So let's do a couple of designs together. I'm gonna take you to the computer now, and I'm gonna show you a couple of really cool designs that I'm putting together to educate my clients, so that you can do the same. So now let's talk about all the very cool ideas that we could possibly create around styling a wardrobe. So I gave it a lot of thought about how I could possibly excite you into enticing your clients to not only come in, but to really commit to their shoot. Let's have a look at the PDF that I am currently using. This is the base of my PDF without words. I really want you to create your own words around your shoot, so I don't wanna feed you words. But what I do wanna show you is how I've started to build my PDF. My PDF is as descriptive as it can be with images. I wanna show before and afters, and I wanna show the process. I wanna show how fun it is, and that it's a pamper session. But I also just really want it to look magazine and clean. So I don't want to overpower it with words. So when you do your advertising PDF, which is the first point of contact that you have with your client when they book their shoot all or call your studio. This is vital, I need you to make this as stylish as you can. I did this mock-up on Photoshop. It was very quick, and it was very easy. You can make it as styly as you can, just put lots of effort into simplicity. It's crazy how people add so many design frills and things, and you really just wanna go back to that magazine style. Just think about what you would like to see in clean magazine beauty style images. This is what I want my PDF to be. But I don't want my PDF to be overloaded with information. So right here, at the end, it says photo shoot with Sue Bryce, $3,000, includes a photo shoot location, hair and makeup, and a 20 image folio box with a 16X24 wall portrait. So 11X14 folio box with individual mounted 7X10. That is my entire package right now, plus text. So what I wanna do is keep that PDF really basic. I want it to be beautiful. I want it to communicate. The next thing I need to do is get these girls on the phone. So if this was an email inquiry, for a shoot, I would send out this PDF. Then, when they contact me for their shoot, or I make a follow-up phone call, the first thing I'm going to do is prepare them with what to do, what to wear, what to bring, and when I'm gonna photograph them. I feel like if you overload people at this stage with what to wear, what to bring, what to do, they get away from getting really excited just about the shoot. So this PDF it's really just about enticing them, that they wanna do it. This is something they've always wanted to do. And now they have this incredible gift voucher, or whatever, they've bought the shoot, or they saw you at a show and all of a sudden it's like wow. I've always wanted to do this, and I'm really excited about doing this, now I get the opportunity. Okay, keeping that PDF simple. The first thing we need to do is then design something that is, okay, really visually beautiful, just like your price list PDF. But it's all focused on what to wear, what to bring, and everything about your shoot. This is where you're giving them lots more information, but I want you to do it in a really cool tech-less style. I went to shutterstock.com and I found these Polaroids here. So you can purchase something like this for $25, $35, and you can create really neat little PDFs with your images inside them, drop them into Photoshop. What I did was I created a film version, which was this. So I created a film boarder, and I even wrote I think it was Kodak on the side or something along there. The tape, I actually got real pieces of tape and photographed it. So it would look like a mock-up. You know you can create really interesting designs like this. And have a look at this girl, this girl's shoot was a lingerie shoot. She had five outfits, and those are all five outfits right there. She had five sets of lingerie. So you know I don't shoot boudoir, but it's just more of a fashion style of shooting lingerie. Now, if my client is after a boudoir shoot, I can be more specific to the genre. So I'm going to talk about that soon. Let's go back to just creating something beautiful, and have a look at all these cool ideas. I went to Eye Stock Photo. So Shutterstock and Eye Stock Photo have amazing amounts of stock images that you can use for design. I typed in wardrobe and I got hundreds of images about wardrobe. I absolutely loved this little selection here. And there were multiple images like this that we can use. We can make it cutesy, artsy, girly, pink. We can make it sort of more fashion, more generic. But what we have to do is just tell the girls, on not only what to bring, but look how exciting it is. "You get to shop. You get to rent something, borrow from your girlfriends." But we really need to communicate to them two things. The more effort that they put into what they're gonna wear, and what they're gonna bring, the better their photographs are gonna be, that is the first one. So I thought of lots of different ways to say that and communicate this with language. The second one is is we know that if they are committed to bringing clothes. They're committed to their shoot, and then they're gonna turn up, and then they're gonna spend more money. So now I need you to create a PDF. So not only am I going to ride you about creating your advertising PDF. I'm now going to get you to create a PDF, or a video, or just a downloadable Word document, or an issue magazine online that's on your website, called What to Wear, What to Bring. Or let's look at all the ways you can say that. Okay, I went to Shutterstock and I found these frames. I dropped them onto one canvas, and I created something a little bit more contemporary then say this girly sort of design here. So I gave you lots of options. I also found film, which is funky. I found girly, I found frames and I found this. I thought this was great. This was actually just an old paper, and you can drop images on them and make them more faded. So if your style is a little bit more sort of indie, or a little bit more outdoors, this would be beautiful. You can put in a whole sort of behind-the-scenes here, but focus it on clothing. So just the same as you would put it in the advertising PDF, but just say, "Let's talk about what you'd like to wear." And you can offer dresses, okay. So as you know, I have started to collect dresses. And I want to be able to show people what I have in stock. But I do not wanna clone people, so I wanna say to them, "I have these beautiful dresses. Please bring your own bodice, your own top, your own corset. Match, mix and match anything that I've got. Call me now for a consultation, so we can talk about what you're going to wear and how you're going to be photographed." If you can get these people on the phone, now, by enticing them with images like this, and showing them all of their beautiful options, then you can talk to them. You can sell yourself, and you can easily, easily entice them into coming into your studio for a shoot. This here is a template that I designed, and this template is my magazine template. I basically got two eight by ten white canvases. So it's eight inches high, 20 inches wide. I put a black line down the center, a shade on one side and a highlight on the other. It's a layered PSD, and basically I can just drop an image, and that's how I create that magazine look. You do not need to create a magazine look, at all, when you make a PDF. You can just make them plain, exactly as they are. I don't think you need to go to the effort. That was just my personal choice. If that's something you wanna do, that's really, really cool. So here's a really cool idea to make this work. I took a before shot of a girl, and then I took three afters. And I shot this specifically for wardrobe. So I wanted to show people that I need you to bring in colors, that try and stay away from patterns. I need you to bring in different neck lines. I need you to bring in more than just three black outfits. So I really wanted to say this without so many words, and this is the biggest problem I think we're getting. We're sending out PDFs and advertising to our clients that are just so filled with words and you know people would rather look at images and watch videos. So I've created this really cool little video, which I'm going to show you now, and it's about all the outfits that this girl brought in. And I want it just to say really something really simple, like this, "However you would like to be photographed, this is your dream shoot. We would love to help you choose amazing outfits, so that you look and feel gorgeous. And that your shoot is everything that you always dreamed it would be." Keep it really simple, and then get them on the phone. So the next one is, "Call Sue today for a consultation on your wardrobe." Make them feel important. Make them feel like they're getting styled. Make them feel like what they're gonna wear is so important, because their shoot is so important, that they're so excited to actually make that appointment with you. This little video is about Jen dancing back and forth in all of her little outfits. And we just wanted to sort of just show people that you can make all this effort, and you can bring in ten outfits and the more choice that you make, and the more outfits that you bring to your shoot, the more choices we have to photograph you better. But trying to communicate that without too many words is the most important part. And I'm using too many words to explain that to you. But have a look at this. So this little video here is so cute. I asked Jen to bring in ten outfits. I didn't ask, I didn't give her much guidance. I just said, "I want ten cute outfits that are really about you. As you can see, I got her to dance back and forth. And this little video is just about her having a good time. And I can edit this together as just a little screen grab. I can put it as a link at the bottom of my PDF. I can put this in an issue magazine, and embed the video on my website. And I can put it on YouTube and Vimeo. I can put my logo on it, my name. I can put tag words: glamour photography, styling wardrobe, what would you like to wear, dream photo shoot. I can put a million different tag words with this. I can voice over it, and say, "This is what I want you to do. This is what I want you to wear. This is what I want you to bring in with you. This is your dream day." I mean think of all the ways that you can really get excited about educating people to bring in the right outfits. This gives you another opportunity to do another thing. This gives you the opportunity to talk to your client about the shoot again. I feel like every time a client gets on the phone, I not only get an opportunity to excite them and educate them about their shoot, I get an opportunity to talk to them about cost and their finished product. And the more that I reiterate to them that their finished product is gonna be so gorgeous because they've gone to the effort to buy that tulle skirt or buy that corset, and mix and match with what I've got. I feel like I'm already talking to them like a client that is both qualified and knows exactly what they're going to buy and they're excited. And they're committed to me, and they've also bonded with me, which I think is really important. So that little video there, took us about half an hour to shoot. She danced back and forth, stayed in the same spot, we switched out her outfits. And this here was done and edited by Sean Lay-far-so. I got this professionally edited. That's why it's got that really neat little style to it, why it looks a little bit funkier than just plain video. But you could do this so easily, and you could do this in the coolest way. You could also do this as stills. You could create a wardrobe catalog. I've actually recently saw a website of a boudoir slash glamour photographer that had created a catalog of images, not from commercial shoots, because you can't actually use commercial shoots on your website. But she's either photographed very well, or she has got stock images of types of lingerie and outfits. And she's done it to get it as a, this is what you need to bring catalog. I tried to find it again to link to it, to show you, but I couldn't unfortunately. I must have just been surfing, or somebody sent it to me. So there are multiple ideas that you can make, but what I want you to do is put some creative thought into it. You can also show a catalog of your best images, and the best images that you have with, you know, choose a white top, choose a black top, think tones, think neck lines. But really all I want to achieve with this is to get them to call you. Now, let's make the time. I'm gonna go back. Let's make the time to not only entice your clients, but let's make the time to make those consultations happen. Trust me, it's going to be a lot of work when you first start, and you're going to think, oh, the effort to get on the phone and talk for ten minutes about what to wear. But if I was looking at images like this, in a before and after shot, I would much rather create imagery that I know people are going to wanna call me over. I would much rather, sorry, take the time to talk to that person then let them come into the studio half prepared and spend a fourth of the amount. Okay, so that little video. I went back to Shutterstock and I found this amazing parchment paper. So this is just a Shutterstock buy. I think it was $24.95. I purchased it for design, and I thought I would give you some really cool ideas on how I design something like this. I wanted it to be the cover of a PDF that said haute couture. Haute couture is obviously designer clothing, and I wanted it to be less about imagery and more about design. I got a little video screen grab of how I made this. So I'm going to show it to you now. Basically, I want you to create a PDF that is for, this is the experience and this is how much. And then I want you to create a PDF for what to wear, what to bring, and everything about your shoot. So this was my final design. I used the parchment paper. I used an image of an old stock photo of a mannequin that said haute couture, and then I used the image of Tiffany in the background. Which was just a beautiful image of a girl. This was the front page of my PDF. So this is how I did it. I opened Photoshop, and here I had already dragged. Let's have a look, I've got my distressed parchment. And I chose the one that I want. So I cropped it first, leaving that floral edge, cause I liked it. This was my little stock image. I took it up, but I didn't take it all the way to the edge. And when I drop the opacity to about 24%, you know, it just was imprinted in there nicely. The image of Tiff I dropped into the center. If you look at the layers on the right and you turn that on and off, and then you can also change the opacity, of course, of any layer. When I saw that white border I just wanted to take it off her forehead. So I got my erasing tool at about 10% flow and I just erased along that border along the top of her head. So now you can see the couture is coming right over her mouth and face, and I didn't want it to look like a tattoo on her face. So I went to my erase tool and I just took that back a little bit. I played around also with dropping the opacity down, but I actually found if I dropped this down and then erased back that line through her eyes. When I do designs like this I don't ever put anything through the eyes. So I'm layering, I've got three layers, a base layer and two layers on top, but I want to leave that border cause I want it to look designy and funky. And I'm right about there now. So I just erased it off her eyes and then lightly off her chin, but you can still see it says haute couture. And that it's pretty funky and it gives the idea that we're talking about clothes. And that this is the new cover for the new clothing PDF. So another idea was if I put a stain over the top then I could make it look entirely different, and I could also just take away from it being an image and make it more of a cover. So I did a new layer, as you can see, and then I accept the new layer. And I went edit, fill, and I filled it with this color here. So I tried a few different colors. The first one I went to, I chose color, and I instantly went to a hot pink. I wanted to take it up to a strong pink. Of course, it goes to a hundred percent opacity. You go to your layers and then we drop it down. And I found the pink was a little bit too strong. So from here I played around with the pink, but I ended up being more attracted to it being gold. At this stage when you put a layer over there, like that, you can go to your actions. You can desaturate, you can take your opacity right down. You can pretty much do anything to that top layer, including removing it. I also, when you're happy you can flatten it. So I still felt that it was a little bit too pink, and wanted to go towards the golds. So I then tried the gold layer. So that's the cool thing about design, is you get to play around and have fun and that you can try something different. So what I did next was I opened this here, I took the pink off, and I tried again. I went to Alien Skin first. So Alien Skin is my favorite editing software. I do have a discount code for Alien Skin, gotta record a new video for them. The reason I like Alien Skin so much is it's just gonna give me multiple film genres. It's gonna give me multiple looking film genres and I get the choice to choose a color that I like and pick a color that I like. So instead of applying a layer, I went through and straightaway I really liked this. So I quite like this, I went straight for here, too cold, too green. The dust and scratches didn't really work. I'm going down color photo, mmm, I love the fading, straightaway color photo fading. That to me is beautiful, it ties in, it's more image based. So there it is, my beautiful cover. I feel like it's my work. I feel like it says haute couture. I feel like people are gonna really like it and be attracted to it as the cover of a PDF. And I feel like it's more design-based, then image-based. So just like that I applied that, and I'm really happy. So there it was, my gold time. Drop down the opacity until you're happy, and when you're happy you can flatten the image. And this is now my cover. So it's my cover to my new wardrobe PDF, which is going to both educate my clients. What I had just applied then was a red filter, totally red action called Boutwell Magic Glasses. And if you watch what it's gonna do, is pop all of my darks up, including the word haute couture, which is just sitting over the top. And it's very subtle, but I like it. I like it a lot. Now at this stage I needed to create, or drop this image, into my magazine design, because I want my magazine design to look and match my other PDFs. So this is where I wanna be. So straightaway I went to, I opened my magazine template. My magazine template is all about, let's have a look, I'll open this for you, it's all about having that line down the center, with that little shadow and that little highlight. Okay, open that, to just kind of put my gold on before I finish that. So I chose an orange-gold, new layer just like I did with the pink. I wasn't happy with the pink, and took it to yellow and then dropped it back. Now the reason I did this is cause I want it to be faded, and I want to take it away from being a photograph, and take it into being a cover. So at this stage, was a little bit too faded, I'm just gonna drop it back. Now I'm desaturating the yellow. Desaturation is an action for me. The cool thing about design, of course, is that you can play with it for hours, and it's exciting. The bad thing about design is you can play with it for hours. You know when it's good enough, you've gotta stop. I'm just gonna open my template. So there it is, my template, which is eight inches wide on either side. So it's 16 wide by ten inches high, got my black line down the center, it's layered, and all I have to do is pull it down, grab the image and drop it on. Now something that's really important, as you well know, unless you resize your images, you need to drag and drop. I'm very guilty of doing this. Instead of resizing, flatten it down, the for moving tool, pick it up, drop it on. Now when you move your image on, if you have to resize it, and I need to resize it, cause I do not want that center line going down through her eye. Make sure you drop your layer below the other three layers, which is what gives the black line. And I'm just gonna turn off that guide so that you can see. We've got a shadow on one side, a highlight on the other. I'm not too worried about it cutting into her face, cause it's more of a design image, but I do want to drop it down. So make sure you keep your aspect ratio by hitting that chain at the top, resized, move there, keep my aspect ratio. I absolutely love my magazine look. I love my new cover, it's beautiful. It's more image-based, it's more, sorry, design-based than image-based. That's my template, turned on and off, too easy, just like that. So easy to learn this, and you never have to pay a designer again. And you can see that you can create these in a matter of minutes, and it's just so easy to create something. Now I can write words on it. I can use it as a cover. I can use it as a template. And when I started to think about the words that I could write on here, the first thing I wrote was what to wear and what to bring, what to wear and what to bring. And then I started to think about that language. I started to think, what would I wanna see if I was a female, really enticed by my brand. And I thought to myself, would I really want to see what to wear and what to bring? I'm choosing the font here. One of the biggest mistakes we make is, as designers, particularly when we're not proper designers, cause I know I'm not a proper designer, and when I first started was I would choose very unprofessional looking fonts. Please be careful with the fonts that you choose. Make sure that they are quite stylish, and again, simplicity is the key. Don't just choose a curly font. Too often we look like we've designed it on Word or that we're 14-year-olds, and we don't want it to look like that. Okay, so I started to add words, what to wear, what to bring, to my beautiful magazine shot. And then I suddenly thought, no, hang on, let's change it. How about this? Sp make this a bit bigger. Okay. Oh, there's my spelling mistakes. I'm a bit of a fast typer. How do you want to be photographed? Wouldn't you rather have somebody ask you, "How do you want to be photographed?" Then what to wear, what to bring. "How do you dream of being photographed?" I think if there was one question you could ask any of your clients, it would be that. "How do you dream of being photographed?" I think if they can answer that question, and they always can, then you can not only service your client in exactly the way that they want you to, you can work towards taking images that you know that they dream of having, that you really wanna buy. And when a 50-year-old client says to me, "I wanna wear one of your dresses." I will let her wear a dress. And when a 25-year-old says, "I wanna look like a Victoria Secret model." Then that's my goal, but my goal is to give them what they want. And when I started to put words on this, I realized how important it was. How do you want to be photographed? Call Sue now for a wardrobe consultation, so that your shoot is everything you dreamed of. How do you want to be photographed? Call Sue now for a consultation, a wardrobe consultation and styling, so that your shoot is everything that you dreamed of. Let us help you with clothes. Let us help you pick clothes, shop for clothes. What is the genre that you're photographing? If it's a Glam the Dress, she not only needs to bring all of her accessories from her wedding outfit, she needs to bring more. This image here of Casey, it was so beautiful. That wasn't even her veil. That was a test veil that she had. And that beautiful fascinator, that wasn't part of her wedding outfit either. That wedding dress is absolutely gorgeous, but these little add-ons were things that she had and bought, because I talked to her about glamming her dress. People will make the effort to buy these accessories and get them, that's a $4 piece of tulle, and that's a fascinator she's had for a while. And both of them contributed to her having very amazing, 20 amazing shots. Now remember Dawn, Dawn was the beautiful video that I shot, to show I am Dawn. Now I am Dawn was about the journey of creating a one minute video or a one to two minute showreel video to advertise your business. What if we were to shoot a video that was focused around the clothing to wear? Because stories are incredible, and they communicate very, very well. Remember the less words, the better. The more images, the better. What I love about Dawn is her story, because her story is absolutely incredible. You see, she's lost 90 pounds to have this shoot. And she told me that she saw this dress, and she bought it without trying it on. And she said to me at the time, "I did not care whether that dress fitted me or not, I just bought it, cause I dream of wearing something like that." Isn't that such a girl thing to do? So then she took it home, she tried it on, and of course it fitted her, and it ended up being the thing she wore for her shoot, her dream dress. Now that story in itself is enough to make anybody want to bring, buy, create something like that, that is so beautiful. So this is Dawn's little video, and the spin that we put on Dawn's video was, I am Dawn. I'm a wife I am a mother. Imagine if we were to include that story about the dress. So I'm going to play this for you so that you can remember. My names is Dawn. I'm 37 years old. I am a wife. I am a mother. I am a business owner. I am a woman. I have not had my portrait taken since I was 17 years old. I feel more beautiful today than I ever have in my entire life. And today I want to celebrate it by having my portrait taken. I am Dawn. I am a wife. I am a mother. And I am a goddess. (inspirational music) So as you well know, I photographed Dawn for that before and after, for that little wee advert for my business. I never thought about the dress at the time, or even how powerful the story was around that dress. But I just, it just occurred to me that if somebody was to receive a PDF of Dawn's shoot and they were then to see how incredible that was, that little story was, to choose a dress that would mean that much to you. Then I can honestly say that that would be one of the most powerful ways to create excitement, enticement, etc. with your client base. So what it comes down to is this, it's all about the pre-consultation. Now, I've showed you how to create an amazing, enticing PDF that tells everybody what your price list is and your experience. So that everybody can see visually what you're about. If you took the workshop Showreels, then you would've already created a visual showreel for your business. So that you can really show people behind-the-scenes. Remember if you're just starting out, chances are you're a photographer who has photography friends. So get your friends over and get them to shoot behind-the-scenes for you, and then you go and do the same for them. Do it for each other, to use in your advertising. Show people a fun, gorgeous behind-the-scenes shoot, and show them how amazing it is to be part of your process. Once you have enticed them that far, the next thing you need to do is show them what your session looks like, what to wear, what to bring. Try and do this the most creative way that you can. But more importantly, get them on the phone. If I look at the last 23 years of being a portrait photographer. One of the most successful times in my career, when I look back, and isn't it funny how you look back through your business career and you remember things you did in business that were incredibly successful. We did live consultations. So every Wednesday we would book out four consultations an hour, and I could do up to 25 consultations in a day. And we would invite those people to come into the studio, have a look at our photographs, and then have a consultation with us. Now, this was right about when the internet was starting to take over, and the personal computer was the king. So nowadays, people are not interested in driving to your studio to sit for 15 minutes, so that you can tell them about what you're doing. You need to communicate that out to them. So I just wanna talk to you about the words that I used to use in that consultation, because I had an exceptional booking hit rate. So if my clients made it in for the consultation, I had a 100% book rate, booking rate, once I got them in there. And we used to always jokingly say that the consultation room, which was also our sales room, was on the couch with Sue, which is where In Bed with Sue came from. So I would bring them into the studio, and straightaway I would do the, "Hi Kate, come on in. This is our studio. Let me show you some beautiful images. I would show them a slideshow, and then I would sit down and I would say, "Obviously you have received a beautiful gift voucher. Or obviously you have purchased a beautiful gift voucher. And I always made sure that I knew which one of those two they were. Tell me about where you got that from. And they would always tell me where they bought it, or who gifted it to them, and who their recommendation was. And I could always reference who that was. So if they said it was Margaret, I'll say, "I photographed Margaret myself, oh, she's such a wonderful lady." And we would talk about Margaret. Then I would talk about the experience of being photographed. So how would you like to be photographed? How would you like to be photographed, and what would you like to wear? These were the questions that I would ask, and I would let them tell me what they want. And I also had that beautiful slideshow, so they would say, " I love that black dress. I love that white background. I love that couples shoot." "Would you like to bring your partner in for the shoot?" I would open it up. Now, I've seen many sales-type consultations over the last ten years. What I used to do was have a conversation. I had a wedding photographer sit down with me one day and say, "Tell me how to pitch to clients." And I said, "You don't need to pitch to them. They're in your studio. They're looking at your work. Ask them questions." You don't need to say to a bride, "Tell me about your dream wedding day." You just need to look at the bride and say, "Tell me about your wedding day." Every woman wants to talk about her wedding day. Every woman wants to talk. Every woman wants to talk (laughs). So I want you to get that consultation in. I want you to do it on the phone, or do it on Skype, or record it on video so that you can send it out to them. And just keep it simple, "Hey this is the deal. I create the most amazing photo shoot of you, so that you can have photographs that you really love. If you don't love them, you don't buy them. There is no obligation to purchase. So the effort that you put into the clothes that you bring, and the shoot, and the style of photographs that you're gonna have today, is all for you. Call me now for a personal consultation, so I can show you what to wear, help you choose outfits, and help you choose a style of photography that's gonna suit you." Keep it really simple. Keep it real, and get them on the phone as soon as you can. And remember, Skype now, is one of those things you can see people face-to-face. You can say, "Would you like to Skype into the studio, and have a face-to-face meeting with me, meet the photographers, meet the makeup artists?" Whatever you wanna say, think about it. And all I want you to do is take this time now to create something that's going to, in the long run, make your business better. For the 28 day challenge, you only have 28 days before we finish up our 28 days. However, this is gonna be something you implement for the rest of the year. But in this next three weeks, I want you to create that PDF, get it out as soon as you can. And I want you to flip the amount of time you're spending on your consultation, and see how instant the results are. Keep me posted on Facebook. Keep me posted on how you're doing, so that I can keep giving feedback on my blog. Because I know for sure this will change the way that you shoot. It will change the way that you commit. And it will change the way you sell portraits. Good luck, and send me some beautiful PDFs, once you've designed them, so I can see what gorgeous work you're doing. Get into it, get creative. You're creative photographers, use it in your marketing, entice, entice. The experience with you should be the best part.