Lessons

Lesson Info

Pre-Shoot Consultations

I just want to share a quick little story I blogged about it the other day so some of you might I have read it already but this is something that falls into a lot of different areas I wasn't really sure where to put it so we're just gonna talk about it now it's something I call the pizza principle and I learned this the other day because I name everything about food but I learned this the other day um on sunday like I said, I was really focused on spending the weekend with my family so on sunday we went to a neighbor's house and we brought our kids over they have two kids also and we had the kids make their own pizza and it was a really, really fun experience was a disaster in a mess but the kids all made their own pizza from scratch rod o the whole nine when we took the pizza out of the oven we sat down to eat and they started to notice that these kids are from three years old to seven years old they started to notice how each pizza was different right? They all have the same three in...

gredients dough sauce and cheese but my daughter said, hey you know what? My pizza is the biggest and her friend sitting next to her said, well my pizza is the fattest because he didn't press is dough down as much as she did and then his brother said, well, I'm the saucy us and he kind of had sauce all over his face. He was so cute and then my son was sitting on the other side of him said will mind the cheesiest because he didn't even use us, and it was just amazing to me they're eating there, having fun and every once in a while they would kind of scream out their names cheesy a saucy ous they've kind of take a roll call and they were like, do you want to try my pizza on my pizza spatter than yours? Do you want to try my pizza it's cheesier than yours? And I just sat there this's like amazing to see the day before I go to seattle for creative life. Look at how somewhere along the line we lost our individuality here, there's three two seven year olds that are gloating in their individuality and how look at what we did. We all do different things with the same ingredients, so this is kind of all I calls it the pizza principal when I blogged about it and this is what I want you to remember. Any time you're working on customizing or you're working on your own business, nobody is like you, everybody can take the same ingredients, they're all gonna come up with different meals pizza principle it was really cute. Yeah, I was like, wow, I learned something from my kids today, so you'll hear me talk about that once in a while, but I want to talk now about customizing your client sessions and x syrians because the truth is just like we are all individuals, this photographer so our clients you think so often we don't connect with our client's enough, we don't know enough about them when they walk in, we expect them to know everything about us and to want us. But what do we owe to them? And along the lines of charging and how everything flows together, the more you customize and the more you get to know your clients, the more value you have and the more you can charge for that we're going to talk about how I customized my client sessions again. Teo sort of go over it again for anybody who's just joined us in your four I was burned out and uncreative and unhappy, and I was just in a rut. I knew I had to move from a high volume model, which is pretty much with thirty clients a month is to a high end model, but what is high end mean, like we throw these words around right like boudoir and high end and whatever, but what does that actually mean? I had to really take a hard look. I had to take a hard look at what I wanted to do and I knew high interest here so let's see so what's the difference between high volume high end for me high end is an experience that's, personal and customized based on client's needs and wants combined with my vision. So it's it's not customized to the point where for clients came to me and said, well, I want to do a pin up shoot that's not what I dio it needs to be combined with my vision, so we need to make sure we're on the same page. I want to get to know them. Every woman has a different style, you know, here I am sitting looking at the six of you and and I know an email went out so it's valentine's day, can you guys hear something cheerful for valentine's day? And we're all wearing something completely different there's no one answer, so I want to get to know my clients. Why did I want to move towards this model of business versus high volume, much more creative freedom? I'm not dependent on what my clients want to do any more I work on a vision with them so it's my vision also, um we spoke about this last night, a little bit of dinner about um, well, my client's really wanted this, you know, and I didn't really want to do it. It's not a happy place. We want to make sure you're agreeing on what you both want to do some more fulfilling experience for you, it's so much more fulfilling for me when I make a difference in a woman's life when she becomes my friend when she invites me to her wedding after our boudoir shoot or she emails me eight months later telling me how she's pregnant my photos did job or how uh you know, whatever it might be, how we connected, we become friends, that's fulfilling for me. That's what I wanted you remember I told you when I was little? I always knew I wanted to do something that was creative and helped people. I don't want to just take pictures and never see you again. I want to create intimacy, the more money spent her client, and I know I'm talking about money and yes, this is a business course, so it is about money, but this has just happens naturally. The more you connect with your clients, the more the money happens when the more money we're worth more quality referrals. So it's not just how you need to check out daphne she's good photographer need to check out daphne because she does the most amazing fine artwork I've ever seen, and she made me feel like a million dollars. She did this amazing thing with this rope and she, you know, I know I'm embarrassing you. I'm sorry, but, you know she has this. Daphne does this amazing project it's called my body is a cage, and this is part of why I chose her to be here, because I really believe in the project. And but that separates you that's what people want to talk about, you know, and daphne and this is her vision. And I love that not just daphnis. A good photographer that's boring. That'll make you blood and stand out. There's a challenge of charging more. So this kind of goes along to your question. Well, how do I just charge more? It cannot even be possible. Women ofsome feel guilty, spending money on themselves. Do you ever feel guilty way have to give them a reason to spend the money, right? So I feel guilty spending money on myself, too. But if I believe that something is going to help me or make me more beautiful, or make me more desirable or make you feel good or I don't know improve make me tall or whatever it might be I'm probably gonna buy it if I'm convinced it's really gonna work I'm probably gonna buy it um you need to give me a good reason to spend the money and I'll spend it people especially women again I know because I am one are emotional creatures okay? We don't always really make decisions logically we make emotional decisions so in our business no matter what a woman's age is occupation you know she wants to feel beautiful, special and pampered it is an emotional need. We have emotional news. This is like documented I didn't just make this up. I write it in a book somewhere so it must be true but you know, this is women have emotional needs. We are working on filling I'm women's emotional needs so we have to connect with their emotional side. Everybody always says photography's a luxury item right of genesis photography's a luxury item so it's okay that I charge too much are you guys making it luxurious sounds so stupid, right? You might see yourself oh my god that's so stupid! The first time I ever interact with a client is when she walks in the door shouldn't be that way we want to make sure we make it a luxury experience for them so how do we do that? Because you can't promise the experience, not deliver it that's bad, bad doo doo okay, it starts at the first contact again. This is what we're talking about before not emailing your client's, connecting with them in one way shape or form. Like I said, if you work a full time job and you want to do a video or some other way to connect with them totally fine skype with your client that's even better. I love skyping with potential clients because then I get to really see what they're like with their energy level is how they move, what they're wearing, I get no idea of their style. So it's it's really good to just kind of connect with your clients as early as possible and again to know that you're not connecting with them to say, you know what? Not failing this this isn't you should go to somebody else. So before the shoot priest, you cancel talk quite a bit about this, I'm ask a lot of questions, so I do the first step for every single one of my clients experiences appreciate console what that is is about a half an hour, forty five minutes on the phone with my client and usually done over the phone sometimes the client wants to come in person depending where you live it changes, I think, because I book a lot of plans, like from new jersey, which is only about seven miles away, but about four hours, you know? So yeah, people don't want to travel so much. Um, I I ask him a lot of questions, and I make a mood board and we're gonna get more into that, but we also want to make sure before the shoot that you're on the same page as faras, like photoshopping is concerned. So for example, like, I know joni, and you're very intricate with your photo shop process, you want to make that clear to your clients. This is what I d'oh if they don't want that, they're not the client for you, I don't do is much photoshopping. I tend to be a little bit more au natural. I like a lot of skin tone, you know, texture in my photos, I don't do as much. And so when client say to me, are you going to, you know, make my boobs bigger, my butt smaller? The answer is no, but I will make you look as good as possible posing. But no, I'm not going, teo, you know, if you want that that's fine, but I'm not the photographer for you and that's always a good place to kind of have that photo shop conversation. Because, again, just like there's, different definitions of boudoir there's, different definitions of will do airbrush and retouch and edit. And whatever the silly words are, the clients use that make no sense. So, um, any questions on this? Um, so the pressure consuls absolutely vital step in the process. This is where you create trust? Yes. I had a question about the mood board. Yeah, so is this something that you create for them after the pre I used information from the priest you console to create the mood board for them, and are they secret bore its on the board? Or is it okay? I don't want to make them secret boards. I don't make them. I don't list them by name, but I don't make them secret boards for a couple different reasons like we spoke about before it's marketing. So when I booked that client from pinterest, she was like, I looked at all your food boards, and I saw how you create a different experiences and different visions for different clients, and I love that you individualize it. And, you know, I like this from this mood board, and I like that from that mood board. The other thing is there's some things that are always comin and every shoot like black shoes new choose certain type of makeup or whatnot, so I like to pull from my own board sometimes, um, and I like just, you know, clients feel happy when they see somebody else is doing what they're doing is like a power in numbers, so if they see, like, okay, you know what this woman has, you know, ten shoots this month or whatever, you know, and I don't the only time I don't make a move or for client is when a client makes a mood board for me, which is even better than a lot of down all the work, a lot of times they do that for me now, it's gotten to the point where they're like, I already know what I want I've been on your pinterest I pulled things for you here you go, I'm like, okay, awesome, great, thank you. Um, so this is really appreciate confidence, really an intimate and intimate stuff for me that this is where the intimacy begins with my clients, I want to get to know them, I want to know why they're doing a shoot I want to know what their expectations are, what their visions are, what their style is lots of questions I mean it's amazing when you start talking to a woman how she can really just open up to you if you ask the right questions people think that you you by telling you I sat down with you guys I'm gonna tell you everything about myself so you can trust me it's not true. The more questions I asked you, the more you're going to trust me even if you don't know anything about me so this is where that stuff happens and yes, I could just ask you a couple to share maybe what some of those questions we owe so one of the challenges teo appreciate concert is that women have a really hard time talking about themselves. So if you were a child photographer and you said ali, tell me about your kids you would be like, oh, my kids are awesome and they love this and they're into it and see spider man and my kids so cute he tells a joke and he jumps on his bed and he wears his pajamas and you would go on and on and on and on I said, you know, tell me about your wedding same thing going on come on if you say the woman tell me about yourself she's like um um right so we have to come up questions that are not going to scare them they're going to make the information easier to get from them and I usually just start with hay you know what inspires you to do a shoot what's inspiring you to do a shoot and this is where you get good information because if she's like I don't really want to do it I just want to do it for my husband I'd be like you know what? I'm gonna refund your retainer because this isn't happening but if she's like listen I've had two kids I've gone through a divorce on dh I don't feel womanly anymore I'm not I don't I don't do my makeup I don't do my hair and I know that there she's in here somewhere lying dormant I need to find her again you were good you know this's where I want to find I want to make that connection uh this is also a great place for her to say oh my god it's so annoying I have two kids and I never get a chance to work and I go hey guess what? I have two kids too you d'oh it's awesome let's talk about our kids let's open up I asked a lot of questions things that aren't even prevalent to our session just to get her to trust me when I always ask about their style you might think that that's weird because they're wearing laundry, but I can tell a lot I'm a pretty good shopper so I can tell a lot about a woman if she tells me her favorite resource to shop, so if a woman says to you visit to women, describe your style, they can't always do it, but some of them are very they use a lot of the same words over and over again like I'm very classic clean and chic what the hell does that mean? I have no idea what that means. I always want to hear what she's going to say because sometimes you'll say, well, I'm very hippy and earthy and you know, that gives me a much better picture like what is cleaning classic mean what's classic classic two you might beat something totally different than it is to you. So then I say great that's awsome, what are your favorite three stores to shop at? Like if we were to go out there tonight, where you gonna shop for a new outfit? And if she says to me, well, I shop in anthropology and free people. Those are the only places I shop at I have a really good idea that she's very into different textures and different patterns and lace is going to be amazing on her she's, probably in muted colors and a mixture of patterns a little more maybe vintage but if she says to me well my favorite stores the shot putter zara and express I know that she's really working on clean lines solid colors no patterns um you know probably some bold colors but always kind of makes it black somewhere so that gives me a much better idea so maybe she's not as into lace or you know frilly invented she wants something a little bit sleeker and smooth so does that make any sense you guys um she said I'm shopping j crew I love j crew mice okay she's a little bit more preppy she might be conservative harper in personality so it helps me know to like if she's like oh I only where you know button shirts up to here and pencil skirts and I'm an accountant and I never get dressed up that either lets me know okay we can either go all out with this crazy girl ray we're gonna be like total opposite or she might feel just I'm really not comfortable being that way so we'll discuss that so personal style really gives me a really great window into what um a woman is like any questions on that know anybody okay I also give permission to clients to love themselves is kind of a conversation that cannon and I had this morning but I will literally say to them like all asked them questions like you have a favorite body part um if they're doing it for a husband like, what is your husband love about you? Um and the great thing is inevitably when you ask a woman what she loves about herself, she'll immediately tell you what she hates about herself, so you never have to take it to a negative place she'll go there and then you could just say mental note she hates her, but okay, no problem let's just not talk about negativity, something what you love um she'll tell you what she loves um and if she says, well, I don't really have any favorite parter I don't really a lot of my clients I don't really find much attractive about myself I'm going to say to her, listen, I wa you understand, you have come to a place that's safe and protected toe love yourself we want you to love yourself here we don't judge you, we're not walking out of the room and going, oh my god, did you see her in that outfit? This is a safe place for you to be you and usually they say, okay, well, really kind of loved my hair love and I put it around or it's this cool new red color or whatever it might be, so if they're not opening up to you kind of give them permission if they're really not opening up to you, you can share something about yourself you know what I love I love my teeth I didn't have braces on their perfectly straight and I'm really proud of him you know, something silly make them laugh and they might open up to you also if they really don't know open up to you and they're really tough and you're not getting any answers out of them maybe that's not the client for you since I have started doing pre shoot consul to I have to say I've created a much better bond with my clients but not just that I, um really yeah have divorced him I'm gonna tell you this is a good story about this woman that I did she didn't wanna book her to begin with my assistant I kept saying to me you know she's so adam it and I'm saying I have a bad feeling about her I don't think we're on the same page please don't book our teller that I'm busy on my sis and kept saying today you know john I think she's really into this you might spend some good money you should give her a shot I think you're misreading her I never mistreat people ok, which is lesson number one I should have learned but uh I said okay, you know what diana put her in the end of the month? No problem so I was traveling, and so sometimes diana doesn't appreciate consoles for me because we work so closely together we usually do them together, actually, but sometimes it's just me or is just her? And she did the priesthood council, and she called me and five minutes later, and I was out to dinner, so I didn't answer. And then text started coming in and the calls started coming in like something is up. Let me call her back to haiti. What's up what's going on, jen, we have an emergency. You have to get rid of our don't say I didn't tell you so about what's going on. What happened, wass she directed us to a page a photography that she liked and, um, no judgments against it. The pictures were all pictures of iced teas, wife cocoa. If you any of you don't know where she is, you should look at. There were a lot of pictures of her, like kind of push out, spread eagle on the beach like wax down and her leg fluorescent g string thong thing. Nothing against it. It was beautiful, she's amazing. It is not my thing. And every picture that she sent this is what I want one after the next was less and less of who I wass and I called her and I said listen you know I really want to be up front with you I think you're looking for something that I can deliver to you and this is not about you it's about me I can't deliver it to you and I feel very bad taking two thousand dollars from you or whatever it may be and not being able to deliver what you want I'm going to respectfully we fund your money and I will help you find another photographer for you whatever you need from me I will help you with she was not she basically said to me oh so you do want to shoot me because I'm gonna ruin your reputation I just said to her listen I have a bad reputation anyway now I'm kidding uh just said you know listen this is really I shoot a lot of things that nobody knows about because I don't put them online this is not about I'm not judging you for what you want I can't give you what you want two different things she wasn't so happy but I felt really good actually giving her that money back because it saved me a lot of aggravation in the end because I know she wasn't gonna be happy that she's gonna tell everybody how much I stink and her friends are going to like you should never use her you should never use her and that's how we avoid problems so I would rather hurt her feelings a little in the beginning and say listen, I can't give you what you want and here's your money back then to go through the chute and have all that aggravation so this is another reason why I appreciate consoles are amazing also they tend to bring that our outfits by the way they're much better prepared I really get very very into like what I post for them and they're more excited because they're less confused there's not that that confusion is kind of gone so with sample questions we did communication is the key and you know asking them what they want and figuring out how you could mix it with what you're going to give so when they start asking you can I bring my skis to the shoot and you're not comfortable with it you know, we talked yesterday a lot about props that we don't we don't like to shoot um it's okay to say you know, I don't really work with props or I really like to limit my props or you know what? But I like to say to my clients um I don't want the photos to become about the props they really wanted to be about you so something like skis are really big or surfboard, which I did or you know something you know we've all done the whole prop thing if you don't want to do it then just that's a good place if you want to do it that's fine too no judgments then we have a quick question um how much of an impact is your personal style in appearance have on your clients attention a lot but the thing is that uh oh my gosh it all ties together so nicely when you are authentically you people are attracted to you for that style and that visions so I don't have to worry about how much of their style I'm looking at I know when I get that client I can pick out something for her that matches built of ourselves yeah thanks. So do you kay a retainer before you're doing the pre shoot consul I don't do a drop of work for a girl until she pays me money so how can you tell if she's your ideal client if you haven't quite interviewed her I sort of have because don't forget I'm talking to them before they book so I'm not going back and forth over email I'm having a conversation with them immediately when she says well you know I'm just doing this for me I'll probably stay at that point listen you know what I'm not this is probably not the best match for you but sometimes people slip through the cracks or you know it happened I've really only divorce the client at this point of of it maybe twice okay that's not what I was wondering yeah there's plenty of times during that when I'm taking the retainer I'm going back reported them on the phone then that I can say listen we're not a very good match but like I said, sometimes things slip through the cracks and if you have an assistant who's booking clients that happens sometimes because you she might connected my assistant but I don't connect with her one more question before we keep going and that is from gen goalie who says making clients feel comfortable before the shoot client already has said I'm feeling really stressed I'm not even near where I thought it would be ready wait wise how do you how do you aside from saying you're beautiful, you're stunning or do you say that and make them get excited about the shoot? Um my biggest thing is you do have to have some sort of confidence level, so if they're really not feeling good if they're like I'm fifty pounds from where I wanted to be and I'm really not feeling good then let's postpone the shoot let's do it another time that's ok, but if they really want to do the shooting their five pounds where there are ten pound somewhere there they just I feel icky that day um I encourage them to not worry because I'm going to pose them to an inch of their life and they're gonna look awesome, and we're also going to discuss outfits that flatter them, so maybe it'll hide some of those things they're worried about and that's what I'm saying, you don't even need to ask about it, they're just going to say, I hate my stomach. I have stretch marks, we need to do something about it now go. Corsets are fun and they're awesome, and we're gonna throw you one of those and you're not even gonna have a problem. Just make them feel it used that way, right? Thank you. So, yeah, sometimes also the boot boards let's talk about this. So I am addicted to these with the information I get from the pre shoot consulate. I run on pinterest and I started hitting things I pin I think that this is on the next tide. Yeah. Okay. So I pain lingerie up in shoes. I pin laundry based on style. I pin it based on color and it based on price point. So here's the thing it's super easy to go on like agent provocateur or parole and everything so beautiful. I'm gonna pin everything. Then sometimes my clients feel like they need to shop there, I would rather I buy and spend my money their money on me instead of lingerie. So I tried to make it very accessible to them to find lower price stores that I can find some really cool things that that it might be a little bit different and unique and they don't have to spend three hundred dollars an outfit because I would rather have the three under dollars I know that sounds crazy but it's really true like I don't pin you know christian louboutin shoes because they're a thousand dollars a pair and she will probably use this shoot is an excuse to buy a pair, but I would rather her spend a thousand dollars on an album with me it's all pain like very generic shoes very plain I even say to them sometimes like with certain things, you know, if you leave the tags on it, you could probably bring you know, not underwear, but things like, you know, if you're not sure if it's gonna work like on a pair of shoes, you could always bring the parachute back don't worry, but I try to make things very accessible. No, I will sometimes pin war except more expensive things when it's just a certain look that I'm going for and I say, you know what? This is just an example of where I want to go with the shoot to get a feel for the shoot, but this is not saying you need to purchase it somewhere but as much control as I can have over my client's wardrobe, I take it I don't keep any wardrobe in the studio we'll talk next about work more about wardrobe, but I want women to come with things that fit them properly that looked really good and those things bipin I also pinned makeup and hair and anything that I think might work I sometimes pin props like I just did a mood board for a girl who is very into reading she's like I read, you know, ten bucks a week and I love reading so I pinned some vintage books it's that if you have some vintage books we're not going to like take a picture of you holding them, but maybe we'll put them in the set some of your favorite books or, um she's very into like greek goddesses, so I pinned like a headband that looks kind of like, you know, the crowns if they used to wear in greece, so try to get it real personal. Yeah, so I just have a question for some people who are really knew, including newbie knew who asked uh, what is a mood board? Ok, good question and then perhaps maybe also, um what is the goal of the that mood? A mood board really for me shows my client's inspiration for what they should be wearing what the hair makeup artists are going to do to them um, a feel for the shoot as faras using those words that they gave me from the beginning so the mood board so it I really can't show up in tree sport, but I would love for everybody watching to go on pinterest and take a look at some of the boards on there. Basically, you can pin different pictures that you find over the internet or your own photos so I can go to victoria's secret website and say, I love this outfit, I'm gonna click pin it and it's going to go on to, like, sort of a virtual core cord on pinterest and so let's say, I have a board named courtney, and it will show everything that I think is gonna work for courtney, and the beautiful thing is I can invite kourtney to pin to it also so she can say, oh, I saw this beautiful outfit at north drugs and she components, I hear dan, what do you think of this outfit? So it's, sort of everything involved in the shoot that I can control artistically to show that I'm on the same page is the client is that is that that's factories, and I would just actually went to your pinterest site, so it's pinterest dot com slash generations for the j with a j generations with a j you can see some of my client mood boards on their perfect yeah, I just made some yesterday. Perfect. And yeah, so that will give them a really good idea of what I do and how they're different and house. A lot of them are very similar because it's me that's making them right. So it's all kind of based on what I think is gonna look good in certain classic pieces that I know look good on everybody keeping away certain things like that apron piece of lingerie has anybody ever seen that? Never looks good on a girl? Doesn't even look good on the model on the page, like doesn't look good. So making sure we stay away from stuff that's not good also. Um, yeah, and it helps women prepare and get an overall field for the shoot. So woman might sometimes say to me, I want I love pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, my favorite and then I'll make a mood board, and she'll be like, oh, no, I hate that shade of pink that's, not a good pink. I like baby pig or I really want edgy, and I'll put on like, you know, biker jackets and studied stuff it should be like, oh, that's not what edgy means to make it very rarely happens, but I like when it happens, I appreciate it because, you know, ninety nine percent of the time I'm getting an e mail from a client saying you totally read me, you know me it's like we've been best friends forever and of course, that's the reaction I'm looking for, but in that one percent of the clients this is you know what? I made a mistake. I think I told you that the wrong thing or you totally miss read me good let's fix it before you walk in the door, because at that point, there's nothing we could do about it. That's, when you get in trouble, I learned my lesson. I had a girl come in once you, um, pick things for her just didn't flatter her at all, and she was really unhappy with the pictures. She wasn't unhappy at the pictures. She kept saying, I like the pictures. I just don't like myself and that is not what I want a client to feel that was like in your won and I learned that lesson real fast, and it was my fault because she came in with the worst outfits possible because we didn't communicate about it had I put her in a corset or put her in something that flattered her more, she would have had a completely different reaction, same person, same girl, same body, same shoot she would have liked what she had seen better. So if a girl comes in, I hear a lot of things these girls coming with the most annoying outfits that's really your fault, you need to prepare them. I'm just being on, I hope that you're not taking it personally. I'm just I'm just being honest. I think that it's our job to prepare them. I did my own boudoir shoot about a year and a half or two years ago I had like a melt down the night before. I don't know if I have the right outfits five pounds heavier than I should be I don't know I have a zit on my face, I can't be too and my system was like, what is wrong with you? You sound like all the clients that frustrate you when they do the same thing. It is a stressful process for them make it as easy as possible e even go as far is like now polish colors and noble it is an important thing um, to talk about because girls often come in with like chip now polish, I don't know why okay, so the mood boards also give a client places shop. The best thing about pinterest is you can click on the picture and it takes you to the website that you got the picture from how easy is that here's where I want to shop here is where they are just click on them and buy them again. I don't tell my clients they have to buy them, but they pretty much do I work with the laundry store in the city of new york city who is amazing? I mean, it was so kind of creepy because one day a girl came in with a bag of stuff from her store, and I loved everything, and I said, I have to go to the store, sort of similar to the story you were telling me, daphne, with the lingerie store before and I walked in and it was almost identical to my studio. It was really crazy, and we have very similar taste and and I walked in, she said to me, oh, you from generations, you I've been meaning to reach out to you because I love your photography and we were like on the same page, she what I'll do is I'll share the mood boards with her. And she will give my clients I think fifteen percent off and she'll set up a personal shopping appointment for them and I highly recommend that especially with girls that have a larger chest or a smaller chest because they're very hard to fit and we'll talk a little bit more about that when we talk about laundry but she's very personal with them she can order things in for them she's not the highest price store but she's not the least expensive store and they get a great service there so it's sort of an extension of me I know that she's going to get great that my client's gonna get great service there I also work with a personal shopper at nordstrom's and thie great thing about when you work with people on a personal level I could go into the store like once it season and be like okay never saw my client just this this or this because these are fluorescent and they're gonna look terrible or I hate the cut on this or whatever or I could give a heads up to them and say hey listen I'm sending somebody to you she has like a thirty she was like a thirty two double a you know I know you don't normally carry that size can you make sure you have some stuff for her? This is what I think would look good on her and we communicate back and forth yeah, um, yeah, they know what they like, and they know what I do, and they kind of hide things that they know I hate. The clients are because, well, looks good in mirror does not always look good on camera. Okay. That's everything for before the shoot. Any questions on that before I move onto during the shoot? Let me just take another look here. Um, do we have anything else? Uh, question about the mood boards? Do you ever pin other photographers work? That's a rough situation? E I don't want to say no, because maybe it's happened, and then I'm going to say no, but I guess he did, uh, it's happened, probably, but if I did it because I love it e try not to you not because I don't even want not because I don't want my clients even see other people's work. I don't care it's not me. They're not gonna you know, they're getting me. Um, but it's just kind of not kosher, I guess. But maybe sometimes like a certain poles where, you know, a certain alfa is really struck me. And I'm like, I just love this for you. But I say is it is a rule? Probably not. Okay, it's a good time to get your work out there too, like, why wouldn't you pin your own picture on me like I love this outfit for you or I love this pose for you and get your own stuff out there, so we talked a lot about pinterest and we have new be new in here who said that that he or she shows clients inspiration but uses books and photographs during a meeting awesome totally what I love about interest because they click on it and then they come by what they see because clients want to be guided, they want their hands held, they don't want to spend hours and hours looking for things if they could just click it and buy it, you're making their life easy, you're becoming more valuable? Yes, you're saving them time so that's why I really like pinterest plus they can look at it at work because oftentimes people are hiding this because it's a gift for somebody else and they want to be doing it during work hours sorry boss is out there, but this is the way it is now, right? So yeah that's why I like pinterest, I think that was a really good point you just made about that the clients want you to make it easy for for them sometimes I think I used to feel that I was like pushing too much like oh, you could bite here and if they were gonna think like there's some reason I'm doing that or I would think, oh, they're going to want to do this themselves they want they want to talk to them and they want your they're looking to you as the jersey expert e so I love that you said that I mean, you don't go to a hair salon and say I want red hair and they go you know what car do you want? They're going to say here's what I recommend for you this will look good with your skin tone and you go good do it up you know you look two experts, you're the expert take that take that role remember you're the boss we do a couple more questions you don't uh one was from silver lane how do you go about building a relationship with a personal shopper? It's really easy just go to the store and ask for one what I did with this personal shopper nordstrom's because I'm crazy is I hunted her down because she was wearing the que tous outfit and I was like, do you work here? Where'd you get that blazer and are you a personal shopper because your style is my style? I would wear that outfit so I know what nordstrom's they have like these big screens and you can scroll through the different stylist and see what their favorite styles are on what they would recommend for the season, and when I scrolled through her page, I was like, yes, I would wear that I would wear that I would wear that it was perfect and I knew that we would communicate we got along, we text each other now we're like the f er and I'm sending her business so this is a place where you don't even have to ask for mutual relationship, you just say, listen, I'm gonna send you business, you just need to take care of my clients and that's what they do anyway. That's easy that's, easy and bethan greenberg says do you show clients poses to practice before the session? No, because, um I don't really like when girls practice before they got there. I mean, they probably always d'oh, but then you get girls to come in I go, I really like I swear to god, I had this I really like my debra looks good in this pose wait that's called the pooping boas we don't wait wave them from doing that because they're looking at it from a different angle than I am practice is perfect a couple questions about in the pre shoot consultation and contracts do you have a clause in the contract that states that you will use their photos online or is it their choice that was from kimberly b and then similarly lily bug had asked do you ever have clients that don't want their photos on the web on dh I feel that most my clients wouldn't want their pictures out there so I'm rightfully so that was about the interest in paintings there I tell you to take it I do not present a model release to my clients until after they've seen the photos I don't put it in my contract I am going to live by the assumption that my clients do not want their photo shown and yes it's stinks and especially when you're trying to build a business but we'll talk about that on day three how to get around that um it's just the nature of the beast and I think you build more trust if you don't present a model release before the pictures or even taken you're kind of like a hawk like I'm gonna use your pictures they're not even taking it you know no let me make you feel comfortable and safe ah lot of times I have clients so e mail me in a panic I realised I signed some papers today it was any of them a model release no I would never do anything without your permission um and yeah, most of my clients don't sign a model release and it's it's really hard, especially, you know, you have those moments where I got this picture's so good, I just need to show it to somebody, you know, but if you do it one time and you get caught, you could just say goodbye their business, so yeah, privacy and nicole s how do you know what looks good in the camera when it looks good in the mirror? You don't and that's why I have my clients bring more outfits and they actually need I will talk about that in the next segment. We're talking a laundry. Exactly. Uh, the question from penny lee is, do you send a client a welcome packet? The reason I don't do that is because most of them are doing it is a surprise for somebody, and they specifically will say, please don't send me anything by now, thie appreciate consulate sort of is a welcome packet, it's even more personal because they get to ask me all the questions that they have on their minds. So it's even better than a welcome packet. People don't read those things I know they're cool and they're beautiful and they're fun are you really reading it? Do you get you know, like I just went and joined like a community center in my new neighborhood where I just moved and they handed me a huge packet I don't even know where it is don't even look at it five a question I'm going to call and ask them and that's what I want my client to know they can just pick up the phone and call me so jenny I know we're going to talk about this later but it's coming up a lot again and this is from dave carpenter studio specifically to the pre shoot concert women open up to women more than men do you have any suggestions for men to make a woman open up to them in that appreciate console yeah I mean if they feel that they cant do it personally I would hire a woman to do it woman to woman um as far as doing it themselves well I don't see any reason that they wouldn't trust you during appreciate consul if they hired you to take their picture so maybe that's his own issue versus and I say that with love versus her issue I mean right because there's y'all ready to see her half naked I would assume she trusts you that's a good point I mean I guess it's just maybe maybe it's talking teo any female photographers or friends that you have and going over the questions that you think you want to ask people and seeing if they think that's comfortable and worrying, equally sharing stories about yourself. Whenever the story is, that creates that connection, and he needs to decide what's relevant to him. He might not care about her style. You know, for him, the questions I asked might be totally irrelevant. He needs to figure out what's important to him.