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Vendor and Client Referrals

Then you referrals are fantastic and from two thousand seven to two thousand nine or ten they were the primary source of our marketing engine obama photographers the upside is they're super easy you book a job, you're going to bump into some vendors it's that simple every time you book a job you're going tohave vendors wedding portrait you know on and on landscaping even later because I know that weddings is the obvious one and makes it the easiest but I'm telling you no matter what type of photographer you are, there are vendors that interact with that client as well that you can work with and you're going to come into contact with them easier hard at every single job you do. It was very easy compared to other forms of marketing they're closely aligned when I go to a wedding and I'm looking at the florist I have a pre reasonable idea that they're also similar to me because they're working with the same client chances are the next client their work with will also be a good client for m...

e we are very closely aligned and we are in sync on what we know what we're doing and it's so it's it's very easy for me to look at a vendor that I'm already working with and say man, this could be a good relationship here your clients and my clients are probably very similar and then the numbers game it really adds up you start doing the math on it so I started doing the math on vendors, so I figure there's probably let's just call it ten vendors at every wedding that might be high someone is that slow it but if I come into contact personally with twenty to thirty brides each year, you know I shoot twenty thirty I am now seeing about twelve, ten, twelve, fifteen, but I at this point seven through two thousand nine a shooting twenty to thirty weddings a year and twenty three wins a year and at ten vendors you start doing the math on that as a company we're doing seventy five weddings a year and they come in to everyone we come into contact with ten vendors that's like twenty two thousand different possibilities or something I don't know the math is crazy we need to ask engineers in the room but you know, I mean the point is is that the math starts you know, really adding up quickly obviously a lot of vendors will be the same obviously not every vendor hat or not or what has ten letters, but the point is the math really starts to work in your favor as far as oh my goodness, I get to work with a lot of vendors throughout the year and these vendors are working with similar like minded clients as me they're in the same spaces. Me, their work with the same people is me. Chances are that they're very targeted as well, and they've attracted the same kind of client. The downsides to bender referrals are there's a lot of work, you know, let's say that the best way that, you know, let's say the best way you found to interact with vendors was, you know, to send them out your work when you were done, um, that's a great way to interact those vendors, it just does take a lot of time. I mean, you know, try to send out your images after every wedding to ten vendors and that's going to take some time for you that's something that I would recommend writing a system for like we talked about the last segment and potentially, you know, making sure you get that that system to have somebody else do it at the same time, though it's a lot of work and it never ends it's not like when one one is over it's like a print ad where you kind of put it out there, it's like, ok, we'll just go to your magic. Please, I want to do anything now more for it, you know, like everybody and you have to continue this then your referral. And if you want to start networking with his vendors you know, if this is basically networking is what we're really looking at when we talk about bender referrals, you want to network with these vendors that never ends, you buy them coffee? Will you stand up? I'm coffee and three months also going to forget about you and three months after that, you've got to take him out again. They're going to forget about you somebody also take him out now remember them? So this never really ends here's the kicker about it. I told you we were doing it from two thousand seven. She doesn't nine and I realized that there is a huge, tragic flaw in doing making this your your main source of business. I told you guys about in two thousand nine about how the economy kind of skipped a beat a little bit and we caught that on the front end. And I told you about how we made some changes and we really I mean, we were I was basically paranoid and so that caused me to really ensure that we stayed stayed afloat during that whole time and actually excelled through it, but many of my other vendors didn't do that and vendors coordinators. I was used to getting five or for five weddings from a year. All the sudden I'm getting one wedding from the year because they don't like me anymore, because they don't have any more weddings, d j so I was used to getting ten referrals and looking for of those five of those six of those a year now are sending me three referrals, I don't like many more, they didn't have the work anymore, and so we really went through a bit of a drought in two thousand nine, where we dropped about twenty percent on the number of weddings that we shot, and I traced it back to oh, it was our vendor referrals, we didn't do any worse on our client referrals, we didn't do any worse on all the channels of market we had, we dropped off all inventor referrals, and so we put a lot of faith in that, so now I don't put as much into that. I don't pose many eggs into that basket, if you will, because you really are at the mercy of how many weddings their booking and how many brides and grooms they're going to send over to you as you need to be careful, be careful, you know about it, I still think it's great, and I also love it because it's networking and networking is fantastic networking for me. I love it. I mean, you're telling me that I can go have a cup of coffee with someone or go to lunch with someone or go hang out with someone and that that's work, we'll just we'll talk me based on the point is not to talk about work actually like that's, the strategy is like let's, not talk about it, let's get to know each other it's like this is great, I'm in. So I've always enjoyed the networking side of things, and I've always flourished in this in this side of the marketing, and I think a lot of people this caps into a lot of people out there when they talked about when we had the m the road map up here and confidence and fear and this is an area, a lot of people, I think miss out on because of the fear and there's, a lot of fear going out there. And when I went by first networking event and I went, this is a big group of people, you know, it's like a wedding networking event in san diego huge group of people I walked in and it's just so overwhelming and everyone's buddied up knows each other, and I walked in and I'm like ok, so obviously I'm noticed we're going, I just paid twenty five dollars for it. The goal is to book a wedding, and I walked around was introducing myself to people, and at the end I walked away like I didn't book a wedding. I am such a failure, everybody was that their booking weddings and I didn't took me water realize that that's not how these events work, you go to these things and you show up and you network with people and you you expand your referral chain and then that ends up coming back, but it comes back later comes back after you've invested in these vendors to invest in the vendors if you actually are out to help their business. That's what I found, if you're actually out to help and better their business, it'll come back way more than you ever put in. If you actually go out there to solve problems instead of just trying to book weddings instead of just looking at vendor referrals is another opportunity to book weddings. But how can I help your business? And I had a great idea back in I don't even know when many years ago, and so he started talking or a vendor's about can I build you a platform where we show casey the weddings we shoot for you? On the web and the vendors were like oh my gosh yeah that's a huge problem I have because I get all these great images from you but I don't even know how to upload it to my my block I didn't know how to put him on a website and so we would create websites for them they could showcase and they would start using these websites to show their brides examples of their work and it's it's our branded website that we built for them and I went out and found a way to solve a problem to take care of our vendors and look out for them first and it came back way more than we ever put into it so within the referrals at the end of the day the most important thing you can do is dunk what events don't go to coffee don't go to dinner with these people and expect something in return figure out how you can solve their problems take care of them we'll come back way more than you could have ever anticipated okay let's get into client referrals client referrals this is my favorite topic of the of the afternoon really? I love talking quite referrals I love talking about how to get more client referrals that can propose a great save their most powerful method of of marking you can do for your business especially in the type of business were in their never ending they literally are never ending you make you know they say client for life I mean really if you get someone on your team and some excited about what you do they'll refer you forever they refer you and refer you and refer you it's not like what we talked about with vendors where you have to keep taking to coffee and stuff you don't really have to do that a true client referral a true person who wants to refer you does not need to be taken to coffee does not need to be sent gifts they will refer you because they love you and they believe in what you stand for they're cheap they're really cheap people who like to refer will do it for free they actually don't even want to get paid they don't want to get that they feel bad people who mean they'll take a gift but it's not because they're referring they'll insist this is not because I'm referring you I just I appreciate the gesture you know it's super cheap doesn't cost you five thousand dollars like a magazine that does it downright free authentic we talked about how people trust the online the organic versus a paid over way past that we're into a whole other realm right now when someone pulls you aside and says you have got to call jared he's that you're looking for what he did all right, you need to call jared no search engine, no online ad novena referral. Nothing can touch on authentic recommendation from a trusted friend. Passionate. Probably have heard the passion in my voice pick up. But when I talk about the people that I refer, I get fired up. I get so excited, I want them to succeed. I want them to do well. And I think that that's what true client referrals where they look like it's it's passionate and it is excited and it's got something behind it. People feel that and client referrals, we all know that client referral. That client goes out there just advocates on our behalf. And is our fan it's there? You just want to hug him every time you see them, they're like, oh, my god, how could I make a million of you and for their pads a passionate referral as opposed to a magazine that there's no passion that you're hoping that they pick up the passion in the photo or something. Downsides takes time it takes time and it takes planning. It takes every it takes all those things and you must know your brand because you have to give them a reason to refer you you have to give them a battle cry almost, you know, how do I talk about you? You have to give them a way to talk about you and that's. What? Your brand that's. What your message that's what your purpose is it's no it's an ability to talk about you. So you want to know how people refer better is when they have your message, they go out and talk about now this is inaccurately calling the elevator pitch. I hate that because what that really means is how could I tell you as much as possible in thirty seconds? I don't like the elevator pitch. What I do like, though, is an authentic message, your purpose that you can give your clients to go out and refer you because if they know how to refer, you don't worry about how why they were going to refer you. They know why, but they need a message. And so you have to take the time to know what message to give them. Let me tell you a little story about two experiences. I had this very weak and the differences in, because what I really want to transition into is that not all client referrals are the same. A client referral no matter what caliber is better in my opinion any of the other types of market we've talked about but not all client referrals the same and I want to break down the client referral for you and break and the different types of client referral on how we could get more of them and let me tell you example of two things that happened this very week that I think shed aa lot of light on that I flew up here yesterday from san diego on alaska airlines I fly a lot for for work and for education and for speaking and whatnot and so you know, I know a thing or two about the airlines I know when I get treated well darn right, I know what I don't get treated well these days it happens a lot more than that and I the whole the whole way up was the whole trip up to be honest with you was fantastic. I got to the airport and went in checked in and it had told me that I couldn't check in online so I walked to the front desk was I can't tell me I couldn't check it online and she's like oh so that's because we upgraded you teo to an exit row seat and we just had to make sure we could ask you if you're okay and willing and able to handle that I said of course I am that's great. So hearing my take is that a great flight we boarded early I boarded it was you know easy boarding system sat down the plane I put my headphones on and listen to music when we're ready to take off because I had my headphones on and didn't hear the announcement the flight didn't walk by and just politely tapping said hi sir you know we need to shut off all electronics sorry about that I know I know how nice I said when I was like no problem we took off is it to our flight to head to our to our twenty flight had to drink services is very nice we landed early ten minutes early imagine that on the way out the captain shook my hand said thank you for flying with us pretty good experience over all right not bad, you know in essence they did everything perfectly everything that they promised to do they do well they did great. I have no complaints about it. I haven't told one single person about my flight people ask me all day. So how was your flight up? It was good, it was it was good and we moved on that's great if somebody asked me would you ever fly alaska airlines again like I had a great experience of them to grab lied love alaska there they're fantastic but it's different than where sarah and I went to dinner earlier this week see there's a little kind of hole it's not a hole in the wall he to describe it that way but it's a little tiny mom and pop lebanese food place it's about five minutes from her house not far it's super close and there's only six tables in there we found this place randomly on a win when we walk in and when we walked in the lebanese husband and wife couple that own it they always look at me like hello welcome you're like wow ok thank you and they walk over like hello hello how are you doing today thank you for coming in you're like sure, yeah and then ate like where do you want to sit? Like? Well I guess there's only six tables you know there's people there all the time but we're going to sit down and every single time we're there the wife who have now gotten no walks over and says so how are you two doing like we're good so like you know valentine's day is coming up here what are you doing for her and then so whisper in my ear some ideas and she always make sure to note like how's your dog doing because you heard us talk about our dog one time every single time we're there the husband is the owner name is george he always walks by and we bring people there all the time and he's always like jared who have you brought today who have you brought to whom he brought I want to meet them hello thank you for coming in what did you think of the food and they'll say we like it a lot and I'll be like well what did you have and they'll say well we had the chicken to woking let me tell you about the chicken to work he tells you about how he makes the garlic himself how he prepares it how it's not a sharp garlic's a soft garlic not how he designs and creates this but the olive oil that he imports from from where he came from tells you all about it shakes your hand says thank you so much for coming in every time we go in we have an amazing experience and every single person that I talked to I'm like you have to goto alfa run you have to get out from I've sent them so many people not just people I bring in but the people that I refer it to I tell this story I am passionate about that place it's not just that I want to see them succeed I just want everyone to have this amazing experience both companies both situations did a great job but one I'm talking about and when I'm not you have to create stories for your clients to refer you you have to go way past doing a good job to get clients to refer you you have to be bigger than life you have to do something supernatural to gain that referral they only have so many words they can say in a day and it's only have so many text they consent he has so many facebook post believe or not some of them you think they have a lot but they only have so many broadcast messages they khun given a day and how are you going to be one of them? You have to do something really, really powerful in today's day and age to gain a referral remember last caroline's didn't do anything wrong they just I'm not talking about him what did they do wrong? Nothing they just didn't do enough over and above so let's talk about the different types of client referrals. Number one we have the advocate maybe the first level of client referrals in my opinion the advocate second we have the evangelist number two would be the evangelist number three would be what what we like to call the true believer the goal of a referral base marketing system is to move people down this down this chain so a true believer is better than an evangelist evangelist is better than an advocate don't give iran a lot advocates are great, but if you could have a lot of true believers would be even better so the advocate let's look at what the advocate is the advocate says to someone you need a photographer, you should hire jared so the advocate goes around and kind of says, oh my gosh, you talk about me in a photographer well, I know this great photography should hire jared you know you have an advocate when you get an email from someone it says I was talking with my co worker about my upcoming wedding, and they showed me your wonderful pictures that co worker of theirs there an advocate of yours you can email like that, you know, you have an advocate on your team and these advocates are going out there and in broadcasting your message, you know, when they hear about somebody who needs something thatyou khun you could match, you can meet their needs with they will talk about you do a great job with your clients and you'll get a lot of advocates seriously do a great job and you're going to create an army of advocates for you do an ok job, you probably won't get a lot of advocates do a great job, you'll get a lot of advocates at best, I'd say I'm an advocate for alaska airlines, I'm an advocate if I hear about somebody saying I don't know what airline flying to seattle, I might chime in and say, you know what? I just flew last airlines up to seattle and I had a great experience, you know? They put me in an exit row, they did, you know, in two hours they did like two or three drinks services a captain said high school experience would advocate, I think, but but here's the difference if alaska does one thing to tick me off on the flight home? I'm not advocating more if I get an exit row ticket and show up at the airport in like I'm so sorry, sir, we had to bump you back to the back of the plane, I probably not going to have to get more if if they do one little thing wrong, I'm not going to have a kid anymore again, I'm not going to bash them. I'm not going to go on post all these terrible things about it, but I'm no longer mean advocate advocates are in a precarious position. Advocates of precarious you could do an amazing job in the wedding and this is what I used to harp on everyone obama stars a lot you could do an amazing job of the wedding, but you're late on that album he lost an advocate mess up the album don't return an email you know or maybe an email gets lost along the way as I'm your fault he lost an advocate advocates are precarious and that's why they're at the top there their precarious the evangelist it is little different in the african evangelist runs around a little bit more outgoing not as a personality as the way they broadcast the message does anybody need a photographer? Anyone is anyone around here need if they are hello kissing on there we need a photographer I know of a good one his name's gary I know the good one so the man's is that they're actually evangelizing for you you know you haven't vangelis when you get email that starts with sue got married last year and she's been telling everyone she knows everyone about how great of an experience she's had since then and I'm so glad that I just got engaged and I can finally get a chance to get to know you that's when you know that sue is an evangelist she's not an advocate she was out there cheated out there talking about you and this woman that just e mailed you was like, thank goodness I'm finally engaged and I could use you because I've been hearing about you for so long I'm excited I really want to use you create experiences for your couple instead of just delivering and doing a good job if you create experiences for your couple they will be your evangelists this is very hard to d'oh think about the difference between alaska airlines and al for on the restaurant I'm an advocate of alaska airlines but I'm an evangelist about front I run around saying does anybody need a place to eat I know a great place to hello have you eaten yet today I have a great place if you haven't I'm an evangelist for al franz and I go out there I broadcast that message and I make sure everyone knows I love this company I love this business and I'm an advocate for last year and here's the thing if I go on down for on and they messed up my food I'm like oh I'm going off right for them no big deal they were probably pretty busy george wouldn't mess up my food something must've gone wrong you know I mean if they have had to wait a long line it's like oh no big deal they're busy I'm glad they're busy that's awesome I'm glad they're successful I don't I don't move away from an evangelist it's hard unseating from an evangelist when I'm an evangelist I'm an evangelist and I don't get thrown off very easily I'm willing to put up with a lot of different things and so evangelist you get people to evangelist position and then they stay there add the kids that couldn't even that you know and slowed more finicky evangelist stay you know, we know this we go into way have these things we have these products we evangelized and they can mess up that we give them forgiveness why is it that some products or some restaurants or some services we forgive and others we don't some we evangelized for it others were advocates for it's fundamentally different the way we see their product the way we see the experience and it comes down to companies that have create experiences for us rather than companies that just give us something that we wear promised and that's again going back to what we talked about the very beginning companies that create experiences deliver on so much more than the product of the offer you know, that's what we're going to starbucks there's a long line and realize it's why when we go into a popular bar that we have been highly referred to us and we don't get the service right off the bat it's like well, you know that's why when I take a long time to make our drink in his hand may I give you example after example for example of why we won the case you're willing to put up with a lot in another case? We're not so that's an evangelist a true believer true believer says I know someone you love meeting oh he happens to be a photographer that's a true believer you know you have a true believer when you get an email from someone who says I know someone is perfect for his name is jared by the way he takes pictures but even if you don't like his pictures you still need to go hang out have coffee richard by the way now it really doesn't matter if you don't like my pictures because it's still going to hire me. A true believer refers on the idea it's not about what year it does it's about who he is you have nothing do with my picture that she's like I don't even care if you like his pictures just you need to meet him you need to know jared and that's a true believer instead of talking about you, she sends email connecting you herself you know it's like instead of saying you need to call jared she's like that you know you need you know forget it I don't want this to get lost I'm going to connect you to over email myself and this comes from building a message that people can get behind it doesn't just stop on experience experience is only the first thing that you have to create deliver the product you could advocates create experience for your clients you get evangelists crane experience and match that with a message that they can get behind and run around and broadcast for you you get true believers true believers are people that embracing adopter message simon scene at talks about apple and that's what he says that's why they could make any product they want because they have a message that people everyone gets behind think differently think different so in all their products they make they challenge the status quo and they think different that's why they can make computers ipods, tablets, phones and are successful in every single one that they dio because their message is what people buy into and people run around showing off their iphone people don't want to put cases on their iphones you know starbucks actually took away the logo off their cup and their sales dropped people want to walk around the scene with a starbucks logo on their cup it's a status symbol and so you want to know howto build a message so that you can get true believers that's what we're talking about next in the next segment on special ism is how to build a message that goes well beyond just meeting the needs of your clients and making them happy that goes well beyond create experiences for them it gives them a message it gives him a rallying cry that they can go out with and tell the world about you they can go on broadcast and then you have an army of believers out there advocating for you evangelizing for you truly believing in what you do and never coming off that never backing down from that never faltering, no matter what you do, no matter what you, no matter what you give them is an experience, they will have so much grace they will have so much forgiveness and they because they believe in you and care about what you make of what you produce. Questions. Who? Who? You don't scream. I believe I forgot your photographer. Really? Yeah. Whatever you're saying, I am down with. Ok? So let's say you're first starting out and you don't have clients already. How do you start getting your client referrals? How do you start getting the people that believe in you? And can those people be, uh, kind of given, like, you know, do you have referral gifts or referral? You know, fees or anything like that that you give out to encourage that system for yourself? Yeah, well, first off, you don't need clients to create amazing and powerful referring that your friends, your family, their friends, their family back into your phone network. If you give them something to talk about, then they have some they could talk about. So yes, having clients creates the basis but again to have a true believer. It doesn't involve me having to have shot anyone's pictures. You know, look at the email that I get from people when I have to because I know some is perfect for his name's jared, by the way he takes pictures if he was, you know, like him, though you still should hang out with him not to be a client if in that email you don't have to have haven't experienced before, you just have to know me, you have to know what I stand for and it's not our business stands for you know, you don't have to have used me if what I stand for meets with the person you're trying to talk to me about and that's a great thing to be an advocate of mine, you have to use my surface before to be an evangelist of mind you kind of have to use my service, but to be a true believer, you don't even have to have been a client of mine, and so you can go out and create an army of true believers by having the correct message and empowering you're already, you know, already built referral network with the right tools in the right things to talk about and that's another question that we're getting specifically from rodney bed soul is if you could expand on what that message is, so you said people have a limited time that they can broadcast, so how do you distinctly is it the experiences that I mean it's? Not like you're gonna say hey, tell him tell people these five words about me or what are some of the special touches and experiences that you provided your studio? Well, I mean, I think that, you know, there's a lot of things, you know, I think that you need to go as far as to create an experience for your couples, you need to plan how you're going to create experience for them, you can't just expect experiences happen, you know, your systems should create advocates. You should plan on, create experiences and you need to have a message that creates true believers. So your system is what allows you to deliver on your product every single time ah, good system. So nothing ever falls to the cracked cracks and that's what we talked about in the second segment, you set up a system so that every single person starts off with an advocate because, you know, your system is going to make sure that you do a great job every single time you know the worry about oh, my god, you know, if I get buried is that we're going to take five weeks instead of three weeks no, your system is always going to make sure and that's gonna allow you to build an army of advocates and then you have to focus as a business owner in your metrics and in your action items on create experiences. One way we create an experience with our couples is weak. We do a premiere party to show them their images after the wedding and that's great and that's fine and people do that a lot. But what we really try to do is what we've worked with a great group of vendors. When we worked with our team of vendors, we make it a vendor client party. So we bring the clients and the vendors all have the same place, and we all relive their wedding. And we watched the slide show together for the first time and we make him dinner and we have appetizers and we do in our studio with has a gorgeous view of kensington and it's, a little community san diego, and that creates an experience that people talk about and we still have people come to us and say, I want to come see my images of all the vendors to let me do that, you know, and it's such a wonderful night that's. How that's a way to create an experience you can create experience, edison that goes wrong when you act heroically when something goes wrong and you supersede what should have been done and you go way beyond that if an album is late and should have been delivered them, you get in your car and you drive it to their doorstep that very minute and then you bring him a bottle of wine is an apology and say, I'm so sorry I let you down and I couldn't do anything else other than just getting a car and take this here to you heroic actions create experiences that give people who are the arsenal to talk with you about and then building that message. It's a great question that's exactly what the next topic is about special ism specialist is about finding what makes you unique and then talking about it and you have a rallying cry to give in hand to your clients a message a one sentence message you have words you khun arm them with, they can go out and talk about and find people that are perfect for you, even if they've never used before because that home sure does so the internet wants to know jared what has been your best true believer experience? What is that? My best true believer experience that's a great crowd? You know I have to say that we have I have a I have a couple that talks about me and refers me almost to the point of embarrassment, and the interesting thing about it is that so true believers are interesting because you know when you get amazing true believer you start to go like man that I should tell him not to refer me so much because they're they're sending me so many people and it's it's not always exactly you know I always have time and I feel like I'm gonna let him down if I can't take care of this person I can't take care of that person I did have a client where you know, we had it came out of an experience that then turn them into a true believer and it was a it was you know, a doctor married a lawyer and so the doctor and lawyer had gotten married and we were working on their album and it came out that we had told them that the album is going to be shipped and two weeks prior to that it had never arrived in our studio one thing leading to something some the cracks and four weeks later you know, we didn't do anything we hadn't don't think about it and we already checked it off our system so I got a call from her and she was really bummed about it and she told me I'm really bummed that I don't know how but I was like you under album she said no, I haven't gotten my album and I said, I am so sorry, you know, let me look into this and so you know the album had arrived in our studio yet but we did do is we figured out a way to look into more about what happened to solve the problem we got the album overnight it to us from the album company and then we started talking about well ok how do we act heroically here how do we take a problem and a client that's frustrated and how do we make it so that this isn't just and again the motive doesn't come out of trying to create an experience for them so they were for us it comes from trying to make the experience positive again and so what we did was we talked to them and way basically with strategy where we kind of they have been referred to us by a by her best friend who is also a doctor. We shot her wedding three years ago and so I called her up and I said hey here's what happened? You know, we kind of messed up on this album and I want to know something that I could do that would make it up to her and she said oh well that's really nicely to call him think about her and she's like well let me think about it you think what kind of things you have in mind so we start talking about it and what we did in the end was I told her you know what and I found out from her sister was from her best friend it was that you know, her family was coming into town in two months and she hadn't had all of her family her two brothers there I think they were both married toso their their in laws and then her parents were autumn in town two months later and so I got all the details from her best friend and I showed up that day two months later and I photographed had worked it out with her parents and I photograph for four or five hours we did family portrait and I just hung out with him for the afternoon and the look on her face and I showed up was what are you doing here? And I'm like I'm here because we messed up and I want to make it up to you I want to show you how much how not only how bad I feel but just how much I care about the fact I let you down and I found out about this offer this moment here that's happening and how important it is to you and I want to be here to document that for you and she started crying and she you know anyways so fast forward four years later and this person has turned into one of my biggest advocates of angel's and true believers and not only do I photograph every family event of theirs but they started inviting me to the family events that I don't photograph to the cousins birthdays because I've got to know all their family. Now they start inviting me to the cousins birthdays, and now they don't let me show up unless I bring sarah because they like sarah better than me. And so I just recently shot her daughter's eighteen no, her daughter's grant, I can't keep track of my shoes so many things for them. I just shot her her daughter's graduation party from college, and they were like, sarah, coming, I was like, what do you mean, like, was there coming like? Well, no syrian army doesn't come in, assist me in these kinds of things, like, no, we're inviting her to come with us while you're shooting so she can hang out with us. And so sarah came dressed up in the flow garden everything and had a great time hanging out with them were part of their family, and they are a true believer now they go around, they tell everyone about us, and they tell everyone about what we do, and I they have seven cousins she's, one of seven cousins in this family, and I've shot for five of the cousins weddings I've shot numerous birthday parties, I just shot and shot for them. And it's. An experience where they don't even look at me like a photographer anymore. It's, like a secondary thought that I photograph it's all about that relationship and it's all about the experience. That that happens when you get beyond that long winded story. But it's it's, such a fantastic family that I got to get to work with. And, you know, it's it's. A great example for me.