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Getting Started in Senior Photography

So how do we get started? First thing you have to do is walk out of here and find all the schools in your local area that you want to serve. Where are those schools? You've gotta look, don't say all I know about this one school. I heard about this other school go out there, look to the board of education. Where are the schools? Because you might find those nick's little private schools that are dying for your attention. And by the way, the contract school that we just want is a private school and so they're looking for someone to treat them. Not like an orphan step child, but to really take, you know, take care of them there. Do they offer school papers? What of the advertising options in the school papers will talk about this. Are they contract schools? Meaning there? Locked up? You can't submit images there or they open anyone. Khun submit an image to the year boat. Do they offer school fairs? School fairs are a great way to promote your brand and so around school fairs. What? That i...

s this thing it's just like a kind of bridal show for kids for high schoolers, so they'll convert the cafeteria. They'll have in like maybe the dress shops, the limousine shops for prom all that other stuff and they'll have a table set up for you is a photographer so now you're showcasing your images, your work and getting to know these kids one on one and typically the school fairs you're talking about under two hundred bucks to have a table there you know, for the day in the cafeteria yeah question on the school contract's due is like a bidding process recently like a silent pit and you just don't know kind of what the other guy's doing or do you have kind of a feel based on what I mean? Well they tell you what it's normally been or is it kind of ah no it's under that we're going I got to slides dedicated teo school contracts but no it's like mafia stuff like you know you you don't know what anybody's bid you don't understand the process and thank god this one school really hand held us through the process because I had no idea I never submitted a school contract before I didn't understand you know what they were looking for from us and this one school really wanted us to be part of it and they helped us understand what they needed and that's how we ended up getting it because I I would imagine based on my initial submission I was probably lost the contract because I wasn't willing to do what they needed I just didn't understand the process, so we'll cover that in detail. The next thing I want to do is run metrics for your area again internationally you've got to find a different body organization that offers this information but there's two places we use american student list and info yusa a typical list running those metrics I told you about you can control radius you know what the zip code is? How far out from that zip code you want to go? I've worked with photographers that do anywhere from a hundred mile radius, you know, to a three hundred mile radius it's insane how far people will travel for great images. So but I like to usually mail out to about fifteen hundred people, so we use marathon press for our direct mail and we mail out to about fifteen hundred people you're gonna expand that radius is needed right? If you run that initial target two hundred fifty thousand arm or maybe you come back with seven hundred names maybe that's not enough maybe you're in a you know, a smaller part of the country that's okay, expand your radius or reduce the income level so maybe you say instead of two hundred fifty k it's one hundred fifty so and I may be jumping the gun on you here but to mail out fifteen hundred pieces from marathon press that's not a cheap endeavour posted everything else did you worked did you get to that level after the fact or did you jump in and say listen I'm just going to drop the three grand that it's going to take and hopefully works out yeah right out of the gate we jumped into the one thousand fifteen hundred units and let's talk about that for a second that is probably going to cost you with postage about a eighty cents to a buck apiece okay, so you're looking at a thousand fifteen hundred dollar investment here it's not for the faint of heart and so what? You have to understand his direct mail if you're going to engage in it it's not a one time shot you historical you have to hit them three to five times before they even begin to recognize your brand and in some cases more and so you're not getting into this thinking I'm going to send out one direct mail piece and we're gonna be rich the studio the phone's gonna ring off the hook that's not what's gonna happen uh so you have to understand what you're getting into and I get asked all the time south if you had one thing what would your silver bullet p what would be the one thing you can't live without? Uh none of them I need them all its direct mail facebook twitter referrals thie, ambassador program all working together, okay, on a multi pronged approach to hit these kids over and over and over again so that our brand is synonymous with great imagery. Does that make sense? Did you have a question? Yeah, about do you track about how much, how many seniors you're getting off of your direct mail? And we've all heard it's, dad and don't do it on global blood, but I mean, you're obviously doing this well, so about what are you getting from that? Yeah, so at the end of the day, it's very difficult for anybody to really tell you how much direct mail's work let's, let's use your personal life as as an example. Tv, can you really measure all those companies that run those super bowl ads, right? And they're paying millions of dollars for that thirty second spot? Can they truly measure? Hey, we spent fifty million dollars on this ad campaign, and because of that, we sold ten thousand more units, they can't do it, but notice all the big companies still do it because there's one word awareness it's all about creating awareness for your brand. So I don't know on my direct mail how much it's working, but I do know parent after parent tells us about it so let's, go back to your example. You're home, you're watching a tv commercial you're sitting you're sitting in bed late at night you watching commercial and they give you they put put up a product that you're like oh that's pretty cool what's your next step do you pick up the phone and call? No, none of us do where do you go? Internet we all do we go to internet we google it we do a little research on it we check out some of the news groups maybe I go to their website now from google so I saw them on tv. I go to google, I'm now on their website and now I submit a contact us so now maybe even I order it now I've seen enough information in order it where'd that order come from? Did he come from google? Did it come from their website? Did it come from tv all the above and that's how I look at it? It came from all of the above without the tv ad without the direct mail piece they would have never heard of me and never would've gone to my website if they had never gone to my website that would have never led to the actual call you see where I'm going with that so it's all working together for this cohesive marketing and branding strategy that you can't just give up on photographers are the worst at getting the word out, right? I uh in saint louis true story at a guy at the time one of the best photographers in my local market, he was everywhere everywhere I went his business wass it drove me crazy. He is a very established and good photographer great photographer he went out of business two years ago, he went out of business because one of the things he said and I heard him say this to multiple people yeah, we're not doing bridal shows anymore we're not doing any magazine ads anymore, we're going, we're just doing facebook ads now you're out of business because you can't do that, nobody can if they could don't you think these monster companies would do that? Invest all that money on and take that save that money and just go to facebook and it doesn't work everything together, okay, so we've got it we've got to understand that can't be afraid to travel, right? So don't think you just have to work within your fifteen minute radius get out there, go as far as you can there was a girl I met in minneapolis she told me she travelled as far as three hours for senior portraiture she was a hustler man, she did what she had to do to make money and grow her business. I respect that understanding all this information once you understand everything right how much money there how much the demographics looks like how much household income how many seniors air in your area understanding what's on the on the table now you understand the size of the opportunity now is an entrepreneur you can make the decision no matter where you are what part of the world is this a viable venture for you? I would make the argument yes no matter where you are this is a viable venture questions for me you're smiling at me so wear always smiling I have a question from les w photo who asked what exactly do you mail out letters marketing piece what works we mail out I was wanted to see if I had a slide a picture of it we mail out a nine by six postcard I like that size I think if you go any smaller on the size that loses the impact so we mail in nine by six flyer actually later in the slide deck I do have a picture of the direct mail piece so I'll show you that but it's a nine by six two sided flyer high impact image on the front and a copy you know call the action on the back so yeah go with a bigger pieces bigas you can afford to go smaller gets lost in the mail box and just to clarify for chelsea louise do you think that direct mail should be used after establishing yourself a bit after establishing yourself a bit rather than a photographer who's just starting out no, I think waiting is the worst possible thing you can do because it's a chicken egg thing what's gonna have to happen is that direct mail is going to help you establish yourself it's going to get the word out so now when mom goes I've never heard of this south guy but you know who is this guy? Well, now mom seen that postcard three to five times in her mailbox she's well aware of who we are right? But you don't want think about the psychology of a teenager if mom tells the teenager this is what you should do the team doesn't want to go there right? Mom can't possibly know anything cool and if the team tells mom this is where I want to go mom's going to immediately put, you know, offer up resistance that's why I'm hitting the kid at school and I'm hitting mom at home with that direct mail piece so now when they talk they're both kind of in sync on who we are good questions, anything else we good right school papers very cost effective form of reaching the kids we like to run ads in the latter part of the year so if you think about this the kids are not you don't want to run an ad in january february there's no point they've already had their senior pictures and they're definitely not thinking about the upcoming year and so typically when we run school adds it's going to be in the as schools just about to get out okay? You don't want to want to go back to school you don't want to be running these ads that makes sense with what I'm saying here ok? Because once they go back to school yearbook pictures or do they're done right? So we're always shooting a year ahead so what are we now? We are in twenty twelve but we're photographing the class of twenty thirteen right now in the middle of this summer does that make sense? Because twenty twelve they just graduated so you're getting them his juniors so you going to run ads trying use images of the kids from the school? Now I know when you're first starting out this isn't always possible because you're you're just getting models and stuff like that, but once you get established, this should be a yearly endeavor for you on ad in the school paper could be anywhere from two hundred dollars toe four five hundred dollars full page at some of them have digital additions now some of them are still going print some of them even offer you the ability to do an insert right? So rather than printing on the garbage school paper right it's always bad egg the worst quality paper you can imagine offer they offer you the ability to put an insert so now take that nine by six card I'm talking to you about produced that card have it inserted into the school paper very, very nominal fee to stick it in there by, you know, one of the kids on the yearbook staff okay, so yet another way to get your images and brand out there run ads looking for ambassadors and we'll talk more about what an ambassador's but remember that ambassador is your sales rep into the school and we'll talk about how this program works, how to get it started. But maybe as you're starting out your first year, you run an ad looking for a bass, right? Hey classic twenty thirteen want to be a model for a day called salvador cincotti photography or go to dub dub dub south and kind of dot com to find out more okay, so that getting them excited to be a senior wrap senior model, whatever you want to call it, maybe is your established now you're not running ads necessarily looking for ambassadors, right? We have all the ambassadors we need and more were running ads looking for or just looking to create awareness promoting our specials promoting our studio but try yearbook ad. And so I don't have a slide on this, but a yearbook ad in the back of the yearbook, right in the back of a high school yearbook. When you open up that yearbook, there's usually ad space, okay? And the parents can actually buy a full page yearbook ad and put their kids pictures in it. Well, we offer templates to our clients where we can design it, drag and drop those images in these templates. Ok. And send that to the school to be printed back there. Well, guess what in that yearbook at, we're gonna have our logo on the bottom corner. Okay, that's promoting our studio as well. So all this makes sense. School papers, contract schools. What do you do? You do you share the consul to parent of the ad? No. Or does the parent pay for the entirely and use brandon? Yeah. The parent paid not only is a parent pay for the ad, the parent pays us to design the at and so the way that works is the parents already going to pay for that yearbook at, but in the past with the parents do it, it'll be like congratulations, susie. You know, we love you, and then they put some horrific you know, childhood picture off her, you know, from when she was like foreign goofy looking in the yearbook, what we're saying is, hey, guys, we have all these pre designed templates that we offer let us take some of the pictures we took on her senior chute dropped them in this design this for you, we charge ninety nine dollars to do that ala carte, but it's built into a package so rarely is anyone paying for that it's usually built into a value add in one of the packages, does that make sense? All right, so what do we do with schools that are under contract? First, we've got to re educate the seniors, and what do I mean by that? When schools under contract, they cannot tell the kids or the families, for that matter where to go for their senior portrait, they can tell where they have to go for the yearbook picture, right? That's that one image that gets submitted that mug shot, if you will, to the yearbook, but that's not what we're going after anyway. We're going after that fashion model experience that's what we want to offer the kids, but most parents you will find at least in my neck of the woods don't remember or don't know, I should say that they could go someplace else they don't know they have options in fact, a lot of parents I talked to they say well, the way the school words it they make us think we have to go to this other studio that's what they do so you need to create a campaign letting parents know they have options there's one school in my area true story there are seven and nine hundred kids in the senior class this one studio has owned that school contract I want to say going on almost twenty years now it's not even open up for bid no one can even submit images to the school no one can meet with the school it's a monopoly right? It's ah it's like being in the italian mob it's it's uh you know the costa nostra I don't like this being an italian I'm used to being on the other side of this stuff and unfortunately we don't get to go in there so I gotta talk to somebody we go into the school and we meet with the principal we finally get a meeting after two to three years of trying to get that meeting got completely blown off by the principal he didn't he was like we're happy we're not we're not changing anything and it frustrated me because the principal's happy but I know the kids aren't happy the families aren't happy they want mohr options this one studio on ly offers indoor portrait he doesn't go outside with him right here's an offer this high fashion experience with kids feel like they have no choice so this year we ran a massive campaign letting them know they have options and that's key so it was very aggressive very in your face marketing and advertising in fact think about this they have to pay I think it's like fifteen or twenty buck to get their yearbook picture taken at the studio we offered up a special where we would pay them to go get their yearbook pictures taken someplace else so what did you actually in this campaign send like direct market a direct mailed direct mail yeah nine by six direct mail piece is what we set out but we've changed the copy a little bit like you know it could be it depends on how aggressive you want toby I'm pretty aggressive you can already tell but hey get your yearbook get your lane yearbook pictures taken someplace else become to us for your high fashion shoot right get your model on its outs and caught a photography so those are the things you've got to be willing to do to stir up the pot I'm okay stirring up the pot piss and a few people off I don't care ultimately I want to grow my business and my priority is myself and my family and then the names or addresses and things like that did you get that through through that list for that list since yeah, that list will help you target a zip code, but even let's say you can't get that list like maybe some of the internationals they don't have access to a list like that, find a kid in the school, get access to the yearbook and there's usually a way a parent teacher directory something like that where you can get access to those names and addresses. Yeah, I've started getting some names from parents because that's true, the principles and the schools are very happy, and they don't as long as they get, like in our area, we have to give commission and all this stuff, too, and you know they're happy, but the parents are here and they're like, oh, we hate the pictures, we don't want to go there it's awful experience, so we found they told some the parents like you have to go the pto, you have to go the principal and tell them that you're not happy with your photos, it'll never change. By the way, I know it's it's, a good old boy network unfortunately will never change unless I think you start taking matters into your own hands, because once we started doing this, the schools now have no choice but to take us seriously they have to listen to what we're what we're saying, that's, how we got that school contract, by the way, you know, we'll talk a little bit more about that, but without us being a little bit more aggressive, they would have never even considered for that school contract. Alright, so keep working to school, remember every markets different, some are going to allow you to submit senior pages, some are going to allow a limited list of photographers in right a preferred vendor list, if you will, though they'll allow for that, others allow only a single company on then, like I said, we experience all three in our market, so you've got to adapt every school's gonna be a little bit different, you've got to adapt to each scenario. If this, if you're serious about this, you've got to be willing to adapt now, I don't know if there's any questions in the chat room, but usually I get asked a lot of questions around. Why should I even care about school contracts? The reason you need to cares? Because in the mind of a parent, if you're not on the school's preferred vendor list in one form or fashion, they do not see you as an option all the time yeah, maybe you'll have one or two parents but that's not where you're looking to take your business. You're looking to take your business to a point where you can get seventy five seniors, one hundred seniors, right? That's, where you want to go with your business in order for that to happen, you've got to present yourself as a viable option. All right? So let's talk about and I'll take questions after this, but let's, talk about going after school. Contract's everything I'm gonna tell you here is based on my personal experience going after school. Contract's first and foremost it's not fair. Get over it. It is, in fact a monopoly. Welcome to the world. They want kickbacks. They want all these things that are illegal in every other aspect of our daily lives, but apparently in school systems all's fair in love and war. What to expect? Nothing is free and what I mean by that you are not going to be able to freely negotiate a contract by putting in just a bid. They are going to want a kick in some form or fashion. Infact the school I met with let me know point blank that they're actually losing thousands and thousands of dollars producing the yearbook thousands, uh, just to produce that yearbook, even with the kickback from the photographer. Because the printed book anymore the kids can't even afford it, so I think the yearbook they're actually selling for fifty to seventy five dollars for a copy of the yearbook and probably if you've got kids, a couple of you do and you're paying that fifty to seventy five dollars, you're going, why am I paying so much? Just know this at fifty to seventy five dollars, the schools are actually still losing money on the yearbook is not insane when I'm going to convert to a digital edition, it doesn't even make sense, so I'm working with the school I mean, now that was part of my proposal converting to a digital yearbook, I said what's the value I was meeting with the principal of having the printed yearbook and the reason I said this storm because he looked for twenty minutes to show me the yearbook he's, like, I want you to look at some of the pictures on what we do and what we've done in our school. I'm like, yeah, sure, you know, we're sitting there to me twenty minutes couldn't find his his speaker system looking for his assistant to find the yearbook couldn't find it, so what if they were digital? We'll take it in two minutes, right to find this, maybe even less what if what if it was digital? They could all be online so year after year if you here where they could go online and you see you know the previous year's yearbooks first the printed edition so don't get me wrong I understand some people want to see touch feel that yearbook but we got to think about this if you're running a business that's losing twenty thousand dollars a year that is not a good business you've got to get out of it you can negotiate and we did we negotiated they were looking for certain things that I wasn't willing to deliver ah perfect example is the ordering process now if you have a school contract today some of the things I'm probably gonna offer up are going to make you cringe but why here's how school contract's work today you come in you set up your studio the kids come in they sit down you take their head shot next next next next literally there's your chair about two seconds three seconds move on maybe you get a great picture of the kid maybe you don't you know how they sell the pictures the parents have to order beforehand the parents have to order they send the kids home with a form and the parents have to say I want this package that package okay hold on I just told you that the key to sales is to allow them to see touch feel the product so now I'm asking a parent to spend more than twenty five dollars, the average sale in the school, by the way right now is twenty five dollars. Holy cow, I am not going to make a whole lot of money in this school. So how do I get that average sale to be fifty dollars? I don't get that average male to be seventy five dollars I want to sell bigger print size is maybe an eleven by sixteen. They said the average prince sizes are eight by tens and five by sevens, right? Because the parents are buying them before they've ever seen the picture. So we're experimenting as usual. Our first year, we're going to offer sales. They're not pre ordering online, so we're gonna move all sales for the school online tow an online shopping cart. How am I the first person ever think of this? I don't know like I'm sometimes I'm like, am I really that smart? And I the only one thinking about this right to me, this is a no brainer. So now I post them online for weeks. I have access to the parents, they have to log in, I get there there. User names so that I can send them e mails I can send them reminders I can offer them discount special packages I can even create a little video showing them why in eleven by fourteen is the right size I can create bundling packages you guys with me on this? This is a no brainer. Well, that was one of the things I negotiated I did not want to do this old style ofthe order forms beforehand plus think about the back end. All you guys out there who are school photographers now think about all the tracking on the back end on the back end you actually have to track the image number you took and what the student's name was. Well, I don't have to do that anymore. I post all those images online and whatever they order, get the image number when they order. I don't have to worry about anything. Guys with me questions whenever you posted pictures online, do you have something that you have that just like that's their day jobs for a while? They just sit down and they put in they create the gallery, putting the passwords and usernames that you can give me all those people because I mean, that has to be a vory data entry intensive process, right? Well, what we're doing in this particular scenario is we're creating one gallery per class so the freshman class sophomore junior senior, so they'll be one gallery the username will just be there. We use photo biz for this and the user name will be their email address password will be x y z high school across. All right, so we don't have to manage any of that. We can actually give that to the kids when they're we can produce a little flyer. Hey, your pictures will be online in two days. Go check him out because these air head shots, they were all going to be the same color temperature, right? They're all going to be the same lighting scenarios, all that stuff. So you should be able to get these things through your workflow twenty four hours. I mean, there's, nothing magical going on here, but what you can do with some cool stuff, right? Couple of clicks I got c p a a couple of clicks I gotta de saturated at it. Write. So now, instead of the parents is buying one, they might go. I really like this one. Oh, I really like this one, and now they start bundling and adding more images that make sense. So it does do you have, like a certain companies do is we have a software solutions used to do this to do what post? No, the like, like if like do you have somebody sit on and create like three different times picture like see people like white color or is there something you're cart solution that doesn't do it for you? You know we outsource so that part of it we absolutely outsources sal is not going to be sitting there for forty nine cents like trying to convert him just to see pia I'm too busy right? And if you've got capacity I always encourage you to do it internally but I don't have capacity and my time is better spent on my business marketing advertising we outsourced to a company called evolve at its dot com and so we outsource there's nothing wrong with outsourcing up until a couple of years ago that was a dirty four letter letter word right? And today I think is you grow your business either you're hiring editors or you're outsourcing and I don't care who you outsource to you can outsource to anybody but I think you've got a look at that as a viable alternative. Questions from the chat room always questions from the chat room south what's going on in the lounge I'm I just want to be in the lounge you are in the lab and you are in the lounge like hand out in the lounge they've always got so many interesting things to say, so a question from michelle a database is in my market another company it's all the school contract's would you continue to market to those seniors after the fall? No, I would not I would I would start marketing to them in april letting them know they have options if you wait till after the fall you've missed the opportunity I think you have to start marking to them like in april may now at this point a year you might be going okay what do I do now? Uh would you need some direct mail? You need a way to capture these kids? Maybe it's facebook maybe it's uh, you know, some sort of social media but you've if you only have one hundred people that like your page, you have a difficult time via social media so direct mail may be the only option, but after the fall I don't know why you go then your your market has just shrunk significantly so no april may is when you do it quite a few people clearly photography jeremy and lisa j they're all asking and saying I don't have a studio location storefront is there a way to overcome this? Uh when high value parents likely have an expectation for such a presentation? That is a great question and I'm really happy you came it came up so let's look at our own history two thousand seven where we were fifty thousand dollar studio last year million dollars studio we grow our business out of our home, so for the first three years of our existence we were in our home, you would walk into our home it was a very small room I want to say it was like ten by twelve feet okay, we had a couch, the tv monitor, two chairs and some pictures on the wall kind of similar to what you're seeing in here just a lot smaller and we would meet with our clients and we grew our business out of our home there's absolutely nothing wrong without a zone option, but instead of your home there's, there are options in every single city it's the small business association offers you the ability to create they have incubators, so look for incubators in your town you could probably rent space hourly just to have that sales meeting it gives you that big business field or you can do it by the month and in some cases it could be hundred dollars a month for a very nice studio space. So if you got kids in your home common sense stuff right, you don't want your kids running around your home and screaming while trying to do sales presentation for me, taylor and I my wife we have no kids, so it was easy to run it out of our home so either in your home or an incubator and you'll be fine I think a lot of times now people are actually in the same location, maybe they do the same type of photographer. You may be different, but are sharing studio spaces as well, different days of the week with other photographers, other photographers, yeah, that's a great idea if you can work that out. And of course, that the key is not just a shooting space. It's having that meeting's correct? Yeah, that's, that's more valuable than anything else. Can I have a follow up question that from lisa j, who is from so cal and and says, we have a lot of beautiful natural backdrops. Will that work for senior photographer? Yeah, of course I I always tease my friends who live in southern california and, like, I hate you guys because, you know, it's, just beautiful weather all the time when you're in st louis senior pictures this time a year, you're typically dealing with the heat index of about one hundred to one hundred fifteen degrees sometimes, and you still have to make these kids look like supermodels. So yes, if you're in, you know, a beautiful location, you I'm jealous, right? Go for it, do it but diversity so the key is you can't go out there and just every pictures this beautiful beach picture beach portrait what we like to do if you look at my portfolio online is you'll see I've got more of an urban flair a little bit more grittiness tow tow our images so we'll take some pictures in a park and then take some pictures in an alley just to give them diversity so mix it up and a question from jean kwang just to clarify again so when do you start marketing to the seniors that are graduating in twenty thirteen for the class of twenty thirteen? We started marketing in march april of this year this year that's already passed we've started marketing and we continue to market to him so it's not over we're still marketing to these kids but rewind the first thing you're gonna have to do is get ambassadors we start looking for ambassador in november and so so this november coming up you're looking for twenty fourteen ambassadors, which sounds crazy because you're still in twenty twelve and you're looking for twenty fourteen but that's how far in advance we're doing some of this stuff and we're going to get into that yeah, we're going to talk about the ambassador program in detail, all right? Okay, I have a question from twitter from susan bartolini who asked if you shoot more than one market senior brides newborns would you recommend different branded websites uh not different brendan websites but different branded facebook sites so, for example, we'll talk a little bit about that, but I we've created one landing spots alison kado, dot com that's, where all our clients go because you'll be surprised how many of my seniors have referred weddings to us older sister cousin s o I don't want them to not know that we do wedding photography, however, on the facebook side, when we're posting pictures, my bride's don't care about seniors. My seniors don't care about bride, so I firmly believe in separating those two and you can't go wrong because facebook sites are free, I follow up question on the studio and using your home. Uh, question is, what do you think about going? Teo, the family's home of the senior, for the presentation of the images I despise that is an option. I know a lot of photographers out there do it, and they do it well and good for you. I see several problems with that, and most importantly is if you're going to the client's home, life gets in the way their life gets in the way their phone is ringing, kids running around husband's air coming home late from work because he doesn't he's busy and he knows he doesn't have to be in an appointment, he just has to come meet at the home when you have them. In your studio you've got home field advantage and I'm a big believer in home field advantage, so I want to have them into my studio I want to control the temperature I want control the lighting I want to control them mood the music we offer our clients drinks so you know they come into our studio, we've got wine beer if it's a wedding client we might have cheese out form right? We wanted to be that experience you don't own the experience when you go to their homes, so you've got to bring them in home field advantage good question okay question from ken morris in virginia how would you recommend getting a portfolio started for seniors? I think that's easy getting a portfolio started for seniors doesn't have to be complicated reach out to go out on craigslist, go out on one model place or model mayhem find some of these teen models on just get him out there and shoot him. Start shooting goto a workshop you know, if you do one of our workshops we let you shoot so you're working side by side with me and I'm going to give you times you shooting build your portfolio, but even if you're not doing it with me, find a way to just get out there shoot experiment to make all your mistakes on free clients first, making them on pay paid clients you want to keep going with question. Also, couple more, we're doing good, okay, and a question from, um, from k y k w k whiner do you need photo permission to post the photo? The student photos on the web site. Yes, well, you should have each one of your clients sign a model release, so every senior that comes to our studio will sign a model release because we write books, obviously, one shows like creative live, it becomes very important that you've got permission from the parent. And so, as part of our normal process, when they come in to see our pictures, order their pictures, we asked him, hey, south wants to put post some of these on the website. Are you okay if we use it and we have mom sign the release form? So that's a no brainer.