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Marketing to Seniors

Let's get into marketing to seniors we started off earlier very finicky demographic but for you you have to understand what are they watching what are they reading what are they being influenced by? Okay it's easy I'm look I'm forty two years old the last thing I want to do is watch like jersey short that's not what I'm looking to do ok it's gone it's garbage tv but at the end of the day that's what the kids are watching ok they come in and they're in there and they're making comments on common phrases common sayings right so you don't want to be odd man out you want to understand what's going on in that demographic so you've got unfortunately start watching what they watch right kardashians all these ridiculous shows you just sit there in their mindless anymore but you still have to understand that this is what the kids are watching this is what they're being influenced by and you'll start realizing that branding is unbelievable so when you're watching these tv shows what commercials ...

air coming on during the shows that's what you need to be looking at because these advertisements that are popping up our targeted towards this audience it's not an accident that these commercials are popping up so this is what's in their head when it comes to branding and advertising so I want to make sure my bringing in advertising is going to resonate with that demographic uh, facebook, very powerful tool marketing to the kids and we'll talk more about facebook later, but a very powerful tool to get nat after them. Twitter not is powerful with the high school senior okay, but still a powerful tool for them. I find that a lot more kids are getting into twitter once they hit their freshman year of college in high school it's all about facebook maybe ten, fifteen, twenty percent are on twitter that cause I know because they're following me on twitter. So that's how I that's all I know, but we've talked about this your branding and rep cards very, very powerful way so you're branding your logo I cannot stress this enough make the investment and get your logo and website together drives me nuts when I go look at photographers websites and I see what I see it it's horrific sometimes make the investment and do it right when I go to your website. Okay, what am I going to see on your website if I go to your portfolios? Okay, if I take time with you over lunch and I go looking at your portfolio. What am I going to see and the reason I'm asking you that question? Because I'm I'm going to see pictures that a representative of your brand if you go to my website right now and you go out there and look at it, you're going to see images, love him or hate him that are consistent, okay, image the image you're going to notice a pattern, you're going to notice an editing style, you will be able to look at my images and know their mind that's by design write him that schizophrenic when it comes to my art, I'm selling my art. I'm not trying to be everything to everyone. We can't do that be true to your brand. Be true to your vision and your clients will find you remember in the beginning, I told you that story that mom came to me with a pillow and she wanted her daughter. Oh my gosh, we don't get those clients anymore. You know why? Because if you go to my website, you don't see anything that even looks remotely like that. So when I go to your website, you've got two minutes or less to capture my attention. When I look at your image is what am I going to see your first five images, they're gonna be impact powerful images or they're going to be pictures of shoes and em bracelets. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Nobody's booking you for a wedding or senior portrait because you took amazing pictures of shoes, right? Join me on that if you say no tissues, no tissues. All right. Um, let's talk about rep cards. The rep cards are the pieces that these kids are gonna hand out in school. This is how they're doing the peer to peer marketing. We don't charge them form. We don't expect them to buy them. We don't expect them to talk about it without having these cards. We don't use wallets. I see a lot of studios that are handing, giving these kids their senior wraps. They're giving them wallets, so they're giving them these eighty bitty little wallets and asking the kids to hang him out in school. That's not exciting that's not gonna get anybody motivated. You can't even put copy on it. So instead what we're doing and I'll come back to this slide. What we're doing here is we're producing a five by seven card, a print, a five by seven print and no that's, not a foreign language. That is just where the copy would go, and so this picture is going to be a picture off the senior rep. Right not a picture of someone else it's gonna be a picture of them and then we're gonna have copy here and call the action now I'll come back to this and we'll talk talk about what that copy should be so what you don't want to do is force them to use their own pictures and what I mean by that is pictures that they have to buy from you there's actually studios in my area that will force the kids because everybody's an ambassador well you have to buy the pictures that you're handing out well that's ridiculous okay they're not going to do that and if they do they're not gonna hand him out so I print a hundred of these rep cards at my cost remember they're single sided photographic paper they're not two sided all these ornate die cut cards just a waste of money as far as I'm concerned they're too expensive thes air five by seven prints that you can get anywhere from like twenty cents apiece tto forty nine cents apiece right very, very economical and so we put one hundred of them and he had one hundred to each ambassador it's gotta have a call to action on it and should definitely be branded to your studio back to branding remember this is what the kids are going to hand out so you've got our logo down here you've got a phone number there should be a website here but what should they say here's what we have our say way have maybe two sentences about a studio salvador some kind of reason international award winning studio offering their high school seniors a once in a lifetime experience done we don't need to talk about us anymore nobody cares stop talking about yourself talk about them that's what they want to hear about if they want to learn more about me they can go to my website read my bio so I want to put one or two cents is here just about the studio then I want to get into the meat of it okay um for senior pictures that assured a wow check out our website or facebook page right become a fancy all your friends stuff like that are june special book by the end of june fifty percent off your session book by the end of july get forty percent off your session something to that effect real simple call the action and we'll go over the marketing schedule uh in the next slide but how about this hang onto this card and get a free she ate free sheets of wallets so now I'm offering incentive for them to hang on to this car see so remember you were telling me about your friend who's practicing this program and it's not working I think they're doing probably doing things wrong because what'll happen is now I've got this card it's got kind of two calls action here it's got used this car to get a free sheets of while its end get fifty percent off your session fee. And by the way, it's got bridget's name here. So now when mom calls in how'd you hear about us? Oh, I got this card from bridget and I got something in the mail. Well, great, you're never going to compete with studio bridget gets credit you with me questions? You mentioned something that personally I was trailing with, uh, the book by book in june and get fifty percent off or book by june and get fifty percent off because I don't want to give away august to september because I know everybody's coming through the door in august and september, right? But I want to fill up june and july. So you said book by and did you mean book by or do you mean book in? It depends on how you want a word it but you're gonna have a special for may so you could say book by june first or book by may thirty first write something to that effect. So there's gonna be a special for each month now? It's book not shoot that's a very important distinction I don't care when they shoot, so you could in theory, book me in may get a fifty percent off your session fee but not shoot until october november that works for me I'm ok with that remember what I told you by mid june my entire calendar is filled up and so I don't care when they shoot I just care when they book does that make sense questions online I can only yes a question from elizabeth lisbon wreath what do think about instagram I have noticed it's very powerful tool too so you talk about facebook and twitter what are some other social media things that you use I'm going to cover a little trick I have using facebook and a tool like instagram or any of those other photo tools but I'm going to cover that and how we use it in the next couple of sides for sure one more question on the interviewing of the ambassadors from becca lane do you do a pre interview via e mail or phone before you take the time to bring them into the studio for the in person or do you just too soon anyone that's referred by a previous ambassador would be a possible fit that is correct we do not there is no pre interviews we we tell our ambassadors hey onley refer people that you think will be a good fit for our studio that are like you so I put a lot of weight into that referral I don't want to waste a whole bunch of time on remember on pre interviews I don't waste time there and remember we interviewed almost forty kids, so if I interview forty kids and I'm only selecting nineteen or twenty I know I'm gonna lose half those kids anyway and each interview should only take fifteen, twenty minutes we don't spend a lot of time on the interview it's really just get to know you all right? So let's talk direct mail remember rep cards we're going peer to peer here rep cards are what the kids are handing out in school from friend to friend so now we've educated the high school kids right? But parents have no clue who we are at this point and so now we need direct mail to bridge that gap direct mail's hitting the parents at home um we send four to five mailers out may, june, july, august, september after september the kids are back in school so there's no reason for me to expend more money sending a flier in october at that point I don't care, I know I'm getting people who maybe photography is not that important to s o I'm not really going to spend a whole lot of money there, so this is when this needs to be one it needs to happen and of course has to be branded has to be a called action anything that comes out of your studio oh if it's not branded and doesn't ever call the action you're missing the boat you don't get it it's all about branding so if we look at the direct mail piece what you're going to see here is this is completely branded to our studio okay, so you're seeing a very aggressive in your face this is what I call an impact style image okay it's got that grungy effect to it we can change the colors here and this is the front of the car this is a nine by six card so this is when they picked this up in the mailbox there seeing one of their somebody that they know on the front of this cover looking like a rock star it's going to create buzz they're going to talk about they're going to get excited about it if we look at the back of the card very simple design we're gonna have some copy here it's going to be branded with our logo but notice my brand is very grungy very gritty so notice how similar look feel this is to the red card it's got texture on it so when these things are being handed out everybody knows that these were all working together from the same studio guys with me on that very, very important and so what should be here on the direct mail piece on the direct mail piece you're going to have very similar call toe actions book by may thirty first get fifty percent off your session fee. Okay, so now we're offering them that opportunity uh, to take advantage of that what's not on here. Hang on to this card, get a free. She ate free wallets, right? The reason for that is is I never want the studio to compete with the senior that would defeat the purpose. This is purely an awareness campaign of what's going on now, when we started out, our first flyer would go out, it would say book by may third book by the end of may get fifty percent off your session book by the end of june. Get forty percent off your session fee. Why do I do that? When I first started out, you guys know what I'm talking about? Every company out there right way know there's a lot of companies and they run specials with the special seemed to go on forever so they're not really special. So consumers have become numb to these false promotions, if you will. Everything's always on sale well, that's not what I want my brand to be known as not everything's always on sale so that's why in the first set of flyers that we used to send out would say book by the omega fifty percent off book by the end of june get forty percent off now we're telling the parent hey, you khun wait till june you're going to pay more money and we're sending that message out clearly and we will not yield on that if they call june first sorry guys unfortunately it's only forty percent off I absolutely have to adhere to that or you are gonna water down your messaging questions on the direct mail piece yeah um marathon presses will this since he's out? So did you give them the list for like, info yusa and then they put the address is on it and mail it out that clues postage and it comes directly from them correct? That is correct. So if you look at this flyer again thes air just template areas that you have to leave blank, you have two options you can order from marathon or anybody else for that matter who's selling direct mail pieces uh and we did it once our first year we're trying to save as much money as possible. Next thing I know, I found myself for like ten hours putting stamps and dressed you know, addresses on this. I'm like this is ridiculous. So for a nominal fee they do it for you and it looks better too because they actually print on the card so you'll take that a list of names that you get from an info yusa you'll take that list of names, send it to them and then they'll add it on here automatically for you with postage and you're gonna have to two options on postage we didn't really talk about that you can send the first class mail or third class and it's going to a little bit more expensive going first class but it's going to get there and it's guaranteed delivery so make that extra investment and pay for that first class delivery and my second question maybe I missed it the fifty forty thirty you know as you can't down is each one that sent out the fifty and then the next month is the forty of the next months of thirty or you list ment on that one card the countdown so they get it their mind, right? No, we don't put the countdown down we do it's each month it's that specific special single call the action so it's fifty percent forty percent thirty percent twenty what I did my first year though when I was getting established is I was very in tune with consumer behavior and if they think I would have people calling me in october asking me to get a fifty percent off special from like may so we were showing them that note this special is a moving scale so we wanted to get you to book now as quickly as we could remember my calendar for high school senior pictures will typically book by mid june and that's how we do it. You've gotta have that call toe. Call the action. All right, so let's talk some marketing tips. We've talked a little bit about this. May, june, july, august, september this is our scale. Don't focus on the twelve hour sale yet. So this is our marketing scale. This is how we're doing it right? And you want it. You see that call action notice as we get into september there's zero percent off. Why? Because almost all schools go back in september. October is the yearbook deadline. So really, this card that goes out in september, I'm looking to track down those kids who waited till the last minute that's it photography wasn't important because if it was, you were booking in april and may so I'm not going to reward bad behavior. That's something you hear me say quite often. Okay, we've gotta punish bad behavior and bad behavior is waiting until september to book your session fee. I find that's not the behavior I'm looking toe listen out of my client base now, let's, talk about the twelve hour sell to me. This is a game changer. This is how we book our calendar so quickly if we go back to this rep card. One of the additional called actions that would be on here okay and I didn't tell you this before because you guys probably weren't ready for it and I have a little bit of a meltdown too much information but the twelve hour sale is a one day sale twelve hours start at nine a m goes to nine pm pick your day but it's usually in may twelve hour sale book on this day get the best price of the year seventy five percent off your session twelve hours only this past year we did it and we booked over seventy sessions in a twelve hour window no lie and that's how you do it because they know this will be the best rate of the year now the first year I did it I didn't have that that level of success because as the word gets out they're looking forward to this twelve hours sale but still the first year I did it we had over thirty sessions in that one day what's thirty sessions in one day with you that's really good ok and they're paid sessions and so remember I'm not making money on the session fee even though I'm getting twenty five percent of that of that session fee I know I'm booking my calendar and that's very important that would be here so on this rep card it would say and don't forget about our twelve hour sale nine nine am to nine pm book this day get seventy five percent off your session now let's talk about this twelve hour sale logistically what's gonna happen your phone is gonna ring off the hook taylor is camped out the phone starts ringing at seven a m even though it says nine am to nine pm seven a m the phone starts ringing because parents want to get this over with before they go to work and the phone starts ringing we're taking it during the day we can't even handle the volume of calls coming in they're going right to voicemail so we have to change our voice mail the voicemail system will say something to the effect of thank you for calling salvador cincotti photography uh you've called during our twelve hour sale please leave your name and number in order and we'll call you back as quickly as possible in order for us to honor this seventy five percent off sale right? They have to leave that message they can't call tomorrow and say, well, I call that it was busy that's why you're that's why you're doing this that's why you have to change that message this twelve hour sale is also going to be listed on the back of the direct mail piece has to be there now let's say for argument's sake I usually like to do this the first week of men okay, school's still in session, which means the kids were handing out those rep cards. It has the twelve hour sale the direct mail pieces hit so mom knows about this twelve hour sale. Everybody knows about it. We're posting it on facebook were tweeting about it were putting it everywhere we possibly can off our website or blawg. Okay, now, this twelve hour sale is absolutely everywhere. Okay, let's, just say for argument's sake, may seventh is when we're doing the twelve ourselves. What happens when somebody calls may eighth how much they paid for that session? Fifty percent off. This is not an accident, okay, I could not go mentally. Think about it. Would you purchase something? If on monday it was seventy five percent off, but now tuesday, it's full price, you wouldn't do it as a consumer, you would reject that. And so, in order to avoid all that hey, guys, you've called twelve ourselves is over, but because you're booking today, it's still fifty percent off mentally, psychologically, the consumer can accept going from seventy five percent to fifty percent. First going seventy five percent full price, something sent so it's very important concept to understand. And by the way, this doesn't matter ifyou're doing fan this cool concept this twelve ourselves why wouldn't that work for families that would absolutely work for family, right? October and almost every place in the country is family portrait month. I mean, the leaves are changing. It's a beautiful time of year. The temperature is typically adjusting. You could do the same twelve hour sale for family portrait. So before we go on the facebook, I can only imagine, uh, we must have some questions, but we do. Do we want to start in the audience, guys? Good. Okay, so this is always a topic of conversation from lindsey brisbane. Would you advertise that seventy five percent off the session fee on a third party sites such as group on doughboy? Um okay, let's, get ready for group on here. Group on, in my opinion, do with it. Whatever you want, guys is the worst possible thing that you can do for your brand. I despise it wholeheartedly. Group onto me represents just the erosion of our industry. And until I start seeing doctors and lawyers advertise on groupon, I will never put my brand on groupon and that and that's the bottom line. So, you know, I get hate mail sometimes, from people about group on I did group on, and it was great for my business, you just you're destroying your brand. You are diminishing the value ofthe us being artist you're basically saying I'm a restaurant I am a commodity product and fry the record do you guys know you know for the record does everybody know what a commodity product is? Toilet paper is a commodity product and I do not see or equate my business with toilet paper isis is offering a high level services like the doctor like an attorney and until I start seeing them there uh I'm not going to be there so sorry guys that was my soap box for a second I'm not a big group on fan other questions yeah, I guess we need some clarification a little bit this question is from f l vt hiss photo from santan valley arizona are you requiring in non refundable deposit at booking and if so, what percentage yes we are requiring a nonrefundable deposit when they booked their session fee and it's one hundred percent I am not going to block off my calendar is a really good question when that call comes in to book your session. What I'm not going to do is block that off and not collect funds because if you do they're not going to take that session seriously they're going to show up late they're going to forget about the session but when people pay for it they're suddenly taking it a little more seriously so it's payment in full now a lot of attire for struggle with asking for money so how do we do that? Here's what we tell our clients when they call in great guys I have you scheduled for the third at three pm for your photo shoot in orderto confirm your session I'll need payment either credit card or check however you want to take payment oh, way can't pay you the day your session unfortunately our system doesn't allow us to enter in your appointment without without a payment method see so it's not my fault it's the system's fault right dammit guys! So I'm willing to blame somebody else if you don't want to take ownership of that but do not book that session without payment it's an extension of that so far all of the ones that are free are you booking it with nothing or the nothing that's free in my ambassadors? But your family sessions air free if they book uh so it's a pre qualified client so they've already paid basically so they're going to take it seriously they're going to take it seriously they've already come through our studio, right? So I would never just run a promotion for a free family session I'm on lee giving that to my senior clients who have already spent a significant amount of money in our studio almost as a reward for hitting a certain price point that makes sense but it's not based on price point but there's still qualified I mean, if the averages to that when there's been six hundred where there's been five thousand at the end of the day it's a free family session that is correct. Yeah, ok, another question just to clarify from war car three is thies this kind of prices those air just for this session fee fifty percent off the session fee and not off their total order? That is correct. Where justice counting the session fee, right? We're following that principle that's in corporate america we're giving them away the printer if you will were given away the printer and we know we're going to make money on our bank and in this case I know I'm gonna make money on the print sale but that's, why it's so important to bring them into your studio for that sale? If you just dump these images online, this process is not gonna work for you going to struggle and you'll see our sales process on sunday take one more question, okay um and you kind of answered this, but I guess I just want a little bit more clarification, kim d in florida says on the book bye do you charge a cancellation fee or have a problem with people booking to get the discount then not following through with the appointment we do not have a problem with people booking and then not following through with the appointment we don't have that issue just because we are very limited demand and where we've created that you know, allure of there being limited demand so we don't have that issue however let's talk about if we did have that issue, how would I handle it? Somebody pays for their session and now calls us even though we've advertised it is non refundable and now calls us and says, well, you know we don't we don't talk with your session with your studio we went some place else we something else came up, I would absolutely give them a refund because the bad publicity in hanging on to seventy five dollars or one hundred dollars or whatever you're charging for your session is not worth it at all give them their money back let them go someplace else they would have been bad clients anyway. You can't force them into your studio on dh don't you know get all that bad press for your business that's my philosophy so all right let's, keep going here let's talk about facebook for a little bit very powerful tool this is where the kids are, they're engaged here, things will spread like wildfire when you posted on the facebook we create separate pages for our seniors and we talked about this earlier we have a site for our seniors and a site for our weddings. If I were heavy into families, I would have a site for seniors aside for families a site for weddings I want to keep them separate now my website though our website is one landing page, but when it comes to facebook I want to keep those separately because I might run specials for families I might run specials for seniors that are applicable to weddings, so I like keeping no separate and again it's free um you have to understand the new timeline feature now we did on entire webinar I think was an hour and a half or two hour webinar just on the new facebook features so that's something you definitely want to learn about that we could spend two hours just talking about that make the investment facebook changed a whole bunch of stuff on their timeline and how it works what pictures? Khun b there what called action khun b there s so it's very important to educate yourself on that again we use this to keep our ambassadors competitive but here's something that I think is very unique be post live from a senior chute think about it so what I'll do on a senior chute I'm gonna steal your phone here what I'll do is on a senior shoot I'll take out my iphone okay and I use an app called plastic bullet okay? And it's by um I'm going to draw a blank here on what companies? By but it's a dollar ninety nine that's all it is and the reason I love this app so much is because it gives you four options. I don't want to get into photo shop on my phone now, right? I'm were already married to our computers. I don't want to get more hold on, I'll be with you in a second. Let me get your picture. I just want four quick edits. So what I love about this app is I hit a button for at its pop up you either like it or you don't get another button, it'll generate another four just quick at it. So instagram, any of those aps perfectly fine, the end goal is still the same. We're in the middle of a photo shoot, I usually do it by her second outfit and I'll say to her, hey, suzie, you want to post this up to facebook? We take one for facebook and she's like, yeah, yeah, so she knows what's about to happen because she's seen all our friends do this, I'll get the reflector anything I have to to make a very nice portrait with my phone, whatever backdrop I wanted to look like more than a snapshot, so I didn't get in take that picture I go stand next to her all right suzy you like this picture and she's like yeah I like it ok let's edit it she's watching this all happened she's now engaged in the process I show her these edits I'm like which one do you like she's like I like that one I like that one two ok, I'm gonna post it to facebook right now so as she's changing I've already posted it to facebook the impact is immeasurable within minutes all her friends that are supposed to be in school learning are not there okay they're on fade they're on facebook going oh my god susan you look so beautiful they're liking it it's creating this mass uh marketing piece that just can't easily be replicated you can't do this and what it cost me zero zero this is what the kids want this is their world by the way and so just invest I don't care what photo app you use the concept is till the same do something cool get it posted right and all those photographers out there who we're talking about aren't you worried that they're going to steal your picture? No, I'm not worried it's a picture off a frickin phone it's gonna be okay right let it go because I'm marketing this is marketing it's okay, thanks buddy so I post live from a shoot we then post images ordered from a shoot, so what I will not do is post every image from a photo session up to facebook. My philosophy is simple. If you didn't like it enough to order, it is a print, why would I post it to facebook? We have to be careful here. We have to be very, very careful because today, today's kids, today's parents, the digital image, the facebook posting is more valuable to them in the actual print, but that we can't make money that way, so we have to protect the print and that's how we do it. If you order it as a print in our studio, we will then uploaded to facebook for you and let's talk file sizes it's going to be nine hundred forty pixels on the long edge seventy two d p I and we use a light room preset that we created toe export. So once all these kids select their pictures, they select their ten we export it via the script. Resize is it? Force slots are logo on it on dh. Then we're uploading to facebook. Okay, don't try to friend them on facebook massive creeper alert do not be that guy. I don't want to be that guy reaching out to people you know? Hey sal wants to be your friend right? And I have a few if facebook had a voice that's what it would sound like if I was asking her to be their friend but do not friend them right instead use your business page let them come like it tell them that their image is air posted there they will find it and tag themselves because as soon as you posted their friends are making comments on it already and so they're not going to steal those images and put him on their page they're just gonna tag themselves in it. All right, let me get some questions quick what if his shot you like for whatever reason that it's a shot of the session that you were like, I don't have a shot like that I want to shot like that for a long time even if they don't order then when you put it on absolutely I reserve ultimate, right? So if they didn't order it, I will still post it if I think it's a shot that best represents my brand without a doubt okay, I have it's been my experience that I will have kids friend me before they will like my facebook page, so I've got like four hundred people four hundred people that like my facebook page and twelve hundred friends yeah that's for me that's a problem because what happens is there's all sorts of madness that's going on in your personal page that you don't want your clients to see in my local market there's just great photographer she's a little younger she uses her personal facebook page as her business page she's got pictures of her drinking in a bikini like I don't think anybody wants to see me in a bikini I don't think that's where I want my clients you know seeing me in that stuff so you've got to protect that part of your your privacy in your private life now you can via facebook say send out a message to all your friends and say like my page or the next option is create a separate personal page for yourself and don't let anybody on that you with me questions from the audience we were just talking about this topic and it is different when it's high school students seeing you do these things worse is if your if your clients were all adults seeing me do what I'm saying like it's different have a high school student senior drinker in your bikini alright, right, right yes yeah if an adult we're seeing me in a bikini I'd be okay with it right? You know but maybe not I don't know so but no yeah you don't want high school parents like for example, we offer boudoir photography you will see none of that on our website because that parent who's who's conservative and has a sixteen seventeen year old daughter is goingto immediately assume a lot of things about you just based on the work they're seeing on your website so especially these guys we've got to be careful true story I did a workshop in in chicago hands on work opitz seniors and one of the guys was if you're in one of my workshops I let you shoot so I teach you what I'm doing and then I let him shoot so I give this guy an opportunity he's working with a senior he gets up there and he's taken he's taken pictures of the senior and this is how he's talking to her oh yeah let your lips come apart a little bit oh yeah, that looks really good I was like, dude, you're creeping me out man, right? You are creeping me out like do not talk to these kids like that they are seventeen years old do not that's your inside voice keep that inside right? So don't let that out you can't do you can't do that, so we've got to be conscious of it especially men we have to be conscious of that so let me keep going here on some branding topics and then I want to get you guys to lunch so let's, talk brandy, we have got to get this in order. Everything has to match your logo, your website, your direct mail pieces. Your facebook timeline has to look like one single, cohesive thought all too often when I'm meeting with photographers and I'm looking at your portfolios and I'm looking at your web sites, all this stuff is all over the place, man, different colors, different fonts, like all of this is branding get it together. Step back, get help if you need it right there's people out there this is what they do uh, into this demographic, unfortunately more than any other demographic it's very important to them. Why? Because this is what they're seeing in the magazines. They're used to proper branding, high end branding, logo's website marketing material. I don't know if you realize this is the way you pose is tied to your brandy. If you guys thought about that, if you're making them do super traditional posing, then that says your brand is very traditional ifyou're doing super high end fashion like posing that says something about your brand too. So a lot of people don't realize that the lighting you choose, the posing, the backdrops you use all our defining your brand and will ultimately define the type of client you're attracting how much money could I sell? One of those portrait's with rose in it? I don't think I would say I'm not gonna have a really good time selling those, right? But if you look at some of this work, right, it's a beautiful head shot. So that's, the kind of shot that a mom's gonna look and go. I've never seen anything like that before. That's what that's the response I'm looking for and so I like to think honestly, on a scale of one to ten maybe I'm a six. A seven is a photographer. I'm okay with that. Because I think somebody who's a seven as a photographer is going to kick the pence. Okay, who's, a seven is a photographer, but a ten is a business person. He's going to take the pants off of somebody who's a ten. Eleven worldwide winning photographer. But they're like a five on this on a business. Gil, you've got to be a business person. And so the question I want you to ask yourself all of you out there. What does your brand say about you? I want you to find people that are close to you in your life that will give you honest feedback what I call sal feedback. Okay, love me or hate me. I'm always gonna be honest with you. I'm always gonna be direct with you. You need people like that in your life. Weren't gonna paint this rosy picture. I want them to go look at your website. I want them to look at your marketing material, and I want them to give you an honest assessment. What does my brand say about me? Is it? Is it rich, or is it look poor? Does it look poorly done? Poorly executed? Would you spend money with my brand that's? A tough question? Are my images up to par? Do you like my images or the average? No photographer, by the way, wants to hear the answer to that question, but you need that feedback. We can't get all defensive. If your images sock, then step back and make him better. Okay, we've gotta invest in this kind of stuff, but we've got to know what our product is, because your imagery is what you're selling. So we've got to make sure we've got the investment there. And so are you the starbucks, the louis vuitton, the mercedes benz of our industry or you, the wal mart, the t, the seers of our industry, the choice is yours, you can go after either and be successful, by the way. If you want to be a mass production house and two, three, four, five, eight hundred shoots a year, I'm sure you could do it but I would make the argument that most of us as photographers don't want to be there that's not where we want to play and then the last thing I want you to do is pick three words that best describe your brand this is a little exercise I want all of you to go off and do pick three words that describe your brand for us it was creative, stylish, award winning creative everything we do we want to make sure we add a creative slant to it stylish, stylish khun b from the way we dress from the products we offer to the way our studio spaces decorated award winning everything we doesn't mean we have to win awards but everything we do we operate in a way that such to win awards we go after it to be the best that's a mindset this is what the way I want my team operating I want them to constantly thinking about being creative, stylish award winning those three words are going to find your brand and everything you do moving forward you have to pick those three words and then finally I want to show you our logos for brain and so salvador cincotti photography notice there's no photography there is everyone in our local market knows who we are? The brand has transcended photography at this point and creative, stylish award winning made its way to that brand because we like the way it sounded. Our client's responded to that salvador's and kind of films right? We offer a video division notice how the two brands tie together we brought down the main logo and this ass is a filmstrip studio c little more whimsical there's some color in it so studio c was created for our sub brand so you can book a wedding with me or you can book a wedding with one of my associates that's brand new this year we can talk more about that later and then finally black label if you've seen me speak before you know how important this is to our brand when you come into my studio salvador sin kata you khun b at an elite level within our studio and that's called the black label collection so we've created branding around our highest level product or service. This has been huge by the way because clients you'd be funny especially seniors they'll come into their sales session well what it is what it's susie bye oh suzy when black label well susie got black label they're getting black label right becomes a competitive thing again and so we've created branding around our top level packages the's logo's maybe cost me three to five hundred dollars each well worth the investment something I could never do on my own questions not necessary question but I think a statement even a susie didn't go black label was gonna lie and say she did right and somebody still has to be like susie and get black label right yeah you're absolutely right because there's this there's this they're starting to lust after our brand we all are branding and packaging we have bags and everything that matches and it says black label on it and so clients will hang on to these bags that their pictures were delivered there's this cheap two dollar paper bags but because it says black label on it everyone in our local community knows who they spent a lot of money uh that sounds and I'm okay with that that's what I that's what I want I love it okay? Questions online before you go to lunch absolutely question from sam cox lois and branding will eventually age and lose their punch have you plans to change them sometime in the future? Always our branding will always continue to evolve it's a never ending experiment if you will so you're you're spot on logo's they become numb to him and so will always my philosophy just like coca cola by the way, the coca cola logo is one of the most well known locals around the world has changed very little since its inception, so the salvadorans and coddle logo is on its second iteration. More than likely, it won't change too much. It might evolve from this on then these other sub logo's will change over time, without a doubt, so that its people are still aware of great question. And so maybe one more. Before we get a break from dellin, just to clarify, do you charge a different price for your studio shoots than your on site on location? And is that tied up into the branding there? It is not tied up into the branding, however. We do charge different prices, tied two different sessions, and we'll talk more about that later on. Yes, we charge we have different session fees for indoors on location and then there's destination style shoots, where we might take a senior to new york or chicago l a for their photo shoot. But yes, so very good questions.