Lesson Info
30. Sales Techniques That Work
Lessons
Class Introduction
09:59 2What is Lifestyle Family Photography?
06:36 3How to Get Started in Lifestyle Photography
14:42 4How to Market to Your Ideal Client
10:34 5How to Book Your First Client
27:49 6Pricing for Lifestyle Photography Sessions
26:05 7Steps to Book a Client Using Iris Works
23:01 8The Client Questionnaire
06:33Why Use a Family Guide?
05:44 10Live Shoot: Family In-Studio
21:07 11Live Shoot: Introduce Fun Activity
19:38 12Image Culling Process in Bridge
24:52 13Gear Recommendations for Shoots
11:10 14Tips to Create Authentic Shooting Sessions
07:25 15Plan an In-Home Shooting Session
08:33 16Activity Tips for In-Home Shoots
06:59 17Develop Your In-Home Session Flow
09:35 18Live Shoot: Find In-Home Natural Light
28:08 19Live Shoot: Engaging Children in Fun Activities
16:26 20Live Shoot: Introduce In-Home Activities to Shoot
18:36 21Live Shoot: Implement In-Home Shooting Flow
17:42 22Tips for Engaging Clients
04:06 23Photoshop: Edit Live Shoot Images
11:39 24Lightroom: Edit Live Shoot Images
07:41 25The Importance of Photo Composition
06:26 26Get Clients to Connect Naturally In Photos
04:57 27Example: Successful Family Shoot
13:59 28Example: Perspective in Shoots
03:54 29Incorporating Pets Into Family Photos
06:59 30Sales Techniques That Work
05:44 31Sellable Products and Packages
19:51Lesson Info
Sales Techniques That Work
We just recently started doing this, and I think it's helping. At the time of your session, book your sales appointment. Say, "Hey, I'm gonna have your shoot "edited on this day," right? So this way, not only are your clients not wondering when their images are gonna be given to them, you know? 'Cause you always feel so bad if people are emailing, "Hey, it's been four days; where's my pictures?" And you're like, "Oh, two more weeks." So just kind of, you know your schedule. This is how I recommend implementing this. Once you get 100% caught up in all of your editing, which I know is very difficult for a lot of us to do, right? Once you get totally caught up, do your best to do that. Start shooting, and when you shoot, say you shoot somebody on Monday, start looking at your calendar and write it in the calendar, I'm gonna edit this person on Wednesday. And tell them. Every single time you book your client, also in your calendar write down what day you're gonna edit them. Because then yo...
u know you're not gonna be overexerting yourself. They're gonna know what's happening. And that way, you actually have it in the calendar. You know, there's times when you have 10 shoots hanging over your head. You're like, "Oh my gosh, when am I "gonna get these 10 people done? "Oh wait, it really isn't that far off. "I have a schedule the next two weeks!" But at the time, you're looking at 10 shoots, thinking it's overwhelming, and it's not good for anybody. So my recommendation is, book your session, write what day you're gonna edit them on, and then book your sales session a couple days later. When I edit their session, I send it out in ShootProof. They have two days to look at it, and then we do our ordering session. Some people need longer. If they want family members, they're like, "Hey, we're doing this big order. "Can we have more time?" Sure, you know? You're not going to say no if they want other people to come order things. And at that time, we talk about would you rather come in to do your session? Or do you want to do it on the phone? I kind of give them that option. I'm not a high-pressure salesperson. So we were thinking about having Kenny doing the sales, but everybody wants my opinion on things. So that's kind of a hard thing to force him to become creative like that. So I've decided just to still do the sales. And I know a lot of husbands do the sales, that are husband-wife teams. It's just not gonna work out for us right now. So if they know ahead of time. And also, the biggest thing is, when you're going into your shoot, you're gonna know what they're gonna kind of want to be ordering based on their questionnaire. Some people say that they're gonna for sure order an album, or they want their digitals. And some people say, "I only want my digitals. "I don't want prints. "That's the end of it." And you have to respect that, right? All you can do is guide them to the best place to print. And I always tell people Mpix, okay? Mpix, for me, is where I send all of my clients to print on their own. Okay, so have options, too, for affordable books. This is another thing. There's some labs out there, like Artifact Uprising. They're amazing, amazing. And I send clients there for a more-affordable book if they don't want to get a book through me. Because those lifestyle clients, you want them to have all their images. And if they can only afford at this time, Artifact Uprising. If they can only afford digitals right now, then give them places to take their digitals to get products. Don't reprimand them for not buying products through you, because that's not fair. You have to do what's in their budget, obviously, and give them options. So start researching options where you can send people to get different things. 'Cause that's fair. A lot of people get books at Mpix, and obviously there's gonna be different qualities of different labs. Like, the professional labs, you know, ProDPI, all of those places, Miller's, all of those have high-end, high-end products that clients can't get on their own. But that's okay, especially for lifestyle sessions. Books are so important because you get everything in front of you. You're gonna have it there. The kids can look at it later, flip through it, and then encourage them. When people get their digitals through me, they get 20% off any prints or any canvases, because I want them to print. So I'm trying to encourage them to print. So if you get your digitals, you get 20% off prints automatically. And that always encourages them, 'cause there's always the one picture that they love, that they wanna splurge on. And so that gives that to them, if they're one of your more budgeted clients, okay? I'm just not a salesperson. I want people to have what they want, but I want them to have all of it. 'Cause I want them to have their pictures. 'Cause I love them all, so they're gonna love them all. You feel bad when people have to pick, you know? 'Cause it's like, you shouldn't have to pick. Okay? Well, I think it's awesome that you have that personality. But I just wanna, what you've been teaching is that you have all these efficiencies that allow you to be able to give them that many files and that many products in the way that you've set everything up. Yeah! And so I think that's really important, that it's very strategic. It's not just like, "Oh, I wanna give everyone everything!" No, goodness no. So just wanted to comment on that. Before I was at this point in my career, when I was hand-editing everything, things were much different then. Things were much different then. But we are very time efficient now. Iris has saved me, Iris Works has saved me so much time. Just storing everybody's information in there, getting the invoices sent out and paid immediately online and going straight to QuickBooks. That is crazy to me! I never thought I could do that years ago. It's just so much faster. And if you don't wanna do in-person sales, you can, ShootProof, you can go ahead and load your images. They can order everything right there in ShootProof, and you don't have to deal with them, you know? It's up to you. It depends on how much time you have, you know? In-person sales are not for everybody. There's no right or wrong way to do anything. You need to do what's right for you and your family and how much time you have.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Bonus Materials
Ratings and Reviews
yeahyeahsyd
Emily reignited my passion for lifestyle photography and gave me the tools that I needed to give my business a creative and profitable boost. Seeing how effortlessly she interacted with families and the efficiency of her workflow was inspiring. I'm excited to shake things up and make some positive changes in my business that I know will lead to success. Thank you Emily and thank you Creativelive for this fun and informative class!
robinspalding
I was just hoping on here to post how much I loved this class. I used to be a portrait photographer, veered away for a bit to focus on more conceptual art photography but i still am interested in lifestyle photography. Emily is very inspiring, her bubbly personality was a joy to watch how she interacts with families especially the kids. Her work is phenomenal! (in response to one of the bad reviews, about her cutting off children shooting on a live workshop while tethered and teaching can easily explain this away as you can tell from her portfolio that she always has compositionly beautiful images) This class has renewed and inspired my love of lifestyle and i have been shooting so much since the class! Definitely used her tips and tricks to improve my pictures! highly recommend this class!
Bernadette
Watching Emily on CL - I rarely comment, but wanted to pop in and say what a great class it is! Full of helpful information and good content. One of the first classes that moves at a perfect pace, keeping things interesting & engaging. I tend to lose interest quickly when classes drag, but she really does such a fantastic job, which is refreshing. Makes watching the class really enjoyable! Thank you!