Lessons

Lesson Info

Training Plan

All right, let's, keep going training plan so I don't get some personal development going. The first thing I want you to do is ask yourselves, what are you week out? We all have weaknesses. What is it? And you've got to write this down. You've got to be diligent about it. Everybody has a different kind of weekends. Some of organizes our technical, some of our weaknesses, our communication. I mean, I'm talking to guys off line people out there, you're facebooking me. You tell me about all your where you're weak, let's, do something to fix those weaknesses and that's not to say that if on a scale of one to ten let's let's just say communication let's say, on a scale of one to ten, you're a four or five. I got news for you. You're never gonna be a ten it's never gonna happen. Just not wired that way. And so our team we use something called and I've talked about this in the past. We use a test called strength finders go by this book because you go by the book, and then the test is in the b...

ack of the book, and I think it's like fourteen, ninety nine or something to that fact. Effect, but it's a test called strength finders and this is an amazing thing we did this when I was at microsoft and it's been proven over and over again that if you manage people typical management style is to manage to your weakness well, that doesn't work we've proven it doesn't work, you cannot take somebody who's a four at communication and then turn them into the super outgoing personality who's, now a communication master, it won't happen s o instead, what this test does is it highlights your strengths and it teaches management to manage to your strength. What are you good at? Right? So if you actually are team internally it's kind of interest and interesting dynamic, everyone on my team has the there's a vision trade, okay, so there's it breaks it down and all these traits I don't know if anybody's even taking this test, but it has a vision trade every one of my team has that vision trade that makes sense, right? Everyone on our team has the ability to see an idea and execute on my idea, but my number one trade right is execution. My number one trade is right it just all round ambition uh good good attributes for getting out there and getting stuff done well, the rest of my team, they're typical artist and they're not so think about the dynamic on my team if we were just a bunch of artist hanging around probably not much to get done we would just flounder so you need one chief okay, you need a bunch of people who are going to execute on that vision and that's my team that's become very very important us so now no one will work on our team unless they've taken that test they have to have the traits we know we need to make this team a very dynamic and high performing team which when I look at my team they are they get stuff done it's just amazing how we all work together you can't choose your teammate you're stuck with your teammates yeah but no and so when your husband wife team I think that's very important so taylor and I this test started with just taylor night and we wanted to take this to see and like her number one or two trait is empathy right? So she can relate to others empathize with what they're going through my weakest trait is empathy right? I just don't care right so that I don't want to and you always hear me say it right and we were talking about this offline yes sir you like sally you're the same person on areas you are off on it's true I am you talked to anyone who knows me and he's around me I really am not rattled by much. I don't care. I don't want to hear excuses. I want to get stuff done. Right? So let's overcome s o that is my make sense. That that's, my weakest trade, right? I just really don't care. And so that's why taylor and I are perfect together in that sense, because her strength is my weakness. And of course, my strength, which is like focus is one of her weakest strength is focused. And so you want to have that so you may not be able to choose your teammate, but I would I would make the argument that two people who are identical well, probably not work well together anyway, because there's, that weakness now nobody's offsetting it. All right, so let's, keep going. What do we got? You've got to be honest with that. Get hands on training. Okay, look creative, live and reading books and watching youtube videos. All that stuffs. Amazing. Okay, but at the end of the day, nothing is going on place. Hands on training, there's. Just something to be said about getting in the field, getting dirty and doing it. And seeing a real life how it all works, invest in that you can't just ignore that. You can't be like, hey, I watched the video now I'm an expert that's not how it works you've got to get out there, get in the trenches and we see that in our workshops so we're out and we're in canada and we're in new york and we're doing workshops it's you guys it's the creative live audience who want to take that step further and work side by side with us tto learn mohr, right? So make that investment in your career I'm not saying make it with me and make it with anyone but get hands on experience uh, business, you've got to read books by leaders, okay? You can't just be photographers and I look at your bookshelf at home and it's just like technical, technical, technical, technical website design, right? Photoshopped one through umpteen right? You've got to make investment in business books and so these are ones that I've read that have made an impact on me. I read a lot of business books, but these air, you know, three of them I should say that I've had an impact on me one is how to win friends and influence people okay? When you're in business school, this is like a must, you know, required reading that books written ages ago but it's still relevant, so make it's an easy read pick it up this one sounds ridiculous, but it's actually a good book and I think if you're an older studio and you're set in your ways, get it. This is called who moved my cheese and it was required reading when we're at microsoft, because sometimes management us humans just get stuck in our ways and we can't see anything else and so it's about just changing the way you're seeing the world so it's again once again, it really easy read for you, and then finally I would pick up a book called the starbucks experience on this talks about the culture at starbucks, it talks about the experience they create for customers and why customers are willing to spend more, more money on a cup of coffee, and I would make the analogy that cup of coffee and photography lot of similarities in the way the businesses can and should be run right because we have clients who look a cup of coffee go, why would I pay three for five dollars for a cup of coffee? I could do it myself, but we have clients who look at our photography ingo why would I pay five thousand dollars or photography when I have a friend who'll do it for a free or friend will do for two hundred dollars so read that book and you'll find there's there's a lot of golden nuggets in those books we're talking about what we're talking about shooting and practicing okay, how do we get better for a week it shooting practice practice practice the one thing I see at all of my workshops with one area I see a lot of tarver's weekend off camera flash right? If you're weak it off camera flash get out there and practice get a get a you know what, dummy? Put it out there practice get a can of coke, put it out there, practice right but get out there and just experiment there's nothing wrong with that when I was learning off camera flash I would practice in my kitchen so I would you sit there in my kitchen and I had like, you know, a jar of olives and I would just photograph that jar and practice different lighting bringing into light setting up groups working with off camera flash dragging the shutter thes air all things I practiced right because I didn't want to go out and experiment on my client's I wanted to do it when I could stay calm and make mistakes. No one wants to get into the middle of a photo shoot, start making mistakes and then you start panicking, okay that's why you have to practice this stuff you know, and the truth is taylor's gonna talk about this a little bit later when she talks about like overcoming her weaknesses and building confidence lighting was something that terrified taylor when she started when I dumped her into the world of photography and she started going doing her own weddings she she couldn't wrap her head around lighting ratios life fall off off camera flash so she grabs a book toe learn lighting and in this book to learn lighting it talks about it it was kind of funny but it talks about lighting ratios e t t l right taylor just had this glazed look over her face and she just threw the book down one night and she's like I don't get it and so I had to help her get through that just by breaking down in english right so sometimes that's why getting hands on training cut you can read a two hundred page book but if you're not a technical person you're not gonna learn that way you need somebody to hand hold you through the process opposing same thing gotta practice general lighting photoshopped light room practice that's the on ly way to do what you've got to commit the time to addressing where you're weak or of course you've got to look at outsourcing we talk about second shooters this is a hot topic all the time how do I train second shooter's how do I get them up to speed well we've got a couple of questions we've gotta ask first first of all do hire temp help writer you bringing in temporary staff to help you in all these weddings I think that's gonna be problematic we did it so we bring in second shooter's every week there was a different person there there was no rhythm there was no consistency look was different from them every wedding sometimes I don't know what the hell they were shooting others write other times they're they're off or they're smoking or they're dressed inappropriately these aren't the kind of things that'll work for my brand and so we don't hire temp help anymore instead if you're a second shooter you're dedicated salaried person but I get it I'm busy enough where that role makes sense for me when we're starting out we didn't have that luxury and so when you're starting out where you finding help from that's where you gotta look to those local groups the local facebook groups maybe you're swapping out hey, I'll second chute for you few second chute for me but typically a second shooter is not paid more than about two hundred two hundred fifty dollars that's about average across the country and I know their second shooters out there that are making five hundred dollars or seven hundred dollars for second shooting a wedding counter lucky blessings and hope your bosses and watching this because you're being overpaid the reality is as a photography studio I'm absorbing all the risk all the liability it's my equipment what am I paying you for so I can't pay seven hundred dollars for somebody to come in and just hand me memory cards and go off and so my second shooters don't do anything shoot they go home and so if you're getting paid two hundred fifty box for eight hours or ten hours that's twenty five bucks an hour that I'm handing you typically cash that's pretty good money there's no way I'm paying you five hundred dollars or fifty dollars an hour for that, especially when I'm doing all the postproduction album designed dealing with the client etcetera second shooter shoot when you say what is it? I have him shoot. What do you mean? Well, like with jeff and I like he's really good at getting the overall wide I really like these in a long lens and getting in their tight and doing the details do you work the same way with your second s o my second shooter? Okay, the way I work with my second shooter elisa's my second shooter, okay? And it took me. I want to say it probably took me eight months ish to break her in to get what I needed and it's very important and I'll come back to question it's very important that when you're breaking in your second shooter that after every event you bring them in and show them what they did right show them what they did wrong because it's the only way it's going to get better, right? And if you're working in a husband wife team talking to you, you need to handle what tyler's telling you about the event, right? And if your husband and your wife is telling you because she's the lead shooter you've got to be able to accept check your ego and listen to what she's saying right? So we have to be able to do that we'll talk more about that later, but so for lissa had to keep taking her through this cycle and what I needed a listen to capture because I'm a very posey posey photographer, right? I'm okay put your hand here, tilt your head this way do this do that and then I'll say something ridiculous or funny to my client and they're gonna laugh a listen better be ready to capture that candid moment, so typically I'm getting the wider shots, the architectural shots the signature shots elicits picking off all those tight shots and the way I work with my second shooter is if I have on my sixteen thirty five, you better have on a seventy two hundred if I haven't a seventy, two hundred, you better have on a sixteen thirty five however, when your second shooter has on a wide lens have you ever seen those shots they're over here shooting with a wide lines and then the couple's looking off over there and it just it's unusable those are unusable images so listen knows that when she has sixteen thirty five on elissa is right here in front of me on one knee I don't even have to tell her anything I'm shooting over her so now when she's shooting wide I'm getting completely usable images because the clients are all looking towards us that is a big mistake I see almost every studio make with their second shooter's they'll have a second shooter off to the side with a wide angle and it's never really usable doesn't make any sense so it's how we work together on the bag is where you're going to start, you're always going to start being on the bag and then the next slide this is what's in my bag my second shooter has to know what I've got where it is and be able to get it to me in a moment's notice so when you start working for me you are going to start on the bag. I don't care if you're a ten year veteran, I want you learning my back because what you did for ten years is completely different than what I'm doing right? You need to learn my system, you need to understand my gear, you need to match my style and so don't hire a second shooter and then hoard your knowledge. If you're going toward your knowledge, you're making a big mistake. You're doing your studio a disservice. So your second shooter needs to be an extension of you. Your second shooter, the most imp important trait they can have is anticipation. So the biggest thing eliza does for me is she anticipates. Okay, so it's, my second shooter, she knows what I'm about to do next. Taylor, her second shooter is lauren, and lauren knows what she's gonna do next. And lord knows that if he sees taylor over there, he knows what she's doing. He knows where he needs to be. It's that relationship, that partnership that is going to allow your team to grow, and I don't care if you're growing, you have multiple shooters or she's, not husband and wife team. You've got to be in sync with each other and, of course, closing that loop. You've got to be able to take him in giving constructive feedback and go to the next event and take it to that next level.