Lessons

Lesson Info

Master Client Communication and Experience

Step nine master client communications and experience we are moved down into the advanced area of this ten steps to transforming your business from picture taking art focus storytelling philosophy were at this point reaping the benefits of the rewards were in her second season okay timeframes season two three and four not season one my mistake okay and it is if you if you do build a great experience customers tell each other word of mouth is very powerful this is from a local guide jeff bezos who founded amazon I'll read it again if you if you do build a great experience customers tell each other word of mouth is very powerful it's not only powerful it's critical and I have good news for you retail photography and I mean family retire fi senior photography things like that wedding photography in particular is very self promoting. Okay, if you do a good job for your clients they will tell their friends utilize the tools of storytelling utilizing haven remember those little minion books ...

remember the many books from gadhafi studio sprinkle them around have them be your little marketing soldiers. It will be so promoting you'll find yourself having clients come year after year after year from clients you had years in the past okay keep that in mind but we have to master communication and experience. We learned a little bit about communication with regard to how it works in the post wedding workflow in the last segment now we're gonna talk about additional documents that are super important as well and some marketing, etcetera. We'll talk about the website, how important it is to have a story focus website rather than individual image focused website there's a lot to cover here and then we'll get into step ten so let's start with a website sharing our images ok? I'm a huge lover of big folio, their website, they make template websites that are designed for storytelling photographers very few people out there and you can go ahead. Click click on any website today it starts with individual image galleries, almost all of them. We don't make some changes here we need have storytelling websites, it's the first line of defense against the well finding their own clients for us, we want them to fall in love with our storytelling from the get go check out big folio guys big, fully checked this is my website noticed this is a quicktime video. Check it out when you want jay garner photo dot com or garner studios dot com it's stories on film is on the top there that means it's put to slide show in music the second lake stories and print that means you can click through an entire story of one bride and groom their entire story collections collections that section yeah that's my individual image gallery with some of my best images like the heart shaped bill the lightning bolt shot the umbrella shot things like that but it's your third option you immediately know that we're going to see videos quicktime videos, et cetera means that this is what they do for us retool your message okay, so here's how it looks like you have seen entire story it makes a lot and populate the entire window that's big folio dot com that did it for us and you should check them out to uh I think they had a problem. Oh, here it is big philly dot com promo code big folio three the hostess for you for three months complimentary if you plug that in if you're looking for a new website or new way to go maybe this is your reinvention year may be coming down that new pathway and you are going I got to start from the beginning I'm going to start telling stories I'm going to build a few stores and that's all I'm going to show my website I'm going put secondary on my website to that eh secretary to the stories I'll put my individual image gallery but you could still keep that but remember my if you go to my website the first thing you see is that video I open this entire workshop with you remember tuscany broad talking about experience? I'm I'm having it's clear that have a great friendship with the bride and groom the bride's hugging me it sometimes the groom's high fiving me whatever through that experience and then we go and talk about my love for my wife and how were in business together all of that isthe subliminal message storytelling and we and it has a great impact on taking away the fear of hiring somebody is this person gonna fit into the vision of my wedding day? Very important that's all done through a storytelling style website okay, make these changes you'll see big results that introductory slide show and remember I told you they begin this workshop that we just wanted to make it beautiful in a beautiful location we happen to be working over there and so we filmed the video over there my friend anton warmer did the promo video for us he would happen to be there when we were so we filmed there it looks very destination wedding the dress the bride's wearing is very european looking and it's clearly in tuscany. Why I could not understand why people started calling us for destination wedding suddenly we completely fit that the style of a destination wedding shooter because we had a promo video on exactly that boys the website important for you converted to storytelling and you will see rewards so we gotta have a superior client experience. You're going to find more time because your work flows going to decrease, and I want you to step up communication big time with that additional time that you have two things make you money that is capturing images and delivering art, and the rest is re branding yourself as a higher level studio that's where you should put your time in, you're going to have enough profit in the art you deliver within the two seasons you start seeing some real returns on your investment within five years. Ah, lot more all of these things. When this transition happened for us, we had to kind of fight our way through it. We had to, you know, learn that we need to step up our communication. We need to create those documents. I sure wish I just had them handed to me. Here's the tools you need get started and used these documents and communicating and that's. Why we have the transformational toolbox. I'm not pitch here, and I'm just telling you, you need tohave some for every client. A procedure in place. So that's, what this section's about pointing a procedure in place increase your client experience, so model your business to a boutique spot style experience, okay? You know what that means? I want you to consider your studio no matter where you run your business one year to three year, three years outta right now for many of you consider it like that wonderful hair salon that you might go to where you enter the room they say welcome would you like a glass of champagne? Sure, how about some cookies while you wait for your hair starless you know seriously enter some of these places even though you don't go there and think someday I'm going to have that experience for my clients okay boutique style experience first moments years later they're experiencing that experience okay? Five years after their wedding day they're still getting a picture in the mail from us that says happy anniversary remember this image here it is printed mat for you beautiful archival matte paper enjoy so the goal is make them feel like they're the only ones we serve it's really, really simple to do if you're not shooting weddings like I used to but it was just a husband wife team shooting sixty weddings a year, cranking them out and barely hanging on its easy now with with a solid a dozen or two dozen in weddings portia portion of them for us our destination weddings we're able to find the time to not only better serve our clients but also diversifying to other areas of photography and create other income streams that's the way it should be done away real business should be so you will be rewarded. Okay? If you take care of the ones you serve, what you give into others comes back to you tenfold especially if your heart is in the right place and you're doing it to actually make their experience even better. Check your heart, it's not about profit, it's not about making money so much. Yes, we do. We need to make a living. Yes, we need to pay for our services. But what it's really about in this field of wedding for photography in particular and retail photography is as a whole is making people feel special so you want to be a better photographer work on your people skills that's, it's real simple be better at helping others serve other people volunteer do things outside of your your business that exercise that get involved in the community served the community give of yourself you'll be better in your business if you do that. So it's very difficult. During our early years, though, we couldn't we couldn't find the time to do anything that breathes stay alive. We had kids in the way I know there's a lot of people, a lot of family people that do this lot of lot of moms out there that are shooting right now and you have kids well in two three kids at home you're managing a business I get it it's hard but remember you don't you will be rewarded if you follow this path and you provide you could shoot a lot less weddings and provide a greater experience and far from break even on that change you on capturing potential that'll give you and I've proven it through this workshop three times their earning potential at a minimum with occasional oh my gosh moments I can't believe what just happened because your uncap in your earning potential so we'll call this goal for you creating the cinderella experience it's really critical okay, so let's talk about it let's break it down building the trust showcase exceptional imagery on ly what you show is what you sell remember that we've talked about I brought it up a million times careful if you're showing individual images to anybody all right only show those beautiful big art pieces and those for me double william books is all I show now that's what people are attracted to us for okay offer only superior quality products so the neat thing about offering really really lovely products is they don't have to be extremely expensive to produce that's one of the reasons I team up with graphics studio they happen to be italian handcrafted books but their price point is extremely affordable that's why featured the new young book because it is even more affordable that comes with the box and the touch and feel of this thing is just awesome it makes your work be more appear to you more a lot more um expensive looking okay, so next kindness willingness, eagerness, attitude warrant their trust calling them when it has nothing to do with their wedding and say hey did you know the following people are doing this now this is a really cool idea just wanted you to know I haven't seen this before it might be fun consider you're at the location that they did this is well stuff like that that's that's your job can't do it with sixty weddings a year it shouldn't be well I hope you're all seeing out there that it shouldn't be about volume of weddings hey, if I could make a hundred dollars for what if I could do five hundred weddings I could make you the following that shouldn't be about that it's about quality of weddings and again it's not that we're searching for that upscale bride all of us together are gonna elevate everyone in understanding the beauty and importance of art delivery and so more and more people will begin to do just that seek out the artists we're going to do this is a team so energy ratchet the wedding to the wedding day okay then onward to deliver members doing the energy rationing I was saying it's not on ly something technique I use on the energy I used energy ration not just on the wedding day itself to get that expression of emotion I use energy we total team thing we use energy rationing to bring up the level of excitement about working with us throughout the entire process what you put into it bounces right back to you choose the phone over email always personal meetings are definitely required to get them in front of you if not make it skype they might be out of the state we're out of your country even try to be personal with it. Unfortunately, technology is really slow down this process and made it difficult to get in people's inner circle email is I mean, how many times you had a miscommunication over email? You know? Oh oops I put a couple too many capital letters in that email and it comes across as I'm yelling at somebody right thes mistakes can be avoided completely if you do what's required of business and step up your service building trust so professional communication forms and I'm gonna help you with that the forms I sure where somebody just candidates to me but we put him together and put them all all together on the tools in the transformation tools okay those air therefore you by the way that toolbox is two things to your creative portion and your business portion and in the middle are is the road map okay, that explain it all what you do when you use it, etcetera. Roadmap are the ten steps here's where you plug in the creative here's where you plug in the business side it's really structured I haven't told you guys that yet, so the forms were critical. You gotta have a good presence when you do have to email or send documents or contract's gotta make him professional but friendly. Okay, being able to help outside of photography really helps when I mentioned that a second ago hey guys, have you I know you have you tried the falling of know you're having hard time finding your dress? Let me give you a list of additional vendors that I think you might find your dress real simple. Two seconds you're in the field, you see this every day or how about this? Have you considered this schedule for your day coming in and doing going immediately into your dance? It's so fun against energy high and then having a little dinner and they're starting to dance again so much fun. I saw it last week in a wedding that's your job because you're a professional in the wedding industry now, ok, so more of the art of communication communication standards are so important phone etiquette, we all answered the phone actually I'm not not allowed in our studio I am not allowed to answer the phone I'm given the phone because I'm kind of a little bit out of the loop and that's okay they fill me in on the loop and I called back my clients but I sure love my opportunity callback lines but I being distracted and all over the place I did have it all in front of this's this wedding this is gonna happen here here's what we've done and here's where we need to go with this client then I call and I just go first a ideo big smile on my face I go hey it's jim hire you your photographer and by the way, energy in his energy out that's energy ration ticket if you start with a smile but as you're calling you can't help have that energy transfer through the phone line have you tried that it's really true? Okay email correspondence tried to limit as much as possible but make it beautiful and make it professional and consistent. So we have guidelines that we must weigh all challenges each other to step it up no even though we have the opportunity of quick emails but hey hey don't send your text for that matter we try to keep it professional because the standard we set out is the standard of the entire relationship okay, in person meetings, I've talked about in person meetings a lot. Remember your environment. Dick takes, ah lot with how the relationship is going to go, try to make it in a professional environment, try to make it really professional environment. Remember, we talked about the club in the last segment club, or at least a quiet, quiet location, a meeting room in a restaurant. Maybe you have a relationship with someone owns a restaurant that would be a good idea to get creative, but trying to make it left brain environment, where you have your initial meetings in your reveals. So having standards, consistent branding always have your signature on your artwork. This is what true artists do at the back of every one of our books is a logo page. I pay an extra six dollars, tio build one more page into the book, and it's got a big logo on it. Very important branding.