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Lesson Info

The Moments We Capture

What are the most important things you have to understand about photography is what we're actually selling, you know, for me to justify one hundred fifty dollars for an eight by ten for a single piece of paper that I know I pay a couple dollars for, um used to be hard for me. I used to be intimidated by my own pricing. I used to be intimidated when I charged twenty dollars for an eight by ten. My first price list out of the gate. At eighteen years old, I went to the lab and the lab was charging thirty three cents. Uh for an eight by ten. That tells you how old I am. So I tried to do the math, figured out my expenses, and I decided to charge a whole dollar ninety nine for an eight by ten. And I personally thought I was ripping off my friends and clients because I couldn't believe that I was charging so much. Now very quickly having a business, I learned that that was not even close to the margins that I need to be, and very quickly. I made some changes, but I also remember the first tim...

e I ever got a check. I went to a woman's house to place an order, and she wrote me a check that was over one hundred dollars. And having all these kids and I remember this is one hundred and ninety years ago so financially think dinosaur time and we're there but at that time you know when I had so many kids and so little shoes to go around, I remember walking out to my car and I sat there I literally drove a block away pulled over and sat there and cried over the stupid check thinking I cannot believe somebody gave me one hundred dollars because to do something I love doing like I could not believe somebody paid me to do that now since then obviously we've mentioned sales twenty thousand dollars sales I mean some of that soap eye in the sky for some people they can't even believe that it can happen but it can I just have to believe the person that said that quote if I wish I could show you a picture of my office I have circus letters and this entire wall bigger much, much bigger than this with giant circus letters that light up that say believe and the whole room my whole entire premise of life has been on believing believing in yourself and the real important thing is I need you guys to know that I believe in you I am I am not just telling you this stuff I'm sorry hold on I can do this I am telling you this stuff because it's riel this really does work the marketing works, thie emotion works, the idea, the envision that passionate all works, it all comes together and a cake you can create success if we had all the time in the world, you could tell me your stories and I bet your stories are just like the ones you've heard me tell. I bet your growth you're somewhere on that point, the fact that you're here tells me you're probably not where I am, otherwise you'd be on the beach, right? But you know what? Those guys on the beach, I'm not where they're they are, I'm here, so I'm not, you know, I'm not the baller status yet either, but I'm getting closer and I've had an incredible life. So the point is I wanted to leave you with the message because we are eventually, after I finish up these closing slides, we are going to go into hopefully just a little demo on lighting tomorrow is all about photography on dit we're going to go back to marketing, I'm hoping to cram as much as that I can, but we are going to be doing live babies sessions with uh, I believe a pregnant person, but we're not gonna do a photo shoot. I don't think you're very little would probably just talk about the body shaping and howto work. That's what? Your pregnancy? We're doing two newborns to three months and two six month olds tomorrow. That's a lot. I did tell you I shoot fast. I do want to show you creative posing. I want to teach you how to do all those fun things, but I also want to let you know this. It is nearly impossible to do that in an environment like this because this is not normal. I don't have twelve people, five cameras, cold room working with the baby. So what's gonna happen is we're going to do some fun baby images if I can get creative, the chances of those new board sleeping slim and none, but we're going to try the chance of you seeing me. How I relate to children is definitely gonna happen is you're gonna get a lot of key points, but I do want you to know that tomorrow, after we shoot the entire end of the day, I have little videos that I photo are that we've taken in the studio environment that actually show the miracle shots the slings had a hang a bait how to sling a baby doesn't sound better, either I told you, velcro walls, but we're going, we do have those little video clips, so if you're not enamored by the shooting tomorrow, we're gonna have fun and it's gonna be great and helen's gonna come in here and she's going to talk about clothing and propping and design, but really and truly, with his cold, you know, it's, a little chilly in here, and with these babies, I want to get them in and get them out, because honestly, I could teach you more sitting, then we can shooting, so we're going to give you the best of both world, so just understand that that's, my goal, I'm going to see what the housekeeping r o this is fun, one of you is really happy today. We're going to let you were going to give away. We have some awesome posing guides in one of you guys, and again that your audience is you're giving these away a swell yes, you're giving a lot of the end the's are opposing guides that we created have over hundred images each, we're going to give away the maternity there's, a pregnancy one that is traditional, which we say traditional clothing on, um, and then there's more about ah uh, uh, more personal one that's, more nudes in body wraps, fabric wraps and things like that and the madonna posing which we are about to go into the madonna posing section. I'm gonna walk you through the poses, and then tomorrow you're actually going, we're going to visually. This is really important as well. I'm going to show you the poses today don't take note honestly, because I'm going to show it all tomorrow and visually show it to you with stills, and we're also going to give you that catalogue and it's all in there for you. I wrote it out just so you would have to kill yourself, so we're going to talk about lighting and design, lighting a little bit and then get there. So one of you guys is getting all three of these there, these three and then three with older children will give those away later. So this is going to karen. Congratulations. Just let brandon know that you won that and we're going to be giving the same thing away with your group as well internet is going to get poses away last but not least before we cut because we are going to be coming back over here remember to follow us on facebook and google plus we will be giving away free prizes on both our face, our fan page and our google plus page all you have to do is go tell me what you think of the show which helps me see what you like and what I could improve on a swell. So do you go to facebook and google plus, in fact, your best bet is to go to google plus because I have less fans there than on the other one so your chances are better want to remind everybody that you're all going to get a bonus catalog um that is going to have a lot of articles that I've written the five poses that we're about to show you were in there um it's got a ton of information and a tunnel links to more information so it's a really great resource it's totally free you can go to you can do dot com creative live dot html also if you're purchasing the creative life program which I think it's a tremendous deal, my shows are one hundred dollars a night for four hours you're getting for one hundred dollars three entire days of this which is something I've never been able to do, so I honestly think if you're enjoying the show for one hundred bucks, I would go there and I would spend that money I would spend that money, but I get tired of hearing me so if you do purchase the sto show really, really, really soon because that offer is going to end, you're going to get this catalog it's gonna be included so you don't have to download it. You're also going to get the entire show in pdf format, so you don't have take all the notes and you'll have every single day, every single minute, which is cool there too, so definitely go check that out. Um, and we already mentioned the membership we gave one away. We're gonna have some more away tomorrow. All you guys remembers now, so congratulations. This is kind of the best deal if you're just want to get and get spend some time with me for seventy four bucks, you're gonna get three months personal access and we're going to do all your marketing and you're going to get a free baby kit so it's only seventy four dollars, I'd check it out we'd love to have you were very much a family and we stuck this in here because I always say dream big for those you were absolutely say they want every single thing I have ever said today I figured why not? Come on, it could happen every single kid, every single offer every single thing that has anything to do with babies, including the management but management looking the pricing book it's about twenty three hundred dollars worth this stuff it's onley eight hundred and forty nine dollars so, um, and if you do that, you can come to my studio to the studio workshop for free because at that point, you're paying for it anyway, so so I figured, why not give it a shot? But otherwise I want to leave you on this before we, uh, taco out of here. Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways champagne in one hand, chocolate covered strawberries and the other body thoroughly used up totally worn out and screaming. Woo hoo! What a rod! All right, on that note, I think we're going to take a break and we're going to do something else. So can we just ask you if you we have a couple minutes before break so I wanted to ask you a couple questions? Yeah, there was a couple people in the chat rooms wondering if you could kind of briefly re described the baby referral program what one more time? Who is the free gift for and how do you give that to them? With the baby referral program? We have those little pre packaged gifts our clients can come in, and we give them that gift to give to their friend so anybody can take it. But we it's an in house thing on lee, we don't want strangers taking it because we don't know that they're qualified or not, so our clients take it, they give it to their friends for free, but of course, it's a nice gift certificate so their friends feel like they're getting a nice, valuable item and that's how that works? Was there a second part to that question? Let's see how it works? Who is the gift? Foresight goes to the friend correct goes to the front, and if the friend then calls and books that they've got a really nice full year baby program, we have a really nice opportunity to spend a year with them, and the friend that referred them gets a fifty dollar gift certificate for the referral, so everybody wins in that process, okay, so the person that comes in that was referred is also investing into their session well, well, they don't have to pay anything to do it. But the reason we couldn't do that is we know that the person giving it to them it's probably a very similar type person and if they're raving about us that person's probably gonna become a committee clint also remember that they're getting the baby programs if they come in and do a session, they're not going to get any product until that first year birthday, so they're probably going to buy things along the way most people are going to do this if they're not going to get, you know an actual image out of it germany questions in the audience starts you give for postcard referrals you said they had images on them where the images you picked there were the client's images okay, there are several referral program it was the little postcard that you put in the package I guess when they order the facebook ok, thank you the favour everybody's getting that one for free so I'm wondering if that's coming up but I must go forward a little bit yeah, but my question was what is it the client sewn in judges? It is not that I had mentioned it but that's just I print like one hundred of them and when they run out I'll put a new image on and do one hundred because yeah, I would not want to take time just face he had no home work, very good