Lessons

Lesson Info

Events & Limited Editions

This image on the left here this's actually from just a couple years ago with our senior marketing campaign that we did we had our senior model campaign, we've done fashion shows, we've done just a model program and actually the photographer I've had three different associate photographers over the last thirteen years and the last one that we had focus was on weddings in high school seniors, so he basically ran our senior marketing campaign and one of the things he did is he and this was him going out to the business we solicited a local clothing boutique that a lot of the kids shop at, but he actually did like a whole photo shoot of a couple of their clients in their clothes same kind of thing, so their images like they were really excited out they were promoting on facebook and really excited about that, and so then this is actually we did a fashion show twice this would be the brochure we did with the fashion show, but basically, you know, these I'm not going to go into all the even...

ts I know they're not petra in all the detail we did with dog days, especially cause a lot of it carries over we do the same things gift bags we promote in the same way um, but for high school seniors, the fashion show was a wonderful way to get seniors in um I would say the other big event most successful or um big event that we've had at our studio is girls night out and we have had that they probably eight times in the last thirteen years so not it was that we didn't get the first couple of years and then with me being out of country on a few things we actually haven't done it and moving our studio brown haven't done it in the last couple of years, but the cool thing I won't explain to actually with both events and not relationship marketing I think as long as I'm in business I'll be doing that like I'll be doing that events like have a season if that makes sense like I don't I'm not telling you all these things and say, oh, you should go do these all right now because an event will cost you time, effort and money and there is no guarantee like I think it's a wonderful way to build the relationships but it's really time intensive like you're doing a fashion show you're putting a lot of time I'm sure into that to pull that off that's not just like sending an e mail blast, you know, I mean, I get a whole different kind of marketing uh so it's the same thing I said even with just getting one display like I recommend people like pick something you're excited about and they do one event like you don't have to do all these events and your business as it changes, you'll see different reasons why different events are good. So for me, when I was growing my business, so for those of you who you're like, I don't even know like where to start, I I don't have clients, I'm just starting out of my business is so new I'm trying to grow my my database event like I'll explain girls lined up an event like girls night out uh, or dog days of summer is just like you jump onto the scene very quickly, you know, get do your work, get the press releases, get in the newspapers, you know, do your work, get the relationships with vendors who have been in business longer, so they're using their database so you do have a database who is a qualified but that's a great way to get new clients so that's what I use it for that's what I used a lot of my events for when I first started doing events, which has been for years what's happening evolved just so you can understand how it's changed, so it went from getting a much bigger database like one year girls find out with six hundred people through our studio in four hours, so yeah, it was it was almost too big on dso and I'll give you a little insight of white girls and it is but basically the idea though is at the beginning it was to get business then some of my events it's even happened with dog days as we keep doing it in my database I'm working with these continual clients they just keep coming in it almost became like a party an appreciation party for my clients if that makes sense like we kind of hit this market and these people and we still we're getting great turnout but slowly I started to see not as many like new faces and I'm not saying that's bad like when you go back to like the card and client appreciation it almost turned more into that so I just kind of saw that shift but let me give you the two second rundown of girls night out um really again event at the studio you could host this event all my events you could have another places we've talked about that dog days of summer having a vet's office or with somebody else but you could also have in your studio we have the space same thing girls I doubt team up with another vendor who has more space that has the same clientele that just is it's like a mini women's lifestyle show because for me most of my clientele regardless if I'm shooting pets or seniors or kids the purchase person coming in purchasing buying is is a woman typically, I mean that's just generally who's the decision maker, not always, but that's generally like who I'm working within the sale. And so having a party having a neve ent for women really made sense, regardless of what type of tire for your trying to promote and so a couple of things that we did, same as dog days, the gift bag and all get biggest gift bags are great because it could cost you zero it can cost you nothing like in the audience and that they're going to get I know some prizes and some swag bags that's because vendors who know they want you as my clients are willing to give things so it's the same thing, it takes effort, but my employees went out to different different businesses in hey, we're having this great event, and once you've done it once in its successful, you guys realize take video, take pictures, you have something to present to these people the next year, like, hey, we did this event, two hundred people showed up your credibility, so yeah, the first year will be a little harder and then it keeps getting better, so the first day I think we'd fifty and then the last one, I think, was like two one two ago with six hundred and then I was, like, that's, way too big. So actually, we didnt marketed as much. And then it was, like two, fifty or three hundred people, and the only advertising was was email blast website. Where is the bigger ones? We did actual mailers and call cards and things, but the whole just is you get, like we actually would have anywhere from twenty to thirty vendors at a card table in the studio set up with their products. So this could be a client. Um, who makes cool? Handmade scarves like it doesn't have to be a business. But then, of course, I want the businesses, you know, the way also got, like, a miss susan. They're doing little, many neck massages, you know, makeup applications from hairstylist. So what a vendor would have to do in order to be involved the first few years they didn't pay anything. They just had to, um, give something for the gift bag. Give one item larger to give away that we would that's how we will collect names that we could share with everybody, that, that we would be raffling off. So we have twenty to thirty great items that people would win on dh, then they would have a a booth or a table that they would sit out with their stuff either selling or just talking to people and they would promote the event. So that could mean providing us their database that we would be promoting um and mainly things out a million things out for them or us giving them the files, the cars, the brochures however you market it and they they handle that marketing but that's why we got to so many people? Because if you have twenty vendors all working with their databases it's like all of a sudden I mean that just exploded the amount of people in the presence that you're having um typically two we tight not typically like almost all of our events tie in with the charity giving back so because we want to do that number one I don't wantto make it sound like the reason I do it is to get free press but again on desai's changed every year like one year there was a local family that we knew whose child was had an illness and and the money from the raffle that's how we got money, the money from the raffle people buy tickets, I would go to that family or we pick different organizations, and so again sending a press release to the newspapers so that you could get potentially cem cem news coverage from this and, um, yeah, so really that's it. Now I'll tell you, it was crazy that you know what happens if girls, um it evolved towards the end with the last few ones that we did people literally. We have a very short time from the first year we did it was all day long, I would never do that again, because then you're just there all day. It's so much defenders have to be there all day. They're busy people, their business owners, like I would rather have six hundred spilman in a couple hours and then done with it, then haven't spread out over the day. Plus, there is a better energy and so the first x amount of people you choose get a gift bag so you won't start small. Say the first fifty people get a gift bag. The first twenty five people get a gift bag. You can choose that amount. We were always ending up doing two hundred, two hundred, two hundred fifty people got a gift bag. Um and what happened? Because there's cool stuff in there. What happened is people literally, doors were locked. It was four to seven and down our long hallway to our studio, and then out along the front of the building, people were lined up before clock run out we ran out of get backs in like the first half hour so the very beginning was like words crazy and busy and that it would slowly taper off and that creates a mme chaos like I'm not I mean that's like crazy but people bring food the vendors would bring food to share plus we cater and then you're wondering what is the studio benefit from this we book sessions so a lot of our events we actually have some sort of special going if you book that day or typically I would say we would book between twenty and thirty sessions um so about ten percent of the people so we would get between two, three hundred people at most of the events so about ten percent of the people would actually book a session and it's a pretty was a pretty big deal we have a time frame again uh has to be photographed by so if we held this event in the spring has to be photographed by august or september before I get slammed with my christmas stuff so they have three, four months to use it but it's like a fifty dollars session so I mean they're actually saving a lot of money but their committee in that day they have to purchase it they don't have to set up the appointment they have to purchase that and so that was that's pretty cool because um when I was booking twenty to thirty sessions, like now, my business, I'm actually shooting, probably less than one hundred sessions, you're not counting pets because if you count dog days and the volume I get in there, but that used to be three to four hundred when I have other shooters, that was like ten percent of our business, we'd be booking in one day if you think of it that way, and these are real clients, these are they're not going to a special price from the order prints. So by having that special price on your session, they're still coming in painful price on their prints, so we're still talking about the same averages that I expect from my clients. No. So it's free the venice free, except it evolved into the only money we would get paid is the vendors we evolved to, they had to pay twenty five or fifty dollars for their table space just because I got to a point that people we actually to turn vendors away so it's like, okay, maybe we should be charging something minimal just to help with the time you guys comptel, though that's pretty intense, but again, I would like to share that with you, because that is something I have very concrete, like, this is what we did this these are the results and what happened, and so you can take elements of that and use it for your fashion show for an event you're doing the dogs like, I don't want to just give you all this information, and you like khun regurgitate it the same way. I think the kolding is share. If I share with you five six different events, you might create a dog event that has elements of mine, but totally different. Or you may have a dog event. That's, you know, in a different location, or maybe you do charge a lot more for it. And it's, you spend more time with the clients or maybe it is, you know, on location outside, you can put your own spin on it. Um, this one, we actually have a whole entire module that walks people through this one. Well, I guess we do with the girls and out, too, but I just want to touch on this because this is a probably one of my more favorite events and this one's really about giving back more than making money. But we do book sessions from it, and it is geared towards the high school senior crowd at the same time, you could make all of this about pat's because they're all tied in the charities, so your charity could always be something pet driven, so if you're really trying to grow your pet business and your studio, you could actually always be tienen with some sort of an animal type charity, and that would give it you know that pet theme and get the pet community involved and you could work with other vendors, even if it's ah high school senior art show the money could benefit, you could have money benefiting something involving pets. So what we've done with cree arda called creative, and we have this three we've had this three or four times in the last six years, so not every year is kind of an every other year event, but it really became something because our school programs were cutting out the art program, shutting things down. And so my husband, I wanted to do something where we could give these kids, like, really great like scholarship money and get him excited about art. They're going off to college and it was marketing to our high school kids, which we were trying to go. We are trying to grow a senior business, same thing we solicit businesses hey here's, this cool thing, we're doing all the money's going to the scholarships for the art programs for the high school or for the kids when they go to college do you want to give any money? You'll be listed as a sponsor and do you want to give any money to be a sponsor enlisted and that money will go to help me make that happen and for the scholarship money so basically we had everywhere we did it between I think end up being like eighty and a hundred entries was ten we charge ten dollars in entry which actually for a high school program in our area that's more than what they're paying for other other type of art contests but we've been able to give as much as trying the top prize I think two years were able to give five hundred dollars to the student so like there were also no other art contests locally that they could get that kind of money it was normal like fifty dollars maybe two dollars in er and it's fifty dollars to win we were able to give five hundred dollars the cool thing is everything was matching so every prize we gave five hundred dollars to the student five hundred dollars to their school's art program or if they didn't have one that could choose an art program five hundred dollars go to and then five hundred dollar gift certificate to the gallery the two hundred dollar prize two hundred dollars in student two hundred dollars to the schools are print program two hundred dollars from the gallery three different categories pretty straightforward since you mentioned you were doing a fashion show, courtney, I will just tell you the last time we did this, we actually did in conjunction with our fashion show and we didn't hold it our studio we actually held at a local hotel ballroom that we had this really fun fashion show that a couple people hundreds a couple hundred people showed up for in the room next door we ran events simultaneously we had created of going on so all the men just won't display because we always dated reception for them. So you had these mics of kids seeing the fashion show the art show, the family members coming at the end of the fashion show, we actually awarded all the prizes to the art kids so they were able to come up on stage and it just made it like a bigger, more fun event. In fact, that was created two years ago because the creative we did last was actually in the studio um and that was really cool because if you can pull off some of your events in the studio, you do have the added benefit of their senior space. And when we started off talking yesterday about dog days that's like one of the things for me that I love people are seeing the studio, they're seeing my work on their getting excited about being photographed by our studio but when we held this at the hotel ballroom or if you're in the vet's office, whatever you're doing for your event, you can decorate those places with your images the hotel I was surprised they actually let us put holes in the wall and like we hung prints all around, they're ballroom space but either if it's not that you know that the souls you can do gallery rapture and things that are lightweight, easy to move um so you can create like a mini gallery at those events. This was a fun when we did it at our local coffee shop, we did mug shots, we call that mug shots and this is we do a lot of stuff with katie, she actually has done some different events for we've been able to raise money for our funds and she er far offshore fund where we help kids and families in need and so like, we've worked together on a lot of stuff, and so we just had this idea like, hey let's, just advertise facebook on lee on we'll put a poster up in your coffee shop the v gallery will be hanging out here one afternoon for two hours and we'll take pictures of people on dh and then you can tag him we'll put him on facebook and you can tag him and so we did that so people were we did images with the mobs and some without the mugs so people were getting like updated facebook images and we took the ring light and just one background and it was just kind of fun and people were being goofy, but then we're able to create this collage that we hang in the coffee shop so again inexpensive but if you're just talking about simple ways to get exposure, you could do that with pets don't do a dog days event, but you could do something fun where you set up, you know, half day takes, um, fun images for, you know, facebook just to hear name out there, you know, just something really you could try to tied in with charity I'm sort of thinking out loud here, so I don't have, like, specific bullet points to tell you with this, but this worked well, so I'm just thinking somehow you could maybe do something way not as intense as dog days I guess you don't want to compete with dog days, but, you know, go somewhere for a couple hours or at the dog park and so listen, your work in your business, you know, I don't think you need to do that if you already been in business a while, but I'm thinking somebody who's just trying to get build their portfolio and get get their name out there oh which actually I want to share one thing because this was really cool and we hadn't planned on it working the way it worked out but you can actually get paid to grow your portfolio and because that's what I see people doing sometimes is just giving everything away and because I need to take images but then the people they're working with are potentially family and friends who don't really value necessarily what you want to charge or you want to be higher end and it just kind of thing become a big mess um so uh when I hired and you could do this just yourself but I'll explain how we did it when I hired my first associate photographer I was trained in her like she was good and she was created but she needed training so I I didn't want to lose money paying for her to come into work to train her so what we decided was that she it was her job but she could not go a week without shooting you know at least a few sessions but she had to solicit them so whether she saw people you know, asking friends family asking people who knew people she'd asked us if we knew people were going up so much church you know I didn't really matter like she just needed to find people for sessions so she solicited them to photograph them and what we would actually do it explain it as this is to explain hey, ijust artwork for the gallery and building my portfolio so I really would your kid, you know, want to be a model u you are not locked into having to purchase anything it's really, they're just gonna come in and play and have fun and shoot what I would do now. Facebook wasn't around when I first did this, I would give on, like an image or two for facebook so they would get something they won't get any prints as soon as you do, I think the free print you potentially like they may just take that be done, um, and that may happen with the facebook stuff, but I'll tell you what happened, we didn't give him anything, but we offered them half price off of prince, not products when we talk about pricing in the sales portion like we can't mark up our products enough to go half price like then we're losing money, there's a lot more time involved in designing a book or in ordering frames, it costs more. So if prince, though we have marked up like and it's, maybe more expensive than what this person would be willing to pay, plus, they're helping us out, right? But if you tell them this is what it costs like, this is what a class but you get it for this they get the valleys like oh my gosh, like I'm getting this thing the state by ten that's more my hundred dollars you know, for fifty dollars actually building the value rather than oh here's a bunch of free stuff because you're helping me out because that kind of makes sense I would actually rather do that and not even sell a lot but people start you're already being positioned is higher end and what happened she ends up having almost five hundred dollars sales average on those solicited sessions so it was definitely less um then our regular averages but our stuff is marked up way more I mean, we were still making money she was making money the studios making money and she was learning and you know what else set did it removes all the pressure of somebody learning like, you know, when you're shooting a client like they're paying you and you like after perform right? So if someone's not paying you and you're upfront and you're honest very transparent I just need a model and plane I'm going to test these lights out or we've got this new background like this may not even turn out, you know, the way I want like they're into that creative process like that's okay? I think they're just part of this process as a model you're not saying you're going to get twenty beautiful images from this you might show him too so she could really experience so she actually got better at her craft on her skills and we got paid the other thing we d'oh well what this is how we shave little cards printed up with our studios facebook page and that's how we give people a facebook image we do actually this kind of evolved for us I was real weird about giving people any sort of file digital, you know, small, big whatever on dh then over the last few years mike no, I need to at least give him you know, facebook image because they're they're just gonna promote us, you know, with that and so we have these cards so people know and go to the right facebook page and then they contact their photo and we have a really slick work slow process and that that will actually happen after the order when my my sisters my re toucher so when she's doing all the retouching she actually creates and many and we'll talk about this but many an emoto slideshow from the ordered images the facebook image from the order images and sends the order the white house the beauty is we do it all at one time one process it's pretty slick pretty fast um and it's only in ordered image so any time someone would get something like this like it has to be something they paid me for like, I'm not going to give him a web image of something they haven't purchased like, why would I pay for the retouching? Whereas we all know if you like a lot of that retouching time is what is costing us more than actual print. So it's, very quick to make a small file through our water mark on it and put it on facebook uh, I want teo actually jump into I still consider these events they're way less intense if you don't want to do any of the other big, huge events we just talked about. The limited editions are basically things like dog days, but really not even that intense all it iss and this has evolved over probably eight years, I've been doing limited editions and it has evolved from the first three years were like, crazy, intense, like my idea was like let's have an event going on like every other week, and we'll have the tooth set up because we have the space, the studio's bigger second camera room, um, another photographer shooting it. I could be shooting here, and she could be doing this special, and it was very intense and that it was like kids dressed up asshole fairies and ballerinas and going to the airport hangar, and I had investment of like tubs of like, bomber jacket my daughter has halloween covered for the next, like the next ten years of her life. So I know you have to be a cowgirl this year because we have this outfit of its, uh, but I have all this stuff well, again, in the simplifying process we've been going through over the years, I don't want all that stuff. I don't want to store all that stuff. I don't want to spend all this time setting up, and we actually looked at our average is and the ones we were making for the most part, with exception of we kept the ballerinas and the fairies we made good money on, uh, we just looked at what the highest averages were, and it wasn't necessarily because of all the props and things like we made great money on, you know, mom and me, which has no set up time, it's, mom coming with her kids, you know, or or dog days of summer like there is no outfits and backgrounds, it was just, um, strictly strictly the people showing up, and we moved it from like, every other week to one a month, so we'd have twelve going on it's actually even changed how we do about six or seven. A year so it's not even it's not even every month that we're doing it and we've kept the ones that are the most popular sometimes we do it and it's not it doesn't we don't get a good turnout other ones we've been doing for eight years and they're amazing but if your investment is pretty much nothing it's on the calendar um really you know what do what do you losing to try that? So that is actually how dante's evolved it became one of our limited editions so actually I'm going to show you a ah couple minute an emoto slideshow that shows you last year's limited editions so I think there's think lastly, read eleven or twelve so you can just see it through quick let's. See which ones we did last year. Sam sam, I'm sure they're probably is online for everyone else. Ok, so who wants a saying? Who's the singer courtney are you saying I thought you were uh wait the way is not tub great. It stays there it's at my in law's home I found on craigslist and had someone painted oh, okay, should I stop it? Keep going, e you no way make a show so just a quick way to, um kind of give you an overview, but I will talk about a couple of these so this basically is if you guys remembered yesterday I talked about our dog days of summer email blast being designed it's beginning the year, and we do our calendar, this is just a basic template. We changed our template this year, but it's just has all the base's sick information. Ninety percent of our limited editions cost one hundred fifty dollars and include and eight by ten facebook image and eight wallets um, and they actually have a special priceless that can order off of so I look at these is the same way as I look at my dog days of summer as a gateway into the studio, people might come into the studio that normally wouldn't because of the limited editions, and I don't like to just assume or stereotype anybody, like some of those clients have become, then regular, amazing, you know, huge average clients come back every year or every other year, so you just don't know, um, you know, just because they're coming in for a special or dog days, and they're getting all this great stuff for not a lot of money, necessarily what that translates, teo, are good clients, you do spend, spend money, so if you go into it, knowing that, you know, and if that's not you know, we actually have slowly raised the price in the even of limited editions and things because I'm not necessary looking to grow my business that much more so that's where you just have to decide what stage you're at in your business and what it is that your goal is from this so most of them one hundred fifty dollars some of them are a little bit a little bit less like actually that must have been invested in ninety nine dollars so that must have been before we changed change the prices so yeah so that's his two thousand ten so it in two thousand ten we were charging ninety nine dollars and then last year I went to one fifty and then this year some of them went up to one, seventy five so we're just kind of raising that so I was valentine's day uh which that difference of that includes some cards ties into twos so little ballerinas used to just be the ballerina outfits well then in that no let's open this up like ties into dues get well boys in here and just I kept trying to think of ways to hit a bigger market if we're going to set aside um the day for that policing that was just business headshots working with the salon next door doing hair and makeup so if you wanted to co market you would actually call market with go to the realtors off let's go to some of the local businesses that have a lot of people that may need updated head shots we do a headshot specials like one fifty includes your small digital file on a headshot we spent ten minutes with people like throughout the year but they can we actually set aside this special day that we can just get him in a swell you still treated the session like a regular session where you have them come in for a viewing yeah they still they said the police team has only one police in china and the old st nick because of the time here we do it those would be online galleries there's something like smugmug so um actually they would see them because with the business stuff that like they're coming into this knowing like I want to take a job for my business cards or whatever so those would be the only two all other limited editions come in and when we talk about sales today I spent an hour and a half with the normal sale limited editions it's thirty forty five minutes we I think we broke him every forty five minutes but a lot of them are out in a half hour because this is no different a little different than dog days and I said dog days people see seven to fifteen images most with the exception of the business headshots all of our other specials will see I'd say more between fifteen and twenty by twelve no pride between twelve and twenty some of them see less on dh, then our regular sessions that could be anything depending on if it's, you know, high school, senior family kids, there probably be seymour in the twenty five to forty range and then high source sr see actually quite a bit more because we do like multi hour sessions, so those ordering points can be a lot less, though, because we're spending um, I mean, the time whites could be a lot less because there's there's a lot less images to look at, so yeah, it's really all about location or the time of year, mom and me or whatever that we just pick that one too and it's just one day and that's it there's no exceptions, you can't come, you know, the next week so I can't make it it's the one day I want to stop on this one because this is our our one of our biggest ones, and we've been doing it the longest and there's a couple reasons why christmas in september I started for two reasons. One is I was really sick of people calling, taking up all my time slots in the fall just to do holiday cards, um that's just not ideal I loved in holiday cards for people um it's it's we make money on it and it's uh good advertising but I don't want that to be like when I only x amount days in the fall when the leaves air pretty and kids were out of school like I only certain times lots so this doesn't completely eliminate it but what it does if we pick one day and it's in september it gets him in before our holiday rush and because of the deal it's well it's actually one seventy five now and they get twenty four cards thes air the least expensive cars from my house the four by five and a half front back a little more template driven you know one or two images where is our other cards are usually more custom and they can upgrade to pay more for custom cards but that what includes is pretty straightforward pretty simple and it's still the fifteen minute session and it gets him in before the holiday rush so we're not trying to design all these cards that you know the end of the year we've plenty of time but the big thing is this is going to appeal to a lot of the people who maybe would be taken up all this time slots in october if their initial goal it's just cards what do we all know? Because I have them come in and view them first they're going to be buying more they're going to be buying christmas presents they're going to be buying other images because they're not christmas driven necessarily like christmas trees in the background like these air just it's like dog days big gallery portrait I try to do something unique creative this's not just one set I actually just have an open space like this like this set that I will just ban bring in this couch we're bringing this background or you know all these different options I could just create new sets for each client very quickly my couches all are felt sliders I just let him in and out in and out on the wood floor and so you can just see the variety the variety that we do so I want to pick things that still looks the best with their clothing because I want to sell wall portrait because I want to sell more prints if you just take one set and throw everybody in it not every it'll be cute for a card maybe but it's not gonna work for like a like a print that that you know they want to hang in there home if they're really stuck to a certain theme or set so that's kind of the direction that we've gone with it this is our other probably biggest sales average limited edition in the warehouse and I would like to share this because I've been doing this long enough now and talking of time furs about this that it's really cool to get the feedback from the harpers who have had their own dog days of summer, or who have done something like the warehouse because it saved a lot of people. A lot of money. What? The warehouses. Five lashes. Private long that's six, seven years ago, I wanted a warehouse to shoot in. Uh, just I thought for a day. So I called the local realtor. They took me around a bunch of empty warehouses that were on the market, released for rent for sale. And we actually found one that the guy was willing to for two hundred dollars a month. I have access to a fifty thousand square foot warehouse with all kinds of crazy. I could take lights and their and leaving my tape a few couches from goodwill, and I just leave them there. Um, some different things that I use is reflectors. You could bring lights. I wouldn't leave him there, but you could bring lights and leaving there. But there's, every floor looks different. But this is where I shoot with it the most is the best lighting, but I pretty much choose available light within all around it's, the cool outside warehouse. Which we all know that harvard all time shoot cool warehouse a lease their school spots right around here but not every retired is actually having access into the warehouse so I have it's not he it's not heated there's no air conditioning so I only actually pay that ran about six months out of the year in my busier time and um my normal clients pay more money to go there so if it's uh it's like an ad on sits an extra fifty dollars to go to the warehouse so whether that's for a high school senior or family uh but one day a year we have it that you could go there and I just sit at the warehouse all day and every fifteen minutes a new family shows up and they're really fun images and so the's icus had actually we have really good sales averages on these more than our other limited editions they're actually higher because of the type of images that were taking and we're getting but it's still pick and still fast pace it's still like what when I shoot dog days of summer tomorrow it's still gonna be that feeling you'll see there's just a lot of uh it's a lot of energy and it sze tiring but it's a lot of fun um and so that again that one's one fifty but a lot of people like they may do you no christmas cards from that as well but I love the idea though if somebody doesn't have a space or you haven't small space this is a great way on and this isn't just something I've done I've talked other people they've sent me feedback like hey, you know, I heard you talking about this and I got a cool spot right across the street I just never thought about it, you know? And they pay these minimal amounts of money and have access to all kinds of cool options mom and me we've got a dad just for dad I mean, it is what it is, right? Just mom, mom and kids old saint nick this one is more of a set I mean and this is another one that goes online because we do it so late in the year december fourth and we know people want for christmas that we actually put him online so like you have this year it'll be like with a smug mug gallery and they have, like just like the e mails back which image for their free one and then we have special packages but it's also tighten the charity like dog days. So besides pain now it's fifty dollars but uh fifty dollars uh they also bring in a toy for toys for tots that we don't need so it's exact same concept of dog days of summer it's just benefiting um toys for tots and it's got kids and those actually more like five minute sessions because you guys all know not all kids. Michael tennant, in fact, my worst session, my hardest session this thiss past year with old saint nick was my daughter, and it was so sad because I have this whole idea because my husband was old saint nick just for her session, he wouldn't do it for the whole day, but he said he would do it for my daughter for neema, and it did not work. She was scared of him the whole rest of the day, even without without outfit, and just we talked about the christmas cards, another thing really quick, I wanna share that we do not just for christmas in september, but also, uh, for any of our regular clients, white house print stickers, and so we actually do gift tags, or you could do that folded bookmarks or business cards and could be, like an actual car gift tag, but we've done it mostly is the stickers. Um, and we still put our little web site on it. We've done these some years where we've actually got some years where we've just gifted our clients, like so, like yesterday, I was showing you kind of the christmas ornaments and everything's we've done gifting programs will be have our v I p clients and we give them something cool so this would be like our top clients they come in, they order the christmas cards, they don't know they pick up and I'll hear some gift tags we just printed for you. Um and they're just said there pretty basic just one of the images they already ordered simple we have these actually templates, so just drop in, imogen, but we actually have minor prices too, so so clients can order those and some of those things when we talk about pricing this afternoon products or add ons like I'm not saying again, will you make a million bucks? Because you're telling gift tags like I'm selling my prince first and then all of this other stuff um, limited edition pricing um, I wanted to put up here this is actually on the left, what are limited edition email blasts and brochures and things look like this year way have a template created for that um, but basically the packaging you can see when we talk about pricing this afternoon, most things they're all a part the benefit other benefit of a limited edition and dog days and any event is we have a special prices for it, so people know that ahead of time that they're going to a special prices and I would actually recommend sane if you have problems of clients closing the sale which we'll talk about problems and this hale's here in this afternoon for these things you could you could put in the stipulation of thes air the prices on the initial doing date so if you're saying inside that time and they're coming in this isn't uh oh you call me in six months and you still get this pricing your initial do you date you're coming into view them and order them so that would be a good option as far as if you're having those types of struggles in the sales room so they're actually when you see my when we talk about pricing this afternoon the packaging it's a package it's a collection so it's a really great deal the reason it's a great deal is because if you compare it to my normal pricing like most of these packages are collections like all the stuff they're getting besides their ball portrait basically almost free so for example, like the twenty twenty four signature print, I think that's around seven hundred dollars under ala carte prices but with that collection there also getting the four classic difference but your eight by ten and smaller so that's how most of our collections have been priced out so we've got you know they combine stuff all apart they could buy stuff in the collections the other thing I want to point out with this brochure on the right is our how we do our christmas cards and how explain christmas in september and how I really want people buying prince before just cards. And you guys know that I mean there's a little more time, intensity and designing a card. I recommend these template. You guys know there's a million templates whether it's from million retires built temples we sell templates are lab whitehouse focus sells templates, there's lots of options to not have to start from scratch every single time. But what we have created is a pricing structure with a sliding scale that after you invest x amount in portrait ce you actually give a special price off of your holiday cards. So what that basically is tying them is order your prince. And then, you know, we're going to give you a little added bonus with your cards because it's, more important to me if a client came to me and said, I'm gonna spend two thousand dollars with you and they were saying it was an either or like, they're just put it on cards or prints, I would tell them, get the prints like, I want you to have something in you know, twenty years that you're still enjoying so I want to sell prince of them for many reasons it's not just because I make more money on the prince I actually my heart is in that and the cards are just kind of fun and out on so I'd rather than I don't mind giving them special pricing if they've invested and I've made my money on the prince so our investment levels was if they spent over a thousand fifteen hundred two thousand or twenty five twenty five thousand thousand hundred, one thousand, two thousand one thousand fifteen hundred, two thousand and twenty five hundred they've a slightest killed that discount it was ten, fifteen, twenty and twenty five percent off just their holiday cards and we some of our pricing structure we've actually implemented something like that too, for even off of products so like if you wanted ala carte print priceless, you could wear some of our prices invest we've done where if you spend x amount of prince, you're going to get x amount off of products because again, I want to sell prince first and then if your products and adam versus if you're only coming to me and you're buying an album or a book, you're gonna pay full price because I need you to pay full price because I have more money invested in that um another limited edition way started this eight years ago, maybe we created the baby collection on baby collection was just my way of taking something that I saw out there and doing something different. What I had been exposed to insane is a lot of people of baby plans and they were brother and expensive or twenty five dollars, and you get fifty dollars and maybe you got a frame with three images, innit? I wanted something that cost more, but also that the product I was giving them I didn't want a frame with three images because what if those three men just don't like going to frame together? S oh, my thought process and the way evolved, I actually have this little brochure here think I'll bring that out with pricing, but, um basically, we we tellem three sessions so we have celebrate lives, celebrate growth and celebrate one. And so for some people that's newborn for some people that's three month old like I don't even really care and it actually even has evolved that we have ah, I'm just gonna grab it now since you got here okay, so we actually have so our baby collection that may just explain a couple things it started off as another shooter and actually I need to give you guys a great idea if any of you do any of you guys and audience have other shooters so I had a lot of fear of doing that the first time when I hired associate photographer for many different reasons but I didn't want to cause confusion with my clients like I was thinking how how are they gonna be okay what's going teo um so and so when they've always associated the studio with me now I have the benefit of we change the business a long time ago from the tire from vicky to be gallery that a lot of crimes don't necessarily know the gallery met vicky if they were new or just had picked up a brochure that that they didn't they didn't have that association but for my clients were used to coming to me how are they going to be okay going to another photographer? So what we did is we took all the limited editions the baby collection and that is what the other shooter shop I didn't do those so now your client there's no choosing so if a client wants a regular session they're coming in with me that's the client wants a limited edition it's not because of the attire for they want the limitation this's who's shooting it so it's very clear it's very clear cut so same thing when I my last associate retire for the seniors and weddings I had clients who I've always shot their high school seniors kids and now it's obsidian, her sister josh was the one shooting like that's who's doing senior pictures of the gallery so it was not there was no picking or choosing and clients on the phone and causing any kind of confusion so when we started but the babe a collection that was partly because of the other tire rubber and it started off, I think it was one ninety nine that's was our starting point initially it was with keira I actually thought those sales averages I went we advertise at the hospital, I was thinking all we're going to get I'm pretty low sales averages if you actually took the three sessions he came in for it was actually mohr they were spending more than our regular sales average granted three sessions but three shortened sessions think we advertise these is like these many thirty minute sessions this is not with people's pets this's not with all the siblings like very simple um sessions, you know the first year is just naked baby in a diaper first sessions naked baby in diaper cover this isn't outfit changes and multiple background like we really try to pare down I've had clients dua bei bei session and a regular session because they want to do this bigger one a dog in the family, but they also know it's such a great deal to get these three sessions, so what they get is three sessions they get with the other photographers have use to me now it's with me so the one ninety nine now went up to three ninety nine is the starting point so the baby collection starts at three ninety nine and you get one five by five that is matted um in a little matt and you get a little weasel that it sits on you can see it in the very bottom and so you have three matted images at the end of the year but you get your first image like they're all stand alone they fit in image boxes, they rebate frames but then they also are ordering other things like we sell. A lot of our albums are going to come from the baby collections and it's not that they're doing while portrait's from every session some people do, but typically at least one of those sessions definitely is a wall portrait, whether that's the first session or the third session but then we evolved it into um we also now have the couture collection, so basically three, ninety nine and then nine fifty and then twenty two fifty we actually booked just as many twenty two fifties because it includes includes more it's a collection includes one wall portrait dvd slide show a coffee table book so so we just had in pre commit, though, because everything's pre paid upfront so they pre paid for that that session basically for the whole year they're going to use that and that actually includes the fourth session if they want a maternity session so so yeah those air actually are limited editions um and that's the end of the segment actually but I would like tio leave a few minutes because I think we've got like five or so minutes maybe before break um if you guys have any questions about events in general still this would be good time a few questions about dog days or maybe some of these questions have triggered questions about the dog days event or how you guys can utilize events or relationship marketing in your studio I'm actually doing an event next weekend for the willamette humane society deep breath you rock my world he answered several questions but my goal is is to charge a twenty five dollars for a free five by seven then give the proceeds back to the humane society so my first question is is something that I want to put out a press release for and then my second question is is how many images and how quickly about got a tent that will put up a backdrop for and that I'm hoping that I could just step aside and maybe shoot an outdoor natural lighting post that I can kind of go back and forth but how many images should I plan to have available for them to view um no, I would just do I said I mean less khun beam or in that case when you're talking more volume so um I've plenty of my sessions like that it sounds like the type of session you're doing like how long are you allowing for these sessions do you know yet e I would say it'll make your life easier if you say less than ten like if you just in your mind um or less than twelve you know, if you really with the same clients are gonna try to dio outdoor backdrop you might end up with a little bit more I'm not saying that's bad but I would say being your first event and like just the logistics of working through it I think if you could aim for ten you know, five to twelve um that would be a good, good thing you came for and they said you might be shooting, you know, two three times that many but you're showing them showing them, you know, five to twelve images and you're showing it there or after the fact I guess I didn't ask you great off probably like a smoke yeah, okay and then also you have done all of your post before you showed them up so that the post production that's going to be really important it'll clear we'll clarify more of that tomorrow, but what you saw from the session yesterday that would be a much work as we do to our images, really before for especially for an event for limited editions. I actually shoot the images, and I never see him again. I hand the card over to buy my staff, and they edit on light room, they export amount of j pegs, they run our proof action and they're ready to view maura's my other clients, I tend to get more involved, and we tweak more of the images from a regular session, but the type of session you're talking about? I mean, I've had employees who don't even know how to use computers hardly able to do it because it's just a batch action like it's, like they can do the editing, and then they can basically know how to export and hit automate batch and action that just proves him out and you'll see I mean a proof, and I'll show you that I will show you that smart. I like our proof is really nice, like actually of approving action that uses imagine amit portraiture, they're one of our vendors we used and it re touches like we're talking even retouched like it's, like, unbelievable, I actually saved an entire employees payroll when we switch in a magic gnomic, we lost in employee and still could do the same stuff. Like I mean just I mean that's like that that's how much I believed like in that like what now we don't those aren't ready in my opinion to like prince and like we just do this to the j pegs and when the client's order we've tweaked and spend more time on them but our goal is this I do not want to stay up till two in the morning tweaking images that the clients may not be ordering her pain for and how soon after the event will you? I would do two weeks mara normal turnaround time we say seven to ten days but if you're talking volume of images I would say two weeks and maybe earlier if you're doing online gallery you don't have the pressure as much but like when we've done these events and we set them up um ahead of time they're return appointments that it's important that we stay without time for me that's why I make it the two weeks because I want to make sure we have the time there's no un forcing things that we can't get it done because they're actually coming into the studio yeah, no, I am we cannot I'm excited about your event that's great you have to let me know how it goes okay, so you do your limited editions now but you didn't the flight and so as a single shooter how would I separate because that's why I've hesitated doing them the difference between people just going what I'm just gonna wait you know I can answer that there that it's a very, very clear cut the way I do it at least I could talk to client if they're telling me what their needs are I could tell right away if they should or shouldn't do a limited edition based on what their needs are this is a fifteen minute session so automatically for clients calling me and they're like I have a newborn and a dog okay regular session like I already just know based on some of the things they're saying I need more than fifteen minutes probably or if they're saying well, we want to do something you know at her home there out you know, we want to do something if they have a lot of needs we need to spend the time with them so like I said, this is more of a gateway and so I explained that you're going to get a beautiful images I don't want to think that these are the gallery images it's same quality it's the same we do all that the same things to the images if you did a bigger session it's just you're going to see a lot less and we can't spent all that time that we normally spend you know if you come in for a regular session you're going to see, you know, maybe thirty five, forty, fifty images you're going to see maybe like eight or nine and so I mean it's a very you know, and I plan to do both, I guess that's my other thing I plan to do both, okay, I'm gonna do christmas in some pepper for my christmas cards, but they want to come in in the spring and do something else or pay me to come out on location so it's actually worked out really well, like it's really been, and it evens out like yes, you know what I mean? I'm going to be up front, there are clients who don't want it very much, but then there's other clients who order a time, so the sales averages about half of what our normal sales are, but if on a saturday I can shoot one session at certain amount or I can shoot ten and half of that, I actually technically I'm still it's a little more work workflow, but I'm still making great money because it's about his valium shooting like that's, not what I want my business model to be all the time, but we're talking six, seven, eight times a year is actually nice for me like okay, so after the session yesterday? Well, he says an exam well I am looking so ford the dog days of summer because it could be like well this session isn't working out next no you know like like rather than like working working working and I don't really mean that I mean I would work and work and work for a client that came in for a normal session but that's where sometimes it's really freeing to go into a shoot to know I just really need to produce one of them I knew right off the bat early on I got a couple good images like so if that were a dog days I could have moved on like I got what they came in expecting but this was I was trying to treat more it's a normal shoot so I was like trying trying to get more so you just work it's a different mindset you just put yourself in a totally different mindset and how you work questions from the internet yeah okay cool um and e s m one hundred s I'm confused I thought you said prices are not discounted on products but it sounds like for limited editions the prices are different from normal sessions can you please killer so I will clarify that so with a limited edition and I'll explain everything but dog he's our dog days um and I will have that will actually come up on the screen this afternoon we talked pricing our dog days priceless did have like um we've had it where we had the eclectic ce the many accordion we've had certain products in there specifically geared towards the dog days event but our normal limited edition price list checking suit if I could bring it out but I'll bring it up this afternoon for the next segment are normal limited edition priceless those packages in collections are prints on lee there are no props so when I say products just to clarify I'm talking about products besides prince so albums framing things that might my cost of sale is much higher so I have collections of prince but they don't put product so it's a limited edition client wanted order framing an album any other product across more their painful price they do not get special pricing on that okay, we'll do another question a few people had asked about facebook and tower from truckee, california said she's mentioned facebook photo several times can she explain a little more about size the resolution if you water market and the delivery of how it's posted yeah size I do not know offhand I'm actually out of removed out of that process my I can find out and let's let them know later get in the chat room or something my re toucher is one that does that but I mean they're pretty small on dh they are watermarked they do have our logo website on them and they they are just in charge of going to our page and actually finding their image antagonised so we just actually upload it and we don't have to do anything with it so that's why I'm saying it's very easy like my sister's doing orders okay I'm ordering him just upload an emoto maykel an emoto show which I'll talk about this afternoon how I do an emoto but at the same time okay bam watermark on this image they already ordered three touch upload that facebook it's done and that's why I said we have the little cards made with our facebook page because we can hand that at the end of the order hey make sure you go to our facebook page and I'll tell you we did it for two reasons make sure you go to our facebook page your image will be on there so you can tag it but that also if we're doing that we have these cards that just reminds us of sales room to make sure they're okay with that because we've clients were like oh no I don't want you you know and I respect that I don't want you to just be putting my images up on facebook or this's for christmas and a surprise you know like you can't just necessary be posting him up there and at that point I actually would email them that same small file that they could still send a grandma in florida or you know, post on their blawg or something. And not everybody has facebook. So I'm calling them facebook images. But that's. How ninety eight percent of it is done on facebook.