Lessons

Lesson Info

9:00 am - Selling Your Photography

You know, it's funny, I'm watching you go through all of that, and I'm thinking to myself that what's really interesting is the ninety nine dollars sale price is kind of sending andi I don't know how you get through all this content once you start to finish, actually affect change in your life and act on it makes some of the changes and not make that back in an hour I mean it's kind of the perry I know I'm selling, but this is a sales workshops, so I'm going to sell it really is an amazing bargain and every so often I mean, I've done this with my fourth workshop when I see the price come up, I'm like, oh my god, I mean, you're are making it affordable for all, which is fantastic on we hear again and again on people's feedback so of what they what they've experienced when they take it away and I and I put that point in there if you put it into practice, if you move forward with it because that part has to happen, it can't you can't just watch it and by s moses, nothing changes in the wh...

ole world looks different you do have to act on it, but when you do it's significant and specifically we're talking about sales, this is how you bring in revenue this is not this is you know, I teach shooting workshops and I and I talk a lot about, you know, various techniques that can be very helpful, but if you are improving your sales, you are immediately improving your bottom line. It is a direct correlation and that's what this workshop does, which I think is pretty incredible can I just say to you that I mean, I was here yesterday and I still went home and started watching a little bit of re watch and got something out of it that I didn't get why I was actually sitting here um one of the biggest ah ha's for me yesterday I think it was tricia who was saying about the gift certificates her mentality about what that meant that it was now this person has a skivvy gift certificate that they have to spend and what a pain in the butt that is and they were like now it's a gift to them and I was here and I heard that conversation happened live, but it didn't sink in until I re watched it yes, that that the ability to have those downloads and be able to get a little pieces over and over again it's just it's awesome, yes and actually that's one of the one of the great benefits of teaching is the man after you hear yourself say it a few times like is a great idea now but truly there is there is a lot to be gained from that and I think if you've ever heard me talk I always start with mindset but that is where it all that is where it all changes that is the fork right there you adjust that and everything does change and we're going to have a little shout out from nikki macarthur who is in our course two years ago the first course we did talking about her experience when she sat and told us what she really thought of how doable this kind of change was versus where she is now it's going to be really interesting but I think I need to get the notes real quick when you're just perfect okay and then did you susan you were telling me that you one of the questions that came in that you thought would be a really fun way to kick off today yeah I'm not actually sure who asked it at this point but I know there was a question about you know, watching you tamara as far as what you've accomplished and you going through sales and kind of going through this step by step process is I feel like there's a lot of people who maybe are just starting out or feel like you're you're kind of head and shoulders above where they are and you're making it look so easy but you know they live in a small town and they don't they're not charging the kind of money that you are and they don't you know understand how you got from a to b where you are now ok yeah so a few things that completely honestly when you say you make it look so easy I have these flashes of my head of like e it is not easy no part of this was like and then that one day I turned around and the sky opened up it wasn't like that it was a digging kind of clawing you're way out of a lot of tangled mess where it did seem very remote the possibility of being able to kind of have a business that runs more smoothly and you know, I have shared this I think last time I was here about the fact that the first few years I ran my business I ran it they're in a very disorganized fashion I didn't have a system in place I didn't have a process in place I had all my orders come in via internet would upload it and then just wait to see what came in if somebody says I'll take four five by seven sides great get this four five by seventeen year and that was my sales process so I had to actually look at that part of what was very helpful with stepping back and financially looking at you in the last year how much money did I make okay, let me break that down even further how much of that money that came in was from portrait sales how much of it was from weddings? What were my average sales for portrait's and weddings? Because that's what I was doing at the time what amount of dollars came in from curb commercial work? How much was the sale? The dollar's made the sale on how much came later like when the images were released near the holidays or something getting a handle on that and then comparing it to session fees and when I did all that and put it all together I realized that as hard as I was working and I was working very, very hard it wasn't like I was stupid or I didn't have the information that would have helped me to make it a difference I'd come out of system management in terms of consulting I knew exactly how to reorganise my organization to be more efficient I just didn't do it I knew what to do I just didn't do it when I looked at all that I saw that I was basing my whole business model on collecting session of these I was thinking that if I secured a shoot I would get the session fee and for me anything that came after that was just what the client decided to buy that was my mentality not for like two days for a few years my mentality was I really can't do much about the fact that once they get the order out, what happens because I am so busy, I have to get to the next thing and people call and asked to meet or talk through something abject I'm so sorry, you know, I'm just just go ahead, just let me know what you want. I would say that because I honestly didn't know when I could meet with them because I was so busy taking on the next round of sessions as they came in and basing my revenue model on collecting session fees when I looked at it session fees were ten percent of the money I made, and that was when my cells were low that was myself for low. I saw that and I thought so when I first started out my dollar day, I started shooting and created a little price list, which I made in a word document, and I used flourishes that I found on clip art and I attached to my priceless nice it isn't a fancy I built it on my pc, you know, we're document document with clip art and I said session fee in house because I was literally in my house fifty dollars session, the on location, seventy five dollars and then after that I had three packages and the packages were basically what it seemed like most people around me were charging that vaguely see michael most people charging so I looked at all that and I thought one brand new same mine's gonna be about thirty percent less and that's kind of and I said so it was like two eight by ten's a five by seven eleven by fourteen package eh that that was exactly how I started what I did and then within that first year I got so busy I realized pretty quickly I mean to keep raising my prices so it went from like art find seventy five dollars one hundred dollars. Okay, okay, one hundred dollars, one hundred twenty five dollars this was my in house on location on dh so on and so forth the case my package a is no longer two hundred dollars or one eighty five it's going to be two hundred forty dollars and then a few months later it's going to be like two hundred seventy dollars I will never sell that. That is how I progress through this on dh then I could said the first year I changed my price is twelve times and this just kind of kept happening. I would say this someone calling and like do you remember what I told you? I cost win you and then eventually when I had my big kind of epiphany which really was complete with tears and exhaustion and I don't think I can do this anymore on by stopped everything I put the brakes on everything. And I I pulled out my favorite thing in the whole world, which is my white board. And I said, all right, let's, figure this out and that's when I determined that my session fees were such a small percentage that I was my mentality was that I can't charge people for this, I love it too much. That was my I mean, if I'm loving to do this, I don't really want to ask people to spend with me. It's just it was all just disoriented. And so that is where I came from. So when you ask and you say, hey, it looks like it's all so easy for you. I kind of have toe laugh because it's still not easy for me most people that I know if you saw the work life balance course and you saw the last half hour of that course, did that look easy? That kind of, you know, all the communication, all the work and all the effort, and then my children juggling the green apples. I mean, that is still my day to day existence. I have a lot of processes in place to make it cleaner and simpler, and I have a huge attitude, schiff which jess springs my stress level down which makes everything easier I don't I don't get angry with plans I don't get frustrated with them I don't ever roll my eyes and say what a jerk what a jerk request I don't do that because it's it's completely the opposite of what I really believe which is I'm grateful and I appreciate this and how can I do better and that mentality isn't just nirvana it's is significantly more successful way to produce revenue does that make sense absolutely did that answer the question yeah it does okay I mean it's just it's just good to hear about the whole process of how you got from where he started to where you are now people think it's sometimes people think it's out of their reach because they're starting from there starting from the beginning yeah you know and I and I appreciate that I know the beginning I also I live in chapel hill north carolina I don't live in new york city you know do you know where chapel hill north caroline is? I mean it's it's it's a lovely little town I think fifty thousand people we have more when the students were there less whether or not you know my studios in durham it's not it's not like I'm in this giant market so and most of all I know we're doing well I mean I could write off about your names not that many of them are in major markets either. It's less about, you know who am I exposed to it's more about, you know, how am I really putting my attention here? Cool. That's, that's. Awesome. All right, thank you. Thank you. All right, so should we should we be kicking off? Is that what I'm hearing? Not that we weren't already just chugging way have already kicked off and you know, one last point on that. The idea that maybe it's it's forget about me per se being, you know, easier, not easier. One other point is I it is the number one thing I hear when I teach yeah, I hear you. But I have this, this and this we all have that this this and this and that's nothing. I don't have sympathy for it. I don't understand, but I do see people say, I just don't know how we'll ever happen, okay? I'll try holy crap. It just happened. I see that a lot.