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Custom Collections

Lesson 28 from: Senior Photography: Break the Mold

Blair Phillips

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Lesson Info

28. Custom Collections

Next Lesson: Diversify Yourself

Lesson Info

Custom Collections

How many of you guys sell packages? Okay, Randy, sell sell packages and there's nothing wrong with selling packages. You know, as long as you have your packages structured in a way that is profitable with me. I didn't know how to sell packages. I was terrible at it. I would say, OK, you get a 16 by 20 and 11 by 14 38 by tens, 4578 wallets. Ah, goat. You get a free flour you got. I just tried to cram everything in there to make it look appealing. Well, I was giving everything away for that certain price. So once they got that package, will feel that it if I came to him and said, Hey, let me sell you this product here. They're like, No, no, no. I've already fulfilled my package. I'm good. Got everything I need. So it lets me know where to go. So in my studio, packages are a big no, no, that doesn't mean that you guys are wrong for selling packages at all. There's nothing wrong with selling packages just for me. I wanted to do a little bit differently, and I figure out a way to make it wo...

rk. So when clients call and say, how much is any? About 10 are what your packages, I say. Well, ma'am, here at Blake Phillips, the studio are Blakefield entirety. We actually have custom collections, so maybe instead of calling it a package, you call it a custom collection, make it sound a little bit better. So we say, you know, here, fortunately, you can actually build your own package because we want you to be in control of your own money. There's nothing worse than going, and you know your kids do it. You go to school and you have to buy all these images. Package B has all this stuff that you don't want, but you have to buy it because you won't. That top thing here is your money, and we want you to be in control of it. Anyways. Each section of the package has bonus incentives, so it we do it in steps, do it in step. So step one, there is a bonus selection, and I'll show you what I'm talking about. So they have the IPad in front of him, and I say, Take your finger swipe to the left and This is what shows up. And I say, OK, Randi, this is the select. This is the part where we're gonna pick your wall. Portrait's notice. I didn't say wall portrait. I said wall portrait. Why am I sticking with just one? Why am I not trying to sell him to There's a novel idea. Who knows? So what I've done is as I said, look, we were gonna choose your wall portrait's and plant that seed. And they're like portrait. Yeah, absolutely. We're gonna dio all of the all of the images that were yes, going to go through and we're going to have a picture wall portrait portrait, any image that was a yes, and we go through, we go through, we go through and we finally get him narrowed down to the wall portrait and we say, All right, listen. We have discounts available to I wanted to point this out to you. You can get one poor shirt for this price, but if you get three, we call it a trio. Then you actually get all your images at a discounted rate. So it's actually cheaper for you. You save more money if you buy three you know, you get those coupons spend 40 are 40% off. Once you spend a $1,000, or whatever you like, break your back to try and spend $100 to save that 40% even if you don't need it. But all of a sudden you come home with a bag of shoes. You're like, honey. No. They were 40% off these things. I got him in such a good deal. And then I say that my wife, Yeah, you could have got him for 100% off. He wouldn't balled him, but that's a different different deal. So they pick that and now an hour wall portrait. We don't just have 16 by 2020 24. I want to point out something that if you have a client that comes in and they say I want to let my 14 that's all the wall. I'll show you how to deal with them in a little while. But why? Why are we punishing clients that want to spend money that want tohave the highest end product that wanna have things available to him? Why are we punishing those so that we can capitalize on the people that don't want to spend money. What are we doing? That if I have a client that just says I love? I love, love, love these wall Portrait's. And I'd like to get three of them, and I can tell there they're on a spending mood. I'm like, You know what? Let me fix you up with something else. I'll say, you know what? H and h color lab, which is my lab. They have some of the most innovative products, and they make them available for me to give to you. And they're so affordable. I'm lucky that I can pass the savings on to you. So let me have Lorenzo come up, if you will. I'm gonna share with you guys how you can sell one an image, but sell it as multiple pictures. Look, we're gonna put this thing together like a puzzle here, so I don't even know which were you. Just hold those. We're gonna build a puzzle here. We're gonna take this. This is a mosaic, Okay? And this is taking one image, and it's gonna take a second for us to figure out how we do it here. All right, hold on. Wait for it. All right. Help me put this puzzle together. We're gonna hang it separately. Here, Look at that. And then we hang that one up underneath over here. But our arms aren't quite long enough for that. Oh, now we can sell that as a custom wall piece. That's a custom wall. Peace. And that's four separate canvases. All for one. Money won money on what I love the most about him is check out this thing behind me. Over here. You see this piece of paper? Now, when the wife goes home and says, Look, honey, I want you to hang up for these images and I want it all to be straight and perfect. It's not gonna happen, but there's an option through H and h you say, Look, send me hemming that Pronounce some of that print out with it. These things on the bag, they have a little clasp. It's so easy. You just take a thumbtack. You hang this on your wall and you poke it right through the middle right there and then poking through the middle, middle middle and you tear that down. And then that's where you put your screws so that when you hang these things on, you know, they're going to be absolutely, perfectly level. So I'm selling this to my clients, and I'm saying, Look, I'm not just gonna leave you hanging in. I'm gonna give you the tools to even go home so that your husband won't screw this up. Like he probably does everything else, right? I'm making jokes. Of course. Now let me say another option that I give him a swell. So I've got a plethora. There's no way a client's homecoming and say, Yeah, he just didn't really have a lot of products that I liked. Not at all. Lorenzo. Let me grab you one more time, partner. Sorry, man. He's like, I didn't sign up for all this. Look, OK, hold that one. He's gonna hold that, and then I'll hold this one. There's, like, seven prints that go with this thing. There's, like, seven of them here. So we hang these in a four year somewhere, separate him just a little bit, mix and match, um, different ways. They have several of them at the lab there, pre designed in a configuration such as this. Now I'm able to offer wall clusters, multiple campuses. And I can sell these by selling point on eases. That's they. Listen. Thank you, sir. I can say this is You don't have to buy a frame. A custom frame for every one of these. These Gallagher wraps are gonna be also because they would become ready toe Hang on your wall so you don't have to worry about anything. One little tiny hole in your wallet, all you need. These things are lightweight and they're absolutely beautiful. So everything you need comes ready to go. And again, if your lab or who you're getting your pictures from is creating you a lot of work. You're not really that efficient with my lab. Everything I get in again, I don't have to worry about it. I'm basically unpackaged it. Pull the pull the order form out or the invoice and I wrap it back up. I don't look at it. I don't have to sit and look and research and make sure it's the way it needs to be. And if you're having to do that, then maybe, you know, you look into something looking to change. Maybe, but if you're happy with what you're getting, then my message is to keep rocking on what you have. But there are alternatives again, even for these. The clusters Look at this huge piece of paper here. It's this easy. You hanging on the wall and you're good to go. So in that first step there, I have several different options to fit. Every different taste have the more plain customer they get the trio. If I have the one that's more century, they get a cluster or they get a mosaic. Everything is in there anything they need. Now we go from there and I say, Well, what if? What about, like standard prints versus metal prints versus gallery rap's wrap clusters? I mean, there's just a ton of stuff in there. Obviously those air priced a little bit differently, but you've got something for everybody in their right. So if you don't have that variety, you need to get with someone that we'll have that variety for you. Now when we're there, check this out. Bonus items. I have bonus items in here. Get a $50 frame credit for any portrait that you buy. Now what do I do there? I just go in and I marked my frame prices up about $50. Really, I'm not giving them a $50 frame credit. Does that sound mean it does? But I'm not making a ton of money on my friends anyway. And I'm not afraid to say if I can profit $100 on a 30 by 40 frame. I'm cool with that. It takes me three minutes to frame a picture and it's out the door. So why are we not making unavailable? So those bonus items include trios. We can say, Look, you get the trio's, you get three or Mawr standard prints and honestly, if you buy three, you're Technically, if you look at the pricing, it's about a 20% discount all across the board. That's the way I talk to my clients, by the way, 20% discount across the board. So now we've got that. We mentioned the frame credit and every single image gets that 50 $50 towards there. And now if they have that $ frame credit, that probably gonna buy a frame because I have my friends priced at a level toe where they can afford them, So almost everybody does that now way that we elevate our frame. Sales is a lot of towns. I'll spray paint on the week, sell it as a custom paint. But, you know, hey, spray paint can be custom. Okay, whatever, but we spray paint. It's a custom piece to match your decor. So should we have that client that won't something like that when we have that available? So I've got three or four different levels of everything, so there's no doubt Excel Frames. That's where I buy a lot of money. You get 16 by 20 all wood frames for 38 bucks. I mean that. That's like getting it for free, basically. And then I mark that up another 100. So make 100 books, right? So those add owns like we were talking about. We have composites. H and H has slim wraps have the senior blocks. The senior blocks are super super awesome. These senior blocks right here allow you to incorporate multiple images on one block that hangs on the wall, and we're using this as an add on that I'll share with you in a little while. But the senior blocks are also a lot of the girls were wanting this for their room. They want this for their room. And again, H and H doesn't awesome job of getting those to our doorstep. So there's there's tons of things in that step one. There's no doubt that we have something they want and that add on is discounted a 1 95 So we tell him. Look, while you just picked out all of your portrait, I won't let you know that we have a special going right now that you could do an ad on from this next session for 1 95 and you can get any product in there and it's normal a lot more than that. But we just want to show our appreciation and make things available to you. Should you want it, at least show it to him, right? And that's only available after they purchased their wall portrait. I know this seems like a lot, but it is going to start to make a little bit more sense here in just a few minutes. You all our viewers are probably yeah, I'm sure hoping so right. But we feature multiple images in these senior blocks. Things like that So if they want multiple images on one thing, that's a way to do it again. 1 95 That's what we're using there now. Custom collections. Step two, we say. Okay, now go to Step two. This is where you're gonna choose your albums. Your albums. Most clients. I used to try and sell albums at the end of a session or at the end of a of a cell session, and they were already spent. Now it's step to. This is what you have to do now. What if those people come in and they say, Well, I cant afford an album. We've got a solution for that. We've got three or four different ways that you can buy an album, But it's perfect for all of those images that you said yes to. I'd hate to see you, Mom. I hate to see you get six of these images printed and then leave the other 40 here. That would break my heart. And that would kill you on the drive home. I know they're gonna buy an album now is perfect for all those images you said yes to. That's how we sell it. Now we have levels of albums. Okay, so check this out. I don't want to again punish the client that wants to spend a lot of money. Now, if I can offer an album in something like this for that high end clients, look at this. It was box. And then I can pull this thing out. This a designer album with designer materials, and I can say, Look, this is our couture album, Mom, this is basically this is kind of like a wedding album, but this is for your senior. This is for the client that wants to spend a little bit more money with me. This isn't a cheap album that I sell to them. This is a high end album, but I get it at a really affordable price so I can market up a lot and make a lot of money from it. A lot of people think H and H they just print images. They are a major player in the album game, major player in the album game, and they're coming up with innovative ways like this box here. I mean, that is how I want to put this on the table way, all for smaller ones because some of the materials the acrylic rain with orange gator. Do you know how long it took me to track this orange gator down? I got this down in the Panhandle in Florida when I was down there last week. And, yeah, but vibrant colors, different types of finishes. I mean, these guys are my one stop shop now. I'm there. I'm not having a shop around everywhere to find the products that I need. So we have the custom couture album. Mom says, Well, that's too expensive. A little more than what I want it. Then I playoff that I said, OK, well, listen, where you're gonna probably be the most suited is you're gonna go in the middle. The blues book, which is a photo panel book, and I pull this out and I say, this is a photo Pano book. Mom, Actually, I call it a blues book because B. A l is Blair. And then Jozy is Susie. Suzanne, that's my wife. So equal parts go into the design. So we made it our own name and we call it a blues book, and we put all the images in there and this we sell it. Actually, for 3 75 Some people say, Well, that's not very much. What doesn't cost me much from my lab doesn't call so much. So therefore, I can sell it for not a lot. But again, I'm building a sale as I'm going right. If they don't want that, I've got another option. You can do these guys here. Okay, Well, look, this is another alternative to an album here. This is a proof magazine, but we call it a flip book. We say we can get all those images in a book for you. No problem. And then they say, Well, Blair, I don't know. That might be a little much for me. Okay, Don't worry. I've got more options, and we have folios and we all for four different styles off folios. So on page one is style one. We have style 234 as an example to show them the different styles they can choose from its printed front bag. We get these from our lab is well one stop shop. This is an actual kid here. Shows you what a panel looks alright. Polio? Yeah. Good deal. Shows you what a folio looks like they've changed over the years. It's not no longer than you know, the one that you just slip it in and off you go. So we're offering high end products because we're trying to reach high end clients, right? That's what we're going for. So now we have the album set selection done so again, they can spend a lot of money or they can spend a little bit. But we're gonna try and get him to go towards the middle. So almost every one of my clients buys one of these photo panel books. 90% of them always does that always. So the blues book or the flip book, which is a press proof magazine or the polio like to get ahead of myself sometimes. Now proof box. This is something we just added recently to we take a They designed these. They had these boxes and we're like, How come we use these? They're normally people use them as like a valet box where you throw your keys and stuff in him. At the end of the day, we said, Well, why don't we use this in an innovative way? Put the kids picture on the front, and then when they open it, it can have every single image and a five by seven form that they can just pull out and always have and flip through, leaving on the coffee table. When you have company parents love this, they can take this and lay it all out on the table and look at it. So again, it's an innovative product and we're using it, using it to our advantage. Proof boxes air awesome. Their gift rewards or actually get prints. Step three. So now, Mom, this is where we're gonna choose your gift prints. Anyone from that? Ma. Anyone aspires. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, anybody. This is where you gonna choose those images. Now, if you'll notice In true fashion, we have bonus rewards. We say, Look, you by five, you get one free by eight, you get two free. So if you've got someone that's at three and you say, Well, I just want to point out to you If you If you choose to Maura, I'll give you one absolutely free. Or if you're at six and you say, Listen, if you choose to more, I'll give you two for free and you can get it any size you want to. It doesn't matter to me. Doesn't matter. So it's food for thought. It gives them something to think about. And also all the gifts prints were getting ready to change this and they're all gonna be the same exact price. We did the math. I think I can gain another $8000 for my studio by keeping all these the same price. We've done a lot of thinking through it, and I think I can gain that much more money by not nickel and Downing. People now step for to follow the system. Mom, Step four is we're gonna choose your wallets. Well, while it's I don't really want wallet. Now, look a senior and I said, Hey, listen, I just won't let you know that for any image that you buy in a wallet, that is what we're gonna give you to go on your Facebook page. And all the sudden it's like Mom, we've got to get Wallace's. I want this on my Facebook. Kind of hate you. They won't say that, because if they do, I put him in time out. We don't play that in my studio. Um so for any image that they buy, they get those for a Facebook. Now, all of a sudden, they want to buy wallets. And now you're saying yourself, Well, what? My clients don't want all this stuff. They just want pictures. They just won't images. I'll show you how to deal with that in a minute. So after we're done with that, that's finishes our sales presentation for him. They're done. But I throw that planted a little seed and say, Hey, don't forget about those graduation announcements. You know, it's not a step, but we do want to show it and make it available. And I also want to let you know that there are lab. They do have some amazing jewelry, got all kinds of products. I want to just show you some of this stuff and we show it to him and it may spark another sale. It's like the check out counter. You pull something off the check out and you make it yours. It goes in your car. You didn't even know you wanted it until you saw it right? Exactly. Now we get we used these bonus levels overall, Once everything is finished and they think that they're done. We dangle something else in front of me. Hey, listen, let's just take this. Ah, this one in the middle. So we know your $1500. You know, I want to let you know that if you if you can if you spend 300 mawr I'm gonna give you Ah, higher is damage Higher is disc of all these images and you can do whatever you want to with him. So if you would like, we could go back through, I'm sure we can pick out just a few more things and you're gonna get something that would cost you normally, like $2000 like Well, I guess if I've come this far, what's another few $100 and then we can sell it that way. So there's several different levels in there. Now you figure out what fits you the best, but give them a little incentive of something that doesn't cost you much. If someone's going to spend $2000 for me personally, I don't care if they own the images I'm like, Take him. I've made my money. I'm not worried about it. Do I care where they go get imprinted at that point? No, because I've sold them everything that's going to go in their house. So I'm not a big advocate of just selling the disk and that's it. But I share with you how we handle that. So those bonus levels, those air, my sales goals that I want to reach I want to reach that $1800 mark every single session, at least that if I can. Now what do you do if you have that guy that comes in? And he says, I'll see what you're trying to do here. He's like, I'm not buying into this whole 1234 thing. All I want is eight by tens. I want 10 8 by tens. That's all I've ever gotten before. That's all I'm getting now. Okay? More on. No problem. You're gonna flip over. You're gonna flip over to the very next page. We've got this one designs just especially for you. With no images. There's an extra dollar sign, or there's a dollar sign to make it have one more digit. There's no incentives you can buy from the ala cart menu, sir, if you care to. So if you're are going to buy those eight by tens And you said you wanted those in Pearl, whereas if he would have followed the step process, you could've got anything you wanted. Any finish at the same price, But here, I'm gonna charge you more for it. So if you really want to go there, we'll go there. So they go over here and they say, All right, I want I want 10 of the eight by 10 bucks apiece. Okay, sir. So you're going to spend $700 on 10 8 by tens, And it would break your heart if I told you what those things cost me from my lab, but I'll be glad to do that. So he feels like he got over on me. And my cool was with $700 for 10 8 by tens. I mean, I work with that. So instead of getting, you know, getting messed up like I used to Now even that Galveston Okay. Sorry. I got something for you. Don't worry about it. No problem. So we've got something for him to, and all of our stuff is pre designed, so it loads right into your IPad or whatever you want to sell from from your computer. You don't do any work. You can just drag and drop your prices in drag and drop your name. You can rearrange it. You can change the text, you can change. The configuration gives you a great go, Bob. But I'm telling you, there's been four people in three years that have tried that all the cart method that it bucked the system and said not buying an album, I'm not buying all that. But even if they don't, I'm still making a nice profit, right? I'm still doing it now when we're in that sales presentation, no final prices are calculated in the sales room. I don't give them a total and say, All right, you know your order as it is a $3000 because then they're gonna be like, Oh, my gosh, I want to sell him stuff all the way up to the check out counter. So the only time they see their price is when they're getting ready to pay. And I say, OK, man, here is your total right here, and I'll start talking about something else because I'm already shut everything down. Everything's done. Everything is printed out. They're not going to likely go back and say, Player, I don't know. I need to make some changes. I say, Well, you know, if you feel that impaired about me, we can go back. It'll take me a few minutes to start all that stuff back over, and we can go through it all again. But if this is a little much for you, I can work out a payment plan for you. They're like, Oh, okay, I can work on that. So we leave the room completely. Get out of there. Go away. They sign off on the order form. Any corrections that have been made a sign off on it. So that way, when we order it, everything's done. We know they signed off on it. And this, right? What do you do if you have that dreaded disc question that seems to be the standard now? Yeah, I Just How much is it? Just for the disk I'm like, Well, sir, you know, we don't really just sell the disk. You know, we're trying to instill the value of Prince. You know how many discs do you have hanging on your wall at home, sir? Not very many. So we're trying to instill the value of Prince, and if they just are very persistent and they say I want the disk, I want the disco. Want to discuss this? Okay, fine. I'm not gonna go out of business, but I will sell you the disc. Not a problem. Once you meet a minimum order of $1000 it's available for $500. So I'm not saying no, but I'm not saying yes. I'm going to sell prints one way or another so that client calls and ask about a disc. Gonna tell me on the phone. So that way, when they come in for the order appointment, they know not to really ask about it. We've already covered it. I'm not shooting. I'm not photographing clients. They're gonna rake me over the coals and even on a disk. Whenever we designed something for a disk, we're not gonna put the disc down in a little plastic sleeve and hand it to him. If they're going to spend that much money on a disk, I'm gonna put it in a trifle that I get from H and H, we're gonna design it. We're gonna put a little seedy hub in the middle of it. I'm gonna snap it down in there because I won't even that disk to match my brand, right? Everything has to match everything. So we're sparing no expense, and we're making everything match. So if you are not laying the groundwork for your clients and your leaving little loopholes that they can crawl, crawl through and they'll call their friends a Janet. Listen, if you got a Blair for your older appointment, you can do this and mix this with this and you can actually come out cheaper with my system. There's no way they're going to do that. There's no way. So what you have to do is you have to educate him, and then what you're gonna do is when you're done educating them, I want you to go back and educate him some, or on what they're getting themselves into. And then a great sale starts with the first phone call that client calls. Educate him, let him know how you work. Let him know how you structure your business. Let him know that this isn't gonna be I'm not just a run run of the mill photographer that's going to charge you $20. Let him know that you're worth it. You know, lead with small talk. So I was telling you yesterday I asked him about their family asking the questions, you know? Where do you guys live? Where you from? Where do you work? What do you do? You have any relatives that live over here near me? This is where I live. What do you know? What do you like do in your spare time? Do you work out lead with that small talk and then tell your clients when they say, Well, how much is an eight by 10? Don't tell him this is what we do. We say well, what we say you can say I understand how you feel about pricing, but we found is once we told the clients how we do all of our sailing, they felt this way. And they felt that we had the best cell system ever, and they loved it. So most of our clients typically spend anywhere from typically spend from here and up. So if you want your minimum order to be $500 or 1000 say most of our clients typically spend $1000 go up from there depending upon what they won't. And then once you say that, be quiet. Don't tell them why you charge this and why you do this. You've already done that, so tell how much it is and then be quiet. Just be quiet. Lay your groundwork later. Groundwork, build up your brand when you're talking to him on the phone that very first time, build your brand through your expressions through what you're saying Build up their experience so that they're excited about it before they even come in. And if you're letting people walk on your order appointment day if you're letting them all and they're saying I just can't decide today it is just like the bubble gum theory put bubble gum in your mouth. It's wonderful. You love it. You're not gonna You're not gonna be interested in that. Two days later, you're gonna spit it out in an hour and it's old news. It's exactly what will happen with all of your all of your images. Now we tell him to these custom collection prices. They're only available for today. So we tell the client if you don't order today, unfortunately, prices are gonna be elevated, and I blame it on my lab. I say we've contracting with our lab and they give us special pricing throughout these incentives that we offer. And they're only good the day of your order appointment because we've already pre selected your name. They know who you are. That's I'm probably telling a story there. But that's that's what I would tell him. Listen, I've gotta eat. I got a two year old daughter that I like to put a nice clothes and I love her to death, and I want her to have nice things. If I'm going to work, I'm going to get paid for it. No doubt. That's why I put this stuff in place. And I'm gonna get paid for your words that you're worth it. You, you, you and especially you guys. You're worth it. So don't sell yourself short And don't not believe in your work. And don't not believe in what you're capable of. Post images online for the family on Lee after they place their order Onley after. If you place those images online from the lookout and make decisions. In my opinion, humans would just forget it. And I know this from experience. I had a whole file cabinet in my studio full of clients that never placed orders. And I looked at all of those and looked at all the hours I had invested, and it made me so mad. That's why I switched to this cell system. I flipped it overnight, too. Sales used to be done this way. I came in the next morning and I said, You know what? This we're not doing anymore. I'm switching to this and any client that won't conform to it. Then I can't worry with it. You know, I can't worry about it. I have to go after that client that's gonna respect what I'm doing. So remember, I went from $320. Okay, that's all I could get out of. My client's years ago was $320. I put this system in place the very next day in my small market at a $1600 order, and that's the most anybody one has ever spent on order for me. And I'm tells, because the way I laid it down. They wanted everything. And I left those little bonus levels so that once they finish their like, Oh, wait a minute, I can get that too Well, we have for that and as well and for his clients that couldn't afford that put together an easy payment plan. So there's no way someone can say, Well, I can't do it. Every single step is covered and we say, Listen, if you can't do it, what I've done listen, I understand where you are, Trust me. I need to be on a payment plan right now as well. So what I can do for you is we offer an easy three payment part program where we'll break it up into thirds. We'll take your car number and will automatically charge it every two weeks and or every three weeks if you need it. And that way you can still have what you need. And it's not going to really put a hurt on you during this financial time right now, So we all for that as well, and there's a lot of people taken advantage of that. And if I wouldn't offer it than they may have to reduce their orders are drastically so. Throughout all this had a big demand and people said, Listen, can you make that as easy as you say and put it on a disk so that I could just download it on my computer and just basically, I can change everything to my pricing, and I can just drag and drop my images in, and it's all pre designed and look just like that I said, Well, yeah, and we'll even do it and we'll give it. We'll give it to you at half price We have five of these. We have a cell system for newborns cell system that's designed completely different for seniors. A cell system. The design is designed completely different, looking for families because families they happen normally, you know, once every few years seniors happen once, so the prices are different than they would be for a child. I want a child to come back more and more and more so if you're interested in that, go to the website Blair Phillips workshops dot com, and we can hook you guys up with that and we'll support you all the way. So I think from here there's got to be a couple of questions somewhere, so we'll check with our live audience. And then we want to give our online viewers an opportunity to voice their questions as well. Yes. What's your question? Um what first? This seems like all some system. It's great that you make it a, well, a bowl as a template. So for those of us who are starting out, we don't really have a studio way. Can't do you suggest we carry out a product office? It's not. How would you go? A bar it, Ryan? Um, I guess that's the question. Yeah, I most certainly would carry these products with me. Is it a lot more work? Absolutely. Will clients by a fashion cover album in a nicely designed box. If they can't see it? Maybe. But if they can feel it and touch it and put it in her hands, they're probably more out to buy it. And it validates you as a photographer and makes you look better because you're bringing all these high end products into their home and you're making them available for purchase. So if you don't bring him in for and making them available, it's a lot harder to buy them. You know, it's just like if you have to order something online, You know, if I told you Hey, you can have this today at this price, or I can't show you what it looks like, but it's really, really awesome. But if you order it online, I can have it to you in three weeks. You're more apt to buy it if I can show it to you right now. So I would say, you know, take advantage of some of the sales at H and H has they run sales all the time and buy you some of those sample products? Yeah. So do you have people like they've gone to the ordering process and they do get a certain amount of images online? Because if you have someone say, Oh, you know what? If you know the grandpa that can't make it wants to come see those videos, So are they only gonna order from, I guess, with the client chose anyways or wears, Is there that option somewhere down the line for those people who say, Well, you know what if my aunt wants picture or something like that, but They don't want to spend the money door to the print for the ant themselves right then say, and I want they don't want to do what now. So they're not wanting a place that order for the extended family right then they want them to be able to see it later. Yeah, that's a great question. We make those images available for that extended family on Lee for a week. That creates a sense of urgency, and we say No. After you place your initial order, then we will make those available for your family to see. So, yes, we do post. And we posed all the images because it's easier just to click command a and select all of them and just upload all of them rather than going through and picking the ones that they ordered after they make that initial purchase, are they create their order and pay for it? Then we post them online, but just for a week, because we want to create that sense of urgency. So that was a great question is well, what are our lovely viewers on the Internet saying The Internet is on fire right now? There are so many great questions coming, and I think you just hit the perfect topic that so many of us struggle with. So I'm going to just jump right in and we'll start with Marie Bond and says, As a photographer, I asked for the disk because I know I can get those products. How do you feel about other photographers doing this to you? If it's another photographer that's coming into my studio, you know, I mean, they understand what products calls, you know, they understand that we're making decent money and, you know, if they won't on Lee the disc, I mean, I'll sell it to him. But I gotta sell them that disk at a profit margin of what I think is very fair. And if they're not willing to pay me because they say, Oh, well, it's just a disc like No, no, no, it's not just a diskettes. Hours worth of my work is years worth of my training. So if they're not willing to pay that, don't bend over backwards to help them out. Charge what you won't and charge what you feel like you should, because if you don't, you're gonna hate your job. You're gonna hate your job. I'm so much more creative now that I'm using this sale system because I know that every client that comes in is going to spend a good bit of money. I'm so much more motivated to go to work. I whistle while I'm work. I'm skipping the work. I'm happy used to. I was like, I'm not even looking forward this session coming in. And that's when you do your worst work. What you have, Lorenza, when you know if you don't have a studio, that's kind of where he's going off. If you don't have a studio, do you take your products to their home? Or do you meet like a central location, Not necessarily at a coffee shop or something like that? Yeah, You know, for me, I would kind of rather go into their home because, you know, like you have Children, you don't have to worry about them coming to your home and making sure everything is put where it needs to be and you interrupting the sale. It's OK if it gets interrupted at their home because that's on them. I would much rather go to their home because then and I can say. You know what? This would be a lovely area for one of these. Mosaic Prince. Let me show you what I'm talking about. I happen to bring one with me, and you can kind of lay it out and show her, and if she can visualize it, she's gonna buy it. She's definitely gonna buy. It's a great question. Similar question from the Internet. But how about four out of town clients as well out of town clients? You know, that's where with me, I have a lot of clients that come from out of town. But that's where you know, using this little guy right here and doing the room view where they send you the images and you can kind of place the images on their wall. You know that. That's what I dio If you don't have a theater room, obviously it's gonna be pretty difficult toe to make that work depending upon where they are. You know, maybe you go to their home if they're not that far away. So that's a tough question. Yeah, that was from Zana. Who says her clients are about six hours away from her. Yeah, that's gonna be tough to drive back and forth there, Xena. So maybe you have to post them online, but you post them online online, and you figure out a way to make it so that it's time sensitive that they have to order within 24 hours and give them some sort of a little tiny bonus that they fulfill that order within 24 hours. That doesn't cost you much money. I think with that, you have to create a sense of urgency, for sure capitalized while it's really fresh capitalized when they first see it. And the emotions air strong. Great advice. Thank you. And landed. Ready? What? You got me going back to the pictures on the disc. Okay, um, I've done it before. I'm paying. Worry about, because when I show them picture, I've done my prints. Yes, They go home a print on the primer, saying it's not the same quality, and then they come back to you. Say, what? Did you sell me? Yeah, right. So how do you do with education, you have to educate, decline and knowing, you know. Hey, Randi, you know you want to buy this disk, and I'm glad to sell it to you. It's gonna be a premium price because you're getting all the images, you know. So your urine turned buying all the images that you probably don't need, but I'll be glad to sell it to you. But keep in mind, I worked with H and H Color Lab, which is allowed that calibrates their systems every 30 minutes. They're one of the leaders in the world with color calibration. If you go to the local drugstore, they probably calibrated there's about 30 years ago. So it's gonna be green is gonna be scion. It's not gonna look is good. So I just want you to know that you know that I'm gonna have to charge a premium for a product that you're not really gonna be super happy with. So I think as long as you educate him and lay all that ground work in, then you don't have to worry about him coming back to you. What else do we have? Only Internet. All right, so lots of great top is coming in, but one that has come up over and over again from Lindsey, See, kept part and many, many others. Uh, how do the clients receive the products after the final payment or before, And how do you use a scheduled card payment? Yeah, the scheduled card payment is through success where they have things built in because it's four photographers built by for tire, for the software is so they understand their needs. So it's all built into the software is very easy. Just click, click, click filling the information, and it automatically does everything for you. Andi. Other question was, was how do they receive their their images final payment or before the final payment? They If they have a broken down into thirds, they have to pay the final amount before they get even anything as much as a wallet. I don't, but I don't let him pay 1/3 and they say, Well, is there any way I can just get those wallets? Because they've got to go in these announcements and then I'll pay the rest. Everything has to pay, paid in full before they get anything, learn from experience. I've done that before and say, Well, can I just get those few eight by tens? I need for some. Okay, you've already paid 1/3. I'll give you that I've already got their fix. They forget about it. Time goes by and they forget about it. So absolutely they get nothing until everything is paid in full. Think if you took a shirt to a screen printer because some screen printed, they're gonna make you pay up front because when it's done, they can't sell that screen printed shirt to anyone else because it's custom to you. You can explain that to your clients. One more here. I think it was kind of may have ever been answered. But, like if if if it's an out of town customer, do you have their products drop ship to them? Or do you know I don't have a drop ship? Always have them shipped to my studio because I want to put my own little finishing touches on it. Thank you. Notice things like that and then I ship it toe So many great fantastic questions coming in. You guys, thank you very much for engaging. I'm gonna shout out one more question before we head over to our lunch break, and that will be from Apple, Ashley and many others. Let's see a follow up from Leah Carroll and also Marie Bond as well. But wondering how many years did it take you to get to this high end couture market? Was the process of development for your business to get to that level, you know, especially for those just starting out? Can they immediately offer all of these at, ah, higher rate price? Or do you have to slowly work your way up and easier customers into that? Yeah, that's a great question. That's That's one that a lot of people, they're like, Oh, no, it's easy. And I just started out and money just poured in and I about choked because I made so much money, Let me tell you, I strong. I mean, I struggled a little bit early on, and I know exactly what you're talking about. It took me about four years to reach a point where I was like, Man, this is this is going all right. Like we're really making some good money. We're making good profit. I'm enjoying it. But you know, I didn't start off with the best. I mean, I may have started off, and all these products I have I may have just had this one, but Then I made a little bit more and I said, Hey, they keep coming up with the awesome products. Now I'm gonna add this one and then I'm gonna add this one, and then I'm gonna have this one. So you have to put the cart or you can't put the cart before the horse. You have to establish the horse first and then get the card. So by all means, don't get frustrated because I'm telling you everything I'm doing. You guys can have this same stuff going on in a matter of no time. Even this bad economy, even this bad market, bad press, you conduce to it, and it did. It took me about four years to reach a point where the phone was just ringing off the hook. Like right now, my first available appointment is like after Christmas, because we've built it that way and you guys can do the exact same thing. So I encourage you to get out there and get it done.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Senior Posing Guide
Blair Phillips Discounts

Ratings and Reviews

David - Muse 10
 

As an experienced photographer myself, this class was both helpful and inspirational…we're never too experienced to learn from someone. Blair is really a lot of fun to watch and listen to. He has a way of making things fun with his high energy and dry sense of humor. To be completely honest in my review of this class, the lighting and posing sections, while VERY good, have been done over and over again by lots of photographers and didn't offer much in the way of new ideas. The real value was in the customer service and marketing techniques presented here. Blair's use of video as a marketing and communication tool with his clients is very unique and sparked TONS of ideas I would like to implement in my studio. His simple pricing structure and the way he presents it to his clients is also unique and has helped me rethink some of my own methods. "That being said" (Blair should appreciate that phrase) this class is totally worth the price and will continue to be a good reference for me. Some photographers are excellent at their craft but are dry teachers; others are great teachers but their "real-life" work doesn't live up to their classroom presentations. Blair is the real deal and makes this class very exciting.

a Creativelive Student
 

Blair is great. This class is packed full of great info and is a genuine good hearted person.. Really like his approach with high school seniors. I recommend it.

Student Work

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