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Marketing Q&A

I like the little charm thing. That was pretty cool. I could see that as a mother. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. What, you ran You anything stick out for you? Well, going back to the glamour shots? Yeah. What do you infer the guys for? The guys were doing absolutely nothing way, haven't I? Didn't really haven't got that for you. I just focused on the girls and I went that direction. So remember I was saying I kind of I kind of try and focus on one thing at a time and get it down pat and then go for something out. So that raises a good point, though. My first thought, maybe sport shots. Exactly that. And that's maybe you fix them up with their sporting equipment. And instead of just like having a holder football, you're trying to figure out a way to make it really extreme. So I don't know. That's a good point, because you have to. Whatever you do for the guys you know, you really need to do for the What do you do for the girls? You need to for the guys as well. So yeah, that's a very go...

od point that you make there, so don't lose sight of the guys. Even though I only shoot about 5%. Guys still need to have it there. Because if I don't have it available, what are they not going to do? Buy it? Exactly. Exactly. Somebody else will do it. That's exactly right. What else do we have? What? What is it? Lovely Internet viewers saying here what we got. They love the gum. The gum. Come. Where did you get the gum? Are you actually putting that packaging on yourself way? Actually, get it just like that. And you know what? That is something I'm gonna have to ask my wife because I do not remember that. But I promise you that I will get you that information. I can't. I don't remember. It was Wildcat wholesale. I want to say it was Wildcat wholesale. Try wildcat wholesale dot com, see if that's it. And if that's not, I'm gonna check and I will get that information for you guys. I promise. Sorry, I don't have that. Well, no problem. There quite a few people. See a Octoberfest, Wendy, Anne and Mary Ann. When you were talking about giving someone a session in order to use their images for promotional material, for example, for the plastic surgeon's office. Who is paying for that session? Yeah, that's a great point. That's what I was saying. That session is pro bono Onley thing. They're gonna pay for all their prints and everything, but I'm giving them the session fee for free so they don't have to pay this session fee. But they are anything that they order, they're going to be responsible for paying for. And the way you don't get yourself in a mess is don't book that appointment and then come in and think, Well, he said, I was coming to get a session and I figured I could just get whatever I wanted. So you have to communicate with your clients. Soon as they go, let him know. Hey, yes, he's nice enough to buy the session for you, which he really did, and I gave it to him free. But he was nice enough to buy the session for you, you know. But you know, of course, if you any of the pictures that you want, you're responsible for paying for. I think you have a quick question. We'll come right back. You post surprising on your intent on the Web, right? And that's a good question. You know, do a post pricing on the Internet. I don't. And I'll tell you why. I don't do that. I feel like that if I can. If I can have five minutes of conversation with you, I can justify why I charge what I do. If you look at my prices and we'll just throw a number out say I charged $ for an eight by 10 all right, you're gonna say you're gonna slam the phone down and say, You're a moron. There's no way I'm gonna pay that for a print. But if I can talk, let's just say so. 100. Let's be realistic. It's $100. You're like, there's no I'm gonna pay that for a print. But if I can call if you can call me and I can talk to you and I can let you know my personality, my training, my background, how you're gonna be serviced, the level of quality, you're going to get the number of poses. I'm gonna do the type of training. I've had the type of studio I have the type of everything I have. I feel like I can validate that for you. And then at that point, then pricing is kind of like the last thing on your mind. So I think if you throw your prices out there, you could scare people away by saying, Whoa, that's expensive. But if you could tall them, talk them into our talk to them for a few minutes, you can let them know why you charge what you charge so personally, I don't Let's go back to the Internet. They have a few more. Okay, yeah, we want to make sure. Let's see, You said there are templates on your website. Can you go more into those templates? Some are free, and some are not. Can you clarify what is actually the ones that are free? If you go, we have a section on their for free download. You click on to those does air absolutely free, and then the ones that are not free. Obviously, that we have senior templates for, you know, for cards such as this for graduation announcements, all sorts of things, and those are obviously available for purchase. So you just fish around on there. And if you have any questions where you can always shoes, an email will be glad to help you. Okay, Thanks. Thank you so much for clarifying that. All right, There are lots of questions on unconventional marketing, because every slide, it was like a whole new topic. It was like tons of stuff came in a lot of good stuff. All right? So cat tin ask Early photography says I've been visiting businesses I want a market with, but they all so far have had other photographers already placed. They don't really seem to want another photographer to help promote. How do you get around that? Offer them something better and NASCAR really is from. And Dallas Forth Worth area. Yeah. That is a great question. Their cat. What I would do in a situation like that is you know, you don't want you don't want to share a spot with another photographer. You know you don't want you don't want to try and get into a bidding war and trying to it way better than they do and go in and bad mouth out of the photographer and say, Well, look, let me show you what I can do way better than this guy. You don't want to get into that sense kind of the wrong message. So what I would do is if it was a business I really wanted to get into, I would walk in. And if they said I'm already working with someone, I would say, Well, look, you know I want to do is just share with you a little bit of who I am and what I do and no harm done. So I would plead what I do. I would say what I do talk about what I do. Show some examples. And I would say, and I just picked up a dance studio of 250 kids by doing this very same thing. I went in and I said, You know what, if any, at any time you're not 110% satisfied with the service you're getting you don't like. The partnership is a is a two way street, Will you? My card and just give me a call, you know, and I hope everything will work out for you because I wish the best for the photographer, and I wish the best for you and then just leave it alone. And that's what I did for the dance studio. And two weeks later, that lady called me back and she said, You know what? This is what she said, Blair, you said to call you when I'm not 110% happy, she said, about 90% happy. I'm kind of interested in what you had to say. I'm like whole your own, it wounded pigeon. I'm the Hulk. Remember that? Oh, yeah, I got her. They booked. We got it. So that's what I would do is always take the high road because there's a lot less traffic up there. Remember that? All right. Next question is from Infinity Lens Studio in a Texas bill from Texas. Hey there. When you do your cross marketing with other companies like the dentist, for example, obviously you don't want people thinking it's all a one way and they stop sending your clients. How do you refer back to them? In a tactful way? Yeah, What I do is I donate Prince Art of his clients to go into a consultation room and into his lobby, so I donate back to him. Images from those sessions, I'll have canvases printed, and I will physically take them and hang them myself. So part of the agreement was was I put those in the removal bags, but I also wanted some of your real estate in here. I wanted to put some prints up, and I told him I said, Look, I will gift these to you at no cost to you I will buy them and I will personally hang them up And I said, They're your clients there, your work, that you've worked on their teeth. So that's exactly how we handle that. It is a two way street. Absolutely great question. Texas is tearing it up down there. I know. Actively listening. I love it all right. Another question from Apple Ashley before moving on, You're finishing up. OK, this is from Apple Ashley. As I said, when you put the complimentary session cards such as the braces removal cards, what kind of session are you giving away? Is it a full two hour session or something more like a mini session? And that's a great question to it Depends on the vibe that I get from that client. You know, if I get the vibe if they understand my pricing and they're like, OK, you know, after I tell about the minimum water and they're like, OK, way want to do it It depends on when they get there. If I feel like if they just bring, like, one outfit because that's what happens a lot of times he would just bring the one outfit. And, like, you know, I just figured it was just a, you know, just a little session that we could, you know we could take care of. Then I'll only do maybe 30 45 minutes or an hour. I'll sit and talk with them and build that relationship. But now if they come in and they've got a full regalia with them with all their outfits and things, and I'm kind of feeling the vibe that you know what this is, this is gonna work out pretty well. Then I may shoot the full two hour session, but I think the thing to do is ask them on the phone, you know? Hey, this is your your celebration time. We're gonna treat this and you want to treat this as like, a family portrait session or a senior session where this is like your full loan session, that we're gonna really deck your home out with some awesome images since you have your braces off and they say That's exactly we're looking for. Then I'll say, Bring every outfit you can think of will make it a full blown two hour session. So, you know, I think it just depends on your communication. If you wanted to be an hour session making an hour, if you wanted to be a to make it a two. But you have to pre qualify that client for sure and let them know that Hey, the session is free. But then we have to go into photographer mode and explain that, Hey, this is a regular session that you're responsible for paying for. You definitely gotta do your groundwork. So let's move forward and give just a few more slides here. And let's talk about some unconventional ways to give back. Everyone loves animals, most people, and it is amazing to me. The amount of money that people would spend on their animals and donating back to a good cause that involves animals is a great way to get right to people's heart and to make yourself feel better. So you use your craft in an unconventional way to do good for someone else. And what I did was I picked a local humane society in my area, and the first year I did it, I worked with the Humane Society. The second year I picked a veterinarians office that takes in any stray that you want to bring, and they will rehabilitate and get that dog back to help. So they have a great big kennel that they have to facilitate and take care of all these animals. It's a no kill shelter. And I said, You know what that is? Is a kind of I want to make sure that my money stays in my community here, and that's what I did. So we put together paws and claws. It's a way for people to donate, and then it's a way for me to shoot. And then it's a way for the Animal hospital or the Veteran Areas office to receive something good and on the back end, bleed or not, it's a really good way to drum up some revenue. Who knew so you could do something good. You can shoot it, they can receive it, you can donate it and then you can actually make money from it. To now. Making money was the last thing on my mind from doing this, But with every person that came in, I said, Listen, that's what we're gonna do. We had a big drive, had things printed, took him toe every veterinarians office anywhere I could think of Petsmart anywhere. When you're doing something for free, people will let you put things out. So I went in and said, Listen, we're trying to raise something for these for the for this shelter. And I said, for every £50 bag of dog food you bring in so you bring your dog in a £50 bag of dog food, I'm going to give you a free eight by of your animal. I had a boy set and a girl set. People brought their dogs in. I photographed him. I put little two twos that we made on them. They brought in little things to put on whatever, and I basically I photographed animals all day long. Now what I did waas was I loaded. Two great bit There was a long bed pickup trucks. I loaded them things all the way up over the cab, two of them with £50 bags of dog food. I mean, it was The trucks were like, weighted down. All right. Two things happen. We called the newspaper and I said, Hey, I won't let you know that we're doing this event here If you have somebody that would love to do a story. It's a feel good story because in your newspaper I read your newspaper religiously, and unfortunately, there's a lot of bad news in there every day. But I would love to see your paper be able to put something positive out in the community. I think people really love this. They were like, Oh my gosh, that's a great idea. What? Our editor, Somebody needs to get out there right now. So they sent someone out. I tell them what we're gonna do it. They took pictures of me. I stage it was like picking up dog food, and I had a cuddle shirt on at that time because I want to make muscles look big, for I was like, so I made myself look really good when I was doing it and one of the paper, it was great. Press great press. And what I'm gonna do differently this year is I'm gonna contact all the big name dog come dog food companies And I'm gonna say, Look, man, what's the lost 50 bags of dog food? Do you guys like help us out here? I'll send him pictures of the newspaper clippings that we had. I'll send them information from the kennel and I'll put together a letter. You know, that solidifies everything and validates it. And who knows? My goal this year is toe have, like a tractor trailer load. I mean, who knows the potential? And it feels so good at the end of the day to do that so good. And I'm doing something good for things that don't have a voice. So it's it's marketing. It's unconventional and makes you money. But you know, all I did with the money was just help me take care of paying for staff that was there. It helped me take care of paying for everything it took to clean up the dog pee pee. And, uh, it took care of buying the prince. You know anything above and beyond that I would donate back to him. So it's a feel good story. I love doing things like that. And three aircraft threw your service. Figure out a way to give back every once in a while, and I promise that I'll come back to you. Good. Karma goes a long way. Newspapers. If you're doing something in your community or you just feel like that, you know what I would like to be in the newspaper. Can't just call the newspaper and say, Hey, yeah, I'm a pretty cool photographer. Can you come, come do a story on me? No. One of my clients happen to be a writer for the newspaper. I was like, Oh, you write for the newspaper. How great. Come. Come here, girl. I hope you appeared I did something good for her. She did something good for me when I was first starting out the one down on the bottom says Picture this. There was another one said there's a new shooter in town. This was the art of photography. They did three big articles on us, like one every year, and I had people call in saint hands So this added this. You're right up in the newspaper and I'm not really into photography. But I just wanted to tell you I felt really compelled by your story and what you're doing for your community. And I wanted to say Good job like awesome. So it informs the community of who you are, like, Who is this guy? What is he doing? So don't be afraid to reach out there. Don't be afraid to exhaust every avenue that you can think off if you think that it won't work and that's even more reason to go try it. Because sometimes some of your biggest mistakes that you could make that may turn into some of your biggest adversaries. Who knows who knows but encouraging to get out there. And if there's no idea that is dumb, no idea that his own there's another up here. I wanted to show you guys this is a bag tag for, like, a diaper bag or something like that. This is the back of it, and then this is the front of it. These Air two twins. Now I can give this mom maybe 2 to 32 weeks after she comes in for her session. About one. These bag tags from my lab. Throw it in the mail, put it inside with these Thank you cards. She is gonna definitely hope that on her bag, everywhere she goes and plops her bag down, someone's gonna see and say, Oh, my gosh, look at that. Where did you get that? And she's gonna say, Old girl, let me just tell you none other than Blair Phillips photography Don't even think about going anywhere else because he is the man. So little things you can do. Go a long way. So spread your money out a little bit. And at the end of the month, you know, our throughout the month. Do this right here. Seven for me, one for you are 25 for you. For me, one for you. Throw a dollar aside and do little things like this that add a lot of value. See what happens there will go back to the to the online audience and see there's any questions. Right after we answer yours. I just love you're gonna adopt my dears because they give you another set off pictures that you could market to a new market. Yeah, that you could kind of Brian child with, though too much wrist. That's exactly right. Like with dogs. Animals. Do you have any idea how much money people will spend on their animals? Pictures. I have ladies that were coming in with these little dogs. They just just like, yeah, I just spent 100 $20 getting him groomed. I don't want to get a messed up and I'm like you, Francis, You need to come back for a full session one day and she will, and you can make more money off of it that way. And it's not necessarily about making money, you know? But let's face it, we don't have to make money. People say, Well, I love photography. I just love the art of it. So, you know, it's not about charging a lot of money. I just love it. The people there saying that are the people that are doing it for a living. You know, they have another job that supports, and there's nothing wrong with saying that I love the tire if you just as much as anybody. But I have to get paid for my work as well. So Yeah, great point. Let's see what the Internet saying. All right. People are loving this, by the way. Good, good content. It's just awesome. All right. One thing that I think people really like the idea of was actually signing your prints. And so a couple questions came up. Sure about that. Would you sign your proper name or your studio name? If you Let's say you have a different right? Yeah, Yeah. I signed my name, my personal name. And I don't necessarily try to make it like very ledge. It'll very prim and proper. I've signed my name the same way since I was old enough to write, probably. And if you look right here, that's how I sign my name. And that's not a very you know. That's not very legible. But, you know, you look a Salvador Dali. You know, you look at people like that, you can't read necessarily that says Salvador Dali. But you can recognize it because you've seen it enough. And so I choose to sign my name the way that I was signing. If I were signing a check just like a doctor that way, you know I can reproduce it every time is well, so good questions. Yeah, And how about those marketing pieces that you give the orthodontist or the dentists were? For example, those prints are those also signed? Yes, every print that leaves offices and especially those. And even though knows I was signing even larger than I would on a customer's print because I really want them to see it. And with that, no one's gonna complain. I consigned as big as I want to. So I really want to get that message across and that aspect. So, yes, everything has a signature created as a piece of art. Okay, cool. Next question is again from Apple Ashley. When setting out albums or images at local businesses, do you have to ask the clients who are in the albums or images permission to display them? And same thing goes for pets? And that second question was from M design Yeah, M Design and Apple. Ashley has a great question as well in our model release form that is already covered in one of the lines of the model release forms. It says that Blair Phillips photography reserves the right to use all of these images for promotional material or basically any way that we see fit. So we have all that stuff documented in the fine print and, you know, do I sit and read every single line with that client? No. Do I say Hey, I'm a post these images O r. I may put these in an album that mega dose along when they are You cool with that? I don't ask them that, but they have the opportunity to read it. And you know, if something ever happens and they said, You know what? I did not want my images in there. We'll deal with that accordingly. But I've never had that issue. And, you know, if someone has a big problem with it and it's gonna call the front even though they signed it, what you do in that situation, you say, Well, you signed it. I don't care. Or do you beat a big guy and say, You know what? Don't worry about it, sweetie. I'll I'll take that out. I'll take care of it for you.