Lessons

Lesson Info

Sal Cincotta: Packages

Now the reason I hope everybody's following your ala carte pricing is fundamental to all this working if you're ala carte pricing is broke guess what money's like water it's going to follow the path of least resistance they're going to end up there at the ala carte price and we don't want him there so we have to establish that well that should be established for you well now it's come back backto our packaging philosophy first of all I like to limit it to three or four packages I don't want to have eight packages out there were confusing the client the wrong way top down approach meaning on the piece of paper when you have your packages there don't put your least expensive first then middle than most expensive put your most expensive up top then middle then least expensive back to consumer behavior consumers air okay coming down in price they have a very difficult time going up in price so that is a strategy their top package is not a dream package I cannot stand when I see people teac...

hing you that create this dream catch all package nobody's going to buy it but it's just there to establish a baseline no that is ridiculous our top package is there and we're trying to sell it every step of the way the key concept for packaging is going to come down to pull through that is your time albums negatives what is pull through this is key that everybody understands this look when clients come in there are certain products they care about and certain products they don't care about pull through items or those items that you're going to get them to that next spending level because they're important digital negatives are those items digital negatives or the one item they feel they have to have a guess what's not in my base package digital negatives all right if you put your digital gives in the base package gets where your client's going to end up base package and that's not where I want it so digital negatives can never be there same with time saying when albums now we have to keep costs of goods down this's why packaging works there's certain items that costs you money theocratic for example that's going to cost you money the wedding album that's going to cost you money but a web posting it doesn't really cost you anything right a dvd of negatives that doesn't cost you anything yet there's huge perceived value so it's this bundling of items that have no real cost with items that have hard costs that are going to give you your profit margins with me it'll make more sense in a second and so web posting your hour's time I mean yes time is worth something but there's no real hard cost for you on that wedding day facebook engagements you bridal shoot slide shows these are all items that I consider fluff clients want him but there's no real hard cost associated with him now again this is a framework so you've got to remember this is a living document as you're putting your pricing together you have to understand that this is going to change over time how I change my pricing multiple times throughout the year when I start the beginning of the year if I don't have a lot of weddings on the books my prices are a little bit lower I'm looking to fill my calendar once I get to a point where I've got twenty twenty five weddings my prices jump up by five hundred to one thousand dollars products don't change packages pricing she's changes just immediately change it because I'm already booked up I don't care supplying them in um no prints in your packages we're gonna drill into this in a second albums are the key differentiator for so every package comes with a thirty page ob um no matter what don't play games nobody look my clients don't want a twenty page ob there's no way I'm photographing three thousand images from a wedding day or mohr and narrowing that down into a twenty page album we all know why we do that we do that is a way to upgrade them and get them two more pages so my clients love that I give them thirty pages in their album and will you size and quality to dr package in the top level package and please let taylor know I'm gonna need are different albums in our top level package I'm gonna have this something like this some bigger albums my middle package my lower package I'm gonna have smaller albums and I'll show each of you them a cz we get going here so here it is man base package this is your framework copy this down this is what your package should look like in the base package dvd proofing a ten by ten what we call caprice erie's album I'll show you this in a second an engagement session two photographers or maybe even one up to six hours of coverage no all day coverage no ten hours of coverage remember time is your pull through item we do a day of slideshow now that's something we do you might not be there yet and that's okay but that day off we do a slide show and that it's free marketing for us that's where we show them about a hundred pictures from their wedding day we're then gonna give them a personal website for sixty days. Of course we want to post their wedding pictures after the wedding but notice no digital negatives not in this package okay the album is a base album but it's also a thirty page out assuming taylor's getting out so we'll see that in a second you girls with me on what's in this middle package ten by ten roma siri's album and what you're seeing here where you see these asterix those are the pull through items so notice the album is a pull through right um the bridal sessions of both their item two photographers so the first package now when we go back to two thousand eight I was charging nine ninety nine okay andi I was I had only one photographer there one photographer six hours of coverage at this stage in my career I can't charge forty five hundred dollars for my base package and only offer one photographer right that's just declines will reject that so this has evolved over time now which you're going to do it is you have to make the decision do I put two tigers in one no notice we're not talking pricing here at all still missing warning notice I'm not talking pricing here at all because it doesn't matter I don't care what stage of your career you're in if you put this together the way I'm showing you I promise you you will have success we're getting albums dripped in all right I promise you you will have success yes and the last album good sorry guys welcome the live tv alright so base package here's the album we show this is a press printed book notice how thin it is noticed the pages very thin pages no backer writes a coffee table book that's our base album but when the client comes in the first album we show them is this bad boy can you imagine I put this album out in front of the client? This is twelve by eighteen and size comes in its own matching leather case so then leather is completely customized so now the client we throw this in front of them it's almost not fair right it's like it's like shooting fish in a barrel here's our louis vuitton of album he's right? And I'm gonna put that in your hands and you're gonna be like, oh my god I've never seen anything like this right? And now they start flipping through this and seeing the size and seeing the thickness and seeing the crushed velvet liner okay, now I go into another package, right, which is the middle one and I show them this so this is a ten by ten album acrylic cover black leather still a nice album still think pages but that's my pull through because they just went from this to this so they're already let down right now you just can't help it even though this is a very good book then I go into my base package and it's like you're not one right it's a giant later like that's not a book, right? They don't want this nobody wants to be in the base package and we never book it, so you're based package. The album can't be that good it's still thirty pages, but it's more of a coffee table book so you can see quickly how the albums are the monster pull through product for us and our clients go crazy for these albums. So let's come back to this now that you have a sense of the different albums. The middle package has that roma siri's album that's this guy and just so you guys understand numbers cost of goods, each package I don't care how much you're charging your cost of goods cannot be greater than fifteen to eighteen percent cost of goods. That's hard, tangible product. So what does that mean? You can't charge a thousand dollars and all for a seven hundred dollars product in there at seventy percent cost of goods, you will go out of business, so keep your heart cost about fifteen, eighteen percent and you're going to be safe. Engagement session, bridal session, two photographers, high resolution digital negative. So this is the first place the digital negatives make. Their appearance is in our middle package. That's where we want it that's our pull through so the clients will rarely book this base package because guess what? It only has six hours of coverage one photographer and when I tell my clients oh my god, I'm like this is more of what you're having like a friday night really small wedding but if you're looking for more coverage, this is where you want to be and they get it because the digital negatives is the main thing pulling them through notice up to eight hours of coverage are you seeing here that I don't say eight hours of coverage up too? And the reason I say up to was not just because not because I'm trying to be a jerk or slight of hand with my client have you ever had those weddings where you're like sitting at the reception shooting nothing right? You're chasing little kids around you so you have something to take pictures up I have got better things to do with my time and so look, if we're done and I've gotten everything I needed with my coverage I'm leaving right? I will go to the bride say, hey guys, I think we got everything how you doing right? You need anything else you want any family pictures you feel like we missed anything no that's good go go on, get out of here you guys did great today right, because she's not watching the clock going away. Two minute you're supposed to be here until absolutely this time. That's very important website and then day of slideshow now, what do you think the pole through? I've given you guys a little bit of a hint on some of it. What would be the pull through to my top package? My big package? What do you think? The album? Of course. Write what else time? So we're gonna give more time. You girls are figuring this out. This is awesome. What else you don't have facebook comes? You don't have facebook postings? No, because this would that wouldn't happen till after their wedding, right? I can't post on facebook before the wedding, so I don't even want them thinking about that stuff. So here's our pull through post wedding, we're going to upgrade to the album and engagement session and engagement gas book, so we offer full guest books for our our broads. They go nuts for it. Bridal session two photographers, high resolution digital negatives up to ten hours of coverage now notice no all day coverage. You guys are nuts. If you're offering all day coverage to your clients, you've got to stop doing that doesn't even make sense, okay, now, if I have the right wedding and I decide I want to stay till midnight till one a m because they got cool stuff going on that's on you that's your choice but that's a great gift get you know many weddings I've booked into my top package just by saying to them guys looking at your timeline talking to you here this is there any initial consul looking at your timeline it's starting to look like you're gonna need about twelve hours of coverage if I can get you into my black label I'll give you an extra four hours for free right if I can get you to my top package now they're going that's for fifty an hour so now to them they see that I just gave them eighteen hundred dollars perceived value for free however, if I just had all day coverage in there you're starting at five thirty a m right while bunch of girls are getting makeup on in their curlers in their hair and guess what? They're not doing anything with those pictures anyway I don't have my bride's put those pictures in their albums I don't know about you guys but they're not any up in the office so why am I taking these pictures? Climb for life is a pull through and the dvd sideshow so that same slide show we do with wedding we give to them on a dvd so that they have it for their iphone for their ipad for whatever they're doing, we have all that stuff for girls with me I'm gonna open up my pricing first so the first thing I'm gonna show you my pricing so let's bring up my pricing this is my wedding pricing so my initial wedding pricing is a six page word document and for everybody who got the course you're getting this six page document so open this up so you know what I'm talking about? This is the cover page so it's just my logo ok? And some contact information tap to the next page. Next is a welcome one and I don't want to go in detail here, but we're welcoming them to the studio. We're thanking them for checking us out. I'm not just handing them a price sheet and by the way, this is not printed on photocopy paper it's just printed on linen paper. You can't be a luxury brand handing your client some crap on right photocopy paper make the investment the extra one penny and printed on linen paper for your clients and gives him a high and experience tap to the next page. Next is my bio talks about the awards I've won talks around our background, our personalities cog taylor what she's done right give them a little opportunity to get to know us tap to the next page boom here's the meat so here's our frameworks of the very framework I just helped all you guys build and talk about here it is so here it is in practice packages starting at forty for ninety nine notice we started top down all the things we did I told you about tap to the next page here's the ala carte pricing so that question came up when are we giving the clients out of car pricing they get it as part of their initial wedding kid so there's no they see all the other car prices right out of the gate but guess what? They're not thinking about it nobody's thinking about what pictures they're buying for their home when they haven't even seen a single wedding picture so if you go back to those pat the packages and we don't have to go back on the document if we go back to the packages did you notice there was no prince in the packages if you put prints in the packages or print credits in the packages the client's going to think they don't need to buy anything because they've got everything they need so strategically when you book me for a wedding I want you thinking about your wedding coverage and your album when after engagement session that's when I want you to think about engagement pictures after your wedding I want you thinking about putting canvas up in your home right does that make sense captain next page and all our individual album pricing ala carte is they're so everything we offer is there all right, so let's go back to the slide deck and now I want to talk about engagement packages so hopefully you guys will figure this out right when they book you for the wedding all I care about them thinking about is just wedding coverage and an album so time albom right and a host of other little details but those are the main things I want them thinking about well, now we photograph their engagement session I want to sell them again every time we step in front of a camera is another opportunity for you to sell them so if you take engagement pictures with me we're gonna have an engagement sales if you take ah boudoir session and glamour session we're gonna have a good time a preview if we have a bridal session of bridal preview you don't book me for your wedding and I give you the digital negative sir everything you do for the rest of your life that's insanity we can't do that will never stay in business so now we're back in engagement packages so we photographed engagement session now we want them to come in and buy engagement pictures so there's gonna be three packages again, right? The entry level nothing big, right? I'm giving you fundamentals now I'll show you my packages nothing big, right? Small discount, mid level, right. One or two large prince top package. A large print, a large canvas, a guest book and the engagement digital negatives. That's the only place they can get it. So let's go and open up my engagement. Pricing this is what would be delivered identical to our engagement client. So if I shoot your engagement session right, which tomorrow afternoon, I think we have an engagement shoot, we're going to photograph our engagement couple then they're going to come in for a live preview on wednesday. When they come in, they're coming into this pricey. So we're going to show you how we sell this. But notice again, this is all one sheet of paper left hand side all our packages right inside all the ala carte pricing. So we're not forcing them to flip back and forth through through sheets of paper, trying to calculate stuff they see everything also noticed it shows them the value so you can see the platinum package eleven ninety nine, sixteen hundred forty dollars value. So now, when that client goes well, you know what? We don't really need that sixteen, twenty four take it out now, how much, guys, unfortunately, as you can see this package has already been discounted by thirty percent forty percent unfortunately, if you take it out, you don't get it, but it's already been discounted, so I can't give you a discount on a discounted however, what I can do is maybe, you know, give you in the engagements. We don't have much wiggle room, but on the weddings, I might convert that to extra time. If I have a client that says I don't need a bridal session, we say, you know what? You may not need a bra section, but it looks like you need some extra coverage on your wedding day, so I can't give you anything off the package, but what I can do is convert that to extra time on your wedding night. If we get here and the client's going well, we don't need that sixteen, twenty four usually they're just gonna end up in the silver package. So if you notice the silver package is all small prince, the pull through our larger prince right and a facebook posting, we were talking about that the black label, the top one, we're giving them a twenty by thirty acrylic, so we're giving him krilic just like this, we're giving them a panel and engagement album, a guestbook gift prince high resolution digital negatives that is the monster pull through our average bride spends over eighteen hundred dollars on their engagement pictures look at the numbers what does that tell you if our black labels nineteen ninety nine that means eighty or ninety percent of our clients are ending up in black label black label in platinum and that's how we're doing it do you see the pole through here? Questions about the engagement packages questions online I know whoo okay um I'm just where to even begin I guess there's quite a few people that are asking a cz far as you could just are you going to at some point talks to the conversation of people saying you're going to give me the digital negatives I could go print it shutterfly or whatever what what is what is the conversation that you say to make them come back and buy expensive prints let's have that conversation now because I wasn't going to talk about it if you remember the digital negatives are unedited so if they come in and say that to me and they're like well we can go print these on our own you absolutely can but what you're not gonna be able to his print this you don't have this okay? I want you coming to me for your big prints and just for the record because they're eighteen hundred twelve hundred pixels the largest taken go is eight by twelve and then the image starts falling apart and I tell my clients my guys and I'm transparent I don't want anybody out there believing that I'm baiting and switching my clients we have that conversation during the initial console guys just being completely transparent with you you came to me for artwork for your home remember you've got to find your client if you're if the clients walking in and all they want to do is go and print this stuff on their own not your client shame on you because you're not weeding those people out look look we all know photoshopped we all know how imagery works you know that this image did not look like this when it came off my camera okay I'm okay with that I made the image look like that I made the image look like this my clients understand that because they're seeing the before and after and damn they were on that hillside with me and they know it didn't look like that and so what's gonna happen is my clients start seeing this as romantic fantasy and artwork for their home they want to come to us for those products so if you find yourself having that conversation with your clients over and over again like hey I'm just going to print this on my own you have not done a good job of instituting the framework and to end right you can't just take pieces off this model it will not work for you you've gotta have the entire framework in place all right, so just just to be clear, because people are saying what the digital negatives that you give people are annoyed. Edited? Yeah. It's been a little time on that. I knew when I flew by that that that was gonna create, you know, a storm of controversy, offer everybody because, you know, we just came off tour and when we were going across the country teaching weddings when we got to the digital negative aspect that I mean, people are, like, freaking out, like, oh, my god, you're gonna let people see you're on it an image? Yes, yes, I am. I'm okay with that. Because when you get to my website let's, step out. My school of thought is a digital negative is just that it's as it came out of your camera. Now I know this flies in the face of what a lot of people teach and I know you think I'm crazy for doing it, but I'm okay, right? It I take a decent image out of camera, not everyone's. It's, not gold. It clearly doesn't look like this. But get your white balance, right. Okay, if you get your white balance, right, the images decent it's good. Figure out exposure for crying out loud we're professional photographers if you can't figure out exposure and white balance you've got bigger problems so if you have your exposure right and your white balance right the clients are not going to complain about the way the images are looking. What I'm not willing to do is hand them over all this photo shop work all this post production work for free first of all they don't know where to printed howto printed they're not gonna obsess about the details and here's my promise to you if you start finding the clients your client you will realize they don't want to go print this stuff on their own that's why they came to you but if you're just a dude with the camera a chick with the camera they do want to go print it you see the difference here so you who are you are you an artist or you just a dude with a camera a chick with a camera I'm an artist my clients want to come to me for the final product does that make sense? I mean why don't we wanted people pay right and I don't consider myself picasso or or divinci by any stretch of the imagination but why why would they pay so much money right hey I can go toe to toe michaels and pick up a canvas some brushes and paint I can do this myself right, you've got to change your mindset and see yourself as an artist and start finding those clients, so hopefully I don't people are still struggling with the whole digital negative, but yes, I'm willing to give them the unedited image because I'm ok with it, because when you go to my website, this is what you will see, it's never hurt my business, it is only helped, so I just want to push a little bit further because the internet, like you said, is freaking is freaking out. Um, so let's see? So I mean, do you do you have situations where you're getting feedback that people are printing the images on their own, and then you're concerned about the quality that's being done? Are you, uh, let's see if there were a number of things that people were saying? Well, look, here's what's gonna happen, and I tell my clients, sister, in the initial consultation, guys, you're gonna get these digital negatives and here's what you're more than likely going to do with him if your scrapbook or you're going to go scrapbook if you want to print an eight by twelve for your family of the church pictures at the altar. Go do it don't come to me and pay me fifty bucks to print an eight by ten of your family standing at the altar the ones coming off my camera are good enough go do that but for your artwork I want you coming to me so I can obsess about every single detail off your image I'm going I'm going use the skinny tool on your arm I'm gonna clean up your skin of all those blemishes I'm gonna enhance your eye I'm going to remove the hair from the side of your face right I can't do that to all your images so I'm going to do those for the ones that you're going to create a centerpieces of art in your home and the ones that end up in your album and they get it and so that happens during the initial consultation okay so many questions let's just get through these so are they j peg there j j peg files eighteen hundred by twelve hundred pixels okay big enough to print an eight by twelve and how many usually they will get anywhere from twelve to fifteen hundred wow. Okay, so the question is this is from gentry matter didn't matter are you okay if the bride post those unedited images to facebook with your name attached and even worse what if they edit them themselves and then post them to facebook and they attach your name to something that they edited and I'm gonna push back a little just like freaking out right now look, it hasn't hurt my business right? So we can all we can all agree without my business has been growing and blossoming even with that happening. So let me ask you this even if you were to edit them yourselves what's to stop your bride from going on line and being like you right black and white and they just start jacking with contrast and they're still going to jack with your image is no matter what you do that's one two here's why my brides don't post them online because I post them to both my blawg and facebook fully edited so go right now to my website goto my block and you will see recent weddings that I photographed a week ago two weeks ago and they've got ten, fifteen, twenty fully edited images and then those images end up on facebook so you tell me if you were a bride you get the cd maybe two or three weeks later are you going to take that cd and start posting the facebook or are you going to take the images that are online two days after the wedding that are posted to facebook and tag yourself there? And so this is what my brides do they're just tagging themselves and the images that I pose twenty four to forty eight hours after their their wedding so I don't have this problem that everybody it's just paranoia man everybody's freaking out about it but dude let's go back to the days of film you didn't have all this post production that we have today so I just think it's insanity to invest all this time and energy just because a bride may post one of your images to facebook so again for people who are a little bit confused by that ninety nine dollars facebook package or that's part of the package could you explain that again then yeah so if we look on the ala carte here I'm pretty sure it's area on the bottom right hand corner if we can bring that screen up you will see facebook posting ordered prints so from the engagement session anything they order is posting to facebook so if they ordered twenty different prints which does happen we'll post all twenty two facebook so now my clients have fully processed images uploaded to facebook that's what they're tagging themselves and that's what charge now just so we understand the ninety nine dollars is just an artificial price nobody's coming to my studio paying ninety nine dollars if you know this it says ordered prints on lee so you're more than likely going to be in a package and guess what if you look at the package is both platinum and black label the facebook posting is bundle so that price is just there to establish value for the post, because guess what to some of our clients, the facebook posting is more valuable than the actual print. We've got to be careful, we've got to protect ourselves today, so what I'm doing is I'm saying, if you don't like it enough to order, it is a print, why would I post it to facebook? So I guess way shouldn't be so quick to say if they're looking at the platinum package and they see the facebook posting from what I'm hearing and understanding you saying you can't discount a discount, so you can't quickly say, oh, well, it's ninety nine dollars, because you've got that on the outside, right? So you can't say, oh, you don't like the facebook posting will take it out and it's base because I know you, you said tau laka price and wishes so I wanna make sure I'm with you because you're all over the place you're thinking out loud and I'm trying to translate, okay? So if you're in the platinum package, right, you can see that if you added up all these things out of card it's sixteen hundred forty dollars, I'm giving it to you for eleven, ninety nine, so I'm I'm driving your decision based on values you're looking at this going while I'm saving, like four, five hundred bucks cool but now they go well I don't want the facebook posting is that what you're saying right? So how much now can we take ninety nine dollars often make this eleven hundred dollars no a cz you can see the package has already been discounted by five hundred dollars so I can't discount discount that would be my answer to the client and we have never had a problem with that answer because I guess I was just thinking of if you've got a price associated with it but I understand it now I just was I was quick to think well maybe if if you take the facebook posting out you would deduct it for what it is over there but you shouldn't do that yeah well I'm okay role play with me man like you know hit me up with objections u think that you would see because I'm going to tell you I'm gonna have an answer for it because we've been doing this a long time and any objection not correctly addressed will stall yourself so you've got to become good at reading people and understanding where the objection is kicking in and so because we put that value there we don't have that argument a whole lot with people once we tell him look you can't discount discount get it also noticed the digital negatives from your engagement session are available black label only and it says down here in the bottom right? Ah, high resolution. Digital negatives. Okay, you can see I even have the size of the files were completely transparent with our clients and tell them exactly what that means. That means you're going to be able to print in an eight by twelve. But it says here there's no price associated with says b l only black label only. So if you want your digital negative from your engagement session black label only but let's be honest, why do they want their digital negative from the engagement session? Usually only one or two reasons what's reason number one facebook I'm giving you that save that save the dates I give you that it cost. And when I pull out my save the date samples, I've never seen anything like that before. First thing our client say so here I am offering you a save the date card and a buck fifty the same buck fifty you would pay on flicker or anyplace else you goto order. Except the difference is this is better quality and my logo's on the back side of that so it's totally worth it for me to give it to him because he's a good, good conversation yeah, ok, what is what is dvd proofing and how is that different from the digital night? So dvd proofing is the digital negatives are, in fact, the digital negatives. All the j peg files are available dvd proofing, which is what you saw in the wedding package that is from a company called emotion media. And what they do is they have this amazing solution. Where it's all the jpeg files are burned to a dvd, but it's in a movie format. And so the client cannot view individual image files, and they use their dvd remote control to go next. Next next, the image number pops up. They can convert the image to black and white. And best of all, the cost for you on that is like fifteen to twenty bucks. So we don't deliver printed proofs anymore. That's, that's, old that's, not printed proofs. You're looking at one hundred fifty, two hundred bucks cost of cost of goods on that is outrageous waste of money. And so now we do for dvd proofing from that company so well, worthwhile investment yet emotion medium the letter eight motion media, great company love their dvd proofing solution very, very cost effective. But I don't sell a whole lot of my base package, so I really don't use that that product that often, maybe one, a year is in that base package, but if you're using it as your pull through and you have clients that are going with that that's good news for you, by the way, because if those clients don't get their digital negatives, they're more likely gonna have to buy prints from you. So we have about twenty minutes left. I got a hit, my last one. All right, get going. You're going to get it on now. Post wedding girls first of all you processes and all this because I'm dropping a bunch of pricing knowledge all at one time. So hopefully you're getting this post wedding rites are now the wedding's over. I want to bring him into my studio. I want to sell them a product. I don't want them to just get a digital negative. So post wedding remember they do get their digital negatives. Everybody remember that from the initial package digital negatives are included. So post wedding instead of having three packages we only have two the engagement package what was in the base package? What kind of prince? Small prince that's important. You know that back to the framework post wedding. They have their digital negatives, right? They can go print all the small prints they want. So there's no incentive for me to have a small print package there so we only have two mid size large prints we'll cover that so mid level maybe there's two large prints to eleven sixteenths for family some gift prints the top package that's how we get them to upgrade their album that's how I get them to ad pages two large canvases gift prince right I want to get the parents albums on this so this is where I give the parents and opportunity to add a parent album so let's bring up our post wedding packaging so here what you're seeing now this is my actual post wedding pricing same notice the format you know it looks exactly like the engagement pricing very important we're training our clients every step of the way and so on the left hand side again top down approach right also notice it says collections cannot be altar and the engagement one should have said that I don't know if it was below the screen or not that you couldn't necessarily see it but it should have said that as well collections cannot be altered you have the price of the package and the value again so we're doing the same thing we're establishing value and again I hope it's not lost on you this is a framework so everything I'm showing all of you can walk out of here tomorrow and change your packaging to match this your pricing might be different than mine but there's no reason the packaging can't be identical I promise you if you do this it will work and there's hundreds of people we have helped get this and if you followed my senior philosophy to same concept so notice top left twenty additional pages in the album ah thirty by forty acrylic that's this bad boy fifteen by thirty panel canvas so that's a long skinny canvas ten gift prints and he give prince you want you want ten eight by tens get ten eight by tens and or mix and match for by sixty five by sevens wallets facebook posting and I don't know if you caught this on all our packages noticed the additional discounts if I get you to the black label I don't want you to stop spending I want to give you reason to spend more so notice this forty percent off signature collection twenty five percent any additional wall portrait's air canvas so I mean scenting you two keep spending additional gift prints ten dollars I'm not looking to make my money then I'm just encouraging more spending we all know that a gift printed an eight by ten is gonna cost you about two bucks so now every additional when I can sell them making eight bucks it's all residual income at that point here's the one though add parent album for nine ninety nine I don't know if you saw this but if you have my price and she'd go back to the original wedding pricing sheet these albums are sold for six thousand dollars ala carte nobody comes in and pay six thousand dollars for it. I don't want them to, but I also don't want anybody coming in just trying by this album. So notice here you can now add this parent album for nine ninety nine. He's. Not going to seem like a huge deal. Sure is. My parents go bonkers for this. Now, this will probably cost me just by hitting the number two, right? You know, you get multiple discounts when you buy the same off each album, so this might end up costing me six hundred bucks. Five hundred bucks adding another one to the package. So now my profit there is four hundred bucks, five hundred bucks. So I just got paid five hundred bucks for hitting the number two. Given the exact same size they freak out. You mean I get this? Yes, you do. I get that case, too. Yes, you do. Same hour. This this this one, but same album, one of my other photographers showing what my competitors showing those stupid parent albums. Okay. With the slide in pictures, I take it you're doing that. No pictures, but the parent albums or smaller, they're identical, but they're smaller. Yeah no I give him the exact thing they go bonkers for now I have that parents go well I don't want anything that big I want some small absolutely mom it's going to the same price because it's so significantly discounted now I know that's going to cost me last money so I'm very happy when she wants a smaller album but from her perspective I go look it's got to stay the same aspect ratio right right so if you have a square album I can't give you right a horizontal landscape album if you have a landscape I can't give you a square so they get it they get it we're completely transparent but they love that deal and we get parents all the time and so I'm making all this extra money just by hitting the number two right I'm making it easy for them to spend money in our studio I promise you follow this and you will make money go to the platinum what's in there sixteen by twenty four print fifteen by thirty prints so the pull through are the acrylic and the extra pages in the album average client post wedding is spending over two thousand dollars in our studio this is with them holding the cd of negatives we don't play any games with them are your cd's air delivered a year after your wedding your cd's air delivered with your wedding album we don't play any of those games they get their digital negatives immediately, yet they're still spending all this money because they see the value in the product heirloom quality products questions in your wedding packages you offered the air you have included the online gallery what about guests are do you allow guests to order on and what pricing do you offer for the guests? So what we do check this out. This is interesting if with the online web gallery who use a site called photo bins so photo bates has a storefront and that's what we use for our storefront right great side great customer service that's what we use so they'll all go out there for sixty days I tell my bridegroom after they come through this session I go guys, look, if your parents or friends and family go out to that website they're paying full price they're picking that fifty dollars ala carte price so it and it comes in and orders one eight by ten dude, I don't have the time or the wherewithal took to process one eight by ten for ten dollars it's a waste of time so I tell my bride if it comes out or grandma goes out or what side she's going to be painful price however you know with this package all additional gift sizes or ten dollars so if you can get your family's order together in the next week because I'm gonna be ordering all this stuff for you. If I can submit it with that order, I'll honor that ten dollar price. You will? Absolutely. So guess what? Your bride just became susie order taker and she is corralling the entire family's order giving it to you in an excel spreadsheet or in an e mail. And now, instead of packaging ten individual orders, your packaging, one additional order handing it to her, and she figures out how to deliver it to her entire family. You digging that idea? That is monstrous. And that's why we do it that way. So, it's all how you pitch it to your client. A question from colina when do you get paid? Since you have multiple selling points and packages for each thing. That's a great question. S o the initial wedding for your wedding. You have to pay us thirty days before the wedding payment is doing full. So nobody really ask this, but I guess we could cover this in the bridal show. Uh, locking your date it's a thousand dollar deposit that secures your date. And we'll talk more about that in the bridal show on initial consultation. But full payments do thirty days before the wedding knot is for the wedding portion if you buy engagement pictures. Your payments right then and there when you buy them if you buy pictures after the wedding you're payments right then and there when you buy so hopefully that makes more sense good question all right, so that kind of answers I think but saddles saddles in tak said am I understand this right? The engagement and the post wedding packages are in addition to the wedding package that is correct yes, absolutely every time the client steps in front of your camera is another opportunity for you to have a sale session you cannot survive as a business if you give them everything off that initial price point or you have to raise your prices considerably because you can't do it, you will not stay in business and you will not make a living at this so yes, if you step in front my camera and we have a session you're buying pictures angelica would like to know how does the pricing change when you're shooting for family or friends? That's great, it doesn't so if we're shooting for fan oh my family and your family and friends yeah tonight there now yeah, so let's talk and I'm sure my family's watching so god love you but the truth is I hate shooting family and friends so we highly discourage it, so I've had two experiences in my life once on my side of the family I did my cousin's wedding. She got divorced in four months on I almost got stuck with her fifteen hundred dollars wedding album, right? So that was a nightmare taylor's cousin we did her wedding right and it's just different when you are photographing family, they don't quite take it serious because they're not paying you ten grand. If they're paying ten grand five grand, one grand they would take a hell of a lot more serious than when you do it for free. So we will no longer do family members weddings for free and here's my philosophy on it if you're getting married during a prime date, okay, you are asking me not to work for free. You're actually asking me to give up income I will problem so here's, what we tell our family and whether it's family sessions, weddings, whatever the case may be, if you want to get married on an off date, I'll photograph your wedding at cost. I'm okay with that, but I'm definitely not reaching into my pocket hotel airfare, everything costs you pay for it. If you want to get married during prime season that's between may and october, you were the best we can do is give you a twenty percent discount and that's it, so look, hopefully I don't get invited to a lot of weddings for my family it's a nightmare you know good to know could I ask a question about what you you kind of just we're talking about the engagement session and treating it outside? What was the question again on the online I just want to find out what your response is to people when they do that have that shock factor on if they are are they booking the top wedding package that includes the engagement session and then outside of the top package they're looking at possibly engagement pictures how do you handle like a shock factor there's any shock shock factor and the reason there's no shock factor is because there's no minimum order in our studio that's key to understand and then the second thing is is if you remember my initial wedding packet all my pricings in there ready the ala carte pricing is there so they know how much an eight by ten is they know how much is sixteen by twenty for his and so what typically happens is the client the client will say this is during the initial consul wait a minute so we don't get any engagement pictures how you answer that is going to determine where you go from here so wait a minute we don't get any engagement pictures, guys the truth is we don't even know what we're going to get out of your engagement session to give you product so after engagement session well put together some packages that discount everything based on specials are vendors are running see our vendors are the bad guys not us so we'll put some packages that considerably discount items but there's no minimum order so you have the ala carte pricing if you want to come in and buy one picture you have more than welcome to orb I know you don't have to now here's what I'm banking on I'm banking on the fact that you are going to love your pictures now that you know they don't realize that because they have no emotional attachment time they're thinking yeah I'm not gonna buy anything okay but then we go into all these great pictures now they come in now they want everything so it's a whole mindset switch but the truth is there's no minimum ok so they could come in and by one eight by ten and we have had wedding clients even though our engagement sales averages fourteen hundred dollars haven't engagement sales of zero zero they walk in and buy nothing well I've had engagement sales of three thousand dollars so engagement couple coming in by three thousand dollars I don't get hung up on the zero and I don't I don't get hung up on the three thousand dollars for me it's all about averages that's how you got to run your business couple more questions uh we dio what part of italy are you from sicily is someone in there that you wanted to know, so I like questions like that, so g k, t two thousand two let's look at some things that really people are doing and see what you say about, she says. For the sake of good advertisement for me, I have leaned toward giving watermarked websites images of the fully edited images as my digital file, with the option to by the digital images on ly size for eight by ten reprint my crazy cell. I don't know if you're crazy. The question I would have is it sounds like a somewhat complicated sales process to me, right? So it sounds like you're giving away all these watermarked images and then trying to lure them into buying each individual digital negative, right? And I wouldn't want to do it that way. I want I still want to control all this so that I would encourage her to do eyes try my way, try it with one wedding, see if it works right on, and I think you'll be surprised if you start connecting with the right clients. You're going to find that they want you doing this stuff for them, they really do, the professional client who's, a doctor, a lawyer. Or a blue collar worker they don't want to be messing around in photo shop now I'm not saying that's true of every client I have clients that want to but mostly they want me to create fantasy for them so you've got to find and work hard and getting them question from madison page photography do you give the pricing package at bridal shows and if not, what kind of print info do you provide at shows? And I guess the question I have is when you're having really quick interactions with people and you're trying to sell them on quick interaction how do you get these important messages across? Yeah about the quality of your art when you're just doing a drive by sale yeah, you've got to get really good at your elevator pitch but the good news is that is what will be covering tomorrow so the bridal show tomorrow we will show you how we have that conversation and how we don't have that conversation. I think that's what a lot of people don't realize is you don't have to have that conversation with everybody and nor do I want to if I got a thousand brides at a bridal show, I don't want to talk to a thousand people s oh yeah we'll talk more about that tomorrow short answer is yes, I do hand out my pricing your product but tomorrow we'll go on down so many questions to have any more time doing ready for tomorrow better go home and do homework tonight and you're gonna be calling on you tomorrow we're gonna keep working on your stuff right? So go home start putting notes together and when we get back here in class tomorrow be sure you're asking me some questions so that we I want you leaving here and putting the stuff into practice I definitely want you to have success so wait doing great I'm glad I caught us off I was flew through, you know that was awesome. That was awesome. So there was questions many people had questions about choosing the photos for the albums we're going to cover that okay, so don't don't anybody get hung up on that? We are not going to take pictures with our bridegroom in our studio that would slit our wrists right bleed out I don't want to do it, eh? So what we'll do is we'll show you well in the course material if you bought the course material, you get our worksheet the bride's pick out those pictures they fill out the work she for you they tell you what pictures they want in their album I do not do that for them and we have very few change requesting our albums mostly because we let our brides pick their own pictures as it should be it's their album let it go I'm so tired of the tartars being like I'm the artist I know what goes in their best my clients don't know anything you're right they don't know anything but here's the reality of it it's their book so let them enjoy their book pick what pictures they want in there well, I'll show you how we tweak what they want but ultimately it's their boat okay, just to wrap up today you have these three items listed on for tomorrow. Can you go into a little bit more detail about what we're going to do tomorrow? Hopefully everybody you guys feel like it was action packed today and you know some of this stuff I know khun b snoozer you know, it's business you know, not every I know it's photographers we love getting out there and just playing with our widgets and gadgets and all that other stuff. But we have to run a business, we have to have a successful business and I'm telling you, man, this is boot camp on a one this is the blueprint to run your business and I hope you feel that way. I hope you ladies feel that way a cz well, because you are not going to run a successful studio if you cannot implement what I taught you today