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Using Automation

Coming up here is amazing amazing client an incredible automate er and business building by the name of bob last name not sure how to pronounce him let him let him do that from hold my memories dot com you find him and hold my memories dot com or ed s one two one dot com if I'm adlington at bob ever let I did say it or on facebook at studio one to one photography so bob welcome I'm so glad you could join us thanks for having me be out good to see you always good to see you so what I want to talk to you about tell us a little bit about your story of how you came to hold my memories and what you have background is sure I'm sure well I've been in the cockpit is for a little bit over thirty years I started doing event photography party picks while I was at the university of texas that's going to attorney in sorority parties and taking pictures during the week and then at the end of the school year we took that graduation picture the handshake picture when they cross the stage I graduate wi...

th an accounting degree of all things and work doesn't account for a couple of years and then I decided I wanted my own business so in the late eighties I bought into two of the four glamour photography studios in the u s was called glamour shots on dh, that was a good ride for about four or five years, we grew it to about three hundred twenty five studios, but the problem was that women only came one time and in the markets that I was in, we kind of fish that pond. So I want to do something that had a repeat business built in, and we started studio under one, which was kids and family photography, and that started it was going really well, we opened start opening studios, we got up to about twenty studios. We actually have some studios right now in india, they're doing really well. We opened a photo finishing lab and about two thousand and then about two thousand three, two thousand for two thousand five way started getting a lot of competition from our customers. Mom's got digital cameras, and a lot of the moms in the neighborhoods that were at one point selling jewelry or selling amway started becoming our competitors and competing with us. So we started looking for, you know, what are some things that we can do for our studios? Teo, give our clients one more reason to come back and visit us, and with that we designed hold my memories dot com, which is a client retention plan for photo studios and it's all about giving them one more reason to come back to visit your studio so we host their their professional images online it's a subscription based service they can also put the personal images online it's kind of a private version of facebook that they want to share their images on facebook they can if they want to keep it private for the family they could do that also so that's kind of what we've been working on the last couple of years and and that sze fun because to me it's all about the memories and it's all about if I go back t the glamour of business you know that business was fun because everyone so while we changed people's lives who would hear stories about mom's had brought their daughters in and they had never seen themselves like that before? And my favorite story was we had a comment card from a woman who came into our studios and said that she came in with their two sisters and she had always felt like the ugly duckling and her family and for the first time in her life the seventy one year old woman felt pretty and to me that was just to be involved in a business like that was so much fun and today being involved in kids and family photography is fun because you take pictures that end up on people's walls and end up about their fireplaces and anytime somebody comes over to their house and they they look at it and they comment that's a beautiful picture that makes the family feel good so to me that photography business is just a feel good business that to me is fun, tow have the the artistic side, but also have the business side of it. Excellent, thank you so much and what I want to ask you and you already touched on this a little bit, but you are so clear about this. What can you tell our international and national audience about? How did you arrive at how your businesses helping other people like how did you how did you figure this out? What's all about solving problems, whether it's solving problems from monde or the business with hold my memories about solving problems, photographers and perfect our rivers right now, it's it's about, you know, how do I keep my customers? And as much as we like to think that the customers always come to us, they don't it's that you're like a favorite restaurant, they may come to most the time, but they'll also dabble in other restaurants and try the restaurant, so hold my memories is kind of a solution provider and that it gives him just one more reason to come back to you still have to do your job, you still have to provide great customer service, you still have to give good value to the customer that's just one more reason for them to choose you over over one of your competitors. Wonderful! And you are very good with the automation portion ofthe things. So tell us a little bit how you use automation in your business. Will you introduce us to infusion soft last year? And and we put it on our website when when customers come to us, we we put them in the funnel, and then we follow him. And, for example, at christmas time, our studios have what we call the twelve days of christmas, and we'll send out an email blast, which we use infusion soft for, and we can tell which customers are opening up which emails, and if they're opening up the email, if someone opens up this e mail, we might do something different with them then if they don't open up now, or we know that if they if they open up any mail and went to a car that didn't fill out the car we know or didn't finish the sale, we know this customer came, they started the sale, they have a cart sitting that it's empty, what emailed, we want to send to them to try and get them to finish, finish the purchase, so that was that was one way we use it. I mean, it's worked so well for us. My wife actually uses a fusion soft and her company too. She has modeling agencies in large in the southwest page parks, and they use a fusion soft too and there's on capturing their leads and putting them into their follow. What would you say to somebody who is in the creative industry? Who says, I don't feel really good about people coming to my website and selling them something? Why doesn't just a beautiful web site work o in the business to sell something? We got a parent you speechless? You don't even know what seo I think that's what's intriguing to me sometimes about people in the guitar to be business is you still have to make money and there's nothing wrong with asking people for sale there's nothing wrong with making money as long as you're providing a value, as long as you're giving the customers something that they want there's nothing wrong with asking them for a sale, do you love him or do you love him? Okay? And I want to make sure that our life audience out there knows that you can of course, always ask questions if you have any questions for bob because he's won, I put through the whole process off the mind mapping and the automation s so he will be able to answer questions on how he should have got his his head around and how he figured it out. So what would you say to somebody? Is how big of a task is it to automate and to follow this sort of thought process of what comes next? What comes next? What comes next? What you have to think it through and unfortunate. We've got some people in our office here that we sit down, and we really math out what it is that we want to have happen, and it doesn't mean this is gonna be perfect the first time, so you look at it, and it didn't work the way you wanted it to, and if it doesn't, you tweak it, but once you have it where you want it, then it's automatic and then it's, just a matter of reviewing it every now and then, and seeing needs a further tweet, us technology changes or his offer's changed as the seasons change in our business. You know what tweaks we want to put out there, but once you have an automated yeah, that's, what it's about it's, about keeping it simple? And one of the things we've done to within fusion soft is in my business, it's, very labor intensive, so we've actually taken infusion soft and made it so that our customers can schedule through infusion soft, we have a head shots program that is a little bit different than what other people do and that we are a little five minute session. It's, very inexpensive for them on the only way we can make it work is by automating it because we had to sit there and hold the customer's hand through the entire process. Who would be way too expensive for us to be able to provide a twenty five dollars fifty dollars headshot. So what infusion? Soft dozes. It actually will be point before them. Now they want to talk to us. We'll pick up the phone and talk to him too. But most people just want to book the appointment online. We send them the reminders to infusion soft. We let them know the day of the session. Hey, that that their sessions that such such time is seven such location. We can schedule twelve appointments an hour and do it really quickly, which customers love because they want to come in and out. I was I was listening a little bit earlier and they're talking about what's it take to get men to come in. Well, being a man, I want it fast, I want it easy I wanted in, and I want it out and then sound like, um anyways, what we're providing arlington profile pictures or or photos for realtors and again they want they want it fast, they want it painless and that's what we provide and traditions oft allows us, and then the other part of infusion saw two is once they get to the website, we actually allow them to edit their pictures themselves online if they want to, everything is is ready for them to order if they want to, but we also have filters on their instagram type filters is interesting because over half the people go and put the filters on and play with themselves and a lot of apartments I think are really into the wall of my art, and you can't touch my art. I'm like it's money, you know, if they buy them, they buy the product they buy the digital file is their split them let them do with that what they will do you think you needed to hear this? Isa reason why, how bob? And so let me just see, do we have any questions for bob? We've got a question for banyan trees actually joining us in australia. Hey, bob, actually, before we go on bob, can you just pronounce your last eveleth, minnesota? I got it right theatrics being cheap, teasing me because I've been teasing her about edinburgh, she was we have a lot of questions here from banyan tree who's joining us in australia I'll try and narrow it down as much as I can obviously you did the glamour shot business so you're pardoning with a stylist makeup artist except for you having to build almost community of support they're not just photography on dh then they're confused about the sale because they're saying something like that wouldn't it be more of emotional cell rather just asking for cells all the time really saying does that put people off if you're asking for blatant cells rather trying to make it an emotional connection and actually a janis who's one of our students she's looking into that possibility of a similar type of photography business as well? Actually the glamour business was so much fun because we have what we call little hits of happiness and women back in the late eighties that was a new type of photography and they haven't really done it before so they would come in and they would sit down with our makeup artists and most of them had never had a makeover before and so they would see themselves like they never saw saw themselves before they would feel good and then they would go into the photo studio and have a photo session most women have never had a professional photo session done before and it was it was a relatively quick session but they felt like models and and again that they felt good about themselves and then what was unique about glamour shots as we were one of the first people to offer video proofing and actually in houston we developed the first video proving system that catching an image when the stroll went off and so right after their session when they were at their highest emotional state we were able to show them their images when they were the most happy and we were one of the first people to do this they don't have to come back a couple of weeks later back to look at their images and so you were you were sitting there selling them their images when they were at a peak emotional state and they were happy and of course we also guaranteed everything so if you felt like you spent too much money or you came back and pick up your pictures need like you got your money back appreciate that bob thank you. Okay, great. All right. Do you have any questions for bob or you know, speechless? I have a question go ahead genesis obviously it wasn't working for you. What what happened? What happened? Well, I'll give you an example in houston there were eight hundred eighty eight thousand women and our target eighty I our target market and by nineteen ninety two we have photographed three hundred thousand and the problem was they came one time and then the whole business started to get a reputation of big hair and have you make up and once you start to have a negative connotation, the business started to go down. I think there's probably a dozen of those studios left today, but it was a fun business in the in the early in the late eighties early nineties, and it was fun because it made people feel our help. People feel good about themselves. Thank you. Okay, great. All right, well, bob, thank you so much for joining us and please to tell everybody where to go if they're interested and hope my memories and maybe do your quick elevator pitch because I think you actually have something that a lot should check out. Sure gotta hold my memories dot com and you can get information there and visit me on lengthen and connect with me. I'd be more than happy to give you any information that you need and get help and share with you hold my memories and how it works and also if you're in the photography business and just want to talk or need some advice or some help you, will you just give us give us a holiday? Thank you so much? You've been extremely generous. I really appreciate you sharing candidly, right bob, thank you so much tell me I have the best, most fun clients in the world, right? I mean, can you imagine, like, you get to work with people like this every day? So he's answered all of these questions. So and I, you know, wanted to wait for you to hear this because the glamour, you know, there's some real data on the glamour stuff to women do it more than one time, and that is definitely something you want to think about. Okay? As you and I going out in your business, they do that. They do not just, you know, just for us, but maybe for the feel good, maybe first time. Like he said, some women, uh, just never had a glamour, uh, shot and they would like to look glamorous once in their life, um and that maybe they might want to do it for another occasion. Um, maybe to give it to their spouse or it could be like a milestone like you have could be something like you've had. Bob says it isn't. So if somebody like that has done it before and he comes up with this kind of data, you do want to think about this before you started, because the data current, though I mean, like, up to date, like, right now right now a big trend is the boudoir photography more than the glam of photography it's about women taking their clothes off uh and and laying in uh beautiful poses nude semi nude but that's a huge trend right now boudoir photography is much bigger than glamour photography right now there's definitely a trend I'm just I I'm not saying I'm not saying that I'm not saying they don't do that I'm just saying that you know you just know learned about a new piece a new piece of information about a business idea so as we're building our business this is what the research does when new information becomes available do include that new information into your business model and think about this so it could be that it's just one portion off it and maybe it is pick between glamour pinup boudoir you know I mean hypothetically speaking so there's other options in there but if somebody like that says we had three hundred fifty studios that did nothing but glamour photography and now we have twelve left that is a red flag for you to say why is that and investigate and then build a business model that is not vulnerable to ah one one up blue bert yeah guys in customer acquisition costs so how you get all of this done? You want to know my ruled yes is the rules from the german okay every day you write a list or every night depending on what's better for you some people finish some people like to start you put on your big list I'm no everybody has his huge lists yeah, and after this your list is probably going to be a sort of a roll up thing right that's about that long? Yes, exactly. So you transferred in everyday you pull out five things just five and he put them on the list no more than three errant ce otherwise should be running around an errand is picking up your kids and aaron is going to the doctor and erin is going shopping this is to not lose your sanity. I'm big about that so you encourage errands? Well, I mean if you have them I mean there's nothing you know, tio prints you get on sometimes you don't stop until you finish those five things. So if it's on your list it has to get done has too if you do more than five things great. And now look at this. If you do five things five days a week you have forty eight actions, which is one thousand two hundred accomplishments over the course of a year and I've even given you four weeks vacation I've thought so european now what I want to show you is actually something that, uh this is another one of my clients and I am really you know, so privileged and so happy to have, you know, been ableto work with some of these amazing people. So this is dorothy's, and I am a big fan off entering contests, because when you enter a contest, you can become an award winning somebody. Ah, wards are awesome. So she sends me this testimony and testimonial, and she says winning the best layout award for nail it. What a great name for a nails nailed magazine. Right for nail id magazine is the best free advertising for my business that I could wish for. Thanks for suggesting this clever marketing trick as it's really helping me to get my work seen and recognized throughout all social networks and that's stored thes and what a great professional portrait! And I want to show you the layout. So how fabulous iss this work feeling that that is an award winning play out and there's one more pretty impressive isn't pretty, and that wraps it up for today. Okay, we have one more question. I just want to say one thing. I've noticed that when cem, some websites, they they want you to go on and they want you, teo, to get into a contest. I've been into some contest, and it seems to me like the contest that they put you in that you put in is that on ly if you have certain amount of people following you or you know certain amount of people voting for you from different from your social networks and then if if you do then you went but it's not about it doesn't seem to me aboutthe work what do you say about that what's that what you do know anything about it if you have that award under your belt do you think that anybody really cares? Well, if if if the ward if you're awarded the ward because of your work is beautiful like that clearly that was a really that was a really contest but it seems like a lot of the contest that are out there now is not really contest is just more like trying to get like you mentioned people trophy funnel yeah he's winning an oscar a real contest it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it doesn't matter other than your pride in your esteem as an artist where you say well, I want real contests and shame on the people that want to do the contest and then really making money on their conscious if somebody wants you to have a following clearly they're still working on their own platform building which is why they want people with following so one of the reasons you know when when when when I when I want to work with somebody I always use is a zoo token off bribery. I said. I don't just come as I am with my material. Come with a huge platform. I can put buns and seats, and I can, you know, help phil phil rooms, and I can help spread the message. So that makes it really attractive in the in the beginning, especially when you're just starting out. It really doesn't matter what you are, because your clients don't know the difference between a really what you consider a riel or a fake or prestigious, and not so prestigious contest. And as you get further down and you win better contests and you participate in what prestigious contest, then you can let the other ones go away. But in the beginning, you just got to start with something.