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Bridal Show Q&A

questions about this specifically and running show specials and let's go to the internet to this is powerful stuff we will book three to five weddings at the show and we haven't app we have contracts with us we have square was it squared up or square square square up for your phone so we're swiping credit cards right there at the show for their deposit toe lock us in it's a thousand dollar deposit to secure your date the balances do thirty days before your wedding I don't want your balance a week before the wedding I don't want your balance two weeks before the wedding because if something goes wrong now I'm playing bill collector on your wedding day and I don't want to do that that's bad it's just bad juju right I don't want that so instead I want a month out taylor's sending them an email letting them know they're balances do so questions about this yes absolutely can pass it down where there's uh these air printed we used a company called four over the number four o v e r dot com pr...

obably the best short and long run printing company out there as far as getting pricing their pricing is amazing and they get graphics right nothing's worse I've tried to use local printers you know I love keeping my business local I've tried using local printers and unfortunately when you do that I've had inferior quality all the time to get people who are orange they just don't pay attention to the to the coloring four over has been great to work with yeah you only do this show special but wonder if the bright calls like two weeks later do you offer any type of discount or any I mean how yeah so great question shelf at the show it's the ten percent off the email that we talked about that goes out the next day hey guys thanks for stopping by our booth for the rest of the week if you book this week we're offering a fight and I'm paraphrasing of course we're offering a five percent discount so brides will reject it if you just go from full discount you know ten percent discount to zero they're going to get pissed man they don't they don't they want something so we're doing we're saying hey you missed the show special but if you book this week you still get five percent off we'd love to set up a meeting with you on get together and walk you through everything and we'll totally do that because I know what them being on that that backing um the prints that you have the right to put him in the plastic that they come in and then if we have a leftover box that they arrived him we'll put him on that box just so the edges are protected when you when you call when you order them from the printer they're going to come in a big box hang on to that box what I do what you should not do our store the prince like this facing each other they're going to scuff each other so if you're going to put them in a bag we put him like this back to back so they don't stuff each other and then they go in a plastic bag don't put more than two prints in a bag and then they just lay on each other and then they go in the box and that's how we protect him let's go to the internet so so somebody in the in the chat room I know we've talked about people walking by and you kind of like luring them in and you have this brochure that you're showing them but can you talk us through once a bride's willing to talk what the dialogue is from that point forward perfect perfect second it's like it's like they're reading my mind all right so let's do this you want me to be right or you'll be the guy you be the bread maybe the bride okay all right so let's let's do this how about you be the brother come on come on you can do what you like it's stage fright right now come on up come on you can do what you can do it your way so here's all I want you to just give us someone to talk to okay so just what's gonna happen is pay attention to this because this is pretty much how we would run this here is what we're not going to do taylor and I are not gonna bombard lisa right and I'd be like this all right get out of her face man give her some space you gonna book us are you gonna book us gonna book us right we don't want to do that and so what I want you to do is just come on up to the booth and ask for pricing and information is that what everybody agree the first thing that comes up is they walk up to her booth and they just want pricing and package well first we're going to a lawyer and she's gonna walk by me like they were giving away a free dvd slight sir would you like to sign up yes perfect just settle this little guy out so when's the wedding date this summer this summer have you picked a reception or ceremony location no not yet but probably outside awesome so you're thinking likes it's gonna be spring time so what what if it rains do you have like a back up plan yet or anything ten ten very cool we just did one at the misery botanicals and they had a tent for backup but luckily it was a gorgeous day and they didn't need it but it was beautiful lovely love flowers explorers yeah perfect I love that shot there so oh yeah that woman was actually in rome so something we do is we travel so much that we encourage our clients to just meet us in a location if they want to shoot a different city and is nothing extra so it gives you like so many unique pictures that way if you want but we're thinking about maybe doing a destination wedding oh yeah what you guys do you yeah we do destinations all the time when we love it because we love shooting in different cities and it's just so much more fun especially for you too because you don't have to worry about so many people being there it's a little more intimate that way and then you have pricing yeah let me walk you through everything so this is all of our information so we're running a show special if you book today you get ten percent off any package and then these are packages so just high level real quick every package comes with a wedding album and this is just one of the ones that's included so if you have time definitely looked through them because they're all included I've never seen anything like this you get two photographers and engagement session digital images a ton of stuff in every package so they're really all inclusive but we're really put a lot of emphasis on the album so definitely look through those and then just so you know to lock us in it's a thousand dollar deposit and that secures your date and you don't have to know exactly what package works for him most if you know you want to work with us lock us in because we do get a lot of bookings at the show so I could do today if I wanted to you could just lock in and that secures your date and then we can synch up like next week and we'll help you pick a package of whatever works for you guys most yeah but definitely flip through the album so this is kind of what we're known for aunt if you notice very unique lining so feel this this is crushed velvet it's very nice on then this is designed calendar style so some people like it some people don't either love it or hate it on we have regular albums as well but this becomes very much a signature piece for our studio but go ahead feel free flip through and enjoy the day and I don't know if you guys caught that but I stayed off to the side that's exactly how we running we'll never come in at once so what the way we run it is you can thank you so much through job way we run it is all filter the bride so if I'm talking to a bride a nice issue super interested sal and I I'll give him the look and he knows okay it's time for him to come in and close it he's the closer so I filter them I qualify the good brides that he needs to spend time working on then he'll come and take over and I'll step to the side and work on the rest hey sign up we're giving away a dvd slideshow now so but let's let's role play a little bit right let's have because lisa was the good bride I would say way read we read her energy and she wanted to have the conversation right not everybody's going to go that way but you know maybe you picked up on it maybe you didn't taylor did you notice taylor didn't give her pricing right away taylor was talking to her about okay and you need to rewatch that over and over again because that's the way she ran that it's how we run it every bridal show she didn't put pricing out there right away instead what taylor didn't she started asking her questions about her day every bride wants to talk about her wedding and what they're doing so now she's interested in the conversation but she's going to remember that conversation she didn't just grab the sheet and stick it in her bag she actually had a conversation with us now is that the way every single one goes off course not but I'm looking for that needle in a haystack and when I see taylor has had enough conversation with her now I know it's my time coming right so if taylor just had this conversation in the bride's I just completely disinterested not your bride let her go you've got to figure out who to talk to you not to talk to so in the in the other scenario you might have a bride and this is realistic right they might walk up and they might say something to the effect of um they'll do this right there like you have pricing yeah let me walk you through everything so I will not hand this over I put it here and I don't let him take it I walk them through this is our show special if you lock in today it's ten percent off any package and these are all of our packages so they all come with a wedding album engagement session two photographers a ton of stuff the really all inclusive so if you have time definitely looked through the album yeah we're kinda in a rush but thank you no problem let me know if you have questions that's real live man that happens all the time that happens ninety five percent of the time I'm looking for my leases right I'm looking for them out there she's reading me taylor is not going to try and keep her in with some awkward conversation she's reading my body language she's paying attention huh yeah okay yeah great right thank you ok in the back not my brides already know that's not my bride she didn't even I didn't even make eye contact with the pictures right this is a broad just walking by your photographer I need a photographer I need this in my back not my bride you said the pricing is not in that it is okay it isn't that it isn't that but I don't just hand this over be like here I walk them through it because I see having an album included is a key differentiator for us so a lot of other photographers don't include albums and if they do they're not like this so I immediately want to point that out taylor's hitting like a fifteen second elevator pitch even though we know she's not interested we still want to educate her a little because who knows she could just have something going on at home she's in a rush to get out of there so we don't want to just completely write her off as not our bride but history has proven not to be our bride now you guys maybe wondering whole hold on south stop the bus you told me no pricing online why are you willing to give pricing out at the bridal show I'm willing to give pricing out the bridal show because here I'm not necessarily rewarding bad behavior I'm still giving them an opportunity to see touch feel my product talk to me it may be an abbreviated conversation but I'm still having a conversation with him and that's why I'm willing to give them pricing at that stage of the game zone makes sense with the two of you shoot together so I understand no never or you don't were you starting out we did that sal trained me so everything I learned was from him but now we should totally separate but you still shoot as part of the the company's so so it makes sense for you to kind of divide and conquer but what if it's one person and then you have someone else in your booth helping you is it odd that the main shooter would be off to the side and not be the person talking to bribe no I mean you shouldn't just be there you know like this like that's right I'm just looking at you up and down right that's not what you want do something stay busy okay so and just listen to what's going on but it's not a common like for maybe elissa who's our studio manager she might be up a point just filtering because what's gonna happen here is at some point taylor is going to get overwhelmed we've got a situation where there's five people gather around listening to taylor so she's hitting this one too many situation where she's walking five people through the package is explaining the benefits of the album to five people and then she'll hand out each one of them five questions and say let me know if you have any questions and maybe one out of the five is a little bit shows a little bit of interest we'll peel off with that one would be like how can you help her out she had a couple of south she's got a couple questions can you give her hand and then I'll come in and just walk over here with that one so tell me a little bit about your day how'd you hear about us is there anything in the booth what drew you into our booth that's a great icebreaker man what jury into our booth and that's the my opportunity for the bride to go you know I really love this picture well let me tell you the story behind this image he proposed to his fiance in italy and we were there and we photographed the event oh you travel and then that starts a whole other conversation right and that's how we do it I am sure we're getting flooded with with questions so we got five minutes before break let's let's hit some questions say near ladies you don't first of all everybody out there internet here if I have not done a good enough job of showing you how tomorrow to go run a bridal show how to set up your booth and I have failed you so please I don't want you leaving this segment having questions about how to perform at a bridal show all right well jill says this segment was so insightful holy cow this piece was worth the whole price of the course way loved to hear that there's no sense in investing I'm sorry to cut you off but there's no sense in investing and going to a bridal show what's it gonna cost you to go to a broadway show but the time you pay for the booth but by the time you pay for all your prints okay you've got an investment in there this segment is going to show you how to not only have the product but walk into the bridal show and be successful at the prada show that's the key I want you to be successful okay so can we talk through again the deposit or the retainer and the contract it again like what exactly do you d'oh when they are ready to sign where they're ready to sign I have all of our contract paperwork right back here in a nice leather folio and so I'll have I'll pull them off to the side and have them fill it out it's just one sheet of contact information and I'll ask them so would you like to do your deposit on a credit card or you do prefer check it doesn't matter to me they usually have a credit card I'll pull out my phone with my swiper swipe it have them sign it fill out their information do you know what package you want to go with yes no if they don't I'll follow up with him next week to see what package fits them best or we'll walk them through everything here if they have time actually I'd like to pause there because what we're doing is actually pretty strategic we're not forcing them to make a decision on the contract on the package right then and there if you do that will stall the sale right because they're going to go well I have to talk to my fiance well I have to talk to my parents or whoever you have to talk to I'm taking that objection completely off the table because what we're saying is once you know you want to work with us it's a thousand dollar deposit not locks in your date you can that bride can at least make the decision that she wants to work with us you know why because her fiance all he cares about he could care less about photography if he cared he'd be there so we obviously doesn't care he's home watching the game he's doing something else good for him but here's what he does care about price money so they can make a decision on do you want to work with us the bride can say yes the broad can lock us in what she can to select the package so we're taking that objection off the table saying hey don't worry about picking a package we can pick that next week we'll have you in our studio will meet with you then but once you know you want to work with this man take advantage of this special ten percent off of one of our packages could be five six seven hundred bucks that's a big savings and so she knows that much and she's she's empowered to make that much of a decision and that's just the way it works right the brides of the ones typically that care about photography is that a nonrefundable that is a non refundable and they sign that they know it's nonrefundable actually I want to pause there because I learned from my experience everybody on our contracts it used to say a big bold up top all deposits non refundable and every state region is different it could be retainer deposit doesn't matter what word you picked by the way if that statement all deposits all retainers are nonrefundable I'm going to save everybody out there thousands of dollars on one mistake and they sign at the bottom according to the credit card company ninety nine point nine percent of the time if they challenge that charge right they change their mind ninety nine point nine percent of the time the credit card company will issue a full refund for true statement I've had this happen to me so instead the credit card company says basically if it's more than a thumbs with away from where they sign then they may not have seen it dude it's big bold like giant font there was no way they missed it but those air credit card company rules so what we did now was all deposits are non refundable actually all monies paid are nonrefundable I don't care if you paid me and full of month before the wedding and now two weeks before the wedding you call it off that's your problem I can't resell your date all monies paid or non refunded and they have to initial right next to it so it's not enough for them to sign at the bottom anymore they sign at the bottom and they initial right next to it so there's no chance at all they're missing they're missing a great great question another great question fashion tv in singapore and I know a lot of people have this problem so if a couple of books you for a date during the show and another couple walks in with an interest with similar date how do you turn them away do you turn them away immediately because you know you're already booked or do you have options and if yes what are they what what do you do well the options would be to book either one of us because we both shoot the same day so if south books that book me or vice versa we're going to go in the scenario going scenario where we're both booked if we're both booked and they call in we're gonna let them go we have no choice but to let let them go when we tell him unfortunately we're completely booked on your dad and that's good for buzz because now just gonna tell her friends man I wanted to sell cicada and he was already booked oh south and kata books up quick so if I want south cicada I need to book him now studio studio way do produce promotes did you see studio see I'm talking to you guys in a scenario of where it's just your own booth but we have of course a fallback where we have studio c studio c is right next to us they have their own booth set up so we would push them to studio c off for that yes okay lease agreement that they sign is it it's not a full consciousness contract it is a poor country okay you get any pushback on that like oh I have to talk to my fianc before I sign this particularly not but if they did and they had to talk to their fiance I'm not holding your date I can't hold your day let's think of a deposit but if they don't sign the contract deposit is useless right so they have to sign that contract if they want to retain it hears I don't know why you're concerned lisa but let's talk about it the reality is they have to do the same thing with the florist the cater and every other vendor so you wouldn't be out of line expecting them sign the contract right yeah how do you recommend getting into shows letter seven years out you have a problem I would pull your specific scenario you're advertising so I just started so I might not be like I mean I just started advertising with them a month ago right now so maybe maybe you talk to them now maybe that conversation has changed if you're doing like a full page ad in every issue or you know spending a lot of money with them and then offer them free headshots free promo material for their events or whatever now they love you if they love you you just moved to the top of the list but I would say to them look guys I'm advertising with you what do I need to do to be in your show I'm not waiting seven years I would actually say that to write because I can't keep I would say to them I can't keep advertising in your magazine if it's gonna take me seven years to get into your show so what I need to do they might come back and say well you know michelle if you uh if you were to run a two page ad we could probably get you in the next show it might be worth it right any show that's got a seven year wait list is a show I don't want to be in with me so tried that strategy see if that works yeah go for it I was going to say where I got allowance for a few more extra minutes because before break because there's so many questions awesome that's good I was worried about this segment is I know bridal shows is that subject where people are like no I don't do private shows but guys I'm telling you fifty percent of our business is booked at bridal shows and I wanna I wanna pause here for one second all of you out there again if you were with us yesterday or if you haven't watched it yet watched yesterday because we did all our pricing and packaging every one of you in here I'm encouraging to raise your prices to separate yourself from the minutia here's the first challenge you're going tohave because we went through this when you raise your prices you're gonna lose your referral base do you know what I mean those brides who could afford you when you were a thousand dollars fifteen hundred dollars suddenly now can't afford you which means all the referrals they're going to send you their friends their family they can't afford you which is probably a good thing bad brides refer more bad brides we all know how this works so what happened to us think about the two thousand eight you could have booked me for a thousand dollars in my base package fast forward to two thousand ten two thousand eleven are based packages forty five hundred dollars five thousand dollars those brides can't afford us anymore that's okay if you want to separate yourself you've got to raise prices especially if you're a new studio that's the great the best way to get in front of the clients you're trying to book but also with vendors so the other half of our referrals come from vendor so the reception halls the florist so now you're able to meet these people in person and connect with them then you can offer them free headshots free shots of their flowers for their website yeah it's free shots of their venue for their website for their marketing material the best thing you could do is do anything of any once for free give them all the pictures they want anything they want is for free you walk around st louis bridal show you'll see other venues vendor's displaying our images are pictures are everywhere with our lady give everyone free pictures with our local and they use it for whatever they want it's free but I want to come back to my point when you're raising your prices okay referrals are gonna break down for a little bit that's where bridal shows coming play because now you have access to broads who don't have any preconceived notion about what price point you should be out so they just look at your priceless and they're like oh she's two thousand dollars he's two thousand dollars always four thousand dollars and they're making decisions based on everything else not based on they were referred to you by bad referral so hopefully that makes sense okay a lot of folks again on the contracts are you giving out a copy of that contract to the bride do they walk away with a copy of it no I will mail them a copy of it so uh first we have to know what package they want to go with so if they don't know their package we write to be determined under the package details once they know the package I'll make a copy of that and we send it to them in a folder with our logo on it with vendors we recommend a very nice presentation piece that they can keep afterwards make sense there are some maps out there I used to use a company called josh zio shh if you if you google them there's a new company name but there's an app now for your iphone for your ipad where you can have them sign their contract on the ipad and that's amazing because now I can they can sign and within five minutes it's been emailed to them in their inbox they have a copy of their contract live so just look for that alternative zack's e o s h okay jamie jar studio would like to know you know as faras swiping credit cards the percentages that companies charge to do that are you taking that loss are you charging the client we take the loss so square up takes three percent of every transaction otherwise it's free so you can either do square up and process it right in the show or you khun kit into your credit card processor when you get home which the rate should be lower ours is about one and a half percent when we don't use square up so sometimes if they write it down I'll just process it later and save the one and a half percent but we always absorbed that cause I'm gonna I'm gonna save you from the world right now because you just said it was free for square up other than the three percent for every transaction they don't charge you for the swiper they don't charge you a monthly fee it's just three percent for every transaction versus other payment gateways like authorized annette you've got probably got a monthly fee per transaction for your per batch fee and a processing fee right so square up is a great solution from that perspective you're just paying that three percent and guys it's the cost of doing business so you know the cater everybody else think about if you went to buy a pair of sneakers and the sneaker store tried to charge you the credit card transaction fee so raise your prices three percent I just kind of visual of here's your ten thousand dollar wedding package that'll be fifteen cents fifty cents to swipe your card right no way we're really gonna yeah we're super high we're charging for tape next okay maybe a couple more questions they're so question from laurie p do you give them anything like a swag bag or a gift beside the ten percent discount when they booked that day no we don't give them anything that day but something we do do it as if people book are black label packages which is our top package we actually mailed them a bottle of our favorite wine so we try and spoil our black label clients and we've gotten amazing feedback on that because they want that luxury experience thank you know immediately thank you out on this amazing card stock with our logo and then and then the bottle of wine so that is a great way to start a relationship with your clients it's well worth the investment if you want to again separate yourself from the pack you've got to find a way to differentiate yourself and that's an easy way guess who's not doing it the cater is not sending a gift like that the florist isn't sending a gift like that your photographer we're standing out not only from other photographers were standing out from every other vendor and that's the way we want and think about what that means to brides I know creative life gave us this lovely gift basket yesterday with local treats and a bottle of wine destroying the chocolate and I and stood rammed a picture of it and I tagged afraid of life you think your brights aren't going to do that they just booked ten thousand dollars they want to brag about that they want everyone to know how much they spent and what they got and how special they are telling their friends and think about the social media aspect of it in the promotion for your studio it's amazing you know and one thing I want to do before we go to break and maybe I'll take a couple more questions but I worked with the photo and if you're about to set up your photo booth can you guys put up my slide and forward it to the next one day photo has a special for you guys it is your entire booth set up with prince in it right so these aren't the acrylic cesaire printed on styrene you're going to get to fifteen by thirties for twenty by thirties um and six twenty four by thirty six is and they're giving you twenty five percent off okay it's a forty eight hour sale so if you're getting ready to set up your booth even if it's for january I highly encourage you to take advantage of this they're basically giving you our booth set up using the code south twenty five live and you'll get twenty five per cent off that entire kit so I tried to hook you guys up and get you a good deal so that there's no excuse for you not to have your booth set up right wow this is week that's fantastic okay we gotta get a break but a couple more things because I've seen several people ask about your logo I see we see that it's on the table top there yes but people are asking why is it not more visible because that's taking up picture space our logo's on the flyers which is really all that matters or is a lower on the flyers and it's on a tablecloth right we want to use as much space as possible for pictures we're letting our imagery become the brand the imagery is that brand right I don't need to have obnoxious salvatore cicada everywhere don't get me wrong I love our logo I love our brandy but you find in a lot of ways when we display our work we're all about simplicity subtlety I think it is much better trust me man there's no mistake when you walk by our booth right that we are standing out from the from the crowd okay one final question from age a photo where do you get the table coverings with your logo where would you find that you get from any trade show company I think ours they're from displays to go dot com and the cheapest way to go about it is you can have them print your logo on it when you buy it from the website but that's going to be more expensive if you just buy a black tablecloth and take it to a local printer and ask for like silkscreen printing with your logo might be ten dollars versus like an extra hundred fifty dollars so that'll save you a lot of money when you're going to purchase the table throws