Lessons

Lesson Info

Post Wedding Sales Session

so we're going to start with one of our favorite images on the screen just like we said blacked out in light room and so as soon as they walk in I want them to notice this so remember we've got the lights dimmed we've got music going relaxing music scented candles so create that experience we're not gonna have champagne here uh because we can't but uh I would all right so let's go ahead and get crystalline out here hey guys how's it going how are you good to see you excited to see your pictures yeah how was the honeymoon pretty good yeah go ahead get comfy so this is just one of our favorites just to give you a little tease up there so all right so the whole purpose of today is really just free to sear images for the first time to relax and enjoy them okay and then I'll walk you through your album and all the cover options and everything and then I'll walk you through those specials that I sent you so that it makes sense too now everything you see tonight will go online so you'll get a...

lincoln password in email as soon as you leave here and you can send that to your friends and family and they could look through all of them if you want and uh here's your disk of images that you go and I'll have you sign a copy right released before you go so that you can use that if you ever do go try and use um they'll let you print him and uh and I think that's about it so you guys just relax and enjoy and my slide shows sitting there going to be the same as last time I've got two point eight seconds with a point nine seconds fade and whenever they come into view these way normally have like seven to eight hundred images and so the slideshow might take anywhere from thirty to forty five minutes just relaxing with them and enjoying that time enjoying them seeing that for the first time talk about the experience that day if you if you were there with him all the things that happened just kind of relive it with them and for this part of the sideshow whenever the site should does start I usually kick up the music so that it's really amplified in the room and it feels like a movie experience you got the sack if you following then I will catch you you need a line I find my way you teo wait chilly here take my sparkle a I'll make it but wait you wait I when you start losing your hair so for really cool way you way our affection and then you take me way you like gorgeous so obviously that's an abbreviated slideshow I don't want you to sit here for seven hundred images but just so you gotta feel for what we got that day so guys love wth um yeah you looked amazing so beautiful all right well then let me walk you through everything and I can answer any questions you have this will just be what I emailed you there you go now currently you guys have your negatives and this album which is a ten by ten recover options you've got this acrylic like you see here or you can have black leather all the way around with your names to boss it's no price difference just whatever you guys like most now let me walk you through the different specials that I sent you because in that black label it upgrade you to a sicilian siri's album which is any of the big books here so there's no price difference between them you get to pick whichever one you like most and so it's usually easier if you start off by picking the size that you like because we have a twelve by eighteen this is an eight by twenty and this one's a ten by ten or you could do it twelve by twelve which is just a larger square and then you convict the different cover options so with a sicilian siri's there's a ton of different options and it's still no price difference so you've got two tone leather here we've got like forty different types of leather or you can have a medal in lake like this guy or you can have this acrylic option here just on one of the larger books so you can pick that as well but then that also gives you ten additional pages you'd have forty instead of thirty obviously that lets you put more pictures in the album because with thirty pages you're gonna pick about forty five images so with forty pages you'd pick about sixty and so with that gives you room to go across two pages with your statement images so whenever you've got more pages you've got more room to do stuff like this because you don't want everything to be small in the album you want to have some big images were there the impact ones you also get a twenty by thirty acrylic which is so um so yeah this is one of our specialty items so it comes ready to hang you don't have to frame it we like to put on the wall just like you see appear so they come ready to go and I love the finish on this with that metallic that kind of sheen it really makes it pop off the wall like a center our peace in your house looks just make sure you get a nice anchor e like start do you want exactly all right you also get a fifteen by thirty pano campus which this is a campus but then this size would be that long skinny sides that you see on the easel and so that makes a really cool dramatic way to hang it on the wall and then if you feel the texture of that canvas we like to do arts your types of edits on the campus because of this texture it really brings out that edit and makes it look more like artwork rather than just a photo so you get both of those and then you get ten gifts sizes and again the gifts sizes or anything eight by ten and smaller so you could do four way sixes five by sevens eight by tens it's your choice you can mix up those sizes and pick ten different images as well so you don't have to repeat any image if you don't want teo then you also get a dvd slideshow that's a copy of the side shall we play at your reception we burn it so that you can burn copies for family and give it out his gifts and you could put on your iphone and on facebook too and then any images you pick for your different print size is the same in images would get posted to facebook that way you can have on your profile and then what's her in any package there's additional discounts below so if you or any family wants to add anything on they can all take advantage of those discounts does that make sense so far yeah okay now the platinum package there focuses just on prince versus the black label includes an album upgrade and candace is so in the platinum you've got a sixteen by twenty four print the fifteen by thirty two eleven by sixteen's and seven gives sizes and I would show them all the sizes I just don't have them all here you guys know what sizes they are again we're gonna hand it to them and show them what everything is but by the time they've seen the acrylic the canvas in the album once we go to just prints they're really blown away by this stuff does all that makes sense still yeah okay so you guys just let me know whatever you like most usually the easiest ways to figure out which album you liked the most cause that'll help direct directed towards one package or another if you really like the bigger books yeah like this yes and so that's how you ask for the sale is really just ask them what they like most and by directing them towards the book that's really gonna help push those bigger books and that bigger package because it's gonna be hard for them to say well no I like the smaller book who's going to say they like this book compared to this book no one's going to say that so if they do go with the lower package it's only because it's out of their price range so this is really your time to talk on those strings that you know this is the time to get that book if you want that book just makes sense to everyone okay let's take some questions everyone's right down fiercely right no it's similar to the engagement sale so there's a lot of similarity the thing is you have to do your homework here to really be prepared for it and uh having the different products like the acrylic and the books just the way you position it is really gonna make all the difference what did you guys think of that was that sales they're pushy what enough or not at all um you know it really helps when you guys show the images because and then when you say that you're only going to be able to pick like forty five of you have the small you know thirty pages supposed to like when you see a bunch of pictures that you really really like and you would know that you would have over forty five images and you would have to upgrade the album page and when she said that you know what what would you really like it wasn't like oh you should really go for this one you wouldn't feel that you're actually being sold to this one right you're actually asking us and like where the one who really wants it and you're the one who really you know that's a great point and that's great to hear that from their perspective as I didn't say so do you like the bigger book I asked which one do you like so by using certain words you are the I'm making myself the trusted advisor I think they really get the sense that I care about what they want and then I'm here to get their feedback so they feel like you know they have a voice and what they say matters so thank you for bringing that up great question from lauren nicole photo from michigan who asked as they watched the initial slideshow cell session do you make a note somehow of images they react strongly to such as oh wow mg so you can push those sails on those images wondering what the best way to do that I am paying attention to their feedback during the sideshow so if during some of those creative images they were like oh my gosh and they freaked out and uh we were going through the packages I might bring them up so let's say we're walking through the black label package and I'm talking about the acrylic you know this is the acrylic it comes in this size and ready to hang and just so you have perspective on type of image that I think would look great in that type of product would be this one the colors with that on the acrylic would really pop with that metallic sheen and so tying the image to a specific product that's included with the package again is really completing the vision for them because now they're seeing the product they see howto hang it how to decorate it and now they know the image to put on the products so you're really providing an end to end solution there great question the question from cook esquire do you always show the pictures in chronological order or do you sometimes shuffle some of them always in chronological order because we are telling a story of the day and I think that's the way that makes sense to most people whenever they're thinking about things being able to run through the being ableto watch the images progress justus they did that day it makes them relived the day so they get sucked back into it like I never saw that or I don't remember that even happening and oh my gosh I did wasn't there for you getting ready you look amazing and that sort of thing it really helps them get into that day again question from kari nichols carrie if you can't tell there if you could tell that they are really hesitating because of price and they really want the big package at what point do you throw in the payment plan option or do you wait for them to ask first that comes back to reading your client and so remember they've had two weeks to review this pricing so it's not a shock to them and so if they were looking at each other and be like and we really want the black label I'll listen to them talk to each other and be like yeah it's just you know we had that bill come up this month be like hey guys I'm just overhearing it and it sounds like you love the black label which which is great but if if payment options help we can break payments into to so just let me know if that helps I just want you to get whatever you guys want and so I'll listen to their conversation and all interject if it helps I'm not being nosy they're here talking in front of me so I hear them going back and forth like well I really like the smaller book the other one seems so big and I would actually guide them away from the black little package you know I'm I am honest in my session I want them to have what makes sense for them so if there's telling me they really prefer a smaller book than I would say well then I would take black label off the table if you don't like the bigger size then it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to be there you might want to consider the platinum but then adding pages we always suggest adding pages just because it's the one thing you can't come back and we do once the album's designed it's really done and that's your first family heirloom so we want it to be perfect let's see how he did that so guy them be honest and don't stop being that trusted advisor it goes a long way you know we've talked about the we've talked about pricing as far as breaking it up into two can we just take it a little step further do people ever say you know can I pay you monthly payments for the next six months is it always two payments and then you won't do anything more it's not set in stone okay yeah so we start with two that's what we just like to offer because we aren't accountants and I don't want to be processing credit cards every month I've got a lot of other stuff to dio uh but again it depends on the client if they're a great client and that's what's gonna work for them then we'll make it happen we have someone that bought a black label post wedding package two years ago and just paid it off but they're still happy about it because that's what they wanted so it's fine by us you know it's it's stinks having to wait that long for for that cash to come in but if they're the right client they had amazing experience they loved every minute of it and you know I don't want to take that away from someone so it's a case by case basis so they don't get their album for two years that's right didn't get anything for two years no negatives no prints anything because they purchase that afterwards so they were willing to wait for it fine all right question from rachel anne's photo in pennsylvania at the first sales meeting say a year out from their wedding do you tell the clients that they will be picking out more products and spending more money two weeks after the wedding that's a great question so it sounds like the question is when they're initially booking us do we talk about the fact that they might spend more money later on purchasing products and stuff no you don't want them thinking about additional money they're gonna have to spend because whenever there initially booking you that's going to affect what package they pick so if they're like oh well I might spend another twenty five hundred dollars I better not book the black light better book this one you don't want that to happen because again money spent its money for gotten you want them to book the top package initially if possible and then again it's for gotten at that point have them you know they're gonna keep spending and if people asked you that like well am I gonna have to buy engagement pictures you could be honest with them like well yeah you can you don't have to buy anything there's no minimum order and we don't really include product in the package because honestly we have no idea what we're going to get or what you're gonna like and so that's why we just give you the option if you do want to buy anything you can but again there's no minimum order so just kind of reassure them that there's no pressure they really don't have to buy anything but we all know that if you if we do our job and take pictures they are going tio that makes sense have you ever had people get upset or feel like you didn't you weren't fully open with them full disclosure at the end when you're like wait a minute I now you're asking me to buy more only a few times have people really been a little more abrasive about it like well I didn't know I was going to spend more money but you can push back on them like uh well you notice the packages you said it includes wedding digital negatives we call it out that it's just wedding day digital negatives and so with our packages were very clear about what comes in and one dozen and so that's how you're able to push back on them like did you see something that made you think there was something else included because everything's listed that comes in the package and that's where they have to put it back on themselves like I don't know I guess I just really didn't read it so it's important to take that off of you you can't be seen as the bad guy and you again that's an objection and if you don't overcome that objection you won't have a sale so I true story I had a bride that black label with me and uh then we ided her engagement session and I sent her the e mail to schedule her to come back in and view her pictures and she sent me this nasty email like I can't believe I have to buy more pictures I've already spent twelve grain with you and I just need a few pictures to use for my centerpieces that's all I want so I said I'm so sorry you feel that way I'd be more than happy to send any image you want directly to your wedding planner so she can use them for the centerpieces if that's all you need but I'd still love for you to come in and view them because we really did get a lot of good stuff so I just kind of diffused the situation she's obviously steamed about something and I don't think it was because of me I think there's other stress is going on with the wedding so I defused the situation let her know that I could work with her I provided a solution she came in and spent twenty five hundred dollars on her engagement session so she did the same thing after her wedding I think she's just stressed stressed girl and uh like I don't want to spend any more money we've already picked our album and everything so I said you don't have to buy anything just come on in and join your pictures for the first time we'll pop some bubbly have a good time so she did and she spent another twenty five hundred dollars and so she ended up spending you know upwards of fifteen grand with us and uh but it wasn't on us and she realised that after she came in each time that everything was really clear about what's included and if you are clear then there's nothing we can really get mad about you about right it's just that attitude of that trusted advisor and that you're not holding anything back from them for a reason right and I think it's important how you react to that situation there's a reason sounds not dealing with customer servicing clients a cz you can see it's very animated very lively and he is an italian new yorker so if someone steps on his toes there you know makes him mad he's gonna respond a little differently than say a southern girl from texas well just a little bit just a little bit and so that's why I'm in that role because I can really defuse the situation well where is he can't and so that's comes back to knowing your role is knowing your no fly zone salad's not in customer service right he sticks to his part and I stick to my plan and play to your strengths exactly so I would love teo and we've talked about this before during the week but for those people who weren't with us we're getting a lot of questions again about if you could specify what is on the digital negatives what is on that disk that you give people in terms of the volume are they edited or unedited and are you including those signature files and if you know the resolution that you give them to people at all that all signs good stuff so what they're getting that day it might end up being about fifteen hundred images so they're going to come in and see seven hundred those are what we think are the best of the best and we've done her special that it's too basic and it's to him all sorts of stuff uh but on the negatives they're going to get everything they see here tonight but the unedited versions plus all the ones we didn't pick for the edit so uh sal knows the work for a little bit better we take about four thousand ish images call that down to fifteen hundred it's those fifteen hundred ish images that they get on the disc all unedited but in j peg format so we don't give them raw images there are twelve hundred by eighteen hundred pixels so the biggest they can go really is a twelve by eighteen uh or an eight by twelve um and so that's called out in our paperwork so they know the format that they're getting the pictures and again we're completely open with it it says jay pick images twelve hundred eighty hundred pixels and it says wedding date digital negatives negatives by definition are unedited there how they came out of the camera and so a lot of people ask us why aren't you worried those images are gonna be online and they're gonna end up everywhere no because when they buy from us we give them a facebook posting and that's really what people are posting online that's what they care about his facebook so we're posting on facebook the images that they selected for their prints which are their favorites and so why do they need to post any others and sure they might post you know a few here and there from the reception or from the wedding day but at that point we don't really care because everyone's seen or other words they see all the great edits and images that we've taken so it doesn't affect us that way that makes sense yes ok you really answered that question thank you you're welcome okay dustin designs ceo says how do you handle couple who disagrees on what to get for example a bride he wants everything in a groom who may want nothing well usually the bride wins because that's just the way it works but I do try and manage the situation so I'll let them go back and forth and wait for the bride to win uh I'll help them both out so again make yourself that trusted advisor okay it sounds like chris you really want that album but you really like this book what is it about these albums that maybe you aren't seeing but you aren't like you do not like the size of the leather options and they're going to say we'll know the size is awesome and the leathers air cool so he's going to say it's the price is really what it comes down to the bride wants black label the groom wants you to spend nothing extra uh sorry um so it's just about playing it the right way you have to listen to a conversation going and assess the situation and it's a case by case basis you could tell them well you don't have to upgrade the album it's ah it's just depends on how important it is to you so this is still a great book obviously there's a big jump from this to this so you guys just have to figure out what's most important to you so I'm putting it back on him and so I just said you have to figure out how important it is to you guys he's good you can't say well it's not that important to me I want this book you're gonna get in trouble s oh it's things like that where it's soft it's kind of defusing the situation but again putting it back on him and playing it to the to the way that you wanted to be played this is a family heirloom and this is a final decision so this is a heavy decision and I would love for them to end up in this book because no one regrets ending up in this book they always they only regret if they don't go with that book if they stay with this because everyone wants this all right so I think we have only less than fifteen minutes before we go to our next break all right do we want to keep going um let's talk about what happens after they leave so well what I think what did you talk about let's see there was a question about so once they've decided on purchasing images do you review the sideshow again to us to choose which images great questions so that it's very similar to engagement workflow let's say they select one of the packages at that point I'll try and help them pick out exactly what images they want to fill all those different sizes and I start with the bigger sizes so let's say we're picking the twenty by thirty acrylic I would say all right guys I'm going to show you my suggestions for this size now you obviously pick whatever you want these air just someone's that I think would look great and that twenty by thirty acrylic and you tell me what you think and at that point I would select few options for them to choose from and try and get them to pick the images that night so those air just online favorites but you tell me which ones you like or is this a good selection we can always pick others so they don't have to pick the images that night to fill their package because sometimes there are seven hundred images and some people do want to look through the multiple times um but no one wants to do that night because they've already been there for an hour and a half so what we tell people is once you pick a package you don't have to pick the images tonight because our vendors let us buy the product and lock in that special but then fill it whenever we want so if you still need like you know a week or two to figure out exactly what images to pick you can or I can help you tonight if that's easier for you I'll help you pick everything out so offer a solution for both sides people sometimes get overwhelmed with seven hundred pictures to pick and having to look through and pick for the products to offer a solution that lets them pick leader run and then once they pick an image let's say you guys like the middle one I'll flag it as green uh and that's just how I mark images that they picked for prints so we'll market is green and then I can filter by green on the work full after that is once it's mark greene and I've filtered it I can export those flagged images to my picture order folder so afterwards I'm not going through and finding all these images through seven hundred images that they've already picked I already have them in a folder on ly the ones that they picked for their prince the same images or what get posted to facebook so that's the reason that we do facebook posts posting is on ly you're ordered prints because it makes the work flow so much easier if you're doing a facebook posting and they get to pick their top thirty pictures you're gonna be here for a while and that's just a workflow nightmare so now the pictures are already exported in organized and we could just do one upload great question all right and then from there if you guys didn't hear from the engagement session how we collect payment information I know that could be an awkward point for us as photographers a lot because we're asking for money so the way that I asked for payment is now did you want me to use the same credit card from the wedding deposit or did you want to use a different one you tell me whatever's easier and that's why I asked for payment again I never say numbers you never heard me say a package price you never heard me say a total and I'll never give a total unless they ask for it if they don't care to know it I don't care to say it because it's always sticker shock no one likes to hear those numbers um but that's a great way to ask for payment and make it less awkward so you want the billing part of it to be a shortest possible because it's always a key point when you're giving away money so it just make it is easy for them to just give you money as possible and using uh I don't know what you guys use for your customer database systems but we use studio cloud and having a customer database system that lets you store credit cards that's um begets peace you complain uh that's important so they store the credit cards in our client's accounts but in a way that we can't see the credit card numbers so it protects the client but I'm able to read bill directly from their account so it makes it really easy for me to keep credit card's on file and just charge it whenever they say they want to use that same card more questions around that do yu want t o go ahead I'm not sure if I have anything specifically about that do you want to go ahead and take more questions are do you yeah let's take a few more okay you sure yeah let's last year something too yeah are you guys feeling good you know were astonished by the pictures and stuff you guys already married all right so how is this different from the process you went through after your wedding don't say any names I wanna throw anyone well when we got married a year ago you know where we were at school and we were really really tight on their budget and so I was going I am going to school for photography so I know some photographers and everything and they're really good you know but like after the wedding then I realized you know being a photographer is different from being a wedding photographer because the scenario is different and that you know like my classmates at school they're really good and you know but then if you you know you're given a homework to photograph you have all the time in the world to perfect but for wedding it's not like that you know and so I basically because because of our budget issues I just basically uh hired my friend and then I told her that you know you don't even have because she didn't want to do it in the beginning and I you know you don't even have to do anything just you know shoot them and you know and so when when I um when she gave me the images and everything you know it's different and I told myself before before I booked her that I would just you know make my own album and provenza you're from nice you have you know so so bad photographers it took south two years to do our wedding album and I was on him every single day but yeah that's so true so you didn't really have that experience that lion normally has right yeah and so that unfortunately that happened so much in our industry right now bryce I think all they need is a cd and that they're set to go but then you never have this you don't have anything to show from the wedding and so that's part of what you're doing educate brides when you're including stuff like this in your packages is you're educating them this is what you need this is what you should want and so now when they go and meet with other photographers that all their offering is a disc they're going to like wait a minute I don't get a book what am I supposed to do with the disc how am I supposed to show pictures I don't know how to edit pictures so it's you just wanted to educate brides on what they should be looking for especially for doing bridal shows the books are really going to help you stand out from the other photographers there because unfortunately so many of them are just doing discus an incomplete service that's a great point any other questions that you ladies have what do you guys currently doing are you bringing people in studio after the wedding all of you most of you what about is do you think that the sale is the hardest sale to get yes yes it is hard go ahead question about the late room um so sound editing the pictures in light room and you does he export them and you import them into the light room on a different computer then you have the sales process that's a good question so at home we've got tio big max that cell at it sign and I use my laptop for previews and we hook it up to a tv just kind of like here and so sal will export from light room and run a little bit of skin softening on the images and then all hell export that to a preview folder and so at home we've got you know just stacks of hard drives weight we have one dr dedicated to preview so that I know I can easily find what previous I need so as the jobs come back from evolve after he has time to go through them he'll just export them to that preview drive and label it for the client's name and so I can easily grab it from there and imported directly into my computer into light room good question so taylor I know that we've said many times that if your clients are not in the same town as you that you guys skype right but there are so many questions about this okay so can we talk about the logistics how you use skype to do this yeah so the process will be a little bit different so for skype you want to make sure that they have the specials at least a week or two in advance before you do the skype call and you're going to send them the link to view their images the day before your skype call so if you send it to him the day of your skype call a link to be their images they're not gonna have time to review them and I think it's important for them to view their images before you get on that call otherwise they're not blown away by the images that you captured and they're not gonna want these products so make sure that they have at least a day or two to look through their wedding images before you do the skype call but make sure you schedule the skype call before you send them the link so if you send them just the link to the pictures and then tell them ask them okay you want a schedule skype call for this day you'll never hear back from them because they've already seen all the pictures so make sure you schedule this skype meeting first then some then the link to view the images then the next day do the skype call to review this whole process so you're going to try and recreate this experience as much as possible obviously you have no control over lighting music distractions that sort of thing it is it doesn't make the sale much harder to get if you're doing it over skype but you want to try and recreate this as much as possible so we'll hold up the alums of okay can you see this no okay there's kind of a glare can you see that acrylic cover s so it's definitely a little more awkward but you want to show them the products as best as you can and so I'll take my laptop and take him on a little tour of the studio so they can see the acrylics on the wall and this is how we hang them just like this and this is this product and this is the albums and this is how we display this and so it's just trying to replicate this as much as you can but it's definitely more difficult it's the world we're living in a city