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How do you get more photography inquiries? How do you get more photography clients? That is what we are covering in today is video!
0:01All right, today we are going over a really important topic because a lot of photographers want to make a lot of money, they want to book a lot of clients, and they just aren't able to do their website or social media. We're going to get to the root of this because when you understand this and when you start putting yourself in this mindset, you're going to make a lot more money—not just a little bit, you're going to make a lot more money doing this.
0:27Before we even get started, I'm going to ask you guys in the comments, if you've seen the comments of this video wherever it's posted, what is a major purchase that you have made? Personal, business, anything for your family, travel in the last year? You guys can say fridges, you bought a pool—like, what are some big purchases that you have made in the past year?
0:53I'm going to walk you through this because once we do this, we're going to go through and see how this applies to basically any portrait styles. It's not really going to matter which one it is because it's all kind of the same.
1:12This morning I had a plumbing emergency. If you guys have ever had a plumbing emergency—like my sewer system has gotten backed up and there was crap coming out of the showers, it was really bad. Luckily it's all clean now, but last night when the problem started to happen, I went on Google and I started typing frantically: 24-hour emergency plumber services. I was super in a hurry to get this problem fixed. The first person that could come out—because it was Easter, this was this morning—and I booked somebody and they told me we'll come out, we'll give you a free quote. They came at 8:30 in the morning and I paid them happily because they solved a huge problem for me. The entire time I was booking this, I just kept thinking, oh my God, I need to get this solved. My house smells like crap and this is terrible.
2:00No more smell, it's great now. So I paid these people for a couple hours of their work and they probably made $300 an hour because it only took them two hours, but I got my problem solved.
2:14A couple years ago I was trying to hire a tutor for my daughter. The only reason I opted in was because I was listening to a podcast and at the time the podcast was like, hey, if you want tutoring for your kid, call this phone number or go online and book. I remember I was reading through their sales page and I thought to myself, I'm definitely not going to buy this service, 100%, I'm not buying it.
2:38Of course, if you guys know—maybe if you guys follow me—you guys know that my daughter's education is so important to me. I homeschool her. I probably spent a couple thousand dollars outside of private school every single year just on education.
2:56So I'm the target client. I'm super in the market for this all the time. And when I opted in, they called me back within five minutes and immediately I told the lady, I'm really sorry, I'm going to dinner right now. I'm not going to be able to book. Come back at some other time. And she wasn't pushy, but she basically said, hey, really quick, I just have a couple questions about Leilani and your goals with her. Do you mind if I just ask you? You don't have to book right now.
3:18Of course, I teach sales and I do sales training, so I thought, okay, I'm definitely not gonna book. And I told her, you're not gonna get me to pay today. And she started asking me questions: hey, tell me about her, tell me about Leilani, tell me about her interests, what is she doing now to improve her education, what subjects is she struggling with, what does she excel at, what do you want to focus on? By the end of the call, I basically told her, you're really good at this. You hit on every point I really wanted. I told myself I wouldn't buy and I do this for a living and I pulled out my credit card and paid $1,200 over the phone to somebody I had seen in an ad five minutes ago from a podcast.
4:01Why am I saying that? Because I had a problem, she identified it, she helped me connect with it. She didn't have to convince me that she was the best. She showed me she was the best and was the best fit for me because she was very interesting and asked me a lot of questions. Their website, their landing page, the ad was very cohesive. It spoke to what I wanted. They didn't promise me tutoring and then throw me to their blog about all these random things. It was very specific—ad going to a straight call to action to give them my info, and they called me within five minutes: $1,200 out of my pocket.
4:35If you think about it, I valued the tutoring services more than I valued the $1,200—or it might have been $1,500 actually. Because when I gave them the money, I said I'm willing to part with this because I'm getting something better in return. They're going to help me reach my dreams and avoid all my nightmares. My nightmares being my daughter's not going to do well in school, she's gonna fall behind, she's not going to be educated and successful. My dreams are that she's going to be an Einstein and be able to do whatever she wants and take over my business and start better businesses than mine.
5:06Very cohesive message talking to one person. That's the thing about all of this. I needed this service. I actually called a bunch of people—nobody answered except the people I paid. Those people answered. Other people went to voicemail. Other people, local people went to whatever. This company answered, took my info down, and called me in the morning.
5:33Event space. There's actually a really interesting thing about this. This is an example of when you're just so good. There are some photographers who are so good that no matter what, they're gonna book people. For me, this is an example. I want an event space for May 20th and I've been looking around and I haven't been able to find a place. But the one place I really want—because I'm familiar with it, I've stayed at the hotel, I eat there regularly, I drive by it really often, I love it, it's brand new—this place is the worst customer service ever. They don't follow up, they email me, they barely respond. The guy doesn't even want to take my phone call. This is tens of thousands of dollars and I won't even take my phone call. And I'm still sitting here. Out of all the options I have, this is the best price, the best value. There's a place that's inferior to it right next to it that is not as good as this that's double the price. The moment I saw that's double the price and it's not even as good as this, I want to book this and I'm gonna book it, even despite the fact that they're not really good. They should have called me back, they should have invited me over, they should have sent me a lot more material. But they're just that good.
6:45There are some photographers—these are like the .01% that this happens to—they have hundreds of reviews, they have such good work that separates them from people. But that is not most photographers. A lot of other event spaces, to get my business, they'd have to get me to come in and do a walk-through, they'd have to call me back, they'd have to be super attentive. But this is an example because I have different buyer personas. No matter what stage I'm in, what price point, what my interest is, I act very differently when I'm buying these things. I wouldn't act like this with the plumbing service—it was an emergency. I wouldn't act like this about maybe the tutoring if they were world class or something. But to me, this is world class because this is the best deal I can get and the best quality I can get in the vicinity that I want and that's super convenient for me.
7:35You can see like this guy's just been texting and emailing me one sentence things and it's kind of annoying, but I'm still laughing because I'm like, I have to go with them.
7:50The last one was I wanted contract services. For this one, super important—contracts are obviously. I wanted a specialist. So I started Googling everywhere and when I did, I found one domain that had the exact kind of contract I wanted. Imagine I pull up five websites. This is what your clients are doing when they're looking for a newborn photographer. They're going on Instagram, they're going on TikTok, they're going on Google and they're pulling up five websites. They're inquiring with a lot of people. Whoever answers first and connects with them first has a big leg up.
8:26One thing that made me 100% sure I was gonna go with them is number one: the domain name and the business and everything was only catered to the exact contract that I needed. Super specific.
8:40Even if you do a lot of genres, if you don't look like the ultra-specific expert for every single genre, now you're competing with big experts in all of them and you're watering yourself down. That's why I tell photographers: focus on a niche, get really good at it, master it, become the best, then you can worry about other things. Don't be 50% in Boudoir, 50% in family, kind of shitty at pets. I'd rather you be 100% in one genre than be spread out.
9:11The other thing that really stood out to me was I had a very specific issue. Imagine one in ten thousand people have this issue that I was looking for in this contract. A lot of people need this kind of contract I was looking for, but I had a very specific case behind it—not case, but I had very specific circumstances which is rare. Not many people have this problem. On their form, when I was reading their landing page, they literally had a link that said, by the way, if you also with this are having this issue in your life, then you should click on this link. They had an entire landing page with the exact scenario that applied to me. Of course, I went with them. I talked to the woman—25 years in the business, does everything amazingly well. I sent her $2,500 immediately and started the contract service.
10:05This is for building a legal contract.
10:10Why do I say that? Because the same things are happening with Boudoir. There are a lot of people doing a lot of this. What can make you book a lot more clients? What could you do? Obviously, some of these I've mentioned. Have a lot of social proof—they have a lot of content that makes them stand out as the expert. They follow up very quickly. They do their consults immediately. It's very clear what's going to happen. They outline all the steps. I feel like I'm in good hands. I went with this person.
10:45My question to you guys is: is that happening? Do people know what's going to happen when they go to your website and they inquire? Do they know the next steps? Do they know what to expect? Do they know that you're going to be the super expert guy to walk them through and make this all super easy for them?
11:03That's the case for a couple of these. Some of these event spaces were like, hey, we will do every single aspect of it. You can pay us all in-house, we'll do everything. That way I don't have to go do 400 things for this event. Same thing with the tutoring—they'll pair me, they'll match me, they'll make a plan with me.
11:21Especially with them, they did an excellent consult. They were super fast. If you can add these attributes—a lot of times when you're pretending with your friends, if you were a superhero, what one superpower would you have? Power, speed, invincibility. To me, this is kind of the same thing with photography studios. But you're not limited to one.
11:42If you ask me what could make one studio just book like wildfire, I would say following up with all your leads immediately. That'll greatly increase everything. But you're not limited to one. What else could you do? Get really good at your consults where you're guiding the discussion, you're qualifying the people on the phone, you're connecting with them emotionally, and you're building trust with them. That's gonna really grow your business.
12:10What's something else? Have the best work possible and in the exact niche I work in, I'm gonna be number one. If you are the number one expert in your town—you don't have to be the best in the world, but the best in like the closest 50 miles—and you're showcasing your work, then you are absolutely gonna kill it. These are like individual superpowers where you're just so good that no matter what, you can write shitty emails to the people, you can barely respond to them, and they're dying to book you. That happens with very few photographers. This is one of the hardest ones to get right. The example I showed with the event space. And then, of course, just being super competent and being there to service people and responding quickly.
12:57To me, these—out of all the people I contacted—these were the only ones that had an easy form, that had a direct call to action, had an exact timeline, and they weren't even the best people in the world. They were just the first to respond to me. If I told you all of your leads are going to be inquiring with a lot of other people and if you let someone else respond first, your chances go down so much.
13:23All of these—if I can give a photographer all these superpowers—you're gonna grow immensely. This is especially useful for photographers that are already near six figures, already at six figures. None of this is like have more ad spend or go do all this crazy stuff. It's just, hey, be a perfectionist at these very small things.
13:42You also have to ask yourself, okay, what other situations do my clients have? This is why you need to have intimate knowledge of your business. Because when you really know okay, I'm really selling to one person—every single sale is a one-on-one communication. A lot of times people market and they create all these ads, create all this content, and you're selling to everyone. It's just very generic: hey, I exist, I'm the best, I care about customer service. But you really have to think to yourself: when these people are alone or talking to their spouse and they're behind closed doors, what are they really talking about?
14:23You need to be really surprised if you could record some of these conversations. For a newborn photographer or a Boudoir photographer, that woman's talking to the husband and saying things like, yeah, I'm not sure if I should go with her. She doesn't have a lot of diversity on her portfolio. She doesn't have a really big following. I don't really know. I don't know how established she is. I don't know how much experience she has. She's not showing many different people of different body types. I'm not sure if that's going to work with me.
14:46Same thing with newborn and maternity: I don't really know what I'm even gonna do with the photos. We're gonna get all these photos. I'm like, what are we gonna do with them?
14:56As you go through and really brainstorm these objections and think to yourself, in all touches that I have—my organic social media, my ads, my email follow-up, my website, my phone calls—what real objections do people have and how am I answering them at every point? You don't need to figure it all out in one day, but if you can just start chipping away every day, just adding, building your credibility, bringing your expertise and adding this to the flow and just the aura of your business, you're gonna grow immensely.
15:29Yeah, this is how people make big purchases. This is why I asked when we first started: what do you guys have? What's something that you guys are paying for? Allison Diller just commented that she paid a lot for graphic branding and web design. I will say that the first thing I told her, when I saw it, I was like, this is really good. She actually got a really good—I love it, I really do love it. So you did a really good job purchasing that and I'm curious: how did you make that decision? How did you choose that person? The person you chose is definitely very talented.
16:05What else did you guys buy that was big?
16:08Yeah, take that what you will. I mean, a lot of these things—I know it sounds like very oblivious and like in the ether—but these are very hard tangible things that if you start making these small changes and start thinking like you're selling to one person on the other side of the screen and the other part of your Facebook group and you're talking to that one person, you're really gonna focus.
16:32You might even be thinking watching this video like, I do all of these things wrong. I'm scattered across a bunch of genres and I'm getting my ass kicked by all my competitors. I'm not following up properly. I'm winging all my consults. I'm completely mismanaging the follow-up.
16:51Some of you don't have that room because you aren't the top dog. You aren't the person that's like—people will literally pay your invoice link through DMs because they just know how good you are. They've seen all the social proof, they've seen all the videos on TikTok, they've seen all the videos on your website. You're just not there and it's okay. You'll get there eventually. But you're not gonna get there just randomly. You're not gonna wake up one day. If you're not being super intentional about these things and have a killer follow-up, have a killer phone script, you're not gonna have that killer work that's going to separate you.
17:24In this industry, a lot of people complain like, there's so many people, it's saturated. It's really not saturated at the top. There's a lot of people getting into it, a lot of people that are hobbyists. But when you're the top dog at the top of the pyramid, there's not many people up there with you.
17:41It doesn't matter if it's in North Virginia or wherever. There's a couple top dogs. So you can say that about any place. You're really competing with yourself.
17:52That's the good thing—not many people put this focus into their business. They don't put this level of thought into it.
18:00But if you do—if you even do 50% of what I'm talking about—you're gonna grow immensely. And then combine that with the wildfire of being present on organic social media, adding ads to the fire, adding automation email, being consistently inside and being recent with touches with people, you're really gonna blow up.
18:21That is what week two is really going to be about. Actually, we're in week two of the newborn beta. Newborn maternity beta just launched a couple weeks ago. It's a small group of photographers. You guys remember how the Mastermind for Boudoir went—so much more touch, so much more intimate. The people in there are helping us grow the course.
18:43It's not too late. If you're a newborn, maternity, family, children's, cake smash, I definitely encourage you to jump in now because if you're watching this and you're in one of those genres—even Boudoir—the regular Mastermind. If you're sitting on the outside, there's so many people that I have heard: hey, I was on the outside looking in. I didn't make a decision for months, years. The moment they buy and they get their investment back in a couple weeks or whatever it takes, they're just like, why didn't I do this earlier? Why did I let the competitor in my town do this? Why did they blow up?
19:19I'm telling you now the worst thing that could happen is I tell photographers it's a failure of mine if people don't book us and they don't work with us because I just know all the potential you're going to have and all the shortcuts you're gonna have ahead of someone like not doing it. So it's up to you.
19:38Sales average. I like the studios that are in our class and that work with me to be in the $3,000 to $5,000 and up range. For newborn maternity, like one to two inquiries a day is pretty good outside of model calls. For Boudoir, you can definitely get way higher in inquiries. Newborn maternity is a little bit limited in the sense that not every single woman is pregnant or has a newborn at the time.
20:09Yeah, that's it for this one. Hopefully this inspired you guys, opened your eyes. I encourage you: sit down, think about it. What have you bought? Big purchases? Why did you make those purchases? Think through the moment you started thinking about it, when you found the person, how did you look for them, and why did you decide on them? Because you're not selling to yourself. But there's a lot of different instances where you are a different kind of buyer. You prioritize different things and you choose for different reasons.
20:40If you don't want to use yourself—because I feel like I'm a good candidate because I'm just so sporadic with how I make decisions and I buy a lot of different things—you know, talk to your clients. Talk to your clients. Talk to people that you've sold before, that you've booked. Talk to the clients as like an outgoing survey. After you deliver your product, like, hey, I really really want to know: why did you book me? What made you reach out? What made you decide to go with us? Why did you pay a retainer?
21:06Really find out. Sometimes people will tell you things that are so precise. Like, you know, I saw this one video on your site and it talked about this. Boom—you can go highlight that, go run that as an ad, go repurpose it, make it more prominent in your marketing, put it on a bigger part of your website, put it in a tab, repurpose it as you can, or start talking about it more on your Facebook group or Instagram group.
21:34That's it for this one. Hopefully this inspired you and I will see you guys in the next one.