Gaining Photography Clients through Silent Auctions and Free Services with Rebecca Hunnicutt
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You’ve probably been told that you can’t gain anything more than visibility by offering your services for free. If you do it right, you can actually gain long-term, recurring clients and revenue! In today’s episode, Rebecca Hunnicutt shares how she donated her photography services to silent auctions, which helped her gain new photography clients!
Plus, listen in as Rebecca shares how she incorporated pre-school portrait services into her business, implemented the Simple Sales method for clients, and introduced her membership-base photography service!
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Guest Bio:
Rebecca Hunnicutt is a lifestyle photographer specializing in joy filled environmental portraits of children and families based in Portland Oregon. She also takes modern personality filled portraits of today’s contemporary kids at multiple Portland area preschools. As an educator Rebecca teaches photographers how to use composition and color to transform ordinary locations into extraordinary images.
Today’s episode is brought to you by my Client Hub Template inside the DIY Systems Template Shop. Business owners often have their client information spread across a variety of different tools, making it hard to access the information they need to make critical decisions. That’s why I built the Client Hub Template for Airtable, to take the guesswork out of building your own!
Here are the highlights…
[1:38] Get to Know Rebecca
[2:38] Photography Workshops for Kids & Teens
[4:35] Getting Your Kids Interested in Photography
[5:42] Pre-School Portraits
[8:27] Gaining Pre-School Portraits Clients
[8:58] Including Your Pre-School Portrait Services on Your Website
[10:15] Rebecca’s Clientele & Gaining Testimonials
[12:10] Tracking Inquiries and Referrals
[14:08] Review of Rebecca’s Dubsado Setup & Simple Sales
[15:45] Rebecca’s Membership
[19:06] Including Your Services in Auctions
[20:10] Upselling & Gaining Recurring Clients from Auctions
[22:15] When to Push Photography Membership Services
[25:20] Doubling Her Income
[27:10] Being an Action Taker
[30:30] Preparing Your Clients for Their Session
[33:32] Rebecca’s Ideal Sessions
[34:37] Composition and Color Use for Photography
[38:18] Biggest Fuck Up
Mentioned in this Episode
This Can’t Be that Hard Podcast
Register For Composition + Color: https://education.hunnicuttphotography.com/composition-color
Discount Coupon Code: BFC2023
Get on the webinar waitlist for ‘Common Composition Mistakes and How To Avoid Them’: https://hunnicuttphotography.myflodesk.com/bfc-hp
Connect with Rebecca
Website: hunnicuttphotography.com
Instagram: instagram.com/rebecca.hunnicutt.education
Instagram: instagram.com/rebecca.hunnicutt.photography
Pinterest: pinterest.com/HunnicuttPhotography/
Review the Transcript:
Colie: So today I have invited one of my clients onto the podcast, but I didn’t invite her because she’s my client. I invited her because she is one of the most fascinating people that I have met in photography in quite some time. Rebecca, good morning and welcome to my podcast, even though it’s afternoon, whatever.
Rebecca: Yeah, I was gonna say it’s lunchtime, but no worries.
Colie: How are you today?
Rebecca: I’m good. Thank you so much for having me. I’m a big fan of the podcast, so I’m really happy to be here.
Colie: I know. I love it when you like hear an episode and you send me notes. It’s one of my favorite things, but for those people that don’t know who you are, why don’t you tell the listening audience, like, what you do for photography and how you got started?
Rebecca: Sure. So currently, my photography business actually has three arms to it. So I have my portrait side of my business where I’m a lifestyle children and family photographer based in Portland, Oregon. And I also have a modern preschool arm of my business. And with that, I go into local preschools here in Portland and take photos.
Portraits of contemporary kids filled with personality. And then I also have an education site in my business where I have an online course available on composition and color. And I also have a kid and teen photography camp that I offer periodically in the summer to teach photography as well.
Colie: Let’s start with that. This summer, we had a couple of calls where you were in the middle of your teen classes because I feel like it’s like one of those things that people tell photographers to do. Oh, you know, if you want to add another stream of income to your business, teach a kids photography class.
And I only know a few people who have like attempted. So first of all, how did you come up with the idea and why teenagers instead of like kids that are slightly younger?
Rebecca: So the class is actually open for, like, 8 to 9 year olds through, you know, 15. But I find, actually, the peak time, the kids who really benefit the most are that 5th, 6th, 7th graders. Like, they’re really open, but they’re… Education is high enough that they can read the material and really understand the concepts.
The younger kids have a little bit harder time, you know, understanding aperture and shutter speed with the fractions and all of that. So, I actually started that venture during COVID with another local photographer, and so we developed a whole curriculum and a book and all of the materials together during COVID.
She has since moved overseas, so this summer was the first time I did it on my own, but, it’s, it’s actually, it’s really interesting. The kids love it and it kind of reignites my love for photography and what I love to share about it, particularly composition and color, which are two areas that kids really can understand and use and change their photography.
So.
Colie: I mean, I would think that a class like that would be great for Chloe, but like right now she’s just obsessed with making videos for TikTok. I mean, anything that we do, she’s making the videos and then, but when I ask her to make videos for me, she’s like, no, mom. And I’m just like, I don’t understand. You want to make dance videos for TikTok, but when I’m asking you to record this 10 second video clip for mommy’s real for her business, she refuses Rebecca.
I have paid her so much money. Like, yeah. We were at Disneyland and I was like, can you just please get a video clip of me going around on Dumbo and waving? Because she didn’t want to get on the ride. And she was like, Mom, why can’t you just do it yourself? And I was like, fine. What if I pay you 10 in Robux?
And she was like, Oh, bet. And then she just stood out there. I mean, she got different angles. She got vertical. She got horizontal. I mean, it was great. I feel like all of us. You know what? If someone made a training for photographers and really all business owners to teach their teenage children how to make and record videos for their reels, I feel like there’s a money opportunity somewhere in there, right?
Rebecca: There probably is. I will say my, both my kids have taken my camp, um, but my younger daughter has done it twice, once at her school and once as a camp. And she’ll comment, like, I’ll have some images up and she’s like, mom, why didn’t you frame that better? Her mom, that’s underexposed. And she makes all these critiques of my images.
So it’s, they definitely learn a lot in the class, but I had a goal of doing a one month video story. Challenge. I made it seven days, which actually was pretty good. But she had all the feedback about my videos and wanted to record them for me instead of me. I was doing selfies and she’s like, I think you need help.
Colie: Maybe she can talk to Chloe. Maybe she can convince my child to be a little nicer to me. I mean, I feel like she’s hit 13 and she keeps on talking about being an actress and wanting to take dance lessons and like all of these things. But I’m like, you know, I could pay you like real money, like as an employee of my business in order to do these things.
And that just doesn’t seem to be getting her motivated enough to actually do it.
Rebecca: Yeah, you’d think she’d rather do that than unload the dishwasher. So, you know.
Colie: Yeah, but her dad does make her unload the dishwasher. I mean, okay, so we’ve talked about your class. So I want to talk about your preschool portraits. I mean, you have lots of things with children, which is absolutely amazing. But how did you get into preschool photography for like your very first school?
Rebecca: Sure, so to back up a little bit, because I think I glossed over it, before I was a photographer, I actually worked as a pediatric nurse practitioner. And so that training as a pediatric nurse and nurse practitioner really, I mean, I went into that because I loved kids, but I can see how those skills really translate into working with kids, whether they’re with their families or in the preschools, particularly the kids who are shy or uncomfortable or don’t really want to take their portraits, you know.
I gave kids injections and did procedures and all those kinds of things as a nurse, so
Colie: Mm
Rebecca: photos are way less painful. But I use those skills really to work with them and get them comfortable, you know, with photography. So, I transitioned from nursing into photography after living overseas. At that time I couldn’t work in nursing and really developed my photography skills and then started my business.
So I actually first started doing some school portraits back when I lived in Taiwan. Because the school photography at my children’s school, I don’t know, didn’t really, I don’t want to say anything bad, but it wasn’t great. And so, I took a course, the School of Photography course from Elena S.
Blair, and from that developed my own style. I do things a little bit differently than her, but use that as a basis to develop all my systems and everything. And then from there, once we moved here, I just started contacting local schools, and it’s been a combination of… Email pestering, and persistence, some phone call persistence, and I’ve also had some of my family clients with younger kids reach out to their school directors for me and connect me, and that’s also really helped too.
Colie: I mean, so it’s a combination of cold pitching, which I know cold pitching gets a bad rap, but like, if you don’t ask. What is the expression? Closed mouths don’t get fed? I mean, if you don’t ask, you don’t know if the answer is yes or no. But it is nice that you’re also using, like, your family clients as a way to get in the door, so to speak, on some of the preschools that their children attend.
Because if they’re hiring you, And they’re spending good money for their family portraits. Those are the same people that want good, like, school portraits of their kids because, I mean, although I do feel like having those life touch, super awful school portraits is like a rite of passage. I have some super, super awful ones that will never see the light of day.
Chloe’s are all cute. I mean, but also Chloe has the option of like having these really colorful backgrounds. Like she told me four times her last time when she was in public school. She’s like mom make sure that you get me the backdrop that’s pink and purple and I was like, okay I mean, I really don’t want that picture, but I will do it for you
Rebecca: Yeah, I’ve heard actually recently from a mom of an elementary school child that her kid was like, I need to pick the lasers or the confetti or whatever. So yeah, I don’t have those. Funny backgrounds, but I was gonna say actually most of my preschools it’s a good split between family recommendations, cold pitches, and then also SEO.
I’ve actually had a fair number of schools find me through Google, and I rank highest for schools actually over all of my other offers, but that’s actually been really beneficial as well because I think it gives directors confidence too,
Colie: I mean, so let’s talk about your website. That wasn’t where I was going next, but Hey, I love to follow my, my, my, the people that I’m interviewing, their lead is great. You know how I feel about a really well done website and really awesome SEO. And after you worked with me on your Dubsado services, you got a whole new brand, like you got a new website, you got new logo, new colors, new font palette.
It’s all amazing, but. Talk to me about the website. So does the school portraits is everything on one main website for your business?
Rebecca: Everything is on one main website right now, so it opens up and the main homepage has, you know, starts off with my services in terms of family, maternity, newborn, but then it does go into schools, and then also goes into education at the bottom, so everything is all there, and then, you know, you can use the navigation at the top to get to the different areas, so my school page, is pretty robust now, and I think really gives directors a good feel of what they’ll get from working with me, and, you know, my background, and then I have the education.
piece separately there too. So yeah, it got much more robust and much more colorful.
Colie: Yeah. Do you have social proof on your school photography website
Rebecca: As testimonials, you mean? Yes, of course.
Colie: Do you know? Let me ask you a question. How did you solicit those testimonials and are they from parents? Are they from directors or do you have a mix of both?
Rebecca: So, that’s a great question. I found, actually, when I was having a hard time booking schools a few years ago, I realized that I was communicating on my website to families and parents. Not to school directors, but the school directors were really my clients for schools. And so I changed all of my approach to being towards school directors.
So the testimonials that I have there are from school directors. I think I might have one or two from a family as well, but each year at the end of the season, which I have two, so I have my fall season and my spring season, I send an email out to all the directors and like assistant head of schools that I worked with and just ask them for a testimonial and And then families who send me a love note, I guess you could say, for lack of a better word.
Yeah, like I’ll get, I just got an email yesterday and the mom was like, I cried when I looked at these pictures, you know, she’s like, you really captured my daughter. So those families who kind of send me those love notes, I’ll reply back and be like, you know, thank you so much. Would you mind sharing it here on Google?
Because they’ve already done it, right? So they’re more
Colie: And I honestly can’t remember, Rebecca. It’s been so long. Are you sending the emails to the directors through Dubsado asking for feedback? Or are you sending like an email blast through like Flowdesk? Because I can’t remember if we set one of those up for you when we did your Dubsado.
Rebecca: so when we did the Dubsado set up, we didn’t really set up much for schools. I’ve actually been working with, Sarah at Joyfully Organized. And so we’ve been kind of trying to work out a process for me in Dubsado for schools. I haven’t quite finished it yet, so it’s not quite up and running.
Since it has just a little more, I don’t know, there are a bit more steps, like sharing the logo and the roster and all of that. So, I’d love if I could at the beginning of the season. Or I guess it would be a few months before, but basically contact all my schools and then they could self schedule and do everything there.
But I don’t quite have it, but it’s almost. It’s in the
Colie: hmm. Okay.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Colie: Amazing. Okay, so that’s what you’re doing for your preschools. And so, like, So you have your website. How do you know that you’re actually getting inquiries from SEO? Like, how are, how are you tracking that?
Rebecca: So in Dubsado, when people fill out my contact form, there is a question there that says, where did they find me? So any school director could comment whether it was a referral from a family or from Google. So that’s how, and any school actually that calls, sometimes they just call me, and so I ask them because I’m curious.
Yeah.
Colie: Okay. Are you tracking the analytics on your website? Like, are you looking at how many hits you’re getting on your school page? Because if you’re not, that’s the next thing that we should do.
Rebecca: Um, that’s a good question. I’m not sure if I’m looking at that in particular, but, yeah.
Colie: I want you to add that to like your list of analytics, because I mean, and you are currently not having this problem. So believe me, this is not for you. This is probably for someone in the listening audience. Whenever you do like a major overhaul on your website, and you want to make sure that you’re either not losing the SEO that you had before, or you want to make sure that like this new website that you’ve paid all this money for and put in all of this time and energy into is actually doing what it needs to do.
You can’t necessarily just measure that by the inquiries that you’re getting. I mean, it’s great if you’re getting inquiries to where you’re not questioning whether or not your website’s working, but if you’re not getting inquiries, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your website is doing its job. Like, you have to look at Google Analytics, or I actually use something called UseFathom.
It is a paid service. It’s relatively cheap, it’s like 14 a month, but that way you can see on the back end of your website how many clicks you’re getting, where people are going, the average time that they’re spending on your website, all of that kind of good stuff.
Rebecca: Yeah, and I can definitely tell that my school page, it just feels more comfortable to me, actually, and I can see for directors how it’s really working. I still have some tweaks since the changes to make for my family side of things, but, um, yeah.
Colie: There she goes. Okay, guys, I’m not having to lead this conversation at all. Let’s talk about those families because, of course, that was the main thing that I set up for you in your Dubsado. But you also went through like some major changes when it came to newborn maternity and family photography. So first of all, you use Simple Sales and you hired me to do your Dubsado.
And so overall, how has that been working for you? Ha
Rebecca: I will say the process took a little longer, maybe than I would have hoped it would take, but I also probably bit off more than I should have for a small amount of time. So, you know, I’ve accomplished a lot. Actually, when I look back at what I’ve done in the last year, I’ve done a lot. So, with the website change, I launched Simple Sales at the same time.
And it took a little bit longer, I think, for that transition to convert into simple sales clients. But I still had my previous clients who, you know, had some sessions booked out and I’d offer offered, you know, like a short term like book now at last year’s prices kind of thing. But I’m now booking people in simple sales and that feels great.
And having it all automated and set up like. I actually sat at my computer pushing something and I was like, that was it. I don’t have to do anything else. It’s done. How’s that possible? So that’s pretty amazing. And definitely it’s just finding those right clients. You know, like the Bluebird clients, like Aname says to really come to you and they want your services and they will follow that simple sales model and they’re.
Super excited about it. So, um, just takes a little time to, I think, find those clients, but that’s going well. And then I also launched the membership service just this year. So,
Colie: that.
Rebecca: Yeah, and so, you know, that was one of those things where I was just like, okay, I just have to, I just need to do this. And the part that was hard, which you and I talked about, was I’m launching this to all prior clients, but none of them had followed the simple sales model before.
So, So that was a little bit tricky to, you know, do that transition, make sure I was educating them, but also thinking about how to kind of make that switch for them and show them the benefits. So,
Colie: I mean, I feel like that’s the perfect transition to talk about why I actually invited you onto the podcast. Guys, Rebecca is amazing. I would have invited her on the podcast eventually anyways, but the thing that stuck out in our last conversation, so after, I mean, I did her set up more than a year ago and she came back to me this summer and she said, okay, Colie, I’m launching the membership.
I’ve taken everything that you did for my simple sales families and I’ve done it for the membership. But I’m just not feeling confident enough to hit push like she’s like, I think it’s going to work, but like, can I hire you to go in and make sure that it’s going to work? And I was like, sure. I mean, if as long as you used everything that I gave you before, it probably just take 30 minutes.
So we scheduled a 30 minute call. I went through, I tested, you know, every part of her system to make sure that the emails were going to go out, the booking form was working, it was applying the correct 12 pay payment plan, it was going to have auto pay required, like all of these good things that we talk about when it comes to doing an annual portrait membership, and you know, actually, maybe I should take a step back because I think we’re making an assumption that the listening audience knows what we’re
Rebecca: yeah, probably.
Colie: Annamie Tonkin of this can’t be that hard. Not that this is a sales pitch guys, but she has a course where she teaches you how to create a portrait membership for your business. So you have the same clients that are hiring you year after year, and you create a system where they agree to pay you.
In 12 equal payments over a year and they can basically schedule their session whenever they want, but like, as long as they’re in the membership, they’re getting a slight discount off of like your published prices. They’re also getting some like membership specific bonuses, but so Rebecca came to me and she’s like, just make sure that it’ll work.
Rebecca: I was nervous. Yeah,
Colie: she was nervous. I mean, as Rebecca is normally nervous, I mean, a lot of my clients are nervous, but Rebecca tends to be a little bit more nervous, even though I have, I swear, guys, I have more faith in her than she does in herself, but that’s okay. That’s what I’m here for. So I went and I tested everything and I fixed the few things that I found was wrong.
And I was like, okay, you just need to fix. I think it was like two emails, right? I was like, go rewrite these two emails and then you’ll be ready to go. She Instagram DMs me later that day and she’s like, Oh my God, I just hit send. And like my first person already joined and I was like, that’s amazing. But then she followed up with, and why don’t you tell me what you followed up with, where I was like, Oh my God, can you come on the podcast and talk about this?
Rebecca: yeah, so, I, my goals, you know, this time since it was the first launch and also transition from, you know, Sales models. My, you know, my goal was small, but the four families that signed up all had some history with me of basically signing up or wanting to sign up with me at an auction. And I think three of the families actually had done an auction session and one had signed up and like didn’t win, but I ended up working with them afterwards.
So I just found it really fascinating that those were the clients that converted into being my membership clients.
Colie: I mean, let’s take a step back because again, I feel like you and I know exactly what we’re talking about, but the listening audience might not. So, first of all, what was the auction like? Like, where was the auction? How did
you
Rebecca: Oh, sure.
Colie: auction? And then, like, what was the actual offer that you made to the auction winner?
Rebecca: Okay, so, for the, few years of auctions, it was basically an offer for an all inclusive session, and I had quoted that it was a value of, I think, 750. I don’t actually know what they paid, but it was, oh gosh, not really live bidding, but like a,
Colie: Uh huh.
Rebecca: Where you walk around and you fill out the amount.
I totally spaced out the word. so anyway, that’s basically at local school. So I think three were at my children’s school, and then one was at like a neighborhood, additional local school. And so with that, you know, families were able to see my website and get on there and check it out, see if they’re interested in working with me.
Yeah, so it was an all inclusive offer, so I did offer the option for an upsell for products afterwards, which about 25 percent did.
Colie: I feel like it’s very, it’s very contentious in our industry about what happens when you are offering things like that for free, because you quite often have people who take you up on these offers as a way to like get a cheap photography session, or they’re not necessarily your ideal clients going forward.
And so. A lot of people will just do it for visibility. Like they’re not really thinking that they’re going to get actual paying clients for their full offers from this auction. But the fact that you did it at your children’s school. And that three people who got an all inclusive session. So, in other words, they didn’t have to pay you any money.
They could have just taken their session for whatever they bid. Because again, we don’t know if you valued it at 750, they could have gotten it for like 200. They could have gotten it for like 800. You just don’t know how much they paid. But the fact that. Three of those families all decided to come in and pay you way more than 750 for the next year to be part of your membership and to get their annual session.
And then the bonuses that you’re offering, I mean, that is just amazing. And it, you know, you told me about the one and I was like, Oh, that is fantastic. I mean, and then you were like, Oh no, I got two more. And I was just like, two more auction families. And you were like, yeah. And I was like, okay. I think everyone needs to hear this because like, if you do free, well.
There can be benefits after whether it is visibility, it’s marketing, it’s actual sales, it’s adding people to your client roster. And so the fact that you did it with three families in this membership model, which of, you know, we all know that the benefits of the membership model are that you’re getting paid.
every single month, regardless of when they actually choose to have their session. Have any of them had their session yet?
Rebecca: actually, I just did one last weekend, and I, you know, thanked her at the end for, you know, signing up for the membership, and she said, Oh, we were so excited. You’re just making it so easy. And she said, We never get our photos with you, so we were all on it. To do the membership. So, yeah, I think it’s great.
I was excited that it, you
Colie: That’s awesome. And that was August. That was August when you launched, right? So when are you planning on doing, cause I mean, I personally do two launches of my membership a year. I mean, it’s only open to my returning clients, but I allow people to come in in January or July. And so are you planning on doing like another push after the holidays in winter?
Rebecca: You know, I I am because since that time, you know, I’m getting new clients this fall So I don’t really want to wait all the way till the next August to offer that I want it to be a bonus and you know something that they’re excited about So I do plan to launch in January and also I have more headspace in January So, you
Colie: Have you thought about doing the one off invitations that Annemie teaches to where right after someone finishes their session, let’s say in fall, and you’ve delivered all of their goodies, that you offer them a spot in the membership, even if it isn’t actually when you have like an open enrollment period?
Did you consider that? And if you considered it and decided not to, let’s talk about why.
Rebecca: Okay, I did consider it, but I decided not to just because this season is so busy for me, particularly with the preschools. So I think when I counted, and these are days at preschools, not necessarily based on quantity or whatnot, but I think I have 26 shooting days at preschools this season. And so, yeah, and so with that I was like, I think adding one more new thing might be too much for me.
Colie: Okay.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Colie: the one thing that I would suggest, just cause I’m like, you know, I feel like I’m your systems coach, even though I’ve already, you know, completed your systems. I do feel like you should warn them that the invitation is coming, even if you don’t have the bandwidth to actually offer them like the actual proposal so that they can sign up after their session, like in your thank you.
That was so great. I would actually add a little blurb now that you have the membership that, hey, I just want to tell you about this thing that I have. Yeah. And, you know, membership is going to open in January. And so if this is something that you would like to consider, keep your eyes open on your inbox in January, that way you’re kind of planting the seed.
And then those families that are like, Oh my gosh, this sounds amazing. Especially after they’ve just done a simple sales session with you. Cause I feel like you haven’t even gotten the real gold you, you know, you originally put this to people who weren’t. under your simple sales, sales model. And like, now you have families that you’ve done this with.
And so, you know, their response to your membership drive in the next run just might be different because those people came into your business under a different pricing model.
Rebecca: Yeah. I agree. And I wrote it down. So. added it to my to do list.
Colie: I like to do lists. You know that I like it when my people check off everything. I mean, so let’s just talk about your growth because I feel like you just said. So many things that you were doing inside of your business, which is amazing. And you’re actually keeping them all straight. And I also feel like all together, they’re like pieces of the puzzle.
Like all together, they are really helping you build the business of your dreams. And I know the last time that we chatted, I mean, I’m not going to give your numbers away on the, on the podcast because that would just be rude. But I do remember that you gave me the number that you made the year before working with me.
And then you were like, Colie, I doubled it. And I was like, Oh my God. I mean, are you still on a really good trajectory to like do your growth every year with these additional streams of income that you have going on?
Rebecca: You know, I am. So about 18 months ago, I really made a push and a decision to fully invest in my business. And instead of it being kind of like, A part time thing on the side that I have asked like I mean to be honest, right? I kind of was like, oh, hopefully some clients will show up. I mean I had a website and everything don’t get me wrong But I was definitely not out there Working as hard as I have been this year and the last 18 months but so yeah I made a decision that this is where my income is coming from and it’s going to support my girls and I and I’m all in so I’ve really worked towards maximizing not just having like these three different areas of my business, but within them how can I be the most efficient and basically get the most from all of them, so with with each one it’s a bit different But I am on track again to increase my income this year over last I will say for right now I think a lot of that is really coming from the school side of things
Colie: hmm.
Rebecca: but Somehow I really was dialed in right on how to get, get those schools and make those changes.
And so I’m using my schools to hopefully also grow my family side of my business. So I’ve recently just implemented a new email push that’ll go out through flow desk. So when the day I show up, yeah. So the day I show up and deliver the photos, it starts an email campaign of five emails, introducing them to me again and to my
Colie: we had that conversation. I’m so excited. I didn’t have anything to do with you building this, but we had a whole conversation. I was like, if you’re not doing this, this is something that you should definitely be doing. And I am so happy to hear that you do it. You know, Rebecca, what I love most about you is that you are an action taker.
I feel like I mean, because like you said, you just scribble down what I wrote. I feel like you are one of those people where you’re always listening. For ideas and other things to implement inside of your business. And when you hear something that feels good to you, you immediately scribble it down. And you’re like me, you know, maybe you don’t have it done by the next week, but like when it is appropriate to actually implement it in your business, you are just taking action.
And I am just so proud of you.
Rebecca: Oh, thanks. Thanks. You know, I’ve gotten so many awesome ideas like from your Mae’s podcast. And I think that, you know, you can just try out what works for you. I think, you know, there are things that may be suggested to me that I tried. I’m like, Oh, this doesn’t, you know, this sweater doesn’t fit me. Right.
Like, or whatever. But, but then other things people suggest and you’re trying, you’re like, actually, this really works for me. And it might not even be. always if it works best for me, but also how it works for my clients. So I’m finding that You know, I’m requesting a call right away, and that’s not always working out.
I’ve unfortunately had some people ghost me They’ve scheduled the call, but then they ghost me and I literally never hear back. Why and some other steps So now I’m trying doing like the video Proposal review and then saying would you like to do the call? And so, you know, I’m finding good use with that, too So it’s you just have to try on all different things and see what really works for you and your clients to move forward so
Colie: I mean, but Rebecca, you have no, I, I mean, maybe you do know, but I feel like people, you just have no idea how many people invest in like a course or a done for you service and they have it done and it doesn’t work exactly as they expected it to, or it’s just not like the perfect fit for their business and then they just decide, oh, that’s not for me.
And they just move on to something else and I’m just so happy to hear that. You know, you tried the system. The calls aren’t quite working for you. And so you’re like, okay, I heard this really good idea, which, by the way, that was 1 of my students. Sabrina wrote in, which is the 1 that was doing the video calls, which I was just like, oh, my God, that’s amazing.
I should try those for my business. But I am really, really excited to hear that you are pivoting to that to see if you can increase the number of people that are engaging with you at the beginning. Because I mean, the truth is, if you’re doing something like simple sales or really, you know, any kind of photography, if you don’t have your full prices on your website, and you need to communicate that to some, to someone, somehow, if you can’t get them to engage with you.
You don’t even know if you were a good fit for them. It’s like a missed or a lost opportunity that you just never know what could have been. If you’d had that opportunity to like explain your process and what you offer and all that good stuff.
Rebecca: Yeah, and I think it’s, you know, the video to me also is really an additional way for them to meet me, right? Like, it’s not live, it’s not a huge time commitment for us, me, or the clients. They can watch it at 2 in the morning if that’s when they’re awake, you
Colie: If that’s their
Rebecca: Yeah, like I’m not having a call with someone at two in the morning, but if that’s when they watch the video, you know, that’s cool.
And so I think it really gets their personality. My personality is transferred, you know, literally on the call last night I was apologizing for the Minecraft background noise that kept happening. So I think, you know, They know i’m a mom, right? Because I couldn’t get through the whole thing without pausing to talk about Minecraft for a second and I think that really just makes me real and it’s much easier for them to want to invest I think in supporting a real You know, person whose personality works with them.
And then it just depends on the client. I do like to get on the phone with them or Zoom, particularly if I’m doing an in home session and haven’t met them and they’re not referred from someone, because I just want to make sure that, you know, it’s going to be a good fit and it’s safe and all that.
Colie: Oh, you mean you don’t want to show up at someone’s house and have them dressed in like a baptismal dress? That happened to me one time. I don’t talk about it often, but there was one time I showed up at a house. They were originally supposed to be a fresh 48 client and unfortunately we couldn’t do their session in the hospital.
So then when I went to their house, they were 100 percent the perfect client for me in the hospital. They were 100 percent not the perfect client for me in their house. And it was like right after that, that I reworded like prep emails. Like, you know, the section in your contract, if your hospital session is missed, like I rewrote that whole thing.
It only took me 24 hours. Cause I was like, this can never happen to me again. And so I feel like all of us that do in home sessions know, like we have to prepare our clients. So they know what to expect when we come in, because it is a different beast than like taking them outside with the pretty outdoors.
I mean, Portland’s gorgeous. You guys always have rain, but other than that, you’re gorgeous.
Rebecca: Yeah, and I also just want to make sure I’m confident and feel safe going somewhere, you know, so if I meet them on Zoom, I feel pretty confident to move forward if we’re meeting at their home. If we’re meeting at a park, it’s not so much of an issue, right, because it’s in public, but just knowing that we’re a good fit, I think is important.
Colie: I mean, I haven’t thought about this in years, Rebecca, but when I used to teach the art and business of telling stories, which was like my, we’re going to get into your education. That’s a good segue. When I used to teach that and people would ask me about like my comfort level and going into people’s houses, I literally haven’t thought about this in years, but I used to leave the address of every house that I was going to up on my computer.
And I, I always had my find my iPhone, you know, and usually, gosh, I haven’t really thought about this in a really long time, but I used to like text James before I was going into people’s houses and be like, okay, I arrived. I’m going into the session. I’ll call you when I’m done. I mean, I haven’t. I haven’t actually done that in years, but in the beginning, when like going into people’s houses was not really normal for like the average photographer, there was a little bit of apprehension.
I mean, and there was only one neighborhood that I went to that I was like, and then by the time I got to their house, it was fine. But like, I drove through a really bad neighborhood to get to their neighborhood. And I was like, wow. And then I realized, no, it’s fine. They live on a really cute block with a lot of really old people.
It’s fine.
Rebecca: Those old people will keep you safe.
Colie: Yeah. I mean, right.
Rebecca: They pay attention. I, yeah, so, and I still do that. You know, I let a friend know where I am and the address when I have an in home session. Mine are definitely mixed, whereas yours are all in home. Mine are a mix. I’m always trying to get more families to do in home sessions.
I would say I probably do about 25%, um, for families in home.
Colie: And what’s your ideal? Because I, you know, I’m always interested in this. What’s your ideal percentage of what you would like to do in home versus going outside?
Rebecca: I would like probably about 50 percent to be in home and 50 percent to be downtown. Urban. Yeah.
Colie: You like urban backdrops?
Rebecca: Cause that’s, you know, really for me in home and urban backdrops are where I can kind of combine that color and composition piece, you know? So if I’m in a park with a green background trees, you still use some composition and it just depends what they’re wearing, but it’s not as, Inspiring for me, I guess, as it is when I’m in someone’s home or downtown.
You know, in someone’s home, they might have a cool doorway or mirror, or I’ve been really lucky actually recently with doing some family portraits where they’re close to a window, but then there’s a picture frame on the wall and I’m getting their reflection in the frame. So there’s just all these extra things you can do in their house that you can’t do in just a park.
So.
Colie: I mean, we talked about your educating of the children, basically creating our future photographers. Hopefully, let’s talk about your other education offering, because I mean, I pay attention to color. I pay attention to composition, but not as much as I pay attention to the moment. So tell me about your class.
Mm hmm.
Rebecca: Yeah, so I have an online course about composition and color use for photography, and it really, the course itself has three parts, so you know, it goes through the basic of all the composition facts. I wouldn’t list them, that would be really boring right now for everyone, but, it goes through all the composition facts, goes through color theory, and then talks about how to mix and merge them together, so it’s actually like using color theory to make a stronger composition and all that, so I put them together, and then talk about how to actually do it.
So it’s one thing to know what, you know, the rule of thirds, it’s another thing to be out in the real world and to actually use it, while you’re shooting, and then also in editing to make the images stronger. So within the course, in addition to little videos that go through all the content, you know, there’s a PDF and all that good stuff, but I also have a shooting video and I voice over the whole thing talking about Why I’m doing what I’m doing, you know, so why I’m changing my perspective or why I’m standing so close to a wall you know or whatever it is and And then show the images that I took and then also the edited images and then there’s also I forget how many but there’s multiple Editing videos as well and show how I enhance the composition in color with the editing.
So
Colie: I mean, I love a good before and after, I mean, and then doing it as like a behind the scenes shoot. I think that’s, that’s what people always found most fascinating about, like, asking me about how I do the in home sessions, because people just didn’t realize. I mean, no, I’m not placing people where I want them.
I am talking to them the entire time. But these are things that you don’t know, unless you’re actually watching someone do it in the moment. And then if you’re showing like what you did. And then that like amazing image that you got at the end. I mean, I think everybody would opt in to see that kind of transformation.
So guys, Rebecca is going to have a link and a discount code for her course inside of the show notes. Rebecca, I mean, we talked about all three branches of your business. Is there anything that you feel like we didn’t cover that you thought we were going to?
Rebecca: I don’t think so. I mean, I think one thing that I got from you, I have to say, I’m working with you is really the importance of efficiency so that I can have these three arms of my business and make sure that they’re profitable so that I can do this for the long term. So, I think it’s really important for people to figure out how to do that.
No more like papers keeping track of my clients.
Colie: I mean, every time someone tells me that they wrote something down, I’m like, have you guys have never been in my office? I, I can’t write stuff down. Like that piece of paper is pretty much gone. The moment that I stopped the scribble, like, everything has to be electronic for me, or I can’t find anything.
But yes, efficiency is definitely the name of the game, Rebecca. And I’m so happy that you chose to work with me to get all of your systems together and that everything is just coming together for you. So nicely.
Rebecca: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Colie: All right, guys. So I hope I mean, this was not meant to be like an advertisement for me, my services or Annamie’s, you know, simple sales course. I mean, we just happen to know a lot of people who really benefit from these things. But what I am hoping that you took away from my conversation with Rebecca is that you really can be multi passionate.
As long as you have systems behind it and like boundaries and you know what your capacity is, there is no rule that says you must only do family photography. I mean, Rebecca is just the best example of doing all of these different things that are seemingly very different, but they can actually all lead you to that same ideal client just in different ways.
All right, Rebecca. So before we close out this podcast, I’m going to ask you the question that I ask everyone.
And that is, what was your biggest fuck up in business? What did you learn from it? And how did you grow?
Rebecca: Okay, so I had two, and the first one was not having a strong enough contract once when someone came back upset about their photos. It’s only happened one time, but it really made me dive into the contract and get that, ship shape and signed, and it doesn’t matter if you’re my friend.
You’re still signing it. You’re still reading it. Yeah. And then the second one was not outsourcing editing sooner. I think that that was really… Taking up so much time and once I realized like if I have that time back I can Dive into all these systems and update my website and all of those other things So outsourcing editing actually really made a big impact and for my school photography I just started using AI editing for the school.
So it’s that’s been a life changer
Colie: I mean, Rebecca, I could have you back on the podcast for a whole other episode on like the actual things that you outsource and how AI is being introduced in your business. But guys, I really, I hope that you have taken something away from this conversation because while Rebecca is my client and I helped her with her Dubsado services, and we chatted a lot about like simple sales and revenue on repeat and all of those kinds of things.
things. I hope that what you’ve walked away from this conversation with is that you can be multi passionate in business. You can do different things inside of your business. And in the case of Rebecca, they kind of all lead back to the same ideal client, which is both fascinating and amazing. And it makes your marketing that much easier.
So Rebecca, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This was a blast.
Rebecca: thanks for having me Colie I can’t wait to listen to the next episode
Colie: All right, everyone. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.
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