Steve Saporito Education

Master -servant Relationship Master -servant Relationship. You need to work as a team. You're not beneath taking the rubbish out and neither are they. Right. They're not your servant. You're working as a team. That could be part of their responsibility, but that doesn't mean they do it every time. Right. The one thing my staff loved about me was that we're busy with clients all the time. If the bins are full, I take them out because I'm the one that's free right now. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I don't do it for them. I do it for my clients because my clients don't want to see a bin that's overflowing with, you know, wipes and shit. Yeah. No, it makes sense. It makes sense. I have a friend who owns two hugely popular bakeries in LA. They're called Jones on Third. They're insanely popular. Joan is kind of a celebrity and she washes the dishes once a month, which in the busy cafes, really shitty job. And she does it because she didn't do it for a year. She did it one time and she discovered that the way the dish thing was set up was so inefficient. It was shocking. So she had the whole thing renovated. And then she said, now I'm going to wash the dishes once a month to make sure that this always stays efficient. And it made a huge difference in her business. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

You're hiring personality first. So always you're looking at personality, which means that your interview questions need to be behavioural. Interview questions. Can you give an example of some questions you yeah. So what sort of role are you trying to fill? So I actually definitely feel like I don't want a photographer at all, because it's actually the one part of a business where I feel like I don't need any help. I'm all set there. That's bullshit. It no wind machine for you. Because you're an owner, you shouldn't be doing any part of your business. But I want to keep doing the photography. That's the part that I like different. That's different. Wanting to and having to is different because if you get sick or if something happens or if you want to take a holiday, your business stops. Wanting to and having to are very different things. And okay, you're not at that stage yet, okay? But looking into the future, if the right person is sitting there slapping you in the face and because you're so close to it, you don't take up that opportunity, I don't want that to be the case for you because that is fucking bullshit. That you don't need a photographer because that's part of your business. That potentially if, as an owner, you're building your brand and you're building people's desire for. Then are you really going to be doing every shoot? Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

I heard somebody. Yay! No, she's gone. She's gone. What happened? Good. She booked like everybody she talked to and the sales have been great, but I haven't even gotten the payer commission because she heard therapist and heard disgusted and she didn't have enough structure because she was working. Yeah. Right. She was working from home because we're in a pandemic, right? And she wasn't actually living here at the time. She was going to move here and then she would have been working with me, but she... I think that's... I think this is part of planning when you are hiring somebody that most people need guidelines and most people need set hours that they're expected to turn up. It's great to give people flexibility, but they need a minimum requirement. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Okay. So that leads me to my next question. Can I kind of ask two questions in one? Yeah, go. So, along those lines, one of the things I've kind of been obsessing over and I kind of landed on one side of it, but I'm still questioning it, is bringing in someone who I would call revenue generating. In other words, someone who could do lead calls or do discovery calls, versus bringing in someone who would take a host of the admin off of my plate, which would free up more of my time to get better at discovery calls and get more leads, et cetera, et cetera. I've kind of landed on the side of the admin, but it makes me question myself because there's no direct revenue generating that they're bringing in. And then the other piece, well, freeing. Up your time is allowing you to generate more revenue. Right. So the fact that they're going to be freeing up some of your time so you're right. There's two ways of looking at it. The more time that they free up for you to do the revenue to generate more revenue, the more revenue you're going to make. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

All right, so you're about to employ your first employee. That's very exciting. But look at your face, girl. Like, what is all this rubbish anxiety about? Like, really terrified. I am fucking terrified. Do you want oh, it is recording. I wanted to remind you to record. If it wasn't yeah, we're recording and we're capturing every swear word that comes out of your mouth. And the deal is you're not allowed to swear more than me because I'm the king of swearing. Well, I was going to say I think Anita should keep track of both of our swear words, and whichever one of us swears more gets a prize. Right? I don't know what it is. Sounds good. All right. Where is this anxiety coming from? What are you most afraid of? Okay, so I'll start with the Good super, like, just Brief Story, which is that new amazing studio that I'm in is also in this beautiful neighborhood, which my old studio was not. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Episode 5:- Time Management So one of the things that seemed to be important to you when we were speaking earlier was that you felt that you were so tied to your business that you weren't giving enough time to your family. Your family is growing and you want to spend more weekends at home, more weekends being present for your family without those thoughts of shit. There's so much work to do. Yeah. And you're gone. Physically gone. So I think that the trap that we fall into when we become photographers is that we believe we have to do everything. And what we seem to do is create work and create busyness. And we become what we've really done is created a job for ourselves. But very few of us have really become business owners. So rather than you being a worker, you need to start to think of yourself as a leader, somebody that is there to empower people. And I know this is going to be scary, so brace yourself for this. Brace to be better than you. You because if you only hire people like you, then they also can come with your faults. True. Yeah, that's true. Right. So what we tend to do is hire people like us. But people like us have the same fears, the same fears about money, the same fears about talking to people to get on the phone to do all those sort of things. What we have to do is hire in the talent that we don't have. So there's got to be things that you could outsource and you got to look at. And the other thing you need to do is look at where is a person's value? So when you think about Jen, where is her value? What's her strengths? Like connecting with the. Pete people and taking their picture with a camera hands and not sitting behind a computer screen. So she may be good at retouching and sitting behind a computer screen and editing, but if you're saying to me her true value is the way that she connects to people, and if she does get in front of somebody, is she really good at connecting? And does she convert bookings? Oh, for sure. Because that's where the money is 100%. That's where she's more valuable, 100%. So can we make a decision now? That part of her job, where she's sitting behind a screen, where she's not being valuable. I mean, there's value in doing it, but we can outsource that quite easily, right? So the fear that I've always had is that that's how I supplement part of her income. That's how her income is determined, is how much editing she's doing. So by outsourcing it, the money that I was paying for her to do it is going somewhere else. So she wants to make more money. So I didn't want to take that away. So you were sacrificing your time and everything to do edit for us so that you could make that money to justify your salary, but you're thinking of. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Episode 4:-ReferralsOkay, so in this section, what I'd like, you asked me about the fact that you've built this huge asset over the years, which has been all of your weddings for the past how many years? Seven. Seven years. There are three ways to build a business, okay? The first one is to get more clients, which is what you're doing. You're always looking for more clients. It happens to be the most expensive way to grow a business, because you have to market for them. You have to find new people. It takes a lot of energy to educate them and bring them in. And you've got to think about, well, how many emails do I need to answer before I get one? How many interviews do I do before I convert one? It's the most expensive way to grow a business. Unfortunately, it seems to be the only way. Photographers the only thing photographers tend to focus on, the next one is getting your clients to use you more often, which is a much cheaper way and a less stress free way, a less stress free, stressful way of doing it. Okay? So what needs to happen is that the clients need to be educated, that you do family portraits or that you're going to offer it. So there needs to be somewhere in your meeting area that you meet them, a representation of that. So you've got to think about, okay, I've got a couple coming in, and they're getting married. What is the next life cycle that they will be going through? So having something with a newborn, okay? And my advice to people is to get a half decent looking guy holding a baby, because nothing makes a woman melt more than seeing a guy with a baby. Okay? So. But what I see a lot of photographers do is they find these hot mums holding a baby. So a woman looking at a really hot mum and I made this mistake at an expo once. This is why I know this. We had this rock star looking mum with a perfect body. She was slender with this beautiful belly. And we had this awesome display and I'm like, why is nobody stopping? And then I walked away from my stand and went to stands up and I was listening to the people as I were looking and they were like as they're going by bitch. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Episode 3:- Forever Sessions Okay, so the next part is you mentioned that you're giving away the engagement shoot, and you are wanting to work out how we can go about making some money out of that. Yeah. So, to me, our industry has put such a heavy label on the word engagement shoot that if you call it an engagement shoot, people's perception is exactly what the industry is giving them. It's complimentary, it's free, and it's for a save the date card. Okay. So what we need to do first is change our perception about what that's all about. So right now, why do you do an engagement session? It's time to connect with clients. It's a good time. We get to know you. It's like test driving a car. You already bought it. You're with us. It's a nice like to see what they're like. They're a connection in front of the camera, make them comfortable. So it's definitely about that. It's about making them feel comfortable. It's about getting them to learn hand signals and how to work with you. But how much do you really learn about the client before you take those photos, before they engage? Not much. We learn while we're shooting. Yeah. I mean, it's essentially a discovery, and even then, we're not like we're just we're still locked in our art and doing what we're doing, and it's not like a proper we have 90 minutes. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Episode 2 :- Wedding Album After-sales Okay, so for this next section, we're going to be talking about how to get sales after the wedding for the wedding album. So it's the on sale afterward an album and the after sales of an album does not happen by accident. Okay. So you've got to understand that when a client first comes and sees you, how long is it before a client? But from the time that the client first comes in and sees you and books their wedding, how much lead time is there between that and the wedding? It varies from it can be a year and a half. I'd say the average is about a year, nine months to a year. Okay. You honestly believe at that point they have any comprehension of the scope, of all of the little details that they have planned, all of those little details, and have now become important enough for them to pay a ton of money for for the wedding? No, they have no idea. So at this point in time, they think they only want this much photographed. So do you believe that it's fair for you to assume that after they've put so much money and so much time and so much effort into all the details that you would restrict them to their initial decision? No, it's not fair at all. So what needs to happen is that there needs to be this communication between you and the client. How much communication currently do you have from the time that you book them until the time that you wedding day. Or fulfill the product so they book. You, when is the next time you contact them? There's an automated email that sends out a questionnaire three months of the wedding to gather information so we know and then we may or may not suggest a meeting if they need one. But usually we just show up where they tell us to show up. Zero. Okay. What would happen if you were to call the father of the bride a month in and say something like, hey, it's Jeff. I'm going to be photographing your daughter's wedding. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Episode 1 the Right Focus for Wedding AlbumsI'm here with Jeff and Jen, and we're going to talk a little bit about their business and what they would love to bring to their business. So, Jeff, tell me a little bit about your business and when you're at, where you're at. So we're cook photography and we're associate model studio, I guess, if you will, of there's five, four photographers, and we're wedding. Including yourself? Including myself. And we're our wedding studio. We shoot weddings. So last year, this is the first year evolution, where we have two new associates that have just joined us, but for the past six years, six or seven years, it's been Jen and I, and Jen's grown into an associate. And like last year, we shot 50 weddings together, and the year before it was 54. So we brought in two new associates to help with the overflow of saying no. And that's where we're at right now. So you have to say no right now. Oh, yeah. Which is really hard, right? Yeah. Okay, so where do you think you have the potential? Where are you leaving money? On the table, basically. Oh, it's definitely weddings. Our model right now is we book the client, we go to the wedding, we shoot it, edit it, give them the files, digital files, and then move on to the next one. And so we've been shooting for seven years together, and we have an average, let's say an average of 40 weddings a year up this point. And if I was going to combine our total post wedding sales into a profit or how many albums, it would be not even a full year's worth of album. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

This segment, we're going to talk about one of your fears, which is that you don't want to come across as a sleazy salesperson. It's a big fear. Yes, huge. So as long as you're not sleazy, you're okay. I think any type of any like, for me, personally, I'm really sensitive to being to feeling like I'm somebody's trying to sell something to me. Yeah. That disingen with interaction, where they're just trying to come get my money. So that's just a huge concern. We don't want to ever have our clients feel that that's what we're doing, that we're taking advantage or using them. So given what we've done today in the setup and the layout and the changes we've suggested, can you feel a difference in the way that you will be presenting to make it easier for a client to make a decision already? Because right now, how you've set the room up is going to create exactly what you want to try to avoid. You can't not think about what you're not supposed to think about without thinking about it. Okay? So I don't want you to think of a blue tree. Whatever you do, please don't think of a blue tree. I don't want you to think of a blue tree. So the more you think about being a salesperson, the more you will be one. So what you avoid, what you resist, persists. Okay. So the more you try to avoid something, the more you become that person. So the whole purpose of what we did today was to free you of that. Okay. We're making it easy for clients to make decisions, and we be making it we're subliminally drawing their attention to things that they may want. Your job is to help clients make decisions and to not judge people. By that, I mean, we should always offer them something rather than judging them. As though they can't afford something and feel as though we can't offer it, because that's even worse, right? So the whole process from the beginning to end is geared at when you're asking somebody, what is it about this person that when was that moment when you first knew she was the one you wanted to spend the rest of your life with? Where were you? What was happening? What was it about that moment? What was it about that moment that you knew she was the one? You suddenly become the person they want to hire because you saw them. The three things that most people want the most is to feel seen and to be heard and to feel loved. And if we can give people this, you become so delicious, they just want whatever you have to give them. And we have to be genuine about this. The whole point of a wedding interview is to work out, are we the right fit? It's not about selling everybody into a package, right? It's about finding out, interviewing them, are we the right fit for each other? And then serving them with the intention of creating an experience that's going to make them fall in love again. If you do this properly and you follow the system, those that couple, when they come to their wedding, what you've done is you've created the best version of that couple that they're ever going to be, because you've given them the support. You've called their parents, you've called the father and asked him, what is it about finally. Handing your daughter over to another man, what is that going to feel like? And then he's going to go through that. And then what you're doing is you're bringing people together and you're opening communication. So the end result is going to be when you photograph them, they're a completely different couple because of the experience you've given them. At that point, it doesn't matter what you take, what photographs you take, they're going to love it more. BecaWelcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

This is our first impression for our clients. Okay, so this is really important. The one thing that you need to be conscious of and the one thing that I faced when I turned up with the Uber was, shit, am I in the right place? Okay, so having something that lets people know it's okay. I was freaking out, ringing the doorbell, thinking, Have I got the right house? I checked the address four times, and still I was, like, hoping, okay, so whether you have, like, a little sandwich body type thing that you can put just on the verge there maybe I think, coming up, you've got no option but to walk past this area. So having something here with your logo and brand and just letting people know that they should be going that way, because when we came in, I was greeted by somebody I didn't know. Right? And I'm like, oh, no. My greatest fear has just happened. And I think you've got an awesome opportunity down here to almost be funny and have fun with them and let them know to open the gate. You could almost have a beautiful piece of artwork there. Where when we started doing that at some of the studios, we would start selling artwork for people who had outdoor rooms. So they tended to be metal prints. People who build al fresco areas or when they have spa areas that are sort of covered, they would then put outside so it's like retail space, and then maybe just have them coming and directing them somewhere back there. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

For this next segment, I want to talk about artwork and how to build artwork and and how to create artwork that is going to inspire people to buy and also inspire referrals. Okay, so when a client coming to you for a wedding, what are they coming here for? So they book you for a wedding. What predominantly? What sort of product are they? They they're coming to buy predominantly. What's their focus? We've done album consultations, so one of the biggest complaints I hear from photographers is that they're my best friends and we make spill such a rapport, and we get along so well. But I meet them two or three years later and they've hired some other photographer to take their birthing photos, to take their, their newborn photos. And I know they've paid a heap of cash for those photos. Why didn't they come to me? And the response of the client is that, well, we didn't even know that you did anything but weddings. So I think there needs to be a representation on your wall, on your walls of the next stage of their life cycle, because predominantly they're here for an album and you'll have that cupboard. But we want a client for life because it's a lot of work to get a client. It's easy to keep them, but we need to send a clear message that we're not just wedding photographers, if that's what you want to do. We want to be your family photographer for life. It so it's our responsibility to make sure that they get that. So I think it's okay to have a piece of wall art for their wedding. I don't think it's going to impact whether they're going to book you for the wedding or not. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

You. Okay, so I want to talk about getting referrals. Okay. So there are three ways to grow a business. Okay? Do you know those three ways? Get more clients, which is what photographers believe is the only way we can grow our business. Shoot more. Shoot more. Find more clients. New clients. New clients, yeah. Second way is getting your clients to use you more often. And that's why you need to start to become because finding clients is hard work. Finding awesome clients is even harder because you have to sift through everyone to find them. But once we've done all that work right, we need to find ways to serve them again, because it's so much less effort. They've already been educated. They already understand us and trust us. We don't have to spend that time building that trust. So we serve them again. It's an easy way to grow your business. Third way is to increase your average sale. And that is the easiest way to grow your business. Because if you do how many weddings a year? We did 15 last year. 15. So if you could increase how much people spend with you, multiply that by 15, like we talked about the projection. Okay. And how that just by that scenario, in the room set up, on average, most people will sell an extra $850. So if all of your weddings spent an extra $850, would that make a difference? Definitely, yeah. Huge difference. That's probably equivalent to doing two or three more weddings. When you do have a logo on your artwork, a client who is committing to a substantial amount of money. Usually for the photographer, that's an extraordinary amount of money. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Okay, so we now want to talk about where are you going to put me? So you've offered me a drink, I've come in and you've opened the room up so I can see the product comfortably. Usually I'd love for you to refer to something that you believe they're going to want or they've mentioned during all of the discovery calls they may want. So you said look, this is what we were talking about, how you said you wanted this for your lounge room. There it is. Okay, now it's time for me to sit down. How do you do that? Pretend come get comfortable. Go ahead and take a seat on the couch. Okay. So you be my wife. Okay. Yeah, we have a seat. Okay, cool. All right. So you want us to sit here. Okay. So you're there. Yeah. Cool. Okay, so from a wedding interview point of view, I think this scenario is fine, but if you are sitting me down to show me my wedding album, the way this is formulated isn't right. Okay, so if we were a couple and we were going to see our photographs here okay, so sit back as if we were going to do that and we're going to pretend we're going to be seeing it and you're directing it from is that how you would normally oh, you haven't really used it, have you? So from here okay, who is Isaac to you, other than your husband? Sorry? If you're a client. If you're a client, who is Isaac to you from here? For me, he feels like the salesperson. Okay. And. He's higher than I am. He's leaning forward, and he's on an angle directly at us. So from here, he really feels like a salesperson. The ideal situation would be that he would be somewhere here. So if we just shuffle along okay. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Okay. So the next thing I want to cover is you've greeted them. Now it's sort of time to build the rapport. All right? So building rapport is all about mirror matching their body language. Okay? So say you've got the Ultra Eagle, so the lawyer who is coming in ready for a combat. Okay? Okay. Right. They'll tend to walk in like this, all right? So what you need to do is match him exactly what you just did and then drop your arms. Okay. Match him and then drop your arms. And what will happen is subliminally. He'll loosen up without you feeling threatened. So rather than going, I've got to deal with this person, let's build the rapport. If you offer him a drink, because he's here for a combat, he's probably not going to accept. So it's really important to have at least water on the table set up before they come in, because as you build that rapport, he'll relax and he'll want to drink. Now, what do we tend to do with our friends and family when we go out? We go out for drinks. Drinks? Or a meal or snacks. So if we can offer them something and they partake in that, then we're beginning to build rapport with them. Excellent. Okay, so the preference is we want them to drink with us. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Okay. So right now, what we're going to do is pretend that I'm going to be a client. Okay? And this is the meet and greet. How do you how do you sit them? Where do you put where where would you put them? Because I need to know sort of what's happening. So I'm walking in the door. So I've just so usually when we come in, walk in the door. We come in. We're always we hug. How's it going? Hey, how you going? Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Just throw one at me. So usually it's, come on in, make yourself comfortable. What can we get you to drink? Don't do usually just do it. Come on in. Awesome. How to see great. Let us get you a coffee. Would you like any cream in that? Right. So we do that. So we have people come in. The clients we work with are people we spend a lot we invest, we spend a lot of time with them. So it is like a friend coming over. So it's a big hug. Usually we have bubbly, so we pop the bubbly. Because it's usually evening consultations. We get that going, and we usually spend the first five to ten minutes just catching up. What's going on? How are things? All right. So I think for the first part of what you just did, you've rushed me too quickly to sit down. Some people might find that a bit threatening in that they're thinking that, okay, you just want to get me down to business. Okay. All right. Because sometimes, depending upon the layout of the room depending upon the layout of the room that we've got, and it's a tight area, but not that we can't use it, my preference would be that if we redid this okay. Hi. How are you? We've done the hugs. I would much prefer that we are standing for just a little bit longer. Okay. The other thing that that does is it allows me to soak up some of the product. So right now you need to walk around a little bit. So right now, you need to be consciously aware that you both are aggressively blocking me as I'm walking in, which is not your personality. Okay? So you were both sort of like soldiers here. And what that does is you're creating a barrier. From here, my energy is going. Got it. Throughout the room. And from where you are and from where you are right now, you being the taller one first. And it's sort of spreading me right to the penthouse, which is where you want it to be. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

So what I want to take you through is to work out where the orientation of the room should be in order to maximize this space from a sales point of view. Okay? So what I've learned over the years is that projection is way better and results in a much more confident client. Clients feel much more confident when you're showing them their photographs or artwork to size. Okay. They're not great at visualizing stuff. So if you can project usually the studios that I've switched from an LCD screen or working from a computer screen to projection without any sales training whatsoever, on average, their sales go up about $850. The next thing we need to think about is where is the penthouse? In this room? About 65% of the population is right brain orientated. Right brain orientated. I'm doing my aussie talk fast thing, so I'm going to slow down. They're right brain orientated. And what that means is when somebody's thinking about something that they're remembering, they tend to look up to the left. Interesting. Okay. So they'll go think about it. And so they're looking at their artwork. Then they're going so they're entering their visual remembered mode. So for most people, not every person, the upper left quadrant is your penthouse. Okay, so if we orientate this room and and to really orientate this room to go where it is now, the couch facing that wall, because the walls, the, the room is narrow, they're not connecting to anything because this wall is too far away. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Hi, I'm here in Portland, Oregon, and I'm at Wayfair studios, and these are my hosts for the day, and we're going to be looking at their studio, which is a I can't say it garage. Garage. A garage transformation. We would say garage transformation. Go for it. Tell me a little bit about yourselves. Eyes. Okay. I'm Isaac Marshall, and my wife and I, we shoot together. And behind the scenes, I tend to handle a lot of the financial stuff and things like that. Cool, you do the boring stuff. Yeah. I'm Jen, and who is this? What's your name? This is ayla she's our little assistant. She's the spark of the group. She is. She's our sparkle girl. Along with shooting responsibilities, I do most of the client communication, ordering, and then all the editing. All of the editing. Wow. While he's doing all the financial stuff. Yes. So we each have our own tedious task. Awesome. So how long have you had this transformation? So we have had this studio working now for the previous few weeks. So it's about three weeks ago. We had everything done and decorations and everything and started hosting clients here. Awesome. But you've been in business for how long? So we've been in full time business now, starting our second year. And we've had our business on the side part time for about seven years. Congratulations. Thank you. So what was the purpose of doing this? This was to give us a place to work, to kind of separate ourselves. At home. We wanted to separate this from our home also as a space we could meet with clients. Awesome. Okay, great. Is it finished? It's not finished. Not quite. I feel like we're getting there, but there's just a few little touches here and there just to make things more comfortable and easy to see products and things like that. Awesome. So what's missing? What's missing? Well, when we started arranging the space, it was meant to be more of a working studio. And as we have started adding when you say working studio for shooting sorry, excuse me. We come in here and do our work with our editing, with our more like an office. An office space. Okay, great. And as we are evolving to now include it to be more of a client space where they come in, where we're able to share products, we're trying to find ways to set things up so that it's aesthetically pleasing and easy to move around, easy to display. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

If you took out all of the spaces horizontally and you just shove those together, there's a lot of expos where it's just like one long rectangle of. So it's like this? Yeah. No, so you have, like, twos like they're back to back. So if you took out the middle rows that let you cross over them, they would just be shoved together. Like you would just shove together. So it's like one long aisle, but. Not road idea, what you're saying. Oh, there's no gaps. There's no gaps. Just one street, basically. So if that's how most of the bridal shows are and then you'll have the double space. Double space, then okay. Yeah. You'd still want to be a little bit further in. You don't want to be the first one unless you're, like, in building number four. But a double space. Okay. I would get a double space. Because there's no way you can display what you're doing. Right. You want people to come in. So I would get a double space. Open it up. Done. Okay. All right. And then don't forget, too, that when you and this I'll do in the set up next. Lot of videos that every meter has a light. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

If I were you, Christina, but I'm not if I were you, my expectation would be that at the weekly meeting, you have a weekly meeting that every single one of your team members is coming up with a possible alliance because of the because of the conversations that they've had with people. So the photographers because, um, when they were photographing, she mentioned that we didn't realize this, that they also own not only is he a lawyer, but he owns another business that didn't come up previously. Once a week, multiple lines and two, everybody has to come up in business, and they also need to present their favorite story or transformation of the week. The other thing is that we used to run in our weekly meetings because you've got new start new team members, is that I would also ask them to bring a photograph that they believe is a bread and butter photo that people tend to buy plus one that they think is a bit more creative. And then that photograph has to be handed put in the center of the table. And then you need to let them know if that is a bread and butter photo or not and why. And then if it is, then everybody, we have to go around the room. Give me an emotional word that describes this photo. Give me an emotional word that describes this photo. Emotional word. Emotional word. Emotional word. Emotional word. Emotional word. We go around again at least three times. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Huge. Let's see if the parking lot was yeah, I see the parking lot was here and they did not have this entrance. They had to go in here. We were here in the parking lot here. We were the first one to enter. Oh, so in reference to that, you were the first one here. Yeah. Right. But they had to go hundred yards to get to the building, so they. Had to walk past you to get into the entrance. It was real bad. So you were not even part of the show. At the time. We're like, oh, well, when they're done, they'll come out and exit and have to go back. No, they're exhausted by then. The kids are ready and they want to go. That's not happening. You don't want to be there for the exit. You want to be there for the entrance. I came in Tim, so when I came to the Expo, they let me come in the front gate and I walked straight into your I just see you and I walked straight into you was the first day. Right. People are always wondering, okay, is this something better? And they want to check everything out. So as the husbands are drooling and the wives are bored, you need to. Be amongst the drool areas of deciding month and a half out that we're going to do it. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

It's choice of product to display. Really important that you choose the right product. You have to send the right message to your clients when they come to your promotional booth or your Expo booth. I like to have so this is Jason's. I just grabbed. What grab? So they're not spectacular photos, but for me, it was really important to have something that wasn't $5,000 or $4,000, particularly sort of near the entrance. So that's why we've got the objection handler here. So the whole point is to be able to quote people when they look at something and tell them how much something is. If this was a promotional space in a mall or a really high traffic area, I probably would have preferred this big one that you udanada over to be a TV screen with photos rotating and a message of book now or something like that. Because we've got so much space on either side of it and the windows are so big. I think for a high traffic area where you want to stop people, most people are quite mesmerized by anything that's on a TV. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

So choosing our location. So obviously for a promotional stand like Jason's, we did a tour of the hotel. They sort of had already decided. But when I came, he said, look, you can also do something. Now, you know where that area is of the hotel where the games area was. There's two glass rooms. He said, we can do something in here. So they basically have meetings and stuff, which for me, our avatar isn't in that bar, really. There's that whole gallery in front of the lifts where all those paintings were. We could have filled that entire gallery, which, again, for me, people that are going to those restaurants at the other end where it actually is situated, receptions there, it's going to be a higher traffic area. The brand of renaissance that is not only pet friendly, I think it's a difference between pet friendly and pet encouraged. So this particular space hotel is pet encouraged. So that's part of that decision. If we're going to be running this sort of a promotion for pets suits that so think about the avatar that's going to that area. When it comes to an expo, you decide on the expo. Now there's a big decision on where am I going to have the stall. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Okay? So the next thing is what to look for when you're booking a promotional space. So the first thing is that we need to look for whether this area or this location matches your avatar. And if it doesn't, don't do any more work. It's a no. So a lot of the times we get these phone calls with buyer sales pretty much on advertising space in a magazine or advertising space somewhere. We used to get them for expos as well because we used to do a lot of expos. And then we'd ring us saying, hey, we had somebody cancel. We have an expo on next week. If you want a stand, a normal stand that we would take is about $8,000. Are we going to give it to us for 2000? But if it was at one of their baby expos that I know when I do my research that people that are going are not paying. I've already heard on the radio that, come and get your free sample bags. And it's all about free giving out free stuff. Nobody's paid to get in. This is not my avatar, okay? Because people that are going to that tend to be people that are just going in and what they I've seen it happen. They line up at the Hines, it's a baby food stand, and they go and get their promotional bag because they get two free jars of baby food. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Okay, so let's work, let's work through the five reasons for a promotional space. So the first one is to increase access to your avatar. Okay? So we're looking for spaces that are going to give us that access to our and it's always coming back to our avatar. It's so important for you to know what your avatar is, understand your clients. So the big corporations spend a lot of money on market research to research their clients habits, what they love and what they want. And we need to pay attention, really understand our clients, and constantly be refining who our avatar is as we learn more and more about them. Okay? Bookings. We can get instant bookings. So when I ran a promotional space, although I had a studio in a shopping mall, occasionally when bookings fell, I would take on a promotional space. And my team knew that I wanted people in my chair today, okay, it's instant bookings. So it instantly places qualified bookings into your calendar. So because we are setting up a promotional space where our avatar would normally be hanging out, we've already started that filtration process, okay? Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Alright, so the next thing we want to talk, I'm going to talk about is running an expo or a promotional space. A lot of you have been down to the Renaissance to have a look at what Jason and Christie have created for more creatives and that's what I'm referring to. So I'm going to qualify this by saying I honestly believe that expos and promotional space need an entire, um, educational program around it. I feel that because of that space being so close, it's a great opportunity to start talking about it. This is not going to be how to run one of those things because I honestly feel that this is going to be a two or three day program just on running an expo. But we can cover a lot that's going to prepare you for that. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

So the next part of this is your responsibilities and what are they? So please make sure you're checking what we call gaming legislation, whatever that translates for you to make sure that you're complying. Okay? From what I understand in the USA, it's different in every state permit. So just make sure that you're complying because it's a competition. In Victoria, if it's a competition, you need a permit. It's a dollar or two for this permit. It's ridiculous. I don't even know why they bother. But if you don't get the permit, then you can be fined $25,000. Okay? Because the way we've worded this, this is not a game of chance. Because you are selecting we're not picking it out of a hat. It doesn't fall under the gaming legislation for our state in Victoria. But you need to check your legislation in your town, make sure you're complying with whatever needs to be complied with. Okay? Just find out about competitions, how they run and whether it's different, whether it's a game of chance or whether it's because for all of the people that are nominating that they would love to receive one, their chance to receive one that could be construed as part of that. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

So the client of the month timeline. Okay, so the first step is that you must must provide exemplary and exemplary experience where you know that you have absolutely nailed a transformation for your clients. They're spending happily. They're they want to refer you more clients because they absolutely believe in what you've provided them, and they're talking more about how much they value this and how much it was worth them spending this money than feeling resentful about having to spend money. Okay. Step two, you need to check potential nominees against those fundamental ingredients. Okay? So only those people. So you might earmark ten people that you're going to use. And my expectation is that you are going to call each and every one of these people that you want to nominate. You're calling them, and you're letting them know that you're running this promotion, and you want to put them up for nomination. You're considering putting them up. This isn't a final yes you're in because you need to get a feeling for how excited they are about being part of this. You also need to get a feeling for whether whether they're willing to promote this through their social channels. And also try to get a sense of a lot of people start to use competitive language like they're already talking about. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Who to nominate. You need to select around five. I've had people that have done three. They've tried 710 more. It distracts too much. You need to do around about finding five, five clients. So for those people that are still working towards getting that transformational experience happening for every client, this is something that you want to aspire to get to the point that you can do this promotion. Okay? So I honestly believe that money is a reward for the value we give. And when I've had people that have clients that are consistently spending $5,000 plus, it tends to mean that are happy and are referring us more clients, it tends to suggest that you are consistently giving people awesome service and a great transformational experience. So you're not ready for this promotion if you don't have people spending five k a month multiple times. The next condition is that they must be active on social media and that they are willing to promote you. And what they're really doing is promoting themselves through their channels. It so you need to look, try to do a little bit of trawling on the, on the internet to see how frequently they're posting, whether they've got that interaction with their friends and family. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Okay? So the concept of client of the month, you have to reach a level where you believe you are giving clients that transformational experience that they deserve. And you need to know that you're doing this consistently. You can't begin to attempt to do this until you've got it right. The thing about this promotion is that it will generate more of what you've already achieved. So if you're not at that point where you're getting great clients and you are happy with that service and the client response, don't do this, because all it's going to do is magnify all your issues. Okay? That's why I've been holding off on this. But when you reach a level where you know that your clients are overjoyed with what you're doing, they're really happy, they're spending money, then what this promotion does is it allows you to access their friends and family. So the concept is that you put up I like five different awesome, raving fans up for nomination, and you let them know that you're putting them up for nomination and that their friends and family are going to vote for their favorite family of the month. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Next topic we're going to cover is Client of the Month, which is a promotion that I haven't taught publicly before. I've been waiting for certain people to get to certain levels before we can go into Client of the Month. So the focus of Client of the Month, I want to go through through the concept of what it's all about and how we use our Raving fans to then bring us more clients. So, again, this is focused on that middle segment that we talked about, of getting our clients to use you more often. When we talked about the three ways to grow a business, we really want to first be focusing on getting those referrals and getting clients to use us more often. And this helps us do that. I so the concept who you should be nominating. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

So the next topic is considering the value of your gift certificates and how to calculate that. So I like to assign a value to the session. It is a real value that we actually give to our clients. It's probably the most value because we are creating a transformational experience for people. So having that as part of the value is really important. I think, um, what I found is that some photographers are really boosting that value to be up in that 600 $800 mark and it's having an adverse effect on the average sales. I think that when you are charging and I think it's coming back to that mentality of a couple of years ago where people believed that if they got an upfront fee, then at least they got that upfront fee. It was sort of their either safety net or I don't know. I'd never resonated with that sort of mentality really at all. But what seems to happen is the higher you make it, if it's up above that sort of $300 mark, four, five $600 mark, people are coming in with an expectation of getting something and that's when they seem to start getting a lot of where's my files? Where's my photos? Where's all of this stuff that's included for my $600. Because people want something tangible. So if we keep that session fee at around and really we're talking gift certificates for portrait at the moment because wedding is completely different. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

So now we're going to talk imagery on the gift certificates and future sales. Raheel's given me a couple of his gift certificates and this was the first one that he designed and did, and he sent it to me a few days ago and I said to him, I don't like that one and I don't like the middle one. I don't like this one. He goes, but you approved it. I said, but back then, Raheel, we had nothing to work with. You weren't shooting for emotion, you weren't shooting we didn't have anything to work with. So, yes, we approved it, knowing that we're going to have to have to update it. So things that I look for, I love to have something that sort of is a bit artistic, a bit different, that catches people's eye, which the mask thing does. Sometimes shooting half a face or something does that too. Even though when we do that, a lot of people do buy it. So when you do that artistic type thing where you're only like shooting half a face or just an eyelash, people love it. There are people that love it and buy it. But then what happens in the minds of the clients are it lifts your credibility up and they tend to like the other stuff more because of that, even though they don't buy it. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

So what are the fundamental components of a gift certificate? So the value needs to be clear and prominent. We've got an example of a gift certificate that you can see in our membership. And I've tried placing the value in different quadrants on a gift certificate. When we put it in the top right hand corner, we tend to get the best conversion rates and the best sales averages. So my recommendation is for it to be up in the top right hand corner and for it to be clear and prominent. We've tried making it smaller, bigger, bolder, left, bottom center, top right seems to give us the best results. Imagery that inspires and supports future sales. So by that, I like to have imagery that crosses a few of those life cycles that we talked about yesterday. So then that way we can cast our net a little bit wider. Of course, it's going to depend upon your business. So there are some some photographers that only focus on one very specific niche. Obviously, if that's what you do, then you wouldn't be casting the net wide. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

We're trying to get our clients to use us more often. We're in that center circle of getting our clients to use us more often because we're going to leverage off all the education we've already done. So if they have something tangible that they can give to somebody, there's a reflection of what they could possibly hope for and has a value, then it's much easier for them to refer you. When somebody receives something more tangible in their hand, they're more likely to take action than if it's just them talking about you.They should have seen the artwork. A lot of people would have seen the artwork in another person's home, so they're going to have that, but maybe where they are in their life cycle. Remember, we talked about the life cycle.Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

So the next thing we're going to talk about are gift certificates, which really are the core of your marketing, physical, tangible marketing. So remember we talked about, yes, you might be doing some marketing online, but really we want to cover off all of this before we even go online because our alliances and all of the birthday mail, what we talked about yesterday with the weddings, you've already built a relationship with people. We're trying to get our clients to use us more often. We're in that center circle of getting our clients to use us more often because we're going to leverage off all the education we've already done. Click Play To Learn More Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Final Episode:-So when I did my BNI training, I created an avatar. And then I went up and explained how I did it, and the whole group went, oh, my gosh, this is yeah, we've never heard it explain that way. And so every Thursday morning, I just create a new avatar, and kind of in BNI format, but very specific. And this trained for that. So every week, we're required essentially to create a new avatar, which then goes into our company folder. It great. And what's important is that it does go in the company folder, and you're refining it. Yeah. Okay, so what I want you to do now is, once a month, go through the avatars and refine it. Because once you've written your avatar and then that avatar comes in and experiences the experience that you give, there'll be some of those fears, some of those things that you didn't see. Click playa to listen to the rest of this final episode Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

What is the message? Man the message is we have a big job. We have an important job for families, for the world, for humanity, to make people feel again, to make people stop and cherish just the smallest little details in life and not get lost in the noise and really just appreciate who they have around them totally. And this so much noise. Now social media is blasting us, and we live our social media life, which is very different to our real life. And we are probably the most photographically, most photographed generation yet, deprived of any authenticity in the photographs that we take and deprived of actually having photos. We have files, but files aren't photos. To have one of those photographs of that family for your children to walk in every day, even just to see that family, that last photograph together on the bed, just being together every day. Click play to listen to the rest of this podcast Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

The one thing in my mind with repeating clients and happiness, then what? So when you get them to come back and they want to come back. So they feel like they've filled up their walls when somebody really wants something, a fine space. I've had so many clients who have said, we don't have any wall space, we don't have any wall space. The reality is they don't believe you're going to give them anything valuable enough to display. And often when we go to their homes, there's all these massive walls with nothing on it. And that's why we have created product like the objection handlers that can fit in a small space. Okay? The other thing is that a lot of people, and they do this all the time, will swap stuff out, okay? Continue listing to learn more :- Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

So when we did our Glamour campaign, you encouraged us to have the husbands involved and make the call. Goes against everything I wanted to do. Well, goes against what the industry is telling us to do. Absolutely. And when we were doing Glamour Portraiture Beauty, it was about the woman. And you encouraged us to photograph the in. And we had a couple come into our studio and I did the calls. I was nervous about it, but we did it. We had them. And then come to find out during their session they used to be homeless and he had found her on the streets and they've now, 25 years later, doing really wonderful. And the picture that they wanted the most when they did their five piece was them holding each other's hands. And you could still see a little bit of the tattoo of the gang they used to be on, but they were saying that symbolized everything. That symbolized everything that was their relationship. And that picture alone, that's not something we would have normally included, but that picture was everything. press play to listen to the rest of this podcast Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

For me, the screening process of, of interviewing people was I wanted people that had spent over $5,000 wanted people that had spent over $5,000 as some sort of a bearing for me to get an idea of did did they receive value? And for me, I don't care what you believe. I don't care whether you thought you did a job, a great job. What I care about is what the clients think. One of my metrics for measuring my business and when I'm coaching studios is that I measure the referral rates. The referral rates tell you everything. So if if we weren't getting minimum eight referrals per month, direct referrals that we knew of, because there'll be all those people that come in and they've seen us before, they've seen us that maybe an expo, they've seen something, but then their friends said something.  Continue listing Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Welcome to our latest Podcast on Marketing. Each week for the next 45 weeks, we will release the how-to on Marketing for your Photography Business; We will Discuss everything from Opportunities to the Difference between Weddings & Portrait Marketing.Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Welcome to our latest Podcast on Marketing. Each week for the next 45 weeks, we will release the how-to on Marketing for your Photography Business; We will Discuss everything from Opportunities to the Difference between Weddings & Portrait Marketing.Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Welcome to our latest Podcast on Marketing. Each week for the next 45 weeks, we will release the how-to on Marketing for your Photography Business; We will Discuss everything from Opportunities to the Difference between Weddings & Portrait Marketing.Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Welcome to our latest Podcast on Marketing. Each week for the next 45 weeks, we will release the how-to on Marketing for your Photography Business; We will Discuss everything from Opportunities to the Difference between Weddings & Portrait Marketing.Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Welcome to our latest Podcast on Marketing. Each week for the next 45 weeks, we will release the how-to on Marketing for your Photography Business; We will Discuss everything from Opportunities to the Difference between Weddings & Portrait Marketing.Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Welcome to our latest Podcast on Marketing. Each week for the next 45 weeks, we will release the how-to on Marketing for your Photography Business; We will Discuss everything from Opportunities to the Difference between Weddings & Portrait Marketing.Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Welcome to our latest Podcast on Marketing. Each week for the next 45 weeks, we will release the how-to on Marketing for your Photography Business; We will Discuss everything from Opportunities to the Difference between Weddings & Portrait Marketing.Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Welcome to our latest Podcast on Marketing. Each week for the next 45 weeks, we will release the how-to on Marketing for your Photography Business; We will Discuss everything from Opportunities to the Difference between Weddings & Portrait Marketing.Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com

Welcome to our latest Podcast on Marketing. Each week for the next 45 weeks, we will release the how-to on Marketing for your Photography Business; We will Discuss everything from Opportunities to the Difference between Weddings & Portrait Marketing.Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com