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How to Build a Referral Stream and Book Photography Clients With Nate Grahek from Sticky Albums

 

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Join us in this week’s interview with Nate Grahek from Sticky Albums. He created Sticky Apps, which is an app popular amongst photographers and clients with their images on it readily available that they can share with friends and family.

Sticky Apps is a website replacement tool that creates a mobile portfolio of images, either in general or for a specific client. It creates beautiful custom mobile apps for clients with a drag-and-drop builder in a matter of minutes.

These apps function as advertisements for your photography business (with your logo at the top and buttons to call or email your business) while also providing your clients with a digital photo album that can be saved to the home screen of their mobile devices and shared with ease.

For more information you can visit https://stickymarketingtools.com/

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👇👇Check out these top 3 FREE downloads👇👇

💣6 Places to Find Your Ideal Client: https://programs.thehighrollersclub.io/6-places-ideal-clients

💣6 Things Killing Your Sales: https://programs.thehighrollersclub.io/6-things

💣Facebook Ads Strategy for Photographers: https://programs.thehighrollersclub.io/facebook-ads-strategy

About Jenn Bruno Smith:

After leaving a successful career as a ​speech ​pathologist and clinical liaison, ​Jenn moved into pursuing her business full time. ​She has been shooting boudoir exclusively for 4 year​s​ and teaching marketing and business to the photography industry​ for the last two.

You can catch up with Jenn in her group The High Rollers Club- IPS, Business and Marketing for Boudoir photographers.

About Nate Grahek:

Founded StickyAlbums in 2012; former portrait photographer and corporate trainer.

You can learn more about him through his website.

Transcript:

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:00:01] Hey, guys. Jenn Bruno Smith here from the High Rollers Club. I’m here with Nate from Sticky Albums. How’s it go in?

Nate Grahek: [00:00:09] Hey, Jen, thank you so much for having me here. It’s such an honor to be on your show. You’ve been doing such amazing things for photographers, for our industry. I love speaking with and helping other educators who are also kicking butt and just taking like, look, I’m not doing it. There’s no rocket science. There’s no magic. I hate doing this process. And you do such an amazing job sharing it. So thank you so much for what you’re doing.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:00:36] Thanks for making time. I know that you’re really busy and you’re over there with that really cool set up that I was just talking about naked side during that video. And like, what is this you have waiting behind you? You have like a crazy depth of feeling over there. And I’m here with my very small blog, a tech camera. These are not using the map camera anymore. Like I was saying.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:00:58] But baby steps are so good. All right. All right. So. So for our listeners that maybe are new to the industry or don’t exactly know, it’s sticky. Maybe you can talk to us a little bit about that and tell us a little bit about what you do.

Nate Grahek: [00:01:13] Awesome. So I’ll try to go fast because some of heard and some are new. So 10 years ago, I was a portrait photographer and stumbled across a marketing tool. I had been printing like custom business cards. Like if I had a high school senior client, I would make like 30 business cards just for them with their face on it. And then my logo and contact. Right. But that was it would work sometimes. And it wasn’t. Other times I had a day job and a new family and a mortgage and all this stuff. Hey, how can I get more clients? I knew that everything’s word of mouth. Like every Seth Godin says, like the foundation of all of our marketing is word of mouth. We can’t get that working. Nothing else we do works. And so it was actually my cousin. I was doing her portrait session and I gave her the cards and she goes. Luckily, she was willing. We’re in Minnesota, so people aren’t super direct. But she was like. Thanks. Maybe I’ll give these to my friends, but I don’t know if they want to take any, like, paper in their pockets. And that’s amazing. Light bulb moment was like, OK, in my day job, I was in training and development. I was working. I’m putting training content on mobile apps. How perfect. What if I made an app for you? I put your face on your own app icon and then you could share it on your phone. You could share it to all your friends phones with your best pictures. And she’s like, Yeah, I done date that. Be awesome. So I started doing it in custom coding. I wasn’t a coder, but I learned like h._t._m._l just enough to make these. And it started working so well that I had to stop doing it. I got too busy like it was so effective and direct, generating word of mouth referrals that I stopped doing it. And then I took a step back and said, you know what, more photographers probably need this. And so I launched sticky albums.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:03:11] It’s amazing. I’ve been using sticky for probably like five or six years now. Like I mean, it’s been a while. And, you know, I use it so much in case no one has ever thought of this before.

Nate Grahek: [00:03:25] They make the best grandparent gifts ever. So in addition to my clients, I also will make Christmas gifts for our family with my children.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:03:35] See, this is home and they love them. It’s the cheapest, easiest Christmas present ever.

Nate Grahek: [00:03:41] So I think it’s important to talk about like that. There’s actually the name. This is a fun story. The name Sticky Albums. It’s weird came from the book marketing book I recommend called Made to Stick. It’s just about marketing messages that should be sticky, right? That is different things you can do to make them memorable. So the custom app idea, the sticky album, the icon, it sticks to the homescreen. Think about marketing one on one like location, location, location and get your brand on the home screen of your clients and potential clients devices. That’s gold to be higher. And think about just the complexity there. Giving something to grandparents and parents just sharing. Like my wife went on a ladies trip and she’s like, how come? How do we share a gallery with each other? Like everybody’s confused. It’s so complicated. If you share it to people’s camera rolls, even if they can get the digitals, they get lost in the mix. If this is boudoir, you don’t want your your client doesn’t want third like their best boudoir images just mixed in their camera roll. Absolutely right. They want it like in a special spa. And then the other big difference. SHRADER That has worked out so well. It’s like a lot of I don’t know if you do any kind of online proofing. A lot of people do the proofing galleries. Those are great. I think that you did. But even if you do, they do proofing. Well, the thing is not marketing like. Right. People are not going to share woofing gallery of 100 plus pictures. Right. Right. And in epaulettes. Got a load. Every time they have to look for the u._r._l, they’re going to look on their email.

Nate Grahek: [00:05:31] And what I found that really I think we’ve had in the first two years, we had over five to six thousand photographers become members. We’ve had problems with the last number, like close to 30 million sticky Alby’s created. Now, it’s amazing. That’s what I think matters, is we can track unique views like how many different people viewed it and how many total views in the total views. Is is a lot higher and it lends proof to what I believe is the reason why this strategy. It’s since been replicated. I’m sure many people know there’s all different ways to do this now, even though we were the first and the best at whatever. I don’t care. Just use something because it works. What I think matters is it’s especially boudoir. It’s when your client gets their pictures, they open it up and they give their phone to their friend, somebody they trust. It’s that out of all of the ways, a word of mouth happens. There is no back in the day when Facebook pages were like all you needed to get clients and you just post and everybody’d see it like that slowly went away. And now a like in a share and all that stuff doesn’t mean anything. Right. Then your client says, Oh my God, you’re not going to believe what I just. I was terrified. But Jen made me feel so comfortable here. And they give the phone. And what. What do you think your client does? Well, their friend is swiping through the pictures. They’re giving you the most amazing commercial that you could ever pay. It’s Wirth’s.

Nate Grahek: [00:07:11] So much money experience.

Nate Grahek: [00:07:14] Bingo. Exactly. That is sticky album. Like I said, there’s been a lot of different ways to do it in the past. I think we keep innovating. Over the last eight years, I connect. You want me to show an example of what we’ve got recently?

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:07:29] Yeah, that’ll be great. And then maybe kind of talk us through because for our podcast listeners, you can’t see what you’re doing now would be great to end. You know, I think this kind of hits a little bit on the bigger picture of marketing, because that’s something that I think so many photographers. They need clients, but they don’t know how to get clients and sell. And marketing rabbit hole is something that really sucks a lot of photographers in and really gets them kind of that they don’t know what to do.

Nate Grahek: [00:07:59] They don’t know where to go. Sell some good. Yeah. I’ll go fast for those. I can’t see it. Just imagine. I think the magic feature really is that others. There’s so many it could show. But I’m going to say simple. The first one is your client’s space on their own app icon on their home screen. So it’s just all you to do is share a link. There’s nothing in the app stores or anything like that. So you were all and it becomes an app with their name. And here’s a wedding sample and then your logo is right on top. You’ve got the name of it. A nice gallery. They can swipe through. And then all of these great call to action buttons is cool. New buttons and even email marketing can be embedded on these. So that in short is the sticky album and it it saves off-line. That’s another big one. So when somebody when your client is in that a meaningful opportunity like out to coffee or they’re time to a friend, if they have to go looking for a link, they’re not going to they’re not going to do it. They have to sit there and wait for the images to download. It doesn’t fit into the conversation. It has to be easy and instantaneous. Right. And finally, I’ll say let’s dig into some of the coolest ways people have been using this over the last couple of years or years. Holy cow. You’ll see here 10 to 20 images is all you need. Is marketing not moving, right? Especially in boudoir. You can password protect, too, so that your client can only show who they want to share to.

Nate Grahek: [00:09:38] And even though they’re not going to share the link like other niches, we’ll share it to Facebook and stuff. Same boudoir clients do. But yeah, most of them don’t. Mine have. I love it. It know that even though you’re unique, views aren’t high. It’s those total views where the spouse like we’ve had these amazing, heartwarming stories where in the. Cherian Armed Services. They can’t bring their there. They can’t bring any of the stuff with them. They can have these meaningful images. Password protected on their device. And so these really powerful ways of have like all these people hugging and going on as you did, the guy is going to be the take home. So there’s that. OK, so let’s back out into tactics. I think that every client should get one. And so the way that works is. If you’re brand new, you’re getting clients, getting people talking about you is hard to do, just go back with all of our sticky membership’s. You get unlimited sticky albums. So just go back and surprise five to ten of your best clients in the last year or so. Hey, I made this cool gift for you. You have to do is open on your on your phone and tap this link and you’ll be good. Please share it. There’s an if there’s a referral code in there, if you anybody who mentions they saw the app you’re both gonna get a print credit for, you’re both gonna get something. Whatever you decide in zone. Go ahead.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:11:09] You know what I do? That actually makes them even more likely to open. It is on my investment menu. I’ve assigned a value to it. So it’s it’s three hundred ninety nine dollars for the first ten images and then two hundred and fifty for every ten after. So when I surprise a client with something that’s worth a thousand dollars, they are very excited and they’re more likely to show people because, you know, clients, we need to assign value to our work. And by having it written down, like that’s the be all end all right. For a lot of people. So it’s really helpful. And it actually, I think has improved the views and also smart. When I’m talking about it, when I’m using when I’m going over my investment menu at the ordering appointments, I will when I get to the place where I have my smartphone apps listed, I will show it to them. And so they know exactly what it is. They know exactly how to use it. And so when I send it, it’s not like this useless email. They’ve already been walked through it and I’m teaching them how to show their friends. Right. So that’s that’s the important part. Like knowing how to run an I.P.S. It really goes hand-in-hand with the marketing because I’m already planting the seeds to get them to market.

Nate Grahek: [00:12:36] Jenna, I love it. You just went through all of the big tips I was going to share.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:12:40] Tell your mother I’m not at all.

Nate Grahek: [00:12:42] There’s plenty more for me to share. So as we’re going to share a couple more cool things about sticky albums, guys. But if you are doing or you’re you’ve heard all of this already, you know, you’re using your business. We are going to talk a little bit about pricing and how yay, we’re getting you guys all of these referrals. But how are we responding to pricing inquiries? So stick around for that. Let’s wrap up with a couple more things. Absolutely. Showing people what if you have something on your pricing page or your pricing sheet or whatever a during a consult or during the sales session. Right. And there’s a dollar next to it, but they don’t know what it is. It’s worth nothing to them. Absolutely right. That’s why it’s so important for them to grab your print album, to turn the pages, to feel it, lift it up, to touch it, that they’re like, yeah, I can see why this is worth so much now. It makes sense. It’s we we people need to look and touch it. And so that is huge. So if I go back to that example, guys, you start by surprising all of your past clients and then they start coming in. And this amazing thing happens is you get these new customers, like my friend Julie showed me her app and it’s so cool.

Nate Grahek: [00:13:58] How do I get my own app right. When somebody is asking you that is the perfect time to make it a pull through or an incentive product that actually, as you just said, is it. So it’s it’s three ninety nine for ten images or it’s this or everybody who buys my top package gets this complimentary. Yeah. All that everyone’s like oh we’ve heard countless stories of people saying that they’re they used to sell like their top package half the time now they sell it all of the time. It’s just cool. Process where. When it’s in a console, when you can address their kind of their instant gratification. Everybody so like I just want the pictures on. I’m on my phone or I want the digitals. I just want just want to share that. Right. You can fill that need. So. Yep, we’ve got you covered. Hand. We pride ourselves on also helping you create artwork that will last for generations because who knows what phone is going to be around in 10 years. So I’m not going to give them to you on a DVD because who’s got a DVD or like who even has u_s_b_ ports?

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:15:05] I mean, why you’re so right. I was literally just having the same conversation with Skip Cohen like an hour ago. Same conversation. Because, you know, you think about like Siddiqui like peopleas to Burnside’s is right back when I started. I have a seedy drive anymore. And then like the ports for us drives. Right. Like my computer doesn’t have a port. I mean, there’s adapters, but, you know, when are those going to go away? And there’s it’s then the nature of evolution for technology. So by printing, it’s something that, you know, they will always be there, right? Yeah. Generations prior, I have my grandparents, Sprint’s future generation of our parents. It’s so important to parents.

Nate Grahek: [00:15:51] So you mentioned earlier this really powerful word. I think a lot of people are so afraid of sales, but you said it without even thinking about it. You said teach. And I think that is the difference. Maker separates successful photographers from ones that can’t that don’t figure it out when all it means we talk about doing in-person sales or doing any kind of sales. Gets old school like slimy pressure tricking. None of that stuff works it. Good, right? It doesn’t. It’s not. Nobody’s doing that. It doesn’t work. It’s like nobody’s if you’re not getting any referrals. All we’re talking about is education. When you can take the time to explain and to show and to teach all of these different things, I think that as photographers, we have a really unique challenge in a lot of other industries. If they’re being disrupted, like when people come in to buy a car. A lot of people, they know what car they want. I get hired to do all the research. I want this. This is like, can we make this fast? I wanna get out of here. All right. With photography, the gap of what they know is available to them. It’s so different when they a lot of times we’ve got to help them go from.

Nate Grahek: [00:17:07] Yeah, of course, I want the impulse of instant gratification thing today, but when you gradually guide them, you don’t actually. I used to only do what I like. I sent photographers to tell the story, to be honest and transparent. You know what? I used to do that. But it broke my heart that my clients images years later would be lost. Sitting on a hard drive or sitting on a shelf in a DVD somewhere. And they would always mean to do it, but they never got around to it. So my my my best client said that they didn’t have time. It was confusing to order stuff. The quality was crappy, I think. Have gone in the sales session. I think it’s a good idea to have like a Shutterfly or a target or some kind of cheap elbow. Yeah, they’re next to like your album. You can feel the difference and you can speak to the time savings like look. Yes, it’s one thing to have a blast on the shoot, but it’s going to give you images you can share right away while your prints are coming. But we pride ourselves on our clients, love us because we also help with this other important piece, too.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:18:18] Yeah, absolutely. I am I have credits in my investment and for that reason, I love it. What I tell what I tell my clients, because a lot of people will say I don’t really want to print because right issue Fedwire, but I really don’t know if I want to print anything. What if? Why do I need that credit? And I’ll be like, you know, while you’re purchasing my work by image, but I just include the print credit because I like people to hang my shit, which is true. You know, like I want them taking my work because it’s art. And I also want them to hang my work because it’s printed correctly. If it’s printed, it’s gonna look good, you know, because when you print them like wallgreens, like your skin could be gray, it could be, you know, purple and pull different colors. At least I know that my work is going to print. Wow. Because you’re right. We’re all calibrated when we work with my lab. So, yeah, I tell my clients exactly that. And then they’re like, OK. But my clients still don’t want to print. That’s where my sticky album comes into play, because then it’s priced appropriately that it will still eat up most of their print credits. So they still feel like they’re getting something of value.

Nate Grahek: [00:19:34] Good. I love it. OK. So if you guys want to learn more about sticky albums, I’ve got a free class. I teach like five quick tips on how to do to get more business, to get more referrals and just improve your marketing really easily. There’s a cool trick I love on how to approach social media differently. I personally get worn out on how to how many different new ones there are. I’ve got a cool solution to that problem, so there’ll be a link in the show, notes and below on how to get that free course. I would like to say that free class so good. But let’s switch gears into talking about about pricing. Yeah, that’s cool. So like as I was telling gentlemen in the free call, we’ve helped thousands of photographers get more referrals. And the part it’s changed many people’s businesses in amazing ways. Right. But the part that breaks my heart is I had to learn the hard way that a referral or traffic to your website is not the same as it booked client apps today. How well can we help photographers close the deal if you’re ever crushed with like an inquiry ghosting after you send them your pricing information like this next tip and tactic is is intended there to help you guys better respond to the pricing inquiry or to any type of inquiry. So, Jen, why don’t. I’m really curious to hear how you do it and me how it’s evolved over time.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:21:10] Yeah, that’s it. That’s a great question. You know, it’s so great whenever I talk to other people that do interviews, because then it turns to me like I really don’t do much work because more like it Asia. That’s great. So, yeah, that’s. Yeah. A great question. So this is something that a lot of our students and a lot of the new photographers or existing photographers that I teach. They get a little anxious about this because at my clients don’t actually see the full investment menu until after their shoot, when as soon as they finish shooting with me, they I email it to them. And there’s so many reasons behind that. And, you know, I’m sure a lot of you right now that are listening to this and watching on YouTube are like, wow, that’s so beaten switchy. But it’s not because I’ve done the education with my client well before. I’ve done a phone consult. They signed it in the contract. They’ve talked about the menu. They understand the investment. There’s so much education that takes place before. And the reason and also I should say that I did not come up with this. You will never hear me say that I came up with any of these things because nothing is new. Guys, it is. Twenty, twenty people have been doing this for decades. Right. And nothing is new. I know you have been doing this for ages. So, you know, there’s so many reasons why it’s importance to not just throw information at your clients. And that’s kind of what it is. You’re just kind of overwhelming them. I was talking to Nate about this before that. It’s kind of like whenever, you know, someone goes into a car dealership and before they know that they want a car, they they like a car. You’re throwing the instruction manual at them and saying, read this manual. They’re not going to want the car. They’re going to be overwhelmed. They’re probably gonna walk out the dealership. You don’t want to overwhelm your client with information they don’t need. It’s not. And switching. It’s providing a quality experience.

Nate Grahek: [00:23:13] Totally. There’s a I’m going to dig out for a second. So some people know what my background is. And I got my masters in education and training. And there’s this nerdy concept called spaced practice. The short version is we’ve all crammed for a test the night before. Right. We know the results. Right. And we’ve also studied like little by little they can at the same four hours we would’ve spent in one night space that out like a couple of weeks, like an hour here, an hour in the morning. The space in between is just as important as the time spent studying. Same thing’s true for your customers. They can not understand that level of detail, right. That’s the first problem when you if you give them a PDAF of your pricing and they’ve only been on your website for five minutes and you start listing all of your sizes and your materials and your prices people you wonder why people don’t value prints because they don’t want to read sixth sixteen by twenty four. They they read Lay Flat album. They don’t know what those things are.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:24:22] They have no concept of what it is. And you’re just overwhelming your client with information that they don’t need. They need to know that they like your work. People buy from people they know they like and they trust, and you are trying to sell to them by throwing your investment menu at them. You’re trying to sell to them before they know you. Before they like you. And before they trust you. So all that’s doing is decreasing the trust because you’re trying to sell to them already. You’re focused on the wrong thing.

Nate Grahek: [00:24:54] So good. Oh, my gosh. OK. So some of the things I wanted to call Jen on, too. She’s ready for this is the reality for Jen that I think is important to acknowledge it. I think it’s we all compare ourselves too much. There’s all kinds of Nasr’s syndrome and insecurity when we’re starting out. Right. Jen’s results. She can fill up her calendar. Very routinely because of a compound effect, because of years of hard work systems and marketing and brand awareness and referrals and customer base, and a lot of us don’t have that. And so instead you can still work a lot of the systems she’s doing. And it is a way to build towards some of these results. So go ahead.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:25:37] I was just going to say to I think it’s important to give yourself some grace in this and this process because no joke. I had a student in our mastermind course last week say it happened in the course for a week. And I’m not really you know, I haven’t booked anyone yet. And I was like, dude, you’ve been doing this for a week. That is a blink of an eye. That is one second in the lifetime of your business. I’ve been doing this since 2009. And not only that, like it took me all these years to get these systems in place. And I mean, you’re lucky you get everything in life, you know, and and a nice little package with a bow tied up. So it’s going to accelerate your process, but you have to give yourself some grace with it, too, and some patience that this this does take time. Marketing is a time investment.

Nate Grahek: [00:26:31] The whole thing. Yeah, I think we’re all it’s hardware. On one hand, we have access now to amazing educators like you think, which can make it easier. But it also kind of the insecurities can flare up to like, oh my gosh, we just compare ourselves constantly to everybody who’s got it better than us. We forget that my coach, I’ve been working with this great line. Where? When? When a new child is learning how to walk like a 1 year old, they stop and they stumble and they fall down. We don’t say, get up, you stupid idiot. They like we’re patient. We have grace. We need to learn to have more grace and patience with ourselves when we’re starting new things because we can’t expect to run right away. You’ve got to crawl in the other referral of a share. I love the book. A compound effect. Yeah. It’s a little things that built up over time, there’s no magic just doing the right thing and creating repetition in a system, right? There’s your health. Working out your retirement. That little one percent compounded over time. That’s what creates amazing success for people’s ears and businesses. But the hard part that I think you help solve. Let’s use the analogy of it’s like it’s February right now. So everybody’s looking at their New Year’s resolutions going, oh, gosh, what happened? Where you commit to a new program, whether it’s fitness, eating, whatever, and your master mind program. The hard part is that for the first 30 days of any new habit, we don’t see many results. We’ve got to trust that we’re doing the right thing right. That used to be when you were starting in 2009. You didn’t have many resources to tell you you were on the right track. You’re just having guests fall flat on your face and get back up and try again. Now people have that proven path they can follow right in that moment of fear. Oh, my gosh. Am I on the right track? Nothing’s different. I’m not booking any clients. Nothing’s happening. My sales are going up. Well, you’ve got to give it 30 days, right?

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:28:46] Yeah, at least. And the other thing that I see a lot is how you are saying that they compared to other people. It’s so important to stay the course and only compare your progress to you. And you know, too many people get wrapped up with there’s someone down the street that’s doing this for one hundred dollars. And, you know, I legit have another really successful Kidwai photographer who makes well over six figures a year and lives 10 minutes away from me and we’re friends. She came to my 40th birthday party like we shot each other in San Antonio. And then there’s there’s others in Philadelphia that are like 30 minutes away. But I can’t tell you what they do. I don’t know what Natalie’s prices are. I don’t know what Mike al-Abadi’s prices are. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m staying the course with what I’m doing. And I think that’s what so many people get lost in, is they just start losing their focus and all these other people. And what they need to do is stay focused, which we’re totally off course. Time is not.

Nate Grahek: [00:29:56] It’s all relevant. It’s so important for people to hear. I love that we went this way. So to bring us back. I got a quick teaser. This is one of my favorite stories to tell about high school senior photographer Melissa Hardon. She was on a coaching call with my team working on this new pricing guide. I’m going to show you guys everybody who has a sticky membership actually has access to this. You always got to be innovating and making new things. I love it. And it’s a deal about solving this problem. Like, how can we better educate? How can we make a better first impression to somebody who’s just made it inquiry and you’re busy doing family or other sessions or whatever. How do you make sure you’re answering their pricing question? But your primary goal is to get them on the phone, right? Right. So we launched this from Melissa when she was first working. And she’s. Actually didn’t tell me to told Shannon versus there’s no way that any and anybody in my city will spend more than three hundred dollars on a high school senior session. Just I’m already the most expensive in a small town. Nobody’s going to afford it.

Nate Grahek: [00:31:05] How often do we hear that? Right. How often? It’s so sad.

Nate Grahek: [00:31:09] It’s so sad that she says, I have Melissa on video saying this is then we made this online pricing guide system live. And since then, I’ve not had a session for less than a thousand dollars. Yeah, just like that. So. She’s not doing any sales tricks. She’s not like bait and switching anybody who’s just doing a better job of teaching people what to expect and showing them what’s available. So let me show you another thing. Another rant. I can go on. Is the main goal. Your Web site is not to book a customer. It can’t do that. It’s trying to give like too much responsibility to one thing. The goal of your Web site is to teach people some of the best photographers. If you’ve got thousands of images in your portfolio, your overwhelming people. Right. And just enough to be curious to like reach out and say, I want to learn more. And the form that it’s worked really well for us, for other photographers, is to say, hey, thanks for checking us out. If you’d like to get my free tips that I think every client should know. Enter your email address below along with my 20 20 investment guide. So those two things like give them free tips in an e-mail forum, not a. Form again here in Minnesota, other places. The only people filling out your contact form are people who have already decided they want to hire you. That might be enough people.

Nate Grahek: [00:32:38] But for many people, it’s not. You need to let give them a chance to know like and trust you. So give them first stop asking for a thousand things. Just, hey, I’m going to give you some tips. Launch launcher, a guide. Whatever it is. Right. What to wear. Got along with pricing so we can know that everybody just wants pricing. Right. So embrace that. Let that be. What we’ve seen is email. Those email contact form to opt in rate has doubled. When you combine those two things free to small along with want to see our pricing guide. Yeah. And then as soon as I enter the email it redirects to an investment guide like this. So this is a very simple page, Jensens. It looks kind of like a spark page. It’s all prebuilt with some of the really good copy and samples are in here for you just to swap out all of your own stuff. That’s awesome. OK, so let me where I went going and I’m excited about this. You can embed a cool little video. I like teaching people to make a welcome video play that kind of floats right here, but then I’ll show the basics. So. Here’s the reality, guys, we want to start with the end goal in mind is this is not the car manual, right? All you have to say is our prices start at or most of my customers spend between blankety blank.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:34:12] Here are some promo guide that they might look at.

Nate Grahek: [00:34:15] Ray, you know what I think? If there’s one thing that I am going to spend the next decade screaming from every mountain top I can find is for photographers to stop emailing their pricing in a p_d_f_, even if you have a beautiful p_d_f_. It’s probably been meant to be printed. Please print that. This is not going to replace your pricing guide. I still think there’s a time and a place for you to have detailed the pricing stuff, but it’s like after the console or before or after the session. That’s when you’re ready for that level of detail. Right. That’s like college. But first you got to start with kindergarten, right? So this is all meant to be a teaser. So right away, the first thing you can show them, a lot of times people go, oh. Yeah, I was here just for digitals. But you know what? It would be pretty awesome. I’ve always wanted to put out a cool piece of artwork over the fireplace. Yeah. Building a mockup like this. Showing your print albums. Yeah, doing that. See, all you’re doing is planting a seed like, hey, this is what my past clients love doing with their work and then creates thumbnails here again. Notice there’s no sizes showing sizes because it doesn’t mean anything to people.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:35:40] I love eyes starting at right.

Nate Grahek: [00:35:43] Very like sizes don’t mean anything to people until they can hold it. Right. Don’t show that in in a PDAF. Don’t show it online. Don’t show it until it’s in person. Right. And what I like telling people here is if you have dozens of products only show you Max, you should suck show. Here’s like six just to focus on the things that you like doing and start talking about the differences like beyond. So, yes, we know you can get Camus’s other places, but we pride ourselves on like the best print shops in the world to create art when that’s not going to fade. You can start to differentiate yourself and plant the seed. A lot of people will see this. Not ever planning on getting prints, but you’re just gradually showing them different ideas. Then you can have collections here if you if you want to. Or you can hide that. But then the main point is getting the console. So a click a link here to do like a cowardly or something like that. They can book a call with you. And that’s when you start to really talk about all of the other questions.

 

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:36:53] I love the high level overview. And now I have another thing to put on my to do list. Down. I love it.

 

Nate Grahek: [00:37:02] Thank you for letting me show that. I know those of you listening to the webinar are listening to the podcast. I didn’t see any of that. But the takeaway here, guys, is that when we’re emailing p.d.’s, bottom line, it’s too much too soon. Right. Print it and show. Give it to them in person if that’s what you want to do. Yeah. But the other part is a second you send over something in an email attachment. A couple things happened. One. You know, it’s gonna look terrible on a phone. It’s gonna load too slow. It’s gonna be outdated. If you ever want to raise your prices, you know, you’ve got that annoying customer that’s gonna find a two year old price list and all of a sudden find it a flip side because it is so much information. They’re not going to retain it. They’re not going to read it. It’s too much too soon. It’s probably going to scare people away. So, you know, go ahead.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:37:56] I just did a Facebook live in my group about the single most important keys to marketing. And it’s emotion. And, you know, I was talking. Did you watch the Super Bowl last night? Do you like it? Yeah. So I’m a typical girl. Ammunition say that. But I am I’m not really into the game. I really watched it just for that. Commercial commercials at halftime show. And did you see the all the Rhetta commercial by Google Play? I did it. It was so powerful. I was sitting there like crying while I was watching it. I texted my husband and I was like, did you just watch that? It was so good. And then I was like, I need to do a lie about this because it’s so powerful. That emotional component is so powerful, too. It’s so interrelated to purchasing decisions. And that’s the main reason why I don’t send my investment menu out until after I shoot with them because they’re then completely invested in the process. They’ve seen the back of the camera. They left my studio feeling amazing, having like a rejuvenation of their self love or maybe for some women, maybe loving themselves for the first time. So, you know, at that point, when that emotion is connected, it doesn’t matter how much something costs. Right. They’re not focused anymore on the investment. They’re focused on the experience, which is is why I do what I. I do this process in the way I do it, because I want them focused on the experience, on the images the whole way through. Even when they’re at the I.P.S, I’m still focused on the experience and the images. The investment is just this like thing that happens. It’s not the point of the I.P.S. The plate is them relating and connecting to my work.

Nate Grahek: [00:39:56] So good. Yeah. I like the saying. It doesn’t matter how much. Like there’s all of the stuff you want people to know about you, about your work. All the steps and losses that there’s a there’s so many things in your website cannot convey at all. Gotta eventually get somebody on the phone or in person in a console. And even then, it’s not about how much would it be. You should only be asking yourself in the console. The reason I want to, like, help people solve this problem. You’ve got maybe a phone call or maybe an email and then they ghost. Right. What is what is all the negative self-talk we make up when somebody goes on us? Right. First thing we go to is they hated our work at us. Yeah. It’s what guys that is. They wouldn’t have shown up. They wouldn’t talk to you at all if they didn’t think your work was awesome. Right. All the reasons we think why they’re ghosting are usually the last reasons. The reason why people goes. Is because you over. Well, yeah, it’s not that they went to a competitor is oftentimes they just don’t make any decision at all because they didn’t know what to do and they felt like they’re rushing me. I don’t understand all of this complicated guide. Yeah. So back to the feelings part. It’s not what they. You can explain to them on the phone call how you can make them feel.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:41:16] Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Nate Grahek: [00:41:18] And I’m sure you know this in your script, you said you provide scripts for consoles. A lot of it is just getting them to talk.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:41:25] Yeah, a lot of our console is in the beginning is asking questions and discovery like for us. Why are you doing this? What? You. Tell me about your story. Why is a boudoir shoot important to you right now? That discovery part is really important because you don’t you can’t even though we’re not selling. You need to understand what someone wants before you can give it to them. And if you’re the one talking the whole time, you’re never going to be able to figure out what they want. Because if you listen, if you stop talking and listen, people will tell you what they want.

Nate Grahek: [00:41:59] Right.

Nate Grahek: [00:42:00] So it’s amazing. It’s an amazing gift. I learned this as a bartender. I was a bartender for six years. And there’s studies that show like who are the most the people you trust the most? It’s like bartender is high on the list. Even alcohol is as a top as maybe helps there. But what I would what I learned more than anything is that the best gift we can give people in our lives that are so busy and it’s that they’re only getting busier is asking a meaningful question and shutting up and listening to them.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:42:36] I love that.

Nate Grahek: [00:42:38] It’s rare. It’s rare that people get the full undivided attention of somebody. And when you sincerely care, the way we make mistakes is we think we know what they’re going to say or we think we want to try to like address their questions and their concerns already because we’ve seen it a thousand times. No, it’s unique to this person and it’s the process of letting them just talk. Yeah, it is so powerful to helping you keep them engaged on the console and having them book a session. That’s so great fun.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:43:12] I love that scary device. So this has been so great. We’ve covered so many things. Thank you so much for your time. But you know, we were talking before about this amazing camera setup that you have. You know, you said that maybe you would come in Dorothys, the group, the high rollers club and kind of walk everyone through this Amit’s and people that are listening on the podcast and you right now. But it’s vely it looks really great and it kind of puts my camera set up to save me with I’m a photographer.

Nate Grahek: [00:43:43] You look fantastic compared to most I’ve been on. So, yeah. This is awesome. So I’ll put three three big things that I want to give back to your community. So it’s a. The marketing tools, if you want to interested in using sticky albums, if you want to learn more about pricing inquiries and how to build that, I’ve got another course for that. It’s also totally free. And then finally, for everybody that’s watching Check, this is my favorite teaser. So I have these amazing key lights. This has been years in the making and I can save you guys hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars on gear. I definitely think in boudoir you should be going live in groups right now, engaging with the raw real you. Absolutely. And do it. Stand out with a nice 16 by 9 frame as to aspect ratio instead of just doing on your phone all the time to do a really nice like this with a nice doing using your DSL LA as your webcam and having a really we can bring like people’s comments live on screen. So I’ll show you guys all the software I use in a quick I’ll go live in. You will set a date and let people know. Don’t do that. So here’s I have these lights connected to my like my computer and the view Wi-Fi so I can fly. I’ll show people I can control color balance. I can control them. I’ll show you guys which lights. I use the camera.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:45:13] I use all my side. I love that. I’m so excited for this. I need this. I’m so happy that you’re teaching me this.

Nate Grahek: [00:45:21] I can’t wait. I think that there’s even opportunity to do some kind of like to have to even go live for a minute with a nice camera setup like this during hair and makeup. Yeah. Right. Where it like to show that a little of the behind the scenes to or to even if you’re doing like some kind of model shoot to even let the cameras run in the corner for part of the shoot I think would be a pretty interesting way to create more engagement in your private groups.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:45:48] Absolutely. You know, I recently found that especially on Instagram, that stories are huge. And every time I shoot, I give people all the time.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:46:00] They’re like. You don’t really shoot. Do you like your your do you have this course? Like, you know, the only reason people do courses is because they’re not making any money with our studio. And I’m like, dude, they go follow my Instagram. I have a story every single day. I shoot if I’m not making any money, shooting three to four women a week. And there’s bigger problems than what you’re thinking right now. So, yeah. But anyway, if you do a story like every time you shoot, shooting begets more shooting. The busier people think you are, the more they want to book you. So I’ll do a story every time out while the clients in hair and makeup and then like I take a selfie with them. And in addition to that, I have like a selfie while I’m looking at it. It’s in front of me. But yeah. So those things are really, really powerful. So I think also I should probably be using an actual DSL line instead of my cell phone.

Nate Grahek: [00:46:52] But I think it goes both ways. I think there’s places for the phone. The phones are amazing. Don’t let the device detect it in your way or be an excuse. But if you are curious on how also people just a cool way to up their game for their lives. You. We’ll see you guys. Such a blast. Oh, my gosh. So awesome.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:47:12] Great. Thank you so much for your time. This has been so wonderful. So if you guys want to find me, you can find him.

Nate Grahek: [00:47:19] Oh, yes. Good. Go to sticky marketing tools to check out all of our stuff. But this is something, a teaser that I leave kind of an Easter egg at the very end of all of my podcasts. Please send me an email. My personal email is made at sticky albums dot com. Tell me what one thing that resonated that you’d liked that you took away from this episode. And I will send back whatever the best discount or current deal is on any of our stuff in return. And just for you. I want feedback. There’s something you didn’t like. I want to know. So, Nate, it’s sitckymarketingtools.com. I can’t wait to hear from you guys.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:47:58] I might start sealing that, Nate. That’s great. I’m. You know what? The other thing I found that successful entrepreneurs and successful photographers have in common is they’re open to constructive criticism. And they ask for it. And. I found almost every single successful entrepreneur that I have met has that one trait in common. And so I might start stealing that. I love it.

Nate Grahek: [00:48:25] Powerful. Yeah. I think that the critique is just as good as the thank you’s in the compliment. It’s the only way we get better. And it’s that one to one that means so much to. So.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:48:36] Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your time. You can find me at the High Rollers Club.com. Also on our Facebook group, the High Rollers Club for Business for Photographers, Business and Marketing for photographers.

Jenn Bruno Smith: [00:48:51] Thank you so much for your time today, Nate. I will see you later!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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