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What’s up, Jen? How are you? Good morning.

I’m good. What’s going on?

How much? I’m just here in sunny south Florida and I saw your post today and I had to be like, hey, Jen, let’s talk about how the heck you had so many ordering sessions and how much revenue.

It was a good month serial giver,

So can you I mean, I don’t want to I don’t have the post right now. So like, tell us just to recap somebody like, what the heck get to the point? What were the results? 30TH or up to April 30th from April 1st?

Well, I have my biggest month ever for the studio. My studio grossed ninety two thousand nine hundred dollars in April. It might be a little more if my team book some sessions for me today, but all of my ordering appointments are done. So yeah, I, I called it last month was my largest month ever.

Ok, so it’s a ninety two thousand. I mean that sounds like by the way that’s like more than most businesses. Gross. So just in case anyone not familiar like what genre, what are you selling. Whereas most of the revenue coming from and like what are people buying from you that makes that even possible?

Yeah, that’s a good question. I’m so I’m a full time boudoir photographer, so I’m pulling up my my metrics here. So it’s a combination of most of it is boudoir sales, sales from ordering appointments. I do in-person sales over Zoome, but there’s still considered in-person. So last month my boudoir sales from ordering implements was eighty seven thousand three hundred and seventy eight dollars. And then my retainer fee revenue was five thousand five hundred and sixty one dollars. So I’m not sure how many guys booked, but that’s also some income coming in of clients that have decided that they want to shoot extra sets too. So it’s not all clients booking. It might be like extra sets that people are adding on.

Ok, and then when I looked at this sets, I got a really detailed breakdown. I think I saw something about what the average sale was and how many packages you had.

Yeah. So actually, so Randy figured it out last night. My average sale for April was actually fifty four hundred dollars. My average sale for the year. If you’re going January to now, year to date is forty nine hundred. But in April I sold four of my top collections which is eight thousand dollars and they were all paid in full. So it was, it was a really kind of.

Holy smokes, I guess one of the benefits, too, is yet people don’t have to pay sales tax in Delaware either, right?

There’s no sales tax. And the great thing is, so I have clients who come from all over the country, like I had a client this month from Arizona. I had a client from New York. I had a client from South Carolina. I think one of those states down there, a lot of clients from Paea and Jersey, Baltimore, Manhattan, they come from everywhere. So even if they live in a state where their sales tax, because I’m here doing the sale, there’s no tax on their order. So that’s nice for them.

Yeah, it’s very fortunate. So, you know, 20, 20, you know, most of the country was shut down. Twenty twenty one. I actually one of my really good friends and clients literally just told me Toronto is like still shut down, like she can’t run her business. So I think for some people they might be surprised, like, holy crap, like, how are you doing this? How do you have people shooting? Are you doing virtual shoots? Are you doing in person shoots? Like how are you doing this? You know, twenty, twenty one. Not everyone is vaccinated yet and yeah, in some parts of the country still shut down.

So Yeah. So I’m vaccinated that it’s all you know, it’s a personal choice and it was a choice that I decided to make and it’s good for my, it’s been good for my mental health. But I’ve been shooting full time since June 15th of twenty twenty and I actually counted yesterday because I was curious since June 15th of twenty twenty I’ve shot one hundred and thirty eight women, which it kind of blew my mind too. But looking because I have I take Polaroids of every person I shoot. So I had all the Polaroids up and I was like wow. Like that is a significant amount of people in the middle of a pandemic. So here in Delaware it’s pretty safe. But still I do a covered screener. We, you know, Clorox, everything between clients. I take people’s temperatures whenever they come in, they leave their shoes outside. So I’m still being very cautious. I still, of course, mask I wear I can ninety five when I’m shooting, sanitize my hands, wash them frequently. So I’m trying to do the best we

Can with it. And then I’m surprised because I remember when we were doing kind of just some of the wrap up for like twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen. I remember like one thirty was like almost what you shot the entire year. And those years it was pretty surprising. I think June was what, ten months ago. Yeah.

Yeah. I so what happened was I had all those clients from March 17th to June 15th that all needed to be put in the schedule. So I ended up shooting. I’ve been shooting almost five days a week, almost every week since we got back from covid. There has been a few weeks, of course, where I’ve taken off or maybe a random week where I’ve only had three shoots. But I mean, I’ve been shooting pretty consistently five a week.

And I know that you’re also you also got a new studio during this time of the year, so you got a new studio, you have the associate photographers, are they shooting or are you shooting everything right now?

So I am. So they’re shooting, but I’m not yet. They’re still in, like, the perfecting stage, so that revenue is only for me shooting. Once they ramp up and are able to start doing, I’m able to start selling their images. I’m anticipating that that should probably almost double because I’m going to have two other photographers doing sessions. So, yeah. And in fact, they’re doing I’m doing model calls right now for them. So I’m doing we just we just finished the first set of shoots where I’m going to have ordering appointments and I’m almost done training my studio manager to do their ordering appointments. So really that will be like a whole other portion of the studio that’s almost running independently without me, which I’m super excited about. It’s almost going to be like passive income because she’s handling all the orders. She’ll be handling the scheduling. It’s almost like she’s running that part of the studio by herself.

Yeah, that’s I I cannot over value how much like how much relief and how much time you get back, like when you’re not actually having to do it. So that’s like definitely the next stage. OK, so new studio, new people maybe about to start helping you get your time back and be passive. I know Tick-Tock has been something that you’ve like really been putting into. How so? We’ve talked about tick tock a lot. And, you know, people know that you’re one of the most followed tick tock photographers. How have you been rolling over to realise, like, has it translated as well? Are you picking up traction? Have you picked up followers?

Yeah, I mean I have about twenty five thousand followers on Instagram, which is it’s pretty significant. I feel like Tick-Tock is almost half a million, which is crazy. It’s a lot of time. Like I’m not going to lie. People think that it just happens quickly, but it’s not like it’s something where you have to put the time in and you know, you really need to be posting two to three times a day on tick tock to keep the tracks, to keep to get traction and then to keep the momentum going. Because what happens is if you stop posting, then you start to just lose followers. It just starts to keep dwindling down and realise is not as viral as tick tock. Tick tock can sometimes be like super duper viral where it’s just it’s just massive. The following that you get on Instagram, though, I definitely book from Instagram and when I have something go viral on Tic-Tac, I’ll book ten sessions, twelve sessions, easy.

And they’re like, they’re going to your website, are you getting DM’s, I don’t even know, like, can you do people and to talk.

So you can’t unless I’m following them, which I don’t really follow. Lots of people on to talk. I just follow people that I really like their stuff. But what I do is I push them over to Instagram because I want them to follow me there and anybody can DM you on Instagram. So then they usually reach out over Instagram or they just book a call right with my team or they’ll reach out to me directly, which I’ve actually taken down my contact information from most platforms because I was having like some things happen that were, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

A little bit like yesterday we were at the aquarium and someone messaged me on Instagram that night and was like because I had posted some like a tick tock of Lincoln at the aquarium and someone messaged me on Instagram. I didn’t know. I was like, I knew I saw you there. And I was like.

It’s so funny,

Yeah, it’s so it’s and so getting used to that, honestly.

Ok, so you’re having much higher sales. Tick tock reels are still getting a lot of clients from there. Yeah. For the IPPs. I mean I always because you know, I know when we met you were around four thousand or just over four thousand. And I always you know, I feel like people are at different stages. So there might be somebody watching this thinking like, OK, I’m at a thousand dollars for in-person sales or digitals. I’m at eighteen hundred. I need I need to do this one thing to double to triple. And from what I find is most of the time I don’t really need to do anything other than change. The priceless removes

Absolutely

Digitals from some of their bottom packages. And just to be confident. Yeah, like for you, you know, going from like four thousand or fifty four hundred, was it more of that or was it like some super secret thing? Did you get some super secret album that like now people buy or like

Well I have changed some things in my peace process, which I’m actually going to be updating the module in the mastermind by the end of next month. I’m just going to rerecord the whole thing because there are some things that I’ve definitely changed by my IPS process. But absolutely, I also changed my investment manual and we’ve been talking in the master circle. It was kind of like hive mind and some people have been talking about it in the exclusive group about adding a twelve thousand dollar collection. And I was on the cusp for a long time and then I pulled the trigger on it and it’s worked beautifully. I haven’t sold it, but it makes my top, what used to be my top collection, look much more attainable to most people. So it’s all about the psychology of the sale right now. Like the five thousand dollar collection is placed right in the middle. And then my eight thousand dollars collection looks like a steal compared to the twelve thousand dollar collection. So the psychology has really worked and I wasn’t sure about it. I was I was really nervous to make the change. But I mean, it’s been great and I’ve definitely changed some things in my IBS process as well. So all of that working together has really been very successful.

Yeah, I will say it’s interesting that you say that about like the packages because and I’m going to ask before you changed it, did you have many sales that were over ten thousand?

No, I never had it over my highest. I was ninety six hundred.

Ok, so the reason I say that is because there’s two camps like there’s like the packages camp and then there is the like Ellacott camp. And I think there’s drawbacks to both. And I don’t really tell people like Eloqua for most people is just packages, but they’re like memories in your head. So you still have packages. You go to you have your go tos and you’re making suggestions. They’re not just written down and there’s kind of wheeling and dealing and being faster. And that’s great for someone who’s, like, super quick and like just has that, you know, I call it like the street vendor vibe. You know, I have to be that. Yeah. That stigma. But just kind of like the enthusiasm, the quickness and then in for somebody who’s like, OK, I need like a process, I need this and whatever, people can go back and forth and choose. I’m not saying I’m just saying those are some of the benefits. Right. One of the biggest benefits I find from our car is that our car, because there’s the openness. There’s there’s usually no limit to the what the sale can be, because even even if they’re like, OK, you know, I have this nine thousand hour thing, if they get creative or somebody says, hey, I have this, you know, super four hundred square foot closet, they can instantly go and just start designing things and like go up to a sixteen thousand car. So I find that again, I do think that the packages for most people, especially like in Mass, is probably the simplest and probably the most effective. But I do think that one thing and I’m not saying that just because you do packages, you can’t do the Eloqua element because you definitely can. So do you find yourself do you find that’s the case? And that’s why I asked, like before you had your top package, were you selling over that or do you feel like you just kind of go to those sticking points and it kind of is like a let’s just say like a false ceiling or a glass ceiling have those packages.

So it makes sense what you’re saying. But the way I’ve always thought about it is I would rather have say I shoot like about sixteen clients a month, so I would rather have ten five thousand dollar sales than like one monster. Ten thousand dollars sale, you know what I mean. But having the collections for more people makes sense because, you know, even when you think on a very low scale, like you go to McDonald’s or Chick fil A, almost every single person buys a no. Right, like a No. Two. And before it’s something that as a culture, we are used to buying like packages, so I think it makes sense to most consumers to see packages that make sense in their mind. And I know for me as a consumer, when I see an ala carte menu, it can be really overwhelming. So I think having those packages are collections already made helps the consumer make a decision because a confused mind says no. So we want to do as much guidance towards the collection we want as possible, you know?

Yeah, and I’m not saying I don’t I think both, you know, both sides can argue their case. And I firmly my belief is like whatever someone believes, that’s the truth. So if someone says if somebody tells me, hey, people don’t buy albums or they buy Walter, you believe that that’s that actually becomes the truth for them. It’s like. Right, it does. You believe that it’s true. So it’s the same thing when, like, choosing your sales style. Yeah. You believe that. It’s definitely true. And obviously it’s worked out because there’s some crazy sales numbers that I used to think. Three thousand was like a high number. Right. And it’s like for different people you hang out with and I see this in like the mastermind in the master circle was like the different crowds, like they have like different expectations. It’s like and then your expectations mold with them. So it’s kind of cool just having like a community where, like, people are really taking it seriously and just sharpening their blades and getting much better at it.

Yeah. Where like three thousand dollars is a low sale. I have to remind myself, if I sell my three thousand dollar collection, I have to remind myself like that is still a good sale. Like I might be used to selling five or six thousand dollars, but if I thought three thousand, that is still a really good sale. So that’s what I used to make in two weeks. So work as a speech pathologist, you know.

So yeah, I am so weird. I did something yesterday and I got like a wad of cash and like I looked at it and I was like half annoyed. I’m weird. I don’t I’m like the opposite. I don’t like cash. And I look at it, I was like, man, like, what do I even do with this? Like, do I go to the bank? Like, is it worth driving over there? Do I just stand this over the next year or something? And I will say, like as I’ve had this conversation with a friend, like in private, I was like, it’s strange because when I was making a salary, like in the Marines, I would no kidding. When I was making like a thousand I purchase the two thousand I purchased, I was like imagining like, OK, how long is this going to take to pay back how many hours I had written down, how much I made per hour at twenty four hours a day, you know, on a deployment. And I didn’t buy something for three thousand and it was like the biggest deal. And then now I was at, I was at Bed, Bath and Beyond and I had this like really nice quilts or something. And this lady came up to me and she was like, oh my God, that’s so nice. It was like quilted. It had this nice pattern. And she was like, oh, how much is that? And I was like, I’m really sorry. I don’t know. She’s like, You didn’t check the price before you got there. I was like, no, I just I will say there’s a certain thing where it’s like once you start getting like that, it starts getting fuzzier. You start losing reality. But I went but yesterday, maybe cash brings me back to life because I think swiping a card, you don’t really feel like, hey, when you spend hundreds, but like when you have to hand over like Benjamins and, you know, some Jeffersons, like all of a sudden you’re like them. Like this is actually spending money, not like a number on the screen.

Yeah. Now and it’s true your mindset changes as far as your earning power increases. So Brandi and I used to really, really struggle like we you know, eight years ago, ten years ago, like I’m talking like I had we had a fifty dollar a couch that we got from a yard sale. And we when Randy was finishing his clinical goals and we were one income and I was working, I was a traveler making good money. But still we were one income and putting him through grad school, we were eating ramen noodles at a folding table with our fifty dollar a couch. And for my birthday he got me tickets to Wicked at the at a theater in Philadelphia and the tickets were one hundred and thirty dollars. And we sat down and we were budgeting and we were looking and seeing where we could scrape that money from because he knew it was on my bucket list to see that show. And it was something we really struggle with at that point, like if we should do it, if we had the money to do it. And now looking back, I’m like I spend that like on Starbucks like or like on Jordache and it doesn’t even, like, faze me.

Yeah, those are a trap Uber eats and persuades. I like. Look at the charges, Mike. Damn it,

I need you my. On that but itself, because I’m so busy, like sometimes I don’t have time to, like, make a lunch or get lunch ready, so sometimes it’s just past and

I get hungry.

I will say there’s definitely I don’t know, I have a nostalgia or like a positive feeling when I think about, like, I can go all the way back to buying magic cards and Pokemon cards with like ten bucks I earn or, you know, my first paycheck in, like the Marines, I bought like a fifteen hundred dollar car, I think. And I was like the coolest. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that. And like I actually think like all those times probably made it so that, like, now all these things are. Yeah.

And we absolutely we appreciate it so much. When I have a month like this, Randi and I sat down last night and we were like, do you remember when, like, this was this was more than what you made in a year. Like we it’s it’s it’s hard to wrap your mind around sometimes. But also this is the result of really hard work. And I was talking to Jackson this morning, my son, and we were talking I was talking to him about art and how, like, art elicits an emotion. And I feel like I’m a master at what I do. And I feel like now like the pay is equivalent. But I should say, though, that there are so many other artists and photographers that do not make this revenue and are so equally masters at their craft. It’s just, you know, the business acumen when you when you match the business acumen with the master of that master, what you’re doing, then you get this beautiful, beautiful thing of being successful like financially as well. You know,

I was reading this book. It’s called Like The Road, The Road to Something. And he he draws a parallel. His example is usually like a plumber. And he’s like, do you want to be the best plumber or the most artistic plumber or the one that solves all the problems? And like, you get the award for literally being the most creative and best problem solver, because that’s a very different award from building a business, from having revenue, from having employees, a manager and making millions of dollars like those two things are very distinct. And he’s like, you make decisions as the I don’t I don’t know why he came up with plumber, but he’s like, if you make the decisions as the tradesmen, as the person that has the passion, if you have if you do it as the creative plumber, he’s like, that’s usually not going to lead to very good business ideas. So it’s just like a whole book on exercise, on like asking hard questions of yourself, you know, asking deeper questions. And every time you do something or you pass something, just being aware that, like your choices and your attitude towards them really impact what the result is. You know, are you going to be the most skilled and talented with no one to show and no clients? Or you can still be that and actually service people, exchange goods, trade money, you know.

I mean, I used I agree and I used to say all the time, like, I’m not the best photographer out there. There’s so many people that are better than me. But as I’ve continued to evolve even since we started the mastermind, I realized that, like there are other people with different styles that are very good. And I respect that and I admire it. But I get my style, what I’m good at, I’m really good at. And I think that that’s the other part. This is you have to find what you’re good at and lean into it. I think so many times people. Try to emulate other people’s styles, and it might not feel like authentic or genuine to them, and I think that translates to potential consumers as well. So I think it’s really important that you find yourself, too.

I don’t.

I get what you’re saying. I do find that like emulating people. You as long as you’re doing it and doing it often you like you very quickly figure things out where like usually people have the opposite problem where like they see so many people they want to emulate and then they’re like frozen and don’t go down any path because they’re like, well, she said use a ring. Like she said, use natural light, you strobe. So I need to like, think more. And it’s like whatever your instinct is like, just go do it. Go down the path. Yeah. I’m sure there’s people that have like been like I love and style, light and airy. They join the mastermind. They do everything you do and then, you know, they close a little bit of blinds or flash and go off and like, no, I like this better, but I got vegetables and then they went and like then figured out their own path.

Absolutely.

Yeah, for sure. I think that I think that the more you do it, the more experience you get, like the more it leads you to your most authentic self working. Right. Like I think without shooting, without doing it a lot, it’s hard to find that most authentic self. I think you have to have the experience. And I think having a strong, like role model, a strong mentor, is part of that experience. You know,

Yeah, I was listened to. I think it was like the CEO of Netflix was being interviewed by Tom Bellia and he he was like, hey, like you’re a billionaire. How do you pick winners and losers and people to invest in? Because he’s like an angel investor and he’s like, literally the only thing I care about is did they go do it? And he’s like, explain that. He’s like, people will come and say, I have the next Uber, the next Airbnb, the nexus in that. And he’ll be like, I don’t care. I don’t care what your idea is. I want to see that you went and tried it and that it worked. And he’s like at any level. So he’s like, if you thought you wanted to resell clothes, like, you know, like give the runway or whatever that’s called a red bag or runway lulla, like whatever. He’s like, I want you to set up a store in your dorm and if you sell out all of your used clothes, I think that’s a good business idea because I wouldn’t have guessed people want to use clothes. So I thought about that. And I was like, yeah, like I’m in these groups, I’m on these calls. And a lot of times we were like, oh, do you think it would work to market to these people? It’s like, I have no idea. Try it. Like, I can tell you, it’s worked in the past and that’s like a baseline. But even all the things that we figured out in the past, No. One, they’re not going to they’re not going to be authentic to everyone. And number two, we figured this out by just going and trying. You cannot brains. And the faster you go and figure out it doesn’t work, like the faster you can move on to the next thing.

Absolutely. Yeah. I think that being a self starter is like one of the keys to being a successful entrepreneur like that is absolutely the key. You have to have that hunger. And working with so many business owners, I found that the really successful ones have a level of obsession like you have to have that drive.

But but like when we say obsession, I think it manifests itself in someone being obsessed enough to actually try those things, because I would say, well, this person has ten years experience, nine years experience, eight years. But like experience isn’t all built the same. Right. Like if your experience has been being timid, being tedious, not trying any marketing thing, is not trying to sell, not booking anyone. And that’s what you do for eight years. Someone coming in like the person I think of as like Quinn Titchmarsh, like Quinn coming in and like starting photography from being a model and picking up a camera and just being like, all right, I’m going to just try four hundred things in like four months. Like, I feel like she has more experience than the photographer that was doing it for ten years, but it was almost not enacting anything. Right. Like, yeah, I yeah.

I mean that I think the obsession manifests itself into action.

Like when I think of something that I want to do, I will, I can’t stop thinking about it until I do

It and do it well. And like when I made that twelve thousand

Dollar investment venue, we had talked about it on our last Master Circle call. And I think that night I probably stayed up until like one or two making it because it’s just it’s. It just stays in my brain until I get it out, but it’s been really, really successful. So it was a good move.

So before we get off, I guess the golden question is, and this is more personal, like, what if I know we talked about it, but like, what do you do? So, like, obviously there’s expenses, there’s tax, you know, taxes and stuff. Like you guys follow the profit versus them to. Yeah, it is amazing. But it had this amazing month. Like what now like are you guys like investing or are you guys like buying, going to buy another studio.

Well, I’m going to buy myself a new right hand ring as like a bonus for killing. It’s a slump. Like there’s this really pretty one at Tiffany’s that I want. And I haven’t gotten a new one since like 10 years ago. So I’ve been wanting it for a while. So I’m going to do that. But that’s not something that we do every month in Mother’s Day is coming up. So it’s kind of like a combined thing.

But we do invest.

Randi just poured out our krypto. He’s really, really good at managing the money.

So that would be more of a Randy

Question, honestly.

He’s been degraded by dogecoin.

No, but we shut up. We would need a fucking killing. But he he did really well with a theory. But he would have we would have made a lot of money on those coins. If you

If you put it in in the beginning and then pulled it out, you know,

There’s a lot of money to be made there.

Was it just so ironic that it was like created as a joke to show how ridiculous people would invest in dumb things? And for people that don’t know, it’s like literally a meme. So it’s like I know

It’s it’s like Randy really explained

It to me, like you could get a Lamborghini and get, like, actual crypto or you could get a matchbox car. And that’s the dogecoin. And people are paying what they would pay for a Lamborghini for a matchbox car. And so it’ll it’ll it’ll all come back down again. And then the next thing will happen. And the key is to figure out what is the next thing that’s going to get big before it gets big.

So, yeah, well, I’m looking at these headlines and I’m going to go log off and go invest in some dogecoin. I’m just kidding.

No, don’t do that. I although I think that might be kind of on its way

Back down again, do you think?

I have no idea. I just look at this. I’m just like, who is sitting there with hundreds of thousands of dollars? Investing in memes like this is insane. I actually the market, in case people don’t know what the market cap is, the market cap is like if all the shares or all the coins were added up with its value. Dogecoin is worth more than Ford, like Ford Motor Company, like that company has been going a

Lot of money in it.

Yeah, it’s insane. And it’s I mean,

There’s a lot of money and much outside to talk. The other day, this guy, he I guess it’s public knowledge what CEOs and CFOs of really large companies invest in. And so he just goes and sees what you see and see you are investing in. And then he invests in the same things and he has made. Hundreds of thousands of dollars during that, he just does whatever they’re doing because they probably know what’s going to happen for the most part.

Yeah, seems pretty. I was someone in boudoir photography that knew how to do things to, you know, to grow businesses and could just share that with me. Hmm. Wow. All right, guys, thank you guys so much for being on. I am going to regardless of where you guys are, listen to this. I’m going to put a link on where you can learn more about working with Jennifer Smith and finding out all these crazy, amazing things. But I’ll see you guys next time.

Hi, guys. Thanks. The.