Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait photographers to uniquely brand, profitably price, and confidently sell their best work. Allison has been doing just that for the last 15 years and she’s proven that it’s possible to create unforgettable art and run a portrait business that supports your family and your dreams. All it takes is a little rework. Episodes will include interviews with experts from in and outside of the photo industry, many workshops, and behind the scenes secrets that Allison uses is in her portrait studio every single day. She will challenge her thinking and inspire your confidence to create a profitable, sustainable portrait business you love through continually refining and reworking your business. Let’s do the rework
Allison Tyler Jones: Hi friend, and welcome back to The ReWork. You know, in every industry, there are businesses and brands that are the gold standard, businesses who’ve figured out who they are, who they want to serve, and then just continually up level. Today’s guests are that gold standard brand.
Allison Tyler Jones: We are joined by Gregory and Lisa Daniel of Gregory Daniel Portraits in Florida. Greg is the photographer. Lisa handles all things sales and marketing. And Pat is their amazing studio manager. So when Lisa and Greg came onto the podcast, we started our conversation about marketing and it went so deep. I think you’re going to love it because we talk about intentionally picking a lane for your business, giving yourself permission to do something different while still staying true to the core of who you really are, how to create an Instagram feed that attracts your ideal client, and how not to, our favorite business books, and Gregory and Lisa’s exact method for bringing in well qualified new clients year after year. So get a notebook and a pen, you’re going to want to take notes on this one. Let’s do it.
Allison Tyler Jones: I am so happy to welcome dear friends, relatively new friends, Greg and Lisa Daniel. So go glad that you’re here today. Thank you for taking the time. I know you’re so busy.
Lesa Daniel: Oh, thank you for asking us. This is an honor and we both, and Pat, who you just met a little bit ago, both listen to the podcast and think you’re doing a terrific job. And we’re just honored, golly, that you even asked us to do this, really. Really and Truly.
Allison Tyler Jones: Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate you being here. So I have an intro already before we do this. So we already know who you are and all of those things. But what I want to jump in and really discuss, some things that I think we see in the industry a lot. As president of PPA, past president of PPA, Greg, you’ve been traveling … Well, it was 2020, you didn’t do a ton of traveling. But you’ve been on the board for a long time. And you’ve been, [crosstalk 00:03:08] at imaging. For many, many years, both of you have had a lot of contact with many photographers and many different, from new to going.
Allison Tyler Jones: And I’m finding that I here a lot, “I just need more marketing. If I just could figure out the marketing secret, then I would have the business that I want to have.” So I want to talk a little bit about that. What are your thoughts about marketing for Greg Daniel’s Photography?
Lesa Daniel: Well, I think for our studio versus any other studio, it’s basically the same. You need to decide who you are, pick your lane. And what we mean by that when we pick our lane is we use restaurants as analogies, because I think that’s very easy for all of us to understand. And so there is the McDonald’s, which is the high volume, low cost. They make a lot of money. They Do really, really well. There’s the Olive Garden, which is the middle of the road. They make a lot of money. They do really, really well. And then as we call it, the fine French restaurant. And they make a lot of money and do really, really well.
Lesa Daniel: So there is no one level. And it’s not good, better, best. It’s just higher end or lower end. There’s no one level that is right for … I mean there, I should say there is one level that is right for everyone and you need to decide what it is you’re going to do. Because if you’re going to McDonald’s and you have a maitre d’ stand there with a towel over his arm, and says, “Welcome to McDonald’s.” And you have $7 in your pocket, you’re going to turn around and walk right back out.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Lesa Daniel: Also, if you’re at a fine French restaurant and they give you these plastic chairs that the guy pulls out and it goes cush, cush, cush on the floor, you go, “Something’s wrong.” So I think first you have to decide who you are.
Gregory Daniel: We’re seeing that a lot because-
Lesa Daniel: We see that an awful lot.
Gregory Daniel: I think it’s because the nature of our industry. The Nature of our industry is that most, all of us, most-
Lesa Daniel: Us included.
Gregory Daniel: Started out because we loved photography, right? We loved the camera, we loved taking pictures. And then we started getting people to pay for it. So we come into it in a lane that is not really a lane. It’s just all over the map. It’s all over the place. And so basically that proverbial we put our ladder on the wrong wall. And eventually if you want it to become a sustainable business, you have to put your ladder on the wall that you want it to be on, an intentional wall. So that’s where we call picking a lane. You’ve got to find out now, once you’ve practiced, had fun, great time at this. And if you really want a sustainable business and you don’t want to spend every waking hour on Photoshop kind of stuff.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Gregory Daniel: Then pick a lane, pick a wall that you want to grow on. But that’s got to come first. You got to figure out which highway you’re going to get on and run.
Lesa Daniel: So we are no exception. I mean, we started off doing soccer teams and all the kind of things. That was not sustainable for our business, Gregory and Lisa, because little known fact or big known fact, depends on who you are, he had another job full-time, building space shuttles.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Lesa Daniel: So he was not able to do high volume. It was just not possible.
Gregory Daniel: Right.
Lesa Daniel: So we decided we’ve got to make a change. And so we started out then in the middle range. And then as we got going we’re like oh my gosh now we have children. And he has no time for them, no time for me. He’s pulling a dog. We’ve got to pick a different lane. So for us, we created a higher-end, lower volume simply because we happened to be lucky and figure it out that we didn’t have the time for the other.
Lesa Daniel: And I think there are other photographers that are the same, that they have other. And so they need to figure out how to make this work. And they’re killing themselves working 40 hours, then working 50 hours.
Allison Tyler Jones: Exactly.
Lesa Daniel: And that’s not sustainable for any human being.
Gregory Daniel: So circling back around to that marketing, that marketing question, everything starts with that lane. Marketing starts at that lane. How to market, what to market, every thing begins at the beginning because you have to begin with the end in mind, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: 100%
Gregory Daniel: Marketing is throughout everything. We always get that, “When are we going to hear about marketing? When are we going to hear about marketing?” Well, everything we do is marketing.
Lesa Daniel: Every single thing we do is marketing.
Allison Tyler Jones: Exactly.
Lesa Daniel: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: You know we were twins separated at birth.
Lesa Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s like my brain is coming out of your mouth. I love it. Okay. I’m going to stop you for one second because I want to back up to the beginning. Because I think we all started … many of us, not everybody, but many of us started where the lane was if you will pay me to do it, I will do it.
Lesa Daniel: Absolutely.
Allison Tyler Jones: And when the client says, “Oh, will you shoot my kids’ wedding?” Well, I didn’t want to shoot weddings, but she’s going to pay me. So I’m going to do it, or soccer teams or whatever. What I’m seeing is the problem, and maybe you see this differently, but I see the high volume pricing with the maitre d’ service. So I see so many photographers who do heartbreakingly beautiful to full work, like heart stopping. They’re winning competitions. Gorgeous, amazing. And they’re packaging it in beautiful ways and they’re killing themselves for their clients and they are charging McDonald’s prices.
Gregory Daniel: Yep. Yeah. It all fits together. And so for us, it seemed like the best way to understand our value in the lane that we picked is to emulate big business. So big business, meaning, not photography. So most everything that we do, language, pricing, all of that, all the branding, all of that came from the art world, came from the gallery world.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Gregory Daniel: So I went to gallery after gallery, sell me, sell me, sell me, talk to me, let me see how this works and how this brand, how this industry works so that I could create a hybrid in the photography world so that I wasn’t just copying my photography neighbor.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Lesa Daniel: Who may not know what they’re doing either.
Gregory Daniel: Who may not know what they’re doing either.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And if you decided that you wanted to run a high volume studio, at some point you could have pivoted and said, you know what, Greg can’t shoot all these. We need more photographers.
Lesa Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: So you could have got a crew.
Gregory Daniel: Absolutely.
Lesa Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: And you could have just run that and then maybe not even shot anymore and just run a crew of photographers that come in and shoot every team in your town. And then you could still keep those prices and just run an efficient machine, because we know photographers who do that.
Lesa Daniel: And they do well.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah.
Lesa Daniel: And they do well. And that’s a serious business model that you can use.
Gregory Daniel: But the key is you got to make that decision, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Gregory Daniel: You have to decide. And the earlier you decide, the better off you’re going to be and the less frustrated you’re going to be.
Lesa Daniel: So a long time ago, we sat down at our kitchen table, literally sat down at our kitchen table and said in 10 years, if we continue with what we have right now, do we like this number?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Lesa Daniel: And we both said no.
Gregory Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: We don’t want that number.
Lesa Daniel: Not even a little bit do we like this number. So we made a decision that day, at the kitchen table, sitting there saying we’ve got to make a change, we’re going to make a change on something. Now, fortunately at that time we had two businesses going, essentially. We had a high end wedding business that was in Orlando, which is about 45 minutes to an hour away from our small town. Our small town is a little more blue collar. We are the bedroom community of the space center. So we kept our weddings high end. We kept our studio medium.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay.
Lesa Daniel: Why? I don’t know. But that’s what we did.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I know why you did that. I do know why you did that. And I could be wrong. Don’t you feel like … I see this so much, when people switch over from weddings to portrait, weddings take so much time and so much effort. You’re so grateful that a family portrait’s like an hour that you just don’t charge enough for it because you’re just thinking, well I can’t possibly charge as much for a family portrait as I do for a wedding because a wedding’s like 95 of hours and I got to deal with the bride and the cake lady and the makeup. But I mean this nice little family, they just came in. But you and I both know those family portraits can fire exceed a wedding.
Lesa Daniel: Right.
Gregory Daniel: Oh yes.
Lesa Daniel: Right. So we decided to give … we kept the wedding industry going and we decided to take the studio because we could do that and just raise the prices out of the roof. And we were going to make a change in not only our pricing, how we were going to handle these clients, every single thing about it, we were going to change it 100%.
Allison Tyler Jones: And that grew out of visiting the galleries? That was kind of the-
Gregory Daniel: Yes.
Lesa Daniel: Absolutely.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay.
Lesa Daniel: Yes. We were like, OK, so they do this, they get this amount of money. We can do this too. And one of the big things that happened, truly, is we were at a client’s house and we were hanging their portrait for them. And we were standing on a rug, a silk rug. And she mentioned, “Don’t you love this rug?” And I said, “It’s just incredibly beautiful. It’s lovely.” She goes, “I know, we only paid $25,000 for it.” And I backed off of it. OK. I’m not standing on that anymore. And we thought, if they will spend $25,000 on a rug, we can raise our prices. Because people on the wall are they’re loved ones. This is a rug we walk on. And we said, we’re not doing that. And so that made us realize there are people out there that can do it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely.
Lesa Daniel: So we changed everything. And then once we got that going, we got rid of the wedding business.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So I want to break this down because we’ll stand on a stage and say, and then we should changed everything. But everybody in the audience is like, “But what did that look like?”
Lesa Daniel: “What is it that you changed?”
Allison Tyler Jones: And so what I see is that you didn’t just change it overnight. You didn’t just sit at your table and go, okay, well, you know what? We don’t like the number that we see in 8-10 years. So tomorrow we’re going to change everything. What you did is you went to a gallery because you thought I’m selling art. So that immediately is a mind shift in your mind that has to take place like, okay, we’re selling frame things that go on the wall too. That could be termed art. Let’s go to other places that also sell these things. And how is it sold?
Allison Tyler Jones: And so that was an educating yourself first and getting your mind around it. Because how photographers do we know, again, that do amazing work, but don’t think of themselves as artists? They don’t really bake that into their soul. So you got clear in your brain first, before you could start talking to your clients about it or anything like that. So what did that process look like when you were educating yourself? What were some of the one or two things that you were like, oh, I love the way said that? Besides the $25,000 silk rug.
Gregory Daniel: So the first thing I think you have to do, or at least I did, is that it’s the concept that I call erasing the board. So we have to mentally erase the board to be able to move into a completely different area. Because you know, change is the hardest thing to do, right? Change is absolutely the hardest thing to do. And so I actually … the first step was to give ourself permission to look into figuring out something else, something other, something different that would get me excited to get me excited to do and create.
Gregory Daniel: And so having that in my head to change my mind and change my vision and erase the entire board, we happened to be in San Francisco and we loved galleries. So we just enjoyed looking at museums and galleries and things like that. And Lesa, if you didn’t know, she was a ballerina. So I loved the arts. I loved ballerina.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Gregory Daniel: I love ballerinas, obviously.
Lesa Daniel: Well I hope you love this one, this old one.
Gregory Daniel: And so we were walking into this gallery in San Francisco and there’s this realistic painting. This was back in the very early nineties.
Allison Tyler Jones: OK.
Gregory Daniel: So when we walked in, I saw this incredible gallery of all these gorgeous large framed pieces, or art pieces that he had generated, that he had created, painted. And they were all spot lit and the room was kind of low and it was-
Lesa Daniel: And they were all dancers. They were all ballerinas.
Gregory Daniel: Stunning. Absolutely stunning. Walked up to the first one that I fell in love with, it was $80,000.
Allison Tyler Jones: Love it.
Gregory Daniel: Wow.
Lesa Daniel: Okay.
Gregory Daniel: And then there was one just like it, exactly like it, over on the side, and it was $8,000. And I’m like-
Allison Tyler Jones: OK.
Lesa Daniel: This is in the early nineties.
Gregory Daniel: And I’m like, explain this to me.
Lesa Daniel: The curator came over and he said, “Well, there’s this new thing, it’s called Photoshop. And we are able to copy the piece that the artist does, the painting, and then print it on this new thing called Giclee. And then the artist can embellish it a little bit. And because it’s not an original, we can offer it for less, but it looks very similar to the original.”
Gregory Daniel: So I thought, oh my gosh, you’re in my world. You just went into my world and I can create this piece, this gorgeous, stunning, original piece, with who I want in it. I don’t have to buy that person. I don’t have to purchase-
Lesa Daniel: Buy that painting of somebody else. We can create personal art for our clients.
Gregory Daniel: So that was our target. That was our target, that goal. So I grabbed that pickup card for that museum, for that artist. And I pinned it in my work station and I said, “Lisa, this is who we’re going to be. We’re going to create this brand, this look, and we’re going to study how all of this works, how all of this artistry works.” And that was the beginning of the embellished reproduction page.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love it.
Gregory Daniel: So we learned how to do the art and all of that through all of those channels. That was the first step, is giving myself permission to erase the board so I could see it. I would’ve never seen it.
Lesa Daniel: We would’ve said, “That it’s a beautiful painting,” and gone home.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely right. And you would never have asked that question. You also, when you gave yourself permission and when you erased the board, I think baked under that is how can I.
Gregory Daniel: Yes.
Lesa Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones:Not we can can never charge … in our blue collar town next to the space center, never. Never.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: You just said, “Well, if I could, how could I?” And then just the way became clear in very small little packets of help along the way. I love that. I’m getting chills. Okay. Keep going.
Gregory Daniel: Wait now, just like our high end wedding market, we couldn’t do that here in this blue color town. We had to do it in Orlando out of a high end gallery boutique. Fortunately we did have that experience.
Lesa Daniel: For our weddings.
Gregory Daniel: For our weddings.
Lesa Daniel: We had a high end wedding dress shop and she said, “Use my dressing room once a week. Come here and help my brides because you help me, I help you.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Love it.
Lesa Daniel: The right hand washes the left.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Lesa Daniel: And so-
Gregory Daniel: So we knew how that market worked. And we knew that this gallery that we’re getting ready to create wouldn’t work here. Because it doesn’t work everywhere, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Gregory Daniel: So we had to go an hour south, where there was enough sustainable income there to be able to create a business like that. And so we do. So we have our production studio, which we’re in right now, which is in Titusville. And then we have our gallery, which is an hour south.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay.
Lesa Daniel: Going back to your original question, we just took apart the business little by little. We’re going to change our pricing. Now, what do they sell? They sell pieces that have added on paint work. And so what is that called? Well, we thought we’re going to be really fancy.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah.
Lesa Daniel: And we’re going to come up with a French name.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah.
Lesa Daniel: And so we asked-
Gregory Daniel: We thought we’d do it on our own.
Lesa Daniel: Yeah. We thought we could figure this out.
Gregory Daniel: Right.
Lesa Daniel: And so we asked a friend who had French speaking abilities and she said, “Well, I would call it a rouse.” OK. So we called it a rouse. “This is a rouse.” And our clients are like, “It’s a what?”
Gregory Daniel: Yeah. We did that for a couple of years.
Lesa Daniel: And Donald Miller says, “If you confuse, you lose.” Well, we confused. And so one time, one of our clients said-
Gregory Daniel: Our French clients.
Lesa Daniel: Yes. Said, “Do you know what you’re saying?” I’m like, “Yes. Yes. This is an embellished reproduction.” She goes, “No. It’s a rouse. It’s a fake.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Stop.
Lesa Daniel: Okay.
Gregory Daniel: Uh-oh.
Lesa Daniel: So we’re going to go back to the art world and we’re going to go back to the galleries and they call those things mixed medias.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Lesa Daniel: Right. OK. Well it’s mixed media.
Allison Tyler Jones: Of course.
Lesa Daniel: So we’re just going to call it a mixed media, because why do we have to reinvent this? Why don’t we take this idea from a sustainable business?
Gregory Daniel: Yeah.
Lesa Daniel: So it’s a mixed media. So we had to go with changing our names of things. They talked a lot about, when we did this, that they don’t sell like photographers do, like we’re going to sell an 8X10, a 24X30, a 36X40. Blah. Blah. Blah. A bunch of numbers.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Lesa Daniel: If I go to get drapes at my house and an interior designer says, “Well, you can get 96X73 or you can get 22 by something.” I’m like, “I just want drapes that go from here.”
Gregory Daniel: That fit.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Lesa Daniel: That’s all I want. You come up with the numbers. I don’t need the numbers.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I need it to be really pretty and cover the window.
Lesa Daniel: Yeah.
Gregory Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: And make me happy every time I look at it.
Lesa Daniel: That’s right. And so we said, why are we using all these numbers? So we’re just going to do it based on where it needs to hang. We’ll tell you what the number is so you can figure out price wise or figure it out. And we’re just going to go with that. So I am not a number person. I am not a math person. And so when someone throws a bunch of numbers out to me, I just close my ears and go LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Lesa Daniel: And I think that’s what a lot of clients do too. So we just started going with it’s 20 inches, it’s 30 inches tall. It’s 70 inches tall.
Gregory Daniel: And I think a piece of that is-
Lesa Daniel: Comes from the art world.
Gregory Daniel: The art world is much more commissioned based. And our world we come from is much more speculative based, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely.
Gregory Daniel: And so speculative wishing and hoping that they’re going to buy something at the end is totally different from this other world where we were designing this business.
Lesa Daniel: Right.
Gregory Daniel: So we designed-
Lesa Daniel: So we just took apart that art world, little by little, and we did what we call lessons learned.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay.
Lesa Daniel: All the time.
Gregory Daniel: Constantly. And we still do.
Lesa Daniel: And we still do.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah.
Lesa Daniel: We just sit down on a Tuesday or on our way home from the session or our way home from hanging, and what went wrong and how can we keep that from ever happening again? And so we would do lessons learned. Well, the client would say, “I love that piece, but everybody’s wearing three different colors of stripes and polka dots and it doesn’t go in my house. And my house is very clean. This is all over the map. It’s too busy for me to hang. I just want to sit it on a table.” Well, we’re not going to do that again. Now we’re going to take care of the clothing. You know, just little things that we could see, how would I want this if it was hanging in my house.
Allison Tyler Jones: Exactly.
Lesa Daniel: That’s what we did in taking this business apart and just following what kind of art did our clients hang in their house. Maybe their house is all white and they hung brightly colored art. Well then we want brightly colored clothing and a feel that matches their home.
Allison Tyler Jones: Exactly.
Lesa Daniel: So we would do it that way. And that’s how we broke the business down and made it higher end.
Allison Tyler Jones: So what you’re describing, every piece of this, even your lessons learned and all of that, every bit of that’s marketing.
Gregory Daniel: Every bit of it’s marketing.
Lesa Daniel: And we changed the way we dress, because we are marketing. If we walk in someplace and if we don’t look like a little higher end, it mattered as far as the way I felt I could present myself.
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Lesa Daniel: So for us, that was part of our brand, so we changed that. It may be the same three outfits over and over and over again at first, but that’s what we did.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Well, the thing that I love about that, I’m really glad that you gave the example of that rouse thing, is that many times I think when we try to go a little higher end, we’re going to try, right. It’s like the real estate agent that they get their license and the next thing is I got to buy a G-Ride because I got to show that I’m successful. You know? It’s like, well you’re going to be broke before you make your first commission. Okay. So there’s this concept of I got to be something that I’m not.
Gregory Daniel: Right.
Lesa Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: And say these fancy words that you didn’t even know what it meant.
Lesa Daniel: We didn’t know.
Allison Tyler Jones: But how many times have we done that? You hear somebody talking, you’re like, okay, well I’m calling it rouse. That’s what we’re doing. This is what it’s called.
Lesa Daniel: It’s not authentic to us.
Gregory Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And so then you said, okay, well I felt like we needed to dress different. But I think that’s who you already were.
Lesa Daniel: I think so too.
Allison Tyler Jones: What you were doing is just saying let’s put our best foot forward. So maybe when you were working and you were running and getting and doing weddings, maybe you were a little more casual. But now that you’re-
Gregory Daniel: Oh, no.
Lesa Daniel: Oh, no.
Allison Tyler Jones: No? You were-
Lesa Daniel: No. No. No.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, so you were still dressy? Okay.
Lesa Daniel: We were very dressed up. We were just like every other guest.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So that’s who you are.
Lesa Daniel: That’s who we are.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah. That’s who we are.
Allison Tyler Jones: So this is an uncovering process for you, is that at the core, this is who you’ve always been. You’ve always been a ballerina. Greg, you’ve always loved ballerinas.
Lesa Daniel: No, just one. Just one.
Allison Tyler Jones: Ballerina. Ballerina, in the singular. And conceptually, other ballerinas, but only is art.
Lesa Daniel: That’s right. There you go.
Allison Tyler Jones: So really it’s an uncovering process. And you decided we don’t … Greg didn’t want to run a crew of photographer. You wanted to make it special, and with the high end wedding, you knew how to make it special for that bride. And so you knew you could take that skillset and put that over into the portrait world, which I think is … I think that’s important to call out, because sometimes we’re trying to pretend to be things that we’re not. And sometimes we need to try on other identities and see that like, does this fit right? Can I say rouse? Maybe somebody else could say that and be like, yeah, it is a rouse. It’s hilarious. It’s funny. And then they can just ride that to the bank. I don’t know. So I love that. I love that you became more of who you already were.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So we’ve made the change. We’re going to go higher end. We’re going to go commission artwork. So in the true sense of marketing, when most photographers are asking about that, how did you start to put that out there? How did you get, whether it’s lead generation, or how did you start to get that going? How did that gain traction for you?
Gregory Daniel: Well, that was a long time ago. And so marketing and the way you got your name out was, one, very expensive, really expensive.
Lesa Daniel: And it was different than the way we do it today.
Gregory Daniel: It was very different than it is today.
Lesa Daniel: We can give you the synopsis.
Gregory Daniel: The initial, back then it was about … we did it in the mall display world.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay.
Gregory Daniel: And that was a very expensive proposition, but it worked. And we were able to create that brand in the malls. And so we had built these beautiful displays and the images would basically float. These pieces, these products, that’s another big piece of this puzzle is you have a product. Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Gregory Daniel: And so we knew what our product was going to be and what it was going to look like and stylized. And we created those products and we put them in the public on display. And we had those mall displays for probably 20 years.
Lesa Daniel: Many years.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah. But it was not that effective back in the early two thousands. Things started changing. Markets started changing in such a drastic way that it became very different.
Lesa Daniel: That was fairly passive.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Lesa Daniel: You’d walk by and you would see it. We would also have the cards that you would fill out if you were interested and put in the slot as a lead generator. We did some of that. That’s a little hard to go through, because then you’re having to filter. You’re doing a lot of filtering.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Lesa Daniel: But I think the principle is the same. People have to see what you do.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah, you have to create a recognizable brand.
Lesa Daniel: They can’t come to you if they don’t see what you do, don’t know you exist. And if you exist, what is it that you do? So maybe if you are deciding that I want to use Instagram as my method and I’m going to put my vacation pictures up and I’m going to put … I just bought a new car and then, oh, wait, today I’m going to show you, I took a picture.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Lesa Daniel: But tomorrow I’m going to go to a restaurant and here we are with our friends, you’re not branding your business, you’re branding your life. And that’s not going to help your clients know who you are.
Gregory Daniel: And the other piece of that … That’s a great thing you just brought up, is that … so let’s say the mall, in our mind, is now transitioned to Instagram. Let’s just say that, that it’s social media-
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s a fair comparison.
Gregory Daniel: Or that it is email distribution, or however, it’s digital world, where you’re going to network or you’re going to show your product. So that’s the deal, is that in the mall, what would you put there? What would that product look like? What would it be? How would it be seen and viewed? Well, can you translate it the exact same way that mentally when you’re looking at the screen, are you going to see that display or are you going to see a photo?
Allison Tyler Jones: Exactly.
Gregory Daniel: Are you going to see a picture? Are you going to see a product or are you going to see a picture?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Exactly. And so many feeds are just a lot of pretty pictures, which is great.
Lesa Daniel: Which is great.
Gregory Daniel: But that doesn’t really … that might create show your style of photography, but it doesn’t show your brand. You can’t talk about your brand. You can’t show your brand. You can’t see the level, the lane that you picked. Because that’s not-
Allison Tyler Jones: It doesn’t show what you are actually doing.
Lesa Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: It shows a pretty picture.
Gregory Daniel: You can’t put that in the shopping cart.
Lesa Daniel: Right. And they need to know, clients need to know, I get this pretty picture. What am I going to do with it?
Gregory Daniel: You can’t put that in a shopping cart.
Lesa Daniel: No. So you’ve got to show them what you can do with it. Show them how this is used. So I think it’s … we have lots of friends in this industry and I see them doing those kinds of things. And once in a while, we kind of do a little bit of the here’s our family.
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Lesa Daniel: We add that in because we feel like a little is kind of important because people want to know who they’re dealing with. But they primarily want to know what they’re going to get.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, because they don’t really care about us. I mean, honestly it’s how is this going to make my life better?
Lesa Daniel: Exactly.
Allison Tyler Jones: So it’s it back to the drapes and that rug. It’s like when I walk into my living room and it’s a cold morning and I’m in bare feet, I’m going to sit on this rug that pulls this room together perfectly. It’s going to feel so good because it’s silk and it’s not going to pill up and be weird. And it’s going to be just gorgeous. And I can hand it down through generations because it’s silk.
Lesa Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s hand knotted and all of that. So it’s the same thing with what we’re doing, is that yes it’s a pretty picture. But if you look at your Instagram feed, and we’re going to link to your Instagram feed in the show notes, it’s like Greg in a cute sport coat and his dark rinsed jeans and his meticulously crafted beard. And he’s holding this beautifully wrapped and signed portrait and walking up the client’s house. Or it’s the installations that we do … I use my stories a lot for our behind the scenes for the installation.
Allison Tyler Jones: So I think that communicates it as much or more than anything because social media is the mall now. It’s the town square.
Lesa Daniel: It is.
Gregory Daniel: Right.
Lesa Daniel: It is.
Allison Tyler Jones: Like how many times did you go to the mall, even when malls were big and you were going? Maybe once or twice a month. Now, every night at 10:00 PM, every woman I know is laying in her bed scrolling through the town square.
Gregory Daniel: Right. Exactly.
Lesa Daniel:
Right. Exactly.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. So that’s our opportunity to tell that story. It’s not to photograph our dessert and … get your personal page. That’s fine. But when you’re doing your business … I don’t know if this is true for you, we didn’t talk about this. But I’m finding that more of our DMs, our inquiries that are coming off of Instagram are incredibly qualified.
Gregory Daniel: Oh, absolutely.
Lesa Daniel: Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: They’re pre-educated, like incredibly qualified now.
Lesa Daniel: Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: But that wasn’t the case five years ago.
Lesa Daniel: Oh, absolutely not. But I will give you a little plug. Your social media displays are phenomenal. What you are doing is solid.
Gregory Daniel: Solid. Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m so inconsistent.
Lesa Daniel: A lot can be learned from you. So I go back every once in a while and go, she’s got it. She’s got it. I need to do more of that. You’ve got it. You really do. Congratulations.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well you’re kind. But it’s so hard. It takes so much time.
Lesa Daniel: It is hard.
Gregory Daniel: It does.
Allison Tyler Jones: And it takes a lot of thought. But I have a new girl now, she’s 20. On rice with the social media. So it’s getting better. But I mean, I think we can say … we would probably post about the same amount. So we’re not super on top of it consistent. We’re kind of borderline lazy, and it still is bringing in … The messaging is solid. And so the message is more important I think, than oh we did the latest. Did we do the dancing where we were pointing at the little words and the reels or whatever?
Allison Tyler Jones: And maybe we’re going to have to go all video, whatever. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. But I think if you’re really showing what it is that you do so that there’s no doubt in your mind. When I’m looking at your Instagram feed, I’m not thinking I’m going to get branding photos that I’m going to post on my Instagram feed.
Lesa Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: I’m not going to call you unless I need a mixed media piece that’s going to be 95 feet high above my fireplace in my Florida mansion.
Lesa Daniel: And please call us.
Gregory Daniel: There we go. Yes, please call us. We’re the ones to do that for you.
Lesa Daniel: Yeah. Of course we do small things. Everybody does something.
Allison Tyler Jones: Of course.
Lesa Daniel: But we’re not going to show that, because that’s not who we want to be. We only want to be known as this is what we do. So that filters a whole lot for us right there.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely. And what I find, how I know that I’m being successful with that … And have you ever had this happen? I know you have. Where somebody goes, they come in, they go through the whole process and they’re selecting their image that they’re going to do for the wall. And they kind of start getting like this sheepish look on their face and they’re like, “Okay, I don’t want to offend you, but do you even do that?”
Lesa Daniel: Yes. I get that a lot.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Or they’re embarrassed to ask the artists. And I’m like, “No, of course we can do that.” And they’re like “Oh, Okay. I just didn’t want to offend you.” So that tells me-
Gregory Daniel: That’s exactly what they do.
Allison Tyler Jones: The message is clear.
Lesa Daniel: That’s it. That’s it. That’s it.
Allison Tyler Jones: This is only thing we’re doing.
Lesa Daniel: The homes that we’re walking into … And we now have people say … they open the door and they’ll go, “Oh, you’re taking pictures in front of my house. Okay, wait, let me close it.” Or, “Let me stand here and smile while you do it,.” You know? “Okay. I’m ready.” Because they want their house on display. Rightfully so. They have earned that home.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely.
Lesa Daniel: They want all their friends to know that this is where these portraits are going.
Gregory Daniel: That’s right.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. So consistency is a huge factor, huge factor.
Gregory Daniel: It is.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I love that. So I just-
Gregory Daniel: And it makes them feel good too. It adds value to their product when they see other beautiful homes, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Gregory Daniel: That these products are going into, that a Gregory Daniel piece and what it represents. It makes their theirs much more valuable. So they enjoy seeing others get it as well.
Allison Tyler Jones: Exactly. And it reminds me of a book that I read, oh gosh, I think it was Different by Bernadette Jiwa. And she said that the ultimate branding, it’s not about, it’s how our clients feel about themselves in the presence of our brand.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah.
Lesa Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: So it’s how they feel about themselves. It’s not like, oh, I’m so excited to be here and I’m fan girling on Greg Daniel. That might happen. But it’s really like … I don’t want people to feel like that about me. I want them to feel like you know what, my family is awesome.
Lesa Daniel: Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: And my house is beautiful and I have good taste.
Gregory Daniel: Yes.
Lesa Daniel: Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: I want them to feel good about themselves because all of those things are true.
Lesa Daniel: Exactly.
Gregory Daniel: Exactly.
Lesa Daniel: Exactly.
Allison Tyler Jones: I’m a good mom. I love my kids. This is the most important thing to me. I’ve had a lot of people say when, we finished an install, will stand back and I’ll say, “It’s so obvious to me what’s important to you. You walk into this house and you know exactly who you are and what you value.”
Lesa Daniel: I say that a lot too. When they decide, where are we going to hang it, you want to hang in a prominent place. You want someone to walk in and go these are the most important people in the world. These are the people that matter.
Gregory Daniel: And every single time, every single time, it’s so obvious that it turns a house into a home just completely. Because typically we’re replacing a piece that is something that maybe an interior designer put up for them or whatever. And it is immediate because it feels like an interior designer did it. Right. And it feels like it fits in the scene and in their place where they live.
Lesa Daniel: Like no one else can have that one piece.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Lesa Daniel: Because it’s their family. It’s their people.
Gregory Daniel: It circles back around to that gallery that we went into and that-
Lesa Daniel: It’s their personalized art.
Gregory Daniel: It’s their personalized art that we created for them.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. Well, I remember doing a project with my sister who’s an interior designer and it was in-
Gregory Daniel: Incredible interior designer.
Allison Tyler Jones: She is awesome.
Lesa Daniel: Yes, she is.
Allison Tyler Jones: And Montecito, California. And I had gone in and helped her curate a family gallery for the client. And so their rug in their family room was $150,000 because it was actually antique. It was an antique Oriental. And then as we were walking through the house she’s telling me all the things, the drapery hardware, hardware, $125,000. That doesn’t count the fabric that was hanging from the hardware.
Lesa Daniel: Just the hardware. Okay.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. So, I mean, it was an estate. It was literally down the street from Oprah. And this is not my normal client, for the record. But anyway, so I had gone in and helped them curate a family gallery and we’d hung all these pictures on the wall. And the wife was actually a hobbyist photographer. So we printed some of her things and hung them on the wall.
Allison Tyler Jones:And so after she’d walked the client through the house and we were doing a little postmortem at dinner that night, and she’s like … You know, the thing that kind of ticks me off is that we’re walking through this house that I’ve designed for them. And it’s absolutely what she picked. It’s so gorgeous. It’s so amazing. And all she can talk about as she’s walking by is going, “My family’s here.” And it’s all the pictures of them on the wall. And she’s like, “I feel like you kind of steal my thunder and it’s makes me mad.” I mean, she was teasing.
Lesa Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: But it’s true. It’s that final layer of personalization, but in a beautiful way. It’s not janky. You know what I mean?
Gregory Daniel:We have an incredibly dear friend of ours that builds a lot of these fantastic homes that our clients are in. And we had to stage a whole lot of our portraits in one of his model homes. And they were doing an opening-
Lesa Daniel: An open house.
Gregory Daniel: An open house.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay.
Gregory Daniel: So when you walk in the door, it says his name on the rug. When you wipe your feet off, it’s this big rug, it has his name on it. But our portraits are all over this home, all over it.
Lesa Daniel: Because he wanted to feel warm.
Gregory Daniel: Because he wanted it to feel like a home and not just a staged event. Wanted to make it feel like someone’s home. After a couple of weeks of these … And he would be there when people would walk in, at times, back and forth. So we go in to visit and he says, “I’ve got a little bit of a problem because I think I’m going to need to change the entry, the rug to say Gregory Daniel.”
Allison Tyler Jones: To say Greg Daniel.
Gregory Daniel: Because all they want to talk about are your portraits.
Lesa Daniel: They’re not at the kitchen and the rest of the home.
Allison Tyler Jones: They’re looking at the wrong thing. Yeah. They’re not looking at the Wolf range and the-
Lesa Daniel: Yeah.
Gregory Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s so great.
Lesa Daniel: That’s very true.
Gregory Daniel: It’s so true.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. But I think where we do intersect, my best clients and I find, is that my best clients love their family, to distraction. And they love to spend money on their house.
Gregory Daniel: Oh yeah.
Lesa Daniel: Absolutely. That is it.
Allison Tyler Jones: And that’s a really common thread. So when we’re going … Back to marketing. Just what you said, we were in a parade of homes and I’m still … this was like seven years ago. We were in a parade of homes in one of the homes we put some art of the kids. And I’m still getting calls off of that. I didn’t get it right away.
Lesa Daniel: No.
Allison Tyler Jones: And the people will say, “Oh, you know, I think I saw you were in that parade of homes or whatever.” So that, I think, is a direct … If you’re going for that higher end, if we’re picking a lane. And I think most people that listen to me, they want to do that. Is that they love their family and they love their house. And it might even be they love their house more, a little bit. Because, you know, it depends on the age of the kids.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah.
Lesa Daniel: Well there’s a lot of truth to that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. It’s true. I love that. Okay. So Instagram feed, what are the other layers of marketing that you feel like have been really helpful or educational for your clients?
Gregory Daniel: So marketing, we talked a lot about displays and passive marketing, things like that. And I found that in the early two thousands, I went down this whole path of the six degree of separation in my brain, the six degrees of separation where everybody knows somebody, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Lesa Daniel: And then Kevin Bacon may get it … And as time goes on it gets smaller and smaller and smaller.
Gregory Daniel: And so I believe that, with that in mind, that kind of theory, that kind of thought process, that instead of being so passive, even though we need to have institutional marketing out there so everyone knows who you are and your brand. But that in and of itself doesn’t work anymore. But it takes a triggering process. It takes something where you can ask, you can talk to maybe existing clients that you currently have that meet that kind of target that you’re interested in.
Gregory Daniel: And that you can ask them if there’s other people that have been at your home at a party, and that are interested in a redoing a portrait or doing something. And then you can go through the whole six degree of separation thing where you’re utilizing and leveraging on the network of people that are in there. But without having some sort of triggering mechanism, some sort of discussion, some sort of invitation of some sort that can invite people into that world and maneuver about, then it will stay stagnant. It won’t-
Allison Tyler Jones: So what are you doing for that? What is that triggering?
Lesa Daniel: Let me give you an example that any one of your listeners could use tomorrow.
Allison Tyler Jones: Love it.
Lesa Daniel: I’m assuming they have a website. You need to work on your website and you’re wanting to update some images. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy. You need to update some images for what you’re going to be doing. So you call client A, who has done some images that you love.
Gregory Daniel: And understands your brand that you are trying to build
Lesa Daniel: Is your ideal client. You contact them and you say, “Client A, we are updating our website. We would love to use your portrait on our website. Do you have any friends who have seen that portrait and have said one of these days I’m going to do a Gregory Daniel portrait. Do you have any of those friends that we could contact to help us increase our images on our website?” “Sure. I have Friend B, C and D.” “So, Client A, could you please contact them and ask them if I could have their number?” Because the higher end does not like these to be given out, at all.
Allison Tyler Jones: Privacy is key.
Lesa Daniel: Could you contact them, see if I could have their number. I will contact them and set something up and we could create these images. And it would be a win for them because it’s going to make it happen for them, because we all know we procrastinate. It’ll be a win for us because we’ll be able to populate our website. Simple. Easy. But you’ve triggered them. You’ve triggered them to do something.
Gregory Daniel: It’s that whole thing about what I call, are they going to be trying to kiss frogs to make them turn into princes? Or do you want to spend time doing that? Because eventually you’re going to get one that loves you, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Gregory Daniel: But you have kissed so many frogs to get that one. But you go, wow, that worked. That’s a whole lot of effort.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. That’s called intermittent reinforcement, and it’s the worst.
Lesa Daniel: It’s the worst.
Gregory Daniel: It’s the worst.
Allison Tyler Jones: The worst. Yes.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah. So this is very direct. They’re putting you in touch with people-
Lesa Daniel: People who want what you do and they know that … They know that we are not inexpensive, so she’s not going to embarrass her friends.
Gregory Daniel: Right.
Lesa Daniel: By sending someone who can’t make that happen right now, who doesn’t have-
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And I want to clarify though, you’re not saying, “Is there somebody that we could give a free thing to?”
Gregory Daniel: No.
Lesa Daniel: No.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. Because you know. That’s what some people will hear and they’ll say, “Okay, we’re going to give free sessions.”
Lesa Daniel: No. No. This is something we are wanting to increase, maybe for us, we are wanting to do a marketing piece and we are looking for beautiful new faces or something like that. Well everybody wants to be on the marketing piece.
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Lesa Daniel: And so many times when I call and say, “We would love to use your portrait and do you have any other friends who would be a part of it?” They’re like, “You want to use mine?” They’re so honored. And then they’re happy to help you.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah. They’ll just send them our away.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. That’s great.
Gregory Daniel: And that’s the trigger, because they’re all going … Well they just need a reason. And a lot of folks need a reason to go ahead and do it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Gregory Daniel: They might have been at a gala or a party at one of our client’s homes. And obviously they’re going to talk about the piece, because it’s a-
Lesa Daniel: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: So you’re calling them … Well, you’re not calling them. They’re contacting their friend and saying, “You know that piece that you love? They’re looking to update their website or update their marketing piece. And do you want to do that? Can I give your number to Lesa?”
Lesa Daniel: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: And so then you’re calling them and then you’re saying what?
Lesa Daniel: I’m saying … so I’m going to use the website, because this is what I think all of your clients could do. Or all of your listeners, I’m sorry. “So Mrs. Smith, we are updating our website and Greg is trying to create a new look and it’s really, really beautiful. It’s a lot like what you saw client A doing. And she mentioned that you might be interested in doing this too. Would you be willing to be a part of this as part of our project? And then if you wanted something, great. There’s no pressure for you to get anything if you don’t.”
Gregory Daniel: Yeah, So there’s-
Lesa Daniel: Give them an out, because if they smell marketing-
Allison Tyler Jones: Totally.
Lesa Daniel: They’re going to bail.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah.
Lesa Daniel: And it has to, has to, has to be a win-win.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Lesa Daniel: If it is a win-lose, somebody’s going to stop playing that game.
Gregory Daniel: And if you feel like it’s marketing, that’s kind of a-
Allison Tyler Jones: I know. Okay.
Gregory Daniel: If what you’re doing is marketing-
Allison Tyler Jones: Can I be the friend? Can I be the friend? Can I be the client?
Lesa Daniel: Yes. Absolutely.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay.
Lesa Daniel: You’re like, “Can I please.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Can I, please? Let’s role play. Okay. So you’re Lesa. Hi, Lesa.
Lesa Daniel: That’s amazing. Hi.
Allison Tyler Jones: All right. Okay. So you’ve called me, and so run that by me. I’m going to be the client.
Lesa Daniel: Okay.
Allison Tyler Jones: Perspective.
Lesa Daniel: Okay. So, Alison, I was given your number by our friend, Client A. And she is just delightful and we love-
Allison Tyler Jones: I love her so much.
Lesa Daniel: Me too. She was just so fun. So I’m so grateful that we’re in this business because we can meet people like her and hopefully people like you.
Allison Tyler Jones: Love it.
Lesa Daniel: We’re creating our website and we are updating it. And we have this new look that Greg … I’m sure you’re familiar with him because you saw that piece in Client A’s-
Allison Tyler Jones: I loved it.
Lesa Daniel: And so he’s wanting to really stretch and create more pieces like that. And we just need to populate our website so people will understand what this look is and what we do. So do you have a desire to be a part of this? We are going to create some sessions. Of course, we’re not going to charge you for this session because you’re doing us a favor. So it’s not going to cost you anything if you don’t want-
Allison Tyler Jones: Will you help figure out what to wear?
Lesa Daniel: Oh, of course. We’re going to help walk you through everything. I’ll give you a couple of websites to find the clothing so that it’ll be much easier. Because you know, that’s stressful. That’s real stressful, to find the clothing. So we’ll do that. And we’ll just have a whole lot of fun. Hopefully your kids will love it. If you want something, fine. If you don’t, fine. That’s totally up to you.
Allison Tyler Jones: So if we want to do something, because it’s been a while and I was talking to Client A about doing our family portrait. And I saw what you did for her.And I loved it. It was very vertical, but I need horizontal.
Lesa Daniel: Well then if you need horizontal, we can focus on that. If this is something that you want to do, absolutely. We can make this work for you and us. So if you have horizontal, if you can just send me some pictures of that space, what Greg is doing will lend itself to that. So that would work really well.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. And then what do I need to buy? How much is this going to cost?
Lesa Daniel: You don’t have to buy anything.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay.
Lesa Daniel: However, if you want something, let me just give you a range. It can range anywhere from point A to point Z.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Lesa Daniel: Anywhere in between, for the wall. So if you would like something, these are the pricing structures. A little side note, I want her to get the sticker shock done now.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely.
Lesa Daniel: I want to get over that so then if she doesn’t love them and then go wait now is-
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So I’m not the client anymore. So now we’re just Lesa and Allison. So then you would just take her through your process, right? If she says I’ll come in-
Lesa Daniel: I’m like, “Okay, so then let’s start figuring out what works best for you.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Go ahead and come for the consultation. Let’s figure out the close. And then I can tell you … If you do want to buy something, I can quote you those prices. And then Greg knows that if they are on, they want an album, they want a gallery, then he’s going to shoot all of that. And then if they don’t want that, then you’re going to just shoot the thing you need for the marketing?
Lesa Daniel: Exactly.
Gregory Daniel: Well, because I’m a process guy, right? So the process standpoint-
Lesa Daniel: That’s an understatement.
Gregory Daniel: Yeah. But from a process standpoint-
Allison Tyler Jones: I love you.
Gregory Daniel: You guys went down … you took her down the artist project path.
Lesa Daniel: I did.
Gregory Daniel: So we have two doors that people can come in on. One would be the commission door. They know that they know that they know, and they walked through it. And we take them through the whole designer process, where they’re it’s all about commission.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yep.
Gregory Daniel: They’re commissioning this-
Allison Tyler Jones: They called you. They want you. They want family portraits or whatever.
Gregory Daniel: And so that door, they also come in because somebody sent them into through that door. Okay. So this person, the six degree of separation person … well, let’s just talk about. The other door is the invitation door where we’ve invited them in. That’s an artist project door. Okay. That’s an artist project door. And so that door is a different door than this other-
Lesa Daniel: That’s where I do the asking, and I do-
Allison Tyler Jones: So that’s the trigger. That’s your trigger.
Gregory Daniel: That’s a trigger.
Allison Tyler Jones: Got it.
Gregory Daniel: But the trigger process, where they’re coming through that door, they’re going to come through that door and then either go one way or another way. When they’re coming through that artist project door, they’re going to either turn immediately into a commission door and they’re going to circle back around and she’s going to do a commission with them, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yep. Yep.
Gregory Daniel: The way you guys were talking and the way you kind of led them-
Lesa Daniel: You’re a commission person.
Gregory Daniel: She would’ve been a commission, and she would’ve taken it down that route.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Gregory Daniel: So the other one-
Lesa Daniel: It give me the cues that okay, well I’ll do this. This will be fun for the kids. But you know, that’s all I need to do. Then great.
Gregory Daniel: Right. The artist project door that just is an artist project door, that’s not necessarily a commission.
Allison Tyler Jones: Exactly. And then if I’m giving you the other signals, if I’m like, “Okay. Well sure. I mean, my girls would love to get their ball gowns on and have Greg run them. Could they be doing this and could they be doing that? But I mean, we’re moving. We live in a glass igloo with no exterior walls. I don’t have anything. I can never hang anything on the wall.” Then you’re going to say, “You know what? Yes. I love that. Let’s do that on Tuesday at 3:00 PM.”
Lesa Daniel: Exactly. Exactly. It’s not Saturday at 3:00 in the afternoon.
Gregory Daniel: I just want to clarify that the way you guys went down it, the six degree of separation can happen and get them … you can go end up with a commission or you can end up with probably a good artist project and piece that is typically well done because they are in the world that you live in.
Allison Tyler Jones: For sure. So you’re basically funnel …. I mean, everybody’s talking about Facebook funnels right now. But this is the ultimate funnel, which is like, you are making a hierarchy. And so if you’re saying these words, we’re going full boar and I’m going to give you the whole thing. And you’re saying these words, then we’re still going to do what we said we were going to do, but it is going to be on our time. And it’s going to be very, very limited.
Gregory Daniel: Right.
Lesa Daniel: Exactly. 100%.
Gregory Daniel: Yes.
Lesa Daniel: 100%.
Allison Tyler Jones: OK. I love that. All right. Well, I have taken a lot of your time and you have given us so many great ideas. And not just a great tactical idea, which I really appreciate that by the way. I think our listeners are going to love that. But to me, that philosophical underpinning of getting in your mind about what kind of business you’re really in, picking that lane. Wow. So great. Is there any final pearls of wisdom that you would like to give us?
Lesa Daniel: Do you have a Pearl of wisdom?
Gregory Daniel: No.
Allison Tyler Jones: Encouragement for those struggling that are just having a hard time out there.
Lesa Daniel: You can do it. Even if you don’t think you can, you can. You can do it. We see a lot of people and they just don’t believe in themselves.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Lesa Daniel: But other people believe in you. So if you have great pieces of art, just give it a try. Listen to Mel Robbins do her 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Go for it. Let’s do it today. Pick up the phone.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Lesa Daniel: She’s one of my favorite motivator’s, Mel Robbins. And so she has the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5 second rule. Just do it. Just do it today and see if it works.
Gregory Daniel: My Pearl of wisdom would be, I was very fortunate and very blessed to have Tom McDonald in my life who was a mentor. And that he helped me along the way, along the way, along the way. Mentors pick the folks that they’re going to mentor with, right. But if you make yourself available and you’re out there doing the hard work, often mentors will show up in your life. Recognize them, because they’ll be helping you. And so if you can find a mentor, it’ll make your life a whole lot easier.
Lesa Daniel: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love of that. And you have been friend and mentor in many ways that you probably don’t even realize for me. And from very first when I started in 2005, I remember seeing you guys talk and thinking, man I just don’t know if I could ever do that. But I think we’re proof positive that in 2022, portraiture is not dead. Finished work is not dead. In fact, it’s actually more valuable than ever. And people are spending more on it than ever before. They’re spending more on their homes. We’ve come through … well, we’re in the middle of a pandemic. But it’s value. And I think so much of who you are comes through in your work. You love your girls so much. You love that grand baby. You love your family. And you love nice things at home too. And so that sends the message. And I think you’ve just been a beacon of hope and light and encouragement and class in this industry. And I just so appreciate your time.
Lesa Daniel: Thank you.
Gregory Daniel: Thank you.
Lesa Daniel: And this has been so much fun. Thank you for asking us.
Gregory Daniel: It’s been a delight.
Allison Tyler Jones: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you.
Allison Tyler Jones: Do you know someone who would really benefit from this episode of The ReWork, maybe a fellow photographer who’s in the trenches with you and always looking to level up their biz. Or perhaps you have a friend who is struggling to make their business work. I would be so grateful if you would share this episode with them. All you have to do is head to the platform where you are listening, click the share icon, and text it or email it to the person that you think could need it most. Thank you so much for doing that.
Allison Tyler Jones: And while you’re there, if you have a chance and can give us a review, it would mean the world. We are a micro, tiny podcast, and we’re trying to get the word out to as many portrait photographers as possible to help them build better businesses and better lives for their family. And if you would help us do that, it would mean the world. Thank you so much. And we’ll see it next time on The ReWork.
Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison at dotherework.com and on Instagram at do.the.rework.
