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, mini workshops, and behind the scenes secrets that Allison uses in her portrait studio every single day. She will challenge your 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 friends, and welcome back to the Rework. Today’s format is going to be a little bit different. As our guest today, we have portrait photographer Allison Gallagher, who is from Allisonanne Studios in New Jersey, and she has had a challenging question from a client and is also having just a bit of a struggle, as we all do, with believing in her own value and communicating that to her client. So we’re doing a bit of a hot seat type format where she’s sharing the challenge and I’m going to coach her through that process.
Allison Tyler Jones: So, I know that you’ll find it valuable. I love to listen to other people being coached because it helps me see how I can do better in my own business, and you’re going to love Allison’s personality. She is feisty and funny and so smart, and I think you’re really going to enjoy it. So let’s do it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So today’s guest on the Rework podcast is one of my favorite members of our Mind Shift Membership community, not just because she spells her name correctly, Allison Gallagher, but also because she is as unfiltered and possibly even more unfiltered than I am, which I appreciate so much. Welcome, Allison. I’m so glad that you’re here.
Allison Gallagher: Yes, I am stoked to be here and chat with you. Thank you.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes, of course. So the reason that I wanted to have you on the podcast is that you have been asking some really great questions in the Facebook community and I think at the bottom of all of them is a question that we all have about ourselves at one stage or another, or maybe our whole lives, and that is believing that we can really do it, this could really happen for us. And obviously you have evidence that it does happen for you because you have a thriving business already. Yes?
Allison Gallagher: There’s plenty of evidence. You can find evidence in any which way, right? And so your brain loves evidence. And so yes, I have lots of evidence that people want this level of service, need, they need this in their life. Yes, I do.
Allison Tyler Jones: From you. So tell our listeners who you are, give us a little bio elevator pitch, where are you? What do you do? Give us the rundown.
Allison Gallagher: Okay, so I’ve been in business 16 years. I’m on my 17th year. And I’ve been in my studio for four years, a little over four years. And so, yes, I’m a custom portrait photographer. I specialize in finished artwork for your home, and I help my clients make decisions. I take things off their desk, off their to-do list, but I photograph family. I’m in Hammonton, New Jersey, South Jersey, and Allisonanne Studios is my company and families, newborns, high school seniors. I do some branding and headshot stuff, but it’s-
Allison Tyler Jones: Portraits.
Allison Gallagher: Portraits, yes. All of the portraits.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay, I love it. So one of the recent questions that you posed on the Facebook group, if you don’t mind my sharing, probably should have asked that before we started recording, but I’m just going to share it because I know you have no filter is you said, “Okay, I have a client that wants a generational session, but all they want is an 11×14.”
Allison Gallagher: Yes. So mom came to me and wanted portraits. I posted a very deep-hearted rant to moms on my Instagram about slowing it down and let’s celebrate and not just spend five minutes on an online gallery and then you’ll get to it. So anyway, so within five minutes, mom called me and was like, “I need this,” because I had photographed her before and then she called me and it never happened. And she’s like, she came into my studio and now she wants her mom involved, grandmom.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. Okay.
Allison Gallagher: So she’s like, “I know what grandmom wants. I know what my mom wants, and I’m going to try to get my brother involved.” So when I spoke to her, I brought her in, showed her three 30 inches upper staircase, and she was going to get grandmom involved, potentially. And I haven’t been able to talk to her again and I was like, “Well, how’s your husband going to feel about this?” And he’s not involved in the budget, whatever.
Allison Tyler Jones: Female finance. Yes.
Allison Gallagher: Yes. But then she texted me and said, “I talked to my mom. She knows exactly where she wants it.” So I haven’t even talked to her about walls or whatever, “But she knows exactly where she wants, what she wants. She wants two 11x14s framed, and now mom just wants two 8x10s framed,” instead of her three 30 inch. And so now I think, how much work do I want to do, but I haven’t had a conversation with her about where the major change was because she came to me because she wants finished artwork, but there must have been a conversation with her husband, I’m assuming.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Right. So my response to that is that we get to decide, right? We get to decide what kind of business we’re running, we get to decide what our highest and best uses of our talent and how we want to work. And in my mind, when I think about that question, I am going to talk somebody out of that, out using me for that, just because I know that if you’re doing a multi-gen session, usually that’s a few people. I don’t know how many people are going to be in this particular family, but usually it’s a bigger group. And to know what that’s going to take for them, so this isn’t just about me and my business, but what it’s going to take for that mom, that daughter to get all those kids dressed and get everybody on board and everybody happy and bring them down here, and to do that for an 11×14, it’s just not even worth it because you’re not even going to see the expressions that I am going to kill myself to get out of them.
Allison Tyler Jones: So if you just want something little like that, then there’s five girls in your neighborhood that have a nice camera that can run out to the park and snap that for you, and then that’s what an 8×10 is for. When you need it to be perfection on a wall, everybody’s expression is perfect, if we’ve had to swap out heads and bodies and all the different things, and we’re going to figure out the clothing and we’re going to help you make it great and there’s going to be a spreadsheet and a mood board and all the things to get everybody on board, that level of planning is for a piece of art that is going to hold a wall alone or a series of images that are going to hold a wall alone, but it’s overkill and you don’t want to spend the money. It’s just not worth it.
Allison Tyler Jones: So that’s how I would respond to that because truly, of course it’s not sustainable for my business to spend that amount of time and kill myself off for an 11×14 or an 8×10, but really for my client, it’s not the best thing for them either. Does that make sense?
Allison Gallagher: Yeah, it does. And what I’ve thought about is I think that that’s an opinion where, what if they come back to me and say, “Well, we’re okay with the size that their heads are going to be on the wall as an 11×14,” would you just insist on not doing it?
Allison Tyler Jones: No, because my generational sessions are significantly more expensive. So there’s a threshold there. So it’s like if you are going to spend, and off the top of my head I don’t know what it is, but if you’re going to spend $5,000 and have an 8×10, that just seems overkill to me.
Allison Gallagher: She texted me, it’s probably three weeks ago this, and we’ve tried twice to get on the phone. Her schedule has changed with her job and whatever, and I just actually, it’s been crazy. So I’m like, okay, at this point, because she asked me in the text message, “How much is this going to cost? Two framed 8x10s, two framed 11x14s?” And I’m like, “Let’s have a conversation.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Right, right. And so to me, having a generational session, so this could go for whether you’re talking about a generational session, a corporate group shot that’s on location, anything that’s going to require a lot of planning, a lot of coordination with multiple people, that cannot be your normal session fee. It’s just not, because it takes so much more pre-production time.
Allison Tyler Jones: So if you’re shooting commercial work, if you’ve ever shot any big commercial projects, there’s a whole line item in those projects for pre-production, calling and getting the makeup, calling and getting a digital tech, running around and getting your backgrounds and running the lights and all that. The pre-production time is built into a commercial bid. And so it’s really, with a generational session like that, or even a wedding or an event or something like that, we understand that. We understand that, “Oh, if you’re going to shoot a wedding, of course it needs to be thousands of dollars, it’s not going to be $200 and hope you buy something.
Allison Tyler Jones: So, a generational session, in my mind is that, okay, well this is how we do generational sessions. There’s a spreadsheet. I have a list of everybody’s names, their relationships, how old they are, how tall they are, what color their hair is, what their relationships are, and then we get a shot list together, and then we figure out, I have a mood board, and then there’s clothing and there’s all of this stuff is put into place in the pre-production phase, and that is covered by a much higher session fee.
Allison Tyler Jones: So they can make the decision. Does that make sense? I believe, and I know that that time is valuable. I know I’m going to spend that time making sure that all the I’s are dotted and all the T’s are crossed and it’s going to cost X number of dollars, so whatever amount of money you put on that. So then when somebody’s like, “Look, I just need a couple of 8x10s because I need to figure out how to get the cost down,” it’s way overkill. You don’t want that. It’s just not worth it.
Allison Gallagher: Yeah. And I have to decide, which I get to decide, how much time I want to invest or if I want to take on a job that I’ll easily say, “You don’t need me for that.” Or like you said, “It’s okay if you don’t want this level of service.” And I don’t know how that conversation’s going to go, but she came to me because she realizes that she wants her children on her wall and she does not have them.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. So I think that it’s just more of a conversation rather than, because the first thing out of a client’s mouth is not usually the thing that they actually want. They’re just saying what their current knowledge is, what their current awareness is.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s like if we call some business that we know nothing about, we know nothing about home organization, know nothing about how much that costs. I have no idea how much that service costs. So I call up and I say, “How much is it going to cost for you to organize my entire house?” Well, first of all, they can’t tell me because they don’t know how much crap I have and if I’m a hoarder, there’s a whole lot of things that they don’t know, but they could tell me, “Okay, projects start at $5,000 for a closet,” or whatever. That would give me an idea of, “Okay, I don’t have $5,000. I have $500, so I’m going to get the nice little high school senior who has a knack for organizing and get her over here to fix my pantry.” I can’t afford the Home Edit to roll in here and rainbow my house.
Allison Tyler Jones: So it’s the same kind of thing. We decide the business model that we want to have, what we do or don’t want to do, and then we just put it out there and then let them self-select. So you’re not telling her, “No, it’s not worth it for me to shoot your family and go through all that work for only two 11x14s or two 8x10s, because that’s rude, first of all. It really is just letting them know, “That’s not in your best interest. It’s truly not because I’m charging this much for it and if I were you, why don’t we just bag the multi-gen right now? Let’s wait till your mom’s more on board. You said that the most important thing was that you wanted your kids on the wall, let’s do your kids and let’s make them big.”
Allison Tyler Jones: And then give them the thing that she really said that she wanted. If she started with, “I want my kids,” and then kind of was like, “Oh, no, but I want the multi-gen,” maybe pull her back a little bit. But it’s just believing, and this is kind of what we were talking about in the very beginning before we started recording, is believing that just because it comes out of a client’s mouth doesn’t mean that that’s actually what they really want. They don’t know what they want. That’s our job is to tell them, because we’re the portrait experts, we’re the family memory experts. We know all the things that could possibly happen. We know all the concepts. We know all the reasons why you would want to do it. They don’t know. They just know that, “My kids are getting older. My parents are getting older, and I need something, but I don’t know what it is, but I’m worried that it’s going to cost a lot so I’m going to put you in a box right now and tell you that I need little.”
Allison Tyler Jones: And then it’s up to us to say, “You could totally do that, but you don’t need me for little. You need me for when it needs to be big and amazing and have a concept to it and everybody’s having a great time and I’ve managed that energy and everybody’s dressed to perfection and it looks like the freaking Kardashians with grandma,” or whatever, or whatever your thing is. So I think that we get defensive because somebody asks us a question and we think, “Oh my gosh, because they asked this, now I have to answer that question.” Have you seen politicians on interviews? They never answer the question. They just go with their agenda.
Allison Tyler Jones: “Did you sleep with that hooker?” “I’m really glad that you asked me that because I really feel like we need to build a wall.” No, they never answer the question. So why can’t we just have our agenda? And my agenda is always, I want my clients to have what is going to best serve them. And I know that as a mom, I’m a multi-gen family now, I’m a grandma, I am not going to nag my daughters-in-law and browbeat my sons and dress the toddlers and do all of that for an 8×10. It’s just not worth it.
Allison Gallagher: Right. And it just amazes me that we came up with a concept of beautiful portraits up her wall and I showed her examples and we built it on her wall and we came up with concepts and she texted me back totally different, totally different size, putting them in a different place, which I don’t have pictures of. I know she has wall space because I saw lots of it. She came in gung-ho. So I’m like, “What’s going on here? The husband?”
Allison Tyler Jones: Don’t tell stories. Don’t make up stories.
Allison Gallagher: Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know.
Allison Tyler Jones: You know this. You’re a life coach. Don’t make up stories. But we do. We do make up stories because immediately it’s not happening the way that we thought it was going to happen. Her script in this story is that she was supposed to back up, you were supposed to hear the beep, beep beep in front of your studio, and she was rolling up the back of the Brink’s truck with the stacks of cash that she was going to bring in. But no, something changed. And so then that’s just a conversation. And so there’s no need to pick up a tug of war rope. There’s no need to get on any kind of adversarial, even in your brain, even in your mind. Don’t even go, just, “Okay, I need to know more. Tell me more. Tell me more. Tell me more. Tell me more.” And let her explain.
Allison Tyler Jones: And then you can talk about, “Well, this is how I see it. This is how we work. And just, I know as a mom, I know how hard it is to get everybody dressed. I know how hard it is to get everybody on board. And what I envision, what we talked about as I envisioned this and this and this, that’s what I would create for you. But if that’s not in the cards right now, then let’s look at another way to go,” and just have the conversation. But I do feel like that when a client asks for something, there is some kind of knee-jerk, core, I don’t know what it is. It goes to our, what’s the brain? The lizard brain? It enters the lizard brain of-
Allison Gallagher: Yeah, totally.
Allison Tyler Jones: I have to do this. She asked me if she could throw a Molotov cocktail on top of my studio and burn it down. I have to do it. How can I make it happen? But really, we can just sit there and let that space be there and say, “Okay, let’s figure out how we can work together,” because I know what I do and what I’m best at and how can I bring what I do best and bring that to bear on your project? And if the things don’t match up, she doesn’t want to make that kind of investment right now, then let’s do the kids. She only wants to pay a lower session fee and only want, then let’s just do what she really needs.
Allison Gallagher: Yeah. And I have come to the point where I’m not going to do something that I don’t feel the value of, I guess is how I word it. I see the value in what I do and how I do it, and that’s really all I want to do. And so, where I used to take on whatever, now I’m very clear, I’m very clear in how I work. And that conversation can shake me because it’s like, now I’ve committed to something that I may have to do that I don’t feel is worth her time, her money, my time.
Allison Gallagher: I’ve had grandparents buy 8x10s from me and then say, “I should have gone bigger.” I have so many conversations with people that they start with 8×10, and then I’m like, “You want to see what 8×10 looks like on your wall? Let’s do this.” So it is, it’s a lot. I want to ask you, because I had another coach say this, and so it has become a belief, and I don’t know if this correlates with you now, but maybe at the beginning that our clients are not problem aware. How do you feel about that they’re not problem aware? When they’re calling they’re looking for one thing and then you educate them on something else, especially in the beginning? Your clients are very problem aware probably.
Allison Tyler Jones: No, I don’t think that’s true. I think, I would say with every new client, 99%, maybe 1% really are self-aware enough that maybe they’ve bought a lot of art or they’ve been working with a photographer that works like I do in another state or something, and they are very aware of how it works and they know exactly what they want. That’s like 0.009%. The rest, you say, “Okay, well what are you thinking about? Tell me about this project. What are you wanting to do?” And they’re like, “I don’t know. I just know that we need pictures. It’s been a while,” or, “We’ve never had family pictures,” or whatever. They don’t know.
Allison Tyler Jones: And so if we go back to that earlier comparison of the organizational, I think I’m pretty organized, but I know if an organizer walked into my house, they would be like, “Dude, you have blank notebooks in five different locations in your home, to say nothing of your book problem and your grand kid toy problem or whatever. Let’s group these.” And then they could educate me and I would think, “Okay, I really only wanted to spend $500, but they’re going to show me how there’s this whole system that I can walk into my house and know exactly what I need to buy from the grocery store, exactly where everything goes. My grandkids can clean up super easy because there’s a place for everything, but it’s going to cost, whatever, $20,000, but everything’s going to be in a clear bin label.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Then I think, “Okay, well, for that I would spend $20,000. I thought you were just going to throw some stuff away and kind of tidy my closet. I only want to spend $500 for that.” So when clients come in and they’re saying to us, they’re thinking, “I’m going to get a few digital files. I’m going to have to do all the work. I’m going to have to tell you what I want,” because that’s how they’re used to working, and they only want to spend a few hundred dollars for that because they think that they’re going to have to do all this work and they think that they’re in charge of it, and then they realize there’s a whole other possibility out there that could be art on their walls, that could be a long-term plan over a period of time, but they have to be educated to that and then adjust. And some of them will not make the leap.
Allison Tyler Jones: They’re like, “No, I just need the few digital files for the few hundred dollars and I liked a white background so I thought I’d just try out Studio for this year’s session.” That’s not the person that wants me. The person that wants me is like, “I never want to have to think about this again. I want you to call me and tell me what we’re doing, what the concept is, what are we wearing, and then bring it and hang it, and then next year when we rehang it in three years because we’ve bought more things, or you’re now the boss of me and my portraits.” That’s the client that wants me.
Allison Tyler Jones: So that’s what I’m saying is that you’re saying to yourself, you’re telling yourself the story that I’ve committed to this person that I have to do this thing. You haven’t committed to anything. You’re just having conversations and you’re painting a picture for her of what can happen. And also being very honest with her about, “This is what you need me for and you don’t need me for that.” But in order to make that stick, so if they’re saying, “No, no, I really do want you for the 8×10.” “Okay, so you’re going to pay $5,000 for an 8×10.”
Allison Tyler Jones: So going back, again, to the organizer, $5,000 is their minimum. “No, no. I really only want you to organize this one drawer in my kitchen. You really want to pay $5,000 for one drawer in your kitchen?” No, you don’t. Do you know what I mean? So you’re setting the parameter for them and you’re letting them know, I wouldn’t want to pay $5,000 to organize one drawer in my kitchen, I would rather have a system. I don’t want to pay 2,500 session fee for one 8×10 and go through all of that pain and anguished for something that small. So I think maybe let’s think of another concept. Maybe we don’t do the multi-gen right now. If everybody’s not on board, let’s just do your kids and if your brothers or siblings aren’t on board, then bring your parents and let’s do your family, your kids, and your kids with your parents.
Allison Gallagher: Yeah, which was super important to her.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, because sometimes they’re trying to do too much and they can’t get everybody else committed or they’ve got in-laws, like the sister-in-law that’s like, “Oh, well, you’re so bougie. You think you have to have Allisonanne, well la dee da.” And it’s like, well, no, then just you do it with just your kids and them and forget the cousins. It would be great if everybody could get on board, but if they’re not, no problem. You still don’t want to miss this time with your parents and your kids. So I kind of liken these conversations, it’s like surfing. You’re just constantly catching a wave. There’s no perfect answer to always say this and this is what will happen. And you know this from your coaching, you have to kind of feel it out and see where that person’s at and meet them where they are.
Allison Gallagher: Yes, very much so.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, meet them where they are and then let them know, this is how it could be, but certainly we don’t have to do it that way. There’s no pressure. This is just how I work.
Allison Gallagher: And why I work this way, which is so-
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, because I have the 8×10 of the big family thing and I’m so mad that it’s not bigger and the photographer that shot it’s dead or the people in it are dead. I can’t get that back. And I will tell people too, I’ll say, “the most common mistake in portraits is going too small.” Almost nobody ever says, “Oh man, I made that too big.” Just doesn’t happen.
Allison Gallagher: Right. It’s so true.
Allison Tyler Jones: And I won’t let you make it too big because that’s why we’re measuring your wall and everything. I’m going to tell you, “Look, this will look like somebody’s looming over you and your baby’s head will be the size of three basketballs. No, don’t make it that big.” But the most common thing is that it’s too small and hung too high.
Allison Gallagher: Yeah, I could see that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. So that’s our nice girl, customer service brain wanting to give our clients what they ask for. We’ve all been trained the client is always right, you just do exactly what they say. But if they don’t know, in medicine they would never do that. A doctor’s never going to have you come in and say, “Okay, this is what I need. I need penicillin and I need a drip for this and I need this procedure.” They’re going to be like, “Slow your roll. I haven’t even examined you yet.”
Allison Tyler Jones: But yet we will just say, “Oh, she said she needed an 8×10, so now I’m mad because I feel like she asked me to do it, so now somehow I’ve committed and I have to go do the shoot and I’m not going to make any money on it.” But if you flip that around and short circuit how it’s going to benefit you and really look at how is that really going to benefit the client, I find that if I am staying in client mode, what’s going to benefit the client? I always come up with better words, better answers, and I can believe in that so much more than if I’m just speaking from a “selfish” standpoint.
Allison Gallagher: Right. You look at, how can I search? And walking away from me with two 8x10s is, I have so many questions.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. And you could also say, “Look, 8×10 serves the purpose of having that portrait for all of the little cousins to go in a book for them. That’s what that 8×10 is for. That, okay, check, they have a copy of that.” But for grandma’s house and for your house, it’s a whole different situation. So again, you’re in there with that expertise. You’re painting the picture of what’s possible, and then let them self-select to do it or not.
Allison Gallagher: The last I spoke to her, other than the text message was she was going to talk to her mom. Well now, her mom’s on board. So I’m going to say, “I want to see grandmom’s walls.” How do you word it that I have to see grandmom’s walls?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, I think you just say, “Look, let’s set up a time that I can come look at your mom’s house or we can get on a Zoom call,” or however you want to, however you work, however you want to get in touch with her and then paint the picture for her and let her know, “This is how we roll. This is what it is. This is how we do it. And this is what it could be for you for this price.” But we totally get that it might not be in the cards right now. And so if it’s not in the cards for the whole family right now, again I don’t want to walk away without serving this client, especially if it’s an existing client. We pretty much will kill ourselves for existing clients. Then let’s just do your family and create an album, a grandkid’s album or a piece for your wall that’s your parents and your kids.
Allison Gallagher: Because grandmom got wind that we come and hang the portraits, and she could not get enough of that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Well, we come and hang anything that’s, installation is included at 40 inches or larger or whatever. So there has to be speed, but you can’t offer all of this amazing, great service for $125 session fee. It just can’t. It’s not possible. Somebody can’t come, Home Edit cannot come and organize your cutlery drawer for $100. They can’t because there’s too many people that need their highest and best use. It’s the same thing. So it’s just getting in your head that you are, the belief is realizing that this is truly how I think it should be, and this is the price to do that, and I can’t serve you to the best of my ability at a cut rate. It’s just not possible.
Allison Gallagher: Yes. Yep. Love it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. So I think when you say we tell ourselves stories about what is true, and it’s not necessarily true. I mean I know you’ve been doing a lot of this coaching and stuff, so tell me about that. What have you learned from coaching that’s helping you in your portrait business?
Allison Gallagher: Oh my God. How much time do you have?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, right. Give me a highlight.
Allison Gallagher: Well our thoughts create our results. So I’m constantly looking at my belief in what I do, my belief in my clients, my belief in my ability to perform at the level I want to perform. Then we look at what worked, what didn’t work, what will we be doing differently? Always analyzing, life is not happening against us, it’s all happening for us. So anytime I get off a consult, what worked? What didn’t work? What can I do differently? Anytime I go hang artwork or a shoot with a kid or whatever.
Allison Gallagher: So, I always have to check in with my thoughts because my brain wants to show me all the evidence of why this person is going to say no. And so I show my brain evidence of several things. One is I have a lot of yeses, and then the other one is, I’ve listed out things that people have purchased that cost more than my artwork that are of minimal value to just cultivate the belief that people want this level of service. And I do believe that the people we serve, there’s just not enough photographers serving that, giving that level of value. They just have to know I exist.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right, exactly. Well, and also I think decoupling, thinking of evidence of why they’re going to say no and when you think, how does that work for you? What kind of headspace does that put you in? How does your body feel when you’re looking for evidence of how they’re going to say no? And how are you responding to the client when you’re having a conversation like that, that you’re looking for the no? What’s your posture? How are you behaving? Right? Then getting to the point where it’s like, for me, when people will say to me like, “Oh, how are you so confident?” I’m like, “I’m not really any more confident than the next guy,” but one thing I do know is that I have gotten to the point where it doesn’t matter what anybody says to me, it doesn’t matter what anybody says because I’m confident in that this is the way I want to do it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now, it took me literally almost dying to get to that point, literally 2010, depth of the recession, I got really, really sick. I got a crazy cryptogenic organizing pneumonia. Cryptogenic means unknown origin, so they didn’t know what was causing it, and I just couldn’t breathe. We’d worked so, so hard, had four times the volume for a quarter of the money. I was doing many sessions. I was doing anything I could to just keep people coming through the door. But one thing I know how to do is put my head in the plow and work like a dog. And so I worked like a dog and I got really, really sick.
Allison Tyler Jones: And so on the day that I was literally signing over my life insurance to my sister because they couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t breathe, and so I was letting her know, “You got to take care of my kids. Here’s the life insurance,” all that stuff. And that night I went to bed and I just said, “If I survive this, I’m never going to work this way again, even if I have to go clean houses or whatever, I’m going to work the way that I want to do it, which is creating bigger things and spending more time with less clients and that’s it.” Luckily, fast forward, there was $15 worth of prednisone and it all worked out, where I luckily was able to come out of that, but I keep going back to that. It was like a Scarlet O’Hara in the potato field moment of, “I am not working like this anymore. I will not be talked to by somebody who’s telling me to sharpen my pencil and no.”
Allison Tyler Jones: So that, whenever I get filled, that little inward looking for the evidence of no, or oh, this guy’s going to be mean about money or whatever, I can just take a breath and sit back and go, “They can say whatever they want, but I’m not willing to bring all of my whole self, my whole soul, my whole energy to help their kids not be a bratty 14-year-old or cajole their two and a half year old or make their aging mother feel beautiful.” What we do, we are psychologists in real time and energy and performance art and all of that. I can’t do that for pennies. And I have enough clients that, of course, you could always have more, but that get that and understand it. And so that’s fine. I don’t need to have everybody.
Allison Tyler Jones: So for me, it was almost a negative. I almost died, let’s never do that again, but I don’t want everybody to feel that way. Can’t we just decide it from a positive standpoint? But no, we can’t because we’re humans and we have to be beaten down.
Allison Gallagher: Yeah. Can’t we just decide? We can just decide.
Allison Tyler Jones: We can just decide. Yeah, we can, but usually not. Usually you do have to be beaten down. But I think about, think about in your life, service providers that you use, I would much rather, you’ve had people that are like, “Oh, well, don’t worry about the money. We’ll talk about that later.” And then they kill themselves for you. And so then you feel, you’re like, “Well, how much is this going to cost?” And you have this really weird feeling and I don’t know, and then maybe they quote you some really high price after they’ve already done it, then you feel like you have to spend it, and then you’re kind of mad at them because they didn’t tell you, but they think they’re being nice. Do you know what I’m saying?
Allison Tyler Jones: Whereas wouldn’t it have been much better to have the conversation up front and have them go, “Look, we’re going to do this, this, and this. We’re pouring footings. It’s going to be so sexy. The footings are going to be so sexy and they’re going to be so expensive, they’re going to be so amazing,” but maybe you don’t need the really good footings. And then they quote you the price and then you can decide.
Allison Tyler Jones: I think it’s just that, Allison, I think it’s believing that you have the right to run your business however you want. You are the expert. Clients don’t know. They don’t have the vision. That is your job. And then you have a right to set a threshold to say, “In order to engage with me in this fashion,” whether it’s a newborn session that’s three hours or a generational session, something that’s going to take a lot of time, “let me quote that for you and I’m going to give you a quote for that. And then you decide whether you want that to be an 8×10, or it could be a 40×60 or it could be an 8×10, you pick, but the price is the same.” How does that feel?
Allison Gallagher: Fantastic.
Allison Tyler Jones: Are you just telling me that or does it feel good?
Allison Gallagher: No, that is the only way I want to do business.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Allison Gallagher: So, yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: But I think we think this binary, I have to be either be a bee-atch or a doormat. And the third thing is the expert.
Allison Gallagher: Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s like I don’t have to be a doormat or a brat, I can just say, “No, no, no. This is what you need me for.” And then let them decide whether they need you.
Allison Gallagher: And I’m still getting comfortable with guiding them. And I’ve had so many clients say, “Thank you for showing me that extra piece in that spot. I need to have that one as well. I would never have thought about that.” Or whatever it is, I’ve had clients say, they just give it back to me that I am the expert. And so when a client questions me, I’m like, “Oh, I’m not the expert or they’re not going to realize I’m the expert,” or whatever. Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: No, it’s because they see you as the expert that they’re questioning you. Do you know what I mean?
Allison Gallagher: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re sitting in front of a surgeon who’s going to cut you open and you’re, “Well, what about this? Will it be harder to recover? Are you going to do staples? You going to do stitches?” And the surgeon inwardly is thinking, she doesn’t trust me. She doesn’t believe in me. You would never think that, right? You would never think that. You’re like, you freaking went to medical school. It’s like, no, because she trusts you, she’s asking you those questions.
Allison Tyler Jones: And what I found, and I don’t know if this has been your experience, but even if they go away, so even if we have given them all that information and really taken the time to walk through their project, how you see it, you’ve given them ideas, thoughts, and they decide it’s not in the cards right now money-wise, they are so appreciative of the time that you spent and they know where to go when they need that level of service. I’ve had so many people say to me, “Thank you so much for spending the time with me. I appreciate it so much. It’s not in the cards for us right now, but we know we’re going to save up,” or whatever. And then very often they do come back, but nobody’s going away like, “How dare you?”
Allison Gallagher: Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: You, South Jersey loser, think you can charge that kind of money? But we think that’s what they’re thinking, but they’re not.
Allison Gallagher: Yeah. And really, I don’t even care if they think that. I’m so grateful that at least I don’t… I’m just like, you have no idea what I pour into this for you to judge.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Yeah. But the thing is you actually, so I would challenge you on that. I think you do care. I think you really do care. And then because you care so much, that’s why it’s kind of a stumbling block. I care. If somebody said to me, “This is totally not worth it,” it would hurt my feelings. I’m still not going to do it for them for less. I don’t care to that level. Like, “Oh, please let me do it for $10.” I don’t care that much, but it would hurt my feelings. And then I would really have to do some thought work around, okay, that wasn’t my client. It’s okay. Unconditional professional regard and talk to them and I totally understand and let them go, but that would hurt my feelings. I do really like to be well thought of. I want people to like me.
Allison Gallagher: So I’m hearing you there because if that is said to me the way you just said it, because I still feel at times that I don’t offer enough value for what I charge. And so that could trigger that, where am I not adding enough value? They don’t see the value. I’m not adding enough value.
Allison Tyler Jones: And really, it wouldn’t be, to me in my mind, it’s not you need to change the sentence. It’s not that you’re not adding enough value, it’s that you’re maybe not communicating the value. Because if we’re communicating it properly, I know that I cannot afford a Bentley Rolls-Royce car, but I really appreciate the value. And so somebody that would break that down for me and let me drive it and talk to me about it, I still can’t afford that car, but I would really appreciate that.
Allison Tyler Jones: And when I do make it big and have millions of dollars, then that might be a car that I would invest in because that person spent the time talking to me about it. But I’m not going to sit there and think, “Oh, well, that guy’s just a loser. He’s trying to sell me some piece of crap.” Somebody taking the time to walk me through that and help me understand it, I’m never going to not appreciate that.
Allison Gallagher: I agree.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now, if I don’t, there are people that won’t, that will just, that are literally price is first, second, third, everything to them, and they might be total jerks about it. It’s still going to hurt my feelings, but those people show themselves pretty early. But I find that if I can just maintain the professional and I don’t get into this any kind of a thing where I’m talking about me and how it’s my business and it wouldn’t be sustainable to do that or anything like that. They don’t care. Nobody cares about me. How would it affect, for me to bring my full creativity? This is how we’re going to do it. This is what it’s going to be. And paint that picture for that client of what you really want them to have. And you know what you bring to it. You know pieces of your soul are hanging on the walls in your town of your client’s home.
Allison Gallagher: Love that statement.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s a Kim Wiley. But I think we just have to remind ourselves of that because we are sensitive souls, we’re creatives, and we don’t have the Teflon that maybe other personalities do. And so things can get in a little bit harder, hurt a little bit more because you have to be open to be able to see that personality and be sensitive to be a good artist. But that comes with some lack of Teflon. So I don’t think you have to beat yourself up for that, but just acknowledge that, yeah, I do want people to like me, but at the same time I realize I need to communicate that value.
Allison Gallagher: And communicating that value is still challenging without using convincing energy.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes, 100%.
Allison Gallagher: And so that is something that I’m fully aware of where it’s convincing and where it’s just instilling value. Can you elaborate with-
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. So I love the word convincing energy, and I’m going to write that down because I think that’s so good. So how I’m interpreting what you’re saying is that convincing energy is like you’re trying to talk somebody into something.
Allison Gallagher: Because of this, this, and this.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right, this is why you want to do it because it’s this, this, and this, and it’s so great. So I would say the convincing energy needs to happen to you, yourself. I need to convince myself, and then I don’t actually have to convince clients. It’s so weird. It’s like the more that I’m convinced, the easier it is to talk about it, because I just am like, I am an older mom. I have kids that are married and now I have grandkids. I know the value of those pictures that I shot of my kids when they were younger are so valuable to me and my parents are gone, and so every portrait I have of them is precious.
Allison Tyler Jones: So I really know what the value of that is. And then when you see your clients, your evidence, so when we’re looking about the evidence of no, let’s go back and look for the evidence of yes. Let’s look for the evidence of when somebody’s sitting in your office and you’ve just showed them the edit of a session and they are crying and they’re holding hands with their spouse and they’re like, “Our kids are the most amazing thing ever.” I mean it’s that. It’s going back to that again and again, and realizing, I am going to make sure that everything is done so that you can have that experience.
Allison Tyler Jones: And then there’s going to be actually a portrait that’s framed and on a wall, but let’s just, even before we get to that part, there’s so much more baked into that. And so I think it’s convincing ourselves. And once we’re convinced, it’s really a way of being. It’s how you show up and how you are so that you’re not in that we were just talking about when it’s looking for evidence of no, like you’re a puppy that’s about to get hit, and you’re just waiting for the hit and you’re kind of prickly. You know what I mean? I’m just waiting for somebody to tell me so I can come back at them with like, “Oh well, I guess you can’t afford this level of service.” No, that’s not what we’re coming at, that’s not how we’re… We get it. We get that it’s expensive, but it’s amazing and we would love to do it for you, but maybe it might not be in the cards for you right now, but man, when it is, I’m here and we’re going to kill it for you. That’s a different way of being.
Allison Gallagher: Okay. And I feel like that’s what I do. It took me some time to get to that place, but it’s been, because I’ve been doing this now for over four years, this model, and the ebbs and flows and the valleys and the peaks and the growing, and then I constantly upleveled at every, I didn’t stay in one spot, I constantly upleveled. So the actions, the mindset didn’t catch up with the actions. I was doing, but not believing.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Allison Gallagher: And-
Allison Tyler Jones: We’re super good at that. When you’re a worker, when you’re a worker bee, perish the thought that we should ever take a moment and congratulate ourselves on a job well done.
Allison Gallagher: Right. Oh, please, yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Let’s just do the postmortem of all the things that went wrong, how we’re never going to do that again. We’re going to do better. It’s going to be amazing. I mean, yeah, that was great and they spent a lot of money and they were super happy about it, but what about this one pose that was weird? Or whatever. So you do have to take a minute, and that’s part of the convincing, finding evidence and convincing yourself. Once you’re convinced, you don’t have to convince anybody else because it will just come off of you because then you’re just so excited. They’re showing you a picture of their kid on the phone and you’re like, bring him to me now. I must pinch those cheeks. And you’re just part of the family and it’s fun and we’re planning together and yeah, it’s going to cost you money, but let’s do this.
Allison Tyler Jones: There’s not this tug of war, that’s not this push and pull, it’s a different way of being. And you have it, you have the confidence, you can talk the talk. Where I see with you is I think you can go to a defensive edge easily. And because you have a really strong personality, I can see that that might be like, “Whoa, okay. I wasn’t saying that it wasn’t worth it.” You know what I mean? So if we’re looking for evidence of no, we are going to jump somebody’s guns when they didn’t mean… Does that make sense? Has that ever happened?
Allison Gallagher: I don’t know. It may have and I don’t… Yeah, it’s happened. It’s happened. First phone call. That energy has happened. Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Because I know with training anybody that’s doing phone calls for me, that’s one of the first things that I have to do is kind of like, “Okay, we’re not trying to exclude anybody. We’re include. We’re yes. Everybody wants us. Everybody can afford us. We’re not trying to weed anybody out. We’re literally telling them all the things that we do, which weeds them out.” Do you know what I’m saying? Which is weird. But rather than like, “Oh, well, are you going to be my client?” We’re like, “Isn’t this so cool? And we do this and we do this and we do this and it’s amazing and it’s so great and here’s all the things and it’s just this.” And then they weed themselves out. We don’t weed. And that’s, again, a different way of being. It’s a different way of being. And sometimes when you’re busy and you’re taking a call and somebody’s saying the “wrong” words, do you know what I mean? Maybe they’re using minimizing language.
Allison Gallagher: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: And so you immediately jump to like, “Oh, I drove by. I saw you.” We just moved our studio, but we have been in the downtown area, so when people say, “I walked by,” the temptation is always to think, “This is not my client.” Because people that are walking by usually are not, they’re taking the light rail or something like that, you know what I mean? But they might have been down for a festival, so that’s not mine to judge.
Allison Tyler Jones: But when I’m training new employees, they’ll say, “Oh, she said that she found us on Google, so she’s probably not qualified.” I’m like, “No, rich people use Google too, I’ve heard. You might want to just… We’re not excluding anybody.” So you wouldn’t be excluding it, you, Allison, would not be excluding somebody thinking, “Oh, I’m so much better than you.” You would exclude it from the reverse; “You don’t think I’m good enough for you. You don’t think that I’m worth it.” But if you think you’re worth it, if you know you’re worth it, and I know you’re worth it, then it doesn’t matter because you’re not doing it for any less. So there’s no angst to have about that.
Allison Gallagher: Yeah, there’s detachment. Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Yeah. You’re just standing there holding the big cake and want everybody to come into the party and are willing to serve it up to anybody that meets the criteria. And there we go, let’s have a party.
Allison Gallagher: Yeah. I love that. The way you just explained that. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it explained that way. So, lots of enlightenment.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, I just see, I think a lot of us project our own stories onto other people. We just, we’re humans, that’s how we roll. And we only know our own stories, but if we can open a little bit of space and think, instead of looking for evidence of the negative, looking for the evidence of how could this work if it did work? And how do I want to work? And what do I love about this person that’s sitting in front of me right now? Even though they might be giving me minimizing language, even though they might be giving me signals to where I think maybe this isn’t going to work, but if it was, if it was going to work, what would I do for her?
Allison Tyler Jones: And so we’re on Zoom. Nobody’s ever going to see this video, but I’m just looking at you. You know I love your hair, you know I love your style, so if we’re sitting here having this conversation, I’m thinking of all the ways that I want to light that hair and all the things about your tough jersey, but also your artist’s heart that I want to capture. And so that’s the things that I want to talk about. And I’m confident in all of those things. I’m confident that you are a good mother. I’m confident that you love your kids. I’m confident that you are a family woman. I’m confident in all of those things, and I’m confident that I can make beautiful images of you.
Allison Tyler Jones: And then I’m kind of sometimes confident about my pricing, but sometimes I’m a little bit conflicted or whatever, but I know what I’m going to bring to it. And so I’ve looked for evidence of why it’s worth it. And then I just want to communicate that to you about why you’re worth it and why your family’s worth it and that you may not do this with me every year, it might be every three years, but it’s worth it. And it’s worth it in doing it in this way and here’s why, because you’re going to regret it if you only do an 8×10.
Allison Gallagher: Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, one thing that I love about you is you’re always willing to be open and vulnerable. You’re always willing to learn and to ask the hard questions and to put yourself out there, because it’s not easy to do that.
Allison Gallagher: No, but I’m eager to learn, and I am, I’m very coachable. I always was. I just always want to be better and show up better. And I think of my daughter, I want to be the very best version of myself to show her how to be the very best version of herself and-
Allison Tyler Jones: And you are. You are that. So I think sometimes we think when we are learners and we’re constantly trying to learn, we feel like nobody’s ever complete, but I think where you are is that you’re a learner. You are completely a learner. And so that’s amazing and you’re a good example to all of us.
Allison Gallagher: And I love how you teach.
Allison Tyler Jones: Thank you.
Allison Gallagher: I’ve loved learning from you.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, you’re a huge asset to our Mind Shift community. I hope you know that.
Allison Gallagher: Thank you. I love being there. I love everybody that’s there so much.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s awesome. So do you have anything that you want to end with that you’d send our listeners off with into their day after they’re listening to this?
Allison Gallagher: Pertaining to our business?
Allison Tyler Jones: Anything, just words of encouragement.
Allison Gallagher: Words of encouragement. If there’s anything in your life that you are not happy with, you can change it. You can put yourself into a better situation. It all comes from our thoughts and what we think about ourselves, what we think about our situation, what we think about what we’re capable of, and what our future can bring. It all starts and ends with our thoughts. So I think that’s it.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. Well, my thoughts are that you are awesome and I am grateful for you and I know you’re busy and I really appreciate you taking the time with us today.
Allison Gallagher: I’m so grateful to be here. Thank you for all you do in your podcast, really it changed my life, your podcast. So thank you for that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and you’re going to change people’s lives with this, so-
Allison Gallagher: I hope so.
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re the best. All right. Thank you. And I’ll see you on Wednesday.
Allison Gallagher: All right, perfect. Thank you.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. Thank you so much.
Allison Gallagher: Bye. Bye.
Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison at dotherework.com and on Instagram, @do.the.rework.
