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 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: Well, hello friends, and a welcome back if you can believe it, season five of the Rework Podcast. This season, our episodes will be super focused on actions that you can take to create real positive change in your business. We’re kicking off this season by going back to the start of your client relationship and talking about leads. And who better to do this with than Rework fan favorite, Kathryn Langsford of photos by Kathryn in Vancouver, Canada. This last year, Kathryn noticed that even though she was getting a good number of leads coming in, she was really struggling to convert those leads into clients. You might know the feeling, you respond to an inquiry and play endless text or phone tag, and they never actually get back to you. You actually get a lead on the phone and after chatting, you get the old kiss of death.
Allison Tyler Jones: It sounds something like, okay, well, I need to talk to my husband and I’ll get back to you. Crickets, tumbleweeds. Maybe you’re hearing objections right up front, like how they’re moving remodeling and really don’t want anything on their wall right now. Can’t they just get the digital files? Or maybe it seems obvious to you right up front that this is just not your client. Well, after weeks of phone calls between Kathryn and I and troubleshooting where the issue might lie, Kathryn and I came up with five key mistakes that we all make when following up on leads and how we can fix it. Join us today as we flip these mistakes into positive action that will have you converting those so-so leads into lovely, loyal clients. Before you know it, and to give you even more support, I have a free step-by-step workbook, the Rework Guide to Converting leads into Clients. All you have to do is go to do the rework.com/convert to download your guide for free. That’s do the rework.com/convert and get our step-by-step workbook, the Rework Guide to converting leads into Clients. This guide will help you start converting leads into clients like never before. So download your guide and then join Kathryn and I for our conversation on why your leads aren’t becoming clients, the five key mistakes and what to do about them. Let’s do it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, I am thrilled to welcome back, my dear friend, my ride or die, my partner in crime, Kathryn Langsford from Vancouver, Canada. My favorite Canadian
Kathryn Langsford: Here with my favorite American. Love it. Oh, good to see you.
Allison Tyler Jones: I think it’s funny, I tell people all the time, I’m like, I have a friend that’s Canadian, and she’s like, yeah, we’re just not coming down there because you guys are a little bit crazy right now. It’s a little dicey down there,
Kathryn Langsford: Although I was thinking it’s been one year since I actually was down there.
Allison Tyler Jones: Really? Oh, we need to come back.
Kathryn Langsford: It’s been one year.
Allison Tyler Jones: But not right now because it’s hot. Too hot. Okay, so today we’ve discussed this particular topic many times. This has probably been the most talked about topic we’ve had this year I would say we are going to talk about five mistakes that prevent us from converting leads into clients. So based on all the many conversations that we’ve had, and nobody wants to listen to our hours long conversation, we’ve distilled it all, the pithy, most important points to these today. So let’s talk about why leads don’t convert, necessarily convert into clients and what we might be doing wrong, what we have done wrong to prevent that from happening.
Kathryn Langsford: All of this has learned from making all these mistakes over and over again for sure.
Allison Tyler Jones: And this isn’t five years ago that we made these mistakes.
Kathryn Langsford: It’s like three weeks ago.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right? It’s ongoing. Okay, so number one is I think we can say procrastination.
Kathryn Langsford: Sure, yep.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay, and so what does that look like?
Kathryn Langsford: So that means the absence of striking while the iron is hot. So when a client calls, they’re interested, they want to talk about it, they’re thinking about it. I need to reach out to them as close to that moment as possible so that I can get into their stream of thought while I have their attention. Our clients are busy. They have a million things going on. They might be really interested while they’re thinking about it, and then they might be too busy to talk about it the next day, so I got to pick up the call or email them back or whatever the way of communicating is as soon as possible.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and what’s hard now is that how many inputs, how many ways are there for clients to contact us? So often I’m getting a DM on Instagram at 10:00 PM while I’m laying in my bed, and I know if I call them right, then they’re not going to answer. That’s silly. So then I might think, well, I’ll just call ’em tomorrow. But no, just that pinging them back and just say, Hey, I would love to do that. Send me your email and I will have Chelsea reach out tomorrow just so that, and then, oh, thanks so much for getting right back to me. The response is great. Then they just feel like they’ve been heard and it just kicks the ball down to that next goal line.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, that’s so smart the way you’re doing it, because I in the past have gotten caught in, I use a certain client management software, Táve, and if I don’t have access to starting a lead and putting their info into my software, sometimes I want to wait until I can do that. But no, the way that you’re handling it is perfect. Just an immediate response, Hey, I’ll get back to you on this tomorrow. Can’t wait to talk about it. Just that connection is made and it’s more likely that they’re going to respond to me the next day because I’ve already joined the conversation with them.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Because the bar in our industry is so incredibly low for response that if you respond at all, people are so grateful. So I think what I found, because I’m a perfectionist too, and I would like to get it into my CRM software as well, but I found what works well for me is just to screenshot immediately, message them back and say, would love to talk to you. Can you DM me your email and your phone number, and then I’ll have my client coordinator touch base with you tomorrow. Then I screenshot that and I put that straight into Slack. Or if you don’t use Slack, you could use an email and I send that right to Chelsea so that then in the morning when she comes in, it’s right there in our client contact channel, and then she puts it into the CRM and gets it going through that.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, that’s great.
Allison Tyler Jones: So that way they’ve been heard and we we’re still putting them through into our database.
Kathryn Langsford: Because even waiting from one day to the next, you can lose them.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely.
Kathryn Langsford: There are so many times. I know that a client has been out to lunch with another client of mine sitting at a table hearing about how great their photo experience was, and they’re like, I have to do this. I just have to reach out to her, and that’s where she’s at at that moment. So if she hears back from me at that table, then we’re way more likely to connect than if I wait until the next day she’s at school, drop off, or she’s doing a million different errands and she barely even remembers having lunch the day before.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s so true. It just cements the excitement and so often, I mean, depending on where you’re at mental health wise, in any given year, if you’re in a slow time of year and you feel like you’re never going to have a business again, you can be like, I’ll call her when I’m done with my puzzle. I don’t want to deal with this right now.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, I don’t work anymore.
Allison Tyler Jones: I don’t want to deal with it. And you kind of feel like rreee….about it, but really just striking while the iron is hot cannot stress enough. That’s definitely a way, way to get that lead to convert. Okay, love it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. Number two, too much too fast. This is common for you and me. Very common.
Kathryn Langsford: I’ve definitely made that mistake many times. So just to explain a little bit about too much, too fast. Maybe I’m talking to a new lead, an auction client perhaps who doesn’t know a lot about me, and I want to make sure that they’re qualified. I want to make sure they’re a good match. I want to make sure that they know the deal about how I work, and as luxury portrait photographers, we’re not cheap, so we want to be transparent about what things cost, but the mistake that I have made is to tell them too much before they’ve seen how great everything is. So it’s one thing to have the client in here and have ’em in the building and have ’em in the studio and meet in person and look at work together and take photos that they’ve sent me of their walls and show them what I could do with them. It’s one thing to show them all of that service and then talk about cost. It’s another thing to talk to them on the phone about ballparks because everyone wants a ballpark. Talk to ’em about upwards of X number of thousands of dollars in typical spend, and you just lose them. They’re just like, why would I spend that? They don’t have that connection that’s made from meeting each other in person and seeing how great the service is. That’s definitely a mistake, although giving people a sense of cost is important. So we’ve had to find a balance,
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s so true. And I find that this has been very interesting with The ReWork, our education program, the clients, our students that come in through the art of selling are, and then our MindShift members. This I found is a very common mistake that happens once they start to make changes in their business. They decide, you know what? I am going to start doing a consultation. I am going to start talking about price. And they get nervous and they just start verbal vomit with, and this is how we do it, and it’s great, and la la la. They just literally don’t come up for air and they just, it’s just overwhelm. And then, okay, so we know that’s not the best thing to do. We’ve been doing this a long time, but sometimes we can get in that mode. Maybe we haven’t talked to a client for a little while and we just roll forward with way too much information. They only need enough information to get to the next stage. So if it’s a first phone call, if it’s a DM, we’ll call you tomorrow or when’s a good time to talk. So get ’em on the phone call. That’s the point of the DM or the email is get on the phone. The point of the phone call is get to the consultation, have some idea of what the session fee is and a ballpark of what clients typically spend north of X or whatever. If you want to do that.
Kathryn Langsford: But keep the X low. That’s something I learned. My clients might spend north of $10,000 on average, but I can’t tell somebody that before they know why on earth you would spend that much on my portraits. So I keep that X low. They spend north of $3,500. I need them to know this is not a super cheap service.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, it’s not going to be 500. But if you’re like, I know you’ve had clients that have spent 60,000, but if you say, well, some of our clients spend 60,000 click that’s going into the car dealership and they’re giving you the price on the most loaded thing there, and it’s like you got to have time to drive it by your friend’s house. You got to feel the leather on your butt. You got to feel that there’s seat warmers. You got to get the feel for all the things before you start racking up that cost in your head.
Kathryn Langsford: Exactly.
Allison Tyler Jones: So not overwhelming. So throttling yourself a little bit, getting from the email / text, get to the phone, call from the phone call, get to the consultation, and then that, like you said, when we’re painting the vision, they’re sitting there, they’re seeing, touching, feeling. That’s when they can start to feel the value, see the value, and then decide whether they want to work with us or not. Which leads us to number three, which is the antithesis of number two, which is assuming that they know things that they don’t know because we know the business so well. We know how portraits work. We know about eight by tens, we know about 16 by 24’s. We know about all the things, and we start with the jargon and we start just assuming, well, of course they wouldn’t know that’s that…
Kathryn Langsford: Assuming that people know how we work. We don’t work like every other portrait photographer, but we have been working this way for a long time and we’re very committed to working this way. So in some cases, we talk as though we know that anyone calling us up is expecting to work that way, but that’s an assumption that is dangerous.
Allison Tyler Jones: And I think one of the, where we make the mistake on this very often is if we’ve maybe just sent out some kind of a promotion or we’ve maybe updated our website or we’ve sent something out new and we assume that somebody’s read all that stuff and they haven’t.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, no.
Allison Tyler Jones: Or even booked somebody, even booked a client and sent them, here’s how we work kind of thing. They’re not reading it. They’re not reading it. Nobody’s reading anything ever.
Kathryn Langsford: No, nothing, never.
Allison Tyler Jones: So what do we do? How do we avoid the too little, too late situation? We’re assuming that they have information that they don’t have.
Kathryn Langsford: We talk a lot about the importance of educating our clients. So right from that first phone call, maybe often a question I ask them is, tell me about portraits you’ve done before with your family. If I hear people talk about lots of digital files living on a hard drive or lots of unframed portraits that they never did anything with, or we haven’t done anything for 15 years, it’s my responsibility to understand that they really need to understand how I work. And so when I say how I work, meaning I do sell digital files, but after a finished fine art product, I specialize in a finished fine art product. I specialize in art for your wall. I create work that we discuss on a project basis, meaning if you only want one piece for over the mantle, then that’s what we’re going to shoot is one piece for over the mantle.
Kathryn Langsford: So again, we don’t want to bombard them with too much, but I need for them to understand a general idea of how I work. And a succinct way that I’ve found putting it is that we start with the end in mind. So explaining that concept of first we talk about what you want to come away with, and then from there, we work backward to plan the project. And people can usually understand that when I put it that way. And they’re often like, oh, that’s different, or, oh, that’s really cool, because that isn’t often been their experience. So there’s that piece. I think also the digital file issue is always big with me because every other photographer in the world sells digital files, and I need to explain how that works for me and that I have a studio. A lot of photographers in this area don’t have a studio, so I just need to sort of paint them a bit of a picture of how PBK works.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes. And I think also kind of going back to a little bit of the last point about too much too fast, this is the point where you’re assuming that they don’t know anything, and you’re doing this at the right time, right? They are sitting with you, you’re having a consultation, and you’re able to paint the vision, and actually the vision can be painted very early on through different phases. So you don’t overwhelm ’em on the first phone call. But when we’re in a consultation mode, then it’s like you’re saying, begin with the end in mind. Where would this portrait live in your home and where would this hang? And almost always the answer is, I don’t know. They don’t know. So when I talk to other photographers, they’re like, well, you have clients that want artwork for their home and they just come in and they want to buy that stuff. I’m like, no, no, no.
Kathryn Langsford: It doesn’t start that way.
Allison Tyler Jones: No, it never starts that way. They don’t know what they want. That’s my expertise. That’s how I think my work should be displayed, and I love it. And that’s how, that’s my vision for my business. They didn’t come in with that. I came in with that.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah, they might know, oh, I love what my friend has. I want that, or something similar to that, but they haven’t given any thought to hanging large work on their wall or what wall it would be, or all the details that need to come with making a decision like that.
Allison Tyler Jones: So assuming that there are these high-end clients somewhere that have just been sitting around together around the fire sipping martinis saying, if we could only find people that want high-end clients like us that want huge, large portraits for their walls, those people don’t exist. They’ve been trained by our industry to call somebody that’s just going to sell ’em a bunch of digital files. They don’t even know what’s possible. And so it’s up to us to paint that vision of what’s possible. And when you paint that, that’s the leather seats, that’s the seat heater, that’s all the bells and whistles that make their life better and create value for them, then we’re not assuming anymore. We’re showing them how it can be. Then of course, a car with seat heaters and leather and all of that is going to be more than the one that has the roll down windows and no air conditioning. Obviously.
Kathryn Langsford: Once they’ve heard about the ins and outs of the process and seen the studio and just heard more of the experience, they’re expecting that it’s going to cost more.
Allison Tyler Jones:I love that. All right, so next. So we’ve got don’t procrastinate. Two, don’t do too much too fast. Three, don’t do too little too late by assuming that they know things that they don’t know. Number four is not listening.
Kathryn Langsford: Not listening.
Allison Tyler Jones: What does that look like in your world?
Kathryn Langsford: So what it might look like in my world is, oh, yeah, we really want to talk about doing photos and tell me about your process. And then I might talk to ’em a bit about what you and I just discussed. And then they might say, oh, you know what? We’re actually building a house. We don’t have any walls. Maybe. I was just thinking we’d just get some digital files and just have them. Just to have, that’s my favorite. Just want to get some digital files just to have. But what they’re saying in there that’s very important is building a house, which usually means a custom house and that they don’t have walls yet. Yet. Yet.
Kathryn Langsford: So if I’m listening, the next part of the conversation is about when’s the house ready? Oh, probably September. Okay. Why don’t I talk to you then, and why don’t I give you a call then? Why don’t I follow up with you then and we can talk about artwork for your walls or other options. I’ve had people present me with their building plans, and we’ve figured out a gallery wall months before the house is done, or I shoot the family now, which is what they want to do. That’s why they called, I shoot the family now and I sell them a fine art package. So I’m selling them a minimum fine art, credit and digital files because the way that I work with that is I can’t hold files unless they buy them, but I don’t sell ’em without a certain fine art spend, so I sell ’em a credit for that fine art spend. So we do that a lot pretty often. But had I not been listening to those details, I might’ve just thought, this isn’t my client. They don’t have any walls. They have nowhere to hang anything.
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re listening to what they see as, which is really a pain point for them. If you think about it. Their kids are getting older. They know that they need to document them. They know they need them just to have, they do want something on the wall later. But they’re building, and if you’re building, you’re in a money hemorrhage and there’s just a lot going on and so many decisions to be made. And so the fact that they’re even able to call you and think that they want portraits actually means they really want ’em if you really are listening to that. And so how that lands in our world, and honestly, since 2020, everybody’s building, everybody’s moving, everybody’s remodeling. There isn’t anybody that isn’t doing those three things or some version thereof. And so when somebody says to me, just had a lead call the other day, I don’t know that I want to do any large scale artwork right now, but I’d really love to have holiday cards. Can we just do holiday cards?
Allison Tyler Jones: And that’s same as you doing just digital files. We don’t do that. They’re an add-on. So just talking with her on the phone and walking her through the processes and saying, oh, yeah, all of our clients are building. All of our clients are remodeling. And so how we work is we create sizes that work and play well in any home, and then we create this for you, and then we store them. And you’ll see when you come in for your consultation, the wall behind me in my consultation in my studio has just sizes that I have moved a million times as an adult. I’ve built homes, I’ve sold homes, and I’ve taken those portraits to all of those different homes, and then I have samples and I’ve shown them on a screen in a keynote presentation, here’s what this looked like in the client’s last house. Here’s what it looks like where we hung it now, and we show ’em what it looked like then and what it looks like now and how it can move through their house over a period of time. And so it actually removes all excuses that we’re building. That’s not an objection that’s legitimate anymore, and it’s just easier for them to move forward and feel like they’re in good hands.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah. Yeah. We give solutions.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s legitimate. They’re thinking, well, I don’t even know how I’m going decorate. I don’t even know what walls or whatever.
Kathryn Langsford: But I think we need to point out, it’s not that they’re trying to find a reason to not do it, it’s that they feel like they can’t move forward because they don’t have a house they’re living in.
Allison Tyler Jones: Exactly right. Because they don’t know what we know. They don’t know. I am the expert on, I know what frames will go in any house. I know what frames go on my work. And so you start to talk to them about artwork. So I had a client yesterday on the phone, this is a returning client, and he’s like, yeah, I don’t know. This time when we do this, I don’t know if we want to do, I’m not sure if we want to put anything on the wall getting ready to sell our house and move to Scottsdale, and I don’t know what house we’re buying. And so I don’t know. And I just said, it doesn’t matter what house you’re buying. I said, it’s like if you went to Scottsdale Gallery and bought a piece of art, they’re not asking you, are you living in the Tuscan house? Are you living in the modern farmhouse? They’re like, the art is the art, and this is how it should be framed, and it will go in any house. It’s not art doesn’t match your couch. And he’s like, oh, yeah, yeah. He collects art. This guy has art. And so he’s like, oh. So just reframing that way for him. Oh, okay. And I said, so when you come into my studio, you’re not going to see 75 different frame moldings. It’s like there’s four and you’re the same. Right? It’s very simple. Yeah.
Kathryn Langsford: There’s one.
Allison Tyler Jones: There’s one or two, and then just some sizes that work well together and we have the experience and the expertise, so don’t worry about that. We got that handled, and we can coordinate with your interior designer or your architect or whatever, and we can help you figure that out. So just listening for the right problem, the right problem is not that they’re moving the right problem is that they don’t know they want the pictures, but they don’t know what to do about it or how to get there.
Kathryn Langsford: And also seeing sometimes there’s an opportunity, even though they’re saying this isn’t the right time. If you’re listening to them, you may want to put a note on your calendar six months from now and follow back up and get that lead at that time.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Okay. I think another thing that would behoove us to bring up at this point is that sometimes we’re, so we might feel desperate for the business. We might feel whatever. It’s like the bad boyfriend. We might not look at red flags. Talk to me about not listening for red flags, and what happens when we don’t do that?
Kathryn Langsford: Ok, I didn’t know we were going to go there.
Allison Tyler Jones: We’re going dark, going dark.
Kathryn Langsford: So for me…
Allison Tyler Jones: I got to take a sip of my diet Coke before we talk.
Kathryn Langsford: These are a few red flags off the top of my head. People who are super interested in digital files, people who are just not willing to really talk about hanging art in their house. Let’s just get the photos done and we’ll figure it out. They don’t want to be nailed down to anything. They want to leave everything very open. Those are red flags. Husband who perhaps knows nothing about what we’re doing. No husband at the consultation or a person who says, oh, don’t worry about it. He’ll just leave it up to me. Things like that are a bit of a red flag.
Allison Tyler Jones: Minimizing language.
Kathryn Langsford: We just want to do a couple little things,
Allison Tyler Jones: Little bit. It’s not going to take that long.
Kathryn Langsford: Can we use our old frames? Can we just put new photos in the old frames? I just need a couple pieces for the desk.
Allison Tyler Jones: But I want to change, but I want three outfit changes and bring in the animals and we want to shoot for three hours. My kids love the experience.
Kathryn Langsford: I think we want to do a really big retrospective book, so we just want to shoot a bunch of work and have you hold it until 11 years from now when we do that book.
Allison Tyler Jones: And so then we kind of try to talk ’em out of that, but we’re not really listening that actually they’re not reframing back to the way that we work. They’re just kind of dismissing. Oh, yeah, yeah. I guess we could. Yeah. So in our mind we’re like, well, we told them that they heard that, but we have to bring it back around to, okay, so we’ve talked about this and this, which leads us to our next, which number five, which is jumping to conclusions, the wrong conclusions.
Kathryn Langsford: Making assumptions that because they said they love our work, and I’ve always wanted to do this, that means that they understand what they’re getting into and want to buy large art.
Allison Tyler Jones: So we immediately jump in. Okay, so they sat there, they talked about some digital files. There were some red flags, but she did say, yeah, maybe we could do something for the wall. So for sure we’re doing something for the wall. And in my mind, I’m painting a 40 by 60. I’m already down the road. We’re going to shoot it. I’m going to kill myself. And in her mind, she just wants digital files. Okay, so I’m jumping ahead. Another way of jumping ahead is in the reverse way. Somebody contacted me on Instagram and I’m thinking they can’t be serious. Or somebody walked by my building called and said, Hey, I drove by your building. And I think, okay, I’m in not a great part of town, so they can’t be serious. So I’m dismissing. We might overly think that they’re going to spend, or we might the other way, we might dismiss somebody who is actually going to be a good client. We think that they’re not because of the way they came to us.
Kathryn Langsford: I needed to learn this a while back that you never know who is going to prioritize photography as something that they value and want to spend money on. I’ve had clients that are single moms that have been saving for it for three years. I’ve had clients who literally pilfer money secretly so that they can have enough to spend the way that they want to. I’ve had clients that come out of the blue in a way that feels so unqualified, just like DMing me, making a comment on something on Instagram and then saying, I want you to photograph my kids. And then it turns out to be a really totally vetted, awesome client. You never know where the work is going to come from or who the clients are going to be that really value your work. So I treat everyone as though they’re that person.
Allison Tyler Jones: I assume everyone wants and can afford what I have until they tell me no, no matter what they look like, no matter what they’re driving.
Kathryn Langsford: It had nothing to do with what they’re wearing, nothing to do with the neighborhood they live in, honestly.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yep. I’ve hung some very large, amazing art in some very small homes.
Kathryn Langsford: And we sort of covered a minute ago. The reverse is true. I have had insanely high net worth. People want to nickel and dime me about Unframed five by sevens. It really doesn’t. You really don’t know. It’s about how much people value photos as art, and that is not necessarily connected to money. I mean, maybe the people that are higher net worth can afford what they love, but that doesn’t mean they want it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Doesn’t mean they want it. Yeah. Yeah. I was just speaking with a photographer in New Jersey last week, and he has some really pretty good affiliate networking that he does with some of these high-end car dealerships like Ferrari and that sort of thing. We were talking about leads, and he was getting pretty frustrated. He’s like, so I hate it when they beat me up on price because he’s like, look, you just spent half a million dollars on a car. And I said, okay, but that doesn’t mean they want portraits. That doesn’t mean that they value portraits. So yes, they have the disposable income to buy something like that. And so some of it’s like that Venn diagram love’s sports cars, but also you need the other circle to be like, love’s family wants pictures of family and then oh, a family in the sports car or something.
Allison Tyler Jones: Where are these overlapping? But they might not necessarily want or need it. And so that kind of goes back to number four, which is listening so that you can really hear that when somebody is saying maybe they’re, so often when you don’t know about an industry, you call and you’re asking about the only thing to ask about, which is price. That doesn’t mean you’re price sensitive. It doesn’t mean you’re cheap and a jerk. It just means you don’t know what else to ask. If I’m going to get new bookcases for my living room and I’m calling somebody, the first thing I’m going to ask is probably not like, Hey, can you do ’em in oak and can you do ’em with brass handles? Or I’m like, okay, about how much would it cost for a 10 foot wall of built-in? I don’t know what’s that price? But if they immediately were like, oh, well, they’re so price sensitive, this is not my client. Well, no, I love books. I love my house. I am actually perfectly qualified for that, but if they treat me, I’m not asking the right questions, then they would lose me. Right.
Kathryn Langsford: That’s such a good point.
Allison Tyler Jones: So assuming that everybody wants and can afford what we can do, let’s take a minute and paint the vision of how great, what the value truly is and how great this experience could be for them, and not just the experience of coming in and having a nice experience, being photographed and being treated like a celebrity and all of that, which is of course what we do, but also the experience that once we’re done that they are waking up every day, they’re walking down their hallway or the first landing on their stairs or whatever, and they see that artwork of their kids that shot in the way the only PBK can do it. Seeing that organic, that love those kids with that expression and perfectly lit and just, Ugh, every eyelash so great. It’s going to be the treasure of their life. And so them seeing that and seeing what you’ve done for other clients, then that starts to build the value and then they can decide yes or no. Okay. So any more on that one?
Kathryn Langsford: I guess the only other version of jumping to conclusions is when a former client calls that maybe wasn’t a huge client last time and any number of things could have changed. I mean, maybe it’s been 10 years and they are remarried and have a new career, or maybe things in life change and people have times in their life when they’re able to make purchases that they couldn’t make before. And so again, just like we don’t want to write off an unknown client, we also don’t want to write off a previous client. We need to get the information. What are you looking for this time? What will we be doing for your family this year? Tell me a bit about your home and your decor. Ask some questions and see what’s going on. And maybe the first time they were just starting out and they lived in a small condo and maybe now they live in a waterfront property with endless wall space. It happens.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely, it does.
Kathryn Langsford: Yeah. So I guess that’s the other version of not jumping to conclusions.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, don’t put people in the box.
Kathryn Langsford: You really just need to be informed every step of the way because everyone’s life is different. Everyone handles things differently. Everyone spends their money differently. We just don’t know what’s happening with other people until we get it.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s so true. Yeah. I think going back to something we were talking about earlier is the red flag thing. I think the truly red flag for me is when people are just straight up jerks to me or my staff, that’s usually a quality that doesn’t change or somebody that literally cannot trust you ever. Now that one, I have seen change. I have seen there are people that are either OCD or they’re incredibly detailed and they really like to have everything in their life kind of unlock and be able to anticipate everything that’s going to happen. And so some of those end up being my best clients. They used to drive me crazy because I would be like…
Kathryn Langsford: Sometimes you just need to work with them. Once I have that frequently a person like that, I just know, okay, we’ve got this one session done, and then she’ll know that I know what I’m doing. I can’t impress upon her that I know what I’m doing. She has to just experience. Yeah, sometimes you have to get through that one first session, and then after that it’s fine.
Allison Tyler Jones: And I think most people, it is one, I have probably three clients that it took three years. It took three times before they got better each time, and they’re all different. Sometimes it was for the husband to trust me that I wasn’t trying to rip ’em off, that this wasn’t some kind of scam because he was used to the three to $500 situation versus the more expensive. So I think, yeah, just that not jumping to any conclusions about anybody ever, and that’s really hard because we get in the mode of we know how this business works. We know we’ve had experience.
Kathryn Langsford: We are trying to size people up.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, and it makes things faster. But I think we are better. We allow for serendipity. We allow our clients to grow and evolve. This is especially true of millennial clients. You might’ve had somebody that really was just pounding the digital file drum five years ago, but now they’re like, oh, honey, my husband’s into his career, or, we just bought a new business and we’re building a new house, and I’m not dealing with any of that. Come in and just handle it and get it done. I have had that happen more than a few times. Somebody that I would’ve thought, wow, that’s amazing. But I realized, oh, wait, now they’re in their forties. They’re not 20 something anymore.
Kathryn Langsford: Exactly. The young family just starting out with a baby and a toddler is very different than they are 10 years later. They’ve learned trust the experts. Yes. I want you to do as much as possible of this for me. Yeah, for sure. Yes, those photos that you took 10 years ago are my most treasured possessions. I really, really value what those are. So yeah, things change.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, I really love that point. I think that’s super valuable. Okay, so let’s recap. So five mistakes that prevent us from converting leads to clients. One is procrastinate, so we’re going to get back. We’re not going to procrastinate anymore. If they’re DMing you at 10 o o’clock at night, DM them. Get back. As soon as you get that contact in, whatever way you get it, get back to them as soon as humanly possible while they’re still thinking about it.
Kathryn Langsford: Strike while the iron’s hot.
Allison Tyler Jones: Strike while the iron’s hot. Exactly.
Allison Tyler Jones: Two, too much, too fast. Do not overwhelm with too much information, even though you have a lot of information, especially if you’ve just made maybe pricing changes or changes in the way you’re doing business to overload them so much in the beginning when they don’t have context for that information, it feels like too much. It feels like it’s going to be hard to work with you. It feels like a lot’s being expected of them, and we don’t want them. We just need to get them to the next phase. So from the DM to the first phone call, from the first phone call to the consultation, that’s where we want to get them to.
Allison Tyler Jones: Number three is assuming too little, too late. So we’re assuming that they have information that we don’t given them enough information and we’re moving forward too quickly.
Allison Tyler Jones: And then four is make sure that we’re listening, that we’re reading between the lines that what are they really saying? We’re watching for those red flags. We’re watching for the jerky behavior, but we’re not interpreting hesitancy or price questions as being a jerky. It’s just we’re really listen for what it is that they need. What is the pain point for them right now? Okay, I’m moving. I can’t do pictures right now, but I want Then why are you calling for pictures right now? Well, I want pictures when we want to do pictures, so let’s help them get what they need and find a way to make that work for them. And then last, jumping to conclusions.
Allison Tyler Jones: Number five, jumping to the wrong conclusions, assuming that everybody wants us and loves us and until they tell us otherwise. Any other thoughts on that? Any little tidbits, stories in how you’ve applied, any of these that have helped convert more for you when maybe you haven’t been converting as well?
Kathryn Langsford: I’ve made all these mistakes,
Allison Tyler Jones: As have we all.
Kathryn Langsford: Everything else in most of what we talk about. Almost everything I’ve learned and have changed and have implemented came from mistakes. Mistakes I’ve made over and over, and then realize later this is where that went wrong.
Allison Tyler Jones: And I think that’s so good for people, for our listeners to hear. Because you’re 25 years close to 25 years in, I’m almost 20. Next year will be 20 for me. And you can know the things, and you can have the experience, but it’s like church or working out. We know we probably should not be eating bon bons at 10:00 PM and skipping the workout the next day, but sometimes we do. So just as a little tune up, a little shot in the arm, if your leads are not converting the way that you want them to, you might find that in one of these spots might be a way to fix your problem. All right, go for it. Thank you for being here.
Kathryn Langsford: Thank you. I love talking to you. Any excuse to talk to my pal, ATJ.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s the best.
Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison@dotherework.com and on Instagram at do dot the Rework.
