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 guest is a photojournalist turned portrait photographer, Diane Dultmeier of Dultmeier Photography in Stuart, Florida. Diane has been a portrait photographer for over 20 years and specialized in creating gorgeous finished artwork for her clients. But about four years ago, she felt a shift, a shift that might sound familiar to many of you. Diane felt surrounded by the competition, other photographers who were dealing in digital files only, instead of finished portraits. She began to doubt herself. Diane began to feel fear. Fear like, “Am I too expensive? Should I be doing business this way? Is my way of doing business still even relevant?” She felt that her business had stalled out and she was looking for help.
Allison Tyler Jones: In 2021, our paths crossed in the best way, Diane joined our founding member group of the Art of Selling Art course and our MindShift community, and began to make specific changes in her business that took an already good thing and created growth and a new vision for her business. Fast-forward to today and Diane’s portrait sales average has increased almost 300% from three years ago. That’s not double, that’s triple her average sale. Just as exciting, and maybe more important, Diane has a renewed energy for her craft and her clients. With a few vital changes Diane created a business that attracts clients who want wall art and love what she does. They want a Diane Dultmeier on their wall.
Allison Tyler Jones: In this episode, Diane’s going to share specific action steps that she learned and then implemented to create this growth. What I want you to pay close attention to as you listen is that Diane didn’t want to become someone else. She didn’t want to become me or any other photographer. She wanted to stay true to her own creative vision, but she knew she needed a little help on the business side, in order to grow. During our conversation, you’ll notice how she took concepts she learned and implemented them in her own way that felt authentically Diane. That means learning a process on how to create a profitable, sustainable business, but running it through the filter of Diane and doing it in a way that was true to her. She calls it creating a flexible vision. I call it amazing. You’re going to want to take notes on this one. Let’s do it.
Allison Tyler Jones: All right. Well, today we have Mrs. Diane Dultmeier is in the Rework podcast studio. I’m so thrilled to have her here because she is one of our founding members of the Art of Selling Art and our MindShift membership community, a valued member. We’re thrilled to have you here, Diane. So happy that you’re here.
Diane Dultmeier: I am really happy to be here.
Allison Tyler Jones: Diane, I would love for you … You’ve been on the podcast before, but it’s been a while so tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, your business, what you shoot, what you do. Give us the rundown.
Diane Dultmeier: Okay. I’m a family portrait photographer in Stuart, Florida. I focus on outdoor family portrait sessions, and I’ve been doing this for more than 20 years in the same location, and I have quite a good reputation around town. But a few years ago I was starting to question if I could continue to do it this way, based on all the photographers who are doing digital files.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. When you say this way, you’re selling product?
Diane Dultmeier: I sell finished products and big wall art on the walls, of your home, and albums. A few years ago I just needed some help with that and that’s where you came in.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. I didn’t realize that that was a decision point, but now I remember. I think that’s an interesting inflection point in many of our careers. I think we’ve all been there. If you’re a portrait photographer that is selling finished product, you come up against this, “Okay. Everybody’s selling digital files. Should I just do that?”
Diane Dultmeier: Right? Do I have to do that even though it doesn’t feel right in who I am? Is that the way I have to go with this thing? And it isn’t.
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re happy to report, that you did not have to do that.
Diane Dultmeier: Right. And things are great.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. We met in 2021. That’s the first time that we launched that course and you were in our very first course of Art of Selling Art. So talk about that, because you have made some big changes though. That was 2021, we’re now in 2024, that’s three years. So you cannot say that this was some overnight thing, but you’ve making some changes. So tell me about that. What have you been doing?
Diane Dultmeier: Well, in Art of Selling Art, we learn quite a few different things and I’ve put a lot of them into action. For example, working with my clients, I have always done a consultation through the years, but I didn’t take the step of actually getting pictures of their wall spaces before I even did the session and creating mock-ups, and showing them even before we create the portraits what the portraits could look like on the walls of their home. That doesn’t always happen because I can’t always get them to take those pictures before the session, but even if I get them after the session and I’m able to create the mock-ups before they come to choose their portraits, it’s a game changer.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. They can just visualize.
Diane Dultmeier: They can see it and we can play around with it in Pro Select and really get to the point where it’s exactly what they want. As you say in the course, they don’t even know what they want and so when we show it to them, it helps them, and helps me, to see all the possibilities.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s so obvious once you do it a couple of times, you’re like, “Yeah, this makes perfect sense.” It’s like with an interior designer or a landscape designer, they’re not going to just show up and say, “Do you want this bush over here?” You’re like, “I don’t know. Isn’t that your job?” They’re going to show you drawings and mock-ups, and here’s what it could look like and give you an idea of how much that costs. Then you can say, “Ooh, wow. I didn’t know it was going to be $100,000 to do my front yard, let’s keep it to 20,” and nobody’s mad. But if they came in and brought all these plants and did your whole front yard and then said, “Here’s a bill for $100,000 you would be not very happy.” Photographers do that all the time, we do all the work, we kill ourselves off, we give them an amazing experience, and then at the end we’re like, “Well, here’s the bill,” and then we hope they’re going to pay it. That’s kind of silly.
Diane Dultmeier: As you said that, that brings up another thing is getting comfortable saying my prices out loud.
Allison Tyler Jones: How did you do that?
Diane Dultmeier: It took me a while to evolve, but I don’t have a price list that I give to my clients now. I tell them the prices as I point to a certain size, or I have a little booklet, The Gameplan Booklet, that also is an Allison thing that I … I will write some of the sizes and prices in there for them before they leave from the consultation. I try to focus on getting out the bigger prices, because in a way … I don’t know if this is right or not, but you almost want to scare them off if they’re not the right fit.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. A nicer way to say that, I think, which is more true for you, because you are such a nice person, is that what we’re good for is … Let’s just use you as an example. If you want a perfectly lit, perfectly conceptualized beach portrait in Stuart, Florida on those beaches of your family where everybody’s wearing what they’re supposed to be wearing, they’re posed perfectly, there’s a moment and then it needs to be blown up really big and above a fireplace and framed and perfect, they need you. They need you. And they need to know how much something like that’s going to cost. If they just want a picture of their kids on the beach to drop into their Minted holiday card or they just want a digital file that they’re going to post as their header on their Facebook page or just some stuff for social media you’re overkill for that.
Diane Dultmeier: Right. Actually, I’ve remembered a situation that happened many, many years ago when I was new in business, say 30 some years ago. I was in a local business club and there was an accountant in our club. It was time for me to get my taxes done and I thought, “Well, I’m a real business now, I need to have a real accountant do this for me. I’ll just have him do it.” I called him up and I said, “Hey. I would like you to do my taxes.” He kind of hesitated and he was super nice, which this is a lesson I’ve put into action in my business. He’s like, “Well, just to let you know, for me to do your taxes starts at $800,” and this was 30 years ago.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, yeah. That’s big.
Diane Dultmeier: He was really nice. I think he knew I was young and dumb, but now I can turn around and use that myself, being kind to someone else and helping them understand that they don’t actually really need me for whatever it is that they’re doing right now.
Allison Tyler Jones: I think to be clear is to be kind, right? Because you don’t want to say, “Oh, yeah. I would love to do your family on the beach. Let’s go. I’m going to do this and it’s going to be amazing. I’m going to bring popsicles and it’s going to be this great experience,” and whatever, and then you’ve never quoted a price. In their mind they’re thinking, I need a header for Facebook, and you’re not talking about how you do finished product, you’re just letting them go along with their misconceptions and you’re hoping that they do somehow some way, in that salesroom, that they’re going to come around to your way of thinking and you’re actually on different planets.
Diane Dultmeier: Right. Honestly, a different coach that I worked with previously, it was more of a let’s get them in with a low price and then sort of sell them on the other end. I tried that for a while, not trying to be bait and switch. I didn’t know any better. Let’s just put it way. It fell apart. I don’t know if the right word is … I wasn’t mad at the client, but I was frustrated because I put in a ton of work and I couldn’t understand why it fell apart, but now that I’m on this side of it, learning all the things I’ve learned in the last three years, I understand why it fell apart because they didn’t know and I wasn’t clear. I wasn’t transparent. Now I just sort of fall over myself being transparent and helpful and smiling. Just like, “This is normal and I want you to feel comfortable with what we’re doing here. If this isn’t comfortable for you, that’s fine.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Well, and it allows them to go away educated. Then when they’re ready to do that beautiful portrait above their fireplace or in a room somewhere of their family, maybe they don’t want to do just their two kids on the beach this time, just as a fun thing for their holiday card. Maybe they want to wait until she has the final baby, and then it’s the most important one. They know where to go when it’s important.
Allison Tyler Jones: I think so often we swing back and forth between we don’t want to say anything, so it’s like you’re saying, just get them in and try to sell them so we don’t say anything. We’re not transparent about anything. Or we think, oh, we have to be the Rodeo Drive girls in Pretty Woman to Julia Roberts like, “We don’t have your size here.” Then they come back in later, “Huge mistake. Huge.” We don’t want that either. We don’t think that we’re all that. We just know that this is how we do business, and we would love to do that for people that want it, but we for sure want to let you know that if that’s not in the cards for you, we don’t want to put pressure on you.
Diane Dultmeier: It’s so true. A colleague of mine that’s in a Toastmasters club that I’m a member of, talked to me last week about doing maternity portraits. I had a little knot in my stomach because I see her every week, but I went that route. I just said, “I don’t think you need me for this. I think you can find a photographer that’ll do a nice shoot and burn session for you. You’ll document the tummy, but when you have the actual baby and the baby’s six months old, which I think is the cutest age for a baby family session.” I said, “Let’s do it then.” She’s like, “I love that idea.” She’s like, I really want a Diane Dultmeier portrait, but yes, you’re right. I’d rather wait until we have the baby.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. I love that so much because what you’ve just illustrated is an artist who’s an expert, you, who’s just stepped into you know who you are. Like you said, when you get a knot in your stomach about something that is something that you don’t want to do, it’s not aligned with … I don’t want to do bellies or I don’t want to do newborns. I want to do a six-month-old, for you. For me, it would probably be even a little bit older kid. It’s not being somebody else, it’s being the best version of yourself, but continually making progress in your business.
Diane Dultmeier: I felt like I helped her. I did the right thing for her. I wasn’t manipulative. I didn’t say no, I helped her. At the end, she was thrilled.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, I love that. Well, as a member of our community, the thing that I’ve always loved about you is that on our Q&A or whatever, we will be talking about something that’s come up in your business. Then I’ll say, “Well, what do you think about this?” Then you’ll say, “I think part of that works for me, but this other part doesn’t work for me.” I’ve watched you really refine you know what it is that you want to do and what you don’t want to do, and so you’re going to take the things that you’re learning and really make them work for you, Diane. You’re not going to try to be Allison. I love that about you.
Diane Dultmeier: Well, thank you. You have helped me figure that out. Being in the group with other photographers and being able to just see all of us, and all of our differences, and all of our similarities, and our struggles and not feeling alone, that’s a big, huge thing. Not feeling alone as a photographer and as a business owner that has really helped.
Allison Tyler Jones: When we’re in a micro business or you’re a solopreneur by yourself, it does get very lonely. Sometimes your spouse doesn’t really want to hear it. They don’t get it, if they’re not in the business with you. So to be able to talk to somebody else, or even friends … You’re trying to work out something on pricing, don’t ask your friends.
Diane Dultmeier: Not at all.
Allison Tyler Jones: No. Or your family. They’re like, “What? Are you kidding?” Are there specific areas that you’ve made changes in, that you have felt have made the biggest difference, have moved the needle the most in your success? Because you’ve just recently done some numbers on your sales average and your husband helped you do some. So talk about that and kind of maybe the specific things that you’ve done.
Diane Dultmeier: Well, first of all, the sales numbers that I worked on this morning, my husband’s in marketing and advertising and does math.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Diane Dultmeier: I can do math. I don’t love math. But we figured out that my sales average has gone up almost 300% since I took Art of Selling Art.
Allison Tyler Jones: That is so amazing.
Diane Dultmeier: It is amazing. I didn’t even know it myself until I was working on that this morning. I’ve always been a finished product photographer, so it’s not because I switched from digitals to finished products. It’s because I evaluated the situation, based on a lot of the things I learned in the course, based on pricing. Raising the price on small prints, that was a big one. That was super scary at the time.
Allison Tyler Jones: So scary.
Diane Dultmeier: So scary at the time. I went from $125 for an 8 X 10, and smaller, to $200 for an 8 X 10 and smaller. I realize that there are photographers charging more than 200, but 200 feels right for me, for what I’m doing. My big focus is on the wall art. What I’ve learned is now people are buying a lot fewer 8 X 10s, and that higher price on those smaller ones somehow has helped them to focus more on the wall art. It’s very interesting. Now I have all these 8 X 10 boxes …
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, I know, right. Stacks of them.
Diane Dultmeier: I have for the next 10 years. But that’s great.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. That’s a good problem to have. Also, I think, the two P’s, it’s pricing, but it’s also process. You’ve changed your process and rules of engagement and how you’re taking your clients through your process. You’ve always had the product, but you’ve changed how you bring them through their process.
Diane Dultmeier: A lot of it is not assuming they won’t spend. Just assuming that everyone is driving a Brinks truck full of cash.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes. We love the Brink’s truck.
Diane Dultmeier: That was really helpful for me to envision that. Really, it’s not even about the money, in a sense. It’s about what great things could I create for this client that they’re absolutely going to love? That’s really what it’s about. I want to show them the best possible scenario of what we could do for them with their portraits. That even comes down to albums, for example. I had been approaching albums in the way that I just said, “Well, you could do an album. It would have this many images, so we just need to pick that many images and then I can make you this 20 page album.” Well, that doesn’t sound all that exciting, does it? So what I learned was I’m just going to design an album. They’re going to see it when they come into the sales appointment. For me, I do it differently than you. If it’s a session that lends itself to an album, I design an album for every client, whether they told me they wanted one or not. My album sales have increased a lot.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s awesome.
Diane Dultmeier: I was a photojournalist. I used to be a newspaper photographer, and that’s what my college degree is in, is newspaper photography. I like to do a storytelling album that might have a series of three images or might have … Some spreads will have one big, giant image, but some spreads might have four verticals going across of the same sort of scenario and different expressions and all of that. I love having a storytelling album like that.
Diane Dultmeier: Those are the kinds of albums I design for clients before they come for their sales appointment. I’ll show it to them. I’ll say, “Well, I’m not sure if you would like an album, but this session was so great, and there were so many wonderful moments that I went ahead and designed one for you.” I know, from our consultation, what kind of interest level they had in an album. I have a sales appointment coming up next week, it’s a grandma, which is perfect. Her extended family was in town. We did the session. I made sure to capture all the in-between moments. When she was at the consultation, she said, “Well, I really love this album, but I’m not sure if I should spend that much money.” Which tells me if I design a great album, there’s a good chance she’ll spend that much money because she didn’t say, “I don’t have the money.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Just should I spend it?
Diane Dultmeier: Should I spend it? I don’t feel like it’s manipulation, in any way, because I know how much she’s going to love having an album, if she gets one. Her grandkids live in Australia. She rarely sees them.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Well, and I think one thing that you said that I just keep coming back to is what great thing can I create for this client? That goes back to not just what great thing can I, as a portrait photographer, create for this client? What great thing can I, Dianne Dultmeier, photojournalist and storyteller, in Stuart, Florida, on location. You’re putting in all of those things that make you the snowflake that you are, that make you unique, that you want to show that to them. You want her to see those grandkids.
Allison Tyler Jones: So you’re taking your specific list of qualities and then combining that with your client’s specific list of quality; so grandmother, kids live in Australia. Every session, every interaction is going to be different. You’re going to be your unique package, because you’re not Alison Tyler Jones, you’re Dianne Dultmeier, you’re not, whatever, any other photographer you’re you with your specific abilities. Then pair that with that unique client.
Allison Tyler Jones: Of course, there’s going to be things that are the same. There’s the sizes of portraits, there’s the sizes of albums that might have a consistency, but what we’re creating within that is magic, every single time, if we let it be. Or we can just try to be somebody else, which never works, by the way. Like you said, you tried it and you’re like, “This should be working,” but somehow it just never really stuck. I think that’s the beauty of our business, of this industry, is that we can take this artist who’s completely unlike anybody else, sees the world in a completely unique way, and then with the client that’s unique unlike anybody else, and we can create magical things for them. If we think about it in that way, then we’re not so conflicted about our pricing and over here in the corner, like, “I can’t charge that much. I can’t ask that much.” It’s like, no, you’re coming from a place of excitement and joy.
Diane Dultmeier: Having a higher sales average allows me to spend more time with each client and to have my own feelings of joy about just working on their pictures and things like that or creating that album design. I don’t like doing the Photoshop part. I don’t do all that part, but I like doing the album designs. I was there at the session. I was there at the consultation. I know these people, and what their struggles were, and what they were worried about at the consultation that I helped them not be worried about anymore. When we get to the other side of the session and they’re choosing the pictures, and I kind of remind them, “Remember when we did the consultation and you were worried that your two teenage daughters were going to have total meltdowns that day, and we weren’t even going to be able to do the session?” They’re like, “Yeah. It worked out really well.” And just kind of reminding them and knowing that I helped with something that they were worried about, that feels good.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely. It feels good and it’s just a layer of value for your service. That’s where you start to hear things from your clients, and I know you’ve heard these things. It goes from, “Oh, you’re so talented. How are we ever going to pick,” which that’s a nice thing to hear too, but it goes from … They might have a little like, “Oh, wow. That was more than I thought,” to, “This was worth every penny. This was worth every penny.” You can see them tabulating that in their head of, “Yeah, I thought my sixteen-year-olds were going to be nightmares. Yes, I thought this was going to be hard, but Diane handled it. She knew how to get the sand off their legs as we were getting off the beach. She just handled everything from beginning to end.” I mean, we really underestimate ourselves, don’t we?
Diane Dultmeier: I think so.
Allison Tyler Jones: So how do you feel like you were underestimating yourself in the past?
Diane Dultmeier: I was operating out of fear. Fear of charging too much, maybe, that’s not the top fear. Fear of am I good enough or am I being tricky? Or why would they want to spend this kind of money on portraits anyway? Sometimes I still have that thought go through my head when I do an invoice. That was another thing we learned in the class, which really helped me was, you said, create the invoice before the sales appointment, based on what I want them to get, or what I think they should get because of who they are and their family and their home and all that stuff. Creating the invoice and seeing that dollar amount before I even go into the sales appointment.
Diane Dultmeier: For me, I like that because it gives me a vision, but it’s a flexible vision. That’s also what I tell my clients in the consultation is, we’re creating a flexible vision of what we might do with the portraits later, but we are flexible, we’re not married to this idea. It’s there and we have a concept, but we can be fluid, which I think really helps because, as I tell my clients, you have no idea really what you want to get until you see your own portraits. It’s so true. I mean, I’ve had our family portrait done and it’s a very nerve-racking experience.
Allison Tyler Jones: Horrible. It’s torture.
Diane Dultmeier: Then you look at them and you’re like, “Okay. Well that’s the best I can do with what I have here.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I guess a little more Photoshop wouldn’t be a bad thing, I really do like that creating a flexible vision. Catherine Langsford says setting the creative agenda for the shoot, but creating a flexible vision, that’s a different way of saying the same thing. So people aren’t feeling locked in, when you’re doing a consultation and trying to nail down the scope of work and what are we shooting for, because, again, they don’t know, other than we need an updated family picture, I know I want the kids together. Sometimes people will have more like, “Oh, I want the two of us together, because it’s our 20th anniversary this year,” or whatever, but they might not know that they’re going to want a picture that you have created of kids chasing seagulls off into the sunset. They don’t even know that that might happen.
Allison Tyler Jones: I might say something in that same conversation about, “Of course if something amazing starts happening, I’m not going to not capture it, because you said, oh no, we’re only doing the family and the kids. If your kids start doing back flips in my studio, I’m going to take pictures of that.” You’re always going to see more than what you thought you wanted just because your family’s interesting and unique. I think to set that it’s flexible is a good idea.
Diane Dultmeier: Well, and I approach that differently than you do, in that, and it probably has a lot to do with my background as a photo journalist, but there were a couple of times when I did sessions where I strictly got them what they said they wanted; a family session, or a family portrait, and then something of the three kids together. But to me, as we were talking about earlier, that feeling in your gut, that felt wrong. It didn’t feel like I finished the process.
Diane Dultmeier: It’s different for me because I’m out on location and my strategy with lighting is let’s get to a place, whatever the location is, if it’s the shade of some trees or if it’s on the beach or whatever it is, a place where the lighting’s going to be consistent. We might change locations within the location. I don’t have any assistance. I work by myself. I like it that way. So it’s easier probably for me than for you and the studio to switch out the groupings and things like that, to capture those little moments of sitting on the sand, looking at the shells together and things like that, that I know from experience working with my clients that they are probably going to love.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, I love that. Like you said, you have to take anything that you learn, you’ve got to take it and run it through your own filter of experience and what you know clients are going to love. Again, that idea of what is this great thing that I can create for this client? I think somewhere in between, because you’re also … You’ve probably pulled yourself back from way over shooting, I think anybody that …
Diane Dultmeier: Oh, I have. Doing the consultation is the key to really figure out where is this particular client coming from and what do they maybe not know that they’re going to love?
Allison Tyler Jones: Exactly.
Diane Dultmeier: That I already know that they’re going to love, more than likely. So each client is different. You can kind of tell people who are open and people who are, this is the thing I want.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. When you have somebody that’s saying, “Look, this has to be X number of dollars, and what I want is I want the family, and that is all I want. I don’t want anything else.” I will always give them the option, if the kids are freaking amazing and great and so good and we’re having good energy, I might just go ahead, like you said, and snap a couple of just the kids or whatever, and we’re talking about it. In the session itself, I’ll say, “Okay, is there anything else? We’ve got the family, we’ve got all the options for that, that you said, do we want to do anything like this, this and this,” or whatever. Then I will let them tell me.
Allison Tyler Jones: Very often what will happen is the mom is the one that’s wanting to keep it down and the dad is like, “Oh, no. Yeah, totally, we want that. Yes, we want that. Yes, we want that.” The mom will be like, “We do?” Either I have permission or I didn’t know you were going to be this excited about it, because maybe the dad has been not great about it in the past. Sometimes that can open up … I think creating a flexible vision, that is a really good way to look at it.
Allison Tyler Jones: But also not to err on the side of overshooting because where that all came from is I was shooting everything for everybody, and we didn’t nail it down. The consultation was for let’s figure out what to wear and where we’re going to shoot it. Then I’m shooting all the things and then they’re overwhelmed, there’s so many pictures, they don’t want to buy them all. They feel bombarded. It’s a fine line. Having that experience and knowing what people will buy, and what they need, I think is invaluable.
Diane Dultmeier: Well, and what you just said reminded me of another technique that I learned from you, which is to totally narrow the images down before you show the client. I used to feel like, “Well, I need to show them lots of images so they’ll feel like they got good value.” Now I’m going to narrow down the 5 million pictures that I took to the very best ones, I’m going to give you some alternate choices so you feel like you got to see a good number of them, but I’m going to make some decisions so that when you come in to make your choices, it’s going to be super easy. People are like, “Yes, please.”I’ll put some in a little folder, that’s alternates we could look at if we wanted to …
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Like if they hate them all.
Diane Dultmeier: You can tell the different personalities and the level of control people need to have. I’m the same way, depending on what I’m buying, but sometimes they’ll want to go look at some of those alternates and then they’re like, “Oh. You were right. You picked the right one.” I mean, the sales appointment’s over in an hour.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. It’s so amazing.
Diane Dultmeier: When I design an album, it’s done. I mean, really it is so much easier. People are so thrilled when they leave because it wasn’t torture.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. They’re not worn out. Well, and I think that’s a really good point. I need to show more images so they feel like they got the value, but really what you need to do is the curating of those images is the value. I think, for you, and I don’t know if you’ve used this language before, but I’m just thinking of things while we’re … You specifically, I would so lean into that photojournalist background, and I would use that term ‘photojournalist’ instead of newspaper photographer. You were photojournalist and you have a degree in photojournalism. That was your degree. As a photojournalist, part of my job was to weed through all of these images of a certain event that I was covering. What was going to tell the story? If you had to pick one image, what is it going to tell the story? So I use that training to curate tightly the edit. This would be like for a new client right, “I’ve gone through and I’ve selected the images that I feel tell the story. Now there’s going to be a few options, but here it is.”
Allison Tyler Jones: I think that’s a really beautiful … I mean you would use your own version of that. You would say it in your own way, but I think that’s something that’s very unique to you. How I say that with my clients is, “I’m an older mom. I have a lot of kids and we’ve moved a lot. So I’ve had a lot of different galleries and a lot of different pictures, portraits on my walls, and I know the images in all those moves that I’ve never taken off the wall, and I know that there’s some that they’re sitting in the back of a closet somewhere or I pulled them out and put them in an album.” They didn’t make the wall forever. Then there’s also images that I wish I had, that I didn’t take.
Allison Tyler Jones: That very much informs how we do this process, how I photograph for you, what I’m creating for your home, what I want you to have, what I think you need to have going forward, and what I think you could … Maybe only do individual headshots. Do we need those every year? No, we don’t, in my opinion. Is there a reason to do that maybe every few years or whatever?
Allison Tyler Jones: Again, going back to your unique vision and your unique skillset, your unique skillset. And you also have the mom thing too. You’ve got the mom thing and the photojournalist, so you’re double amazing on curating. I think the thing that I love about what you said is you pointed out that this will make it easier for you. You’re not saying, “Oh, I’m so amazing because I was a photojournalist, so I think I’m so great and you should be so lucky to be here.” No, you’re translating that into, so I’m going to do the hard work of going through all these images, and you’re only going to see the best of the best that tell the story. It’s positioning you as an expert, but then the value is to the client, that they are not going to have to sit here and wade through a hundred images.
Diane Dultmeier: It’s a differentiator because I’ve been on photographers websites where maybe they’re a shoot and burn and they offer the package with 75 digital files. I am like, “Wow, that’s a nightmare for the client to try to deal with that.” It’s overwhelming for me, how could it not be overwhelming for them?
Allison Tyler Jones: The story is they don’t deal with it. So we’ve had those clients that have done that, come to us, and where are those images? They’re on a hard drive. They’ve never done anything with them because … I’ve had the complaint over and over and over again, it’s like, “Yeah, I mean she gives you a hundred images, but then I got to go through them.” They’ll say to me, “Well, can you help me? Can you go through that and pick those and help me figure out a gallery?” That’s something that photographer could have done, but because she left the job undone, I’m going to pick that up.
Diane Dultmeier: Yeah. The photographer is well-intentioned. They’re trying to do the right thing, and just like all of us, we all evolve through the years and figure out things that we did when we were younger or newer where we’re like, “Well, that was dumb.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Sometimes it’s like the lemmings off the cliff. They’re so busy looking around, what is everybody else doing? Just exactly what you did three or four years ago of, wait a minute, everybody’s selling digital files, do I have to do that? Instead of the trend of what “everybody’s doing”, you searched and said, “Actually, I don’t want to do that, but I’m not sure if I can build a business based on product. I’m not sure I can build a business that can have 300% more average sale and that I could really enjoy working with my clients. Could I?” And you did. The answer is yes, it absolutely can happen, but it’s in your own unique way and becoming the best version of yourself, while making small changes that build an amazing foundation over a period of time, which I think is so amazing what you’ve done.
Diane Dultmeier: I’m sure that you talked about this, but sometimes we tend to focus on money and thinking that’s why people aren’t choosing us. We only look at that part instead of, well, first of all, as it’s covered in the course, we have to price ourselves a certain way in order to even have a viable business. I’m fortunate in that I’ve used a software called Successware since almost 25 years now. I took a class early on and learned how not to price myself, and that made a huge difference. I’ve been priced right, for the most part.
Diane Dultmeier: Just going through and relearning why I’m pricing the way I am and updating my prices and even adding more just to make sure things are covered, mistakes from the lab or whatever happens. When I’m quoting those prices to the client, I know in my head, I have to charge this much. This is not just a little fluffy number I pulled from the sky somewhere. I have an outside location. If I’m going to pay the rent, if I’m going to actually be able to pay myself at age almost 60, that I’ve been doing this for so long, I should be making a pretty good income. There is nothing wrong with that. That is to be expected in almost any field that anybody would be in. It’s not a crazy thing.
Allison Tyler Jones: No. I think that’s such a good point because you’ve seen it in our live classes. You’ve seen where somebody’s like, “Okay. I fixed my pricing. I set it at what it was supposed to be. Then the first person that I told it to, they were like, “Wait, what? Then I just discounted it and then I gave them extra stuff and I just freaked out.” It’s happened again and again. Just because somebody says, “Oh, wow, that’s different than what I expected,” doesn’t … We’re putting a whole bunch of information in there that they’re not saying, we think it means your work isn’t worth it. You suck. How dare you charge this? They’re not thinking any of that. They’re just thinking, “Wow, I thought in my mind it was going to be about this much. Or I just had no idea that “pictures”, cost that much, because they just didn’t know. We didn’t know that it was going to be $100,000 to landscape our front yard. I mean, it wasn’t, but there’s just things that we don’t know because we don’t know about those areas.
Allison Tyler Jones: Once we have the conversation and we see, okay, the reason why it’s this is because we’re doing this, and we’re doing this, and we’re doing this. We’re talking about the value, the problems that we’re solving for that client. We’re painting that vision. We’re creating that flexible vision of what it is that they could have and what it is that they could do. Then somebody that wants that, that grandma who wasn’t sure about her album, comes and sees her grandkids on the beach that she never sees, and that she’s going to have this album that she can look at when they’re not there, then it becomes … Money’s like the least part of that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now, does that mean that there are people that don’t care at all about money? No. When people say, “Oh, well you just have clients that don’t care about money,” no, that client doesn’t exist. Everybody cares about money. But if they value what you do, if they value having those images that Diane Dultmeier created on the beach, as a photojournalist, and has that storytelling moment and that beautiful image above the fireplace, then that’s what they want and they’re willing to exchange their value for your value. Then it becomes less about the price.
Allison Tyler Jones: But if we’re wound up about it and we’re in fear, we’re over here clutching and like, “Well, maybe I could give you a free 8 X 10 and I’ll give you some cards if you just buy …” Then immediately we’ve just put it on a completely different footing that doesn’t need to be there. You don’t need to go there.
Diane Dultmeier: I agree.
Allison Tyler Jones: You have to make the mind shifts. Like you said, with your experience in other areas, it’s just experience. You quote it and you just sit there and you quote it again, and you just sit there and then you learn how to talk about it and you learn slowly how to work your way through it. Before you know it, your sales averages are 300% higher.
Diane Dultmeier: It’s a step-by-step process, obviously. I mean, when I first took the course three years ago, there were so many eye-opening moments, things that you said that I hadn’t ever thought about. One of the big ones was minimizing language. I was like, “Oh my goodness, I have never noticed that before, but it’s so true. It’s just going to take a couple of minutes.”
Allison Tyler Jones: I just need a couple 8 X 10s.
Diane Dultmeier: Yeah. Now I can spot it like that. Oh, okay. That’s a clue about where their mind is. I got a contact form about a quick wedding. I don’t photograph weddings anymore, but I just thought, “Okay, quick wedding, what is this going entail?” Weddings are not where I want to go with my life these days. There’s a lot of things that can happen.
Allison Tyler Jones: A quick wedding.
Diane Dultmeier: A quick wedding.
Allison Tyler Jones: That be the best minimizing language I’ve ever heard is a quick wedding
Diane Dultmeier: At the courthouse.
Allison Tyler Jones: At the courthouse. I love that. That’s amazing.
Diane Dultmeier: Anyway.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. Okay. Well, so I want to ask you before we wrap up, I think this is a good place to wrap this up. Is there any advice you have for other photographers who might be struggling, that are looking at like, do I even want to stay in this? They’re doubting themselves, or maybe it’s advice that you would’ve given yourself as a younger photographer.
Diane Dultmeier: I think I would say it comes down to how you feel on the inside. I guess that whole gut feeling, again, where you’re like, “Is this what I should be doing? Is this where I fit in the world?” And conversely, is this where I fit in the world, but right now it’s too stressful to try to make this a business and maybe I need to get a different job so that I’m not worried about the money. I don’t know if that’s the answer, but when there’s money pressures, we compromise. I don’t know if that makes any sense. Sometimes the thing that you love isn’t the thing that you do for work because sometimes it’s a hobby. I think one of the big things, and my husband has helped me understand this, is I am a photographer, but I am a business owner. Some people can’t be a business owner, because they can’t have the boundaries, because being a business owner involves a lot of boundaries that can be uncomfortable.
Allison Tyler Jones: So true.
Diane Dultmeier: Uncomfortable for me to put into place, and uncomfortable for people to hear.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. It’s not for the faint of heart, for sure.
Diane Dultmeier: Yeah, it’s difficult. There’s been many, many difficulties through the years. It’s a pros and cons type of list one has to make for themselves and kind of decide what’s a good fit. Is this so hard that it’s not the fit for me right now? I don’t know, that might be not what you were looking for.
Allison Tyler Jones: No, it is. It’s so true, because I think we get into this … In fact, I just was recording an episode with Rudi Marten from Clark Marten Photography just last week, and we were talking about the same thing. He’s like, “The difference I see, the most successful portrait photographers are those that recognize this is a business. I am doing what I love and I’m doing a creative art, but it is also a business.” I call that building the ATM around your talent. The ATM, you don’t just walk up and go, “Hi, give me all this money,” there are rules of engagement.
Allison Tyler Jones: But I do believe, because I’ve seen it time and again, that you don’t have to be a used car salesman or a jerk to have a business. If we look back at this whole episode, just what we’ve been talking about is that you feel like you’re being mean, but then you realize maybe there’s a softer way to say that, or maybe there’s a different rationale underneath what I’m saying. That’s where I think that being true to who you are …
Allison Tyler Jones: I went through all of that same stuff. I didn’t want to put down the rules, I didn’t want to quote pricing. It felt super scary to me, but I realized, okay, if I’m going to do this, I’ve got to support these seven kids and our family. I have to do this. How can I talk about this in a way that makes sense to my client, that shows the value for them, and that’s not tricky because I don’t like tricky. I don’t like dishonesty. I want to be just transparent and honest. Then if I can’t do that, then I will go do something else. My philosophy is what’s the rationale under what you’re saying, not just what you’re saying, because there’s so many sales books out there that are like just say it like this. But if I don’t have the rationale, the integrity under that, I can’t say that.
Diane Dultmeier: Well, and going back to what we talked about sort of near the beginning is if we’re creating something we totally believe in, and we believe that this is going to add value to this client’s lives, their home, their family … I went to an installation yesterday for a grouping of portraits, and I had done their portraits about 15 years ago, and the kids were much younger, and they’re on the wall.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love it.
Diane Dultmeier: It’s fun to see those pictures from 15 years ago, but to realize those have been hanging there for 15 years.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. They’re part of the family.
Diane Dultmeier: They have loved those portraits for 15 years, and she wishes she would’ve done more sooner. They didn’t. At the time, she was price conscious. I remember feeling a little bit like she was annoying. I don’t know if annoying is the right word. 15 years ago, I felt like, I don’t know … It could have been me, how we bring our own baggage.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. It pricked your self-confidence.
Diane Dultmeier: Now, all these years later, she loves them. She tells me how much she loves them. She loves the new ones, she loved her new experience. She’s so thrilled. It brings me a lot of joy.
Allison Tyler Jones: For sure. Having that longevity with that client, there’s also so many words in there that you can use with new clients going forward that you could say, “Well, I was just in an install the other day.” So here you have a new client in front of you that are like, “Wow, this is more than I thought.” Then you could say, “Yeah, I know. For sure it’s not cheap, but you know what? I was just at a family’s home the other day, we were doing an installation. She had pictures on her walls from 15 years ago, and we were standing there and what I’ve realized in all of our time together is that I have never had a client say to me, I wish we hadn’t photographed them so often. It’s never once happened.” I wish that I’d waited later to start photographing them. Never. They always wish they’d started sooner. They always wish they’d done it more.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s like making a place for this in your life. It’s valuable and it builds self-esteem, and it’s amazing. If we truly do believe that, I don’t think it’s that difficult to make a business around it. It’s not easy, but if you … This is one thing that I just have to really compliment you on, Diane, is that I’ve watched you go, “I don’t know if I can do that,” and then you just do it anyway, but you find a way to make it your own, and then you see the benefit from it. You feel the fear and do it anyway, and I love that about you.
Diane Dultmeier: A year ago, for example, you taught us to create the album mockups in ProSelect. I had never done that before, so I did it and it was a pain in the bottom, because of doing it for the first time,
Allison Tyler Jones: Of course.
Diane Dultmeier: Making the templates the way I wanted them to be and blah, blah, blah. Of course, I had an appointment breathing down my neck, and so I stayed up till 11 o’clock at night or whatever. But then I decided to start doing that every time that I had an album, and it got easier and easier and easier, and now it’s super easy. Even the times when they didn’t get the album, I just said, “This is practice. This is practice. This is practice.” That’s just an example of, okay, I don’t know if they’re going to get the album or not get the album, but I’m practicing.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. For sure.
Diane Dultmeier: This after being in business for 30 years, I’m still practicing. I think that’s part of the key to business ownership.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right, but that’s why you’re growing. That’s why your averages are climbing. You might be on a Facebook group and people are like, “Oh, the economy’s horrible, inflation. Nobody wants to spend money, everybody’s price sensitive, blah, blah, blah.” It’s like, well, not everywhere, not everybody. I think that’s awesome.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. Any recommendations you have for us? Favorite books, favorite podcasts that you love to listen to? Anything you’re binge-watching, any resources out there that you want to share with our listeners?
Diane Dultmeier: Well, off the top of my head, a book that has had a profound effect on me is Atomic Habits.
Allison Tyler Jones: So good.
Diane Dultmeier: It’s just an overall great book if you want to slowly change your life one little step at a time, and you realize I don’t have to make this big goal happen right now. What’s the first little teeny tiny step towards that goal that I could do and then slowly improve? So I think that’s really helped me.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. So that’s Atomic Habits by James Clear. He also has a really good newsletter, email newsletter.
Diane Dultmeier: I get that.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. 3, 2, 1. Oh, so good. Love his newsletter. So highly recommend that. We’ll link to that in the show notes. Then where can our listeners find you?
Diane Dultmeier: My website’s dultmeierphoto.com.
Allison Tyler Jones: Spell that.
Diane Dultmeier: D-U-L-T-M-E-I-E-R-P-H-O-T-O.com. I’m on Instagram @dianedultmeierphotography, and I’m on Facebook, Dianne Dultmeier.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. We’ll link to all those in the show notes. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today and share your wisdom with our listeners. It makes a huge difference, and I just appreciate you so much.
Diane Dultmeier: Well, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it.
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re the best.
Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison a dotherework.com and on Instagram @do.the.rework.
