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. Well, it’s here. October is here, and we are in the thick of the busy family portrait season. And in order to help you navigate that the best that you possibly can, I’m cracking open The ReWork vault, going back in time to one of our most popular episodes, Five Keys to Getting Ready for the Holiday Season.

Allison Tyler Jones: This episode is chock-full of ideas to get your studio spruced up, brainstorm ideas on how you can spoil your clients more than ever, checking through your packaging your products, how you’re going to surprise and delight your clients this year, all of those things that are going to get you ready to make this your best season yet.

Allison Tyler Jones: And not only that, if you go to dotherework.com and click on the link at the very top of the page where you can download our free updated PDF Five Key Steps to Get Ready for the Busy Season. It’s chock-full of a checklist and all the things that you can do to get ready for your busy season. You don’t have time now to brainstorm all of this? We already brainstormed it for you, so download that free PDF at dotherework.com and see how you’re measuring up getting your studio ready for your busy season. Let’s do it.

Jessica Mackey: Hello and welcome. My name is Jessica. I am Allison’s client coordinator at Allison Tyler Jones Photography. I’m here today with Allison.

Allison Tyler Jones: Hey.

Jessica Mackey: And today we are talking about one of the things that is kind of a big deal at our studio. A big chunk of our sessions happen during the fall, right?

Allison Tyler Jones: For sure. Fourth quarter, busy, busy. If you’re a portrait photographer, you can relate.

Jessica Mackey: Yes. And if you can relate, you know that every fall, you have to gear up. And for us, there’s very specific things that we do that help us gear up and prepare for the fall season.

Allison Tyler Jones: And that’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

Jessica Mackey: And so we have four very specific steps that we go through to help us prepare for the fall season that we thought would be just really helpful for all photographers out there because it’s a big time. And you want to make sure that you’re at your best and that your studios at your best and that you’re just ready to go.

Allison Tyler Jones: And coming off of summer, everybody’s tired and also rested.

Jessica Mackey: Including us.

Allison Tyler Jones: Sort of, like tan and maybe a little bit fatter from vacation, but it’s kind of like, okay, how do we get the locomotive primed and get things ready to go again?

Jessica Mackey: Because we ourselves have to come off of vacation mode where kids have been off school. We haven’t maybe had the schedule.

Allison Tyler Jones: Your kids have been off school. My kids are.

Jessica Mackey: They’ve been off school for a really long time.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yes. My kids have been off school for a really long time. It’s kind of like we come back and we… Not that we’re really off, I mean, we’re busy all the time, but it’s like we’ve got to just get into the game. Now we got to get loaded up because now we’re going into a very busy time of year. So what do you think is the first thing would you say?

Jessica Mackey: Well, and just to go back to that point really fast, I think that yes, we shoot all year. But because the fall is so busy, what we found in past years is it can be really quick for us to feel burnt out emotionally, mentally, creatively. And so some of these steps that we’ve put in place are to help prevent that from happening so that we’re in a good mindset so that we can tackle what’s coming without it ending in burnout.

Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And I would say we have four things, but really there’s five. And I’m going to say one thing before the first thing on your list that I see over there is one of the things that we realized, I don’t know, probably when Ivan came into the business, so that was like 2013, is that why don’t we call our very best clients and give them first dibs on the calendar and get them booked in and know that we have a file full of people that we love, that love us, that are great, and make it special for them rather than just hoping that they call and then taking all comers.

Jessica Mackey: Right. And I think a big part of that is it really does provide some delight for us. So if we see, oh my gosh, Caroline Keating’s coming in, I get excited and I want to make sure I’m at the studio and able to greet her and see her boys and see how big they are. That’s a relationship that we love and that excites us to be able to see some of those favorites year after year.

Allison Tyler Jones: And brainstorm, which we’re going to get into in a minute. So about two weeks after school starts, we start texting, calling, and mainly texting. Let’s be honest, nobody wants to answer their phone. So we text and just, “Hey, we’re thinking of you. If you need a session this year, we’re ready to go. What looks good? October? September? Let’s do it earlier,” whatever.

Allison Tyler Jones: Just touch base with all of our faves and then let them have the first chance at the calendar and then book it as much as we can with the people that are existing clients rather than what I think some photographers do is they’ll send out a MailChimp or some kind of an ad and do like, “Hey, let’s do mini sessions, or let’s do some kind of a deal or some kind of a promo,” but really we are just calling our existing clients and giving them priority booking.

Jessica Mackey: Absolutely. And I think it makes them feel special. And we’ve tried it in different ways each year, where this year we did try it a little bit later to see how that went. Because it’s just trial and error, right?

Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Well, and COVID. I mean, honestly.

Jessica Mackey: And COVID. That set everything back, but there’s some years that we’ve tried it in May, reaching out to existing clients before the summer hits and before their fall is so crazy. It’s just finding whatever fits best with your clientele, but giving them that service because that’s what it is. You’re reaching out to them. You’re saying, “Hey, thinking about you. Do you want to get in? If so, we want you to have first dibs.”

Allison Tyler Jones: And it’s not a pressure thing. We definitely couch it in terms of if you need a session this year, you have first dibs on the calendar. And so it’s not a pressure thing. If they are like, “Hey, we’re going to give it a miss this year, or we’re going to Hawaii, going to be photographed on the beach,” whatever, then we know that we just check them off and that we’ll touch base again next year. But they’re always top of mind for us.

Jessica Mackey: Right. And you’re just validating that. If they can’t come in, it’s like totally understand. Absolutely get it. Can’t wait to see how your kids have grown next year.

Allison Tyler Jones: Love it.

Jessica Mackey: But one of the main things that we do in preparing for the season is we actually evaluate the physical space. So for us, that’s a studio. And so what are some of the things that you feel like you pay really close attention to in our physical space?

Allison Tyler Jones: Well, I just think when you work in a space all the time, it’s kind of like your home. You quit seeing it. And so I like to go outside and come in as though I were a brand new client and seeing everything for the first time. Is the front door schmutzed up and dirty at the bottom where a little kid’s face would go? Our couch, we have a lot of white upholstery. Our floors are white. The walls are white. Everything’s white. So any kind of dirt shows a lot. So I like to walk through and say, “Is there something that needs touch-up paint? Does the cyc wall need to be repainted?”

Jessica Mackey: Our candy jars have to be cleaned out, those glass jars.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, wiped down. And not just cleaned out, but are there any candy in there that’s expired that we need to throw away?

Jessica Mackey: We don’t want any broken jaws.

Allison Tyler Jones: Right, or that Ivan’s going to shove into the bottom of his desk drawer. Let’s be honest, nobody’s throwing away candy ever. So going through and just looking at everything. Ivan is going through and looking at like, do we have enough boxes? Do we have enough packaging? Do we have enough ribbon tissue? All the things that we use to package so that we have that ahead of time. We really try to get all of that stuff ordered on show specials during trade shows and that sort of thing because we can, which is really great.

Jessica Mackey: And just stock that.

Allison Tyler Jones: But if for some reason we didn’t, we’re out of office supplies, whatever, just need to gear up. And then is the fridge cleaned out? Is there a pear in there from May of 2019? So all the things that we need to clean out. Sometimes things pile up in different places that you don’t see, looking at your desk. Wherever a client is coming in, whatever they’re going to touch, feel, see, smell, it’s got to be perfection.

Jessica Mackey: And I think something that I learned from you pretty early on that I thought was really insightful is you are continually aware of smells, specifically food smell. We don’t think about the fact that if we’re going to pop our leftovers in the microwave and make the whole office smell like beef stroganoff, some clients may not be super turned on by that.

Allison Tyler Jones: No. Well, and why don’t you just share with your story of the ultimate smell when you first started?

Jessica Mackey: Oh gosh, that was so bad. She was so mad at me.

Allison Tyler Jones: You’re never living it down.

Jessica Mackey: No, no. This was years ago.

Allison Tyler Jones: Four years to be exact.

Jessica Mackey: I may have brought in some microwave popcorn because that’s the perfect snack when you’re doing all your busy work on photos and design. And I walked away from the microwave because shouldn’t the microwave turn off when the popcorn is done? No. It burned the popcorn.

Allison Tyler Jones: It was like one step away from the sprinklers going off. It was so bad, and it took weeks and she never lived it down. Now it is immortalized on a podcast microwave forever. Yeah, no, the microwave is nuclear for sure.

Jessica Mackey: But even the smell got into… It just was everywhere. We had fans airing out the whole studio and spraying stuff down with Febreze. I mean, we could not get that smell out. And so it’s being aware of that, because we have one member of our mind shift group who does homemade cookies. Everybody loves that smell.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, for sure.

Jessica Mackey: If you come into a studio and there’s homemade cookie smell, own that, live that up. But if it’s Mexican food…

Allison Tyler Jones: Tuna sandwich.

Jessica Mackey: Tuna sandwich.

Allison Tyler Jones: Nobody wants to smell your rotten banana peel in the trash.

Jessica Mackey: Right, exactly.

Allison Tyler Jones: So just being aware of that. And so we have a scent that we love that’s essential oil. So like half an hour before a client is going to come in, we just rub that on the light bulbs on the way up.

Jessica Mackey: That apparently is a thing. I thought she was joking when she first said it.

Allison Tyler Jones: No, it’s totally a thing.

Jessica Mackey: You can put essential oil on the light bulb.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Well, don’t pour it on. This is key. We are not experts in essential oils on electricity, so just know that. I’m going to that right now. But we just rub a little bit on our finger and rub it on the light bulb and it really just makes it smell yummy and really nice.

Jessica Mackey: It does. It’s beautiful.

Allison Tyler Jones: A signature scent. So all the things, are your floors clean? If you have carpet, is it ratty? Does it need to be replaced? Is your upholstery gross?

Jessica Mackey: Is your backdrop painted? For us, we have to repaint.

Allison Tyler Jones: We have to repaint our cyc wall at least a couple of times a year. And then also, how do the walls look? Are they getting ratty where you’ve rubbed against them? How do your samples look? The actual samples of your work, are they dusty? Are the frames from 1995 and you just keep putting different pictures in them? Do you need to update something and make something look different, maybe move some things around?

Allison Tyler Jones: With retail, which is basically what we are really, that constantly has to be refreshed and give people something new to look at. Luckily, we only generally for most of our clients are coming in once a year, maybe two times a year, so it doesn’t have to change as often as a retail store would that you would be visiting more often. But thinking about, do I need some new samples, and then contacting your lab and getting those samples created ahead of time.

Jessica Mackey: And we do love to put samples up in our studio of some of our best clients that we know are going to be coming year after year because they get so excited when they see themselves on the walls. Something else Allison does that I think is brilliant is, like she said, she walks in the front door, but she’ll sit where the clients sit, which isn’t always where we sit. But she will literally put herself in those spaces so she can see from their perspective, oh my gosh, that actually looks really gross over there, or that layout is really busy.

Allison Tyler Jones: In fact, we have a sofa in the front lobby area of our studio and it’s pretty low. And sitting down in there, it’s comfy, so that was good. But then I looked and I could see there was some gum or something underneath a table that I could see underneath it, but I wouldn’t have seen that if I hadn’t sat down and sat that low.

Allison Tyler Jones: And then also in my salesroom or my office where the clients come in, where we meet to look at the images together, all of the images that are on the wall, the framed prints that are on the wall behind me, that’s what they’re facing, so I like to sit where they’re sitting and look and see, okay, is this TV at a good angle for them or is this going to be hard?

Allison Tyler Jones: So now I know that when the clients come in, when I have both the mom and the dad there, I can say, “Okay, you’re going to want to scoot back a little bit and be over there,” and then I’m going to angle this towards you so I know exactly where is not a good place.

Allison Tyler Jones: If they’re sitting right up next to that TV, that’s not going to be a good viewing angle for them. So it just helps to know what they’re seeing. And then also I can sit there and see maybe things that I didn’t realize that they could see like my 7,000 Post-it notes that are in the Costco package that are peeking up over the bin or whatever.

Jessica Mackey: Only 7,000.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, a lot. I have an office supply problem.

Jessica Mackey: It’s not a bad problem to have. So the second thing that we really like to focus on is in that same putting yourself in the client experience and figuring out how to streamline the process for them. And so if we have changes to pricing that need to happen, we make it happen before the fall. That’s when we make any pricing adjustments. Any forms, client forms, booking forms, reevaluate those every summer.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, for sure. What wasn’t working when you look back? And as we’ve gone through our client consultation sheet or anything like that, if we’re looking through and seeing, I hate that we have this line here. I never ask them that question. Why is it here? Or this information is always confusing to me. So we’ll readjust that. And then as far as pricing goes, usually most of the labs I found will change their prices just before the fall.

Allison Tyler Jones: And so we just will go through and look through all the websites, get all the current pricing from our framer, from everything else, get them into spreadsheets, and then we know are there some of those things that need to be raised. And especially this year, wow, the prices definitely went up for all of our vendors. There wasn’t one exception.

Jessica Mackey: And this was one of the first years in a while that we raised our session fee. And that is something that you evaluate before the fall season too, just all of that to prepare and accommodate for that. Any other things that you feel like we worked to streamline before the client comes in? Software?

Allison Tyler Jones: Yep, updating the software, also the gear. How’s it looking? Do we need to clean the camera bodies? Do we need to clean the sensors? Do we need to send everything out to get cleaned? Again, we’re shooting all year long, but we don’t necessarily have the volume as compacted into a small period of time as we do through the fall. And so I like to get, does the camera need to be serviced?

Allison Tyler Jones: Is something being weird? Just all that stuff. Looking through the camera bag and is there just crap that’s been in there that’s dirty? Do we need new cloths? And then even what we call the rolly cart in our studio that has hair ties, hair spray, bobby pins, clips, lint rollers, all that kind of stuff, is that all current? Pet snacks, are the pet snacks fresh? I mean, there’s everything.

Allison Tyler Jones: Do we have the Clorox Wipes? Do we have the hand sanitizer? We have one of those hand sanitizers that’s rechargeable that touchless. Making sure that that thing stays charged. We have a big huge apothecary jar that… Well, we have a million apothecary jars that have candy in them, but the gumballs get hard really easily, so we need to refresh so that people… They’re not jawbreakers, they’re supposed to be gumballs. So just refreshing all of that.

Jessica Mackey: And so it’s just really, I think, intentionally setting aside the time to do that. Because for us, the rolly cart is a great example. If we don’t set aside the time and be like, okay, before fall season each year we have to clean that out, we have to go through that, it becomes the junk drawer, and to where clients are there waiting for a hair tie and we can’t find one. We’re digging through two feet of junk to find anything.

Allison Tyler Jones: And anything that we have in the bathroom or the client dressing area like soap, lotion, Poo-Pourri, whatever the things are that they need need to be completely stocked and fresh and locked and loaded.

Jessica Mackey: Absolutely. And any repairs that need to be done, you take care of that before the busy season, because you don’t have time.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, no, for sure. Inevitably, we’ll have to send out one of the flash heads or maybe a remote, one of the flash transmitters or something like that. So just checking the gear, making sure that everything’s working well. Light banks tend to get wonky. They might need to be sewn up a little bit, or maybe we need to replace something, but all of that.

Jessica Mackey: Right, and light bulbs changed. All of that stuff that plays into that. And so the third thing that we really focus on when we’re getting ready for the busy season is restarting our inspiration, our creativity, because it is a lot in a short amount of time. And so what do you feel like are some tips and tricks for adding extra life to creativity going into the fall season?

Allison Tyler Jones: Well, I think it’s really important for me in particular for our studio, because we are shooting in studio and we’re shooting basically a white seamless background, gray seamless, or maybe one of our Lux backgrounds. But basically we’re not on location, so we’re not doing a bunch of different locations. We’re not looking at that for variety.

Allison Tyler Jones: So I do like to have an idea of concept of something new that I want to do. And many of our clients are repeat year after year. They’ve come to us since their kids were newborns and now we’re shooting these kids. They’re older. And so how do you keep that fresh every year? How do you make it different, but yet still cohesive?

Jessica Mackey: Brand consistent.

Allison Tyler Jones: And consistent for what they love. Because I find that I tend to attract a mom that they love nostalgia and they love tradition, but they definitely don’t want it to be boring and stale. They want it to be modern artwork, but yet still have an element of timeless to it so that it’s not really embarrassing that you had that picture from 2009 or whatever.

Jessica Mackey: And a lot of our pieces will hang on the same wall together. And so you need it from 2016 to look good with what’s being shot in 2021.

Allison Tyler Jones: For sure. Yeah, for sure. In the summer and throughout the year, what I try to do is when I get away, so this summer we were in Chicago and we were in New York, and so being able to go see the Obama portraits and the Chicago Institute of Art, I’d never been to the Chicago Institute of Art before. That’s always just a, like my sister would say, a spa treatment for my eyeballs.

Allison Tyler Jones: Because to be able to just go see that beautiful portraits, beautifully painted and rendered, it does just inspire you in new ways. Even just from a posing standpoint, from a framing standpoint, from a color use, from a gesture, to be able to have that inspiration is really helpful. If you can’t get away, I don’t really love Pinterest as far as looking at what other portrait photographers are doing, but I do love to look at what commercial photographers are doing, advertising, that sort of thing.

Allison Tyler Jones: That’s a really good place for me to look because my work tends to be a little bit more commercial. So I love to get an idea. I love to get an idea of, okay, do I have a new chair, a new piece of furniture? Not necessarily prop-ish because I like things to go away, but is there something that the form of that is going to make an interesting way to shoot somebody? I think that’s a fun thing.

Jessica Mackey: Well, and sometimes it’s even just recycling old stuff from the basement. You go down there and you look and you’re like, oh my gosh, I totally forgot about this chair and the stool and this bench.

Allison Tyler Jones: Things that you’ve had forever, maybe you repaint something, maybe you revisit it in a new way, and that can be really fun. Just using the edge of a table coming in off the side and somebody sit on that. It just can inspire you in a new way.

Jessica Mackey: Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like then you get into the shoot and it’s a little bit of trial and error. Because you get a bench and you’re like, oh my gosh, I totally know what I want to do with this. And you get in there and you’re like, actually, that doesn’t look good.

Allison Tyler Jones: She looks fat. Change it. Yes.

Jessica Mackey: It is a starting point for you to jump off on and to be able to unleash that creativity, versus when we get into sessions or the season, it’s just like, I have no idea what I’m going to do with this family. It can be really stressful. It builds that anxiety versus intentionally preparing for that and being like, okay, who do we have coming in this year? What are maybe some new ideas? What’s a piece of furniture we haven’t used with them?

Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and that goes back to that calling program is that with our top clients, we will go through and sketch, okay, this is what we’re going to do. We’ll look at what we’ve done for the clients the last several years, and then we’ll say, okay, this year the kids lost their teeth, or this year they’re graduating from high school, or whatever. What’s going on with the kid and what haven’t we done?

Allison Tyler Jones: So maybe we’ve always done casual and jumping around maniacs. And this time they have more gravity in their personality. They’re taking themselves a little more seriously. So maybe it’s a good time to do completely formal tuxedo, ball gown, extreme over the top formal, which I think every family should do at least once in their family portrait career.

Allison Tyler Jones: Or if they’ve only ever done Sunday best and kind of a little more tucked and belted, maybe we do something that’s a little bit more loose and fun. Maybe they bring their skateboards or whatever it is that they’re into. So we want to think that through ahead of time, and then we’ll suggest that to clients. Sometimes we’ll suggest it to them when we text them like, “Hey, this is what we were thinking to do this year.”

Allison Tyler Jones: Sometimes we don’t know it that soon, but we know that they’re going to book. And so we’ll say, okay, we’ll get busy conceptualizing, and then that’s where the sketchbook comes out. We’re printing things off of the internet that we found and then making sketches of… I’ll literally go in and sketch out the relationships of the sizes of the people next to each other and how I want to do it. Because sometimes we do a lot of bigger families, meaning families with a lot of kids, and so…

Jessica Mackey: Including teenagers and toddlers.

Allison Tyler Jones: And you think, does that always have to be horizontal? Does it always have to be horizontal? Well, how would you do it if it wasn’t? And so that’s a fun, creative exercise, is like, okay, the easiest way to do this, the way how everybody would do it would make it horizontal. But what if I wanted it to be square? Or what if I demanded that it be vertical? How would I solve that problem creatively? And then some of the most fun, we just did a family… What was the family?

Allison Tyler Jones: Sorensens. That had how many kids? Like five, six, and a dog. Six and a dog vertical. Six kids and a dog, we did it vertical. And it just came together and it was accidental, but it was really fun. So things like that. Rather than necessarily like, okay, this is going to be the prop du jour, it’s maybe a piece of furniture as a jumping off point or the side of a piece of furniture or just maybe some image that has struck my fancy that I want to start there and then build around.

Jessica Mackey: And challenging yourself a little bit creatively so that you stay in the game, because it’d be really easy to just have a…

Allison Tyler Jones: Formula.

Jessica Mackey: Yes, exactly. Where you’re like, okay, six kids, I know exactly how I’m going to pose you. This is how we always pose you, regardless of whether or not the clients appreciate that. As an artist, that kills the creativity to just let yourself get so stuck in the this is how we do it.

Allison Tyler Jones: And I think it’s easy to do that because when you get to a certain point, you know what your go-to is. You know how to make something happen. So even if you’re having a bad day or you’re tired, you can make something happen. But the best shoots are the ones where you’re just on the razor’s edge of this is probably not going to work. Get the safe shots, but always pushing yourself to do something that’s a little bit weird.

Allison Tyler Jones: Completely take your usual light modifier off and do something completely different or change the light from a different angle or whatever, use a completely different lens. There’s so much variety. Even still, with as limited as my variables are in studio, there’s so much variety that I can still create. And I love that.

Allison Tyler Jones: I actually love the creative restriction of being in studio because like I always say, I don’t really care about the environment. I only care about the people and the relationships between them and their expressions and their personalities.

Jessica Mackey: And I think what’s interesting about that too is that because you do the pre-consultation, you know what the client is looking for, you know what they’re wanting to get out of the session, and you do shoot for the client. You do want to meet their needs. But then I feel like in almost every shoot, you do something that’s for you. And the client may go for it, they may never see it, it may be an absolute disaster, but I think it’s important to do something for you as an artist.

Allison Tyler Jones: That pushes yourself. Yeah, for sure. Couldn’t agree more.

Jessica Mackey: And the same thing goes like we do a lot of holiday cards and we will run into the same thing where it would be really easy to just template it, to just be like, this is what we do.

Allison Tyler Jones: You want joy. You want love. You want Merry Christmas.

Jessica Mackey: We could do peace. We could do peace. That’s another one. But figuring out how to keep that creativity going so that we challenge ourselves with those holiday cards to keep them custom and keep them different.

Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and that’s where you’re so good because you can wordsmith the poems and the play on words and defend things. I can start the gist and then you’ll just take it and run with it and take it to a place that I never would’ve gone, which I love that. And that’s what our clients love. That’s something that they can’t get on Minted, they can’t get on Shutterfly. It’s that custom concept, custom design.

Allison Tyler Jones: And so definitely when we’re shooting, the number one outcome is wall art. We want it to be amazing. The threshold is so high. It has to be perfect for the wall. And then of course, out of that, we’re going to get something that’s going to be amazing for a card.

Jessica Mackey: But I think just when you’re shooting as an artist and it can be so easy to let yourself just get stuck in that formula, that formula kills your soul a little bit as an artist. It makes that season drag on to where you just really burn out. Whereas with the card design, when I come up with something that’s awesome, just so fits that picture just so perfectly, I really do yell things and yes and get so excited. And you’ll be like, what is happening? I nailed it. I just came up with something. And it’s so validating to have those moments, and they make you excited to keep going.

Allison Tyler Jones: Usually the clients like it too.

Jessica Mackey: The ones who don’t.

Allison Tyler Jones: The ones who don’t make us sad, the ones that have not yet learned to completely and totally trust us in all other things. But sometimes we come up with things that are maybe a little too snarky.

Jessica Mackey: Right.

Allison Tyler Jones: Still totally genius, totally brill, but whatever. So yeah, I love that. So I think that that’s a common thread is just staying engaged and never letting us get to the point where we’re just like, oh, okay, here we go, this family, year five.

Jessica Mackey: Like it’s October 1st and I’m ready to quit. You have to stay engaged through the busy season, and a big part of that is engaging that creativity.

Allison Tyler Jones: And one thing that Carrie, my sister, and I definitely will come up with is when we are looking down the barrel of the holidays, we’ll be like, okay, what’s the carrot? What’s the carrot? What’s going to get me through this? There will be sometimes a carrot like, okay, we’re going to do a trip, or there’s something fun that’s coming after the holidays, or whatever, but I think you have to have little carrots for yourself every day.

Jessica Mackey: Along the way.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, every shoot, what’s going to be my carrot in this shoot? If you know there’s one kid that’s really hard to deal with, getting a natural smile out of the kid that’s got the grimace face, or whatever, that’s a win and you could celebrate that.

Jessica Mackey: And letting those wins fill your tank to keep you going.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, no. And that’s me. I mean, if you’ve been in a shoot with me, you would know that if there’s a kid that is going to withhold from me, then I’m going to be Chinese water torture on them until they’ll submit my well. And then I know when I got it, I’m like, yes, I got you against your will. I love it.

Jessica Mackey: Exactly. And being okay with the fact that not every shoot that we do, not every card that we design is knocking it out of the park. Some of them are just good. Some of them…

Allison Tyler Jones: Well, I think they all knock it out the park. But what I think the difference is is that especially when we first started on this insane card journey is that every year you got to surpass the one before. It’s got to be funnier, more pithy, and more whatever. And so if I finally realize, okay, look, it’s okay to have some years just be beautiful. Let’s have a beautiful card, heartfelt, love, and then next year could be hilariously funny, and then let’s alternate.

Allison Tyler Jones: Because if you keep just trying to up the ante more and more, it loses its savor. It loses its impact. So I think we always knock it out of the park. I just think that we can alternate between beautiful and quiet and rich, gorgeous Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, whatever. And then the following year can be some Dear Santa, I can explain with the kids burning the whole thing down, or whatever.

Jessica Mackey: And I guess my point to that is more not like… Because everything always meets our high level of standards. But for us as artists, there’s some things that you’re just like, oh my gosh, I so connected to getting that kid to smile. And other ones are just easy and fun, but those challenges that we overcome where you take something that felt hard and you knocked that out of the park, that is just so validating as an artist.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, for sure, for sure. And sometimes the burn down, sometimes when it completely failed, what you would normally think of as it failed, that’s actually the best image for the back of the car. When somebody gets thrown to the ground and their glasses are bouncing on the floor, not that that’s ever happened, but sometimes that’s the best image.

Jessica Mackey: Oh, absolutely, and can just make that holiday concept, and sometimes still ends up on their wall because it’s that relationship. Perfect.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yep.

Jessica Mackey: And then one of the last things that we really evaluate going into the fall season, again, to challenge ourselves is how are we going to spoil our clients this year?

Allison Tyler Jones: And that is one thing that we always… We’re always trying to make it more special, make them feel more spoiled than ever before. And I found that it’s not… It kind of reminds me of the conversation Kathryn and I had in an earlier episode about it’s the little things. It really is the little things. One of the things that we did, was it last year that we started the VIP parking signs?

Jessica Mackey: Oh yeah.

Allison Tyler Jones: So my sister had gone to a meeting with her favorite landscape architect, and they had these VIP parking signs that said “VIP Parking” and then it had a little clear pocket they could slip in the name of the client. And she was like, this is the most amazing thing. And so we had them created for our clients. And so before the session, we’ll roll them out and it will say “VIP Parking The Mackey Family.” So then we’re saving a spot for them.

Allison Tyler Jones: And it’s hilarious because we’re like, where are they? They’re supposed to be here 10 minutes ago. We look out front and they’re out there doing selfies in front of the VIP parking sign with their name on it. I mean, it was probably about $500 for the sign for each one.

Jessica Mackey: We don’t do a different sign for each client.

Allison Tyler Jones: No, it’s just the little pocket. We print the paper and put it in there. I mean, it’s convenient. It helps them. Because we are in a downtown area, it is kind of hard to find parking. So this gives them parking right up front and makes it easy for them to get in and out with all their stuff and their kids and everything. But just they feel like a star. And really our whole business, our studio, the way that it’s painted, the way that it’s decorated, how we operate is that our clients are the star.

Allison Tyler Jones: We want them to feel like a million bucks, because it’s really hard for these moms to get the clothes together, to drag their freaking kids down there and the husband and all of that. And so to have them feel special and spoiled has been really great. So every year we’re looking for new ways to do that.

Jessica Mackey: Right, and I think that some people when you say spoil the clients, they’re going to, okay, so I need to buy them like.

Allison Tyler Jones: A bottle of wine.

Jessica Mackey: Right, exactly, something enormously expensive. And that’s actually not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about ways to make their experience feel more special, to feel more thought of and remembered. I mean, we have some clients that come in with kids and dogs and stuff and bags. And so was it last year or the year before that we bought a cart that we can take down and put up really fast that we can be like, oh my gosh, you’re coming in. We can go out there and help them cart them in.

Allison Tyler Jones: Like a collapsible wagon, like a canvas wagon that we can go out, like they use for sports and stuff that they can go help them in with their stuff. We have a rolling wardrobe rack that they can come in and hang their stuff up on. In our bathrooms, both of our bathrooms, we have huge hooks and a lot of them. So they can come in and just hang their stuff up.

Allison Tyler Jones: And then we don’t book sessions very close together. We might book three sessions in a day max, maybe four, but that’s very, very unusual. And that way there’s a good hour or more between them leaving and the next person coming. So they have the whole run of the lobby, the front lobby and the studio so they can just walk in and have all their crap everywhere and shoes and clothes. And they don’t feel like they have to be shoved into some little area because somebody else is waiting in a waiting room for another appointment. It’s just they have the run of the place and they love that.

Jessica Mackey: And it’s even when they’re leaving, it’s not like you just say, “Okay, bye. Have fun.” You’ll sit there and help the kid change into his tennis shoes. You’re still engaging and making the client feel like you’re still invested in this process beginning to end to where they’re in the car driving away. They just feel so taken care of.

Allison Tyler Jones: For sure. And helping getting the kids ready, that’s huge. Because especially, like I said, we do larger families. And so sometimes the mom’s trying to get everybody going and helping those little kids get dressed, because we recommend that our clients dress the little kids when they come in.

Allison Tyler Jones: Because as a mother of seven, I know that you get them dressed cute, and then they’re in the back, they’ve pulled out all the bows out of their hair and they’re eating a piece of chocolate that they found underneath their car seat and is now smeared all over them. So we like to have them just dress them when they get there.

Jessica Mackey: When we had a client that was doing a shoot for just one of their kids because it was this special experience, they were hitting a milestone or whatever it was, we would write their name, Welcome Taylor, on a chalkboard, and have a drink that she loved and maybe a favorite cookie or something, to where when she walked in, this child like, yes, mom is taken care of, but we’re spoiling that child.

Allison Tyler Jones: Well, for sure. And I am a big believer, because I have so many kids, I know as a mom, the truth of that when somebody loves on your kid and somebody is good to your kid and sees your kid, you will be loyal to that person forever, especially if that child of yours is hard to deal with. But even if they aren’t, anybody that’s kind to your kids, it’s more than if they were kind to you.

Jessica Mackey: Right.

Allison Tyler Jones: It’s like times 10.

Jessica Mackey: I can be ignored. I’m fine. You don’t have to say hi to me, but you focus on my kid, you got my heart.

Allison Tyler Jones: I’m yours. Yep, it’s so true. And so when people come in, when I do a consultation with clients, I will let them know that when you come back in and you bring the kids in, I’m going to say hi to you, but it’s me and the kids. And then they’re like, oh, okay. And then they see that that really happens. So we are all swarm out, welcome everybody. Do you need water?

Allison Tyler Jones: We’ve got still and sparkling, because some people like each. And then we just are all about the kids and helping them. And we know, because in the consultation we know who’s not going to be happy to be there, and that might include dad, and so we just have ways of talking to them and jollying them around, not in a condescending way, but in a way that makes them actually have a good time in an area where they thought that it was going to be torture and horrible.

Jessica Mackey: Totally. And even engaging with the kid that maybe mom has given us a heads-up is a nightmare of a mood. By engaging them and getting them to laugh and turn around, you just see mom’s shoulders like, this is not going to be as bad as I thought it was.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, for sure. Our job is so much more than the camera and the lighting. I think it’s performance art. It’s psychology. It’s all of the things. So just to recap, our what’s going to be four, it’s now five points to get ready for the holiday season is to call your best clients and give them first dibs on your calendar so that you can book your calendar as full as possible with people that you love and that love you.

Allison Tyler Jones: Walk through your physical space and see what needs to be refreshed, repainted, repaired, reworked, re-anything, reevaluate all of that. What do we want them to feel? So evaluate the feels. We touch everything a client touches, smell it, look at it. How are your samples? It’s everything.

Jessica Mackey: The process.

Allison Tyler Jones: And honestly, I think sometimes we get caught up in, oh, we get decorate at some sexy way. Start with clean. Seriously. How many “fancy” places have you been in with the potpourri or whatever and there’s like an inch of dust on? It’s so gross. Clean. Clean. Clean. Clean. Clean. Clean. Clean.

Jessica Mackey: And simplify.

Allison Tyler Jones: For sure. So less things, better things, and clean.

Jessica Mackey: Cleaner things.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yes. And then I’m going to jump back in here, I was recapping, but I just have to add this. So we have a cleaning service that comes every other week in the off season. They come to clean the studio, because we are all adults and can generally clean up after ourselves. But during the busy season, we have them come. We switch that to every week.

Allison Tyler Jones: So from about now until the end of December or mid-December, they will come every single week, and sometimes a couple of times a week if we have a really messy, crazy shoot. So that’s just something to think about. You don’t need to be cleaning your office.

Jessica Mackey: The professionals do it.

Allison Tyler Jones: Have the professionals handle that. Yep. Okay, so then number four is inspiration. What are you doing to inspire yourself? What are some new ideas that you’re going to look up, whether it’s on Pinterest, look through your magazines, look through advertisements? Where do you go for inspiration? Your favorite Instagram feed.

Jessica Mackey: To reboot that creativity.

Allison Tyler Jones: Just to fill yourself with creativity. If you live in a town that has a museum, you know that you never go there. Because if you live in a town that has a museum, you only go to museums when you’re out of town. So go to a local museum, look at your art books, and just go fully down that creative rabbit hole and inspire yourself.

Allison Tyler Jones: And then ask yourself lastly, how can I spoil my clients more this year with little things? How can I make it more special? How can I take better care of them? How can I make it more convenient, easier on the mom, make it a better time for everybody so that the shoot and the whole beginning to end becomes a better experience?

Jessica Mackey: And those five things make a huge difference. In the years that we haven’t done them or haven’t done all of them or done them as well, we felt it. We burn out big time.

Allison Tyler Jones: So go for it. Do it. If you’re looking for some ideas that have been talked about in this podcast and some other ideas that we have used in our own studio, we have a little guide for you that we would love for you to be able to go to, dotherework.com, to download five steps to get ready for the busy season. You can download it, come up with your own ideas, and we have our list of our best ideas there for you. So dotherework.com, put in your email address and we will email it to you. Thanks for being here.

Jessica Mackey: Thank you. Bye.

Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison at dotherework.com and on Instagram @do.the.rework.

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