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’ll 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: What if I told you that confidence in your business doesn’t come from booking more clients or getting one huge sale? It comes from actually having a solid process in place, one that educates your clients sets expectations and allows you to guide your client from inquiry to artwork on their walls. And When that process works, you attract better clients, sell more, and keep them coming back for a lifetime. Today I’m bringing on one of my dear friends, Jeff Dachowski, and we are going to talk about how we’ve built processes in our business that have given us the confidence to run profitable and sustainable portrait businesses. It’s really not about crossing your fingers and hoping for sales, it’s really not about just trying to be the best photographer in the whole world. It’s about creating a repeatable system that consistently delivers results.
Allison Tyler Jones: Welcome, Jeff. I’m so glad that you’re here.
Jeff Dachowski: Oh my God, I’m so glad I’m here too. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love it. Well, you’re one of our most popular guests, so it’s… I know, it’s always a fun thing to have you here.
Jeff Dachowski: I love it.
Allison Tyler Jones: I just came back from Minnesota, where many of our photographer friends are such a great group at TCPPA. Shout-out to TCPPA out there.
Jeff Dachowski: The last time I spoke there, strangely enough, was a day before COVID broke.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, really?
Jeff Dachowski: I really flew from TCPPA to Chicago to do a program. And then I flew home, and I was a good guy, when I was flying the next day, I was a jerk, “How dare you get on the plane and bring COVID around the country?” All in a matter of 18 hours.
Allison Tyler Jones: Funny how that can happen in this world. Well, after spending the last four days with lovely, amazing photographers, I realized how I just wanted to have this conversation with you, because you and I have had similar conversations over our years of friendship about just how so many of us get so hung up on, “I’m not an artist. I’m not good enough to charge the prices that I do.” There’s just this crisis of confidence at the basis of basically creating a sustainable, thriving business that could support your family. Thoughts?
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, it is crazy, because people get so much validation. Right now, new photographers get validation from their family and friends. They get a certain amount of likes or a certain amount of comments or all that sort of encouragement. And all of that is great for the psyche. It feels good in your heart that people like your stuff. Sadly, feeling good doesn’t pay any bills, it doesn’t pay your mortgage, it doesn’t buy your cameras, it doesn’t do all those things. And that’s the rub, isn’t it? And so what happens is that many younger photographers, and older photographers, really love the feeling of feeling good about themselves and their photography. And honestly, they get hung up on the guilt they feel about wanting to take their love of photography and make it actually profitable. And there’s this disconnect, fear, and guilt. I think all three of those things coalesce around new photography studio owners, new business owners.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. And I would make the case, sometimes people that have been in business for a really long time, but have just never seemed to be able to either crack the code. Or maybe they’re doing really great at one point, and then have had either setbacks from health or circumstances, or maybe they’ve moved and they’re needing to start over again. I’ve heard recently a lot of that, this is their second act and they’re just trying to figure it out.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah. And you said the opening, you said that there was a crisis of confidence. That’s what this is. I’m jumping right to the chase here, but that’s what it is. And that’s why the subject of this is repeatable processes. And that is a crutch that you can lean on hard to get you through your own fear and guilt, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: I mean, if you talk about policies, people talk about policies all the time, the policies are just the written form of your process, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: Or they’re examples of when your process went crazy and you had to create a policy to make sure that never happened again.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, for sure, policies from pain.
Jeff Dachowski: Policies from pain yeah. No one ever creates a policy because of a great experience, like, “That was great. I’m going to create a policy ensuring that.” We always create policies because something failed, the process failed, you know?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And I don’t like creating policies from pain actually, because very often that goes to a negative place of, “Let me add to my 10-page contract that’s now going to be 11 pages.” And it’s actually not necessary. If we had a correct process in place, we could get out ahead of a lot of this stuff. Now, one of the myths, I think of confidence that I have felt myself is that I think a lot of us think that confidence comes after we’ve had the success, after we’ve become the rockstar photographer, then we’re going to have the confidence, but in reality, I have found that confidence comes when I trust my process, I have a system to guide my clients, I’m not winging it every single time, and I am able to take more control.
Jeff Dachowski: I agree. I mean, this is a struggle. And confidence, well, for us it was a little bit of that, but we didn’t realize it until later, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: And first for me, the confidence was making something repeatable, photographically speaking. I remember my first PR headshot, I photographed a PR headshot in probably 1988 with a gooseneck clip-on… I’m sorry, a gooseneck clip-on reading lamp and…
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, as one does. As one does.
Jeff Dachowski: I was years old and I charged him $90 for this, way overcharge, way underdelivered. Let me tell you, the image will only be used in black and white because it was 2,000 degrees Kelvin too.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, totally.
Jeff Dachowski: It was just a nightmare, but I believed I could do it. My process started with the fact that I could repeat the photographic process, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay.
Jeff Dachowski: This was pre-business though, this was me as a photographer. So then as I become a business person, which was two weeks into owning a studio, because it took me that long to go, “This isn’t just going to be me photographing waterfalls and looking for a deer to photograph on the side of the road. I need clients, I need people to pay. I got rent to pay.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: Then the compass went to, “I do not want to have a different lab for my 4x6s and a different lab for my 8x10s.” And this is where that process mindset started for me, “I don’t want to get my canvas from one place.” Because I got them all, and I was trying to save a dollar, so I’d order from four different printers, and the color wasn’t the same, and the story of how you start to developing processes, because you don’t want failures of color, failures of clients and-
Allison Tyler Jones: Quality.
Jeff Dachowski: … loving the actual process because it’s repeatable and it’s predictable.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And I think from the photographer’s end, without having a process in place, you feel like, “Are these people even going to show up?” Because you didn’t collect a session fee ahead of time. I mean, we’re going back to the very beginning, but having just some rules in place, rules of engagement of like, “This is how it works. This is what we do. This is how we start. This is where we go.” And then that uncertainty erodes your confidence and leaves you just stuck in, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not good. But when you know exactly how to take the client from that first phone call to finished artwork hanging on their wall, you’re not hoping that success will happen, you’re actually engineering that success.
Jeff Dachowski: Exactly, you’re planning for success. It is absolutely a written plan. In fact, if I would tell anyone who’s writing notes or anything, is stop right now and write plan for my success. Don’t let it happen, plan for it, because everyone else’s businesses, I mean arguably, most people’s businesses that are successful, there’s a written plan behind it. Sometimes people buy 1,000 Bitcoin when it’s 1 cent apiece, and they made a bunch of money later on in life, but most people don’t have that sort of success.
Allison Tyler Jones: That luck
Jeff Dachowski: They planned for it. They’ve had to write it out and write out a plan. I mean, I have a whole thing I talk about with sales plans, creating sales plans for these different genres. That’s just in sales though. The process is your life cycle of that client needs to be… It’s a circle actually, it’s not even aligned, because you create what you want to do, you attract who hopefully who your avatar is. Then your plan starts, and it ends with creating marketing material and creating a voice that sounds like your plan to attract people to call you. It is a circle, it’s not a line. And it is a strange little thing, mathematically it’s the circle, I think you’re always working that circle from marketing to completion to marketing, referral or varieties of different ways we gain clients, you know?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And I think so often, so many of us, I mean at least I felt like this starting out, where like, “Okay, we just need to take a bunch of pictures and they’re going to just so fall in love with them that they’re not going to care how much it costs because they’re just going to be so excited about it.” And that’s almost never true. Or even if it is, then they’re going to want to a refund because the excitement bled off and they were like, “Whoa, I lost my mind.” So I found over the years that it’s just much better if I let them know like, “Okay, this is where we’re headed. This is how it works. This is how we work. We’re not normal, we specialize in a finished product, it’s wall art, custom-designed albums.” And then they know right away exactly what we’re doing. So I’m not letting them think that like, “Okay. Well, maybe I’ll get a bunch of digital files.” It’s very clear what we’re doing, but that’s scary because then you know there’s going to be people that don’t want that. And I think that’s probably part of the confidence thing too, is that you think, “Well, if I say exactly what I do and exactly what I want, there will be people that don’t want that.” And we don’t like that.
Jeff Dachowski: Well, I mean for me it’s frightening, isn’t it?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: I mean, we’re using all these words, and actually this discussion is a circle too. So if you’re listening at home and you’re like, “Are they talking in circles?” We’re meaning to, it’s intentional. It’s part of our plan, if you really think about it, because that is how the plans work, they work in circles. So forgive me if we’re repeating some of the same words here, but the confidence that you have, it’s like a chicken-and-the-egg thing, the confidence you have is the fact that you have a plan, and the plan gives you confidence. I know it sounds like nonsense, it sounds like a new world-
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. So what is the plan then? Because I think that’s what people are going to ask, is like, “Well, what’s the plan? What are you talking about?”
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, so for me, our plan always circles around, this is going to sound nutty, but I envision my plan is installing their wall art in their home or homes. For me, that’s what it is. And the reason, that if I go backwards to that plan, I can actually…
Allison Tyler Jones: Beginning with the end in mind.
Jeff Dachowski: It is, but I want to just say that, because that’s just an easy thing. That plan comes from shooting sessions at the ocean, which is an hour away from me, and people wanting to buy a 4×6, and me getting frustrated that I can’t make a living driving two hours to a session and selling a 4×6. So that’s where the policy discussion comes in. My plan has been developed through some, I’ll call it heartache or disappointment or-
Allison Tyler Jones: Torture.
Jeff Dachowski: … torture, miseducation on my part, missed-
Allison Tyler Jones: Being broke.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, having to pay bills, all the things. So my plan wasn’t developed prior to me starting. It is a developing process, it’s actually never going to stop. It’s not going to stop developing and nurturing itself until I retire, or maybe even longer. Who knows if someone buys my studio one day, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: But for me, I can envision myself installing their wall art in their home or homes. And I know it sounds funny, but those words matter, home or homes, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Dachowski: The plan is that they’re going to be so wildly in love with what I do that they’re going to hire me to make these images, that they financially have a home or homes that want to hang my portraits in, that they’re going to be happy. These are all words that I would use. And it’s thrilled, they invite me into their home. These are all part of my process, my plan. Going forward, the next step is to find their friends who would also like this experience. Remember we were talking about this being a circle? Going backwards, it is making sure that the experience for them, that the photography is good, that they are somewhat pre-qualified, that we are producing reliable, consistent work that are going to be free of defect, that all these things go into that area so that it is marketable in the future for referrals, that they come back for other sessions. And our plan is to use words that we want them to use when they talk to their friends. So I joke about it being a circle. It does sound like it’s goofy, but our plan-
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s a cycle. It’s a virtuous cycle.
Jeff Dachowski: It’s a spiral, and it’s supposed to only go up, like, “I want to keep finding myself in that spiral.” So for us, our plan, if we define, again, starting with the end in mind, that I want to hang wall art for them, so that starts limiting me. When inquiries come in and they say, “I’m just…” When I hear the word just, I immediately go, “They’re not our client, or maybe not yet.”
Allison Tyler Jones: No. Yeah, I was going to argue with you, because people don’t know, and you have a beautiful studio, somebody walks in and they’re like, “This is probably going to be way more than what I thought.” And so they’re trying to put us on a leash a little bit, like, “Okay, hold on. I don’t need the Abercrombie & Fitch size hanging in my house. I just need some small portraits or whatever.” They don’t know what they need. They’re just trying to control the situation. It’s like you go into a plumber, “Okay, look, can we just get the cheap plumbing? Can we just get this one toilet fixed?” And then they point out like, “Well, actually your house is 200 years old. And what would be awesome is a complete re-pipe so that everything would work always. And then these tankless water heaters that you could take a two-hour shower and never run out of water.” And paint the vision of what could happen.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now at any point, as clients, we can say, “Okay, look, I love that idea. Let me save up for that, but can you just fix the toilets on the main level?” “Yes, I can do that.” Or, “I don’t do just toilets on the main level. I only do re-pipes.” Again, you got to figure out what your process is and what you will and won’t do. If somebody can come and get a few digital files from you, and you are going to drive two hours to the beach for that, then that’s nobody’s problem but yours because you are allowing that to happen, your process is not informing them that that is not how it works.
Jeff Dachowski: Right. And in that process, invariably somewhere is re-education. I know that also sounds nutty, but people hear stuff, and it’s no different than, I mean, I’ll use this podcast for example. You might listen to this podcast, and listen to it again and get something out of the second listen. Just by nature, there’s a word or a phrase or something that triggered you to catch something. Your clients are going to hear what they want to hear at first, and then that’s the first run of education. And then it’s part of my process that we need to… I don’t want to confirm with them, because a confirmation starts creating doubt, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Like if you say, “I want confirm not details or a timing sort of thing, but are you sure you can afford this?” That’s a terrible way to say, “I’m doubting whether you’re a client.”
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re not actually saying that though?
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah. No, no, of course. I’m saying that your re-education is sometimes a client is needing to be re-educated or reminded.
Allison Tyler Jones: Like, “Do you want to afford this?” Because I think if you are in this industry right now, this whole industry has been hijacked. It is very likely, unless your client is coming in off of a referral off of another client, they are thinking, “X number of files for X number of dollars.” That’s all that’s out there right now. It used to be 100 years ago, “How much is your 8×10?” They don’t even know from 8×10 anymore. It’s literally, “How much are a bunch of digital files?” So we have a little bit of an uphill battle to just say, the first thing we say is, “We’re not normal. We don’t work like typical photographers.” And so then that stops them in their tracks like, “Okay. Well, wait a minute. What do you mean?” So that educate early and often, and again and again and again, because like you said, they’re still stuck on the way that industry is working, and we’re not working that way.
Jeff Dachowski: Exactly. And I’ll give you, this is a true story, it’s actually part of my process, is that I believe that most people love their family. That’s a certain thing. That doesn’t mean they love portraits, but they love their family. I mean across the board, I believe. And I also believe that everyone deserves a great family portrait if they want one. It doesn’t mean that they can afford one yet, they deserve it. So I believe that when I do a PR headshot, when I talk about my sales plan, actually one of the things is that when I do a PR image for branding, I talk to them about a family portrait, because maybe they’re ready, maybe they’re not, but I know that they’re standing in front of me in my studio, we’ve just had a great experience, of all the times in the world to get them to connect is going to be right then.
Allison Tyler Jones: Plant the seed, yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: And this is a great way. And so why do I want to send out thousands of emails when I have someone standing in front of me right there? So I put the effort into that. So this actually happened this past, not this week, but last week, I did a PR shot and I said to the gentleman, I said, “So maybe, do you have children?” He says, “Yeah, I’ve got children that are three and five, my wife works at the house.” But I said, “Great. If you had a family portrait done, maybe those are great ages to make sure we document and start preserving their legacy. It’s not really for you, it’s for them.” “We get photographed about every eight months. My wife hires someone, and we go out to a park or something. And I don’t know, we paid 200 bucks or something and get a bunch of images. My wife prints a couple 4x6s or something of it, and we have a bunch of little prints around the house from all the sessions.” I said, “Well, you are so far ahead of the game for everyone, because most people just can’t find the files.”
Jeff Dachowski: And I figured at this point, honestly that they’re not going to become a client, because he’s got to handle, he is happy. And I said, “Well, we do things different.” I literally said, “We do things a little bit different. We’re happy to meet you at a park or your home or the ocean or wherever, but we photograph your family. And then we sit down and go through the images together, choose the images you want, we collaborate on what goes on your wall. And my wife and I will come in and actually install it on your wall.” And he had this little weird look on his face and he says, “All this money we spend buying clothes, and we don’t spend much on the photos, but I want what’s on the wall. All of these little prints my wife buys, it’s so dumb to spend all this effort on this little print.” And it’s like that whole Grant Cardone thing, “I won’t spend that on this, but I will spend that on that.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Yeah, you don’t want to spend $40,000 for the base-model Honda with the cloth seats and those windows you got to roll up, but I’ll spend 60 for the leather seats and the extra and the extra. But when you hear the price objection at the lower, then what you’re telling yourself is people only care about price and they only want to spend the least. And so that is the perfect example of somebody that’s like, “Yes, they’re spending all the money on the clothes and all the money on the experience of out being photographed, and then they’re getting nothing out of that.”
Jeff Dachowski: Right. And in my process, I want to connect with people, I want to talk to people. I could not have pulled that out of an email inquiry, I could not have gotten a text or a Facebook message. That was only going to show itself in a conversation. Now you happen to know, we’ve talked about this before, I love talking to people, so that is part of my process.
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Jeff Dachowski: I actually don’t love booking online, some people do, they’re very successful with it. My process is to get them on the phone, meet him in person, go to their home.
Allison Tyler Jones: Same.
Jeff Dachowski: So we’ve booked a consultation in the house, and he’s blown away that we’re going to come to the house, talk his kids’ clothing with his wife, and we’re going to photograph it on her 33rd birthday this year. And I said, “That’s so great, we’re-
Allison Tyler Jones: So cool.
Jeff Dachowski: … going to have a legacy of her birthday.” It’s already booked. We’re going to go to the house in a few weeks and go do the mood-board consult, if you will, some people don’t call it that, but he only lives half an hour away. Will it be a $4,000 sale? I don’t know. Will it be a $20,000 sale? I don’t know. But I know my chances, my experience tells me everything else is lined up by what I want to do, because with that end in mind, I want to hang that as portraits in his house. And that’s actually one of the things that triggered a response from him. Now-
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And it’s not that they don’t want this higher-end stuff, it’s that they don’t know it exists.
Jeff Dachowski: They don’t even know it exists.
Allison Tyler Jones: They don’t even know it exists.
Jeff Dachowski: In this case, he had no idea. He’s a financial professional, but his wife is in that timeframe, she’s 33, so everyone’s doing files of the park, 200 retouched files for $52 or whatever. And that’s what all her friends did. And they’ve probably grown up and started making more money, they have the wherewithal, but they’ve always done it that way. And the point is, if that’s how you want to do business, that’s your process, that’s totally cool, but I love the concept of different. All you have to do is say, “Well, we do things a bit differently.” Exactly like what you said, and explain to them what your process is. And I did, it got me the booking. Maybe I’ll report back next year about what did they do. It might be a disappointment sale, but it is a confidence builder in the-
Allison Tyler Jones: Right, that’s a huge confidence builder. And I think just replaying that conversation that you had with him, rather than saying, “Oh. Well, we could meet you at the beach and give you files too,” you’re sitting here giving this guy a PR headshot that you’re going to give him the files of, right?
Jeff Dachowski: Exactly.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s just what it is, but yet you had the wherewithal to be able to say, “Hey, this is how we’re different. And we believe in…” Like you said, “… that vision of wall art on the wall.” And he caught the vision. And so when you’re confident in the value that that brings to the family, then we’re not sitting around justifying prices or chasing around trying to be somebody else, we just show them what’s possible and then they can decide whether or not they think that’s great for them.
Jeff Dachowski: Right. And this guy easily could have said, “My wife would never do that.” And I would just respond, because it’s part of my speaking process, “It’s no issue at all. If something changes in your life or that sounds like something you want to be involved in, reach out, we’d love to make your portrait.” I don’t go, “Well screw you, And you go see your friend at the park.”
Allison Tyler Jones: “You’re going to be so sad when all those images crash on your hard drive. They’re probably not as trained as me.” Are they a PPA merit.
Jeff Dachowski: Photographer.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Have they won any print competitions?
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, exactly. All that does gain confidence for repeatable process, in my opinion, but-
Allison Tyler Jones: Totally.
Jeff Dachowski: … that may make headway into someone, it may not. But I wouldn’t lead with it because that’s-
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, it’s defensive and argumentative. So we’re a market of one. We don’t need to compete with each other or talk bad about anybody else or how we’re better, we just say we’re different, we just work differently.
Jeff Dachowski: Well, and this is one of the things, I know I’ve said this phrase on your podcast before, but you are the only place in the world that sells your portraits.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yep.
Jeff Dachowski: So do you advocate that to Walgreens? That’s my pitch for not selling files. But beyond that, no matter what, even if I study with you for months, I might be able to replicate lighting, I might be able to get something, but my clients would be different than yours by the fact of who our clients each find appealing for brand and style and substance. I could learn your lighting style, maybe come to your studio for three months and really engross myself in the way you do things, and it would just be a copy of your style. That’s all it would be. And ultimately speaking, I can’t replicate that for real, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, you got to be you.
Jeff Dachowski: So I have to develop my own. I got to be me. And I’m the only one in the world that will sell a portrait by Jeff Dachowski, it just is. And if you don’t want a portrait by Jeff Dachowski, it’s no problem, I can’t work for everyone. We are a business of one. We are one-off single artists all over the country. And there’s actually a confidence in that too, and that’s a bit of a branding template, if you will, that you’re the only one who does this. Now, if you end up buying your own brand script, you might be the only one believing it, but in reality, that is the truth. That’s why we don’t give our prints away, that’s why we don’t give our files away. It’s the only place you can get it. And our process is built around that too. I mean, I am trying to bring it back to our different processes.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Well, and the other thing that I loved what you said to him, is to me, when somebody says they’re being photographed multiple times a year, I’m like, “That’s somebody that loves pictures-
Jeff Dachowski: They love it, they do.
Allison Tyler Jones: … that’s somebody that somebody that’s into photography and they are into the process of that.” And that really, I mean, if they’re doing it that many times, they’re convinced they love that process, and they want their kids documented. And so they might not even realize, as in this case, that it’s even available. And then for me, when I realized that once you get somebody like that and they see the vision, then that’s not a one-time client, that’s a repeat client, that’s a gold client that’s going to come back again and again.
Jeff Dachowski: If they love it, the referral on something like that could be astronomical. You probably didn’t see it, but 12 or 15, 20 years ago, I wrote an article for PPA Magazine and I called it the Anatomy of a 24 Carat Referral. And I created a term, in fact, Stephanie Milner, who was a friend of mine, she created this flow chart for me showing how one homeschool portrait at the time, this was 20 years ago, we did school portraits, one $24 homeschool portrait at that time equaled to $112,000. I am over $750,000 from this one connection in my community.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s crazy.
Jeff Dachowski: And she got treated well, we recognized. And so my point is, I don’t know in the rest of my career if this guy will become a one-off gold client, who knows? He could bring me families after families who also didn’t know about it. And I could spend a fortune trying to educate people in his neck of the woods, or I could let him do it. Or actually I could ask him to do it, which by the way, is part of our process, talking to people about other people, other referrals, other people who might like this. That’s part of the process, it’s repeatable.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and the other thing I love about that example is that this wasn’t you sitting and just crafting a funnel on Facebook, or a big promo email, it was just a one-to-one conversation. And to me, when I look at my own business, that’s where all the magic has happened. That’s where all that connection, and then the following network. And not every connection, like you said, it doesn’t lead to some big thing, but enough of those conversations, people want to deal with people that they like and that they trust and that they feel like they’ve got a connection with, then they want to trust their kids with those people. And then once you’ve got somebody dialed in, once you’ve got an accountant who is awesome and great and amazing and just dials it in every year, you don’t want to go shop that again, because now you can just put a pin in that and just let it flow every year. And so we can become that. So even if you are a “shoot and burn” who’s been doing all those multiple sessions for these families every year for a few hundred dollars for a few files, you don’t have to stay there. You can change that and you can decide to paint a bigger vision for those clients, and just start talking to them about it. And you can move along the path, you can be the one that starts doing it differently.
Jeff Dachowski: I swear maybe we’ve talked about this privately, maybe we talked about this on the podcast, the transition isn’t that hard to go from digital files to being a print sales. It doesn’t talk about technical stuff, it may a little bit, but it definitely talks about pain. So if I were doing digital files as my primary… I only offer it for PR, so I do offer digital files, but it’s only for PR. If I was, I would have no problem saying, “Hey, Allison, I made your portraits the last four years, I’m so grateful. Before you book this session, I do have to tell you, I’m changing how we’re doing things, and here’s why. I’m noticing that I’m photographing families like yours, and they’re not doing anything with the photographs, they’re not doing anything at all. They’re buying the clothes, they’re getting their hair done, they’re getting their kids ready, kids have cried, Mom has cried, Dad doesn’t want to do it, all this effort that ends up on a hard drive that you may or may not know where it is at any given moment.
Jeff Dachowski: “I decided that I love my family, and I love your family, and I want to be a part of your legacy. But when I looked around, the only way I could find legacy was in the printed photograph. The only permanent state is in the printed photograph. So although I can’t offer portraits in a park, I would love to be a part of your legacy, I’d love to be on your wall. The only thing you need to enjoy these portraits is light, you don’t need a screen.” These are phrases I would be talking about, somewhat technical, and if they don’t want that, that’s okay, but you’ve set the bar, “This is how I’m-
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay, let’s do this, because I know that there are people that are listening to this that are just soaking that up like a sponge, but I can feel them. I feel them, they live in my head. What they’re saying is, “Yeah, my clients will never buy that.” So you be you, and I’m going to be the client that you just told me that to. So you have photographed me for years, or multiple times a year, and given me X number of files for X number of dollars. And now you’re changing it, you just told me this lovely thing about my legacy, and that you have not been serving me to the best of your ability and you’re going to do it different now. So here we go. This is it, we’re on the phone. We’re in the grocery store. Here we go, this is it.
Jeff Dachowski: And this could be a deep fail too, let’s just see what we’re…
Allison Tyler Jones: I know, let’s just see what happens, we don’t know. Okay, so what you’re saying is you’re not going to give me the digital files anymore?
Jeff Dachowski: That’s right. I can’t be a part of that. For me, I looked around my home, and I get to enjoy all these photographs in my house. And I started looking through hard drives myself of my kids, and I realized that all these images I wanted to be able to see more often than when I was just backing them up. So for me, I want my business to be about legacy. A good friend of mine told me years ago, “Make your business about helping other people, and everything will follow.” By the way, that was Tim Walden. I wouldn’t say it’s Tim Walden to my client, but that’s a true story, you heard me say this a bunch of times.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay, so there’s no way, that’s it, you’re just cutting me off and you’re not going to let me have-
Jeff Dachowski: I’m not cutting you off at all. I want to make sure you’re hearing me correctly. I want to photograph you and your seven children, I really want to. I just don’t know if it’ll make sense to serve you best if we keep doing digital files. I want to come to the home and hang a portrait in your house that you can walk down and see every day with the light set low. You don’t have to turn your digital frame on, you don’t have to go to a computer to see it. I want your kids to run by every time, whether they’re happy, sad, thrilled, ecstatic, crying over their first kiss or whatever, to look back and see their portrait on the wall. And statistically speaking, 0% of digital files are printed. I mean, it’s a statistical anomaly. And I just choose that I want to be involved in legacy versus media.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So how can we work, then what’s the deal? So you’re going to photograph me this year, so our next session, so what does that look like then if you’re not going to give me the digital files, what are we doing, what’s the deal?
Jeff Dachowski: It’s so much better. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to photograph your family on Saturday, we’ve still got this session. Actually, backing up for your listeners, this would happen a week out, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: This has to be a planned date, if you take any new sessions, “We’re doing this.” They know before they even book, but let’s just pretend it’s a week out. So Saturday we’re going to photograph your family. And what’s going to be different is that we’re going to get together, you’ve got seven children, we’re going to set up a time after the session, not directly afterwards, but it could be a week or two later. Largely you and Ivan are going to come to the studio, we’re going to go through your images, we’re going to collaborate on which is the best poses, see if there’s any sort of retouching that needs to be done. We’re going to take the best ones of your kids and the best ones of you guys, we’re going to have this great family portrait. We’re going to spend all our time on getting one or two images beautifully curated on your wall.
Allison Tyler Jones: And how much is that going to cost?
Jeff Dachowski: Well, it depends on the size largely, but they start at 595, and they go up to life-size. So it depends, I’ve never been in your home, so I can’t tell you what wall space you have, but we will do this really cool thing where you take a picture of your wall, and then we will show you your family portraits on your wall so that you won’t for sure not buy too big or too small. And what’s worse than too big is too small, because-
Allison Tyler Jones: For sure.
Jeff Dachowski: … if it’s too big, you get to enjoy it from all distances. Too small, you only get to enjoy it when you’re dusting it. So I’d rather be involved in one wonderful portrait than 52 images that you don’t use. And you know what else? And I get it, if you need to cancel a session because that’s a product you really love, I fully get it. And I love your family and I want to be a part of that, but gosh, if having a portrait on your wall doesn’t make sense to you, then I’m not the right fit for you, and because I love your family so much, I can’t go on pretending that we are a good fit.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay, that’s great. I love that.
Jeff Dachowski: Something like that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So mine would be a little bit different. So you want to swap it?
Jeff Dachowski: All right, let’s switch it around. Allison, so I saw on Facebook everything’s different, what’s going on?
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, we just realized that we were not serving our clients to the best of our ability, that I have just had too many clients that have come in and said like, “Hey, what’d you do with those images that we did at the park last year?” And they’re like, “Oh, I was going to print them, but they’re still just on my hard drive.” Or I’ve had clients call me from Walgreens or someplace trying to print things, and they’re not coming out right, they’re not sized right, or they do print them and they’re funky colors, and they’re not happy with it. And I just realized like, “Why am I making my clients do my job when I should be taking control of this and doing it for them?” And so I just realized that my most successful clients, the clients that really, really love what I do, they have said like, “Will you print this? I need this, but I can’t be dealing with this. Can you just deal with it?” And so I’m just realizing more and more of my clients really want art on their walls, and that’s what I want to do for them, I want to serve them to the best of my ability.
Jeff Dachowski: So that’s a little weird for us, because we’ve never done that. We’ve always done-
Allison Tyler Jones: Totally
Jeff Dachowski: … files. And I know what you’re saying, because we’ve never printed any of them. I mean, we just never have. And-
Allison Tyler Jones: Ask me though, you mean you’re not going to give me any digital files? Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: I will, but these are real things. So is there no way I can get a digital file to email my dad in Ohio?
Allison Tyler Jones: Of course you can. So anything that goes on the wall or in an album that we create together, you’re going to have the social media files for those. So frame TV, email him, put them on social media, of course you’re going to have. That’s really what people want the digital files for, But my best clients, the ones that are the happiest, my happiest clients, I wouldn’t say my best clients, because everybody’s my best clients, but my happiest clients are the ones that have actual finished product on the walls. They are the happiest with what’s happened.
Jeff Dachowski: So what’s different about this? So I mean, obviously you’re not just giving us all the pictures anymore because you’re not giving us the pictures at all. So how do we pick, do you create a gallery, or do we look online?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. So how we used to do it, I would set you up a gallery, and you all know what would happen, you know what that looks like? 10 PM on your phone, in your bed, being distracted by Instagram, and you’re trying to figure out what you want and you like them all and whatever. So we’re not even doing that. It’s literal-
Jeff Dachowski: You know how much time I spend in my room? You have cameras in my bedroom, is that what you’re doing?
Allison Tyler Jones: No, because I am you. I am a woman laying in bed on Instagram next to her husband while he’s reading news. So you’re going to send me pictures of your walls. Well, first of all, before we do anything, we’re going to actually sit down and we’re going to figure out what this next year looks like. What do we want it to look like? What do we want this image to look like? And then we’re going to really figure out where it’s going on your wall. And then we’re not going to shoot 700 pictures, I’m not going to show you 100 pictures. I’m going to show you a few.
Jeff Dachowski: It’s so exhausting.
Allison Tyler Jones: What’s that?
Jeff Dachowski: It’s so exhausting. Thank God we’re not shooting 700 pictures.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. And you’re not going to have to stare and look at 100, and you’re not going to have to scroll through 100. You and I are going to sit down, we’re going to figure out what we’re shooting for this year, where it’s going to go. And we’re going to shoot that, and then I’m going to show it to you on the wall, and then we’re going to do that. And it’s going to be so much easier.
Jeff Dachowski: It does sound like it’s going to cost more. I mean, that’s just what I’m hearing. Is that right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, I mean obviously if it’s printed and custom framed, it’s going to cost more than a digital file. But honestly, I think rather than doing five shoots in a year, let’s do one or two amazing concepts that we figure out what we’re doing. It’s less, but better.
Jeff Dachowski: Well, that makes sense, Carol has always wanted to do these files because that’s what all her friends do, I obviously haven’t talked to her about this, and I’m guessing she doesn’t know about it. And so how do we work around that? I mean, we’ve always done it this way.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, I mean if you look at what you’ve done with me over the last few years, if I’m charging you, insert the price, I don’t know, what is it, three or $400 for a bunch of files, what are they charging? Let’s say 300, let’s go low. $300 per session for the files, and I’m doing three of those a year. You’re paying me $1,000 a year and you’ve really got nothing out of that, you haven’t done anything with those images. My smallest wall purchase is $1,100. You’re going to have a session fee on that, but I’m going to handle everything for you. We’re going to bring it, we’re going to hang it, it’s going to be handled. So yeah, it’s going to be more.
Jeff Dachowski: Thank God, because some of the most epic fights we’ve ever had is hanging artwork on the wall, knock down, drag down-
Allison Tyler Jones: No, save the marriage. Let’s not have the picture be on the wall while we’re signing the divorce papers in front of it. Let’s have somebody else do that so that you can actually be holding hands and loving each other in front of it.
Jeff Dachowski: Well, this is different. We should do it. It’s different. I’m not used to doing it this way, but I mean, we four years working with you. So I’ll talk to Carol, but let’s go ahead with the session on Saturday. And I don’t know how the investment part of it’s going to be, but having a print on the wall could be pretty cool. I don’t like when I do role playing where people just agree with you hard because that’s not how it works. There has to be some thoughtfulness about actual things. So if you’re listening going, “Eventually they’re going to agree.” There’s going to be two options here. They’re going to agree and they’re going to become a client of your stuff, or they’re going to disagree and not come back. But you said this at the beginning of why we started this, that’s actually part of the plan. If you are newly diagnosed to be gluten-free, you can’t go buy bread anymore at the bakery. So if you are newly diagnosed as being digital-file-free-
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Now, that’s if you want to rip the Band-Aid. If you don’t want to rip the Band-Aid, if you’re really a scaredy, scaredy, scaredy cat, which I’m a scaredy, scaredy cat, Band-Aid ripping feels very scary to me. So I can see a more gradual approach, could be something like, “Yes, I can give you the digital files with a fine art spend of blah, blah, blah.” If you wanted to have more of a hybrid-type business, there are a lot of photographers that do that. But again, I don’t think it’s doing anybody any favors to let them just get a few digital files after they have got all those clothes, all of that effort, all of that, and then they’re just getting that. You are not doing three-quarters of the job. You’re making them do three-quarters. You’re making them pick them out, with no guidance, if they’re doing it online, you’re making them print it with no guidance and no quality control, you’re making them frame it with no guidance and quality control. And then you’re making them jeopardize their relationship when they try to hang it on the wall, which never even happens anyway.
Jeff Dachowski: Well, you’ve heard me say it before, but it’s like going to a doctor, getting an X-ray, and he says…
Allison Tyler Jones: “What do you think?”
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, “Well, here’s your digital file.” “Is it healed?” “No.” “I came to you for that.” “Well, you got to pay extra for that.” That’s an expertise there, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Jeff Dachowski: And you’re offering an expertise. You’re offering a service that they don’t actually need to pay for, this is a luxury. When you’re photographed, you need photographs for your license and your passport, that’s what we need for photography. This is a luxury. And so you choosing an outcome that’s exactly of your decision is not crazy because every bit of this is luxury, not needed. And I’m not crapping on the folks who are doing digital files now because they’ve been raised an industry that has largely done digital files, why would you choose an outcome that is the same outcome that everyone else is doing? Try opening a fast-food burger space across from Wendy’s and McDonald’s, and you’re going to struggle. It is a very busy, crowded business. So why not try something different? Why not take it to a different level and let you be the other choice?
Jeff Dachowski: I mean, just look at between McDonald’s and Wendy’s, Wendy’s almost always opened across from McDonald’s. Why? Well, one, their burgers were square, and they cost a lot more than McDonald’s. That was by design and intention. And they literally bought real estate across from McDonald’s or Burger King for that reason. Why is there a Trader Joe’s? Because there’s a Whole Foods. And they’re frequently near each other. And they’re both successful, but they can be different. Your answer is-
Allison Tyler Jones: They have a different ethos and a different thing that they’re committed to, and they serve different clienteles.
Jeff Dachowski: And that’s okay. There’s a photographer who tends to write in October when she’s doing her 81 sessions of the park over the weekend, that, “I’m going to get your files ready, everyone, it’s going to be just three more weeks. I’ve got five or six 24-hour days ahead of me.” And I always write to her and say, “This wouldn’t happen if you sold products.” And she responds, “But I will lose all my clients.” You might retain some of them, but you-
Allison Tyler Jones: You won’t. This is…
Jeff Dachowski: … make money with the clients that you’re doing.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right, you won’t lose all your clients. Unless you [inaudible 00:48:15] really suck at what you’re doing, and then nobody likes you and you have a horrible personality, well, in that regard, you still wouldn’t really have a whole lot of clients anyway. But if you’re good at what you do and you love on those people, and the people that I see, the photographers I see doing this that are, I think selling themselves short for sure, are lovely. They have lovely work, and they’re lovely people, and they have clients that love them, and they won’t stop doing it because they’re so afraid that they are going to lose their clients.
Allison Tyler Jones: But I feel like if you flip the script a little bit and say, “Okay, if you realize that you aren’t actually serving those people to the best of your ability, to the highest and best use, then that makes it a little bit different. You do want to do better by them. And by doing better by them, you are doing better by yourself. And what will happen is you will lose a percentage, 100%, but there will be those that come along with you. And you’re vibrating on a different frequency then, and you start to attract people that want that. So some of the people that you have will come along with you. And you’ll be charging more. So you’ll be then making about the same and shooting about half as much.” But there’s a lot of us that have that Puritan work ethic, that busy and hard has merit in and of itself. And I’m not one of those people.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, that’s how we live life, “Hey, how are you doing?” “I’m busy.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, so busy.
Jeff Dachowski: When you said that, it triggered this thought about this bakery that is in my town, I don’t want to use names, but they made chocolate chip cookies, and they were really good, and they were really inexpensive. I mean, they were really good value. I think they were a dozen cookies, $7 or so, okay?
Allison Tyler Jones: Mm-hmm.
Jeff Dachowski: And we frequently bought them saying, “That’s a great price for this quality,” we just thought. Now they raised their price to a dollar a cookie. So the initial shock as a consumer of that baker, I was pissed, like “Now you’re charging what they’re worth, after I had-
Allison Tyler Jones: “After I’m addicted.” Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, I had to make a decision. The cookies, they’re good at seven, they’re good at 12. But now the hard reality of this, they lost some customers who said, “I am not paying $5 more for these cookies.” That’s their ego, meaning not the bakeries, but the client’s ego. If you offer a good-quality product and you get your prices in line, or you can make a major change to your business, you will lose some ego-driven folks who get hung up on the money changing.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right, but I think that’s a very few. I think that’s a 0.01%. What I think is more likely is, I’m going to bet that you were pissed that they raised the price, you didn’t get them as often. You still got them, but you didn’t get them as often. And they’re still making the same money with you coming less often.
Jeff Dachowski: Precisely, and possibly more.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Jeff Dachowski: Because they’re-
Allison Tyler Jones: And don’t you want the great cookie place to be in business?
Jeff Dachowski: I do. And actually I’ve said that to clients saying, “Well, in order to be here for your children in three years, I have to make this change.” That’s actually one of the most compelling… I know it’s everything against Storybrand. I’m not against her, but I just mean you are making yourself the hero in that case. But when you were having this critical conversation about why they need to not be at the park for $50 as your client, I mean as a last-ditch effort I have no problem saying, and to back it up, “Honestly, I can’t make a living doing 22 sessions for $50 at the park, because it’s five weeks worth of work. So if I want to be here to photograph Rebecca’s fifth portrait, I need to get in line and provide for my family.” And if they can’t understand that, it’s okay.
Allison Tyler Jones: Totally.
Jeff Dachowski: If they don’t think that there’s a collaborative feel between you and their… Then they really weren’t your client, they were taking from you.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right, exactly. And I wouldn’t lead with that, and I know you didn’t either.
Jeff Dachowski: No, that’s just a last ditch.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, it’s the last thing. I might have that conversation with somebody who was a really dear client that I have almost become friends with, because I always just feel like nobody cares about me, they only care about how it benefits them. But how it benefits them is that I’m still here.
Jeff Dachowski: Right. And going back to the concept of process, that goes with it, and I know we’ve talked about this, I never shy away about talking about money, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: So why would I start then? For me now, why would I start being shy? Because it’s just money. I know it sounds arrogant, I don’t mean it to be. To many people who have lots of money, it’s just money. To me of course, it’s one of the reasons we’re in business, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Jeff Dachowski: We want to fight for our family. And if that is a true and authentic feeling you’re having, then you shouldn’t be ashamed of saying it when it’s appropriate. It’s like seeing the price, “How much are your portraits?” “Well, they start at 595,” or 1,395, or 2,995, or whatever the price is. You should never be afraid to say what it costs, because no one else is. And when I go to Target and I go to buy something, the price is right there. And there is no Target employee running around going, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry-
Allison Tyler Jones: “I just want you to have this. In fact, take it.”
Jeff Dachowski: … it’s so special to me that you have this Degree deodorant, that you can-
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re such an idiot.
Jeff Dachowski: … just take it, I’ll pay.”
Allison Tyler Jones: “I feel bad. I’ll pay for it.” Yeah. I know. Okay, so let me stop you right there. Let’s just talk about, I think some of the common mistakes that undermine the confidence in ourself, but also the confidence that our clients can have in us. And I would say number one is skipping that education phase. Skipping, like what you’re saying, talking about how it works, “We’re not going to just go with every big idea and do a million pictures and hope that you buy something, and be mad at you that you don’t, or you feel like I’m holding your images hostages. You understand the value up front, we have a process for communicating that value. And you decide whether you want to exchange your value for our value.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Two would be, like what you were just saying, avoiding talking about money, you’re letting the whole thing go off the rails. And that’s if a client, I think especially in a high-end, more of a luxury type situation, if they feel like they’re running the show, it’s like the doctor with the X-ray, they don’t trust. They’re like, “Wait a minute, there’s not a process here. They don’t really know what they’re doing. And I can boss them around.” And that actually breeds a lack of confidence in the client. And then the last one would be if you’re not following up with them afterwards, if you’re not staying connected to them and finding some way to keep them coming back, you’re leaving future revenue on the table.
Jeff Dachowski: Right. And revenue from them, and revenue from referrals. I keep beating this to death, but people who have a great experience, they want their friends… Just imagine in your own life, you go to a restaurant, a new restaurant opens up, and you think it’s a good value, it was a great experience, et cetera, you tell everyone about it. And then people feel the need to respond back to you and say, “I went to that restaurant, it was great.” And you feel it was massive sense of pride. You had nothing to do with any part of that other than telling people about it. But people who are connectors, this is how they enjoy their life. And so we want a lot of times people who are connectors like that, we want them because they’re going to bring us referrals. And referrals are so much cheaper than funnels and all these other things. Not saying don’t do that, I just mean profit-wise, dollar for dollar, ROI, and time in, a phone call is always going to be faster than writing a funnel every time. If you-
Allison Tyler Jones: 100% You’re preaching to the choir, dude.
Jeff Dachowski: I’m not knocking bottles, it’s not about how we happen to market our business yet. I’m not sure I’m smart enough to figure it out. So even though Ronan has held my hand on it about 100 times-
Allison Tyler Jones: No, some people are having great success with that, but for me, I want to do it a different way.
Jeff Dachowski: But that’s also different. So in the end… Well, not in the end, but these things keep coming back to, “How do you see this lifecycle of a client ending?” I don’t mean past referrals. I mean, “What are we doing?” And then start working our way backwards. One thing I didn’t mention to you, that I do that’s different, is when I do my headshots, this is a tiny little amount of money, but it plants the seed, is I ask them if they want prints. Now they already bought the file. Some people don’t know where to get prints, and their company’s paying for it, and they don’t care, “And yeah, I need two 8x10s, one for my mom and one for my wife.” Can I tell you the profit margin on an already retouched print, two 8x10s?
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s awesome.
Jeff Dachowski: It’s gigantic. And it starts planting the seed. If they want prints, guess what they also want, is probably prints of their family. It’s another flash indicator that this might be a client. And it’s a little tiny gesture, it’s part of my sales plan, is I ask them, “Would you like any prints? And what about a family portrait?” I actually ask them, tell me about their family, or tell me about themselves. And I don’t want to be like, “Do you have a family?” “No, they all died.” “Oh-
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh my God.
Jeff Dachowski: … this is awkward. Did you have-
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re the worst.
Jeff Dachowski: … a portrait made?”
Allison Tyler Jones: “Yeah, I used to.”
Jeff Dachowski: I bet you feel dumb now.
Allison Tyler Jones: “I used to, before I cheated on my wife.” Well, wow, you can go down a whole rabbit hole right there.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: No, but that’s genius. And that is so not sexy. Nobody’s writing a book about this one little simple planting the seed, already doing something you’re doing, but there are a lot of headshot photographers out there that are like, “I am tired. I really would like to transition into maybe having a family-portrait part of my business or whatever. How do I possibly do that? These corporate guys don’t want this.” Or you are telling yourself the story that you don’t, but what a perfect way to just say, “Do you want prints with this?” It’s fries, “Do you want fries with that?” And then, “Tell me about your family, or tell me about yourself.”
Jeff Dachowski: I can’t stress that enough, it does trigger a thought process. I’m going to tell you, if you’re a headshot photographer there, most of your clients are going to say no, they’re all set, they don’t need a print. But some people do need a print. And when they need a print, I want them to think of me, and I want to make the money. So if I do 80 headshots a year and four people buy prints, that’s another $1,600 that goes in my pocket, of pure profit. I have to retouch the image anyways. And I don’t need a lot of that. I’m standing with them, escorting them out the door saying, “Thanks so much.” Before we get to it, just why wouldn’t I?
Allison Tyler Jones: But you have the confidence in knowing that, of course a print would be great for the grandma, a print would be great for his wife. And so you’re not asking in a weird salesy way like, “If you get up run today,” you’re not given that. You’re just like, “Hey, what about this?” You’re just always looking for new ways to serve. And they can always say no. They can always say no. But when they want it, when somebody at their work says, “Shoot, I should get one of these for my wife.” “Hey, Jeff will print them for you.”
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah. Or, “You know what? We’re going to be doing 10 headshots this year and we need prints for the whole office.” It’s the weird thing, the little rabbit hole of having the confidence to just ask. And if you’re a PR photographer, this is on the assumption that your PR products are priced appropriately, that you’re making money on the PR image for the time commitment and the value and all those sort of things. This is just bonus, this is vacation money. If you do 80 and you get four people to buy at 400, that’s a lot of a vacation, $1,600.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I love that. I think that’s great. I love it.
Jeff Dachowski: And you’re not going to buy another home with that $1,600, but you do a couple of things like that, you get a little more confidence and all of a sudden you’re realizing that you’re doing $16,000 a year extra.
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure. Right. And to go back to where we started in the beginning of this conversation, is it’s not, “Let’s see how we can soak them for another 1,600.” You’re giving them something that they needed, that they wanted, you’re providing value for them.
Jeff Dachowski: Or wanted it. They didn’t even know they wanted it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, but now that they see what’s possible, it’s like, “Oh yeah, absolutely. That’s great. Let’s do that.”
Jeff Dachowski: I mean, just one last thing, I don’t mean to run on. If you order a steak and they go, “Well, would you like a herb butter with that? It’s $6.” I didn’t even know I could put butter on my steak. I thought the steak was pretty tasty.
Allison Tyler Jones: You can have steak and butter?
Jeff Dachowski: “The salt and pepper is included, right?” “But if you want a special butter that we mixed in the cheesecloth of a Peruvian farmer with a little bit of herbs, yeah, it’s $6.” That sounds good.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, I need it. That sounds so exciting.
Jeff Dachowski: We’re the same.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, it’s the difference of also even, I mean, just if we want to go total metaphor, is when you’re in a drive-through ordering food from whatever restaurant, you’ve got somebody on the other end of that intercom, and there’s the difference between, “And what else? And what else? And what else? And what else? And what else?” Until you’re like, “I’m done.” And then there’s the one that’s like, “Okay, is that it? Okay, is that it? Okay, is that it?” And that’s shutting you down. So then you’re like, “Okay. Well, obviously they’re very busy and they don’t want to talk to me anymore, and they want this order to be done.” So you’re hurrying trying to be done as quick as possible rather than, “And what else? And what else? And did you see this? And did you know…” You know what I mean? People have a mouth and they can say no. And I think of that, there was a book not, I don’t know when it was, a few years ago, that was getting to yes, but I think it’s actually getting to no. I don’t want to get to yes, I want to get to no, we get to the point where you’re like, “Okay, I’m done. No, I’m done.”
Jeff Dachowski: There’s a book called Go For No as well.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, I think that’s the one that highlights that.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah. I mean, exactly. As Mary always says, “You get 0% of what you don’t ask for,” right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: I know she didn’t create the phrase, but I’ve heard her say it a bunch of times. It’s just true.
Allison Tyler Jones: She might, Mary’s very smart.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, she is. Of course she is.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: If you don’t ask, you’re probably not going to get it. If I didn’t ask that guy about family portraits, he didn’t even realize what it was all about.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And I just can’t emphasize enough, you’re not the slimy guy that’s over there trying to trick somebody. You’re just like, “Is there some other way I can serve you?” And it benefits us too for sure, but they can say no.
Jeff Dachowski: “I like you and you seem to like me, so let’s talk about what the next step is, because you’re not going to need a headshot for another two years. And you like this experience, so this is outside stuff.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. So just putting that into your process of your headshots, that’ll make you a lot more than 1,600 on those extra 8×10, that’s then into family work. But the same with seniors, like, “Okay, you have a senior graduating? That’s also a great time to get your family portraits updated because that kid is going to be gone.”
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah. And not to keep mentioning Mary, that she talks about the 18 summer stuff all the time. And when I talk to seniors, I don’t give them a free session. I tried that years ago, where I give a family session, and I know some people do it and some people have had some success with it. My clients, that hasn’t resonated with them. They either want one or they don’t, and if they want one, they’ll buy it. And so I always mention it and say, “Hey, when’s the last time we’ve done this? Come on September, the only Allison that’s going to be in the house does the Allison on the wall.” It’s a little heart stringy, but it’s absolutely not high. And especially if it’s a first child that is going off to college, they have never experienced this. And they joke, I hear all the time, “Well, we don’t have portraits because I’m always the one taking the images.” And I’m like, “Let me help you with that. We can help you look great on the wall with your family. You can finally be a part of this.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and I think that’s a good place to wrap it up too, because just having those conversations with people, there are just recurring themes of kids leaving, of needing headshots for work, of fill in the blank of milestones that are happening in our life. And if we don’t have ways built into our process to talk about all of those things with our clients, and then as we are making change in our business, we decide we don’t want to sell only digital files anymore, or we want to raise our prices, or we want to change our genre from weddings to families or whatever, then it behooves us to just create a new process around that so that we can bring clients in, they feel supported, they feel informed, they know from beginning to end that they’re completely taken care of. It builds confidence in us, because we know we’re going to take care of them, we know that we’re going to be able to serve them to the best of our ability. And then it builds ultimately what we want, is confidence in the client that they trust us and they’re going to come back again and again.
Jeff Dachowski: I agree 100%. I love that you have a process. I think our process is very similar. It’s going to vary, I think you require an in-person meeting. Is that true, you require an in-person meeting?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I mean, we’ve got some out-of-state clients that we’ll do some Zoom with, or obviously existing clients that know the deal, they know what the pricing is and all that, then we can do a lot of that by Zoom or on the phone. But if it’s a brand new client that is coming in sight unseen, it’s so mean I think, to make people feel blindsided, to get them all excited about clothes and how we’re going to shoot it. And then you’re sitting in a sales room and requiring a certain number from them that they had no clue that it was even going to be required of them. It’s just not fair.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah. I think we’ve talked about this before, but where I happen to live, in-person meetings are rarer than… Phone calls happen all the time. I won’t work unless somebody can hear my voice and realize that I’m remarkably funny, you know what I mean?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right, exceptionally.
Jeff Dachowski: Especially that I’m-
Allison Tyler Jones: A wit.
Jeff Dachowski: … just a witty joy to be with, but I have-
Allison Tyler Jones: A ray of sunshine.
Jeff Dachowski: A ray. But I have to hear their voice and get their inflection and start getting a feel for who they are so I can really show them who they are to their kids, that sort of thing. And so we require at least a phone call. They don’t have to come in or I don’t have to go to their home, I always offer it. And if they have any like, “That sounds interesting.” I’m like, “Yeah, I’ll come, you’re only an hour away. Or come here.” I give them options. Whatever we end up with is going to be more successful. But that’s part of that process. It goes from, let’s stick with the family genre, identifying the family, educating the family, photographing the session. And education is throughout every step of the way. Selection, installation, referrals. I know that’s a really broad brush of our plan, but that is.
Jeff Dachowski: And payments are a non-starter for us. We talked about fear and confidence years ago, when we first started, I couldn’t afford it for you to place the order and not pay me, when we first started, because if you lost your job in the interim, I need you to buy it right now. That’s why we started doing same-day selling many, many years ago. We had the ability to do it if they’re from out of town, it was, “I can’t afford for you to lose your job between my session and the sales session. So…” “No, no, no, don’t leave. Stay here.” And then we started just saying that’s part of our process, people usually pay for all of it. And you know what people do?
Allison Tyler Jones: Pay for all of it.
Jeff Dachowski: They pay for all of it. And the other thing we’ll do is, when we said, “We prefer checks. It’s a great way to save 5%. If you think your credit card only charges you 3%, it’s probably closer to four and a half with the other monthly fees.” But gaining 4.5% on all of your sales a year is a giant amount of money. Now, you’re not going to get it on all, but just the confidence to say, “Here’s your total. We prefer checks.” “Do I pay for all of it now?” Yeah, most people do. And if they have a checkbook, they’ll run to the car and get it, because they don’t carry it anymore. And if they don’t, they say, “Can I put it on a credit card?” “Of course you can.” If they don’t ask, I don’t try and get… 4.5% percent is a ton of your profit. So we prefer checks. Yeah, some people don’t, but it’s written in, but it’s a bonus.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I love that. I love that. Get a little additional tip there. All right, anything else before we head off into the sunset?
Jeff Dachowski: No. I mean, did you tell me about your process? It doesn’t vary much from mine, does it?
Allison Tyler Jones: No, it’s similar. I like to do the in-person consultation because I want them to see, feel, touch what’s on the wall, see how it’s hung. I show them what we’ve done for other clients. I want to quote them pricing. I want to get down the concept of what we’re shooting for, define the scope of work of that. And then we shoot it. That’s a whole experience in and of itself. And then really the sales appointment is just a party, we’re celebrating what we did. It’s 10 to 15 minutes like, “Okay, this is what we’re picking.” And then the rest of it is talking about parenting, what we watched on Netflix, and where we’re going for dinner, where vacation is this summer. It’s just very congenial and fun, and I feel like I’ve made a new friend. And so I love that. I love my clients, love my clients,
Jeff Dachowski: And I love what you just said, “It’s a celebration of what we just did.” That is going to make it into my process. That’s fantastic, I love that. I’ve never heard you say that before, so I love that, copyright.
Allison Tyler Jones: There you go, copyright The ReWork.
Jeff Dachowski: Copyright The ReWork.
Allison Tyler Jones: All right. Well, you are the best. I appreciate you noodling this through with me today. I think it’s going to help a lot of people that are wanting to make the transition and maybe felt like, “Oh. Well, they’re just print people and there’s no way to go from here to here.” There really is.
Jeff Dachowski: There really is. And every time I come on, I give a shout-out to the same person. Kathy Broderick, what’s up? And she always says that she hears it, so I had to just shout out again, Kathy Broderick what’s up?
Allison Tyler Jones: Do it. I love it. Thank you for taking the time, friend. I appreciate you.
Jeff Dachowski: Absolutely, my pleasure. Great to talk to you.
Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison at dotherework.com, and on Instagram @do.the.rework.
