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: Hi friends, and welcome back to The ReWork. Today’s episode, it has our guest, Priscilla Klingler from Vision Art Albums.
Priscilla Klingler: Hello
Allison Tyler Jones: So glad that you’re here, Priscilla.
Priscilla Klingler: Oh, thank you so much for having me on here again. It’s such a pleasure.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s been a little while. So episode 80, we had you on about selling albums, and as one does, I was laying in my bed at 10 P.M. doom scrolling. I don’t know. Can we call it doom scrolling when we’re not in COVID anymore? But I was scrolling and I saw your … I love your Instagram feed, by the way, at Vision Art Book. I highly recommend if you are selling albums or want to sell albums. You have such a good social media presence. I love-
Priscilla Klingler: Thank you. Thank you.
Allison Tyler Jones: So you had a recent post that immediately spoke to me, and the first part of it said, “Albums are too expensive. No one in my market will pay for them.” So obviously you’re quoting photographers.
Priscilla Klingler: Yes. Exactly.
Allison Tyler Jones: So I’m imagining when I read that, I’m imagining you standing in your beautiful trade show booth at Imaging or WPPI or wherever it is that you go, and that as photographers, we love pretty things, and you probably have some nice sweet little photographer standing there petting your albums and saying, “I love these so much, but nobody-”
Priscilla Klingler: I wish I could sell them. Yeah. All the time. All the time. And so then we tell them, listen, you’re not showing them for one, because my next question is, well, do you offer albums now? Well, no. Okay. Well, there’s problem number one. You have to show what you want to sell.
Allison Tyler Jones: For sure. For sure.
Priscilla Klingler: That’s the first thing that we see.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. I love that. And so in this post … I’m just going to just follow the post because I thought it was so good. The first slide past that past the albums are too expensive, no one in my market will pay for them is that price isn’t the barrier.
Priscilla Klingler: Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So tell me about that, because I agree with you.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. Because really what we’re saying here is that you want them to see the emotional value of it, the legacy of it, that this is really an investment in their family, in their wedding, whatever it is, and it’s going to live on past you. So that’s really what we’re trying to tell people is see beyond the price point of it. Tug at the emotional value.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, yeah, I love that. And I think the idea of if your clients aren’t seeing the emotional value, they’re not going to feel that it’s worth it.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. If they have something in front of them that they can touch, feel, smell, and then imagine their images in that album, then now they’re emotionally invested in it. It’s something they want.
Allison Tyler Jones: I don’t think it’s possible to help a client get emotionally invested in something that you’re not emotionally invested in.
Priscilla Klingler: Exactly. Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: So if you have a pile of albums over in the corner with dust on them that are dog-eared, you’re like, “Oh, I guess, yeah. I guess we could do an album.”
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. They don’t-
Allison Tyler Jones: Nobody wants that.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. They think they do want digitals, but they don’t know what else is out there sometimes. You have to show them. They don’t know what’s possible .
Allison Tyler Jones: And we don’t either. That’s the thing that I think is the biggest, it starts with us. If we don’t have a vision of how our work can be printed and displayed and presented, our client will never get there, hence the industry and the state that it’s in. So if everybody’s saying, oh … Because another way to say this first slide album, no one in my market will pay for them, is the idea that everybody just wants the digitals.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. Okay. You want the digitals. Fine. I think they could still have those because they want them for their Instagram or whatever. But those are going to live on their phones. They’re going to live on their computer. What’s going to live on your coffee table? What’s going to live in your living room with your family? I know myself personally, growing up, and even now, I love seeing my mom’s wedding pictures. In fact, she was just out last week and she gave me her wedding album because she wants me to make her an album. I need to digitize it because the prints are deteriorating pretty rapidly at this point.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, that’ll be so fun. I would love to see that. You should have that in the trade show booth.
Priscilla Klingler: I should.
Allison Tyler Jones: You should. Yeah. That would be so fun to see.
Priscilla Klingler: Absolutely.
Allison Tyler Jones: So yeah. To me the first step of selling albums better or having confidence that people will buy them is that you have to actually believe that that’s what you want to sell. And it’s funny because with our group of students that have come through our Mindshift membership or The Art of Selling Art Course, probably the most questions we get asked are about albums. How are you selling albums? How are you doing albums? It seems like it’s very confusing for them and that’s why I wanted to have you on.
Priscilla Klingler: I would say start small. I just had this meeting a few weeks ago with a client. She’s not selling albums right now currently, but we had a one-on-one Zoom call. And I said, “Just start small. Start with one size, a smaller size. We could guide you.” What are the popular sizes? Eight by 10 is a great place to start. And then the price point is really good on it so you don’t have to market up a crazy amount. At least three times, we would say. Four times. But you can still make some money off of it. So just start small, design one size, offer one size. You don’t have to offer everything. Make a cool design. You could do a photo wrap cover. AI is amazing now. You can even have AI help you design some cool font, a cool pattern, whatever, and that’s your signature. It is really giving you a lot of creativity to make something unique that you can put in your market where you’re at.
Allison Tyler Jones: I do think that is another barrier to offering albums is that you are a victim of you, meaning you, Priscilla. The vendors can be a victim of your own options. Because you have a million cover choices. You could do photo, you could do leather, you could do whatever. I feel like you get lost in the weeds and then you can’t decide. And the last thing a client wants is for you to throw down a swatch deck.
Priscilla Klingler: Oh, yeah. No.
Allison Tyler Jones: That is a very bad concept.
Priscilla Klingler: Maybe some are more hands-on and they want to be more involved in that process. That’s fine. In the back of your mind you know I have 90 different color options to choose from, but just start small. Just say, “I only want to offer these five colors and I’m only going to do this size.” And if they want something different you know in the back of your mind that you can get that too.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. For sure. So curate it and present only … So for our studio, we’re 10 by 10. That is the only size we do. And we are photo cover or leather. Like a black leather. But usually it’s almost always a photo cover. So I just feel like that’s what I love the most. That’s how I love to see my work displayed and so we’re doing that.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. And that’s what has attracted your client to you as well. They’ve already seen your work on your website, they’ve seen your albums, and so that’s what they want because they’ve already seen it.
Allison Tyler Jones: And I have them on my desk where I’m meeting with clients. I have them slipped between the Tom Ford and the Louis Vuitton coffee table book. I have them next to my computer between two cool bookends. I’m suggesting that to them that this isn’t something that’s going to live in a cabinet somewhere. This is something that’s decorating your home.
Priscilla Klingler: Exactly. I love that. I love that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Very often, when I’ll suggest an album, people will say things like, “Oh, I never look at my album. I’ll never look at an album.” And it’s like, “Okay. Well, you’re not looking at them right now.” I actually will say this to clients. You’re not looking at them right now because you’re busy raising these kids. But trust and believe that your kids are looking at them all the time. My grandkids look at their albums all the time.
Allison Tyler Jones: I think you’ll find this interesting. I polled my kids and I said, “Okay. Your free stuff that I’m giving you every year …” I photographed my family and my kids and their kids. It’s taking us a ton of time. “Do you really love this? Do you really want it? And do you like the albums? Because I can just do a couple of prints for you, and you don’t necessarily have to have the album because obviously it’s a lot more images, more time. So I need to know if you’re liking this, if you’re appreciating this, and if not, we don’t have to do it.” And literally, every one of my daughters-in-law, because I only have daughters-in-law, all separately said, “Oh, no, no, no, no. We love it so much. We don’t look at them that much like the parents, but we find our kids looking at them all the time and they love it so much. They love to see when they were littler. It’s a different experience than when they’re just flipping through your phone.”
Priscilla Klingler: A hundred percent. Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: So I thought that was very interesting. Now, these are people that are getting them for free. You know what I mean? Because I’m the mom, and I’m giving it to them. I was putting a little bit of a guilt trip on them like, “Hey, don’t make me go through the work if you don’t love it.” And every one of them immediately responded was like, “No, please don’t stop doing that for us. We love it.”
Priscilla Klingler: It shows that they’re meaningful. They’re meaningful. Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: So when I get that, now, when I get that response from a client that says, “Well, I don’t know about albums. We’ve never even really looked at our wedding album.”, I tell them that story about like, “No, I get it. Because busy raising the kids, you’re busy making the living, but your kids love it.”
Priscilla Klingler: Yes. They do.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s your legacy.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. Absolutely. It’s their legacy. It’s irreplaceable. It’s an heirloom piece now that they have. A piece of art really.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and it’s your story. And having owned a scrapbooking store in another business, I feel like having your family photographed even every other year … Many of my clients come every year, every other year, to have that collection every year or every so often, it relieves all that scrapbooking, guilt. You know what I mean? And it’s done in a way that’s beautiful and way better than what they could do.
Priscilla Klingler: Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. You’re really giving them a legacy book.
Allison Tyler Jones: And I think another thing that you … I’m supposed to be asking you questions, but I love albums so much that I want to talk about it. Is you said you could get AI to do the designs and fonts and whatever. I used to do a lot of words and designs and stuff in albums, but I’ve stripped all that out. It’s just images now. And I think that that’s more timeless. So for those who are listening that are like, “If I have to do one more thing … I’m retouching all my own stuff, I’m doing my own bookkeeping, I’m doing everything. I can’t do albums because I don’t know how to do graphic design.” Get some album software. Just do images. It doesn’t have to have words inside of it and design.
Priscilla Klingler: That is so true. In fact, the majority of what we see doesn’t have words in it. Years ago it did. There was cherish and all those, these different same-
Allison Tyler Jones: In the papyrus font.
Priscilla Klingler: Yes. Papyrus.
Allison Tyler Jones: It should be illegal.
Priscilla Klingler: No. But now we’re seeing simple is best and it’s timeless. It’s classic. Less is more. So yeah. I think keep it simple. Keep it simple. Yeah. So start with one or two sizes. Start with only a few material options if you want to do that, or just do one cover design for the photo wrap and do that on all of them. That’s your signature. That’s your style. Just make it easy.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yep. That’s what we do. We just do. We have one cover design, and that’s it. The other slide in your post that I really loved is you said People invest in what they understand. When albums are presented as optional upgrades, they get treated like extras. When they’re positioned as part of your storytelling, your legacy work, they become priceless.
Priscilla Klingler: So that’s a shift in the way that we should think about it. It’s not an upgrade, it’s not an add-on. You’re getting this. So from the moment of your first meeting, they’re seeing this album. So in their minds, they know by the end of this, this is what’s going to be part of their package.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yep. I love that. I could not agree with you more. I feel like when there’s transition points in a photographer’s career. So let’s say that you start a shoot and burn and you’re only selling digitals. And then you realize, I actually want a sustainable business, so I want to start doing in-person sales and selling product. So then it’s like, what is that product? Well, very often it’s a lot of little things, eight by tens, five by seven, and you get into this, okay, let’s get packages. It’s all this little stuff because people don’t like to decide. They want everything. And so you get down waiting in that little stuff. But I feel like if you raise your sights and say … For us, we specialize in wall art or custom-designed albums. That’s all we’re selling.
Priscilla Klingler: Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now you can get a little print, but I’m never talking about a little print. So that’s not my focus. My focus is wall art and custom-designed albums. And so the album fixes so many problems. And here’s a new one for you if you have not heard this. This happened literally yesterday. I was talking to a student. She said, “Okay. I just had … This family is from Pakistan.” And she said, “In their cultural tradition, if you have living grandparents or parents, you do not put their portrait on the wall while they’re still alive.”
Priscilla Klingler: Oh, wow.
Allison Tyler Jones: Isn’t that interesting? It’s like it’s not the done thing.
Priscilla Klingler: Okay. Interesting.
Allison Tyler Jones: And so she’s like, “I’m talking to this family and they’re going to do this whole amazing family photo shoot and the grandma is like, ‘Absolutely not. You cannot put me on the wall. This is just not happening.'” And so she’s like, “What am I going to do?” And I said, “Oh, oh, oh, I got you. This is album all day long. Just because grandma doesn’t want to be on the wall doesn’t mean you don’t need her picture.” We need her picture. We need her with your kids and all of that. So album, there you go. And then later, it’s archived. You can put it on the wall. You have it.
Priscilla Klingler: Absolutely. And then they probably want more than just one image as well, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: For sure.
Priscilla Klingler: And then you’re already retouching things, and so it’s better just to put them in an album and design it for them. They’ve already trusted you to capture their event, an important event in their life or their family. Why wouldn’t they trust you to just go ahead, make the design of the album?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Well, and they will if you’re convinced of it, because it’s all how you talk about it.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. I like how you said that albums do solve a lot of problems.
Allison Tyler Jones: So many. Okay. So the other one is like, what have we been hearing since 2020? I’m moving, remodeling, building.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Great. I have no walls. I live in a glass igloo with no interior walls. Putting images on the wall means your vain. All of those objections. Well, yeah. Album, album, album, album, album. So what are the other things that you’re hearing from people that are loving the albums that are really killing it? What are they doing that maybe other photographers are not?
Priscilla Klingler: Okay. Here’s a big one. And I talked a little bit about this a second ago, but they are waiting for their clients to choose the images. And that’s taking forever. And who doesn’t get overwhelmed with decisions and decision overload, decision fatigue?
Allison Tyler Jones: So you’re saying the photographers that are having a hard time selling albums are … And what is that? What do you mean they’re letting-
Priscilla Klingler: So they’re saying, “I am still waiting for them to pick their images that they want. I’m still waiting for them to get-”
Allison Tyler Jones: What? Why are you letting somebody else pick the images?
Priscilla Klingler: That’s what I say too.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s your job.
Priscilla Klingler: That’s what I say too. So I say, “No. You design it, you pick it.” And there’s so much software now too that even helps you design in Fundy and Smart Albums. They have smart features in there, auto design features in there. So it does make it pretty easy. You pick the images, you design it. It saves them from decision overload, and now it keeps the momentum going in finalizing their album.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So that’s interesting. Yeah. No. I could see that. So basically what you’re saying is they’re maybe going into a sales appointment trying to get them to buy whatever, and then they’re saying, “Okay. Well, get back to me on what you want in the album.”?
Priscilla Klingler: Exactly. Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh my gosh. Okay. Yeah. That’s wrong. Sorry. There are very few hard and fast rules, but that’s a wrong one.
Priscilla Klingler: So a lot do that. Surprisingly, a lot do that. And some are doing, what they’re doing really well, I would say is they’re designing right away, getting it back to the client, the proofs, and leaving a small seven-day window open for them to make any edits or any changes that they want. And then they’re ordering the album, they’re finishing it right away within a month. Some of them are getting their albums back the same month that they shoot the wedding or the family sitting or whatever. So that’s pretty impressive.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. That’s amazing. I would say most of ours are like in that six to eight week window.
Priscilla Klingler: That’s good.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. If somebody has said in the consultation that if we’ve decided that we’re going to shoot for an album … Because you have to shoot for an album. This is a family portrait session. This wouldn’t be talking about weddings, but it does apply, then I’m just going to have it designed for them when they come in. Not everything’s retouched, but it’s just laid out.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. Perfect.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. This is what I think you should do. And then it just makes it so much easier because then we can look through it and they can say, “Well, can we swap this picture for that picture?” And it’s like one picture that we’re swapping, not I have to decide the whole thing because we don’t want them to do our jobs.
Priscilla Klingler: No, no, no, no. And that’s what stalls the sales.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Priscilla Klingler: They take forever to choose so you do it for them.
Allison Tyler Jones: If you’re giving that advice, are photographers making that change?
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. One is … It was funny. I was on a call with him, he’s in England, and I told him … He said, “I’m just waiting for them to pick.” I said, “Why? Design the album and show it to them.” He says, “Oh, that’s very American.” He wasn’t saying it in a rude way.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s funny.
Priscilla Klingler: It was a new idea for him. So then, yeah, he started doing that, and then we started seeing some album sales from him. So it’s not being pushy. You’re helping them. You’re providing a service. You’re helping them tell their story. It’s their legacy that you’re … Or especially with the family shoots, you’re still telling a story through it.
Allison Tyler Jones: For sure. Yeah. I think about, my sister’s an interior designer, and I think if she went to somebody and was like, “Okay. Here’s 90 catalogs of sectionals. Let me know which one you want.” She’d never hear back from them, ever.
Priscilla Klingler: No.
Allison Tyler Jones: The job is that you go through, you get rid of all the ugly pictures that everybody looks fat or their eyes are closed, or they’re wrinkly or bad lighting or whatever. You’re only showing them the best of the best. And then you lay it out because it’s the flow. Even with a family portrait session, you’re telling a story of here’s the flow, here’s the mom and the dad, here’s the family, here’s the kids, here’s whatever all those combinations are that you want to shoot. And that’s as much your vision and your storytelling as actual … Each individual image tells a story but all of those, how those images flow together is like a monograph of that family.
Priscilla Klingler: Oh, yeah. And you’re the artist. It’s your artistry. You’re the best one to tell the story.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So I’m going to ask you a question because I hear this a lot too, is this idea of like, “Well, I don’t see myself as an artist. I don’t think I’m an artist. I don’t think I’m all that. I’m just a photographer. I’m just taking pictures.” Do you have any thoughts about that? How people can step into …
Priscilla Klingler: I think photography is definitely an art form, because so much of what you do is unique. Every session is unique. And in your style even is a form of artistry. The way you capture those images from your studio lighting, to your outdoor setting, to your posing. All of that is an artistic expression. And then going to even design the album, again, it’s artistic expression there. You’re telling their story. And even doing wall art, that’s also an artistic expression because you’re picking out a place in their home. You’re finding the best image for that. You’re going to place it in the place that looks the best. Not three inches from the ceiling how a lot of people like hang pictures. Even just hanging the pictures, there’s an art form to it. So I think that photographers are artists.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Priscilla Klingler: You’re designing. You’re creating.
Allison Tyler Jones: I agree. And I feel like that idea of, well, I don’t want to … I think maybe where this comes from is that in any industry, you have people that are like the rock stars that have the big personalities or whatever, and just regular run-of-the-mill photographers, whatever that is, feel like, okay, I’m not that so I can’t call myself an artist. Even down to where they don’t want to sign their work because they don’t want to be seen as being all that. And so we were just having this conversation yesterday, and I was like, “Well, I understand that.” I didn’t sign my work for the first three years because I was like … And then I had a client say to me, “Hey, you know what? I have artwork all over this house that I’ve collected, and it’s not worth anything without the artist’s signature.” And she’s like, “I want you to sign these pieces.” And so I just thought, “Oh, okay. It’s actually not about me. It’s about them and what they want, and that they paid for something and that feels elevated to them.” And then also if we make it about them, their unique family, their unique story combined with our unique talent, that’s a collaborative art. And it doesn’t have to be about you.
Priscilla Klingler: I love that. Yeah. Because even your style of photography is identifiable.
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re making choices.
Priscilla Klingler: You, Allison, when we’ve had your albums at our shows, they will say, “Oh, is this one of Allison’s books?” Without even seeing your name on the backside. They can tell it’s you by the style of the image on the front.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and that’s what we’re all trying to get to. But everybody does have a style because you’re making decisions and you’re saying, “Okay. I want this.” And so that brings full circle to the album situation is that just like you’re hopefully not going to show somebody 200 images when they come in to look at them. You’ve curated it down to what you think is the best. If you want to sell an album, you’ve curated that story of that session, that wedding, that whatever, and you have that ready to go. We’re starting to sell our storybooks. We’re so excited about it, and this is how I think that your family story could look. And then you show know that, and you have a sample of that. I think it’s one thing. Could they just start with one size and one type of cover. One thing.
Priscilla Klingler: Yep. Absolutely.
Allison Tyler Jones: This is how we do it. And then you would be amazed at how people are like, “Yeah, I love that. Let me have it.”
Priscilla Klingler: It’s easy, easy. Hey, I’ve had my personal pictures done, and I could design myself and create myself. I would rather have the photographer do it. And she did for our family portraits. She did it. She designed it. She showed it to me. I think I changed one thing and I said, “It’s perfect. I love it.” And I didn’t have to do anything. And just seeing it, it did bring back so much emotion from the day, and I loved it, and I had to have it, and we had to have it all printed for everybody in the family.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay, so I think that’s so telling. So I’m going to take you through that again. So you had a photographer photograph. You could pick any photographer in this country because you know them all being a vendor to all of them. And then you could have got the files and done the most fold out with a moat and a dragon floating out of it album ever. But oh wait, you’re a business owner who is busy and doesn’t want to deal with it. So you wanted somebody that was an expert that would figure that out for you. But don’t you think the emotional part of that is that you wanted to see what she thought was the best?
Priscilla Klingler: Oh, yes. And I trust her completely because I already loved her style. I loved how she photographs. I loved the photo shoot that she took myself and my whole family on. And so I wanted to see, what are you going to do with these pictures? What are you going to do for the cover? What are you going to do for the font or whatever that was on the cover? And I loved it. I changed nothing. I didn’t even change the cover. I only changed a couple of images on the inside just to make one or two more prominent. And it was done, and I loved it. It was out of my hair. But the emotional aspect of it, let me tell you was I cried. I fell in love with it. And I think it makes you less picky because you’re like, “I just love it. It’s beautiful. It’s my family. Okay. I want it.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. I’m going to go back there again. Okay. So it makes you less picky. Okay. So think about that. So when it’s presented to you as a whole, as a complete project, that takes on its own life, and it’s really hard to pick that apart. You could like you said. Of course, that photographer is not saying, “I am an artist, and if you change one thing, you’re going to ruin my vision.” No, no, no. That’s not the kind of artist we are. She’s saying I love your family. We had a beautiful time. I love this about your family. This is what makes you unique. Here’s my story and how I would tell it. And you said, “Okay. I love it so much. Can we make this picture a little bit bigger and that picture a little bit bigger? Because those are my favorites.” Done. So when it’s presented to you as a whole, as a story, you’re not going to go in and change the story.
Priscilla Klingler:
No. No.
Allison Tyler Jones:
So when you present it as pieces … Here’s 95 pictures on a table, and you make them go tell the story when they aren’t storytellers … They are not visual storytellers. That’s what they’re hiring you to do.
Priscilla Klingler: Exactly.
Allison Tyler Jones: Then it’s in your hair. Like you said, that was out of my hair. I didn’t have to deal with it. It’s in your hair. And every night that mom, I swear to you is laying in bed thinking, I got to pick that stuff and get back to her. She’s going to be mad at me. And it’s a weight on that mom. And you’re doing that to your client. And so then eventually what’s going to happen is a year’s going to go by, the prices have gone up on albums and or they’re going to say, “You know what, I thought that I liked it, but now that I’ve looked at these pictures every night for six months and I feel like it’s my job and it’s hard, and the excitement of the images has now bled off. Can I just get my money back?”
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Seriously. That’s what’s happening.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. You have to provide the full service for them. You’re the guide. You’re the expert. You have to guide them through it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I think playing small doesn’t serve any of us well. Thinking, oh, I’m not the artist. Oh, well, people just want what they want. They just need to pick everything. People don’t want to pick anything. They don’t want to know how it’s made. They just want the final result of this gorgeous … Like you said, they want to add of their hair, and they want to look at that imagery and remember what a great time they had with you. And now their scrapbooking is done for the year.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. And then they’re ready in a few more years down the road to do some more.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Priscilla Klingler: Because it was a good experience. I think sometimes too … Well, what happened with me is that I would see our album and I would think we need to get some more updated pictures so we need another session, which we did. Then we did it again.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and even having it in your studio or with your samples showing that … I’ll have one family that we photograph every year, and you see volumes of that. You don’t want to break your streak. You got ’20, ’21, ’22, ’23.
Priscilla Klingler: You can’t have a year missing.
Allison Tyler Jones: No. You can’t have a year missing. It’s such an amazing thing. The only thing people regret is not doing it. They regret the years that they skipped.
Priscilla Klingler: Oh, I agree. Yeah. I agree. I totally agree.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just unparalleled. The albums are so beautiful. Our clients just absolutely love them.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. Thank you.
Allison Tyler Jones: And that makes it easy to sell.
Priscilla Klingler: And I want to speak on that just for a little bit too, because one of the things that we’ve noticed this last trade show … We’ve been to several this year. And we seeing a lot of the same things are out there. Same type of printing, same cover options, same two fonts. And so we’re realizing that we do have something that is unique and sets us apart from other companies because of our printing on the inside. Because of the customization that you can do on the covers in any font that you want and design that you want. So I look at these other album companies, and there’s so many out there, and their images look beautiful until you see them in person. And so I just think that going into this year and realizing that we really have to showcase what makes us different, what’s setting us apart as well as album makers is the level of our customer service that we have, our printing. The insides of our book is just beautiful archival printing that is made to last.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So can I brag about you for a minute?
Priscilla Klingler: Oh, sure.
Allison Tyler Jones: Just the difference. You’re only as good as your vendors. So we can make the most beautiful imagery on the planet and if it’s printed like crap, it doesn’t matter if it can’t hold the range of tones or whatever, it doesn’t matter. If the book isn’t sewn, if it isn’t covered right there’s a lot of things that can happen. And things do happen.
Priscilla Klingler: Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: So we had one client who was probably … She was lovely, but she was one of those extremely … I’ll just say detailed. I won’t say picky with people. And we did the entire session, a multi-gen session, and it was on a really dark background, so there’s very heavy ink.
Priscilla Klingler: Oh, yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: And so what happened is, I think there was something in the rollers or whatever, but there was, if you turned the album a certain way, you could see the rollers .there was something that was happening. So she got the album We delivered the album before we delivered her wall art. And so we went to install the wall art, and she had the album out, and she’s like, “I just hate to be picky, but we just spent so much money for this album, and I just want it to be perfect.” And I said, “Well, let me see.” And so I could see what she was talking about. There was these little marks. So we called and I was like, “I don’t know because it was very subtle.” There was no, “Well, you need to send it back to us.” There was no proof. We sent pictures of it. But literally within a week we had that thing redone. And the client was like, “Oh my gosh, are you serious? You had this done so fast.” She was thrilled out of her mind. So happy. So that is just … You can’t put a price on that.
Priscilla Klingler: No. No. Yeah, because your problem is our problem.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, I know, but not everybody feels like that. Then the other thing that I love is the slip sheeting. So slip sheeting is between every page. It has a little piece of white paper that’s keeping … Because you’re printing that and it takes a while for things to dry or whatever.
Priscilla Klingler: Secure. Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: But you’re putting paper between each page so you’re that making sure that in shipping and everything, that it’s not rubbing. It’s just amazing.
Priscilla Klingler: Thank you. Thank you. Well, it really is a pleasure to work with you as well. We love seeing your work come through. And Oh, and you had all those gorgeous houses that you did last year that you photographed.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, well, I didn’t photograph. So that’s my sister’s work.
Priscilla Klingler: Oh my goodness.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, yeah. So let’s talk about that.
Priscilla Klingler: Those are so beautiful.
Allison Tyler Jones: Aren’t they so fun? Yeah.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: So my sister had a interior photographer because that’s how they showcase their work. They finish a project, and then they have it photographed before the clients can mess the house up.
Priscilla Klingler: Before they live in it before they live in it and start hanging up weird things from Kirkland Home or whatever. Before they start putting live laugh, love on the wall they have to photograph it very quickly. So she photographed how each of those projects photographed, and then what she gifted … So she gifts the client, an album, the builder and then the project designer. And then she keeps one for herself. So she would do four or five copies of each of those albums. Yeah.
Priscilla Klingler: Those were impressive. Those are impressive.
Allison Tyler Jones: She does beautiful work.
Priscilla Klingler: Oh yeah. Beautiful work. They printed beautifully. The colors were so vibrant in it. I love looking at it.
Allison Tyler Jones: So fun. Yeah. I love that you saw those. Yeah. No. The clients are just thrilled with them too, because it’s like a coffee table book of their house.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. Wow.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s so cool.
Priscilla Klingler: Very cool. Very cool idea. I love that. Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Well, any other final thoughts on encouraging those who are either struggling, struggling to sell albums or they want to sell albums and aren’t sure how to do it?
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. I just would say start small. Curate your options. You don’t have to offer everything. Reach out to us. Feel free to reach out to us. We can help guide you in the decision-making process. We can tell you what’s hot, what’s selling, what’s not.
Allison Tyler Jones: What’s hot? What’s hot and what’s selling? Tell us.
Priscilla Klingler: Okay, well, photo-wrap covers are making huge comeback. That’s what we started with years ago in 2003. We only did photo-wrap covers. And then over the years the debossing, the cloth leather, all of that’s gotten very popular. But now we’re seeing the coolest designs in the photo-wrap covers. Unique stuff. I love that. The slip cases for the albums, really popular. And what’s cool about those is you can still display them on the coffee table laying down, or you can have them standing up on a shelf. So they’re versatile that way. So we’re seeing those be very popular right now.
Allison Tyler Jones: Love it.
Priscilla Klingler: And then some of the nubuck leather that we have. Nubuck. That’s gotten really popular. All the natural finishes. Oh, one thing that’s really cool right now is we came out with the printed end sheets, so the end sheet can be printed on.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, that’s cool.
Priscilla Klingler: And that’s another layer of customization right there.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love the custom dust jackets too. I think those are So …
Priscilla Klingler: Those are awesome and they give you more real estate on the inside too, so you can put about the author, about the artist, about the photographer, or more pictures or whatever. Yeah. Those are really cool. We’re seeing a lot more editorial style .just like you were mentioning, the Tom Ford, the Chanel books, all that stuff that’s on the coffee table. So we’re seeing people design their albums to have more of that editorial high-end look.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Which is a lot of negative space and not like nine to 14 images on one page.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s the other reason why you can’t let clients pick, because they want everything. And so they’ll be like, “You have another page here. Can’t we get 17 images on this one eight by eight page?” No, you can’t.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. It’s going to be like the size of a thumbnail here, the picture.
Allison Tyler Jones: I know. It’s like so Shutterfly. I can’t handle it. It’s wrong. That’s what clients do when they’re left to their own devices.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. Paying us.
Allison Tyler Jones: They’re paying us to help them have better taste.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. Exactly.
Allison Tyler Jones: So it’s like my sister and I’ll be sitting at a restaurant somewhere and we’ll just be quiet. One of us will sigh and just say, “There’s just so much ugliness in the world.” And she’ll say, “I know. That’s why we have jobs.” There’s so much bad taste. She’s like, “I know. That’s why we have jobs.”
Priscilla Klingler: I have to meet your sister sometime.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh yeah, she’s great. You’d love her. We’ll make that happen. We’ll make that happen. We need to have an event or something down here.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I need you to come up here too sometime.
Allison Tyler Jones: Where are you at?
Priscilla Klingler: We’re in Iowa, right in the middle of the state in Marshalltown. So it’s convenient for shipping too, because we can get stuff shipped and deliver to your door within a few days.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Priscilla Klingler: Convenient.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. You’re great. You do such a good job. Well, I appreciate you so much, and thank you. I know you’re so busy.
Priscilla Klingler: No. It’s my pleasure.
Allison Tyler Jones: Thank you for taking the time to let us know. What’s your sample? How can people, if they want to do a sample album, they’re going to go to visionart.com.
Priscilla Klingler: Yes. visionart.com. So if you haven’t already, just register for an account. That’s really the first step. And then we have sample albums all year long, Fifty-percent off. So we are really investing in you, and the photographer. We’re so confident that you’re going to be able to sell these albums once you have a sample in your hand that that’s why we give 50% off all year long.
Allison Tyler Jones: And if you’re not sure, they can call you or call the
Priscilla Klingler: Oh yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely. Say, “Okay. Here’s my work. Can I send you a couple? What should I pick?” You could help them.
Priscilla Klingler: Yeah. Absolutely. So we send out our Calendly links a lot. I have one. Summer Copper, she also has one too. We help clients the most with those types of calls. And you probably a lot have probably met Summer already too at our trade shows. So yeah, they could schedule a Zoom, call a one-on-one, and that’s the best thing to do because then we can really help you out a lot. We can show you things over video. We can help you decide what to pick. Do you like this? Do you like that? No. Or they’ll say, “What’s a dust jacket?” Or, “What’s a sample of a slipcase?” Or, “What is the Folio? What does that look like?” There’s so many questions because not everybody can get to the trade shows, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Priscilla Klingler: We wish they could, but not everybody can. So this is the next best thing.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s great. That’s amazing. Okay. So schedule a Zoom call and look at your options, and then I’m assuming you’ll show them what’s available. And then when you see this, I’m talking to you photographers, ReWork listeners. When you see all the things that are available, then pick one thing, not all the things. Pick one sexy thing that is your thing, And then have Priscilla whip you up a sample of it, and then just start painting that vision for your clients and they are going to love it.
Priscilla Klingler: I love that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Thank you for being here. I appreciate you so much.
Priscilla Klingler: Oh, thank you. It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison at dotherework.com and on Instagram at Do.The.Rework.
Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait…
Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait…
Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait…