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 Alison uses in her portrait studio every single day. She will challenge your thinking and inspire your confidence to create a profitable, sustainable portrait business you love through continually refining and reworking your business. Let’s do the rework.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, today we are so lucky to have in the podcast studio Elizabeth Homan. She is an amazing photographer from San Antonio, Texas, and the owner of Artistic Images. Elizabeth was one of the youngest women in Texas to earn the three top credentials from PPA. She has her Master’s of Photography, she’s a CPP, and a Photographic Craftsman. So she’s won a gajillion awards. She’s a respected educator and mentor. She’s taught at Texas School and she’s a sales queen. She’s been a business for 33 years, and we are just so lucky to have her today because it’s going to be girl talk, all things sales and that. So welcome, Elizabeth. I’m so happy to have you here.
Elizabeth Homan: Well, thank you so much for having me. I can’t wait to have girl talk.
Allison Tyler Jones: I know. It’s going to be awesome. So we were chatting before we got on and you were kind of telling me of the 33 years, I didn’t realize that you had not been doing your own sales, that you actually had a salesperson doing that for you. So tell me what happened and what’s been going on the last five years.
Elizabeth Homan: Okay. Well, I’m going to go back just a wee bit. So when we started my business, I was super young, fresh out of college. My parents started the studio with me, my dad being the marketing business person and my mom being the salesperson because if your mom is selling your work, you’ve done nothing wrong. Everything is beautiful because your mom thinks you’re perfect. Right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, I love that. I didn’t know about your mom. That’s amazing.
Elizabeth Homan: My mom was my salesperson for the first 5, 6, 7 years or so. But she has super strong opinions, and so she would start to maybe tick a few people off with her strong opinions.
Allison Tyler Jones: So do we have the same mother?
Elizabeth Homan: I think maybe.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. Okay. Yes, I can totally see my mom doing that.
Elizabeth Homan: So we hired a sales girl a long time ago, and she was my salesperson for 16 years. And she was amazing, everybody loved her. She may have been opinionated, but she didn’t let them know. But she was very knowledgeable and she was very organized and very kind and very patient, and she’s kind of the perfect sale person all wrapped in one. Well, she retired.
Allison Tyler Jones: How dare she.
Elizabeth Homan: So when she retired, we were like, Oh, crap. What are we going to do now?” So we hired someone to take her space and she trained her. Well, that person, it did not go well at all. It did not go well. She was not a good employee of ours, but she was also ticking my clients off because she didn’t have all the wonderful attributes that my other one had.
Elizabeth Homan: So we let her go and we said, “Well, I’m just going to do my own sale.” And I was like, “Well, crap. I’ve never done sales.” I’ve been teaching and I teach the philosophy of the sale, but I never actually had done sales. In fact, at that point, I had done one sales session for a high school senior and it was the lowest sale of those sales we had that year. My sales person called in sick, and I had to fill in for her but I didn’t know what I was doing.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Yeah. But that’s super scary.
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah. Because I was just terrible at it, I thought. And I also was just as the artist, as the person creating it, you get a little bit attached. And so, I was really afraid that when they wanted to delete an image or they said they didn’t like it, that I would really take it personally and I would let that personal attack on my art show on my face and my body language, and I didn’t want that to happen. But I was like, “Am I going to break down into tears sometimes when they’re like, ‘Oh no, not that one. Oh no, not that one,'” or whatever. And I was like-
Allison Tyler Jones: So you had a lot of fear about that.
Elizabeth Homan: I did.
Allison Tyler Jones: So you were afraid that you would take it too personally.
Elizabeth Homan: Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: Or afraid that you didn’t know what you were doing even though you taught it.
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah. But I had never actually used ProSelect.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay.
Elizabeth Homan: So first of all, the very first one that I did when I started doing the sales was a client who’d been with us for like 20 years. So I said, “I am going to fumble through this program because I’m just learning it.” I had practiced, but I still wasn’t 100% really good with it at that point. I still had to think about it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Elizabeth Homan: But I fumbled through it, everything went fine. And of course, I got better and better at it. But at that time, I just didn’t really even know how the program works. And obviously it’s very intuitive. I now could close my eyes and do it all by feel. But at the time, that was a little scary for me, just using a program I hadn’t used.
Elizabeth Homan: And then, I was also wasn’t really sure how to sell to people. But I read some books and I talked to some of my friends who are in the industry, and they explained to me something that has stuck with me and that I continue to teach to this day is that I’m not selling my work to my client. I am helping them select the right thing for them.
Elizabeth Homan: And when I stopped thinking about selling it and I started thinking about guiding them to the correct decision for them, it all became so easy. But there are times when they go, “No, I don’t like that one” and I will literally take my hands like a dagger into my heart and I will like, “Oh, that’s my favorite one. Are you serious?” And they’re like, “Well, maybe I do like it. Why, tell me why you like it.” So I’ll explain why I like it. And then they’ll be like, “Oh yeah, we can’t delete that. Let’s keep that pinned as Elizabeth’s favorite.” So I am not afraid to share my opinion, but I don’t typically put my opinion in there at the beginning or too often, only really when it’s warranted.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Okay. I love that. So the books that you read, were there any standouts that you could share?
Elizabeth Homan: I read a bunch. I’d read Go For No, which really came further in my sales time. Because now it’s not about making sure that they just get the right choice, but it’s also making sure that I keep asking. I want them to get to a point where they go, “No, I think I’m good” instead of stopping and not realizing the full potential. I’ve talked to Lisa Daniel, and I’ve listened to all the great instructors out there that have talked about sales, talked about the way that they do it and what they say, and I’ve just taken little bits and pieces from everybody and I do it my own way.
Allison Tyler Jones: Which is genius and that’s the way that everybody should do it, because if you try to be somebody else, you can’t. So I love that. Okay. So then I have a question too. Why didn’t you try to just find another salesperson? What made you finally decide, “Okay, I actually am just going to do this.” Because you could have just kept looking. You’ve never sold your own work. You have these legitimate fears and it’s another appointment for you. It’s taking time out of your schedule. So what was the thing that made you say, “Okay, well, I’m going to keep doing this”?
Elizabeth Homan: Well, I think it was kind of too bold. So that was like 2019 I think, when all of that went down, 2018, 2019. And we had by design through the years become a more luxury, higher priced low volume studio. And so, we were getting to the point where I actually could. I had the time in my calendar to be able to do the sessions and do the sales.
Elizabeth Homan: When that not-good-fit person was in our business, it first of all caused us a whole lot of stress. And I had our very best client, one of our very best clients at the time, literally call me and tell me that, “This person is going to cost you business.” She goes, “I will call you and tell you why I’m a fit, but somebody else may not, and I want you to know.”
Elizabeth Homan: And so, when that happened, I was just like, “I’m in control of myself. I know these people.” I’ve known them forever. I have so many repeat clients. I’m like, “What about if I just do it and let’s see how it goes. And if it doesn’t go well, then we can look beyond the search.” You’re really hiring a personality and you can train them all you can on the photography and the sales aspect, but if you don’t have the right personality, then it’s not going to work.
Elizabeth Homan: And it really was my husband believing that I could do it, knowing that, and talking to some mentors and saying, “You’re the best one to sell your own work, Elizabeth, you’re the best one.” And I was like, “Oh, no. I don’t know. I think I’m going to be a little heartbroken if people don’t buy.”
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s so funny. Well, but what the results of it was that you actually sold more.
Elizabeth Homan: I ended up doubling my sales-
Allison Tyler Jones: Amazing.
Elizabeth Homan: … in that first year. Was amazing, and what was really amazing about it is that in the past couple of years, the sale kind of got stagnant. They weren’t going up. They were maintaining about the same, and we hadn’t been selling a ton of wall portraits, which is our specialty, and I didn’t understand why until I took over and I realized really the beauty of the SendMyRooms feature and stuff in ProSelect.
Allison Tyler Jones: Getting those wall images so that you could mock up a wall.
Elizabeth Homan: Right. Yeah. When they see it on the wall, it’s a done deal and you don’t have to sell anything. You just show them the right size and they say, “Oh, well, I like that buy.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Yep. So true. So you found then that your prior salesperson had not been doing that.
Elizabeth Homan: Right. No, had not been doing that. And about that time, I’m kind of thinking was about SendMyRooms had just been introduced.
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Elizabeth Homan: And so, it was harder for people to take their photos and make sure that they did it. And we weren’t adamant about them sending it in before they came in for the order appointments. So there were lots of adjustments happening along the way, “Let’s make sure we get this.” And I realized how easy it makes my sales go when I have the wall put on. I insist on it now, and I educate them prior to letting them know why I need it so that I have a better success rate.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Same. I won’t have a view and order appointment without it, because I can’t. It would be like not having the images.
Elizabeth Homan: Right, right, right. Yeah, exactly.
Allison Tyler Jones: If you don’t have the place where they’re going to go, I can’t show you the pictures because we don’t have the place where they’re going to live.
Elizabeth Homan: I think that sometimes the customer does not really understand what you need it for, so that’s why you have to educate them why. Because I don’t know about you, when I first started doing it, I did get photos of literally just the wall. I could see the texture in the wall.
Allison Tyler Jones: The drywall, a piece of drywall. You’re like, “Hmm.”
Elizabeth Homan: That’s not really what I want.
Allison Tyler Jones: No.
Elizabeth Homan: I educate them about it during the consultation, and so it makes everything a lot easier.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Well, but it’s fair and I agree that when you make a change, any change in your business, if you haven’t properly educated your clients about why, you are going to get the pushback. And I feel like as a client, what I felt like my clients were feeling is like, “Okay, so I’m going to send you all these pictures of my house, and you’re just going to try to decorate my entire house out of one photo shoot.” So that’s one thing that I try to say, “Look, just so you know, send me as many pictures as you want. We’re not going to decorate your whole house out of one photo shoot. That would be ridiculous. It’ll just give us options of places for them to go.”
Allison Tyler Jones: And so, me being the one to bring that up is really helpful for them. You can kind of see them relax when they’re new clients and they don’t understand. “Well, wait, what?” Yeah, no, that helps because you can see, especially if they’re an auction winner or somebody that’s come off of some kind of a marketing, they don’t know me from Adam. They don’t really know what’s going on, so it’s kind of like, “Well, wait. Why do you need pictures of my house? That seems very invasive.” Yeah.
Elizabeth Homan: I’ve had that. I’ve had that pushback, but that’s a really good idea. If I bring that up, then they’ll understand.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Elizabeth Homan: That we’re not… And then we have to put everything on your wall from this session back. No, no, we have room for you to come back.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, right. And then also I’ll say, so often people will send one or two walls, then they’ll come in and they see the pictures, and then they’re going, “Oh. Shoot. We should do the playroom or the hallway.” And then they’re calling the nanny trying to get her to take pictures, and it’s just never… Just get them ahead of time.
Elizabeth Homan: Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: So I just let them know what has happened in the past, and then they just calm down. Because nobody’s holding a gun to your head. Just give me some pictures of your walls. Yeah. So you started to SendMyRooms. So it sounds like there were kind of two events that came together to double those sales. One was that you started fully using ProSelect and then you were also doing the sales. So besides ProSelect, what do you feel like that you, Elizabeth, did differently than your prior salesperson to make those sales be higher? Do you feel like there’s anything else you did besides ProSelect?
Elizabeth Homan: Just the fact that I’m the one who started and created. I’m the artist. I’m the one with the vision. And actually, now I absolutely love the sales because I get to see the vision all the way through to create the thing that goes on their wall. And I am pretty creative, and so there are times that we’re in there and an idea may come to me that I can express to them, and they can go, “Wow, that is an awesome concept.” And they go with it because they trust me as the artist; whereas if it’s somebody else, they just may not have that faith in them that they have in me.
Elizabeth Homan: So I feel like that’s a big part of it, that I kind of wish that I would’ve made that change many years before. But I may not have been ready confidence-wise to do that. It has taken me a while to be confident enough in my opinions and ideas that I can express that to the client without feeling if they go, “Nah, that’s not something we want to do,” then I can just move on to the next idea that I might have.
Allison Tyler Jones: I was speaking in a previous episode with Drake Busath and his sales person, Linda, and they just are set up for… Those guys that are shooting, they just don’t want to sell. They just want to create pretty pictures. They really, they’ll shoot to a creative agenda as far as what the client has said that they want, but they don’t want to go in there and sell. And they never want to do it. And they have great salespeople that do it.
Allison Tyler Jones: So it’s legit. If you know a hundred percent to your core that this is not something that you want to do, you think, “Never, never, never,” then I think you’re right. Stay with it. But things can change. And I love that about when you own your own business, that you can dip in and out of things. And so, sometimes we tell it. When I started, I swore I wasn’t going to do families because I just didn’t want to deal with the dads. And I thought adults are too hard. And now that’s my bread and butter, and that’s my favorite thing. So I think allowing ourselves to evolve, I think that’s a really inspiring story. And that’s a long time. For your entire business, you had somebody selling your work and then you just all of a sudden popped up and did it, so that’s so cool.
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah. Well, I think people really appreciate that I’m taking the time to finalize the project. We start out with starting with the end in mind at the consultation, and then I feel like I would be leaving them now in the middle of it, passing them off to somebody else. So I feel like it’s just been an awesome transition, and I can’t imagine it now any other way. Scheduling gets a little complicated, but no, I wouldn’t have it any other way now. Now that I know what I know and I have the confidence to do it. And I think confidence comes with practice.
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Elizabeth Homan: The first time I did it, I was very unsure of myself, and the more I practiced and the more I listened to people and wasn’t formulating what I was going to stay next, but I was just really listening to what they were saying, the easier it got. It’s not selling at all. It’s just helping your client something find that they really wanted to begin with.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. You’re helping them complete a project, which I love that. So the advice that you got previously from other friends and mentors in the industry about, it’s not this idea of this sales thing. I think so often with sales training, we have that idea that we’re going to be the used car salesmen, that you have to have tricky verbiage or whatever. But really it’s just, here we are together, working on a project together and helping them get what they want. So talk to me about some of the things that you do that you feel like might be counterintuitive to what you have learned about sales before, maybe a number of images shown, that sort of thing.
Elizabeth Homan: Many moons ago when I was just a youngin’ the field, one of my mentors, Don MacGregor, he’s from Canada, I took his class at Texas School a couple of times, and then I wrangled for him, which was their little assistant type position they have there. And this was a long time ago. It was still film. And so, I photographed a lot. I am overshooter. I am the president of the Overshooters Anonymous Club.
Allison Tyler Jones: I’m the vice president.
Elizabeth Homan: Okay. Okay, great. And so, he told me, “If you’re going to do in-person sales,” because at the time I was like checking out for the equivalent of putting your gallery online.
Allison Tyler Jones: Got it.
Elizabeth Homan: He said, “If you’re going to do in-person sales, you’re going to have to cull down and you cannot take this many photos. You cannot give this many photos to your clients.” Just to share with you what an overshooter I am, my husband and I were able to go on a cruise with the points we saved up from the pro packs of Fujifilm boxes, and we had some left over. So yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Wow.
Elizabeth Homan: Maybe two cruises. Yeah, it’s crazy. So when digital came along, I really never changed much. I didn’t all of a sudden start becoming a huge overshooter. I was already an overshooter.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s just who you were.
Elizabeth Homan: Right. It’s just who I am. But anyway, I told Don MacGregor, I said, “Watch me. I will keep doing what I’m doing and I’ll figure out how to make it work.” So I was one of the very early people in the industry that was starting to sell albums of family portraits.
Elizabeth Homan: So back in the day when there were wedding albums and maybe some engagement albums, but you’d go to the trade show and there’s not one album with a family in it. I started selling family albums, and I’ve been selling them for 28 years probably because of my overshooting. Because they’re going to put some things up on the wall, a couple of images up on the wall, but what do they do with the rest? We had an answer to what they do with the rest.
Elizabeth Homan: And so, most of the family sessions are going to have between 125 images just to choose from. That would just be a typical family session. But I also do destination sessions where we might go to Italy and photograph or Maui. And so, for those ones, we’re going to have more. I spend more time. We maybe go to a couple different locations in that area, and so I may have more images to choose from or for them to choose from.
Elizabeth Homan: So it makes it very easy to sell albums, especially if you have options for that in the album. So I have albums that start at just 20 images. I have a wedding album style album we call the Art Book that is, it’s literally like a wedding album. So it’s multiple images on a page, on a spread, and the biggest one holds 150 images. So if I have something to sell them that is 150 images, I can’t give them 150 images to choose from.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Elizabeth Homan: It has to be more than that so they can cull some out. So that last scenario of the biggest album that we have is not something I sell every day. The 50 image album I sell literally every day. And if I didn’t have more than 50 images to choose from, and I’m not talking 50 images of the same pose, just different expressions, I’m talking moving around and changing poses-
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re shooting a lot of variety.
Elizabeth Homan: Active and doing some looking at the camera and some not looking at the camera, and then the kids together and the kids individually and all those combos. They can’t say no to all of these. And so, instead of, and I tell them, You can’t put all of these on your wall, but you can put them in an album.” And so, we’ve been doing that for many years and probably 75% of my sessions buy an album. So that’s why I told Don just to watch me and I like rubbing it into him when I see him every now and then that I am still an overshooter and I am making it work for me.
Allison Tyler Jones: And you’re making it work. Okay. So I have questions. I have so many questions. Okay. So in your consultation, are they committing to an album ahead of time or how does that go?
Elizabeth Homan: They’re not necessarily committing to it, but I am showing them and saying we offer… I show them all the different wall art and then I show them the different albums. And it’s amazing. Many of them are like, “I’m not interested in an album,” many of them at the beginning, until they see the images. And then when they see them and they can’t live without them, they buy them anyway.
Elizabeth Homan: And a lot of times they will have said no, they’re not really interested in an album at the consultation. So then during the session, I’m not going overboard. I’m doing what I normally do, thinking they’re not going to buy an album, but I still want them to have enough to be able to if they wanted to. And so, then when they come in for the sales and I start saying, “Well, have you put any thought into what you’re wanting to do?” They go, “Yeah, we’ve decided we’re going to love a lot of these, so we’re probably going to do an album and portraits of the wall.”
Elizabeth Homan: And so, in between, they just watched me work at the session and already know that they’re probably going to want an album. So even if they still are at the point not thinking an album, but we’ve gone and started culling down and they’re down to their 75 favorites, then we pick our ones for the wall and then I say, “Well, what would you like to do with the rest?” And then they go, “Well, what are my options?” And so, then I can show them that. And nine times out 10, they’re like, “Yeah, that’s what we want.” And I have clients that have been coming to me for many, many years that collect these albums now.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh yeah, of course.
Elizabeth Homan: Specifically to put a new volume on their bookshelf, these albums. So yeah, it’s been instrumental for us.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. Okay. So of the 25% that don’t buy the album, what are they doing? What are they leaving with and what are they saying if they’re just literally not going to buy an album? And how do you feel about that?
Elizabeth Homan: Well, I always want to sell the album. My husband was like, “The album is really time-consuming and very expensive to create.” Sometimes it’s kind of like a sigh of relief. “Oh good. They didn’t buy an album. We don’t have 75 images to retouch.”
Elizabeth Homan: But one of the things that I have sold a lot of in the past probably 10 years have become super popular is our wall collections. They’re just gallery wrapped collections. Like the wall art behind you, all of them would be from the same session. And the collection can have, it’s minimum of three, there’s no maximum. And so now, instead of just picking one image to go on one wall, they pick 6, 7, 8, 9 images.
Allison Tyler Jones: To kind of tell the story.
Elizabeth Homan: Yes, on the wall. And so, then they’re just getting their absolute favorites, but they’re getting multiple of them, not just one image. Because it’s really hard. You can’t give them a hundred images and expect them to pick one. Usually we’re going to either do multiple walls or a wall and an album or a wall collection.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Elizabeth Homan: Well, I don’t know about you, but our sales are declining so much on gift portraits, like 8x10s and that thing.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, yeah.
Elizabeth Homan: That has been declining steadily. So the acrylic blocks have become really popular because they can’t get those everywhere and they’re unique. They’re not inexpensive by any means, but people just love those. So having some specialty products that could just sit on a shelf or something are also a good option.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I have a theory about that declining 8×10 gift print. And I think it’s the higher… When you go higher end, especially if your focus is on wall or custom designed albums, they don’t even know to ask for it. It’s kind of like you wouldn’t go to, I can’t even think of an example right now, but you wouldn’t go… It’s almost like those are parts and pieces, and we’re selling a bigger solution than that, so they don’t even see it. Whereas when I started out, that’s all I was selling was a bunch of like, “Oh, how many 8x10s can I get? How many 5x7s?” You’re all in gift print land, and you’re just praying that they put something on the wall. So I think that’s just an indicator of how you’ve stepped up your…
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah. I’m thinking you’re absolutely right. You hit the nail on the head.
Allison Tyler Jones: With what your focus is on. Okay. So some thoughts that I have about album, and I’ll just tell you what my philosophy is and we can argue about this. Because I totally get what you’re saying is that you need… Very often people will say they don’t want to do things because they think, especially with albums, a lot of my clients that buy albums present at the beginning and say, “I’m never going to look at it.” And then I’m like, “Okay, but your kids will.” And then like you said, they’re in the session and then they’re like, “Well, okay, we’re here. We’re dressed up. We look cute. We’re having a good time. I do want dad and the boy, and I do want dad and the girl, and I do want…” They start wanting those breakouts.
Allison Tyler Jones: And so, when they’re wanting that in my world, if they haven’t committed to an album, so in my consultation, I’m saying to them, exposing them to album, and then they’re saying yay or nay. And then I’ll just let them know, “Look, I don’t have to know right now, but that’s a little bit different session when we’re shooting an album, because I’m going to shoot more in-between moments, more storytelling, more breakouts. But if we don’t need it, if there’s no place for that image to live, let’s not stress everybody out by doing all of these breakouts. There’s only so much good energy to go around.” Right?
Allison Tyler Jones: And so, then we get in there, very often they’ll say, “Well, okay, I do want dad and the girls, I do want mom and the boys.” And so then I’ll say, “Okay, where’s that going to live? Is that going to go on the wall or should we just divert and go to an album?” And so, it kind of commits them a little bit. It kind of gets them in their mind to where if that even makes sense.
Elizabeth Homan: It 100% makes sense because I’ve listened to you say this before, and I have taken your words and said them out of my mouth to my client. “Where is that going to live? Because I feel like it’s a brilliant, brilliant thing. Let’s just not take photos to take photos.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Elizabeth Homan: “I’m not giving you digital files for you to go print your own stuff. That’s not what I do. So we’re either going to put them on the wall or we’re going to put them in an album.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And I will tell them this too, is I don’t want them to be sitting there while we’re, because we don’t really do a lot of cull. We don’t almost do any culling at all in a view and order appointment.
Elizabeth Homan: Wow.
Allison Tyler Jones: Almost none. I am just presenting to them, “This is it.” Maybe if they’re doing a big family portrait, “Here’s one in that position, here’s one in that pose, and here’s one in that pose.” And we’ve already kind of pre-done the heads, done a pre-touch. So I just really am showing them one of each thing. And then, I have tucked in a folder some extras if I been worried about the sixteen-year-old or whatever.
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: And then, if they have said an album then I’ve got that laid out and then I have their walls laid out. And then, of course there are going to be a few more things because if their kids are doing something cute, I’m going to shoot it. I’m not going to not take it. But I worry about getting into something where they feel like they’ve been had or they feel so pressured, like, “I can’t not do these, now what do I do?” And they’re super stressed.
Elizabeth Homan: Right. Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: So do you feel like you ever run into that, or is that really not a problem?
Elizabeth Homan: I don’t think it’s a problem. If they say, “Oh gosh, here’s the photo of the kids individually. Now we’re not doing the album. What are we going to do with these ones?” And I was like, “We could put the 8x10s out on your dresser, or we could do a wall collection where we put three portraits on the wall hanging together or something like that.” So now I just start giving them other alternatives instead of saying, “Well, you just don’t get those.” They’re like, “What else could I do with these?”
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Elizabeth Homan: And I just start brainstorming some ideas that they could do with them.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and it’s obvious why 75% of your clients are buying the album because you’re giving them a story, which is great. Okay. So I would make the case that could you do it, could you tell that story for whatever it is that you’re charging for your album with less images? Because then you have a yes, there’s a lot of images, but it’s maybe not so many, to have less images in an album. So instead of, what did you say, your 50-image album that you’re selling every day, how many pages is that typically?
Elizabeth Homan: It’s actually 50, though because I have two types of albums. The one album that’s the 50, it also comes in 40, 30, or 20. And it’s one image per page. So it’s less storytelling and more like an old-fashioned album.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Okay.
Elizabeth Homan: Ones we’ve been doing, they’re flush mounted. The image is like square. If it’s a 10×10 album, the image goes all the way. Anyway, so that’s that portrait album is what that called. Now, the art book, when they move into the art book is the one that’s designed like a wedding album with multiple images per.
Allison Tyler Jones: Got it.
Elizabeth Homan: And that is on average about two and a half images per page. And I have three different sizes of those too. That actual album, the 11×14 album, either vertical or horizontal, depending on…
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. And I know you probably are feeling like okay, you’re taking me down to a granular, but honestly, this is something, well, you know. You educate. People are very interested about albums. How are you doing this? How are you selling them?
Allison Tyler Jones: What I have found that has, and I think all of us have to find our sweet spot, right? You are an overshooter even in film, and somebody told you that it needs to be this way. And you said, “No, watch me. I’m going to go make that good.” I would love to challenge you a little bit is that keep that, because I think that’s core to your personality. But could you, when you sell an album, not feel like, “Oh my gosh, thank goodness we didn’t sell it because we are not doing 50 images.” Could you do it like, “My album that I sell day in, day out is like 17 images”?
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah. I do have the smaller images. And one thing that I will do is that oftentimes they just go, “Okay, just put the rest in the album.” And I say, “Nope, we need to go through them. We do not want repetition. That’s silly. And so, you don’t want to be looking at two images and trying to figure out what’s the differences. So if we have two images that are similar and you like both of them, we need to pick one.” And then, so every time you turn the page, it’s a different pose, it’s a different expression, it’s a different whatever, combination.
Elizabeth Homan: And so after, let’s say they’ve got the images in there, but once we start taking out ones that are kind of too similar, it ends up that we have 26 images, then that’s where we land.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Elizabeth Homan: And so, then we’re okay because 26 images is nothing. And even the 50 images is totally doable. It’s those bigger albums where they have an ungodly amount, a wedding album-
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, it’s a lot.
Elizabeth Homan: … from a portrait session. But there are some customers, I don’t know if you have ever run into this, but they are like, “No, I will not delete. I want both of them.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Elizabeth Homan: But they’re so similar. They’re like, “I can’t even see the difference. I should have culled one out earlier.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Elizabeth Homan: They would sob. But no, and then they won’t let me eliminate them, so I’m like, “Oh.” So then I make one really small on the page and one big.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes. Well, yeah. So right, we’ve all run into that, right? And so, then I’m realizing that I have to spend more time on the front end. I find the more time I spend getting prepped for a view and order, the better it goes. And sometimes I have time to really prep and dial it in. And when I don’t, when I don’t, I always regret it. That’s what happens. And then they want both of them and then you’re like, “Okay, why did I even show them something that I didn’t like? Why am I putting a knife in my heart? Because I should have only shown them the one that I liked.” And then you could have another one in your back pocket if they hate that or whatever.
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: But yeah, my trajectory is very similar to yours. I found that the more I had an opinion, the more they wanted to hear it, the less “work” I gave them to do culling, the happier they are. My sales appointments are 20, 30 minutes.
Elizabeth Homan: Oh my gosh.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s so fast because I’ve picked it. And they just are at this point, and this is where I think maybe your next iteration is. It’s not to tell you not to overshoot because you love that, but just to say, rather than if they say to you, “Just put the rest in the album,” put a price on that, and great. “Let’s do it.” And then, just say, “I’m going to design it however I’m going to design it how I think best. So sure, we’ll go ahead and do that.” And then the price is what the price is.
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah. I have no problem doing that. But you’re right. When I have the ability and the time to go through and cull anything that’s too similar out, it does make their job way easier, because I don’t want to have two that are almost exactly the same in there. But sometimes it happens on accident.
Allison Tyler Jones: I know.
Elizabeth Homan: I’m trying to go too fast, or I’m doing this at night and I’ve had a glass or two of wine and I just missed it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Our mom energy kicks in and you’re like, “Well, but she slightly got this little bit of a chin tilt, and then this one, the eyebrow is a little bit raised. And she might hate that look and really love this other one.” We tell ourselves stories.
Elizabeth Homan: That is so what I do. It is 100% what I do.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Elizabeth Homan: “I’m going to let them decide because they may like that.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. “And who am I to decide?” And then when you put the wine down and you wake up, you’re like, “Oh, okay. Actually, I am the one to decide. Yeah.” And then, it’s just less time considering, and then you don’t even have to have that conversation.
Allison Tyler Jones: So I just found, I had a couple. What made me realize this is I had… If my clients are listening to this, they’re going to be like, “Oh, great.” Have you ever had a situation where sometimes you just have a family where they’re super nice, but there’s just not a lot of air there, personality wise, right? So you don’t get a lot. So I had a situation where they didn’t want a lot, and then there wasn’t a lot there. So there were not very many images. And it was one of the best sales, so fast because there weren’t a lot of images. And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” I’m still an overshooter. I still am shooting three to 700 images, but on a family session, even a big one, I’m showing at the most 20 to 30 images, at the most.
Elizabeth Homan: Wow.
Allison Tyler Jones: And with an album, maybe like 50. But that’s a lot.
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: So anyway, just something, again, don’t do my way. I’m just thinking of your-
Elizabeth Homan: There’s more than one way to do it. And that’s the beauty about this conversation because we can argue all day long.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Elizabeth Homan: The beauty is that your way is working for you, and my way works for me.
Allison Tyler Jones: Totally.
Elizabeth Homan: There is going to be a point where my husband who told me, “I hate that you have to come home every night and cull in your office while I’m watching TV with my glass of wine, and you’re in the office with your glass of wine, and we’re not together.” Of course, we work together, live together, so maybe… He’s like, “If you just wouldn’t take so many, you wouldn’t have to sit in there and cull for so long.” And I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, he’s right.” He is right, no doubt. And there’s going to be some point where I’m going to be very happy that I toned it down a little bit.
Elizabeth Homan: And I did have a sale last week. It was an auction winner, and we kind of were making bets about how much extra the auction winner was going to spend. We really didn’t think much. And the children were very difficult, and we had a hard time during the session. And I just didn’t get as many images as I would’ve liked. But I still think I had 75 or 80. And not all of them were great, but I wanted them to be able to delete some because they could see that the kids weren’t that great. They weren’t always smiling or pretty much ever, never smiled. But they surprised the heck out of me and they spent like, she had like $5,000 over her auction certificate.
Allison Tyler Jones: Awesome.
Elizabeth Homan: Because she loved them so much. And she was in there for less than an hour, which my sales appointments are usually quite a bit longer than that. You can imagine with the amount that I get them. But I was like, “Wow, you were so fast.” And I was just floored. And one day I am going to prove to myself that more isn’t always better, but I’m a person who likes choices. And if you go into my closet, I ought to have, I fill the space with the things.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Elizabeth Homan: There’s no, I cannot fit any more in my closet without purging some, but I don’t toss it because I might need that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. So basically you’re a hoarder is what we’re saying, and a really high-end hoarder. Yes.
Elizabeth Homan: I am a hoarder.
Allison Tyler Jones: My closet’s the same, by the way. I’m not judging. But yeah, I totally can relate to what you’re saying.
Elizabeth Homan: But one of my best friends, she’s a realtor, she comes in and looks at my closet and she goes, “I don’t know how you decide what to wear every day.” And I go to her closet and it’s like there. And I’m like, “I don’t know. You have no choices.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Elizabeth Homan: That’s just who I am.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. It’s who you are. I love it. Well, but I would say too, I think about, I’ve had some students and some friends who have done that Sue Bryce method, right? Women, and they come in, they’ve got the hair, the makeup, it’s an all day, six-hour thing. They’re picking from all of these outfits. There’s a million images, and then it’s this whole thing.
Allison Tyler Jones: And yes, they love it-ish, but it’s like they’re so worn out. It’s such a thing. And then selecting. So I think that there are going to be, you probably really attract people that like a lot of choice. I would challenge that. I think that there’s probably a subsection of your clientele that is like, “Elizabeth, you are in charge. Please just do this for me and let’s never have this conversation and never make me pick again.”
Allison Tyler Jones: That would be me if I came to you, because your work is absolutely gorgeous. So if my family came to San Antonio and we were going to do a multi-gen session, like an extended family session or whatever, I would just say to you, “Here’s the money. I need you to pick. I need you to select, and then just send it to me. And I don’t want to see an unretouched. I don’t want, don’t want to know from that, because I want you to just do it. I can’t sit here and go back and forth on it and have that much time. I can’t.”
Allison Tyler Jones: So that’s just a thought, that I think there’s probably a subsection of your clientele that is like, “I don’t want to do this,” and that would be super happy and that that could… You’re still going to have a ton of images, but you’re going to put them all in and they’re going to pay you for them all. But they don’t have to sit there and pick through them.
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah. I know you’re right. I know that there are people that, some of my clients who would prefer that I just take 20 images and retouch them and put them on their walls and just they don’t have to do anything.
Allison Tyler Jones: So then the words for that that I found really helpful is that let’s say that you get to that point where they’re like, “Okay, look, just put the rest in the album.” Okay? Then you just say, “Okay, so you’re just going to let me do my thing, right? Because I have an idea of how this is going to go. And there’s a couple of these that might be similar, and so you might see one, you might see two, but just let me do my thing.”
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, do your thing. And then, they don’t have to sit there and go through the rest of it. They will probably pay more.
Elizabeth Homan: I have actually done that. I have, because I can tell when decision fatigue is setting in. And so, when I sense that and they’re at, “okay, let’s just put the rest in the album,” I go, “Great. I will design it.” And they’ll forget all about the fact that there may have been two, one with the eyebrow raised and one without the eyebrow raised. They’ll forget. So yeah, I absolutely do understand what you’re saying.
Allison Tyler Jones: I want you to have wine with your husband. I want you to watch Netflix together.
Elizabeth Homan: We watch Netflix in separate rooms.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes. It’s so romantic. Yeah. No, I understand. I work with my husband too. We drive separately to work, even though we literally work three acres from our home, but we drive separately because there has to be some alone time, right?
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: So good. Okay. So what we’ve learned, what have we learned? Let’s encapsulate what we’ve learned.
Elizabeth Homan: Elizabeth needs some therapy.
Allison Tyler Jones: No, absolutely not. We’ve learned that follow, I think what I’ve learned from you is that you can make it work. People said to me, “You cannot shoot people every year just shooting in studio. People will not go for that.” And I am like, “Watch me.”
Elizabeth Homan: Yep.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right? Because I have a different concept. We all have our own way. So I think you have taken advice from others. You have made it your own. I love the ProSelect, the Room Views, not doing a sales appointment without Room Views.
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Game changer.
Elizabeth Homan: Game changer.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Just the view, just the Room Views alone in ProSelect, just that alone.
Elizabeth Homan: Worth every cent that you pay for it. Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. It’s just a moneymaker for sure, because it just allows people to see that they’re not making a mistake.
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah. Yeah. It’s hard for them to visualize. I don’t know how we sold big portraits before that. It was all about, “Oh, let’s measure. Okay, let’s kind of think what it would look like.” But now it takes the guesswork. It’s magical.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. For sure.
Elizabeth Homan: If there was key button, it would be SendMyRooms.
Allison Tyler Jones: That is so true. Yes. And how you can take your style and how you shoot and make that work for you, and you don’t have to do it anybody else’s way. So I think that’s all amazing, and I love that.
Elizabeth Homan: It is.
Allison Tyler Jones: And you’ve built an amazing business, and you’ve been in business for 33 years. And even though you started when you were like two, it’s just amazing that you were able to have a business that young.
Allison Tyler Jones: But congratulations, honestly, because this is a hard business. It’s not an easy business to be in. But I love the proof that a woman, smart, talented, amazing, that you’ve taken something, you’ve made shifts along the way, and you’ve proven that you can have a successful business doing exactly what we do. And you don’t have to have the sugar daddy, like your sugar daddy’s actually working in your business with you just like mine is, right?
Elizabeth Homan: He’s never been the sugar daddy. He wouldn’t mind calling himself that, but he knows the truth.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. I love it. I love it. Well, anything else that you feel like our listeners would benefit from on the sales end that you feel that you want to share?
Elizabeth Homan: I just want to say, and I’ve said this to many of my students in the past, is that your fears are valid. They’re 100% valid of doing this. And I would just say, practice. Make your friends come in. Take photos of your friends, show them the images, play with ProSelect. Get good and comfortable with that. Read a few sales book. Maybe you have some that you recommended before. And just take classes from people who are like you and me, and many others out there that are teaching that give you little tricks. It’s not tricks. They’re just ways of making it easier on yourself and on your customer.
Elizabeth Homan: And just know that you’re not selling anything. You’re just presenting the options and allowing them to make the right decision for themselves. You’re the expert and they want to listen to you. So if you just practice, I feel like you will overcome the fear that has probably been holding you back for longer than you even know. And just know that the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be so thankful that you did.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. Well, Elizabeth, I really appreciate you sharing your talent, advice, wisdom with us today and being willing to have an argument with me.
Elizabeth Homan: Oh, I can argue. My husband says I could probably argue with a brick wall. I argue with him every day, everything.
Allison Tyler Jones: I know.
Elizabeth Homan: “The sky is blue.” “No. No.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Is it, though?
Elizabeth Homan: Is it though? Not today.
Allison Tyler Jones: Not today. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And we’ll link to that book, Go For No. We’ll link to ProSelect, the things that we talked about today. And then, where can listeners find you for your educational stuff? What’s the best place to find you?
Elizabeth Homan: Well, my portrait website is portraitsbyelizabeth.com. My education website is inspiredworkshops.net. And I’m on Instagram at artistic.images and Facebook at my name, Elizabeth Cruger Homan with a C, C-R-U-G-E-R. Because when I started this, I wasn’t married. I was only 23 years old.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes, a mere child.
Elizabeth Homan: Everybody does math. And then now how old I am.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, you were just a baby.
Elizabeth Homan: I was just a baby. I was. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. But I’ve learned a lot along the way, and so here we are today. And I’m thankful for this business. It’s really let me live out my dream of loving what I do every day when I go to work, and helping pay for my kids to go to college. And my husband and I to work together, and all of those things that we’re just really blessed to be able to do it.
Allison Tyler Jones: It makes me so happy.
Elizabeth Homan: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Thank you for all you do for the industry and for your clients, and thank you for being here. We appreciate you.
Elizabeth Homan: Thank you for having me. It was awesome.
Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison at dotherework.com and on Instagram, @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…