Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler-Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait photographers to uniquely brand, profitably price, and confidently sell their best work. Allison has been doing just that for the last 15 years, and she’s proven that it’s possible to create unforgettable art and run a portrait business that supports your family and your dreams. All it takes is a little ReWork. Episodes will include interviews with experts from in and outside of the photo industry, mini-workshops, and behind-the-scenes secrets that Allison uses in her portrait studio every single day. She will challenge your thinking, and inspire your confidence to create a profitable, sustainable portrait business you love through continually refining and working your business. Let’s do the ReWork.
Allison Tyler Jones: Hi friends, and welcome back to The ReWork. Is your calendar looking a little too empty for comfort? Does this year feel a little slower than years previous? Well, today’s guest is Jeff Dachowski, and he is no stranger and figuring out strategies for making his phone ring. Jeff has built a thriving portrait business doing the unglamorous, but essential work of getting and keeping his client’s attention even in a tough market and even in tough economic times. In our conversations today, we’re going to discuss exactly what it takes to generate consistent inquiries from building genuine relationships in your community to making every client feel like they’re your only client, to the small daily habits that keep business flowing year round.
Allison Tyler Jones: If you’re in a slow season, or maybe you just want to supercharge your bookings, get ready for strategies that you can put into action right now. Whether you’re in a slow season, you’re feeling like you’re in a slump, or maybe you just want to supercharge your bookings or convert more leads that you’re getting, join me to learn some new strategies that you can put into action right now. Let’s do it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay, well, on a regular basis, I keep touch with a few of my really good friends in this industry, and today’s guest, Mr. Jeff Dachowski, is in the podcast studio and we are making this space touching, if you will, public. We’re having a conversation on the podcast about things that we would normally talk about that are not recorded. Hi, Jeff.
Jeff Dachowski: Allison, how are you?
Allison Tyler Jones: I’m great. So glad that you’re here. You’re leaving for vacation tomorrow, so you’re probably doing your happy dance on your way out the door.
Jeff Dachowski: It’s literally my Friday. All the things, all the orders that are going to get picked up are picked up. All the images that need to be posted are posted, all the things that need to be done so that I don’t worry about all the things that need to be done are done.
Allison Tyler Jones: The boxes have been checked and we’re headed to the beach. I love it.
Jeff Dachowski: You’re headed to North Carolina. You got it.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love it. Well, when we have our chats, we talk about many different topics, but usually it’s about, there’s always some thread of, okay, what’s going on right now and what do I need help with? And so what I was thinking about this episode, I was thinking, why don’t I bring what I’m hearing from a lot of my students and photographers that I’m talking to, that problem, to our conversation, and maybe we can noodle through this difficulty together and maybe give people some ideas of how they can do it. And that difficulty is.
Jeff Dachowski: I’m ready, lay it on me.
Allison Tyler Jones: Are you ready?
Jeff Dachowski: I’m ready.
Allison Tyler Jones: I need a drum roll (singing) is I’m talking to a lot of people. They’re feeling like it’s a little bit weird, it’s a little slow, not quite as busy as it normally has been for portraits, and they’re feeling like, how do I make the dang phone ring? Or let’s be real, nobody’s phone’s ringing, even if it did, we don’t have it on. We have everything on silent. Nobody’s answering a phone. Let’s just be real. We’re not getting the inquiries or it just feels like not as busy as we want it to be, so how can we make it?
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah. Well, let me start just by my gut reaction is it talks about the inquiries. Our studio is not a studio that gets 50 inquiries a week or anything. So just to be clear, so if you’re listening out there and you’re thinking, well, what Jeff’s goal is is to get 50 inquiries in a week, I’d fall over. I would be so blown away at 50 inquiries in a week. So I just wanted, as we’re talking-
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re saying 5-0 or 1-5?
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, 5-0. We probably get three or four inquiries in a week so we are low volumes. We make sure we all understand each other. We set that expectation. My idea of slow is one or two inquiries a week where other people’s idea of slow is 42 inquiries a week, so just want to set that.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s actually a really good point because I do remember hearing early in my career hearing, I think Julia Woods was talking to me about her goal is to get five to six well-qualified new clients in a year, and I was like, “Oh, wow. I could do that.” That changed my mind because I was always thinking like Walmart, we need thousands.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, volume, make it up and volume.
Allison Tyler Jones: First place is define what you mean by busy or what do you want? How many inquiries do you normally have? Are you even tracking that data? Does it just feel slower? Is this anecdotal data? Are these stories we’re making up in our mind?
Jeff Dachowski: Isn’t that the thing, right? In fact-
Allison Tyler Jones: We’re creatives, we make up really good stories.
Jeff Dachowski: Remember the last time we spoke, I literally said some sort of castaway comment that was like, “If you have three good things happen, one negative thing happens and you just assume everything’s negative, it’s amazing how it negates it.” And this absolutely could be anecdotal that things restore, but I know some studios who if you ask them outside of it, they’re saying, “We’ve never been busier.” And then I ask them further, “Are you profitable?” And their answer is, “Well, we’ve never been more profitable.” Those are two things I like to hear because they want to be busy and they want to be profitable.
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Jeff Dachowski: For us, we are low volume, so I mean we are just a higher ticket item. Generally speaking, in a lower volume studio, we will photograph about 28 to 30 seniors. That’s what we’ve projected this year, and we’ve booked 20 right now. We’re not going gangbusters. We’re not going to have a record senior year. I mean-
Allison Tyler Jones: It sounds like you’re on target.
Jeff Dachowski: But we’re closely on target. This is why I say it feels slower from what I listen to the people I work with and that sort of thing, but I can’t tell if it is until next year. I know that sounds funny, but we keep things like this. We convince ourselves it is something, and then we look at the data, it’s one of the reasons I don’t particularly live or die by the average. I want to live or die by the profit. For the nature of this conversation, I would say to the listeners, first, define what is what you wanted? And if you aren’t figuring out that you want to do 12 families or 28 families or 175 families, or you haven’t set a goal of some sort, it’s really, really difficult to know if you’re on task. It comes down, first and foremost.
Allison Tyler Jones: Draw the map.
Jeff Dachowski: Are you tracking what you’re actually doing? Not just your efforts, I mean, do you have an idea of what is successful? Because if you’re looking at a gas station that seems to be going out of business, you might be thinking everything’s going out of business. So it’s a personal perspective. So sorry if I’m digressing, I just mean start by figuring out where you want to be. And for us, it’s lower volume, I think you are lower volume as well.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely. And another thing that you just said that made me think too is that you do need to also look at, I mean, we’re more than halfway through the year, and this does not require, I mean it would be nice in an Excel spreadsheet, but even if you don’t have a spreadsheet, literally with a piece of paper and your calendar, just sit down and by product line meaning what the type you’re shooting. For us, that would be, how many seniors did we shoot this year? How many families did we shoot this year? How many kids sessions? How many adult sessions, how many commercial sessions, whatever the genre is that you’re shooting.
Allison Tyler Jones: And then just go through and say, “Okay, looking at that,” and then just feeling like, is that on track for what you did last year? Is it more? And then is it meeting the goals that you set at the beginning of the year if you did set those goals?
Allison Tyler Jones: I know I’ve got one student who says, “I’m shooting a ton of commercial work, but that’s not as profitable as the family stuff. And so I don’t really feel like I’m booking a lot of family.” So I think that’s good information to have if you’re, so then she’s saying, “I want more families.” Well, that’s a different marketing, that’s a different promotion strategy than if you’re going to try to get more commercial. So it’s like how much can, what do you want? And yeah, well, what do you want?
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, what do you want? And actually, that’s a great point because you’re scheduling that really, or you’re writing that stuff down at the beginning of the year or the end of the year before, right? Before you even clear you’re trying to create a map and you’re marketing and your editorial calendar and all the things that we talk about needs to be in place. And so for us, I mean, are you asking me what our specific goals are for the year or are you asking me, are you saying that?
Allison Tyler Jones: No, I was saying you as in, not you, but the rhetorical you, the listeners.
Jeff Dachowski: Gotcha.
Allison Tyler Jones: Are you putting into place rather than just I need to be more busy, that’s like I just need to be healthier. Okay, well, what do you mean? Do you need to lose weight? Do you need to gain weight? You have diabetes, you need to be less diabetic? Define, build muscle, lose fat, what are we doing?
Jeff Dachowski: And if you don’t have that, you really don’t know. It’s like that thing. If you don’t know what road you’re on, any road will do, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Jeff Dachowski: Those metrics that you’re trying to hit, why are you keeping the metrics? Two, if you’re not or if you are, then what are you trying to hit? And it does absolutely change what you do. And the easiest example I have is, I think I told you and maybe a past call that we have a list of people who need family portraits or senior portraits, and it comes from conversations. In fact, all of my best ways to make the phone ring always comes from a conversation. Yes, I know, I can do a post on social media, I can do different things. I can put up gallery displays, I can be active in the community. All of those things add to my brand. They help my people who might be attracted to what I do, get a sense of who I might be or who they think I am.
Jeff Dachowski: But business is done for me over the phone initially. That’s where the thing is. So like you said, how do we make the phone ring? Well, for us, it’s going to be very different if we decide we really want to make the phone ring for commercial work, PR headshots or branding or that sort of thing, it actually starts, and we’ve had this conversation before, but it starts with conversations telling people that you want to do this type of work. I know it sounds funny, but if I’m in there in a senior portrait session and someone mentions that they’re a physician, I’m always going to mention first off family portraits. But if they’ve done a recent family portrait, I’m going to remind them that I do PR headshots or I also do branding work for your, you’re a speaker, I could do some branding work for you. I’m always in front of them when I can be.
Jeff Dachowski: And that’s the first thing that sounds counter to how you make the phone ring, it’s like, when’s the best time to plant a tree, right? 20 years from ago or today. That’s initially how I imagine making the phone ring is every single interaction with a potential client may make the phone ring down the road.
Allison Tyler Jones: I also like, a good place for me to start because I think the germ of this conversation is basically, I need more business. I want to get more business. One really good place that I always find to start is just to print off my client list and just look at it. Literally, just look at those names like, “Oh, Jeff Dachowski, haven’t talked to him in a while. Tim Walden. You know what? I wonder, didn’t he say he had a senior?”
Allison Tyler Jones: Literally just look through the people that I know. Now, for those who are listening who don’t have a big, I don’t actually have a big client list because I have so much repeat. But let’s say that you’re newer, you only done a few sessions or maybe only a couple of years into your business still. I still think that you get your client list out, but you also get out your like, “Okay, when I went to that last mixer,” chamber mixer or networking event or just people that, like you said, you’re remembering the people that you’ve talked to and just putting out feelers and you said on the phone, but really for me, it’s a lot of it’s text or an email.
Jeff Dachowski: Right. And I mean, I’ll share with you, this is an actual conversation and you might laugh back out there in the podcast world because it doesn’t sound successful, but it’s a very short email. I’ll read you today. “Hello, name redacted. I hope you’re having a great summer. I’m writing-”
Allison Tyler Jones: Wait, is this you to somebody else?
Jeff Dachowski: This is me writing to someone else. I just don’t want to put their name, okay.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. Yeah, got it.
Jeff Dachowski: “Hello. I hope you’re having a great summer. I’m writing to check in on a few things. Should we chat about the imagery we discussed for your foyer? Does Luke need to schedule a senior session before he heads off to school? Is it time to make a family portrait? I hope to connect soon.”
Jeff Dachowski: I mean, this is the shortest email that’s bullet pointed and here’s what she wrote. “Jeff, it’s great to hear from you. We definitely need a family portrait, but both kids are headed to school in the next few weeks, so we’re just soaking up our last moments with them before the summer is officially over. Luke reclassed last year, so he will be a junior this fall. We do plan to reach out to you and schedule a senior portrait and hopefully a family portrait as well. I hope all is well with your family and I’ll be in touch.” Okay. I did make the phone ring just, I got a reaction. She took a moment to write me a note.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, what you did is you created a lead, so now what are you doing with that?
Jeff Dachowski: I have a Trello list of people that need things that I’ve broken down. Sometimes it’s by genre or sometimes it’s by season, depending on, in her case, I know that she doesn’t really need a spring family portrait or a spring senior portrait. In the East Coast, this stuff is done over the summer. So if we’re going to do either, we’re going to talk in the summer because it’s gross here in the spring. It’s not very green, it’s cold. So I know that she really means summer. Cool. I put up a note in my Trello board that says Summer 2026, and I just look at the stuff every couple really days when I’m adding new things to it and I know that there’s automation that should help me do this. I absolutely know there is. I don’t know how to do it better than I’m doing it and I-
Allison Tyler Jones: Now. Okay, so you put yours on a Trello board?
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, so sorry, I put it on a Trello board and then I just run through it every week. I’ll go through and say, “Okay, so who else was senior portraits? Okay, I’ve checked them with all of them.” I also have a pending Trello thing that they moved them from just a summer family portrait. I’ve reached out to them, they say, “Check back in,” I’m now moving it to pending, so I look at it more frequently.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. You probably already have, but I would respond back to that and just say, respond to what she’s saying about the kid. But then I just say, “Okay, you know what? I’m just putting you in my calendar to touch base in April of 2026. Hope your holidays are great. Love you so much. Hugs and kisses, Jeff.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Then I put it in Google Cal, I just put it on April 2nd, 2026 or whatever. Then that way my client coordinator knows to go in there and do that. So I mean, I’m even lower tech than you. We do Monday, we do have stuff in Monday, but that’s a down and dirty way to have it on the calendar and then I know that it’s going to get picked up somewhere.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, I absolutely need to just get, find an even better system than my current, which is me looking at it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. I think it’s a good system.
Jeff Dachowski: Well, it works.
Allison Tyler Jones: Whatever you’ll do, it’s like the best workout.
Jeff Dachowski: As you said that, it got me thinking. I use Trello for so many things, which is probably why, that’s why it works for me is because I don’t have to leave a one platform to go to another platform. I’m already in a board and I can just go, let me switch to another board, look at the people that need it. It’s called client engagement. And I look at that and see who needs it and it’s no different actually, Allison. And then my commercial clients, my PR clients, or my seniors, or my children, or again, the easiest one is the seasonal. They put me off seasonally till I want to do fall of ’26 or fall of ’25 or whatever.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Jeff Dachowski: Because I will never remember all that stuff. And so again, I stand by, the easiest way to make the phone ring today is to connect with them six months from now. Which again, it sounds crazy. Of course that’s the way to do it, Jeff. But how do I make the phone ring today? Well, you keep on this engagement list. That’s the easy, I mean, I think it was that Mary, Mary Fisk-Taylor and Jamie always say, “You’ve got to call five people a day,” or you’ve got to reach out, you’ve got to connect with five people a day.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right, and really it’s like, how do I get busy right now is actually like asking, “Tomorrow is my high school reunion. How do I lose 50 pounds?” And it’s like you can’t, so you’re not going to. I mean the only way to it ring, I guess, is to call up and say, “Hi, free portraits,” and even then you’re not going to get people.
Allison Tyler Jones: The answer is this is something that has to be part of who you are. It’s part of your work process, it’s part of your workflow, and you’re just doing it every single day. We would not probably book, I don’t know, maybe five sessions a year if we weren’t constantly in touch with our clients because we’re in charge of the family portraits. We are in charge of reminding them when they should come in. We are in charge of making sure that they have a session when they need it. That’s our job. It’s not their job to remember to call us because they’re busy.
Jeff Dachowski: They’ve got a million things to do. I mean, just think about your life. All the things you have going on in your world.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, totally. Yes.
Jeff Dachowski: You might remember to do it because you’re in the industry, but if you weren’t, you just wouldn’t do it. Things are busy.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and if I had to call my house cleaners every single week to remember to bring them back in here, they just show up. They show up.
Jeff Dachowski: And you’re grateful, honestly, that the schedule was made.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes. They just assumed that I want them.
Jeff Dachowski: That’s how I assumed too. When I reached out to this mom, I assumed she wanted to do this because she told me she wanted to do this. When you say that, it reminds me of the idea of playing to your individual strengths, which some people aren’t good at this sort of thing, they’re not. And there’s some software solutions that will automate it. I know there’s a lot of different automations within different CRMs that do this. And if you’re not good at jumping on the phone or writing a heartfelt, sincere email to the point, then there might be a strength solution for you in your CRM. Or maybe if you have a staff member who’s better at it or playing to the strengths. When I think about my particular strengths, I think my photography is solid and my sales techniques were solid.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and your relationship building and you like to chat with people, you can sit and chat with people. Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: Those three things I love doing. And if I didn’t have to do any of the other things at all, I’d be totally okay with it. I really would. I’d be, I don’t have to do it all now. My wife and I, were just two, we’re the only two staff at our studio, so sometimes we have to do things that aren’t our strengths because we don’t have a team of four or five and we can hire to our strengths.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Jeff Dachowski: And I would imagine a lot of people on this podcast are solopreneurs where they have to play to their strengths and also do everything else.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Jeff Dachowski: It comes down to which another discussion I know we’ve had is that if you don’t love doing some of this stuff, then let’s find ways to get better at it or more efficient with it. The following up is everything.
Allison Tyler Jones: And a high touch luxury business, that is the business. Your database is your gold, and your relationships is the, I don’t know, triple platinum diamond with the cherry on top or something. I don’t know. But that’s what it is. It doesn’t matter how good of a photographer you are, if you can’t keep track of people and keep on top of them, you’re not going to do well. But also that expectation, so if you’re new and you’re just starting to build your business, is setting that expectation that this is when we return. This is when you come back.
Allison Tyler Jones: This is when we, Mary and I just talked about this the other day for an episode that’s coming out soon or it might’ve already come out by the time this comes out. I’m not really sure what order we’re going in. I think hers will come out first, and I think she and Jamie do a genius job at that. But I feel like that’s a thread with the successful, long-term, and I mean Busath, 50 years, Walden, those brands that have been in business for years and years and years, there’s a common thread of expectation to return, a path to return. And then how do you keep in touch?
Jeff Dachowski: How do you keep it? Yeah. Well, and it used to be simple, right? And you’re going to be willing to change how you keep in touch. Walden or Busath or Mary probably started off with postcards, I’m guessing. And that’s when people opened their mail and the mail meant something. And then we moved to phone calls, and well, people had a house phone that you knew roughly at 5:30 or six o’clock they’d be home. And then we moved to email. And everyone answered emails for a while, and now we’re like, “How do you actually reach people?”
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, now it’s like there’s 6,000 inputs.
Jeff Dachowski: Right, and you’re tired.
Allison Tyler Jones: So it’s like, oh, you’re going to DM me on which platform? Is it going to be Facebook, is it going to be Instagram? It’s going to be TikToks, going to be Snapchat. Oh, text or email or I don’t know about you. My clients are, I would say it’s probably 90% text, 1% email, and then maybe, let me see, I got to do math. 9% DMs on Instagram.
Jeff Dachowski: Really? So how much is phone? Where’s phone?
Allison Tyler Jones: None.
Jeff Dachowski: Calls. You do phones, none?
Allison Tyler Jones: Almost none. I mean, we’ll get on a phone call once the text or the DM has gone back and forth, but literally, the call is to give me your credit card number.
Jeff Dachowski: Wow, that’s awesome. We are probably somewhere in the line of 10% DM or with some email. I mean, I’ve done the stats on, but most of our life is actually a phone ring. Most of our-
Allison Tyler Jones: We used to, but not anymore. It is so much text, so much.
Jeff Dachowski: And are they texting you directly to your phone or are you using it through a CRM or something?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, no, we use RingCentral, which basically allows us to use our “landline,” and then we all have the app on our phones and on our computers. And so it’s great because I can answer it from anywhere at any time if I need to and they don’t have, my very best clients have my personal number but yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: Sorry to ask you questions about this. So you must be able to really shut ringing off at certain times of the day, or you don’t have to look at it every time and determine that it’s out of hours. Someone can text you at two o’clock in the morning, it’s not going to wake you up.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Well, just because I turned my phone off. Yeah. I mean, I turn my volume down.
Jeff Dachowski: I think with RingCentral, you can schedule.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes, you can. Again, back to your earlier comment about, I know there are very sophisticated ways to use all the software that I use, but let’s be real, most of us don’t use it to its full extent. What I find really helpful about RingCentral, and it’s not perfect at all, I love being able to have that number that’s not my private number. And then we only have two employees, one full-time and one part-time, and everybody can get on it without having to be on their own phone. And then we have the whole conversation tracked.
Jeff Dachowski: Right.
Allison Tyler Jones: And then it does voicemail. The voicemail all comes in. It does on Apple phones where it’ll transcribe it now, which is, that’s great to have that too.
Jeff Dachowski: There’s an app, I think it’s called OpenPhone that does something similar and I’ve looked into doing that as well for ringing, I could actually have it ring to my studio, ring my cell phone from the studio certain times of the day. So if I knew, when I’m on vacation, I want to be on vacation, I might check the messages every day, but I don’t want to be getting calls on the beach, right. But it does full transcription of phone calls and recording as well, which sometimes for training purposes could be helpful. But anyway, it might be for good for tracking purposes. But my point is, again, we were talking about how to make the phone ring and really almost this episode is how to get inquiries.
Allison Tyler Jones: I think also, the broader thing is client communication. Whether you have existing clients or not, maybe you don’t have a lot of existing clients, but you are doing things in your world to create leads. Whether that’s auction winners. So many of our listeners are donating to silent auctions. Well, are you keeping track of people that won? Are you following up with them? A lot of that is just low hanging fruit that usually bears really well. The last thing that I do, the very, very, very last is, “Let’s figure out a promotion.”
Jeff Dachowski: Right, yeah. Because it’s the-
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s so much work.
Jeff Dachowski: It’s so much work. And it attracts typically the person who you create policies to come back.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, yeah. Depending on how you craft the promotion, but yes, exactly.
Jeff Dachowski: Can we talk for just a quick second about auctions for a minute?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: Because I know we’re a little scattered here. And then forgive me-
Allison Tyler Jones: We are not scattered, we are focused. We are trying to make the dang phone ring.
Jeff Dachowski: Absolutely. And so with that in mind, auctions, I just want to point out one thing that we do that’s a little different than other people for auctions, we do less of them. Again, we’re not trying to create a volume situation, but we are very particular who we work with. Obviously the idea of controversial subjects or fundraisers for controversy, we don’t get involved in those. But we also don’t work with people who will not give us the information of the people who won.
Allison Tyler Jones: Same.
Jeff Dachowski: I don’t think we’ve ever talked to auctions. We tell them we won’t even give them the gift certificate.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s a condition of participation.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah. We will mail them the gift certificate ourselves because it’s my brand out there. And if someone thinks that they bought something for $500 and they’re expecting me to send it and it doesn’t come, the auction doesn’t care, but I care and my potential client thinks they bought something from me. And so if you’re out there and you’re trying auctions, which I think auctions can be very successful depending on how you, actually, honestly, it depends on who buys them.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely.
Jeff Dachowski: You have little say over if it’s going to be successful or not in comparison to if the person loves their portrait, most portraits or not, some people buy stuff just to buy stuff. Some people will love you, some people won’t like you. But if they don’t love portraits, the sale will be what it is. They can be big, they can be small, but every one of them has a chance to create an interaction with someone you don’t know yet, likely.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Jeff Dachowski: So I just want to mention that about the auction. Sorry.
Allison Tyler Jones: No, I think that’s great. And really, auctions, I would say fall under our category of lead generation. We’re wanting to generate new leads of new clients. That’s what we’re creating auctions for. “Making the phone ring,” I guess that’s lead generation too. But let’s talk about, let’s just say that the phone does ring.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now, this is something that I see with students a lot. People that I’ve, photographers I’ve mentored with is, okay, well it’s killing me. They go to make changes in their business. They go a little more high-end or they start selling finished product or they change up somehow how they’re working and then they’re still getting leads. So maybe they have Facebook ads running, Google Ads, whatever. And so they’re getting leads generations, but they’re not converting.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: You see that with your students, have you had that?
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah. I see that is in my life as well. Some people just call and they get the information and we’re out of their price range or we didn’t fit some sort of expectation. It’s really no different. I know we’ve talked about this, so forgive me for mentioning again, people don’t walk in at Best Buy looking for a TV, and the people from Best Buy get really upset that someone came in and didn’t buy their biggest, best TV.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Jeff Dachowski: We as photographers, we take it very personal and we say things like, “That person didn’t value photography,” or they wanted the cheap editor or fill in the blank. We take it so personal and in reality, some people are just calling to get information. And you give them the information. And my goal, if you were to call me, I would be working so hard to credit. Can you hear that thunder by the way? Sorry.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I thought somebody’s moving furniture.
Jeff Dachowski: No, we’re in a raging thunderstorm right now.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, wow.
Jeff Dachowski: If you hear, if I lose power, we’ll continue.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, no worries.
Jeff Dachowski: But for me, this is my chance to absolutely shine. I play to my strength. I feel like I’m good on the phone. More importantly, I really enjoy being on the phone with people and I am always trying to make a connection. I’m not trying to book the sale when they call. I might, but I want to let them, I ask them a lot of leading questions about what’s going on, and I’ll ask them the same phrase that you’ve heard me say, “Does this make sense to you? Would this work for your family?” That’s all general phone knowledge stuff. But for me, if I got them on the phone, I don’t have their business yet.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Jeff Dachowski: Which I find that’s one of the reasons I don’t deal as much with email because I need that feedback to know, where are we going? I’m not good on email in comparison.
Allison Tyler Jones: I had to qualify something. Okay, so now that we’re talking about phone calls, lead conversion. For us, the whole goal of all that texting is to get them on the phone. I want to make that really, really clear, is that if we get an email, somebody out of email that’s an inquiry or whatever, the goal is always we’ll text with them to get a time that is good to get on the phone so that’s ultimately the goal. So I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t saying, “No, we never get on the phone,” we just do everything by text. It’s always to get to that point.
Jeff Dachowski: And that’s the vehicle in which your clientele connects with you probably the best, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: We’ll call it your ideal client because that’s who your clients are. So maybe that wasn’t, and this is a newer thing, you as a newer studio might say, “My ideal client will call me.” You might find out that your ideal client wants to DM you. And this is the weird thing, if you don’t have a lot of experience with your ideal client, you don’t know yet how they really want to communicate. I tend to deal with people who are in their forties or older and they currently are still looking to use the phone or willing to use the phone, and that’s probably age a demographic that you work with as well.
Allison Tyler Jones: I don’t know. I’m telling you that I’ve got some millennials, I’ve got a couple of millennials that love to be on the phone, so I don’t know. I think it’s person to person and determining what they like to do. And I think that’s why it bears, let’s say that you bring somebody all the way through your process and they turn out to be a lovely client and make a nice sale, it really bears fruit to go back and pick that whole thing apart. Forensically, go back. How did she hear about us? Wait. Oh, Jeff and Carol were so awesome. I love them. How can we clone them? Let’s go back. How did they hear about us? Oh, Mary Fisk-Taylor told them about us. Okay, well, okay, anybody coming from Mary? We got to take that, right? Carol loves to text.
Allison Tyler Jones: Just breaking that down, and that’s how you figure out who your ideal client is not some fake thing that you just make up in a class sometime. It’s by going through somebody who was great to deal with, even if they weren’t your biggest spender, or somebody who was a big spender and was okay to deal with, but somebody who was good that you would like to repeat and going back and picking that whole thing apart. And then it helps you recognize where they are, where they’re congregating, where they came from. Maybe there’s an certain organization they belong to and you can find more of them.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, because they might be in a pickleball group that could be in a women’s club or a rotary or lion’s club or any of the variations of how people self-identify socially, who they want to hang out with. And we almost always, one of the first questions, maybe we should do a role play one day of a sales call, but that would be fun to do.
Jeff Dachowski: But when people call me, I say, “Great.” I immediately start asking them about what they think they want. I don’t say, “What do you think you want?” I’m like, “Well, tell me what you have in mind.” Then when it’s about a minute in a conversation, “By the way, I’m always curious. It’s so helpful to me, how did you hear about us?” That’s not the first question. I want some report, but I want them to feel that I’m listening to them first, and then I ask a question that’s almost akin to, “Can you do me a favor?” But you don’t open with that. But I want to know how they heard about us.
Jeff Dachowski: And if they say, “Well, I’m a friend of Allison’s.” And I say, “Oh, we made her portraits. Gosh, is it, I can’t remember if it’s two years or three years ago,” but I’m in the ballpark and I always own the fact that I might not remember. I’m trying to tell them I’m really busy. You’re making a good choice. And it’s been three years since Allison, or four years since Allison came in.
Jeff Dachowski: Her daughter is adorable. If I don’t remember her name, I always say, “Oh my God, her daughter was adorable.” If I remember her name, I say, “Oh my God, Grace did such a great job on her seven-year-old session,” or whatever, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: The truth is I may not always remember the name, and if I don’t remember if it’s a daughter or a son, I’ll say, “Your child, your children are so cute.”
Allison Tyler Jones: The kids are the cutest.
Jeff Dachowski: But my point being though is that, well, I’m listening really carefully to what they’re talking about, making it about them. The traditional idea of I don’t need to be the hero, I want them to be the hero. What were you thinking about for the session? And try to answer their questions.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s really helpful when you say, “What were you thinking about your session?” And then there’s like a theatrical thunderclap that comes behind that. What were you thinking?
Jeff Dachowski: I hope those listening can actually hear the thunder because it’s pretty awesome.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, it is. I wish we were getting some of that over here. Yeah, so going back to groups, it’s interesting to me how that, looking back, what a big deal that is. I literally, one of the cores of, one branch of my clientele, an entire branch of my existing clientele came from one mom’s group, one preschool kid mom’s group. They all referred to each other and then they were super connectors and it was like the COVID-19 virus. It was just like they replicated, so it’s pretty crazy.
Allison Tyler Jones: And I was just at an install this week yesterday, and I was talking to this client, we’ve been photographing them forever, literally since 2009 every year. And I’m like, “Okay, wait a minute now how did you hear about us?” And she’s like, “Oh, it was so-and-so,” and she was part of that group, another one of those women.
Allison Tyler Jones: It really is, I think so often we are in such a hurry to get more, more, more that we’re not even understanding who we are getting and we’re not mining that. And I don’t mean that in a way to extract and exploit, but as mining who they really are, that helps us tell their story of their image better. It helps us know who their network is, and it helps us replicate other people like them to really, it’s the definition of that less but better, really spending the time to get to know the people that are coming through the door rather than just like next, next.
Jeff Dachowski: And knowing how they got there. There was an article I wrote, I don’t know how many years ago, 2006? For PPA Magazine, and a long time ago, I think the article was called Anatomy of a Referral, or it could have been called the 24 Carat Referral. I can’t find it. I saw it recently, the graphic was made for, I need to find it. And in this we created a little flow chart. In fact, Stephanie Milner, who’s a photographer in the Virginia area, created this flow chart for me.
Jeff Dachowski: It all started with this woman named Joanne, and we started portraits of her two girls. And I tracked it, I tracked everyone down who came and I created a flow chart. And we found her because we did a promotion in which we did homeschool portraits in our studio. We were okay with doing school portraits, but homeschoolers are frequently underserved as a school portrait market. We made the decision, we wanted to do it in our studio versus go to say a church gym or something because we wanted them to see the potential for the experience. She came in, I forget exactly how we met her, it doesn’t really matter. In the end, when I stopped tracking it, two years later, her and her friends equaled a trip to Jamaica, a trip to Puerto Rico, and $124,000 in sales in a very short amount of time.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s amazing.
Jeff Dachowski: Fast-forward, I’m certain she’s been, has brought in close to a half a million dollars in our studio. She’s been to Tuscany on my Tuscany trips twice. She did our Greece trip earlier this year. She did our Provence trip. She’ll go to Tuscany next year. I mean, easily half a million dollars in sales from a single referral or a single point of entrance. Had I not been paying attention to her, or not been asking or not been engaged with her, one, she could have had a very different experience. But two, I could speak about her to everyone she sent. And it’s just like when you go to a restaurant, everyone who you send, everyone who refers you wants to hear back how great you were.
Jeff Dachowski: No one wants to say, “Okay, Allison, you’re coming into Boston. I really want you to go to this restaurant.”You go to the restaurant and you’re like, “That sucked. They got my reservation wrong, Ivan and I, our food was cold. We waited an extra two hours,” because then that somehow reflects on you.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Jeff Dachowski: So understanding who referred you and appreciating it. And gosh, even sending a note to her saying, “I’m really grateful you sent me, Allison, thank you so much. We had a great session.” That is the absolute surest way to make referrals continue to come.
Allison Tyler Jones: For sure.
Jeff Dachowski: And I think for me, that’s one of the secrets to the overall success we’ve had is paying attention when people are saying things and having a good memory to remember them. And now the technology is there. I love the idea of a Google Doc or a Google reminder or a calendar reminder to call. I happen to do that in my CRM with Thrive. I use Thrive as my CRM, but I like Trello. It makes more sense to do that. But I think it’s absolutely so incredible to see how referrals can help your business grow. And you just got to ask for them. I mean, I know it’s such a dumb thing to say, or sounds so overly simplistic, but just asking your client for a referral or someone who likes you for a referral is like making the phone ring again. Just got to be when you want it to be.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s so true. And the reason I’m going to reiterate this again is because I know that I’m a fast mover. I like things to be fast. People can never move fast enough for me, whether I’m in a restaurant in a line, on the highway, I just want things to be fast, fast, let’s move and move. And so in business, especially my first few years, it was just like, “Okay, what do we do? Okay, next. We had these people, people came in great, they came in. Now who’s next? Who are we going to get next? Who are we going to get next?” And it was always onto the next thing.
Allison Tyler Jones: And I see that so much in businesses that I patronize that I go to, and they are not taking the time to really see me and appreciate me when I am awesome and a great client, right? So I just want to reiterate that, and I know we talk about it a lot, but I want to talk about it more because I think people still are very guilty of that. We’re always looking for new friends rather than dancing with the one who brought us, right?
Jeff Dachowski: Exactly. The whole, I remember that scene in The Office, I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the Office, but Ryan says.
Allison Tyler Jones: Of course.
Jeff Dachowski: To Michael, “Is it less expensive to bring a new client in or to keep an old one?” And Michael says, “Well, get a new one that’s always best.” And Ryan’s like, “You’re wrong. It’s always more expensive.” And it’s actually so much less, it’s like getting a bunch of plates spinning. If you pay attention to the people who are in front of you, it’s easier to maintain a relationship when you create one with someone in front of you versus hoping that with that instant gratification. So you’re saying you’re admitting that you like things to move fast, and at the same time, you want to be moved fast with people you do business with. But every client’s different. Some clients really are a slow burn for when they want to come, which is again why I keep those lists of I’m not ready yet, but let’s talk about the fall. I’m not ready yet, let’s talk about 2027.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Well, and I think there is something to matching how the client wants to be engaged with too, because we just had a client the other day, Chelsea, my client coordinator, was on the phone with, this inquiry came in. She called her and she’s like, “This is how she heard about us. I’ve never heard of this organization,” and it was an organization that was really good. I was like, “Oh, no, call her right now. That’s a really good referral.”
Allison Tyler Jones: And so she called her and it was literally a 90-second conversation and I could tell from Chelsea’s end that she was like, “Okay. Uh-huh,” so she didn’t really have a lot to say. And so the client, the lead was doing all the talking. And so she got off the phone and she’s like, “Wow, I’ve never really talked to somebody like that.” She was just like, “Okay, yeah, we want to come in. We need family pictures.” And so Chelsea did ask her, “Well, how did you hear about us?”
Allison Tyler Jones: And she’s like, “Oh, well, so-and-so client that I live next door. We want to just do what they’ve done. We want really big of the family, some of this in a gallery.” So I mean, this is, she wants a lot of stuff, but she was like, “I ain’t got time to sit and make friends and talk about this on the phone right now. Super busy. Find me a date, send me some dates, let’s go.” And then she’s like, “Let’s set the consultation,” and she was just ready to move forward.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now somebody like that who is in a hurry, and knows what they want and they want to move forward, if you dink around with, oh, my process is that I need to sit and hold hands with you on the phone and we need to go super slow, then they’re going to be like, “Dude.”
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s going to be me. You call me on the phone and you want to make friends with me when I already know what I want, “Stop talking to me and give me a consultation. Just give me the date. What’s the next thing I need to know?” So I think there is a case for that to really match your energy to what it is that they’re wanting. And then conversely, if they need a little more time to slow, go slow too. So man, we’ve covered the entire gamut of marketing today.
Jeff Dachowski: I know. In the middle of-
Allison Tyler Jones: In the middle of a thunderstorm.
Jeff Dachowski: Hear that? There was a really fascinating study for those who at the end of this podcast, go check out Chartrand and Bargh, it’s-
Allison Tyler Jones: Spell it.
Jeff Dachowski: Chartrand is C-H-A-R-T-R-A-N-D. Chartrand. And Bargh, it’s B-U-R-G-H. It could be Bargh, it could be B-A-R-G-H. But forgive me if I don’t have that spelling exactly right.
Allison Tyler Jones: We’ll find it and link it. But yeah, what is it?
Jeff Dachowski: The thing about the study is that these two sociologists figured out was that people work best when you mimic the fire hose that they’re pouring out. If you were to get on the phone call and if you were my potential client, if I’m a student of that sort of idea, I would pick up the speed of my discussion, and I would interject things like I’d say, “Hey, I’ve got a lot of information to get to, but I know you’re in a hurry. So let’s get to the nitty-gritty of it, okay?”
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.
Jeff Dachowski: If that’s what I heard you tell me and show me who you are, as well as someone who calls and says, “I am looking to get information,” right. There is no need to do nitty-gritty, burn the house down, get them booked, you are going to just throw them away.
Jeff Dachowski: And so if you look into this study, I think they covers some techniques of which you can mimic the gait and mimic the speed of which they’re speaking and people feel like they’re talking to themselves, which is all we want to do in the first place, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Jeff Dachowski: People want to do business just like themselves. No one wants to do business with someone who isn’t like you. So you mimic, you change your speed, your gait in some degrees. If you do it too much, you start taking on their accent and you don’t-
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh no, I’m so guilty of that. I’m actually really good at this. I can do that really well.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, well and think, I think by nature you also do that gait management, if you will, or the speed management or picking up, or Chelsea does it, right? Probably got really good at reading people. And this client you’re talking about was a bit of a education for her probably because she hadn’t dealt with that much. It’s a strange thing. This is where it all comes out of playing for your strengths, learn about this stuff so that when the right situation comes and someone says, “I’m short on time,” you can speed things up and get to what they need to go, which is what is the date? Can I reach out to you next week and talk about your clothing? Or it’s like that letter that they joked about years ago, “I’m writing this letter slowly because I know you don’t read fast.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Right? Well, it’s basically going back to where we very first started in this conversation, which is you need to know what you want. And so when you’re refining your sales process, what do you want out of each touch point? So that first conversation, what I want is I want them to book us a consultation, not even necessarily book a session. I mean, if they do, if they’re primed and ready to go, then yes, of course, book the session. But really, it’s just to the next step. They don’t need to know every nuance of how we work. They don’t need to know how all of that. They just need to get to the next step. I know that that’s so once you know, okay, that’s all I need to do, then you don’t have to overwhelm them with too much information and bring all of that out.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, exactly. If you have a list of frequently asked stupid questions, which copyright Allison Tyler Jones.
Allison Tyler Jones: Frequently asked difficult questions, not stupid, yes. FADQs.
Jeff Dachowski: So I think they used to be called stupid questions.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, that’s a Jeff Dachowski-ism.
Jeff Dachowski: But if you have a list of these questions and you don’t get through them, it’s all okay. This is actually a struggle. And I know we started talking about something totally different, and that’s the nature of our relationship anyways, but is the concept of you needing to run through a checklist, guess who that’s for? You? It might be for the client, but it’s for you. It’s to make you feel better about your interaction and that, it’s not about you. As weird as it is, we do have to match the vibe, if you will if we are using modern terms, match the vibe of what they want. If they need their hand held, then hold it and love them and buy them flowers and do all the things that you need to do.
Jeff Dachowski: And if they’re looking at a book, I know you do a consultation for nearly everyone, but I’m sure there’s a situation of Chelsea called someone and they said, “Yeah, we just want to a book. We’ve seen four of your works. We understand,” we don’t have to have this courtship, if you will, get them.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Well, yes and no.
Jeff Dachowski: Right, yes and no.
Allison Tyler Jones: I would say returning clients, they don’t have to come in and do a whole dog and pony show because they know what the deal is. And then it’s just like, “Okay, what’s the concept for this year? And let’s discuss clothes and that sort of thing. And what are we shooting for this year?”
Allison Tyler Jones: It doesn’t have to be a big, long thing, but when somebody hasn’t been for a long time, basically they’re almost like a new client, or they’re brand new. It’s better, like you were saying, for those homeschool people that came through when somebody’s new, sometimes they don’t even know who they’re talking to, or if they’re an auction winner, there were 75 photographers there. They don’t know which one they won. Maybe they bet on all of them. And so they come in and meet with you. They don’t get, “Oh wait, this is special. This is cool.”
Jeff Dachowski: Well, hey, one last thing before we jump out of that conversation, and forgive me if I’ve shared this with you before, but I sat down with a, call it a marketing partner, and they did not want me to contact their clients. We were doing basically call it an auction, gift certificate type thing for a customer who’s going to give these to remind people that they were still around and there’s a big buy-in for this type of market. I’m not getting involved in who it is right now because I don’t want spill the beans about who they are, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Jeff Dachowski: But imagine if you will, maybe a high-end realtor who’s selling million dollar plus houses and it reminds them two or three years down the road if you want to sell your house, I’m still around. That sort of high-end value. And in our conversation, this gentleman, the principal, the company was adamant about, “I don’t want you contacting people because we don’t like that.” And he started talking about auctions. He goes, “I’ve been in one on so many auctions.”
Jeff Dachowski: And I said, “Well, what we’re talking about doing is reminding people maybe once over a course of a year that they have this awesome item and they should.” And he says, “You know what? I can’t tell you how many things I’ve bought and I’ve never heard from them again. What a benefit. I would’ve booked these things so many times.”
Jeff Dachowski: And literally, his mind changed about it when it related directly to him and the money he spent on auctions and how many times the business lunch for 12 or the Red Sox you want to go, or the house on the lake that he could book or fill. If it wasn’t a physical product, it was more experience-based. He actually said, “You know what, yes, you can contact them once in the course of a year to just remind them, because you’re right. That would’ve been a benefit to me on all these auctions I’ve supported.” It just gives me hope that there are people out there they want you to call them.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely.
Jeff Dachowski: Your next question is how to make the phone ring. It works both directions. You need to call them.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yep. Yeah, you need to make their phone ring.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, exactly. You need to make their phone ring. That’s probably a bigger, absolute bigger success rate than waiting or trying to make your phone.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s not gross telemarketing. Using that auction as an example for us, we require that they release the name of the winner, and then we contact them and just say, “Congratulations and thank you so much for supporting Jeff and Carol’s dog rescue and don’t you love them and we love the cause,” and then move into how can we help you get booked if you need to do that. So it’s not a big sales pitch, it’s not weird, it’s not gross. It’s just you wanted this, you bought it, let us help you get what you won.
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah. Let’s start with that, what is that phrase? Make the charitable assumption? I read that book recently. What is that from? Make the charitable assumption.
Allison Tyler Jones: I don’t know, but I love it.
Jeff Dachowski: And so let’s make the charitable assumption that they bought this auction item.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: They want it. And so instead of just mailing them someone with a letter, let’s open it with a phone call. And if they’re not willing to book right then and there, it’s no problem. I’m going to mail this to you so you have it and I’m going to follow up with you in three months to see if it’s a better time. Not, here’s a cold letter that I’m going to follow up with you with no interaction. Let’s call them first, and let them know it’s coming so they know what to expect. Make the charitable assumption that they want this product. They do. And there’s no guilt in that, that’s not telemarketing, they’ve already bought it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, totally. You’re helping them get what they want and they can tell you, “Oh, I don’t even know what I was bidding on, my friend just, I was drunk and my friend maybe bid on it and I don’t even want it.” “Great. Thanks. Great to hear from you.” Click, done.
Jeff Dachowski: “I’ll send it to you and if you want to pass it on to someone, please let me know,” and maybe you can turn them, but you don’t have to try to, you can just say, “It’s all good.” It’s good.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, totally. Well, I think we have done a lot of good work here. I think we’ve hopefully given a lot of inspiration on things that maybe our listeners have thought of, maybe started down a path of starting on and haven’t completed. But let’s just maybe recap where we’ve been. I think we started off with, you need to know where you’re at, so what is it that you want? So more clearly define when you want more. Is it that you want more new clients? Is it that you want to be busier? Is it that you want to be more profitable? Is it that you want? What do you want? What else? What are the other topics that we?
Jeff Dachowski: We talked about, well, the concept of making the phone ring. I’m going to stand by, the easiest way to make the phone ring is to pick it up yourself.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay.
Jeff Dachowski: Make their phone ring.
Allison Tyler Jones: Keeping track of leads and people that you talk to, and then following up with them. And then once you follow it up, even if they aren’t booking right, then finding a way to track those leads and have a method to follow up with them, even if it’s not some super sexy, super complicated software. Even if it’s just put it on a date on your calendar to call them back.
Jeff Dachowski: Yep, agreed. And with that, be open and excited about relationship building, right? This is the absolute, to me, and we’ve probably talked about some variation, but in recap, the absolute best thing I can do for my business is relationship building. It’s the single, I think could work for every studio in every market.
Allison Tyler Jones: Every business.
Jeff Dachowski: Every business is just building relationship building like it’s your job. It actually is bigger part of your job than most of the other things that we like doing like editing images or downloading cards or doing all the things that we think we like to do. Relationship building is, to me, the number one part of our business.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Well, and then also just in that last instance of calling those auction winners, making the assumption so that you’re having the charitable assumption that they bought it, being charitable to yourself, that of course they want you. You’re talented, you’re an amazing photographer, and you’re doing good work in the world, and why wouldn’t somebody want to book? And so having that confidence when you’re making the calls or texting or reaching out to people, rather than that feeling, even if, let’s just say that business is totally slow and it’s been slow for a while, and you are scared and you’re feeling you’re coming from a place of lack and scarcity. Psych yourself up before you make those calls. Psych yourself up before you even put your fingers to a keyboard and come from a place of abundance. And of course, people, what better thing could they do with their money than buy family portraits? What better thing could they be doing with their money? I submit to you very few things could be better.
Jeff Dachowski: Why not you?
Allison Tyler Jones: And why not you? Absolutely. And so that makes you feel that’s a better place to come from rather than, “Oh my gosh, I’ve got to get business in here.” And then Mary and Jamie say, if you’re making five calls a day, five contacts a day, I would say instead of putting it that you have to make five calls, make five texts, make five, just reach out, comment on somebody’s social media post. Five a day, you will not have to worry about how your calendar’s going to get full.
Jeff Dachowski: Right, but it does take time.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yep.
Jeff Dachowski: And you can’t expect-
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re not losing 50 pounds before the high school reunion that’s tomorrow night, yeah.
Jeff Dachowski: Right. By the way, that quote-
Allison Tyler Jones: Get some Spanx.
Jeff Dachowski: Get some Spanx. Some man shaping, Under Armour. By the way, I knew it was recently. It’s Will Guidara’s Unreasonable Hospitality book.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay.
Jeff Dachowski: That’s what that’s from. Which is a fantastic book, by the way.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes. I’m not done reading it, but I have it. Well, we have books. We have articles. If you find that PPA article that you wrote, will you send us over that link so we can put in the?
Jeff Dachowski: I might send, I’ll find it and find, get the graphic over to you.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. That’d be great.
Jeff Dachowski: I mean, it’s fascinating to me, and I’m still friendly with this dentist and it’s not going to stop. She’s going to continue to refer people to me. In fact, I just filmed her portrait session in Greece, and the installation, which I think will have video too. We’ll have that.
Allison Tyler Jones: So fun.
Jeff Dachowski: To see the actual session plus all the way down the installation.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and I just want to highlight that I am nothing special and neither are you, and also we are special. You know what I mean? So everybody is special and everybody’s not really that special. The reason I’m saying that is that this will happen for you. This does happen for you. It can, it will, it has, and maybe you just don’t realize it because you haven’t sat down with your client list and just looked and thought about your people, and wait, where did they come from? And start noodling through and just mentally, literally manifesting that list, looking at those people and just sending psychic love to them. It is amazing to me. How many times have you had somebody on your mind when you woke up in the morning like I wonder what Jeff and Carol are doing and they call you that day?
Jeff Dachowski: Yeah, all the time.
Allison Tyler Jones: So often, right? So it’s just like you got to put your head there, believe that it can happen for you because it can, it does, it will. I believe in you, Jeff. I know you believe in our listeners.
Jeff Dachowski: Yes, absolutely. I mean, if I didn’t believe in you as a listener, this is my fifth or sixth or something like that time, I wouldn’t put the time in. I absolutely believe in the people listening because the people that are listening right now, besides Cathy Broderick, I always give a shout-out to Cathy, besides Cathy, are willing to, you’re putting in the work. This is work to listen to stuff and it’ll open your heart to it and say, “What part of this can I go and implement today?”
Jeff Dachowski: Doesn’t have to implement every single thing. What part of this? And that’s the sort of thing that tells me that you’re engaged and that you want to do this, and you can. I mean, Allison, I know we’ve talked about this. You and I, I remember standing in Italy with you, and I turned to you one point, we were standing at the ocean. I said, “I’m not supposed to be here.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, and yet there we were.
Jeff Dachowski: I shouldn’t have the success I’ve had in my studio. I wasn’t raised that way. I didn’t have that background. I didn’t have this innate knowledge. I wasn’t in a marketing family, blah, blah, blah, all the things. Yet here you and I were, we had this conversation. We both agreed neither one of us had this innate ability to do this, but we learned and we implemented things that we learned and we changed, and we moved. And if you’re out there listening, you can change and move and implement and do all of this. And we totally believe in you.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yep. Absolutely. Couldn’t have said it better. Well, thank you for taking the time. I hope you have a wonderful vacation.
Jeff Dachowski: Thank you.
Allison Tyler Jones: I’m going to go shoot a session right now that is in, people are showing up in 12 minutes.
Jeff Dachowski: Listen, have a great session, knock it out of the park, but of course you will.
Allison Tyler Jones: Tell Carol I said hi, and love to everybody.
Jeff Dachowski: Give my love to your family, and I hope to see you soon.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay, love, love, love. Mwah.
Jeff Dachowski: Mwah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Bye.
Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison at dotherework.com and on Instagram at @do.the.rework.
