Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait photographers to uniquely brand, profitably price, and confidently sell their best work. Allison has been doing just that for the last 15 years, and she’s proven that it’s possible to create unforgettable art and run a portrait business that supports your family and your dreams. All it takes is a little ReWork. Episodes will include interviews with experts from in and outside of the photo industry, mini workshops and behind-the-scenes secrets that Allison uses in her portrait studio every single day. She will challenge your thinking and inspire your confidence to create a profitable, sustainable portrait business you love through continually refining and reworking your business. Let’s do the ReWork.
Allison Tyler Jones: Hi friends, and welcome back to The ReWork. I’m Allison Tyler Jones, and for the last 168, if you can believe it, episodes, we have been all about helping portrait photographers to uniquely brand, profitably price, and confidently sell their very best work. And today’s topic is one that I have wanted to unpack for a long time, the idea of playing the long game. How often have you booked a wonderful client, loved on them, created your best work for them, they loved everything, they left happy, they were singing your praises, and then crickets, tumbleweeds, you never see them again? Is it possible to take a fantastic first session and turn it into a relationship that lasts for years? How do you build a studio where clients don’t just come back, they actually expect to come back? Well, that’s what this episode is all about. Let’s do it.
Allison Tyler Jones: A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a new client, who’s a very successful serial entrepreneur. He was actually really surprised when I mentioned that many of our clients have their families photographed every year, some every other year, some every year. His actual words were, “It’s crazy that you run a premium-priced business and still have people that return year-after-year.” And I thought, wait, why is that weird to him? Then I thought again, and remembered how many conversations I’ve had with fellow photographers over the years who’ve said a version of that very same thing, “Wait, your clients come back every year?” Their surprise was surprising to me, because in my mind, that’s just how it’s supposed to work. But for this client and some photographers, “premium,” I’m using quotes here, or luxury usually means once in a lifetime or one-and-done, and that’s when it hit me, so much of what we get out of our business starts with our own expectations. If you expect one-and-done, that’s the kind of business you’ll build. If you expect long-term relationships, you will design every touchpoint, every conversation, around the idea of a long-term relationship.
Allison Tyler Jones: So your first mind shift is this, stop feeling grateful that the clients came once, start expecting that they’ll come again. Of course, we’re grateful when great clients come through our door, but how can you serve them better and how can you build a relationship with them so that they can come back? So many of us are addicted to the new, and this is not just photographers, this is entrepreneurs and business owners in every industry. We are obsessed with new leads, new campaigns and new clients. Meanwhile, the best clients, the ones who actually love you, the ones who have already spent money with you, the clients who already know your process, you spent the time to educate them and they know it and they love it and they’re willing to abide by it and they want more, are sitting right there in your database.
Allison Tyler Jones: We’ll buy a new marketing course before we will sit down and email or text the people who already adore us, it’s insane. I believe that when you change your focus, when you start treating existing clients as your most valuable asset, you stop chasing and start curating the very best kinds of clients for your business. But you know what? Our clients have lives, they’re busy and we aren’t top of mind with them. So instead of sitting on your hands and thinking of your next marketing promotion, start thinking about your favorite clients. You know the ones I’m talking about, they totally get you. When you ask them a question about framing or what size do you think this should be or what do you want to do, they say to you things like, Well, whatever you think.” They pay on time, they refer their friends. Who are those clients for you?
Allison Tyler Jones: I want you to think about specific people, a specific person. And in the portrait photography world, it’s generally the mom, it’s generally a woman. So what is her name? I want you to really do this, even if you’re on a treadmill, I want you to think, who is it, who is your very best client? I’m sure you have more than one. One of my very best clients is Alicia, so I’m going to talk about her in a minute. Now, ask yourself, what does she, specifically her, need next from you? When was the last time you dealt with her? When was the last time you worked with her and had a lovely, amazing, great time, and what does she need next? Not what do you want to sell her and not what artist project are you working on, not what the lab has for sale, not what promo you want to do, but what would actually be the best for that one specific client? If you say, “Well, she just needs more portraits,” you’re not trying hard enough. I want you to really think about her.
Allison Tyler Jones: So in my case, Alicia is a mom of two boys. She’s in her 40s. She is an extremely busy business owner. She has great taste, she loves interior design, and she loves portraits of her children. She does not have time to DIY anything in her life, so she just trusts me to handle the portrait portion of her family life. Now, that kind of client, somebody that trusts you in that way, is somebody that you need to be thinking about what is next for them, how can I spoil them, what is it that she needs next? Because that’s how you move from being just another vendor to being the family’s visual historian. We’re no longer just taking pictures, you’re documenting their legacy, you’re telling the story of this family.
Allison Tyler Jones: So what does Alicia need right now, what would she love? So if I’m thinking about Alicia, I know she has twin boys who are 13 and they are heavily involved in team sports. The boys are actually getting pretty good at football and they’re taking it very seriously. Alicia’s spending most of her weekends on the sidelines of their games, and I think that she would love a dramatically lit portrait of each or both of the boys together in their full head-to-toe football gear. Of course, I’m going to want them to come after a game or have her not wash the uniform so they’re dirty, I want to have the black underneath their eyes. I don’t really want their hair super quaffed, it needs to be messy.
Allison Tyler Jones: The boys are complete goofballs, so I know that I can get great shots of them tossing the ball to each other and being crazy. But I really want to capture how serious a 13-year-old can be about their sport. The Super Bowl and the NFL Hall of Fame is totally in the cards for kids this age. They really believe, even though they’re 80 pounds soaking wet and are never going to have an extra ounce on them, they probably could be a defensive line. So you know what I’m talking about, kids are taking this very, very seriously and they’re really into it. So I think a portrait of the two boys together, we could either make that an addition to her existing wall gallery, or maybe, depending on how we shot it, perhaps as a standalone showstopper at the end of her hallway.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now, it’s your turn. I want you to take a notebook, even if you have to pause this and come back to it later or re-listen to it, grab a notebook, and I mean an actual notebook. I don’t really want you putting notes in your phone. There’s something about pen to paper that makes it more serious and puts a different groove down in your brain. I want you to write down your top five best clients. Next to each of their names, I want you to jot what they might need next year, if you’ve already seen them this year, or if you haven’t seen them yet this year, jot down what you think they need.
Allison Tyler Jones: So maybe it’s somebody that you photographed three years ago and you’re like, dang, I wonder what happened to them, I wonder what’s up with them? Go cyber stalk them. Go look on Instagram, Facebook, and see what’s going on with them, and think about the ages of their kids now and what it is that they might need. Maybe they have somebody that’s graduating, maybe they have a new baby, maybe they’ve moved to a new house or they have some kind of new milestone in their life.
Allison Tyler Jones: This little exercise will start to rewire how you see your role. Yes, we want to light beautiful portraits, yes, we want to have amazing backgrounds and props or locations, but that is only in the service of creating a visual legacy for a family or whatever genre that you’re involved in. So I want you to stop thinking, man, I hope they call me again after an amazing session with a new client, and start thinking and saying to them, “I can’t wait for you to see what’s next.” Once you shift your mindset, you have to set that expectation again and again with yourself, your employees, with your clients, and it doesn’t happen in one conversation, it’s layered all throughout the process. The first phone call, the consultation, the session itself, your view and order appointment and the installation, every one of those moments is a chance to remind your client, this is not a one night stand, this is the start of a beautiful relationship and we’re going to be together for a really long time.
Allison Tyler Jones: When a new client comes in for a consultation, you’ve heard a lot of my verbiage. If you’ve been listening to these podcasts over the years, you’ve heard me say, “We’re not normal, we work a little differently than most photographers. We’re creating artwork for your home, and we do that over a period of time.” Our happiest clients are the ones who, after a few years, have an entire gallery documenting their family’s story. That’s setting the expectation right upfront. And then, I’ll show them examples of a family I photographed, families, multiple families, but one family in particular I photographed since their youngest was a baby, and I will show this family has moved a lot, and I will show those images in the first home that we installed them in, and then how they moved to the next home, and how they moved to the next home.
Allison Tyler Jones: So I’m not just showing, in a consultation, “Here’s all the beautiful pictures I’ve created for other people, and we can do beautiful pictures like this for you, and then here’s the clothes that you should wear and here’s the location we’re going to meet at.” Of course, we’re going to talk about all of those things. But mainly what I want them to know is where that beautiful work that we’re creating is going to end up and why. So that’s setting a vision, that is setting a vision for your clients about why we’re doing this in the first place, because at some point, they’re going to be walking through their home and they are going to be walking past beautiful curated artwork of their family over a period of time, they’re going to watch their kids grow up on a wall.
Allison Tyler Jones: Another thing I often say is that you’ll be entertaining and you’ll wonder where your guests have gone and you’ll find them standing by your gallery while just looking at your images. It happens. I’ve had so many clients tell me, “Yeah, we were entertaining, we were wondering, somebody went to the bathroom and then nobody was coming out, it’s because they were all standing in the back hall looking at our wall gallery.” So that’s setting the vision. Now, it’s really important, and this is a common mistake, that you don’t have to say all of your new processes at once, you don’t want to verbal vomit your process in the first phone call. This is a common mistake when you’re learning new processes. I’ve seen this happen a lot with students that are just newly coming out of our Art of Selling Art course. They’ve learned all new things, they’re super excited. They get on that first phone call with a new client and they just blah, just way too much information, and then people are like, “Whoa, that is a lot, and it feels hard and scary and I can’t do that.”
Allison Tyler Jones: So you have to drip the information, you don’t want to just overwhelm somebody all at once. So instead of just having it all come out in that very first phone call, you want to weave it into your multiple conversations. So on the phone, you might say something like, “Our clients love watching their families grow up on the walls of their home.” During a shoot, you get a particular image, maybe you share it on the back of your camera, “This is going to be a perfect addition to your black and white gallery down the back of your hallway.”
Allison Tyler Jones: At the sale, when they’re showing you images of the walls in their home, which is what we do, we have them send pictures of their walls so that we can put it into our software and lay out the walls, if they’re like, “Well, what about this wall?” I might say something like, “Well, let’s leave that one open for next year’s formal session.” Or above the fireplace, “I don’t feel like this year’s session really is fireplace-worthy, it’s a little bit more casual. I think we should really do something like black tie next year and do something like that above the fireplace.”
Allison Tyler Jones: So you might say, “Well, you’re talking them out of things,” but I’m not, I am playing a long game. I’m not just trying to get the biggest sale I can every single year when people come in. I am trying to serve them the way that I would want to be served over a period of my life if somebody was documenting my family. So you’re planting little seeds along the way, and each seed says, “There will be a next time.” And I stress this again, this is not just because I want to sell more portraits, but it’s because it’s my reason for being in business.
Allison Tyler Jones: I want the families I work with to have artwork of their families that will last generations, that they can watch their kids grow up as they walk through their home, and that it’s tightly curated, it’s not just a bunch of the same images every single year. It’s well-thought-out and each year is a different concept and we have a different idea of what we’re doing. So we’re going back again to that thought process of what do they need right now, and it’s not the same thing. It’s not an email blast that’s going out to all the customers and you’re sending the same thing to everybody, it’s very much one-on-one, what does that specific client need?
Allison Tyler Jones: Another way to say it with new clients, once we’ve booked them, we’ve done the session, they’ve come in for the sales appointment and we’re wrapping up the sale, I will let them know, “Now that you’ve found us, you’re part of the ATJ family.” I let them know that they have priority booking, and I’ll make some kind of a joke about, “I would love to watch your kids grow up. I will shoot them until the day I die, I would love that.” Clients love the confidence of an expert who is willing to take responsibility for this area of their lives.
Allison Tyler Jones: Think about a great doctor that you’ve gone to or maybe a really good mechanic or a really amazing contractor that you hired for a remodel or some kind of a project in your home. When they’re so competent and so knowledgeable and you can tell they’re not just trotting out a standard, “Oh yeah, this is what we always do,” it’s like, “No, no, no, you guys have seven kids and you’re going to put a lot of wear and tear on this floor, so you don’t want to do this kind of flooring, this other kind of floor would be better. It looks like the other thing that you really liked, but it’s much heartier,” that sort of thing. They’re really listening to you or they’re really taking into account what it is that you’re saying.
Allison Tyler Jones: And then, that contractor might say something like, “And look, when your kids get older and they’re bigger, you’re probably going to need a casita or something built onto the back of your house, because you’re going to have kids that are going to travel back and forth from college, or they’ll get married and live out of state and you’ll need a bunk room for the grandkids or whatever,” and he’s painting a vision for my future. So many other industries will do this, but so often, we don’t as photographers.
Allison Tyler Jones: Your best clients, so this is very important, not all clients, your best clients want someone to lead out and tell them what to do. Your worst clients want to tell you what to do and how much to charge. But your best clients want you to tell them what to do, they don’t want to think about it, they just want to trust someone who already has a plan, and that’s us, we have the plan. So another action to take that you could do very quickly, can you create a short Instagram reel, or even just a short paragraph for your website, with a theme of what to expect when you’re working with us?
Allison Tyler Jones: Explain that your process is designed for long-term collaboration and it’s not just a one-off session. You could use language like, “Our happiest clients love seeing their walls evolve year-after-year,” or, “We build your family’s story in art, one chapter at a time, or one album at a time,” depending on what you are specializing in. That verbal framing changes the expectations of every client that you work with. And honestly, the simple exercise of just creating that paragraph, even if you never publish it anywhere or never post it anywhere, will start to engrave the concepts of this vision further into your brain, and it makes it so much easier to talk about in every client interaction.
Allison Tyler Jones: So you’ve changed your mindset, you’ve got the message. Now, let’s talk a little bit about structure. How do you design your business so clients will naturally return without cringey referral programs or discount promos that devalue your brand and that actually your best clients don’t really respond to anyway? My best clients do not want to come in on a deal, they want to come in when it’s special, they want to come in when they want to come in. They don’t want to be subject to any rules or limitations required by some kind of a promo, they just want what they want when they want it, and that’s why we don’t do a lot of promos, because they just want what they want. My very best clients just want what they want, and I’m happy to give it to them.
Allison Tyler Jones: So let’s talk about continuing projects. One of the most powerful tools you can use is internalizing the concept that every client project is a continuing project, so every client session is a continuing client session. If they buy a wall portrait, that’s not a moment, it’s a chapter. So I might say something like, “This is the beginning of your family gallery.” There you go, the expectation is set right there. Albums become chapters in your story, same design, same size each year, so on a shelf, that looks like volumes of a family story, and nobody wants a missing volume on their shelf. Gallery walls, I’ll say, “It looks good now, what we hung, and then there’s room to grow.”
Allison Tyler Jones: You can watch the relief wash over them as I tell them… Because first of all, when we start out and we haven’t worked together before, they’re like, “Wait, I have to pick framing? I don’t know where it’s going to go.” It seems like a lot. And so, you have to let them come into it slowly and let them know that they don’t have to figure out anything, you are going to help them figure out. They’re going to do their part, they’re going to show up, they’re going to come to the consultation, they’re going to send you pictures of their walls, and then together, you’re going to collaborate and figure this out.
Allison Tyler Jones: But you are the one that knows the framing, the sizes, what size should hang on a wall, and you have the information that they need, and you have the expertise to make sure they’re lit beautifully and that they dress in the right clothes and that we’re photographing at the right time of day for the toddlers and all the million things that we do on a daily basis. They realize that they don’t have to make every decision perfect right now, because I already have a plan for them.
Allison Tyler Jones: Another continuing project are holiday cards. Almost everybody wants holiday cards. As an older mom who is also the expert in this scenario, I know that, yes, you want to have cute cards, you want everybody to love them, you want your text threads to blow up when you send your cards out, yes. But I also know that most of those cards are going to get chucked in the trash, and that the real value in having your family portraits done every year is the portraits that you’re creating for your home. So I am making sure that I’m not allowing them to just only do cards, because oh my gosh, look at all they have to go through to get those cards. They’ve got to go buy the clothes, they’ve got to show up, they’ve got to make the appointment, they’ve got to get everybody happy to be there and spend all of that money, and then it’s disposable imagery? No, thank you.
Allison Tyler Jones: My rules are that they need to put something on the wall or in an album before I’ll do holiday cards, not because I want to be a jerk, but honestly because I believe that’s what they should do. The holiday cards are nice, but they’re secondary, that’s part of my “expertise.” There are doctors that are going to not let you do some kind of surgery before you go through other steps before you get there, because they know it wouldn’t be good for you. They’re the experts, and that’s who we are if we’re doing it right. I keep the focus on what I know that my clients will be happiest with long-term, which is artwork or albums.
Allison Tyler Jones: And you might say, “Well, you know what? You’re so bossy. Why do you think you know what’s better?” Because I do know, and this is how I want to do business and this is the type of people I want to do business with. I don’t want to do business with people who want disposable imagery, and so if you want that, then you don’t want me. But if you want gorgeous artwork that’s tightly curated, I’m not going to let you decorate your entire house out of one photo shoot, we are going to figure this out. I’m going to help you with the clothes, we are going to get it dialed, the concept and everything, and I’m not going to let you go buck wild on one photo shoot, I just won’t.
Allison Tyler Jones: If you want a lot of images, sure, we can do an album, but I’m not going to let you put too many images on a wall from one shoot, I just won’t do it, because I’m playing a long game and I want to watch your kids grow up. What I’m saying to you right now are words I use with my clients every single day in my studio. Holiday cards just become an annual reason to check back in, but they are not the main thing. So those are what I think of as continuing projects. So a wall portrait is a chapter, albums are chapters, gallery walls are looks good now, there’s room to grow, and holiday cards are just a reason to check in every year.
Allison Tyler Jones: Another framework to consider that keeps this idea sustainable for your clients is the idea that there are big years and continuation years. So a big year might be a milestone moment, like the oldest kid is graduating or a newborn or an anniversary, A continuation year might be a smaller order, a smaller add-on to a gallery, maybe updating a wall gallery, doing another album, then holiday cards with that. This rhythm, bigger years and smaller years, gives your clients breathing room, both financially and wall space-wise, while still ensuring that we’re not missing any milestones.
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re not asking them to spend huge every single year, you’re guiding them through a predictable, thoughtful, customized plan for their specific needs. And when they know how it works and they see that you do have a plan and that you won’t let them go crazy, they relax and they trust you, because they understand that you have their best interest at heart, and they return. So take a minute, go through, print out your client list. Print out your client list. If you’re brand new and you have only ever had 10 clients, print it out. And look through each of those families that you’ve photographed, each of those people that you’ve photographed, and look at when you photographed them, was that a big year or was it more of a continuation year? And think about this year or next year that you’re going to work with them, what kind of year will that be?
Allison Tyler Jones: Then set reminders in your calendar a few months before those milestones are happening, graduations, anniversaries, et cetera, and plan ahead and text them and let them know, “Hey, I know that Annie’s graduating in 2026, and we love the idea of photographing her in X month, in X outfit,” whatever, you have the idea ahead of time. When we keep our specific clients’ needs top of mind, we become indispensable to our clients, because the goal isn’t that clients just like you and what you do, it really is that they get to the point where they cannot imagine doing portraits without you, because you make their life easier than anyone else could. It goes without saying that you’re providing beautiful work and that you’re good at your craft, but it’s the service and the anticipation and the expertise that you’re building around that craft that makes their life so much easier.
Allison Tyler Jones: Here’s what that looks like, some real life examples. We install the artwork for them, and when they move, we reinstall the artwork. We keep track of their kids’ milestones. We have a database where, as we’re calling them and keeping in touch with them once a year, very often they’ll say, “You know what? We’re going to be out of town this year, we’re traveling this summer, so we’re not going to do our normal session. But for sure in 2026, we’ve got a kid coming home from a mission or so-and-so is graduating.” And so, we note that down, we don’t just let that go into the ether, like, “Oh, okay, well, I hope they call me when that happens.” It’s not up to them to call us, because we’re in charge of their family gallery, their family legacy.
Allison Tyler Jones: We remember their frame preferences, their dogs’ names, and where the artwork is currently hanging in their home and where we think it could move once we update it the next time. We send quick text messages, like, “”Hey, Annie’s a senior next year. February is our favorite time to capture seniors because we want them to look like they’re going to look when they graduate, so let’s look at schedules so we can get her album and announcements underway and her gorgeous senior face added to your family gallery.” That’s taking responsibility and being the expert for your client, and once you lead like that, you become part of the rhythm of their life. Clients stop price shopping, they stop testing out other photographers, they stay, because you make their life easier and you have built a trusting long-term relationship with them.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now, what happens when clients cheat? Does that ever happen with good, loyal clients, do they ever cheat? Of course. Not always, not all of them, but some will, so let’s talk about that. This is something that’s a reality. It stings. You open Instagram, there is your used-to-be client smiling in someone else’s feed or they tagged another photographer in an image with their family. It hurts. But here’s the truth, I’ve seen it again and again, they will come back when it matters.
Allison Tyler Jones: So let me tell you a story. I had a client, a younger grandmother, who booked a large extended family session. We created two large art pieces for her home, and a couple of years later, I saw an Instagram post with her family on the beach in which she tagged another photographer who had photographed her family. And I admit that I had a moment where I felt bad about that. But I looked a little closer, I looked at this photographer, and she had run some beach mini sessions that the family had booked while on vacation, and she was selling X number of digital files of those images.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, I ran into that client a few months later and she immediately told me about it. She said, “We were on vacation, it was cheap. We didn’t have the entire family with us, so we had a few pics done. But it was so hard. The photographer didn’t help us with what to wear, they were late, the kids were melting down, he didn’t take control and tell us what to do, he didn’t help us pose. So I wasn’t really happy with the way things turned out.” She was like, “I will never do it again. The experience wasn’t even close to what we went through with you. But our whole family is going to be together again next year, and we have three new grandkids, so we’ll be back.” And so, I said, “Okay, well, you have three new grandkids, how old are they?”
Allison Tyler Jones: And so, she says, “Well, the youngest is a newborn.” I said, “Well, probably six months, when they’re sitting up, that’s a really good time to do that next session, so that’s going to be in February. So you know what? I’ll just put a note for Chelsea to give you a call in January and we’ll get you booked.” And she was like, “Awesome, that’s amazing. Can’t wait to see you.” So I realized that when clients experience true excellence, it’s really hard to go back, and that we don’t need to compete, we just need to be the one that they trust when it really counts. So I realized that I just needed to not take that personally. I just took it as proof that my branding and my positioning was working. I don’t want to do beach portraits for $250. I’m doing what I want to be doing, how I want to be doing it, for clients who value that. So when that happens, when you feel cheated on, stay gracious, stay visible, and know that they will be back when it counts.
Allison Tyler Jones: Here’s the truth, if you want a sustainable, profitable, joyful business, stop chasing new clients and start deepening your relationships with the clients that you already have. Your studio isn’t just a business, it’s part of your clients’ lives. We are the ones who document their babies, their teens, their milestones, their legacy, and that’s not something that they can easily replace with a discount photographer or an iPhone. In a disposable world, we are offering permanence, legacy, and the ability to handle every part of the process for them, from beginning to end for life, and that’s power.
Allison Tyler Jones: So just to recap where we’ve been, shift that mind of yours, make that mind shift of expecting the return, it starts in your own mind first. Set the vision early with the clients and repeat it often, those little seeds need to be dropped all along the way. Design continuing projects that grow over time, whether that’s a series of albums, wall galleries, you decide. Become indispensable to your very best clients. Solve problems before they even know they have them. You have the expertise, you know how to do this. Don’t chase clients, nurture relationships. Don’t panic, plan. And that’s how you go from a single session to a lifetime legacy.
Allison Tyler Jones: I so appreciate your time and attention, and hope that you’ll share this episode with a portrait photographer who would most benefit from it. Your shares, downloads and reviews really help us get the podcast to more photographers, and it is a goal of mine to raise this industry, the photographic industry, the portrait photograph industry, to be the best that it possibly can be. So until next time, go be the expert your clients didn’t even know they needed. And remember, it’s not just about hustling harder, it’s about creating something that lasts.
Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison at otherework.com and on Instagram @do.the.rework.
