In the dynamic world of photography, success is often attributed to creativity, technical prowess, and client relationships, however, a defined client lifecycle is the unsung hero behind successful photography studios. Alarmingly, over 60% miss out on this critical blueprint, leading to inconsistent client experiences and operational gaps. This foundational framework isn’t just a strategy—it's a beacon that directs every client touchpoint, from initial contact to loyal repeat business. Ignoring it risks lost opportunities and stunted growth. Embrace a defined client lifecycle, stand out from the majority, and ensure consistent excellence across your operations. Join us as we break the client lifecycle down into its components and elaborate on pitfalls and best practices. Leave with an actionable framework you can put in place right away.
Jeramie Lu - Youtube // Instagram // Website
Angie Nelson - Youtube // Instagram // Website
Maureen Sullivan - WebsiteKjael Skaalerud (00:00:00):
And I even put together some little slides for us. So I'm going to go ahead. 1104, I think. Let's go ahead and rock. And this is recorded. It looks like we've got some attendees in Andy, Dominique, lane. Graham, Gregory, Jen, Katie Steffy. What's up y'all? Thanks for joining us. Hope you're having an outstanding week. Let's jump in here. So I put together and I guess format, this is a discussion versus a demo or a presentation of any kind. But I did spin up just some lightweight slides to get us rolling. Let me move this out the way. Okay. And everybody can see that. Okay.
Jeramie Lu (00:00:38):
Yeah, look at those headshot,
Kjael Skaalerud (00:00:40):
Right? Handsome and beautiful, awesome shots. Alright, cool. So here we go. Photography studio, client lifecycle. The agenda for today, and I thought that this would be kind of cool, was to actually spin it as a lifecycle. So we're going to kick off with some introductions. I'm so pumped to have the panelists that we have included in leading up to this, like, wow, I was so excited to get them involved. I did my best to kind of grab folks for the broader community and they were all excited about participating, so I was super jazzed, but I don't want to steal any thunder. So we'll go introductions and then we'll step right into each component. I figured introductions, a quick conversation about the client lifecycle, one level of abstraction at what does the exact lifecycle look like and the different components. So we can start to put the puzzle together and get a little bit more specific.
(00:01:26):
So then we'll jump into each component. So pre-engagement stage, initial launch, engagement and onboarding, service, delivery and experience, post-service, engagement, retention, referrals and expansion. And then we'll wrap with some q and a. And I think it's important to note too, that I kept these in the spirit of every studio is unique and everybody has their own approach. I kept that headline topics very vague. So pre-engagement stage, like a lot of folks could call that kind of initial inquiry and lead response, right? There's different ways and flavors to label the stages. So we wanted to lead with that, that this is always going to be a customized approach to what fits your studio. But without that, I'm going to go ahead and be quiet here and pass the mic. Let's just go top to bottom on my screen. Jeremy, what's up my friend? Tell us who you are, where are
Jeramie Lu (00:02:14):
You located, buddy
Kjael Skaalerud (00:02:15):
Scoop with your studio, all the good stuff.
Jeramie Lu (00:02:17):
Yes, so I'm in the studio now. I'm a commercial wedding and portrait photographer. My name is Jeremy Lou. Jeremy Lou Photography, keep it simple. And I'm based out of Reno, Nevada. It's close to Lake Tahoe, so Reno, lake Tahoe. We are eight hours away from Vegas, so I'm closer to the Bay Area and people ask us all the time how Vegas is, and I'm like, I have no idea. I'm best of Reno in two publications for the last 16 years in a row. And I only do about 40 weddings a year, but at a higher end. And then I spend most of my time doing commercial and portrait work. My goal is people, my strong suit is people and personality and I can do a landscape, but I feel like it's just better with a person in front of it.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:03:04):
That's me. Good stuff. Alright, over to you Angie.
Angie Nelson (00:03:09):
My name is Angie Nelson and I am a wedding photographer here in Maui, Hawaii. I also own a company called Engaged on Maui, which I super utilize Pixa five for. It's a company where we plan and photograph proposals, so we do around 200 proposals a year, helping people find the perfect spot to pop the question. I have a team of photographers that work for me and it's a lot of fun here.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:03:36):
And I guess just real quick too, all sent in our thoughts and energy and prayers to Matt, we know it's a tough time. Feel. Mo over to you. Last but not least,
Maureen Sullivan (00:03:48):
I am Maureen Sullivan. I'm based in Massachusetts. I'm also a photographer, portraits and weddings. But I'd say for the last 25 plus years, I'm a systems person. I teach business management solutions, i p S solutions and studio workflow to photographers all around the world.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:04:07):
Outstanding. And forgive me, with the inaugural webinar, there comes some reminding that there needs to be housekeeping and some other stuff. So in terms of the format, so there's a q and a button, you should see it in kind of the zoom navigation at the bottom of the screen. So if you want to drop questions, our hope in terms of general structure was to go after q and a at the end, but if you want to submit a question, you can do it in q and a and I'll try to kind of field those in real time as we're navigating the conversation. But for sure we'll get to those questions by the time we wrap. You can raise your hand, but I don't really know what that does except for let us know that you're here hanging out. So I think let's just anchor around the q and a and we'll rock through those.
(00:04:46):
Okay, so client lifecycle, this is interesting and obviously Pixifi at its root. For those that are more familiar with software, it's kind of at the intersection of A C R M, which is a customer relationship management. Salesforce is the big one. They kind of invented the category. Then you have some HR tech or some human capital management for certain studios in terms of how they manage their staff, their personnel, et cetera. And then there's a little bit of an accounting, or at the enterprise level, it's an enterprise resource planning. So okay, what's my income look like or my invoices outstanding? Generally speaking, it kind of pulls together those three things. And what's interesting is that in terms of an overarching framework, the client lifecycle is a good way to contemplate that. And in a lot of categories, the client lifecycle has become a category to think about, all right, how do you want to visually map your business and the operations and the things that you're focusing on?
(00:05:41):
And then once you have that stood up, then you can start to think about the role. And there's kind of three ways to do anything, people, process and technology. I was like, okay, let's start with a lead and then a lead comes in and how do you engage with that person? And then eventually you I guess present yourself in a certain way and you can track to do business all the way through to post-production. So that's kind of what we're trying to think about here. And I think the thing with the lifecycle is ideally it sets up to be a flywheel is what it should be like the client, the photography studio flywheel, because you want clients at the tail end to be super jazzed about you. It's like, Hey, you shot our wedding, I know that you also do maternity and newborn photos. Cool, now our family is growing, can you come do a portrait by the way? And you can kind of diversify into all these different things. And the concept of a repeat customer becomes very interesting. Or on the other side is somebody who's just an evangelist that refers you to other studios, et cetera. So when it's done right, it's like this thing that goes faster and faster and faster and it's pretty cool. So just wanted to spit that out very quickly. As a point departure, is there anything that you all would like to add about the client lifecycle on the most macro perspective?
Jeramie Lu (00:06:50):
No, that was good. That was detailed.
Angie Nelson (00:06:52):
That was really good. That was alright. Right.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:06:54):
Okay. I didn't practice that. I did throw out my blazer here for big day. First webinar, big day. Okay, so pre-engagement stage, and I've asked the panelists to frame a lot of their responses around, we want you all the audience to get as much leverage from this conversation as possible. So it's mostly around, hey, power law, if you follow that, I want to know the 20% of stuff that's going to yield 80% of my results. So I've asked them to frame their contributions around best practices, like, hey, I did this thing and it made all the difference or pitfalls, I did this thing and it was awful and you should not do it. So that's kind of how we'll navigate it. But I guess pre-engagement stage, some things to think about, and this is even before the client lifecycle, but profiling your ideal client and understanding your market channels and digital surface area. So if I were to ask Angie, do you have a definition of an ideal client and ideal customer?
Angie Nelson (00:07:49):
Yes. So I'm going to be speaking mostly about engaged on Maui because that's what I'm really utilizing Pixifi for because there's so many different facets of my business. But for us, our ideal client, it can be men or women, though we are mostly working with men, mostly men are reaching out to us for help when it comes to proposals. So we have a demographic, usually it's age 27 to 35 or so. Somebody who has never been to Maui before or they've only been one other time and they're unfamiliar with the area and they need a local expert to help them find the right spot, make the proposal epic, and get some amazing shots. So their sweetie is going to love it.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:08:38):
Awesome. Good stuff. And I guess what percentage of the folks that you interact with have a definition for an ideal client profile? Ideal
Angie Nelson (00:08:46):
Customer, I would say we're probably at the 80% mark,
Kjael Skaalerud (00:08:52):
Percent mark for you, I guess the studios that you work with, right? Yeah. If you put your consulting hat on, what percentage of them as a point of departure, it's like, Hey, tell me who your best client is. How would you define that? I guess are you finding that a lot of studios have done that thinking as a real kind of point of departure?
Maureen Sullivan (00:09:09):
I think a lot of people actually struggle with that. I find at the point that I work with them, they're trying to identify who they're going after. So percentage, maybe 50 50. Some people are trying to figure that out and then other people really have an idea of who they want to focus on. It varies.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:09:30):
Okay. And I would pivot this one because I think that's a very interesting point of departure period. When you start to think about a client lifecycle, at least in the wide world of software, we spend a lot of time thinking because the old adage is if you market to everyone, you market to no one. And so grasping who your ideal customer is is probably the most productive exercise you can start with. And I think what's interesting too is if you do have some systems in place, the data can tell you a pretty good story. So it's like, hey, let's just look at, or you just try to reverse engineer your best client. You don't need to overthink it. It's like, Hey, we worked with this couple and this was what that dialogue looked like and this was the pace of the conversation and this is the main touch points and this was their feedback as I went.
(00:10:14):
Cool. Just start there and try to replicate that as many times as you can. But Jeremy, I guess back to the pre-engagement stage, digital surface area is kind of an interesting headline here. And I imagine you have a definition or definitely a pretty tight grasp of your ideal customer, but when you start to think about, all right, I know who my ideal customer is and I'm not even thinking about getting leads at this point, I'm not even thinking about sending proposals or any type of consultative interactions. What would you say are your main digital surface area, like your main channels for people to find you for, to connect with your audience? How do you think about the channels that you have working for you?
Jeramie Lu (00:10:52):
So I mean, everything goes back to, so I use my website as a landing page only. So a main area where everybody can find me and get ahold of me, but I'm spending most of my time YouTube, Instagram, I tried threads, it's not working. But I feel like YouTube and Instagram and Facebook are my key components. I actually started my business back when Facebook was just like, I don't want to say just starting, but back when you can post something and people would actually see it and they would interact with it because all of my clientele is theoretically referral based. I am not the cheapest photographer in our area. In fact, I'm going to say that I'm probably the most expensive photographer in my area and I'm only doing a certain amount of weddings a year. 40 years is my goal, or 40 weddings is my goal per year.
(00:11:38):
So the people that I'm targeting are people that know my work already throughout the years or have seen me in action, whether it's at a wedding or a bridal fair or something. They know who I am. That's who I'm going for. So when I'm posting on social media, I'm posting more personal aspects of myself. I'm posting about my family, my kids, my life. I'll vlog a lot. And I'm not really focusing on my photography side of it because I feel like there's amazing photographers everywhere and I don't want to compete with photographers on the photography side. I want to compete with them on the personality side because weddings are so personal that if you're going to bring me into your wedding, you're going to have to love me as a person because I am the ultimate guest. Our wedding photographer is the ultimate guest. We're with the bride more than the groom for that day.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:12:27):
Yeah, you better whoever's going to show up and be like, yeah, totally attached to everybody during the photo. That's totally interesting insight. Cool. I want to probably pause, I mean obviously that's a huge Pandora's box to go down to in terms of content creation, et cetera. But obviously we're a big fan of frameworks and principles, my crew. So one that has been really useful for us is because a lot of times there's kind of the art of the start with content. It's like, where do I start? What should I do? It's just start with the channels that you're the most familiar with. And I would say definitely you need a website as the main magnet, the main kind of anchor to attach everything else in your world. But our favorite adage is don't think about creating content, just document what you're doing. And what's very interesting for photographers is that documentation is kind of baked into the work streams that you're already doing.
(00:13:12):
So if you bring a little bit of a personal edge to it, it's like, hey, here are the images, obviously with your clients opt in. Here's some of the images that we're capturing. This is the art, this is what we're trading in, but here's behind the scenes of how we go about what we do, how we approach clients, how we try to elevate the entire experience, how we try to be a huge asset on the day of, et cetera, et cetera. So don't think about content, just start documenting what you're doing and just pump it and pump it and then let the world tell you what's good and what's not great. But even then I would say listen to your heart and keep doing the fun stuff. But alright, so switching gears. So pre-engagement is really just kind of a thought process around who's our ideal customer, where do they hang out and how today are they able to find us?
(00:13:52):
Simply put, right? So now if we change gears to initial engagement in onboarding. So I would just say, and we'll just go around, I don't want to steer you too much, but I'll just throw out a few things. So the importance of first impressions, the data on first impressions is bananas. It's like we form our first impression in a 30th of a second and that lasts for months, or it's the amount of data that we need and interactions that we need with somebody to change that. Our first impression is insane. So first impressions matter a lot and just some quick hacks. And I guess the challenge here is you all use Pixifi on a regular basis, but we probably don't want to go too technical. We can't really screen share and show the product. But if you could just speak conceptually about how you use tooling period. And I don't want this to be totally biased to Pixifi, but how you use stuff to accelerate your world throughout. So what do we think is the most important thing about initial engagement? And let's just start there because a little bit of a different can of worms.
Jeramie Lu (00:14:55):
I would say,
Kjael Skaalerud (00:14:56):
Oh, go ahead. Sorry, I'm going to cold call so that we avoid
Angie Nelson (00:14:59):
That situation. No,
Kjael Skaalerud (00:15:01):
I know better than that. Yeah, that's my bad. All right, I'll try to vary it up. So let's go Jeremy, start with you.
Jeramie Lu (00:15:05):
So I mean, honestly, the first thing for me is the speed of replying is getting right back right away. And the way that I use Pixifi is my questionnaire is built in, my email's going out. So as soon as that email comes in, I do differently. I manually send my questionnaires and my first email out rather than automated. I just like that control. So as soon as an email comes in or a notification from Facebook or Instagram or whatever, the first thing I do is I snag their email and I send it to them right away, all my information, questionnaire, info about myself, website and all that stuff. So I think the speed of it is going to show that I'm available, I'm ready, and I'm willing to work rather than having to wait for a photographer for two or three days to reply to anything.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:15:49):
Totally. And it's interesting, I swear I didn't ask them to say any of this, but I was just doing some diligence around data points and putting together some stuff to substantiate where I thought the conversation would go and compete on speed is very interesting in service-based businesses, period. But 50%, I don't know, I can't remember what the source is, and 80% of all stats are made up. So take this with a grain of salt, but 50% of buyers choose the vendor that responds first. So that's kind of interesting. And obviously that's a very automatable thing. You capture lead, whether it's embedded in your website or you have an email workflow and you reply with a, Hey, I heard from you and I guess Angie or Mo and some of your clients, or let's just go to Angie, sorry, we'll avoid that issue again. Do you include anything in or assuming you subscribe to, you want to be as responsive as humanly possible, and then I guess the knock on that is, but you want to be human. So I guess how do you approach humanizing that touch, and is it in your mind to move the conversation forward? Do you include a questionnaire or is there any kind of intake in that first FAQs are very common as well, right? Hey, here's the stuff you're probably going to ask about. I'll pause there.
Angie Nelson (00:17:02):
So we have email templates that my office manager can choose from to respond to an inquiry based on location or what package that they're interested in. And that's part of the question, the contact form. So if they're interested in a helicopter proposal for example, they get the helicopter templated email, which is like, Hey, go check out some of these other helicopter proposals that we've done and make sure that this fits your vision. Here's some more information for you. We give out a lot of free information to gain people's trust. Yes, we're local experts. Yes, we know what we're doing. We've been doing this a long time. And then the final step is scheduling a time to talk with our office manager. So we talk with everybody on the phone before we book them just to make sure that they're fitting the ideal client we do after sales. So they only get a certain amount of digitals with their package and then everything else goes into an album. If they want to upgrade their album to get more digitals, they can do that. But it's really important that we talk to them and tell them these things over the phone before we book them because people don't read.
(00:18:15):
So we want to make sure that we're getting them on the phone and talking to them about the process before we book them. So of course, speed of response is really, really important. We are on it, but also giving them the information that is pertinent to exactly what it is that they're interested in.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:18:31):
Perfect. So that's mapping, well I guess bullet number one on the third webinar about elevated client experiences is this concept of segmenting your customers. So understanding they are of this profile, they have demonstrated intent for this package or however you want to think about it. And then you curate that entire experience just like you mentioned to what the profile is. So that's very cool and I'm totally interested in a helicopter proposal. That sounds incredible. Cool. Anything to add to that? I guess what would you preach as your best practice advice around this notion of lead capture and initial response?
Maureen Sullivan (00:19:14):
I would just echo what's already been said. It's just the automation and follow through, just making sure you're following up customer service and then the way you brand all your messaging. So it's just that level of professionalism I've heard over and over from other photographers how they hear from people when they do follow up that say they've reached out to X number of photographers and no one ever got back to 'em. So I think some of, and I agree, I don't love automated responses. I think they definitely serve a purpose though, and I think they're important, but figuring out in your workflow what messaging you want to approve first so that you can personalize it before it sends, and then some of the things that you can automate just to take a little bit of that client correspondence off your plate I think is key.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:20:02):
Totally. And I think as Angie noted, balancing qualification because time is our most finite resource, so we want to make sure that without, I guess turning people away that it's like, hey, here are some table stakes criteria to work with us generally, and you've earned that right as a function of your body of work over years. And it's like, hey, just this is kind of the lane that we're in here, if that's cool. Great. So there's kind of a balancing of qualifying opportunities, if you will, in a way that's efficient for you and efficient ultimately for the client so that you're not wasting time coordinating calls, jumping on the phone just to get to a non-starter right out of the gate. And then on the other side is being consultative, giving away whatever information you can to build trust and I guess demonstrate that you are an expert in the category.
(00:20:51):
So I think that's kind of the interesting thing that we try to balance in terms of automation is including table stakes information that keeps the conversation moving forward and signals mutually that next steps make sense. Adding value where you can, and then addressing some of the FAQs that are probably just on that couple, if we're using the wedding use case here that are just on their mind generally. So it's like how many shooters are involved? Will you provide a day of show timeline? Just stuff like that. What's the process look like? Because so much of the questions are around process, how do we work with you? We've never done this, right? I mean, it's usually a first for most people. So cool.
(00:21:29):
Wow, we're right on time. It's never ever happened. So 1125, anybody moving to service delivery and experience? Well, and I guess is there anything else? I feel like that this is such a big element, maybe I should have allocated a little bit more time, but on the onboarding. So I guess let's weave on that because I think initial engagement and onboarding kind of captures a lot, but I guess, so let's say general brass tacks workflow, a lead comes in, you send some kind of communication, you've both kind of mutually agreed that a next step makes sense. I guess where do you typically go from there? Is there a phone consultation? Are you kind of prescribing a package based on their needs? What does that initial step look? Are you directing them towards a booking page? Let's maybe just talk about that next step because a big leap to service delivery. So what do you typically see from folks in terms of like, all right, you got the lead, they're generally qualified, you've sent them an automated response, they've gone through your FAQs, maybe you've directed them towards a booking page, or you've suggested, Hey, here are the typical packages that are best fit for your scenario and what you're hoping to achieve. What do you see as the best practice next step from there?
Maureen Sullivan (00:22:43):
Well, you had mentioned pre-qualifying kind of the lead. I definitely see a trend in people going towards scheduling that consult right away, even through the website, maybe the lead contact form if they have the lead contact form redirects to an online or just booking the online consultation with them. And then it can kind of push information out automatically through the system, through Pixifi where it might email what to expect or FAQs or that sort of thing. But I see a lot of people weeding out, maybe some people interested in photography if they don't book that consultation. So people that are just price shopping, because what that does is if you're a one person show, it creates, now I know you guys have help in your studios, which is great, but some people I work with it, they might be alone. So doing that constant emailing back and forth to either schedule a time or get information out, they just want to get straight to the consultation. That's what I see people doing.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:23:39):
Cool. And that makes sense too. And I think it's a thin line right between, there's nothing more time vacuum me than this elaborate back and forth email. Let's just talk for 10 minutes.
Maureen Sullivan (00:23:50):
Yeah, it's an absolute time suck. And what happens, I think what I've heard happening from those that have converted to that where they just go straight to the consultation, their conversion rate is higher, so they're not spending all that time going back and forth with the email correspondence. And those that do book the consultation tend to convert more so than the other leads.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:24:12):
Cool. And I think this is a really good, I'm going to lift this desk back up so I can keep bringing the energy here. So I think that's a really good thing too, is that in business, I think there's kind of a miscon or something that is subscribed to that I'm not sure is accurate, that it's like, Hey, I'm going to map my client lifecycle and then I'm going to move on. It's like this is a living dynamic thing. And if there isn't some rate of improvement over time, you probably need to look yourself in the mirror and be like, whoa, we haven't learned, we haven't fine tuned anything in a while. That's a big signal that you might be moving off base. So to your point, it's like, Hey, let's try this for a while. Let's offer up a live consultation. We'll send 'em a link to a calendar and then let's do that for six weeks, or let's try that this season and see what we get. And then you can look at it and measure, hey, where our conversion rates better was our average contract value per wedding better? So it's this living dynamic thing that you want to evolve and that you want to tinker with. And I would say definitely don't be afraid to experiment. That's where half the fun is. Cool. Jeremy, anything to add to that? My man?
Jeramie Lu (00:25:15):
No. So I am, same with Mo was saying I'm a one person band, so I'm that one person. I do everything myself. I have nobody else with me. But yeah, I mean the goal is eliminate the red flags through each process. And then once I eliminate feel, once the questions are answered, they know my pricing, I'm available. They're not weird people. They're not just price shopping anymore. Once I get them on the phone or in person and I try to do both, I'm pretty much going to book 'em. Nobody wants to waste their time. So that questionnaire that I send out the first time, like Angie said, if people don't read, so I send them the info and if they can't fill that and respond to it, that's just going to stay in my leads for a while. And then I just remind them there's a questionnaire until I have the wedding date booked and I make 'em say no to me, which is annoying to them. But I'll send an email out every three days reminding them to fill things out until they say, Jeremy, go away. I'm not interested, I don't want you. And then I'll be like, cool, we're done. Thanks so much. But those are the price
Kjael Skaalerud (00:26:22):
Shoppers and that's great OG sales advice too is it's not the nos that kill you, it's the maybes. So it's like yes or no and move on. And I think also engagement with communication is an interesting proxy for how qualified that lead is. How jazzed are they about working with you? It turns out they read every email that's like, cool, that's probably going to be a better human that I want to work with that's dialed in and does the prep and does the stuff and you show up. And just the likelihood for a really successful outcome is much better versus I kind of read it, sorry, and it's have redundant conversations, et cetera. Angie, anything, I guess, do you have a different approach? Ah, here we go. Any really hard lessons learned on the next step after mostly qualified, probably towing with some type of live interaction. So
Angie Nelson (00:27:20):
When I was training my office manager to take over, because I was a one woman show for a really long time, which got my system super dialed in, but as we had more and more volume, I could not keep up. I still liked doing my wedding photography. I couldn't do both things at the same time. So as I was training my office manager, I had told her that the phone conversation is one of the most important parts of this process because it's not just explaining our services to the client what it is that we offer and our process, which includes print sales, but it is also a way for us to look for the red flags and we have a laundry list of red flag phrases that people might say on the phone that can lead us to, Hey, I don't think we're a good fit for you.
(00:28:18):
People who want things, if their vision is all over the board and they can't commit to one thing, like, oh, I want a beach proposal. And then the next day, oh, you know what? The helicopter sounds cool, can we put an arch on the beach? Just like things all over which you can't put an arch on the beach by the way, but all of these things are red flags for us in that you don't have a vision, you're not sure exactly what you want, or if they're just increasingly more difficult to work with, it's okay to bless and release. I tell my office manager because at the end, these clients that we bend over backward for typically are the ones who always have an issue afterward.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:29:01):
Totally.
Angie Nelson (00:29:01):
So we actually save money by not saying yes to them because the amount of admin on the backside to take care of people that are problematic, that is really expensive.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:29:17):
Totally. And that's another interesting kind of logical fallacy in business where it's like, I need as much business as humanly possible. It's like if you probably cut your 20%, most troublesome, most time intense customers, you have to think about it from an opportunity cost perspective. And it's like, wow. And this is back to kind of power law. It's like what we got rid. What if we were able to screen away our 20% most troublesome clients? And that creates not only a window of opportunity to double down on the clients that are the best, but there's a lot of different ways that you can allocate that time. Bless and release. That's nice. I like that. That's like, bless you. Have a nice day. It's like we're not a good fit and no is a superpower. Cool. All right. Now I feel like we did that component a little more justice.
(00:30:01):
Okay, so I guess now, so I think something that I hear a lot about, and I've really committed over last, just consuming as much content as humanly possible on photography, studio, operations, management, growth strategies, tactics, podcast galore. And I think one thing that is very, and I guess just in general as a business kind of principle, is delivering a consistently excellent experience. I think it's okay to, or that's the true mark of a champion, right? It's like are you an all-star four or five years in a row? One year you had a great season, but it's can you tether those experiences together for your clients over time? So I guess when you think about service delivery and client experience, and I want to be careful not to go too hard into creative techniques or equipment or more of day of show execution, but when you think about delivering a consistent client experience, what are some of the pillars that stand out in your mind? Let's start with you, Angie.
Angie Nelson (00:31:13):
Making sure that every client gets the same information that's delivered within the same timeline. So when they book with us, so let's say they've had their consultation call and we're a good match, great. We send them, we use proposals in Taxify that has everything all laid out. So then that way it triggers the right workflow. Let's say that they're stick with the helicopter proposals because those are sexy. Let's say they're doing a helicopter proposal. As soon as they book with us and they put down their deposits, they get the proposal guide which is going to tell them basically how to propose and not mess it up.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:31:56):
God, I could have used one of those once upon
Angie Nelson (00:31:58):
Things like make sure she gets her nails done. Here's a list of lies that you can tell her to get to the location or whatever. It's for a helicopter proposal. You don't have to live because oh, we're going on a helicopter tour, but for the beach, this is how you get 'em there. We have an entire P D F that's going to prep them for the proposal moment. We also have a P D F that is like, here's great places to go to dinner or lunch afterward because you're going to be hungry and you just got engaged. They get that along with additional information depending on the package that they get. And I think having a roadmap of when they get this information during the process is really important and it makes for a good client experience across the board, whether they book tomorrow or somebody books six months down the line, getting them that information in a timely manner. So then that way it works with our workflow as a studio is really important. And of course with the client experience too,
Kjael Skaalerud (00:33:00):
That's so good. The OG marketing principle for that one is right person, right message, right time, and if you can nail the timing and the context is just totally relevant, then there's a better likelihood that they'll engage with it. It's like, Hey, you're a few weeks out, you're probably getting a little nervous about how you're going to propose. Here you go. Cool. That was super thorough. So Jeremy, maybe we, I guess what do you do to make sure that you're on the same page with a client on the big day? Do you provide shoot briefs, day of show execution?
Jeramie Lu (00:33:30):
Yeah, we create everything. So I mean, I don't get the luxury of having a coordinator every wedding that I shoot and I can't rely on the client to send me anything. So using Pixifi, I actually send them a 50 question questionnaire about three months before the wedding and that will give me a timeline for the day and I end up running the show and somehow or another I'm just type A about it, but it's the Disney experience. So Disney, we love Disney, we go there all the time, but everything we do for one client we want to do for the next. So there's things that I do during a wedding that clients don't know about unless they've been to a wedding in the past. And it's also one of those things where if I don't do it, they'll know and then they'll call me out on it, which doesn't happen because I'm going to do it because I'm OCD and I'm going to make it happen.
(00:34:16):
But the day of the wedding, and this goes back to bartending and food serving also, if you've never served food before, you should go serve food for a little bit because you understand how to work with people. So being able to just anticipate their needs is the number one thing. I have an assistant every wedding who does not shoot, so I have a second shooter and an assistant. My assistant's job is to be an extra set of hands, an extra brain, an extra set of eyes. And if something needs to happen, we're doing it. We're not going to ask questions, we're just going to make it happen. If the bride left the bouquet somewhere, my assistant's getting, we drive drunk people home, we do whatever we have to. My assistant gets paid well, but these are little things that like, Hey, I didn't know a photographer did that. Well, photographer doesn't do that, but this is your day. I'm not going to make you worry about certain things of your day. And then guess what? That goes back to the Yelp review that goes back to telling all the people about me and builds my future business because we're always marketing in some way or another.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:35:14):
Totally. And it's interesting. That's super interesting response, right? I think you can also think about what are your pillars or your beats as a brand? What are the three or four things that you do that that absolutely delight folks and you're religious about delivering on that? And then you start to build a reputation around that because brand is usually a function of consistency. So that's interesting, fixating on, hey, what are the beats or what are the things that are differentiated to us that we provide every client? And just making sure that you knock those down and then you deliver a consistent experience that way. That's super interesting. Cool. And sorry, Dominic, I tried to keep one eye on the q and a, so we're going to backtrack just a little bit. But this is interesting and I almost asked it as well. We'll backtrack just a moment to what are, I think red flags is kind of interesting.
(00:36:01):
So I think if we could just spend a few seconds, what are some red flags just to make that more real? So obviously one is balking at price right out of the gate. Another red flag, and I wouldn't say this is a red flag, but non-starter is scheduling and availability, lack of clear vision or kind of maybe scattered like, Ooh, I want this and I want that and I want this and I want that and I want this. And sometimes that can be a function of curating your offering a little bit. So that might be a menu thing. And I'm not suggesting that's the case for you energy, but a lot of times it's Chinese food menu. You look at it, it's like, oh dear God, I don't know what I want. And then you try to smush stuff together. But I'll pause there. Just to give the audience a little bit more context, what are some red flags that you all look for in conversation or otherwise?
Angie Nelson (00:36:46):
For us, I mean I already talked about some of our red flags, lack of vision. We do beach proposals and then people see beach proposals done in Mexico that are insane. But we have a lot of regulations here when it comes to what you can and can't do on the beach. So a lot of times people just don't know and we'll clear it up with them, but if they keep coming back with more new ideas, that can be a red flag for us. Also, people who are really, really last minute. So we have actually for beach proposals, we have two different workflows that go with these beach proposals. One is if they're booking two plus weeks out, as I said, our majority of our clients are men and men tend to be a little more last minute than women. They're not quite the planners that women are. We have a two plus week out planning a proposal, and then we have one that they're planning it in less than two weeks.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:37:44):
I thought you were going to say like 72 hours or something.
Angie Nelson (00:37:47):
We've done it. The people that we were who are within 72 hours, we're literally like, we're jumping on the call. You need to book us pay in full within two hours of the call. And then we give them a very, very limited option of what they can do. And we'll have people either be like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. I just realized that she really wants a photographer and I don't know what I'm doing. And I'm so grateful we have that. Those are green light people. Yes, we want to help you. They're just happy to be here. And then we have, they want the moon and back within 72 hours. And then those are, we can't help you on this short of notice. So that's a red flag. So it also depends on their timeline for the event. But of course, I know that our business model is very, very different from weddings where I feel like most of the time you're working with the bride who's a little more on top of planning things.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:38:49):
Totally. Jeremy, anything to add? Just in terms of reasons to say no, as you mentioned, you probably want to
Jeramie Lu (00:38:54):
Get to those
Kjael Skaalerud (00:38:55):
As soon as humanly possible.
Jeramie Lu (00:38:56):
Yeah, my two red flags are extremely lack of, I don't know, they take a lot of time to respond to anything. If I send an email out and they're not responding for two weeks or a week and a half or something and then emails keep going back and forth just to get basic information, that's already a red flag in my mind. It's just not going to work. And then the other thing is bring up competitor pricing. I don't care what Steve charges over here, this is my rates and what I do and why I do it. And I built my brand, this is what I do. And people do it all the time where they come in, they say, well, they're doing the same package over here, but they're doing it for 3000 lists. Can you match that automatically? My brain just shuts down and I'm like, you should book them. They're amazing. Those are my red flags.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:39:42):
Yeah, that's interesting because we think relatively, but not a lot that's relative in that field. Cool. Alright, we'll change. So we've got about 17 minutes left. So I think post-service engagement and retention and this one, I think these ones blend together as well, but I think the headline or post-service engagement and retention, and I guess these have been distinguished versus referrals and expansion and I feel like that, and again, the fallacy in business is to think that, and I guess in a wedding photography context, it's like, Hey, we booked the event, they paid us cool, the transaction's done. That's very misguided. And then to think like, Hey, the show's over, we shot the wedding, the sauce is done, is also very misguided that the orientation to a client should be that this relationship is never really over. But the peak of it is when we deliver the images that we've captured, et cetera, and we pair that ideally with a means to allow your clients to help you grow your business, what the whole name of the game is. And then we start to get into the flywheel. But I guess on the topic of post-service engagement, do any of you send feedback surveys?
Angie Nelson (00:40:59):
Yeah.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:41:01):
Or I guess what are the core tenets of your, Hey, the shoot has occurred, you've kind of gone back in. There's obviously photo gallery hosting in a lot of different ways to really accelerate, shoot, there's a ton and a lot of 'em play really nice with Pixifi, but that's not necessarily our domain side. I don't want to go too much into the feedback loop around images, nailing down the top images, attaching product sales and album sales and things like that. Because obviously that's all very mission critical. But outside of those elements when it comes to that initial follow-up, what are some of the core tenets that you try to focus on? We can use one being a feedback survey for example. So maybe let's start there, Angie.
Angie Nelson (00:41:42):
Yep. So we send a feedback email just asking how did we do? Where can we improve for next time? What was your favorite part of this experience? We do send that out to them. It is interesting being in a destination locale because I mean, man, I wish, especially for my wedding business, man, I wish that we could just do word of mouth, wouldn't that be amazing? But the chances of a bride and a groom from Delaware coming to Maui to do their destination wedding and then they go back to Delaware and then one of their friends who's at the wedding is like, I'm going to do the same thing as you. That's just not part of, I don't know, that's not part of our world here. So we rely a lot on feedback surveys, how can I be better? And then just pumping that good old SS e o juice, got to get that going. We rely a lot on internet feedback. So part of that feedback form, let us know if we can help improve our process. But then also, hey, if you love your experience with us, please talk about it online. Here are all the places where you can review us and if you share anything on Instagram, please tag us and we will repost it.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:43:03):
That's an interesting loop there for sure. But this brings up, my hope is to kind of introduce as many kind of concepts as I can as we're growing is at the end of the day, your channels boil down to owned, paid, and earned and owned is your website, your social media handles paid are the ads that you obviously pay for. And then earned is like word of mouth and reviews and things like that. And those are super compelling, especially if in a lot of distribution wise too, a lot of Pixifi users are in guess the destination wedding locales. So it's about creating a magnet for folks that have expressed intent, Hey, I want to get married in this location. Maybe I've been there before. And then how do I find the studio that's going to be the best fit? Very cool. Jeremy, what about you, man, I guess, and how do you think, I guess just to kind of speak to some of the stuff that you had touched on, Angie, around timing actually, sorry, lemme get mo back in the mix here, and I'm doing my best to get everybody in the mix here.
(00:44:03):
I feel we haven't heard from you in a one, but I guess in terms of just generally, so let's take a step back. So the concept of retention, nurturing, cross-selling referrals, building your business on the back of happy customers, what are some of the things that you suggest after that the product's been delivered, so to speak?
Maureen Sullivan (00:44:25):
Well, and setting photographers up on systems, whatever with Pix Spy or whatever management software they have implemented. Definitely part of the workflow that comes up, the tasks of the follow-up, whether it's Google reviews or getting testimonials in an email format, as Angie mentioned with direct questions that you're asking, so you get the feedback you're looking for. There's also photographers, I know that they send out small gifts after a wedding or after a family shoot or something. So they have these steps as part of the workflow within their system to remind 'em to do these things. And they're pretty effective. And they also going on the front end where they track the source of the client. So they're tracking if they are paying, as you mentioned, anything that's paid or any channels that clients may be coming through, then they can run the reports in the system to see their R O I on different sources of clients so they know what to do on the backend as well to
Kjael Skaalerud (00:45:20):
Get That's awesome. And some stuff there. So that comes into pure play kind of customer relationship management where it's like you probably want to grab people's birthdays. What are the trigger events that occur? One is the very obvious one is an anniversary. So how do you bring that in? And it's like, oh, hey, by the way, if you're planning to start a fan, and it depends totally on what you're into, graduation
Maureen Sullivan (00:45:42):
Year, birthday anniversary, all of those. Yeah, certainly that's something you would track in Pixifi as well that you can pull out
Kjael Skaalerud (00:45:50):
Totally and trigger automated emails. And then that comes back to right person, right message, right time, Hey, former client that's in my cohort or my universe, happy anniversary. Here's something special that made that I help you, makes your taste more special, yada, yada. And then you can kind of build on the conversation from there. So that is awesome. Okay, last, I'm trying to think if there's anything to add. Otherwise, we had a question from Andy. That's, I think the red flags thing is a very interesting topic for everyone. So I think maybe we, we'll come back to that.
(00:46:25):
I wish that there was a way to just pivot away from this panelist, attendee structure, but I'm not sure that we can and just be able to see everybody. We've got a nice small intimate group here. I guess we will pause maybe for a few minutes. If you have any questions, drop 'em in the q and a and we'll just try to spend the next 10 minutes just jamming through these. But while folks are thinking about their questions for you, and I think obviously this comes back to time, is the only thing that doesn't scale. So getting very good at qualifying and finding ideal fits, finding your ideal customer, reaching them, doing business with them is how everybody thrives. And that's always kind of the discipline is to focus on your best customers, et cetera. But what do you, I guess, advise as red flags to look out for,
Maureen Sullivan (00:47:14):
Red flags in looking for? Gosh, I think Jeremy and Angie really pointed out the key things that I've come up for me in the past too, is people who are just all over the place. Like Angie mentioned, certainly price shopping is a huge flag for me. If someone's price shopping, quite frankly, I don't really want to work with them if it's really just about the price. The other one is outside of weddings, family portraits, some other portrait work, oftentimes just the vague how they dismiss like, oh, I have to check with my spouse or I have to those, they push you off type responses. But I think if you have the follow through in place, I often talk about with photographers, many, and Jeremy, you mentioned this too, you'll keep following up, following up. And oftentimes it comes up. How many times do you follow up with the lead until you say, all right, enough's enough. I'm shutting that down forever. Archive delete forever. You're just going to keep hitting them forever.
Jeramie Lu (00:48:16):
They need to tell me to go away, otherwise you emailed me first. You open the box, don't email me and then just stop responding.
Maureen Sullivan (00:48:23):
Well, it's really interesting. And Jeremy, I love that you pointed out the whole waiting tables. I bring that up all the time, especially when I'm talking about i p s sessions or doing sales sessions with your clients. You have to learn to read people. And I bartended and waited tables for 15 plus years, and I could not agree more, man. You learn how to read people when you do that and just understanding how to interact. So it's definitely when to cut 'em off. It's like people will come back, you might stop the contact after maybe six points or four points of contact with the lead, and then you just back off and let it sit for a bit. And sometimes they come back and they're like, oh, sorry, I was busy with X, Y, Z. And then they come back to you. Weddings different because there's a specific date in mind, but if you're talking like a portrait client, it might apply.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:49:12):
This is somewhat related, but funny. So I'll share a quick, I had a real estate buddy and he was on a panel in a conversation like this, and the topic was kind of around red flags, but it was like, what are non-starters for how you progress in a sales process? And he's like, if we're going on a showing, the wife must be there. He's like, I will not do real estate showings anymore without the wife present. Why? Because I end up going back to do the exact same showing with the wife because the husband in most of those decisions can't act unilaterally. It's a family decision and you need to understand decision making. And I think there's some insight to be drawn there in our category where it's like, Hey, how are you going about deciding this? Do you have criteria for a wedding photographer?
(00:49:57):
Do you have a scorecard? What's informed? And I guess obviously, the more thorough and thoughtful that is, the more you can expect to accelerate that whole stuff. And it's like, all right, cool. This is premeditated. They've thought about what's meaningful to them. Cool. And away we go. Alright, question from Graham for Portrait studios. We don't use the client portal feature as we do all our selling in person after the session. Would there be any advantage to using this feature or would possibly confuse customers more or create unnecessary steps? I guess let's start here, Jeremy, do you use portals in Pixifi?
Jeramie Lu (00:50:29):
Is that just where they create their portal, all their information goes into one thing?
Kjael Skaalerud (00:50:33):
Yep. So that's like,
Jeramie Lu (00:50:34):
Yeah, I've always used it. I mean, I used to do I p s before Covid all the time, hence the studio. But since then we just don't do it anymore because time waste.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:50:46):
I p ips meaning in-person sales, right?
Jeramie Lu (00:50:47):
Yeah, sorry. In-person sales. I did make more money doing that in portraits though. But yeah, so the client portal for me is really just a way to house my clients together because my clients shoot with me annually or a lot. I'll shoot, let's say I have a hospital that I shoot for. I do all their headshots here. I'm able to track everything and put it all together, but not all my clients actually check their portal. It's more for me. But they have access to check all their past invoices, past contracts, past everything. It's all built in there for them. So I would use it always. And as soon as I book a new client, they get that information on how to log in and their password. They can change their password, do all that stuff. I think it's a bonus for a client, even if they shoot with you one time, but especially those that you want to track in the past. Yeah, I mean it's built in. Why not? I would use it.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:51:38):
Yeah. One quick thought on that and then we'll pass it over to you, Angie. And then we got a few really thoughtful questions from Dominic and then one from Andy as well. Also here, we'll GI you up on these. There's a core distinction between the actual feedback loop that is here are images, what is your feedback, and let's curate it. And you can almost think of that as an e-commerce engine where you want to co-create a final product with your client and you want the feedback loop to be very, very tight on that. That's not Pixifi for Pixifi, the client portal is purposed mostly towards avoiding those back and forth communications around like, Hey, can you send me that invoice? Or God, did we sign the invoice? Or did you send us this thing? Did we do this thing? Did we do that? It's like, Hey, here's everything right here in one place. And it's meant to circumvent a lot of those back and forth conversations because if you're attaching stuff to emails, it's just asking for stuff to get lost through the cracks because again, everybody has day jobs, they're trying to navigate through this stuff. So the client portal is meant to drive traffic to one focal point for all the kind of artifacts and documentation that is involved with them as a client from a commercial perspective. Anything to add to that, Angie or Mo?
Maureen Sullivan (00:52:51):
I would say for portraits, the portal is really handy depending on your workflow for portrait clients, but if you're managing the schedules, you think about the different just for your client to be able to log into one spot and see all their future appointments. So you'll have in a standard portrait workflow, you might have your consultation appointment, you have the shoot session, maybe you actually have a planning session in between the consultation and the shoot. Then you have your I P S session. So a client could go into their portal and see all their appointments. Like Jeremy pointed out, they would see the invoicing history. So if you collect a session fee upfront, not that you want to remind 'em they paid that, but maybe you had a credit in there, a product credit in there that they would want to see. And then if you do any type of payment schedule, you certainly could set up reminders, but they also could log in and see their payment schedule and pay things off as they want as well. So I think it definitely serves purpose and is helpful to your client if it fits in well to your existing or what you want your client portrait workflow to look like.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:53:47):
I think a couple distinguishing factors like maybe for repeat customers, it makes a ton of sense where there's a cumulative effect that happens over time or if there's a lot of volume and product across different kind of corporate headshot, stuff like that. Alright, cool. Are you all cool to spend maybe two minutes longer than expected? So another four minutes together all in? Yeah. Is that all good? Okay, cool. Make it happen buddy. Super thoughtful questions. We'll start with a simple one. Do you use booking pages? If so, and I'm doing my best right now to hold back because we've got some, for lack of a better way, sheer dopeness coming to the Pixifi universe and I'm so pumped about it. But it's going to be around booking pages to begin with because they need some love and they need to be way more beautiful and that is coming and we're sprinting like maniacs. So that's the caveat. Do you guys use booking pages today? And if so, how do
Angie Nelson (00:54:38):
I don't use booking pages specifically because of the custom nature of engaged on Maui. So we use custom proposals.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:54:49):
Proposals. I was going to say, because that use case works proposals,
Angie Nelson (00:54:53):
And again, let's say that they're booking three days out, we don't want to give them the options of adding on a musician or adding on orchid, an orchid flower circle on the beach because we can't order the orchids in time. So when we use the booking proposals, we can go in and for that specific client we can remove different things. I don't want to have a booking page where they can just willy-nilly choose whatever, and then suddenly we're stuck scrambling. So for my model, using the proposals works better.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:55:29):
And that's I think an interesting distinction, Andy, is the way I think about proposals is it's a contract and invoice and a calendar smooshed together, and you can pull those things apart if you want, but a lot of it depends on can assign staff. What's that?
Angie Nelson (00:55:43):
You can assign staff.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:55:45):
Yeah, totally. And you pre-assign staff, like you can own the advanced option a studio like
Angie Nelson (00:55:49):
Mine.
Kjael Skaalerud (00:55:50):
Yeah, totally. So I would just think what's the use case for your booking page? If it's the case that you want to associate client's intent with your calendar and use that as a prequalification thing back to, are we even available here? There are some different ways to navigate that without using booking pages entirely, but the most conventional use is like, Hey, express some general interest of what you're into and then save the slot on the calendar. And it's mostly a function of scarcity on the calendar side for your studio, but the use cases are varied and a lot of folks will bolt that in with a proposal because it's like, Hey, our client lifecycle, that first call is just a consultation. After we have that initial intake, we speak to them and then we send them a proposal that's lightly curated where it's like, Hey, we've got five options on the menu. We've trimmed it down to two or three, here's some add-ons that are potentially relevant. Here's a contract and what that looks like. Here's an invoice, we want you to pay 10% upfront, whatever. And then obviously as a function of that, you've nailed down the time as well. So anyway, hopefully Jeremy, you use booking pages
Jeramie Lu (00:56:52):
Or Actually I don't. I, you know, here's the thing. I've been with pixa five for, I want to say 10 years. I get a little 10 thing on the top of my name right here, which I figured out what that was eventually three years ago. And I'm so old school with it, and I talk to you about this all the time, but there's so much stuff in there that I still want to learn and do that. I just need to hire somebody to kind of go through and walk with it. But everything that I use Pixifi for, I love, and I'm just stuck in my ways as this old guy who's like, I'll be 40 in a month guys, so I'm just kind of stuck in it. But the stuff that I use, I love and it works well for me. So when the booking pages come up, I'm like, crap, am I going to learn about, do I need to go in and now modify everything, which I might. So there's a bunch of stuff in there that even the Pixifi group, I'm like, there's so much stuff that people are talking about that I want to learn. But Angie said it best. It's like for her business, that's what she's using it for. And that's a cool thing. I use certain things for my business and I don't need certain things for my business, especially as a one person, one man band. But no, the answer is no,
Kjael Skaalerud (00:57:58):
No, cool. I think that's to be expected. And I've got really good data on this. That's probably 40% of our users use booking pages and some have different booking pages for different brands. You can kind of stratify that as much as you need. And the staff personnel, it's either I'm a one human show and I need to be very curated with my time, or I have a big personnel bench of humans and I need to make sure that we're clear on what their time, if we think about it from an inventory perspective, what's our inventory and how are we filling that inventory accordingly and making sure that all the trains are on the right rails, et cetera. Cool. So some really good ones from Dominic, and I want to be thoughtful of everyone's time here. So what strategies or processes do you use to overcome staffing challenges?
(00:58:46):
I think this is an attract and train skilled professionals. I think this is mostly relevant for you, Angie, but maybe here, let's see if there's one where everybody can speak best practices, performing collaborations, or actually I'm going to rattle these out. Pick one answer and let it rip. How's that sound? Cool. Alright. What strategies or processes do you use to overcome staffing challenges? Hiring photographers or videographers and attracting trained skill professionals? So one is coordination and let's just stick with that. Staffing coordination. How do you navigate that? Next one is best practices for collaborating with wedding planners and venues. So this is more about partnership channels to grow your business. So staffing challenges, partnership channels to grow your business. And then this is a very good one, reputation management. So when something maybe strangely goes off the rails and the review isn't what you thought it would be, how you tackle that. So real quick, staffing challenges, partnership channels or managing not great reviews. Letter rip.
Angie Nelson (00:59:50):
All right. Staffing challenges. Yes,
Kjael Skaalerud (00:59:53):
Perfect.
Angie Nelson (00:59:55):
We have a few qualifiers When we're looking to hire somebody, they need to have lived on Maui at least three years. So then that way they're familiar with things they need to be integrated into the community as well. We don't want these turn and burn. I'm going to have a one year in paradise and then move back to the mainland after we put all these time and energy into them. So they need to live here for at least three years. When it comes to actually scheduling them, they have a Google calendar that they share with us. Now I know that you can do this internally in Pixifi, but this has just worked well for my team. We have a Google calendar that we make for them. We share it with them, they mark when they are unavailable. So if there is an open date, we are going to assume that that photographer is available. And then we will book them into the calendar. Our proposals stay open when we send out the proposal, it stays open for 24 hours, so they have to book within 24 hours. So then that way it's not like it's open for a week and then our photographer got another job and then that's a whole mess. So that's how we do things. And then we have a whole training protocol to train them to do things the way that engaged at Maui does them.
Kjael Skaalerud (01:01:08):
Cool. Very solid. Jeremy, you work with any wedding venues?
Jeramie Lu (01:01:13):
Yeah, so I'll take number dose. That's two in Spanish. So I do a lot for my referral network. So before I shoot a wedding, I will email every single vendor that's part of that wedding and introduce myself, reintroduce myself, and offer them wedding images. So hey, if there's anything you need me shot that day, anything unique, let me know and I'll make sure you have it so that after the wedding I can send that to 'em. And when I send that to 'em, I send that.
Kjael Skaalerud (01:01:41):
Sorry, can I pause? So you basically give them marketing.
Jeramie Lu (01:01:44):
I give them marketing for free, no watermark, no logo, no nothing. And I do this because it's a referral base to me. And I just had this whole conversation with another photographer who's trying to charge a caterer for their photos from food at a wedding. And ultimately all of my referrals come in because of this. Also, I get to control the imagery that's going out to these vendors rather than assume my bride is going to just give them parts of it or give them the whole gallery. I don't want to give 'em the whole gallery. There's images I want to send them that they can use for marketing that I want to be out there and that'll come back to me as far as venues and expanding my network and all that. Venues and wedding coordinators specifically, I take 'em out to lunch. I send them a gift, like a bottle of champagne, maybe a little photo book or something for the venue itself.
(01:02:33):
And a canvas, maybe a 20 by 30 or 30 by 40, something large that was shot at their venue that they can put on a wall. Ultimately they can say, I coordinate this wedding. Let me tell you about it. Also, the photographer's, Jeremy Lou, he's amazing. If you need his info, here it is. It's a referral without getting referrals. And I do it for the venue per se, because coordinators tend to come in and out of venues a lot. So I'd rather work with the venue rather than the particular coordinator themselves. Even though the coordinator could be amazing and bounce from venue to venue, that's where I want my time effort to go. So yeah, it's really just about making sure that they are happy, they get professional imagery that they can refer you naturally.
Kjael Skaalerud (01:03:14):
Awesome. Holy moly. Well, we better wrap it up. Unfortunately. Again, if everyone could speak, they would be clapping, but Graham dropped the thing in the q and a, like, thank you guys, this was great. This was awesome. So I speak for everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Jeremy. Angie, Moe, you all absolutely rock. This is the inaugural run, so thank you for also participating in that with whatever kind of hiccups that come along with it. One quick thing for if Gregory's still with us, and I guess this is just a message for I guess all of the pig Sify community, but implementing certain stuff is obviously there's a lot of functionality. And on the other side of the coin is the implementation hurdles. And so we, I've got the smartest people I know and myself thinking about this nonstop is just curbing the learning curve and the number one thing is to improve UX and make it more intuitive.
(01:04:01):
So we're going to address the root issue, which is a facelift of Tim's awesome software developer and also a photographer. So he understood the market. He was eating his own dog food, so to speak, did not have a lot of user experience and user interface resources. So we're going to bring the best UX UI resources on the planet that are available to the equation. And we're going to start there. And then we're going to stand up implementation videos. We're going to start doing workshops. So we'll base some, and I'll summarize this quickly, we're going to start workshops that are based on outcome. So it's like, hey, you want to help lead capturing and converting leads? Cool. You want help booking and coordinating events? And we'll have open workshops around that and then we'll build content around that. Also, going to be working with the ambassador community around video content production.
(01:04:44):
What's the most effective way that you use Pixifi to unlock some of the secret sauce that's maybe not totally obvious about how to use? Obviously there's a lot of ways to skin a cat. So a lot of good stuff that's going on that way. Gregory, if you want to shoot me an email to jail@Pixifi.com about what would be the most interesting thing you could get help with right now, we'll put it to the top of the list. But I will wrap with that. Thank you all again. Oh, actually here I even have, so real quick, I'll just pull this up. Sorry. Give me one second
(01:05:15):
In closing here. So I wanted to recap this just a little bit because we covered a lot of ground, so forgive me, I should have probably gotten to this a little bit earlier. And this deck will come out with the video, but here is a very simple tactical breakdown of what you can do. And you all are seeing the lifecycle one right now, right? Yeah. Okay, cool. I was like, oh god, I'm sharing the wrong screen. Never. Great. Okay, cool. And this will go out, but these are tactically, and yes, they are of course biased to Pixifi, but we included some other stuff here. But just tactically, what can you think about little things to do at each stage of the lifecycle? What to expect from here? So the webinar recording, zoom's going to kick out an automated version, and then we're going to turn this into a white paper summary in a loosely edited, I mean from you all, if you edit videos, it's not going to be nearly as beautiful or awesome as the stuff that you do, but we'll edit this up and that'll be a recording that's going to be hosted on our YouTube channel.
(01:06:09):
And then we're going to turn that into a white paper. And then the next webinar is going to be loosely a month from today. So it's going to be on the topic of workflow design strategies and best practices. And we'll have some awesome humans involved in that one as well. So I'll leave it at that. Everybody have an awesome rest of the day. Cheers. Thanks guys. Cheers. Cheers. Peace, peace. Peace.