How to set up your photography business and how to market it

1. Introduction to the Class: My name is Ethan Chavez and I've been running a successful photography business for the past ten years. In this course, I will show you how to setup your photography business the right way. Not only that, but we'll also get into the marketing side of the business. So I can teach you how you can mark it, how you can get actual clients so you can start being successful. Now, I teach a lot of photography classes and the most requested thing that I get is eaten. How do I become a successful photographer? How do I start earning revenue from my photographs? And it all comes down to one thing. You have to treat it as a business, and you have to do that from day one. And this course, I break all of that down from signing up your LLC or Corporation, from setting that up all the way to marketing, from free marketing to paid marketing. So click on the first video below and I will catch you in the other side. 2. Chapter 1 Photography: So let's talk about photography. What is photography? Photography is an art form just like anything else. That's an art form, right? Just like painting, just like sculpture. So it takes time to develop that skill. It takes knowledge, it takes practice. But most of all, it takes a lot of heart. It takes a lot of soul, takes a lot of love. You have to absolutely love it. You have to be involved with it. You have to be absorbed by it. You have to think about it. Eat about, sleep about it. You just have to be, right. So it's more about passion than anything else. So I always tell people if you're coming into this thing, thinking you're going to become a millionaire tomorrow, you're completely infra, shock. It's, it's not, it's not the easiest thing to make money at, but it's not the hardest STI there. I mean, it is very doable. It is very possible i'm doing it. A lot of people are doing it, and it's great, but you do have to love it. I've had a lot of students throughout the years. The command, just though, you know, I quit my job and I bought this really nice camera, you know, can you teach me how to use it and how to make money with it? Will sure. I can teach you to a certain extent. But then this people don't come, that they go away within six months because they realize that it's not really what they want to do is not really about just clicking a button. I mean, this really is about passion and about love. And you have to be just completely involved with it in order for it to work, right? I mean, you don't know any famous painters that just painted one painting row quake1 and became completely amazing painters, right? And known and famous and wealthy doesn't work quite like that. So you do have to have a lot of passion. You do have to be very involved. You have to know your camera really well. You have to know what you're doing. So no matter what niche you're in, no matter if you're shooting portraits or pregnancy or birthdays, or celebrities or music, or whatever it is that you're shooting. You basically have to know what you're doing in that, in that field, you, so you have to become an expert at it, right? So let's say, you know, Pepsi hires you to shoot one of their commercials to, you gotta show up and know what you're doing. I mean, you can't just go buy a camera and then show up on SAT and kind of figure out on the flight doesn't work like that. You do it as a skill. It's a skill that can be mastered with years, with practice, it's not impossible, but you do have to love it because if you don't love it, I've seen a lot of people fail that they simply thought they were coming into this because it was easy and it is anything but so you gotta know what you're doing. You do have to love it. You have to have some passion. Most important thing. If you're passionate about it, then you're going to be just fine. But if you come into this thing thinking it's an easy way to make money, you're in for a surprise. That being said, as long as you have a little bit of passion or a lot of passion, but as long as you love it and there's a fire inside your burning, to know this thing and to develop a skill where if you already have a great skill, but you simply want to apply that into business, then then that's an easier transition. That's definitely doable. So with that being said, let's go into the next chapter. 3. Chapter 2 Setting up your business : When it comes to photography, is just like any other business out there. Now one of the biggest mistakes I think photographers make is not setting up a photography business from day one. Now this is very important to do so you can take yourself seriously and people can take your self seriously. What do I mean by that? So first thing you need to do, you need to go down to your city hall. Could you pistons license Apply for it to be a corporation or an LLC or an individual is fine as well. But you need to have the business license. You need something with your name on it. Now for me and many photographers that I know the name of their businesses are the first and last name photography minus a carp corporation. I'm an S-Corp minus Eden Chavez photography ink. And you can set that up very easily. You can set it up online, you can do it yourself, or you can go to City Hall. You can figure this out very easily by simply doing a Google search is very inexpensive. And it's what you need to take yourself seriously into. Take yourself to the next step, right? So as you set up your business from day one, you can go to the bank and set up a bank account under your business name. Now you can start invoicing people. You can give estimates with your logo, your photography business. It's amazing how people take your series once you start taking yourself serious, right? So a lot of people that I know, they'll start shooting on the weekends and they'll make 20 bucks, 60 bucks, a 100 bucks here and there. And they start to make a little bit of money and now they're charging 500 bucks and a 1000 bugs. But they're still kinda doing it on the side, right? They still don't have their business name. They don't have business cards to kinda just like floating in the air. They'd not taking themselves. Here's the, nobody else has taken them seriously. So I think it is very important to do this from day one and that will, when you get to that point, wouldn't you are charging a lot of money and you're doing photo shoots all the time. Now you have all this business thing out of the way. It's already set up and it's very easy to learn. It's very easy to set up, and it just makes you a real business. It makes you a solidified, a real just business. Do you know now you can advertise as a business, you can tell people your business. It's no longer just do, it's no longer just eaten. Hey, Amelia and I can take your pictures. No problem. No. It's like, hey, eaten. I own Eden Chavez photography and my team and I can take care of anything photography related, you need, you know, it changes to see the difference. Hey, my name's Eaton and I can take some pictures for you. No problem. Hey, my name's Eden. Eden Chavez, photography and I can help you with any photography need you might have. It sounds very different. And when you set your business up, you take certain pride and you feel really good about yourself and you don't want to disappoint yourself. You don't want to disappoint your friends and the people around you. And not only that, but now that you're a business, your photography just like went from being a hobbyist to boom, I'm a business, right? So now you're pushing yourself to be better. Pushing yourself to fill those shoes, those big shoes that a businessman has to fill. And now you are taking yourself serious and you're trying to figure out now how to generate money right now that you got the business set up out of the way. Now you can focus on, on, on sharpening your photo skills, but also you can focus on figuring out how to get business, how to go that next step. So by doing all this paperwork from day one, now you're clear yourself, right? You, you freed yourself from this thing and I can focus on the next thing. 4. Chapter 3 Finding Your Niche: Okay guys, so our businesses sell setup. We have a beautiful, nice and juicy business license. We're ready to go and now what's the next step? So the next step is to find your niche, right? So what does that mean? That means that you need to focus on something. You need to have some sort of focus, right? So when I first started, I was shooting everything. I was shooting dogs, birthday parties. I was shooting just anything I could because I really didn't know what I wanted to shoot, nor did I know what I really enjoyed to shoot. I just knew that I wanted to shoot something. Right will in business, it's a little bit different because you need to find something that you can be an expert at. Something where you can really develop those skills and call yourself an expert photographer at. So, there are so many, so many aspects of photography. So there's sports photography, there's pet photography that are birthday photography, food door, there's baby photography. Mmm, gosh, there are so many aerial photography. Concert photography, I mean, you name it, it is absolutely endless. The amount of photography, their boat photography, job photographers, real estate photography, there's travel photography, landscape photography. There's just really an abundance of photography niches there is out there. So now you just gotta figure out what's yours, what your passion is. First, find out where you can actually make some money out rather quickly, meaning that you're not, you don't, you can't really be a landscape photographer and start making money right away. That's kinda tricky, it's kinda hard. So I would, I would definitely focus on something that you're passionate about, but you can actually make, make money at. So like birthday, birthdays are, are pretty good and they're constant flow of cash. A baby photography is amazing because you can charge a lot of money. And that's an, that's a niche that not a lot of people go into because it's, it's, it's, it's hard to work with little newborns. Newborns is what I mean by babies. You know, those photos where they placed, the newborns hint is really amazing poses. And and I've talked to those photographers and I'm like, how do you do this? It's just crazy. I'd like to do that, but it's not I don't have it in me to do that. And they're like, yeah, you know, it's difficult. But you know, so, but that's a very well-paid niche. And there's, there are a lot of those. There's aerial photography. So if you want to should drone photography, then you need to go get your drone license and just her practice in taking drawn photos. But you need to figure out which kind of photography you really wanna get into. Real estate photography. It's also a good one to start off in because there's that everybody and their mother know surreal state agent. And so you can very easily get yourself known as a real estate photographers. So just figure out what you're passionate about and try to, try to master that craft, right? So you can always change gears as your career develops. But it is very important that you start focused in one thing and focus in on that one thing so you can master it in, maybe in time you will move on to something else. But that Super important that you're not all over the map, right? So we'll talk about this and later on. But you don't want to have a website full of just random images of pert and babies and dogs. It doesn't make sense, right? So when you're marketing your business, you want to market it to a specific audience, and you want to market a specific niche, has specific type of photography, right? So every time I teach this class to a live audience, everybody raises their hand eaten, eaten. So how do I find my niche? Well, I'll tell you, it's actually very simple, but it's kind of hard in a way. So you have to go out there and take pictures of everything all the time. I remember when I started. I used to take pictures of absolutely every day. I mean, I still do for fun, but but back then it was kinda to discover what was happening in me. I wanted my creative juices to flow, right? So I would go on every single day from my first photo, it was of a leaf on the grass in my backyard and I got down on my knees and I got all crazy and I still have it. It's crazy to think about that. That was my first picture with a digital camera. Had I used to shoot film as well, but that was my first digital photo. And so after that I started I started travelling and I will go to the dog park and typically so doggies and and I would go to events. But instead of like parting of the event, I would actually take pictures of the people at the event even though I was a guest, I just wanted to really figure out how, what I really loved. Same blood landscapes. I mean, landscapes are my passion. So I would, I still do. I get up every morning at sunrise and I should the sunrise and then I went for sunset and I go and shoot the sunset. And you just really have to put yourself out there. You have to go go shoot a lot. Like I my dad loves horse racing. So every time we go to the races, I bring my camera with me and I shoot the horses and I should the writers, just because I really love it, right? But that's a whole different niche. And you could, you potentially could love and focus on. So when I say go out there and take a ton of pictures, I mean, go out there and take a ton of picture. So I'm not just saying like go experiment here and I mean, they put yourself out there, take a bunch of pictures. See, would you like, I know you liked photography because you have a camera and U in this thing that you wanna do. But in order to really figure out what you really, really love is to go out there and really start shooting a lot. And I mean, a lot, you know, kind of annoying a lot where you're like, gosh, A1. So Woodside, his camera hoof with what's going on in, you know, that kind of thing. But then a funny thing will happen once you shoot so much. Eventually, there's a shift in the universe and your niche kinda starts to find you. Because all of a sudden you've shot so much, but something keeps pulling, pulling towards, you know, pulling towards that thing. And next thing you know, you're like, well, I really love this by shooting Museum. My first concert, I shot. And I was like, wow, this is like Epic. And then I started shooting for like the next 2-3 years, I started shooting a ton of music. That's all I wanted to do was Should music. And I really loved that to this day. Still shoot a lot of music. I should allow for iHeart Radio. I absolutely love it. It's, it's amazing, it's great. But it's funny how if you don't put yourself out there to shoot all these things, to find all these things. And then it's hard for your niche to, to pull you right. It's hard for, for, for the universe to, to point you in the right direction. So you've gotta put yourself out there. You gotta help out the universe, how pot the niche. And eventually you'll figure it out. But you do have to go out and you do have to practice and you do have to shoot a lot of things. One of my great friends, she's a she's a pet photographer. All she shoots is as dogs, mainly dogs and cats. And she's amazing at it, like amazing and she does really well. Another one of my good friends, he all he does is strong work. He's a great photographer, but he loves drone photography and that's all he does commercial drone photography. Another one of my friends, all he does is nude, nude fine art photography. And he does really well. But as you can see, we all took different paths. But we're always out there shooting and we're not shooting for money. We're still get together and just go out and shoot for fun. So put the camera in your hand, go out and take some pictures, lots of pictures of lots of different things. And eventually you will figure out exactly what you want to do, exactly what your niches and exactly where you belong in this game. 5. Chapter 4 Competition: Okay guys, let's talk about competition. Is competition good or is competition bad? Alright, so every time I did one of these classes, people freak out, Oh, it's horrible competitions of words. It is not bad. Competition is a really, really good thing. Why will competition always keeps you on your toes, right? So if there is eaten, Chavez photography and Joe small photography and we're doing the same exact thing. We're always going to be checking each other out and we're always going to try to one-up each other, right? So we're always trying to get better. We're always trying to compete with each other and try to get better. Now, not only that, but it's a creative field. Anytime you have a creative field, there's room for everybody. So there can be many, many, many portrait photographers and there's work for everybody. Now, why is that? Because people hire you for you. Well, let me back up. People have different tastes, right? So some people may have a different style than others. Some people like black and white, some people like moody, Some people like happy and colorful, Some people like just different styles. So when you have different personalities, there will be many more different styles of photography. So competition is really good and I can never say that enough. People like always freak out when I when I do this live classes people, I was I know they're taking business away from me. It's not fair. You know, I'm doing weddings and their and their advertising weddings right next to my advertisements in my same town, in my same zipcode, Mallard, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, if you wanted to get married, would you only want to look at one photographer and be like, OK, that's it. That's what I want. Or would you want an option? You know, when you go to a restaurant, you open up a menu, you want to see an option. C, Would you feel like see what sounds good, right? What tastes good? So you would, you would, you would meet urine. So competition is good at actually helps you out because if somebody opens up, let's say the is looking for, for example, for portrait photographer and they see you photo, and then they see somebody else's photo and in somebody else's photo, Well, let's say that they hated this other two photographers but loved theaters, right? So just like that, competition helped you up. Now The same goes in the other direction. If they hated your photo, they will go with one of the other two guys, right? But now, by being in front of the customer and with different people, they will always have that in mind. So if somebody asks them, hey, you know, I'm looking for this and that, you know, anybody will. This guy did my photos. But I actually, when I was searching for a photographer, I saw this might be more in line with your personality. So competition is good. Don't be afraid of competition. In competition keeps us in check. Like wow, as photographers, we're always looking at each other's work. I mean, that's common. And it doesn't, it's not a bad thing. We just want to see what the other guy's doing. And it's great because it keeps us, keeps us sharp accusers are skills level. And so it's good in that way. Now, why is it important to go out and shoot as much as you can of this particular niche. Because it keeps, there are two reasons. One, because it keeps you super sharp, right? It makes you a really, really good photographer in that niche. And two, you'll become well known for that particular niche. Right? So let's say, let's say the stick to the portrait photography thing. So you just shoot portraits for, for a long time, you know? And by shooting portraits, I mean, grab your little sister, grab your brother, grab your boyfriend or girlfriend. Your parents, you know, just start shooting. Don't make up excuses. Just good photos. Don't do self portraits. Put the camera on a tripod and start doing self portraits. I mean, just practice right till you become really good. Once you become really, really good, people will start seeking you out for those particular images. You will start to develop your own style, right? So you become so good that you are now have developed your own style. So what happens when you develop your own style? Well, a magical thing happens. People start to seek you out for that style. So let's say there's, there's a 100 portrait photographers in your area, in your city, in your zip code, in your neighborhood. But none of them are like you. We all have different personalities. We all see things very different. And right now that you shot so much portraiture, you are so good. And not only that, but you developed such a great style that people are starting to look at you. They're like, wow, what is this guy too and what is this gal, don't, you know, I want them to shoot my portraits because they are so good. While look at this, wow, look at that. They are so good and I love their style. So you became really, really good to develop your own style. Now people are seeking you up and guess what you can do now. When people seek you out, when people seek you out and they want you and you only you can charge whatever you want. It's a beautiful thing. Psych, do you get a phone call? Hey, I want you to do my portraits. I don't really care about anybody else. I want you to do them. Well, you can be OK. Well, this is my ray and they have to pay him because they just told you they want you to do the job so you can charge whatever you want. So that's why it's super important to be aware of competition, but don't let that barrier. You know, keep your skills sharp. Go shoot practice on your niche became so good at your niche that you have, you develop this insane style where now people come CQ and now you can get financial, financial reward. And you can ask as much as you want, right? So now that you've created a business and you find your niche and you became so good at this one thing that now you have this incredible style and now people are seeking you out. Well, guess what? Since they're seeking you out, you can seek out compensation, whatever you want. You can charge as much as a 100 bucks, 200 bucks, 5 thousand bucks, 1000 bucks, depending on the client. If they really wanted you, they will pay. So that's what competition is. Great. Competition is important. It keeps us sharp. It keeps us, it keeps us on our toes. But not only that, it, it's good because it gives us options, it gives everybody options. And, you know, I refer a lot of I get a lot of phone calls for a lot of different things. And I'm always referring my friends because I don't want to do all this other things. So when I get something I don't want, I always send it out, refer it out to people. So competition is good, and it's not so much competition. It's simply a different, different palette of photographers in the world out there. You're not the only one, but don't worry, once you develop your skill and your technique, there's only one of you. Nobody will ever be able to replicate that. So it's important to always practice, to polish your skill, polish your niche, develop that insane style. I can't say that enough that way to obliterate competition though it, there's no competition. And now when clients seek you out, you're able to charge whatever you want. So competition is good. If you think it's bad, become so good that there's no competition. 6. Chapter 5 Pricing: Okay guys, so this chapter is all about pricing. Pricing can be a little tricky and people are super afraid of it. It's like the big elephant in the room, right? They don't know how to price, didn't know how to ask for money. Come on. This should be the number one thing. If you're gonna be good at anything, it should be at pricing Y because that's how you, that's how you get paid. That's how you make money. So you can not be intimidated by money. You can not be intimidated by asking for money. Don't be intimidated, setting your worth. And I'm going to teach you how to do just that. Now, asking for money can be can be tricky if you don't know what you're doing. But once you reach that level of, of goodness of greatness inside your craft, than pricing becomes a little bit easier, right? Because now you're, you're an expert in your field. So it's easier for you to ask for money. But in those beginning stages when you don't know what you're doing, asking for money can be can be difficult and can be intimidating and you just don't feel right. I've been there. I was there a long time ago from my first business I ever started. But as you as you become an expert in that field, that you can charge, no problem. And you are no longer afraid of charging what you're worth, right? So there are three ways that I go by when I charged job. So the first way is to set up a price for your work, right? Have a SET price. Now what does that mean? So let's say you can set up a prize for like a 100 bucks, 200 bucks, 500 bucks, 1000 bucks, 10 thousand bucks, a $100 thousand, whatever this fee is. That's your base fee, right? So somebody calls, you, need a photo shoot. Okay, great. My bass V is 500 bucks. I can do your shoot for 500 bucks, and that's my fee. Now, thus pricing number one, right? Now, what does that entail when you set up a field like that, you have to make sure you're really, really happy with this fee that you're charging, right? Because once you grow as a photographer, your prices are going to increase because you're going to be better and you're going to work for bigger clients in and make more money, charged more money. So when you set a base price for your work, you gotta make sure it's something that you're going to be happy with for a long time, right? Because it's really hard to convert an old client to new prices. It almost never happens. It actually, that probably won't happen. Very rarely will that happen? So let's say you charge an old customer. Let's say you're doing real estate photography and you're charging no customer $300 per house pursuit. And you've been doing this for years. Well, you can't all of a sudden start judging them $800 per house per shoot. Because they're going to be like, hey, for the last four years you've been charged me 300. Well, let's turn you showed me twice, three times as much. No way. So it's really hard for you to up a client when it comes to an old client, when it comes to money. So it's really important that you base price, whatever that fee is that you said, that you're very happy with, right? So whatever that's a 100 bucks, if it's $10 thousand wherever it is, make sure you are happy with it. Now, how can you break that up? So you can break that up in a couple of ways. So you can have a set fee. So let's say you're a portrait photographer and just say, hey, I charge $300 for portraits. Don't quote me on that 300. This is entirely up to you. I'm just using that as an example. So let's say, okay, so $300 per shoot, you know, that should will take a couple hours and I'll send you a bunch of pictures. That's number one. Number two, you can have a half-day rate. So half-day, S4 hours, you can tell him, hey, my half their rate is $500. That includes four hours in as many photos and as many posters and as many outfits as as we can fit in within those four hours. In the second way is full day rate, which is eight hours or more, is usually usually varies between 710 hours. For commercial jobs you never know. But a full day rate would be like, let's say, for example, a $1000, right? So okay, so my half-day raid is sex amount of money, my full day radius x amount of money. And that includes, you know, ada seven hours to 12 hours, whatever it is. It's usually eight hours, so just say eight hours and that entails as much work as we can get into squished into those ten hours. In that would be your, your set phi as a photographer. Now, I used to charge like this and I did that for a very long time. And it works, it works really well. It's you rarely lose. You're usually if you set a rate, a good rate to begin with and you practice this nature and you perfect it, you'll become so good at it that you learn how to make a lot of money with a set fee. Now if you're already really good at your niche and then you're ahead of the game. Because now whatever feed is, you know exactly what you're going in for, right? So let's say your base fee for an apartment for real state is 300 bucks, just just for an example. And you know, it's gonna take you half an hour to shoot it, an hour to edit it and you're done. So you know what you're making per hour because you become so good at it, right? So that's charging method number one, set a base price. You can set up a surprise for the entire shoot. You can set up base price for the half-a-day rate or for a full day rate. So separate for the shoot, separate for half-day, celebrate for full day. That's no problem. Easy way to charge. You rarely lose, you always win. Now, another way to do it, method number two, this is the easiest method, is the method I recommend to most people starting out. So if you're starting out, this is the way you should be doing it because it's the easiest way for you to guarantee you will never lose any money. And that is having an hourly rate. Now for this as well, you've gotta make sure it's an hourly rate that you're happy with, right? So if you're happy with 50 bucks an hour, then charged 50 bucks an hour, but make sure you're really happy with that. Now if you charge at 1000 bucks an hour, make sure you're really happy with that. Now, I don't know what kind of person you are. I know people that to them a $100 is a ton of money. And I know photographers that ten grand is not enough. So I know the whole spectrum and I'm somewhere in between. But make sure whenever you said your hourly rate a that it's realistic to the to the profession, to the to the to the business, right? So figure out what people are charging and pick pick something that you're happy with. And I can tell you that you can go pretty high up there. Pretty high up there. You can make a lot of money doing it this way. The beautiful thing about this is that you never lose money, right? So somebody calls you, hey, Eaton and I wanted to do this shoot for this commercial job, you know, this 30 products. Okay, it will my hour day rate, let's say it's $200 an hour. Well, that guarantees that however long this takes me, whether it is one hour or a 100 hours, no matter what, I'm going to make 200 bucks and our right. Now, it's a beautiful thing because I never lose, you never lose. So it's great. Now you always gotta make sure that you add editing time to do your rate, right? So let's say you have a job and you know, it's going to take you through reality. You have a portrait jowl, right? Just for example, and you say, OK, I will charge 200 bucks an hour. And you know, it's going to take you two hours, right? So that's a couple 100 bucks times two, that's 400 bucks. And now you gotta make sure you add at least one hour of editing time. Because that takes time. Editing, exporting, importing, sending, receiving, correcting, talking on the phone to the client. All of that is timeit it up. So make sure you add time for your editing. Sometimes editing can turn into, into back-and-forth, a match between the client and the photographer. So you have to add it on there. It is work, it's a lot of work and it's part of the job. So make sure you don't only charge an hourly rate for the shoot, but also always add that same rate for editing, usually one or two hours of editing, depending how massive the Java's should suffice. If it's a simple small job, one hour is fine. If it's a medium job, two to three hours is fine. If it's a massive job, then you're talking a couple hours to many hours of editing, right? But in our Lee, an hourly rate is perfect if you don't know what you're doing. If you do know what you're doing, but you don't want to ever lose any money. You want to guaranteed hourly rate, then that's the best way to do it. Just set a rate that you're happy with. Whatever data rate may be set, set that rate, and then tell your client, Hey, listen, I charged x amount per hour and I think this will take around 34 hours. That's what I charge most of the time. They'll agree because people like pain, they'd like to know what their pain right off the bat. So that's method number two. Method number three is my favorite and it's the one I use the most. And to this day, I use it just about every day, especially with my commercial clients, but I really use it with anybody. So method three is kind of scary because when you haven't been in business, it's just kind of weird to ask, right? But I learned this from my previous business, from my first business I ever created, is to ask for a budget. And I know a lot of people freak out. No, no way. I'm not going to ask him. But listen. Everybody has a budget for everything, right? You have a budget when you buy a camera, you know how much you want to spend. I mean, there are cameras for 200 bucks and there are a $100 thousand cameras. Your budget somewhere in between, right? Will same with a customer. When a customer is hiring a photographer, they kind of budget. They know what they want to spend. And I would say 95% of the time, they will tell you what that budget is. So this is how the conversation goes with me, a Eden or to email whatever. We're going back and forth aid and looking for a photo shoot. This is this is this is the gig. This is how many days we need you for. We don't need a second photographer does, which is b, you, blah, blah, blah. And I first thing out of my mouth. Oh, great. I can certainly help you. I have that data available. What is your budget? 95% of the time they reply or they tell me immediately all the 5-gram, ten gram, two gram, 500 bucks. Immediately they will tell me, this is great. This is great for two reasons. One, you are establishing a business connection immediately, right? So you're not that Jewish Mao guy that yeah, sure, I can do it. You make up a 100 bucks? No, it's OK. This guy's means business and let's talk business, which is great. And number two, you know what they want to pay, right. So maybe you were thinking about charging them hourly, but he just told you five grand. So holy smokes, you just made a whole lot of money that you weren't anticipating. Right? Now, let's say let's flip that and the flip side aid. And I only got $75 for this project. But I have a lot of projects in the future. Well, you know, I don't think I'm your photographer. However, I do know somebody that will be able to do it for that amount. So you see you can win or you can lose. But when you lose, you consume, refer one of your friends or somebody that you know, we'll do it for that amount of money. But asking for a budget is always the best way to do it. You do get the money out of the way right up front. You get the pink elephant out of the room. He immediately and you set up a business relationship. And sometimes you'll get more than what you were thinking, especially with commercial clients. You can usually their budgets are pretty nice, pretty healthy, and usually they throw big numbers out. So that's why I'm always happy to work with them. Now sometimes that's not always the case. Sometimes you get random numbers, sometimes you get really tiny numbers, but either way, they'll tell you what, how much you want to spend if you're stoked with the number they told you them you're winning, your winning right off the gate. If you're not, you can always refer one of your friends and they're winning. And it's just a beautiful thing. And it's I think it's a fair question to ask a client. And I promise you 95% of the times, they will tell you their budgets. And that's how we charge for a job. 7. Chapter 6 Website: Okay guys, let's talk about your web site. The website. Your website is the most important thing. Out of any of these that we've been talking about. The website is your face, your face on the internet? Is your portfolio, your phase, what people see, it's the window to the business, the door, the front door to enter into your business and give you money with a bad website. That door will never open for customers to come in and give you money. So the website is the most important thing and I cannot emphasize this enough. Your website is the number one thing that people are looking for in this are, this could be a portrait clients is, could be birthday party clients. This could be your friends, this could be commercial clients that will pay you massive amounts of money. So the website is 100% the most important thing in your entire career besides your skill, of course, but the website is like deep is the handshake is the introduction from one party to the other, right? So how do you build a good website? Well, back when I started, long time ago, it was really difficult to build a website. You had to. It was just, it was nearly impossible. It was doable but very difficult. Well now this is super easy. You have places like Squarespace. Squarespace, and you have a lot of other places that make it really easy to create a really brilliant website. Now, when I started learning about photography, I didn't have anybody to teach me, so I hired a firm and they charged me a lot of money. I mean, in the thousands in the lot, a ton of money. And they taught me they had to create a perfect website to start attracting customers, real clients, real paying clients. And so I will tell you exactly what I learned. And this formula has worked for me ever since I hire this company. It cost me a ton of money. But it was the best investment that I made for my business because without a website, without a strong website, you don't have any paying customers. So number one thing, you need. You need good images, okay, not good images. You need great images. How many great images that the pants, right? So we're in an era now that everything is imaged driven. So when somebody goes to your website immediately, whatever your website domain may be, it should open to your portfolio page, right? And this portfolio page should have at least 12 images, up to 4050. Great images in regards to your niche, right? So let's say you're doing portraits for example. All you need to have on your website is portraits on this page where people first come onto, that's all that needs to be there. I cannot tell you that enough. Or if you're doing real estate photography or event photography or wedding photography, whatever that specialty that you're doing is, as soon as somebody clicks on your side, they should immediately see those photos. But they can only see the great photos, not crappy photos. Now this is going to take the longest to setup because as creators, as artists, as creative people, we are our own worst enemies. So one day we love a photo, the next day we hate it. We go back and four we uploaded with the leader, we take it down. Trust me, I get it. I do it all the time to this day when I'm updating our website, I do the same thing. So it is very imperative. It is super important that you just upload your absolute most epic work and asked her friends, You know, if you're having doubts, you know, send a bunch of photos to your friends and be like, hey, what do you think? Which ones you think are the best? You can also hire people to look over your portfolio. I do this a lot for other people, for a lot of my clients, from my students, they hired me to do this for them. So if you're not sure, you can always get professional help. Whoever your friends are always a good start. Don't ask your mother or your girlfriend, or your boyfriend or your wife or husband because they see you with different eyes. They see you with a lot of love. As clean, you know, ask your friend the one that's always honest about everything. As Kim as 6a asks them to, to, to, for your honest opinion, their honest opinion. But you only need to have the best images on this first page, the first tab, when people go on your site, That's what it should read. It should just have two, at least 12 images to, you know, I would say as many as you want, but try to keep it, try not to overwhelm them. You know, just try to give them a great idea of what the kind of work that you do. So, so 12 to 40, great images, not good. Great. Now let's say you don't have 12th grade images. Let's say you're just starting out and you only have six great images and 20. Okay, once forget about the ok. ones, just upload those six. It's better to have six epic shots that somebody can look at and be wowed them to have a 100. If he shots that people are going to click off your website and go to the next guy. So it is imperative that you are very proud of these shots. You are like, you just love these and you're not afraid to show them to people. So that's tab number one. They go to your first thing they click on is a gallery of your images. Okay, tap number two. This is another very important tab and this is your bio. Now your bio page can be very simple. It can be casual, or it can be professional. As long as it's fun than professional is okay. What I mean by that, so you can make it very personal. Like Hey, my name is eaten. I love to skateboard. I love to go to the beach with my dogs. I love to take pictures. My passion is in landscape photography, but I've worked with brands such as Nikon, Volvo, corona, National Geographic, and I would love to work with your brand. You know, something that can be fun, professional can also be like, oh, Eden Chavez is a renowned, it's a world renowned photographer, does work with massive brands such as National Geographic, corona, Volvo, whatever. And his passion for photography just hits stronger by the day. That's what I mean by professional. By professional, it means professional. Within the scope of photography. I'm not sure that in the creative field, people want to hear that you have a doctorate in in Durham. Did your doctor and you're an attorney and you were a police officer and you're a contractor and your own to restaurants? I'm not so sure people are into that when they're trying to hire you for a photographer. So I would keep everything fun and quirky, but related to photography or keep it very professional, but still fun, but related to photography, right? So like I've ran a bunch of businesses in my past and I'm bilingual. I don't put any of that in my bio my bio strictly about my photography in a little bit of my personal life. That way, my potential client can get a feel of my personality. And I think that combination has worked for me very well in the past. Now another huge thing that people miss, and I see these all the time. When I do this portfolio reviews, people don't add a photo of themselves to their website. It's crazy. Now when people hire you and they want to give you money, they want to know who you are. They want to at least see your eyes through an image in your website. They want to see your smile. They wanna see what kind of person you are, what you look like. You know, we all have different tastes and looks and we get along with different kinds of people. So people want to just get a feel for who you are. They want to read your bio and then get your photo. A ton of people don't have their photos up. Now. I don't know about you, but if I'm willing to spend some good money on something and I can't even see a photo of the person that I'm going to be working with. It's kind of I don't know about that. You know, that's too weird. Like put a photo of yourself and it can be a head shot. It can be some, something fun to not put a photo of you partying at a, in a college dorm to chugging beer or standing upside-down and a CAG. Don't do that. Keep it professional. Keep it fun. If you don't have anything like super professional, it can be something as fun as you and your pad with you and your cat, you smiling, a self-review, smiling, you know, nothing crazy but just something where people can relay. Where somebody can be like, Oh, they look kinda fun, you know, I could totally hang out with them. So yeah, I would love to share with them. So keep that keep it fun, keep it simple, but make sure you add a photo. Trust me. Now I had a very important commercial clients that while back there was a big job, was a really big job. There was they pay me a ton of money. And at the end of the job, we went out to dinner and I asked the girl that made the decision. I asked her the she she we're eating dinner and she looks at me and she's like I really loved her bio. She's like I could just totally relate with your bio. She's like that's why we went with you. I was like, wow, that's powerful, you know, because in my bio I said that I'd love to go to the beach and I love to walk my dogs and I love motorcycles. And so she immediately relate to that. So she hired me and this was like a big job. There's was no not $1000. Yeltsin's a huge job. So it was really, really cool to know that, that some somebody just read my bio Sammy photo in and hire me because of that. And the rest of the team was a great whither. The editor, the guy was like, yeah, we'd love to bio. It was just cool to read and, and here we are. After the job is done, eating dinner, having fun, having a laugh. So it was really great. So it's very important that your bio is short. Don't, don't write a book. Make it short, sweet fun. To the point, and make sure it's creative related. Make sure it's photography related. Again, I'm not sure how many people want to hear about your accomplishments outside of photography when you're trying to sell photography job, right? So if you go to see a doctor and they tell you that a racecar driver. Okay. Where are they telling me this? I don't care about this racecar driving and I just want to see the doctored. Same thing with photography. You know, be careful what you put on there. Make it short, make it sweet, make it fun, make it quirky, make it about you, and make it relatable. So people can look at you and hire you for that. And that will go a very, very long way. And I promise you Same with the photo. Do not forget the four, Don't forget the photo. The next tab over, it needs to be a contact form. And I've seen my fair share of contact forms. And this, I cannot emphasize enough how many people will click off your website because they can't send that contact form. So many people have like the weirdest funky us contact forums where you have to like fill everything out a certain way or else you won't send. Don't make it difficult. Make it as simple as you possibly can for somebody to send you that message. The harder you make it for somebody that quick little shutter, the shut you off and go to the next guy. Some people don't have time to experiment or to figure things out. Some people just want to hire you. Some people just want to send you a message and higher you. Some people don't want to stop you and figure out what's going on with your site. Trust me, people that wanna pay good money, they don't have time for any of this stuff. So make sure your form is super dummy proof is the first and last name, maybe not even a last name, first name, phone number, and a contact and a form. And make sure that the form is sensible without having to have everything filled out. Because a lot of forms you have to have everything filled out or it won't send that super fresh training. Some people don't want to give you their phone number. Some people just want to ask you if you're available a certain day. So make it easy for people to contact you. Make it just super, super easy. Don't, don't overcomplicate things that make it nice and sleek. And the most important thing is function. Make it functional. And another thing you can do is add your phone number on your website, on your contact page. A lot of people are all school or a lot of people don't have time to go back and forth with an email and just want to call you. So having the phone number on there is a really good idea and it's a will generate more business because some people just like to talk on the phone. So super simple, easy to use contact page and a phone number and just that easy Send button. That's it. That's all you need. And the last tab that you need. So that's three tabs. The last step that you need is a, it can be one or two things. It can be a personal workspace page or a blog page, right? So a personal works page would just be a portfolio of images that you really love. So let's say you shoot your passionate about landscapes, but you're creating your, your real estate photography website. So on this, on this tab, you would just have your landscapes that you really love. And that tells us the potential clients to things. It tells him that you're talented outside your niche, that you have other talents and other interests. When it comes to photography. And it also lets them know that you're always working, right? So you're now like the slacker that just put a website together with 20 images and you're just waiting for claims. It shows them that you're passionate about photography. And it shows them that you are always, constantly working and doing other projects other than whatever you niches. So the first thing they will see will be the bam, the portfolio of your niche, and then your bio than your contact form. And then a personal workspace where they see your works, they see you're always working. And if it's going to be a future client, a future relationship, then It's great that they can come back and see new works. This is a page that you will always update, right? I mean, it's good to always update your main portfolio, but this one also. So people seeking that you're always working, that you're just you're hustling. You love to work, you look to shoot. He lived to be out there with your camera. People love that. I mean, they want to hire that right in with the blog is the same thing. So if you rather put a link to your blog, make sure it's a photography related blog. Obviously, don't put a link to a blog that has nothing to do with photography. But sure, it's a photography related blog where they can see that you're constantly working until you have other talents other than that of your niche, right? So those are the four tasks that you need on your website. Try not to get crazy. Your bio. Make it short and sweet. The contact page, make a flawless, the personal works make it good. But the portfolio you have to make, the people land on those, on those photos. They have to be absolutely epic. And that's the way to create a website. 8. Chapter 7 Blog Marketing: Okay guys, so on the last chapter we talked about that last tab on your website being a personal works tap or a blog tab. And let's talk about a blog. I blog as a place where you can keep all your personal work, all those images in there. So I believe it's very important to have a blog as a photographer. Now. I've had one since I started my career in photography. And to this day I still have it. I still keep up with it. And it's done. Nothing but wonders to me. Now, having a blog is very important in the sense that he does the marketing for you in an organic way. What does that mean? That means every time you post or upload something to your blog, it lives in the internet, right? It lives in that universe. So every time somebody tries, is looking for what you wrote or tries to find a picture similar to what you posted. Your stuff will come up that generates a click to your image. And then into your blog. Now there they can contact you and by the image or go check out your portfolio in contact you for a photo shoot. Now it's a numbers game guys. So the more traffic to that blog you get, the more traffic to your website you get, the more contact forms that you're gonna get filled out, and the more people are going to contact you. So having a blog is super important. It's a very easy way to mark it because it doesn't cost anything, is very, very, it's like a 100 bucks a year to have a blog host or even less than that, I think. And it's super easy to do. So you basically load a photo, upload a photo of your personal works. This can be niche related or this can be personal works. So unless isn't the photography field right? So you can upload photos of your family, of your dog. You have a certain interest. Let's say your niche is portraits, but you love racecars. So it can be race cars and you can tie that into your photography. You know, just take beautiful photos of cars. You can have it also by your niche about portraits and just have that all over your blog with, with nice writing on it. If you're a wedding photographer, you can have like your photography blog can be like just your most epic shots or behind the scenes shots, or like funny moments you've had. Or you work in the camera or your second shooter working and you're telling a story can really be about anything. And the beautiful thing about a blog is that you can sell stuff on there, right? So I said a lot of stuff on my blog and I get sells daily from just organic traffic. I rarely run paid it paid ads to my blog. I do sometimes when I'm hosting big events, but for the most part, they're just organic. Organic clicks, a nice cell presets. I saw courses, I sold private workshops, I sell. Tutorials, I sell all kinds of things and people are always buying. Now the beautiful thing about having a blog in the internet in the universe is that when people find you and they dig in a little bit into blog, they turn into followers. In followers turned into customers. In some customers turn into great friends. So it's a win-win scenario to have a blog. It doesn't only market your work for free, but it also generates income. Other ways, your main website can't, right? You don't want to sell all this stuff in your main website. You won your main website to be a portfolio of your best work so people can hire you for, for that particular work. But on a blog, you can sell t-shirts, you can sell mugs, you can sell whatever you want. And have that blog just organically live in the mass of the internet. It's a really good way to generate extra income. Not only that, but it's a really good way to market your personal works and to show people that you're always working. So what happens when a client comes through main site and clicks on blog? They can see what you're doing. They can see what you're up to. They can see what you're into. But the most important part, they can see that you're working, that you're always working, always hustling. And people love that. That, for example, let's say a client goes on a website with a few images there, okay. And that's a contact page. Now let's say a client goes to your website where you have epic images, you have a really cool bio, and then you have a blog that has really fun stuff. Who do you think that the potential client is gonna go with? It's a no-brainer, right? They're gonna go with the person to hustles the mouse that has the most photocell that's constantly working, that shows that they care about their craft. So having a blog in the universe, marketing for your organically super important, super-easy to do, super inexpensive. It just takes a little bit of effort, a little bit of elbow grease, and I highly recommend this to every single photographer out there. I actually wrote an article about how to start a photography blog. And you can get up and running within literally ten minutes. You can have a beautiful blog up and running with your first post on it. So get it done. It's part of your business, is part of your marketing. It might not pay off right now, but it will pay off in the future right now I have a bunch of, of post-doc ranked number one on Google for certain searches. And those post generate income for me. It's like passive income that I wouldn't have any wouldn't exist. So there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with you can do a post-war. You're watching your favorite show, bring your laptop on your lap and upload a photo and started and start typing. Super-easy, highly recommended organic marketing through a blog is a mosque, specially nowadays that we live in this crazy Internet connected world. 9. Chapter 8 Social Media Marketing: Okay guys, let's talk about social media marketing. Social media marketing is the most important marketing there is. That's the world we live in, right? So social media is your best friend at this point. So you've conquered a website, you've got your blog going, you got all these wonderful things going. You know, craft is good. You're, you're a good photographer. You ready to go? What do you do next? So next thing you do, you gotta post on social media. You've gotta post often. You've got a poster. Best works, don't post his random photos. Post best work about your particular niche, right? So if your wedding photographer just post wedding photos of the weddings you're working on the weddings you've done. I've You're an event photographer. Just post-event photo severe. A portrait photographer, post recent photos. So you are photocell grew most recent portraits. Now, every time you post a photo, add your link to the site. So that's what I do in my social media every time I post an image and that my link, I don't say click here, I don't say visit my website. I just add a link just in case somebody likes my photo, they can look at my other work. He does. I'm not pushing anything on him. I'm not telling him to do anything. I usually tell a little story about the photo and there's a link to my site. If they want to click on it, they can. If they don't, no problem, but my link is always there. Why? Because it's free. Why not? It's a free click. What if somebody's interested, it's a free click? I'll tell you a story about that in a minute. But social media is your best friend. So let's think about this. We have Twitter, we have Instagram, and we have Facebook. Those are the most important ones to post on because that's the like the three places where people usually see you and see your work. You can also do Pinterest. Pinterest is really good, especially if you have a blog, you can always link that photo in Pinterest to your blog. And that's a really nice way to get a lot of clicks to your blog as well. But social media marketing is very important, especially right now in the current times in the world we live in. Everybody saw on it. Everybody's on a 24-7. I'm on it. You're on it. It works on their phone. So make sure you're posting constantly on social media. And by constantly, I don't mean every day. You know, I used to post every day night post about once a week. It depends on my mood, but at least post once a week. Let people know that you're always out there, that you're always working and I promise you, those will turn into paid customers. I had a lady not long ago. She send me a message on Facebook and she's like, hey, love your work. I've been watching your work for the last eight years. I was like, well, it's like, oh, great. Thank you. She's like, I'm a marketing director for this firm. She's like, I would like to bite by eight of your images from your website. It was like, wow. And that was just from the posting and sharing buy-in for for a 100 bucks. It was a nice chunk of change. So that was just for me posting. That was a no paid ads. That was just me posting on Facebook. So people are watching, important people are watching. And it works, you know. Don't think you're doing all this for nothing. Not only that, but it's fun. It's fun to get feedback from people. Sometimes he had a negative feedback, but sometimes you give great feet. Most of the time you get great feedback and it feels good if that's what you do. This, you're sharing your photos, your sharing a part of you, sharing a part of you feels great. So let's talk about social media in paid marketing now. So that's the free marketing which is easy to do and anybody can do it. Now let's talk about paid marketing. So this is really important for every photographer, especially the ones starting out. So people constantly asked me, how do you generate business eden? Well, I have a budget, I have a business budget of marketing budget. You know, if you're starting out and you only have a 100 bucks a month, that's fine. You don't have to have a big budget, but you do need some sort of budget to start marketing your services. Now, what does that mean? That means you, you put an ad on Google, you put an ad on Facebook, you put them out on Instagram. Just to way where people can, there are a very targeted at, where people that are looking for your services can find you. That's how I generate a lot of my work to this day. I still have a fairly, fairly good marketing budget, and that's how I generated a lot of business to this day. It's just like with any business, you have to spend money on marketing. Whether you have a little bit of money or a lot of money, you have to do it is just the name of the game. I mean, look at the Coke ads, you see everywhere. Look at the Pepsi ads, you see everywhere. Look at the TV ads, you see everywhere. Think of the Super Bowl commercials, how much money people spend on that. So this is no different. You have a business, you have a photography business. You want to let people know that you're out there and you gotta pay, you gotta pay to play is just how it is. But that's great because after doing all this free posts on social media and how you're doing paid ads. People will start to see you everywhere. They're gonna be like, wow, this guy, this girl there everywhere. So they really want to get to work. So I want wanna hire him. And you'll be surprised how that repetition, that constant being in people's faces will generate a ton of work, which in turn turns into dollar signs teaching. That's why we're doing this right? To make money, to make good money. We don't want to make the average money, we'll wanna make good money. So always have a marketing but marketing budget. And you know, the more the better. But if you have a small budget, that's okay. Just start with something in there. A lot of easy ways to market. Facebook makes it super simple for anybody to create an ad takes about five minutes, five to ten minutes. If you're a total novice, take you ten minutes to create a very targeted specific ad that will guarantee you business. So post on social media for free by some paid advertisement. And I promise you, you will start generating revenue, generating clients and clicks to your website. 10. Chapter 9 Email Marketing: Let's talk about email marketing. So email marketing is really important nowadays. It also ties into this whole ecosystem of marketing. Now how do you get emails? Now? That's a great question. So there are a lot of companies that sell emails. People email addresses to you. I wouldn't go that route. You want to be more specific, more goal oriented, more, more client oriented. So basically, as you started getting clients, you'll start to have their emails and you can have a database of their email address is right. So then you can say you do portraits. Once every couple months, you can run a portrait special and send a newsletter out to those email addresses to those previous customers that have already purchased your product. Right now, that only goes to show you, to show your customer that your everywhere. So they just saw your ad. They keep seeing you post on social media on all these places. And now they just got a newsletter from you. So they're like, oh, okay. You know, you're always fresh in people's minds, right? You're always hustling and that's exactly what you wanted to. Another way to collect email addresses is through your blog. You can have a pop-up window. You know, you can give something away to entice people to either email address. I used to have one of those, I took it off. I just sexually discovered a new way to generate email addresses and I probably collect about 20 to 50 per week. I'm not kidding you. And that is with a Facebook group. So I have four Facebook groups and now I'm asking everybody that wants to join, they're all fairly big now. They're all in 3 thousand to 5 thousand range. Except one is still small. But now I'm asking them, there's a way where you can ask them for a question and now he tell him if I need to read your email address so you can join the group. That's the price of entry. And this are all photography groups. So that's a great way to collect email addresses. And every time I put a course together or have a New Preset to package, or have a photo shoot special. I'm doing a lot of commercial work now. But the photos of the photo shoot thing is not so much. I don't emphasize that so much for myself, but for somebody in the wedding industry, in the portrait industry, the real estate industry, those would work really well because now you have all these people in your email is right. So if you are shooting weddings, you can start a Facebook group that's about weddings. Or Mike, let's say name in my coming up wedding. Wedding ideas. If you name something like winning ideas, private facebook group, collect those addresses. You know, all these people are planning their wedding. So now you have leads, you have a lead that's free, that's there. Well, you have to do is emailing him and said contact with them, right? So email marketing is really good. And now email marketing is kinda crazy because it's a numbers game. So the, the percentage rate that opened the email settings, like some like 3%. So it's really low. But the ones that do open it are serious buyers and it does work really well. Another way to collect leads is from your website as well. Have a pop-up on there. Now, I wouldn't recommend this to meet your website is sacred, just your portfolio, so I wouldn't go that route, but that is an option. Most websites have that now. So you can do it if you really want. But the best way and the best kept secret is a Facebook group. I started doing this, not just probably, I have been doing it probably for like nine months now, eight months. And I've generated a ton of email addresses, a ton of leads, because they're all photography related groups and it's people that I want to target to. So my courses into, so my presets in two. So my tools to become a better photographer, more so than the actual, than my actual photography. Because now I'm targeting larger clients in a commercial, commercial manner. But there are many ways to do it. Like I said, if you are an animal photography or pet photographer started PET, PET Facebook group and just invite your friends and watch it organically grow. And now you're collecting e-mail addresses of people that love pets and half pets. And now hey, type up a nice, a nice newsletter offering a discount for that month or whatever, some kind of offer. And next thing you know, you'll have some phone calls to get some pet photography services. So there's a ton of ways to, to, to use email marketing, but it's still very relevant, is still works really well. I highly recommend it. The more, the more sources you have to market to potential clients, the more you're winning, the better you are off in the more money you're going to generate. So I suggest you start a facebook group in your niche and somehow figure out how to generate emails to, to, to, to collect emails, email addresses so you can market your product, but don't tell anybody about this Facebook group thing. I just discovered it. And it works really, really well. So that's e-mail marketing. And I, it's a must. 11. Chapter 10 Finding & Keeping Longterm Custormers: So in this chapter, we're going to talk about how to find and how to keep long-term customers. What does that mean? That means building relationships with a customer that's going to keep coming back for years to come. So a lot of my customers, unlike their guy, I have, I have a client, commercial client, and they keep me busy year round. This is just one. I have many, but this is just one. And I am their guy and they will not use anybody else because they know that when they need something I'm going to deliver it, went to deliver it on time. I'm going to deliver it on budget. And I'm going to give 100% into this project. So they keep me going. I've been working with them for years, for a very long time and they're amazing. I have many, many of them, but this disguise Call me, this guy's like coming all the time. And it's super steady work, it's great. And that's the kind of people that you want to work with that you want to work for. Because at the end of the day, these are the kind of, this is the kind of trust you want to build with a client. You want to build a long-term relationship, right? So it save you do weddings, you wanna do, you wanna do the daughter's wedding, the daughter sister's wedding, and those daughters, cousins, sisters, nieces, wedding, and so forth. So once you do a job for somebody and you do well, you can have the entire people's families, the work as well. How did you do that? There's only one way to do that. And that's to do absolutely stunning work. There's no other way. There's no easy way to create long-term customers. Only to do stunning, absolutely mind-blowing work. And if your, if your skills are in polished are not up to par, then keep practicing and good, good, good. But if, if they're not, if you're not all the way there with your skills, at least have your people skills there and your communication skills. People love that, people love to communicate. People have a good communicator and people like to be to have somebody they can trust, right? But at the end of the day it is an artistic piece that they want. So make sure that you do stunning word that you deliver it on time. So if your delivery if your turnaround delivery is 72 hours, make sure that they get those photos before way before 72 hours. So you exceed their expectations right? Now? If if you have like an upsell, so let's say I don't know if you go if you're charging our li and Google over an hour, don't charge them for that hour. Just be cool with what you get. I mean, this is business, don't get me wrong. But if you're making $1200 for this job instead of nickel and dimed minim, an extra $50 for the extra hour, 20 minutes that you that you went over. Just tell him be like, Hey, didn't charge you for that extra hour. Doubts on me. We can work it out on the next one. People remember that and they absolutely loved that. And of course they're gonna call you back. You think if they had a bad experience, are going to call the about a guy that guide back. Absolutely not. If they have a great experience though, they will call you back, not only that, but it will tell their friends. They will tell their family. They will tell their kids, their brothers, their sisters, their working partners. They will tell everybody in their social circle. So it is important that you do really good work. That you always give a 100% of everything into work. And not only your photography, but also your customer service. You always tell him where the project sad Where you going. I think people like honest feedback. So if you're doing a photo shoot and something looks really weird, You can tell them, hey, I think there's a better way to do this. Let's try it this way. Or you can say, hey, let's do it this way and then I want to try it my way. And then shown both photographs. You know, there are many ways to win a client's heart over. And that's the way you click. You create long-lasting clients, long-lasting relationships, not only in photography but in any industry. And I've been in business since I was, gosh, 14-15, So yeah. So that's one big lesson that I've always learned to great work. Have a great rapport, um, and have great communication and always go the extra mile, right. So no nickel and diming. Just always give them a little bit more forward than what they paid for and they'll be super-happy. Just think of, think of it this way. Let's say you go to McDonalds and they give you a free lunch, large strength or a free large french fry at the drive-through, I promise you, you will never forget that and you go back to that, to that, to that McDonald's or Burger place to see if you get another free one, right? Or simply to return the favor because they treated us. All right. It's the same way in photography to create work, go the extra mile, and never forget about your customer. And that's what you're working for. And I promise you they will come back and they will always pay you what you ask them to pay you. 12. Chapter 11 Closing Thoughts: Okay, so we've covered a ton of things this course. And I think you're going to be just fine. I think song as you take the lead and you follow some really important steps, especially the website stuff in and finding your niche to sort of the most important, I think you're going to be just fine. One thing to remember is to just follow your heart, right? Pick something that you know you're going to love if you're unsure about something. So let's say you sports fits our failure. Like then don't go with that, you know, go with something that you really, really love. So if you love working with kids and then go into Kit photography or something in that, in that realm, if you love sports, sports photography, if you love music, going to concert photography, whatever it is you choose to go into, Make sure you love it and make sure you're super passionate about because your passion will come through your work. And if you're not passionate about it, and if you're kind of unhappy with your situation, that will come through your work and it will show and it will affect your work. So as long as you pick something good songs, you pick something that fills your heart, that fills your soul, that makes you smile, that makes you happy, that makes this world a better place, then you're going to be just fine. Always put your best foot forward. Remember, the client is always first, the client is always right. So treat them accordingly. They are the ones pain. So make sure you give them a good product. That being said, they did hire you, they hired you for your creative vision because they love your work. So give him that too. But make sure you listen to their requests, right? So don't ignore what they tell you, but put your twist of creativity into, into their request and into your work. Always give 100% of yourself into your work. And you will see that this career can be very fulfilling. It can be very long-lasting, and it's just such a good, good, good place to be in. I mean, who gets paid to do what they love, right? I've been, I've traveled to so many different countries because of this. I've photographs so many celebrities. I've been in so many magazines and books. And it's just been such an incredible career. And honestly it all boils down to one thing is that I'm really passionate about it. And I really, really, really enjoy having a camera in my hand. And not only that, I love teaching people as well, and I love sharing that with the world. So someone's, you're passionate about what you're doing. I think you're kinda BE just fine. Thank you guys for watching and I will catch you guys on the next class.