Hey guys! Welcome back to the podcast. If this is your first episode, come on in. I’m so glad you found your way here. Let’s start this one off with a client story. One of my students just had her very first IPS session today. Inside the Studio Secrets community, she let us know what was going on all in her head right before this appointment. Her biggest concern was her clients asking why prints were so expensive.

After I stopped giggling just a little bit, I answered her.

Why did I giggle? Because I have thought the very same thing in the past when I was just starting out in sales.

It’s so easy to doubt ourselves & our clients. I quickly reminded her of who she is & that her clients hired her for a reason - because they trust her, and love & value her work.

And I’m happy to report that this woman’s first IPS sale was $3900! What?! I’m sure she giggled a little bit about all those fears before her clients arrived too. After she stopped jumping up & downI bet!

I’m so proud of her & all the hard work she’s put in to get to this point. And now that she’s done it once, I know she’ll do it again and again.

If you would love to have sales just like that, you need to go through my free training called Booked Solid Without The Burnout. You can get it at www.seniorstudiosuccess.com/bookedsolid.

Here’s what I usually see with photographers - either you don’t have enough sessions or you have way too many at different times of the year. So you either aren’t profitable or you are but you are completely exhausted by the end of the year. It’s possible to have a very balanced schedule & consistent inquiries with the sales that you need so that 1) you aren’t burnt out and 2) you can actually pay yourself a nice paycheck every month.

I’d love to help you with that! Take that free training. It’s going to help get you there & then if you want to work together inside Studio Secrets, my group coaching program, you can dive into that as well.

Today is all about how you show up in your market.

Brian & I got married in Playa Del Carmen at the beginning of June. If you’ve listened to the podcast for a while you already know that. What you may not know is that we went back at the beginning of July! Yep, we’re crazy like that. But this time it was just the two of us & we had a completely different experience. No 5 star all-inclusive resort. This time we stayed in downtown Playa Del Carmen on 5th street. This is where it all happens. There are tons of restaurants, shops & bars for over a mile. You can get & find anything (and I mean anything) you want on this street.

What does this have to do with how you show up in your market?

As I walked down this street day after day, I began to notice things. And as I let the experiences soak in, I was able to start comparing what was happening there to what I see in our industry today.

Now, there were a mixture of businesses on that street. Some had actual store fronts, some had blankets down on the ground, some just walked up & had things for sale in their pockets & some had automatic sliding glass doors that locked behind you with a security guard inside & outside of the store. When I tell you that it was all over the place, it was!

Let’s break down the differences between the street vendors & the high end shops there on 5th street in Playa Del Carmen.

Street Vendors vs High End Shops

Street Vendors:

Offered all the same things (trinkets, souvenirs, swimsuit covers, tshirts)
Piles of stuff everywhere (overabundance of inventory)
Chasing us down in the street (do not make eye contact!)
Repeating themselves over & over (even when we said “no thank you”)
Trying to convince us to come into their shops & do business with them
Trying to get attention with gimmicks
Offering a bargain
Very emotional - high energy when trying to get us to buy, defeated when we didn’t come in their shops
Appealing to the masses (they wanted to sell to anybody still breathing)
They were all alike (nothing set them apart in the market)

High End Shops:

Under big white canopies, flower walls, water features, protected from the heat or rain (totally different experience)
Unique product offerings
Limited quantities
Solid, recognizable brands
No gimmicks
No discounts
No pressure to purchase
Said we could come back the next day if we hadn’t made a decision
Never outside their shops
They waited for us to come to them
They never came to us
Calm & collected
Confident whether we purchased or not
Separated themselves from the market
They don’t compete at that level
They created their own market
Trusted their perfect clients would be attracted to them

I hope you can see the differences there. You’ve probably even experienced something like this in your life before. What you may not have noticed is that it happens in the photography industry too. Actually, it happens in every industry. You can choose to set yourself up to compete with everyone else offering the same thing at just about the same price or you can choose to pull away from that & create a business that stands alone. Which one do you think gets noticed?

Let’s look at the difference between a lower priced photographer (maybe 3 digit sales) compared to higher end photographers

Before we get into this, please don’t get your panties in a wad if I say something you don’t like. Instead I hope you’ll ask yourself why it triggers you. Get curious. If you’re triggered because this is the way you need your business set up right now for the stage of life you’re in, then ok! Carry on dear. But if you are triggered because your business is set up from a place of fear (fear that clients won’t pay that much, fear that the market is oversaturated, fear that you will lose clients when you raise prices), well, that’s my speciality. You are the ones I absolutely LOVE to coach! We can work through that & build a thriving business you love!

3 Digit Photographers

Unlimited availability
Session fees include digitals or they offer digital only collections (they are a commodity, just like these shops - a trinket here for $1 or a trinket there for $2 - the tourist is going to buy the $1 trinket)
Constantly promoting online all of their deals
Sales & discounts to get people calling
Very emotional business owners (desperation)
No trust in themselves or trust in their clients to follow through

4 Digit Photographers

Limited availability
Paid for their time and their work (because they value it)
No need to promote constantly
They show up confidently & provide value
No discounts offered to get someone to book a session
Generally not as emotional, because they trust that if it’s a no, then something else better is waiting for them around the corner
They trust themselves to show up consistently as their authentic self
They trust that their clients will follow through
They sell without guilt because they know the value of what they offer & trust that their clients not only see it, but love to pay for it because it brings them joy
They understand that it’s a business transaction (value for value) & they aren’t taking money from a client, but a client is gladly giving it to them (huge difference here)

2 ways you set yourself apart in the market:

Availability
Price

The tough part is working through all the brain drama it likes to serve up in order to create that high end business. That’s what I love helping my clients with. Because you can make all the pretty price lists you want, all the pretty marketing pieces & a beautiful logo to boot. That’s the easy part. Daily working through all those limiting beliefs to run that business is different.

Business is a combination of strategy & mindset. You cannot be successful without them both. It’s exactly how you become the go-to photographer in your area. That’s what I teach & coach my photographers through. If you want to know more about how I can help you, take my free training, Booked Solid Without The Burnout. And then let’s have a conversation about getting inside my coaching program. I’m here when you’re ready.

If you learned something today, please share this episode with a friend. Your sharing is how I’m able to keep giving back to you guys here on the podcast. And your reviews help so much too to keep the podcast bouncing back up in the algorithm. Thank you so much if you’ve left one. I love helping you guys! I’ll end with this, the way I always do. My goal is to help you build a more profitable, productive & purposeful business so that you can spend more time doing what you love with the ones you love. Have a great week y’all!

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