Boudoir & Headshot Photography | Richard Grenfell (EP158)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:25] Speaker B: Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the Camera Life podcast, proudly brought to you by Lucky Straps. It is Thursday 19th February, and being a Thursday morning, we. We have a special guest to interview. Just before I interview our guest, I just want to say good morning to Justin. How are you, boss? [00:00:41] Speaker A: I'm good, I'm good. I think I'm doing better than you. Because you got no power. [00:00:45] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a planned outage in my area and, you know, luckily they made it on the day that I do podcasts, so all is well. I'm on borrowed time. The battery is slowly counting down. Never have I felt so anxious about a podcast. And of course, Jim is here. Welcome back, Jim. [00:01:00] Speaker C: Hey, thanks. [00:01:01] Speaker A: Jim's back. [00:01:03] Speaker D: You know, you can always drop in. [00:01:05] Speaker B: You're like family, Jim. [00:01:06] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Come and go as I like. [00:01:08] Speaker A: It's like. It's almost like Jim has a growing boudoir business. And then we have a boudoir business expert on. And he just pops in just to see what's happening. [00:01:20] Speaker C: No coincidence. [00:01:21] Speaker A: Not like that. And to speak of the devil, we. [00:01:24] Speaker B: Are joined today by Ozzy portrait shot and boudoir photographer Richard Grenfell. G', day, Richard. [00:01:31] Speaker D: Welcome. G'. Day. How you going? Thanks for having me along. I appreciate it. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Oh, no, it's great to have you here. We've been very excited for this discussion. [00:01:39] Speaker A: Yes, yes. Ever since we come across you first through the Photo Biz X podcast. Andrew Helmich. I'm a longtime listener to Photo Bizx. That's actually the podcast that kind of got Jim and my wedding business. It definitely gave us many of our ideas and tactics for getting the business off the ground early. Just every week I'd listen to it. I don't think Jim ever listened to it. I'd listen to it and I'd write all the stuff down. I'd be like, jim, we're going to do this. And he's like, okay. And then we'd do that. And it almost always worked and made the business better. [00:02:12] Speaker D: So that's how I got started in photography. Listening to Andrew's podcast, I didn't think there was any money in photography, to be truthful. I thought just a hobby. No one made any money. It sucked. Well, I didn't. I just didn't know. You know what I mean? I just had no idea. [00:02:27] Speaker A: Hey, some people do. [00:02:30] Speaker D: I just didn't think it was a very viable business unless you were like, yeah, really super specialized or commercial. I just didn't know that you could do it fairly easily. So to speak. That's the wrong word, but you know what I mean. [00:02:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That was a real business model sitting there to be used because from the outside looking in. Yeah. It often doesn't seem that way. It often seems sort of murky, like, oh, I don't know, I have a camera and then. And somehow I'm going to try and make money with it. But I'm not sure. [00:02:57] Speaker D: I thought only wedding photographers made money, to be truthful. I just had no idea like that. Yeah. I'm very grateful for Andrew and his podcast. Yeah, yeah. [00:03:03] Speaker B: On that point, we now see a lot of younger social media influencers behaving or perhaps creating content that makes them look like, you know, they're living this well off lifestyle as influencer photographers. [00:03:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:03:18] Speaker B: And it's almost sort of telling a bit of a, bit of a myth. [00:03:20] Speaker A: A bit of a fib isn't. [00:03:24] Speaker B: Takes time to build a business. It takes time to get to a point where this is comfortable. [00:03:29] Speaker D: Well, I see people on YouTube give these, you know, give their opinions on certain tactics and it's just bullshit. I mean, you listen to it, you got that. No, that's, that's just not right. They just, they're just, they're just pandering to the whatever, you know what I mean? Trying to get views. Because what they're saying is just fault. Life doesn't work that way. You know what I mean? And if you've been around a while, you're looking and go, no, that's not right. You know. [00:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, because you've tried it or you've said, yeah, it's like you, you. [00:03:53] Speaker D: Know what they're saying, it's not, you know, like if you look at it, that just doesn't, that, that just wouldn't happen in real life. That just doesn't. Yeah, like just because you put up some real, you know, all of a sudden, you know, all these people say, like, I put up this reel and I got 300 inquiries. You go, no, you didn't. You know what I mean? Like, that doesn't work that way. You know, stuff like that. Anyway, that's. [00:04:18] Speaker B: Now, Richard, fair to say that your, your photography business is kind of split into two groups. You've got your corporate and professional headshot side of things. [00:04:28] Speaker D: And then of course, you've got the. [00:04:30] Speaker B: Boudoir side of things. We'll get into that mix a little bit later in the discussion. But I've got a question for you about boudoir photographer. When we sat down with Peter Olson a couple of Weeks ago, he indicated that he, well, he thinks that boudoir is for men, for men's pleasure, and that what he does is for the women. What do you, what are your thoughts around defining boudoir? And, and who is the true audience? [00:04:56] Speaker D: Okay, so I'm sorry, Greg, ask the question again. I, I missed it, sorry. [00:05:02] Speaker A: I might, I might be able to. So it's, it's almost like he, he was trying to explain that we asked, like what, what, what he would define his style of photography. Peter Coulson style, which is more towards the fashion side of things, which he says generally aimed at making a female audience go, wow, that's cool. I like that, I want to look at that. Whereas he said, even though boudoir is obviously, generally, it's women that book in for it and it's women that want the images, the style of the image is more around something that a man would appreciate. You know what I mean? Have you ever thought about that? [00:05:44] Speaker D: Not really. I, I, I, I personally, I put it this way. I personally, well, every woman we have in here, every woman I book in here. I'm not exaggerating when I say I photograph everyone differently. I mean, I start, let me rephrase it. I start the sessions exactly the same with every single person. I've got a little routine I go through at the beginning, the beginning, just, just to break the ice and just explain all my idiosyncrasy, how I make bad faces. And I don't mean, you know, that sort of stuff, but I, I, I just, I, I take a really simple, a super simplistic approach, and that is that I photograph each woman to flatter them as the maximum amount I can. That's probably the easiest way to describe it. So a really good example is the lady I had in yesterday, really nice woman. She's 40, just turned 40. She's a nurse, got four kids. So she's got the insecurities of having like a mum ton, like a lot of the ladies have at that age. And so super simple. You just don't photograph it. You know what I mean? So I always aim for simple. So in my mind I'm sort of, I'm getting around to your question, but I think that I personally photograph for the client, not for anyone else. That's the, that's my best way to describe it. So I don't really care and I don't care what people think about the photos. I, I just don't, I just care if decline. And I really mean that when I say that. I just photograph what I think they were like. And if they're happy with them, I'm happy with them. And I. I have an 80 female audience easily, easily with the stuff that, that I do. Because I've also got a ladies only Facebook group. I'm the only dude in the group which is kind of very outnumbered. There's 600, there's 600 women. I'm the only guy. And then they will give me. [00:07:22] Speaker B: You're gonna really, really behave yourself. [00:07:25] Speaker A: Yeah. What will I turn on you? What's the group? What's the group for? What's the purpose of the Facebook group? [00:07:33] Speaker D: So that's been going for a few years now. So whenever we book in a lady, we encourage you to join the group. Okay. And what makes it a VIP group is that we've never opened it up the public as such, We've never advertised it, We've never said, please join our group. Because what a lot of boudoir photographers do is they'll use their products private Facebook group to try and get bookings. Okay. I do the complete opposite. What I do is I get people into the group to. And I put a lot of behind the scenes stuff in there. For example, I have a very goofy shot of me every single day with the clients that come in standing next to our sign. I'll show you real quick. Hang on. And what I find is that by having the group, I will find this. Just bear with me. [00:08:15] Speaker A: I can probably pull one up on here. Let me see if I can find. I've seen this. [00:08:21] Speaker D: Maybe I feed by accident. [00:08:23] Speaker A: Oh, no, maybe. Maybe I saw it in one of your videos, actually. Maybe in one of YouTube videos. [00:08:28] Speaker D: Let me show you real quick. But what, what I found is that because I put behind the scenes stuff in the group and private stuff behind the group. And. And like a really, really, really good example was last year I photographed a Sri Lankan gynecologist lady, obviously. And because of her religion and her family, she said, look, I don't want stuff posted publicly, but I'd be happy. Okay. With you putting in the group. You know what I mean? So, yeah, so there's that sort of stuff as well. And I think that what happens is women will see it. I'm just trying to bloody find one. Just bear with me. [00:09:03] Speaker A: Trying to find photos dealing with a professional here. [00:09:07] Speaker D: So, like, can you see that? So that's yesterday. See, that's me standing next to the sign with lady I just mentioned. [00:09:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:17] Speaker D: The day before. Yeah, they're just really goofy shots. And so what Happens is the ladies will come, ladies will see those and they go, oh, those ladies just look like me. You know what I mean? And it gives them confidence to come in. And so I actually use the group not to get bookings, but to firm bookings. Up to certain people turn up and don't chicken out. So I kind of take the opposite approach. Yeah. [00:09:36] Speaker A: So once they book in, they join the group and then they're going to see, wow, look at all this stuff that that's gone on. This guy knows what he's doing. He's trusted by hundreds of people. [00:09:46] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. [00:09:47] Speaker A: And there's nothing for me to worry about. [00:09:49] Speaker D: And I genuinely keep it confidential. Like it's not, like it's not something I just say. Like we're like the only way you can get in the group is if we let you in, if we invite you. Basically, you know, we get a few randoms and we just check them out before we let them in. But, but generally speaking, that's how we do it. Yeah. [00:10:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:05] Speaker D: Wow. [00:10:07] Speaker A: That is a great idea and a great way to start the show off. I might take. Should we take a quick little break and just talk to the, the people in the chat that are joining us so far this morning. We have got Philip Johnson and Paul is here. Julie Powell. Morning all. Is that Michelle Manning? 4992. Good morning. Morning, Michelle. [00:10:29] Speaker D: Oh, Michelle's on the Stonehouse. Hi, Michelle. [00:10:30] Speaker A: One of your clients. Oh, that's cool. Hey, Anthony Stonehouse. Morning, Greg. Looks different without the colored lights. Yeah, that's right. Power outage will do that to Greg. I actually don't mind it. It's very real. [00:10:41] Speaker D: It's really. [00:10:41] Speaker A: See the beard? [00:10:42] Speaker B: Well, I balance well with, with Richard's background. So there's a lot of similarities there. [00:10:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. You got, you've been shooting Boudoir in there as well. [00:10:51] Speaker C: Is that a studio, Greg? [00:10:53] Speaker B: No, it's my son's room. [00:10:56] Speaker A: Hopefully not Robert Varner. [00:11:00] Speaker D: I can't, I, I can't believe a non photographer turned up to this podcast. It's amazing. Thank you, Michelle. [00:11:06] Speaker A: So cool. She says you're amazing, Richard. Love my photos. That's so good. [00:11:10] Speaker D: That's why we're mates. That's why me and Michelle are friends. [00:11:13] Speaker A: That's awesome. Robert Varner says, good morning Australia from New Jersey, usa. And he goes on to say, I always get slapped in the face when I ask a woman if I can photograph her in her underwear. Yeah, I think it's all, it's all about the delivery you got to ask him for money as well. You got to ask him to give me your money and. And I'll take your photo in your underwear. Tweak production says good morning now. After work. Boo. We'll watch tonight. Have a great day. Everybody else, LTK is here, everyone's here. So don't forget, if you are listening live, ask questions in the chat. Ask Richard a question, anything about business, boudoir, whatever you want, and we will endeavor to get him to answer it. And otherwise, if you were listening to this later, either on Spotify or Apple podcast or on YouTube, throw a comment ideally on the YouTube video, because then we'll be able to keep track of them all. And if it's a question or something, we might even be able to rope Richard into answering that in the comments. So do that. Okay, that's that done. Oh, and buy a lucky camera strap if you want a camera strap for your camera because they're awesome. Okay, that's that Code Greg. [00:12:17] Speaker D: It also increases your status in the neighborhood having one of your straps. [00:12:20] Speaker A: Correct? [00:12:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:22] Speaker A: And what I've always thought about is if there was some sort of emergency situation, life threatening scenario where you need to do one of those Indiana Jones slide down a rope to another rooftop kind of deal. Zipline. Yeah, exactly. A makeshift zipline. Our straps are probably one of the best things that you could have in that situation. [00:12:44] Speaker D: So because you don't want to be trusting. It's like a strap from China or something. [00:12:48] Speaker A: No, no, it's got to be, it's got to be quality leather to be able to slide. Hey, well, camera, we like camera house cameras are great, especially Croydon cameras, we love them, but not their camera straps. [00:13:03] Speaker B: Garbage. [00:13:03] Speaker A: Okay, okay. So cancelled. How did you get it? How did you get into this photography thing? Where did this, where did this begin for you? [00:13:16] Speaker D: Well, I was actually, I was actually music. I'm actually musician by trade. That's actually if I have a trade, I'm a musician, which is another useless profession. But. And so I guess I've always had that creative thing and I always loved photography and I did it for a hobby. For a long time I was just a hobbyist. And, and I've got to be truthful, I'm a bit of a light bloomer as a professional. But as you guys know, my history is in business stuff. I've had businesses now for the last 25 years. And so I did my first wedding. My. I'll talk professionally. I did my first wedding. I remember it so clearly because it was 2017 preliminary final night when Richard played the Giants. That's why I remember, because I'm a Richmond supporter. Thank God I didn't book anything for the grand final, right? And I did my first wedding for 100 bucks. That's how I got started, because I did. I did. I need a portfolio, and that's how I got going. So I've only been shooting professionally. Professionally, like, as in, like, made an effort to make money since 2017. Before that, I used to do a bit of sports stuff and sell the photos, but not with any intent. It was just like, if, you know, if any sales happened, it was by accident. You know what I mean? And I actually said to Tracy, my wife said, I'm. I love being. I love photography. I love the hobby of them. I said, I'll never make money from it. I don't want to do it, because if I get involved in it as a business, I'll get obsessed with it and it'll take over my life and it will suck. And is that what happened? It did, but it doesn't suck good. But I never had any intentions because, like I said, I was a muso. And I remember the slippery slope of being obsessed with a creative endeavor would be like. I was obsessed with being a really good player when I was young. Like, back and back then it was like Edie Van Halen and yeah, yeah, yeah. Guitars, you know, So I was obsessed with, like, being the fastest dude on the block, if you know what I mean. I didn't want. And I said, I don't want to do that in photography. I just want to just do my thing and be happy and whatever, you know what I mean? And here we are now, how many years later. [00:15:13] Speaker A: And do you still play now? Do you still play guitar? [00:15:16] Speaker D: A little bit. My daughter dusts me off to do gigs every now and then. That's about it. Yeah, I don't play. [00:15:20] Speaker A: Dust you off? Not dust you off. [00:15:26] Speaker D: I finish a gig, I'm like, ah, my hands. [00:15:28] Speaker B: I can't play. [00:15:30] Speaker A: Well, you'll be happy to know I'm sitting next to a rather large guitar amp that very rarely gets played, but it sits next to my desk because I like it. [00:15:40] Speaker B: It's the size of a fridge, that amp. [00:15:42] Speaker A: It is. I've had many amps in my day. I would say well over 100. I was a bit obsessed with gear when I was playing in Ban. I would change them out. [00:15:49] Speaker C: No, not you. [00:15:52] Speaker A: You. [00:15:52] Speaker B: Obsessed with gear. [00:15:54] Speaker A: And so I've ended up with something that is affordable enough that it didn't Feel like it was a waste of money sitting around if I'm not playing it much. But it is still a full. Like a full stack, so. Have you ever heard of MI Audio? MI from Sydney. Yeah, he made a line of amps for a while, Michael from MI Audio. And so I've got the MI Amplification Megalith Gamma, which is one of his heavier amps, and it's amazing. [00:16:22] Speaker D: I like it. I actually collect Marshalls. I've still got that 10, which is kind of pathetic. And because I actually pull them all out during the break and make sure they still work. Yeah, I'm gonna get rid of them. Vintage stuff. [00:16:37] Speaker A: Mainly vintage stuff. Oh, very nice. [00:16:39] Speaker D: Eight hundreds and all that stuff. Yeah. People listen to this. Won't have a clue what I'm talking about. [00:16:44] Speaker A: I was gonna say, but that. That's why this podcast is great. Okay, so you were right. So in 2017, what were you doing for work in 2017 when you shot your first wedding? [00:16:58] Speaker D: I owned a pawn brokers. [00:17:01] Speaker A: Nice. Okay. [00:17:02] Speaker D: Oh, you had a porn for 14. For 14 years we owned that, yeah. Really? [00:17:07] Speaker A: What was that like? [00:17:09] Speaker D: Full on. As you'd imagine, we're in a town called Nambour, which is a bit of a hole, to put it bluntly. And I mean, sort of like. It's like Frankston, if you're in Melbourne, I guess kind of like a smaller version. Yeah. But we did that for 14 years, and then prior to that, we had an IT company, which I bootstrapped from nothing with no money and sold for a ton of money, which I'm actually very proud of still. [00:17:32] Speaker A: That's cool. Congratulations. [00:17:34] Speaker D: So, yeah, and Tracy and I, that's my wife, we've been. We've been in business the whole time together, which We've been married 35 years, and we've been in business for over 25 of them together. So that's all. That's that. That's it. Yeah. But pawn broker and a. And a lender. We used to lend money, as in we had an Australian credit license and we would do personal loans. I even did third, second mortgage lending and stuff like that, which different thing, but still do a little bit of that second moisture. That's about it. Yeah. [00:18:06] Speaker A: Okay, so. So in 2017, when you shot your first wedding for $100, had you consciously made the decision of like, I'm going to try and make a go of this, or was that still just something that kind of happened and. And it wasn't on the radar at all? [00:18:21] Speaker D: No, that's a really Good question. So my, my. What, what happened with me was that I, I. I wanted to do weddings. So I really enjoy photographing people. Do you know what I mean? I just really enjoy it. That's kind of my thing. And prior to doing the wedding, I actually had a Facebook page, which I ripped off from that web. The Facebook thing. Humans of New York. You ever seen that? That? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did a direct rip off of that. I had Humans on the Sunshine coast. And I would, if you could. It still exists. I didn't delete it. Just. But the last post was a few years ago on. On Facebook, I've got up to like 11, 000 people, which is pretty cool. I just wander around the coast and interviewing people. Some people I just talk to people say, hey, go on, blah, blah, and post a story. And that was it. And so I thought, I'd like to photograph more people. And then of all things, I was watching Creative Live because I taught myself all the technical stuff on Creative Live. And I watched Salson Carter. That guy Sasson Carter, I don't know if you've ever heard of him. He had this crazy course called the Wedding Photographer's Boot Camp. That sounds weird. What, What's. What's going on there? So I watched that. [00:19:21] Speaker A: I've watched that. [00:19:21] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh. And I was like, wow, I didn't know. So I thought, okay, I'm gonna give it a crack. And. But my main fear was that if I did embark on it, that I didn't want it to be a fantasy because, you know how, like, you meet people who they say, oh, man, I'm going to start a turtle cleaning business. People who own turtles. You know what I mean? I didn't want it to be like that. [00:19:42] Speaker A: It's me. I'm that guy. [00:19:46] Speaker D: And so I didn't want to, like, waste years. And then, so I did a few weddings. I was buggering around there. And then, like we talked about at the beginning, my friend in Melbourne, Paul Taddy, who's also a Richmond supporter, that's how I know him. He told me about Andrew's podcast. And I let. And I went and listened. I thought, holy, like, you can actually make money as a portrait studio. So I thought, okay. So I started stuffing around with that and renting other people's studios on the dark. I'd advertise, drag people in. And I didn't know any better then. I would get in five people in a day and so shoot and do IPS after it. Five in a day. I don't know. [00:20:24] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:20:26] Speaker A: IPS being in person, sales, which. Yeah, yeah, we'll get into that later because that's. I've got a lot of notes written. That's something that I really want to extract out of your brain. [00:20:36] Speaker D: Yes. [00:20:37] Speaker A: Everything about that process shoot. [00:20:39] Speaker D: Come back in half an hour, show the photos. [00:20:42] Speaker A: Okay. Did that work? [00:20:46] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, it was great. Yeah. I still do it now. That's exactly what I do now, but just on a small scale. I only do one a day because I can't do five. Yeah, it's impossible. [00:20:54] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:20:55] Speaker D: So I did that and then Trace said, why do you. [00:20:57] Speaker A: Why do you. [00:20:57] Speaker D: Why don't you have a crack properly? I'll run the pawnbrokers, you open a studio and we'll see what happens. And. Yeah, and then we opened one in Maloola Bar. That one got the land that the studio was on, got resumed by council. Okay. Which sucked. Meaning they widened the road. That was during beginning of COVID There was nowhere to rent. And then. So we built this from scratch on our property. So. [00:21:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I saw that. That's very cool. [00:21:21] Speaker D: And then this is. [00:21:27] Speaker A: Well, this is the back. [00:21:29] Speaker D: Yeah. I've got room. I've got the reception and kitchen. A dunny. Lots of stuff. So. [00:21:33] Speaker A: Yeah, very cool. For our international audience. That is a toilet, but in Australia it's called a dunny. [00:21:42] Speaker D: Anyway, classy. [00:21:45] Speaker A: So. Okay, so 2017 shooter wedding for $100. When. When did you open the studio? The first studio? Like when did you decide to do that to. To grab a lease or whatever and get in there and make a go? [00:21:59] Speaker D: Yeah, at least a building. That was in 2020. Yeah. Well, Queen Queensland was okay. We essentially traded pretty much. It was okay. Like it wasn't a big deal. Yeah. So, yeah, that. That was fun. It's pretty brutal. It was tough, man. Like, I've got a really close friend in Melbourne and she was running like a million dollar studio and it. It just killed her, you know what I mean? You know, it just really. Because she had a studio up here as well. She couldn't get out of Melbourne. That was the problem. So she had. She traded down there and made things up here. She just couldn't get up here. So she slowly went broke. The poor bike, you know what I mean? It sucked. [00:22:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:46] Speaker D: Automatic had a pub down in. Down in Rosebud and that or somewhere down there anyway. And it killed him. You know, it was covered. Was awful. It was absolutely awful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:22:57] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:22:58] Speaker D: Terribly sad. Yeah. [00:23:00] Speaker A: What do you remember when you moved into the. Into the first studio. [00:23:05] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:23:06] Speaker A: Do you remember what sort of cost that was? Like how much you had to outlay? Did you. Did you keep it really bootstrapped or did you have to spend a decent amount to sort of fit it out? [00:23:17] Speaker D: Pretty lean and mean. Because I was a bit wary, you know what I mean? So I'm no stranger to leasing buildings. I've laced heaps and bought buildings. So that. That bit didn't scare me because I've been through it, you know, like everything's nothing scary once you've done it sort of thing. But if memory serves me correctly, months ran up front, so that would have been. It wasn't. It wasn't a lot of money then it was like four grand, something like that, or three and a half grand, I think was it per month, something like that. So I paid a month in another month. Bonds at seven grand. Probably spent 15. Fitting it out because it's pretty. Just painting it and moving a few walls around, stuff like that. Yeah. So I'm pretty. Pretty leaning in under 30 grand. It would have been under 30. Yeah. [00:24:02] Speaker A: Okay. [00:24:03] Speaker D: Pretty easy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's really. Everything adds up. Sign writing all of a sudden. [00:24:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:24:09] Speaker D: Like whenever. Yeah. It's like, do your estimates and add 50. Yeah. [00:24:13] Speaker A: So, yeah, every. Every time you go to Bunnings, it's another 500 or a thousand dollars. Even though. [00:24:17] Speaker D: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. [00:24:18] Speaker A: You're not expecting it. [00:24:21] Speaker D: But it wasn't awesome, to be truthful. But it was fine. You know, I just. My. My shooting area was tiny. You don't need to be good. Like, it was 3 by 7 meters, 21 square meters at the back there. That was it super small. My design, remaining the room where I do the sales in like, project the stuff onto the wall and do the sails was bigger than the. Bigger than the shooting room. [00:24:44] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:24:45] Speaker D: Obviously you need to make sales, otherwise you can't trade. Yeah. So. But yeah, I made it all work. And then when I got into boudoir, I actually started doing the shoots in the. In the. In the display room. And I'd have to like dismantle the shooting room and shove like the block bed in the other room and all that sort of stuff. You know what I mean? So it's pretty rough. [00:25:05] Speaker B: At what point did the boudoir come into the business? And what. What do you think led you to make that call, to go down the boudoir path? [00:25:13] Speaker D: Yeah, that's a good question. So I had a. I had. I'd done. I mean, I've done a little. I'VE done a bit. But I had this lady come in and she was a friend of a lady's wedding who I'd photographed, and she came in and we did a Boudoiri thing and she, and she suffered from body dysmorphia syndrome. Body dysmorphia, which is, which I truthfully didn't know a great deal about back then. But it's, but in a nutshell, it's, it's kind of like, kind of like anorexia or something like that. We look in the mirror and just think you look bad. That's basically it. It's like a mental thing, you know what I mean? So she came in and did it and I didn't know that. She told me about it and I didn't really know a lot about it. And, and so from what I've learned next, I've studied it a bit now. That would be the occlude of me, like, tight, right? Walking across two buildings. I'm terrified of heights, you know what I mean? You know, so for them, that's. So she came in, we did it, and she's, she's an awesome woman. She's coming back soon, actually, if she's watching. I don't think she is, but she'd be at work and she told me and she cried and she told me I changed her life and all this stuff. Wow, this is really nice. You know what I mean? This is awesome. And so I started looking into it more and so I did more of that. More advertising, got more ladies in it. I've always lent into that side of boudoir, like, trying to help. Not help, but like our thing is confidence and empowerment. That's really our thing, rather than being sexy and awesome. You know what I mean? I know it sounds everyone wants to be sexy and awesome, but we lean more in that direction. And so that, that, that's what, that's what we decided to do it. And then we. And then about three years ago now, Tracy and I decided we'll just, just do that. And that's all we've been doing, along with the corporate head shops. Yeah. [00:27:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:03] Speaker D: So that's it. Yeah, that, that, that's how it starts. [00:27:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:06] Speaker D: Yeah. I, I, I really enjoy it for that reason. And it's not about, I mean, and of course, all my friends. Oh, mate, if you ever need an assistant, I'll come along and give you a hand, you know? Yeah, but, but it's not like that at all. It really, no, it really, really, it's not Even remotely like that. [00:27:22] Speaker B: It's because it's a vulnerability, isn't there? [00:27:25] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, and I take my hat off to these women who come in like they are coming in getting photographed by an ugly middle aged guy who's a loud mouth like me and you know, having the courage to do that, you know what I mean? And putting themselves in a very, very entrusting ass and putting themselves in a really, really, really vulnerable position. And so I, I, I mean that when I said I, I joke around a lot but I really take my hat off of all these women that come in. I, I feel like I have a relationship with all of them that come in. They're all wonderful. [00:27:54] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, that, that brings me to one note that I had written down here. So good time to get straight into it. Shooting boudoir men versus women as photographers, what are your thoughts and how can, what do you have any sort of learnings from your time shooting boudoir for men on how to approach it in ways that make women feel more comfortable and all that kind of thing. And, and is it even, is it even harder to be a man shooting boudoir than a woman, do you think, to run a business? [00:28:28] Speaker D: I think, I think it is. I think you immediately eliminate a lot of people out of the gate. Like I've had inquiries and they say, oh, are you the photographer? Yeah. They said, sorry, I can't do it. I said that's fine, whatever. I can't, I can't change it. There's nothing I can do about it. So there's that. So I think it is harder in that regard. But I, I think the one thing that I've done is I've done everything I humanly can to establish credibility and trust with all my vision, with all my marketing and visibility. Like work really hard on Google reviews, work never really made it about us, always made it about the clients, if you know what I mean. And, and I do, I do have the advantage now. Like when I started I was on my own, which was tough. But for example, Tracy's here at the whole time I got a makeup artist here. Like there's always a woman here these days. But when I started I didn't. So it was kind of weird. Not, not weird, but it was just kind of like I could have really done with some help, if you know what I mean. [00:29:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:29:25] Speaker D: But I, I do think it's harder. I do think you have to be more professional. Like just for example, I tend to over ask when I touch the ladies and I'LL all attest to this. I just do it out of habit. I don't mean to do it. I don't mean. Some will say we. For God's sake, just stop asking. You know, like I just, it's become a habit to ask them. But I, I do little things. Like I've got a ritual at the beginning where I say, is it okay if I touch, if I need to like move your hair or move your arm or something, that's fine. So I'll sterilize my hands, you know what I mean? And I just do that. Not I do that. One, I want to sterilize my hands. But two, it gives that mental separation. You're not being familiar, you know? You know what I mean? So you got to be really, really mindful. And, and I have made some. To be truthful, I've made some mistakes like when I'm really tired or I've done too many. Like if I've had a really busy fortnight or something like that. I'll just say things without thinking about it because. And I'll. I accidentally offended someone once, which I feel really bad about. So just be really careful how you say things and what you say. You've got to be really, really, really careful because everyone's different and that's the same with life. But you know, just because it's weird, you can have a nice relationship with someone and then you say something and then you accidentally put your foot in it without even realizing it. You know what I mean? So you can make like a sexual joke or something like that without. When I say sexual joke, you know, not, not rude but just so you gotta be really. I've learned you've got to be really, really, really professional. Yeah. [00:30:48] Speaker B: And I would imagine that, you know, a bad Google review for a boudoir photographer could be quite damaging. Someone. All someone have to say was creep touched. [00:30:57] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. [00:30:57] Speaker B: You know, or some key words would. [00:30:59] Speaker A: Would raise revenue and it wouldn't matter if you had 30, 30 good ones. One, one bad one like that could, could be very damaging. Yeah. [00:31:07] Speaker D: Well, I've got 196 reviews in the raw five star. [00:31:11] Speaker A: Wow, nice work. [00:31:12] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:31:13] Speaker A: And so. Okay. [00:31:13] Speaker D: And so how many years trying to get to 200. I'm harassing my recent clients to give me a review. So if any of you, my recent clients are watching this, give me a good review, please. [00:31:23] Speaker A: Give him a four star. He'll, he'll be like no, someone gave me a four. [00:31:28] Speaker D: Actually someone gave me a four star. They say said wonderful People, great experience. I'll be back. Four stars. I think she hit the wrong button. I was like, that's funny. [00:31:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:39] Speaker D: Oh, there's Justina. [00:31:40] Speaker A: That's how her, I was gonna say who's, who's just. Oh, that's cool. Oh, and also the cool thing. Yeah, the glasses are cool too. [00:31:48] Speaker D: Justina, she's a lady. If you go to our feed, she's the one with the white hair. Oh, she's got various colored hair, but the tattoos on her arms, that's just in it. And she's starting with us full time soon. We're just trying to figure out when to start because she's pretty busy. [00:32:00] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:32:01] Speaker C: Amazing. That's so cool. [00:32:03] Speaker D: She's good fun. She's like my annoying sister. Hi Justina. If you're watching. [00:32:10] Speaker A: I've got a follow. [00:32:11] Speaker B: Up question about the photo, about the boudoir photography. I've got many, but do you ever, do you ever photograph men? And if so, what's the proportion like? [00:32:23] Speaker D: Like one in every 200 I've done, I've done two men and quite a few couples. But I don't, I, but that's sort of different, I think. Yeah. Hardly any men. Like very rarely. Very, very rarely. Yeah. Yeah. If I get one, it's by accident. [00:32:41] Speaker A: To be truthful, are the couples usually like an. So an add on to a. Is it like that you'll do some with just the girl and then some with them as a couple or if you do a couple, is it all every shot? Is both of them in the shot? [00:32:57] Speaker D: Most of the couples are coming, are coming back for the second time. So example, the lady next week is coming in. She came in last year before her wedding and now she's dragging her husband back, her now husband back for a shoot together. That's just where most of them come from. Yeah. Like for example, and she wouldn't mind me saying this, she's a, she came back in again last year. She's a high school teacher. I wish she was my high school teacher. I was a high school. She's amazing. But she, she came, they're very much in the kink scene, you know what I mean? So I'm pretty full on. And so she came back in with her new partner and they had a good time. So it's more that, to be truthful, I, I, I've, I can't even remember one that I booked like just natively so to speak, from as a couple it tends to be always, it's like second time round or the Or a guy will come in and he's attending with her and just be in two photos or something like that. But yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:33:51] Speaker A: Okay. [00:33:52] Speaker D: Excuse my voice. Nice. [00:33:56] Speaker A: Well, where do we. Where to go from here? I'm interested to know. So switch from essentially family portraits or. Or I guess a bit of everything to boudoir. Oh, did I hear correctly on one of your videos that at one point you tried pet photography? [00:34:15] Speaker D: Yeah. Did you do a lot of that? Did tons of that, yeah, heaps. [00:34:18] Speaker A: And was that during the early years when you're also doing families, before you sort of decided to specialize in boudoir? [00:34:25] Speaker D: Yes, it was. Yes, yes. Yeah, I did. I did a lot of pets. Yeah. Yeah. [00:34:30] Speaker A: Okay. And even. Even that at some point you're doing families, doing pets and stuff like that, and even weddings. And at some point you were just like, we need to focus all in on boudoir. [00:34:40] Speaker D: Yeah. Just. Yeah. So with the pet thing, I. I think I saw Justin. I think you saying you're trying to get a pet thing out. Yeah, okay. [00:34:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the plan. [00:34:50] Speaker D: So I. I've spoken about this before. So I got into pets because I like pets. I've got. We've always had dogs, and that's great. And. And I've got a close friend and she helped me with it as well. She's a really good pet photographer. And I was doing it and it was fine and I was making money and it was easy. And not easy is the wrong word, but it was great. But what. What I came to the conclusion was that whilst I love dogs, I'm not a genuine dog nerd. I'm not a dog daddy. You know what I mean? Like, I. I found it difficult to. Personally found it. I just found it difficult to connect to these people who were more hardcore than me about it. And I felt like I thought I was playing lip service a little bit. Like, I thought I was just like, you know, and that that's sort of why I stopped doing it. Not because I didn't like it. I should. I love photographing. The actual photography was awesome. I love photographing dogs. It's awesome. I love it. But I just found that I was on the same wavelength as the clients. To be 100 truthful, they're just different people to me. And that does make them better or worse, obviously. Just they're just slightly different. Whereas, like, we've always had dogs, but they've always just been adults. You know what I mean? You know, they live in the house and we do all that stuff. But we're not like dog freaks, so. [00:36:06] Speaker C: Yes. [00:36:06] Speaker D: Does that, does that answer that? Sorry, yeah. [00:36:09] Speaker A: Yep. That's what I was curious about. Was, was it, was it not a good business or was it. It just, just wasn't really for you. Like. [00:36:18] Speaker D: It wasn't for me. I love photographing. It's a good business. But all. But seriously, guys, all business, all photography businesses are fine. Like, if it was me and I was starting again, I didn't hate photographing kids. I would just do families, you know, that's what I would do. Yeah, because it's. Because there's so much work. Like, I've got a mate, I won't tell you his name, but he's. He's doing over half a million a year just photographing families but banging them out on Saturdays, you know what I mean? In Australia. Australia. So that's what I would do personally, but I just can't stand photographing families. It just gives me, you know. [00:36:53] Speaker C: Yeah, you gotta love what you do. [00:36:56] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. That's so true. [00:36:58] Speaker A: I imagine it's a very different feel of a session to a boudoir session. Like boudoir. Slower paced, quiet. Like it's, it's, it's all very controlled and like. And then if you don't get a family of, of six or eight in there, kids and it's just wild. [00:37:14] Speaker B: Well, parents are already agitated before they even show up, you know. [00:37:17] Speaker D: Yeah, well, we, we actually, we actually overdo the booba thing. And what I mean, when we take too long, like we, it's a. We start 10 in the morning and finish at 4 in the afternoon. That's a big day. That's including. But we, we could trim that up and do two in a day if we wanted to. But you know, we're happy just plodding along doing what we're doing, you know what I mean? And giving these women or doing, or doing our absolute best to give them the best experience we can. You know what I mean? [00:37:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:37:42] Speaker C: So during that, like, are you shoot. How long are you shooting for in that time? [00:37:49] Speaker D: Yeah, that includes outfit changes and stuff. Yeah, yeah. [00:37:52] Speaker C: So there's a bit of obviously just chatting time and hanging out beforehand. [00:37:58] Speaker D: Makeup at the beginning. That takes like Justina, who's. I don't know if she's still here or not. She's bailed, but she's like, Justin, another one last man. Like, oh, that's. Hey, she's got a bookstock. She's got this awesome online bookshop that sells like female porn books, you know. Those romantic novel thingos. Oh, yeah, it's called. What's it called? Spice. No, no, no, her bookstore is called All Spice or something. [00:38:26] Speaker A: Okay. She says Richard is honestly amazing and will always recommend. And Justine is still here. [00:38:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:32] Speaker A: Good. [00:38:32] Speaker D: Yeah. So Justine, she's. She's like Speedy Gonzalez. She can do hair and makeup in like 45 minutes. She's really quick. [00:38:38] Speaker A: Wow. [00:38:39] Speaker D: She just bangs it out. Yeah. All Spice archives. Sorry, sorry, sorry. There, that's the name. There you go. Bookstore. [00:38:45] Speaker A: Oh, that's cool. [00:38:46] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, she's good. I photographed her twice. [00:38:50] Speaker A: So we're like. [00:38:51] Speaker D: We're like mates. If I. Yeah, if I see some weird movie that's based on a female book, I'll give her a call and say, I saw this weird movie that's based on a female book. What do you think of it? You know what I mean? Yeah. They're like friends. [00:39:04] Speaker A: Can you walk? Yeah, let's walk us through like. Like a shoot day. Walk us through the. The sort of. The timeline and what. What goes on one of your shoot days. [00:39:14] Speaker D: So. Yeah, good. So they come in, obviously they come in about 10. I'll give them a tour of the studio, show them where everything is, try and make them feel at home. Then we settle them in. Then I try and get them into hair and makeup as quickly as I can to get that rolling. Just to get. Because often they're so nervous that you just. You just need to get. You just need to push them along a little bit. Yeah, there's a lot of little things. This is going to sound really trivial and. And not strange, but trivial. But like, for example, I always make sure I greet them at their car because it's so hard for them to walk through the door when. To an unfamiliar place. You know what I mean? So I'll go and meet them in the car and Travis will go out there as well and we'll greet them in and then get them into hair and makeup. We got three, four hair and makeup artists. Justine is probably our most main one because the other ladies, we've got a hairdressers and stuff as well who have jobs. But this is all Justina does and she's amazing. She get. She's a real hustler, Justina. She gets around doing stuff, which is good value. So I get the hair and makeup done and then I show them and then we just re go over all the products again that I've explained to them on the phone or whatever, so they can see them and touch them and hold them and then. And Then Tracy helps them pick out the outfits, what order we do them in. And so, for example, I usually start with, like, their least favorite one first, because that's when they get to feel the most awkward. And if they've got a special outfit, I'll do that second. You know what I mean? And so we'll go through a series of things. And like I mentioned at the beginning, I. I honestly photograph every woman differently based on their body types and what I think will look good and what their vibe is, and if they. If they're more consistent, conservative, or if they want dark and moody or if they want to do nudes or kinky stuff or whatever. So it just depends. So I literally base it on each individual lady, which we ask about in the lead up, of course, then we do that. So. [00:40:59] Speaker A: And then. [00:41:00] Speaker D: Then I. Then I rush into the. And after we're finished, I pull. I go into the office, I pull all the images off the camera, create a slideshow and some software called Pro Select. That all happens in about 20 minutes or so, half an hour. Pretty quick. Tracy will feed them, like, give them a snack and show them a before and after book of the editing process. Because. Because I'm showing the cameras off camera that pretty. You know what I mean? There's PowerPoints, light stands in the background, dirty floors. [00:41:31] Speaker A: You do this sale off of fully unedited images. [00:41:34] Speaker D: 100, 110. [00:41:37] Speaker A: That's cool. [00:41:38] Speaker B: But you also show them what they're going to become. [00:41:41] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:41:41] Speaker A: Off other people's images as references of like, hey, this is what. This is what will happen to your image. [00:41:46] Speaker D: Yeah. I can show you the book if you want. I go and get it. [00:41:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:49] Speaker D: Yeah. So it's like before, after. Before, after. Before or after. Yeah. [00:41:52] Speaker A: Oh, that's a great idea. [00:41:54] Speaker D: And that. And. And actually the. The reason that I originally did it was because I was recommended to do that by a mentor. He said, that's a good idea. And it's actually. But what's happened is there's a little bit of time's gone by. It's become like a really valuable thing. And what I mean by really valuable thing is that, for example, like, a lady came in two days ago, she couldn't believe they were her unedited. And here's the problem these days with AI and all these other pieces of software is if you're bringing them back a week later to do the ordering appointment or whatever, the difficulty is that they're never going to know if those photos are unedited or not. I mean, they don't. In the back of their mind lives, you wonder if they did anything to them. You know what I mean? [00:42:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:42:36] Speaker D: And a lot of lady I was helping out in Canada, another photographer I was coaching a little bit. She's very talented photographer. I was just helping you get started with the boudoir thing. But she'd been through her own experience. And then, because that happened to her, even her as a photographer who knows all the stuff she. In back of her mind, she was like, I wonder if she did anything to them. You know, I mean, she wasn't sure. So we find that to be a real superpower. I'll reiterate, the ladies sitting next to me and this is something I've been doing more recently. I said, look, I need you to understand, these are unedited photos of you. This is how you look. This is how your husband or wife or whatever sees you. This. You know, your loved ones see you. This. This is how you look. This is why your husband chases you around at night when you're tired and don't want to do anything. This is why. And they go. And they go, oh, because. Because we get so used to seeing ourselves in shitty mirrors under. In the bathroom under fluoros and things like that. You know what I mean? So for them to see themselves from someone who's got a vague idea of what to do is really illuminating. And then. And then the fact that they're out of camera gives you a huge amount, huge amount of validity. So when they get their book or whatever you're selling them down the track, they know that it's them that's really important. [00:43:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's been. It's been polished, but it hasn't been transformed and you didn't. Yeah, yeah. So I. I love. [00:43:51] Speaker D: And we're very proud of that. And that. That's an unintended thing. That's something that just happened by accident. To be truthful, I didn't mastermind. I was like, oh, okay. But. But no, no, we're really big on that. We're really, really big on that. So. And the other thing too, is honestly just a logistical thing. We've got women coming from everywhere, from Brisbane and Bundaberg and all over the place, which is like two hours away. So for them to come back to view photos, it's just pain in the ass. And I won't do it over zoom because zoom sucks. You know what I mean? So I just hate. You need to be someone to go over it. And then. Then we do the ordering and then I kick them out and that's it. Yeah. And ask them for review. And that's basically it. Yeah. [00:44:33] Speaker A: And. And they're often. They're often wrapped up by four, is it? Or is it sometimes even earlier than that or. Yeah, all about. [00:44:39] Speaker D: Yeah, usually like three or four. Yeah. [00:44:41] Speaker C: Somewhere in that, like, what's your turnaround time from then that in like initial shoot day, then IPS and then to. [00:44:50] Speaker D: Get in their products. [00:44:51] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:44:52] Speaker D: Is that what you mean? [00:44:53] Speaker A: Yeah. So every. [00:44:54] Speaker C: Is everyone getting products, like wall art or albums? [00:44:57] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I always send through sneak peeks the next day. I'm very religious about that. Super religious about that. Because I want them to be. [00:45:07] Speaker A: Have. [00:45:07] Speaker D: Well, they've been through the whole thing. They want to show their friends and their husband or whoever, you know, they're super excited, you know, like, I mean, seriously, why would you hold back? You know what I mean? So I. Even though it drives me slightly mental, get up early, do the thingos, then I'll text it to them. And then from there, usually three to seven weeks, depending on what they're getting. We get some albums from Graphy in Italy. We get some albums from, excuse me, Queensbury in New Zealand. [00:45:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:45:34] Speaker D: They take a bit longer. Get the wall art from Australia. Excuse me. And portrait boxes from Global. So four. Yeah, three. Four. [00:45:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:45:45] Speaker D: Four to seven weeks. [00:45:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:47] Speaker D: Excuse me, sorry. [00:45:49] Speaker A: You're right. [00:45:50] Speaker B: No, you're right. [00:45:51] Speaker D: So. [00:45:51] Speaker A: Oh, hang on. One more comment to read out. I don't think we've read this one out yet. Vicky Bray, N7D. Good morning. You are amazing, Richard. [00:46:02] Speaker D: I'm really enjoying this podcast. This is great. [00:46:04] Speaker B: That's good. [00:46:05] Speaker A: Doing it live so people can pop in and just tell you how amazing you are. This is. This could be the most, the most positive sort of comments a guest has got because usually I guess get some positive comments and they also get some questions. So far, no questions, just praise. And I love it. I think that's. That's pretty cool. [00:46:25] Speaker D: There you go. Vicky's. Vicki's awesome. She came in here not last year, the year before, I think. What, she came with her husband. She's in a. She's. She's about my age, in her 50s, you know what I mean? And she did amazing. She looks. She's looking incredible. She's fantastic. Yeah. [00:46:40] Speaker B: You talked about outfits earlier. Are these outfits that the, the client is bringing with them or do you also offer a wardrobe? How does that work? [00:46:49] Speaker D: Yeah, good question. So we've got. We've got. We've got a wardrobe like A boudoir wardrobe. It's pretty basic in the sense that we've got, like, it's just gowns and wings and shoes and stuff like that. And jewelry. Yeah. Not the actual underwear, because, one, for hygiene reasons. Like, it'd be pretty disgusting wearing someone else's underwear. And two, and with bras especially, it's got it. And also, I sort of. To me, buying lingerie is kind of like buying shoes. They've got to fit properly. You know what I mean? You've got to be right for you. [00:47:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:21] Speaker D: So we. We don't supply that. [00:47:23] Speaker A: No. [00:47:23] Speaker D: So most ladies either have it or go out and buy it or whatever. Yeah. Yep. [00:47:28] Speaker B: And another question that's been ever since I started researching you as a guest and seeing that duality of your business model that you've got the portraits here and the corporate headshots and you've got the boudoir over here. [00:47:40] Speaker D: Do. [00:47:41] Speaker B: Do you get client referrals for one or the other from one or the other? [00:47:45] Speaker D: Not really, to be truthful. Not. Not, not. Not. Not really. I've had. I've had a few that inevitably you will. But certainly. No, there's no steady work from it. No, no. [00:47:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:55] Speaker B: Okay. [00:47:55] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:47:56] Speaker A: What. What percentage of your business now is. Is headshots versus boudoir? Just rough. Rough split of revenue, profit or whatever. [00:48:05] Speaker D: Fifteen headshots, maybe, if I'm lucky. I've actually. I've been outsourcing. In fact, I met up with a fellow last week from my YouTube channel, actually lives around the corner. Like, literally lives around the corner. [00:48:19] Speaker A: Like, that's awesome. [00:48:23] Speaker D: So he dropped down and so I've been referring stuff to him, like, stuff that I can't do. Like, so I've. I've still got, like. I've got some pretty big clients still. Like, I've got, like, the Anz bank and, you know, Westpac, and one of my big clients out of Melbourne, Royal Cannon. They make dog food. Oh, yeah. And the reason I do them is I had their conventions up here. So I like. For example, I did 145 headshots in one day for those guys at their conference up here at Noosa. So I've got a lot of repeat clients. I've got, you know, just. Just. Just regular repeat clients at law firms. I'll send in new people. Mortgage brokers sending in new people. So I kind of just tread water with them and. And I do them. But I like. For example, I had one that came in. I said. He said, can you come to my thing? And. And do some, like, branding stuff as well. It's like, dude, I haven't got time. I'm sorry. I just. I haven't, you know. So I sent it this dude around the corner called Bruce. So, Bruce, if you're watching, I hope you got that job. Yeah, that's what I'm doing now. Yeah. [00:49:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Hey, how do you. I mean, you don't have to. I probably can't tell exactly, but you can go, for example, how do you price 145 headshots in a day? Yeah. How do you approach that? When. When they come to you and say, hey, we want to get some headshots done. And you're like, what, five? And they're like 145. [00:49:35] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:49:36] Speaker A: So then. Then what happens? [00:49:38] Speaker D: So I give. So I charge them a day. Right? Okay. And then I then want to do is attack on a whole heap of stuff to make more money, to put it lightly, you know. So I said, this is a diorite. Each person gets a photo. And then you can add on this one for fancy retouching. You can add on this one for. I call it. You still guys still there? [00:50:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, we're still here. We're doing that thing where we. We froze on you. We were listening to you. Captivated. We were like, how do you add on? What are you going to add on? [00:50:10] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:50:12] Speaker D: So I've lost the track of it. Yeah. So. Yeah, so die. Right. And then like X amount per thing for. For fancy editing, I have like a, what I call a headshot station where people can view in real time. So it's basically just a computer tethered to the camera, and then they can pick their photos in real time. I charge extra for that. And I think. Something like that. I think it was like, try to remember now, grand. Or something like that. Something like that. Something like that. [00:50:40] Speaker A: So you charge. You charge extra for them to choose the photos rather than you having to manage that later on. You get that done. [00:50:49] Speaker D: Why would you do that? The worst idea. [00:50:52] Speaker B: So clever. [00:50:52] Speaker A: It's. That is amazing. [00:50:55] Speaker D: But the way you sell it is really simple. You just say, look, you know, I don't want to have to come back and do it. I'm sure you guys are really busy. You don't want to have to redo it, so why don't you pick them in real time? That way if they hide them, they can just go get another one, you know, I mean, get back in line and do it again. And that actually happened, you know, so. So poor Tracy there, who's not super awesome on computers. She's sitting there and she's just. And I had them tethered to Lightroom, in this case, and they just pick them out and she just give him a red or a five star or whatever. And that was it. Yeah. [00:51:24] Speaker A: Great way. That's awesome. [00:51:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. [00:51:27] Speaker A: I was tethered to Lightroom last night doing some product shots. And the stupid thing, every, like, I don't know, every now and then, every 10 images or so, an image wouldn't come through, and it's killing. [00:51:41] Speaker D: Does that happen to you for that? No, I followed. I. I followed some instructions on some dude on YouTube on how to set it up. And ever since I've done it like that, I've never had a problem. I can't really how to do it, but I always just go back and look it up again. [00:51:56] Speaker A: Maybe I'm doing it in the wrong order. Like turning it. Do I have to, like, turn? Yeah, maybe I have to. I'll check that at John Grace. [00:52:01] Speaker D: All right. Allegedly capture one's the thing for that. If you get. If you're serious about tethering, Allegedly capture one is what you need to be using. [00:52:09] Speaker A: I'm told you don't shoot tethered for your boudoir in the studio. [00:52:13] Speaker D: No, no. [00:52:14] Speaker A: Have you ever thought about it? Or is it not something you want? You don't. [00:52:17] Speaker D: I don't even display any. I don't even. I don't even display any screens in the. In the. In the studio. [00:52:22] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. [00:52:24] Speaker B: No distractions. [00:52:25] Speaker D: Everyone's frozen. [00:52:27] Speaker A: Oh, sorry. [00:52:27] Speaker B: No, we're still here. [00:52:30] Speaker D: Justin was like this. [00:52:32] Speaker B: No, that's just his resting face. [00:52:35] Speaker A: Don't worry. [00:52:36] Speaker D: Resting podcast I try and keep. So. So like. Like, for example, when we show the photographs, we project them onto a wall in our room. We don't ever show them on screens or TVs or anything like that because that sucks. [00:52:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. I think this is actually a good time. [00:52:54] Speaker D: They just look better. You know what I mean? [00:52:56] Speaker A: Bring up. [00:52:57] Speaker C: They look better projected, do you mean. [00:53:00] Speaker D: What's that? Sorry, I wasn't listening. [00:53:02] Speaker C: They look better projected? Is that what you're saying? [00:53:04] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, sorry. [00:53:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:53:08] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know the bad thing about doing it like this? I don't know about you because I just look at myself the whole time. It's really bad. You know, I can get zoom ins or. [00:53:16] Speaker A: No, I'm looking at you. You're supposed to look at us. [00:53:19] Speaker C: Yeah, we're all staring at you. [00:53:22] Speaker A: That's funny. All right, if you don't mind, I'm going to bring up. There's a blog post on your website about the. About your purpose built studio. I just pull that up to have a look at some of the photos and you can maybe tell us anything that sort of. [00:53:38] Speaker D: Hang on. Okay. That's what it looked like before we started. That's my block of land. Right. [00:53:43] Speaker A: That's my. A great blog. I really enjoyed reading this and seeing the. The like photos of like this in. In progress production shot. [00:53:52] Speaker D: So that was. So this is a shed. Right. And that was when they dropped the shed off. It had been raining a lot, as you can see. That was pain. [00:54:02] Speaker A: It always seems like a better idea when you. Before you start. [00:54:06] Speaker D: Yeah, there it is in progress. [00:54:08] Speaker A: You've got palm trees. [00:54:11] Speaker D: I don't. Yeah, they were there when I got here 25 years ago. [00:54:16] Speaker C: It didn't go like a concrete floor. [00:54:19] Speaker D: Yeah, that's. [00:54:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:21] Speaker D: Because we, we. We're very close to flood level here. Okay. We're lucky. We don't flood. But my neighbor, you can't really see, but behind the shed, right there's my neighbor's driveway. And when he replaced the driveway, he didn't put the drainage low enough. So the water backs up pit. You know what I mean? So I kind of. When it hooks down, as only Queensland can. [00:54:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:43] Speaker D: It sort of dams up. And so we've got another shed in the. In the back corner of our property where our daughter lives. And that when we get torrential rain, it will leak through. You know what I mean? So I didn't want to have that. So that's why, that's why I raised it up. That's honestly a more practical reason than anything else. [00:54:58] Speaker A: Okay. Looks awesome. [00:55:03] Speaker D: And that's what it looks like. [00:55:04] Speaker B: That's very cool. [00:55:05] Speaker A: So that's what they pull up to. [00:55:07] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. [00:55:09] Speaker A: And then you greet them at the car there on the. On the crushed rock. [00:55:13] Speaker D: Yeah, there's actually. Hang on, I. Did I put up a. Did I put the video up there? Did I. That's the internal. [00:55:22] Speaker A: I think this. There's one on YouTube. But. Yeah, so this is. Yeah, that's. So that's what they come into. This is like the. [00:55:27] Speaker D: Yeah, but so see the. See the way the computer is? That's gone now. Right. So that's where I used to sit. [00:55:35] Speaker B: Oh yeah. [00:55:35] Speaker D: Because I was stupid. Right. So what I did was I put that desk against the wall and that's where our hair and makeup is now. Okay. And. And what we found is that by having the ladies sitting out here in the Reception, getting the hair and makeup out here. One, Tracy can hear them and give them drinks and stuff, which is important because the kitchen's around the corner. And two, they get to see all the wall art on the wall there. And then they buy wall art because people buy what they see. You know what I mean? So our Sales went up 20 when I moved up. We moved the makeup area, like, you know what I mean? So. Yeah. Wow, there's that. [00:56:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:11] Speaker D: Sometimes the simple things will do all the heavy lifting. Yeah, that's the shooting. That's where I'm sitting now. I'm sitting. See where that pale rug is? That's where I am right now. That's where I'm sitting right now. Okay, okay. [00:56:24] Speaker A: On that. On that throne looking chair, I assume. [00:56:27] Speaker D: I wish. That's just my everyday chair. That's just where I just hold court. It should be raised up a bit. [00:56:36] Speaker B: On like a plinth. [00:56:39] Speaker D: That's what I just said. Yeah, yeah. [00:56:41] Speaker A: Okay. So you've got like this versatile shooting space. You've got seamless rolls on one wall. You've got like a sheer curtain that I can see. [00:56:53] Speaker D: Yeah. So what's going on there? [00:56:55] Speaker A: Yes, you tell us about. [00:56:57] Speaker D: Can you see behind me there? See, see? [00:56:59] Speaker A: Hang on, hang on. Let me switch this out. I can change this to that. Yeah. [00:57:06] Speaker D: Oh, is that a. [00:57:07] Speaker A: Is that a Laster light highlight? [00:57:09] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've got a couple of lights in there. [00:57:12] Speaker A: That's cool. [00:57:13] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:57:16] Speaker D: Vinyl on the floor, Gap tape down and then a white wall. So that's my white area. I call it the white area. And then I can drop those down. The other stuff. Then I've got this area here that's not green because it's a green screen. It's just got a light green, you know what I mean? And also. Also converts really well with black and white. Okay. [00:57:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:57:43] Speaker D: And then out of here, see that mirror? That's where the makeup area used to be when I was stupid. Right. So that's the. That's that then in here. I don't know if you can see in there. That's changed. [00:57:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, Yep. [00:58:05] Speaker D: Now I got wings. [00:58:06] Speaker A: You know, put them on. [00:58:08] Speaker D: Okay. [00:58:14] Speaker A: Do you ever do this just for fun when you're working by yourself in here and you just got editing to do? You're like, I'm wearing wings. [00:58:19] Speaker D: Well, no, actually, we've got a position where we actually. It's too hard on my own. Okay. Where we actually send out the. We send out Christmas cards every year, and one year I sent Them out with me shirtless, wearing those as a Christmas card. [00:58:35] Speaker B: That's awesome. [00:58:36] Speaker D: Yeah, that's so cool. And that year I even sent to all my business clients. They're like, what the. [00:58:46] Speaker A: Richard lost it so quick. Just quickly. For anyone that doesn't know what. So the thing that's behind Richard, the Laster light highlight box, it's actually. Imagine a giant rectangular reflector, like translucent. You know, like when you take the COVID off a reflector and it's like a scrim. Like a. What do you call that translucent thing. Imagine two of those. [00:59:09] Speaker D: It's kind of like that. [00:59:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:59:12] Speaker A: Two of those separated. They're about 30 centimeters apart when it pops out and you can actually put lights inside it and it essentially just becomes a giant softbox. But it's only. It's only, you know, this deep and then it's just. It's just huge. I think. What's it like 1.8 or 2.2? [00:59:30] Speaker D: I'm not sure. [00:59:31] Speaker A: Whatever. [00:59:32] Speaker D: The biggest. I got the. If there was a bigger one, I'd get that. But that's the biggest one you can get. [00:59:37] Speaker A: Simulates. [00:59:37] Speaker C: You use that like a window. Like that's what the shears for. Kind of like a backlit window. [00:59:42] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. My understanding is that they were originally created to create pure white backgrounds. Like so you just like the background. So they were more designed for corporate sort of fashion, that sort of stuff. So that's what they were created for. I don't really use it for that. I use it as a window, as a fake window because I did a. I can control it, obviously, so I can walk down the white balance. I'm not dealing with clouds. It's a bane in my system. So I use real window light because it just changes. Super annoying. Yeah, I got everything locked into. Yeah. I've got custom white balances. I've got everything. Excuse me. Everything locked down. But to the best of my ability. You know what I mean? [01:00:19] Speaker A: What lighting system are you using? [01:00:21] Speaker D: Brand? Yeah. [01:00:23] Speaker A: Like what branded lights? [01:00:25] Speaker D: Godox. All Godox. [01:00:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:27] Speaker D: Nice. [01:00:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, same. Nice. [01:00:31] Speaker D: It's fine, it's fine. They're a bit inconsistent. That's okay. Who cares? [01:00:35] Speaker A: Light like color wise. [01:00:38] Speaker D: Yeah, color wise. And they can be a bit wonky. They can tend to. My mind is just a bit old. I'm using. I've had these same AD2 hundreds now for years. Like years and years and years and I'm noticing they're getting a bit weird. Occasionally they'll over a liver flash, so to speak. You know, like those all of a sudden you get to blow out. [01:00:58] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:00:59] Speaker D: I just wonder where. [01:01:00] Speaker A: It's almost like a full power pop comes through every now and then or something like that. [01:01:03] Speaker D: Yeah, it's only been recent. I. So I don't know what's going on there. Yeah, that's okay. [01:01:09] Speaker A: All right, let me pull this back up. Let me pull this back up and we'll just finish off going through the video. [01:01:15] Speaker D: Yeah, there's a good video somewhere, actually. It's got like my neighbor putting in a driveway and all that stuff. [01:01:20] Speaker A: This is the bit that I wanted to say. Yeah. This is the. So a cinematic presentation room with a big like, projector screen. [01:01:27] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. So what you. [01:01:30] Speaker C: Sorry. No, no, talk us through this. Like, they come in, they sit down. [01:01:35] Speaker D: So that room is six by four meters. Okay. So six long, four wide. Okay. There's a couch at the back, a black couch. There's a projector up on the wall with its own computer running it. And it's just a. Just a business projector. Just a 1080p projector. And I project onto this wall here. And that wall is four by three and a half high or so. So it feels pretty much meters. That is obviously. Yeah. So it pretty much fills the whole wall. And the theory behind that is. And this is more of a sales thing, I guess, and it's not. It's no secret I should even tell my clients this is that the beauty about using a fairly low resident resolution projector and projecting onto a wall, it's not too sharp because the cameras are too sharp these days for portraiture, in my opinion. I use one of the. I. I do a lot of the photos with that lens. [01:02:34] Speaker A: Oh, you're a cannon shooter. Wonderful. [01:02:36] Speaker D: 28 to 70. And that is. It is so sharp. It's like. [01:02:41] Speaker A: It is. [01:02:42] Speaker D: Especially if you like. Yeah, it's too sharp for. Oh, thank you. She. She says. I refer to this as a holy rune because when you say that you. And you see yourself. [01:02:56] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. Yeah, that's. [01:03:00] Speaker D: Yeah. So. But by projecting onto the wall, it's basically almost like built in, skin softening. You know what I mean? It's not. It's not too sharp. So it's very beginning. It's very much like going to the cinema. You know how when you go to the cinema, you look at it, it looks beautiful and soft and it's never. It's never sharp. Like looking on a TV, you know, like you look on a 4K TV and you're watching the Born Identity or something. [01:03:23] Speaker A: Sort of thing. Yeah, it's like, yeah, you go to. [01:03:26] Speaker D: The cinema and it, nothing's ever very sharp because you know, one, it's probably in you know, 20, 50 frames a second or whatever that thing is. But that, but that's the reason for it. So it's, it just, it's a little bit more forgiving. So that way then they're not looking at themselves at ridiculously sharp 4K images before we had a chance to Photoshop zits and stuff like that, if you know what I mean. [01:03:50] Speaker A: So yeah, okay, so they, they come in and you'll, you'll show them what you've selected. Do you know, have a ballpark, how many you would, how many images you would show someone after a shoot I select. [01:04:02] Speaker D: In recent times I've seen to have landed consistently between 60 to 70. [01:04:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. [01:04:07] Speaker C: Yeah, that's pretty sharp. [01:04:09] Speaker D: Like. [01:04:09] Speaker C: Oh, that's a pretty sharp cull from like a two hour shoot. [01:04:14] Speaker D: Yeah, I just, that's it. But the trick is what you've got to do is you got to be, you've got to be ruthless as well. You gotta, and this comes with a little bit of experience because I've done so many now. I now just know what people are going to like and not like, I just, I just know, I don't know. There's no bias to it. But you got to be really careful in the sense that you've got to just make a decision. Because if you, if you show your clients stuff that's too similar, so say there's one like this, there's one like this. Seriously, you got to pick between the two, you know what I mean? Like, because some look great with their eyes shut and some look great with their eyes open, you know what I mean? If you torment your clients by showing them like 150 photo, this is my opinion. I mean everyone does it differently. This is how I like to do it. Then they can't decide to. Poor bastard. You know what I mean? I don't know what to do. So you're better off just like making a decision for them and not making a decision for them. And then occasionally if say, for, if you have a niche, you can always go back and say, look, let me go have a quick look and see what else I've got. Because sometimes I might say, and this happens really, really rarely. Oh, have you got anything like that? But where I'm smiling more, you go, let me go and have a look. You know what I mean? But if you fatigue your clients with too much Decision making. They're not going to make a decision. It's impossible. You know what I mean? [01:05:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:05:30] Speaker D: It's like your product offerings that you've got to keep it simple. You got to keep it down to five things. Otherwise no one will make a decision. [01:05:36] Speaker A: Oh, we're definitely talking about that soon we'll be coming back to that. But so I remember, I think it was Jerry Jonas, I can't remember. And maybe you remember me saying this Jim, back in the day at some point but someone, I picked it up somewhere on my self taught photography journey and they said if you can't pick between two photos and you keep going back and forth, it doesn't matter, just pick one because it's so similar, it's irrelevant. But don't show both of them to the person. Like if you can't pick between them, how are they going to pick between them? And it's exactly what you're saying. It's like just. Yeah. [01:06:11] Speaker D: I actually think it's been cruel to them because you're trying to make them pick one. It's just too hard. It's just like, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:06:21] Speaker A: Okay. Matt Palmer, photocoach. Good to see you. [01:06:26] Speaker B: Actually there was a question a little bit. There was a question from Black Swan Boudoir. [01:06:32] Speaker D: That's dawn. That's my friend Dawn. She's in Seattle I think. [01:06:36] Speaker A: Oh cool. [01:06:37] Speaker D: I think welcome Seattle. I'm sure of it. Yeah, yeah. I assume this she got a billbar studio over there. Yeah. [01:06:44] Speaker A: Is I assume this question's referring to like the photography setups, like window sort of looking or different. I assume that's what you mean. Which set is your favorite and which is the client's favorite. I assume it's. [01:06:55] Speaker D: Oh yeah, I don't really have a favorite. I like what people like. Probably I, I, my probably that one there, to be truthful. That one there with the last. Only because it's so soft and you can dual purpose it. If you go back and look through some of my photos on Instagram, there might be some there but I use for example those boxes, those white boxes in the background. I'll set them up on things like that using that. And so you're getting that, that backlight. The thing that changed my life with photography was that I had a, my original mentor, a guy called Steve Sapporito some of you might have heard of. He's a bit of a legendary studio dude. He dropped into the studio one time when he was on holiday and he said just shoot into the shadow side. I Said, okay, fine, I'll do that. And that ever that if you look at all my photos that you'll see that consistently though I'm always shooting into the shadow side. [01:07:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:07:49] Speaker D: Or backlit or whatever. And it's just way more forgiving and way more interesting. I've never, I don't like anyone from the front anymore because it looks. In my opinion, I just can't even look at it anymore, you know, so that's. That, that, that's pretty much it. That's pretty much it. So always lighting from behind, sideways, whatever. Yeah. [01:08:08] Speaker C: Interesting. [01:08:08] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:08:09] Speaker A: Yes. I think, I think that's. Yeah, it's another Jerry Jonas. That's a whole short side of the short side of the face, I think he used to call it. But basically. Yeah. This. The side of the face that has a shadow on it. [01:08:20] Speaker D: Well, she's got. As a client. My favorite is the black area. And also. Oh, I've got a sex chair. One of those curvy sex chairs. It's pretty cool. I'll show you. Hang on. [01:08:32] Speaker C: There you go. [01:08:32] Speaker A: Let's bring you up. [01:08:33] Speaker C: Is that the one we saw? Yeah, we saw you in that earlier, I think. Yeah. [01:08:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool. [01:08:39] Speaker D: If you want to. Okay. After the podcast, if you want to celebrate a successful podcast, go and Google Tantra Chair, I think it's what it's called. And there's a couple really going at it, giving a demo on their website. So that's always a good place to go. Actually, we've got a video. [01:08:58] Speaker B: Do we have a video of Richard? [01:09:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say I did. I did find that before. Where is that? Let me. Because, yeah, you, I assume you help demonstrate press the wrong button during the shoots. Is that. How is that something you do often? So you, you'll, you'll say, hey, I want to get you in this, this position, laying like this or whatever. And you'll actually go and show them so that they understand what you're asking them to do. [01:09:23] Speaker D: Is that I demonstrate every pose. [01:09:27] Speaker A: Okay. Has that improved your ability to pose? [01:09:32] Speaker D: I guess so. It's kind of funny because I'm an overweight middle aged man, as you can see. And I think it just breaks the ice a bit too because I'm a bit dorky. You know what I mean? What the hell? [01:09:45] Speaker C: Are those all shot against that? [01:09:48] Speaker D: Yeah. Here we go. [01:09:50] Speaker A: Yeah, These are amazing. [01:09:58] Speaker D: She's really nice. [01:10:00] Speaker A: So. So you didn't even need to put the, the gown on, I assume, but you. Is it like why did you put the gown on? Was it so you could show how to. I see to move it. [01:10:12] Speaker D: I just want to up my game a little bit. You know what I mean? [01:10:14] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. These are great. These are so good. Just go to go to Thrive Boudoir on Instagram later if you want to see these. If you're not watching the video, go to Thrive Boudoir on Instagram at Thrive Boudoir and then just go to reels and you'll just see anywhere where you can see Richard is probably going to be a funny reel. [01:10:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:10:44] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. [01:10:47] Speaker B: Another great comment here. As a client, my favorite is the black area but also the spicy chair with the white background seems. [01:10:53] Speaker D: Yeah, very popular. Yeah, that's that, that's this one here. This. I showed you that before. Oh yeah. So this is the black area. This is. So I'm just using strip boxes and that's how they come out like that. So there you go. [01:11:05] Speaker C: So you just get rid of the pole that like the light stands later. [01:11:10] Speaker D: Yeah. 100. Yeah. Pretty easy fix, obviously. Yeah, yeah. [01:11:13] Speaker A: Are you using a Voto to do that yet or are you still doing like photos? [01:11:18] Speaker D: No, no. A little bit. I, I, I'm not a mere percent sold on a boat. I get the boot where it doesn't work. 100 because of it works perfectly for headshots but with, with Boudoir, I'm finding you stuff to do it manually because upside down shy and shadow and stuff like that if you just not quite there yet. But, but I do use a, I use a V for the sneak peeks in the morning, the next morning, just because I have to do them so quickly. Then I'll circle back and do them again, do them properly. [01:11:47] Speaker A: Ah, interesting. So you, you'll do those twice because you just need to get them through quick and. [01:11:52] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean to be truthful, the ones I picked for the sneak peeks, I hope my clients aren't listening to this. Ones I pick for the sneak peeks are the ones generally ones that I know are easy to edit because I just haven't got enough time to. [01:12:06] Speaker C: Yeah, that makes sense. [01:12:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:08] Speaker C: How, like how many sneak peeks are you sending through? [01:12:12] Speaker D: 3, 2, 3, 4, 5, something like that. That's about it. Yeah. [01:12:15] Speaker C: Nothing crazy, just. Yeah, enough to know that they got. [01:12:20] Speaker D: I just, I just, I just sms them through. Yeah. Text. [01:12:26] Speaker A: Can I ask you a business question about and if any of your clients are listening? You know, we just, we need, we just need to know because it's, they've. [01:12:38] Speaker D: All been here, they've all spent Money, it's fine. I don't care. [01:12:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So when you. The way that your pricing works, I assume, is it's like it's a session fee and there's obviously this hair and makeup and stuff that's all got to be done. There's a big investment on your side from a business point of view and a reasonably low investment for the. From the session fee from the client. As in, if they wanted to just pay for that time for you and the hair and makeup artist, it would probably be a lot more than what the session fee is if they just wanted to book you and then get all the photos. You know what I mean? As in, if it was a different pricing model, it would be, you know, like when you do the headshots, it would be a much higher upfront fee. [01:13:21] Speaker D: Okay. [01:13:21] Speaker A: But. But you do a low fee and then sell the images for the sneak peek. Are they only images from the sneak peek that they've already purchased in other products? Or how do you structure all of that? Because everyone wants some digital files for social media or whatever, but we really want them to also have wall art and albums and all that great stuff. How do you balance that out? [01:13:48] Speaker D: A quick question. So the way that I do that is because my experience has been that when people ask for digitals in this genre especially is what they're actually asking is not. Not always, but most of the time is what they want. They want their phone and they want to show their friends and whatever, give them to the husband, partner or whatever. So if that comes up, what I say to them is I say, look, we give. We will gift you a copy of the. Of the photos. Okay. Digital photos. And we choose to distribute that via a Pixie set app. Okay. Which looks like this. I'll show you. So can you see this? So, yep. See all those icons? They're all girls. Right. So let me just find one here that I'm allowed to show. [01:14:39] Speaker B: Hang on. [01:14:40] Speaker D: I better not accidentally bring one up. That's. You know what I mean? [01:14:44] Speaker A: Yeah, we're on YouTube. [01:14:47] Speaker D: Don't. [01:14:47] Speaker A: Don't bring up anything too. [01:14:48] Speaker D: I've just. That's what I'm worried. If I bring up any nude by accident, that'll be problematic. Picking out one nude. I actually tried to send a thing to a client that had all these nudes, like a bit of video and. Oh, that's right. And then YouTube blocked it. So I can show you this one. Okay. Because I think that's okay. There's no news there. Okay, cool. So what happens is I send them this. It's like so hang on, I'll start again. So it looks like that on your phone, right? And click on that. That comes up. Okay. Click on view photos and there they are. Okay. [01:15:25] Speaker A: Wow. [01:15:25] Speaker D: Yeah. And the, these are duplicates from the album and you can save them off here to your real. So for example, ladies who are getting married, they can, because they're low resolution little photos, they can print a little Polaroid style ones, you know what I mean? That's, which has been a tick tock trend in recent times. So that's how we do that. But to answer your question about the sneak peeks is. Yeah, you it. I just send the ones that they've bought, not, not for any other reason. They like them, obviously. Otherwise I wouldn't have bought them. There's no point in sending them stuff that I like. You know what I mean? So you just pick the ones that they've purchased. Yeah, yeah. [01:16:06] Speaker A: Okay. And so, so if they didn't purchase anything, which I'm assuming is pretty rare with your business. [01:16:13] Speaker D: Yeah, very rare to be truthful. [01:16:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, very rare. If they didn't purchase anything, would you still send a sneak peek through or is that not even something that you think about? [01:16:21] Speaker D: Yeah, because I don't want, I don't want to be, I don't want you prick about it. You know what I mean? Like, not like, you know, like it's not like I spent seven weeks creating an oil painting. You know what I mean? [01:16:31] Speaker A: It's like, yeah, you just move on. [01:16:35] Speaker D: Because yeah, honestly, some photographers are just too precious about their work, in my opinion. You know, I mean, like I feel like just yelling at them. Let's relax, you know, seriously, what are we doing here? Like we're not curing cancer. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my opinion. [01:16:51] Speaker A: Okay, so and then, and then the idea is that, you know, that you've set your pricing up that averaged out across all your clients. It'll work for the business. And some clients won't spend much but, but others will spend what needs to be spent and it works out in the long run. [01:17:09] Speaker D: I think the really important thing to do is if you're going to pursue this as a career, you need to reverse engineer where you need to be income wise. Because I talked about this in one of the YouTube videos I did. Is that the mistake that I'm getting off track a little bit. But let's say for example, you got a job and I don't know, let's say you, I Don't know. Let's say you work at council, local council for 80,000 a year. Let's just say that what most people try and do is they try and replicate that income. They say, if I can make 80 grand a year, I'll be okay. You know what I mean? I get it. Because, you know, they've got bills, they've got a mortgage, sometimes commitments, stuff like that. Trouble with that is that the difficulty with that is you've got to look at that and go, well, hang on, I'm going to work harder, be more stressed, and it's going to be, you know, way harder than having a job. And I can, I can do this side hustle, you know what I mean? And you're probably going to have to be turning over probably 100ish to clear 80, you know what I mean? Somewhere. Or maybe not that 140ish, roughly, which is quite a bit, you know, we're talking like three grand a week. And when you're starting out, that's not easy. So you need to reverse engineer where you want to land. And then, Sarah, I can do two shoot, you know, if you want to make three grand a week means you might have to sell 5,000 bucks worth of stuff, which might mean you have to do two shoots a week. So it means you've got to find 100 shoots a year, you know what I mean? So you've got to, you've got to do it like that. You can't, you got to ignore, you got to ignore industry averages because no one knows what they're doing and everyone's broke. So don't, don't go on industry averages. No one cares. Like, they're all idiots after them, you know, in terms of business, you know what I mean? Like, the majority of photographers are broke, so you gotta, you gotta, you gotta do this from your point of view, in my opinion. Does that make sense? Yeah. [01:18:49] Speaker A: No. [01:18:49] Speaker D: But why, why copy the industry? Everyone's complaining about being broke. Why would you do that? You know what I mean? So, yeah, that would be my advice. [01:18:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:59] Speaker A: Yeah. And the other, the other. I heard you're probably familiar with Alex Hormozi, Richard. Yeah. I was listening to one of his things the other day, and he said he got pushback once from a business that said that when he was telling them that they need to increase whatever metric, they said, well, we're already at the industry average. And he was like, who would want to strive to be the middle? Meaning that half the people are better than you and half the People are worse. Like, you're at the middle, the middle of the pack. Who would, who would be like, we want to be the industry average? [01:19:35] Speaker D: You don't. [01:19:35] Speaker A: You, you, you want to be way above the industry average. [01:19:38] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:19:38] Speaker A: To be successful. [01:19:40] Speaker D: Because what happens, Everyone does it. Let's say, let's forget about photography. Let's say, for example, you're a dog groom. Let's just say you're a dog groom. I don't know what. Let's just say that. So you go, all right, they contact all the dog groomers there. Look up their websites. You go, all right, well, they're 100 bucks, they're 80 bucks, they're 50 bucks, they're 150 bucks. I'm going to go on the market, I'm going to go 90 bucks, but because I'm new, I'm gonna go 70, you know what I mean? Just so I can get some clients. That's a recipe for disaster out of the gate, you know what I mean? Like, that's just. That's. [01:20:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:20:07] Speaker D: You know, like, you got. You gotta. You gotta. Like I said, you gotta go the other way. You gotta figure out what you want to make. And that applies to everyone in business. [01:20:14] Speaker A: Okay. [01:20:15] Speaker D: Especially service businesses where your time's limited, where you just essentially selling time. It's, you know, it's not like you could scale. It's very difficult to scale time once you start employing people. So you gotta be really mindful of that. Not like we're selling bloody things on Amazon, you know, where we just. [01:20:29] Speaker A: Yeah, when we sell more, 10 or 100 or a thousand, it doesn't make too much difference. [01:20:33] Speaker D: It makes no difference, really. No. [01:20:35] Speaker A: You can't book in a thousand boudoir shoots a month. You just can't. Unless you have a ton of photographers. Yeah, correct. Quick pause for a comment from Michelle Manning, 4992. Richard, you made me have a cute bum. It's one of my favorite photos. [01:20:52] Speaker D: I love Michelle. She's good. She's good. Fun. Thanks. Michelle, if you're still there. [01:20:56] Speaker A: The client love is obviously, that's got to be one of the biggest secrets to your success is. [01:21:03] Speaker D: I'm just. I'm just. I just say that the secret of our success is my sparkling personality. I'm joking, but I don't know. [01:21:13] Speaker A: I don't know if it's that much of a joke. I think that might be a big part of it, obviously. Great, great, great service, great photos, but building, you know, a connection with people so that they. They enjoy being around Being around you, you know, like, they're not. They're not like, oh, that was a bit of a chore. But I like the photos. Yeah. I'm gonna watch Richard on a podcast. You know, that's a very different thing. [01:21:35] Speaker D: I. I think it. I don't think it even matters what genre you do, but if. If they don't like the Experience, they're not gonna like the photos. [01:21:43] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. [01:21:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:21:44] Speaker D: Yeah, that's exactly. [01:21:45] Speaker B: And a person who likes the experience is going to tell other people about it. [01:21:49] Speaker D: 100. Yeah. [01:21:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:21:50] Speaker C: People remember how they feel. [01:21:52] Speaker D: I'm a background of these families, you know, Like, I could just tell when they had a fight on the way to the studio, for example. You know what I mean? Like, you get that vibe and you go, this is gonna suck. Yeah. No matter how good you are, they're gonna relate to feeling like they've had a fight on the way to the studio video. When they see the photos you have lost, you can't. You know, so they will remember that too. [01:22:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:22:19] Speaker D: 100. [01:22:20] Speaker C: And nothing you can do can change that. [01:22:22] Speaker D: No, no. So I. I think the experience is half the battle. If they like you and they like the experience, then it's half the battle, in my opinion. Literally half the. Half the battle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:22:34] Speaker A: Okay. There's. There's a million topics that we could go into from here. [01:22:42] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:22:43] Speaker A: Do you. Have you got any questions yet, Jim, or should do we want to introduce Richard into your boudoir business and see if he's got any thoughts? Where should we go from here with this podcast? What do you reckon? [01:22:56] Speaker B: I think we should. Yeah, I think we should do that. Let's have a look at gym stuff. [01:23:02] Speaker C: Help fix my. [01:23:05] Speaker D: Give me once. [01:23:07] Speaker A: Yeah, let's. [01:23:08] Speaker C: I'll. [01:23:08] Speaker A: I'll start. I'll get everything ready. I'll pull up at a website. I got a price list which. That should be able to do that. I've got that. I've got all of Jim's information. Quick comment from me, amused. The only other person I follow that does boudoir photography is Matt Griffin Granger. What is it with Aussies and boudoir? I don't know. I don't know. Surely that's. [01:23:40] Speaker D: Most of the boudoir people I know are overseas, you know. [01:23:43] Speaker C: Yeah. That's a massive thing in the States. [01:23:45] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. There's only. [01:23:50] Speaker A: You know, what's an interesting niche in the US that isn't. Doesn't seem to exist here at all, but I actually think is very cool. Are those the high school portraits that people do where they call it high. [01:24:04] Speaker D: School seniors, don't they? [01:24:05] Speaker A: Seniors? Yeah. When they're about to graduate, they'll get a shoot with a professional photographer that. That really builds on who they are as a person and. And their extracurricular activity. So if they're like. If they're a netball player, it'll be like a shot of them as if they're an Olympic netball player. Sunset. Like they'll Photoshop in. Oh, yeah. It is a huge thing. And. And it's. There's people that have a full. Obviously it's probably tough because it's a bit seasonal, but there's people that have full businesses based around it. And it's always like, lit, really dynamic, like sports shots that you would see on the COVID of a magazine, but with, you know, just a high school kid on them who. And that. That's their thing. That's what they're into. [01:24:53] Speaker D: There's another one, too. The South Americans do it. There's got this really beautiful name, Quinted Quint. Starts with Cube. It's like the. It's almost like a bar mitzvah for women, but South American tradition. [01:25:03] Speaker A: Okay. [01:25:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:05] Speaker D: Queen. I can't say it. I had a friend. No, yeah. Something like, hopefully someone will know. Hopefully someone will correct out butchering. Beautiful tradition. Yeah. Yeah, that's the one. Thank you, Dawn. Jesus Christ. You should see when I get clients who aren't Australian with, like, Asian names or I'm just appalling. I can't, can't. I can't say the names. It's really bad. [01:25:33] Speaker A: Just say it. Yeah. I mean, we do it on the podcast. You just kind of see it and then they'll create. [01:25:38] Speaker D: I'm such a Queenslander. You know what? I got that real Queensland thing. Pause for a minute. I just got to go. [01:25:47] Speaker B: Can you. [01:25:48] Speaker A: Yeah, hang on. Hold on one second. Done. [01:25:51] Speaker D: Go on. [01:25:52] Speaker A: Just. [01:25:53] Speaker B: We'll just take this moment to. Just to remind everybody that is this. This is the Camera Life podcast. And we come live to you twice a week, every week. Every Thursday morning at 9am Australian Eastern Daylight Time at the moment or Standard Time. Later in the year, we interview an amazing photographer and. And we do it live so that you can be a part of that discussion and ask questions and make comments. And then every Monday evening at 7:30pm Australian Eastern Daylight or Standard Time, we have our random photography show where we look at industry news, industry trends, new product releases. We discuss topics that are relevant to photographers, and we also look at your images that's right. You can send your images to justinuckystraps.com and every time, every time. And yeah, we'll bring up your image or images and we can, we can show them on the show and we can have a chat about them. And as I said, we do that every Monday evening. But you will only know that that happens if you, if you subscribe. If you subscribe and hit the bell icon to always or all, you'll get notified in your time zone when the next episode of the Camera Life podcast is coming to you live. And also don't forget, we are proudly supported by Luckystraps.com that's us as well. We sell T shirts, we sell merch, but most importantly, we sell premium handmade leather camera straps made right here in Australia and they have a range of amazing features. Putting aside the amazing quality of the leather, we also have slush proof nylon webbing and we have a patented. Is it patented? It's ours. Anyway, it's a quick release system. [01:27:29] Speaker A: It's not. It is ours. It's unique. [01:27:34] Speaker B: Oh yeah, it is unique. Quick release system allows you to connect with your craft faster than ever before. So head to Luckystraps.com and use code Greg. [01:27:42] Speaker D: You get a discount. [01:27:47] Speaker B: Mine's the biggest discount. [01:27:48] Speaker A: It's not Pretty sure they're all the same. Okay. So how's Jimmy, your ideas percolating? Have you got some questions built up for. For, for Richard? I'm just gonna do with your business. [01:28:03] Speaker C: Nice to listen. [01:28:04] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. [01:28:05] Speaker C: I, I think the only question is how do I like what do I do first? What's the number one thing I need to change? [01:28:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. All right. I think I already know what that is but I'm gonna let watches. Well, you want to know while he's not here you want me. I think it is. Yeah. What's. [01:28:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:28:26] Speaker A: What's your prediction pricing model? Yeah, change the pricing model I think and like pricing model which leads into offer. So like the sales. Well, post sales obviously. Yeah, we'll have to change with the pricing model but I think it's, it's like what are you putting out there to attract clients as the. They're like this is what we do and this is how much it costs. And I think changing your pricing model always coming back. I don't want to give them any hints. I think he'll, I think he'll give a much better answer than me. He's done. What do you say how many shoots he's done? I don't know. We'll see. We'll ask him in a second when he's back. He's back. [01:29:06] Speaker C: He's back. [01:29:07] Speaker A: Hello? Can you hear us? [01:29:08] Speaker D: Hello? I can. Can you hear me? [01:29:10] Speaker C: Yes. [01:29:10] Speaker B: Yep. [01:29:11] Speaker C: Okay, now you blur. [01:29:12] Speaker D: Hang on. [01:29:13] Speaker A: There we go. [01:29:13] Speaker D: Here's my joke. [01:29:17] Speaker A: The frozen joke. [01:29:21] Speaker D: The idea. All right, Terry. Sorry, who? [01:29:25] Speaker A: Terry. [01:29:26] Speaker D: I have a client, Terry. [01:29:28] Speaker A: Okay. [01:29:31] Speaker C: She's been popping in eight minutes ago. [01:29:33] Speaker A: Yes, she said. She said. It's definitely not a joke. You're amazing at what you do. I honestly go anywhere else for boudoir. [01:29:41] Speaker D: Yeah, I had to leave to do. I. She said, hi, Terry. I've had to leave to do some work, but the podcast is great. Thanks for the shout out. That's okay. Thank you for. Terry's been here twice. She's fabulous. She's an awesome woman. Yeah. [01:29:58] Speaker A: So cool. [01:29:59] Speaker D: What? [01:29:59] Speaker A: All right, before we get into Jim's. Jim's Boudoir business, do you have a ballpark idea on what percentage of your clients come back for another shoot? [01:30:08] Speaker D: It's not. It's not huge. It's not massive. In under 10. I. I send out a big special once a year in January after Christmas, doing Tyson back in. Okay. So this year I sent it out. I always send it out in general. So we send out the Christmas cards. You want to see my Christmas cards? I can go and get them in a minute. [01:30:32] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, for sure. [01:30:33] Speaker D: All right. So we said. I sent out the Christmas cards because it's become a bit of a tradition, and then I send out, like a special in January that expires at the end of January, and that gives them a special deal. As past clients this year, I booked seven, I think, which is not that many, but it's, you know. [01:30:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:30:53] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. I'll go get the Christmas cards. Hang on. [01:30:57] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, Christmas cards are a great idea. I like to do Christmas cards for all of our previous podcast guests. I think that. Be fun. [01:31:07] Speaker C: That'd be cool. What's your. Your battery check? Greg, how you traveling doing? [01:31:13] Speaker B: Okay. The MacBook's holding up 83, and my phone, which is tethered, is at 81, so. Oh, you know, both new apples. [01:31:23] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:31:23] Speaker A: I got out. [01:31:24] Speaker B: I could do this all day, Jim. [01:31:25] Speaker A: Yeah. You probably could have ran the mic off the MacBook. [01:31:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:31:29] Speaker D: I wonder how much of a difference. [01:31:30] Speaker B: It would have made. [01:31:31] Speaker A: It would draw a bit of power, but, yeah, if you. If you've only drawn 15 in an hour and a half, it couldn't have drawn that much power. That's really Good. Yeah. [01:31:41] Speaker B: The MacBook Pro batteries are amazing. They just you know, I can go days without having to plug it in. [01:31:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Crazy. [01:31:48] Speaker D: I can't find them. I forgot we had a clean out. I think they're in the container somewhere. [01:31:52] Speaker A: No, that's okay. That's okay. [01:31:54] Speaker D: Just go through my Instagram. You'll see them. They're just silly cards, you know? I mean, just funny cards. [01:31:59] Speaker A: Just fun. Yeah. [01:32:00] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:32:01] Speaker A: I think it's a great idea to keep in touch with everyone. [01:32:04] Speaker C: And you're posting these out or you. You're just posting it online. [01:32:09] Speaker D: In the post. It does. It does two things. One, it keeps you front of mind with your clients because it's. You've got to keep at it. You know what I mean? Because. Yeah. Even though you got on really well, then like five years goes by and then they forget who you are, obviously, you know? [01:32:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:32:23] Speaker D: So there's that. And who gets like. And the really nice thing is, like, our client, because we make a real effort. You know what I mean? Like, they're really silly. They're fun. Like, the last one I did was. I can't share a screen here, can I? [01:32:38] Speaker A: You can, yeah. And I just have to bring it, like, you can hit share. There's a little plus button down the bottom. And then I'll just add it to the theme. But otherwise I can. [01:32:46] Speaker D: If you get. So, like the last one we had, there's me leaning up against a chair, leaning up against our red couch, our three makeup artists and Tracy. And a mirror in the background. I had a Santa thing up here and I had only had un underneath. So in the mirror from behind. Yeah, that's it there. Oh, there it is. Yeah. So that's one of them. That's my wife on the far right. The. The one with the red top. That's Tracy. Justine is the one with the red. The one next to Tracy with the red ribbons in her hair. And that's my. So. So we send them out every year. You know what I mean? And. And that clients actually tell us they actually leave them up. There's Justin. There you go, Justine. [01:33:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:33:29] Speaker D: So Justina. Yeah. So we. But the nice thing is what they tell us is they don't get Christmas cards anymore and they leave them out all year, so there's that. So. Yeah. Hopefully their friends see them. Just. It's just marketing. That's all it is. Just to be truthful to the opening and then. Nice thing to do. It's a nice thing to do. [01:33:49] Speaker C: You think word of mouth, like friends of friends is a big part of your booking? [01:33:53] Speaker D: Oh, it's Huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really, it's credibility is everything. Yeah, yeah. So even when we run promotions, what we find is, because I run promotions all the time, you know what I mean? With advertising. But what happens is a lot of it's subtle, like you'll get these things through and then they'll reveal to you, oh, well, I checked you out with a, my friend who'd done it before at your studio. That's a very common thing. So what tends to happen is your advertising, your marketing tends to drive your referral traffic. You know what I mean? But especially if you use a photo of someone who's been in before and they recognize that person. So that's a really big thing. Yeah, yeah. [01:34:32] Speaker A: All right. Actually, that reminds me. So before we bring up some of Jim's stuff, because this will be one of the questions, I'm sure, about how he can get more bookings. I was watching your, I think your most recent YouTube video, which is a 40 minute epic on, on basically Facebook advertising, essentially, or meta advertising and different types of offers and that kind of thing. And it broke down how different lead generation tactics and different offers can get different qualities of leads and all that sort of stuff. Great video. Go watch it. We won't recap the whole thing on the podcast here, so go watch it. If you're into trying to figure out how to do Facebook or meta advertising for photography. But the question I had is, so one of the examples was something like a giveaway where six people might win a free shoot that also includes some sort of free product. So they come away with something, something for $0, but it'll say, you know, it's for six people. And a question I had was, is that something you would run to get six clients? And then that's it. Is, is that. And then you have to come up with a completely new campaign or do you just run that one again? Yeah. How does that work? [01:35:51] Speaker D: Well, I, I, I, I look at it more like six a month, for example, if I continue to run it. [01:35:56] Speaker A: Right. So for this promotion. [01:36:00] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. So, but then again, if you, I think at last when I said I'm looking for 17 people, I don't know why, because I want 17 people a month. He. Sorry, I got sidetracked there. I'm so sorry. What was I saying? [01:36:22] Speaker A: That's okay. So like, so the, the, often the, the Facebook ads will be willing to have some sort of. And this is for like lots of portrait studios. Oh yeah, everything. Pet photography, all that stuff. People advertise A special where it's like, hey, you know, we're doing a giveaway or, but it's limited to a number of people. We even see it with gyms all the time. They'll be like, we're looking for 10 people. 10, 10 men in the Bendigo area who want to get fit and healthy. And I'm like, tell me it's not only 10 that you want. [01:36:49] Speaker C: You wouldn't take 12. [01:36:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I bet. I'm sure they would take 12. Yeah, but do you need to change that that time? [01:36:58] Speaker D: I've always said with that bit, just in my opinion, just be honest with it, you know, you know what I mean? So if you, if you want to get eight a month, just say you want looking for eight, you know what I mean? Just don't, don't exaggerate it. Like in our case, we want to do, you know, 12, excuse me, 12 to 16amonth. So we will say we're looking for 17 people, for example. You know what I mean? So that's, that's, that's personally the way that, that's personally the way that I choose to do it. I, I, I, I, my thing is just, just when in doubt, be honest, you know what I mean? Like, just, yeah, you know, just keep it simple. Otherwise, like, and when, like when I run these promotions and I, I have that initial conversation with our clients, I just tell them the truth. I say, look, this is a promotion. We're doing this because we're trying to get people in the door. I don't say that exactly, but, but I just completely, I say, look, this is a, the reason we're doing this is it's a promotion. I go, oh, great, thank you. And they don't care. Like, they just want to get something for whatever, you know what I mean? [01:37:54] Speaker A: So, yeah, it's still a deal. It's still, it's still, they're still actually getting a better deal than if they just come in and paid the full price or whatever. Because it is, it is still an offer. It's not like, it's like if, you know, a business has a fifty dollar off thing for, to go out for dinner, it's still $50 off. Even though you've got to pay for the rest of dinner, you know, it's still a deal. [01:38:15] Speaker D: And the way that I, the way that I run, I don't mind saying it, like, even the ladies who are here have been watching this, that I'm pretty sure all of them came in on this offer, you know, and that the offer Is for us is we, we say they can do the session for free, right. That's including hair and makeup. Okay. Even though we have to pay for that and we give them a credit towards stuff. Okay. So, but we do take a $200 deposit as a booking fee, as a reservation fee, like a, like a motel would, you know what I mean, to make sure enough. And so we are in fact risking a day's work and paying hair and makeup, because we will. If they don't like the photos, I don't want to get anything else, we will refund them that deposit. Okay. So that, that's how we get to be truthful. That, that, that's kind of that Alex Mosey thing. Justin, you know, make an offer so good that people feel stupid saying no now. [01:39:00] Speaker A: Exactly. [01:39:01] Speaker D: The industry, as a, not my studio, we run really high, but the industry, like for family photographers and things like that, they run it about if they choose to do that model, they'll run like between 50 to 15 to 20%, no sale rate, meaning people will take the free thing and leave. And that's fine, you just got to relive with that. But you get to sell to 80% of the people. So you got to look at it like that, you know what I mean? So, yeah, I think as long as you do it, the really big thing is as long as you do it ethically and explain things and if people ask, tell, explain everything, all that sort of stuff, you'll be fine. Where it goes pear shaped is every year there seems to be some controversy where some studio will, you know, we'll drag people in and, and misrepresent the offer, lock people in a room, won't let them leave if they buy stuff. So like literally say things like, well, gee, if you don't buy these photos, what happens if you die tomorrow? What are your kids going to do then? You know, I mean. [01:39:55] Speaker C: We'Re going to delete them. [01:39:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Friends of mine got copped with that in a studio in Melbourne, one of the more well known studios in Melbourne. She took her kids there and as you know, you know, taking the family somewhere is an effort. So you've got sort of that, that some cost already of time and effort. And then they, they put her in a room. She hadn't been presented with the prices beforehand. She was sort of shocked with the prices. And then they said, yeah, if you, if you leave, we delete the photos. Because she said, I just want to, I just want to talk to my husband about, you know, like, how much we, whether I should do this or not. And they said, well, unfortunately, you know, we delete the photos if you don't buy anything. [01:40:37] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:40:37] Speaker A: And she said it was the worst experience of her life. She bought the photos because she wanted them, but she said she'll. She'll always remember how bad she felt in that moment. How horrible. [01:40:46] Speaker D: Yeah. And. And of course they're not going to delete the photo. They're lying. You know what I mean? Yeah. [01:40:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:40:50] Speaker A: Because you could get back the next day and go, actually, I decided to spend five grand. They'd be like, oh, we found the photos. [01:40:55] Speaker C: We actually found them. [01:40:56] Speaker D: Yeah, I get that question a little bit. They'll say, like, what? How long do you keep. How long do you keep the photo for? Which means two things. Means two things. I think, either one, I want to think about it a little bit. Can I get back to you? Or two, I want to buy these and can I get stuff in the future if I want? It's usually one of those two things. And I just tell them the truth. I say, look, we don't delete them. We put. I say, what happens to them? We put them on an archive drive. But the only thing is that they don't get backed up. So if that drive crashes, that's the end of it. Because I can't keep everything you're getting. [01:41:29] Speaker A: You're not guaranteeing an archive for them. [01:41:31] Speaker D: You're just, we can't be here. Too much data. Just too much data. Yeah, back up. That much data is insane. So that, that's the way that I tackle that. And then, and, and what I, what I choose to do is when I book them in, I just explained them on the Facebook. This is a promotion. You're welcome to come and take the free thing. That's fine. But just be aware, we've got stuff from 950 to 3500, should you choose to do it. Some ladies spend a little bit some space. Some ladies spend over $10,000 you don't have. You can do whatever you want to do. There's no right. Or whatever. And then when they come in, I show them all the stuff before the shoot. I run them through all the products one at a time, put it in their hands and make sure they understand what everything is so you're not ambushing them in the room later on, like, what you're talking about Justin, with your friend. It sucks. It's awful, you know? And then if they want to think about you, say, that's fine, you know, and that's Whatever, you know, and we have a, our no sale rates under 1%. [01:42:22] Speaker A: You know, the other thing I've heard is that I saw this on a studio, I think it was a US studio, but they have a policy that like that all the, all the, all the decision makers must be present for the in person sales session. I'm like, what? As in, like if you're, if say, let's say it's a family photo session, that either, that both the husband and the wife must attend the in person sales session. Even if one of them works. Even if, you know, if the wife's got a full time job running a bank or something. And then the husband's got to be like, oh, you gotta, you gotta take time off work to come in, sit in this sales session. She'll be like, no, no, you can just order whatever you want. They're like, no, no, we need to. Because they don't want that objection. Because people will say I've got to check with the other, the other person. And that's an objection to stop the sales process. [01:43:17] Speaker D: You've got to just frame it up differently. You just got to come up. I'm a great believer you solve, you solve solutions without like, like for example, I don't use contracts, okay, I'm getting off track a little bit, but I just don't use them. My only contract, I use a model release because I don't want to get sued if I just buy photos of women. You know what I mean? Oh yeah, yeah, but. And like for example, man, I'm getting off track now. But like our payment plans, I don't even have a contract for them. I just trust people, I'll pay it, they'll be fine. They all do. You know what I mean? I don't care anymore. Like I've been a pawn break for God's sake. [01:43:51] Speaker C: And yeah, you get a lot of contracts. [01:43:56] Speaker D: And it's sort of like what I've learned is how can I explain it? The less you push, the easier it is. If you push people, they will push back. If you let them make their own decisions and lots of stuff, they'll be fine. Don't get me wrong, you have to help people make better decisions. Some people literally say, can you help me? Yeah, it's great, whatever. But yeah, I think that what I look at this, I think the only thing, especially in a boutique industry like photography, I put my personal opinion, you've got to protect your reputational costs at all costs. And that means eating sometimes. You know what I mean? That'd be like, even though you might refund someone or reprint something or what? Just, just do whatever you've got to do. Who cares? Like, you know what I mean? You've gotta, I, I've noticed. This is my personal opinion. I know too many people want to be right, meaning that they want to be, they want to be up to I told you so. No, no, I told you these things, you know, they want to be right. They'd much rather be right and be profitable, which is stupid. Like much better money than, you know, whatever. [01:45:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:45:05] Speaker D: But you got, you, you know, you got to, in this industry you've got to re, in my opinion, you've got to guard your reputation with everything you've got. That's all you've got. Yeah. Because it'll bite you on the ass if you don't. And, and the big thing is those, those like you might have 500 reviews and if you've got 20 bad ones saying I, I felt ambushed and that sort of thing, they're hurting you more than you know. [01:45:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:45:25] Speaker D: You know what I mean? Yeah. [01:45:27] Speaker B: And it comes back that it only takes one bad review to, to ruin your year. [01:45:32] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. I, I just, I think the damage is you can't, it's a little bit like security, like, it's like having security measures like you don't know how effective they are because they've stopped things from happening. Reputations like that, in my opinion, you don't know how, you don't know how a bad reputation will affect you because you haven't had it yet. If that makes sense. Does that make sense? [01:45:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:45:52] Speaker D: Absolutely. [01:45:53] Speaker A: And once you cut, it's too late. [01:45:56] Speaker D: I, I, I, I, I think a couple of bad reviews is fine. You're going to eventually get them. I, I actually kind of, in a weird way I wish I had one just because it looks weird like having so many good ones. But I, I, I think that, and speaking of reviews, because I've dealt with bad reviews before, believe me, different businesses, but you just as long as you answer them professionally and pragmatically, just say thank you for your feedback, sorry you feel that way. Rather than go on a big defensive rant because no one read it, no one cares, you know. [01:46:22] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [01:46:24] Speaker D: And most, and most level headed people will appreciate that all businesses will get a bad review from time to time. So that's whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:46:33] Speaker A: Exactly. [01:46:34] Speaker D: I apologize. [01:46:35] Speaker A: No, this is, the rants are what we want. Then we can make clips and we'll go viral and we'll Be the biggest podcast on the planet for photographers that you can, you know, live calling on on Monday nights. You guys should join us on Monday nights if you want to actually ring the phone line and just be on the podcast too. Because that's a real thing. [01:46:54] Speaker C: You don't have to be in the show. [01:46:56] Speaker A: You can just join us. So. Oh, actually, before I say that. So we had a ton of five star reviews for the camera straps for a while. And no, like other ones to the point where someone did question. They. They were like, oh, so you obviously delete. [01:47:11] Speaker D: Oh really? [01:47:12] Speaker A: All the bad reviews. And I was like, no, we just don't get the bad. We got. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You can't. It's all Shopify verified. It's all like through a separate app. And anyway, the. We had one 15 star review of a guy who was furious because he was under the impression he was buying the camera that was pictured in the photograph. Camera strap. And so it was at that point, that was the first time. And that's when I realized why big businesses have to do this stuff. That I had to go through the website and put a disclaimer on every page that says, Please note, this $150 camera strap does not include the $5,000 camera that's pictured with. And it also doesn't include the people in the photo, like Jim, who's in some of the product shots and things like that. It's. It's only the camera strap. [01:48:02] Speaker D: It's so stupid. [01:48:04] Speaker A: It's so stupid. But that was a real thing. [01:48:10] Speaker D: I really had the pawnbrokers. We had this. I put an ad up somewhere. I took a photo of a display cabinet of all the jewelry or something. I can't remember now. Something like that. And you know how like in Facebook marketplace you can't put a range, you. [01:48:25] Speaker A: Only put a price. [01:48:28] Speaker D: And so I put free and then in the thing, jewelry ranging from 10 bucks to 10, 000 sort of thing and blah, blah, blah. Some guy I expect to get. I'm going to drop in there in an hour. I want everything for free because otherwise I'm going to report you to the thing. I said, yeah, you come in, man. If you want to fight about. [01:48:44] Speaker A: Report you to the Facebook marketplace police. [01:48:48] Speaker D: Good luck, fair trading. I'll take you to court. I said, yeah, good luck with that, dude. [01:48:51] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:48:53] Speaker D: Fun story day. I realized I need to get out of porn. Breaking was a day I chased a guy to the shop with a baseball bat. I'm serious. I felt so embarrassed afterwards. I was like, you idiot. Like hell, man. Like, what are you doing? You know what I mean? [01:49:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Just decided that this is no longer the life for you. [01:49:10] Speaker D: No, no, pretty much, yeah. Yeah. [01:49:11] Speaker A: That's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:49:14] Speaker D: I'm sorry. [01:49:15] Speaker A: Okay. [01:49:15] Speaker C: Let's sound like an interesting business. [01:49:17] Speaker A: It does sound like an interesting stories, to be truth. [01:49:21] Speaker D: It's pretty boring. It's pretty predictable, to be truthful. It's not what it looks like. It's pretty straightforward. [01:49:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:49:29] Speaker A: Let's have a quick look at Jim's boudoir business and let's. Because. [01:49:32] Speaker B: Because. [01:49:33] Speaker A: So the reason we're doing this just for the people that maybe haven't cottoned on, you have an entire YouTube channel centered around business advice. So as well as running your profitable boudoir studio, you are putting content out for other people to help them learn how to do that kind of thing in whatever style of photography or like you say, basically any small business, but it's primarily centered around photography. All of your advice. So this is Jim's Instagram page. Hi. James Boudoir. So Jim already has a wedding business and he decided to separate those out as two different brands rather than trying to run it under the one brand. [01:50:15] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:50:15] Speaker A: When did, when did you launch this gym? A couple years ago. Yeah. [01:50:19] Speaker C: Sort of properly started. [01:50:21] Speaker A: 2024. [01:50:24] Speaker C: Yeah. There you go. [01:50:29] Speaker D: I was going to say the one thing I would say immediately, if you're looking for any critique at all. [01:50:34] Speaker C: Absolutely. [01:50:34] Speaker D: Try and is try and include some, some women who are like, I've got to be really careful how I phrase this, but women who look like everyday women, you know what I mean? These ladies, especially the first ones up the top there would be quite intimidating to women who are a bit curvy, for example, you know, you know what I mean? I, I would make an effort and include all body types and shapes and sizes and everything like that. [01:51:04] Speaker C: Yeah. So that, that's been something I've been struggling with to get people to like, allow that their, their images to be, to be used. So I've like. [01:51:17] Speaker A: And. [01:51:17] Speaker C: And that's someone that like, sort of. Yeah, I had a. Someone come to me and they said, you know, you don't have anything else? And I'm like, well, at the moment, like, I haven't got anyone that sort of allowed that, even though, like I've shot people. [01:51:30] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. Actually, well, she looks. Yeah, she looks great like that. This is your website. I'm sorry. Okay, here we go. [01:51:37] Speaker A: Yeah, sorry, I just, I flipped across Jim's website. [01:51:42] Speaker D: I like this. This is good. [01:51:45] Speaker A: But yeah, it's a good point. But it is hard, I guess, in the startup time. [01:51:50] Speaker D: Well, yeah, what I would do is if you are short of images is what I would do if you really want to get it cracking is I'd run like a wanted campaign for curvy ladies. Okay. And then part of the condition is they've got to be okay with you displaying photos publicly with their permission. Like not nudes or anything like that, obviously. But yeah, yeah. And you can make that a condition of like, like get the free thing, whatever that is you decide to do. That's what I would do. [01:52:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:52:24] Speaker D: And you'll make some money along the line as well, because I'll buy more stuff. [01:52:28] Speaker A: That's a great idea because. Yeah, that's. That is the hard thing, I guess, isn't it? Because you've got to try and. Because at the moment you. Some of the sort of portfolio building stuff that you do, Jim, is like that those people kind of come out of the woodwork when it. Like with hair and makeup artists and friends of friends and all that kind of stuff, as opposed to putting it out broadly, publicly. Like. Yeah. [01:52:57] Speaker D: I, I would do it. I'd be super clear, like in the landing page or whatever, or the phone call or whatever that you are doing this literally as a portfolio building exercise and that you will not, you will not photograph unless they're okay with them sharing. So that excludes school teachers straight away, for example. That excludes police. Police women, for example. They're not allowed to. So in Queensland. Not allowed to. Paramedics aren't keen on it, for example. So you got. Then you have to sort of lean into like, you know, women who are okay with it. So you just got to pick your market a little bit for that bit. [01:53:29] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay. [01:53:31] Speaker D: That's what I would do if I were you. Yeah. Because activity creates activity, obviously. So. [01:53:35] Speaker A: Yeah, and. And so, Jim, you're currently structuring it as shoot days. We. Or multiple days where you book out. Usually like an Airbnb or something like that as the location. [01:53:50] Speaker C: Yeah. So we might run sort of two or three shoots on. Or two to four shoots on one day. [01:53:55] Speaker D: Oh, wow. [01:53:55] Speaker C: Okay. Get like a hair and makeup artist in and. [01:53:59] Speaker D: Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, Nothing wrong with that. Whatever works, man. I'm in favor of whatever works. If that works, do it. And also more profitable too, because you're getting more people in. You probably have to do the IPS separate separately, though. [01:54:12] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Maybe I could trim it back and Say aim to do two, but do like, do the shoot, do the sale, then obviously the next person may be getting their hair and makeup done and then sort of do that again if. [01:54:27] Speaker D: They were nice and local. If you're, if you're renting out an Airbnb, for example, you could probably do like, you could probably line up a couple of IPS's at night in the same weekend or whatever, or, or however you deciding to do it. So you can say, can you come back tonight? You know what I mean? And you could line up a few appointments in a row. That'd be better because you obviously want to maximize that time. [01:54:46] Speaker C: Yes. [01:54:47] Speaker D: In, in the Airbnb because it's costing you a few hundred bucks a night or whatever, so. [01:54:51] Speaker C: Well, I've managed to get onto people, so I'm booking them for the day and getting like a day rate rather than an overnight rate. [01:54:59] Speaker D: Oh, really? Okay. So I've got to be honest with you, Jim. This is, this is an area I really know nothing about. Out. Like I've never, I've never. I've always had a studio, so I don't. Yeah, this is actually interesting for me, to be honest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:55:10] Speaker C: So I sort of managed to find someone. They were a bit, bit out of Bendigo, but, you know, and it was a reasonable day rate that I could book midweek. So I've sort of managed to book things only midweek and sort of book four to six weeks out and then sort of aim to fill out the day. But four shoots back to back was a bit too much. So that's a. [01:55:30] Speaker D: That's. Especially with Booba. That's a big day. She's got hair and makeup as well. [01:55:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:55:35] Speaker D: You'Re doing hair and makeup, Jim, not me. [01:55:38] Speaker C: No, no. So I've got someone else. [01:55:39] Speaker B: I know. [01:55:40] Speaker D: Not. Not you. I mean, but you're providing that. Yes. [01:55:42] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:55:44] Speaker D: But. [01:55:44] Speaker C: And I guess like, I've got some questions maybe for you around like costing and stuff. Like, how do you. [01:55:50] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:55:50] Speaker C: Is it better? [01:55:51] Speaker D: Like. [01:55:51] Speaker C: So you're doing like a free shoot, four people. Is that. [01:55:57] Speaker A: Do you want me to pull up Jim's price list? [01:56:00] Speaker D: Okay. [01:56:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:56:03] Speaker D: So, yeah, sorry, hang on. Yeah. Oh, here we go. Whoa. Do we. [01:56:10] Speaker A: You don't have to read. [01:56:12] Speaker D: Okay, step one. That's too cheap. That sucks. You need to put your prices up straight away. Seriously, man. [01:56:17] Speaker A: Okay. [01:56:18] Speaker D: 15 full resolution photos for 5.95 and a two hour shoot. No, that's got to be. That's got to be two grand straight Away. [01:56:26] Speaker C: Well, well, you don't want to know how much the shoot days are then. I said, you don't want to know how much the shoot days are then. [01:56:32] Speaker D: I don't know what that means. What do you mean? [01:56:34] Speaker C: Like on the. So with the shoot days, I've been running, I've been running that price, but including location and hair and makeup. So that price was just. Yeah. [01:56:43] Speaker A: Which is. [01:56:43] Speaker C: I think this is where I'm coming into like a bit of a stalemate. That it's not. Yeah, it doesn't make sense because you're. [01:56:50] Speaker D: Better off being free for the stuff you want to do and then charging properly for the stuff that. Okay, honestly, man, you can't say that. You cannot sit. You'll go broke with that pricing. [01:57:00] Speaker C: Yeah, it's not working. That's. [01:57:02] Speaker D: No, yeah, it won't work. I'm not being mean, but it's just. [01:57:05] Speaker C: No, no, I want you to be like, no, I don't think you're being mean. [01:57:09] Speaker D: I think like that, that, that you cannot make money with that. That's. You'll go backwards and lose money. [01:57:14] Speaker C: Yeah, no, there's feedback is. It's, it's not. Yeah, not taking it the wrong way at all. [01:57:18] Speaker A: It's what, it's what he wants. [01:57:19] Speaker C: That's what I need. Yeah, yeah. [01:57:21] Speaker A: I need to know, so how do you fix this? So at the moment, Jim's charging, just for anyone that can't see this, Jim's charging 595 for a two hour boudoir shoot. And that includes 15 images done. And then beyond that, there, and then beyond that there's, you know, there's albums and wall art and stuff to purchase or additional digital images to purchase. [01:57:47] Speaker C: Beyond that, maybe Justin, jump on the, on the back on the website for a sec, on the info page. [01:57:56] Speaker A: And. [01:57:56] Speaker C: Then go to investment. [01:57:58] Speaker D: Of course. [01:57:59] Speaker C: Have to be called investment. [01:58:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I got, I got told never to call it investment. Just call it pricing because it's not a house. It's not, it's not stocks. [01:58:08] Speaker D: It's also. Google will find. Google will find it as well. That's the other thing. [01:58:11] Speaker A: Oh, that's true. But I think it was Alex Kearns that said that pet photographer. [01:58:17] Speaker D: She's right. [01:58:19] Speaker A: She was like, it's not an investment. They're photos. [01:58:23] Speaker C: I was very tired when I made this website. [01:58:24] Speaker A: Anyway, it's a common. [01:58:27] Speaker B: It's. [01:58:27] Speaker D: It is. [01:58:28] Speaker A: I'm not. Again, I'm not picking on it. It's really. No, most photographers call it an investment because I think, because they think it sounds Nicer than prices or whatever. Yeah, or cost. [01:58:39] Speaker C: So this. You can see the shoot day on the right there, Justin. That's what I'm currently have been charging 5.95 for the shoot day special. So that's including the Airbnb hair, makeup and 15 images. And I understand why you're shaking your head. Yeah, it does. [01:58:56] Speaker A: It's not. [01:58:56] Speaker C: It's not. [01:58:56] Speaker D: No, no, it's just. It's just. It's just no money there. That's the problem. You gotta be paying 150. 150. 200 for hair and maker or 150. 250 depending on where you are. [01:59:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:59:06] Speaker D: So that's straight away. [01:59:08] Speaker B: And then your Airbnb rent. [01:59:10] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, but I know, I get it. You got to start somewhere. So what I would do is if it just me. [01:59:17] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:59:18] Speaker D: So bring that up again. [01:59:18] Speaker A: The pricing, the price list. [01:59:21] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. [01:59:24] Speaker A: There we go. [01:59:27] Speaker D: Now what I would do is I'd make your. I'd get rid of the two hour shoot. That's just too difficult. Whatever. I'd like the. I personally make the session fee 500. That includes the photographic session. That includes hair and makeup, all that stuff. But you don't get anything for that. That's your session fee. Step one. Okay. Which is more. But seriously, that's more than 5. You know what I mean? That's a lot of work. I mean, you know, like, seriously, I mean, you gotta know. 500 bucks isn't 500 bucks five years ago. 500 bucks will get you a packet of chips and a bottle of Coke. Supermarket these days. You know what I mean? So seriously, you know, it's like that. Like, I mean. Yeah, it's just. Yeah, so there's that. Then. What I would do, mate, is I. I would. I would make this easy to understand. Okay, so I'd have a 500 session fee. Oh, hang on. You're only paying 120 for hair makeup. [02:00:24] Speaker C: Oh, that's old. It's going up now. [02:00:26] Speaker D: Okay. Yeah, it's cheap, that's all. [02:00:28] Speaker C: Yeah, it's still cheap. I think it's maybe only 130. 140. I can't remember what it was. [02:00:35] Speaker D: Justine, are you still on the thing here? I'm going to start paying you less. I don't know if she's. She's probably gone interest. I don't blame her. Yeah, so the way, the way that I would tackle it, mate, is I would. I would just make. I would get rid of digital images. Get rid of that. That one there I would have. I don't even talk about how big the album is. No one knows how big anything is. Just call it, Just call it your. Where do you get them from? Where do you get the album? [02:01:07] Speaker C: East Queensbury. [02:01:09] Speaker D: Oh, you do, do okay, yeah. Just say a bespoke album handmade in New Zealand. Right? Do that. [02:01:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:01:18] Speaker A: It doesn't need to be 10 by 10. [02:01:19] Speaker D: Yeah, whatever. Who cares then? Just say includes. Includes 15. I would say includes 15 or 20 photos. Doesn't really matter. I don't really care. And I would charge. I would charge 2200 for that. Because they're expensive, those Alice in Queensbury. [02:01:39] Speaker A: Yeah, they've. They've crept up and up and up. I reckon our entry level album, Jim, we had for 9.95, which we never barely sold any of them anyway. I think we had that in when we first started working with Queensbury in like 2016 or something. [02:01:54] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:01:54] Speaker C: We haven't changed like album pricing. [02:01:56] Speaker A: But, but, but I think, I think Queens595. Oh, was it? [02:02:01] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [02:02:04] Speaker A: Weddings. [02:02:04] Speaker C: I mean. [02:02:07] Speaker A: For an eight by eight. Yeah, for an entry. But wedding, weddings, we ran weddings so differently because the, the upfront cost of wedding photography is on the high side. So it's like, it's a different thing. [02:02:17] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:02:18] Speaker A: For us, we weren't like, oh, we'll make all our money selling albums. We were literally like, we really want people to get albums, so let's try and price them at a place where they'll actually buy them. And they still didn't really, unfortunately. [02:02:28] Speaker D: But yeah, yeah. [02:02:30] Speaker A: Anyway. [02:02:30] Speaker D: But yeah, so, yeah, that's what I would do, mate, is I would have two. I'd have two album offerings. I would go for something cheap, maybe from Brilliant Prince or something like that. Nice cheap one. Okay. And have that as your base price at like a couple of grand with 15 or 20 photos. Right. Then I'd have your deluxe Queensberry one. Right. [02:02:48] Speaker C: Oh, so the Queensland's not. [02:02:50] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. [02:02:51] Speaker D: Make it like 3 grand or something like that with 25 photos or 30 photos in or something like that. Okay. And each additional photographs, 100 bucks each. That's what I would do. Right. And you all arts way too cheap. That's just too cheap. Yeah, that's. You're not making any money. What's wrong? [02:03:15] Speaker A: He's trying to run a charity. [02:03:19] Speaker D: I know. How much they cost us? 60 by 40. You're making zero basically. [02:03:22] Speaker A: Yeah, probably. [02:03:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [02:03:25] Speaker D: Okay. And then what I would do, mate, is I would do that and then I would choose four wall art prints like in my case, this is what I choose to do. I go, let me think, 16 by 20, 20 by 30, 30 by 40 and 40 by 60. They're the four sizes. That's it. No other choices. And I have them as frank canvas or framed with glass, you know, like normal ones. [02:03:50] Speaker C: Yep. [02:03:51] Speaker D: And that's it. Just have those four. [02:03:54] Speaker A: Are they the same price or are they different prices? Same price. [02:03:59] Speaker D: It's too difficult. No one. [02:04:01] Speaker A: The cost price, it's so close, usually. Yeah, but it's close. [02:04:07] Speaker D: Yeah, it's close enough. Close enough for rock and roll, that's for sure. And then what you do is just mark them up like five times or whatever. Like the industry standard. Three to five times. Okay. And then you could even. What you can do is. What I've been doing in recent times, reasonably successfully is I've saying if people get a collection, okay, then we will offer a. So if they buy an album or whatever from us, we will then offer wall art at 30 off. [02:04:31] Speaker A: Okay. [02:04:32] Speaker D: Yeah, I like that. [02:04:33] Speaker A: That's a great idea. [02:04:34] Speaker D: Yeah. But to state the. Obviously they've got to be. They've got to be priced at a reasonable amount to take. Take an amount off. So like. So like a very common industry average would be like, if you buy something. Something for. For $300, then you'll sell it for 900. That's really common. Which means 30 off. You're taking up 180. [02:04:55] Speaker A: And I think. I think the thing is. [02:04:57] Speaker D: 270. [02:04:57] Speaker A: Sorry. [02:04:57] Speaker D: 270. Sorry. Yeah, sorry. [02:04:59] Speaker A: Yeah. I think the thing is people worry that they're marking things up too much. But I think the. The important thing to remember here is that the. The $500 session fee is barely. It's essentially just paying for hair and makeup, the Airbnb, and not really even any time, let alone gear and insurance and all that. So. So that's why all that has to be built in. [02:05:27] Speaker D: But putting all that aside, don't forget there's. There's a creative fee as well. You've got to value your time. Yeah, you can almost call it. I like to. I don't actually even call it that these days. I think it sounds pretentious. But I, like lots of people call it creative thing. I don't think anything wrong with that. Like, why should you not be compensated for your skills? You know what I mean? Like, lawyers charge 300 an hour for a reason. You know What I mean? 500 an hour for a reason. Because they've got the skills, same as you. You know, like, you Know what buttons to push, you know what I mean? Which dials lots of stuff. [02:06:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:06:02] Speaker A: Can, can we throw some. I don't know what I'm going to call them. Object. If you have to go too, by the way, just let us know. We're at two hours. If you've got, if you've got to be gone. [02:06:12] Speaker D: I've got 20 minutes left. [02:06:14] Speaker A: Okay, perfect. Cool. Can we throw some objections or I guess what I would call maybe fears or things we've made up in our heads about pricing and stuff like that at you just to see what you think. So things like, you know, I just want the digital images. [02:06:35] Speaker D: Okay. So two, that, that, that's two things. That's two separate things. One is I want them because I want them for the phone or whatever like I mentioned earlier. That and also I get around that with the, with the app thing. Right. Can I just check this emails real quick? [02:06:50] Speaker A: Go for it. Yeah, you gotta. You got a business to run. [02:06:54] Speaker D: No, it's not that. [02:06:56] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [02:07:01] Speaker D: What's going on there? Sorry. [02:07:03] Speaker A: That's okay. Do you need us to help? Is it something we can. No, I'm kidding. [02:07:11] Speaker D: So yeah, there's two things going on there. Either A, they want them for their phone or B, they want them cheaper because some people think you're going to get them cheap. [02:07:17] Speaker A: Yeah. And so I'm going down that direction kind of like, hey, I don't want to spend the, the two grand you're saying this album's going to cost. I just want the digital images and I'll get my own book made. [02:07:28] Speaker D: So what you do is this is. I don't do this anymore. But what you do is you say yeah, you can buy the digital but they're more. Because they're more valuable because you get unlimited print rights with them. Yeah. [02:07:37] Speaker C: So you're not giving people digital images at all even with an album. [02:07:41] Speaker D: I'm giving them in that app which are down res to like 96, 960 on the long side at 72dpi. [02:07:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:07:49] Speaker D: So they're just, they're literally just like social media sized images. [02:07:53] Speaker A: Mobile, mobile friendly social media sized images. [02:07:56] Speaker B: If you tried to print them, they look like. [02:07:58] Speaker D: Yeah, they're like, they're fine for like, they're fine for like Polaroids at the brides for example. [02:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. [02:08:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [02:08:07] Speaker D: But they like anything bigger than a. What's the size, what's the normal size from like 6W6. Yeah. I think that probably print okay in that size but outside. Yeah, I'd fall apart pretty Quickly, I reckon. Yeah. [02:08:22] Speaker A: So. And then. So you wouldn't give them a full res digital image at all or they just pay a lot for it. Yeah. [02:08:31] Speaker D: So the way that I tackle that these days is I say you can have them if you want the same price as the album, but you get unlimited print rights for them and they. [02:08:37] Speaker A: Don'T get the album, obviously, like they, they just get the images. That's it. So either. Or just whatever you want, you can. [02:08:45] Speaker D: Because you've got to put, and this is where people go wrong. You've got to put value on the, on the full resident. That. Because that's your. [02:08:52] Speaker B: Yeah, that's your crime. [02:08:53] Speaker D: That's how you make your money. Like if you're giving them away for 500 bucks, you're going, right. This is, you've got to, you've got a price. Like I'm sure all my clients would agree with me if they're still here. Like they've got, you've got to give, you've got to have the ability to make a living properly, you know, and feed your family and pay. You've got to like, seriously, what. Otherwise what's the point? And if they're not prepared to do that, then just don't take them as a client. You know what I mean? Just, just not your client. Most people are fine. Most people, honestly, they're fine. Like this is, these are, these are problems that we've conjured up in our own minds. [02:09:26] Speaker A: People don't think it's, it's me, like, these are my blocks. [02:09:31] Speaker D: Yeah. People don't know how to buy photography. They don't know, like, what the hell do they know? You think that they know. They haven't got a clue like that, that you need to guide them. You need to guide them as to what's possible. And you need to sell them, you need to sell them on, on, on, on things that matter, you know, things on emotion, you know, you got to sell them on that they're going to be looking at these things every day on their wall or whatever. And that they're going to be, you know, when they see them, that they will feel empowered or if they see their pet, that I'll feel that love for them. Or if they see their kids, their kids will feel good, all that sort of stuff. You know what I mean? You can't, you can't be. You've got to decommoditize yourself and be less transactional. [02:10:06] Speaker A: Well, here's a way for you to frame it a little bit, Jim, in your own Mind, what do you charge for an elopement shoot? [02:10:15] Speaker C: Like so for like a three hour elopement? [02:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, just for, I think it's. [02:10:19] Speaker C: Like about two and a half grand or something. [02:10:22] Speaker A: So you just say, you say to someone, if you wanted this as a shoot where you get all the digital images and no products, I would charge it the same way I charge my elopement shoots, which would be about two and a half grand, but I'd also have to add some on for hair and makeup and the Airbnb. So probably about three. Probably. No, no, but I'm just saying I. [02:10:39] Speaker D: Would do that mentally. [02:10:40] Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, it's a way for Jim even to frame it as like, okay, if I can charge that to give the digital images as a, as a full fee, then that's what you sort of need to be charging for your time for, for the boudoir shoot. [02:10:58] Speaker D: Yeah, I wouldn't do that personally because you, you're setting up a transactional thing. [02:11:04] Speaker A: No, I mean, I don't think you should, I don't think you should set it up that way. I mean, in that. Objection. If that's a block in your mind of like, I can't three grand for a Queensberry album. Well, I mean, it's, it's the same as, as charging two and a half grand for an elopement shoot. [02:11:24] Speaker D: The, the way that I look at is they're not buying the album. Okay. The album's a byproduct of the whole thing. Okay. Albums, like. But I believe in having nice things, you know what I mean? Like, you can't charge good money for crap, you know, because I make really nice stuff. Yeah, but they're really buying. What they're buying is your skill. They're buying your, the experience they've had and, and they're buying the photographs. As a result of that, you've got to kind of get the products out of your head a bit. That's, that, that's a byproduct of what you do. And they're buying, they're buying, they're buying the emotion and the photographs from you. That's been my experience. And I actually, that, that's the way I sell them in the room. I say, look, just pick the ones that make you feel good. Don't pick them based on your outfits or whatever. Just pick the ones that make you feel good. And then that way you'll appreciate them more as years go by, you know? You know what I mean? So I, I, when I sell things in this studio, it's very. The actual product itself is really nothing much. I bring it up, I say these are beautiful albums. They don't fall apart, blah, blah, blah. I don't bang on about them. It's not, that's not, that's not. That's what the point is that it's, it's, it correct way. It's experience and how they feel about the, the five graphs of this thing. Yeah. Yeah. [02:12:38] Speaker C: Just a question. [02:12:40] Speaker D: You need to be selling a luxury experience. I don't. And I don't mean having a doorman or, or any of that. I mean giving them time, allowing to be themselves. Giving them a custom thing, treating them, treating them really well. Putting the time into that stuff. That's, that's how I define a luxury experience. Got nothing to do with the building you're in or whatever or the stuff you sell. It's how you treat people. Yeah. [02:13:02] Speaker C: Just a quick question circling back. I know earlier you mentioned like with the albums, they're picking them on the day, then they're taking four to seven weeks to get them. Are they seeing a finished album design before they get that. The book back? [02:13:18] Speaker D: God, no, no, no. We just do it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. [02:13:20] Speaker C: So you're just all creative control. Yeah. [02:13:27] Speaker D: Why would you do that? Because that's another decision they're going to make. That's the worst. Then you got all this backwards and. [02:13:31] Speaker A: It'S, it's the biggest hold up with wedding albums. Yeah. They take forever. [02:13:36] Speaker D: And even when I did weddings, I wouldn't allow them to proof them. I just say, look, leave it with me. Right. We'll do it. And Tracy designs them. That's the end of it. Yeah. [02:13:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:13:45] Speaker A: Has anyone ever been like, I don't, I don't like the way that you've done it ever? [02:13:49] Speaker D: Yeah, I had one I it up. To put it bluntly. She had a specific request. She said, I don't like when the photos go over the, the pages, you know, like. [02:13:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Over the spine. Yeah. [02:14:00] Speaker D: And we completely forgot about that because I just. My designs are the. Can I show you real? Oh, I can't because it's got mood stuff. [02:14:09] Speaker A: But you could put your finger over there. [02:14:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:14:11] Speaker A: Just. No. Okay. I'm just going to pull up a couple of comments while he's doing that. What Mia Muse says, don't sell a man a spade. Sell him on how good the tree that he plants with it is going to look. It's very appropriate since Jim and I are going to be shoveling dirt later today. Julie Powell says pricing is so hard. I agree, it is hard. And it's hard to get out of your head that you're, you know, not charging too much or whatever. And Bruce Hagee, 7202 says so much, I'll have to watch. Oh, is it subscribed? Oh, thanks for subscribing, Bruce. Very cool. [02:14:51] Speaker D: So here's our Queensbury. Right? That's it. We did the wraparoundy thing. [02:14:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:14:57] Speaker D: And then we just literally do them like that. [02:15:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:15:01] Speaker C: And you know, each page is just a full. [02:15:03] Speaker D: That's it. [02:15:04] Speaker A: I love that. [02:15:05] Speaker D: That's it as well. [02:15:05] Speaker A: Simple. The images are the images and. And don't overthink it. [02:15:10] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, I'll just check me. [02:15:12] Speaker A: No, just peek in there before you open it. Yeah. [02:15:18] Speaker D: So there's nothing, there's nothing to design. You just do it. [02:15:22] Speaker C: What size are you selling? What size is that? [02:15:25] Speaker D: What's that? That's 12 by 8 or something. Is that. [02:15:28] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [02:15:29] Speaker C: I've actually never sold. I've sold like Rectangle books. [02:15:33] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:15:33] Speaker C: Like the other way or square. I've never sold one. That's like a portrait that looks good when it's closed. [02:15:39] Speaker D: I find that works better because when you do. When you do the horizontal orient. Jesus Christ. When you do the portrait orientated ones, put one on each page. [02:15:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:15:49] Speaker D: And then. [02:15:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:15:51] Speaker D: And then the, the landscaping ones obviously on. Across two pages. And what I suggest. Hang on. These are all moods. Hang on. That's just like that. I'm covering up the boobs. [02:16:15] Speaker A: Okay. Oh, yeah. So there's one on each. One on each vertical. I just don't like orientation. [02:16:21] Speaker D: I just don't. I don't want YouTube to block your video, that's all. [02:16:23] Speaker A: No, thanks. Neither do we. [02:16:26] Speaker D: But that's that there's really nothing to design. And then what I. And it gets. So it's how you present things. You've always got to present things to the. To, to their benefit. I just say, look, what we suggest you do is get a book holder and then you can display your book in your bedroom or whatever. And that way you can change it or whatever when you need to. And then if your nosy mother in law comes around, then you can put it away. Right. So we can solid as like mobile. Like that. Seriously. Like. Oh, they've got changeable. [02:16:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Like you can change the, the displayed photo. You can also flick through the whole book. I love that. [02:16:59] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's. That's how we just. That's how we sell it. Yeah. There's no, that. Don't let him proof the books. No, that sounds like a nightmare. No, that sounds awful. What the worst thing. Okay. And what the worst thing that could happen is you have to reprint the book. Who cares? Whatever. Like when you do enough of them, it's not worth. [02:17:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:17:21] Speaker D: And I. And the one that I bug it up. She said, I don't like them going across the thing and we forgot all about it. Even though I wrote on the order form and everything like that. And then she said, and I was recording the reaction, she goes, stop the recording. And she said, do you remember I told you the look, I'll just reprint it for you, don't worry. She goes, oh well, let's have a look at. And she ended up leaving it as it was anyway, so it was fine. But yeah, I'm just saying, like it's not a big what why people get. You're the artist or if you want to go down that track, you're the one who should decide how these things go. [02:17:53] Speaker A: But it's an interesting point too that if you say let's average it out, let's say 1 in 20 hates it and you have to reprint it, but you've saved 20 proofing processes in that it's probably the economic, like it's the right decision to make for the business and it's easier for the customer because it's one less thing they have to do as a task in their life decision. Michelle Manning says, I'm very happy for my wall art. I'd like to know, Richard, how often do you sell wall art? Is it mainly albums and occasionally wall art? And if so, how big is the like what's the best sort of most common size that you would sell? [02:18:34] Speaker D: Good question. I reckon 15 to 20% would get wall art in some shape or form. Okay. Which is usually an add on. To be truthful, it's quite rare just to sell just a wall art. Although my memory is Michelle only got wall art, which is unusual. Lady in the chat there, I think I've got that right, haven't I Michelle? But the most common sizes are the 16 by 20s, those smaller ones, whatever that is. I think that's right, 16 by 20. And then I've got this one that's 16 by 60, this long skinny one that's got like five photographs in it. Oh yeah, and that's a popular one as well. And note those two would be the most popular ones. Yeah, by mile. Just those days too. So small one small add on. But they add in for the bedroom or whatever. And, and then that big long skinny one. [02:19:27] Speaker A: Very cool. [02:19:28] Speaker D: That's what Michelle got. I think she got the long skinny one. [02:19:33] Speaker A: I know you've got to go in a second so thank you. Yeah, it's, it's, it's been more than helpful. I'm just going to quickly pull up the gallery on your, your website, which is a great website if anyone wants an example actually before we go to the gallery. So this is the Thrive Photography Thrive Boudoir.com Thrive Photography Boudoir. If you want to check this website out for one for the gallery of images but two, for the way the homepage is laid out to build trust with clients. [02:20:05] Speaker D: See that girl lying there? She's the one in that video with the green that I was wearing. The, the dressing video. That's, that's. Yeah, yeah. [02:20:17] Speaker A: But like see straight underneath there. We've got, you know, over 150 Google reviews now, almost 200 award winning studio. Love your photos. Guarantee. It's like, it's simple. There's no up here, no changing banner. It's just one image. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not distracting. It's not sliding through trying to give you 10 different messages or anything all at once. So I love that it's got some great sort of copy that helps the people that are visiting understand what it is that you offer and whether it's for them. Yeah. Three steps. Boudoir photography is easy as 1, 2, 3 and like good images just throughout and then more reviews and then I really like this transformations. Is this a new thing that you've been doing or is this. [02:21:06] Speaker D: No, no, I think there's 50 in there. I think if you flick. [02:21:10] Speaker A: Do you, do you always do that before and after? Yeah, like a before, after. [02:21:16] Speaker D: Yeah, I always do a before photo but I don't use it to sell it to them at all. I just do it and I store them. You know what I mean? I actually post the before photos mainly in our Facebook group, the VIP group that I mentioned earlier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:21:30] Speaker A: I think that's, that's a really great way of showing like what makeup and a photographer's skill, like what the difference can be. [02:21:41] Speaker D: But Jim, can you see how I've got all body types in here? Jim, that's, that's, that's a very deliberate. I've got hundreds that I could use but I've deliberately chosen multiple and as many ethnic groups as I can too because where we are on the coast, we don't get a lot of ethnic groups unfortunately. So I just I do my best there. We haven't got a much. We haven't got a very multicultural society here at all, unfortunately. [02:22:06] Speaker A: And you're hoping that you just. People want to see something that makes them. Allows them to put themselves in. In there and say, oh, that could be me. Is that what you're. [02:22:14] Speaker D: Yeah, 100. Yeah. It's also just. It's just. It's just social proof that you, you know, that I think, gee, I look like her, you know? Yeah. [02:22:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:22:23] Speaker B: And it also. It also kind of. It removes that whole, you know. Oh, these guys look like models. Yeah, sometimes. [02:22:32] Speaker A: Yeah. You're like, of course they're gonna look like that. They're a model, you know, like. Yeah, yeah. [02:22:38] Speaker D: Interesting. In my opinion, my photographs are pretty basic. They're pretty clean. You know, just. That's just the way that I choose to do it. For better or worse. Yeah, I think. [02:22:48] Speaker A: I think they're great. [02:22:50] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [02:22:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:22:53] Speaker A: There's a great amount of variety. Getting so much variety from a studio is really cool. Like, is this in studio, the red? [02:23:02] Speaker D: Yeah. Just different backdrop. [02:23:06] Speaker A: Like, it's a fabric backdrop. It's a great show of, like, the fact not everyone's walking out with the same images. I think that's really cool, you know, like, not a formula. [02:23:19] Speaker D: It actually took me a long time to get reasonably good at photographing the studio. Like, it was hard. I found it difficult to be truthful. I found it difficult to get variety, you know, without using the scenery as the variety. Learning how to photograph people for variety. Do you know what I mean? I found that. Yeah, I found that. I took me a little while to figure that out. Yeah, I got there in the end, hopefully. [02:23:40] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. [02:23:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:23:43] Speaker A: Amazing work. Really, really cool. [02:23:45] Speaker D: Thank you. [02:23:47] Speaker A: Very, very impressive. [02:23:48] Speaker D: But it's a little bit out of date. That's okay. [02:23:52] Speaker B: Every photographer that we talk to, including ourselves, says, oh, yeah, my website's a bit out of date. It seems to be. [02:23:58] Speaker D: It's just a mission to keep on top of it, isn't it? Yeah, it is. I've got five minutes. Questions for you? Yeah, any questions? [02:24:07] Speaker B: Any last burning questions, Jim? [02:24:09] Speaker A: Yeah. What do you really. What do you want to know, Jim? What about getting leads? Like, what about getting clients? [02:24:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I guess. Well, I've watched some of your videos on ads, so. [02:24:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:24:22] Speaker C: Is it like, are you just running Facebook ads? Is that kind of your main. Like, Facebook and Instagram? [02:24:28] Speaker D: Yeah, just because it works. That's a really big thing, too. Like, if something works, just keep doing it. Don't get sidetracked. Into other things. That's a really big thing. Like I got friends they do really well with like auction, silent auctions and stuff like that, or book projects and things like that. Just because they work doesn't mean you have to do them as well. Just find something that works for you and stick with that. You know, if that's, you know, if that's going to be an eye once a week and you're getting clients out of networking events and just keep doing that. You know, if it's, if it's, you know, if it's, if it's meta advertising, do that if you'd like. If you're more transactional based and Google advertising works and do that. You know, just, but just, just find one thing and just keep doing that. That way then you get better and better and better at it, in my opinion. [02:25:09] Speaker B: Okay. [02:25:10] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:25:13] Speaker A: I have a question, I have a question. One, one final question based on Mr. Alex Hormozi. Would you say, Richard, currently, is your business currently demand constrained or supply constrained? Do you have not enough clients or do you have not enough time to. [02:25:30] Speaker D: I don't have, I don't enough time or space or manpower. So I, I'm supply, I'm supply constrained for sure. No, yeah, hang on, whatever that, whichever end that is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like last year I was booked out solid for three months ahead and I couldn't find any more books. I just stopped the advertising, for example. [02:25:50] Speaker A: Okay, wow. [02:25:51] Speaker D: So my problem is that. But, but can I put a big disclaimer in front of that? You got to remember, I've, I'm not, I'm not trying to be a knob when I say this, but because I, I've always been in business, I've always been in sales in some shape or form. This is, I'm kind of, I want to, I'm quite good at it, you know? You know what I mean? [02:26:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:26:12] Speaker D: I guess what I'm trying to get at is that whenever I give these, whenever I give, like whenever I do courses. I've done a lot of courses on Andrew's thing. I've done a few of his paid courses and Andrew's thing, but we've got another one coming up actually. [02:26:25] Speaker A: Oh, do you. That's. So that's on Photo Biz X and you can go on there and there's a premium section. [02:26:30] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, I'm doing, we're doing another one. We're going to do it like on advanced, on advanced sales or something like that. But what I'm trying to say is that Whenever I do these, whenever I do these advertising things, people always hammer me, like, how much cost per lead, how much cost per click and blah. But the difficulty is that it all gets down to how good you are at converting people, so to speak, on the phone. That's what it all boils down to because that ends up being your cost per booking. Okay. And so it, the whole thing, honestly, is a balancing act between, like, how qualified do you want the leads to be? Or how easy do I want the leads to come in? You know what I mean? And then it gets that how well you can convert them, I would hazard. I guess I convert more, probably more than double, than most people would easily on the phone. So I convert 80. Once I get them on the phone, once they've been through the thing and all the emails, all the crap we've sent them, I've converted about 80, which is really high. That's really, really high. Most people convert about 20 to 30. Yeah, I only mentioned that in passing. You just got to put in the hours, you know what I mean? Get good at just, it's, it honestly, the business stuff and the SaaS stuff, it's like photography. You just get better at it as time goes by. You can't be good at it immediately and it's just. [02:27:43] Speaker A: And you've got to work like. [02:27:46] Speaker D: Yeah, I think if you treat it as a journey and a creative thing, I, I personally believe that the business is very creative. That's my personal belief. And. What's that? [02:27:59] Speaker C: Is that you, Justin? [02:28:02] Speaker B: It might be me. [02:28:05] Speaker A: I don't know. [02:28:06] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:28:07] Speaker A: Anyway, that was loud. [02:28:08] Speaker C: I don't know. [02:28:10] Speaker D: Yeah, but I, I think if you view learning how to do business as a creative endeavor, which I think business is very creative, like, especially in the thinking, I think you'll be fine. Yeah, I know. I do want to wrap up. If anyone's to listen to this. I think that photography, I really believe this is one of the greatest kept business secrets in the whole world. I mean, it's really serious. I mean, where the, where the hell, where else can you go and create a studio with blanks, with a blank space? Turn over half a million a year if you know what you're doing on your own with someone else, without inventory, without all the expenses and that, all the stuff, all you need is like about 10 grand worth of equipment and you know, you're not carrying inventory, you don't need a university degree. You know, there's not, there's no constraints. I think honestly it's, it's the most Best business secret. But you do have to put the time in to learn how to do it. Like any business. Yeah, that's why I have to be that. That's my effort to be motivational. I don't know if it's going to work or not. People might look at me go, this guy's an idiot. You know what I mean? So we'll have to wait and see. [02:29:11] Speaker A: It would almost be the perfect way to end the podcast. But I almost forgot. Me. And you said. I thought you're going to ask the desert island set up. I usually ask people the desert island set up for their camera and lens, but I almost want to ask you. Did you mention you bought a new camera out of the show? [02:29:25] Speaker D: Yeah. Oh, yeah, I got. Because. Because I don't. Because I've got. In the studio, I've got two Canon R5s that I use. I only use one because I broke one once and I thought. And I had to go pull up my old 5D4. It was like using a potato. After using more modern cameras. This sucks. I had to send it in for repair, so I went out and bought another one. So I keep that as a backup. So I only use like an old. Those old 50 mil 1.2s. You know, those old. [02:29:51] Speaker A: Oh, the EF51 too. [02:29:53] Speaker D: Yeah, the old EF with all the chromatic aberration. Yeah, yeah, that one. Yeah. I need another one in case I break it because I dropped the camera. The other. That sucked. [02:30:02] Speaker A: Damn. [02:30:03] Speaker C: You need a lucky camera strap. [02:30:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. [02:30:05] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:30:06] Speaker A: If only. [02:30:06] Speaker D: I just. I just put them on the floor now. So. [02:30:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:30:11] Speaker D: So again, anyway, sorry, I'm getting off track, but because I don't ever change my gear, because I don't care, I thought maybe I should just like buy something cool for fun. So I bought one of those Ricoh GR4s. [02:30:24] Speaker A: Nice. [02:30:25] Speaker D: They're cool. That's so much fun. [02:30:27] Speaker A: You like it? Is it as small as you imagine? Like, because they. [02:30:30] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:30:30] Speaker A: Seems very small. [02:30:32] Speaker D: It fits in my pocket, literally. [02:30:33] Speaker A: Oh, that's awesome. [02:30:35] Speaker D: And so sharp. It's. It's crazy. Like, it actually appeals to the nerd in me. Like, you pull the cameras off. You shoot at F8. You pull. You pull the photos in your. Holy moly. That's a. Wow. Sharp too. [02:30:47] Speaker A: So is it just for your fun? Just a fun camera to have just your own pleasure, carry around? [02:30:52] Speaker D: Yeah. Take street photos and it's sort of like this. Just an alternative to a fan, to a. To a phone fan. What am I talking about? An alternative to using, yeah, an alternative to using a phone. So it's a sort of, I kind of treat it the same way, to be truthful. Like, snap, focus, just automatic. I love it. [02:31:13] Speaker A: That's really cool. It's cool to hear someone that's so focused on the business side of things still, like, grabs a camera for fun and romps around and takes street photos. [02:31:22] Speaker D: Yeah, Yeah. I, I kind of, I kind of like, I, I, I, I still enjoy photography. I know. I, I don't. I, My fear is. [02:31:31] Speaker B: I don't want. [02:31:31] Speaker D: To become super jaded like, like I did with music. You know what I mean? Like, because music, when I played music for a living, because I just went and played the same 60 songs every night, I just, I, I don't even play anymore. I get too many gigs. Played too much of the same over and over again. You know what I mean? Had too many students back in my early 20s, you know what I mean? So I didn't, I didn't want to become like that. Yeah. Anyway, I better roll. [02:31:54] Speaker A: Awesome. All right. Yeah, you better go. [02:31:56] Speaker C: Thank you. [02:31:56] Speaker A: We might, we might stay on and hang out for a second. So. [02:31:59] Speaker D: Actually, I've actually got an appointment with my advertising agencies. Speaking of which, I use advertising agencies these days, so. [02:32:05] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Interesting. [02:32:07] Speaker D: I pay them three grand a month to do man ads because I hate doing them myself. [02:32:11] Speaker A: Really? We're gonna have to get you on for a part two to find out what. [02:32:13] Speaker D: That's, yeah, that's fine. I'll tell you. I'll do it again if you want. I don't care. But that's a big discussion as well. I used to do them all myself. I ran out of time. But, yeah, this advertise, I, I pay for the ads of it, obviously, and, but they just create all the content for me. Yeah, that's cool. [02:32:30] Speaker C: It's a good way. [02:32:32] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:32:32] Speaker B: All right, well, look, I think on. [02:32:34] Speaker D: That note, on YouTube. [02:32:39] Speaker B: Yes. [02:32:39] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll drop all of. [02:32:41] Speaker B: Your links in the, in the comments. But look, just on behalf of us here, thank you so much for your time. There's been a lot of comments about how great this information is because, you know, often we don't hear the, the hard work side of photography. We see the, we see the glamour in the images, but we don't always get to see what happens behind the scenes. And I think that's where your point of differentiation is as a creative, is that you do show behind the scenes. You do show the befores and the afters. [02:33:06] Speaker D: I Think and I think that's really. [02:33:07] Speaker B: Empowering for clients to make the best decision about what they purchase. So yeah, well done. [02:33:12] Speaker D: But I just think, I just think it's like any business just work, you know, I don't give a. Whatever. It's just like, it's just work, you know, like these idiots who are selling like just become a whatever photographer and fly around the world. That's as Jim would, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, life doesn't work that way, you know what I mean? Everything's, everything's, everything's trade offs, you know what I mean? So, yeah, yeah, I really better go otherwise. [02:33:36] Speaker C: Thanks Richard. [02:33:37] Speaker D: I'm actually scared of my advertising agency so I better get on. [02:33:42] Speaker A: Thank you guys. [02:33:44] Speaker C: Thanks Richard. Cheers. [02:33:46] Speaker A: Oops. That was fun. That was great fun. [02:33:51] Speaker D: That was very cool. [02:33:53] Speaker B: Yeah, certainly a lot to think about in terms of even for me like just hearing about valuing your art, valuing your creativity. Often I don't do that when I. And I don't charge a lot of clients. I don't, you know, I don't do that sort of work very often. But even for me hearing it, it's like. Well actually, yeah, I've got skills. I've taught myself over the years. I've spent 15 years doing this. Of course I should be compensated for that knowledge and skill set. Yeah, that's really interesting. [02:34:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:34:19] Speaker C: So what you're saying is you're going to put your price up for everything. Blogs and. Yeah. [02:34:27] Speaker A: Look, I've been thinking about Richard's advice. I don't know if it's all that, you know, I don't know. I think everyone should lower their prices. [02:34:37] Speaker C: We should all make less money. [02:34:38] Speaker A: We should all make less money. Jim, you got things on your list of things to do. You got stuff to think about. What do you come away from that with? [02:34:47] Speaker C: I got a whole page of stuff he does and that was just like notes that I was able to scribble. Yeah, right. I've got to, I've got to change, which I like I knew I, I knew coming in. I kind of been saying this to you for a long time. Like it's, it's not working currently and I don't know what I needed to. Didn't really know that I guess the direction that I needed to go. So I think I've got some direction to go now. [02:35:12] Speaker B: Oh, that's great. [02:35:14] Speaker C: And yeah, I got some ideas of what we can do. [02:35:18] Speaker A: That's very cool, very helpful. So you'll change your prices. [02:35:24] Speaker C: Yeah. So new price list. I actually want to get a new like. I actually really like that. That album shape. I think it worked well when it was open. [02:35:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:35:34] Speaker C: Because I've been running like a. A 10 by 10 album which has been awesome. [02:35:38] Speaker A: But. Well that means if you do a full page spread, it's a one to two aspect ratio. So it's going to be narrower than your native. So if you can find one that's close to the native camera ratio 3 to 2 when it's open, that just makes it so much easier to have just a one page spread. Is your regular frame. Yeah. Square. [02:36:02] Speaker C: This is what I'm currently running. But when it's. It's very like it's very long and skinny. Which works for photos like this. [02:36:15] Speaker A: Yeah. But not. [02:36:17] Speaker C: Doesn't always work. So then like I end up running say like stuff like that. [02:36:25] Speaker A: Yeah. So four shots on one page and it's like. Is that. Yeah. Is that too much of one person on one page? Kind of thing Kind of works in wedding albums because it's usually like a mixture of people and a bit of a scene, a bit of a story of that part of the day. But when it's just one person you're like, I don't know. Is this just sort of repeating the same thing? Whereas. [02:36:45] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:36:47] Speaker A: Keep it cleaner, simple. One, one page or maybe a one spread or maybe two images one on each side. That seemed like a. Yeah. Clever way to do it. [02:36:57] Speaker C: I liked it. [02:36:57] Speaker D: Yeah. [02:36:59] Speaker A: Okay. [02:36:59] Speaker B: Indeed. [02:37:00] Speaker A: I'm excited for you. [02:37:02] Speaker C: Yeah. Are you going to make the same thing work but for dogs? [02:37:08] Speaker A: Well, it's just what. What I did. I like the idea of. I didn't realize is doing. I think that one of the holdups for me has been doing the sales part of it. I'm like what do I get people to come back? I've got nowhere to do that. [02:37:22] Speaker D: Blah blah, blah. [02:37:23] Speaker A: And I've still got to figure out the way to do it. So thing. But I think do it in the studio. You could. [02:37:28] Speaker C: You could project onto the white backdrop. [02:37:31] Speaker A: Like where you shoot the dogs potentially. Yeah. Or something like that. That's what I'm thinking. I need to figure out something like that where they do it within 20 minutes of the session. [02:37:43] Speaker C: I'll have a quick call come back. [02:37:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I. I think that's. That's the way to do it. So do it really quickly unedited. But have that before and after of the edits I think is a great idea. Like essentially get an album made of the before of the edits and and then. Yeah, do it that way. Yeah, yeah. I think that's a really. A clever idea that he said he stumbled onto, but I think it's brilliant. It's actually really brilliant. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very, very clever. All right, should we wrap it up? [02:38:20] Speaker B: I think we should wrap it up. Lots to think about today, folks. [02:38:24] Speaker A: If. [02:38:24] Speaker B: If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Camera Live podcast, give it a, like, give it a thumbs up, because in that way it lets YouTube know that more people should see it. Think about subscribing. And if you do subscribe, hit the bell icon, because then you'll get a notification for every live episode that we do in your particular time zone. But yes, lots to think about from today's. From today's episode. And I think, you know, I might go back and watch some of this a little bit later just to cement some of the things that Richard shared with us. And I really value his time. [02:38:55] Speaker D: It was great. Really great. [02:38:56] Speaker C: Yeah, it was nice seeing some business inside. [02:39:00] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. [02:39:00] Speaker B: Because often we don't get to that. We kind of. It gets glossed over, you know, But I think, you know, amazing that Richard was so sharing with his information and his processes and. And obviously it works. You know, he's reached a point where he can say, this is what works, which I think. [02:39:15] Speaker D: Right. [02:39:16] Speaker B: Well, look, on that note, thank you to everyone in the chat for watching. Great to see you. See you back in the studio, Jim. And. And obviously you're okay too, Justin. [02:39:25] Speaker A: Thanks. Appreciate it. Hopefully power comes back on soon and. Yeah, well, not the road side. [02:39:32] Speaker B: So I don't know what's going on. That's what that huge news was before, but. Yeah, but don't forget, guys, today's episode of the Camera Live podcast was proudly brought to you by Lucky Straps. We are Lucky Straps. See, we have Lucky Straps T shirts. We make handcrafted leather camera straps right here in Australia, in Bendigo, in fact, with. With an optimized comfort, safety and security in every single Lucky Straps camera strap. And most importantly, it helps you connect with your craft. So head to Luckystraps.com and use code Greg. The others don't work. Just use code Greg. Greg. [02:40:05] Speaker A: That's it, Greg. [02:40:08] Speaker D: Cool. [02:40:09] Speaker A: All right, I'm going to roll the thing and we're going to say goodbye to the chat. Mia Muse says, don't sweat pricing. Simply know your worth. Understand how much everything costs. You then multiply by three or five or four. I guess then you adjust based on how much business you're getting. Philip Johnson says Thanks, gents. Special thanks to Richard. Good show. Where are we? LTK says this has been great advice. Business side, you don't hear a lot about. Hopefully I can turn it into a business at some point. I bet you can. [02:40:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:40:38] Speaker A: Robert Varner says, great show. Julie Powell, thanks so much. And Mia Muse says, let him go. We did. Finally. We kind of. But, you know, that's what happens when you're an interesting person. [02:40:50] Speaker C: Yeah. How much info? [02:40:51] Speaker D: Cool. [02:40:52] Speaker A: All right, you guys have a good day, and we'll catch you on Monday night. [02:40:56] Speaker C: Mmhmm. [02:40:56] Speaker B: See you, everybody. [02:40:57] Speaker C: See you guys. [02:40:58] Speaker A: Bye. [02:40:59] Speaker C: Bye. [02:40:59] Speaker B: Bye.