Lessons

Lesson Info

Developing a Bid

A bid on a contract are very much the same thing in the information that you're gonna have in it. The bid is basically what you can provide from all the research that you've done, all the communications you made, all the all the information that you've been able to collect now you're going to make a bid knowing this information and given them the best possible products and solutions that you can offer to solve their needs that's kind of the bid process and we're going to go through it for a contract is after you have that presentation again, the bid process presentation and you go over all the details that you can offer a contract is the actual products that you're going to provide, but pretty much in the contract everything that's in that contract will be in this bid. Not everything in the bid will be in the contract, but a bit is just a very skilled tonight's version. I mean, a contract is a skeleton on version of a bit, so don't get freaked out. Everyone on how suggests if you're go...

ing to do a contract, every state is different in united states, every country is different. Please, please please check with a lawyer. You don't have to spend a lot of money there's also some if you check there some lawyers that actually do pro bono work for artists and they will fall upon this and they will actually review your contract for free you can actually check around a lot of your cities I know in houston we have we have lawyers that do this for us and that's how our brain mind through along with several others so don't think you have to spend a lot of money to do this so there's usually ways but either way I would have suggest checking with a lawyer when you have a contract because it isn't binding agent doesn't keep you from being sued no in america anybody could be sued for anything people over the work overseas check your own company your own country's laws but it does help so how did develop a portrait bid again? Introduce yourself in your business include what's in the paperwork so include what's in this package what's in the bid highlights bullet points we're going to show you some of these bullet points what's your mission stays in that statement your primary goal in our sample bid you'll see we have an outline of missouri county which is a county were from in southeast texas and I say keep business local right on top of that little design and has some of the major cities in it I always throw keep business local that is, that is my main mission statement was keeping business local and bring it home. So we introduced ourselves our business, our name for us, its coastline portrait and it's not mike fulton. Cody clinton, susie roberts, amy forward. Whatever. It's. Not that it's it's goes on. Porches were a group there's no, into that individuality. So for us, it is coast on portrait. Our business that they want to know my name. Obviously, we get that on all the paperwork. Your mission statement. Explain the product she will provide to the school daycare sports league volume of it. There are thanh products out there and I meet a time. This is one of them. You can focus in on that mr vanna white there. Any time that weaken, showing products off, we bring our fanciest, most eye catching products. Some of things that we always try to show, especially when we show up to something new. People really like these t shirts that got lots of cool graphics on get your kid's picture right on it. Anything that that you get that kind of has that wow factor. Bring it. We have a tupperware container that we bring along with us. We have sent different plaques and things that are really shiny people like shiny stuff, shiny, the better anything that any product that you see this knew that that you're gonna offer that has kind of laughing that when you gotta you go hey that's cool throw that any little tupperware thing bring along with you to the meeting so that people can feel it, hold it, see that the tangible items, you know, because you just have a list of items that you offer it's not the same as actually having one there that they can feel in touch with e and you're really giving that wild factor, and that better came along because in our schools, our seniors don't have any banners of themselves, so we really wanted to instill pride in our seniors, and so that kind of it was developed from it. We have ah, as he was saying in every one of our sports, when we do sports, if we do american football and we have baseball and soccer samples, those never sell as good as the actual samples that have a football player on american football. So if you do baseball, all your products need to be a baseball. I don't understand it, but that's the way it's worked with us over and over again. So instead of me and my mind when we first started, I'll just have a collection of the fifty products of thirty products or tim products that have her add on and I'll do it from all my sports, so I can have the same display for everything that was what I was thinking, and I did it, but it didn't work that well, we had to have those ten products twenty, thirty products just in baseball, just in american football. Justin soccer, justin dance just in softball. So now we have tupperware containers of all these products of every sport, and those constantly get updated. It sounds ridiculous. It sounds like overkill, but people are are just that that they need. You don't want to leave imagination up to them just once show here this would looks like with a football player on it. You can't show to him with your dance girl ballerina outfit because they're just going to go all out, and I don't want that at all it's amazing how much psychologically have affects him if it's not the right sport that there purchasing images for you goto breakfast place and you want blueberry pancakes and you see blueberry pancakes, you're gonna get blueberry pancakes. I mean that's just the way they look great, they want to see that, and so we don't tests, and our sales have dropped off drastically when we didn't have that sport display and the products they've yet order were the ones that were displayed in that sport. It's just plain and simple so it's it's frustrating because it's a lot of extra storage, a lot of extra money, you don't have to do it right away, but know that that's a better sales presentation when you go in and either show your products off or you put him in the proposal bid and you have visuals because I have put visuals in my proposal bid I literally cutting pace and put those in there of that sports they physically can see it on that piece of paper, and if we're doing a presentation, I could say in here is the actual plaque this is what it's gonna look like and I will have one in my hand of that sport that we're talking about or the school or whatever it is. I have two questions first question about the banners you said, you go on the school and see if they have them. Do you give those to the schools of the seniors? We do different things, it really depends way have our whole goal again in many ways is to build our business, not just are willing, but our business that's a lot of times, if the it disappeared, we don't give, we have to make money there's, no question, we have to make money. Um if the booster club maybe will step up and they can purchase on lots of times in which we're going to do with the local high school this year, the booster club is sometimes a booster club won't. And so because there's work and design and everything in there and so what we do is we set a flat fee for them, and if they come to like that, that girl who was a senior, these air, all seniors, if they actually come to a try coast senior session lox and give that money is credit back in their account when they come to us for the high end session so they would end up getting the banner for free in a sense. But we have to make our money one way or the other, because it is a lot of work. And so there's multiple ways that we do that my bestest for the booster club booster club really wants the kids show off well, right over, and we'll have a big, big banners in there now, if they win state champion or do something like that, yeah, we'll put a band together and hang it up for him it's a gift. As a donation kind on behalf of us to support the community or something, or we'll sell to the booster club, inexpensive price and the booster club and donated on behalf of the booster club, and we'll have our logo or something on it and be a big banner hanging in the in the gm or something of that nature. So certain circumstances obviously it will work. But it's definitely something you can use to barter. Maybe it's a tool used to get into the school. I mean, maybe you can afford to give the cash kickbacks, but, hey, I can provide these banners for your all the senior sports players or something like that something that's not going to be a huge monetary. You're going to be out a lot of money, but you can. You can provide the product would be a little bit of a little work on your end, but that's something you can always use to barter and we use miller's makes great banners. Dean's manufactory makes great manners have a novel decide I loved in these and they said father was cut off timberland or several other companies out there that make him, but I would look at the denny's and miller's those those were really good, but there's lots of companies out there and actually vinyl, we're doing one for another local high school, which we've never photographed this will be new this year, their dance team very much like what I showed you the very beginning of the program that why damage it had a bunch of little the dancing girls on it, we're going to be something like that for them they're not as big of a school I don't have many girls but will be very similar and we chose to put a banner in their drink there dance with me because it's a very high ceiling and very similar this room here and that vinyl is one cheaper than a print, a large print is large print you're going have to mount if you live anywhere the humidity like most of us here on this coast or community down there, we all we never seem to get below seventy, eighty percent that that board that print will separate from the backboard over the years, displaying hanging or vinyl banner and you just put just like we showed you put a loop in the top, you put a pole through you, hang it and it will hang for years and be fine. You don't have to worry about any moisture ruin and if it does get wet it's fine if the roof leaks it's it's pretty much permanent it's there for many years and it's probably one tenth of the cost and so I really child on them when they're displaying go with vinyl over large print even if they had large prints which most of most the time when you go into the schools there just now rolling over the vinyl because it's gotten over the last five years or so so much more photo print on you can put almost anything these days and so in the old days they didn't have that advantage, so most of the schools will have photographic prints up and so it's very hard what has always been done will always will be done it's very hard to break them away so you're going to probably maybe have tohave a giant print one out take the chance waste you know, one hundred dollars, sixty hundred fifty two hundred dollars and have that banner when you go in and show and when they see it they're going to be oh oh my god that's it now you're not being pushy car self when you're educating them they want you to do this there's a difference and that's kind of with the product. So when we have our product table line laid out on sports day on whatever we have all the little adam especially their sports we have a product and ten by twenty product ten or even mohr and we have a table we have tablecloths and we have all our products laid out and you'll get some examples of this when you purchase, but has all our products laid out and has, like, a key chain, and it has a little right below the right above it is the price, you know has a little price tag. This is, you know, small key changes, this large changes, this key fob is this, and we literally have examples right beside it. So even if we hire someone to do sales, they don't have to know anything about a products these have to be smiling pretty and can talk, because even if they don't know that yet that's the key fob it's right here because everything is laid out for them, and it makes it very simple. And so, even if we do a pre sale like, far sports laker presale, they come with the wonderful marty filled out, and then they see all these products that this cody said they touch and feel and see them they see I mean, I know that family it's gonna blanket oh, god, I gotta have I see this big giant band that we have oh, my god, I gotta have one and then they add to their to their selves, because, again, they've already usually we pass him out two weeks before the order forms they've already filled it out and put in the twenty five dollars, check for twenty five dollars cash a forty dollars cash that was in the previous page scale, so now they're in another one and they can go you know what? I could get another twenty dollars, so now you're up selling because it's emotional they see it, they see all those products they have tohave if you still have questions, if you purchase this and you still questions, you get the resource guide feel free to email us arsonist a message on our facebook page we also have ah, not trying to push it. We also have ah trackers and ball him guide one hundred twenty five pages that most of this information comes from the little going push it, push it, push it. But all this comes from three years of hard work and collecting all these products and in all this information because it's it's this was probably preach about the hardest the hardest the hardest program put together because there's so many variables it was very difficult to kind of narrow this down, and when it comes to products we could never show you all the products. I mean, they're literally endless we use miller's there's some amazing labs up there also that have so many products and and you need to look at those and those labs for the most part will do all the products for you use one lab you can do it now we use multiple labs are multiple businesses to fulfill our adults because I like him and we found that they sail and just when we think we're going to pull him back we keep statistics of all the ones sail the popular ones because lots of times what we do and we're going to talk about it in the bid is we'll give fundraising capabilities back to the sports leagues or something so if we know our member made so the circle magnet so the bag tags or one of our products are really really popular in that sport like baseball little kids have have a bag with their battened, their glove and the batting helmet in it bag tags are really popular in that sport because they hang him off the backpack it's kind like a luggage tag well then what we can do is well actually a fundraiser for the league saying, well, if they cost us whatever it cost we'll say well, you'll cover basically if they charged twelve dollars and they cost us five out of every twelve dollars will take five to pay for that but all the profit goes back to you goes back to the league and so then you leave it upon the league toe actually advertise that so now the league is actually marketing for you for them to buy animal products and at least buy that product because that's going to go back to that league or you can raise up your pact is that we talked about earlier or just any other little thing. One of the other big things we have is cover all the timber line. They have custom made pop up tents. We actually get the entire tent printed with a customised design. It's not it's, not it's, a shade tent, not a waterproof tent, but if you look at a customized one, they cost around seventeen hundred dollars from anyone. Ella cheapened, but you can get him. If you get a wholesale price, you can get him in a less money you can go to the league and say, ok, I'll design one of these for free it's going to cost, but it's going to cost five hundred dollars, which is my costs or whatever you're called steers on that product, you can raffle it off for twenty dollars a ticket to the league of twenty five fifty whatever you want to do to make money back, the winner will get one of these and then you designed the raffle tickets. So your raffle tickets has your website on it has your marking on it and has all the information about that product. And there's going to be three or four people that I really, really want. One of these one on parts is gonna win it. The other ones are going to come to you by in front. So not only you helping out the league, but you helping out your business as well. And so we do a lot of these fundraisers with our products as well on photo day and then settlement beforehand and put him in our bed ten off tended a little bit, but it brought it up when it comes to that. Good. All right, so explain which products will provide the school and again the day kids sports league of oil, there's lots and lots of volume. I mean, lots of lots of products. Probably some of our popular. Once the t shirts were really cool. I don't know if we sell too many of them, but there's definitely a cool factor. And when the one or two parents get it, they all seem to want it. The's, cuzzi, this is my niece, actually. And she was in the state tournament this year for tennis in the private schools. Yeah, right. And that was the sheriff over there. Is her as well, too, and so I made those shirts. As we will because we photographed tennis team made the shirts as we normally would, and it was really cool, crisp on mother. She'll wear anything with her grandbabies on it. So she's, the perfect billboard for my for my business. But my mother is not any different than any other mother out their grandmother. So I used kind of her as as my go to person. So you gotta smile and coming in, and then we put a serious thought on the back. So she's taken care of business coming, leaving school colors it's kind of cheesy. But you know what? Parents love that stuff. And so you have to get past oh, my god. That's so, so horrible looking. No, I never want that. You know what a ton of people want that stuff, tom. People love that stuff, like satisfy my grandma, my mother, their grandmother. When I said she could get a blanket with their two grand babies, one on each side, she almost passed out. She was so excited. So you're like, okay, we need to add blankets to the add on I mean, so find someone in your community that they would do that, you know that, and and see how the other independent, they're not a photographer there, just a regular customer that would be your climb if you had that stuff up you hold it up they don't like it my sister is the one he was kind of funny my sister and actually my ex wife helpless sell soap products for us my sister was like do you have any like beer cozies or drink because we got a lot of rednecks down here and they want a drink beer and they want to have something to keep it cool and I'm like never even thought about looking for uzis I mean it never crossed my mind she goes with tons of people were loving all the stuff that they want this so when I sat down and I started looking online who the heck can I get these from and then we add on to our system you probably got covered this later but talking about all these different products brings up another fear of ordering you know, different labs I mean when you deal with thousands of parents orders how do you do that? It's a great question and we're really going to get into a really clear day on deep tomorrow are the software we use this photo velocity fo teo velocity and it keeps all the ordering for you actually order directly in that system and anything about it it connects directly to your lab so when you put export from photo velocity he goes directly into the lab if the lab like miller's has their own in house software also I would do with open that up and all my information's there the names, the data that package information's all that's up and then you just hits into the lab and then the lab like miller's will actually print all the images sort of forming their own individual package and ship it back to you. So it's it's not a scary as you think, and we're going to go over tomorrow. We're gonna go over all that we're going probably talk a little bit about the application here and show you kind of what we do, but tomorrow we're gonna go over literally every single I mean, literally from collecting data, we have a little e a whole segment just on how important the datas and collected because if you mess up there it's over so all that will be answered tomorrow, but it's not as hard as you think. The main thing with ordering is on our packages in the early you saw earlier would have a, b, c and d and we named on simple alphabetical number go through all your packages name on that and then you keep the same identical packages on the lab side, so if my package a that I offered was one eight by ten to five by sevens and eight wallets that's what? My package they would be on the lab side as well. So then when you uploaded everything mitt matches up and you're good it's that easy all right, so some items you may want include how many stations will you use? This is a scary one, especially if you're a small business but it's really nothing to really be fearful about as long as you like we said we hired hired our friends so to say and then it's just multiple stations and tomorrow we're going to go over how in meter how we get all the stations the same if you only have one station of lights yes, you can light meter, but as long as it looks good to you, you don't need a light meter. I know that sounds horrible and I know the volume photographers out there probably rolling over in their computer right now when I say that, but if I'm not going into a yearbook if I'm not going into a final product that's going to multiple photos were going to be seen side by side and it's just gonna be for proves I'm just offering these just a photograph and offer to the parents that's the artistic aspect of it you can make those photos look any way you want if it's just one station now if it's two stations you need to make him both with the same yeah that's where the meeting comes in you want to light meter every single thing multiple times throughout the day and we're gonna talk about that if you don't understand. So how many stations do you have generally what we try to do well, we try to have to it all the time because we have the manpower not gonna lie to makes it easier twice as fast, twice as easy it just speeds up the process and worst case scenario somebody gets to take a break a while while the other one shoot or if something breaks we have been sent back up so we can weaken skeleton as one set to finish up the other set to get through the day. So we like to stay for our sports leagues most of our leagues around our area around fifty teams for when they call it tea and I which is team and individual. So you hear a lot of tigris a beauty and I prints thine eye photos. We do two stations of individual and one station of group. So I have technically three stations in each station well actually have individual station will actually have to people we have a photographer and opposing person they will usually swim rotate throughout the day, but it's amazing, especially when you're dealing with these little guys and little girls and softball, baseball, soccer, whatever don't forget to treat them like a human so many times as adults, we kind of look at children is all they don't know they're talking about they're they're just he's just five he's not gonna listen, he's, just six you'd be amazed we lined them up and we explain to them exactly what we're fixing to do. We're going to take you on one of your going to go this station when you get this station, we're gonna do this, we're gonna photograph you, then you're going to go over to this holding spot till your whole team's here and then we're going to bring you out. I'm gonna take a team photo only make up big deal of it to get all excited and the kid's like, yeah, they're excited that way go off and not only does it kids understand that gets them excited, the ones that are a little scared, they're excited, they're okay with it now, so you are not crying, they don't get upset, and then the parents truly appreciate it and that's part of the customer service that's part of giving a better product than the other people will. Yeah, sure, we could just line them up and take photos and their crime, who cares move through it's gonna happen, and then the other thing is just like in the schools if you have any certain if you have any mentally handicapped life skills, however there's multiple politically correct terms in your area for them if you have any children that need extra time being that they're handicapped beat that they're mentally whatever find out all that information beforehand, talk to the teachers that actually do those teachers classes and say win would be the best time this is my schedule here for the other children when will be the best time for you guys to come down if it's over lunch break so there's four of us two of us so eat two of us will help photograph and then we'll switch. We want to give these children more time to be photographed because they're going to need it. And most of time, these children and unfortunately are thrown to the curb because people don't want to deal with and just rushing through and it's gonna be a lot better if you're proactive about that and asking about that rather than the day of the portrait, they show up in the middle of your business time and say, okay, now you got a photograph, these kids and it puts more burden on everybody because then you don't know and then then then you're russian and they're russian and they get freaked out I mean, especially with autistic children, you're gonna need more time and that's a vital vital part and I promise you you please those teachers and please those parents your job is secure is very secure because most of time those teachers just get shafted every step of the way and so those children so don't forget about that same thing with baseball we have the same thing is called purple penguins love photographing but it's a challenge and the parents no it's a challenge but if you're working with them and you continue to work and you continue to try to get that photograph it's appreciative so so don't forget about that in your bid and in your contracts put that stuff in there and in your meetings put all that kind of stuff in there so offer this these things separate you from the other companies so make sure you take care of the special needs kids and they'll take care of you question her I sure do appreciate the things that you were just talking about like because it's very near and dear to my heart the question that I wanted to raise is that going through all of these activities with the children there are some families that probably will not be able to afford a lot of these products how would you tackle that off what would be the procedure in talking to maybe administrators to see about the children or the children's family who can't afford these types of products? It's a great question we always bring up to the administration to this, to the principal, to the school board, to the president supports lee or whoever's in charge of photos always bring up this subject and we tell them if they're truly hardships truly children that have hardships that come from you, you let me know they will get a free photo package. I want to make sure we take care of you because I know some kids, they just can't now there's a lot of people out there that you know, they have a nice car, are they? They got a nice house or they're overextended and their own free lunches. Now I'm not trying to be rude, that that to me is maybe not necessarily hardship that is that's bad economics on their part, but if these people, whoever is in charge, come to us with true hardships because they're going to know the children better yeah, the administration's people they're going they'll know who's who falls in that category and they'll be honest with you and we will give him a free package whatsoever, absolutely, and that goes for sports that goes for anything we do that's an ongoing open statement with our company, and we remind any time we have right now the dance studio that I mean the dance school that I talked about that we haven't done before that was a very huge point, and I was getting that part of the contract is that we said, if there's true hardship, but now I can't a parent can come to me and say, well, I can't afford a twelve dollar package, then you don't get it, but now the school comes to me and says, this person really can't afford this total package, then they're going to get one and that's kind of a soap box of mine, too. I see a lot of people that may have multiple kids, and they'll say, well, you know what, twelve dollars is too much for your lowest package, and in my mind how many kids have not been to mcdonald's state launcher, have not been to a movie or ordered a pizza? Because those are items that cost more than that twelve dollars, and there's, not many people in my queen under there are communities that people have never experienced those things there's, not many people in our community that have not experienced any that, and sometimes if you could just talk to them and say, hey, maybe prioritize things a little differently because this photograph, if you purchase suspect, is just going to last you a lifetime, whereas that happy meal it's gone and that movie is gone and sometimes it's, just people, people can most of times I say people can afford what they want to afford and you see this whole time you see somebody that their values a really nice car they're really nice car maybe their house sitting so nice they want a really big house well, it they don't have much furniture books they spent all the money in the house but typically you want something bad enough you'll find a way to make it happen and that's what we go with administration because the old saying is what's the difference between a large pizza and a photographer usually the pizza will feed that family for were being a photographer world, it ain't easy making a living, being a photographer it's tough and so it's tough all the way around and even though it's tough for us if there is a family truly needs it we're gonna give it to him we're gonna give them but it's like you said it's gotta come from right areas or it's just you're going to be giving away you can't allow your it's difficult situation because we've had people come to us and we want to help but we have to set down rules and if we want to help we will investigate will go through the school board will go through the sports league and ask is this true? Where is this really what's happened? This is what we're getting on dh then we let them make that decision and then we have to stick by because if you start open yourself up for other ones than it's it's kind of a it's a pandora's box is just kind of a negative failure but that's a touchy subject and everyone's gonna have to handle it different that's just how we handle it. All right? So how many stations you will or can use image on a cd, dvd or thumb drive for administration as well as your book use kind of just talk about it and we'll have some photos later but here's some yearbooks so this is our last year but for one of our high schools remain high school and these are the photographs that we took these air year both these air our seniors nice in the schools in the trust house it's very traditional but these photos or what they call they flow into the yearbook and there the yearbook format a yearbook format just like if you have a j peg or a gift or appear steve, you look at it and you go that's a peace deal that's a photoshopped file you know that that's the ending for photo shot well, these are p s p a format so dot ps ps is the ending of this and years ago what happened? You had tons and tons of yearbook companies and they say, well, we need files for and they were just all over the place somewhere j picks and give that no one knew what actually do so finally photographers came together and said in the yearbook people and so we need to make a format for our software so no matter who makes software the psb format will flow into it and so basically you have and labs will do this for you miller's does it h and h multiple other ones do it but you pay for it our software photo velocity does it so there's multiple ways you could do it but it's just a simple format it's a file format with a text file so when you get this give them that yearbook cd all they have to do is take this two documents and everything flows in there so the name is associated with the photo because again you remember these kids are kids that's what is making these yearbook? She gonna make it simple and that's what this format does administration cd is really just depends on your school. We dues for sports leagues. We do this a lot for multiple leaks, dance studios, whatever. We actually give them small images of every child and they'll be named either by that child's name or by a certain idea number like in the school system most the time the kid when he hits kindergarden he or she will be assigned an idea number that will stay with it until the time they graduate there in the public school system so we can name it by that idea number. We could name it by their last name, first name, and so all these are important things that have now don't you freaked out like I said, the software does for your lab will do it. You just need to be aware if these are things that need to be in the bid that need to be in the contract, if this is services that you need to provide to get a job. So in that initial concept, when you're talking that presentation, these are the kind of things that need to ask devi needed yearbook city? Do you need a administration cd? And even in the sports league, it's a technically an administration, asked that they would like a small thumbnail of every kid, ask if they'd like a small thumb. Now, for every you know, you could even get little stickers if you want a lot of laughs, like a little head, little little stickers of each kid, and I know some of our schools, our elementary schools love those because they'll put him on the fuller, so if someone comes up and has so called permission to pick up little johnny well they could go back to the folder and they can see that this is johnny actually because I have a photo because these people administration in the office of schools they don't know all these kids we'll have a little stickers off so it's a safety feature you could make a little safety car just lots of little things that you can do as bonus items as well so all those need to be in it and again school logo's again make it personal get the school's logos and put him on their proof sheets put him on the order forms put him on every document you're going to give to that school and so this bid make sure you have their logos if you don't have the locals make sure you contact whoever needs to be contacted to get that logo to get that information from them you'd be amazed you're gonna line you can't find a good winning you and you'll spend your find a really small image and you try to do it and all this other stuff and you don't even know if you have permission to use it which could be illegal in all this just ask that probing questions pick up the phone call him or go by there and say hey I need your logo and those so great yeah you can use it or like your graduation palm or the little folder that has a school logo on it I said, man, we're shooting all these kids it would be nice if we had that well, no, I've got five or six years back let me get him for you no, just keep him don't worry about it it's amazing what you get by simply asking id cards and kids safety cards I kind of just mentioned it I d cards or the big one if you do schools, kidssafety cards can be a big one if you're if they're the younger kids and a lot of your labs will do these for you so it again don't freak out on him, but it is something that you need to be aware if you need to make with photo velocity again tomorrow we'll show you we actually can make all this in there there's actually a template builders so you can actually design all these items and make it personal again. But the id cards the big thing on id cards if you're going to do schools, you need to find out if those I d cards need to be made instantly meaning is on site when you take the photograph or if you can actually wait a week and get him back to you can wait a week two weeks to get back to him, you can process it normal and you can send it off to your lab most labs make id cards as well they'll make him they'll separate on sort of similar bacteria and you can take him to the school so anybody can do that your labs are here to help you if you needed instantly our software does it it's a new things are softwares that do it um it's a little more complicated little more pressure on it changes your workflow son but you could do that as well it is harder but it is something you need to know it's not it's not impossible it's very doable so don't freak out about it but it's something you need to know and then I don't even have it on here but green screen is another big one again I'm in generally we try to stay away from green screen except for maybe on martial arts martial arts down that area is all green screen they want the the ying and yang backgrounds they want the fire backgrounds they want the dragon backgrounds they went all these all these so fake backgrounds but that just seems to be the john that they want if we didn't do green screen, we don't do martial arts, plain and simple in our community but everything else is not green screen they want a little bit better quality photograph so where you don't see the cutouts and the software is getting really good now with green screen so so that is that separation is getting smaller and smaller multiple background colors have needed that's that's, right all alone with the green screen. I showed that order form real quick a while ago that had multiple colors on it. You can choose to either jail if you use a great if you're going to jail, use a general gray backdrop or you can do green screen, it really just depends on how you want to do that. And again, these are all things that you don't need to worry about right now until your school you're going after requires that that's when you really need to worry about since you're beginning there's so many things you're trying to learn. My suggestion is to know about all these research, um, understand, um, and then when you go into your presentation and your attack mode and you find out the things they need, then you come back that's when you could re collect your data, re investigate, and then you'll know how to do these things. That makes sense, though don't overwhelm yourself at first the poses you will offer this is a big one, this is one that I kind of overlooked again. A lot of the national companies offer one, two, three, four poses, even for underclass kids, and it really kind of degrades the yearbook some now you'll probably get better sales because the parents have more choices in that sense, but the yearbook when you put them together, you got one that's like this one it's like this one pose one head shot. Generally, the teachers don't like that at least the yearbook teacher, because they also kind of get graded on the yearbook. They just like band has competitions, they have yearbook competitions as well, and so one of the big problems that they've had is that they don't look uniforms, the head sizes don't all of the same, and when you have different poses and different colors that candy grade so there's multiple ways you can handle that as well, we use it to our advantage and use all the underclassmen is one color and all the upper seniors is another color. We also everywhere of your audience of the day, so safe for photographing at a day care some small kids, you don't want a pose that's too difficult or too complex because you're moving these kids in another and it's going to slow you down a whole lot of you got a real complex pose. You gotta teach all these little kids some foot placement or something and it's more difficult, so I'll use you think the simple of the polls, the better keep it pretty simple you got people moving in fairly quickly. And you don't have a lot of time to show him exactly what to do or oppose momentum and the more complex we make it them or posed it looks by the time you get him to turn their head and do weird stuff and then smile and this is the little ones try to stay away from schools just how the little ones come in and stand and if you even can make like a little vinyl mat that has feet on it really full broke out of florida has a great map that we use that we got from her but it basically has like pink feet has blue feet has yellow feet so you can literally and it says one two and three and you can say step on it, step on the yellow number ones and they step there and they look as you step on the level the blue number two they set there and this so you're actually posing them for the number's actually posed for you and you can just click through it because we were in a direction is a big thing to that little we photographed college graduation I'm had two pieces of tape on the ground get the backdrop here college graduate and I'm standing here and I'm ten okay and you go put your feet on the tape and they'll go censoring the whole islam back there going seriously, you're graduating your walking off the stage and you feel good about yourself when you're doing that so keep it a simple spots with the feet thing is a great tip and the color is a good too. So yeah, what was the name of that company? Was britney full graphs she's out of tampa, florida she's, another she's a good friend? Are she does we doom or the classical? I guess traditional portraiture in our schools because this required where she does is more of a lifestyle type ah more natural light, different style, but but it's it's a really good her and ralph or like our two main mentors in our business in many ways and then calling indarti heinze does a hybrid volume in pennsylvania that I would look into if you want something, if you have a place to shoot that's kind of our quick take philosophy we have in our studios comes from them so again, I'm a strong believer that there's no new idea in many ways, but the people that came before us, I'm a really strong believer in pain, pain, credit to them there's some things that we've created there's, no question, but when it comes of all and there's a lot of things that were taken from our friends and that's that's been one of our greatest assets are other photographer friends and when we needed help we know who to call because when it came the hybrid volume and I call it a hyper evolved because it's not the sit down and shut up take a shot leave and it's not the extremely like we're goingto work everything with you hair makeup it's like a twenty minute session one outfit you know? And then we sell right afterwards and that's a whole different cells program it's kind of a in between you know? They're one of the best, so we went to them and it's it's changed our business when you have those friends that's why I say be friends your local because it's going to help you in regard to sports their team? T and I think he called it especially the girls like volleyball on steph de filling need to change the pose every couple of years I was worried that if they're on the team for three years and their sophomore looks like their eighth grade it's a problem absolutely usually will go with a high key white just about everything because it shows off the uniform it doesn't care what color skin the color hair they have what color either have you'll get good quality photographs but then we'll change up another pose if we're going to give the multiples will change up another backdrop that's more unique to that situation for our volleyball like these banners they loved him this year's coming in said, we want the banners again, but you got to do it better, you know? So it's a challenge for us is well, so we're always challenging ourselves like susie shot that shot and we all like, oh, my god, that's amazing she's like, really you think so because we get numb to it because that's all you do and so that shot came from from that and then we the other four girl, another three girls, we balance it out and looked also hanging up in there, so now we're like, okay, so now we're going to do but it was an artist it's it's a challenge that's, like I said, that's, where the art comes in, you still have that art. You said the push and is he brought up? A lot of people say that the quality work is so bad for the national companies. Well, this is one reason why so bad they're trying to find a very easy, fast pose to get in and out and so there's that happy balance. So you have to find as an artist it's an easy pose because you got thousands of kids coming in or four hundred three hundred kids, you've got to find that happy medium sure, I could do a really also impose but it's going to take me all day so it's not effective, and if you get behind that's a headache and if you get a headache so you're not in a job, they're not going to happen and also don't forget, since this is a volume job you change that pulls up, seventy five percent of your clients are going to love it because different last year, but twenty five percent gonna hate it because they want the same thing every year to see the change in the kid. And you're gonna hear from those two, five, ten you're not gonna hear from thirty five percent, so we always also try tio put the decision back on the league whoever's in signing say, hey, we're prepared to offer these type posters. We could go with the same thing we did last year all we can change it up, you vote on it and tell us what you want to do the ball back in their corner. That way they feel more control. Do you happen to have, like, a resource of getting ideas for new group poses for teams and stuff were kind of collecting what we don't really have one right now we have our volume god, which is really kind of what our workshop is about. Getting into the business and all the stuff we talked about more but really learning understanding, getting all that sample bids and all that stuff step by step, but we're collecting some because the problem is there's like all these image, we have permission because everybody you're dealing with his miners and they don't come through our business so like, you know, this banner was one of our clients and actually be volume and so we can use her marketing and so it's it's a whole different ball game when it comes to minors but you can always go on google you can type in the sport you're shooting and do a search for images and you gonna come over the ton of stuff in us some really good ideas some senses really wild it's hard to do, but I guarantee you'll probably find something that'll yeah, we've also be careful with that because we had our sixteen year old employees which we call junior because he acted just like him and he was actually we missing a lot he's at home holding up his catcher's mitt, right? Exactly we miss him a lot and we said we gotta shoot voluble wanted somebody is exact do some research for volleyball so he puts in volleyball on all these pictures of sand volleyball comes up with the little bitty tiny bathing suits and he's like I love my job this is also so you have to kind of be aware also of your research and what you do he still thinks we're the best bosses in the whole world, so but yeah like he said, you really can get a lot of information just by doing search and there's facebook groups and everything else for that online option preorder post order again we went over it a little bit, but I think you need to put in there what are you going to do? You need to lay out exactly how you're going to do this if it's going to be a pre order of its going to post or if it's going to be both whatever you want to do, you need to do that and so that is important as well, especially the preorder preorder again orders are usually smaller, but you get more of them post order you don't get us many people buying, but usually each border is usually larger because if they see the proof they like it, they usually going by actually two questions one would be where do you guys normally get your backdrops? And then my second question is your online ordering what do you use it's a great question and for our bag drops we are denny snuff that any manufacturing is usually where all our backdrops come from in fact I think if you go into our studio probably I would I would say one hundred percent, but that's difficult to say without exact, but I would say ninety nine point nine percent of all our backdrops in our studio come from day one that amy made, okay, one that any maids that's I'm saying, so I'm not going to say one hundred percent, but I was really close on dh they have some great pop ups and that's, who we'll have a papa backdrop that we're going to show that we use in our school business will have that senate for more will go over all that for who uses are online and that's a great question. There is a multiple companies they do online sourcing, and one thing that I like about photo velocity is when you enter the data and we'll show you tomorrow it actually pass codes, protects it creates a ten digit passcode for every child because security of being law enforcement, everything else that's pretty important to me, and so we work with several companies that I've worked with from shoot proof I love xu proof love's in folio I love smugmug pro those are all companies, collages dot net that we've worked with ron land hosting that you, khun upload, each one has its own little different business model. Some take a percentage of your sales some takes actually pays for the the amount of images you upload your paper image, and so each one has a little bit different model, but those air really, really good cos, you know, you got in it's in folio and you've got several other people all over the place that really I mean, they're just much like what reason? Why we use miller's it's not so much necessary for the prince because their prints are amazing, but we built personal in ships with miller's I know who to call, I know who to talk to. I have great friends and other labs to miller's has always been my personal go to guy, so it's hard for me to walk away from that personal relationship, just like we're trying to teach you and creating your volume business. I took that example and kind of wanna roll it over to it and same thing with their online hosting, so we've used them all, and I like him on I think it'll have some pros and cons each, but with that said, I'd probably go with if you were going to go with the percentage would be collages dot net or probably some folio for thee for the like, the percentage ofthe yourselves, and then shoot proof I think he's got an awesome business models, especially if you're more active on removed, putting up in removing images to proof is really nice because I don't take any percentage your cell and they just take the money they make is just from the images you upload so I think it's really good for for for online as well for volume with those those are my big three that I would go with and each one is different I had to say pinpoint like I gotta have this gotta have that because I like them all and I don't want to disrespect her tonight but since you asked but I my best advice is to know the names research each one it's right for your business and go with the best one for you I know that sounds like a political answer but every business is different and what might be right for me is not right for other ones so quick question mike from the internet cindy b is asking if you ever do pre and post ordering she says that she does post ordering and it's a pain because they don't pay but she charge is a little bit more okay wait do we kind of do all three for our school will be shooting that main brass is what high school will be shooting them in september the underclassmen which is like two thousand will do all preorders so they'll all have an order form this generic I'll print out like three thousand of them or whatever because they'll waste a bunch of them and we'll hand them out, they fill them out, bring them to us on the photo day. We'll keep him in our studio and there is a late fee after we deliver the photos back. It's a twenty five percent late feet. You've gotta charge that late fee. Otherwise people just gonna wait. Remember I talked about that called order on everything you do that's the called order for that. So we raise the prices up for excuse me for our seniors. We offer four proofs we have offer a casual photo going back to what we talked about earlier. Some kids that have lower seat, social, economic, maybe their parents are not there, not poor, they just have no extra money, they live exactly on their means. They can't afford to come to a high end studio for the senior portrait, so they leased that one casual photo of them, which is popular and again because we're in a very traditional air. We do three cap and gown different poses, so we do proof sheets for them. So it's post cells for our seniors, so we'll have four individual proofs. They can order what they want, but we don't feel anything until we get the money that's the difference so I don't print out anything until they give me money. And we go through it if you get bad checks back credit cards, whatever those orders don't get completed if they misspelled on the order form and there's a problem those orders don't get field we will call them we will try to let them know if there's a bad number and it happens we're not going to take their money but they that has to be corrected and then finally what we try to do is then we push him to our online sales when we deliver the prince again it goes back to money spending money for gotten we use foot of loss and it creates a reorder forman's very personal has the kids photo on it has that passcode really big and fun of lawsuit will upload to all those companies that I mentioned easy with all the information of the passcode protected and all that stuff and then I just put in their photo package I slide in a re order form and tell him exactly how to go online to order more now when you do that you want to raise your prices mohr too because if that gets out oh hell just off from online then they're just all order online and also depending on what company with if they take a fifteen percent or you're gonna pay for for picture uploaded you've got to take that on account and at least raise your online cells to cover that expense oh you're losing money your paint I mean I would order online as well too anything about online isn't mails directly to your client generally you have the choice but I just milling directing your client so it's like free money almost cause I've already gotten that first sale and this is just like bonus money yeah tell her don't feel the order until she gets the money you gotta put your foot down and it's tough and then finally we just talked about what payment options we're going to take cash cheque money orders, credit cards online you want to figure out what you're gonna offer first before you put it on there? Um we offered all if you offer credit cards and do not put any credit card information on the outside of your order form I have a credit card for more on the inside have you and your square your paypal, their locations something like that but do not put any credit card information on the outside it is illegal in most states in the country I don't know about around the world but they're really cracking down on friday the theft you do not want any information on the outside because if someone does read that they get their ideas stolen can always come back on you, so if you're going to do manual and run it back in the studio or your home or something just a little form and you sticks in there puts in there you're going to stroll after it runs and they can have it or it's your product form table they'll have those they can pick him up you do online, you can do it online except there's multiple ways you gotta figure that out what you want to do before and you put that in your bid what you can offer let that school know or let that sports league no host order if the school gives you the choice have you seen any difference in sales one versus the other which one higher profit presales were higher profit generally. But now with our seniors we changed up a lot of stuff this last year and we got a better sales with our seniors. Yeah, but that's kind of apples and oranges exactly because that's their last day that's a big event so but for underclassmen wears just a photo there's really? No emotional tie to besides it's just their yearly photo presales all the way and that's why a lot of cos you going green screen so you can build your own packages pick your own background you try to sell that experience and I just but it's still all pre sell presales the king still all right fall portrait's explain what they are fall portrait generally for school purposes are generally your yearbook photos that's usually going to be the one that's going to go in the yearbook was right off the bat you're gonna have fall portrait so is generally a traditional head shot it can be a very casual shot but whatever it is it's going to be your photograph they take right away sometimes even in the summer up here in the north part of the country so it changes in every school because of the humidity because of the weather and you need to research this and find out when they are a good friend of mine over over an idaho travels gugelmin who's an amazing artist but he also got into volume and he uses these amazing senior portrait and he puts him on all their school idea great idea we can't do it cause we're all traditional but he puts his really cool photo small for the underclassmen and for the senior the entire ideas photo so now is that a security feature for the school but the kids are now proud the wear their ieds that soft two birds get solved two problems with one issue and so and then also the third one is now they know who to go to for their senior photos I mean it's a really nice simple marketing tool that he did it's really affected when you can use casual photos like a lot of you up here can spring portrait's personality portrait's we call him their basic generally maybe three quarters, maybe not just traditional head shots, you can get a little more fun with it, and this is usually when you take class photos for the smaller kids. It's still have a standard class, sometimes now even fourth, fifth grade, depending sixth grade. For sure, they usually start rotating classes so you won't have the class photo for the older kids. But for the younger kids, you're definitely gonna have a home room, but that's something you need to bring up and see if they need to know about home room. If there is a home room for that when you're photographing a man and those usually get done in spring are fall portrait, sir, usually are pre sell sometime are springs are a post cell. We do proof shins for post for the spring and that's just because that's, the way it's always been done and we'll continue to do it. But the way we do it is no headaches for the teachers. We literally I have a proof sheet. We're going to show you this later on tomorrow and has a has a preparation pack envelope at the bottom. That's all the student has to return, and then we will do little to put a lock box in the office or wherever they want, and they just drop him in and we pick him up so the teachers don't have to keep anything. They don't have to track down money, they don't have to track down packages and you're going to find a lot of times the teacher have to do all that. You know what? The teachers have enough work already it's not their job to keep up with your photo packages this year, the hecking's theirjob a cube over your money that's your job so you need to find ways to keep that out of their hands and let them teach and just you be ableto trump off. So if you're going to do any of the post sales for for schools, come up with ways that are very simplistic, it takes, it takes work off the teachers, and I promise you that'll go far. What about those special needs kids that they can't go to the office and grab their own portrait? So they're not going to be able to do that? So what do you do for those kids? We absolutely that's when we go to the teacher we talked about before, when I go into a school and we're going to get that school, we know we have it part of my cells pitch is that I will take care of the special needs kids once we know we have that contract, I will set up unemployment with that special needs teacher, and we will figure out a town to set talk to them if it's me having to drop off those older forms to that teacher and her talking to the parents, which they usually do. They have a very close relation, whatever I take her, his lead, that teacher, because they're gonna know the best for those children just because the special needs class, everyone is different because every cheap child needs different needs, and so I take their league, but I always set up that appointment talkto him graduation portrait, and this could be little guys, too. Don't forget you want the little guys you want that you want that kindergarten graduation, you want that fifth grade graduation? Because again, this is when they're still puppies and cute, and they make more money, but one thing that you're going to find is used with cap and gowns they have or horrendous if they do any cap and gown, so these little guys and so you can actually get better captain gals from different companies, we use a company called hendricks h I n d e r x there, adam, mississippi, and they're hendrix graduations applaud if you put that in your finding, their website is not the most up to date with their products are the best one of the first elementary schools we did. We did their graduation, and the teacher said all we have no will provide the capping down. Great, we ain't gotta worry about it's awesome, and when we got there the day of they had thes paper, they're disposable paper hats and these things, and they looked horrible. I feel I mean, the whole time I'm shooting just like, why am I even doing this? Because you don't feel like they're going to buy anything. We didn't have huge sales, and I really attribute to most of it to the ridiculous outfits that they put these kids and it didn't. They looked mad, really mad, so if you could again, this is part of the communication figure out if they have the favorite ones or hey, why don't I make a small investment? I'll get a couple of small sizes of of riel graduation cap and gowns. And it makes you in prague looked better and if your input it looks better, they're more likely to buy and that's gonna help you make your photo day easier so all way around it's a better day it's a better deal and most some hendrix for a gown, a hat and a tassel if you needed a ride around anywhere between fifteen, eighty dollars for the set we've had on for seven years someone using their still spotless the hats maybe need to replace the tassels for the rest easy, I mean began itself stays, stays together and don't freak out if you order room because they're half gowns they only go to about right here because their photograph again because this is all you're going to really get anyway and if you have the long gowns when they sit down and rides up on their shoulders, mr those little guys that have no net and so this really looks it looks better and it really fits they have like size is one, two, three and four and like one is a small one two's the medial three and it gets bigger, but most the time the kids work too for most people, some of your small females or smaller kids it could be a one, but if you're just going to buy one said I would get it too and then the hats from them go from my one hundred one, fifty, two hundred to fifteen sizes, you're gonna have to buy some multiple hats, probably and what we do, we're going to get and go over all this, but we literally have a station originally, we started off having gowns and we get him dress, and then we had all our hats, like in the center, and so what the problem is our photographer is when we have multiple stations and had to keep running back and forth because we try to guess the size of hat, but you want to put the hat on their head until the last photo, because it's going to mess up their hair so they already have the two or three hundred you're going to do, and then they would try to put the hat on and it's not the right side, so they're going back and forth and it really slowed down. So then we ended up buying more hats and have a set per station and there right beside the photographer and it just it sped up the whole thing, but that's, more money, so you don't have to do that right away, but it is something that I want to bring up this better, but if you're going to do any type of graduation, by those gowns and they didn't have to be from hendricks that's just who we use what it's worth it on the little guys especially unique portrait booth indoor and outdoor set up this is big for a day cares and stuff are you going to just do a white background? Just a black background or you going to bring in something? Do you want to like summer bringing a beach theme? Whatever come up with a unique ideas for the daycare really talk to them big sided with it and it really really helps make them part of the process bring them into it just not this is what I can offer. What do you want? Explain what you're planning to do for the climb that's a big one once you explain it helps financial commitment this is the big one we can already talked about it with a percentage or flat fee. You know I want a flat fee so we're gonna spend a lot of time on it right now. But again and we kind of talked about I would say a makeshift equations not really great equation is really not one you're going to have to take a gamble many times but more research to do the lucky you become so my vest by sister is to do that again, so do not try to compete with the national companies in your area