Lessons

Lesson Info

Recap of the Photographer's 100 Days

So we start out the persona we're talking about here is a wedding photographer and the wedding photographer is meeting with a young woman who's getting ready to get married and wants to hire a wedding photographer. Now what we talked about is in days zero, which is not on the board. The assessment this woman asked her friends if they had any recommendations for who a great photographer would be. She went on websites and looked it examples of the photographer's work. She narrowed it toe five narrowed toe five different photographers that made those first two cuts. And then she called those photographers talk to them about their process, their packages and specifically how much it would cost. So we had the insight that she is cost conscious. We're not entirely sure this stage how cost conscious she was, but that's where we were, we knew that was our opening volley. So we get to day one activation when she comes in and signs the contract figures out which package she's going to buy and lo...

cks down this photographer to shoot her wedding. So we have the action was the contract, the packages, and we decided that for the package there would be engagement photos, dress in nature photos which, if you were paying attention, yes, I still have no clue what this is. Forgive me, folks. I'm a guy. All the women were like, of course, the tres photo in the garden with the flowers and the butterflies and all the guys in the room and pride, the guy's watching the home, we're kind of like, wait what? I thought it was like, come to the wedding, you know, and that's just take the photos and we're all good. So anyway, we ended up taking engagement off of the list, right? Because we said, you know what? Under the circumstances, no it's, just the dress photo and the wedding photo and it because she had done the homework because she had done her own research because this was a referral from some friends. At this initial point of activation, she was feeling really good about the engagement, so charting the emotion she was in a nine. Her stated goal was to have three shoots, but we changed this in the process. Two two shoots stated goal of being conscious of money. We've been explored, unstated goal and again, although it's at the bottom of the page it's one of the most important things you want to fill out on your map, think of it as the foundation of the entire experience. It's a clue that's why it's at the bottom of the page that's how important it is and if we don't get the foundation right we don't know what the experiences the unstated goler needs was to have a relationship with the photographer and to look beautiful in the photos oh and I have the photos not be blurry we talked a little bit about this most wedding photographers they're like yeah not shooting blurry flotilla photos that's the ante up trips to sit down at the table but if we meet our customer where they're at we meet our audience member where they're at that was a concern so that's what was happening on day one inactivation we then moved toe affirmation which we identify this day too which would be after that first meeting when are we going to schedule the first shoot remember we're doing two shoots the nature outside shoot and the wedding day shoot okay so we're gonna schedule the first shoot at this point our audience persona right the maybe bridezilla maybe not we don't know was this seven okay I'm probably not a bridezilla at this point because everything's going pretty well ironically enough most wedding photographers I hate to break it to you you create the bride's phyllis because it's such an insane rollercoaster of experience that they're on and you're also subjected to the bridezilla because of the other vendors in the wedding industry that are causing them nightmares guess what, you're on the same roller coaster with them even though you're like no no no but my business is different no to the customer this is all the wedding planning and preparation so this is what you're dealing with who's so excited to be in business all right, so the stated goals at this point we're quick response and hold my hand I want to know like when are we scheduling this? I'm really you know, anxious about this let's let's get it on the calendar we need to get the photos done and I've never done a photo shoot before so are you gonna hold my hand or you're going to make me feel comfortable in this affirmation stage when buyer's remorse is kicking in the cognitive dissonance is making me experience fear, uncertainty and doubt are you going to meet me and hold my hand it's going to drop to a seven? The unstated is doubt the client never says you know I'm just really anxious about whether this is gonna work or not as business owners we love it if they send that, but they don't but we're smart enough to figure it out okay, so then we go to our third section admission the first time where we admit them in it's like ornamentation for freshmen at college this is the first time on campus here we are we're going to be working together okay, that occurs on about day fourteen, so we're two weeks into the cycle before this person that gave their money back on day one is actually going to get to experience something tangible, some deliver ble now, ironically enough, the tangible thing is going to be a photo shoot it's not going to be the actual photos, we're actually going to stretch their tangibles out even further, but in their mind they're starting to feel a little better because we're going to get to see it work on what's interesting here is we're going to skip down past the emotion real quick for stated it's I'm nervous, I'm worried that I'm gonna look fat I'm worried that I'm gonna look bloated, you know, I'm wondering if my dress is going to fit the client might actually say that with some clients or customers your audience members that might actually be unstated, but in our particular case, you know the role playing bride to be said those were some of her concerns what's interesting is doubt was increasing because we haven't done anything in the affirmation stage toe hold their hand and we hadn't done anything in the admission stage toe hold her hand so we're actually on the decline and when we go to the photo shoot we're at it too stop and take that in for a second we started at a nine fourteen days ago and we're at a two and the business owner is thinking, hey, I signed the contract we scheduled to shoot I've shown up with shooting I'm ready to go and take the pictures completely oblivious to the fact that this audience member is on a roller coaster ride they can't wait to get off and it hasn't even started. This is the first big hill in the dip we've got loops, we've got corkscrews ahead and they're already too too so now we get to the acclamation stage, right day twenty one this is seven days after the shoot when we're going to need to look at the photos and we show the photos and our bride is happy with the photos they turned out pretty well and so we go from a to and we bumped up to a seven now we're not back up to the nine we started at but not a bad recovery and frankly it's a recovery that is based chest on the fact that they finally have something in their hands and the fear of blurry is gone. The fear of fat, bloated mayor may not be gone in this particular instance, it wass right, but blurry we knocked out so that's good that is blurry go away for the next shoot no, it actually increases why? Because there's higher stakes for the actual wedding and part of our brain says well eventually the other shoe drops because that one went so well surely the next one will be the one where everything falls apart that was business owners were like are you kidding me? I knocked it out of the park on the first one sure I'm gonna knock it out of her why don't they just trust me? Why don't they just believe me what the reason they don't know because you haven't given them reason to your work product isn't enough sorry artist I hate to break it to you the quality of your work product in the first experience is not enough to ride the entire wave you gotta hold your hand you gotta be willing to work with him so at this point when we come to see the photos and were acclimating were in altitude right we're anxious were coming out of the two we need oxygen we need some help we needed a hand us something hand us an oxygen bottle here what we're going to do is hand you your book of proofs okay that's the pain trouble artifact we're goingto hand it's going to give you a sense of calm that's gonna allow you to inhale the oxygen and go okay I'm safe what is the stated goal? Well I want the photos to look good okay not blurry, not fat ironic that one of our customers stated goals he is a one hundred percent out of our control you've got to meet your customers whether at acknowledge whether at embrace where they're at the unstated goal at this point starts to get a little more complicated the unstated goal shifts from doubt too insecure we're in secure because well the first one went well but is the next one going to go well owned by the way things were ramping up in our personal life we just found out that cousin barry is coming to the wedding oh my gosh cousin barry likes the bottle a little much and if we have open mic for toast at the dress for her soul it's going to be a nightmare so there is stress around the wedding that is unstated the client may never tell you that uncle berry is going to be coming to the wedding now now if you ask ah we can move it from an unstated into a state did we could hold their hand we could let him know that we're in this together that would take the seven and start bumping it up it has nothing to do with the quality of the photos but it absolutely has to do with the quality of the experience so assimilation is where we're getting into the okay I'm feeling this I'm starting to get a vibe for what it's like to work with you we've had this one experience what are we doing next in this particular hypothetical assimilation would be scheduling the specifics of the wedding day shoot now we probably already talked about it in the packages but from our customer's point of view and remember this is where our customer is that not where we're at the business owners going yeah you already about the four hour package? I know what shots I'm going to take that's not where they're at even if they looked at the shot list even if they signed off on the shot list we are now is so we did the photos here a day twenty one we're here we're probably at about let's say day twenty eight they don't remember this conversation it's not their business the first time they've got married that not had this experience and his business owners were thinking why don't they just read the contract they side because they're human they didn't read it the first time they signed it just for the record it had been one of those situations where you go somewhere and they have a waiver for you to sign what's the average american d'oh I was at an event recently that will talk about later today where we were shooting machine guns ok is a very exciting, adventurous event right? We were shooting machine guns and they brought out the waiver and all it was was the signature page and it says you agree to everything on the previous page and I said I'm sorry can I see the other page and they're like, what other page and I was like the one you're asking me to sign too and they're like oh yeah it's attached to the clipboard that the signatures on as like so my clipboard has one sheet of paper and it has a line for me to write my name and sign my name that's all that has what's fascinating is I was at this event with fifty people guess how many people asked to see what they signed you know, little muss this guy right turned into a lovely conversation with ceo of the company because I explained in that basically what he was doing is subjecting himself to millions of dollars of liability but the average person sure signs that is your customer your customers the average person if this bride to be is a corporate contracts and commercial paper lawyer she read the contract and remembers it if she is anyone else in the sphere of potential brides to be she didn't read it and even if she is the lawyer who does contracts all day, she may have read it and signed it but she's for gotten all the particulars again first time she's getting married for shoot she's ever done she's most people the only time they ever do a professional wedding shoot or protect professional photo shoot is the day of their wedding now to a degree you're saying well she's old hat we already did the dress nature photos remember we got the butterfly on her shoulder it look beautiful that's your experience of it but is one shoot the answer make? No, not at all. Okay, so we get to scheduling the shoot and deciding what are the specific shots who's going to be in it? Do you want one with uncle barry or not? Now that he's coming to the wedding he's gonna be there anyway? He's probably going to complain if he's not in the photo do we include him or not? Do we shoot it at the beginning? Like, right when we get there before he gets any cocktails in him? Yeah, that'd be a good idea and we're working through this. So where is the a person's emotion at this point? Well, it's actually falling again, right? I'd say depending on the person and with how far away we are for them the wedding who is going to determine how far it's falling so let's, go ahead and preview when the adoption day is the day of the wedding. So this is going to be the wedding. Okay, let's pretend that this bride is a super planner she's well ahead of things and the wedding is three weeks from the day we're having this conversation which in terms of wedding planning folks, is a lifetime okay, three weeks and so we add on twenty one days were actually a day forty nine okay, so here, when we're still three weeks out, the bride feels a sense of, you know, we're all right. We've got some time were probably dropping to about a five if this day is the following week. That's a one it's actually probably negative because the bride saying, why don't we talk about this earlier? Oh, my gosh, I signed the contract back on day one. Why don't we go through it? And the business owners going, we did go through it, we picked what shots we were going to do, but you just have forgotten what we said we were going to dio oh, and by the way, you change the rules. You told me about uncle barry, that wasn't part of the original conversation where we at? Okay, so weird about a five the stated goals I wanted to be smooth, I wanted to be nun invasive procedure, all right? What that means is I don't want the photographer to be obvious at my wedding. I want the photographer to blend in because what happens? Usually when a professional photographers around everybody gets stiff, they get weird, they don't act themselves some of the best photographers I know shoot with telephoto lenses why? Because they're far enough away that the person doesn't know their photos being taken sounds a little creepy, but it's actually a really effective technique if you have children, I highly recommend it shoot with a telephoto even when you're in the room, you could be on this side of the room, they could be over there and you're shooting with the telephoto and the kids don't even know you're shooting. I'll get some wonderful photos, but again, it's somebody who takes photos, we know that is the average person, they don't know that, so where we at, they want it to be non invasive, they want it to be smooth, unstated, by the way in security and stress are magnifying, and it has nothing to do with the photography it has to do with what is billed, at least in our society here in the united states, ladies as the most important day in your life, okay, we'll refrain from any comment on the gender and on the wedding industry and on how that does that, right? But that's, what it's built that, you know, we're a times twenty oh my goodness, so do we see the roller coaster there on and we're not even to the thing that they signed up for so now we get to the day of the wedding and guess what? They made the right choice they picked the right photographer and you get the benefit wedding photographers off the fact that ninety nine times out of one hundred they're happy that day anyway whether you even showed up they were going to be happy now obviously if you didn't show up that was going to cause some serious problems but you show up and there's celebration in the air there's joy in the air things are good so we're actually up to about a nine with our example we're not at ten because I've yet to meet a bride who on the morning of their wedding day said this is perfect everything's ready we're good there's always that one little thing there's always that oh, you know we hung the dress on the sprinkler in the hotel and the water went off and it soaked the dress and oh my god, the dress is trying we've got all the bridesmaids with hair dryers drying the dress it'll be done in time oh honey, don't you worry just have some champagne this will be great oh there's some little chocolates there eat those too you'll feel better and the make up artist is going we got you it's fine, you know when the hair is being done on we're playing distract the bride right the hottest game at a wedding distract the bride alright meanwhile, over where the bra where the groom and the groomsmen are there's a lot of beer flowing and there's a tv on guaranteed there's a tv on they have no clue that this is going on none, and even when told about it, they will have no understanding of the emotional what's going on. All right, so that's where we're at so here's the wedding on we come down to our stated goal. Now our stated goal is great photos our stated goal is capture for a lifetime of memories, no pressure photographers you only need to create the most important artifact of her life. Is that how you're thinking about it though? Or you think and this is my third wedding this month and I have five more meet your audience members where the raft okay, the unstated goal at this point there's actually not as many un stated goals, right? Why? Because the bride is caught up in the moment, right? It's it's pretty much all on display at that point, so there really isn't much here. Sure, there's maybe that like, and I'm gonna actually right it really small so you can barely read it the tiniest bit of doubt it's a little voice that will never go off in her head but she's quieted that little sucker down for today. We don't have to worry about it too much. All right, finally, we get to advocacy and advocacy is when we meet to see the pictures now it's going to be after the honeymoon when they come back and it's gonna have to work with your schedule and if they got married in the summer, your schedules probably pretty tight, so I don't know what industry standard is for photos. I don't know if anybody does, but I'm guessing were a minimum of thirty days out from the wedding before we're actually seeing the photos so let's, just pretend thirty I just want everyone to anchor that we're now seventy nine days away from the decision to hire you. We have gone on a roller coaster that was up, up and down and up and down and up again, and now is the penultimate moment. Did it work? Did I make the right choice? The buyer's remorse that started over here starts to rear its ugly head again, the brain misfiring what's the score. Well, the score here is actually an eight, and the reason it's in aid is the photos are great, but we realized that there was this one moment that the photographer didn't catch, and we realized that there was this slight little thing on mom's face. That wasn't exactly right the storybook way we didn't visioned it oh, and by the way, uncle barry did get hammered and it up throwing up on aunt sally thankfully it wasn't captured in the photos, but we still feel bad about it. It's the one blemish on the wedding so we're going to score, it is innate and it has nothing to do with the photos at this point where we meeting toe look at the pictures again we have captured the lifetime and unstated, we pick up what's next what's next has nothing to do with you is the wedding photographer you think it does because you're in? I'm in referral mode. Now is the time for you to introduce me to my friends, to your friends, rather where's your customers in the mode of damn it right decision getting married like the hundred was pretty good and this is great, but that that was I do forever where we going? And so with this one's what's next, it might be too bold in this scenario to call it insecurity as much as it is just kind of a big question where we going? All right, so this is the map right? For this person that we've created now let me be really clear some of you, especially the wedding photographers that maybe watching are going with joey in my business, it's always a tent when we get to the end, really, your customers tell you that and you're like, yes, they complete my satisfaction survey. It says that on a scale of one to ten, how like there they to recommend me to a friend? They say ten and I say fantastic. So you read about net promoter score. You've built that into your system. How many photo shoots did you do last year? Oh, I'm a really active photographer. I do a lot of weddings. I did fifty weddings last year. Wow, fantastic! How many of last year's fifty brides have referred new business to you on ly, too? But you told me everyone was scoring ten. Yeah, but I'm sure other things came up something to think about. Okay, so I know we spend a little more time on that today and we'll jump to a quick question, but I wanted to do at least have the full map. The thing that is important, I think, to remember when you're building out these maps using the worksheets that you can download or the worksheets we have available in the studio audience it's really nice for me to do it on a white board if you're doing it on your written one, go ahead and use a pencil because it may change or print out lots of them ideally, you should have a map like this for every type of persona this map is for medium maintenance bride she's got some clear things she wants but she's not a bridezilla she's not high maintenance there's no issue high maintenance pride would be down in here breeze bride that really doesn't even want a photographer at the wedding but mom is making one. Come on, you know you know her mother is saying no, you have to have a photographer at your wedding. Honey, this happens, right? The wedding photographer going yeah, I've been down that road. They're probably a higher score there more apathetic, but they're not gonna they're not going to waver much. They're just like yeah, this is good this is good, great and mom's happy great you're you'll take calls from my mother tastic great. She'll do the scheduling brilliant. Just tell me where I need to show up know who your audience is? It may not be the person who's handing you the money. It may be someone else and how do we figure that out? We listen, okay? There was a comment from online. Yeah, we have a lot of people who use a slightly different sales method for weddings where and general photography, where it's basically they sell prints after the event so they might have a small sitting fee or something like that so on activation they're not actually taking any money later on is when they're taking their money and curio so says also with packages I don't know what the customers must haves are the customer just selects the package they like with all a carte pricing however, I have to know exactly what is must have zara I will not be able to sell let's say the album afterwards because they don't want it that means I need to work much more closely with the with the client over the whole process. So how do you adopt that? Adapt this process if you're not doing the selling until after yeah it well it's interesting a couple of things so and this is probably first hundred days two oh one so forgive me if what I'm about to say is a little contradictory to what we've been talking about, but this is a different model, right? I am surprised that they don't take any type of money up front. I'm shocked and I would argue if I was consulting your business, you should stop doing that because you're just hanging yourself out to dry now maybe they're like no, but they paid like a sitting for you're a booking fee to get me well then guess what they did give you money on day one not all the money but in their mind they gave you a big piece of the money and what's even worse they actually just placed a bet. They may not by any of the photos which as a business owner that's your biggest fear and if I can say one more thing that is going to do totally alienate the photographers but I'm just gonna put it out there see embrace them love them you got to know your audience the audience today of people that want a photographer to come and shoot their wedding do you know what they want? A disk with all the digital files period and the women are just like off course totally that's what I want that's what we have built photographer that we hired for our wedding he's actually a very good friend of ours that was the deal I was like dude here's what I want I want you to shoot it make it look beautiful make everything great and then all you have to do is give me an external hard drive or a disk with all the photos on it that's it I don't you to print any I don't want you to put him into a book and a president here and then it ended you don't do any of that give me the digital files I don't need all that extra stuff photographers acknowledge where your audience is at they have a camera in their pocket that is better than the camera you were using five years ago stop and let that sink in they're free camera that came with their phone in their pocket is shooting at higher resolution than most of you were shooting up five years ago that something what you're saying but joey the craft and its all about framing and it's all about lighting yes, I get that but thank you instagram for creating filters now everybody thinks you're a professional photographer and some of the bloggers are going yeah oh my god it's been the bane of my existence no embrace that use it as an opportunity to distinguish herself because the competition is saying oh my gosh no everybody thinks they can shoot photos this is the opportunity to say yeah you can shoot beautiful photos but you really want to be holding your phone doing selfies that your wedding probably not this is the time words were spending some money okay something to think about all right, so we're going teo in the interest of time we question a question okay, go ahead. I actually have a story and and a question about the advocate's advocate see phase okay, I think that it's something that's probably commonly overlooked that's my feeling I think I've probably commonly overlooked it but I recently had an experience with someone that asked me to go through her wedding photos and at the end of it she actually said, you know, we selected all the same photos and she showed me a picture and she said tell me, does this look strange? And it was everybody standing at the altar and admittedly I haven't been to that many weddings I haven't um and so I looked at it and everything look good to me and I said, well, I do see the photographer in the photo that's a no no and she said, yeah that's that is she said, but there's something else you don't notice any anything else strange and I looked and looked and I didn't really see anything strange it was it was gorgeous it was an absolutely gorgeous wedding and she said, you don't notice that my husband's best man is standing shoulder to shoulder with him and I said no, I didn't notice that that is a little bit odd I said that's not normal, is it? And she said no that's not normal at all megan and I said, well what's the backstory behind that and she said, you know he you know my fiancee has a certain number of brothers it was quite a few and she said this one's a little bit slow and she liked issues you know, she selected him to be the best man and I looked at her and I said this actually is my favorite photo now because this tells me that the man that you're marrying and the future that you're going to have and I think that you should display this photo proudly and she said, oh my god, thank you that's exactly what I needed to hear. So my question for you is what could the photographer have done so that she didn't need to go through ten of her female friends to get that reassurance that she had selected the right future for herself? Yeah, it's great question, a really fascinating story, I think what the photographer and not let's be really clear this is not a criticism at the driver I don't know the photographer I don't know the story other than you know, the little thimble full of information I just got right the photographer probably is not going to be a therapist and not be able to figure all of that out let's just call it what it is photographers I'm not suggesting you figure all of that out, but maybe he had there been more questions had there more getting to know had the photographer been more present the day of the wedding and seen the set up and seen the dinette of perfect over pride never met the best man until the day of the wedding, but in that moment might have seen and gone you know something and if the photographer had a relationship that had been built instead of a transactional relationship and emotional personal connection relationship that it happened up until day forty nine probably could have pulled the bride aside, or the groom or the maid of honor and said, I'm kind of picking up that there may be arrested the story here, and somebody might he said, well, yeah, you know, this is kind of the situation with the brother, and then if I'm the photographer, I would've said, oh, what a wonderful man, you know, I know we normally do the photo of the groom with the best man, we're going to do it a little differently this time we're gonna we're gonna lean in and be really present for it and then sit down when they went over the photos instead of just saying here's, your book of photos say, I know this one wasn't on the shot list, but I was just so moved, by the way that you groom interacted with your little brother that I had, and I didn't tell you at the time because I didn't want to make you self conscious and it's your wedding day. But I thought this was such an amazing commentary on who you are as a man, that I wanted to do this photo, and in fact, not only did I included in the set, I've actually printed out one here and I have a little frame for you for your office and I just want you to know this is really special guess who's getting referrals guess who's getting more business the person who gave it him sat some okay, I know we spent a lot of our time this morning and I know we're running a little behind in terms of the overall planned schedule, but our first segment here this morning is all about mindset, and now that we have a map, we've talked a lot about the mindset of our audience. I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about the mindset of you the business owner, okay? Because I get the pleasure of teaching on this topic in audiences with all different kinds of businesses all over the world, and when we get to this point in the process, people are usually in the state I'm about to describe I got it, I'm body in, I believe that the first hundred days matter, I have a much clearer understanding off the biochemistry of the emotions and how those air impacting my clients. I've built out a map that I can see visually what that roller coaster is and I've spent some time exploring stated and unstated I never really thought about unstated before, but now I'm starting to think about the unstated and I've got it clearly laid out I've done this future exercise where we've gone through and we've mapped what it could be to kind of make it less of a roller coaster and make the highs bigger and the lows not is low, and I'm feeling pretty good about what this is and it's wednesday and tomorrow I have to get backto work and do all the things I haven't done the last three days and boy, although it's a neat map, joey and on body in and I like the idea seems like a lot of work and you don't understand showy, I have employees that really don't do what they're told, and they kind of, you know, it's, the inmates are running the asylum and it gets a little crazy, and I don't really know that I'm going to be ableto to do this with them, and, yeah, I set aside the time here, but I'm actually feeling guilty about how much time I've spent watching this course. I mean, I've enjoyed the course it's been fun, but I'm knowing what's stacking up and the people who aren't getting called back. And so I wanted to spend a little time today and talk about mindset and where you're at, and we're also going to talk about where your employees there at where some other people that are relevant to this conversation, or at us, well