139 | Create a Dreamy Client Experience that Leads to More Consistent Referrals

If you're ready to stop wishing for success and instead, have a strategy that takes your photography business to the next level,  join us inside AMPLIFY! My lifetime-access, group coaching program that will help you take action, overcome blocks & challenges, and support you as you expand through all seasons of business growth.

--

Summary:
When you hear the words client experience and automation – what comes to mind? For a lot of photographers, they either feel overwhelmed (not knowing where to start) OR others might feel afraid that if they automate, their clients will know. One of the biggest things we crave as photographers in our business is freedom – and most often, that includes freedom in our schedules to do the things that light us up and fill us with joy.

In this episode, I’m sharing a few things you'll want to focus on that will set you up for success for your upcoming busy season. And I bet you’ll be surprised at how we can eliminate those fears and allow you to feel confident in your process and client experience. Your clients will LOVE what you’ve put in place and will likely refer you to even MORE of their friends.

Listen in now to get clarity and inspiration on how to create a dreamy client experience that leads to more consistent referrals! 🎧

Links from today's episode:
- Get started with 17 Hats (& get 50% off your first year!)
- Photo Editing: The Photographers Edit (my current go-to!), Kelsi Kleithermes, Imagen AI
- Create an account with Retouchup

If you're ready to create more momentum and visibility inside your business (meaning: more inquiries and more booked clients) -- you'll want to join me for my next free workshop.  This workshop will be interactive meaning you get real-time coaching & strategies to grow your business. Head over to heykristamarie.com/workshop to save your seat.

Ways we can work together:

• <<Coaching>> Photographers, are you ready to create a sustainable business strategy?
• <<Brand Photos>> Is it time to elevate your business and get updated , gorgeous brand photos?

I'D LOVE TO CONNECT WITH YOU!

• Say hello on Instagram 👋
• Watch/Listen the podcast episodes on Youtube 📺
• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🎙
• Join the email community ✍🏻

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome. Friend, you are listening to the she Calls Her Shots podcast, the show that empowers photographers like you to take inspired action and earn more money as a full-time photographer and business owner. And I want to ask you, when you hear the words client experience and the word automation, what do you think of? Because, for a lot of photographers, they either feel really overwhelmed, right Like they don't know where to start when it comes to client experience or automating their client experience, or other photographers might feel afraid that if they automate their process, their clients will know, right Like it won't feel as intimate and personal and that it's going to be this negative effect that it brings into their business. And in this episode, I want to share with you how I have been able to streamline my process and I want to really encourage you that these are some things that you will want to work on before the busy season really kicks in, and you'll be really surprised at how, no matter what kind of mindset you fall in right, whether it's the I don't know where to start or I'm worried that my clients will know, in this episode we're gonna really kind of debunk and eliminate both of those feelings so that you can feel more confident in your client experience and in your process. And here's the thing your clients are actually going to love what you put in place and because you put these strategies in, they'll likely refer you to even more of their friends, because you have a system in place that fully supports them and is is repeatable, right Like it's something that they can rely on and they know they're gonna have the best care taken of them, because it's automated, it's responsive and you don't have to worry about dropping the ball or creating an inconsistent experience between your different clients. So I know firsthand the thing that we crave in our business is freedom, and most often that includes the freedom in our schedules right To be able to do the things that light us up and fill us with joy. And in today's episode, I'm gonna share three things that you'll want to focus on that will help set you up for success for your upcoming busy seasons, but it's also going to give you a newfound sense of confidence, because when we have a system that we can rely on and that supports us and supports our clients, our confidence just as a photographer and a business owner drastically increases.

Speaker 1: 2:37

So if we haven't met yet, I want to quickly introduce myself. I'm Krista. My mission is to help you build a thriving photography business that creates more wealth and freedom in your day-to-day life, and I know firsthand how challenging it can feel when we don't know what to focus on, especially during the slower months or when we want to prioritize the slower season to really maximize our work so that we can set ourselves up for success in those busy seasons, and I know how challenging that can feel at times. And at the end of the episode I'm going to share more information about how I can support you as you're shifting and adjusting your priorities to focus in on this next season, but for now I want to go ahead. Let's dive into this topic today. First thing I want to dive into is talking about building out your workflow inside of your CRM, and if you're not sure or familiar with what a CRM is, it simply stands for a client relationship manager, and there are a bunch of CRM tools out there. Essentially, what they do is they house and gather all of your client data and host it in one place, so I will forever be a huge fan.

Speaker 1: 3:51

My CRM is 17 hats and I know some of the bigger ones for photographers that you might hear about pretty often are HoneyBook and Debsado. I used HoneyBook in the past. I stopped using it for kind of a collection of reasons. I actually got really. I found myself not sending out invoices because I found myself becoming really frustrated with their platform for a few reasons. So when I found myself resisting sending out invoices, I knew it was time to make a shift. I chose 17 hats because it is a very robust platform, but also I love that they had free educational webinars on their website. I pretty much learned how to set up all of my automations myself just using their free webinars. I have not ever seen a tool that provided so much free information. A lot of the free information I found on other CRMs are just like blog post or quick little FAQ posts and not really robust enough to really help me set up the entire platform. So just a quick plug I am just will forever be the biggest fan and rave about 17 hats. I have loved using them. They make it so user-friendly and it's also so robust. So I do everything through 17 hats.

Speaker 1: 5:10

But regardless of what you use, having a CRM is so beneficial for many reasons. Right, your CRM is going to be the place where you collect your leads. So you have all of your leads in kind of housed in one location so you can easily know who they are, you can see what inquiries came in when, so you can track that data. It's also helpful because it's going to be the place where you send out your invoices, all of your contracts, right. Your clients will have a kind of a hub or a home base they can go to to find their contracts and invoices and any questionnaires they've submitted. So I will just forever be a fan and will say that every photographer needs to have a CRM.

Speaker 1: 5:55

However, I also know that some of you listening in might be starting from the very, very beginning and you might be like Krista iBook six clients a year and I do not make enough money in order to house a CRM, and I know that feeling. We all start somewhere and I want you to know that you don't have to invest in one if it doesn't feel like it's the right time. You can take the same process and you can start with Gmail templates or, as they call it in Gmail, canned responses. So I highly recommend pretty much everyone I've talked to has at least a Gmail email address that they use for client inquiries. So highly recommend using a Gmail address as your business email address.

Speaker 1: 6:40

But Gmail has a setting you can go in and you can turn on canned responses, and what they allow you to do is you can basically template all of your workflow emails, right? So your lead inquiry email, how you respond to clients when they first inquire, if you're scheduling a prep call with them, you can automate that template. And when I say automate, I mean you can templatize that email so you don't have to rewrite it each time. You can also templatize any prep emails you have for clients that have pertinent information around their session. It's going to save you so much time to have templates pre-written so you're not having to go find where you sent it before. Copy it, paste it. It just saves you so much time in the long run.

Speaker 1: 7:25

And if you're going the free route and using Google's canned responses, you can also just use a simple Google doc to outline your workflow, right? So for me again, my workflow is all inside of 17 hats. But essentially, what do you want the process to look like, all the way from when someone inquires until you deliver the images or until you ask for the review, right? So, from start to finish. What do you want that to look like? And for a lot of us, we might think, well, I have it in my head, or it changes sometimes based on what the client needs.

Speaker 1: 7:58

But I really want to encourage you. If you don't have a written out workflow that you can repeat and duplicate with your clients, you are wasting a lot of time thinking about your process, and so the first thing I would encourage you to do to brush up on before the spring and the summer rush kicks in is to really formally write out whether it's in a Google doc or whether it's in your CRM. Create your workflow. What do you want it to look like? The process all the way from when someone inquires until the very last step. So, really encourage you, go in and outline all of that.

Speaker 1: 8:33

I also want to encourage you what does your inquiry response look like? So the email that you send out when someone sends you an inquiry again, the way that I like to do this in my CRM, that response is automated, and here's the thing people know it's automated, right, it literally gets sent within a minute or two from when they inquire. But what I love so much about my inquiry response and, again, I'm a brand photographer and the thing I love about it is I'm able to, as soon as someone sends an email, reply with an email that gives them a ton of value, a lot of information. It kind of gives them a pep talk and helps them get to know me a little bit and get a feeling of my personality, why this is so important, why I do what I do and, as a brand photographer, I do include a link to my pricing. It's something that is housed on my show it website, so it's a private hidden page, so it's not shown on the homepage. You can't click to it in the menu, it's not something that can be found, but it is a page that I created on my website so that when people inquire, I can direct them to this beautiful, curated site with all of my current updated pricing on it. And, as a brand photographer, this has worked really well for me because these are the packages that I offer. Right Like, if you are below my lowest price point, I have defined that this is the lowest package that I have, and so if someone sees that lowest package and if they self-select out of it because it's too much, that's okay, right Like, I understand that I may not be the right person for every client, and so that's something that I'm okay with. But I also like to give people that information of hey, here's the couple of packages that I offer, here's what they look like, here's what they include. And then on that page, any button that they click basically goes to my Calendly page for them to book a call with me so that we can schedule a discovery call right, we can chat and actually talk about what it is that they're looking for.

Speaker 1: 10:39

I've spoken to some wedding photographers and here's the thing A big question I get is should I include my pricing in my initial email? Like what should this initial email response look like? And I know this isn't going to be the answer that you want to hear, but the truth is it depends. For some wedding clients or for some photography clients, it works really well to send pricing in that initial email so that people can see where the packages are. For some photographers, depending on what stage you are at in your business, sending your packages might actually not be helpful or not that it's not helpful, but it might be something you want to experiment sending and not sending. And here's why I say that For really seasoned photographers who, let's say, they've been a photographer and they're very well known in their niche, right?

Speaker 1: 11:29

So again, think of someone who has been doing this for many years five, six, seven years, however many. When you search them on Google, or when you search XYZ photographer, like portrait photographer in this area, they might be coming up in the first, on the first page of Google, right Within the first five, six, seven Google searches. This is someone who is well established, right? They might be to the point where they say you know what? These are my packages and this is what I offer, and I don't really stray from that. And so those photographers might feel comfortable sharing those initial prices with clients at Inquirer, because, again, it helps that client self-select.

Speaker 1: 12:09

Is this right for me? Because, let's be honest, there will always be clients who are price shopping. There's no way to get around that. There are just gonna be some people at Inquirer that are inquiring to a bunch of people and they're going to go with the person who charges the least. And, as you probably know, we don't want to differentiate ourselves by price alone, because there's always going to be someone who is willing to undercharge what we're charging, right? So we are gonna have people that are price shopping, and that's just something that we get used to over time, right, it's just a knowing that you have.

Speaker 1: 12:45

But for some earlier photographers, if you're not as fully established, if you're still figuring out your prices or your packaging or who that ideal client is, you might be willing to take on a variety of clients that maybe that more seasoned photographer doesn't necessarily want to take on, and so you might find, just based on your own personal preference, you might really like sending your pricing in that first official email. You can also try out not sending it and just encouraging people to book a call with you, to actually get them on the phone, so that you can kind of sell and invite people in that way. That just might work better. So I encourage you to figure out what works for you and remember that there's no right answer. You can continuously try this out and switch it up and see what works for you, depending on what type of photography you do and the data that you gather, right. So is this working by sending the price, or do I wanna try it a different way?

Speaker 1: 13:51

And there is a point in my workflow where my emails aren't automated, right. So I would say, if I can remember correctly, that first initial email is 100% automated. It gets sent as soon as they inquire. And then I think there's an automated email if they book a call. So if they book a call with me, I have it set up to where they get an automated email response from that. Also, that gives them the zoom link, tells them how excited I am, blah, blah, blah, all the things. But then after that, I'm pretty sure, is where some of the things become a little bit more manual for me.

Speaker 1: 14:26

But I still have the process all outlined and I have all the templates. Email templates are already created. It's just that when they reach the next step in my client experience process, my CRM will show me hey, here's where they are, here's the email that you need to send, but, like it, just needs my approval before going in and sending it right. So as we actually get to the client fulfillment part of the process, the inquiry part is mostly automated. But then that client fulfillment part, I will go in and send those emails at the times when they need to be sent right. So part of the fulfillment email process for me is sending them my brand questionnaire. So I send all of my clients a questionnaire so I can get to know them and their business. I send them an email about how to create a Pinterest board so that we can create a vision and a mood board for their shoot. I have an email setup that sends over my style guide, so how to think about choosing their outfits and how to think about wardrobe. So I have all of these pieces of information.

Speaker 1: 15:31

But the reason I go in and send these things automatically is because for some clients we might have two months before their session and so I might space out those emails a little bit more. Right, they don't need to be sent back to back if we have a ton of time. But and that goes same for weddings, right, so you might just wanna go in and manually send, have a reminder every day where you just go in, or once a week you go into your CRM and you just see where are my clients at in the process and what do I need to send them, right, so building that into your process. But for other clients, their brain session might be in two weeks and in that case maybe I combine some of the emails, maybe I send them one or two days apart, so it allows me the flexibility to figure out what do I want the cadence to be, but I already have all the emails there. I already have all the content there, so I don't have to spend time thinking about what am I emailing. I just need to figure out when am I emailing, and that makes it so much easier. And again, you can write all of this out the workflow, write it out in a Google doc, really figure out what emails am I sending, like as a part of the process as a whole, and then write out those templates and save them as canned responses if you want to go the free route.

Speaker 1: 16:49

So I think that's something that is so, so important to do before the busy season starts, because it's gonna free you up so much mental space and just mental clutter that you can avoid when you actually start to become more busy and here's another slow season tip or really just at any point. I think this is so crucial to do For your invoices and your contracts make sure that they're up to date. I have had clients I've worked with in the past where they haven't gone in and taken the 10, 15 minutes to update their invoices and their contracts, and so every time they go to send one to a new client, they have to spend five minutes per client five to 10 minutes going in and updating the invoice and the contract with accurate information or accurate numbers. Highly recommend give yourself 20 to 30 minutes and go through your different invoices and contracts. Just make sure they're all up to date, because then every time you go to send one, you don't have to sit there and make those changes time and time again Again. This is just gonna save you like actual time and mental energy.

Speaker 1: 18:50

The second thing that I highly recommend focusing on during slower seasons is your editing workflow and specifically what I want to encourage you to do is, if you are not outsourcing, please look for an editor, someone who you can outsource your photo editing to. I'm going to share with you a list of my favorites and then I want to go into the details of why this matters so much. And I know if you're a photographer, you might be thinking I know why this matters. But the things that I want to talk about here are like really the underlying, like this is the actual why. Because I know you probably think like it'll save me time and blah, blah, blah. Right, but like why does that matter? Why does it matter if you have time saved? But I'm going to share my favorite editors first and then we'll go into that.

Speaker 1: 19:37

So I have used the photographer's edit. I'm going to include all these links in the show notes, but the photographer's edit has been one that I've used in the past. I love it. I highly recommend looking at that if you're starting somewhere. I also have used an editor in the past. If you are a wedding photographer, a portrait photographer, if you have that film, if you have a film look and you really want that film aesthetic for your photos.

Speaker 1: 20:02

I used a photographer named Kelsey. I don't know how to pronounce her last name Kelsey Clithermes, I'm not sure, but I will include her link below as well. But again, she, I feel like, is really great for someone who is either a hybrid photographer or wants to start incorporating a film. Look into their photos. She is a private photo editor, so the photographer's edit is kind of like a bigger company where they have a team of editors. Kelsey is a private editor. She might have a few editors that work with her, but it's more of like a solo private editing company.

Speaker 1: 20:33

There's also, of course, imagine AI. I haven't used it, but clients do seem to love it. I have heard there's a little bit of lead time as far as you have to send them quite a lot of photos in a Lightroom gallery in order for the AI to learn your style. So I don't think it's one of those things where you can just like quickly get up and have it immediately match your style, the same as like the photographer's edit or Kelsey would right when there's people, there's a person editing your photos. But imagine AI. Once you get it up and going and once it knows your style, it's significantly cheaper and, like I said, I've heard clients that love it. Another company that I highly recommend. I use them all the time.

Speaker 1: 21:16

So this isn't for editing but for retouches. So think of like Photoshop retouches removing backgrounds, removing people, getting rid of distracting things, face swapping, like anything that you can think of. That would take some kind of heavy retouching. I love to use retouch up. I'll include the link below. I have sent many, many, many projects to them. I'm pretty much always more than happy with the work that I get back. Sometimes I have had to go in, but what I love is that if they send you something as a first draft and you don't love it, you can send them some notes back and they will do it again. They'll retouch it again, right? So as long as it was just something where maybe they just didn't do it quite the way you wanted it to or it didn't turn out the way you wanted it to, they're pretty open about getting feedback and fixing it. So they have saved me so much time again. That is retouch up.

Speaker 1: 22:09

But here's the real reason if you weren't outsourcing your photos I know you know the importance of it, I know you know why it matters, but even if you're just starting off this is something I've heard from photographers that aren't booking you know consistent clients. You know you know you're not going to be able to get the information that you need to get. So I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that, and I think that's a great way to do that, and I think that's a great way to do that, and I think that's a great way to do that and I think that's a great way to do that, and I think that's a great way to do that. And I think I have learned a lot about clients and they've said you know well, but I have the time to edit, like I don't have enough clients coming in. That makes it worth my time to get an editor.

Speaker 1: 22:37

Here's the thing is that even though you have the time to edit, it doesn't mean that that is the best use of your time. Right, you could be going out there and making new connections with dream clients you like vendor in your area, like just because you have the time. I want you to know that your time can be so much better served doing something that is actually growing your business, and I know that it can feel really tricky to outsource something like your editing. But when you get your edits back from your editor, you're probably still gonna go through and, like, maybe do some tweaks or touch-ups and you might fall on one in one bucket or the other. You might be a busy mom who is growing her photography business on the side, and I just want to share that.

Speaker 1: 23:24

You know firsthand how valuable your time is and even if you have to go in and tweak some of the edits made by the editor, you're still saving hours upon hours of time of going through and making those initial edits. It also helps us to become a little less of a perfectionist because we just want to spend our time differently, right? So when we can free ourselves of even just imagine four or five hours saved doing initial edits on a gallery and instead just doing 30 minutes of touch-ups before you send it to a client, what could you be using that additional four or five hours for? Even if you're not booking that many clients right now, those four or five hours are valuable time that you could either be spending with your family, going out and building connections or relationships with other people Like. Your time is of the essence.

Speaker 1: 24:17

And if you fall in the other bucket and you say but Krista, I actually I'm, you know, I don't have any kids and I do feel like I have a lot of time and I still can't justify spending the additional bit of money to outsource my photos to an editor, I really want to challenge that mindset belief, because if we believe that our time is best spent editing and that there is no other thing that we could be doing in that moment to better and further our business, that's likely going to keep us stuck. If we can't learn to let go of some of these things, our business is never going to grow to the capacity that it has the ability to grow to, because we're always going to find reasons for us to hold on to things, to not outsource, but when we can take that thought and shift it from even though I have the time and I could be using this time editing make it a game right. Hire an editor, send your photos to the editor for the first round of edits and then, however much time you're saving whether it's three hours, four hours, five hours by not doing those initial edits, I challenge you to find something that you can do in that four or five hour timeframe that will instead grow your relationships and expand your network. And if you're looking for some examples, I feel like these last few episodes if you're listening to this when it's released these last few episodes have been amazing and filled with some really great tips for how to call in those dream clients and what you could be doing instead of spending time editing.

Speaker 1: 25:52

And then, finally, the last thing I encourage you to focus on before the busy season starts is making sure that your client guides are up to date. So making sure if you have, if you're a wedding photographer, any of your bridal guides or engagement session planning guides. If you're a portrait photographer any portrait session guides, anything like that make sure the photos are updated, make sure the information if you have any pricing that's included or the packages that you talk about in your prep guides make sure all of that is up to date. Again, that will save you so much time when you're in the thick of busy season. You don't have to worry about going in and making those individual tweaks and just making sure all the info, any links that might be included, making sure that it's all up to date. If you don't have any client guides, I highly recommend looking into them. There, of course, are some really high priced ones that are really high value. I know Caitlin James has a bridal or a wedding portrait client guide that people use and there's a wedding engagement guide I think from. I think Caitlin James also has that. So there is. You can spend quite a bit of money and have a big 20 to 30 page client guide. But again, if you're just starting off, look on, go to Etsy, right. Do a search for some portrait photography guides Like this doesn't have to be something that is super overwhelming 20, 30 pages long.

Speaker 1: 27:23

Think about it from your client's perspective. The less work that your client has to do to prep for your session, the better. So if you're just starting off, whether you're a wedding photographer or a portrait photographer just get something that will help outline and help ease and answer any questions they might have before the session. If you can add in even a five to seven page client guide to your process, even if you just add in one, if you're a wedding photographer and you have one that preps your clients before the engagement session or preps them before the wedding day, and it's just a few pages with some helpful tips and information. Just adding that into your experience is going to elevate things so much and over time you can continue to build on them and add to them and add more into your process.

Speaker 1: 28:12

But don't feel like you need to do this huge big guide or anything if you're just starting off. Like, make it as simple as possible and remember if I was a client, what is the most pertinent information that I would need to help me feel excited and prepped and ready to work with you. So make it super simple. And as a quick recap, I know we talked about a lot today so I want to give you this moment to be able to jot some of the key things down. The first thing we chatted through was really creating your email workflow, and again, that can be done in a Google doc and canned responses in Gmail If you're kind of keeping it on the free side, or I highly recommend having your workflow nailed out in your CRM, anything like 17 hats and also being able to have your individual emails all templated and ready to go, whether they're automated emails or if they're emails that need your approval before they get sent.

Speaker 1: 29:11

Either way, it'll save you so much time having that workflow all outlined and detailed. As that quick tip, just remember make sure to update your contracts and your invoices now, so that way they have all the relevant information. So that way, when you go to send them to your clients during the busy season, you don't have to tweak each of them individually and update them individually. Also highly recommend consider outsourcing, especially for your editing and even if you're just starting off, and then create or update those client guides, because that is going to be such a great way to elevate that client experience and it's just something that you can reuse and resend to everybody that books. So it's just that great high touch and it's something that you can just do once update it every year and you're good to go. So there you have it.

Speaker 1: 30:02

These steps will hopefully help you feel super productive during your downtime and they'll help you save so much stress and also help you make more money when you're in the thick of busy season. And the goal here is that by doing these things, you'll not only super improve your client experience, but you're going to feel so much more confident in your workflows and your process and, as kind of a bonus from that, your confidence as a photographer and as a business owner is going to skyrocket. And if you want any more support around how you can create a client workflow that works for you, I would love to have you join us inside of Amplify my group coaching program for women business owners and specifically photographers, and once you're in, we can dive straight into how we can create a streamlined process that feels simple and impactful and helps you book your dream clients. And thank you so much for joining me today. I love getting to support you as you grow your business and I will see you over in the next episode.