TRIPLE your minis average

Summary

In this conversation, Christa discusses the value of mini sessions in photography, emphasizing that they can be profitable if structured correctly. She shares insights on how to maximize income through upselling and providing additional value to clients. The discussion covers strategies for enhancing the client experience, the importance of including products, and the role of sales as a service in building long-term client relationships.

Takeaways

• Mini sessions can be profitable if set up correctly.
• The right structure can lead to higher income from mini sessions.
• Including products in mini sessions adds value for clients.
• Upselling options can significantly increase average earnings.
• Sales should be approached as a service to clients.
• Mini sessions can lead to future full-service bookings.
• Having an assistant can streamline the mini session process.
• Client experience is crucial in photography services.
• The importance of intentional shooting during mini sessions.
• Clear communication about upsell options enhances client satisfaction.

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Transcript

Christa (00:01.25)
We are talking all about mini sessions today. Are they worth it? How to make them worth it? How to increase your average with them? How to make them worth from them? And I'm excited to jump in and share. So I wanted to start off with saying, I am not against mini sessions. I think they definitely can be worth it, but they have to be set up the right way. So in my business, there were years that I skipped offering doing mini sessions because I was so focused on full sessions and was able to really serve clients more intentionally there and thus have higher income.

But I found that mini sessions were fun to sprinkle in when I had the bandwidth for a couple of things. So one of the things that they're great for is it allowed my clients who had come in for a full session to have something a little bit different. So we'll talk about this in a bit, but often I would like theme them in some way, nothing like cheesy, but like, Christmas card minis, right? Like that's gonna be different even if the client came in for a full portrait session out at a beautiful venue with their family and had a big frame on the wall. But these are gonna be more for their Christmas card and I'm gonna take care of that.

There's different things like that. So it opens the door for clients to work with you multiple times through the year in some form or fashion. They also are stacked. So I don't sprinkle mini sessions in randomly through the year. They're on specific dates at back to back times, which also makes it worth it. Because if you offer a mini session, a full session to clients and immediately jump into pricing before they see the different values, they're always gonna choose mini. So I only offer them at certain times.

of the day on certain times per year. So I wanted to preface with that. So I do think they can be worth it if they're set up in the right way. And I'm gonna show you today how you can double, even triple your mini-session average. Yes, I have had students do this and I am so excited to dive right in. The very first mistake that caps you from growing that income from leaving with $200 mini-sessions or $100 mini-sessions with y'all, I was there. I was there charging that. I remember having days where...

I would have like 10 or 11 mini sessions back to back back to back to back, okay? And how did I go from that to then averaging, there was a day I averaged over $500 per mini session. And the very first mistake photographers make is they include everything with one low price. There's no option to upsell, there's no option to add more value, you don't even have time to add more value or share more value. It's like an assembly line in and out, okay? And so instead, what you can do is it's called a mini session.

Christa (02:22.103)
Don't include the farm with it. You can include like five or less really great images. It's a mini session. It shouldn't be able to compare it with a full session from you. And then what that does is it opens the door for clients to be able to upgrade and spend more if they want and if they love more images. And it takes a lot of the pressure off of you where you can take your time, shoot super intentionally. I understand you wedding photographers out there were like me where I would just, I could shoot so much in such little time.

But instead, I could slow it down, actually talk to my clients, even if I had like a limited 20 minute window, I could really photograph everything they needed in 10 minutes and don't just need to keep taking pictures for the sake of taking pictures. So this opened the door to my clients being able to spend more. Another way that allows you to stand out is all the photographers in your area are probably doing something similar, right? Like five images, maybe 10 images, maybe a little bit more than that. But if you include a product or something to stand out,

That can really help you share even more value. So what are some examples of this? I did Christmas card minis where I included 25 Christmas cards in two images. I love those, it's so great. So clients can come to me, it's taking care of my cards, they're so beautiful. They hold them in their hands and they immediately see the value. You could do it with other things as well. I've had students do it with an ornament. So I know I'm on Christmas, let's talk about other times of the year. I had a colleague who did motherhood minis.

and did a really pretty locket necklace with a favorite or two favorites. You could do some mounted prints with it. You could do a mini desk print. There's options that you can have. I've done a folded folio from Red Tree before. So there's things that you can include in it that will allow you to stand out in service. And as you guys know, we're so passionate about products every year. When you include a product, you immediately are setting yourself apart. Because often shoot-in burners don't really have the bandwidth.

to offer products or the price point, but you can charge in such a way and have offers in such a way that that opens the door to more products. Then from there, what you can do is you can have upsell options for the clients, more images in different bundles, more products where they can upgrade to an album or have their favorite printed out on a wall. And so even if you have your clients coming in at 300,

Christa (04:46.761)
and all of them upgraded an average of 250, you're immediately blowing your average out of the water by having additional options for them. I encourage like three additional upgrade options for the client, again, with different amounts of digitals, you can add in more products, things like that. And I share this beforehand with them. It's not a secret, okay? It's not like surprise, now you have to buy more. It's hey, you have the option to buy more. And if so, I would love to serve you in that way.

So I keep these upgrades small and not overwhelming, but high value. so clients can even walk away from many sessions with keepsakes. And that doesn't take away from my brand of really being full service with the full session. So let's talk about a few different ways on how you can have these upsells. It's proven in sales, the smaller, the less face-to-face the touch point, the smaller the sale.

Think about it this way, an email trying to get you to buy something is very different than someone standing in front of you face to face, having a conversation with you and diving deep, right? Even where I've gotten to in this podcast, if this had been written out in an email, it's just not, the value's not gonna be conveyed as well as me speaking to you. And it would be even more conveyed if you and I were sitting down to lunch together chatting back and forth. So using that framework, if we want to do, there's online galleries where they can just upgrade within the gallery, that's great.

Sales will probably be lowest there, but that's better than not doing any of cells, right? But what the highest touch point is, is in person. So how we structured ours is I had in my assistant, Laura, who is amazing, shout out to Laura if you're listening to this, and helped me scale, actually come with me to mini sessions. We still did them back to back to back. I would shoot for maybe 10 minutes because I don't need a hundred images. It's a mini session. I want to serve more intentionally.

I wanna take my time and really set it up and speak to the client through it and get what they need. And I would still check with the client. And then what I would do is plug in my card and I did a quick call through, not editing. shot because I was so intentional. I could shoot really well in camera and show to the client and not be like, ah, this looks like a disaster. I could never show this to a client, right? They could understand it. And I could do a quick call through just my visual, what I'm seeing. Hey, I shot that, you know, I shot twice there. Hey, this one's a little, yeah.

Christa (07:07.678)
the focus slipped, we get that one out. And then Laura gets it down with them and say, hey, let's buy your here, let's get this done. Let's pick your favorites, let's pick your cards. And the cool thing was y'all, we've done this in public parks and just sat up on a bench and a table. So I photographed them, helped them get started. Laura finishes the order. They have their upgrades, they have their order in, they have their products ordered. If it's Christmas cards, they know what Christmas cards they want. And it saved me so much time from circling back and forth trying to get this all together.

but having an assistant was really, really helpful if you're doing it like on-site, on-location, and that's a great way to do it. Now, the second option that I've had students do is you could always schedule a Zoom reveal later and say, hey, on a Zoom call, here's your favorites, what are you loving? What upgrades do you want? Now, before you say, well, that's not worth it, I had a student this year upgrade her mini-session average by hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

And so sitting down, having that quick zoom connection was totally worth it for her. And we've even talked about this year as she scales, can that even be outsourced to her assistant to finalize the sale? So these are ways that you can make upsells super easy and it makes my life and time easier. Again, having everything set, the client walks away, they pay on the spot and I am good to go. And so let's talk about the sales aspect for a second. I kind of wanna go back to this. I have an episode.

on how to sell without the ick. That will totally resonate with you if you're hearing this and you're just cringing like, my gosh, I could never do this Krista. And I wanna go back to sales as service. I'm able to serve my client more effectively by sitting down with them, getting clear. Sometimes there's edits that they want made that I might not have done or caught. I can really make sure these images are great. And my clients y'all and myself don't have anything to do with a hundred digital. Seriously, what are you gonna do with that? Instead.

I can really help them take it a step further and walk away with something tangible even from a mini session. And that opens the door, y'all, to potentially that client booking a full service session later on. So one time this happened with a client where they had a smaller milestone that they had a smaller milestone they wanted photographed just as a mini session, not a full session. And then later on, they came back and did a full session with me and spent over $3,000, but they were able to come in the door easily at a mini session. And because

Christa (09:24.745)
I still took part of my full service framework and implemented it into my mini sessions. It wasn't a shock and all that my full service sessions are focused on products as well. And so it all ties together really, really beautifully. So just note, you don't have to be out there running rag and making 100 or 200 for every mini session. There is a better way. I have more about my program linked in the show notes if you're interested on my exact coaching framework on this.

And I'm so excited you guys were here today.