Freedom Focus Photography

$6,300 From Three Model Calls

• Nicole Begley, Heather Lahtinen • Episode 335

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 335 - This episode is going to turn everything you thought you knew about model calls on its head. If your model calls are attracting people who only want the free stuff, this episode is for you. Heather is chatting with Shelbi, one of our Elevate students, and breaking down the exact application and vetting process she used to land three sales totaling $6,300 in one month, from FREE sessions.

What to Listen For

  • Why most model calls attract the wrong clients
  • The hidden landing page that does the screening for you
  • Exactly what to include in your model call application
  • The one question that weeds out unserious applicants
  • How to use a phone call to prime clients to spend
  • Why being blunt about pricing actually helps you
  • When to delete a lead from your CRM immediately
  • How Shelbi structured her pricing to make cheap sales nearly impossible
  • The mindset shift that turned $0 months into $6,300
  • Why clarity and certainty are your most powerful sales tools

Shelbi's results didn't come from luck — they came from a decision to do things differently and a system that backed it up. Give this one a listen and then ask yourself which part of her process you can implement first.

Join us inside of Elevate: https://flourishacademy.mykajabi.com/elevate

Explore Shelbi’s Website: https://shelbinicoleimagery.com/

JOIN THE PARTY:



Nicole Begley (00:00)
Welcome back everybody. I have a quick question for you. Are your model calls actually making you money? Or are they just giving free sessions to people who are never going to invest anyway? Well, on today's episode, it's a part one of a two-parter and you are going to want to buckle up. Heather is talking with one of our Elevate students, sharing a process that allowed her to generate $6,300 from three model calls. That's right. That's over $2,000.

average per sale of three free sessions from Model Calls. Are you interested yet? All right, stay tuned.

Nicole Begley (00:39)
I'm Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer turned pet and family photographer. Back in 2010, I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six-figure business by 2012. Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses. I believe that achieving $2,000 $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six-figure businesses.

that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full-time passion or a part-time pursuit, profitability is possible. If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place. With over 350,000 downloads, welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast.

Heather Lahtinen (01:38)
have a photographer friend in Elevate named Shelby Lee. She created a post recently on how she's structuring her model calls, and it was incredibly detailed and valuable. So I asked her if I could share it on the podcast, and she graciously agreed.

Her business is called Shelby Nicole Imagery. She specializes in dog and equine photography. She's located in the North Idaho Eastern Washington area and her work is incredible. I'm actually on her website right now. It is beautiful. She joined Elevate about four months ago. And before I get into the details of how she structures her model calls, she had posted this recently as well. And this is a shameless plug.

She said, the Flourish Academy is changing my life. After leaving the horse show industry, 2025 was a rocky transition that left me feeling completely frustrated and defeated. I found success so easily at the arena and foolishly thought it would be a cakewalk to switch gears and focus solely on portrait sessions moving forward. I was immediately smacked in the face

with a different reality and I quickly lost all hope as nothing seemed to work to find clients. Okay, there's a little bit more I wanna share here, but one of the reasons I'm offering you this is because when I explain how she approaches model calls, you will see this tremendous shift that she made. Okay, she goes on to say, my last client in 2025 was in August. In December, I had a total meltdown and through money,

that I absolutely didn't have at Elevate and have been studying day and night to get to my root issues. I intentionally didn't take clients until this month so that I could feel confident in my new processes once I started up again. I was not going to allow myself to fail this time. As of this morning, I took three clients for March. The first was a $500 sale, the second a $1,900 sale, and the last

was a $3,800 sale. My gross for the month is $6,301. This is three times my monthly average, what my monthly average was in portrait sessions pre-elevate. ⁓ and did I mention all three of these clients were model calls? People are ready, willing, and able to pay, and I am crying happy tears.

Is that not the most amazing testimonial you've ever read? Of course, I loved it. One of the things I say all of the time is people are ready, willing and able to pay. You just have to go find them and it might be easier than you think. I often hear photographers say or ask about L.O.V.E. You know, I just I'm not sure. I wonder if it's worth it. Well, I wonder if Shelby thinks it's worth it because in one month she brought in sixty three hundred dollars. Would that be worth it?

to shift your mindset and make more money. Well, to me, I obviously spend a lot of money on coaching. To me, that, of course, that's worth it. It's priceless because I get to keep those skills forever and skills that you learn and get to keep forever. Guess what? Guess what? They compound on one another, which leads to what I want to share today. Again, this is her post talking about how she created

successful model calls that led to those sales. This is what Shelby said. Last week I posted about some tremendous model call success I've been having and promised to share the process I've been using. I'm only a month into trying this, so I don't feel that I have a substantial amount of data yet to prove the process. However, it has yielded me $6,300 in sales between three clients, so I feel

confident in where it's taking me. This is really long, but I want to be thorough so that hopefully it will help others build their dreams as well. I also have Jess Wasick to thank for this as I refined this process after listening to a call about her discussing book project applicants. And I thought, why can't I use a similar process for regular model calls? So here it is. Step one.

decide what you want to open Model Call applications for. You'll have more success if you have a defined goal in mind rather than taking any and everyone who wants in on freebies just for the sake of content to post. This is me. I used to do this. Don't do this. I love that. Step two, build out a hidden non-crawlable landing page structured as a sales funnel

on your website specifically for the application. If you aren't familiar with sales funnels, I highly recommend taking some time to study the structure. Theoretically, your experience or sessions page on your website should be built fairly similar. This is a great resource if you need a refresher. And she posted a link to thedesignspace.co. In my most recent series of model calls, I chose to work with senior dogs

So I played into their story over the years, how they impacted their family's lives, the pain of the inevitable, how we can preserve these moments that we have left, et cetera. Step three, after all of that jargon, I list out the experience they'll get by working with me. In my case, they receive a comped session, two images, one of my choice, one of theirs, and a $100 credit to use toward anything additional

which incentivizes spending since most people naturally won't want to leave something free on the table. It's super important that you don't over deliver, making it difficult for them to walk away. Step four, after noting what they will receive, embed a contact form at the bottom. I recommend creating the form in Dubsado so they can upload an image of their pet with the form.

You want to make sure this form captures all necessary contact information. This also helps build your marketing list and screens them thoroughly for their intent to take the experience seriously and their likelihood of investing into the process. I have a handful of questions that do the heavy lifting for me. Please share a little bit about your pet, including what makes them special, any talents they may have, and their obedience level.

What would it mean for you and your pet to be selected for this project? Shelby Nicole Imagery specializes in artwork focused experiences and does not offer digital files as a cheap or standalone option. Matching digital files are provided complimentary with every printed image. Have you reviewed the investment information on my website and made yourself familiar with my process? Yes or no?

And before I go on, just want to say that is the most brilliant question here. Yes or no? Do you know what you are getting into? Obviously, I would make that required. Now, that doesn't guarantee that people actually read it, but it's a good first start. Next, how do you imagine enjoying your images most? Please note that all printed images come with a matching digital file complimentary. And then she has checkboxes.

4. Coffee table album, a storybook to flip through again and again. Wall art, a stunning wall piece of gallery cluster to enjoy every day. 6. Matted prints or folio box, a collection of beautiful matted 8x10 prints. 7. Desk or shelf piece, something small to display throughout my home or office. 8. Digital files for viewing on my phone and sharing on social media.

Are you open to purchasing additional images or artwork if you love your gallery? And then she has three options. Yes, I will definitely want additional images and artwork. Maybe I'd like to discuss my options more with you or no, I only want the free images included in the session. At the bottom, I have the file upload section, a referral question and an acknowledgement that they are joining my email marketing.

This form is invaluable. By the end, I've made it very clear this is not a standard shoot and burn experience and that they should expect artwork, not digital files. I intentionally, repeatedly state this and I found that being more straightforward about the investment actually weeds the cheap people out better than skirting the issue and leaving cheap files open for question.

Now I'm just blunt about it and they can go away if they don't like what I'm all about. Then she says in parentheses, can you tell my patients with low quality leads has reached its limits? My favorite statement that she said there was, okay, she intentionally repeatedly, yes, here's what I love. I found that being more straightforward about the investment actually weeds the cheap people out better than skirting the issue.

and leaving cheap files open for question. Good for you, Shelby. Okay, next she says, from here, if they offer low quality short answers to the first two questions, they're out. If they select they haven't reviewed my pricing first, they're out. If they only select digital files in the checkbox options, they're out. If they select that they only want what's included for free, they're out. If they select maybe,

I make a decision based on the rest of their answers. If the picture they upload is of a puppy and I'm looking for a senior, they're out. Surprisingly, there are actually people who say they haven't reviewed pricing, aren't interested in purchasing anything, and only want what's free. Annoying, yes, but honestly, their honesty is doing me a favor by not wasting my time, just theirs.

I delete their contact information from my CRM at that point because I don't feel like they are worth leaving on my email marketing list if they aren't a warm lead. Those that fit what I'm looking for get an email extending an invitation for a phone call to walk them through my process, answer any questions they may have, and proceed with planning and scheduling a session if they still want to move forward.

They are usually so excited, they respond right away, and I'm able to get that call out of the way that same day. I send over a contract after the call, and once that is signed, I send them a link to my detailed pricing menu and other pertinent information about their session. This gives them time to review what they might want and come prepared to spend at their reveal. It has actually worked beautifully because each of them joined the Zoom call already planning.

for a collection purchase. Prior to implementing a required application, I had no real way of screening people because I wasn't about to get on the phone with each interested party. As far as where I find these people, I simply post to my Facebook page that I'm opening up applications, provide a high level overview, and a link to the application. I state in that post that an application is required for consideration. Comments and DMs won't cut it.

I will never not run my model calls this way again. I have four more of these on the calendar for this month, so I will be anxious to report back after those four. One of them I experimented with and did not do a phone call with her, so I'll be curious to see if that affects her spend. So far, I've been thanked for offering the calls and not just texting, so I'll probably continue with the calls regardless. And quite frankly, if my entire business model

were to end up being model call based. I don't care if these are the results I will see. It's worth it to me to eat a few hundred dollars in a retainer if they spend 2000 plus on the backend. I think it's also worth mentioning that I have one product option under $995 and that's a single matted print for 250.

Everything else is up and over a thousand dollars with my collections having significantly more value and what I aim to sell and those start at nineteen ninety five. So as long as someone is vetted properly, it's going to be difficult not to make a healthy sale. I don't want them coming in and using that credit towards the cheapest option. So I simply don't offer anything cheap. Period. I love it.

Very few people see the value in the price of a single matted print and that's intentional. Hopefully this helps someone. We'll see where this month takes me, but I feel like I finally cracked the code. Happy to answer any questions you might have because I probably forgot something. And one of my favorite thoughts that she just said there is it's going to be difficult not to make a healthy sale. In other words, her thought is that she is and will always

make a healthy sale from these model calls. So guess what? That's exactly what she gets. Absolutely brilliant, Shelby. Thank you for allowing me to share this. I hope that it helped you guys. And I also want to point out, this is the type of work we do inside of Elevate. We work with our challenges, our struggles, our obstacles every day, and we share our wins and how we are succeeding.

And Shelby made herself available to everyone inside of Elevate to ask questions so that she could help them walk through this process that she has absolutely cracked the code on. $6,300, three sales. I love that. I would do that all day long. I hope you noticed something in Shelby's language as well. She is very clear and she is very certain. She decided ahead of time

how she wanted this to go. And by the way, it wasn't overnight. She probably spent some time getting that clarity and then it was a decision, gain the clarity, make the decision and then execute based on that without wavering and look what she's created. If you have any questions for Shelby, you can definitely send me an email. It's heather at flourish.academy or tag me on Instagram DMs.

whatever, and if you'd like to hear her on the podcast, we could use those questions to take this to the next level. But if you're tired and feeling really frustrated and defeated with your business and things not working, I wanna go back to her testimonial and just encourage you to check out Elevate. She said she threw money at Elevate that she did not have. And she made it back multiple times, her investment.

pretty quickly because of clarity and decision. The link for Elevate is always in the show notes, but you can go to flourish.academy to learn more. I hope that you found this useful. I'll see you in the next episode.