319: Elena Blair – How to introduce profitable school portraits to any photography business

319: Elena Blair – How to introduce profitable school portraits to any photography business

 

Andrew Hellmich: Elena was first interviewed for episode 279 of the podcast where we explored a few topics, but the one which resonated and caused a real stir amongst listeners was her approach to school photography. Elena presented a way to photograph kids in schools, from preschoolers all the way to high schools, in a way that I and you may never have considered before. She uses natural light and captures real expression, so there's no force smiles, and it's all shot against a plain background. Following that interview, a bunch of listeners purchased Elena's School Resource, where she teaches you exactly how to do this. It's complete guide to adding fine art school portraits to your photography business. And I've now got the chance to get Elena back on the show and learn more about the process, so I jumped at it, and I'm rapt to have it back with us now. Elena, welcome back.

Elena Blair: Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here. I love your community.

Andrew Hellmich: Thank you, so do I.

Elena Blair: Oh, they're so engaged. It's so neat to see.

Andrew Hellmich: I hear that from so many people about the group. It's such a cool group, and the members are just awesome. Last time, we talked about a bunch of things, and like I said in the intro there, we talked a fair bit about your school photography. Has there been some changes, like, is that why we're talking today, or is it the same thing as what it was that's been rejigged? What have you done with the course?

Elena Blair: You know, we try to really stay up with what's happening in the school photography realm, and to make sure that all of our processes are really up to date and tidy. And so yeah, we've come up with a little bit, you know, I guess, kind of a lot of updates and changes. And people wanted to see me behind the scenes shooting, you know, in the school setting. And so we did all of that. So we did do some major updates, and had some great input from our sponsors and tutorials from them. So it's been a really fun year of kind of updating things and keeping things up with the times, for sure.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. And so the approach that you're taking now and that you're teaching is it still, you know, natural expressions, natural light, plain background, all those things that we talked about in episode 279?

Elena Blair: Absolutely, all of that is still the same. The sentiment is all still the same. It's more just some of the technical processes to make it as easy and seamless for the solo photographer, you know, the small box photographer, to be able to execute large volume school photography in a more meaningful way. So what's changed has been more just the stuff that happens behind the scenes to really keep you organized and make sure that everything happens seamlessly.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. When you say school photography, like I automatically think of big companies, scaffolding, special trestle, stools, studio lighting, real production line stuff. Is that the kind of school photography you're talking about?

Elena Blair: No, so we call it fine art school portraits. It's also referred to as boutique school photography. And really the way that I would describe it is that it's kind of like an elevated version of that exact thing that just popped into your mind, right? We all have this archive of really awkward photographs in our parents homes from schools, and it's just kind of time to change. It's time to modernize. And so what our approach is, or my approach, I should say, is to focus on the child's personality, focus on the child's expression, and then also to provide a more modern experience for the families. So all of the ordering happens online. We provide boutique products, like digital downloads, black and white versions, that kind of thing. So we're sort of modernizing and making it more of a fine art, you know, experience really more of a boutique experience.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. So when I look at your school photography, I said it before, I instantly fall in love with the photos that you're taking at these schools. But how do the parents like how do they perceive the photos that they're going to be getting when you come in to do a photo shoot? Because as a parent, I'm expecting to get back my child look at the camera smiling. Is that what your parents are expecting?

Elena Blair: Yeah. So one thing that I always say in my course is that, you know, you have to remember that the parents didn't hire you, the school did. And so it's your job to do a little bit of education upfront before photo day. So before photo day, we send out educational materials to the families to let them know that this is not going to be your average school portrait. And you know, generally speaking, everyone is pretty much floored. They're blown away by the level of beauty and the level of authenticity of the actual portrait, and then they're also very delighted by the modern experience of everything being online and whatnot. But yes, you do get a couple of parents every year that are not happy that the photo doesn't match the awkward blue background, you know, or whatever the background was photograph that they've had. But, you know, generally speaking, the parents are very, very happy with it, so it actually translates really well.

Andrew Hellmich: So do the parents have any idea of the kind of photos they're going to get back or, because it sounds like the school is the one that's booked you?

Elena Blair: So the school is the one that books us. Usually, though, if it is a larger school, they will do some sort of a poll, or there's like a parent advisory or a board that helps them make the decision. But what we do, like I said, is we send out educational materials prior to the shoot to make sure that the parents are ready with lots of examples they know what's coming. So we really don't have very much dissatisfaction from parents, and our ordering rate is like 95%.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow

Elena Blair: So most parents do order. It's really high. Yeah, so it actually, I think it's a pleasant surprise, most times.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. So that education material, I know I heard you say that you do send that out, but is that going to the school, or is that going to me, the parent?

Elena Blair: Point of the parent, everything that we do is digital. We don't print things unless the school really, really wants us to. And so we make a PDF that we send to the school, and the school widely distributes it to all of the parents at, you know, a time, or whatever that's going to make sense, so that the parents have all the information they need you know that they want to know. Like, what should my child wear? What to expect, that kind of thing, but also examples. And we say straight in the PDF, we're very upfront, and I say, "I will never make your child smile. I'm not going to make your child stand in an awkward position", that kind of thing.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. Okay, are you sending these emails directly to the parent, or is it the school sending it out to their parents?

Elena Blair: The school does it for us. So now it's 2019, most schools have a very slick email communication system. I mean, my children are in a large public school system even, and that has like this very, you know, easy to use, automated system, so most schools are very comfortable with doing that for us.

Andrew Hellmich: Got it. Got it. When I look at movies that have been shot in the US, it seems to me that no one wears school uniforms in the US, I don't know if that's true or not, but in Australia, most kids wear school uniforms. I think it's the same in the UK, not sure about Canada. Do you need the kids to be wearing normal clothes for this photography to work?

Elena Blair: So we photograph schools that have uniforms, and usually on school photo day, they'll say it's a free dress day, but they would just depend on the school. The religious affiliated schools often are uniform based here in Seattle or in the US even. So, we do have schools that have uniforms, but that's easy to get around. I mean, the school can decide whether they want all of the portraits to be taken in the uniform or not, and if you see our style, what we teach and how we show our children is it's very close. It's very tight crop. It's mostly just their headshot, their face, so it's not their outfits or whatever. So it really doesn't matter.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. I don't know what you call it in the US, but we call it Mufti day here in Australia, where the kids get to wear whatever they want. Do you guys have something similar?

Elena Blair: They call it free dress day. One of my daughters, she's in preschool, but she's in a Catholic preschool, and she does, yeah, she gets free dress days sometimes, so that's what they call it here.

Andrew Hellmich: You've said 'we' a fair bit here. So is this idea for the standalone single solopreneur photographer, or do you need to have a team of photographers to go out and do this?

Elena Blair: I say we more because of my collective community. I feel like of school photographers now that I've been teaching this for so long, we've got thousands of people in our community. But no, when I first started this in 2013 I did my first school, and it was just me. And when I say we in my business, I have a assistant, which is a poor word for her. I call her my brand manager, Business Manager, life manager. She's amazing. She's only been with me for two years. And so before that, it was all me, just me in my dining room. We're still in my dining room, but now she's here too. And so that's when I teach this. I love to show people that you can do this all by yourself, because I think that's one of the most daunting things about like a large volume project like this, is like, can I do this on my own? And as long as you have a really tidy, really professional, really organized system. You've got all your ducks in a row. You've done your research, you've done your homework. You can do it by yourself, with very little investment financially as well, which is the other daunting thing for a lot of people who are thinking about starting this in their business. So yes, I was a one woman shop until two years ago.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow

Elena Blair: Completely.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, your assistant sounds a lot like my wife. You've got yourself a great wife.

Elena Blair: Well, I would marry her. It's not gonna work, so.

Andrew Hellmich: Fair enough, I was going to ask you about getting into the school in the first, actually, let me backtrack a second. So for the listener that wants to do this, and I'm going to ask you about the why in just a second, but for the listener that knows they want to do this, I want to introduce this into their business. What is the very first step? Is it to get a portfolio? Do you need a new website? Do you need a new page on your website? Where do we start?

Elena Blair: So we have, yeah, it's such a good question. When I teach this in the workshop, the first thing that you need to do is you do need to start with a portfolio. And I have alumni that only photograph schools. That's the whole business model that they have. They don't do anything else. But most photographers that come into this are portrait photographers. I do have a lot of wedding photographers too, that are looking to really fill that income gap for the slower months. You know, from here in Seattle, it's like super cloudy and gross from January to April or May. And so it can be really hard if you're an outdoor portrait photographer. And so usually people have their own business already and already have a website. Some people don't. Some people launch with boutique school photography and just stay there or go on to have a portrait business, so it kind of can go either way. Just thought I should needed to say that, but you do need to start with a portfolio, because when you are going to pitch this in schools, what I say in my workshop is that the photos speak for themselves. So when I first started pitching this and show people the photos, I mean, they're just blown away because it's so different, it's so modern, it's so authentic and beautiful, and so you really do need a portfolio. And we teach that in the workshop, exactly how to get that going, even if you feel like you don't know where to start as far as portfolio building. And then as far as your website goes, you do need a special place on your website for it. Some people have it under their portfolio tab. Some people have just a page that talks about it. It really depends on how much you're trying to ramp that up in your business, and we talk about that in the workshop as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so to start as a minimum, I don't need a new website. I can just introduce a new page, a new genre, to my existing website.

Elena Blair: I don't have a website specific for it. I just have a page on my website, and really trying to ramp it up, I'll have a you know button on the menu bar right now. I have it under portfolio, because I have as many schools as I'd like to take in a year right now, but it just depends, and we talk about that a lot in the workshop about how to really maximize your marketing.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, and then with the portfolio building, what's the minimum? I mean, can I just photograph my own kids, or do I go to my kids school, or just to get their friends over and do a shoot at home? Is that enough?

Elena Blair: Yep, I say you need about 10 kids. The more variety of ages you can get, the better. But, yep, I started by just photographing the kids and their friends. Yep, absolutely.

Andrew Hellmich: Perfect

Elena Blair: I always say, think smart, not hard. This doesn't have to be complicated. You don't have to, you know, go over zealous and shoot 40 kids while you're trying to, you know, building that portfolio, it's okay to just have 10.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. Okay, great. And I mentioned in the intro, and we talked a little bit about natural light photography. Is that what you're still doing? Because I'm picturing some pretty gray, awful days in Seattle through winter. Is there still enough light to shoot with natural light?

Elena Blair: For sure, all you need is one good window.

Andrew Hellmich: Right

Elena Blair: All you need, yep, yep. All you need is one good window. And we will often do it outside as well, if there's a good overhang, and you know it's going to work. But I actually prefer to do it inside, and all I need is one good window.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool.

Elena Blair: So yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Let's say I mean, well, realistically, it's winter now in Australia. And I know, I know there are listeners that are thinking, "Man, I'm looking forward to summer coming around, or spring at least so it starts picking up again." I know bookings are down through winter for most photographers, if they live in a cold climate area or cool climate area. How long does it take? Let's say someone hears this and they want to implement this now they want to do it. How quickly can they get this going?

Elena Blair: Well, I do recommend that they educate themselves, whether it be through me or somewhere else, because if you are going to do this, you need to be able to be professional and do it. I have people who take the course and have their first school, like in a couple of months. So then that's more just finding the school, but it can be done really quickly. How you get your first school is just going to depend on your connections. Again, I keep saying what I always say, because I talk about this a lot, but it's not a shameful thing to go close to home. So my first school was my child's preschool. So start with someone you know, and if you don't have children, think of a neighbor. Think of a neighborhood school, you know, start close, and it is pretty easy to implement it quickly once you have systems in place, because it is large volume, you know, you are handling a lot of files. You need things to be organized. If you are competing with big box companies, it has to be as professional as what they're going to provide. So we teach you how to do that.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool.

Elena Blair: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: I'm guessing the answer is money. But why would a photographer want to go into this kind of school photography, especially when it is it is competitive, isn't it?

Elena Blair: You know, there are a lot of schools. There are so many schools like, if you think about and by school, it can also be preschools and daycares, and there's so many organizations that are kid oriented, right? So I actually don't really believe in competition. I feel like that word is one that I don't like to use, because I don't think that there's anyone that I know that is successful has no problem with competition, and you can find what you need if you do it properly. So why you would do it is that? Well, first and foremost, yes, it provides significant income. We make about on average, $40 a kid, usually more. And then it eliminates that slow season. If you're going to be a photographer full time, if this is something that you really want to make work, you need to diversify your business and make sure that during those slower months that just happened for us as photographers, unless you're a studio photographer or a newborn photographer. But even that ebbs and flows, you really need something in place to keep your business flowing during that slow season, and this is a really great way to do that. And so that has been huge. But then the other, other biggest thing, is that it provides marketing. So if you're a family or newborn photographer, you're putting yourself front and center with your target market. You're putting yourself front and center with hundreds, sometimes of, children that you would have never been able to get in front of their families by photographing this demographic. So it's huge, and we tell you in the workshop how to set your proofing galleries up so that you're feeding them through your website. So then they come and they're like, "Oh, you're not just a school photographer, you're a family photographer. I'm also going to book you for that." So it's, it's really great marketing.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, when a family member comes back to see the photos of their kid, I'm guessing that you would be collecting their email address too. Is that right?

Elena Blair: We do. We do collect their email address. However, you know, as we're not going to get into email marketing right now, which is something that I is something that I am very passionate about and know a lot about. You can't start using their email address for email marketing unless you've asked them, unless they've opted in. So we don't market to them via email after for family shoots or, you know, newborn shoots or whatever. But we have ways that we kind of passively get them through to my website. And we always book family sessions on the school shoots.

Andrew Hellmich: You can't stop there. You've got me intrigued now, because, I mean, I would have made the assumption that if let's I'm using a Pixieset gallery, and I don't know which gallery you recommend.

Elena Blair: We use ShootProof.

Andrew Hellmich: ShootProof, okay, so the client has to enter their email address to access their child's photos, and if they're a client now, aren't they, you know, giving me permission in a roundabout way to say, "Hey, I want to hear from you".

Elena Blair: Not necessarily. This is a gray area, Andrew, this is one of those things with the whole email marketing stuff that is, like, I'm very careful about that. So if I wanted to use their emails in that way, which is not a bad idea by the way, I would send an email through email marketing software that I use, and I would say, "Welcome to my email community. I received your email because you purchased your child's school photos. Here is your chance to opt out." You need to give them a chance to opt out or opt in, unless, now, the only other caveat, I would say is if, when you took their email via Pixieset or ShootProof, and I don't even know if this is an option, there was a way to have them opt in to your email list, email marketing, but it is actually not legal. And I mean, I'm using that term, you know, I'm not a lawyer. I don't know exactly the legalities behind but it's not legal to email somebody for marketing purposes if they haven't opted into your list.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so if you're going to take that passive approach, which I totally understand and I agree with, I do agree with..

Elena Blair: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: Then I'm guessing the other option that would be definitely available to me would be to retarget that person, you know, by Facebook, because I brought them to my website to see their gallery.

Elena Blair: Yes, that's actually you could do that too. Absolutely, if you are really good with your Facebook ads management, you could do that. I mean, honestly, though, the way that we do it is so we do use ShootProof but instead of giving them the direct link to the ShootProof gallery, we set up a page, a private, non-crawlable page on our website, and on there, there is a button to get them to their gallery, and so we're feeding them directly into our website. And then when they order their prints, we have an automated message that we send them that says, "Thank you for ordering your prints." When we were really trying to ramp up business, we would give sometimes a discount for a family shoot. Lots of different things you can do to directly market to them. But it is the first year that I did my first school. I did it in March of 2013 and I booked myself through September because of that.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, you mean, with family shoots.

Elena Blair: Yeah, that's when I was like, 'Whoa! I'm onto something here." Like my brain was like, "Oh my goodness, this is huge. This is going to change my life." And I have hired an associate photographer because of it that helps me with my family sessions, because I book my family sessions out about a year in advance now.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow

Elena Blair: This is a whole other podcast talking about whole other things, but so I couldn't take that volume, and so now we have another photographer that helps me take that volume.

Andrew Hellmich: Unreal. Okay, I won't push you too far on this, but in the course, or in your course, do you teach us how to take a client from a school photography shoot into a family portrait client?

Elena Blair: Well, we show you how we do it on the website.

strong>Andrew Hellmich: Oh, perfect.

Elena Blair: Because that really is all we do.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay.

Elena Blair: That really is, like, that simple. That's really all we do. And we do show you how we set that up for them.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so you're exposing them to the fact that you are also a family portrait photographer.

Elena Blair: Exactly

Andrew Hellmich: Nice, super simple, passive.

Elena Blair: It's great for SEO to have that many visitors to your website every day too, so.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes, yes, the opportunity to retarget with Facebook as well. I love it. When I say competition before, I feel a little bit the way you do about, you know, competitors and competition out there, there's enough for everyone. But I was thinking competition in so far as when I go to a school, they probably already have a school photographer that they use, that they may have been using for the last 10 years.

Elena Blair: Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Is it hard to break through that?

Elena Blair: So it depends on the school. Now, you know that we have the reputation in our area, or that I do in Seattle, I get inquiries directly from schools, and it's usually a parent that tells them about me, but that are, like, super dissatisfied with their photos. I mean, for a variety of reasons, a lot of it is that the product is terrible. So they're like, I had one school come to me because the big box company had, like, photoshopped the daylights out of these children, their skin. They look like dolls. And the parents were really dissatisfied. And a lot of it, though, honestly, is the service. I mean, they've been with these companies for a long time. There's no personality there. It's very, you know, machine like, and they want something different. In the workshop, we talk about what schools to target, because I have, you know, over the years, kind of found the type of school that is more likely to want this different type of service. But I have photographed a large public school before, too. So it really does work with any kind of school. It just depends on the, you know, neighborhood. It depends on the school. There's lots of little factors to consider. But yes, they are sometimes leaving relationships we've had for years, but often it's because it's this giant company that they don't really have a face. There's a new photographer every year they're sending so it's not like this personal thing that they're breaking. If that makes sense.

Andrew Hellmich: It does. So what's your answer then? Let's say you get into the school, you're talking to the gatekeeper, maybe the receptionist at the school, and you say you're a school photographer, and they say, "Sorry, we already have a school photographer." Like, what's your reply to them then?

Elena Blair: That's a good question. I like that question. So we do recommend starting with the secretary, starting close. That's if you're cold calling. But I actually think that your best ally are parents. So if you know a parent in a school and you can get, you know, get an email out to them and be like, "Hey, you know, I'm trying to get into this school photography thing. Do you know someone I can talk to?" They can usually get you someone more direct if they're interested, or they go talk to them for you and help you out. So that would be the best thing. But if you're cold calling and they say, "No, we have a photographer already", we would email back and say, "I understand. But please feel free to take a look around at my website", and we have it fashioned on my website as a Q and A so you know we were ready to answer questions that we know they're going to ask, and that helps, too. What I was doing in the very beginning, when I was really trying to ramp this up, is I would say, "Hey, I know you have your traditional school photographer that comes in the fall. Would you be willing to have me come in the spring to offer something that's a little bit different?" And I did that three times, and all three times those schools left their traditional photographer for me. So yeah, I only did that three times, but it did work, so.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. I love it. That's so good. I shoot soccer team and sporting as rugby team photos through the winter time as well. So it's a little bit similar. Mine's probably a bit more like the traditional school photographer when I do these shoots. And one of the things that I've noticed coming into to that industry or to that genre, is the clubs are asking for kickbacks, like some of them want $1,000 for us to go in and photograph their teams, because they know it's profitable for us. Do you find the same things with schools? Or do you offer a kickback or maybe a charitable donation?

Elena Blair: We also, we do offer a donation. We offered 10% back to the school, of profits. We do give 10% of our profits back to the school as a donation. I haven't had anyone ask try to charge me, though, like that. Like, say, you need to pay us this, or whatever. I've never had that happen. As a community builder, you know, I feel like this is kind of a great way for me to give back a little bit to my community. So giving 10% back seems like a no brainer for me.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, sure. So like, what kind of money are you giving back generally?

Elena Blair: Well, we just did a school, like I said, our profits are very high. We just had a school that was only 250 kids, and we made over $5,000 on it. Or I was only, like, 190 kids, actually, their volume went down. And so, yeah, so we give them 10% of the profits after our cost of goods, you know. So it's, you know, three to $500 depending on the school. When we do larger schools, like what I've done, schools that are closer to a thousand kids, you know, I make about 10 to $15,000 on that school, and I will give absolutely 10% back.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. Okay, and you mentioned cost of goods there. So is it all digital delivery, or are you supplying prints as well?

Elena Blair: Oh, no, we supply lots of prints. So my portrait business is very digital based. We do sell the digital files with school photography, but this is where I make a lot more money on prints. You know, it's the traditional way people want prints. So we do have packages and prints, but we work with, you know, the print labs all have unit printing, which is very affordable for us as the photographer. So our profits are pretty high.

Andrew Hellmich: What do you mean by unit printing?

Elena Blair: So they print one, like on one sheet of paper, you know, a photo paper. It'll be two, five by sevens or four, you know, eight wallets or whatever. So, yeah, so the family has to cut it themselves. Kind of old style.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so that's the old style school photography, where the family chooses a package and you supply it all in one sheet. They cut it out.

Elena Blair: Absolutely, yeah, I always say, you know, at the end of the day, this is school photography, so you can't like, I'll have people in my Facebook group, you know, say, "Oh well, no one's, you know, buying the prints." And then you look and they're trying to charge portrait, you know, studio prices. You can't charge $40 for an eight by 10 or whatever. That was just a number I threw out, but..

Andrew Hellmich: Sure.

Elena Blair: I mean, you can't charge an astronomical amount for an eight by 10 in a school photography setting, you have to remember that it is school photography, so you have to make sure that you keep your cost of goods down by using those, you know, services that the print labs provide.

Andrew Hellmich: Like, yeah, okay, so if you're averaging 20 to $40 a kid or something like that, then they're getting a range of photos, you know, up to eight by 10s, five by sevens, maybe some wallets in that 20 to $40.

Elena Blair: Yeah, just depends. Canvas wraps, we sell and then digitals. Most families purchase digitals and prints. I think that's why our sales are so high. There will be people that will spend $500 on school photos for one kid.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, wow. Okay.

Elena Blair: I mean, that's a high sale, obviously, but, yeah, they're just blown away by the product. It's so different than anything that they've ever seen before, so they're excited about it.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so your price list is structured in a way that people can spend, you know, hundreds if they want to.

Elena Blair: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. Yep. When I look at the photos in your examples in your gallery, these aren't school photos, like you normally think of school photos. These could be framed and, you know, with a beautiful white matte and a lovely frame up on the wall. Is that what people are doing or they are doing that?

Elena Blair: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: That's cool.

Elena Blair: Yeah, it is. It's very popular. And one of the cool things about it too, I was like, I was saying giving back to monetarily, but is that I'll have parents send me a message, whether they be, you know, underprivileged financially or privileged financially, that, you know, photography isn't something that they value, which is fine, I get that like, not everyone's gonna go out and spend $2,000 a year on their family photos. And so this is the first time that they've seen a professional, beautiful portrait of their child, and they're just brought to their knees, and they thank me for it, you know? They thank us for for doing this for them, you know. And like I said, our prices are competitive, so we're not charging an arm and a leg. And the underprivileged families, same thing. They're just like, "Wow, thank you for, you know, for doing this for us." So it's pretty cool.

Andrew Hellmich: So good. Can I do this with one camera and one lens? So I don't need a range of stuff?

Elena Blair: No, we only use, I like my 50 millimeter for this. I have students that use an 85 or the 24 to 70. I prefer the 50 millimeter. It's just true to life, and I do have 35 millimeter users as well. I wouldn't recommend that just because it's so wide, but you just need one camera and one lens.

Andrew Hellmich: And for all of your class members, people have done the course that are actually doing this in real life. What's the biggest thing that you find that people struggle with? They don't wrap their head around they get wrong. What's the biggest sticking point for them?

Elena Blair: Oh my gosh. We have students that are just tripling their income. I had a student that was a doctor that quit being a doctor because she was successful. Just have to throw that out there. Like this is it's hugely successful for people. We write them up. It's amazing. But I would say that the biggest challenge probably is getting the traction at the very beginning, unless they already have it. So there's some people like, take the course, because they already have a school booked, and they're like, "Uh-oh, I don't know what I'm doing. I need to take this class." But I would say that's probably the biggest challenge, because our system is pretty tidy. You know, once you figure it out, like, you can bang it out really quick a school. We turn our schools around in like, less than two weeks. And I think that the hardest thing is just getting started, getting that first contact, once you have one school under your belt, it's kind of like wildfire. It spreads a little bit easier. And I would say maybe the next thing is, if you are a very new photographer, which we do have very new photographers that do this, which alleluia, I think that's amazing. If you can find a way to make income right away, before you've built that clientele. I think that's one of the most beautiful things about this. But if you're a new photographer and you aren't getting it right in camera and you're spending time editing, that can be pretty daunting for those new photographers, because you've got, even if the school and they had 40 kids and you've got thousands of photographs, but once you get the hang of it, and we teach how to give really good, actionable tips about how to get it right in camera, you shouldn't be editing individually at all, then it ends up being so much faster. So I would say those are the two probably biggest challenges, depending on where they are in their journey.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. Are the most successful students, Are they outsourcing their editing? Are they doing it themselves still?

Elena Blair: Nobody outsources their editing for this that I know of. I don't even and I do outsource my editing for my portrait clients, but I don't do that for this, because we also teach you how to do it quickly in Photoshop. Like, why click of a button. You call and then we give and you just click button on batch, and it does it for you. So I wouldn't recommend outsourcing editing on this, honestly, unless you really already had a relationship with a school and you knew your sales were going to be really high, you do want you, we're all about profits. In my business, I feel like you're going to be in business, you got to be making a profit. So we can make sure you got, you know your time is time is money, so.

Andrew Hellmich: For sure. And then do you get parents coming back and saying, "Elena, can you retouch this? Can you do this? Can you adjust that? Can you take that hair out?"

Elena Blair: I charge for that.

Andrew Hellmich: You charge.

Elena Blair: I charge for touching. Yeah. $20 an image, I would never retouch for free, because you don't know, you know, you can't retouch an image if no one's bought it, because you don't know if they're going to buy it. So it's wasted time. So we charge. Rarely do we have people want us to retouch, sometimes in the high schoolers, but very rarely.

Andrew Hellmich: So someone's got a little, let's say a little boy or girl has got a scratch on their face. Do you take that out while you're doing the editing, or you leave it?

Elena Blair: Oh, I leave it. I would not touch one thing on a child's face unless the parent asked me to

Andrew Hellmich: Okay

Elena Blair: Yeah, never.

Andrew Hellmich: So you upload that, and then if the parent purchase it and they want you to remove the scratch, and then it's an extra $20.

Elena Blair: Per image.

Andrew Hellmich: Right, yeah, right.

Elena Blair: Yes, per picture, yeah. And I actually, I should know this off the top of my head, but we have a whole gallery like it's $20 per image. I think if you want the whole gallery, we touch 25 I don't charge 20 for the whole thing, but absolutely you gotta charge for that kind of thing.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so when you say whole gallery, I get the idea then that you're supplying more than one image per child for that parent.

Elena Blair: Yep. So other galleries have, what we say is they're going to have two to five, so two to five images, but usually, to be honest, Andrew, they have like, 10 to 20.

Andrew Hellmich: Right, okay. You're shooting a lot quickly.

Elena Blair: I shoot a lot quickly. Yeah, in the one minute I spent with the kid, I'll try to get a very good variety. And, you know, editing is easy because we're batch editing and ShootProof makes it super easy to upload and have those galleries set up, and so it to have a lot of images, and the more images we have, the more likely they buy the digitals and prints.

Andrew Hellmich: I love it. I think this is my last well, I usually say this is my last question. I think of 10 other things. But just to slowly wrap this up, do you have any issues with parents who are concerned about having their child's photo online, in your gallery, on your website, or in ShootProof?

Elena Blair: Absolutely. So the way that we handle this is, first of all, ShootProof's galleries are private. They're not, you know, crawlable on the internet, but we do password protect the whole gallery as a whole, and we separate it by, so it would be like Happy Child Preschool and then each class. So say it was like kindergarten first and second. I don't know. I just kind of made that up. And then within each class, each child has their own gallery. So, yes, the entire class can see every child's photo. The way that we get around this is, in that parent education, we send an opt out form. If they would like to have a private gallery, we will make one for them. If there's an issue. In a school with 1,000 kids, we'll have, like 10, it's very few that aren't okay with the other family members in their child's class seeing their photos. But yes, we do address that. You have to be very careful. Of course, this is children in the internet, so.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes

Elena Blair: But yeah, that's how we get around that, so.

Andrew Hellmich: I started off talking about the course, and then you said that you made some changes. How much is the course, and how do we get it?

Elena Blair: Yeah, yeah. So we went up on the price because we have just so many updates. We have exclusive tutorials from ShootProof and from our print lab color ink that we use that really helped to streamline the process. And we have that behind the scenes shooting video. So the course is 147 but for your listeners, we give 20% off sets, 117, happy to do that.

Andrew Hellmich: Look, I was expecting it to be a lot, dear. I gotta be honest with you, Elena, that's super cheap and generous.

Elena Blair: Yeah, I know. You know why I make it cheap. I make my courses cheap because I just really believe that everyone can do this, like any of the things that I teach, I want it to be accessible, and so I make them, I know what it's like. I know it's like in the beginning when you don't feel like you have a lot of resources on hand, so.

Andrew Hellmich: That is awesome. So for the listener, so it's 147 normally it's gonna be 117 till the end of the month. If you are a PhotoBizX premium member, I'm gonna email you with some extra detail. You can even have a look inside the members resource page. And I'll have a special offer there for you on the course so, and also that the link to get this course if you go to photobizx.com/schooled. So PhotoBizX.com forward slash schooled, that's with an ED after the school that'll take you to the course and everything else, I think should happen pretty easily from there. So Elena, with the course you've talked about a community. Is there a Facebook group that goes along with it?

Elena Blair: Yes, there is. Yep, and we've got members from all over the world in there. So it's very active, very supportive.

Andrew Hellmich: Unreal.

Elena Blair: Yep.

Andrew Hellmich: Just quickly, you said you're doing a lot of prints. Does your lab send the prints directly to the parent, or they come to you first?

Elena Blair: A lot of people do many different ways. The way that I have it done is we use Color Ink, because they package them for you, so they, it's so amazing, and it's a very low fee. It recognizes, it, them, the people in the lab recognize, you know, when it's one student puts it in this really modern packaging, this clear cellophane bag, and they send it to us, and we get it back to the house. I could say studio, but let's be real, I work out of my house. I get it back to my house, and we make sure, you know, that they're all there. We do check. And then we take them to the school, and the school distributes them, but they're very tidy and organized, you know, by class, so it's very easy for the school to do that.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. And so that lab, what were they called?

Elena Blair: Color Ink.

Andrew Hellmich: Color Ink, they're available to US photographers, Canadian photographers, too, or not?

Elena Blair: I don't know. Actually, that is a very good question. I'm not sure.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. All right, so anyone that's using ShootProof can use a lab that works with ShootProof. Is that right?

Elena Blair: Yep, you can use and we actually self-fulfill. So it doesn't matter what lab you use.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. And do you have to use ShootProof to do this? Or if someone has an account with Pixieset, will that work?

Elena Blair: It would work, yeah, people use all different ways. Yeah, it can be used in any way. I recommend ShootProof, just because they've made my life so easy.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure.

Elena Blair: And have really worked with me. Like, we come up with a, you know, we've been doing schools for this long now that we can say, like, "Hey, can you guys do this?" And they're very helpful. So that's been great. But we do have members that use Pixieset in our alumni group, and what they'll do is kind of come in and help each other and say, like, "Hey, this feature is what's similar to this feature and whatever."

Andrew Hellmich: Cool, awesome, awesome.

Elena Blair: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: This has been unreal. This has been so good. And look to you the listener, if this feels like it's been a big ad for this course, it's because it is. I a 100% believe in what Elena's doing here. I think if you're a photographer who's looking to build an income when in a quiet period, or just boost their income, generally, I think this is a win-win, like this is a no brainer, and it's a way for you to, you know, be creative, shoot in a style that you want to shoot, and do it with high volume and make good money doing it. So, yeah, I'm excited about this. Elena, this is so good. So again, thank you so much for coming back on and sharing.

Elena Blair: Welcome. And even if you don't take the course, you know, just think of it as inspiration. As like, another thing that you can try, go get some kids and photograph them in this style and see if it's something for you. Like, even just if that's the only thing that you do from this, like, let it be, you know, an idea for you to make some money and make this work.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. Yeah. I like, I agree. I love it. I love everything about it. And at the price, it's, it's like, it's a no brainer. Why would you try and learn all this yourself? It's all laid out for you there.

Elena Blair: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: Thanks, Elena, you've been amazing.

Elena Blair: Andrew, thank you so much for having me again. It's been a pleasure.