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Arek Rainczuk of www.fivecastles.business is originally from Poland and is now based in Melbourne Australia. He photographs portraits and runs “high end” studio – Five Castles Portraits where a large number of his leads and clients come via third party marketing.
I'd ben told I need to get Arek onto the podcast for some time but it was his post inside the Third Party Marketing Course group that had me reaching out to set up today's interview.
He wrote:
I've been doing 3rd party mail outs – where my boutique partners are sending me the details of their most deserving clients on a monthly basis – and the recipients get a gift certificate valued $650 ($200 session fee and $450 print credit).
The client needs to pay $50 holding deposit upon booking and I never had an issue with it.
The $450 print credit is enough to get a 10×15 canvas (and get the $50 deposit refunded) or get two 8x12s ($250 each) using the deposit. But the vast majority uses the (now) $500 print credit as a discount to their massive order.
His business tagline is: “Melbourne's Most Meaningful Photography”
He photographs families, couples, pets and business portraits.
He shoots indoors and outdoors but weekends are reserved for outdoor sessions only.
This interview and Arek's approach to Third Party Marketing will leave you jumping to get something similar set up for your photography business!
Here’s some more of what we cover in the interview:
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What is your big takeaway?
Following this interview, I’d love to know if you're taking anything away from what Arek shared. Is there something you heard that excited or motivated you to the point where you thought, yeah, I'm going to do that! If so, let me know by leaving your thoughts in the comments below, let me know what your takeaways were, what you plan to implement in your business as a result of what you heard in today's episode.
If you have any questions that I missed, a specific question you’d like to ask Arek or if you just want to say thanks for coming on the show, feel free to add them in the comments area below.
iTunes Reviews and Shout-outs
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Links to people, places and things mentioned in this episode:
Episode 041: Steve Saporito – The Doctor of Portrait Photography Success… Is In Session
Episode 072: Steve Saporito – How to Generate Terrific Sales for Portrait Photographers
Episode 184: Mark Rossetto – Get Serious about What You Want from Your Photography Business
Episode 316: Mark Rossetto – How to create and use a 12 month photography marketing plan
Facebook Ad interview with photography business coach, Bernie Griffiths
Thank you!
Thanks again for listening and thanks to Arek for coming on and sharing his thoughts and ideas on building a high end, super-profitable family portrait photography business by utilising Third Party Marketing and partnering with the most suitable businesses.
If we all keep our standards high and the prices consistent, we would not be going to be competing with the weekend warriors. – Arek Rainczuk
If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!
That’s it for me this week, hope everything is going well for you in life and business!
Thanks and speak soon
Andrew
345: Arek Rainczuk – High end portrait photography via third party marketing
Andrew Hellmich: Today's guest is originally from Poland and he's now based in Melbourne, Australia. He photographs portraits and runs a high end studio by the name of Five Castles Portraits. I've been told I need to get this photographer onto the podcast for some time, but it was his post inside the Third Party Marketing Course group that had me reaching out to set up today's interview and in that thread he wrote, I've been doing third party mail outs where my boutique partners are sending me the details of their most deserving clients on a monthly basis and the recipients get a gift certificate valued at $650 - $200 for the session fee, $450 print credit. The client needs to pay a $50 holding deposit in addition to hold their booking. I've never had an issue with it. He then goes on to say the $450 print credit is enough to get a 10x15 canvas and get their $50 deposit refunded or get two 8x12s, which are valued at $250 eight using their deposit. But the vast majority of clients use the $500 credit as a discount to their massive order. His business tagline is Melbourne's most meaningful photography. He photographs families, couples, pets and business portraits. He shoots indoors and outdoors, but the weekends are reserved for outdoor sessions only. I'm talking about Arek Rainczuk and I'm rapt to have having with us now to learn more about him and his business. Arek, welcome!
Arek Rainczuk: Thank you, Andrew. It's lovely being here.
Andrew Hellmich: Mate, it's great to have you on and I know we've talked about doing this for so long. Maybe you can start by letting me and the listener know how you ended up in Melbourne and shooting photography when I believe you came here as a scientist.
Arek Rainczuk: Yeah, that's right, Andrew. Actually, as you mentioned, I'm from Poland. I did my master's degree there in genetics and I was good enough to be offered a full scholarship almost anywhere in the world. And I chose Melbourne because there was the farthest away I could get from Europe and still find a good university that does the research I was interested in. And I started my PhD in 2006 in Melbourne and over the years and as I became disillusioned in the career in science and my passion was dying and at the same time I was picking up photography as a hobby, just doing landscapes and some animals and then friends started asking me to photograph their kids. Then I did it kind of for free and they wanted to give me a tip and so on. And then my wife noticed how passionate I was about photography and from my first day she basically paid for my AIPP membership and that was two thousand probably eight or nine and that was the beginning of the end.
Andrew Hellmich: Why did you say you were trying to get as far away as possible from Europe?
Arek Rainczuk: Cause I've been there already. I always wanted to get out. So science and studying was a way to do it. I'm not really patriotic. And you know, you're born in a country where were you born in. And I rather choose a country I want to live in and contribute to and I chose Australia and I have no regrets whatsoever.
Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. Fantastic. What's your wife's name?
Arek Rainczuk: Kate.
Andrew Hellmich: Kate. And is Kate Polish as well or did you meet her?
Arek Rainczuk: Yes, yes, yes. Now you have to import wives to Australia as well. They don't make them as good here. I'm sorry, i'm sorry. I'm joking. It's a running joke in my family how everyone imported their wives as we'd say, so.
Andrew Hellmich: Well that's interesting you say that because I have a Scottish wife, Linda, and all three of my brothers are married to, well one has a British wife from the UK, one from Italy, and another one from Japan.
Arek Rainczuk: There you go. There you go. So you know what I'm talking about.
Andrew Hellmich: Exactly. Exactly.
Arek Rainczuk: Nah, I love Australian. Boys and girls as well. So that's why I'm here. So please don't, no one gets offended.
Andrew Hellmich: No, it's all good. It's all good. So with the photography, how far into your photography career did you get along before you said, okay, I'm leaving science behind, because I imagine that was a huge decision after all the years you put into getting your masters.
Arek Rainczuk: Oh yeah, masters and then seven years working in the PhD. It was a slow considerate process. I was basically keeping one foot in science doing a little bit of teaching on the side and part time doing tutorials and so on. As I was setting up business with the other hand, and I remember after joining AIPP and I went to the decathlon. I think it was one of the first decathlons down Melbourne. Decathlons is a small event organized by the AIPP where you have 10 speakers, everyone's got 10 slides and 10 minutes each and there's 10 different topics. And that was my first event ever and I sat down and mind you my biggest sale to that point was I think $300 and I was so rapt because my cost of goods was 150 and I said I made 100% profits. So I stopped down there and one of the first speakers was asked their question how much he charge for 8x10 and when he paid $250 and I knew it cost about $4 per print, I literally fell off the chair. I mean, I had to scramble back on it and I think that was the wake up moment. So that's why I appreciate when you ask all those details about the numbers in our businesses because the reality is if someone's new to the industry, they wouldn't know how to price it properly. And as I remember it was mentioned in the AIPP as well, "A raising tide lifts all boats." So if we all keep our standards high and the price is consistent, we were not going to be competing with, with the weekend warriors or people who have a camera and think they can charge $50 for a CD.
Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, I totally agree with that. How long did it take for you to replace the income you were making as a scientist with your photography income?
Arek Rainczuk: Income as a scientist is not as big as you guys think. When you're studying it's even smaller than that and it is, I would say less predictable. So in science it is more about federal funding. So every two or three years you have to beg for money. If you get them, there's only 10% chance you do get the funding you need and when you do get it, you basically work just so you can beg again, in three years time. If you don't get it, you're out. So it's not as rosy as people may think. It took me probably two or three years as I was slowly building up. I was mostly at that stage we were renting in a normal suburban house with not really a space to see clients so my mode back then was when I was basically inviting myself over to my client's homes before the meeting. I would bring some samples, like a portfolio and I'll sit down with them, discuss the session at their place. And we would have the session a few weeks later on, usually on the weekend. And I would then come back to their home with my laptop cables, samples. I had samples too. My biggest one was 20x60" sample. It was three work spots to the car to set it up in their home phone presentation on their screen on the TV. and I was doing that for a few years and actually, learned a lot about how to choose the right prints for the right wall, which falls out the good ones. And I would then come and deliver it cause I couldn't have them come and pick it up. I would come and deliver and hang them on the walls for them. So I was full, full on service and yeah, I learned a lot back then. But when we finally bought a house, we were looking for something where it's also for business and we were so lucky we found that place in their best suburb in Melbourne. In Belgrave, we've got the best driveway in Belgrave with space for fuel cars and and houses, two storey. And the ground floor is all for business. So to get to that stage. It was probably, you know, five or six years and we'd been here since 2015.
Andrew Hellmich: Right. So how long were you doing science and photography before you said, okay...
Arek Rainczuk: And all that was about two or three years I think.
Andrew Hellmich: Okay. So pretty quick. Really. And Kate was working full time as well or still is?
Arek Rainczuk: Yes. Yeah, she was very patient, supportive. But the patience and support is in providing short when she's working five days a week and then commuting and everything. And I'm at home kind of playing on the computer and disappearing in the weekends on the weekends to shoot. Oh yeah. We tried to make it all work even better now. So now that clients are coming here, I'm more in the home. I'm trying to outsource as much as I can, so for me it's not about building a monster so I don't want to build a business that it's too much to handle and too much to sacrifice. I want something more of a lifestyle where I can balance my family life and work and still get all the enjoyment from it and however the challenge is to keep it nice and they will in longterm running. So I don't overbook myself. I kind of book ahead and yeah, there's some challenges with that itself but we can talk about it when we get there.
Andrew Hellmich: Sure. It's interesting to hear you say that Arek, because I looked at your website and I can see I have the option to book or schedule a meeting with you or you shoot with you and I can book Monday to Sunday. There's seven days of the week available for me to book a shoot.
Arek Rainczuk: Not really. So before you can book a shoot, you have to book a meeting with me and those, I only do it during the weekdays and most of them are during working hours. However, couple of days a week, I do have afternoon appointments and these book out very quickly because you have other people who had to pick up the kids from school or wait for the husband to come back from work or, or have some other activities during the day when they're not fully flexible. And I do make a point of meeting everyone before the session so they have to bring their kids and the dog and the husband has to be there as well. So that's during my weekday. So I'll make a point to show my clients in my gallery I'm doing the weekdays. Sunday and Saturday I only work early in the morning and late in the evening so that, that depends on the sunset and sunrise times. So that changes throughout the year. But that's when I do the other portrait sessions because I want to get here the best, you know, the golden hours, you know at either end of the day.
Andrew Hellmich: Okay, got it, got it. Okay. I just had a look now again, so I can see that there's Saturdays and Sundays are mainly blacked out for those appointments.
Arek Rainczuk: Yup. Yup. They would be.
Andrew Hellmich: Okay. Got it. Just on the topic of income and making that change over, did you get to a point or what was the point when you realize, okay, I can quit science, I can be a photographer?
Arek Rainczuk: I don't remember the exact point, but I remember I couldn't do it both ways much longer. There's a completely different mindset when you're running your own business and when you have other commitments. It's a big distraction and a big, um, takes a lot of mind space. I decided to wrap up with science and this way I could focus on photography and I'm not too much for photography. Running a business counts. Photography is 5% of what we do, isn't it? So running the business. Once I had my weekdays free, that's where I had a chance to go out more to do all my networking. I did a lot of networking to start with. Now, you know, to meet as many people as I could during the day and I couldn't do it while working, while being busy in their lab.
Andrew Hellmich: Got it. So did you have a figure, did you and Kate sit down, you know, over dinner and say, okay Arek, you need to be bringing in $50,000 for you to quit science.
Arek Rainczuk: Yeah. So I basically, our aim is I have to match whatever Kate was doing at that time and then more.
Andrew Hellmich: Right. Before you could quit.
Arek Rainczuk: Before I could quit, yes, that's right.
Andrew Hellmich: What was the number you had to get to?
Andrew Hellmich: Oh, I had to bring in 5,000 a month.
Andrew Hellmich: Okay.
Arek Rainczuk: Profit. Yeah.
Andrew Hellmich: Oh profit? Not turnover, but profit?
Arek Rainczuk: I mean, that's what it has to end up on the account.
Andrew Hellmich: Wow. Okay. So you really had to be doing a hundred, $120,000 turnover before you quit science?
Arek Rainczuk: Kind of. Yeah. You could say that. Yeah. But the thing is there's a little buffer. So I keep all the money on the business account and then I kind of feed it out to the private one just so there's the consistency and predictability. So all the dips and troughs and peaks in the business are, you know, buffered in the business account. But that's kind of the aim. So when I know I can do that that's good.
Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. And what about today? Arek, can you give us a bit of a snapshot? Like what's your turnover today?
Arek Rainczuk: So my turnover for the last financial year was just over 180K or just over 50 sessions and depending how you, cause I do a lot of different types of portraits and they all have different averages, but when I calculate it, it's about two and a half or $3,000 average. And I only shoot maybe two or three times a week.
Andrew Hellmich: Wow. You have a great business and a good lifestyle by the sound of it.
Arek Rainczuk: I try not to guess. I avoid building a monster, but I've been working with few business coaches in that industry I started with or Lorna and Lee Andrikopoulos from Instinctive Desires. I don't think they're doing that anymore. I had a lot of training with Steve Saporito that you've had on your show and currently I'm working with Mark Rossetto that you also had on your show and it's, you know, because [inaudible] there's a lot of learnings. I learn from as many people as I can and then tried to kind of forge it into something of my own.
Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. Mate, I love your mindset and this is something I don't hear from photographers very often. You sound like you could build a bigger business if you wanted to, but you're holding yourself back. What's holding you back? Why don't you grow larger than you are?
Arek Rainczuk: Yeah, so that was until recently. That was my mindset. But my goal for next year, so next year, this time I want to have doubled my business by then so I don't have the capacity, but I just need to take over more. I know I can do more and I find myself kind of wasting so much time and procrastinating and not doing that or doing something later and I realized it's not fair for Kate. I want to, if I can, while I have the capacity and the health and everything, I want to make sure we can enjoy a better lifestyle and take less pressure. Take more of her off her shoulders, if that makes sense.
Andrew Hellmich: It does. Yeah, absolutely.
Arek Rainczuk: So I'm in process of kind of working through everything and realizing where I can do better.
Andrew Hellmich: So in your vision for next year, do you see yourself bringing on more help, more outsourcing, more photographers, someone to do editing? How do you see that growth happening?
Arek Rainczuk: Yeah, I just brought someone to do the editing and offshore retoucher. I'm just training how to work up to my standards. It's so hard, man. I rather do it myself, but then it takes so much time. And it's the balancing and the sacrifice, but she's very affordable so I don't mind sending her a lot of things. Like obviously I outsource bookkeeping. I think the biggest outsourcing that I would next would be doing is probably social media and some forms of marketing. I'm better in real world marketing and actual meeting people, approaching businesses and developing partnerships with them. My social media, my online skills, while they're there, the skills are there, but the results are not coming through. So I think that'll be my next thing. And my aim is to shoot four portraits a week. Last one, business portrait or personal branding shoot a week. If I get to that stage and have it be booked out for the next two or three months consistently, that's my goal. So that's what I have written down. Five shoots a week, booked out for three weeks ahead with a minimum spend of two and a half for every spend.
Andrew Hellmich: Two and a half average or three and a half?
Arek Rainczuk: Two and a half average, that's my minimum every client I want to get [inaudible] I want to keep.
Andrew Hellmich: Yes. Got it.
Arek Rainczuk: As I'm expanding, so I don't want to get more work but get less like smaller average cause that's what tends to happen if you get too many clients, the client experience falls and they expect people's averages tend to come down.
Andrew Hellmich: Yes. Yeah. Got it. Okay. I want to talk about your client experience, but I want to go in some kind of an order so we can follow along with you and what you do. But just before we touch on that, you mentioned your offshore outsourcing person. How did you find them and where are they based?
Arek Rainczuk: I used a website called Upwork and I posted an ad for a retoucher for a portrait photographer. I only waited 24 hours to get all the people raise their hands and then I sent them a link to a small folder. There were two files. One was a studio portrait for fine retouching and one was one of my average family portraits and I exported it from ProSelect and with all the notes that I normally would do in ProSelect during ordering appointment as in shakes, mom's hair and remove distractions and remove the light stains or something like this just so I can see if they can open the file and read it and follow the instructions and I made some few other ones for crop to this and just to make sure people that they read all and follow all the instructions and then I gave them a deadline, 24 hours.
Arek Rainczuk: I think out of 11 I got 10 people send back the files for me to review and I just scored it anonymously, just looked at the file if I liked it on scale of 1 to 10 and then I contacted the two main ones for their pricing and to do any follow up or fixing up and I chose a girl that is so reasonably priced. She's based out of St. Petersburg but yeah, she's lovely. She's good with computers, good communication, fast turn around and she charges per hour, not per image. So that works for me. This way, because some images need more work, some less. I do all the pre-editing in Lightroom, so I do whatever I can in there. So she just needs to do some skin work and remove bits and pieces here and there and make sure it looks nice.
Andrew Hellmich: Do you communicate with her via Zoom or Skype?
Arek Rainczuk: No. So Upwork is a platform that does all for that, so I try to keep all the communication there. This way the Upwork itself comes in as a moderator as well. I mean, not in our conversation, but anything, any disputes are resolved through them. So they encourage everyone to stay on the platform. It's got either a text chat or audio options. But this way all the communications log. And whenever she's working on my files, she has to turn on their website. The software that comes through the website and it records the time she's spending on the project and takes random screenshots. So I can review if, say she spent two hours on my work and she's charged, you know, she charges like 15 bucks an hour or something. So let's say she's about to charge me 30 bucks. I can review what she's done in those and I see the screenshots of her in Photoshop doing this, my photos. So it's good. I don't pay her to view Facebook or watch YouTube and it's all through Upwork. I think they, they pull it from my Paypal, keep it in escrow and then pay out to her if there's no issues. So it's good for her cause she's got security and so do I so yeah, I found that working pretty well.
Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. Love it. Now you mentioned that networking and getting out in the community is a big part of what you do. Is that how you do these third party marketing promotions? Is that by getting out there?
Arek Rainczuk: Yeah, so most of my clients would come from the third party and I learned that from Julian Walker, I think he is. Yes, I learned it from him and obviously [inaudible] a little bit, but that was a game changer. That's when I learned how to kind of run this type of promotion. But I found out, first of all, AIPP is a national organization that helps, gives you access to all these people. Is invaluable. But another one that I spent six years in was BNI. You probably spoke about BNI with people.
Andrew Hellmich: Yes.
Arek Rainczuk: It's a Business Network International. It's got chapters all over the world and they allow only one representative per industry to join a group that meets quite regularly. So it's a big time commitment because apart from weekly meetings, we organize a lot of one to ones and so on where you get to know the businesses better. And I visited all the other chapters in the area and I've identified the businesses that I want to work with. So people who have, who are more boutique, so and service based. So people who do know their clients very well by name and they know they have kids and so on.
Arek Rainczuk: So I had a whole list of criteria that I was judging the businesses for and I would approach them. So BNI gives you that easy way of approaching them and slowly developed a relationship with them. And then I had a whole process of getting them on board, for the third party. And yeah, it goes from there.
Andrew Hellmich: So what's in it for them? So what's your pitch to this?
Arek Rainczuk: Oh, that's the easy bit.
Andrew Hellmich: But you say it's the easy, this is the part that so many photographers get hung up when they get scared.
Arek Rainczuk: Oh really?
Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. They get scared.
Arek Rainczuk: You just ask them like, do you have great clients? And they go, Oh yeah, my clients are amazing. Okay, how do you reward them? What do you do for them that is out of ordinary and they go blank. Like I give him a discount or yeah, usually that's it, you know? Or they may be send them a postcard for Christmas. That's the account that the highest I've heard from them. Highest kind of customer.
Andrew Hellmich: Like reward.
Arek Rainczuk: Appreciation, rewarding, yeah. So that they, how about, you know, I give you a way to reward your best clients and I make sure it's the best clients only. So they only think about the top tier clients and I say, I've got this partnership program going on and if you wanted to, and then I usually organize a meeting with that, but don't tell them more than that. Kind of leave them hanging and brooding on how much they drop the line on them along the way. I like to draw the bowl with rewarding the best clients. And then the first meeting I usually invite them over to my gallery and whoever walks from my gallery first, their jaw drops the first word they say is 'Wow'. And kind of, that's what I pick it up from them. So then I showed them around.
Andrew Hellmich: So hang on so Arek when you say the gallery, this is in your home, this is the business premises downstairs?
Arek Rainczuk: Yes. Yes. So that's the whole ground floor. We've got a large showroom. I would say that's where all my fancy furniture is. And I do have a separate room. That's what I call the gallery. Cause I've got basically small portraits along the wall that all tell a different story. Got a separate bathroom for the clients in my office. My stories isn't here as well, but I usually take them through it, I show them kind of the type of worker that I do and then we sit down, I bring tea and I would explain the whole process for them. And basically I usually would say that what I can do for them, so I usually have everything prepared. So beautiful proposal. I've got the back end proposal that explains everything in the form of a letter and their contract and what to do, how it works and also have a sample back. So I usually give them the sample back, which is what their clients would get class time or that I just give them a beautiful big C five and below that is very luxurious and touch and they can, because it's filled with everything in it and I hand address it and I draw this little dignity line in the corners and label it as elite stamped.
Arek Rainczuk: And uh, so I hand it to them and I say, how would you feel if you found that in your and in your mailbox? And they go, Oh yeah, it doesn't look like a bill as it goes. It's not a long envelope. It doesn't have a window. It's not prepaid envelope. It's says late, cause I literally lick them. Now I use the self adhesive. It's like a licked stamp that I put on and it's hand addressed so it feels personal and it feels luxurious and big. So when they, they take it out from the mailbox, they can feel it's not... They have to open it before they can throw it away. And when they open it with me here, the business that I'm trying to seduce, the first thing that pulls out is their letter that is printed on their letterheads. I usually grab a logo from my, Google the business, grab the logo, put it in a corner of the paper and print a letter from them to their clients as in eh, dear Andrew, thanks for being such an awesome customer to us. We've loved having you here and we've got a special gift for you. And everything's been organized and the gift is, and it lists what it is and what to do next. It's very personal. Even though I print them by dozen I just change the name and the letterhead. So that's the letter that's kind of makes them, Oh okay. That's what you mean. And then they pull out from their envelope, everything else, which is a gorgeous little spiral bound booklet that I've had produced for me, which the first two pages that their gift certificate that that's printed with space for handwriting. So that's where I've hand fill each year. So I say it again. So it's from the ladies and your favorite hairdressers, To: Joanne and John, uh, expiry and the gift the value is also handwritten and there's a space for a personal message.
Arek Rainczuk: So I usually require that every address that I get from the businesses has a personal message from them as in a Congratulations on the new puppy. We hear that all your furniture's ruined or you know, something very personal so it doesn't seem like they write the same thing to everyone. And I find that more personally can get that bit the better the return.
Arek Rainczuk: Arek, do you complete that yourself in your handwriting yet, but you're using what they've told you?
Arek Rainczuk: Yes. I mean I tried to use my wife's handwriting. My handwriting is more of a doctor's handwriting so it's only legible by other doctors or nurses I guess. But my wife does it mostly. I do label the envelopes. It is a big process but we only do it once a month and takes most of the day to do it. The whole production line on a table. But it's well worth it cause I get about 25 to 30% return calls,
Andrew Hellmich: 25 to 30% so that's amazing. Most of the times when I've done this kind of third party marketing. I'm lucky to get a 5% return, but mine is more just whack it out there.
Arek Rainczuk: That's right. Because that's what I've optimized it to. So if you choose the wrong business or that's first mistake, if you choose a chain of some sort, then that they don't have the connection to the clients that's suspicious to the client and they get a letter like this from that place. So unless it's a boutique place, they wouldn't would find that there's suspicious. If it's a normal postage paid, printed automatically you know, printed envelope that looks like a bill that doesn't even get opened a lot of times. If it feels like a, you know, big, it feels dodgy, it is you know, people find it too nice to be true. But if they get something handwritten, they do have to open it. If it's nice and luxurious, kind of it builds up on itself and if they know who they got it from, they usually call them and saying thank you you know, because that's how appreciative they feel when they get it. So that's one of the tricks there and the expiry date as well. And now there's some controversy now in Australia with expiry of the gift certificates or gift cards I think. But these are, I think that refers to the gift cards you would get for iTunes, you know and Woolies. Not so much as a limited type promotion kind of gift that expires because if you don't pick it up it gets expired. So I usually just ask them to evaluate the gift certificate. By you know giving me a call or visiting my website special landing page where they have to put their basic details. Even though I have the details already, I promised to the business that I'm sending them from that I'm not using those details to contact the clients apart from that email and that mail out.
Andrew Hellmich: Nice. Yeah. I never mind really when someone reschedules. I enjoy that time because there's nothing else in the diary. It's some free time. It's lovely.
Arek Rainczuk: Yeah.
Andrew Hellmich: Arek, you have been amazing. It's been so good to talk to you. I'm so glad we actually found time to do this, finally, after talking about it for so long. Where is the best place for the listener to get a better idea about you, your work and what you do?
Arek Rainczuk: That'll be on my website on fivecastles.com.au. F-I-V-E castles. Yeah, that's kind of the hub for everything. I'm always working on it, so it's always something new there. Yeah. I'm not sure where you're gonna release it, but it's going to be probably different than today.
Andrew Hellmich: Oh really? Okay. Fantastic. Well, I'll add links to obviously to your website and I know you have some other websites. You have a new or a different website for your branding or your business portraits and also your Instagram and Facebook. I'll add links to all those in the show notes. Just to finish off, Arek, where do you see the business in five years time?
Arek Rainczuk: In five years time I would say I still see it here in Melbourne, but let's say I would be way, way busier and I would probably be bringing someone on to help me. I have trust issues. I mean all the photographers out there probably can, uh, think of the same.
Andrew Hellmich: They'd be able to relate for sure.
Arek Rainczuk: Yeah. Yeah. You have to relate to it cause every time is so precious. If somone has to drop the ball, it has to be you. So I would rather do all my client contact personally. So all the meetings are crucial. Shooting itself is about personality, not the skill. And the sales session as well, it's about personality and the skill. Yeah, so it's a combination of everything would be very hard to find someone to replace that bit, but I think everything behind the scenes could be automated or outsourced.
Andrew Hellmich: Right. Do you see Kate ever working in the business?
Arek Rainczuk: Yeah. I mean we were talking about it, but she's not that interested in it. She has some strengths.
Andrew Hellmich: I love that.
Arek Rainczuk: She could probably just do some of the background stuff, but not really client facing or shooting or anything like that.
Andrew Hellmich: Right. Okay. Cool. Arek. Again, mate, it's been a real pleasure. I'm looking forward to hearing the listeners response to what you had to share today. I know you're going to be flooded with questions inside the member's Facebook group. Mate, just again, a massive thanks from me to you for coming on and sharing what you have.
Arek Rainczuk: My pleasure, Andrew. Thank you.
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