Andrew,

Things are looking a bit grim these days and I think about giving up almost every day. I think one of the reasons I continue to press on is that I turn on your podcast and I am charged back up; it is on whenever I am in the car and I try to listen to at least 1 episode per day. I often re-listen to episodes at my desk so that I can take notes. I am so inspired by your guests and hearing their stories makes me believe it must be possible to be successful in photography.

What I have learned/ am implementing:

I have tried the Bernie facebook ad strategy for two different campaigns/ subjects and one went ok for generating leads but even then I wasn't seeing very high average sales from the clients that I converted from those ads. One of those clients was a reluctant buyer and almost walked away with only the giveaway (I did a $100 product credit instead of a 5×7 print) but I quickly remembered a tip that I believe you use at Impact and I pulled out a stack of proofs that I had printed up (conveniently of the client's son) and turned it into a $400 profit because she couldn't resist buying them after holding the photos in her hands. This is one of the images of that little 3 year old guy.

I have been revamping my products, pricing, and my sales process this month, with a particular focus on increasing touch points to 7-11 (as mentioned by Julie Christie) before a booking and then using that same methodology to warm clients up to my products and pricing.

I am also about to implement the “campaign” strategy from EP245 with Julie Christie. Speaking of which, I heard you mention a FB pixel premium members resource in that podcast but I am having trouble finding it. Is that still available?

I have just signed up for Tave after hearing so many guests rave about it– I am excited to leave my spreadsheets behind.

I did the school photography training by Elena Blair which gave amazing insights into doing volume sessions from beginning to end. I plan on applying these techniques to headshots at corporate conventions and events. In fact, after listening to Delane Rouse and Maurice Jager I decided to drive into headshots as a focus as of this year and I have already photographed dozens of professionals at corporate networking events which has generated several leads for both corporate work and portraits.

I tried to apply Elena Blair's methodology to non-school entities, specifically to martial arts studios but I was very disappointed in the progress I made, so I sadly had to let that go to free up bandwidth for corporate headshots. Of all the genres I have photographed, martial arts was one that I really enjoyed so I am still very disappointed that I couldn't generate enough business from it to make it an anchor niche of my company. For fun I will attach a couple of my images in that genre that I am particularly fond of.

Furthermore on the headshot front, I have begun using the LinkedIn lead generation methods outlined by Maurice Jager and I will let you know how it goes!

I trimmed my portfolio from a massive 75+ photo gallery into several smaller, subject specific galleries of 20 or fewer images.

I make clients access their digital galleries (when I don't have an in-person sale) via my site to increase a client's time on my site which I believe has been mentioned by several guests.

I can't remember the episode but one of your guests surprised you by suggesting that we put some kind of purchase option embedded in our sites to take advantage of impulse buyers. I am programming such an option into my WordPress site today which will be for a voucher/ credit that covers a session and a small product (probably a framed 5×7 print).

There are actually a lot more things I have learned from the podcast but this email is already way too long and I have trouble remembering exactly which episodes cover which topics.

My ultimate goal is to succeed in using these techniques from your podcast so that one day I can earn a PhotobizX guest spot of my own!

Hey Stephen,

Thanks for your reply and sorry to hear things aren’t going as well as you’d like – it definitely has nothing to do with your work!

The big thing with the FB Ads – whether it’s Bernie’s or the ones shared more recently by Brian Kellog and Marcus Anthony are the follow up calls – these are vital before agreeing to photograph anyone.

These two links will be a big help:

https://photobizx.com/PBX198-Premium-Bernie-Griffiths

https://photobizx.com/Phone+questions+and+phrases+to+book+the+best+clients+via+Facebook+Ad+campaigns

Love how you turned around the sale with the photos too – that's great!

The facebook Pixel training with Kylie Garner is here: https://youtu.be/HHZfJfky-6U

If you want to go after the martial arts styled shoots again, I would test this with a Facebook ad instead of the martial arts studios. And I'd make the focus kids, not adults – so you can sell to their parents.

Adults tend to spend much less on fitness styled photos of themselves – I've heard this over and over from photographers.

Love how much you've been implementing, Stephen. I feel like it's just a matter of time till you get a breakthrough and things fall into place. Be careful not to spread yourself too thin while searching.

Looking forward to having you on the show as an interview guest – hopefully in 2021!

Keep going, you're too good to stop now.

Speak soon
Andrew