136: Bernie Griffiths – A Challenge for You to Book More Portrait Photography Sessions

136: Bernie Griffiths – A Challenge for You to Book More Portrait Photography Sessions

 

Andrew Hellmich: Hey, Bernie, welcome back to the podcast.

Bernie Griffiths: Hi, Andrew. Good to be back.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, mate. We were chatting just before I went away on holidays, and you had the idea of a challenge for my listeners, which we're going to get into in just a minute. But before that, as a photography coach, particularly well in Australia, I think you have clients overseas as well, but maybe you can clarify that.

Bernie Griffiths: Yes, I can coach worldwide via Skype, so it can be done anywhere.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so if I was to ask you what the state of photography or the state of professional photography is like at the moment, what would your answer be?

Bernie Griffiths: Okay, well, let's just define that. Usually I work with wedding portrait photographers, so I do know about the state of wedding photography and portrait photography. You know, having been in business myself as a small business owner with a studio for you know, those 40 odd years, things don't change. You know, things are up and down. You have your good months, your good years, your bad months, your bad years. So it's a bit like that now. So I hear photographers doing exceptionally well, you know, I've got one of my clients that averages $10,000 per wedding client with an album. And then I've got other clients who aren't getting that, you know, getting two to $3,000. Same with portraits, some are constantly doing eight to 10 portraits a week, while others, you know, are doing one to two. So I do believe it's all out there. I believe the state of the industry is good. Yes, it's harder than it used to be, but what industry isn't harder than it used to be, especially to get customers, especially to get the right customers. But I think there's a lot of money to be earned out there if you do things right.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you think you have to be a better photographer today than you did, say, 20 years ago? To be successful?

Bernie Griffiths: I think you have to be a better everything. You have to be a better communicator, better photography. To be a better marketer, you have to be good at a lot of things, not just mediocre. You have to really train yourself in a lot of areas to succeed in any business. And photography is no different.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. So when you take on a new client, what do you usually see that they're doing wrong? Like when you come in, do you sort of ask them a few questions? And is there usually one or two things you think, "Well, hey, that's the biggest place for your improvement, right there."

Bernie Griffiths: Well, the biggest thing generally is, of course, that photographers aren't marketing. It's as simple as that. They come to me because their problem is they haven't got enough bums on seats. So that's where they want my help the most. The rest of it, you know, with the pricing and with the product and with the photography, we can fix that fairly quickly, but getting the bums on seats is what I train them and teach them how to get good at marketing.

Andrew Hellmich: So do you think that their lack of bums on seats is, I know you're saying it's marketing, but is it because they're not actually working hard enough in the business? They're not spending enough they're not spending enough hours working, or they just don't know how to market.

Bernie Griffiths: Both of those things. The thing with me as a coach, they're committed to one hour a week with me, so at least for that one hour, they have to sit down and we talk about working on their business. So it's like, stop the machines. Let's work out you know about the business. Let's look at strategies. Let's look at marketing strategies. So we're working on the business, so it gets them out of working in the business. And then that hour extends to another hour or two with tasks I give them. So at least we know they're working through hours on their business. And that's the key. I mean, if you can stop for, say, allocate a Monday afternoon where you just do marketing, your business is going to grow, because that's where you're putting the priority into getting more bums on seats.

Andrew Hellmich: So really, honestly, that's all it could take, is one afternoon, one day a week.

Bernie Griffiths: Sure, I used to do that myself, and in fact, I was too busy to do it, so I employed someone one day a week to do marketing for me. They used to do all the cold callings, that calling. They used to go and visit people. I'd give them the strategies, and they'd go out and do all the legwork. So one day a week, I knew my business was being worked on, and it was quite a simple investment of I think I paid $80 a day for this person. But I also knew that they wouldn't just work that one day, that they take the work home with them and do a lot more extra. And sometimes they had to make alternative days for them to meet people, etc. So that's another good idea. If you don't want to do it yourself, get someone else to do it.

Andrew Hellmich: I guess it'd be pretty easy to measure, you know, whether or not thats paying for itself by the number of bookings you get from the work they're doing.

Bernie Griffiths: Very easy to measure, and that was the point that I'll put someone on for a couple of months, and we just measure the progress. I did make a mistake, which I'll point out. I don't like to admit making mistakes, but we all make them. The way I employed the person was to put them on $80 for the day, which covered the petrol whatever. But I also put them on a commission base. Now it was very important if I could set up a marketing strategy, because I knew that'd bring in a good return. So I put them on a commission of, for every marketing thing, they actually we had set up. I paid them $150 so that was a big incentive for them to get out there and go and talk to people and get third party marketing working. And they'd set things up, but a lot of these things were never implemented. So they got the commission. The thing wasn't actually up and running and I was paying them.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so commission could have still worked as long as you paid them once it was implemented.

Bernie Griffiths: Yes. So from then on, obviously, once it was working, once I was getting sittings, then I paid them that commission. But early on, it cost me, you know, a grand normal to learn that. But I learned.

Andrew Hellmich: Well, that's the important thing. So what about this challenge? I love the idea of this. So before I went away, I did allude to this. Earlier, you suggested that we put the listener to a challenge. And yeah, you tell me what you've got in mind. I'm interested to hear about it myself.

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, well, I suppose I get frustrated sometimes when you know I'm talking to a lot of photographers, and they talk about they're not doing that well or whatever. And then if I talk to them further and find out what they're doing about the marketing, they're not doing anything. Now, whether this is, as you say, whether it's just that they don't know what to do, or whether they don't see it as important, whether they think that, you know, you just open your door and you get a queue outside every morning, one of the photographs taken that just ain't going to happen, so we have to get out there. As I say, I can't ever recall any day where I you know, as I say, where I would have to phone the police to say, can you control all these customers outside my studio? You know, it's hard. You've got to draw them in. Lead Generation is what we're about. We have to get leads, right? We have to get leads. We have to get people to know about us. Then we have to connect with those people, then we have to, in a lot of cases, nurture them until the time is right. And it's all about timing when the time is right for them, but we have to be connected when that light globe goes on the head. And I think, yeah, I must do that. The other thing is, with marketing, of course, the difference that's changed is people need a reason to do things. People need a reason to have the photograph taken. The reason that I want my family photograph taken because it will be preserved for posterity, is not a good enough reason. We have to give them other reasons to drag them in.

Andrew Hellmich: So you talking about running a promotion.

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, but it depends how you get them in. The other thing is target marketing. We really have to target the market nowadays. Once upon a time, we could aim at the target. Now we've really got to aim at the bull's eye, because we've got to hit the bull's eye. We want people to come into our promotions, come into our marketing. Them coming to us. Because there's a little bit of qualification there, and I'll explain that when we go through this Facebook promotion that I want people to try, I want people listening to this to actually do this. That's the first step. As someone said to me yesterday, you know, Picasso said, "I don't know what I'm going to paint until I do the first brush stroke." So we have to take the first step in marketing to know what we're going to get. If we never do it, we'll never get any results. So I want to encourage people to do this simple Facebook promotion that I've done many times with many photographers with great success.

Andrew Hellmich: Awesome. Okay, so how much is this going to cost the listener to implement?

Bernie Griffiths: Okay, basically, the post we'd normally 25- $30, we boost the post to 25 to $30.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, that's affordable.

Bernie Griffiths: I hope so. If anyone out there can't afford that, please call me and I'll send it to you.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, that's great. All right, so that's all we're asking, is for the listener to make that investment in themselves to generate some bookings. That's the plan.

Bernie Griffiths: Yes, that's the plan.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so what's the post? What are we going to put on this post?

Bernie Griffiths: Okay, so before we do the post, let's go back and a few things I said about marketing and about targeting. And a lot of photographers are very fussy in what they photograph. You know, some portrait photographers say "I hate photographing babies, newborn babies. I don't like newborn babies." You know, for me, when I was a photographer, I was a professional photographer. I'd photograph anything for money, and I did, including a guy that was fully nude, right? So, so he paid me. I took photos. So the first thing to do is and so I say, "Pick a genre. Pick a genre that you like." Now let's look at some of the genres that we can photograph as a portrait photographer. We can photograph kids, we can photograph families, we can photograph glamor. We can photograph newborns. We can photograph pets, right? So those are a few that you could choose from that we photograph.

Andrew Hellmich: That covers a pretty wide range.

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, so the first thing you do is, what genre do I want to attract?

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so just before we go any further, Bernie, so even if the listener is 100% wedding photographer, can they still do this experiment, if you like, and get some portrait bookings. If they give this a go.

Bernie Griffiths: Yes, sure. And if they are just a wedding photographer, I suggest they start doing portraits.

Andrew Hellmich: To grow their business?

Bernie Griffiths: To grow their financial, you know, future.

Andrew Hellmich: All right. Well, let's pick a genre. Okay, so we've got a genre. Is that going to change the wording? I'm guessing it is.

Bernie Griffiths: Well, let's pick one. You pick one, Andrew, let's pick a genre.

Andrew Hellmich: Let's say pets, because I think that'll be wide reaching, not something that everyone would do.

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah. Okay, so when I mean targeting, let's look at supposing the genre you'd have chosen was kids. So we can't just put a post of their wanted kids. We can. But what I've found to be more effective, we can put wanted kids three to five years old.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. Okay, so if I take that to the dogs, I'm going to say wanted dogs, and I'd maybe specify a size - so small, medium or large. Could I do that?

Bernie Griffiths: I never thought of that, but that's not a bad idea. That's good. Now we're getting into it. You see, we're starting to think about a target. I've never thought of that, but I'll keep that in mind. Yeah, you can say anything, as long as it's a target. So we're really looking at a sort of a niche out there. What we've done in the past, a particular breed of dog.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so Spaniels, for example.

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, to give an example, we put boxer dogs wanted, you know. So the breed was the boxer, but it could be small dogs or whatever. It could be white dogs, it could be whatever.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. So as long as you've got some kind of targeting or some niche.

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, no, dogs is fine, you know, you'll get all sorts of dogs, but you'll get a different sort of demographic come to you. Because what we want people to do is, when they look at this post, is sort of put their hand up and say, "Yeah, that's me. That's me. I've got one of those, I've got a boxer, I've got a little dog, I've got a big dog, I've got whatever." So when we do any genre like kids, we put the age three to five. So yeah," I've got two kids between three and five." So the hand goes up. "That's me." When it comes to families. Don't just put families. Put families with two or more children between the ages of three and five.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. So don't be scared to get specific.

Bernie Griffiths: Get specific really. So the hand goes up, "Oh, that's me." So they're coming to you, which is great, you know. And I came across a phrase the other week, which really excited me about marketing, and says "That they choose you instead of you chasing them. They choose you instead of you chasing them." So this is what happens. They choose you, right? Because you've been specific, because it's them, they're choosing you. They're going in your direction, they're connecting with you.

Andrew Hellmich: And you know what else is going to happen here? I really know for sure that if I ran an ad asking for families with two kids, with children aged between two and five, even if they don't see it, their friends will tag them so that they do see it.

Bernie Griffiths: Yes. So they'd say they know someone, as you say. So they tag and say, "Oh, these people would be interested and or I know someone." So the thing with that, many years ago, with one of my first coaching clients, for someone recently, she photographed a lot of twins. And I said, "Twins", right. That's great. What a great genre. I said, "Let's go for twins", you know? And so we did a book project with twins, and then I did some investigating on twins. And then I saw there was a three day multiple birth show in Melbourne, three days, you know, an expo multiple birth, and I'm going "Perfect. Let's get a stand there, and let's promote your book, multiple births." And she's on a second book now, and amazing photos. You know, twins newborns. And she found a set of twins, 84 year old men in a home somewhere. So with a photography that really excited her, because look at all the variety of twins she was photographing, the people she meet. And within that, obviously she was getting the financial reward from selling photographs to the twins that she photographed. So that's the exciting thing. So targeting the market is one of the keys of any marketing campaign. So with families with glamor, the same with glamor. Wanted women. How old? You know, 30 to 40, 30 to 50, whatever. Put the age, put exactly what you want. With newborns, how old, you know, four to 10 days. Or, if you want babies, how old, shoot you might want nine months old, where they're easy to photograph, where they're you know, happy, smiley little vegemites and you take a great variety of photos. So what we're doing is we're drawing people in, but they are choosing you. You're not choosing them. So number one is, define, define your genre. So we define our genre, and then we put a heading in capital letters there. "WANTED SMALL DOGS". Okay, so we've got the heading 'small dogs'.

Andrew Hellmich: So sorry, Bernie, is it "Wanted small dogs"? Is that the heading?

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, wanted small dogs. When you're gonna do this, Andrew, aren't you? I can tell you're gonna do this. And just do a test with us

Andrew Hellmich: For sure. Yeah.

Bernie Griffiths: See what happened.

Andrew Hellmich: It was good enough for the listener, it's good enough for me.

Bernie Griffiths: And wanted small dogs, and now you've got to tell them why you want them. The next question is the why. Why do you want them?

Andrew Hellmich: So could I say that I am, I don't know. Let's say I need photos to fit out a new vet surgery. Could I do that? Or is that not good enough?

Bernie Griffiths: I never thought of that, but that's another good idea. Yeah, I'm learning more from you. This is terrific. No, 'so need photos', so, yeah, that's one reason. The other reason could be that you're doing a book. The other reason could be doing a new studio display. Now, a new studio display could be a book within your studio. It doesn't have to be something for the wall, but studio displays are easy. So wanted small dogs for new studio displays. And theoretically, if it's a photographer starting off, or it's someone that's just got a wedding business, they do need some samples, right? for new studio displays. So we can make it for new studio displays. It could be, as you say, I like that. It could be for an exhibition, but there has to be a reason.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, exhibition is a good one, because that could be pretty broad as well, couldn't it?

Bernie Griffiths: Very easy. I've done exhibitions. They're fun, easy. And the good thing about something like an exhibition is you can generate a lot of public relation type publicity because you're doing the exhibition. It doesn't have to be a big exhibition, it doesn't have to be a major exhibition. It can be just a small exhibition.

Andrew Hellmich: So that could even be, if I'm doing small dogs, I could have an exhibition in a, I don't know, a dog training center, or a vet surgery or a pet store.

Bernie Griffiths: That's right, yeah, exactly. It could be exactly what you're saying. So there's got to be some reason, though. Now is the offer. So the next thing is the offer. What's your offer to them? What are you going to do? There's a couple of things you can do. Obviously, you can give a free photographic session, or you can give a free photographic session, and as a thank you for them participating, you can give them a small print.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so what size print do you recommend if you're going to say something like that?

Bernie Griffiths: Well, normally it'd be a five by seven inch, but I don't mind a six by four inch. You don't have to give them too much or too big a size. Just give them something that's, you know, a little gift to say thank you for participating and for your time.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, sure. And I guess if you're giving a six by four or five by seven, you give that in a matte, or one of those little folders, something like that, that looks a bit professional.

Bernie Griffiths: Well, yeah, just to keep the professional image up, yeah, that'd be the ideal.

Andrew Hellmich: So not an eight by 10. Do you think that's too large?

Bernie Griffiths: I think it's a bit too much. I don't think we need go that far.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, well, a five by seven is probably a good size because that's a little bit bigger than normal, and it doesn't cost us any more than a super.

Bernie Griffiths: And it looks as though it has a lot of value.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. Okay, so the offer is, the session is free, and we'll also give you..

Bernie Griffiths: A small print. You don't need mention the size, just a small print as a thank you.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, all right. So the offer can be that simple, that's all it has to say.

Bernie Griffiths: Yep.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay.

Bernie Griffiths: Now the next thing is, that's the offer. So the office says, "So far, we're wanted small dogs. I need photos for my new studio displays. The photographic session is free, and I'll also include a small print to say thank you." So the fourth thing is, how do you want them to contact you? So for some photographers, they don't mind them phoning them direct. For others, it's a private message with your name and email address, so the photographer can then contact them. It's just which way you want to work. Now in our testing, doing this many, many times with many, many different photographers. It has been like that. Some prefer this way. Some prefer that. We've tried it this way, but it works better the other.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, who prefers different ways? Is it the photographer or the potential client?

Bernie Griffiths: The photographer.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so they choose. The photographer chooses how they want to be contacted.

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, because they might be busy. And so, you know, they don't like people phoning them. They want people to send an email to them, or they want to communicate initially. And I'll tell you what the best way to start is, how to contact therefore would become "PM me with your name and email address." Alright?

Andrew Hellmich: I like that. So that means you're keeping them inside Facebook. They don't have to go anywhere else, do anything else.

Bernie Griffiths: That's it. They can do it on the phone, whatever, just we got to understand also, if 50% of people you know, look at their emails and look at Facebook on the phone. We've got to make it easily, you know, the thing to do, simply because they could be sitting in a restaurant having a coffee or something, and they can reply straight away.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so you're asking for a name and an email address, and then would you reply back via PM. Or do you start then?

Bernie Griffiths: Well, you've got their email address. Now, I said earlier about business is about lead generation. So what have we at least done here? We've generated a lead. What we do with that lead is cling on to it forever until they tell us to go away. What I mean by that is this lead, obviously, should go into our database. A database, of course, we send out regular newsletters. It could be once a month. Could be my preference is at least once every three weeks. I send my own personal newsletter out every week.

Andrew Hellmich: Yep, I get it.

Bernie Griffiths: You get it.

Andrew Hellmich: And I read it every week.

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, and I have every week, and I've been doing that for three years now. Now that's a lot of emails, right? That's a lot of every week. And so with lead generation, this is what we do. We put these leads into the top end of our funnel, and we're going to nurture them now, but the first thing we're going to do is try and get these people in quickly. All right, so how do we do that?

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, sorry, Bernie, so when you ask for name and email address, you definitely don't ask for a phone number. You don't want to be calling them?

Bernie Griffiths: Up to the photographer. I think some photographers are good on the phone. Some aren't. Some prefer to do it, and that's what I mean, it's a finding your own way. But I'm suggesting this is the easiest way to start, because it doesn't require that phone call. You could, if you wanted, you know that instead of the email, you'd get them to call you, "Just call me on this number." You could do that, but I would think dipping the toe in the water. Do it this way, "Email me with your name and email address". So we get their email address, we put it into our database. We're going to nurture them forever until they unsubscribe. But what we do, we do an immediate follow up, and I mean immediate like, not in a week's time, not in two weeks’ time, within two days. People forget, you know, can you remember what you did two days ago? Most people don't, so we've got to get back to them quickly, and we say, "Thank you for your interest in wanting your Dog photographed for my new, upcoming studio displays. It was great. I'd love to hear more about your dog and your relationship with your favorite furry friend. Basically, the session takes an hour at my whatever studio, whatever area you are, and as I said in the Facebook post, we'll also give you a print to say thank you." 'By the way', this is one of the key phrases we use. "By the way, I can also give you the opportunity of purchasing extra prints if you wish." We have planted a seed for them to buy quickly. So we craft this email and then we send that to them. But we've got to also have at the bottom of it the next thing we want them to do and the next thing we want them to do again, we can choose to get them now to phone us. So I would put on the bottom of that, "Please phone me on so that we can book you in as we have limited numbers." So that's your call to action. So again, you're getting them to come to you, you've planted the seed for sales, and then you're getting them to phone you. How you handle that phone call is up to you, but obviously, you've planted the seed, the seed of sales. So now we have to water that. So when they phone and they talk to you, you get excited about the dog. You find out the dog's name, how long they've had it, all of that, why they chose a little dog and so on, and say, "Oh, by the way, in the email, I said, you know, we can give you opportunity purchasing any photos. Do you want to do that? Now, what we found in our testing, 90% of people say, "Yeah, sure." In other words, you've got that permission for them to buy something or something like that.

Andrew Hellmich: So you're doing this in the phone call, in the lead up to the shoot.

Bernie Griffiths: As well as it's in the email.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. So now you've actually got an agreement from them. Yes, they want to see more photos to buy. I can imagine 99% of people will say 'Yes' here, and that's what happens to me. But if they say, 'No, we just want the shoot and the gift print', then you wouldn't book them in to come in to the studio. Would you sort of make it as easy and quick as possible then, or would you still try and get them in?

Bernie Griffiths: Well, good question, and the answer to that is, if they say," I've just had the kids photographed and spend $2,000 so I don't want to buy any prints or whatever", then I'd say, "Yeah, as I said, we've had an overwhelming response to this. I'll tell you what I'd like you to do. Can you give me a call in three or four weeks and I'll see if I can slot you in then, or I can put you on our database." So yes, I wouldn't photograph them. I'd get rid of them. When I say, get rid of them. Don't forget, they're still going to be on my database.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. Okay, so you're going to do everything you can not to shoot that.

Bernie Griffiths: Not to shoot that family that said, "I don't want to buy any photos."

Andrew Hellmich: Right, okay. And I can imagine, if push comes to shove, and they really want to be in the book or the studio display or whatever, then you might have to just, you know, give into that, because that's the offer you made, and just do the shoot.

Bernie Griffiths: Oh, sure, of course, yeah. But you can keep the shoot very short. You can do a 5 to 10 minute shoot.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, look. And just on that topic, I know of other photographers. One particular photographer in Sydney who does that, he'll do shoot three or four frames or a half a dozen frames, and then show the client on the back of the camera and get them to pick then and there. So there's no more, no more time spent.

Bernie Griffiths: That's right. So you're minimizing your time, and it's easy.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so you've said to the client, or the client that's booking in, that they're going to have the opportunity to buy more. Do they want that? And they say, 'yes'. What's the next step?

Bernie Griffiths: Well, then you sort of pursue it a little bit more. "So that's great, because we have albums, we have wall portraits, acrylic, we have canvas. We also have books. You know, if you liked enough photos, have you any thoughts on which way you might go with that? Do you think something with a wall or something small or whatever?" So really, from this point on, you just take them into a normal, paid sitting, so you start finding out what their needs are, and just see how they react, and have the understanding that, and I used to say this all the time, "the only time you decide what you want, of course, is when you see your photographs, but it'll help me with the shoot. If you've got something in mind, I can really direct the shoot towards that a little bit more, as well as getting some great stuff, of course, for my own studio display."

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, I like that because you haven't made it just about the sale. You're also saying you can accommodate me as the dog owner at the same time as getting what you need for your studio.

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, so we're wrapping it all up. So the one thing I find that a lot of photographers do, they get too fluffy, you know, they don't get to this selling and sales and start taking it seriously, because if you don't take it seriously, certainly the client won't. So you've got to take it seriously. You've got to make them understand, I'm doing this, you know, in the hope that you're going to buy more. And there's a lot of phrases you can use, like, you know, you could say, "Don't be afraid. Yes, you will be tempted, you know, yeah, I'm going to tempt you. You've seen my photographs on the website, right? You like them, so you will be tempted." And of course, you carry that through when you're shooting. "Oh, that's great. You know that a great one for the wall. I love that can't wait for you to see that." So you just treat it like a normal paid sitting.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, great. Now I want to take it back to the advertisement just a second, but now, because I've painted myself into a bit of a corner here with this small dog that I'm going to be doing, now, if I've got no pet photos or no dog photos on my website currently, could I say that the reason I'm doing this shoot is because I'm getting into pet photography?

Bernie Griffiths: Yes

Andrew Hellmich: That's okay for a reason.

Bernie Griffiths: As I said, as long as you've got a reason, that's part of the criteria you need.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, cool. All right, so just sent me back to the ad Bernie, so we've got the contact details now, do I need anything else?

Bernie Griffiths: Now, with the post, you also need a photo of what you're looking for.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so I've got to go and photograph my own small dog now.

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, find a dog, photograph it the way that you think you want. Now, the thing is, you can photograph it wherever you want. You can photograph it in your studio, if you've got one. You photograph it outdoors. You can photograph it in their home. But the photo has to show the way you're going to do it. It could be black and white, so whatever you show is what you're going to do. So you have to beg, borrow a dog and photograph it the way you want to do it. And put that as you photograph to the post.

Andrew Hellmich: I love it. This is awesome. So you've given me another idea so I could set up if I wanted to shoot a series of black and white pet photography, photos with small dogs and their owners. And all of a sudden, now I've got a whole like a genre and a style of photography to shoot and concentrate on it and build a portfolio. I love it. This is awesome.

Bernie Griffiths: And have a bit of fun.

Andrew Hellmich: I'm actually excited about..

Bernie Griffiths: Do something you've never done before. Now, don't forget, when you've done this one, you can do another genre and another genre and another genre using the same basic principles.

Andrew Hellmich: Can I run them simultaneously? Or that's not so good an idea.

Bernie Griffiths: You can.

Andrew Hellmich: So could I run a small dog promotion with a newborn promotion?

Bernie Griffiths: A little bit harder to do, but yes, I've got one photographer as doing three different genres all at the same time. It depends. Look. What I found is when we've done this with other genres, like dogs and their kids. The photographer had 40 siblings, right? So that keeps her busy for a while. So sometimes it's best to put your full effort into this. The other thing is, with marketing, once you've got a project, you should put all your energies into it. So if we're doing that, the question is, next, where else can we promote it? Where else can we do exactly the same type of promotion? And of course, the simple thing to do, and the cost effective way, is to get some posters done. Wanted same heading, same text, same photo, get some posters. Go around your local area, see who will put them on the shop windows. Go to your local vets, "I'm looking for little dogs. Have you got any, you know, any your clients got small dogs? I'm looking to do this whatever, whatever." So you have to then push it. Go to your pet barns and anything to do with pets, your dog walkers, your dog minders, you just, anything to do with dogs. What happens? The exciting thing that happens here is, from my experience with working with clients that have done this, people start to come to you, you know, like the local dog walker sees it on your Facebook post and says, "Ah, I've got a lot of dogs. I walk that a little. I'll contact them." Then you've got another third party. You can say, "Have you got a database we could help promote this? Or have you got a Facebook page we can put this on?" And so it starts to go out in, you can end up with half a dozen people helping you to get clients in for this project.

Andrew Hellmich: Let me just ask you something here, Bernie, because I'm going to put myself into position of being coached by you right now, because when you started to tell me about I've got to start promoting this more I can, you know, go and see the pet stores. Go and see the dog walkers. In my head, there's this resistance, saying, now this is getting too hard. I'll do the Facebook ad, doing all that other stuff that sounds like too much work.

Bernie Griffiths: My God, don't you want to work hard? Isn't that what life's about if you enjoy it and you love it, don't you go into it with passion and say, "God, I love hard work. Give me more." I loved it myself. I couldn't get enough, 24 hours in a day, not enough. I can talk business. We could talk for the next 12 hours, non-stop, without a break. I love it. And if you just love photography, this means that if you promote in market, you're going to do more things of what you love, but you can't expect it to come to you. Go get it. Go get it. It's out there.

Andrew Hellmich: All right, I'm going to start with a Facebook ad, and then I'm going to measure the response from that, and if that works, I'll pursue this even further, even though I don't know how I got myself into the shooting small dogs.

Bernie Griffiths: Hang on. And you said, "If this works".

Andrew Hellmich: Ah, okay.

Bernie Griffiths: Right, let me tell you this and understand this about marketing, everything works, because when you look upon it as test and measure, you cannot fail, because you're testing it and measuring it, that's what you're doing. So you can't say that doesn't work because you've tested and measured it, you've got something to work on for the next time. Or you can tweak it a different way, or you can try a different genre test and measure. If you think it fails, because no one responds, and you throw your hands in the air and said, "Oh, Bernie doesn't know what he's talking about." That's not the attitude you've got to take. You've got to say, "What did I learn from this? What did I do wrong maybe?", you've got to think about it. You've got to really get your head around it and don't think it didn't work. You've got to do something and learn, because this is part of your education. Of marketing. This is the way you learn. You know Picasso, first brush stroke, then I know what I'm doing. You'll learn as you go. So you never get disheartened with things. I've done things that haven't worked as well as I'd hoped, but I haven't said "I've forgotten them the next day. I've moved on to the next project." It's like when you do sales as you know and you get a no sale, you don't dwell on it, no, just say next.

Andrew Hellmich: In the beginning, it used to hurt, so now I know to look at the averages, rather than an individual sale.

Bernie Griffiths: Exactly. You look at the overall picture. And so you do, if you do 20 promotions a year, and 10 of them work, hey, you're going to be busy. If 10 don't work quite as well, well, you've learned from them.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, I like that. Let me just take you back to the ad. Bernie, because we've got the ad, we post that on our Facebook page. If you don't have, I'm guessing the listener will have a business paid. But could you post this on your personal Facebook profile as well?

Bernie Griffiths: You could, but we all know Facebook now, unless you pay, you don't get much.

Andrew Hellmich: You can't promote, okay, so it's gotta get I think, I don't think I don't think you can promote a personal post either. So okay, let's say we've got it on our page now, our business page, we've got 25 to $30 to spend. Do we just do a basic promoted post, or do we target? What are we doing here? .

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, you do all of that. You boost your post. It's best to go into the advert manager on the top right. It's very hard to find it's just a little arrow thing going to ads manager, and then go through your demographic that you want. You know the area. You can do an area within 50k of where you are. You can, you know, choose people with interest in dogs. You can choose all those things that are targeting the market you want.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so then we just put 25 or $30 to that.

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, probably run it for four days, four or five days, $5 a day.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so what are you expecting to see as the listeners results from this and my results?

Bernie Griffiths: Okay, my expectation is that they'll be very varied. This is in my previous results. I've had photographers that have been swamped. I've had those that have had very little, but you've got to make sure everything's in place and you've got your advert manager demographics ticked correctly, and it's all put in place.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so really now it's up to us to go and do this and then come back with some results, and I guess we can look at them then.

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, yeah. Be very exciting. I mean, how good a test would it be for me if we got 10? And even 10 photographers to do it and feed you the results. And we looked at that and averaged it out, and, you know, I think that'd be very interesting and very exciting.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes, for sure, the listener right now that's listening to us chat. I expect them to invest in themselves and do this. Yeah, this is such a small test.

Bernie Griffiths: Isn't it?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, this is really, really exciting. I'm excited about doing this. Now, we don't necessarily have to go out and shoot something different. I mean, I pick small dogs and I don't shoot small dogs as a rule, as part of my normal business. Someone would normally pick something that they want to shoot and they're already shooting. Is that right?

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, they could do that, yeah. Or they could try. You know, in my business, and my wife often says to me, you know, "The reason that you succeeded and had a business for so long was you kept changing. You kept doing things. You kept changing. You kept doing things." And that's what I'm about. And anyway, doing things.

Andrew Hellmich: All right, we're going to do this. We are going to do this. I'm really excited. So once you get off the line burning, I'll leave some more instructions for the listener. Yeah, that'll be great. And we can try and track this and see what sort of results we get. I really am excited about doing this.

Bernie Griffiths: Well, I can see a little white dog there, and I think a little dog, a Pomeranian, really cute little dogs. So I think Andrew, how you're going to photograph them. And of course, you try and get the owners in and the family if you family if you can. And even if you know, "I don't want to be in the photos", if you hear that say, "Look, just dress. I'll tell you how to dress appropriately. You know, long sleeves and I only pant, just come along, because I want my samples to be with the family as well." So get them in it, because, you know, if you get them in it you're going to get your sales are going to be bigger. So encourage them say, look, the beauty of this is, of course, you're in control. You tell them what you want. You tell them exactly. It's nothing to do with them. They're like puppets. You just pull the strings. We want you in this. We want you in light clothing, or want you in white. We want white t shirts and jeans, whatever you want for wherever you're taking it. Just lock them in.

Andrew Hellmich: This is way more exciting than I think you even know Bernie, because so many times on the podcast, you know, in the last couple of years that I've been doing this, you know, the most successful photographers in the world are the ones that are shooting the way that they want to shoot in the style they want to shoot. This is a clean slate for the listener to shoot whatever they want, once off how they want to shoot it, and then advertise to get more of it and test it.

Bernie Griffiths: Yeah, exactly.

Andrew Hellmich: This is really exciting.

Bernie Griffiths: Well, I'm doing that with a client to present, a Sydney client. And, you know, Sue Bryce has sort of dominated the female photography market for a long time. I wanted to flip that. I wanted someone to start off doing the old Hollywood glamor style. Now that's usually a darkish background. It relies on great lighting techniques, and it's beautiful. You know, the old Hollywood style, the movie stars in the 40s, the way they used to be photographed, beautiful stuff. We've had the Sue Bryce style for photographing women for too long now, there's got to be a new leader. I'm trying to change it totally. And when I flip it, I flip it. So we've gone from a white background to a dark background. We've gone from natural light to studio light. We've gone from, you know, totally changing it. I'm doing a test. The photographer has already done one of these shoots. She's got eight more to do. The way she got them was exactly what I'm telling you from Facebook, and the results she's got beautiful. So we're going to redefine glamor. We're going to just change glamor for what it is. So that's what we're about. And as you say, go out and photograph the way you want to photograph, and get very, very good, because that's what Sue Bryce did. Of course, she's very, very, very, very good at what she does, because she made that a genre, and 30 years later, you know, she's this big overnight success with all that hard work. But I want to see who the new surprise is. So get out there photographers. Get your imagination working, your creatives, you know, get creative. Follow a style, but keep going with it and make it yours, and you'll be number one.

Andrew Hellmich: That's so good. Bernie, if the listener wants to get onto your email list and find out more about what you're doing and get the same emails that I receive every week. Where do they go?

Bernie Griffiths: They can just go to my website, berniegriffiths.com, and they just get that little free eBook there seven strategies to make a successful studio, and then they'll automatically be thrown upon my mailing list, and they'll hear from me every week.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice, too easy. All right, we're going to follow up this conversation once the listeners had a chance to implement what we've just talked about. And hopefully we can have a chat about some awesome results once they come in.

Bernie Griffiths: Oh, great. Thanks to the opportunity. Andrew, you know, I'm excited, and I'm throwing my hands in the air and banging on my desk, and I'm as excited as you are. So photographers out there, please give this a go and just learn. Learn, even if you learn, what you learn is about how to do a boost post on Facebook, you'll have learned something you see that's with a test and measure. There's always a benefit, right by doing.

Andrew Hellmich: That is awesome.

Bernie Griffiths: Fantastic, Andrew.

Andrew Hellmich: Thanks. Bernie.

Bernie Griffiths: All right. See ya.