All right, buckle up. This episode is a passionate discussion about hobbyist versus photographer versus professional photographer with myself and Mark Rossetto from PBBN. You are definitely going to want to take a listen to this one, so stay tuned. I'm Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer turned pet and family photographer. Back in 2010, I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six figure business by 2012.

Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses. I believe that achieving two to $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six figure businesses, that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full time passion or a part time pursuit, profitability is possible.

If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place. With over 350,000 downloads. Welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Begley, and today we have my friend Mark Rossetto from photographer wait professional photography business network, otherwise known as wait PPBM.

I can't say those things fast. Ppbn, you got it in one. It's all good. Professional photography business network with all the pps and. Yes, WPP and the PPAs and the NZ Ipp. Thought we'd just add another PP in there as well. How you doing? I love it. I love it. Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited for this conversation. We were just chatting a little bit before about like, oh, what do we want to talk about?

Because this go in a lot of directions and we're going to talk about a topic that, I don't know, it might ruffle a few feathers. You think? The controversial thing at the moment, everyone's too nice. So now that we have you guys all hooked and you're like, oh, my God, what are they going to talk about? I love it. Yeah, let's just dig in. Basically, we were talking about how, well, obviously the industry has shifted.

When did you start? When did you become a photographer? How long have you been in this industry? 2002. So that is. Okay, so you started when you were like three? Yeah, exactly. You can tell by the gray hair. 2002. I, um. 2002. 2003. So I started photographing tourists on a tourist boat in the Whitsundays as a photographer, selling the photos on the way back on the boat. So I knew very, very, very early on.

How to shoot, to sell, how to shoot. Pressing the button once, not four times, and choosing which photo I want. Shoot super clean. Was that film back then? No, it was just turned digital. I had a Powershot S 40, which was a four megapixel camera. I had a choice between a 3.2 and a four megapixel camera. And my memory card was 128 and I megabyte, and I brought a one.

A one. The one gig card. The one gig card was like, oh, my gosh, they've got a one gig card. The one gig card was like $600 at the time, but, yeah, very long time ago. Yeah, that's crazy. At least she had a pretty location for it. To the Whitsundays. So I have not been. That's on my list. I've got a long list, though. That's awesome. Yeah, I started in about 2010, so, you know, a couple years after, but still, like, things have changed a lot in that time.

And we were talking about how things have shifted, like pre, really pre, like 2010, so early, two thousands, certainly in the 19 hundreds. Way back so old, way back in the last century. Last century, you really kind of needed a studio space to, like, be, quote, professional, where that really all started to shift when I kind of entered the industry. And around 2010 in there. And now that is certainly not a requirement to be a professional.

But we kind of wanted to talk about, like, this kind of evolution of hobbyists to hobbyist photographer and professional photographer and like, what's the difference? Right? Yeah, it's a good one. It's a good one, yeah. So just to break it down, early in the 19 hundreds, it was for film. Right. And then digital came out from 2000 to 2010, it was new, and everyone had to make that shift.

Now, also, I started my studio business in 2008, and it was very much so thought process that if you wanted to run a professional photography business, you needed a commercial space. And that was generally, it was generally true. It was generally like if you were a professional photographer, you owned a professional commercial space, or you had a semi built area in your home that was looking like a commercial space.

And then pretty much from 2010 to 2020, the lines got blurred a little bit because there were amazing photographers producing amazing work from all over the world that worked from home. And then it got kind of grayed out. Now, 2020 came along, then Covid came along, and a lot of those big commercial spaces lost their spaces and working from home became virtually the norm. Even the biggest companies around the world, like the tech companies, like massive companies, they have this, you know, work in the office, work from home kind of scenario.

So now working from home is extremely normal. So it's kind of like, okay, 2024-2526 and beyond. If now the working from home is your stock standard as a professional photographer or a photographer or a hobbyist, what are other things that we can do to go from a photographer who likes to take photos, who's been working in the industry for a while, and taking images and selling them as a digital files, opposed to a professional photographer?

Like, what else can we add within our business structure and form and format and process to kind of like define those lines again to elevate your brand and style as a professional photographer? But on saying that, Nicole, you look up the dictionary and a professional is someone who earns a living from profession. It doesn't say anything about digital files or wall art or if you need a website or Instagram.

But it's like, the thing is, like, does it really matter? And what can we do to elevate our brands into that professional space? Yeah, well, I want to point out too, just because, like, we're talking about, all right, hobbyist, which is obviously someone that really enjoys photography that is likely not getting paid for it. They're just loving it and enjoying it. Nothing wrong with that. Awesome. And photographer, also, nothing wrong with any of these levels.

We're just trying to define them a little bit. It's someone that is maybe making some money with it, but they're not making enough money to earn a living from it. However, I do want to throw this caveat out there that you can be, I think, in my book, a professional photographer who is doing this part time. Absolutely. I see some part time photographers that 100% are running a professional photography business.

They're serving high end clients, excellent service, beautiful products, beautiful work, making good income by working just, you know, a few clients a month, a little bit on the side while they have some other job or maybe just work part time. So I just want to clarify that for everyone out there. I think that's actually a big myth. And I don't know if you hear this too, but I hear this quite a bit of people that are wary to charge a professional photography prices and run a professional business, which we'll define more here in a minute, because they say, well, I'm just doing this part time, like, because they're doing it part time, that they don't deserve to be running a professional level business, which I say is bullshit because you have less time than if you were doing this full time, so you better make a count.

Yeah, I actually go the other way. So I have this really weird, but really intrusive question and thought process when designing a price list. And one of the questions that I asked, and I always have to pre frame this and going, this is going to be a weird question to ask. And I know it sounds like it's none of your business, but it will determine the way that we structure your business and your price list.

And the question is, do you really need financially to run a photography business? Like, are you doing it because you just want a little bit of cash on the side, or are you going to be the main breadwinner? Like, do you need to do this? Are you working at it full time and part time? Because there's a lot of people that I work with who have their full time job.

They have a job, they have a job full time, they're earning great money from that. They just love photography. So I put it in the way, Nicole, of like what you just kind of said, you don't have time to put it simple for shit clients. You might as well go out with a bank and put your prices of where you want them to be. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if they book with you or not.

It's irrelevant. Like, who cares? You don't need the money. You're doing it cause you want to, not because you have to. And if you're going to do it, you might as well get paid accordingly for your craft. And still because you don't have time to do a, hey, let's book in a dollar 95 shoot and let's see if they hope that they buy it later. Now that works extremely well if you're shooting five to six to ten shoots a week and it's a little bit of a win some, lose some, and it's a numbers game and there's marketing around it.

But if you're doing one per week or two per month, you want those one or two or three or four to be at the level that you want it to be. So why wouldn't you go out guns kind of blazing and we talk about. I could go on a whole tangent of opportunity costs. If you're not earning that kind of money and you're doing it cheaper and you have to do it on your off time from real work, what's the opportunities that you're missing out on?

Because you're looking after clients and you're not spending time with your spouse, with your kids, with your family, how many dinners do you need to miss because you're out photographing, or evenings or barbecues or birthdays or events? Are you missing, if you're going to be photographing another, a pet, a family portrait or whatever it is, and you're missing out on that time with your family. And if you're only charging a couple of $100 for it, is it worth the effort?

Right. Why not just maybe stick hobby wise and just do it for fun in the time that really fits your schedule? Exactly 100%. Yeah, go ahead. On that note too, just to pre frame what you were saying too, as a photographer, there is also a lot of photographers who just do digital files only. Just do digital files only. But they're charging accordingly for the digital files. And not that they don't need to do finished artwork, they just don't want to.

In my mind, it is taking the easy road out because you are just doing files. Like, doing files is important, but let's be honest, what are you going to do with the files afterwards? It's most likely going to sit on the phone, a computer, an iPad, and you're never going to see it again. I put it to being a chef. Right? You order food from your local bistro, they'll slap it on the plate however it turns out like is whatever it turns out like.

But if you go to a five star restaurant, it's the presentation, the quality, the quality of food, the quality of the look, the drizzle around the plate, the garnish, the colors and everything else. Like it's finishing off the presentation, it's finishing off your artwork. And most photographers, sadly, Nicole, don't know how to use the images effectively for clients albums or wall art or collections or composition, because they've never been taught it because.

Or they don't shoot for it because they just shoot whatever they feel like and hope that they like it as a digital files because nothing has to match or go with anything anyway. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I have some thoughts. First thought being that the, like, going back to the restaurant piece, that one of the reasons, because I. That's one of my, like, things that I absolutely love.

Like, I will go out to eat at all the places all the time. Yes, please. And when you go to those places that are like, that stick in my head, yes, the food was amazing, but the whole experience, the decor, like, you could have amazing food in a crappy, like, little undecorated, not attractive place. Yeah, the food's still gonna be good. Am I gonna remember that? As one of my best meals ever.

No, like, it needs to have the ambiance. It needs to have, like, an interesting menu. Hopefully they have a good chocolate martini. They need to have good food. The presentation needs to be amazing. The service needs to be just, you know, top notch. And when all of those things are together, you have an experience that, like, transcends a normal dinner. And it's like one of the ones that you remember for a lifetime.

So that's kind of the same thing with our photography services. When you start to bring all those pieces together, then, yeah, they're paying more. But it's no longer about the photos. It's about the experience of how you made them feel, of how they remember that time with their family, with their dog, with whoever you're photographing at their wedding. And that all those pieces, if one of those pieces is severely missing, then it's going to be hard to kind of get up to that level.

The other thought I wanted to mention, too. And then we can decide what tangent we want to go down from which one of these paths is also about those. It's also about those, the digital files. Like, if you're a consumer, let's say you're like an award winning, amazing photographer. Like, the other photographers look to your work and they're like, oh, my God, it's absolutely amazing and stunning. But you're selling digital only.

And then there's somebody down the street that just hung up a shingle yesterday. Their work is like, maybe technically okay, but not even technically correct. Joe Schmo public can't really tell the difference. They're going to see you're both selling digital files. What the hell is the disconnect on the price? Because they're both the same thing. So even if, and I've seen only a handful, only a handful of people do it well where they're going, just digital.

But I personally believe that they can add in at least like a big piece of wall art to make it so much better. But they're doing a different experience. It's not just, let's go meet at the park, and I'm gonna take some family photos. It's we're gonna go on a, like, half day hike up into the mountains, create this amazing experience, and your digital files are the thing you get, but they're actually selling the experience.

So if you're going digital only at the local park, it's a race to the bottom, period. Done. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then in that case, let's use your comparison with two different photographers. Right. And we could probably go down this road, I reckon. It's like, what's the difference? What is the difference? Like, let's. We can come up with a list of, like, what. What is the difference between that fine art photographer who's amazing at what they do, but does digital files only to the mediocre photographer, the stock standard, the nice, decent quality, but their whole business is elevated because they offer a different service.

Because I can tell you now, if you looked in your area, and no matter who's listening to this, and let's just say there's a hundred photographers in your area, because there probably is. There's a hundred photographers. Nicole, how many of those hundred photographers in your area would be doing a digital file only style of photography business? Gosh, 90 at least. At least. Yeah. So. So do you want to fight for work with the 90 or do you want to fight for work with ten?

The ten that are like. And this is the part it's like, like, how are you going to stand out from the crowd from a professional point of view, what are the things that we can implement within a business to make you look and feel like a more, let's use the word more professional photographer? That's what I reckon. Because we can give people. I love it. I love this.

I think an easy place to start is going back to that, thinking about the best dinners and all. Right. What are these different pieces? So, from a photography experience, what's your website experience like? It doesn't have to be the fanciest thing, but it can't be janky. It can't have like 19. Can't be from the 19 hundreds with music blaring? Yeah. Like, what is that? What's that user experience?

What's your onboarding experience like? What's your client education experience like? Are you giving your clients some sort of PDF printed thing? Are you mailing them something? Are you surprising and delighting them somewhere along the, the experience, what's the product that you're giving them? What's the service like? Are you coming to their home to help them choose? Are you showing them their artwork on their walls with a digital, you know, something like a sales tool?

How are you presenting that work that they bought? Like, are you just showing up with a, hey, here's something. I just carried it in, or is it in a pretty bag with a ribbon? Like, are you sending a thank you note? Are you asking for reviews? What does the phone conversation go? Are you doing a loom video to respond to them when they have an inquiry? And you're like, hey, I'm Nicole, I would love to chat with you.

This is the next step. Just book a call on my calendar. Like, yep. Oh my God. I could go on. Well, I could add some too. And this is very much maybe because I'm australian and I've infiltrated the australian community wildly over the last eight years to be like, no, everyone needs to lift their standard. But I do see this in the states, not very much, but it's becoming more of a.

Having finished products on the website with proper room views and proper finished artwork, like for good. Probably up until about, probably five, five years ago, majority of photographers in the states specifically had zero product, zero room views anywhere. And I've been really fighting the flag for years of going have a product page on the website and on the website have finished artwork in your rooms and in your rooms of different collections and galleries and storyboards and wow pieces so people can see what the finished product is.

Like. Start with the end in mind to go, this is what we're going to do. The other thing you can do is like a welcome video. How many times I did this exercise once with someone. Right. And is a photographer in the UK and her job, one of the tasks of her team was to do that kind of discovery call, welcome call, that loom video type thing. Right.

We end up working it out that that call took about 1520 minutes to explain what they do and how it works and what the process is and just the general. This is what we do. Yeah. I was like, do it in a welcome video that goes for two minutes that they've seen prior. Because if you're. We worked it out something crazy that it was like she had that conversation at least 50 times a month now.

50 times 20 minutes and turned it into hours, turned it into days. It ended up being out of 365 days of the year, something like 36 of those days, of 8 hours a day. 36 days straight. You've had the same conversation. Conversation for 36 days straight. Every 20 minutes the same thing. So. Oh my God. A welcome video. A URL with the client portal. Like you said, the room views the products do videos of your products explaining what the product is.

They don't know what we know. They don't even know what's available. No, it's like it's our job to do that. And I guess back to the original question, the difference between a photographer and a professional is that professional is giving that professional service and product that a not a standard photographer would not be doing. Yeah, I think that's actually a really good key to a differentiator is a professional photographer can give their clients advice on how to enjoy their photos.

Where a professional photographer is just like, here's files, here's photos, have fun. Where professionals like, all right, well, you know, I do this a lot with my clients, too. I love artwork. So, you know, we will actually, even. I'll ask them, what style is your room? What colors are in your room? Because if they have, like, a really cool, like, I'm not going to go and do, like, the spring greens and golden and stuff that's all warm because it's not going to go in their space.

So I think that's a big difference, too. And you won't know that unless you asked, unless they take a photo. I spoke to someone yesterday who. She was like, mark, I was so pissed. I'm like, what happened? She goes, oh, this client I was working with, I just was giving them a discount because I was just offering a discount. And then to make them feel better, I delivered it to their home and I turned up to the home.

It was like a $6 million mansion. And I was like, you idiots. She was like, as in she, as in she said to herself, not me calling her an idiot. She was like, this is the part, right? This is a part of a service. Imagine if she turned up to that home beforehand and they loved her, and you're walking around that space and you're like, we can do something here.

We'll create something there. And everything's bespoke. Like, this is apart from a photographer that you just, you never, never know. And then can I segue quickly into a question? And this blew people's mind when I did the australian tour with all different photographers from Australia, is the question to people who are listening, can you get a $10,000 client? Like, can you make a $10,000 client? Like, is your business set up that if someone came into you and goes, Rachel, I love it, your images are amazing.

I'll have one of those. That collection plus an album. And in my holiday house, I want to put that in that wall. $10,000 sale. Like, is it even a possibility? Because unless you're selling products, digital files, you could probably get up to 2345 grand. I reckon five grand is like, oh, I don't know. I think anything over 2000 for digital only is a hard sell because of the commodity piece.

Because to the public it's bananas and bananas. Like, it's still the same product. And why would someone's cost ten times more than the $200 person. Yeah. So the question is, people who are listening, can you get a $10,000 sale? Is there even an opportunity for your clients to get a $10,000 sale? Because new photographers out there who are doing digital files only or the people who are teaching that digital files is okay, their mind is blown going, ten grand, I'm like, I can't even get two.

There's no way I could do that. And I'm like, well, let's have a look at your website. What are you trying to sell? And it's like, oh, I've got the choice between three digital file packages from 400 to 750 to 995. And he's like, well, there you go. Right, right. Uh huh. Yeah. Now, I do want to throw a caveat of something, at least that I tell people.

And there is one time that I think that it's okay to be digital only, all inclusive, low cost. And that is when you're starting your business and you're practicing and you're still like trying to figure out your camera, you're putting your website together, you don't even know, like, I need to focus on how to learn how to do all this editing and then I'm going to start bringing some products in.

So I am a big believer in like, yeah, sure, get some money, like, offer something to get paid while you're in the startup phase, but know that that cannot be sustainable. And the goal is to get comfortable with that. Start to bring in the products so then you can start to move into the boutique space, which I believe is the only way to run a sustainable business. Part time or full time.

Absolutely. The, hence the hobby. I want to be a photographer. Photographers selling digital and doing really well. I need to up the game. Professional photographer, full service, ips, composition, finished artwork, room views, products, go to their house, hang it for them, like, do whatever you need to do type thing. Yeah, yep, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I do want to do one more. I mean, and this might be, I don't know, I tend to like, maybe it's breaking the rules of what all the industry people have said for a long time because I had a situation where a student was talking to me and I was helping her with a price list and, you know, at the time she was having like thousand dollar sales and I was helping her come up with kind of three collections, like a 10 00, 20, 00, 30, 00 type dollar collection.

And in the $3,000 collection we were going to have, you know, like, can include quite a things like a small album, maybe, and a piece of wall art and some digital files. So it's kind of capping her sale at 3000. But she was, like, barely hitting a thousand now. And she was like, but, Nicole, don't I have to go for a $10,000 sale? I'm like, no, no, you don't have to.

Like, if you are getting thousand dollar sales and a $3,000 would, like, rock your world, like, let's set your price slip up, price list up to be like, your clients being like, oh, heck, yeah. And then you get to the point where people are buying that all the time. You're like, I'm leaving some money on the table. All right, it's time to change our pricing again. And then I think that's where you start to move into that more open pricing where you have the ability for, like, oh, my God, I just had a $10,000 sale.

How the hell did that happen? That was amazing. But I think there's this. It's a growth of our business, right? If we just started, like, right now, I picked up a camera, and even if I picked up the camera and I knew how to use it right out of the bat and was creating beautiful images, it takes a little bit of time to learn how to interact with our clients, serve our clients, build those business resources and processes, and do all those things, find the beautiful products, just learn all these things.

So it's usually like a trajectory of, you know, kind of lower costs. Then they start to have a couple products. They hit maybe their 1st sale, and then they get to the sweet spot of, like, the consistent two thousand, five hundred dollars to three thousand dollars sales, which I think is your fastest path to six figures. And then you're opening the door for those, like, high, high end lux luxe sales.

Yeah. So, yeah, so anyway, that's my soapbox. I put it, I'm with you 100%. I'm with you. I'm a, I call it flatten, flatten the curve. And everyone loved that expression in 2021, didn't we? 20 2021, we got to flatten the curve. I would always have, I'd rather have quality consistent. Another 2000, another 2000, another 2000, another 2000. And just have like 20 00, 20 00, 20 00, then 520, 518.

So what we had in our studio that we ran in Victoria, our all in, was $3,000. I knew that 40% of our clients would spend $3,000, and I knew that 10% of our clients would take their free product and run because we were doing like 40, 50 a month. And it's like, yeah, like, but it doesn't change the fact that because we had the products, we raised a lot of people to get to 3000.

But those product people who, that money wasn't an issue. I'll have one of those and I'll have one of those and I'll have one of those and I'll put that in the house and I'm going to give that to my mom. And we would get those constantly. 5000, 7000 all the time. Flatten the curve. I'm all out for flooding the curve of like the thing that, the most common thing that you said that we get all the time, but won't I cap my sales at 2000?

I'm like, nicole, you're not even making dollar 300 and you're worried about capping yourself at 2000. Let's worry about that. When you get to 2000 and you get 510, 2030, 40 clients, 20 00, 20 00, 20 00. And I say always kind of, always kind of tell people, I'm like, there will be a stage and they're like, oh, 300 to 2000 a lot. And I'm like, trust me, there will be a stage where you're going to come back to me in six months, twelve months, a year or two and go, can we just make it two and a half?

That would be great. Business has got to be not a lot for the amount of work I'm doing. Exactly. And business is going to be boring and business is going to be consistent and business is going to be like, I want to do something different, but let's just, let's be a target that earns its stripes. Let's just add all those customer service, add all those products, add all those one percenters.

Let's just get you there. But for those people that are there, feel free to shift the goalposts. Yeah, no, 100% for sure. Oh, my gosh. This has been really, really good. Where else do we want to take this? Oh, we could go in so many directions. Yeah. Do we want to keep ruffling feathers? I don't think we've been too roughly. I feel like this is just stuff that people need to know.

So I think there's two different things that we spoke about, too. It's like hobby to photographer to professional. Like, if you do want to play in that space, you need to play in that space. I give you a really awesome example. And my wife told me because I keep using my daughter as an example, but it's a great example. Right? So natural talent will only get you so far, yeah, yeah.

Like, being a naturally good photographer will only get you so far. So a really good example for this is my daughter is a natural sports person. She's very good at virtually everything, right? But she's at that eleven year old age where she's the stool swim champion for her year level because there's no swimmers that swim at a competition level in her year level. So she goes to regional and she's like, do you reckon I could be regional champion?

I'm like, you go for it, sweetie. And I tell you what, she can last almost every race because those girls now who swimming's their thing. They're swimming two, three, four times a week. They're training, they're training, they're training, they're training. And she was like, they're just so fast. I'm like, this is their training to be fast. So from a photography point of view, being a photographer and taking pretty photos is only going to get you so far.

You need to train, you need to add these service and products and different things. If you want to play with the big dogs, if you want to get to that level, you need to upskill. You need to. You were saying before, you can't just change your price list and expect the same thing. You need to change the service to suit your price list. If McDonald's came out tomorrow and went the bid match.

Sorry, they used to be $6 and now they're $15. Everyone's going to be like, what? Why would. Yeah, no way. Yeah, yeah, I'll go. I'll go to the next level up. Yeah, we were talking about that and I. The more I think about it, it's always really fun. I'm like, oh, my gosh. This goes for so many different industries of, like, the four levels of photography businesses, from, like, starting out all inclusive shoot and burn to adding products to, like, the $2,500 average sale to, like, the super lux.

You know, like hotels, you have like, the little side of the road, like, please, I hope they don't have bedbugs or there's like, not a drug deal going on outside my door. And then you have, like, the Hampton Inns, like the normal ones. You're like, we're at that swim meet and we need a place to stay, so we stay there and then you have the resort. So you're like, the resort has now become part of the experience of your vacation.

Like, I'm spending an afternoon at the pool. I'm gonna go to the spa. Like, the experience is an important piece of it. And then you have, like, the super lux, like the Ritz, where, like, the service is off the charts, but it's still, like, the experience of the resort. Restaurants are the same. I mean, like, shopping can be the same. You can go to, like, TJ Maxx or the mall or, like, then you go to, like, the super high end brands and I don't even know.

Yep. And it's crazy. Any industry, any industry, end of the. Do you know what they all include? Bed to sleep on. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It just. It includes a bed. It's like a restaurant. End of the day. Yeah. You just got to fill your guts with some food. And whether it's just a quick McDonald's to fill the hole or it's an anniversary dinner where you're going to spend three, $400 on, you know, end of the day, it's still just food.

End of the day, it's still just a bed. And end of the day, it's photography, but it's like, it's the experience of the photography that counts. And do you know, one of those things, too, to add some value to it as well. And had a great conversation. We had one of our speakers in Australia, Karen is her name, from Adelaide. Her son actually passed away in his sleep a year ago, like, literally two weeks ago, and he's only 14.

And she gave a talk about, you know, she's a photographer and a celebrant and a mum, but she's like, I didn't realize how important photographers photography was until you lose people that you love. And then. But what she spoke about is she's got images. And this is where the experience goes to another level is that if you're creating images that you can kind of look at the photos and you can.

I'm pointing to behind me, you can hear the laughter of the kids still. You can still feel. You remember that night was a warm summer night and the sun on your skin, and you can literally close your eyes, or you can look at a photo and it instantly transports you back to your wedding day or the hike that you did, or you remember how chilly and cold it was, or the.

You remember the sounds of the crunching in. In the snow or the leaves when you look at that photo. Like, if you can create an experience that is so phenomenal, that transports people back to that particular moment, you can charge almost whatever you like because it's priceless. So, yeah. Yeah, 100%. I think the trick there is being able to elicit that emotion and speak to that value, like, because we all have that value.

Right. Of any human or animal that we care about. Like, we have that value inside. So how do we speak to that value during our marketing, during our education, when we're talking to that client, to let them know that this is what they're actually purchasing. Like, this is what they can expect. And then if you can get in touch with that identity of that person, then price is irrelevant.

It doesn't matter. They're going to choose you because you're speaking to something that matters most to them. Yeah. And creating something, I know from just a photo that someone else can do kind of down the street for a quarter of the price. Yeah, for sure. Oh, my gosh. This has been a really great conversation. I have enjoyed it. I've enjoyed it, I think. And now I'm hungry. I want to, like, make a nice restaurant reservation for the weekend.

Yeah, I think we've been quite. And then write it off because it'll be like, it'll be research for a future. Absolutely. Absolutely. Look, I think that anyone that listen to this, you'll know where you sit in that hobby photographer professional. And you don't have to stay there. You just need to, you don't need to be the best. You got to be better than last week. Like, what? Add to your product and service that you're not doing now that you could add moving forward even when it comes to.

Yeah, one thing at a time, really. I think a lot of people get so overwhelmed and think that, like, I can't possibly start to add products because it's just, it's way too much. I don't know what products to choose. I don't know how to order them. I then have to do this whole product guide, and then I have to change how I sell, and then I have to do this and this.

And they go into the spiral of just overwhelm and anxiety around it, where really it could be. Can you go pick one type of wall art and just offer that? Just offer it. Just add it as an add on. Would you like to add this on? That's all. Like, start there and then do one thing I did once, right? I had the same conversation when I started coaching, like, five years ago.

Didn't, you know, just starting out? I had this girl contact me on, like, a Tuesday, and she's like, brand new photographer starting out. She's like, mark, I've got my first client tomorrow. What do I sell them? What do I do? And I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, this is just like, how much time? Like, when are they coming in? It's like, tomorrow. I'm like, okay, think, Mark.

What's the easiest thing? I'm like, right. This is what we're going to do. We're going to photograph it. We're going to choose your favorites, put it into lightroom, and I want you to ask two questions. You're going to sell an eight by ten for a $100 each. And we're going to do one. One single framed piece. I can have a frame or a canvas or whatever it is, and you're going to offer three different sizes.

So your question is, how many images would you like in the mat? How many prints would you like, and which ones would you like on the wall? That's all you have to do. I'm like, don't complicate it. Don't worry about anything else. Just be like, here's an eight by ten. Here's a 20 by 30. How many 20 by 30s you want? How many mats do you want? She ended up selling, like, 30 mats and 320 by 30s on the wall for four and a half, $1,000 on her first sale that she's ever had.

And she was like, it really wasn't that hard. I was like, oh, honey, you just got lucky. I was like, you liked. But it just goes to show that you don't need to complicate it. Like, how many prints do you want? Which one do you want on the wall, and what product? Just start there. Uh huh. Yeah. Easy, easy. And if you need more help, call me or mark.

Yeah, well, that's the end of the day. If you need more help, if it gets overwhelmed and you're like, I don't know which way's up anymore. And you get the foggy head, and you just need someone to talk to. Just talk to someone. Don't. Yeah, don't let. Don't. Don't not speak to someone because you don't. Like, it'll take you too long to work it out. Like, a price list takes an hour to 2 hours, you're done.

Like, that's all it takes. And you'll never have to change it for years. Don't over complicate it. Yeah, no, for sure. It's so hard because we're so close to our own business and our own thoughts about it, and we just go round and round in circles, and then you can have somebody else look at it and, yeah, like, work it out in half an hour. Be like, oh, well, that was easy.

The fars through the trees. Yeah, for sure. Well, tell us, Mark, where people can find you, where they can reach out to you, where they can follow you online. All that good stuff. Yep, all the good stuff. There's two parts. The coaching side is markresetto.com. that's if you need a hand with coaching with priceless products, client experience, workflows and things. But the professional photography business network is one of those really cool groups where why learn from one when you can learn from a many type of scenario as podcasts?

Just like Natal's podcast. But then it's also got the master classes on teachings, templates on canva for toolkits. First there's 16 different templates in three different styles. Social media prompts, what else is there? We do live training every fortnight. It's just, I guess the PBBN stands for professional photography business Network. So it's for photographers that want to run a professional photography business and actually make money out of it, not just take pretty photos.

If you want to learn about lighting and pets and position and retouching and take photos of pets and things like that, do not join the PBBN. It's the worst place that you could ever go to. If you want to make money and around like minded professionals that want to run a photography business. Yeah, feel free to find us pbbn. I love it. I love it. Awesome. Well, thanks for spending some time with us.

Had a great time and we'll see you around the podcast, I'm sure again soon. Looking forward to it. Thanks for having me. Of course. All right, thanks everyone. Have a great week. Talk to you next week. See ya.