00:00:00               Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. I'm Nicole Begley. And today we have one of our favorite guests back, Heather Latin in his back. And we are talking all about breaking through the fear and the anxiety that comes with moving to alive sales process. Stay tuned. Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. If you're a pet photographer, ready to make more money and start living a life by your design,

00:00:25               you've come to the right place. And now your host pet photographer, travel addicts, chocolate martini, calmness sewer, Nicole Begley. Hey everybody, Nicole here from hair of the dog and we are back for another podcast episode With your favorite hair of the dog podcast guests. Woo. They're Latin from the flourish Academy. Also a coach inside the hair of the dog Academy and elevate Heather.

00:00:51               Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Nicole. Oh, always my pleasure. I love having you here just to chat about things and today, if you guys haven't caught it, the past two episodes, I have none a solo episode, which was so sad. And now I'm happy to have people back to talk to again,

00:01:11               just kidding. It was good, but I love having guests on my show so we can chat. But anyway, enough about that, it was two shows on sales. So we were looking at the eight steps to actually having sales. Most of them happen before your sales session. And also we looked at what you actually need to do what I'm calling the live sales,

00:01:31               which could be in-person or zoom. Just meaning that you are live talking with your actual client face-to-face in some capacity, virtual or otherwise, and what you need to get started. And then client objections that you might encounter during your sales process and how to navigate through that. So we started doing that, but throughout my time, working with the different students and the Academy and elevate,

00:01:55               I have noticed that there tends to be a lot of fear around moving from online gallery sales, to in-person or live sales and people just getting really nervous about how to navigate that. So I thought who better to bring on, then my mindset Maven here, Heather, Okay. You frame this, but you know, as you say that, what comes up for me is I'm thinking there are probably 85 things we need to talk about around this.

00:02:29               I'm not even kidding. There are. So there are issues around sales. There are issues around fear. Are there issues around the clients? So I think we need to take this maybe one aspect at a time. Could we start with just maybe how people feel about sales and selling? Oh, absolutely. So for me, when you say sales and most people,

00:02:53               I think the first thing that comes up to mind is like a sleazy greasy car salesman. Right? Is that what you think of? Yes. And in fact, I often ask students what, what comes to your mind when you think of sales? And I wait for them to answer, and it's usually some version of that. And it usually has to do with a car salesman.

00:03:11               I'm picturing this, you know, like in the seventies, walking out and bell-bottoms like super, just gross car salesman, you know, trying to force you to buy a car or whatever, but you know, if that's what you think, whatever it is you think of. And I actually would encourage people to maybe pause for just a second and ask themselves truly what comes to mind when they think of sales,

00:03:35               I would bet that most of their imagery is negative. Right. Right. And if that's the case, how will you ever be able to sell anything? If you have associated it with something negative or everything negative. Absolutely. Because our brain is not going to want us to be slimy, gross selling knives, door to door. So therefore we are going to hide.

00:04:03               We are not going to want to sell our work, which we're going to have some reframes here coming up. I know one that I like to tell my students is don't look at this as selling, look at in person sales, zoom, sales, live sales as service. It is an integral service piece of our business because I feel strongly that if we don't offer this service,

00:04:28               we're actually doing a disservice to our clients because they are not professional photographers. They love all of the images you have created of them and their dog. And then you send them a gallery with 40 images and it's like, okay, tell me what you want. There'll be so overwhelmed. And you wonder why they don't get back to you for weeks at a time.

00:04:49               I mean, how busy are we all? We're all working on the computer. Even people that used to work in an office, like we all have computer fatigue. The last thing they want to do is sit down, go through a gallery and try to narrow down 40 images. They love in the products. They don't understand. And they certainly, aren't going to feel safe to order a 30 by 40 for the wall because the biggest size they've ever known might be an 11 by 14,

00:05:16               probably an eight by 10, right? Yeah. So we're basically like a hot potato doing all of the responsibility right on their lap. Like, here you go. I'm done I'm out because I'm fearful of how you're going to react. I think you just hit the nail on the head. It is actually to some degree, unprofessional of us to pass our job off to someone else.

00:05:41               That's exactly what's happening because you don't want to take the responsibility to learn the system, work the process, whatever that looks like, you're passing off to your client and that's not fair. A and it is service when you offer things in a way that makes easier for someone to purchase. So what you were saying was, you know, they get this gallery of 40 images.

00:06:01               They can't decide. There are so many things. So guess what? They do, nothing. They do nothing because they're overwhelmed. And when you confuse, you lose that's from Donald Miller, building a StoryBrand. I love when he says that when you confuse, you lose and that's what happens. They, they see too much. They're not sure where to even start.

00:06:19               So they just shut down and they might love the photos. So they, they want something. And I actually, Nicole, feel a little bit guilty. Although side note, I believe that guilt is a non-productive emotion. Maybe we can give it another shot someday. But when I look back at the beginnings of my career and my defense, I just didn't know any better.

00:06:41               But when I was delivering these digital files to people, I know that they're just sitting on their hard drive or, or they're lost on their hard drive and they never do anything with them. And that's just not fair. That was actually negligent of me to do again. I didn't know any better. I was learning. I'm using strong language here to make a point.

00:07:00               You know, I mean, I use a look, first of all, if we haven't met, I use a lot of hyperbole when I speak. So, you know, don't take me too seriously. But the point is, if you are offering a service, then offer a service. Don't, don't do the job halfway because they are looking to you for your expertise.

00:07:19               This has nothing to do with quote sales. This is offering a service that people choose. They decide on their own fruition to purchase and give you money. All you have to do literally is just let them Say thank you and ask them if they would prefer that as a frame canvas or a framed acrylic. And if they'd like that as a 20 by 30 or a 30 by 40,

00:07:46               and that is it. And I think actually you mentioned too, that they're avoiding learning the software and things like that. I mean, that could definitely be part of it or procrastination of not knowing something, which is one of the reasons we tend to procrastinate. But I think the biggest reason people avoid doing this in their business is they have this picture in their head of being worried that their client's not going to like their photos and then like be rating them or doing something crazy at the sales session.

00:08:16               They're worried about the reaction of their clients. If the client was unhappy and what that then would mean about them as a photographer. And they have all this pressure around that. And therefore, I think they feel it's safer to just send out that online gallery, Right? Whether they realize it or not, that's what their brain is telling them at the subconscious level.

00:08:35               The brain is saying, halt, that sounds dangerous to me. I better not do it. I better stay safe and hide behind my computer, deliver the files to them. And you know, fingers crossed. They love everything. So they are, I guess, an essence imagining an undesired outcome. So they're avoiding it. Is that correct? Yeah,

00:08:57               exactly. That's not going to work as, this is not how you're going to grow a business. So I like to actually play out these scenarios that people build in their minds because they do that. They can. My belief is that if you have something you are avoiding, if you play out the possible scenarios, you will be able to emotionally digest it,

00:09:18               come up with a solution and therefore not fear anymore. So if you ask people like, what is, what is the worst that could happen here? Okay. The worst thing is they hate their images, right? And then the client would say to you, you are a terrible photographer. I hate you. You kick puppies. Right? Okay. So what happened to you,

00:09:38               Nicole? No. Interesting. Okay. So they're making up a scenario that is most likely not going to happen. Now let me be clear here. I'm not saying it's never going to happen. It could, right? I wouldn't be able to emotionally digest that scenario if it does. But chances of your worst case scenario coming true are, are zero to none.

00:10:00               I mean, it's just probably not going to happen, but if it did okay. How, how would you handle that? You might be embarrassed. You might be ashamed. All right. Probably if somebody says that they're kind of a jerk anyway, I can, I don't know that I would want to do business with them. I mean, I just don't see that happening now.

00:10:18               Could a more possible scenario be that someone doesn't totally love their photos. Okay. I suppose that is a possibility that someone maybe is a little bit disappointed or they thought something else. Okay. Again, listen, I've been in business seven teen years, hundreds of weddings and portraits. And I really only had one, maybe two, but I don't even count that second one,

00:10:43               one person that wasn't over the moon, thrilled with her images once one time, and guess what? I worked with her and we figured it out amicably. So you, that could happen is what I'm saying. And you'll be able to figure it out. Would you be okay with that? So I would ask people like, could you be okay with that?

00:11:00               Could you just accept that? There's always a possibility, but for the most part, people are going to love you or they're going to love their images. And you, why, why would you hide from that? And in that 1% case, I've also in my 11 years, had exactly one client that wasn't thrilled with the final images. And again,

00:11:21               same thing we worked through had what the, you know, what her concerns were. I reshot something. And then she was really happy in the end. Now, if I had just sent that out as an online gallery, there wouldn't have been that communication. So again, it's service not selling and people are not out to just make you feel bad.

00:11:42               They're going to love their images. And again, and I think part of it is because as artists, we usually have so much perfection and we expect every session to be the most mind blowing, amazing session we've ever had. But guess what? Sometimes my sessions are great. Sometimes I feel like I got home and I'm like, well, that was not my best work.

00:12:01               And I am not happy with the images that I've created, but I'm there. They're good. They're still good. And the client still loves them, but are they something that I'm going to be so thrilled to put on the front page of my website? No. No, but we've put all this stress on, you know, the meaning of what would happen if the client doesn't love them.

00:12:25               Does that mean I'm not cut out for this? Right. See, I am a fraud. It goes back to, it's still one of the most popular episodes of this podcast is, Oh gosh, I think it's like episode number three, four it's episode number four. Thank you, Heather. That is basically confidence. Heather and I were talking about confidence and the lack thereof that all artists have.

00:12:47               And so I think that plays a big role in why people are nervous to go to in-person sales. That's okay. I don't want to dismiss anyone's feelings here. I think what you're feeling is valid. Okay. You're nervous because you care. And I love that about people. They want to do a good job. The issue is when it prevents you from moving forward and there's something we need to address.

00:13:10               And I think that there's a lot of fear. That's very vague and they haven't defined exactly what it is that they are afraid of. Because, you know, if we could hop on, say an elevate lifeline to chat something like this out, I could break through that. It less than 20 minutes with a reframe and a different way of looking at it that helps people move forward.

00:13:31               And my favorite thing in the world is when our students say to me, I never thought of it that way, because they were building it up so big in their mind that like the world was going to end if somebody didn't like their photos. So they were going to avoid. Or like you had said earlier, there's Oh, there's this resistance to,

00:13:47               I don't know how to do that. Well, listen, I can't accept that as a reason because you can always learn how there's there are resources. You can figure out how to do it. That's just an easy way of saying, I don't want to face it, or I don't want to do it. But if you could just admit, okay,

00:14:04               no, I can learn how I can learn. How to do you learn how to use your camera? You learn how to use Lightroom and Photoshop. You can learn how to do this. Do you want to learn it? And if not, what is the real reason? Like I'll get on these calls sometimes and I'll say, Hey, you know,

00:14:18               you hear all this background story and I'll say, Hey, just one second. What's the real issue here. And are you acknowledging that you have the spirit again, by the way, that's okay. You have this fear, but so could we work with that and just reframe it or give you a different perspective. But you had said also, you know,

00:14:34               sales equals service. I would like to take that one step further and say, could we also just have something that we offer? We have an offer to promote to the world. And this offer is our pet photography. And it comes with this level of experience and service. And then we have, you know, we offer a service. That's what we do.

00:14:58               And people can decide whether or not they accept that offer. It's not up to you. Whether somebody hires you or not, it's up to them, but they can't hire you. If you don't put the offer out there, if they don't know you exist, they can't hire you. Your only job is to photograph cute puppies and put offers out there and let people hire you.

00:15:16               How simple was that, Nicole? Yeah, that's it. That's it. And you know, I want to take this a little bit further too. And I love that reframe of calling it an offer. And I look at so many different students and sometimes I wonder with, you know, what's the difference. Their artwork is comparable. They're putting the same offers out there.

00:15:39               Everything on paper looks like they should both be working, but there's an energy behind putting the offer out there and hiding behind your offer me nervous to, to share it with the world. And I want to, I heard this from my mentor, James Wedmore the other day and it just, it snapped. I was like, Oh my gosh, that makes total sense.

00:16:01               So for instance, when you are talking about your dog or your child or something else, that's super important to you. I know a lot in this soft for like just the dog, just my dog, while you're talking about your dog to somebody else, it's like, you are just sharing that dog, the experience about the dog with nothing, but just like,

00:16:23               Oh my gosh, look at this world. How can you not love this? This is so amazing. Look how cute I have 37 names for this one animal and contrary. Some people then look at their offer for their photography offer, which what are we doing? We are capturing that special relationship that you just spoke of. So highly, forever and ever because our dogs don't live long enough.

00:16:47               So how important is that? And then you put that offer out there of just like a pet photographer and my sessions to 75. And then you can buy some stuff that hesitancy. Yeah. Yeah. There's just such a different energy. So you need to look at your offer and look at your service, look at what you bring to the world with as much proudness.

00:17:12               I don't think that's the right word. Like you just have to be as proud of your offer and know how much it serves people with as much joy that you talk about your dog. I think that is such a great way. Would he, would he say that was a metaphor? That's just a parallel to how you should view it. Talk about your photography business and your offer.

00:17:35               Like you would brag about your dog With the same, the key ears, The same energy, the energy that is positive and uplifting and exciting. And you just want the world to see your pet because he's the most brilliant, you know, ever. What if, what would it look like if you talked about your business or your offer the same way it would literally change your life.

00:17:58               It would certainly change your business because the energy that you put into it, it's either scarcity or it's abundance. It's either lack and scarcity or you feel strongly and confident and abundant about it. And there is a different energy around. Let me give you an example as a wedding photographer, when I would meet with clients and listen, I don't even care how this sounds,

00:18:19               but I truly believed that they needed me more than I needed them. So I would sit there, you know, in a Starbucks or sometimes they would even come to my home office and I sat there really relaxed, you know, here's what I have to offer. And if you want it great, I would love to work with you. And if not,

00:18:35               that's fine too, because I had that type of energy that just abundance and whatever is meant to be, will be. I booked 99.9% of the clients I met in person. There was only one. I didn't book it. It was because of the father of the bride, refuse to pay any money to any photographer prior to shooting the wedding. And I said to him,

00:18:56               good luck with that. I can't imagine that you're going to find a photographer. That's going to shoot your wedding before you pay them. Okay. Anyway, I booked almost a 100% that I had a friend who was booking weddings at the same time. And she was down on her luck. She was in a bad spot and she would meet with a client.

00:19:14               And it was like sheer desperation. If she did not book that wedding, her water or her electricity might get turned off the next day because she needed money. Just like oozing desperation. Well, like she just was not booking people. She was, and she was very talented, very gifted. I mean, she could shoot. So it wasn't an issue of the photos.

00:19:35               It was 100% the energy. And I talked to her about it. And I said, if you shift your energy from desperation to here, here's what I'm offering. It's your choice. And that's fine. Either way, you will just have a more relaxed way about you and people can sense energy. Just like dogs can smell fear. They can sensei and they know you might think you're disguising it,

00:19:58               but you're not because it is oozing out of you. These pictures, these energy ripples, these energy waves in the air and people are, are picking up on it at the subconscious level. And they will be able to pick up on whether you believe in what you're selling or not. That's the truth 100%. Yeah. And if you don't believe that,

00:20:16               have you think back to when you've met somebody in the past and you just have an instant connection to them, that's because you were on the same energetic wavelength, like you're both exuding the same energy. And you know, this starts to sound a little crazy, but it's legitimately quantum physics, it's actual science and you're just attracted to that. So if you are then,

00:20:36               you know, oozing out this energy of desperation then, Oh, well, what clients are you attracting? The ones that you do attract are probably the ones that are going to make your life just like pretty hard, because they're going to have all sorts of ideas of what they think should happen, which we're going off on a tangent here. But I think it's an important to you.

00:20:56               You haven't listened to elevate the other day. I said, people actually pay to be around my regulated nervous system. That's what I, I said, what I'm saying is what you just said, which is the energy they're attracted to the energy. And I believe people are paying to be around me because I exude abundance and confidence. And they want to feel that way.

00:21:17               Even if they don't, they can sense it and they want to feel that way. So they want to be around it. So the energy you have behind sales really matters. Going back to the very beginning of this conversation. If you view it as slimy or underhanded, or as if somebody's cheating or stealing from you, then you're going to have a difficult time selling.

00:21:35               The first stop is let's reframe it to, this is a service that you are offering. And secondly, remember this always remember this, it's their choice. Whether they want to hire, you're not forcing them to hire you. All you have to do is put the offer out. There is probably as you possibly can and let the market decide. I love that.

00:21:53               And I have a great way to actually help you reframe that because you know, sometimes we hear this. We're like great, Heather, you know, that sounds great, but I need money to pay my rent. You know? So, so I, it's hard when you're coming from that spot, but I want to help you guys reframe something. And this has helped some of my students in the Academy and elevate before too.

00:22:16               And I want you, if you're at all stressed about doing any sort of live sales, I want you to think back to a time when you were ready to purchase something and maybe you are ready to purchase something that costs quite a bit of money. Maybe it was, you know, a sectional couch that you were so excited for, but you're like,

00:22:36               man, it's a little bit pricey. Maybe it was a car. Maybe it was a baby horse, whatever it is, you're excited to purchase something that, for example, a baby horse for coding. Anyway, I speaking from experience, but I want you to think back to when you were excited about something and how did you feel internally as the customer,

00:22:59               when you were excited to purchase something, you couldn't write that check or transfer that money fast enough, because you were like, man, I need this. Oh my gosh, I am so excited. You were jumping out of your skin. Excited. That is what our clients feel like. So put that, think of that. Don't think about, Oh my gosh,

00:23:18               I can't believe this cost this much. Oh God, what are they going to think of me? They already said, yes, they're so excited. They can't wait. And then I get a lot of people that get really worried about, Oh, I'm in the sales session and okay. We decided on their wall art, but Oh, I don't want to like push them to buy too much.

00:23:39               What if I offer them albums? And they say, no, okay. Then you move on to, do you want, or digital files? Like that's all. And I've heard this. Yeah, for that. I want you guys to think about, okay, say you were at a really fancy dinner. He ordered a bottle of wine, a chocolate martini,

00:23:56               whatever appetizer dinner. And then the waiter comes by with the dessert tray and asked if you'd like dessert. Do you a say, hell, no. Flip the dessert tray up and say, get away from my table and then go home. And just stew on how rude that waiter was to offer you a dessert or you just politely say, no thanks.

00:24:17               I'm totally stuff. But I appreciate it. Oh my gosh. That's a lyric. That's a really good example. I have never been mad at a server for offering me something, because guess what? It's my choice either. I say yes or no, but at least I knew there was something available because had he not offered to me that dessert, you might not know what was available.

00:24:37               He's giving you choices. Now, if he came and offered me to dessert, like seven times, I might get a little annoyed, but you're just offering one time and then you're moving on. You're saying, okay. All right, well, what about this? And you're just, again, letting them know what's available. They have already raised their hand and they are already so excited to spend money with you.

00:24:57               So just let them just let them okay. Can I ask you a question? Do you find that students in the Academy are they, so let's say they're doing shoot and burn, which is fine. There's no judgment there. You know, we're just talking about moving to these live sales as, as a way of offering a better service, a higher end service.

00:25:16               What would you say is maybe one of their objections to switching from a shoot and burn to lifestyle? I would say the biggest to the one we've already covered in the first one was the reaction to their clients and them being nervous about the reaction and what that would mean. But I think the biggest one is fear of losing their past clients because you're changing how you're doing business.

00:25:42               It's often times, oftentimes not always, but oftentimes if you're going from that, all-inclusive, here's all the digitals. It's usually the lower price point. Then once you move to live sales, so that compounds the fear of I'm going to price myself out of my market and lose all my past clients. And then where I be. Okay. So they actually say that,

00:26:02               do they say like, I'm I, if I do this, I'm going to lose all my clients. Like they've literally said that I'm pretty sure I've seen them. And my accelerator called the sporty. And I think I heard that exact thing. Okay. First of all, I think we're going to have some fun with this one, because when you say I'm going to lose all of my clients,

00:26:23               really all of them, 100% of your people are going to never hire you again because you switched your model 100%. You can tell me that for sure. You will lose all of your clients. I, I, I'm not going to listen to this all or nothing thinking this absolute, you know, either, either it's this or it's that could you potentially lose some clients?

00:26:44               Sure. Okay. That's that's fair. But these people that have been with you usually, especially if they're repeat clients, they love you. And there will be people that walk alongside you. There will be people that grow with you. Again, you, you might lose people, but don't tell me you're going to lose 100% of your clients. How do you know that?

00:27:03               Did you ask every single client? And every single one said, Oh, no, I want to do that. I'll do. And amongst those people are certain to be people that it will be like, Oh man, this is so much better because they were really busy. And I still haven't printed anything off from my last dog that we photographed. Can we make an album with both of the dogs for our past session?

00:27:25               And this one, absolutely. Right. Like how do you know? They will love that? Right. Right. I actually had back from when I was doing families, I had worked when I left my full-time job, I had worked for a contract company doing like newborn hospital photos. And they also did some like little family. Mini-session all inclusive digital kind of stuff.

00:27:46               Well, one of the clients that I had photographed through them got in touch with me was like, Hey, I would love to do another session. And so I basically said, well, we can do it here. Or I have this side of my business too. I focus more on artwork, you know? And digital files are often added on,

00:28:01               but my focus is the artwork. But if you want, and then we can definitely go that way. She's like, Oh no, I would definitely like the artwork. It became one of my best clients and probably spent over $10,000 over the next five years in family photography. Because she actually didn't like the digitals as much as the other, but didn't even know that that was an option.

00:28:20               She didn't even know to look for that for photography. Right. Right. But that's your job. That's your job to explain what, what you're offering. That's called service. When you tell people what you offer and you let them decide. That's interesting because I I'm familiar with that company you're describing and the pricing was really low. So you think that somebody who paid so little with you on that first session would never graduate to alive model yet she did.

00:28:54               So, you know, this is one of those examples where, you know, if you believe something, if you truly believe that you're going to lose 100% of your clients, can you find a counter-example to that? Right. I believe we just found one. Yeah. And one of the other things too, looking at this, you know, there is there's room in the market for all levels of this photography business.

00:29:16               Just my word of warning to you. If you were at that lower end shoot and burn, you know, everything for $200. And if you actually tracked your time, you are probably not making what you think you're making. And you are going to get burnt out before you can earn money, you know, but there's always going to be that in the market.

00:29:34               And there's always going to be room for that in the market. And there's always going to be people that want that, but there are also always going to be people that want a higher level of service. They're always going to want to be people that want a done for you service. It's the same thing as hiring a handyman to come change out some light fixtures in my house versus doing them myself.

00:29:54               Could I do them myself? I can. Does it take me all day three trips to home Depot and more swear words than a sailor. Yes he does. And sometimes I would rather just pay someone $200 to come in and change out my light. It's called. And you, so you just said something a moment ago. Oh my gosh. I just like had a flashback.

00:30:17               So very early on in my career, I was doing shoot and burn. And one day I decided to calculate how much I was making per hour because it was, I'm like math and I'm curious and Oh my goodness, Nicole, I was making less than a dollar an hour determined at that. Heather, No cost of goods sold with your digital files.

00:30:35               How could you be making so little Isn't that? And that's what people say. I know that's the argument, do the math. I calculated how many hours it took for me to prepare shoo and deliver a session. And I can't remember if I was doing it with a family or wedding, but it doesn't matter because the outcome was the same. I was making next to nothing very,

00:30:54               very little. It was actually a disheartening eye opening and exciting at the same time, because I uncovered something that I thought I've, I've got to learn how to do this the right way. I've got it. Let me rephrase. I got to learn how to do this in a way that's profitable because that's not the best use of my time. I started my business when my daughter was less than a year old.

00:31:15               So she was just a baby. And I left my corporate job that was paying me very well to pursue my passion for photography, but I'm making less than a dollar an hour to be away from my child. That's stupid. I was just, I just didn't know. So I don't, I mean, I don't feel bad about that or beat myself up.

00:31:33               I'm just like, okay, now that I know I can do better. And now that you know, people that are listening to this now that you know, and you're hearing this and you're hearing the reframes. Now you have a responsibility because now you know, better and you should make some changes. You should, at the very least, like Heather said,

00:31:50               do the math dig in and see what you're really making. And please hear me. I am not saying that it's impossible to make a digital file. Only model profitable. It 100% is it is very challenging to do so a $200, unless you are a very, very, very high volume. And like in and out, no, no backend hours.

00:32:12               I do have a friend she's family photographer, but her, she had an all inclusive digital model, but her session fee was $1,500. So yeah. So inclusive digital model at that level, it is profitable 100%. So please hear me that, you know, if you're like, Nicole, I really love this model. Sure. Just make sure you do the math and make sure you're actually making what you think you're making.

00:32:35               And you know, that's another argument I hear often for not to a product based businesses. Well, I'm so much more profitable on this digital file side, but I think it's so much harder to sell the digital file only because customers look at that digital file only as a commodity. They don't understand why my digital files are $1,500. And Sally Sue down the street is 200.

00:33:00               Even if my work is very different in the eyes of other photographers, they don't understand that it's the same product. So what I like to do is focus on the products, but then include digitals as upsells and included with once they buy what I want them to buy. And then there's no comparison because they're no longer it's apples and oranges, right? And you know,

00:33:22               you had said, you can have a profitable, digital, only model that's possible, but it will be kept. There will be a limit to what you can make because once, once the digital files walk out your door, you, your sales have ended. So even though this person that sells, you know, and I think you're talking about our mutual friend,

00:33:43               she sells her family sessions for $1,500, but that's it, that's all she's going to make $1,500 as the end of the road. So 1500 next 1500, because that's the only way to increase your income. So I'm not talking profitability, profitability. Yeah, those are, those are profitable. But there, then there's a limit on the income and her sales,

00:34:06               because you can only shoot so many where with live sales that increases sometimes exponentially, at least by a multiple, because she could do a family session, you know, for three or $5,000 by selling product, that's more profitable, more sales. But again, I think you're right. It's important to not miss here. What we're saying, if you, based on the current season of your life,

00:34:30               find that it works best for you to do the digital only we support you. And we respect that. We want to give you the option and the entire picture of what it could look like to move to a different model. Yes. Amen. Yeah. You guys, I hope you found this little series super helpful. Don't forget if you want to see how I actually go through a sales session.

00:34:58               If you go to hair of the dog academy.com/sales session, I have a three-part video series on where I actually walk you through one of my sales sessions and how yeah. Yeah. So definitely check that out. And of course we also have lots of pricing and sales help inside the Academy and our elevate program. And Heather, thank you again for being with us for another hard hitting.

00:35:26               Fantastic. Tell it straight closure. Yeah. I think people need to hear the real truth. I love it. I love it. All right. Thanks so much, everybody. If you want to follow along, Heather, Heather, let us know again where they can find you. Of course, we'll find you in the Academy in elevate, but where else in the interwebs can they find you?

00:35:44               Thank you. They can find [email protected], the website I would love if you would check out the flourish Academy podcast. And of course you can find us on Instagram and Facebook at flourish Academy. I'd love to connect with you. Yay. Excellent. All right. Thanks so much for being here with us, everybody, and we'll catch you next week. Have a good one.

00:36:02               Thanks for listening to this episode of hair of the dog podcast. If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute to leave a review. And while you're there, don't forget to subscribe. So you don't miss our upcoming episodes online. If you are ready to dive into more resources, head over to our [email protected]. Thanks for being a part of this pet photography community.