Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. I'm Nicole Begley. And today we are going to be talking to two of my hair of the dog Academy students. One who is just starting out, feeling a little bit overwhelmed and then another who is celebrating 10 years in business. So this episode is going to be applicable to you no matter where you are and your pet photography journey. 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, you've come to the right place. And now your host pets, photographer, travel addicts, chocolate martini, comma sewer, Nicole Begley.

Hey everybody, Nicole here from hair of the dog. I am so glad that you are joining me again for another incredible podcast episode. Can't believe we're already on episode 36. These have been so fun. And I think today is going to be no different. So many of you might know about the hair of the dog Academy, which is our membership site that has, Oh my gosh, so much content to help you improve your craft and grow your business. And there's just so much in there that is just solid gold. So I wanted to share with you two laser coaching sessions that I held in the past few months within the Academy. Let her laser coaching sessions to call. Well, I'm glad you asked. Laser coaching sessions are an opportunity that our members have to have a 15 minute, one to one call with me to talk about anything in their business. It can be reviewing their pricing. It could be coming up with strategies for more clients talking through how to set up a mini session event. It can be figuring out what to focus on next, looking at their portfolio, looking at their website, literally anything under the sun goes, and we have covered so many topics. So these laser coaching sessions, a new ones released each week inside the Academy. And like I said, they're 15 minutes. Long members can download the audio file so they can download them, take them with them on the go. I know I like to listen to things like this when I'm in the car or at the barn, or just maybe doing my shopping so I can still be inspired and listen to great things on the go. And you know, this is also one of those sections of the Academy that I feel like a lot of people forget it exists because we have so much incredible content and support in the Academy that I think it sometimes falls by the side burner, but it's such a good opportunity. So I wanted to share with you two of our members today that before I introduced them, I did just want to let you know that if you've been thinking about joining the hair of the dog Academy, our open enrollment period is right now through Thursday, October 22nd at the end of the day. So if you've been thinking about joining us now is the time jump on over to hair of the dog academy.com/academy. And go ahead and jump in and join us. You can join us for just$49 a month, um, or there's also a yearly option to in which you save two months of your enrollment and you also get access to all of our marketing templates at once. Instead of getting one new marketing template per month, if you're interested in learning more about the Academy, I'll be telling you a bit more about what you can expect after our two calls that a for now let's jump into our first call. So our first call is with Kate Westfall and she is setting up her business and feeling completely overwhelmed. Can any of you guys relate? She doesn't know where she needs to focus because there is this giant list of things that she thinks all of these things need to happen. So what comes first? Now I realized last week, I did talk about what you should focus on first in your business and what you really need to get started. So if you haven't heard that one jumped back to episode 35, or I talk about what you really need to get started in your business. But I think you're going to want to listen to Kate's call too, because we go so much deeper than that. We talk about what she needs to focus on, what she already has done, where it should be. She should be putting her energy and how to start approaching model calls for the beginning of her business to start portfolio building and making that big step from getting everything ready to starting to take her first pain clients. So without further ado here is my laser coaching call with Kate, everybody,

Nicole, here from here with the dog. And I'm here with Kate, Kate, welcome to your laser coaching session. How can I help you today? Right. So I'm finally kicking myself in the butt and I'm having a tough time prioritizing between website slash Facebook. Non-existent because I love my dog and I love the horse, but I'd like to vary up my content. And then, um, just advertising and marketing, you know, so like trying to get things going, all of it seems important. And so then I start procrastinating and I've got no idea how to even divvy it up. Yeah.

So overwhelming. So overwhelming. Cause there's so many

Things that we need to do. So do you have, do you have the like legality basics of your business started yet? Yes. Yup. I've done all this state. I've done all my state taxes. I've worked with my CPA. I've done. I've got a banking account. Okay, awesome. Awesome. Um, do you have liability insurance that's um, on my list of things to do for this week, I would definitely do that before you start doing model calls and stuff, just because you never know, and it's, it's good to have cause your usual, your homeowners and stuff, won't cover business related claims. Okay. So, and it's usually, I think for me to have a million dollars, it was like$170 a year. It's not, it's not a crazy amount. Um, so that's definitely worth doing, and then also make sure that you have your contract ready, which there is one in the Academy under the let's get our legal pups in the road that you can utilize. You know? So then that stuff was a lot easier than all this other stuff. Um, alright. And then for the other stuff that we do, we need like, yeah, we need a website, but you don't have to have the website before you do models and you can kind of do those at the same time. If you want to like the I, what I would do is kind of make a list of what needs to happen, like for it to have your business, like just start marketing, have your business up and running, what needs to happen. We need to have our legal stuff in a row, which sounds like you mostly do. We need to have a basic website. It doesn't mean you need to flush out your entire website and have a 20 page website. It can be one long page where it's like, Hey, here's some images. Here's about me. Here's how this works, contact me. Like it can be as basically because that, and then you can add onto it and a future and then to get right regular clients too, you'll need to have some prices in place. And just an idea of how you're going to do your sales. And that's really all you need, need to get started. And then adding on like a client inquiry guide or a session prep guide and product guides and you know, 8,000 samples and this and that, that all comes later. Like all you need to really start is your legal stuff and an idea of what you're selling and how much it is and super basic website. Okay, nice. That's all you need because I took your, I wash all your pricing course. So I got a good idea about that. I want to do all the IPS. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can start with that with basics to have like one type of wall art and then add in one album and then, you know, you can add a second wall art or maybe a second version of the album. So you can, you can slowly add things if you want. You don't have to come out of the gate with a gazillion things. Oh, permission granted. Um, but yeah, but you could definitely, it depends how much time, like how much time do you have right now during the day work on your business? What's your average? I've got a lot more now part time job. Okay. So that's a guaranteed 19 hours a week for the last month or so I was working, um, about 60 hours a week because we just had a bunch. So all this stuff went to the back burner right now. I work quite 19 hours a week, but they'll pay me for the 19 hours a week. They know how much I put in. So it's kinda like a little because they can't pay me for the 60 hours. So, yeah. Awesome. Good, good, good. So, yeah. So with that extra time then, I mean, you can definitely, definitely work a little bit on both. Like I would sit down maybe for at least half an hour a day, say, alright, I'm going to work on my website, whether that's writing copy or creating a page like, Oh, phew, just a little section a day. Like you don't have to sit down and get it all done in a day. Like just spend a little bit of time, commit to doing a little bit each day to get it to where it needs to, you know, and then you can also do some model calls and do that a little bit too. Just don't with the model calls. I think the challenges, you know, cause you were saying like, Oh gosh, I'm going to have to do this, this and that. And all these things like just don't go out and shoot five model calls on like the same weekend. And you're like, Oh my gosh. Now I have to edit all of these completely, totally overwhelmed. So like do one and edit it and talk to them and then do the other, you know, until you kind of see what your, what your upper limits of how many you can handle at once. And then all of that stuff gets faster too, as you practice. So like the first couple of sessions, you're like, Oh my God, this editing is taking forever. But as you do it more, it becomes quicker and quicker and quicker. So just, yeah, keep that in mind that it just takes some practice to get those things, but just not biting off more than you can chew initially. Do you know, where are you? You want to find your models that you do have that kind of flesh. Okay. Alright. And then for model calls, I looked at, I like to look at it as well. What's my goal of the model call. So for you, what's your goal of, of these model calls? Well, a couple of them is to see how the location would work with the models. Um, and so then to build the portfolio as well as, okay. Do I like using my 7,200 or do I want to be using my 50 millimeter? Those are my two gotcha lenses that I have and which ones I prefer. And then also different poses, you know, quote unquote poses and B being able to bury those up. So then I would have enough images for albums and variety. Perfect. Perfect. Awesome. So it sounds to me like your goals of these model calls are really for practice and actually building your more images for your portfolio and you know, for various things. So the, the intention of these calls is for you to get some dogs in front of your lens. So you can practice all of these things and get these awesome. It's good to have that just clear. Then the next step would be to just create a little intake form. It can be on jot form, Google form, any kind of form. Actually you can use'em if you a really easy way to organize potential models. Cause sometimes when you put out like, Hey, I'm looking for models, you get a gazillion applications, there's a software. It said just an online software called air table, air, table.com. It's free. It is awesome. It's basically like an Excel spreadsheet on steroids. So you can create a spreadsheet with whatever you want information to gather. So like name, email, address, dogs, name, dogs, breed a picture of the dog. You know, they can upload a, you know, maybe just a quick behavioral is your dog comfortable in new situations kind of thing. They fill out that form. You, you will, you create the, you create the table and air table and then you basically turn that into a form. So air table then creates a form that just says, here's a link. People go to that link. They see this form, they fill it out in the form, populates it onto that air table. So then you can like search it and like give people like, yes, I want to use this as a model. Like, you know, you can have a column where you assign them for different things. You can view the whole table via the files. So you can just like say, I want to see all the pictures at once. And it pulls up all the pictures of the dogs. So it can be like that dog and that dog and that dog. Awesome. So definitely check out air table. It's a great way to manage models and the software is free. They have a paid version, but I used it quite a bit and never had to pay. So, um, I think it's still free for, for all the stuff that you would need it for. Yeah. And then just start kind of putting that out there, um, you know, on your own social media channels, it doesn't need to be a business social media channel. At this point, I would hold off on a business Facebook account until you have created a little basic website and you've had your kind of model calls and you're feeling good about the sessions you're holding that you're like, okay. I feel like I'm ready to, um, you know, like I feel like I feel good with this. I'm feel like I'm somebody contacted me and wanted to pay me for a session. I feel good. And if you need feedback on, cause sometimes we're not good at determining if we're ready or not. Cause we're too critical. Um, so you can post in the group and ask us or happy to say yes, that is sellable. That is amazing. Go. Um, you can do the critique corner with Charlotte. She can give you good feedback there. So yeah, so I wouldn't do that. I would just start with getting a couple requesting some models, doing them one at a time and working a little bit each day on my website. Awesome. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Any other questions? No, I'm just by the way, Liz is awesome. Oh, we love Liz so much. I love dealing with her. She's helped me out quite a bit. And then I finally got off my Turshen I'm taking advantage of the stuff that you guys offer. Good, good. The laser coaching. Exactly. Well, keep us posted in the group. Okay, perfect. Alright.

Did you guys enjoy it? I hope that you did. Uh, I have so much fun hosting these laser coaching sessions. So our second laser coaching session, I want to share with you is from blue Amrit. She is up in the new England area and she is celebrating 10 years in her business, blues, laser coaching call focused on what she might want to do to turn her 10th anniversary celebration into a marketing event as well as a celebratory event. And, um, yeah, it was just a lot of fun. So go ahead and take a listen and side note. You don't have to wait until your 10th year anniversary to do something like this. You can celebrate for any reason you can celebrate national dog day. You can celebrate your first year in business, your seventh year in business, your 37th day in business, whatever there's always a reason to celebrate. So you can always take the content of this call and maybe start to apply it to your situation in a more creative manner as well. Let's get started.

Everybody had called here from hair of the dog and I'm here with the blue and blue. Welcome to laser coaching. Let us know how I can help you. Alright, so I was just looking through my old files and realized that this October is 10 years since I did my first paid client. Shoot. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. So I'm just trying to brainstorm some ways to promote that or celebrate that like a hundred percent. I feel like I should like do something for that beyond just like a social media post. Yeah, yeah.

A hundred percent. That's a big milestone and definitely should use that to your advantage

And things like that. And that also differentiate you from all the new people because you have, you know, you've been around for 10 years, so that, that does something for, you know, client trust. So yeah. So do you have any ideas that you've been thinking about? I don't. I got kind of stuck. Um, yeah, I don't know. The whole pandemic thing has kind of crushed my enthusiasm a little bit, but I still feel like it's something that I should be excited to celebrate. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. So,

So you can look at it as

Celebrating with old clients, you can look at it as celebrating as a big marketing event, which is what I think I would go towards, you know, especially sort of helping you bring in more clients for the rest of this year and next year. So, I mean, I just off the top of my head, I start to think, you know, you could do some pretty awesome kind of contest for that, where people enter their dogs, you know, maybe around an adventure theme since that so much of what your business is built on. Somehow figure out what the parameters are. They enter, you can pick a big winner and then of course you have other prizes too, you know, like the secondary prizes where people get a little bit of something and they book sessions, which is what can fill your calendar more so than the winter get also, it will also, you know, it can gain a ton of new followers and email addresses if you set up the contest. Right. I would figure out too, like, alright, what are our intentions? So to get emails, book sessions, and just celebrate. Right. So to get emails, you your contest though, because that gets people participating than just like watching. Right, right, right. And then to find a way, like they get extra entries, if they share or, you know, like the, maybe you have them share a story or like an image of their dog outdoors, you know? Um, yeah. Something, cause you could definitely take that whole contest and really wrap it around your branding and what you do. Yeah. Yeah. Your dog's favorite adventure, your dog's favorite play store. Wow. Right. And make sure you let them know, like, even if it's down the street, like it doesn't have to be like, look at my dog to Utah. Like it can be literally this is our favorite Creek. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's your dog's favorite neighborhood spot. Yeah. Yeah. Favorite fire hydrant. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then definitely have it set up. So they do emails. So like it could go to a landing page where they enter and then, you know, the thank you page, there's a whole bunch of different ways they can get more, more entries or something or, you know, figuring out how they can share. Maybe you have like a little custom hashtag too. They can share. Yeah. Super fun. Yeah. No, that sounds great. That'll be really fun. Yeah. And then make sure that like, you know, whoever the grand prize is, will be pretty nice prize. Um, but make sure that it's nice enough so that the runner up prizes are still enough to get people to be like, Ooh, well that's still a great deal. I still want to book, you know? So like if you were given away it's the grand prize is like a$200 voucher or something, then there's not much left to give away for the runner-ups. So just make sure that, you know, you think about that when you're figuring out what the grand prize is going to be. Yeah. Would you do, like I do. My session is a retainer that becomes a product credit. Would you do like a product like session and products and the grand prize and then like a gift certificate? Yeah. Well I've found, I don't know. I found the easiest way for people to understand. The last one I did was just a dollar amount voucher. So it's basically like a, I did a$500 voucher and then a$250 voucher. So, and then I did still have, I still still have them pay like the$500 winner didn't have to pay anything, but a$250 vouchers. Um, they were product vouchers, so they still had to pay. I think I had them pay like a$49 booking fee that also got added on to their product credits. So they ended up paying$9 and getting two 99. So that cut out the, the like, you know, the riffraff that just wanted, Oh, look, it's$250. I'll just do it and take, you know, a printer two or whatever, like little extras. And now, you know, I made sure that educating those people on the, Hey, this is the runner up prize, this is what it's worth. Most people spend a thousand dollars on their experience. Like they still knew that they would be spending some more money. So yeah, just to make sure you still educate them well on, on what that looks like you can have. Um, I actually did this and it worked really well where I had them book. Like they could book right away. Like I didn't make the runner up. People get on a consult with me first. It was like, Hey, if you definitely want to grab one of these certificates, click here to pay your$49 reservation fee. And then we'll set up our call and then we set up the call. And like, if for any reason during the call that it was not going to be right fit, I would happily refund their reservation fee. Like I wanted to hold a book and say, yes, I want this on the books. It's the hardest part anyway. Right. Exactly. And they did have before that, like in that email where it's like$49 booking fee, you have the$250 credit. I did mention that most people spend about a thousand dollars on their experience. You know, I said that it's all custom and they can only purchase what they want to and this or that. But just so they had an idea of, they're going to be spending a little bit more money and you could even say 500, like as long as it's going to be, you know, they, they know that they're going to spend a little bit more. Yeah. That makes sense. Awesome. Yay. Good, good, good

Other questions about it or anything else you want to talk through? You can always post in the group to a few of them

As you're working through. I think that gives me a pretty solid starting point. So come up with something fun. Awesome. Well, keep us posted. I'm excited to see. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. Good to see your face. I'll see you soon. Have a good one. Thanks you too. Bye.

Welcome back. So, as I mentioned before, the doors to have the dog Academy are currently open. If you've been considering joining us now is definitely the time the doors close for both the monthly and yearly membership on Thursday evening, October 22nd at midnight Eastern time. So you definitely want to jump in now if you'd like, because our next big open enrollment period is not going to be until after 20, 21 into the new year. So after 2020, I should say good. Riddens 2020. Um, yeah, we won't be opening the doors again for an open enrollment period until the new year. So if you've been thinking of joining us now is a great time to make some great in our fourth quarter and start to move your craft and your business forward. Now, a lot of you might be wondering what's in the Academy. Maybe I'm early in my journey. Maybe I'm later in my journey. Is there enough in there that is going to help me with my business or with my craft, with my goals and where I want to go? Well, I think it is. And I want to share some of that with you. But first of all, before we even get started, we do have a 14 day money back guarantee. So if you jump in there and it's not what you expect, you can request a full refund of your purchase in the first 14 days. And we were happy to do that. No problem. There's also no commitment. If you join monthly, you can cancel at any time. So that really truly is risk-free now what is in the Academy? Oh my goodness. So many things. We have lots of the traditional online content, digital content. So we have behind the lens, which are classes that I've created of you tagging along with me on pet photography sessions and I have an equine photography session. And then as well, you get to join me in my digital dark room. As I edit the images from that session, we also have a very robust post-processing for pet photographers class, in which myself and the head editing Ninja at hair of the dog. Heather, allantoin take you through everything you need to know about Lightroom and Photoshop and give you all the tools in your toolbox to do just about anything you're going to need to do with your pet photography to create awesome images. Every single time. We also have pet photography EDU by Kim hearts, which is a full blown course on the art of pet photography from working with dogs on location in natural light on locations with strobe in the studio with strobes in the client's home with natural light. My gosh, all of the things we have Instagram for pet photographers, which is taught by Tori mystic and Instagram expert about how to start using this platform to leverage, um, potential clients for your business. We have custom marketing templates, product guides, inquiry guide session, welcome guides, marketing pieces, all of these things with professionally written copy. So you will never be at a loss of what to say. Stuff's in there already. You can just tweak it to make it your own, but it is literally ready to go with everything you need to educate your clients with. They're all Photoshop templates. So you can just drag and drop some new images in it and they are ready to go. We have a business essentials course to get you up and running pricing and sales marketing. We also have lots of support in our Facebook group. Charlotte Reeves runs a critique corner each month to give you a critique on your images. We have those laser coaching calls that you just heard about and office hours once a month, where I am available to answer any questions that you have on a group call for everyone in the Academy. Oh gosh. And then we also have all of our guest instructors to teaching, editing calendar contest with Jessica. Wozzeck so many different things. Oh my gosh, you just have to check it out. So one of the biggest questions that I usually get from people is I'm at the very beginning of my journey and I'm just trying to master craft. Do I have enough experience to join the Academy? And the answer to that is yes, we have lots of craft focus pieces that will help you really just start to get, to learn your camera, start to photographing dogs, start learning your way around Lightroom and Photoshop. Um, those are those behind the lens courses, pet photography, EDU post-processing for pet photographers, all of those different things. Um, as well as the critique corner, laser coaching office hours are available for you as well. So there's definitely lots of content to help you get started with mastering your craft. If you are at the next stage, like a phase two and you are feeling pretty good with your craft and you're thinking, Oh my gosh, I'm ready to actually start to try to do this as a business. Let's get ready to launch this sucker. Oh my gosh, you're going to love all the content we have for you. We have the full business, a pet photography course. It's split up now and a couple of different sections from business essentials to pricing and sales, to marketing. You have all those marketing templates. You have, again, those office hours and laser coaching, which is so helpful and convenient to help you get individualized feedback for your situation. And then maybe you're at phase three in which you've been in business for a couple of years and you are ready to either start earning more money per session, start finding more clients starting to up your marketing game. Maybe you also want to improve your craft to take your craft to a new level or explore some new tweaks to your style. We have all of our guests, artists content. I mean, some of the best photographers in the business are sharing their editing secrets, their CRA image, capturing secrets so that you can grow your craft. We also have a full marketing module. We have just so many different things. The Instagram course, the calendar contest guide all of those things that will take your business to the next level. And of course, for those that are really ready to put their foot on the gas and just go full speed into their pet photography success, we do have a separate program called hair of the dog elevate, which is a high level group coaching program with myself and five other coaches. Um, again, some of the best pet photographers in the industry. You can check more of that [email protected] of the dog academy.com/elevate. Or you can go ahead and send me an email or a quick direct message on Instagram. And I'm, if you want more information, I can get some more information on that program for you. But anyway, I hope you found this helpful. If you want to check out the Academy, go to hair of the dog academy.com/academy, and you can enroll there through Thursday night. If you're listening to this podcast in the future and you're like, man, call this just seems awesome. I really want to join. I totally get it. Just go ahead and throw your name on that wait list. And we will let you know, as soon as the doors open again in the future. Thanks so much for sticking with me today. I hope you guys found some value in those laser coaching sessions and I'll chat with you next week. Have a good one. 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. One last thing, 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.