00:00:00               Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. I'm Nicole Begley. And today we are talking more sales. We are going to be talking about sales strategy and answering client objections. 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.

00:00:23               And now your host, pet photographer, travel addict, chocolate martini connoisseur, Nicole Begley. Hey everybody, Nicole here from hair of the dog. Welcome back to the podcast. So excited to be back in your ears for another week. If you did not listen to last week's and you're interesting in improving your pet photography sales, you definitely want to check out last week's episode,

00:00:48               episode number 56 in which I go over the eight steps to the sales process. Yes. Eight at starts from your website and ends with your followup. So you definitely don't want to miss that. You can pause this, go check that out, come back and listen. We'll wait. All right. You're back. Excellent. All right. Today we're talking about some sales strategies and client objections.

00:01:13               So sales strategies is really what type of selling are you going to be doing? Are you going to be doing what I am now calling live selling, which could be over zoom, even the phone or in person, or are you doing the online gallery done, done. I need more sound effects anyway. There's nothing wrong with an online gallery, but there are definitely some big challenges.

00:01:40               And one of those biggest challenges is that people only buy what they know and what do they know? They know itty bitty five by seven and eight by 10 prints and maybe some digital files. Well, Nicole, I like to sell digital files. Okay. I get it. I like to sell digital files too. However, if you're selling just digital files,

00:02:01               it's really hard to add the value to those, to be able to, to talk about the value, to be able to get the client, to see the value in those. Because as far as they know, why are your digital files $2,000 when so-and-so down the streets, taking pictures with their new camera and it's $200, even though the artwork is different,

00:02:21               the images are different. They don't necessarily see that when you're selling only digital files, it can often be seen as a commodity. My favorite way to sell digital files, add them onto prints and products. Add them onto your collections to build value for your clients. But you're actually using those digital files to add the value to the beautiful custom products that we'd love to create.

00:02:46               So that's definitely the biggest challenge. Some of the other things about online sales is, you know, we are abandoning our client during a time and they need to make really hard decisions. Could you logging in to your gallery? You're so excited. Here's 40 to 50 amazing images and you have to figure out what to do with them now. Oh my gosh,

00:03:07               that's so hard. It's hard when we're with them and we're pulling them up two at a time to compare and giving them suggestions. But if they're trying to do that on their own, they are going to keep putting it on the back burner. They're going to say, Oh, I'll do that tonight. And then it's late and the dog had to go out and now it's nine 30 and now they're tired and now they want to go watch Netflix.

00:03:27               I'll do that tomorrow. I'll do that tomorrow. I'll do that next weekend. I'll do that next weekend. And before long, it's now been a month, two months. And you're like, are they ever going to order? You're exhausted. They're over it. They've totally forgotten about the session. They've lost any sort of emotional connection to the images.

00:03:44               And you know, eventually maybe you helm them and they order a couple prints. And then, you know, your cashflow's a mess. They're just kind of like ma now, whatever that's okay. They're not like overly in love with their images anymore. And you're frustrated because you're not making enough money to have a sustainable business and on and on it goes.

00:04:04               So that is one of the challenges of online galleries. Now, there are some ways to improve your online galleries. You know, if you're going to do it, it's open for three days. So you talk to your client and say, all right, we're opening. The state is closing this day. The other way that really helps with an online gallery is having preset collections where it's just,

00:04:21               this is your collection and go pick out your images for X, Y, Z. But really the challenge is I think that online galleries, we are really dropping the service ball when our clients need it the most, because it is hard. And when we are able to be there with them live, whether it's over zoom, the phone or in person,

00:04:42               ideally zoom or in person, so we can see them and we can show images to them. Then we are able to really support them and make sure they are creating exactly what they want from our session, that they are going to have products that they will love for a lifetime. Some of the other challenges for online galleries is 93% of human communication is through body language or voice.

00:05:04               Can't get that through an online gallery. You also have no control over how they view the images, and they may not realize you can edit out the leash or take out their foot or do something else that maybe they don't really love about a particular image. So really, really important to really think this through and make sure that you're not just doing online galleries,

00:05:22               because it seems easier. Or a lot of us maybe do online galleries because we're a little bit nervous of what our clients are going to think about their final images. And so we would rather put up an online gallery, so we don't have to be with them when they look at their images. So that way, if they look at their images and they hate them,

00:05:41               they're not going to like, you know, kick us or tell us that we kick puppies or something. And instead we send out that gallery, we sit in that fear of, Oh my gosh, they're not going to like it. The client gets, it looks through, loves it, but it's busy. Doesn't respond. You don't hear from them from a week two.

00:05:57               And then you're sitting there thinking, Oh my gosh, they hate it. They hate it. They hate it. No, they love it. They've just been busy. So is that really easier? I don't think so. I think that sounds like just a really, really crappy way to beat ourselves up. So wouldn't, you rather show them their images in person.

00:06:12               So you can see for sure that they love them because spoiler alert, it's their dog. They're going to love them. They hired you because they liked your work. So they're going to love the work you create for them. Even if you think it's not the best work you've ever created, we've all been there. Your clients will still love them. One of the other objections I get for people wanting to have in-person or live sales is that they don't think there's enough time for an order or an appointment.

00:06:37               But let me ask you if just by having that ordering appointment, whether in zoom or in person, it would double or triple your sales. Do you now have time for that appointment is not just one extra hour, maybe two hours of your time, a lot less time, then having two or three additional clients add on top of that, the fact that you are serving those clients at a better level,

00:07:03               and they are getting a better experience, having a more fulfilling experience and loving their final products so much more than if they had to pick it out on their own. So many clients of mine and my students have come back and said that the in-person viewing and ordering appointments have been their most favorite part of the process. Yes. So really there's no reason not to,

00:07:26               to try this. And I know a lot of you like, Oh my gosh, I don't even know where to start. Don't worry. We're going to talk about that today. What you really, really need. So we need something to view images, right? Let's just dive right into it. What do we need? We need something for viewing.

00:07:41               So this be, be a projector, or you can attach your computer to a TV with like an Apple TV or a Chrome stick or something you can show on your laptop. You can show on your iPad. You can show a physical proofs. If you're doing a zoom session, you just showed them on your computer through screen sharing a little pro tip.

00:07:58               If you're doing a zoom session and you're playing a slide show. So make sure when you share your screen, there's a little checkup Mark in the bottom corner that says, share sound. So make sure you share your sound too, so they can hear the music. But if you want to have to go through my whole kind of sales process, so I can walk you through a sales session,

00:08:17               go to hair of the dog academy.com/sales session. And there's a three-part video series in which I walk you through my wholesale session. So you can check that out here. We're not going to talk about that in this particular podcast, but all that information is waiting for you or right there on the hair of the dog Academy block. Okay? So we need something for viewing projector,

00:08:36               laptop, iPad, physical proofs, or even on your computer danger will Robinson. If you're going physical proofs, if you're doing physical proofs, you need to have a policy in place for the proofs for one your client inevitably asks, Oh, can I please take these home to show my spouse partner that you know which one? So they can me make the decision?

00:08:57               No, you need an answer for that because those proof should not leave your side, unless there has been a large amount of money exchange. So can they take the proofs with a certain dollar deposit towards purchase? Can they keep the proofs? If they've already purchased a certain amount of things, what, you know, what are your policies in place for that?

00:09:14               So, definitely think about that. If you're doing physical proofs, all right, next up, we need a way to sort our images because we have maybe 40, 50, maybe even more. My sessions tend to be in the 30 to 40 range for one dog, 35, 45 for two dogs. And I really try to keep it under 60 for three dogs.

00:09:32               So for sorting, you can use software like pro select, which is by time exposure you can use there's. I think, I believe it's an iPad app called proof share. You can just use Lightroom or bridge with labels or stars, piles of prints, you know, whatever you have, you don't have to get fancy here. So just use whatever you have.

00:09:54               Lightroom works, great bridge works great. Or any of those specialized selling apps. All right, what else do we need? We need some samples. Ideally, one sample of each item. If you're just getting started, it's okay. Not to have samples of everything, but I highly recommend with each sale that you have, you purchase another sample. So eventually you can have a sample of everything as for sizing of the samples.

00:10:18               As big as you can, muster is usually the best. If you want to sell large wall art, I used to have, my largest size was 16 by 20, whenever I was going to people's homes, guess what? I sold the most of 11 by 14. Then they started coming to me and I had a 20 by 30. And guess what?

00:10:37               I started selling more 16 by twenties. And then I got a 30 by 40, Oh now I'm selling 20 by thirties. What's the lesson here. People buy what they see or in my case, one size down from the largest size they see. So now guess what I have in my sales room. Not that anyone's seen it in the past year,

00:10:58               but one day there'll be back. I have a 40 by 60 giant acrylic print on the wall. It is beautiful. It is striking my 30 by 40 looks tiny by comparison. So I am helping by having that great big a sample that I will be selling a lot more 30 by forties. I'll keep you posted once I'm vaccinated and people are back in my sales room and we're not doing it on zoom.

00:11:21               All right? So we also need a way for our samples. We also need a way to help people with their sizes. So there's a ton of softwares out there. There are Swift galleries and pro select and Fundy and shoot and sell all of these different apps that allow you to take a picture of your client's wall. Showcase the art on that wall in its actual size with the images you created on their wall.

00:11:46               Some of them let you add frames and things like that. Absolutely great. Awesome. If you have the, for that software highly recommended because it will pay for itself over and over again. Wait, Nicole, I'm just getting started. I don't want to have a subscription. No problem. Okay. What else you can do is you can have a couple mounted prints of different sizes or grab just some foam core from the art store and cut it up in different sizes.

00:12:12               If you're going to their house, you can hold it up on the wall. You know, even if you're doing a zoom, you can hold up the different sizes for that. But ideally those sizes of foam core is if you're going into their home, otherwise you can just show some of your samples for the sizing, but those, those softwares, as soon as you can work that into your budget,

00:12:31               that is what I like to call a return on investment type expense. In which case it's an expense. Yes, but it's an expense that's going to help you make a lot more money in your bottom line than if you did not have that. All right. So does that sound reasonable? We need just a way to show the images, to sort the images,

00:12:52               to basically do some sizing and that's really all, you absolutely need to do some in-person or live sale. So highly recommended tested out again, hair of the dog academy.com/sales session. If you want me to walk you through how I actually run my sales sessions, all right. But now say we're in the sales session and we have some objections, objections from our clients.

00:13:19               Let's talk about some of these most common ones. Now we want to have a plan to handle them before they even happen. That's what we're going to talk about here. And I also want to make sure that you are aware that it is so important anytime in this business, but especially around sales, not to project your money issues onto your client. So,

00:13:41               so many people were like, Oh my gosh, I never pay that for pet photography. Okay. But that doesn't mean somebody else won't. There are, there's so many things like money is such a loaded topic that so quickly, it just turns into, Oh my gosh, all these negative feelings, we start like talking really fast. We start just throwing free things at them,

00:14:02               discounting things, because we think that they think that they're going to think that we are this and that, and greedy and selfish and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And all these different things about money, because it's such an emotionally charged subject, but really it shouldn't be, it's just a piece of paper. And it's a piece of paper that allows us to trade goods and services to say,

00:14:26               Oh, I like what you're offering. Yes. That seems like a price I'm willing to pay. Here you go. Thank you very much. It is a just willful exchange where people are excited to pay you. So let them pay you and try to stay out of your head with your money issues. I think we need to have a money mindset podcast or two in the future.

00:14:48               So stay tuned. We'll definitely make that happen. All right. But let's start with our objections of objection one. I'm not sure what size, well, if you're able to use one of those art sizing apps that I just talked about, that will not be a problem anymore. As long as you got an image of your client's wall prior to the sales session,

00:15:06               sometimes despite all of my best efforts, I still can't always get that to happen. So if that word happened and they weren't sure what size I could show them some different sizes in my sales room, I can point out some different walls in my house and say, Hey, is it about this size? It's about that size. So we at least have an estimate.

00:15:26               And then we will make an estimated guess on the size. And I will send them home to measure and confirm within the next 24 hours so we can finalize their order. All right, objection. Number two. I don't have the wall space. Well, if you're doing sales in their home, this is great because you can look for differently sized walls,

00:15:45               like a vertical wall and have a vertical image or three vertical squares. You can look for just, you know, some different places. And even if you're not going to be in their home, if they're coming to you or you're doing a virtual sales, that's something that you can just talk about during your pre-planning consultation that we talked about in the last episode,

00:16:02               where we can just talk about where would you like to hae artwork in your home? And if they say, Oh, I don't have the wall space. Then you can say, Oh, well, it doesn't have to be this big giant wall. It can be smaller areas. Sometimes even just a nice vertical 16 by 20 looks beautiful on a little skinny wall or you know,

00:16:19               a small wall somewhere in your home. So that's something that you can definitely recommend. One of the other things you can ask if they don't have any wall spaces, if there's any artwork they'd like to update on then last but not least, you can start to steer them towards albums or image boxes. All right. Objection. Number three. Oh my gosh.

00:16:38               That added up fast. So you are through the sales session, you add everything up. You're internally sweating bullets because you're like, Oh my gosh, do they know what this cost? Do they know what things cost? Spoiler alert. That still happens to me sometimes, even though I talked to them, I send them the pricing. We've talked about things when they,

00:16:56               they keep adding artwork or how do you then digital files and adding an album. I start to panic a little and think, Oh my gosh, do they know what this is going to cost? So if you ever feel like that, you're in good company that happens to all of us. The key is not to allow that panic inside to make you start to do something like,

00:17:15               okay, I'll just throw that in for free. All right. And I'll just count that. And I'll give you this, you know, I'm all for gifting my clients, but just make sure it's not coming from that panicked voice of, Oh my gosh, what are they going to think? This is too much money. So if you've gotten to the point where you added it up and you say it's going to be $4,000 and they're like,

00:17:33               Oh, it's a little bit more than we had planned to spend. The first thing I usually do is offer a payment plan two to six payments, no additional charge. And we just break it up. They don't get their artwork until the payment plan is finished and I let them know that upfront. And I also let them know if they think they're going to want to,

00:17:52               you know, get halfway through and pay off a lump sum just to make sure they give me a little bit of notice that way I can make sure their products have been ordered and are here for them so I can get them to them as soon as possible after their balance is paid. All right, objection. Number four. Is this the right decision?

00:18:07               Now, if you are holding live selling, whether zoom or in person, this will usually not come up. This is usually an objection that clients have when they're in that digital or that online gallery. And they start to think, Oh man, I would like to piece of our work, but Oh, I don't know. I don't know if it's the right decision.

00:18:28               It's going to be too big. Oh, I don't know. I, the biggest I've ever gotten before is an eight by 10. So I'll do that again. Maybe I'll get really crazy and go with an 11 by 14. So by being in person, by showing them their artwork on their walls, this is something that can definitely help that if you are doing online galleries,

00:18:45               I think I've, you know, where I stand on that, that I don't recommend it. But if you are, I do recommend throwing in some images that you make in these different wall, art and softwares, or grabbing some stock images from creative market or Adobe stock and putting some artwork on them, into your gallery so people can see the artwork.

00:19:05               So they get out of that thought of just prints or digital files. But I really recommend talking to them live on zoom or in person. One of the other ways you can help alleviate this objection of is this, the right decision is by offering a hundred percent satisfaction guarantee. So if they order something, it comes in and they don't love it. I will buy it back.

00:19:25               You know, I want them to love their artwork. In my 11 years, this has only happened once where the artwork came in. I thought it was a great size. They thought it was a little bit too big. We had looked at it on the sales software. They thought it looked good there, but when it came and got in their house,

00:19:41               they thought it was a little bit too big. So no problem. I ordered them a smaller size, refunded them the difference, and then took that bigger size and use that as a sample. It's actually in my daughter's room right now with a picture of her and her horse. She used to ride, but you know, that's just sometimes the cost of doing business.

00:19:56               That's why we need to make sure our cost of goods sold are that we can afford to purchase another one when mistakes are made or when something like this happens. But like I said, it's been like 11 years in business and that has happened exactly one time. And then once I fixed it, the client was a fan for life. And so it's,

00:20:13               it's been good. And they've also given plenty of referrals of other people as well. All right. Objection. Number five, buyers remorse. This usually doesn't happen either. Especially if you follow the advice from our last episode and you're educating your client on your pricing prior to the session. I think this is a bigger issue. If you are someone that doesn't share your pricing until the sales session,

00:20:35               that they then, you know, buy on a really emotional reaction. And then the next day they're like, Oh my God, what did I do? I couldn't afford that. I did it. You know, they didn't have time. People need time to process large purchases. So I want to give them that time way before the sales room so that they already kind of have in their head,

00:20:52               they know a little bit more of what they're purchasing. So to help alleviate that that's the biggest way. But then also, you know, reinforce the sale when it's done, let them know, Oh my gosh, this is going to be so beautiful. I can't wait to see it. You can get some final web images to them soon or their digitals if they purchase those so that they have the images that reminds them like,

00:21:12               Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. These are so beautiful. Send them a thank you note and just, you know, just tell them how great it's going to look and how much they're going to love. It is really just some little things we can do to do with that. Objection. Number six, I need to check with my spouse. That is code for,

00:21:27               I was not prepared to spend this much money. If this is happening to you regularly, you need to take a hard look at your client education process. Prior to the session, you need to see where you're talking, pricing, how you're sharing pricing and need to find a better way to communicate that to them. Now, there is a rare occasion where you've been talking to say the wife to plan everything.

00:21:50               And then, you know, the husband's not really involved. And then the husband comes with her to the ordering appointment and didn't see the pricing. And then totally just shuts down this whole sale where, you know, he does not agree with spending the amount of money that she was planning on spending. So these situations are very, very challenging and thankfully don't happen often.

00:22:13               You know, there's not always a lot of things you can do when that happens. One thing that you definitely can do is just try to communicate throughout the process, make sure that, you know, everyone that's going to be at the ordering appointment is familiar with the pricing. That is something that I will ask. You know, that when we're scheduling our sales session,

00:22:33               just let them know, find out who's coming. And if somebody else is coming, that has not been involved in the process, I will make sure they know to be aware of the price sooner, make sure that is communicated to them. Okay. And objection, number seven, being unable to finalize their order. Listen, this happens, although it shouldn't happen often,

00:22:54               this is just the way some people have to, to process purchasing. Sometimes people need more time. I had one particular client, she was a family client. I photographed her family three or four times. And every time she needed more time, she couldn't finalize everything at the session at the ordering appointment. But within two or three days, I would have a very nice multiple thousand dollar order.

00:23:20               That was just how she worked. That was fine. I learned to live with it. We worked with it. It was fine. Again, people like that, it happens periodically, but if it's happening more than once every few years, then we really need to look at that client education process. How are you preparing them? Are you telling them that this is an ordering appointment that decisions need to be made that night?

00:23:42               Because generally most of the time, percent of the time, if they leave the sales session without purchasing your sale will go way, way down. So you want to try to get them across the finish line to finalize everything. And you know, we don't want to do this in a pushy way. Our selling is not about selling it. It's about service.

00:24:00               It is about listening. It is about making suggestions for how they will best enjoy their artwork. So, you know, it's not about being slimy or salesy or trying to get them to spend as much money as possible. That is not what we're about. But if you do have a situation where someone's like, Oh, I'm not sure why don't you try to offer to take a 50% deposit on the order?

00:24:21               And then they can finalize any changes within 24 or 48 hours that allows them to kind of think on it. Maybe, you know, they might end up changing a little bit, but they put a deposit down. They're more vested in it. Sometimes they just need a little bit of time to, to finalize that decision. One thing to consider if they can't finalize and they're asking,

00:24:41               Hey, can you just put this up in an online gallery? No, the answer is no, unless there has been a decent amount of money that has changed hands. So for me to put up an online gallery for them to go home and finalize their decisions, I require a thousand dollar product, basically down payment. Non-refundable, it's going towards products.

00:25:01               If you don't order anything, I'm keeping your thousand dollars that just, you know, it avoids people wanting online gallery, getting online gallery and then just procrastinating making any decisions for weeks and weeks at a time. So that is what I recommend if that happens. And then just a couple of other things. My personal philosophy is I never tell my client,

00:25:24               no, but it is 100% okay to say yes, I can do that. But it comes at an additional cost. So don't be afraid to quote additional costs for things. If your client is asking for them, for instance, if you're a 48 year old client asked if you could Photoshop out all of my wrinkles. So I look like I'm 24.

00:25:46               Sure. That'll be an additional $60 per image to account for the extra retouching time. That is okay. Yeah. Some of the other things you might run into sometimes are people that are offering or asking to make a deal. Hey, can I get a discount? I'm going to show it to all my friends and recommend you. I mean, the answer is usually just,

00:26:06               I'm sorry, but there's no discounts. And you just stay from usually people that are asking for deals or just asking, they ask everybody. And once you say no, they say, okay. And they pull out their credit card and pay. So if somebody is asking if there's a discount or if there's a cash discount or if there's whatever discount it's okay,

00:26:26               just to say, no, I'm sorry, but there's no discounts or I can't do that. And then they will usually just say, okay, and then they will pay. So anyway, I hope that you found this helpful, and I hope that it helps you get a little bit more excited about maybe testing out this live option. And instead of those online galleries,

00:26:46               once you take the leap and start doing this, the first couple of times might feel a little weird. You might feel a little nervous, but I promise you that you are going to see more sales, higher sales, and your clients are going to get a better service out of their experience as well. So it's really a win-win join us next week.

00:27:08               I'm going to be talking with Heather laminin and we are going to be talking all about this mindset that comes around selling and you know, the fear of it and the money stuff out of it. And just all of the stuff that's up in your head. So we can't wait for that. Always one of our favorite podcasts when Heather joins us. And in the meantime,

00:27:28               don't forget to go to hair of the dog academy.com/sale session. If you want to watch me walk you through my three-part video series, that just shows you how to go through a sales session. All right, everybody have a great week. Talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of hair of the dog podcast. If you enjoyed this show,

00:27:50               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 on 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.