Client Follow-up Systems

Paul: Hey, everyone. We’re here.

Melissa: Hi.

Paul: We are having computer glitches, so let us know if you can hear us, if you can see us. Melissa will look down at the phone.

Melissa: Yes, we have lots of hearts and thumbs up so you can hear us okay.

Paul: Sweet, sweet.

Melissa: I see-

Paul: We have our computer on overload. We have a lot of things that this software that we’re using here to broadcast is basically saying, “No, this is too intense for the Mac Book Pro.” So we-

Melissa: So if you can just anyone just say that you’re here-

Paul: We come across … The video that we’re seeing is a little choppy, so I’m hoping they can hear us and you can see us okay. If you guys can give us a thumbs up or some hearts, or just let us know that you can hear us and you can-

Melissa: Just say, “Yes.” Someone say, “Yes.”

Paul: … see us alright. It’s great to see everyone.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: Hope everybody’s doing well. We’re going to go ahead and flow. Hopefully you can hear us, so again, please just let us know. I don’t see anybody commenting from your phone.

Melissa: I know, so I can’t tell, but that’s okay. We’re just gonna keep talking and-

Paul: Yeah, we’ll keep flowing.

Melissa: Welcome to Photographer Entrepreneur Live. It’s our live weekly show that we do and we talk about photography business, branding, marketing and sales. Each week we come with different topics and today we’re talking about client follow-up systems.

Paul: Yeah, and I tell you what. This is something … When Melissa came into my world and she looked from afar initially, and she’s like, “Wow, you legitimately have a very, very busy photography business.” ‘Cause she just assumed, like a lot of people … There’s the perception that you’re busy, but we legitimately were very, very busy. We didn’t have proper systems, so I was dropping the ball all the time with client follow-up, with follow-through, with everything. She came into it and she was like, “You know what? Didn’t you talk about this software that you bought? Maybe we should circle around back to it. There’s certain things that you should be doing that it looks like you’re not.” Do you remember those days?

Melissa: I do remember those days. I remember the old days, before we had systems really, really in place where we would do a lot. We did have some systems, but they weren’t, I guess … They didn’t flow, exactly, the entire way. It was kind of haphazard, so we would do a lot of cutting and pasting, but then we would drop the ball a lot because if a system isn’t built correctly … You have to lead a client through an entire experience. I think that before we really started implementing these systems and workflows and things, we weren’t leading our clients through an entire experience. I think that’s the biggest thing, is that from start to finish, your workflow should really take your client on a journey from when they first inquire to when they book to the actual session itself to all the posts that you’re gonna do.

Unfortunately, at that time, we weren’t really doing that. We just were kind of like, “Oh, I gotta send an email here,” “Oh, I gotta remind them about this here,” and it was very haphazard.

Paul: Yeah, and I tell you what … I had good intentions, though. For wedding clients, we have these folders that we have and they’re set up and they’re a very specific system. We kind of had a system where it was an older school paper system, where everything was kind of lined up, boom, boom, boom, in a list. I’m looking down. I see somebody’s acknowledged- [crosstalk 00:03:44]

Melissa: Awesome. Okay. They can hear us.

Paul: Can you see us? Can you hear us? Our computer’s definitely lagging a lot, ’cause there’s a lot of stuff that’s open on this, so definitely give us some feedback.

It’s something that, when we went through the checklist, it was great, but the challenge was as I got busier and busier, those checklists were sitting inside of folders. At any moment in time, it’s not like it was the perfect system where I could just tell in a glance, we could have had, in the pipeline, 50 plus wedding clients. Beyond that, we’re getting more than, on average, one wedding lead a day with what we do. We get over 500 wedding inquiries a year, direct wedding inquiries to us, and I dropped the ball a lot. I didn’t know. This person had emailed me two weeks ago and they didn’t reply to me. I didn’t know. I just didn’t get back to them, ’cause there was new leads coming in today and I was trying to follow up. It’s like, “Okay, was this client at this part of the process? Were they over here? Did I drop the ball?”

She saw a lot of that. There was just this chaos of people at different parts of the process, all over the place. I remember actually when we were in the midst of getting married, when we sat down with Tony and Amy [Hoffer 00:04:57] … Do you remember that?

Melissa: I remember. That was the turning point for us, because we went in there as clients. They had their 17hats already set up and their system set up. We were like, “This is really cool,” and we had a really just candid conversation with them. They had said to us, “It’s a beast, but once you get it, you’re never gonna turn back, because it’s an entire system.” Again, we even saw that as clients, because they took us through an experience, as well, where we would get emails reminding us about different things that we had coming up, our session and things to help prepare for it, too. That was really a turning point for us, ’cause we’re like, “Okay, we have the software. We’re not implementing it and we’re not using it,” so today, we really want-

Paul: I’m sure a lot of people are guilty of that.

Melissa: We really wanted to just share with you just firsthand what we use. What we’re about to show you is actual emails that we use. None of this is made-up stuff. This is the actual workflow that we use. We were really excited that 17hats approached us about this project, and we put in everything that we use on a day-to-day basis. So it’s an entire experience-

Paul: ‘Cause a lot people in … We shared this video inside of the 17hats user group, as well as our Photography Entrepreneur group, where we have over 12,000 photographers in there, as well as our inner circle. The reason being is that we were excited when this came out and the announcement about the market place templates. It was like we are literally taking our emails that we sent out to wedding clients, as well as our headshot clients … and keep in mind, last year we did over 2000 corporate headshots, actors and others as well. It’s something that we normally do about a thousand headshots a year, but we had a big major client, Discover card, that bumped up over that 2000 mark.

These are the emails that we literally use on a daily basis. Are they rocket science? No, but they make sense. They’re very well thought-out. They’re practical. They get the results, and it’s because we have so many inquiries that come in on a daily basis, we have to have a system where we just don’t have to think about it.

What we’re gonna do is seriously take you through our own personal dashboard inside of 17hats, so you can see how we’ve taken this from … We had to think and I had the scratch notes. I’m like, “I gotta get back to this person. I’m dropping the ball. Did I get back to the person from three weeks ago? They had a question.” It’s like when you keep everything up here, it might as well, especially as I get older, it might as well just go out the door. We need to have it in writing. We need to have it somewhere. I have to very frankly say that this freed us up. In our business, Melissa is the 17hats person.

That’s the software … that’s her daily life, going in and communicating and following up with the clients, no matter if it’s from the inquiry standpoint, all the way through to post-production, all the way through to anniversaries and everything of their event. It’s something that my job freed up because now this constant flow’s going on that I can focus on doing my job, which is on the post-production and the follow-up and the galleries and everything that I do as a photographer.

When you’re by yourself, you gotta do all these aspects. It’s so mind-boggling how, as photographers, we had to keep like 17 hats. We had to keep all these personalities and all these hats as far as trying to be all these different things at the same time.

We’re gonna take you through, because a lot of people jumped in. What we found out is not necessarily our templates or anything, or our workflows, but in general, they saw like, “Okay, here’s somebody that’s in the template marketplace.” They jumped in and purchased it and then they were reading for these golden nuggets of these miraculous emails that were gonna change their lives. They had to come back and say, “It’s not just an email.” This is a system … This is for the convenience of … Do you remember when we were siting down-

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: … because again, we sat down, locked ourselves in for about a week-

Melissa: I think that-

Paul: I think it was about a week.

Melissa: I think this is one of the things that we really wanted to explain exactly what workflow is, and it comes back to the entire client experience. When we first were doing this, we did this from start to finish. Paul and I sat down with each different type of client that we had, the headshot client and our wedding clients. We said, “What, from start to finish, would the perfect experience be from a client from start to finish?” We mapped that out. Everything from when we got the inquiry to the communications to not even just … This is what a workflow is. I think a lot of people confuse workflow and emails. It’s not just emails. It’s all the touchpoints, I like to say, the touchpoints that you’re gonna have with your client, and also the reminders for yourself, too.

There’s a lot of internal things, too, that I do behind the scenes on my end, where I have reminders of things that I need to do or reminders of things that you need to do, as we’re going through this client experience. When you are looking at the workflow, think of it as entire client experience. It’s not just emails, but it’s touchpoints. It’s just little things that’s just gonna set you apart in everything that you were saying, from anniversary gifts to reaching out to a client just to check in on how they are.

Even with doing our own workflows, there’s things that you can do as well within your own workflows that’s gonna set you apart as the photographer in your marketplace. It’s gonna make that client feel really, really special, and you’re gonna do that on a regular basis with them. It’s something that you’re not even gonna have to think about because every day when you land there and you have this flow, it’s already written out for you.

Paul: Right, so we’re glancing down just to see if anybody’s dialogue-

Melissa: Yeah, so it sounds like Dan says he can hear us, so that’s good.

Paul: Okay, good, good.

Melissa: We still have a little bit of lag, but we’re just gonna keep flowing here.

Paul: Yeah, we’re gonna keep flowing. Hopefully this comes across okay for you.

Melissa: Yes, and Dan says, “I drop the ball all the time. It’s not cool.”

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: We’re all guilty of it-

Paul: True.

Melissa: … but having a system in place … Again, we’re big advocates for 17hats, but again, think about for your workflows. Do you have systems in place? Do you have an entire workflow? Have you really sat down and thought about that whole client experience?

Paul: Again, I think as photographers, those of us that are photographers, I think when we hear the word workflow, we’re thinking about post-production, so that’s something that we use a lot. It’s something that when … It’s funny, ’cause I already knew what workflow was, because when I had the real estate company, through a real estate transaction, there’s so many things that have to be done by law. There’s a different program in that world that we use. In their world, they called them action plans. I was used to this. I’m talking 20 years ago in the software. It’s something that came natural for me.

Even when Melissa and I were beginning to talk, she’s like, “Oh, okay. We have a wedding inquiry,” and she would just write the line wedding inquiry. Again, we came back and it was like, “No, no, no. You don’t understand.” There’s like five steps that we take for granted, but we do it every single time, and those need to be line items as far as our workflow. Create the client file. Put it into the calendar. There’s all these little nuances, right? So-

Melissa: It seems very mundane when you’re writing this out, and my gosh, what’s great about this is that we did all the mundane work so you guys don’t have to do all that.

Paul: I said that to her. It was like, “What?” We need to build … and this is for our own business, so … We just went blurry.

Melissa: That’s all right.

Paul: Just work with this guy. We went and I literally said to her like, “No. We have to create the most perfect, ideal client experience, from the beginning, when they contact us, all the way through. If we could sit in a bubble and just say, ‘This is the perfect world, step by step. This is exactly what we want somebody to carry through on.’ Let’s list those steps out from beginning to end, as if everything perfect happens.”

We’re go over to screen so Melissa can … Again, she’s the expert on this. She’s gonna take you through real life, like here is what she logs into, and we’re gonna take you through and show you exactly, ’cause a lot of you were hitting us up, saying, “Hey, I’m nervous about investing into workflow, and could I actually look underneath the hood? Can I get behind the scenes and see what am I buying into?” We did see a couple of people … They had missed expectations with whatever they invested in. I’m not sure who or what it was. We stand behind exactly what we do because this is legitimate and we’re on the grind, day by day, in a normal, everyday market. This is what we’re doing to handle the inquiries and the client processes all the way through. Hopefully, this software works-

Melissa: Yes, fingers crossed.

Paul: … and I’m going to click over here. If you guys can let us know if you can see our 17hats dashboard-

Melissa: Let’s see here.

Paul: …. that would be great.

Melissa: And that way, you can-

Paul: If you wanna say, “Hi,”-

Melissa: Oh and Lauren’s in here. Hi [inaudible 00:13:22]. Hey, how are you?

Paul: Hey, hey-

Melissa: It looks like we’re in. It looks like we’re flowing here, so-

Paul: Okay, good. Melissa’s gonna take you through. Do you wanna stand up and … I actually can, I believe … ’cause we’re seeing it in the software so-

Melissa: All ready to go. All right.

Paul: … does that work for you?

Melissa: That’s perfect. Okay. When you get into your 17hats, if you’re not already familiar, here’s your dashboard. This’ll be maybe … We’re gonna do workflows today, but just to kind of give you a brief overview, this kind of tells you what you need to do each day. When you have these workflows assigned, if I did have someone … Right now, I don’t have anything down here because I did everything today already. You would have your clients on there and what to do.

Let’s go ahead and show you, just get right into it. I have actually one set up, and again, if-

Paul: Give us a second because our-

Melissa: … this is a little slow-

Paul: … Mac Book Pro is on overload with the software.

Melissa: We’re gonna use me as a test, while I have a test run here. This is me, so this would be a client. Each client has their own file. You can see it has their name. It has information here if there was any project dates. Again, we can talk about that another time. Let’s talk about workflow. I wanna show you first of all the workflow on the headshots, ’cause headshots is one of the main clients that we work with. So, go over here. You would just assign … If you had someone that was interested in a headshot client, you would assign them the professional headshots complete system here, so we’re gonna activate that. Again, there we go.

This is what it looks like when you come into the headshot workflow, and what’s nice about this is that we have it divided into a couple of different sections, which I’m gonna go through. There’s actually two sections here, one for pre, when they’re a prospect, and one for when they actually become a client. This is great, because not everyone that you encounter is going to become a client, but you have this workflow assigned to them so you can go through the process with them.

Again, everything from the start to finish, from when you input the client information into 17 hats … You can also have this set up automatically, too, with your lead capture, as well. I have it in there whether I manually input it in or if it’s coming in directly from that lead capture form and it’s coming into the system. For our workflow here, for headshots, initially we have three emails that we send out. We have our initial email for the inquiry, a five-day follow-up and a 30-day follow-up.

Paul:Can you explain why-

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: … you would have those?

Melissa: What we do is when people inquire about the headshots … and I’m just gonna open this up here. We’re not gonna go through every single email, but just so you can see. This just gives them … When people are inquiring for headshots, typically they want information. It’s typically a person that’s going for a job interview or starting a new company or whatever. They need a headshot for a LinkedIn profile, whatever the case might be. They want the information. What’s great for here is we make it simple for them. We answer those questions that most clients have, the most-asked questions. They wanna know how much it is. They wanna know what they get with it. They wanna know what’s included with it.

What’s great about this is that it’s already done for you, where we have it all written out. You can enter their name in here. It talks a little bit about our experience. For us, we always have specials going on, so we have our three specials. We have our Social Media Session, our Standard Session and our Extended Session. It explains what exactly those sessions are. Again, you can change the wording. If you wanted to call it something a little bit different, you could. That’s fine, too, and putting your price points here.

For here, we do give the price points for headshots because, again, most people … It’s a little bit different than a wedding, which we’re gonna talk a little bit differently about how that goes, but they wanna know the answer right then so they can book that headshot. Headshot sessions, I would say … Wouldn’t you say, Paul, they’re pretty straightforward?

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: Cut and dry?

Paul: They normally wanna … They’re going right for the price. Keep in mind that, which is kind of interesting, though, even though when we talk about weddings and also headshots, you can modify these. This is giving you the boiler plate, in a way. If you are doing headshots, this is great. This is very plug-and-play. This could be a Senior Portrait Session. This could be a Newborn Session. You can go in and customize and change this. It’s a starting point. Again, definitely, the language that we put in here … ’cause again, this is very robust with what we do, because this is legitimately what we use on a daily basis. This isn’t some generic, “Hey, called about a headshot? Here’s a generic, short email.”

These are what we use in our business every single day, and our corporate client … We deal a lot with every day real estate agents, financial planners, people that just authored a book on their own, self-published or something, all the way through to major corporations that we have, like DuPont Company, General Electric, Accenture, the Bancorp, JPMorgan Chase. We deal with very, very big major corporations, as well. These are legitimately how we follow up.

Melissa: Yeah, yep.

Paul: Now can you explain why you would send the five-day email?

Melissa: Absolutely. That first initial email explains what it is, what they’re gonna get. It answers all their questions. We send out … It’s already set to have five days after we send that a follow-up email. Just to give you an idea of what that is, it’s super-simple. It’s a soft touchpoint, ’cause a lot of times when people are out shopping around, that’s exactly what they’re doing. They’re shopping around. If they’re price-shopping, they’re gonna let you know right away that if you’re in and out of their budget … or maybe you just don’t have what they need, or whatever the case may be. The five-day follow-up is just a soft touch, just to touch base with them to make sure that they, number one, received your email, and, number two, ask if they had any questions and go ahead and ask if they wanted to go ahead and move forward with booking the session.

What’s great about this is that we’ve recovered a lot of our prospects through this, because a lot of times when people inquire, they might have forgotten. They might have just … Life happens. It gets busy, so they forget. The five-day’s just a soft reminder, “Hey, did you get our email?” After that, too, we even have as far as a 30-day email, so if we still haven’t heard nothing from them 30 days out, again, we ask again, “Hey, did you get our emails? We would love to help you out.”

Paul: We call those our garbage can leads, because are the ones that I totally did not follow with properly before. I’m sure you guys have done this, as well. You’re so busy with right-now people, and people that didn’t get back to you 30 days ago, you’re just not thinking about them. In a way, it’s kind of like we’re sending this soft touch again out, and it’s amazing how much … This goes also with our wedding clients. Just think about that. 30 days out, the system … If you see, Melissa has these set up to approve, so they don’t automatically get sent out, because she wants to personalize and maybe put one or two sentences at the top of the email to personalize it.

Melissa: Yeah, that’s a good tip. For example, we actually had a headshot client that came in last week. She’s an Irish dancer and she was referred by a family that we’ve worked with, that we photographed before. Actually, she’s a former Miss Delaware. In that email, we were, “Hey, thanks for reaching out. So glad that the Cahill family reached out to you. We love them. We would love to set up a headshot.” It was just a very personalized email, as far as that goes, so it gives that little glimpse with that. So, here we are again.

Paul: We are just flipping the software back around. That’s just the first part. This is with the headshots. Understand, it’s the same thing with the wedding workflow, as well, is that we break down the workflows in different chunks. This is the client acquisition phase, more or less. This is somebody inquired with us, and we have its own mini-workflow, in a way. This is a mini-chunk. From there, depending on how they react … If they do, in this case, with a headshot session … If they book a session, now we take them … The workflow would then go into the next chunk of the mini-workflow. Do you want to talk about that and flip the screen back around?

Melissa: Yeah. The next thing is once they … Let’s say they become a client. Then they go into our client workflow. From here, you can see that we do a reservation agreement. We send them … This is everything we do to help prepare them for the session itself, reserving the space. We send them a tips sheet with a PDF and explaining that. We confirm the appointment. From here … This is the interesting part, which I think … I had a question, someone asking, “Do you really go through each and every step?” We say, “Yes, we do,” because Paul and I work in tandem here. We’re working and he’s working on the editing piece. I’m working on the client communications. What’s great about this is that no matter who the client is, we can look at the 17hats and we could see where we’re at and where that client stands.

After you have the session with the client, there’s all these things that we have to do, between backing up the media card, culling the images, importing the images, creating the gallery. What’s great is, as we go through this, life is gonna happen. If we’re working on one client … Just imagine this. As you get busier, you’re gonna have more clients with more needs, and that’s where, a lot of times, I think, people get caught, because they get behind. They’re putting out fires. They’re running around, but this is great, because you could pick up at any time and see where you’re at with a client and where you need to be.

Another example that happens often with us with headshot clients is that we send this proofing gallery access code so they can check through, have their proof. Then next appears client selects their images. Sometimes, a client won’t get back to us right away. Sometimes it’s right away, that they need a headshot right away. Sometimes they have to go and they’re asking their friends and family to look at their gallery because they want a second opinion. We might not hear from them for a week. What’s great about this is that we can pick right back up and see, “Hey, did the client select the image or not? Where are we at with this client?” Again, we’re not dropping the ball. We’re having that excellent customer service in following through.

Again, when you’re thinking about your workflows, which is great, what we made it easy for everyone here is that it’s a process where we take you through the entire client experience. It’s not just emails, but it’s the back-end, too, and everything that we’re doing behind the scenes to make that client feel special, to make that client feel that we are attending to them and giving them excellent customer service.

Then here at the very, very bottom, you’ll see here, we ask for referrals. How often do we make that a habit? Sometimes we do it haphazardly, but if it’s part of your workflow, it’s gonna be part of that thing that you don’t even think about. You’ll see here that … I’ll click this and you can just see kind of an idea. “Pleasure working with you. Pride myself on the work that I do, and it comes from referrals from people like you,” and we directly ask for a referral. How awesome is that if you ask every single person that comes for that referral? They’re gonna most likely give you a referral.

What’s cool about this, too, a year from now … I think this is cool that we’ve some people, too, that have done this … We have a one year follow-up email. What we like to say with our headshots, “It’s your virtual handshake. With anything else, why aren’t you updating your headshot every year? You might have a new brand look. You might have a new hairstyle or just a different look.” We ask and we set it up in here for one year from when they had their session. One year, we say, “Hey. We find that a lot of our clients are in need of an updated professional headshot and they wanna do it on a yearly basis. Would you like to schedule it?” A lot of them say, “Yes. That sounds great,” so they take us up on that.

That gives you an idea of headshots. Paul, do you wanna add anything before I kind of give a little glimpse of weddings, real quick?

Paul: Yeah, I think just a reminder, though, that while these are for headshots … Let me and flip the screen back over and then we … Sorry, guys, this software is very advanced and to the point that we probably shouldn’t be using this software. So give me a second here to sit down.

Melissa: There we are.

Paul: Excellent. It’s something that, even though headshots is our niche, think about … We say this saying all the time, “How do you eat an elephant?” and it’s one bite at a time. Sometimes we invest in software products just like 17hats and it can be so overwhelming. To be able to push a button and to have somebody else’s time, energy, expertise, things that we’ve lived through to perfect this, ’cause it was a living document. It wasn’t like we created … We went for the perfect ideal. Then it was like, “Oh, this is clunky, or this didn’t work right. This didn’t flow well. People aren’t reacting.” We have a high … You guys know we do very high volume with our headshots, as well as with our weddings, and it’s like these are real world. This is our words and it gets us results. It’s not fancy, tricky, crazy, outside-the-box stuff. It’s effective. It’s what works.

Melissa: I think that, like you were saying, unfortunately, many people go for that magic bullet. They want that magic email. Really what it comes down to is that client experience and that communication. What’s really great about the emails that we have … They’re straightforward but they’re simple. People don’t want to be … You talk to a person in an email like you talk to them in a conversation. That’s why, for example, even that five-day, 30-day follow-up is just, “Hey, did you get my email? Just checking in. How’s it going?” That kind of [crosstalk 00:26:10].

Paul: The less corporate-y it sounds, the better it is. Again, we’re all about having a conversation. Meet people where they’re at and it’ll be so much more effective. I think we need to stop raising our hands because it keeps refocusing.

Melissa: I know. It’s like, “What is going on?”

Paul: Sorry about that.

Melissa: We talk with our hands, so we need to sit on our hands here.

Paul: Did you wanna go through-

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: I’m not sure if anybody … If you guys have questions-

Melissa: If you have questions, please ask-

Paul: … feel free to ask-

Melissa: Yeah. We’ll answer.

Paul: … as far as workflows in general, but really we did the heavy-lifting. We’ve been using the headshots workflow for about two years now, so it’s like we’ve added and deleted and changed and molded, and this is what-

Melissa: We perfected-

Paul: … we found-

Melissa: … we perfected along the way.

Paul: … it’s something that again, it can come back. Your niche could be newborns. Your niche could be seniors, and you really can take that. It’s just the exact wording definitely are for as far as emails, but the workflow and the follow-up … If you’re not just looking for the emails and you just want the entire follow-up system because you’re not thinking of these things, it can be your starting point.

Melissa: Exactly.

Paul: Then you go in and you use the wire framing of it, and you build exactly what you want. Our headshots one is great, but our weddings, because it’s a longer point of sale-

Melissa: It’s intense.

Paul: … with a lot of things moving.

Melissa: It’s a lot of touchpoints.

Paul: Yeah, and I say intense in the sense that, again, it comes back to this is all the things that we honestly do in order to go from initial contact all the way through to the end of the wedding experience. Wouldn’t it be awesome just to have a list that is already done for you, where you don’t have to think of all these things? Can we assign this context-

Melissa: Sure.

Paul: … with that and we’ll … I’m gonna flip the screen back over-

Melissa: So let’s do that. Let’s go ahead and-

Paul: … and we’ll go into the wedding workflow.

Melissa: All right, so-

Paul: So let me go ahead and do that. Let me pop Safari back up. Okay.

Melissa: All right, here we go. Let’s go back to the client here, which is me. All right, here we go. We’re going to assign our workflow. We have … let’s see here … Wedding Prospect System. This is for someone that just inquired about, “Hey, I’m getting married. Give me some information.” That’s this workflow here. I’m gonna go through it again with you. This is all the touchpoints that we do, so again, starting from beginning to end, are some behind-the-scenes things again, getting the information in, determining your availability, if you’re available. From the start point, we have three emails that we send out to someone that inquires about email.

We have an email that we are open on that date, so once we find out their wedding date, we’re available. We have an email that they never gave us their wedding date, and we have an email that we’re not available on their wedding date. Those are the three initial emails, and that’s what the follow-up systems are based upon. Depending on what the prospect said, if they had a wedding date and we’re available, or if they never gave us a wedding date … Honestly, the emails are very, very similar. It’s just, “We are available,” “We aren’t available,” or, “You never gave us a date, so give us your date so we can check to see if we’re available.” Again, we do the approval button so that you can personalize it.

If, for example, a potential bride comes to you and says, “I’m getting married here, and do you photograph there?” You’re gonna be like, “Oh, my gosh. I love photographing there. It’s beautiful. Congratulations.” If it’s a referral, you can refer to that. Again, for our weddings, we like to get people in front of us. It’s a little bit different than the headshot email, where we lay out all of our packages. We do give them a starting price so that we can qualify them from the get-go, and that will help along with the follow-up process. You can insert your starting price here, and you can see here, you can insert whatever information you want in here as far as personalizing and having it to do with you.

We talk a lot about our professionalism and how long we’ve been working and our experience and things like that, and also the things that we offer, but we do guide them to make an appointment. At the end of day, we guide them to make an appointment, but we give them that starting price so that we can qualify them right away.

Again, very similar to the headshots is that we have … Depending on what they choose, then you choose the ones for your follow-up. So your follow-up if they give you … If you’re open, your follow-up, if they never gave you a date, and then obviously if you’re not available, then you’re not available. But that follow-up comes, again, five days afterwards. Five days afterwards, you send out that follow-up email. Again, like Paul was saying, that really helps to just reconnect with that bride. A lot of times, when brides first get engaged, they’re going out for a lot of … They’re reaching out to a lot of different vendors, all at the same time, so that your email might get mixed up with everyone else’s. What’s great, again, about the follow-up is that it’s very personal and it’s very short and sweet. Yes, do you have a question?

Paul: Dan asked, “What’s the difference between workflows above and this one that has the PM?” That’s actually because we legitimately pushed our workflows, our real workflows, into the 17hats marketplace. That was them just to be able to sort and separate to know that this document is Paul and Melissa, so, of course, Sal [Sincata 00:31:12] would be probably SC and Melanie Anderson would most likely be-

Melissa: MA.

Paul: Yeah, so that-

Melissa: That’s just … It’s the way that-

Paul: … that’s really just an internal reference to make sure that they put the proper workflow in the marketplace. We have the ability to update and upgrade these workflows later on to help you guys evolve with us-

Melissa: Exactly.

Paul: … as well.

Melissa: So if we find that we need another touchpoint or something like that, we can add that into the system and then you guys- [crosstalk 00:31:36]

Paul: [inaudible 00:31:37].

Melissa: Yeah, cool.

Paul: Great question.

Melissa: Good question, but then again, all down here, you’ll see here as you go through the process … and again, this is just the prospect. We haven’t even decided yet if they’ll become a client yet. Eventually, after we do the follow-up, then we have a wedding consult. Down here below, we even have a 30-day follow-up. Again, it’s that same format, the five-day follow-up, the 30-day follow-up, just a touchpoint.

After you go through this entire workflow, either you have a client or you don’t have a client. If you don’t have a client, you can archive your contact. If you do have a client, then you can go to the next workflow, which is the Wedding Client System, which I’m gonna show you in just a minute here. Let me go back here and I’ll show that. Again, it’s all about that touchpoint and the client experience.

Let’s assign here … Wedding Client System. Here we go, and we’re gonna activate that.

Paul: Again, our computer’s just a little slow because we’re running this live software that we have.

Melissa: This again, what Paul was saying, it’s a little bit robust as far as our entire client experience, and we actually have three sections here, where when they initially book, the things that we do, to when we’re servicing the client, like right before, to post-production. You can see here, it’s very robust. It’s not just emails, guys. Again, this is the entire client experience, from start to finish. Again, imagine we were sitting here just going, “Okay. What are the pieces? What are the steps?” These are step by step. So again, everything from … when they book …

Paul: So can you just go ahead and read through just so they can understand?

Melissa: Yeah. So when they book we send a thank you email, then of course we’re sending out the contract for the agreement and doing all that. Then after that is all these behind the scenes things where I create a client folder. We still use old school manila folders, just like a doctor’s office, that we have paper, we like paper and we like computers so we do both.

If they have an engagement session in their package, we actually an engagement session work flow as well.

Paul: So, that’s telling you to activate …

Melissa: To activate …

Paul: … the next workflow …

Melissa: Exactly. If it …

Paul: If it’s relevant for them …

Melissa: If it’s relevant. Then we go ahead setup and assign our second shooter because we want to make sure someone’s available on that wedding day.

Paul: Now just, just real quick though, you don’t have to go into the client contact to see all this stuff now. It’s gonna show up on your daily tasks.

Melissa: Exactly.

Paul: So, where you started the day up here somewhere … maybe scroll …

Melissa: Yep. Well at the very beginning at the overview …

Paul: In the overview it’ll pop up on your daily calendar.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: It’s like oh you’re supposed to send that email out today.

Melissa: In fact, I wonder if … let me just see if it does. Sometimes … because I didn’t click anything let’s just see, and if not … then we’ll go back.

Paul: And again, we’re a little slow here guys because of all the software and a streaming app …

Melissa: Oh here we go so this is an example here because it popped up. So, if you have one workflow item for approval. So it’s me … yep. So it’s telling me … I think because I was clicking though a couple things-

Paul: Yeah …

Melissa: … it kinda did that because it was like wait you clicked this you clicked that … but that gives you and example with that.

Paul: So you don’t have to think about it.

Melissa: Yeah. Let me show you back here again … and again if you guys have any questions I’d be happy to answer …

Paul: So Dan said “I’m sold on this was gonna try to do this myself, but this is amazing”.

Melissa: Yeah. You know, and I’ll tell you what Dan I mean seriously we …

Paul: …we tightened down for a week …

Melissa: This was like kinda like …

Paul: Like literally …

Melissa: It was kind of hell putting it together initially only because we really had to set there and be like okay, “what do we do with our clients?” It was the little things that you don’t … oh we make a client folder … oh we do this … we do that and you don’t have to think about it.

Paul: See even there like assigning the second shooter …

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: Very honestly guys, I use to screw up on this all the time, it would be like 30 days before the wedding. Oh crap I forgot to get a second shooter for it so it’s like right out the gate. These are automatically reminding us boom, boom, boom.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: They have the client questionnaire in there.

Melissa: Client questionnaire, which is basically we send that out right away, and that’s in there too. That’s a questionnaire that you can use for your clients to gather information about their wedding day and everything …

Paul: Give an example of what’s in that. So it has-

Melissa: So, from their ceremony location, the reception location, all their …

Paul: Emergency contacts.

Melissa: Emergency contacts, all the phone numbers, all the people that are involved, formals that they want, photos …

Paul: Yeah, so we have a checklist of bride and groom, bride and groom with best man and maid of honor, all those things …

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: … that they can go through and check off.

Melissa: Yeah, and photos that are important to them, too. So it has everything in there too. And then this is great too. Oh, you have a question. Go ahead.

Paul: Yeah. Okay, can I ask the question?

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: Dan asked, “What day is the wedding workflow based on? I’m assuming the wedding date is the project date.”

Melissa: Correct.

Paul: Yes.

Melissa: The wedding date is the project date. So once you have that wedding date, you put that project date as the wedding date. And then the workflow assigns it according to that date. That’s a good question. Yes. Same thing if … everything … whatever that date is, it counts it from that project date.

Paul: Yeah. So can I just say?

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: Again, like if you have an engagement session, and you activate the engagement session workflow …

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: That’ll be based on that project date being the actual engagement session that you set up.

Melissa: Correct. Yes.

Paul: Yeah, so there are differences depending on that sub-workflow.

Melissa: Exactly. Exactly. This is cool too. This is another client experience. Send a package level gift. So 21 days out after the client has signed an agreement with us, we send them a gift. One of the ones that we put together is movie tickets. It’s just a great way to kind of connect with the client and be like, “Hey, you’re really busy. Make sure you take some time for you.” But it could be whatever you want it to be. It could be some sort of little gift for them. And again, it’s …

Paul: It’s unexpected.

Melissa: It’s unexpected. But … It’s unexpected to them, but it’s expected to you. And it’s one of those things. Oh, that would be a great idea. But then you kind of forget about it. Or it would be one of those intentions that you have and then you don’t follow through with it. This, again, tells you when to do it.

So then again, down here, as we’re getting closer and closer to the actual wedding … I’m not going to read every line by line, but you’ll see here, everything from the pre-client meeting, checking their invoices; Which is really important to make sure that everything is paid before the day of the wedding. We’d like to get everything done with us 30 days before the actual wedding date. They have everything paid in full. That’s the way we do business. Finalizing their meetings. Again here, these are all little notes for me.

So when we meet them for that final wedding meeting I’m sitting there taking notes, and Paul and I are talking. I base it … I reconcile the notes from the wedding meeting into 17hats. So I have that paper copy which goes in their file, but then it also goes into 17hats. Then that also reflects to the prep sheets for the second shooter because perhaps in the meeting they told us some new information that I need to get to the second shooter. So I make sure that the second shooter has all the information with the updated notes.

Also, which is really great … How great is this? How many of you schedule dedicated time for post-production after the wedding? One of the biggest things that we pride ourselves is getting deliveries for our clients in a timely matter. That’s because we schedule the time to do the post-production. I mean … Paul can attest to it. We don’t make that time and what happens is that these poor clients wait forever, forever, and when you schedule it ahead and you have a note here reminding you to do that then again you don’t think about it.

Paul: Yeah. So Melissa goes in the calendar and she blocks out specific time. That way we don’t have anything else scheduled and that’s my time to go through and call and do post-production. That way, boom. It’s very deep work. We just get it done and it’s not like its anywhere or anytime, it’s very, very specific.

Melissa: Yeah. So again here, all this … these are little to-do’s for us to remember. Then after the wedding … You shoot the wedding, after wedding, we send a little congratulations. Then after that, then we go into a post-production workflow. So this is, again, all these checklists of everything that goes a part of the workflow with that. And what’s great here, too, is we have this set up where you can actually … We have two different options here, which is great.

Whether you do in person sales, or you don’t do in person sales, there’s a couple different options here. We have an option here where you can actually … if you wanted to just deliver a gallery to the client for the images, you could choose that email. And then we have another email if you want to actually … If you’re doing more in person sales, that you invite them in for an image session viewing.

We did this because we know people are in different parts of their journey as far as with weddings. So whether you’re doing in person sales, or you’re photographing and delivering the images directly to the client, there’s options there. So they give you the options as far as with the emails for the communications and setting that up.

Did you want to add anything to that, Paul, as far as that goes?

Paul: No. I’m sorry, I was reading the … I’m trying to reply back.

Melissa: Oh, okay.

Paul: We’ve got some great comments.

Melissa: Oh, good, good. Good comments.

Paul: So let me-

Melissa:
Go ahead and …

Paul: I’ll come back, you can keep going-

Melissa: So I’ll keep going.

Paul: And I’m going to reply.

Melissa: So again, here, anyone that knows as far as with social media and blogging, that’s important too. So we have a reminder here about uploading images to your social media, to your blog. And then here, we always again, ask for that referral. That’s so important and again, we have the best intention of asking for those referrals. But again, an email that just basically … it’s really short and sweet. “Pleasure to work with you. Beautiful day. So excited.” If you wanted to add something really personal, you can add, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe …” I don’t know. “Your first dance was amazing. You had that wonderful surprise.”

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: Whatever. You could add whatever that little specific detail to make it personal. That’s what’s really great about this. You can set this up to go out automatically. But for us, I choose to send it out. Have a reminder. Because I like to personalize those email, but again, it’s already set for you.

Paul: Yeah. I’m going to … Let me flip the video over.

Melissa: Okay.

Paul: Just so we can chat for a minute.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: Just to catch up on a couple things here.

Melissa: Perfect.

Paul: Let’s see if I can get that to work. Okay. I just posted in the group, which is really cool. [Katie Momo 41:27] said, “O.M.G. Your 17hats game is on point.”

Melissa: Oh, awesome!

Paul: Dan is like, “Wow, that’s robust.” The thing you have to understand is we didn’t create these products to push on people within 17hats to try to make a buck. Right?

Melissa: Right.

Paul: We did these for us to take our sanity back so that we weren’t all over the place and dropping the ball and not getting back to people properly and everything. Instead of being the old, archaic way of having everything inside of a folder with these little checklists, but then I would have to say, “Melissa, where are we in the process with Mr. Smith?” Or whatever. And it’s like, “Oh, I don’t know. Let me go look.” And you pull the folder, I was like, “Oh crap, we should’ve followed up with him two weeks ago.”

Melissa: Right.

Paul: Yeah, so it was like …

Melissa: And that’s legit. That legitimately happened.

Paul: That’s really what happened.

Melissa: Like, “Oh, crap.”

Paul: So it’s just something that we went through the entire process and it was like … it took us … I honestly think it was about a week …

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: … where we sat down and I just said, “No.” ‘Cause she would go off of what she saw, and I’m like, “Yeah, but what to we do? We take it for granted.” We put this up on … We used to have a board. It was like, we put this up on the board. So let’s create that in a line-item. Now we go to the calendar. Let’s create a line-item for that. ‘Cause for us it was like, as we were getting busier, we could’ve handed this system off to an assistant.

Melissa: Right.

Paul: Or to a third-party type thing if we wanted to, and they would be able to go, “Boom, boom, boom.” But also at the same time, we didn’t want anybody to feel like it was a system. ‘Cause we want a system. When I get into an airplane, I expect the pilots to go through a pre-flight checklist ’cause I want them to get a duplicatable result. A professional … I need to get on the ground where I want to go, every single time.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: When there is a surgeon that is going to enter my body for some reason, I want them to go through a checklist in a system and not to guess every single time. Like, “Oh, with this client I guess I’m supposed to go this way. And over here … Oops. I went that way.” You know?

Melissa: Yep.

Paul: So it’s all about consistency. Right? And that’s when it comes down to being more professional. Is that these workflows that we’ve put in place … We see that a lot of people are jumping on now, so when this live is done, please go back and watch the replay. ‘Cause we show you our emails, we go through each of the templates and the workflows. Like you can use this. You can take weddings out and again, that could be seniors.

Melissa: It could be seniors.

Paul: That could be … You know, you delete the couple of workflows that don’t make sense, or you customize them that has the language for whatever niche that you’re in. It’s very, very robust. So can you do a quick review? Like can I go back?

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: ‘Cause I just had a big jump of people that came in.

Melissa: Absolutely.

Paul: And we’re going to show you the screen again.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: Please ask questions. I think Dan had a question a second ago, though.

Melissa: Sure.

Paul: He asked for reviews on sites like WeddingWire.

Melissa: You know, I don’t have that specifically …

Paul: That’s a good thing.

Melissa: But that’s a really good thing.

Paul: Yep.

Melissa: And again, what’s awesome is that you can add that.

Paul: We’re going to add that.

Melissa:
You can add that to your workflow.

Paul: We’re going to add that.

Melissa: Yeah. So yeah. We do ask for the referral from the client, but we don’t have that review. But that’s something that you could easily add to the workflow.

Paul: That’s a great thing.

Melissa: Excellent.

Paul: So now we’re going to make a note and add that.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: That’s a great thing about workflows, is that you have everything there. Think about when I printed out a checklist, back in the day, if you wanted to add one thing, you had to reprint out all the checklists all over again.

Melissa: Yep.

Paul: So here, it’s like, “Oh, I can just …” This is something … Like along the way we came up with the movie ticket idea.

Melissa: Yep.

Paul: It wasn’t initially-

Melissa: That wasn’t initially

Paul: … something. And it’s just like, “Oh, we need to improve the client experience.”

Melissa: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Exactly.

Paul: So there’s little things that we do to give a better client experience throughout the process that people don’t even think about.

Melissa: Or even the one year follow up with the headshot clients.

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: That was a huge improvement to our workflow for headshots and a great way to have at that touchpoint.

Paul: I’m going to flip this back over.

Melissa: Sure.

Paul: Is that okay?

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah. ‘Cause there’s a bunch of people that just jumped on and they think that they would want-

Melissa: I’ll just finish up on here. Right now we I left off was the wedding client workflow, and I was just finishing up towards the bottom here with post-production. So down here, like Dan had asked about asking for the reviews, which we don’t have that, but we could certainly add that into the workflow. We do ask for referrals. And then again, depending on what type of client, what type of package, we have an album design workflow. That’s a totally separate workflow.

If you have a client that has an album as part of their package, then you assign them that workflow as well.

Paul: And you said earlier on, we have this set up where if we have some people are doing in person sales with, we do one direction. If we have people that have a total digital package and they’re not … ‘Cause in our region we deal with a lot people where we totally do the entire process over Skype. So the people are not local and we do destination weddings as well. Sometimes we just don’t have the ability to do in person sales.

Melissa: Exactly. That’s right here where you see here. I think that was key. We wanted to have both options on there because we really wanted this to be … it doesn’t matter where you are in your journey, but you do have to have some sort of system for it. So you can see here, we have the digital delivery option for … you know, this is what you would do. As far as with the … where is it at … the email? I think I passed it. The gallery here. And then we also have the wedding image viewing session where you schedule that and send them an email to invite them to come in for that in person sale, maybe.

Then here towards the bottom here, again, these are again some things to think about. One year from when they get married, we send out an anniversary gift. So that’s part of our workflow too. We also do anniversary and social media posts. So that’s awesome. And again, it’s one of those things that you have the best intentions to do, but a lot can happen to me, or you don’t really think about it. But again, when you sit down to your dashboard, it pops up. It says here, “Hey, today’s the day to send out the anniversary gift and do an anniversary post.”

And again, that’s a great way to still connect with your client, and get referrals, and just add to that client experience. Make them feel special. Make them don’t feel like they’re just a number, but you know, “Hey, we had this wonderful day one year ago and here are some photos from that day.”

Paul: Right. I see we have several friends that popped in on the feed that are not specifically in the photography business.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: So again, the workflows, like all these can be relevant for just any industry or any business.

Melissa: Absolutely.

Paul: It’s all about getting it out of your head.

Melissa: Absolutely.

Paul: And knowing the old way … Having something that you pre-design that’s the perfect client experience so they have all the touchpoints.

Melissa: Absolutely.

Paul: That way everybody is treated the same.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: Everybody is treated professionally.

Melissa: You could do the prospect system. I think the prospect system, the emails … then again, customize it. But just think about it. It’s all those touchpoints from the initial touchpoint to the five-day. We talked about the five-day and the 30-day. You could do that for coaching. You could do that for whatever service that you have if you’re selling a different product other than photography.

That’s what’s great about how it’s set up. I’ll just show you it again. It’s having that initial date and then the follow up. The follow up is actually there. The headshots one … it’s a really good, straightforward with that too. Again, it’s the same system for either of them. The wedding is just … we have more touchpoints in the wedding because again, it’s a longer journey with weddings than with headshots, typically. But … Yeah.

Paul: Let’s open up the questions. We can see the live feed on our phones. Let’s sit down …

Melissa: Okay.

Paul: … And let me push the screen back over. So let me … give me a second, guys. ‘Cause this software is pretty robust and it’s a little bit outside of our area of expertise. But …

Melissa: There we are.

Paul: Yeah. Let me … Here we go. Great. So I’m going to grab the phone.

Melissa: Okay.

Paul: Let’s see-

Melissa: Let’s see.

Paul: … if you have any … Feel free to ask questions. Because we can pop in on 17hats. We can tell you a little bit more about it. If you have questions specifically about our workflows, our emails, follow up systems … I know inside the complete … Because within 17hats inside the marketplace, it’s broken down into several different chunks.

Melissa: Right.

Paul: I don’t remember all the chunks.

Melissa: Because some … yeah. Some people …

Paul: ‘Cause you can get the complete system, which has the emails, all the touchpoints …

Melissa: The touchpoints.

Paul: The … Does it have the contracts in it?

Melissa: It has the contracts.

Paul:
It has the contracts, our contracts as well.

Melissa: But then there’s some people that don’t necessarily want all that, they just want the emails.

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: So they …

Paul: Or some people just want the contract.

Melissa: Right.

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: So they just broke it out into different things.

Paul:So they chunked it down. But if you  want everything just pushed right into your account so you don’t have to think about all that, then it’s something that’s the complete system that would have that.

Melissa: Dan had asked, “Would it be weird to ask the customer to paste the same review on multiple sites? Like copy and paste to WeddingWire and Knot and Facebook,” when we were talking about reviews.

Paul: I don’t think it’s weird. See, we live in a world now that … Back in the day, we would ask people for a testimonial, they would email or they would mail it, or we would write it out or whatever and we would ask permission like, “Hey, can we use your testimonial in marketing?” or whatever. And way back in the day we then would put it in the ad, and the newspaper, or telephone ad or whatever back in the day, right?

So now we’re in a world where there’s Yelp, and there’s WeddingWire, and there’s all these places that there are places that give these testimonials. Now what I recommend is that maybe instead of just an email, that you create a landing page that you can take people to and that there might be like a little incentive as well. “Hey, it was great working with you. One thing that we pride ourselves in is that we want to work with more couples or clients just like you. We thrive on … this day in age, it’s highly respected when you have reviews. We’d love for you to give us an honest review. If you click on this link it’ll take you to a special page where there will be opportunities for you and different websites for you to potentially give us a review. If you do all three, we would like to gift you a 50 dollar print credit from your wedding.”

So now, there’s a benefit for them to go those extra couple steps. ‘Cause if you’re going to ask them for one review, that might be good.

Melissa: Right.

Paul: But it’s like, “Okay. How do I get people …” ‘Cause how many of us, we go to a restaurant or we go buy something, and the cashier circles the bottom of the receipt and they’re like, “Oh, you get a free meal if you do this survey.”

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: And I bet you 99% of us never do that.

Melissa: Right.

Paul: You know, I don’t think we’ve ever done that.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: Right? But it’s like, man, we could have all these free meals if we did it. Or a chance to win, or blah, blah, blah. But it’s like you just had a great experience with somebody and I would recommend that you do that. But why not give them just a little bit of incentive? Just a little bit of a nudge to say … ‘Cause you’re not soliciting asking for a great review, you want an honest review.

Melissa: An honest review.

Paul: But by them taking the time and doing that, is there something that you could do that’s not a bait? Like it’s a true … Like you made all this money off the wedding, why not have a 50 dollar print credit or something in that direction? It doesn’t have to be that much, doesn’t have to be that little. But I would think something along that line that says, “Hey, thank you for taking the time out of your day to this for me.”

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: And again, ask for an honest review.

Melissa: Good question.

Paul:
Is there any other …

Melissa: Yeah, [Louis 52:22] has a good question.

Paul: Yeah, let’s …

Melissa: “What do you give for the anniversary gift? Is it the same across your collections?”

Paul: We do look at the collections differently. So there are people that invest in us like five, six thousand dollar range. We have people that are upwards of ten thousand dollar range. And there’s things that we do unique depending on the level of investment that they make. And this is something that they’re not aware of. So it’s something that it is … ‘Cause I tell you what, one of the first things where I experienced this years ago, is that … Many, many years ago. About 15 plus years ago, I bought a Ford Explorer. It was really … It was a purchase that I made at the time, no big deal, right? And then about a month after the sale, I had this box delivered to my house. I don’t think you’ve ever heard this …

Melissa: No, you have told me this …

Paul: Okay.

Melissa: I know, I remember.

Paul: So in there, there was a letter in there. And it was a story. They wrote a story. And inside of it were two fold out chairs. Like the ones that you see that people use at public gatherings and picnics that fold out. They were really nice. They were branded Ford Explorer on them. So no matter where you sat, but it gave this little story of, “We appreciate you purchasing with us and when you’re out, you’re living life, and you’re free, and you’re exploring in your new Ford Explorer … No matter what sunset you see or what mountain top you go to, or whatever. Blah, blah, blah. Here instead of enjoying it … The vehicle will get you there. And now you can take these seats and actually enjoy the view.”

And they really had you buy into the experience. And I was like, “Oh, this is really awesome.” It was totally unexpected, right? But then it was like … Okay. Well it was factored into the cost of this vehicle. Like, I paid for these things. But it was an awesome touchpoint. It was like way after the sale, it didn’t totally … You didn’t think about it at all. And boom. You got this awesome touchpoint later on. It was like a feel good. So would I recommend them? Yeah. I told everybody about them at the time. I’m telling you guys about it right now. You know, and they might not even do it anymore!

Melissa: Right.

Paul: Some bean counter might have said, “We can’t directly attract any business from this, so we’re going to stop doing it.” Then that could’ve potentially been the decline of why they might not get as many referrals. We don’t know.

Melissa: But here’s where it’s really important to make it personal, no matter what it is. When you sit down and talk with your clients, maybe they had a special restaurant that they met at, or maybe they have something that they enjoy doing together. So when you’re listening to your clients, and you’re getting to know them, you could do something just really simple. Whether it’s a gift card to one of their favorite restaurants, or like if they like going bowling or something like that … A gift card for that. Whatever the case might be, you can really make it personal. So really just I would say no matter what it is, just make it personal. Make it special.

But what’s cool is that you won’t have to think about it. Like it’s one of those things, you have the … Before we even were doing this, we have the best intentions. But again, life gets in the way. But this is a reminder that that’s a good touchpoint for you.

Paul: Yeah. And depending on your product and service, you might … Like if you’re doing hair and makeup and you only made X amount of dollars, and you don’t want to give that much money or more away, you need to have something that’s in balance with-

Melissa: Exactly

Paul: … with the service that you’re providing. So for us we can make it a little bit more of an investment because people made that investment in us. So just look at things that make sense that are somewhat balanced as far as what you’re doing.

Melissa: Yeah, that’s a good question.

Paul: I’d say be a little bit wary of giving gifts that really have a major hook of a purchase within your business, because then it devalues itself. So if it’s like, “Hey, here’s a one year gift and you have to spend a hundred dollars with me in order to get this 20 dollars off,” type of thing.

Melissa: Yeah. That’s not really a gift.

Paul: That doesn’t make … That’s not a gift. That’s a hook.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: They get people in and that doesn’t leave people with the same feeling.

Melissa: Exactly.

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: So, any other questions right now?

Melissa: And then Dan had asked about the complete package pricing … discounts as far as with the actual 17hats with the workflow. I don’t have the information right in front of me as far as that goes. But I know they have different price points depending if you want to do the whole package or if you just want to do the emails systems as far as that goes.

Paul: Yeah. So actually I think it is … Like if you buy them separately it will cost you more money than if you buy the complete system.

Melissa: Right. Then it’s … Yeah.

Paul: ‘Cause I remember them talking to us about that.

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah.

Paul: But they were more in charge of doing all that stuff.

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. But I think we’re caught up with questions.

Paul: Okay. Awesome.

Melissa: I hope this was helpful for everyone, because-

Paul: Yeah, ’cause I know a lot of people had questions about it.

Melissa: I mean, the biggest thing … What it comes down to with your workflow, what workflow really is all about, is to think about it as the entire client experience. So from start to finish, what is the journey that you want to take your client through? And again, what Paul was saying, this is not just for photographers, but for any industry. You can take your client through an entire experience and having those touchpoints in between and what we love about the 17hats system is that we developed it and it’s something that we don’t have to think about. That’s why we really wanted to share it with everyone here because it could be something that could really benefit your business and you don’t have to think about it.

Like Dan was saying is that he was kind of on the fence thinking about it, and he doesn’t even want to … It’s again, it’s kind of like a plug and play, and you can make adjustments along the way, too, with it.

Paul: Right. Exactly.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: So those of you that are photographers, we have Photographer Entrepreneur Facebook group. It’s a closed group of over 12,000 fellow photographers that share and help each other out every day. And if you’re not yet in the group, please search it and look for Photographer Entrepreneur. We hope that you’ll come in and join us in the conversation there.

Melissa: Absolutely.

Paul: Anything else that you wanted to add today?

Melissa: I think that’s it. Though, just remember every Wednesday we have our live show where we talk about different topics having to do with business and marketing branding. If you have any ideas or new topics you’d like us to talk about, make sure you reach out to us and let us know. Come into the group and join the conversation and let us know, too, how you’re doing with your client follow up systems.

Paul: Right. Excellent. So it was great talking to everybody. We look forward to talking to you next week and again, just like what Melissa said, even during a replay, please tag us in comments and we’ll swing back around and answer any questions that you guys have. But definitely give us some topic ideas at any point in time, and we would love to talk to you guys more.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: So, until we talk again …

Melissa: Stay profitable.

Paul: Bye everyone.

Melissa: Bye.