How to Jumpstart Your Year by Using Sales Funnels

Melissa: Hi

Paul: We are live.

Melissa: Hello, hello.

Paul: We’re so excited.

Melissa: Happy, Happy Wednesday.

Paul: Yeah, let’s give a couple seconds, but you know, we’ll talk through, so those of you that hit the replay you not sitting there going, What in the world-

Melissa: What the heck is going on.

Paul: -is going on.

Melissa: So how’re you doing?

Paul: Good, good.

Melissa: Doing great.

Paul: I’m exited for another monthly training. We have some good stuff today.

Melissa: Yes, so excited.

Paul: Can’t wait to dive right into it, with everyone here.

Melissa: Yes, so we are coming to you live, and if you don’t know who we are. My name is Paul Pruitt.

Paul: I’m Melissa Pruitt.

Melissa: We have what’s called … We have a huge community called Photographer Entrepreneur. It’s been a long day already.

We’ve been so super excited. We’ve been so busy. We’re so incredibly excited that we are going to share with you some great tools and tips and techniques that we do with our own photography business that helps us draw an incredible number of people through our system, and these days it’s called a sales funnel.

Paul: Yes.

Melissa: What’s interesting is from a sales funnel standpoint, it’s actually nothing new. It’s just using technology in a new way, itself.

Paul: Do you know the official-

Melissa: I do.

Paul: The official title for today.

Melissa: Yes, so officially. It’s the official title of what we’re teaching today is, “Marketing Momentum; How to jump start the second half of your year using sales funnel”.

Paul: Yes.

Melissa: I think this is really important because one of the articles that I wrote recently was about, this is the time of year … we’re halfway through the year. It’s July, it’s actually almost the end of July and can you believe it school’s going to be starting for kids next month.

Paul: Already?

Melissa: We’re flying by so this is a great time year to really sit down and evaluate where you are with your goals. Like first of all, did you write goals at the beginning of the year in January, and if you did, are you moving towards them? Are you taking the steps to do that, or are you totally off base?

It’s okay either way, but this is just a midpoint of the year to really reevaluate and figure out am I on track or do I need to kind of shift and pivot. What do I need to do if I’m feeling kind of just like blah and meh? What do I need to do to kind of bill that momentum back up again?

Paul: Right, and I tell you what, even if it’s not the beginning of the year, even if it’s not the middle of the year, even if it’s … wherever it is today, you always have a chance to reevaluate.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: Don’t just say it’s … whenever you watch this video,

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: … just understand that even if you feel you are in a rut, in the middle of the year or you know a couple months from now, or a week from now, you can look at that day and start at zero, and work your way forward no matter what.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: I think a lot of us give ourselves an excuse like oh we’re just going to keep dealing with this until that half way point or-

Melissa: Right, right.

Wait til New Year’s resolutions, which are like crap because you could do a new year’s resolution anytime of year. You could start over any time that’s the one thing I always tell people is that every day is a new day.

Paul: Hey can you guys give us a thumbs up?

Melissa: Yeah, can we get some thumbs up?

Paul: Let us know if you can hear us okay.

Melissa: Edith’s in here and Scott’s in here. He’s say, “Funnel me”, we’re gonna funnel you.

Paul: Yes, we’re definitely going to be talking about funnels today. We do want to thank 17 hats. They graciously have sponsored this training today and we use them ourselves and our business.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: … it’s something that we’re very thankful, very blessed to have them as a sponsor.

Melissa: They’re an excellent team. They’re great people over there. So thank you 17 Hats for allowing us to provide this education.

Paul: You’re right as far as excellent cause we-

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: We bump into them and actually hang out

Melissa: Yeah

Paul: … with the crew there. Very down to earth. They’re really receptive to listening.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: We give them a lot of feedback of what we’d like to see. They really responded.

Melissa: Yeah. They’re a lot of fun.

Paul:
I thank them for that so.

Melissa: It sounds like everyone can … Eva says she can hear us loud and clear so lets-

Paul: Awesome.

Melissa: Lets dive in.

Paul: Lets go.

Melissa: Alright.

Paul: Let’s do it.

Melissa: So today we’re gonna be talking about again, how to build up momentum no matter what time of year this is-

Paul: True.

Melissa: … with sales funnel.

So, the first thing we want to talk about is really the concept, this word funnel. It’s been popping up more and more so what I think what we first want to talk about is, what is a sales funnel?

Paul: What is a sales funnel?

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: If you guys have an interpretation feel free to post it. It’s something back in the day when I use to train for a major real estate brand, and travel around the United States, we would talk about funnels in general, sales funnels. Now, this is way pre-internet. This is before AOL, and CompuServe, and all those things that are dating me even knowing that I can say those things. It’s something that you have to understand that sales itself is a process. It’s not like a boom right now type of thing. A lot of us in the photography business, we want to just put a promotion out there and knock people over the head. Hope that they’re in that state of need right now, and we’ll talk more about that in a couple minutes.

We just want instant gratification. We are definitely in an instant gratification world and in the real estate world people don’t run around buying houses just like on a whim, right? It has to be a major life event. This is typically the largest investment that they’re gonna make in their lives. With that, the sales funnel process was really long, because you had to nurture and cultivate a relationship, upwards of 10 years before someone would actually make a purchase.

Now, think about the patience with that. In photography though, we want to get …typically when we go out there, we want to put something out or any type of business. We just want the immediate gratification these days. We wanna do the least amount of work possible-

Melissa: Right.

Paul: To get the biggest impact.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: An interesting thing, when I use to be in the real estate world … Again, it could be 7 to 10 years that you’ll be nurturing a relationship to be top-of-mind in somebody in their mind, so when they did get to that point in the buyer’s journey where they finally got to the point of actually needing to buy a service or product, boom, they already had you ingrained.

What we need to do though, we need to look at this. We need to be smart and say, “okay even though we’re in the internet world, how can we still take this?” From a sales funnel standpoint, it’s not going out and banging people over the head and wanting to have immediate gratification. It’s understanding that every buyer- this is for you guys as well, like for all of us. We go through what is called a buyer’s journey. There’s different steps that we’re in different phases that we’re in during that journey.

What you need to do is you need to recognize that not everybody you’re promoting … We see it a lot of times. People do a Facebook ad, or they’ll do a post, and they’ll come back, and they’ll post in the groups, and they’ll say, “this had like 500 people that it reached or it had 2,000 people that it reached. How come it didn’t convert? How come nobody wanted to buy my product for service, right?” It’s like, well you don’t know who those people are.You most likely didn’t target properly, but also on top of that it’s like the shotgun approach.

It’s like going out to like, the local mall, and just shouting, “hey everybody! I’m a photographer, who needs photography today?” Even though 2000 people in the cafeteria, in the café area, heard you say that, doesn’t mean that any of them had an interest or had a need right now for photography.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: Again, this could be any business at all.

So, it really comes back to again, a funnel is understanding …. and visualizing a funnel. That you have to contact, and you talk to way more people and through a process slowly over time, you’re slowly moving people through the buyer’s journey. What happens is, at the end those are the people that convert. Those are the people that are gonna use your product or service.

The idea though, is we need the funnel to be wide as possible at the top to attract people in, and then we can slowly qualify them and pull them through a process.

Again, a lot of you are just doing, boom! You’re hitting people once, and it didn’t convert, you’re not massaging …

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: You’re not developing that relationship. You’re not nurturing it, cause again it’s all about the long term. So it’s not about-

Melissa: Yeah a funnel, it’s a big buzzword right now, but-

Paul: Yes.

Melissa: We’ve been doing funnels for years and years and-

Paul: Decades.

Melissa: I mean really just been experiencing it and what it comes down to, it’s really about that client experience, and the nurturing and the journey and what kind of experience do you want potential prospects to have and touchpoints to have throughout the process as they’re going through this buyer’s journey. That’s one of the things that we are going to talk about, are those touchpoints, but really thinking about as you’re going through with this funnel, what type of experience do you want your potential clients to have?

Paul: Right.

One of those pieces, not sure if any of you ever heard of Steven Covey, he had the book, “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. That’s where you begin with the end in mind.

Melissa: This is a good one.

Paul: Yes.

Melissa: A lot of times we begin with the beginning in mind.

Paul: Yes.

Melissa: We have these great ideas, and we’re like, “oh let me put this ad up and people are just gonna love it” …

Paul: Right.

Melissa: … but you don’t take them through a journey and then you act like, “oh crap! What do I do now?”

Paul: Right.

Melissa: It’s kinda like getting in the boat but then you don’t have like the map to know where you’re going and then you’re in the middle of the ocean.

Paul: Right. So you have no sail, you have no rudder, and you’re going where the current takes you. That is a very dangerous place to be as a business owner because you’re not in control of your destination. You’re not in control of where you’re gonna go and how you’re gonna get there.

The idea though is that you have to understand when it comes to marketing and sales when you’re looking at the final process, you actually want to start at the end. What’s the desired result? Where do you want to take people to?

Those of you like us, that are in the photography business, we might want them to figure out their wedding, there might be a senior session, there might be a newborn, there might family portraits. Whatever the niche is, it doesn’t matter, right?

You have to figure out where do you want to lead them? Then what you have to do is … That’s kind of like the pivotal point of the buyer’s journey, where they’re actually buying and experiencing a product or service that they’re investing in, right?

Now what we have to do is, not everybody is there though. Not everybody is in that space. So now we’re gonna have to start backing, and what are the touchpoints that makes sense to get people to that point. What’s the piece right before that, and before that, where are they? Where are they before that? What is the process that you go through, and what should you talk to them about at those different points?

Somebody that is not ready, willing and able to buy right this second is not gonna respond to a hard hitting, action packed, call to action ad, that you have right now. They’re not in the buyer’s journ- they’re not in that space right now where they need you. You need to piece back and start nurturing the relationship because very rarely do people buy from somebody that just blind … here’s an ad, don’t know anything about you, don’t want anything. You’re asking for commitment immediately. That’s the … we joke all the time … that’s the equivalent of meeting somebody for the first time and saying, “hi, nice to meet you my name is Paul Pruitt. Will you marry me?” You know? It’s like, no, it doesn’t work that way. There is nurturing. There is courting.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: There’s building this relationship.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: That’s the thing, do people like, know, and trust you right now? They potentially don’t even know who you are. So, if they don’t know who you are, how are they going to trust you? Right?

You need to take them through this path. This could be through email sequences. This could be newsletters. This could be followups, which has no sales pitching at all. It’s something where you’re dripping on people over a period of time, to make them feel comfortable and confident, so that when they do get to the point of needing a product or service, you’re the first top of mind.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: Now, I know you have some great notes there.

Melissa: So I did-

Paul: You better pull me off track.

Melissa: Yeah, I do. I did want to tell everyone that’s watching this … we wanted to leave everyone here with actual steps-

Paul: Yes.

Melissa: -that you can take today, to again, to build that momentum. Really think about, what’s your end in mind?

Paul: Right.

Melissa: Figuring out what are those touchpoints that you want to have. I think that this is so important. Again, a lot of times we put stuff out there because we are so excited about it, but we don’t have a journey, we don’t have the flow as far as what kind of experience we want our client to have.

When you really sit down and think about this, begin with the end in mind, and back track, you can really, again, map out what that experience looks like. What are those touchpoints? What’s gonna set you apart as a photographer in your marketplace? Other photographers in your marketplace are not doing that. They’re not sending the hand written notes. They’re not doing the phone calls. They’re not having the coffee meetings with past clients just to see how they’re doing. They’re not doing that.

What kind of experiences you wanna give, and what kind of, you know, what kind of experiences you wanna give for your clients and also just, you know, what kind of photographer do you want to be? Having that end in mind and building that in the process is gonna make you a better entrepreneur. It’s gonna make your business just flow more seamlessly. It’s gonna make you stand out in your marketplace.

Paul: True. I know we had some key topics.

Melissa: Yes. We’ve talked about the end in mind. The other thing is, as far as with this go is, how can we do this in a way where we have a follow up system, because one of the things we talk about is … when we leave it to our mind, and we leave it to ourselves, we often sabotage ourselves.

Paul: True.

Melissa: This is where when you are in the process of creating a sales funnel, having some sort of system in place. Lets talk about that.

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: When we say systems a lot of people freeze up because first thing they think about is, oh my gosh I’m gonna be stuck with this system. I have to be regimented. I’m gonna feel like a robot … but actually when you look at it from a business standpoint, systems are there to help you and they’re gonna make you actually have less stress and make the business even more personal.

Paul: Right. Here’s the thing if you placed the perfect ad out there and people start responding to you, right? The overwhelmed. Sometimes we have a fear of not just failure, we have a fear of success. Like, oh my goodness what do we do? Right? If we left it out to our mind, everything would be in shambles.

I remember back when Melissa started helping out with our photography business and in that moment I told her, “I’m very legitimately busy”, and I very openly said to her, “look, I know we have this multi six figure business”. I said, “but I’ve been doing it all on my own and I want to be very honest with you”. Like I get overwhelmed because I did the right things with the funnels-

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: … to attract the people in but I didn’t have the proper follow up funnels put in place once the people came in and I told her …. I call them trash can leak. I said, “I have more business” … like we’re doing this well, with the business that we have … I said, “but we”- they’re in the trash can, because of the people I did not properly follow with because I get overwhelmed and I’m not sure if you, raise your hand and let us know.

Melissa: Thumbs up.

Paul: Do you ever get overwhelmed where you drop the ball? You know, like you didn’t mean to, like we did all this work right? We dropped the ball because life happens. We get busy, we’re doing other things and everything. Really what it came down to when she stepped into business was lets systemize this. Let’s get rid of the overwhelm. Let’s get rid of the stress. Let’s create systems.

Like here, you have wedding clients that do come to the funnel process and you finally have them as a lead. You nurture the relationship at this point, they’re now a lead. I was doing everything archaic. People are coming in on an email, and the least I had was 3 templates because okay, I keep rewriting this one email. They gave us the date, they didn’t give us the date, we’re not available on their date. There’s options.

Melissa: Yeah

Paul: I have 3 different emails but they’re a little bit … It was kind of like once I sent it, I was so distracted with everything else …

Melissa: Right.

Paul: That it never got back around to contacting those people.

Melissa: Right.

Paul: To say, “hey! You got my last email”.

Melissa: You’re kind of like, “what happened to that person?” I mean we’ve had the conversation, “what happened to Susie?” We’re like, “oh yeah, she never got back to us, and she wasn’t top of mind”.

Again, having a system in place and we’ve evolved from systems. We definitely are big believers in … having some source system is better than not having any system at all. Whether it’s and index card box filled with your clients in hand writing … for us we use an automated system, we use 17 hats. What we do for our funnels is basically use their lead capture form.

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: When someone does inquiry, we get that information.

Paul: It goes right into 17 hats.

Melissa: It goes right into 17 hats and that’s when-

Paul: It’s a sign of work flow, so we don’t have to think about it.

Melissa: Exactly. That’s the funnel that takes our client through that nurturing process, where we sit down and we know on that day. On day one they’re supposed to receive email one and then five days later, they’re supposed to receive that follow up email. Then 30 days after that they’re supposed to receive the follow up email.

Paul: That 30 day email is like gold.

Melissa: It is.

Paul: It takes people out of the trash can and pulls them back in because people just get busy themselves.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: They contact a bunch of photographers. They’re on the computer one night. Like, “oh I want to get a portrait session. I wanna get engagement, or headshot or wedding or whatever” and then it’s like … How many of you are thinking a month later, I need to contact the person that didn’t get back to me 30 days ago? Again, leave it up to my mind, boom, drop the ball.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: So it’s all about having follow up funnels, cause you have the sales funnel but also … when the people contact you, it’s also creating a follow up funnel or you are nurturing that relationship or that contact as well.

Isn’t it sad that, some of us go out there and spend all this money, all this energy, all this work, we put our name out there, and then we in communicate with people that identify themselves, we actually drop the ball.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: It’s like, all that work we did was for nothing.

Melissa: Exactly

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: Yeah. This is really about, again, just eliminating that stress because like Paul says, when you leave it up to your mind, you’re bound to miss something. Your brain can only process so much information at a time and its really about cutting that mental stamina throughout this an having a sense of place to help you along the way because you can’t do it all on your own.

Paul: Right.

Melissa: You have to be okay with that, to have some sort of system in place for you. Think about that to as you’re building your funnels. Whether it’s your sales funnels or your follow up funnels, what kind of systems do you need to have in place, put into place to remind you those touchpoints along the way?

Paul: Right.

Again, this is all about decreasing stress and overwhelm. If you have something that’s automated, that’s taking people to a natural nurturing process … the final process understand … within 17 hats I think they reference in work flows.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: For us, it’s a funnel is again, taking people through a process; A, B, C.

You wouldn’t want to get into an airplane and not have the pilot go through a very specific checklist because you want a desired result, right?

Well the thing is that when we become self employees we kind of chase away, we get away from the whole structure of things. The irony that comes back about being consistent, that’s where success is, is being consistent. On your end, are you doing consistent things that get a desired result?

Right now, again, and I see some new people popping in, if you’re going out, and you’re doing Facebook ads and promotions and everything, and you’re just constantly knocking people over head with a call to action, like basically, buy, buy, buy, you’re no different than the network marketers, that are doing the same thing, and you always want to unfollow them or unsubscribe.

The people that are on your personal friend’s list didn’t ask for that. The people that are on your business page, you have to understand how to nurture and develop a relationship because again, before somebody buys from you, they have to like, know, and trust you. They have to feel comfortable, and confident. Like, “wow you’re a likable character. You’re somebody I want to do business with and when that time comes, I’m gonna make a choice to do business with you cause I feel a connection. I feel an affinity with you”.

Now understand, when those pieces are missing, if people do come to you at that point, when they don’t like, nor trust, and those pieces are missing … If they’re coming to you it normally means they want the lowest price at that point because they don’t care about the value. They don’t care, like, nor trust, they’re just there for the cheapest price. You really don’t want to attract people, in that direction.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: You’re not gonna ever be successful.

Melissa: Absolutely. I think nowadays too, even more now. It’s a very noisy space out there.

Paul: True.

Melissa: In the internet world, social media world, Facebook world, its very noisy. Any given day you go through your feed and you’re scrolling and every other thing is an ad or a product or whatever. It’s how you’re gonna place yourself in that feed and set yourself apart. Not only its just photographer, but as an educator, as someone that’s gonna be helpful.

Paul: True.

Melissa: Again, creating that relationship so that you’re the go to person for whatever niche that you’re serving.

Paul: Right. Again, if you leave it up to your mind, you’re gonna get busy. You’re gonna drop the ball. I mean that’s what we do. We’re very thankful we’re busy, the only other thing I’m gonna tell you, like a tip, is that I see a lot of you take somebody … We have no shortage of classes, and seminars, and workshops, and the creative lives of the world, and all the webinars of photog- we just get inundated with information.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: We’re just like, boom, boom, boom, boom. [crosstalk 00:19:48]

Melissa: So much out there.

Paul: I feel bad because we coach a lot of people within our inner circle and privately. We see people that are like shinny objects syndrome. Like they bought this course, so now they’re in this direction. Then 2 weeks later they bought someone else thing, and now they’re over here, and they’re all over the place, right?

We’re not lacking information in our business. We’re not lacking the education side. We are lacking consistency …

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: … and follow through. Where if you just took one thing and followed through, and were consistent with it, and specially when it comes to funnels, because you have to understand there’s no magic bullet. It saddens me, we see it in groups all the time. Somebody will take somebodies course and that speaker will say, “here’s the ad that I do” or “here’s the sales pitch that I do, you should do it too”. So then, they take this in a little tiny box, like this little recipe and then their marketplace, they put it out there with their image but they write everything in. Then it’s like, “oh 5000 people saw this and it didn’t convert”.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: It’s like, well there’s no such thing as the magic 100 percent answer every to anything. You need to do what’s called split testing, and you need to take the time. You need to divide that ad out and you need to change one element. You need to see, which one performs better. After you do for a proper amount of time and you do the right pieces that you need to adjust, then you abandon the one, and go with the one that performs better. Then you take that one and you split test it again.

We have an ad that we do when we want to attract weddings, that its an 11 dollar a day ad, and for approximately right around 150 dollars, we’ll get a wedding client. We’ll get a 6,000 wedding client. We know, because it’s very highly targeted, it’s very specific messaged. It’s a high impact image on there. We do take people through a process before they get there. Our screensaver just went on…

Melissa: No … [crosstalk 00:21:38]

Paul:  So, hopefully you’re still there.

Melissa: Right here.

Paul: It’s something that you need to understand that it took us about a year of split testing to narrow that ad down to figure out what image worked perfectly, what message worked perfectly. We’ve taken copywriting courses to understand how to do the wording properly. We’re only targeting very specific people that we’ve already nurtured before that. We’ve stocked upon ahead of time, before we went out and cast our reel. That’s so important, and you do that with marketing funnels.

You need to understand, you need to find people before they need you, and you need to market them differently with different messaging so along the way when they are finally ready for your product or service, they already liked, know or trust you before they make the decision.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: Hopefully this makes sense to you guys.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: So is there any other point that we went on.

Melissa: I think we just want to leave everyone with some action steps.

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: Just to kind of like, encompass on something. I know we’ve gone through a lot of different information with this, but basically this is the time to really sit down and evaluate and see what’s working for you, what isn’t working for you and maybe things should shift. I think that’s one of the first steps to do.

Again, this is all about building that momentum and if you’re feeling a little bit unmotivated, uninspired right now, if you’re watching this again halfway through the year we have six months left.

Paul: True.

Melissa: So, what are you gonna do to kind of, build up that momentum and get things moving in that direction?

Like Paul and I were talking about with funnels is really to start with that end in mind.

Paul: Right.

Melissa: Start with the end in mind, and look at the touchpoints that you have with your clients. Do you have touchpoints with your clients? This might be an opportunity to be like, well maybe I should have an email here, or maybe a phone call here, or a meeting here. Whatever you need to do to build that funnel and having those touchpoints and taking the client through that buying experience.

The third point is, how are you gonna do it so that you have less stress, and have some sort of automated system. Some sort of system set in place, so you don’t have to think about it, so your brain doesn’t go into overload and you forget things and you drop the ball.

Again, having any system is better than having no system at all.

Paul: Right.

Melissa: We’re all about the systems. Don’t shy away from that. You can have a system and have something set in place where it is automated, and its still feel very personal. Like Paul was saying, in the long run it’s gonna end up reducing your stress levels. It’s gonna make you better with your customer service overall because you’re gonna have that nurturing, those touchpoints throughout the time. You’re not gonna have to think about it. You’ll basically wake up and you’ll know where you need to go with that client on that particular day.

Paul: Right. Keep in mind, with all this, it normally takes somewhere between 7 and 9 touchpoints with somebody before they’re gonna use your product or service.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: For them to get in that range of like, know, and trusting you. So if you’re just throwing that out once, and you’re looking for that immediate reaction, if this is a cold audience and there’s different ways of looking at different types of audiences. If this audience is not warmed up, where they’re used to seeing stuff from you, and they like, know and trust you already, that call to action is gonna go onto dead ears. They’re not in that process of the buying journey. Also, they don’t see you as a credible person yet to want to do business with you.

Now, again coming back to the automated end, the 7 to 9 contacts, if you left it up to your mind …

Melissa: Oh my gosh.

Paul: You’re gonna drop the ball.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: At what point do you need to touch points with different people. So start thinking about more again. Like Melissa said, at the end in mind, working your way back. What are the things that you need to do, to put in place to have different touchpoints, different messaging, that make sense to the person you’re talking to? I don’t mean beating them over the head with sales pitches.

You really need to understand your client, what they’re interested in, and make your messaging about them, not about you.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: So important.

Melissa: Don’t let the word funnel scare you.

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: It’s out there. Everyone saying, “funnels, funnels, funnels”. It’s client experience when it comes down to it. At the end of the day, you’re not virtually photographing somebody, you’re talking to a human being.

Paul: Right.

Melissa: So, remember that with all the messaging that you do at the end. Behind the computer screen, behind the telephone, there’s a human being there that has a need that wants a memory captured or a photo for whatever purpose they’re using it. There’s a human being there. It’s all about client experience.

Paul: True. Excellent.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: Maybe for a minute or two, you guys have any questions?

Melissa: Yeah [crosstalk 00:25:57] said hello, had some thumbs up. No questions … we’re happy to take a could questions, if anybody wants to ask questions about funnels and …

Paul: Yeah.

Sometimes we see everybody that’s watching sometimes they’re not able …

Melissa: They can’t …

Paul: They’re immobile.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: They’re not able to …

Melissa: This is something that we’re excited about. We love talking about it because we’ve been doing this for so many years now and again, the word funnel is just funnel. You see it more and more and more. It really comes down to client experience.

Paul: Yeah, and it’s something that understand that we’re trying to take this 30 minute training lesson for you to introduce you to the thoughts of everything. We do full day classes on funnels and it’s just something that we need to understand what’s happening, what’s going on. It’s happening to you every day of the week.

You are being targeted and retargeting. You’re seeing ads, you went on to Amazon and you hesitate to buy something. Then for the next 3 days, you see the ad served up to you on different websites, on different things within Facebook and other places.

Melissa: You’re like, “oh my gosh, they’re following me” …

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: “They know, they could read my mind”

Paul: You have the same ability to do the same things with people. There’s definitely a much deeper dive in all this. We’re just trying to at least introduce you, to the idea and concept of what photographer funnels are, because its something you’re hearing a little bit of buzz. Something we’ve been doing for several years within the internet space for our own photography business. That’s why, with some experience, we book out a 30,000 plus weekend, every single year we’re sold out. This is our 10th year doing it. It’s because we have an email list now, we don’t have to advertise publicly. We push it, we sell out, 3 days, continuous sessions. Make a little over 30,000 a year. We did the same thing with weddings. We did the same thing with our headshot business. It allows us to basically turn on and off the faucet, whenever we want.

That’s the idea, to help you guys to the point to understand, that when you’re dealing with marketing funnels, when you’re dealing with photographer funnels, you have the ability once you get it down, and narrow it down, and understand exactly what’s happening in each piece, it then becomes very predictable. That’s the exciting thing.

Once we get you through the entire process of understanding funnels, you know this ad, you could run for x amount of dollars a day, will get you this many leads. This many leads, will convert to this many clients and you’ll know, your conversion ratio and each one of those things. Then we know, this is pretty low and this piece, lets tweak this, maybe it’s an email change. Maybe it’s a language thing, maybe we didn’t hit the right button on what’s gonna make them, be attracted to you initially. Like, what are the pieces in the funnel. We want to narrow it down, so that way you know where the leaking piece is, so we can fix it. The better you get at this, the less people you have to attract. Once you understand how to convert somebody from one piece to the next, to the next, you don’t have to work as hard. You could actually have more clients that are willing to pay you what you want, and you don’t have to work as hard to attract as many people.

Ironically, your costs go down, you become more effective and you convert people better into paying clients.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: I mean, it’s a win, win, win, all the way around.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: So, definitely get used to hearing the word, photographer funnels from us cause its something that we’ll be talking more. Again, we integrate this, from the front end. Again, we used the lead capture piece within 17 hats. On the back end, once we have that person contact us, we do have our workflows that are inside the 17 hats system.

Again, we told you guys, 2 months ago, we are very fortunate that we are one of, I think 5, in the world that 17 hats actually took our … we allowed them to open up our own workflows and that’s inside of 17 hats marketplace. Those of you who are 17 hats users, you definitely would have the opportunity to invest in those and we did all the work for you.

Melissa: Yeah. So you’ll see exactly the funnel that we take our client through from beginning to end.

Paul: Yeah, we call it the perfect client experience …

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: … which is really what you want. Like in your mind, can you sit down and map out purposely, here’s the perfect ideal client experience. Then put it into action in advance, and have it sit there as a system for you, so it works for you over, and over, and over again.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: That’s so important. Stop leaving it, to this.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: Yeah. That’s where you get overwhelmed.

Melissa: It is, it is. Your brain can only handle so much information. Multi tasking is a myth because we … it really is. You can handle one task at a time. It might be right next to each other …

Paul: Right.

Melissa: … but its really, the brain could only handle one task at a time. Again, when you leave it up to yourself, you end up sabotaging.

Paul: Yup.

Melissa: So, you said, “thanks for all the great info, I really appreciate it”.

Thanks Edith.

Paul: Oh, exactly.

Melissa: We love talking about this.

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: It’s just, this is the piece that we love is helping photographers, grow their business and talk about branding and marketing, and things that maybe aren’t so familiar in that space.

Paul: True.

If you did like it, if you have local photographer groups, if you want to share this from our main, photographer entrepreneur Facebook page, feel free to share with them. There’s no strings attached. I’m not telling you to sign up to anything. We just want to definitely come on and help everybody.

Melissa: Okay, a little heart. Heart. I love them.

Paul: She loves the hearts. We have the software where we can see everything right on the screen.

Melissa: I know, its awesome.

Paul: It’s still looking at our phone.

Melissa: I know its so great.

Paul: We definitely want to thank everybody again for coming out today.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: We want to respect your time, because we know when we do these little shorter segments it easier to digest, be able to put things that actually into place. It’s always harder to go back and hour or two hour thing.

Melissa: Yeah.

Paul: Training piece.

Melissa: Thank you to 17 hats again-

Paul: Yeah, thank you.

Melissa: -for sponsoring education today. Again, we love the team over there.

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: They’re very wonderful to work with, thanks for … We love that, they allow us to really educate, it’s really what we love to do.

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: Talk about funnels and all kinds of fun things.

Paul: Exactly.

Melissa: Funnels are fun.

Paul: Exactly. On that note we want to say, have a great day …

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: … until we talk again everyone.

Melissa: Stay viable.

Paul: See you.

Melissa: Bye.

Paul: Bye.