Nicole Begley (00:00)
Have you ever gone dress shopping online, found something gorgeous and then bailed the second you saw the return policy? Well, that's exactly what's been happening to me. And it got me thinking how many clients are doing the same thing in your business. In this episode, Heather and I are talking about friction in your client experience, what turns people off, how to make it easy, and simple fixes that help clients say yes faster. Stay tuned.

Nicole Begley (00:21)
I'm Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer turned pet and family photographer. Back in 2010, I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six-figure business by 2012. Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses. I believe that achieving $2,000 $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six-figure businesses.

that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full-time passion or a part-time pursuit, profitability is possible. If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place. With over 350,000 downloads, welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast.

Nicole Begley (01:20)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Bagley. And today Heather's back on the podcast with us. Not to talk about jelly cats, but today we're talking about dresses, Heather.

Heather (01:34)
I know which is one of my favorite topics, but I'm going to be honest with you. I was surprised when you approached me with this topic.

Nicole Begley (01:42)
Why? Because I don't go shopping for dresses very often.

Heather (01:45)
That could be it. You seem

to spend a lot of time at the barn with your horses and I just couldn't make that fit.

Nicole Begley (01:54)
Hey, sometimes I shower and get dressed up. Yeah, so anyway, oh my gosh, it's been crazy. So a friend of ours is getting remarried and the woman who's married, and this is her first wedding. they are both professionals do very well. It's going to be an amazing wedding. It's going to be in Annapolis during Fleet Week. It's gorgeous. He was in Naval Academy.

Heather (01:59)
Thank goodness, okay.

Nicole Begley (02:23)
⁓ But the wedding's black tie. And I'm like, I have some dresses. They're not black tie dresses. They're like garden wedding or like when I went to my cousin's wedding in France at a chateau. Like, yes, yes, they work for that, but not for black tie. So it's like, my gosh.

Heather (02:26)
Whoa.

You know, when I photographed weddings, I photographed a lot of weddings over many, years. There were very few that were very few. Like I could probably count on one hand the number of black tie events I photographed, but man, were they spectacular. Yes.

Nicole Begley (02:46)
What the?

Yeah, it's gonna be really nice. That's the actual

wedding is at the Naval Academy Chapel, which is gonna be beautiful. And then it's at like a yacht club right there. And it's gonna be very, very nice. But yeah, so of course then I'm like, oh my gosh, all right, I need to find a dress. And so it's 2025 like Heather.

Heather (03:11)
Yes it is.

Nicole Begley (03:22)
going to the mall and also our good mall is on the other side of Charlotte, like a good hour from my house without traffic. And so I really just wasn't prepared to do that. So I thought there's got to be some online shopping. It's 2025 you guys, like certainly. And so I kept finding, I Googled and then of course Facebook did his job and started showing me different dress companies and you know, I'd go check some of them out and be like, these are pretty. these are pretty.

Heather (03:38)
Yes!

Nicole Begley (03:50)
And so I'd start looking and I'd find some great dresses. And then I made the mistake at first of finding dresses I really liked and then looking at the return policy, because as you know, you don't know what size you're going to be in these dresses. ⁓ And also, by the way, dress companies, when you're going to not properly size them, how about you size them so they're bigger rather than smaller, because nobody likes to have to go up a size for their dress. ⁓

Heather (04:02)
Alright.

Yeah, they

missed the mark on that one, for sure. I agree.

Nicole Begley (04:21)
That's a whole different conversation. ⁓ But I started looking at the return policies. Heather, these companies did not make it easy for me to do business with them because their return policies were horrific. There was one that said, ⁓ basically you have to return it to China. I'm like, okay, sure. ⁓ There was another that you could return it, but only get store credit. I'm like, okay. And it took like

Heather (04:23)
Yes.

Mmm.

Nicole Begley (04:48)
three weeks to ship. I'm like, okay, the wedding's in a month and I'm not going to order like five dresses and then have store credit for five dresses worth of clothes from someplace I don't really shop. So anyway, I was just going on and on and on. And these return policies were like, one was more insane than the next. And the very best one that I found allowed you to get up to three dresses at a time.

You had to pay $10, but then you could like, could basically try on at home and then ship the, like they'd give you a thing to ship them back. So was like $10 for us to try on, but limit of three. And if you've ever tried on dresses, you know that you think, you know, what fits you until you put it on and you're like, no, no, this is not the dress for me. So, yeah. So anyway, so I picked up my mom. We went to the mall.

Heather (05:23)
Hmm.

Yes, unfortunately I know that.

Nicole Begley (05:41)
And we made a little date out of it and had some lunch. ⁓ and yes, and by the way, Dillard's has a gazillion, so many, so many. And it was funny. was looking at the dresses and all of a sudden I'm like, why are these all so short? I had moved into juniors. So if any of you have seen any of these homecoming pictures lately, like it, they are not long. They are not long dresses.

Heather (05:45)
That's fun.

They do.

my gosh, that's funny. Oops.

They are not,

I'd listen, those are not dresses. I don't know what you call it. That's a long shirt. It's a tunic. I don't know, but it's not a dress.

Nicole Begley (06:12)
It's a slip. It's a slip.

So anyway, so I found a dress. actually bought a dress of one of the designers that had a website that I would have ordered directly from them had they had reasonable return policies.

Heather (06:29)
Yes,

yes, but they made it very difficult for you to work with them. And so which is the point of today's episode. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And just side note, you had sent me a photo of the dress that you selected and you look amazing in that dress. That is the perfect dress for you. Everything about it. Beautiful. I loved it.

Nicole Begley (06:33)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yes.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Now might have to include that photo in the email guys. So check it out. It's me in the dressing room though. Cause when this airs, I will not have actually gone to the wedding yet. anyway, ⁓ yes. So moral of the story, how can we make it easier for clients to do business? And we've talked about this before on a previous episode about the inquiry process and how I believe the traditional

Heather (06:55)
You should! Yes!

shoot. Okay.

Nicole Begley (07:19)
photography website process or inquiry. Sorry. The traditional photography inquiry process is broken. Like nobody wants to get on a call before they know what things cost. Nobody wants to schedule time to come and drive to your studio before they know what things cost. Like we need to make sure we are making it easy for people to do business with us. Is it easy to book a session?

Heather (07:27)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole Begley (07:45)
Is it easy to go through the process and plan their session and shoot the session and choose their artwork and get their artwork delivered and hung up? How can we make things easy?

Heather (07:58)
Yeah, and are you requiring them to think and or do work? Because there is so much going on in everyone's life right now. If you ask me too many questions or I have to think or do something that I am classifying as work, I've got to tell you I'm out. There's too much.

Nicole Begley (08:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I used to send my clients a whole long, like, ⁓ JotForm questionnaire about their dog. And it's important information to plan the session. Like, is your dog people reactive? Dog reactive? Allergies? What are they motivated by? What kind of photos do you want? Where do you plan on hanging your photos? Like, all important information for me to have. However, how can I make it easier? My client does not want to sit down for 20 minutes and type those answers down.

Heather (08:28)
Yeah.

No,

no.

Nicole Begley (08:45)
Instead,

can I just say, hey, let's jump on a call and we'll plan our session. And I don't know. Here's a crazy thought. Why don't I just ask them and I make notes?

Heather (08:55)
my gosh. Well, that's revolutionary. That sounds like something from the future. You know what this reminds me of? I went to my doctors, my dermatologist last week and I hadn't been there in like three years. So they had me fill out all of the paperwork again. And I was like, if I have to write my actual address and my birthday one more time, why are we not using the same database? Why are there 14 pages of things? I mean, I get it. OK, but

Nicole Begley (08:58)
I know.

Wow.

Thank

Heather (09:25)
I'm like, isn't that in the computer? Can we just like just verify? And that's just annoying to me, you know? Right. You don't want to annoy people.

Nicole Begley (09:31)
Yeah.

If there's one thing our photography services should not be as annoying.

Heather (09:39)
Right. But listen, I can predict an objection here. Do you want to hear it? I think that some photographers, and rightfully so, are going to say some version of, I hear you, but I really like to deliver this particular level of service. And the thing is, when you say that, you're making this an either or proposition. It's like,

Nicole Begley (09:44)
Yes.

Heather (10:04)
Either I send the forms, I schedule the things, I ask for a million things or I don't. And I'm suggesting based on this conversation, there's somewhere in the middle. It's like both and how can I get the information I need and keep it as simple as possible?

Nicole Begley (10:14)
Mm-hmm.

I think actually a great exercise that everyone should do is to sit down and go through their workflow. Like write down, client comes to website, client reaches out, client book session, client size contract. I get paid. I shoot, like I plan the session, like every single piece, write it out in the middle of the page on the left side, write down the things then like that you're doing that you have to do on the right side of the page, the things the client has to do. And then.

How can we make first priority, the client stuff easier? Second priority, the things that you're doing, are there things you can automate, things you can streamline to make it easier?

All right, guys, I'm jumping back in here and you might not know what I'm saying because I had a little coughing fit and then my phone dinged and then Heather yelled at me to make sure my phone wasn't dinging and then I told her how my phone, I had to restart it because there's something weird going on and I stopped getting like my six digit codes to log into the bank. And anyway, so I don't know where I was. I kind of know where I was, but it's going to be weird no matter what I said, it wouldn't be a smooth transition.

Heather (11:27)
Right,

right. It's okay. It happens.

Nicole Begley (11:28)
that you guys get a little peek behind the scenes. moral

of the story is that exercise to write out your workflow and then go through your workflow from the experience, the shoes of your client and then from your side of things and see how you can streamline it. And as you're going through it from the side of your client, I want you to be asking yourself, go through it twice, go through it once with asking yourself, what am I making my client do?

Where is the friction here? How can I make it easier? And then I want you to also go through it from if I didn't know anything about this, where would I be confused? Like, where do I need to educate my client better? Where are the opportunities to make sure that my client is more prepared for what comes next and ⁓ can create more excitement for what we're going to do? And that's going to elevate the whole experience.

Heather (12:27)
Yeah, and make it easier. I love that you use the word elevate there, by the way. And is it possible that you could maybe ask a friend to sort of role play this and try to go through it? And if you have a client that you're you know, you have a good relationship with, could you ask them, hey, is there any anywhere that I could have made this easier for you? But you have to ask someone who's going to be honest. You know how people are just like.

Nicole Begley (12:30)
Yeah.

Heather (12:51)
super sweet and nice. Oh, it was great. It was great. You need to ask someone like me who'd be like, well, I didn't understand what you meant when you said, know, whatever.

Nicole Begley (13:01)
Yeah, no, that's great. think definitely having somebody like have a friend or this is also a fun one too. Like, especially if you tend to shift more like towards tech, like you're gonna have an online contract signing, online invoices, like call my mom, have her go through it or somebody that maybe is not like overly tech savvy and make sure that they know.

how to go through, like put them through as a complimentary, not actual complimentary client, but like pretend like they're going through the process and make sure that there's nothing too confusing there.

Heather (13:40)
Yeah, ask your grandma if if you know your grandma is still with us on this earth, then you could ask her grandma. Does this make sense? What am I saying here? I think in really like I'm kind of serious because I think the easier, the more simple you can make this like a second grader could go through it, then you you remove friction. And I think anywhere you can remove friction in the process, the client just loves you more.

Nicole Begley (13:46)
Yeah. ⁓

Mm-hmm. Yes. And along with that, ⁓ make sure you're following up with our clients too. I actually just did this today. I sent out an email to a client that had booked, she had booked two falls ago and then things got happened and we had to reschedule and then she had some work things come up. She had a big trip coming up and like it ended up being like, ⁓ like it was becoming winter. And it's like, I just, let's put this on hold.

Heather (14:14)
⁓ yeah.

Nicole Begley (14:36)
And then I realized it's like, oh, we've never connected again. So I sent her an email and I was just like, Hey, how you doing? I hope the dogs are still well. Like, uh, would you, I'm just finalizing my fall schedule. Uh, I have some room late October, early November. Do you want to, to, you know, revisit that session? I'm still happy to put that session fee towards it. And, she was, she literally emailed me back like 20 minutes later, like,

my gosh, I was literally thinking this morning driving to work how I really need to do that session with the dogs. I'm like, well, that's your service. ⁓

Heather (15:08)
No kidding.

You had like an interstellar connection there. Something.

Nicole Begley (15:13)
Yeah, yeah.

And so many times I see so many photographers that just assume because they haven't heard from their client that their client's not interested anymore. And yeah.

Heather (15:22)
Hmm.

Listen, that is

the killer of businesses, assumptions, but specifically that assumption. My assumption, if I haven't heard from you, is that you're busy. And that is my job as a professional to reach out. But so many of our friends assume that they're not interested or it was too expensive or they, whatever their negative thoughts are about their business, they project that onto that potential client and make that assumption.

Nicole Begley (15:30)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Heather (15:53)
where my assumption is like, of course they still want to hire me. They just got busy. Maybe they forgot and it's my job to remind them.

Nicole Begley (16:01)
Yes. There's one more takeaway I want to circling back to the dress shopping. ⁓ And that is a guarantee, which is kind of what I was looking for for the return policy, right? Because A, I don't know what style is going to look good on me. B, I don't know what size turned out. I would have ordered all the wrong sizes because none of nothing in my size fit me. Like why? ⁓

Heather (16:14)
Yes.

Yeah!

I know!

Nicole Begley (16:31)
And so, you know, I wanted to make sure that I could return the things that didn't work and that I had a guarantee that I could get something that worked or get my money back. And I think it's critical, especially now I saw an article. I forget the details, but basically trust is like an all time low from buyers from just the insanity online, the division online around the world. And.

Heather (16:52)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Nicole Begley (16:59)
There's so many more people and so much more AI coming on to try to, you know, buy this. It was just made with AI and it's crap. and there's just, so, so little trust or kind of a lack of trust where people are a little more hesitant to purchase. ⁓ and also they're more hesitant just with the state of the world and uncertainty and that. So I think it's.

Heather (17:05)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nicole Begley (17:26)
more critical than ever to make sure that we have some sort of guarantee for our, our work, for our experience that, you know, if the client doesn't love their photos, we refund their session fee. If they don't, I've had this guarantee since I started, I call it my triple guarantee. If they don't love the images, I refund their triple. It's three Heather. That's three.

Heather (17:42)
Mmm.

Wow. I'm glad you let me know because I was confused by that.

Nicole Begley (17:55)
But it was number one, if they don't love their images, I refund their session fee. ⁓ Number two, if they don't love their products, I'll buy it back from them. And number three, if the products ever fade or just like fall apart, I'll replace them.

Heather (18:11)
Wait, wait, what? Okay, I am, okay, we need to talk about this for a second. It just didn't occur to me. I never had any of that in place.

Nicole Begley (18:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Heather (18:24)
Ever!

Nicole Begley (18:26)
Well, I don't know. feel like our wedding's a different story a little bit because definitely in the pet space and also in the family space, there was a lot of concern about behavior, toddler behavior, dog behavior, and that like they're not going to cooperate and Nicole's not going to able to get pictures even though she's great at what she does. She hasn't met my family. She hasn't met my dog. Where wedding, I feel like they're a little bit more in control of their behavior.

Heather (18:28)
I just didn't think about it.

⁓ okay, okay. Yeah.

All

You would hope.

Nicole Begley (18:57)
Maybe

not the groomsmen. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know that it would be a bad, a bad thing.

Heather (19:00)
Yeah, yikes. Right.

my gosh, now that I think about it. I had the opposite in my contract. I said, I couldn't guarantee anything because of that dynamic nature of weddings. I am not control over the day, the time, the weather, the crazy church lady, anything, the salon running late. And I remember one, by the way, just side note, every wedding that ran late every single time was because of hair and makeup.

Nicole Begley (19:15)
⁓

Heather (19:40)
every single time and they got it off to the wrong foot like straight away. Okay, but one time I had a bride that was late to the hotel because she was getting her hair done her and her bridesmaids and they rush it and the makeup artist was there with me. So I'm waiting there with my camera. She's got her makeup brushes. This bride comes just running in as stressed as she can be and says to the makeup artist, you have seven minutes. How in the world could that makeup artist ever

guarantee her work or tried it in seven minutes. And we locked eyes and we were both like, oh my gosh, what does that give me? You know what that gave me for photos with the bride and the bridesmaids? Zero. I had zero minutes. So it was just like, I had to document things as they were. But anyway, so in my contract, it said that it's like due to the nature of the wedding day, I can't guarantee anything. So how about you expect nothing? Okay. I didn't say that. didn't. But I just, can't.

Nicole Begley (20:10)
Huh?

Hmm.

Yeah, right.

Ha

Heather (20:38)
There's nothing I could guarantee like the first kiss. So the, you know, the priest gets real sneaky. First of all, Catholic masses are, you could like set your watch by them. They are so predictable. But if the priest throws in that kiss somewhere I wasn't expecting and I'm walking around the back and he's like, you may kiss the bride and it's this little bit and it's over. Like I can't guarantee that. So it never occurred to me to make any other type of guarantee, I guess.

Nicole Begley (21:07)
Well, that makes sense. And it's a totally different animal. Like, cause you are working in a situation where you don't control hardly anything. Yeah. You're just, you're there to make magic happen in whatever chaos you are, you are presented with. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

Heather (21:10)
Yes.

Nothing!

By the way, that's a lot of pressure, by the way. No control,

but expectations over the top.

Nicole Begley (21:28)
Yeah, I mean, that is another type of guarantee, which is the non-guarantee. Like, I know you're gonna love your images, we're good. ⁓ But I think generally in portrait work, we do have more flexibility. It's not as high stakes as wedding. You can reschedule because of weather. ⁓ You choose your locations. Like you have so much more control and...

Heather (21:42)
Yes.

Yes.

Nicole Begley (21:56)
I think the important question is asking like, what are the objections that my client has? And I know as a family photographer for several years, as well as being a pet photographer for over a decade, one of the biggest concerns is that their child or their dog's not going to behave and I'm not going to be able to get great photos. So I am confident that I can create photos that they will love.

Heather (22:17)
Mm. Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nicole Begley (22:24)
And so

I am confident with that guarantee. The same thing with the artwork, because I have always carried and sold high-end artwork, like nicer than what you get at Costco. And so that guarantee was also put in place because I asked myself, what's the objection of spending a thousand dollars for a 16 by 24 piece of art when they can get that at Costco for $45? And that is, this is a whole new level of things.

Heather (22:33)
high end right yeah yes

Yes.

Nicole Begley (22:52)
And it is it and I guarantee it. I guarantee it. If you don't love it, like I have samples so they see what it is. And if they don't love it, I buy back. Do you want to know exactly how many times I have had to use my guarantee in 15 years? OK, I had to use my which I didn't even refund it. I ended up. They ended up still finding some things they liked. It was and it was when I said yes, when I shouldn't have.

Heather (23:04)
I do. I do. I was actually about to ask you that.

Mm.

Nicole Begley (23:21)
It was a family that wanted like the kids were all grown. Like it was an adult family reunion thing. And I specialized in like elementary age to middle school kids and younger. ⁓ because I could be silly. get like, they were like working with animals, you guys, same, same thing. They just laugh at fart jokes instead of like getting into it with a, a noisemaker. ⁓ but anyway, so I said yes to this job and they were just.

Heather (23:31)
Mm-hmm.

Kids are animals. Yeah.

Nicole Begley (23:49)
certain people are so self-conscious and like don't like anything of themselves and that was kind of the situation there and I think there were some of the adult children that didn't want to be part of this and then just decided like they wanted to be in trouble with it and like my mom doesn't like anything in there but then when I talked to them I was like I do like this and that so when I talked to just the person that hired me it was fine and I didn't have to refund them but it was it was not a great experience it was like okay I learned that lesson

Heather (24:01)
⁓

Yeah.

Nicole Begley (24:18)
I stay in my lane and even if it is still kind of in my lane, like if I have any sort of hesitation red flag about it, just know. ⁓ and then the only other time was a, ⁓ pet client. were, ⁓ pet slash family that a little boy and some dogs. And, we created a beautiful piece of artwork for their home and they, once they got it in and got there, it was just, they thought it was too big. I thought it was amazing. ⁓

Heather (24:19)
Yes. Yes.

Mm.

Nicole Begley (24:46)
So I downsized it. I ordered them another one, smaller size and refunded them the difference in the price. ⁓ And then I just kept that one as a sample. yeah.

Heather (24:51)
It's fair.

Yeah, right. So it worked

out. But hey, what about this? Our wedding album, which is now 25 years old, has fallen apart. And it was a leather craftsman 12 by 12 massive album from back in the day, film photos, right? They were prints. I actually think our photographer may have passed away. I don't think he lives on this planet anymore. And I don't see my ability to reach out to leather.

Nicole Begley (25:09)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Heather (25:24)
craftsman to say, hey, this album is like the spine broke and it's real sticky. It's like weird. Some weird things have happened and that's kind of disappointing. so my question is like, do you have that guarantee for life?

Nicole Begley (25:42)
I mean, maybe I should look and see exactly what it says in there, but I've never had anyone reach out to me because I only care of the very best products. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Heather (25:51)
Yeah, but leather craftsman is a good product. I

would I would just maybe say, OK, all right, I'm like shooting in the dark here because this is so, so, so, so, so rare. The chances of this happening are like one in a million. But I might put on there like within five years. If something falls apart or fades or lifts or what our curls, whatever, within five years, you'll replace it. I just I can see a person coming back to you 20 years from now.

Nicole Begley (26:09)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

like 20 years

later. Yeah, no, that's a good, that's good option there. But yeah, I mean, and I, I have had things come back from a lab and I'm like, no, no. So, I mean, I would work with the lab and if my lab is not helpful for me in that situation, when it's obviously a quality issue from them, it's not something that I sent in. Like if I sent it in and I realized like, ⁓

Heather (26:21)
Yeah, yeah.

Maybe. Who cares? Yeah.

No, yeah.

Nicole Begley (26:48)
I had miss-edited that that file is way too dark, like there was something wrong with my monitor. I would still expect them to work with me with a discount to reorder, not necessarily a free reorder. But if they sent something to me that I ordered correctly and it was not of quality, like that needs to get replaced. And if you are not working with labs that will do that, then ⁓ you might want to be looking for a new lab.

Heather (26:50)
Yes.

That's key.

Yeah, I agree. You do work with high end labs and they always make everything right. Yeah.

Nicole Begley (27:15)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Shout out to Guild Canvas, my favorite who they my sample for them, my first sample for them. And I'm like, all right, I'm with them forever. It was a piece of artwork that I had already ordered for a client. Like it's one of my favorite images. And I'm like, I'm using this for a sample and it looked great. Client loved it. I never noticed anything on my I forget what size they got, maybe a 20 by 30.

Heather (27:20)
I mean, beautiful, right?

Nicole Begley (27:45)
And then Amy sends me message. She's like, Hey, there's a couple of clone marks, like right here in this section. I was like, really? And I pulled it up. like, ⁓ my God. No. So, I mean, I fixed it and then sent it back to her. ⁓ and yeah, then they printed it. So they have eyes on it throughout the process, like before they print. Yeah. And it was, it was so minor. It was so minor. Like.

Heather (27:50)
Go.

⁓ no no

Thank goodness that somebody noticed that.

you

Nicole Begley (28:14)
So minor that I didn't notice it when I printed it prior. My client didn't notice it. Like I had never seen it on that image before because they were they were pixel peeping to make sure it looked amazing. huh. Yeah.

Heather (28:16)
Right, right.

my gosh.

Yeah, they were. Thank goodness they saw those pixels.

Hey, I have a quick story I want to share about this. I had mentioned to you when you told me about the dress shopping about our mutual friend, Leanne. So Leanne is a portrait wedding photographer that lives near me outside of Pittsburgh and I was talking to her the other day. This is right around the time of your dress and she complimented one of the headshots that I've been using in my marketing. And I said, oh my gosh, I love that photo. I put it everywhere. Thank you so much.

Nicole Begley (28:36)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (28:53)
but I do need more options and you know how this is. You just need like a ton of photos to use in your marketing. And I said, but my friend Susie takes all of my headshots and she's really busy. She's a senior photographer. So right now is like, can't eat. Susie doesn't even have time to eat. You know, she's just so, so busy. So I'm not going to ask her, hey, can you grab some shots of me? But I really do need some new ones. So, you know, I'm just going to kind of wait. And Leanne said, I can take them for you. And I was like,

That's nice, thanks. And she's like, you can pick out some outfits and we can do this. And she starts saying all of these things. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I am already overwhelmed. So the thing with Susie is I'll call her up on a Tuesday and I'll say, hey, my hair went well today. You have a minute? And she'll, she looks like 10 minutes. She'll stop over here. I'll run over there. She'll grab a fuse. It's like.

It's like not a thing. Do you know what I mean? Like it's not like you're not scheduling this big thing. It feels very easy and fluid and whatever. So I tell Leigh Ann this, like, I can't, I'm just too busy to think. don't, okay, I can think, but you know how it is. All right. So she's like, yeah, I get it. Later that day, she sends me a voxer message and she's like, here's what I can do for you. I will pick the backgrounds, I will do this.

Nicole Begley (29:50)
huh. Yeah.

Heather (30:17)
I will do it. She just like starts listing off all of these things she's going to do for me. Here's what I would charge you if you want to do it this way, because she's like, if you want to edit your own photos, I'll charge you this. If you would like me to take care of everything, I'll charge you that. But this is what I can do for you. And then all you have to do, I promise all you have to do is show up. I mean, it was like a five minute message detailing everything she would do to make this as easy as possible for me so I could show up brain dead.

And I was like, okay, first of all, that is next level service. She heard my objection. She understood it. She saw my struggle. She acknowledged it and then she fixed it. Okay, that's brilliant. Am I? Okay, I still haven't scheduled it. Not the point. Not the point.

Nicole Begley (30:55)
Mm-hmm.

⁓

Heather, do you need me to schedule that? can reach out to her.

Heather (31:04)
I mean, honestly, what I don't, I don't even, I can't even tell you what my issue is, but I thought that is next level service. She could have very easily said, yeah, I get it. And then moved on, which is what a lot of photographers would do. Oh, I hear your objection. I believe you. I believe you. So, all right. Well, check back next season, next year, whatever.

Nicole Begley (31:28)
Yeah, and

they would tell themselves, it's just not my client.

Heather (31:32)
correct. And they might be wrong. Because what if now I'm not saying that the person will say yes or no after that extended level of service, but man, give it a chance.

Nicole Begley (31:43)
And

you're not saying to change your policies in order to get that client. It's just what's that objection? Is it an objection I can address? Yeah.

Heather (31:46)
Correct. Correct.

There it is. Is it an objection

that I can address? Leigh-Anne heard it and she was like, respectful. And she said, I can fix that for you. And here's how. And she just laid out everything. So I actually meant to send that message to you just so you could listen to how beautiful it is. Our friend Leigh-Anne is just a pro. She is just professional and she doesn't have any garbage in her brain about what I said or what it may have meant, you know.

Nicole Begley (32:11)
Yeah, cheers.

Heather (32:20)
⁓ she just doesn't want to hire me. ⁓ she thinks it. now, Leanne's thinking is very clean. So she, as a professional, addressed it and took care of it. And, you know, if I end up doing this during Suzy's busy season, then I'm going to Leanne. I mean, there's just no question because I don't have to think. I don't honestly, I don't care what the cost because it doesn't. I just need good shots and I need I need them quickly.

Nicole Begley (32:37)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Heather (32:47)
I need files. don't need artwork of my head. Okay, I don't. I don't want you to try to sell me an album of my face. Not necessary. She gets what we need. You know, I tell her I need negative space. I need this. I need that. And she's like, yep. She understands. She makes it happen.

Nicole Begley (32:50)
No, no, that's a different type of yeah.

I love it. I think I need to schedule a trip to Pittsburgh.

Heather (33:07)
Yeah. Well, listen, we could go over to Leanne's together

because we need some shots, the two of us. Yeah. So, Yep. Yep.

Nicole Begley (33:12)
We do. All right, we'll schedule that.

All right, everybody. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. It was a winding, winding road of thoughts, but it all comes full circle. When I was dress shopping, I was just thinking, I'm like, oh my gosh, I need to record a podcast about this because it was just so frustrating. And then I literally started looking at new websites I would find, and I wouldn't even look at the dresses. I would just go straight to the refund policy. And every single...

Heather (33:25)
little bit.

⁓ wow.

Nicole Begley (33:46)
one was insane. I literally, as I told you, the best one was $10 per dress and you could ship it back, but limit of three. I'm like, well, what if I want five? And anyway.

Heather (33:57)
Yeah, you

know, if you go into a dressing room like at a Dillard's or Nordstrom, you're taking a lot of dresses on there. Yeah. Yeah. What do you end up paying for that dress? What's the cost of these dresses? Oh, OK, that was good. OK, so you're not spending a ton of money. Yeah, because you're wearing it once. Right, right.

Nicole Begley (34:00)
Mm hmm. I took 12 dresses in and there were two that I really liked. Yeah.

Yeah. No, no. My goal is to be less than $200 and just right there. ⁓

Yeah. All right, guys. was great chatting with you. Please do that exercise where you write down your workflow and then you look at it from your perspective and your client's perspective and see how you can streamline it, how you can better educate your client. ⁓ because it is really eye-opening and can really help improve your workflow.

See you guys next week.