The Importance of Saying No and Prioritizing Your Schedule with Ben Lau

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: So it's very funny that we We quite often, have bloopers that we want to have and we don't hit record, so there's probably a bunch of stuff that, nobody's ever gonna hear, but they're hearing this now, you know, they're gonna have no idea why we're laughing, why we're talking about what we're talking about, but it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. So, Ben, I am, I'm very happy to have you here, we could have done this in person. Thanks Ben Lau: we absolutely could have, I think like 30 minutes, 30 minutes from my house. You could, I could ride your ride my bike to your house. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: that's, that would be, that would be a heck of a bike ride. That would Ben Lau: In the, in this December, in this December climate. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, yeah, actually you'd probably feel nice and warm by the time you got here, that's for sure.  Wedding Season Wrap-Up --- Scott Wyden Kivowitz: [00:01:00] So, I, what's been going on? We're recording this beginning of December, you're wrapping up your wedding season, how are things now that it's coming to the end of the season? Ben Lau: Well, I finally have a chance to breathe, you know, post production is wrapping up right now, for all three of our brands. I think we have maybe less than, less than, less than ten down the pipeline and then we're wrapped up and then, I have a few more weddings to shoot. and This, this this month, and and then we're done. So, this is the first time in many years that, that we're getting this kind of break, this early in my season, I guess. and what I mean by that is, usually, in the months of January and February, I'm still doing post production. but just like everyone else in the marketplace, we did experience a slight slowdown. And the thing is, over the past, two years, you know, we had more work than we knew what to do with. So we had to like over engineer our post production process to get everything out quickly. but now that it's slowed down a little bit, like, You know, you're basically bringing a cannon to a knife fight. Everything's done now. [00:02:00] You know what I mean? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, Ben Lau: There's way more processing power than what we need for the amount of work that we got this year. So, it's good. I get a little breather. We might take a vacation. I don't know where we're going. We might go to Seattle. We might go to Grand Canyon. We haven't decided yet. So, yeah. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I saddle Seattle's beautiful. Have you been to Seattle Ben Lau: No, the first time for Seattle and then the kids have never been to Grand Canyon. So I thought it might be nice to take Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Both are great. Both are great. Yeah Might one of my favorite things to do when I'm at the Grand Canyon is there's a lot of rock formations that look like animals Like Ben Lau: sort of like it's sort of it's but it's sort of like a cloud like cloud watching, right? It's like, Oh, that looks like a baby that looks like a watermelon, you Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Sometimes, sometimes, but like there's like eagle rock, like, looks like an eagle with, which is with its wing spread, like very vividly. Right. So, Ben Lau: Are you sure there wasn't some human like from a couple of places? Tens of thousands years ago to start chiseling stuff just to just to mess with, [00:03:00] mess with, future humans. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah. There, there could be. There could be. It's very possible. Yeah. I, I don't know what the name of this animal's gonna be, but I'm going to carve it anyway. Yeah.  Streamlining Workflow with Repeatable Processes --- Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so, so you mentioned, that you have three brands, and I think that is a really good segue into what our first topic is going to be, which is the, the first item in your wedding business that is working well, and I should say business is really, that is working very well for you. And, you mentioned to me off air that it is that you've got a lot of repeatable. Steps and repeatable items within your within your workflow and having three brands. I definitely think that is an essential thing to to have to have on lockdown. So can you share a little bit about like what what you have in place throughout your workflow that is repeatable? And what type of tools have been helpful for those? Ben Lau: Right. [00:04:00] So anytime you have an operation that does the volume. There's a high volume, right? every, every part of the process needs to be consistent. Because if you have any kind of deviations from that, right? It just creates problems for you, down, down the pike. Okay? and, and this is not just on the, post production end of things, but it's also on the shooting end of things. This is also with,meeting with clients and, and blogging and social media. Like, all that stuff has to be consistent. because once you deviate, it just screws everything up. So, with that being said, you know, over, 15 years of being in business, we've developed, it sounds, it sounds so fancy, right? Developed, but really it was just, just figuring things out, troubleshooting, until we got, I guess a formula that kind of just works for us, right? and I, I, I don't know how deep are we going into this. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, go as deep as you want to as one as you want to share. That's fine. Ben Lau: But, but yeah, it, it, it starts, I guess it starts with, Hmm. I guess even before we [00:05:00] start shooting, we want to make sure that the client experience, from the outset is, is going to be uniform, right? So, we have CRMs in place to make sure that all the clients are getting the same emails. They're getting them in the same timely manner. Right. We don't have some clients waiting two hours for an email and some waiting three days for an email response from us. Right. Everything is automated in that regard. and all the meetings, Mike, I have a script, that I go through with every single meeting for all. Well, for two out of those three brands, I do the sales calls. The other one is my wife's company, and she does the sales calls for those. Right. But,but for all three brands, we use the same exact scripts because we don't want to deviate from that. Because the thing is, if you don't have a control, right, you don't know what's wrong if something is messed up, right? So, so we've been using the same script for 15 years. In fact, this is the same script that I've been using in professional sales for over 20 plus years. I've sold Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I was going to mention that like, you know, getting to know you over the past couple of years, you've got a very [00:06:00] intense sales background even before photography. So you've been able to carry that over and adapt it to photography very well. Ben Lau: Mm hmm. Yeah, I've always told folks. I'm a mediocre photographer. Maybe a slightly above average. Just sort of like a driver, right? Everyone thinks they're slightly above average, right? That's where I get with my photography. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: in New Jersey. Ben Lau: I wouldn't say I'm the best, but the thing is I always say that I'm a, I'm a business person first. I'm a salesperson and marketing person. marketing person first, you know, the photography stuff is just just happens to be the thing that I'm selling at the moment, right? And I happen to be semi decent with a camera, but but yeah, I would say that, the sales ability and this market ability, is, is, is a thing that helped us kind of grow our three brands. but, but in any case, yeah, it's the same script that I use for all of our sales calls. So that way I can kind of track, you know, where, where it's falling apart, if, if it does fall apart. and then. every, every couple to get an engagement session, every couple, they go through, now they go through a, a design meeting with our design team to, to do their [00:07:00] IPS. you know, I always think it's crazy when I, I'm in these Facebook groups and, people telling me that they're just freewheeling on these, on these, not on these shoots, but on these consults, right? They're just talking about whatever they want to talk about. I'm like, what are you doing? How do you know? So, if you're hitting all your marks, or if, like how do you measure, like, what's, what's working and what's not working and, I don't know, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I mean, having, having a sales call, you can, you'll know potentially right up front, like, Hey, this couple is going to spend, you know, they're going to wind up buying two albums just for the, by like, Ben Lau: Mm hmm. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: having those conversations, you're like, they may say, I'm going to get one album, but they might not want to, you might know ahead of time, just from past experience that in this conversation, they're buying more. Ben Lau: Right. and every question that I have in my consultation, they're all intentional, right? I'm not asking a question just to, seem friendly, even though, I mean, that, I mean, you, you want to portray that, right? But the thing is, I'm asking questions [00:08:00] intentionally to find out what kind of problems that they're trying to solve, so that way I can solve those problems for them. You know what I mean? So, so in any case, and then we go into post production, and this is where it can get really hairy for some folks, right? because if you're only doing 10, 15 weddings a year, that's one thing, right? once you get to 30, 40, 50, 80, 100 weddings, right? Which is where we are at, right? Around 100 ish weddings a year. You better make sure that your, your, your workflows are, consistent and uniform. Right? Because it's a screw up. and, and there have been screw ups. Correct. Right? And I've had new editors come in that I'm training and stuff. I'm like, Oh no, what have you done? Right? It's sort of like you have a new cook in the kitchen and they screw up the cake or whatever. It's like, what have you done? Now I got to fix your mess. But, But thankfully, I have SOPs in place. It's all written down, and they just have to follow it. It's a checklist. Did you do this? This? This? Isn't this? It's all repeatable, and, the hope is eventually they'll get it, and they'll have it committed to memory, and they'll just, they'll just do it. Yeah. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: two things one for those who [00:09:00] don't know SOP is standard operating procedure Ben Lau: Mm hmm. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so Ben Lau: For Tracy at home. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Matricia, well played, sir. I was just listening to SmartLess this morning on a walk, so, love it. I should totally steal that from SmartLess. was incredible. okay, the other thing, you mentioned that you've got the same flows in your CRM for the different brands.  CRM and Tools for Business Efficiency --- Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I have to know, are you using And I think this is a really good important thing for, for other photographers with multiple brands, whether it's multiple wedding brands or whether it's a wedding and then like a sports brand, because that exists too. are you using the same CRM platform for each brand? And is it a brand's feature? Or do you have to have multiple accounts? Like, I mean, like, can one, which is your one account. Offer you the multiple brands so you [00:10:00] can manage all three in one account or do you have to have multiple accounts? Ben Lau: Am I allowed to name drop or are we cutting Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Sure. Yeah. Yeah, tell Ben Lau: Yeah, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: was CRM using. Ben Lau: I'm using Tave and I've been using them since 2014. You know, as with any platform, there are, there are strengths and there are errors for improvement. But, for, by and large, I have no, I've never had issues with, Tave. And they don't pay me anything. I'm not a, I'm not an ambassador or anything like that. I just, I, I, I've been using them. I have no complaints. Service is great. And I have all three of my brands housed under one dashboard. And, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: because not all not all CRM's offer brand features like it's like you you pay for one Ben Lau: I don't know anything else. I don't know anything Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, No, that's it's great. It's great. It's great You found what works for you and you're sticking with it because it hasn't given you a problem and I think that's fantastic Ben Lau: and what's really cool is, it's been around long enough where I have API integrations with all the other fun things that I have going on. So, yeah, so, you know, it talks with my blog and it talks with, my email marketing stuff and actually has [00:11:00] built an email marketing stuff too, which I'm going to show you. Which is something I'm working on, this winter. I gotta integrate more stuff. I'm not using Tave to its full potential. So, yeah. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I think that's pretty common, honestly. Like, I'm, Ben Lau: I only use it to send out contracts. I don't, I don't use it for timeline building and stuff. I mean, although it's really nice, it's really fancy, right? But I don't use it for timeline building. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Like, so, so I personally use Sprout Studio as my CRM, but I'm using PicTime as the gallery solution because the, I, so the, the, I, I, I like having the print lab integration, especially for the photography that I do. and I like, Pick times integration more than I like Browse studios at the moment, but I I understand sprout studios about to get a complete overhaul so things might change in the future, but for now, like i'm using two when I could be using just one Which which would be nice. So, Very it's it's it's so it's so great that you have repeatable items throughout the process I think it's [00:12:00] like Immensely important as a business grows, but especially as having multiple businesses that yes, there's like overlap with, with what each business does, but they each have their own persona. In fact, as you said, like one is your wife, not even yours. Like it's your wife. So it's completely different persona at that point. in fact, it's like her name's in it. Ben Lau: That is correct. Yeah, that is correct. Hey, listen, my name's in my logo, too. It doesn't mean nothing. I'm not the boss. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: she's still the boss. She's still the boss.  Balancing Work and Family Life --- Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so you also mentioned that there's something else that's working well, and I think, again, bringing in family aspect to this, you mentioned that, like, infrastructure between, like, office and home is something that also has been working. Well, can you talk more about about that? And as it pertains to, like, your workflow and, between work and life and that whole balance. Ben Lau: of course, of course. one of the things I don't talk about, and I guess I should talk about this more, is that I [00:13:00] do come from a position of privilege, I guess, in a way that, because, I have my in laws living with us, right? They're retired and, they've been living with me since the day I, I, I've been married to their daughter. So, so they've always been in the house. so with that comes,some flexibility in my time. You know what I mean? And, so you compare me to someone who's just, I don't know, a family of four, and they don't have that help. You know what I mean? Now they gotta juggle daycare, they gotta juggle all those things, their family life with their business. for me, you know, or for us rather, you know, when my, when my in laws were still actively driving, they're, they're a lot, they are not as active as they used to be, right? but. You know, even, even five or six years ago, they would pick up and drop off the kids at school. They would drive the kids to their activities and stuff. on the weekends, they're watching the kids while, while we're out shooting weddings. So, in that way, we're very lucky. the other thing is, we have, we, we [00:14:00] work at home. We have our own little office here at home. It's a, and, . Yeah, so we don't have, we don't have to commute very far , but I Imagine most people work from home as well. But the thing is, we actually have like editors coming into our home, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: right, Ben Lau: photographers coming into our home, and actually we have meetings coming into our home, right? So like, or, or when we do these in-person meetings and stuff, they come into our home. So, so that makes things a lot easier compared to, like, if I were to have like a storefront on Main Street,I save a lot of time that way. It's a lot more convenient for me. So yeah, just having this in place, this, this little infrastructure, this little thing that I've created in place, just makes, I'm doing what we can to, to make our lives as easy as possible. Now that the kids are a little older, You know, they have friends that they can hitch a ride with. And they have activities after school, you know? But when they were younger, they were a little bit more needier. But as they get older, they can even call an Uber if they want to. You know what I mean? And the kids have learned how to order pizza on [00:15:00] DoorDash. So, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: important skill Ben Lau: exactly, right? So, the kids are not as needy. They don't need as much from the grandparents as they're enjoying their retirement more now. but having the right infrastructure in place is super important, because I could see how, again, like how other folks with, with, especially with children and other responsibilities, you know, there's a lot more burden on their shoulders. yeah. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I'm in a similar way. Like my my wife's parents live one street over from us and her siblings also live within like a mile from from us, soin the same way like our our We've had the help over the years and now we get to help as well with like, they're with siblings, kids, my nieces and nephews and et cetera. but I think something extremely valuable, which you didn't mention, but I'm going to mention is, our kids now get to grow up extremely close to their grandparents, which is a beautiful thing. Like beyond work, just [00:16:00] in general, in life, that is a beautiful thing that.I, like, growing up, I didn't have that, like, I lived close to one of my grandparents, but not the other, I'm not as close to my grandparents, they're all passed at this point, but, like, I wasn't as close as, as I would have loved to now seeing my kids and how close they are to their grandparents, so, having that work infrastructure in place, extremely valuable, but also a beautiful thing from the personal, personal standpoint, for, for everybody Ben Lau: yeah, but at the moment, my kids are teenagers and a preteen. they hate, they hate everyone at the moment. So, so I don't know what it is, this lovey dovey feeling that you're trying to talk about right now. But, well, hopefully they'll grow out of it, right? But at the moment, they, they don't like anybody. They're Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Just their friends. Ben Lau: Yeah. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: That's so funny.  Challenges and Personal Growth --- Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so, so let's, let's talk about now something that, you've struggled with that you're working [00:17:00] on. and, and I know what you shared with me is not necessarily a workflow thing, but it impacts your workflow. Across the board, right? So, I'm curious, if you want to talk about what you're working on Ben Lau: hmm. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: in, in your life that Ben Lau: Well, there's a couple of things that I'm working on, right? yeah, we'll touch on all of them, right? This is me in my little therapy session. There are a lot of things that I'm working on at the moment. So, so, you probably know this as well. Well, you, not you probably, you do know this, right? Like, this past year, I hosted my first summit. this conference here in New Jersey. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: might have been there. Ben Lau: Yeah, you might have been there. With or without power or internet, right? But, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. Ben Lau: to be a dad, trying to be a husband, and also throwing this summit, and trying to be a podcaster, right? Like, it just took up so much of my bandwidth because I was trying to keep everyone happy. You know what I mean? My client's [00:18:00] happy. I was trying to keep my wife happy and the kids happy and, even with the conference, gotta keep the speakers and the sponsors and the attendees happy, right? I'm just trying to make everyone happy. I just want to serve, right? and it just sucked so much out of me and,I, I just needed some time to recover. I needed to step back, just a little bit, right? but what, what, what was I trying to work on? number one, trying not to put too much on my plate. you know, focus on the fundamentals and,what pays the bills, who's the, who's the most important. And I thought, I think I talk about this in my podcast as well, you know, you can't pour from an empty cup. You got to take care of yourself first. You got to be a little selfish sometimes you got to take care of yourself first. So, so that's what I'm working on, at the moment, you know, taking care of the priorities of my life, my family, and of course the clients who pay the bills, the educational stuff. I'm, I'm still, I'm still, actively working. with my students and people who, who want to learn from me and things like that. but it's, but the priority first is, family and, my photography businesses that pay the [00:19:00] bills, right? And then,a tangent to that, right? A tangent to that is just, you know, I just got to work on saying no. To things and projects. I have a, I have a ADHD and I think you do too. Right? I have a, a, a shiny, shiny object syndrome, right? Like, Ooh, that looks nice. I want that. Right? That looks like a lot of fun. I want to do that. Right? So, I have to learn how to say no. Right? Focus on what's important first. And then, once you take care of business, then, then go play. Right? But stop chasing all the, all the shiny things. And, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: you know, and there's, there's always something as well to outsource where you're trying to spend more time for yourself, you know, the podcast, for example, you outsource, I believe you outsource the editing of your podcast to an editor, right? So, I don't, like, I could take that off my plate if, if, if Imagen allowed me to, right? But, there's so many things, even with, with the, with the, with the event, like you [00:20:00] could outsource a lot of the event planning to an event planner if you wanted to, right? Not, not saying you should, not saying you have to, just saying, taking time to, to,more for yourself and trying to not be, not, not, not, not over please everything, right? Not sit, not be a yes person all the time. You could continue doing all the things you want to do just by continuing to outsource where it makes sense to outsource. And where the money also makes sense to outsource too, of course. Ben Lau: right. I don't know if you've come to realize this too, but I'm also a little bit of a micromanager. I'm very hands on with everything, much to the chagrin of anyone that I bring on board, anyone that I work with. I'm very, Particular, but, you know, one thing that I have learned over the years is that you do, sometimes you have to be okay with things coming back to you at 85, 90, 95%, right? because at the end of the day, that's the only way that you're going to grow. You have to let go a [00:21:00] little bit of, of control over the final product. A little bit, especially, especially if you're trying to grow this thing to scale. Cause, no, no one's ever going to be like you, you know what I mean? No one's ever going to do things 100 percent just like you. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: You can have your SOPs in place to get you as close as possible, right? But, but even with the most perfect SOPs in place, they're only going to get it, like, maybe even 99%. The goal is 100%, right? But, no one's ever going to do it just like you. is better than perfect. For most things. Ben Lau: Correct. Absolutely. Right? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: you still want done to be well, not done poorly. Ben Lau: s The Value of Imagen in Workflow --- Ben Lau: o this is a great segue to like, the conversation about, Imagen and how people are using this in their workflow. It's like, oh my gosh, I still gotta spend two hours after I get it back from Imagen. I mean, some people spend, five minutes with it, right? But it depends on how particularly you are, right. , right? You can spend five hours with it if you want. And the thing is, at the end of the day, it's still getting you. To 70% or 80%, [00:22:00] or like, even if it gets you to 70%, right? And that's like a worst case scenario. I mean, Imagen usually it gets me to about 90%, right? yeah, about 90%, give or take. And I still gotta spend a little time with it, right? But, listen, that's still time savings. And you, you, you, you multiply that, that time savings over a volume of weddings. you're talking about hours saved, days saved, right? and this is something that I learned on CreativeLive, over ten years ago, right? You see that little, that rainbow wheel spinning, right? Because Lightroom is trying to process the next image and stuff, right? If you can eliminate that, even if it's like one second, right? It's just one second per image, right? You're doing a thousand images or two thousand images, that's a thousand seconds. Two thousand seconds per wedding. Right? You multiply that over how many weddings? Now you're talking about hours and days saved off of that one second of Proposal Photography Challenges --- Scott Wyden Kivowitz: So, so, to, not this past weekend, but the weekend before it, [00:23:00] actually, the day after Thanksgiving and then the day after that, I had two proposals back to back, and one of them was Princeton University, and it was in a section that isn't the most popular, but it's one of the, like, architecture wise, history wise, like, people walk through it, And that's exactly where the proposal was. Ben Lau: It was just a great location for a proposal. but it had its busy moments and when the proposal happened, unfortunately, there was a little boy that decided to dance right behind my couple. So, there's a lot of photos where it's like, there's no way, there's no chance that me with my Photoshop skills, I can remove that boy. I would have to outsource it to somebody. Hey, I can do that now. Mm Scott Wyden Kivowitz: the, the, my client said to me, I love the photos. any chance that you could remove the boy in this one, this one, this one, three different photos. And, you know, I'm like, I'll do my best. Right. I'm like, it's not part of the contract for me to do that, [00:24:00] but I'll do my best. Right. and so I have. I have Imagen not only do my editing and my straightening, I don't have Imagen Crop because I try to crop in camera all the time, but, straightening, I have it do skin smoothing, and I have it do teeth whitening for every proposal job that I do. So I'm like, I save so much time. From all that editing that I'm going to take 32 minutes to an hour to try to remove the boy from three photos. Why the heck not? And I successfully removed the boy where you cannot tell from one and then the other two were trickier. So it's not as good, but it was still good enough that he still bought the photos. Ben Lau: So, this was a week ago? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: this was the day after Thanksgiving and then the day was that one. Then I had another proposal the following day. Yeah, Ben Lau: things now. I AI Tools in Photography --- Ben Lau: n Lightroom, the generative fill and generative remove. it's, it's been a godsend. Things that used to take, I don't know, 15 minutes, 20 minutes? [00:25:00] Takes me, about a minute. 30 Scott Wyden Kivowitz: and in this case, This case I actually brought into Photoshop and used the new, Distraction removal, removal feature, Which you just say, remove people. Ben Lau: ha, ha, ha. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: that was very easy, cause they, The people, there was no overlap between My clients and the boy, or like The other people around, But the one where the boy was like, You know, like behind, like his jacket or something that was that photoshop couldn't get it, though. I had to do that manually. Ben Lau: Yeah. yeah, yeah, AI, AI is taking over, man. Like, it saves so much time and just made our lives so much easier. Things that used to take forever now take just a couple of clicks and a couple of seconds and, we're done. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I'm curious what other aspects of your workflow are using a I in besides like the editing and the calling parts like what other parts of like your business or in life are using a I to help with things. Ben Lau: well, I know my wife uses it, for her blogging. Right? Because she's not a [00:26:00] natural writer. I actually have a writing degree. Right? but, even, even with that, it's not perfect. So, sometimes I'll go into ChatGPT to make sure that I covered all my bases. Say, hey, listen, if I'm going to be talking about this topic, what are some of the bullet points I need to cover? And I'll use ChatGPT for that. Right? but for a, but what was the question? Like, what areas, other aspects of your business or life are you using Chachapiti? I mean, I mean, AI. Chachapiti is a, you know, good example. Very common, right? I use I use mid journey to create images that I wouldn't be able to find through a Google search. Right. So I was like, I need. I remember this. I was doing a presentation where I needed. Chicken Little, you know Chicken Little? Where he's running through the street and, you know, it's like the sky is falling, right? And I needed acorn fireballs falling out of the sky with a chicken running around the street and stuff, right? I couldn't find that on through a Google search, so I needed Midjourney to create that image for me. it was a frightening image that [00:27:00] came out. It was a chicken With, it was a chicken that was with wings flapping and everything. But the, and, and, and the, the chicken looked bewildered and everything, but it had human teeth. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Oh boy. That's Ben Lau: Remember, remember Sonic the Hedgehog who had, human teeth? It looked like that. It was, looked, looked a little weird, but, but everything else looked okay. I had flaming acorns coming outta the sky and everything, but,but yeah, like if, if I need something, that I can't find through an easy Google search, I'll, I'll use AI for that. But yeah, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: in the Imagen community, a couple months ago, I did a fun thing where I, I, I made a bunch of, like, color book, coloring pages, all photography related. I had ChachiPT help me create them, and one of them was a photographer taking pictures of, of, like, 10, 000 chicken nuggets. And what it produced was, like, very strange, but I shared it in the community anyway, and people were, were enjoying Ben Lau: I, I do it for just like you, I do it for practical joke reasons and stuff. Right. I remember when you were on our podcast, I think you shared with us, you play the [00:28:00] clarinet. What's the clarinet? Clarinet, right? And I was like, all right, I need, I need a handsome, bald man with glasses playing the clarinet on a subway busking for money. I think I shared that picture. If you guys go back to the podcast, you guys can go ahead and check it out. Right. I think I shared that image. It was pretty funny. Didn't quite look like you, but it was pretty close. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I still haven't touched my clarinet since, since that day either. So, still has not been played in well over 20 years. Ben Lau: Yeah, but it's, it's fun for practical jokes because I couldn't easily Google that, right? But but it was, it was a lot of fun. I, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. Ben Lau: yeah, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: It, it, AI, AI has its place for, for serious things. It has its place for, for fun things. like, I look at, Shutterfest. what was it? Three years ago, I think. Two or three years ago, Shutterfest. All the speaker banners that were in the exhibit, you know, exhibitor room, Ben Lau: sure, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: were all portraits submitted to [00:29:00] ShutterFest for the banners that then ShutterFest turned them into AI generated images of. So every banner was an AI version of the speakers. And it was purely a conversation starter. That's why Shutterfest did it because it was a new topic in the industry was AI and they wanted people to talk about it and it did Its job they were some were fantastic like Esteban gills looked really good Ben Lau: huh, but look at those chisel features on that guy. You know? Of course. Right? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: But yeah, there was a lot that was so good There's a lot that was so good and then there were some that were like really bad And but it again like that's the Ben Lau: That was three years ago, though. This is three years ago. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, the AIs have gotten so much better since then too, but, but yeah. anyway, so, yeah, it's, it's a fun, it's a fun thing. The Importance of Authentic Blogging --- Scott Wyden Kivowitz: So what I'm working on this winter, because the thing is, I don't want to be one of those educators who just preach, preach, preach, preach, preach and not actually, doing [00:30:00] the work themselves, you know, because, you've been in the industry long enough, you know, you had some educators that are just a lot of fluff or maybe they just, they, they learned a new skill and, and now they're teaching it as if it's their own and stuff. Ben Lau: Like, I, I don't want to be called out as a hypocrite or anything like that. So I, I, I have to be doing the work. The work that I'm telling everyone that they should be doing. So, for better or worse, I haven't been the best at blogging these past couple of years. So, I will be, I will be, taking care of that this winter. And, in my defense, the reason why I haven't been blogging is because I, it was over the past couple years I realized that I had been doing it wrong. or not that I haven't been doing it wrong, but like, the landscape has changed. since I've learned how to properly do it. Right? So no longer are you doing, what do you call it, wedding blogs, or rather, let me see here, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Just like a hundred photos from the wedding in one blog Ben Lau: In one blog post and then you do it for every single wedding. You don't do that anymore, right? So that's why I was [00:31:00] like, Oh, maybe I should kind of stop the bleeding first. Right. Figure out how to properly do this and then execute. Right. and, so that's I, so I got a lot of cleaning up to do a lot of troubleshooting to do this winter to kind of fix it and make it look proper. yeah, because like, I don't, I don't want to be, I don't want to have those emails or, or, you know, the negative, the negativity coming my way. It's like, Oh my God, this guy's blogging like, you know, back in 2014, 2015. He's still doing those, he's doing all those things from 10 years ago, right? Like, I don't want to be that guy. So, there's a lot of things I got to fix, but you need time for that, right? So having good infrastructure in place, good, good SOPs in place, is going to help me take care of all Scott Wyden Kivowitz: And I think, I think you could utilize ChatGPT for helping with that as well. Like, if you could, you create a, a spreadsheet of the, the name of the article, the link to the article, even like a column of just the content of the article, and you have ChatGPT analyze each one, one by one, and provide you with like, Advice for improving each goal literally one by [00:32:00] one, you know, offer me advice for improving this ask me any questions to help for for improving it and Ben Lau: Well, here's a tip that I guess I can share with your listeners too, right? So I do use chatGBT to get bullet points. But what I, what I understood is that there are a lot of folks who are using chat GPT for what you described, right? Just just generating all the text and then they'll just share it as if it's their own, right? But not so now you got all this AI generated content out there floating out there in the universe, right? so what I have been doing is sharing more personal stories, sharing more of my personal perspectives and viewpoints and things like that, being a little bit more conversational in my writing. and I think that is going to come through. I mean, I have three brands. One of them, well two of them are personal brands, right? One's mine and one's my wife, right? So, it's okay to have that, personal touch in there. Where I'm speaking my mind and sharing my personal thoughts and things like that. So, I think that will [00:33:00] go over well. I'm still thinking about how I might do this for my associate brand. it could still be very mom and pop, I guess. Have that mom and pop vibe. But, but yeah. I think having that personal touch in my copy, having that conversational tone, I think is going to help convert better. It's going to read better. You know what I mean? Because if you, if you, if you look at if, I don't know if some people can do this or not, but when I'm reading text, reading copy, I'm like, yo, a robot totally wrote that, right? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: It's got, it's, it doesn't have, I, I, I don't know how to, how to describe it, but it sounds like a robot wrote it. So, and by the way, i'm not saying that like you should use chat gpt and then leave it as is i'm saying like Use it for ideas of how you could improve what you've already written, right? Or what you've already published. So let's say it was a, it was a blog article from five years ago that you want to update, right? Use it to, to help give you ideas for updating it.not necessarily writing it for you, but just for the idea ideation [00:34:00] of, of things, right? Cause that's a lot of times. Because we're not all writers a lot of times It's what do I do like I need the trigger to then give me the idea I need the trigger to get my creative brain working of what then I can then write so and if you don't have somebody to bounce the ideas off of Chachapiti is a good a good a Ben Lau: There are two things that I do that kind of help me write, coming from my writing background. I do a lot of word association type of exercises. And just go off on a train of thought. Right? what is it called? I Scott Wyden Kivowitz: that like your your your pineapple pizza one that you did at your at your talk? Ben Lau: is that what you're referring just riffing. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Well, you, like, you were talking about a topic, like, in, in some of the talks that you did, you were talking about a topic, and you brought up, how many people like pineapple pizza, right? so, like, I'm just asking is, like, when you say, like, we're an association, is that what you're referring Ben Lau: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. It could [00:35:00] be just a random word. You can go to Google, get a random word generator. And, I think they have an app for that. And then you just tell a story out of that. It might trigger a memory. It could be something as simple as jellyfish, you know, and then you start talking about jellyfish. You know, did you know? There's a Chinese appetizer, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Jellyfish? Ben Lau: Chinese restaurant banquets, like weddings and stuff, jellyfish is on the menu. It's one of the first things that come out. It's that and pig's feet. They come out together on the same plate. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Would it be offensive if I didn't eat either of those things? I'm not offended, right? But I'm just saying, that's what it is. When you go to a Chinese wedding, those are the first two things that come out. It's pig's feet and jellyfish. You know? I did a destination wedding 2016, in New Orleans. And it was for a friend of mine, which is why I took it on. And it was a destination wedding, so why not? and, the, I was so hungry by the time that like the, like the happy hour was going [00:36:00] on. That, and it was very informal. Like I wasn't, I did, post photos like before the, before the wedding and stuff, like of the families, but like the rest was just, just document the thing. So it was very laid back for me.I was so hungry. I went into the room 'cause the wedding was outside New Orleans, go into the room to go get the food and I was like, oh, it's mac and cheese. That's fun. Not thinking, oh, it's like seafood. Mac and cheese Ben Lau: yikes. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: wasn't expecting it, but I, I, I held it in Ben Lau: have a, did you, did you have a reaction? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: no, no, I'm not allergic. Ben Lau: I just, Sure, you can't eat it. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I can't eat it. It doesn't stay down typically. So, I, I held it in and I, I was so hungry I ate it, the whole thing. Ben Lau: Oh, no. Yeah, as am I to a degree as well. but the second thing, and this is super helpful, with writing, blogs and things like that. I dictate my blogs. I don't know if, I sound, I feel like you do too, right? But like, I dictate, which is, listen, I'm a fast typer, but [00:37:00] I can speak a lot faster than I can type. So, yeah. I do Monday Night Lives with my coaching group and stuff. And a lot of that, believe it or not, is, for a long time it was scripted. Now I'm doing more off the cuff type of stuff. But, I would write all those scripts. I would write a full one hour presentation, just dictating. earlier in that day. And I'll have the whole hour presentation already done. and I'll use Chat GPT to make sure I'm hitting all my bullet points. But, I'm dictating. Yesterday, I completed a full length blog post on a venue that I'm working at. And, yeah, it took me all day, but I'm dictating. I mean, this could have Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Mm hmm. Ben Lau: conceivably, all week. But, yeah, dictating for the win, man. Like Scott Wyden Kivowitz: name drop two tools that for anybody who wants to try using AI to For you to dictate to literally on your phone and then have the AI Rewrite it into a blog article in your words and you're dictating There are two tools that I use I use one more than the other but one is called cast magic Ben Lau: hmm. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: and it is fantastic [00:38:00] and The other is called Voice Notes. It's newer, not as robust as Cast Magic, but they both do a great job of, summarizing what you said, and then you can also ask it to write a blog article in your own words based on your dictation. So, definitely check those out.  Final Thoughts and Resources --- Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Ben, this has been fantastic. I love everything that you've shared that I think, can really go a long way for both, Photographers that have a small, smaller business that are just starting out to the photographers that are doing the 100 plus weddings a year like you are with multiple brands. it's very impressive that with everything you have going on, as you mentioned, You've got the podcast, which I'm gonna ask you to drop in a second. you've got the three wedding brands between yours, yours and your wife's, and then your wife's. and, and, and, and the, the, the event that, you know, that you threw on, the family. Everything going, that you have going on, it is amazing that you're able to keep everything, you know, In their lane, in, you know, on track with everything, what's supposed to be going, very organized, and of course, you're [00:39:00] human, so there's always going to be stuff that, that needs improvement, nothing is perfect, so, you know, I, I, I'm, I'm very thankful, to, to learn everything that you've got going on, and, yeah, it's been a pleasure getting to know you over the past couple years, and I can't wait for more Ben Lau: Yeah, am I gonna see you in Dallas? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: you will see me in Dallas. I'm pretty, pretty, pretty sure Ben Lau: And, and Vegas. Ha ha ha. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: is probably airing around that time. So, we will, we're Ben Lau: This is unacceptable. This is not acceptable. Dallas is two months away, my friend. What happened to SOPs and AI? And, you know, you gotta delegate or automate, man. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: That's right. Yeah, can you, can you share, two things, one share where all the listeners can check out your, your, your, your awesome wedding photography and also about your podcast. Ben Lau: All right, so, the three brands that we have for our wedding photography. my [00:40:00] brand is JustBenLauPhoto. You can find me on Instagram, benlaufoto. the website's justbenlau. com. and then our associate brand is Pearl Paper Studio. Pearl Paper is actually the stationary type that we have for our wedding invitations over 20 plus years ago, right? So that's where we got the name Pearl Paper Studio, where, we house, I want to say, 13? yeah. 14 of our, you know, lovely colleagues, super talented, photographers, who help us, with that brand. so Pearl Paper Studio, you can find them on, Instagram at Pearl Paper Studio, and also PearlPaperStudio. com. And then my wife, my beautiful darling wife, you can find her on Instagram at HeyKaris, H E Y K A R I S. And, that's it. Hey, Caris. com. we also, my wife and I, we also host a podcast with our good friends, J. R. Foto,Jen and Ro over there. And I think we're wrapping up our second season. And, we have a lot of fun there. We just, love it. Talk shop and, and drink. That's all we do, right? ? you can find us on Spotify at focused, fo. It's the focus. They [00:41:00] have podcast, right? So, spot. You can find us on Spotify, apple, wherever you download your podcast. there is a website, but, I won't share that. There's nothing going on there. It needs to be updated, but, but we do, we are on YouTube, so you can find us there. just the focus they have, podcast. also there is the summit, that. I'm putting on the back burner just for the moment while I kind of just, collect all the pieces from the, from the first one that I, I just planned. but I hope to have something in place. we'll have, we'll be having a different conversation, this time next year. I just gotta, you know, I learned a lot of lessons and I know how to make it better for the next one, but that is the focus day of Summit. and, but, we'll, we'll talk more about it, hopefully in a future episode or something like that. Okay. What else? Oh, and then I have my coaching group. So, go getting creative. It's a Facebook group. It's free. And I talk shop every Monday night at seven o'clock. So, if, if y'all are listening there, just come and enjoy my group. I I I'm told I'm a lot of fun. Yeah, but I answer sales and [00:42:00] marketing questions and things like that. And, I just want to help folks, with their, with their business. So that way. they can focus on what they do best, which is their, their photography or whatever it is that they Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I'm going to link to all of that in the show notes, so definitely click on the show notes, check it out, and we'll see you in the next episode. Ben Lau:   Adios. ​