How We Built Separate Yet Thriving Photography Businesses Under One Roof with Jeff + Lori Poole

69 === ​[00:00:00] [00:00:02] Lori Poole: Hi, I am Lori Poole. This is my husband Jeff. We are photographers based in Wilmington, North Carolina, specializing in boudoir and headshot and weddings, and we love to help photographers run better businesses. You’re listening to the Workflows Podcast. [00:00:18] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: We’re, we’re just, we’re just, nice people hanging and, and having fun. [00:00:22] Jeff Poole: That’s right. [00:00:24] Lori Poole: regular people to pull off whatever Jeff said years ago. I’m just trying [00:00:27] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: to redo it. [00:00:28] Jeff Poole: We’re just normal people that like to have fun. That’s what it [00:00:32] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah.Jeff, Lori, it’s always nice to, to, to see your, your faces and chat with you. I love when we get to talk about things like family and like, um, just fun stuff that isn’t always talking shop, but at the same time you both run, multiple. Businesses that, are very different from each other in many aspects, genres of photography wise.[00:01:00] but what I, what I oh, I find so fascinating is, Lori, you are a boudoir photographer, Jeff. You’re do you’re weddings, you are your headshots, but you’re also helping on the boudoir side with different aspects. And I want to, um. In this, in this discussion, I wanna really dig into the boudoir side of your businesses. And to start things off, can you share your, your roles in that part of the business, and how that, how that looks for everybody who might be trying to get into a business with their partner.that you need to have these clear lanes. [00:01:43] Jeff Poole: Mm-hmm. [00:01:43] Lori Poole: Yeah, it’s, um, I think it’s always a work in progress. as recently as this morning, you’re doing this. No, I’m doing this. no, I, it is, like you said, it is really important for each person to have their own lane. Um, when we first started the studio together. [00:02:00] Both of us did all of the things. We both shot weddings, we both shot families, we both edited, I, we both did everything basically. And it was kind of, first of all, too many cooks in the kitchen. I don’t think it really gave either of us a real clear sense of agency. And when you’re self-employed, you know, a lot of times that’s part of what you’re looking for is like something that you can call your own that you can move forward with. And, um. And a lot of times if you’re constantly having to clear things with your partner, it can actually slow things down. And that became a, a source of tension for us. Um, as we moved forward. We, I think we first started divvying things up just based on each other’s strengths. Like I’m more type a, more organized, more. Systems oriented. Jeff is more go with the flow and so certain things would fall into one or the other of our columns. Um, but when I started getting into boudoir and it really took off, we actually sit, sat down and, and had a meeting essentially [00:03:00] and made the decision to essentially. Break boudoir off almost as though were its own business. so now with boudoir, I am in charge of, setting my own prices, sourcing my products. I do my consultations, I have my own workflows. You know, I basically run it like it’s my own business. And Jeff does the same with, uh, the parts of the business that he runs, which is primarily weddings and headshots, but it’s also kind of a little bit of other stuff that comes in. Um, and we have a standing agreement that, we don’t necessarily have to run things by each other unless we want to. Sometimes you just want a sounding board and, you know, say, Hey, I need your advice on this. But we also, kind of have veto power over the other person. If, if we really feel that someone’s doing something, we call it driving the car off the cliff. Like if, if you’re doing something that is way out in left field that I really feel is gonna tank the business or vice versa, um, you know, then, then we have to. Come to agreement on that. [00:04:00] So even though we are running separate parts of the business, our branding is similar. Our pricing is similar, but not the same. So it’s not like one is super boutique and then one is super budget, for example, because that would create a mismatch in the business. So we kind of broke things off that way. Um, but there are still, you know, some things that I helped Jeff with on his side of things, and there’s still things that he helps me out with. So behind the scenes, it’s a little bit more collaborative. But on its face, I run boudoir and he runs everything else. [00:04:31] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, and we kind of had that agreement of like, listen, you know, if you’ve got a question about how you should do something. You can ask me and I will give you my opinion. You are free to either take that advice or throw it in the garbage. But my, my rule is that if you don’t take my advice. I won’t get mad at you because that’s your business, but you have to give me the same courtesy as long as again, we’re not driving the car off the bus and [00:05:00] going completely budget. [00:05:01] Jeff Poole: and we’re staying in that boutique mindset. Being that there is some overlap in our clients. A lot of times, you know, my wedding clients will book Lori for boudoir and vice versa, and a lot of times her, Boudoir clients will come in for children or headshot or family portraits. So there needs to be enough alignment between those, those kind of, uh, genres or internal brands. But they don’t have to be exact. They just have to be close enough that it doesn’t cause a divide with clients of like, wait a minute, I worked with Lori and she charged this for that exact same item. So a lot of our products are the same, even though the, the, the way we sell them and the systems that we use might be different. [00:05:40] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Right, right. on the topic of, potentially doing a headshot session, and a boudoir session, which are very different photography wise. Right. Um, I. But potentially the same equipment is used and Right. you guys have built this beautiful studio [00:06:00] that no matter what, where you look, it could be a different set, but it’s one room. Right. The, the lights you, you were showing me the behind the scenes where you’ve made windows that aren’t windows like the beautiful, very well designed,Is that space being used for the headshots as well as the boudoir, or is It [00:06:22] Jeff Poole: to be. It used to be. And it used to be that many years ago, we, our building, you know, we’ve got about 3,500 square feet, so it’s a large building. We’ve got multiple offices in here and in our early years of being, of being in this space, we actually rented those spaces to other photographers. So we had another wedding photographer that rented. Office from us. We had another headshot photographer that rented an office from us, and we all shared that one room. We had one centralized calendar that we would just look at and make sure that it wasn’t already booked. And then as Lori and I got busier, we, we were like, okay, we need more space. We need this to be our own, because we were having to turn down a [00:07:00] boudoir shoot that could potentially be four or five, $6,000 because one of our members had a $250 headshot in that room. So that caused a little bit of, internal, uh, battle between us and them. And not that it was bad, but we eventually were like, look at the end of your, you know, this time period, we’re not renewing leases and we are gonna convert this space for ourself. And so that gave Lori an i the ability to determine who booked what in that room. And it was just us. And then we, we took those other offices and we broke it out because Lori and I were sharing an office and we were sharing a sales room, and, uh, the other offices were rented out to other photographers. And there was another sales room in the back that they all shared. And so what we did is now when we remodeled everything, I have my office, obviously Lori has her office, so that way if I wanna listen to, you know, rap music, I can listen to rap music, but I’m editing. Or if I’m, you know, doing a coaching call with someone, I’m not bothering her because I’m on the computer sitting three feet away from her and she has her own office. So [00:08:00] there’s that, that separation. And then we have our own sales rooms. We have our own rooms to meet with people as well. So Lori has one room dedicated just for her. I have one room dedicated for me. And then more recently, we remodeled the studio to have a completely separate camera room or shooting space for me because I. In Lori’s room, like you mentioned, we have all these sets. We have beds, we have these giant bookcases and walls of windows, and we’re getting ready to build a full gourmet kitchen. It’s not gonna be real. It’s gonna be a set. We have a shower, we have a t, we have all kind of things in that room that are boudoir related. And when I would walk a headshot client back there, they would be, oh, there’s a bed in the room. And one day I got a call from the marketing director for one of my new hire contracts that said one of our, providers said that there was a bed in the room. And I was like, yeah, my wife does boudoir and blah, blah, blah. And she’s like, okay, I’ll let them know. And then a few weeks later, another provider complained, Hey, there’s a shower set in the room. And the marketing director asked, could we move that stuff out during head [00:09:00] shots? And obviously you can’t. And so a few weeks later we got the call of like, Hey, listen, I’m sorry to have to do this, but we’re gonna have to go in a different direction. And that is, you know, a very large contract. I shoot, you know, probably 10 or 15 headshots for them a month and do on location stuff throughout the year. So I’m like. Give me 30 days. And so we completely demoed the front half of the studio. Now I have my own dedicated room for family, children’s head shots, branding. and then she has her room just for boudoir. So now it’s completely separated. I don’t know if you’ve seen that in any, any recent tours, but, it’s completely separated so that. I can be in my office working, she can be shooting or selling a boudoir session, working in her office, and then vice versa. And our clients never bump into each other. It’s just a really smooth flow. No one has to walk through any other spaces to get to different places of our studio. and it really allows us the ability, if we wanted to, we could have two separate shoots and sales appointments going on at the exact same time. [00:09:55] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, [00:09:55] Jeff Poole: yeah, it was a lot of work, but you know, you both, you, you, you, [00:10:00] um, you quite often teach. At virtually, but also in person at, at events, about business workflows and, and systems and whatnot. And I feel like there can be a dedicated class just on studio management and [00:10:17] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: and systems around having, whether it’s one, one business or multiple business out of one location. ’cause you’ve, you’ve definitely created something that is, uh, not necessarily hard to replicate, but. You because you’ve got, you’ve, you definitely need the, the mindset to do it. You definitely need the skillset to build what you’ve built the, the ’cause you’re, you’re actually building it. Like you’re sure you might be outsourcing some of it, but, but you’re building these sets, [00:10:46] Jeff Poole: Oh Yeah. [00:10:46] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: not like it’s, yeah. It’s not like you’re having a contractor do everything. Right. So you’ve literally a contractor has not done any of that. That’s my hobby. I love doing woodwork. So if you see my garage at home, it looks like it could be a Ryobi [00:11:00] showroom. you know, uh, I have almost every tool [00:11:02] Lori Poole: hire a contract for that to [00:11:04] Jeff Poole: Well, yeah, the remodel we [00:11:05] Lori Poole: and electric and that kind of thing. [00:11:07] Jeff Poole: Yeah, they were tearing down walls, ripping up floors. They were, they were doing all the electrical work. The, the ceiling work all, yeah. They were moving air conditioner vents and things, and so yeah, we hired a, we hired for that, but the sets themselves, we, we build those ourselves. [00:11:21] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Cool.let’s, let’s dive into to workflows. and. Talk about one thing that is going well in your workflow. Now, obviously we just talked about the set, um, which is not one of the things that, that you shared with me for this conversation, but I, but I just knew that it was worth bringing that up. So let’s talk about another thing that, that is going well, in your workflow overall, from either behind the camera to, to delivery, wherever it might be, for your business. [00:11:49] Jeff Poole: I think one thing that, that we are really strong at is [00:11:54] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Mm. [00:11:55] Jeff Poole: really lead generation and. Understanding, you know, that [00:12:00] people may not necessarily book you just because they inquire or just because you get that lead information through a download or something like that. And that you have to have a really strong, you know, follow up and a really strong nurture sequence. And so we put those, those systems in place, during COVID, and that was kind of my geek out during COVID, was really understanding funnel marketing, understanding nurture sequences, understanding automations, and so. The entire front end marketing portion of our studio is pretty much automated from lead generation all the way through, scheduling that consult and booking. And then once they do book, then you know, the client onboarding and how to prepare them, all of that is automated as well. So making sure they’re prepared for the sale. You know, as far as workflow in the studio, I’ll let Lori talk more about, you know, what happens once a boudoir client is booked, because I’m not here generally on those days. So, you know, from what happens from when that, when that booking comes in through the shoot. [00:12:57] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: for the lead gen part of, of the [00:13:00] business, how, how does it look as far as, is it primarily email? Is it a combination of email and text or, or WhatsApp? and is it mostly automated or is there some man in the middle component to it as well? [00:13:14] Lori Poole: Yeah. Um, automation is kind of my life right now. For those who don’t know, we have a three and a half year old. Um, so, you know, the past few years have been a period of big adjustment. You know, we’re running not only a full-time business, but we also have this little tiny person that is not yet self-sufficient to take care of him himself. Um, so for, you know, especially the first couple of years we were really balancing working from home so that we could take care of him. And then, you know, this year he started. Preschool. Um, but there’s still a lot, like our time is very fragmented now compared to what it was even just a few years ago. So we, you know, like Jeff said, um, during COVID we really started digging in and learning about, [00:14:00] um, systems and automations and marketing. And, um, that was fortuitous timing. ’cause it wasn’t long after that that we had our little one. So we really rely on automations to save us our time. our studio is still, you know, 15 years later. It is just the two of us. We don’t have employees, we don’t have other people that are working for us, so it is just the two of us running these multiple brands and doing education on top of that. Um, so we rely on. You know, a combination of outsourcing and automation to really help get our time back. So as far as like the inquiry process goes, we have all of that set to be automated. If someone inquires, then you know, it fires off a response email and then follow ups. It encourages them to schedule a consultation. They can do that online. So that part is automated as well. Once they do schedule a consultation, then it stops harassing them to schedule and then, you know, sends them reminders based on their consultation, things like that. So we really rely on that system to help move them through [00:15:00] as far as, you know, the different modalities of how we’re communicating. the majority of it is. Still email, although, you know, we’re continually trying to expand that and look for new ways to communicate with people, because especially, you know, as, as I wanna say, as we get older, as our clients get younger, continually younger than we are.they are less email centric than we are. So, especially, you know, the youngest generation of, for example, couples getting married, um, the game has changed. They don’t want to, you know, wait to meet in person, like nobody meets in person anymore. That stopped after COVID. you know, they, they want information now. They want it right away. They. May not even wanna schedule a consultation. They definitely don’t check their email. So we’re using these automated systems to also send them, SMS texting. We are admittedly old, so I don’t really do anything with WhatsApp. Um, that’s not really like a part of our system that we currently use. Um, but we also [00:16:00] do. Tie all of our social media platforms into our automations as well. So if somebody sends a Facebook message to our Facebook page, for example, we can. Then it does take a little bit of human work, but we basically go to that lead and say, drop them into the lead sequence, and then everything goes from there. So we’re really trying to [00:16:19] Jeff Poole: back to them on those social media platforms as well. [00:16:22] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Mm. [00:16:22] Lori Poole: Yep. So we’re really trying to tie in all of these different platforms. Essentially, however someone reaches out to us, we want to be able to respond to them, but we need to be able to do it in a way that doesn’t require human eyeballs and human touch on every point of interaction. Because again, there’s only two of us and there’s not enough hours in the day to do all of those things. [00:16:42] Jeff Poole: And. I think it’s important, you know, a lot of people, that we talk to are scared of automation because they, they feel like I can’t run a high-end studio if I’m using autoresponders and I’m not there personally interacting with my clients. And, you [00:17:00] know, we felt the same way and, um. But I think it’s important that when you are building out these autoresponders and you are building out these automated systems, is do it in a way where it feels human, for example, you know, I actually, I. I was demoing Lori’s autoresponders to someone maybe about a year and a half ago. And I was like, here’s how it works, you know? And I put my name, phone number, and email address into her contact form and I was like, now it’s gonna take us to a schedule page and give us the opportunity to schedule an appointment with them right away. And then it’s gonna take us to a thank you page where we may or may not have another offer. And I didn’t think anything else of it. And then, you know, like I get the response from Lori. And it’s automated response, but it’s very clearly an HTML email, so it has our logo, it has an image. It’s really pretty. Lori designed it. Very nice. But I didn’t feel like Lori responded to me. I feel, I felt like it was a canned, generic, written email that was just being [00:18:00] sent out from like MailChimp or something like that. And then her follow-ups, the three or four follow-ups behind it were the same way they were HTML. It was very much informational or very well written. But I personally as, as reading her emails. I didn’t feel like Lori responded to me, and so I went to Lori and said, we need to change this. It doesn’t feel like you are responding to me. It feels like I just opted in for a newsletter and I’m getting these emails. And so what we did is we broke out our automations into two different branches, one that are transactional, and then one that is long-term nurture. And the way it works is when someone inquires, no matter which funnel they’re coming from, whether it’s birthday or anniversary, or a lead magnet download or website contact form or any of our promotional campaigns, they get segmented into an, into, a workflow that breaks it down per. Category to say, oh, you came in from a bridal funnel. That first email that goes out is plain text. There’s no images, there’s no logos. It literally looks like Lori wrote it in [00:19:00] Gmail and just responded back and it’s like, Hey Scott, thank you so much for reaching out. I’d love the opportunity to work with you. Here’s some basic information. If you’d like to schedule an appointment with me to chat more, you can click here. And the click here is literally a blue underline hyperlink, just like in Gmail. And um. And those, there’s three or four of those emails that go out just saying, Hey, you reached out yesterday. I just wanna make sure you got my email. But it’s very much a personal response and it feels personal because there’s no other HTML or images or graphics in there. And after the second email, we tell them. Hey, I’ve sent you some, I’ve sent you, um, some information, but, or no, what, what does it say exactly? It says, Hey, I reached out to you y uh, yesterday and give you more information. but you know, the next step is to get on a call with us. So what I’m gonna do is I’m going to send you a little bit more information about what it’s like working with us, and then if you wanna jump on a call, let us know. And that’s us moving them into that. Like no trust, nurture sequence. And so those HTML emails start [00:20:00] going out that are like from our company, not from Lori. And then a few days later, another transactional plain text email goes out. And so we separate out Lori’s follow up from the nurture sequence and now it feels more human when you’re actually getting those. And we saw, we saw our conversion rates going up after we did [00:20:19] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Oh yeah. Yeah. I’m glad you mentioned that and I think that’s a really important takeaway for everybody to, to, to hear.is that just because whatever CRM whatever automation system you’re using has these beautiful templates or, or design capability doesn’t mean you have to use them,because it might do better if you don’t use them? from, from my, from my, um, side of things. My email list that I have, I have a very simple design. It looks like plain text. It does have my logo at the top, but that’s it. That’s sometimes I drop an image in whatever it might be. But, for [00:21:00] Imagen, right? We’ve got tons of beautiful design work. We’ve got a whole design team that designs are emails. But when it comes to community emails that come from me to the roughly 20,000 people in Imagen community. They come as plain text [00:21:15] Jeff Poole: Yeah. [00:21:16] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: and it’s proven just like you, that when people see it’s me, not just a company and it looks personal. and a lot of times it is personal, but I can, I can only email so many people at once, right? So, it’s, it’s, um, even like, so, so we’re recording this, early July, mid-July. I am hosting an in-person meetup here in New Jersey. And for me, I wanted to email everybody in New Jersey and New York and Pennsylvania that has, um, that’s in the Imagen community or has been using. Imagen it may not be in the community yet. and I could have easily done it as a beautiful design with an invite and everything with like a fun ticket or whatever. No plain text. And it [00:22:00] did its job real fast. [00:22:01] Jeff Poole: Absolutely. Yeah, you, your automations have to look personal. They, and you know, I think it’s different when you’re thinking about like, okay, we’re a company, but a lot of times our clients don’t necessarily book us because of that. They book us because of us and they book Lori because of Lori. And so, you know, if Lori’s face is out there in the boudoir brand and you know, people are seeing her images, they’re seeing her go live, they’re seeing. Emails from her and now, you know, they get an email from our company, they realize that Lori is still very much a part of it and they are, they’re getting responses from Lori different and separate than emails from the company to talk about who we are and what we do as a company. But Lori is still reaching out personally and saying, Hey, I want to chat with you. Click here and let’s schedule, you know, and, um. We’ve got it now to where if a lead comes in for boudoir, we get way more leads for boudoir than we do for headshots and weddings. And, uh, so Lori does no cold. We, we call it cold calling. So if a lead [00:23:00] comes in and they don’t schedule using the, the form after Lori has reached out, like if they respond back. To an email, you know, we’ll give them a call, but we pretty much don’t do any calling for on the boudoir side of things. So if the lead comes in and they get routed to the, to the scheduler and they get the, the four or five emails from Lori personally, those transactional emails, and they don’t schedule, I. We don’t call them, we just are like, if you’re not gonna schedule, that’s a first red flag that you’re probably not the client for us. If you wanna work with this, you’ll schedule, you’ll at least respond to an email where Lori’s like, Hey, write back and tell me if there’s a time that works for you or whatever. And if they don’t, [00:23:37] Lori Poole: found that nobody answers their phone. If we do cold call and it’s from a number they don’t recognize they’re not going to answer. We’re just, that’s where we are now. [00:23:45] Jeff Poole: Now I will call the shift to, um, that that’s where the shift to text messaging in that automation, you [00:23:51] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: know, could be more effective than the emails and the calling. ’cause they’re more [00:23:56] Jeff Poole: we do have automations built into that as well. So they are [00:24:00] obviously plain text. We don’t put images in those text messages or anything. It’s just like, Hey, this is Lori. I sent you an email with more information. Email providers are wonky. If you don’t see it, check your spam and feel free to just, you know, text back here and, and let’s open up conversation. And it’s still very much personal, you know? [00:24:16] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. Um, [00:24:17] Lori Poole: back to your question too about like, you know, when do human interactions occur? The nice thing about having all of these automations set up is. Really the rule of thumb, anything that you’re doing over and over again, automate that. So most people are asking the same questions when they inquire, you know, how much when, that kind of thing. So we can automate sending that information. Now, if they ask additional information, of course we can follow up with them, but we wanna get to a point where. It’s not, it’s not set it and forget it ’cause you don’t wanna abandon it, but it’s set it and now sit back and monitor. So, you know, we keep an eye on, every time a lead comes in, I go, we go and, you know, check the lead. We see if they have any [00:25:00] questions, see if they wrote anything unique in their contact form. Um, but a lot of times people don’t. And so at that point we let the automations roll and then if they reply to an email, reply to a text, something like that, we get alerted about that immediately. Yay automations again, so that we can, you know, jump in and intervene and then start communicating with them at that point, so that way we’re really only needing to be hands on when the situation calls for it, but not for the routine stuff that happens with every inquiry. [00:25:29] Jeff Poole: Mm-hmm. [00:25:30] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah.before we shift into like the studio part of it, of this workflow, you, so you mentioned that boudoir gets the most leads, among the, the different genres that you do. are most of your leads local or do people actually travel to you specifically to do the boudoir? [00:25:48] Lori Poole: Both, I would say the, the good majority are local within maybe a 90 minute radius. Um, but we do, we’re in Wilmington, North Carolina, which is like [00:26:00] on the very southeast corner. If. North Carolina head corners. Um, but we’re right up against the coast and pretty much as far south as you can go, but we do tend to pull a lot of people from Raleigh, which is about two and a half hours north of us. Also Charlotte, which is about three to three and a half hours inland from us. Um, so we pull a lot of people from there as well. And then, you know, anytime that you’re a photographer, like you tap your personal network as well. So I’ve invited, you know, my college friends to be a part of my Facebook group and my high school friends and things like that. So, you know, through that more personal network, we’ve had people come from the West coast, from New York. I think especially with something like boudoir. It makes more sense in people’s minds to travel for it because they wanna go to somebody that they trust. they don’t want to, you know, necessarily strip their clothes off for the closest photographer. They’d rather travel and, you know, have it be someone that they have a personal connection with. So, yeah. [00:26:58] Jeff Poole: Yep. Which [00:27:00] goes back to a lot of Lori’s social engagement and those emails, those like no and trust. So Lori, through those automations, builds the like, no and trust. She points them to pages on our website where she photographed her own boudoir through self portraits and she talks about all the things that her, that she herself. Would fear or have objections with, with boudoir. So that builds trust and it’s all done through those automated emails. And so even though someone might be three hours away as they’re getting those emails, they’re, they’re learning to trust and like Lori, and that’s who they’re traveling for. [00:27:32] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: . Do you find yourself playing the role of travel agent as well? In a bit, in, in a way where you’re either helping them find a hotel that’s close by or like recommending hotels for the client that do travel? Like, like let’s say they come from California. it’s not like a quick, like Raleigh, I can come to your studio and then drive home the same day.even Charlotte. A little bit longer, but if I’m coming from California, if I’m coming from Massachusetts, [00:28:00] there’s no way I’m going home the same day. S o do you, do you find yourself playing travel agent as well? In a way, [00:28:06] Lori Poole: S a little bit, not too much. If someone is not familiar with the area and they’re like, Hey, I wanna stay at the beach, where should I stay? our part of the coastline, there’s a lot of barrier islands, and the actual nearest beach to us is not public. It’s like a private reserve on an island that you can’t get to. So really, if you wanna stay at one of the beaches, you either have to go a little bit further north or a little bit further south. And, you know, so I kind of point them in the right direction. Like I don’t pick a hotel for them, but I’ll tell them like, Hey, you either wanna go to Carolina Beach, Wrightsville Beach, or if you want a little bit more nightlife, you might wanna stay in downtown. You know, so I give them some pointers, but beyond that, like I’m not, you know, booking their airfare or anything like that. [00:28:46] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Oh, of course, of course. Yeah. I, I’m just wondering, like if it’s a good amount that’s traveling to you, is it worth for the marketing aspect to have a, at least a blog article or something you can reference [00:29:00] for recommended hotels? Um, that you could repurpose over and over again in your automations or, or, just when it comes up. Right. having something could be really interesting, [00:29:10] Lori Poole: Yeah, we actually up until, um, we just updated our website like a few months ago, but on the previous version of our website, there was a page dedicated to that and it had like a map to show where we were at and where the beaches were and where downtown was. And then, you know, just, kind of like when you go to like a conference webpage and it’s like, if you’re coming from East, you’re gonna take this highway, but if you’re coming from here, you know, so we had like some basic stuff on there. [00:29:33] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. [00:29:35] Lori Poole: But it would be an interesting add-on for like a, a premium client of like, I’m gonna handle everything for you. I’m gonna book your airfare and book your hotel. Like that could be, that could be an interesting angle to really go for a premium client. [00:29:47] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah, yeah. Yeah. booking my airfare. Um, a, a concierge, boudoir [00:29:56] Lori Poole: Yeah. [00:29:56] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: package could be interesting. [00:29:58] Jeff Poole: actually tried that a few [00:30:00] years ago with when we bought a boat during COVID, because you know, all the beaches were closed. And so we were like, okay, we’ll get a boat. And that private island, it’s like right across like we’re less than a mile. The way the crow flies that private island, everybody just takes their boat over there and hangs out on a beach. And so during COVID, we bought a boat and we’re like, man, these beaches are empty. We could do boudoir sessions on the beach and charge a premium for it. And then I think we did it one time or maybe, maybe not. Maybe we did a dry run with it. And it was like, man, loading the boat, unloading the boat, cleaning it. It was like, no, there’s not enough money in the world for us to be able to do that. So we, we scrapped that idea pretty quick. [00:30:35] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah. Yeah. That’s a, it’s a, that’s a lot. It’s a lot to have to. Do that, maintain that and whatnot. so talk to me a little bit about what it looks like when the client comes in for the actual session. Right. You know, they, they booked, they’re, it’s the day of. How does that look? They walk in. Jeff’s not around. He’s outta sight. how’s that? How’s that look? What, what, what goes on? [00:30:58] Lori Poole: Yeah. so [00:31:00] one part of this, the, The workflow, if you will, that we skipped is we talked a lot about lead follow up once they book. I also have a series of automated emails that tells them everything they need to know to be prepared for their session. this helps me deal with a lot of, you know, fas frequently. Frequently access problem, I don’t know, problems that are common that pop up like chipped to nail polish or coming in with, you know, their roots not touched up or whatever. So I give them a lot of preparation, on how to be prepared for the day of. And so that is all automated as well. And of course, if they respond with more questions, I’m always happy to help. So. Hopefully on the day of the session, they’ve done everything on their end that they need to do to prepare themselves. Like they’ve gotten, you know, their, their, hair is, you know, Reed or re highlighted and they went and got their Manny Petties and you know, they didn’t get a spray tan ’cause I told ’em not to. And you know, that kind of stuff. They’ve done their preparation. So on the day of, I tell them their job is [00:32:00] clean, dry hair, nothing on their face other than moisturizer. And we take it from there. So I actually hire a hair and makeup artist for each photo shoot, and that hair and makeup artist will set up at a countertop that we have.like kind of,adjacent to the camera room, there’s like a little alcove off to the side that’s like the hair and makeup area and the dressing room. And so the hair and makeup artist will set up there and then they’ll talk to the client about, you know, what their hair and makeup preferences are, and then they get to work. So during that time we’ve got music playing. They’re sipping on coffee or champagne or water, and they’re usually in hair makeup for. About an hour and a half, give or take. Um, some of my hair and makeup artists are a little more chatty, but I don’t mind that because it really helps set the client at ease. Um, that’s a big part of why I have the hair and makeup done here on site, as opposed to just, you know, booking them at a salon or. Something like that is I want them to have that chance to chat with me. We talk about [00:33:00] outfits, you know, and they’re, they’re getting comfortable within the space that we’re actually going to be shooting. once hair and makeup is done, the hair and makeup artist will leave, and then it’s just me and that client in the camera room. Jeff May or may not be on site, but if he is, he’s in his office, like nowhere near where we’re at. And then at that point we will get them into their first outfit and we start their photo shoot. Now, usually, like during hair and makeup. I’m helping them prioritize, you know, which outfits, ’cause they always bring extras. So like, which outfits are we actually shooting with today? And then, ooh, do we think the red outfit on the blue chair? Or you know, do we think that that should go on the bed and maybe we do the black outfit on the blue chair, or what have you. So we’re kind of building up excitement, during that time. And then, um, once they’re into their first outfit. And then they walk out. That’s usually when their nerves kind of spike and they have that like, you know, kind of feeling, right? Like this is really happening. Um, so you know, their adrenaline’s usually going at that point. So I kind of [00:34:00] take a moment to check in with them for, for me, and. For my why. As far as like why I shoot boudoir, it’s always very personal to each client. I want that client to feel beautiful and feel amazing. and in order to do that, I have to tap into, you know, what are their concerns, what are they anxious about? What do they love about themselves? What do they want to learn to love about themselves? What’s the vibe today? So for example, um, I tend to get a lot of clients that are in the nursing industry. And in particular, ED nurses and ED nurses, that is a fast paced lifestyle. You’re going all day, every day, making life or death decisions on the snap. You know, you don’t have time to stop and think like you are in charge at all times. And so for those clients are like. I don’t wanna think today. I want somebody else to make the decisions. I want photos that remind me of my softness because I haven’t had that in a while. You [00:35:00] know? And on the other hand, I have clients who they’re very much in to in touch with their softness, but what they want to reach is their confidence. They wanna feel more bold, you know? So we always have probably a good 15 minute conversation just about that. Like, how do they wanna be portrayed? How do they wanna see themselves? And then that, that helps. Me kind of know how to photograph them. In all honesty, the photos probably aren’t that much different. Um, I might lean one way or the other, but I’m not doing like a completely different workflow or a completely different setup. But I am reinforcing those. Themes throughout the shoot. So, you know, if I have a client that really wants to feel soft and we get an image that does that, I’ll be like, oh my gosh, look at this image. Like, look how soft and how pretty. And I’m reinforcing, you know, the things that they wanted to see. So for me. That feedback loop is a really important part of like my, my flow and how I [00:36:00] shoot and how I get them excited about the images. Um, we tend to shoot about 30 to 45 minutes per outfit, and we start everybody with two outfits. They can upgrade beyond that if they want to. Um, like my client on Monday did for, for example. Um, so the more outfits we do, the longer we shoot, the more images they have. But at that point, once the photo shoot is done. I send them out to go grab some lunch. ’cause they’re usually hungry. It’s usually like right about now, like early afternoon. and then I will work on their images. So, you know, at that point, I, I kind of have like a hodgepodge of different things that has really helped. Me be able to, perfect that same day turnaround. ’cause they’re just going out for lunch and then they’re coming back. I, I tell them two hours max, they’ll be back in the studio. So the first thing I do is I go through and I do a rough call. I do that in Lightroom and I do what Jeff and I have, have termed Culling in. So I choose the keepers rather than go through and pull up [00:37:00] five of them and say, no, no, no, no. Like I don’t do process of elimination. That takes too long. So I might pull up five that are similar and say, that’s the good one, let’s move on. Once I’ve done my initial cull, then I send them over into Imagen. And for me that has been a huge time saver because going through and doing, you know, by hand doing a, a white balance exposure, you know, all of that, that took a lot of time. And so this has really helped speed up my process a lot. I stick ’em into, Imagen I have my own custom profile that I’ve built based off of, you know, how I edit. So Imagen knows my style, it knows that I tend to, um. That I shoot for the highlights and I let the shadows go dark, you know? Um, so it knows, and I don’t know how it, it’s magic because I can shoot, with the same exposure. I can have my back to the light, which means the subject is gonna be very like, well evenly lit, kind of like I am [00:38:00] right here. It’s gonna, the subject is gonna have a lot of light on them and it knows how to expose for that. And then I can circle around to the opposite side and shoot into the shadow side. And it still gets it. And you know, for a long time I was a naysayer. I was like, there’s no way that a computer is gonna understand the difference between front lit, backlit side lit and get the exposures even across all of them. And it just does. Um, so somehow once I fed all of my images into it, it’s like. I got you. I see what you’re doing, let’s do it. And then it spits ’em right back out, and they’re, they’re great every time. Um, so, you know, at that point I’m able to turn those images around super fast and then bring the client back in so that they can see their images the same day. Okay? [00:38:43] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: There. correct me if I’m wrong, I know we, you and I, we’ve talked about this in the past, but I don’t remember off the top of my head. You’re, you’re selling an album same day as well, right? So you’re doing like full, [00:38:54] Lori Poole: Yeah. I’m doing full Fundy, you’re doing a full [00:38:56] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Fundy album mockup and [00:38:59] Lori Poole: [00:39:00] I don’t mock up the album while they’re here. we refer to it as leaving the wizard behind the curtain because some of these tools, you know, like Fundy and like Imagen are so amazing. I don’t want them to know how easy my job is getting. Um, you know, like where a lot of times clients that are not savvy about photography, they think like, oh, you have a nice camera, like. No, I had to know how to light you. I had to know how to pose you. I had to know how to expose. It really doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the camera, and it’s the same, you know, with editing and album design. Um, those are ways that I can get back my time because the talent is, you know, up here in my brain of as far as how I’m shooting and how I’m communicating with them and building up that rapport. They don’t need to know that, you know, building an album is super fast or that, um, you know, white Balance is now something that AI can handle. They don’t need to know that part. So we leave a little bit of the mystery. We don’t let them see all the way behind the curtain. Um, but what I’m doing [00:40:00] during IPS is we’re just going through and picking out images and saying, okay, these 40, 50, whatever images, those are for the album. That one’s for the wall portrait. That one’s for that. Okay. Now let me take it from here. And they’re, they’re done. [00:40:12] Jeff Poole: And for the most part, Lori has enough studio samples of albums. I mean, there’s probably 20 or 30 different albums in there. like we went to a wedding show this past weekend and set up a booth just for, just for boudoir. And we had to [00:40:24] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: a. wedding show. [00:40:25] Jeff Poole: Other, uh, an, a third six foot table just to have enough, [00:40:29] Lori Poole: originally had one and then we’re like, can we get another one? And then I still had more albums and I’m like, you got another table? So they let me out. Three tables full of albums, So we got plenty. [00:40:39] Jeff Poole: being able to look through all of her samples, they get an idea for her design aesthetic, and then she gives them certain, I guess, uh, gives on that of like, which image do you want for the first one on the opening spread? What do you want on the cover? What do you want on the inside of the opening? Spread as a welcome message of some sort. And you know, and then from there she’ll say, do you want them [00:41:00] all in color? Do you want artist choice on color versus black and white? And then from there, the album gets designed. Based on the exact same designs aesthetic that we have on all the other samples that are in the room. And we’ve never had anybody have a problem with it. So we don’t, we don’t even proof it to them. We just design it, order it done. [00:41:17] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Nice. [00:41:18] Lori Poole: I have found too, as, as. My sales average goes higher, and I’m continually working into a higher and higher market that the people that I’m serving, they understand the value of expertise. Um, whereas like when Jeff and I were first working with lower end clients, they wanted to micromanage everything because they hired a, a, a doer. They hired a a button pusher, right? Whereas like my clients are hiring me for my expertise. So the majority of my clients do not make a Pinterest board before they come in. They’re like, I don’t need to know that. You need to know that. You need to know what poses you’re doing. That’s not my job. Um, and it’s the same with album design. Like they don’t wanna have hands on because they’re like, you’re the expert. I trust you. That’s what I’m paying you [00:42:00] for. You know, they actually enjoy the luxury of having somebody else do it for them. [00:42:04] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: How, on that topic, when they come into the, into the studio space and they see the multiple. Sets that you have, how common is it for one of them to be like, I love that set, and then like, okay, let’s shoot there. Or versus just like, did they just go with the flow with whatever you want? [00:42:22] Lori Poole: No, I always ask them because I think that’s gonna be more of like an aesthetic choice, you know? Um, like one of my sets is very boho, so it’s wicker and tann and lots of plants. And I find clients they either gravitate towards that because that’s them. They’re like, oh my gosh, I need that. Whereas, but the majority of my clients are like, Hmm, that’s not really me. Right? So I do need to, you know, kind of tailor it to what their tastes are. But I’m sure part of that was the decision making process and whether or not to hire me. Right? Like, if they didn’t like any of my sets and they thought all my images were hideous, they probably wouldn’t have booked me. So, um, but yeah, I kind of talked to them about like, what are your [00:43:00] favorites? And sometimes it’s a matter of like, Ooh, but if we put this outfit over there, okay, we really like that combo, you know, but it’s, it’s [00:43:07] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Oh yeah, yeah. Like literally placing the outfit in the set and just see, you know, stepping back and [00:43:12] Lori Poole: Yep. [00:43:12] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: That makes sense. Totally makes sense. I’d love to wrap up this conversation talking about, an area of your workflow that you’re struggling with and working on improving, or maybe you’ve. You know, already have put wheels in motion to improve. can you, uh, talk about one area where that’s happening? [00:43:31] Jeff Poole: I think for, for us, one thing that we, we struggle with a lot is outsourcing or actually. You know, we have a really good social media plan, and it’s a lot of it is automated. When Lori or I will do a blog post, we will automate and schedule up some of those posts and they’ll fall into a req where now it will just randomly drop this blog post topic in, you know, randomly throughout the year and just req those posts. But for the everyday marketing side of social media and [00:44:00] not just posting side of social media. You know, having someone to design the graphics, to schedule the stories, to record the stories, to add more video into our social media presence, to put the stories and reels together, um, that’s one area that we’re trying to get better at, and neither one of us really enjoy being on camera. so it’s, um, we know we need [00:44:22] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Sorry. [00:44:22] Jeff Poole: know we need to do more, more, uh, more social media reels and stories and kind of behind the scenes and things like that. So our face is more part of the brand, uh, to build that like no trust. But we both struggle with it a little bit of knowing, one on how to do it, how to put it together, when to do it, what to put out there. And so I think if, if there were one area I’d say that we, we struggle at or we would want to improve would be. Either hiring someone to do that, to edit all that content, the video content, or schedule out, you know, stories or reels or things like that around marketing. Lori, what are your thoughts? [00:44:55] Lori Poole: Yeah. you know, when Scott first posed the question, I was like. I don’t, I don’t [00:45:00] know the answer to this one ’cause I’m, I’m still thinking in terms of like automations and software, but Yeah. Um, a hundred percent. I think social media is still a huge time suck for us and not something that we feel like we’ve developed a flow that works. It feels like we’re, we’re on a hamster wheel a little bit with that of like just constantly trying to come up with new content. So we’ve actually been trying to learn different ways to engage people on social media that doesn’t require so much constantly new stuff. [00:45:29] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah, I, I do think like you’re in a very good spot, where you’ve got the clients coming Right. Literally coming to you. Right.so it, it sounds like I. Most of your leads are not coming from social already. It would just be a nice to have to have that, be that more that, um, improvement on social media, but, which I think it’s a good problem to have of course. Right. I do wonder, and I think, I feel like this is an ongoing ’cause at Imagen this topic comes up quite often [00:46:00] is with boudoir clients in particular, privacy is extremely important. Right. so. How would you envision, I mean, finding somebody to do the social media content, even if it was a, a college student who wanted an internship to learn the ropes and things like that, and to be able to film for whatever it might be, that’s one thing, but how would you envision the comfort and privacy for your clients to create these reels or stories or the content from this behind the scenes of your boudoir sessions? How would that. How would you envision that working? Where, where they feel comfortable with it? [00:46:39] Lori Poole: That’s a great workflow question, Scott, and um, surprisingly that’s one that we had an answer for before it was really even a problem. You know, me being like the organizational systems guru, we’ve always used our Lightroom catalog to organize things in different ways. So back when we were really weddings heavy, [00:47:00] we were tagging things based on, you know, which vendor was a part of that wedding, or the color scheme of the wedding. ’cause you know, on Instagram, everything’s gotta be curated. Um, so we’ve always been using our Lightroom catalog to, um, to organize and keyword tag things. Beyond just the client itself. So, um, during the actual sales appointment, I always ask the client what their preferences are and then, um. And then the first thing I do, like I have a, a, after the sale is over kind of checklist that I run through. I usually try and do it that night unless I’m just exhausted. Then I’ll come in and do it the next day. But it involves all of that like catalog maintenance kind of stuff. So I will go through and. Keyword tag, anything that is approved for use online, I’ll keyword tag. If it’s approved for use in studio samples, I will star rate them based on how much I like the image so that I know which ones are my favorites. I’m not having to go back and pick that later. Um, I [00:48:00] also tag the hair and makeup artist, um, if they gave permissions for the hair and makeup artist to. receive images. So theoretically if we had a a third person coming in to work on these, they could literally just filter by four stars approved for web and so that that information is already there and then those are the images that they pull. So that part we actually kind of have built into our workflow. [00:48:23] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Nice, [00:48:24] Jeff Poole: also works for a lot of the footage. Like Lori will film some behind the scenes stuff, but we don’t always know when or where to edit it or how to best edit it for content, you know? So even those, those videos, you can bring those videos that are filmed either on the DJI or in a phone. You can bring those into the Lightroom catalog and tag them as well. and on that note, you know, for workflow, Lori does all of her sales in Lightroom as well, so. Not only are things catalog, keyworded for the catalog, but they’re also cataloged, keyworded for the order. So like how many images are going in the album, the wall portrait and things like that, which makes it easier also. But, for filming, I think, you know, [00:49:00] those videos could go in there and get keyworded for, approved for studio, approved for web, and, you know, that would allow us to be able to. Figure that part of it out. So it’s more the technical part of having time to sit down and, and put, put them together, cut them in a way that’s creative, add the right trending music to it, post them with the right, swipe up, or click the star or the button or sticker or whatever it is. Like it’s, it’s that part. It’s the doing part. [00:49:25] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah. So I, I have a solution from the, putting it together side for you. and if I had, if I didn’t introduce you to Angela in person, I will next time I see you. [00:49:37] Jeff Poole: yeah. Social [00:49:38] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Angela Shea from Social Templates Co. Yep. So, um, she built a fantastic product for that exact thing where you don’t have to think about the trending music, you don’t have to think about the beat matching. It does it all for you. the, the, the other part of that is either you have to do it or you would need somebody to do it, [00:49:55] Jeff Poole: Yeah, and we have an account. We have an account with Angela. So we, we we’re, we’re customers, [00:50:00] uh, because when I saw it, I thought, yes, this is perfect. And then it’s the doing part again that gets in the way of that because her product is amazing. It’s, it’s, it’s really amazing to be able to see that they’ve put everything together. It’s all beat matched, but it’s still the process of sitting down and doing it. And so outsourcing, [00:50:17] Lori Poole: out which clip will go in which section. [00:50:20] Jeff Poole: yeah, it, it, I think that’s still gonna just have to be something that we outsource. I mean, I’m 52. I don’t, you know, 51. I don’t have to. I sit there and play on my phone and put videos together, I, I just don’t have it in me to do it. So I think that’s something that I think is gonna need to be just outsourced at some point. [00:50:36] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah, yeah. I, I, you know, you are already familiar with outsourcing, of course, and I, I know you already have the mindset that if I can outsource and take that off me and it’s gonna improve my business, then why the heck not so. I think it’s just a matter of finding the person at that point [00:50:55] Jeff Poole: Angela needs to, so if Angela, if you’re watching this, Create a [00:51:00] system where we can say, alright, here are all the videos from this shooter behind the scenes, and, and, and let her do it, or somebody on her team do it. I would pay for that. I would pay to be able to say, here, I’m gonna send you 20 video clips. Put ’em together in the best reel that, that you think goes with it, with the best music. And then, and then send it back or post it for me. You know, I would pay, I would 100% pay for that. [00:51:22] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Amazing. Um, Jeff, Lori, can you first of all, thank you so much for chatting with me about all of this. Um, I love it. It’s always so nice to, to talk with you both, whether it’s talking shop as I, as I said early on or just, just shooting the whatever. [00:51:39] Jeff Poole: at the bar, you know. [00:51:40] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. Yeah. I, gr I really greatly appreciate you hopping in and chatting. can you share with listeners who don’t know who you are or where to find you? one way to check out all your photography and also the education side of your business. [00:51:53] Jeff Poole: absolutely. So you can find our photography work at indigosilverstudio.com, and that is Indigo, just like [00:52:00] the color, silver, like the color studio with no S at the end. So Indigo Silver Studio. And then you can find our education outreach at myphotoinsight.com. And when you’re on myphotoinsight.com, click on the free education tab. We have a Facebook group that we go live in every week, every Wednesday at 11:00 AM we go live in there for, Momentum. It’s a micro webinar series where we talk about all types of workflow things from marketing to sales pricing. they’re short, very informal, meetings that are just done via Google Meet. So, they’re all free to attend live. So, uh, register at myphotoinsight.com and uh, hopefully we’ll see you there. [00:52:40] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Amazing. Thank you both so much. [00:52:43] Jeff Poole: Yep, absolutely. Thanks Scott. ​ [00:53:00]