This Can't Be That Hard

You may have heard the marketing term "Value Ladder," and while the concept of encouraging new business with small offers that lead to progressively larger ones is pretty simple, translating that into a strategy for your photography business might not be. In this episode, I am talking about value ladders: how to build one in your business and how to make sure you don’t fall off.

LINKS

EP 003: The Importance of Trust

The Simple Sales System Masterclass 

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

Ben Hartley from The Six Figure Photography Podcast is a marketing whiz, and he attributes much of his success to something he calls Chain Reaction Marketing - a strategy that ensures your marketing efforts have as much impact as possible. As entrepreneurs often wearing ALL the hats in our businesses, this strategy is vital to stretch our marketing time and dollars to their limits… and all it requires is a bit of strategic planning!

LINKS

Booked Solid Course
Ben Hartley’s Mastermind Facebook Group

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

Where do you get your best ideas? I take an hour-long walk with my dog on a leash and a business podcast or audiobook in my headphones 4-5x/week, and I get most of my best ideas that way. It’s not uncommon for me to pause whatever I’m listening to, pull out my phone, and dictate a thought or idea into the notes app, and today’s episode is the direct result of one of those ideas. 

I was recently listening to an interview on a marketing podcast and the person was talking about an online pie company that offers a sampler box, and that got me thinking about a perfume sampler kit I received as a gift a few years ago, and THAT got me thinking - as usual - about how photographers might tap into a similar marketing strategy.

Fair warning: the marketing idea I’m presenting today is not simple, and it may not be right for every photographer, but I’d be willing to bet that if it was planned, shared, and executed properly, it could be a fun and buzz-worthy way to connect with new potential clients. 

LINKS

Revenue on Repeat
Episode 112

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

Ever worry about what would happen if you were to break an ankle and be unable to work for several months? That was always a nagging worry in the back of my mind, but it wasn't until it actually happened to me in the winter of 2018 that I did anything to protect my business. In the summer of 2020, I launched a portrait membership and secured around $4K a month regular income that I could rely on... and it was what saved my business when Covid hit less than a year later. Now I teach other photographers how to set up their own memberships in my course Revenue on Repeat, and today I have three students on the show sharing their own membership stories - how they launched, what they've learned, and how memberships are changing their businesses.

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

Video on Instagram has quickly become one of the best ways to humanize your brand and market your offers to your ideal clients. That’s why today I’m sharing a value-packed conversation with Instagram Video superstar Natasha Samuel.

Natasha is sharing

• her content pillar strategy and how to use that to ensure that you’re delivering the perfect balance of personal and professional
• why video content (all four types!) is a necessary complement to the beautiful still imagery you share in your feed
• how you can get hyper-targeted and ensure that the people who are finding you on IG are qualified buyers in your local market.

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

When is good customer service most important? When things are at their MOST uncomfortable… think colonoscopy-level discomfort.

The good news? Even something as unpleasant as a painful medical procedure can be remembered in a better light if the experience ends well. And if that’s true for a colonoscopy, imagine the possibilities in our photography businesses!

Today, I’m sharing some lessons from Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Dan Kahneman, along with my three-step system for how to appropriately assess and address frustrated or disappointed clients. These strategies can help you rescue even the most dire customer service situations and turn them into rave reviews and clients for life.

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

You may think of Pic-Time as an online gallery software provider, and it's true: they offer photographers a beautiful way to present their images.

But there's so much more to Pic-Time. When you go beneath the surface, you'll find a variety of incredibly powerful marketing and sales tools. It's a unique opportunity for photographers to get the power of big business strategies bundled in with software they need at a price they can afford.

Today, I talk to Pic-Time's founders Amir and Nirit Karby about their mission: helping photographers maximize the potential of their art, both visually and financially. We discuss how they've accomplished that from the founding of Pic-Time to now, including the potential that their newest release - the addition of an integrated slideshow builder - has for photographers.

Want to give Pic-Time and the new slideshow builder a try? Use code ANNEMIE at checkout for a free bonus month with the purchase of any plan.

Links & Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
The Simple Sales System
Pic-Time
Webinar on how to use the new slideshow tool in the Simple Sales app

Full show notes and transcript available here:
Episode 109

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

Rebecca Rice is known as the Queen of Mini Sessions, and for good reason! Her approach is a great reminder that good things can absolutely come in small packages! In our chat, Rebecca and I discuss marketing mini sessions, timelines for promotion, and the importance of knowing your ideal market. Additionally, Rebecca discusses pricing, location choices, email marketing, and using automations to ensure great customer service for her high volume. This episode is jam-packed, so have a pen and paper ready!

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

Every other Friday, at 2pm Eastern, I join up with a group of talented people on the social media site, Clubhouse, to discuss topics relating to photography and the business of photography. We pick a different topic and this week’s topic was Our Favorite Business Tools. People in the room are able to ask questions or add to the discussion and we never know who might join in. This week, Sarah Landa, everyone’s favorite SEO guru was there; and we got some great insight from Carolina Guzik, host of The Tog Republic.

In case you’re not on Clubhouse, I’m posting our most recent get together so you can listen in (with everyone's permission, of course!)

If you'd like to learn more, below are the participants and links to the tools and sites we mentioned.  I think I’ve listed them all, but forgive me if I left something out.

These are non-affiliate links to the tools and services we discussed.  We are not getting any compensation for recommendations. We are simply sharing the tools and apps we like and use.

Productivity tools and apps:

Full Focus Planner https://fullfocusplanner.com/

Asana https://asana.com/

Dubsado https://www.dubsado.com/

Zapier https://www.zapier.com/

Flodesk https://flodesk.com/

Pic-Time https://www.pic-time.com/

Carolina Guzik’s podcast The Tog Republic https://thetogrepublic.com/

Services, Communities, and Education:

Image Salon https://imagesalon.com/post-production

Sarah Landa (SEO) https://www.sarahlanda.com/complete-seo-basics

The Family Narrative https://www.thefamilynarrative.com/

Illuminate Classes https://www.illuminateclasses.com/

Sabrina Gebhardt’s education site, https://www.sabrinagebhardt.com/education

The Simple Sales System Masterclass www.thiscantbethathard.com/simple

Colie James’ education site, https://coliejamesphotography.com/dubsado/

Brooke Schultz http://brookeschultzphotography.com/love-soaked-family-photography-the-course/

Participants’ sites:

Amy Sanusi (Kinship Photo) https://www.kinshipphoto.com/

Mary Otanez https://www.maryotanezphotography.com/

Sabrina Gebhardt https://www.sabrinagebhardt.com/

Jess Koehler https://www.jesskoehlerphoto.com/

Posy Quarterman https://www.photoposy.com/

Colie James https://coliejamesphotography.com/

Annemie Tonken (Megapixie Photography) https://megapixie.com/

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

Connecting with the right photography clients can feel overwhelming: what do they want? Where are they hiding? What’s the right price point or message or strategy? One of the most important things you can do as a business owner is put yourself in the shoes of your clients, and today’s conversation with Lachlan Shum - founder of the Focal Marketplace - is going to help you do just that. Lachlan’s entire business idea came from his experience, not as a photographer, but as a client. He built a business based on his own attempt to hire a photographer - one he found difficult and confusing - and is now full of golden insights on how to make sure you’re making it as easy as possible for the right clients to find you.

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!