On October 17th at noon central, I am hosting a free live brand new never been seen before. Masterclass called the three secrets to booking brand photography clients. And I would love to see you there. It's going to be so great. You're going to spend 90 minutes with me. I'm going to go through the training and we're going to have plenty of time for Q and a to ask whatever questions you might have when it comes to booking brand photography clients, in order to register it, you need to go to Maddie Pasha. Dot com slash masterclass. I will make sure that the link is in the podcast description and in the show notes. You've got to register to get both the link to the training, as well as the replay, which will be sent out afterward. At the end of this masterclass, I am going to open the doors to rebrand, which is my now 12 month group coaching program. It used to be 16 weeks. And now it is a 12 month program. My clients have been getting incredible results in just 16 weeks. They typically charge four figures for a brand session within their first 74 days. However, I realized that I want to be there to support my clients beyond just their first four figure session. I want to be there for their five figure session. I want to be there. As they scale their business to six figures, because there is so much more after you book that first four figure session. There's so much mindset. There's so much pricing strategy. There's so many ways to continue to. Improve your business. Every single time you shoot a brand session. So this new 12 month container is going to allow me to do that. It also has a brand new revised curriculum that I am so excited to share. it's going to help people achieve results even faster. And I just can't wait. I'm just so excited. And this is all happening on October 17th. So go to Maddie. sean.com/masterclass to register.

You're listening to Take It Personally, a podcast for photographers about the personal side of business and the art of standing out. Here I'll help you build a business and a brand that is uniquely you. If you want to attract dream clients and stop looking at the competition to decide your next move. to show up as a confident branding authority to help you serve your clients and consider your goals and priorities too. If you want to make your mark in a new, underserved niche of photography, then this is the place for you. I'm your host Maddie Pachon, South Dakota brand photographer and educator. I'm a straight shooting, Instagram obsessed, and Instagramer. Diehard Swifty who has built a multi six figure business on the back of brand photography all while raising a family. And I know you can do the same. Let's get ready to take it personally.

At the end of 2022, I got an inquiry from a local business who was looking to update their headshots. This business is a large firm and they have locations all over South Dakota where I'm based. And so, as I was looking over this project and everything that it entailed, I realized pretty quickly that this was going to be. A big project. If I, you know, only charged a hundred dollars per person, we were looking at a $10,000 project. And that was just part of what we wanted to capture. As I was pulling together this proposal, I was like, oh my gosh, this is probably a 20 to $30,000 project. I was very much in my head about that. I could not believe that I was sending a proposal that big. And I also questioned if I was the person to be able to pull this off, because even though the project sounded really simple and straightforward, It was so much money. Like when I was just getting started in the world of marketing after college, I was really excited about a $30,000 salary. And now I'm sending a proposal for $30,000. Like this felt, it just felt crazy to me. And I ended up booking this project and it was one of the simplest projects that I've ever done. It was such a positive experience and such an amazing payday and such a great confidence builder. And I want to talk in this episode about how I booked a $20,000 project, because I think when people think about brand photography, They think that in order to be booking a $5,000 project, a $10,000 projects, certainly a $20,000 project that you have to be based in some big city and you have to be working with brands like Nike or Chipola or something. And that's just not accurate. There are so many incredible opportunities. For brand photography in smaller towns. Now I'm based in South Dakota. I am based in the largest city in South Dakota, but this is still not a large city. Like my neighbors are cows and corn stocks. Okay. It is a rural location. And even still, there was a client here willing to pay $20,000 for me to solve a problem in their business. So let's talk about how I did that. Right out the gate. I was positioned as a brand photographer. When brands are looking to hire someone for a project, this large, they are not looking for a family photographer. They are not looking for a wedding photographer. They are looking for someone who specializes and who can handle the nuance. Of brand and commercial photography. And that's what people knew me for. This project was actually booked because of a referral. It was a person who I work with really often. We are in like adjacent industries and she has sent me a lot of business over the years because when she works with clients, updating their website, And creating these brand identities for clients. She wants to be able to refer them to someone who knows what they're doing in the brand space. So right away, my positioning helped me capture not only the client's attention, but probably more importantly, in this case, the attention of someone who could connect me with that client. The second thing that I did was I built rapport with this client right away. I could tell in our first conversations that this client was a little bit overwhelmed and quite frankly, I also would have been overwhelmed if I was in her shoes. I have worked in corporate before. And if my boss was like, hi, we want to update a hundred people's headshots, and we want to do it this specific week. And none of the people are going to drive anywhere. Like we have to bring the photographer to them and we also want to do lifestyle photography, and we also might want video clips like. I would probably just melt into a puddle because you have to remember, this is somebody who, isn't a photographer, who isn't in the industry and they've just been given this giant task. So I could tell in our first communication that she had a lot going on, like this was just one piece of her day. So immediately I built rapport with her. I let her know, Hey, I have done projects like this before. Perhaps not to this extent, but I have not only shot projects like this before I have been on your side. Like I have worked in corporate and I have worked at agencies where we have had to put together these large multi-person shoots. And I can handle it. I will be your partner in this. There was even a moment on the call where I said Hey, I can tell that this is stressful for you. And I completely understand why it would be, but I just want you to know that I'm not stressed. I feel really confident that we're going to be able to accomplish this. I see this project as like a big puzzle and I am so excited to put it together with you and you can really depend on me. And I know that that was so reassuring to her, because again, this was just one thing that she was working on. Like, this was. Just one part of her day. So to be able to hear, okay, this person is going to be my partner. They're going to help me with us. I don't have to do this on my own. That totally changed the dynamic of the pitching process. And it made it so much easier for me to eventually sell this project. The third thing that I did was I made this experience for her really simple. I wanted her to know that I wasn't just coming into this as a photographer. I was again, I was going to be her partner and I was going to help creatively direct this shoot. I was going to put together the shot list of the lifestyle photos that I recommended for their website. I was going to work with the brand. I was going to work with the website designer to be, I was going to work with the website designer to be able to understand what types of photos we should be shooting. I was going to put together the timeline and the schedule of everything happening across these couple of days. I made sure that she knew that I understood the nuance of a project like this, and I was ready to deliver on it. Focusing on these three things, reputation, rapport, and relationships starts this incredible ecosystem in your business where you're positioned as a

Brand photographer.

So then people find out who you are. They connect with you. They want to get to know you. They want to work with you. They come into your sphere. They hire you to be their photographer. They have this incredible experience. You deepen that relationship. With them. And then those people turn around and help you get your next clients. And this project is proof of that happening. This project came to me through a relationship and that wouldn't have happened. If my business wasn't set up to foster these relationships. On October 17th, I'm going to walk you through how to do this in your business. What does it mean to have a good reputation? What are the things that you need to make sure that you have in place? What does it mean to create rapport? What does that look like in your marketing and what type of marketing should you be creating and what is a five-star client experience? What are the things that you should be doing in your brand photography business to get people talking about you and referring you to their friends? We're going to cover all of those things on October 17th. So make sure you sign up for that masterclass at Maddie Pasha. sean.com/masterclass. See you there.

Thank you so much for listening to Take It Personally. If you haven't already, would you head over to iTunes and leave us a review? This is the best way to let other photographers know about the show and help keep us creating content you crave. And if you want more tips and tools to build your personal photography brand, head over to my website, MaddiePichon. com. Here, you can access my downloadable ultimate personal brand session shot list to get your clients singing your praises and browse my blog for more trade secrets to help you hone your craft and grow your business. Love to learn while you listen, visit MaddiePachon. com and click on podcast for all things. Take it personally. From show notes to recent episodes and incredible guest profiles. Remember friend, the most important part of any brand is the people behind it. Branding and business is personal, so let's take it personally.