FULL TRANSCRIPT: Please note this transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors.

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You’re listening to the Portrait System podcast,

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one of my most cherished memories is the mom came in to place the order after seeing yher pictures. The daughter couldn’t come then and she was coming separate and the mom was there first. And she says, I have to tell you, she says when we left the session, she says, I looked over and my daughter was crying. And she says, I’m like, oh, well, she goes, oh, my gosh, what happened? She goes. She goes, That is the first time I’ve ever felt beautiful.

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This is the Portrait System podcast, a show that helps portrait photographers and people hoping to become one, navigate the world of photography, business, money and so much more. We totally keep it real. We share stories about the incredible ups and the very difficult downs when running a photography business. I’m your host, Nikki Closser, and the point of this podcast is for you to learn actionable steps that you can take to grow your own business and also to feel inspired and empowered by the stories you hear. Today’s guest is Annie Marie, and she’s a high school senior photographer in the Midwest of the United States.

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Annie knows a ton about marketing to seniors and how to price in a way that makes her an amazing income. Annie shares with us all about her strategies for gaining the attention of teenagers, which is not always an easy thing to do. She talks all about how she structures her packages and pricing in general and also how she does her senior sessions. And she is a total open book when it comes to her business. And I just know you’re going to learn a lot today from her. Also, don’t forget that the portrait system has a YouTube channel in this interview with Annie is on video on our YouTube channel over at the portrait system.

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OK, let’s get started with Annie Marie. Hey, Annie, welcome to the portrait system. How are you?

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I’m great, thank you.

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Nikki, it’s so I’m so glad to have you here. You actually if you’re listening, you may recognize Annie’s voice because she was featured in two different clubhouse chats that that you did, one with me and one with Ashleigh and Kevin.

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Yep, absolutely. I was on the senior marketing. Yep. They’re probably not recognizing my voice, but my crazy Minnesota accent.

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Well, I’ve got my Michigan one, so we’re pretty close.

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OK, so if you’re watching this, this is one of the episodes that we have on YouTube. I am. Annie has a really nice background. Mine is not so nice because I am in a closet in my new house because we have super tall ceilings in the rest of the house and it does not work well for sound and sound I know is incredibly important. Have you ever listen to a podcast where the sound is terrible?

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Absolutely. I’ve heard echoey. I’ve heard muffley and it’s annoying.

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Yeah, I turn it off right away. I can’t

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hear. Absolutely.

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So yeah, we put a sound in front of background. So anyway, OK, so let’s get started. Annie I know that you are an incredibly successful high school senior photographer and I’m so I’m excited to hear your story. I know you’ve given some really good marketing tips and everything on the clubhouse chats, but it’ll be good just to hear how you built your business and how you run it. So, yeah, let’s start. Have you always I know you’ve been a photographer for quite a while. Did you always photograph seniors?

00:03:05:26 – 00:03:37:00

No, I didn’t. I’ve been doing photography professionally for twenty seven years and I have my journey is like a whole compilation of different chapters. I’ve probably been where everybody is at least once I’ve worked out. I started out of my home in Miami. We moved there after I lived in Guatemala. We moved to Miami and I wanted to start my own business because I’m just I’m the type of person that love to just do my own thing. So I knew photography was it.

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So I kind of jumped off a cliff knowing nothing about running a business, didn’t take a business class in college because to me, business meant sitting behind a desk, which I didn’t want to do. So I just started and I had no fear and I just knew it would work out. So I opened my business in my home because I didn’t know Miami. I didn’t know any people. I didn’t really know technically photography that well. I played around with it. My dad was a photographer. I grew up around it, but I never did a professionally.

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So I started out small in my home. And then after about a year and a half, a couple of years of growing my clientele I decided to get a bigger studio. So I rented a studio in a really cool area of Miami called South Miami. And my my work, my workload or my client tripled like within like two months. It just flourished. I was like busy. They don’t really have a slow season there. Maybe September, the school starting, but it was busy constantly.

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And I decided to concentrate on children and families because seniors wasn’t a thing in Miami. So I decided to focus on children’s family and I wanted to do it more artfully. So I did it the black and white hand colored. And that was my specialty. I also worked with color, but the hand painted black and white was my specialty. Which I loved, and so I worked in Miami for eight years, and then after a divorce, I was going to be moving to Minnesota with my kids. So I sold my business in Miami to a client and she wanted to start doing senior portraits because we had talked about it.

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She had a daughter in high school. She says, I’m going to start senior portraits. So she wasn’t able to get it to work either. But as soon as I moved to Minnesota, I came up here in two thousand and one. And right after I started, I opened my studio in September. And of course, that was nine 11. So so things kind of started slowly, which I preferred. I wanted to kind of start slowly, but I was really excited to work with seniors. And unfortunately, in Minnesota, the season to photograph seniors is like June through September, October.

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So I kind of miss that first season. I probably had like maybe three seniors that first year, but I was prepared the next year. And so I concentrated on seniors and still families and children. I let go of weddings, which I didn’t enjoy that I did in Miami and just started building my my my studio from twenty one, my senior business.

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OK, OK. And when you started that business, did you have a studio where you were at.

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Yeah. Yeah. OK, yeah. When I moved to Minnesota I, I found this really cute little Victorian house in a cute little lake town that’s a suburb of Minneapolis on Lake Minnetonka, if anyone knows anything about Minnesota. But it’s a great spot and it’s it’s got a lot of big towns around it that are suburbs of Minneapolis, a lot of big public schools that I could pull my clients from and my my seniors from. So I had a cute little studio, very small shooting room because it was an old Victorian house.

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So it was really, really tight quarters. But I decided I loved it so much. I wanted to make it work because it was so cute. But the shooting room, I think the ceilings were only like seven and a half feet. So by the time you had a background rollers and lights that if you had a tall family, someone that was over six feet there, they were less than a foot from the ceiling. So I made that work for about eight years. And then I decided to move into a bigger studio just down the street in the same town.

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Now, you had employees for a while, right?

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I did. I did. After about a year after I moved here, I grew my business enough that I felt I needed someone to do my sales for me because I did not enjoy sales. That was just the one thing that I don’t like asking for money. And so so I did have someone do sales for me in Miami. And then when I moved here, I just wasn’t busy enough to to need someone. So after about a year, I hired a wonderful lady that was a client of mine and she did my sales for me. And and I always tell people that if there’s something in your business that you don’t enjoy doing or is taking up your time, you need to hire it out, whether it’s whether it’s sales or whether it’s marketing or retouching, sometimes we just can’t do it all.

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And I’m the kind of person that I want to do it all. And right now I am doing it all. But I’ve been around for a long time. But back then I just didn’t enjoy sales and they figured someone else. It’s easier for someone else to say, oh my gosh, isn’t this photo amazing? Because I can’t say that about my own pictures. That sounds like really weird. So. So, yeah. So I hired one woman on and then eventually when I moved to my bigger studio, I had two women that work with me in sales, how

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do you do your own sales now? I do.

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I do. Because I had a big business overall about seven years ago. The the overhead in the place, I was really high and plus two employees. I was heavy and especially being such a seasonal place, I was doing four to five seniors a day full sessions. And then I would come home and I would have to cull through them and edit through them every night, because if I skipped a night, then the next day I would have like ten sessions to go through. I was working weekends and evenings and and I just said that was that was enough.

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I wanted to work smarter. And so I decided to let go of my my big studio and my employees in lieu of of a studio share and working on location. Most of the senior portraits here are outdoors anyway. And so I did the studio share thing and then I went back to doing my own sales. But then by then I had the confidence and the experience to do so. Right. Yeah. So I do that now.

00:09:38:00 – 00:09:50:13

We have so much to cover. But really quickly for if someone out there wanted to outsource the selling to someone else, how did you do that? Like, was it a profit share? Was it an hourly wage? How did you how did you pay that person?

00:09:50:24 – 00:10:21:25

I paid them hourly. And, you know, it’s probably good to you can set it up where they can maybe get a. Of their sales, but I don’t like math and I don’t want to have to sit and figure out all that technical stuff, so I just pay them hourly and they did a great job for me. So I didn’t feel like I needed to give them an incentive for sales. Yeah, but or you could maybe give an incentive for the large products like the folding boxes or the albums or the large galleries wraps or something.

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But but yeah. Hourly was, was the way that I did.

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I paid them. So OK. And then the other thing that I just wanted to quick comment on is, you know, you said you went from having two employees, a huge studio, you downsized and let go and have employees anymore. And I just want people to understand that having a bigger business and bigger studio and more employees doesn’t necessarily mean better for you. It works great for some people, but that doesn’t define whether or not your business is successful. I just want to throw that out there.

00:10:55:28 – 00:11:26:08

Yeah, and success isn’t always how much money you make, because I don’t I didn’t necessarily make more money because my overhead was so high. So I probably make more money now. Plus, for me, a big part of my decision was because I wanted to give more of a personalized experience to each of my clients because doing five clients a day and then shoveling them off to my employees to do the sales and and all the other things after that, I felt I didn’t have that personalized experience with my clients.

00:11:26:10 – 00:11:44:23

I saw them for the session and that was about it. And so I really wanted to personalize it for them, for not only for my senior clients, but for my other portrait clients as well. And so that was a big catalyst for me to downsize so I could spend that time, you know, one on one with them right now.

00:11:45:06 – 00:11:59:02

Talk us through how you run your sessions. So you said mostly outdoors and that sort of thing, but do you allow multiple outfits to include hair and makeup? How does that whole session work?

00:11:59:07 – 00:12:43:09

Yeah, high school seniors specifically. I have two sessions that I offer. I offer what I call just my creative and that one is three outfits changes. I find out any more and girls can bring a fourth and I’ll I’ll definitely photograph it. But guys usually are like, oh my God, I have to change three times. But they usually do pretty good because I like to offer a variety within my sessions. So I usually I have that one at three. That’s the basic session and then I have one I call the elite and that one just adds hair and makeup and an extra outfit, because here not a lot of not a lot of girls necessarily want I don’t want to force the girls to have hair and makeup, even though it looks great and it’s great for editing after for the post.

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But I don’t it’s not something I want to for some people. So I want them to be able to have it if they want it. So I do have a lot of girls that still still do the hair and makeup and then they get an extra outfit. So so then we choose a location. And I have a few locations that I love to shoot at, but basically the two main ones are either of their nature oriented kids or if they’re more urban oriented. And then within each location, I have a lot of variety within that location. So depending on the outfits they bring, we kind of match. But the area of our location to their outfits and then we and then we photograph and have a great time.

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And and then after that, I offer different ways to do the sales.

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OK, OK. So I mean, it sounds like you keep it pretty simple. I mean, it doesn’t. Yeah.

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I plan to keep it simple.

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Yeah. OK, so now do you offer both in studio and on location as options during the same shoot.

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I do. I do. OK, so the last month and a half I had another change when I did my studio share that was in another part of the city was in kind of an old industrial area of Minneapolis that was had a lot of character, but that I shared that with six other photographers. And and then I also had another space close to my home where I met with clients, because that one I couldn’t put my photos up. I couldn’t have my all my product. So I wanted another space to meet with clients. I could have made my TV and my all my product.

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And that had a little porch where I had I have like hundreds of gowns for my style closet and it doesn’t all fit in my home. So I had a room there to put all my gowns for my style closet in the small little space to do some shoots. And and so what I did was about early May, I put those two together and I got a new studio that’s literally across the street from my house. It’s it’s a studio apartment that I converted into a studio. And and I love it because it’s all mine.

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The studio share was great because I went from having to pay three thousand dollars a month in rent to two hundred. So the studio share was wonderful for a while. But I’m at the point where I need to be able to have. MySpace, and then I feel like I can serve my clients so much better because I have my refrigerator there, I can offer them something to drink. I have snacks if they’re come back home or back from school. And and I have all my style closet there for my teens and my my clients. My lights are set up and all my portraits are on the wall.

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So it’s made a huge difference. So now I can offer the studio along with the the location that’s around here that that gives the lake and the flower gardens and some urban because there’s a little town here and and it’s perfect. So I let kids choose. Yeah, I bring that now.

00:15:37:20 – 00:15:47:14

So and then let’s real quick, let’s jump to pricing and then I want to go back to marketing and just how you built this whole thing. But let’s jump to pricing and tell me how your pricing model works.

00:15:47:28 – 00:16:24:00

Yeah, I used to do collections for 20 years. I did collections. And when I did my business overhaul seven years ago, I said I because I my I have a lot of products and I and I’ve even scaled down. But but I offer like albums and Folio boxes and keepsake boxes and all the wall galleries and prints. And so I was getting I felt like the clients were having to feel like they were putting it forced to get into a collection.

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I felt uncomfortable that because I was always switching and everything, so I wanted to do a la carte. And so I decided to do a minimum order. And and so after the session, I would get a deposit of six hundred dollars and then that would go towards the order and then they would come in to view their orders, their pictures, or I also started zoom shares because I didn’t have a place at that time because I had that studio share and that was before I had my other place where I would I wouldn’t have a place to go to meet with them.

00:16:55:09 – 00:17:27:06

So I would do the zoom. The Zoom shares and go over their orders with them there, but so I do ala carte and then they get the bonuses for what they purchase instead of doing collections and having the discount. I do a bonus. If they spend a certain amount, then they they can earn digital or they can earn money towards more product. And I found that I love that even more because it doesn’t cap it. Like when you have a sometimes when you have a have a collection, they say, OK, I’ll take that collection and then they’re done.

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So when you do ala carte just kind of keep they can keep adding to it.

00:17:31:09 – 00:17:41:24

Right. Right. OK, so coming in, they have to spend that six hundred dollars up front and then that is applied right towards their order. And then how much is it per photo or

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is per photo. Like if they’re going to they can get like here in Minnesota, really popular to get five by seven to eight by for family members. So then they just buy those ala carte Like my five by sevens are sixty five. They’re not matted or anything or they can get and then if they get 16 by 20 or larger I in the digital file for that because they’re just trying to, I’m trying to push them up to larger wall sales so, so then they can get their digital file. My biggest sales are my Follo boxes and my albums with my seniors.

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So so that’s really fun because then they can get like 20, 30 images and they’re digital too. So and then I do the digital has an upscale for my albums folio boxes. Obviously they’re included.

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Right, OK, and then how do you charge for albums and Folio boxes,

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so the folio boxes, if they are, do you want specific prices?

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Sure, yeah.

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OK, perfect. Let me grab my price guide.

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So Folio boxes, since they come with the digitals, obviously our a higher price point upfront and those I sell to 10 and 20, 12 and 20 images and I have that

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so they can do a package. It’s not like it’s, you

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can’t I mean and I do have one collection that is like four thousand dollars. So I mean that’s like I call it my dream collection. So if they want that, that’s got a whole bunch of goodies in it and they can kind of make their own collection, basically. So my eight by 10, 12 images are eighteen hundred for my image boxes or my folio boxes and twenty five hundred for my twenty image. And I don’t sell a lot of the large 11 by 14. So I find those are a little bit too big for my clients. They they tend to love the the, the smaller ones like a lot of those.

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Those are those include the, the digital files and then for albums I have a base album of 20 images and and that’s fifteen hundred for the smaller size, which is eight by ten and ten by ten and then eighteen hundred for the the twelve by twelve or nine by twelve. And then I have add ons from that where they can add an image for sixty dollars. So a lot of times they want more than 20 images. So every image they add it just adds, they add to that. And then I sell the digital bundle for six hundred.

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So they get all the images in their album, they can add that six hundred dollars on and it’s a good since they’re all edited anyway. I’d rather just sell them the the digital files too and the sale gets up there.

00:20:18:20 – 00:20:21:05

Do you know what your sales averages for seniors.

00:20:21:07 – 00:20:38:18

Yeah. Yeah. And I have actually because I do they can order in person, come and do in person sales or they can do it through zoom calls. And so I kind of have that like split out. So my, my in-person sales is twenty six hundred

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and then my Zoom sales is twenty three eighty and then I actually get clients that email me their sale, their what they want and that’s nineteen sixty. OK, so my my I get it, I get emails, emails, people will well you know give me their order over email and it’s almost two thousand dollars for that order just because maybe they live far away or they’re just really busy. And a lot of times those are repeat clients that know my products and everything. So. So yeah. So I would love to have it up higher and I’m working towards that.

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But it’s a very good, very good average.

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So that’s around twenty six hundred. Twenty five hundred.

00:21:19:07 – 00:21:29:27

Yeah. That’s a really great average. It’s interesting how if you don’t do it in person, although are they seeing the photos, the people who are emailing you, are they seeing the photos with you or.

00:21:31:05 – 00:22:08:01

I they can, they can see an online gallery, they get a choice to come in and view the images with me and do an in-person order. Or they can leave their six hundred dollar deposit and I’ll put an online gallery up. Kids, kids and parents are so busy, you know, it’s so hard for them to get back in some time or I pull from schools that are pretty far away as well. And so sometimes it’s just hard for them to travel back to to sit down with me. And I found that my zoom sales, I would get three, four or five. Like, I think my biggest senior order was through a zoom call. So I found that when I started doing the zoom calls, my I was so afraid my sales averages were going to go down and they actually went up.

00:22:08:16 – 00:22:42:08

So I felt I did a lot. I do a lot of pre not pre selling, but pre preparation through the whole process. So by the time they see their images, they they know what the products are and they kind of know what they’re going to get. So so I think that helps to get the bigger sales when you’re doing zoom calls, when you don’t have the products for them to feel and touch. And obviously that’s that’s optimal, but it’s not practical all the time. So and then I have a pretty big like my product guide is pretty big and I’ve got like big photos of all the products.

00:22:42:21 – 00:22:49:29

So so they get this and so they they see the products big. And so I think that’s great.

00:22:50:20 – 00:22:55:06

That’s great. I love that you do that sort of like a magazine almost.

00:22:55:15 – 00:22:59:04

It’s a it’s a I don’t even know how many page catalog it is. Probably like twenty.

00:22:59:23 – 00:23:27:19

Yeah. That’s great. Yeah. That’s great. Very cool. OK, so then let’s talk about how you get these seniors in the door, because what I find is from in the Sue Bryce education Facebook group and just often I hear this from people is how like senior market, how do you get these teens in the door? And I’m wondering, too, if if it is evolved for you, because I know you’ve been doing this for a while. Yeah, it is a big thing. And so talk to me about all that.

00:23:27:27 – 00:24:00:11

Well, I mean, I can talk from a perspective of people just starting out and a perspective of being established because there’s different ways to find people. But being established, obviously, I have a name in some of the schools and and get repeat clients because a lot of people have multiple kids. So a lot of my clients are repeat clients. I actually have a lot of seniors now. I’ve been here long enough that that I did their baby pictures. So every year if I have a senior that I worked with when they were babies, I have them bring a photo that I took of them and I have them hold it.

00:24:00:13 – 00:24:33:19

So I do some fun things with that. But but a lot of it is word of mouth and just constantly being on right now, Instagram is a place to to approach seniors, not approach them, but to to get your name out in front of seniors. A lot of times they they know friends like juniors are are friends with seniors. So they’ll see the next class will see them. So Facebook is a great place to get the mothers and the parents. So I work both Facebook and I should work Facebook more.

00:24:33:21 – 00:25:00:28

But Instagram, I put a lot of energy in to get my seniors and I have a separate Instagram account for my seniors and I do my regular part just because they look very different. And it’s a very different kind of language. You speak to seniors than you do to. And I don’t think my seniors want to see babies in their feed and stuff. So I think if you have a smaller studio, if you don’t have if you kind of do a lot of things, it’s better to to separate them. But

00:25:02:22 – 00:25:35:26

so that’s like the biggest part. And even if you’re starting out, I would try to find like a neighbor or like someone that, you know, that has anyone in the teenage years. I do a model crew that I keep pretty simple and pretty small, but I do take girls from ninth grade to to seniors. And so that gets my name out there to the younger crowd and they’re showing their pictures to their friends. And so my name is in their brain since the whole high school. So a lot of times the girls will know way before their senior year they’re going to go to further their photos.

00:25:36:04 – 00:26:06:20

And so I think it’s really important to get your name out there to the younger crowd. And if you’re just starting out, find kids that are in clubs like dance or just different groups that have like minded people and just, you know, do some photos and get started on Instagram and Facebook and and and it’s really good when clients like the parents or the kids are talking to their friends because that’s more organic, you know, than than other types of advertising.

00:26:07:16 – 00:26:13:06

Agreed. Agreed. That worked with them. You said model crew. Yeah. Tell me

00:26:13:08 – 00:26:50:25

about. Yeah, it’s like a rep program. And what I do is I keep it pretty small. Some people like to have a large one and I keep it small because I probably don’t need to have a model crew. I fill up my summers anyway, so I like to keep it simple. But by the spring I am just ready to get out there and photograph and everything’s blooming. So pretty is probably the same in Michigan where all these blooms are pretty and it’s before senior season. So and I want to have images to start posting on Instagram, some content that I can start posting when kids are starting to think about booking their senior pictures.

00:26:50:27 – 00:27:22:29

So so I get about ten girls anywhere from ninth grade to incoming seniors that want to be on my model crew. And what I do is it’s two hundred dollars for our participation fee and I keep it low just because I want to cover my cost if I have to buy outfits or hand out the goodwill and a little bit of time. And so what I do is they I choose a different location for each session. So I have a variety, like I’ll have some urban looks, I’ll have some a girl and a beach and, you know, something more nature oriented and studio.

00:27:23:01 – 00:27:58:15

So each girl gets a different location and I have them bring one or two outfits because sometimes thought and then I style a couple of this because I love I’m just obsessed with styling these portraits so and so and so. So they probably don’t necessarily are going to like what I style them in. It might not be their style. So they’re more hesitant to share those, but they’ll share the ones in a cute little sundress that they bring or something that they’re comfortable in. And so so what we do is we pick that location and I’ll do three three different outfits in the spring with each girl.

00:27:58:24 – 00:28:34:21

And then I send them off probably about three to five images from that session. OK, don’t spend any more because I want them to earn more. They have to work at it. They have to post and share. And then the more they post and share, then they can pick. I send them a gallery from through my website and it’s got a big watermark on it. So they can’t take them, but they can see all their pictures and then they fall in love with a couple. And I’m like, yeah, if you start sharing what I sent you. And I’ll send you those, so that kind of motivates them to to share and the moms share probably more than the kids do.

00:28:34:23 – 00:28:59:11

The moms are so excited about their kids. So so that just kind of gets the gets the ball rolling in the spring. And the two hundred dollars that they pay goes towards an order if they want to order anything from those sessions of the credit towards that. And then the seniors that I have on my model crew have to also book their senior session at the same time, OK. And so then I’ll have them in the summer.

00:28:59:16 – 00:29:02:12

So that’s a good way to get a client to. Absolutely.

00:29:02:15 – 00:29:35:21

Absolutely. But I keep mine small and I keep it at about 10 girls just because, you know, it gets to be too much. I don’t do team a lot of a lot of some of the programs they do like team or group pictures. And I don’t do those are just bigger. There’s just harder to coordinate and stuff. But but that works really well for the people that do. That can create a lot of buzz. But I just don’t personally do that. I can keep it simple and it’s fun to work. I love working with each girl individually and kind of bring out some some fun in them and get them excited to share.

00:29:36:03 – 00:29:48:06

Yeah, no, no. You said that your crew is ninth through 12th grade and I feel like that’s obviously it’s intentional, but absolutely. I think sometimes people don’t understand that you have to start marketing to these kids young. You have

00:29:48:08 – 00:29:48:23

to

00:29:49:07 – 00:29:55:15

it’s not just like, oh, senior session season is starting now. I start my marketing like so much that goes

00:29:57:23 – 00:30:29:09

around in the end. I know people in the South. I think their season is opposite of ours because it’s too hot in the summer. We just have year book deadlines in November, October, so we have to kind of shoot in these months. But it is so important to be in front of these people all year round. Yeah, absolutely. And cross cross promote your seniors with your regular clients and your regular clients with your seniors because your regular clients are going to grow up into seniors, the children that you photograph and and your seniors are have families.

00:30:29:21 – 00:30:42:00

So they need family portraits. And maybe the moms all kind of filter into my my fifty over fifty campaigns or their mothers or so. I’m constantly cross promoting my different genres that I work with

00:30:42:09 – 00:30:55:01

and that’s talk about that, that cross promotion, because I think that’s really smart and I think it’s something that people forget that can be a really powerful marketing tool. Is this cross promotion. So how do you how do you incorporate that into your business?

00:30:55:26 – 00:31:32:22

Well, on my website, I do have my genre split up on different tabs. Like I don’t have all my galleries on a gallery tab and all my pricing on a pricing tab. I have my seniors in a tab, my headshots and a tab, my fine art in a tab and my regular portraits in a tab so that each person can go to their tabs. But what I do is in my like on social media, especially on Instagram, I take both of them and then what I’ll do to every once in a while on my senior Instagram page, I’ll say, hey, go check out my work on my my client page and vice versa.

00:31:32:24 – 00:32:05:19

So I’m trying to kind of, you know, put people back and forth and I’m constantly talking to people when I talk with them. And if it’s a senior who maybe they haven’t done family portraits in a while, I actually part of my senior package or my session is I allow them to to add on for free if they want to bring their family or just their siblings or something, because that well, that adds on like fifteen minutes to the session, but it totally adds on to the sale at the end. And in family pictures with teenagers isn’t as fun as this.

00:32:05:21 – 00:32:08:20

Which little kids because teenagers don’t like to hug. And you know,

00:32:09:00 – 00:32:12:00

I’m like opposite you. I would so much rather

00:32:12:15 – 00:32:44:05

funny, you know, because you can play games and whatever, but so a fifteen minute family session is fine and I can get a lot of great pictures in fifteen minutes. And Dad’s probably are like, oh gosh, I have to do this. But it does definitely add on the sale. And so I’m constantly talking to each genre about what’s next. Like if I have a family and they have like a teenager, I’ll say, hey, why don’t we do some tween pictures of your daughter? And so I’m just constantly talking about it.

00:32:44:07 – 00:32:49:06

I’m not doing any kind of hard sale, but just putting that little bug in their ear helps.

00:32:49:28 – 00:32:58:17

What about for the your fifty over fifty campaign? When you’re targeting the moms, are you giving any sort of gift voucher? You just telling them about it. How does how does that work.

00:32:59:04 – 00:33:35:24

I started that last year. I did it, I think a Facebook ad for like two days and I got like forty. I think I got forty women the first two days. So I cut that off and and I had them all booked. And then we had covid. And I listen to that podcast and most everyone started during covid. So that all got like postponed all those sessions. By the time we were able to photograph and my hair makeup artists were actually couldn’t work till after I was able to photograph my my my summer was a senior, so I couldn’t get the ladies until the fall, so I’m still struggling at that.

00:33:35:26 – 00:33:49:00

But but I have it is amazing how many women will do something like that when they have a purpose or when you give them a reason or they they just they want to be a part of that.

00:33:49:09 – 00:33:51:24

So like being part of the campaign, you mean like

00:33:51:26 – 00:34:33:23

versus versus trying to get them to to do a portrait session for themselves? They wouldn’t do it because women don’t want to do things for themselves. They want to do things for their family and they feel guilty. But when you give them a purpose, like, it’s just amazing. I just did this campaign and it had a mission to it and women came out of the woodwork. So so I started with the the women that I’m photographing and and they’re bringing in their moms. They’re like, oh, my mom would love this or their friends would love it. So so now I’m just getting the finalizing it with with word of mouth and people that will see portraits that I’m posting on Facebook or on Instagram or they see their friends photos.

00:34:33:25 – 00:34:40:01

So right now it’s word of mouth. And I’m actually trying to get I really want to get older women. I would love to get a woman that’s one hundred, you know.

00:34:41:00 – 00:34:44:10

Yeah. You know, real quick, just to kind of go back to what you said about

00:34:46:26 – 00:35:21:19

people kind of need a reason to do the photos. So for this this round of the portrait, Masters Awards and Accreditation Self-Portrait is the bonus category. And I was like, oh, this is like, you know, doing what we do. We have to have our face on our social media. We have to post photos of ourselves. And even though I’m a photographer and I know this and sometimes it just feels awkward, like, is my family going to be like, why? She was posting another like, my cousins are like, here’s, you know, no, sorry if my cousins is I love you all, but you know what I mean.

00:35:21:21 – 00:36:01:27

When you’re not in the industry and you just go anyway. So because it was self portrait was the bonus, I felt like, oh, well, I have to do self portrait because I want to submit. And so I did it and I did photos of myself. And when I posted on social media, I made sure to say, oh, it was the self portrait category where it makes sense. It’s like, oh, I did this because I’m part of a fifty over fifty campaign right now. Even though we do not have to have a reason whatsoever to know, which I’m not like there doesn’t need to be just if that doesn’t need to be justified whatsoever when there is a justification, I, I it truly makes people feel like they can do it.

00:36:01:29 – 00:36:02:14

Yeah.

00:36:02:16 – 00:36:33:12

Yep. It’s sort of like, it’s sort of like it gives them permission and it makes them say like it’s not it’s not a selfish thing anymore. I’m doing this for a cause or I’m doing this for a purpose. I’m not doing this for me because I’m selfish and you know, and and I think that’s it was just blew me away. How many women that came out of the woodwork to do this with me and are just so excited about it because of the purpose in the mission for it. And it’s amazing. It’s just it’s been so rewarding not only for them, but for myself as well.

00:36:33:29 – 00:36:43:10

Yeah, that’s amazing. And when you think about with seniors, too, it gives them a reason to do a photo shoot because they’re graduating from high school this morning. Right.

00:36:43:18 – 00:37:26:07

However, I will tell you they will not post. They will if they some of them do. But they have a hard time posting a professional image on their Instagram, because I think that it’s people are going to think they’re full of themselves or something. So so that really affects how I how I market my seniors on Instagram. I find that they will repost a story all the time. Yeah. So I’m working more towards getting like during a session, doing the behind the scenes and kind of a fun pictures and do more of the stories in the reels, those they will repost every time and, but they it’s a senior sunday is their reason and their

00:37:26:12 – 00:37:26:27

their

00:37:27:23 – 00:37:40:12

permission to to post like a professional photo. Some of them do, some of them have no problem with it. But ninety percent of the kids just don’t post professional pictures. They want all the crazy silly stuff on their Instagram feeds.

00:37:40:18 – 00:38:06:09

So yeah. So I’ve had the same experience with with the seniors that I photographed. I don’t photograph a whole lot of seniors anymore, but yeah, you are exactly right. They don’t post the ones that unless it’s senior sunday because that’s a reason. Yeah. Or like if I do the post then they might share it right or not. The story. They usually share the stories for sure. But yeah, like if I do a regular post sometimes they’ll share that post. Right.

00:38:06:12 – 00:38:17:24

So funny work how that works. Yeah, it’s funny. Yeah. Just got to work with what. You know what, what works out there. You have to find out, you know, the methods that work and go with them.

00:38:18:10 – 00:38:49:08

And adding the family portion to senior photos is really smart. And, and I started doing that. But it was kind of by accident. Yeah, it was the parents saying like, hey, you know, we haven’t done family photos in a while, would it be OK if I’m like, Oh, absolutely, because like you said, well, for me personally, I as much as I love little kids, photographing them is extremely hard. And I’m not trying to work hard anymore. I’m trying to work smart. And photographing teenagers with their parents for me is like this. It is.

00:38:49:10 – 00:39:23:29

Exactly. It’s a piece of cake. It’s 20 minutes at the end of the session. And and if you can convince Mom to get hair and makeup done, too, or moms plural, who whoever the parent is, the parents are who might want hair and makeup, like now you’ve you’ve given them the experience of the full service. Plus they’re going to see how you pose and direct them. So now they’ve had this experience of being photographed by you as well. And then who knows, like when you do any sort of campaign or when they need family photos in the future, or maybe they need headshots or personal branding or whatever that looks like right now.

00:39:24:01 – 00:39:39:16

They’ve experienced a photo shoot with you and you are so much more likely. I always, always sell my biggest package or more when the family comes in, because now you’ve got they’ve got to pick just the photos for the seniors. And of course, they’re not going to not pick the family photos

00:39:40:12 – 00:40:12:19

like two sessions in one. And you’ve only added 15 minutes and not much more work on it. Yeah. And then the moms are comfortable. They’re comfortable with you then. And so when it is time for, like you said, for another type of session, they’re going to call you because they’ve seen your work, they’re comfortable with you. So absolutely, it’s been huge to to add on or even if just the siblings that come with, you know, then they’re making Christmas cards in the Christmas time and then you’ve got your little branding on the back of every one of those cards that goes out and just kind of it just kind of steamrolls.

00:40:13:06 – 00:40:31:02

Yeah. What about any for people who are like just trying to get into this whole senior genre and where do they start? Like, do you have like some sort of recipe that you would like if you were to? OK, let me let me ask you this. If you were to start over in a brand new town again, how would you begin? Well, that’s

00:40:31:04 – 00:40:42:04

a good way to put that. I would find some girls in high school, whether that’s through someone I know, maybe

00:40:43:21 – 00:41:17:03

know, usually someone you can meet, people like when you first move to a town or you’re first starting out, you know, people that have kids in high school. So I would get a few girls and invite them into my studio, give them a voucher or invite them in and just offer them a couple of digital files to to to photograph with you. I would photograph them, make them fall in love with you, make them fall in love the pictures, get your Instagram going, your Facebook up. And I would just start blasting pictures and getting them excited about the experience and and talking to their friends.

00:41:17:08 – 00:41:52:21

And, you know, maybe you just start out with maybe only doing six to ten seniors your first year, but then the next year that will double into twenty or thirty. And then the next year maybe you have 60, you know, and then you have to know your limit of how many you want. Some people only want to photograph twenty, thirty seniors a year. Some people want to photograph hundreds. So the best thing is to to to know your limits and you know what your what your workflow is and what your lifestyle is. And obviously, the more you can, the higher your sales averages, the less clients you have to take on.

00:41:52:23 – 00:42:23:05

So, you know, if your sales average is around six to eight hundred, you’re going to probably need more more clients. So you have to work on your pricing. You have to work on your sales. It’s all kind of. But to get seniors in, I would start with that. If you’re in a smaller town, you can get to go into your school, get to know some of your the people in your school, get involved in some of the clubs, the dance groups, the cheerleading, the band, the sports. You can start doing sports pictures, proms, proms are a great place because you’re already working.

00:42:23:14 – 00:42:44:22

You want to concentrate on the juniors, obviously, because the seniors are at that time have already had it. But but getting your names out there, doing sports pictures, prom pictures, and you just have to start. That’s that’s the trick. You just have to do it. You have to not be fearful of failing and fearful of not doing a good job. You just have to start with

00:42:45:11 – 00:42:59:02

another place who I think is like mom Facebook groups. Yeah. In whatever town you’re moving to, even if you’re not a mom, you could join and say, hey, I’m looking for five high school juniors to photograph or whatever.

00:42:59:04 – 00:43:26:18

An absolutely. Local stores are good too shops that maybe have teen type of clothing, maybe do a network with them where you do some photos of kids in their clothes. So then the shop is promoting you, the seniors are promoting you. Collaborations are huge. I love doing collaborations with hair, makeup artists. Florists look different locations like maybe it’s like a coffee shop. Or,

00:43:28:11 – 00:43:40:17

you know, just a fun place that seniors hang out and everybody gets to, everyone gets to to promote each other, and that’s a really good way to get to know your community and people around you and get your name out there.

00:43:41:06 – 00:44:06:06

Yeah, I tried once. This was back when I was in Seattle. And I was I mean, I had I built my portfolio. I did it like a model call and I had eight seniors, just different variety of kids. And and I kind of built my portfolio that way is how I started. And then I ended up putting an ad in a magazine. It was like the basketball magazine, and it was like a big spread and I got nothing from it. Had you.

00:44:06:12 – 00:44:07:12

Oh, my gosh.

00:44:07:21 – 00:44:09:09

Something came of it. No, no.

00:44:09:21 – 00:44:44:11

Everything I can tell you stories of things that I’ve done like that, that have not worked out, I’ve done in the back of Burger King receipts. I’ve done I’ve done like when you move into neighborhoods, sometimes they have like a little booklet that they have a neighborhood, people that will send the packet to new neighbors. I’ve done new neighborhood guides. I’ve done different like local magazines and publications. And nothing I mean, just nothing works as good as as social media and word of mouth and networking.

00:44:44:21 – 00:44:46:22

Yep. Yep. And actual contact with people.

00:44:46:29 – 00:44:48:04

Yeah, absolutely.

00:44:48:06 – 00:45:13:10

One hundred percent. And I was so curious. I’m glad you had the experience, but it’s I’m finding that that is the case and there’s nothing better than that. Just word of mouth referral. And that means sometimes that means doing free shoots and sometimes I mean putting yourself out there when it’s scary and whatever that is the way you’re going to get the word out there. And that’s social media.

00:45:13:12 – 00:45:22:04

Yeah, absolutely. And another big thing is to have a really good website that people are going to want to stay on and

00:45:24:08 – 00:45:48:24

and make sure that you’re SEO is up to par because a lot of people still Google search like I have on my form that seniors fill out. I ask, where do you find me? And I always ask people because I want to know how people are finding me and Google search it comes up a lot. So you have to work on your SEO, on your website, whether that means figuring out how to tag your pictures and keywords and

00:45:50:18 – 00:46:21:06

and what else is good for and blogging and and having links that bring people to your website. So like, if you’re on Facebook and Instagram, get them to link to your website. So more people that come to your website and when you’re networking, have them link to your website. Anything that will build SEO will help you and you’re in the Google searches. So it’s important to to to have a really good website with really your best images. And and that will help as well.

00:46:21:17 – 00:46:36:04

Yeah, I always talk about that, too. Two best images first. Yeah. You’ll do the ten photos from the same shoot right up to a diverse group of teens or whomever you want to photograph. But your best work needs to be the first thing they see or they’re just going to leave.

00:46:36:06 – 00:47:05:01

It’s better to have 12 really good photos than forty OK pictures and a lot of repeats because people are going to say, oh, she only photograph two people, you know, she’s just showing the same thing over and over again. So, you know, you do those sessions and do a variety in that one session with that person. So you can have a variety to put up on your website and to post on social media and ask people to follow you. Don’t be afraid to ask people to follow you on social media.

00:47:05:17 – 00:47:22:16

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely awesome. Well, thank you for sharing all of this with us. I feel like senior senior photography people thing can be kind of a beast. But once you get the flow and once you get the word out, I think it can be so lucrative and so fun.

00:47:22:18 – 00:47:53:29

Yeah, absolutely. I love it. I absolutely love it. It’s just, you know, some people don’t love it as much just because teens can be hard on themselves. But I love it because it keeps me young and it’s stylish and we can do fun locations. And, you know, it’s just more one on one. And I absolutely love it. I love the senior market and I love my my women’s portrait market, my fine art that I’m kind of doing. And I added a fine art line to my senior market. So so that’s really fun, too.

00:47:54:01 – 00:47:57:07

If someone want if they want something a little bit more stylized and fine art.

00:47:58:03 – 00:47:59:26

Fine art as in

00:48:00:04 – 00:48:03:26

as in really styled and things in their hair.

00:48:04:21 – 00:48:08:22

I notice that you in your studio you have a bunch of different color wigs

00:48:09:00 – 00:48:20:03

there, floral floral headpieces that I make. Yeah. So I have a fine art line and I allow seniors to, to, to add that on too. So that’s kind of fun, something different.

00:48:20:27 – 00:48:28:19

One more question before we get into the questions I always ask is how do you handle when teens are Hard on themselves in front of you, when they say things

00:48:29:15 – 00:49:11:06

you can’t, you can’t. It’s really difficult because they really are just the way the media is and the way they are towards each other is just a cruel world at that age where they’re just building their confidence and there’s so much that tears it down. So during a session, I really work hard at building them up and making sure they feel beautiful and the guys make them sure they feel good. But it’s really important that you build them up during the session and just be authentic when you’re complimenting him, because there’s always something to compliment everybody like, oh, my gosh, you look amazing in that dress and your smile is so beautiful and you’re doing such a great job and, you know, and that kind of helps and that confidence.

00:49:11:08 – 00:49:45:13

But there’s like years of, you know, they’ll nitpick, they’ll look at their pictures, they’ll say, oh, I don’t like my belly and I don’t like this. And you can’t deny their feelings towards it. But I just keep it positive and just keep saying, oh, my gosh, you’re so beautiful. And Mom’s there to say you’re just you’re beautiful. And obviously, mother’s going to love everything, you know, but generally they love their pictures and they know that they’re hard on themselves, you know, and it’s just it’s my job to help build them up. And and I one of my most cherished memories is the mom came in to place her order after their senior pictures.

00:49:45:15 – 00:50:30:29

The daughter couldn’t come with. No, actually she did come with and she was coming separate in. The mom was her first and she says, I have to tell you, she says when we left the session, she says, I looked over and my daughter was crying. And she says, I’m like, well, she goes, Oh my gosh, what happened? She goes. She goes, That is the first time I’ve ever felt beautiful. And the mother was so touched. And I mean, when she told me this, I was like bawling my eyes out because I made her daughter feel beautiful for the first time. And so so that’s like that’s like driven my purpose to to to really try to really empower these young ladies into being maybe sometimes I point out something that’s unique about them that they might be self-conscious about.

00:50:31:01 – 00:51:07:09

And I just say how amazing it is. Like the other day I had a girl with a freckle on her lip and I’m like, oh my God, I love that freckle. That is just so amazing. And I’m and then I’m like, I hope you like is I do like it know. And so I just point out things about them. Each kid that I think is special and maybe it’s a talent they have, it doesn’t always have to be about looks because so much is based around looks. It’s about talent. These kids are talented and they’re smart and you know, and so, you know, I try to empower each one a little bit and hopefully it makes a little bit of a of a difference in their lives in a cruel world.

00:51:07:18 – 00:51:10:21

Yeah, it’s a great response for sure. thanks.

00:51:11:09 – 00:51:20:20

Cool. Well, OK, now I get to ask you the questions that I ask everyone at the end of each episode. And the first one is what is something you can’t live without when you’re doing a photo shoot?

00:51:21:19 – 00:51:25:23

Well, besides my camera, I would say.

00:51:29:16 – 00:51:49:06

Yeah, besides the obvious, I would say my little folding stool, because I’m not super tall and it allows me to get up taller if I need to get up to the tall kids or I use it for the kids to sit on when they’re like in the lower bushes or something, they can sit on it. It’s just very multipurpose.

00:51:49:14 – 00:51:54:14

Yeah, awesome. Very cool. And then how do you spend your time when you aren’t working?

00:51:55:26 – 00:52:18:01

I’m not not working, I spend it with my family, my I have two grandkids now, they’re two and a half and eight months, and I love to to spend some time with them every week and watching sports. I love I love sports. So I like watching Minnesota Wild, Minnesota Twins, Minnesota Vikings. I didn’t know a about you. Yeah, I love sports.

00:52:18:03 – 00:52:23:17

Yeah. Are very cool. OK, and then what is your favorite inspirational quote.

00:52:24:17 – 00:52:44:22

I have a lot of them, but probably my favorite one is a very simple one that that I have up in my in my dressing room in my studio. And it just says live by grace, not perfection. Just simple. In fact, I had a comment on this. She goes, oh my gosh, I, I love that quote. She goes, I need to do that more often.

00:52:45:13 – 00:52:58:04

Yeah. Yeah. OK, and then what what do you tell people? I mean, I know you kind of gave advice when you’re just starting out with seniors, which is overall starting in the photography business. What’s the advice you would give?

00:52:58:20 – 00:53:29:01

My biggest advice is don’t let fear stop you. Fear is huge and it will cripple you. Yeah. So you work on confidence and work on your fear and just, you know, find out who you are and to focus on what you love to do, find your style and just just be passionate about it and just just do it. Just put yourself out there and don’t be afraid to approach people, you know, just. Yeah. Like I said before, just start. Just do it.

00:53:29:03 – 00:53:31:08

Don’t be afraid. Yeah. Yeah.

00:53:31:11 – 00:53:36:22

It’s great advice. Great advice. Yeah. Well thank you. Where can people find you online Annemarie.

00:53:37:05 – 00:53:51:29

Well if you want to see my website, I’m at Anne Marie Photography dot com on Instagram. I’m at Annie Marie Seniors and Annie Dot Marie dot photography and

00:53:54:09 – 00:53:57:09

let’s see what else there. Facebook. Annie Marie photography.

00:53:58:12 – 00:54:00:19

You have also, yes, I follow you.

00:54:00:25 – 00:54:05:03

Well, thank you and I love your work and I love your new self portraits.

00:54:05:19 – 00:54:10:06

Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. I just posted one today. I’m thinking about doing another one that’s more casual.

00:54:10:16 – 00:54:33:18

Yeah, we’ll see. I love it. I love it. I just had to do some some new ones for I’m doing some speaking next spring. And so I don’t I didn’t have any new updated headshots and so I had to do some too. And so I know what that’s like to do, you know, the self portrait because it was kind of strange. But but I did some more creative ones for this round of the portrait masters, too, so we’ll see how that goes.

00:54:33:26 – 00:54:38:28

Yeah, I’m excited to see them. Thank you. Well, thank you again for taking time to be with us here.

00:54:39:18 – 00:54:42:11

I appreciate the invite. It was fun to chat with you again.

00:54:43:05 – 00:54:46:28

Yeah, absolutely. I will see you online soon. OK, sounds good.

00:54:47:00 – 00:54:48:12

Bye bye bye.

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