226: Mastering the High-Season Madness with Jaye McLaughlin

It happens on the weekends , during the good light of the early morning or the late afternoon , and you know , if there are only 24 hours in a day , there may only be four or five good hours for photographing , especially if you are an outdoor , you know , natural light photographer , and weekends , of course , are very limited .

And there's the whole concept of like . Maybe you want to have a life outside of working every single evening and weekend , because that is when people get together , that is when your kids have plays and sport and sporting events and all of those kinds of things , god forbid .

You want to go out of town for a week or two , and certainly not during the fall season when many of us are working over time to try to meet demand . Today's guest is my friend , Jay McLaughlin . She's been on the show a couple of times in the past .

She was a guest on Mini Mentoring and she shared one of her nightmare scenarios when Dana interviewed everyone back in the spring about, you know, lessons they've learned from bad situations as a photographer , but she's never come on the show to share her business knowledge . Which is a miss on my part .

I take full responsibility because Jay is one of these people who is like an amazing business person in addition to being a fantastic photographer .

She reached out to me a couple of months ago about a strategy that she has been using in her family photography business for nine years I guess she said since 2014 , where she handles the lack of time that she has to take on clients in the busy season not by saying sorry , I'm booked and I can't work with you , but by using an alternate offer to get people

to book for the following year . So how do you get someone to book for March or April or June of the following year when what they want is a holiday card photo ? They want something right now . They have a problem and they need a solution , and Jay has come up with one , and she has very generously agreed to share that brilliant idea . On today's podcast .

She's going to share all of the do's and don'ts , the things you need to know , and I am hoping that many of you will take this strategy and run with it this year . Before I cue the music and let you listen to that interview , I just want to raise one further thing .

As you listen Now , this podcast episode is scheduled to drop in late August , which is not a whole lot of time before the busy season kicks in . So you may be listening to this thinking , well , there's no way that I can put this together for this season .

I would encourage you to remember that when it comes to business , as long as you are not over promising to the degree that you won't be able to fulfill , you can iterate . These kinds of tests or experiments do not need to be perfect right out of the gate .

So if what Jay shares sparks an idea for you , if you feel like this could be a good solution in your business , I would encourage you to try it . Maybe try it on a small scale , but try it this season and then next year you will have all of the lessons that you've learned from this year to draw on .

One thing that I like to do when I try something for the first time is take the time necessary after the you know , after I sort of see how it goes and make notes to myself , because I always think like , oh , I'm going to remember that I that this was too many sessions in a day , or this was , you know , the booking process was too difficult for people ,

or whatever the case may be . And then I forget , because you know my head has a thousand things going on in it .

So , as you iterate , as you try certainly as you try anything really , but this for the first time I want you to make notes to yourself about what's working , what's not working , what you would do differently in the future , because future you will really appreciate it . And with that I'm going to let Jay take over . Welcome to this . Can't Be that Hard .

My name is Anami Tonkin and I help photographers run profitable , sustainable businesses that they love . Each week on the podcast , I cover simple , actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way . Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard .

You can do it , and I can show you how . Jay McLaughlin , welcome to this . Can't Be that Hard .

This is the second time that I have had the pleasure of having you on the podcast , but the first time was in one of those mini-mentoring sessions , and I'm glad to have you back , because the truth of the matter is , as a veteran of this industry and someone who has such great business strategies and tactics and stuff , the truth is that you make more sense as

a guest sharing your knowledge rather than somebody asking me for insights .

So I'm very excited for our conversation today and I know that this idea and this strategy that you have been using for sounds like almost a decade now is going to be like everybody's brains are going to just start churning with ideas , because I think that this is a really smart tactic for some people .

But before we dive in , why don't you introduce yourself , give everybody a sense of where you are , who you serve , and then we can just dive right in .

The first time was mini-mentoring and I was one of the lucky ones who got to share their nightmare stories . Oh yes , and that was really fun . Was it a fun episode ? I ?

So by the time that this drops we are going to be coming in hot on the busy season and sort of walking that fine line that a lot of photographers deal with , especially family photographers , which is like you make a lot of your money at this time of year , so you want to say yes to as many sessions as possible , knowing that in the spring , winter and

spring months things can slow down for a period of time . You have kind of hacked that issue in your business in a way . That is like , of course , why aren't more of us doing that ? So why don't you go ahead and introduce this system or the strategy from the beginning ?

I'm just outside the city and I serve Westchester County where I live , New York City and Southern Connecticut and , like you say , for everybody , even if what they want is in home and in theory it shouldn't matter whether the tulips are blooming or whether the foliage is beautiful , Fall is when everybody reaches out .

The highest by far percentage of increase comes Usually , you know , only a few years into my business , at a time when I've already I'm already booked up , Right ? So the first couple of years I was feeling like , you know , because who doesn't love new clients ? Sure , I would love to say yes to everyone , but I couldn't because I was real .

I've always been very . You know , this is a second career for me and one of my career goals was this isn't going to run my life Right , this is going to work in a way that I can control how . You know how much time I spend on it . And obviously there were some bumps at the beginning , but a core value of my business has always been balance .

So this came up as a way to maintain that balance without having to turn away every fall inquiry that came in and also as a way to make more money and to add value to my clients experience .

But in the family business , when you say no to someone at a time when they are looking to book , if you say , oh , I would love to book you in the spring , but they have like , nope , we want to get holiday cards made or whatever , then what's going to happen is that they are going to go book with somebody else and you know , eight times out of 10 , seven

times out of 10 , that means that you will never hear from that person again . So it's the immediate loss , but it's also the loss of future business that that risk is so .

Yeah , yeah , so the scheme is it's called my annual holiday card micro mini session event and it has evolved a little bit over the years , but the general structure is and I'll talk about how I talk about it and how I roll it out and all that but basically , if you are a , you know , a new parent or a young family who's reaching out to me in September ,

october or even anytime after , when I booked up for the year and that gets earlier every year and I don't have to say sorry , booked , have a nice life I can say I I'm fully booked for my family lifestyle sessions now . But I do have this great promotion that I run every year .

It's my annual holiday card micro mini session event and I look link to the details which tell this family that if you book a full family lifestyle session the following year , pay your session fee and agree to a date , then you are eligible for a slot limited number of slots , so make sure you're the right place in line for one of these three Saturdays .

Sometimes I throw a Veterans Day in there , if it fills up , where you show up with your kids and you get a free 10 minute session and one free digital file , the entire goal of which is to get that holiday card photo , which is what you need right now .

So I'm going to solve your problem right now and you'll have this whole different , better , wonderful experience with me in the form of a full family lifestyle session the following year .

You know I want to encourage you to go earlier , but even before I did that , because of the way I roll these out , the fall was picking up , booking up first , and so the people who are coming to me later were being pushed back earlier into the year . So it was spreading my bookings .

Instead of , you know , having 70% of my business in September , october , november , I now have it spread from January all the way through October now , because now in November I only do these and a couple of schools .

So I basically have all my marketing concentrated in the end of the year when people are paying the closest attention to me , and I can sort of sit back and just do the work that I love for the first nine months of the year without having to market . I still do market , obviously .

I try to stay top of mind and I'm always paying attention to newborns , you know , to new clients with them and I and I'll save some room . But it really is a win-win and it's been a great thing for my business . And every time I talk to somebody about it I kind of wonder , like why doesn't everyone do this ? It just makes so much sense .

This is one of those things where , you know , I feel like in the movies they talk about , when there's a scene that has like really big impact , or if a stand-up comedian is telling a joke , the good ones know to like pause and let everyone absorb that , and I feel like we should like have a blackout in the audio here for just picture it .

Just imagine all those inquiries that you're getting and you know this ties in really nicely . It's like the most brilliant version of something that I have talked about before as a back pocket offer , and you want to be ready if somebody you know isn't able to pay your prices or whatever . You want to have a backup offer .

This is the backup offer for if you're booked and you need to like move the timing , this is an amazing way to do that . So and I want to come back to the fact that this is all you do in the month of November outside of schools so you do . You said three Saturdays plus potentially Veterans Day as well .

So it just the going back to it if it makes sense . I mean it just makes it much calmer . I mean it's not calm and I frequently say out loud to my family but I'm really talking to myself you know , november is really hard and kind of exhausting and I feel really empty out a lot of the time . Because this is I enjoy it .

I won't say I don't enjoy it , but a session every 15 minutes or a school , a kid every three minutes is not why I love what I do , but I do enjoy it . They do make me a good portion of my income and , like I say , this gets . Otherwise no one's going to call me in January and be like , hey , I really want to get in right now and do this .

In my membership I actually have a few families who regularly book in January because one of them or two of them , their kids' birthdays happened then and they just sort of like have that set up as their cycle . I love those sessions but it's never what somebody thinks of when they think of booking a set .

Like you know , the timing for a session but January and North Carolina where I am , you know , is often like we can have some really nice weather and the pressure just feels different . You know , the time is different .

They are much more open to the sort of cool aid that I'm constantly serving , which is it's not about that , We'll do a few of those , but it's mostly about you being , you enjoying your family on a beautiful , you know , Wednesday morning when the kids are playing hockey from school or whatever it is .

All of the spiel that I give is not falling on ears that are like but the holiday card .

Like I do understand , especially when somebody is investing a lot of money and they're , you know , sometimes it helps to have , like we have , a goal , but we all know as artists that when the pressure of that one goal is taken away , people do a much better job of just relaxing and enjoying themselves , which turns into better photos , which turns into happier

clients . Like that's a , that's a cycle we all want to perpetuate . So , speaking of your spiel , talk to me a little bit about how this really goes down . I mean , I understand that , like this is in particular for new people who are reaching out to you , but do you market this to people that you've worked with in the past ? Like , how , how does that all ?

And there are many clients who had been annual clients and I like this and I'll explain why who have become every other year clients because their kids are , because I am , you know it is a big investment .

Their kids are bigger , they're not changing as much every single year and so they'll come to me one year for a full session , the following year for a micro , for a micro mini , and the following year for a full session . That spaces it out that I'm not serving the same 50 to 60 clients every single year .

I can take new clients and maintain the relationships for the ones who have been coming to me since 2010 . So , yeah , it is first come , first

serve . It does encourage people to buckle down and get their calendars and pay attention to what they need to do to get that spot , both for repeat clients and for new clients , and I roll it out that way . I mean , I start talking about it as soon as I'm well . Now I'm booking up earlier .

I probably start talking about it in the summertime and I , you know I'll be vague about it , but anyone who's paying attention to me knows that I do it every year . You know my the big surprise is coming . I'm doing it again . You'll be hearing about it .

You know I'll start talking about it , like I said , end of August , beginning of September , and then I'll start saying you know , something big is coming and in sometime in mid to late September I'll say the information is going to go to booked baby planners first , and then people who are already booked for next year , and then to my newsletter and then it'll

come here on my socials and you know , on my blog and all the other places that I put it out to the general public . So that gets people paying attention . It gets people to subscribe to my newsletter . Typically , like when I do end that , add that additional date . It allows me to give something to new inquiries that come in for the rest of the fall .

It has to be good light and it also has to be a lot of variety within this number of spots I can reach in 10 to 15 minutes because , yes , the promise is that you get that one perfect photo for your holiday card , but of course , my goal is to get some fun ones and get some individual ones of each kid .

They're kids only , but you really can get a lot in 10 minutes . You know some rocks to climb on , some stairs to jump off some , so that when they get their gallery and I give them whatever you know , however many I like , it's hard for them to say , okay , I'll just pick this one free one . They go into what now ?

In the past several years it's been straight simple sales . You know the small packages , your one free one , the middle packages I think five , and all of them is the top package , and the top two now come with a $25 print credit which encourages them to buy more from me , and it's just kind of a win , win , win . Yeah , I love that .

New clients it's great because I've gotten to know them a little bit , and so it's less of a you know a surprise when I show up Along those same lines .

I'm kind of jumping around here , but I have to educate them before , during and after and also remind them before I come for them for their full session that it's not going to be like that , it's going to be total . Wasn't that crazy ? It was kind of fun .

We are not going to be doing that for an hour and a half , I promise you know , me running around acting crazy , throwing kids up on you know rock walls and you know that kind of thing .

So you already sort of jumped into the answer to my next question , which was that these people don't , they're not limited to that one image .

Because I think that some people might hear the beginning of our conversation and say , okay , I get that you're setting up photos for the next year , but what if you're working all November and there's no income there because it's all these free micro mini sessions , Talk a little bit and we don't have to talk specific numbers , but does that end up being ?

Do you end up feeling like you're making a fair amount of money on the upsell options for those people ?

Yeah , but most of my people at least , will buy the middle package . Very few can I mean . If you have one child , and you know there are some people like I budgeted for the big session and I told myself I don't only get one . It does happen but it's rare .

It is the exception to the rule , and so for each day of the event I typically make at least what I would have made if I had taken a full session .

Or if you book the newborn session which we're going to do , simple sales style , I have sort of like a mini maternity package that I offer people .

That's a flat rate and it's just an easy add on because I think a lot of people , especially people with who this is their first child , they don't necessarily need like the whole shebang for maternity because I'm not doing like I do .

Lifestyle maternity it's not , you know , it's not like the rule posed , like we're going to go get your hair and makeup done and do the whole thing . So I offer that and it's less money than I would charge for a standalone session . Typically it's not free but it's quite a bit less . And you know , there are sometimes where I'm like is this worth it .

But the fact of the matter is , if you look at it as an overall investment , where that is basically one session , then you're you're just adding to your bottom line .

So you're booking a full session and then you're giving yourself the potential for a really solid upsell with this micro mini and you're making sure that that person doesn't like bounce off of you and go find it a different photographer .

So I can almost hear the people out there saying , okay , well , what if someone is a new customer to you and books one of these and pays the session fee and then never , you know , comes and fulfills their full session ? Has that ever happened to you ?

And then , sure , everyone , you end up pushing it back into a month that does not serve one of the main purposes of these add-ons . So , yeah , you have to give me a specific date and if that date doesn't work , you're bound by the same cancellation policy that if you had , as if you had booked this . You know , without the add-on , yeah , yeah , that's great .

But this is the thing that I love about you is you're also like no , no , you're not going to waste my time . My time is valuable . I am a real business person and it's part of the reason that you've been in business for you know what ? 14 , 13 , 14 years . I know that you and I are on a similar timeline , I think , but about 13 for me , yeah , same .

It can be awkward or it can feel like you're kind of stepping out of your comfort zone to hold tight to your boundaries , but I have found that it is just vital to running a business .

It's so important and we can feel like it's more comfortable to hang out in the gray areas , but when you make it really clear for your clients , I also believe that that drives trust in your brand and your business , such that somebody is comfortable working with you because they understand that if you have clear boundaries , they know where they can and cannot like

it becomes part of your reputation and everything else too .

the longer you're in this , the more you almost take for granted that your people find you and that they , you know you're marketing and your reputation and everything else you find the right people .

I have the right people now , yeah , but earlier in my business it wasn't necessarily so , and at that time my session fee was low enough that there were a couple of people who were like you'll do what if I ? What ? Sure , yeah , here's $250 . I need a holiday card photo , let's do this .

And then , when they showed up for the full session the next year , they just weren't . I need enthusiasm , yeah , you know , if you're as excited as I am to do this , then we are well aligned . It doesn't matter who you are , what you do , anything else . If you're really psyched about this , you're my people .

Yeah , and sometimes that $250 was just not enough for some families to reach that point . They were just I was solving the immediate problem . It was worth $250 to them and it wasn't the right fit . Yeah , no , absolutely . So , either they bought smaller packages or it just wasn't as fun for me , or whatever .

So now my session fee is high enough that it doesn't . I mean I think it's a people are going to look at my pricing and make sure that they want what I'm offering . But there was even an interim period , which I don't recommend . But it did solve this problem . I did a . It was just too confusing and complicated .

I did like a session deposit where they paid $500 and 200 of that went towards their collection . Right it was . It did some problem solving , ended up not sticking with that solution , but you see where that , what the goal was of that and why at the time I felt like it was a good idea .

That is where I have landed with in every single of those kinds of problems . And when you book a year , out remembering .

Let's think about what your life is like right now and what you want to remember about it . For these it's just your kids and it's just 10 minutes and it's at a location that I choose at the time that you are signed up for , and if you're late or have to leave early , that is your allotted time and that is it .

They're also specific in the sense that these are not custom sessions at all . In fact , these aren't micro mini sessions . They are . It is a micro mini session event which is taking place on these specific days . If your kid gets sick , if something comes up and you miss it , I don't know you anything .

I don't need to be rescheduling 25 custom 10 minute sessions in November . That would break me . That would be a nightmare , and part of making that possible is that I am very clear in the agreement when you book that if you have booked 3 o'clock on Saturday , your rain date is 3 o'clock on Sunday .

If we have to cancel , we have to cancel and you can't make it 3 o'clock on Sunday . Okay , see you next year . See you at the full session .

If I do at Veterans Day , I have to be a little bit more creative about because we do have bad weather sometimes . These are outdoor sessions for me . I've considered doing studio space .

But even with the besides the cost for me , I would be worried about getting the same level of variety that I can get in a little yard or park or whatever that has rock walls and things like that I did touch on . Do front , load the investment . Don't make this , you know , take the money and run , kind of situation for them .

I mentioned the way I had done it , but there's lots of ways to do that . I mean , even if you're an all inclusive photographer , you just require a hefty enough deposit that they're not going to just figure that it's worth it without the later commitment .

Do market strategically and I touched on that as well , because another huge benefit of it can be that more people hear about what it is that you actually do and you get newsletter subscribers and it's just a greater way of staying in front of more people , even the people who don't necessarily book you that year . So that's smart .

And probably the biggest thing is to really communicate before , during and after about what these are , what people can expect from them , where there might be exceptions , where there will definitely not be exceptions and , to me maybe most importantly , how these are different from what you normally do and how the mindset needs to shift or should shift between , you know

, those 10 minutes in the park and that hour or two hours or however long I spend with you when I come for your full session the following year ?

But I think that there's lots of ways that you could do it , even if your business is different , by following those dos . I'm an in-home family photographer . I might step outside for a few , but you're not going to get kids standing outside in the park with me . You're just not .

I mean so much so that when I'm talking about the holiday cards , I'm like , yeah , put them in matching tart and fled dresses .

Like , just be photoready , just in case , if your kid is terrified of me , you might be used as a prop to either hold them on a hip or hold them over their shoulder or say come on , let's just do one with the three of you , and then I've given you extra special attention and you're definitely going to buy your full gallery .

But if you're an outdoor family photographer , I think that there's lots of different ways that you can offer this without giving away the whole cow .

I have a friend who is like a golden hour photographer who , instead of running out of book of spots in the fall every year , she only offers these shorter golden hour sessions in the fall and markets throughout the year , saying if you want a custom session at home or at a location that you can bring dogs to , or you need a little extra time or whatever it

is , you have to book January through June , because I only offer this in the fall . It's basically just taking advantage of the demand that the very specific demand that you get in the fall and thinking about how you can use that to your benefit .

Even if you're in a place where you're not fully booked and you're feeling that burn it is , it's good to remind yourself and those people , because if you book a bunch of smaller , low paying , whatever jobs , that means you've run out of the time and if those great sessions come along , you have to say no or you have to say all I have for you is this one

thing .

So if you're a family that can't possibly take a weekday morning or leave work early off of work , or will refuses to take your kids out of school , then we're going to be talking about January or February because that's those are the only weekend days in which I love I mean , I love my business the most when it's when it's chill . You know absolutely .

So let everybody know where they can find you , where they can reach out to you if they , if they want to ask something , if you're open to that .

Like honestly , I'm one of these people who these kinds of like business strategies , like the creative part of owning a business is one of my favorite parts , which is why you know I'm driving in my car talking back to you , anami , and all of your guests when you're giving these brilliant episodes every week .

I mean , this is what I love to talk about , so I do reach out . That's the easiest way . I'm also on Instagram at Jaymcl Great , and , yeah , I'd be happy to hear from anybody .

I love this . My favorite thing about the podcast is being a platform where these kinds of ideas can get shared . So thank you so much and thank you , it was so great to see your face . I'm looking forward to talking to you again soon , but until next time , Thanks a lot , Adamie .

Even better , share the love by leaving a review in iTunes . And , as always , thanks so much for joining me . I hope you have a fantastic week .