Intro: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Posers podcast, the place where we skip the fluff. Say the quiet parts out loud and dig into what really matters. This is where photography, psychology, and business collide. I'm Jody, your host, and I'm bringing you my raw takes, hard wins, and a whole lot of unfiltered honesty about what it takes to build a photography business that actually connects and makes money.
So ladies, grab your headphones and get your tits up and your ears open because we are going to build something really incredible together.
Episode Intro: Hello, hello, hello and welcome back my beautiful posers. We are here for another episode of the Posers Podcast, and I cannot be more thrilled for what we're about to dive into with Shannon Griffin. If you listened last week, know that we had a whole entire episode last week with Shannon, which [00:01:00] was. Such a great conversation about the balance between what you are learning at conferences and what you are getting from educators.
Some of the red flags to be looking for when you are choosing which educators you want to invest in, and some of the things that the educators think on our side too, where we're having to really balance what we can give and what we can't in order for us to also run. Uh, really fluid, really sustainable businesses.
So if you have not listened to last week's episode, I would urge you to hit a little, rewind back and go back and listen to that episode first, because for this week, we are going to continue talking to Shannon. She is going to dive into her process that she uses to shoot. Boudoir for her business.
And when I tell you this woman is a genius. I mean she is a god damn genius with a camera. [00:02:00] She is a visionary. She is nothing but heart and soul, and I love her so much, and I cannot wait for you guys to dive into this second half of the conversation that we started last week. And since we are talking boudoir with Shannon, it has never been a more perfect time for me to say that you need to get your tits up and your ears open because Shannon is seriously about to blow the roof off of this place, and we're gonna dive into everything that she does inside of her business, and I simply cannot wait for you to hear it all.
Alright, let's dive in. Let's fucking go you guys.
Jodi: So I wanna dive into a little bit of what you talked about in Florida. Sure. So if you can give me a quick, like, rundown of who you are, what your business is, what you shoot, and what your [00:03:00] like average sale is.
Shannon Griffin: Okay. Yeah. Mostly boudoir. I still do families but my focus is on moms and most of my clients are in their forties and have kids.
And my whole process and the thing that I teach on is creating trust and tension. I work. Very deep with my clients. And I really believe in boundaries and I believe in really setting up expectations, like telling people they're not a good fit from the beginning. Because I know that my process is very involved.
Uh, my end goal with the clients is large wall art. Uh, a lot of still get like matted prints and albums, people who wanna be private. But I try to shoot in a way that's very artistic so that they can go, yeah, I'll put that on my wall 'cause my dad won't know that those are my boobs. Like, that's fine. Or my vagina.
So that's kind of my intentionality behind it, is I really wanna bridge the gap in collecting art of ourselves. Because I know a lot of my clients are art collectors [00:04:00] and love nudes and are really inspired by nature and art, but it's like the thought of them putting themself on their walls, like can never, okay.
I
Jodi: wanna, I wanna put a pause right here because I feel like. Other people will always talk about your business in a different way than how you'll talk about it. Oh, no. I'm like, please let it be nicer than this. Because it's literally like, no, Shannon, you know how much of a girl crush I have on you? You know, I would make out with you in a heartbeat.
Why are you all in Vegas? Literally like, show me a dark corner of the room that I can pull you into. Like, we're going, you just have to be dark. Do you don't wanna see me? No. I have to hide from my husband.
Shannon Griffin: Oh my God. That's amazing.
Jodi: I'm kidding. Brian. I'm kidding. I love you. This is for educational purposes only education. This is pure entertainment at this point. Okay. No. So whenever Shannon says that she creates wall art I think that's a term that sort of gets like tossed around a little bit, especially in the portrait world, especially in family photography world.
To say that you wanna create wall art, a lot [00:05:00] of us, our brains go into like a gallery wall or like a really pretty photo of a family on a beach, and they're gonna frame that and they're gonna put it up above their fireplace or something like that. That's not what Shannon does. Shannon creates fucking art.
Okay. Shannon creates these massive pieces that go into her client's homes. Usually she's working with people who are very affluent. They have a lot of money. So they have these like grand homes in Miami, in Palm Beach, right? Palm Beach, yeah. Yep. In this area where they have.
Gorgeous spaces. And so she's creating huge pieces of like, I don't wanna say the word abstract, it's not always abstract. No, but I say that sometimes abstract, but there's a bit of, I'm trying to abstract to it. Like even if you go to the home page of her website, it's very much an abstract image. A lot of black and white of lot of grain, a lot of like [00:06:00] depth, a lot of, whenever you walk into a room and you look at something and it like punches you in the stomach and takes your breath away and you say, holy shit, that's Shannon.
So I just wanted to clarify that. Whenever you say. That you focus on wall art. You, I we're talking museum shit. You guys, we're not talking like a cute gallery wall. 'cause I do a cute gallery wall all day, every day. I love me a gallery wall. Like I love my family clients. I love what I do. I love all of that.
But you don't, that's not you. And I wanna make sure that the people who are listening really get the, the powerhouse that is behind you and your business and your brand. So, Kay, go from there.
Shannon Griffin: I'm like, wow. What do I say after that? You're
Jodi: like, hold on, let me put you in my pocket. Like, can you, I know.
Shannon Griffin: Can you describe Some people come onto my website. It's just you talking about me. Be like, hi, I'm Jody. Yes. I'm also a photographer. Yeah. What.
Jodi: Hi, I'm Shannon's marketing director. Honestly, just take the audio from this [00:07:00] and just do, put into the script, get the transcript from it, and then just put it onto your, like, I'll do like
Shannon Griffin: a slideshow with my photos and you're talking here.
Here's,
Jodi: here's what I do everybody. No, you're seriously mind blowingly incredible.
Shannon Griffin: I think that, I think the part of the process part and, and what I taught about, just like to try to sum it up a but big part of my talk was planning the seed with a client and going from. Following someone, seeing something on Instagram and messaging them.
And then from there, she remember she got me into a gallery space, then she hired me for her own boudoir session. Then she got me her friend's wedding, which was a $20,000 wedding for me to show up for 10 hours. And then from there I was in, another friend put me in her gallery space. And then after that she had me do , her creative consulting for her new business and do her branding.
So like, I don't wanna be looked at as a photographer, I wanna be looked at as a creative and an artist that it doesn't matter what the art is, I'm gonna help you get there and create that. So [00:08:00] that's kind of my, like, I'm trying to transcend that and that's why I have a deep process with them so that they're seeing that it's gonna be more than just I show up and take photos of you.
Like the model at the workshop said the same thing that every client says, which is , the biggest takeaway for me and why I always wanna do this process is she said, I don't even care what the photos look like. I just enjoyed this part of it so much that I feel so much better about myself. I don't care what the photos look like.
Jodi: And that process starts when they go to your website and put in an inquiry for a booking. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So tell me where that goes. Start from there. So that,
Shannon Griffin: so I have a red flag question on there like, tell me why now. How do you see yourself, how do you want, like how do you wanna display your art?
And then at the bottom, it's a dropdown and it says, tell me the intention of working together. And they can, they can select, I just want a quick session with a few prints, or I want to create art together. And so 100% of the time when they say, I just want a quick session, like they're [00:09:00] not my client. And it always ends up when I email them back, I either get ghosted, they read my process page and they're like, this is way more than I wanted to spend.
Or I just wanted sexy pictures. I don't wanna go through this process with you,
Jodi: which as a business owner, this is why I say the ballsy part, whenever I was talking about you in the beginning, I was like, the balls that you have, which is funny, it's a little bit of like this paradox with you too is because the balls that you have to say, no, I'm not gonna work with you.
But also you are such an open heart to everybody in the world that I know those nos hit you.
Shannon Griffin: Yeah.
Jodi: And so like to be running a business that you've created that's based mostly on nos. Yeah. Like tell me your internal process there of like how you even put up the armor to understand that you are gonna get told no so many more times than you're gonna get told.
Yes.
Shannon Griffin: Because I know myself and I know that the nos lead to the [00:10:00] yeses that I want and that the clients that I work with are. I try to tell people all the time, if you're shooting not volume based, you only need how many people to see the world the way that you see it a year and in a lifetime. I want more than 10 clients a year, but if my client averages 10,000, ideally I could have 10 clients who see the world the way that I see and be fine.
Like that works for me. And so
Jodi: that's not even one client per month, right? So that honestly, like because I'm volume based, because I like run the business that I run, I think that's the most. Inspirational thing that I've ever heard, and also the scariest thing I've ever heard. But it's also like we
Shannon Griffin: talked about, there's no, that's why I love both of our businesses because I have plenty of friends who do volume base and who are crushing it, but it's also their personalities.
They're extroverted. They love working. They're like, I, I don't have a shoot like three days a week. I, I think I'm failing. Like [00:11:00] it's very, this, what I had to do is sit with myself. I graduated art school in 2006 and I've been doing it since then. So like, I've been doing this almost 20 years. Like I know myself, I know what I need.
I know how I'm gonna be the most successful and like down to the fact that I deal with depression, anxiety. I am not someone who can have two clients a week. I would go insane because of what I'm giving to these clients. And that's why I tell people, like my commission fee is $1,500 just to work with me.
And I know that scares a lot of people, but what I try to tell them, and I told 'em at this conference is, you can still have my process and charge $300 for a commission fee. I said, but once you do it one time, you're gonna be like, oh, hell no. I have to charge like $10,000 because this is so much of myself that I'm giving.
So I think that's where I really like, that's why I charge what I charge, because I want them to see the value is in everything. It's not even about the photos. Like, yes, you're gonna get beautiful photos, but it's [00:12:00] not about that.
Jodi: Yeah. That's in, that's seriously, that's incredible. But I think you said it just right, like is that it's not so scary to hear the no.
Mm-hmm. Because you know that those nos are leading to the next Yes.
Shannon Griffin: Yeah. And those yeses are like, it's like drugs to me. Like when someone's like, let's move forward. I'm like. Oh my God. Like, it's just in the way that I have it set up is I also know that no one's gonna spend less than $4,500 with me. So like when I'm booking, I still have like, my average is 10,000, but of course you still have those one-offs that are like 5,000.
Yeah. And it's like, but going in knowing they're gonna spend no less than this with me, like when they say yes, I'm just like, I already know. Like, and we're gonna, and they're giving me the space to create the art and there's gonna be no resentment because I'm charging what I need to charge upfront.
Worst case scenario, they buy nothing for me. I'm $1,500 in and I have zero resentment. It's like, okay, well I still made, uh, [00:13:00] enough for me to show up and do this session.
Jodi: Yeah, no, for sure. Okay, so somebody inquires and they get through the first questionnaire and they say, no, I wanna create art with you.
So they're a yes. Let's go forward with this. So it's $1,500 for them to just,
Shannon Griffin: well, they haven't seen that yet. They've just seen the red flag question. Then I email them back and kind of tell, I already tell them like, this is gonna be a very in-depth process. Like album maker takes three months at the minimum.
You're not gonna see your photos at least till a month after. Like, I want them to know that there's no sneak peeks, there's no like immediate turnaround. This is a, like, this is a process we're gonna take together. And then I say, if this sounds like the experience you're looking for, here's my process page.
This is where they're seeing the 1500. But I don't go into any more pricing than that because I, I put on the, on the discovery, like what they're reading. I put that, I don't know how much you're gonna spend. Yeah. Because everything's custom. Like I can't tell you going in. And plus people will tell you their [00:14:00] budget, but they don't freaking know, like that's just what they've spent with somebody else, or they've heard somewhere.
So it's very much like. This is what it's gonna be like to work with me. That's where most people fall off. 'cause most people are like, I haven't even spent $1,500 with one. Like for all the digitals, like, yeah, I'm not used to that. So once they get, yeah. Do you
Jodi: get that a lot? Like, because.
Shannon Griffin: Yes.
Jodi: Obviously, especially
Shannon Griffin: with noir, because a lot of, we, people who are planning their weddings will reach out and I the every time they're like, you're more than my wedding photographer.
And I'm like, yeah. You're
Jodi: like, I don't know what to tell you.
Shannon Griffin: That's why I work with 40 year olds. I guess I was, I was wondering
Jodi: that whether or not you sort of fought that battle. 'cause I know I fight that battle. Yes. In my business of like, especially if I have a client who's a new client, somebody who hasn't worked with me before and they're just reaching out saying like, Hey, what are your prices?
Shannon Griffin: Yes.
Jodi: Then I'm obviously going to be in a situation where they're thinking like, excuse me, I'm gonna spend. How much, and I don't even get the digitals for that. Like so I was one. That's a [00:15:00] good thing that got brought up. I was wondering whether or not you fight that or if people just automatically know that.
Shannon Griffin: No, and it's like 99% of the people after I send that I never hear back from, or they say that I'm too expensive, 99% and that's the whole thing. That's why I try to be so transparent with, I'm not where I wanna be right now in my business because I am not booking off Google. No one's cut like one time a year, two time a year I get a shoot off Google because what those people are like cold leads, they're looking and they're like, oh, those are pretty photos.
Hey, I wanna do boudoir session with you. And they don't know me from Adam. And they're like, how much are you
Jodi: checking for? Yeah. I feel the same way. Like if somebody didn't come to me from a word of mouth or if they aren't coming to me because they follow my Instagram yes, or they like know who I am and how I work, then automatically I'm like, okay, like I have, if I have to send pricing, I know that they're probably not gonna book.
Yes. They're probably not my ideal client. The same,
Shannon Griffin: that's the exact same. So. I talk a lot about my mental struggles after having Mave and I didn't leave the house. I didn't [00:16:00] start Zoloft until August of this past year and she was, she was almost three, she was a couple months away from being three. And I also had really bad eczema all over my face and neck for two years that like left me to where I wouldn't leave the house.
I was so embarrassed. Like I didn't even wanna go to the grocery store. So like, think about the way that I have to like warm network and go to galas and go to these networking events and go to luncheons and like mingle with these people. I'm not doing that for two years. Yeah. So like when I say like my business, like I'm finally getting to the point where I'm like, okay, I'm ready to go back out there.
But like my business took a huge hit after having Maeve like huge hit. Well
Jodi: you're doing a really great job 'cause you're on tour with me now. So.
Shannon Griffin: Our cult, we're gonna have our cult.
Jodi: You know what, you are back in the world. You are back to working. We are starting our cult. I literally, I just said this to somebody else in my dms earlier, she was like, I just wanna sign up for your mastermind because I just wanna like hang out. And I was like, oh, we're not hanging out, we're forming cults.
Okay. Like it is my lifelong dream to be in a cult with [00:17:00] amazing women. So that's what, that's what we're creating. So you're back out in the world, which is fantastic. And I can like sense it from you too.
Shannon Griffin: Yeah.
Jodi: That 'cause I mean, I don't, I didn't know you during that time, whenever things got so dark after you had your daughter, but.
I see you now to where like, you've told me what that was like and now I see you now and I'm like, I met you at a conference. I've now been on two podcasts with you. Like we talk all day, every day. Like I know you're like back up and running your business. So is there any part of you now that you're coming out of that dark space where you're like, maybe I could, I'm on medication now.
Maybe I could take more than two shoots a month, or maybe
Shannon Griffin: I would still want the same, I would still want the same amount because I feel like I give so much of myself that I can't imagine doing. Yeah, it exhausts you. Yeah. And it's just like to even just sit down and, and like plan a wall, like wall art, like.
usually takes me three full days. Like, not [00:18:00] even joking because I'm such a, like, I wanna give them different variations. I wanna try this room. What do these two look like together? Do I want this size? What frame? I have to like, walk away from it and watch Mormon wives and then come back and do it again.
Jodi: That's what, that's part three because we need to discuss the Mormon wives and I'll
Shannon Griffin: be through with it by then. Really
Jodi: like we, what is going on in Utah? Because the patriarchy is not being fought over there. No, they claim they're fighting the patriarch. I'm like, girls sit down.
Shannon Griffin: It's so hard to watch too.
'cause they, I feel like they're me when I was 16. Like they're just, and I, they can't help it. They were, they were sheltered, but I'm like, they're so immature in the way they talk about sex friendships, like. It's hard to watch. I'm like,
Jodi: oh, it's an emotional like stuntedness. Mm-hmm. That they have because they're like 30 years old.
I know. And they're like, we're fighting the patriarchy. We're doing, you know, we're doing all this for women. I'm like, you're not doing anything for us. You're making us look horrible. Like, keep having babies. What are you talking, [00:19:00] talking about? I'm a 43-year-old woman and I don't think I've ever had a relationship with a female like that.
Shannon Griffin: Yeah.
Jodi: So for that to be like, portrayed that, that's how female friendships work. Like that baffles me. I have most,
Shannon Griffin: I have mostly girlfriends, but like, we are not, there's not the caddy, there's not the God. No. That's what I
Jodi: mean. I have, yeah. We just
Shannon Griffin: like, man, hate on, on like with each other. No.
Jodi: Yeah. We fight against the men.
Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. We don't fight against each other. No, no, no. Like we are full hype girls and Yes. Like, no, like, that's what I mean is like I have. So many girlfriends. Some like I do, I do more better with like a handful of really great friends, like a handful of really intimate, like close women, but also like I run my whole entire Instagram that's full of nothing but women in my dms and I, I've never even come across a caddy woman in my dms like that.
I know,
Shannon Griffin: I know. I'm saying like,
Jodi: that's just, it's just wild to me. But we would go on this [00:20:00] tangent, you know? I will talk about trash TV with you. Yeah. Okay. So, you're in your process. They've gone past two steps. You've introduced pricing of what their, the $1,500 session fee for you to just come and do the shoot.
Yeah. So then what happens after that? 'cause this is where the meat and potatoes comes in of how deep you go with them.
Shannon Griffin: Well, that, that's when, if they're, if they see my commission fee of 1500 and they're like, I wanna move forward, that's when I send the questionnaire. So that's when like the really heavy stuff is coming out.
I wanna
Jodi: clarify for anybody who's listening that isn't. Uh, like running IPS in their business or they aren't running a studio, like if you're a wedding photographer mm-hmm. You probably don't know that saying, because I used to be a wedding photographer and whenever I was shooting a family, I was charging, I think 1500 or so was like in my last few years.
A couple of them, if they were on weekends, were 2,400, like for me to just do a session. But they got the digitals. Yes. So what Shannon's saying is they basically have to pay [00:21:00] her $1,500 just to exist in their space. Yes.
Shannon Griffin: Yeah.
Jodi: They get nothing
Shannon Griffin: Correct.
Jodi: For $1,500 except for Shannon to just walk into their home and to do like, what is it a one hour shoot?
It's,
Shannon Griffin: it's one hour. If, if it takes longer, I'm okay with it because again, that resentment, I'm like, I just would've shoot, telling I'm, it takes three hours. Yeah. Especially for families. If their kids aren't cooperating, I'll be there for four hours. I don't care. Especially. I think it's it your mind shift when you do IPS is like, I'll spend four hours knowing that I'm getting amazing photos of you.
'cause you're gonna invest more on the backend. Like, why wouldn't I spend longer with you here?
Jodi: 100%. I think I said this somewhere the other day. I don't remember if it was here on the podcast or if I said it to somebody else, but changing into like a product-based business changed my whole entire brain.
Yes. It changed how I was inspired inside of my business, because I think I said this with you on the Motherhood Anthology podcast, is that then I'm excited to go to the shoot and I'm excited [00:22:00] to work for that client. I'm excited to create amazing things for that client and it, it puts
Shannon Griffin: pressure on you. It did.
You're like, I'm over the digitals and hoping they like them. You're like, no, like this is my now my money. Like if they don't like them, I'm not getting paid.
Jodi: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Okay. So then what does that process look like? And you don't have question, I know it deep, so you don't have to go that far into it.
But
Shannon Griffin: yeah, so the questionnaire, I'm not gonna go over all the questions, but it's just they're, I go in, I ask them the questions. I think there's probably like 25 questions, maybe less, but I'm planting the seeds, like I ask, is there an interior designer that you want me to work with? So it's like they're starting to think about like incorporating, that's genius.
Hair and makeup, which I don't include. 'cause a lot of clients don't want hair and makeup or they already have someone. But at the end is where I'm like, as a point of reference, I don't have a minimum spin, meaning they can just shoot me and then, or I can shoot them and they'll never have the photos. But on average, like this is what clients are [00:23:00] spending.
Like, I, I, I, and I let them know by the end of our discovery call, I'll give you a realistic estimate once I hear like what your needs are and what we're working with. But as a point of reference, this is what people are usually spending. And then I have a dropdown like, what's your budget? And I have three to five, five to something and then like 10 plus.
And I say, if you're thinking you want Walmart, select 10 plus no one selects 10. Everyone selects three to five. I was about to say that's the place where that's the sales mindset. But I need them to see, I need them to see. So by the time we get on the call, I, every one of them, I have to have a come to Jesus of like, once we get to the end of the call, it's like, okay, you selected three to five, but you're telling me you want wall art in your room and you want an album.
My album start at $6,500 and my wall art, I. If you're wanting a big piece that's gonna be like an $8,000 piece. Like are you okay spending this? Yeah. And so I have that, but I don't know that until I talk to them and talk about their house and how they're [00:24:00] envisioning it displayed and are they private and would they put it up and all of that kind of stuff.
Jodi: Do you feel like you have that process down to like a really good, like psychologically based like sales script of making sure you're saying certain things at certain times And I
Shannon Griffin: fully believe not only is pricing positioning, I want them to see that I'm expensive, which is subjective. Right? Someone else would look at my pricing and be like, I'm a fucking billionaire.
This is pennies. Yeah. But not only are they seeing the stuff like, oh, she works with interior designers, she does custom wall art. She has clients who have spent $40,000 with her. But I, what it does is it also very, it makes me. The expert and I'm confident talking money with them. And to them it's like, oh, like okay, she just told me I might spend $20,000 with her.
Like I guess that's normal for her. Yeah. So I really like, I started to get more confident when I was talking to like dad clients who were very, like, they took all the emotion out of it. They're like, what does a shoot look like? How much am I gonna spend with [00:25:00] you? And I was like, five minutes the conversation was done.
And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. Like why can't I be confident like a man? Like men have no problem talking money, no problem. And so now I'm like, this is what you're looking at spending. And my other thing is I don't. I know the kind of art that I wanna create. And the last thing I want is, is to get them in low and be like, yeah, you could spend 3,500 with me.
Which they could like after the, after the creative fee. But I tell them the last thing I want is for you to sit down and love 60 photos and have only budgeted for 10. And then you are sad. And I'm sad 'cause you're not leaving with the art. So you need to sit with this for a day and I'm gonna send you my full pricing and I want you to sit with it, see how it feels inside of your body.
And then let's see if you wanna move forward.
Jodi: Oh God, the, that again, the balls that you have to have inside of running a this, because I've had so many horrible experiences with it. 'cause everything that everybody tells you in like the psychology of sales, is that like when you have them hot, when you have them ready, like close the [00:26:00] deal?
Yeah. And you are doing the exact opposite and you're saying like, I'm not closing you. You are gonna have to close you.
Shannon Griffin: Because the worst is to have them sit there and be like. This is so much more than I was expecting to spend. And then what happens, even if they spend the money with you, they get their photos back and they're like, I don't want them to look at it and go, God, these were so expensive.
Yeah. Like that's not what I wanna leave them with. And I love too, of how flexible I can be with it when I'm confident with the price. Because I had a client who told me five times through my process, I'm making the financial decision. Like my husband knows I'm doing this, it's for his birthday. And I'm like, I still need you to show him my pricing.
Like even if he's not on the call, I still need you to do it. 'cause you guys share finances. Show him. Yeah. I'm gonna show him. I'm gonna show him. I sent it again. I sent it before the session. I sent it after. Then our ordering session. She goes, he wants to be on the call. I'm like, great. Show him the pricing.
And she didn't. And he got on [00:27:00] and he's seeing it and he's like, what? And he was. So upset and I was upset. Couldn't, like, I was mad at her. Yeah. But also, like, I have to protect her so I had to be the bad guy 'cause I wasn't gonna let her be the bad guy. Yeah. And so we got off that call and they didn't buy anything from me, and these are wealthy people.
A year later I'm like, I, I held this resentment for a year and I reached out to them and I was like, I'm sending you proofs, which I never do. Here's five pages of proofs like we used to do old school, we shot film on a contact sheet, sent them proofs and I was like, I'm closing your gallery in a month, I'm gonna delete.
Like there's no reason for me to keep them. Let me know if you wanna buy something. He emails me and he's like, thank you so much for doing this. The photos were so hard for me to see on the laptop. I didn't feel comfortable making that decision. Now that I can see them, he spent $10,000 with me, but like the next day.
And I was like, oh God. Yeah. Yeah. Like you just, I like had all this again, I had all this resentment and it was my fault. Like I [00:28:00] should have asked the questions like I should have reached out and been like. He may have told me then like, I just need you to come. I actually don't,
Jodi: Shannon. I actually don't think that, I think that like.
The thing is, whenever you're running a business the way that you're running your business, you have to have warmup time. And the wife got all of the warmup. Yeah, she got all of the lead in. She got all of the like walk me through and hold my hand. And she saw numbers and then she saw those numbers getting bigger and bigger and knowing like what it was she was going to be spending.
And had he not been on the call, you would've made that sale because you did that work in order to warm your client to it. And what that. Husband needed was the warmup.
Shannon Griffin: And that's the hardest part is that I am very strict on it and I put in the thing, I'm like, when we do our discovery call, whoever is signing the check has to be on that call.
And so that's why I'm very much like, I am not the patriarchy of like, is your husband making the financial decision like a car salesman? But I am like, this is a big [00:29:00] investment. It's not, I don't even feel like it's about
Jodi: that even whenever my clients are spending six, seven, $8,000 with me, it's a, it's a financial betrayal, I think.
Yes, yes. For me to be speaking to just a husband. Him making the decision or for me to be talking to just a wife and her making the decision whenever they're starting to. I actually just did a whole entire download on this that has like a bonus video that talks all about the process of men and influencing men's behavior like during a photo shoot and stuff.
And I say at the beginning of that, that as I moved into the luxury market, as I knew that I was spending, or that my clients were spending this much with me. That it is my job to no longer allow the session to just be mom centered. Yeah. To just be woman centered. For it to just be, oh, I just have to make sure that, you know, the, the, the mom feels pretty and the mom feels good, and then I know I'm gonna have a repeat client.
No. Like, it's then my job to make sure that the husband feels taken care of, that he [00:30:00] feels like his needs are being met. That I am sort of like influencing and controlling his behavior the same way that I do for everybody else on the shoot. Because then whenever it comes time for me to have the sales meeting later, I need his buy-in.
I need for him to be all in with that and for him to understand that they're spending this kind of money with me because of the experience in itself too. Because whenever you're hanging these things on your walls and they have bad emotions that are attributed to them, then you're literally gonna live inside, like what you just said a second ago, like, I don't want them to look at this stuff on their walls and just think, God, that was so expensive.
Yeah, you want them to live inside of the experience that you gave them. So when you're doing that, like it has to be that everybody involved in the process is aware of like, and it's
Shannon Griffin: so tricky because especially with boudoir, where it's like, I'm empowering women, right? So I can, I said it as many times as I could.
At a certain point, I can't go, you have to have your husband on the call. Like, so it's so, but that's why I [00:31:00] my thing is when you have a process that is so solid that you believe in, I can sit there and go, I didn't do anything wrong. There are going to be people who slip through the cracks no matter what.
Like there's gonna, like, it's just gonna happen. Like. Last year I had a $25,000 boudoir sale. She didn't tell him what she was doing, but what she did is she said, our anniversary's coming up. He knows I'm about to make a big purchase. I, but we go to this art gallery in Delray and we've been wanting to invest in an art piece, and I think he thinks that I'm going to do that.
So we've budgeted it, we've had the conversation, but he doesn't know that I'm creating my own art. And so he was surprised in the best way possible. He knew that money was gonna be gone, but she surprised him with what it was. So I.
Jodi: Such a great way to handle it.
Shannon Griffin: When you installed while he was at work and he came home, it was the coolest thing ever.
I
Jodi: was like, I wish I could be in the
Shannon Griffin: room
Jodi: when he comes to, I know I used to love that process whenever I did a lot of boudoir, but I was the wedding photographer, like, because then I got to be in the [00:32:00] room. Like whenever the groom like opened the album, it saw that and you get to like see the reaction, but with this you don't get to see that as much.
You just have to like. I don't know, rely on the fact that she'll like explain it to you. Yes. How much you loved it or how great it was. But Shannon, the way that your brain works is just incredible. And I just think, like, I'm sitting here with you and I'm like, I wanna know what that questionnaire holds, that 25 question questionnaire.
I wanna know that. I wanna know the sales process, I wanna know the things
Shannon Griffin: that, the questionnaire, I don't think is any, it's not like it's the some amazing thing with secret questions. I've seen other people's questionnaires that are not that different. Uh, like I said at the conference, what I do is an hour before I get on the call with them, I go through their questionnaire and in red I write like I'm now, I ask them a question, they answer, and then I'm asking them another question based on their answer.
Like, I want, yeah.
Jodi: But what I,
Shannon Griffin: in the uncomfortable, I want them to go the amount of times people are like, I don't know. I don't really know how to [00:33:00] answer that. And I'm like, okay, I'll wait. And then we just sit there and it's like, see, like
Jodi: even that stuff, Shannon, like I want, like this is what your.
Mastermind would teach to people. And this is going all the way back to like what we were talking about before with the conference and like feeling as though like you couldn't give all of that. Tell everybody where they can find you. If they're literally sitting here, just like me saying I want more from Shannon Griffin.
Shannon Griffin: I'll give you my address. Uh, no, I'm just kidding.
Jodi: Wait, hold on. You really want more? Can you actually text that to me? Like, I actually do wanna pop out just around the corner, you know?
Shannon Griffin: No, it's just my name. It's shannon griffin.com and then my Instagram handle is the same. It's just Shannon Griffin.
Jodi: That's so badass of you. Like mine isn't even my full name.
And then I also have to have like these hyphens and like all of this stuff. You're like, no. I mean,
Shannon Griffin: is it badass that it's my ex-husband's name, but I love my branding so much that I'm not changing it. Oh wait, I didn't know that. What's, oh yeah. That isn't, my maiden name is Mathis and my husband's name is Grebel.
And so my maiden Maeve has my husband's name. [00:34:00] Grable Griffin. Yeah. Did
Jodi: you know that my husband's name is Gabel? No, you're a. Yeah. And I have a Griffin son and you're Shannon Griffin. Like, do you see that the universe was just like pulling us into one another? I am obsessed. I love you. I love you. I love your heart so incredibly much.
And like we still didn't even talk about like the difference between what I'm running and what you're running. We didn't talk about the Mormon. Let's do another one because I wanna talk more about
Shannon Griffin: you.
Jodi: I talk enough about myself now. No, you kidding?
Shannon Griffin: It's maybe I can ask you some. It's different if someone else asks you questions.
Like the, what we did for the motherhood was like, it was so good.
Jodi: Like, no, that was so much fun. Actually wait for that. Whether or not that will be out by the time this is out. I'm not sure on like the post. I'm not
Shannon Griffin: sure where, I didn't ask where we were in the schedule. I, Kim was on vacation for like two weeks, I think She just got back so she's like, this will be the perfect one to come back to.
Allie just [00:35:00] listened to it, so I have a feeling it's coming soon. They're probably editing it.
Jodi: I just know that my podcast team has been begging me to get ahead on my podcast schedule. Yeah. But I just haven't been able to, so I told them, I'm like, guys, I am going to knock your socks off 'cause I am talking to Shannon.
so I know that this literally is just gonna go across like a few weeks because It's so much information and I absolutely love your brain.
I love everything that there is about you. Sign me up for your Mastermind. Okay. I love you. Bye.
Shannon Griffin: I love you. Anytime you do this, you know what to add, text you in like five minutes so easily.
Jodi: All right. I love you. Love you. Bye. Okay, bye.
Outro: Okay, so that is a wrap on this episode of the Posers Podcast. If you loved it, please subscribe, rate, and review because honestly, algorithms are needier than all of our ex-boyfriends combined. And ladies, I need all the help I can get. If you've got thoughts, questions, love letters, even hate mail, please send them my way.
I actually read every single one of them. So [00:36:00] until next time, stapled, stay messy and don't let the bullshit win. Tits up. Ears open and go build something. Incredible. Bye for now, friends.
