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 to part two of this Business Changing Conversation with Brittany. Elise, if you haven't listened to part one yet, pause and go hit play on that episode because the setup to this conversation is everything. We talked about mindset. We talked about value-based pricing and the emotional grit [00:01:00] that it takes to scale a business brick by.
Brick and coming up here in part two, today we are stepping into the sales room. We are talking numbers, we are talking boundaries, and we are absolutely torching the idea that success has to mean burnout. So in this episode, we are going. Deep on the exact questions that Brittany asks in her IPS meetings to guide high ticket sales with a service based approach, and we are talking about how to handle objections with empathy and authority.
We are talking about. The real reason you are not getting those three and 4K sales and why it has nothing to do with your photos. We are talking about why your client's bank account is absolutely none of your business and how a team and maybe a little bit of AI. Can, 10 times your impact [00:02:00] without draining your soul.
So this is one of those episodes that you are going to want to give rent free space in your brain forever. Brittany Elise absolutely lights this thing on fire. So without more of me blubbering on here, let's get back into it.
Brittany Elise: Right. And I always say digital images are decision delay. They're decision delay. And so I will take them back, just like you said, hold on. When I did your coaching call, or excuse me, your, your consultation call, and when I look at your lead form, this is what you said you wanted. And I remember you specifically telling me that you wanted a stairwell gallery and like, yes, this is a process to do, but like getting your digital images are gonna keep you right where we are.
And so I think the hard thing that most photographers struggle with is having that real conversation with the, with the client. And so I had this, [00:03:00] yes, they, they fear it. They fear the, they fear that one, they're coming across as salesy. And I don't, I don't believe that, like I do not believe I'm selling to my clients.
I believe that I'm serving them, like genuinely asking, asking
Jodi Anne Hendricks: a client what they want. I, I see no sales there. No sales at all. Like that's not salesy in any way to say, what do you dream about having in your house? That's not a sales question, that's literally a client-centered direct question of how can I serve you?
How can I make this amazing for you? And it, it's hard. I, I, I, I'm with you. I don't see it as like a salesy sort of thing, but I can understand how it's hard to just be that upfront and ask those questions so that you know exactly what everybody in this process is like leading up towards.
Brittany Elise: Yeah, it is, it is.
It's hard. Obviously I have Sarah now who's a photographer on staff with us, and Sarah's now doing her own sales. So I work [00:04:00] through a lot of this with her. And, you know, it is hard and sometimes it can feel really uncomfortable. I had a client the other day, we've produced I think three albums for her. I'm gonna, like, she, she might even listen to this and know I'm talking about her, but she almost backpedaled out of not buying anything from a session.
And I literally just looked at her and I said, where are these photos gonna go? I just was like, you are gonna have all of these photos and we're gonna get to the end of your baby's first year. And she did photos like every other month. I mean, we did so many out, like the sessions were overlapping so much that I was like, oh my gosh, which one is this?
You know? But yeah, she loves having photos and I just said to her point blank, I'm like, what is the point? Like, what is the point of documenting this so that it can be on a cloud where it never gets seen, where your child doesn't even know they exist. They're never gonna log into your iCloud after you leave this earth.
Trust me, [00:05:00] your kids are not gonna go log into your, to your drop.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: I, I actually love that you just said that because that is what I bring up at every single like proofing meeting that I do. I say them, I'm sorry to get cryptic, but we need to talk about the things that your children are gonna fight over when you die.
Yeah. That is the whole entire point of creating heirloom pieces, is that you want them to live on beyond you. So like if we're not creating that now. When are you going to create it? Because it won't happen. They'll stay in a cloud and they will die Right along
Brittany Elise: with you.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: Yeah.
Brittany Elise: Yeah. And no one's gonna log in.
They're gonna be like really afraid of what they're gonna find in there. So like, I'm just not gonna do that.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: You know, people would be really afraid of finding what's inside of my cloud.
Brittany Elise: Like my mine is just like a bunch of photos of my, my, my kids. And they'll just be like, why did mom take so many photos of us?
[00:06:00] Bare bummed? Like, I
Jodi Anne Hendricks: just love my little sister. I, I have a long distance husband. I'm not gonna talk about what is in mine. Okay.
Oh man. Oh man. That this is the conversation that posers signed up for today. Yeah.
Brittany Elise: You know what they'll find on mine? They'll find photos of my like roast beef nipples trying to problem solve why my baby's not latching well, that I sent to a lactation consultant to try to figure out what angle my baby.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: There's you the CU nurse coming out. I love it. Oh my. Okay. Let's, let's start to wrap this up a little bit because I feel like me and you could talk about this like all day long. Let's get real talk. Let's talk about numbers. What does an average IPS sale for you look like and what's the one thing, we may have already hit on it because we talked about a lot, but what's the one thing photographers need to implement to actually hit consistent high ticket results like [00:07:00] you do?
Brittany Elise: Okay. Love this question. 'cause I love talking real numbers. I'm extremely transparent in with my coaching students and they actually get to, to see like real transactions and so I love, I think that transparency is a big thing that is missing in the education space. Um, So I love that you asked this question.
So, so our average sale, and I actually I did, I did a little bit of digging 'cause I wanted to sort of, I wanted to dig deep into this question a bit. I have not raised my prices for three years. I have raised my prices around my products to be in line with the fluctuations that have come with inflation.
Mm-hmm. But I have not actually raised the prices of my services, my digital images, and my actual session fee. And despite that, my year over year average has actually gone up. And so, we used to hang out around the 3000 [00:08:00] mark. Now we're close to 4,000. And what that tells me is that we've gotten better at selling to our clients, and I don't wanna say selling up at serving our clients because at the end of the day, that's what we're doing.
And so, and that's our sales. That's not including our session fee and things like that, that's like our actual sale. But the, I think there's something really important to recognize about that. And going back to the conversation where I was saying where photographers don't want to, like, they don't want to address the things that they're not doing well in the sales room.
They wanna just continue to kind of like do their thing and not really know why they're not getting the sales that they wanna get and focus in and have somebody help troubleshoot why it's not working, why they're not getting the sales. so I think seeing our average. Grow without raising our prices is a reflection of doing the work to get better at selling your cl selling [00:09:00] to your clients.
Our simplicity sessions are around, so our ma our like shorter sessions or petite sessions around 2000. And then our sessions are around 4,000.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: But that. We've talked about it before too, that 'cause we're similar in numbers in that kind of way, but we've talked about it that you are so much more frame heavy on your products and I'm so much more album heavy on mine and that we're still coming in at the same sort of like average number.
I think yours is a little bit higher than mine, but that it can be done no matter which product you love to sell, no matter which product you feel like your clients are really like loving. You can reach that, you can attain that no matter which way you're going about it.
Brittany Elise: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And our goal which I think sort of I've had a note to like talk about this and I think this piggybacks on like getting, you [00:10:00] know, the best possible sale is actually hitting on every product category. Yeah. I think a lot of photographers in general focus on one and then close the sale. Yeah. And I can tell you right now, every time I've ever broken 10,000, I hit every single product category. And so sometimes people also get a little lazy and they don't wanna, they're like, okay, well, like we've made a lot of decisions and I can't possibly fathom asking them another question.
So they don't ask about an album. And that goes into assuming that your client doesn't want something, or assuming that they can't make a decision around something. So then you actually lose. I think there's
Jodi Anne Hendricks: also, I think there's also one more thing that gets assumed by photographers is we assume that they've spent more money than they already wanna spend.
Yes. And I think that I had this in a question that we haven't hit yet either. Is that like it is something that I say all the time and that I teach all the time, is that. [00:11:00] It is none of my business. Yeah. What a client's bank account looks like. Yes. It is not my job to be concerned about how much money they're spending with me and how comfortable they are with what they're spending with me.
Yes. But I think that as photographers, as salespeople, as women as, mm-hmm. Like entrepreneurs, creative entrepreneurs, all of that, the minute that we hit the threshold that we're comfortable making, then we shut it down because we don't wanna then be pushy. We don't wanna then be salesy. We don't feel comfortable even saying, Hey, is this something that you want to, because we think, oh my God, I don't want the client to feel as though like I'm trying to get more out of them, or I don't want them to freak out about how much money this is when the client's not freaking out about that you are.
Brittany Elise: Yeah.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: And like getting over that sort of like. Hurdle too of hitting every single one of those products, making sure that they are fully serviced in the way that they want [00:12:00] to be fully serviced, rather than putting our own like money blocks on top of what they're wanting to do.
Brittany Elise: Yeah. I wanna tell, I wanna share like a personal story on this because I remember having this very profound moment in like just my existence of a person that was becoming an adult.
I remember I was commenting to my sister about something my parents purchased and she just looked at me and she said, it's not your job, nor is it your business to decide what mom and dad should or shouldn't spend their money on.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: Yeah.
Brittany Elise: And I just remember being like, shit, she's right. You know? And I remind myself of that conversation.
All the time when I am sitting in that room with my clients, it is not my business to make any assumptions about what you value about what you think is expensive, because it's all [00:13:00] relative at the end of the day. Right. All relative. And so, so literally just checking yourself and saying, this is the process, which is why I, I teach an actual, like, step-by-step process of the sales room.
Because I think when you have steps, you kind of can, you can kind of like remove yourself from a little bit of that Yeah. Personal perspective, because you're like, okay, I'm following the steps, right?
Jodi Anne Hendricks: I have a script. I do the same thing every single time, like 100%. It, it, it removes my personal feelings from anything.
Brittany Elise: Yes. And so one thing that like I will say about Sarah, who's our other photographer and does her own sales and I realized this about her very early on, is she is very, very good at like disassociating from that. Any sort of like what she thinks someone's gonna buy or what she thinks someone's capable of spending, she like, like.
Completely [00:14:00] does not even make any assumptions when she goes in there. And I think it's probably one of the things that's the hardest for people to do. And so, and it's why she's been able to get the successful sales she's had, she, last year she had the two highest sales. And she had just been doing sales for six months.
Okay? She, she, I, I, she wrote 10,000 in a two week period and she held the two. I feel like that
Jodi Anne Hendricks: tells you, that tells you right there that in this model, it is not like I just, okay, let me like wrap my, my brain around this right now. It is not the photos that is doing the heavy lifting of how much money your business is making your photos.
I say this. Photographers all the time. Your photos are beautiful, your photos are great. You have every bit of talent behind the camera already mastered. Just run with that and keep doing what you're doing. The work that has to be done is the heavy lifting that you need to be doing in regards to how you're selling and [00:15:00] packaging the products that you're doing.
So that's just, just proof for everything that I've been saying on the Posers podcast up until this point, that statement you just made, right? There is proof that she came in months out of like learning how to do this and has your top sales of the year. Like boom, there. Proven. Yeah.
Brittany Elise: And, and the thing is, is that she's also willing to like.
See where she could have done better. She's willing to, like she had one of her greatest strengths is that she's willing to look inward and to say like, I don't need to necessarily get better at shooting. I need to get better at asking the right questions in the sales room. I need to get better at speaking to objections.
I think so often as artists and creatives, we get so hung up with like evolving and like making our work better than what it was and we just end up becoming this person who's like more and more skilled, but like the average person, like can't tell the difference between a really good photographer and an okay photographer.
Right? I see that [00:16:00]
Jodi Anne Hendricks: all the time. Stop tweaking with your edits 'cause nobody can see the difference in the color of your whites. Tell the difference, you know?
Brittany Elise: And so get so hung up. Kind of, sometimes I think as an educator I watch people. I'm, you know, very, you know, I'm always in stories and it kills me when I see somebody who is so talented continue to take another workshop, to take another workshop.
I'm like, girl, stop taking newborn posing. Did you see what you posted last week? Take a business class. Invest in actually growing. Like you cannot continue to be this artist if you learn how to run a business. And so, but also I think that, that
Jodi Anne Hendricks: you've probably already taken a business class and it's just simply, Hey, you have all this information implemented.
Yeah, I have been to with
Brittany Elise: this idea, I've been toying with this idea and I like, I don't know if I wanna speak it to in existence. 'cause people listening might like come bang down my door. But I have people who have [00:17:00] taken my program who literally did nothing once it was done. And it kills me because I have a very high.
Success rate because of the structure of the program, because Right. I have checkpoints that make people, but then they suddenly get done and then they just don't do it because they like lose me or they, and I was like, I, I was talking to my co-coach the other day and I was like, I wanna have like a reboot.
I wanna like, because I know who these people are, I'm watching them. I see 'em on Instagram. I wanna be like, knock on their door and be like, Hey, I'm doing a reboot and I want you in there. Are you gonna do it? Are you gonna show up? But then part of me goes back to like, again, to the very first thing we talked about
Jodi Anne Hendricks: is
Brittany Elise: it's
Jodi Anne Hendricks: you, you have to, it's mountain is you.
If you're not gonna climb the mountain, then nobody can force you to do it. Yeah. And so
Brittany Elise: I had, I had somebody who was interested in taking my program and she was like, well, I'm gonna. Just like made me chuckle out loud. And I don't mean this in a, in like a negative way, but it just, she goes, I told myself that I would [00:18:00] not invest in any more programs until I watch all of the courses that I have invested in.
And I'm like, okay, I get that thought process, but what is your goal? Who cares if you have opposing video. If you don't need help learning how to pose, then move on. Like, let us see your archives.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: Like,
Brittany Elise: unless if it's mine.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: And then I want you to watch every single module of it.
Brittany Elise: Yeah. Like, like absolutely.
Like I get, I get the sense of like wanting to hold onto and get your money's worth of the classes that you have already take, you've already paid for, but not taken. But ask yourself like, what is the goal in front of you? And so there, one of my coaching students was on a podcast recently, and she, and one of the reasons why I think she has been so incredibly successful in general in her business is she sets one.
And then when she sets out on that, that year, she says, okay, my goal this year is to master in-person sales. [00:19:00] And so she's like, I'm gonna find the best coach to help me do that. She had another year where she was like, I'm gonna invest in ranking high on Google. I'm going to SEO my website. I'm gonna get Google reviews out the wazoo.
I'm gonna blog like crazy, I'm gonna do, and so she sets a goal and she literally asks herself, will this get me to my goal or will it not? And if the answer is no, she just doesn't do it. And so having that like laser focus I think is sometimes it's like people's, like they're just so hung up on like.
Trying to do so many things that they can't ever actually gain traction on anything. Yeah. Spinning. So I'm really passionate about this as I get so, like handsy?
Jodi Anne Hendricks: No. Are you kidding? Uh, there was times whenever I was talking, I was like, Jody, calm down, Jody. Stop screaming at the, at the computer screen. So I, I do the exact same way, but I'm with you.
Like I have Jenna Kutcher's Pinterest course just sitting in my inbox. But every single time that I'm like, should I [00:20:00] invest time in that? I'm like, no, I have no interest in doing things on Pinterest. I'm so sorry that I spent $197 on it. $197 needs to just fuck right off because I'm not gonna spend my time inside of a course that I'm not actually going to benefit from right now.
And that's not to say that I won't benefit from it later, but for right now, Pinterest is nowhere in my sights. So that course can die inside of my inbox and I'm okay with it. Yeah. And I think like.
Brittany Elise: Especially being that we got to meet at the conference. I think that like a conference is a really great way.
Like if you're like, I don't know what direction to go in, I don't, I don't know what I need to be focusing on. I, I like, am kind of interested in some of these topics or this particular speaker. Go to a conference and sit in the room. Yeah. And see like, oh wow, I never even thought about something like that.
And I've really never worked on that area of my business. You know? And that gives you an opportunity to see this full like spectrum of like topics and a range [00:21:00] of like education styles and personalities and see where you fit and mesh really well with someone. And so I think if you, if you're listening to us talk right now and you're like.
I don't know where I just buy every course that, you know, you know, those uh, bundles that people do that are like $99 Yeah. Access to all these things and then you never watch any of 'em and all that stuff. Like go to something in person, you know, and see like talk with people and you'll be opened up to just different things that you wouldn't have otherwise thought was the next step for you.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: I think 100%. I think that me coming to Florida and going to focus and flourish, like there were so many people who came up to me and they were just like, I didn't even know you existed and now I'm absolutely in love with you. And now like they're in my mastermind or they've done the posing method or they've done things like that because they discovered like, oh my God, here's this person that I connect with so easily.
And I know Shannon said the same thing. Other [00:22:00] people who were speaking have said the same thing. That you really get that like. Personal intimate time to see whether or not you really jive with like the way that somebody teaches, along with just the way that they are as a person too. So I agree with that.
And
Brittany Elise: your energy. Yes, a hundred percent. And I, you know, obviously like getting on a plane and going somewhere to learn something and sitting in a room with all these people is an investment, right? It's an investment of time. It's an investment of funds, but it's such a great way to sort of have a bite of the enchilada before you buy the whole meal, right?
And so. It's a way, as much as it is an investment, it's a much smaller investment that can give you a lot of confidence into going into, you know, a high ticket mastermind or you know, in investing in a co in a coach. I was talking to a girl in DMS over the weekend and she had told me she had taken three different masterminds.
I'm fairly familiar with them. I did the math, she's invested [00:23:00] around $20,000 and she said that she's literally done nothing with it, and it was a waste. And I thought to myself, it's not really a waste. Because I don't see it that way. The way that I see it is that you paid almost $20,000 to realize that you are not capable of self-paced classes that you, there you go.
And you wouldn't pay a lot of money to figure that out. But what it tells me, what, what that tells me is that you've learned your learning style and you've learned that you need to invest in a coach that's gonna have a lot more hands on. For some people going to a conference, they realize I am so overwhelmed by how there is just so much content and they're like, this is not for me.
And they need to go into something that's much more personalized. And so realize that those investments are not a waste. They're an opportunity to see where you can grow and thrive in other ways. Unlike that.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: So, yeah, there's a, there's a saying that's like, you're either learning or you're winning. It either works and you love it or you [00:24:00] learn something.
There's actually like, no such thing as losing, there's no such thing as like failure in something because you've learned something about yourself. So I totally agree. Brittany Elise, thank you so much for coming on the Posers podcast. Tell everybody where they can find you. Tell them when your mastermind is opening.
Tell them everything that you have going on. Tell them all of the things so that they can jump into the world of amazingness that you have created. Yeah,
Brittany Elise: so, you can find me on my photography page, Brittany Elise Photography. I also have if you go onto that page and you DM me secret stories, I'll add you to my secret stories where I share exclusive photography content.
I share a lot of behind the scenes of my business, which is really fun. Um, also have Brittany Elise education. As far as my coaching program, I only teach one time a year. The reason being is that I pour into my students. And and so currently I only teach one time a year. Uh, and so my program will open up at the end of [00:25:00] this year.
I teach in the first quarter when historically, you know, we are in our slow season. It's when I have been able to see the biggest results from my students is in that slow season when they can really grow and thrive and also sort of run off the momentum. What didn't work the last year, you know, you're like, oh man, you're getting to the end of the year and you're fired up to make those changes.
And so, I'll start coaching again in January. I do an application process because I really wanna make sure that people are ready to take my program and they're ready to pour into their businesses. I think that's something that makes me a little unique from most educators, is that I want someone to pour into themselves as much as I'm gonna pour into them.
And so it's a 10 week mastermind. I teach you how to grow and scale your business to multi six figures with products and services and not your time, which is exactly what we've talked about here today. Yeah, so, uh, we, I don't do ads. I don't run ads or anything like that, so if you want to stay in the know, follow me closely and obviously join [00:26:00] my secret stories.
I do have an email list as well that I frequently pop up and ask people to join, especially those who are interested in taking the program. So
Jodi Anne Hendricks: I love it. Don't be surprised whenever you see me creeping in and being like, hi, can I be in your mastermind? Because I am literally, I am still brand new to this.
There's still so much that I have to learn too. And if I was gonna learn it from anybody, then you would be that person 100%. So I have had, I have had
Brittany Elise: a couple of educators in, in my program, I've had a couple of wedding people that teach in the wedding space take my coaching program and have had insane success with their own clients.
Yeah. And so, yeah,
Jodi Anne Hendricks: I'm happy to have
Brittany Elise: you.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: I'm just, I'm that girl. Like if you see somebody in our industry putting like a freebie or a download or something out, like I will be in those comments. I will be commenting that MiniChat word. Like I am not like in like, I am not too big for my britches to be like, no.
You've gotta stay learning. You [00:27:00] always have to stay learning. And I'm always like, I'm like, does this look
Brittany Elise: bad that I'm like, that I want, like, I, I don't want you to think that I'm like trying to steal a freebie, but like, I genuinely wanna know the five things that you're doing in your email marketing to close those clients.
Because I still run a business just like all the people
Jodi Anne Hendricks: who I coach. So, and they might say something that you had never even thought of. Even though you're running a seven figure business, they might teach you something that you had never thought of. That just implementing it into your system just makes it that much better.
And that's exactly what I think. Like, I'm running a really great business. I'm running a multi-six figure business. I teach people the same of to build what I built. But that doesn't say that I can't hop into yours and be like, oh my God, she changed my view on everything. Or yeah, she made this thing better.
You just, you've always gotta stay learning no matter what. Like you're never above the line.
Brittany Elise: When you stop is when you, black slide, and I actually learned this in my nursing career. I kind of hit a wall [00:28:00] in my nursing career and I realized I needed to get out because I had no interest in growing. I, I had lost the pursuit of becoming better than what I was the day before.
And I believe that you need to do right by people no matter what you're doing. And when you become complacent, you are not doing right by the people you're serving. And so, and I feel like, especially as a nurse too, especially yes. Especially as a nurse, but I think something that is so unique about you and I is.
One, like obviously we have no like competition with each other. We're just like genuinely wanting to No, we're literally
Jodi Anne Hendricks: running the same exact business and we're still just like, no, teach me everything. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I'm like, I wanna,
Brittany Elise: your secret. We were talking about something I remember in dms and we were like, Hey, so how are you doing this?
You know, like, but I also, yeah, you
Jodi Anne Hendricks: questions, you pop in and ask me questions like it's Yeah. Yeah. I love it.
Brittany Elise: I love the fact that you still run a business. I think as an educator, I just feel [00:29:00] that there has become such a disconnect between the. leaders and educators having a pulse on the industry.
And I feel like what I was doing three years ago is different than what I'm doing today. And yes, am I still operating the same overarching blueprints? Yes. But how I'm executing in small little ways has evolved. And it is so important that when you are investing in somebody to teach you how to grow your business, they understand that pulse.
And it's something that like I admire so much about you is that I still see you with a camera in your hands and I still see you unboxing albums and receiving your frames. And that to me speaks volumes about. You as an educator and having that pulse that is so important for the people who are learning from you.
We get so far removed. I think it's like,
Jodi Anne Hendricks: you know, I feel like we, we, we [00:30:00] keep on saying we're wrapping this up and we're not wrapping this up because No, no, we're not, this, actually, this is a really good conversation to have because I saw this the other day, I don't remember whose post it was. Somebody said something like, when you're choosing education, you've gotta make sure that the person that you're choosing to be educated from is still running that same kind of business.
And I actually thought for a quick second, I was like, that's not fair. Like that was my initial reaction to it. Because as an educator, I'm sitting here in my studio every single day knowing this is a full-time job. Me being an educator and building all of the courses, building the masterminds, building the whole backend for everything, like it's a full-time job to be in the educator.
It's, and so I, it's, I feel like for one, as a human, it's a little bit unfair to think if you're gonna buy education from somebody that has to be somebody who's still running the business. But I can see the value, I can see the understanding in it. [00:31:00] And what I'm about to say is just a compliment to you is that I think that.
You've done it exactly the right way to where you didn't stop being a photographer. To become an educator. You simply took a step away, but built a team that was still doing everything that you're doing so that you stay one foot in of knowing the pulse of that business, like you were saying, but then you can still take yourself out of that equation and spend the time that you need to spend on the education side.
Yeah, because as, as the education side of my business is growing, I'm realizing I'm like, fuck, I don't know if I can keep on being a photographer because this side is so demanding of my time, but I don't want to stop being a photographer. But I imagine. That it will be something that sort of evolves the same way that I either bring on a team or I have an associate or that I just shoot less.
But I don't think, I don't think that I would ever [00:32:00] stop shooting, but I do know that in the years coming, something's going to have to change because I am burning the, what's that saying? I'm burning oil at both ends. I'm burning the burning The candle at both end are
Brittany Elise: both ends or something? The stick, yeah.
Like
Jodi Anne Hendricks: I'm. I am working so hard right now that if I keep doing this, that burnout is imminent. Mm-hmm. So I do agree with you that whenever you're choosing an educator, you've gotta make sure that they still have like some sort of a pulse on the business. But if you see an educator who has stepped back a lot and they're not shooting as much, that doesn't mean that they don't have a ton of value to give you to.
It simply means that they've had to make a choice in between the two and which way they're gonna go with it a little bit. But also if they haven't run any sort of their like business and it's been 10 years or something and they're an educator, then maybe like. Yeah. Think like, okay, maybe you're a little bit [00:33:00] too far removed from running the actual business side.
Yeah. But it's just funny that you brought that up. 'cause I literally just had that conversation with somebody who I was like interviewing to hire as my new assistant. I was having that same exact conversation and I told that person, I was like, no, that feels unfair. And so if she's listening to this now, she at least knows like, Hey, Jody said the same thing to me on her call that she said inside of the podcast with Brittany Elise.
So she's at least consistent in what she's saying, if anything. Yeah, yeah. Well
Brittany Elise: I'm excited to grow, to be able to teach more. I mean, obviously Yeah. I look at, you know, I had, I had someone who took my program and then took someone else's, like went to like a workshop and she shared her pricing. And I remember my student came to me and she said, Brittany, you can charge so much more than what you do and you could work a fraction.
And I said, yeah, but you also have to realize I have a team. I have a team. Yeah. And so, yes, while I could charge more, [00:34:00] recognize that I also know that there's other people who are going to be coming behind me. And the goal is for, for me not to work, the goal is for them to work, right? It's for them to be taking the sessions, me to be teaching more.
So while, yeah, I could raise my prices, but that's not the long game for me. Right. And I didn't even consider earning a, starting a team until I was in Darcy's Mastermind and I sat on a hot seat call and I was talking to, you know, maybe 15 people in the room about my problems and how I wanted to become an educator.
And I wanted to expand and grow. And I wanted to, you know, touch more people's career, their, their businesses, and help them grow in the ways that I've grown myself. And and somebody on the call just goes, hold on, can I just like pause you for a minute? And they're like, so if I'm understanding you have a multi six figure business that you're basically telling everybody that you're gonna actually close down so that you can teach more.
Someone was like, I just don't understand this. And somebody else chimed in and someone goes, well why do you not [00:35:00] have an associate photographer or like, somebody helping you? And I was like, kind of just sitting there, which I, which is why I love masterminds because you have people who call you on stuff Yeah.
Or give you ideas.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: Right. Or just 'cause they think about, 'cause a lot of wedding photographers have associates teams. That's very common in the wedding photography world. And which Darcy's mastermind, I was in Darcy's mastermind too, I think either the year after or the year before you. But everybody was wedding photographers in that mastermind.
So it's very easy for us to think, oh, you should just have an associate team. That's why it's very easy for me to think, oh, I should just have associates in here because that's how my brain is hardwired. But you coming from the portrait space, you would've never thought that unless if you were in a mastermind filled with Yeah.
So, so like
Brittany Elise: I was just kinda sitting there like, okay, so, and when like. 15 people are looking at you and like chiming into the chat being like, Brittany, hire Brittany. Expand your team. And like that just hadn't even crossed my mind. One, I don't know if I fully desired it, but also two I, I didn't know it was really [00:36:00] even a possibility for me.
Like I just. Couldn't fathom it because there's really not anybody in the portrait space running their businesses like that. There's very few people you think of, like commercialized studios, like the big chains of things. But yeah, in a smaller boutique style setting, it's not very common. And so, and you,
Jodi Anne Hendricks: you have to really wrap your head around the idea that you have to like, go of so much control of, like, that you can teach somebody else to be just as good of a photographer as you.
And that's an ego shift that you like really have to make, that you can step away and somebody else can create in the same way that you can. That would, that would trip me up for a little bit. For sure.
Brittany Elise: Yeah, a hundred percent. And there's days that, you know, I look at our, our work and I think, gosh, we could have nailed that session better or like, those edits could have been better.
Like, because it is a reflection of me, my name's on the building, but then I step back and I say. Is that the most imp like important thing, right? Yes. We wanna grow and thrive, but then [00:37:00] again, like our clients don't, our clients don't have that critical eye that we have. Our clients don't, you know, so a lot of times I have to check myself a bit, I have to say, like, what is the bigger picture?
Yeah. You know, and so sometimes I'll, sometimes we will as a team, like sit down and say, Hey, like yesterday we had a whole conversation about Gen Zs and how our work is gonna evolve to really speak to this next coming generation of moms, and what does our wardrobe look like for those people? What does our, our, our client onboarding process look like for them?
And so, but yeah, I, in those moments where you're like saying, okay, what is, what do people want? Not what do I want, but what do my potential clients want? Is it like an ego check? You know? So, and letting the, letting other people, like I'm having to let my Gen Z employees give me. Advice because I have one, I have to realize that they are closer to my clients now
Jodi Anne Hendricks: than I'm I feel the same.
I'm like, are my photos even [00:38:00] relevant anymore because I am photographing the way that I did in 2000, you know, 17, 2018, 2019, whatever it is still my style. It is still like, it will always be classic, it will always be timeless, but is it relevant to the world of photography right now? No, it absolutely isn't.
So I, I could see that 100% that they would have more of a beat on just stylistically what's more popular and what's like happening now in their generation. So I get, I get that for sure.
Brittany Elise: And I was kind of stepping back, I was reflecting with my husband about this and I was like, and somebody, you know, somebody might walk away from this podcast and think, man.
That's actually, I, I, I, I have realized, like I was going home and I was like, okay, what is it gonna look like in 10 years when I'm almost 50? You know, what is the style going to be? The people, if I'm gonna stay in the newborn and maternity niche? I have to realize that the generation of clients [00:39:00] five years ago is not the same generation as five years from now.
Right? Yeah. And so being able to have a very real conversation with yourself of what does this look like for you?
Jodi Anne Hendricks: You mean you're not, you don't think in 10 years you're gonna be standing in a field with a big, huge maternity dress blowing in the wind. You don't think you're still gonna be doing that.
Brittany Elise: I know.
And it's like, it's kind of funny. Like you remember like the froggy pose that like everybody did and now it's like everybody that,
?: yeah.
Brittany Elise: You know, and like, but you have to realize, like, and I think that's something that is so hard for artists and creatives, like we wanna create what we like and love, but like you also have to realize you are not your client.
Do you wanna have a business that has people rolling in every day? Well, you have to evolve. You have to see, or do you wanna have an ego or do you wanna have an ego? Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. Same thing with ai. There's so much resistance to using AI editing. Oh, I wanna have control over my edits. And I'm like, okay, well the ship is gonna sail.
You won't be on it, [00:40:00] and you will be running a very slow business that
Jodi Anne Hendricks: you wanna know. You wanna know what I think about AI editing? I think I don't wanna have anything to do with it. Not because I don't wanna learn ai, but because I don't wanna have anything to do with my editing. I think that it is my editor's job to figure out AI editing, not mine.
So.
Brittany Elise: I, so Sarah's been on my team now. So Sarah started as my editor. She edited for me for quite a while she became a photographer. She still edits, but she's currently transitioning out. And I came to her and I said, you need to learn ai, you need to learn after shoot. met after shoot at a conference.
They, you know, were like, really want you to try us, like, get us in front of your students. I heard about, imagine, I heard about Voto and I was like, Sarah, you need to learn how to do. And I'm like, I'm not gonna do it because I don't ride it. I don't even know how White room. I mean, I do, but I don't like, it's kind of like riding, riding, you know, riding horse or bike.
You gotta get back on it. You can Google a couple things because you can't figure out where something is on the dashboard, but in general, it's, [00:41:00] if you've done it before, you can pick it up really quickly. And so finally we hit January and I, I said to Sarah. You are going to learn this, okay? Yeah. This is your job.
This is your responsibility. She, she gosh, she's probably gonna hate me for talking about her so much on this podcast, but she was there. This has been Sarah's. She's probably, she's gonna be like this. She's gonna be like, oh God, Brittany said my name again. Oh, Jesus. Oh God. She's gonna be like, she's might just like, please leave me out of it.
But I love her and she's so incredibly talented. But so she, so we got through January. She downloaded, imagine we started using after shoot, we bridged into Voto later on down the road, but she came to me one day. She just kind of turned around in her office chair and she goes, remember how you wanted me to start using ai?
Yeah, you were right. You were right. Yeah. It's pretty mind blowing actually. So then this past fall we kind of got into a sticky situation. We lost one of our staff very suddenly, and I stepped in because [00:42:00] Sarah took on her workload. So I was like, Sarah, I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna edit. And I remember I came in and I was like, all right, I'm gonna do some of this.
I've never used, imagine I'm never, I'm gonna figure it out. We're gonna do a little quick YouTube search, gonna figure it out. Yeah. And
Jodi Anne Hendricks: the dinosaur walks into the room, right? Right. The Exactly. Oh my God, I just called you so old.
Brittany Elise: I'm so sorry. I wish, like, I genuinely wish, like imagine needs to be like, we will give you a year subscription if you film your face the first time you use this software.
Literally that, that would work. They, they need to like, because literally, so I pull it open, I call whatever I, I import 'em into Imagine Pops Open Lightroom, and I'm just watching it roll. And my jaw is just falling. And I'm like, and then I open one up and I'm like, no changes. And I open the next one. I'm like, no change.
Oh, okay. I might re cropp this a little. No change. I [00:43:00] exported that thing. I literally was, I, I, I got onto my coaching students and I was like, if you are not using, imagine you are like your life. So anyways, imagine all the influencer. Yeah, I was like, I don't even have an affiliate code for you. Which I do now.
Yeah. And I do sell my profile, so if anybody like, wants to shortcut it, because it does take some time to set up it, it's not like it's, you know, I mean, to get it to do what you want it to do, you have to tell it what you want. You have to give it the data. But anyways, all that to say the dinosaur was like very quickly got on the bike and knew how to figure it out.
That dinosaur was riding that bike so well, so good. So hard like, so anyways, all that to say, I mean. Even when you get removed, like what you're saying, I mean, that's being a business owner. Yeah. That's being a business owner, you can continue to be an artist and stay where you are or you can learn to run a business and [00:44:00] you know, time is money and efficiency and productivity is huge.
So, and whether or not you're using staff or it's yourself getting back 45 minutes a session, imagine the memories you could be making with your kids at home instead of editing
Jodi Anne Hendricks: 45 minutes for you. But I guarantee you other photographers who are editing a session, that's not like, whenever you're doing your edits alone and not using AI and doing it the old way and doing it like that, that's three to four hours for, so no, no.
Yeah. So
Brittany Elise: our previous editing was between two and four hours, depending on the session type. It's now moved to 45 minutes to an hour and a half, so.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: Oh, I see what you're saying.
Brittany Elise: Okay. Yes. I mean,
Jodi Anne Hendricks: I was like 45 minutes. I can't edit a session in 45 minutes. No, no, no.
Brittany Elise: Not, no. Like we sure can't now because
Jodi Anne Hendricks: I
Brittany Elise: wouldn't even know how to do it.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: But
Brittany Elise: yeah, so, but that's the thing for me is like what happened with that was that when, when we got smarter as [00:45:00] a business and brought on ai, it allowed Sarah to become the photographer that she aspired to from the very beginning of coming into this business. So to be able to like give her that opportunity to allow her to immerse herself in a much more creative space has been like really amazing.
And she's done that in conjunction while still being an editor. Now she's finally taking on enough workload that we're gonna bring on a new editor and she's gonna go full-time into shooting for, for the studio. So, but I just now, if we could just
Jodi Anne Hendricks: figure out how to AI the sales process seriously. For real.
However, I just don't, I don't know so much body language happens in a salesman, so there's no way, there's no way you could ever do it. But imagine a world when you could, oh my God, we would all, that's literally whenever robots are flying the sky. Yeah. Brittany, we're at hour and a half into this. I know we cut this up into part one and two.
It's gonna have to be, but [00:46:00] I love you. I adore you. I seriously think that what you have built is absolutely incredible and I love to continue learning from you, just the same as everybody who's listening. So. Thank you so much for showing up. Yeah, but not only just showing up, showing up and pouring into us the same way that you do for your students.
Even though this is obviously free. Alright. Thank you again
Brittany Elise: so much. And I don't thank you for having me. I adore you, you and this was so much fun.
So much fun. Just talk business with a like-minded like-minded
Jodi Anne Hendricks: mom, just
Brittany Elise: like me. I love it.
Jodi Anne Hendricks: I love it. This is just, I just know that this is not the end of a mashup between my business and yours, so I love it, and we will for sure hear from you soon. All right. Thanks for having me. All right. Bye babe.
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. [00:47:00] 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 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.
