S15E04 | Just three years in business and consistently booking her calendar with $2800 sales averages
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Today’s guest started her business just before the Pandemic. She utilised the time through Covid to lay strong foundations for her business and hit the ground running when the world opened back up again. She uses direct marketing with giveaways to book clients year round and from those strategies has an average sale of around $2800 and her highest sale to date is $16k! Remember that she’s been in business just a few years! I’m talking about Marie Wulfram, tune in to hear how she achieves all of this.
We covered:
What Marie did to set solid foundations for her business from the get go
How Marie found and booked her initial clients
Why her strategy is the opposite of cold calling
What building a relationship through IG looks like
How to book free shoots, and what the sales from them can look like
IN THE MEMBERS-ONLY EXTENDED EPISODE:
Using text and DM to communicate
How Marie leverages events
Average spend and what Marie is doing to achieve consistent high sales
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Mentioned links:
Marie Wulfram
Marie Wulfram Photography, USA
Hey there, I'm Marie! As an introverted, autistic animal lover, I've found my true calling surrounded by dogs and cats in the scenic landscapes of Western Washington. My mission? To immortalize your furry friends through breathtaking, custom art pieces, helping them live on forever. With nearly a decade of experience in veterinary care, I pivoted my passion to pet photography amidst the challenges of Covid—and it's been an exhilarating journey ever since.
Transcript
Today's guest started her business just before the pandemic. She utilized the time through COVID to lay strong foundations for her business and then hit the ground running when the world opened back up again. She uses direct marketing with giveaways to book clients year round. And from those strategies has an average sale of around 2, 800.
Her highest sale to date is 16 K. Remember that she's just been in business for a few years. I'm talking about Marie Wolfram. So tune in to hear exactly how she achieves all of this.
Welcome to the Pet Photographers Club. Tune in as experts share their insights to help grow your business with higher sales, creative marketing, and kick ass business strategies. Now on to the show.
Season 15, episode 4 of the Pet Photographers Club. I'm your host, Kirstie McConnell, and today I'm chatting with Marie, I forgot to check how to pronounce your name, but I'm pretty sure it's Marie Wolfram. Yep, that's right. Excellent. From Marie Wolfram Photography. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Geez, after 15 seasons, you'd think I'd remember the basics, like double check how to pronounce somebody's name.
I think it's a good testament to business in general, though, you know, like we're always practicing, but no matter how many times we do it, there's always going to be times where we kind of mess up a little bit and that's okay. I like your attitude there. I hope the listeners agree with you today. Marie for the listener who doesn't know you because you are relatively new in the pet photography world, although I know you're quite active as well.
So some people may know who you are, may recognize your name, but for those who don't, can you just give a quick brief overview who you are, where you're based in the world and what it is that you're doing a day to day with your pet photography. Absolutely. So my name is Marie Wolfram. I'm based in Western Washington about an hour south of Seattle, and I've been doing pet photography professionally for going on about two, two and a half years now.
Prior to that, it was mostly just hobby photography for almost like 15, 16 years, but I never really accepted any money or anything like that. It was purely just because I liked having fun, taking photos, Yeah. Yeah. I did so much kind of random stuff. I ended up doing like two weddings before I realized it was like, Nope, that's not my thing.
But during that time I also worked in vet med for almost 10 years and one day it just kind of dawned on me that I should just merge the two things that I loved most. And I kind of started diving in right then and there. That being said, that happened right before COVID. And so of course COVID happened, I got a bit nervous and completely backed off cause I was brand new.
And I was like, how am I going to run a business if I can't even go outside? But it also gave me that time to really sit down and work on the more admin backend kind of stuff. So that when lockdown and everything lifted, I was able to just hit the ground running. I had all of my processes in place and.
All I needed then was just to build my portfolio and go from there. Okay, so let's just break that down a little bit, because you kind of gave lots in that really short period of time. So, first of all, you spent 15 years ish just enjoying, you know, your camera and photography. And then... You decided to go pro.
So it wasn't COVID that forced you into that then, because you said that you decided before COVID. So what was it that made you switch really in your mind of thinking like, I can actually make money from this after 15 years of doing it for fun? You know, funny enough, that's something I ask myself all the time of what that turning point was for me.
I honestly couldn't even tell you the exact thing that happened. It, I honestly just kind of go back and think that. At some point, something kind of just sparked it and it was just one of those aha kind of moments where I was like, why didn't this come to me sooner? Because it was kind of an obvious Thing to do.
That being said, I've always, for most of my life, been the kind of person that had a million projects going all at the same time. And I also thought that all of those different projects would turn into a business one day, . So when I did decide to do the photography, I was very hesitant at the beginning because again, I was like, well, maybe this is just a, a couple months sort of a thing and I'm gonna tire out and go back to, you know, spinning wheels on multiple different projects again.
But then it just kind of, It kept going. It was one of those things that very quickly and early on, I got great feedback from the people that I was working with, which initially was friends and coworkers. And I think because of that, it helped to really just keep me going and keep me on that path until I was comfortable staying on that path myself.
It was kind of like one of those fake it till you make it kind of moments. At first, I was a little unsure. Everybody gave me great feedback, and then I just kept going and... Now we're here. Okay. So you mentioned that you were in the vet medicine world before. Is that where you found that initial pool of of clients?
I like to say yes, but I didn't stay there for very long. I only worked with, I think, two coworkers before I started just kind of branching out. Oddly enough, I find it very weird and awkward to work with people that I actually know. So once I kind of had that little bit of experience and felt comfortable reaching out to other people, I was like, okay, I'm going to start reaching out to strangers, which is.
Very odd. You don't hear that very often because most people they prefer to work with people They do know people that they're familiar with. But for me, I think It was more of a customer service standpoint for me. It was easier for me to work and focus on building a business. If I wasn't also focusing on like kind of socializing and interacting with people that I knew.
No, I totally get that. I'm also the same. I actually hate working for friends mostly because there's that like elephant in the room, you know, of like, are you supposed to give a discount because you know, they're a good friend and probably you'd help them move house and. They'd help you move house and you wouldn't charge them for that.
So why are you charging them for photography? And it's like this awkward trying to work out, like, are they a friend of the level that this is free? Are they a friend of a level where there's a discount or are they not really a friend? And I should just charge full price. And I think that's one of the aspects, at least for myself, that makes working with friends and family awkward.
You know, even to this day, I've still avoided doing a shoot for my auntie. Who is she like, she's obsessed with her dog. She's my ideal client, her and her husband. And I actually, it's not true. I did a shoot for them, but it was just like five minutes and I just gave them all the digitals. And she's paid before I was a professional photographer.
She paid another pet photographer 15 years ago before pet photography even existed. To photograph her other dog. And so she values it. And still I can't find myself, like I can't find it in myself to charge her because she's my auntie, even if I'm not that close. So I dunno, there's something, I guess it's the money thing, mixing friendship and business that makes it awkward a little bit.
And also, like you said, you know, you're there trying to learn business. You're trying to learn, you know client relationships, client service, and all of this kind of thing. And maybe working for a friend in the early days is a little bit. Distracting as you mentioned, because, you know, you end up just chit chatting.
You don't have to work on how do I build this relationship and all of this kind of thing. So I think you're super smart actually to, you know, do a couple just to get off the ground and then straight away find new people to photograph and market to. So you mentioned that you then went and.
strangers to become your clients. So how did you go about doing that? That was all on Instagram. Honestly, most of my business ended up being built on Instagram and then later on events. We'll stick with Instagram for right now, but. I love using Instagram most of the time, you know, we have our days where we don't really love it so much, but I was on it very often and prior to actually starting the pet photography business, I did a lot of like online life and business coaching.
I did Instagram coaching for a while, and so I was already familiar with the platform and very familiar with using it and all of that. So it was just kind of an obvious. Choice to start with Instagram, especially cause I've never really been super huge into Facebook either. So Instagram is where I started.
I started my page for my business and then just started following pretty much any local dog account that I could find and just started engaging with them, liking their posts, commenting, things like that. And once I felt comfortable enough or familiar enough with those people, I would just reach out to them.
In a DMM and say, Hey, I'd love to photograph your dog. And basically just offer them a free session with like one or two digitals. And then of course the goal was always gonna be to, to upsell them afterwards, but that was always how I brought them in in the first place. Okay. So that's really interesting because that's kind of, I mean, it's a very common method that a lot of people use for booking their calendar in terms of, you know, doing like an ad or, or post or something saying like wanted you know, five dogs and their families or, or whatever.
I know that that method is, you know, pretty strong in the photo bees X community for anybody that's listened to Andrew helmet, just podcast, because it was kind of. really trained that way through, through them. And it works very, very well. But you're talking about doing that instead of paying for an ad or doing a post, you're doing the same thing, but a direct contact to complete strangers.
Yeah, absolutely. Which is very interesting because, you know, when you put an ad up, people apply because it interests them and you're just like. Cold calling. You're just going straight for it. And so how does that, how is it going? I mean, how was it going when you were doing it? If you're not still what kind of percentage of people took you up on that?
And then how did it go in terms of translating into actual sales? Yeah. So I want to touch very quickly because you briefly mentioned cold calling and it's actually, it's very different because these aren't people that all just. Send them a message straight away. These are people that I've been interacting with their posts.
Both liking and commenting. I interact with their stories. Again, liking and commenting. Which when you comment on people's stories, that automatically puts you into their DMs. So you start having just casual conversations. Cause I'll respond to somebody's Cute photo of their, or cute video of their dog tearing a new toy into pieces.
I'll respond to that. And we'll have a little bit of a chit chat back and forth for a couple of messages. And then, you know, we might talk again next week or the week after or something like that. It's not a quick process, but I have found that by building that rapport with people and. Having more of those chit chat kind of interactions first, it builds that connection with people and you start almost becoming friends with them, or at the very least, you're becoming familiar with them.
And so when you do reach out and say, Hey, you know, we've been chatting for a while. I love your, I love your. page. And I absolutely adore your dog. He's super cute. I'd love to get you guys in for a photo session or, you know, have you thought about having a photo session, whichever way. And I would say most people took me up on it.
You know, cause everybody loves hearing that their dogs are super adorable and that this professional photographer wants to photograph them. It's almost like, like, it's a form of flattery, honestly, because you're reaching out as a professional and saying, Hey, I'd love to photograph your dog. And especially when you give them.
No barrier to entry and you say, Hey, I want to do this for free. And I'll even give you a little something for your time as a thanks. It's an easy, it's an easy yes for people to say, you know, sometimes I did get the occasional nose and I think those were more people that were either skeptical or. Maybe we just hadn't communicated and talked enough to have enough of a rapport built, but for the most part, most people would take me up on it and it worked out really well.
It was kind of all over the place in terms of sales. Cause again, this was in the beginning. So I was still learning the sales side of it myself, but I think because the approach that I take now is very similar. It's. Definitely gotten a lot better as my selling skills have gotten better. So Marie give me a bit of an idea, like how the response was, how much you were communicating with the, the lead let's call them.
Yeah. Before the shoot actually happened, how much were you communicating? Like, Hey, by the way, this is what's included. This is not included and you're going to spend money and this is how much you're going to spend. Were you having those conversations or was it like a, a hope thing? Cause like you said, you were just starting out and how was the client response to that when they did find out that we're going to spend money?
Yeah, absolutely. So I am a firm believer in my potential clients having as much information as they possibly need to make an informed decision, not just an emotional decision. I want them to be informed. I never want to get to that, that sales appointment and have them be like, Oh my gosh, I had no idea about these prices.
Or I didn't know that I was going to have to spend none of that. I never want to have those conversations and. I do have all of these conversations with them at the same time that I'm offering the session to them. We go through a standard consultation sort of a, a process, but I do it all via text. I do get occasional people that do it via email, but for the most part, all of my conversations are via either text or like DMs.
And we just have those conversations back and forth. I dive a little bit more into learning more about their pets. You know, I, I know a bit about them cause I've been following them on. Instagram and all of that, but I really get dive deep into their stories, their history, things like that, that I wouldn't necessarily have already.
And, you know, just build that value, build that emotion, get to know kind of what they want. Cause I want them to know that it's not just a session for me. Like I'm not just building my portfolio. It's, Hey, I'd love to meet you and photograph your dog. But I want to provide this as a service for you as well.
I want you to get value out of it as well. I don't want people to ever feel like they've wasted their time, even if they only take the one or two free images. So I always make that very clear. And we have that pricing conversation right then and there before we set any dates or any locations or anything like that.
I always go into an in depth pricing conversation, generally speaking, I will. Just give them like a low end and what they might get for that. I'll give them the, my averages and what most people buy or what I tell them. Most people buy at least. And what I hope people buy and then I'll give them the high end as well.
Cause I've had some pretty, pretty insane sales sometimes and I'll throw them out there and be like, if you end up wanting everything in the farm, you may be looking at this and. While it's not super common, you can't get mad at me if you end up wanting that much. Okay, nice. So just for the listener who's begging me to ask the question, Marie, how much is if they're wanting everything?
I mean, going crazy like that. So I would say my highest sale to date was 16, 000. But funny enough, that didn't even include an album, which usually my higher sales include albums. This person ended up getting a handful of large pieces of wall art, as well as one of my luxury lines of painterly canvas.
Okay. Nice. I, I I really love the, the, the structure of having like a luxury line so that there is the option for people to spend big if they decide to do that. And what about on the low end Marie, I mean, apart from, you mentioned some people in the early days just took, you know, the free experience and the free digital, but today let's let's look at today.
In fact, today, do you have clients that are also spending, you know, a couple of hundred or a couple of thousand or are you finding that Most of your clients today are in that higher range. I generally will quote between 000 as my low end, if people just want a couple of images. Now, of course, most people don't want just a couple of images if they're going through the entire process.
And so I'll generally quote people between three and 5, 000, that'd be more of the average that I'm not only looking to get. Aim for, but also generally speaking, the people that do spend more are usually going for an album and at least one piece of wall art, which would land them in that three to five range.
Okay. And in the early days, if we just go back, were you telling people those same numbers or was your structure different then? The numbers were a bit smaller. I would say the high end that I always said was 10, 000, even though I hadn't hit that I just never wanted to cap my sales by giving too low of a high number, but my average number that I always said was usually closer to the 1500 range because that's what I was comfortable saying in the beginning.
Yeah. Nice. Nice. I just asked because I know. You know, a lot of the listeners are probably just starting out. And the question is always, can I charge big when I'm first starting? And can I charge. Big and Tell Me Numbers when I'm the one reaching out to these people, asking them if they want to furnish you.
And you're saying, yes, yes, you can. I did it and it worked. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That's really inspiring to hear. Bree, I want to move on and dive into some other things that you're doing at the moment. I'll probably keep that for the second half of this interview, but before we do that, I have a couple of questions around this Instagram strategy.
First of all, are you still using it? I do, but not as much as I used to. And definitely not in the summertime when I'm super busy. Yeah. Okay, nice. So just to feel the gaps really. Yeah, I tend to be more on my social media during like the school year when my kiddo's away, because I have the time to do so, but during the summer when I'm not only taking care of him, but I'm also just crazy working.
Cause it's the best season here. There's just, there's really not any time I'm. Pretty bad about scheduling my posts. So I was going to ask you that about the time. This sounds quite time intensive in the early days. I'm guessing this is one of the things you were doing when you said that you, you took the time during COVID to set up the business properly.
Was this something that you were doing then or when you first came out of lockdowns or how did that work in terms of time? I. You know, I think to myself the same thing all the time, because people are always like, how did you have time for all these things? And I really don't have an answer. You just kind of find the time, honestly, like it was so important to me that this worked, that I found the time to make it happen.
And the nice thing about Instagram is it's right on your phone. So you can literally just pick it up every so often, decide you want to scroll on it and just, you know, just engage with people. It's. It doesn't feel as much like work because you're just hanging out on social media, looking at cute pictures of dogs and genuinely responding to those pictures.
So we honestly... It sounds like it takes a lot of time, but it just kind of took the time in between really like in between other tasks and things that needed done. So if you were going back in time with the knowledge, you know, now, would you start your business using this same strategy? More than likely.
Yep. I would have started events sooner, but I think starting my business and getting, not only just figuring out like how I want my workflow to be and how I want all of my different touch points and figuring out how it's all going to run. I think this was a really great way to start it. And especially in the beginning, when we're still trying to build that confidence in ourselves and our business, it can be so much easier.
When you're behind your screen, you know, it's easier to reach out to people and even hear those no's because they're not saying it to your face and not saying it over the phone. Nothing like that. It's just on Instagram. They say, no, you move on. Okay. Nice. I love that perspective. And what about for the photographer who maybe thinks it's a great idea?
Would like to try it, but really hates social media. Do you think that it could be done successfully by outsourcing this to somebody else? Or does it really have to be you, the one doing the interaction? You know, that's one of those things that I tend to tell people is really on their terms. Because I know there are some people who outsource it and it has worked perfectly fine.
I know others who they are absolutely their business and they always want to be the person that's interacting with any potential clients. So it wouldn't necessarily work for them, which is kind of where I feel I'm at. I very briefly tested out having a VA to run my social medias, but I, I very quickly, I just wasn't feeling good about it because I felt inauthentic.
And I never wanted them to end up having conversations via social media where. Potential client thinks that they're talking to me and then we get to a session and I have no idea what they've been talking about. Even if I go back and read through it and everything, it just, it doesn't stick as well as if you were actually having that conversation.
So that's just my perspective. But again, I've heard people from both sides and both sides be successful. So it really kind of just boils down to the person and how they want their business to be. Mm hmm. Yeah. I think that's a really great advice. Just follow what works for you and, and and yeah, make sure that whichever way you implement, you implement it well, I guess.
Right. Marie, you shared tons around this and I know you've got more to offer when it comes to marketing. And then of course we haven't even really touched on sales, which you're obviously smashing. In particular, I really want to dive into. Using text and DM to communicate because it's something we don't hear very often.
And I think there'll be lots of people celebrating hearing you say that that's working so well for you. And of course the events and a bunch of other things that I want to talk to you about. I'm going to save that for. The second half of this interview for the members only. So let's wrap up part one.
But before we do that, please tell the listeners how they can find you, find out more about what you do and in terms of your photography. And I know you've just started offering some coaching as well. So you can touch on that too, if you'd like. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Marie Wolfram photography on literally everything.
I'm mostly on Instagram is where I hang out the most. I do kind of hang out a little bit on Facebook. Particularly just in groups though, like educational groups, such as your own. And then I have started offering some one on one mentoring, which people can just reach out to me directly. If they're interested in that, I don't have anything super formal set up quite yet.
It is a very one on one personalized approach, and it's a little bit different than kind of what's already out there. So I'd love to chat with anybody who may be interested in that.