S15E11 | How a seamless client experience leads to a fully booked calendar
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What if I told you that it’s possible to be completely fully booked thanks to past clients either returning or referring? That is the reality for today’s guest, who clearly doesn’t do things in halves! A quick look at either his Instagram or Website is proof of that with stunning images, useful information and beautiful design so it isn’t a surprise to learn that his client experience is also seamless. In today’s episode, we broke down exactly what that experience looks to make his clients tell all of their friends!
We covered:
The reason Carlos is running his business part-time
Client availability for a part-time business offering this style of pet photography
The marketing campaign that actively seeks out the friends of his clients and turns them into clients too
An overview of Carlos' client experience and the elements that lead to referrals
IN THE MEMBERS-ONLY EXTENDED EPISODE:
The role of an assistant
What a thinking dog first looks like
How custom sales videos work
Selling products with a hands-off approach
Carlos’ pricing structure
Carlos Alanis-Miljour
Carlos A.Miljour Photographe Animalier, Canada
My name is Carlos and I have been running a part time professional pet photography business since 2019. Photography was always something that intrigued me as I was younger and I was planning on studying photography or videography (Website design was also high up on the list). As a creative person, those options were very interesting but did not end up studying in either of those fields. I actually got a job as a mail carrier and since all the benefits and the schedule is very interesting as well as the type of work that is enjoyable, decided to make it my career.
In 2016, I decided to pick up my first DSLR to try out photography and see if I would enjoy it as much as I thought I would when I was growing up. Started by taking random pictures, but particularly loved taking some of our 4 pets! (1 dog, 3 cats) I was very into fitness when I first started photography and got a photography contract with a CrossFit company to photograph their athletes during competitions events they had. Quickly realised that wasn't for me. In the same time frame, I discovered a pet photographer in Quebec that was doing that full time by traveling all around Quebec. That was a huge Aha moment where I knew I wanted to try pet photography. So here I am, a few years later with a part time pet photography business and I still love it as much as day 1! I am now in the process of sharing my knowledge and expertise by offering pet photography courses, coaching and workshops to help other photographers learn the art and business of pet photography. Many exciting projects for 2024 including trying to take this full time!
Transcript
What if I told you that it's possible to be completely fully booked? Thanks to past clients, either returning or referring that is reality for today's guest. Who clearly doesn't do things in halves, a quick look at either his Instagram or website is proof of that with not only stunning images, but useful information and beautiful design too.
So it isn't a surprise to learn that his client experience is also seamless. Today's episode, we broke down exactly what that experience looks like to make his clients tell all of their friends and to keep coming back for new shoots.
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 arse business strategies. Now onto the show.
Hello, and welcome to season 15, episode 11 of the Pet Photographers Club. I'm your host, Kirstie McConnell, and today I'm chatting with Carlos. Arlenis and I am really like struggling to remember how to pronounce your name properly, Carlos. I've been like repeating it over and over as we've been chatting like in my head to make sure I got it right.
Guys, listeners, you will probably know that pronunciation of different languages. To my own, which is English is a big struggle straight for me, but I do try my best to get it right, but Carlos, I'm going to hand it over to you now and let you introduce your business to everybody and let the listener know where you are in the world and what it is that you're doing over there.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me Kirstie, and your pronunciation was perfect, so don't worry about it. So yeah, I'm based, I'm based in Canada in a city called Gatineau, which is mostly French speaking. So, you probably noticed that I have an accent and my first language is actually French.
And that city is located right beside Ottawa which is the capital of Canada. And I, I launched my pet photography business back in 2019 as a part time pet photographer. So I'm still a part time pet photographer as of now. So I have a full time job as well. And my full, like, photography journey began back in 2016.
That's where I, I bought my first camera. And so like most photographers, I think, you know, when you buy your first camera, you just Kind of take photos of everything, just experiment, have fun. And so that's pretty much what I did, you know. I was taking pictures of our cats of my girlfriend, my food, and just, you know, being annoying by taking photos all the time.
And so, a little bit later, we adopted our dog, Gwenny, which became my main model, and I was just taking pictures of her all the time and practicing. And, yeah, so, basically, my girlfriend Nancy, she started her own business as well around that time and her business is basically having like group workouts with dogs.
And so the people are working out and then the dog is having like basic obedience and I would help her out a lot at the beginning and I would bring my camera as well. So I would take pictures of her courses of like the, the participants with the and that would kind of help her out with her social media.
But for me, I would use that for my portfolio as well. So at that time, you know, she kind of noticed that I really love photography. So she gifted me at Christmas that year, a in person photography course. So that's where I kind of. Really unlock my creative side and I really fell in love with photography.
So I learned like all the fundamentals of photography and how to use your camera and full manual mode and all that good stuff. So, and around that time, I also discovered this pet photographer in Quebec, which was doing that full time and just going around the province of Quebec. And taking pictures of, you know, pets, cats, dogs, and horses.
And I was just amazed by how someone can just, you know, do that full time. And that's where I decided to kind of look around in my area and see if anybody else was doing that. And I discovered there was just one person doing that part time in my city. And in Ottawa there was maybe two or three, I don't remember.
But there was not a lot of people doing that. And I knew it was growing really fast in some areas in the world, like United States and Europe. And so I decided, you know what, I'm going to launch my own pet photography business. And so that's how it actually started. And I was taking pictures of like friend's dogs.
And then I did this giveaway at one point and that's just kind of blew up. And from there it just went up. So yeah, that's pretty much my whole, my whole journey. And so now I'm at maybe almost five years doing that. And now I kind of want to transition into education where I would kind of teach others or help others learn path photography.
So yeah, that's pretty much my whole journey. All right. So Carlos, we have so many things to unpack from that, but let's start with the, one of the first things that you said was that you're doing this part time, which I never would have guessed because your website is Amazing. And I'm going to get into that later on, maybe in the first half, but at least in the second, if not the first half of the episode I see you worked with a professional on that.
So I want to touch on that, but I've bookmarked that for later. Your socials are like, your Instagram is. definitely, you know, you're doing everything right. You've got a huge following, lots of engagement. You're keeping busy with that. I never would have guessed that you're part time. So is that fine for you?
Like, is your goal to keep it this way? You want to keep doing your other job. And then like you just mentioned a bit of coaching or whatever as well, or would you really love to be able to quit? you know, your other job and, and be full time as a photographer and, and in the little, in a bit of education space as well.
Yeah, actually, I would love to go full time. That's one of my plans. Obviously, you know with the financial stability you know, my, my job, I have been doing my job for 16 years and obviously there's like advantages to that. So you have like vacations and days off and you know, insurance and pension and all of that.
So That's a hard decision to make to go full time with my, my business. But it's definitely something I want to do, but I would probably go more on the educational side. So photography would probably stay would still be part of my business, but less of my business. So I would kind of have like this limited sessions for clients, but yeah, I wouldn't really want to focus on like the educational part, something that I've been thinking about for a long time.
And helping others is something I really love doing. So that's I definitely want this kind of bring that to a full time eventually. Okay. Amazing. I'm always interested when I hear people say, yeah, I'm part time. I would love to go full time, but you know, I have all these benefits in my work, like vacation time.
I mean, I understand the others, pension, insurance, etc, but vacation time, Carlos, come on, when you're self employed, you can have as much vacation time as you want. Yeah, but it is hard though, because when you're self employed, you just want to always, anyways, for me, that's for me, I always want to work, you know, I just want to like, build on my business and make it grow, so it's kind of hard to take vacation, I feel anyways.
I don't know if it's your case, but I, I feel like it would be hard. Okay. Well, I think it's really important to know your own personality. That's for sure. I have the opposite problem. I would just be on vacation all the time if I didn't have bills to pay. I guess I'm a workaholic. Well, you know, I think, you know, that's got its pros and cons as well. And and there was a stage in my life that I was certainly in that category as well, but you know, things change and, and that's okay as well. All right. So let's move along from, you know, why you're keeping your other job at the moment, we understand that I'm sure that resonates with lots of the listeners as well, but it's really nice to hear that you've got this goal and that you're working towards that as well.
So with that in mind, how. How many clients do you have capacity for each year? How many photographs, photoshoots can you do, paid photoshoots per year? So not last year, but a year before in 2022, I had 30 sessions and that was like pretty much the max I would say. I wouldn't, I would feel like having a full time job and having that many sessions.
It's hard to manage with like responsibilities and friends and family and activities. So yeah, 20 to 30 would be for me a fully booked fully booked year. Okay. And I mean that, yeah, that totally makes sense. If you're working as well in another job as well, I'm guessing also when I have a look at your work, which is just beautiful.
And guys, if you haven't already seeing Carlos's work, make sure you head over to the show notes and you click on the link to his website because while the website is beautiful, as I mentioned before, but the work is really stunning. So I'm going to guess Carlos and please correct me if I'm wrong, that you must Quite a bit of time, well, first of all, getting it right in camera, but then also quite a bit of time in post as well in editing.
Is that right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I do spend a lot of time in editing, but yeah, I try to most, you know as much to take it in camera, right. The first time, but then editing is a big part of the whole process. So. Well, yeah, to obtain the beautiful look that you have and the consistency between shoots, then yes, certainly you would need to do that.
So how much time are you spending on average per client shoot? Good question. Per client shoot, I would say probably, honestly, like it's hard to say in a matter of time because I'm not constantly working on it. So if I have a session, I'll have like one session on a weekend. And then it's probably going to take me like a whole week to finish off the whole, like a whole session editing and sending the client photos and all of that there.
So I'd say around a week, but technically it's maybe, I don't know, maybe 20 hours, 15 to 20 hours in total, depending on how many photos they take you know, packaging and all of that, like printed products and maybe 20 to 30, I'm not sure. Yeah. Okay. So when you consider that you're doing that part time, then certainly there isn't really much time to do more than 20 shoots or 30 shoots a week.
No, exactly. And it almost, sorry, it almost becomes like a full time at one point, you know, because you're almost, you're working a lot on that on that business and it becomes kind of full time. So. Now, all of these questions I'm asking you, they actually are leading somewhere for the listener as well.
I was just wanting to get a really good picture for like, you know, what it is that you're doing, what your week looks like how much time you're spending on these clients, because I saw a post of yours a while ago saying that you were fully booked for last year, purely from. Past clients. And I wanted to get an understanding of what fully booked actually means.
And I mean, yeah, at 20, 30, when you did 36, you said, I mean, that's not just a couple of shoots here and there. I mean, that's almost one a fortnight, I suppose. Sometimes one a week in, in higher times, I guess. So, okay. I have, we have to get into this a little bit. I want to touch on it before we have to break.
So please that post that you put up, you have to tell us more about it. So you said you were fully booked and it was purely from past clients. So does that mean that you were only photographing dogs or, or full clients who'd photographed before, or was it also like friends and family of past clients as well, included in that?
Yeah, for sure. Friends and family included, not only past clients, but it's mainly you know, when you have like, when clients have like a really good experience, they will obviously talk about it and share their experience. So that brings more clients. So really concentrating, focusing on that aspects of like giving the best experience possible.
That definitely has its advantages. So, okay. So it included some referrals and everything and everything was organic or did you have a particular strategy in place to make sure that your past clients were either booking again or getting a friend to book, uh, some of them was organic, but I did every year.
So every year in the, in the beginning of the year. I do a giveaway, which works really well. We can talk about it later on if you want, but this giveaway actually kind of, it's it's based on clients who already booked a session the previous year. And so it becomes like kind of a win win situation for me and them.
And it also like brings a lot of, you know, some of them, some of their friends and family and acquaintances. So yeah, there's a bit of kind of self promotion, but that's the only one I did last year. Usually I do, I do a little bit more throughout the year. Last year, that's the only one I did and I Even, even then I still kind of book the full calendar for the full year.
So, amazing. So Carlos, sorry, that strategy you're talking about though, is that our base of our pet of the year competition or is it something different? Yeah, kind of. Yeah, exactly. It's basically, it's like everyone who had a session with me, they have, they, they are automatically into this giveaway.
Where they can win a free session with digital photos and printed products. And so, basically they have to kind of have the most votes for their pets. And so they share with their friends on social networks. And so yeah, that brings a lot of more more of their friends or family or whatever as clients.
Okay. Well, I think the listeners probably heard about that strategy or a version of, I don't know if you're doing exactly step by step as we sell in our guide. But they've heard about that strategy through the Pep Travers Club before. So I think what we should do is go and focus more on the organic and find out what it is you're doing to make your clients want to come back year after year and also refer you not like organically to their friends and family as well.
So do you think that there is. Or is there something that you're strategically doing to ensure that the client does tell their clients or is it purely, sorry, does tell their friends or is it purely just that you're giving them such a great experience that they're just telling everybody anyway? I'm pretty sure it's like the experience because I'm not doing anything else.
in order to kind of bring them back, if you will. So yeah, I'm pretty sure it's like the whole experience they're getting. So that can be from like session, you know, from the beginning to the end of the session, that can be from like having a session guide, a location guide, or any type of guide where they can have more information and be more prepared and know exactly what to expect.
And then like, Like most, probably most photographers, they do is like having a phone consultation or video consultation just to address any concerns or anything that they might you know, any questions they may, they might have and plan the session. So I know some will do it over email. So depending on the client, obviously, if the client doesn't want to talk over the phone, you know, you, it's definitely possible to do it over by email, but I find it's a lot easier and more simple and it's just.
It works a lot better to do it just over the phone and yeah, so, and then, you know, me personally, I have like during the each session, I'll have like an assistant and that's my partner actually, but having a, an assistant, I think that gives it adds value to this, to the to the experience because my assistant, for example, she helps a lot with like guiding and placing the animals or, you know, if they have any questions as well.
So I can. Concentrate a lot on taking the pictures. I'm also obviously answering any questions they may have or guiding them. But this way I can really concentrate on taking beautiful pictures and in the moment, right? And even something like super super simple, but sharing a sneak peek of like the back of your camera, I feel that this creates like excitement in the clients and that kind of.
puts you in the position that you're kind of the professional, right? So then they're all, they're going to be more confident and they'll know that all the, the, like the images will be beautiful throughout the rest of the session. So that's something that's really small that might not seem like it does have has an impact, but I feel that that does have a big impact on them.
Yeah. So there's like different things like that, that having like. After the session, there's people that will do like in person sell or virtual sales. I personally don't do that. I, I have like a custom video that I, I'll create for my clients. So I have like I usually like in the past with my past clients, I used to like.
Do this custom video for each client. Now what I do is I have like this pre made video and then I'll stitch a custom video at the end of that so I don't like lose too much time creating the same video each time, but that kind of makes them like the whole process easier and simpler. And yeah, so there's different things like that mean something else is like packaging.
So packaging the printed products is something if you like. Put a lot of effort in there and just maybe have like little gifts and something to kind of appreciate appreciate them for booking a session with you. So, yeah, well, like different things like that, that can help for the whole experience.
Carlos, it sounds like. You have not missed a single step. Like you're making sure that your client experience is just seamless and that everybody's having a great time. They're feeling really comfortable with you. They love the photos, of course. And so of course, why wouldn't they be raving about you to all of their friends and family?
You mentioned. A bunch of things like they were all super normal and everybody does that, but I want to dive into them more because I think even if there are some parts of your process that other people are doing, you know, they're not doing it in the unique Carlos way. And so I want to dive into those bit by bit, break it down and try to.
See, you know, you know, how this entire client experience looks like and what parts maybe we can take from that and, and learn from and implement into our businesses to, you know, also have our clients raving as much as yours are about you, obviously. But I am going to save that for the second part of this episode.
So let's. Go ahead and wrap up part one now, before we do that, please, can you let the listener know where they can find you, your work, and if you've got anything for education yet, where we can see that? Yeah, so you can find me on my Instagram at carlos under slash photograph under slash animalier, so it's in French but my, my my account is mostly English and my website is www dot.
Carlos a.com. And don't worry guys, I will definitely have the links to everything in the show notes. , this is season 15, episode 11, so if you miss anything, just head on over to the pet photographers club com slash podcast slash 1511 and you'll find the episode there or you can just search.
Carlos or any of the things that we've spoken about today. And you will be able to find the links in there. That is it for part one of the episode. If you are a member of the club, of course, you can continue listening to part two, either in the member zone or via your private RSS feed in your favorite podcast player.
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