Episode 007: 5 Things I Wish I’d Started Sooner in My Photography Business

Hi, welcome to the Kelsi Bailey Photography Podcast, a space where motherhood and entrepreneurship beautifully collide. I’m Kelsi, a photographer, mama, and coffee-fueled dreamer. Here, I’ll share client education to help you feel confident in front of my camera, honest conversations about the joys and the challenges of motherhood, and inspiration for fellow creatives chasing their own dreams. Whether you’re a mama wanting to pre ss pause on the current chapter of your life or an entrepreneur building something meaningful, you’ll find encouragement, insight, and maybe even a bit of laughter here. So grab your coffee and pull up a cozy seat, my friend. I’m so glad you’re here. This is the Kelsi Bailey Photography Podcast. 

Hey, hi, hello, and welcome to this, the seventh episode of the Kelsi Bailey Photography Podcast. Do you guys wanna hear a crazy statistic? I just mentioned that this is the seventh episode of the Kelsi Bailey Photography Podcast. Did you know that 80%, 80% of all podcasts that get started do not make it past episode number seven? Isn’t that crazy? I think that is just a wild… stat. So I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for being here. Thank you for showing up, for tuning in, for subscribing to the show. I see every play. I see every download and I have brought you guys along on this podcast journey with me and you have not let me down. You have, like I said, shown up and it makes it totally worth it for me to sit here on the floor of my daughter’s room with the best acoustics in the house and talk to myself into this microphone every week. So Thank you for showing up. We are going to make it through the seventh episode and beyond. I have no intention of becoming a part of that 80% statistic. So thank you for being here. I hope you continue to enjoy the ride. And now with that being said, let’s for real, for true, jump in to today, the seventh episode of the Kelsi Bailey Photography Podcast.

Entrepreneurship. What a trip. What a journey, as my beloved Frank Sinatra would say, ain’t that a kick in the head? And I oftentimes cannot think of a better way to describe it myself. My journey into entrepreneurship in particular has been full of twists and turns and learning curves literally every step of the way. I think I spent the first four or five years in my business really playing it small and playing it scared. I was suffering from imposter syndrome. I really tried my hardest to blend in. I did not want to stand out or be different. I wanted to just be seen doing what all of the other photographers were doing. I struggled to feel good enough, legitimate enough, professional enough, and I think in the end, it ended up all right. But it was hard and frustrating those first few years as I was learning and navigating all of the things that come with building a service-based business. So I want to share some of the things that I wish I would have started in my business sooner. I want to share them in honor of my past self, the one who was too afraid to implement some of these things, the one who didn’t think she was… worthy of running a professional business. I want to honor her by sharing these things I wish I would have done sooner. I want to share them for you, my listener, my client, my friend, my fellow mama. I want to share them with you so that you can just get another glimpse into my business. My business would not exist without you. So we are in this together and I love having you right here. with me knowing all of the ins and all of the outs. So I want to share those things for you. So like I said, you can just get another closer glimpse into my business from where I sit. I also want to share them for you, the creative entrepreneur, the… one running an Etsy shop, the one starting a photography business, the one running a copywriting business. I want to share these things that I wish I would have started sooner in my business so that if you are currently sitting where I was, where you are sitting in imposter syndrome, you’re playing small, kind of hanging out in the shadows, wondering, am I good enough? Am I worthy enough? Is my business worthy enough of treating it like a legitimate business? And I am here today to say yes. Yes, it is. You are worth it. Your business is worth it. And I would love to see you take these things that I’m about to share. And I would love for you to implement them into your business this week. It’s a Monday. These things are not physically hard or taxing to implement into your business. For me, they were mostly like mental hurdles. I had to get to a place where I felt like I was good enough, worthy enough, legitimate enough to to start implementing some of these business practices into my business. So this is your permission slip to say, yes, my business and myself, we are worthy of all of these things. And if you begin to implement these things little by little, I think your business will be unrecognizable in the best way by the time Christmas begins. So with all of that being said, this episode, episode lucky number seven, is for you, for my past self, for you, mama, listener, client, friend, and for you, my fellow creative entrepreneur. So I’m raising my mug to you. Cheers. Let’s jump into today’s episode. 

There was once a time in my business where clients would book a session and they would not pay me a dime until the day of their session. As it stands now, many, many years later, I require a deposit to secure someone’s spot on the calendar. So back in the day, a client would inquire, we would connect, we would chat, we would schedule a session, we would confirm date, time, location. I would say, perfect, this all sounds great. I can’t wait to see you. If you have any questions in the meantime, let me know. Otherwise, I will be back into your inbox the week of your session to confirm date, time, location. Again, as it stands now, when inquiries come in, I do not confirm any date, time, or location until a deposit is received. By not collecting a deposit, I left the door wide open. for so many things to happen. So many things that were frustrating and heartbreaking. And the first of those things was ghosting. I was ghosted so many times. By not collecting a deposit, my potential clients had no skin in the game. They were not invested in the session or or my business. They were not committed to keeping the date we had discussed. They simply decided, once I circled back before their session, they simply decided, do we still want to do this or don’t we? And I can’t tell you the number of times that they didn’t. That I would circle back and say, hey, so excited to see you guys this weekend. Just popping in to confirm, you know, daytime location. See you guys then. And I would never hear back from them. They would never reach back out to confirm the session. There was even a time or two when I would get so nervous that I would drive to the session anyway because I was so worried that they were going to show up and I wouldn’t because I wouldn’t have heard back from them, but I would show up and then be completely and totally ghosted. That was not a good feeling. That was not professional in the sense of me honoring someone my time, right? I would put their session on the calendar and then obviously I wouldn’t book anything else. And so instead of having that space available for someone who may have actually wanted it and may have actually paid me to do it, I just drove to a session where nobody showed up, I didn’t make any money and I’m lost out on that time. So not collecting deposits left the door wide open for that. It also let it wide open for last minute financial negotiations. Again, as it stands, when I collect my deposits, everything is in black and white. I send the pricing guide and I say, this is how much it is for my session. This is how much I require for a deposit. And then this is how much is due the date of your session. And all of that is taken care of well in advance so that there are no surprises. Now, to be fair, there were also not any surprises when I was not collecting deposits, but it didn’t feel as professional and stern and secure. So I would send not a pricing guide. I would literally just send this is my session investment. It’s $200 XYZ. Does that sound OK to you? They would say, yeah, that sounds great. Let’s get something on the calendar. And then because there was no portrait contract or any deposit collected, then perhaps the week of their session rolled around and they would start to negotiate the price a little bit. They would say, well, we actually had a few things come up and I think we’re just going to try to sneak it in like a mini session. That’s really all we have time for as it turns out. And so can… We pay you less money. Can we instead do $75 instead of $200 and call it a mini session? It just, again, left the door wide open for people to try to negotiate price at the very last minute. And that was disheartening as well. That made for some really uncomfortable conversations. And then again… If I said no, and then they opted out of the session, then this is happening days before their session. So there’s not enough time to realistically fill that spot, especially when I was new into business. And so again, I was losing out on time and money by not collecting a deposit right off the bat. This was also a problem. when it came to family illnesses, inclement weather, family emergencies, work emergencies, again, if I have collected a deposit, my clients have skin in the game. They’ve shown they’re committed, they’re invested, there is money to lose if they cancel their session. Before collecting deposits, people would cancel at the last minute and they would never reschedule, okay? They would, on a Saturday morning, my kiddo woke up sick. We’re going to go ahead. We’ll try again next year. Or you know what? I see that a thunderstorm is supposed to roll in on Saturday afternoon when our session is supposed to be. We really don’t want to mess with that. So let’s just, we’re just going to scrap it. Forget about it. Thank you for your time. You know, we’ll be back in touch at a later date. Because they had no skin in the game, again, my calendar ended up being wide open because of last minute cancellations, not reschedules, but cancellations. So this was something, again, that was super disheartening, really frustrating. It was really hard to try to build any momentum because I would feel in my mind like my weekends were booked. Maybe I would have two sessions on a Saturday, two sessions on a Sunday, and then maybe two or three out of those sessions would end up either ghosting me bailing or canceling at the last minute or trying to renegotiate the investment that we had originally discussed. So this was not a good business practice to not collect a deposit. But my problem was that as a new business, particularly a service-based business, I was too afraid to take people’s money before a service was rendered. I felt like they would feel like I was scamming them, like I was I don’t know, taking money for a service that I had not yet rendered. So it took me a really long time to change my mindset about deposits. And I wish it wouldn’t have taken so long because now it makes so much more sense. And I think it makes my business look and feel much more legitimate than when I didn’t. So this does not have to be hard to implement. At the beginning, I think I might have had like a $50 retainer fee to save your spot. It is non-refundable, but then obviously it’s taken out of the original investment so that on the date of their session, they are paying less because they have already paid in a deposit. Moral of the story, I wish I would have started collecting deposits to secure people’s date on the calendar way earlier on in my business than I did. And if you are hearing this as a fellow creative entrepreneur, please know that I think you should start collecting deposits even if you are a service-based business immediately. immediately, because it is going to, like I said, show both you and your clients that you are both invested. It’s going to show them that you are professional. You’re valuing your time and your profits as a business. If your weekend looks full and then everyone bails and you’ve not collected any deposits, you are not making any money. So you might look at your month at a glance and say, this looks like a pretty good month financially for my business. And if half of that business goes away, disappears, all of that profit that you have planned for is now out the door. So please do me and yourself a huge favor. Start collecting deposits immediately. 

Quick question. Did you know that I send out a little monthly love note to my email subscribers? It’s filled with photo session tips, behind the scenes peeks, podcast updates, and plenty of real life mama moments. You know, the kind you can read with your morning or afternoon coffee in hand. Plus, my subscribers are the first to know about session availability, mini session offerings, what’s new on my business. And I’ve been known to toss around some freebies from time to time. So if you haven’t subscribed yet, consider this your invitation to join the family. Simply visit kelsibailey.com and tap the Let’s Be Pen Pals icon at the top of the page. I can’t wait to chat with you in your inbox. And now back to the show. 

Another thing that I wish I would have started sending sooner are my pricing PDFs and my prep guides. Again, there was a time in my business back in the day when an inquiry would come through and I would reply with my pricing information. I would say, hi Amy, it’s so wonderful to hear from you. My session investment is $200 for the session in the digital files. Please let me know if I can help answer any questions that you might have. Sincerely yours, Kelsi Bailey Photography. first of all, I looking back on it now, it looks unprofessional. Okay. It looks unprofessional to just send those numbers in black and white in an email. It also didn’t give me the opportunity to share more information, right? I just left it as simple and as easy as I could. And it didn’t show any of my personality. It didn’t show any of my body of work. And so I thought I was really graduating a little bit, maybe a year or two into my business instead of sending them, instead of typing into the email body, it’s $200 for a session and all the digital files. I would direct them to the investment page on my website. hi, Amy, thank you so much for inquiring about my services. All of my pricing information can be found right here. And I would add a hyperlink to the word here so that they could click over and they could go view all of my pricing on my website. This was a step up professional wise, but also a step sideways. It required them to leave their email inbox and invited them to go to a place where they might not be terribly familiar. And then they were just served up some numbers and on a plate. I can’t even say it was served up on a silver platter. I’m sure I had it worded very nicely, very professionally, and I’ve always worked really hard to keep my website up and running. So every person that I sent there, I was sending them to a legitimate place with legitimate information. But again, it did feel like it was up to them then to peruse the rest of my website. They could see all my pricing information, but then I expected them to then jump down that rabbit hole of curiosity. Well, let’s check out her About Me page. Let’s look at her blog and see what her photos actually look like. Let’s go through the homepage and see what kind of brand she even has going on. I expected my client and potential clients to do all of that work. And let’s be honest, that wasn’t happening, right? People don’t have time for that. So perhaps they were going over and looking just at my numbers, just at the numbers page, but then it feels like a business transaction. So eventually I came to where I’m at now. When an inquiry comes through, I send over a pricing PDF menu. So it’s a PDF that’s attached to the email. And I don’t know how many pages it is, maybe six or seven pages, but it looks beautiful. It’s a Canva template. And I have all kinds of information in there. I introduce myself. I talk a little bit about my business. I then show all of the investment information and answer all the questions that they might have. And then I tell them exactly what comes next. If this sounds good to you, here’s what we do next. I require a deposit. And then once your deposit is received, your session is signed, sealed, delivered, all taken care of. It’s all on the calendar. And then after that, I also… write a little bit about what happens after their session if they feel like they are looking for that information right off the bat. I love being able to send this all in a PDF format because I feel like it is… Easy to look at. It’s easy to click through whether you’re on your computer or you’re on your phone. You can pull up these PDFs. It is branded, so I am in control. I am in the driver’s seat of that entire experience that they’re going through. And unlike my website, this is living in their email. They can search it easily if they need to refer back to it. They can forward it to a spouse, forward it to a friend, forward it to their mom. if they’re booking an extended family session or something. And so it is just easily accessible. It shows, again, my brand, my personality. I have photos in there for them to look at so they can kind of see my business at a glance inside this PDF without having to travel to my website and click through a bunch of tabs. So it feels much more personable, much more professional. And I was afraid to do this for a long time because of the time it took to put it together. And this is one of the things that does take me a large amount of time every year. I update the PDFs. I plug and play photos in and out. I change, tweak things here and tweak things there. And so I spend a lot of time on these PDFs on the back end. But then it makes it so much easier when the inquiries come in. I just shoot over the PDF. I have them for all of the different sessions that I offer. So I have a different pricing menu for newborn sessions, for family sessions, branding sessions. And so I just click the one that they’ve inquired about and I send it on over. And then that feels more like serving them my business on a silver platter than making them jump to my website or just simply putting it in the body of text. So if you have been shying away from sending pricing menus because you feel like it’s going to take a lot of time on the back end, it is. But it’s going to pay off in dividends when all you have to do is click and attach every time an inquiry comes in. So I do wish I would have started sending my PDF pricing guides long before I actually did. 

The same can be said for my session prep guides. After I realized how easy it was to just send a pricing menu PDF, I immediately thought this is what I need to do for my session prep guides. Before I sent them as a PDF, I simply had them as blog posts on my website. How to prepare for your session. And then I had another separate page that was an FAQ page. So once they booked their session, I would reach back out and say, really looking forward to seeing you. You know, here is a list of things that I think might help get you excited and prepped for your session. You can read this blog post here. And then I have an FAQ page on my website. You can visit that here. So again, I am putting the expectation onto my client to do all of that homework. I’m expecting them to click out of their email inbox, go over to my blog, read the entire blog post, and then click another tab to view all of the FAQ information. That’s a lot of work to ask someone to do. And it wasn’t updated as frequently as my PDFs are. So once… I started sending out my pricing menu PDFs. I almost immediately turned all of my session prep information that was once living on my blog and on my website. I’d simply put that into a PDF, packaged it all up with a little bow, buttoned it up, and then had it available to send as soon as they’re session was booked and their deposit was received I send over the session guide and I say here’s a handy dandy little session prep guide it’ll help you feel excited and inspired for your upcoming session take a peek through it let me know if I can help answer any further questions This PDF is branded exactly like my pricing menu PDF. So it feels cohesive. It feels like very professional. And it then again, lives in their email inbox. They can access it easily. They can pull it up on their computer or their phone. And it just, I think, makes it a much more seamless experience than having to click out of their email inbox a million times to go view information in a different place. I also noticed too, almost right away, once I started sending the session prep guides as PDFs, I felt like people were reading them. Prior to that, when I was sending them to my website, I will say clients would show up to sessions and I could tell that they had not read through the prep guide, which is fine. It’s optional, okay? But if I’m going to pour all of that time and all of that energy into making a prep guide, it would be really awesome if… if they read it, right? So I did notice immediately once I started sending the PDFs, the things, the tips and the tricks that I shared, the wardrobe information, the what happens next information, the here is the way we’re going to run the session. Here’s what we’re going to do first. And then we’re going to do this. And then we’re going to do this. And people showed up and they were prepped. And that made their experience a lot better and made my experience a lot better. So if you are sitting in the camp and you have put together your pricing guides and you’ve already done all of that in Canva, you’ve seen how it all works. And now you’re, you know, hashtag profesh about that. Then I would suggest, I would invite you to spend the same amount of time making a session prep guide for your clients, because I think they’re going to be more likely to read that. I’ve seen that on my end anyway. So that would be another thing that I would implement immediately into your business. 

This next one is kind of tricky for me to talk about. When I started my business, I was very stubborn, very adamant about wanting to make it feel like a very one-on-one personal experience for every potential client, every client client, every email that landed in my inbox. I wanted to respond to it personally and type it out every single time. I held onto this belief for years and years and years that If I sent out a script, if I sent out a copied and pasted email template reply, if I did those things, I thought that people on the other end of the email would know and it would burn my business to the ground. And so I spent years, years personally typing out and replying to every email that landed in my inbox. That was a really tall task and I spent more time in my inbox corresponding than I did doing my actual work, my photos and my editing and my PDFs and my blogging. I spent more time in my email inbox. I would oftentimes just skip my inbox altogether on a day. If I was feeling really overwhelmed, I couldn’t even open my inbox because I knew if I did, I would spend hours hours crafting replies to all of the messages that were in my inbox. This is a blessing. Yes, I am so lucky to have emails in my inbox in the first place. I recognize that, but I also recognize that I am not being paid to be a virtual assistant to craft all of these emails. So eventually I did switch my mindset and I put together email templates for my business. I felt okay doing this only after I realized that I could craft all of those emails myself. They could still feel very warm and personable, and I could still take sentences in or tweak things a little bit during the copy and paste process to make them feel personable. I want everyone who arrives in my inbox to feel seen. So if you have sent me an email and you’ve said, Hey Kelsey, we would love to work with you. My friend Rachel has nothing but wonderful things to say. And so I am here to inquire about your services. When I reply to her, I want to make sure that I’m giving Rachel a shout out in person. that email. And I can’t put that into my template, but I can make all of that other information in there. I can get my attached PDF ready to go. I can say my thank you for inquiring about my services. I can say, I’m really excited to work with you, et cetera, et cetera. And then I can add or remove sentences to give Rachel a shout out to thank her for sending them my way. And I felt better about that. So finally, I made templates for all different scenarios. Like I have a template for when inquiries come in that I copy and paste. I have session onboarding and follow-up emails. When a client books a session, I onboard them into my HoneyBook software, which I have discussed in an earlier episode. And all of those, when I send over the contract and the model release and the invoice, I have template and emails that I send out online. with all of those onboarding things. Those are just copy and paste the same as when their blog posts are up and ready to view after a session is complete. About a week later, I put an extended sneak peek up on my blog. I send them an email to direct them to the blog link and that template is a copy and paste as well. I also have a the same type of email for when their gallery is delivered. I have a lot of things to say when I deliver a gallery and it is so tedious to sit down and do that letter by letter by hand every time. So I have crafted a template, especially for the end for those where I copy and I paste it in to the gallery delivery email so that I know that I’m not missing any information, but it also has been written by me and is therefore still on brand and warm and personable. I, what else do I have templates for? I have them for the day after the session. I send just like a quick follow-up, like a here’s what happens next email. And then I also very recently have added a print shop to my galleries. So I have a little copy and paste template that I put in my gallery delivery emails for that as well. So you can see that now I spend probably like 80% less time in my correspondence, but I still am sending out things that feel warm and personable. They feel on brand to me. And I hope that they then make the reader of the email feel seen and like they matter as well. So this was one that still from time to time makes me feel like I’m cheating on a little bit. Sometimes I get to copying and pasting like on a Monday after a weekend of emails. I feel kind of like, is this cheating? Am I making this as personable as possible? But I have to remember that I am just one person. Again, I like my business that way. I like it to be just me. I don’t want to hire a VA to craft emails for me. I don’t want to AI generate email replies. I want them all to feel like they are coming from me directly to you. And so I have found templates to be the best way to do that because I’m simply writing the templates, putting them in my folders on monday.com and then copying and pasting them to make my time in my inbox take way less time. So if templates have been something that have been on your mind as a business owner, I encourage you to give it a try. Give it a try and see how it feels, at least for some of those emails that you are getting a lot. If there are session inquiries for me, that is probably the email that I get the most. And so I have crafted a very personable reply that I can just copy and paste. And it saves me so much time. And then people aren’t waiting as long to hear back from me as well. So it’s a win-win, I hope. I hope it’s a win-win for me and for you. So email templates would be something that I would encourage you to add if you’re a business owner and you haven’t. And they are also something that I wish I would have added to my business long, long ago. 

I mentioned a bit earlier when I was talking about pricing guides and session prep guides, I mentioned putting the expectation onto my client to do the homework, to click over from an email, head over to the blog post and do all of that work, all of that reading. And I have been really fearful and mindful of the amount of correspondence that I send. I I worry that too much information is like information overload. So I guess as it stands, if we were to walk through what it’s like to book a session with me, what happens? An inquiry comes through and I send a session or I send a pricing guide first and foremost. Then they say, yay, this all looks great. Let’s book a session. I say, amazing. I can’t wait to welcome you to the Kelsi Bailey photography family. I then send them a portrait contract. I send them a model release form. I send them an invoice to collect their deposit and set up their auto payment for their remaining balance. I send them all of that information. And then I say, now here’s your session prep guide to help you get prepped, excited, and ready for your session. So that is five things that I have already sent over. And all five of those things are necessary. I don’t think there’s any of them that I can remove. But when… I think about delivering the best possible experience. Part of me shies away from sending over any additional information. And then there’s another part of me that really wants to make sure that I’m holding your hand as tight as possible so that you don’t have any questions or any fears or any concerns about the process. This was especially true for a family, new family questionnaire. This is something I probably added in the last three or four years. I am very lucky to have so many return clients. I am also very lucky for those return clients to refer me to their friends, to their family, so that I often have a lot of new clients as well. Now, I love, as you know, building relationships with my new and of course my return clients. But with my new clients, I’m always wanting to make sure that their experience is personable and warm and easy. And so after I would send all five of those things over, I would feel like I needed to back off. Like, let’s not be too overwhelming. Let’s not continue to just keep sending them like thing after thing after thing after thing after thing. But if you are new to me, that also means that I am new to you. And if I don’t send over anything additional, it’s fine. But then we show up at our session and we’re kind of like strangers. I might not know your husband’s name. I might not know your baby’s name, your kid’s names, your dog’s names. And so I’m like fumbling through the session. Okay, let’s have a sis come stand over here next to mom. And then I’m like pointing at people because I don’t know people’s names. I don’t know the dynamic of your family. And so I did eventually concede and I created a very small, very simple family client questionnaire. And I send this out to new families who I’ve never met before, just so I can get to know them a little bit better. And I know when I send it out, sometimes I like close my eyes and hit the send button because I don’t, my intention is not to make it feel like extra homework. My intention is to like give a big, warm, squeezy hug instead of a handshake. I don’t want to just say, hi, I’m Kelsi. I’m your photographer today. Let’s get started. Instead, I want to show up and I want to address your kids by name. I want to show up and I want to give you a hug. I want to show up and address your husband by name. So my questionnaire looks like this. I pulled it up. It’s a few really simple questions. It just says point of contact. Who am I talking to during… most of our correspondence, okay? Then I have, please list your spouse, partner’s name, and your children’s names, their ages, and their interests below. This is not, I’m not asking them to write a novel. They might just say, I’ve got three kids. I’ve got Harper. She’s 10. She loves ballet. I’ve got Rory. She’s eight. She loves all things sporty spice. She’s a tomboy. She’s my middle child. She’s my wild child. And then I have Will, who is five, and he is a boy. And that’s really all I need to say about that. He is all boy, all boy energy all the time. The next question, do your children have any preferred nicknames? If your daughter’s name is Amelia and I show up and start calling her Amelia and she’s looking at me like I am crazy, it might be because you call her Mia or Millie instead of Amelia. And I can change that real quick, like when I arrived to the session, not a big deal. But if I know that beforehand, then I just simply address her as Mia or Millie or Amelia, if that’s what she prefers. So I’d like to ask that question for kiddos, especially just so I can feel less scary to them when I arrive. I also ask, is there anything specific you want to make sure that we capture? Are we wearing any heirloom jewelry? Is your toddler bringing along their ratty tatty blanket that they carry with them everywhere that you actually secretly don’t want in the photos at all, but I secretly do? Is there anything like that that you’re going to have at the session that you want me to make sure we are photographing? Because then it will be top of mind for me and I will make sure that we grab all the images of all of the things that you might be wearing or bringing that are important to you. And then my last, well, second to last question, this is probably the most loaded question, and it just helps me get to know you as a family a little bit better. The question reads, I would love to hear about your family as a whole. What do you enjoy doing together? How do you spend a Saturday morning? What kind of family vibes are you feeling for your session? Are you looking for a mixture of blissful chaos and joy, or are you looking to be more snuggly and comfortable and safe? Feel free to share anything else that you’d like to really help me see what makes your family special. And the answers that I get to this question in particular are so helpful and so insightful. People love talking about their family. Why did I ever think that this was a burden in the first place? People will write exactly what they do on Saturday mornings. Well, listen, Kelsi, we are either all sitting at the soccer field every single Saturday forever and all of eternity, or we’re sitting at the gymnastics gym, or on Saturday mornings, we opt to do nothing else at all except make pancakes and hang out as a family. Any of those options are amazing. Any of those options help, again, help me relate to your kids a little bit better. It helps me just get a little bit of a vibe for who you are as a family. And then if I know that beforehand, then I can start generating images in my mind that I think reflect your family style. And then I can show up extra prepped for the session and hopefully deliver images that you will love even more than if I show up and know nothing about your family. And I don’t know your kids’ names and I don’t know whether or not you have a dog. And then I’m just doing my traditional generic posing that I’m kind of doing for every family. And then maybe your gallery reflects that a little bit. And so this family questionnaire, I feel like has really helped me set the bar as far as what families can expect and what I can expect of you when we show up for our session. So this questionnaire is something that I send out and I love now that I send it out. I no longer am like cringing and at asking them to do one more thing. Because like I said, who doesn’t love to talk about their family? I also want to mention at the very end, I say, what’s your favorite go-to coffee order? I love bringing coffee to my sessions. First of all, it allows me to get a coffee on the way to the session. That’s like a huge win for me. It also, like I said, allows me to give you a little bit of a treat and a little bit of something to sip on while we are working. This is especially awesome for dads when I show up and I’m like, here, dad, here’s your… coffee and he’s like oh my gosh I had no idea right that she even knew I liked xyz so I love this little family questionnaire I make mine in honey book and then I just send it out they can fill it out electronically and send it back then it’s on file forever and ever and ever and it is something that I wish I would have done way way way way way way earlier in my business as well 

There is one more thing that I want to share that I wish I would have started doing in my business sooner. And this is something that I have just added as recently as like the last month or two. It is something that has been on my mind for a few years and I have not yet implemented it until just recently because per the usual, I was too scared. I didn’t want to offend people or make people feel obligated to do something that they might not want to do. And so I have been putting it off. But a month or so ago, I decided enough was enough. And I added a print shop to my galleries when I deliver them. As a photographer, this feels like something I probably should have been doing from the beginning of time. But because my digital files are included in my session investment, I don’t like to make people feel obligated to purchase directly from their gallery or purchase directly from me. I don’t know why I think that. Again, I just don’t want to burden anyone. I don’t want people to feel… obligated to do something. If you have a lab that you know and you love that you order from all the time, in the print release actually that I upload into all of my galleries, the print release shares all of my favorite places to print. And so if you know that you are able to do that, you know I love mpix.com, M-P-I-X.com. That’s one of my favorite labs that I share to print your photos from. I put that right in my print release. So you are always invited and you are always more than welcome If you’re a client of mine, when your gallery is delivered, you can download all of your images and order whatever you need from mpix.com. And I think that’s awesome. And I applaud you and I give you a hug and a virtual high five, whatever, however you want to say it. And I think that’s awesome. However, I also know that ordering photos that can be tedious, when you have to download them and then re-upload them somewhere else and place the order, that can feel like a lot of steps. We’re all short on time. We’re all busy. We all have a lot going on. And so I added a print shop to my galleries so that if you would rather not download and print images on your own, you can now order them straight from my gallery. It is a lab that I handpicked. It’s a professional quality paper, again, that I’ve handpicked. And if you’re in the gallery, all you have to do is click on your image, click on the little, I think it’s a shopping cart or it’s a shopping bag button in your gallery. And then you can just go over and select what you would like to order from the menu that is embedded into your gallery. I love having this option for you guys. You guys actually have been loving it too. Even return clients of mine who for years and years have been downloading and ordering on their own have mentioned how helpful it has been for them to just jump into their gallery, order what they like. Now, listen, They are still, and I hope you are all still, downloading all of the images from your gallery, saving them to a hard drive, putting them on your phone, posting them to socials, doing all of those things. But I also want to make sure that you’re printing them. I also want to make sure that you’re printing them. I feel like… If you’re baking a cake and you buy all the ingredients, you mix all the ingredients together, you put it in the cake pan and you put the cake in the oven and then you set your timer and you walk away. Printing photos feels a little bit like that to me session wise. You go to the session, you, well, you book the session, you put all your outfits together, you go to the session, you smile pretty, your photographer delivers your gallery and then you just leave it there. you leave the images on your hard drive, you leave the cake in the oven, and it feels like you are not reaping all of the rewards for the work that you’ve done. You never get to eat the cake. And I wanna make sure that you’re eating the cake too. I wanna make sure that after all of the hard work that you’ve done, after all the beautiful magic that we have made, that you are putting those photos up in your house so that you can view them, so that you can love them, so that you can reap the rewards of the session forever and ever and ever. So I did. I added a print shop just recently. It is something, like I said, brand new to the Kelsi Bailey photography experience. And I was once afraid. Now I’m thrilled. I’m really excited to have it as another option for those of you who would rather just print straight from your gallery than download and print from your preferred lab. 

So… Again, that feels like a lot of information that I just shared, but I think it’s all valuable and important. And I’m just going to run through the things again. If I was starting my business again today, these are things that I would have implemented immediately without a second thought, without any hesitation. I would have started collecting deposits from the get-go. I would have made people commit to me to put some skin in the game. I would have done that straight out of the gate and I’m frustrated that I didn’t. I also would immediately have opted to send pricing guides and session prep guides via PDF instead of embedding all of that information directly into my email body of text or sending them to a blog or my website to hunt for that information. I also, my email templates. I am glad that I have them now. I do wish I would have started this a lot sooner. It would have saved me a lot of time. But this is the one, like I said, that is the toughest for me to talk about because I feel so strongly that I want everything to feel warm and personable. And I want you all to feel seen when you are replied to. So I do use my email templates now. And I’m happy that I do, but it took me a long time to get there. My new client questionnaire is something that I wish I would have started way from the beginning. I think it would have led to a lot more personable session experiences, again, right off the bat, if that were something where As I was building my clientele, they were all new clients to me. And this questionnaire would have been especially helpful in that part of building my business. So I wish I would have started doing that sooner. And then of course, my brand spanking new print shop that I have added to my gallery delivery. I think this is just one more step in the process that might make things feel a little bit more professional, a little easier for you. And maybe you use it, maybe you don’t. As long as you’re printing your photos, that is what’s important to me.

Okay, lovelies, that’s a wrap on our chat for today. Thank you for allowing me to zip into your earbuds. I know your time is valuable and I’m so grateful that you chose to spend some of it chatting with me. I hope you’re walking away with a smile and maybe a bit of inspiration too. To revisit today’s discussion, you can head to kelsibailey.com slash podcast for show notes and discount codes from today’s sponsors. If you’ve enjoyed our conversation, I would be honored if you leave a review, subscribe to the show, or share this episode with a friend. Now, go give those you love an extra snuggle. May your coffee cup be bottomless, and I’ll meet you right back here in the next episode of the Kelsi Bailey Photography Podcast.