Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of the Business Journey podcast. I'm Rebecca and I'm so glad to be here with you today. We are chatting all about my insane love for shoot proof. Now, you've never heard of shoot proof. Basically, it is the best gallery delivery system that exists. I make pretty bold statements in my love for shoot proof because I have tried so many other, you know, systems and shoot proof is just, in my opinion, the best of the best. So today I'm just going to talk you through a few reasons why she is the best and why you should definitely go check it out. Now, before we go too far, I wanted to let you know of a freebie that I have available for you today as we're heading into like prepping for fall mini session season. One of the questions that I get asked are like, what type of mini sessions book ? Well, and so I created a freebie just for you that has my twelve proven mini sessions theme ideas that you can take and start applying to your business and planning for in the coming weeks and months. So if you want to check that out, you can grab it completely free at Rebeccaricephoto/12ideas. One, two ideas, one word so you can go grab that today. That'll be super helpful for you. But I'm just so excited to dive into our topic of shootproof today. So I recently wrote a blog post about this and sometimes it just helps to have people like verbally process things. And so for those of you that, you know, listening to somebody talk about something is easier than reading, then this episode is for you. So just to give a little bit of context, I started using shootproof literally at the very, very beginning of my business. The reason that I started using it so early was because I loved that it was number one. It was cheap because I didn't have any revenue coming in. I needed like, very inexpensive options. Number two is that it had contracts and invoices included, like the ability to sign contracts and invoices, whereas, you know, other systems that I was looking at to house my clients, my CRM that like, you know, honeybook, things like that, those programs were very expensive compared to shootproof. And, you know, I didn't meet all the bells and whistles at the time. I eventually grew into systems like Honey Book and dubsado, but at the very beginning I just needed bare minimum write something that made me look, you know, somewhat professional, that wasn't like, hey, print off this Google doc and sign it and mail it to me, you know, something a little bit more professional that could do online contracts. I could take payments through invoices and deliver my galleries. So I want to say it's like ten dollars a month or something. So affordable compare in especially compared to, you know, other more robust CRM systems. So start at the very beginning. Use that within about a year I outgrew the CRM portion of shoot proof, the contracts and the invoices and I eventually switched to Honey Book and then to dubsado , which I currently use. But I kept shootproof as my gallery delivery system because it just had so many functionalities they really, really loved. And I still use to this day. Now, in the process of growing in my business, of course I tried out other systems just to see potentially is there something better out there. I'm always open to trying out other systems and if there's something that's going to serve me and my clients better, then I'm open to switching. So, of course, I, you know, tried out, pixieset. I tried out past. I tried out cloud spot when that was all the rage and I just kept coming back to shootproof. Now, although some of those other systems may look a little bit more sleek or whatnot, just the functionality and certain things that, you know, certain features that shootproof has that the others didn't have just sold me. Like, I just can't make the switch now. I love shoot proof so much that I have done a webinar for shoot proof. I have like done a guest blog post for them. I even recently reached out to them about hopefully having them come on as a sponsor for this podcast, because I know that I love them, that you guys love them or those of you that use them love them. And I just sent so many photographers every single month over to them. So we'll see if they come on as a sponsor. I'm kind of hoping because they're just so awesome. But anyways, let's dive into a few, like, really practical reasons why I will just sing shootproofs praises forever. The first thing that I love about shootproof. Now, other systems do this just as a caveat, but I love that shoot proof makes it really easy is to limit the number of downloads in a gallery. Shootproof has what's called gallery presets, where you can go in and set up a gallery and then save it as a preset to use over and over. So since I shoot a lot of mini sessions. Then this becomes really handy, especially the fact that I can limit that number of downloads, so many sessions include five images and then I deliver about 20, sometimes up to 30. But I deliver extras so my clients can either download their five or at that time they can purchase more through the shopping cart feature with which that's another feature that I love, is that, you know, I can sell prints if I want or just digitals, whatever works for my clients. So what I love about shoot proof and the way that they limit the number of downloads is that it's tied to an email, because I know some other systems that do allow you to limit the number of downloads, do not allow you to connect it to a specific contact. So, you know, you can say five downloads available, but any person that puts in their email gets five downloads. So potentially a client could put in their email and then get five downloads and then put in, you know, their husband's email and get five different downloads and it just becomes a problem. So I really like that. Shootproof allows us to connect the number of downloads to an email so my client can log in one time and if they log in with any other email, they're not able to download images only with the specific email they can download their images and then once they've downloaded their five, it won't let them download anymore. So that's very helpful. I like it also because I don't have to go back and forth with them having them, you know, favorite. They're the ones they want to keep and then send it to them. I know some other systems that tell like you have to work around it. There is they don't even have the limiting the number of downloads. And so you have to have your client's favorite, the five that they want. Or, you know, if they want more, then you have to go and send them the favorites or send them an invoice. It's just a lot of back and forth. So I appreciate that show. Shootproof allows you to set that up in the gallery. And I don't have to go back and forth with my clients trying to figure out how to get their images to them. All they have to do is go in and download the five they want and then if they want more, they can purchase them super easily through the shopping cart. So in my opinion, that is a huge bonus and it's a huge timesaver, especially as you're shooting higher volume. It's a big deal. Now, the second reason I love shootproof is probably the biggest reason, and it's their automated email campaigns. Now, correct me if I'm wrong now, I'm going to say this and I'm going to give a caveat. As far as I know, there are no other gallery delivery systems that allow you to set up automated email campaigns connected to your gallery. The only exception might be Sprout's studio. I haven't looked into it that much, but I hear that it does have high functionality. So it might be able to do that. But I know that it's more expensive. So this is a big deal for the price point especially. So shootproof has you know, I already mentioned the gallery presets. It has the ability to connect an automated email campaign. So whether you're doing mini sessions or full sessions, whatever it may be, if you're trying to up sell, you know, products or albums or literally anything you want, if you want to encourage your clients to don't forget to download whatever you can set up this automated email campaign that you just connect to the gallery whenever you create the gallery and then let it run and it allows you to pick different triggers. So like if somebody has not downloaded their images within three days, send this email or if they haven't purchased additional images, send this email. You know, there's so many different ways that you can use these automated email campaigns, but they're especially helpful for things like mini sessions. When you're up selling that full gallery, it allows you to up sell your gallery without having to do the selling. Like I don't know about you, but I'm a little bit uncomfortable when it comes to selling, you know, additional images to clients. So having those automated emails do it for me, I don't have to think about it. And I know it's running and my clients are being served and they go on to purchase more digitals. So it works very, very well. Those automated emails, it's just a really powerful feature that the majority of other gallery delivery systems do not have. And if they do, it's for sure not in the ten dollars price point that shootproof is. So it's just a very powerful feature that I love the other people do not have. Now, another reason that I really love shootproof, especially for those newer photographers, is the fact that it does have contracts and invoices built in. I talked about this a little bit at the beginning, but I think it's worth mentioning again, because if for those of you that maybe are starting out or you just don't have a lot of clients coming in yet, first of all. That is OK. It takes time to build up your client base, all the things, but shoot proof is a really great starting point for a CRM. As you grow, you're going to outgrow it. Some of the limitations that it has, you're not able to like visually see your projects easily. I like that about dubsado and Honeybook that it has like a pipeline feature where it's kind of like visual buckets that your clients go into and they can go down the pipeline into the different parts of your process. So you can see who has, you know, sign their contract, who's paid their retainer, who is ready to edit, who's ready to be delivered, whatever. And so shoot proof does not do that. It's very simple. But when you're starting out and you're not shooting super high volume, that's plenty. Just the fact that you can send online contracts and get signatures and you can send invoices connected to the contract and all the things, that is a really, really great feature for ten dollars a month. So I think it's just it's worth mentioning that if you are just starting out something like shoot proof even for your contracts and invoices and your galleries is a very good investment. And I mentioned investment because, yes, you're going to have to pay for it. But you know what? You're investing in the professionally. I don't even know if that's a word. Professionally. No, it can't be professionalism. You're investing in the professionalism of your business that you are just taking things a step up. The fact that you have online contracts and online invoices, that's a big deal. And it makes you look like you know what you're doing. I know I've worked with photographers in the past that, you know, before I was a photographer, I didn't know the ins and outs of like a great client experience. So I like literally signed paper contracts and, like, mailed them a check. And it was archaic, in my opinion. You know, in the world of online invoices and online contracts, like, it was hard for me to go find my checkbook because I hardly ever write checks. You know, everything's done online now, so I need to go find my checkbook, write a check and put it in the mail. Then you have to find stamps and envelopes, all the things. So it really adds to your professionalism to have an online system like that. So it's, in my opinion, 100 percent worth the investment. So if you're listening to this and you're like, OK, Rebecca, like interesting thoughts about shootproof, but I use another system like do I really want to transfer everything over to shootproof for delivering my galleries? Here's what I would say to you. I would ask, you know, what are the benefits? OK, weigh the pros and cons of switching. Look at the features like go pull up your gallery delivery system features like the the sales page or the pricing page or whatever, and see what comes with your system and see what shoot proof offers. Because if there are more things that she offers for cheaper, then I would say it's absolutely worth it. And on the client perspective, it's not a big deal for clients to see different systems because most of the time they're not going to notice, like, oh, so-and-so switched to shoot proof from cloud spot. Like they're probably not even going to notice the interfaces on the client and are pretty similar across the board. From the client perspective, you're OK now from your perspective, it may come with a little bit of a learning curve, but again, most of the interfaces are very similar. So it's not going to be super hard learning a new system. I do believe Shootproof has a free trial, so I'm linking shootproof in the show notes. If you want to go check it out. I'm pretty sure they have a free trial. So if anything, you can just, you know, poke around, do the free trial, poke around, see how you like it, and test out those extra features that I told you about, you know, creating gallery preset, limiting the number of downloads, the automated email campaigns like those are all things that I encourage you to really test and just play around with, because I think you'll find that you'll really like it. There are very few people that I send to shootproof that are come back and they're like, yeah, shootproof wasn't for me, I didn't like it. Of course there's a handful, but the majority of people that try shoot proof love it. So it's worth a shot. Go try it, see how you feel about it. And of course, I'm always open for questions and honestly, their customer service is very, very good. So if you have any questions, you can chat with them and see if they can help answer your questions. Like I had mentioned before, I've worked with shootProof for a while now, just on various projects and their team is so sweet, they're so nice and they're so accommodating and they just really care about the customer, and I think that that goes a long way as well. So go check out shoot proof. If you have any shoot proof, specific questions either drop those in my student group, if you're a member of our student group or, you know, message me on Instagram at Rebecca Photography, however we need we can chat about it and get things figured out for you. Now, I mentioned my student group. I want to let you know, some people are like, how do I even join that? Like, do I have to buy your super expensive course? Like, no. Anybody that's in behind the lens, which is my monthly membership, that's the cheapest thing in my shop for fourteen dollars. Guys, you can join behind the lens and you get access to my student group. So if you ask questions in there, I mean we have tons of people posting every single day. Odds are if you have a question, somebody else either has the same question or had the same question at some point and has an answer for you. I pop in every single day and answer questions in there, but just wanted to let you know, like that's an option for you that can be very affordable. But like I said, behind the lens is our monthly membership for family photographers showing behind the scenes of me shooting family sessions. And you get masterclasses included. It's a steal for fourteen dollars plus you get access to our student group. Anyway, I'm available there. I'm available on Instagram, reach out to me if you have any questions about shoot proof. And I would love to help. Hopefully this episode was helpful for you and maybe got your wheels turning. If you're with a different system, who knows, like go try it out and maybe, just maybe shootproof will be an option for you. So anyway, you guys have an awesome week and we'll see you back this time next week. Bye
Episode Transcript
