Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of the Business Journey podcast. I'm Rebecca and today we're diving into one of my absolute favorite topics. We're talking about mini sessions versus full sessions and why many minis win, now don't tune me out if you're like I don't agree with that already because I think that as we verbally process, we're going to talk about numbers. We're going to talk about like the nitty gritty of all the things. And I think it may surprise you, you know, just stay with me. That's all I'm going to say. Stay with me, because we've got an awesome episode ahead. Now, before we get too far. I wanted to remind you, if you haven't checked out my free Minis class, definitely go check it out. All kinds of details about how I structured minis, how I market my minis to be able to make them profitable and book out every time. So if something like that interest you, go check out my class at Rebeccaricephoto.com/minis-class. You can sign up there, watch it today and leave with pages full of notes. So I know it will be helpful for you. Now into today's topic. Mini sessions versus full sessions. I feel like this is the ultimate showdown. And I have this conversation in Facebook groups all the time, not my own, but other Facebook groups where I having to almost like convince people to do mini sessions because I'm like, listen, if you only knew how much better many sessions are for your wallet and for your time and your energy, like, I promise you would want to do mini sessions over full sessions any day. I actually wrote a blog post about this about a year ago, but I wanted to revamp it in a podcast just because I think sometimes it helps to hear somebody, like, verbally process these things. And so for my verbal processors, this one's for you. Now, I want to talk about the difference between a mini session and a full session first so that we, like, know what we're talking about before, like we get into the nitty gritty. So when I say mini session, what I'm talking about is a set of 15 minute sessions that are stacked in a time block on a date that you, the photographer, chooses at a location that you the photographer chooses. Mini sessions are not standalone sessions ever. They are always stacked. They have limited images included. It's just a limited session. And when I say full session, I'm talking about like a 30 to 60 minute. Some people go up to 90 minutes for a full session. They have typically the full gallery included or at least, you know, fifteen plus images. We include our full gallery with our full sessions. It's totally up to you. But the client gets to choose the date, the client gets to choose the location. Typically you can move around the location, possibly do an outfit, change. So many sessions and full sessions are very different now. One of the biggest, I guess, hurdles that photographers that I talked to have to jump over when it comes to like being OK with many sessions, is there like how in the world will I be able to capture so many images or, you know, fill this gallery or serve my clients well in only fifteen minutes? Friends, I promise it is much easier than you think. And that's for an episode for another day. Just no, it can absolutely be done. My clients are served so well, they come back year after year. They're not just price shoppers. So yeah, mini sessions are amazing. Let's get into the nitty gritty of mini sessions versus full sessions. Here's why I love Minis over sessions any day and why during peak seasons all of my energy goes towards minis, because when it comes down to it, I'm looking for ways to maximize my profit and maximize my time. So when I'm doing mini sessions, I make way more hourly doing mini sessions than I do for sessions. And I was actually on a podcast interview a couple of days ago talking about this topic. And the person interviewing was sort of you could tell that she was sort of in the camp of like, oh yeah, I do minis. But during peak seasons do full sessions and I am the opposite. I teach to really all of your emphasis on minis during peak seasons. And here's why everybody and their mom is looking to get photos done. You know that. I know that. So, for example, in the fall, everybody is looking to get photos done for like holiday cards. Right. And so those that are in the camp of like, oh, I just want to book out full sessions because why would I do minis when I could get them to spend more and do a full session? Here's why. Because if I do, let's say a full session for the sake of easy math. Okay, let's say a full session is an hour long and it's three hundred dollars. OK, so you're doing an hour session for three hundred dollars for that full session. You have to drive there, shoot the session, drive home and then you know, process all of their images where. You know, culling, editing, delivering gallery, all the things. With many sessions and let me go back with full sessions, you can typically do like two at a time if you wanted to stack them. So you could do, like, you know, leading up to sunset. Let's say you did one at six p.m. and then another one at seven p.m. at the same location so you could kind of stack it. So the most that you could do at one time is two sessions. You make six hundred dollars, right. Because they're three hundred dollars each. Now, let's say we're going to do a set of mini sessions. So my minis are 15 minutes. They're back to back, which I teach that you don't really need buffer time. You can do buffer time if you want, but it's not necessary. So I do my mini sessions back to back 15 minutes and that's going to be in two hours, the same amount of time as the other example. We can fit eight families. OK, so eight families, let's say for easy math that your mini sessions cost one hundred and fifty dollars each. So now in the same two hour block, you can make twelve hundred dollars from eight families, each paying one hundred and fifty dollars. So in the fall session example, the most we could make if we're stacking our sessions, which odds are you're probably not stacking all of your full sessions most of the time it's just one full session. But let's give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you're stacking them. The most you could make with that set of full sessions is six hundred dollars. You literally make double that by doing mini sessions in the same amount of time friends. That is maximizing your time. And that doesn't even include upselling your galleries which in that free many sessions class. I talk about upselling. So if you're like, why is upselling. It's not in-person sales, it's it's all done automated. It's amazing. And if you're not selling, you're leaving money on the table. So go watch that class. Rebeccarice.com/minis-class. You can literally make double doing mini sessions, then doing four sessions in the same amount of time. Now, the marketing energy may take you a little bit more to market your minis, but if it's in peak seasons, odds are you'll be able to book a lot more people at one hundred and fifty dollars many sessions than you will for three hundred dollar full sessions. So really the marketing energy probably evens out. So when it comes down to it, guys, the math is easy. Many sessions are always better unless, let me give a caveat. The only time that full sessions would be better than minis is if your average fall session is bringing in over a thousand dollars of revenue. OK, if your average fall session is bringing in over a thousand dollars of revenue, then sure book all the full sessions. Don't worry about minis. You know, it would make more sense for you to book full sessions over minis. But if that's not the case for you and you're not having thousand dollar fall sessions, which I would probably venture to say is the majority of you, the majority of people are under a thousand dollars for full sessions, probably closer to like the 300 to 500 range. If that's you, then many sessions make so much sense. You make way more money for your time, you guys. And so for something like peak seasons, we you know, for the fall, I put all of my energy into mini sessions. So instead of saying how many dates can I fill with full sessions, I'm saying how many dates of minis can I fill. So on a typical year, I'll shoot like twelve or thirteen dates of mini sessions. And when I say dates, that is like a single day, Saturday or Sunday, usually two to three hour time blocks. So we shoot over a hundred families every fall. We meet my associate team is something different, but I myself shoot over a hundred families every fall and you're like, oh my gosh, excuse me, your families. Rebecca, that sounds exhausting. Truthfully, it's not because I'm shooting one date a week. So like Saturday or Sunday for about two hours. That is not bad at all. And then from there you can work on batch editing, you can outsource your editing. There's just a lot of things that you can do there to maximize your time and your profit more. But it just makes way more sense because why in the world would I want a book, full sessions or, you know, a single full session ? And I'm going to pull my calculator out here for a second. Let's say I did on those thirteen dates, let's say did thirteen full sessions instead for the benefit of the doubt, let's say we're doing two full sessions on each of those dates. So thirteen full sessions, that's thirteen dates of full sessions times two sessions is twenty six full sessions in those thirteen days. Times three hundred dollars we're talking seven thousand eight hundred. From 13 days, not bad, right, OK, seven thousand eight hundred. Not bad for me, those 13 dates and minis let's say I'm doing two hours and minis each date. So that's eight families for each of those dates. So I get for doing spontaneous math. I've got my calculator out times 150 each. We're looking at fifteen thousand six hundred dollars. Whoa. That's a lot different than seven thousand dollars. Fifteen thousand six hundred dollars. That does not include your up cell. And if you're priced higher than 150, your profit goes up. So, friends, the math is easy. It makes way more sense to do many sessions during peak seasons than full sessions. Now, I'm not saying don't ever do full sessions. There are some things that have to be full sessions. For example, maternity sessions should be full sessions, newborn sessions have to be full sessions, you know, things like that. But if it can be mini, make it a mini, especially in, you know, the spring in the fall, because it's the best way to maximize your time in those off seasons. Do all the full sessions you want. We don't offer many sessions during, like off seasons. So, you know, in the summer in the winter, we don't do minis. We only do them in the spring, in the fall. So in those off seasons, yeah, we're booking full sessions and that's fine. But the reason for us doing that is we want to maximize our profits in those peak seasons when our marketing efforts are lessened. Right. It takes a lot less effort to market many sessions when everybody in their mom is looking to get photos done, then full sessions in, you know, the summer when it's so hot that your face is melting off and nobody wants to get photos done, you have to put in a lot more marketing effort. All that to say, guys, mini sessions win the mass of it makes sense. And I am a math person, I am like a logic person. So it doesn't make any sense to me to do full sessions during peak seasons unless you have to. So if I still haven't convinced you to go watch my free class because I dive even farther into it, I'm telling you, you will fall in love with minis if I have convinced you you're like, OK, Rebecca, I like, I get it. Minis are a thing and I should try them. Or maybe you're like, ok, but I've tried them anything and they tanked and failed. Guys, I have you covered for one of the biggest reasons that people fail in their minis is because their theme is bad. So I have a freebie that you can go check out. It's twelve proven theme ideas for your next set of mini sessions so you can find that at Rebeccarice.com/12ideas. One word, one, two ideas. I'm telling you DM me on Instagram. Tell me your story and we will get your minis booked like it will happen. I have so many students that go from not being able to book anything to after, you know, walking through so many sessions, education with me. They are booking out like crazy. So if that's you, you want to do that, go check out my free mini sessions class I already mentioned. Go check out that 12 ideas freebie because I know that it will be helpful for you. I'm super excited cause over the next few weeks I'm going to be bringing you even more mini sessions, tips and tricks and all the things. Mini sessions. That's what I'm known for. My students call me the Queen of mini sessions. So in the next few weeks, you're going to be getting tons of valuable information because here's the deal. Now is the perfect time to be learning and, you know, gathering that information because it's almost time to implement. Right. As we head into fall season. And you're like Rebecca, it's like June. How are you already thinking about fall season? The reason is because, I mean, we start booking our Christmas when he's in July, guys. So it's like now is the time, June and July is the time to start, like, really prepping and learning and implementing so that when, like August, September, October here you are ready to go for this amazing peak season. So all that today, many sessions are OK, we're about to dive way deep anemones for the next several weeks. So I can't wait to bring you all the good stuff. If you follow me on Instagram at Rebecca Photography, I'm going to be posting tons of tips there. I'm doing lots of reel's, if you like, reels. But anyway, all the things, many sessions, it's going to be awesome. I'm so, so excited and I can't wait to be back and talk more mini sessions next week. We'll see you later.
Episode Transcript
