Running a small business is no easy task. It's messy and thrilling and terrifying all at the same time. But no matter what, it's definitely a journey worth taking. As a mom of two littles, I know the daily struggles, and I'm here to walk this journey with you. If you're ready to feel empowered, encouraged and on fire for the things you truly love, then you're in the right place. I'm Rebecca Rice, a pizza loving hot chocolate drinking family photographer and educator and this is the business Journey podcast.
Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of the business Journey podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca rice. And I teach family photographers how to gain A life of financial freedom through a thriving photography business. Today, we're talking about one of my all time favorite topics, mini sessions, we're going to talk about crafting your mini session client experience, it's going to be a good one. Now before we get too far, I did want to let you know about a guide that I have that's completely free. And just for you guys. So this is a guide, I call it the 3k mini sessions blueprint. So basically, it's a step by step guide that walks you through how to make your first 300 or 300. Oh my gosh, $3,000 on a single date of mini sessions. So whether you maybe you've tried minis before, and you've never made more than $3,000 on a single date of minis or you've never tried minis before, and you're wanting to get started and $3,000 on a single data mini sounds great, then this guide is for you. So you can grab it today. It's completely free. You can find it at Rebecca rice soto.com/ 3k Dash minis, and you'll be able to download it from there and apply it we are like almost into mini sessions season again, I can't believe it. Um, so now's the perfect time to grab this blueprint so that you can start applying those things for Fall minis. Okay, so let's go ahead and jump into crafting your mini sessions client experience. I'm a huge believer that mini sessions can absolutely have a great client experience. I think there's this misconception when it comes to minis that you can't serve clients well, because you have such a short amount of time with them? Well, I believe that you absolutely can serve clients well, not only during the session, but also before or after the session, crafting your client experience, it has to be very intentional, especially with mini sessions just because of the limited time you do have with your clients face to face. So the first thing that I want to talk about that plays a big role in client experience, is I want you to look at your communication. What emails are you sending? And how are they serving your clients. So communication before and after your mini session is vital to an excellent client experience. Because you don't have a lot of face to face time. You have to communicate with your clients really, really well beforehand, so that they feel loved and served and cared for before they ever show up. That your job isn't to make them feel loved and cared for and served well just during the 10 or 15 minutes that they're with you. Because I mean, that's really hard to do. So you want to really utilize the time leading up to their sessions and the time after their session to serve them well through communication. And so what emails are you sending your clients some emails that you should be sending? Number one responding to an email inquiry, right? When somebody inquires, how are you responding to them and making them feel loved and served? What is the email look like whenever you book with them, so you're sending the contract and the invoice? Maybe you send an email that includes a questionnaire or a client experience guide. Those are really really great ways to communicate and serve your clients. Well, the questionnaire the purpose of that would be to get to know your clients a little better leading into your session asking very intentional questions, which if you don't have a questionnaire, I highly suggest adding one into your workflow. My questionnaire is available in my shop if you want to check it out Rebecca rice photo.com/store, scroll down to the templates and guides and you'll see the questionnaire there. And the client experience guide is also something that I send my clients that it's basically a PDF guide that's like 15 ish pages that walks through just things that my clients need to know before their session. The goal is to answer any question that they may have before they ask it to give them styling tips, tips to get their kids to cooperate all the things. My client experience guide template is also available in my shop. If you want to check it out. We will link it in the show notes. You can go find it there as well. It's a Canva template so it is completely customizable. You can add in your own photos. You know change out the text in there if you want to reach your brand voice a little better. What you send in your questionnaire in your cleaning security experience guide, it matters for serving your clients well. And then my very favorite is the final info email, what are you sending right before the session to prepare your clients leading into the week of their session? For me, I put really, really important details like how directions of how to get there or where to park,
we give last minute reminders, I want to again answer every single question that they may have in that week before their session, before they ever have to ask it. So if all of those emails sounds like really overwhelming to you, I do have email templates available also in my shop in the same section as the client experience guide in the questionnaire, that templates and guides section that has email templates that are pre written for every single one of these steps. So you don't have to think about what to write, you can literally just like fill in the blanks of stuff that are like very brand specific, and everything else is written for you. So you can go and check those out if you want. So the first thing is to look at your communication for excellent client experience. The next thing I want to talk about that it's just really important for client experience, is to prepare the parents. So family photographers are a huge thing that plays a role into the client experience is how well the kids do during the session. So my job as the photographer, if I want to have that session be as great as it can be. My job is to equip the parents with some tips for things that they can do before the session with their kids to help prepare them so that the session goes smoothly. Okay. And this is all stuff that I include in my client experience guide. But you know, it's things like preparing the kids beforehand, how do we, you know, start introducing the idea that we're having photos, and that there's going to be a big camera, I tell the parents to bring bribes to all of our sessions, because bribes really, really help to get happy kids. So the way that kids act in a family session really affects the client experience. I know for me, our last family session was disastrous, my kids cried pretty much the whole time, which thankfully, we had a really awesome photographer who she's a dear friend of ours, and she was able to capture some really, really sweet moments like in between all the crying, but my kids were freezing. And so we didn't expect it to be so cold, we were dressed for spring, and they are really cold. And so we had them like bundled them blanket, and then we'd pull them out and take pictures and bundle them off again and whatnot. All of that to say, it really affects how the client feels about the whole experience. So when I look back at those pictures, I'm like laughing and remembering how stressful it was that my kids were crying the whole time, and no fault to my photographer. But for for me and my clients, I want to do whatever I can to help my clients and serve them and equip them with you know, tools and tips and stuff to get their kids to cooperate so that hopefully they will now of course, you can't ever really control how kids cooperate. But we can equip them with some tools that may help along the way. So that plays a big role in client experience. The next piece that plays a really big role in your client experience for your mini sessions is to nail your posing. Okay, you want to avoid awkward and stiff, we want to turn our clients into raving fans before they ever get their photos. So for many sessions, especially having a posing workflow is vital. You don't want to forget important poses and groupings. But also it helps your session go smoothly, it helps you get a nice full gallery so that you can upsell with your mini sessions. So you really really need to nail your posing. If you haven't checked out my free posing class, I've got one that would help and you can grab my posing workflow as a part of that class for free. So you can enroll today is completely free Rebecca rice photo.com/posing-class. So I know that'll be helpful for you. But nail your posing because it really does make a difference in how the client feels. If your clients feel super awkward, and they can tell that you're not confident and comfortable with your posing. You know You're stalling and checking your phone for pose ideas like that is not a way to present yourself and give your clients the best experience that they can have. So you want to have a plan. Going into it. You want to use a posing workflow and really feel confident in what you're doing because it really makes a difference in how your clients feel. The next thing that I want to mention that makes a big difference in your client experience for many sessions is after the session in delivering your images, right. For one we want to be timely in the turnaround time that we deliver the images, but also we want to deliver a nice full gallery and I talk through some of that in the 3k minis guide that you can download that we have linked for you guys I talked about at the beginning of this episode, but you want to deliver an nice photo gallery so that when the clients, you know, open up their email, they open the gallery, and they see this gallery with, you know, 20 plus beautiful diverse images,
you want them to think, oh my goodness, I can't believe she got that many great photos in the 10 or 15 minutes we were together like, that's amazing. And so effects the client experiences how like well you do in capturing the family and delivering that nice full gallery. And so the thing I mentioned before with your posing that plays a big role in the gallery delivery process and having that nice full gallery, but it does make a difference. And then the last thing that I want to mention for many sessions client experience, is to add personal touches wherever you can. I like to call this surprise and delight. And we actually have a whole masterclass taught by some dear friends of mine, James and Jess, they are like the masters at surprise and delight. And so they taught a masterclass in my membership for family photographers behind the lens, where every month, our members get a behind the scenes video of me shooting a real family session. And also they get a business masterclass. And so James ingested a whole class about adding personal touches, and just nailing surprise and delight with your clients. But a few things that you can do to surprise and delight could be maybe you, you write a handwritten note for all of your clients, you can either hand it to them after your session, or you can mail it to them. I know somebody that does cookies for all of her families at mini sessions. And so let's say they're doing Easter minis, then she gets cookies that are super beautifully decorated with Easter theme. So we've got like the easter eggs and little chicks and whatever. And every kid and you know, every family gets cookies after their mini session. Maybe you give your clients a client gift, like an ornament at Christmas time, you know, you can get really creative with the personal touches and ways that you can surprise and delight your clients. But it all makes a big difference in the mini session client experience. So I hope this episode and these things that I've given you, like are a good starting place to really get those wheels turning in your brain. Because I love talking about client experience, I feel like the opportunity to serve clients well is just endless, and the things that we can do, you can get super creative in ways that you can serve clients not only in, you know, in your communication or preparation with your parents, you know, the personal touches, there's so many things that you can do to make things your own and make yourself stand out. Because that's the whole goal behind crafting an excellent client experience with mini sessions is to make yourself stand out that your families don't just get a 15 minute session with you and a gallery of photos, right, they get so much more in the experience that you craft for them. So I encourage you take some time right now, because this is the perfect time, we're heading into fall mini sessions season now we're not quite there yet, I usually start booking my minis in July. And I'm going to do a whole episode on that here in just a few weeks about Christmas in July campaign that I always do. But as we're leading into that we're getting out of spring busy season, we're kind of in a slower season over the summer, this is the perfect time to really dive into your client experience and craft it really intentionally. And so look at the things that you can automate, look at the things that you can add in as like special touches. And really make this experience something for your clients to remember to rave about and just tell all their friends that they need to go work with you because their experience was that good. So take time seriously, think about it. And you know, go from there. If you like have any questions about client experience, or want to like bounce ideas off of somebody, feel free to shoot me a DM at Rebecca rice photography on Instagram. And let's chat about it because I just really love client experience. And I think sometimes it helps to get validation from somebody else. If you're like, I don't know if this is a good idea. Then ask me and I'll tell you if I think it's a good idea or not. And I am just like really excited to see how all of you craft your client experience over the next couple of months leading into the fall. So great episode. I'm super excited to see how you apply it. And we will see you this time next week for another great episode. Bye guys.
