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.
Hello, friends, welcome back to the business Journey podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca rice. And today we are getting into one of my all time favorite topics. And that is mini sessions. I posted in one of my Facebook groups last week, a thread basically just collecting questions from students from people in the group to find out what it is that you guys want to hear about. And so we're doing a little mini sessions q&a Here, we're headed into fall mini session season. So I'm super pumped, we have some really good questions. And I think it's gonna be really helpful for you guys. So, so excited to jump in. Before we do I have some very exciting things happening this week, if you're listening to this episode live as it airs. Then this week on Thursday, July 13, we are hosting a free mini sessions class, it's going to be live. And this is a brand new class that I've never taught before. And so I'm really, really excited about it. We already have hundreds of students signed up from all around the world. And so it's gonna be a whole lot of fun. This class again is Thursday, like in two days, if you're listening to this on Tuesday when this episode goes live, so it's on or Monday. Wait, okay, that person goes live on Monday, the live classes on Thursday, either way, Thursday 13th at 1pm Central, I am going live for this many sessions class. It's a brand new class I've never taught before. And we are having a live q&a at the end. And so as you're listening to this episode, and you're hearing the answers to these questions, if that sparks more questions, come join us in that live class on Thursday. It's always one of my favorite things in the whole entire world to come on live with you guys, and be able to teach and answer questions. It's like a no strings attached class literally there to learn. And I'm a no fluff teacher. And so students are always really, really pleasantly surprised with how much they learn from my free classes. So I think you're gonna love it. If you want to sign up, you can the link is in the show notes. Or you can type it in your browser, Rebecca rice pho.com/minis-class, that's going to take you to a sign up page to be able to register for the class on Thursday. And you want to make sure even if you're not able to make it live with us, if you want the replay, you have to register so that we can send you the replay link, make sure you get registered, whether you're going to join us live or we do have a good portion of people that kept the replay every time. So if you're a replay credit person, no worries, still great. And so you want to make sure that you get signed up so that we can get that sent over to you guys. So can't wait and hope to see you there on Thursday. All right. So let's get into our Minis q&a. And I'm loving this season because you guys know we start advertising our mini sessions in July and bookings are going great. And so we've already gotten tons of questions, like I said, as people are really like dialing in their strategy headed into fall and Christmas minis. And so I wanted to go through and answer some of these questions. I'm gonna get to as many as I can you guys know, I like to keep these episodes short and sweet. But I'm going to get to as many as I can to hopefully help you guys as you're prepping for your fall to start things off. Diane asked if your sessions are 20 minutes and one of your children doesn't cooperate, what do you do? And that's a super common question I get of like, what happens if a kid cries the whole time or they're, you know, going crazy or whatever. So there's a couple things that I would say first off, if a parent is like hesitant to book with you beforehand, because they're not sure if their child is going to cooperate. That would be like a yellow flag. I wouldn't say red flag, but that would be something that would kind of perk my attention. And I would probably talk to that parent about either booking two time slots so that we have more time or booking a full session instead because mini sessions are not for every family. I believe they're for lots of families, but you know the parent knows their kid and so if they know beforehand that their kid is probably not going to cooperate and 20 minutes is a long mini minis or 10 minute minis The majority of my students do 15 minute minis. But either way if a kid doesn't cooperate like you're wanting done. And so I would say if you have some kind of inkling beforehand that it might be rough, then encourage them to either book to back to back sessions, or just book a full session, if you have no idea that they're gonna be rough, and all of a sudden, they show up and they either cry the whole time, or they just do not cooperate, which, out of the years and years that I've been doing minis, I've only had two mini sessions, where a kid cried the whole time. And at that point, like, there's nothing you can do about it, except continue to snap pictures. And so we get creative in our posing, have the kids face kind of turning away so that their back is to the camera for a lot of shots, so that you can't really tell that they're crying the whole time. And the two families that has happened to me where the kid just cried the whole time, they're very understanding because they know like, there was nothing that any of us could do at that point. And so it turned out that of course, they booked another mini with me about six months later, both families and it was so fun, because we got to celebrate the improvement of like, oh my gosh, look how great they did this time, because it doesn't happen two times in a row, like they're going to be fine the next time. And for me, I'm just a huge believer that all memories deserved to be captured, even the ones that may not feel picture perfect. And so even if a kid is sitting there crying the whole time, I mean, it's the season of life that they're in, and the parents understood and did throw in like a few extra pictures for them just because I felt really bad. But I was not obligated to do that contractually, and they, you know, were super understanding. But it was really fun to see the growth. As you know, their kid matured and things like that. Now, if a kid is just straight up not cooperating, let's say they're not, you know, screaming and crying, but they're just, you know, they won't sit and pose, they want to just run around whatever, at that point, I'm going to get what I can get. And that could mean I'll have mom or dad hold the kid. Even if they're wiggling, trying to get out, we're going to try to snap some full family shots. And then I'm going to snap photos without that kid. And I'm gonna get of course, as many as I can with the kid. But the reality of many sessions is Time is short. And so we're going to use our time I can't wait for a kid to start cooperating, I am going to get started right away. And now I don't want you to freak out, especially if you've never done minis before. And you're like,
oh my gosh, what happened? What do I do? If that happens to me, please, it's very, very rare most of the time, because my knees are so short. And you know, we have strategies and things. You know, we use bribes, we have posing prompts, we have things to make it fun, that it goes just fine. And the kids cooperate, you know, 15 minutes. 10 minutes is like the perfect window for a kid to be able to focus and cooperate beyond that, you know, it starts to get a little interesting with cooperation. But it doesn't happen very often that a kid there's just like straight up doesn't cooperate. Like I said, I've only had two times that a kid cried the whole time. And then I may have had one, maybe two times where a kid is just like straight up not cooperating. And I like can't get any shots. And like I said, I just snap what I can. And the parents are really understanding because it's not, it's not my job to control their kid. And sometimes the kid is out of their control. You know, kids are kids, and they're going to do what they want. And so in those situations, do your best, continue with your plan, keep snapping, and you know, get what you can get. So I hope that is helpful for you, Diane, next question. Morgan asked, How do you advertise your minis? So this is a really a loaded question. Because it's not just like one way to advertise, it's really important to have a full picture marketing strategy, not just like one or two pieces of the marketing puzzle, I will say you want to make sure that you don't just post to your business Facebook page or your Instagram and call it a day. That is not a marketing strategy. It's so important to get beyond the people that just follow you on Instagram or on your Facebook page. Like I said, this is a super loaded question. So if you join us on our free class on Thursday, you know we've got an hour together. So I'm going to be going really way deeper into you know, marketing strategies and things like that. So that is the best place to tune in to talk through advertising your minis, okay, training had a few questions. They said, how do you get comfortable shooting shorter time slots, both in a sense of knowing you'll get good photos with kids and that your clients don't think 10 minutes is too short? So that's a really good question. I think for the first part of like, knowing that you'll get good photos. The key here is well first of all, don't start with 10 minute minis I would suggest starting at 15 minutes and then you can work your way down. But a big part of it is going in with a plan. So I follow a posing workflow for every single mini session that I do. I talk through this in my full mini sessions. course if you're a part of it, but basically, I have this pausing workflow that I know exactly what shots I'm gonna get for every single mini session. And so I don't have to wonder what I'm doing next. Or like, hope I have enough time, I know that I can get every shot I need within about seven minutes. And so for a 10 minute Mini, that gives me a three minute buffer for a 15 minute mini that gives me what eight minute buffer to, you know, do whatever I need to do interact, the kids whatever. And so I think the more that you do it, the more that you'll be comfortable with it. But start out with 15 minute sessions, and start out in like a low pressure environment. So maybe you invite some family friends to come and you have like two or three minis back to back with these family, friends. And so that you can practice and like literally set an alarm on your phone for 15 minutes. And you know, just start and follow the posing workflow. And I think you'll be surprised with how much you can do in 15 minutes when you have a plan. But the key is to practice. So the more you do it, the more you're going to be comfortable with it. And then you can start doing it with paid clients, you can, you know, drop down to 10 minute videos if you want. The more you do it, the more comfortable you will be trying also asked for outdoor shoots, what causes do you have for weather? And what do you do if it rains. So when it comes to weather, obviously, it's not something that we can control. So we have a portion of our contract that talks through our cancel or you know, cancellation policy, weather policy, things like that. And basically says that if you no rain is in the forecast, we're going to let them know if we're going to like we'll keep an eye on it. If we do decide to reschedule, then we are going to do our best to find a day that works for everybody in the event that we can't find a day that works, then we will issue a full refund. And so what this looks like practically is for a date of many sessions. But say I book two hours of 15 minute minis back to back. So that's eight families for many sessions fit turns out it's going to rain. And I used to live in Texas. And so those of you that are in Texas will understand this. But Texas weather is just ridiculous. And so we you know, it could be forecasted for rain and then turn out to be the most beautiful day. And that is so so frustrating. And so what we usually do is, if the forecast is like 5060 70% chance of rain, we will tell our clients and we'll send this email at the beginning of the week to say Hey, I see the forecast. And I'm keeping an eye on it, we will let you know as we get closer what we're going to do. And so typically, weather apps will show you like an hourly forecast about 24 hours, sometimes a little more out. And so we wait until we can see really what the hourly is going to look like. And if our time slot looks like it's going to be clear, we keep everybody where it is. Now if it looks like it's gonna rain, and there's just nothing we can do about it. As we get closer, we'll go ahead and make the call and tell everybody we're going to reschedule. And what we do is we take those eight families in their time slots, and we move them all in the exact same time slots to a different date. And so we let everybody know, hey, we are rescheduling to next Saturday, everybody's keeping the exact same time slots, let us know if that doesn't work for you. And we'll go from there. So I will say the majority of people will make it work, which is super helpful because they know we don't control the weather. And so majority of people are going to do whatever they can to make it work, they will rearrange their schedule as needed. Because they just they get it they understand it wasn't our fault. We're all doing our best here for the reschedule. Now we will have, you know one or two people that are not going to be able to make the new date work. And so what we do there is we either move those people to a different set of mini sessions that we're doing, it could be a different location or a different theme, which is fine, we do what we can. But if we're not able to find another existing set of mini sessions that like the date works for them. Our last option is we tack them on to the end of an existing full session or the beginning of an existing full session. So if we have, let's say a full session on a Thursday night or whatever, or a Sunday night, we will let them know see if that date works and we'll tack them on there. What we're trying to avoid is we never want to do a one off mini session if we can help it because that really takes away from profitability, you're driving to a location to go and shoot one family for 15 minutes. It's just not worth it. And so we try as hard as we possibly can to not do it one off many. If it comes down to it and nothing is working. You have two choices. You can either do the one off mini session, which if it's at a location that's far like a far drive for you, it's not worth it. If it's like two minutes from your house. Okay, sure. You know, that's up to you to decide. So we'll either do the one off Mini or we'll go ahead and just issue a full refund including The retainer, you know, tell them like, I'm so sorry, I wish we could have made it work, you know, we do everything in our power. And then if we really can't find an alternative, we will either issue the refund, or we will tell them, we can hang on to their payment. And they can book a mini session in the spring or whatever the next season that we do minis. And a lot of people take that option to just say, you know, I will just book something in the spring and it works out. But either way, you want to make sure that you have a backup plan for if it does rain and know what you're going to do. There was one year, it was several years ago. But in the month of October, I had many sessions scheduled every single week. And it rained every single weekend in October, it was the craziest thing I've ever seen. It was a nightmare trying to reschedule everybody, especially trying to fit them in before the holidays hit because once Thanksgiving hits, I mean, all bets are off when it comes to scheduling people. And so it was chaotic and crazy. And that's when I learned to kind of leave some intentional space in your calendar just in case it rains every single weekend in October. So do keep that in mind as you're planning your, you know, your backup plan. The last question training had asked was do you ask for a deposit or the full payment upfront? And what's your refund policy. So I am a big fan of a deposit,
we actually call it a non refundable retainer. Because that language, legally speaking is non refundable. If you call it a deposit. Even if you call it a non refundable deposit. It's still refundable, because it's called a deposit. So we make sure you call it a retainer. But we take a 50% retainer upfront, when booking some of my students choose to do take the full payment upfront. For me, I just especially as your money start to get more expensive, it becomes a barrier of entry for people like they are going to not book with you because they can't maybe don't have the full payment right then. And so we just find it that it's not, you know, much harder to just do 50% upfront, and then the second half of the payment would be due at the time of the session or before the session. And you can set it up in your CRM, that it automatically sends payment reminders and things like that. So you know, it's not like extra work. And that has gone really well. Our refund policy is that that non refundable retainer is what it sounds like it's non refundable at the time of booking, if something happens, and they have to cancel, like let's say they end up having to go out of town or something random like that, we will keep the retainer and we'll give them the second half of their payment back if they've already made that payment. And of course, if it's like a family emergency or something like that, like we'll be a little more flexible with what we do are offering that retainer to them or whatever. But a lot of times we'll offer for them to use the retainer towards another session. So you can kind of decide what you want to do that there. But make sure that it's outlined really clearly in your contract, which sidenote, if you're not using a contract for many sessions, you 1,000% need to be using a contract. And not when that you have DIY, please don't DIY a contract, you want to make sure that you have one that was written by a lawyer that will actually hold up in court in the off chance that you do end up having to go to court. But a contract is there to protect you and to set clear expectations for your clients. And so please use a contract with every single mini session. If you need a contract. I have one available in my shop that was written by a lawyer specifically for family photographers. So you can go check that out if you need one. Becca asked how do you get comfortable not feeling rushed. And like you will still get good photos even with worrying about kids smiling, etc. I'm new to families. In my last session, I felt like I was rushing a bit because I knew the baby was going to be ready for a nap and wasn't smiling a lot for us. I just want to make sure I get them a few money shots. So they aren't disappointed. I know the stress that goes into getting your family photo sessions done with little ones. That's a good question, Becca. And I think it comes down to having a plan so that you don't feel rushed. Like I said, use a posing workflow, I know that I can get every shot I need within seven minutes. And so because I am so used to doing this flow, then I don't feel rushed. I'm able to get a lot of variety for our gallery in a really short amount of time. And when it comes to like baby, it's time for baby's nap or whatever. I always encourage people when they're like moms when they're booking mini sessions to keep in mind their babies normal. Like if they have some kind of normal rhythm of like when do they usually eat please make sure they're fed by the time they get here because a mini session is super short. We don't have time for them to take a nursing break or a snack break or change a diaper or whatever. Like we want to make sure that they do all that before their session starts. So I encourage them to arrive early things like that. But a mini is so short, shouldn't really be a concern of like it's getting close to nap time. Another thing to think about is don't schedule your mini sessions time slots close to an app time. So I never do my minis close to naptime. We always start at a time that is good for families for young kids. So typically, I will shoot my minis like four to six, or three to six. So that the majority of nap times are done with and we want to hit that like ideal time slot for families and for kids. But when it comes to feeling rushed, a big part of that is just going in with a plan, having your posing workflow. And following that workflow. Becca also asked how far in advance do you advertise and open your bookings? And what is your cancellation and deposit policy? I already talks about the cancellation and deposit policy. But how far in advance do I open bookings? So I highly suggest giving yourself about six to eight weeks to advertise because good marketing takes time. And so even if you have like a huge existing client base, you really want to give yourself about six to eight weeks, ideally, to be able to book out all of your spots. So Lima, I hope I said that right says how do you show the value of mini sessions? So that's a great question. The big thing, when it comes down to it is what is the benefit for mom in booking a mini session? Why do I say Mom, because nine times out of 10 mom is the one booking these photo sessions for the family. And so you really want to highlight the benefits to your families. For me, my ideal client is a busy mom that doesn't have time to do a full session or knows her kids won't cooperate for a full session. And so the benefits of a mini is that they're super fast. We don't have to worry about Dad, you know moping or whatever, dads can do anything for 15 minutes. And so you don't get a lot of times you don't get dads like complaining or whatever, because it's super short. Honestly, it takes them longer to get ready than it does to shoot the actual session and dads love it. And so some of the benefits is that it's short and sweet. We move really, really quickly. And we're able to capture a lot in a short amount of time. And we're able to have, you know, that short time slot that kids cooperate really, really well. And so that's a huge plus for families with young kids, because I know my kids don't last very long. And a lot of times moms worry about that. And so I would really highlight that of like, Listen, if you know that your kids have a hard time cooperating for a long period of time, a mini session might be perfect for you, you get just enough photos just enough time. And it's really, really great. So talk about the benefits when you're marketing your mini sessions of what your families are going to get out of your minis besides, oh, it's a smaller session, it's cheaper, and you only get five images, like let's talk about what they do get and how it's going to benefit them. Let's see Megan asked how many minutes per session do you do and how many photos are included also do upcharge photos afterwards. So my minis are 10 minute minis with five images included, the majority of my students do 15 minute minis with five images included, we deliver around 20 to 30 images in a full gallery. And yes, we upsell that full gallery afterwards. That is a huge bonus when it comes to minis. Because if you're not upselling your gallery, you're leaving a ton of money on the table. So I highly suggest upselling. And a mini session is supposed to be a slice of the cake, not the whole cake. And so if you're delivering, you know 20 3050 images with a mini session, you're way over delivering for what they're paying for. So we give them five images included for their session fee that that's enough to say, hey, you can take these five, or you can purchase more from here. And it makes a huge difference in you know, profitability and things like that. Because the majority of our clients do purchase extras and the way that we structure our upsell people either buy three photos, or they buy the full gallery just because it makes the most sense. And so if you're not upselling, I highly suggest upselling. Couple more questions. Kelsey asked how do you stay organized and keep on top of everything that comes with booking ie getting payments. So I highly suggest investing in some sort of CRM, that's a client relationship management tool. My personal favorite is dubsado. Right now, just their automations are unmatched compared to other CRMs. It's really really nice about 90% of my mini sessions, workflows automated which is so helpful, especially as you start shooting higher volume, but that's huge and keeping everything organized. So all of my clients are in there, their payments and contracts and everything, go through dubsado. I do use Trello which is a free task management tool to help keep track of some of our like external workflows, things like leading up to our session or a post processing that we don't keep in dubsado so I use the to really hand in hand but if you don't have a CRM to collect contracts and invoices I highly suggest investing Get one, Sherry asked how do you get clients to commit. So a big piece of that is taking a retainer upfront, if you're not taking either a retainer or the full payment, a lot of times, you're going to notice that people cancel on you last minute, because they have no buy in, there's no reason for them to show up, because they don't have anything invested in it. So I highly suggest making sure that you're taking some kind of payment upfront, as well as getting a contract signed, again, the contracts there to protect you and to set clear expectations with your clients. So get that signed, contract and get that retainer payment paid. And then suddenly, you won't have a problem with people committing they, because there's money on the line and they they've signed a contract, they're going to show up, at least they'll let you know, if they have to cancel and you keep their retainer, which helps for you know, sessions or time slots, maybe that you weren't able to book because that person took that spot. But either way, that's how you get clients to commit as you take a retainer. All right, friends, there you have it, that was like rapid fire a handful of really great questions. And this is like, my favorite thing to do is just rapid fire q&a. And so like I said, on Thursday, the 13th at 1pm Central, we are doing our live mini sessions class, and
at the end, I always do a q&a. And so if you're there in the room live with us, we are going to be answering questions we I'm going to be answering those questions. And don't worry you like don't have to be on video or whatever. There's a chat that you'll type your question in. I know some people like freak out when I say that. No, you don't have to be on video, I will be on video. So you can type your question into the chat box. And I'll be able to answer that way and it's just going to be a great time. So go ahead and get signed up. If you are not already, like I said it's linked in the show notes here or you can type it into a browser, Rebecca rice photo.com/minis-class and get yourself registered. And even if you can't make it live, make sure you get registered so that you get sent the replay you will not receive the replay if you're not registered, so please make sure you get registered. And with that we will go ahead and close out for today. Thanks for listening. And I hope this episode was helpful for you and I can't wait to see you on Thursday in our live class. Bye guys.
