Steve Saporito Education

Steve Saporito

Steve Saporito is a consultant to the Photography Industry. Steve is passionate about understanding people and how they relate to photography.Find the missing pieces of your Photography BusinessCreating a successful business that gives time back to your family Artwork that excites and really matters to relationships that beats the digital file syndrome

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Episodes

Hiring Your First Team Member :- 5  What is our role as an employer.
Aug 8 2023
Hiring Your First Team Member :- 5 What is our role as an employer.
Master -servant Relationship Master -servant Relationship. You need to work as a team. You're not beneath taking the rubbish out and neither are they. Right. They're not your servant. You're working as a team. That could be part of their responsibility, but that doesn't mean they do it every time. Right. The one thing my staff loved about me was that we're busy with clients all the time. If the bins are full, I take them out because I'm the one that's free right now. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I don't do it for them. I do it for my clients because my clients don't want to see a bin that's overflowing with, you know, wipes and shit. Yeah. No, it makes sense. It makes sense. I have a friend who owns two hugely popular bakeries in LA. They're called Jones on Third. They're insanely popular. Joan is kind of a celebrity and she washes the dishes once a month, which in the busy cafes, really shitty job. And she does it because she didn't do it for a year. She did it one time and she discovered that the way the dish thing was set up was so inefficient. It was shocking. So she had the whole thing renovated. And then she said, now I'm going to wash the dishes once a month to make sure that this always stays efficient. And it made a huge difference in her business. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com
Hiring Your First Team Member :- 4  How to reward your team
Aug 6 2023
Hiring Your First Team Member :- 4 How to reward your team
You're hiring personality first. So always you're looking at personality, which means that your interview questions need to be behavioural. Interview questions. Can you give an example of some questions you yeah. So what sort of role are you trying to fill? So I actually definitely feel like I don't want a photographer at all, because it's actually the one part of a business where I feel like I don't need any help. I'm all set there. That's bullshit. It no wind machine for you. Because you're an owner, you shouldn't be doing any part of your business. But I want to keep doing the photography. That's the part that I like different. That's different. Wanting to and having to is different because if you get sick or if something happens or if you want to take a holiday, your business stops. Wanting to and having to are very different things. And okay, you're not at that stage yet, okay? But looking into the future, if the right person is sitting there slapping you in the face and because you're so close to it, you don't take up that opportunity, I don't want that to be the case for you because that is fucking bullshit. That you don't need a photographer because that's part of your business. That potentially if, as an owner, you're building your brand and you're building people's desire for. Then are you really going to be doing every shoot? Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com
Where are you leaving money on the table in your Wedding Business :- Episode 5
Jul 27 2023
Where are you leaving money on the table in your Wedding Business :- Episode 5
Episode 5:- Time Management So one of the things that seemed to be important to you when we were speaking earlier was that you felt that you were so tied to your business that you weren't giving enough time to your family. Your family is growing and you want to spend more weekends at home, more weekends being present for your family without those thoughts of shit. There's so much work to do. Yeah. And you're gone. Physically gone. So I think that the trap that we fall into when we become photographers is that we believe we have to do everything. And what we seem to do is create work and create busyness. And we become what we've really done is created a job for ourselves. But very few of us have really become business owners. So rather than you being a worker, you need to start to think of yourself as a leader, somebody that is there to empower people. And I know this is going to be scary, so brace yourself for this. Brace to be better than you. You because if you only hire people like you, then they also can come with your faults. True. Yeah, that's true. Right. So what we tend to do is hire people like us. But people like us have the same fears, the same fears about money, the same fears about talking to people to get on the phone to do all those sort of things. What we have to do is hire in the talent that we don't have. So there's got to be things that you could outsource and you got to look at. And the other thing you need to do is look at where is a person's value? So when you think about Jen, where is her value? What's her strengths? Like connecting with the. Pete people and taking their picture with a camera hands and not sitting behind a computer screen. So she may be good at retouching and sitting behind a computer screen and editing, but if you're saying to me her true value is the way that she connects to people, and if she does get in front of somebody, is she really good at connecting? And does she convert bookings? Oh, for sure. Because that's where the money is 100%. That's where she's more valuable, 100%. So can we make a decision now? That part of her job, where she's sitting behind a screen, where she's not being valuable. I mean, there's value in doing it, but we can outsource that quite easily, right? So the fear that I've always had is that that's how I supplement part of her income. That's how her income is determined, is how much editing she's doing. So by outsourcing it, the money that I was paying for her to do it is going somewhere else. So she wants to make more money. So I didn't want to take that away. So you were sacrificing your time and everything to do edit for us so that you could make that money to justify your salary, but you're thinking of. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com
Where are you leaving money on the table in your Wedding Business :- Episode 4
Jul 25 2023
Where are you leaving money on the table in your Wedding Business :- Episode 4
Episode 4:-ReferralsOkay, so in this section, what I'd like, you asked me about the fact that you've built this huge asset over the years, which has been all of your weddings for the past how many years? Seven. Seven years. There are three ways to build a business, okay? The first one is to get more clients, which is what you're doing. You're always looking for more clients. It happens to be the most expensive way to grow a business, because you have to market for them. You have to find new people. It takes a lot of energy to educate them and bring them in. And you've got to think about, well, how many emails do I need to answer before I get one? How many interviews do I do before I convert one? It's the most expensive way to grow a business. Unfortunately, it seems to be the only way. Photographers the only thing photographers tend to focus on, the next one is getting your clients to use you more often, which is a much cheaper way and a less stress free way, a less stress free, stressful way of doing it. Okay? So what needs to happen is that the clients need to be educated, that you do family portraits or that you're going to offer it. So there needs to be somewhere in your meeting area that you meet them, a representation of that. So you've got to think about, okay, I've got a couple coming in, and they're getting married. What is the next life cycle that they will be going through? So having something with a newborn, okay? And my advice to people is to get a half decent looking guy holding a baby, because nothing makes a woman melt more than seeing a guy with a baby. Okay? So. But what I see a lot of photographers do is they find these hot mums holding a baby. So a woman looking at a really hot mum and I made this mistake at an expo once. This is why I know this. We had this rock star looking mum with a perfect body. She was slender with this beautiful belly. And we had this awesome display and I'm like, why is nobody stopping? And then I walked away from my stand and went to stands up and I was listening to the people as I were looking and they were like as they're going by bitch. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com
Where are you leaving money on the table in your Wedding Business :- Episode 3
Jul 23 2023
Where are you leaving money on the table in your Wedding Business :- Episode 3
Episode 3:- Forever Sessions Okay, so the next part is you mentioned that you're giving away the engagement shoot, and you are wanting to work out how we can go about making some money out of that. Yeah. So, to me, our industry has put such a heavy label on the word engagement shoot that if you call it an engagement shoot, people's perception is exactly what the industry is giving them. It's complimentary, it's free, and it's for a save the date card. Okay. So what we need to do first is change our perception about what that's all about. So right now, why do you do an engagement session? It's time to connect with clients. It's a good time. We get to know you. It's like test driving a car. You already bought it. You're with us. It's a nice like to see what they're like. They're a connection in front of the camera, make them comfortable. So it's definitely about that. It's about making them feel comfortable. It's about getting them to learn hand signals and how to work with you. But how much do you really learn about the client before you take those photos, before they engage? Not much. We learn while we're shooting. Yeah. I mean, it's essentially a discovery, and even then, we're not like we're just we're still locked in our art and doing what we're doing, and it's not like a proper we have 90 minutes. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com
Where are you leaving money on the table in your Wedding Business :- Episode 2
Jul 20 2023
Where are you leaving money on the table in your Wedding Business :- Episode 2
Episode 2 :- Wedding Album After-sales Okay, so for this next section, we're going to be talking about how to get sales after the wedding for the wedding album. So it's the on sale afterward an album and the after sales of an album does not happen by accident. Okay. So you've got to understand that when a client first comes and sees you, how long is it before a client? But from the time that the client first comes in and sees you and books their wedding, how much lead time is there between that and the wedding? It varies from it can be a year and a half. I'd say the average is about a year, nine months to a year. Okay. You honestly believe at that point they have any comprehension of the scope, of all of the little details that they have planned, all of those little details, and have now become important enough for them to pay a ton of money for for the wedding? No, they have no idea. So at this point in time, they think they only want this much photographed. So do you believe that it's fair for you to assume that after they've put so much money and so much time and so much effort into all the details that you would restrict them to their initial decision? No, it's not fair at all. So what needs to happen is that there needs to be this communication between you and the client. How much communication currently do you have from the time that you book them until the time that you wedding day. Or fulfill the product so they book. You, when is the next time you contact them? There's an automated email that sends out a questionnaire three months of the wedding to gather information so we know and then we may or may not suggest a meeting if they need one. But usually we just show up where they tell us to show up. Zero. Okay. What would happen if you were to call the father of the bride a month in and say something like, hey, it's Jeff. I'm going to be photographing your daughter's wedding. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com
Where are you leaving money on the table in your Wedding Business :- Episode 1
Jul 18 2023
Where are you leaving money on the table in your Wedding Business :- Episode 1
Episode 1 the Right Focus for Wedding AlbumsI'm here with Jeff and Jen, and we're going to talk a little bit about their business and what they would love to bring to their business. So, Jeff, tell me a little bit about your business and when you're at, where you're at. So we're cook photography and we're associate model studio, I guess, if you will, of there's five, four photographers, and we're wedding. Including yourself? Including myself. And we're our wedding studio. We shoot weddings. So last year, this is the first year evolution, where we have two new associates that have just joined us, but for the past six years, six or seven years, it's been Jen and I, and Jen's grown into an associate. And like last year, we shot 50 weddings together, and the year before it was 54. So we brought in two new associates to help with the overflow of saying no. And that's where we're at right now. So you have to say no right now. Oh, yeah. Which is really hard, right? Yeah. Okay, so where do you think you have the potential? Where are you leaving money? On the table, basically. Oh, it's definitely weddings. Our model right now is we book the client, we go to the wedding, we shoot it, edit it, give them the files, digital files, and then move on to the next one. And so we've been shooting for seven years together, and we have an average, let's say an average of 40 weddings a year up this point. And if I was going to combine our total post wedding sales into a profit or how many albums, it would be not even a full year's worth of album. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com
Episode 3:- Never be the Sleazy Salesman
Jul 16 2023
Episode 3:- Never be the Sleazy Salesman
This segment, we're going to talk about one of your fears, which is that you don't want to come across as a sleazy salesperson. It's a big fear. Yes, huge. So as long as you're not sleazy, you're okay. I think any type of any like, for me, personally, I'm really sensitive to being to feeling like I'm somebody's trying to sell something to me. Yeah. That disingen with interaction, where they're just trying to come get my money. So that's just a huge concern. We don't want to ever have our clients feel that that's what we're doing, that we're taking advantage or using them. So given what we've done today in the setup and the layout and the changes we've suggested, can you feel a difference in the way that you will be presenting to make it easier for a client to make a decision already? Because right now, how you've set the room up is going to create exactly what you want to try to avoid. You can't not think about what you're not supposed to think about without thinking about it. Okay? So I don't want you to think of a blue tree. Whatever you do, please don't think of a blue tree. I don't want you to think of a blue tree. So the more you think about being a salesperson, the more you will be one. So what you avoid, what you resist, persists. Okay. So the more you try to avoid something, the more you become that person. So the whole purpose of what we did today was to free you of that. Okay. We're making it easy for clients to make decisions, and we be making it we're subliminally drawing their attention to things that they may want. Your job is to help clients make decisions and to not judge people. By that, I mean, we should always offer them something rather than judging them. As though they can't afford something and feel as though we can't offer it, because that's even worse, right? So the whole process from the beginning to end is geared at when you're asking somebody, what is it about this person that when was that moment when you first knew she was the one you wanted to spend the rest of your life with? Where were you? What was happening? What was it about that moment? What was it about that moment that you knew she was the one? You suddenly become the person they want to hire because you saw them. The three things that most people want the most is to feel seen and to be heard and to feel loved. And if we can give people this, you become so delicious, they just want whatever you have to give them. And we have to be genuine about this. The whole point of a wedding interview is to work out, are we the right fit? It's not about selling everybody into a package, right? It's about finding out, interviewing them, are we the right fit for each other? And then serving them with the intention of creating an experience that's going to make them fall in love again. If you do this properly and you follow the system, those that couple, when they come to their wedding, what you've done is you've created the best version of that couple that they're ever going to be, because you've given them the support. You've called their parents, you've called the father and asked him, what is it about finally. Handing your daughter over to another man, what is that going to feel like? And then he's going to go through that. And then what you're doing is you're bringing people together and you're opening communication. So the end result is going to be when you photograph them, they're a completely different couple because of the experience you've given them. At that point, it doesn't matter what you take, what photographs you take, they're going to love it more. BecaWelcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com
Episode 3 :- Exterior
Jul 13 2023
Episode 3 :- Exterior
This is our first impression for our clients. Okay, so this is really important. The one thing that you need to be conscious of and the one thing that I faced when I turned up with the Uber was, shit, am I in the right place? Okay, so having something that lets people know it's okay. I was freaking out, ringing the doorbell, thinking, Have I got the right house? I checked the address four times, and still I was, like, hoping, okay, so whether you have, like, a little sandwich body type thing that you can put just on the verge there maybe I think, coming up, you've got no option but to walk past this area. So having something here with your logo and brand and just letting people know that they should be going that way, because when we came in, I was greeted by somebody I didn't know. Right? And I'm like, oh, no. My greatest fear has just happened. And I think you've got an awesome opportunity down here to almost be funny and have fun with them and let them know to open the gate. You could almost have a beautiful piece of artwork there. Where when we started doing that at some of the studios, we would start selling artwork for people who had outdoor rooms. So they tended to be metal prints. People who build al fresco areas or when they have spa areas that are sort of covered, they would then put outside so it's like retail space, and then maybe just have them coming and directing them somewhere back there. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com
Episode 3 Artwork
Jul 11 2023
Episode 3 Artwork
For this next segment, I want to talk about artwork and how to build artwork and and how to create artwork that is going to inspire people to buy and also inspire referrals. Okay, so when a client coming to you for a wedding, what are they coming here for? So they book you for a wedding. What predominantly? What sort of product are they? They they're coming to buy predominantly. What's their focus? We've done album consultations, so one of the biggest complaints I hear from photographers is that they're my best friends and we make spill such a rapport, and we get along so well. But I meet them two or three years later and they've hired some other photographer to take their birthing photos, to take their, their newborn photos. And I know they've paid a heap of cash for those photos. Why didn't they come to me? And the response of the client is that, well, we didn't even know that you did anything but weddings. So I think there needs to be a representation on your wall, on your walls of the next stage of their life cycle, because predominantly they're here for an album and you'll have that cupboard. But we want a client for life because it's a lot of work to get a client. It's easy to keep them, but we need to send a clear message that we're not just wedding photographers, if that's what you want to do. We want to be your family photographer for life. It so it's our responsibility to make sure that they get that. So I think it's okay to have a piece of wall art for their wedding. I don't think it's going to impact whether they're going to book you for the wedding or not. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com
Episode 3:- Referrals
Jul 9 2023
Episode 3:- Referrals
You. Okay, so I want to talk about getting referrals. Okay. So there are three ways to grow a business. Okay? Do you know those three ways? Get more clients, which is what photographers believe is the only way we can grow our business. Shoot more. Shoot more. Find more clients. New clients. New clients, yeah. Second way is getting your clients to use you more often. And that's why you need to start to become because finding clients is hard work. Finding awesome clients is even harder because you have to sift through everyone to find them. But once we've done all that work right, we need to find ways to serve them again, because it's so much less effort. They've already been educated. They already understand us and trust us. We don't have to spend that time building that trust. So we serve them again. It's an easy way to grow your business. Third way is to increase your average sale. And that is the easiest way to grow your business. Because if you do how many weddings a year? We did 15 last year. 15. So if you could increase how much people spend with you, multiply that by 15, like we talked about the projection. Okay. And how that just by that scenario, in the room set up, on average, most people will sell an extra $850. So if all of your weddings spent an extra $850, would that make a difference? Definitely, yeah. Huge difference. That's probably equivalent to doing two or three more weddings. When you do have a logo on your artwork, a client who is committing to a substantial amount of money. Usually for the photographer, that's an extraordinary amount of money. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com
Episode 3 :-  Sitting Down with Clients
Jul 6 2023
Episode 3 :- Sitting Down with Clients
Okay, so we now want to talk about where are you going to put me? So you've offered me a drink, I've come in and you've opened the room up so I can see the product comfortably. Usually I'd love for you to refer to something that you believe they're going to want or they've mentioned during all of the discovery calls they may want. So you said look, this is what we were talking about, how you said you wanted this for your lounge room. There it is. Okay, now it's time for me to sit down. How do you do that? Pretend come get comfortable. Go ahead and take a seat on the couch. Okay. So you be my wife. Okay. Yeah, we have a seat. Okay, cool. All right. So you want us to sit here. Okay. So you're there. Yeah. Cool. Okay, so from a wedding interview point of view, I think this scenario is fine, but if you are sitting me down to show me my wedding album, the way this is formulated isn't right. Okay, so if we were a couple and we were going to see our photographs here okay, so sit back as if we were going to do that and we're going to pretend we're going to be seeing it and you're directing it from is that how you would normally oh, you haven't really used it, have you? So from here okay, who is Isaac to you, other than your husband? Sorry? If you're a client. If you're a client, who is Isaac to you from here? For me, he feels like the salesperson. Okay. And. He's higher than I am. He's leaning forward, and he's on an angle directly at us. So from here, he really feels like a salesperson. The ideal situation would be that he would be somewhere here. So if we just shuffle along okay. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com
Episode 3 :-  Meet And Greet
Jul 2 2023
Episode 3 :- Meet And Greet
Okay. So right now, what we're going to do is pretend that I'm going to be a client. Okay? And this is the meet and greet. How do you how do you sit them? Where do you put where where would you put them? Because I need to know sort of what's happening. So I'm walking in the door. So I've just so usually when we come in, walk in the door. We come in. We're always we hug. How's it going? Hey, how you going? Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Just throw one at me. So usually it's, come on in, make yourself comfortable. What can we get you to drink? Don't do usually just do it. Come on in. Awesome. How to see great. Let us get you a coffee. Would you like any cream in that? Right. So we do that. So we have people come in. The clients we work with are people we spend a lot we invest, we spend a lot of time with them. So it is like a friend coming over. So it's a big hug. Usually we have bubbly, so we pop the bubbly. Because it's usually evening consultations. We get that going, and we usually spend the first five to ten minutes just catching up. What's going on? How are things? All right. So I think for the first part of what you just did, you've rushed me too quickly to sit down. Some people might find that a bit threatening in that they're thinking that, okay, you just want to get me down to business. Okay. All right. Because sometimes, depending upon the layout of the room depending upon the layout of the room that we've got, and it's a tight area, but not that we can't use it, my preference would be that if we redid this okay. Hi. How are you? We've done the hugs. I would much prefer that we are standing for just a little bit longer. Okay. The other thing that that does is it allows me to soak up some of the product. So right now you need to walk around a little bit. So right now, you need to be consciously aware that you both are aggressively blocking me as I'm walking in, which is not your personality. Okay? So you were both sort of like soldiers here. And what that does is you're creating a barrier. From here, my energy is going. Got it. Throughout the room. And from where you are and from where you are right now, you being the taller one first. And it's sort of spreading me right to the penthouse, which is where you want it to be. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com
Episode 3 :- Room Orientation
Jun 29 2023
Episode 3 :- Room Orientation
So what I want to take you through is to work out where the orientation of the room should be in order to maximize this space from a sales point of view. Okay? So what I've learned over the years is that projection is way better and results in a much more confident client. Clients feel much more confident when you're showing them their photographs or artwork to size. Okay. They're not great at visualizing stuff. So if you can project usually the studios that I've switched from an LCD screen or working from a computer screen to projection without any sales training whatsoever, on average, their sales go up about $850. The next thing we need to think about is where is the penthouse? In this room? About 65% of the population is right brain orientated. Right brain orientated. I'm doing my aussie talk fast thing, so I'm going to slow down. They're right brain orientated. And what that means is when somebody's thinking about something that they're remembering, they tend to look up to the left. Interesting. Okay. So they'll go think about it. And so they're looking at their artwork. Then they're going so they're entering their visual remembered mode. So for most people, not every person, the upper left quadrant is your penthouse. Okay, so if we orientate this room and and to really orientate this room to go where it is now, the couch facing that wall, because the walls, the, the room is narrow, they're not connecting to anything because this wall is too far away. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com
Episode 3 :- Album Displays Do's & Don'ts
Jun 27 2023
Episode 3 :- Album Displays Do's & Don'ts
Hi, I'm here in Portland, Oregon, and I'm at Wayfair studios, and these are my hosts for the day, and we're going to be looking at their studio, which is a I can't say it garage. Garage. A garage transformation. We would say garage transformation. Go for it. Tell me a little bit about yourselves. Eyes. Okay. I'm Isaac Marshall, and my wife and I, we shoot together. And behind the scenes, I tend to handle a lot of the financial stuff and things like that. Cool, you do the boring stuff. Yeah. I'm Jen, and who is this? What's your name? This is ayla she's our little assistant. She's the spark of the group. She is. She's our sparkle girl. Along with shooting responsibilities, I do most of the client communication, ordering, and then all the editing. All of the editing. Wow. While he's doing all the financial stuff. Yes. So we each have our own tedious task. Awesome. So how long have you had this transformation? So we have had this studio working now for the previous few weeks. So it's about three weeks ago. We had everything done and decorations and everything and started hosting clients here. Awesome. But you've been in business for how long? So we've been in full time business now, starting our second year. And we've had our business on the side part time for about seven years. Congratulations. Thank you. So what was the purpose of doing this? This was to give us a place to work, to kind of separate ourselves. At home. We wanted to separate this from our home also as a space we could meet with clients. Awesome. Okay, great. Is it finished? It's not finished. Not quite. I feel like we're getting there, but there's just a few little touches here and there just to make things more comfortable and easy to see products and things like that. Awesome. So what's missing? What's missing? Well, when we started arranging the space, it was meant to be more of a working studio. And as we have started adding when you say working studio for shooting sorry, excuse me. We come in here and do our work with our editing, with our more like an office. An office space. Okay, great. And as we are evolving to now include it to be more of a client space where they come in, where we're able to share products, we're trying to find ways to set things up so that it's aesthetically pleasing and easy to move around, easy to display. Welcome to Steve Saporito Education pod cast channel to learn more about what I do head over to my website www.stevesaporitoeducation.com Support the showwww.stevesaportioeducation.com