WordPress-photography-podcast-episode-56
The WordPress Photography Podcast
The WordPress Photography Podcast
Episode 56 - Virtual In-Person Sales w/ Chris Scott







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chris-scottChris Scott is a co-founder of Swift Galleries, the creator of 21 Days to Your First In-Person Sale and an expert in Photography Sales. He lives in Colorado Springs with his wife, Adrienne, their two kids, a Boston Terrier and 7 chickens.

Scott and Chris spend this episode talking about In-Person Sales and Virtual In-Person Sales, which are the best way to increase your sales revenue for every client in your business.

Listen to the full episode for Chris's question to you. Then comment on the show notes post with your answer.

WordPress/Photography Related News:

  • Jetpack added a Lazy Loading module into their plugin.
  • If you are considering doing video greetings to new leads or clients, check out the Moment Lenses.

Referenced Links:

Where to find Chris:

Transcription:

Transcription was done by Rev.com

Scott: Welcome to Episode 56. My name is Scott Wyden Kivowitz and I'm joined by my guest Chris Scott.
Chris, I'm glad to have you here. We've known each other now for wow, it's got to be a good four or five years.

Chris: It's been a while hasn't it? Yeah, yeah. It's been a while.

Scott: Chris is the co-founder of the in-person sales tool Swift Galleries. We're going to be talking about in-person sales in this episode. You'll hear a lot about what Swift Galleries can do for you in that.
Chris is also the creator of the "21 Days to Your First In-Person Sale." He is a leading expert in in-person sales for professor photographers.
I've been a big fan of what Chris and his wife have been creating over the years. I actually still have their iPad app on my iPad.

Chris: Oh wow.

Scott: Yeah, I still have it and I still utilize it.

Chris: That's amazing.

Scott: The app was called Preveal, it's no longer available because now they have Swift Galleries.
Chris, welcome to the show. I'm so glad to have you here. Just welcome.

Chris: Thank you so much. I am honored to be here, honestly. It's always fun getting to talk to you, it's always fun getting to talk about this stuff, so it's double fun today.

Scott: For sure, for sure. Before we dive in to what's going on with you and Swift Galleries and everything, we're going to talk a little bit about some WordPress photography related news. I only have one WordPress specific news and the other is just something I want to share for myself.
The first is Jetpack, if you're using Jetpack on your photography website, they now have a module for lazy loading. I use WP-Rocket Cache to do my lazy loading and NextGEN Pro has lazy loading for its galleries. I don't personally need it, but if you are using Jetpack and you don't have something to do lazy loading, implement the one that Jetpack gives you because now you can speed up your website just a little bit more by using its lazy loading module. That is a great feature and I'll link to that announcement in the show notes.
The other is I just recorded a video and published on YouTube on the Moment lenses. If you are starting to get into creating video greetings for your leads, for your clients, check out moment lenses because if you don't have a camera that does video then use your phone and Moment lenses gives you an opportunity. They're super wide lens, is quite beautiful. It's actually a really good quality lens and it gives you a nice wide view for your phone, which is usually more narrow, so definitely check that out.

Chris: I'm jotting that down myself over here.

Scott: If you're interesting in getting into vlogging at all it's nice because now you don't have to guess if you're in the frame-

Chris: Right.

Scott: ... you know you're in the frame because it's very wide lens.

Chris: Yeah, that's awesome.

Scott: Yeah, it's cool.
All right, so what's going on with you Chris? What's new with Swift Galleries and just in general?

Chris: Well building an office out back, so I'll be out of the bedroom finally here pretty soon, so that's fun. I've been calling it my World Shedquarters, or when I'm feeling saucy The Shed Room of Pain, which is a "50 Shades of Gray" reference. My wife doesn't think it's funny at all. I've been like, "It's my Shed Room of Pain from 50 Sheds of Gray." She's like, "You're not funny. You're not funny." So we've been working on that lately.
Otherwise, just from a business standpoint, we're launching a new virtual in-person sales course, which is why I'm doing the rounds talking about virtual in-person sales right now. We're doing that hopefully today that thing will be launching.

Scott: Fantastic.

Chris: Then just plugging away at some housekeeping stuff for Swift Galleries right now before we dive into a bunch of big in-person sales related updates throughout the course of the this year.

Scott: Can you give a-

Chris: Always doing stuff.

Scott: Can you give a teaser about one of the in-person sales features or whatever-

Chris: Yeah.

Scott: ... you're working on for Swift?

Chris: Yeah, some of the stuff is cleaning up. Swift Galleries started really primarily as a wall art design tool. While it still has that in there and it's still a major part of what it is that we do at Swift Galleries, over the years we've kind of added on a bunch of in-person sales specific features and functionality.
We're kind of going back and spending at least the front half of this year looking at how can we refine what we have now that we've refined our purpose as like okay this thing isn't just a designer anymore, it's a full-fledged in-person sales tool. What do we need to do now in hindsight to make this a little bit more streamlined? Right now if you're in our in-person sales workflow you'll notice that you have to go through wall art first before you can start selling other things. As you're selling stuff in your sales meeting it will be like, okay, jump into the wall art designer first and then from there you can start selling other stuff. We want to remove that wall just in case you don't want to sell wall art or your client doesn't even want it then you don't have to go through that at all.
Again, it's mostly just cleanup, but making all of the products the same level of importance so that you can skip between different types of products and modules, and what not. That's kind of short-term right now but as we head into the second half of the year then we'll be looking at a lot more specifically newer functionality, really doubling down on this being the go-to in-person sales from this point forward.

Scott: Nice.

Chris: We feel like there are a lot of designers out there. There are a lot of companies who are now doing basically what we were doing with Preveal, which is we're going to build this wall art designer, but they're just throwing carts onto them and then calling them a sales tool. We want to really double down and say, "Hey, you know what? No, this is actually built from the ground up to be a sales tool." That's really where we're headed this year. It's exciting because I feel like there's this ground swell in the industry that's been going on for a couple of years but it's finally, I think, really catching on for the pendulum swing back from online sales-

Scott: Right.

Chris: ... or shoot and burn I should say. We had this convenience is worth more than service when it came to shoot and burn and now the pendulum is swinging back and people are saying, "I can actually stand out now by not being a shoot and burn." I can actually make more money or get more clients by just doing something different and that something different now is offering products, which, who knew? Like, oh I offer actual products, so now I stand out in my market, it's kind of awesome.

Scott: There's actually something tangible instead of it just being a bunch of digital files.

Chris: Exactly, exactly.

Scott: Can you define, in simplest terms, what is in-person sales?

Chris: Oh man, that's a great question. Let's take two looks at it, we'll come at it from one direction, then we'll come at it from my direction. The general industry sees in-person sales as this process that you put your client through so that you can sell more stuff to them. That's true to a certain extent, but my take on it is it's a process that allows you to serve your client better, which then also ends up in higher sales. I'm guessing we'll probably break that down a lot here over the course of this interview.
In-person sales I think should really be seen as a service process. In fact, we've been toying with the idea of just saying when we teach IPS we're not teaching in-person sales, we're teaching incredibly personal service, because that's what it is to us. It's a process where I can truly customize the entire experience around each individual client and they feel better, they get what they want, we make more money, and they rave about us in the end. I think that's really what in-person sales is. It's an opportunity to serve your client better, especially in light of what we were just talking about. Especially in light of an industry that values convenience over service, or calls convenience service.
This idea of, I'm trying to decide if I want to say these things out loud, okay, no, let's go there. This idea of shoot and share and how we're serving our clients by sharing and that's not really serving your client. That's saying that you value their convenience over actually helping them figure out to do with all of these images you created for them. When we say, "Hey, I've shared my stuff with you," that's not giving, that's not loving, that's not caring. That's kind of half-ass service. Instead, saying ... They're not a sponsor or anything of this podcast, right? I hope not, because we can go back and re-record all of that and I'll be like, "They're amazing. We love them. Thank you." I think service is service, caring about your client, caring about your customer, helping them get what they actually want, and in turn, standing out because you do that, I think that's, to me, what's at the heart of in-person sales.

Scott: The interesting thing is that although it's called in-person sales you're not always talking about actually being in person, right? In-person sales is the incredibly personal service, right?

Chris: Right.

Scott: It's going above and beyond and really you are meeting with the person, you're actually talking with the person, but it may not be in person, right?

Chris: Right.

Scott: That's where this whole idea of virtual in-person sales come in. Let's talk a little bit about the differences between in-person sales as the industry knows it and virtual in-person sales.

Chris: Virtual in-person sales is something we've just recently been talking about in earnest. It's something that we did when we were shooting full-time. Just full disclosure, we don't shoot full-time anymore, we run three different businesses, so that's what we do full-time now. We spend all of our days digging into the process of selling your work. What we've been really talking about lately though is this idea of ... Dude, we live in a brand new world at this point, a brave new world, if you will. Just this, where are you New York, New Jersey?

Scott: Jersey, yeah.

Chris: Jersey, I'm in Colorado Springs, we're having a real-time conversation that's being recorded on video, and audio, and it could go out to the world here in just a minute. We want to take these types of technology and really make this idea of in-person sales much more convenient for people. I just talked about convenience, the trade-off of convenience versus service and I think that there is a way to still marry these two, to be able to sell online, or to be able to sell with an in-person process with all of the benefits of selling online, all of the convenience. So how do we do that? Really, what we've been looking at is it's simple stuff. This is not rocket science. It's figure out a way to share your screen in real-time and to be able to talk and see your client while also going through what you would do in what we're calling a traditional in-person sales. That's the way we distinguish between them, tradition in-person sales versus virtual in-person sales.
There are different flavors, as a part of the course, basically the course I'm putting together, it will hopefully be done today, knock on wood, it really walks you through just setting up the tech. I think that's the stuff that scares people. We'll get back to the stuff that scares people in a minute. Setting up the tech, it walks you through we're going to set up this tool, we're going to set up this tool and now here's how you go through the sales meeting.
Our course it's called "One Hour to Virtual In-Person Sales." The entire thing will take you less than an hour. We recorded the last video last night and it brought us in at just under an hour.

Scott: That's nice.

Chris: The idea there was if you're interested in something like virtual in-person sales you're most likely pressed for time. You're most likely saying, "I would love to do traditional in-person sales, but I don't have the time. I don't have the energy. I don't have the space", these things. Our thought was let's teach this, but let's teach this in a way that they can get through it really quickly. One of the bonus videos in there is from one of our Swift Galleries users who does a true virtual in-person sale, in that it's not real time. She pre-records some generic videos and basically she just sends them an email that includes link, go in this order, start with this link, and it walks them through one part, and they get a video of her like, "Hey, how are you? So excited for you to see your images. Click on the link below and you'll," this. She's literally, in fact, the first time she told me about it she sent me a text message and was like, "Hey, just so you know, I was out trick or treating with my kids last night and I came home to a $1,200 sale."

Scott: Wow.

Chris: It just happened on its own. She's finding that she's getting great sales, not as good as a traditional in-person sales process, but great sales at far less thing and I think-

Scott: You know, I think-

Chris: ... that's really where the key is. Sorry, go ahead.

Scott: Even that small of an IPS sale, because it's virtual IPS, is still a lot more than what most photographers are making per client because they're not selling-

Chris: Yes, yeah exactly.

Scott: ... because they're giving the digitals.

Chris: Yeah exactly. This idea that I think, and we've talked about this, she was a market researcher in her past life before she was a photographer, literally that's what she did was market research. She's an analyst at heart and she had really poured over her numbers and she's already said she thinks she's making about 70% of what she was making when she was doing traditional in-person sales, but she's spending about 20% of the time that she was spending when she was doing traditional. In the end, she's actually making more profit because she's not having to do as much work.
I think that's where it just comes into what's the trade off worth to you? Is it worth having more time? Now I get texts from her every now and then that's like, "Hey, I was out doing a trampoline..." what was the last one, it was a trampoline, "exercise class with my girlfriends and came home to a $1,500 sale." That's awesome. She was like, "I was literally jumping on a trampoline like a child while this was selling for me." I think it's really compelling. That's not the way that we teach it. We still teach it as a little bit closer to traditional where you're just doing it virtually, you're just doing it over the interwebs, but otherwise, she's kind of taken that.
I think that the reason that it works for her is because she did traditional in-person sales for so long she knows the things that she needs to say. She knows the expectations that need to be set and she knows exactly what order things need to go in. I would encourage you, if you're thinking about doing something like that, because that's compelling. Wait, so I can just pre-record some videos, and send some links, and then I just make money? Okay, yeah, that's pretty freaking compelling, right? I would encourage you though if you're looking and you're thinking, "Hey, I haven't really done this, but that sounds awesome," do some more traditional, whether it's virtual, but in real-time or an actual, traditional in-person sale. Do that for maybe even a full season first so you can really get a feel for the flow of the in-person sales process before you try to start automating things. I think that you'll see much better results if you really are familiar with the whole process before you try to start automating it.

Scott: That's great advice. For the people who are interested in getting started with virtual in-person sales, after step zero, which is take this new course that you're hopefully launching today, then what is step one? After they take your course what's step one in actually pursuing virtual in-person sales?

Chris: I think it depends on where you're coming from. If you're already doing in-person sales, I'll be honest, like I said, the course it walks you through setting stuff up. If you're comfortable with that kind of thing don't take my course, go and just do it, put something out there, and just start working. I actually feel a little bit weird because I've been talking so much about the course. Seriously, don't worry about taking it. If you want to do this stuff, just do it. This is just a way to make it easier for you if you're hesitant.
With all of that said, it's funny, I teach sales, but I'm a terrible sales person apparently. I'm like, "Don't buy it guys." I think what I want you to do ... Again, it depends on where you're coming from. If you're a shoot and burner and you are thinking about switching to in-person sales or to virtual in-person sales then I would encourage you to really research the front end in-person sales process. Everyone talks about the in-person sales meeting as the holy grail. It's like, "I want to do in-person sales so I need to know exactly what to do in my meeting." Of course that's helpful, but that's not really going to get you what you want. The real work is done well before the meeting, it's actually done in everything that happens up to and into the meeting. The meeting is really just the tip of the iceberg.
I actually just told this story yesterday in an interview, but I'll tell it again because I didn't do it here. When we had our son, he's our second kid, he's two and a half now, but when we had him I don't know why I remember this distinctly, but our first meal out with him was at Chipotle. I'm a huge Chipotle fan.

Scott: Same here.

Chris: I'm definitely getting the guac. I don't care that it costs extra, just put the guac on there. We're standing in line and I got my kid, this brand new tiny little ball, I'm holding him and I'm doing this, and the kid in front of me, I'm 37, 38 next month, so basically anybody under 30 is now a kid to me apparently. So the kid in front of me was actually like a high school aged kid, so I can call him a kid, had this t-shirt on from his local high school football team. They always have cheesy little quotes on the back and I'm that guy who will read your shirt or I'll creep up on your bumper to read your bumper sticker. I'm that guy who's behind you creeping right up on you because I'm like, "What does that bumper sticker say?" He's got this quote on the back of his shirt that says, "Championships are won when the stands are empty." I was like, "Oh, that's super cheesy. Wait a minute, that's in-person sales right there. Hold on, this is a teacher moment," and it is. It's this idea that everyone thinks the Superbowl is like, "Oh that's the game. Look, they played so well." No, they practiced their asses off leading up to that game.
It's the same exact thing with in-person sales. Everything thinks when you see these people in these Facebook groups who say things like, "Oh I got a $5,000 sale last night." Everybody's like, "Oh, tell me about your sales meeting? How did you sell that?" You're like, "No, that's not where the selling happened." The selling happened by setting the expectation first on the website before they ever even hired you. You set an expectation that this is what people come to you for. Then they come over to the planning meeting where you really dig in, and you start saying, "Hey tell me about what it is that you want. Tell me about you. Tell me about the spaces. Tell me about all of this stuff." We can dig into this if you want to, but you really set and reinforce these expectations there in the planning meet. Then you move onto the session where you reinforced the stuff that you talked about. The planning meeting you start building excitement for those things that you discussed in the planning meeting, and then that leads into a sales meeting that is not sales anymore. It's really just, "Hey, remember all that stuff you told me that you wanted? Here it is. Now, what else do you want?" That's what they did to get these huge sales. They did the work; they did the work. Sorry, I get on soap boxes about this stuff [crosstalk 00:22:04].

Scott: No this is great. As you know, I'm going to be diving into the whole IPS or VIPS, I'm not sure which yet, very soon. We're going to be chatting about this later this week.

Chris: Yeah, Friday or something, right?

Scott: Thursday I think.

Chris: Awesome.

Scott: I'm glad that you're going so deep into this and you're so passionate about it because it's something that I'm going to need for myself.
You just gave some really good advice, which is actually what was my next question was if you can share some tips about VIPS, and you just did, which is great. My next question to you is in in-person sales typically you would have a bunch of product samples, wherever your lab ... White House Custom Colour, you'd order a bunch of product samples, hopefully of your work, whether it's albums, or canvases, or metal, or whatever it is. You'd have a bunch of samples of what's in your packages that you want people to buy. With virtual IPS is it just pictures of the samples that you put on your website or do you have a different methodology to get people really interested in what the products are going to be?

Chris: I have a little bit different opinion on samples. I am of the mind, in fact, it's kind of a person mantra, it's now kind of a business mantra, it's fun starting to see a pop up with our users saying it in other places, but this idea of make it work, then make it better. Make it work, then make it better. I think that all of us were hesitant to put something out there until it's basically perfect, but it means we just get paralyzed, we don't do anything at all. I really like this idea of just put something out there. It doesn't matter if it's crap. Put it out there and then iterate on that, make it better.
With that said, when it comes to samples, if you are just switching don't worry about it. First one out of the gate, don't worry about it, don't get any samples. What you want to do is start using the income that you're getting from those first sales to start dumping into things like samples, or software, or any of these things. This idea that I have to go out and have to buy all the samples, no, you don't really even know what's going to sell yet. You don't even know what people want yet if you're just now starting. Instead, go in there with the photos from your lab's thing. Take it off your website, so they don't see where it's coming from and then show that, the very first one. Are you going to make as much money as you could if you had physical samples? Absolutely not. Is it better than nothing? Absolutely. Is it going to help you lead to being able to buy those samples? Yeah.
When you start buying samples though, and this is where my opinion really differs from a lot in the IPS community, but it's also because of what it is that we do here, I think when you get your small prints, you get a couple of albums, but then when it comes to things that are going to go on the wall get the smallest thing you can. Everybody's going to tell you go get the largest thing, get a 20 by 30, get a 30 by 40 because they're only going to buy what you show them, right?

Scott: Hard to transport though.

Chris: Yes, it's hard to transport. This is kind of where we get into Swift Galleries. What Swift Galleries does, this wall designer, is it allows you to show your clients what their images are going to look like on their walls at the right size. So you're showing them in the context of their own. If I'm holding a 20 by 30, I don't have one. Oh here's a ... If I'm holding a 20 by 30 in my hand and I'm saying, "This is a 20 by 30," okay, great, now I know what a 20 by 30 looks like when I'm holding it in my hand. Okay, cool. But that still doesn't tell me what that's going to look like in my house.

Scott: Right, right.

Chris: It still doesn't matter. I think this idea of you have to show it to sell it is a little bit dated now. The technology exists where now the new standard is you have to show it in context to sell it. It's test driving a car. They put you behind a car not so that you can listen for knocks, and pings, and feel the braking is and all of that. A car dealer puts behind the wheel of a car because they want you to start feeling ownership over that car. They don't care how it breaks. They care about you imagining pulling that bad boy up into your driveway and your neighbors coming out and being like, "Sweet new minivan Chris." That's what they care about. They care about you starting to feel like the owner of that car. The same exact thing happens when you can show someone their images on their own walls at the right size. There's no selling anymore, it's like this is exactly what you're going to get, this is what it's going to look like.

Scott: This is what Preveal was and this is what Swift Gallery does is you're making it easy for the client to visualize it perfectly on their wall.

Chris: Exactly, exactly.

Scott: And-

Chris: So when it comes to ... Sorry, I just want to circle back to this so I can finish the thought ... When it comes to samples, I think get the smallest thing because what you're really using the sample for at that point is to show the quality of your products, not the size. Feel this canvas, feel how thick it is, feel how tight it is, look at how tight the corners are, look at how great the internal frame is. Look, this is better than what you're going to get at Costco, or Walmart, or something like that. You're using those products to show samples and to give them something to hold onto.
As far as virtual in-person sales goes, bring those things to the session. You're going to bring those things to the session. If you're doing this right then you're finding out in the planning meeting what they want. That makes it so that you can make sure you bring the right things to the session.
In the planning meeting, you're talking about... Basically what the planning meeting does is it ask the client, "Tell me about you. Tell me about your space. Where in your home do you want to see our work as wall art? Tell me about that space, what color are the walls, what do you do in that space, what type of furniture do you have in there," all of these types of things, I'm going to ask all these questions so that I could get a real good picture of that wall and I can start making suggestions. "Based on what you told me I think we should be looking at framed and matted prints, or gallery wrapped canvases, and I think that we should go shoot on the west side of Colorado Springs two weeks from today at five o'clock because we're going to have this nice golden light coming in over Pike's Peak. I really think that you guys should be wearing natural or neutral earth tones, nothing that matches, no patterns, no logos, just these neutral earth tones. I think because of that space I think we'll do something a little bit more traditional where it's more of a family photo, everybody's kind of looking at the camera and smiling. We'll worry about more candid stuff maybe for another space in the house."
Because of what they've told me about a space I can now make a bunch of suggestions on things that I need to know anyway, where are we going to shoot, what time are we going to shoot, what are you going to wear, what style are these going to be. I'm customizing that process around where those things are going to go in their home, what products I'm going to provide for them.
This is what I'm talking about when I talk about incredibly personal service. I'm truly building the gallery for your space including what you should wear, what it's going to look like, all of this stuff. When we get then to the session all I do is just refer back to that stuff that we talked about. As I get that shot, when I'm shooting I'm out here, click, click, click, click, click, click, "Oh my gosh." This is actually how I would do it is I'd take a picture and I'd be like, "Oh my gosh guys. I'm awesome. I mean you guys look good too, but holy crap, I am so good at my job. Look at this picture." I show it to them on the back of the camera. I'd say, "This is going to be perfect for that spot we talked about over the couch." That's it. All I have to do in the session is continue to build excitement for the things that we've already talked about.
Now what happens though is between the session and the sales meeting ... I should say, in the planning meeting I also will just show them, I'll start showing them stuff in Swift Galleries on that wall. If I have their room photo, which we highly suggest you get it before the planning meeting, if I have that room photo I will show them some galleries on that wall. I'll say, "I think something like this would really look great." If it's a family of four, two parents, two kids, then what I would do is say, "Let's do one big family photo right in the middle and then a picture of you and your wife on the side, and then the picture of the kids on the other side." That's how I'm starting to break it up into pieces so I can sell multi-image galleries rather than just one print. Or, you could expand on that, let's do one picture of the whole family in the middle, one picture of mom and the kids, one picture of dad and the kids, one picture of just the kids, one picture of mom and dad. Now I have, what is that, five I think. I don't know, I didn't count. It's really [inaudible 00:31:20] to encourage these multi-image gallery sales doing stuff like that.
Anyway, so I would show that to them on the wall, obviously without photos in the planning meeting, show that to them on the wall. I would say, "I think something like this would look great for this spot. What do you think?" I'm painting this picture for them. Remember, I've already said, "Okay, I think this is going to be over on the west side of Colorado Springs right there next to Pike's Peak and the colors..." I'm showing it and I'm showing them at gallery, "We'll put a family picture in the middle with everybody smiling looking at the camera and then the sides..." Now when I get to the session I'm like, "This ones going to be perfect for this about what we talked about over the couch."
Now between the session and sales meeting, every time that client walks past that couch they're going to see the image that I loved on their wall, at the right size, in the product I want them to buy, they're going to sell that product to themselves. That's where we get back to the analogy of the car dealer. They are owning that product in their mind already. They have ownership over that. They already want it. They already see it on their own wall. That's why when you get to the sales meeting it doesn't really matter because you've done all the work leading up to that and it never felt like selling, it felt like serving because all you did was say, "Tell me about you. Okay, now that I know you, here's what I do that I think fits perfectly for you." That's what this is. That's what service is.
This idea of being a boutique brand, this was like a catch phrase when we were shooting full-time was I'm a boutique studio. I think people just really liked the word. But this is what the high-end client wants. They want somebody who will step in and say, "I'm the pro and here's what you should get." Yeah definitely, let's bat it around and let's figure out what's going to be best.
When I go to get my haircut, which I'm due for. When I go to get my haircut it drives me crazy when the person cutting my hair says ... because I'll just show them a picture on my phone, I'll show them a selfie, "Look." I actually had a lady once say, "Wow, you were a lot skinnier then." I was like, "Yeah, that was like 60 pounds ago. Why are you bringing that up lady? I don't like you already." I was like, "Whatever."
Anyway, so I'll show them a little selfie on my phone and be like, "I want it to look like that." Then they'll say, "Okay, well that looks like a number four on the side and a number five on the..." I'm like, "I don't know. I want it to look like that. You're the pro, just tell me. Just do your job." That's what we do a lot of times, especially if you sell online or you shoot and burn. You give them files, and you say, "Here." They're like, "What am I supposed to do with that." That's why-

Scott: Right, right, [crosstalk 00:34:15].

Chris: ... Yeah. That's why your photos always end up on Facebook and that's enough for them. If you can show them that there are other options and you can start to make suggestions and say, "Hey look, this is what I do. This is what I think about all day, every day. This is what keeps me awake at night and this is what I think that you should get." That goes a long way in properly serving your client. If you're setting those expectations up front you'll start to attract that type of person in the first place. What I mean by that is showing those products everywhere they touch your brand.

Scott: It's funny, earlier you said, "I'm not good at sales," you're not a salesy person. Yet, you can tell how well you know in-person sales and how passionate about it ... because you just did that whole reenactment of you with the family like you do it every day. It's great to see you-

Chris: It's second nature at this point man.

Scott: The last question I have before we move on to the next part of the show is do you have one piece of advice for the introverts who are discouraged from IPS?

Chris: Yeah. I think it's a really good question. I'm trying to decide which one is the best answer. Let me go with a nice, generic kind of cop out answer. You will not feel comfortable with in-person sales until you, yourself, truly believe that it's better for your client. As an introvert I think that's going to be even more apparent to you because you're going to feel really shy, you're going to feel really standoffish about selling. When you truly see this as a service-based process everything will click for you. Everything will change for you. As much as I can sit here and tell you that IPS is serving your client better, and it is, it's not really going to mean anything to you until you believe it yourself, if that makes sense.

Scott: Yep.

Chris: I think that's probably the most important thing is truly look at how your currently serving your client and question everything. When you look and you say, "Well I'm serving my client by sharing those images because they don't have time for this," I would challenge you to question that assumption and to say, do they not have time for this or has every photographer before you told them that they don't need for this. Is it time for you to step up and say, "Hey, you know what? This will actually take you less time." Oh my gosh, you're getting me on so many soap boxes. This gets around to this idea of what is our job, what is our job, what is our end product? Is my end product here's some files? Is that what we do as photographers or am I a fileographer at that point?

Scott: Right, right.

Chris: Is my job to get them actual photos? If so, then I would say that 90% of your clients you haven't finished your job even still. This idea of I don't have time for in-person sales, your clients don't have time for in-person sales, if your end product is supposed to be actual photos then you still haven't finished the job. That clock is still ticking for those clients. If though your job is to provide them with physical prints then in-person sales is a much faster way to do that. They show up for a planning meeting, they take about 45 minutes, they show up for the session, which however long, they show up for a sales meeting, which is about an hour. Then everything is done, it's done. They don't have to do anything else so they invest maybe three hours worth of their time into actually getting the things that they want. Again, if you set these expectations up front then you'll actually attract the people who want that in the first place.

Scott: Awesome.

Chris: that was a long answer for-

Scott: No, it's all good that's was [crosstalk 00:38:27] great.
Let's move on to recommended WordPress plug-in, or theme, and/or both, whatever you want to talk about. What do you recommend for photographers to take a look like for their WordPress websites?

Chris: I'm a big fan of things that just make life easier and-

Scott: Me too.

Chris: Right? Exactly. AdEspresso has a great plug-in for Facebook tracking it's called Pixel Caffeine. It allows you to do a ton of stuff right there in the app as far as setting up custom audiences, and setting goals, and all of that stuff. That would definitely be the plug-in that I would recommend. I love that plug-in.

Scott: Um-

Chris: When I ... Sorry.

Scott: I was just going to say for those interested in checking that out, I did write about this plug-in previously on the Imagely blog, so I'll link to that article-

Chris: Nice.

Scott: ... directly in the show notes.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, excellent. So that's definitely the plug-in. I love that plug-in. The first time I saw it sent a text to four of my geek friends and I was like, "Have you guys seen this?" They're like, "Wow, that's really cool, but you just out-geeked us." [inaudible 00:39:34] I'm like, "Yeah I am."
Then as far as themes go, I am a sucker for really nice topography. I'm just a sucker for really beautiful type, so I really like the Readme theme by Pixelwars. It's one that we've used in the past on some projects and I just really like the topography on it. I think it's just a really nice, clean theme.

Scott: Great.

Chris: So that would be the theme.

Scott: Nice. I will link to both of those in the show notes if you want to check that out.
Now is your opportunity Chris to ask the listeners a question that you would like them to answer. Go for it.

Chris: I think the question that I have that I would love a ton of answers to is what is the main thing holding you back from trying in-person sales? What is it? What's the fear? Get to the heart of it, not like, "I don't want to feel salesy." Dig in, dig deep and let me know what is that actual thought that keeps you awake at night when you think about I'm going to do in-person sales. Then you get that pit in your stomach. I want to know what that is, that guttural, emotional response is. Are you afraid that your clients won't like the images? Are you afraid of that moment where they see the photos? They're like, "Oh I hate these." It's like is that what's holding you back or are you afraid that they're going to turn on you and be like, "Wow, you're super salesy, what's wrong with you?" That's what I want to know. That's what I want to know. What's holding you back?

Scott: That's a great question. That is a great question. I'm going to give you my answer after we stop recording.

Chris: Right? Awesome. Lame, lame.

Scott: Hey, we're going to be talking about this on Thursday anyway, so-

Chris: Right? Yeah, right.

Scott: ... it's all good.
Thank you Chris so much for joining the show today. You're so insightful on this topic and obviously so passionate about it, so it's fantastic to have you on the show to talk about this specifically. So thank you for joining today.

Chris: Yeah, thank you. I had a lot of fun. I'm so surprised, my dog has just been asleep the entire time.

Scott: That's pretty impressive.

Chris: Normally it runs out as soon as I start talking, he's like, "Uh."

Scott: I have to close my office door otherwise the cats run down and start meowing like crazy.

Chris: Right? Awesome.

Scott: You could find the show notes from today's episode, where to find Chris, and answer his question at imagely.com/podcast/56.
Until next time.

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