What Voice Actors Can Learn from Photographers: Freelancer Series

Our guest today is an amazingly successful children's photographer in the Tampa, Florida area. She is the author of a book called Don't Blink: Capturing Your Child's Story Through Portraits.

And she also hosts a very successful podcast. She's one of the hosts of the Fully Booked Photographer. And she helps photographers market their businesses much in the same way that I help voice actors market our business.

So we thought there might be some synergy there and maybe even something to learn for voice actors. Please welcome to the VOPro Podcast, Jeanine McLeod. Jeanine, thanks so much for making time for us today.

Jeanine McLeod (00:47.51)

Thanks for having me, Paul. I'm excited. I think this is going to be a good conversation.

Paul (00:49.543)

Oh, I am too. I, we know each other through a mutual friend, Tim Hanavan, and we actually, you and I met about 10 years ago for maybe 10 minutes, right? Yes. And so it's kind of cool to be able to talk to you today. Tell me about your, first about your photography practice, and then I wanna learn a little bit about what you do in teaching.

Jeanine McLeod (01:01.71)

I think it was like 10 minutes in passing at a restaurant.

Paul (01:18.259)

in teaching photographers to market their businesses because obviously I have an interest in that and I think there's a lot that voice actors can learn from other freelancers, from, in this case, specifically photographers. So let's start, what do you do in Tampa, you're a children's photographer, correct?

Jeanine McLeod (01:36.63)

Yes, so I run a studio here. We focus on children's photography, our main bread and butter business. I don't know if you guys use that term, but like the main everyday that we photograph is children's first birthdays. So we celebrate a baby's first birthday with a smash cake session and whatever theme that Mon has dreamed up is the perfect way to capture her baby's first birthday. And then we follow them along.

And that's truly what we believe in, that childhood is a journey and every stage is worth celebrating. And so we have specific milestones that we celebrate based upon what the parents want to do. But then we also create themes around what we know specific groups of children love. For example, we know that

Children between the ages of five and 10 love Harry Potter and have fallen in love with the wizarding world. And you know, you have the epic trip to Universal Studios and you read the books and you watch the movies and every kid wants to be a wizard and believe they can do magic. And so we create very elaborate themes in the studio so that children can pretend to be what it is that they want to be. And wizards being one, mermaids is another, princesses. So we do a lot of these themed.

portrait sessions as well so that kids can come use their imagination and transform into whatever character it is that they want to be for the day.

Paul (02:57.559)

You know, I never thought about it before, but hearing you talk about, you know, creating these themes, the whole goal seems to me to be, to get the child to just be themselves. Right. And it strikes me that that's much the same job as a director in the booth in what we do, right? All the directors trying to do is get us to relax, to be ourselves, to have authentic conversations. And I've never really thought about that corollary until you just described what you do. That's very cool.

Jeanine McLeod (03:09.463)

Yes.

Paul (03:27.623)

So you're a wonderful, successful children's photographer. Obviously you're really good at marketing your business. How did you make the flip from just marketing your own business to helping other photographers market their businesses?

Jeanine McLeod (03:43.266)

2020. I'm gonna guess you when you talk to a lot of people, their businesses took an interesting shift during 2020 when we were all shut down.

And I mean, we were blessed in Florida. We weren't shut down as long as the rest of the world was. However, my counterparts and photographer friends from around the world were, they were shut down for a really long time. And so one of the vendors in my industry decided he wanted to come up with them, well, photographers are sitting at home doing nothing. He wanted to come up with an online education.

product for photographers. So while they're at home, they can learn how to better market their business for when things reopened. And they're based in Ireland. And so he picked different people. There's five of us from around the world to act as different mentors. And I'm the US, I'm the US contingent. So that's how it all formed. We all came together in 2020, the summer of 2020, to put together this marketing training. And it was supposed to be temporary. It was supposed to be until COVID kind of-

it was over and everyone going back to work and we just found there to be such a need for photographers to focus on their business and not just their art that we ended up it's now it's running like gangbusters and so we continue and it grew from just a weekly webinar to online education to we do the podcast and so there's just such a need for photographers and I'm sure you've seen this too right you know you perfect your art.

But then how do you get it out there and how do you get people to recognize that they need to hire you? And so, yeah, we did. It started in 2020 and here we are four years later and it just keeps growing.

Paul (05:25.003)

The, I think what you said really resonates with me, the need to concentrate not just on the art, but on the business. And, you know, in probably photography is similar. In our business, we get people in this business from every conceivable walk of life, right? We've got older folks, we've got younger folks, we've got people that used to have a corporate job, we've got everybody, and not everybody has a business background, right?

Jeanine McLeod (05:53.485)

Right.

Paul (05:54.355)

So talk a little bit about, you know, sort of the mindset that photographers have when they get into the field and that awakening that, oh my God, I just can't rely on being a good photographer here.

Jeanine McLeod (06:06.87)

Yeah, no, you're right. And that, so people get into photography because they love taking pictures, essentially. I mean, that's how it starts for everyone. You know, whether you're young and you've always had a camera in your hand, or you had a corporate job and it was your hobby, you know, that's how it started for me. I was an engineer and I bought a really nice camera because the job I had sent me over to Asia all the time and I wanted to be able to take good pictures while I was there. So, you know, a lot of photographers get into it that way. They get a camera.

Paul (06:31.831)

Nice.

Jeanine McLeod (06:37.158)

It's their creative outlet for whatever stressful job that they have. Or they came into it from... It's either one or two ways. People either you will find had a corporate technical job and they got into photography as a hobby, or they always had some sort of art background and got into photography that way. But either way, it's because they love taking photographs. And in the portrait world, it's that combination of the love of photography and the love of people.

If you don't love people, then you're going to take pictures of buildings and landscapes and things like that. But if you love to interact with people, then it's portrait photography. And especially now, there is a whole wave of, in the past 10 years, of moms who got into photography because they were taking photographs with their children. And everybody reckoned, like, oh my gosh, you take a great picture. Will you take pictures of my kids? And then when you take pictures of my kids, and that kind of grows from there into the fact that they realize they need to start charging for what they're doing because it's become a job.

But very few photographers come into the photography world with a business background. It's not like you're gonna go to school for an MBA and then realize you're gonna open a photography studio. It's just not usually the career path that most people take. So it's people come into it for the love of the art and then realize, oh, I need to sell these pictures. And how do I do that?

Paul (07:54.403)

So in your case, you mentioned you were an engineer. How did you learn to market your business?

Jeanine McLeod (08:00.682)

So when I, so because I was such a big education person to begin with, obviously suffering through all those years of engineering school, when I decided I wanted to really learn photography more than just taking pictures on my travels, I'd started taking classes to perfect the art first, right? Cause I figured I need to learn how to do this better. And then once I realized I wanted to do it as my profession and leave the confines of my cubicle at my job,

I realized I knew right away I need to learn how to sell this. My business pretty straight early on was on, I couldn't leave my corporate job if I couldn't make money. That wasn't an option. So I had to learn how to make money fast in what I did. So I scoured and back then this was 2001. It was like right before 9-11. I quit my corporate job right before 9-11. That was fun. So, but I started taking everything I could find going to, and back then it was all in

thing is an online course. So I had to find in-person courses that I could take with people who taught the business of photography. And our professional organization, PPA, Professional Photographers of America, had business courses back then. And so I took every one I could find, every single one. Luckily, I was in Atlanta, they were based in Atlanta, so it was pretty easy. But now...

If I was getting into it now, I would find all the online courses I could. That's just the way my brain works. I knew I didn't have the option of slowly easing into it. I had to figure out how to make it a business pretty fast. And I ended up falling in love with the idea of the business as much as the idea of the photography.

Paul (09:37.731)

So I think the major difference between voice actors and photographers as freelancers is that, my impression is, and correct me if I'm wrong, a photographer is largely anchored to their geography, right? They have to work live because they have to be there to take the picture. Voice actors, we can, if we have good internet, we can work with anybody in the world, right? Whether that's through a live session, whether that's through a self-record.

Jeanine McLeod (10:00.567)

Hmm.

Paul (10:05.343)

We record the files in our own booth and we send it to them. Uh, but we have a worldwide audience, photographers, not so much. So I think there's probably a lot that voice actors could learn from photographers about marketing locally. First of all, am I right in that assumption? And then second of all, how does local marketing typically work for photographers?

Jeanine McLeod (10:26.922)

Yeah, no, you're right in your assumption. For the most part, photographers are local. When you have some that travel, like wedding photographers will travel to destination weddings, but they're still getting usually the business locally. Or you'll have some people that are in high destinations. Like I have a friend who's a photographer in Hilton Head. And so she has to market to people who are traveling to Hilton Head, right? Cause there's not a huge local market, but you still have your, I mean, there's still people in your town that are having children or having families and need their portraits.

But I would say 90% of photography and that's a totally made up statistic, but you get what I'm saying Local and you're photographing people that are in your town or right in front of you where you are and so to Market locally that you know, it's interesting. There's been a huge shift. It used to be very traditional marketing

Paul (11:02.563)

Sure.

Jeanine McLeod (11:17.402)

networking groups, going to different groups, like identifying always your ideal client, right? So I had to identify, like, who did I want to photograph? And for me, it was children. And so I needed to find moms, because moms are the decision makers in the, for the most part of who's going to photograph their child. And so I originally would try and find moms groups, but then I quickly found out I needed working moms, not stay at home moms for what I was doing. And so then it became,

what other businesses networked with working moms. And so it became a real interesting journey of local networking with other businesses that service the same clients, right?

That was step one. And I really got ingrained in the community that way. Networking groups, chamber of commerce, joining the Rotary. I did a lot of service organizations and I still have a heart for service, again, because I love people. But those types of local groups, it's very boots to the ground type of networking. Now, since 2020, I will say Facebook advertising has become huge.

placed what I do locally. Oh, and expos and things like that, right? Like we would attend expos, like baby expos and home expos and things like that and have a booth. But now with Facebook advertising, I mean, we get the majority. I would say we do, I just actually finished these statistics for last year, but we do a lot of repeat business obviously because we're following children throughout the years. So we get them in at one year.

Paul (12:34.345)

Okay.

Jeanine McLeod (12:50.898)

or Christmas or something that people need, and then they stay with us. So about 70% of our business is repeat. But the other 30 we have to get every year. We have a very high, I'm very blessed in that regard, the way we structured our business, a lot of it's repeat. But new business of that 30%, 85, 86% is from Facebook. It's huge. That's all since 2020.

Paul (12:58.2)

Wow.

Paul (13:15.975)

Interesting. And that's, that's all since 2020.

Jeanine McLeod (13:20.57)

I didn't do a Facebook ad before then. I started doing Facebook ads early 2021, and it's just completely revolutionized how we get business in the door. And that's in that other group I'm in, that's really what we train on how to do online marketing through email lists, through Facebook, through Google, to really talk, the great thing about the internet is you can talk to your ideal client right to them. You don't have to go find them.

Paul (13:47.527)

That seems to be the other sort of major difference between photographers or at least some photographers and voice actors is that, for example, in your practice, you are B to C, business to consumer, right? A lot of photographers, maybe commercial, real estate photographers, you name it, there are other sorts of genres for photography where it's B to B.

Jeanine McLeod (14:00.27)

Correct.

Paul (14:11.959)

Do you teach both sides of that or simply B2C or how do you work on that side of the business?

Jeanine McLeod (14:17.974)

So the majority of what we teach is business to consumer.

But business to business would sort of work in the same way because you can, and this is the great thing, right? Especially for if you, if your ideal client is a Gen X or, or a boomer, they're all on Facebook, regardless of people, if they say they're on Facebook or not. So if a business owner runs a business and they're in that generation, they're on Facebook. So you can talk to that business owner in an ad, right? So you, as a, if you owned a real estate, if you're a real estate broker and you saw an ad for real estate photography or a real estate agent,

and you saw an ad to make your, how can you sell your houses better? I don't know, I'm just using this as example because of our common friend. But that is the easiest business to business I could think of. That person would see that and be like, I need that. I need better photography in my life. Oh my gosh, I could sell more houses if I had better photography. So business owners are also online.

Paul (14:58.574)

Right.

Jeanine McLeod (15:13.65)

And so we've run ads for daycares before because we do a lot of daycare photography. And so daycare owners and daycare directors are online. They're on Facebook every day just like everybody else. So you can run ads to businesses as well because the business owners are people.

Paul (15:29.607)

And Facebook allows you to target that granularly, right?

Jeanine McLeod (15:33.09)

They do, but that's interesting. And obviously, like you said, that's the big difference, is you guys can target worldwide. We target local. Facebook likes big audiences.

And so, you know, locally, we actually have a challenge because we don't, we actually teach not to do, uh, the finer targeting in Facebook because it makes an audience too small locally. So all we do locally is radius, gender, and age. And we don't any of the other detailed targeting within Facebook because it makes it too small of an audience. And their algorithms just work better when you have over half a million people, like 250 and over. Um,

Paul (16:07.709)

Interesting.

Jeanine McLeod (16:13.034)

and then less than a certain amount unless you have a bigger budget, which photographers don't usually have a big budget. It's usually like 30 to $50 a day that we're running.

Paul (16:20.703)

So that was my next question is, what is the average photographer spending on Facebook ads? It's 30 to 50 a day.

Jeanine McLeod (16:29.506)

30, 50 a day. I mean the goal is still like every other marketing right anywhere between 5 to 10 percent of Your gross is what you should target for your marketing and again like for me as a more established business You don't have to spend as much

But if you're breaking into something and you don't have as many repeat clients and more of your business has to come from new Then they're gonna spend a little bit more the great thing about Facebook is once you figured out an ad Same thing for Google too, right once you figured out How to speak to your ideal client and you're getting the leads in well, you just feed more money to it You know what I mean? And I mean, that's the thing. That's that's a hard

Hard concept to get to photographers is your cost per booking. So same thing for you, right? The cost to acquire a client. If your average sale is X amount of, like, all right, let's just do easy math. If your average sale is $1,000 for a client, what would you be willing to spend to get that?

Profit margins in photography is very high, right? So if you're willing, if you're gonna do $1,000, are you not willing to spend 50 to get that client? 100 to get that client? What are you willing to spend? And when you break it down that way, it makes it a little bit more easier to feed the Facebook engine or feed the Google engine with that money for advertising.

Paul (17:46.899)

And that's where I feel like there's another similarity, right? Because yes, upfront, there's an investment in gear and lighting and all the technical stuff that we need to, to develop the art, right? On our side, it's microphones and interfaces and a recording space and all of that stuff. Once that's out of the way though, your month to month overhead is really quite low.

Jeanine McLeod (18:08.618)

Right, yeah. No, it is the same thing. And it's interesting because when you think about that, your cost to acquire, it is one thing that I think every other business truly understands. Like if you watch Shark Tank, they talk about all the time, what's your cost to acquire a client. When you enter into the realm of art, like I don't think photographers think about that. And maybe voice actors don't either. You don't think about your cost of acquisition. And if you think about that more.

Paul (18:10.775)

Yeah.

Jeanine McLeod (18:35.794)

and you understand your numbers more than you're willing to put the money towards advertising. And I'll tell you the other thing that's interesting to me too, Paul, is that...

What I like about online marketing as opposed to before is you can track it. It's trackable. Like before, if we would take out an ad in a newspaper and add in a magazine, I don't know. Like, how was I going to know if someone came from that? Uh, and so, and you had, you were beholden to what someone else was doing. And that was always my problem with the expos too, right? Like going to a, an expo, they'd happen like once a year or twice a year. And so you get all your leads and then you're beholden to whether they marketed that event well and got your ideal client to show up for your event.

for that event on how many leads you got. With Facebook, you know right away. I mean, I turn an ad on, I know within 48 hours if it's producing leads, right? So it's very trackable.

Paul (19:23.683)

Fair enough, right. How did you learn how to do Facebook ads?

Jeanine McLeod (19:30.25)

from the group that I'm in. One of the other mentors, he was an affiliate marketer for Facebook. So he's not even a photographer. He ran his business running ads for other businesses. And so he learned all the ins and outs and all of the...

Paul (19:36.969)

Interesting.

Jeanine McLeod (19:46.838)

the fun algorithms that Facebook runs and his aunt does Google ads and she did the same thing for Google ads. And so I learned from them, you know, and it's constantly changing. You know, the online advertising world, the algorithms change, what works changes, they change. It's constantly changing, which is fun and frustrating, but keeps you on your toes.

Paul (20:09.099)

Well, you mentioned the online ads. I'm wondering, because a lot of voice actors pay a lot of attention to search engine optimization, SEO, how much of a role does that play for you and for your sense about photographers in general?

Jeanine McLeod (20:17.902)

Mm-hmm.

Jeanine McLeod (20:24.194)

So SEO is huge for photographers as well. There is, I don't know if you've ever read Daniel Priestley's books, but he...

talks about some interesting concepts in marketing and that's you have people who are aware that they need you and then you have people that are unaware that they need you and you need both. You need to get the people who are aware they need your service and that's what a Google ad is for because people go into Google to search, I need a voice actor, I need a photographer in my area and so you need to show up there because if someone's looking for your service, that's obvious. They're already kind of sold. They just need to know, like and trust you in order to book with you.

Paul (20:57.399)

Yeah, those are the bottom of the funnel people, right?

Jeanine McLeod (20:59.386)

Yeah, exactly. But there's also people out there who don't know they need you. And how do you mark it to them?

And those are the people who are unaware. And that's where like ads come into play. And I'm sure you've had it happen to you before, where like you've seen an ad for something you didn't even want it. And then you keep seeing that and it kind of sells you on the idea that you want it. And I know that's a business to consumer type concept, but it really works in the business to business world as well because again, you can structure it to target. And in a worldwide situation, you can use that targeting in Facebook. You would have to figure out what that is

your specific business. But God, if you were someone who needed a voice actor, if you were an author and you were looking for someone to read your book or something like that, and these ads start popping up on Facebook, you didn't even know you needed it. You just thought you might read your own book or whatever, I have no idea, I don't know your business. What?

Paul (21:53.227)

Yeah, that's actually a very plausible scenario.

Jeanine McLeod (21:55.226)

you know, and it'd be like, oh wait, I could have a professional read my book. That's gonna be so much better than me reading my own book. You know, I hate my voice. Most people hate their own voices, except for you guys. You have an amazing voice, by the way, Paul. Yeah. So yeah, I think most people hate the sound of their own voice. So that would be a funny ad, right? Hate the sound of your own voice? Need to record your book? I heard professional do it for you. Yeah.

Paul (22:06.051)

Well, thanks. I appreciate that. But that's true for everybody in our business.

Paul (22:17.347)

Thank you. I'm writing that creative down right now. We talked before a little bit off Mike. One of the things that, and I understand it. I probably suffered from it a bit in the beginning myself. This mindset for voice actors that equates not booking with, Oh, I must suck at my art. Right. That's in my experience, that's not always the case. In many cases it's.

you don't know how to market your business. Is that true for photographers as well?

Jeanine McLeod (22:50.45)

Yes, oh my gosh, Paul, now you're speaking my spirit language here. So yes, it is the same thing. And so many photographers focus heavily on their art. And like you, I'm not saying it's not important, right? You have to perfect your craft and you have to have a product to sell. And clearly, if we didn't have amazing smash cake photography and knew how to work with children and came up with these unique themes, no one's going to come to us anyways. However, the difference between, you know,

Paul (23:03.639)

You have to have a product to market.

Jeanine McLeod (23:19.41)

here and there in the mind of a photographer is different than in the mind of the client. And so what makes a client book is that they feel that they're heard by you and that you're part of their tribe. And so when they see what you do and you speak to them directly and they're like, oh my gosh, Cloud9 Studios, that's me. That's who I want to have.

photograph my child. Does our artwork have to be perfect for them? No, it just has to capture their child in a way that speaks to them and lets their child be natural, you know, have those natural expressions. And if it's not artistically perfect, the mom doesn't care. And so when photographers naturally, their first instinct is if they're not getting business, I just need to work on my art.

They go and take more photography classes. They buy new lights. They might buy a different camera. They buy different backgrounds. And they attend more and more workshops and seminars on perfecting their art.

When really, their art is probably fine. They just need to learn how to attract the right client. They need to figure out who their ideal client is. A lot of photographers don't know that. They just think it's everybody. Well, I think everybody needs a photograph, right? And so, but it's not everybody. And you can't speak to everybody. You have to pick out who it is that you resonate with and then learn how to speak to them, learn how to market to them. And then that's how you drive business to your studio. It's not awards. It's not writing a press release saying,

convention. Who cares? Can you photograph my kid? Can you make my two-year-old who doesn't normally sit still sit still long enough so I can have a photograph? Can you make my teenager who grunts all the times smile naturally in a photograph so I know that they're you know not dead inside? You know, you know just all these things that a parent wants photographed of their children. You know that's what people want to know. They don't care what awards you've won.

Paul (25:11.779)

I think in our business, a lot of people, and I suspect this is cultural, and I suspect it's true for photographers as well. I think a lot of us, when we realize that we have to market our business or that we have to perform some sort of sales function, right? Our palms start to get sweaty. We start to feel icky, right? Like, oh, I'm going to, like, there's this herb, tarlik, WKRP sort of vision that we get in our brain, right?

Is that true for photographers? Do they have an aversion to marketing and sales?

Jeanine McLeod (25:46.795)

Yes.

They do. And that's a funny analogy that's making me laugh. My mind is going right back to that TV show. So yes, no photographers do, especially with sales. And I think it's because we connect so closely and so intimately with a client when we photograph them that the idea of having to now charge them and go through that whole process does feel icky and it's very nerve wracking. And you're like, please will you pay my prices? And a lot of photographers are embarrassed and you have this price that you know you

need to charge to run your business. And it's like, will you please pay the thousand dollars? You know, and it's like very, like you're almost apologizing for charging for your work. And again, it comes from that place of we love what we do. And that's why we got into it. Nobody really gets into photography thinking they're gonna make millions of dollars. They get into it because they love the art and they love the people. And so it's a hard...

It's hard to get past that, to get to the charging prices that you need to charge to run your business and to continue. It's hard.

Paul (26:49.315)

So how does one, a freelancer, generically we'll say, make that mindset shift? What, what, if I'm leaving behind the notion that sales is sleazy and manipulative, and I've got to have an agenda, and I'm trying to get something out of somebody, what's the mindset shift that has to replace that?

Jeanine McLeod (27:09.41)

So I think the mindset shift is that you are helping people by selling them what you have. And for me, that was really, I'll tell you a big thing in our industry is digital images versus prints. And so when I...

talk to a mom, I'm very, I speak to it very personally, you need to have printed portraits. Do you need the digitals too? Of course, have them on your phone, have them so you can always have them, but you need this on your wall. Your children need to see that you love them, that you have this pride in who they are. You don't get that by just having it on your phone, you get that by having a portrait on the wall that they walk by every day, right? And so when I realized that what I'm, I'm not selling them.

I'm giving them something that they need for their family that transforms their relationships with their children, with their spouse, and as a family as a whole. And so is it still hard to do pricing? Of course. It doesn't matter. And every time we have to increase our prices because of whatever, I'm like, ugh. But you've got to run your business if you're not going to be here tomorrow if you don't. And then you're serving nobody. You're not serving anybody if you go out of business because you haven't charged the right prices to stay in business. And so...

that mindset shift of people need what you have to offer.

Paul (28:30.755)

So it's really a mindset of service and problem solving.

Jeanine McLeod (28:33.074)

It is a mindset of service. Yeah. And I think.

that we grew up with the idea, like you said, the WKRP guy, and you think car sales, and all these hard-nosed sales people, sales just has a negative connotation in everybody's mind. It really does. And so that's the mindset that you have to get out of. You're not selling. And actually, if you do your job through the whole process, by the time they get into that sale, for us, it's in a sales room, right? Because we're showing them their images after their session, and they have to make their selections. If I've done my job,

Jeanine McLeod (29:07.24)

choosing what they want for where they want to put it. There's no sale actually happening. The sale has happened the entire time throughout that entire journey that they've taken with us, from the lead to booking, to having their session, to coming in to view their images. And so if you look at it as more of a journey, I think it's a lot better than just, all right, let's sit down and hammer out a contract. You know? That's, and so yeah, that's where the mindset shift happened for me, is it's a service.

to offer and if I didn't charge for it then I'm not going to be around for very long. And so honestly that's where if someone ever questions our prices, that's usually what I say. I'm like this is what I need to run, this is what I have to charge in order to run this business. And I do that and I kind of look around and people get that. You know? I mean businesses have costs to do business.

Paul (29:57.867)

We have a an organization in our business called the GVAA, the Global Voice Acting Academy, and they publish a document which I don't know that there's a corollary in other creative freelancing businesses. It's a rate guide, right? It is an objective third party. Here's generally what people charge for different kinds of voiceover.

Is there anything like that even remotely associated with photography?

Jeanine McLeod (30:28.85)

I've not seen it if there is. Not from our professional photography association. I'm not, no. I mean, we have educators who educate in the business, in the industry, who tell you what you should charge and things like that, but nothing that's gone out to the consumer. That, hey, if you're hiring a photographer, this is what you should be looking to pay.

Paul (30:51.743)

And so if we sort of flip that script for a minute, let's say in voice acting, we didn't have any reference and all of us, much like photographers, were just out there in the wild, wild west, just kind of making it all up, right? It sounds largely like that's how does one set rates?

Jeanine McLeod (31:11.284)

Oh, that's a fun question.

Paul (31:14.448)

And I'm gonna beat you to death for asking me that.

Jeanine McLeod (31:16.174)

I know, right? So it's interesting. Well, look, cost of goods in the photography models, lay it all out there, whoever's listening. Because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that a piece of paper would cost a penny, right? It's not the piece of paper or even a frame or a canvas that determines the cost of what we sell something for. Do we have in our mind?

Four times the cost of goods on larger products, yes. You know, if an album costs me $100 to print it, what am I gonna charge for it? But in reality, it's not the cost. It's everything else that goes into it. You know, how much is your time in education worth? Like how much time have you put to learn your craft? How much time do you, and what do you need to make in order to run your business? And everybody's business is different. What is your overhead? What is your cost of expenses?

What is you know, like all these basic business items and then figuring out honestly what you need to charge per hour In order to make a living in order to do it

Paul (32:21.615)

And that was my next question. Are photographers charging by the hour? Are they flat rating sessions? Is there, are there different packages?

Jeanine McLeod (32:30.702)

So that's different for every photographer. And that's something that's very interesting. You'll see photographers who charge a session fee and then charge on the products that the people purchase.

You'll see some people who want to be guaranteed a certain number up front. So they'll do it's like a $3,000 session fee with a $2,500 product credit. But you can't book me unless you give me at least $3,000. Uh, you'll see others who charge no session fee at all. And everything is done based upon what people fall in love with and purchase. Uh, you'll see people who do all the cart. You'll see people who do packages. There is no set rhyme or reason. And really, I honestly think it's whatever educator the photographer went to last. And that's how they faced their pricing. Work for that.

Paul (33:10.414)

Right.

Jeanine McLeod (33:11.04)

photographers don't must work for me which is dangerous because I think a lot of people don't understand what that educator really did to build in that system and their photography and why it works for them and so they just see it was successful for somebody and they try and implement it and then they fail because they didn't implement it the way that educator has done in their business so

Yeah, that's a tough question. It's a tough question in this industry too. How do you charge what you're worth? Because yeah, if you're just doing based off a cost, my goodness, an 8x10 would cost a dollar, right? It costs you a penny to print, but it's not a dollar's worth of delivery.

Paul (33:42.731)

Right.

Paul (33:48.095)

And so to me, there's kind of a dovetailing of that question of how much do I charge? Which is really what you're asking yourself is what is my worth and how do I stand for that? Let's talk a little bit about negotiation in your business. Is there a lot of back and forth or is it my rate is my rate or does it depend on the mindset of the photographer?

Jeanine McLeod (33:57.484)

Yeah.

Jeanine McLeod (34:11.33)

So I think it depends on the mindset of the photographer. For me, my rate is my rate, my products are my products. I don't negotiate at all.

but I'm dealing with business to consumer. If I negotiated, then how is it fair for Paul to pay one price but Mary to pay another because one was a better negotiator on her child's portraits. So we don't negotiate at all. Our prices are priced and this is what you pay. The only thing that I do is I do incentives, right? So if you're a client with me once, you don't have to pay another session fee to come back for your family and things like that. So once a client, always a client. So we take care of our clients that way.

other photographers they do you know especially if they're doing

Jeanine McLeod (34:55.266)

commercial photography, where they might be doing large numbers of headshots, or they're working for commercial product and things like that. They will negotiate, and it becomes a negotiation on a contract for what am I worth for the day, like a day rate. But other commercial photographers have day rates, and this is what you pay. Right, this is my day rate, this is what I need to make in a day, and you pay this, or you don't get me.

Paul (35:18.983)

And that may be based on one day. If a corporation offers you two weeks worth of work, you may negotiate that, right?

Jeanine McLeod (35:25.034)

Right. Correct, yep. Cause now it's, you know, if I charge $2,000 a day but you want me for 14 days straight, well then, you know, I'll give you this price for that, you know, cause it's guaranteed work for 14 days. So I see more of the negotiating in the commercial world than in the individual portrait world. Portrait photographers that negotiate typically lose.

Paul (35:45.681)

I think this.

That rings true, I think, for us too, because largely everything we do is, you know, business to business. So that makes sense. We talked about Facebook ads, we talked a little bit about Google ads, we talked about SEO. What else do photographers typically do to market their businesses in their markets?

Jeanine McLeod (36:06.994)

We do a lot of affiliate marketing. So meaning, let's say.

I'll pick my children's dentist is one that I do. And so in that, obviously people with children are at a children's dentist often. And so we have photographed her clients. So people, once they get their braces off or families that they wanted to recognize as VIP families. And so we have portraits on their wall. So when people go into that children's dentist, they see our photography and there's little cards that they can take.

Paul (36:22.432)

Right?

Jeanine McLeod (36:43.256)

to their VIP families to come to the studio. So Paul, thank you so much for being a lifetime member of our dentist. You've had four children come through here. Thank you so much. We wanna gift you this portrait session at Cloud9 Studios for your family. And so we do those types of partnerships.

Paul (36:58.247)

Oh, wow. And so the dentist in that case would pay, I would assume, a reduced rate because they're an affiliate. And they're able to then gift that to the patient. It's a brilliant way to do it.

Jeanine McLeod (37:06.414)

Correct.

Jeanine McLeod (37:11.566)

Correct. And that's another, it's a great way to bring in new business to the studio because, you know, with, and I'm sure it's with you guys too, that whole know, like and trust factor. And so if it's someone coming called from Facebook, they don't know, like or trust you. They don't have any idea who you are. And so you have to really warm them up through a sequence of phone calls and emails and things like that to get them into your world.

But if they're coming from a trusted business already, that, you know, that, like, if they've been to that dentist for, you know, 10 years with their children, they're gonna trust that they're not gonna refer them to some Joe Schmo who doesn't know photography. Oh, that dentist referred me, that must be an amazing business. So that trust factor's already built there a little bit.

Paul (37:53.848)

social proof.

Yep, yep, that's social proof. In the Fully Booked Photographer, your podcast, you talk occasionally about earning the conversation. What does that mean?

Jeanine McLeod (38:08.03)

Yes. So, so many times when we advertise, whatever advertising it is, right now, like we talk a lot about Facebook ads, but it could be at an expo. It could be, you know, a third party gifting situation. People just assume I put it out there, people are going to call me. I'm an amazing photographer. They saw my amazing work. People are going to call me. Or they filled out that form. I called them. How come they won't answer? They've ghosted me. Right?

And so it's all of, you haven't earned the conversation. And so we talk about that, excuse me, because it's a mindset thing again, just because you're an amazing photographer, just because you've put that art out there.

doesn't mean you've earned the right to talk to somebody, even if they filled out that form. It's given you permission to call them because they've shown some interest, but people hate talking on the phone. They really do, and especially now. Is it a telemarketer? Is it someone trying to sell me insurance? No one knows why that phone is ringing. I don't answer the phone if I don't recognize the number. Most people are like that, or they'll let it go to voicemail. People are very busy, especially, well, everybody. Everybody's busy between family and children and jobs,

whatever it may be, answering the phone is a inconvenience. It's a disruption in your life. And so if you haven't earned the right to have that conversation, you are gonna get ghosted and no one's gonna answer your phone call and no one's gonna call you. So how do you earn that conversation?

Paul (39:42.215)

And that doesn't happen quickly, does it?

Jeanine McLeod (39:44.286)

It doesn't happen quickly. I mean, it could, you know, if someone really is in desperate need of your business right now. Like, we'll have some people are like, oh my gosh, my baby's birthday is this weekend, and I totally, I just realized I need to book someone for portraits. I need you now, right?

I wish that happened all the time, but it's very rare. You know, it's just not something that normally happens. And so it does take a while. They need to, and I mean, if you look at your own buying habits the same way, it's very rare that especially a big purchase do you make as an impulse.

Paul (40:01.667)

Sure.

Jeanine McLeod (40:17.714)

You have to mull it over. You have to think on it. You have to start visualizing where you're going to put it in your house. And you have to talk yourself into it or imagine yourself driving that car like anything that's a and I, you know, I usually equate it to more than a mortgage payment. You know, like for us, a photography investment typically is a mortgage payment or higher. If you are asking someone to make that investment, they're going to have to think about it and they're going to have to talk themselves into it. And so even if they filled out a form, thinking that they're interested in it,

just calling them, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. So then, what do you text them? How do you email them? What videos are you sending them to nurture that relationship, to earn the right to have a phone conversation with them? Because a phone conversation is an appointment and people are very busy.

Paul (41:04.247)

They are indeed, they are indeed. And I know you are as well, and we could not possibly appreciate your generosity of spending your time with us today. Jeanine McLeod, the book is called Don't Blank. Where can people find that?

Jeanine McLeod (41:17.802)

You can find it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, I believe. It's on both. But yeah, it's so yeah, it's easy. You can purchase the book or you can do the e-book as well. And so yeah, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, you can buy both.

Paul (41:29.071)

So don't blink, Amazon (As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.), Barnes and Noble, the fully booked photographer, I assume wherever people get their podcasts, correct?

Jeanine McLeod (41:37.674)

Yep, wherever they're listening to you, Paul, they can get it as well. So Spotify, iTunes, all those places where you download a podcast.

Paul (41:41.196)

Fantastic.

Paul (41:45.411)

Jeanine McLeod, photographer, author, all around good being. We appreciate your time. Thank you so much, Tanine.

Jeanine McLeod (41:51.374)

Thanks for having me, Paul. It's been a pleasure.