Join us for a genuine conversation with outdoorsy dog photographer, Kristen Murray, as we rethink the typical client experience in our industry. We uncover the downsides of relying too much on guides and links, emphasizing the need for a human touch.
In a tech-driven world, we explore the balance between efficiency and personal connection, sharing cautionary tales of impersonal experiences. We highlight the power of personal conversations in business and the impact of genuine connections.
Whether a seasoned photographer or starting out, tune in for valuable insights into standing out through exceptional client interactions.
Kristen Murray - Website | Instagram | Facebook
Join Your Magic Year here.
Use the code PODCAST to receive special pricing when you enroll.
Connect with Karinda!
Thanks for listening!
Join us for a genuine conversation with outdoorsy dog photographer, Kristen Murray, as we rethink the typical client experience in our industry. We uncover the downsides of relying too much on guides and links, emphasizing the need for a human touch.
In a tech-driven world, we explore the balance between efficiency and personal connection, sharing cautionary tales of impersonal experiences. We highlight the power of personal conversations in business and the impact of genuine connections.
Whether a seasoned photographer or starting out, tune in for valuable insights into standing out through exceptional client interactions.
Kristen Murray - Website | Instagram | Facebook
Join Your Magic Year here.
Use the code PODCAST to receive special pricing when you enroll.
Connect with Karinda!
Thanks for listening!
Welcome to Mindset and Money Mastery for Photographers the podcast. We help overwhelmed photographers make more money while simplifying their business by mastering their you guessed it mindset and money. Tune in each week for practical and actionable tips to take your photography business up a notch. Let's dive right in.
Speaker 2:Today I am so excited to have Kristin Murray join me on the podcast. Kristin is one of my coaching clients. She did one-on-one coaching with me and I absolutely adore her. I'm sure many of you have heard her name before or seen her floating around out there. Kristin is actually going to talk with us today about something that's really near and dear to my heart, which is the client experience and why so many photographers get the client experience wrong. They're really focused on the wrong parts of the client experience. Today, we're going to talk about how the client experience is really just about having real conversations with real people and showing your clients that you're a person and that you see them as a person and not just somebody who you're going to take their money. To start out, Kristin, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself?
Speaker 3:Hi, thank you so much for having me. I am an outdoorsy dog photographer based out of Richmond, but I travel around and really focus on capturing dogs in their natural environment, their element, and just having a great adventure with photography.
Speaker 2:I love that. Why don't you start out and tell everybody what our first interaction was like?
Speaker 2:Because, when we started working together. I'll give a bit of a back start. When we started working together, kristin was at a place. She was doing great in her business. She's like I'm doing fine, but I just need to figure out how to make more money from the clients I have. When I work with my coaching clients, we really break down everything. No matter where you're at in your business, it's important to break it down to the fundamentals, the little tiny things, and just look for those little holes. When we started working together, I remember Kristin was really excited because she had all of these amazing prep guides and all of these amazing email sequences. I had them all, all of the things. They were beautiful. They were so well-crafted. I'm sure you put tons of hours into these things.
Speaker 3:Yes, a lot, which is why I was so frustrated with you when you were like, get rid of them.
Speaker 2:I think the very first coaching call we had together, or one of the first ones, she's like look at this guide I have. I was like it's too much, get rid of it. Man, I was devastated. Yes, I think Kristin was a little bit mad at me. I think she actually just didn't talk to me for a while after that because she was like this girl's crazy. I just hired her as my business coach and she's telling me to burn down all of the stuff I worked so hard on. It took a while of us having this conversation of okay, keep it around, but let's simplify it and let's keep it there for supplemental stuff when needed. It's not the end all be all to business and communicating with your clients. Why don't you share what that was like from your perspective when we went through that initially together?
Speaker 3:Yes, like you said, I was doing good. I felt like I was at a good place in my business. I really just wanted to elevate my client experience in the sales session and things like that. When we first started working together and you were like, no, you don't need these, I was really upset because I had spent so much time putting in all the effort and doing this. But then I figured A well, there's a reason why you're telling me this. And then B, I have all these things and my clients still aren't really reading them, or if they are reading it, they have questions about it. What is the way that I can transition from the prep guide that they're not reading and adding all of that into the prep emails or the initial session planning consult, and how can I make that better to where they can still have the guide? But I've answered all of the important information on that call. Instead, it was really just shifting away of how I present the information, not so much getting rid of all of the information.
Speaker 2:I think this is important to point out here. By giving our clients solely a prep guide or a link to our website or whatever it may be, and saying, hey, here's the information. If you need it, make sure you read it. But we're also actually expecting our clients to do more work and they're paying us a lot of money. It is our responsibility to just do the work for them and to take care of it. And to just explain the thing. I don't know about you, but in today's day and age I feel like we are constantly in bombardment, like, oh, you have this question. Okay, we'll go to our tech support on our website and search through a million articles and then see if you can find the answer. And you spend so much time and you get so frustrated when you think like if I could have just called someone at this company, they could have answered my question in five seconds.
Speaker 3:Yep, it would have been so much easier. It would have made me feel so much better about the company, about my interaction with it, about the entire thing. But instead I'm already frustrated because I can't find the information easy and I have to go search for it. Yeah, that's what we're doing with these prep guides. If you rely solely on them?
Speaker 2:Yes, 100%. So I'll share my backstory on this too, because I was in that place once upon a time and this was when I did weddings and newborns. I was heavily in the space of someone inquired, or I went to a bridal show and I gave them this beautiful magazine that I had spent like hours on. Like it was such a labor of love. It was gorgeous, it was stunning. It had so much good content.
Speaker 2:How many people read it? Nobody. I'd still have to get on consultation calls and have the same conversations with those brides, With my newborn clients. I had all of these emails that went out. I had all these prep guides. I had this paperwork I would give them and it told them keep your baby awake before the session, don't eat these foods because they might cause your baby to be gassy, don't do this, do this, make sure you bring this. And my clients were still showing up not ready. That was at the phase of my business where I started to realize, in order for people to know something, you can't expect them to read it, because nobody reads anything. They skim things.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm a skimmer for sure.
Speaker 2:And who are we to expect our clients to skim through something and understand something that could be so important, that could make or break our session?
Speaker 3:And, to that point, not only is it easier for your client, it's a better experience for you too, Because you already know that you have said I need you to bring your dog hungry to the session because I need them to work for treats, so feed half the dinner time before. So if they have any questions about that, they will either say OK, which validates that, yes, they have heard you, or they'll say, oh well, actually. Well, what about this? Or I need to do this, so you have a conversation about it, so you know that they are going to show up in a way that you need them to show up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm going to take this a step further too, and I'm going to encourage that. Conversations with clients are important Conversations like this over Zoom or a method where you can see them, far more valuable and impactful than a simple phone call, because if you have somebody on Zoom, they are fully tuned into you, especially when you have your camera on. This isn't like get on Zoom and leave your camera. If I'm looking at you in the eyeballs and I can say something, I know if you're listening. If I'm on the phone with somebody, they might be distracted. They might be driving on the road, their dog might be licking their leg and they're like get away from me and they miss something. That is make or break in the client prep or even worse your pricing?
Speaker 3:Yep, I just had that experience with an inquiry call. I could tell that she was passing it because I do my inquiry calls over the phone and then my client prep calls over Zoom and I could tell that she was in a store paying for something and only half listening. In my head I'm like, well, this is, she's not going to book. Yeah. You know, and it turns out she didn't.
Speaker 2:Right, and it's like if somebody doesn't take you seriously enough to get on a call or to get on Zoom with you, they're not your client. So I think that's really important. Something that's really been on my mind a lot lately here and actually I was looking through some old email stuff that I had in my system the other night is that there was a once upon a time when I paid a copywriter thousands of dollars to write this amazing, epic sequence of emails that went out to my inquiries. It prepared them, it primed them, it educated them, it built the value, it did all the things. Did it sound like you?
Speaker 3:Yes, it did. It was definitely my voice.
Speaker 2:But you know, my opt-in rate for getting somebody on the phone and booking a session is just as high by sending an email that has six words in it once as it was by sending all of those really well-thought-out crafted emails. And so I look back on those times and I'm like back then I was so focused on doing all these things that everyone else said I needed to do in my business. Everyone said you need the prep guide, you need the welcome magazine, you need the email series and sequences, and I was so focused on doing all of those things that I thought I needed that I was way overcomplicating and making things way harder on myself and my business and on my clients than I needed to make them. And I really, really look back on the amount of time I spent on those things and this is why I say a lot like simplify things, like ask yourself like do I need this, do I need this extra piece, do I need this extra step, or could I just pick up the phone and talk to my client?
Speaker 3:and accomplish the same thing, or can you combine, like if you have three emails, can you combine them into one?
Speaker 2:Exactly so I think that's really important to say, like I've been there Kristen was there when she was like this is it. This is the most amazing thing ever. And just recognizing that like we've been there, we've been through it and there's a reason we're here today saying like don't miss the forest for the trees.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I do also think that it does depend on your way of running business in your session. But if you are in the high session retainer high level of customer service it's better to simplify with your clients. If you were in the more volume lower session retainer, then I think these guides and everything are great. So it really just depends on how you want to run your business and which avenue you're going to go down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's a good distinction here, because for those of you that are listening that don't know this, I have two parts of my business. I have my full custom portrait sessions and I also have a high volume type thing I do every year where I'm doing 150 sessions in a matter of a few weeks and I'm doing in person sales Well over Zoom. I'm doing sales, I'm selling wall art. I'm doing the same things for those clients, but I do have to rely a little bit more on a few emails that cover some of the touchpoints that normally I would pick up the phone because it's not possible. Now here's the flip side of this those clients that don't have that phone call with me beforehand and don't get to talk to me.
Speaker 2:I am working harder in other ways, like during my session, to explain those things and to educate them. And sometimes there are people that slip through their cracks and don't read and then you get in these sticky situations, but in a large volume scale, right, when we're talking doing 150 sessions in a month, that's okay. I can afford to have a few clients that are like, oh, I didn't read that email and you're like, well, can you go to make sure it's in your inbox, yep. So yeah, it definitely is a little bit different, but that's not to say you can't still have those higher volume experiences that are a little bit more automated. However, here clients probably know that they're in a volume thing with less one-on-one support than your full custom clients because they're paying less money.
Speaker 2:So something that I've been thinking about a lot lately with all of this AI, all of these automations, all these systems, is that I feel like in our day-to-day interactions with businesses, so many things now feel so impersonal. Yes, very much so, and I think that in a world where things feel impersonal, even something as simple that really bothers me is you cannot call into restaurants and just place it to go order anymore. You have to go to their website. How infuriating is it to drive down the road and have to go, pull over and go to a website and place an order?
Speaker 3:The worst is when you have them on a phone and they're like, oh, you need to do this online. I'm driving, I can't just take my order Exactly.
Speaker 2:So it's things like that that I started to really pay attention to and I'm like these things really bother me. Why can't I just pick up the phone and talk to somebody? But also think about how inundated our inboxes are 24-7, our email inboxes now, our cell phone texting inboxes, our Instagram DMs, our Facebook messages everything in our lives so fully inundated.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you just bombard it left and right with everything that you just start tuning it out.
Speaker 2:How often are you having phone conversations with people nowadays?
Speaker 3:Rarely, I think I only have phone conversations with my clients. Hi, I think everything else is done by text.
Speaker 2:Exactly so it's like when you do have those phone interactions with people, they stand out, they feel different. You don't have to wade through the noise of someone's inbox or the deliverability gods of Gmail and hope and pray that your emails land in their inbox and they actually see them. I hate my email because it is inundated by crap constantly and I miss so many things. And I know Kristin's looking at her phone thinking about how many emails she has in her inbox and I'm sure we are the same person 5,701. I'm sure I have you wavy there. The thing is is that we have to stand out. We have to stand out from the automation. We have to stand out from the same thing that everyone else is doing, and the easiest way to do that in today's day and age is actually to go back to the way things used to be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, create true connections with your clients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the other thing, too, is you cannot get to know somebody without hearing their voice. It's really freaking hard to get to know somebody over a series of emails and, honestly, you know when I think about my life, the people I talk to on the phone in my life are the people that are closest to me my family members, my best friends, my husband. That shows that we talk on the phone to people we care about. We talk on the phone when we have real serious things we need to deal with with people we love. So by picking up the phone and talking to our clients, we're putting ourselves in the same placement in their lives as their best friends, their moms, their family members. Right, oh, but Carinda.
Speaker 3:I'm so introverted, I don't like picking up the phone. What do I do then? But obviously not me. But I know that there are people out there who have a big aversion to picking up the phone.
Speaker 2:I think that's a really important thing to talk about. It's funny. I don't know if you heard Catherine Crane, one of our coaching clients, or maybe it was Kaylee. It was either Catherine or Kaylee, I don't remember which one. Both of them have been around for a long time, so sometimes my brain gets a little scared with those stories, but they were saying something like you know, what's really funny is that I picked up the phone to call the doctor's office and I felt like a real adult because I wasn't scared to pick up the phone and call the doctor's office. And they were like that is only because of your coaching program. I was like that's so funny, Like to think that something as simple as picking up the phone to call a doctor's office now is not scary.
Speaker 2:But I think this whole idea of being afraid to pick up the phone and have conversations with people is something that a lot of people feel deep down inside of them, especially my introverts out there, which are a lot of the pet photographers horse photographers were introverts.
Speaker 2:We prefer animals over people, which is why we photograph pets and horses and I would say to you is that, as an introvert, chances are you actually do like having conversations with people one-on-one. One-on-one conversations, typically for introverts, are not as scary as big group conversations. Like, if you put me in a room full of people and you're like you have to walk in and meet people, I'm going to be like this is scary. But if I'm put in a situation where somebody says, hey, this is so and so let me introduce you to them, here's a little bit about them. I'm cool talking to them. So the first thing I would say is that most of the time we think like I'm scared of talking to strangers or I'm scared to pick up the phone. But if you think about it as just having a one-on-one conversation with somebody you know, then it's different.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it also comes down to confidence and being 100% secure and you know what you're talking about and like, yes, if they have questions, I know how to answer it. I'm confident in my workflow and in my process and all that stuff. So, if you can, you know, practice in front of the mirror or practice with your best friend. That was really helpful. When I first transitioned to my pricing from a low session fee to a four-figure session fee I practiced ordering people because it was new. I was not fully confident in that pricing and you can tell it in your voice and you can tell if you're confident or not. So practicing with people, that was also really helpful. So I think, if you can remember that it's just a one-on-one conversation and you're fully confident in what you are prepared to say, you should be fine.
Speaker 2:Yes. So this time I was on a road trip driving and I decided that while I was on this road trip I was going to randomly call my coaching clients and put them on a spot and make them do an info call with me. I think they wanted to kill me because they were like you're calling me.
Speaker 3:Working with Corinda. One-on-one is actually fun guys, I promise. Like everything does sound scary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's okay. It's very fun when you're doing a people you like. I called them. I was like, hey, it's Corinda. And they were like, okay, and I'm like, so I'm driving on the road and I have some time and I wanted to call you and let you practice your info, call on me.
Speaker 2:And I'm pretty sure they were like, oh my gosh, I wish I would have picked up the phone, but it was really really funny and it was really a cool experience to get to talk through that with them, because I think a lot of times we're on coaching calls and we talk through the process, but actually getting to go through it, yeah, to role play it. And I think you said something else there is that even if you're an introvert, even if you're scared to pick up the phone, the thing that really is valuable is having a really good, solid script. And when I see script, I don't mean because I remember this day when I was given a script by a coach that was like here's my phone call script. That is not what you need.
Speaker 3:No, you have to make it yourself. Being a template is okay, as long as you're customizing that template to fit you, not the other way around. Not trying to force your business into this template.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think all of the interactions we have with our clients, when you have a good business system and workflow and this is a big part of what I teach my coaching clients is every interaction we have is very purposeful and there is a reason and a psychological reason with every single conversation and interaction we have with them. So if you start to understand, like in this phase of conversation with my clients, there's these three parts that need to happen and here's why those parts happen this way and here's why it's ordered this way and here's how you make this your own and create a script for yourself. Because unless you understand the why, the how, the logic behind it, and then you take that and you build it into something that works for you, whether it's your info call when they inquire about a session, or it's a planning consultation where you're going through all the details make sure your animals are dry when I show up to your session and don't give them a bath right before or, like, don't feed your horse green, slimy slop before I get to the session. That's a terrible idea, or all of those things. I could go on for a while here, unless we have like a really solid strategy and script that we've created and like a logical way to go through it that works in our brains.
Speaker 2:It's not going to work for us, and I think that's the problem in so many photography circles is that people are willing to say here's my script, here's what I do, but you can't take that and put it into your own business and feel good about it and have it work for you. It's going to feel sticky and you're going to say why isn't this working? And also, too, I think you said confidence. The confidence in that comes from knowing deep down inside why you're doing this and the logic and the reason. What would you say to somebody who is sitting here and they're like I really like this idea of talking to people and I really like the idea of this, but I'm sending emails, I have a booking page, I have all these work guides, I send them and it seems to be doing okay. I'm doing decent in life. What would you say to them?
Speaker 3:Okay, so if you're doing okay and you're doing decent, do you think you could do better? A, do you want a change? And then B, if you do just A B, test it. I mean, I burned down everything and just full force jumped in to the deep end with everything else, but you don't have to do it that way. If you're not comfortable, if you want to A B test and like, hey, this client, I'm going to pick up a phone and I'm going to call and I'm going to have an inquiry call and I'm going to do my planning session over Zoom, and then this client, I'm going to send them a private. I just test it out and see if you like it. This is your business. You are able to do whatever you would like to do. But I always like to approach things with an open mind and try it out and I would just urge people to consider trying this way out and see if they like it, see if it makes a change in their business.
Speaker 1:You know you can always do what you want to do.
Speaker 3:If you enjoyed this episode and you liked it please share it on Patreon, because I've already created the way that I have been there.
Speaker 2:You can check out the links and resources in the show notes. But I don't rely on my clients.
Speaker 3:To catch up on the latest from me, follow me on Instagram. I'm happy my clients don't even open up. And don't forget to join our free Facebook group for Charlie's new business to us in the current decay, not you, thanks again and I'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:I think that's important, like if you have the stuff, there's no harm in putting it out there into the world, but just don't let it be the forefront of everything you do, or expecting that to do its job.
Speaker 3:That's supplemental. Yeah, it's something that like that. It's there if the clients want to read it. If not, I've done my job with the phone call and the prep calls.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think sometimes people say, like won't this take more time having conversations with my clients?
Speaker 3:I mean it might, but it works out better because it's not only a better client experience for them, it's a better experience for you because you know that you've covered everything you don't have to worry about. You know I don't do horses, but am I going to show up and their horses just had a bath and they're wet? No, they're not, because we have talked about this. Yeah, it's just an elevated touch point with your client. It's just a better client experience all the way around. I don't know how to say that, other than it just is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think whenever people say, like, is this going to take more time, it depends, like, really, what your business is like now. But I'm going to say that picking up the phone and having a conversation takes less time than exchanging 10 emails. Well, not unless those emails are automated. Well, unless they're automated.
Speaker 2:But if you're dealing with, like questions, right, like if you're dealing with a client that has questions like a back and forth and they need help with outfits, or you're trying to figure out a location and all of those other things. You can go back and forth forever on those things.
Speaker 3:On email oh yeah, I would say that that is a good rule for everything in your business. It's not just a prep, but, like any questions afterwards, I just had a question about my pre-investment bonus and I was struggling with how to answer this email and I was like, well, what if they do this, and then what if they do that, and then this and then that? And I couldn't figure out how to write this email back and I was like, you know what, screw it. I picked up the phone, I called them, I had a seven minute conversation and everything worked out super simple and fun. And, like I sometimes think that we over analyze emails, yeah, and we'll sit there and at least me and I'll draft it and be like, oh well, how does that sound? You can't tell tone. Is this enough? Exclamation points, like, just if you pick up a phone and call them, it's so much quicker all the way around.
Speaker 2:Yes, and also to like. For those of you that struggle with being anxious or worrying about things, I'm like the most anxious person on the face of the earth. I think that when you're on the phone with somebody, you don't have the opportunity to let your brain spiral into like worry. Yes, absolutely. You might be on the phone with somebody and you might pick up the phone and call a client because they have a question, or they send you an email that you're like huh, or maybe your client comes off as upset about something. If you pick up the phone, the problem is resolved and you don't have to lay in bed at night thinking, oh my gosh, are they going to see my email? Have they responded? And have that like panic attack Right Even?
Speaker 3:if the problem isn't resolved right, then the you know what. Thank you so much for that question. I will find out. I'll be in touch with you tomorrow. That is still an answer. If you don't have the answer right now, it's totally okay to say hey, I don't have the answer. I'll look into it and I'll get back to you.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. Yeah, I think that is a really important thing. It's like you don't have to know all the answers. You don't have to know, like if they ask you some weird question like I want this and this and this, and you're like I have no idea what the cost of that's going to be or what to charge for that, that's fine, get back with them later, no big deal. So definitely I would really say that if I was just spending all my time and my conversations relying on messaging and emails and things like that with my clients, I think I would take way more time doing it and I also think my clients would be way less prepared and way less educated and I think that I would have so many more situations in my business that were just like clients that didn't know what was going on because I wasn't having those conversations.
Speaker 2:So the other day we were at church and we had this guest come and speak at church and he brought something up that I thought was really, really interesting. He said there was some study done. I forgot I should have researched it and seen what the study was. I think it was like one of the national, like government health agencies, and it said that loneliness in today's day and age is a bigger problem than like so many other things in Americans' health. It's like actually causes like health problems for Americans. I can believe it. One out of every two Americans are lonely, even though we are more well connected due to the internet and technology than ever before.
Speaker 3:Well, they're superficial connections. They're not real. Yes, most of the time.
Speaker 2:Right, it really struck a chord with me because I was sitting there thinking like you know what? This is why, when we pick up the phone and we talk to our clients and we have real conversations with them and we show them that we care about them, that our clients are like oh my gosh, I love her. She's amazing, like she's the best thing ever, because chances are we might be the only person that took time to actually show that we cared about that person that week. They might have a spouse, they might have family, they might have kids, they might have a job. But we picked up the phone and we like got to know them and I'm gonna say like the basis of every conversation you have with your client is not business. The basis of the conversations you have with your clients are life and it's getting to know them.
Speaker 2:I was reading a book last night, actually, and it was talking about Chick-fil-A and it's like if you walk one mile with somebody, you should walk another mile with them, and it was like that's Chick-fil-A's business model. Right, we walk the extra mile with our customers. We will go beyond what we're supposed to do. We will lend a helping hand when they need a helping hand, even when it has nothing to do with our business. If somebody needs their tire changed, we will go change their tire. That's cool, we'll do it for them. It doesn't matter if it has anything to do with our business. I think that that type of mentality and that type of service is really what's lacking in today's day and age, and I think people are lonely and they crave that. They crave something different.
Speaker 3:Well, they also wanna be viewed as a person, not just a piggy bank, and when you take the time to actually build relationships with your clients and show people that you do care about them outside of what they can do for you or how much money that they can spend with you, it truly says a lot about you and your business and just you as a person.
Speaker 2:I think it's a better way to serve people, yeah, and I think in life we run a business because we obviously love it and we love photography. But we run a business to make money. But those two things are not enough, I think, in life to fulfill a person long-term right. Yeah, there's a time when photography just becomes picking up your camera and taking a picture. There's a time when making money just is another thing you do throughout the day. But there's something special about getting to serve and pour into our clients and build those relationships. In a sense, that means so much more than our portraits. Our portraits are an extension of this, but us serving people keeps us going. And this goes back to the whole white thing too, which I could go off on a tangent about. I feel like Kristen, you want to say something.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that some people, because in the beginning of my business I was a little nervous about making friends with my clients because, well, if I'm their friend then it's hard to take their money. I just want to gift them all of my stuff and then I'm going to go out of business because I'm always just gifting all of my photos. But in the three years since going full-time I have learned that it is better to make friends with my clients than keep them at arms distance because I'm afraid to take their money. If they're friends, ooh, that's good. I mean, that can be a whole another topic that we go into at a different thing. But yeah, I used to be terrified of getting close to my clients and letting them get close to me. And then there was a shift and I just made friends with a lot of my clients.
Speaker 2:I think it's scary being vulnerable to strangers, and it's also scary being vulnerable to strangers that you're like, what if they hurt me and my paychecks depending on this? Or what if I hurt them? Or what if something happens and goes awry and all of a sudden they love this person. I always say, once you're a client, you're not a client anymore, you're a family. So I always refer to my clients as like, you're part of my family. I'll be honest, like not every client I get the warm fuzzies and they like, really feel like family. But I was just on a call with somebody and those clients that I was just on the like I can get goosebumps. They're my family, I love them to death. I love them to death and, like I will cheer them on. I will be so excited. Everything they do, everything the daughter does in her life. I see them at horse shows. I'm so excited to see them. Like I've gone on vacation with my clients. Yeah, Like.
Speaker 2:And it's so funny because I posted a picture, actually in a Facebook group a while back, of my kiddo with me at a session. My husband and my kid came to me with me at a session and during the middle of the session. I was like squatted down taking a picture and Kai ran up and he hugged me and my husband snapped a picture of it on his phone and I posted it in a Facebook group and I got so much crap about that, Like I can't believe you would take your child to a session with you and I just thought to myself well, a, it's my business, I get to do what I want. That's why I own my business right. But b those clients who session I took my child to. They have been around since before I had him. They were around when I was pregnant. They were around when he was a baby. The mom held my baby when he was a baby and was so excited to meet him for the first time.
Speaker 3:Exactly Like for those people. Why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're family now and like when I'm on my reveals, I'm like, hey, guess who's on the meeting, your friends are here, kai come say hi and Kai comes over and he says hi to my clients on Zoom, and like they are family because I love them and I know them and they know me and I try to be super vulnerable with them. So, yeah, I love that. My gosh, we could talk about this forever. So this is also something that's really important to me. With the business coaching thing and this kind of strikes a chord here.
Speaker 2:I've always said this about clients, especially when I photographed weddings, I was like when you hire a wedding photographer, you need to hire somebody that you get along with, because you're spending the most important day of your life with this person, and if you have a wedding photographer, you don't feel comfortable with it's going to show in your photos, and it was really really important to my business then. But now, as a business coach, this is so important to me too, because I cannot help my coaching clients unless I know them as a person. And, like you said, it's really really hard because I love y'all and y'all are my babies. Y'all are even my family. Y'all are my babies. Y'all are more than this family, right? So I love y'all and y'all become some of my best friends. I genuinely adore y'all and I create these relationships with y'all. And it's really, really difficult for me because I pour my whole heart and soul into y'all and getting to know you.
Speaker 2:And you know, I'll be honest, just like our portrait clients, we have portrait clients that come and they show their whole hearts and they're transparent with us and we get to know them on a deep level. And same thing with my coaching clients. Like my coaching clients that show up and put their whole heart on the line and they just lay it out there for me and say, here I am, I'll be vulnerable, because I know that when I'm vulnerable and share my heart, you can help me differently. That is also important, like when you are hiring businesses, whether it's just everyday life, whether it's a contractor to do something in your home or a coach or whatever it might be make sure that you know that you get along with and you mesh with that person, because it makes a huge difference. And I can honestly say, like Kristen's, one of those coaching clients that laid her whole heart on the line and was like here I am, the good, the bad and the ugly, and we laugh together, we've cried together, we've done lots of things together.
Speaker 2:But it makes a difference. So I think that that's really important to point out, too is get to know the people as a consumer and pay attention to those businesses that do that and show up in that way. I feel like it's been a really good topic. I am so glad I actually had been thinking about talking about something like this with you for a while, and when I was like, hey, do you want to do a podcast episode? And you kind of like brought this area up, I was like, oh my gosh, I think that's what I'd written down. So if somebody is sitting here, kristen, and they're listening to this and they're like I feel stuck, I feel like I'm in a place where I need to get some help. I need to get some guidance in my business. As somebody who's gone through and worked with me one-on-one you've been a part of the program, you've seen the stuff what would you say that experience has been like and how has that helped you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you really helped me take my business from a great point and then just make it even better by simplifying a lot of my systems and processes. So I would say start there. But yeah, I think doing one-on-one coaching with you was really, really valuable. I really enjoyed our time together. I would say do one-on-one coaching.
Speaker 2:So, as somebody who's gone through one-on-one coaching and you've been in the coaching program what would you say the difference is in like having full one-on-one support versus like going through a program.
Speaker 3:I've done group coaching a couple times in the past and then I've done one-on-one coaching and I am a huge proponent of one-on-one. I'm a huge proponent of one-on-one because of the way I know I am in groups, that sometimes it's a little harder for me to step up constantly because I feel like I don't want to monopolize conversations but also going through videos on my own, sometimes I get sidetracked. But having the one-on-one coaching where it was like every Monday, every other Monday we're going to talk and Corrine is going to hold me accountable and I have to actually do the homework that she gives me that was very helpful for me and how my brain works. So if you're a group coach type of person, your group coaching is wonderful. I love it. But if you work like me, I'd say private one-on-one is the way to go.
Speaker 2:You just need someone to kick you in the butt all the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah yeah, it's called accountability Corrine, it is.
Speaker 2:It is has going through like the process with me no-transcript. How uncomfortable has it been at times. Or?
Speaker 3:has it always been easy. When you made me do my why, that was pretty uncomfortable. I remember really resisting that and fighting it for a while. So that was uncomfortable, but the rest of this stuff I do remember one time when you told me gosh, you can't even remember what. You told me there was a change you wanted me to make and I remember getting off the call and going inside and talking about it the other day and I was like this chick is crazy, like she wants me to do this. And then I was like, well, I just paid her all of this money. I have to at least do what she says.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't have been in a position where I'm looking for coaching if I wasn't actually going to do the things that you suggested. But I'm also at that time I wasn't really married to a lot of the stuff that I was doing. It's kind of like I'm always. I always like to test out new things and see if it works and if there's a better, more efficient way to run my business. Yeah, so I did it and it changed it and then it was great and it's been great Again. It's just I feel like I had a great business. To begin with. I was confident in like what I was doing. You just helped me tweak how I was doing it. Yeah, and that tweaking the how has made all the difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think like initially my coaching program in the early years was called photography business tune up. Because I was like when you are fixing a car and you're tuning up your car, you have to go through every little thing in your car to find out what needs to be fixed. And unless you're willing, like you can't just like pop up with the engine and be like, oh, look at the top of the engine. All too often I feel like people come to me and they're like, Can you just look at the top of my engine? Surely you can just fix it from here. And I'm like, no, no, no, we got to break it down, we got to go back to the basic and I think something so little. Like I remember when we were going through one of my coaching together, it was like one question that you weren't saying on your reveals oh yeah, that like changed everything, right, what?
Speaker 3:else? What else? Is there anything else? Where else can we?
Speaker 2:Yeah, two words, like made a $3,000 difference in one client, but unless we made the time to go through all the other little pieces and unless we broke it down to like that microscopic level, we might not have found the one word or two words that we're missing to fix it. So, yeah, I really love that and I think that's really important. Well, I appreciate you joining us today, kristen. It has been fun talking to you. It's always fun and I love getting to watch you do lots of fun things and I'm going. Your adventures You'll have to check out Kristen. I'll link all of her details in the show notes. She actually also has a really cool van that she bought and she does trips in and it's really cool. I'm getting to watch her go through that journey of building out her van and adventuring and yeah, so you'll have to follow along and watch for what she's doing there. I'll link all that stuff in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining us today, kristen. Thanks, karinda, it's always a blast chatting with you. Bye.