Is advertising the key to taking your wedding photography business to the next level? In today’s episode, I’m talking with Jordan Correces, long-time photographer and part-owner of the Wedding Lead Machine Accelerator. Jordan is breaking down his approach to money-now advertising strategies and how effective ads may be the game changer when it comes to bringing ideal leads into your business.
The Focused Photographers Podcast was created based on the idea that the most incredible tool for learning is a deep dive into any given topic from multiple perspectives. Join us every other week as we explore important topics, with host Daniel Moyer and a variety of guests offering different perspectives! Make sure you’ve hit that follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast player to get notified each week as we air new episodes!
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REVIEW THE SHOW NOTES:
Getting started as a photographer and educator (3:36)
Developing the entrepreneurial mentality (9:34)
Photographers need a nurturing business funnel (13:28)
Using ads to get clients in the door (15:49)
Strategy to creating warmer leads (19:00)
The 80/20 rule in marketing funnels (27:30)
Marketing in a private Facebook group (30:47)
Touchpoints along the client journey (33:34)
Making profit-producing activities the focus in your business (39:46)
Connect with Jordan and WLMA (45:53)
The four stages to success in your photography business (46:50)
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
The Referral Building Worksheet
CONNECT WITH JORDAN CORRECES
Wedding Lead Magnet Accelerator
CONNECT WITH DANIEL MOYER
Website: WWW.DANIELMOYERPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
Wedding Instagram: @DANIELMOYERPHOTO
Business Instagram: @GETFOCUSEDPHOTOGRAPHERS
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-Dan
Review the Transcript:
Dan Moyer
Hey photographer friends. Thank you so much for tuning in to Episode 49 of the focus photographers podcast where photographers gather. I’m your host, Stan Moyer. Before we get started today, I want to share a resource with you that is called the referral building Worksheet. This worksheet is based on a strategy that I have been using in my business since day one did I know at January 1 2010, that this is a strategy I was gonna implement? No, absolutely not. It’s just the things that I did. And what I realized looking back over the past 10 plus years, that these things that I did set me up for the long term, it’s these three areas that I’ve talked about in this referral building worksheet that will help you build long lasting relationships, and will help keep people referring you over and over again, the things I talked about, and the things that you’ll be able to work through are the same things that I have used to help couples from over 10 years ago, refer their siblings to me send their friends to me, and why some venue managers even that have moved to other venues have sort of, quote unquote, taken me with them to the new venue and even refer me to their new clients. You can download it at Focus photographers.com/referral-building It is very easy to work through. It’s highly customizable to you your business where you’re located and all that again, you can check it out at focused photographers.com/referral-building Now on to today’s episode. Today, I have Jordan courses on Jordan is a long time photographer and part owner of WL N A or what’s known as wedding lead machine accelerator, you probably have seen their Facebook ads, because they’ve been around for a long term. And Jordan is one of the people that I remember, first really putting out a lot of ads to bring people into his coaching world. Today’s episode is all about ad types, especially on Facebook. And the part of the conversation that I really love is what Jordan calls money now strategies. And this is something that has frustrated me in in very long time that wedding advertising, wedding photography, advertising feels very reactionary, and I love how Jordan breaks down this idea of money now strategies how to get people into a funnel, how to take people from cold to warm to a hot lead, and then get them to finally take action. Jordan makes great cases for how effective ads are and how to get people into your business. So stay to the end where he really unpacks the ideas of this money now strategy and money later strategies of marketing to okay, that said, let’s get to the show.
Dan Moyer
Right, man, I am so thankful that you are here. I know that you’re a busy guy, you’ve got a lot of students, you got a lot of stuff going on. But I’m super thankful you get to take some time out with me today. And let me pick your brain.
Jordan Correces
I’m excited as well. Thanks for having me, Daniel. Heck, yeah.
Dan Moyer
So as I was talking with you pre show, we were discussing that I’m excited for this, because you’ve been I’ve been a wedding photographer for 13 years. And you are somebody that I think of your ads coming up constantly, as like somebody who’s in the education space, somebody who’s saying this is how to get do business. And they were constantly coming up on Facebook. And I feel like you’ve always been in the periphery of like my mind and my circle of, you know, wedding photographers who are educators and all that. And so I’m really excited to finally put like a, a voice and a person like in front of me to all those ads and all that stuff. And I’m excited to dive into your approach towards getting noticed, man.
Jordan Correces
Yeah, I’m excited as well, man, thank you for having me. This is gonna be fun. Cool. So
Dan Moyer
what’s a little bit of your story? How did you sort of get to where you are today and with wedding photography and coaching and all that stuff?
Jordan Correces
Yeah, it is a long story. And we we got started by what my wife and I we got started maybe in wedding photography over 10 years ago. And it was just kind of this dream where I wanted to be a full time career. I didn’t really know what I was getting into, I think with what a lot of photographers experienced, you know, I just kind of realized with internet boom and my passion for photography. I’m like, Oh, well, I can be an entrepreneur. Like this is a thing I can shoot what I can shoot photos for money. Yeah, right. Exactly. And I thought I was always this kind of person who followed my passions and, and wanted to pursue those things. And it came to a point, you know, where I was, I was in college at this time. And I was a missionary in Bolivia and prove for a year. And I was doing like PR video work. You know, photojournalism for these little or nonprofit organizations are really adventurous time. And that’s when I kind of realized, you know what, I don’t know what I’m going to really pursue yet. But I know photography is going to be in it. You know, I’d be at these missionary retreats and they’d want me to do like PR I’m like, oh, but people do this for a living. You know, I didn’t know exactly what Nisha wanted to follow, but I was just in that Journey and when I got back home after a year abroad, I was just shooting anything and everything. What a lot of photography photographers experience. Yep. Um, I ended up shooting my first wedding and I was like, This is it. This is this Yeah, let’s do it. Like I absolutely loved it, I was just stuck and shooting a wedding. This kind of threw myself out there, started building that portfolio. I remember I when I got my first wedding I was ever going to shoot, you know, I was all the way in Tennessee and I drove for like 800 bucks for this wedding in Michigan, I was like this opportunity to build my portfolio.
Dan Moyer
I spent 800 hours in gas money.
Jordan Correces
I know, literally, probably I didn’t profit obviously much from that. But I was like, it’s worth the portfolio. Like, I need that for two to get to show what I can actually do and get better at what I’m what I think I want to do. Yeah. And it was just really cool journey. And I think, you know, when I got deeper and deeper into this, and when I started having like, pay all these bills and everything I realized, like holy crap, this is incredibly hard. And I ended up I ended up in a point. You know, it was maybe just like, a year in business where I ended up having to work as a janitor. Like I was, I was so humiliated. Because as I was doing this job, people who knew that I was supposed to be like, this awesome photographer saw me working, you know, cleaning toilets, and everything, and I have a little sore is the Yeah, this is I’m actually a photographer. Understood, temporarily, it was so embarrassing. And I was just like, I need to figure out how to make this work. Yep. And that was pretty much I believe, where my journey of like, heavy education came in. I couldn’t, I didn’t normally, I didn’t know where to find any successful photography mentors at the time, the education space really wasn’t as crazy as it is right now, anytime, pretty much, I would find a lot of people outside of the wedding industry. I pay for mentorships with them learn kind of what they’re doing in their niche, totally different niches tested in our niche and just test test test until I could get things to work pretty much. And it was it was a few years of that we’re just learning, building mistakes, building mistakes, learning from other mentors and mistakes where I started to build kind of a ghetto version of like, you know what we teach in the WL ma now. And it was actually starting to work, it was actually starting to build momentum. We eventually scaled it to six figure photography business. And when we kind of got to that point, you know, throughout all of this true, I started to find a big passion for like, like business strategies marketing, I started that just totally honest. Like, I would obsess about it more than like actual photography. And I just would always give like unsolicited advice
Unknown Speaker
to my photographer, friends, you should do this. I know that like,
Jordan Correces
exactly. And I just had so much fun doing that. And it was always kind of that in the back of my mind that this is something that no me and my wife wanted to teach. So eventually, after we built our successful business, we took on like a few we kind of that wasn’t even called the W LM at this time. I don’t even know what we called it. We took our first few students that we mentored and taught them this system. And when we had our first student result, we had one of our students, Ben, I think we got him to his like his first 15k month and we’re like, holy crap, wow. It doesn’t. It doesn’t just work for us. It works. That’s pretty much the story. We started and we started building the WL ma we started seeing testing more strategies and to the Wi Fi LMA what it is today we have almost 1000 students I believe around 850 students to this day, and everything probably where he started seeing our ads, we mainly have our ads and YouTube and everything now. But yeah, that’s a little gist of like, where we began what the journey looks like, and how the W LMA even started I think we first launched the web like five years ago or something
Dan Moyer
wedding lead machine accelerators that would have seen Correct. Yeah, man. Yeah. What’s interesting about your story is like, there’s this moment that I feel like everybody, if you’re self reflective as a business person stuff like, so many of us get into this world because it’s like, Oh, we love taking pictures. Somebody says like, Hey, you’re good at taking pictures. And then we say okay, well actually, maybe somebody is going to pay me for this. But just because you’re good at taking pictures, doesn’t mean you’re good at running a business. Right? Yeah. And you very quickly find out that like, there’s some like mediocre photographers that are fine at what they do and all that stuff, but they crushed their marketing they crushed their brand they crushed all these things and it’s like how did how did people keep book like blowing down their doors when my work is so much better or whatever, you know, we tell all these things, but it’s all about this like getting you know, it’s all about increasing your business skills. I think I just saw a video about that you had on YouTube. Like the successful traits that that photographers have, but this is what I’m talking about. And I think it’s interesting that like, you had that moment, and you did what you should, which is look outside the photography world look at like, how do I become a better photographer and, and I’ve talked with some of my friends about this that like, like past a certain point, becoming a better photographer is more personally fulfilling than it is business necessary, right? Like, you need to have the entrepreneurial skill. So just while we’re on that, like, you know, when you first started saying, Okay, I want to seek other coaches, I’m gonna look outside of our wedding industry. What did you look at first? Like? Were you interested in marketing? Are you interested in productivity or systems or what what what sort of caught your eye first,
Jordan Correces
that’s a good and hard
Dan Moyer
to dig, I know, you got to dig back. But when it first
Jordan Correces
started, I think with a lot of entrepreneurial mentality, books, because that’s where you have to start. Sometimes, I really believe that the artists mentality is very different than the entrepreneur mentality, on how we view money, how we view like, how to grow a business, because, you know, oftentimes, the artists cannot, the artists can sometimes push us away from the entrepreneur in us very, very much. Because there was a time where I didn’t, when I first got started with photography, I didn’t care about money at all, like I just wanted to create, I just wanted to create a craft, get paid for it, you know, I didn’t really what never really thought about, like, how much money I did want to make until the pain came.
Dan Moyer
Like, I was like,
Jordan Correces
this hurts, I need to figure this out. And that’s what woke up my entrepreneur spirit. And it probably started with a lot of books that helped me understand the mentality I needed as an entrepreneur. And then it started off, as you know, sometimes kind of broad mentorships that told me, maybe that give me a little piece of the puzzle. I thought it would solve everything, but it was just a small piece of the puzzle that was going to help me later on. And then I started realizing, Oh, these are all the different pieces of the puzzle that just continue consuming and learning and implementing and failing and testing until I don’t even know where where to start on where I did start it because in the beginning, it’s everything. You’re just consuming and learning everything and till I started seeing all these puzzle pieces together. And then once I was more conscious of like, what I was good at what I sucked that were the missing puzzle pieces are that consciousness, then then find these in the area when I was like, Okay, now I’m conscious that I suck. You know, I’m conscious. First I was, I was it was an unconscious about how much I suck like I can do this. Now I’m conscious, I’m very aware that I suck. And now I can figure out where the puzzle pieces are. And then it gets to being conscious that you’re good. And then you start being that building master in those little areas. Yeah, well,
Dan Moyer
there’s this term or phrase or something that’s like something about you know, in the beginning, you’re sort of a newbie and you think like, your work is good. But then you start to like, learn more, and you realize how much more you actually need to learn. Like, oh, like if I just had like, if I just like figured out a couple of these things here, I’d be fine. But then once you figure out those things, you’re like, Oh, my God, I’ve got so much more I need to I need to learn exactly. Yeah, I love that. So so as you guys started putting together wedding lead machine accelerator, as you guys started putting it together, I’m assuming it’s just like this big focus on on that side, on the business side on the marketing side and sort of creating a process for people. So can you talk a little bit about that about sort of the approach that you have towards getting eyes of the world out here cold leads, warm leads, whatever, on to your business, or photographers, businesses,
Jordan Correces
before I even get into I’ll kind of dive into like, what most people are probably struggling struggling with right now. Pretty much what I experienced in my own journey failing and figuring things out. You know, I probably talked with 1000 photographers every year. And I see it’s literally the same. Everyone’s doing the exact same thing. Oftentimes, when we’re first going the business, we’re going it through word of mouth, maybe a little bit of social media, kind of unsuccessfully, maybe we’re on the knot, we’re on Wedding Wire, maybe there’s some vendor referrals there. And it’s a little bit scattered there. And what one thing I realized is, no matter. No matter we like it or not. We have a funnel, whether if it’s crap or if it’s good, right? Like if you’re on the knot, or something like that, and you’re not getting the results you want from the not it’s a funnel, whether you like it or not, you have a lead engine that’s maybe bringing you a lot of price shoppers, there’s not really much of a middle funnel that’s nurturing your leads to get higher end clients or maybe if you’re just you know, using Instagram aim to grow your business. It’s a funnel. It doesn’t have for most people, it doesn’t have the best lead engine where you’re getting a bunch of leads. But it’s a great nurturing ecosystem, whoever is following you, they have that trust with you. And you may be lacking something in the very bottom. And the bottom of the funnel now is like, whether I like it or not, like my business is a funnel, I need to figure out how to prime this thing. to a tee. Yeah. And that’s where I kind of started learning a lot about ads, Facebook ads, primarily for local businesses, especially Facebook ads, how to actually build those nurturing aspects of the funnel, and how to have very powerful parts of the bottom of the funnel, so you can increase conversions, increase prices, etc.
Dan Moyer
Wow, interesting. So Facebook ads are a huge part of, of bringing up before you even started with your, you know, mastermind and your courses and all that stuff. That was a big part of your business was getting people in the door that way?
Jordan Correces
Yeah, because it’s, it’s the fastest when you think of it as a Strategy is a strategy is pretty much a filter. It’s a filter where you’re like, there’s so many different ways you can grow a wedding photography, business, so many different ways. A strategy is pretty much a filter, we say like, I’m going to ignore these ways. So I can primarily focus on this way and get the best results and master this and get the best results from this. And what I started learning from time to time is, there’s often like three main ways I see people generate leads or other ways, but the three main ones are like maybe SEO, maybe vendor referrals, and word of mouth. And then there’s ads, everything else, you know, takes sometimes months and months to build, you know, it can take six to 12 months to build up SEO, it can take maybe even the same amount of time until you find those right vendors that are going to refer you still good strategies that you want to focus on and build. But I started to learn that Facebook ads are not necessarily just Facebook ads, but sponsored advertising in general. Yeah, is pretty much unless you get viral on Instagram or Pinterest or something. It is literally the only strategy where if you know what you’re doing, you can get attention within 24 hours. Yeah. And that’s when I was like, Aha, this is what I’m gonna master. This is what I’m going to learn. It just makes sense. There’s a lot to it to like, really make it really powerful and everything. But if you can get in front of newly engaged couples directly, which is pretty much a cheat code with Facebook and Instagram as because I’m pretty positive at the point right now. Facebook and Instagram ads are the only sponsored platform where you can literally target newly engaged couples directly. Everything else you got to be a little vague. Yeah, tick tock, Google YouTube, you can’t actually say target newly engaged couples.
Dan Moyer
What’s wild about this and one of my frustrations with with marketing for wedding photography is it always feels so passive, right? Like, let me pay the not a billion dollars to be listed. Let me pay you Wedding Wire a whole bunch. Let me constantly put out stuff on Instagram or whatever. And always just feels like you’re doing and like it’s just so passive. And even with even with word of mouth, which I love word of mouth. That’s how I build my business. But it’s less long, right? You have to be very patient you have to like I think you sort of have to be an extrovert, which I am like, I remember talking with people and pizza shops and all this stuff, because that’s not who I am. It’s easy for me exactly. And you have to be patient with that. But that is a huge frustration of mine, even right now is that it feels so passive and Facebook ads seems like such a active way to put this thing out there and get very quick feedback, very quick results. And somebody coming in and saying, Hey, I am somebody who is your target client. And I’m interested in your services if they’re warm already or something but yeah, you talk a lot about sort of not moving right from the ad into like trying to book you but but taking a person and making them warmer. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Jordan Correces
100% that is the most important thing. And Mote and biggest mistake. I see people I see it all the time, I’ll see ads of wedding photographers running on FaceTime. Like, that’s not gonna work. I see all the time. And often people will come to me and be like, Yeah, I tried Facebook ads, and it just didn’t work. And I already know why. Because I’ve done it before as well. Yeah, and every customer no matter what niche that you’re in, they go through this journey of coldly they’re aware of you. But there’s not really much trust there. They’re not a raving fan of your brand. And the couple and where they go through this journey where they just see you more and more they see your brand pop up more and more. They start getting to know what you’re all about the experience that you’re going to give and finally they inquire and it’s a different type of inquiry than something from like the knot or Wedding Wire. because there’s no trust there either. But finally, once they’ve gone through an ecosystem, they inquire, and they already know they want to work with you. And they’re much more likely to book those higher end, you know, five 710 $1,000 packages as well. And so what our journey kind of looks like is this. And I pretty much believe, I really believe this is pretty much almost every customer journey, and every single niche, no matter what, once I once we started realizing that that this is the customer journey, where maybe it takes seven to 15 touches or impressions for a newly engaged couple to go from stranger to raving fan, like, well, we just need to reverse engineer this. Most people, they’ll run a Facebook ad, and it’s pretty much like, Hey, look at me work with me, or hey, $1,000 off work with me, maybe once in a while, especially if you have read very great work, you’re gonna get some low hanging fruit, where it’s gonna be a very expensive lead, but you’re gonna get some low hanging fruit where they reach out, they inquire you meet with them in a consultation, and you book them. But we instead of trying to just go from add to the sale, where it’s such a short customer journey that you’re trying to do it, we’re like, well, let’s extend it a little bit. And so pretty much the first thing you want to do is when it comes to Facebook, and Instagram ads, if you want to be successful in this, don’t worry about the sale right away. Unless it’s retargeting. If you have someone in your nurturing funnel, they’ve been on your website, they’ve read your blogs or in your newsletter, then you can retarget them, you know, with a hot call to action, like, hey, work with me type of thing. What do
Dan Moyer
you mean retargeting where you already have a subscriber, and you’re just giving them
Jordan Correces
pretty much you will have like Facebook pixels on our website. And so they the pixel sees that they’re on our website, and then we can send an ad just to everyone who’s ever been on our website within 3090 180 days. And that’s like a warmer lead, because they know you, they trust you. So a call to action, like saying our dates are filling up, you know, work with us, isn’t something crazy to get them to inquire. But with all these other people, where it’s their first time ever hearing about us, you want to have much softer offers, pretty much no brainer offers, maybe it’s a contest, maybe it’s a free guide, maybe it is a model call, maybe it’s to a blog, or it’s like top 10 You know, venues in the area, something like that, or it’s a no brainer offer, it’s giving value. And newly engaged couples are going to click on it just because it’s exciting, it fix it helps solve their needs any of those things, if it was an exciting desire, etc. So once they’ve opted in on that ad, they they filled out the landing page, and now we have, they’ve given us permission to continue to market to them at this point, right. So they’re still not a raving fan yet. Now they’re in our newsletter. And once they’re in our newsletter. Now at this point, with those types of offers, we can easily be getting leads at you know, five to $10 a lead back before iOS 14, it used to be like two to $5 per lead. No, it’s super cheesy, like five to $10 per lead, which is still very, very good. Yeah. So now you know you’re at this point, maybe you’re spending 100 $300. on adspend, you’re getting, you know, anywhere between 20 to 100 leads in your marketing funnel, they’re in your newsletter. And at this point, we can give a ton of value. We have like an email series we teach called like the indoctrination email series, where we’re just getting them excited to be a part of this newsletter, not only did they sign up for this contest, or this guide, whatever it is, you know, keep watching, keep watching, for you looking for these emails, this next week, we’re going to be pumping a ton of value for you. So now we’ve primed in their brain like ah, like this newsletter is gonna be freaking gold for my wedding. Like this is freaking awesome. And they’re jumping on your newsletter, whenever you have something exciting to share with them, maybe that leads them to your blog, maybe that leads them to your Instagram, maybe that leads them to your Tiktok whatever, wherever you’d like to nurture them. And at this point, we’ve we’re pretty much creating what we call the nurturing ecosystem, where we can get those seven touches those 15 touches, where now they’re still there slowly but surely going from stranger to raving fan. And so let’s say 80% of that is a value 20% of that our call to actions, but a time this lead gets gets hotter you know, they finally got their date, they’ve got their venue maybe once in a while they’re already a hot lead as soon as they’re in there. But you know, let’s say those things come into play. Now when we have a call to action, like you know we only can accept 30 more weddings 20 of those are already filled. Something like that. Be sure to inquire to see for dates available, boom they’re hopping on it interested are much more qualified, warm, hot lead.
Dan Moyer
So say let’s say that you have Like a lead magnet or something, they click on it. And it’s, you know, the best venues in the area, right? So you get that they, they view that PDF, or they view that part of your website or something. And now you have their information, or you you have their information there in the newsletter or whatever. Do you have the sequence of emails already laid out? are you generating new contact, or new content for every single week or whatever the you’re emailing them,
Jordan Correces
I’ve had my own way that I’ve done this, some some of our students have done a little bit of a different way, which I think is totally okay. For me, I would only have first that week may say that week of email series done that was like automated, yep. And then I would maybe do, you know, one to three emails a week, depending on the how many emails you do depends on your audience, and depends on the content, or the type of stuff. But let’s say if we’re doing three emails a week, or something like that, I’m just giving some really great value, I’ll do that manually. And but and I would first see what was hot, like, oh, wow, like this email, I sent out this subject headline, and this email, you know, was had a huge open rate, this other one was kind of like, very, very low, I’m actually gonna put this one on the huge open rate, I’m going to add it to the automation, I want that to stay part of there. And that way, I, I’m doing all this manual work, I’m testing all these different emails, before I decided I’m gonna put it into the automation with some of our students, they’ve, they went out and just created like, you know, 12 weeks of automated content. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you’re especially if you’re not good at copy yet, which is something we do teach and everything, but if you’re not good at copy yet, you might, you’re probably going to end up having to redo it.
Dan Moyer
Constantly, that’s a lot of changing a lot of weeks of
Jordan Correces
content to redo when you realize you know what, well I kind of cringe when I look at this email series, and I can have to do it, and then you’re, but you’re just reiterating it. And so what I always recommend, like our students to do is just do that week email series, manually do stuff for a while, yeah, like, get good. When the more you do something, the better you’re gonna get at it, the better the more you do email marketing, see what gets them to open those emails, you see what hooks gets them to read further, and then click, then you know, once you’ve done this, at least for a bit, you can see what works at it in versus just doing it having to redo it again, then redo it again, all that type of stuff.
Dan Moyer
Gotcha. Interesting. So I have a newsletter for get focused, and I write it every, every Thursday, and I release every Thursday, and I love it. And I’ve always been playing around with this idea of creating a newsletter for my wedding photography business, but I never quite figured out how I would handle it. Because I wasn’t sure at which point you go for the ask, right? So you’re always giving value, somebody comes out and says, you know, hey, we’re sort of interested, they’re cold, they’ve seen me on Instagram. And now I want to nurture them along that sequence. So how long is it from when you see new subscribers, because the other tricky part is that you have new subscribers all the time. So you might give the ask, and that person has only been there for a week versus somebody else has been there for three months. So really think about that.
Jordan Correces
Yeah, great question. I always go with the 8020 rule, when it comes to to marketing funnels pretty much, you know, in the beginning, it’s possible that you can have a lead that enters that will work with you in a week, right, and then you have a lead who enters where maybe it may take them like two months to get nurtured. So you’re having people all over the customer journey. And so pretty much you want to do 8020 role and you want to be able to sprinkle both call to actions within all of it in the beginning of the funnel, it might be just soft call to actions where it’s like ton of value, PS or dates or filling up inquiry to see if your dates available, everything. Or it might be a call to action to something else besides booking a wedding for people who are a little earlier in their journey in the wedding industry where it’s like, you know, a ton of value PS, you know, we’re doing this engagement session, flash sale or something, book an engagement session with us. And when people don’t think about a lot of photographers don’t think about this, like an engagement session is pretty much part of your funnel as well. Right? So lower ticket offer to eventually get to your higher ticket offer as far as that. And so that’s the way we want to think about it little offers as well. Or it could be a call to action where it’s like, where we can personalize yourself a little bit ton of value. By the way, we started a private Facebook group just for newly engaged couples, we’re gonna be offering all this value in there. They joined the Facebook group and now they get it’s more personalized. And it’s not just this mystery person buying an email, they get to see videos of you pictures of you, you know you with your family type of thing. And so I would say you can sprinkle all different types of call to actions throughout your newsletter. And then every once in a while, you’ll throw out a call to action to bring in all those very hot leads. You know where it’s an eye actual call to action, like, hey, our dates are filling up, inquire, see if your dates available type of thing. And that often will get people who are just kind of maybe procrastinate a little bit on their journey to be like, oh, man, we need to hop on this before his dates fill up, I’m gonna send over an inquiry type of thing.
Dan Moyer
Interesting. So it’s more, there’s like, little, I think I heard you say, like, There’s soft leads, throughout the process, you know, most emails are gonna have this softly. But then every once in a while, you sort of go for the bigger ask maybe every month or something where, hey, it’s, it’s put a little urgency in them to follow up and, and take the action versus like, just, but they’ve constantly seen, you know, these, like little things popping up here and there about, you know, the states are filling up or, you know, join this thing, or, you know, I’ve got this video series here. Can you talk about the Facebook group? And sort of the content that you would put in there? Is it just like tips? Is it you know, content about just you, what would you do there,
Jordan Correces
it’s some, there’s a style, a different style for everyone, I feel like, ya know, my style that that I’ve done in the past has been very different than some of our students who have done this as well. Yeah, and it’s pretty much a lot of value, you can do it a lot of video based, or let’s say, you’re not very good at video, it can be a ton of value, where maybe you use more photos of you, or photos, you with you’ve couple sharing your work a little bit more, what I often did, just because this was kind of an expertise that my my couples have really, really loved, it was a lot of posing content, a lot of posing content, like I’d say, about 99% of my couples would end up working with me because of that very specific posing, that they’d see they, they’ve come to, you know, my engagement sessions. And they’d be like, Oh, we’ve been reading all your posing emails, you actually brought it here as like a reference for us all. And that’s when I was like, Aha, this is this is working. You know, they actually really value this content. And so I will do similar of that type of content, but I personalize it a little bit more in videos. And I remember, this is funny, this is back when like, Snapchat was like, really, really big. Yeah, my wife and I would go out, we make these Snap Chat, you know, posing videos, pretty much where we I’d use her as a model. And I would show like, you know, simple little techniques, it was some very simple stuff that can really make a posing much more pose much more flattering. And we download those from Snapchat, I just edit it into it, it was It wasn’t like not high quality at all. But I’d edit it into like, you know, a couple minute video, and a couple of us would love it. Or maybe I’d take a picture that I did. And I do these things called posing breakdowns, where it was a portrait that I do have a couple and I just I’d explained why this pose works and things that you don’t want to do. And so, you know, couples would read this to or work with, and they’d be learning to be educated, like, wow, this is much deeper than I thought photography was, I don’t want to have a photographer who poses us in the way he’s saying not to. And so I’d work with them. And so you can build your own style. With a Facebook group, it doesn’t even necessarily have to be a private Facebook group. You know, there’s, it’s just, that’s just the channel that it can be that worked for us at the time. And, yeah, it may maybe wedding planning tips may be posing tips. And as you kind of using that 8020 Rule again, and then every once in a while you can have a call to action to actually work with you and everything.
Dan Moyer
Okay, interesting. I want to go back to this idea of like the sort of five to 15, or seven to 15 of these touches. Is each one of the emails that they’re receiving, is that one touch? Or are you also trying to reach out in in different ways, right, because there’s so many different media. And I think one of the big things right now is like recording sort of a personal video message for new leads that come in and sending those out or text messaging those or something. So are there other ways that you like to warm clients up? In those different touches throughout that client experience?
Jordan Correces
Great question. And so seven touches, I would say, I forgot where I learned this. But I would say the principal was seven touches probably now with today’s media, much higher, like 13 to 15 because of noise we have to break through. Yeah. And so that touch a typical customer journey could be like they see your ad, you know, and I always tell my students don’t get too caught up on how many touches is, you know what I mean? Because it’s more of the principle. It’s more the principle of it versus it being I remember I had one sooner they’re like, I had seven touches and they didn’t inquire I’m like we can force them to work with us. But think about the principle but that is the journey might look like this. They see your ad and they opt in and that’s one time They’re they see three of your emails, maybe the first one they didn’t really pay attention to they see the second and third one that was kind of interesting on that third one, you know, they they hop on your blog, and what’s that maybe that’s like four or five touches on that point. And then they see another email you mentioned about, you’re going to be sharing this really cool posing tip into your Facebook group, and they join your Facebook group. And now they see this live posing session that you did. And that could be equal, that could be equal to three touches to them, it could be equal to one touch to someone else. Because if it isn’t then resonated with they maybe they weren’t as much of an ideal client. But the someone that was an ideal touch, and then they decided to reach out to an engagement session that was equal, and they do that engagement session with you that was equal to like 10 touches, right? You know, because everything about that was an ideal client, they worked with you, they talked with you, they love the way that you worked, and they built so much trust with you there. And you’ve already exceeded those 15 total amount of touches at this point. And they decide to work with you. It may look totally different for another couple where they opt in in your ad, they see that first email, they’re like, Wow, this is exactly what I’m looking for. Let’s book an engagement session with them. They book an engagement session with you. That was all they needed. They know. They’re set. They’re set like this is like I don’t even need to ask any more questions. This is everything we want. Well, that was maybe only three touches. Yeah. But it was because it was an ideal client.
Dan Moyer
Yeah, I love this idea of, you know, the the concept over the minutia to get lost in right. It’s like, it goes back to this like very simple idea that you keep seeing everywhere now. It’s just value, like continue to provide value. And like, I’m willing to bet that this belief, probably weaves its way through that, like, yes, you’re trying to get them to book you. But you’re also just trying to get them to a place where like, they’re the best version of themselves on their wedding day, or whatever. It’s like, no, like, I have a lot of expertise. Let me give you that because I know it’s going to make it better for you. And if you happen to book me along the way, which I’m pretty sure you are going to that’s going to be awesome, too. Is that where you’re coming from
Jordan Correces
100% 100%. Because Let’s even say You know, it wasn’t a Facebook group, but it was just like YouTube or something like that. And maybe you were doing these wedding planning and imposing tips and or venue walkthroughs on YouTube. And through that they’re able to see that, wow, the expertise of photography is a lot more than what I thought as someone not being a photographer, you know, and the way he teaches, like, that’s what I want. I want to make sure we have his expertise. Yeah. And yeah, Trust is everything, especially if you want to get to the high end world with those five 710 $1,000 packages that we get a lot of our students to trust. They want to see that experience and being able to see like, why the experience you’re gonna give them is totally different than what all these other photographers are gonna do. Yeah,
Dan Moyer
that experience thing is key. And I did a huge website revamp last year. And like, I’ve been at this for a while. It’s like I started to get to a point where I’m like, Okay, I’ve got myself figured out now, right? And it’s like, actually, no, I haven’t got myself figured out and then like a couple more years, and like I’m, I’m at it, I’ve reached the top, I’m good to go. There’s like nope, actually happened, right. And so finally I created this new website. And it’s, it’s still work in progress. And I love it. But it’s so me because the one thing that I love to do with my couples is like blur this idea of what the client photographer relationship looks like, there’s this scrolling banner, across the middle of the website, that is hundreds of pictures of me with my couples, right from the last 13 years, it’s all about me, with my couples and it my couples are willing to take a photograph with me on their wedding day, you know that, like I’ve broken down that typical relationship, and there’s something more, and I want to display that. And I think that’s just that idea of, I feel like that’s what you’re sort of getting at here with this idea of finding what you’re good at. And then speaking to that, from like trying to show people what the end process is going to be at the very beginning. You’re saying, Am I making sense here?
Jordan Correces
Exactly, you know, 100% 100%. And pretty much, you know, once you already know what someone’s customer journey already looks like, as a couple, like, think of a couple who does want to draw in their family, they want to drop a lot of money, you know, on a wedding and everything. Yep, you already know that someone who wants to drop, say $10,000 on a wedding photographer, they’re going to be doing their research, right? It’s not just going to be any photographer they find and they drop 1500 They are doing their their research and so pretty much it’s like we get them into our funnel from our ads. Let’s make that research a lot easier for them.
Dan Moyer
Very fair point. So as your as you’ve coached all these different photographers over the last, you know, however many years we’ve talked a little bit about some of the issues that they do or some of the things that that mistakes that clients are making or photographers are making, trying to get clients over Trying to back up a little bit of this, like 500 foot view, what would you say are some of the mistakes that that photographers are making when they’re just trying to get eyes on to their business,
Jordan Correces
I would say this, let’s say, I’ll let me put it in a place. And because people who maybe who are trying to get to their first six figures, it’s gonna be very different than people who are at their six first six figures, and they’re trying to get to multiple six figures. So I’m gonna kind of set in the beginning. From there. Yep. Let’s say you want to get to your first, you know, $100,000 a year? Yep. Everything you need to do needs to be focused on what’s called PPAs profit producing activities. It needs to be focused on money now strategies, not money, later strategies. So what I would call money now strategies is ads, a marketing funnel with that mastering sales, those things are directly correlated to getting leads and profit. Now we’re getting leads in the business right away, we’re having a process where we can convert those leads into actual profit within a week to 12 weeks, let’s say maybe get those engagement sessions, you know, ASAP within that month, yeah, and then we have a process where we know we can get higher conversions at a higher price. At the bottom of the funnel. What I often see a lot of photographers focus on is make money later strategies, which are maybe things like in person, maybe, maybe things that like that maybe things like maybe working on a brand is really important, but maybe like focusing solely just like on their their brand or SEO type of things like SEO is kind of a money later thing. Maybe they’re focused on a lot of podcasts for couples, that to get attention from couples on these certain podcasts, or magazines type of thing. Those are more kind of money later strategies where but the thing you want to focus on is get to a place where you’ve mastered money now strategies that catapults you maybe to that six figure multiple six figure level, now you’ve built consistency. Now you’re you know how to get leads on demand, you know how to nurture attention right away, you know how to book those weddings at a high conversion rate. And now you have more time where you can focus on those money later strategies, and then that all compounds and that’s how we’ve taken some students that 300 close to half a million dollar years, is because that first year, that first year, we get in the six figures in six to say nine months just from Facebook ads and funnels, because it’s money now strategies PPAs profit producing activities, obviously, they’re working on their brand, their work, the portfolio, all those things that are really important, but it’s like we’re heavy on this. And what what can sometimes takes people years to achieve, we can get them to achieve it in like six to 12 months. And then finally, once we finally build all this consistency, it’s like okay, now we got our ads, we got our funnels, we got all our systems in play. Now we can add SEO here. Now we can add more vendor referrals, we can figure out how to build, get more word of mouth, from our past clients, we can figure out how we can get more of those past clients for maybe family sessions, all that type of stuff. And maybe I can jump on these podcasts for the newly engaged couples are watching to expand that even more and then that will all compound. So if you’re in the place where it’s like, Man, I just need I need leads and I need bookings now figured out the fastest way you can just do PPAs profit producing activities get as much attention not a convert that attention as fast as possible. That kind of makes sense. Yeah,
Dan Moyer
that’s actually an awesome approach because just breaking it down. Like there’s a lot of noise in like what photographers should do at their different journeys. And this like, like I know photographers who have been at it for like six years and are really still struggling like somebody in their one two years because they’re just like, there’s so much noise and coaches and stuff who haven’t really even been at it for that long to say like, oh, do these things, when what they really need to do is cut all of the noise cut all the fat and say no, no, these are the things I think I’ve also heard PPAs as Oh GTS which are Oh IGBTs income generating tasks. That’s what Yeah, yeah, same thing. But yeah, bringing it down to like these very simple things, like forget about all this stuff over here. But then there’s a point where you you’ve reached this plateau where like, it’s like, okay, I know my business is going to be pretty good. I know like my systems I know what I’m doing with after the wedding. I know what I’m doing with post processing and know what to do with all this stuff that like Okay, now it’s time to really rope in the How can I get my past couples to tell their siblings or their friends or their friend group about me and that’s the stuff that you really lay into
Jordan Correces
me because, for example, are students that we got to say six figures their first year and then they start maybe getting vendor referrals and SEO, and maybe they only be like, they’ll be telling students who aren’t that lovely at all, it’s about SEO. And we’re like, for you, it’s SEO now? Not quite yet. They can, they can work on that now. And hopefully by the time the ads and everything build, and they build that competence of ads, you know, SEO is ready in a better spot, pretty much you want to master strategies that, you know, you can turn leads into clients within 3090 days. Yeah, I’d say within 3090 days, and then all the long term strategies, focus on the short term strategies, long term strategies. Come right after that type of
Dan Moyer
money later. That’s what you call it the money.
Jordan Correces
Money Now strategies, money later strategies. Yeah. And there’s some that are kind of in the middle. Yeah. And that’s okay. But just kind of strategize like what is going to get me a booking within 30 days possibly,
Dan Moyer
that I think that’s my my favorite takeaway, I think from this episode is the money now strategy versus the money later strategies? So as we wrap up here, you know, there’s several places I know that you know, people can follow you, but but rain? No. And where can people follow you? Where can they learn more about W, LMA, and all that stuff?
Jordan Correces
Yeah, absolutely. Pretty much if you just type in www dot w lma.co. Not calm just CO is our official website. You can learn all about us there. You can even unlock access to a free demo of the program. And if you’re in more interest about the program, you can access the demo and possibly join our team and everything.
Dan Moyer
Cool. Are you? Are you on Instagram and all that stuff? You personally restream? Right?
Jordan Correces
I’m on Instagram, but you can follow my I just started started opening this up to the public my personal Instagram, Jordan Crassus. So Jr, da, n c o r r e c e s.
Dan Moyer
Very cool. Yeah. And I saw you have been putting a bunch of stuff out on YouTube, which are super helpful, like short videos. And all that. So good on you, man. This was awesome. Do have any final final parting thoughts or anything to add? Yeah,
Jordan Correces
this is this is kind of a concept that’s been on my mind for a while lately. And when it was articulated to me in this way. It’s something so simple. Boehner was articulate to me I was like, I wish I knew this way before. So I could actually see where I am at in my journey. And there’s four stages to getting to where you want to be in your photography, business, right? There’s unconscious incompetence, that’s usually where we’re in a place where we don’t know we suck. We don’t know we suck yet. And that’s usually where like, we’re in a place where like, I this is something that I want to do. But we haven’t gone through some of the pain to realize that we need help. Yeah, once we go through that pain, we often get to a place where we’re in conscious incompetence. And this is a good spot. This is where most people who end up working with us are usually at, they really finally realized like, Okay, I’m aware, I suck, I’ve accepted like, I’m not good at this. Now I need to learn. And this is where the learning starts. Yeah, that’s where it started for me kind of where I’m talking about in my journey where like, okay, now I suck at business. Let me learn how to do this, which pause
Dan Moyer
on that for one second, it’s really hard for people to accept that sometimes. You said like that you’re, you’re a go getter. And like you did all these things. But you know, sometimes taking that little piece of humble pie and saying, I suck at this. And that’s okay, I need to get some help, which
Jordan Correces
100% 100% I think I’ve never, I’ve never met someone who had a successful business who never didn’t get the help they needed. Yeah, as far as that. And usually, that’s the most daunting place where you know, you suck, you’re just consuming a ton. But as you’re kind of doing that you’re learning, you’re getting courses, you’re getting mentors and stuff, you get to a place where things start to be getting refined. And that’s when you end up in a place called conscious competence. You know, you’re getting good, you’re starting to see the little things that you’re getting good at the things things are just trying to refine, you’ve probably gone through a few courses at this time to put in a little bit of those puzzles. And this is the longest stage. It’s the longest stage to get to where you want to be. And then finally you get to unconscious competence. And that’s where you’ve built mastery. And you’ve gotten to business to where you want to be. You’ll see this in your art, you’ll see this in your business. I learned that from Leila. Hermoza, actually, and I was listening. And I was like, That was so good. It was so simple. But it was so good. And that’s if you’re trying to grow your business and take it to where you want it to be. Be aware of where you are at in those four stages, and start refining and you’ll get there.
Dan Moyer
That was awesome. What a heck of a way to end it. Dude, Jordan, I appreciate you coming on today and, and being so open and sharing so much about the way you work and I love it when you know I get to chat with somebody who doesn’t necessarily have like secrets, do you I mean, you’re so open and honest and caring and about sharing and you know, wanting to elevate the photography community through your knowledge that obviously you went through a journey so very much appreciate all your knowledge today and thanks for coming on.
Jordan Correces
Yeah, absolutely. Daniels It was a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. This is fun.
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