How can you go above and beyond for your clients to create a referral-generating business? Today’s episode is the first in a series to explore that exact question. Inspired by Alex Hormozi’s book $100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No, I’m sharing four concepts that I’ve implemented in my own business to create meaningful client connections and cash flow. 

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

The more you know (4:31)

Showing clients that they are seen, heard, and understood (6:51)

Putting it into practice (13:25)

The wedding rings method (22:11)

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Alex Hormozi: $100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No

CONNECT WITH DANIEL MOYER​

Website: https://danielmoyercoaching.com/

Wedding Instagram: @DANIELMOYERPHOTO

Business Instagram: @GETFOCUSEDPHOTOGRAPHERS

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Thank you!

-Dan

Review the Transcript:

This is Dan Moyer. Thank you for so much for tuning in today to the Focus Photographers Podcast. This is the first episode in a solo series on creating a referral generating business. These four ideas that I’m going to share about over the next couple of episodes are really the first topic that I spoke about publicly.

I naturally just like stopped talking about them over the last couple of years because I got interested in other things like mental health and I was doing this podcast and whatever. But I was reading this book earlier this year called a hundred million dollar offers or by Alexander Hermosi. Alexander, Alex, Alex Hormozy.

And there’s this chapter that brought these four concepts roaring like right back to the forefront of my mind. And I think that I, I never gave these a lot, like, I think that they were really important to me. I think that there was a time where I really recognized these, but then I just stopped talking about them because I got interested in other things.

But these things that I’m going to talk about, these concepts and how I put them into practice are things that come natural for me. Some of them took, you know, some skill as I really put energy and focus into them, but they, I’m naturally like gregarious. I’m naturally somebody who is interested in other people.

And I didn’t really think too much about them as an edge until Hormozy made several notes in a hundred million dollar offers about giving clients value so much that I thought like, damn, he’s right. And I actually will share the quote with you because I think it’s important where these four concepts are coming from and why I think that they’re actually valuable enough to bring back up and talk about in the book.

Hormozy says, I’d rather do more for every customer and have cashflow coming in than optimize my business, but have zero cashflow coming in after and zero idea of what to do about it and what to adjust to better serve my customers. Going a little bit further, he says, When talking to business owners about their model, I tell them to create cash flow by over delivering like crazy at first.

Then use the cash flow to fix your operations and make your business more efficient. Now everybody right now. really is just like into this idea of changing their business overnight and making the 10k overnight and a hundred thousand dollar business by, you know, two months from now. And it’s just not the way that things work.

Like you might see influencers and stuff out there who have these like amazing months and they’re just like, wow, I made 23, 000 this month. What about the other months? Right? Anybody can have a really good month, but it’s about being consistent and nobody that I know. Built a business overnight that they were happy about or, uh, changed their life overnight.

They were happy about it is about finding your values. It’s about showing up consistently. It’s about doing the work consistently. So each of these episodes is really going to follow this same format. This first one might be a little bit longer because I’m introducing it and all that kind of stuff. Each episode is going to basically go over the concept that I think is appropriate and how it’s going to look.

I’ll share some stories about it and then I’m going to talk about how I actually implement it in my business and some ideas for you to use in your business because each of these episodes comes out two weeks apart. This is almost like a mini course. Like, I think that it would be really, Easy for you to take something, one thing from this episode and implement it.

One question that I say, one tactic that I say to a client or any kind of meeting or whatever you’re going to do. Just be able to take this one thing from an episode and implement it before the next episode. And then. That’s going to be over the course of eight weeks or so. What kind of change can you make in eight weeks?

So if you’re multitasking or whatever, if you’re thinking of like, just sort of passively listening to this, that’s what I want you to do on each of these episodes is listen to the concept and say, okay, this is kind of interesting. This is how Dan’s presenting this. And then when I talk about it in practice.

If you like what I have to say, awesome. But if you’re like, okay, maybe that doesn’t fit exactly with my business. How can I take this concept and apply it to my business and use my strengths? So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to get into it right now. Stick around, let’s get it going.

Okay. So this first concept is going to sound. So simple. You’ve heard these words before, but as I provide context, I’m hoping that you’ll realize how deep this is. And this concept is that the more you know, the more power you have. Basically, the more you know about your couples on a deep level, the better you’re going to be able to photograph them.

Now, If you’re anything like me, you’ve been doing this for a while. Maybe you’ve only been doing it for two years, but I almost guarantee that you have been to or photographed more weddings than your couples have been to, right? Even if they’re very social, you, since you’re a photographer, you’ve probably been to a bunch of weddings.

And here’s the thing. Us photographers are very, uh, at risk of just being able to show up and like, do our thing and take pictures and do posing flows and whatever and move on. Here’s my thought. All of your couples are different. Every single one of them, just because you have photographed hundreds of weddings before, maybe even thousands of weddings, does not give you any understanding of what this wedding means to this couple.

Here’s, here’s my analogy. Let’s say I’m talking with my friend, Matt, and I’m like, Hey, Matt, do you hug your wife? And he says, yeah, of course I hug my wife. I say, how many times do you think you have hugged your wife? And he says, well, I don’t know. We’ve been together for 16 years, maybe 200, 000 and I say, wow, my wife and I have been together for 12 years.

We’ve probably hugged 200, 000 times too, maybe. And then I say, okay. Have you kissed your wife before? And he says, yeah, I’ve kissed my wife. And I said, okay, how many times do you think you’ve kissed your wife? And he says, I don’t know, maybe 200, 000 times, a hundred thousand times. I say, wow, I’ve probably kissed my wife a hundred thousand times too.

There’s the fact that Matt and I have both hugged and kissed our wives. Give me any understanding. of what it feels like for him to hug and kiss his wife. No, we have the shared experience of being in a relationship with our significant others, of, you know, going through the day to day of love and sacrifice and all that stuff.

But it gives me context, but you wouldn’t say that I understand or I know what he’s going through. It’s really easy for us to say, Oh, I photographed weddings before the framework is the same. It’s a ceremony. It’s a first kiss. It’s a first dance or whatever. And we just sort of like go through the motions.

But I really believe that at its core, if you want to be booking more people, as soon as you start getting into that, like every wedding is the same mentality. I’m just going to like do my thing, especially because what used to work for booking is not working anymore. People have three core desires and that is to be seen, heard and understood.

And I think the generations that are coming up next, they can smell BS a mile away. The, the marketing tactics that used to work do not work anymore. I think what they’re really looking for, and this is a cliche term, but it’s authenticity. It’s, it’s what can you do for me? How can you make me feel special?

How can. You listen to me, understand me and treat me like the individual that I am. And it goes back to this, this like speaking to people’s three core desires to be seen, heard and understood. Now understood has been interpreted a couple of different ways. Some people say love, some people just say accepted.

I like understood because I think it’s just all encompassing between loved and accepted. Now, This is not fake interest. This is not, um, I’m overly emoting. I’m trying to get to the emotions, uh, and get this couple to an emotional place. This is understanding people and what’s important to them. And the way that you do this is just by asking questions and being interested versus interesting.

Now, Let me just maybe go from a practical perspective. There’s this video maybe eight or 10 years ago on YouTube. I think it was from Canon Australia. I’ll have to find it and put it in the show notes. But there were six photographers who were basically put on to photograph this one man. They’re all photographed the same person individually, but each photographer was given a different description of this man.

They basically said, um, you know, as the, as the Art director was saying, okay, you’ve got Michael coming in. He’s a millionaire to another photographer. They would say he’s a psychic to another photographer. They would say he’s a recovering alcoholic or an ex con. And it was really interesting because each photographer started asking the same man different questions about how he wanted to be portrayed.

And, um, you know, he looks the same. They’re in the same studio. They’re the same lighting, the same tools, the same cameras, but all of them come out so different. And it’s not about taking advantage of people or trying to get them into this emotional state or whatever. I think it’s about understanding what’s truly valuable to these people and trying to know them on a deep level.

So that way you can sort of see through their eyes as to what’s important about their wedding day. And I think there’s a case that yes, like, you know, you could go through the motions and show up and get the same picture of the dad crying because maybe that’s important or whatever, but it’s, It’s showing up knowing you’re going to get the great pictures because you’ve done the work, you’ve studied, um, you know, being, you’ve been a student of this couple rather than just showing up doing your thing and hoping you’re going to get great pictures.

Here’s another analogy. I think it’s about, like I said, it’s about knowing your couples and there’s a big difference between knowing your couples or knowing your clients and knowing about them. We are in this social media questionnaire age and you know, it’s all about efficiency and questionnaires and that’s great, right?

There are lots of different kinds of businesses. The people I’m speaking to right now are individuals who are. Who think that there’s something more than just like showing up and snapping pictures, who want to have a deeper connection and create maybe more meaning in their photographs. When you seek to know your couples, it’s more than just sending them a questionnaire or like corresponding over email about the details of the wedding day.

And if, let’s just, let’s just say, if I were to tell you, maybe there’s a single bachelor and I tell the bachelor all about their future mate. All about them, their hair color, eye color, um, where they went to school, what their relationship is like with their parents, you know, what they like to do on the weekends, what they like to eat, what they don’t like to eat, what they do in their spare time, how many hours they sleep.

If they like to run, how much money they’re going to make, um, you know, what, uh, what age they’re going to live to all this stuff. And you’re telling the bachelor every little detail possible. The bachelor would still say, Oh my goodness, that’s amazing. I can hardly wait to get to know this person. Right. If you’re just because you can tell somebody about their future mate, doesn’t mean that they know them.

So collecting data and logistics and all this stuff doesn’t mean that you really know what’s important. I think if you’re, uh, multitasking or ever come back to me and hear me on this point, questionnaires are great. They’re really great for logistics. They’re great for names and things like that. But when it comes to knowing what’s important, they’re not great.

And it’s because. Most of the time people when responding to questionnaires, even when, even when, uh, you’re having a conversation with them and you ask them a, uh, a question that’s sort of a, a leading question or a, a get to know you question, people will give the bare minimum answer. And it’s because most of us listen to respond rather than listening to understand.

So it’s about listening. to someone’s, uh, questions, listening to their answers and then responding. And questionnaires don’t allow us to do that. They only allow people to respond with sort of a surface level, bare minimum answer. And that’s why I think that when it comes to getting to know your clients and really knowing about them or really knowing them on this deep level, emails and questionnaires are really for logistics, but phone.

Um, mail, like actual snail mail. And then meeting in person are really for the heart. They’re really for the building, the trust and to the, the getting to know each other. And if there’s, I love this quote by Mr. Rogers that says we get so wrapped up in numbers in our society. The most important thing is that we are able to be one to one, you and I with each other in the moment we can, if we can be present to the moment with the person that we happen to be with, that’s what’s important.

And in this world of constantly optimizing and questionnaires and especially couples who are getting married, they have questionnaires, they have so many emails to get back to. It’s a relief, I think, for a lot of people to be able to sit down and for us to sit on the opposite side of the table from them.

and really just hear them out and understand their vision and what they’re excited about. So that is the long version of this concept, right? This concept of the more you know your couples, the more knowledge you have about them, the more you know them on this deep level, the better you’re going to be able to photograph them.

So what does this look like in practice? In practice, in my business, this is what it looked like. It always looked like in person meetings prior to COVID. I was getting together with my couples, uh, even that didn’t book me all the time. Now I was really hustling. That was sort of prior to kids and things like that.

Now that, um, zoom and, and Google meet and all that stuff have really become such an ingrained part of our day to day. And plus I also value value travel time and things like that. If I don’t have to travel, I get more time with my kids. Uh, no couple. books me without a meeting with both of them on the call.

It has to be both of them on the meeting because it’s based on both of their love and joy or interest in the way that I photograph. And, um, I just think it’s great to also be able to sit across from them and ask them questions about each other. And this meeting is really about seeing if we’re a good fit.

It’s about finding out who they are as people. Um, and it’s also about seeing like how they interact with each other. You know, if you’ve had multiple different clients that People are different. Some couples are very lovey dovey and they’re like, you put the camera down and you have to remind them that the camera’s down and they’re still loving on each other and kissing and close and all that kind of stuff.

And then other couples are not that, uh, much into public displays, displays of affection. They’re more quiet and reserved. And This whole thing, as much as it’s about like asking questions that are meaningful, it’s also about just gathering data points about, like I said, who they are as people. Are their parents important to them?

Are they, um, like I said, quiet and reserved? Are they touchy feely? Um, do they walk around holding hands? Are they, you know, what do they do at, uh, on a Sunday night? What do they do? Or let’s say, what do they do on a Saturday night? What do they do on a Sunday morning? And what do they do on a Monday? Right?

Like those are things that you can really tell a lot about people. I also think that in my first meeting with a couple, it, the point that where, where I’m at, I think a lot of photographers, it’s about. the photographer trying to give the couple, like sort of tell them about themselves, how they work, come up with a timeline for the day and like all this stuff.

But for me, it’s sort of a journey about the couple, where on my worst day, and I think most of us have been doing this for a while on my worst day, I can show up and cover the wedding, right? Like I can still get great pictures, but What takes a long time to build, like, is the trust and, and the comfort.

Like, the wedding details don’t come together until two or three months out. But it’s this, like, finding out if we’re a good fit. It’s about really coming alongside the couple on their journey, and being along for that journey, and understanding You know who they are and really trying to dig into them rather than telling them how many awards I’ve won or what my approach to the wedding day is.

And of course those things come up, but I lead with this idea that it’s about the couple. You know, I don’t really ask about the engagement or anything. A lot of times what I will ask is I’m just trying to show What the ultimate process is going to be like, because I can say immediately that I have this really personal approach to photography and all that kind of stuff, but it’s more about showing them.

So the first part of the consultation for me is, uh, two twofold. It’s about displaying the level of vulnerability and the kind of, uh, answers that I want them to give by sharing some of my own personal story with my wife and things like that. But second, it’s about becoming more than like a checklist item.

Um, I want to get off of that checklist and, and have, have this conversation that’s so totally different than the conversation they’ve had with any other photographer. When I first, the first question I ask is, uh, usually about when they inquire with me, they’ll share a little bit of their story. And I’ll just make sort of a joke about when they inquired that they left a whole bunch out.

So when was, uh, you know, who fate, who made the first move to connect with each other? Who made, uh, what was the first date? Like, um, what was, uh, any of the, uh, other sort of like beginning things. And you know, that’s just like starting with like this wide filter. So I’ll just ask like some very surface level questions.

And then once they answer those, I just try to take it a little bit deeper and deeper. And my favorite question that really, um, starts to open things up is, okay, when did it go from this fun girl that you saw at college and met, you know, in a dorm room to, okay, here’s the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with?

And a lot of times, I, again, going back to what I said earlier, that the couples will often give me this sort of like base level answer because they don’t actually believe that I hear, that I want to hear the question, they, the answer they’re going to give me. And, um, And after that, I always tell this story about my wife and I walking through Target.

And we’re walking through Target one day. So I’m pretty tall. I’m six foot three. My wife is five foot four. And we’re walking along. And if she’s really close to me, she can see sort of be out of my peripheral vision. But this is like very early, early on in our relationship, like we’re dating maybe like a year or so.

And all of a sudden, like as we’re walking, I realized like I’m talking, we’re having a chat, chit chatting, whatever. And I realized she’s like nowhere near me. And I turn around and look back and she’s got these big pink heart pillows and she’s holding them and she’s doing this like little shimmy shake dance saying you love me.

These, these are so big and fluffy, whatever. And I came back and I was like, uh, yes, babe, I do love you. And I saw this particular, Look on her face. And it’s a look that I recognized and I’m not saying this at the moment. I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with my wife, uh, then girlfriend, but I just like saw her in this different way.

And me being the sort of empath that I am, the photographer, you know, being a photographer in the business at that time, I realized that there were things that couples see in each other that other people don’t get to see. And it’s because they’re around each other because they’re comfortable because they’re close to each other.

It’s true. It’s true. And it’s because they’re romantic, whatever it is, but there are these things that couples get to see in each other that other people don’t get to see. If I can understand what some of those things are, that’s going to allow me to look for things that other people wouldn’t know to look for.

My wife has this very like bashful smile like this, like if you’ve ever seen the original Grinch animated movie where like the Grinch sort of like his smile like creeps up his cheeks and like it’s not a toothy smile, but it’s like a top lip sort of like pushing down the But like the bottom lip, like bashful smile.

When I see that, I know I’m doing something good. And if there’s this particular look that I see, and I know I’m doing something good, and I’m filling my wife’s love tank, then the same has to be true for other couples. And if I can learn some of those things, and I can see some of those things, then I can photograph each of them as they see each other.

And that’s a really powerful thing. So I’m trying to like, um, give you this sort of like 500 foot view of what this looks like in practice, but also give you some of these nitty gritty things. It’s not about, like, like I said, it’s not about emoting. It’s not about like finding out the, uh, itty bitty gritty details of people’s relationships.

It’s really just about meeting people where they’re at and finding out what’s unique about them, finding out what they love about them. Is it, I remember I was asking the same question to, um, a bride and she was talking about how they would rip around Delaware on their bikes. Um, cause he worked in a bike shop and they would see their reflections in these buildings.

And she was like, I just love it when I do that. And I see him and he’s just like ripping, he’s having a good time. And it’s like, that’s like us in our best lives. And I was like, okay, when do you think you’re going to see that same, like you’re ripping around Delaware on your bikes? When do you think you’re going to see that same look on your wedding day?

And she’s like, I don’t know when we come into the reception, we’re going to be like, fuck yeah, right? Like this is amazing. Fuck yeah. Um, I’m sorry. I think this might be the first time I’ve ever said the F word on my podcast. Damn, there goes my explicit thing. Shoot. Anyway, I remember like that’s one, right?

Like this, like big smiley, big moment. They love it. They’re like hyped up. But then I’ve also, you know, asked that same question of other couples and they’re like, I know when he turns around at our first look because we want it to be really private and we wanted to be on the bridge behind my parents house on their property, um, that he’s going to cry because blah, blah, blah, right?

Very different people, very different. views of what these moments, these big moments, these big important moments are going to be. And so that’s why I ask these questions to tie them into what is actually going to happen on the wedding day. And then it’s not about me showing up and like hoping I’m going to get good pictures.

It’s me having done the research, having done the question, asking to understand what’s really important to this couple. Another way that I implement this, um, and this is actually sort of like a, um, a closer to the wedding kind of thing, um, which we’re going to talk about a little bit more of like the journey to leading up to the wedding day in, uh, another episode coming up, but I call this the wedding rings and I really should make a downloadable for everybody, because this is something that’s super helpful and important.

You and I, we photographers are visual people and I like to have a hierarchy of who to focus on. So the wedding, I want you to think of like a bullseye. I call this the wedding rings. I run my, my couples through this at the two or three month mark when we sit down and talk about the wedding details. I’m like, okay, think of a bullseye.

The two of you are in the middle of that bullseye. The wedding is about the two of you. Most of the photographs are of the two of you. I’m sort of focusing on you most of the day. Okay. But the two of you are really only like one to 2 percent of the people at your wedding. So there are these other rings, these other groupings of people who are really, really important to you.

So in this first ring, who is in the first ring, this like next ring around the bullseye. And the closer they are to you, the more important they are. The more I think, okay, Um, here’s this really amazing moment. Maybe the couple is sitting there looking at the person speaking. I’m thinking, okay, I’ve got a great picture of the couple.

I’ve got a picture of the person speaking. Who else is great to get a reaction picture from? What’s the hierarchy I need to think about here? And so I just go through those rings in that first ring, and Who’s the two or three people who are really important to you in the next ring? Who’s the three to five or people who are really important to you?

The next level out. And then the third one, you know, who’s just like, who’s like leftover, right? Outside of friends and whatever. Who are the people that are like, I, this, these people are really important to me. And I love this question because it allows me to write down individually who’s in, you know, partner a, or, you know, if I’m talking about a heterosexual couple, it’s, you know, bride, um, groom, who’s in the bride’s ring, who’s in the groom’s ring, or, you know, I just, if there’s ways to break it down and I love being able to write down the sort of visual hierarchy of these are the important people.

And then I ask why, why are they important? You know, why are the net first ring? And sometimes, most of the time it’s. It’s pretty expected, but sometimes it throws me off where maybe the parents aren’t in the first ring. And, you know, it opens up questions for couples to say, or opens up the opportunity for couples to say, you know, these people are actually really more important to me than these people.

And it’s just really good for me to understand. Now, I have a million different stories about how this has played out in a ton of my weddings over the last bunch of years. There’s so many that I would love to share, but I just because of sort of confidentiality and that kind of thing, um, I don’t, I can’t share specific details, but like there were times when, you know, uh, a, a certain person who’s very close to the bride, um, had substance abuse issues.

And now that person is sober and. And if I hadn’t asked these questions, it would have might have been a storyline that I, you know, wouldn’t have paid as much attention to or, or missed or, um, now, but now that I know, like part of this thread, it’s like, this is a storyline that’s like, has become more important to the story or that I can spend a lot more time focusing on.

Um, I remember, you know, years ago, Daniel and Davina, uh, I think they’re actually doing weddings again. Uh, but they had talked about how one of their, I think it was one of their client’s parents, um, was in a wheelchair and they, the couple really made it, um, sort of an important note that they didn’t want a lot of the wheelchair in the pictures.

Um, because it was going to, I forget what the exact circumstances around it were, but the couple like knew this very important thing. And so they created this whole set of over like 50 pictures were like, they were really amazing, really emotional, but it was like this new little challenge for them to create this amazing set of photographs while minimizing the, uh, the wheelchair that the, I think it was a, you know, a parent or something was in.

And so, You know, to sum up this part, it’s that the more you know about your couples, the better your photographs are going to be. And if I can even just, if I put all this stuff that I’ve talked to over the last, what was supposed to be a short episode, um, that now has, you know, turned into 30 minutes. It is to become a student of your couples, treat them as aliens.

Every single one of them is different and just come alongside them and really just be, be curious, not judgmental, uh, be interested, not interesting, and just take a really personal approach to this. And then once you do this, these people are going to feel so taken care of. That this is going to become one very huge part in why people refer you to others because you’re going to see them for who they are and treat them for who they are.

So this next, uh, this next one that we’re going to talk about in this next episode, come back for it, where I talked about, you know, uh, knowledge and all that kind of stuff. And this one next, uh, the next concept, next episode is going to be all about how to differentiate yourself from everybody else. So come back two weeks and it’s not just about how you photograph either.

Differentiate yourself from everybody else. And I promise next episode is going to be really great. Thanks for coming with me today. Um, hit me up, let me know what you think. Uh, I’m curious, you know, about how you implement this. Um, I’m a regular person. I like Facebook messenger. I like Instagram. Messenger, whatever you want to call it.

Um, let me know how you’re implementing this. What’s stuck out to you? Um, and as always, uh, if you’re finding this really interesting, hit that rate, review, subscribe button. That helps me sort of expand the show and get it to other people. So we all can have thriving, happy, fulfilling businesses and lives.

Thanks so much for tuning in today. Make it a great day. Talk to you soon.