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The AEDD Framework – Learn how to sell more printed products through our Attract, Excite, Delight, Deliver Framework – for FREE!
Episode Transcript
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Nobody has ever said, I can’t wait to pass down image 00124989 or dot JPG to my grandkids like nobody does that. Right? So the question is this, how are photographers like you who are tired of giving away all of their hard work at rock bottom prices, who longed to stand out in markets that are getting more and more crowded by the day? And who wants to run businesses that serve them, their clients and their families? How can those photographers pull all this off without sacrificing their family time, their client base in their integrity? Well, if that’s the question, then this podcast has the answers. My name is Chris Scott, and this is the printmaker podcast.
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What’s up everybody Today we’re talking about digital files. This is like a
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it’s like talking politics or religion at the Thanksgiving table, right?
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Sit down with photographers and we start talking about digital files. So the thing that I want to get really kind of like hammer in, in today’s episode is that print sales and file sales are not mutually exclusive. These are not mutually exclusive, they can and should work hand in hand. Okay?
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When you offer files correctly, this can lead to massive profits and higher product sales actually selling more products. All right? Now, if there’s someone out there telling you that you cannot or should not be offering files, because you’re devaluing the industry are you devaluing your work and, you know, dragging the industry down, then that person has their head in the sand. And they are pretending that this industry is the same as it was 10 years ago, okay, this is just not an option today. So if you have to offer files today, let’s talk about how you should do it the right way. And I want to cover really three main points, three things that you
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You should consider when you offer files in a print focused business, because that’s really what we talk about over here is being a print focused business. Okay, so number one, I want you to price your files, so that you’ll be happy. If that’s all that somebody buys. Obviously, we want them to buy much more than just one file. But you have to go into every session, just assuming that a client is only going to buy one file. And in that case, you need to ask yourself two questions. How much do I need to make per session? Is the first one, how much do I need to make per session? And then once you have that number in your head, in fact, go ahead and think about it right now. To hit my goals. If I’m going to do X number of sessions per week, that’s this many a month and I want to make this much per month. How much do I need to make per session? Now, take that number and ask yourself, can I get that much for a single file? Or do I need to sell only the full session?
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files. So if you came up with, I need to make only, you know, $100 per session to make it worth my while then. Okay, you can probably charge that for a single file, right? In fact, you can absolutely charge that for a single file. Now, if instead, you said no, I need to make about 1200 dollars per session to make this worth my while, okay, that’s probably going to be a bit more of a reach for a single file. So maybe you would consider offering only the full session of digital files. So when somebody says, Hey, I want files, you say, yeah, that’s fine. We sell the full session of files only. And we sell those for 1200 dollars or 1500 dollars or something like that. And these numbers, I know that to a lot of people, these things sound scary, especially if you’re a shoot and burn photographer right now. But you can absolutely get these kinds of numbers for files, especially when you do what we’re going to talk about in just a few minutes. Okay, so how can I get or can I How much do I need to make per session and
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Can I get that much for a single file? Or do I need to sell only the full session of files? All right. And that’s really the only two main considerations that you need to think about when it comes to how you structure how you sell your files, am I going to sell them individually? Am I going to charge like $250 for a single file? Or am I going to just say you have to buy the entire session, and they’re 1200 dollars or whatever, 800 whatever that number is you came up with, okay, so that’s number one, price them so that you’re gonna be happy. If that’s all someone buys. Number two, I want you to use them as an incentive or a carrot on a stick that you hang out in front of your clients to get them to purchase actual products. Because again, what we focus on over here is selling prints, not files, right? That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to we focus on selling prints though, because, and this is this is just our thing over here at print maker system. But we want clients to end up with real products, things that they can enjoy.
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and day out that don’t have a, you know, a 38 second half life over on on Facebook, right? We want them to, to enjoy these and to live with these products in their homes, and to be able to pass these down from generation to generation. That’s really what it’s all about for us over here. So for us, we really want them to get products printed products. Okay. So what that means is, I can have an ala carte price on my individual files, let’s say maybe I say my individual files are $250, you can get a single file for $250. Well, now I can use that as an incentive to get them to buy actual printed products, we say, yeah, you know what, they’re normally $250 but you get 50% off for any image that ends up on the wall or in an album. Get 50% off for any images that ends up on the wall or in an album now I’m making $125 per file, which is
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is a crazy good cost of goods sold, because it really costs me next to nothing to produce that file for them.
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But I’m still getting them to buy the thing that I want them to buy. Now if your prices can justify it, and it makes sense for you and your business, you can go all the way to like, we will give you the file for free of anything that goes on the wall, or in an album, Adrian and I did this for 10 years, and it worked great. It worked great. We sold so much more actual products. And they got what they wanted. They got something for their wall, they got an album but they also got that file, right. The file. The file is a security blanket. I want you to really think about that. The reason your clients want that file is is just security. It makes them feel better. They just feel like if my house burns down and this is in the cloud,
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I won’t lose it, right?
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And if this photographer goes out of business, I’ll still have it, right? Or if I just want to do something else with it later down the road, which you and I know that’s not going to happen, they’re probably just never going to touch those files again. But for them, it makes them feel better. It’s a security blanket. Okay. So at this point, we can say, yes, we’re going to give you that thing. Okay, let’s talk about this stuff. Let’s talk about products. Let’s talk about, you know, canvases or framed prints or albums, stuff that you can actually pass down to, you know, your kids and their kids. And that leads us to the third point that I want to talk about, which is, I would love to see you position your files as an afterthought. Okay, what I mean by that is what I just said, yeah, we can definitely get you some files. In fact, we offer a pretty amazing discount on any files that you put on the wall, or in an album, or, in fact, we’re going to give you the files
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Anything that goes on the wall or in an album, but let’s talk about real stuff, let’s talk about stuff that you can pass down because nobody has ever said, I can’t wait to pass down image 00124989 or dot JPG to my grandkids like nobody does that. Right? So once you to to position these as an afterthought, yeah, we can get two files Don’t worry about In fact, we’re going to give you a copy of any file that goes on the wall or in an album. Or we’re going to give you an amazing discount on any files that you put on the wall or in an album right now. You may be listening right now thinking, yeah, Chris, that sounds great. But that’s not going to work for my clients. Like they’re just not going to do that. And to that, I say, lovingly, you’re doing it wrong. All right. Um, if you do the process that we talked about over the last four episodes, if if you don’t know what I’m talking about, go back. Okay, the last four episodes
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We covered what we call The AEDD Framework, attract, excite, delight and deliver. If you follow that process, you are going to get especially that first part of attract, you’re going to get clients in the door who want printed products. And when you are setting the expectation that this is what people come to you for where everywhere they look at your work, they’re seeing printed products, then, then this idea of positioning files as an afterthought will have already happened. Your clients will already think of them as an afterthought. They might just think of them as exactly what we talked about that security blanket, you know what, I think we’d like to get the files as well just so that we can have them in case something happens. Okay, cool. Here’s how we deal with that. Right? So again, if you’re thinking, yeah, I don’t know how this whole afterthought thing will work with my clients, then I encourage you to go back and listen to the last four episodes or just head over to add
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framework calm. And it’s going to walk you through that entire framework in like one video training, you’re going to attract people who want this stuff in the first place. So that when you get to the point where they might be asking for files, it really is an afterthought. It really is a security blanket at that point, and everyone is on the same page. everyone realizes, that’s not what you do, but we would like these anyway. Right? Okay, so the three things that you should consider when offering files in your print focused business, number one, price them so that you’ll be happy if that’s all someone buys, remember, how much do I need to make per session? And can I get that much for a single file? Or do I need to only sell the full session? Okay. Number two, use them as an incentive to get clients to purchase products. And this is where we talked about all a cart price versus a discounted price or offering for free for anything that goes on the wall, or in an album. Okay, and then last position them
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afterthought, then that’s really just kind of how you talk about what we just bet that second step of using them as an incentive, how do you how are you going to kind of talk about that? Yeah, we can talk about files. In fact, we’re going to give you an amazing discount on any files that you put on the wall, or in an album. Okay. And if you’re thinking this won’t do for this won’t work for my clients, then head over to HEDD framework calm, and check out that entire that video training, it’s free video training on that attract, excite to light and deliver framework and it’s going to completely change the way that you look at selling products and it’s going to change the types of clients who come into your business in the first place. Alright, so that’s it. That is how you should handle selling files if you are a print focused photographer. Thanks so much for listening. I will be back soon with another episode.
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Hey, thanks so much for listening to the print maker podcast. I hope this episode
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has helped you out. Now, if you would like to return the favor and help us out, the best thing that you can do for us is to head over to iTunes and leave an honest rating and review. It does a ton to help us spread the word about the printmaker podcast. Thanks and I will see you in the next episode.