Clone Yourself with Automation and Workflows. Texas School "Off the Record" with Jeff Poole

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Hello friends, this is Chris Duncan with Texas School, and today we're
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joined by Jeff Poole, who is the master of marketing automations,
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setting your systems and your studio on autopilot so
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you can continue to make money and do all the— and let the admin work
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do itself in the background. So yeah, Jeff does, and his wife Lori have Indigo
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Silver. And so welcome, Jeff. Thanks for joining us today.
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Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, so that's
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pretty intriguing, this autopilot. You know, you hear about automations a lot and
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just kind of— but man, it sure can be overwhelming,
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right? It can be. Yeah, it can be. But once, once you
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embrace it, it's— there's no going back, you know. And, and early
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on, Lori and I, when we were told like, you've got to let people
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book and let people schedule when they want to and don't force them into
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a certain thing of waiting for you to get back to them. You've got to
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give them that ability to do that when they're, when they're ready and when they're
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shopping. And the first time I was like, so you want me to put my
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calendar out there so that people can just self-schedule things?
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And the guy we were working with, it's like, yeah. And I was like,
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no, it's not going to happen. My calendar is way too involved. There's way
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too much stuff going on with kids and the studio, and it's just way too
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involved. And, you know, it took me about a year before I finally wrapped
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my mind around it and was like, okay, I'm going to do it. And now
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everything. I mean, even like my daughter is like, hey,
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I'm gonna be coming into town, um, you know, sometime next month.
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And I'm like, here's a link, schedule with me. I've got a personal link for
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friends and family that want to come visit. I'm like, I don't go back and
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forth with scheduling things at all anymore. Everything's automated.
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That's funny. Well, you know, there's that joke that if it's
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not on the calendar, it's not going to happen. So I guess— oh yeah,
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this kind of makes sure it gets put on the calendar. Yeah. Yeah. And the
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same with when leads come in, it's like so many times I'll reach out
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to someone and even my daughter's getting married and I'm reaching out to wedding vendors
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and I get an autoresponder back from them that says, hey, we're busy.
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If you don't hear from us in the next 24 to 48 hours,
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try reaching out to us again. And I'm immediately like, well, I'm not
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booking you. Come on. You're going to tell
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me I'm trying to give you my money and you're going to tell me I
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might not respond to you in 24 or 48 hours? And I'm like, How's it
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going to be when you've got my money, right? Yeah. So yeah, it's like
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just, you know, give people the opportunity to, to book with
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you or schedule with you when they are in, in that shopping mood. And if
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they don't, follow up with them, automate all of that stuff. It just makes your
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life so much easier. Yes. Well, you know, even this thing,
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us scheduling this podcast interview, was semi-automated. For some
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reason the wrong link got sent out, but we're here. Um, so I know there's
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a lot of steps to think through, and I think that's why when people hear
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about this— and I know I was that way at the beginning— it's like,
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man, there's so much work to do on the, I guess,
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on the front end before you can launch this. And so where
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does, where does someone need to start with that? Like, how deep does that system
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have to go before you can hit play?
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Yeah, you know, I think, I think the biggest thing is finding a platform.
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You know, we have HighLevel, and it's, it's kind of everything.
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It runs our websites, it runs all of our sales funnels, it runs all of
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our automations, our our scheduling.
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It literally runs everything in our studio except for invoices
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and contracts. We still use VSCO, formerly known as
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Tave, for that because just because we've had,
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you know, 15 years of data in there that we can look back on for
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year-over-year trends, average sales and things like that. HighLevel will do that stuff,
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but I would say look for a platform to do it and do it well.
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A lot of the photography-based platforms are
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really good at contracts and invoices, but they're not that great at automation. They'll allow
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you to when someone signs a contract or someone inquires,
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they will allow you in a one-path automation
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where it will send out sequences, but you really don't have a lot of control
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over it at that point. So that if they opt into one campaign
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and then halfway through you want to move them based on an action they take
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into a different workflow, and then when they're in that workflow,
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if you want to move them to a third workflow, you don't really have the,
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the capability. So I would say first Find a platform to do
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it. HighLevel's fantastic at it, at being able to do all of that. And then
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the second thing to do is work with AI, you know,
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have it write you a, what we call a transactional sequence,
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email sequence, which is when someone reaches out to you,
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they fill out a contact form on your website. You wanna,
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and this is where a lot of people I think don't wanna automate things because
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they don't wanna take the personal feel out of it. And you can still absolutely
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automate your inquiries and automate your lead flow and things without
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taking the personal feel out of it. So let me back up for a minute
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and just kind of tell you our story. When we first started automating things,
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when someone would fill out our contact form on our website, we had these pretty
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emails that would go out and it was our nurture sequence. They were very pretty.
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They had logos, they had images, they had all the information that someone would
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need to know, but it took the personal feel out of
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it. And I remember like it was yesterday, I was demoing the system to someone
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and I said, see, here's how it works. And I opted in. And then
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I said, now I've got the email and I just forgot to remove myself from
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the list. And like a few days later, I remember looking at my email going,
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I don't feel like Lori actually responded to me. I feel like I opted
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into a newsletter because it was obviously a canned
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response that was going out. It was when you've got logos and graphics and images
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and things like that in an autoresponder, it's obviously
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not per— like, I didn't feel like Lori reached out to me
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and responded to me. I felt like I opted in for a newsletter. And so
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that's when we started kind of coming up with the concept of this transactional
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email sequence. And that is emails that are plain
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text that don't have any buttons or graphics or images or
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logos. It literally looks like Lori responded back to this
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lead out of like Gmail or something. And if there's a
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link in there to schedule a call, it's just a blue hyperlink, just like you
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would normally get. But now when someone opts into
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any of our campaigns, they get this transactional nurture sequence
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of like, hey, thanks for reaching out. I'd love the opportunity to work with you.
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And to schedule a call, click here. Here's some basic information. And then
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a few days later, we follow up with another one. A few days later,
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we follow up with another one. There's like 4 of those. But in the meantime,
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we are also adding them to what we call long-term nurture sequence,
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which is the pretty emails that have graphics. But these are all
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value-driven. We want them to see value in what it's like to work with
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us, whether that's headshots, weddings, boudoir, whatever it is.
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Those transactional ones are still going out from either me or Lori, depending on
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who you opt in with. And it's meant that I'm reaching out to you
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and following up with you personally. But yet my company is
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also sending value-driven emails to keep us top
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of mind. And so to start with, I would say, sit down and write
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4 or 5 emails that are coming directly from you that are
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going to be plain text emails that are going to be automated out. And then
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sit down and write 10 or 15 value-driven emails of things
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that you want people to know, those objections that people have
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about booking a photographer. You want to, to address those objections
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before they even come to top of mind. And so you do those in those
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other emails that go out and those drip out over time. And so I
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think the hardest part is for people to get those 2 sets of emails done.
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And then once you do that, when you automate that, it just takes your—
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takes you completely out of the loop for actually having to sit down
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and feel like you've got to respond to emails because you are responding to emails.
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It's just you're responding to them in an automated fashion. So,
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so how can, how can someone— first of all, I like the idea of not
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having to have a big graphic email. I think that's where we get hung up.
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Like, oh, it's got to look pretty, it's got to hit everybody, it's got to
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be generalized but still feel personal. So I appreciate I appreciate you sharing that part
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of the story. And I even, when you were telling that, I was thinking of
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some, some other influencers and stuff that I subscribe to and I'm getting plain
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text emails from them. They're not, you know, it's, it's very matter of fact.
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But so I like the idea of not having the big graphics,
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but at what, like, how do you make it personal when
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it's so generalized? I mean, yeah, give, give the photographers tips.
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Like, yeah, and I think you're having to
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break it down per genre, right? This isn't just a main thing. Your transactional
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sequences, if you have one website that has like,
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let's say, Luria, if Luria and I have one website that we shared that
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has weddings, headshots, and boudoir on it, our contact form
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would need to have a dropdown list of like, why are you inquiring? What are
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you inquiring about? And you can actually build in of like, if you choose
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boudoir, opt them into the boudoir sequences.
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If you choose headshots, put them in the headshot sequences. And so you can parse
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out where your contact is going and what newsletter or
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transactional sequence they're opting into. And so once you
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do that, then it becomes very much niched down. So when
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you're responding in those transactional ones, you're not really talking about tips
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or tricks or anything. You're just responding of like, hey Chris, thanks for reaching out
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about a headshot. I'd love the opportunity to work with you. Here's some basic information
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on pricing and how to schedule. If you have any questions or anything, just reply
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back or click the link down below and you can schedule your headshot online.
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And then a few days later, I have one that goes and says, Hey Chris,
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a few days ago you reached out about headshots. I didn't see your booking
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come through or schedule come through. I just want to reach out and see if
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you have any other questions about booking and see if I can get you on
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the calendar. Here's my number. Here's another link to the calendar. And then a
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few days later, another one will go out and eventually, you know, and this is
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where a lot of photographers worry about things because we don't want to pester our
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leads, but we kind of have to in this day and age because people have
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the attention span of a goldfish. And so if
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we're not staying in the top of their inbox, they're going to forget us.
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I mean, things get buried super quick. So those 3 to
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4 transactional emails are me reaching out to them. And so
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it's very specific about what they reached out for. And then when that nurture
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sequence kicks in, usually after about— usually we have ours go out at day
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3, it adds them to that nurture sequence. So they're not getting those right
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away. But on day 3, if they haven't responded, if they haven't done
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anything, then we add them to that nurture sequence. And that nurture sequence does have
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images in it, does have graphics, but they're all value-driven. It's not me reaching out
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and saying, hey, Chris, let's get scheduled. Let's get you on the books.
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Me following up. It might be something like, you know, what should
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I wear for my headshot? Here are the top outfits that we recommend.
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If you haven't moved forward with your booking, click here. And then the next one
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might be studio or on location. And then the next one might be what
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types of files do I get? Is retouching included? So all the things that people
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need to know are in that nurture sequence. So you're answering questions that they may
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have, but they may not have reached out and asked. And one reason why
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a lot of people are going away from the graphic type emails for
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your initial responses is because spam filters are
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so bad now. And if you don't have your emails
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set up almost perfect and you have images
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and graphics and buttons and things like that, and it's really heavy on HTML,
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it's immediately gonna go into the spam or promotions tab.
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And your leads aren't gonna see it. So by eliminating
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that factor and just let your initial response emails
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just be plain text, you're more likely to hit the inbox as well. That's a
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good tip cuz that's scary for someone to do all this work. Yeah. And then
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for it not even to impact. Exactly. Yeah. So not a lot of HTML.
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What about like even a header, like a, your logo, a signature
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at the bottom that has a headshot? I mean, is it nothing on ours?
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I mean, if, if it's, we, you can put a signature at the bottom that
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has like a headshot. In it. Generally that's done with— it's
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a light HTML and it's got signature in there, so email inboxes
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will know that that HTML is a signature and it won't flag
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it as promotion or spam because it will say email signature somewhere in there.
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And so that's okay if you want to have something like that with your social
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links or whatever at the bottom. I don't think that's bad. We still don't do
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it. We just still say, cheers, Jeff, Indigo Silver,
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phone number, email, just like it was like just plain text. Yeah.
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Because I want it to feel like I'm responding to them.
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That's, that's kind of the goal is, is to build, cuz people book who they
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know, like, and trust. And so if I'm building rapport with someone and,
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and they see that I'm reaching out to them instead of just this pretty
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canned HTML email, then it feels a little bit more personal.
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Yeah. So I like this 2002 style email we've
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got going on. It's 1996 style email almost.
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Yeah. Break it down. That's great. That's, that's good information. So.
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That's your transactional side. These very simple, short text,
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easy to read. You know, you're not going to get attention fatigue
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in that type of email. That's just to get them to move to the next
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step. Exactly. If they haven't moved to the next step,
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eventually you start sending them what you're calling value-added stuff, like here's
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what can wear, here's the, here's the services we offer. And these are a little
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more designed to match your brand and such like that.
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Exactly. What's the— you said you don't want to pester, but we have to,
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so Have you found that sweet spot of frequency, like every
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3 days, once a, once a week, once a month?
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Does it, is it heavy at first and then taper off? It does.
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It's heavy at first and it tapers off. So our transactional emails,
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initially that first one goes out about 5 minutes after someone inquires,
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5 to 10 minutes. And then they also get an SMS right
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away as well that says, hey Chris, thanks for inquiring about headshots. I just
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sent you more information via email. If you don't see it, please check your spam
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or promotions tab. You know, people can either stay— we don't, we don't text
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market. We only do transactional, uh, text messages because
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people, as bad as people hate email marketing, they hate text marketing
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even worse. Especially in an election year when you're getting them all unsolicited.
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Yeah, it's bad. Yeah. And it's really easy to burn a phone
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number as well if you get too many stop replies. And so that's why you
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see a lot of these marketers will tell you like, write back with no to
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opt out or write back the letter N to opt out.
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Always write back stop because that's flagged by the
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carriers and it will unsubscribe you 100% and it
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will flag them from the carrier because I hate it just as bad as everybody
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else. It's a loophole. So, so yeah, they're telling you to write back with
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something else that they've got built into an automation that will unsubscribe you from text.
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But if you write— but that's not going to stop them from blasting text marketing
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to people. So if you write back stop, it will 100% stop because
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it will flag it with the carrier. But with that being said,
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that's why we don't do text marketing. It's transactional only of like, hey, thanks for
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reaching out. I just want to make sure you get my email. So if you
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don't, check here in these 2 places.
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But so with emails, email 1 goes out on day 1 and then
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email 2 goes out the next day to say, hey, I want to make sure
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you got it. And then we wait 2 days and we send out email 3.
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And in email 3, we tell them like, hey, I know you're probably
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busy. I don't want to bug you too much, but I'm going to send you
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some additional information on what it's like working with me and some few tips and
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tricks. And then I'll touch base in a few days. And that is me
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basically telling them I'm adding you to my nurture sequence. You know,
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I'm just— because I want when that— when those other emails come through
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and they look different, I want to let them know that these are just value-driven
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emails. And then we wait usually 3 more days after that. And then
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I follow up with them again to say, hey, I just want to touch base
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one last time. If I haven't heard back from you today, I'm going to close
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your lead and feel free to reach out to me at any point. We call
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that one closing the loop email, and we will get the
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majority of our responses on that one because no one wants to be told
15:52.374 --> 15:55.632
that we're going to close their lead out. But those nurture sequence emails
15:55.664 --> 15:58.826
will continue to go. So that is our flow, is email
15:58.938 --> 16:02.421
1 on day 1, email 2 on day 2, email 3,
16:03.047 --> 16:06.740
2 days after that one, and then the final email 3
16:07.240 --> 16:10.528
days after that one goes out. But now they're in that transactional sequence— I
16:11.028 --> 16:14.526
mean, the nurture sequence where they're getting those. And then those, depending on
16:15.026 --> 16:18.443
how many you've got— like, we've got one sequence that has 50-some emails and it
16:18.459 --> 16:22.135
goes for almost 2 years. And those are all value-driven. And every time we think
16:22.635 --> 16:26.036
of something, we add another email to it. And so those are all designed
16:26.068 --> 16:29.967
to be— to keep us top of mind because You know, things like headshots
16:30.095 --> 16:33.141
and weddings, people, when they're ready to book, they're ready to book.
16:33.301 --> 16:36.620
They need it yesterday. They need something right now and they're going
16:37.120 --> 16:40.772
to move quick on it. So my, my, my headshot nurture sequence only
16:40.820 --> 16:44.107
has like 15 or 20 emails because if someone is looking for a
16:44.607 --> 16:47.377
headshot, they're probably going to book them in the next week or so. So those
16:47.569 --> 16:50.439
are there, you know, just to keep me top of mind for a couple of
16:50.939 --> 16:54.527
weeks. That's it. But boudoir, there's a lot of courage that goes into booking that.
16:54.687 --> 16:58.391
You know, you're talking about coming in and getting partially nude and having your photo
16:58.455 --> 17:01.647
taken. And a lot of women have body issues,
17:01.679 --> 17:05.031
they have confidence issues, so it takes longer for them
17:05.047 --> 17:08.432
to work up the courage. And so as photographers, we always think that
17:08.932 --> 17:12.939
if someone reaches out and they ghost us or they don't respond or they don't
17:12.987 --> 17:16.741
book us right away or schedule a call, that they automatically booked somewhere
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else or we're too expensive or they didn't like our style, when in reality it
17:20.850 --> 17:23.654
could be they just need to get past the confidence of getting in front of
17:24.154 --> 17:26.509
a camera because a lot of people just don't like having their photo taken.
17:26.765 --> 17:30.178
And so they'll search for a while and then they'll get cold feet or
17:30.530 --> 17:33.799
their kid will get sick or they'll be out of town or for whatever reason.
17:34.232 --> 17:37.357
And so that long-term nurture sequence is designed to
17:37.857 --> 17:41.699
keep us top of mind over time. And so those frequency
17:42.199 --> 17:45.513
starts out probably like once a week. And then after the
17:46.013 --> 17:49.118
first handful of emails, it goes to once every 2 weeks. And then after that,
17:49.279 --> 17:51.730
it goes to once a month and it's kind of where it stays once a
17:51.778 --> 17:55.037
month, like a monthly newsletter. And we've had people that have been on
17:55.069 --> 17:58.185
our mailing list for a year that will book a session just out of the
17:58.685 --> 18:01.141
blue. And we'll look back and be like, well, they, they came in through this
18:01.253 --> 18:04.305
promotion a year ago and they've been getting the emails and they
18:04.805 --> 18:07.293
finally got the courage to book a session. And that's one of the things that
18:07.793 --> 18:11.710
I think is a lot of photographers are sleeping on is creating that long-term nurture
18:12.210 --> 18:16.240
sequence and having a lot of emails in there to provide value, that provide proof,
18:16.529 --> 18:19.629
social proof, all, all the things that people need to push
18:20.129 --> 18:23.383
them over the edge to book a session. Yeah. Yeah, so that's, that's really good
18:23.399 --> 18:27.421
information, and I think it's really encouraging just to know that it's,
18:27.437 --> 18:30.577
it's probably okay to pester. Maybe pester is not the word we would use,
18:30.786 --> 18:34.054
but to, to just keep your clients informed about what you do and that
18:34.554 --> 18:38.044
you're there and you still want to meet their needs. Um, and I think one
18:38.092 --> 18:42.194
of the big things that people also don't understand about email marketing is if,
18:42.387 --> 18:46.168
if someone unsubscribes, that, that's okay, because it's way
18:46.668 --> 18:50.464
better to have a smaller list of people in your database that are actively
18:50.640 --> 18:54.553
opening your emails and reading them and responding to them or taking
18:54.825 --> 18:58.161
or clicking the links in them than it is to have a giant list and
18:58.353 --> 19:01.400
half of them don't even open it. They just immediately delete it.
19:01.801 --> 19:05.248
Because what that does, if you say, let's say you've got 10,000
19:05.748 --> 19:09.465
people on your mailing list and you've only really got 1,000 to
19:09.965 --> 19:12.672
1,500 that are active and that are opening your emails and reading them.
19:13.410 --> 19:17.244
Well, when you send out that big blast of emails, That's basically telling
19:17.758 --> 19:21.820
the email service providers, well, there's 10,000 people that got this and 8,000
19:21.837 --> 19:25.465
of them just deleted it and never opened it. So it's got to be spam
19:25.610 --> 19:29.046
or promotions. So let's move it into here. But if
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you delete out all the people that haven't opened your emails in 3 months and
19:33.432 --> 19:36.143
now you keep doing that every 3 months, you just go and delete people who
19:36.643 --> 19:39.868
haven't opened an email in 3 months. Eventually you'll get down to a very small
19:39.916 --> 19:43.494
list of people that are active. That are opening it, and that tells
19:43.606 --> 19:47.743
the email service providers, hey, they sent out 4,000 emails and 2,000
19:47.759 --> 19:51.222
of them got opened, so let's move them into the inbox. Yeah,
19:51.527 --> 19:54.573
that's, yeah, that's good insight. And plus, you just don't want to waste your money
19:54.589 --> 19:57.379
on people that aren't interested in your services anymore, right?
19:57.443 --> 20:01.372
Exactly. So, you know, my, my theory is that when someone
20:01.484 --> 20:05.380
opts into our newsletter, or our— any, any really newsletter,
20:05.733 --> 20:09.276
they opt in, they contact us, pretty much any way we get their contact information,
20:09.325 --> 20:12.548
is that They stay on our list until one of 3 things happen.
20:13.093 --> 20:16.589
They buy, they unsubscribe, or we run out of content.
20:17.920 --> 20:21.175
They're gonna stay on that list. And so the goal is to continue adding emails
20:21.592 --> 20:24.943
to that list. You know, it's something that's needed. Like I said, not all genres
20:24.975 --> 20:28.070
need it. When someone's looking for a wedding photographer, there's no reason
20:28.102 --> 20:30.732
to keep 'em on your list for 2 years. They're probably gonna be married at
20:30.748 --> 20:34.356
that point. But for family portraits, children's portraits,
20:34.437 --> 20:37.580
boudoir, all of that stuff, keep those people engaged,
20:37.628 --> 20:41.027
keep sending them emails because they will book you at some point down the road.
20:41.332 --> 20:44.988
That's, that's really good. That's good insight. So one final thing,
20:45.100 --> 20:48.355
we kind of COVID the transactional. You've got this nurture sequence, it varies
20:48.468 --> 20:52.236
based on genre. Um, how much is too
20:52.252 --> 20:55.796
much in an email? I mean, you know, some emails you get— I mean,
20:56.164 --> 20:59.901
I guess if you're sharing your own story, I, I think I fall victim
20:59.949 --> 21:03.685
of wanting to tell them everything at once. Yeah. And it becomes overwhelming.
21:03.765 --> 21:06.475
But when I get those emails, I'm like, this is so big I can't even
21:06.571 --> 21:09.732
follow it, so I'll look at it later. And of course I never look at
21:10.232 --> 21:14.102
it later. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, keep your emails, like the transactional ones, the ones
21:14.134 --> 21:17.989
where it's me responding back, there's very little information in there. The first email just
21:18.489 --> 21:21.764
says, here's some basic information of what to expect on cost. So we know,
21:21.925 --> 21:24.559
so we let them know if they're barking up the right tree. And then the
21:25.059 --> 21:27.965
rest are just follow-ups. And then when it comes to your nurture sequence, if you
21:28.093 --> 21:31.386
actually take that big brain dump of an email that you've got and break
21:31.886 --> 21:34.535
it out, that's, you might be able to take that what you would normally feel
21:35.035 --> 21:37.217
like you need to write in one email. You might be able to get 4
21:37.329 --> 21:40.668
emails out of it. And so you have to actually create less
21:40.701 --> 21:44.537
content if you're writing short, focus-driven emails. And so things
21:44.569 --> 21:47.668
like, what do I wear to a headshot session? Here's my top 3 things.
21:47.877 --> 21:50.734
Studio or on location, which is, you know, which do I want?
21:50.830 --> 21:54.828
Personal branding versus headshots, which is right for me? You know, just so
21:55.328 --> 21:58.761
keep those emails very focused and you can get more content out
21:59.261 --> 22:03.127
of them that way. And that's where working with something like ChatGPT or Claude
22:03.432 --> 22:06.094
They can really help you write your nurture sequence if you just tell them,
22:06.142 --> 22:09.045
hey, I am this type of photographer. Here's what I shoot.
22:09.109 --> 22:12.156
Here's who I serve. Give them the whole brief of who you are and what
22:12.656 --> 22:15.444
you do. Send them to your website so they get an idea of your brand
22:15.944 --> 22:19.935
voice. Tell them the tone and just say, I need to create a nurture sequence
22:20.191 --> 22:23.046
to keep people engaged and I want there to be at least 20 emails in
22:23.078 --> 22:26.590
this first batch. Give me ideas. And what Claude will do anyway,
22:26.606 --> 22:30.424
I'm not sure about Chat, but Claude will actually break it down
22:30.521 --> 22:34.020
into different focus points of like, these are personal
22:34.052 --> 22:37.343
reasons people might want a headshot, and then these are reasons why they might use
22:37.843 --> 22:40.794
them for work. And this is reasons, this is locations that how they can use
22:41.294 --> 22:45.385
those images or whatever. And so it'll break those emails down into a
22:45.885 --> 22:49.109
plan on how to convert someone. Very good.
22:49.478 --> 22:53.010
That's good. So is, and my last,
22:53.026 --> 22:56.429
I guess my final question, is this a set it and forget it type thing?
22:57.808 --> 23:01.224
For the most part, yeah. I built my headshot sequence over a year
23:01.256 --> 23:04.608
ago and I haven't touched it. You know, it just runs. And Lori's is,
23:04.784 --> 23:08.168
she's always adding emails to it. So if she thinks of something, she'll be
23:08.184 --> 23:10.750
like, oh, I need to add this to my email sequence. Or if she gets
23:11.250 --> 23:15.032
a really good session that she has permission, she'll add it as a featured session.
23:15.128 --> 23:18.223
Or if she gets a really good testimonial, she'll add it as a social proof
23:18.287 --> 23:22.008
or a test, a trust email. And so those are things that you can always
23:22.104 --> 23:25.167
just keep going in and add an email, add an email. And you
23:25.183 --> 23:28.486
know, those types of things are are what your clients
23:28.598 --> 23:32.718
need to be able to just stay informed about what's going on, make purchasing decisions.
23:33.424 --> 23:37.015
Social proof is big, featured sessions, featured products. You know,
23:37.191 --> 23:40.894
there's just a lot that you can put into the framework
23:41.394 --> 23:44.069
of a nurture sequence and just keep adding to it. But yeah, for, for the
23:44.569 --> 23:46.986
most part, you know, it is set it and forget it. You do want to
23:47.486 --> 23:50.561
go back and make sure the content's relevant. And one big thing that I would
23:51.061 --> 23:53.832
encourage people to do is because you never know when someone's going to opt in
23:53.864 --> 23:57.150
and when they're going to get email 6 in your sequence, for example, don't put
23:57.650 --> 24:00.904
anything seasonal in there. And don't be like, oh, the weather's getting warm, it's time
24:01.404 --> 24:04.294
for spring portraits, because they may be getting that email in December, you know.
24:04.358 --> 24:08.038
So, um, so don't put anything that's seasonal in there, and don't put
24:08.538 --> 24:11.669
any calls to action of like, book this month and get,
24:11.685 --> 24:15.332
because someone could book you and then get that email 2 weeks later
24:15.832 --> 24:17.253
and be like, well, I just booked you, can I get that deal now?
24:17.790 --> 24:21.321
No, in your nurture sequence, you don't want anything that's seasonal or any, you know,
24:21.565 --> 24:25.298
bonus call to actions or anything like that. It's just value-driven Top
24:25.798 --> 24:29.370
of mind, social proof, keeping you on the top of their
24:29.870 --> 24:32.592
mind. So when they go, okay, I'm ready to book a photographer, you're the only
24:33.092 --> 24:36.231
person that's going to come to mind. Yeah. So just kind of in summary,
24:36.648 --> 24:39.950
they find you on social, they come to your website, they fill out some type
24:40.450 --> 24:43.653
of form, and then they get this transactional email.
24:44.199 --> 24:46.763
And you said it was immediately, 10 minutes, the next day,
24:47.485 --> 24:50.915
skip a few days. So really those transactions all come within the first week.
24:51.050 --> 24:54.720
And along that process, they're getting hit with these nurture sequence,
24:54.800 --> 24:58.800
and none of that's seasonal. So nurture sequence usually hits on
24:59.300 --> 25:03.320
about day 7, you know, that's about when it hits. Yeah, that's great.
25:03.820 --> 25:07.370
But your transactional ones, you're going— you're basically wanting to capture them while they're shopping.
25:07.500 --> 25:11.340
Yeah. And again, give them access to either— if you do online booking, give them
25:11.840 --> 25:15.380
access to book online. If you— like, for me, for headshots, it's commodity-driven.
25:15.880 --> 25:18.260
So there's a link in there, it's like, here's pricing, here's a link, and you
25:18.760 --> 25:21.000
can go book and schedule. You can see my calendar, book it, and you just
25:21.500 --> 25:25.173
show up and I'll shoot. For everything else, for family and children and boudoir,
25:25.478 --> 25:28.546
it's schedule a consult. And so we have a link to our calendar
25:29.046 --> 25:32.112
so they can schedule a phone call with us. We are looking to move boudoir
25:32.305 --> 25:35.694
into online booking so that they can just book right there, choose their
25:36.194 --> 25:38.521
date and time and book it right there. Uh, we just haven't had the time
25:39.021 --> 25:42.200
to actually build it out. Yeah. So yeah, that's good. Well, Jeff, thanks for
25:42.700 --> 25:45.895
the time today. Yeah, absolutely. Is there, is there a place that someone could find,
25:45.959 --> 25:49.236
like, are there templates that you've designed on these? Is there any type of
25:49.252 --> 25:52.363
marketplace? I mean, I guess HighLevel is what yours are on,
25:52.459 --> 25:55.904
but yeah, HighLevel, they have their own marketplace. There's not a lot
25:56.404 --> 25:59.557
of photography-specific templates in there. And, and there,
26:00.391 --> 26:03.756
there are a few, but, but they're not built by a photographer. So I look
26:04.256 --> 26:06.207
at them and I go, oh no, I don't. It's like you can tell,
26:06.416 --> 26:09.669
you can tell a marketer or someone that just designs pages for HighLevel built those
26:09.701 --> 26:13.194
templates, but they're not built for a photographer. I do have
26:13.931 --> 26:17.971
a snapshot for a lead magnet. That has a
26:18.035 --> 26:21.166
nurture sequence framework in there that is available
26:21.666 --> 26:23.991
if anybody wants it. Just reach out to me and, and I'll send you a
26:24.491 --> 26:27.908
link for it. And I, I want to say it's like $185 for
26:28.408 --> 26:32.307
that, but it basically has a funnel for a lead magnet that
26:32.807 --> 26:35.533
you put in all your copy in, you attach your PDF to it, and it's
26:36.033 --> 26:37.685
very easy to set up. I got a video how to set it up,
26:37.701 --> 26:41.281
and there's a nurture sequence in there as well. So if anybody's on HighLevel
26:41.554 --> 26:45.776
and they want that snapshot, just reach out to me. I think it's just
26:46.276 --> 26:48.612
I'll email you a link. Okay. So where else can they maybe see some of
26:49.112 --> 26:52.925
your work or follow you? Yeah. So you can see us online at
26:52.941 --> 26:55.715
indigosilverstudio.com. So just like the 2 colors,
26:55.827 --> 26:59.964
indigosilverstudio.com. That's our client-facing side.
27:00.077 --> 27:04.278
And then on our education brand, it's myphotoinsight.com
27:04.630 --> 27:08.078
and you'll see a little bit more about marketing. We also have a Facebook group
27:08.578 --> 27:11.413
that you can join. It's just My Photo Insight on Facebook as well.
27:12.007 --> 27:15.456
And, uh, yeah, so that's about it. And then obviously, you know,
27:16.049 --> 27:19.386
Texas School. Oh yeah, we should talk about Texas School. So yeah,
27:19.418 --> 27:23.012
Texas School 2027 is coming up April 25th through the
27:23.512 --> 27:26.589
30th, and we have our Saturday classes again April 24th.
27:27.263 --> 27:30.408
And Jeff will be doing a Saturday class, and you don't— and again, you don't
27:30.908 --> 27:32.638
have to be attending the full week to go to a Saturday class. We hope
27:33.138 --> 27:36.969
you'll choose both. We'd like to say it's dessert before dinner or pairing wine,
27:37.595 --> 27:41.287
but He'll be doing a whole marketing, taking you through this.
27:41.544 --> 27:45.365
Yeah. Watch, watch me build it out. Watch me build out funnels.
27:45.863 --> 27:49.315
Um, watch me do, I'm gonna do it all live. So you'll be
27:49.331 --> 27:52.992
able to see, um, basically strategic marketing and the systems
27:53.024 --> 27:55.817
we use to run it in 2027, '26,
27:55.833 --> 27:59.028
'27. Um, yeah, I'm gonna do some live build out so you can see
27:59.528 --> 28:03.219
how it's all connected, how everything works. Fantastic. And just so you know, you don't
28:03.719 --> 28:06.799
have to be GoHighLevel for this class. This is just showing you the concepts and
28:07.235 --> 28:11.101
And the structure of it, not necessarily software or platform driven. So don't
28:11.601 --> 28:14.578
get scared if you don't have HighLevel. This is for any type of automation or
28:14.933 --> 28:18.783
CRM systems that you can, you can adapt this to. So, well,
28:18.847 --> 28:21.739
Jeff, we're excited to welcome you to Texas School for that Saturday class. Thanks for
28:21.756 --> 28:24.873
spending some time with us today. And I'm gonna have to go and start
28:24.889 --> 28:28.223
getting things built, getting some automations in. All right.
28:28.369 --> 28:28.936
Yep. Thank you.