082: Garry & Stacy – How To Deal With Growing Pains In Business & Create An Epic Client Experience
December 10, 2022
“Do your best to portray your personality and your brand, because you are your brand when you’re an artist.
GARRY & STACY
Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is all about Garry & Stacy!
Stationed in sunny Florida, this traveling wedding photography husband and wife duo has made it their mission to create artistic wedding images and video. Couple photography has been their canvas for over 12 years, having captured over 500 + weddings. They are passionate about all the big and in-between moments that create an emotional experience for their couples when viewing their galleries. Their couples have always come first, of which they contribute their success to for over a decade. Known for pairing their artistic eye with directing couples with ease, they are always striving for the best experience and result in their photography.
Check out some of the biggest points from Garry & Stacy’s interview below:
If you could start your career all over again, is there anything you would do differently?
I think I would… I had several studios and I found that if I’m not… I had the studios, so it’s kind of counter, kind of goes against what I was saying earlier. I had studios to look bigger. I had studios to hopefully draw people in to think, “Hey, I got all these canvases on the wall. I’ve been here for 10 years. I really got it going on.” Really, that was my third shoot and they were the best pictures from them and I put them on the wall. I was paying rent and electric and I was never using the studio for studio shooting because I was an outdoor photographer and natural life. So I think I would do it differently there as far as I wouldn’t waste a lot of money thinking I had to be in a studio. What I would also do is I would surround myself with… I would get to be good friends with other photographers and learn.
To this day, I still use the things that I learned from day three, different techniques, different ideas and how to shoot with your camera. I still use them from that day. I now have added things, yes, and I’ve changed things. I used to turn my camera a lot ’cause that was the cool thing to do, and I would die on a hill because that was how you’re supposed to do it, and it was so cool. She was like, “Stop turning your camera.” And I’m like, “Ah, it’s cool.” It’s not cool.
What are your top tips to ensure your client experience is special?
I’m about to share some tips that are going to take hours away from your week instead of add them. I think we’re in a very fast-paced world, we’re in a instant gratification culture, and I think that personal face-to-face, one-on-one connection is a lost art. When someone is planning their wedding, whether or not they portray that they want to take time to connect with their photographer, deep down inside they know they need to. They know that they need to like you and they want to like you and know who you are and connect as friends in some ways. This is funny, because just yesterday we had drinks with a coordinator friend of ours that we’ve been working with for three years and we’ve become friends. So we just decided it’d be a Monday and good day for day drinking together with fellow wedding vendors.
She stepped out for a sales call and she was back in 15 minutes. I said, “Wow, that was quick.” And she was like, “Yeah, I mean, I try to keep them as short as possible.” For her that works. That works, because we talked about coordinating versus photographer or florist or cake artist or if you have a DJ or a band or whatever, there’s a marked difference between hiring a photographer and another professional that will do some other aspect of that wedding. Because what we do for hire stays for generations. It’s their legacy they’re passing down to their family.
They’re going to remember that. What I’m about to share is that we take time. Our initial call when I invite someone to have a Zoom with us after they’ve viewed our packaging and our pricing and they love what they see, I give them my cell phone number. I say, “You can put me in as a contact, text or call me.” I also give them a link to our calendar. They can schedule a Zoom or a call, whatever they’re comfortable with. Those calls take 45 minutes to an hour on average, and sometimes they go longer, an hour and a half. It just depends. I will take as much time as it needs. But I do have a way, a proven method to a sales call that works. We have a 90% success rate of when we have, yes, when we have a sales call, an initial call, mind you, we’ve vetted them somewhat through email or they know our pricing. We don’t hide it. It’s on our website, so that’s another area that the room is divided on opinion. I understand.
But we have all of our packaging and pricing out there. In that way it qualifies them if they’ve come to a point of wanting to talk, and we take a long time to get to know them on that first call. Then there’s another one if they need it, they’ll schedule consults throughout the months prior to. We’ll do a timeline call. I’ll work closely hand-in-hand with their coordinator. We even weigh in on bridesmaid dress colors, if they want to know about what colors shoot best. We have a full engagement and wedding planning guide that’s web-based, but it’s only accessible to our clients, so it’s pretty lengthy. It takes a while to get through it. A lot of our couples have a glass of wine and sit down with their partner and read it through. It’s a brain dump of all the things that we’ve learned of how to achieve the best photos. Client prep is huge with us. The whole experience, knowing that we care, because we do. Yeah, we actually care.
If you could add one final piece of advice, something that’s made a difference in your personal life or your business life, what would that piece of advice be?
Well, I would say that going back to what you said in the beginning about trying to be professional and portray that you are this way or that depending upon what you think is what they want to see and hear from you, try to do your best to portray your personality and your brand, because you are your brand, when you are an artist. They are commissioning you essentially to document their day in the way that your artist eye sees it. They hired you for a reason. So don’t be afraid to portray that and show that. I think it’s better to be known for who you truly are than something you’re not, and you’ll be constantly in this limbo of, “Wait, I have to look this way, act this way, speak this way, dress this way, to maintain this image that I really don’t like anyway because it’s not me.” That’s my takeaway from what we learned and what our journey has been is continue to be yourself and you will be surprised on how much business you’ll get as a result and the type of business you actually want.
Thank you!
Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Garry & Stacy for joining us on the show!
If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!
That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.
See you soon,
Sally
About Garry & Stacy
