EP 2: FOMO Before You Go

00:00:04 [Alison]
Hey, I’m Allison, military spouse and family photographer.

00:00:07 [Melissa]
And I’m Melissa, also a military spouse, lifestyle newborn photographer, and SEO expert for photographers.
00:00:13 [Melissa]
Between the two of us, we have a combined twenty seven years in photography and have lived through nine business relocations.

00:00:19 [Alison]
We’ve coached each other through on just privately on Marco Polo, and now we’re bringing our polos public.
00:00:24 [Alison]
On this podcast, we’ll give you Okay.
00:00:32 [Alison]
So last episode, we talked about the fear of moving, how scary moving is, especially moving your business if you’ve never done it before.
00:00:41 [Alison]
And we left you with a kind of a big picture idea of five things to do.
00:00:45 [Alison]
The first being, have you booked out your current location?

00:00:48 [Alison]
So we are gonna talk about that this episode.
00:00:50 [Alison]
We are talking about the FOMO before, in technical marketing terms, that’s scarcity, but really creating that fear of missing out in your current location.
00:00:59 [Alison]
So what can you do before you ever leave?
00:01:01 [Alison]
And, really, this, this doesn’t matter.
00:01:04 [Alison]
It doesn’t matter if you have a location in mind, if you’ve got marching orders yet, or if you have a city.

00:01:10 [Alison]
Like, if you know you’re leaving a year I’ve had a year out.
00:01:13 [Alison]
I’ve had six months out.
00:01:15 [Alison]
You want to you wanna build up this the scarcity, and maximize what you’ve already built.

00:01:22 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:01:22 [Melissa]
You wanna take advantage.
00:01:24 [Melissa]
The email list you’ve already built, the contacts that you have, and try and get in front of everyone to let them know, hey, I’m leaving.
00:01:31 [Melissa]
If you want a session with me, now is the time to do it.
00:01:34 [Melissa]
And like Allison said, it doesn’t really even matter if you know the farther out you know, the better.

00:01:39 [Melissa]
But even if it’s a short time frame, like, figure out the first thing for me is, when am I gonna cut off my calendar?
00:01:46 [Melissa]
I personally wanna make sure I have enough time for everything, I have enough time for editing, so I cut my calendar off.
00:01:53 [Melissa]
You know, I stopped taking sessions.
00:01:55 [Melissa]
Oh, I think I probably said, like, May, so it was about a month before I was gonna move, but, you know, I had, like, newborn clients and stuff like that, and membership clients, so they I gave them a little bit more leeway, so I did my last session about a week and a half before we moved this last time.
00:02:09 [Melissa]
Allison, how long how long did you

00:02:11 [Alison]
did you take?
00:02:12 [Alison]
Fun story.
00:02:13 [Alison]
I was willing to take a session the day before we left Virginia Beach this last time.
00:02:17 [Alison]
You know, obviously, like, it it all varies.
00:02:20 [Alison]
It ended up not happening for a host of reasons, but, yeah, it was supposed to be on the same base our hotel was on.

00:02:25 [Alison]
We were already out of our hendies, and it was just gonna be like a little promotion military promotion ceremony.
00:02:32 [Alison]
It ended up being much bigger than that and further away, and so I didn’t actually execute.
00:02:37 [Alison]
But I didn’t know that until, like, three days before.
00:02:39 [Alison]
So, you know And

00:02:40 [Melissa]
that’s where I laugh because that is our personalities.
00:02:42 [Melissa]
I’m like, okay.
00:02:43 [Melissa]
I need to plan this out.
00:02:44 [Melissa]
And Allison’s like, yeah.
00:02:45 [Melissa]
Let’s do this the day before.

00:02:47 [Alison]
Any aggression is showing.
00:02:50 [Alison]
Because I am all about when I’m about to move, do it now.
00:02:53 [Alison]
Do it now as much as I can.
00:02:54 [Alison]
As much as the weather will permit me as as whoever will hire me, like, let me shoot because I know I’m going into such a drought, a season of uncertainty, and definitely not shooting.
00:03:06 [Alison]
So if somebody wants to pay me for something, I’ll do it.

00:03:09 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:03:10 [Melissa]
For me, I wanna make sure I have time for editing, time to deliver, and then that way, once we get into that moving phase that, like, trucks have showed up, things are walking out the door, that you have your computer.
00:03:20 [Melissa]
I mean, for starters, keep that in mind too.
00:03:22 [Melissa]
For us, with moving, we are in, like, a a temporary situation while we build a house.
00:03:28 [Melissa]
So I don’t even have 90% of my stuff.

00:03:30 [Melissa]
Like, I had to make sure my computer came on the truck with us.
00:03:33 [Melissa]
Like, I don’t have any samples or anything like that.
00:03:36 [Melissa]
All of that is packed away.
00:03:37 [Melissa]
So I had to think through that kind of stuff too.
00:03:39 [Melissa]
And then when we moving, you know, we were very, transitory.

00:03:43 [Melissa]
So, like, we started off on our boat, and then we were in Airbnbs, and then we were in, like, more long term rentals.
00:03:50 [Melissa]
So I certainly didn’t wanna be trying to figure out how to edit with that going on, in the beginning and everything.
00:03:58 [Melissa]
So for me, I was like, alright, I’m gonna cut this off a little bit early.
00:04:01 [Melissa]
But the thing is too, like, when you’ve got that date to cut off, sure, you can adjust it a little bit, but at least gives you a date to, like, tell clients.
00:04:08 [Melissa]
Like, don’t say, okay.

00:04:09 [Melissa]
Hey.
00:04:10 [Melissa]
Everybody who wants to book, you can book all the date, and then next thing you know, if you’re lucky, you’ve got a bunch of sessions, but now you’re like, how the heck am I gonna get these edited before we leave?
00:04:18 [Melissa]
So to me, that’s the first thing, is look at your calendar no matter how far out you are and say, okay.
00:04:23 [Melissa]
This is kinda my date to stop taking sessions.
00:04:25 [Melissa]
Because the other thing is that’s gonna give you, that first step towards that FOMO because you’re letting people know this is it.

00:04:31 [Melissa]
If you don’t get in by this time, then that’s it.
00:04:33 [Melissa]
That’s all you can do.

00:04:34 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:04:35 [Alison]
And you’re really wise to consider your setup on the back end because I always take my computer and my gear with me.
00:04:41 [Alison]
I never ever let the packers off ever.
00:04:45 [Alison]
Ever.
00:04:45 [Alison]
Maybe my old film stuff from high school, I’ll let them take, but, I keep everything.

00:04:50 [Alison]
I keep a flash.
00:04:51 [Alison]
I keep both of my cameras on my body, and everything I need to edit.
00:04:55 [Alison]
And but I edit on a laptop, and you don’t.
00:04:57 [Alison]
You have a desktop.
00:04:59 [Alison]
Well, you have both.

00:05:00 [Alison]
But, so, yeah, that’s a that’s a really big factor to what can you do.

00:05:05 [Melissa]
Well, and then actually, I I was thinking about it.
00:05:07 [Melissa]
As I said that too, like I was saying, I don’t have my sample albums.
00:05:10 [Melissa]
So this is something too that you can do before you move is figure out, like, hey, am I best to this?
00:05:15 [Melissa]
Maybe I should go ahead and take pictures of stuff now, and that way I don’t have to worry about it later.
00:05:20 [Melissa]
Now we I do have, like, all my vintage cameras came with me, and all my gear and stuff came with me.

00:05:23 [Melissa]
But, again, we we went from a house to, like, a storage unit that we moved ourselves with everything else in the other storage unit.
00:05:30 [Melissa]
So it was just this was kind of a little bit more of a weird move for us.
00:05:35 [Melissa]
But, you know, you just gotta think through those things ahead of time.
00:05:38 [Melissa]
And then, you know, for me, it was like reaching out to past clients, reaching out to membership clients.
00:05:44 [Melissa]
So the big thing was, like, telling the membership clients, like, hey.

00:05:46 [Melissa]
We’re leaving.
00:05:48 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:05:48 [Alison]
So here Like if you’re like if you’re not.

00:05:50 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:05:51 [Melissa]
Here’s the date that we’re leaving.
00:05:53 [Melissa]
So we gotta get your session in.
00:05:55 [Melissa]
And depending on where it fell, like, I had a client who was, she was in a membership, but she wasn’t due until after we were leaving.
00:06:03 [Melissa]
So for her, you know, and those clients like that, I had already let them know ahead of time, like, hey, if we move, I’m gonna refund half your membership fee.

00:06:11 [Melissa]
But for some of them, you know, it was like, hey, can we go ahead?
00:06:13 [Melissa]
I know the baby’s five and a half months, and we’re doing six month session.
00:06:16 [Melissa]
Can we get, like, them in early?
00:06:17 [Melissa]
They were fine with that.
00:06:19 [Melissa]
So getting getting all of those past membership clients onto the calendar, reaching out to my email list to say, hey, we’re leaving.

00:06:25 [Melissa]
If you want a session, let’s book it now.
00:06:27 [Melissa]
I did the same thing in Virginia.
00:06:29 [Melissa]
Like, I booked out a ton in Virginia.
00:06:31 [Melissa]
My husband and I were looking at the books the other day, and he was like, wow.
00:06:34 [Melissa]
You did a lot of work that spring before we left.

00:06:36 [Melissa]
And I was like, it was good because then once we moved, like, I wasn’t doing anything.
00:06:42 [Melissa]
So Yeah.

00:06:43 [Alison]
Well and your entire business have been in Virginia, born and raised in Virginia.
00:06:47 [Alison]
Yep.
00:06:48 [Alison]
So you had a of emails.

00:06:51 [Melissa]
Yes.
00:06:51 [Melissa]
I had so many past clients and stuff, and even even after we moved, and we’ll talk about this on another episode, like, I would go back and do sessions and stuff.
00:06:59 [Melissa]
So.
00:07:00 [Melissa]
But the big thing is, you know, just trying to get people on your books beforehand, and, you know, when people realize you’re leaving, and especially if they don’t know if you’re coming back kind of thing, and they’ve been clients of yours, most likely they are gonna wanna have one more session with you because you’ve established that relationship and stuff like that.
00:07:16 [Melissa]
So I hit them up on my email newsletter, direct emails to certain clients that were my favorite, Facebook messages, Instagram posts, that kind of thing.

00:07:24 [Melissa]
So, Allison, what did you do for your calendar and, like, hitting up that kind of stuff before you left?

00:07:29 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:07:29 [Alison]
Ad nauseam.
00:07:30 [Alison]
This is this kinda goes in the same lane of you can’t say too much too often on Instagram because not everybody’s seeing it or social or or even emails for that matter.
00:07:39 [Alison]
Not everybody opens every email even if your email provider says that.
00:07:42 [Alison]
All all email providers and hosts track opens differently, and so they’re reported differently.

00:07:48 [Alison]
Just a little fun nugget there.
00:07:51 [Alison]
So you have to start and you have to say it often.
00:07:54 [Alison]
So how often did you reach out and do emails when you were reaching out to past clients?

00:08:00 [Melissa]
I’m not sure, but I would probably like, if I was giving the advice, I would send out an email.
00:08:04 [Melissa]
Like, I would figure out my dates, my calendar dates.
00:08:06 [Melissa]
I would probably go ahead and say, okay.
00:08:09 [Melissa]
What are the dates that I can work and just put together a schedule?
00:08:12 [Melissa]
And that way, I know what dates I’m available, and then send that out to people and say, okay.

00:08:16 [Melissa]
Hey.
00:08:16 [Melissa]
Look.
00:08:17 [Melissa]
You know, we’re leaving in two months.
00:08:18 [Melissa]
I have 15 dates available.
00:08:20 [Melissa]
These are the 15.

00:08:21 [Melissa]
And then, you know, send it out that first time, resend it, wait, like, two weeks or whatever, send it out again, and then just try and, like, book up those sessions.
00:08:29 [Melissa]
Encourage them to send it to friends if they’re looking to have photo sessions and stuff.
00:08:32 [Melissa]
And then I think every time you send it, take some of those dates off.
00:08:35 [Melissa]
Hopefully, you’ve booked them.

00:08:36 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:08:37 [Melissa]
But honestly, even if you haven’t, we’re creating FOMO here.
00:08:40 [Melissa]
You cross those you strike through those dates, some of those dates, so that they know, like, oh, this is gone, this is gone, and that’s gonna help build.
00:08:46 [Melissa]
And I say that, I am the worst with FOMO.
00:08:48 [Melissa]
I have the absolute worst FOMO ever.
00:08:50 [Melissa]
Anytime something is, like, price is going up or we’re closing our doors, I’m, like, oh, my god.

00:08:54 [Melissa]
Where’s my wallet?
00:08:56 [Melissa]
So

00:08:57 [Alison]
That’s awesome.
00:08:57 [Alison]
And to the to the same point, a little nugget is, put the dates out there, create that schedule.
00:09:02 [Alison]
But if you have a lot of availability, don’t put it all out there.
00:09:05 [Alison]
You know?
00:09:06 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:09:06 [Alison]
You don’t have to share every little date.
00:09:08 [Alison]
If somebody says, hey.
00:09:09 [Alison]
We need a Saturday in November.
00:09:11 [Alison]
Maybe you have one, you know, on the back burner.
00:09:13 [Alison]
Like, keep keep a few things in your back pocket, to keep that scarcity out there.

00:09:18 [Alison]
Like, oh, six we should only have six slots in the next six months.
00:09:21 [Alison]
Like, we need to get this together.
00:09:23 [Alison]
Because you don’t know who’s been eyeing you.
00:09:25 [Alison]
You don’t know who’s been on the fence for however long, and they just need that little nudge to push them over the edge.
00:09:33 [Alison]
So email newsletters, I would say I would even have the same little block of that in every email you send out to your people.

00:09:39 [Alison]
You know, push it to the bottom, make it a little postscript or something.
00:09:44 [Alison]
But, hey, don’t forget, I’m leaving May of whatever year.
00:09:48 [Alison]
Here’s the schedule, or, you know, don’t forget to book.
00:09:51 [Alison]
And just having a little blurb, not keeping up with updating that, that’s a different thing.
00:09:56 [Alison]
Also, I would also put a link in your Instagram links.

00:09:59 [Alison]
So whether you have a link tree or a link, a link page on your website that Instagram goes to, you need to have that at the top.
00:10:06 [Alison]
Like, final dates for x, y, and z.
00:10:09 [Alison]
Anybody just exploring.
00:10:10 [Alison]
Like, somebody just finds you, randomly.
00:10:13 [Alison]
They’ve never worked with you before.

00:10:15 [Alison]
They need to know too that they do not have all the time in the world.
00:10:17 [Alison]
You wanna create that that scarcity mindset again.
00:10:21 [Alison]
And then before I would say I don’t know that I would do this a year out.
00:10:24 [Alison]
I would say at least six months out.
00:10:25 [Alison]
I would put a notification bar at the top of your website that’s across every page, every blog post, leaving, you know, leaving Virginia Beach in six months final dates here.

00:10:36 [Alison]
You know?
00:10:37 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:10:37 [Alison]
Absolutely.
00:10:38 [Alison]
I did that.
00:10:38 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:10:39 [Melissa]
I had a bar of, like, we’re leaving.
00:10:40 [Melissa]
And I also, on that bar, once I knew when we were getting to Virginia, like, hey.
00:10:44 [Melissa]
This is the day we’re leaving Florida, like, the last day of sessions kinda thing.
00:10:47 [Melissa]
This is when we’re arriving in Virginia.

00:11:49 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:11:49 [Alison]
Absolutely.
00:11:50 [Alison]
So, so you put that out there, and then what are what else are we doing other than, like, last schedules?
00:11:56 [Alison]
I have had a year.
00:11:58 [Alison]
I had a year to prepare for leaving Okinawa.

00:12:01 [Alison]
I had a year to prepare for leaving Virginia Beach, and I had six months when we left Quantico.
00:12:06 [Alison]
So we’d only been in Quantico for six months anyway, so I hadn’t actually built up a whole lot and then COVID happened.
00:12:12 [Alison]
You know, it was a thing.
00:12:13 [Alison]
So we pushed out, times everything that was seasonally my last thing.
00:12:18 [Alison]
So my last round of Christmas truck minis, Christmas truck stuff was huge.

00:12:22 [Alison]
So I just said, hey.
00:12:23 [Alison]
This is it.
00:12:23 [Alison]
It’s not happening again.
00:12:24 [Alison]
I won’t be here.
00:12:25 [Alison]
I don’t know anybody else that does these.

00:12:27 [Alison]
Like, take it or leave it.
00:12:30 [Alison]
So anything with, but think about Easter or motherhood, fall sessions.
00:12:34 [Alison]
You know?
00:12:35 [Alison]
Kind of remind them every time you’re promoting something that final year or final six months that this is the last time you’re doing it.
00:12:43 [Alison]
I mean, again, ad nauseam, you can’t really say it too much because you want every no.

00:12:48 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:12:48 [Melissa]
So especially with mini sessions, like, I did one last round of mini sessions before we left, and I got clients who I hadn’t seen in years.
00:12:57 [Melissa]
And I had clients who were like, we really wanted to work with you, we just weren’t able to over the years, so we wanna get this in.
00:13:03 [Melissa]
And to be honest, I know a lot of people are like, I hate mini sessions, I don’t want mini session clients.
00:13:08 [Melissa]
I look at them as a way to get a cash, cash infusion, and to see clients again and stuff.

00:13:13 [Melissa]
So as long as you are priced profitably, I think I had, like I wanna say that my mini, I did, like, $10,000 or something with them, that

00:13:21 [Alison]
I did.

00:13:21 [Melissa]
To do it.
00:13:22 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:13:23 [Melissa]
So, like, who doesn’t wanna have a day like that?
00:13:25 [Melissa]
You know?
00:13:25 [Melissa]
That’s

00:13:26 [Alison]
that’s Especially when you’re when you’re facing six months of no income

00:13:30 [Melissa]
Right.
00:13:30 [Melissa]
Yes.

00:13:30 [Alison]
Longer.
00:13:31 [Alison]
Like, that’s minimum.

00:13:32 [Melissa]
And that’s another thing, thinking about I didn’t have to do it.
00:13:36 [Melissa]
When we left Virginia to come to South Florida, like, we knew, okay.
00:13:40 [Melissa]
Hey.
00:13:41 [Melissa]
I’m not gonna have the cash flow for this, and we can probably talk about this more on another episode.
00:13:45 [Melissa]
But you do wanna think about, if you can, if you have a successful business like Ken and stockpile some money away to, like, pay yourself or at least plan out.

00:13:53 [Melissa]
You guys have to realize that going into a new location, you’re not just gonna drop in and have the same business you had before.
00:14:00 [Melissa]
You can get there, but it’s gonna take time, and you wanna be prepared for it, or else you’re gonna end up, you know, I would say having to, like, go get one of the dreaded J O Bs, but I’ve had to do that before with my career, so it’s not horrible.
00:14:12 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:14:13 [Melissa]
But yeah, so I would say a 100% mini sessions.
00:14:16 [Melissa]
If you do them, make sure you’ve got, you know, another round going.

00:14:20 [Melissa]
Reach out to everybody.
00:14:21 [Melissa]
Let them know this is the last mini session I’m doing here.
00:14:25 [Melissa]
I lucked out, you know, I was able to travel back, and I did have clients who would reach out and be like, are you coming back?
00:14:30 [Melissa]
You know, we would really love it if you did.
00:14:31 [Melissa]
And so once I had enough of those, you know, and we’ll cover that also in another episode.

00:14:36 [Melissa]
But yeah.
00:14:36 [Melissa]
So that’s what that’s I’m I’m a big fan of mini sessions for that kind of thing.

00:14:40 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:14:41 [Alison]
That’s awesome.
00:14:42 [Alison]
But, yeah, I’m six months into, Hawaii, and it is not what it was on Virginia Beach yet, but we’re getting there.
00:14:49 [Alison]
We’re getting there.
00:14:50 [Alison]
We’re climbing.

00:14:51 [Alison]
So portfolio building.
00:14:52 [Alison]
The next thing, if you need anything for your portfolio, updated headshots, branding, motherhood, maternity, newborn, anything.
00:15:03 [Alison]
If you need anything in the next year, you need to get it before you move.
00:15:07 [Alison]
So, I did the spring before I moved, we moved in the summer.
00:15:10 [Alison]
I did a newborn model call, for a couple of reasons.

00:15:13 [Alison]
One, it was the quiet season of Virginia Beach.
00:15:16 [Alison]
It was cold outside.
00:15:17 [Alison]
Nobody was vacationing to the beach.
00:15:19 [Alison]
I had some time, but I also needed more newborn clients.
00:15:23 [Alison]
I wanted to do more newborns because my kids were in school for the first time that year.

00:15:27 [Alison]
I wasn’t homeschooling, and they were indoors year round.
00:15:32 [Alison]
And so I hosted a model call while I was in Virginia because I had the network of followers on Instagram and, emails, and newborn things and new maternity things can be extra tricky to do, a model call for because timing.
00:15:46 [Alison]
Like, you want a baby to be born at a certain time and you want mom to be just so pregnant at a certain time.
00:15:52 [Alison]
So it can be tricky, but you definitely wanna utilize the network you already have, the friends, the friends, the friends, because when you rip all that out and go somewhere new, it takes a long time.
00:16:02 [Alison]
It even takes a long time for Instagram to figure out that, that you’re not there anymore.

00:16:06 [Alison]
I’ve been in Hawaii now for six months, and I’m still getting suggestions, to follow Virginia Beach businesses and people at Virginia Beach.
00:16:16 [Alison]
Like, learn some lessons there.
00:16:17 [Alison]
We could have switched that a long time ago.

00:16:19 [Melissa]
That will definitely be an episode.
00:16:21 [Melissa]
We have learned a lot about how soon you can switch all of your stuff.

00:16:24 [Alison]
It is so always a learning curve.

00:16:27 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:16:27 [Melissa]
But I love that portfolio building before you leave and stuff of just because you’re right.
00:16:31 [Melissa]
You’re you know, now you can message friends.
00:16:33 [Melissa]
You can hit up, like, people in your kid’s school of, like, do you know somebody that’s having a baby trying to get this done versus in the new place?
00:16:40 [Melissa]
People are gonna be like, well, who’s the creepo asking for the pregnant ladies?

00:16:43 [Alison]
And if you’ve if you’ve made good collaborations and networks in your current location, like, we did a giveaway for the winner of our newborn model call, or I guess I don’t know if it was a it was a model call.
00:16:54 [Alison]
But one of my friends owned a brand new boutique, and she donated a gift certificate.
00:16:59 [Alison]
And, mom went in and was able to find something she loved.
00:17:02 [Alison]
She loved that for the photos.
00:17:03 [Alison]
And so then I had a collaboration and a partner on that Instagram reel of her photos, that’s, a boutique in town.

00:17:11 [Alison]
So, again, like, making everything work for you, like, that’s do that before you leave.
00:17:15 [Alison]
Yep.
00:17:16 [Alison]
And then the final thing that I did, and this was this was new territory for me, but I would absolutely do it again.
00:17:24 [Alison]
I set up an associate shooter when I left Virginia Beach.
00:17:29 [Alison]
I had three or four I had three sessions, that I didn’t shoot.

00:17:32 [Alison]
I didn’t photograph myself.
00:17:34 [Alison]
I hired somebody to photograph it for me.
00:17:37 [Alison]
And this took a lot of prep work.
00:17:40 [Alison]
Not not in terms of work to be done, but a lot of time to find the right person.
00:17:46 [Alison]
I ended up using three different people because of scheduling conflicts, but it was fantastic.

00:17:51 [Alison]
It was it was really great.
00:17:53 [Alison]
So I had three different sessions photographed by three different people.
00:17:56 [Alison]
I paid them to do the entire session.
00:17:58 [Alison]
They showed up, made a clear outline of what I wanted them to do, how I wanted them to run the session.
00:18:04 [Alison]
Of course, we interviewed beforehand to make sure they could represent my brand well.

00:18:08 [Alison]
And we’ll do we’ll talk about how to execute this all in another episode.
00:18:12 [Alison]
But those three sessions and the sales from those three sessions filled in a a void that otherwise could not have been filled.
00:18:21 [Alison]
They were all shot over July and August when I was, we spent two or three weeks traveling before we actually left the East Coast, and then a week or so actually, it was two weeks bebopping between hotels when we first arrived to Hawaii, and I certainly did not have the capacity to do anything business wise.
00:18:41 [Alison]
And then I didn’t actually launch and set up in Hawaii, number one.
00:18:45 [Alison]
And so, like, I had three sessions at that time that I didn’t touch.

00:18:49 [Alison]
I mean, I edited and I delivered, and I did, in person sale or virtual IPS with them, but it was a total godsend, and I would do it again, and I wish I could have done more of it.

00:18:59 [Melissa]
I love the associate shooter setup idea.
00:19:02 [Melissa]
My husband used to always, when I shot weddings, was like, you need an associate, and I was like, what if they suck?
00:19:06 [Melissa]
And I have to, like, clean up the mess.
00:19:09 [Melissa]
I have a hard time giving up control.
00:19:11 [Melissa]
But I love the idea that you could almost treat them like a second shooter where you bring them along your sessions, and then that way they really are learning your shooting style.

00:19:20 [Melissa]
You’re able to adjust anything that you see that maybe they’re shooting differently.
00:19:24 [Melissa]
Maybe maybe you shoot wide open and they happen to stop things down, or maybe they are used to shooting wide open, like a lot of photographers, and you’re like, hey, there’s 18 people in this photo.
00:19:33 [Melissa]
I’m sorry.
00:19:33 [Melissa]
Your f stop cannot be 1.2 to get them all in focus.
00:19:37 [Melissa]
And, you know, they can train up on that kind of thing.

00:19:39 [Melissa]
And I think about with, you know, Allison and I’ve talked about this before, like, I’m still getting inquiries for South Florida.
00:19:45 [Melissa]
If I had set up associate on there, I would have several sessions every month at least.
00:19:52 [Melissa]
But it’s just it’s not something I’ve ever felt super comfortable with, but I kinda wish I had because, you know, I could have that brand still established down there and still be booking jobs, like what you were saying, to, like, cover those slower months and everything.
00:20:07 [Melissa]
So I think that’s a great option for people if they’ve got an established clientele, and if they can find someone who is cool working for them and stuff.

00:20:16 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:20:16 [Alison]
Absolutely.
00:20:17 [Alison]
I think it’s great.
00:20:18 [Alison]
Okay, guys.
00:20:18 [Alison]
So we probably threw a lot of it.

00:20:21 [Alison]
You might have felt like a verbal fire hose.
00:20:23 [Alison]
So all of this, remember, we’re creating scarcity or FOMO, that fear of missing out, where you ever move.
00:20:30 [Alison]
So whether you know when you’re moving or where you’re moving to, you can do any of this.
00:20:35 [Alison]
So what did we talk about?
00:20:37 [Alison]
To recap, we were talking about cutting off your calendar.

00:20:39 [Alison]
Like, when what’s your schedule?
00:20:40 [Alison]
Reverse engineer your availability and then blast that out.
00:20:44 [Alison]
So you wanna reach out to current clients, via email, maybe directly, to those people you you particularly like.
00:20:51 [Alison]
I mean, we all have our favorites.
00:20:53 [Alison]
It’s totally okay.

00:20:54 [Alison]
Not favorite kids, but favorite clients.
00:20:56 [Alison]
Your email newsletter.
00:20:57 [Alison]
Make sure that you’re repeating yourself on that email newsletter, every other week, every week, whatever you’re doing.
00:21:03 [Alison]
Maybe even have that little block there.
00:21:05 [Alison]
Facebook and Instagram posts ad nauseam.

00:21:07 [Alison]
Share, share, share, share, share that you’re leaving.
00:21:10 [Alison]
Finish up memberships.
00:21:11 [Alison]
If you’ve got a membership plan, make sure those you’re working directly with those clients to keep them happy.
00:21:16 [Alison]
Make sure that you’re talking about the last rounds of anything that’s seasonal.
00:21:20 [Alison]
Your last fall truck, your last fall, mini sessions, your last Christmas truck, mini sessions, motherhood, Santa, Easter, whatever you’re doing.

00:21:30 [Alison]
Remind people, this is the last thing.
00:21:32 [Alison]
And then look ahead.
00:21:33 [Alison]
Look ahead to after you move.
00:21:35 [Alison]
Are you going to need portfolio building?
00:21:37 [Alison]
Do that where you are while you have a network of people to to draw from and to pull from.

00:21:42 [Alison]
And then lastly, consider setting up an associate’s shooter for after you leave, somebody to take photos in your stead.
00:21:50 [Alison]
Alright.
00:21:50 [Alison]
Thank you guys so much for listening.
00:21:52 [Alison]
We hope you find this helpful.
00:21:53 [Alison]
If you have any questions, check out the show notes.

00:21:56 [Alison]
There’s gonna be some links to reach out to both Melissa and I directly.
00:22:00 [Alison]
Until then, we’d love to hear from you.
00:22:02 [Alison]
Have a good one.
00:22:03 [Alison]
Bye.

00:22:08 [Melissa]
Thank you so much for listening.
00:22:09 [Melissa]
If you’re enjoying this show, would you do two things for us?
00:22:12 [Melissa]
First, leave a review.
00:22:13 [Melissa]
Just stars would be awesome.
00:22:15 [Melissa]
And two, forward this episode to a biz bestie, mil spouse, or anyone facing moving their business.

00:22:20 [Melissa]
We’d love it if you shared this episode with even just one person.
00:22:23 [Melissa]
If you have any questions, reach out to Allison on Instagram at Allison Bell Photog or Melissa in her Facebook group, Raise Your Rankin.
00:22:30 [Melissa]
Check the show notes

00:22:32 [Alison]
for links.