Peter: Today I'm joined by our incredible client Heidi Hoffman of Pine and Forge. We first met in 2020, right in the peak pandemic days. Tell us how you got into photography.

Heidi: I have a journalism degree, where they teach you everything: photo, video, social media, and writing. I went in wanting to write, but in my senior year I discovered I was way more visually oriented than I'd given myself credit for. My first job after college was at a bridal magazine, which is how I got into the wedding industry. I worked with a lot of photographers and other wedding vendors and fell in love with the wedding world. To save the company money, I started shooting some things myself. Then a friend said, "Why don't you do this photography thing on the side? What's an extra $200 a month?" So around 2017, I went for it.

Heidi: I was fighting imposter syndrome because I'd never shot a wedding, even with all my experience in the industry. I didn't know what to say or how to respond to inquiries, so I invested in my first course, and it helped so much. I booked my first stranger client, not a friend or family member, about nine months to a year before her wedding, and I did a happy dance in my living room. I've only bought about five courses in 10 years, and every one I committed to has been beneficial. If I trust my intuition, I know I'll get something out of it.

Peter: That's so true. It's really about what we bring to it. You sell yourself on it, and then you go make it happen.

Heidi: In 2020, my inquiries had slowed way down. I wasn't consistently getting inquiries from any one place, and I had no idea when the next one would come in. It put me in a state of panic.

Peter: Wedding photographers have systems for shooting and editing. Nobody wings it on the wedding day. But when it comes to booking clients, most people in the industry just wing it, which leads to good months and bad months. Most people accept that as just the way it is, but really it's a lack of a system.

Heidi: The way people communicate has also changed. Five years ago, you could go into a Facebook group and message people looking for a photographer. Now many of them comment anonymously, so you can't contact them. I talked to one bride whose anonymous post got comments from 700 photographers, and I was one of three she reached out to.

Peter: Meta has changed its organic algorithms. Messages to people you're not friends with might never even get delivered, and you now need to post two to four times a day to get the reach one post used to get. Meta makes its money from paid ads. And couples actively planning a wedding who don't have a photographer yet are a very small demographic. People get reels with a million views and don't make a single sale, because it's not the right audience. If you're a wedding photographer, running ads is now the way to find your people.

Heidi: I'm that person. I had a reel go viral with a million views.

Heidi: At the end of last year, I had a goose egg in my inbox for an entire month. Part of it was how I was talking to people, mostly by email. Then we had back-to-back hurricanes in Florida that destroyed a lot of venues. Couples coming here for their weddings didn't know whether they could even plan anything, so it was a dead stop for me. But I told myself, "If my business survived COVID, I can survive anything." People were still getting married, but I had no way to find or talk to them.

I'd never really done paid ads, but you've always been my panic button. If I don't know how to get clients, Peter will know. We'd worked together before, so it was a no-brainer.

Heidi: My spring was decent, but after that, there was nothing. My fall is still pretty slow from that dry spell. I was getting about 15 to 20 inquiries a month, but people weren't booking, mostly because of price, or they'd ghost me after a call or consult. I heard "no" much more than I was used to. I knew my work was good and I knew what I was talking about, so something was getting lost in translation, or I wasn't talking to the right people.

Heidi: Now I'm in a completely different place. I know exactly where my inquiries are coming from, and there's no lack of them. I have enough that I can play around with how I talk to people and what I offer, because if someone doesn't book, there are plenty more.

Peter: It's a good place to be when you can cherry-pick, because it gives you freedom with your pricing. When people don't have enough demand, they usually do the opposite and lower their prices. What's happened over the last 60 days?

Heidi: I've booked more than I ever have. One day I realized pretty much everyone was saying yes. I had a hard time thinking of anyone who'd said no.

Peter: For people listening, that was about $60,000 in wedding sales in 60 days.

Heidi: My only goal in a conversation now is moving the couple to the next step. A discovery call doesn't mean I have to get them booked. There's no scarcity mindset anymore. When you don't have many inquiries, you feel like you have to sell every person.

Most couples tell me I'm the first photographer they've actually talked to after booking their venue. I use that as a chance to educate them. I'm not really selling myself. I'm explaining what to expect when hiring a photographer in general: here's what I offer, and here's the average of what you'll find with others.

Peter: That consultative approach, figuring out what's best for them whether or not it's you, makes you more attractive. But it's much harder to do if you don't have enough people to talk to.

Heidi: I went through a lot personally over the last few months, and it's interesting that I still had some of my best months ever. I'd done the work beforehand. I spent the first part of the year starting the ads, getting into a system, and changing how I talk to people, until it became my new normal. That momentum carried me through. People kept booking without me having to start conversations from scratch. And because I'd practiced the new approach so much, I picked right back up where I left off.

At the start of the year, a lot of couples didn't have a date or venue yet. I let them do their thing, and then I checked back in: "Did you find something you love, or do you need help?"

Peter: "Do you need help?" is great language. People think in terms of "Do you want to book?" Instead, just help them to the next step. That's especially important with strangers coming in from ads, as opposed to referrals.

Heidi: One bride and her fiancé had a great consult with me. Later, she told me she loved my work, but her parents were paying, and her dad said to find someone cheaper. I almost replied, "Thanks for the update." Instead, I asked, "Would it help if we all got on a call? Maybe your dad has questions." On the call, none of it was about price. They asked logistical questions, like what we'd even do with drone footage when everything was indoors, and her dad didn't think they needed as much coverage. So I locked them in at a shorter package, and the bride got me as her photographer.

She'd basically already said no, so I had nothing to lose by offering to help.

Peter: How many people would have stopped when Dad said no? Being willing to do that makes a huge difference.

Heidi: I'm at $139,000 for the year. That's the highest I've ever been, not just at this point in the year but ever, with five months still left. I originally told Augie my goal was $150K, but with the ads bringing in inquiries, I'm confident I'll hit that, so now my goal is $200K.

Peter: You'd need about $12K a month, which is just a couple of weddings. That's not even a stretch. Meanwhile, I'm hearing over and over from even really established photographers that next year is slow and sales are down. Why isn't that you?

Heidi: When I pressed my Peter panic button, I also covered all my bases. I still do organic marketing, and I'm on three local wedding-specific listings. My top-paying clients have come from one of those listings. But in terms of the number of leads, none of them compare to paid ads. If I stopped running ads, I'd be terrified.

Peter: One of our clients in album manufacturing told me the same thing. Out of trade shows, partnerships, and everything else they do, nothing is as profitable as running ads on Meta. But you have to set it up properly, with the right back-end sales system, or you'll throw money away and conclude it doesn't work.

Heidi: Now those listings are mostly for brand awareness and backlinks. I don't need the leads from there.

Heidi: Not every lead comes straight through the ad funnel. A lot of people fill out the contact form on my website and say they found me on Instagram.

Peter: When you run a lot of traffic, you create a web of touchpoints. People see the ad, go to your Instagram, click the link in your bio, or go straight to your website. But Instagram is still the best traffic source.

Heidi: I haven't updated my website layout since 2019. I've never overhauled it or paid anyone to do it. The contact form works, and that's all that matters.

Peter: People spend so much on rebrands and new websites. They're nice to have, but they don't really move the needle on sales. Your website hasn't been updated in years, and you made $60K in two months.