Meredith's husband: 0:24

Today we have a question. Woohoo! Do you want to read the question?

Meredith: 0:28

I do want to read the question that you just sent. Dear Meredith husband, I feel like half my inquiries go nowhere once I send my pricing. Is there a way to filter out people who aren't in my budget range before they even contact me without sounding rude?

Meredith's husband: 0:45

Good question. This is a common pain point for photographers, is it not?

Meredith: 0:50

Uh it is. It is. There are there are several camps.

Meredith's husband: 0:53

Yes, I know. There are probably several approaches. So, first, I'm I'm going to talk about this today, obviously. I am not going to talk about sounding rude exactly. That's more of like your sales process. Once people contact you and you are in communication with them, that's your sales process. So I'm going to talk about it from a marketing standpoint. Excellent. And I like this as an SEO topic because a lot of people don't think about this as part of SEO. People think SEO and they think it's just, whoa, high rankings. That's the goal. That's it. That's the end. And that sort of thinking gets you into a lot of trouble with SEO. That's a in fact it I don't want to say it guarantees failure, but it's if you begin your SEO effort with that sort of thinking, you're you're bound for trouble. SEO, the goal of SEO, and I've said this in my training, uh, but I'm going to repeat it here just so we're all on the same page. The goal of SEO is to get more clients through or your organic efforts, through Google, through search engines by from free sources, organic. Okay. Right. That includes people coming through and contacting you.

Meredith: 1:57

Right.

Meredith's husband: 1:57

Now I understand this is frustrating. Like when people contact you and they want they want things cheap, right?

Meredith: 2:04

Right. Right.

Meredith's husband: 2:05

It's frustrating. I know I know dealing with it myself.

Meredith: 2:08

Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 2:09

I dealt with this for still do deal with this.

Meredith: 2:11

Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 2:12

Um just, I think personally, the thing to remember here, to just to put you in the right frame of mind, it's just the timing that isn't right. Like surely you have wherever you are in your career, you have not always been there. Right. There was probably a time when that low ball offer that you don't like now, where it would have been gold.

Meredith: 2:33

Yes.

Meredith's husband: 2:34

You would have taken it in a heartbeat.

Meredith: 2:35

Yes.

Meredith's husband: 2:36

So just remember it's your timing. We all start, we all begin somewhere. So once you have graduated from that level, uh I wanna say it's a cause for celebration, but just keep that in mind.

Meredith: 2:47

Right.

Meredith's husband: 2:48

Like don't instantly I do this a lot of times myself, get frustrated and angry. Like people, people don't recognize the value of what I do.

Meredith: 2:55

Well, but isn't it also up to us to show that value on our website?

Meredith's husband: 3:00

That is. That is. I will talk a little bit about that.

Meredith: 3:02

Ooh, I'm so psychic.

Meredith's husband: 3:04

Okay. Next. And I have to mention this just because it is an important factor. The speed of your response matters. Yeah, that's true. When somebody contacts you, how quickly you get back to them is from what I understand in the studies, like the single biggest factor on whether or not somebody's going to sign you.

Meredith: 3:22

Yeah, they say within five minutes.

Meredith's husband: 3:24

Okay. Well, that's yeah. So personally, I think there is a fine line between uh appearing responsive and looking desperate.

Meredith: 3:33

Right.

Meredith's husband: 3:33

Who is going to have time to respond to an email within five minutes? Probably, you know, it might happen occasionally. You might happen to be looking at your email. So yeah, I think doing something relatively quickly is is a good idea. I don't think you need to actually send a manual email back to somebody within five minutes. I would say you need to have or you sh should have some sort of autoresponder set up.

Meredith: 3:55

Right.

Meredith's husband: 3:56

Now, the trick with that is that might turn people off, like having an autoresponder.

Meredith: 4:01

I don't think how would it turn somebody off?

Meredith's husband: 4:03

Well, depends on what you put in the autoresponder.

Meredith: 4:05

Oh, I guess.

Meredith's husband: 4:06

Okay. So my point is don't try to make it sound like it's not an autoresponder. Okay. Like if somebody's going to get an email 30 seconds after they contact you. Yeah, yeah, no, no. Make it cute, make it friendly. Don't try to hide the fact that it's an autoresponder. Right. Right. For example, I think that would kind of turn people off if you try to pretend it's not an autoresponder.

Meredith: 4:27

Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 4:28

A vendor that that both of us actually dealt with a while ago, I think did a great job with this. She was a branding professional.

Meredith: 4:36

Oh gosh, yeah.

Meredith's husband: 4:37

Your autoresponder was really cute and funny. And it was and it was like, hey, I'm Vero's bot. And I just, you know, make it cute, make it funny.

Meredith: 4:44

She was amazing at everything.

Meredith's husband: 4:46

Yeah. If you can make people smile, however, like the for example, sending a cute autoresponder, you make people smile, they're gonna want to have you back.

Meredith: 4:55

Right.

Meredith's husband: 4:56

Okay. I think that is actually um one of the most important things. When I think back over my own career as a consultant, like I remember one project, it was a big I was working for a big, uh, relatively big company for me, and they were being acquired by a an even bigger company for something like a billion dollars. It was crazy. And they so this I was part of a marketing team. There were a bunch of external marketers part of this project.

Meredith: 5:23

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember that.

Meredith's husband: 5:24

And once this company was being acquired, they no longer needed a marketing team. So they started getting rid of these external marketers, uh like me. I was the last one to go. They kept me for like a year longer than anyone else. Honestly, I believe it was just because I made people laugh during our monthly calls. I think that because there was no reason to have me there. I was not adding, I mean, I was, I like to think, adding some sort of value, but they literally didn't need me.

Meredith: 5:54

Right.

Meredith's husband: 5:54

Like there was no point. But and yet they kept me there until the very, very uh end. And I think it was honestly just because people like seeing me.

Meredith: 6:03

Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 6:04

I'm gonna pretend they're laughing with me instead of they appreciated you. Yeah.

Meredith: 6:08

That's it.

Meredith's husband: 6:08

You make people, you make people laugh, smile, they're gonna they're gonna want to have you back.

Meredith: 6:13

Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 6:14

So anyway, back to my story. Your autoresponder uh can begin the filtering process somehow. Um don't say like right away. I think I've done this myself. I know a lot of people tend to do this. In their autoresponder, they just be like, hey, here are my prices. And I had a client, I had a consultant client just like last week uh want to do something like this. They wanted to put a message about their minimum package, and they wanted to put it right in their hello bar at the top of the website. Hello bar, that's like the little banner that opens on the homepage right at the top. And you know, I understand wanting to to let people know and do that right away, but that's that's kind of like putting it first in your autoresponder. And that's kind of like saying, you know, imagine if your website were like a shop.

Meredith: 7:03

Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 7:03

And somebody walks into your shop and you greet them, and the first thing you say is, minimum package is $5,000. Hi, my name. No, that's going to sound rude, probably. So I guess I am so I am talking, I'm touching on that a little bit.

Meredith: 7:18

Well, what's the difference between clear and rude?

Meredith's husband: 7:23

Well, I think the where you place that message makes a difference. It's not the very first thing that you say to somebody. Because if what's the what's the message that you're giving somebody if that's the very first thing you say?

Meredith: 7:35

All you value is money.

Meredith's husband: 7:37

All you care about is money. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Okay. So I think the best way the best, in my experience, the best way to do this to filter out people before they contact you. If you want to, because that was the question, how do we filter out people before we before they contact so you don't waste time? So the best way to do that in my experience is to put something about your pricing as close as possible to the point of contact. So so if you could put like like literally, if you could put a message on the button that they actually click to send a message to you, that's probably going to have the the biggest effect. Now that would be a little extreme. You don't want to do that. But but you see my point, you want to get close to that button and message anywhere close to that button. So what I like to do is I like to put something in the contact form itself. And you could do this with a little checkbox. Like when people submit a form, you can have a checkbox that's required, and they have to check a box that says, I realize pricing starts at such and such. That's that would be a little too blunt, but something along those lines. Also, and I like this one better, you can put some sort of question like what is your price range? What is your budget? And have that be a drop-down menu and list price ranges. And most importantly, whatever your price ranges are, put the most expensive one first.

Meredith: 8:59

Right.

Meredith's husband: 8:59

Because they're that's going to catch their attention. Because a lot of times what people do with those drop-down menus is they just they just leave it as the first selection. They just check the check the first one. I know that for a fact doing a test.

Meredith: 9:12

Really?

Meredith's husband: 9:12

Yeah.

Meredith: 9:13

Can I share what I also have been told?

Meredith's husband: 9:16

Yeah, sure.

Meredith: 9:17

So I I was told one of the things with budget is that it can be flexible. And if there's something that you really want, budget almost goes out the window. Um, because you will rationalize it in some ways. And if somebody asks you, you know, you go to a car dealership and they say, So what's your budget? Your response will be as little as possible. I want to spend as little as possible. But one of the things that has been recommended to me by PyGersa, the wonderful PyGersa, is what you rather than give them a whole thing, a full pricing thing to look at, say session fees are this. And if you're selling products, say like frames, frames start at these prices. Clients typically spend these prices.

Meredith's husband: 10:11

Yeah, that's a good point. You could put something like that in the drop-down. And rather than just have like make a price range, see say the drop-down could be like, what are you looking for? You know, just the digitals, just a couple prints for holiday cards. I want framed art for, you know, you could you could do something that's not as, you know, again, blunt as a number range, right? It would still give you an indication of what that person is looking for.

Meredith: 10:35

Right.

Meredith's husband: 10:36

And then with some forms, you can set up different autoresponders based on what their response is.

Meredith: 10:42

Oh, that's cool. Aaron Powell Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 10:44

And not all forms can do that. Some can, some can't. But that that's a good option, especially if you're getting a lot of inquiries. If you're getting a lot of inquiries, congratulations. That's awesome. And then if somebody selects your cheaper option, again, like just know that that's not the right it's not the right timing for you.

Meredith: 11:02

And also people without seeing the value and being educated are not going to want to spend anything. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Meredith's husband: 11:10

Right. And I'm going to touch on that in just a second. But first, if so if when somebody writes to you and they're not within your budget range, that doesn't necessarily mean also that they never will be.

Meredith: 11:20

Right.

Meredith's husband: 11:21

You know, especially like if you're a family photographer, new families, you know, a lot of times they're struggling financially. It's not unusual. Yeah. I would say personally, keep those emailed. Like the people who write to you and can't afford you now, I would say keep their emails. Like who knows what's going to happen? Maybe you will offer something cheaper. You'll do mini sessions, or who knows what's going to happen. I would keep those emails.

Meredith: 11:44

Because they might all of a sudden become extremely financially thorough.

Meredith's husband: 11:50

Yeah. And then again, on that on the topic you just mentioned, you do need to educate people when they are looking at your site, obviously, that you are not the cheapest option. You are not Walmart. You are not, you know, Amazon. Yes.

Meredith: 12:04

I don't think they're even around.

Meredith's husband: 12:07

Probably not.

Meredith: 12:08

One another thing to that I could add is a good place to just kind of have an anchor of your prices is on the contact page. So it's very clear you could have a prices start at this. Clients typically invest this. So they will have an overall knowledge of where you stand and whether it's something that they are open to or if it is beyond their range. And then that can also prevent you from getting the inquiries that may not qualify.

Meredith's husband: 12:49

That's a good point. And again, yes, the contact page, as close as you can get to that button, and you know, and somewhere on the contact page is much better than just having pricing on your pricing page. Right. I've had numerous clients have, you know, messages somewhere on their site, like basically, do not contact me if ABC, and they get tons of people contacting them about ABC until you put that message on your contact page, get it close to when they're actually the point of contact, and it helps reduce that. You can't eliminate it completely.

Meredith: 13:20

Right.

Meredith's husband: 13:20

And I will say, like the question, did the question say something about halfway?

Meredith: 13:25

It says, I feel like half my inquiries go nowhere once I send my pricing.

Meredith's husband: 13:31

I will say that from my own experience. So people come to your website and a certain percentage of those people will contact you. Yes. That's called your conversion rate. Once people contact you, a certain percentage of those people are going to hire you. That would be your close rate.

Meredith: 13:46

Okay.

Meredith's husband: 13:46

From my experience in the business world, a close rate of 50%. And I remember this person said half my inquiries go nowhere, a close rate of 50% would be great. That'd be really good. I think, you know, again, just from my experience, you know, typically you're going to get maybe, I don't know, one in five.

Meredith: 14:05

Yeah. Oh, who it depends. It really depends.

Meredith's husband: 14:08

So so just know that that you're not going to book everybody.

Meredith: 14:12

Right.

Meredith's husband: 14:13

So half your inquiries are going to go nowhere.

Meredith: 14:16

Are going to go nowhere. Yeah. Exactly.

Meredith's husband: 14:19

Don't feel bad about that.

Meredith: 14:20

Yeah. But I definitely think it's important to put starting prices on your website so people don't overwhelm them with every single option. Um, but definitely uh most clients spend these start at price.

Meredith's husband: 14:35

The starting at price is a good one.

Meredith: 14:37

Yeah. Yeah, it just gives an average. Yes. And if you ask someone what their budget is, they're all of a sudden in their in their lizard brain, just focusing on numbers rather than focusing on the value of what you're providing and the quality. So it it kind of keeps it in the croc brain of just numbers and not the emotional, what is this gonna mean for you?

Meredith's husband: 15:03

Yeah. Yeah, then I would do instead of like the drop down with a because sometimes it's to be honest, especially in my world, it's very appropriate to have a budget because company because a lot of my clients are B2B.

Meredith: 15:14

Yeah.

Meredith's husband: 15:15

So they there is a very specific budget.

Meredith: 15:17

Right.

Meredith's husband: 15:18

So when dealing with, you know, consumers and family members and regular people, yeah, maybe instead of the numbers say, What are you looking for? I'm just looking for a few photos, I'm looking for a holiday card shot, or I'm looking for a family album that I can share with uh my family for years to come. My my third cousins.

Meredith: 15:38

Right. But yeah, if you just put it that way, then it's more tangible and then they're starting to think about it in their minds rather than just financially.

Meredith's husband: 15:46

Yeah, I like that.

Meredith: 15:47

Yeah, I do too. I didn't come up with it.