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EP. 120 - Embrace automation - Scott Wyden Kivowitz Imagen AI image

EP. 120 - Embrace automation - Scott Wyden Kivowitz Imagen AI

E120 · Get a "Heck Yes" with Carissa Woo Wedding Photographer and Coach
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112 Plays1 year ago

Happy Woo Wednesdays!

Scott Wyden Kivowitz is the Community Manager at Imagen. He’s a father, photographer and educator. Scott believes in sharing his knowledge and educating in a straight and point easy-to-understand style. His "Woo Factor" is the ability to simplify complex topics and make it easy for anybody to understand. Imagen has changed my life and saved me hours and hour per week from editing!! See if it change yours too.

Today's Hot Topic:

Embrace automation

- outsource culling and editing to save time, remove emotion and increase profits

- use reliable and integrated backups so your original files are always safe and secure.

- Your camera has machine learning in it. Use it. Trust it. It’s only going to get better with firmware.

- Use a CRM that can automate parts of your funnel and still let you step in for as much of the process as you want.

Connect with Scott

https://www.instagram.com/Scottwyden

Imagen

Get 1500 free prints

https://imagen-ai.com/?ref=carissawoo

Connect with Carissa Woo

https://instagram.com/carissawoo

https://heckyesmedia.co/

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Transcript

Michelle's Success with Chris Anthony's Program

00:00:00
Speaker
Happy Woo Wednesdays. I wanted to share one review from a student that went through the triple threat and she says, I raised my prices after going through Chris Anthony's program. She helped give me the groundwork and the tools to go into the new year and confidently charge more than ever. She thought was possible. So congrats Michelle from 1836 photography.
00:00:26
Speaker
You are doing it. That's just one of our amazing students doing well in our program. If you want to learn more, go to my Instagram at Carissa Woo, W-O-O. Drop me a DM with the word DEMO, D-E-M-O, and I'll send you a 20 minute video on how to get 10 to 15 quality leads per month in your inbox.

Impact of Imagine AI on Photography Editing

00:00:51
Speaker
So today I have Scott Wyden. He's the community manager at Imagine. So I always have guests that really influence and spark joy in my life. And Imagine AI has really changed my life. I wish I hopped on sooner. A little backstory is I stopped editing my wedding since 2015. I outsourced to the Philippines and I got a good rate and she does a good job.
00:01:20
Speaker
Um, she's fairly quick. Um, but I was still editing like my engagement sessions and my portraits and anything else. So it did take me time. Um, and now that I'm running the coaching business and my associates for the photography team.
00:01:36
Speaker
was still editing all the little stuff so I would be at the park and a party like I would bring a chair and just be editing and Yeah, it was just it was just I don't have time for it anymore So I finally hopped on try to imagine hit click of a button. Oh my god edited better than I did and I got to enjoy my first vacation I usually go on vacation and just like
00:02:01
Speaker
open up my laptop and start editing so I could start having fun, but I didn't have to do that. And yeah, Scott is giving you, and Imagine is giving you 1,500 free edits. It's in the link in the show notes. And this episode is all about how Imagine AI has changed my life, changed my editing game, and given me so much more hours back in my life.

Introduction to 'Get a Heck Yes' Podcast

00:02:24
Speaker
Enjoy this episode.
00:02:29
Speaker
Welcome to Get a Heck Yes with Carissa Wu. I'm your host, Carissa, and I've been a Los Angeles wedding photographer for over a decade. I've traveled the world, built my team, and seen it all. I now coach wedding photographers hit 10K a month and build a thriving business. In this podcast, we are going to deep dive into how top wedding creatives get that heck yes from their dream clients. We are not holding back on the struggles of the business and how to push through the noise. Some healthy hustle, mindset shifts, up-leveling your money story,
00:02:58
Speaker
time-packed because I'm a mom of two, a little bit of woo-woo, and most importantly, self-love and confidence are just a few of the many things we will talk about. I want to give you a genuine thank you for following along my journey. I hope to inspire you every Woo Wednesday so that you say heck yes to listening to this podcast. See you guys soon!
00:03:20
Speaker
Hey,

Scott's Journey from Music to Photography

00:03:21
Speaker
everyone. Welcome back to Get a Heck Yes with me, your girl Carissa Wu, and my now friend Scott Wyden Kivowitz. He's a community manager at Imagine, which Imagine has changed my life. Imagine AI editing software. He's a father of two, photographer and educator. And Scott believes in sharing his knowledge and educating in a straight and easy point, get to the point system.
00:03:49
Speaker
Yeah. What's up, Scott? I butchered your introduction, but you know, it's all good. I might, I might've even typed it incorrectly. That's what happens. You do a lot of weird stuff like that. So it's all good. It's all good. Yeah. I was just on your podcast or you interviewed me a couple of days ago. So, um, you did a great job of interviewing me. So I hope to do the same to you. And yeah, so,
00:04:19
Speaker
tell me a little bit about yourself. I don't really know too much. I've been binge binging your podcast called workflows. And I absolutely love your outline slash workflow of the podcast. But yeah, tell me even like growing up and where you're from and what you're all about.
00:04:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, uh, grew up born and raised still live in New Jersey. Um, I moved around New Jersey quite a bit. I now live in the same town where Bruce Springsteen grew up, which is kind of fun. Um, so he often comes back to town and goes to the ice cream shop that he used to go to when he was little. Wow. So yeah. Um, so yeah, I mean, I, I, I grew up, uh, around music. Um, music was kind of forced upon me and I actually went to college for music for a little bit.
00:05:08
Speaker
And I also was playing in bands and always had a camera with me taking pictures of bands. And once it led to another in college, when I realized I hated music theory, I decided to switch to photography technology as my focus.
00:05:26
Speaker
realized I loved photography theory and haven't looked back since so still still shooting all the time whenever I can whether it's my own family whether it's client work and whatnot but I also as you mentioned I work for Imagine so I've even at a college I straight out of college I knew I knew myself very well that if I was to focus my life where I was
00:05:52
Speaker
accepting money for photography as my full-time career, I would wind up hating photography. So, um, so I always wanted to be in the photo industry, but on the side of, you know, being able to teach photographers and provide solutions for photographers. And so I've, uh, I've worked in a bunch of companies in the photo industry and now I've been in imagine for two years and loving it. So. Yeah. Interesting. You're very intuitive for.
00:06:21
Speaker
knowing that fact, because even I got my first sponsor on this podcast, I was like, kind of takes the fun out of it all the time. I'm just kidding, I love them. But it was like, oh, now this is a job. You know? Yeah, yeah. It does have as challenges of like, like you said, like, we do have a podcast at Imagine. It's kind of my baby at Imagine.
00:06:47
Speaker
But, you know, I have to prove that it's that it's effective because it is for a company, you know, so it does have its pros and cons to not be your own boss, but at the same time, you know,
00:07:01
Speaker
You have to perform. You have to perform, but you also have to know yourself. And if you know, if you know that you would wind up hating what you do if you were doing it forever, you know, every single day, day in, day out, you got it, you got, you can't do it.

Evolution of Scott's Photography Style

00:07:15
Speaker
Right. So that's where I am, where I am. And, um, and I, and I'm very happy. I love it. Okay. Tell me like what photography theory is and did you get into like weddings or portraits? And what was like your, tell me a little bit about your company, your photography company.
00:07:30
Speaker
Yeah, so when I say photography theory, I mean things like what shutter speed does versus aperture and how they impact each other or even the fun. My favorite fact whenever I'm teaching when using lighting and teaching people who have never learned about lighting is the fact that your shutter speed and aperture and what they do and how they impact each other completely change once you introduce flash.
00:07:54
Speaker
And then how now how how aperture and shutter speed, you know impact completely other completely different things at that point. That's a theory that I absolutely love. The flip side though, there are certain theory that I hate and it's not me.
00:08:15
Speaker
Hating it because it just makes me angry. It's me hating because I visually can't see it. And we talked about this before we started recording. I am color blind. So when you start talking color theory and color wheels, I can't see a lot of differences anyway. So to me, like that, that part.
00:08:31
Speaker
I hate it because of that because I physically can't see it always. Yeah. So so that part that part gets me. But I still have the understanding of it. With that said, you're the other question that you had was what my photography is. So it's changed a lot over the years. I started doing band photos. I was already touring in a band. I was going to shows. I was playing shows. So I would always have a camera. I'd be shooting.
00:08:59
Speaker
I would talk to the band and say, do you want some press photos? And I would offer to do them either for free or for super cheap, you know, straight out of college, just trying to do what I can. And and then, like, started taking on family photos, started doing cake smash sessions, which are very, very big here in New Jersey. I started doing headshots and a whole variety of things. And then
00:09:24
Speaker
during the pandemic something interesting happened and oh I would do I would do a wedding I don't like shooting weddings but I would do one one very special wedding a year it has to be special that way and I can I can share I can share a couple of those with you of what I mean by that but
00:09:42
Speaker
So weddings were there but not always a big thing, but then during the pandemic My brother-in-law asked me to photograph him proposing to my now sister-in-law So I photographed that and I'm like, this is fun Kind of stressful, you know, it gets your anxiety going high pressures like a wedding. Yeah, but it's in a much smaller timeframe Much smaller, you know commitment on my end but
00:10:10
Speaker
I blogged about it. I did a YouTube video about it. I did a bunch of things and all of a sudden they started ranking for number one in New Jersey for proposals. And I started getting left and right, you know, are you available on this day? Are you available on this day? And I started doing proposals every weekend and during the pandemic and I don't
00:10:30
Speaker
I don't have time to do them as much these days, but, um, I still, I still doing proposals. So I, my proposal photography with this weekend or next weekend, I have a, uh, family session. So the, the occasional families come up, but typically it's proposals down. Wow. How, what year was that? That you posted started posting the blog about

Personal Struggles and Overcoming Challenges

00:10:53
Speaker
it? Uh, 2020, I guess, right. It was right when the pandemic started. How did you rank so high? Do you have any tips and tricks for?
00:11:01
Speaker
blogging or SEO. Yeah, so SEO has been a part of my job up until recently for almost 20 years. I've been doing that kind of stuff, creating content that is rich for search engines. And it really is just a matter of doing the research of the appropriate keywords, writing enough in the text that is optimized. I did a YouTube videos to go along with it. So that way,
00:11:29
Speaker
depending on where you are in the, in the, in the state or in the world, the video would show up versus the article. Um, and a lot of it, you know, um, was parallel. So a lot of the content was, was optimized on both sides for the certain keywords. Um, and of course they include photos with good file names with good alt text. Um, and the text was a lot. It wasn't just a little bit. It was, you know, thousand words or whatever it was. So, um, yeah, it's just a matter of, of.
00:11:59
Speaker
I put in the work for the articles. Wow, that's pretty amazing. Okay, you asked me this question right off the bat when you interviewed me. I'll ask you this question again back to you, but for proposals, because I actually have some embarrassing ones too, maybe I'll share.
00:12:13
Speaker
with you later, but what's like your most embarrassing proposal story? I have one and it was a mistake that I've made once and I will never do it again. So, you know how you... God, I hate the story. Okay.
00:12:33
Speaker
There was a job that I did, a proposal that I did that was at a beach town here in New Jersey. And this beach town has a bunch of parking lots that you can park in and then walk to the beach. Now imagine there's a line in the middle of this boardwalk. So the boardwalk's going left and right, but right in the middle, you've got this line. And that line is a bar. That's like a pier bar, right? So it sort of goes all into the water a bit.
00:13:01
Speaker
But on the on the land side of this is where the parking lot is in the parking lot is on both sides of that bar. Okay, so in communication with the with the guy in the situation.
00:13:17
Speaker
I said to him, where are you parking and which direction are you walking? And we planned it. We planned it all out. Uh-huh. And I positioned myself, right? And I, when I, when I did the YouTube video of like how I'd plan proposals and all this stuff, like I show you, I'm doing Google Earth views and Google street views and Google map views. And I'm telling you exactly where I will be. Uh-huh. So like I, I plan, right? Um, so I positioned myself where,
00:13:48
Speaker
I was told he was going to be walking and we mapped it all out. And so I'm on, if you're looking at the line, I'm on the right side of the bar, right? He parks in the same parking lot as me, but he walks up on the left side of the bar going towards the left. So he was already past me. So he sends me a text message all done. Oh, freaks.
00:14:12
Speaker
I was looking down the boardwalk looking for him. So I thought it was my fault. I thought it was my fault. Yeah. You know what? It wasn't my fault. Yeah. Still extremely embarrassed. I wound up refunding the whole thing. We did a fake proposal and I did a full engagement session. So yeah.
00:14:33
Speaker
I will never let that happen again. Oh my God. Now when I do proposals, I am looking left and right, left and right the entire time while I'm waiting. Wow. It's even more high pressure because I don't want one of those again. So I'll say mine in like two seconds, but someone like caught me in the bushes. But yeah, you're sorry that sucks, but that's so nice of you to do what you did.
00:14:59
Speaker
Let's go back to your childhood before we go into Hot Topic. But yeah, the intro in your podcast workflows, you guys have to check it out. It's really amazing. But it really captivated me because you said some vulnerable things about you right off the bat. And it actually made me really resonate with you and connect with you right off the bat. And I was like, I want more. So tell me a little bit about like what you were like as a kid and these struggles and anything you want to tell me.
00:15:27
Speaker
Uh, I sucked at school growing up and I never knew why, never knew why the entire time. My parents never really questioned it so much. I mean, they, they saw me getting D's all the time and they were just happy with me getting D's all the time because I didn't fail. Um, meanwhile, my younger brother was getting A's and everything. And my older brother was probably getting B's and A's and I'm just not. Um.
00:15:55
Speaker
Couple that with being bullied my entire childhood. It just was not a fun experience growing up, going to school and that kind of stuff. Turned out that it was my senior year of high school when I got into a really bad fight and whatnot and almost got expelled.
00:16:18
Speaker
By the way, this is me defending myself after however many years of not defending myself getting bullied. I defend myself finally at senior year of high school and I'm the one who almost gets expelled. So that also goes to show you the principal, the assistant principal, the teachers, they did jack squat. They didn't care. So mind you, after a bunch of things and the judge literally, it was a court involved, requiring me to have a child study team
00:16:46
Speaker
to work with and all this stuff turned out, um, I was dyslexic. So my entire childhood growing up, I had no idea that, um, that was why I was doing so poorly in school. Um, no, that, that, that doesn't, you know, couldn't directly connect to the whole bullying thing, but, but they impacted each other for sure. Yeah. So, so yeah. Uh, that's pretty, pretty old to find that out. Yeah.
00:17:14
Speaker
Yeah, usually people find out like in middle school or yeah, yeah, ironically, I'm now married to a now I mean, we've been married for almost 15 years, but we're married to a special ed teacher with a language, our specialty and special team dyslexia.

Automation and AI in Photography Business Efficiency

00:17:30
Speaker
So how did you meet? How did you meet J date?
00:17:35
Speaker
Oh, yeah, both of our moms forced us to do it. And yeah, so it worked out worked out. Oh, that's a beautiful story. I'm like, I feel I don't know why that story makes me kind of like warm and fuzzy. But how did like, what was, was that like the turning point? Like, did your parents, you know, try to get you help? Or did you feel like a weight off your shoulder that like, Hey, this is not my fault? Or like, what did you feel after that?
00:18:03
Speaker
Pardon this short interruption, but guess what? I have a new program. It's for all wedding professionals. It's called The Triple Threat. We redo your brand messaging, the homepage of your website. Part two is we do all your marketing.
00:18:20
Speaker
create a beautiful brochure so you could start getting on Prefer venue vendor list and we do all your sales so we actually make you a sales presentation leading your client to the heck yes so you get paid. I have a free 20 minute demo training. It's only 20 minutes. Go to my Instagram at Carissa Woo.
00:18:43
Speaker
and DM me the word DEMO. I will send it right over. It's how to get 10 to 15 quality leads in your inbox per month. Enjoy, guys. Krista Wu is a LA-based wedding photographer who's actually turning business coach. She helped me grow and change, and I'm so proud to call you coach.
00:19:06
Speaker
Tell us how you're feeling. Like, I want to just know a little bit more about your thoughts. It's beautiful and you're awesome. It's beautiful. I'm speechless. I just like the fact that it feels like myself. I feel myself when I see this. Oh, man. Well, you got me pumped and excited for this. Carissa, thank you. I never got formal help with the dyslexia. So even now, like,
00:19:34
Speaker
Um, we were talking about color blindness. Uh, my wife has always helped me with color, but. You know, since I've met her, she's always helped me with my writing as well. Cause she likes, she's a teacher. She likes using her red pen. So I've always had that. I also now rely on tools like Grammarly as well.
00:19:53
Speaker
You know, if I'm if I'm writing a blog article doing something, whatever it might be, show notes for the podcast, whatever it might be, stuff for the for the magic community. It's I've got to have Grammarly check it. I can't always have somebody looking over my shoulder. So yeah, it's interesting that you're so articulate and the way your brain works of, you know, everyone again for the third time go listen to workflows. It's amazing. So I think that is what helps me.
00:20:20
Speaker
to break down the complexity for people just to make it simpler because I have a hard time following when people talk with such big words and make things very intricate. I have trouble following it. So I need to figure it out for myself and then break it down for myself. So I find that I think that's why my brain does that for other people because I'm so used to doing it for myself.
00:20:43
Speaker
Interesting. So this is very unique. Okay, so I guess this brings us to the hot topic, which is embracing automation. Why did you choose this topic? And I guess you just said it, but you can say it in different words. But why is it so near and dear to your heart?
00:21:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the whole reason why I first and foremost created the Workflows Photography podcast is I need workflows to make myself more productive, to make myself efficient, to keep me on track and to just get stuff done that has to get done. So for me, it's automation.
00:21:23
Speaker
it's in so much of our lives already, whether we know it or not. And where we're not already using it, we should when we can when it makes sense. Right. So I find that automation helps me. And why couldn't it help others to like take the stress off or simplify certain things? Right. So cool. I didn't really I didn't really read the questionnaire, but we could just answer. You could give any tips. But I guess to the audience, like
00:21:52
Speaker
Tell us how to start using automation. You're talking to wedding pros right now. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, first and foremost, I can't, I can't, you know, hold back on mentioning, you know, using imagine for outsourcing your calling, outsourcing your editing. That's going to, in itself, you know, automating that using AI and intelligent tools like that is going to save you time. It's going to remove the emotion from it because
00:22:17
Speaker
One of the things when for the wedding photographers who either edit and call themselves or outs or outsourced to a human to edit and call for them, there's human emotion involved. So if you're having a bad day, if you're under the weather, you know, if you were in a really good mood, whatever it might be, you're going to do it different. Your calling and your editing is going to be different every time with that emotion. So by using AI, you take it out of the equation.
00:22:44
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah. And the other thing is, for those who are already outsourcing to a human, going to AI, like Imagine, is going to save you money, increase your profits, right? Yeah. It's cheaper than using Editor, for sure. And some of those big editing companies, like you never know Editor, you're going to get, and it's like hit or miss. And that's extremely, like, makes you very anxious, or a photographer is anxious. Guess what I did this morning?
00:23:13
Speaker
What did you do this morning? I just uploaded two Imagine catalogs. Boom, boom, booyah, click, click, click. I haven't really told my audience, but I finally hopped on the Imagine AI bandwagon, like, I don't know, a month ago. And it was the first time I could like enjoy myself on vacation. And it's just,
00:23:39
Speaker
so amazing because now that I'm like doing like podcasts and sales calls and coaching, I couldn't have these pockets of like an hour of watching the Kardashians and just like editing or like trash TV or just listening to like love is blind. Like I don't have these two hour pockets. So then people will be waiting for their like smaller shoots.
00:23:59
Speaker
till Saturday and I have to like spend, I literally was, went to a barbecue and I brought a chair and my computer and I was editing and they're like, you're so lame Carissa.

Lighthearted Discussion on 'Love is Blind'

00:24:10
Speaker
I was like, can you watch my kids? You just rushed over something that I'd have to mention. You just said love is blind. I will say,
00:24:20
Speaker
My wife does make me watch those shows and I have enjoyed the train wreck of that is called love is blind. It is enjoyable train wreck. So it is. I actually wish like I was on it. I I'm married now. I missed it. I was like.
00:24:35
Speaker
You know, my cousin was like, he would be perfect on that because I love like connecting and you know, like, I would love to talk, you know, for hours on end all day. She's like, damn it. He could have been famous. Anyways, okay, so imagine everyone at the end, he's going to give a little freebie, but any other automation hacks that you want to give a shout out to?
00:25:00
Speaker
Um, yeah. So, so another one would be, um, we'd talk backups, right? So an interesting story that happened very recently is a, uh, an imagined customer. Um, who, by the way, we call imagine customers imagineers. Um, so imagineer was speaking at an event somewhere overseas. I don't know where, um, and while she was speaking, her laptop.

Importance of Backup Solutions

00:25:25
Speaker
Got stolen. Oh my God. That's so messed up.
00:25:30
Speaker
which had a wedding that she just shot on, on the eternal drive, and it was gone. All of her wedding photos. Now, thankfully, she used Imagine, which automates backups. So we saved her butt by automatically backing up her photos because she sent them to Imagine to either call or edit, I don't remember, and we backed them up at that time. So
00:25:56
Speaker
Oh my god. I want to make your backups. Now here's the cool part with Imagine.
00:26:04
Speaker
You get this two types of backups. There is a low resolution backups and there are high resolution backups. Every person who is a subscriber to imagine has free low res backups, no matter what. So every project you send backed up, no matter what for free. So if you want high res, the full high resolution, then that is where there's an extra charge, but like.
00:26:29
Speaker
We got your back, literally got your back. And so it's already proven effective for a bunch of imagineers. And unfortunately, her laptop, she never got it back, but her... Dude, I would give up like three laptops to have that one wedding back. I know, I know. Like your life is doomed if you know that wedding's gone. Like literally your whole life. Cancel.
00:26:58
Speaker
Crazy. Yeah. It has so many cool features. Um, we can't even talk about the new feature that we talked about last week because my episode's not coming out until March, but yeah, so many cool features. I'm going to definitely get on that because I just feel like hard drives are so expensive. It's like, you can't back up on like fricking three hard drives. Like, come on. I know. I know.
00:27:19
Speaker
I I've got, I've got piles of like physical drives that I slowly want to convert to a one raid SSD system. And it's just like, I looking at that expense is just yeah. Like if, when I have them on, I can barely record because of the amount of noise coming from those, you know, from those drives, but yeah, one day. So.
00:27:42
Speaker
I want to ask you like a workflow question, but I feel like it's gonna be too long. Like, well, you asked me like your whole like, looking from a zoomed out lens. But what is one like, not editing tip, but maybe dad boss tip to save you time or your favorite software or anything that you like blew your mind. That's AI besides imagine.
00:28:10
Speaker
I'm excited to share with you all about our first Get A Heck Yes sponsor, Seventeen Hats. I've been using the CRM company for over a decade and I've been referring them to all my frienders for all this time. I always know when I'm going to get paid and most importantly, I get paid. So here is a question. What is holding you back? What's keeping you from finding success as a small business person?
00:28:36
Speaker
It's not passion. The fact that you're listening to my podcast shows that you're eager to learn and get better. Know what holds you back is all the chaos of business, paperwork, mailed invoices, and no system to handle at all. That's where Seventeen Hats comes in. Seventeen Hats is a better way to manage your small business. It's an all-in-one platform that streamlines everything from lead capture to client communication to clicking your done automated invoices.
00:29:05
Speaker
17 Hats paves a way for success you deserve by giving you back hours in your day. Find what success looks like for you with 17 Hats. Get started for free at 17hats.com and use my code HECKYES and it's going to give you guys 50% off your first annual membership. How amazing is that? Back to the show!
00:29:30
Speaker
Yeah, so one of the things I was going to bring up in automation is actually something that HoneyBook is doing. Now, I know HoneyBook is not available all over the world, right?

Work-Life Balance and SEO Advice

00:29:40
Speaker
It's US and Canada, I think, but they started doing something that's extremely interesting and they're adding AI to their
00:29:51
Speaker
like lead opportunity funnel system. Okay. Where they're starting the process of analyzing your leads that come in and giving you a score of like, here is how the percentage of this, that the likelihood of this person converting to an operating job, or here's how many days it might take for this person to finally convert based on.
00:30:15
Speaker
whatever analysis it does. So this is one of those things like I don't personally use it because again I'm a one person doing a part-time professional photography business. So I don't need that kind of tool in my life. But if I was running a full-time photography business, 100% I'd be using some sort of CRM with tools like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whether it's HoneyBook or somebody else, right?
00:30:41
Speaker
Yeah, Seventeen Hats is our sponsor today so they do cool stuff too. And also what you mentioned on the podcast when you interviewed me was like Lead Savage so I went on their site and then that was cool that like you don't have to use like Zapier or whatever like they do the whole Legion email sequence stuff.
00:31:02
Speaker
Yeah, and they bring in WhatsApp and SMS and Facebook and Instagram. It's all under one. So when you get one, that lead is connected to whether they send you a text message or an email or an Instagram DM. It's all in one place for that. Wow. It's very interesting how they
00:31:21
Speaker
Do you use them? I don't, again, I don't, I don't have the need for them. Yeah. Like I'm in a, I'm in a situation, an interesting situation where I can manage what I need to with just my own email and a spreadsheet, but, um, there was a time where I, where I, when I was using a tool, I mean, I, I do have a different tool, like, like a 17 hats that I use. Um, but I don't use all the features that it comes with that basically I'm using it for, you know, I booked it.
00:31:50
Speaker
I booked this lead. Here's the date. It preps the gallery for me. And then when I add the photos of the gallery, so that's all I do with it. Yeah. The fact that I could set up all these email workflows to handle it when the gallery is done. Okay. Or like, you know, I marked it as book. Now send an email with all of these to prepare for the session. I could do it. I just don't need to do to my. Yeah. What is your photography company called? Scott Wyden imagery.
00:32:19
Speaker
Okay. Um, do you have any blogging tips? I know you said that all like optimization, all texts, um, write long form, but, um, do you use like pick time or like blog stomp or.
00:32:31
Speaker
No, so I'm a WordPress guy. I believe in sticking with WordPress for full websites, for blogging. It is the way to get the most SEO rich site, 100%. Really? Yeah. And yeah, I mean, the tip I would say is think locally, always think locally. Okay. Okay.
00:32:52
Speaker
So like somebody who's in LA, for example, should not necessarily be blogging for the entire state of California. It's too big, right? Think locally, think venues, think locations. You want to create this sort of like bubble around your area of content about all the areas where you serve in order to attract the search engines to then attract
00:33:21
Speaker
your prospects. Oh, cool, cool, cool.

Building Relationships with Clients

00:33:25
Speaker
Okay. Um, I guess a little bit getting to the end, but talk to wedding pros that are struggling. You kind of have this crazy like Cinderella magic story where you just like, it almost fell in your lap. I know you're like so talented, but you know, your brother is wedding and
00:33:41
Speaker
you blogged about it or one proposal and you just started like getting hits. Say someone just struggling and wants to give up, like what would you tell them to do maybe today or by Friday, like urgently to kind of get the ball rolling and get out of their heads. Interesting. So for one, I would say make sure you're inside of
00:34:06
Speaker
Um, good communities that are very positive, right to interact with others that might have been in your situation before. That are definitely going to be a community over competition. So, whether it's a local, right community to yourself.
00:34:21
Speaker
or whether it is a, um, like the imagine community, for example, that is global, but there's people that might be somebody in Nebraska who might be able to help somebody in California and not be a direct competitor. Um, so I would say try to get, try to have these conversations with people, get on calls and ask for help. There are always people willing to, to offer advice. You know, not everybody is like,
00:34:48
Speaker
I'm not sharing my, you know, some people might, might have the mind share my, my, uh, my tips because, you know, that it'll make you, you know, have a better business than I do, but there's, it's, that's the rarity, you know, the more people who are willing to help and want to help. Um, if you only had a week to figure it out, I would spend one day on calls.
00:35:12
Speaker
talking to lots and lots of people. I would spend one day going around, so if it's your weddings, go around to every venue in your area, bring your work, bring physical albums, show them your work, talk to the coordinators there.
00:35:28
Speaker
um I would do the same thing for that takes that's like small yeah yeah but if you've got no choice exactly one week exactly what you got to do oh shoot I like I got scared right now even though I like teach that yeah it's like kind of like do or die that's so interesting and I guess I think it's a different thing asking for help right that's that's very hard it is it is very hard to ask for help I mean
00:35:58
Speaker
I do it at work quite often where I'm, if I'm just stuck, I'll say to the rest of my team, like, you know, I'm stuck on this, please help. And I will get, you know, countless people saying, what about this? Or what about this? And what about that? You know, you have to, you know, even though you might be by yourself in your photography business, like so many are, not everybody is, but if you are by yourself, you're not really by yourself. There is a community out there for you, so just find them.
00:36:27
Speaker
I know our friend, like me and his mutual friend, Benny Chu, he photographer, he reached out to me recently. And he just was like, I need help Chris on content. Can I pick your brain? And I did refer him to the site I told you about now now site. So it's just, you know, AI for captions and Instagram and you know, content and we're just chatting and I picked his brain about some stuff as well. So I think
00:36:58
Speaker
don't know, just kind of like a vulnerable quality to have to actually, you know, one, ask for help. And, you know, as me, like me and you are both parents, but even to like, say sorry, like, you know, it's such a great quality have, for me, I like if I do something wrong as a parent, I'm like, I'm sorry, like, I'm not perfect. And then, you know, in return, the kids are like, I'm sorry for behaving like that. So it's like, a very,
00:37:26
Speaker
I know some people that can't say sorry, like at all. And some people that can't say, can you help me? And it's very hard because it's like a lonely life. Yeah. When that story with that failed proposal that I did, I knew it was my fault, even at the time.
00:37:50
Speaker
But there was no way in hell I was going to leave there without giving them an apology. Even if it's not my fault, I'm saying sorry. It was a screw up. It was a screw up. I mean, honestly, that sucks, but it's not that bad.
00:38:07
Speaker
You know, you get you sound like a wedding like it's not like you didn't show up to the ceremony. That's really bad. That's like no repeat. Those guests are not coming back there. I feel like I was I was in some sort of Facebook group or something the other day and somebody brought up a story of have you ever missed the maybe it was on a podcast. Have you ever missed the first kiss? And
00:38:33
Speaker
It's a lot of people are like, yeah, yeah, like I have. And I had to recreate it or it's just a lost cause or whatever. I don't remember where it was, but it happens. You say sorry and you fix it, however it has to get fixed. Last question before you tell your freebie and where to find you, but what is your woo factor? What is your Scott factor? What gets you your best
00:39:02
Speaker
Heck yes, too. I guess it was two questions. So we kind of brought it up early on. I think my woo factor is the ability to simplify complex topics and make it easy for anybody to understand. Yeah, totally. I totally agree that you make things easy for me to understand. And then what's like your best heck yes sales technique or how do you get your heck yes?
00:39:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think it would be to be yourself. Don't hide anything. Throw it all out there. Even if your clients know your secret, they are still more likely to pay you than to do it themselves because you are the expert and they want the expert. They don't want to use their phone. They don't always want to go to the cheapest possible photographer. They want to go to the person who they know and connect with.
00:39:58
Speaker
So if you if you act yourself and you connect with them on that level, they're they're going to hire you. So I'm trying to resonate with that. That's really good. And you're giving people freebie today. And how do they get that the imagine? Yeah, yeah. So we can do the fifteen hundred free edits for anybody who signs up for Imagine from a link. And I guess we'll just throw the link in the show notes.
00:40:28
Speaker
Yeah, and it took me a year to hop on the bandwagon. And once I did it, it took like two seconds and it saved me like, boom, like that hour of editing a family session. And I was like, like, I get to play, I get to go outside, I get to go to gym, you know, like, it was literally life changing. So the life changing magic, I'm imagine. Marie Kondo, you're editing.
00:40:56
Speaker
And where can everyone connect with you? It could be photography and Imagine site. Sure. So my, my personal website is scottwiden.com. Um, and imagine is imagineai.com. And of course you're listening to a podcast. So workflows, photography podcast. Yes, you have to check it out and I'll be on on in March and that's going to go by super fast, but thank you, Scott. This is amazing conversation. Thank you. It was a lot of fun.
00:41:28
Speaker
Thanks for joining me this week on Get a Heck Yes with Carissa Wu. Make sure to follow, subscribe, leave a review, or tell a friend about the show. Take a screenshot and post to IG. Tag me. Also, don't forget to download my free guide on how to become a lead generating machine. See you next time, wedding pros!