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Episode 30: Abby Grace - The Gentle No
154 Plays6 years ago
Today’s guest is Abby Grace of Abby Grace Photography, an international wedding and anniversary photographer based just outside of Washington D.C. Abby’s background in communications and PR is on full display in this interview as we discuss client communication, and specifically we talked about instances where you have to say no to clients or prospective clients.
We walked through all sorts of different scenarios from unreasonable client requests, to how to turn someone away who’s not a good fit, to dealing with requests that are just outside the scope of work that you usually do. What stands out in this episode to me is how Abby sets boundaries and educates our clients from the very beginning of their correspondence and how she does her best to find ways to say yes to clients even after having to say no.
For show notes and more resources, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-abby-grace-episode-30.
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Transcript
The Magic of Photography
00:00:05
Speaker
I really miss the process, I miss that feeling of just like anything is possible when you put a sheet of blank photographic light sensitive paper into a tank or into the tray with developer and then fixer and you see this image bloom to life on a page that was previously blank, like it was magical.
Introduction to the Brands at Book Show
00:00:30
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative, service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:41
Speaker
Today's guest is Abby Grace of Abby Grace Photography, an international wedding and anniversary photographer based just outside of Washington, D.C. Abby's background in communications and PR is on full display in this interview as we discuss client communication. Specifically, we talk about instances where you might have to say no to clients or prospective clients.
Client Communication and Boundaries
00:01:02
Speaker
We walk through all sorts of different scenarios from unreasonable client requests to how to turn someone away who's not a good fit to dealing with requests that are just outside the scope of work that you usually do. What stands out in this episode to me is how Abby sets boundaries and educates her clients from the very beginning of their correspondence and how she does her best to find ways to say yes to clients even after having to say no.
00:01:26
Speaker
Before we get to this episode, if you're revisiting your website this season, we have stuff for you to check out. Head on over to DavianChrysta.com because we are hosting a website giveaway, so you can find out the details about that there. We have a brand new guide out all about websites, our nine must haves for your website, and you can find that at website.davianchrysta.com.
00:01:50
Speaker
And we also, this winter, have special offers on our professionally designed, easy to customize website templates that are available in our shop at DavianChrista.com.
00:02:02
Speaker
Be sure to check out the show notes at davianchrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode, and I'd like to hear from you about what kind of content you'd like to see on the Brands That Book podcast as we move forward. I'd also like to know what episodes you've enjoyed most so far and why. To leave your feedback, head on over to the Davian Christa Facebook page and send us a message. Now, onto the episode.
00:02:29
Speaker
All right, today we have Abby Grace of Abby Grace photography with us. Welcome to the show, Abby. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super pumped to be here. I vowed to stop saying so excited because it's cliche. So I'm pumped to be here. Well, we are super pumped to have you here. And I feel like we've known each other for a while now. Yeah, it's been, I think I first met Krista in like 2012. And I don't remember the first time you and I met in person, but it's been a long time.
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's been a while. But since then, I've been able to see you speak at creative a number of times now, and on a number of different topics. And one of those topics is also the topic of today's podcast, which is basically just saying no to people.
00:03:12
Speaker
Which is one of my favorite things to do. Not like a negative way, but just like I love boundaries and like the word no is such a hard one for some people to enunciate. And I'm like, no problems here. I got it. Yeah. And it really
Abby's Journey into Photography
00:03:23
Speaker
is. It can be so difficult to say no to people. And we're going to talk about all sorts of different scenarios. I think especially when you're first getting started and you don't want to say no to work, you know? And it's just a matter of
00:03:33
Speaker
somebody's willing to pay you, the tendency is to say yes. So I'm excited to dig into that with you because I know how powerful of a lesson that this has been for people who you've spoken to. I feel like I hear, especially after conferences that we speak out together,
00:03:50
Speaker
people just walking away with so many practical tips and insights and being comfortable then to say yes to the right work. And you have all sorts of resources, literally. If you want to skip this and just get the shortcut, Abby has a shop and she has email templates. She literally has a pack of templates around saying no. So it's like 10 to 15 different situations and pre-written emails for those situations.
00:04:16
Speaker
It's very gentle ways to say no for creatives who that kind of thing makes your stomach feel like it's going to fall out of your butt. But you don't want to walk away from this interview because, and I don't even know this, how did you get started? We've known each other for a while now, but I don't even know how your business got started.
00:04:33
Speaker
Well, I was born at a very early age. Just kidding. So I actually am not one of those people that was, you know, always had a camera in their hand or anything like that. I fell in love with photography in college because I took a darkroom class because I needed to satisfy a fine art major. Somehow being a music major for a year didn't do that. And so they told me I had to take an art class. I took darkroom photography and totally fell in love as cliche as that sounds. And that was halfway through my junior year. And obviously it was too late to change my major at that point. So I just.
00:05:00
Speaker
continued on with my communication degree. So my bachelor's degree is in communication with a concentration in public relations. But I knew from the time that I graduated that I really wanted to pursue photography in some way, shape, or form. And it was actually, my first wedding was in December of 2009. It was December 19th, 2009, and there was a photographer back home
00:05:25
Speaker
who i emailed to ask just you know how did you get started do i need to have a degree in this and who invited me to go to a wedding with him and it was like it was snow pocalypse two thousand nine and it was i mean like it's crazy it starts knowing the night before we had to drive in and like spend a night hotel.
00:05:43
Speaker
And there was like two and a half feet of snow on the ground. And so it was an insane day. It was like 12 or 13 hours crazy for any photographer who's been in a situation like that. But I remember walking away from that being like, oh my gosh, this is what I want to do. I love this. I love every second of this. I love the joy. I love the chaos. I love it. If you can walk away from that and love it, you know, then it's really for you.
00:06:07
Speaker
Yeah, so that was in 2010. I guess the wedding was in 2009. I graduated in 2010. And right after graduation, I knew I wanted to work in the wedding industry, but I knew that it was going to take some time to get things going. And so three days after graduation, I got hired by a Fortune 500 company to work in the comms department.
00:06:24
Speaker
which I was very fortunate to have that job because it was like two years after the recession, a year and a half after the recession hit and it's like one of the only people who had a job like right after I graduated. I spent two years working in the corporate industry. I had a super cushy job and a cushy desk and a cushy salary and I wanted so desperately to be out.
00:06:42
Speaker
Which for anyone who's ever transitioned out of the corporate world knows your parents are like, but why? Like you got a great thing going for you. I, one of my uncles said to me, he was like, this is great. You just keep doing this both, you know, both of them, like your corporate job and your small business for the next like 30 years and you can retire when you're 52.
00:06:59
Speaker
It was like everything about everything you just said makes me want to die. Yeah. And that's so interesting. I mean, especially in 2010, you know, and that's when I graduated as well. So I remember very much the marketplace of the time and how many of my friends did not get jobs, you know, after graduation.
00:07:16
Speaker
You just had a conversation for the podcast as well with Laura Joseph and same thing, you know, it's about 2010-2012 and she gets this job out of college and had to have a similar conversation with her parents. So how did your parents react to that, knowing that Fortune 500 job, you're going to go and do this photography thing? Or as some of my friends put it, you take pictures, right?
00:07:36
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Like you only work on weekends, right? Like that kind of thing. Yeah, the way I phrased it to them was like, I understand that it's very complicated for you to understand why I would leave a comfortable, very secure defense contractor job to then not know where my paycheck is coming from.
00:07:53
Speaker
You know, month after month. I mean, that's exaggerated. Obviously, we know where wedding payments are coming from, but to have an unsteady job. And on top of that, the day that I gave my notice, because I gave my job about two months of notice so that they could find a replacement for me before I left. And the day I gave my notice, I came home and we found out that Matt's job as a youth pastor was being dissolved. And so I left my job June 1st, 2012.
00:08:16
Speaker
and his job was set to dissolve on July 1st 2012 and everyone was like what are you doing like this is banana pancakes you know you stay at the job but we just we just knew like like our I don't say our marriage was suffering but just like we didn't have time for each other anymore and like this was it wasn't worth
00:08:37
Speaker
like slaving away to make a living if we didn't then get to also enjoy the life that came along with that living. And so we had a couple of benchmarks that we wanted to hit before I felt comfortable leaving my day job and we did those benchmarks and Matt was actually the one to say and I'm so, so fortunate that I had a husband who was like,
00:08:54
Speaker
more of a champion for my business than I was because I was too afraid. He was like, it's time. You need to leave. So when I left my job on June 1st, we had no idea where Matt was going to be working shortly thereafter. And I still left. And then, of course, he found a job a couple of weeks later. And it was fine. But in the meantime thing, our parents were just like,
00:09:16
Speaker
What are you doing? My mom was pretty supportive and my dad was supportive too, but it was just more like, you know, your parents, they want you to be safe and they want you to be secure. And I was like, I'm not really interested in safety. Like I'm interested. I know there's wisdom in security, but like, I don't feel, I feel settled about this. Like I feel at peace about this. And like my gut for me has always been a pretty good indicator as to whether or not something is worth pursuing. And I felt at peace with it. So I was like, you know, we just,
00:09:44
Speaker
We, not to get preachy, but like we know God's calling us to this and like to put this off any further would be wrong. So we did it and it was fine and it worked out fine. And it's been six and a half years at this point and now Matt works with me too. And it's just, it's really cool to be able to look back at that and be like, you know, everyone was so afraid for us and like we were afraid in some ways too, but it worked out and it was fine.
00:10:07
Speaker
Yeah.
Return to Film Photography
00:10:08
Speaker
And looking at your background as well, I mean, you probably, and people probably don't realize this at the time as well, but you have this background in communication and PR, you know, which knowing what I know about you now totally makes sense. Even in terms of the conversation that we're going to have today. But then also I want to talk about the darkroom photography class that you took, because at some point, were you always a film photographer? No. So I started off on film, I started off on black and white film.
00:10:34
Speaker
And then when I started taking photographs not for class, I wanted to be able to shoot in color.
00:10:42
Speaker
And so I was still shooting like personal black and white film. I actually managed to sweet talk my way into the dark room for the semester after that, even though I wasn't enrolled in the class anymore because my professor was like, I totally get it. But no, I started shooting, I guess just the concept of shooting color film never really occurred to me because I was like, digital exists. Why would I shoot color film? But like, I think it was like 2012 was when I started feeling like a tug in the color film direction because I just, I want, it wasn't so much the look of film, which I loved.
00:11:12
Speaker
It was more like I really miss the process. I miss that feeling of just like anything is possible when you put a sheet of blank photographic light sensitive paper into a tank or into the tray with developer and then fixer and you see this this image bloom to life on a page that was previously blank like it was magical and I also missed the process of like being super intentional with every photo that I took because with digital you know you can just you can take as many pictures you want doesn't cost you anything extra but with film
00:11:42
Speaker
It is extremely expensive. And so I started in 2012 shooting. I bought a Contax in 2012 and then let it sit for a long time after I decided that I wasn't going to shoot film at weddings. But like realized that I really loved shooting. We started traveling and shooting internationally in 2013 and I shot all of my travel work on film because I didn't want to come home with a portfolio of like 5,000 digital photographs and then never do anything with them. It just, that felt sort of cheapened to me.
00:12:11
Speaker
And so in order to like really treasure the experience of being in Paris for the first time and being in England with my husband and I shot everything on film. And it was one of the best decisions I ever made when it came to like personal work, because I grew a lot as an artist, just realizing the kinds of things that I was attracted to, the kind of things that I wanted to photograph, but then also just that process of like slowing down and being intentional. I felt like I fell in love with the locations more. I fell in love with photography all over again.
00:12:38
Speaker
And so from there, it sort of started taking over every area of my photography. So it started with travel and then I introduced it into anniversary sessions and then my ballerina portraits, which I, I just shoot for personal work, but then weddings were the last thing to fall in line. And it was only because people like Lauren Swan and Natalie Frank were like, Abby, why are you not shooting film? You shoot it with everything else. And it's so good. Like it's so, you do your best work on film. Why are you not doing it at weddings? And it was because I was afraid.
00:13:07
Speaker
So then I last year started shooting film at weddings and it's just I mean it's been so amazing like my work is leaps and bounds and I mean you know this you just you fall in love with your work more when you're shooting a medium that speaks to you. Yeah we shot we started shooting film for really a similar reason I audited a class this is after college black and white film photography class at the community college and I would show up I wouldn't even show up to the classroom days you know when they were just doing lecture I'd only show up to the days that we were developing and things like that.
00:13:35
Speaker
And Krista, the reason she convinced me to come second shoot for her, she would say, hey, you can use a couple of roles of film. And ironically, after a while, my film work was so much better than my digital work. Because with my digital work, it was kind of like grab my camera and take as many photos as possible and hope that one of them is in focus. Whereas with film, you can't do that. Right.
00:13:57
Speaker
you know, like you said, you got to slow down. And again, I think there's something beautiful about the just the process of film work. And, you know, it's, I mean, it's definitely scary, though, sending your film away in the mail. Like hoping that it gets there hoping that USPS fulfills the tent of the bargain.
00:14:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But at the end of the day too, I think I've only ever lost one roll of film ever off the dock into water. But you lose 16 photos. If I lost a memory card off the dock in the water, it would never be recovered.
00:14:30
Speaker
Just thinking about that.
Setting Boundaries in Business
00:14:31
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of people at home just cringed. But anyways, so I totally understand that. And your work and your personal work too is beautiful. And so if you had just a little advice for those photographers who are sending it home, maybe also love film, but don't want to make the leap into actually doing it at weddings or whatever, what piece of advice would you give them? Oh gosh, that's good. I would say start small with things that can be reshot.
00:14:58
Speaker
If you want to start introducing it with your clients, I wouldn't necessarily say start by taking it to an engagement session, but maybe put together a shoot with, let's say you have a couple of friends in your neighborhood and you're like, hey, you're attractive. Can I photograph you? Just shoot. Shoot a lot. Shoot frequently. I think keeping track of your exposures is also super helpful to get an idea of, okay, I overexposed this one by three stops. I didn't like that as much as when I only overexposed by one and a half stops.
00:15:27
Speaker
Honestly, shooting in low pressure situations, I took my phone camera everywhere with me. I took it to my parents' house when we'd go over for dinner. I would take it to family gatherings. I took it on vacation. I started taking it to engagement sessions, and I'd shoot maybe two roles only after I felt like I got what I wanted with digital. So it was risk-free, and it was never anything that couldn't be reshot if for some reason the film was totally terrible.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's how we get started as well. Just low pressure situations, doing it in little batches and then before ever making that switch to shooting, you know, most of the portraits and, you know, that kind of stuff at weddings on film.
00:16:05
Speaker
But we have lots of non film things to talk about today, even though I could probably talk to you about this for another 45 minutes. Yeah, exactly. I want to talk to you about setting boundaries with your clients. But first, you know, in general, what are some of the mistakes that you feel like you made early on in your business that if you could go back in time, that you would fix for sure, right, right off the bat? Yeah, I think it was just this concept that like, I didn't have a right to make rules in my own business. Like if that if a client
00:16:35
Speaker
emailed and asked for something that it was the equivalent of a subpoena that I couldn't say no. I learned pretty quickly that that's a genuinely terrible way to run your business.
00:16:46
Speaker
of allowing other people to dictate how you run your, I mean, that's the beauty of small businesses, your business can look like whatever you want it to. And I struggle with feeling legalistic about, because I came from a corporate industry, I started off with an eight to five job, right? And like, because I was also building my small business, I felt like there was never enough time to get all the things done. And so like, I was allowing other people to make the rules for me to run a business that I was hoping then I could somehow fit my life around, as opposed to,
00:17:15
Speaker
determining these are the things that are the most important to me, and then my business will be formed around those. One of our main pillars of business is that we desire to run a business that enables a life we love, not a life that's governed by our work's needs. I wasn't acting like that my first couple of years. I think those are natural growing pains for a lot of small business owners, especially if you come from a corporate background, but just learning to be like, you know what? Actually, that doesn't work for me. For example, there was a season for me
00:17:45
Speaker
I think it was August 16th to Thanksgiving of 2011, and I didn't have a single day off. I'm not exaggerating. There was no day on my calendar that didn't have something on it. I would work 8 to 5 at my corporate job, come home, start editing at 5.30, probably eat dinner at my computer.
00:18:08
Speaker
and like go to bed at like maybe eleven thirty or twelve and then go to work the next day do it all over again and then on weekends i was shooting ever shooting on saturday's and sundays and i was editing like all the time that i wasn't shooting i was exhausted i mean it was total burnout by the time we got to thanksgiving and
00:18:24
Speaker
I was like, I cannot keep doing this. This is not sustainable. And what I learned in that season was, like I said, when clients would email to ask for something, I thought just the very nature of them asking meant that I had to say yes because the customer is always right.
00:18:39
Speaker
I don't necessarily believe that our heart is always to serve our clients super well, but our clients are not the only people we want to serve well. I also want to serve my family. I want to serve my husband. I want to be able to see our family and friends. I have a church life that also really matters to me more than most other things.
00:18:59
Speaker
When I was saying yes to my clients, I was in turn then saying no to the things in our life that mattered the most. So we get an email from a client that would say something like, or you know, I would say, okay, you know, we're booked, we're officially official, it's time to book your engagement session. When do you want to do that? And then they would email me and ask me for a Saturday two weeks from now and I would feel like I had to say yes.
00:19:19
Speaker
as opposed to proactively communicating boundaries to my clients about when I could say yes so that they would feel freedom to ask for my time within those preset aside windows.
Email Strategies for Client Communication
00:19:30
Speaker
And it meant that I could say yes a lot more frequently because I was giving them a very gentle no right at the beginning without ever having to say no, just a very active having boundaries.
00:19:40
Speaker
is a way to assert, this is when I am available. And then the implication after that is this is when I am not available. So your clients don't even ask. And then we found that in turn it just, I was a better business owner because I was happy to say yes when I was available to say yes, not feeling like I was being cornered into saying yes during times where I didn't really want to be shooting.
00:20:00
Speaker
I imagine that there were situations where in saying yes, you really weren't serving your clients well. At least I felt like that in the past. Saying yes to a client because it was something they wanted, but knowing that it would result maybe not in what's best for them. It was easier just to say yes. If your couple asks you, if you're a wedding photographer and your couple asks you, hey, can we get all the raw photos from our wedding?
00:20:26
Speaker
I as the photographer know they don't actually want that. That may be something that like relative has told them to ask or like they think they're going to want to play around with. But if I give them the raw files from their wedding, first of all, they may not even have the software to read those.
00:20:40
Speaker
So they'd have to then go buy Lightroom or Photoshop, or they'd probably never get through them. They would probably never end up printing any of their wedding photographs as a result. And my heart for their photos is that they'd be on their walls. And so if I say yes to giving you your RAW files, what I'm actually doing is preventing you from using these photographs to enrich your marriage, which is how we desire those photographs to be, because we know that's good for our client.
00:21:03
Speaker
Yeah, we learned that pretty thoroughly of like I thought I needed to say yes because they knew what they wanted but like I'm learning as a professional sometimes actually we know we know what our clients need and what they want and what they need are two very different things and they may think that they want something that we know is actually going to end up being detrimental to the end goal of serving them really really well.
00:21:24
Speaker
Yeah, that makes total sense. And what are some ways just in general, like from the outset, and you already kind of mentioned one just in how you frame questions, so that you get a specific type of response, you know, so I imagine with engagement sessions, maybe it's you only shoot during the weekdays or something, you know, similar to that. So it's, you know, what weekdays are you free in the you know, this month, right? Because
00:21:45
Speaker
So we have an email template and I love Gmail canned responses. We have one for like everything, but we have one that we send out when a client has pay the retainer, sign the contract. So like everything's good to go. Their date is officially booked. So the email says something along the lines of we're officially official. I'm so excited to photograph your wedding. Let's get to talking about your engagement session. Just so you all know, I shoot all of my engagement sessions.
00:22:08
Speaker
Tuesday through Thursday at either sunrise or sunset. Generally, we book up about six to eight weeks in advance. So that being said, do you guys have like a season in mind, a location in mind, because I would love to get your date on the calendar, you know, within the next week. Not to say we have to shoot it in the next week, because like I said, I booked six to eight weeks in advance, but I just want to get it on the calendar. And so what that does in that email, it communicates
00:22:31
Speaker
Probably shouldn't ask for a Saturday because I just told you I only shoot Tuesday through Thursday. And if they come back and ask for a Saturday, I'm happy to explain, you know, we have weddings on weekends and any non-wedding weekends we use, we spend with family and friends. But I communicate, okay, we're going to shoot it on Tuesday through Thursday, so no weekends. And we're going to shoot it either at the very beginning of the day or the very end of the day. So that cuts back on people asking, hey, can we shoot at 12 noon? Because I, as the photographer, they may think they want that.
00:22:56
Speaker
But as a prime example of where I as a photographer know, that's not actually what they want. Yeah, absolutely. I shot my very first engagement session ever at 12 o'clock because, hey, that's when the most light is out, right? And like more light equals more better. I know that's not true. So I want to give my clients my best yes possible. And so I give them the boundaries that they need in order for me to give them an amazing yes so that they end up with an amazing product.
00:23:21
Speaker
Yeah, awesome. And just along those lines, one thing that I constantly see around setting boundaries, around this topic setting boundaries, and you mentioned that most of this communication seems to happen via email. Is that right? A lot of times when I see in Facebook groups, people asking for help, it's like, SOS, I have this client that wants XYZ, and what they're posting a screenshot of is like a text message thread.
00:23:44
Speaker
Yeah. Is there a reason that you choose email versus something like texting? Or even Instagram DM or Facebook Messenger? Yeah. My role is we choose email for anything that needs a paper trail. I don't just mean paper trail in case you get in hot water. I just mean paper trail in case you need to refer back to something.
00:24:04
Speaker
and like a date settling on a date for an engagement session or a portrait shoot, like I need to be able to track that. And so we do all things, anything that needs to be tracked, we do over email. So like a client texts me, I just have like a keyboard shortcut that says something like, Hey, like
00:24:20
Speaker
Got your text. Heads up. I am literally the worst at text messaging. Do me a favor and shoot me an email and I'll get back to you. If they continue to text, I'll just shoot them an email the next morning. You know, assuming they're like texting me out of office hours or like I'll just respond with an email to very gently train. Rather than having to be like, don't text me because I'm a hard no. I give them a gentle no either by directing them to email or just not replying to the text and sending them an email. And in that email, I'd say like, Hey, I'm the worst at texting. I literally don't text my husband back half the time.
00:24:50
Speaker
So if there's ever anything you need to like you need a response from me for like Please make sure you email me because I will definitely be able to get back to you And my clients are super respectful that I think it's just a matter of training your clients To know that those are the boundaries in place and you know every once in a while we have a couple or you know a client who is
00:25:09
Speaker
doesn't necessarily get it. And so it takes a little bit more training, but it's okay. Like it's never done out of irritation. It's just, I know that I can give you my best attention when I email you because that's right in front of me during the times where I'm present in my inbox, whereas my phone, like.
00:25:22
Speaker
I just I can't guarantee you that I'm going to text you back because I don't text Matt back half the time. Yeah, absolutely.
Managing Difficult Client Interactions
00:25:27
Speaker
And text messages get buried. You know, there's not a good way to archive those or snooze those for later, you know, all the search them either. Like, I mean, you can. But I mean, my like my MacBook and my phone don't always reconcile each other. So I'm trying to find something on my computer that wasn't on my it's just it's a mess. So emails that it's eternal. I have emails dating back from the very first day I set up my Gmail account.
00:25:48
Speaker
And it spans the generational gap, you know, you've got like 12 year olds who have email. I mean, my nine year old nephew has an email account and like, so does my 81 year old grandmother.
00:25:57
Speaker
It's, everyone can use emails universally regarded as a professional means of communication. You don't have to worry about stuff getting lost. So yeah, email all the way. And I think the communication is just simply clear over email and then something over text. But I do want to dive into some of these different scenarios. And when you already hinted at here throughout the interview, and I think it's one of the hardest ones where somebody reaches out that wants to work with you and you simply for whatever reason, don't want to work with them.
00:26:24
Speaker
And there might be a couple reasons, but in general, they're not a good fit for some reason, you know, but they're willing to work with you. And I think that's hard because they're basically saying, hey, I've already chosen you. I've already, you know, I want to give you money, you know, and you have to somehow say, well, I can't accept it. And I don't want to work with you. Yeah, you know, because and it's nothing, you know, you don't want it to come off personal. So how do you like how do you navigate that situation?
00:26:51
Speaker
So there's two ways you can answer that. The first for us, my preferred method is filtering heavily upfront so that we don't have to say no in the first place. So that it never comes to a situation where a client's like, okay, I'm ready to go. And you're like, Oh, I am not ready to go. And so we do, I'm a firm believer in proactively communicating so that you don't have to reactively communicate when something like this happens. So we put a lot of my personality out there on.
00:27:18
Speaker
Instagram on my website just being very clear about this is who I am and these are the kinds of services that I offer and these are the kind of couples that I photograph and just making it Undeniably clear who I am what I'm about and who I serve so that if you don't fall into that category You hopefully will just never contact me in the first place I don't mean for that to sound unkind just that you would take a look at my work and say it's not for me Yeah
00:27:42
Speaker
We also have filter through our contact form we have show it website and so when the show robot comes in and says like a new inquiry we ask names their date their venue that's an important one for me and then ask them to tell us a little bit more information and so if anything on that contact form.
00:28:00
Speaker
sticks out as like a red flag. Like if they're getting married at a venue that I've maybe had a bad experience at or just a venue that's not a good fit for me, then we'll just respond that we're not available. And that's, it's not to be unkind. It's just, I know all of this is done out of a sense of duty that I have a duty to serve the clients that we take, the limited number of clients that we take per year to serve them extraordinarily well.
00:28:24
Speaker
And if I don't think I can serve you extraordinarily well due to whatever the circumstances, then I don't want to take your money because I'm going to be doing you a disservice. I think you would be happier with someone else. And you may not think that, but like, I know if I don't feel passionately about you and your project, I can't serve you as well as the clients that I do feel passionately about. So, you know, the main way that we do that is just by responding that we're not available. I don't say that we're booked because that's, if we're not, because that would be lying. Sure. People have mixed feelings on that. For me, I just, I personally feel more comfortable saying, I'm so sorry, I'm not available.
00:28:55
Speaker
Or if someone emails me to ask me to do a project that's beyond the scope of what I normally do. If someone would email me to ask for maternity portraits, we don't do those. So I would just say that's not something that...
00:29:06
Speaker
I offer, I would love to refer you to someone else. And I think that's one of the keys is that if you're gonna say no, rather than just like a hard no, hard stop, bye Felicia. Having some kind of way that you can like give them a no but then a yes. So like I'm so sorry I'm not available for your wedding day but I'd love to refer you to Sarah Bradshaw photography. She's wonderful, her style's very similar to mine. She shot at that venue before or she, you know, whatever. Like talking up some other photographer that I have already confirmed is available on that date.
00:29:36
Speaker
And so that way I can still give them a yes. It's not just like a no, bye. It's no, but here's a way that I can say yes to you. So because we're so proactive about communicating like who we are, what we're about, who we serve, and then filtering through the website, it is very, very seldom that we have to give someone a, ooh, you managed to make it past all of these barriers. And then when we met in person, I figured out you're actually kind of cray.
00:30:04
Speaker
Now I have to do the awkward work of walking back and saying, no, we do as much of that on the front end as possible.
00:30:12
Speaker
on the uncomfortable situation that you do have to give them like, uh, oops, sorry, now we got to walk backwards and say no. I think just the best way to, to phrase that is that, you know, the whole sign felt like it's not you, it's me, but like taking as much of the focus off of the person and putting it onto like the circumstance or the situation. So you could see something like I'm so sorry, but due to demand, we're no longer feelable or like.
00:30:35
Speaker
You know, just that it sounds like you guys would be so much happier with this other person. I think making it as in person on not impersonal, like you don't want it to feel cold, but you just you don't want it to feel like you're saying no to them. You're saying no to situation, which unfortunately they are part of. But I think that it just helps people feel a little bit better that it's not a rejection of them.
00:30:55
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think that makes total sense. And I know we've had situations in the past where, and we send some questions after people inquire, like, you know, tell us a little bit about your wedding day or whatnot, or, you know, are you going to do a first look, that sort of thing. And, you know, as a film photographer, is one thing we're looking at is like, if you want to book us in February, and you're not doing our first look, and your ceremony's at six at night, you know, like, we just might not be the best fit, because we're not going to be able to do
00:31:20
Speaker
really, any of your portraits on film, we're not we don't use any, you know, off camera lighting for film work in general, with the exception of some getting ready stuff, but we just not the best fit. And so we just kind of explain that to him like, hey, this is what you're looking for, whether you realize it or not, this is what we can provide, we recommend reaching out to to these people.
00:31:38
Speaker
and then having qualified people that you're sending them to people who are like hey this person specifically loves shooting with off-camera flash you would be so happy with them because really what you're doing is you're serving that like it may feel awkward to say no because I think
00:31:52
Speaker
We as human beings, or maybe it's just as Americans, I don't know, we equate the word no with negativity and they're not the same thing. So when you say no to someone, it's not a negative thing. Like no can actually be a really positive word because you're finding a way to serve that couple better than if you had said
Establishing Routines and Boundaries
00:32:08
Speaker
yes. Like they will be happier because you said no than if you had said yes.
00:32:12
Speaker
Yeah. And a couple of things that I really like about what you're saying here is one, how many boundaries that you communicate before you've ever, you know, before they've ever really asked a question or, you know, tried to do something. So you do, it seems like a ton of legwork in the beginning that makes your life so much easier down the road. So really appreciate that.
00:32:30
Speaker
And the next thing, you really are trying to say yes. I think clients feel more comfortable when they understand the boundaries and understand what's possible and they feel more guidance and direction and security in that. And it seems like you do a really good job of setting up those boundaries through your initial emails and your initial correspondence with people so that they understand that kind of stuff right off the bat. Yeah. Well, I mean, when you think about it in terms of like,
00:32:51
Speaker
I'm going to say parenting. I'm not a parent yet, and we're not pregnant. We're adopting friends, listening to that. We're strong inferences. In parenting, they talk about how important routine is with your children and routine so that your kids can get familiar with what they can anticipate, with what they can expect. When you change up the routine is when you start to see behavioral problems or when you're inconsistent
00:33:14
Speaker
with the yeses that you're like, yes, you can have candy today. No, you can't have candy tomorrow. Well, why can't I have it today? You said I could have it yesterday. Like when you're inconsistent with that with children, the resulting behavior is often one of rebellion or like because that feels negative. I don't like being told no. But when you set up a routine with your kids in a way that you like, we can always say yes to a bath at bedtime because this is what you've come to expect. This is part of our routine. This is part of our boundaries. We always do this. So yes, we can say give a full and complete yes within the confines of those boundaries.
00:33:43
Speaker
is when you see kids that are settled and comfortable and adjusted, I would assume, just based on my limiting experience watching Friends parent. But the same thing with your couples. People don't like being told no, right? Nobody likes hearing that word no. It's not a good feeling unless it's like, do I have to get blood drawn today? No, great.
00:34:05
Speaker
But when they're asking for something, they're asking for it because they want it. And when you have to say no, it feels icky. And so rather than having to say no to what your clients are asking for, you give them
00:34:14
Speaker
Like basically a list of things that they can anticipate you saying yes to. And then like that gives them freedom to operate within those boundaries of what you can say yes to, which results in a happier client, a more adjusted client, one who's more satisfied in the product that you gave them because they weren't constantly hearing the word no, you were able to say yes more frequently because you communicated from the outset the parameters within which you could say yes.
00:34:39
Speaker
So I want to talk about another scenario with you as well. One of those scenarios actually has to do not really with the client but by maybe somebody else that's involved in the transaction but not the client themselves. So talking like mother of the bride specifically. So we've had situations in the past where there's varying levels of involvement from the family members. So have you ever had a situation where
00:35:02
Speaker
like maybe the mother of the bride wanted something or demanded something that maybe you've laid out is something you don't do with clients normally or you've communicated to clients and the mom seems to be going over the head of your clients. Have you ever had to deal with saying no to somebody who's not really your client?
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah. And it's, it's uncomfortable when you get the email of like, where are my prints? Why don't I like, I haven't received any prints yet and you're like, there were no prints in your package. Like I've never included prints in packages. That is something our clients have always done all a cart. And like even that, I was like, I have no reason to feel guilty, but I feel guilty because I don't like telling people no. And so I think.
00:35:43
Speaker
In those situations, it's so hard over email too, because, and especially when you look at generational differences, like my way of communicating has a lot of exclamation points and like a smiley face. Whereas like my dad's generation, for example, doesn't always communicate that way. And it can feel a lot more stern when it's coming across over email. And so I think the thing to just assume when you get those kinds of emails is to assume they have the best of intentions and assume they're excited about the product or excited about whatever it is they're asking for. And if it's something that like you really,
00:36:12
Speaker
It depends on the ask. If it's an awkward thing where the parent is saying, you didn't do a good job on this. For example, we got an email from a mother of the groom from a wedding a few years ago who was
00:36:26
Speaker
dissatisfied about the wedding day photographs because she felt that there were more photographs of the bride's family than the groom's family. And I was so sad to receive that email because I didn't want her to feel like she wasn't important on the wedding day, but the email was also pretty channel. It was not gently written. And so in that situation, because my contract is with the bride and groom, any communication that I feel like has the potential to become abrasive, I do CC the bride.
00:36:54
Speaker
in my reply back if it seems appropriate, not like in a I'm tattling on you kind of way, but
00:37:01
Speaker
Just like, hey, I just want to make sure we're all on the same page. We had a situation a couple years ago where the mother of the groom called me after the wedding to express her displeasure about some things that were not actually real, like not accurate. It was an unusual phone call. And so before I let it roll to voicemail, before I gave her a call back, I called the bride just to be like, hey, is there anything I need to be concerned about? And the bride was like, no, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
00:37:26
Speaker
Like here's what's going on like feel free to give her a call back but like please know like we are thrilled with what we've received. And so I think in those situations it's best like if you feel like there's potential for that to get like sticky check in with the contracts.
00:37:40
Speaker
signees that you actually have a contract with, if you're concerned that moving forward might be sticky. Gosh, that's hard though. I try to respond as gracefully as possible. I think the key there is just not getting aggressive because when you get aggressive, it just escalates the situation like 10 times.
00:37:57
Speaker
Yeah, and again, I think one thing one like key thing you said was expecting that they, you know, are really pleased with the product. Yeah, they have the best of intentions. They're not out to get you. Because I think we do immediately go to that, you know, we feel defensive, we feel challenged. And so we act that way. And if the situation wasn't that, and we act offensive, then all of a sudden, there is this, you know, sort of, I guess, intense situation that really you could have avoided just simply by reaching back out and understanding what their
00:38:27
Speaker
concerns were. So I really, you know, I really appreciate that response. And that kind of stuff does happen because I mean, depending on what you're doing, you know, and so we've been using a lot of photography examples here. I'm sure there's other examples in other industries as well. But especially in photography, if something like wedding photography, you're not just taking pictures of the bride and groom that day, you're taking pictures of, you know, family members and friends and so on and so forth. So occasionally have to deal with situations like that as well.
00:38:53
Speaker
So I'm just going to touch on that real quick. I think where some of that discomfort comes from, you know, being challenged by someone who is, you know, not the contract holder for me, that came from a place of feeling like it was me versus the families of the brides and grooms that it was like me and the bride and groom. We were in this together and it was us versus everyone else because of a couple of really uncomfortable situations that I'd had my first year of business. And I carried that like me versus them.
00:39:21
Speaker
sort of spirit through the first couple of years of Abby Grace photography. And it wasn't until a friend pointed it out to me that I realized how heavy that is to carry this just like attitude of defensiveness all the time. And when I learned to shift from me versus them to a way of thinking that like it is my joy to serve a bride and groom and their families, that changed everything.
00:39:44
Speaker
So there's one more scenario that I want to talk with you about, Abby, and it's about just being booked up or having, you know, too much work client reaches out and wondering if you could just fit one more client
Balancing Workload and Well-being
00:39:57
Speaker
in. And if you're not a photographer, maybe it's just simply like, you've booked a bunch of design projects, but somebody wants to get started right away. And you feel like, well,
00:40:06
Speaker
You know, they might not wait a month or two months to come back to you or wait for your services. How would you go about saying no to that client or that prospective client?
00:40:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great, great question because I feel like that happens especially during like the heavier season. So like for photographers like spring and fall, for engagement sessions, I'm sure for designers probably sometime in the winter when all the photographers are like, okay, wedding season's over, now let's work on my website. So I think the thing that you have to do there is you have to already have in place like
00:40:38
Speaker
Not necessarily boundaries, but almost like a quota of what I'm comfortable saying yes to this many projects within this period of time. Anything on top of that, I will say no to. For us, for example, I don't take more than four wedding weekends in a row because I know past that I start to get run ragged and I'm tired and I need a weekend off. If we have four weddings in a row booked,
00:41:01
Speaker
and someone comes and asks to book the fifth weekend in a row, I say, I'm so sorry, I'm not available. I'd love to refer you to this person. If it's like a really promising inquiry, I might make some kind of...
00:41:12
Speaker
comment about like, there's no chance like your date is flexible. Is it like we're available the next weekend? Because sometimes they do. Sometimes that happens. If, you know, if you're a designer and you're like my designer, Jeff Shipley, like he often has like a several weeks or a couple of months lead time on him all booked up for the next two months, but I'm, I would be happy to get you in like February 1st. If you're comfortable with that, you know, you'll need to like send this retainer and then we'll start on February 1st. I just think that.
00:41:38
Speaker
knowing when you would be able to say yes is key. If you are willing to make an exception to thoroughly count out, what am I going to have to say no to in order to say yes to this client? That's the fact of the matter. Your time is finite. Your time is not a renewable resource. You cannot get more of it. You cannot create more of it.
00:41:57
Speaker
And once your time is used up, it's used up. And like, there's only ever going to be 24 hours in a day. And so if you say, you know, let's say you normally work eight hours in a day and the other time is spent with family or the other time is spent like you spend some time exercising or like God forbid you want to sleep. If you say yes to working 10 or 12 hours a day, something has to give, you know, like you can't fit 12 hours of work into
00:42:24
Speaker
a twenty four hour day if you're only ever used to working eight hours and not have to sacrifice something so what are you willing to sack are we willing to say no to in order to say yes to that client or if you do want to make an exception let's say you've got let's say.
00:42:40
Speaker
It's September and you're all booked up for the month of October, but you have a client that's asking you to please, please, please, pretty please make an exception for me and my family because we just really want family pictures with fall colors. And you're like, okay, I love you as a human. I can say yes to you. However, it needs to be under this specific circumstance.
00:42:58
Speaker
I only have this one day open. I have this one time slot open. It must be within 30 miles of my home. These are the circumstances in which I will be happy to say yes. If you can say yes to this and you're willing to pay my costs, then we can move forward. I think asking yourself, am I going to resent myself or my client if I say yes to this? If the answer is yes, then you should probably say no.
00:43:25
Speaker
A really easy escape is just to say due to demand. I just don't have all my times booked up. I'm booked from here to this particular date. If you'd like to work together after that date, I'm happy to say yes. Then I think being able to give that client a quick win. Win is a relative term.
00:43:42
Speaker
Like, it's a quick thing that they can take action on. So, hey, I'm booked up from now until February 1st. If you'd like to work together after that, you can put a deposit here and link to that in the email because it allows them to take action. Or if you'd like to schedule your portrait session for six weeks from now when I'm available, here's a Calendly link that you can use to schedule that to get on my calendar. But I think in that scenario of I'm all booked up, if you want to work with them,
00:44:09
Speaker
It needs to be put off for a while ask them to commit to it. Yeah, and if you lose them It's not the end of the world. I think creatives have this huge tendency towards FOMO But like, you know, if you're booked up now chances are you're gonna you're not gonna have trouble booking up again in the future So don't do that thing where we say to ourselves like oh my gosh If I say no to this one opportunity like who knows is it ever gonna come again? I believe that like I
00:44:35
Speaker
We live in a bountiful world full of opportunities, a plenty for everyone.
The Power of Saying 'No'
00:44:40
Speaker
If you have to say no to this one, there's probably going to be another one that comes along again. Choosing to live in a mindset of plenty instead of scarcity. It helps make saying no in a scheduling situation a little bit easier.
00:44:56
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I mean, just what you were just saying. Every time you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else. Likewise, when you say no to things, you're making time for things that you probably want to make time for like a spouse or family or friends or whatever. I think this conversation is just so important and one that I wish I had early on.
00:45:18
Speaker
in our business for sure, because it can be so hard to say no. But again, just kind of like recap what you're saying. It seems like every time you say no, you are trying to give whoever you're saying no to some sort of when or some sort of or give them some sort of yes, you know, on the tail end, like no, but I can serve you this way. Like would that be would that be correct?
00:45:38
Speaker
Yeah, I don't like giving just a hard no without, like you said, some kind of win or some kind of redirect or some kind of deflection. I'm not deflecting responsibility, but just like, hey, I can't say yes to this, but I could say yes to this over here because I think it softens the blow a little bit of having to say no. Sometimes it's just you just have to say no. Like if a client's like, hey, did you get any photos of my niece playing with the Rubik's Cube in the corner of my wedding reception?
00:46:06
Speaker
and you're like, no, I'm so sorry, I just don't have that. There's nothing, you can't deflect in that, so you can't be like, no, I don't have the Rubik's Cube, but I do have this great photo of you dancing with your dad. That doesn't work in that situation. But as often as I can, I like to follow a no with a yes, if possible.
00:46:22
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that really does – it probably comes through to your clients as well. Just this effort that, hey, there are boundaries and I think there's security in that for the client as well. But then also, I really am here to serve you and I do want to do a good job and I do want to get the things that are important to you as well. And again, I just wish this is a conversation that I listened to really early on because sometimes when you end up not saying no, like to a client that you know is not a good fit. It's hard to say no.
00:46:52
Speaker
the 20 minutes it takes you to draft that email to say no, that might be difficult. But it's not going to be as difficult as if you say yes and then spend the next eight months working with that person on a project that doesn't bring you joy. It's not a good fit for you and probably not a good fit for that person either. Yeah. Well, and then the fallout from that is like maybe you don't feel like you did your best work. And as a result, that client goes forth with like a so-so experience
00:47:18
Speaker
and like so then you're not booking referrals off of that client because it just I think it takes courage to say no because it takes courage to assert like this is what I as the professional know is best for my working conditions and this is what I as the professional know you actually need as the consumer but it's still hard to say because you know we're like oh no is a negative word like we don't we like
00:47:41
Speaker
No negativity,
Essential Tools for Communication
00:47:43
Speaker
they're just not the same thing. Negativity is seeing the world through brown colored glasses whereas no can lead to freedom and no can lead to a job done better than if you had tried to say yes to everything. Yes, it's awkward to draft that email that you read 13 times before you finally hit send that you call your best friend and read it to them and then you read it to yourself again.
00:48:02
Speaker
But you're serving the client better, you're serving yourself better, you're serving your business better, you're hopefully pushing your business more towards whatever direction you want it to go by saying, I know this isn't a good fit or I know this isn't a good time or I know this isn't a good project for me because it doesn't align with the things that I know I want to say yes to. So by saying no to the things that aren't a good fit, you're able to give a better yes to the things that matter most.
00:48:25
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I know that you have all sorts of tools that you use in your business to make communication a little bit easier. I don't want to take up too much more of your time, but if you just have a few things that you think are indispensable when it comes to communicating with clients, I'd love to hear them.
00:48:40
Speaker
And before you get to that, because I know you probably won't say it, but I'll say it again, you have email templates in a shop that go over probably 10 to 15 different scenarios, probably more than what we covered here today. So if you don't want to spend that time agonizing over what email to write,
00:48:59
Speaker
You can go purchase one of these templates and that can save you a bunch of time where you could be doing other stuff that you do enjoy doing. Can you, after you tell us some of these tools that you use like Gmail canned responses, where we can find these email templates?
00:49:16
Speaker
Yeah, so I'll even start with that so I don't forget it. If you go to shop.abbigracephotography.com, you'll find all of our email templates there. We've got four different packs, one of them's for creative entrepreneurs in general, and then we've got three packs specifically written for photographers. It's kind of like outsourcing the know so that you don't have to feel awkward writing it. Like,
Final Thoughts on Communication
00:49:34
Speaker
I've already done it for you. You can just let me be the awkward one. But when it comes to tools for communicating,
00:49:41
Speaker
I love Gmail canned responses. If you use Gmail and you're not using canned responses, hold the phone, pause this podcast, and go turn them on right now. It's super easy. It saves so much time. My general rule is that if I have to write an email more than twice, I create a canned response for it. It saves hours every week. It's an outsourcing part of our inbox. I have a Gmail inbox, but we use a program called G Suite. Do you guys use that? Yeah, we use G Suite as well.
00:50:09
Speaker
Yeah, and that's so that I can answer all of my Gmail emails from my actual, like, at abigracephotography.com account. So that I'm not answering emails from abigracephoto.gmail.com because
00:50:21
Speaker
It just doesn't look as professional. So even if you don't have a URL or if you don't have a website set up but you own a URL, you can use G Suite to create that sort of vanity email address. So let's say it's Jane at JaneDoePhotography.com. But JaneDoePhotography.com is a coming soon kind of thing. You can use G Suite to redirect all of that email through Gmail. It just makes it a little bit more user-friendly. And it's only $5 a month. I know. It's pretty easy to set up. It's on the Gmail platform. I mean, who doesn't love Gmail?
00:50:51
Speaker
Google owns the world anyway, so you may as well get on board with the email. Yeah, exactly. And I always thought it was more reliable than when we had our email set up through our host. If you own a domain, you can generally set up email through whatever your hosting provider is, GoDaddy, DreamHost, whoever that is. But you always have that. There was always once every, I don't know, six months you had that week where all of a sudden none of your emails were getting through because of XYZ. We just haven't had that issue with G Suite.
00:51:20
Speaker
Right, yeah. Same experience. Never had a problem with G Suite. The only time we used to have problems with Gmail was when my webmail would fill up. I just had a redirect set from my webmail to forward everything to Gmail. But then when we started using G Suite, it actually sends and receives everything just through Gmail. So we're no longer having to do the work around of the webmail.
00:51:46
Speaker
Yeah. And then the other tool that I love so much, it's called Boomerang, not like Instagram Boomerang, but Boomerang for, I think it's a Chrome plugin. And what that lets you do is schedule emails to send out later.
00:52:00
Speaker
My office hours in my email signature say 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. but sometimes it just situation arises where I need to be on my computer later than that and I need to and like if I'm in my inbox I want to be able to answer emails but not have them send outside of my office hours so like let's say for some reason I was answering an email like 7 p.m. at night I don't want to send that email until the next morning because yeah when I send those emails outside of my office hours when I'm kind of telling my clients is don't bother
00:52:27
Speaker
paying attention to those boundaries that I told you matter because they don't actually matter. I may write an email at 7 PM, but I schedule it to send the next day at 9 or 10 AM when I'm technically back in the office again. That's been hugely valuable. With Boomerang, it allows you to pause your inbox. If you're one of those people who has your inbox open in the background of your web browser all day, first of all, stop doing that because it's so counterproductive.
00:52:55
Speaker
But second of all, when you pause your inbox, it means that it'll hold all emails from coming in until whenever you've set it to unpause so that you're not constantly getting distracted by your inbox letting you know you have new emails arriving. Yeah, Krista is a big believer in Boomerang. She loves it. I use another one called Jameleus. I don't know if I'm even saying that right, but it's G-M-E-L-I-U-S. But it's basically the same thing. It just allows you to schedule emails so that especially if you're
00:53:21
Speaker
If you don't want to answer email right away, so people don't think that they should get a response in 30 seconds, same thing. You can just schedule it to go out a couple hours later. But pausing your email inbox, that's something that Krista still gets on me about. I'm so bad about that and need to do that because it is such a productivity suck.
00:53:39
Speaker
We really, really appreciate you taking the time to join us on the podcast and tell us how to say no to people. It is way more difficult, I think, especially when you first get started, but even down the line when you're getting maybe a bunch of cool opportunities and you just can't say yes to them all. So I think this is such an important conversation and we're so grateful that you took time out of your day to share your wisdom with us.
00:54:02
Speaker
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was a joy, and I sincerely hope that this was super helpful for people. Definitely. And so you can find more stuff from abbyatshop.abigracephotography.com, but you can also follow along where? On Instagram, at abigracephoto. Awesome. Thank you.
00:54:23
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to davianchrista.com.
00:54:46
Speaker
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