How can you include your clients in your brand shoot? In today’s episode, I’m continuing my series all about branding, and sharing how to capture the behind the scenes of your client experience. Plus, I’m diving into the logistics of getting your clients involved and the impact that it can have on building your brand authority. 

On Quianna Marie Weekly, we’re chatting about business growing pains, finding genuine connections, and celebrating wins of all sizes through the lens of a photographer at heart. Sprinkled throughout stories and interviews with past clients, photographers and other business owners this podcast is designed to help you step into your purpose and to truly create a life you’re proud of, a life worth photographing and sharing.

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Review The Show Notes:

Why You Need The Behind The Scenes Of Your Client Experience (2:45)

Making A Game Plan (6:21)

Invite Your Favorite Clients To Participate (7:10)

What Your Clients Should Wear (9:09)

Capturing Your Client Experience (10:30)

Real Life Client Experiences On The Go (12:02)

Mentioned In This Episode:

Episode 087: Crush Your Content At Your Next Brand Shoot

Review the Transcript:

Let me ask you this: Do you ever wish your dream clients would just trust you? You know, you provide an incredible experience that changes lives, but wish more people would believe in you wish you could increase your pricing. Have you looked at someone else’s photos or offers and thought, well, what the heck, how are they fully booked and busy when my work or products look similar to theirs?

If not better, and I say that with so much love, but I also think sometimes we’re thinking that, right? So what’s the deal as we continue this branding series, it’s important to include the power of your client experience built into your branding showcasing. And sharing your client experience is legit the easiest way to prove your value, build brand awareness, and become an authority.

I love talking about capturing behind the scenes so much that I legit prepped this episode and had to scroll back to find that I already shared an episode about this topic. Check out episode number 87, Crush Your Content. With behind the scenes for even more intentional content ideas, make sure to add that episode to your playlist.

It’s a good one today. We’re going to go even deeper into the mindset strategies and logistics for capturing your client experience for your next brand session. You are incredible and you’re providing excellent customer service with memorable experiences. We just need more people to know about you.

Today, we’re going to chat all about the importance of sharing your client experience and how to incorporate those visuals at your next brand session during the Crushed Your Content experience, as well as in real life. It would be my dream to collaborate together and to work with you and your own clients.

But I also know you. That you may be tuning in from far away or just need to get your client experience up and out to share ASAP. These content strategies will help relieve some of the stress of being the star of the show for your own brand session and highlight your products. Current and past clients.

Ready? Let’s jump into this episode. Welcome to Quianna Marie Weekly, a podcast for creatives who love to celebrate wins big or small by dancing in the kitchen, photographers who are excited to serve their clients, and friends who are ready to chase It’s really, really big dreams. You can find all of the resources mentioned in this episode at QuiannaMarie.com/podcast

Join me as I share weekly motivation, chat about growing pains, finding genuine connections and celebrating your wins through the lens of a photographer at heart. Come join me for a dance party. Ready? Let’s go.

Why Capturing Your Client Experience Is So Important

Before I start rattling off all of the things I encourage you to do for your next project, Branding session. We got to start with why capturing behind the scenes of your client experience is so important. Back when I was a full time wedding photographer, I prioritized grabbing B roll clips and behind the scene moments throughout the day.

And just to clarify, I never asked the couple wedding party or guests to perform trends or take any additional time to capture these B roll and behind the scenes moments. Well, to be clear, I did offer those only when it was planned beforehand and included in the timeline as a request for my couples. So I just want to make that clear while I was working weddings.

It was my time to shine during wedding party portraits. I worked efficiently, kept the good vibes flowing, posed everyone intentionally and worked quickly. I carefully removed sunglasses, asked the groomsmen to shove their phones in their back pockets and reminded the bridesmaids that their bouquet wasn’t a microphone and needed to be held lower, resting their thumb knuckle in their belly button.

Attention to detail is important. Everything during a stressful wedding day, you know, during that time, right? For the first look or right after the ceremony, everyone is a hurry to be anywhere, but in front of my camera, right? There’s a fine line between being bossy and assertive while also commanding the space, being friendly and supportive.

After wedding party portraits, groomsmen would high five me and thank me for making these photos painless, fast and efficient, and way more fun than they anticipated. Bridesmaids would declare that I’m their photographer before they even saw the photos. Or let’s be honest, they were telling their boyfriends I was their wedding photographer without even having that ring yet.

The experience I was providing right in front of their eyes was something they valued and appreciated. They saw how I worked, they loved how I created memorable experiences, and they believed it with their own eyes. They saw it happening right in front of them. Okay, so flash forward to today and your business.

How are you showing up online for your dream clients to trust you? How are you proving your value before anyone invests in you? Relying on word of mouth and having your current and past clients raving about you isn’t a solid marketing strategy anymore. We need to provide visuals, shareable content, and postable strategies to get our businesses out there.

Especially if you’re offering a digital product or an online coaching offer, how the heck can you share the impact of transformations or services when you’re literally selling air online? Well, you know what I mean? You’re sharing your knowledge, coaching and education, but you know what I mean by that capturing B roll for your business is the easiest way to prove your value, build your authority and share your personality.

Sharing your stories helps your dream clients fall in love with you and want to invest in you. Let’s break down the logistics for incorporating behind the scenes during your next brand session. I love starting here because you have complete control of curating these visuals. Once we decide to book a crush your content three hour branding session, I love to include a good 30 minutes to an hour devoted to your client experience.

These photos and behind the scenes clips typically perform really well because there’s an energy exchange and some action going on with real emotions. When you throw in real humans into any type of photograph, any type of video, instantly the energy can be felt right? Like we can see it. We believe it.

Making A Game Plan To Showcase Your Client Experience

It just feels so much more real than trying to explain something yourself, right? Where do we begin making a game plan for your client experience? Think of your business calendar and the many tasks you do every single week to keep things going. I suggest writing down five to 10 things you do every week.

For example, emailing, busy work at your laptop, coaching calls, or zoom chats, in person meetings, events, gift wrapping products. If you sell physical products, performing your services, like taking photos at your next photo shoot or teaching your next webinar or in person class, hit pause. Now, if you need to take a moment to think about all those things, jot them down.

Cause I promise once you start thinking about them, they will start flooding. When we collaborate for your branding session, I try to document three to five tasks you can do alone and three to five client experience moments with clients, real humans that we’ll need to bring in. Next, start brainstorming your favorite clients.

These are the ones that you currently have worked with that you know are your favorite clients and want to call in more people like them. Now, just to clarify, we’re not calling in your clients that look like models. That’s not our focus. Think about the real humans with the real bodies and happy smiles that adore you and would love the opportunity to help you in any way they can.

Invite Your Favorite Clients To Participate

I suggest reaching out to about five to 10 clients that you think would be interested or available to help you. I know that sounds like a lot. For a photo shoot, but typically only about 30 percent of your invites show up. So it’s better to over invite just in case if you’re just starting a business and you don’t have that many clients in your reach, or maybe your clients live out of state from you, it’s absolutely okay to start sourcing friends, family members, and neighbors to step in as your clients.

And I’m doing air quotes over here. As your clients, right? Once you have a solid two to three people, you can count on to show up your golden. If we’re being realistic here, even if just one client or a friend or your partner or your little sister, whoever can make an impact on your session, like just one person can make an impact.

Once your date. Your photo shoot location and time are confirmed. I suggest inviting your client models arriving during the last hour of your session. I love knocking out your portraits and intentional branding images first. That way when your clients and besties arrive, it’s like a little party. I’m mentioning this now so everyone gets a heads up as soon as you book.

So as soon as you book with your photographer, hopefully it’s with me. We get to collaborate. We’re Confirming the location, we have the time on the calendar, that’s when you start reaching out, right? You don’t start reaching out a week before, the night before, frantically trying to find someone. I’m saying this now as a part of the timeline checkpoint to get on that.

What Your Clients Should Wear

If you want those client experience people to show up for you, you have to plan it and request their appearance way in advance, right? Alright, so let’s move on here to what should your clients wear for this branding session. This is where we can be really strategic and curate this client experience.

If you’re a family photographer and wish your clients would dress differently for family photos this fall, showing through examples of what looks best and feels timeless is a great way to showcase what you really want to photograph. If you’re a wellness coach and wish clients would come to their sessions wearing yoga pants or more athleisure wear to experience breathwork more than just jean shorts, right?

You see what I mean here? You get to decide what’s on your website and have full control of what they’re wearing. As a disclaimer, if you’re requesting outfits, colors, and styles for your clients to wear to your brand shoot, I suggest asking if they have what you’re looking for or requesting their sizes and providing your desired look.

I would never ask my clients and my friends to purchase anything new for something I needed. So that’s just a big sister pet peeve to share. I wanted to get that out there. I mean, if you are requesting their presence, I mean, come on, like if you have something specific. Then I suggest either renting it or purchasing it yourself.

Even if you have to purchase it and return it, I’m sorry if that’s tacky, but at least you’re getting the outfits that you’re requesting without having your friends and family and clients to go shopping. So now that we have outfits figured out, what the heck are they doing during the photo shoot to capture your client experience?

Capturing Your Client Experience

This is when we can reference those 3 5 client facing tasks. Maybe you’re asking me as your photographer to capture you working in a studio photographing a young family. It is so fun to capture the behind the scenes of the behind the scenes, by the way. Your clients could be set up to look like a client meeting or consultation.

Even if your business is 100 percent online, having a real human connection photographed. Beaks volumes, poppy confetti with a couple in front of a garage door to celebrate a first time buyer photos and behind the scenes clips of handing your clients the keys to their new home, right? Obviously, if you’re a realtor, I mean, these are huge asking your clients to flip through a wedding album on the couch.

Do you see how once we start thinking about these client experience moments, they get easier and easier to dream up. This is where I come in. For even more ideas for your special niche in business, right? Like, Oh my gosh, literally just send me a DM and start brainstorming with you. I would love to start coming up with ideas for you for your unique client experience.

It can be chaotic when new energy enters the scene for your brand session. That’s why I love making a game plan. When we work together to develop a shot list, we can be super efficient and knock out a ton of client experience moments to share. These can be sprinkled on your social media. Welcome guides for your clients, website, and all of your marketing materials.

The possibilities are endless. Now that we have an understanding for why it’s important to include real life humans in your branding session to capture your client experience, let’s wrap up this episode with real life client experience moments to capture on the go. Cause trust me, I get it. Investing in a branding session truly is a luxury.

And when we are. In hustle mode, sometimes we don’t always have those funds to do that, and I don’t want you to wait any longer to start capturing and documenting your client experience, even if it’s in the real, and it’s in the raw, capture it, right? So, first of all, you are already doing the work, my friend.

You just need to record it and share it. Capturing hyperlapse moments of you working with text over your post or in the caption can go a long way. I suggest breaking down your work week into those tasks again and prioritize recording yourself doing some of those actions on the go. It may help to designate a recording day when you know you’ll be in the shot so you can actually plan to get dressed that day.

Maybe that’s the day you take a shower or you’re only on day, day one, two, or three of your hair, right? You just feel polished for a content day, but also plan a content day when you’re not on camera and can record as much as you can from your own point of view. I understand that content creation can feel like a full time job, but I have to be real honest with you real quick.

If you’re craving more inquiries, wish more clients would trust you. If you really want to increase your pricing, how are you showing up online to share exactly why you’re worth it? Staging client experience moments. Can be really intentional, but it’s also really valuable to share the real moments with your clients and your own personality.

You have an incredible gift of making your clients feel loved and appreciated. Show it. Stop playing small. Show up online with the same energy that you share your services in real life. The more shareable and relatable content we’re creating, the more memorable and sought after will be. Share your stories, your lessons, and wildest dreams.

Having a bank of B roll and professional behind the scene photos can be re shared and recycled over and over again. Not just repurposed, right? So not just copying and pasting and reposting, but sharing new captions and educational tips with the same B roll backgrounds. That’s even more infinity times enlist times a gazillion, right?

Different opportunities that you can re share. Every month I offer limited Crusher content branding sessions that include about a three hour photo shoot without the two locations, which is perfect to highlight your client experience with tons of variety. This Mac Daddy branding session includes a bundle of intentional B roll clips and strategized visuals to help articulate your vision to your clients and your business goals.

These shoots are so robust that if you plan these once or maybe squeezed in twice a year, you’ll be set with a bank of content to source throughout the entire year. And I even have friends like Felicia Romero that we have been working closely together for about four to five years, and she still repurposes content that we had taken years ago, right?

So this is an investment that literally keeps on giving. I am all about being intentional and maximizing our time together. If you’re curious and would love to learn more about getting on my calendar for branding and content shoots, shoot me a DM on Instagram and send me a message that says crush your content.

I’d love to strike up a conversation and start brainstorming with you. Check the show notes too for links mentioned and more crush your content examples. On the blog, I can’t wait to see you show up online and shine. Thanks so much for tuning into this branding series. If you’re just jumping in now, make sure to scroll back to a handful of episodes to prepare you for your future brand session.

We’re working on an entire series to help you feel prepared and excited to get in front of the camera. More people need to know about you. My love, the easiest way to increase your visibility is to step in front of the lens. Can’t wait to keep. Chatting with you in the dms and make sure to check out Quianna Marie at Q-U-I-A-N-N-A, Marie on Instagram or anywhere online.

Alright, my love. I am always, always cheering for you. Keep on dancing, baby. Okay, love you. Bye. That’s a wrap on another episode of Kiana Marie Weekly. Thank you so much for your listenership and support. You can find the resources and show notes for this episode and more at www.QuiannaMarie.com

I’d be honored if you’d show your support by leaving a review and rating on your favorite podcast app until next time, keep on dancing.

If you liked this episode, you’re gunna LOVE these:

Book More Clients With B-Roll

Finding The Best Locations For Your Brand Session

Six Figure Launch With Felicia Romero