Pat Miller chats with Heather Crowder, owner and photographer at The Lightbox Studio & Heather Crowder Portrait Studio, to explore how adding volume photography to your business can be a game-changer. If you're looking for ways to expand your income and reach more clients, you won’t want to miss this conversation!

Episode Highlights 🎤💡:

(17:14) - Finding Your Style

(35:01) - Profit in the Volume

(37:37) - Clear Outcome

Connect with Pat Miller ⬇

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Connect with Heather Crowder ⬇

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I'm Pat Miller, and this is The Professional Photographer Podcast. So you're doing volume photography, and you might be doing portrait photography too. Are you moving your volume clients over to the portrait side? You're not? Why not? We should talk about this because you're getting in front of a ton of people in the volume side of your business. It can be an outstanding place to grow the portrait side of your business. Fortunately, today, we've got someone who's an expert at doing this and she's gonna spill her secrets. Heather Crowder is our guest and she's gonna remind us, hey, they're already your clients. Hey, they already love your work. Hey, why don't you work with them and grow the size of your portrait studio? If you're in a situation where you've got a lot of volume work, but it's not growing the portrait side, this episode is for you. Grab your notebook and get ready. We'll be back with Heather Crowder next. Heather, welcome to The Professional Photographer Podcast. How are you today?

I am great, and I'm really excited to be here and excited about our conversation. Thank you so much for having me.

It's my pleasure. And you've been a long-time portrait photographer. When did you first start getting into volume photography?

Maybe a year or so into my portrait photography journey, if you will. I have been a professional photographer for 17 years. And maybe a year or so into that, I accidentally got into volume photography. Not anything that I ever had my either thoughts on, but it evolved from a conversation where I was asked to photograph a school and things took off from there. So it's a long story that I can make as short or as long as you'd like.

We gotta hear it. We can't hear it's an accidental–

An accidental journey.

–journey to this new cool part of the business. And I think it might be something that other people can relate with that they maybe could share that kind of journey as well. So how did you get there? Tell us the story.

Well, thank you for asking. And it really is true. You know, I talk to a lot of portrait photographers who are making their way into volume or just starting with volume. And one thing I'd like to say just right out of the gate, let's find what volume photography is for those of us that really are mostly on the portrait side. Because I think when we hear volume, we immediately think of my friend, Carl Bott, who photographs a thousand of children a year. That is not what I do. My volume is less than a thousand students a year in the school setting. So I just wanna be sure that when portrait photographers hear the word volume, that out of the gate, they're not thinking, oh, that's not for me because volume means so many more children or athletes or whatever the genre is that we're really talking about. So for me, and the start of my story, which I think is true for a lot of people that get into start of my story, which I think is true for a lot of people that get into school photography or sport, we're asked to do it by somebody who knows we're a photographer. So in my case, I was asked by a colleague of my husband to talk to his wife about doing school photography at her private preschool. And I think as is true for many portrait photographers, we immediately say, oh, no. I'm not a school photographer. I don't do that. I'm a portrait photographer. And we have this preconception about what school or sports or other volume photographer, volume genres may be. So when I was asked to do this, my immediate knee jerk was no way. And then as he was telling me more and more about the school and the demographics, I realized, wait a second. I'm not so much interested in the school. But if I photograph these children, that's going to give me an opportunity to get in front of their family for the family side of my business, which was really what I was doing when I started. I was a 100% child and family portrait. So I saw volume. I saw school photography when this opportunity was put in front of me really as a direct line to this family and the demographic that I wanted to photograph.

And connecting those dots at the start is what we're gonna talk about today. How can doing volume feed the portrait business? But before we go there, where is volume right now in your business? Is it a big part of it, a little part of it? How much volume are you doing?

That's a great question. I am photographing about 750 students a year. So when you put that on the map of volume, some volume photographers would not even consider that volume because they're doing that in an afternoon on a ball field or in a morning at a high school, you know, where they have multiple station for photographers set up photographing seniors this time of year, certainly cap and gown and doing graduation portrait and so on. So my number of students is about 750. And last year, when I spoke at Imaging, I had a slide that represented how many days I actually worked in the school setting, and it was about 15 morning. So when you look across the entire landscape of a year, volume photography, school photography for me represented about 15 morning.

So compared to some of the others, like you say, this is kinda like a volume side hustle in a way.

Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. I've also heard it referred to as microvolume. That phrase was coined by somebody, I forget who that was, at Imaging last year. So I would consider myself microvolume. And, you know, I work very closely with GotPhoto, that's the platform that I use with that, you know, we can talk about later, in our conversation. But I frequently say to them, remember, volume can mean a lot of different things. So let's be sure that we always start with the definition. So for portrait wedding photographers, photographers photographing other genres who are thinking about this, if using the word volume, you need to just take that out of the vocabulary, you can just think of it as almost like a mini, mini, mini session where we're photographing lots of people in a short amount of time, but certainly it doesn't have to mean that it's hundreds or thousands of subjects as it is for a lot of more traditional volume photographer.

Well, if it's a little bit microvolume or real big volume, the strategies we're gonna talk about today could apply to both as far as how you can take your volume clients and feed the beast of your portrait studio. So it sounds like you kinda realize this initially, or was there something that happened that made you go, oh, this might be the lead generator that I've been looking for?

Yeah. So it really was in that conversation. For folks that have heard me tell this story before of how I got started with school photography, it started at a holiday party and there may or may not have been cocktails involved. So I don't know how that played into my decision-making. But in this conversation that I was having with my husband's colleague about his wife's school, you know, the more he was describing, he was describing children that I was already photographing, and not necessarily in that demographic, but he was describing the children that I wanted to see for my child and family portrait session. When he told me the location and, you know, just knowing we all know the neighborhood, if you will, around us where we wanna be working, we all know where we wanna be pulling clients from. And when I started hearing more and more about the demographic of the school and the clientele, the parents, and so on, I realized I want to be in front of those people. So the school photography really was the lead generator in my mind at that time and at the time, I realized that the school photography would also be profitable. So it ended up being kind of a bonus if you will, that came out of my initial idea of simply getting in front of those folks.

I wanna address something at the start before we get into the nitty gritty strategies of how you move people over. If you're a portrait photographer and maybe take on some volume stuff, it might not feel right to try and move them over. There might be, oh, this is this style of business and this is this side. Can you kind of address that feeling that someone might have about moving people over from volume to portrait and how some maybe not thinking about it the right way?

Absolutely. So first, I will say, in my business, when I'm speaking in general, I don't have a lot of I don't have much of a filter. So for me, I've never had any resistance, if you will, of moving people from one side, the portrait or I'm sorry, the school picture side to the portrait side because that was my intention from the start. So I think for me, certainly, that were baked in. In terms of having hesitation, certainly, you shouldn't. Right? Because these are clients that you're in front of. You're serving them in an amazing way, whether it's school photography, or sports or headshots or whatever genre, volume genre you're photographing them in. So if you just think I'm serving them here, why am I why would I not wanna serve them across genres. Right? We do this on the portrait side of our business. Maybe I'm photographing a baby. That baby is eventually going to be a toddler who's eventually going to be a high school senior. Right? So for those of us that have been around as long now as I am, I am photographing high school seniors this fall who I saw as toddlers. So we're moving people across all the genres of our portrait wedding event business. So why on earth would we not do exactly the same thing when we're photographing them in the volume space and bringing them and introducing them to all the other amazing things that we're doing. Maybe it's Santa's session, maybe it's headshots, maybe it's other special events. But by all means, we want to move them over. So if you're feeling resistant, you really need to ask yourself why. And that's where you kinda dive in. We all get in our heads, I think, in business in general, and I think you need to dive in and figure out what's missing here and why am I feeling resistant because you should be absolutely across the board doing that in my opinion.

Maybe they're getting hung up on the idea that they're selling, not serving. Because you used the word serving several times, and I thought that was very insightful that a toddler that's in front of you will eventually have to have pictures as they're growing up. And a mother would want family photos throughout or those are services and those are transformations you can provide for the client. That isn't just another sales opportunity where people can feel weird about it. So maybe that's something they're getting hung up on.

Perhaps. Perhaps. And I think when you consider my work, just to speak on it very briefly, in the school setting, has always been the same as what I'm photographing on location for children and family. My goal is that what you see that I capture in the school setting, it's all outdoors, it's all-natural light, look like the same work that I'm producing for family when I'm out on location with them. So that leap, if you will, from volume to portrait for me is a very short one because it looks the same. But to take your point, if you think about, okay, I'm working really hard with this much time in the volume space, whether it's school, sports, headshots, etcetera. Imagine if I can serve this client here, what can I do for them on the whole service, perhaps luxury side of my business with pre-session consult and talking about all the various products that I offer and the experience of the actual session and the post-session in-person sales meeting, etcetera? So it really takes that tiny service that you start with and gives you the opportunity to expand on that and really show them what you can deliver on that portrait wedding, senior portrait side that you're talking about.

Let's get into moving them over from volume to portrait. Think back to the first purposeful strategy that you put in to help someone make that leap. What did you do and how did it work?

That's a great question. So if we think back to how I started, with the end goal of those school pictures being, I want to photograph these children's family. Right? That was my end goal. So in this particular case, the school pictures were in the spring, which is a little bit unusual. Right? We often typically think of school pictures as being in the fall. But I was fortunate that I photographed them in the spring. Most portrait photographers and geography can play into this. I'm in Annapolis, Maryland, so we definitely have a seasonality to our business here when we're talking about photographing people on location outdoors. We are, as portrait photographers, from late August, early September right through the holidays. Right? It is, for most of us, season of insanity. Right? We are busiest. That's when we do so much of the bulk of our work across the year. So I was fortunate that I photograph these children in the spring, which naturally heat up family portraits for the fall. So the timing of that was great. I had all of their email because of communicating with them about their orders and, you know, we'll get into that a little later about how I do it now versus how I did it then. I would have never survived if I tried to do the DIY system that I started with. But I had all of those family email addresses, so I was able to connect with them directly. And I started, right shortly after delivering their school pictures orders, letting them know that fall we’ll be doing holiday mini sessions. And initially, it was in email, then it, I started to incorporate postcard inserted into their orders so that I was in front of them in a tangible way beyond just email. And some of those family, I still see year after year after year.

It's awesome. So you get a volume client. How quickly and how soon do you introduce the portrait side of the business to the volume client?

Now at the time that they receive their order, that's really the first time that I'm directly telling them this is also what I do. There are some subtle ways, and I'll talk about that in a second. But my lab is Color Inc, and Color Inc has the ability to allow us to create and design a postcard insert with whatever we want on it. So if you are a senior portrait photographer and you're photographing a high school, you'll wanna put senior portraits on your postcard. Mine has headshots and families and all the other genres that I photograph. And when a volume client places their order, I use got photo as I mentioned, in the GotPhoto system, that order is automatically transferred to Color Inc. And when Color Inc packages that print order, a postcard is inserted. So when they open their package with their print order, that is right in front of them for them to see. So they're seeing very early on. In addition, when I'm communicating with them through the GotPhoto system across volume jobs, so in the pre-picture day email that they receive, your pictures are ready to view, your pictures are ready to order. We have a series of emails that we send through that volume job. And in the signature line of all of that is a link to the portrait side of my business. So there really is a constant stream of reminders. And then, eventually, those people come into my mail client or my, not my CRM, but the marketing engine that I use to send emails with its Flodesk. They come into my Flodesk, and then they just become part of my email newsletter with, and remember, I've been doing this a while, so forgive me if some of my terminology sounds like it's from, like, 1997 because it it might be. But you get the idea. Right? I'm emailing them. I have this place where all the emails go from, and they become incorporated into that database so that they are receiving the same information that all of my portrait clients and anybody else who's come into my mailing list receives.

Well, as you can see, I've been around a little bit as well. And it's not dated. It's battle-tested.

Battle-tested. Okay. I love that.

It’s battle-tested ways. Right? This is I've been doing it, made a lot of money doing it.

Yeah. Awesome.

It'd be easy to gloss over. Yeah. I tell them about what's going on before and during and after, but I wanna get into how you talk about it because you're not saying here's your photo, and here's $99 off your sitting, waka-waka. Like, you're doing this with some purpose and style. Can you kinda talk about how you're communicating with these folks??

Yeah. And I think you just said the word style, which I think is really important in the larger aspect of this conversation. Because if we go way back when, to the start of our conversation, when we were talking about volume, we can be really stuck on a preconceived idea that volume photography, school photography, sports photography, insert category here, that it has to look a certain way and be a certain thing. And the beauty of everything that we do in photography, including volume, is that it can be true to our style. So in my case, I described I photograph the students at school in a really beautiful, you know, I find my little spot. We all know what that's like because we've all worked on location and places where we go, oh, my gosh. What is what do I do now? So I find my little spot and I try to create the same look in the images that I have on that Calvin Family portrait side, family fashion session of my business. So if you are a photographer and you love to photograph in black and white, or you love really simple, clean, solid backdrop, or maybe you like to create a whole set, and the idea of working with a preschool and creating this amazing and detailed and artistic set is what lights you up, that style piece ultimately becomes the starting point for your marketing when we leap across the bridge. Right? So we're bridging volume for portrait. So to make that leap, the style piece is really important. So in my case, when people are seeing my work in the school setting, it looked so much like my work in the family setting that I'm not having to convince them or tell them, hey, do you also know I do family? I can show it to them and it makes sense. So I am putting sample images in front of them. I'm telling them about the mini-session offerings or Santas or some of these other options that we talked about. I'm putting that in front of them. What I would tell listeners who maybe are new at this or just getting started, really think about this style piece because your messaging to make that leap has to make sense in the client's mind. It's not what you just said. Right? $99 off your portrait session, but they're looking at their son with their daughter with a baseball bat or softball bat on their shoulder. And now you're telling them that you also do this. I've joked about, you know, we've all seen that van around town that has all the different photography offerings. Right? It's covered in a wrap with we do bar mitzvahs and weddings and funerals and graduation and cake smashes and all the things. And that really is making a commodity out of the photography and out of the service where, you know, the folks I think that are listening really take their art and their craft seriously. So your messaging, the style, all of that should really be in alignment so that your customer, your client doesn't have to make a big leap. It's right there in front of them and truly makes sense.

If someone's doing really basic photography, they're doing the equivalent of a burger and fries in front of volume customers. But when they do their portrait work, they do really detailed, beautiful, involved work. In other words, if their volume doesn't look like their portrait, is it impossible to move people over, or is it just more difficult to move people over?

That's a great question. So I wouldn't say it's impossible. I think that you've made the bridge a little longer. Right? We talked about the bridge, the leap from volume to portrait. I think you just made the bridge a little longer, and I think you then need to be more thoughtful about that process. You're not just going to put something in front of that volume client and say, hey, we also do this too. It's probably gonna take more frequency. I would have, you know, the platform that you're using for volume, in my case, it's GotPhoto. I would have representation on my GotPhoto website showing that portrait side of what I do. And I would increase the frequency of making that connection to make that leap because you're going, it's gonna take a little time to shorten that distance. So, I don't think it's impossible. I just think you need to be thoughtful and mindful and not think, oh, I'm gonna put this in front of them one time and that's gonna be it. I think we've all learned how important communication is with our clients across all of the genres that we photograph. And this is absolutely true because the other thing that you don't wanna do is have volume side and that price point be assumed over here on the portrait side. So it's just going to take some additional steps, but absolutely not impossible.

Let's talk about the nurturing now. We'll pretend for the sake of this conversation. You've done the volume work. You've introduced to them that hey, this beautiful work that I do for volume, I also do for portraits. And now it's the opportunity to walk them across the bridge. In your studio, how do you go about nurturing them? Because they're on your list now. What are you doing to communicate with them so they can get closer, cross the bridge, and become a portrait client?

Absolutely. Okay. So, I have a number of steps. I'll give you the first few because we could go down the rabbit hole on all of these steps and spend an entire episode in each one of these things. So I'm gonna try to keep it kinda simple. So, number 1, the email from the GotPhoto platform. Right? So I'm introducing this idea of the portrait side of what I do in the communication that the volume client is getting regarding their gallery's ready to view. It's time to order. We've received your order. And then, again, that postcard that will be inserted into their order. I am going to connect the GotPhoto email, right? Those volume client emails to my email marketing platform, as I mentioned, which is Flodesk. So I want that to be integrated as early as possible. So when I'm sending portrait session, email, Santa, headshot offering, whatever my portrait studio offerings might be, those volume clients are integrated into that, that marketing plan as early as possible. Not just because they're volume, but they're now my client. So I'm going to start marketing to them as a client right out of the gate. As I mentioned, depending on the volume platform that you're using, having representation right there that, because we can do a custom page on the GotPhotos site, having representation right there of these other offerings that you have, be it headshot, seniors, wedding, portrait. Your social media, I think, is a really, really important place to include this. Please don't use my circle media as a reference. It really is my Achilles heel. I don't love it. I'm not good at it. And I take a stab, but, you know, I'm also here to tell you that you don't need an active social media to be successful in photography. But I think when you are communicating on social media, you're incorporating your portrait business social media handle in the volume communication so that when those clients go there, they're seeing, oh, wow. These don't look like the photos that I just received of my children on the softball field or at school. Look what else they do. Right? So you're sending them to a place where you're also representing all of these other genres. I do think, you know, to your point earlier about the special offer for the volume client, I think if we're talking about especially that where the leap is longer, giving them some offer to truly entice them to at least have a conversation with you, be it on email or a phone consult, or inviting them into your studio where they have some enticement to take that leap and take that step. Oh, wow. A $100 off. Oh, this is amazing. I need to learn more, understand more about this. So, you know, you put savings in front of people, especially in today's business climate, and you're going to get their attention for sure. So those are those are a handful of ways that, hopefully, would be helpful for people to take a stab at their marketing from the volume side over to the other genre.

There's a piece of awareness that you shared that I don't wanna gloss over. They're now my clients. The portrait photographer would look at the volume side and say, all of these people, an entire class .

Yeah.

They're all now my clients, and maybe people don't connect that right.

That's right. That's right. And, you know, I thin to the early part of our conversation of people maybe feeling anxious even about making that leap and connecting with other people, they are our clients. And when you get really strategic and thoughtful about your marketing, so for instance, senior portrait. Let's just use a senior photographer as an example. If I am photographing a school or a sports team, and there are kids that are in 10th or 11th grade or 8th grade for that matter, I mean, never too early to start. But, typically, if I'm thinking of GotPhoto, I can communicate with those clients on a very, very specific and filtered level. So let's say I have a school that goes K through 12.

I am able, at any time that I choose to market to the parents of the 10th-grade class, right? We can really bring it down to that level, 10th or 11th-grade class, with senior portrait info. So we can start planning that feed very early, 9th grade, 10th grade, so that they're seeing that well in advance of it being time for their senior portrait. And by the time senior portraits come around, you've now been marketing that to them all along. So yes, they're in the larger database, but the ability to really get down to that, like, nitty gritty and target very specific people is amazing. For me, I do a Santa event. I know a lot of people do holiday events. I'm not gonna hit my 11th-graders with that. I'm going to target the albums of the preschoolers and the kindergarteners and the 1st graders directly with that offering. So in the same way that we use a lot of strategy in our marketing across the board on the portrait side of what we do, we use that same brain power on the volume side to bring them over.

Let's compare the strategy of growing the studio with volume and portrait photography. When using volume to build more clients for portrait, how does that compare with what might be seen as more traditional methods like advertising or just the traditional customer engagement that you might do? Does it stack up? Is it more expensive, less expensive? How does that impact the studio?

That's a great question. So I have been and I may not be able to give you the best answer honestly because I have been really fortunate that word-of-mouth has been my primary marketing source. I've been in my town for 17 years. I think that my name, in many ways, have become synonymous with the type of work that I do. So I've been able to rely very heavily on word-of-mouth, and I've not had to spend a lot on advertising. But, you know, email is so inexpensive. The postcard I described in portrait orders is so inexpensive. So I think, you really can use a lot of the same methodology or I hate to use the word tactics. It's that hard for a negative conversation. But with that same marketing methodology that you're using on the portrait side, you can apply to volume. You're hitting more people with it, so it may not result in the same percentage of response. Don't be discouraged by that because if you're hitting a hundred people instead of 5 people with that messaging, and you're ending up with 3 on each side, it's still amazing. You have had the same number of people come out of that volume side. For me, the volume side, when it comes to child and family portraits, the holiday mini sessions I mentioned, the Santa events. And now for me, headshots has really become an incredibly big part of my business. The volume carryover onto those sides has been really, really big.

If someone isn't connecting the dots between volume and portrait right now, let's walk through a very specific example. You got a portrait gig from a volume gig. I want you to walk us through. Oh, they replied to the email, and then they did this, and then they did this. Hey. I got a portrait session. What does that sound like, feel like? Because I want people to have their radar up so they can start capturing these leads.

Absolutely. So I think this is where communication very early on is so important. And I know that, portrait photographers, wedding photographers, anyone who considers themselves a higher-price photographer. Right? We're not talking shoot and burn. We're talking about sustainable business, luxury, expensive photography. When you are taking that volume photograph, the volume client into this world, the communication piece is even more important in my opinion than it is the cold call that you're getting from your website or, you know, an email inquiry or the phone. Because this person's first taste of working with you may be higher priced than what they're used to in traditional school photography or sports or volume. But it still is a lot lower than, in my case, what I am on the portrait side. So right up front, in early communication from me, they are seeing my pricing. They're seeing what they can exact this to all costs. I don't wanna scare them off. But I think sometimes and and I've made this mistake myself. And now I'm adamantly, like, I can't get my prices in product people fast enough because I don't want either of us to be disappointed at the end of a session when they go, oh my gosh, I had no idea. Right? So, forgive me if I'm going off on a little bit of a tangent here. But I think getting that in front of them as early as possible, they view both disappointment. Oh, my gosh, I'm so embarrassed. I had no idea it was gonna be so much more. You know, I paid $150 for the school pictures, and now this cost this. But if you approach this from a place of creating an incredible experience, like, hey, I spent 2 minutes with your child at school, and you are over the moon about what I captured. Maybe sibling, maybe it was your son and daughter. You are so over the moon about what I was able to capture of them in a school setting and told me yourself, you can't believe I did that at school in 2 minutes. And now, you want me to photograph your family and create that same magic? Oh, this is what that reflects. We are going to have a pre-session consultation. I'm gonna help coach you through what everybody should wear. We're gonna talk about your family and who you are and the ideal location for your session. We're going to have an amazing time at your session that won't be limited by the clock and isn't going to feel like the 2-minute mini, mini session that we have for your children at school. And then at the end, I'm gonna hold your hand through the process of deciding what we're putting on your wall, what images are going into your album. They really get a taste of what that entire experience is going to look like.

It never occurred to me that you were giving them an appetizer when you did volume. Now they have the chance to come spend the day with you in this upsell that organically comes between a volume, sit there, look pretty, click, to this planning process and the entire engagement from pre-consult all the way through stuff on the walls. And what a huge value add perceptually that would be for the volume customer to think, woah. Now I get Heather for an afternoon. This is gonna be Disney World. I never thought about that as a perceived value for the volume client.

Absolutely. And I wanna piggyback to something that we talked about earlier in that same light when we were talking about marketing and marketing costs and so on. Remember, this is a warm lead. You have proven yourself to this person. You have already had an opportunity to show them your style, your ability to connect with their child, student, who you've shown them the quality of your work, and they didn't initially choose you to do that. Right? The school, the sports league, the entity chose you for that. So this isn't a cold lead. This is a warm read where you've already had the opportunity to show them what you can do. So not only is it your customer because they purchased something from you, but they've seen your stuff. And I truly especially with the preschoolers, I get emails from parents all the time saying, oh my god. Like, that kid was a hot mess when I sent them to school this morning. I don't know what you did. They referred to us as magicians. They talk about the, you know, magic and all sorts of, you know, and they refer to their sometimes as, you know, little tornadoes and all sorts of cute names. So I've now proven to this parent what I can do with their child in 2 minutes. So to your point about then all of this other, right? The appetizer, now we're going to the steak house, they're really excited because they know we're going to deliver for them at a really high level.

This episode is really helpful for a portrait photographer that's already doing some volume work and they really are connecting those 2 worlds. But I wanna know how passionate you are about volume to feed portrait. If a portrait photographer is watching this and they aren't doing volume, would you recommend that they do it primarily because it gives them the opportunity to feed the portrait side of the business?

I think there are lots of reasons to do volumes. So my answer is, yeah. Absolutely. If your business has room to take on more, you should absolutely consider volume to be part of that equation. Right? The business world right now in general can feel like a roller coaster. So this is a new income stream. Right? So we have not only the opportunity to feed with referrals all the other genres that we're currently photographing. We haven't even talked about the profitability side of volume. So there is profit in the volume work. So right out of the gate, you have a new revenue stream, you have a new referral stream. If you have ADD like me and you don't wanna do the same thing all the time, this is also just something fun and new and a new opportunity to engage with a new group of clients. If you love little kids, great. You should look at preschool. If you love sports and, you know, being out and doing, like, really creative things with sports teams, awesome. If you love senior photography, you should absolutely be looking at high schoolers. So this opportunity to be doing something new, an additional revenue stream, the referral stream, there are so many reasons to get into volume. And as I shared with you at the very beginning of our conversation, volume can be whatever you want it to be. It can be one school. It can be one proper team. Or you may find, and this happens often with photographers that I'm coaching into this volume world, you may love it so much and realize that it's such a great fit for you and your business and your team that you go all in and say, okay. I want more of it. Whether it's dance, gymnastics, cheer, headshot, pool, hockey. There are so many different aspects of the volume world in the same way that on the portrait side, we have so many different genre that people really may find and connect to something that they didn't even anticipate they would love so much. So absolutely volume, not already on your radar, should be on your radar for sure.

And you've listed so many different styles of volume. And all the insights we've talked about today, I think that's one of my favorites that volume does not need to be just the 3rd grade Kronos at the local elementary school. It can be whatever it might be for you and your business. As a last word on this interview, if you're a portrait client and you wanna do a better job of moving people over from volume to portrait, what would be the final message for someone to inspire them to really get serious about it so it grows the studio?

That's a great question. And I think something that is true for any conversation like this. You have to get really clear on what your desired outcome is. And that means, what do I want to photograph? What do I not wanna photograph? What do I love to do? Where have I already seen success in my business? So that when you are making this leap and you're converting from volume to the other side, what is that other side? Is it family portrait? Is it seniors? Is it headshots? Is it newborn? Because when you do that, the marketing method to that volume client will be so much more clear, and it won't be, here's a $99 coupon that you're just distributing willy nilly to all of those people on the list. So I think starting looking within and getting really clear on what you want this business to look like should be step 1.

Heather Crowder, thanks for joining us on The Professional Photographer Podcast. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. I love chatting with you, Pat, and hope that there are some new up-and-coming volume photographers that we hear from after they listen in on us.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of The Professional Photographer Podcast. I'm already looking forward to the next time we get together. Now before you go, please, I got a small favor. Can you subscribe to the show wherever you're listening to us or watching us, and leave us a comment too. We wanna know what about this episode resonated with you. It helps us pick better episodes for the future, so we get you what you need to grow the business. And if you're not yet a member of Professional Photographers of America, you are missing the boat. PPA offers incredible resources like equipment insurance, top-notch education, and a supportive community of photographers ready to help you succeed. It's perfect for photographers who are serious about growing their business in a sustainable and profitable way. At PPA, you belong here. Discover more about membership at ppa.com. That's ppa.com. I'm Pat Miller, founder of the Small Business Owners Community. Thanks for tuning in and for joining us on this journey. We appreciate your support, and we'll be back with more tools to help you build your business with The Professional Photographer's Podcast. See you next time.