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Welcome back to the Wedding Atelier Podcast. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about how to never get ghosted again, So you can attract dream couples who see you as the only option in the wedding industry. Maybe your prices aren't the problem. Maybe your photos aren't the problem, the problem could be that right now you blend in with every photographer in your market and if they can't see why you're different, they're gonna ghost you or worse book someone else for less. Or I've seen it where they booked someone for more. So how are we gonna fix this? It's not necessarily, oh, I need to market more, or I need to buy a new preset, or I need to upgrade my gear. It's your artist story. I'm gonna show you how to use your artist story to make yourself the only option for your dream client. But first, here's why most photographers struggle to stand out. I call this the bestie problem because if clients see you as a bestie, they're just gonna compare you on price. I know a lot of times as photographers, we literally get paid to be ourselves. Use our creativity and sell that as an experience, of course, with all of our years of industry experience. But at the end of the day, you're getting paid to be a creative. but when they don't see you as somebody who is a professional. And they can get your look anywhere else, and they don't see anything really unique about what you have to offer. They compare you to other people. Say, oh, your work looks like this for cheaper. That's no. That means something needs to change. And you don't want couples comparing you side by side with somebody else's Instagram being like, oh, yeah, no. They shoot the same poses. They have the same edits. They're basically the same photographer. One of 'em is just priced more than the other. Nope. That is not what we want. And we don't want you competing with somebody else that you don't even know because you're so afraid to put yourself out there and really stand out. Before I created the artist story, I remember being constantly price shopped. I also remember people saying, oh, your work looks like this person, but you're just so much cheaper. Oh my gosh. That just gave me trauma all over again. And I remember cringing on the call like, oh, thanks for. That and they would say something like, oh, we're just no. We're just so excited to book with you that we can, have this look or we love your style better, whatever. But at the end of the day, I was like they're getting a better style for less because I'm charging less. That is not what I want my clients to say about me. And so the first thing you're gonna learn how to do is lead with yourself. I know you probably thought I was gonna say something deep. No, I want you to lead with yourself. Like, why are you doing this? Who are you anyway as a photographer, I. At least for me, and you can agree with me or disagree with me, but when I picked up my camera, I was ready for business because I learned how to shoot in manual. I had a prime lens. I had that nifty 50 that everybody talked about, and then I started comparing myself. When I finally had the confidence to go from $400 to three K, I started comparing myself because I was like, wait a minute, these are the quote unquote big leagues. My work needs to look like theirs. If I could shoot like them, if I could edit like them, I would be happy. And that's when it all started. I got lost in the sauce for lack of better words, and I just copied what I saw. Instagram and Pinterest became a competing machine. And if you're cringing with me right now, because it's coming from a place, been there. But here's the thing. When you finally lean into your artist story, you are gonna stop getting ghosted because you're gonna start leading with that and not making your prices look like a value stacked big, huge deal. And I'm gonna talk about prices later because you know me I get fired up about prices only because I kept mine the same for so long. And I don't want you to make the same mistakes that I did, which is playing small for way too long. And then realizing once you take the small steps to. Do the thing that scares you the most, you realize, huh? I could have been doing this all along. Why didn't I do this sooner? That's what I'm gonna help you do. Okay? I am no fluff all strategy and data, but also 12 years of wedding photography experience. To be able to help you realize that it's not as serious as you think it is, and there are small wins that you can make for yourself. There's small steps that you can take that will help you overcome all the drama, but in the meantime. Maybe you need to figure out what your story is in the first place. And so this leads us to the artist story. This is your entire method that's gonna reveal your unique artistic identity, your values, why your work matters beyond the images. And so here is the framework. It is your purpose, your process, and your personality. And we'll dive a little bit more into this in our masterclass, September 23rd. Make sure you sign up link in the show notes. So the purpose is your personal style, and your creative values. That's it. Your process is the experiences that you stand for. And the process that gets you there. And then three, your personality. That is the one of a kind aspects that draw your dream couples to you, because that's gonna make you the only option. If you can really tell us, if you can show us who you really are strategically with a strategy in place, of course you are just gonna attract them. When your story is clear, the couples are gonna stop asking how much, and they're gonna start asking, how do we book you? Are you available for this date? The amount of times when I was able to shift my entire business to reflect my artist story. I would have people saying, I hope you're not booked yet. And they would pitch me their wedding. They would say, this is where my wedding is. This is the vibe, this is the colors, this is my Pinterest board. I hope you're free on our wedding day 'cause we would love to have you. Whoa. I went from charging three K and people either being like, yes, we wanna book you 'cause you're such a deal to I found somebody for cheaper. We'll get back to you to, oh my gosh, this is my wedding. I need you to be available to book it now. Actually, that's what drove me to start my associate team because I was turning away so many inquiries to where they were like We wish we just had your look, even if it wasn't you, like we would take whoever you trust. And I was like, man, I'm just gonna start a team at this point. And if you're thinking to yourself, Hmm, I actually might wanna start my own associate team. We have an associate team course inside of Wedding Guttier, so literally no worries, I got you. So I'm gonna brag a little bit on one of my students because after working with Jen, she came to me being like. Fix my business. Like we're doing good. We're doing okay. I'm scared to raise my prices. I don't know who I am. I don't know anything. I went from, I just started, I still have a nine to five to. I am burnt out and I also don't know what I'm doing. I dunno who I'm doing this for or why. And so the two things that we did immediately was came up with her new prices and then we created her artist story and that alone changed her life. She is marketing like crazy. She's showing up as herself. She was like, Ugh, I don't wanna show up in Instagram stories. Guess what? Girl can't stop showing up on Instagram stories now because she can really get behind herself. She can get behind the process of her business, the purpose of her business and her personality. She can get behind her artist story and it's working because she's obviously turning away bookings and having to raise her prices constantly to the point where she had to leave her nine to five. So it works, and this alone will be the missing piece. To keep you from having a blank cure serve before you post on Instagram or opening up a blog post about a recent wedding. You're obsessed with not knowing what to write. We give you all of those templates all I need as your artist story and the formulas complete themselves. We even have custom GPTs that will literally write it for you, but you have to give it your artist story because that's something that chat GBT can't make up. I believe that chat, GBT is an assistant. I don't want chat GBT writing anything for me that I did not come up with myself. Okay? I think that can get dangerous to where you just say, Hey, write 30 posts for me. And it doesn't sound like you, it doesn't look like you. It's just not, it's not genuine and it just feels icky. But I can do another episode on Chad GBT and how I feel but we don't do that. Everything is an integrity, it is 100% tailored to you, and that's why they're gonna wanna book you at the end of the day because you're gonna be with them all day and they're gonna be following up with you all year or however long they get in contact with you before the wedding. Could be three months, could be three years, who knows? And the whole point is when couples connect with you. And they connect emotionally not only to your work, but to you the photographer. That's when you go from being another photographer to a friender, and that's what makes them want to invest and that's what makes them specifically want to invest. With you. Okay, so I'm gonna give you a couple of journaling prompts. Now, this is not the whole artist story because it's actually 15 pages long. Okay? Don't at me because all of my students thank me after they finish it. But I'm gonna give you journal prompts so you can start getting those wheels turning with your own artist story today. Number one, what do I want couples to feel when they see my work? Two, what moments do I love capturing most and why? All right, now get to work and feel free to DM me, 'cause I wanna know what you come up with. Okay? If this resonates with you, if you're like, oh my gosh, Lord, I need more, give me more. You need to sign up. You need to sign up for my free masterclass. How to book 10 K Weddings, September 23rd at 12:00 PM Eastern, and only those on the wait list will get the replay if you want couples to see you as the only option. It's not about having the cheapest package or the most followers or the best portfolio. It is about making them feel like there's nobody else who could tell their story the way that you can. And that's what the artist story unlocks. And we will help you build yours together inside of Wedding Atelier. So join the wait list for the masterclass and I will see you in the next episode.