We had a blast. What an absolute RUSH. I have a new appreciation for producing, especially LIVE shows. It is obvious how much work goes into making one of these productions, and the mighty cool staff of CreativeLive makes it looks easy.

If you enjoyed the show or you missed it, you can purchase the downloads here. Our course covered everything from marketing, to sales, to shooting, to life balance, so check it out!

Hooray to the crew!

Marketing to Moms…

In honor of Mother’s Day, we brought our own mom! She is really an inspiration to both of us. We love you, mom!

I wanted to thank some inspiring women who took the time to share with us about how they feel about being moms and business women. Thank you to: Me Ra Koh, Tamara Lackey, Vicki Taufer, Sarah Petty, and Dawn Davis! Your words added so much to the workshop.

One of our live student audience members, Michael Houlden had some great thoughts that pretty much summed up how we feel about marketing and sales. He says,

“Words like marketing and sales so often strike fear into the hearts of artists such as ourselves while at the same time they leave a sense of distrust in the minds of our clients. So, I sort of feel almost dirty telling people that I was at a workshop on marketing and sales. Here’s the thing though – marketing is simply the process of letting people know that we exist and what our service is – and done well the message reaches people that are interested in and value our service. And sales (almost a four letter word for some people) is simply the process of determining what our clients desire and then delivering it to them. Pure and simple. No ugly monsters. No scary ghosts.”

And that’s the point! Sales is simply providing a service to our clients to help them choose what it is they have already told you that they want! Thanks for your words, Michael! Thanks also to our in-studio live student audience: Michael Houlden, Julie Pergitone Croff, Joni James, Dan Troutman, Kristin Tetuán and Christiana Sloop Childers. Wouldn’t have been the same without you.

Here are some fun shots of the week … in the studio, the live shoot…
….and if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll find DISCOUNT CODES for lots of GREAT products!

This is actually JOY shooting the CAMERAMAN shooting JULES shooting the family.

See?

The day after our live shoot, we got back into the studio to talk about editing, photoshop with presets and textures, and of course, sales! Joy demonstrated ProSelect and we all had fun editing images together, to decide how to show clients’ your very best.

Here are a few of Jules’ favorites from the live shoot. Thank you Hilary and Scott, for being so accommodating with the crazy outdoor shoot filled with cameras, wires, and people!

and of course, the famous eye-swap one:

And finally, we have to thank all of our amazing sponsors for all the generous prizes we were able to give away! Here’s Jules with her cute little shutterhugger dinosaur, and me with my DaisyGrip puppet! I don’t know who they entertained more, us or the kids we were supposed to photograph!

DISCOUNT CODES!

Proselect – 10% off of ProSelect software, offer also includes a free “Room View Collection”, with promo code: BIANCHI. Offer not valid on upgrades. Promo code expires May 31, 2012.

TotallyRad! – $50 off of RadLab from TotallyRad! with promo code: 1020MOMS, offer valid May 10-May 19, 2012.

Animoto – 20% off a month of Animoto Pro with code: BIANCHILIVE. Offer only for new subscribers. Expires May 31st.

Pictage/ShootQ - 4 Months of ShootQ starter with promo code: julesjoy2012, valid through 12/31/12. You can also get a 2-month trial of Pictage, no promo code necessary. Just go to Pictage Services, sign up, and if you link your Pictage and ShootQ accounts together you can do some amazing things!

Triple Scoop Music - 10% off any purchase at Triple Scoop Music with promo code: julesjoy12, offer valid through May 31, 2012.

VGallery Haven- 30% off of everything in the v gallery haven store, offer valid from May 10th – May 17th, 2012.

DaisyGrip for a special offer!

We also wanted to say THANK YOU to all of you who have visited our shop on Jules Cafe recently. We really try hard to produce products that we think would be useful to other photographers, and it is always something that we genuinely use ourselves. Again, thanks so much and we really appreciate you.

We were also asked to invite six people to participate as our live audience. Those who wanted to come had to submit a 60 second video with their best Mom tip. Joy and I reviewed all of the submissions and loved everyone for different reasons. It was a very difficult decision for us, but in the end we chose the following six people to join us at CreativeLIVE!! To watch the winning video submissions, simply click on the screen captures below.

We can’t wait to meet you! We have prizes and a really fun time planned!
To celebrate, we are having a sale at Jules Cafe.
30% off of all products! Just type in the promo code: CONGRATS

Hi there and Happy Holidays!
It’s that crazy time of the year, and we wanted to let you know about a few little Holiday Gifts we have for you. A free class and 50% discounts on Jules Cafe!

Join my sister and me plus 10 other highly successful wedding photographers as we share our greatest techniques and strategies for running a smooth, profitable wedding photography business.
The “I Do” event by The Joy of Marketing is a FREE 3-day online marketing event for wedding photographers.
On Dec. 28, Jan. 4, and Jan. 11, from 11 am – 3 pm CST each day, tune in for free to learn how to:

• How to attract the right clients (who won’t banter you on price).
• Creating the perfect wedding album your clients will HAVE to have.
• Pricing your photography so you come out profitable every time.
• Getting your phone ringing with an easy, no-cost marketing technique.
• And much, much more!

To attend, all you need to do is REGISTER HERE!

We’ll be on on December 28! Jules has a host of tips and tricks up her sleeve that help her to get through a wedding as smoothly as possible. In the hectic hustle and bustle of a wedding day, there is a lot of pressure on the photographer to keep their cool and get the shot. Along with the photo ideas are tips from Jules explaining her thought process and how she gets the shot.

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This year, I had so much fun watching my sister teach her shooting workshop as she photographed our model family, Lauren, Matt, and baby Claire. We had a really great group of shooters with us! Jules and I spent a little time before the shoot talking to our group of photographers about marketing and sales, as well as overcoming obstacles while working with kids. Thanks to everyone who came out and joined us! We had a blast. Here are a few of my favorites that Jules shot from the workshop.

This time, Joy and I are going to do a workshop together to show you how we handle our portrait clients. We’re calling the workshop “From Whine to Wow: photographing the fussy family” because, as I’m sure you portrait photographers know, many times children and pets just do not have an interest in being photographed.

Come join us to learn how we prep the parents at our pre-shoot consultation and then watch how we handle an actual family -plus pet- to see what tricks and methods we use to get the fun lifestyle shots our clients love.

If you have not attended PartnerCon before, you really should do yourself a favor and register now. This year the event will be in San Diego and if past years tell us anything, its not to be missed. It is a not only a great learning experience, but the networking is so much fun!

Click here to register!

To all of you who have asked me how to join our monthly group, here is the link to the East Bay PUG on Facebook. We meet on the first Tuesday of every month and welcome any photographer who would like to join!

It was a gorgeous event with a fashion show by Marina Morrison and non-stop entertainment by Wayne Foster. Click the following links to check out all of the incredible exhibitors & partners

I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to both April Rocha and Shelly Waldman for not only helping me set up and break down my darling booth but for shooting the event with me so that I could chat with brides and participate on the “Engaging with the Experts” panel, and to Krista Jon for providing the stunning flower arrangements at my booth. LOVE you girls!!!

Also, I wanted to congratulate Diep & Tim who won free wedding photography by me in the Soolip raffle!! I am so excited to shoot your Casa Real at Ruby Hill wedding!!

Thanks to my buddy, Michael Corsentino, for this awesome Animoto shot of us.

Here goes the Schedule, people. Keep up.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20.

7pm Go Bee Soiree Party with Sara France and sponsored by Pictage

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21

12pm Pictage User Group Think Tank meeting… Check out their new blog The Photo Life and see what’s happening at a PUG near you!

For much of the day, we’ll be on the tradeshow floor, gathering prizes for our Tuesday platform talk (see below!). If you find us and ask about Olive, you might just win a prize. Try it. Mention Olive AND Jules Cafe and you will get one for sure!

Speaking of Jules Cafe, check out our new SHOP and enter CAFE2011 for cool discounts on everything from Jules NEW Presets & Textures to our very popular Essential Starter Consult Kit!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22

3:30pm – 5:30pm Platform Presentation Studio B Preboard by February 18 at the following link: www.preboard.net
The talk is gonna rock, and you don’t want to miss it. If ONLY for the amazing prizes we will be handing out.
Here’s a list of some of the prizes you may find yourself the recipient of, some of our favorite peeps:

Oh, and we’ll be speaking too, in the midst of handing out a plethora of prizes. Found out more:

How to be a Rockstar in your own backyard
We will talk about developing win-win Creative Marketing Events with local businesses to raise the level of awareness in your own community about who you are and what you have to offer. We will cover marketing, sales, pre-visualization, and the important stuff in-between. Learn how to effectively understand your clients’ needs and deliver products and services that your clients’ can’t live without. Come and join us as we talk about some fun and innovative ways to market to clients that will translate into the bottom line for your business — new clients.

7pm – 9pm: Then we go straight from our Platform to a really fun Panel Discussion at the Grand Garden Arena:
Women in Contemporary Photography. We will be joined by some other AMAZING women photographers including Sarah Petty, Catherine Hall, Kay Eskridge, Lindsay Adler, Dawn Shields, Jessica Claire, and Jasmine Star. We’ll be discussing ideas and philosophies of how we’ve made things work in this competitive field.

And Tuesday doesn’t end there!

9pm Nikon party with Junebug weddings! We’ll stop by before heading out to the final resting place…

9pm. to whenever! After all that, you can find us rocking out at Pictage’s Signature Event, Studio 54 It’s Big, It’s Bold, and It’s BACK. Get More at Studio 54.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23

11a.m. You can find us at the KODAK booth along with Kenny Kim

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24

9am. We are thrilled to do a another performance for the fabulous Photo Ignite with Kevin Kubota. We’ll be joined by some pretty groovy people, including Scott Bourne, Becker, Jasmine Star, Jed & Vicki Taufer, and some new names that you will not want to miss!

We’ll add more as more comes in, but for now, we hope to see you there, and can’t wait for next week!

Joy & Jules

You can download a 30 minute goal setting talk FREE from Keynote Speaker, Brian Tracy, at any time.

We also have some fun products you might want to click on:

This template will make it easy and quick for you to create custom designed artwork for your clients to use for Engagement Sessions, Weddings or other shoots. It’s an easy way to help clients purchase wall art of their session, especially those clients who want multiple 
images, but might not have space for lots of frames. You can use 
this template for a canvas wrap or printed as a single image and
 framed.

I’ll be speaking with my sister Joy on Wednesday, January 19 so be sure and check it out. Here’s a little teaser for you that Joy wrote:

Newbie talk: Joy plays the role of the new photographer, asking me about my experience in starting a new photography business. I covers everything from the very basics of which camera and lenses should you buy to how to find the right clients for you. I discusses whether you should start off working for someone else or how to launch your own business, and what it takes to be successful. Vendor relationships, sample albums, and getting images for your portfolio are all topics we cover.

Advanced talk: Joy and I discuss some of the more pressing issues for taking your wedding photography to the next level, including a discussion on pricing, client referrals, and sales. We talk about selling albums and other products, and how to stay inspired while shooting. We also debate the merits of outsourcing your work vs. having in-house employees. Finally, I demonstrate how to differentiate yourself as a professional amongst so many out there with SLRs through a discussion of off-camera lighting that I hope you will find inspiring. Listen in and get an idea or two on how you can stay ahead of the game in 2011.

ALSO

We’ll be speaking at WPPI this year… Please come and visit our Platform Presentation at 3:30pm on Tuesday, February 22! There will be all kinds of prizes and fun, so come say hi! We will be talking about Sales and Marketing, and you won’t want to miss it.