446: Michael Anthony – How to build a seriously successful wedding photography business

Premium Members, click here to access this interview in the premium area.

Michael Anthony of www.michaelanthonyphotography.com has a phenomenal set of wedding photography images on his website. Visit the site, and as soon as you land on the home page, if you're anything like me, your immediate thought will be… holy crap, this photographer is bloody fantastic!

The lighting, posing, locations, drama and post-production all combine in a way to make me feel like I'm looking at scenes shot on movie sets with multimillion-dollar production budgets.

It's that good!

Dive deeper, and you'll see these are real clients photographed on actual wedding days.

Michael's studio is based in California and started as a partnership. The company grew with their popularity, and they began to train other photographers to shoot in their style.

They have photographed around the world with a team of photographers.

In this interview, Michael shares how to build a seriously successful wedding photography business with tactical marketing, incredible photography and more referrals than you could handle. 

• Michael's thoughts on his website
• Running a photography business based on data-driven decisions
• Using data to determine what to place and where on your website homepage
• Google Analytics to measure click ratios
• SEO tools to use in your photography business
• Quitting a regular paying job to work full time as a wedding photographer
• Hiring associate shooters to grow your photography business
• A snapshot of Michael's wedding photography revenue
• How Michael hired his first associate shooter
• Who are Michael's target clients
• Average client spend
• How to serve your clients better
• How to prepare clients about potentially spending $15-20k on wedding photography
• Michael's booking inquiry process
• Packages and pricing
• Hiring a salesperson to do sales consultations and IPS
• Lead generation and conversion are the heartbeat of Michael's business
• Why couples aren't booking you
• How to increase your conversion rate
• Why lead generation is the sexiest part of marketing your business
• Diversify your lead sources
• Using Facebook Ads for brand awareness
• Vendor referrals have the highest conversion rates
• How to increase your vendor referrals
• Michael's process for referring vendors
• How to be included on a vendor's preferred suppliers list
• Michael's photography gear for weddings

If you’re a premium member, you should have received an email with links to your version of this interview – the full length and more revealing version where you hear the absolute best tips and advice from every guest.

If you’re on the fence about becoming a premium member, join with the $1 trial today and get access to the FULL interviews each week, get access to an amazing back catalogue of interviews and ALL future interviews delivered automatically to your phone or tablet.

Plus special member-only interviews.

I love business. I love photography but there comes a point where we got to focus on what the next thing is. – Michael Anthony

You'll also receive access to the members-only Secret Facebook Group where you can connect with other Premium Members and interview guests to help, support and motivate you to take ideas you hear in each episode and put them into action. There are also FB live video tutorials, role-play interviews and special live interviews happening in the group. You will not find more friendly, more motivated, caring and sharing photographers online.

Seriously, that's not all.

In addition to everything above, you'll get access and instructions on forming or joining a MasterMind Group with other premium members. These groups are super motivating, make you accountable and build friendships with other pro photographers with similar motives to you – to build a more successful photography business.

Following this interview, I’d love to know if you're taking anything away from what Michael shared. Is there something you heard that excited or motivated you to the point where you thought, yeah, I'm going to do that! If so, let me know by leaving your thoughts in the comments below, let me know what your takeaways were, what you plan to implement in your business as a result of what you heard in today's episode.

You can't really rely on any single lead source. You have to have good, diverse source of leads and if you do that, if one of them dries up, you can put more effort into the other ones. – Michael Anthony

If you have any questions that I missed, a specific question you’d like to ask Michael or if you just want to say thanks for coming on the show, feel free to add them in the comments area below.

Each week I check for any new iTunes or Google reviews and it's always a buzz to receive these… for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it's confirmation that I'm on the right track with the interviews and that they really are helping you improve your photography business. That's awesome!

Secondly, iTunes and Google are the biggest search engine when it comes to podcasts and it's your reviews and ratings that help other photographers find PhotoBizX. More listeners mean more interviews and ultimately a better show.

If you have left a review in the past, thank you! If you haven't and you'd like to, head to https://photobizx.com/itunes or https://photobizx.com/google and you can leave some honest feedback and a rating which will help both me and the show and I'll be sure to thank you on the show and add a link to your website or blog if you let me know the URL of your website and your name.

I like Facebook Ads for awareness campaigns that help bring eyes on your business. – Michael Anthony

Alternatively, if you've left a review for PhotoBizX and are looking for more backlinks to help your SEO, leave a review for the new Photography Xperiment Podcast and email me your keywords or keyword phrase and where you'd like me to link to.

Another great way to get a backlink to your site is to send a video testimonial. It doesn't need to be fancy and your phone will be perfect. Click record and tell me how PhotoBizX has made a difference to you and your photography business.​

Here are the latest reviews…

Via Google Reviews by Ballymoney Wedding & Family Photographer, Eddy Calvin in the UK on December 26th, 2021.

Photo Biz X has been my go-to photography podcast for the last few years.

Andrews style of interview is amazing and what you learn from his guests on a weekly basis inspires me to push on with my business.

Via Google Reviews by Brisbane pet photographer, Navin Chandra in Australia on December 23rd, 2021.

I chanced upon PhotobizX back in 2016 when I was just starting to get serious about my photography. After listening to a number of interviews, I knew I had to switch to the premium membership and I've not looked back since. PhotobizX is way more than just an amazing podcast service. It is needless to say that the interviews are phenomenal thanks to the myriad of guests that are interviewed. Not only does Andrew interview photographers from all genres, he makes it a point to interview guests who are at different stages of their photography journey as well. Add to that the numerous guests who are experts in SEO, website design, e-mail marketing, business coaching, software design and many more!

Andrew has this uncanny ability to sense his listeners during his interviews. I can't remember the number of times I had a question in my mind to ask and the very next minute, Andrew asks the exact question. But it doesn't stop there! Andrew always asks difficult, uncomfortable questions that even us listeners may not think to ask.

Interviews aside, I did mention that PhotobizX is way more than the interviews. The PhotobizX community is an amazing place to ask, learn and grow. Andrew makes it a point to respond to almost every query posted there and the hundreds of members also share their knowledge regularly. He must also have some pretty remarkable way of organising his show notes as you can ask a question about a specific topic and Andrew is very quick to respond to the interview episodes that covered those topics.

Lastly, the numerous discounted short courses that are on offer just adds the icing to the cake that is PhotobizX. From the Facebook ads course to the Daily Vlog challenge, there is really no way you can be a member of PhotobizX and not feel supported or out of depth.

Pursuing my photography business has been personally challenging for various reasons and over the last 6 years, I have ignored photography on many occasions, confused by my direction and abilities. However, no matter how long I stay away from it, all it always takes is to listen to one interview by Andrew, no matter what it is, and I feel home again amongst fellow photographers and ready to take the next step forward.

Michael Anthony Website

Michael Anthony on Facebook

Michael Anthony on Instagram

Elevate Your Photography

Elevate Your Photography Facebook Group

Elevate Your Photography on YouTube

The Ambitious Photographer's Journal by Jeff Brown

Thanks again for listening and thanks to Michael for coming on to share his thoughts, ideas and experience on creating a super successful wedding photography business by focussing on the numbers and tweaking a marketing approach to continually attract new clients to his business.

Data is one of the most important things you could have in your business because it helps you to make decisions and keep tweaking and keep refining until things get better and better. – Michael Anthony

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!

That’s it for me this week, hope everything is going well for you in life and business!

Thanks and speak soon
Andrew

The post 446: Michael Anthony – How to build a seriously successful wedding photography business appeared first on Photography Business Xposed - Photography Podcast - how to build and market your portrait and wedding photography business.