The hardest part about doing a senior rep program or team. I remember looking back to my very first year of doing a senior rep program, it seems like it was impossible to start. I barely had done senior photography, but I knew that I wanted to do senior photography. I didn’t have a huge referral base and so it was hard to form a senior rep team organically.

Many of you I’m sure are in a similar position.

How do I get people to apply to my team?

Where do I find people to be part of my senior rep program?

What do I do to get people to actually commit to the team?

I was there! And that’s why I want to help you avoid all that!

Getting Started with Finding Your Reps

This is the biggest hurdle people face. When you don’t have a large client base, what do you do to find your senior rep team? There are a couple steps that I took: Asking past clients or people that you know for references and engaging with your current followers. I built my senior rep program simply based off these two things. When I got a new lead from a past client recommendation, I would message them directly with the link to the application, a little bit of information about the team and contact information so their parents could get a hold of me, too; I would also have the person who recommended them message or text them to follow-up. After they had applied, I would ask them for recommendations for friends that they believed would be a good fit for the team. The key to this is making sure that you follow up with people you feel are a good fit for your team.

The Application

The application is the biggest part of my team. This is really where I find people who want to be a part of the team. When starting out, you want to make sure that your application isn’t too lengthy, but that it’s still long enough that you can tell if the person is genuinely wanting to be part of a team and what your team stands for. However, you also don’t want to make it too short to where everyone can apply simply by putting their name. This doesn’t allow you to get to know the senior and inhibits you from being able to know if they’re going to be a good fit.

Getting Them to Commit to the Team

This is arguably the hardest part. You have gone through the application round, narrowed it down to the people who made the cut, now it’s time to have people sign to your team. But how do you get them to commit? The biggest part in getting your team to commit is to make sure that you commit to them. For my senior team, I try to do more for them than they do for me. I don’t require referrals, I don’t require that they post a certain amount on social media or even attend a certain number of shoots. I try to do as much as I can to make it about them since it really is about them! I want to make sure that it’s an amazing experience for them and by doing so it becomes something that they want to be a part of.

Senior reps are a tricky topic, but it’s one of those things I couldn’t imagine not having as part of my business. I love forming relationships with them and their parents throughout the year.

What do you struggle with or feel like you’re doing well with your senior rep program? Leave a comment below and let me know!