One of my favorite ways to get money into our budget is to do Lifetouch Preschool Portraits. You’ve all seen the school pictures you usually get when your kids go to elementary school, right? Maybe you even have some of you growing up. Usually they’re a boring background with a forced smile. Not Lifetouch… these school pictures are to die for!
School photos don’t have to start in elementary school, and your preschool parents will be so excited to get adorable photos of their children that they’ll be ordering these photos left and right!
With Lifetouch, your preschool parents get adorable photos of their preschooler (and even any other siblings they have), you get free head shots for you and your staff, 50% off all staff portrait packages for their children (and yours), and a commission check for 15-20% of the sales. (I usually get $300-$400 each school year in my commission check for 150 preschoolers.)
There’s no cost to you to get your preschoolers photographed with Lifetouch, and there’s no minimum number of students you need. If you have small classes, they’ll probably try to squeeze them all into one afternoon or morning, and that’s perfectly fine.
I have 150 preschool families, and each year, we rip through 100 portrait packages in one mad day. (I don’t recommend that, though… I recommend you take one day per 50 students unless you want to be drop dead tired at the end of it, haha.)
To sign up, just go to Lifetouch Preschool Portraits, then call the phone number for your area and request to get scheduled for the “Family Approval” package. I prefer this one the most because it’s the easiest for parents and for you.
Basically, your photographer will show up on a given day, you’ll have every preschooler (and their siblings if desired) photographed, and Lifetouch will send you the portrait packages in the mail. Parents will review the packages, keep and pay for what they like, and send back to you what they don’t want.
Finally, you’ll send back all payments and unwanted pictures to Lifetouch with a pre-paid mailing label. There’s no cost to you, and you get a 15-20% commission of all the sales simply for organizing the photo shoot and helping the preschoolers get their photos taken.
They’ll get you scheduled for a time that works for you and their local Lifetouch photographer. (Personally, I have the best photographer – his name is Ryan and he works in the Western states. Maybe you’ll even get him, too!) You’ll want to call in the spring to schedule for the fall, but if you’re late calling, no worries, just call and see what you can squeeze into.
TIP: I used to do two photo sessions: fall and spring. However, once I started doing “End of the Year Goodies” (another Advanced Profit Strategy) I stopped doing the spring portrait session because I needed all my preschool parent’s “extra” money to go to the goodies (which also included cap ‘n gown photos + class photos).
As such, I don’t recommend having Lifetouch do your class photos (otherwise you just shoot yourself in the foot by asking them to buy your class photo later…) I always tell my parents (if they ask) that the class photo will be taken at the end of the year because, that way, it will have any new students who joined our class mid year.
If you’re doing preschool in your home and are the teacher, you’ll want to cancel school for the day you’re doing Lifetouch. (Just call it School Picture Day.) If you have teachers doing class -AND- you have a separate location for the portraits, you can keep school in session and just assign the classes to come at certain times.
In my subdivision, we had a clubhouse I could reserve for free and I did the pictures there. I’ve also done them in my home, though it was a little more nerve wracking for me because I had to ensure my house was super clean and all my furniture was moved out of the way in my living room.
(They require a room at least 10’x15’ for all their lights and equipment. Once your picture day is scheduled, be sure it’s on your yearly calendar for parents to plan for. As it gets closer, hand out the letter announcing the picture day. (Always send out a reminder text to clarify any change in schedule.)
TIP: You can tell parents to bring all of their children in for school pictures. That way, you have a chance to get more portraits sold than just the one child’s pictures.
Our parents love that Lifetouch photographers always get authentic smiles from their children (they win awards if they get the best photos, so it incentivizes the photographers to do their best.) Also, your photographer will do sibling group shots together, adding more opportunities for great photos for your parents to buy.
When picture day has arrived, if you’re just photographing every student (without their parents there) because you’re still holding preschool classes, that’s fine, but do let the parents know they can bring in their siblings during a certain time. If you have set times for each class to show up, recognize that some people just won’t come because they don’t want to buy pictures, and that’s okay, too.
You’re offering an opportunity for the families that DO want pictures. In that case, where you have multiple families showing up, plan a place for them to hang out while the photographer does his job. The parents should hand off their child to you, and you should have about 3-4 children always sitting in a “queue,” watching the photographer take pictures of the children ahead of them.
This will help them calm their nerves and know what to expect. It’s best if parents stay in a different room, instead of trying to get the child to listen to them (instead of the photographer.) The only change to this, of course, is families with little babies and toddlers; in that case, it’s perfectly fine to have the mom or dad help get the little ones settled for the photographer.
Then, when the photographer is finished, simply take the child back to his/her family and continue on with the next child. Make sure you respect every one’s time and put everyone in a line according to when they arrived, not according to how fast they need to leave. When you have siblings, realize it will take extra time to get through that family.
Parents might have questions, so it usually takes about three weeks to get the pictures back after they are taken. And yes, they can review the pictures at their leisure before buying. Also, pictures can be purchased with a check, a money order, or online with a card.
Once the portraits are shipped to you in a big heavy box, use your class rosters to sort the packages into classes. Any siblings or group sibling pictures should be grouped together with the enrolled student, so you can put those packages in the same class with the enrolled student.
Print out one “Payment” flyer and put inside each student’s package, then hand out the portrait packages the next day. To collect payments, you should aim to get all payments within a week. Text any parents who haven’t paid (or returned their pictures) the Sunday before payments are due:
“Hi! Just a quick reminder to bring your Lifetouch picture(s) and/or payment with you when you drop off Monday/Tuesday this week. (Due Tuesday.) You can pay online at www.mylifetouch.com or with a check to Lifetouch. Look inside your package for a FAQ sheet from me with more info. Hope you loved them!”
Once you have all unpaid portraits and payments returned, you should double check all the payments and number of sheets in each package. Then, fill out the Portrait Sales Report that came in the portrait box from Lifetouch as follows
• Staff: write “STAFF – FREE”
• Staff Child: write “STAFF CHILD – 50% OFF”
• Fill out Y/N for Payment Received and Portrait Returned
For anyone who has multiple packages, only one payment is needed and only 1 picture package needed. For instance, if you had a preschooler named Rebecca who also did a sibling portrait package, you could write + Rebecca.
Siblings on picture package AND on the payment envelope AND in each area for that family on the Portrait Sales Report.
Then, place payment envelopes inside any returned picture packages and
put all together inside master envelope to return:
• Place full payment envelopes in separate pile with rubber band
• Place partial payment envelopes in separate pile with rubber band
• Place all agreement slips in separate pile with rubber band
Finally, ship everything back in the same box they came in with their prepaid shipping label. About a month later, they’ll mail you a commission check you can use for anything you want. I always like to reinvest it in the preschool so I can tell the preschool parents that them buying Lifetouch Preschool Portraits directly helps our school.
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