Melissa Henry is a personal brand photographer who works with business owners and helps solve the problem of obscurity.  She does that by helping them narrow their focus and then by capturing unique, creative images that help them be more visible.

She works with entrepreneurs, speakers and authors who have a message that they want to get out there.

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Melissa has seen all of her photography shoots be canceled as no one is interacting with others in person.  But what she has noticed is that people still want to show up online, but they need help with their strategy work and want coaching on how to take photos of themselves at home.

Melissa has started coaching people via a video call on how to take photos of themselves, but most importantly is focusing on strategy calls and helping people find clarity on who they serve and how they help people so that their images can actually reflect that message to others.

Often times businesses have multiple ways that they can help people, but they ultimately need to be able to communicate the one problem that they solve.

We also dive into personal branding and how having a strong personal brand will help you even if you work at a much larger company.  It will be easier for you to get a promotion or will also make it easier for you to get another job at a different company if people know who you are and how you can help them.

Get a Hold of Melissa

https://www.melissademple.com

Instagram: @melissademplephotography

Facebook

Referenced Links

https://www.brandinitiativegroup.com/bigwebinar1

“The new norm is that we are in an unprecedented time and we need to create a communications plan that responds to the crisis that we are in. We are all having to go into crisis communications mode.

Hit pause on your brand comms and start thinking of a new communication strategy that will take us through the near term.”

With the coronavirus outbreak all of us are having to think through how we communicate internally and externally and Kathleen one of the co-founders from Mighty Ally brings us some great tips on how to do that.

First we need to make sure that we are communicating clearly and frequently.  You almost have to over communicate internally so that we are all on the same page.  Get your team aligned or else you won’t be able to respond to anything.

After that go externally and get as close as you can to your customers or clients.  Do empathy mapping.  Figure out what they need and how you can help.

With regards to your communications no one expects polish with regards to production values, but your message should be thought through an on point.

During this time we need to be telling stories to help reassure people by creating a sense of connection and motivation. 

Times of constraint and challenge can actually motivate people to come up with creative innovations and solutions.  During this time we need to make the most of what we have.

Referenced Links

www.mightyally.org

Mary Dougherty is a wedding photographer who only does 15 weddings a year.  But like all of us she started doing anything that people would pay her to do.

Overtime she built a base by blogging consistently and posting regularly on social media.

However once she had her first kid she no longer could keep up with everything she was doing and it forced her to focus on what was essential to keeping her business going and that was really making sure that she took care of her clients.

During that season she focused on doing less, raised her prices and valued her work.

Besides doing weddings she also coaches other photographers and hosts a camp in the Adirondacks where photographers can get together and shoot real couples learn from each other and build their portfolio.

Her biggest tips for people during the Coronavirus Stay Home are:

Get a hold of Mary:

https://marydougherty.com/

Instagram @mary.dougherty

Right now everyone is staying at home, but that doesn't mean the work has to stop.  In fact now is a great time for establishing a video strategy for yourself or your company.  Shoots are being canceled and no one is meeting in person.  With no one bugging you at the office, you can turn your phone off and create a video strategy for yourself right now.

Here are the 5 steps I take you through in this episode.

1 Audience: You need to know who you are targeting and I need to understand who your

audience is so that I can help you reach them.

2 Goals: This is what you actually want to accomplish. Are you driving sales, building trust,

connecting with people?

3 Content Plan: What are you actually producing in terms of videos? We will develop a plan

to guide your work. When you are very busy, it's hard to daily come up with a new plan for

everything you need to do.

4 Distribution: Where are you going to be posting these videos? Once you post them you need

to make sure they have been optimized for your viewers. Then we can track the metrics and

adapt as needed.

5 Production Rhythms: Once you have a plan, you will need to develop a plan for consistently

producing your own video content. It will be my job to make sure you are on track, give you

help along the way with production and continually tweak your video strategy.

Referenced Links:

Ben Amos at Engage Video Marketing

Content Bucket Strategy by Graham Cochrane

10 Video Maxims that will Save the World

The Coronavirus is here and the social distancing has begun.  During this time where large groups are limited and travel is being restricted, the power of video is only more important for connecting people and keeping trust strong.

Also not to mention that doing more video conferences reduces greenhouse gas emissions and helps mitigate climate change.

During this season here are 10 video maxims to guide your video strategy.

Referenced Links

The source for the 50% rule being your title and screen shot was pulled from this podcast with Ben Amos and Erika Vieira.

Season 2 kicks off with an interview from Ryan Koral who runs both Tell Studios and Studio Sherpas.  On one hand he manages a business that produces documentary-style videos for companies and on the other he tells other video business owners what's working and how to do better.

He is never worried about training his competition, because there is enough work to go around.  

In this episode he shares how he co-founded a coaching business while managing his own.  When it comes to promoting his business he brought up the Content Bucket Strategy, thanks Graham Cochrane, as a plan for creating yearly content for yourself.

If you are thinking about becoming a business leader who is also a through leader, this episode is for you.

Get a hold of Ryan

Instagram @ryankoral

www.studiosherpas.com

www.tellstudios.com

Referenced Links

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

www.tellstudios.com/course

How To Map Out A Year's Worth Of Content In One Day by Graham Cochrane

How often do you share your work with your audience and show them your metaphorical scrapes and bruises along the way.  Often we think that we need to portray that everything is awesome with our lives and our work in order for people to want to work with us.

But what is perhaps more powerful is showing that we have the ability to grow, adapt and improve.  No one wants to showcase bad work, but when we have the ability to show our mistakes, and explain how we are learning, growing and overcoming them, our audience is much more likely to connect with us.

The two pillars of connecting with our audience are authority and empathy.  The natural tendency is to push the authority piece, but isn’t not easy to show empathy.  When we share in our struggled, people can see that we are human and it helps us connect with us at a deeper level.  This leads to trust and leads to people wanting to work with us.

This is the second interview with a Gen Z creative.  Tim is a graphic design who is still in college.  In this episode we dive into Tim’s strategy for Instagram and other platforms.

It was interesting to see how he mirrored Tess’s thoughts about Facebook, that it’s used a lot for personal work, but not nearly as much for Instagram.

And Tim also expected advertizements on social media to be rather personalized.  And he didn’t seem to mind when they tried to sell him something that he actually needed.  In fact he found it rather helpful!

Get a hold of Tim:

Instagram @four_nation_design

Tess was excited about her high school track season when the unexpected happen, she suffered an injury that put her out.  So what did she do?  She decided to start a photography business by posting one photo a day for a year.

Guess what? It worked!  She took photos for people for free and then asked them to invite all of their friends to like her Facebook page.

In this two part series Wesley sits down for an interview with a Gen Z photography creator to hear directly from her about what it was like to grow a business through social media.

Throughout the interview they dive into how social media is impacting Gen Z both the negative and positive and dive into Tess’ strategy for creating a wedding and lifestyle business.

Some tips from Tess

Make sure you personally show up in at least every 9th photo in your photo feed.

Make sure you tell personal stories in each photo description. When people feel a connection to you they are more likely to buy from you.

Do lots of behind the scenes content so that people feel like they know you a bit more.

Use a client management for photography to transition people off of instagram to email. Tess recommends www.honeybook.com.

Transition potential clients from email to a phone call or even better a video call.

Tips for working with Gen Z

You need to be personalized with your content.  Gen Z know that their data is out there and expects everything to be tailored to them.

Find creative ways of collecting information, but then respond back with a highly personalized answer.

As students are graduating from high school they aren't really in their email that much.  However as they want to get jobs, they are realizing that email is the way to go for personalized and professional interactions.  It all depends on what stage they are are as to whether they will be spending much time in their email.

Get a hold of Tess

Instagram

Website

Facebook

Everything seems to be going subscription these days.  Whether it’s the movies we watch, the groceries we buy, the cell phones we use, the software we use, everything has an subscription model these days.

It provides the producer a more reliable stream of income and in turn allows them to offer the consumer a discounted rate due to reliability.

In this episode Wesley talks with Mitch Beattie about he is leveraging the Subscription Model for his production business.

We also discuss the importance of just getting content out there, yet also taking time beforehand to think through who is your audience and what do you actually want to accomplish.

Overall both of us seemed to notice that there is an ongoing trend towards being more authentic and targeted, while not necessarily pushing the production values as high, as this can lead to people immediately writing your stuff off as an ad.  This seems to be especially true on Tik Tok.

Get at a Hold of Mitch

https://www.beattiefilm.com

Instagram

Facebook

YouTube

Every organization has people in it that wouldn't be considered "creatives" in the traditional sense.  They are great at doing their job, but aren't necessarily used to expressing their work in a "creative" medium.  Helping those people produce something amazing takes excellent communication skills and the ability to sell a goal and a vision.

Whether it's archeology or international affairs, Nick has always found ways of producing creative content wherever he is at.

In this episode we hear how Nick goes about building trust within the teams he creates and the importance of making sure you bring the right people to the table from the start.

Referenced Links:

www.coralandoak.com