The Life Boss Podcast Archives | Personal Brand Photography for Creatives in Houston, Texas - Christine Tremoulet

Kevin Lowery is an intimate portrait (boudoir), lifestyle, and wedding photographer based in the Metro Atlanta area. Kevin’s work is known for its human connection and vulnerability, and he strives to make photos with every client that push boundaries and dare to go deeper than skin-deep. Kevin lives in Marietta, GA with his husband and their 2-year-old son.

Kevin shares about his personal life, growing up gay, and his own struggles with the concept of masculinity. He started his inspiring Skin Like Dawn project to unpack how all men struggle with masculinity, and to see what men look like when they shed the baggage around it. How men put on the “manly” layer every day, the one that makes them be non-feeling and strong. The hoops that men jump through to make themselves seem manly. They shed the layers and dive deep during the sessions.

He wants to celebrate men in their most vulnerable state and make them truly feel proud of that person. Every man deserves to feel that way.

We go deeper into the conversation about men & vulnerability. We don’t give men spaces to be emotional and vulnerable, and this starts early in childhood. We don’t allow men to process their feelings, we don’t give them a space to process their feelings. We tell them to “man up.”

Kevin shares his perspective as the parent of a son, and how he even has to work to give his toddler son the space to cope with his feelings.

Until we allow men to have these feelings, and to feel valid in their vulnerability, women will continue in their struggles. Because they don’t know what to do with their emotions, it comes out in effecting feminism on the other side.

The issue of vulnerability and masculinity and feminism are more nuanced than two separate, divided issues.

Men, in their struggle to be manly, leave so many casualties behind them. Men end up hurting so many people along the way, and it is born from this internal struggle of living up to an ideal of what society tells them they have to be. It is a conversation we need to have collectively as a society because it hurts everybody.

Kevin & I also talk about raising sensitive boys. If you feel like you can’t change the whole world? This is something that you can do.

Kevin shares:

– Allowing your son to have the space to learn to own his emotions, that is ok to feel the way that they do. It helps to teach them empathy. To own their own emotions and vulnerability.

– If you’re a man, you have to allow yourself more grace than you do. Give yourself some slack and think about the ways that people around you influence the way you think that you should act.

– This comes to physical appearance as well. Love yourself more. Retrain yourself to actually look at yourself in the mirror, and say three kind things to yourself. Try to remember that other people do not see the things that you don’t like about yourself.

– If you want to help others love & appreciate themselves more, you need to learn to love your own body.

– Cut men some slack to have a space to have emotions, and allow their emotions to be valid. Allow them to feel safe, to have struggles, and to not require “maleness” to figure it out.

– HOLD THE SPACE for men to be vulnerable.

This is all a constant work in progress. We are socialized to be this way.

Sometimes men feel upset, and sometimes men don’t feel masculine, and sometimes men feel less than. You need to recognize when this happens and let them know that they are enough right now.

We need to recognize beauty in ALL BODIES. Women and men. The weight of this problem is big. It is everywhere. We need a bigger collective awareness. Validate all folks, no matter what their gender is, and give them the space without an agenda.

Paul Pruitt has personally taught tens of thousands of sales people around the world over the past 24 years about marketing, sales, branding, and more. He was a national trainer and speaker and traveled throughout the United States training salespeople in workshops, seminars, and from the stage.

During these years as a Real Estate agency owner, photography was Paul’s hobby. His escape from his busy life. He took classes and even kept a small studio as a place to go and unwind.

Meanwhile, he was an absentee owner, and he took his eye off of his business. The people he believed he could trust the most destroyed the business that he had built, and he woke up one day completely destitute.

It isn’t an easy story to hear. It is something that we all fear. Yet Paul could not be stopped. Living out of his car, he started to rebuild his life again. He knew what it took. He knew how to sell, market, and brand.

And he still had his camera gear.

With that, he rebuilt his life AND his business.

Paul shares his wisdom and lessons he has learned along the way in this episode. One of my favorite quotes was this:

“Every small business market is oversaturated. Stop blaming them. You succeed only by differentiating from the competitors.”

Paul and his wife Melissa now run a successful photography company, focusing on headshots and branding, as well as mentoring photographers on both improving their photography skills and getting more results in sales in their membership Photographer Entrepreneurs Association.

Key Points

You need a niche, but not too early. What if you try a niche and you discover you don’t like it? It is like visiting the buffet at a restaurant: the first time you go through, you explore and try a little bit of everything. When you go back? Hone in on what you really like. Don’t focus on it right out of the gate.

We discussed the importance of networking in person, and how important that can be. There is a human being attached to a social account. Most of us are dealing in local markets, and that person could interact in real life with us! Find the influencers and create a purposeful alignment.

He shared a number of tips about using press releases and looking for the business leaders winning awards and how to use that for the benefit of your business. We also discussed non-profits and working with benefactors and donors.

Make your exposure investment is purposeful and deliberate.

Is your marketing plan to just hope & pray? That is reactive, and you cannot control resources that people have. Go to where people have the capabilities at the level that you want.

You don’t have to be your avatar to understand them.

You do need to constantly be doing market assessments – if you’re slow, are you Old Coke on the shelf? Even if you don’t jump on the trend, it’s important to be aware.

When it comes to Marketing, Branding, and In Person Sales – look at adjacent industries. These things aren’t unique to photographers, and staying within the industry causes it to become an echo chamber of the same ideas over & over again, rather than refreshed by new ideas that apply across all sales!

Additional Links:

In Person Sales & Marketing for Professional Photographers Facebook Group

Brandographers Business Page

Photographer Entrepreneur Association Business Page

PROFITographers – Creating a Successful Photography Business on Amazon in both Paperback �...

Kait Masters of Larkspur + Laurel is a part-time artist, full-time community support professional, and a chronic illness/disability advocate. She was diagnosed with a rare neuromuscular disease as a child, and the act of creating became one of the most important parts of management and acceptance of her condition. Her passion for art, advocacy, and community eventually led Kait to her job in community support with Rising Tide and HoneyBook.

Kait & I discuss the impact of having a chronic illness on our work and share tips on how we have learned to incorporate it into our lives. This isn’t always easy – it can take adaptation to make it work, understanding employers if you have a job, and evaluation to define what success now looks like for you.

It is so important that employers have systems in place to help not only employees with chronic illness but their family members as well.

Even if you don’t have a chronic illness, I hope that listening to this episode will help you better understand people who do, and help you have empathy for friends & loved ones who might be facing this situation someday.

Details on how to join The Rising Tide Society are here: Honeybook.com/join-risingtide. You can also join the TuesdaysTogether – Creative & Chronic Illness group on Facebook.

If you’re like me, and most other creatives, you just want to bury your head in the sand and not have to deal with the numbers when it comes to business. Don’t worry, Courtney Zerizef has you covered! Her incredible Homeroom helps you become financially wiser when it comes to pricing, profitability, and preparing for your taxes.

“If your business isn’t making money, you just have an expensive hobby.” I’ve been through an audit personally, and the biggest thing that the IRS was concerned about was that my business was profitable. You can’t run your business in the negative for years according to the IRS.

Courtney points out that if you don’t understand your finances, you might actually be PAYING to do all of the work that you do! You may not be making money at all! What is the point of doing all that hard work if you’re not making any money?

Are you paying for the privilege of calling yourself a professional photographer?

Courtney shares with us three main money points that you need to consider.

Are You Defining Profit Correctly?

You have to make sure you’re defining PROFIT correctly, and understand what it means.

– Revenue – When someone pays you, this is the money that shows up in your bank account.

– Margin – Revenue less the cost of doing the work, the expenses that are involved. Outsourcing, gear rental, paying an assistant, all are deducted here. (There are two types of margins, which Courtney explains more in-depth in the show.)

– Profit – After EVERYTHING is paid out, all is said and done, your profit is what is left, and what you pay taxes on. You may not want to have six figures of profit at the end of the year!

The number that people toss around a lot in the industry is the Revenue number, NOT the profit number. When someone is talking about their numbers, it is essential to know which number they mean! I’ve brought in over 6-figures in Revenue every year in my photography business, but that is not all going straight into my checking account.

Should you just copy someone else’s prices?

If you lift up someone else’s prices, you have no idea about anything behind the numbers. You don’t know how much their costs are, how much they are paying themselves, or how they even like to live.

You must run your numbers for yourself so that you make sure you are profitable.

You can’t just guess at the numbers. If you copy someone else? You don’t know if they are guessing, if they can cover their costs, or anything else. They may be making different choices in their business than you would make in yours.

You have to do your math!

Courtney & I discuss outsourcing your work, and from a higher level – finding the joy in YOUR life matters! If you measure yourself by the stick of someone else who is bringing in $100,000 a year, but they are constantly working at a level that you don’t want to live? It’s not an accurate measure.

Make sure that the work you’re doing allows you to love your LIFE.

Tips to consider to help your business grow

– Know your expenses! Make a list of all of your expenses, and organize them by the costs for the full year, and your costs per job. That way you know your margins, and you can strategize for the full year.

– Courtney is a huge fan of renting lenses. Did you know that you can rent a lens for 67 times before you buy a lens! Who knew?! If you’re first starting out, you may want to rent while you find what works for you, because reselling a lens won’t get you the value back.

– Should you buy gear, or buy other things that your business needs?

– Know your market, and your specific target market! That informs a lot of other things, including your pricing.

My guest this episode is Abbey Khyl, founder and chief strategist for Seven Summers Creative and photographer and lead for AK Studio & Design.

Abbey’s core mission with Seven Summers is to help people be BETTER – better business owners, better parents, better spouses. In a very intertwined way, this all comes down to managing time deliberately – and that means avoiding digital distractions.

Abbey shares tips throughout the episode on things she has done with her family and her business to spend time more wisely. For example – investing in creating systems and processes to manage your business workflow, which can in fact include automated reminder emails to yourself for the next tasks in the sequence. At home, Abbey talks about setting clear boundaries for all family members, such as no phones during family movie night or not checking Facebook when out with friends at lunch.

It’s important to realize that this is about making new habits, and that creating habits requires support. Your spouse, your business partner, your employees, your kids – whatever your network, hold yourselves accountable and challenge each other to keep to the goal.

Finally, realize that this does not happen overnight. This is a sustained effort. Instead, think about being just ten percent better at something today, and tomorrow or next week strive to be another ten percent better. Chipping away like this can help make the change manageable but also help it to stick.

Apps mentioned in the show:

RescueTime – https://www.rescuetime.com/

Moment – https://inthemoment.io/

Circle – https://meetcircle.com/

Key Points

“We cannot survive by avoiding technology…. If you want to have a business, if you want to have a job, if you want to just even be able to function in your day to day life, you have to be able to use technology wisely.”

“What was the most poignant thing you saw on social media yesterday? And usually they’re like ‘I don’t… I don’t… I don’t know, I can’t remember’.”

“It’s called social media and yet it’s one of the most unsocial things we can do.”

Tim Riddick is a wedding photographer and taco enthusiast (taconnoisseur?) from Washington, D.C. who believes in the power of positivity and personal connections in driving business.

Tim’s sense of authenticity and complete self is a key part of how he presents his business online. Instead of separating personal and professional websites, he has combined these under one roof at timriddick.com. Past clients have found him and connected with him not just for his portfolio or successful days, but for the day-to-day struggles on being a father and personal ideas he writes about on his website.

(He says he was inspired by me to bring the personal posts there thanks to the fact that I keep pointing out that we all need to stop giving Facebook all of our good content! YES!!!)

Tim’s other key point is to embrace the suck. Instead of worrying about rejection and refusing to even try, just accept that not everyone will like you or that you will not be successful immediately and keep at it. Success takes time – you can’t eat the elephant all at once – and Tim’s success comes from his positive attitude and on building real connections with people (as opposed to follower count or likes).

As a passion project, Tim also runs The Fifty, a photographic look at the state of interracial couples on the fiftieth anniversary of Loving vs. Supreme Court, the landmark case which legalized interracial marriage.

Key quotes from this episode:

It’s better to be a good person than to be right.

Content beats the algorithm. There’s not one right way to drive traffic; create authentic content and people will connect with it.

I love embracing the suck because it teaches me things I wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

Jamie Larson, founder of The Snap Society, joins me today to discuss the things you must do in your business before you raise your rates.

Jamie lives in Denver, Colorado with her family, but started her photography business about 10 years ago while they were living in San Antonio, Texas. As her business grew and she saw more success, others started asking her for tips on how she did things, and she discovered that while she loves photography? She is really passionate about the business side of things!

From this, The Snap Society, a blog & community for photographers has grown.

Many of us don’t want to be salespeople, we don’t want to push people in to things, we are all about our art, but then there is the other side where we have to make a living!

You can do 5 session a week and be spread thin, or do one session a week, charge more, and have a life again. However, you can’t just charge more! You can’t charge Nordstrom prices and give a Walmart experience to your clients. This doesn’t have to be complicated though!

(Look out for giving the Nordstrom experience and charging Walmart prices – and not being profitable too!)

As you raise your rates, consider your website, the front door of your business. Does it set the right precedence for your business? Beautiful photographs? Intriguing copy? Can people truly connect with you? (Need help with this? Be sure to get on my newsletter for details on the Business Brilliantly course!)

You have to stand out on more than just great photos! How can you get more referrals? Are there opportunities to get out in your community, to set up partnerships with other businesses? Is teaching an option for you? How can you get in front of others as an established authority? Build up the Know, Like & Trust with your future clients.

Branding is another factor that impacts what you can charge. Branding is not just about your logo! It is about how others feel about you, what your clients connect with in your messaging, and knowing what you want to portray out to the world.

Jamie is offering The Profit Challenge, starting on April 9th, 2018! Be sure to sign up so that you can get the workbook, access to the videos, and more!

Key Takeaways

– No one is giving you a raise! You have to give yourself a raise when you are worth more.

– You’re being selfish if you’re not charging enough. You’re undercutting the industry and hurting others.

– It is essential to figure out your costs of doing business! We discuss a number of items you might want to make sure you are including in your CODB.

– Are you making minimum wage? Or even less?

– Don’t copy someone else’s prices. You have no way of knowing their costs or if they are successful.

– Knowing YOUR numbers and what you need to make also gives you conviction & confidence in what you are charging!

– The confused mind never buys.

Books & Websites Mentioned

– Book mention: Blue Ocean Strategy

– The Profit Challenge – Starts April 9, 2018

– The Snap Society site

– The Snap Society Page on Facebook

– The Snap Society Community on Facebook

– The Profitography Course

Cassandra Zetta is a wedding photographer based in Cincinnati that believes it is every human being’s right to love and be loved, and that all love needs to be celebrated. In this episode, Cassandra shares insights, perspectives and tips on better engaging with and serving the LGBTQ+ community.

The fundamental idea driving this is that all love deserves to be celebrated, and that the couple will decide what their love looks like. Educate yourself on the community and the dynamics of gender roles.

As a photographer, sometimes conventional notions can make posing and photographing the couple tricky. Cassandra’s best tip is to give open-ended instructions and let the couple portray themselves authentically, as they see fit – this captures the heart and emotion.

Having and using inclusive language throughout your online presence, client materials and your in-person sessions is a fundamental shift. Cassandra points out a myriad of places where gender roles may be implied and where that can be exclusive, such as replacing “bride” and “groom” with “Partner 1/2” or “Lovebird 1/2” or using “Wedding Party” instead of “Bridal Party” – and watching for that in your contracts, contact forms, questionnaires, and more.

LINK TO WEBSITE:

Cassandra Zetta Photography

QUOTABLES

On giving equal weighting to both partners: “Change the tide. It’s not just the bride’s day.”

On gender bias in the wedding industry: “We focus so much on brides, the groom almost becomes a photo prop!”

On building a portfolio: “Couples want to see themselves in your work.”

Lucy Baber is a family photographer and self-described “art activist” in Philadelphia. In this episode, I talk with Lucy about what that social activism means to her, the risks and bravery of taking a stand in your brand and your work, and the joy and fulfillment that comes with bringing your full self to connect with your clients.

Lucy’s “100 Black Dads” project aims to showcase and highlight positive fatherhood role models among the black families in and around her community. To combat the image and stereotype of absentee fathers, Lucy used her voice and her camera to document the reality she saw in her own community – active, involved fathers – and give that a voice and a platform in the world.

In this case, Lucy’s activism is her passion. Taking a stand and making that part of your brand and message is a polarizing move, one that can alienate some while attracting others to you and your business. While there was a quiet period for Lucy before business picked back up, that perseverance has been worth it in the immensely rewarding experience of having clients want to work with YOU because of who you are completely, not just through the lens of your work and products.

Photo credit: Annmarie Kopey of Blossom-n-Bloom Photography

Key points

* People don’t know how to choose in a “murky” market; your passion gives them a reason to choose you.* On finding your strengths and infusing those into your business: “It pays off in more ways than paying the bills.”* Find ways to express your voice and what you stand for; find ways to use them beyond making money. “You’ve got to feed your belly and your soul”

Links:

Lucy Baber Photography100 Black DadsFollow Lucy Baber Photography on Facebook@lucybaber on Instagram100 Black Dads Project on Facebook100 Black Dads Project on Instagram

After a session, we often put our pictures in online galleries for our clients to choose from – but just as often, they’re left trying to decide what to do with that and focusing on the wrong things. Switching to in-person sales is a powerful way to guide your clients through that, improving their experience with you and boosting your results.

The key to this is to look at the whole process – planning meeting with the client, the session itself, and the sales meeting later – and do things to set expectations even before the planning meeting. Starting with that creates context for the sales, makes the whole experience cohesive, and builds excitement all the way through.

This can be done virtually, too! Sometimes your client just isn’t physically close enough to be in person. There are a few tweaks to the process but the end result can be the same.

Most importantly, just get started now! Don’t wait or become paralyzed by perfection. Start doing this with your next session and then work to refine it.

KEY POINTS

* Switching to in-person sales over just putting pictures online is a huge boost.* In person sales are ultimately a better service for your client, not just for you.* Set expectations well in advance of ever meeting the client – for example, have galleries of wall art or your product all throughout your website, social media posts, blog, etc.* In-person sales can be done virtually as well, with a few adjustments, and with success.* Start now. Don’t launch this later in the year – do it now, make it work, then make it better!

LINKS

Be sure to check out the Virtual In Person Sales Course, and you try out Swift Galleries if you haven’t already!

ABOUT CHRIS SCOTT

Chris is one of the co-founders of the In-Person Sales tool, The Printmaker System by Swift Galleries, and is a leading expert in traditional and virtual In-Person photography sales.