WordPress-photography-podcast-episode-66
The WordPress Photography Podcast
The WordPress Photography Podcast
Episode 66 - Personal Brand Photography w/ Jamie Swanson







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jamie-swansonJamie Swanson is a former wedding photographer, now a personal brand photographer and founder of The Modern Tog. Jamie has an immense amount of tools and resources available for photographers, from starting a business, setting prices, getting more clients and much more. She teaches through her blog, online courses and inside her Facebook groups. Jamie is a wealth of photography business knowledge, so this is an episode you will not want to miss.

What we discuss:

  • What is personal brand photography?
  • Why do you think it’s something photographers should considering focusing on, or adding to their offering?
  • What’s the average sales amount are you finding PBP bring?
  • What are your top 3 tips for PB photographers to add to their websites?
  • What advertising tip advice can you share for PB photographers to target the right audience?

Where to find Jamie:

Transcription:

Transcription was done by Temi.com which means it's an AI generated transcript. The transcript may contain spelling, grammar and other errors, and is not a substitute for watching the video.

Scott: Welcome to episode 66. My name is Scott Wyden Kivowitz and today I'm joined by my friend Jamie Swanson. I am very happy to have you on the show. I've been wanting to get you on for awhile and timing has worked out, which is good. So Jamie is a former wedding photographer and now a personal brand photographer, the founder of the modern tog and personal brand photography. Jamie has an immense amount of tools and resources available for, for photographers from starting a business to setting prices, getting more clients in so much more. Um, I think I first met Jamie through the modern tog which has evolved dramatically over the years. Um, so it's, yeah, it's been a joy to see all the changes and whatnot to go to come, come around, uh, through both the modern tog and everything that you've done. Um, Jamie teaches through her blog online courses, insider facebook groups and she's a wealth of photography business knowledge. And I'm really looking forward to this conversation. This is a topic that we have not discussed yet on the podcast. So I'm really excited for it because this is also a, a, a genre photography, personal brand photography is a genre of photography I've been really wanting to explore because there's not really many or any people in my area doing it and I feel like it would be the perfect time to completely change niches and getting and getting to that. But, so this will be a good conversation and welcome to the show, Jamie.

Jamie: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here, and I'm glad that everything finally aligned for us to do this. We have been trying to do it for ages.

Scott: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, so before we get into what's going on with you, with, uh, with the, with the new endeavor and with whatever you want to share, I just want to say, so typically we have a section right now that's like WordPress photography related news. I don't have any news to share except that, uh, this is the last episode for the summer. Uh, my plan was to do the last episode in June, but timing the way the timing worked out to get this episode. And I just extended a little bit so there will be a break for the podcast after this episode and it, I'll probably back in September, maybe the beginning of October, right around photo plus expo. I don't really know. Um, but, you know, man's gotta take a break from doing the same thing though.

Jamie: Yeah,

Scott: yeah, yeah. Good to take a little bit of time off for the podcast. I got so much other stuff I got to worry about what's going on with you.

Jamie: Oh boy. Scott loaded question. So this year has been a blur because I have basically, I feel like I'm restarting my business. I've been running the modern tog since 2011, um, did wedding photography for many years. Um, and you know, you and I both know that a successful business really has a specialty. You niche down into something. And when I started the modern Tog I was one of the few people only focusing on the business side of photography, but now in 2018 there's like a million people focusing on the business side of photography and it's not niche anymore. It's very generic. And so I had to, uh, I basically realized that I wanted to reinvent what I was doing the modern tog and last December I'm, can I share a little bit of my story on how I discovered personal photography? Awesome. So I, um, I realized that even though I've spent the last seven years growing my business brand with the modern Tog, which has gone very well, I wanted to have more of a personal brand because eventually I want to be working more with entrepreneurs as well.

Jamie: And so to do that I need to have an audience in the entrepreneurial space because I've got it here in the photography space, but not there. And so I'm like, okay, well I need photos. I need, you know, if I'm going to grow an Instagram account or whatever else, I need to have lots of photos for this. And yes, I can take selfies. Yes, my husband can do some of me. But I really wanted somebody to come in who understood what I needed to grow a personal brand and to run my business online. And so I went looking for a photographer who could do that for me because it's just so much easier to do a shoot and have all the images ready to go. And I was shocked at what I found. I think it was the end of November or early December. But I mean we both know and everyone listening here who's a photographer notes, there are tons of photographers out there who do really great work.

Jamie: But I could not find anyone where I live here in the state of Minnesota, like the whole state who was marketing personal brand photography and really doing it well. Like yes, I could see that people take beautiful images, but I didn't get the sense that any of them really understood who I was as an online entrepreneur. Like yes, they understood me as a photographer, but my needs as an online entrepreneur are so much different than what I would need as a mom and a family session or getting just a basic head shot or something. And the light bulb went off. I was like; this is a huge opportunity because you know, you and I both know it's been harder and harder to book clients in the traditional consumer space and you know, there are more photographers than ever. Every Christmas people get more cameras and you know, there are more photographers in the market, and it's just this race to the bottom in terms of pricing and people giving away everything for nothing and people want it less and less.

Jamie: I mean they've got, they've got their beautiful iphone xs and they can't tell that it's any different than a dslr unless they have that train. I like you and I have. And so the market is just really struggling right now. The industry is in general, but there's this growing need for people like me who are online entrepreneurs who need photography and there's nobody really going after this market or at least there wasn't. Then I searched anywhere on Google. I literally tried to use any term I can think of and I found five people in the entire world who showed up on Google who were actually marketing as well and doing it well that were found right. And so I'm sure there's more out there. I know people will be like, oh no, I've been doing this, but I didn't find you if you are right.

Scott: Because it's, it's probably just people that are adding it as a service to their already big list of photography services. They're not ranking well for, for that one niche because they're not focusing on that one. Yeah.

Jamie: Right. Or they don't know what to say or they, they're getting people asking for headshots but with some lifestyle portraits or something to go with it. And so I. There are plenty of people who were doing it but I couldn't find them. And so I mean light bulbs went off and it was like, this is what I want to do. I want to focus on this. I want to do this as a business for my photography side. And I, I went all in and I'm. My goal is always to be helping other photographers. I love that more than even the photography itself. So I immediately launched into a free workshop that talked about this huge opportunity and then how it differs from traditional photography and what you need to do to get started. Started a group and that just started the crazy whirlwind that has been this year of really diving deep into personal brand photography. So that's what's been going on.

Scott: Question.

Jamie: Incredible and like to see the results people are getting and Oh, I could just talk about it all day. So I'll let you kinda lead where you want to go.

Scott: And this is exactly why we're here. We're here. We're here. You and I are talking today specifically about this whole idea of personal brand photography. So, um, why don't you give us the elevator pitch about what personal brand photography is now. I mean, you just said, you know, gave a good overview from, from, from, from your point of view, right, of what you needed. But as a photographer, can you give the elevator pitch to explain why a photographer like what it is that might convince them to think about that switch?

Jamie: Absolutely, and I don't just love it as an entrepreneur, like besides the fact that there are more and more entre online entrepreneurs starting every day like so the market is actually growing and the ones who reach a certain level of success, they don't want to do photos. Yes, people starting out are going to do with themselves, whatever, but eventually, they get to the point where they have more money than time and the idea of being stuck to their phones all the time to get that perfect Instagram photo or whatever they need to grow their personal brand. It doesn't appeal to them. They want to hire somebody to do this, and so that need is a growing one, so there are more clients too. They're using it as commercial images, and so you can charge more because there is commercial usage, which is awesome for you and me, m three, this is, this is the best part.

Jamie: Their need for images doesn't go away. They need images every business. Maybe every single day of the week if they're doing a daily image on instagram and so they need, they don't want to be using the same session for the next five years and so we can actually get clients that we work with on an ongoing basis every single quarter. So it's like repeat clients only like contractually that way. So I was specifically focused on helping people figure out how to book clients who want to work with them every quarter and sound like year long packages and so you'll be working every single quarter. You have a shoot every quarter you'll even get recurring income where people can pay you a deposit upfront to cover that for shoot and then have monthly income coming in year round. So there's no more like quiet seasons and then like crazy busy seasons where you make 90 percent of your income in five months. Like you get recurring. I mean how awesome would it be to have income that you know is going to be coming in every single month over your quiet season. Like it's just, it's mind blowing and the photographers who are starting to book these clients are just, it's transformational when you're not stressed about where am I going to find my income in November when the busy season is over, maybe January, February for wedding photographers. That's when the wedding season is over and has been for a couple months. We up here in the north. Maybe

Jamie: your listeners down in the south as a better, better a season, but the idea is the income's more steady and you know how I said you niched down to really get traction. Like you can do a successful business in families and weddings, whatever else you really need to niche and market really well. What would this. You can still shoot a lot of those same things. It's just that you're doing it under the context of a personal brand. So you're not going to get bored. You're not just doing family photography. You're not just doing, you know, um, images of them behind their desk or whatever. You can do a whole lot of different things to shoot who they are and what their stories are as a person. And as a personal brand, and so it's, it's a lot more fun too because you don't have to only eat one kind of photography.

Scott: Yeah. So as we're thinking about why, why photographer should consider focusing on or adding a personal brand photography to their offerings. You know, some of the things that come to mind are, you just brought up the fact that right now a lot of wedding photographers are, you know, lots of money, very little time when they can flip it, they can do, if they focus solely on personal brand photography or make that the main focus and like headshots secondary or something like that. They're, they're gaining their, their time back and they're also leveling out that, that the wallet. Right. So potentially even get more time and, and, and the money go up, you know, at the same time. Um, what else, what other considerations? Uh, what, what other, um, uh, reasonings do you think come into adding or switching?

Jamie: Did you start your photography business? So you can be a marketer?

Scott: Oh heck no,

Jamie: no, it was not the marketing. So when you really focus on getting recurring clients, most of the people that have gone through the course that I teach on how to pivot into this, only need 12 clients a year to meet their goals because they're working with them four times a year, 12 recurring clients. So that's almost 50 shoots. It's about one a week. And um, what they find is that when they're getting their recurring clients, you know, there's a lot of work that goes into finding the client, consulting with them, getting to know them, convincing them to work with you. We have that with every single session we do. But when you have these clients that you work with on an ongoing basis, you only have to do that once and then you only have to do a shorter, quicker followup. But for every session for planning and you don't have to do all the marketing.

Jamie: So once you get your 12 clients, you don't have to worry about marketing as much because these clients could stay with you for years. You have less of a back and forth via email because you already know who they are. And so planning becomes so much easier and so that's, you know, I, I, it seems small, but it's huge. Once you get to the point where you have recurring clients, you're going to, it's just so much easier. So much less marketing, so much less of the email crap, I don't know about you, but I hate email. I hate it. So to have all that,

Scott: what else comes to mind is with personal brand photography, you don't have to worry about selling prints. So like the whole concept of the um, what, what Chris Gotten so many others like to say shoot and burn, you know, like pretty much that's like, that's what is good about personal brand photography versus other forms of photography is did your clients, they just need the digitals. It,

Jamie: I think in person sales is amazing if you're going to do families or other stuff, but if you really hate doing that, you can make very profitable prices because of that commercial license, you're getting so much more money. You can make so much more without having to do that at all.

Scott: Like, let's talk about, um, let's talk about money for bit. So what is the average sale amount that you are finding in a personal brand photography? Uh, uh, whether it's one session or let's say the whole year for the four quarters, what, what is the average that you are making per client?

Jamie: So it depends on how long the clients. Six of you, right? Because if they're with you for years and years and years, it might be lots and lots of money, right? What I'm seeing most people looking at it, and I didn't research this before I came on here. So this is just kinda from my sense, based on the pricing I've been helping people come up with and the sessions I'm seeing them book is that a minimum tends to be around $2,000 for a session, a single session. And a lot of the people who book that after a couple of clients say, I need to raise my prices a lot because people keep talking about what a deal this is because they get that commercial usage in there. So I'm seeing most of my students pricing their photography around 2000 to 5,000 per session because you tend to spend most of the day with the person shooting because you want to get a variety of different images.

Jamie: You don't want to just do a quick, you know, single session. It is a lot more work. It's a full day of working. But the cool thing is they're working with them every quarter at these rates and so the average yearly Qa or a mount of profit you're bringing in from a client. Generally on the low end it's going to be eight grand per year and we've had some people like Daniel was. He was, you mean personal brand photography for about a year before he went through my course, his highest sale ever was about $5,000 for a single session and that was his highest, not an average is average, was a lot lower. And after he went through the course and started applying some of the stuff that he was learning, he books a $44,000 a session or not session a contract for over three months of work. Doing this and then that client referred him to a friend and then he went and booked over $30,000 contract with another person over a few months of work there too, so you can get these bigger clients because you're not just doing a single day. You might be doing multiple days, but it's spread out and so it all adds up. It's really, really incredible.

Scott: So let's, let's talk a little bit about the these contracts. So one is, are you supplying is in the contract that you're supplying a, the full resolution, like not the raw file but you make your edit, you export it at the highest possible quality jpeg is that we're delivering

Jamie: so everyone will have access to the high resolution images and I think that's really important because they do need big images sometimes if they're designing their website. If I had at a conference, I was just at tribe live, Stu Mclaren, the guy running the thing. I had done a session for him in January with him and his wife and his family and they had a 60 foot screen onstage. It was from one end to the next 60 feet wide and they had one of my images up there and they could never had done that without the high resolution image. And so that was really cool. I've never seen my image that big by the way. That was just the neatest thing ever. Um, but it was really like this one, but um, you want to give them the high resolution images, but I also recommend giving social media crops, asking them social media platforms. Are you going to be posting these two and then giving them images that are optimized for each social media platform as well. Plus if they're a blogger and they know they want to be using certain images for blog posts, getting

Scott: specific dimensions

Jamie: that they need for those blog posts and then pre cropping the images that they want so that they're ready to go. I mean the easier we can make this for them, the more we can charge for our service and we can make it easy on us. Huh.

Scott: Nice. That sounds. That sounds awesome.

Jamie: Yeah, I mean we just, I tell them when we do the shoot, we actually recommend doing same day image selection because they don't it depending on what they purchased. Some people only get 60 images, so I'm getting 90 some get all of the images from the session, but what we do to make it easy for us so that we're not getting crop requests every day is to tell them, okay, right now you can, we will do unlimited cropping for free. Just tell me which images you want on which platform. So we do kind of do an in person session or give them an online gallery and give them a certain amount of time to make those requests. Um, or if it's only 60 images, we can just do all the crops for all the things we know that they're on, but we figured that out with them. We're not going to crap crap for pinterest if they're not on Pinterest, you know, so we know and we can. It doesn't take that long to go through and do this. So it's just another way we can add value to our clients.

Scott: Yeah, there's, there's ways that you can do a workflow in light room or whatever software to, to speed up the process of doing all these different crops. So I was actually gonna ask about image count and so you just brought that up. That's a good segue. So, um, in your contracts, you're saying 60 images, 90 images or however many images, right? So you're, but you're, you're predefining it in the contract. Um, so you know how much you actually have to shoot at the session, right? You, you know that, you know, if you're, if it's only 60 images, there's no reason Peter to capture images, you know, that you didn't have to call through and make it more, more of work for yourself. You can take more time to make sure those 60 images are spot on. Right. Um, so do you ever get requests for people to say just, you know, um, capture as many as you can and I'll pick later or is that not something you even offer?

Jamie: That is how I recommend doing it. Shoot what you're going to shoot. I actually recommend shooting in terms of stories. So almost all the strong personal brands I've seen, people who have really strong personal brands have anywhere from like three to seven core stories or themes you could call them that repeat over and over and over again. So my friend Jenna Kutcher, for example, she loves yoga pants, Mac and cheese. They rescue dogs, they have dealt with miscarriages and she's really into loving your body as it is. Right? So those are like five things that if you had asked me, tell me what you know, tell me a little bit about Jenna. Those are the things that come to mind. Those are her main themes. And so when you go into a personal brand photography session, you're going to sit down and say, what are the themes that you cover in your social media?

Jamie: Because you'll see them over and over and over again. You'll see one story about it here in a different story about it here, but it repeats. And so when we say, okay, this is the theme, let's say body image. Well let's do a part of our day. We'll do the story of you and a bunch of different outfits. And different poses and then you have this bank images, so anytime you want to talk about body image you can go in and just grab one of the photos and write out whatever you want to write or do it all in advance so they can schedule it and not have to worry about it every day. But we, we think about what kind of stories can we shoot that they can use. So for me, when I had a photographer come and do my session, I really want. I'm a mom and I, that's a big part of what my identity is.

Jamie: And so we did a lot of images of me with my kids specifically. I said, I want to see, I want you to shoot me having breakfast with my boys because they load up on my lap. They, we have a big pile of eggs in front of me. We all eat from the same plate. It's kind of disgusting, but it's just so cute because they're like one and three and they just love eating my eggs for whatever reason they taste better than theirs. But now I have a bunch of images from that that I can use to share about my kids and you know, yes, they're on the same theme and it wasn't the only thing she captured, but like I was thinking ahead and saying I want to talk about being a mom and so I need images of me with my kids and so what can we do, what stories can we actually live out and have her capture so that we can use. I have the images I need for the next 90 days. So she captured a bunch. I can pick the ones that I want to have or I'm with her. I booked an unlimited package so she'll actually give me all the cold images in the session. She picks, she gets rid of the bad ones, whatever, that I don't really,

Jamie: um, you know, but I could have picked 90 to image session and then what you would have done is called them. And then we would have sat down and I could have picked the 90 right then and there with her or she could send me a gallery and I would have until a specific date to pick the 90 that I wanted and then she'd do that. But the nice thing is if you don't capture everything, there's another session in three months, you know, so you don't have this pressure to get absolutely everything perfect or every moment captured. Or if the weather is raining and you want it to be outside, well you just do it next time, you know, you do stuff inside this time instead and there's just so much less stress because you're going to know that you can help them get the images they want, but it doesn't all have to be in that first shoot. So it's pretty fun.

Scott: That is awesome. So when it comes to, to a photographer's website, depending on the niche that you're, that you're in, in photography, the advice that you would give to a photographer is going to be different between niches. Right? So if you're a family photographer, a wedding photographer, and you're doing these in person sales, what you're going to do on your website is very different than what you would do for, let's say headshots, right? Another, another genre that doesn't really. I'm 100 percent of the time require prince. So what are your top three tips for personal brand photographers to add to their photography tips or change on their photography website?

Jamie: Alright, so the first thing I would say is if you want to do personal brand photography, is that what you're talking about? If they want to add this to their website? Yep. So number one, create a landing page that's just about personal brand photography. So a landing page is just a single page on your website that is only about personal brand photography and isn't about your family stuff for your wedding stuff or whatever else. Because what that does is it when you can give that specific link to people and they can find exactly what they're looking for. So if you find an entrepreneur influencer who would be your perfect ideal client who wants to work with you instead of sending to them to your family site, which is gonna, make him go, man, I don't need family images like your newborn images are beautiful, but it's not that they don't, they don't have to see that right away.

Jamie: You can have a page that has everything it needs on it in one spot, so you don't even need to create a full website for it. Um, the second thing I'd recommend is make sure you're using the term personal brand photography. Now, one of the things in the past is that everyone is kind of different terms and that's why it was hard to find people. But I am leading the charge to standardized industry. I really am. And I see it. My community's on board and my, I'm in entrepreneurial spaces. And so I'm, I, I feel like part of my mission is to get the word out about this industry and really standardize it so that you as a photographer can find clients when they come looking for you. And so use the words personal brand photography in the title of that page because that'll give you good SEO value and will help you be following right now.

Jamie: It's so easy to be found because very few people have actually optimize for it. And so it's growing because I've been preaching this to my students into other photographers for the last six months. So several, I think we have about 3,500 people in our group right now that are aware of the term and it is growing. It's growing as a Hashtag on Instagram. And I believe that it's only gonna continue to grow. So that would be the second thing is use that. And then the third thing is, um, don't stress about not having a full portfolio or anything else yet. Like what I recommend is if you've done family photos and you've done a variety of things, even if you've done wedding stuff, you can usually go back through your old portfolio and say, okay, what an influencer or somebody growing their social media account, who wants, who wants images that strengthen their own personal brand?

Jamie: Would this be something that might work for them? So for example, when I did that session with Stu Mclaren, it was basically a family session on the beach, but the difference was that I did almost all my images in landscape orientation because they wanted them for Facebook ads and website banners and all those things and so they needed to be landscape orientation. Is that a portrait? And I left a lot of white space. They wanted a lot of space to be able to add text onto the images or to crop in if they wanted to and so I went through that. Looks like a family session. I could go through an old family portfolio of mine if I had that and grab images like that. That could be used for an influencer who is, say a mommy blogger or something. Or if you're a wedding photographer you may have a lot of detail shots or images that would work for like, you know, maybe a wedding planner who wants to grow their own personal brand and you could show some of those.

Jamie: Even though it looks like a wedding, you can put them in the context of growing a personal brand and so really you thinking you might have a lot of images that you can already leverage that you can use on this page that can get you started because chances are if you're like most people who have joined my group, you've been doing photography for a while already. You already know how to take beautiful images. You just need to know how to market it, and so you don't have to worry about starting from scratch with the portfolio. You can leverage what you have or even ask a friend and say, hey, I want a decent personal brand photography and so can we do a session together just to get some of these images and so you could do this whole, you know, you can get them behind a computer and you can do your whatever it is you want to do to get some off the bat without having to stress about where you're going to find images and waiting to start.

Jamie: Until then, because you don't need to wait, so have a landing page that's just about this so that people can see the information they need because an entrepreneur wants very different things. Then, um, you know, a mom who is expecting a baby in a few weeks, use the term personal brand photography in the title, you know, on the website so that you show up in Seo because it's really easy to do right now, which will last forever. And then three, um, leverage the images you already have to put on that page and show people what you can do.

Scott: Nice. Nice. I like it. That's a, that's a great starting point for sure. Um, so on a similar note, when it comes time to you, you've, you've created your landing page, you're ready to start getting some clients. Do you have any advertising tips too, for the photographers that are, um, you know, starting this process, starting this new journey in their careers that can maybe get them and whether it's a paid ad or just a clever, you know, social post or something like that. Any advice to get them going in that phone? Absolutely,

Jamie: so this is in my free group, so I hope you don't mind mentioning it, but I actually wrote out a facebook post script, it's a, I call it my story session starter script and it basically lets you copy and paste their posts onto your facebook page or into your instagram or whatever that can help you get clients. And so I did this last time. I ran my course as a way to help people pay for the course before they even took it because if I can help you get money upfront, then the course is basically free for you to take. And it was so successful. I had people posting the scripts on facebook. My friend West for example, um, he posted it at right before he went out on the field for work and he came back a couple hours later and he had eight inquiries just from that one script and booked all eight of them right away.

Jamie: And so they can go in, they can get that for free. I can give you the link to that if you want. Um, and we will be doing. I'm actually gonna do a whole event around this in late August that we're going to try and collectively book a thousand clients in a weekend as a group and so I'm going to walk through that whole process. There'll be a script, there'll be talking about how to do this, but mostly what I've found, if you don't want to use that is that it's all about who you know and networking and so you probably have people in your network that you don't even realize need this and want this and they've never heard of it, talked about this way and so when you can say, Hey, hell, let me create three months worth of social media images for you in one day, and then you don't have to be.

Jamie: You can live your life. You don't have to be always instagramming as you go and worrying about stopping to take the perfect shot and people go crazy about that. They love that idea. For those people who've been doing this, they're like, Oh yes, I'd love to not be tied to my phone all the time. I don't want to always be taking 100 selfies until I get just the right one. And so it's so much easier to book clients because people are like, oh, I want this and there's more and more people who actually want this and we're filling a need. So it's, it's all about like understanding the need and framing it and mentioning it in such a way that sounds like, oh yeah, that's awesome. Like, I don't want to be doing this. I do want to be spending time with my family without pulling my phone out all the time. So it's not as hard as you think. But like I said, you can go to the group. The script is still there from the last time we did it, search for scripts and um, you can find it easily and youth that modify it, use it, take it.

Scott: We'll have the link to the facebook group in the show notes, which I'll share the URL at the end of this. So now is the time where you can ask a question to the listeners, to the viewers. Whatever question you want that you want them to answer, please go ahead.

Jamie: Alright. So I think the thing that would be most interesting for me to hear is what would your business look like if you had revenue coming in? Money coming in every month that you could count on. Like if you knew you were gonna be making $4,000 every single month, how would that change your business and what would it look like and feel like? So that's my question. What would it feel like to have revenue that you don't have to worry about coming in every month?

Scott: Oh man, that would feel so nice. You know, it's funny. It's funny; I'm going gonna answer this on the show. So the, the, the, the guest's questions, but I'm going to answer it. Um, you know, so I'm, I'm fortunate that I do have a full-time job, so photography is not my full-time income that it's just, you know, nights and weekends whenever I can take on a client I will. Um, but more recently when my wife and I stopped, started this adoption journey and I'm trying to find more ways to bring in more clients and whatnot and uh, I'm finding it more and more difficult in my area to get families to photograph because the competition is starting to, to low ball. They're starting to or have been, and there are more and more coming out, um, to, to do those really low, um, session prices and just delivering digitals and not even offering print and the people in my area or d or like eating it up and hiring these people left and right.

Scott: So less people are working nonstop and I'm in and they're, you know, they're, they're working for very little money and I don't want to be that person, but I do want to be the person that, that brings in, um, ongoing extra income beyond my fulltime job. And especially because adoption is expensive and I need to find ways to make more money. So for me to be able to find something in photography that I can use all the equipment I have already in all the knowledge and skill that I have already and just turn it into a, a niche in photography that is going to bring in $40,000 a month, even if it's $2,000 a month, you know, that's still better than, you know, doing $200 sessions and that's it, right? So, um, I'd rather do one, $2,000 a month, a session and have it consistent every month forever. Um, so I'd be very happy that would be like, yeah,

Jamie: the people that we target highend entrepreneurs and influencers who've reached a certain level of success and realize that they want their images and brand to match the success that they've reached. It's not the people just starting out right away. If the people who've gotten to say 200,000 a year, $300,000 a year, these people will look at your prices and if they see somebody charging $500 per session, they're going to be like, they don't know what I need. They don't take their business seriously, they don't get it. They want to see you charging at least $2,000 for a session to believe that you're really worth it because they want really good images and they want that expertise. And the pricing indicates your value. Even if it's not true, they see that in an implies that you're a better photographer than somebody who's only charging $500. And so it's actually in your benefit to be charging more. And if you only want $2,000 a month and you're working full time, you only need three clients and you would do one shoot a month and you could have your whole year, $2,000 a month coming in with just three clients and just shooting one day a month. It's just incredible when you start thinking about the income that you could make from it.

Scott: Obviously I have board in $2,000 a month in would be nice. But, but, but I would still like it was one of those things that like, you know, um, the, the pressure of knowing that you need to make more money. Like, imagine if, if photography was my full time, I didn't have my in my job here at imagely and I now know that I have to spend $40,000 on an adoption. Um, you know, and, and I have to worry about the competition in my area that is doing a hundred and $50 sessions. Like I couldn't, I could not imagine it. So, um, that's why I'm so intrigued by personal brand photography, and that's why I am really excited to explore it further and potentially make that switch or, or just an addition to my, to my services.

Jamie: No, that's all you're going to want to do because when you get, can so much of your time on creating an amazing experience for your client. It's like, I don't know about you, but like, so Scott and I are both in the photography industry group and when somebody needs something, like I think the last two posts were like, hey, I need somebody to do video. Or I need somebody to do animation. They go to facebook groups and they ask the people they trust. And so Scott, you give your clients an amazing experience and then your clients colleagues say, Hey, look at those images. It's amazing. Who are you working with? Are going to be like, I'm working with Scott and you're going to start getting referrals because that's how things work in the entrepreneur space and so you're going to it just so much easier than competing with all of those $100 photographers out there and it does seem to be a race to the bottom and they don't get the business side like you will when you start digging into this and getting to see how it works. Then you owe it. I would love this. You do this because I think it can help you so much and what you're doing. So I just. I'm super passionate about it because I want to see all photographers succeed and I just think that this future of professional photography for people who genuinely want to do this for a living because everything else is getting harder and harder and this is growing. There are more and more people who need this and it's so much more sustainable from an income level.

Scott: It's exciting. It's very exciting. So I'm definitely excited to, uh, to dig in further and really, really try. So, you know, I'm glad this worked out. Thank you so much for joining the show today. I'm so happy that you're able to come. Uh, you can find the show notes where to find Jamie and answer her question that she asked you

Jamie: please

Scott: at imagely.com/podcast/66. I will see you again in September or October. I'm not exactly sure when I'll come back for the next episode, but a, it's time for a break. So see you next time.

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