Lessons

Lesson Info

Introduction to Marketing, Old vs. New Models

welcome everyone so great to have you here for content marketing for photographers with jared bombing on creative lives my name is russ and he's and I'm really excited for this workshop because this is a topic that is really I don't think it gets much attention as it deserves I know that here on creative live a lot of people ask me like hey look at my work I'm not doing enough business what class do you think I should take I'll be honest most of time it's not the shooting it's the marketing it's the business side and so I'm really excited to have jared here to talk all about content marketing for three days now in case you aren't familiar with who he his jared has been a professional photographer for about fifteen years and he is also the co founder and president of shoot dot at it which is a post processing retouching service for wedding photographers so he knows both sides of the business and we're very very excited to have you here how you feeling today really good really good it's ...

it's beautiful out it's wonderful here we are we get three days ahead of us and I think that we need to get started let's take away their thanks uh well hey guys welcome thank you for being here how you guys doing this morning welcome everybody live if you're on the west coast good morning if you're on the east coast good afternoon and whoever else you're a good evening good be here we have a crazy packed three days I really I'd like for us and I'm really excited about this topic this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart I like rest that have been a professional photographer for fifteen years about seven years ago garrett and I another photographer in san diego founded shoot dot edit on dh are doing that full time now she got at it is where we both put most of our energy and all of our energy towards helping photographers out with postproduction and during that time it shoot dot edit we realized that we can help photographers solve a bigger problem which is growing their businesses now we can help with the post production but in helping them solve that problem of growing their business we uncovered a newer way of marketing ah marketing that helps people that loves people and it helps them better their businesses and we've learned ah lot about that over the years we've been putting that into play for a couple of years now and that's what I'm going to teach you guys in the next three days like I said I've been shooting for about fifteen years I don't shoot as much as I used to my most my focus goes at shoot dot at it and helping us grow but more importantly helping photographers better their businesses because we know that if we could help a photographer better their business then we can help them grow and if they could grow their business than everybody ends up benefiting so let me go ahead and get started here guys we got a lot to go through I'm gonna give you guys an overview of the course I'm gonna give you guys an overview what we're talking about but again this course is all about marketing your business it's all about how to market your business in a way that represents who you truly are in a way that helps you grow your business with content you already have so it's not reinventing the wheel and in a way that allows you to focus on the things that making money so that's the that's the basic road map where we're going today we've got a lot to cover got three full days s I hope you guys get used to hearing me talk about this but let's let's dive in here ok so good you're a photographer congratulations you are also a marketer I think that's one of the things that people don't necessarily realize when they get into this business is a photographer how many of you guys did not realize the amount of business work marketing work etcetera etcetera that goes into being a professional photographer when you started it's as I've heard some people say it's eighty percent ninety percent not shooting I'm not going to give you guys a percentage but it's maur not shooting then it is shooting can we all agree on that it's a lot of other things if you are a photographer you are also a marketer maybe you're not necessarily a marketer you know I didn't go to school for marketing I didn't go to college for market I didn't get a marketing degree I had to learn how to be a marketer when I became a photographer and so back in two thousand one when I started my photography business I thought I was joined to be a photographer I was joining to be a marketer to be a business owner and all of us have to be marketers in our businesses today to keep them going and to grow that business shooting is not enough on its own on its own of course shooting is not enough we don't spend time though practicing and getting better at marketing you see we are photographers and we spend time getting better at shooting imagine for a second if you went to a wedding never having gotten your camera out of the box okay I thought sounds crippling to me it's hard enough shooting a wedding on its own when you know all your crap in his equipment you already got enough problems that come your way to a wedding as it is with challenges obstacles you didn't see coming ah light doesn't work something doesn't sink the battery dies something doesn't charge imagine going to a wedding and never having opened your camera and gotten out of the box before it seems crazy but yeah this is what we do when it comes to the other areas of our business we don't learn we don't educate ourselves we don't practice we don't push the boundaries we don't try things out and for the most part it's because we don't have time and because we don't have the knowledge and the wherewithal but here's the thing guys we have to become good at marketing to stay successful as photographers we have to get good at business to stay successful as a professional photographer if you aren't good at marketing you're not going to be good as a professional photographer you might be the greatest shoe there is but you're not going to stay in business you have to become good at marketing you have to try you have to practice you have to work at it you have to spend time on it you have to do it over and over and over again now don't get me wrong marketing is not easy it's constantly evolving it's constantly changing is constantly growing technology has made marketing a totally different ball game then it was even two years ago but you have to learn and educate yourself in the ways of mark and that's what we're going to be talking about today marketing in today's world now remember it doesn't it's not good enough to just just go out there and just market and that's another area where I think a lot of towers fall short is they finally come to a point where they realize okay yes I am a marketer I'm a photographer in the business and I'm all three things I have to do all three things I have to get better photography but I also have to market my business and so then they just start marketing and it's like this word just get up in the morning okay today I'm gonna market but it's best a problem blogging just a blogger doesn't do you very much good networking just to network doesn't devery much good if you don't have a strategy if you don't understand where you're going and how all these pieces play into the greater puzzle then you don't have a strategy and without a strategy you're just guessing you're just hoping that your marketing time is going to produce fruit you know I hear talk of this later today we're talking about blogging later today and I hear photographers say this a lot you know they're like I blogged today and that that'll be about where it stops and it's like this accomplishment to have blogged because blogging without a strategy is hard to dio it's like what do you do block about with a strategy it's actually not as hard as you think I'm gonna show you guys had to develop a strategy but blogging just a blogger doesn't actually help your business as much as it could but his marketers we have to understand there's a strategy behind our block and our website and our social media we have to understand that they all play into each other they all work towards a greater marketing strategy for a business a business is just designed I started strategy that's designed to help your business grow to allow you to be a photographer that's why you got in this is to be a professional photographer and so if you're watching right now and you have a business but you don't have the time to market I'm going to help you guys get to a point where you have that time to market if you're watching right now you have a business and your marketing but it's not working or you don't feel like you have a strategy we're gonna cover all those things and if you're out there and you're still getting started in photography then consider yourself very lucky to have learned that it's not just shooting that's required of you to be a professional photographer and you get to start from the beginning the foundational points um of building your business with more than just a shooting in mind so okay here's the gripping reality and I don't want I don't want to go I want to start too early here on the gloom and doom side of things well but to really for that but but this is the reality market or disappear that is the way that were that were poised that's the situation that we're facing right now as professional creatives you want to build a business that people fall in love with that's our goal we want to be bought we don't wanna have to sell we want teo and all uncover this analogy a bit later we want to build a business we want to build a boat where fish just jump in where we don't have to go out and fish enough to drop a net we're not actually go out and hope that fish are out there and try to catch them we want them to just jump into the boat that's difficult and here the two factors that we're facing as professional photographers that were up against that are trying to put us out of business every day that are brand new okay there's two factors number one and this is flipped business on its head I'm gonna tell you guys when I started as a professional photographer fifteen years ago neither of these two factors existed number one technology has made it easier for anybody who wants to become a professional photographer overnight I was at costco to speaking with my wife first thing you walk in right next to all the beautiful tvs the four k's and by the time to say comes out with probably a five k tv and right next to all those professional cameras from nikon from cannon from all the big names with the lens for under a thousand dollars go look at those the professional cameras and you know what they're going to take a picture that's good enough they're going to take a picture that's pretty darn good is it is nice as the more expensive cameras probably not but you know what it's going to be a darn good picture because technology has made it so good and has made it so affordable that anybody who wants to nowadays can be a professional photographer just by buying a camera number two factor that's trying to put us out of business or that that is at odds with us maybe I shouldn't say put us out of business but that it is at odds with us and that is social media social media has made it so that if I have five six seven hundred facebook friends just friends of mine and acquaintances of mine from high school from college friends from church I can go home and I can take some pictures of my kid I can take some pictures of a stylized shoot I can go and I can just post some pictures and published them instantly toe all of my friends I can open my business overnight and instantly have more people that I'm marketing teo than you or you or you coupled with a little bit of knowledge about facebook with a little knowledge about pinterest and instagram taken tagged their friends they can do certain things and all of a sudden their images are in front of thousands of people they instantly have a business overnight these are the factors were up against you guys and that's why we're seeing an onslaught of professional photographers is because it's so easy nowadays to become a professional photographer it wasn't like that when I started it wasn't like that we didn't have those factors eso nowadays and that's what we're going to start with in today's course is building a business that is based uniquely on you and your brand so that it doesn't matter what other people are doing it matters what you're doing and you're going to talk about the unique things that you bring to the table you're gonna talk about what makes you unique in your marketing and that's what's gonna separate you from everybody else and it's not gonna matter how many people are buying costco cameras and it's not gonna matter how many people and how many friends they have on social media um okay so let me tell you about what that looks like now versus what it looked like before because like I was telling you when I start my business it wasn't like that before before shoot dot at it I was a professional photographer full time I started in two thousand one and when I start in two thousand won it was the old business model of photography pretty simple and this is what we did all across the holes in the streets of america you went down you got a business license you saved up and either saved into you could buy the equipment needed or you've got alone and got equipment you needed if you really wanted to you got a storefront you marketed through traditional advertising mechanisms so online advertising that knot was just starting up I believe back then I was on the not couple more online portals took out a magazine ad in the magazine a couple years in I mean these are the conventional ways of advertising and what it did was it took time to start a business I start on film too so you had to actually you know really know what you were doing right out of the gate to show up in a way I guess you didn't have to but be suicide got to you know because you couldn't check the back your camera you had to make sure you got the shots you had to have some expertise and photography you also had have expertise in business meaning that you had to understand how to market your business you had to understand and you have to understand a lot don't get me wrong but you had understand least what the road map looks like and then you had to ask him capital some money saved up to bill to invest in the camera gear because it's really expensive back then and to be able to invest in some advertising or whatever it is that got your name out there that's the old way of doing business that's not a new way of doing business the new way of doing business has been completely flipped on its head the product for example back then the product was delivering images through proofs and maybe the actual negatives now the product is so much more the product is an experience and the end physical product you hold is only part of the actual product and companies like apple companies like you know I could just go on and on and on companies that service us companies that make products companies in both space is service and product have completely flipped what we expect now we expect an experience now we don't just settle for having a great product a restaurant no longer is judged by producing a great meal they have to produce a great experience an airline is no longer judged well we shouldn't talk about what airlines are judged by actually we'll skip that one apple let's look at apple they're ubiquitous example I hate using him as an example but nobody knows him so that's that's a great example but they have shown us that not only did I make a great computer but they make a great experience the whole way through opening an apple product is an experience and of itself people make youtube videos about opening an apple product the product now is no longer just the physical product it is the experience the entire a dizzy experience that is the new way of doing business and so you have to have a system to make sure that your experience matches your product you take good pictures great that's only part of the product now the experience that you provide your customer from a dizzy is now the product you also have to market yourself in a completely different way no longer can you market your business by putting up a magazine ad with a pretty picture on the front and your business name and expect to get any phone calls or any notoriety no you have to stand out you have to be unique you have to make somebody's head turn because it's not about just getting your name out there now now it's about attracting people before it was you know before we talked about this we've heard this we've all heard this at some point even if it's just in the din of the noise just make sure that people see your name seven times and they'll call you make sure you know those kind of things make sure that they be everywhere the strategy of just making sure you have a hand in everything and you will get the business well that's no longer the rest anymore you can't just be ever it's still a good message it's still a good fundamental but now you have to stand out now you have to attract now people have to want you in order for you to make it in order for you to be a successful business and so these are all the things that we're going to talk about in the next three days um it's a lot a lot we're not just going to stay high level like this we're going to get into it I'm going to show you guys ah lot of details we're going to go through and sit down and set up processes together we're gonna actually not just stay at the let's stay theoretical let's get into the practical so we're going to a lot of that let's look at let's look at this let's look at the recipe for today's business this is going to be our framework for the course okay the framework for the course is right here in front of us and this really is today's business recipe today's business recipe looks like these three bullet points number one building authentic brand message we talked about how marking nowadays is reliant upon you standing out from the crowd it relies upon you attracting rather than just being recognized attraction comes from a unique standpoint a unique view a unique way that you interact with people in a unique message if you don't have a unique brand authentic message then you're not going to stand out and so that's really the first part and that's what we're gonna be focusing on today is howto build that brand message and how to make sure it enters and intersects everything that you do in the way you talk about your busy this authentic is the key here it has to be authentic people can see through everything nowadays people's radar is just up we see so much we're inundated so often if I go and I search for a hotel in seattle for the next week all I see on the side bar facebook on the advertisement is hey check out my hotel in seattle hey our guard is up so high you can't tell me anything now and I don't I'm not worry about it anymore and the only way to cut through what has happened in today's business world is by authentically representing who you genuinely are and there's tools there's ways to do that but if you don't do that if you try to build a business off great pictures if you try to build a business off just good marketing slogan off good jargon that it's not gonna work you have to define a market a niche you have to define a focus and you have to learn how to talk specifically to that market we're going to talk about about that number two you must use content to deliver your message nowadays content is a wonderful vehicle tow love on your customer content is a wonderful way to deliver your message your unique brand message content gives you an opportunity to talk about what it is you do the ways that you're unique and more importantly content allows you to deliver a unique message and you already have content photographers produce content every day of the week every time you get your camera out you're producing content that's what makes content marketing so perfect for photographers is that you can use content to share your message over and over and over again you couldn't deliver your message to the right person at the right time with the right medium that's the strategy the strategy is delivering the right message to the right person at the right time with the right medium I need to be stretched for that have a lot of things that have to happen in rome and content allows you to do that content allows you to deliver all these messages in a way that love's on your customer and on your potential customer so that's what we're gonna talk about photography of a leg up because they produce content all the time okay number three is that you must focus on the things that generate profit for you you have to focus on what brings money in to pay the bills as a professional photographer there a couple things that on ly you khun do and that generate profit one of those is shooting you have to build a business too where you can shoot as much as you want to because that's what people pay you to do people pay you to shoot and so building a business that supports you as a photographer is number one the number one most important thing you get paid when you shoot that is a prophet producing task and so you want to be doing that as much as obviously as you want to be doing I don't want you I don't want to shoot three weddings a weekend even even in my heyday when I was a full timer I did a few of those and that's that's that's too much but whatever within reason for how much you want to shoot you need to be shoot as much as possible you need to build a business that allows you to shoot you as much as possible because that's a prophet producing task marketing marketing doesn't directly produce profit but marketing is something that only you can do because it's authentically coming from you again if you build a business that's based authentically around you and by authentically I mean truly when you look through the microscope it's built around you to do that you have to be the one to market marketing so often is a thing that we all dio as the last thing on our list of the end of the week we kind of get to marketing if we get to everything else we get to it and that can't be the case anymore the new business model is shooting and marketing and then finding systems people cos other means to fill in all the other areas of your business the areas that don't produce profit or things that you don't authentically have to do to produce your product to produce your service the market I'm teaching you is gonna take a lot of time it is we're going to set up systems for it we're gonna find shortcuts for it but to authentically market yourself it takes time and you want to build a business that allows you to shoot as much as possible and so you need to come up with good systems so you have to do as little as possible into trust experts in areas that you don't have to have your eye on that you don't have to be doing the grunt work on you don't be doing the day to day work on and you need to also outsource some things toe let others help you out and so we'll go through and talk about these things obviously I'm a big believer in the power of outsourcing your post production that was a huge pain point for me and I realize that you can outsource part of your post production and still have a hand on it and so you can spend that time in other things but that extends over all sorts of areas of your business you really shouldn't be the guy doing your taxes you really shouldn't be the girl who's stuck doing all of your emails from scratch every single time there have to be systems that are put in place so that you could do each task on lee once there have to be people that you work within trust so that you can focus on the things you have to otherwise there's no opportunity to grow your business and all of you who are full timers right now or who are part timers and have another part I have another job understand what I'm talking about marketing can't be something you get to at the end of the week it has to be something you get to at the beginning of the week it has to be the first thing you do because that's the only way you're gonna grow your business shooting is a high priority if you're turning away a shoot because you have too much else to do in your business that means your business isn't set up to focus on profit producing tasks and so we have to build out this model the good news is there's lots of flexibility you get to pick the areas that you think you have to have the biggest insertion point in you get to pick the systems you wantto have set up but what you have to do is make sure that your business is set up in a way that delivers an authentic message that people can say yes I have to have you instead of saying if you're available I'll take you I have to have you number two is you have to deliver that message that people are attracted to in his many ways as possible with content that you create and number three is you have to focus on delivering that message and shooting because that's how you produce profit and you cannot get bogged down by all the little things we feel like we have to do that we don't actually have to do we can set up systems weaken trust specialist and partners and weaken help get help from others in areas that don't produce profit for us and so what does this look like this is what it really looks like when we boil it down that first building authentic brand message that is how we attract we have to break the mold where we think about marketing has getting our name out there and then letting people stumble upon it we have to create a business we have to create a brand that people are attracted to that people are dying toe work with people are dying to open that apple package people are dying to go to that unique restaurant thes air things that people are attracted to they make a point out of their day they can't help but talk about it on social media they can't help but share it with their friends these are things that people are attracted to I'm gonna talk about dating a lot throughout the next three days because I think that marketing and didn't have so many things in common so hope I don't tell a story that gets me in trouble with my wife about us dating a sum like that but think about it like dating remember being attracted to your wife or your husband or your girlfriend or boyfriend with that first attraction you could not get enough of them you you do stare and they're like oh I can't stare I shouldn't stare those kinds of feelings that you had you want to create a business where people feel that about your business they have to have you as their wedding photographer they have to have you as their portrait photographer there are attracted to you because then you get to work with who you want charge what you want and work as much as you want that's how you build a business in today's environment number two this content that we're talking about how to deliver the content it's about nurturing it's about nurturing them with content it's about loving them whether they're not a customer yet or they're already a customer this extends both too before they become a customer and when they are a customer and then even after their customers content allows you to nurture and nurturing nurturing really what nurturing does is establishes trust and trust is today's currency so we'll talk about that don't worry but nurturing build trust and trust today is the currency that makes the world go round I told you a little about how we're all on guard we're all wary and were wary because of the environment that we're in today's environment today's business world and trust breaks all of that content is how you build that trust number three is profit if you're in business then you have to generate a profit otherwise this is just a hobby it's okay if it's just a hobby but if you want to get business out of this and you have to profit and the way to profit nowadays is to lean in and trust specialist and set up good systems you have to set up a really good system that allows you to do everything in your business as efficiently as possible and trust specialist where you need to because you have to shoot and you have to market I wanna show you guys had a market you guys know how to shoot this is not a shooting class but this is a class on marketing this is a class on building a marketing system and plan for your business that allows you to grow and succeed so we're going to use this hashtag throughout the next three days under the underpinnings of what we're doing here is about loving your customer if you love your customer you're gonna build trust if you build trust they're going to want not only by you but they're gonna want to tell everyone about you and so this is going to be a hashtag we used throughout everything so if you're watching online if you're even here in studio a lot of what we're going to be doing goes backto love your customer and goes back to this concept of of how can you create ways toe love your customer how can you create what ideas can you come up with to love your customer loving your customer creating trust at a deep deep level it's the under opinions of today's marketing it's the underpinnings of what today's big brands and successful companies are doing to create trust and then follow that through to a purchase now we all have stories about this I'm going to share a bunch of stories about different companies that have created trust with me and then I have bought and we'll see that connection