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Marketing with Sue Bryce

I think it's about time to bring out our first instructor you all know her well miss su bryce has been a staple here on creative live the people keep asking for more and if she keeps giving more she is a new zealand originally from new zealand glamour and portrait photographer who truly does define modern women's portrait er I have had the pleasure of being photographed by her and she changes people's lives and she is going to change all of yours today so let's bring her out mr bryce come on wait wait I'm not quite used to that long walk how do you feel this morning how do you feel about kicking off our modern women's portraiture that sighted neighbor lots of adrenaline I think I could power the whole strip as you come through doing today strong three athlete three well that is when you are at your best yeah we're gonna let you take the way hey thank you you know it's my two year anniversary today for creative life so I did my face created five class on march the fourth and fifth and t...

wo thousand twelve I won't talk about how incredible this team is because I'll just start crying but the truth is they really have become like family and it's been amazing turning all right the question I really have to ask this morning because I'm going to talk about marketing this will probably be the most unconventional marketing put that you've ever meaning because I don't have a marketing degree or business degree aura photography degree anything really you know lives going on fifteen so I need to tell you how I found out how it works so I guess it's going to come from a completely different place but what it's going to do hope please open your eyes because when I started to right, this was such an incredible um I'm emotional I think that I started writing because all I hear from people for the last two years is how do I put myself out there and you're not saying have I market my business? You're saying, how do I put myself out there? And it occurred to me that a lot of you just struggle with that and I struggled with that for so many years and I kind of found some answers, so I'm going to share them with you I've got lots of content and this talk so I'm going to go fast I'm eighteen oh yeah you're so lucky you didn't get to meet eighteen year old may I couldn't have ever stood up here anyway. My first boss said to me, what do you want to do when you grow up and I said, I want to be a photographer? He said, good going by camera, learn your craft, okay? And you know at that eighteen I remember thinking you know how hard can it be I service all of these professional photographers is re toucher so I bought a camera and I learned my craft I spend the next seven years doing a job as a photographer I tune up to get paid I go home and they want so desperately to be a photographer I just want so desperately to be a photographer I should everything I fail at everything you know I try everything I should motorbikes neighbors children you know I should everything that moves I realized in that moment I'm more desperate for validation than education and everything I do is good enough am I good enough? Am I good enough? I watch all of you through your journey on facebook and I look at what you're posting and I look at what you're blogging and I look at the images you're putting out there and all I see is my good enough am I good enough? Am I good enough and now like when I was eighteen to that one side twenty two years ago like four years ago there wasn't an internet you know? So I didn't have that massive judgment coming back on me that you have now and then all of a sudden this am I good enough? Am I good enough seems to be more important than anything else your marketing so I'm gonna I'm gonna address that today because that is so significant you suddenly start working from this place of ego that ego tunes into resentment the resentment tunes and a competition and next minute you go from am I good enough to I'm better than her and I'm better than him and everything about the energy in which you're working has shifted and nothing about that will attract money for clients or joy or enthusiasm into your work life so all of a sudden we always from this place now you might think you don't now I know a lot of good people I had dinner the other night with susan kinnah and afterwards we have a group takes the three of us by the way we speak to each other is a group and I take them and I like you do you know how nice it is to go to dinner with people that don't say nasty things about anybody but they're just so kind and kindness is something that's really overlooked because you don't realize when you're being unkind and you know when you're around unkind people you hear it and it's like it's just unkindness where they kind people but you still fall into that resentment in the competition and the ego in the am I good enough to easily even if you're kind nice person I've seen it a million times so seven years I worked from a place of ico I just wanted to be good enough I'm twenty five I've entered my first national awards I've done that to be recognized I get recognized by my peers my peers do not pay me but I am recognized I'm also a young woman in a man's industry because this is two thousand sorry nineteen ninety five I like I bump it up ten years so all of a sudden I get recognized and winning awards and I think to myself I could actually have a career nobody told me I could have a career I come from blue collar appearance my parents tune up do the job which really had go home so I think I could have a career and I could really make something out of this I'm uneducated I come from self or plan which is just a little duty o town happen our out of oakland which only half a million people in it I still turn up I get paid the days just get longer and slowly the next seven years become this career a case they're working for someone else now I want desperately to be successful because I'm already noticed and I'm already good enough now I want to be successful suddenly all the energy has changed to be noticed I want to leave a mark I want to be celebrated I want to be celebrated sue brian you know this is what I want to climb the mountain and then stand on the summit and I'm working from this place now I want to be noticed I want to be seen I want people to know who I am I enter awards I when I get noticed get knocked down I get backup I'm good enough look how good I am I should be treated better I should be paid more I'm better than him I'm better than here I deserve more than them where they successful and I'm not that was how I thought that was and it was in my language it was in everything I said it was in everything I did I'm thirty two years art I deserve more so I'm going to start my own business you know? Because then you get more, you get paid better I saw perfectly average photographers earning really good money and really good photographers inning nothing I watched them failed watch them close their doors and I watched them go on get a job one of the best photographers I've ever seen gave up and put on facebook I'm working for walworth pecking groceries that's like a depart our grocery store I'm working for always packing groceries. Other photographers told me there's no money in photography you can't make money doing this you know and I just watched it over the years perfectly average photographers in perfectly good money so I watched him walk away with their heads down and go and get jobs I can't compete in this industry, they say I can't compete in this financial climate. There's no money in this town. I can't sell my work, there's no, many in photography they told me that but I watched perfectly average people thrive. So what was the secret? I asked? I will work hard that this was my idea. I'm going to work harder than everybody else because one of the cool things about growing up in south open I know you had a fight. All right? I'm gonna fight. How does the new I'm gonna work out of the news? And I'm goingto fight just every single day I'm never gonna give up. I'm gonna win because I have to I don't have a choice and I will beat them all competition competition, part five so I spend the next seven years building my business. Look how big my business has look at successful my businesses making clients happy, making staff happy. Big, big, big business making other people happy, right? Are the people happy? I'm thirty nine. The challenges that endless the industry changes, technology changes, financial, climate changed. You push, you pull the even flow of incoming and it's out your stress, the worry, the connection, the disconnection and then the staff drama this life drama okay, none of that has anything to do with you or modeling yourself or your career that's just life everyday it's in your business you goto work it's it's going to confront you every single time welcome to the world of owning your own business suddenly this tax okay there's rent their struggle this responsibility the stakes are higher the pressure is huge you're turning this cog it's a wheel and its consistency and growth and you just stopped loving like you do take about and when you have a shitty job who do you blame the person who pays you right so when you have a shitty business who do you blame? And the best thing about having a shitty business is you blame the economy so I ask you today before you even talk about marketing I have to ask you a question who pays you for your service? Your skill in your craft because paying you who took line and we're in all of my mountain climbing did I make it about them? Wright your client only cares about one thing and that's what they're getting you think you're in business you think it's all about competition you want to be better, faster, louder cheaper than your competition you look on facebook, you spend all your time on their websites getting angry about how much they charge I go to mentor studios and they're like you know margaret down the road charges fifty five dollars for a five based event and paul over here and I think hoke ears why are you looking at theme? You're spending all of your time looking at them you market from a place of competition you blogged from paste place of competition you look at their website you feel jealous and annoyed everybody does it okay but your clients don't care okay? They're not looking at all of them and comparing and competing. So what is marketing it's what you sell not how good you are you think it's about how good you out if I can just take a bit of photographs I will attract more people that is not true do you know your true power? Do you know what it is today? You're gonna find it it's your calling it's your purpose and it's been there with you from the beginning you just maybe haven't quite grasped it and this is how I found mine one woman, one makeup artist one window, one reflector one day my camera and may we talk we laugh I dressed her up I show her help beautiful she really is and I know I can change her the way she sees herself I congar id her and molder and relax her just enough to take a beautiful portrait that she can keep forever that is my purpose if there was nothing else in my life all I want one bill one makeup artist one window one reflect I don't need anything else that is magic the conversation that happens about self esteem about life, about personal growth, about confidence everything that happens in that moment is my purpose my calling and it is so powerful I can show her in a world of not good enough that she's perfect that she's a valued that she's enough in her light shines and my heart is full look at may I can't say that without crying it is an every part of may it isn't my cell every cell in my body believes it. So how do I tell people that? Do I have to reconnect to that every single day? Yes, hello theis you know I would love for you all to think that I'm a really lovely person but I could be such an asshole wick with him in a type personality I expect everybody in the world to talk fast assimilate this fast process is fast as me. I delegate jobs to people and then I watched them do them and I get annoyed that they can't do it as fast of may I have a photographic memory and an exceptional cock ignition and I tune it over really quickly so I'm not a fun person to be around at work but you know, the truth is is that moment that truth that purpose is when I'm with that girl is so it is just that the bottom line for may so it's about knowing what it is that you do and I wonder how many of you today we'll walk up to me and tell me exactly what you do and if any of you know because until you know what you do you cannot market yourself now you might be on a different path than me you might be further down the track than me you might have a different why like why you're doing this and you might have surpassed me long ago but that's fine I need to ask you if you're asking why why am I not getting this or that then you have not yet worked out what it is that you give or that what you give his value so maybe you've worked out what you give but you cannot find the value in it I'm going to change that I'm going to tell you today you need to know what you give in today you need to understand what the value of that isthe because until you see value in what you do nobody will pay you for it business is a value exchange I value that day with that girl and that moment and that feeling and that power she values it because like you said I've just changed a part of her life and she's paid me for that service but I did not see that value for many years and when you don't value what you do, how can you put a dollar on it or how can you tell anybody what that isthe and without that knowledge you cannot market what your true power is all right? I had a job my job seven years turned into a career or I'm taking this really seriously now my neck seven years with a business business my next even years and I'm only that was thirty nine I'm only two years into my fourth seven year cycle my twenty fifth year as a photographer and I've realized that my evolution is I found my purpose and all of a sudden I not only believe it speak about it say it facebook it instagramming tweeted market it video it talk about it it seeps out of may I'm fully booked for a year I've bean tuning away thirty shoots awake for the last year I cat people are how many people have emailed me trying to get a shoot it's crazy I have so much work coming towards me and this was a girl who used to sit in her apartment in wonder hel quint was going to be paid on friday why all of a sudden people just attracted to my brand to me and then I realized that purpose is fulfilling its honest it's authentic it's not competitive or greedy or needy and you don't have the fight or resist or struggle or compete I don't look at other people's website and think there's so much better than mate there are a lot of photographers in this world that a bit of the may I'm a god it's not even my strength I did not say it in my purpose to be the best photographer in the world or that I am I said my purpose with one woman one window one reflect out one conversation one life changing moment that fills my heart and changes her world that is my purpose and that is what I market I'm not trying to be better than you I don't need to be better than you anymore no I don't need to climb up on the mountain and look down I don't care and here's something else I say this all the time I'm living in this really bizarre world now if it's like the old data rock star can I take your photo you have been fielding a rock star and then people are like that she picked up rocks uh she she's got such a big ego she makes me throw up in my mouth so that our faith I tell you something I'll tell you something that is so honest and I can look you straight in the eye and tell you this do you know what I'm nothing I'm an uneducated girl from southfork land with nothing I am nobody and I'm okay with it call me nobody I'm ok I am nobody did I'm a portrait photographer I don't care about applause in cuba anything else I care about one woman one reflector one window one moment one conversation that is my papers I found it I can do that for the wrist of my life and my heart will be full you just give service what do you give how many of you can answer that question what do you give not how good is your photography what do your package is how much is your eight by teen how long is your experience what does your studio look like I built my business in a garage in careca I mean come on intent seeps out of you it transmutes it's magic and it's real and it will take it's not about how pretty your studio is or how big your cameras or how many leans is you have I built my business on a team day that didn't shoot roar with kit leans twenty four one five I had a pc and a mouth I didn't have awakened tablet you know I'm so tired off the competition of looking at everybody trying so hard to be better than everybody else and then putting other people down and pointing fingers and being assholes you know, mind your own business your intention how you work, the state in which you dwell is predicted an every social media post every block g right every email you're right, it is powerful energy it permeates out of you in everybody feels it you can put on the nicest face you want and say hi has it going? I really hate here and everybody feels that you're not lying tio anybody you know, you're not lying to somebody when you're not thinking about the service, you're giving your thinking about how much hopefully they're going to buy from you. I just hope they buy my biggest package so I can pay my rent this month that is your intent and that is permeating out of you and you look desperate and you don't get the sail and when you need it the most that's when you don't get it right when you add desperate and you feel sick and all you need is for them to spain eight hundred dollars and they don't buy, so when your intention is giving, then you just receive because business is just a value exchange, so I need you to turn all of your marketing into service, purpose and service. What is your purpose? What is your service? What are you giving me? I'm your client we're giving mei because I look at your website and it's all about you my photos my best photos my studio about me how many supervisor like long walks on the beach and cupcakes and I have a I have a peg could cookie and you know and it's like so what do you do how much to cast and what what are you selling me because I'm buying right I'm paying you and we would have made it all fluffy and about ourselves and it's kind of weird and then we're all looking at each other going damn it she's got the new wordpress I wish I could afford a video like that so when your intention is giving you received my intention is always about the client is it is it really listen listen to yourself I hope they like the photographs I hope they buy this package we slam clients on facebook instead of taking the time to educate them I see this every day you would not believe what this woman asked for mated I all those stupid pictures where it's like a professional photographer gets paid and on all the reasons I'm just like you know it's like stop look what you're doing do you see me doing that no you don't you don't even see me doing that so today who are you who are you and what do you give I want you to come and tell me I'll be here all day I want you to tell me who you are what you give and I will try and help you market they're better and what are you trying so hard to be? You're already doing what you love it is the most obvious thing about you and you haven't maybe worked it out yet so a girl comes up to me she goes, I want to market myself but I can't see myself on video so overweight I said go, you're seeing yourself on video hard no matter what wait you are you always look bigger than you are you always hate yourself and see yourself and hear your voice and you're like I don't sound like that yeah, and you guys are like are your accent is so creamy and I could just listen to it for hours all I hear myself talking, you know, my my ki ri accent going or both and the truth is at the end of the day I looked at her and I said, have you considered that there's a hole world of overweight women out there that would just love you to market to them and say, I know that sometimes you put on five pounds team pounds hundred ten pounds, but you know what? I'm going to take a beautiful shot of you anyway because you deserve to exist in photographs women come up to me and they go I want to start a business, but I'm sixty and I know that I cannot say gina harmony sixty year old woman out there would love to be photographed by a woman their own age, not some tight ass. Twenty three year old that's going to be like, work it, darling. Speak to those people. Speak to your people. Do you know who your people are? I know who my people are. You know who my people are. I am a woman who is forty two years old. I put on one hundred eighteen pounds. I know what it's like to not like yourself. I want to shave my head from down to here. Two numbers, even on the clipper. I just wanted to see what it felt like to be completely invisible. I spent my life training at martial arts so I can speak to athletes and I know who my people are. I know my stories. I know what drives people. I know what moves people I know what makes the difference. Look at these four women here this week last night were having dinner and I looked at them and I was like, I can see all of their work them and they work. I can see me in my wig, you know, I see lara in her fashion shoots I t emily and hurt, they look like them you don't even realize it, but everything you do is in your work you already in it? I could if I got to know you I bet you I could see you in your work. So what is that? Do you know what that is? Sometimes your weakness is your greatest strength and what you perceive is your weakness right now could be your swan song and you don't know that so if you have a weakness today and you want to confront say sue this is my witness alternate into a strength because I continue any weakness into a power because it occurred to me that everybody has a word all right everybody has a word and it's usually something you struggled with is a child. Okay, maybe it's something you went through maybe you got bullied maybe good teas maybe you you know you had scars. Maybe it was about your way. Whatever it wants, everybody has had something that they hold onto minus self love that's my would I get to because it kind of sums up I put make it one with I spent my whole life leaning and trying to love myself and it occurred to me that those are the conversations I have with my clients so that's my power it's also my strength and my weakness, I know about it because I've experienced it at its most confronting level what's yours and have you used it and your marketing have you used it in your business yet have you even considered that it's probably the most powerful thing about you who do you identify with you need thio write that down because they're your client they're your people and once you have your people you can speak to them this is all I hear how'd I market my business how do I market myself how do I put myself out there? How do I market my business how do we market myself had away put myself out there put myself out there out where to the public wow how do you put yourself out there? You talk about it all right? You let your voice speak out loud and clear with authority, joy, enthusiasm and you own it how many of you are not owning what you're doing? How many of you is photographers in business owners feel like a fraud I did I felt like a fraud for years like somebody was going to somehow help me it's not even being a good enough photographer who's felt like that you know how often do you want to be something and someone in your family tells you you can't write and you just feel like you can't you just feel like this fraud and you're not earning it even if I had a job I hated and I would do that to pay the rent you would not stop me from doing that I didn't I wouldn't care if I had to go and pump gas I would do it smiling because I would know that on saturday I get to do a photo shoot I would give it away for free if I head to you could not stop me from doing it you could not stop me from talking about it and you could not stop me from facebooking it from instagramming it from tweeting it and yet most people on facebook are talking about the job they hate wishing they were full time is photographers and you are never going to make a full time business because your energy is in a place of height, competition, negativity, everything I don't have everything I'm not instead of everything I get to do there is nothing I would not do to become a photographer nothing I got a pat time job I paid off a car I got a part time job on thursday night friday and said seven sunday selling jewelry because the photography didn't pay very well but really I just needed the guts to own what I do to stand up and say my name is sue bryce and I'm a glamour portrait photographer and when I stood up and got the guts to speak out about what it is that I'm doing not want to do em doing I realized that everything shifted around me I no longer saw the judgment or you know, the criticism I learned to speak and now I know who I'm speaking to. So two years ago when I did my first creative life, I'd just come off my second platform for w p p I it's a thousand people in a room it's a lot it's a big room, I come from a place where I couldn't speak to room of twenty people, so if you are not speaking right now, if you're not speaking, if you can't walk up to me today everyone a few people and tell me confidently who you are, what you're doing, what you have, what you love, what you're enthusiastic about, what you're excited about is a photographer I need you to open this up because I know what it feels like to be muzzled and I'm gonna say muzzled cause it's just choking when you want something and you can't say it when you want to be something and you don't have the courage to say it that's what's stopping you the most simple stories are the most authentic I don't need to create these big epic situations in my studio right now I'm going to show you right now what is getting me more work than anything else? This is my truth this is my free day real girl ah client that everybody identifies with definitely not good exercise much just part of my life, so it was definitely an overweight kid tried to be really weird on top of it, I think, to detract from being backing, but it probably wouldn't just called attention to what I hate about my photographs is that I feel like I look old, especially if I'm not smiling, so if anybody catches me like while I'm talking, I'm usually making so crazy face features or saggy baggy eyes, something like that by if anybody is going to take a photo of me, they need to tell mei for so that I could be ready for mostly, I don't don't enjoy candid shots. Look at myself, I don't like my butt thigh region, uh, selling women there and I don't like my arms, I never go sleeveless never show, and I'm crazy pale, which never makes anybody with better like it highlights all the worst, uh, assets that I have so speak I feel it was beautiful when I am away for work projects, and I've spent my whole day on the boat, son or something. Come in and it's really hot and you put on a dress. But I never wear in your life and it just gets hot and tropical and it's just so beautiful out here, walking around town and a little bit of fun and that's when I feel beautiful, but it's not often and I think it's to do with what I've been doing, something you love all day. Oh, e yes, it doesn't look like anything, but I thought it would look like in my life, I've never had a photo of myself, but I like until today and now I have more than the sum total of my previous life all I want to think this one is my favorite look like myself, but I was really happy, unethical ever think thiss one is my next love flowers on I just it looks like I'm really in looking like we leave it looking at somebody if I was to photograph you every year of your life, even from your teenage years to becoming a woman, teo becoming an older woman, teo embracing yourself a forty fifty if I was to do that, then you would make peace with who you are and every stage of your life he would accept. Yourself and your changes you accept your body changes your weight changes that line a wrinkle and you would learn that if I wish only the best of yourself for every year that you know that would be your way off knowing yourself because sometimes the best way to know is to see the way other people see after remind myself but you only look a I didn't think you looked I guess tired and crappy as you think you look like you feel yeah you feel yeah I don't feel I felt great during the photo shoot felt happy and young look coming up here you can go in steering yourself many alice and don't put yourself out of a book okay? My mom is gonna freak I always told my mother always said I could be a model so that's another one of where your friends always tell your beautiful but this is legitimate there's confirmations wei have it from outside sources your friends tell you you're beautiful but it's legitimate and we have it from outside. So what I love about that I think is you can interview people but you can't pre interview them you have to let them talk in the real voice and that speaks more authentically than anything else don't you think I feel like no matter what I could create for myself as a photographer, I would love to show images you know off, you know, girls that look like angelina jolie and no, I'm not saying I mean, look at tiffany she looks like angelina jolie and she's, one of the motel panic people, I admit, but what I'm saying is it's the authenticity with which she speaking also that video was shot by a friend of mine sean libera I had this incredible presentation to show you that was shot on inamoto and edited on inamoto on dh we couldn't show up for a copyright reason, so we had to pull it at the last minute, but the reason I wanted to show that straight after this is I don't feel that you can tell me you can afford a videographer when all of your cameras shoot hyde definition film, and secondly, when you see that it that's ellie did on inamoto, it looks like a film it and for two hundred and forty nine dollars a year, you get unlimited high definition it on inamoto and to me, it's incredible! I was talking to the boys at enomoto in new york, and they're putting in a hole up more functions just to help with editing. There are no excuses anymore for you to start telling these stories these stories have more sheer, more power, more sheer where the power than anything else I could ever talk about, and isn't she incredible that she just talked about herself and so many of your clients will happily do that for you. So I'm going to take it a step further. Okay, I'm going to take many of these videos as I can. I'm going to do one a month, I'm going to put them on my website snapshots behind the scenes behind the lens look into what really happens on a photo shoot. I look into a real showed a real experience with mei these are my clients, these people exist is my clients, and they will attract multiple more clients for me. And I need you to start really finding your purpose in authenticity so that you can speak it. Here's another one that I just absolutely love. Laura hi way. We've been best friends for thirty years. E so that means she made you teo who's, the naughty one of the great way. Well, wake up that way. We're talking about about breakfast, about how much fun we always have a way. So your friendship has survived marriages, children. And moving across the country why do you think that is? I can answer that for myself of these women are so supportive of me all these years over all the different thing and it's like no matter what, they're always there do you feel as good friends when you're together that you're any different than you were when you're twenty way might be more wise ueno a lot more about life but really it goes back to just you know, I think girlfriend's helping girlfriends having the best time they can together way were so care free on dh now I have to watch out for my me and this and that eventually were they're already laughing about time wait for me, tio it's also taking time for myself I don't think a lot of time for myself with kids I'm constantly doing things for them which is really what I want todo but it is nice to step, take a step back and do something for myself and have a great time with my friend just work on you know because marketing to women is easy because we like story we like to tell them we like to watch them, we like to share them and we understand them it might just be a crazy girl thing, but when you look at that video you think of your girlfriends, your sisters, your mom you think of the experience you could have, and we relate that instantly to ourselves and our own experience isn't that true? Okay, take that beer, get me a triple sale because tell me my client that they could bring two friends and straightaway, I have three women in my space or sharing an incredible experience and those videos, those stories are so easy to tell. Look at these women fifty years old, dancing, laughing, thirty years of friendship. Is he even greater to celebrate than a lifetime of friendship? That is so easy to tell the story and, you know, I went out to dinner with them. They're the most incredible women they finish each other's sentences, they laugh about the path, you know, they were telling each other things that they didn't know about each other still, after thirty years at dinner and I really love that, and this was the image that all three of them got a different image of the three of them together for a different reason, and all of them chose those three four different reasons, and I love that. Pay a videographer or shoot yourself it it on an emoto or pay a editor, I don't care, no excuses. There are no excuses. I've done creative lives, onshore eels. I've done creative lives on a shooting film. I have done marketing classes, I've done glamour classes, I said, you need to make videos, you need to make videos, you need to make videos. Three percent of you have made videos right in the next section. When I go through your mentoring list, you're gonna have to take off a year from now on, a few of those christians and that's going to hit you.