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Lesson Info

Marketing Your Business

Okay, so let's get into marketing leveraging the social media let's. See, I thought I was going to talk about the raising. Okay, I'm gonna come back to that raising rates without demand. It's a really key issue. Let's talk a little bit. I want to get out onto social media. Has been overdone, but let sze talk a little bit about a little bit and I talked about content attracts followers, right? Or you're really good looking, and you get a lot like you get a lot of well likes, like, just fact it is what it is. Okay, expanding your social media network, right? One amazing pictures adding value to it. You know, uh, giving something of value coupon, aura, photography tip or whatever that you have to have a voice, a well reasoned opinion. Okay, so on social media, you I see it like having a radio program. Anybody listen to talk radio when you get really old like me that you start. I don't know why you start listening to your talk radio it's just the older you get less music, the more talk rad...

io and I was just weird. So all these successful talk radio host what they haven't extreme opinion about something and so that's what's interesting, because you get us extreme opinion on but then you have ah, another in a girl well, I don't believe in that and then this person states it's logical reasons for that opinion and then there's great debate that happens so even though this person who has an extreme opinion but if it's well founded in reason you could respect that person still because at least that person thought it out. So that's what you do you have a take on life, please, whether it's the creative lifestyle that you're going to push or something haven't take about something and say it with confidence and put it out there, let people debate it with you okay, people were will respect you a lot even if they disagree with you they will respect you and you're gaining trust with respect there's trust and was trust there's touching okay, I have an interesting life please do something take a risk once in a while go sky diving my friend when other day just went scott, I'm not going to do it, but he did it right you're not going to get anybody into your facebook if you don't lead an interesting life, do you have well balanced contact? I think I'm going to make certain rules if we're talking about that this of our friends, you're only allowed to update a new facebook profile picture of yourself once a month you're only allowed to show pictures of your dog or your kid may okay maybe dog once a week okay your kids no more than two times a week okay, not that it's bad that doing any of that stuff I want you to focus on other things okay? Just don't fill it up with all that stuff with pictures of your dog or whatever but I want youto sincerely focus on what else can I show that I am other than that and my business and I and I don't understand it why? I know these photographers are in business but I never see any of their their photography well, what are they doing here? They're just having fun on facebook are they using this toe leverage business on it? Okay, so anyway it has to be well balanced just look at your wall and see if it's balanced if it's not just skewed one way or another are you talking about your business talking about your family, talking about your what you value in life etcetera and that becomes interesting so your work show improvement this is the most this is the thing that's really going to get people excited about you it's not about come because some people are afraid to show their work because they don't feel it's good enough right now but what really impresses people and gets people talking about you is if they see improvement and that's the key thing so you could post pictures now that's cool, but then as you get better, then you're really going to start to develop that way because they can see you're there improvement on it put question, yeah, just about the social media and my wife had essentially message before we came to the workshop and asked, um, why you choose to use your personal facebook page instead of a business page to show who you are? Yeah, right? Oh, you're asking that question, you said to ask it during the thing and I thought while we're talking about, so why don't I do personal and not my business? But I simply just don't have time to do everything to post on two different posts, so it goes what, you got a personal page and then you've got your business page, and I'm like, I got lawsuit, what? I got this and I got that right? So I do instagram because automatically goes to my facebook, but then do I gotta have time and and then some content can't show up on a business page that I can do on my personal page, so personal pages, more versatile, it's like, oh man, I just I don't have time, I'm just picking one. So I just chose one because it's more efficient for me and I don't have time updating and doing all this to go well, scott, you should have a scot robert one and then you should have a scot robert too. In a way, I don't have time. What do scott robert once got robert too. And then, uh, your business page and then that it's like it's. Too much for me, right? Yeah, without great content. Social media is just a fancy business card. That's all it is just a fancy business card if you don't have the content. Okay, uh, use social media is a great way to test probe and explore the market. This is where you can throw out some of your ideas but it's scary to throw out your ideas when you have this new style of this news posing technique that is different than what you have that scary toe post it because it's so different than who you are. But I challenge you to do it and just throw it out there to see you. May only I'm just gonna warn you right now, you may only get two likes it's. Okay? You're still a great person, okay, just just emailed me and I'll like it for you, right, okay, okay, okay then, but you may open up a whole new area and hit on something because you're probing your seeing what's different you're trying to create your purple cow here and you're testing it and you're putting out little probes on what's hit not your gathering all this information and putting it together so you could create your signature brand but use it to kind of test things okay that's how I started my career with teaching was I just no one would hire me to be a teacher so I just taught online I just taught on my block and I learned so much about blogging and getting on I learned so much about myself because I was so afraid to post some stuff and help me get over that fear just dad just post and see what happens and some post like oh that was a bomb I thought that was gonna go great oh well learning experience all right just keep moving forward zero marketing how often do you see fast food commercials often because why the food is mediocre so when you have a mediocre product you have tohave a lot of advertising constant constant advertising look, we went to that sushi restaurant last night do you see it advertised anywhere we got there? There was we were a little bit scared because when we've got went back to it we saw a whole line of people at the door we go suit we're gonna lose our reservation, right? Ciro advertising why that that's who she was good didn't need any advertising. Yeah, right, right, right. You were about the girls like but if you have a mediocre product you constantly have to market it. You're gonna have to market it, mark it up, mark it up, mark it up, mark it because it's average and so you need to be in front of the face so zero marketing is when a business generates all itself from word of mouth with very little or zero effort needed to sustain successful business and that's how my whole career has been and I'll bring on two on two more gentlemen later that have done that also so it could work. The market is vintage very good and well, I want to talk about this. The market is very good at finding your value if you want to know if you're good or not, you don't even need to ask me or contact me or give my opinion you'll know people will be hiring you if they're not hiring you you're not good enough that's it that's the bottom line I don't want to hear any other excuses about economy about this or whatever that is the simple fact and please face the reality right now because in our business with photography it's all word of mouth like that great restaurant and if you're producing mediocre food you're going to get mediocre results so look yourself in the mirror and say hey I have to get world class you must have that attitude before you have before any success happens to you that must be in the forefront of your mind good is not enough world class it has to be your business is not thriving it's all about you and it's not a bad economy okay face the reality that it's all about you and your work is simply not good enough because I'll prove it today is when your work is good you don't need and all the other photographers that I know they don't do any marketing because it just captains especially in our business okay your new business is literally a needle in a haystack how you're going to get people to find it how do you get noticed in the world that doesn't care and that's really what it iss the world has no reason to care about your business do you know that they don't go into this knowing that no one cares about your business? They don't care so how is anybody going to find you? They literally don't get yes our friends care our family cares but in order to save sustain a business, don't we need more people than our friends and our family know we need the world to care to pay for us and they don't care so how do you generate this? This and one way is you need to be a big fish in a small pond that's what you need to be and what that is is finding your niche and when a knish is is the situation in which a business in which a businesses products or services khun seek succeed by being sold toe a particulary er kind of group of people so just like that big purple towel is purple, cal is you need to target to a smaller group of people in order for you to be seen you can't take on the world until you're world class, but until then you need to go smaller and find some sort of neech thatyou can penetrate where you could be a big deal. So that's great actually it's I wish I lived in a small town because I'm dealing with sixty six photographers per square mile, okay? And so when you're in a small town, you actually believe it or not, you actually have an advantage because it's easier to be number one in a small town than being number one in los angeles, you get it so that's why you gotta focus in smaller and we're going to talk about a little bit about this because I'm going to bring up erm and this is what he did and we're gonna learn how he did that okay. Find your community or group that you have gained trust in with where you khun or where somewhere you could easily gain trust. Okay that's the key factor and it could be the committee communities that you're in such a cz your church or school association, sororities, fraternities, whatever cultural or ethnic groups I'm just giving you ideas a small town uh, cell and then what? Blow this group away with your skill show them something that this group has never seen before. Whoa! Wow. And then you gain trust in that group and then you start developed all the business that you need right within that group and so for myself how I saw my business take office that I had a lot of asian clients. Okay? And the reason why I was different than another a lot of other photographers was one I brought a glamour to photography in general, but to you saw it in my pictures. What do I do? What? Whether I'm a no for that happy that lightness that everybody having a good time it's hard for asians to express that, but I did it. And so that's why all the asian for tigers ago? Yeah, I like this guy because look it he's making other asians look at, they look happy and whatever ooh, that was it that was my niche and so I did very well in that community, but I bring something to that community that it was needed or that it needed to be represented, that it wasn't there in that game, trust within them and that's what you need to do, you need to search all your circles of influence and go in and try to dominate that area and then dominate the world don't dominate the world first, you can't do that it's impossible go smaller build from that dominate that and then you can open up in the world will be to you that way, okay, you're most likely the best photographer in your community or group, so wherever that small community is, you're probably the best photographer and just access that you don't have to care about me or whoever don't compete just go to that group and be the best in that group. Okay, um marketing we're almost getting to the end here can be a very cruel world just because you're a nice person and need money to feed your family and pay your mortgage. The world feels no obligation to help no matter how nice you are no matter what a good person you are, the world feels no obligation to pay your mortgage next month there's only so much money I could take from my parents until it's gotta be all on me, okay? And so that's the situation you got to realize that that's the truth right there no one's going to help you, you've got to do it yourself. You can't feed your family on mercy likes on facebook get that content going make the world notice you with your talent and skill attack attack it don't give up and no plan b you've got it, you've gotta have no plan b what I mean by this is that there's this movie called the officer and gentleman anybody see it? It's a super old movie, but there's a course where this man, this guy, he wants to be an officer, he wants to really move up and be an officer, so what happens is is that I don't know I can't remember this movie's like twenty years old, but I think what happens is that the powers the authorities that be want to get rid of this dude because I think he did something with the general's girl daughter or something. I can't remember the sort, but all I remember is his one scene with lou gossett jr right? And then he's they're and they're trying to get rid of them so they make him, like march around with his head over his gun for twenty four hours in the rain, make him scrub toilets with a toothbrush I mean, they're giving him hell and then make and then he'd take the officer the lou gossett jr has seen your officer takes a whole weekend just to break him to make him quit and then he's doing all this stuff going the whole week and then he's making him do the sit ups or whatever and he breaks lou gossett hey fine goes dude why are you doing this why are you going through this why can't you just go away and and then richard gary's going and he's in tears and he's going because I have nothing else that's how you have to see it when you're going into your business there is no plan b I have nothing else and thiss has to work that's what I did it only took me a long long time twelve years thirty seven years old but I finally did it but I would not settle for a normal job because I knew has called for this okay so um and so I'll just end with that you know no plan b okay that's for this segment that's what it's about no plan b you're going to do this and you're going to make it work no matter what that you don't really have that attitude it'll be too easy for you to quit very very easy anyways any comments from think well maybe do a couple questions yeah so is there anything in the studio audience if not I'm ready to go right? Looks like I'm ready to go. Okay, I would like to know something from earlier. Scott, how do you walk the line between as far as your marketing being modest and a braggart? I'm sorry. What was that walking the line between being a modest person and brad bragging at telling people about your work without bragging? And I always go on the modest side. Okay, it's, much more class here. Ok, so you know what I do? My kind of theory is I'm not a tall person or everything. I just kind of try to look nice, right? And then have a nice business card, and I let my work do the talking for me, ok? On dh, you know, I just with my personality, I used that andi don't really put you don't want to push it that much because you want to be like, I've been here before, you know? You can hire me or not, but I'm not gonna look desperate. Is that professional attitude and its confidence issue when people are pushing themselves, they're overcompensating for something and I see that a lot and that becomes annoying when you over conversant, push, push, push, push, push so it's, just like, let the game come to you as you say, you just come into the the game plan looking sharp. You look sharp to get attention, have business cards very professional and you have a charming personality. You're going to go places that's it wonderful. Thank you. All right, let's do one more question and this is from j l x photography who says maybe I'm getting a little bit too technical, but can you talk again a little bit about how you're defining marketing verses advertising? No, you're you're when we're talking about the zero marketing your look, your sharpness is clearly part of your brand, which is also part of marketing. So when we're talking about zero marketing, you're talking about advertising social yeah, talking about advertising up sorry, yeah, I'm not that I'm not lumps of economics, major whatever. Yeah, so I'm kind of clumping all those things together on dso it sze mostly about advertisement, right? But we have talked about how branding can be an important investment. Yes, and I think it's all actually part of your marketing is your brand right on dh so I don't know. Yeah, that's, I haven't really thought about that issue a lot. The difference is, but I'm talking about going out and paying for things basically that's, mainly what I'm talking about going to pay for advertisement.