PPMAI: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Poser's podcast, the place where we skip the fluff, say the quiet parts out loud and dig into what really matters. This is where photography, psychology, and business collide. I'm Jodi, your host, and I'm bringing you my raw takes, hard wins, and a whole lot of unfiltered honesty about what it takes to build a photography business that actually connects and makes money.
So ladies, grab your headphones and get your tits up and your ears open because We are going to build something really incredible together.
Part 1: Hello my beautiful posers and welcome to this next episode of the posers podcast. I am in my feels today. I am feeling it a little bit harder than usual and I had every intention of just popping on here and activating photographer Jodi and getting through everything that I have [00:01:00] planned to talk to you about today.
And then I sat with myself for a little bit this morning in the studio and I was like, you know what? That's not what you guys are showing up for. I promised you that this wasn't going to be another sugar coated industry podcast. I promised you that we were going to talk about the raw and the messy and the unfiltered truth behind photography and business and life and everything in between there.
So I am holding myself to the fire a little tiny bit and I'm really showing up in the way that I promised you that I was going to show up. I woke up this morning feeling anxious and overwhelmed. Okay? Yesterday, I felt like I was the light and the love and the laughter of the world. I can't believe I just said live, love, laugh on my podcast.
No, I was full of life. I was full of banter. I was sitting on the [00:02:00] bleachers watching my son's baseball game and I was going through everything that I knew I wanted to be talking about today and the wit and the banter was just flowing through my head as I formulated this podcast and I was funny and I was enjoying myself.
The other parents in the bleachers at the game were probably looking at me a little bit like, what? What is going on with her? Why is she smiling and chuckling to herself? She seems a little bit delusional, but Yeah, that was Jodi of yesterday. And then after the game, , yesterday afternoon, I went home, got dinner cooked, sat down with my three boys.
It's just the four of us at home. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I am not really a single mom because I'm not single. I am remarried, but I am a solo mom to my three boys. It is just the four of us at home because my husband lives in another state. And so we sit down for dinner and we're talking about everything that needs to happen.
for them the following day, which obviously [00:03:00] is today. And I had a photo shoot this afternoon and then one of my sons is starting pitching in his game this afternoon. My other son wanted to stay after school a little bit later. Make up a couple of tests that he had to make up, and then he wanted to be dropped off at the golf course.
And then my middle son, he was okay with staying after school, but he wanted to be dropped off at the park to hang out with his friends. Meanwhile, I had to be at a photo shoot, and I was going to be missing all of this, especially missing my son, starting pitching. That was hard on me. So no matter what, no matter how I sort of tried to finagle the timeline of being a mom to all three of them.
No matter what I was going to disappoint at least one of them, if not two of them, to only get one out of three, like that's a failing record for me as a mom. But so [00:04:00] I went to bed last night with all of this anxiety and all of this overwhelm feeling like I have to be the backbone for my boys and that there is no safety net.
And I went to bed feeling a little bit like, God damn, like I wish that things in my life were just a little bit easier. I wish that I had that safety net. I wish there was another person here who could, you know, just pick up the slack for me when I needed to be running my business. And, my friends, that is the messy.
That is the real. That is exactly what my life feels like today. So I woke up overwhelmed. I've got a lot on my plate. I am launching my course next week. So I'm teaching a live masterclass on Tuesday and next month I am teaching at a conference in Florida and I've got to get that presentation nailed down.
I also have a photography [00:05:00] studio that I am running and I bit off the idea of also starting a podcast in the middle of all of this. So I woke up this morning feeling very overwhelmed and very anxious with all of this stuff going on and showing up as the witty bantery self that I was yesterday just honestly might not happen.
But I promised you real life. I promised you the messy. I promised you that we would talk about what it really takes to run a successful business. And honestly, this is it. This is the rollercoaster of entrepreneurship. And I don't have an answer. It's not as though I'm going to sit here and say like, Oh, and this is the tip and trick that I am now introducing into my life in order to manage this, in order to manage that.
No, the only answer that I have for myself, maybe you guys have a better answer. I'm not sure. But the answer that I have for myself is I'm simply going to show up. I am going to find photographer Jodi because photographer Jodi [00:06:00] is. She's actually fantastic. She shows up, she is consistent, she gets shit done because a lot of times real Jodi, I want to be curled up on the couch with like, I don't know, tonight's episode of the traitors, which allows me to escape into a fairytale land over in Scotland and get to pretend like I'm besties with Alan Cummings.
So that's where the real Jodi would want to be today. I'm showing up. I am doing the hard work. I am getting this episode out to you today because I have really, really, really great piece of information, pieces of information. I don't know how you want me to say that. I have a really good lesson for you guys to learn today.
That sounds really silly as if I'm teaching in a classroom, but it is what it is. So I want to take all of that, knowing where my head is, knowing that I'm showing authentically up in the way that I promised that I would. [00:07:00] And now we are going to dive into today's episode. So here we go.
Part 2: Okay, the last couple of episodes we have really been diving into the foundational pieces of how I started my business and the guiding principles and words that I wanted to, I don't know, sort of hold true to throughout everything that I was building. I mentioned three words that I have consistently fallen back on whenever it comes time to make decisions about how I want to build and these words have really and truly created like the, I don't know, the scaffolding that was needed in order to scale.
Okay, so I want to start off today playing a fun little game, and I'm sure you've played it before. Probably not in this sense of making it something that we're playing in business. It might be a little bit more of a drinking game, but this might be a, this might be a first, but I told you [00:08:00] that if anything, this podcast isn't going to be boring.
Okay. So I want to play. A fun little game of fuck, marry, and kill with my three words. Okay. So those three words were, if you remember from the last episodes authority, audacity, and grace. Right? Okay. So we really dove into talking about audacity last week. So I was trying to figure out in my head what I wanted to talk about today, whether or not we're going to dive into authority or whether or not we're going to like, I don't know, tiptoe into Grace.
Grace just feels like we should be tiptoeing into her while authority feels like we need to be like diving in. So in my wittiness yesterday whenever I was bantering with myself and figuring out how I was going to start this episode, I was like, how funny would it be if we played fuck, marry, kill with these three words?
And very naturally they fell into place in my head that There is no question that I would fuck Audacity, marry Authority, [00:09:00] and kill Grace, okay? Because that clearly is a very good indicator of my personality. But I chose these because I feel like I'm going to fuck Audacity because Audacity is like fuckable, right?
Audacity is like, she's the bitch who shows up whenever you need to do something. really hard and quick and I just said that. I didn't mean for that to sound so sexual when we're talking about that. But it is. Audacity is like the thing that you show up when you need to, like, get down and dirty. God damn it.
When you need to get something done in your business, it is audacity that sort of, like, takes center stage. Okay? authority I would marry because authority is something that I want to have all the time. That is my lifelong commitment. [00:10:00] All right, authority gives me the permission.
audacious, right? So you have to have authority in your field, in your industry, in your market in order to even be put in the situations where you can make audacious decisions. Alright? And Grace, well, I said before, we have to tiptoe into her. We're going to get into Grace soon. But she's really just, balancing act, right?
Like I lead with so much masculine energy and I am talking constantly about having authority. I'm talking constantly about making these big, bold, audacious decisions and grace is the balancing act of when those things topple over for me because they do being an authority, having the audacity. Those are very polarizing.
Concepts, right? Those are things that are [00:11:00] probably going to sometimes offend people, probably going to sometimes get me into sticky situations. They are going to get me into a world of, of mess that grace usually comes in and balances grace on, you know, the side of me as a photographer, grace on the side of me as an entrepreneur, grace on the side of me as a mother.
Me as a wife, all of those things, she balances everything. So who needs balance? We can kill her. All right. So we're going to fuck audacity. We're going to marry authority and we're going to kill off grace. So last week we took a deep dive into the red ocean and the blue ocean concept, right? Also known as how to escape the overcrowded sea of photographers that are all competing for the same clients and instead really building your own market and where you are the like go to authority.
Okay, so now today we're going to take that idea even further [00:12:00] because Here's the thing. Just identifying your blue ocean isn't enough. You have to establish yourself as the expert in your space. You have to make your business undeniable in your market. And I know, you might be saying like, I don't want to feel like I'm constantly selling myself, right?
But listen, you don't have to be pushy or salesy in order to dominate your space. You just need a strategy. All right. So today I'm going to give you the top five ways to position yourself as an authority in your market. And these are simple tasks. There is nothing revolutionary. The hardest part that we're going to talk about is having these constructs within your business, but then staying consistent with them.
Alright, so let's dive in.
Part 3: so being an authority in my business has been and forever [00:13:00] literally will be what makes my business successful. Being an authority means that I am looked to from my market, from my community, within my city as an expert. It's what keeps my business on the tip of people's tongues whenever they have a chance to refer me to anyone, right?
And it's also the thing that keeps me front of mind each time that Clients that I already have want to book me for another photo shoot Word of mouth business is so incredibly coveted, right? I know this, you know this, everybody knows this, but I lean so hard into this. This is exactly why I show up as hard as I do.
The biggest key points of authority that my clients business are a few things right? Number one, my social media presence. If you follow my Instagram, then you know that I treat my Instagram a little bit more like a personal diary than anything else. My community has watched me crumble from a divorce.
rebuild my [00:14:00] life gut and renovate my divorce house. They've seen me grow my business. They saw me date a handful of very questionable men. That was a fun time. They saw me meet my current husband. They watched us plan and then go and have a beautiful Italian wedding. They watch us all try to blend this together.
crazy long distance family with five teenagers. They've watched me quit wedding photography. They've watched me build a photo studio. And I think the thing that they're waiting on right now is everybody's just waiting to see when the day is going to happen that that husband actually moves to here and I get to breathe a little bit, but you see what I'm saying?
I've let them into my life, not completely, but enough to where they feel as though they are part. Of the build. They are part of the journey. They are part of something that we are all creating together. It creates a situation where they like know and trust me. I [00:15:00] feel relatable to them because they get to see the messy and the magic just like what we're talking about here today too.
Right? What they've also done and another key point here is that they've watched me build the educational side of my business. They know that I formulated my posing method, which is based on my master's degree in psychology. They know that I have this power. podcast. Now they've watched me become an educator.
And what that's done is it's proven to be yet another cornerstone of trust building for that audience. Another reason why they know that I'm an authority is because they feel it. When we're out on a photo shoot they know that I'm going to be using that posing method that I've created. They know that their shoots are going to be filled with like laughter and fun and then they get on that shoot and they're so relaxed and they're so effortless.
Quick shameless plug, podcast. I can sell if I want to. I'm teaching this formula in a live class the day that this episode drops. We'll put a link into the replay [00:16:00] into the show notes of this so that you can learn even more about how this one piece of authority drives my business forward. But the fourth way that I infuse authority is through the consistent stream of social proof that I run through my visuals.
Everything that comes out of my business is beautiful. Clients see this and they see that people are booking me left and right. This is called the halo effect. We will discuss it in more detail soon, but Because of this, they see people are paying my prices. People value me. That social proof is major for me and it all gets wrapped up into this brand awareness that I've built, which can get my work recognized throughout my city and it keeps my name flowing through conversations even when I'm not around.
Alright, so these things being consistently drilled deeper and deeper into my business year after year have allowed me to build a business that I can charge what I'm worth and I can [00:17:00] book shoots fluidly throughout the year and I can ask clients to get into weird places and create outside of the norm with me and it has truly given me a herd of clients that kind of drink my Kool Aid, right?
Clients come into shoots saying that They'll do whatever I ask them to do. Even if I'm like, ah, here, hold this kid upside down and swing them back and forth. They're like, yeah, okay. That, that's weird. But maybe it'll look cool. Cause Jodi said so. Right. Or even if I'm like I want this shot to be.
naked and then like let's wrap you in this sheet or wrap you in this blanket or or however we're you know, naked in a field. I want a naked baby butt kind of everywhere, right? They're willing to do these things. I don't know if it's a good idea that I talk about wanting a naked baby butt on a podcast.
But you know what I mean, right? They're willing to do things that are a little bit outside of the norm in order to document [00:18:00] their family in this like really gorgeous, really fine art way that I love to do, right? It allows me to send like a styling mood board and know that My client is going to click every single one of the links that I give them and they're going to show up with those exact pieces on exactly how I styled them, which furthers my brand awareness.
This authority, it gives me the freedom to truly run my business and to see my brand come to life. Okay. Should we all like take a little namaste moment and calm our brains. Cause that was a lot. Keep in mind, can you tell I don't do yoga? I don't even know the words and the terminology around yoga.
Keep in mind that these are things that I have slowly been taking away at in my business for, I, I would say I've really been honing in on these things for like 10 plus years. Yes, I've been in business for 17 plus years, [00:19:00] but I have really drilled down on things, especially since post divorce. And that was eight years ago.
So really drilling in when I knew that I needed to be building a business in a different way that actually had to be successful, actually had to make me money because I didn't. that safety net of a husband anymore, right? So this list might overwhelm you. Just like dinner with my boys overwhelmed me last night, right?
But it doesn't have to, if you just take baby steps and start to infuse a few of these ideas into your business. Okay, so how can we take this information about what I have built into my business and make it work for yours? I have done you a service and I have compiled a list of the top five ways that you can infuse authority based practices into your business.
So that you can begin to have this kind of freedom too. So let's drill [00:20:00] even deeper into this. Alright, number one, building an email list. You've heard me now say it. You've heard other people say it. You maybe have ignored it. But the time to stop ignoring it is right now because building an email list is one of the most powerful marketing tools that you can own.
And I say the word own purposely there because social media is fun. Instagram stories are great. Tik Tok is. I don't know, a doom scroll a dopamine hit every like 30 seconds within the social media world is fun, but here's the problem, and you already know this, I am not the first person saying this, you don't own those platforms, right?
The algorithm changes and you're at its mercy. You get shut out of Instagram the way that I did because I posted one thing wrong, I used the word dupe one time and they shut down my entire 64, 000 person account. Instagram, which [00:21:00] literally is how I run my business. It got completely shut down. The first thing that I went to was my email list because your email list is yours forever, right?
Here's what you need to do. You need to commit to a weekly or a monthly like newsletter content that your readers can depend on. I don't care if it's a newsletter, a love letter I don't know, a rant about how you screwed something up on a photo shoot. I don't care what it is, just make it Consistent, right?
In that newsletter you can include things like behind the scenes moment so that people see what's happening within your business. You can do personal life within reason like I talked about before, sharing what makes you you and that relatability factor that likeability factor, those all come into play.
Right? Educational content, you can teach your audience the importance of good photography why they should invest in good photography, all those things, right? There, it is endless, the amount of things that you [00:22:00] can write a newsletter. to your email list on. Your email list, it builds trust and trust leads to bookings.
Here's one thing that I want you to do today if you haven't already done this. I want you to create a follow up email sequence for your business. So in order to do this, you're going to open up whatever account you have, whether it's Flowdesk, or Kit, or Mailchimp, or maybe you're just starting out and you're going into these companies.
I use Flowdesk. It's super, super simple. Alright, you're going to go in there and you're going to first set up an email capture form that you're going to embed into your website. It's all very simple. There's tutorial videos inside of there that will teach you how to do this. Alright, you're going to create a workflow of three emails, three to five emails that your new clients will receive whenever they're going to enter into your online world.
Have these emails introduce who you are, what you stand for, the type of work you create, whatever, and then thank them for being in your space. [00:23:00] And then after that, they're going to be nurtured by that weekly newsletter that you're going to commit to and that you're going to send out. Alright? Number two.
Showing up daily on social media. Yes, I said daily and I meant it. God damn it. Alright, the power of showing up daily on your social media. Here's the thing. People buy from the people that they know, like, and trust, alright? And that's where the mirror exposure effect comes into play. The mirror exposure effect is this psychological principle that states that the more we see something, the more we like it, the more we want it, right?
Think about it. Why do you trust certain brands? It's not necessarily because those brands are the best. It's because you see them everywhere, right? So if you show up daily on Instagram whatever, your audience is going to subconsciously be building [00:24:00] trust with you. They start to feel like they know you and then whenever they need a photographer, guess whose name is front of mind.
Yours, right? Let's not forget video. Video is your superpower. The more people see your face on these videos and hear your voice and connect with your personality, the more you stand out from the sea of faceless photographers who are just posting their work. So I am begging you, I know this is hard, but I am begging you to get on your social media and show your face, talk to your audience, be present because hiding behind your work is not a strategy.
In future episodes, in the very near future, I'm going to drill down into this. It's so much harder. I'm glossing over it right now because of the depths of how powerful this can easily be an entire episode by itself, or maybe even more than one episode. So [00:25:00] this one strategy, as I mentioned previously, has truly transformed me into one of the most sought after photographers in my city, and it deserves a much.
much bigger conversation than the one that we're having right now. And just this little blurb about it. So put a pin in that. We're coming back to it. Okay. Number three, the power of YouTube. My God, the power of YouTube. You really, if you really want to establish authority, literally it just these words, YouTube channel.
I know that this sounds like a really big leap, but Hear me out. YouTube is a gold mine and unlike Instagram where the algorithm seems so finicky or your posts disappear after a day, YouTube videos live forever. So why does that matter? Whenever you create on YouTube, you're creating evergreen content. A tutorial that you post today would [00:26:00] still be discoverable years from now.
You build an audience outside of social media. People search content on YouTube and that means that clients could find you without you ever consistently or constantly marketing yourself, right? It could also create another income stream, okay? I don't want to make this sound as if it's easy creating a YouTube channel that has the viewing power to create an income stream.
That takes a lot of hard work, but once you're there, monetized YouTube channels can bring in additional revenue on top of what you're making in your photography business. And here's the best part. You don't really need a fancy production, a simple video of you talking about, you know, like, I don't know how to pick the right photographer or five tips for looking great in photos.
These can be game changers. All you have to do. is just start, right? And honestly, if I'm being truly honest on this podcast, like I promised you I always would be, I'm annoyed at [00:27:00] myself that I don't have a YouTube channel. But I am starting, and I'm starting easy. Each one of these podcast episodes that I'm already creating, those are going to be published onto YouTube for now.
And then I'll expand on that whenever I feel like I have a little bit more bandwidth. this idea of double dipping sort of brings me into point number four blogging. Blogs are not dead. And let's be honest, if you are already writing a newsletter, you might as well be writing a blog. Okay?
Because these two things play off of each other so easily. Your newsletter is like the quick and snappy version and your blog is the deeper dive. Blogs are also SEO gold, right? Blogs can also. Again, I don't want to gloss over that as if it's some easy thing to do. Like, Oh, just post a blog and you'll start making money.
No, that's not it. Passive income is never really passive, right? If you were going to build a blog that you can actually monetize, it [00:28:00] takes a lot of work. But whenever you're using it in tandem with all of the other things that you're doing and people are searching for a photographer in your area, guess what?
Your blog posts are going to pop up much easier than your social media ever will. And long form , content will I will always position you as the expert more than like, I don't know, any sort of quick caption that you have about a photoshoot on a post on Instagram, right? Alright, your blog also, it doesn't have to be a novel, you guys.
Keep it simple. Answer common client questions, showcase recent sessions educate your audience in any kind of way that you want. The thing that's most important, same with the email, is consistency is key. Number five, we're partnering with local businesses. Guys, we're, we're not just partnering with local businesses, we're having strategic partnerships with local businesses.
And this is easy, because all you have to do is ask yourself, where do my best clients [00:29:00] And then go there, create marketing opportunities there. Here's a few places to consider. Med spas, right? If your clients have the money to be investing in beauty treatments, then they'll likely have the money to invest and want photography too.
High end hair salons, same idea. Luxury bridal boutiques. If they're spending thousands of dollars on a dress, they are not going to want I don't know. I don't want this to sound rude, but they don't want a crappy wedding photographer, right? So if they're spending thousands on a dress, they want top tier photos too.
Partnering with interior designers. If your clients are hiring interior designers, then I guarantee you they value their home enough that they're gonna want custom artwork and that just means portrait sales for you, right? You could also partner with like boutiques around your city that match with your aesthetic.
These lifestyle brands, [00:30:00] those attract your people just as much. Partner with influencers within your city. Anything to drive your ideal client. Straight from their business into yours is always going to position yourself into spaces where you have a set of clients who are ready to invest. Okay? Alright, some thoughts on wrapping this up.
These are very, very simple tasks, right? But they're not easy. It's simple, but consistently doing them. Is not easy, right? So if you want, I would love for you to DM me on Instagram. My Instagram handle is at j dot a NNE photography, and I wanna know. what resonates with you from everything that I've said today.
I want to have these conversations [00:31:00] so that these episodes can really and truly serve you. And I want you to know that this consistency that we're talking about here is truly what separates. business owners from Empire Builders. All right, I am signing off as always with more gumption than grace. Bye for now, friends.
Outro: Okay, so that is a wrap on this episode of the Poser's Podcast. If you loved it, please subscribe, rate, and review, because honestly, algorithms are needier than all of our ex boyfriends combined. And ladies, I need all the help I can get. If you've got thoughts, questions, love letters, even hate mail, please send them my way.
I actually read every single one of them. So until next time, stay bold, stay messy, and don't let the bullshit win. Tits up, ears open, and go build something incredible. Bye for now, friends.
