Intro: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Posers 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 Jody, 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.
Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to the Posers Podcast, my beautiful posers. I am fresh off, well, I wouldn't say fresh. There is nothing fresh about me right now, but I am straight off of the plane from Tampa from my time at the Focus and Flourish Conference, and I am so full of energy [00:01:00] and inspiration to dive back into my business and do some incredible things.
This was my very first time ever speaking live at a conference, which I have done many live master classes. I have done a lot of teaching and intensivess and things like that online, but this was the very first time that I was at a conference standing up in front of a room full of people who actually have real life eyeballs who were looking back at me and the level of.
Clarification, if that's a word. I was terrified to do this. Even though I very much so seem as though I am an extroverted person I. Just ripping the bandaid off and getting in front of a group of people and speaking live to them was, uh, something that had me shaking in my boots. I literally thought that I would get up there and that I would have a [00:02:00] shaky voice and that I would stumble and that I would lose my place and that I wouldn't be able to really just present something with.
Eloquence, so to say. Not that I am an eloquent person by any means, but to be able to get from start to finish and really teach one topic that came full circle. I was really scared that I wasn't going to be able to do that, but. I have to tell you that speaking in front of that group of people lit a fire inside of me.
It was so much fun and I had such a blast being in front of everyone at the conference. But I wanna tell you a little tiny story that happened. So I'm terrified, right? I am literally shaking in my boots. I was up late the night before running through my presentation over and over again, and I wasn't really, and I'm still [00:03:00] not at the place where I'm gonna jump up there and give a keynote or jump up there and be like, Ted Talk Queen.
Right? But. So I had like a script of notes that I was going to be going through. I didn't have just like notes of bullet points of what my slides were, but I had the whole entire thing written out. Because I just, I'm not comfortable in this space yet. It's obviously my very first time, but so. I had been up late the night before and I'd gone through it a few times and then I'd woken up early the morning of and gone through it a couple more times and you know, also fretted over which outfit I was wearing because that's important too, you know, it really is like, you know, how you feel in front of the group is really important, but I also just wanted to look cute.
Duh. Okay. But so. I'm with my friend Shannon, who I met at the conference and, hold on sidebar. I met the most insanely forceful, powerful, [00:04:00] incredible women at this conference who immediately, and when I say immediately, I'm saying that Shannon. Shannon Griffin of Shannon Griffin Photography.
She walked through the front door of the speaker's house. She said one sentence. One sentence, you guys. And I whipped my hair around and looked at her and I said, oh my God, I like you. And from that moment, I then confessed to her that I had a girl crush on her and that I've had a girl crush on her for a very long time.
Her work is insane, you guys. But. Then I met her in person and she was not the type of person that I thought she was going to be in real life, but we automatically just clicked. And I clicked with another woman who I actually gave her a ride home from the airport. I don't do that. You guys like, I'm a very, what's the right word? Not that [00:05:00] I am an introvert or an extrovert. Extrovert. I'm kind of an introvert who can really turn it on and be an extrovert when I need to be. But when I, you guys know this about me. I love a car cocoon. I want to be comfortable. I want be cozy. I wanna sit there. I wanna like. I don't know, wrought into the seat.
I want to doom scroll on my phone for a little while. I want seat warmers on. I want to feel as though I am enclosed in like a full blown anxiety like cocoon, right? So I'm at the airport. Why am I telling you 14 different stories in one, I promise you I'll get back to the other one, but I'm in the airport and we have like a group chat going of all of the speakers who are all getting into town at the same exact time.
And a text message comes through that somebody has just landed at the airport or they're just walking through the airport. And I had just gotten to the rental car place and I was sitting in the car, so I knew she was about 20 minutes or so behind me of like getting through the airport. But she sends a text.
Saying that she's gonna be like hopping in an Uber and being right over. [00:06:00] So I text her and say, Hey, I'm in the rental car place. I just sat down in my car. Do you want me to wait for you? This is so unlike me. And so I really do think the universe was just like, at work in my favor. But it's so unlike me to say, like, I would sit and I would wait for somebody, and that I would meet them for the very first time.
And then I would also commit to spending 20 minutes in the car with a complete stranger who I don't even know, and I don't know if I'm gonna like them. And I have a very polarizing kind of personality. So the idea that I was just going to like hop in the car with somebody that I didn't know was. A little bit crazy for me.
Turns out it was a little bit crazy for her because she's very much the same personality as me and the same type of person as me. So she kept on texting and saying like, are you sure that you wanna wait? Are you sure that this is okay? Like I can grab an Uber, it's no big deal. But so anyways, we ended up meeting.
She gets into my car, we hop off to go straight to the mix and mingle like cocktail hour thing. And we are best friends. From the moment she sits into [00:07:00] my car. So when I tell you to go to these conferences, because not only are you going to get so much for your business, you are going to meet people who immediately have the same brain as you, the same personality as you, and also because you're all in this same space, you obviously have the same creative.
Goals too. And it's, it's an alignment that feels unworldly. Okay. So go all the way back to the first story that I was telling you. We're walking into the conference. I had stayed up late at night. I had woken up early the next morning. I was like on pins and needles. My nerves were going crazy and I walk in the door.
And Shannon's with me, and there's a person, an angel on this planet. Her name is Elizabeth. I don't know her business name, but I will plug it on my Instagram stories. Her name is Elizabeth. And I walk in and I turn around to talk to Shannon about something. I'm gonna ask her a question and this little sweet [00:08:00] soul who's sitting on the couch, she says excuse me, can I tell you something?
And I was like. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. What's up? And she's like, well, I just met you yesterday, but I spent all of last night binging your podcast. And then she goes on to tell me like how obsessed she is with everything that I've been saying and everything that I stand for and the type of person that I am and my personality.
And I literally just like. Squatted down right there in front of her. Of course, I have on like a three inch heel, so I just like squat down into my heels and I was like, Elizabeth, I don't know like why you ended up sitting on this couch this morning, but something like divinely intervened to make sure that you were sitting here to tell me this right now.
Woo. You hear my voice getting a little shaky. It was. Incredible that somebody [00:09:00] was willing to be so vulnerable right then at that exact moment that I really needed it. So Elizabeth, if you are listening to this podcast right now, I know I told you in person, I mean, I was just as vulnerable back with her saying like, oh my God, you don't know how much I needed this right now.
But if you're listening right now, just another quick shout out and thank you. you can follow her because she is incredible. She is Elizabeth Dugan Photography.
She is based in Tampa. She is absolutely incredible. Elizabeth, I love you. You have no idea the amount of confidence that you gave me that morning to go stand up there and give my presentation and for it to be. So much fun and I think that I did a really great job. Everybody said I did a really great job and it's just really cool to know that I have been dreaming about the idea of [00:10:00] building this education side of my business for a very long time and for it to have been kicked off in the best way possible in Tampa this last week.
Okay, but So I get home and, uh, earlier today I get home and I have to go, not have to go. I get to go straight into a meeting with my business manager and we are cranking. I'm telling her all of the things that happened in Tampa where I get through that meeting. And let me tell you how exhausted I am getting through all of this, because I had woken up at 1:30 AM Vegas time, which was 4:30 AM.
Florida time flown back across the country, went straight into a meeting, went straight back into mom life. Like there is no rest for the weary in this business. Also for a person who operates very much as a single mom. Okay, so right after my business call, I'm hopping into the car. I, I'm going to pick up my son Griffin.
Griffin is my [00:11:00] middle boy. Now, another small story that I have to tell you that happened while I was in Tampa. I'm sitting in the back of the conference listening to another presenter who was so incredibly amazing and I get a call from my son's school and I don't normally get calls from my son's school.
And, uh, so it's automatically like red flags, right? And, you know, all that feature on the iPhone now, sort of. Sends you the voicemail as a text too, so I don't get out of the room fast enough and it starts to go into a text and I'm seeing what the principal. Of my kid's school is saying to me in the voicemail, and of course it starts off like, this is not an emergency, but I do need to talk to you about something that's happened with Griffin.
And I'm just like, oh my God. Okay. I am not that mom. My kids are really great. They don't get into a lot of trouble very often, but. I'm also not that mom who's ever going to think like, oh no, that's not [00:12:00] my boy. He wouldn't do that. No. If I get a call from the school and they're telling me my kid did something, and I'm like, Hmm, yep.
They are spawns of me 100%. I guarantee you I know that they did that. Okay. So I get onto the lobby and I call the principal back, and he informs me that my son has been involved in a food fight. Not only been involved in a food fight in the cafeteria, but was probably one of the initiators and instigators of the food fight.
And honestly, this sort of stuff kind of makes me chuckle as a mom. Like I am not going to sit back and be like, oh. Oh my God. Clutch, my pearls. My son did what? No, I think that's hysterical. Like I feel like a food fight in a cafeteria is kind of like a rite of passage for a 14-year-old boy. So I'm not that upset at that.
But then the principal tells me. That he tried to play it off real cool. You know, he tried to [00:13:00] act innocent. He tried to be like, wait, what? Why am I in trouble? And got a little sassy with the principal and talked back a little bit and my boys know. That talking back is my number one pet peeve as a parent.
It is a non-negotiable in my house. Like if I am lecturing or scolding or telling one of my boys that they've done something and I want them to correct it, the only response that they're allowed to give me is yes mom. And that has been instilled in them since they were very young. Right. Okay. But anyways, I'm getting off on a tangent of like parenting and I don't, that's not where I wanna go.
I wanna tell you how funny my kid is. Okay. So. I get this call from the principal. He tells me this stuff. I started to text my son. I'm like, Hey, like food fight or not, that's kind of funny. But what I'm disappointed in is that you spoke back to your principal and that you were sassy and rude to your principal.
That's not allowed to happen, so. Fast forward a couple of days and I get home and I'm rushing to the school and [00:14:00] I'm picking him up after detention. You guys, I'm not picking him up after school. He got his consequence at school was two days worth of detention. So I'm picking him up after detention and this child hops into my car at 3:15 PM and the first words that he says to me are.
Man did some hard time in there, but it's all right. I picked up a prison wife.
When I tell you that every ounce of my disappointment in my son just drained from my body because I gave him a little side eye and I was like, you are an exact replica of me. So. Honestly, like how can I even be mad at it
anyways? He gets in the car. I talk to him a little bit about what I'm disappointed in. We talk about the fact that I know that he is a performer, he is an [00:15:00] entertainer, and he gets that directly from me and my dad and my brother and our side of the family. So he comes upon it naturally, guys. But that I was disappointed in how he talked back to his principal.
He owned it, he apologized all of the things, but he also does this because he is performing in front of his friends, so he's now grounded. He doesn't get to hang out with his friends this whole entire week, and he will hopefully start to think about things a little bit better in the future. And then immediately I asked him, okay, but who was your prison wife?
Main Episode
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Okay, now let's just, God, I love that kid. Let's get into what I wanted to talk to you about today. I know that that was, that was a lot of warmup into this podcast, but I'm loving it because there was just so much going on this week and so much to share. Okay, so I wanted to give you the second half of podcast episode number three because.
That is exactly what I spoke on in [00:16:00] Tampa and I wanted to make sure that I was giving you guys the exact same. I don't know. What would you call it? Part two, I guess. So if you haven't listened to podcast episode number three, then I want you to pause right here, go back to episode three, and I want you to listen to that and then jump over back into here.
Okay. So I went into talking about what I was talking about in episode number three about the red oceans and the blue oceans and how important it is to differentiate yourself and how you go through that exercise that I talked about on the podcast. And really plotting the points of your key marketing differentiators, and then seeing where the gaps are between you and your market, and knowing that.
That is the place that you wanna drive into really hard with your marketing and your messaging. Okay. I did it in a really fun way in Tampa because [00:17:00] of course, if you know me, I put up slides of a half naked Dylan Ephron, and we went all into the idea of idea that if Dylan Ephron was your ideal client, because he is an ideal human, because he is a specimen of.
A six packed man with beautiful blue eyes and personality and charm to boot. I just, I made this case that Dylan Ephron was this like ideal client sort of person. And that if he was going out and if he was looking for a really incredible photographer who really stood out, who really was creating work that set them apart from everybody else, how would he find you if you live inside of a sea of sameness?
Okay. And I made it really clear that when you are in. That place in that sea of sameness inside of that red ocean. The only leveraging factor that you have for your business is your pricing, [00:18:00] right? And that inside of that ocean, the red ocean price is the only thing that everybody has because that's the only thing you can leverage, and that's you're trying to convince.
Your clients that this thing that you're creating is better than what this other guy is creating or this other girl is creating. But you're really creating the exact same thing, and that's a really, really difficult place to be in in your business. And that the photographers who stay in that sea of sameness, they're charging maybe.
$500, maybe seven 50, maybe 1250, maybe even a little bit more. But the Dylan f runs of the world want to spend 6,000, 9,000, $15,000 a shoot. Right. I gave them the example that the week before I was coming to the conference, I had this incredible example that happened where I was like, oh my God, I have to put this inside of my presentation because it [00:19:00] just really nails home exactly everything that I'm talking about.
And I told them. Just the week before I was in Tampa, I made $20,000 on a photo shoot that was with a client who begged one of my other clients to give her my information. Right. Okay. So I'm gonna try to like explain this in a way that makes sense. It's kind of hard to do, but I, so I have this one client and I have photographed.
Her engagement session. I've photographed her wedding, I've photographed her family. I've photographed her babies, all of the things, right? And this client's mom was bragging to one of her friends about her grandchildren, right? So this sweet little grandma is just bragging about how adorable her grand babies are, and she's sharing photos with one of her other grandma friends.
Okay? And this other grandma friend is talking about how adorable the photos are and she's wanting to [00:20:00] get my information from my client's mom, right? But my client's mom is gatekeeping and it took months for her to finally tell this other grandma what my name was, my business information. Neither one of them are really on social media a lot, so.
It's not as though this other grandma client as if she was gonna come across my work naturally while scrolling, where I usually pick up most of my other clients, right? But, there were there, there's at least 20 other photographers in my city that this other grandma could have just been like, oh, okay.
Let me like book a photo shoot because I want, you know, cute photos of my grandkids. No, she kept on begging for this other grandma to give her my information because. This grandma was talking about the photographer, not just the photo. She was talking about the photographer, which was me in a very specific [00:21:00] way.
Okay. I'm gonna leave this example sort of dangling here for just a minute, and I'm gonna come back to it a little bit later after I've gone through the rest of this presentation that was teaching exactly what I do in my business to make sure that these scenarios are happening when clients are talking about me in rooms that I don't even exist in.
Okay, so here's the thing about your clients. Your clients don't just want photos. They want to really belong to something. They want to feel like they have bragging rights about their images because their images contain. Obviously their most loved people, their most prized possessions, those grand babies that this grandma was talking about, right?
They want to pull out their phone in a group full of their friends, and for their friends to see their lock screen and to see the gorgeous photo that they have. They wanna be able to say like, oh my God. Did you book JN Photography or did you book Elizabeth Dugan [00:22:00] Photography? Right. They want to be a part of a brand that puts them into the luxury market, just like whenever they're going in and they're buying a gorgeous.
No Christian Dior bag. They want that same sort of bragging, right? They want that same sort of status. They want to be able to say, yeah, I booked her. And they can't do that with basic, and they can't do that with beige. They can only do that with you, but only whenever you show up boldly enough to give them something worth claiming.
Right? And then on the flip side, you as the photographer, you deserve this too. You deserve to have these clients who are begging to work with you, who are saving their pennies just to step in front of your camera. You deserve to build that cult-like following of people who drink your Kool-Aid, all because of how you positioned yourself correctly in your market.
Because whenever you position your business correctly, your [00:23:00] brand, your voice, your reputation, and your signature stands out. And whenever we were talking about just before, whenever everybody else is fighting on price, and price is the only leverage that they have, and then you come in and you're like, here's my brand.
Here's my voice, here's my reputation, here's my signature. You are going to win every single time. So that's really when that exercise that I've already walked you through in episode number three of plotting your key market differentiators really comes into play, right? Because you are going to know exactly what those key differentiating points are about you and your business.
So here's the next step to that, guys. Here's part number two of how we're actually going to take. Steps inside of your business to put this into action. Okay, so I'm gonna [00:24:00] take everything that I just learned from my red ocean and blue ocean. Uh, exercise and I'm going to give this chat GPT prompt, okay? It is a powerhouse of a prompt.
So if you need to come back to this episode so that you can replay this, in fact, I'm gonna tell you exactly where we are in this episode so that you know exactly where to come back to. We are at 25 minutes right here. Okay? So come back to the 25 minute marker. And you know that this is where this chat GBT prompt is.
Tell chat, GBT. I want to create strategic content that reinforces my unique positioning as a high-end photographer. I've identified my key differentiators and I put mine in right. Those five or six points that I had in my, I'm gonna put in those points, so you are gonna put in yours.
Okay. I'm gonna start over and I'm just gonna read through it in regards to my example. Alright. I wanna create [00:25:00] strategic content that reinforces my unique positioning as a high-end photographer, I've identified my key differentiators with my amazing studio. Luxury experience, authority in my field and consistency with social media.
Can you create a spreadsheet with three scroll stopping real ideas and three newsletter topics for each differentiator? Each should have a compelling hook and subject line to accompany it. Each should be aligned with my brand voice, which is confident, bold, a little cheeky, and emotionally compelling.
These ideas should not sound generic. Make them stand out in a saturated market. Then help me turn this into a weekly content plan with repurposing strategy across Instagram, email, and I said my podcast, but you would say whatever kind of long form content you have, whether that be a podcast or YouTube channel or a blog.
Okay. And. Seriously, guys, sorcery [00:26:00] happens whenever that regurgitates everything that you've just asked it to put out. You are going to get a link that you're gonna click on, and when you click this link, it's going to give you an Excel spreadsheet, and this spreadsheet is going to you three talking points.
Three hooks for every single one of your key differentiators. I think I had four key differentiators. So then I have a 12 week content strategy of exactly how I am going to take this idea and put it. Straight into my Instagram reels, straight into emails, straight into any other type of content that's coming out of my business.
I'm going to take this information and I'm gonna make sure that this same messaging. Also goes right into my studio guide, my motherhood guide when I'm talking about my style boards. And whenever I am creating email [00:27:00] sequences, I am going to put this same type of messaging and these same instant attention grabbers into that content.
Every single hook that I have would be the same as an email subject that's going out in my email sequences. Okay, so I'm gonna take everything that it gives me and I'm going to create this content plan that is completely and strictly driven to these. They're not even content pillars. You guys. These are content pillars on.
Steroids. These are content pillars on literal crack, okay? They are huge content pillars because they're not just content in regards to, oh, I like this and I'm this type of person. This is the core of why you stand out differently from someone else in your market. Okay? So I used an example that chat, GBT pulled out for me in regards to being a luxury.
[00:28:00] Portrait Studio, right? So I pulled out this one hook that I really liked and I said it. The hook said, if your session doesn't feel like a Vanity Fair spread, we're doing it wrong. Okay, this is so key. This is exactly how I would talk. This is exactly the type of messaging that I wanna have, right? So whenever I'm thinking about this and this output that chat GBT has given me, I'm like, okay, well that reel is easy enough to make with like a little BTS of a shoot.
Make it all black and white, really give it editorial vibes. Maybe a little bit of like slowmo to the movement of the video, right? But. Because this idea is so perfectly aligned with what I create. I'm going to ask g Chat, GBT to take this even further, and I'm like, okay, give me the caption and then write me a newsletter driven straight into these same exact points so I can really drill this home for my clients.
And chat. GPT is not always gonna get it right. It's not always gonna be like your perfect [00:29:00] voice. The more you train it, the more it is going to be like almost spot on, which I love you guys. I talk to chat GPT throughout the day as if it's the best friend my business has ever had. I am using it all the time and every single time that it nails something and gets my voice exactly correct, I always type something that says.
This is spot on for my business. This is exactly the way that I talk. This is exactly my voice. And I tell Chad, GBT, like, learn this, memorize this. This is exactly where I want you to come from every single time that I ask you to write something for my business. And the more you do that, the more.
Chat, GPT just gets to be like really greased up. Really warmed up, really in tune with exactly who you are and how you speak, and it just gets better and better and better. Okay, so. Going back through that Excel sheet that it put out for you, you're gonna [00:30:00] go through it line by line. And even if you need to say, Hey, this one isn't really aligned with what I wanna be saying, give me five more options.
It'll just keep on spitting that out until you have the most perfect 12 week plan for your content. That is completely indescribably perfectly, you. So then you've got niched marketing. You are gonna be putting it up with, I am sure you're creating gorgeous visuals and gorgeous images inside of your business.
So you are going to align those visuals with exactly what it is that you're saying. you're gonna have compelling positioning and a brand that nobody else can compete with. But I really want you to zoom out. For a second, because what we're doing here, it's not just marketing and it's actually stronger than just psychology.
You know me, you know, I love to twist in and sort of be working in the psychology of everything that we're [00:31:00] doing because that is where I am rooted. That is where I teach from. That is where I learn from. I always want to understand what is the psychology behind this? What is the why? Why do people act this way?
Why do people. Think this way, and I always speak to that foundation that we're laying inside of our business, but what we're doing here, it's actually stronger than psychology because psychology is simply the study of human behavior as it exists without any sort of outside manipulation. Right? What we're talking about here, this is neuroscience because we're manipulating and conditioning the brain.
And it's the exact reason why I don't teach quick win sort of energy. Because if you want real demand, iconic, lasting, like everybody talks about it, when you're not in the room kind of demand, then you need to understand how the brain actually expands and. Every, [00:32:00] what's happening inside the brain, every single time that someone encounters your brand, like with a reel or your newsletter or your podcast or your studio guides or like the tone of your captions, what's happening inside of your brain is that it is building neural pathways and.
I want you to think about these pathways as all kinds of different roads. Some are maybe stronger than others, like a single post on your feed, a repost that doesn't have any context to your stories, anything that you're just doing inside of your business to check the box that you did it. That's kind of like a country dirt road.
Really slow going. There's not a lot of traffic on it. It's not gonna have a lot of impact, but that doesn't mean that it can't be important. Okay. Some other sort of content that you have within your business. These are more like residential streets, say like a carousel post, because that's always gonna be a little bit more powerful.
It's gonna have more impact then. A single post, right? Maybe it's got a really well written caption, [00:33:00] maybe you did behind the scenes of that shoot. So then that's on your stories and that's getting some dms. People notice, but the traffic is still a little bit slow. It's a residential street. But then you hit some content in your business that are like highways and.
You get that reel that hits 5,000 views and it gets reshared because your voice really came through. Or an email that you wrote lands into your client's inbox that really makes them feel seen, maybe. Your style guide that you have inside of your studio, maybe that talks to something really niche about you.
Like, like you have a degree in fashion merchandising, or that you've hired a stylist because it's not your thing, but you wanna be making sure that you're still taking care of your clients, right? These sort of moments, they don't just spark a connection, they really cement it. Right. So these are like really fast moving, impactful highways within your business.
But what happens is, is that every time a neuron is fired across these roads, [00:34:00] they start to twist onto each other and they get stronger. Uh, this is like, if you imagine like a rope, the way that it twists on itself and gets stronger, or like, this is the example that I used in Tampa during the presentation is like a twizzlerss pull and peel, right?
I used to love those so much in eighth grade, seventh grade, whatever grade. I know I was in middle school. I, 'cause I remember being literally on the, there wasn't a playground, but you know, like outside, during lunch I remember pulling my pulling peel. Those are the perfect examples that. Every time a neuron is fired across these roads, they start to twist onto each other and they get stronger.
So even your small blips of a post here and a story there, they start to have some real staying power when they get strengthened by those other big things in your, uh, content that is really those like fast moving highways. Sometimes we paralyze ourselves into thinking that we should only post or we should only send an email if it's gonna hit [00:35:00] big or.
Or if we have something really major that we need to say, right? But that's not accurate. All of the pathways, they band together and they strengthen each other. So even the little blips matter, and eventually you've created a neural pathway that is so strong that you're not just being recognized and remembered, you are actually conditioning your client's brains to only think about you.
Because the crazy part about this is, is that our brains also have what we call mirror neurons, right? And whenever your brand identity is strong enough, whenever you show up with consistency and clarity and hammering home your key differentiators that you did. From podcast episode number three with that blue ocean and red ocean and that we did in Tampa this last week together, your audience starts to mentally associate any work that resembles yours with you.
They can see like [00:36:00] if their friend or their family posts, uh, a photo shoot that they did on their feed. They will then think thoughts about your business because the entire category of photographer is taken over by you in their brain because you have created those pathways. They can see an image that has a look or a feel that is similar to yours, and even though it's not yours, you get the brand recognition of it.
Because you're the one who created that pathway for them. So even if they're on their Instagram feeds and they see somebody did a photo shoot, they're automatically going to think like, oh yeah, that's what Jodi does. Or, oh yeah, Jodi has shot in that location, or, oh yeah, they should have hired Jodi. Right?
Even if they're looking inside of a magazine inside of Vogue or Vanity Fair or something like that, they can then think, oh, Jodi poses like that, and their brain fills in the blanks. With my [00:37:00] brand, and I know this obviously because it's science, because it's psychology, be because it's neuroscience. But I also know this because this is the stuff that my clients say to me.
My clients DM me when they see other people's work and they'll say, oh look, they copied your pose and they didn't. Right? Like a lot of photographers have the same look or they have the same pose, or they have the same aesthetic. Their business, but I have trained my clients to think that I am the expert, that I am the person that that other photographer is following and then copying, which really probably isn't the case, but I'm getting the credit for it.
They might say something like, oh, this looks like something you do. Or they might even say something like, oh look, they need your posing method. Because I have trained my clients and my followers. Anybody on my email list to think of me as the expert, [00:38:00] as the only photographer that they think about, and this is the goal.
The goal is to convince your audience that you are the best at what you do. Even if you're not, that's okay. All that you have to do is convince your clients. That you are so that everything else that they see gets measured against those neural pathways that you have created. And this is exactly how I use persuasion and influence to control how my clients think and act around my brand.
It is a very strategic brainwashing that I'm doing. Because it's not just as if I'm out there laying these neural pathways for fun, right? I'm laying them with purpose through strategy, because we have done the work to figure out what our key marketing differentiators are and how we can tap into those places that set us apart [00:39:00] and make us different.
Okay? But. It doesn't stop there. Here's even the bigger kicker, right? These neural pathways don't just shape how your clients feel about your business. They also shape how they talk about it because. Whenever somebody asks like, oh my gosh, these are great. Who did your photos? My clients are not saying, oh yeah, she's good.
She's a great photographer. You get a ton of images for $400. It's not casual. It's not just a like, oh yeah, she's good. You should hire her. Right. I have trained them. To say the exact things that I want them to say about my business because of these neural pathways. I have hammered it home. My clients would say, oh my God, she's fantastic.
She has this insane posing method. She created it. She teaches it to other photographers. It didn't even feel like a photo shoot. It felt like a transformation. She's not like anyone else. She's a psychologist too. I've given them. This [00:40:00] language, right? I wrote it for them. I fed it to them. I taught them to say that.
And I'm sure that people don't just say my name because I've taught them to say my value. And remember that example that I gave you about those two grandmas who were like chatting it up and one grandma was like, gatekeeping and not giving her friend my information. This is exactly what happened in that scenario.
One grandma who her daughter had worked with me and talked about me to her mom. So her daughter had said all of these things about how great I am, how much I relax them when we're on a shoot, how I can get their kids to have fun during the photo shoot, and get real, genuine, authentic smiles and interactions between them and their kids.
My client. Had been trained to say all of that to her mom, which then trained her mom to say all of that to her friend, [00:41:00] and it resulted in me having a $20,000 sale in my business because that other friend. She could have hired any other photographer in the city, but she didn't because she wanted me because of how I had trained my client to talk about me.
So this isn't just about pretty photos. You cannot just put out pretty photos and think that people are gonna book just because of the product being great. And it's not about going viral or shouting louder than the next photographer. This is about building a brand that rewires how people think, feel, and talk about you, which then impacts how they buy from you.
Your job isn't just to post content, it's to build infrastructure inside of your client's brain. Every single shoot that you style, every decision that you direct, every touch point you reinforce, those are [00:42:00] all roads that are all getting tied together and getting stronger and stronger and saying, this is her and you need to book her.
All right. That was a lot. As I wrap this up. I just wanna remind you that if you feel like you are being underbooked or if you feel like you are being undervalued, it is not because you're not talented, it's simply because you've become too quiet in your own brilliance and that you are possibly swimming in that sea of sameness.
And I would love. For you to map your market. I would love for you to plot your power and refine every single touch point in your business until just like I told everybody in Tampa, until it attracts your Dill Nephrons. I want you to keep your tits up and [00:43:00] your ears open, and I hope that you are enjoying every single moment of us really building something incredible together.
Bye for now, friends.
Outro: Okay, so that is a wrap on this episode of the Posers 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, stapled, stay messy and don't let the bullshit win. Tits up. Ears open and go build something. Incredible. Bye for now, friends.
