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 my beautiful posers as we are dropping this episode. I am currently not in Italy. I have been joking for weeks that we are going on family vacation, but we are not going to Italy. So really. What's the point of life, but I [00:01:00] am in The Bahamas. I am checking off a bucket list item in that I am going to see Pig Beach, which I have been wanting to do for so many years, and I read on an inspirational quote, probably on TikTok, probably on Instagram.
Somewhere recently that said what a blessing it is to be so exhausted by the pursuit of life that you have dreamed of, and that kind of stuff hits extra hard whenever I am laying on a beach, a world away from home. Showing my boys somewhere new and knowing that my quote unquote cute little business got me here.
And I want to say just right out of the gates on this one, I want you to notice that brag that I just dropped. I just said out loud on a podcast, listen to by thousands. Oops. Ah, excuse me. There's another brag drop right there that my [00:02:00] business is what got me and my boys to the beaches, The Bahamas, and my business is making sure that I check off that bucket list item, and my business makes this life possible.
You know what, I'm actually gonna ask my podcast editor, ed, Ed, I wanna put a cute little like. Ding noise every time that I brag about my business in this podcast, just so that our listeners can hear the level of self-promotion that is happening.
Like brag, brag, brag, brag, braggy, fucking brag. This self-promotion preach is about to pop off and I know. That you guys need to hear this one, so let's dive in. Let me just say this as loud and as clear as possible, my beautiful little posers. If you are not doing PR for your business, no one else is going to do it.
I don't care how good your work is. I don't care how many followers you have. If you don't know how to [00:03:00] brag better, your business will always rely. On luck and not strategy. And today I'm here to tell you this. No matter what everyone told you, whenever you were a little girl, self-promotion is not a dirty word.
I was raised Mormon. Okay? Everybody listening, probably just spit out their drinks right there. But yes, me, I grew up being forced to go to the Mormon church because I literally rejected that religion the moment that a circle of men blessed me as a baby. But. I was raised inside of the Mormon church. I was raised to be still, to be sweet, to be quiet.
In fact, my grandma on my mom's side, not g Gruner on my dad's side, who was literally a tequila downing cigarette smoking foul mouthed hot little widow. Please do not confuse the two [00:04:00] grandmas because they are not even in the same like playbook, but. My grandma on my mom's side used to get all Forrest Gump with me and tell me that pretty is as pretty does.
And I did not even understand what she meant by that as a little girl, but she kept saying it to me over and over and over again, and it's like I already knew. To put up this huge boundary to that kind of like bullshit brainwashing, because I knew, even back then, I didn't want to be pretty, I wanted to be elbow deep in sawdust as I was, I don't know, cutting planks to nail into my tree house with a hand saw.
So. I understand being taught to play small and to fit in. And as I got older, I understood the shame that I felt every time that I didn't do those things. I can't believe I just told you guys that I was raised Mormon. My only wish about being raised Mormon is that [00:05:00] I wish I had been raised in Utah instead of New Mexico, so that I could have been cast as like some.
I don't know, a crazy Ant in Mom talk or something like that. Okay, wait, let me, let me get right, like back on track. Okay. Right now I'm in the thick of launching a brand new offer, a 40 over 40 photo series for the summer. Right? And here's the thing, this has never existed before in my business.
I've never offered this type of shoot. So I knew from day one. That this wasn't going to be one of those like soft launches or that I just put something out there and it just magically fills up. Okay. This launch had to be. Really detailed, really diligent, and there had to be a really intentional marketing plan because I'm not just asking someone to book a photo shoot.
I'm asking them to buy into an entire new vision with me, an entire new experience. And. [00:06:00] A belief system around what it feels like to be photographed in your forties and fifties and sixties and beyond, right? So I knew that this couldn't happen with just a post or two or me making some stories about it or putting out one or two newsletters.
This was going to take conviction and consistency and clarity, which is a PR engine, and guess what? I have to be that PR engine. There's this misconception floating around that once you've been in business for a while, once you have an established client base or a reputation or a beautiful website, that bookings just roll in on their own, that all you have to do is just.
You know, post some photos or post some cute BTS and that people will be clawing their way into your inbox. And I wanna clarify that there's a yes and a no here. Yes, I do have longtime [00:07:00] clients who come back year after year. Yes, I have a reputation. Yes, my books would probably stay mostly booked with very minimal effort.
And yes, my business is well known, but. Can I put out just anything and have it sell out just because my name is on it? Absolutely not, because being a great photographer doesn't guarantee a great business. Having followers doesn't guarantee sales. Being talented doesn't mean that people will just line up to work with you.
That's the myth that keeps creatives broke. That's the thinking. That gets you stuck and it keeps you invisible and it honestly keeps you sort of bitterly looking at other photographers and wondering how they seem to be so booked and busy. The reason my studio stays booked isn't because I'm well known.
It's because I'm not scared to get out there and brag about my business. You know that I like to say things that ruffle feathers [00:08:00] a little tiny bit. I'm about to say something, posting pretty photos without strategy. Is business suicide? Your marketing game has to feel like there's a full-time PR team behind you hyping your every move.
And if you had that PR team, what would they do? They would be loud. They would be in people's ears and their feeds every single day. They would make you sound like you're a damn icon. Mm. Because you are, and they would tell your story. They would shout your accomplishments. They'd sell the experience of working with you long before you ever even had to open your mouth.
But most photographers, they tiptoe and they whisper. when their shoots aren't booking, they get even quieter because they cowered to that embarrassment of asking for the sale over and over and over again on a public platform. A few days ago, I had one of those mornings where it just seemed as though everything [00:09:00] aligned.
There was this woman who reached out to me and we had set up a call. She was asking to feature me in her new book about 20 powerhouse women in Las Vegas. Okay. And then the framing company that I work with, shout out to the photographer's framer. They announced that they had invited me to design my own line of custom frames with them.
Okay. I was booking sessions for the 40 over 40 series left and right that morning, and my mastermind had sold out almost overnight, and I was still getting requests to join it. So I hopped on my stories knowing that these are the days that I can stay silent. So. There was this quiet little reel that the photographer's framer had posted.
It was just a quick BTS video, a announcing, like a future collab with me, right? The text that was on it, there was no sound except for like a little bit of music. And it just simply said that they were creating a line of frames custom [00:10:00] to the Jann photography. Now, I had the option before me for what I consider to be the number one cardinal sin of social media.
I could have just reposted it. I could have just pushed it to my story. I could have added a little text box of my own saying like, oh, so excited to work with you in like a cute little text box. You know what? Let me go crazy. Let me go wild. I could have added a champagne emoji, right? But no. That is not how you create demand.
That is not how you build authority. That is not how you turn momentum into a movement. You don't just repost your success, you expand it, you explain it, you claim it. So instead of commit that cardinal sin of the repost, I chose to amplify it. Instead, I chose to make a big fucking deal about it. And you wanna know what happened.
I had about a hundred [00:11:00] dms congratulating me. That's engagement that I created, engagement that I cultivated for my business. Because I am acting as my own PR team, I am not trying to blend in. I am not trying to seem humble. I am building a business. And if that means that people are going to think that I'm too much, then good because the alternative is being quietly qualified in the corner and then being publicly overlooked.
So let's break this down just a little bit. Bragging better for your business. It comes down to three things, and the first thing is to be proud. Being proud starts with literally. One simple practice, and that is acknowledging your own growth, and it's also acknowledging that the things that you have accomplished are simply facts, and it's so much easier to wrap your head [00:12:00] around bragging better for your business whenever you realize that you're just stating the facts about what has happened.
Like I have built a multi six figure business. Fact, I have thrived post-divorce. Fact. I have raised or halfway raised at least three boys almost on my own. Fact, those aren't things that I have to think, oh no. What is that person gonna think if I say this thing out loud? Because it just sounds like I'm trying to make myself sound better than I am.
No, those are just facts of things that have happened in my life. So whenever I speak to them, I can speak to them with conviction because I know that it is true. Acknowledging your own growth here. You can just ask yourself questions like, when did I know that I changed a client's life? [00:13:00] Or, what transformation am I creating in people, not just in their images, but how they feel or what part of my business lights me up and why am I not talking about that more?
Or like, what's something that you're surviving right now that would've crushed you three years ago? These kind of questions. Th these are your starting point. You start here because being proud of what you've accomplished is not ego. Pride is just this reminder that your hard work meant something. And if you don't validate it for yourself, how are you going to expect your audience to do so?
In fact, in the world that we live in, how can you expect your audience to even know that? You have had those accomplishments, how will they even know that they should buy into what you're creating and what you are doing and what you're building when they don't even know the path that you've already walked?
That storytelling element is [00:14:00] exactly what sets you apart from everyone else in your market. It is essentially your online currency. And the second thing that we have to do whenever we're thinking about bragging better is that we have to be loud. And I don't mean loud in volume. I don't mean that you're yelling things.
I don't mean that you're being like obnoxiously, one of those like toxic bro energy kind of guys who are always selling you. Off on whatever social media platform, but loud means consistent. Loud means clear. Loud means courageously. Stepping into that place that you are going to promote the business that you are building loud can look like this.
It can be. Telling stories that make you nervous to post them. It's repeating your message so often that you get tired of hearing it, because that's whenever your audience is finally starting to listen. I cannot stress this enough, how much I say the same exact [00:15:00] things over and over and over again in my messaging, in my newsletters, in my.
Studio documents inside of emails, inside of my social media, inside of everywhere. I am constantly talking about my posing method. I am constantly talking about psychology. In fact, I was on a call earlier today. And the person had followed me for years and she was booking a session with me and she said, oh yeah, I know that you're really good at posing because I've seen that on your social media.
Therefore, I didn't have to sell her on that. I had already trained her to know that about me. So that whenever she's going to book her session, then she feels that trust already is there with me because I have been repeating my message. So. Often, even whenever I get tired of hearing myself speak okay.
Loud, can also be talking about your offers, your [00:16:00] process, your wins, your milestones, and your vision until they become undeniable to your audience. Now I know that this stuff can feel hard. I know that it is difficult to put yourself out there, and I have to think back to probably 2017 whenever I really started to market my business this way.
Because now that I've been doing it for as many years as I've been doing it, it feels completely natural for me. It feels so effortless and so easy, but whenever I first started doing it, it didn't feel that way. So. Here's a few hooks to get you started on creating some reels or creating some stories or creating any kind of content that you feel like you can start talking about your business in the way that you need to be talking about it.
You can use this hook. I almost gave up three years ago. Here's what happened [00:17:00] instead, and then tell your story, right? Or you could say, this one photo changed everything for my client and for me. And then tell your story. Here's another one. Every shoot I do now feels like it was made for the version of me that I was becoming all along.
And then you're gonna guess. Guess what I'm about to say then? Tell your story. I. These aren't just hooks or they aren't just captions, they aren't just words that you're putting out onto the internet. They are conversions that are waiting to happen. Now, the third thing that we need to do whenever we're really getting into bragging and running PR about our business is we've got to be strategic with it.
And here's the secret sauce. You don't just talk about it, you frame it. And framing, it helps a little bit better because you're going to frame it with gratitude. You're gonna frame it with [00:18:00] intention. You're gonna frame it with showmanship, right? This means that you are, you're gonna center your clients inside of your brag.
It means that you can celebrate your growth without shaming. Anything about where you came from , I mean, you guys hear me do this all the time. I talk about being this feral little girl who grew up in New Mexico. My parents didn't have a ton of money. We lived in a trailer park for a long time. I've told this story over and over and over again, but it is never in the sense that I'm shaming where I came from.
It's always to celebrate where I've gotten myself to now. And you connect your story to that transformation of yourself and the transformation that your clients are gonna go through when they work with you. So you make the brag bigger than you, and it becomes about what's possible for. Others too. And that makes it a little bit easier 'cause you're not [00:19:00] just standing on some sort of platform and being like, Hey, I'm great.
Hey, I'm awesome. Hey, did you see this cool thing that I did yesterday? No. It's like I'm gonna get on a story and I am going to say like. Alright you guys, I know that I talk about like how great my clients are all the time, but you're not gonna freaking believe this photo shoot that I did yesterday and then I'm gonna show the photos.
I am bragging like a mofo there. Did I just say mofo? That's embarrassing. Oh my God. I should have just said the whole word. No, but I am bragging about what I'm doing inside of my business, but I'm centering it around my clients so that it does not give off that icky car salesman sort of vibe. Okay, so there's that formula to it, that pride, that volume, and that precision.
And I can already hear what you are saying in your head as you're [00:20:00] listening to this. You're saying like, well, Jody, that's easy for you because you're extroverted. Jody, that's easy for you because you have this kind of personality. And I get that. I really, really, really do. But what I can also tell you is that this isn't how I have always been.
I just said a couple minutes ago that whenever I think back to 2017, whenever I was in the thick of a horrible divorce, when I started to run my business this way through social media, I didn't feel this way. I'm not. Extroverted by nature. I am very much so extroverted when I need to be. I can flip a switch on and then introverted throughout most of my life.
You can ask my husband, he literally tells me that I am a black cat and he is a golden retriever because he's literally wagging his tail at all times to hang out with me, and I'm like, I need you to go away. I need alone [00:21:00] time. I need a book. I need quiet. So I understand the argument that this is hard because you're shy, because you're introverted, because you don't feel like you know what you can talk about or anything like that.
But please, if this scares you, I. Do it anyway. Because if you are waiting for someone to come tap you on the shoulder and tell you that it's your time, you're going to be waiting forever. You have to figure out a switch that you can flip for yourself. That works for you, that when you need, just like every single one of you, I know that every single one of you, when you go out on a photo shoot, even if you're shy, even if you're introverted, I know you have a photographer version of yourself where you flip this on.
I just need you to keep on flipping this on through your marketing and not just while you're out on a photo shoot. And that's all it takes. If [00:22:00] you want different outcomes inside of your business, you have to walk a different path and that path, it has to be louder. It has to be bolder and it has to be far less polite than the path that you are walking right now.
It has to say, I deserve to take up space. I deserve to be seen, and I'm not going to shrink to make other people feel comfortable. And I mean, I don't know. Maybe that path leads to. 60,000 plus followers. Maybe that path leads you to a multi-six figure business, a top tier studio, and a podcast with a cute little name, but.
What do I know? Right? Okay. If this episode really resonated with you, then I want you to take one action today. In fact, I want you to take a ton of actions, go through all of those hooks that I gave you before, or create all of that content for your business. But if that feels a little bit too big, I want you to take this [00:23:00] one action today.
Just give me one brag. Give me one bold post, one story that you have been holding back on, not telling, and I want you to send it to me. I want you to DM it to me. I want you to tag me however you wanna get it to me. I wanna see it because I'm gonna be right here cheering you on because the world needs photographers who brag better.
And with that, I am signing off. I will be right here with you next week. Until then, 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. [00:24:00] Incredible. Bye for now, friends.
