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.
Episode Intro: Well, hello, hello, hello, my beautiful posers. Now, before we dive into this episode, I feel like I need to warn you. I also feel like maybe I say that on the intro of a lot of podcasts, but this is not your typical marketing strategy conversation. This is not a polished slide deck style breakdown of how or [00:01:00] what to post on social media.
No. This is me and my business Soulmate Linley Battle, doing what we do best, which is spiraling into strategy, storytelling, trauma bonding, and building brands that actually sell. And while I did plan to talk about content marketing. And photographers stepping into the role of content creators. What happened instead was one of the most honest, hilarious, and helpful conversations about social media that I have ever had, so much so that we are in fact splitting this into two episodes because whenever you get too.
Business besties together. It is obviously going to go over time. All right, so now if you don't know Linley yet honey, honey, buckle up. She is the founder [00:02:00] of Cultivate Creative. Co. A creative agency that builds high converting content strategies for female founded brands. And this company that she has built, books retainer clients who trust her with their eye for their entire brand presence.
She is a former luxury wedding photographer, turned marketing, CEO, who. Still shoots sometimes. Not as much as she used to, but she still kills it in both areas of business and somehow she still makes time to voice. Note me back whenever I'm literally screaming into my phone about whatever meltdown I might be having that day.
And you guys, she is brilliant. She is. Cheerfully aggressive to quote her own words. She puts the cult in Cultivate and she's about to change the way you think about [00:03:00] social media. We are going to get into why pretty photos with some soft music is not an Instagram strategy. We are going to get into what photographers get wrong about marketing.
We're gonna talk about the missing piece between. Going viral and actually making money. The danger of building a personal brand that you can't sustain and what real strategic content looks like when it's built to actually convert. now we do all of that, but we also spiral into um, talks about how we are potentially.
Alabama cousins. We talk about porn directing in Lindley's past life. We talk about her red wine era. We talk about her Vespa rides in Paris with maybe or maybe not a really hot guy on that Vespa with her and bomber jackets that say, don't be a little bitch. So yeah, this one. So much. It's not just a vibe, it's, [00:04:00] it's a full blown movement.
Okay. Welcome to part one of Don't Be a Little Bitch, the Social Media episode with Linley Battle. Let's go.
Jodi Anne: have to be clear to you. Lead, play battle. I hit record in the middle of our like little whatever conversation me and you were just having. I was like, there is no way that this should not be on the podcast. So we are recording. She was literally just asking like mid-sentence, can she cuss on my podcast?
And I'm like, okay. First of all, yes. And second of all, please do
Lindley Battle: thank God. I mean there have been so many times where I've been around like kids and stuff and I'm like, oh shit. Like I cannot self-censor. It is just not, it doesn't exist. That gene is broken in me.
Jodi Anne: No. We'll literally make sure there's a little explicit E on this episode because it is going to go down and you guys, what we were talking about right before I hit record is I was like, okay, Linley, like we're [00:05:00] probably, we should probably get into the idea of like how we met and what our relationship actually is.
'cause I feel like we need to buffer, we need to like let these people know where this podcast is going. But that's Buckle something I said. I was like, Lily, I probably need to let them know that I would easily sleep in a bed with you for the rest of my life if and when I ever got the opportunity to
Lindley Battle: wait.
No hold guys though, what she actually said was if she needed to. To which I responded um, rude. You don't want to,
Jodi Anne: yeah, no. And then I'm like, it's not a have to, it's a get to really. And then I said something, I was like, okay, but I should probably tell them I feel like you're like a sister to me. And I was like, no.
'cause I would actually really make out with you. So like, we can't have incest happening, like right here on the podcast. And you're like, it's fine. We'll just be second cousins. And I was like, yeah, we'll just live in Alabama, be second cousins. We can make out whatever.
Lindley Battle: But definitely one of those weird situations where like, we don't have like, like your parents like [00:06:00] married in or something.
It wasn't like our parents like grew up together. So it's like you just like, no. You're like, no, no, no. They like, yeah,
Jodi Anne: they met at college, but they also were probably in Arkansas. And they like found out later on, after they were married that they were actually like second cousins. And there's no birth deformities happening.
Lindley Battle: Yes. No. Very important. Very important. Oh my gosh. Oh, everybody. It is. I fear it's going more downhill from here.
Jodi Anne: Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Posers podcast everybody. This is Linley Battle. And like I said in the intro part, she is an absolute angel on this planet. She, I, we learned, okay, wait, we need to like actually say how we met.
We actually met through Darcy OSA's Mastermind and it was like the minute we got onto that little like zoom room onto that screen, me and you like laser focused into each other. And it was love at first Zoom [00:07:00] is really what it was. Seriously.
Lindley Battle: Like an immediate claiming. I was like, you are gonna be my bitch.
I'm gonna be your bitch. You're here.
Jodi Anne: Bottom bitch. I better be your re
Lindley Battle: ride or actually die.
Jodi Anne: Like, when are we dying? Because like I'll, I'll be down for it 100%. As long as it's not painful. Like I'll ride and I'll die, but I don't wanna like painfully die. So let's keep it in check.
Lindley Battle: You, you and I got a lot of riding left to do.
So anyway, continue with the product for the productive line of thinking,
Jodi Anne: productive line of thinking. I love you. So pretty much. Okay. But what I would like to point out is that me and you both paid lots and lots and lots of money to be in Darcy's Mastermind and we had big, huge goals whenever we got into that mastermind.
And we are both actually doing exactly what we set out to do because whenever I met you, you were just barely in. This is 2021, I think, right? Is that [00:08:00] right?
Lindley Battle: Gosh, was it.
Jodi Anne: It, it was 2021. I remember because I, that was the first, uh, year that I lost launched the posing method. That was like the impetus of why I was in Darcy's mastermind.
Okay. But so whenever we were in there, you were first starting to say the words that you were a wedding photographer, but that you wanted to build a social media firm. And, my God, Linley, have you done it? Give me like, I'm not sweet, I'm simply, these are facts. But give me sort of the timeline. Give me like your introduction.
First of all, I wanna say like you're putting the cult in cult. Everybody here knows that be the nicest
Lindley Battle: compliment I have ever gotten. That is like the most niche specialized compliment
Jodi Anne: because I talk about it all the time. I'm like, I love the cult that I have built. I want my cult to be bigger. I wanna like run literal conferences where my cult gets off.
Well, I guess that would be more [00:09:00] of like living on a commune together. But you put the cult in Cult bay, don't you love that? Is that your newest marketing line? It kind of is.
Lindley Battle: I am kind of obsessed with that. Yeah. I'm like just sitting here processing how much. I love that.
Jodi Anne: I love it. Okay, so give us the timeline.
Give us the birth story of Culty Bay.
Lindley Battle: Woo. Yeah, totally. So I think for me it was kind of always there. I mean, I, I've always loved marketing. I honestly, like, you know, photography came really naturally to me in the sense that it was how I've always seen the world. It's, you know, just very framed, lighting based.
I mean, it just kind of was. It was like breathing. So when I started being a photographer, it just felt like I was doing what was a natural extension of me. And, and working in marketing came very, very similarly. Like I, you know, I, I did it for myself and it really started in 2020 which would make sense with the timeline of the mastermind.
But you know, business shut down. I mean, I was primarily a wedding photographer. I'd been a [00:10:00] full-time wedding photographer since, or full-time photographer, I should say, since 2015, I think. Which makes me feel really old. But right. Yeah. So COVID,
Jodi Anne: I, I went before you don't worry. I started in 2010.
Gosh. So
Lindley Battle: it's, it's amazing. We're still like 28 and thriving, so, you know, I don't know how that's happened, but yeah. I'm
Jodi Anne: literally, literally not in my forties, but Okay.
Lindley Battle: Hey, whatever. We're at our prime. I fully believe that. But anyway, so I you know, work shut down, everything shut down. And I was like, okay, you know, I, I can sit here and be a little bitch basically, or I can pick it up and figure it out.
And I started marketing like crazy and just, you know, took, took the COVID break to completely redo my website kind of while I was doing that, really thinking about what it meant to build a brand and not just. Be a wedding photographer, but really create something that people would wanna buy into. Something that people would resonate with, something that people would see and be like, oh, hell yeah.
Like, she's the photographer for me. And while I was doing that, I was kind of grappling with the fact that I've always enjoyed [00:11:00] branding. I've always done brand photography as a natural result of doing brand photography. I've ended up, like me personally, managing a lot of people's like Instagram accounts, which is hilarious because I'm a dinosaur in a 34 year old's body.
So like, you sit me down and tell me to make a reel, I swear to you, it'll take me like 30 minutes. I'll cry, like, take a shot of vodka cry again. You know, it's just like, I mean, you know, we leave that to, to the pros in there. Mid to late twenties these days. But but so, you know, just kind of by extension of like filling the need, I ended up doing a lot of like websites, a lot of social media accounts, a lot of brand photography for business owner friends who, you know, had either hired people that had disappointed them or just like didn't know what to do or, you know, had gotten headshots taken.
But were like, what? I mean, I spent five grand on headshots and they're just sitting on my desktop and like, I, I don't know what to do with them. And so I think it just came as a natural extension of liking to solve problems. But as I was rebranding my photography business, I started kind of thinking like, what if I split the businesses?
What does that actually look like? What, you know, what value could I provide? I mean, the, [00:12:00] the value in wedding photography is clear. You're photographing someone's wedding, capturing the most special day. The value in brand photography, social media was a little more murky to me because I was like, how do we.
Do this in a way that's different. Do it in a way that actually serves the business owner. You know, there's so many agencies out there that just kind of churn and burn, wanna like sign clients and, you know, check a box and be done. And it's like, I'd never wanna run a business like that. So how can I create something that is really special and really offering some type of tangible value to people who need it?
So that, that was the mindset that I entered the mastermind with and had started to see the success of my rebrand for, for LVP and see the results of the marketing efforts that I'd been doing there. And so, you know, really believing in it, having seen it for myself and wanting to give something to other business owners who are like, I have big goals and big dreams, but don't know how the hell to make them happen.
Jodi Anne: I, I'm obsessed. That was seriously, I love, I just love listening to you speak to begin [00:13:00] with. But really quick, just to be clear, LBP is Linley Battle Photography, which is her photography business, which was kind of the platform that jumped her into social media and branding and all of that, which is called Cultivate, which is where the cult lies.
Lindley Battle: Thank you, Jody. I forget that not everyone just lives in the loop that exists inside my brain all the time, so no, thank you for It's okay. Thank you for making it.
Jodi Anne: I do the same thing. Sometimes people are DMing me about the posing method and I write back like TPM, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, and I'm like, hold on, wait.
I probably should an acronym, like all of these things that I acronym in my head or with my team or whatever. So I totally get it. But I like that you brought up the idea of being a dinosaur. I like that you brought up the idea of like how long we've been around the game because I've actually been around since the inception of Instagram, which is crazy back in like that's amazing.
The wrinkles on my forehead, prove it. But so like Instagram kind of [00:14:00] really started in this way. And I would even venture to say, even five years ago, people were having this argument about Instagram just kind of being like this aesthetic platform. And everybody cared so much about the grid and there was even like, so much going back and forth and people saying like, posting on your Instagram isn't a marketing plan, but like now Instagram, it is a business tool.
It is a sales engine. It is a huge chunk of your marketing plan. So like, talk to me a little bit about like the aesthetic trap, especially with photographers and how they kind of get stuck in that idea of just posting like a reel of some photos with some pretty music. And again, just checking off that box and being like, okay, I posted on Instagram today.
Like, tell me what Cultivate does. Differently or the way that you guys think about how big of a, like sales engine Instagram is now?
Lindley Battle: I love this question. Yeah. [00:15:00] So well, and that was a big thing to me. I mean, I like will harp on this for until I'm blue in the face, but when I, when I decided, when I kind of.
Accepted that yes, I wanna start a marketing agency. Yes. Like, I'm gonna do this. The biggest thing for me was I'm not gonna just hire a bunch of social media managers, you know, who are 22 and just got outta college and like, put them to work. Just cranking out reels for people. 'cause that's, I mean, that is a lot of agency structure.
There's one person who gets on the sales calls, looks cute, talks people into the dream, and then she says, okay. And passes it off to some chicken like Kansas that she's never met. And just like hopes for the best. And I, I, I'm oversimplifying or we're
Jodi Anne: overseas.
Lindley Battle: And, and that's the thing, like a hundred percent.
I mean there's so, like, I, and, and I mean we're, you know, we're business owners. We've been business owners for a long time. A lot of the people listening to this are probably business owners. You do have to have profit. I mean, profit first like was a very big mindset shift for me and a big oh shit moment.
'cause I did not [00:16:00] operate from Profit first for a very long time. So yes, profit is important. And also like the integrity of what you're creating, I mean, as creatives especially, is like everything. I mean that's, you know, I said to a client a couple weeks ago, I think, I was like, we're not always gonna hit the mark.
We are gonna, we are gonna mesh it up like we are not in your brain. I wish I could be like, if I could just like plug into your brain and download everything in there for an hour a week, I'd be thrilled, but I can't. But I think the end of the day, like the, the integrity of doing things correctly, especially in an industry that's so unregulated, you know, marketing, like, I mean wedding photography, photography, marketing, there's nobody who's setting a standard.
You don't have to get a certain degree to do this. You don't have to necessarily like be credentialed to create what we're creating. So I think in those industries it's even more important to be, I full of integrity. I don't know. I could rant about that forever. Yeah. But anyway, to answer the actual question that you asked me what we do that I feel makes us [00:17:00] very unique is that we have a, a full, like, we're basically a fractional creative department with strategy as well.
And so instead of just having, you know, one social media manager who's like, I mean Jody, you're gonna be working with us. And I'm so excited for that. And there's not one person on my team who's just like owning your account, living in a silo. We have a full creative department. We have Kennedy and Sophia who oversee all the visuals.
They work with the grid planning because a pretty feed is important. A pretty feed does matter. I mean, Instagram is your, like pre website. People have the attention span of naps these days. So you're getting on an Instagram account, you immediately decide if you like the vibe or not. The feed does matter.
And I hate when people are like, oh, your feed doesn't matter. Like yes it does, especially for a photographer. It
Jodi Anne: does. That's
Lindley Battle: what you're selling. Like, that's it.
Jodi Anne: Yeah. But then
Lindley Battle: I feel like I have to remind myself to breathe when I'm talking about things. 'cause I'm like,
Jodi Anne: you get so excited. Excited. I love it.
Lindley Battle: Do like running a marathon, seated here at my desk, but
Jodi Anne: her face is also turning red. You guys, [00:18:00]
Lindley Battle: my face is always red. Are you kidding? I'm
Jodi Anne: like, you're just, no, you're just out oxygen. It's okay.
Lindley Battle: Okay. Breathe.
Jodi Anne: No, I love it. You just, you literally get so passionate about this because you can tell that it like, really, like it grows inside of you.
It's like your oxygen inside of you that like you live and breathe this stuff. So like that's just coming out and I think it's absolutely amazing. I actually love that you brought up the word strategy. And I actually have on my notes right here to say to you like that you run a creative agency that books out clients on strategy, but you don't forget that the vibes are important too, and that acidic side.
But going back to that like strategy piece, I am in your onboarding process right now, which is so freaking good. And I sat down, I, you were so proud of me. I got my homework done.
Lindley Battle: Dude, guys like this takes people like weeks. Like sometimes I'm like, Hey, remember that questionnaire that I sent you like a month ago?[00:19:00]
Jody did it in like a day and a half. She was like, okay. Done. Or like a day. A day.
Jodi Anne: Honestly, a few hours. 'cause I just sat down and I was like, I actually have all of the, well, I, the thing is, is I think that if you're like really running a great business, then all of the answers that you were asking, like I already had, it's like.
You know, mission statement and it's like, like everything with branding and everything that you are thinking about with your business, all of the funnels being built, all of the strategy that goes into it. And I think that was one of my biggest selling points with you is that like whenever I was on the call with you and I told you, I'm like, look, this funnel is built.
This funnel is built, this like this free download is already ready. This is set up to mini chat. This is already done here. You were like, God bless you. Because that strategy piece is so huge now. So tell me more about like how you guys dive into that and what you like to, what you would love to see if a photographer was coming to you with social media, what would you [00:20:00] would love to see already?
Kind of like built out on the backend.
Lindley Battle: I'm already like reminding myself to breathe over here. Guys, if you hear nothing else from this podcast, hear this one thing. You are wasting your money investing in marketing if you do not have a solid business. Full stop period, end of conversation. And, and we have had, like, we're a smaller agency.
We don't have a ton of clients, which I personally love because I feel very connected to all of our clients. But a big piece for us, like the, the few clients that haven't worked out over the last few years, it's because they were expecting that marketing would carry the entire weight of their sales funnels, of their business plan, of, you know, of everything.
And it simply doesn't, it helps our job is to get people in the door to, to share what you're about, to actually, like, see what you're saying and help you digest it in a way that you maybe even can't because you're so close to it. Marketing does not equal sales if you do not have a solid business to back it up just like the end.
And if you've got like, I mean like Jody, perfect [00:21:00] example. Like you came to us knowing what you were about, what you're trying to say, who you're trying to say it to, and what you need them to do with that information. I'll market the hell outta you. You know?
Jodi Anne: And I think that like in order to clarify what we're talking about here, whenever Linley says that if you're not running like a legitimate business, because I think that even in my like infancy days of being a photographer, I was like, oh, look at me like I'm running a business.
Right? But what I think that she means, correct me if I'm wrong, is that you have the backend of your business built. Yes. It's that you have MiniChat set up to where it's going to lead through a MiniChat funnel, which is then going to drop them into your newsletter list, which is then going to like funnel them down even further to know what kind of shoot they're interested in.
And then it's gonna get them into that funnel that then nurtures them throughout the process of them booking a call. If you don't have all of that set up, you're running Instagram [00:22:00] wrong. Period. Full stop. Eight eight
Lindley Battle: zillion trillion percent. And that's something that I always, that to me now, like, I mean I definitely didn't do this in the beginning, but now that I've been doing what I've been doing with Cultivate for the last two and a half years, that is a huge piece of what I ask people on discovery calls and, and will turn away clients if they have unrealistic, not unrealistic expectations.
I mean, obviously there's that like, no, no one's gonna get you viral tomorrow. And also like, do you even wanna be viral? Whole different conversation, whole separate podcast, honestly, whole different conversation. Oh, that's a whole rabbit hole. But for this, it's like, okay, what, what do you want if, for you, what does Instagram success look like?
And this is something Jody did on her onboarding questionnaire that I really loved. She had realistic goals. And it wasn't just Instagram. She wasn't like, I'm gonna have 10,000 more followers if you guys work with me for three months. And it was, I want this many email subscribers. I want this gain in followers, I want this engagement rate.
It was, it was real practical goals. And what makes those so important is that they're actually tied to the rest of her process. So [00:23:00] she wants email subscribers because one, she knows that email marketing is crucial to a business. And two, she already has the funnel set up so that when people subscribe to her emails, they get put into an email funnel that.
Helps generate sales and nurture connections. So it's just this huge, and, and a big piece for us is we do that, like we do email marketing, we do social media management, we do web design. And the reason that I wanted to do all of those is because I want to be able to help business owners walk through that process.
Like, okay, we're getting you, you know, five present to you. Hey, we're getting you 500 website clicks from Instagram to your website a month. Like, how are sales converting? And you're like, oh, I haven't seen a single inquiry. Okay, let's get on your mobile site here. Oh, your mobile site sucks. Oh, you don't have a landing page from Instagram.
So people don't know what to do and they don't wanna scroll through your 10 page long like homepage to figure out what you offer and what you're doing and how they can get in touch with you. So it's so interconnected, and I feel like that is the biggest missing piece when it comes to marketing agencies in general, because they'll say like, yeah, we'll get you a ton of Instagram followers.
Yeah, we'll get you clicks through [00:24:00] whatever, whatever, whatever. And it's like, okay, but if that doesn't translate to sales, then there's no ROI.
Jodi Anne: And also if you're just gonna be doing that, you could literally just hire a robot to get you followed. Like you could just hire one of those services. Oh guys, please don't do that though.
Don't do that. Please do not. Please do not do, don't do. I wanna, I wanna jump. Please. God, do not do that immediate distress. I wanna jump back into what we were saying about something going viral. And I wanna tell a little tiny story because like I am proof of the fact that. Something going viral on your Instagram does not mean purchases.
It does not mean clicks. It does not mean money in your bank account. It does mean that you're going to have like a huge flood of new followers, but they are like void, empty, like decrepit followers. They did. I just call people on the internet decrepit? I sure did.
Lindley Battle: People on the internet are super decrepit.[00:25:00]
Jodi Anne: They actually are, but I was like trying to think of something in my head about like making an analogy to like a really crappy like shitty boyfriend who will never call you back. Like those are the followers that you're going to get when you go viral. I had two posts go viral. I think one meant went to 5 million, one went to 7 million, and did they increase my follower account?
Sure. My follower account was probably 20 to 30,000 whenever this happened. So those two posts like doubled what my following was, but. When that happened, I didn't have funnels built out for the posing method. I didn't, and they were reels that were like photographer based too. Mm-hmm. So like you would think that it would get me a ton of like photographer followers, but I didn't have it connected to a many chat.
I didn't have my funnels built out for the posing method. I didn't have a team built behind it. And so it literally means I have a 60,000 something follower account on my Instagram. [00:26:00] But is that monetized? No. Probably not. Right? Like I don't know what the actual number is that I can go back and be like, this is probably like a true follower account.
And I do think that having that credential, having that vanity metric, it does play a role in automatically just trust factors being brought in. Sure. Like you see somebody's follower account and you're like, oh, okay. They're legit. They know what they're doing, but. Without having the whole entire backend built out, it literally means nothing.
Lindley Battle: Nothing a hundred percent. Well, and, and to kind of like go back and try to answer the question that you've tried to ask me eight times now, and I just keep talking around, you're like, how do you do this? And I'm like, ba, ba blah, blah. But I mean, I think that that's, it's the, the reality is that marketing and like marketing done well is very complex.
It's really intuitive. 'cause really you're just asking yourself the question of what do pe, what do people want to see? What is this person trying to say? How [00:27:00] can you connect the two? But it is also very complex. Like even just Instagram alone, every single piece of content that we put out for one of our clients it goes through a creative process.
It goes through like a. You know, a strategy process, which is, you know, what, what piece of the marketing funnel is this hitting, what content, what specific content pillar for this specific client? Is this hitting? What topic for this specific client is this hitting? Okay, let's like, let's make the overarching strategy.
This is my part. This is where I get real nerdy, but like I'm the one who makes. The overarching strategy for all of our clients. So I go in, I look at the client's information they sent us their, you know, schedule of sales there. We, we have a Google Doc for all of our clients where they can just go like brain dump, we have content folders for them.
I, I take all of that into consideration and then think about, okay, like what are our big three goals for this client this month? What are like our objectives? Who's our audience? Who are we speaking to? And that, for a lot of clients is pretty copy and paste. For some clients it changes based on month to month sales goals or different pushes, different launches, et cetera.
But taking all that into consideration and then kind of condensing it down to like, okay, [00:28:00] here's what we're saying. Here's who we're saying it to. Like what are some themes and topics that we're gonna hit on this month? You know, again, just like a, a couple little content buckets so we can keep things consistent.
And then making a content calendar where it's like, we are alternating, you know, nobody wants to be sold to 24 7. I mean, we're not gonna run an account where it's like constant sales, constant education. I mean, there's gotta be personality breaks. There's gotta just be like digestible breaks for the audience to see something pretty and enjoy it.
Not every piece of content needs to be this like crazy sales content, but also not every piece of content should just be like top of funnel, like la la, la attraction content. So there's, it's, it really is like, there's so much that goes into, and then once I finish with that, that funnels through four other members of our team and is informed by another member of our team who talks to our clients, and then mix tweaks here.
I mean, it's just, it's such a process. And I think that's one thing that if I could reiterate to everyone, it's just like, you're, you're not overwhelmed by social media because you know you're doing it wrong, you're bad at it. It's, it's, it's a, it's a job. It is a job just like it. Email funnels are a job, just [00:29:00] like sales.
I mean, sales funnels and everything in your business could be a full-time job. And so really it's just thinking about what you do well and what you actually love, and doing that and getting rid of the rest and giving it to people who can handle it well.
Jodi Anne: It that I literally, I was already saying that in my head before that just came out of your mouth because I have talked so much on the podcast about outsourcing and the fact that like, it would be absolutely impossible for anybody to be running at this level and at this caliber without outsourcing.
But you know, as a photographer in your early days, and I know as a photographer in my early days that outsourcing was not really like always an option. And so I wanna like, I wanna just have like a little pause moment here because I don't want anybody listening to be like, oh my God, I'm so overwhelmed.
I have to have this, I have to have this, I have to have this guys. Whenever you are starting to build this, it can [00:30:00] be so simple. It can literally be one mini chat with one keyword to where you then get emails from your clients to where then they get zapped right over into your flow desk. Your flow desk funnel.
The very first time that you start, it can be three emails long. It can be an intro, a welcome into your studio, or a welcome into your business, and then a pitch for them to book a shoot. It does not have to be some big, huge, crazy system, but it does have to start like you have to start it somewhere. But that starting somewhere also like brings me back to a question that I wanted to ask you is like when you very first started all of this linley.
Do you feel like you guys started, I, I liked how you called your top of funnel, like Lala content. So do you feel like whenever you guys started that it was kind of like learning curve, that it was like, okay, here's a lot of Lala content [00:31:00] and then you sort of like started to learn like, no, there's more strategy here.
No, we need to be doing this more. Like, walk me through that sort of like transformation of your whole entire firm and like how you got to the point of being as badass as you are now.
Lindley Battle: First of all, you're sweet. Secondly that's actually a really funny story because I, in case anyone has missed this, I am a very direct.
Potentially cheerfully aggressive person. I don't cheer. Wait, wait, wait. Cheerfully,
Jodi Anne: cheerfully, aggressive is the most, that is the best way I have ever heard you describe, minus the time that we were in that chateau in France and we all learned each other's spirit animals whenever we were like doing that thing.
And I learned that you were a sea otter, like you are a sea otter who is so loving and so playful, and you wanna hold hands with everybody, but you're also [00:32:00] cheerfully aggressive. And I, I love it. You literally, like, you just wrote your own bio right there. Like, just put that
Lindley Battle: in. Oh, I was trying to think of a nice way to say it because I don't feel like I'm aggressive, but I, I can also.
Like, I'll, I'll call shit as it is, like immediately. I mean, I'm, that's smile. You and I get along so well. Yes, kindly and respectfully here. All the things that you're doing incorrectly, let's fix them right now. Go. I love that with Love. Go. That's this whole entire podcast. Go, go do the thing. Jody, what was the, oh, how, how did we get started?
Okay. So, yeah, did you being, go ahead. Oh, sorry, go ahead.
Jodi Anne: No, I was just gonna say like the law, law content transformation into now being as badass as you are.
Lindley Battle: So the, the point of the cheerfully aggressive was that there was actually very little lala content because for the first probably year of cultivate, maybe not quite a year, but for the first bit I was running our Instagram.
Which like, I just shouldn't be allowed to do. Like, I [00:33:00] just like, no, I don't know. Yeah, no, I mean for, for a million reasons. Like I own two businesses being number one. But number two is that I'm a little unregulated. I just walked my little self all around Aspen for four days wearing a bomber jacket that said, don't be a little bitch on the back.
Like, I just like, probably should limit the amount of like, people facing things that I'm allowed to do. Hold that pause
Jodi Anne: for that pause again. I swear I'm gonna let you get through this answer. Pause again. I need to make a note for Ed, the podcast editor. Ed, we need to title this podcast. Don't. What was it?
Don't be a little bitch. Don't be a little bitch. That's
Lindley Battle: the title of this podcast. That's that. Thank you. That and that will also maybe be my autobiography. Well, okay. Ta tangent. Squirrel. Squirrel. Tangent. I saw it. I was having a, like a self-pity moment. 'cause we had like a hard day at work and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I saw it, this boutique in Aspen and I was like, oh my gosh, I need that. And I thought about it and I thought about it, and then I was like, that's aggressive. Like, I don't know that, that's like, that's kind of aggressive. And then I was like, no, [00:34:00] no, no, no, no. I need that. And I just like wore it around. Like, I mean, you know, there are all these bougie people and all their like beautiful, like curated Aspen outfits and I'm just bopping around like, don't be a little bitch.
But anyway, so that is, that's my approach to things. And so. I should never be allowed to create content on any kind of mass scale. And that is why I have an amazing team who regulates things,
Jodi Anne: but also note that like it is, somebody else will market your business so much better than you can ever do it your own self.
Oh my gosh, yes. Because whenever I am even creating my own content, I know what I wanna say and I know how I wanna get it across. But all of the, your ego stuff gets in the way, right? Like, I want to just aggressively say like, the posing method is going to change your fucking world. Right? But then my ego gets in the way and I'm like, oh no, I can't say that I can't do this.
Like I have to, I have to brag better, but I have to also like be relatable. I have to handing it [00:35:00] off to you. I know it was the best move that I can do because you'll market my business far better than I ever could have for myself. So. That I feel like is the biggest reason why also you're, it's like you're in too deep inside of your own business and inside of your own head.
Oh gosh. In order to create your own content. Yep. When you're selling at the level that we're talking about selling, like, but as a photographer, having whenever, if you're not being able to like outsource it out, like being able to stay in a head place where you are really making sure that your content is driven in the point of view of your audience and not driven from the point of view of like what it is that you are thinking in your head.
Okay. I'm going off on a full blown tangent. Go back to what you were talking about before. Hang on.
Lindley Battle: Can I, can I, can I talk about that tangent? Thank God we really shouldn't. We knew this was gonna happen, dude. We knew this was gonna happen. I was like, this is, this is dangerous. This is gonna be a three hour episode of us just like talking [00:36:00] about random shit.
I'm honestly amazed. We kept it as on topic as we have our, I feel like we deserve a.
Jodi Anne: Our phone calls, even whenever we were just. Oh, it's so bad. Like, first of all, we should probably say, God, we have so many tangents going, I should say Linley and I for each other, we are like our trauma dump friend. So like any time that I'm having a bad day, especially in business, anytime that something is like just wrecking me, the person who gets a voice note from me is Linley.
And it's usually me just like screaming into a voice note saying exactly what I wanna say with as many F words as I wanna say it. And then she literally will voice note me back and be like, girl, same. And that's the whole entire conversation. That's it. If, if we get onto a phone call together, it is three hours.
We're not going anywhere. We're gonna circle around so many conversations and so many tangents and somehow we finish all of those conversations. But we knew getting on a podcast that we were gonna do the [00:37:00] exact same thing. Okay, so So you had bullet, bullet points.
Lindley Battle: Hold on. I knew we should have had bullet points.
I tried to make Chad PT make bullet points. Oh, I
Jodi Anne: have
Lindley Battle: bullet. Oh, well, okay. Well that's a you problem. I don't have bullet
Jodi Anne: points, so this is not a me problem. You are literally, you're an active participant in this. This is an US problem. Okay? Listen to
Lindley Battle: this girl. She goes to therapy, ladies and gentlemen.
You are correct.
Jodi Anne: Go to a lot of, we both go to a lot of therapy. My God, we both have a lot of therapy. Okay. I was go, I was talking on the tangent about how you should not, I should not, at the level that I'm at, I should not be trying to market my own business. But when you are a photographer and you're not necessarily able to outsource that yet because you don't feel like mm-hmm.
It is an expense you can have in your business. Yet thinking about your audience and thinking about the pain points of your audience from their perspective is [00:38:00] always the way that you should be creating your content and not from your, what I, your aura. Your, like, you make the content geared towards. The client and not towards yourself as the main character, them as the main character.
That's what we were saying. Now you're going
Lindley Battle: a hundred percent and, and you really do need to, I mean, it is so much like, it's so humbling. You've gotta put your ego to the side so much you've gotta think about, you know, uh, I, I don't care how your arm looks in this video of you shooting this wedding that like you, that your clients aren't looking at your arm or your double chin or your, they're looking at the experience that you're delivering to your cl, to your clients.
They're looking at what you're bringing. And I think that's oh God, what Now I wanna go ahead to a, a note that I know we have in the future. Okay. Fuck, I don't know, whatever. Okay, so basically, here's the thing, like if you are just posting. You did say this at the beginning 'cause I feel better about it.
But if you're just posting pretty pictures and putting soft music to it, like Jody said, and just expecting it to [00:39:00] convert, like people don't give a shit. People don't care. I mean, they might be like, oh, like I'll do this. I'll be scrolling in from, oh damn, that's a great picture. Like maybe click on the page.
Damn, this person's got some good pictures. Okay, back to my homepage. Keep scrolling. Like that is not enough to capture people's attention and that is certainly not enough to convert them. So what you need to be doing on Instagram is thinking about how, who you are, what you really bring to the table, what you bring to the experience, and then how you showcase that.
Like, yes, your work is important. Your work is a huge piece of things to, to showcase. And most photographers just showcase their work. They don't talk about, yeah, how they show up, what they bring to the table. I mean, my thing, like I. I don't shoot a ton of weddings anymore. I shoot weddings for clients that I would wanna fucking get drinks with afterwards.
Like, I shoot weddings with clients that like, that want that like, like not best friend experience because I do shoot weddings on a luxury level, but like, they're cool and like I can show up and be my authentic self. Like, I'm not gonna be doing family photos like, you know, dropping fone left and right, but like, I can be my authentic self and it's something that makes my wedding [00:40:00] couples feel good.
They feel happy, they feel like they're connected. They feel like they, they can be their authentic self because I'm being my authentic self that is not for everyone, especially in the luxury market. I would say that's like more not for people than it is for people, which is why I don't shoot a ton of weddings anymore.
But when I was able to actually refine that and use my marketing to showcase that, and that means like posting on LVP and my voice and like being very authentic when I show up and like, you know, that that's fucking hard. But like doing that has helped me book the kind of clients that. That I love and I finish a wedding day and I come home and like jam out to like tool or Mr.
Brightside, like dance around my kitchen. Like I'm pumped when I finish because it doesn't feel like work. Because I'm a, I've created something where I'm able to be authentic. And so that's like the biggest differentiator that, that everybody listening to this, I mean, whether you're a photographer or not, needs to think about like, what are you actually selling?
How is it different than the 8 million other people online who are selling it? And how are you showing people that it's different? How are you showing people how you show up? And why it helps, why it is so important to [00:41:00] outsource that piece is because we are so close to that, that sometimes we can't even see what we're bringing to people.
You know, I've been really lucky to have amazing friends in business like Jody, who like helped pull it out of me and they're like, no, no, no. This is what you bring and you're a badass. And it's like, okay, okay, okay. But it's so hard to see that in yourself and then it's even harder to take that and turn it into content that actually is going to get that message across.
Yeah, you can stay on the point. Yeah. Like, that was linear. We're
Jodi Anne: we're, yeah. You're doing great, sweetie. Yeah. Thanks mom. Okay. To bring this back to like a tangible example too, because I feel like a lot of times whenever we talk about marketing, a lot of times when we're like, oh, create the content that is client centered.
Oh, create the, it's like, okay, but what the fuck does that mean? Right? So here's an example, like I see on people's Instagram stories or on Instagram reels from photographers a lot is like, you know, a little camera, like face to camera sort of VO or a voiceover or something. Like, I have this photo shoot today.
It was absolutely so beautiful. I love my [00:42:00] client so much. Look at how amazing their photos turned out. Or look how stunning this is, or blah, blah, blah, blah, right? But taking that same content and flipping it into the point of view of your client, because. It is your potential clients who are watching this and your potential clients want to feel as though they can live inside of that content, almost the same way that a real estate agent has to stage a house.
That's what you're doing. You're staging the house so that other people can see themselves inside that content. And we'll take a mom, for example, a mom seeing, oh look, they have beautiful photos for, if I gave that narrative of, oh look, I went on a photo shoot today. Here's some behind the scenes. It's so pretty.
I love my clients that mom is gonna think, okay, well good for her, but I can't get my kids wrangled. Okay, good for her. But I can't style a shoot like that. Mm-hmm. Okay, good for her. But I can't do these sort of things. My kids would be wild. My kids would be like flicking boogers at each other. Right? So whenever you change the point of view.
To say like, Hey, I'm meeting [00:43:00] up with my clients. We had such a hard time figuring out what they were wearing. We went through four different style boards, but we landed on this and I curated this wardrobe for them. So all they had to do was show up. Right. Or that you're showing the content of like, these two boys were so like rowdy and rambunctious, but when you let the kids play, look at like the photos that turn out of it.
Like so that that, so that other moms who are watching, they see. Themselves inside of your photo shoots and be like, oh yeah, my kids are crazy like that. Oh yeah. I never know what I am gonna wear. Oh yeah. I can never show up somewhere on time. So I'm gonna talk about like, hey, I'm gonna give you the GPS coordinates of where we're meeting.
I'm gonna give you the timeline. I'm gonna check in with you via text, making sure you've already left your house. 'cause I've already Googled how long it's gonna take for you to get from your house. 'cause I already have your address and I'm a stalker and I'm crazy. I've already done that for you. And I'm already knowing whether or not you're gonna land at that location on time.
And I'm giving you those [00:44:00] text warnings I'm giving you. I'm, I'll have Chick-fil-A in the car waiting for you. Don't worry about feeding your kids like I teach my clients. How that experience goes with me by making sure that my content allows them to live inside of that space. And that's the difference when you're talking about strategy and what you are posting and being able to actually convert people into new clients on social media versus just posting Lala content.
Lindley Battle: Uh, like snaps, claps, just like pump air, fist pumps. Yes. And that's, and and I think it's like Jody hit so many valuable points with all that. I mean, one thing, like showcasing how you think through the experience for your clients. Two, like actually think through that. Like, I've seen so much dumb shit where people are like, five things I do differently as a photographer and you're like.
We all do that. Like, ugh, I shoot with dual SD card. Okay. If you don't, you're [00:45:00] fucking insane. Like, okay, cool. Like, if you don't, you were playing a dangerous game. Like think through, I mean, what Jody just said, sorry, like, let's be real. I, I back up the minute I get home. Okay. If you don't, you're just fucking lazy.
Like, I mean, you know, there's just certain stuff where it's like, okay, yeah. Like we all do that. Like, oh, I put everything through Lightroom and photos. I like, now I'm just getting hyper niche. But you know, there's, there's so much stuff that it's like, like what are all the things, but like actually think critically and there's like, marketing at the end of the day is thinking critically about.
Wants, needs and problems you solve. And that's actually a big piece of like, we're, so we're Jody's in our onboarding process right now, what that looks like. She filled out an A questionnaire, which I, I love the questionnaire. I actually go out and fill out the questionnaire like once or twice a year for both of my businesses just because it keeps me grounded in like what I'm doing.
But she fills out the questionnaire and then I work on our strategy doc, our creative team's working on her creative piece, but I'm working on her strategy doc, which is 30 pages of what exactly we're saying, [00:46:00] why we're saying it, why it matters. And we have all this spelled out to like, you know, what are the, what are your client pain points, not just like client pain points on the internet.
What are your client's pain points and how do you specifically solve them? What is the customer journey that we are trying to get here? Like what are they coming for? What are we providing for them? Why does it matter? What are the content pillars that we're speaking to? I mean, and this is the stuff that, like if you are not at a place where you can outsource your social media or your marketing in general, that's fine, but you need to be thinking through all these things.
And this is why people often will like. You know, for a while I was like, oh, should we offer more a DIY like intro option? Like here's like a done for you strategy that like you go and action out. And I was like, hell no, because then people aren't gonna do it. It's so much damn work to do it correctly. And I think circling back to when I was doing our cultivate content, like what was hard for me is that I was just doing a lot of really aggressive hot takes because that's, that's how I felt.
I was like, I don't wanna post a bunch of fluff, I don't wanna post bullshit. I don't really like care about showcasing this, this, like, if you scroll back on [00:47:00] our Instagram, it's funny, it is literally a black and white like checkered grid with just like aggressive statements in bold lettering. And that is like, it was just me.
Like I would get ideas like in the car, like I'd go fuck off to Morocco for a week and a half and just like think about all the things that made me angry and then make Instagram posts out of
Jodi Anne: them. Really. She really would. You guys, like, I would literally see posts from Morocco. I'd be like, when did you leave for Morocco?
I'm just out here. You do, you have, you have moments where you decide to just hop on planes and like go, I'm so jealous of your life whenever you're in that moment.
Lindley Battle: For sure. I think
Jodi Anne: I have learned
Lindley Battle: more of those moments than not.
Episode Outro: Okay. I told you that this was not going to be your average, how to market yourself kind of episode. Linley does not mince words. She doesn't just give advice. She. Hammers reality checks. And if you're still here, then that means that you are simply one [00:48:00] of us, and you are not trying to play small. You're not trying to go viral and hope that it turns into a booking.
You are ready to build a brand that actually books on purpose. Now, believe it or not, this is only half. Of the crazy that is Jody and Linley together, it is half of the chaos, but also half of the clarity that we recorded together. So in part two, we're diving even deeper. We're gonna talk about the exact kinds of content that photographers should be creating.
We're gonna talk about. Social media mistakes that are costing you clients. And we have yet to even get to the hilarious story of how Linley, uh, could or could not be a voyeur or an exhibitionist or a porn star director in her past life. I would like to say I'm kidding. I actually no. I love this.
It's unhinged, it's strategic, it's everything. So go hydrate. Go rewatch your own reels with fresh eyes and get ready for part two. [00:49:00] That is dropping next week. Bye for now. Posers.
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.
