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.
Well, hello, hello, hello my beautiful posers and welcome back to another episode of the Posers Podcast. I am still in New Jersey. Even though this is going to get. I ha, you know what? I have no idea when this episode publishes because I send it to the podcast team and they handle all of that [00:01:00] for me, and I lose track of how many weeks ahead or how many weeks behind, or when and where this podcast schedule is taking us.
But I do know that this is the second episode that I have recorded here, and that they will come out. Trickling at a week's pace, so it'll seem as though I have been in New Jersey for basically a month straight, but I haven't, I've been here for four days. I'm just recording a lot while I'm here because I am.
Fully taking advantage of the fact that I do not have the studio. I do not have my business to really run. I do not have dishes and laundry and children and a husband. I don't have any of the outside pressures of world happening to. Me right now because I'm sitting inside of a cute little Airbnb. So while I have the time, I am going to crank, especially because I know that we are all coming up [00:02:00] on a very busy fall season.
So the more that I can get myself ahead, the more I am going to take advantage of that. So, three families flew me across the country to photograph them. Now. Obviously, sure. I am a good photographer. I know how to make people look good in front of my camera, but that's not the whole entire reason why I'm here.
They didn't book flights, coordinate weekends and hand me. Their family legacy, basically, just because I can click a shutter button, they booked me because of authority, because of presence, because of the way that I built myself online to not be just. You know, quote unquote a photographer, but I make myself the photographer that they have to have, and that's what this episode is about.
[00:03:00] I want to walk you through exactly how this all came together. The booking, the planning, the execution, and also the financial side. Because if you've ever wondered like, would flying across the country even be worth it? The answer is yes if you've built your business the right way. So we are going to split this episode.
Up into a few parts and part one is going to be how I booked these families and here's the truth. All three of these families were already part of my Joanne family. Okay? Two of them were past wedding clients. One of them is actually another photographer who has followed me for years and years, and she is also.
Already booked me multiple times for other shoots, so they didn't just come out of nowhere. I am not running ads in other cities. I am not doing any, I'm not blogging. I'm not doing anything that would have made [00:04:00] these people in New Jersey want to book me except for. The fact of my online presence, because even the families who booked me that I already had them as clients from their weddings, they came to me because of that authority and that consistency that I am always running through my social media.
Okay. But. They've also all come because I nurtured them over years. I didn't disappear after their wedding and I stayed front of mind. I engaged with them on social media. I comment on their posts. I DM them. Whenever I see something in their life is happening. They've been part of my journey just as much as I have been part of theirs.
That's the real lesson here. The most important part of social media is being social. It's not just posting pretty reels or shouting like book now, or I'm running mini sessions. It's connection. I. [00:05:00] It's staying visible and consistent enough that whenever a big moment comes around, I am the first person that they think of.
Authority isn't some kind of like, I don't know, a magic label that falls onto you. Authority is built brick by brick through consistency. Presence, storytelling and the psychology of how you position yourself online. So when these families wanted updated portraits, there was no Google search, there was no shopping around.
There was no comparing me to the local competition. They came straight to me. And here, well, two of them did. One of them, I reached out because I knew I was gonna be on this side of town, but on this side of town, as if I just drove myself across the railroad tracks. No, that I was on this side of the country.
But the, the biggest thing is that I didn't have to [00:06:00] pitch them on flying me in. They requested it. All I had to do was say yes, basically. And I gave them what my standard session fee is, which is $997. And then I made sure that because I was booking multiple families in one trip, I made sure to tell them like, Hey, I'm not going to nickel and dime you.
I'm not going to make you cover my travel costs. I'm not going to make you cover the amount of time that I'm spending over in New Jersey. I treated them exactly like my normal clients get treated in my own city. Okay. Here's why I do it this way. Not only do I know that the backend sales will make it worth my while, but I'm also training my audience to see that this is normal, that I can, and that I will fly out for sessions.
And that's an option that is like on the table for them, and that's how you can start to build demand in places that you obviously [00:07:00] don't even live. Okay. Let's talk about part two, planning in an unfamiliar city because this can cause a lot of I don't know, nerves and feeling uncomfortable and things like that.
So let's talk about the part that nobody really sees behind the scenes in all of the planning that has to be done in order to be shooting somewhere that you are not familiar. So, shooting in a new city isn't just like. Hop off the plane and show up with your camera. It takes a lot of strategy and here's what it looks like on my side.
So whenever I know that I am shooting in, uh, any sort of city or any sort of country outside of where. I live, this is exactly how I used to do things whenever I would shoot in other countries for weddings and things like that. But so it's the same, same process just with shorter flight times. So I start with a really broad Google search [00:08:00] of popular spots that would normally be like the areas that we would be going to thinking about, like state parks, thinking about state beaches, thinking about like the broader idea.
And then I dive into like Google images and I see like, okay, like can I see something in these Google images that really like piques my interest? And when I find those sort of places, then I'll go even more dialed in and I'm gonna go to Pinterest and I'm gonna go to Instagram. And whenever I'm putting in these searches into Instagram specifically, it's going to start giving me photographers who have also shot in those same exact places.
So if I can find photographers who've shot there before, then I will reach out and I will DM them and see whether or not they will answer my questions and not everyone shares. And that's fine. I know that I can always figure it out for myself if I need to, [00:09:00] but having a good amount of reach through my audience and being able to just slide into a DM and saying like, Hey, could you help me shoot, or Could you help me plan with this?
Like, I'm gonna be shooting there, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And seeing whether or not they will give up. Some of their goods. Usually I fly in a day early just to scout because trust me what looks like a dreamy spot on like Pinterest or Instagram or somewhere, you can very quickly realize that they have either photoshopped a lot of the crowd or photoshopped some eyesore out.
I actually figured that out this weekend in general. So sometimes you'll get to a location and realize it's like really crowded, or there's some sort of an eyesore that either wasn't there whenever you were looking at images, or it's there now, or they've photoshopped it out or something like that.
So scouting is really, really, really important and flying [00:10:00] in that extra day early. Always proves to be beneficial because when you figure out that you need to pivot, if you need to pivot, you have to do it hard and you have to do it fast, and you have to figure out another option that's still in. The same aesthetic plane, I guess for a better word to say, it's still like aesthetically pleasing in the same way that you have planned with your client.
So if my client knows that we were going to shoot on the beach, I can't show up, scout the beach, and then realize, oh no, we can't use this spot. So now we're gonna go into the woods and shoot with trees and foliage, because they're not only the timing of the shoot has been planned. For the beach, which hair and makeup has been planned around that timing, but also their wardrobe has been planned for the beach, which then wouldn't work inside of, you know, nearby woods and foliage or something like [00:11:00] that, because then we haven't even planned what shoes they're wearing.
And that's going to send my family's into stress, and that's the last thing that I would ever wanna do. So. The pivot if you have to go out and scout and realize that the scouting location isn't working, the pivot has to be hard and fast, and you have to figure it out. So you need that day, this time. I did not have that luxury.
I did not have that day because I had to do a shoot. On the Thursday before I was leaving town in the studio, and that shoot had to happen. So then I wasn't able to get here the day earlier, which I normally like to do. So the way that it looked for me this weekend was that I flew in on Friday. And then my shoot wasn't until Saturday in the evening.
Thank goodness I would have never booked it for Saturday morning and not shown up on Thursday. I don't tend to [00:12:00] love booking shoots during sunrise anyways. I tend to always book things during sunset. so I flew in on Friday and I got to my actual, like Airbnb Friday evening, and then I woke up early Saturday knowing that I had to be out and that I had to be scouting.
I also had a style meeting that I had to do at 11:30 AM. On Saturday. So I had to get up, leave Early Scout, and then come back and have my meeting and then go back out again to make sure that I had everything lined up. Was it stressful? Yes, but that's the reality sometimes, like you have to adapt. I luckily knew coming in what I already had planned and the cities that I was already going to be shooting in, so I knew I was gonna be in Stone Harbor.
On Saturday. So I knew I was going directly there and that I was only scouting that small area of a city. So that made it easier. And then I also knew that I'm over here on the Jersey [00:13:00] shore, we are shooting the beach and there's not a lot of options for me to be choosing from. So it wasn't something where I was having to put together like a whole entire full day shoot or that we were shooting.
Multiple locations. But then of course I made things a little bit harder on myself and we did end up shooting multiple locations, but it all ended up working out okay. So then I also had to wake up early on Sunday morning and make sure that I was scouting for my Sunday evening shoot. And now here we are on Monday, which I'm actually having to drive two hours into the other city.
So I am kind of flying by the seat of my pants on this one, but I'm only doing that because I already know that we have a newborn involved on this photo shoot. So we are shooting in the client's home on their Jersey Shore house, and then we are also simply walking across the street and we are using that beach [00:14:00] and we are not doing anything else.
I have to make those two options work. Because there's a newborn involved and we're not going to be loading up that baby and traveling anywhere. There's also a 2-year-old toddler, so we're not going anywhere. I am making that work absolutely no matter what. Okay. Okay, so once I have the location nailed down, I go back into my full like JN process mode.
I send the clients a timeline. Once I have it figured out for scouting, they already know. A broad timeline before I am even leaving town. So before town, we have figured out their wardrobe. We have completely dialed that in with a stylist. They have hair and makeup already booked. They know the rough start time based on sunset.
But once I have the whole entire timeline really kneeled down, I will send over. And it's so super simple a [00:15:00] text, and I also put it into a shared note that I have with my client where all of our information is all in one place. But I'll send over a text that just says, here's what I found whenever I was scouting.
Here's your arrival time. Here's the GPS coordinates of where you are actually parking your car and where I will meet you. Here's the time that we're actually going to start shooting. Here's the time if we're leaving that location and going to a new location. And then here's the time that sunset happens and the time that we're wrapping everything up.
Okay? Gear wise, I travel pretty light, but smart actually. Except for like my laptop and card readers and all of that sort of stuff. This is also what I travel with, two shoots within my own city. I always have two cameras. I always have two lenses. I have three batteries, six memory cards, and then whenever I'm traveling, traveling, then I have a card reader and a laptop, and I also always have [00:16:00] my.
Phone stand so that I can get BTS content, right? Definitely enough to cover me if something breaks, but not so much that I am hauling, like a whole entire set of gear that I would take for a wedding. Okay. Alright, so part three, executing the actual day. Here's the part that always surprises people.
I get nervous. I really do, especially whenever I am shooting in a new city imposter syndrome can creep in and it feels foreign to not have that comfort blanket of going to my usual go-to spots or knowing that I know where the sun is going to set the, the amount of lifeguards that I ask. This weekend, where does the sun set?
Like which part does it set over the water? Is it setting up? And I was so confused because I'm on the Jersey Shore [00:17:00] and everything on the Jersey Shore obviously points out to the Atlantic Ocean. So the sun is not supposed to set over the water at all. The sun is supposed to set away from the water because on the West coast it, so it's over the water.
But. Last night, whenever we were shooting in Cape May, it set over part of the water. And I was just, the geography of it all has my head spinning. But that sort of stuff can really creep in and it can make me feel anxious and it can make me feel nervous. And also to not have the safety net of my own schedule.
Like on Saturday's, shoot, the weather was. Not great. Not great at all. I'm talking 25 mile per hour gusts on the beach. So we had sand flying, we had overcast skies. If I was in my own city and I had access to my full calendar, it's a shoot that I probably would've rebooked. But knowing that I [00:18:00] can't, it adds a whole other level of stress.
I actually even considered. Should we move this shoot to be a sunrise shoot the following day so that I knew that I was delivering like my standard, uh, luminous, light-filled, like gorgeous work, but the next morning wasn't looking any better weather-wise. So that sort of stuff. Makes me nervous. But the second that I start shooting, it's almost as if like, it's not even almost as if it is the fact that photographer Jodi just takes over.
I have been doing this for so long that it's like autopilot and my style doesn't change just because I'm on the East coast. My brand doesn't change. My brand is my style. That consistency is what these families are paying for. But what does change is my level of creativity. I get to play with new elements.
Like yesterday I had clients who could lay down [00:19:00] inside of these dune plants, which was some I absolutely geeked. Out and I cannot wait to get home and see what these images look like. Edited. There's, they're going to be some of my favorites that I've probably ever done. But that's something that I never get to do in the Vegas desert.
Uh, so that's the fun part, is that my creativity can really start to develop a little bit more. And also, this is a sidebar to this whole entire podcast, but what I'm noticing too is that. What I do in the studio. Seems to be so much different from what I do on location because in the studio I have obviously a wall that people can lean against, which you never really have unless if you have a tree or a fence or like something like that.
But the way that I stack people in the studio is different than how I shoot, because usually I'm off in a desert location somewhere. I don't usually ask people to sit down. I [00:20:00] don't usually ask them to lay down. I don't usually ask them to do. Like things like that when we're in the desert. But this weekend I've really noticed how much my studio work is now starting to impact my on location work.
And you're starting to see like this little blend of both of those bodies of work sort of coming together. And that part is really fun. And I think that part of that was because I was shooting on the beach this weekend and there's so much more. Flexibility about sitting and laying in, standing in sand versus asking somebody to, I don't know, lay on top of a cactus, right?
But it really is, it's the fun part of shooting somewhere new is seeing that your creativity really sort of like, takes off in a different direction. As far as like the financial side, let's talk about that a little bit. The trip cost me probably about. [00:21:00] $3,000 in order for me to fly from Las Vegas, my flights plus four nights into like a nice Airbnb, good food, a rental car, uh, could I do it cheaper than that?
Sure. But I'm almost 44 years old if I'm leaving the comfort of my home. One I want to enjoy myself, but two, I wanna be really comfortable so. I'm at the point in my life where if I'm going to fly across the country, it is going to be done comfortably. So, if I'm spending. About $3,000 just to make these shoots happen.
We also have to remember that my clients have paid me about $3,000. They're paying me $997 for their session fee. So, and I had three clients, so that right away is just a wash and I'm at zero. Right? I know that my average per family is about $4,000, so. On the [00:22:00] backend. I mean, so three families, that's $12,000.
So I'm still looking at having most of that as straight income into my business. Right. But also. These aren't just any clients, they're families who have already invested well above my averages before. One of them has actually spent over $15,000 with me before. So the financials make sense. And even if something was to flop, like if a toddler was to melt down and I couldn't get them back, or like a bad hair day happens or a bad weather day like it did happen, like.
Things like that do come up, but I trust myself to create enough magic that it won't tank like the whole entire experience. And that's really the difference in knowing that if you're white knuckling your business in order [00:23:00] to succeed, then you're going to feel those kind of crunches. But. If you're building a business that's based on authority and confidence and knowing that you can come in and that you can make magic for these families, then you don't really ever have to worry like, oh my God, what if this doesn't work out?
But. Let's also not miss the bigger point here. It might not work out right? Something might flop, something might tank, and sometimes you have to understand that that's the risk of owning a business, and that's the risk of entrepreneurship, and that's the risk that you're willing to take in order to do.
This job that you love. Right. But there's a bigger point that's happening here too, is that when I'm showing that I am traveling like this, it's not something that I wanna do all the time, but it is fun for me to pop off for a fun weekend like this, especially in a really cool [00:24:00] place like Cape May, New Jersey, because this city or this town, whatever you wanna call it, it is straight out of a Hallmark movie.
Absolutely like perfect and idyllic and gorgeous. And I have enjoyed my time here just as much as I have enjoyed shooting families over here, but I'm training my audience to know that travel sessions are an option and that I'm available beyond Las Vegas or Henderson if they want me. And that proves to be really beneficial because.
It tends to be that if I'm booking somebody who's already willing to invest in me flying across the country, then I know they're also going to be willing to invest even more so on the backend. And I always lead with this with my clients too. Like if you're maybe wondering like, oh my God, is it like, do you worry about what kind of money they're spending?
Or do you worry about whether or not. Uh, [00:25:00] they're gonna spend money on the backend or whether or not they can afford for this whole entire experience for me to not only fly over there, but for them to also spend like four or five, six, $7,000 on the backend. And I always think about the fact that it is up to my clients to decide whether or not they can afford me.
Their bank account is absolutely none of my business. That is not my problem, and it's not for me to manage. Their anxiety around if there is even any anxiety around booking me. My only job is to lead. My only job is to create gorgeous images. My only job is to make sure that they enjoy the process and that they laugh, and that they connect, and that they relax.
My job is to steer the ship so that there's never an awkward pause or any sort of moment during the shoot where they feel like, oh my God, this wasn't. Worth it. That's my only [00:26:00] job. Okay. I am not worried at all, and never do I have any sort of conversations about the bigger financial picture for them. We talk about all of that during the.
Proofing meeting. So here's what I want you to take away from this. If you are just starting out first of all, if you're just starting out, do not worry about flying across the country, okay? Please, you probably do not have the wings yet, so focus on consistency. Focus on showing up on social media every day.
Focus on. Your weekly newsletter, any long form content, your blog and all of your funnel strategy, build authority piece by piece, because At the end of the day booking work like this is not luck. It is not about some kind of crazy secret strategy. I'm saying it right here. It is about consistency. It is about authority.
It is about making sure that your email funnels. [00:27:00] Are intact and running. It is about making sure that you're showing up weekly inside of newsletters. It is about making sure that you are showing that you are consistent and that you will create gorgeous work every single time that you show up. And that's it.
There is no crazy secret sauce, all right? That in and of itself is everything that you need to do. In fact, it may even be. A bit of a mistake for photographers to think that they need to go big before they've ever nailed the basics. Okay, so. Authority is built locally first, and I don't want you to skip those steps.
Just trying to get into places where you feel like, oh my God, I can travel here and I can travel there and I can like run this kind of business. You know what? Who am I? If you wanna go big, if you wanna travel big, if you wanna run that kind of business, do it. But just know [00:28:00] that you're going to need to get your feet wet first.
You're going to need to grow some winks first, and then you know, you know what? Pop off, pop off and go and have fun and build it in that kind of way. Because I've also always said on here that no matter what, every type of business that you want to build. Always works so long as you are showing up with consistency and authority.
Now, with all of that being said this podcast might have sort of. I don't know, dug up or conjured up a bunch of questions that you might have. And if you have not noticed, if you have not taken the opportunity to simply hit reply to that newsletter that comes out every single Tuesday, letting you know that there is a new episode waiting for you.
If you haven't taken the opportunity to do that, do so hit reply and [00:29:00] you'll be very nicely surprised that you'll get a response. From me because I respond to. Every email that comes in, especially from the podcast, it is directly connected to my personal email, not the team's email. So, if questions have come up while I'm going through this, because I understand that a lot of questions tend to follow when I talk about process and procedures.
Go ahead and hit reply and I will get back to you, and who knows, maybe it will spark a conversation for next week's episode. Until then, I actually have to get myself packed up because I have made a crazy decision that I should drive back to Philadelphia after my shoot tonight.
Because that's where I'm flying out of. Otherwise, it would be a two hour drive today to go over to this new city to shoot, and then a two hour drive back and then an hour and a half drive from my Airbnb back to Philadelphia at four 30 in the morning. So I'm like, you know what? I am [00:30:00] just going to eat the cost of this Airbnb for the night, and I am going to fly
straight over to. Philadelphia. Grab a hotel by the airport and I'm going to sleep an extra couple of hours instead of having to be on the road. And then tomorrow I'm gonna fly back and I'm going to see my babies and my husband, and we will be back to business as usual. So 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. Incredible. Bye for now, friends.
