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 have officially survived the high school graduation of my firstborn. I can only equate this last week to emotional terrorism, psychological warfare. It is insane [00:01:00] to me that as human beings, as a species of an animal, that we are expected to raise a baby from point of their inception into this world, and literally spend almost every waking moment with them for 18 years of their lives, and then just be like, "Okay, child, now you're going to go off into the world.
You're gonna fly the nest. You are going to..." what is the statement? Fly the coop? Something like that. "You're gonna go out into the world, and you're just gonna live on your own, eight hours away from me, and you've never lived eight minutes away from me." That's crazy to me. So the emotional terrorism that has taken place over the last week was intense.
Also coupled with the idea that there had to be festivities, and meals, and family in town, and [00:02:00] parties, and get-togethers, and all of the things. So it was absolutely draining. Also- Like exhilarating too. So much fun. I had, I had a great time with like family being in town and all of that. But it was like the emotional rollercoaster of the Texas Giant, if you've ever been to Six Flags in Dallas.
That's what this last week has felt like. So I took three days off in order to recover from all of this, and I kind of had the intention of putting up a really quick podcast episode just to kinda check the box and get the job done here. But I got into a conversation with my husband that kinda triggered something in me to get back up, get back after it with work and kinda light a fire again.
And maybe if you're feeling like this too because so many of you have also come to the end of a school year even [00:03:00] if you're not graduating off your firstborn. Coming to the end of the school year, having a little bit of senioritis, feeling like maybe we wanna skip off and day drink for most of the day and then lay around a pool in the sun and not work too much.
I'm here to kinda light another fire for you also. it's no surprise that we're gonna talk about something reality TV adjacent today, and I'm sure you'd expect it to be about Amanda and West and how freaking insufferable they were on part one of the Summer House reunion, but surprisingly, no. Today, we are talking about Spencer Pratt, which is a sentence that I thought that I would never be saying, especially in the year 2026, never be saying because I only talked about Spencer Pratt what, in the year of...
God, I don't even know what year it was that The Hills came out. And that Laguna... Well, he wasn't on Laguna Beach, [00:04:00] was he? He was on The Hills. He came-- Yeah, because he was Spencer... Well, obviously he's Spencer Pratt, but he was Heidi's boyfriend after the high school years, so he wasn't on Laguna Beach. He was on The Hills.
So definitely not a sentence I thought I would be saying in 2026 nonetheless. But I also didn't have Spencer Pratt becoming a marketing guru on my 2026 bingo card either, nor politician. But here we are. So A few days ago, I was scrolling Instagram, as one does, when I came across a post that was breaking down Spencer's mayoral...
Mayoral? Is that a word? Mayoral? His campaign to become mayor of Los Angeles. And it was a carousel that I was reading, and it was essentially making an argument against Spencer, as it should. This man has absolutely no business running [00:05:00] one of the largest cities in America. He has no serious political experience.
He has no civic leadership experience, no meaningful track record at all in governing anything remotely close to the size and/or complexity of Los Angeles. Meanwhile, there are women in the race who have spent decades preparing for this exact campaign and this exact moment of them being able to run this incredibly layered city.
Women who have worked in public policy, women who have spent years problem-solving regarding housing and homelessness and public infrastructure and city government and all of that. Women who have dedicated literal entire careers to understanding how cities actually function. And yet, and [00:06:00] yet, Spencer Pratt is winning a lot of attention, and he is dominating social media, and he is showing up in headlines, and Spencer Pratt is becoming the conversation.
I came across this breakdown of his campaign this week, and within about 30 seconds, I knew exactly why he is winning attention. I'm not saying he's winning the race, but he is winning almost all of the attention in regards to this race. And you know what? It wasn't politics. It wasn't qualifications.
It wasn't policy. It was nothing but His marketing. And honestly, it is really, really, really good marketing. And if you're a photographer, an entrepreneur, a coach, an educator, a creator, anything in regards to being in this entrepreneur space or anyone trying to get [00:07:00] people to pay attention to what you do, you should be paying attention to Spencer Pratt.
Not because he should be the mayor, that's not what I'm saying. But what I am saying is that Spencer Pratt understands audience building better than most business owners. And the proof of that is right in front of us. Because let's be honest, if qualifications alone determine success, this conversation right here would not even be happening.
Because if that was the case, the women in the race would be crushing him, end of story. But that is not what is happening, because qualifications and attention are not the same thing. And honestly, that's where a lot of photographers get themselves into trouble with their business. we want to believe that the most talented photographer wins, that the photographer with the most experience wins, that the photographer with [00:08:00] the strongest portfolio should win.
But that's not actually how humans work. Humans don't choose the best option. Humans choose the option that they notice, and those are very, very different things. The best restaurant in town is not always the busiest. The best musician isn't always the most famous, and the best photographer doesn't automatically get the booking.
Because before someone can choose you, they not only have to know that you exist, but they have to remember you whenever they start to think about hiring a photographer And this is where Spencer Pratt comes in. Because he's not just running a campaign, he's building a cult-like audience, just like Donald Trump, just like Taylor Swift, just like Apple, just like CrossFit, just like Peloton, just like [00:09:00] Lululemon, just like Glossier, just like Bumble, just like every other movement that has managed to create irrational loyalty.
And before some of you get weird about the word cult, let's define what I mean, because I'm not talking about religious extremism. I'm not talking about drinking Kool-Aid. I'm talking simply about creating a group of people who don't just consume what you create, they actually identify with it. They recruit other people into it, and they start using your language.
They begin to really see themselves as part of the world that you have built. And when you look at Spencer Pratt through that lens, his strategy becomes increasingly and also incredibly obvious. Every single thing that Spencer is [00:10:00] doing is designed to create belonging. He is not doing anything to create agreement with him.
He is doing everything to create a sense of belonging. And those are very different things, because to agree with somebody is just simply like It's, it's cognitive, right? It's intellectual, the agreement, that you can agree with somebody with what they are saying or with a fact, okay? But creating a sense of belonging is emotional, and humans will fight so much harder for something they emotionally belong to than something they intellectually agree with.
That's literally why Swifties exist. It's why people line up overnight for Apple products. It is why people get literal tattoos on their bodies [00:11:00] for the gym that they belong to, for CrossFit, and it's exactly what Spencer Pratt is doing. The first thing that he knew that he needed to do is exactly what he did during his days on reality TV also, is that he is embracing the idea that he is the villain.
This is one of the smartest things that he could have ever done for his campaign because it aligns people. Most people spend their lives trying to outrun criticism. Spencer is welcoming it because he understands polarity. He has stopped trying to convince people that he wasn't the villain from The Hills during his reality TV days, and instead He was like, "You know what? Fine. I am the villain." And the second that he did that, he became memorable The second that he [00:12:00] owned that narrative, nobody could weaponize it against him anymore. And that's exactly what he's doing in his campaign now too. And photographers make this mistake constantly. Not because I want you to go out and be the villain in anybody's story, but there's this mistake that's happening in regards of being terrified of being judged, or being terrified of somebody not liking you, or being terrified of somebody thinking that you're too expensive or that you're too opinionated or too loud or too ambitious or, or too successful.
Meanwhile, Spencer Pratt took the thing that people hated about him the most and he's turning it into a brand, and that's marketing. Another thing that he is doing is he's creating a common enemy, and this is cult building 101. So every movement needs something to rally against. Every [00:13:00] movement needs a villain.
For Taylor Swift, it's the patriarchy. For Apple, it's technology that's mediocre. For Trump, it's everything left wing. For Spencer, it's the political establishment, it's bureaucracy, it's the people who have been running Los Angeles. It's the idea that experts and politicians have failed. And whether you agree with that or not is irrelevant.
The point is that he's giving people something to rally around. He's giving something, for people to unite and align with. And photographers are terrified to do this because we wanna be neutral, because we want everybody to like us. But nobody joins a movement that's built on neutrality People join movements that are built on conviction.
Whenever I built my photography business, I [00:14:00] made sure that I did this in really small ways in my business. I never wanted to be the villain. I never wanted to have this negative take on my business. But I knew that I had to create common enemies, too. And so I took things within our industry that I could rally my audience against.
And for almost two decades now, I have made the idea of feeling awkward on a photo shoot basically a four-letter word inside of my business. I talked about ugly colors that I hated and that I would never photograph. I talked about flowy dresses out in the middle of the desert, 'cause obviously I'm here in Las Vegas.
I talked about that look as if it was, like, sacrilegious. I also had a tagline that made a lot of people uncomfortable, unless if they had my sense of humor. And I talked [00:15:00] about being the best photographer in my city, and I openly stated things that other people were feeling that some other photographers might have been too scared to say.
And again, we're talking about 15- 10, 15 years ago. But I would openly state year after year how much family photo day absolutely sucked. And all of these thoughts and all of these opinions, I made them very known. I stood convicted to my style of photography. I stood convicted to my approach to photography.
And I, I stayed convicted to it the way that one would about their religion. It was as if there were sins that could be committed inside of my business or in front of my camera just as much as there's sins that would make a Catholic need to go to confessional every single week. And people rallied around these ideas.
My audience rallied around these [00:16:00] ideas because they felt aligned with them, and they loved that someone was finally saying them out loud Now, the third thing that Spencer is doing is he's creating a shared language. This one is incredibly important. Every cult has a language. Every movement has a language.
Every successful brand has a language. For Taylor Swift, you've got the word Swifties. You've got the fact that they call her Mother. You've got the eras, all of that language that surrounds everything that Taylor produces, right? Look at CrossFit. You've got WODs, W-O-D-s, right? Workout of the Day.
You've got boxes. You've got PRs. Look at politics. You've got MAGA. You've got the resistance. You've got Let's Go Brandon, right? The language becomes a shorthand for belonging. Spencer is constantly creating language around being the outsider, [00:17:00] the disruptor, the person who's willing to say what everyone else won't.
And people repeat those phrases because repeating them signals membership. It's the same way as the way that I start off every single podcast with the same opening, right? The, the sticky phrases that you hear me say often tits up and ears open. And I'm always talking about authority-based content.
I'm always talking about creating demand. I'm always talking about these certain things. Those aren't just phrases. They're signals. They're language that people adopt because it helps them explain what they already believe. and the thing that this leads to is creating a world around your brand.
And this is where a lot of photographers miss the assignment, because photographers kind of focus on the idea of building a portfolio, whereas Spencer understands that he's building a universe with his [00:18:00] AI videos, his memes, his crystals, his cuckoo-ness, the spirituality, the conspiracy adjacent content that he's always talking about.
And now this campaign to be mayor kind of fits inside of that whole entire universe of kookiness that he's created. This reality TV history that he has, the, the outsider narrative. None of it really makes sense if you're looking for consistency, but it makes perfect sense inside of the world of Spencer Pratt.
This is exactly why I tell photographers to stop obsessing over their portfolio, because the portfolio is not the thing that is going to get you booked. Marketing and your personal brand is what makes people say that they don't want anybody else but you. My audience does not follow [00:19:00] me simply because I take photographs.
There are thousands of photographers who take photographs. My audience follows me because they like the world that I create, the psychology, the reality TV references, the business strategy, the audacity, the strong opinions, and the swearing, and the humor, and the willingness, again, to say what everyone else is thinking.
If you think about it, that's probably what you like about this podcast and probably why you binged it, because I don't talk like other educators. I don't say the same things. I have a different approach, and I say things without softness or without sweetness, and that's on purpose. That's my world. And people want to belong to worlds, not portfolios, and that's what you need to create inside of your business.
another thing that Spencer Pratt is doing [00:20:00] that has kind of inspired this whole entire episode, and this is actually the conversation that I had with my husband that lit a fire back underneath my ass to be like, "No," "Get over graduation. Get up, get off of the couch, get back to work," is that- Spencer Pratt is simply operating with the confidence of a mediocre white man.
Because at the same time that little girls are being conditioned to be quiet, and kind, and sweet, and to take care of everyone around them, and to never be too loud, or never be too much, or just to stay small, little boys are being conditioned to believe that the world is theirs to take. They are taught to raise their hand before they ever even know an answer.
They're taught to try out for sports even if they have absolutely no talent or before they're ready. They are taught to shoot their shot. They are taught to ask for the promotion. They're taught to [00:21:00] speak with certainty, to believe that they can figure it out as they go. I actually saw something, I don't remember if it was a, a meme, or a reel, or a TikTok or something the other day, but I saw it online, and it said that the biggest part of being successful is simply biting off way more than you can chew, and then learning how to chew it.
And, and boys seem to be taught this. Men seem to have this ability to have this kind of audacity about life, to sort of bite off more than they can chew. Uh, they have it naturally. Okay? So they are taught to believe that they can figure it out as they go. And whether that's fair or not, it creates adults who walk into rooms that assume that they belong there.
[00:22:00] White men have the kind of certainty that allows a person to walk into a room th- where, that they have absolutely no business being in, and somehow either convince or gaslight everyone in that room to believe that they belong there. And- This is something that I have always known that I had to do in my business, even when it has felt uncomfortable.
But it's a skill that I had to learn. I had to recognize my own voice in my own head when that voice would start to kind of like whisper sabotaging thoughts to myself. If you've noticed, this ability or this skill that I have learned has done insane things for my business. In fact, like just with this [00:23:00] podcast alone, I've, I've only been a podcaster and an educator for just over a year, yet I've convinced 41 women to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach them during this year.
Because it takes a certain level of like delusion to make the leap and start doing something new, and to start doing something new with the level of confidence that you need to have in order to succeed at it, especially when you have absolutely no experience doing it under your belt But without learning this skill, growth will always be incredibly and frustratingly slow.
Because here's the thing, the women who are running against Spencer have spent decades earning credibility, [00:24:00] yet Spencer Pratt behaves as though credibility has already been granted to him. the women are leading with trying to convince people of the evidence that they have already proven, that they have, that they've already had for their successes.
But Spencer is leading with this bold certainty that literally stands on nothing but his delusions and literally zero experience. So while the women explain why they're qualified, Spencer simply demands that he belongs, and that's really fascinating to study and really fascinating to pay attention to because it's exactly the same in our industry, too.
There's photographers that are in my DMs daily that have 20 years of experience, incredible work, [00:25:00] thousands of sessions photographed, hundreds of happy clients, and a portfolio that could absolutely support luxury pricing. But they're terrified to post a reel talking about why they're worth it. this is so fascinating to me because literally meanwhile, there's this reality TV villain who notoriously has blown through $10 million, has spent a million dollars on crystals in one sitting, and who thinks that he can manage a w- however many billion dollar budget and is possibly even succeeding at becoming the mayor of Los Angeles.
Do you see how ridiculous that is? That one person is attempting to run a city of what? 4 million or so people, while we [00:26:00] as photographers are afraid to hit publish That's the lesson of this podcast. Not that Spencer Pratt should be your role model or that you should act like him in any kind of way.
But the lesson is that attention rarely goes to the most qualified person first. It goes to the person willing to become impossible to ignore. And if you can combine genuine expertise with that level of audacity, that's when things can get really dangerous in the best way, because that's when businesses will explode.
That's when movements will form. That's when people stop buying what you sell and start buying into what you believe. And that's the real lesson that Spencer Pratt [00:27:00] is teaching us. He's teaching a masterclass in audience building as you should be, like, like we should all just be using Spencer Pratt as a case study for all of our businesses.
That's what I want you to take away from today's episode. Not that Spencer Pratt should be idolized in any kind of way, except for maybe as a marketing genius. also not that you should go run for mayor or that you should build some cult based on I don't know, being a little cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
Even though may- that's kind of what I'm doing. Hopefully I'm not as wackadoodle as Spencer Pratt, I'm not saying that qualifications don't matter because they obviously absolutely do, especially in our world. But qualifications without [00:28:00] visibility are absolutely worthless. So the lesson is that if a reality TV villain can create enough momentum to become part of a conversation that he has absolutely no business being in, then maybe you can stop waiting until you feel ready to hit publish, or waiting until you can say it exactly the right way, or waiting until you feel like you can do it perfectly.
Maybe if he's doing all of that, maybe you can stop treating confidence like something that's only handed out after you've hit, I don't know, mile marker 20 in your level of experience. Just maybe you can stop whispering about things that you are actually really exceptional at because the market does not reward the best photographer.
The market rewards the photographer that [00:29:00] people remember, the photographer who stands for something, the photographer who has convictions and is impossible to ignore, and that's exactly what Spencer Pratt understands. if you are loving these conversations, please keep hanging out with me here on the podcast.
Share it with a photographer friend, leave a review, binge a few more episodes, and join me every week as we continue to dissect the psychology behind why people buy, why people follow, why they book, why they become loyal. So until next time, stay audacious, stay convicted, and please, please, please go be somebody who is impossible to ignore.
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 [00:30:00] 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.
