Intro: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Posers podcast, the place where we skip the fluff. Say the quiet parts out loud and dig into what really matters. This is where photography, psychology, and business collide. I'm Jody, your host, and I'm bringing you my raw takes, hard wins, and a whole lot of unfiltered honesty about what it takes to build a photography business that actually connects and makes money.
So ladies, grab your headphones and get your tits up and your ears open because we are going to build something really incredible together.
Hello, hello, hello, my beautiful posers, and welcome back to another episode of The Posers Podcast. All right. I need to say something before we dive into today's episode. I gotta say something right here, right off the top, and it's honestly a really, really, really important note for you and for [00:01:00] me.
I'm saying this with a huge smile on my face, obviously. Here it is. I actually don't know everything.
I like to think that I do. I like to try to convince my husband that I do. But we need to all take a collective breath and wrap our heads around that. I'm totally kidding. Okay. So here's the reason why I say this. Cold pitching, and by that I mean, reaching out completely cold to a business owner that you've never met, introducing yourself, and proposing a collaboration, it's not actually something that I've had to do a ton of in my career, and I want to own that And the honest reason is that I've always been someone who can walk in a room, I can strike up a conversation, and somehow turn a casual chat into a business [00:02:00] opportunity.
Because schmoozing and networking and working a room, that is something that I very honestly come by naturally because of honestly just who my dad is. I mean, you guys have seen this man, right? I am a byproduct of him. So, but you should also know that that's very much photographer Jody side of me.
It is a persona that I have to turn on. Even whenever I'm just doing a photo shoot, that is a, that is a part of me that I have to turn on and show up as when I am working. That is not who I am in my private life. even photographer Jody is who has to show up sometimes on this podcast here, okay?
So it, it is something that I can very easily and naturally turn on when I need to turn it on, when I need to be in a networking kind of situation. [00:03:00] And it's not just that I turn it on. I really thrive there. It has always come very naturally to me, and it has served my business well. But after last week's episode, where I walked you through how to kind of warm pitch during a really genuine conversation, how you can turn that into a really beautiful collaboration, after that episode, I got quite a few DMs of people reaching out and saying, "Hey, I loved today's episode, but I'm not you.
I'm not built like that. I don't just, you know, talk to strangers, so what do I do whenever that's not a tool in my toolbox?" That, that was a lot of the conversations that I was having this week. And even last week, in the episode, I said this, that I understand it's two very different scenarios, and that I would speak to it on this week's episode.
But that is where I spent a lot of time in my DMs, having these kind [00:04:00] of conversations. So I did What I always do whenever I actually don't have the full answer, whenever I realize that I don't know everything, even though I really, really, really wish that I could be a walking ChatGPT because I love knowledge, I love education, I love information, and this is what I thrive at the most.
Whenever I don't know a full answer, I go and find it. I go and research it. I go and study. So even though I have a lot of this information that I can give you that I have studied and I have researched, I just kind of wanna make sure that I'm being transparent here too, that I understand that me teaching it here might still feel hard for you on your side simply because I have an easier time switching on that the same way [00:05:00] that BeyoncΓ© has her Sasha Fierce I have photographer Jody very easily.
Okay? But for this episode, I wanted a little bit of new information. So I dug into some of the best frameworks, some of the best talks, some of the best thinking on this topic until I had something worth handing to you here on the podcast. So also because that's just what I do. And I hope, honestly, I hope that I empowered you to do this too, that whenever you come to a place in your business where there's a roadblock, I hope that you know that you have to do everything in your power to figure out a way around, over, or even under that fucking thing in order to keep moving. You have to find a book. You have to listen to a podcast. You have to y- you know, join a mastermind, take a course. You have to figure [00:06:00] it out. I do not let not knowing something stand between me and anything in my business.
I do not let something I don't know stand in the way of me showing up for you incredibly well each week right here on this podcast. So that is a hill that I will always die on. And hopefully, that's a hill that you will climb and die on with me. Okay? So today is a little bit of a mashup of some how-to, but also I really wanted to dive into the mindset side of this and how you think about this.
So today is about why this kind of collaboration marketing works and why you're also probably avoiding it and why that avoidance is costing you more than you actually know. So- We're gonna shift the way that you think about getting in front of your ideal clients, [00:07:00] because until the mindset shifts, the strategy doesn't fucking matter anyway.
Okay? I'm going to say that again, because this seriously encompasses everything in our businesses. All right? The strategy doesn't matter until the mindset is behind it. Okay? You can know all the strategy in the world, but if you cannot get yourself to do something, if you don't have the right mindset about it, it does not fucking matter.
All right? So I wanna start today with something that somebody else said, actually, because sometimes the right words don't come from me. Sometimes the right words don't come from you. Sometimes they come from someone who articulates the thing that you feel in your bones, but you just haven't been able to say it out loud yet.
And I came across this the other [00:08:00] day from a speaker whose name is Jen Gottlieb. You probably follow her on social media because she's freaking fantastic. She is an influential and keynote speaker. She is an author. She is the co-founder of a media company, I think. But honestly, she is one of the most electric voices in the entrepreneur space right now, and she said something in one of her keynotes that I have not been able to stop thinking about, and it ties into exactly what we're talking about today, and I'm going to read it to you, and I want you to actually listen.
I want you... I don't want you to just hear it. Okay? So if you're in your car, if you're driving I don't know, there shouldn't be any other distractions happening, but turn your volume up. If you're listening to me in your ears while you're doing your laundry, please sit down for a second because I want you to not just hear this.
I want it to land. Okay? She says If you have a service, a [00:09:00] story, or a product that helps people, it is your responsibility to make sure that they can find you. Because every single day that goes by and you are not making yourself seen to the people that you can help is another day that they are going to follow someone else.
They are going to go listen to someone else. They are going to go buy from someone else, someone who doesn't care as much as you, someone who might not be as good as you, simply because you are too insecure about putting yourself out there, because you're too afraid of being cringe, because it's not perfect, because you feel like an imposter.
And she went on to say that, you know, she gets it. It's scary. But if you're afraid to put yourself out there, you are worried about the wrong thing. If you are afraid to put yourself out there, you are worried about yourself. Whew. Because if you are showing up, [00:10:00] that is not about you. It's about the person who needed to find you on that day.
Okay? That is so crazy powerful because it completely shifts the way that you might think about putting yourself out there. If you're afraid to put yourself out there, you are worried about the wrong thing, 'cause you are worried about yourself Okay? It's about the person who needs to find you. If you have a talent, if you have a, a skill, if you have a product, if you have a service that benefits other people, it is actually your responsibility to make sure that they can find you, to make sure that you can serve them, to make sure that they are able to get that need met.
And I want you to think about what that means for your photography business. There is a mom out there right now who just found out that she's [00:11:00] pregnant. She doesn't know yet that she's gonna want maternity photos. She doesn't know yet that she's going to wanna remember this season for her life forever.
She doesn't know yet that she's going to wish, honestly desperately wish, that she had photos of this stage of her life, that she had photos with her partner in this stage of her life, that she will want to remember the quiet Sunday mornings before that baby happened, before everything changed.
She doesn't know any of that yet, but she will, and when she does, when that moment hits her, she is going to go looking. And the question is not whether or not she's gonna find a photographer, 'cause she will. She'll find a photographer. She might find a good photographer. But the question is whether or not she will find you because of what you can do, because of what you can provide, the way that you can serve [00:12:00] her There's probably a new mom who's sitting in a doula's birth class right now, getting ready to bring a brand-new human into the world, and nobody has told her yet what to actually look for in a newborn photographer.
Nobody has told her what questions to ask. Nobody has told her what safety precautions need to be taken during newborn photography. Nobody has given her the knowledge that she needs to protect her baby and also capture literally the most fleeting season of her entire life, right? She needs you. She just simply doesn't know that you exist yet.
So Jen Gottlieb is right. It is not about you. It is about your fear of being awkward on the phone, it's not about whether or not you feel like your pitch email is perfectly worded. It's about the women who need to find [00:13:00] you, and the women who won't find you unless if you go put yourself in the rooms where they already are.
So that is what today's episode is about. I want you, obviously, to understand why this strategy works before we talk about how to do it, though. Traditional marketing, like ads and social media and, you know, posting three times a week and praying that the algorithm rewards you, those all operate on interruption.
You are showing up in someone's feed uninvited, hoping to catch them at the right moment, right? And I mean, it can work, right? Heck, I, I teach those models too, and how to capitalize on them in the best way, but it can also be slow growth. It can take a ton of time to build an audience, and it can also be expensive.
And it is getting [00:14:00] harder every single year as the Internet gets more crowded. So referral-based marketing, and what I'm gonna teach you today actually goes so far beyond just referrals. But referral-based marketing operates on trust. Whenever someone that your ideal client already loves points them toward you, that recommendation carries a weight that no social media reel can ever replicate.
It is not you saying, "Hey, hire me, hire me." It is someone that they trust saying, "No, you need her." Now- what I wanna teach you today is not just your average you know, scratch my back and I'll scratch yours kind of, referral swap. I'm not talking about trading business cards with a florist and hoping that she mentions you sometime.
I'm talking about something a lot bigger, something that embeds [00:15:00] you inside of another business's world in a way that makes you so impossible to ignore, something that gives their customers a reason to seek you out, not because they were told to, but because they experienced something and they wanted more of you.
I'm talking about strategic collaborations that put your work in front of your ideal clients at the exact moment that they are actually ready to say yes. And here is the truth that I need you to hear, even if it stings a little bit. If your calendar is not where you want it to be, if you are, you know, refreshing your inbox and wondering where your bookings are, the answer is almost never in your website.
It's almost never in your social media game. It's almost never in your pricing. It's almost never your Instagram gi- grid. It is almost never that your work isn't good enough. [00:16:00] It is almost always that the right people do not know that you exist. You cannot complain about an empty calendar if you are not actively putting yourself in front of the people who need you, and I say that with love, and I say it because I want more for you.
But I also say it because it's the truth, and you deserve someone who will tell you that. So let's talk about what gets in the way of you putting yourself out there. Okay, so- I know that some of you might be thinking right now that the idea of all of this sounds amazing. "Ooh, yeah, I would love to do this, but I wouldn't even know where to start.
I don't know what to say. What if they say no? W- what if I sound stupid? What if it's just awkward?" Okay, so let's talk about that because what that is, [00:17:00] that's fear. So let's talk about the fear. There's a TED Talk that I want you to watch. I'll link it in the show notes. It's by a man named Jia Jiang, and it's called What I Learned From 100 Days of Rejection.
It is about 15 minutes long, and I promise you, it will change something in you. Okay, so Jia tells this story about being six years old and standing in front of his first grade classroom. His teacher had... I'm, I'm chuckling 'cause I'm like, I, I used to be a school psychologist, right? So I know that this is against everything we should ever do as a teacher.
But his teacher had everyone stand up and compliment each other, right? And whoever's name was called got to go up and pick up a gift and then sit down. So there's 40 kids in the room, they're all standing, and [00:18:00] then all of a sudden there's only 20 kids in the room who are still standing. And then there's 10 who are standing, then five, then three.
And Jia was one of the three that were left standing, who had gotten no compliments, who had gotten no gift, was just standing there while the room kind of went silent around them. And he says in his TED Talk that he would die to avoid being in that situation again. He was only six years old, and that moment wired something in him that followed him for decades, right?
And it kept him in a corporate job when he wanted to be an entrepreneur, and it made him shrink from every bold idea that he had and every new opportunity. And here's what he did about it He decided to seek out rejection on purpose [00:19:00] every single day for 100 days straight. Okay? He called this rejection therapy.
It's actually really a form of exposure therapy, but since he I don't know, did a TED Talk on it, he can basically come up with whatever name he wants. So he went out and did these crazy things that he knew would elicit rejection. He asked strangers for money. He asked restaurants for burger refills.
He knocked on strangers' doors with flowers. And two things actually happened. First, he started getting yeses that he actually never expected to get because people are actually kinder than our fear tells us that they are. And then second, the rejections stopped crushing him because the more he heard no, the more he realized that nothing bad actually happened.
He was still standing. The [00:20:00] world kept on turning. Now Adam Grant, who I absolutely love, he went on to add to this, and he says that when you make a pitch, it's often not the idea that leads to rejection. It's more so in how you present it. So it is not the idea that gets rejected, it's the presentation, which means that this is a learnable skill.
This is something you can get better at. You are not born knowing how to do this. You have to practice your way into it. And another thing that Adam Grant said was that no one cares what you'll create in the future until you convince them there's something wrong with the present, and that is like absolute gold for what we're talking about today.
So no one cares [00:21:00] what you'll create in the future until you convince them that there's something wrong with the present. So whenever you pitch collaborations, you should always lead with the problem. Before you propose your collaboration, you have to name that problem, name where the gap is. A, a, a boutique clothing store owner doesn't know yet that her customers are walking out the door without a reason to value their boutique over the next person's, right?
The Pilates studio owner doesn't know yet that her email list is an untapped resource for the women who are on it. The, the doula doesn't know yet that her birth class is missing something that parents really desperately need. So you lead with this gap that you're capable of filling for them, and then you present yourself as the value that gets added for their business [00:22:00] inside of that gap.
So you don't roll out just saying "Hey, this exchange can get us both some more business," or "Hey, let's collab. I want access to your clients." You find the gap in their business, and then you fill it for them, okay? Sometimes they'll say no. Sometimes they won't reply at all. But What Jia discovered during his 100 days of rejection that I think is one of the most important business lessons I've literally ever heard, he said that when he got rejected, instead of just walking away and taking the no, he asked why.
Just a simple, really calm, not aggressive, just a really curious why. And everything changed. He went to a stranger's door with a flower and asked if he could plant it in her backyard, and she said [00:23:00] no. And so then he just said, "Can I ask why?" And she said, well, her dog would dig it up. So then he said, "What if I planted it in the front yard?"
And then she said yes. So a no is not the end of the conversation. A no is often just the beginning of better questions that can lead to solutions that you can provide. And sometimes a no really is just a no, and that's got to be okay, too. I saw something the other day that said if you know that you have 100 more mistakes or 100 more nos in front of you before you get to your version of success, or before you get to the stage that you wanna be in.
If you know that there's 100 mistakes in front of you or 100 nos in front of you before it all starts clicking and working for you, how quickly would you sprint towards [00:24:00] those nos? How quickly would you want to make those mistakes? And that's literally exactly what business is. It's simply a numbers game.
There can only be so many nos until you get a yes I was sitting outside and chatting with my husband a little bit, and he said this to me actually earlier today whenever we were talking about what I was recording on the podcast this week. And he's in sales, and he said that he calls it, or I don't know if he's learned it somewhere, but he was like, "Oh yeah, it's the rollercoaster effect."
He says all it takes is one time for you to get a taste of how good it can be. So you tackle your fear, you get on the ride, you clink your way to that first drop. You're absolutely fucking terrified, right? But within 30 seconds, it's over, and it was insanely fun, and you just want more of it.
That's what the first [00:25:00] yes will do to your confidence. That's what the first yes will do inside of your business. There are businesses in your market, boutiques, studios, doulas, lactation consultants kids' doctors, children's hair salons, dance studios, mommy and me classes. The list goes on and on and on.
All of them are filled with your ideal clients. All of them are run by business owners who want to serve those clients better, by business owners that would literally benefit so much from you. So this level of strategy that sits behind this kind of marketing is not something that I can hand you in just a podcast episode.
It is not a checklist. It is not a template for you to download and fill in. It's the kind of work that gets built whenever somebody's actually like, sitting with you, somebody [00:26:00] who knows your market, somebody who knows your niche, somebody who knows your business and helps you actually engineer the exact right collaboration for you.
That's what happens inside of the mastermind because we don't just talk about ideas that are high level. We actually get in the weeds together. Work is done with you and for you, not just thrown at you and hope for the best. But None of it works if you can't do this first part, this mindset part, the belief part, the part where you decide that your clients actually deserve to find you, and that it is your job to make sure that they can find you.
This is exactly where Jen Gottlieb got it so right, is that she said, "It is your responsibility to be found." And I believe that with everything in me, but I [00:27:00] also know that that responsibility can feel really heavy. It can feel overwhelming. It can feel like one more thing on a list that already has too many things on it.
So I am not telling you that your homework after this podcast episode is to go and pitch 10 businesses this week. I want to tell you to pick one, one business whose customers are your ideal clients, one business whose owner you've admired from a distance maybe, one business where you can see so clearly that there is a gap that your presence would make their customers' lives better.
And I want you to just write one sentence, just the first line of a message to them, something specific, something that proves that you actually see what they're building and that you actually have value to add to what they're building. And you don't even have to send it today. Just write it, [00:28:00] because the hardest part of this is never actually the pitch.
It's simply starting. And once you start, once you send that first message, once you have that first coffee, once you say yes to the opportunity that scares you a little bit, just like the rollercoaster, you will never be able to unsee how much is actually possible for your business. Your ideal clients are out there right now, and they're waiting to hear from you.
They simply don't know that you even exist yet. So go change that. If something landed for you today that you felt this little like spark of, "I need to do this," will you pretty please share this episode? Send it to a photographer friend who needs to hear it too.
Post it in your Facebook groups. Screenshot it. Please tag me, because the more of us who are doing this work, [00:29:00] the better our whole entire industry gets. So links to everything that we talked about today are going to be in the show notes, including the TED Talk, What I Learned from 100 Days of Rejection, and Adam Grant's podcast, How to Pitch Your Best Ideas.
Both are under 20 minutes. Both are worth every single second of them. And if today's episode got your wheels turning, and if you find yourself thinking like, "Okay, but how do I actually do this?" Then I love that. Good. I want your brain working like that, and that also means that the mindset is shifting.
So the how is available for you. The specific collaboration models, the pitch frameworks, the scripts, all of it is already built for you. So make sure that you are on the wait list so that you know when the doors open for 2027. Okay? That's all I've got for you today. Bye for now, [00:30:00] 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.
