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. Last episode was definitely a personal one for me because I sat here and I talked about being a woman who wants more, and really also how I stopped apologizing for that a really long time ago. I talked more about my boys than I really ever have, and [00:01:00] I talked more about how I was raised and how that impacted me, and why I've never carried any sort of mom guilt about building this business because Post-divorce, for me, ambition and motherhood were never two things that were fighting for space in my life.
And I truly believe that the values and the skillset and the qualities that I am showing my boys by building this business are worth far more than the handful of times that I've had to miss a baseball game or the fact that I never was a mommy helper in their classrooms. And if you listened to that episode and you finally felt like there was somebody saying what you feel out loud, or maybe you felt like, "Oh my God, I found my tribe, I found my people," then good.
That is exactly what I wanted out of that episode. I not only want you to want more, [00:02:00] but I want you to stop feeling guilty about wanting more. And I want you to stop shrinking that part of yourself to make other people feel comfortable. But I would also be doing you a really big disservice if I let you walk away from that episode thinking that ambition was the whole entire answer.
Because while we obviously love being ambitious women, there has to be something more behind it. Ambition is not going to get you anywhere on its own. Ambition is really just a feeling, right? It ... The strategy behind that feeling is the action that will back it. Okay, let me say that one more time, because I really do want that to land.
Ambition is the feeling, the same way that, like, manifestation is the feeling, or manifestation is this, like, big grand idea. But the strategy is the [00:03:00] movement behind it. The strategy is the action. Ambition's the front loader. It's the fire. It's the drive. It's the, "I want more and I'm gonna go fucking get more."
And that obviously matters, right? - You can't build anything without that ambition. You wouldn't be listening to this podcast without that ambition. But the strategy is what has to be there to back it. So strategy is what turns all of that wanting into something that really actually shows up in your bank account.
Because without that strategy, ambition is it's like a woman who's just, like, sitting in her car in the driveway with, like, the engine running, the engine revving. It's like you're fired up. You, you know that you wanna go somewhere, but the car stays in park, right? Like, the car never leaves the driveway.
That's where I see a lot of photographers really stalling out, because you are fired up. You are motivated. You are ready. You are, [00:04:00] like, spinning your wheels. Like, you do really wanna build something incredible, but without the strategy to help you put the car in drive or to even know, like, where the car should be driving towards, like, that's the issue.
So today, on this episode, we're gonna talk about where that ambition actually needs to go, and we're gonna talk about it through marketing, of course, because, well, I'm gonna keep going with this car analogy because clearly I like it a lot for now and it's working for me. But marketing is the vehicle that drives your ambition to where it needs to be.
And marketing is also the thing that I hear over and over and over again that photographers just really don't understand, or you understand it, obviously. Like, you under- you get it, what marketing is, but then whenever you sit [00:05:00] down to say, "Okay, I'm gonna market my business now," you don't understand what you actually need to do.
And maybe you've even told me this yourself because honestly, I hear this from a lot of you, that you've usually, like, invested in programs before, too, programs that you thought were going to give you this piece of the puzzle, but they didn't. Not to say that it's not a great program, but programs that have taught you pricing and they've taught you structure and they've taught you how to sell products and how to run everything on the back end of your business, and that's all good and great.
But what I keep hearing is that nobody has ever taught you how to actually get the clients, how to actually get the bookings. And a business that's really heavy on the back end where you understand your pricing, you understand sales, and you know exactly what to do once a client is [00:06:00] there in your ecosystem, like, that's all, that's all great.
You need to know that part. But it means nothing if you can't get somebody to book a photo shoot, So- Right now we're all in like the heat of fall, right? So chances are your calendar is actually really full right now because this is the easiest season to book, and it's when we all make the most money.
And that's fantastic. I, I, honestly, I love that for us, right? But what happens whenever we get to January? What happened to you last January? What happened last spring whenever it is harder to sell sessions? What happens whenever you don't have photo shoots that are basically like handed to you on a silver platter like we do right now in the fall?
Because whenever that happens, that's when most photographers will [00:07:00] default right back to the same thought. And honestly, it's a thought that's not even your fault because it's literally been what you've taught. But this idea that in order to do your marketing, like you just need to post more I need you to really understand why posting more is not it.
It's not the thing. It's not the answer. Because the sneaky little part about that is that posting more really does feel productive. It feels like you're getting something done. You're checking off that box. And honestly too, it's really easy, right? Throw a bunch of your photos together, put it into a stack or a carousel, throw some pretty music on it.
Honestly, that's the easiest thing that you can be doing, and it, and it genuinely does feel like you're checking the boxes and you're putting that ambition into motion. But that motion isn't going to get you anywhere, and I think you've realized that, okay? You've realized, [00:08:00] especially if that's the only thing that you're doing for your marketing, that that's not a strategy.
Right now, like in this day and age, we have it easier than ever to run a business because you can literally sit in your house in your pajamas on your phone and reach thousands of people. Thousands, right? That's overwhelming to think about, too. But before you ever even get out of bed in the morning, there are literally, like, so many ways that you can reach so many people.
Because nowadays, there are no barriers to entry anymore. You're not required to have a studio. You're not even required to have any sort of physical location for business. There aren't these huge amounts of overhead like there used to be. And honestly, like our parents' generation would have killed for this kind of access.
And yet, so many [00:09:00] of the photographers that I speak to are struggling more than they should be. Maybe you are struggling more than you should be. Not because business now is harder, because it's not harder. It's easier than it's ever been. But you might be struggling because you're not spending time where you need to spend it.
So yes, the internet has made this way easier for us to have access, but it's also distracted us from the kind of marketing that still has to happen. We get so caught up in the newest features and the algorithm and the newest trend and the newest thing that- you know, some person on Instagram swears is the answer.
I'm probably one of those people on Instagram swearing that I have the answer. No, but we forget that underneath all of that that we're so distracted by [00:10:00] are so many layers of marketing that should be happening, and they simply aren't because we think that putting up a carousel post with some pretty photos is what checks that box So while the landscape of marketing has obviously changed with the internet, human behavior has not.
People still need to see you, they still need to trust you, they still need to feel connected to you. And you also have to give them a reason to be activated to book that session with you. So that part has never changed with marketing, not in the '70s, not in the '90s, not today, at all. Like, a mom who was deciding who she's going to trust with her family photos right now is going through the same exact, like, psychological, mental process that her mom went through whenever she picked a photographer out of the phone book.[00:11:00]
So I am not telling you that I want you to go back to how businesses were run in the, like, '70s, '80s, or '90s. Nobody's asking you to go out and buy the yellow pages and a fax machine. But really, every single strategy that worked back then still exists, and it still has to be used even though it looks really different now.
So let me walk you through it a little bit because I think that whenever you hear it laid out like this you might understand what I'm talking about a little bit more. And honestly, stick with me through this because I'm going to give you a little nugget of gold here in just a little bit. , But what used to be, like, network in your-- networking in your community...
So in my community whenever I was growing up, I grew up in this teeny, tiny town in r- in New Mexico, Roswell, New Mexico, and it was right on the border of Texas, right? So this networking in the community was, like, Friday night football games, and, like, being at the Elks [00:12:00] Club, and things like that. Nowadays, in, like, corporate business it would be more of, like, a BNI group, a LeTip group.
You know, these networking groups that you, like, pay to belong to. But for us, this idea of networking in our community is now a DM strategy. Like, literally right at your fingertips, okay? What used to be sending out, like, coupons or flyers in the mail or, or putting coupons out on people's windshields, those are now your lead magnets that should be built and inside of your business.
So what used to be, like, I don't know if you would maybe remember this, and honestly I only know this because I read the book Launch by Jeff Walker. But what used to happen is people would send out in the mail actual, like, sales letters, and what that's been replaced with now is our email marketing and our email funnels, right?
also, what [00:13:00] used to be trade shows or conferences, which would've been like visibility, th- we now have visibility content for that because those are our trial reels. So if in like corporate space right now, like this isn't even in the past 'cause this is still a real thing, but like seasonal collections and like product drops and things like that in like a brick-and-mortar type of business, that still exists for us today as photographers because that's what should be your launch system in order to collect your bookings.
And then, of course, word of mouth still exists. Word of mouth is always going to exist. But what we have going for us now is that it is so amplified through social media, and people are tagging people all over the place. Information is being shared easier. There's testimonials and like cl- your client experiences, they're being talked about out loud online, where other people can so visibly see them, read [00:14:00] them, hear them, all of that.
So every single one of these things that I just listed, that is marketing, and marketing has never disappeared and will never disappear. But it has evolved. But somewhere along the way Photographers decided that posting a stack of pretty photos was enough, and really, it's not. And I think that you're realizing that it's not, because this is the part that's the hardest for almost every photographer that I talk to.
If you are, like, posting the stack of pretty photos, that means that you're really just emphasizing your portfolio. And your portfolio is one piece of the system, right? And I'm not gonna knock that. It is an important piece, too, but it's nowhere close to being the entire system. Photographers really, like, massively underestimate how much time they should be spending [00:15:00] on marketing.
This is the little, like, golden nugget that I told you that I was gonna give you a little bit ago. So, even if your calendar is full, marketing should never, ever be skipped. Because as the CEO of your business, not just the photographer inside of your business, but as the CEO, it is your job to think six months from now, a year from now, two years from now, and the marketing for that never stops.
Marketing is more of your full-time job than actually being a photographer. So, here's the nugget. I'm going to tell you what I would do if I were building your work week. Okay? So, get out your pen and paper because I'm gonna tell you exactly what you should be doing every single week and how your days should be broken down so that you know that you're hitting the amount of time that you should be spending on your [00:16:00] marketing.
Okay? I want you to set aside one complete day per week where you do nothing except for content creation. One full day, content creation only. Like, you batch it, you make it, you edit it, you schedule it, and then you're done. Okay? For the other four days, I want you to remember these really easy three numbers, 100, 50, 100.
You're gonna do 100 minutes of a DM strategy, you're going to do 50 minutes of email marketing, and you're going to spend 100 minutes creating trial reels every single day so Then on top of that, yes, there's more on top of that. I don't care which day that it happens on, but you're going to add in another one to two hours per week borrowing other people's audiences.
That means that you're getting on people's [00:17:00] podcasts. That means that you are teaching in front of other women's groups. That means that you are building collaborations where you have real access to the other person's audience, because ideally, this other person's audience shares your ideal client. All right?
So this is not where the two of you make a reel together, and then she just tags you. Okay? I want you having real access to her audience. And then sometime during every single week also, you're then gonna spend an hour or two looking at these numbers and figuring out what is producing leads, what is producing revenue, and also just what is making you tired.
Because what's producing more leads and what's producing more revenue, then you're gonna do more of that, and you can drop some of the other things. So that's roughly 25 to 30 hours a week of marketing that you need to be doing if you want to keep building a business that can scale. And [00:18:00] trust me, I can hear you right now.
I can hear you screaming at me from the other side of this microphone that 25 hours is a lot. And yes, it is a lot. But here's the thing that I cannot teach you over this, I don't know how long this podcast is gonna be, but say it's a half hour. I cannot teach you this over a half-hour podcast. What I just handed you was the whole entire schedule that you should be running for your marketing.
And technically, yes, I've given you value. I've told you exactly what to do. And honestly, like say you scrap even a couple of those hours off the top and you only spend 20 hours a week, would your business still blow up? Yes, it absolutely would. So don't let it overwhelm you. But here's the problem I tell you to spend 100 minutes a day on your DMs, so then you sit down and try to do that, and you're like, "Okay, but who are, who am I messaging?
Who am I DM'ing? How am I finding [00:19:00] them? Like, w- what am I sending them? What am I saying to them? What's the follow-up? Like, am I just saying, 'Hey, do you wanna book a photo shoot?' Like, when do you make that invitation? When, when do you even ask for that booking? And what is even the offer that I should be talking to them about?"
You don't know what that DM strategy actually looks like. And then say you sit down and you're gonna be like, "Okay, cool. I'm gonna build these trial reels that Jody told me to build." Great. So you're gonna spend the time, and you're gonna do it because you have the ambition to do it, but you don't have the system.
So what's the hook? What's the pain point? Like, what are you split testing? What are you changing between versions so that you know what worked and what didn't? What's the call to action? And where are we sending these people once they actually watch it and we get that attention? What are you building underneath it so that it attracts these people and then gets them into your ecosystem?
Because when we're talking about [00:20:00] marketing as a whole entire system that really and truly works for your business, views are not the goal, and likes are not the goal. Checking the box to say that you posted a carousel, that's not the goal either. Bookings are the goal Okay? Let me say that again, because this is where so many ambitious women really burn out.
Views are not it. Bookings are it. You can go viral and not book a single session. I've had it happen. I've gone viral many times, okay? And did it do anything for my photography business? No. It absolutely didn't. The only thing that it changed was my follower count. That's it. So this is what I mean whenever I say that ambition is the feeling and strategy is the action.
Ambition says, "Okay, I'll, I'll wake up. I'll pound the pavement. I'll do [00:21:00] the work. I'll d- I'll put in the 25 hours." But strategy is knowing what to do inside of every single one of those hours and why you're doing it. Because sure, you obviously, you can understand what you need to do in a collaboration. You can understand that you need to borrow other people's audiences.
But if, say, you're going into, like, a silent auction or an event, or you're gonna do a giveaway, or you're gonna do some, like, vendor partnerships, or you're even building an affiliate program. Or you're inside of these, like, community groups, and you're doing these networking events. Or you're just, like, guesting on, , people's podcasts.
You're doing this collaborative content. But the thing that you need to understand is that these are not interchangeable marketing ideas. You can't pick one off the list and think, like, "Bloop, I pick that one," and it's just gonna run exactly like all of the other ones. Every single [00:22:00] one of those examples of marketing that I just gave you, each one of them has a different psychology behind it.
Each one of them has different messaging. Each one of them has different architecture of how it's been built. Each one of them has a completely different back end that has to be built so that the attention that you're generating h- has somewhere to actually go. Let me give you an example of this, because I am sure we've all done this before.
you team up with another business in town, and you do, like, an Instagram giveaway, right? We've all done it. Something like, I don't know, you have these five businesses or so. You all get together, and it's like this little follow loop. And whoever your thing on your part of the giveaway is that you're gonna give away a free photo shoot, right?
You've gotta, like, follow all five of these accounts. You've gotta tag three friends. Whatever, like, the rules that you guys have set in place are gonna be for this giveaway. And then you get to the end of that giveaway, and it's [00:23:00] like okay. Congratulations, like now you've got 10 new followers, and all 10 of them are expecting f- a free photo shoot from you.
But not one of them is going to book a paid photo shoot with you. And I'm kind of like chuckling and laughing right now because it's so relatable and we've all done it. But it's really not that funny because we've been there, and because it kind of stings. You kind of get to the end of it, and you put in all of this work and you're like, "Where's the reward?
Where's the payout?" I know that I've done this in my early days, but here's why it flops. It's not because giveaways don't work. It's because generating attention and monetizing attention are two completely different skills. Generating attention is obviously just getting people to look at you. That's visibility.
Great. We love visibility. We need visibility. But monetizing attention is getting the people who looked to become someone [00:24:00] who will pay you. You can donate a session to a silent auction and literally get nothing out of it, or you can build the offer, build the funnel behind it, and build the conversion piece behind it so that that one room introduces you to hundreds of potential clients, high-level clients.
You could collaborate with another business owner and make some sort of a cute reel together, and everybody likes it, and everybody comments some sort of heart emoji. Somebody says like, "Oh my God, I love both of you. I love seeing you guys doing work together." Right? But the structure of that collaboration needs to be built on purpose so that it moves her audience that you're sharing with over and into your world.
It's the same kind of collaboration, but it has such a different result whenever you understand that there's a strategy behind every single piece of the marketing puzzle. [00:25:00] So here's what I want you to walk away with. I don't want you spending 25 hours a week doing random marketing shit just so that you can say that you're doing random marketing shit.
Because- You could spend 25 hours a week marketing and still make no money, right? Let me say that again, because I don't think that we say that enough in this industry. You can do the hours, and you can do the work, and you can post the reels, and send the DMs, and still make no money. Not because you don't understand business, not because you're not talented, but because nobody showed you how to build the back end of it.
You need to understand the psychology behind why you're using each one of these, how they work together, and what needs to be built in your business for them to work. Because the goal isn't to become, like, really fucking busy at marketing. The goal is to build a machine where the content creates that attention, and then it [00:26:00] creates conversations.
And you need those collaborations and the conversations to then create access. And you need all of that machine that you're building, you need all of it to create revenue. That's the machine. And once you understand how many moving pieces are underneath it, you understand why the advice, like, quote unquote, "Just post more consistently," was never going to fucking cut it to begin with.
Okay? So let's go back to where we started. Last episode, I told you that it's okay to want more, and really and truly, I meant every word of it. But this episode, I'm telling you that wanting more is just the starting line, not the finish line. Just because you're ambitious does not mean that you're gonna be successful.
Your ambition is only the front piece. It's the reason you're listening to me [00:27:00] right now. It's the reason that you're not settling. And trust me, I love that about you. I love that about me. I love that about us so freaking much. But your ambition needs something backing it. It needs a strategy. It needs a machine.
Otherwise, you are going to burn all of that fire on busy work, and you're just gonna get yourself exhausted. You're just gonna get yourself burnt out, and you're gonna start believing the lie that you're simply not cut out for this, or that your market is too saturated for you to be successful, or that there's not enough, enough room in your market for another photographer.
And like I said, that's a freaking lie. You are 100% cut out for this. You don't need any more ambition. If you're listening to this podcast, you've got ambition on lock. I know you've got plenty of that. You simply need to know where to point it. You need to know the system [00:28:00] that will build you the business, that makes you the money that your ambition is, I don't know, that it's craving.
Okay? The mastermind is 24 weeks long. It is six freaking months, 24 weeks. And for like, I don't know, eight or so of those weeks, even more, this is what we're building, this exact system. And honestly, a lot of this episode was pulled directly from the exact lesson that the women got inside of my mastermind this last week.
And what I love about that room is that we don't stop at the marketing either. We build the whole entire machine, the exact machine that got my business to $450,000 last year. That all just gets handed directly to you. Because honestly, like, is marketing the whole entire thing? No, of course not. [00:29:00] But it's a really, really fucking big chunk of it.
So if that's the piece that you're missing in your business right now, you should know that the doors to enrollment are officially open for the Posers Mastermind. That is starting next February in 2027. So the link to get on my calendar and to book a call with me to see whether or not the Posers Mastermind is the right fit for you, that is in the show notes, and it is also in your email.
And that's all I've got for you today, Posers. Bye for now.
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, [00:30:00] stapled, stay messy and don't let the bullshit win. Tits up. Ears open and go build something. Incredible. Bye for now, friends.
