Building a Flourishing Photography Business with Gary Hughes

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the Focused Professional Podcast, sponsored by the Society of Photographers.
I'm your host, Joe Lenton, and this is Episode 11.
Music.

(00:33):
Welcome to the Focused Professional Podcast. Today we've got special guest Gary Hughes here.
And when we first met, I think I was rather terrifying you because I was one
of those judges looking at your panel.
So don't worry, Gary, there's no test today. How are you doing?
I'm all right, man. Yeah, I got to tell you, that was probably...
There aren't a lot of things to get nervous about as an adult.

(00:58):
Like you're in your 40s you know and you're like you
don't get butterflies that much anymore like not a lot phases you
like being in your 40s is like someone who used to be a fighter pilot
like you get back in normal life is just not that exciting and so but that was
one of those moments i was and i you know you know me i get up in front of people
all the time i give a i speak a lot and and that was i was reading my my little

(01:21):
what do you ever my little thesis and i was yeah i was i I was holding my iPad.
I had to just read what was on the screen. You know what I mean? It was a mess.
But it was fun because I know you know the great Kris Anderson.
Yes, I do, yeah. And he and I did our fellowship panel at the societies on the
same day, like back to back. And boy, you don't want to follow him. I'm glad I went first.

(01:42):
But we were both sitting there talking about how nervous we were.
And I said, look, bud, how often at our age do we get stuff to be nervous about,
to have butterflies about? I said, enjoy the butterflies.
That's a good thing. And so, yeah, you were on that panel along with some incredible,
incredible photographers, but that was the most nervous I think I've been as an adult.
You know i think i was more nervous than when my wife

(02:04):
is giving birth to our first child like that's how it was
intense man you want to
if you want to have to live the real life of you know
how you ever have one of those dreams where you're naked in front of
everybody or you go to school and you forgot your pants like that's
what getting your fellowship feels like it feels like not having pants
on in front of a lot of people it's it's scary yeah

(02:26):
and you look up at the prints on on the wall and think please don't let
me see something that i have missed for the past sort of six months
while i've been working on this thing yeah well i had you
luckily i had the great digital lab and then and
jeff over there who's the the the photo the photo printing
ninja you know do my prints for because i had
to fly in from the u.s for it so i'm not going to run the risk of
traveling with 20 prints and then get there and

(02:49):
i want to be damaged so i i got a local lab in the
uk that i trust and they did a brilliant job and it
worked out great i i don't remember if i don't know if you remember seeing anything
wrong with the prints but they look good to me and so you're the commercial guy
you'd know better than i would well the funny
thing is when i went to do my fellowship i actually had to spend a lot of time
going back to understanding printing techniques and papers because most of my

(03:11):
commercial work i don't print anything right i hand over the files to digital
creatives who are then going to use them for website copy for magazines so i i don't.
Get anywhere near involved in those sorts of things.
I'm a headshot photographer, for God's sake. I take LinkedIn photos for a living.
You know what I mean? But I do have a printer.

(03:33):
I have a Canon Pro 1500, and I love to print on it. And the great thing about
owning a printer and being able to take good photos...
Is that you never, ever have to buy anyone a Christmas present ever again. You just- That's true.
And I've got kids and all my relatives. I just print pictures of my kids and everybody gets prints.
And that's my gift to them is, thank you. You're welcome for the memories.

(03:56):
Enjoy. There you have it.
I didn't dare go down that route. I got allowed to do it.
I mean, yeah, obviously it costs a fair old bit getting each print done and everything,
thing but cost more to buy a printer and and years to
learn how to print properly too yeah there is
there there is that but yeah there's there was a whole load of stuff it was
quite a steep learning curve you think you know you spend all this time learning

(04:19):
your lighting and your editing and so on and so on and then you come to do a
fellowship and you think oh yeah it's got to be printed okay yeah there were
all these different types of paper yes yeah and i i love this because this this This to me is,
were you in the business in the late 90s, early 2000s, in the transition from
film to digital? Were you in the photography business at that time?
No, I wasn't. No, I was sort of in the music business, really.

(04:42):
Okay. Well, my parents had retired from photography.
So I grew up in the business. And I had been putting together proof books and
making enlargements since I was a little kid, you know.
And I was there loading Bronica and Mamiya backs with 120 and 220 film,
carrying my parents' bags on weddings. So I wasn't a photographer,
but I worked in my family's photography business.

(05:04):
And I remember the transition from film to digital and the freaking end of the
world uproar between photographers that were like, digital will never be good.
And so I remember that a lot of photographers sort of washed out of or left
the industry during that time. And I think I know what happened.
And so here's what happened is because when you shot film, you didn't own your own lab.

(05:29):
You maybe had a dark room for short stuff, for quick stuff, but you would always
send your negatives away.
And then they would send you back proofs. And what the lab was doing the whole
time was correcting your crappy photos and then sending you back usable proofs.
And they'd be push and pull processing, they'd be color correcting,
they'd take care of all of it for you.

(05:50):
And so what happened was, is when you could see your images instantly on the
back of your camera and on your
computer screen, I think a lot of photographers realized, wow, I suck.
And if they didn't realize they sucked, they thought digital was bad because
they didn't know that the whole time their lab has been saving their butt.
And so now you are your lab, right?

(06:11):
Like you're your own photo lab. I remember with my parents, the thing that the
nut they had to cover every single month, the biggest expense they had bigger
than the rent on their studio was their lab bill.
Their lab bill was their biggest bill.
And they would talk about it all the time about how do you cover the lab bill
and we got to cover the lab bill and this is going to to cover the lab bill. And that's just gone.

(06:34):
But replacing that lab bill is all of the time you have to spend being your
own sort of digital darkroom. And it's a completely different set of skills.
Photography is a set of skills of many varied set of skills.
Editing is a completely different set of skills. I mean, even though like Jerry
Jonas, for example, famously says that he doesn't like or use or edit anything.

(06:55):
He doesn't really even care to learn to use Photoshop. He just
likes to shoot and so you know so that's a different set of
skills and you've got to have a retoucher you really trust and
get on with to do that though or just go straight
out of camera and just get as good as you can taking the
picture in camera and then any old idiot could probably fix it
and then you know and then printing printing is a totally different set

(07:15):
of skills and like and i was sat next to at wppi
this year i was judging the icon awards and i
was sitting next to cheryl walsh who is this phenomenal
printer image maker she's just an incredible incredible
image maker and i had said something on
the panel that was like technically incorrect but functionally correct like
the result of what i said was correct but i had i had gotten to the backwards

(07:38):
and she just very gently was like just so you know for next time and then she
goes into talking about like emulsion layers and how ink distributes and soaks
into different things it does it and sits i'm like.
Wow. There aren't little gremlins living inside the boxes with little paintbrushes
and little... No, that's not how it's done. Yeah, man.
I've been in the photography industry since I was born, and I've been a professional

(08:01):
photographer for 20 years, and there's the stuff that I still continue to learn
on a daily basis blows my mind. Blows my mind.
So what do you think it was then that made you so nervous about having your
fellowship done, given that, as you say, you'll stand up in front of people
and give a talk, you'll video a talk, and know that it's there for posterity to be seen and so on.

(08:22):
And what do you think it was then? The great part about giving talks at conventions
is it's largely self-regulating.
The rooms will fill themselves with people who don't know what you're about
to tell them and who are not experts on the subject.
So by and large, you're just speaking to people who know less than you, almost by default.
If they feel like they've got a mastery of the subject, it takes a real special

(08:44):
type of jerk to go into a program just to find out how much they already know,
you know, and they are there.
They do that because, you know, you've given talks, I've given talks when somebody
comes up to you at the end and they go, I just wanted to let you know that I'm
already doing all this stuff, but it's good to get affirmation that I'm doing the right things.
You know, like, why would you even say that to a speaker? What an obnoxious thing to say.

(09:06):
It's like, just be quiet or go to a different class.
You don't need affirmation. Is it working? Are you making money?
Does your work look good? Are your clients happy, then please don't come take
up a seat in my class just so that you can feel entitled at the end to come
up and tell me, oh, yes, I absolutely, I knew all this already.
But those people are very few and far between. Most people are incredibly gracious.

(09:29):
And the real smart ones, if they get the sense that they know everything,
they're going to leave halfway through the class, which I'm always fine with.
They're like, don't waste your time with me if I'm not helping you.
But so I don't get nervous talking because most of the people in the room were
there because they read the title of the class and like, I need help with this.
And I guess the other end of that agreement is don't give a talk on something
that you're not a subject matter expert about.

(09:50):
You know what I mean? You got to be really honest about the level of proficiency
you're bringing to the table.
So in this case, I was, as far as getting a fellowship, which is essentially
picking 20 images, all coherent with each other of your very best work that
have an overarching theme,
laying them out in a way that's visually pleasing, and then getting a panel

(10:14):
of real honest to God experts to look at it and go with the very real potential that they could go.
And nobody is more supportive of great imagery than trained print judges.
Nobody gets more excited. This isn't a group of people that are trying to be
like the goalie keeping the puck out of the net, or I don't know what the British equivalent is.

(10:36):
The keeper trying to keep the ball out of the net. Does that sound like sports? Good.
Yeah, that'll do. Okay, thank you. That's good enough. Close enough? Yeah.
People view the judges as the keeper. And really, in a perfect situation,
the jurors, the panelists, they're your teammates.
They want to assist you in kicking that ball into the net. You know what I mean?
But their job sometimes is to help you do that better next time instead of this

(11:02):
time. And so it's people tend to lose that.
But when you go into that situation, I'm looking at this panel of people who
I've sat on panels with, who I've judged their work, who I know how good they are.
And now they get to turn around and look at my work. And the big difference
is if you just enter a photographic competition, those are largely anonymous unless you do well.
Like if you do really well and you win awards, that's when people find out your

(11:25):
name. If you do badly, you get to skulk home and nobody ever knows it was you,
except for maybe the competition director.
In this case, they're staring at you. You got to stand there next to your prince
while they just go over them.
And then they talk about them, then they leave the room, and then they come
back and they give you the Roman emperor thumbs up, thumbs down.

(11:46):
It is brutal. Brutal, but, you know, and so it's, you know, very rarely is someone
going to put themselves willingly into that situation.
However, I believe that it is such a worthy process, just because even if...
Even if I had never even made it, let's say that my plane got delayed or something

(12:08):
happened and I wasn't able to go and my panel never got judged,
the process of putting a panel together when you get paired with a mentor to help you do it,
just to analyze your work and find a coherent theme.
I found a theme in my work that I didn't know was there.
It's an incredible journey. That's interesting. It's an incredible journey of self-discovery.

(12:32):
So many people aren't analytical of themselves. They're not appraising themselves.
They're just kind of treading water, especially as creative entrepreneurs and
business owners and artists.
There's not a lot of introspection. production and and
so it is it's easy to judge others it's
easy to look at what someone else has done and find what you

(12:53):
think oh i wouldn't have done that or whatever but yeah when it's
your work to try and look at it in that way it's
like even when you've been judging for a while and you think about
entering a competition or something you look at an image that
you're going to enter and you think no this is
this is fantastic you know this is this is going to do really really
well and then you hear the judge's comments and you think oh no

(13:13):
yeah i did miss that oh yeah they're roy you know i
still do i still do i'm a i'm a member of
ppa the professional photographers of america i'm a qualified juror juror
juror juror with them and i still enter they
have a monthly rolling image evaluation is goes towards your accreditations
and degrees and i still enter that pretty much every month and i pay extra to
get critiques of my work by the judges on that panel and so and they're the

(13:38):
the eyeballs that judges are
able to put on an image especially when it's not theirs, is incredible.
But the process of taking a swing at a fellowship or some kind of accreditation
through that process, at least with SWPP, I know there are other organizations
in the UK that do something similar.
It was the most personal growth as a photographer that I've experienced in quite a long time.

(14:02):
Because I'm not a person who sits around, looks at my work, and second guesses
myself or thinks about it.
I'm a person that takes pictures for money, and I'm on to the next job.
In fact, I rarely even go back and look at work that I've done.
And so like I'm working with my social media manager and they're like,
well, we need some pictures for Instagram.
And I'm going back through all of these client galleries, which I never do.

(14:24):
And I'm like, oh, yeah, that is good. I forgot I did that. Or like,
oh man, yeah, that one didn't go as well as I wanted her.
Or you go, oh, I wish I'd have done this looking back on this session.
If I'd have just done this with this person, this subject, subject.
That would have been really cool.
So that self-evaluation is powerful. And that, just the process of putting together a panel.

(14:46):
And evaluating your work, I found that so, that was the best part for me.
Although it was great because obviously I did make it to that convention and
I did get evaluated and I did get my fellowship, I think barely,
but I did get my fellowship.
And that was a great moment of accomplishment, yes.

(15:09):
But that was, to me, that was 10% of it. the 90
of what i got out of it was in putting that panel
together and having to dig through my work and find something cohesive
and to really evaluate was was really
cool for me i enjoyed it and and it really helped me grow so how do you otherwise
carry on that sort of growth for yourself or do you feel kind of oh i've got

(15:32):
that out of the way that'll do for now no more growing for me for the time being
far too painful oh yeah i'm never going to do that again no i good all done.
It's really interesting, you
know, Joe, because I think everybody's in a different stage of their life.
And right now I'm in the stage of my life where I've got four children, nine and under.
I have a nine-year-old is my oldest and my youngest is not even two.

(15:53):
And I've got a business that's just after 15 years, I believe,
is really just coming into its own in a way that is completely unanticipated.
I run a software company as well that's related to photography that we launched last year.
I've got my educational stuff that I'm doing. So I have such a full life just

(16:13):
trying to manage all these things.
I found that that process of evaluating my work and putting something together
like that, it was actually a really cool break from everything else.
You know, I thought that was, it was a worthy creative endeavor.
I'm not a person who's driven by creativity.
Unlike most of my peers, I feel like I have creativity in me.

(16:38):
I enjoy the creative process.
I consider myself someone who is a creator. I'm not happy unless I'm working
on something or unless I'm learning something and growing.
But largely, I've channeled that into commercial, into entrepreneurship.
And so I think that I'm not
a person who's constantly trying to find
the next parachute dress and background or like

(17:00):
trying to master ai to create images that
nobody's ever seen before as long as i'm working yeah so i was going to say
well what do you think of as creativity then because i mean people it can mean
slightly different things to different different people so some of the things
you're talking about there are perhaps what what you might call the kind of
on the fine art side of things with that sort of almost painterly look to it.

(17:22):
When you say you're not creative, what do you mean by that?
I'm not driven by creativity in and of itself. Like, I know people who are true,
artists in the sense of the word where like if they're not actively
trying to make something and push themselves to something
new to me really real true art and there's a and i don't mean to gatekeep but

(17:44):
this is just my opinion true artists are driven to to create something that
hasn't been done you know the ones on the edge the absolute best out there are
pushing the boundaries and making a mess.
And people like that are usually very unhappy.

(18:06):
I believe there's a restlessness also that's inherent with that.
And it goes down in degrees.
I think there's creativity in all kinds of things. I think there's creativity in engineering.
I think there's creativity in building construction. And I think there's creativity in teaching.
I think there's creativity in lots of things. I think there's the actual definition

(18:27):
of creativity, that there's the way that we throw it around the internet at
each other. It's like, well, I'm a creative.
I'm a creative. Yes, I think that that's true in varying degrees.
It's not like you're a creative or you're not. I think everybody has an outlet
where they like to make things.
We're a species that is unique in all the world, in the history of the universe

(18:48):
as far as we know, where we have a desire to build, we have a desire to make,
we have a desire to advance, to progress in a way that is unnatural,
like outside of the bounds of our normal evolution.
And so I think everybody has something in them like that, and it just kind of comes in degrees.

(19:11):
And so I don't think it's a binary, you're a creative, you're not a creative.
My creativity is in my ability to anticipate and my desire to move.
I move quickly. I see things coming and I move quickly and I do it without fear of failure.
And that's my strength. That's my greatest strength. But I also love to do things creatively.

(19:37):
I like to create photography. I like video.
I like to work with my hands, and I do get restless to a great degree if I don't have a job to do.
But that doesn't always encompass creating fine art portraiture.
That doesn't always encompass painting something or like what you would consider
the traditional creative professions.

(19:58):
I mean, if you look back, I would say probably if you look in the history of
the world since the Dark Ages,
the ultimate model of the person that I would aspire to be would probably be
Da Vinci, just because not only did this guy create art, but he built mechanical
things and he dreamed big dreams. And obviously I'm definitely not that guy.

(20:19):
But I think that if you think of that person as the archetype for creativity,
he was an engineer and a mathematician and an artist.
He didn't say, I'm a creative. He just, to him, it's build or die.
Like that to me is that instinct. Does I have to be making something or I'm not okay?
And those- Absolutely, yeah. I think it needs to go across all those boundaries.

(20:43):
It is to do with making stuff.
And I think it's also to do with solving problems. It's kind of taking ideas
that perhaps were separate, bringing them together in a new way to solve a problem
when we don't necessarily know how to get past it. So can a mathematician be creative?
Absolutely. Heck yeah. Of course they can. Heck yeah. You know,
it's not just people holding paintbrushes or the like.

(21:06):
Right, that's what I mean. Like if mathematicians weren't creative,
we wouldn't have satellites, you know, we wouldn't have GPS,
we wouldn't have the internet. We wouldn't have probably running water.
Engineers, mathematicians, these people are very creative.
Their brains just... We just box in the word creativity and try to own it like I'm a creative.

(21:28):
And I just don't vibe with that at all.
All I know is that if I'm not making something in one form or another, I feel very restless.
And I'm not very particular about what that is.
I tend to lean on the things that I know how to do the best,
but if something new were to come along, I would be just as happy making in

(21:49):
that genre as I am in making in photography or video or anything else that I like to do.
And so it's a deep instinct to make something, to be busy, to build,
to scratch the itch in your brain. Like, that's what that is to me.
And your outlet is your outlet or multiple outlets. It doesn't really matter. Right.

(22:10):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so what do you think then drives you sort of like
on a day-to-day basis when you're going into business?
So is it that desire to create something?
Is it, man, I've got bills to pay, I've got to get that done.
What is it that is the core to motivating your business?
Are there some kind of values that you hold that you want the business to espouse

(22:33):
or what is it that's core to everything for you? Yeah.
Gosh, I'd love to say that it's something so wonderfully sincere,
but I'm just trying to be honest with myself when I think about this.
Money in and of itself doesn't mean anything to me.
But the things that money, if you say money's not important,
you've never been poor. And I've been abjectly poor.

(22:56):
I spent the majority of my life in poverty. And so money is important.
And And there is something inside of me that is motivated by that.
But ultimately, I'm motivated by success, accomplishment, ambition.
Ambition is probably my defining characteristic. If I was in Hogwarts,
I'd probably be a Slytherin.
Not one of the bad ones. I'd probably be a pretty good Slytherin. But ambition is like...

(23:21):
And not because I like to see other people defeated, not because I like accolades,
but but because it satisfies me mentally, emotionally, psychologically to be moving forward.
So like inertia, I'm just driven generally by inertia.
And the other thing it's like, when I see photographers and people working in

(23:41):
creative fields who are incredibly talented, but commercially unsuccessful,
I think that there's one thing that makes me continue to be successful.
And that is because I am not tender about anything, any process.
I'm not tender about my work.
I'm not tender about any process I have. I'm not, I don't.
Get emotionally attached to anything in particular

(24:03):
if it's gonna work i'm gonna do it
if it's gonna work and it's ethical i'm gonna do it
and so like if somebody's like well but
i've always shot nikon or i've always shot
canon or oh i like the way that the
paint the painterly look works look if you're in a market where
you can you can sell something and you can't

(24:23):
sell the thing that you like to do stop doing that thing or
move to a market where you can you know that's how you become
commercially successful i'm not tender about any of those things
i'm totally willing to go yep that didn't work let's do the
next thing and you embrace change then because some
people quite frightened of change aren't they you have to
yeah it's the it's the only constant inevitable

(24:44):
thing in the universe and yet it's the only thing
that the vast majority of people continually fight and
rail against and so and that that blows
my mind that just that the juxtaposition there the The irony of that is that
you can't control it and we try so hard to keep things the way they are and
you would just find so much more freedom if you looked around and opened yourself

(25:07):
up to the possibility of what could happen if you just unclenched your butt a little bit.
Just unclench your butt just a little bit and look around and be like,
what's the best, smartest thing for me to do? And I've always been okay with that.
And I think that there are photographers who are way more proficient in.
Pretty much every way who look who

(25:28):
i have outpaced them commercially and because
i have i just don't care like the
only thing i want to do is be home for dinner and roll around on the floor with
my kids and hang out on the beach and that like my time is my is is my priority
and so i'm totally willing to build a photography business where I'm not the photographer.

(25:53):
And that's, I think, what other people don't do.
Photographers want to build a business where they are the artist and it's their
name on the marquee. And that means something to them that people come to them for their art.
Let's not talk about all the psychological layers of the artist's guilt and
imposter syndrome. We'll just push that aside for now.
But there's something in photographers and other types of creative entrepreneurs

(26:17):
where you want to be the artist in the business, I don't care at all, at all.
If I could get the financial freedom I needed by running a business where I
just take pictures of shoelaces a thousand times a day, I'll find the best damn
shoelace photographer in my town and I will pay that guy well,
and I will cash all those checks.
And then I'll take my little Fuji X100V and chase my kids around on the beach

(26:40):
until my heart explodes with joy.
That's what I'm willing to do because all I want in the world is freedom.
And I think if a lot of photographers really peel back the layers of that onion
and really ask themselves, why did you start this in the first place?
Why did you go into this business in the first place?
Really pare it down. It's because inherently, they all understand the same thing,

(27:04):
and that is that you only have so much time,
and you don't want to spend literally 50% of the time you're awake in pleated
khakis and a polo in a cubicle making money for someone else being unhappy because
there's no amount of money in the world that's worth spending that much time unhappy for.
So at least if I have to work to support myself, why shouldn't I do it in a

(27:26):
way that do something that pleases me?
But then you fall into the trap of, You get so overwhelmed by your inability
to run a business and to manage that as a commercial enterprise that you either
become very successful but overwhelmed because of your lack of systems,
or you become very unbusy and unsuccessful and your business fails.

(27:47):
And it ends up making you hate the thing that you used to love in both cases.
And I think that's incredibly dangerous to step into that world,
not being business forward.
Because if you're art forward, you run a very high risk of burning out.
And how many professionals do you know have done it for a while,
burnt out either because they were too busy or not busy enough,

(28:07):
and they never pick up a camera again?
Yeah i burnt out last summer i had to take
the end of the year off just to try and get my
head back in the right sort of place i was not able to work for a few
months yeah it's not a nice place to be i certainly don't recommend it you know
i've been there but you know i would say that going into your photography business

(28:30):
forward your business is you build a castle wall and a moat around your creativity.
Your business is the wall.
It's the moat. It's the moat monster.
It's the battalion of soldiers surrounding it. And your creativity gets to live
in the safe space in the middle.
Your business creates a place for your creativity to thrive,

(28:50):
but that you have to build the business first and the creativity gets to live there.
If you just try to build this nebulous creative thing, even if you get lucky
for a little while, it's going to get taken away from you at some point.
You're going to kill it. You're going to strangle it because you can't let go of things like editing.

(29:13):
You can't let go of things like answering the phones and bookkeeping.
You can't let go of things like making appointments.
All these little things, these 10,000 paper cuts that bleed you to death in your life.
You don't systemize your business. You don't take it seriously.
You're just pushing and pushing and pushing for the next creative pursuit.
But your creativity will live healthier longer if you build that wall of a solid

(29:39):
foundation of business around it first.
And then you get to be creative forever if you want.
Yeah. So, I mean, for you then, if you've got tasks that are a part of your
business as a photographer that are sucking that joy out, do you then think
straight away, nope, I've got to outsource that?
Yes. Or do you find some other way of dealing with it? You know,

(30:02):
well, I mean, what sort of, can you think of any examples of something that you thought?
Obviously, I don't mean to be cavalier about this, you know,
because I know that we're dealing with serious stuff. So it's easier to just go, well, outsource it.
Some people don't have money, you know, so I get that.
Like some people don't have the money to pay someone to do X thing.
I think the first thing you do is you have to set your intention to do that

(30:22):
at some point and start working towards getting it off your plate.
And that may take some time.
Photography is a small business with a slow growth curve.
And so it will take you time to add there. Most photographers I know don't start
to become cash positive until somewhere between years five and seven.
And so if you're out there and it's year four and you're like,
this still isn't happening for me, you're totally in the normal curve of things.

(30:46):
But in order to be successful long term and to protect your mental health and
the longevity of your creative pursuits,
you need to, you have to decide ahead of time the things that you are going
to eventually outsource and start working towards them one at a time.
Are you an introvert who's bad at staying organized and answering phones? You don't people well?

(31:09):
Then you know that probably the first thing you need to do is to hire a virtual
assistant or to bring somebody into the business who is hyper-organized,
who keeps spreadsheets about their spreadsheets, who will stay on top of things,
who will make sure that your schedule gets organized. I am an idea person.
And I'm a list person. If you just give me a list of things to do,
I'll knock them all out, but I will not write the list. And I know that about myself.

(31:33):
And so my studio manager, who started part-time, like 10 hours a week,
who is now full-time, makes a salary and a commission because he keeps our business running.
And every morning, he texts me first thing in the morning at 8 a.m.
He goes, here's what you got on today.
And I even have access to the Google Calendar. He's like, here's what I need
from you today. Here's what we're doing.

(31:53):
And he's in touch with all of my clients all the time. And I don't have the
bees flying around my brain anymore, you know, trying to keep track of all these
things that my brain just can't keep track of.
He just points me at what I need to do.
He gives me a list of things and their priority and I do it.
But it took, I've been in business 15 years, you know, 16 in September.

(32:13):
And so like, the thing that you have to realize is if you're bad at it,
you should be working towards not having to do it anymore.
And surround yourself with people, not that you like, not that are talented,
but people who are specifically good at the things that you are not good at.
Create a team around you, one thing at a time.

(32:37):
And so the first step is to make up your mind that that's what you're going to do.
If you are a technical moron when it comes to the internet and building websites,
then you know you should probably start setting money aside to have someone
build you a proper website.
And the great part about photography is we have something that is,

(32:57):
we work in visual media, something that's inherently valuable to every profession.
And so it's actually, you can barter quite a lot for stuff.
And I think that that's important to have that in your back pocket too,
if you're in those stages.
If you are struggling, if editing is sucking up all your time,
good news you have never lived in a better time
in the history of the world to be bad at

(33:20):
editing because there are so many options i
was just talking to there's a company called after shoot ai there's
imagine ai where they basically like all you do is it'll call the images for
you it will do your raw processing for you and spit them right into light room
for you like it's it's It's phenomenal how much time technology can now save

(33:41):
you and where you don't even need to hire somebody to do it.
You have never lived in a better time to be bad at editing.
Well, it's the technology and also the other people from around the world because
the internet links us all up.
I mean, I was one of these who kind of edited everything myself from start to finish.

(34:01):
Right. And until that is, I started to work regularly with jewelry.
Ring um oh man yeah because all those reflective surfaces and stuff it's like
oh that's not so bad if as you know if you light it well you can minimize that in the main but i mean.
People don't realize is one thing that a lot of new jewelry
unless it's very expensive is is a

(34:23):
bit crummy when you look really really close there's little scratches and things
like that on it you know and there's also when you get necklaces with all those
lovely little links in them and the client goes oh just cut that out so i can
have that on a transparent background and a hard hard Hard pass, hard pass.

(34:43):
That was when all of a sudden, all those kind of emails and things coming through
of, I'd like to do some retouching for you, or would you be interested in clipping path dot so and so?
And you think, actually, I'm going to look at this. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
100%. Yeah. I'm not going to sit there and cut out a hundred little holes or
something for every single one of these 50 necklaces I've just been sent to photograph.

(35:06):
Well, let's put a shoe on the other foot show. Like, let's say that you are
a photographer of e-commerce, of products, of things like that, right?
And let's say the thing that really turns your crank, that gives you joy,
is editing those images and creating those layouts and cutting things out,
but the photography part really drains you emotionally.
Like, then hire a photographer and be the editor.

(35:31):
You know what I mean? It's like you build the business around it.
I'm a big believer in building a business that you want to work in.
But if you have taken the step to step outside of a stable corporate gig or
whatever, like to go into to do something you love for a living,
you should 100% demand to do it in a way that makes you happy.

(35:52):
And instead of getting mired down in all this stuff that makes you unhappy.
And so like take the thing that you love to do and then build the business around
that. But again, in the beginning, you probably have to do a lot of it yourself
unless you have a good amount of capital to get this going.
But it's deciding ahead of time because it takes time to build that business

(36:14):
that you want to work in. It isn't going to be that on day one.
And so it's intent. Just like great photography comes from intention,
a great business comes from intention. You have to have an intention here to
build a business around working toward the business you want to be in.
It's been 15 years, and I'm finally, for the last few, 100% working in the business

(36:34):
that I love to work in, that I'm happy to be the employee of.
But I'm happy to be an employee in my business because I decided a long time
ago that I was going to be the CEO of my company.
And I think that's a huge difference. You are the CEO of a company.
You know, not the help. And if you start making decisions as if you're the CEO

(36:55):
of a company, you get better clarity.
And then the version of you that is an employee in that company is going to be happy.
The CEO you has to protect the employee you from burnout.
You have to take care of yourself just like you have a duty of care to any employee.
But we just tend to abuse ourselves by overworking ourselves.
We're the only employee that we're allowed to forego duty of care,

(37:19):
I've sometimes said to people that you
know when I've spoken about the business side of things I say well work out
your hourly rate from what you're doing now you know look at how much time you're
spending on everything you do and work out what your hourly rate really is that
you're getting for that and then if somebody offered to pay you that to work

(37:40):
in a supermarket would you take it.
Right. Well, the difference is the answer to that is very often yes,
though, because they're doing something that they think they love and enjoy.
And so the answer to that has to be no.
Too often the answer to that question ends up being yes
is because if it's yes either do that or go work
in a supermarket i'd if i'm going to make crap money i'd rather

(38:02):
make crap money doing photography than crap money working
at costa you know what i mean so like but often it's even less it's like you
know some people when they're starting out it's like you're on less than minimum
wage yeah i you know what i think that's and sometimes when you are the business
owner and you're in your startup you're a bootstrapped operation sometimes you
are making less than minimum wage,

(38:23):
but you have to decide ahead of time that you're eventually not going to be.
Most businesses lose money in the beginning. You're cash negative in the beginning,
but you decide to become cash positive when you get to this mark and have a
plan to start moving towards that. And I think that's okay.
But you have to decide now that you are going to move in that direction.

(38:48):
I'm going to outsource the things that I'm bad at.
I'm going to surround myself with help, either virtually having people assist
or outsourcing work or bringing on help or part-time help or contract labor,
however that works, I'm going to start making moves toward this business that I want to work in.
And that's it. You do that now, write a plan out to do it, and then realize

(39:12):
that it's going to take time to get there. I didn't just start my photography business.
And when the incorporation paperwork came through, I went, okay,
let's hire a studio manager.
Let's hire a social media manager. It took years to get there.
But the result is, you have a plan. You have an end in sight to your misery
instead of permanent misery.
And then there is a chance, if you are smart, that you might just get to work

(39:34):
in the best job you've ever had and not be miserable, not be burnt out.
And to get up every day and be like, why was I banging my head against the wall for so long?
That thing that you're holding onto right now that anybody listening,
there's that thing that in your mind, you're like, my precious.
It's like that thing that you're holding onto.
You have no idea how good it's going to feel to let that thing go.

(39:56):
I promise you, it's going to feel the best you've ever felt in your life to let that go.
And the only person holding you back is you.
And that's true in almost every case for everybody I've talked to.
And people often like to sort of, you know, especially when it's early in the

(40:17):
career and things aren't happening, they don't realize actually,
A, it's normal, but B, that all these things are choices.
And that part of the problem is the choices that we make and how we view them,
how we view what's going on around us.
It's like, oh, the market is saturated. it it's the market's fault
you know rather than you know looking

(40:38):
at it and thinking okay there's a lot of photographers in that
area which are very which is very price sensitive is
it sensible for me to go into that area should i do something else
if i go into it do i need to take a different approach it's just kind of looking
outside of yourself and that you can very easily get very down and i think people
can look at it more established photographers they can look at the people who

(41:02):
are speakers on the circuit and think, well, they don't know what it's really like.
And you think, well, you know, actually, there have been several times when
I've thought about giving up.
It's not something where every single day I've been jumping out of bed full
of joy and, you know, bunny rabbits and lambs are bouncing around the fields
outside next to me. If only. Or smiling, you know.

(41:26):
There have been days when, you know, I don't know about you,
but there have been days where you think, Should I just do something else?
Yeah, absolutely. But thankfully, those days are few and far between,
and it is possible to get through those moments.
And if you don't think that you'd be working at some job, even if the salary
was great, if you don't think you'd be having days like that at that job,

(41:49):
because the grass is always greener. Look, you have to do what you have to do.
Let's say you're sick and you need health insurance. That's not as big a problem
in the UK as it is in the United States.
So you have to take a job to do that. There's no law that says you have to be
a full-time professional photographer. None.
There's no law that says that. What you have to do is find something to do in

(42:12):
society that makes you useful and to pay your way and to provide for your children
and your family. Those are things you have to do.
And there's a whole element in our industry today.
And I don't think it's nearly as bad as it used to be, where people in the photography
industry had to kind of hide the fact that they had a day job doing something else.
And I know several people who are incredibly successful photographers worked

(42:36):
for big companies doing other things, making a great living.
But when they were in their photography community, they didn't want anybody
to know that they had this other gig.
Big and so there's a gatekeeping kind of
income police thing that says
unless you're a full-time professional photographer you know
you're not a real photographer and that is such crap that is the one of the

(42:59):
biggest lies in our industry is that we live in a world where the best way to
become wealthy is to have multiple streams of income and so basically this person
is feeling ashamed that they're not a full-time photographer when we should
be being like dude you're the the smartest person in the room.
And you can make better decisions. If your photography business is a side hustle

(43:19):
and you don't need it to pay your bills, then you can make really smart decisions,
for that business because you make bad decisions when it's imperative because
you're not going to be able to pay your rent or you're not going to be able to afford groceries.
Then you start taking jobs that you don't want to do and becoming unhappy.
Then you start discounting your prices because you're worried

(43:40):
that you may not cover your nut you know like so this
is very important it is totally okay to have
a job and to do photography as a side hustle
and dare i say it is okay to just do
photography for fun like yeah like you
what you are still a photographer did you know that the word
amateur comes from a greek word that means love

(44:03):
like it's you do it it because you love it and and we throw amateur around like
it's a dirty word you know like an amateur is someone who does it surely purely
for the joy of doing it and there's something special there you know and a professional
the fine line of professional is only somebody paid me.
Yeah absolutely it is it is literally just money has changed hands for this

(44:26):
uh to happen and um people that have said well the fact that i've got another
job means that i can choose what i want to
do for my photography i don't have to do the boring
stuff i can choose the stuff that i like and you don't have to
discount your prices right and you don't have to take any job that
you don't want and here's what those people figured out
that people struggling to to to

(44:47):
hit that full-time photographer target is the people who did it part-time they
figured out that when you say no and you can build you make better business
decisions when you don't need that income and even if you treated your full-time
photography business like a side hustle,
you'd make more money, you'd be happier, you'd have happier clients,

(45:10):
you'd probably have better work.
You know, so it's incredible to see those people get to go.
Yeah, I don't think I want to shoot that because it doesn't sound like something I'd want to do.
Or they could go like, I understand this sounds expensive, but this is my job
and this is time away from my family and that has value.

(45:31):
And so they're making those decisions based on a completely different set of priorities.
And those people are often more successful commercially because they're making better decisions.
Decisions because and and so mentally if you start to
take the the imperative out of
those decisions the food on your table imperative you actually
can become more successful in fact

(45:54):
like fake it till you make it like pretend that you're a really successful business
and your client like how how would you respond to this client when they said
i'll give you i'll give you 50 quid for that instead of 500 and if you're a
really successful business you'd be like see you later you know But because you are like,
I don't know, because you've put all this stock in you, the creativity,

(46:16):
and there's all this weird emotional stuff, you just go, okay, 50. 50 is fine.
I'll do it for 50. Or you go, I'll do it for 250.
And you just cut your price in half because they asked you to.
It doesn't make any sense. But a part-timer would go.
No, because you want me to do this on a Saturday instead of hang out with my
partner and my kids or take my dog to the park?
Like, no, I'm not going to do it, you know? So like, and I think there's power in understanding that.

(46:42):
And you can apply that lesson into a full-time photography business to where
the thing that the secret sauce here is that when you make those bad decisions,
not only are you working for free, essentially,
you're actually paying the client for the privilege of doing the
job because you're losing money you're the
one who has to pay tax you're the one who you know you're

(47:03):
like you're the one who has to cover the overhead of the business and
if you're making those decisions for the wrong reason you're paying
them ultimately absolutely and that's a and that's bad decision making oh totally
yeah absolutely i mean so when it when it comes to you sort of making decisions
about what work you take on how do you prioritize how do you juggle it because

(47:26):
you've got your international speaking,
you've got your content creation for your own digital channels,
you've got your headshot business and so on. You've got quite a lot of irons in the fire.
What sort of thing, if someone came up to you and offered it to you,
would you be thinking that that's what you'd go for first?
Well, I think that each one of those areas, I have basically three main areas of income.

(47:51):
I have my photography business, which is a commercial portrait studio.
That's what we call it. We take pictures of people for their jobs.
I have my education business, which is speaking and creating educational products.
And I also have Headshot Tools, which is my software platform for headshot photographers.
And so those are the three things that I have going at any given time.
And each one of those things has different values and priorities as far as what

(48:15):
we take and what we don't.
So when it comes to my business...
I think it becomes self-regulating. We have specialized to the point where it's
very obvious who we are for, and our message is very specific.
Our value proposition is very specific.
And I know that not every photographer, based on where they live,

(48:35):
if you're in some village in the hills of Wales, you can't be a corporate headshot
photographer specialist because there's just nothing where you live.
You got a village with 500 people in it. So I understand that.
But what I mean to say is, the more that you focus on the message of your business
and whatever, if you're going to specialize, the more the right people will come to you.

(48:57):
And there's very little decision making that you have to make.
If you're just, I'm a studio, I'm open for business, I shoot whatever,
you're constantly having to make decisions about who you're going to serve and
how you're going to serve them.
But if you are very narrow in your focus,
whether that focus be what specifically types of genres you shoot,

(49:17):
or the type of final products you deliver,
or the style of work you create, or your price point, all of those things will
make you for a specific group of people.
And I have found that the more specific a group of people you are for,
the easier it is to market your business.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. You can identify your tribe,

(49:40):
as people like to call it, and you talking directly to them,
they're that much more invested in what you're doing because it is so specific
as if you're almost talking directly to them that, oh, yep, this is for me.
I mean, when you look at the way that your businesses have gone, you've been more on the….
Not quite generalist front, but you've done the kind of portraits,

(50:01):
weddings and other bits and pieces along the way.
And now you've narrowed down to those three.
How conscious has that decision been? Everything is a conscious decision.
Everything is a conscious decision.
Everything's a financial decision. It's a mental health decision,
you know, because my wife and I are business partners.

(50:21):
I'm not the only person making these decisions. And we make these decisions together
as a team yeah and it's all
based on our priorities you know it's based on our personal
mission statement and it's based on our business mission statement
which which tend to line up but the the the whole goal is to to understand this
when it comes to your business it's like you either a business is about crafting

(50:45):
a message and it's saying who you're for and that message tells people who you're for.
And every decision you make is to continue to craft that message and put it in front of people.
And the right people will come right at it, just like a moth to a flame.
And so when you get the right person,
your ideal person, the person who is part of your people, your folks,

(51:09):
and you get that message, when they come into proximity with each other,
the connection is powerful and instantaneous and permanent.
And so you will find that you will not just have clients, you will have ride
or die, shut up and take my money clients.
And so to get to that point, to answer your question, at first,

(51:31):
probably the first seven or eight years was a lot of just...
Playing pickup like just guessing as you go and
over time that stuff becomes again my
instinct has always been to abandon that which is not working and so and i think
that's important you have to be able to like you know you have to be able to
you know what i don't can't even think of the phrase right i have to be able

(51:53):
to like just jump ship on something that isn't working you got to look at this
when you say not working is that like as in it's not profitable or yeah Yeah,
let me break it down for you. Causing you anguish or something like that?
There's a reason why, several reasons why we went from a generalist studio and
to a specific genre, specific studio.

(52:14):
And not only that, but we're becoming more and more specific as we go.
I don't just do headshots.
I specialize in team headshots and headshots at events, which is hyper specific.
Very. And so, but the more we've specialized, the more successful the studio
has become because the easier it is to craft our message.

(52:35):
Because if your message is, I'm a good photographer, you're going to fail.
If your message is, I really enjoy my work and drink coffee, you're going to fail.
If your message is, these kinds of memories are important, don't miss out,
you're going to fail because that's everyone's message.
Your message needs to be, why are you the best solution for me?

(53:01):
What's that value proposition? You have to be for someone specifically,
and then your marketing is all about telling them how you understand what they're
trying to accomplish and why you are the best person to help them accomplish
that. Let me give you an example.
In the headshot business, one of the most pervasive marketing messages is.

(53:22):
You never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Headshots are important. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Headshots are great.
You need headshots. Here's why you need headshots. You should get headshots.
Here's five reasons why headshots are important.
You should get headshots. And like, yep. You know why that's bad?
Because that's one, that's what everybody puts on their website. So it's not unique.
And two, by and large, if that's on your website,

(53:43):
website guess what dude they're on your website which
means they're looking for headshots which means they know
headshots are important already which means you're telling them
something they already know that everyone else is telling them i
mean imagine if you go to a car dealership and the
and the salesperson just spent the first hour just
talking about how you should get a car cars are important they

(54:04):
help you get to work man yep yep if you got to pick up the kids from school
car is your best option like it's the dumbest thing i've ever
heard that a good salesperson is going to
be like this car right here i think will be great
because you've got four kids and in that third row of seats
it's a full-size third row it's not like you're just taking an
extra kid here and there you need to put car seats back there this is
perfect it's actually a hybrid so it gets great gas mileage

(54:27):
and on top of that it's it's it actually is your favorite color look at it's
that army green that you really like we have that we have all of those things
and by the way i know your lower back hurts so it's got seat heaters in the
actual back and not just the bum which will give you some pain relief after
a long day on your feet. I'd be like, give me that car.
You know what I mean? That's what we're failing to do is to speak to the specific

(54:51):
needs of a specific group of people.
That's what good marketing is.
And so if you are just going, you need photos, your marketing is a failure or will be.
If yours is, you need headshots, your marketing is a failure.
Like in the commercial world, if you go, I'm Joe Lenton.
And I take pictures. Here are some pretty pictures. They don't care.

(55:14):
If you go, I'm Joe Lenton. I am not only going to take incredible pictures for
you, I'm going to be efficient and quick.
I'm going to meet every deadline, and I'm going to work on your budget,
and you're never going to even have to speak to me. All you do is you just ship me the products.
I'm going to photograph everything exactly like you like, and I'll have those
pictures back to you by the next day in every file format you could possibly

(55:34):
want, and I will work directly with your art director, and I will make sure
you have everything perfect and you don't even have to pick up the phone.
That'd be like, Joe Lenton is my dude.
Joe Lenton is my guy. Because you know what? You can find without,
with very minimal effort, a photographer who's competent at taking pictures in any genre.
But can you find somebody who's gonna make your life easier,
who's gonna speak to your values?

(55:55):
And that's why we keep getting more specific because I understand,
I intimately understand what my clients are trying to accomplish and I know
how to do it for them. I know how to take that work off their plate because
that's what they want me to do.
And that's why we get busier and busier because I have become very specialized
and very good at this specific thing.

(56:16):
And so I'm not for everybody, but for the people that I am for,
I am the perfect solution.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, do you think it's also about the, as you've gone along,
yes, you need to get to know your clients, but you've also got to know yourself and how you work?
Work because for me i think that's been the the

(56:37):
journey of growth is is understanding more and more
what is needed and also understanding more and
more what my role is in that is that actually the
area for me to serve or should i serve something different what's my personality
what do i value you know do i want to work with a company that is only interested
in bottom line that potentially doesn't pay its workers properly and right oh

(57:00):
yeah doesn't look after people do i I make decisions on an ethical basis like
that as to who I have as my client.
And sometimes I think if we can start to help people understand us,
not from the point of view of, as you say, you know, here I am with a mug of coffee.
I like to go for walks and I like to listen to Bon Jovi or something like that.
I mean, who doesn't? Who doesn't love all those things?

(57:21):
Absolutely. There'll be something wrong with you otherwise. But I agree. You know, it's...
You know it's helping them to actually really understand more
about what's different about about you and sometimes i
think with photographers as we're a smaller business it's
easier to do that than a big business because the brand
at least to begin with it kind of is you yeah so if you can get across what's

(57:45):
different about you and if you can understand what is it that makes me go yeah
i'll do that or what is it that makes me go oh god not that again then that helps you i think
that also helps you to connect with the right type of client.
Yeah, I could not agree more. And there's a lot of decisions in there.
And there's a buttload of questions in there, Joe. So I'm just going to focus

(58:06):
in on what my goldfish brain will focus on.
But when it comes to deciding who you work for, again, I'm going to sound like
I'm banging on the same drum and kicking the same dead horse.
But when you have a good message, you have your value proposition proposition
and your differentiator.
Your message is, I understand you.
I'm the best solution for you. Your value proposition is, here's why I'm the best solution for you.

(58:31):
And then your differentiator is, this is what makes me different than the competition.
Those three things kind of work in conjunction with each other.
The message is making someone realize they found the right service provider
or someone who's in the ballpark.
And then that value proposition is, here's A, B, C reasons we're good,
why you're going to love us.
And differentiator is, here's why you should pick us instead of someone else.

(58:53):
And so like, I find when you have those three things put together,
and that message is really strong on your website, in your marketing,
in your social media, I think that the issue of clients is largely self-regulating.
I think that, you know, in the US, there's this big hullabaloo case goes all
the way to the Supreme Court about like, a photographer who didn't want to photograph same-sex couples.

(59:14):
And so she sued the state she was in because the law said she's not allowed
to deny service based on that, based on sexual preference or whatever,
sexual identity and gender and orientation.
So sorry, preference is probably not the right word for sexual orientation and gender, et cetera.
So you're not allowed to say, you can't shop at my store because you and your

(59:38):
partner are the same sex or whatever.
That's It's illegal in this state. She sues the state because she doesn't want to do that.
Here's the thing. No one, and she won, and no one ever asked her to do that.
No one would ever ask her to do that. No gay couple is going to go into this
woman's studio after meeting with her and go, we're going to hire you and sue

(01:00:01):
you if you don't work for us. That is never going to happen.
That would be really, really perverse, wouldn't it? It would be so perverse.
I mean, you'd have to be just the worst type of people.
They're just gonna people are attract like attracts like you
know and so in in and that's kind of an extreme example because

(01:00:22):
again to this day this case is years old of this woman has still not
been asked to photograph same-sex wedding never like nobody's gonna want her
why would you want her at your wedding with her poopy face on just judging your
choices you just you don't want that at your wedding nobody's gonna ask her
to do it and so i i feel like that's an extreme example again but like if if
your message is on point yet like your brand values become very obvious.

(01:00:43):
And I've very rarely been in a position to work for a company that I thought
was unethical or that I'm not interested in working for.
And because our message is so specific.
Here's a funny part. Sometimes people will go on my website,
which has had nothing to do with weddings or engagements. There's no portraiture,
no general portraiture on my website.
And we still get people fill out the contact form and go, how much do you charge for a wedding?

(01:01:06):
And I'm like, Like, bro, like, did you even look?
Like, and so, but it gives me the ability to refer colleagues and cool stuff like that.
But I leave money on the table all the time because I can run a business and
I'm good at getting stuff to pop up on Google.
And I understand, you know, cost and overhead and growth curves and aggregate

(01:01:27):
supply and aggregate to me. Like I get all that stuff.
But I don't want to work in areas of photography that don't bring me joy.
And you know what doesn't bring me joy is portraits and weddings,
because it's a lot of nights and weekends.
And nights and weekends are when I would normally get to hang out with my kids.
And so we built this business, we make all these decisions based around me spending

(01:01:48):
the maximum amount of time in the lives of my wife and children.
And so I'm not always good at it.
I sometimes still make bad decisions.
I'm not going to say that I don't. I'm not a perfect father.
I'm not a perfect husband.
But I'm working on it. I have set my intention towards it.
And I'm probably always going to be improving in that regard.
But that takes priority over everything.

(01:02:10):
But I also need to provide food and shelter for those people.
Yeah, exactly. So just like you have to build a business, like we talked about
earlier, around your creativity to protect it, I have to build a business around
my family to protect it. So the business is very, very important.
You can't just go, work-life balance, yo.

(01:02:30):
You have to build a business that enables you to do it.
But this is where we slip. We go, I'm so busy working 100 hours a week for my
family that you're neglecting your family.
If you build a smart business that frees you up to be with them, that's the way to do it.
But we get so head into success, failure, putting money in the bank,

(01:02:53):
paying for those college funds, whatever it is, that you end up becoming that
which you didn't want to become in the first place.
Where emotionally speaking, you'd have been better off just taking a job where
you only have to work 40 hours a week.
Yeah, absolutely. And I've similarly sort of had it happen with my work is that
I've got to the point where I've kept thinking, I used to teach quite a bit

(01:03:16):
before the pandemic and then everything shut down.
Couldn't really do any kind of photography teaching. So I just put that on the
back burner and thought I'll carry on with other things.
And I was doing more and more product photography because people could post
stuff to me and I didn't have to leave the house. I even did a bit of product
photography during the pandemic myself because the people would just ship you stuff. Yeah, exactly.

(01:03:38):
You know, so there I was with that. And after that had been going on then for
a couple of years or so, I kept thinking, yeah, you know, I do miss teaching.
At some point, I need to get back into doing that. And that some point doesn't happen.
Happen when you want to be
somewhere when you want to set that as your course you

(01:03:59):
really have to do it very deliberately and you have to make
time for it you know if you want to say well look this business needs to work
for my family not my family for the business you don't need to say well at some
point you need to actually be quite specific and say well okay let's look at
what i can put in place now let's look at what i can then put in place again
in six months time can Can things change?

(01:04:20):
Can it evolve more in the direction I want it to go?
Because for me, it basically took burnout for me to get the time to really think
about how can I get back into helping people with their photography and with
their photography business and that sort of thing?
Because I was so busy doing stuff that I didn't have the space to think.

(01:04:40):
My dad always said, you make time for the things you want to do.
You know, if there was a show you wanted to go to, if there was a movie that
you really wanted to see if it mattered that much to you, you figure it out.
You know what I mean? And I believe that.
And it doesn't mean that you don't want to do the thing. It means that it has
not risen to the top of urgency for you.

(01:05:00):
And so occasionally, you have to sort of like just reach down and grab a thing
that you know you need to do.
And here's what's interesting about this, because I read a really fantastic
article about this recently.
I don't remember if it was the New York Times or it was just some major publication.
So let's just agree that it's all true. Everything that I'm about to say is
true based on science is that there is a particular part of your brain that

(01:05:23):
when you make yourself do something that you don't want to do,
it actually forges new neural pathways and those things get easier.
So if it's like, I don't want to go jogging, I don't want to do this,
like you have to get over the hump and it gets easier.
And not only does that one thing gets easier, but doing the things that you

(01:05:44):
don't like to do in general, the frogs you have to eat, as they say in the business
world, the things that you know you need to get to,
all it takes is to start rolling that snowball and it will eventually build.
So if you make up your mind to set it in your life, like put a little post-it
note on your monitor if you want to that's like, okay, every Monday,

(01:06:05):
I'm going to pick two things that I've been procrastinating on, and I'm going to do it.
Two things, and write yourself a little note in your phone or whatever,
and pick something off the list every Monday.
And every Monday, you're going to start to see yourself, your brain is literally
going to change its topography in response to your ability to tackle those things
that you don't want to do.

(01:06:28):
It's breaking those bad habits a tiny bit at a time,
saying no to of ice cream like once a week you know like you
have to just take on little things in a way that's sustainable and
so yeah it's the weird thing about the brain like that is
that you know when it forms those new connections it's like
shall i give you a nice fast efficient one to
begin with no let's take a nice sluggish one which

(01:06:49):
doesn't really work very well and it's only by keep going
down that path over and over and over until
it becomes quick you know there's there's your there's your
fast connection so it's like when you train yourself to to do
something uh you start to get to points like when you learn to
drive you're doing everything manually and you're thinking about it
all those pathways get quicker and quicker and quicker you don't think about

(01:07:10):
it anymore it becomes kind of automatic yeah and there's so so many areas in
life like that where you've got that initial inertia if you can overcome that
and start to form habits it's it can be amazing how much Which you can change.
If you think about it, like if I go to a water park with my kids and,
you know, there's a gigantic slide, a terrifying butt puckering drop.

(01:07:36):
And I'll have my six-year-old will be like, I don't want to do it.
And she'll spend three hours, you know, at there just working up the courage
to finally do it. She doesn't.
And then you can't get her off of it. She just keeps, she's like,
she's up on the big slide again.
A lot of times it's getting over that hump and realizing that it's not all that bad.

(01:07:59):
Your brain just can only hold so much at one time.
A certain number of conversations, a certain number of relationships,
a certain number of tasks.
That's why paper was invented. you know so like you know
so you know you have to sort of intentionally start
grabbing those things that you are bad at and don't want
to do and making a plan for them and over time it gets your brain just defaults

(01:08:23):
to what it knows it defaults to what's easy we're all inherently lazy unfortunately
our brains like like to do the same thing they like to see the same patterns
and what looking back over the past couple of years what i think would have
benefited me would would have been to say,
every quarter, take a half day or a full day if you can, and sit and look at the business.

(01:08:45):
Look at what you're doing. Look at your values. Look at what gets you out of bed in the morning.
Analyze that. How's that working out? Is it going the right way?
Is it going the wrong way?
Whereas instead, what happened was I got busier and busier and busier,
so I didn't have time to hardly think.
Because for me, with my MS, when I've done a full day's work,
I ain't going out in the evening or doing anything I'm half falling asleep after

(01:09:09):
dinner so you know it's not like oh I'll do a full day's work and then I'll
do some planning in the evening or something I would have needed to have taken
a half day or something earlier on and that actually.
People think oh my dear and I've got all these other things to squish into my
time with my business the website and everything to take a couple of hours to
just sit and think about the business oh that's a bit bit of an indulgence isn't

(01:09:31):
it and you think well no actually it can
take you back to the core of why you're doing it it's mission critical
is what it is you know what i mean like it's
it's if you're not doing it the the
people who make the big there's a small dog barking in the background if you
ever know that my next door neighbor at the studio here has a chihuahua named
willie nelson and he's a delightful little dog but he gets he gets a little

(01:09:53):
hyper at times but he's he's fine now usually he barks a couple times and quits
so like those Those people who are not evaluating their business and their goals and their mission,
like they might get lucky for a while, but those are people who are going to
end up being realtors, I promise you. They're going to just burn out the business.
Thankfully, I haven't quite gone that far yet. Yeah, well, you wait. You just wait.

(01:10:18):
Like, I don't know why real estate is where photographers go to die,
but it is for some reason.
And I think there's some overlapping skill set there, like taking pictures of
your own listings would save you a little bit of money knowing how to do that. I'm not really sure.
And so I think it's critical. One of the biggest differences in our business
came from us doing an annual meeting where we take all the numbers from the

(01:10:44):
previous year, and then we make projections for the next year.
And those projections always need to be higher than the other year,
setting goals, looking at the actual numbers.
And this is how I got out of the portrait and wedding business,
because this was in the age when social media was really on the rise,
2009, 2010, LinkedIn was becoming a thing. Facebook was turning into a more public platform.

(01:11:06):
YouTube was starting to really get big. Social media was just blowing up.
And companies were getting more complex websites.
High-speed internet was being connected all over the world.
And it was getting faster and faster. Websites could become more complex. Technology got easier.
These things got less expensive to be a part of. of, and all of that fueled headshot photography.

(01:11:28):
And so our business had started to really cash in on that. And it was kind of
by accident because we started, we're in an area with entertainment.
And so we were doing a lot of headshots for entertainment. Now I come from an
IT background, and so I was able to build a website that was focused on the
keywords for like headshots, headshot photographers, headshot photography, and.

(01:11:49):
But I was aiming at actors and models and entertainers. And it just sort of
happened that as headshot photography became more important and more pervasive
in the business world, I was front and center.
And I remember very distinctly, a guy called me up. And you know how you can
tell somebody's old when you talk to them on the phone? It was like an older
guy. It definitely didn't sound like he was 22.
This man sounded like he was in his late 50s, early 60s.

(01:12:09):
And we answered the phone and he goes, yeah, I'm on your website here.
And do you do headshots for anybody who's not young and good looking?
You know and then i i literally it talk
about forming a new neural pathway it burned a hole in my
brain and i went oh my god we have been marketing
to the wrong people and so we started we had created more space on my website

(01:12:32):
for business headshots and that grew and that grew and that grew and eventually
after a couple years we sat down and we looked at our numbers and 80 of our
marketing effort was going into portrait and wedding photography and it was
yielding about 30% of business.
And 20% of our marketing effort was going to headshot photography,
and it was yielding about 70% of our business.

(01:12:53):
It just sort of like became... Tricky. Tricky choice. It's a tough choice, man.
It became really obvious when we looked at the numbers what we should do next.
And so we jettisoned the portrait and wedding business.
It took us 18 months, a year, or 18 months to get completely out of it.
And then put all of our chips on black and we just went straight into the headshot business.

(01:13:16):
And the more we've specialized, the more we understand our message and the clients
that we're trying to serve and the more successful that has made us over the years.
And I'm not saying I'm not driving a Ferrari or anything like that.
I literally had to jumpstart my car this morning because I left the blinkers on overnight.
So I have real problems.
Like my neighbor called me last night and he goes, you know, your blinkers are on?

(01:13:39):
And I went out and it was like the car, the whole battery was dead.
Anyway, so, you know, my 2012 Subaru Outback, that's also a business decision.
So rather than driving a fancy car, at any rate.
I think that it's important that we started evaluating and making those decisions.
And every year, we rent a little condo somewhere in town here.
You know, we go down to like the Disney Resort area. We're in the Orlando area.

(01:14:00):
And we rent like a condo. And we bring in myself, my wife, our studio manager,
our social media person.
And the four of us will sit down. And we will look at all the numbers.
And we'll go, okay, this area of practice brought in this much money in this many sessions.
And you go, wow, that's a lot of sessions for not a lot of money.
Now you need to talk about how you price and how you sell in order to be able

(01:14:23):
to increase that income.
You would have to raise prices or change. So like you're getting a lot of information.
This area of practice brought in this much money with this money. Holy crap.
When did that get so big? Okay, we need, let's put some more marketing energy
into that, you know, like, and sometimes you're sitting there crying because
you realize you wasted a buttload of time, but at least you know now, you know?
Absolutely. Yeah. And it's funny how sometimes actually getting out somewhere different.

(01:14:48):
Just your mind is opened up again in different ways correct
that's one of those neural pathway issues drive home a
slightly different route watch a different tv show order something
different at the restaurant where you always order the same thing and it
literally yeah forges those new pathways if you'd
been sitting around table in the middle of your studio you
probably wouldn't necessarily have had all of the same conversations

(01:15:10):
that you did because you went somewhere different correct off
off site so i think you know if
if people don't have a team if it is just them there can
be this temptation to sort of think oh well i'm always kind
of keeping an eye on the business yes you are and no you're not a lot of things
we take for granted a lot of things drifting on in the background we lose awareness

(01:15:30):
of it because you can't keep it all in your conscious awareness and we might
think oh i'll just sit at my computer and have a look at the numbers on the
spreadsheet, print them off.
Go somewhere. Yeah. Or even invite a fellow photographer and other entrepreneur to go with you.
Just get another pair of eyes on it, another pair of ears to bounce stuff off

(01:15:50):
of, because somebody will be like, I remember a friend of mine did the exact
same thing, brought in another photographer who was a successful portrait studio,
and she showed him her books.
And it was a guy who'd been in business a lot longer, and he looks at the books
and he goes, what you've got here is three separate businesses.
One of them is profitable and two of them are not. And it just blew her mind.

(01:16:12):
And she was able to adjust her tack and become even more successful.
Just another set of serious, intelligent, thoughtful, unbiased eyes.
And I know that that's hard because I know how weird Brits are about money.
I know this. You guys are real weird about money.
Talking about it just makes you uncomfortable. And that's fine.

(01:16:34):
I've taught business classes for photographers in the UK before,
it's a very tender subject, but someone you see all those legs crossing and
everybody's suddenly getting smaller and smaller into their seats.
It's like, just share your numbers with your neighbor. No. No, no.
Somebody you trust, whether it's your spouse, your partner, a studio mate,
someone who's not even in the industry who you trust and value their eyes and

(01:16:57):
attention. If you feel like,
well, I can't do that. I just don't have a team. I'm on my own.
There are people around you. And there are organizations like the SWPP,
where you can connect with people who are going to be desperate to do the same
thing, to be honest with each other, to get somebody's eyes.
You can even meet with somebody who's in Nottingham, and you're in Birmingham.

(01:17:19):
Somebody outside your market, you don't have to give your numbers to somebody
who's down the street from you. you know? So like, but they're like,
we all have the same problems.
There's a commonality here across
the board of these solo entrepreneurs suffering with the same thing.
If you just put it out there, it's like, who wants to mastermind with me?
Like who wants to meet once a year? And you can even get a group of five or six people you trust.

(01:17:41):
And I know there's a great group of photographers who've been doing this for 25 years.
And I've, you know, and I know, I know this great group and they meet once a
year and they all, here's all we got.
And they then they go back and then they implement
what they learned from each other and they every single one has been
in business making a making a great living for all

(01:18:04):
of those 25 years because like and they'll
even go into each other's studio spaces and be like this isn't sending the right
message you should change this move this over here just the just that unbiased
loving critique not of your work necessarily but of your product line you know
of your books of your marketing of your space,

(01:18:25):
of your ideas, it's invaluable.
And so you can get connected through groups like SWPP and the PPA,
and even through people you can meet at WPPI and make those connections.
You can find those people and make this happen for yourself.
If you don't know what to do, surround yourself with people who are a little

(01:18:46):
further along down the path.
And that's all you need is you need to be able to stand with a group of people
and be like, guys, I need your map.
I'm trying to navigate the same terrain. Can I borrow your map?
And you're not always going to find that person in a Facebook group.
In fact, it's very unlikely.
You're going to find that person in a group like the SWPP. You're going to find

(01:19:08):
that person in a group like PPA.
You're going to find that person in a business class at WPPI.
You're not going to find that person in a Facebook.
All you're going to find in a Facebook group is people picking on each other half the
time you know very rarely anything else you know so go
out there and find people who are all searching and then
form little packs and help each
other out that's what it's for that's what i've done for 20 years and it's made

(01:19:30):
all the difference in my career having friends and mentors and colleagues rooting
for each other makes all the difference in the world when you feel like you're
the only one when you feel like you're alone you have a family just waiting
just waiting for you all you have to do is go grab it yeah i mean i i to a slightly different
format that i went to when i started out with business
but i joined like a local networking group of

(01:19:53):
local entrepreneurs and it wasn't
so much going there trying to get business a lot of
a lot of the time that's what people think and that's a huge mistake to try
and do that yeah absolutely yeah and i do
believe you've got an article about that on petapixel which is well worth a
read yeah thank you yeah and there we
all kind of realized that we're sharing the

(01:20:14):
same kind of problems we've got the same kind of issues we
might be at different points along the scale you think
okay and it's it's encouraging to know that you're not alone and it's it's encouraging
to know that it's the most encouraging thing in the world to know that you're
not alone it's the only thing that you want from the moment you're born is to
not be alone you know what i mean like it's like to feel part of a thing it's wired into us.

(01:20:39):
100,000 years of evolution of the human species is to not be alone.
And the power of that, yet it's something that we're so afraid to share ourselves
because of whatever reason, because we're dealing with our art, with our creativity.
We don't want anybody to know how successful we're not or how we struggle.
But I've shared my struggles with so many colleagues over the years.

(01:21:02):
And here's what you're going to hear once you do that.
You're going to pour your heart out to them they're going to go yeah me
too and then you're going to feel you're going to feel validated you're
going to hear like yes i i man yeah we or or we
went through that a couple of years ago you know i was talking
to a photographer about at swpp at the
society's convention in london i was talking about some recent mental health

(01:21:24):
struggles and how i'd ended up in the hospital and i was facing burnout and
i was talking to just another colleague and he goes i went through the same
thing two years ago and here's how i dealt with it and it was like i was I was
scared to tell him, but I needed to tell somebody.
And he just gave right back at me. He gave me like, yeah, me too.
I've been there. And here's what I did.
And I found, and then I said, wait a minute, what is this?

(01:21:48):
And then I, that same day, I told someone else. You know what they said?
Me too. I deal with the same thing. This is how I'm dealing with it.
And then I, the next day, same event, I told someone else.
And then they came back to me and said, yes, I dealt with that five years ago.
Go, and this is what I did, or, and then I did it again.
I talked to seven people about the same thing, and all seven had either dealt

(01:22:12):
with it or were dealing with it.
And all I had to do was open up just to be vulnerable first.
And all too often, people will
be hiding and thinking, oh, this is my photography business, my precious.
You know, I've got to keep it away from everybody's prying eyes.
You're starting a business. You're not inventing the wheel. I'm afraid that

(01:22:34):
most things that you're going to try and come up with have probably been tried.
You might be a genius and come up with something new. You never know. Probably not.
Exactly. Probably not. And what's different about your business is you.
So opening up to someone else, they can't be you.
They can't copy you.
Not even if they tried. No. So people get so worried about, oh,

(01:22:56):
but they might pinch my ideas, or people might realize I'm not as successful as so.
You think you actually have far more to gain than you do to lose.
The arrogance of that, and the insecurity involved in that is staggering.
Because here's the thing, if you're one person in a business,
how many people do you think you could service to where one other person could

(01:23:17):
eat your lunch and drive you out of business?
How many people are there in your community? That person, And if they tried
to serve all those people, they'd kill themselves trying.
There are plenty of people to serve with what we do and plenty of ways to serve them.
If you think that opening up to like one person is going to,
in some cases, it could cause you to lose a job or a client,

(01:23:41):
but it's not going to put you out of business.
I mean, if someone was a real, real jerk, just a real unscrupulous piece of
crap, and they decided, I'm going to try and take a client from this person.
Yeah, okay, that's possible, but it's very unlikely in terms of the people that
you're going to meet doing this.
What's more likely to happen is you're going to bond with somebody,

(01:24:02):
and you're going to start to create a team.
In quotes, a team around you of people who you can... I've got a group of photographers.
We're in a forever messaging chat.
And we talk every day, just when you need to vent, because I'm looking around,
there's nobody in my office but me.
And we vent, we talk, we share ideas. And then when we go to conferences,

(01:24:23):
we meet up with each other and we do things together.
But we talk all year long. So through these organizations and these events,
we've put together a little family of photographers who support each other.
And I'm not saying just Just anybody could be that for you, but you can't,
you're not going to necessarily find this person on Facebook where everybody's so defensive.
You'll find these people who are association people who go out in person to

(01:24:46):
educate, to be educated, to share with each other. That's where you go.
You know, you don't go, you don't go to the aquarium to meet a lion.
You go to the zoo, you know what I mean?
You got to go where, where they are. and so yeah
all too often you get these groups where all you'll
get is the picky silly comments the trolling and everything

(01:25:07):
and it can make you feel bad and it can beat you down it can
really wear you down but there are good people out there there are good people
out there who would who would love to have you who would welcome you in and
i remember my first time at the society's convention in london i didn't know
anybody and nobody there and literally on the first night it was literally were

(01:25:28):
like, come on, you're with us.
You're one of us. It was the most welcoming environment.
And I have had the same experience over and over and over again at these types of groups.
People who will join an association and go out to be a part of an event,
you're going to get a much higher percentage of good people who want to be a part of a thing.
And that's where I would continue my search, not on the internet. Absolutely, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I'm quite extreme introvert.

(01:25:53):
I've done some of these sort of personality tests and things like that,
try and get a handle on various aspects how i was going to run my business in
line with my personality and there was one of them that i did and it was like you are 99 introvert.
Oh yeah. I knew I was quite extreme. So product photography, it is. Yeah.
So it's like, would you like to do events with people? P P P you said the P

(01:26:15):
word people. No, I don't like the people.
I don't do the P thing. Yeah.
So, you know, they, they, these things actually help as well.
When you start to realize these things about yourself though,
I think it, it, it is quite
important and when i went to the convention again
i'm the sort of person that walks into a room

(01:26:37):
full of people and thinks and what do i do now help i'm not one of those who
naturally just wanders up to people and shakes a hand and goes hey how you doing
you know it it takes an awful lot of kind of pent-up energy that i've been saving
up for weeks to try and do that once,
right yeah i i heard it said once

(01:26:59):
that an introvert doesn't mean you're shy
and an expert doesn't mean you're outgoing no but an
introvert is simply somebody who recharges emotionally alone and an extrovert
needs people to to to for their emotional and i see that in my own children
my oldest is like if she's cut off from people she's she's just a basket case

(01:27:19):
and my second daughter she's like totally fine you just won't see her for three hours.
She's totally okay. But she's fine socially.
It's just that where do you get your balance and your energy from?
And some people, like my business partner, Justin, he peoples really,
really well, but it takes an awful lot out of him.
He needs to go. And I could people all day.

(01:27:41):
If I'm alone for more than six or seven hours, I start bouncing off the walls.
I need to go find some people, you know? So there's like, but I'm,
I'm not always, I'm not always outgoing, just being in a room with a few folks
with a nice, with some music playing in the background. And that's good for me.
Yes. It's finding the environment that works for you.
Some extroverts love these kinds of networking groups and things,

(01:28:04):
cause they can ping around lots of conversations.
I'm the kind of person that I'd rather have a really deep conversation one-to-one.
You know, and you've got to find the way in which this is going to work for you.
So you might want to find one person that you have this, or like you might want
to have six people that you sit down with to talk about your business.
There's no formula to this stuff. I mean, even with business,

(01:28:27):
there are general rules.
There are things you kind of have to do, but there's no formula that makes business
always work 100% of the time.
It's adapting to the context. It's doing what works for you and for the market where you are.
Right. I agree with that. Yeah. Really understanding what people want.
Your business is about serving a particular person or people or clientele.

(01:28:50):
And a business that isn't about the customers isn't going to be around for very long.
So you have to provide whatever that value is.
You have to concentrate on the
people that you're serving instead of concentrating on pleasing yourself.
And if you serve those people well with the thing that you most want to do,
then you will get so much

(01:29:12):
joy out of it and it will open you up to do the thing that you love the
most but if it's if you're if you're creating selfishly and
expecting people to pay for it for just for
the selfish joy of your creating that's not a working
business model like you need to you need to
marry your desire to create with your ability
to earn and your in your marketing

(01:29:32):
and your message and that is how you have this and
never get too attached to anything thing and not be willing to
change it because the world changes the market changes
your change you know your ability physically to
function will change your ability emotionally to deal with things
will change so you have to be willing to pivot in any direction at any time
if you want to stay in the business and if you want the same thing forever i

(01:29:56):
guarantee you they would love to have you as a as a as a team member at any
starbucks you felt like working at you know and And then you could do the same
thing every day forever.
And there's nothing wrong with that, dude. I love a good barista.
I'm a big fan of those. And I'm not saying that as a dig.
If you're, if what you're craving is to do the same thing forever,

(01:30:17):
a photography business is not going to be that for you ever.
No, that is some, some people do like that kind of repetition.
It's the sort of thing that drives me absolutely spare. My older brother has
had the same job doing the exact same thing for ages and he's happy.
He goes to it, he does it, and then he goes home and he does his thing.
And that's, that's, he, and he's a genuinely contented human being.

(01:30:39):
I can't wrap my brain around it, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't work for
him. So like, but if you want to go into a creative field and make it a business,
the market changes in crazy ways.
And you always have to be willing to make adjustments, even if that adjustment
is new product lines, moving to a new location, you know, all kinds of things

(01:31:02):
that you could offer different level, different types of services.
And those things always have to be on the table. If nothing is on the table,
it's like, all I want to do is do hand-painted canvases in a 20 by 20 size.
They have to be square and monochrome, and I'm never going to change that.
Enjoy your business for six months, because tastes change, but people want change.

(01:31:25):
So you have to be willing to adjust to markets as they change.
And that's the number one reason that
businesses, you got to realize that generational trends have a lifespan.
Span and you could probably ride that way for seven or eight years and then
boosh a whole new generation of people get the keys to the car and then you
have to be able to talk to them too.

(01:31:46):
Yep absolutely well it's been fantastic talking to you gary and love our listeners to be able to.
Follow up on this to look into more of your educational content where's the
best place for them to look for that well right now i believe that there will
be time for me to promote this terrific event,
because I'm going to guess that you have listeners all over the world,

(01:32:07):
but there's a strong concentration in the United Kingdom. Would that be accurate?
That is absolutely true. Yes, we're over 20 countries around the world so far
with listeners, but yes, the strongest contingent is the UK.
Well, if you're in the UK and Europe, I am going to be speaking live at the
Click Live Expo in Coventry, as I say, because I say Coventry and I always get

(01:32:28):
corrected as Coventry, Coventry. Yeah, yeah.
You see, we like to make our place names that little bit awkward for people.
You haven't seen anything yet if you haven't looked at Norfolk.
Grab a map, have a look at Norfolk, at some of the place names around there.
You won't get them. You won't get them. We can always tell who the outsiders are, but that's fine.
I'm okay with it. I am flying from sunny Florida all the way over to Coventry

(01:32:52):
in the UK, in the Midlands, I believe.
And I'm teaching two classes at the first ever Click Live Expo.
And I think I'll send you that info. Maybe you can share that with your users.
It's going to be really, really cool. It's the first time they've ever done
it. From what I understand, it's going to be built a lot more like a tech conference
than a photography conference. It's going to be very, very neat.

(01:33:12):
And it's going to be a format that nobody is really using.
And so I'm excited to get there and to hang out.
And it's going to be myself, you're going to see Kelly Brown,
you're going to see Lindsay Adler, you're going to see Gurveer Johal,
you're going to see this incredible lineup of educators, all at the very first Click Live.
So if you want to meet me in person and come hang out, come see me at Click
Live. Now, I have also posted a lot of content on my YouTube channel that's

(01:33:36):
kind of like my baby right now.
If you go to YouTube.com and look for Gary Hughes Official, I'm on there.
And I put lots of educational videos out.
In addition to that, I'm on Instagram at Gary Hughes Official, also there.
And my main way that I communicate with people who follow me is my email list.
I believe that people who will follow you on email are your ride or die people.

(01:33:57):
And so every week I have a newsletter that's called Photographers Only.
And it comes out and it's simply where I'm going to be speaking,
new videos I have coming out, what gear I'm using, anything cool related to
like how to be more successful in photography.
That's all on my email list and that goes out once a week. And so you could
just go to my website, hughesfearady.com slash education, and you can sign up

(01:34:17):
for my newsletter right on that page. Other than that.
You know that's it that's all i got going on man oh i gotta i
gotta plug headshot tools if you're a headshot photographer yes yes
yes and you photograph any size group of
people that helps you organize rename the files even have integrated sales it
is the best possible solution for photographing headshots for teams and at events

(01:34:39):
that has ever been made and i could say that as a founder who didn't write a
single line of code because i just don't do that but so it's it's i I use it.
I'm the number one client, I think, of this software. So that's headshottools.com. Go check it out.
Yeah, they will put a link up for that as well. Yeah, that email list just brought
back a rather silly memory from when I saw you at the Society's convention the other year.

(01:35:02):
You put up the QR code on the screen. Right. And do you remember this?
It's probably a joke I've told a bunch of times. You know, scan the QR code
and there's me with my phone going, how do I do this?
You know you just point your phone at it and take a photo of it and
i go no i've just got a photo of the screen mate it's

(01:35:22):
like dude how old is your phone yeah yeah
i do this i do this joke now like when i show the qr code because thanks to
the pandemic one of the things that have come out of is that everybody knows
what a qr code is right and so i i go to the i put that slide up with the qr
code to get on my email list and and i go and for those of you over the age

(01:35:43):
of 40 this is called the QR code.
And so, yeah, that was me.
And I think my phone was feeling its age that day as well.
I'm so sorry if I made you feel like your phone was inadequate.
That was not my intention.
But your phone's inadequate. I hope you've gotten a new phone since then.
It definitely was inadequate, really. Yeah.

(01:36:05):
On that note of inadequacy, I think the two of us have prattled on for long
enough. And thank you, everybody, for listening.
And thank you, Gary. Harry, it's been wonderful having you on the podcast.
Joe, thanks for having me, man. Anytime.
Get connected, trained, supported, and qualified with the Society of Photographers,
sponsors of the Focused Professional Podcast.

(01:36:28):
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