Motivation, Marketing and Mindset with Mark Rossetto

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 13.
Music.

(00:33):
Welcome to the Focused Professional Podcast. Today we've got a special guest on
who shares some of our passion for helping photographers to build solid businesses.
It's somebody who is a photography coaching professional and somebody who runs
a professional photography business network.
All the way from Australia, it's Mark Rossetto. Hi, Mark.

(00:56):
Hey, how you doing, buddy? You good? Good? Yes, thanks. And yourself?
Very well. Very, very well. How are things down in Australia at the moment?
It's hot. It's April, but it's still hot. 30 degrees, fine and sunny.
Love living in Queensland. It's definitely the place to be.
30 degrees in April. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, it's awesome.

(01:16):
And this is like, it's like in our spring at the moment. So it's awesome. It's all good.
Wow. Okay. Well, I mean, I've read that you like doing triathlons.
I mean, do you do that in a 30-degree heat?
Well, it's normally in summertime. So, yeah, if you're doing a race,
I just did recently a 70.3 Ironman on the Sunshine Coast in November when it

(01:39):
was like 32 degrees. Ooh.
So I did it in five hours and 15 minutes.
And let's just say the asphalt felt like it was burning my feet. It was hot.
I bet. Goodness me. That's incredible. So I would imagine the water bit is quite refreshing. Yes.

(02:00):
By contrast, quite appealing.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, yeah, that's some commitment that you're showing
there, I think, doing that in that kind of heat.
I think when it's 30 degrees here, I'm doing well to go outdoors. I just sort of hide.
Welcome to Australia, hey? Absolutely. So, I mean, some of those qualities that

(02:24):
you need to actually keep doing that, persisting with your running.
Surely you must be able to draw on some of that for your business and as a coach.
Absolutely. Look, I think it's one of those things. It's like with your business,
like with your training, the motivation to start is easy.
The motivation to get to kind of like go, yes, I'm going to do this or sign
up for a race or start a business.

(02:46):
It's not the motivation. That's the hard part. It's the discipline to keep going.
It's a discipline to carry on through
the months through the years from a from a
training point of view it's a discipline of waking up at 4
a.m and going for a three-hour bike ride in the middle
of the winter time where from a business point of view it's you get the motivation

(03:08):
to start a photography business and you're all pumped and excited because it's
new and it's fresh and and you're creating and there's creativity and you just
love doing it but then you get a few clients that,
you know, throw some left hooks here and there and some things don't go your
way and then things cost more money and your marketing has to be always up to date.

(03:30):
And it's a discipline to keep on going.
It's a discipline to keep on fighting. It's a discipline to turn up when you don't really want to,
but then it's also you reap the rewards when you are living your best life and
creating your best business and reaping the rewards when you get to,
you know, a great client with a great experience,

(03:50):
with a great sale, with great products, with a great review at the end.
It's like running across the finish line and you go, and that's why we do this.
Awesome. Let's do it again.
Excellent. Yeah. With your running and that, and a little bit like with business,
is it something that you tend to do a lot on your own?
Because motivating yourself to keep training on your own and to keep going when it's difficult.

(04:15):
When you're doing a race, there's others around you who can help you to keep going.
I certainly find with business, if you get too used to just training on your
own, it can become that much more difficult.
If you've got others around you, other photographers, rather than seeing them
as competition, seeing them as others you can bounce ideas off.
Do you find that helps you keep going, have others with you?

(04:36):
Oh, absolutely. Training with other people, working with other people,
going on the journey of business and life and photography with other people
is the part that, you know, iron sharpens iron.
It keeps the flames kind of going like if you think of
a fireplace right once you've got your hot
coals in there you remove a piece of coal and put
it on its own it's going to go a lot cooler a lot

(04:59):
faster than staying with the pack staying with the group so having connection
to collaboration and inclusivity and community with photographers around you
is what keeps you going it's what What keeps that fire burning?
You know, you have good days and bad days. And, you know, when you have a bad

(05:20):
day, you can call someone, you can call up a mate and be like,
hey, I'm struggling with this or what do you do with this?
And they just, they just feel the fire. They get you back on track and you get up and motivated again.
So definitely photography is an extremely solo business.
You can be extremely isolated and you can kind of sit in your own kind of world.

(05:44):
And for some people, they really like that.
But those people who are really...
Carrying the business to new heights, you'll find the one common denominator
throughout all of them is that they are a part of a greater community, not just themselves.
Absolutely right. Yeah. I mean,
by nature, I'm somebody who enjoys working on my own most of the time.

(06:08):
I'll sit in the studio with products and I'm absolutely fine with that.
But at the same time, to run a business completely in isolation,
you start to think at times, if you're not careful, oh, the world is against me. This is totally new.
It's all happening to me. Nobody else experiences this.
And it's only when you step out into community that you start to realize everybody

(06:30):
goes through struggles.
You're not the only body, the only person by a long shot. It's totally normal, in fact, to struggle.
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. The ups and downs of business and,
you know, things are awesome. Things are crap.
Why am I doing this? I want to quit. I love this job. This is great.

(06:51):
Clients love me. Look, I'm a rock star.
You know, like your emotions go around in circles.
And it's the part of really being able to be disciplined and pick yourself up to keep on moving.
But working with other people, I think, has got to be the best medicine, you could say.
I don't know what word to use, but the best thing to do.

(07:14):
It's a great catalyst, isn't it, really, for helping to spark things off and
helping to re-energize you. You can get inspired by being with others.
Is that perhaps one reason why you do the Photographer's Business Network program?
Yeah, look, the Professional Photography Business Network is definitely created
to create a vibrant community of photographers.

(07:35):
And the whole point is, is to have that connection, have that collaboration
and innovate together, be inclusive of people and to learn from each other.
Because if you learn from one, you're a copycat.
If you learn from many, it's research.
So you're all researching together all the time. you're researching together

(07:59):
and you're taking, you know, you get a little bit of bits here and a little
bit of information here and you love it how that person said that and that resonated with you.
And as long as you can kind of identify with all the different little pieces
of the puzzle and not kind of scatterbrain it, but really like pull it together to make it your own,
you can create a wildly successful photography business by learning and collaborating

(08:22):
with some of the best photographers in the world.
Yeah. what sort of as a as
a coach then and as somebody who runs a network like that
what what motivates you to do this what
are the sort of is it values based do you have values that drive you to do this
is there a particular source of motivation you know some people are very much

(08:43):
motivated by helping others some want to build a community and so on and so
on there's lots of different reasons for doing what we do what is it that gets
you out of bed in the morning to do these things.
Yeah, I think for me, it's like seeing people's potential and helping them reach it and achieve it.
Like, you know, I had a wildly successful photography family and a wedding photography

(09:04):
business that was based in Melbourne.
You know, shock horror to everyone. I'm not the world's greatest photographer.
You know, I'm not a Chris Anderson or a Scott Johnson or any of those guys.
I'm a master photographer with the WPPI and a double master with the AIPP.
And if anyone's gone in well you're not too bad then

(09:25):
though really i mean you're not too rough around the edges
if you can do that yeah what what i'm trying
to say i'm a solid 80 81 i'm
a solid 80 81 for everything like i i know
how to take a good photo i know how to run a really
good photography business and i know that you don't have
to complicate it and once you understand the principles

(09:47):
of the photography business the methods can be
chosen to suit your personality and helping people
understand the right business model to suit the right products
with the right price list with the right systems processes
and really to help that individual succeed to be able to go from being you know
earning 50 000 to 100 000 and 100 000 to 200 000 and receive the text messages

(10:12):
and emails saying oh my gosh i just got a ten thousand dollar sale or even simpler,
going from a $200 photographer going,
oh my gosh, I just sold $1,000 worth, or in your case, 1,000 pounds worth of artwork.
It's just blown my mind.
That's awesome. That's what I do it for. That's the motivation behind it all.

(10:35):
Definitely. I don't know about you, but I've found when I've been teaching that
when you've been doing something yourself for many years, it's easy for something
to become kind of routine because you use that method. You use that technique all the time.
But when you see somebody else get it for the first time, it refreshes you again.
You kind of rediscover that joy for it because they enjoying what they can do

(10:58):
from it. They can see the possibilities.
Absolutely absolutely and it changes the trajectory
of a lifestyle as well and a lifestyle and
a family and the group of kids the
the holidays that now they can have the new house that they needed moving into
a new apartment you know like all these things that is a residual the residual

(11:21):
effects of everything is the part that kind of you know is why we do what we
do it's one of those things are super important.
Yeah. So you used to do mainly portrait and weddings.
You said what prompted you to move out of that area of business?
What prompted you to think you wanted to do more coaching instead?

(11:42):
Well, it's one of the things like I've always loved, for some reason,
I've always loved coaching and training.
I always loved, you know, I was one that turned up to workshops and turned up to evenings.
And if there was a coffee catch up, I would be there. where we have,
do you have the BNI, Business Network International in the UK?
Yes, it is in the UK as well, yes. Yeah. So we have the Business Network International,

(12:04):
a BNI group that was based in Melbourne that I used to join.
After a year of pushing for it, I'm like, I can do so much better.
So we started the wedding group, the Bayside wedding group turned into the Melbourne wedding
group, which turned into a group of 80 to 100 businesses in the wedding industry

(12:26):
that we used to run our own expos,
our own evenings, our own awards nights, our own everything.
I had a group of photographers that I used to mastermind with,
five or six of us in Melbourne that we used to get together every four to six weeks.
And then I did that whilst I had the photography business.
And I just love that part of it. I love learning and exchanging and connecting with people.

(12:49):
And I'm a real kind of networked, connecting person, anybody.
So I just loved kind of doing that. And I've always...
I wanted to, I look, it sounds really dorky, but it's like, you know,
I've always, I've always been like a joyful, high spirited person.
You could say, you know, I don't know what words you want to use,

(13:12):
but it's always like you, you know, then really, I don't think,
you know, we're not, there's not very many of us that are regularly joyful, high spirited people.
But in terms of like, I want to make the most out of life. I want to make the
most out of things. Like there's, there's the silver lining of everything.
And it's kind of like, how do we be the best people that we can be?

(13:33):
And it's kind of like, how do I help people? Like if I can do it,
someone else can do it as well.
Um, and then we learn from people like, you know, when I started the,
in the photography industry, I actually started working in the UK,
uh, for a photography studio in London,
uh, Wandsworth, where I was that sales appointment guy.

(13:55):
I sold the artwork and at that stage back in 2005, we sold a million pounds
worth of artwork in 12 months.
And when I came back to Australia, I worked with Nick and Jerry Dionis,
if you know those guys. Yes, I've heard of them. Yeah.
I worked with them at X-Site Photographing Weddings. And I guess it's kind of

(14:16):
like the long answer for all of this.
They were in the industry and they brought me into the industry in Australia
and said, hey, join the ARPP, meet a whole group of photographers.
And from them kind of stepping up as industry experts and me as a newbie,
they kind of brought me up into the community.

(14:38):
And I flourished from that because
I was hanging out with some of the best photographers in Australia.
And it's like I got the hand up not a handout I didn't get a handout I got a
hand up I got a kind of like hey.
We love this industry. I think you'll love this industry too.
Why don't you come and join us at this industry night that we're going to and

(15:02):
come and kind of meet some people.
And 20 years kind of later, I feel like I'm now doing that kind of reaching
all these new people and the builders and the boomers, I call them.
And I'm kind of going, hey, come join this awesome community.
And it's not just my community, the Focus Professional Community,
the SWPP community, community like whatever community

(15:23):
is like get around the professional industry bodies
and networks and be a part of this awesome industry
because it's one of the coolest jobs that you can
have yeah absolutely that was a long-winded that was a long-winded answer did
you get the general gist of that that's a good one it's a good one can you feel
that passion can you i think is finding is finding your people isn't it really

(15:47):
that there are all sorts of professional professional organisations,
and it's finding the right one that suits you.
It's finding your people that you can identify with and the people that are
willing to share with you, because as you said, they kind of encourage you to
come in and you're now encouraging others in a similar way, sharing knowledge.
And similarly for me, I'd been thinking about doing judges training at some

(16:10):
point with the societies and Terry, the head of judging there at one point,
sort of said, there's a space available on the next one.
You are booking it, aren't you?
Yeah, yeah. And that kind of mindset of I'll do it at some point became,
are you going to do this now or not?
Yeah. But they didn't have to do much.

(16:32):
And that's the thing, to encourage people, to get people doing more,
you don't have to do a lot.
It can just simply be that little invitation. Yeah.
A wise man once said in his funny Australian accent with a really deep voice, it's like, what was it?
Not everybody has to do everything, but everybody has to do something.

(16:53):
Yeah. Just do something. You don't have to do everything. You don't have to
be everything to everybody, but everyone can contribute.
Everybody can do something.
Totally. Absolutely right. I think so. Do you actually miss the photography
side of things now though?
Because you're going to be spending most of your day delving deeper into the
business side of things. Do you still get time to shoot?

(17:16):
I don't. I don't shoot anything. Like when I left Melbourne,
I left my entire studio space and everything.
So no, I don't shoot. To be honest, I don't shoot anything at all.
The only times that I shoot is when we travel overseas and the last awards I've
won in the last six years are all travel photography and kind of documentary.

(17:38):
So I still see the image. I still see stuff and I'm still like, oh, that's a great shot.
And like I do miss that side of things. And I miss the family stuff.
You know, I miss the joking around
with the kids and the families and the connection with everybody else.
I miss that side of it. But at the same time, it's just a different season.

(17:59):
Sure. Absolutely. Life does change. You go from one season to another.
And I'm sure being involved in judging helps to keep your photography eye sharp as well anyway.
Yeah. I love the judging side. Love the judging side.
I've been judging for many, many years now and all over the place.
I've judged at SWPP back in whatever it was, I think 2019. And in 2019,

(18:24):
I judged the WPPI, and I'm off to New Zealand this year for judging.
And unfortunately, in Australia, the AIPP died.
So there's all of the states, and national judging is all finished.
There isn't another Australian organization stepping up.
So that's why all the Australian photographers are coming over,

(18:45):
winning the awards in the UK now instead, is it?
That's why they've all come over. They have to win it somewhere,
so they might as well take it from the English, just like the cricket,
hey? But that's another conversation.
Well, between the Australians and the Swedes, there's not that many left for the Brits to win.
There's some pretty strong teams there. Exactly, exactly.

(19:08):
So, yeah, like, you know, we do have a good presence of, you know,
I think especially for WPPI, Australia did exceptionally well there for many, many years.
And I know at the SWPP, there's been plenty over there at the moment as well.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's one of the lovely things about the conventions,

(19:30):
the competitions is yeah.
Okay. You can win an award and so on, but it's this international community.
It's, it goes far beyond your local neighborhood or anything like that.
And you're connecting with people who have different cultures,
different ways of looking at things.
You see images that you wouldn't have thought of because someone comes from
a totally different place, different background to you.

(19:51):
That's one of the things I really do love about it. That international family.
Yeah. And people just see things differently. Everyone sees something differently.
You put the same camera in the same photographer, in the same space,
you're going to get a completely different shot because people view the world in different ways.
And it's mind blowing.

(20:12):
It's like every year when we judge, just when you think you've seen it all,
next year, something else comes out and you're like, how did you even come up with that?
Like Chris Anderson, and his in-camera capture shot that he did for this year was just phenomenal.
And it's like, man, how do we even think of that stuff? And the jigsaw one that

(20:34):
he did previous year, it had him.
You see, Chris, this is just ridiculous.
How do you keep doing it year after year, coming up with something that just,
yeah, it is mind-blowing. It really is.
It's crazy. It's crazy. But they do. That's what keeps it awesome.
They're pushing the boundaries time and time again.

(20:55):
And it inspires you to want to do better with whatever you do.
I think it's being around excellence, being around talented people,
I think helps you as an individual to raise your level.
So joining a community again just helps you to achieve all that you're capable of, really.
Yeah, I like to put it in that let's be the tide that raises all ships.

(21:17):
If we can all rise as an industry in quality, in photography,
in excellence, in service, in product, in systems, processes,
prices, products, finished artwork, the way we communicate.
If we're all getting better and all doing well in this area,
we're raising the standard of the photography industry.

(21:39):
So why wouldn't you want to be a part of it? Why would you want to be alone?
I totally, totally get that. I'm very much passionate about the standard of
the photography industry,
not just because of the threats to it with AI and all these kind of things,
but because it's something that I enjoy, something that I'm passionate about,
and it's something you can see others fulfill themselves through.

(22:01):
And you want people to be all that they can be. You want people to get the most
out of something, not just creep on by with the bare minimum.
It's a case of developing themselves, seeing what they can do when they really
push themselves. selves.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And one of the things that we loved about,
and this is probably more of a, in Australia, we didn't have it very often,

(22:23):
which is the in-camera artistry.
Like, do you know how, like for some awards, you have the open award and your
creative award and no, you're open and you're in capture.
Wait, I don't even know if I did the words right. What am I trying to say?
One, you can Photoshop the bejeebers
out of the other one straight out of camera. What am I trying to say?

(22:44):
Anyway, what we love in a show, we didn't have a lot of straight out of camera stuff.
Like we didn't show a lot of that. We didn't do a lot of that because we just
didn't have that in the judging process.
And therefore the photographers didn't really, we didn't push the boundaries
in that genre specifically, but with WPPI, every category has an open and an in-camera capture.

(23:09):
That's what I'm looking for. So what that meant is that when we went to all
the different categories for WPPI in particular,
that in camera capture, when we're judging stuff, you look at things that turn
around on the screen and the print that comes up and you're like, what the hell is that?

(23:30):
I'm like, how do you get that over there?
And why is that? And you just sit there just going, it just doesn't make sense
in my head. And I think that as a pushing the boundaries of photography,
that is what really blew people's minds is the in-camera capture.
Yeah. So, yeah. I think having people that innovate and do these things is really

(23:55):
important for the creative side of it.
How about then for the business side of it?
Are there areas that you see commonly as a coach that people are getting stuck
in a rut where they need that little burst of inspiration to come out of it?
Are there things that you see regularly that you think, ah, yeah,
they've got caught in that rut again?
Oh, absolutely. Like there's so many times that you would have people just –.

(24:23):
Marketing. I could just talk all day about marketing.
Marketing, marketing, marketing. My goodness. People get stuck in the rut of marketing.
They think that, especially new photographers starting out, we go through this,
I want to be a photographer.
My mom thinks I'm awesome. My best friend thinks I'm awesome.
Awesome, like I took a few photos, a few people think I'm awesome,

(24:47):
I'm going to be a photographer, you get yourself a website, and you go through this honeymoon period.
And this honeymoon period can last anywhere between six weeks and a year or two.
Because all of your clients are friends of friends, and friends that know you,
and people that know you, and trust you, and love you.
And you could sell ice to Eskimos, because it doesn't really matter of what

(25:08):
you're doing, because they're like, oh, Mark, you're amazing. I love your work.
Oh, of course, Whatever you choose, Mark, whatever images you want to take, that's fine.
But get to a stage where you run out of those people. I call it you get out of the friend zone.
And when you're out of the friend zone and you are getting inquiries and conversations
and emails and DMs and interests from people that don't know you, Joe.

(25:31):
They don't know you or your family or your feelings or your history or your
process. All I know is your website and your photography and what you say the
sunshine does doesn't shine out of it.
And it's kind of like you need to prove yourself.
So once you finish that honeymoon period, kind of like a zone,

(25:53):
then you get into this space where it's kind of like, I need to be professional.
I need to go above and beyond. I need to be a tiger that earns its stripes.
I need to prove that the photography and the experience that I'm giving these
clients is worth that thousand pounds,
2000 pounds, 3000 pounds, because it worked on all the people that we knew,

(26:17):
but it's not going to work on people that you don't know.
So, I guess it's one of those things. And then you have to go to market.
You have to continue these things. You have to push these things.
People think like once you've got the website, once you take a few images,
they'll just sit back and they'll just wait for their phone to ring because
the next client will call me in just a moment.

(26:39):
And they'll be waiting for a very, very, very, very long time.
So creating that active marketing strategy has got to be the key to really running
that successful photography business.
I think so. And I think the way I see it is, especially when you're running

(27:00):
that kind of a photography business, the brand is essentially you.
So be yourself and tell your story. What I often see people trying to do is
fit into a template that isn't actually them.
You know, somebody who's been very successful, perhaps in one particular area,
has said, oh, you've got to do it like this, steps A, B, C.

(27:23):
And it fits certain types of business. It fits certain personalities.
But there's no such thing as a one size fits all, 100% guaranteed template for
every single business to be successful.
Absolutely. Absolutely, Joe. You're talking my language. You're preaching to the converted.
And this is the thing, for all those people and coaches and all that type of

(27:47):
stuff that is like, buy this program.
If you get this, just do this one strategy. This one strategy is going to change your life.
But the problem is, if you don't have the rest of your business in motion,
firing on all kind of pistons, it doesn't matter how good your photos are.
It doesn't matter how good the strategy is because if you're not

(28:08):
connecting with your people and your photos are crappy it
doesn't matter how good that strategy is they're not going to buy it
no but at the same time like you
need to really make sure that the business
suits you and the personality because i can tell you now joe
i can't see you i'm sorry but i
can't see you as a like a tiktok person

(28:30):
with the latest thing doing the dance moves
doing the dance moves and getting to a
hundred thousand likes because you're like because you're doing some you're
doing some funky moves and you're going to increase your followers and and your
influence that way no i'm the i'm the nerdy article type if you if you want

(28:50):
something that's going to make you think and that then yeah that's that's the kind of stuff that
i'm more likely to do you know tiktok i can proudly say i have never been on it,
yeah yeah I get that and.
It's also people say about you'll often get people who are who are marketing
experts outside of photography, but just to generally do marketing and that

(29:12):
and try and then get people.
Not all marketing agencies are like this, but there are some that will try and
get everybody onto the kind of latest bandwagons.
And it's, oh, yes, TikTok is growing. And, oh, it's got to be this.
It's got to be that. You've got to be on that particular platform.
Otherwise, you're missing out.
And then you don't really necessarily think about who is it that you're trying to reach.

(29:33):
Because I've had those kind of doubts at times when I've been doing certain
things in my marketing and somebody from like a marketing agency or whatever
said, oh, yeah, but you need to be doing Facebook lives.
You need to be doing TikTok videos and that kind of thing.
At a time when my target audience was marketing directors, art directors in business.

(29:56):
I'm sorry, but I've asked them. They don't sit and watch that stuff.
No you've got to your your message to
market match has got to be really strong you've got to make sure
that you're identifying exactly who you're
who's your ideal client who you're trying to reach what are their problems what
are their desires what platforms they're on what age groups they have and this

(30:20):
is a really cool okay so as a really cool example of exactly this a part of
the the PBBN of what we do is we do the PBBN TV,
which is podcasts just like this.
And you get to meet really cool people that you don't normally meet. Hence, I met you, Joe.
But I met this amazing photographer, Paula, right?
And she is a, she's 40 years old. And she started as a wedding photographer in Sydney in her 20s.

(30:50):
20s so she was her target market and then she went to family portraits in her
30s because she had kids she was her target market and now she's doing personal
branding and headshots in her.
Her 40s because she's her target market so it's really interesting she's actually grown her

(31:14):
business over 25 years being in
her target market at every stage but changing her
genre to suit because in her
20s she loves shooting weddings she loves the wedding industries
in her 30s she's family she's around families in her 40s
she's around business people so really understanding
your ideal market and really

(31:36):
being true to yourself and your own brand and who you are and what you're portraying
to the world is going to create successful photography businesses because people
will build rapport and relate to you because they like you because you like
the things that they like and they like the things that you like and all of
a sudden you're best friends.
It's crazy. She knows how to talk to those people and as she's changed,

(31:59):
as her life has changed, then she's realised that the market she can talk to,
it can be slightly different and that's very astute.
That's a very good way of adapting really.
There's often this thing in marketing about it's all about the customer.
You've always got to understand the customer.
And whilst I think there's an incredible amount of truth in that,
it is extremely important. You've got to be speaking the right language.

(32:22):
There's also the other element, which I think is you. And that's what people
sometimes forget about.
So if you're trying to go into a market, which is totally different to you,
it's like suddenly Suddenly going to French class or Chinese class or something,
you're learning. You've got to learn a foreign language.
You might want to start with speaking what you already know.

(32:45):
So like the example you just gave, she understands the language already.
She knows who she can communicate with.
She doesn't have to start from scratch thinking, I want to talk to them,
but I've no idea how they speak.
Absolutely. Connect your own personality, connect with what you've already got.
And then it's so much easier to develop

(33:06):
it that way and also too your passion will
shine through that if you love families and
you love photographing outdoors then you'll love it if you want to photograph
families indoors you'll be like i suck at this i hate this i'm not enjoying
it same thing with pets if you love pets if you love like i've got you know
belinda richards is a perfect example someone that's taken all of your awards

(33:27):
at swpp oh yeah she's cleaned up several Several times, yes.
She's a lovely person to talk to and she's a great person, great friends.
I coached with her many, many, many years ago.
But she doesn't like photographing people. She refuses.
So if she brings her pets in and she does her pet photography,
her fine art photography, which we know and love, she will refuse to take photos

(33:52):
of anyone with their pets.
It's like, no, no, I don't do people. It's just pets.
So, you know, it's kind of niching down to what you love to do as well.
Yeah, that connects with your passion, as you say, and it's that much more identifying.
It creates your identity more clearly in people's minds.
It's one of the things that people can struggle with is developing like a USP,

(34:16):
a unique selling point, something about their business to differentiate them.
Some people might think, well, I'll differentiate on price or I'll differentiate on printing.
I'll always print in this sort of medium, for example. Or they'll try and find
various different ways of differentiating. And you think, well,
hello, look in the mirror.
Start there. there yeah you are your own

(34:36):
brand and there's only one you so you be the best
you can be just like a dr zeus book yeah i
love it yeah i think it's it can
take time to get to know yourself as well when you start in business you
don't necessarily always realize right from the offset what
you like and what you are like so i think it

(34:57):
can be helpful that's one of the roles i see of coaches is
spending a little bit more time with someone helping them to
understand themselves as well as understanding what they're trying to do you
know because you can you're kind of a neutral you're kind of outside of the
situation so you're not threatening it's not that they're trying to discuss
something with someone that might judge them you're there to enable them to

(35:20):
to open up and to develop as an individual.
Yeah, we kind of get to stand back and, you know, put the coaching eyes,
the client eyes on where we can see the bigger perspective of everything.
And, you know, one of the key questions that I always ask in particular,
especially with a new photographer or a photographer changing direction or a

(35:46):
photographer changing their price list or a genre or a different location and stuff,
i just refer back to
the notebook you know the movie what do
you want it's not that easy yes it is
what do you want like what do you want to achieve like what
do you actually want and then we go through some life coaching life questions

(36:09):
of like do you need to earn money from this like is it a full-time job is a
part-time job you know we get to those parts it's like how many days a week can you have?
Is it two days a week? Can you do five shoots a week? Or is it five shoots a
month? Or is it 10 shoots a week or two shoots a month?
What your needs are? And then it's like, well, how much time do you have? Do you like editing?

(36:34):
Do you like retouching? Is it lifestyle? Is it studio?
All these factors come into play. And until you can figure out all the different
things, then we develop the right business model to suit the right personality,
to suit the right price list to suit the right products and
then have the systems and processes around that

(36:56):
kind of model to then automate that to
simplify your business and make it easier and this is where that one size fits
all does not work because i can give you i can give you i can give you like
30 different price lists of to suit different personalities and different kind
of levels of confidence and experience. But if.

(37:20):
I can't just choose one because one doesn't suit everybody. It's really got to match who you are.
It's putting the cart before the horse, as the saying goes, really.
I think if you start with the template and think that, okay,
if you do your Facebook ads like this and here's a script that you can fill
in and fill in the missing words and so on, you think, hang on a minute,

(37:43):
let's get in place what the business is about first.
Let's discuss who your target audience are, what you're actually trying to do with it.
And then we'll see whether, A, Facebook is the right place for you to be advertising
in the first place, and, B, whether this kind of attempt. Which would be no. Which is no.
I'm always no. Is Facebook a good place to advertise? No, it's not. Don't waste your money.

(38:07):
Yeah, sorry. That's absolutely fine. It is so common, though.
People started up in business. They've done what you've said.
They've exhausted the friends and family network. work they think oh
i need some clients and then they see someone saying
here use these templates on facebook you only
need to spend so much on ads and you'll have an endless supply

(38:27):
of customers and they go oh right easy i'll do that then guess what hacks and
shortcuts don't work most of the time yeah yeah you need to get you off the
chair and pound the pavement like we used to back in the early days and i could
go through 50 different marketing strategies that you could should would do,
but you've got to choose the right one to suit you.

(38:49):
But the problem is, though, and I think this is why I'm so, not that I'm against
Facebook ads. I'm definitely not against Facebook ads.
But there is so many other options that you can choose.
And I tell you, Joe, do you know the only reason why people do Facebook ads?
Because it's freaking easy. Because all they do, now, there's two different types of easy.

(39:12):
It's easy to spend a lot of money because all you do is you sit here,
you type in what you do in the meta into Facebook and you press a button and
they will gladly take hundreds,
and thousands of pounds off you over a period of time.
But it's easy to spend money, but to engage, convert, book quality clients that

(39:35):
love what you do and spend money, that's very hard.
Most photographers think, like you just said, Joe, I need leads.
I need leads. Where do I get leads from? Where do I find leads?
If I don't have to leave my chair or my comfort zone of my house, where do I get leads?
They're going to jump on Facebook because it's the quickest,

(39:56):
fastest, easiest, most expensive, biggest waste of time that you can do.
There's so many other ways.
The thing is, it's being willing to put in the effort. It's being willing to
put in the time, and it's having a longer-term view to it.
So for quite a lot of my product work
was coming through seo so optimizing my

(40:16):
website so that it would it would be found on search engines
for certain types of keywords is it found for everything
well no of course not you know you can search for things and i don't come up
but it it was optimizing it for the things that i wanted to be found for at
the time which then that became a source of steady leads and that doesn't happen
overnight it's not something you You can just press a button and magically they start coming.

(40:40):
It takes time. Like with networking, you show up at your first sort of in-person
networking meeting. Guess what?
Everybody's not going to rush in to book you. That's not how networking works.
You've got to invest time.
You've got to get to know people. And this is a part with marketing in general, though.
If you know your target audience and you know who you're trying to reach,

(41:02):
you're going to to know where to spend your time, money, effort,
energy, headspace, and everything else.
You could spend a lot of time and a lot of money in...
Kind of digging in the wrong holes type thing. And you just,
it's like trying to find a needle in the haystack where, like you said,
with your kind of work, Joe, you're looking for art directors,

(41:25):
for managing directors.
Then those people aren't going to look on Facebook. They're not even going to look on Instagram.
They're going to want the quickest, fastest answer.
The quickest, fastest answer is to ask the network or they're going to Google it.
And then when they Google it, they want to go to the website that is going to
be a good quality, high-end, proper website with good service products, images,

(41:52):
trust icons, reviews, businesses that you've worked with and then they're like a business commodity.
Quick, fast, effective, don't stuff around, just tell me how it is,
how much, when can you do it, when do we get the images?
They're not emotionally driven at all, which is all the complete opposite to

(42:14):
the family portrait and domestic market.
Lots of emotion.
Very different markets, aren't they? They'd be B2B, B2C, business to business
or business to consumers.
It's a very different thing. And sometimes people will try and sort of lump
it all together and say, I'm a wedding portrait product event wildlife landscape

(42:37):
photographer, you know, and you think, hmm,
yeah, you might be, but you're just sticking them all as tabs on the same format of website.
You're not really necessarily going to be talking to anybody if you're not careful. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Hey, I can go through some of my,
I've got 15 marketing strategies I can run through with here.

(42:58):
It's a lot more to do with the domestic market, which is your families,
your portraits, your weddings and people, headshots, personal branding.
Do you want me to quickly fire them off?
Yeah, let's hear them. Yeah.
We'll go there. So for starters, let's just say, you know, to run a successful
six-figure photography business, you do need to be implementing five to 15 marketing

(43:20):
strategies at any one given time.
Because if one falls over, you've got something else to prop you up.
So there's lots of different things and we break it down into three different categories.
You've got your passive marketing, you've got your active marketing and your digital marketing.
Now, for those people that don't know what passive marketing,
passive marketing is being like omnipresence. clients is where they look is

(43:45):
where you are. Think of like the Apple store.
Everyone's got their billboard of the Apple products.
You're easily found, you're in the moment, you're networking,
you're present within the marketing space.
Yeah, brand recognition, that sort of thing. So people know who you are when
they see it because they've seen it so many times. Yeah.

(44:05):
Exactly. But if you only do passive marketing strategies, you're going to wait
for a very long time for those clients to actually come in because you're just
hoping that they're going to call you one day.
Then you've got your active marketing and active marketing is when you actively
go out and you grab your clients. You bring them into your business.
You are actively creating campaigns to go and get them, whether it's an offer,

(44:28):
a special, a competition, a giveaway, end of financial year,
Black Friday or whatever.
Now, that's a great way to bring clients in. But if you're too active,
then the problem with that is that you're too aggressive.
You're always on sale. You're always on a deal. You're always doing something special.
You're always trying to grab someone. So therefore, it makes you look cheap. It makes you look nasty.

(44:54):
It makes you look like you're on sale all the time. You can look desperate if
you're not careful. You don't want to look desperate.
You look desperate. Exactly. Then your digital marketing strategies is when
you amplify your passive and your active and people can find you in the digital world.
Now, the five passive marketing strategies that everyone should do is your social media.

(45:16):
You must show up. Now, it might be TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook,
Instagram, Snapchat, depending on where you want to be is depending on your target audience.
Community and your networking. There's so many community networking groups around.
Be a part of it. Your promotional branding is the third one.

(45:39):
Your business name on your car, on your T-shirt, on your jackets.
Give me our pens with your branding on it, whatever that looks like.
But it's like your promotional marketing strategies.
Then you've got your website that's got to be kicking in the first place.
Is Instagram a website? No. Is Pixieset a website?
No. Is a gallery software system from another company a proper website?

(46:04):
No, it's got to be a proper website.
And then from your passive marketing, your last one is your SEO and the blogging.
So all of those things are going to help you be found.
Your five active marketing strategies is your calendar marketing.
This world has given us the gift of calendar marketing, Mother's Day,

(46:25):
Father's Day, Christmas, Black Friday, end of financial year, International Dog Day.
Do you know that there's a horse's birthday on the 1st of August?
It's horse's birthday. It's the same day for every horse.
You learn a lot. But all these calendar marketing events that you have,
International Woman's Day, the nurse, like there's a day for everything, right? Yeah.

(46:50):
So your calendar marketing, you've got constant events to promote with.
Then you've got your major giveaway, a collaboration or a solo giveaway,
family of the month, year or season, the wedding of the year,
pet of the season, breed of the month, whatever you want to call it,
lifetime story campaigns for past clients,
third-party alliances, that

(47:12):
strategic alliance is what you would work in a lot would be a big process.
Then you're active like, I'm going to go get you. And then your five digital
ones are your Facebook evergreen campaigns where you turn on and turn off because
it's kind of amplifying what you're doing.
You can do a price list and request a nurturing series, a lead nurturing series

(47:35):
through a promo, email building list, and regular email campaigns. planes.
I know it sounds like a lot that I've said there, but a lot of this is like,
if you are new to photography and you heard those 15 things,
you're probably, your head is just on boom.
Like, oh my gosh, where do I even start?

(47:55):
But if you're a seasoned photographer, a lot of this is set and forget.
Because once you've done one calendar marketing, you just do the same thing,
but in a different packaging the next time.
Once you've done one major giveaway and you've set up the landing page in the
form and the email sequence, when you want to do another one,
it's only going to take you an hour to set up.
Like all these different strategies, like to set up might take time,

(48:20):
but to implement and to rinse and repeat, it's actually quite easy.
And when you start out, that's the one thing that you generally do have is that time.
You're often cash poor, time rich when you're starting out.
So So getting these structures in place when you've got the time to do so,
rather than just keep chatting and liking on Facebook and all that kind of thing.

(48:43):
Spend a little bit of time each each day allocated
to one aspect of this you'll be surprised how quickly you can actually get all
get it all done absolutely sounds a lot but it is achievable perfectly achievable
absolutely absolutely and the hard part is like where do you learn this stuff
though like it all sounds good but where do you learn all of this stuff,

(49:04):
now i do have a solution for that answer but it's
one of those things funny you mentioned
that you know and i guess this is
what the pvbn is all about so we've got
the master classes on all of these because we know how important they are and
they're not all taught by me one person because i have one i kind of have like

(49:27):
lots i could teach on all of this but people want to learn from many people
but the reason why it's called a professional photography photography, business, and network,
professional, they're all professional photographers, professional photographers, business.
They're all business people. They're not photographers in business.
They're business people in photographers.

(49:49):
They love the business of photography. So when you need to learn about business stuff,
learn from business people in the genre, not not just people who are creatively
amazing that don't understand the business behind of it.
And then the network is like it's just a collaborative effort.

(50:09):
So there's lots of places to learn this stuff. Yeah, it's mixing with the people
who are going to help to inspire you and hold you accountable as well for doing these things.
You don't want to be held accountable by your friends.
Saying well i haven't seen you post pictures on facebook recently
that's not a measure of your marketing success

(50:30):
you want to be if you're going to give accountability to anybody
give it to others that have been there that
know what this is about and that can help you develop a business not people
who are just going to say oh well you only got 10 likes oh well you need to
post a picture you're going to have to do one with a cat in it next time you
know do a crazy cat video Then you'll get a hundred likes.

(50:55):
And then the next one, it'll be, and it's easy to spend your time on things
that don't actually get you anywhere.
You can spend a lot of energy and potentially, if you're not careful,
a lot of money, just treading water rather than making progress.
And it's that committing to doing little bits and pieces. And all of us can drift.
And that's where networks, even if a network is just you and two other photographers

(51:17):
in your area that you know, that can be enough that you get together once every month or whatever.
And you just say, okay, remember what we were talking about,
what you said you were going to do in your business last month? How's that going?
When you know someone's going to ask you that, that builds in the accountability,
which helps to make it easier for you to actually get down to doing it.

(51:39):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And if that doesn't give you any motivation,
try having zero dollars in your bank account. That's a good kick up there as well.
That can get you going. Yes, absolutely.
That'll get you going. Yeah, that can be an incentive.
So if we've got a lot of areas here we've been talking about,
there is a lot of flexibility within business.

(52:01):
Would you say that there are some things then that are, and perhaps it's the
three areas you were talking about earlier maybe, Would you say that there are
some things that are kind of non-negotiables that regardless of who you are,
regardless of your personality,
sorry, but you're going to have to do this?
Absolutely. Absolutely. I love this saying, and I say this a lot.

(52:24):
As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few.
The man that grasps the principles can successfully select his own methods.
The man who tries the methods ignoring the principles is sure to have trouble.
Harrington Edmondson, early 20th century efficiency engineer.

(52:46):
There so this is the part and
this is what i'll always teach on and this is what i harp
on about all the time in photography
there's very little principles it's actually
really not that hard i actually drew a little map here right what's what this
is a part of one of the courses i've got but anyway what happens is the top

(53:08):
purple ones you can't really read it but there's business models products and
prices like we spoke about the
right business being a model with the right products and the right price.
Then you're going to go down the yellow line and shock horror.
I'd hate to say this, but in the domestic market, it's identical for everyone.
You go to market, you generate a lead, you photograph them, you show them the

(53:30):
photos, they buy some, you produce artwork, they pick it up.
It's the same every time. I know, it's crazy.
I know, it's so crazy. It's It's always the same.
But this is like the principles are the same, but the methods...
Are totally like all the AI and all the technology and all the software and

(53:51):
all the ways of shooting and same day IPS and different day IPS and different
using Fundy or ProSelect or, or pick time.
And, you know, like there's like a million and then some different methods,
but the principles aren't the same, but there's definitely eight key areas, right? Okay.

(54:11):
The environment, create a great environment for you, your clients,
your price and products, You've got to get that right because you need to make
sure that suits your business model, which we spoke about. Phone calls.
If the phone is like kryptonite to Superman, the phone is that to photographers.
Phone calls. You have to connect with your clients. Your business model,

(54:33):
not so much, lots of emails.
But in the domestic market, emotional space, you need to connect.
And you can't connect over text messages and emails. you've got
to talk to people and communicate your photography it's
gonna be amazing your marketing needs to match your
photography that matches your style that matches your personality the

(54:53):
the one percenters count are all the little things that make your clients go
oh that's so nice oh thanks for the bow that you put around my artwork thanks
for bringing water and a blanket and some snacks to our photography shoot thanks
for bringing some umbrellas because
we didn't know it was going to rain, but you're so well prepared.
You know, thanks for doing all those little things.

(55:16):
It's like, thanks for showing me the wedding album slideshow to our wedding song. Like, who knew?
Well, you told me because you wrote it in the questionnaire that you filled
out, and I just made sure I looked up the song.
Your systems and your workflow using Tave, Studio Ninja, Dubstado,
Lightblue, automations, AI technology, all that kind of stuff,

(55:37):
and delivery, building rapport with people.
All of those eight components are the core components within any photography
business and you have to do them. And if you don't do them...
You're going to fall short because your business isn't firing on all pistons.
Yeah, you've got those areas. And the great news is you can customize them in so many different ways.

(56:00):
You just take the delivering of prints to clients.
Are you somebody who's going to deliver it in a nicely personalized box with
a bow on, with a bottle of champagne and some flowers? Or are you going to do it differently?
It depends as well on the other thing that you touched on in there,
which i think is very important is the idea of
a brand the idea of being consistent when

(56:23):
people meet you so so that when they
look at your website when they when they meet you when they see
how you interact on social it doesn't feel
like five or six different businesses that it feels like
no one brand it's consistent because
so much of what we respond to as consumers is
is on a subconscious conscious level and if there's little

(56:44):
things that don't quite gel that's so's
that seeded out it's enough to make the brain start thinking hmm
i'm not so sure absolutely there's nothing
like i meet a lot of photographers with the industry nights around australia
and all the different events and things and i get two things all the time actually
get three different things one thing is like oh you're just like you know i

(57:07):
feel like i already know you like because they see me on instagram Um,
Facebook lives and all the courses, I feel like they already know me.
The second thing is you're a lot younger and you're shorter for some reason.
No. Yeah. For some reason on the video, they think I'm really tall, but anyway.
Same as with showing up, and this is one of the five passive marketing strategies

(57:30):
on social media, showing up, Facebook, Instagram, Instagram Lives,
SEOs, blogging, blogging with videos, using video in your business.
You're just creating connection points where people kind of look at you and
straight away, do you know what, shock horror, I know this might shock you,
but people prejudge you before they even contact you. and they will look at

(57:51):
you and they're going to go, he seems all right.
You know, he looks like a typical English lad type thing. He seems all right.
Or they're going to be like, oh, he's a bit showy. Look at his pink shirt.
Like who would wear that? Why would you wear that for?
Like, you know, like you are your brand and you need to make sure that's consistent.

(58:12):
Yeah, you know that it's not going to communicate to everybody,
but that's part of the point.
It's consistent in communicating with the
people that you actually want to reach so don't
try and be everything to everybody because you can't
absolutely absolutely do you want you know
what they're either gonna like you or they're not gonna like you and just

(58:33):
like that movie they're just not that into you and that's
okay you've got to move on yeah absolutely don't spend
too much time trying to worry about why and trying to
make someone who's never going to be your customer into your customers sometimes you've
got to be willing to walk away and try someone else i wonder
then you know we we spend an awful lot of time then trying to
find ways of helping others to to develop ways

(58:54):
to develop their businesses and that is i think an important part of coaching
as well as to is to keep an eye on yourself make sure that you're aware of what
you're doing and that you're kind of practicing what you preach if you like
so do you find areas of business or areas of your
practices as a coach that you still find yourself researching or getting to know more about?

(59:19):
Or do you have coaching yourself? How do you carry on developing yourself?
Always learning. There's always learning. It's like there's always learning.
You're always doing things. You're always trying to keep up on trend and what's happening.
So I guess the biggest thing is just having a finger on the pulse on the industry.
We get to talk to hundreds of photographers all the time.

(59:39):
So we can see trends before it's even a trend and we're connecting with people
and we can see what's going to work and what's not going to work before it even kind of happens.
So I've definitely got myself a
little posse group of people around me that I
work with all the time that are friends that I met on industry nights and events

(59:59):
years and years and years and years ago and it's one of those things where it's
kind of like like they keep in check of things and they've got fingers on the
pulse and they're the trendsetters as well so that's who I kind of hang out with.
So therefore it's one of those things where it's like, I don't have individual coaching,
but even this afternoon I caught up with a mate of mine who's in a different

(01:00:22):
industry and he looks after the marketing for this company that looks after
TED talks and people speaking and getting people on platforms and things.
So we had a great conversation this afternoon about what's happening in the
industry and cross-pollination.
So it's not just photography that we're looking at. We're looking at a lot of

(01:00:44):
other industries as well. Yeah.
It's having that network of people who've got particular skill sets that can
help to sharpen you and deepen your knowledge just by talking to them, isn't it?
You don't always have to be doing a particular course or something like that,
or going through a particular program.
It's keeping yourself up to date with industry professionals.

(01:01:07):
Absolutely. And it's one of those things where it's really kind of like,
where it's like, you know,
It's just staying connected is probably the best way to say it.
Staying connected to the industry, staying connected to people,
who's who, who's saying what, what's happening as well.
Yeah, I think if you get to a point where you've kind of assumed you've learned

(01:01:28):
everything and you can just carry on and not pay attention to what's going on, you're in trouble.
It's, what is it? Can I? Constant and never-ending improvement or there's another
one. I forget the acronym, but it's like, it's, it's forever changing.
It's a growing, it's like the website. It's a living, breathing organism that's

(01:01:52):
constantly growing because it's doing updates.
You have to change images. You can't just set and forget and leave it.
You need to, you need to feed it. You need to feed the beast.
So it's the same with your own business.
Like what worked six months ago or what
worked six years ago doesn't necessarily work six six months ago
but i'll go back to that though joe the principles

(01:02:13):
are the same the methods are different there's software
now that we use that we couldn't use
because it wasn't even invented hello chat gpt oh my goodness that wasn't invented
a year ago so that's changed the dynamics of the entire photography marketing
space by that one software and same as with like automations and and online bookings,

(01:02:38):
and payments over the phone, and all this other stuff.
We used to have to have the FPOS machines, I don't know what you called them,
and type in the numbers, and take payments over the phone, and do contracts
where you had to send a document,
and they printed it, and then they signed it, and then they scanned it back. It was a nightmare.
Now, you can buy a house for a million pounds and just buy it on your iPhone. It's ridiculous.

(01:03:04):
Things constantly change, and as Gary Hughes said when I
was talking to him you know it's one of the only things in life which is absolutely guaranteed
things change and we've got
to we've got to be able to be open to that we've got to keep up with that and
not just sort of assume that we can do something once and for all and we're
finished whether that's running a photography business or whatever it might

(01:03:24):
be so i wonder then for if there's somebody out there who's who's currently
in business as a photographer photographer,
what sort of thing would you say might be a red flag that they need to start
looking into finding themselves a community?
They need to start looking into perhaps finding themselves someone to be accountable
to, maybe a coach or a friend or whatever it is, before things get too bad.

(01:03:49):
Yeah. So we had this, we had a,
New rules of business in 2024 webinar we did. And one of the tiles that we spoke
about was warning, warning, warning too late.
Yes. You've got to read the warning signs. You have to connect with people.
You have to kind of look at your business and look at your numbers and look
at your stats and look at your trajectory.
Look at what clients are saying or what they're not saying. Look at your own

(01:04:12):
energy levels and your headspace and whether you're, you're kind of growing
as a person and have a joyful spirit and enjoying what you're doing,
or you're on a downward spiral and it's kind of like you need to ask for help
because a lot of the things within the photography industry can be turned around,

(01:04:34):
depending on the industry, so portraits and families.
That's got like a six to eight-week turnaround. What I do today is not going
to affect next week or the week after.
It's going to affect six to eight weeks. The wedding industry is a bit different.
What I do today is going to affect my bookings for six months to 18 months.
So your turnaround time can be quite quickly changed, but at the same time,

(01:04:59):
you've got to be self-aware as well.
And I guess a red flag is just, have you fallen out of love with what you do?
Have you lost the passion?
Do you wake up every day going, this is going to be awesome.
Today's going to be a great day.
Or do you wake up every day going, I hate this. Why am I doing this for?

(01:05:20):
Now, it could just be because it's a Sunday and you never work on a Sunday and
I shouldn't have bought that wedding on a Sunday. And on Monday, you're fine.
But if you're having that conversation over days and weeks and months,
you really need to connect with friends within the industry and just say,
Hey Joe, I'm like, mate, I'm, I'm struggling.
I don't know what's happening. I've tried the old, I've tried everything.

(01:05:45):
And then I come along and I look at what everything looks like to you compared
to what everything looks like to me.
And your everything is that you tried everything and that everything was,
you just put a thousand pounds on Facebook and it didn't work and you tried
everything, it's like, let's try some different types of everything.
Let's look at the other 30 everythings that we could do.

(01:06:08):
So kind of having that external people, those external eyes,
having a holistic view of your business and going, mate, you're so far through
the forest, you can't see the trees.
It's like we need to pull you out of this hole.
There's real danger when you're working on your own like that,
that you just get those blind spots, and none of us is going going to see absolutely everything.

(01:06:29):
So it's having other people, other pairs of eyes on it who can point out to
us when we're missing something, because we all do. It's inevitable.
None of us is absolutely perfect. So none of us is going to be able to see every
aspect of our business totally clearly.
So it's well worth finding someone you can trust to talk about with it.

(01:06:49):
Yeah, well, I had someone today come over for a barbecue, typical Australian
thing, had a barbecue for lunch with the kids.
And I just said, hey, Dan, I said, mate, I said, mate, this isn't going to plan.
Like I'm trying to do this one particular thing. It's not working for me.
And he's like, hey, why don't you do this, this, this, and this?
And I was like, sounds like a plan. It sounds awesome.

(01:07:09):
Let's, you know what, let's do that. Let's look at it in a different way.
So he's just given me today, you know, today he's just given me a fresh perspective
of the professional photography business network.
I'm not saying anything wrong with it, but he's looking at it from a whole different headspace.
He's like, because he was a pastor of a church, and he was a pastor of a church for 15 years.

(01:07:37):
And he's like, you realize you're just doing partial care for 5,000 people.
They're just not part of a church. They're part of the photography community. And I was like, yeah.
Relationships relationships connection community
reaching out you can't set and forget they're all people all 5 000 of those

(01:07:58):
people are all you know they've all they're all a part of the big ecosystem
of the photography industry they all need to be cared for individually and i was like,
That's a lot of phone calls.
I was like, but he kind of put a fresh perspective on something that I hadn't

(01:08:20):
seen from that direction.
And if we don't have these conversations with people in our world,
whether they're photographers or not, it's needed.
Yeah, it's always worth getting that other perspective.
And what I find is it's good to question and good to look at something,
thing even if perhaps at the end of it you come out deciding that where you are is fine,

(01:08:42):
yeah brave be brave enough to pull it to
bits and have a good look at it you know you might you might
look at that and think okay there's something i can do
about that now or actually i'll work towards doing something about that over
the next two years there are so many different ways responding to it but the
important thing is not to shut out the other person other people's point of

(01:09:02):
view and not to ignore what somebody says you don't have to agree with it don't
get me wrong You don't have to sort of every Tom,
Dick and Harry that comes along and makes a comment about your business.
You don't have to agree with them, but you have to have a reason.
You have to understand what they're saying and what you're doing and think, does it make sense?
And then, absolutely. But then the main part.

(01:09:24):
So if you want, you asked the question before, what's the red flag from a coaching
point of view that you see all the time?
People will, how do I keep this clean?
I mean, people will express that they need help and then they will get the advice,
whether it's from Facebook or Instagram or from a coach or someone who's giving

(01:09:49):
really good, solid advice and then do nothing about it. Yeah.
And then literally do nothing about it. Like I posted the other day,
you know, about this particular strategy that has worked significantly well.
And I had about 40 people reach out saying they want to find out more.

(01:10:10):
And it was all completely free.
And out of the 40 people, they just had to do one thing.
They just had to enter something, an email, so we can give them the content
of this strategy to go. It's completely free. It's not going to cost you anything.
Like, you have no risk in doing this. You said that you're struggling with this.
I'm going to give you a solution that I think is going to work for you specifically.

(01:10:33):
Guess how many out of 40 people actually actioned and filled out that form to get that information?
Oh, dear. Yes. Well, as we know, it's probably not very many. Two.
Yeah, I was going to say two, but I thought no.
Two people. people two people out of 40 so

(01:10:56):
all these people cry cry poor
me all the time poor me poor me i'm
not getting enough work i don't have enough leads i don't have
enough staff i don't have enough work like my
business is going backwards all these different
things and i'm like hey how can we help and how
can i connect you and who do we need to talk to and what

(01:11:17):
strategies have you gotten that like i've got so much
free resources i'm like what do you need just
have a conversation just call me i don't want it like let's just talk about
this and crickets nothing and
you're in the same position and you're not going anywhere and you're like do
you know what like you can't help someone that doesn't want to be helped you

(01:11:37):
can't draw a horse what is it you can't lead a horse to water and make them
drink it it's like you're literally you're struggling you've reached out saying I'm struggling.
People are trying to help you and you do nothing and you just go,
guys, what are you doing?
Sometimes I wonder how much of that is down to the sort of the mindset that

(01:11:58):
you can often hear about someone having a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.
So some people kind of think, you know, you're born with a certain ability to
do something and that's it. Nothing changes.
And whereas others who are a lot more open to, well, you give it a go,
you train more, you experiment and you can grow and do different things.
So when you get into these kind of situations the people with a fixed mindset

(01:12:20):
are much more likely to think oh well maybe i've reached my limit or worse still
it's well it's everything else's fault it's the world out there that's doing
this it's i can't do anything it's that kind of victim,
mentality and you need to get out of that victim mentality and think you have choice,
choice yeah you can make your choice yeah i've

(01:12:43):
done i studied life coaching so nlp
practitioner and all that kind of you know all that kind of stuff and we talk
about below the above the line and below the line thinking victim you know what's
the word victim or what's the other word the victim or oh gosh my brain's gone
blank my brain's done anyway you know what i'm trying to I say, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(01:13:06):
And at the end of the day, it's like there's a meme that's going around and
it's really, really harsh and it goes like this.
Nobody cares. Try harder.
Nobody cares. Of course business is hard. Try harder. Of course you're struggling

(01:13:28):
for leads. Everyone is. Try harder.
Of course you're worried about your business failing, Just the same as every
other business in the entire world. Try harder.
Nobody cares about your feelings. Try harder.
That's a really harsh way of
talking about it. But like there is a lot of nurturing processes as well.
But it's one of those things, it's kind of like, it's a mindset of like,

(01:13:51):
you know, be a problem solver, be an overcomer, be someone who is not going to.
Lay down and just like roll over and play dead type of stuff.
Like you need to fight for these things. If you want a good life, fight for it.
If you want to run a marathon, you train for it.

(01:14:13):
If you want a new car, you work for it. If you want a new house,
you've got to work for it.
Nothing comes on a silver platter. No.
Don't expect it to be easy. No. No.
And this photography industry, I was going to mention it before floor
when you were talking earlier about the different
marketing agencies coming into

(01:14:34):
the photography space and telling you what we should do as
well yeah one of the
issues with photography like especially the domestic market well no it's probably
all photography we have a very unique business that it's high service and high
product if you think of all the other businesses out there right?

(01:14:56):
Most of it is like Apple computer.
It's a computer, iPhone computer, a new swimming pool.
It's a product, like product, product, product. If you're a physio,
a dentist or whatever, it's a service that you're giving.
Photography, it's a product and a service. You've got to give a great service with a great product,

(01:15:20):
which makes this photography industry the hardest,
one of the hardest businesses that you can create but
where else can you
do a family portrait spend three hours
with the client and earn two thousand pounds and
only work monday to friday between nine and two o'clock and do two shoots a

(01:15:42):
week and earn a living what business where can you do that type thing you know
what i mean so it's one of those it's one of those things where it's where it's like, it's a unique.
It's a unique space where it's one of those things where it's like,
it's unique, but we have an amazing job with an amazing career with the amazing opportunity.

(01:16:06):
We can't take this lightly, but also, two, it's hard work.
You've got to be an overcomer. Whatever words you said before about,
I can't remember what you said about, your fits mindset or the growth one. Growth mindset, yeah.
If you're a fits mindset and you play the victim, Tim, you're going to struggle
as a photographer pretty much your entire career.

(01:16:29):
You need to be a problem solver and a growth mindset because photography is
ever-changing, always progressing.
So it's just an industry where it's like you've got to move with the times or get left behind.
Yeah, there's a lot of plates to keep spinning as well.
People sometimes forget that they can focus on one aspect of the business to

(01:16:52):
the detriment of the other. And as well, you know, it's an art form in itself
and selling art forms is always difficult.
I was in the music industry before I came into photography and trying to break
through in the music industry.
You know, people think, oh, yeah, you know, you just play a good gig.

(01:17:13):
Someone spots you and gives you a record contract.
And you think, yeah, but how many people are playing in their garages together?
Other how many people have got bands versus how many actually
really make it and really earn a living and you might
get some that earn a little and are on the bread line but
then there seems to be this huge gulf up to the towards those that
earn more and in the arts that is that is often the case and if you don't really

(01:17:36):
really want it if it's not really at the at your heart of hearts if it's not
your goal yeah if it's just a nice to have it's going to be really difficult
because Because you've got to make sure when you're pursuing goals that they're your goals.
They're things that really matter to you and you really want to achieve.
Otherwise, you'll quit.
Oh, absolutely. If you go back to your first question originally,

(01:17:59):
like why triathlon and why do running and how does that get transferred to your business?
The motivation to start a photography business is really easy.
Who wouldn't want to work from nine till two o'clock Monday to Friday,
have the weekends off, have school holidays off,
earn as much as a doctor or any higher paying accountant or academic job of

(01:18:25):
some description, who wouldn't want to do that?
So motivation is super high, but do you have the discipline to back it up for
a career of 10, 20, 30-plus years where you need to constantly grind?
Like think of an athlete, you know what I mean? Think of an athlete.
Like their whole career can be gone with a busted knee or a shoulder type thing.

(01:18:50):
Like you know it happened to
me as well for um when i with the music that basically
happened to me i was building up teaching business
or doing music and i developed ms and i couldn't actually even i developed a
multiple sclerosis ms so i couldn't actually use my left hand at all for several

(01:19:12):
months yeah wow and if you're a musician that it's kind of limited so sort of overnight
my sort of musical business my guitar
teaching business just went down the toilet that was that was gone it was just
like that you've got to be able to adapt and you yeah if there are if you really

(01:19:32):
want something you can keep going towards it until something like that happens
there's just nothing you can do it's just too big a hurdle to necessarily overcome,
but you know with with your photography you've got to be setting yourself in
the right direction You've got to be thinking a little bit like with an athlete.
The Olympics are so many years away. I'm training for that.
If you're just thinking, what have I got by the end of the week?

(01:19:54):
Okay, you need to have an eye on the short term, but you've also got to have
those longer-term goals, that eye on the longer term.
I think it's important that we're working towards things.
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Like it's one of those things I think Usain Bolt
said his entire career is less than four minutes and 30 seconds.

(01:20:16):
That's that's that's the most he's run in his
entire career of actually proper racing over
a period of like four eight twelve years
is four minutes and 30 seconds yeah like it's
crazy when you think about that absolutely mad isn't it yeah so people need
the community they need others around them to to encourage them so they can

(01:20:40):
do that through the Focused Professional community they They can do that by joining
the Professional Photography Business Network.
Where's the best place for them to find out more about the PPBN and to consider
joining that if they'd like to?
Best place is jump on Facebook first. That's where we hang out. That's where we play.
That's the quickest thing. Then the website for pbbnonline.com.

(01:21:02):
But Facebook is where we play type thing.
And it's quite interesting because, you know, in Australia, there's not that
many photographers. I know, shock horror.
So our group's only 5,000 people.
Now, compared to America or the UK, you've got groups of 20,
30, 50, 60,000 people of photographers.

(01:21:24):
One good thing is that we limit the amount of people that is in the group because
we want proper solicited advice.
And it's a really dynamic group of photographers in business, not photographers.
So it's one of those things. It's a good quality group of people.
And you're learning from people who are walking the walk and talking the talk.

(01:21:47):
So it's good fun. So if people are serious about what they want to do and they
really want to grow a business, and that's a good place for them to take a look at. Yeah.
Or if you want to, reach out to me. Just jump on markrozzella.com,
book in a 20-minute free coaching strategy session with me. Let's just chat.
Let's just do a Zoom call. It's literally just chat.

(01:22:09):
Now, I can tell you now for the listeners that are listening in the UK,
which are probably majority of the people that you reach, it will be your morning
at 9.30am and it'll be my evening at 7.30pm that we will catch up.
And yes, the time zones are funny, but we will make it work and just have a chat.
Like, you know, it might just be to say today, but it might be enough.

(01:22:33):
So many times I've had conversations with photographers within 5,
10, 20 minutes, they're like, oh, light bulb moment. Thank you very much.
You're a legend. Appreciate it. I'm on the way.
And for me, that's a win. That's the motivation.
Within 5, 10 minutes, I've highlighted an issue that they didn't see.

(01:22:55):
They've picked up on it, new brain thought, new process.
And they're They're like, that's what I was hoping for. You're a legend.
And I'm like, great, on your way. See you later. Bye.
It's that first step is just getting talking. If you're feeling stuck,
just reach out and talk to people. Get going.
And it's finding the right community, the right person for you.

(01:23:17):
Different coaches are better for different types of people.
So find the person that works for you, someone you relate to.
Send them a message. Don't suffer in silence, really. There is a community.
Out there. There are people out there that really do want the photography industry to thrive.
And it's been great hearing some of your passion today, Mark.

(01:23:38):
It's been really good having you on the podcast and you sharing some of your
ideas and approaches, and hopefully that's enthusing people to really get stuck in.
Yeah, no worries. Anytime. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
It's always been nice to chat to someone on the other side of the web.
It's always good oh it certainly is yeah it's great to be able to talk to you

(01:23:59):
today and thank you everybody for listening to the Focused Professional podcast
Get connected trained supported and qualified with the society of photographers
sponsors of the Focused Professional podcast.
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