August 21, 2023 • 29 mins
In today's episode, we're tackling a topic that's on the minds of many in the creative community: how to find work. Whether you're an outdoor adventure photographer, a portrait specialist, or a videographer, the insights we share here are universally applicable. From exposure gigs to word-of-mouth marketing and building vendor relationships, we've got you covered.
Today we're going to cover 4 topics:
- Work for Exposure
- When you should and shouldn't consider doing this
- When you may want to pitch doing your own work for free
- Word of Mouth Marketing
- How you can influence this in today's market
- Playing the Social Media Game
- Building Vendor Relationships
- When and how to reach out
- Setting up strategic meetings and sessions
- Organize headshot parties or styled shoots to collaborate and showcase your skills.
Join us bi-weekly as we explore the world through the lens, uncovering hidden gems, and sharing insider tips to elevate your photography game. From capturing breathtaking landscapes to immersive cultural portraits, each episode is packed with practical hacks, creative ideas, and inspiring stories to fuel your wanderlust and unleash your creative potential.
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Find all the show notes and connect with Robert:
Website: robertmasseyphotography.ca
Instagram: @robertmasseyphotography
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Robert (00:00):
How's it going everybody?
Welcome back.
Welcome back.
Welcome back.
I'm Robert Massey.
This is the Travel and AdventurePhotography School.
Thanks so much for taking a fewminutes to join me on the trail
this morning.
Like I promised, we're gonna beout adventuring while we do some
of these episodes and today weare on our way to Helen Lake,
maybe up to Cirque Peak,depending how often I stop to
(00:22):
shoot.
I'm a little bit later thismorning than I normally like to
be.
Primarily just sunrise was sobeautiful as I was leaving Banff
this morning that I had to stopand go back down to Vermilion
Lakes and take some photos.
Those conditions I've neverwitnessed at sunrise.
I've seen lots of photos of it,but I've never seen it.
And so I had to go and shoot.
There was fog just everywherecoming up out of Vermilion Lakes
(00:43):
and Mount Rundle was beautiful,but also clouded in and misty.
It was stunning.
And so I actually ended upspending my first three hours of
my morning there filling thecards I brought with me for the
walk today.
So, getting out on the trail alittle bit later than I'd like.
But we're here, we'readventuring, we're having fun.
And for a Saturday, it's been apretty good day so far.
(01:04):
Alright, so today I wanted totalk about something I've
actually had a lot of peoplemessage me about something that
a lot of the creative communityin Banff, we frequently talk
about and it's how to find work.
If you are looking at becoming aprofessional photographer of any
form, whether it's a travel oneoutdoor adventure photographer,
weddings, couples, portraits,brand, whatever.
(01:25):
It really doesn't matter.
These tips about finding workare applicable to everybody.
So, yeah, let's do this thing.
Apologies going up some steeptrails and, you're definitely
gonna hear some heavier breathevery once in a while on this
one.
All right, so first off, findingclients, finding work, finding a
(01:46):
way to push yourself into noteven doing this professionally,
but maybe just making a littlebit more money off of the
photographs you like to take, oroff the videos you like to take,
these tips really apply acrossthe board for creators, there's
very few things that are justspecific to photography.
The first thing I wanna talkabout is the way most people
tend to start getting theirfirst gigs, and that's being
(02:06):
asked to shoot something forexposure.
Now the idea of shootingsomething for exposure is
somebody who comes to you with abig following.
Somebody comes to you with a bigevent where there's gonna be
lots of people and they say,Hey, look, we're gonna do this
thing.
Will you do it for free?
Like, we'll post your photos andtag you.
That's the idea of doingsomething for exposure.
Now, I hate saying don't ever dosomething.
(02:28):
The world is much more gray thanit is black and white.
So you'll hear a lot ofphotographers just cut this off
and say, no, you don't do this.
And I disagree with thatentirely.
I think that there are times andplaces where you want to do
something for exposure or forfree.
Because there are instanceswhere that's gonna pop up.
(02:49):
So the reasons why you wouldn'twanna do something for exposure.
Somebody comes to you and theysay, Hey, will you do this?
They have a big following orthey're having this big event,
you might not wanna say yes to'em because the people who are
gonna be there aren't yourtarget clientele.
They're not people who are goingto purchase your work or
appreciate it.
For example, if you really wantto do travel and outdoor work
and somebody's asking you tocome in and shoot, brand photos
(03:10):
for a hair product company forfree, that doesn't really align
with the people who are going tolook to hire you.
So in that case, the exposuredoesn't actually mean anything.
These aren't people who aregoing to appreciate the work
that you do, and it alsoprobably won't represent the
type of work that you'd like todo.
Don't move forward with that.
The other instances are peoplewho are doing that they're
typically people who aren'tgoing to appreciate the value of
(03:30):
photography.
So these are people who willexpect things for free or expect
little changes or more photos orjust lots of things where they
won't respect your talent as anartist.
And so do you really want to getinvolved in that kind of a
situation?
And then even if you say like,I'll do this one for free, but
the next one we get paid,they'll probably just go to
another person.
They probably won't even comeback to you to work with you.
(03:52):
Or if they do, they'll expectyou to do it for free and be
like, oh, but you did thisbefore for free.
So setting a bad precedent foryourself.
Do something for free and thenthey'll kind of expect it from
you in the future.
The other reason is it actuallyaffects everybody else in this
industry.
Doing something for free isgoing to severely impact
everybody else's ability to makemoney.
(04:13):
It's really difficult to showpeople the value in photography
or in creative work in generalsometimes.
By doing something for free,that person's going to expect
more artists to do things forfree.
And then you're just driving theentire industry down into a race
to the bottom.
Think about that very carefully.
Think about how it affects theother creators around you and
how it affects your futureprospects for work.
(04:34):
Alright.
That being said, there arereasons and times you would do
some work for free.
The main one is because youwanna give back, this is the
best opportunity, the best timethat I can see for doing
something for free for someone.
So let's say that there is anot-for-profit that you love,
you love the work that they do,you're really involved, you're
invested in them, or they'rereally involved and invested in
(04:57):
the community of clientele thatyou would like to work with.
Let's say it's a trail buildersassociation and you're an
outdoor and adventurephotographer.
Trail builders are incrediblyimportant people who maintain
our trails.
They're the ones who maintainthese beautiful places for us.
So in that case, the people whoare gonna see the photos, the
people who you're gonna workwith on those photos are people
who are going to like your typeof work.
(05:17):
It's probably gonna representwhere you want be and how you
work and the type of work youwant to create, and you get to
give back to an organization whogives so much to the outdoors
community.
In a situation like that.
Go ahead, do the work for free,do it for exposure.
Now that being said, if anot-for-profit comes to you, And
they're not somebody youidentify with.
(05:38):
They're not a group or anorganization whose work you
believe in or care about, orthey don't match your target
clientele.
You can always say no, you don'thave to do everything that a
not-for-profit asks you to do.
But if you align with it,definitely think carefully about
it.
Another instance where you'reprobably gonna want to think
really carefully about if youwanna do work for free or not is
if a brand does step up and askyou to do something and they are
(06:01):
exactly who you wanna work with.
Now, this becomes a very diceysituation very quickly.
'Cause you're settingexpectations with that brand and
it's really hard to maintain theexpectation of getting paid or
at least getting paid asubstantial amount of money for
shoots if you give your firstone away to them for free.
But if you've always wanted towork with them, if their
(06:23):
audience is exactly who youwanna work for, not kind of, not
maybe, not look how many people,exactly the people you're
looking for, then maybe considera small partnership with them.
Now, you can structure thatpartnership in a ton of
different ways, but the way I'dsuggest doing it is not doing a
full shoot for free.
You could do a mini session.
(06:43):
You could do just some brandphotos.
You could do a quick 30 minutesession with them, something
that's going to allow you toshow off your work, but also not
give away everything.
Other thing you can do, is ifthey reach out to you saying,
Hey, we'll do this for you forexposure.
Try and arrange maybe two orthree shoots with them.
So tell'em what your typicalrate would be and then go.
But you know what?
(07:04):
If we can arrange three shoots,we can do buy two shoots, get
one free kind of deal.
You're still discountingyourself.
You're still doing work forfree, and you're still setting a
precedent.
But if you negotiate thatconversation carefully, it could
be a good way to build arelationship and a rapport with
them, and if they like yourwork, who knows going forwards.
But be very careful in thatconversation.
(07:25):
Whew, sorry about the heavybreathing here.
Just definitely going up a steepsection of the trail here.
So there's one other instancewhere you're gonna wanna work
for exposure and you're actuallygonna see a lot of photographers
and a lot of creatives doingthis and doing like work for
free, doing work for exposure.
Even the ones who say never doit, but they're gonna do it in
this instance.
(07:45):
And it's, if you're part of agiveaway, if it's part of silent
auction or charity auction.
You are gonna find that there'sinstances where it's a really
good idea to actually take onthose kind of projects.
Especially if you're trying toestablish yourself.
Even if you are fairlyestablished, it looks really
good if you say, give a print,give a mini session to people,
(08:06):
to a charity auction, to anot-for-profit.
It's a good way to give back tothe community.
So similar ideas.
The first one, doing the workfor free, for not-for-profits or
charities.
This is something very similar,is if the audience matches, if
the organization matches.
Definitely feel free to giveyour work in that case.
Or if you wanna partner withother brands who are within the
(08:28):
same sphere as the audience youwanna work with.
Recently the photographyaccessory company Lume Cube
actually ran this kind of agiveaway where they gave away
some of their gear, other peoplegot involved and gave away some
of their gear as well.
And a local photographer inBanff actually gave away I
believe it was a mentoringsession or a spot at one of his
workshops, and that's worth afew thousand dollars.
(08:48):
But it got his name out there infront of a very large group of
people who are exactly the typeof folks who will love his work,
buy his prints, come to hisworkshops.
So minor little investment inhis marketing to be able to
reach a ton of people in histarget audience.
I believe he's also a Lume Cubesponsored photographer, so might
(09:08):
have had a contractualobligation in there as well.
But it gives you an idea of howpeople can use those kind of
instances to give away work forfree, but gain a lot out of
doing it.
So, like I said, off the hop,never just cut something off
automatically.
Never say never right off thebat.
Because there are instanceswhere doing exposure work is a
really good idea.
Now there is one other versionof doing work for free that
(09:30):
isn't actually for exposure.
I feel like this is a reallygood time to throw it in here,
and it's you choosing to do thatwork and approaching people to
do it.
So these are basically portfoliobuilders or giving samples to
people who, you know, areinfluential in the community
you're trying to work with.
For example, I am working onbuilding up a bit of a better
(09:51):
adventure portfolio right now.
I have lots of hiking,landscapes, lots of brand work,
lots of stuff on pretty simple,straightforward trails, but I
don't have a lot of mountainbiking, a lot of rock climbing.
I don't have a lot of those,like higher end adventurey kinda
sports.
'Cause when I do them I'mtypically very, very focused on
not getting hurt.
So I'm working with people who Iknow to go out and do styled
(10:12):
shoots with them.
By working on styled shoots withfolks who I know folks who might
be influential in the community,they have friends who like to do
these kind of things.
If they see the work and theylike the work, there's a lot of
other people who will come andwork with me as well.
Plus I have more images to beable to show to potential
clients to show I actually knowwhat I'm doing.
(10:33):
Portfolio building is a greattime to do some free work, but
should be done on your termswith clients that you like,
clients that you want to workwith.
Don't just take to build yourportfolio for free.
Do them intentionally and buildthem out yourself.
This will teach yousignificantly more than just
showing up and doing the workthat someone else wants done.
(10:53):
'Cause you actually have tothink about building out the
creative side for yourself, andthat's a huge part about being a
professional photographer or aprofessional, creative for that
matter.
So just make sure you're workingwith the right people, the right
audience and working to buildthings in your portfolio that
you actually need to build upand build work into.
Alright, that works really wellinto point number two, which is,
(11:15):
word of mouth.
This is the classic, the stapleof marketing, the age old one.
Word of mouth is still the mosttrusted way that people decide
on a product, decide on whothey're gonna work with, decide
on if they want to actually dosomething.
We still rely on word of mouthand we always will I think as
humans.
(11:36):
That's because we trust otherpeople who have gone through
those experiences, and we wannaknow a confirmation that they
liked what they did, they likedwho they worked with, they liked
the product.
So think about it, word of mouthis no longer just people talking
to each other and chitchattingabout products they like.
It's a lot bigger than that.
People talking one-on-one at theoffice, over messages and chats
(11:58):
and things like that is still acomponent of word of mouth.
But now you also have a largeonline space where people are
passing along information aboutyou and your product.
So this can include clienttestimonials that are up on your
website.
This can include reviews, whichhopefully have a lot of very
positive ones, and a lot ofthose client testimonials are in
there.
This can include large scalereviews like bloggers or
(12:21):
podcasters or anybody like that,talking about you, talking about
your products without you beingthere.
And this can also includeinformation on message boards.
So somebody looking for feedbackfrom the internet about you,
about working with you aboutpretty much anything.
So think Reddit, TripAdvisoreven Instagram and Twitter to a
degree.
And so word of mouth is criticalto you gaining recognition as a
(12:44):
photographer.
And actually it's one of themain ways that a lot of old
school photographers still getwork.
So there's some of the world'sbest, most famous photographers
who work consistently, make aton of money at it and have
literally zero following onsocial media.
They're not playing the socialmedia game.
They are living off the word ofmouth of their great work.
There's a number of adventurephotographers who work for
(13:06):
companies like Arc'teryk, theNorth Face, Patagonia,Red Bull,
like you name it.
They've worked with them andthey have two or 300 followers
on Instagram.
They have zero presence really.
Their website and theirInstagram and their social just
isn't there because they don'tneed it.
Guaranteed.
You've seen some of these guyswork and you probably don't
follow them.
You probably don't evenrecognize their name.
(13:26):
And that's because within theindustry, they have such a good
rep, they have such good word ofmouth amongst people that
matters that they get work.
So all that being said, how doyou actually gain some word of
mouth from people?
How do you actually get peopleto trust you enough to tell
other people that you're a goodperson to work with?
Now, there's a lot of ways to goabout that.
There's the obvious ones of goget some work.
(13:49):
Do really, really well at it.
Focus a lot, not just on theimages, but on the client
relations side as well.
So take care of that person thatyou're working with.
Take care of the people that youare messaging with, communicate
lots, create great work, have agreat time on set.
Give them the products theywant.
Under promise and over deliver.
Really make them feel specialand loved.
(14:11):
And, that will gain you a hugeclient.
Your work could be not quite asgood as other people's, but your
client relations are spectacularand that in and of itself will
make them feel like your work isbetter because they enjoy the
experience more.
So don't negate the clientexperience just to create good
images.
I've worked with photographersthat I will probably never hire
(14:32):
again and has nothing to do withtheir work.
Actually.
It has everything to do with thefact that the caliber of their
work didn't outweigh that theyweren't a pleasant human to work
with.
They were hard to communicatewith.
We took a long time to getimages.
We just really ran into a fewbig barriers on working with
them.
So yeah, focus on your clientrelations and you will find that
you'll get a lot of work and alot of word of mouth, because
(14:54):
people wanna work with people,they enjoy being around.
People wanna work with goodpeople, and if you make yourself
a good person and you have goodwork, you'll become invaluable.
There's a few photographers andvideographers and other
creatives who I keep going backto because their work is
spectacular, but they're justgood people to be on set with.
They're just good people tocommunicate with and they care
(15:15):
deeply about everything thatthey do.
And their reference came to mevia word of mouth.
So make sure that your clientrelations are on point, and one
of the best ways you can do thisis to actually ask.
You should be able to get clienttestimonials and good client
testimonials.
So building up your Googlereviews, super important for
word of mouth, building up yourown testimonials on your
(15:36):
website.
Not quite as great as reviews,but also really good for
building up trust.
If someone is willing to giveyou a positive review, then you
know you've done a good job.
But even more than that, peoplewho have had a positive
experience working with youdon't typically remember to
spread good news.
A lot of reviews are really doneby people who want people to be
aware of a situation.
(15:56):
They didn't enjoy something,something didn't go right.
But if you work on your clientrelations and you make sure that
part of that is telling people,Hey, if you had a great time,
even if you didn't have a greattime, can you leave me a review?
Can you go to Google and put areview in here?
And are you okay if I use thattestimonial on my website?
If they've had a great timeworking with you, they'll
probably say yes, And they'llprobably leave you a raving
(16:17):
review because they know you'regonna look for it.
On the other hand, if you get anegative review, this is
actually a really goodopportunity for you to talk with
that client and be like, Hey.
What happened?
What can I do?
What can I do to improve yourexperience if there is anything
you can do or what can you learnmoving forward?
So it's a benefit either way tobe asking for feedback from your
clients and don't be embarrassedabout it.
(16:38):
Don't be worried about it.
People typically are happy togive you a little, tiny bit of
feedback.
Especially if it's being apositive experience, especially
if they really enjoyed it.
They're enthralled with saying,oh my God, I love you.
Definitely work in clienttestimonials and client reviews
and client feedback into yourclient services, which will lead
to greater word of mouth.
The other thing that you can dofor word of mouth is this leads
(16:59):
us into our third point playingthe social media game.
I think most of us know this atthis point, that social media is
probably one of the strongestforms of word of mouth that you
can find.
And it's not, always abouthaving the most spectacular
work.
You should be proud of the workthat you put up on social media,
obviously, but it's a lot moreabout being consistent with it
(17:20):
and posting frequently.
Now, I am by no means a socialmedia expert.
I have a very small following.
And it's just not something thatI've put the time dedication
into to building to findclients.
But I will be bringing on asocial media expert who manages
accounts that combine to be over1.5 million followers in the
very near future.
So he's gonna give us a ton oftips and a ton of great advice
(17:43):
for how to grow a following forwhat's working on social right
now and what to look for growingforward.
So watch for that in the verynear future.
If you wanna get into the socialmedia game, it's actually a
fabulous way to find clients,especially via word of mouth.
Now, when I say that, you justneed to be consistent.
There are suggested norms forposting on social media.
Admittedly, they can be reallyhigh if you're working a
full-time job.
You have kids, you have otherhobbies, if you're trying to do
(18:04):
a lot of other things, theamount they expect from you is a
lot.
You don't have to follow that.
You can find a cadence thatworks for you and works for your
audience and slowly build upover time.
Ooh, a Marmot.
Cool.
Those of you who don't knowMarmots are these cute, fluffy,
adorable, mammals who like tohang out in the sun and it's
fabulous.
(18:24):
I'm just walking over anothercreek crossing as we chat here.
So yeah, look into your work.
It doesn't always have to beperfect.
This isn't your portfolio.
Some people will look at it likethat.
This isn't just make sure you'reposting a little more frequently
and getting out there in frontof people.
Alright, we're gonna move onfrom social because I promise
you we're bringing on a personin the near future to talk about
it.
My last tip for you today is onethat is kind of talked about in
(18:47):
marketing spheres, but not asmuch as I feel like it should
be.
And that is to work with othervendors in that industry.
So what that means is that ifyou are a wedding photographer,
you want to go and communicatevenues, hairstylists, wedding
planners you wanna be at weddingshows, doing any of those things
where you will connect withother people.
(19:08):
We're gonna connect with youraudience.
This works pretty much in anyindustry.
It's pretty obvious in thewedding industry how this works,
but honestly, connecting withvendors works.
Everywhere.
Because it's really aboutbuilding relationships.
I know for those of usintroverts, my hand's up right
now for that it can be reallydifficult to do relationship
building and to maintain thoseconnections and those ties.
(19:29):
But it is critical to findingwork.
Because people work with thepeople that they know about.
People work with the people theywant to work with.
So reaching out to vendors in anindustry where you want to be
working is a great way to buildup some relationships.
So vendor relations.
Vendor relations are a lot likeclient relations.
(19:49):
Except you have to be a littlebit more delicate and a little
bit more cognizant of thesituation that they are in.
That's because when you'rebuilding, a client relationship,
that client has approached you.
They want to work with you.
They think that you're the rightperson to be with, and they've
already engaged in aconversation with you.
So they're already what youwould call a warm or a hot lead.
Definitely a hot lead if they'realready working with you.
(20:10):
And a warm lead, if they'resomebody that you're trying to
convince to hire you.
Now when you go to a vendorrelationship, nine times outta
10, you're gonna be approachingsomebody who doesn't know you
and may not know your work, maynot know anything about you
whatsoever.
If you're lucky and you're wellknown in your area, that
definitely helps.
But don't let that hold you offfrom approaching people and
talking to them.
When you're building a vendorrelationship, it's key to keep
(20:31):
in mind what that person's needsare.
In the role I work in I seepeople send me emails or message
me and be like, Hey, I wannawork with you.
This is my work.
That's great.
Let's do something.
And that's it.
It's not a cohesive way to builda relationship.
It doesn't help me understandwhat you can do.
It doesn't help me.
Understand how you can helpfurther the organization that I
(20:55):
work for or provide value to theorganization that I work for.
So the ones that work reallywell, the ones that catch my
interest are the ones thatintroduce themselves, say, where
they're from, the work that theylike from us, and then how they
can help us capture certaintypes of content.
That is by no means a guaranteefor them to be hired by me, but
that definitely helps theirchances.
(21:16):
So I'll put two competing pieceson the table for the way that
I've have been approached as avendor as somebody who somebody
wants to collaborate with tocreate work with.
Person number one sends an emailgoing, Hey, I'm so-and-so.
I'm awesome.
We're coming to Banff in, Ithink it was three days, four
days.
We'd love to work on somethingwith you.
Reach back out.
(21:36):
Thanks.
And that was it.
No link to their work.
No link to anything that they'veproduced in the past.
No idea of what they shoot, howthey shoot who they are,
anything like that.
They just threw out this pieceof information at me and kept
going and felt almost like theypresumed we'd wanna hire them
because yeah, they had a ton offollowers on Instagram.
(21:58):
They had some pretty decent workwhen I dug in and figured out
who they were.
They had worked with a few otherorganizations like the one I
work for.
They might have been a good fit,but the way they emailed me and
the fact they're like, we'recoming in three days.
We need this, this, and this.
If their approach off the batwas demanding things from us,
like hotel rooms and pay and allthese other things, and
demanding it in less than threedays.
(22:20):
Those aren't creators that Ineed to work with.
They're not organized.
They were there to capture whatthey wanted to do and do what
they wanna do, which is great.
When you work with anorganization, you need to take
into account their needs andtheir wants.
There was this huge level ofpresumption.
It's not the right way toapproach somebody, especially
when you're cold calling themand start demanding things from
somebody right off the bat.
(22:41):
Because it's not about you, it'sabout the person you're reaching
out to.
That's critical in thesesituations.
You need to remember that theycome first.
Now, on the flip side of it,there was another email that I
got recently from a localcreator.
They really just wanted to reachout and say, Hey, this is who we
are.
This is the work that we do.
(23:02):
They had not worked with ourorganization before, and they
just wanted to reach out, let usknow what they did, let us know
the work that they had and whatthey specialized in, and how
they think that they could helpus produce content.
There was no demands, noexpectations, no anything like
that.
It was an introduction to theirwork.
And a small idea of what wecould do to work together.
(23:23):
This, to me, is a fabulous wayto introduce yourself.
They actually gave me links totheir work and they told me what
they specialized in.
If you're gonna be working withsome organizations, you need to
let them know how you shoot andwhat it is that you like to
shoot.
So what that means isessentially if you are a action
photographer, tell them that.
If you're a wildlifephotographer, tell them that.
Tell them what you specialize inand why what you specialize in
(23:44):
sets you apart from all theother emails that these
organizations are getting.
All right, one of the othergreat ways that you can actually
set up a vendor relationship isto set up meetings or phone
calls or coffees with somebody.
Most people, if you're in thearea and you're a local, are
happy to sit down and have acoffee when they have time,
especially if they're not payingfor it.
So tell them it's gonna take 15minutes.
(24:05):
You just really wanna talk tothem, get to know them.
Introduce yourself.
No expectations.
You'd love to buy them a coffee.
That's it.
It's really straightforward.
It can be really intimidating todo the first few times.
You will get quite a few no's orno responses.
And you will get a few peoplewho are like, Hey, I honestly
don't have time for that, butit's great to meet you.
Thanks for reaching out.
You know, reach out if you havework ideas, collaboration
projects or anything like that.
(24:26):
A simple little offer of beingwilling to sit down with
somebody for 15 minutes and getto know them personally is a
huge touch to building a vendorrelationship.
And finally, the third way thatI can see that you can build up
a vendor relationship is to runsomething like a headshot party
or a styled shoot.
This one is a lot more timeintensive, takes a lot more
(24:46):
effort on your part, but can behuge.
I've seen it work incrediblywell for some organizations and
for some people.
So a headshot party isessentially, most people need
headshots.
And in a vendor setting, youreally do need, as we cross back
over a creek again you really doneed headshots frequently and
you need to vary them up,especially if you have to be
(25:08):
posting'em on social media orgoing to events and conferences.
It's nice to have a fewdifferent options.
So you could run a headshotparty for vendors in your area.
Make it totally free.
Let everybody come in, book sometime slots, do the headshots
with people, get to know them.
It's 10 minutes for you to shoottheir head shots.
And it's five minutes for you toget to know them.
(25:29):
So you're really just bookingout a bunch of opportunities for
you to show people howprofessional you are, how
fabulous your work is, and howmuch fun you are to work
alongside.
And that should encourage themto wanna be a part of your work
and collaborate with you.
And the other thing that you cando is organize a styled shoot.
So if you have a lot of vendorswho are working in a similar
(25:50):
industry who will need toadvertise themselves, who will
need some photos of their workand them at work, you could
arrange a styled shoot.
These come out of the fashionindustry and the wedding
industry, but really they applyto pretty much any industry.
Where people will need to beadvertising themselves, which
it's pretty much anywhere now.
You're not asking people to giveyou products for free.
(26:11):
What you're asking is that theybring their expertise, bring
their products, bring theirvenue or their space, or
whatever it is that they have tooffer, and at the end you
produce some photos and you giveimages to everybody of their
work.
It's very time intensive oneverybody's parts, but if you
can build up the rightrelationships with people and
then offer them a styled shoot,it's a great way, again, to show
(26:35):
your organizational skills.
To show how awesome you are towork with.
To show how fabulous your workis and to be present and in
front of them while they aredoing their work.
That helps ingrain you intotheir brain as somebody they
wanna do this with again.
As long as you provide fabulousvendor relations and you're
fabulous to work with and you'refun and you're on point that
(26:56):
whole entire day.
High stress, I know, but, youcan do it.
People are a lot easier to workalongside then you would
believe, and the ones who aren'ttypically aren't the people you
wanna be working with anyway.
Now, one of the keys before youset up a styled shoot is to take
time to build up a little bit ofa relationship first before just
reaching out.
If you want to use a particularvenue, reach out to them first.
(27:19):
See if you can go for a tour,see if you can show them some of
your work and then once you havea rapport with the venue manager
or the hotel manager, whoever itis there that does these kind of
bookings, then offer a styledshoot.
There are lots of places thatwill say no.
Because they don't need it.
Hunt for venues that are new,under the radar, just becoming
(27:39):
good places to do, say weddingsor are places that you think
would be amazing and haven'tbeen utilized yet.
It is a tall task but totallydoable.
Now you're going to wanna thinkof vendors who interact with
your audience and who have anice symbiosis with you and your
work.
Do lots of research, figure outwhat those places are, and then
(28:02):
start reaching out.
And if you know that you have aconnection with somebody in that
community, or you know, you havea connection with somebody who
works in a place, Definitely usethose connections that you have
or those relationships thatyou've built up in the past.
It can be remarkable.
Who knows who knows who, andwhere you can get to and get in
front of somebody or get anemail to somebody who you never
would've expected.
(28:22):
So give it a shot.
Build up your vendorrelationships and they will
start recommending you to eitherother vendors or ideally to the
clients you wanna work with.
Now, of course, there's allsorts of other things that you
can be doing.
There's websites with properSEO, and proper back links and
all that good stuff.
There's trade shows, there'sputting your work up on display
in public locations, so coffeeshops, galleries, wherever your
(28:46):
work fits in really well.
And then there's getting out andtalking to people when you're on
the trail or when you'retraveling and just saying hi and
you never know who you might runinto or who you might introduce
yourself to, that things justplay out in a beautiful manner.
And I know that's reallydifficult, but we are in a
service industry.
We need people to want to workwith us.
(29:07):
We need people to like our workand we need people to enjoy
working with us.
All right, folks.
That's it.
That is all.
I hope you enjoyed the first ofour real hiking, exploring
podcasts.
See how it goes and yeah, if youhated this, definitely let me
know if you have any feedback atall.
Definitely reach out.
(29:27):
I'm always open toconversations.
If you have more questions, ifyou have thoughts or an episode
you wanna hear something about,let me know.
I'd love to be able to answerany questions that I can or find
the right person to come onboard.
And thanks so much.
Reach out to me on Instagram atRobert Massey Photography or on
my website atrobertmasseyphotography.ca.
Thank you so much for takingsome time to listen.
(29:48):
I really do truly appreciate it.
Have a fabulous day everybody.
Bye for now.
How's it going everybody?
Welcome back.
Welcome back.
Welcome back.
I'm Robert Massey.
This is the Travel and AdventurePhotography School.
Thanks so much for taking a fewminutes to join me on the trail
this morning.
Like I promised, we're gonna beout adventuring while we do some
of these episodes and today weare on our way to Helen Lake,
maybe up to Cirque Peak,depending how often I stop to
(00:22):
shoot.
I'm a little bit later thismorning than I normally like to
be.
Primarily just sunrise was sobeautiful as I was leaving Banff
this morning that I had to stopand go back down to Vermilion
Lakes and take some photos.
Those conditions I've neverwitnessed at sunrise.
I've seen lots of photos of it,but I've never seen it.
And so I had to go and shoot.
There was fog just everywherecoming up out of Vermilion Lakes
(00:43):
and Mount Rundle was beautiful,but also clouded in and misty.
It was stunning.
And so I actually ended upspending my first three hours of
my morning there filling thecards I brought with me for the
walk today.
So, getting out on the trail alittle bit later than I'd like.
But we're here, we'readventuring, we're having fun.
And for a Saturday, it's been apretty good day so far.
(01:04):
Alright, so today I wanted totalk about something I've
actually had a lot of peoplemessage me about something that
a lot of the creative communityin Banff, we frequently talk
about and it's how to find work.
If you are looking at becoming aprofessional photographer of any
form, whether it's a travel oneoutdoor adventure photographer,
weddings, couples, portraits,brand, whatever.
(01:25):
It really doesn't matter.
These tips about finding workare applicable to everybody.
So, yeah, let's do this thing.
Apologies going up some steeptrails and, you're definitely
gonna hear some heavier breathevery once in a while on this
one.
All right, so first off, findingclients, finding work, finding a
(01:46):
way to push yourself into noteven doing this professionally,
but maybe just making a littlebit more money off of the
photographs you like to take, oroff the videos you like to take,
these tips really apply acrossthe board for creators, there's
very few things that are justspecific to photography.
The first thing I wanna talkabout is the way most people
tend to start getting theirfirst gigs, and that's being
(02:06):
asked to shoot something forexposure.
Now the idea of shootingsomething for exposure is
somebody who comes to you with abig following.
Somebody comes to you with a bigevent where there's gonna be
lots of people and they say,Hey, look, we're gonna do this
thing.
Will you do it for free?
Like, we'll post your photos andtag you.
That's the idea of doingsomething for exposure.
Now, I hate saying don't ever dosomething.
(02:28):
The world is much more gray thanit is black and white.
So you'll hear a lot ofphotographers just cut this off
and say, no, you don't do this.
And I disagree with thatentirely.
I think that there are times andplaces where you want to do
something for exposure or forfree.
Because there are instanceswhere that's gonna pop up.
(02:49):
So the reasons why you wouldn'twanna do something for exposure.
Somebody comes to you and theysay, Hey, will you do this?
They have a big following orthey're having this big event,
you might not wanna say yes to'em because the people who are
gonna be there aren't yourtarget clientele.
They're not people who are goingto purchase your work or
appreciate it.
For example, if you really wantto do travel and outdoor work
and somebody's asking you tocome in and shoot, brand photos
(03:10):
for a hair product company forfree, that doesn't really align
with the people who are going tolook to hire you.
So in that case, the exposuredoesn't actually mean anything.
These aren't people who aregoing to appreciate the work
that you do, and it alsoprobably won't represent the
type of work that you'd like todo.
Don't move forward with that.
The other instances are peoplewho are doing that they're
typically people who aren'tgoing to appreciate the value of
(03:30):
photography.
So these are people who willexpect things for free or expect
little changes or more photos orjust lots of things where they
won't respect your talent as anartist.
And so do you really want to getinvolved in that kind of a
situation?
And then even if you say like,I'll do this one for free, but
the next one we get paid,they'll probably just go to
another person.
They probably won't even comeback to you to work with you.
(03:52):
Or if they do, they'll expectyou to do it for free and be
like, oh, but you did thisbefore for free.
So setting a bad precedent foryourself.
Do something for free and thenthey'll kind of expect it from
you in the future.
The other reason is it actuallyaffects everybody else in this
industry.
Doing something for free isgoing to severely impact
everybody else's ability to makemoney.
(04:13):
It's really difficult to showpeople the value in photography
or in creative work in generalsometimes.
By doing something for free,that person's going to expect
more artists to do things forfree.
And then you're just driving theentire industry down into a race
to the bottom.
Think about that very carefully.
Think about how it affects theother creators around you and
how it affects your futureprospects for work.
(04:34):
Alright.
That being said, there arereasons and times you would do
some work for free.
The main one is because youwanna give back, this is the
best opportunity, the best timethat I can see for doing
something for free for someone.
So let's say that there is anot-for-profit that you love,
you love the work that they do,you're really involved, you're
invested in them, or they'rereally involved and invested in
(04:57):
the community of clientele thatyou would like to work with.
Let's say it's a trail buildersassociation and you're an
outdoor and adventurephotographer.
Trail builders are incrediblyimportant people who maintain
our trails.
They're the ones who maintainthese beautiful places for us.
So in that case, the people whoare gonna see the photos, the
people who you're gonna workwith on those photos are people
who are going to like your typeof work.
(05:17):
It's probably gonna representwhere you want be and how you
work and the type of work youwant to create, and you get to
give back to an organization whogives so much to the outdoors
community.
In a situation like that.
Go ahead, do the work for free,do it for exposure.
Now that being said, if anot-for-profit comes to you, And
they're not somebody youidentify with.
(05:38):
They're not a group or anorganization whose work you
believe in or care about, orthey don't match your target
clientele.
You can always say no, you don'thave to do everything that a
not-for-profit asks you to do.
But if you align with it,definitely think carefully about
it.
Another instance where you'reprobably gonna want to think
really carefully about if youwanna do work for free or not is
if a brand does step up and askyou to do something and they are
(06:01):
exactly who you wanna work with.
Now, this becomes a very diceysituation very quickly.
'Cause you're settingexpectations with that brand and
it's really hard to maintain theexpectation of getting paid or
at least getting paid asubstantial amount of money for
shoots if you give your firstone away to them for free.
But if you've always wanted towork with them, if their
(06:23):
audience is exactly who youwanna work for, not kind of, not
maybe, not look how many people,exactly the people you're
looking for, then maybe considera small partnership with them.
Now, you can structure thatpartnership in a ton of
different ways, but the way I'dsuggest doing it is not doing a
full shoot for free.
You could do a mini session.
(06:43):
You could do just some brandphotos.
You could do a quick 30 minutesession with them, something
that's going to allow you toshow off your work, but also not
give away everything.
Other thing you can do, is ifthey reach out to you saying,
Hey, we'll do this for you forexposure.
Try and arrange maybe two orthree shoots with them.
So tell'em what your typicalrate would be and then go.
But you know what?
(07:04):
If we can arrange three shoots,we can do buy two shoots, get
one free kind of deal.
You're still discountingyourself.
You're still doing work forfree, and you're still setting a
precedent.
But if you negotiate thatconversation carefully, it could
be a good way to build arelationship and a rapport with
them, and if they like yourwork, who knows going forwards.
But be very careful in thatconversation.
(07:25):
Whew, sorry about the heavybreathing here.
Just definitely going up a steepsection of the trail here.
So there's one other instancewhere you're gonna wanna work
for exposure and you're actuallygonna see a lot of photographers
and a lot of creatives doingthis and doing like work for
free, doing work for exposure.
Even the ones who say never doit, but they're gonna do it in
this instance.
(07:45):
And it's, if you're part of agiveaway, if it's part of silent
auction or charity auction.
You are gonna find that there'sinstances where it's a really
good idea to actually take onthose kind of projects.
Especially if you're trying toestablish yourself.
Even if you are fairlyestablished, it looks really
good if you say, give a print,give a mini session to people,
(08:06):
to a charity auction, to anot-for-profit.
It's a good way to give back tothe community.
So similar ideas.
The first one, doing the workfor free, for not-for-profits or
charities.
This is something very similar,is if the audience matches, if
the organization matches.
Definitely feel free to giveyour work in that case.
Or if you wanna partner withother brands who are within the
(08:28):
same sphere as the audience youwanna work with.
Recently the photographyaccessory company Lume Cube
actually ran this kind of agiveaway where they gave away
some of their gear, other peoplegot involved and gave away some
of their gear as well.
And a local photographer inBanff actually gave away I
believe it was a mentoringsession or a spot at one of his
workshops, and that's worth afew thousand dollars.
(08:48):
But it got his name out there infront of a very large group of
people who are exactly the typeof folks who will love his work,
buy his prints, come to hisworkshops.
So minor little investment inhis marketing to be able to
reach a ton of people in histarget audience.
I believe he's also a Lume Cubesponsored photographer, so might
(09:08):
have had a contractualobligation in there as well.
But it gives you an idea of howpeople can use those kind of
instances to give away work forfree, but gain a lot out of
doing it.
So, like I said, off the hop,never just cut something off
automatically.
Never say never right off thebat.
Because there are instanceswhere doing exposure work is a
really good idea.
Now there is one other versionof doing work for free that
(09:30):
isn't actually for exposure.
I feel like this is a reallygood time to throw it in here,
and it's you choosing to do thatwork and approaching people to
do it.
So these are basically portfoliobuilders or giving samples to
people who, you know, areinfluential in the community
you're trying to work with.
For example, I am working onbuilding up a bit of a better
(09:51):
adventure portfolio right now.
I have lots of hiking,landscapes, lots of brand work,
lots of stuff on pretty simple,straightforward trails, but I
don't have a lot of mountainbiking, a lot of rock climbing.
I don't have a lot of those,like higher end adventurey kinda
sports.
'Cause when I do them I'mtypically very, very focused on
not getting hurt.
So I'm working with people who Iknow to go out and do styled
(10:12):
shoots with them.
By working on styled shoots withfolks who I know folks who might
be influential in the community,they have friends who like to do
these kind of things.
If they see the work and theylike the work, there's a lot of
other people who will come andwork with me as well.
Plus I have more images to beable to show to potential
clients to show I actually knowwhat I'm doing.
(10:33):
Portfolio building is a greattime to do some free work, but
should be done on your termswith clients that you like,
clients that you want to workwith.
Don't just take to build yourportfolio for free.
Do them intentionally and buildthem out yourself.
This will teach yousignificantly more than just
showing up and doing the workthat someone else wants done.
(10:53):
'Cause you actually have tothink about building out the
creative side for yourself, andthat's a huge part about being a
professional photographer or aprofessional, creative for that
matter.
So just make sure you're workingwith the right people, the right
audience and working to buildthings in your portfolio that
you actually need to build upand build work into.
Alright, that works really wellinto point number two, which is,
(11:15):
word of mouth.
This is the classic, the stapleof marketing, the age old one.
Word of mouth is still the mosttrusted way that people decide
on a product, decide on whothey're gonna work with, decide
on if they want to actually dosomething.
We still rely on word of mouthand we always will I think as
humans.
(11:36):
That's because we trust otherpeople who have gone through
those experiences, and we wannaknow a confirmation that they
liked what they did, they likedwho they worked with, they liked
the product.
So think about it, word of mouthis no longer just people talking
to each other and chitchattingabout products they like.
It's a lot bigger than that.
People talking one-on-one at theoffice, over messages and chats
(11:58):
and things like that is still acomponent of word of mouth.
But now you also have a largeonline space where people are
passing along information aboutyou and your product.
So this can include clienttestimonials that are up on your
website.
This can include reviews, whichhopefully have a lot of very
positive ones, and a lot ofthose client testimonials are in
there.
This can include large scalereviews like bloggers or
(12:21):
podcasters or anybody like that,talking about you, talking about
your products without you beingthere.
And this can also includeinformation on message boards.
So somebody looking for feedbackfrom the internet about you,
about working with you aboutpretty much anything.
So think Reddit, TripAdvisoreven Instagram and Twitter to a
degree.
And so word of mouth is criticalto you gaining recognition as a
(12:44):
photographer.
And actually it's one of themain ways that a lot of old
school photographers still getwork.
So there's some of the world'sbest, most famous photographers
who work consistently, make aton of money at it and have
literally zero following onsocial media.
They're not playing the socialmedia game.
They are living off the word ofmouth of their great work.
There's a number of adventurephotographers who work for
(13:06):
companies like Arc'teryk, theNorth Face, Patagonia,Red Bull,
like you name it.
They've worked with them andthey have two or 300 followers
on Instagram.
They have zero presence really.
Their website and theirInstagram and their social just
isn't there because they don'tneed it.
Guaranteed.
You've seen some of these guyswork and you probably don't
follow them.
You probably don't evenrecognize their name.
(13:26):
And that's because within theindustry, they have such a good
rep, they have such good word ofmouth amongst people that
matters that they get work.
So all that being said, how doyou actually gain some word of
mouth from people?
How do you actually get peopleto trust you enough to tell
other people that you're a goodperson to work with?
Now, there's a lot of ways to goabout that.
There's the obvious ones of goget some work.
(13:49):
Do really, really well at it.
Focus a lot, not just on theimages, but on the client
relations side as well.
So take care of that person thatyou're working with.
Take care of the people that youare messaging with, communicate
lots, create great work, have agreat time on set.
Give them the products theywant.
Under promise and over deliver.
Really make them feel specialand loved.
(14:11):
And, that will gain you a hugeclient.
Your work could be not quite asgood as other people's, but your
client relations are spectacularand that in and of itself will
make them feel like your work isbetter because they enjoy the
experience more.
So don't negate the clientexperience just to create good
images.
I've worked with photographersthat I will probably never hire
(14:32):
again and has nothing to do withtheir work.
Actually.
It has everything to do with thefact that the caliber of their
work didn't outweigh that theyweren't a pleasant human to work
with.
They were hard to communicatewith.
We took a long time to getimages.
We just really ran into a fewbig barriers on working with
them.
So yeah, focus on your clientrelations and you will find that
you'll get a lot of work and alot of word of mouth, because
(14:54):
people wanna work with people,they enjoy being around.
People wanna work with goodpeople, and if you make yourself
a good person and you have goodwork, you'll become invaluable.
There's a few photographers andvideographers and other
creatives who I keep going backto because their work is
spectacular, but they're justgood people to be on set with.
They're just good people tocommunicate with and they care
(15:15):
deeply about everything thatthey do.
And their reference came to mevia word of mouth.
So make sure that your clientrelations are on point, and one
of the best ways you can do thisis to actually ask.
You should be able to get clienttestimonials and good client
testimonials.
So building up your Googlereviews, super important for
word of mouth, building up yourown testimonials on your
(15:36):
website.
Not quite as great as reviews,but also really good for
building up trust.
If someone is willing to giveyou a positive review, then you
know you've done a good job.
But even more than that, peoplewho have had a positive
experience working with youdon't typically remember to
spread good news.
A lot of reviews are really doneby people who want people to be
aware of a situation.
(15:56):
They didn't enjoy something,something didn't go right.
But if you work on your clientrelations and you make sure that
part of that is telling people,Hey, if you had a great time,
even if you didn't have a greattime, can you leave me a review?
Can you go to Google and put areview in here?
And are you okay if I use thattestimonial on my website?
If they've had a great timeworking with you, they'll
probably say yes, And they'llprobably leave you a raving
(16:17):
review because they know you'regonna look for it.
On the other hand, if you get anegative review, this is
actually a really goodopportunity for you to talk with
that client and be like, Hey.
What happened?
What can I do?
What can I do to improve yourexperience if there is anything
you can do or what can you learnmoving forward?
So it's a benefit either way tobe asking for feedback from your
clients and don't be embarrassedabout it.
(16:38):
Don't be worried about it.
People typically are happy togive you a little, tiny bit of
feedback.
Especially if it's being apositive experience, especially
if they really enjoyed it.
They're enthralled with saying,oh my God, I love you.
Definitely work in clienttestimonials and client reviews
and client feedback into yourclient services, which will lead
to greater word of mouth.
The other thing that you can dofor word of mouth is this leads
(16:59):
us into our third point playingthe social media game.
I think most of us know this atthis point, that social media is
probably one of the strongestforms of word of mouth that you
can find.
And it's not, always abouthaving the most spectacular
work.
You should be proud of the workthat you put up on social media,
obviously, but it's a lot moreabout being consistent with it
(17:20):
and posting frequently.
Now, I am by no means a socialmedia expert.
I have a very small following.
And it's just not something thatI've put the time dedication
into to building to findclients.
But I will be bringing on asocial media expert who manages
accounts that combine to be over1.5 million followers in the
very near future.
So he's gonna give us a ton oftips and a ton of great advice
(17:43):
for how to grow a following forwhat's working on social right
now and what to look for growingforward.
So watch for that in the verynear future.
If you wanna get into the socialmedia game, it's actually a
fabulous way to find clients,especially via word of mouth.
Now, when I say that, you justneed to be consistent.
There are suggested norms forposting on social media.
Admittedly, they can be reallyhigh if you're working a
full-time job.
You have kids, you have otherhobbies, if you're trying to do
(18:04):
a lot of other things, theamount they expect from you is a
lot.
You don't have to follow that.
You can find a cadence thatworks for you and works for your
audience and slowly build upover time.
Ooh, a Marmot.
Cool.
Those of you who don't knowMarmots are these cute, fluffy,
adorable, mammals who like tohang out in the sun and it's
fabulous.
(18:24):
I'm just walking over anothercreek crossing as we chat here.
So yeah, look into your work.
It doesn't always have to beperfect.
This isn't your portfolio.
Some people will look at it likethat.
This isn't just make sure you'reposting a little more frequently
and getting out there in frontof people.
Alright, we're gonna move onfrom social because I promise
you we're bringing on a personin the near future to talk about
it.
My last tip for you today is onethat is kind of talked about in
(18:47):
marketing spheres, but not asmuch as I feel like it should
be.
And that is to work with othervendors in that industry.
So what that means is that ifyou are a wedding photographer,
you want to go and communicatevenues, hairstylists, wedding
planners you wanna be at weddingshows, doing any of those things
where you will connect withother people.
(19:08):
We're gonna connect with youraudience.
This works pretty much in anyindustry.
It's pretty obvious in thewedding industry how this works,
but honestly, connecting withvendors works.
Everywhere.
Because it's really aboutbuilding relationships.
I know for those of usintroverts, my hand's up right
now for that it can be reallydifficult to do relationship
building and to maintain thoseconnections and those ties.
(19:29):
But it is critical to findingwork.
Because people work with thepeople that they know about.
People work with the people theywant to work with.
So reaching out to vendors in anindustry where you want to be
working is a great way to buildup some relationships.
So vendor relations.
Vendor relations are a lot likeclient relations.
(19:49):
Except you have to be a littlebit more delicate and a little
bit more cognizant of thesituation that they are in.
That's because when you'rebuilding, a client relationship,
that client has approached you.
They want to work with you.
They think that you're the rightperson to be with, and they've
already engaged in aconversation with you.
So they're already what youwould call a warm or a hot lead.
Definitely a hot lead if they'realready working with you.
(20:10):
And a warm lead, if they'resomebody that you're trying to
convince to hire you.
Now when you go to a vendorrelationship, nine times outta
10, you're gonna be approachingsomebody who doesn't know you
and may not know your work, maynot know anything about you
whatsoever.
If you're lucky and you're wellknown in your area, that
definitely helps.
But don't let that hold you offfrom approaching people and
talking to them.
When you're building a vendorrelationship, it's key to keep
(20:31):
in mind what that person's needsare.
In the role I work in I seepeople send me emails or message
me and be like, Hey, I wannawork with you.
This is my work.
That's great.
Let's do something.
And that's it.
It's not a cohesive way to builda relationship.
It doesn't help me understandwhat you can do.
It doesn't help me.
Understand how you can helpfurther the organization that I
(20:55):
work for or provide value to theorganization that I work for.
So the ones that work reallywell, the ones that catch my
interest are the ones thatintroduce themselves, say, where
they're from, the work that theylike from us, and then how they
can help us capture certaintypes of content.
That is by no means a guaranteefor them to be hired by me, but
that definitely helps theirchances.
(21:16):
So I'll put two competing pieceson the table for the way that
I've have been approached as avendor as somebody who somebody
wants to collaborate with tocreate work with.
Person number one sends an emailgoing, Hey, I'm so-and-so.
I'm awesome.
We're coming to Banff in, Ithink it was three days, four
days.
We'd love to work on somethingwith you.
Reach back out.
(21:36):
Thanks.
And that was it.
No link to their work.
No link to anything that they'veproduced in the past.
No idea of what they shoot, howthey shoot who they are,
anything like that.
They just threw out this pieceof information at me and kept
going and felt almost like theypresumed we'd wanna hire them
because yeah, they had a ton offollowers on Instagram.
(21:58):
They had some pretty decent workwhen I dug in and figured out
who they were.
They had worked with a few otherorganizations like the one I
work for.
They might have been a good fit,but the way they emailed me and
the fact they're like, we'recoming in three days.
We need this, this, and this.
If their approach off the batwas demanding things from us,
like hotel rooms and pay and allthese other things, and
demanding it in less than threedays.
(22:20):
Those aren't creators that Ineed to work with.
They're not organized.
They were there to capture whatthey wanted to do and do what
they wanna do, which is great.
When you work with anorganization, you need to take
into account their needs andtheir wants.
There was this huge level ofpresumption.
It's not the right way toapproach somebody, especially
when you're cold calling themand start demanding things from
somebody right off the bat.
(22:41):
Because it's not about you, it'sabout the person you're reaching
out to.
That's critical in thesesituations.
You need to remember that theycome first.
Now, on the flip side of it,there was another email that I
got recently from a localcreator.
They really just wanted to reachout and say, Hey, this is who we
are.
This is the work that we do.
(23:02):
They had not worked with ourorganization before, and they
just wanted to reach out, let usknow what they did, let us know
the work that they had and whatthey specialized in, and how
they think that they could helpus produce content.
There was no demands, noexpectations, no anything like
that.
It was an introduction to theirwork.
And a small idea of what wecould do to work together.
(23:23):
This, to me, is a fabulous wayto introduce yourself.
They actually gave me links totheir work and they told me what
they specialized in.
If you're gonna be working withsome organizations, you need to
let them know how you shoot andwhat it is that you like to
shoot.
So what that means isessentially if you are a action
photographer, tell them that.
If you're a wildlifephotographer, tell them that.
Tell them what you specialize inand why what you specialize in
(23:44):
sets you apart from all theother emails that these
organizations are getting.
All right, one of the othergreat ways that you can actually
set up a vendor relationship isto set up meetings or phone
calls or coffees with somebody.
Most people, if you're in thearea and you're a local, are
happy to sit down and have acoffee when they have time,
especially if they're not payingfor it.
So tell them it's gonna take 15minutes.
(24:05):
You just really wanna talk tothem, get to know them.
Introduce yourself.
No expectations.
You'd love to buy them a coffee.
That's it.
It's really straightforward.
It can be really intimidating todo the first few times.
You will get quite a few no's orno responses.
And you will get a few peoplewho are like, Hey, I honestly
don't have time for that, butit's great to meet you.
Thanks for reaching out.
You know, reach out if you havework ideas, collaboration
projects or anything like that.
(24:26):
A simple little offer of beingwilling to sit down with
somebody for 15 minutes and getto know them personally is a
huge touch to building a vendorrelationship.
And finally, the third way thatI can see that you can build up
a vendor relationship is to runsomething like a headshot party
or a styled shoot.
This one is a lot more timeintensive, takes a lot more
(24:46):
effort on your part, but can behuge.
I've seen it work incrediblywell for some organizations and
for some people.
So a headshot party isessentially, most people need
headshots.
And in a vendor setting, youreally do need, as we cross back
over a creek again you really doneed headshots frequently and
you need to vary them up,especially if you have to be
(25:08):
posting'em on social media orgoing to events and conferences.
It's nice to have a fewdifferent options.
So you could run a headshotparty for vendors in your area.
Make it totally free.
Let everybody come in, book sometime slots, do the headshots
with people, get to know them.
It's 10 minutes for you to shoottheir head shots.
And it's five minutes for you toget to know them.
(25:29):
So you're really just bookingout a bunch of opportunities for
you to show people howprofessional you are, how
fabulous your work is, and howmuch fun you are to work
alongside.
And that should encourage themto wanna be a part of your work
and collaborate with you.
And the other thing that you cando is organize a styled shoot.
So if you have a lot of vendorswho are working in a similar
(25:50):
industry who will need toadvertise themselves, who will
need some photos of their workand them at work, you could
arrange a styled shoot.
These come out of the fashionindustry and the wedding
industry, but really they applyto pretty much any industry.
Where people will need to beadvertising themselves, which
it's pretty much anywhere now.
You're not asking people to giveyou products for free.
(26:11):
What you're asking is that theybring their expertise, bring
their products, bring theirvenue or their space, or
whatever it is that they have tooffer, and at the end you
produce some photos and you giveimages to everybody of their
work.
It's very time intensive oneverybody's parts, but if you
can build up the rightrelationships with people and
then offer them a styled shoot,it's a great way, again, to show
(26:35):
your organizational skills.
To show how awesome you are towork with.
To show how fabulous your workis and to be present and in
front of them while they aredoing their work.
That helps ingrain you intotheir brain as somebody they
wanna do this with again.
As long as you provide fabulousvendor relations and you're
fabulous to work with and you'refun and you're on point that
(26:56):
whole entire day.
High stress, I know, but, youcan do it.
People are a lot easier to workalongside then you would
believe, and the ones who aren'ttypically aren't the people you
wanna be working with anyway.
Now, one of the keys before youset up a styled shoot is to take
time to build up a little bit ofa relationship first before just
reaching out.
If you want to use a particularvenue, reach out to them first.
(27:19):
See if you can go for a tour,see if you can show them some of
your work and then once you havea rapport with the venue manager
or the hotel manager, whoever itis there that does these kind of
bookings, then offer a styledshoot.
There are lots of places thatwill say no.
Because they don't need it.
Hunt for venues that are new,under the radar, just becoming
(27:39):
good places to do, say weddingsor are places that you think
would be amazing and haven'tbeen utilized yet.
It is a tall task but totallydoable.
Now you're going to wanna thinkof vendors who interact with
your audience and who have anice symbiosis with you and your
work.
Do lots of research, figure outwhat those places are, and then
(28:02):
start reaching out.
And if you know that you have aconnection with somebody in that
community, or you know, you havea connection with somebody who
works in a place, Definitely usethose connections that you have
or those relationships thatyou've built up in the past.
It can be remarkable.
Who knows who knows who, andwhere you can get to and get in
front of somebody or get anemail to somebody who you never
would've expected.
(28:22):
So give it a shot.
Build up your vendorrelationships and they will
start recommending you to eitherother vendors or ideally to the
clients you wanna work with.
Now, of course, there's allsorts of other things that you
can be doing.
There's websites with properSEO, and proper back links and
all that good stuff.
There's trade shows, there'sputting your work up on display
in public locations, so coffeeshops, galleries, wherever your
(28:46):
work fits in really well.
And then there's getting out andtalking to people when you're on
the trail or when you'retraveling and just saying hi and
you never know who you might runinto or who you might introduce
yourself to, that things justplay out in a beautiful manner.
And I know that's reallydifficult, but we are in a
service industry.
We need people to want to workwith us.
(29:07):
We need people to like our workand we need people to enjoy
working with us.
All right, folks.
That's it.
That is all.
I hope you enjoyed the first ofour real hiking, exploring
podcasts.
See how it goes and yeah, if youhated this, definitely let me
know if you have any feedback atall.
Definitely reach out.
(29:27):
I'm always open toconversations.
If you have more questions, ifyou have thoughts or an episode
you wanna hear something about,let me know.
I'd love to be able to answerany questions that I can or find
the right person to come onboard.
And thanks so much.
Reach out to me on Instagram atRobert Massey Photography or on
my website atrobertmasseyphotography.ca.
Thank you so much for takingsome time to listen.
(29:48):
I really do truly appreciate it.
Have a fabulous day everybody.
Bye for now.
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