Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Tried and
True with the Dash of Woo, where
we blend rock-solid tips with alittle bit of magic.
I'm Renee Bowen, your host,life and business coach and
professional photographer atyour service.
We are all about gettingcreative, diving into your
business and playing withmanifestation over here.
So are you ready to getinspired and have some fun?
Let's dive in.
Hey, hey, welcome back toanother episode of Tried and
(00:27):
True with a dash of woo.
I am your host, renee Bowen,and today we're diving into
something that I think a lot ofyou guys are going to relate to,
especially if you are acreative, a photographer or just
a human who has ever feltuncomfortable with the idea of
promoting yourself.
So, yeah, I'm talking to you.
People pleasers out there.
This one's for you Now.
I'm talking to you peoplepleasers out there.
This one's for you Now.
I'm going to tell you reallyquickly that I have tried to
(00:50):
record this episode once and mymic would not connect.
So I'm going to try and do thisrapid fire all the way through
without any cuts, because nowI'm down to the wire on getting
the podcast out.
So hopefully this is going towork this time.
I want to keep this episodeshort anyway, and super
actionable.
We're going to explore theconnection between
(01:12):
people-pleasing behavior, theunconscious programming that
lies beneath it, and how thisimpacts our ability or inability
to market ourselvesauthentically and confidently.
And by the end of this episode,I want you to walk away with
both the mindset shifts and somepractical strategies to start
flipping this script, becausethis is really one of the
(01:33):
biggest barriers holding youback from thriving in your
creative business, and you aregoing to want to stick around,
because I am not just talkingabout mindset here.
You know that I like to talkabout both sides of this coin,
right the mindset, the woo andalso the strategy.
So I'm going to be walking youthrough some email strategies
that you can use and also someAI strategies, so AI prompts to
(01:57):
help you with your email game.
And this is all going to makesense in just a few minutes.
But let's dive in to peoplepleasing right off the bat.
We all know what it looks like.
It's bending over backwards tomake everybody happy, feeling
uncomfortable with settingboundaries, avoiding anything
that might make you seem toomuch.
It's being overly polite.
It's being available to yourclients at all times of the day
(02:21):
and night, underpricing yourselfor worrying that if you market
your services, somebody mightthink that you are pushy and
slimy, but the truth is is thatpeople pleasing is rooted in
deep, unconscious programming.
So somewhere along the way, alot of us, especially women,
picked up the belief that ourvalue is determined by how much
that we can do for other people,how agreeable we can be.
(02:44):
And here's where it impacts youas a creative.
When we prioritize pleasingother people over our own growth
, our own voice, our own needs,we fall into this cycle of
under-marketing ourselves andjust sweeping that under the rug
.
And then we wonder why we don'thave any clients.
We hesitate to talk about whatwe do, to showcase our value and
(03:08):
to sell, because it all feelsjust really icky, because, deep
down, we don't want to makeanybody uncomfortable.
Okay, but let me ask you thisHow's that working for you?
So the first step is reallyawareness and I want you to ask
yourself where do you notice thepeople-pleasing tendencies
coming up when it comes to yourmarketing specifically?
(03:29):
Is it in your pricing as well?
Is it in hesitating to send anemail to your list?
Is it hesitating marketing ingeneral?
Maybe it's avoiding creating asales post because you worry
about what people are going tosay, or if they're going to roll
your eyes or think that you'rejust being really weird.
Whatever, understanding wherethese beliefs come from is
(03:49):
really the first step todismantling them, because that
discomfort, that's the ceiling,that's what's keeping you from
you being your highest self,from your fullest potential,
reaching your fullest potential.
So let's break free from allthat.
Okay, I want you to do a quicklittle mindset exercise with me
here and just imagine for asecond that marketing your
(04:10):
photography business isn't aboutpushing something onto others.
What if, instead, it was justan invitation?
What if the work that you putout there, your emails, your
social posts, what if the workthat you put out there, your
emails, your social posts, wereall opportunities for somebody
who really needs what you do,your art, your services, to find
(04:33):
you right?
Because, let me tell you,there's people out there who are
really looking for activelylooking for what you have to
offer, and they need you to tellthem that you exist.
Because, chances are, you don'thave a PR team, you don't have
a marketing team.
Chances are, you are asolopreneur, like most of us, so
you do need to be the onesaying it.
(04:54):
It's not sleazy, it's service,and here's a strategy that you
can use right away.
I want you to practice reframingself-promotion into sharing.
Just share, okay, you aren'tselling.
You're sharing your passion.
You're sharing your talent,sharing your ability to serve
other people with your creativegifts that only you can do.
(05:16):
It's not about begging forattention, it's about connecting
.
That's it.
And yes, digging deep into thisis important.
This is one of the main thingsthat I do inside of my coaching,
one-on-one and groups.
We talk about this a lot.
Okay, it comes up.
It shows up in a lot ofdifferent things, so I do
encourage you to dig deeper.
If you are dealing withpeople-pleasing stuff like if
(05:37):
you see the signs of some of thethings that I just talked about
if you are doing those thingsand you feel bad for charging
people, you feel bad for sendingan invoice, you feel bad for
raising your prices for pastclients who you shot years ago
and now you have to raise yourprices, and you feel bad for
doing it.
If any of those things arisefor you as well.
(06:00):
As, are you letting yourclients run the show?
Are they texting you at allhours of the night?
Are they running the session?
Are they running the salessession?
That's all rooted in peoplepleasing and there's a reason
why it's happening.
It's really just yourunconscious mind running a
program.
That's it.
It was just running a programthat it was installed years ago,
(06:21):
probably as a child, againstyour will, wasn't your fault,
you just sucked in informationand that's how it got in there
and it's now stuck.
So it's up to you to look at itand decide whether you want to
continue running that script ornot, because you definitely have
the power to reprogram it.
Okay, just like a computer, youcan go in there and rewrite
that code.
(06:41):
So that's what I talk abouthere on this podcast a lot.
There's many different ways todo that.
Lots and lots of different waysto do it, and you got to find
what works for you.
But today I really want to coversome practical marketing moves
for you guys, because I feellike that's the other side of
this that a lot of you guysaren't really doing, and so when
(07:02):
you are actively coming fromoperating from this place of
people pleasing, one of the mainthings that drops off your
marketing game is your emails.
Right, you feel really bad forsending a lot of emails to your
list, or any emails, because youdon't want to put people off or
, you know, bother them Okay,but we need to have a come to
(07:24):
Jesus moment about that.
I hear from a lot ofphotographers who are stuck
because they feel like marketingis just like this overwhelming
beast, especially with socialmedia.
Right, you're inundated with itand having to be all the places
all the time.
But if you have a really goodemail game going and you're
consistently emailing your list,that's going to take a lot of
(07:47):
the lifting off of the socialmedia game.
You don't have to do as muchsocial media marketing.
Yes, you do need to do it.
It has to be supportive of itbut your emails really should be
doing a lot of this work foryou and it's not that hard.
So let's break it down and talkabout the ins and outs of this.
And before you groan and tellme things like nobody reads
(08:10):
emails anymore, I'm going tojust stop you right there,
because it's not true.
You can pull up tons and tonsof stats to the contrary.
Okay, so that's not the case.
Sending regular emails to yourlist is the best way to warm up
your target clients, but how doyou even get people on your list
(08:30):
in the first place?
Okay, so that's what I want totalk about first.
I want to talk about creatingsomething of value.
Maybe it's a short PDF or avideo we're going to talk about
some specifics in a second butideally you want to pick a lead
magnet that is something thatspeaks to the people you want to
attract.
You got to give them a reasonto hand over that email because
(08:53):
it's valuable.
You're exchanging somethingvaluable their email for
something valuable from you, andyou don't want it to just be
something basic like what towear for your photo shoot, like
everybody does that.
So today we're going to betalking about something a little
bit more interesting, andhere's the other part that's
crucial.
Okay, you can't disappear afteryou send that initial email
(09:15):
when they join your list.
You have to then nurture themand you have to show up
regularly, and it doesn't haveto be groundbreaking stuff every
time.
Right, we're going to talkabout some out of the box ideas
for lead magnets that you candraw people in and then also are
going to help you with your SEO.
But before we go into that,really quickly, I just want to
(09:36):
mention to you this whole emailnurturing and workflows and
having emails sent to your listregularly.
You don't have to physically doit.
You can use something likeFlowdesk.
Whatever system you use,there's so many automated
systems now.
I personally love Flowdesk.
I used MailChimp in the past.
(09:57):
I didn't love it.
It was expensive.
Flowdesk is awesome just acrossthe board, so I'm going to link
a blog post below where I talkall about Flowdesk and you can
use my affiliate link as well totry it out and you can get 50%
off.
Okay, here are some cool ideasfor lead magnets for
photographers that I believe aregoing to help you draw people
(10:19):
in and help you with your SEO.
Now we know that SEO isimportant.
We're not going to have an SEOconversation today.
I've had them before, so goback and listen to those
episodes.
But the first thing that I'mgoing to talk about on this list
is going to help you a lot withyour local SEO, and it's one of
my my.
I'm not going to say a secrettip, because I have definitely
(10:40):
spoken about this with coachingstudents, but I don't think I've
ever publicly talked about thislittle trick and it's a good
one, and unfortunately, a lot ofphotographers don't want to do
it because they're not operatingfrom an abundance mindset.
They're operating from scarcity, where they feel like if they
share things about what they do,and especially locations, then
(11:04):
it's going to be giving theircompetition a leg up.
But we don't do that here.
We don't gatekeep.
We understand that when weoperate from an abundance
mindset meaning we know thatthere is more than enough work
for all of us we all win.
(11:24):
So the first thing on this listis creating a customized
location guide for your photoshoots, so you can create this
guide to your favorite, bestlocal spots for your photo
sessions, complete with examplesof your own work.
Obviously, not only is thisgoing to attract your local
clients who are looking forsessions and a photographer and
you're going to help them out bygiving them value but it also
boosts your SEO with those localkeywords.
So you can do this as a leadmagnet as a PDF.
(11:47):
You can do it as a short video,which I think is even better.
I really am a big believer andproponent in video lead magnets
because, more and moreespecially if you're a high
school senior photographer sidenote your teen clients are going
to probably be more willing towatch something than read.
But a PDF is always good, sodon't let that stop you.
(12:09):
Go into Canva and create one.
It doesn't have to be anythingcrazy, but again, you just
wanting to give value.
Then you can also do a blogpost about it and link it in the
blog posts.
You can do that for all ofthese that I'm going to give you
.
Okay, that's even better foryour SEO.
You always want to start withyour blog, but this is a great
lead magnet because you'rehelping a lot of different
(12:29):
people and, yes, you might havesome photographers who find it
and download it.
Oh, my gosh, big deal.
They're not you.
Okay, we're not going to worryabout that.
We're going to worry abouttalking to our target clients
when staying our lane of whatthose people want, speaking to
their pain points and solvingtheir problems.
Okay, you're going to be a lothappier, trust me.
(12:50):
The second lead magnet you cando is a photography style quiz,
or a location quiz or a vibequiz, offering a quiz to help
your potential clients identifytheir ideal photography style,
whether it's romantic or candidor editorial.
Any kind of quiz, honestly, isgoing to work.
People love quizzes, so thinkabout what your target client
(13:14):
would appreciate in terms of aquiz, and if you're looking for
a good program or software touse for this, I highly highly
recommend Interact I'm going tolink that below as well for you.
That's what I use for mine.
It is so easy to set up and youcan also integrate your flow
desk with it so that you can setup this entire workflow to be
sent out once someone does thequiz.
(13:35):
Okay, so like you can have upthis entire workflow to be sent
out once someone does the quiz.
Okay, so like you can have threedifferent answers.
They go to three differentplaces.
You can have them on differentsegments of your list.
I know this all soundscomplicated, but it's really not
.
It's super easy.
An interactive flow desk walksyou through the whole thing,
right.
Their help desk is reallyreally good, so you can have it
all automated.
You don't have to do thisphysically all the time.
(14:02):
There's nothing better thanseeing people pop on your list
just randomly throughout the day.
I have to say it's just such adopamine hit.
So I highly recommend lookinginto the systems and automations
of this.
Okay, because you don't have tohold people's hands physically
doing this.
You can set up a great quizwith Interact and then you can
have it all segmented fromwithin Flowdesk, leading people
to obviously book a session withyou.
(14:23):
That's the goal.
All right, your next idea for alead magnet is pose like a pro,
a guide.
Maybe you do a downloadable PDFor you do even better a video.
You can see these online a lot.
There's a lot of photographersdoing posing videos out there
now, which I think is great.
Personally, I send out a videoto my clients who have booked
with me my teen clients.
(14:51):
I send them a video of posingideas and lots of different
pre-frames on that, so that bythe time they are in front of my
camera, they are already atease because they've kind of had
a little inside view of how Iwork.
Okay, I definitely recommenddoing this, by the way, but you
can also do this as this leadmagnet, so that you are priming
people to want to shoot with youin the first place and then
giving them something supervaluable, like how to look
(15:13):
better in pictures, even ifyou're not a senior photographer
.
You can do this for branding ohmy gosh, like headshots
branding how to look better inyour headshot in three simple
steps, right, really really easyto put together.
Again, pop open your Zoom, do aquick little video.
Don't overthink this, just getit done, okay.
Number four is a seasonal shootchecklist.
(15:34):
Everybody loves a checklist, Iknow I do.
So.
Create a checklist for preppingfor a photo shoot during
different seasons maybe 10must-haves for your winter
wonderland photo shoot, orwhatever.
Something that people candownload it, they can share it,
they can revisit Again.
You can do a blog post aboutthis and get really into the
nitty-gritty of it and you canpromote whatever you're
(15:56):
promoting at that time of year.
Number five is client successstories.
You can turn those past clientexperiences into case studies
that are really valuable andeducational for potential new
clients, and you can do this ina lot of different ways, right,
but not only is that going toshow your expertise, it also
demonstrates that social proof.
There's a lot of different ways, right, but not only is that
going to show your expertise, italso demonstrates that social
(16:18):
proof.
There's a lot of different waysyou can do this, obviously, but
the idea is that it's a casestudy.
It's something cool.
It's something like oh, I wantto see what that person's you
know client journey was.
This is a great opportunity foryou to show a client's
potential entire journey withyou, from start to finish.
Again, you're prepping them.
It's so cool.
And then the last one I'm goingto mention is an interactive
(16:40):
mood board template.
Okay, so offer a template onCanva or another platform that
you love where potential clientscan create their own mood
boards for an upcoming sessionwith you.
So this not only can beinteractive but serve as, like
this, bridge between the initialinquiry and the booking.
You can set this up, you know,elaborately or very simply,
(17:02):
which I suggest like keep thingssimple, but the idea is that
you want to come up with a leadmagnet that is not going to be
like what everybody else isdoing.
It should be SEO friendly, okay, and it should be valuable to
your audience and, above allelse, it needs to convert them
into your client.
(17:22):
So, ideally, after all of this,you've got a workflow set up in
Flowdesk so that it can justautomate.
You can send them however manyother emails you want in that
sequence.
You can set that to howevermany you want, and it does the
work for you.
Okay.
The idea, too, is when you'reshowing up in additional emails
whether it's just, you know, anewsletter or a workflow you are
(17:45):
authentically sharing pieces ofyour life, your business,
behind the scenes, storytellingfeaturing recent sessions, like
you want to get real with thesepeople.
You want to build up the no,like and trust.
So you're not asking for a salein every email.
You are offering value and,more than anything, you're
connecting with these potentialclients, all right.
(18:07):
So I want to go into anotherstrategy with you guys, this
time using ChatGPT or any otherAI writing program that you use
to help you write the emails.
So these are going to be someprompts that you can use to help
you figure out what to say,because I know that that's the
hardest part for a lot of us and, honestly, if you're not using
(18:27):
tools like ChatGPT or Cloud AI,you really really should be.
I mean, I'm not saying youshould just copy paste, but you
definitely can use theseprograms enough to where they
start sounding a lot like you,and I don't know about you, but
I would much rather pay $20 amonth for this system, like
(18:48):
potentially thousands, to anassistant Sorry, I just would.
So I have six different prompts.
Two of them are for seniorphotographers, two of them are
for headshot and brandingphotographers and then two are
just for creative businesses ingeneral and could be for coaches
and things like that.
You're going to want to comeback to this.
So, whether you're watchingthis on YouTube or Apple
podcasts listening there.
There's an option for you to gointo the transcript, and so you
(19:17):
can just kind of copy pasteinstead of just having to take
notes as you listen to me talk,but you're going to want to save
these, okay.
So the first prompt for highschool senior photographers is
create an email series titledfive secrets to an amazing
senior year photo shootexperience.
Break it down into multipleemails you can tell it exactly
how many where each email coversone aspect, like choosing the
perfect location, wardrobe tips,how to feel comfortable in
(19:39):
front of the camera, involvingfriends or pets, and getting
those true to you candid shots.
Give actionable steps andexamples from past shoots that I
have done, and you can alsolink past blog posts as well,
which is always great, becauseyou always want people to get to
your site.
Okay, the second one is write aguide to celebrating your
(20:00):
unique style email.
This email should helppotential senior clients think
through how they want to expressthemselves, focusing on
personal passions, hobbies oreven sentimental items that they
could incorporate into theirsession, encourage them to
visualize how they wanna beremembered, and include links to
inspiration boards to get themexcited.
So, again, you can do that inone email.
(20:22):
You can do it in a series ofemails, it doesn't matter.
The next two are for brandingand headshot photographers.
The first one is craft an emailor an email sequence on how to
capture your brand's personalityin a photo.
Walk through these differentstyles of branding sessions and
how each one communicatessomething unique about a
business, such as warm andfriendly, sleek and professional
(20:42):
, or creative and bold.
Include examples of pastclients in a mini exercise where
they write down threeadjectives that describe their
brand to help you create theirideal branding story.
You can have them email thatback to you.
So that's a good way to getpeople to respond to your email,
which is always really good,because when people respond to
your mass emails that come froma system like Flowdesk, it
(21:06):
whitelists it for them.
It whitelists your emailaddress, so they're much more
likely to see and open and thenread your emails, so you always
want to think about ways to getthem to respond to you.
The next one for branding andheadshot photographers is create
an engaging email with achecklist called top 10 must
have shots for every headshotsession.
(21:26):
Go beyond just head andshoulder shots, include
environmental portraits,creative angles and even a
lifestyle shot that captures aday in the life moment.
This email should help clientsunderstand the value of variety
in their headshot package,giving them ideas that go beyond
the basics.
So here's the thing you canupload a lot of your information
(21:46):
to ChatGPT.
If you haven't figured that outyet, you can upload your
writing, your blogs, your emailsthat you've written in the past
.
You can upload images all kindsof different things to ChatGPT
so that it gets to know you more.
And the new Canvas option.
They're always coming out withnew versions of ChatGPT and
(22:06):
ChatGPT Plus.
The new one is Canvas, and it'sreally awesome because it will
basically open it in what lookslike a doc, like a document,
like a Google Doc, and then youcan go in and you can make
adjustments to the text that itgives you so you can highlight
things and ask it to refine it,so you can really really get
these prompts dialed in Super,super technical.
(22:30):
So I encourage you to play withit if you have not.
So the last two are a little bitmore general, right?
So probably good for coaches,creatives in general.
The first one is generate acontent strategy for creatives
email series, okay, help youraudience understand how they can
create a content calendar fortheir work, whether it's
(22:53):
photography, design or somethingelse entirely.
Obviously, you want to put inthose specifics.
This series should include adownloadable calendar template,
prompts for types of content tocreate and a guide on how to
batch content so my clients canwork more efficiently.
Each email in the series canprovide a different part of the
content planning puzzle buildinganticipation and engagement.
(23:14):
So this is good if you'reselling that kind of service,
obviously, but you can also usethat prompt for yourself if you
are having a hard time withcontent strategy.
Just as a side note, just kindof revise it.
You know the way that you wordit.
And then the last one is writean in-depth email on
transforming your creative blockinto breakthroughs.
So dive deep into the commoncauses of creative block, how
(23:37):
unconscious programming can leadto fear of judgment or imposter
syndrome.
And then actionable exercisesto get unstuck, including
journaling prompt and avisualization exercise, and you
can even like have adownloadable thing there, right?
So like if you have a differentkind of lead magnet or if
you're like me and you can do adownloadable hypnosis or
activation, so you can really goeven a little bit further with
(24:02):
that kind of prompt.
But the idea with these is Ijust kind of want you to get
your juices flowing right.
It's all about buildingconnection with your audience.
It's not about being perfectand you just got to just jump in
the deep water and get it done.
If you have not started anemail list, you need to start.
You just need to start.
You need to put something up onyour website that is enticing
(24:24):
for people to want to download,and you got to get them into a
sequence.
You got to get them into youruniverse so that you can nurture
them, so that they can find outhow awesome you are.
Once you get into the groove ofdoing this sort of stuff emails
and then blogs it really doestake a lot of pressure off of
the social media game.
It really does.
Yes, I do think that socialmedia does work in tandem.
(24:47):
I think it's a really big partof it, depending on what you do
specifically, right, but youreally don't need to spend 24
seven on social media if you'vegot all this other awesome stuff
working for you and your SEOgame does extend to social media
.
So once you have like an SEOstrategy I've talked about this
on other podcasts, but I can'treiterate it enough.
(25:08):
Once you have an SEO strategyin place, you can be using it
across the board on your socialplatforms as well.
So, again, it's not aboutmaking more work for yourself,
it's about making it easier onyourself.
That's why I wanted to includethese AI prompts.
Okay, that's it.
I wanted to keep it really,really short for you guys today.
Hopefully, I was able to giveyou a little bit of a kick in
(25:30):
the pants.
If you've got some peoplepleasing going on, okay, and if,
look, if you've got it going on, don't beat yourself up.
Everybody does it's, especiallyif you're a woman.
We have more than our malecounterparts, unfortunately, I
mean.
I just saw this study online.
They were speaking directlyabout how autism in women is
(25:50):
much harder to screen for, evenas like young as five and six
years old, because even at thatage, we, as females, are taught
to be more socially appropriate.
We pick up more on like nothurting other people's feelings
and just being nice.
And the study in particular wasthey took a group of
five-year-old girls and afive-year-old boys and they gave
them this jam that was supersalty, and the woman was like I
(26:17):
made this jam and I want tooffer it to people.
Would you taste it and let meknow what you think?
The entire group offive-year-old girls did not like
it, but they didn't tell her.
They were like it's good.
It's good, it's a little salty,but I like it.
And they kept eating it.
And then the little boys rightoff the bat.
Why is this so salty, likeright off the bat?
(26:37):
So again, this was a study onlike autism, but I really feel
like it's because we are taughtas women to just not be
disagreeable, to just beagreeable, to just say you know,
we like things when we reallydon't don't muddy the water,
(26:57):
don't make waves, don't be toobig, don't be too much.
All for the attention of menusually and I don't know about
you just primed way more forpeople pleasing.
And if you are done with it,then I applaud you for just
(27:23):
noticing it.
Okay, just like anything else,noticing is the biggest, hardest
step, but it also is like thefast track to get through it,
because the more you brush allof this under the rug, the
bigger it's going to get andit's going to show up in
different ways.
So if you feel triggered by anyof this, it's kind of probably
a sign that it's time.
It's time for you to look at itand decide.
You know, okay, I want tochange this or not.
(27:45):
It's up to you.
Choice is always yours.
If you do want help with that, Ihelp people with that all the
time, so please reach out.
I have links for you below.
You can reach out for coaching.
I am signing up coaching for2025 now and, just as a little
side note, I do have some prettyawesome Black Friday deals
coming.
It's going to be a whole weekof Black Friday deals, so you
(28:05):
are going to want to make sureyou're on my email list.
That link is below as well.
Make sure you are on there soyou can get first dibs, because
they're going to be time-based,so, like, every day is going to
have a different deal and at theend of the day, it's gone.
So you're going to want to makesure that you're opening my
emails that week.
And if you liked this episode,share it with a photographer
friend or a creative friend.
(28:26):
Let them know, um, that theydon't have to people, please,
either.
And if you want to share it onsocial, definitely please tag me
so I can see it and thenreshare it as well.
I'm at Renee Bowen.
Again, all those links arebelow.
Thank you, guys, so much forbeing here again and I hope this
provided a lot of value to you.
I'll see you next time.
Love you, bye.