048: Helping Food Photographers Shine: Insights from Julie Skarwecki

Ever found yourself wondering how to get your photography business noticed amidst the flood of visuals online? You're not alone! Every photographer grapples with the challenge of standing out and effectively reaching potential clients. Today, let's explore some game-changing tips that can turn your love for photography into a successful career.

Introducing Expert Insight: Julie Skarwecki

Joining us is Julie Skarwecki, a photo consultant who has helped countless photographers elevate their careers. Julie started as a studio assistant and worked her way up to become a respected consultant. Her journey gives her a unique understanding of the industry. With her expertise in strategic marketing and career development, she's an invaluable resource for photographers looking to enhance their professional image and reach more clients.

Unpacking Marketing Mysteries

In this episode, we’re diving deep into the world of marketing just for photographers. Julie shares why it’s so important to match your marketing strategies with your creative vision and business goals. She gives super practical tips on how to handle different markets, whether you’re into commercial work or fine art, and the special details that come with each. With Julie’s help, photographers will learn how to shape their portfolios to attract their dream clients and make the most of tools like social media and SEO.

Ready to Revamp Your Marketing?

Inspired to reshape your marketing strategies and make your mark in the photography world? Julie Skarwecki is here to help you fine-tune your approach, so your work gets the attention it deserves.

💬 Join the Conversation

Savory Shot Shownote: https://micamccook.com/guests/julie-skarwecki/

Website: https://micamccook.com/podcast

Instagram: www.instragram.com/mica.mccook

Instagram: www.instagram.com/thesavoryshotpodcast

Would you like to be a guest on the show? Fill out the guest form, and we'll be in touch soon.

Special Thanks

And before we wrap up, a huge shoutout to our sponsor, Flodesk, for supporting this episode. Don't forget to check out their email design services tailored for food photographers, and enjoy an exclusive discount just for our listeners!

So, are you ready to turn your limitations into your greatest strengths? Tune in now, and let's embark on this creative journey together. After all, the best masterpieces often come from the most unexpected places! 🚀✨ Get 50% off your first year by using the code: SAVORYSHOT50 Visit Flodesk now

Episode Transcript

Mica (00:00):
Welcome to the 48th episode of The Savory Shot, a podcast about the art

(00:08):
and soul of working in food photography.
I'm your host with the most, Mica McCook.
I am a food photographerbased out of Austin, Texas.
And y'all, I just want to start thispar-tay off by saying, Holy crap, we're
two episodes away from 50 episodes.

(00:29):
Cinquenta.
That's 50 in Spanish, right?
Cinquenta.
We are cinquenta episodes in, y'all.
Well, two more away.
I'm so excited about that.
That is a huge milestoneand I have y'all to thank.
So thank you for being here.
Thank you for joining me.
You could have been anywhere.
You could have been doing anything.
But you're here with me, the mostawesomest host in all of America.

(00:56):
Yeah, I'll take that crown.
I'll take it
Y'all I am so I'm excited tojump into today's episode.
We are talking about a challenge that manyof y'all, your girl included, face daily.

(01:17):
Marketing.
I swear to Dumbledore above, I am sotired of seeing these Instagram posts
where people just simplify marketing.
Like it's this easy peasy, tangible, Oh,you can do it every day type of thing.
Cause it's not easy for everyone.
And.
Not everyone naturally picks it up.

(01:39):
Sometimes you need help.
And if you're struggling to ifyou're not sure how to effectively
market your photography, or you'reconfused about what marketing actually
is, then this episode is for you.
I'm excited to get into this,into the nuts and bolts.
I'm not the expert, so I'm going tointroduce the expert and without further

(02:03):
ado, meet today's guest, Julie Skarwecki.
I first learned of Julie when a colleagueof mine raved about her on LinkedIn.
So you know, your girl had to checkher out and y'all, I'm glad that I
did because one visit to her website,I knew I had to have her on the show.

(02:24):
Thankfully, she said, yes, and afterinterviewing her, I was just so impressed
by everything that she said that Ihired her to design my newsletter.
I have watched so many videos ofconsultants, marketers, and it feels
like they're just speaking French.
I understand none of it, but Julie, shejust explains things so beautifully.

(02:47):
Julie is a photo consultant whose workfocuses on empowering photographers.
Y'all she has over a decadeof experience, including roles
as an agent and consultant.
She has mentored countlesscommercial photographers and
helped them present their workeffectively and to the right people.

(03:10):
She's taught them how to buildmeaningful relationships and
help them elevate their careers.
Y'all.
I'm so grateful thatJulie came on the show.
I loved everything about thisconversation and I believe you will too.
By the end of this episode, youwill learn specific actionable

(03:32):
steps to refine your marketing.
You'll learn strategies that willhelp you get your work out to the
right people, so grab a pen, grab apaper, or your iPad, I don't know.
Grab a wand and wave it in the air.
Whatever you got to doto take notes do that.
Grab your coffee, grabyour tea, glass of wine.

(03:56):
If you're having that kind ofday, whatever you got to do to
relax and let's start the show.

(05:08):
Julie, I want to start off by thankingyou for being on the show and to say,
Hey, thanks for being on the show.

Julie (05:15):
Oh my gosh.
My pleasure.
I was so happy when you reached out.
I love getting to sit downand talk photo with someone.

Mica (05:21):
Oh, it's going to be a blast getting into this.
I was doing my research on you andI thought it was pretty awesome that
you started as an assistant for AlexPrager, and then you transitioned into
representing photographers, and that'sjust such a unique, tidbit about you.
What influenced you to transformfrom working with photographers

(05:45):
as an agent to focusing onhelping them through consulting.

Julie (05:49):
When I worked with Alex, I was working as a studio
assistant, not a camera assistant.
So a lot of what I did wasmore on the production side.
We're working on primarilyHer Face in The Crowd series.
We were on set doing more of again,the production side, but then also
working through some marketingwith her helping a lot with the

(06:10):
fine art side of her practice, butalso the commercial side as well.
And so that led me intorepping photographers.
I learned so much in that role about thecommercial industry, how it operates,
what clients, are asking for whatthey want to see from photographers.
The process of bidding, like what,licensing is like just everything that

(06:32):
goes into being a commercial photographer.
But, and I love my photographersthat I worked with.
But as in that role, there'snot really as much kind of
one on one career development.
And that's something that I really enjoy.
I was seeing, because we do meetings atan agency, photographers come in all the

(06:53):
time, they show you their work, you chat.
You might They end up signing someoneat some point, but the vast majority of
these meetings are just meet and greets.
And I would see so many people comingin with these like really strong
great bodies of work who just hadno idea what they were doing on the
business and the marketing side.
And I was like god, I just want to beable to have more of a role in that

(07:15):
like instead of seeing all of theseamazing photographers like like twiddling
their thumbs a little bit, like notreally sure what their next steps are.
Just wanted to have a hand in that becauseI was learning so much in my role of
how to market yourself to these clients.
And it was like, where is the information?
How does this get to the photographers?
Like, how would anyone know?

(07:35):
And this was years ago where therewas much less transparency than
there is now in the photo industry.
I think there was a point where one of,one of our photographers, we recommended
that they work with a consultant andthat was the first I had heard of.
I was like, a what?
A photo consultant.
Okay.
Go to Google.
What is that?
And I just, I was looking to moveon and it was like, this is exactly

(07:57):
what I would want to be doing.
I want to work one on one.
I want to help people on a morepersonal level to show the clients
that they're trying to reach whatthey need to see, what they want to
see the right way to market to them.
And then see the payoff.
it's so rewarding when you've workedwith someone and they're emailing you
about this big shoot they finally gotbooked on, or they finally asked for that
bigger licensing fee and they got it.

(08:19):
And it's, it's just such likea, it's such a nice feeling.

Mica (08:23):
You mentioned something earlier that I thought was really great about that
desire to, to work one on one and, they'dcome in and have this great body of work,
but they're not sure what to do with it.
I've talked about this before about thefrustrations of like me going to school
that we learned how to be photographers,but we didn't learn the other side

(08:46):
of how until we got out of school.
My question for you, is thatsomething that you noticed with
photographers coming to you as well?
Did that play in your desire to be alittle bit more one on one with them?

Julie (08:59):
I would say most.
I think most photographers didn'tgo to photo school, at least in
my experience of who I work with.
So they, even more so probably justreally self taught in every possible way.
And then, I would say about half thepeople that I work with who did go
to art school did not get any sortof training on the business side.

(09:20):
And then, they're like I'vegot the work what happens next?
And you're like, there'sso much that happens next.
We need to like get you on board with thismarketing and it's tricky because very
few people are really good at the creativeside and really good at the business side.
Typically we have one areawhere our strengths lie.
That's totally fine.

(09:41):
We don't really want photographersto be like a full time marketer.
It's more like finding the toolsthat you need to use, finding ways
that you can use them without takingon another 40 hours a week of work.
But if you don't do it, who's going tosee it, who's going to see your portfolio?
You built that website yourself.
If you don't set up theSEO, who's going to find it?
you can't just expect that it's all justgoing to unfold for you super easily.

(10:03):
And for some people it does.
But for most people, there's a,there's work that you have to do.
You have to put in hours gettingyour work in front of people.
And it takes.
It takes a, a lifetime to figure thatout, which is, yeah, why I wanted to
work one on one is let's speed this up.
Let's help people like, let's get frompoint A to point B a little bit faster.

Mica (10:23):
You touched on something about photographers not being good
about marketing themselves and themarketing that they are doing is
attracting the wrong kind of clients.
If a wedding photographer wouldn't marketthe same way as a family photographer.
That is what my frustration waswith my education is we did take one

(10:48):
studio management class and we'd liketouched on marketing for two weeks,
but this teacher was trying to teach.
ten different markets to market oneway, and I learned very quickly over the
years that just isn't going to work out.
What would work for the sportsphotographer isn't going to work for me.

(11:10):
And what would work for the weddingphotographer isn't going to work
for the sports photographer.
I think a great way to start off this,interview is what is marketing to you?

Julie (11:20):
That's such a good question to ask because so many people
come to me and they're like, Idon't know what this word means.
You're like, it's funnycause we all use it, right?
Like we casually know how touse it in a sentence, but can
you break down what that is?
To me, I would say that marketingis connecting a person with a
need with a product or servicethat they're looking for.
For a photographer, let's just say,we're talking about food photographers,

(11:43):
your clients are going to be brandslike in house ad agencies editorial,
publications, it could be restaurantsyou've got a couple of different
people that you're speaking to.
Even within that list, there'sdifferent ways of marketing to
all of those types of clients.
There's not just one.
It's not just one way, right?

(12:03):
There's not one tool that,is what marketing is.
It's any way that you're connecting whatyou have to offer with someone who's
looking for what you have to offer.
Someone who wants to buy whatyou're selling basically.
I don't know, Bar is opening down thestreet any more than that bar knows a
photographer who can take photos forthem you find out about it through

(12:24):
pr you find out through social mediayou learn through word of mouth.
There's all these different tools andit is different for everyone even within
the food photography realm, there'sdifferent ways that we would market
to the different types of clients thatyou have, but it all comes down, it's
connecting the service or product with thebuyer, who needs that service or product.

(12:47):
But practically speaking, it's, itincludes anything like social media,
SEO, your website is a marketingtool, printed promos, running ads,
we would say falls into marketing.
It's not one I recommend for mostpeople, but there's time and a place.
Anything that you do that gets youin front of a potential client,
we would count as marketing.

Mica (13:07):
One thing I had to learn the difference between was marketing
and branding like they, they dointertwine, but they are different.
What is a common misconception thatphotographers have about marketing?

Julie (13:24):
One is that a lot of people will, a lot of people will come to me and I
ask everyone when I first talk to themwhat they're doing for their marketing
and people will say well, nothing.
And it's like, well, you're notdoing nothing because you do have a
website, you do have social media.
Like those are marketing tools, right?
So when people say that they're doingnothing, that isn't typically correct.

(13:44):
It might be, you're not doing itwell, but you you aren't doing it.
You've got some toolsthat are already set up.
We want to use them better.
Not everyone, but some people when you,when they hear marketing, they think
like either really gimmicky like amarketing ploy or things like running ads.
Like I mentioned, runningan ad is a marketing tool.

(14:07):
Just if we're talking about anything thatqualifies as a marketing tool, again,
it's not one that I recommend, but I thinkthat people sometimes when they hear that,
they're like, Oh, I don't want to like Idon't want to run a Facebook ad and it's
like, yeah, I don't want you to either.
Please don't.
I'm

Mica (14:22):
They're expensive.
Don't do

Julie (14:24):
that.
And they don't want to help you.
This is not going to help you at all.
It might have, it more likelywill have a negative impact
on your like overall business.
So yeah, I think a lot of it is peoplejust not knowing what that word means.
Like they don't know that theyalready have marketing tools.
They don't know that If you'remarketing, it doesn't mean
that you're like running ads.
There's an organic way that we market.

(14:46):
And that there's just a lotof things included in it.
Like word of mouth, like Imentioned, that's a marketing tool.
It's basically just like, if you do agood job, people will talk about you.
So it's not one that you havea ton of control over, but
yeah, that's a marketing tool.
Like just doing well, like giving people agood user experience of working with you.
That's a marketing tool.

Mica (15:05):
You talk about word of mouth.
It reminded me of my dad.
My dad was a mechanic and he kneweverybody and it annoyed me to death.
And anytime I needed to getsomething fixed, my dad would say
go over to so and so's shop andhe'll fix that right up for you.

(15:25):
They go, Oh, you're Hickey's daughter?
Oh, your money's no good here.
We got you.
We'll take care of this.
How can photographers get to thatpoint where people just know them?

Julie (15:38):
Wait, you went for, that's a big question.

Mica (15:45):
Okay.
So let me, let me rephrase that.
What's one thing that a photographercan do to start getting to that level
of being known through marketing?

Julie (15:56):
Oh, so even that's a big question.
It's so much the word . Word of mouth.
Word of mouth is.
It is a lot of kind of whatyou're talking about, right?
Like I know this person because onebecause they're in the same industry
as me, let's just say because that'sthe example you're using, right?
It's these people are allworking in the same world.
The other people that you work with, likeI know other consultants, I'll sometimes

(16:18):
recommend a client meet with theminstead of me if they're not a good fit.
Because I know these other peopleand I know what they specialize in.
That's something where if you wantedthat type of kind of word of mouth,
like visibility, name recognition,obviously networking in the photo
industry is going to help you a lot.
If someone came to you and waslike, Hey, Mica can you shoot

(16:40):
for, this like car company?
And you're like, I don't shoot cars.
But I bet I know a guy.
I know this guy over here whodoes so I would recommend him.
What we ideally want with word of mouthmarketing is more from the client side.
And I also want to be really clearhere because word of mouth is
a very powerful marketing tool.
But a lot of people think that itis one that will last forever and it

(17:03):
will not you need to use other tools.
It's going to run out.
It's not something you wantto be super reliant on.
Because you don't have control over it.
And also the people who are maybepassing your name around, they're
typically going to be doing that toother people who are at the same level.
So if we're talking aboutclimbing a ladder career wise,

(17:23):
you want to use other tools.
We want other tools that you're using,but with it from the client side.
Part of what you're describing issomeone who's going above and beyond.
So someone who's saying, okay, youcame to me for an oil change, but
I'm going to refer you to this guyto get your seats repaired, right?
You can do that in your practice.
Giving people one, just avery professional experience.

(17:45):
And a lot of that kind of to yourpoint about branding earlier that is
something that we want to see from peoplebecause it looks very professional.
We want it to look like you'veinvested in your business, you
take yourself seriously, you are aprofessional photographer, you're
not like a hobbyist anymore, right?
We want to see good branding.
We want to see.
A level of like professionalismin your communication.

(18:07):
That's very easily done, right?
Your emails, like you're sendingthem to a client, not like you're
sending it to your best friend.
You want to match the toneof your client over email.
If they're being very casual,you can be very casual.
If they're being very formal,you need to be very formal.
You want to match their energyto connect better with them.

(18:28):
Use positive language as much as possible.
So we see this a lot when a clientcomes and they're like, Okay, we want
35 images in one day they're goingon billboards all across the country.
Our budget is 500, right?
We don't want you to go back andsay like, you're crazy there's
no freaking way I can do that.
We want you to go back and say, heylove this project, you know, within

(18:51):
your budget, this is what we can do.
Use that positive language, be ateammate, a collaborator to your clients.
If they have a problem, we seethis on the production side a lot.
If there's an issue with executingtheir vision, be the one to call out a
solution, help them to problem solve.
If you say that you're going todeliver final images in two weeks,

(19:11):
try to do it in one, if you can.
Be a little bit ahead of whateverthey're expecting and then
obviously the quality of the work.
If you can't execute a creativedeck, then you need to be
honest with yourself about that.
Maybe that means like you got anassistant who knows lighting better
than you do, who can help you or,figuring out how to sort of expand your

(19:32):
skill set so that you're always givingthe client what they're asking for.
So they're happy with the images.
You solved everything for them orhelped them to solve the problem.
You just made it as enjoyable of anexperience as possible so that then they
go, Oh, To someone else and say, Oh, yeah,I worked with this amazing photographer.
Like I had the best time working with her.
She's like fun and easy and collaborative.

(19:54):
We got these amazing images.
It's a lot of little things that kindof go into that part of marketing, but
again, we don't have ultimate control overwhether or not someone's referring you
and there's sort of a ceiling to that,where we do still want you still doing
some outreach, still getting outsideof that network that you might be in.
But it is, it's a very, it'sa powerful marketing tool.

Mica (20:16):
What you just said, the word of mouth, you don't control what they say or
who they say it to as opposed to like yourwebsite, that gives you the space to say
exactly what you want about your business,about who you are as a photographer.
And I know that one of the thingsthat you do you curate images.

(20:38):
What advice do you give to photographersso that they're picking the images that
will get them more work as opposed to theones that they're emotionally attached to?

Julie (20:51):
Honestly, I mean, half of my advice is just to hire someone.
Who can help you because realisticallyyou're never going to be objective.
Some people can look past theirfeelings about a particular
image better than others.
But most people struggle withthat to a certain degree, right?
Like you remember, Oh, I really hatedthis client or like it was so hot in

(21:12):
the studio that day and I was justso uncomfortable and I was miserable
and I never want to see these again.
That's not a good reason to notinclude images on your website.
We want a completely objective view.
Part of putting together a website pageis one, looking at your ideal client.
Who are you targeting?
For instance, let's sayyou're targeting Folgers.

(21:35):
Folgers sells packaged goods, right?
It's a packaged product.
You buy a can of ground coffee.
If the only thing that you're showingin your portfolio is like a cup of
coffee, but there's no product in it.
That's not really a great presentationfor you getting in front of this type of

(21:56):
client because they need to see a label.
They need to see an actual product,not just a food and beverage shot.
So looking at it sort of like that,who are we really trying to target?
What types of images are they creating?
And how can we best reflect that?
And that's going to be differentfor everyone, obviously.
It depends who are we going after?
I see people, an issue that they runinto with the website is that they aren't

(22:17):
thinking of the website presentation asbeing more than the sum of its parts.
We have images that go intothese galleries that create,
let's say your food page.
You have an, you have a drinkpage, you have an overview page.
Maybe you have some client pages thatbreak down different projects that
you've worked on each of those isits own entity, and I think people

(22:40):
don't tend to look at it that way.
Where like, if we're puttingtogether a food page, we really want
to target packaged food clients,so the Folgers of the world.
But if you're not thinking of thatfood page as its own entity, it ends up
looking really jumbled and inconsistent.
You're also selling like a vibe, you'reselling your look and feel, the way that

(23:00):
you approach a photo project, the waythat you create images as an artist.
If everything isn't consistent, ifthe sequencing isn't flowing right, if
the retouching isn't consistent witheverything, it will look very jumbled.
It won't really give people thislike cohesive view of a body of work.

(23:23):
And I think that's where I seea lot of people messing up.
It's they're like, I just tookall my favorite images and I
put them on the overview page.
That's great.
I love that for you.
But what are you trying to tell people?
How are you trying to present yourself?
What's the look and feel that youwant your clients to really grasp onto
when they first get to your website.
And in order to do that, wehave to look at it like this is

(23:43):
a completely separate project.
We have the pieces, we have the images,we're going to put them together in a
way that creates a very cohesive feeland that feeling that you got when you
look at someone's site, that's justas important as the individual images.
But people break down therebecause they can't be objective.
So it's like you can't alwayssee how these things are or

(24:05):
are not working together.
And we want that really objectiveview to say okay, I want to be
like, I want to be bright, poppy,colorful okay, that's great.
Let's go for that.
We're going to leave off anythingthat's like really muted,
really quiet, really subtle.
It's not going to make sense here.
We need it to be cohesive.
We're picking a laneand we're staying in it.

(24:26):
That's the biggest.
I guess like single area that I see peoplemess up is they're like, I just like
all of these images and it's like, well,that's not going to help you that much.
We need to curate.

Mica (24:36):
You hit it on the nail about just kind of relinquishing control and letting
someone who's not attached one of, one ofthe things that we did in our mentorship.
So I was in the Apostrophe Repsmentorship and it was a group of
us and they did an online magazinein addition to an art show.
And we did not, have achoice in picking the images.

(24:59):
They picked the images for theart show, for the magazine.
We all had a discussion in ourgroup chat about, how we felt
about the choices that were picked.
Unanimously, we were all like,they picked images that we
would not have picked ourselves.
But we also realized that there were someshots from our respective shoots that

(25:20):
we were just emotionally attached to.
I love that you saidrelinquishing control.
With your clients, how has it been forthem to, trust that process to you.
Do they meet you with resistance?
Is it just total trust or do theylearn something about themselves

(25:42):
that they didn't know before?

Julie (25:43):
Okay, I would say it runs the gamut.
I had one photographer thatI worked with this year.
And this was so funny.
He sort of gave me a heads upbeforehand that he was like, I'm gonna
have a hard time with letting youdo this, but he hired me to do it.
So I was like, if you have a hardtime, we'll work through that.
We'll talk through it together.
He fought me every step of theway, but he knew he was doing it.
So he was like, this is a meproblem, not a you problem.

(26:05):
I know that I need to just let go, butcan we just make some changes here?
And it's absolutely, by all means.
We want you to be happy, It was nicethat he was sort of able to recognize
that you're really not letting go.
You're tied to this vision, andit's not in line with your goals
as you've outlined them to me.
With that type of person, it often willtake one, a lot of explanation, like

(26:25):
this is why I'm making these decisions.
This is why we picked these images.
This is why we didn't picksome of these other images.
But there's also typically there'sa happy medium where if you're
really tied to something we canfigure out a way to make that work.
I would say the vast majority ofpeople look at an edit and are like
I haven't seen my work in this waybefore because I'm taking such an

(26:48):
objective view and I will look at whensomething was shot, if it matters but
a lot of the time it's like, yeah, thisimage, maybe it was five years ago.
It still looks good.
This still works.
This still helps you in your largerlike path to reach your goal clients.
Other times there's things where it'slike, okay, I know you might love this.
Project but it's vastly different fromeverything else in your portfolio and it

(27:11):
just doesn't have a place here right now.
It's gonna hurt you more than help.
We have to break down whatpeople are looking for from their
careers, like who are you, whoare we trying to reach with this?
Like what sort of the impression thatwe need to give and build around that.
And typically there's not a ton ofresistance to it, but every now and
then there's someone who's like, Ijust don't want to let you do it.

(27:31):
And it's like, well, you don'thave to, I'm not making you.
We know the kinds of thingsthat most clients want to see.
Sometimes I think there is this theystruggle for people where it's like, okay,
maybe I do have this goal of who I want tobe shooting for, but I don't want to let
go of this side of myself as a creator.

(27:51):
That part I'm super receptive to.
We don't want you to like self abandonin the interest of, you know shooting
for Pepsi like that, is that worth it?
Let's see what other options we have.
And there's often, not always, but there'soften different ways that we can show the
work or share different projects whereit's like we can maintain who you are as a

(28:12):
creative while still creating this reallystrong visual impression on the website.
But it does, it takes a lot of explanationbecause if you are so tied to the work,
it's often, yeah, you don't really knowwhere my decision making is coming from.
So it is a lot of we want thisimage because this shows people.
We need this one because we'vegot product, like there's

(28:33):
a reason behind all of it.
We just have to have a little trust,

Mica (28:39):
You mentioned something earlier about photographers needing
to know who they're going after.
Is that something that they should knowbefore they start marketing efforts?

Julie (28:53):
Yeah.
You have to know or else you're notgoing to have any way of putting
together those marketing materials.
You'll put them together, but itends up being more of sort of like a
crapshoot than a targeted you know,campaign, like marketing practice.
But that said, who you'remarketing to changes over time.
It's not set in stone.
Earlier today, I was on a callwith a food photographer she's

(29:15):
in New York and she does food andalso like some hospitality stuff.
She shot for hotels in thepast, but typically doing like
covering their restaurants.
On this call, she was like, one, she waslike, I just got contacted by one of the
major, it's a household name hotel chain.
That wanted her to come on for a shoot.

(29:36):
And she was like, I didn't know thiswas my dream job until I filled out
your questionnaire, the questionnairethat I like gave her at the beginning.
Yeah, it's like a lifestylefocused hospitality project
that involves like some travel.
And I thought that was reallyinteresting that a lot of people.
At least when I start working with them,if they don't already have the answer
to that question, it's a little bit ofa process of figuring out partially like

(29:58):
what do you want your life to look like?
Do you want to be shooting every dayor do you want to have a couple of
shoots a month and you're off the restof the time that helps us decide what
level of client are we working with?
Do you want to do a lot of travel?
Do you want to stay close to home?
What's your financial goal?
There's a lot of things that kindof go into determining who you're
really marketing to, but if youdon't know the answers to them.

(30:21):
You're not going to be able to puttogether the materials, because how are
you going to decide what images to share?
Or even what tools to use, what platformsto use, where you need to be visible.
You're not going to have those answers.
So you need to start withidentifying who these clients are.
A lot of people get so hung up there thatthey're like, it's anyone and it's like,
no, it's not, like, don't lie to me.

(30:43):
It's not anyone.
We all know that but then that's whereyou break it down and, you're like,
how much do you want to get paid?
Like how often do you want to be working?
And that tells us a lot in itself.
If you want to work one big shoot a month.
We're really talking about advertisingclients like we're talking like agencies
probably is who we're marketing to.
If you want to be busy, you wantto shoot every day, but it's

(31:05):
okay, we can be looking more.
We look at restaurants.
Look at editorial.
We can look at just smaller brands.
We can still have the bigger clients,peppered in, but we're expanding our
marketing reach quite a bit with that.
And then we know that there'sa different way to market to
those different types of clients.
And it doesn't have to be specific.
You don't have to come andsay, I want to shoot for Pepsi.

(31:26):
You can say, I want to shoot for.
large ad campaigns.
Great.
That helps us, let's look at your work,see who you're a good match for, and
then we figure out, okay this is yourtarget list right now, because this
is the work that, we're working with,these images so we can figure out
who you're gonna be well suited to.

Mica (31:42):
I wonder when determining who you want to market to, who you want to
target , are you choosing these brandsbecause you really want to work with them?
Or are you choosing these brandsbecause they're the safe choice?
And maybe you have a much biggerapple, but you're like, I don't

(32:04):
know if I could chew that apple.
So I'm going to go for these low hanginggrapes here 'cause I know I could do that.
It's like, dare to dreambig, dare to aim big.
How can a photographer know ifthey're dreaming big or dreaming safe?

Julie (32:20):
I feel like more often the people that I encounter are
going the opposite direction.
But in a good way.
When I am working with someone Iwant to, we're working on identifying
who their goal clients are.
I always tell people to start at the top.
You want to shoot for Gucci?
Okay.
Let's put them on the list.
Realistically.
Very few people areshooting at that level.
You might get there you mightnot but that gives us an idea

(32:42):
of how we're positioning you.
And who exactly are we trying to target?
We can replace Gucci with top levellike luxury fashion brand, right?
We can just say that instead.
If that's the goal, then now we know thetype of work that we need to be sharing.
We know the type ofimages they want to see.
We know what test shootsyou're going to be working on.

(33:04):
We know how you're going to market tothem because we have the top of the
mountain like we know exactly what's up.
From There everything that you're doing,you're still going to be marketing to
those smaller clients and if you'redoing everything right those smaller
clients are also gonna have ways offinding you So it's not like saying and
vice not really vice versa like thatdoesn't really go the other way, right?

(33:26):
If you're like, okay, the top of my listis like the restaurant down the street.
You Like, okay, that's achievable.
We can work with that.
But that's really limiting becausewhat happens when you shoot for them?
What are you doing after that?
Like your goal is shifting.
And it doesn't give us the opportunityto share, share images, share

(33:46):
work in a way where we know thatdifferent types and different levels
of client are going to see it.
We're like, we're keeping yousmall and we don't want to do that.
We can structure your marketing aroundthat the little guys are gonna follow
like they're gonna find you to you'regonna also be reaching out to them.
We're just not going to be building yourentire brand around something that you

(34:07):
can get next year We want to build itaround something that you're going to
be working for continuously over time.

Mica (34:14):
With that being said what are three steps that a food
photographer, should begin to dothis to refine their marketing today?
Okay,

Julie (34:27):
Refine all of their marketing today.
You're asking big questions, Mica.

Mica (34:30):
But.

Julie (34:32):
The next question.
Let's just,
no, this is fine.
One, I would say is doingmore client research.
People typically are not doingnearly as much client research
as they should be doing.
And what I mean by that is likereally looking at the commercial work

(34:54):
that we see in the world around us.
So looking at Instagram, what arethe ads that you're seeing when you
look at, if you want to shoot forrestaurants, go to some restaurant
pages, what does that work look like?
What are other thingsthat client might need?
What do we see from them?
If it's like packaged goods, does yourportfolio have packaged goods in it?
Or are you showing a food portfolio tosomeone who's selling a food product.

(35:17):
Like those are very different things.
Really looking at what peoplewant to see so the tools.
The easy tools for that are goingto be things like Instagram.
Looking at what other photographersare shooting and who they're
shooting for and then you can usesome depending on what level you're
at who you're really targeting.
You can use some like advertisingtools like Ads of The World is a great

(35:39):
resource for looking at advertisingcampaigns that have already been released.
So we can see what these brandshave already come out with.
So that's one, then I wouldsay competitor research.
I know that's hard for some peopleto really like emotionally be able
to look at someone else's work,but not just looking at their work.

(35:59):
Look at someone who's I say competitor,but let's say look at someone
who's like a step above or who youthink is a step above, I will say
that most people are wrong aboutwho their actual competitors are.
Find people that you think aredoing better than you and look
at what they're doing, like notjust the quality of the work.
That can help you.
If you look and you say, okay, they'regetting these shadows, really sharp in

(36:21):
a way that I'm not really achieving yet.
Okay.
Then we know, great.
That's something you can work on.
You can improve your skillset.
But also look at where are they visible?
Are they on directories?
Is there SEO in a good spot?
Are they sending out newsletters?
Look at everything that they'redoing with their marketing and
see who they're shooting for.
If they're shooting for dominoes and Iwant to shoot for Dominoes, let's look at

(36:42):
what they're doing for their marketing.
Let's look at their presentation,see if, is there something there
that I can take away and say,okay, I'm not using this tool.
Or vice versa, they're not using thistool, which means it's an opportunity
for me to use it and get in frontof people in this different way.
Those two really cover a lot ofwhat I would recommend for someone

(37:03):
looking at your own visibilityand taking a step back and saying,
Okay, if I am a food photographer inBoston, how would someone find me?
And like, kind of go through the process.
Look around, where do I show up on SEO?
Am I on any directories?
Have I done anything wherepeople would see my name?

(37:24):
What's my like Instagram follower countisn't everything, or am I being followed
by people who I would want to hire me?
What am I doing to get in front of people?
And if you can't really identifythat, then it's okay, we need to.
We need to update that because weneed people to be able to find you
without you necessarily having toreach out to every single person

(37:44):
who could potentially hire you.
We need to give them pathsto find you on their own.
And that one's a bigger sortof undertaking is to look at
everything you're doing in yourbusiness, but really think about it.
If I was a client, how would I find you?
What's the tool that I would haveto use in order to make that happen?

Mica (38:00):
Something you just touched on as you know who's following me.
It's cool that your mama, yoursister, your cousins, your best
friend from third grade followyou and they like all your stuff.
I actually I re added my mom, by the way,but I removed my mom from my Instagram.
She got so upset.
She's like, I'm your mom.
I'm like, mom, you don't hire me.

(38:24):
You don't hire me.
And I say, and you follow,we're friends on Facebook.
What more, we talk on the phone.
What more do you need?

Julie (38:31):
Yeah, I've done that with, I don't know that my.
My mom's not really using Instagram, butI did go through at a certain point and
removed all of my personal connectionsfrom my like business Instagram.
I'm still following them.
I removed them as a follower for mebecause I'm like, I don't need you here.
You don't need to be seeing this stuff.
You don't want to see it.
You're being supportive.
And like, I'm taking this away from you.

(38:53):
Then when you look at it, and thenyou're like, these are my actual
numbers, like the people who are engagingour photo industry people, right?
That's kind of something that we want.
It's great if you get a lot of engagementfrom Yeah, every friend you've ever
had, but that's not helping you.

Mica (39:06):
Unless they have a business in the industry, you're trying to get work
in, or they know a guy who knows a guywho can connect to you, otherwise find
a medium, a platform for your personalstuff, or just, start a whole other
personal Instagram and put your stuffthere for your friends and family.

(39:27):
I want to take it to strategiesfor photographers when they
don't know if their marketingefforts are making a difference.
What strategies would you giveto them to stay motivated?

Julie (39:44):
Effective is not really the metrics we should be looking at.
Very few marketing tools are goingto result in a one to one conversion.
And that's because as a commercialphotographer, you're in a B2B role.
You're not selling a product.
You're not just, appealing tosomeone who wants to order a pizza
tonight and you have an ad and itlooks really tasty, they buy it.

(40:07):
That's not somethingthat we typically see.
So when we're looking at whetheror not something's effective,
we want to make sure that we'relooking at the right metrics.
What we see with that is thingslike on Instagram, like I said,
your follower count isn't.
It's not that it's not important,but it's not that important.
Your engagement is reallywhat's more important.
And also when you get people re sharingyour work, I count that as a really

(40:33):
high win because that's getting youin front of another person's audience.
That's a really great thing to look at.
Am I getting re shares?
Are people spreading my work around.
That's gonna help you out a lot.
With things like an email newsletterI hear so many people are like,
I sent out one newsletter twoyears ago and nothing happened.
And it's like, yeah, Icould have told you that.
Cause you sent out onenewsletter two years ago.

(40:54):
What are you doing?
So what we want is like to do itconsistently and look at your numbers.
What's your open rate?
What's your click rate?
The click rate is I would say arguablythe more important one of the two
because that's people expressinginterest in seeing more they're
taking a next step There's telling youthey want to see more of your work.

(41:15):
You have to follow up with thosepeople but look at things like that.
Are my newsletters getting opened?
What's the open rate?
What's the click rate?
If the click rate is really low.
It's always really low, but thereare things that you can do to make it
a more appealing email to click on.
Same with the open rate.
If your open rate is like super low,let's look at your subject line or like

(41:36):
the way that this looks in an inbox.
There's something there thatisn't working for people.
With direct emails I tell people to makesure you have a tracking tool because
that will save you a lot of headache.
You're not going to get a response frommost direct emails that you send out.
But if you have a tracking tool and youcan see this was opened, you can also see,
Oh, they clicked the link to my website.

(41:58):
Good enough.
Like we're going to call that good enoughfor now, in terms of a marketing tool.
Great.
You've gotten in front of them.
Might not have hit them at theright time or they're too busy.
They can't get back to you.
Fine.
That's all great.
We want to know that it was delivered.
This was opened or it was clicked on.
Also with things likeInstagram or Linkedin.
This isn't often reflected in analytics,but getting sort of a read, this kind

(42:23):
of will come from like a third party ofwhat your presentation looks like what
type of photographer do you look like?
Are you searchable onany of those platforms?
Can people find you?
What are we, what informationare we giving to people?
Are you calling out client names?
Are you sharing work that lookslike what your clients want to see?
If you are doing all of thosethings, you're going to see that

(42:44):
your marketing is effective.
It's not going to be aone to one conversion.
It's not like, oh yeah, Isent out this newsletter.
I got booked for five jobs.
Like that just isn't going to happen.
But that's not what we want.
That's not really the goalof that marketing tool.
All of your marketing tools, it's a lot oflittle things that are working together.
And we want to be really consistentand give time and know that

(43:06):
this is going to take a while.
It's a long game.
But looking at the metricsand just seeing, okay, am I
getting these numbers that.
Am I at the average forthese my above the average?
Those are good enough.
That's what we want.
We don't really need like Yeah, I postedon instagram and I got hired the next day.
That's not good That's notwhat we're looking for.
We're just looking for the numbersthat tell us this is effective.

Mica (43:30):
You've said the word marketing tool a few times.
What are marketing tools?
Like I know what they are, butyour website is a marketing tool.
Your Instagram is a marketing tool.

Julie (43:44):
Yeah, website, Instagram, LinkedIn, email newsletters.
Yeah, if you're doing printed promo.
Any of the individual thingsthat you're doing that fall under
this broader marketing category.
Where I'm just referring tothose all as marketing tools.
That's all part of your like toolkit.

Mica (44:03):
And you said something earlier about business to business versus
this is to customer B2B, B2C.
One thing I tended to do whenI transitioned from families to
commercial is that the things that Iwas doing applied were B2C marketing

(44:24):
and learning how B2B marketing works.
How can we know the difference betweenwhat type of marketing we should be doing?

Julie (44:34):
Yeah, that's a problem that people run into.
And we sort of talked about a littlebit at the beginning talking about
your, your education that in thislike marketing class, it was sort
of, not, not specific to any group.
Anyone who's Yeah, a wedding,like a, family, engagement,
like that type of photographer.

(44:55):
That world has a totally different setof marketing tools that's available to
them, and they're going to use thosemarketing tools in a very different way
than a commercial photographer will.
The commercial photographers.
There are exceptions to this.
There are some industries or some clienttypes where you will be able to use some

(45:17):
of those like retail marketing tools.
But for the most part, there's adifferent way that we communicate
with a commercial client base.
And part of it is because thisis not a one to one conversion.
We're not selling you on a productthat you're going to purchase today
that you can just buy at any time.
We're building a relationship withsomeone that we want to work with

(45:40):
when they have the need for us.
So a lot of people make that mistakewhen they're putting together their
marketing or they're putting togethertheir website and they're looking at.
If it's not specific to the photoindustry, it tends to lean more
towards the retail direction.
We see a lot of, I, I can tell rightaway looking at someone's website oh, you

(46:01):
got, you didn't, get this advice from acommercial photo person because he made
a lot of retail photography decisions.
And it just doesn't translatebecause a lot of those tools.
Again, it's for a it's for someone who'slooking for a one to one conversion.
We're not looking for that.
We're looking to build relationships.

(46:22):
We want you to be top of mind to people.
When that project comes through.
This person at the ad agency they need aphotographer for this creative direction.
They know, Oh, I just got this newsletter.
I've seen this woman'swork a couple of places.
I'm familiar enough with her style thatI know that she would be a good fit.
We're not trying to saywhat job do you have today?

(46:44):
Give it to me.
That isn't going to.
Work because that's not how it worksthere's not just like a bucket of
photo projects that are available.
It's like we go through cycles.
That's something that we want to keepin mind and communicate that in the
right way to the client that you alsounderstand their business and that's
why presenting with these sort ofmore retail photo tools can limit you.

(47:05):
It's not even that it's non effective.
It can also hurt you because the client,a B2B client can look at that and be
like, this person doesn't know who we are.
They don't understand how tocommunicate with us, what we need.
So we want to be really sure that,yeah, that you're using all of the
marketing tools in the right way forwhatever it is that you're shooting.

Mica (47:24):
What other signs would a photographer know that the
marketing that they are doing orthe way that they are presenting
themselves online needs a shift?

Julie (47:36):
One sort of giveaway is what are the requests that you're getting?
All photographers pretty much at alllevels will get random requests where
you're like, why did you pick me?
This doesn't make any sense, but whatever.

Mica (47:48):
We saw your camera and it looks nice.

Julie (47:50):
yeah, like really high level photographers that are
like, why did they commission you?
Like this?
I don't know.
There was something theyliked and they went with it.
That's all.
Fine.
If you're getting that consistentlyand you're like, this just is not
aligned, then we know that you're notreally communicating in the right way.
What you are looking for, whoyou are as a photographer.

(48:12):
That's going to be the most obvious sign.
I think the outside of that whatI like people to do, and this
is sort of like a longer way ofgetting to this answer is just to
do a lot of like portfolio reviews.
Find out exactly what people think of you.
Cause they're, you're payingthem to give you that feedback.
If you want to shoot for like Dominoesand they're telling you that you're

(48:35):
a good fit for a restaurant, right?
That's very different.
That's a different client type.
So we know that somethingisn't coming through, right?
We need, we know that we needto update something there in the
presentation probably because it'slike you're selling something that
you don't want to get hired for.

Mica (48:51):
So I want to close out today's interview to talk more
about your business coaching andthe services that you provide.
The consulting that you do, the newsletterdesign, the marketing and audit plan.
You do the coaching.
Why is it crucial for food photographersto work with a photography consultant?

Julie (49:14):
Yeah, people come to me with so many different needs.
People at differentpoints in their career.
Sometimes it's people looking to pivot.
A lot of the time it's that people cometo me and they say, I'm not getting
the types of clients that I want.
I feel like I'm getting these requeststhat are not what I want at all.
And I am not objective enough to beable to see what I'm doing wrong, so

(49:36):
that I think the biggest benefit I wouldsay is getting that objective view.
Like I don't really have astake in the game, right?
Like I very much want my clientsto be successful obviously that
is our end goal all the time.
But I'm not emotionallyattached to your images.
I'm not going to hold on to somethingif it's not beneficial for you.
I'm literally only looking at whatare we doing that we are going to get

(49:59):
you bigger clients, more work sendyou down the right path career wise.
So really having someone whoI think can be on your team.
Someone who's looking forthe same things, right?
We all want you to succeed.
We all want you to reach your goals.
We're going to do that together.
But, you get this very objective viewof you know, hey, like you might really

(50:21):
love this thing that you're doing, butI got to tell you it is not helping you.
Like this is going to hurt you.
Getting that sort offeedback in a safe space.
consultants are very nice.
It doesn't pain me at all to tell you,if you're going down the wrong path,
if you're not showing the right workor even yet at times if it's a skill
set issue, like, all right, we needto fix this way that you're shooting.

(50:42):
This one thing isn't really working.
Like you're going to getthat really direct feedback.
And again, I can't stress enoughall positioned to help you succeed.
It's like everything that we're doingis just to get you more work, get you
more of the type of work that you wantand we're going to do it together.
Honestly, I would love a consultant,if anyone wants to give me one

(51:05):
because it's so satisfying.
It's satisfying on both ends whenyou're like, yes, like we did it.
We've gotten yeah, we got that bigbudget job that we really wanted.
We reached this client base.
We've gotten more clients thisyear than we did in any other one
because we've been doing all ofthese marketing tools together.
It's a very satisfyingrelationship to have.

(51:26):
I love doing the one on one coachingwith my clients because that's really
where we get more personalized andwhere we get to look at anything
and everything that you're doing.
We go over together.
People come to me withso many different goals.
And this is actually topical.
I work with a lot of women who arecoming back from childbirth or had

(51:47):
to take time off with their familiesand are having a hard time getting
back into the swing of things.
I work with people whohave sort of hit a plateau.
They did really well.
They got to the level that they're atright now, but they're not really moving
forward anymore and they don't know why.
What they're missing.
I work with people who are earlierstages where a lot of what we talk

(52:08):
about is more educating them onthe basics of the commercial photo
industry, but also really introducingtools that they've never used before.
It really runs the gamut.
Everyone it's different.
There's no one way thatI operate with coaching.
It's more.
We look at your goals.
If it's something that I cannot helpyou with, then you'll know right,

(52:31):
I'll tell you, it's not for everyone.
There are limits but, most people,it's like, we can work with this.
There are things that we can improve here.
We'll troubleshoot any issues thatcome up, we'll do that together.
We'll look at the work, we'll look atyour marketing and we'll make sure that
everything is aligned with your target.
What is your goal?
And that goal can be anything.

(52:51):
It can be financial, it can be a type ofclient, it can be, just getting back into
the swing of things after taking time off.
For some people it's accountability.
They're like, I know what I need to do,but I will not do it unless you help me.
Which is always so fun becauseit's I feel like a little cop,
who's like to do your homework.
But it's a good way tokeep people on task.
It's you have to answer to me I'm gonnagive you the thumbs down if you show up

(53:15):
to our meeting and you haven't done anyof the things that we needed you to do.

Mica (53:18):
My god, I love an accountability person, because I
will procrastinate forever and ever.
I have one final question for you.
If you could go back and give youryounger self one piece of advice
about building your career asa consultant, what would it be?

Julie (53:38):
I feel like this would apply to photographers as well.
My career path was alwaysin the photo industry and it
was always in service, right?
Like supporting a photographer.
Working at the agency to supporta group of photographers.
Everything that I did, though, wassort of like I'm learning so much and

(54:00):
I need to, and I want to keep learning.
I want to keep being in positionswhere I don't know everything and I
want to learn as much as possible.
I didn't plan to becomea photo consultant.
It just was like, once I foundout, Oh, this is even an option.
This is exactly what I want to do.
But there was always sort of thisokay, it's going to pay off, right?
You're going to learn all thisstuff and you're going to get these.

(54:21):
There's this like amazing job.
You don't know what it is rightnow, but you're going to love it.
I wouldn't advise myselfto do anything differently.
This is just, you know, sort ofvalidating that every opportunity
was an area to learn so much.
And then it all came together ina way where it's exactly a logical
conclusion to all of that, likeeducational work experiences.

(54:42):
But I would say if you're not, for me,if I'm not learning as I'm going, then
it's like, what are we really doing here?
We need to keep learning, keepchallenging put yourself into situations
where you don't know anything andallow yourself to figure it out and to
pick up all of this information frompeople who know a lot more than you.

(55:02):
Knowing that's going to pay off,there's no way that it can't.
You're always going to be doingbetter if you're, continuing
to evolve and educate yourself.
So yeah, I think that would be the advice.
Always be learning.
Always be learning.

Mica (55:15):
So I know for sure that there are listeners who are going
to want to know and follow you.
So wheree can they find you?

Julie (55:22):
I have a difficult last name, so I really hope you have
this written down . So Mica,

Mica (55:28):
it, will be show notes along with the okay, for you guys, so.

Julie (55:33):
We're gonna help people out.
yeah, my website is Julie Skarwecki and onInstagram, it's julieskarwackiconsulting.
That is spelled S K A R W E C K I.
But again I trust there willbe a written element here where
someone can just click on it.
Uh, But yeah, it's so difficult.

(55:58):
But yeah, come take a look atmy website and follow on social
media for marketing tips.
And yeah, if anyone thinks thatthey would benefit from working with
a consultant, you can always setup an intro call and we can chat.
See what you're looking for.

Mica (56:11):
Thank you Julie so much for being on the show.
Yes.

Julie (56:19):
Good chats.

Mica (56:20):
Yes.
With my meaty questions.

Julie (56:22):
Yeah.
I'm aiming big with some of these.

Mica (56:27):
Oh man.