0:00

How's it going everybody?

0:03

Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back.

0:06

I'm Robert Massey. This is the Travel and Adventure

0:08

Photography School. Thanks so much for taking

0:10

a few minutes to join me on the trail this morning.

0:13

Like I promised, we're gonna be out adventuring while

0:15

we do some of these episodes and today we are on

0:17

our way to Helen Lake, maybe

0:20

up to Cirque Peak, depending how often I stop

0:22

to shoot. I'm a little bit later this

0:24

morning than I normally like to be. Primarily

0:26

just sunrise was so beautiful

0:28

as I was leaving Banff this morning that I had to stop

0:31

and go back down to Vermilion Lakes and take some

0:33

photos. Those conditions I've never

0:35

witnessed at sunrise. I've seen lots of photos

0:37

of it, but I've never seen it. And so I had to go and shoot. There was

0:40

fog just everywhere coming up out of Vermilion

0:42

Lakes and Mount Rundle was

0:45

beautiful, but also clouded in and

0:47

misty. It was stunning. And so I actually

0:49

ended up spending my first three hours of my morning there filling

0:51

the cards I brought with me for the

0:54

walk today. So, getting out on the trail

0:56

a little bit later than I'd like. But we're

0:58

here, we're adventuring, we're having fun. And

1:00

for a Saturday, it's been a pretty good day so

1:02

far. Alright, so

1:05

today I wanted to talk about

1:07

something I've actually had a lot of people message me about something

1:09

that a lot of the creative community in Banff, we frequently

1:11

talk about and it's how to find work.

1:14

If you are looking at becoming

1:16

a professional photographer of any

1:18

form, whether it's a travel one outdoor

1:20

adventure photographer, weddings, couples,

1:23

portraits, brand, whatever. It

1:25

really doesn't matter. These tips

1:27

about finding work are applicable

1:30

to everybody. So,

1:32

yeah, let's do this thing. Apologies

1:35

going up some steep trails and, you're

1:37

definitely gonna hear some heavier breath

1:39

every once in a while on this one. All

1:41

right, so first off, finding

1:43

clients, finding work, finding

1:45

a way to push yourself into not even

1:47

doing this professionally, but maybe just making

1:49

a little bit more money off of the photographs

1:52

you like to take, or off the videos you like to take, these

1:54

tips really apply across the board

1:56

for creators, there's very few things

1:58

that are just specific to photography.

2:01

The first thing I wanna talk about is the way most people

2:04

tend to start getting their first gigs, and that's

2:06

being asked to shoot something for exposure.

2:09

Now the idea of shooting something for exposure

2:11

is somebody who comes to you with a big following.

2:14

Somebody comes to you with a big event where

2:16

there's gonna be lots of people and they say, Hey, look, we're gonna do

2:18

this thing. Will you do it for free? Like, we'll post

2:20

your photos and tag you. That's the idea

2:22

of doing something for exposure. Now,

2:25

I hate saying don't ever

2:27

do something. The world is much more gray than

2:29

it is black and white. So you'll hear a lot

2:31

of photographers just cut this off

2:33

and say, no, you don't do this. And

2:37

I disagree with that entirely. I

2:39

think that there are times and places

2:42

where you want to do something for

2:44

exposure or for free. Because

2:47

there are instances where that's gonna pop up. So

2:49

the reasons why you wouldn't wanna do something for exposure. Somebody

2:52

comes to you and they say, Hey, will you do this?

2:54

They have a big following or they're having this big event, you

2:57

might not wanna say yes to 'em because the people who are gonna

2:59

be there aren't your target clientele. They're not

3:01

people who are going to purchase your work or

3:03

appreciate it. For example, if you really want to do

3:06

travel and outdoor work and somebody's asking you

3:08

to come in and shoot, brand photos for a hair

3:10

product company for free, that

3:12

doesn't really align with the people

3:14

who are going to look to hire you. So in that case,

3:16

the exposure doesn't actually mean anything. These aren't people

3:18

who are going to appreciate the work that you do, and it also probably

3:21

won't represent the type of work that you'd

3:23

like to do. Don't move forward

3:25

with that. The other instances are people

3:27

who are doing that they're typically people who aren't going to

3:29

appreciate the value of photography. So

3:32

these are people who will expect things for

3:34

free or expect little changes

3:36

or more photos or just lots of things

3:38

where they won't respect your talent as an artist.

3:41

And so do you really want to get involved in that

3:43

kind of a situation? And then even if you say like, I'll do this

3:45

one for free, but the next one we get paid,

3:48

they'll probably just go to another person. They probably won't even

3:50

come back to you to work with you. Or if they do,

3:52

they'll expect you to do it for free and be like, oh, but you did this before

3:55

for free. So setting a bad precedent

3:58

for yourself. Do something for free and

4:00

then they'll kind of expect it from you in the future.

4:03

The other reason is it actually affects everybody

4:06

else in this industry. Doing something for free

4:08

is going to severely

4:10

impact everybody else's

4:12

ability to make money. It's really difficult

4:15

to show people the value in

4:17

photography or in creative work in general

4:19

sometimes. By doing something for free,

4:22

that person's going to expect more artists

4:24

to do things for free. And then you're just driving

4:26

the entire industry down into a race to the bottom. Think

4:29

about that very carefully. Think about how it affects the other

4:31

creators around you and how it affects your future prospects for

4:33

work. Alright. That being

4:35

said, there are reasons and times

4:37

you would do some work for free. The

4:40

main one is because you wanna give back, this

4:42

is the best opportunity, the best time that

4:45

I can see for doing something for free

4:47

for someone. So let's say that there is

4:50

a not-for-profit that you love, you love the work

4:52

that they do, you're really involved, you're invested in them, or

4:55

they're really involved and invested in the community

4:57

of clientele that you would like to work with.

5:00

Let's say it's a trail builders association and you're

5:02

an outdoor and adventure photographer. Trail

5:04

builders are incredibly important people

5:07

who maintain our trails. They're the ones who maintain

5:09

these beautiful places for us. So in

5:11

that case, the people who are gonna see the photos, the

5:13

people who you're gonna work with on those photos are

5:15

people who are going to like your type of work. It's probably

5:18

gonna represent where you want be and how

5:20

you work and the type of work you want to create,

5:22

and you get to give back to

5:24

an organization who gives so much

5:27

to the outdoors community. In a situation

5:29

like that. Go ahead, do

5:32

the work for free, do it for exposure. Now

5:34

that being said, if a not-for-profit comes to you, And

5:37

they're not somebody you identify with. They're not

5:39

a group or an organization whose work you believe in or

5:41

care about, or they don't match

5:43

your target clientele. You can always say no, you

5:46

don't have to do everything that a not-for-profit asks

5:48

you to do. But if you align with it,

5:50

definitely think carefully about it. Another

5:53

instance where you're probably gonna want to think really carefully

5:55

about if you wanna do work for free or not is

5:58

if a brand does step up and ask

6:00

you to do something and they are exactly

6:02

who you wanna work with. Now, this

6:04

becomes a very dicey situation very quickly. 'Cause

6:07

you're setting expectations with that brand and

6:09

it's really hard to maintain the expectation of

6:11

getting paid or at least getting

6:13

paid a substantial amount of money for shoots if you

6:16

give your first one away to them for free. But

6:19

if you've always wanted to work with them, if

6:22

their audience is exactly who you

6:24

wanna work for, not kind of, not maybe,

6:27

not look how many people, exactly

6:29

the people you're looking for, then

6:31

maybe consider a small partnership

6:34

with them. Now, you can structure that partnership

6:36

in a ton of different ways, but the way

6:38

I'd suggest doing it is not doing a full shoot

6:41

for free. You could do a mini session.

6:43

You could do just some brand photos. You could do a quick

6:45

30 minute session with them, something that's going to

6:48

allow you to show off your work, but

6:50

also not give away everything. Other

6:53

thing you can do, is if they reach out

6:55

to you saying, Hey, we'll do this for you for exposure. Try

6:57

and arrange maybe two or three shoots with

6:59

them. So tell 'em what your typical rate

7:01

would be and then go. But you know what?

7:04

If we can arrange three shoots,

7:06

we can do buy two shoots, get one

7:08

free kind of deal. You're still discounting yourself.

7:10

You're still doing work for free, and you're still setting

7:12

a precedent. But if you negotiate

7:14

that conversation carefully, it

7:16

could be a good way to build a

7:19

relationship and a rapport with them, and if they like your work,

7:21

who knows going forwards. But be very careful in

7:23

that conversation. Whew, sorry

7:26

about the heavy breathing here. Just definitely going

7:28

up a steep section of the trail here. So

7:31

there's one other instance where you're gonna

7:33

wanna work for exposure and you're actually gonna see

7:35

a lot of photographers and a lot of creatives doing

7:37

this and doing like work for free,

7:39

doing work for exposure. Even

7:41

the ones who say never do it, but they're gonna do

7:44

it in this instance. And it's,

7:46

if you're part of a giveaway, if it's part

7:48

of silent auction or charity auction. You

7:50

are gonna find that there's instances where it's a really

7:53

good idea to actually take

7:55

on those kind of projects. Especially

7:57

if you're trying to establish yourself. Even

7:59

if you are fairly established, it looks really

8:02

good if you say, give a print,

8:04

give a mini session to people, to a charity

8:06

auction, to a not-for-profit. It's a good way to give back

8:08

to the community. So similar

8:11

ideas. The first one, doing the work for free, for

8:13

not-for-profits or charities. This is something very

8:15

similar, is if the audience matches,

8:18

if the organization matches. Definitely

8:21

feel free to give your work in that case.

8:24

Or if you wanna partner with other brands

8:26

who are within the same sphere as

8:28

the audience you wanna work with. Recently the

8:31

photography accessory company Lume Cube actually

8:33

ran this kind of a giveaway where

8:35

they gave away some of their gear, other

8:37

people got involved and gave away some of their gear as well. And

8:40

a local photographer in Banff actually gave away

8:42

I believe it was a mentoring session or a spot

8:44

at one of his workshops, and that's worth

8:47

a few thousand dollars. But it got

8:49

his name out there in front of a very

8:51

large group of people who are exactly

8:53

the type of folks who will love his work, buy

8:55

his prints, come to his workshops. So minor

8:58

little investment in his marketing to

9:01

be able to reach a ton of people in his target

9:03

audience. I believe he's also a Lume

9:05

Cube sponsored photographer,

9:07

so might have had a contractual

9:09

obligation in there as well. But it gives

9:11

you an idea of how people can use those kind

9:13

of instances to give away work for free, but

9:16

gain a lot out of doing it. So,

9:18

like I said, off the hop, never just cut something off

9:21

automatically. Never say never right

9:23

off the bat. Because there are instances

9:25

where doing exposure work is a really good idea. Now

9:28

there is one other version of doing work for free

9:30

that isn't actually for exposure.

9:32

I feel like this is a really good time to throw it in here, and

9:34

it's you choosing to do that work

9:36

and approaching people to do it. So

9:39

these are basically portfolio builders

9:42

or giving samples to people who, you know,

9:44

are influential in the community you're trying to work with. For

9:47

example, I am working

9:49

on building up a bit of a better adventure

9:51

portfolio right now. I have lots of hiking,

9:54

landscapes, lots of brand work, lots of stuff

9:56

on pretty simple, straightforward trails, but I

9:58

don't have a lot of mountain biking, a lot

10:00

of rock climbing. I don't have a lot of those, like

10:02

higher end adventurey kinda sports. 'Cause

10:04

when I do them I'm typically very, very focused

10:06

on not getting hurt. So

10:09

I'm working with people who I know to go

10:11

out and do styled shoots with them. By

10:13

working on styled shoots

10:15

with folks who I know folks

10:17

who might be influential in the community,

10:19

they have friends who like to do these kind of things. If

10:22

they see the work and they like the work, there's

10:24

a lot of other people who will come

10:26

and work with me as well. Plus I have more images

10:28

to be able to show to potential clients

10:30

to show I actually know what I'm doing.

10:33

Portfolio building is a great time to do some free

10:36

work, but should be done on your terms with

10:38

clients that you like, clients that you want

10:41

to work with. Don't just take to

10:43

build your portfolio for free. Do

10:45

them intentionally and build them out yourself.

10:48

This will teach you significantly more than just showing

10:50

up and doing the work that someone else wants done. 'Cause

10:53

you actually have to think about building out the

10:55

creative side for yourself, and that's a huge

10:58

part about being a professional photographer or

11:00

a professional, creative for that matter. So

11:02

just make sure you're working with the right people,

11:05

the right audience and working to build

11:07

things in your portfolio that you actually need to build up and

11:09

build work into. Alright,

11:11

that works really well into point

11:13

number two, which is, word

11:16

of mouth. This is the classic,

11:18

the staple of marketing, the

11:20

age old one. Word of mouth

11:22

is still the most trusted

11:24

way that people decide on a

11:26

product, decide on who they're gonna work with,

11:29

decide on if they want to actually do something.

11:32

We still rely on word of mouth and we always will

11:34

I think as humans. That's because

11:37

we trust other people who have gone

11:39

through those experiences, and we wanna know a confirmation

11:41

that they liked what they did, they liked who they worked

11:43

with, they liked the product. So think

11:46

about it, word of mouth is no

11:48

longer just people talking to each

11:50

other and chitchatting about products

11:52

they like. It's a lot bigger than that.

11:54

People talking one-on-one at the office,

11:57

over messages and chats and things like that is

11:59

still a component of word of mouth. But

12:02

now you also have a large

12:04

online space where people are

12:06

passing along information about you and your product. So

12:09

this can include client testimonials that are up

12:11

on your website. This can include reviews,

12:14

which hopefully have a lot of very positive ones, and a lot of those

12:16

client testimonials are in there. This can

12:18

include large scale reviews like

12:20

bloggers or podcasters or anybody

12:22

like that, talking about you, talking about your products

12:24

without you being there. And this can

12:26

also include information on message boards.

12:28

So somebody looking for feedback

12:30

from the internet about you, about

12:33

working with you about pretty much anything. So

12:35

think Reddit, TripAdvisor

12:37

even Instagram and Twitter to

12:39

a degree. And so word of mouth is

12:42

critical to you gaining recognition

12:44

as a photographer. And actually it's one of the main

12:46

ways that a lot of old school

12:48

photographers still get work. So

12:51

there's some of the world's best, most famous photographers

12:53

who work consistently, make a ton

12:55

of money at it and have literally zero

12:57

following on social media. They're

12:59

not playing the social media game. They

13:02

are living off the word of mouth of their great

13:04

work. There's a number of adventure photographers who work

13:06

for companies like Arc'teryk, the

13:08

North Face, Patagonia ,Red

13:10

Bull, like you name it. They've worked with them

13:12

and they have two or 300 followers

13:14

on Instagram. They have zero

13:16

presence really. Their website and their Instagram and

13:18

their social just isn't there because they don't need

13:20

it. Guaranteed. You've seen some of these guys work

13:23

and you probably don't follow them.

13:25

You probably don't even recognize their name. And that's because within

13:27

the industry, they have such a good rep,

13:29

they have such good word of mouth amongst people that matters

13:32

that they get work. So all

13:34

that being said, how do you actually gain

13:37

some word of mouth from people? How do you actually

13:39

get people to trust you enough to tell other people

13:41

that you're a good person to work with? Now, there's

13:44

a lot of ways to go about that. There's the obvious

13:46

ones of go get some work. Do

13:49

really, really well at it. Focus a lot,

13:51

not just on the images, but on

13:53

the client relations side as well. So

13:56

take care of that person that you're working with. Take

13:58

care of the people that

14:00

you are messaging with, communicate lots,

14:02

create great work, have a great time

14:04

on set. Give them the products they

14:06

want. Under promise and over deliver. Really

14:09

make them feel special and loved. And,

14:12

that will gain you a huge client. Your

14:14

work could be not quite as good as other people's, but

14:16

your client relations are spectacular

14:19

and that in and of itself will make

14:21

them feel like your work is better because they enjoy the

14:23

experience more. So

14:25

don't negate the client experience just

14:28

to create good images. I've worked with photographers

14:30

that I will probably never hire again and

14:33

has nothing to do with their work. Actually. It has everything

14:35

to do with the fact that the caliber

14:37

of their work didn't outweigh that they weren't a

14:40

pleasant human to work with. They were hard to communicate with.

14:42

We took a long time to get images. We

14:45

just really ran into a few big barriers

14:47

on working with them. So yeah, focus on your client

14:49

relations and you will find

14:52

that you'll get a lot of work and a lot of word of mouth, because

14:54

people wanna work with people, they enjoy being around. People

14:56

wanna work with good people, and if you make

14:59

yourself a good person and you have good work,

15:01

you'll become invaluable. There's a few photographers

15:03

and videographers and other creatives who I keep going back

15:06

to because their work is spectacular,

15:08

but they're just good people

15:11

to be on set with. They're just good people

15:13

to communicate with and they care deeply

15:16

about everything that they do. And

15:18

their reference came to me via word of mouth.

15:20

So make sure that your client relations are on point,

15:23

and one of the best ways you can

15:25

do this is to actually ask. You

15:27

should be able to get client testimonials and good client testimonials.

15:30

So building up your Google reviews,

15:33

super important for word of mouth, building up your

15:35

own testimonials on your website. Not

15:37

quite as great as reviews, but

15:39

also really good for building up trust. If

15:41

someone is willing to give you a positive review, then

15:44

you know you've done a good job. But even more than that,

15:46

people who have had a positive experience working

15:48

with you don't typically remember to spread good news.

15:51

A lot of reviews are really done

15:53

by people who want people to be aware

15:55

of a situation. They didn't enjoy something,

15:57

something didn't go right. But if you

15:59

work on your client relations and you make sure that part of that

16:02

is telling people, Hey, if

16:04

you had a great time, even if you didn't have a great time, can you

16:06

leave me a review? Can you go to Google

16:08

and put a review in here? And are you okay if I use that

16:10

testimonial on my website? If they've had

16:12

a great time working with you, they'll probably say yes,

16:15

And they'll probably leave you a raving review because

16:17

they know you're gonna look for it. On the

16:19

other hand, if you get a negative review, this is actually

16:22

a really good opportunity for you to talk

16:24

with that client and be like, Hey. What

16:26

happened? What can I do? What can I do to improve your experience

16:29

if there is anything you can do or what can you

16:31

learn moving forward? So

16:33

it's a benefit either way to be asking for feedback

16:36

from your clients and don't be embarrassed about it. Don't

16:38

be worried about it. People typically are

16:40

happy to give you a little, tiny bit of feedback. Especially

16:42

if it's being a positive experience, especially if they really enjoyed

16:44

it. They're enthralled with saying, oh my

16:47

God, I love you. Definitely work

16:49

in client testimonials and client reviews

16:51

and client feedback into your client services,

16:53

which will lead to greater word of mouth. The

16:56

other thing that you can do for word of mouth is this

16:59

leads us into our third point playing the

17:01

social media game. I think most of us know

17:03

this at this point, that social media

17:05

is probably one of the strongest forms of word of mouth

17:07

that you can find. And

17:10

it's not, always about having the most spectacular

17:12

work. You should be

17:14

proud of the work that you put up on social media,

17:16

obviously, but it's a lot

17:18

more about being consistent with it and

17:21

posting frequently. Now, I am

17:23

by no means a social media expert. I

17:25

have a very small following. And it's just

17:27

not something that I've put the time dedication into to

17:29

building to find clients. But I

17:31

will be bringing on a social media expert

17:34

who manages accounts that

17:36

combine to be over 1.5 million

17:38

followers in the very near future. So

17:40

he's gonna give us a ton of tips and a ton of great advice

17:43

for how to grow a following for what's working

17:45

on social right now and what to look for growing forward. So

17:47

watch for that in the very near future. If you wanna get

17:49

into the social media game, it's actually a fabulous way

17:51

to find clients, especially via word of mouth. Now,

17:54

when I say that, you just need to be consistent. There are

17:56

suggested norms for posting on social

17:58

media. Admittedly, they can be really high if you're working

18:00

a full-time job. You have kids, you

18:02

have other hobbies, if you're trying to do a lot of other things,

18:05

the amount they expect from you is a lot. You don't

18:07

have to follow that. You can find a cadence

18:09

that works for you and works for your audience and

18:11

slowly build up over time. Ooh,

18:14

a Marmot. Cool. Those

18:16

of you who don't know Marmots are these cute, fluffy,

18:18

adorable, mammals who like

18:21

to hang out in the sun

18:23

and it's fabulous. I'm just walking

18:25

over another creek crossing as we chat here.

18:28

So yeah, look into your work. It

18:30

doesn't always have to be perfect. This isn't your portfolio.

18:33

Some people will look at it like that. This isn't just

18:35

make sure you're posting a little more frequently and

18:38

getting out there in front of people. Alright,

18:40

we're gonna move on from social because I promise you we're bringing

18:42

on a person in the near future to talk about it. My

18:44

last tip for you today is one that is kind

18:46

of talked about in marketing spheres, but not as much

18:48

as I feel like it should be. And that

18:51

is to work with other vendors in that industry.

18:54

So what that means is that if you are a

18:56

wedding photographer, you want to go and communicate

18:59

venues, hairstylists, wedding

19:02

planners you wanna be at wedding shows, doing

19:04

any of those things where you will

19:06

connect with other people. We're gonna

19:08

connect with your audience. This

19:10

works pretty much in any industry. It's pretty obvious

19:13

in the wedding industry how this works, but honestly, connecting

19:15

with vendors works. Everywhere.

19:18

Because it's really about building relationships. I

19:20

know for those of us introverts, my

19:22

hand's up right now for that it can be really difficult to

19:24

do relationship building and to maintain

19:27

those connections and those ties. But

19:29

it is critical to finding work. Because

19:32

people work with the people that they know about.

19:35

People work with the people they want to work with. So

19:38

reaching out to vendors in an industry where

19:40

you want to be working is a great way to

19:43

build up some relationships. So

19:45

vendor relations. Vendor relations are a lot

19:47

like client relations. Except

19:50

you have to be a little bit more delicate and

19:52

a little bit more cognizant of the situation that they

19:54

are in. That's because when

19:56

you're building, a client relationship, that client

19:58

has approached you. They want to work with you.

20:00

They think that you're the right person to be with, and they've

20:03

already engaged in a conversation with

20:05

you. So they're already what you would call a warm or a hot

20:07

lead. Definitely a hot lead if they're already

20:10

working with you. And a warm lead, if they're somebody that you're trying to

20:12

convince to hire you. Now

20:14

when you go to a vendor relationship, nine

20:16

times outta 10, you're gonna be approaching somebody who

20:18

doesn't know you and may not know your work, may

20:20

not know anything about you whatsoever. If

20:23

you're lucky and you're well known in your area, that definitely

20:25

helps. But don't let that hold you off

20:27

from approaching people and talking to them. When

20:29

you're building a vendor relationship, it's key to keep

20:31

in mind what that person's needs are.

20:34

In the role I work in I see people send

20:37

me emails or message me and be like, Hey,

20:39

I wanna work with you. This is my work. That's great.

20:41

Let's do something. And that's it. It's

20:43

not a cohesive

20:47

way to build a relationship. It doesn't help

20:49

me understand what you can do. It doesn't help me. Understand

20:52

how you can help further the organization

20:55

that I work for or provide

20:57

value to the organization that I work for. So

21:00

the ones that work really well, the ones that catch my interest are

21:02

the ones that introduce themselves, say, where

21:04

they're from, the work that they like from us, and then

21:06

how they can help us capture certain

21:09

types of content. That is by no means a

21:11

guarantee for them to be hired by me,

21:13

but that definitely helps their chances.

21:16

So I'll put two competing pieces on

21:18

the table for the way that I've have been approached

21:20

as a vendor as somebody who somebody wants

21:22

to collaborate with to create work with.

21:25

Person number one sends an email going,

21:27

Hey, I'm so-and-so. I'm awesome.

21:30

We're coming to Banff in, I think it was three

21:32

days, four days. We'd love to work

21:34

on something with you. Reach back out. Thanks.

21:37

And that was it. No link to

21:39

their work. No link to

21:42

anything that they've produced in the past. No

21:44

idea of what they shoot, how they shoot who they are,

21:47

anything like that. They just threw

21:49

out this piece of information at me

21:52

and kept going and felt

21:54

almost like they presumed we'd wanna hire them because

21:56

yeah, they had a ton of followers on Instagram.

21:58

They had some pretty decent work when I dug

22:01

in and figured out who they were. They had

22:03

worked with a few other organizations like the one I work

22:05

for. They might have been a good fit,

22:07

but the way they emailed me and the fact they're like, we're coming in three

22:10

days. We need this, this, and this. If

22:12

their approach off the bat was demanding

22:14

things from us, like hotel rooms and

22:16

pay and all these other things, and demanding it in

22:19

less than three days. Those aren't

22:21

creators that I need to work with. They're not organized.

22:24

They were there to capture what they wanted to do and do what they wanna

22:26

do, which is great. When you work with an organization,

22:28

you need to take into account their needs

22:30

and their wants. There was this huge

22:32

level of presumption. It's not

22:35

the right way to approach somebody, especially when you're cold

22:37

calling them and start demanding things

22:40

from somebody right off the bat. Because it's not

22:42

about you, it's about the person

22:44

you're reaching out to. That's critical

22:46

in these situations. You need to remember

22:48

that they come first. Now,

22:52

on the flip side of it, there

22:54

was another email that I got recently from

22:56

a local creator. They really just

22:58

wanted to reach out and say, Hey, this is who we are.

23:00

This is the work that we do. They had not

23:03

worked with our organization before, and they just

23:05

wanted to reach out, let us know what they did, let

23:07

us know the work that they had and what they

23:09

specialized in, and how they think that they could help

23:11

us produce content. There

23:13

was no demands, no expectations,

23:16

no anything like that. It was an introduction

23:18

to their work. And a small

23:20

idea of what we could do to work

23:22

together. This, to me, is a

23:24

fabulous way to introduce yourself. They

23:26

actually gave me links to their work and they told

23:29

me what they specialized in. If you're gonna be working

23:31

with some organizations, you need to let them know how

23:33

you shoot and what it is that you like to shoot. So

23:35

what that means is essentially if you are a

23:37

action photographer, tell them that. If you're a wildlife

23:40

photographer, tell them that. Tell them what you

23:42

specialize in and why what you specialize in sets

23:44

you apart from all the other emails

23:46

that these organizations are getting. All

23:48

right, one of the other great ways that you can actually set up

23:50

a vendor relationship is to set

23:52

up meetings or phone calls or coffees

23:54

with somebody. Most people, if you're in the area and

23:57

you're a local, are happy to sit down and

23:59

have a coffee when they have time, especially

24:01

if they're not paying for it. So tell them

24:03

it's gonna take 15 minutes. You just really

24:05

wanna talk to them, get to know them. Introduce yourself.

24:08

No expectations. You'd love to buy them a coffee. That's

24:10

it. It's really straightforward. It can be really intimidating

24:12

to do the first few times. You will get quite a few

24:15

no's or no responses. And you will get

24:17

a few people who are like, Hey, I honestly don't have time for that, but

24:19

it's great to meet you. Thanks for reaching out.

24:21

You know, reach out if you have work ideas,

24:23

collaboration projects or anything like that. A

24:26

simple little offer of being willing to

24:28

sit down with somebody for 15 minutes and get

24:30

to know them personally is a huge

24:32

touch to building a vendor relationship. And

24:35

finally, the third way that

24:37

I can see that you can build up a vendor relationship

24:40

is to run something like

24:42

a headshot party or a styled shoot. This

24:44

one is a lot more time intensive, takes a lot more

24:46

effort on your part, but can be

24:48

huge. I've seen it work incredibly

24:50

well for some organizations and for some

24:53

people. So a headshot party

24:55

is essentially, most people need headshots.

24:58

And in a vendor setting, you really do

25:00

need, as we cross back over a creek again you

25:03

really do need headshots frequently and you

25:05

need to vary them up, especially if you have

25:07

to be posting 'em on social media or

25:09

going to events and conferences. It's nice to have a few different

25:12

options. So you could

25:14

run a headshot party for vendors

25:16

in your area. Make it totally free.

25:18

Let everybody come in, book some time slots,

25:22

do the headshots with people, get to know them. It's

25:24

10 minutes for you to shoot their head shots. And

25:27

it's five minutes for you to get to know them. So

25:29

you're really just booking out a

25:31

bunch of opportunities for you to show people how professional

25:34

you are, how fabulous your work is,

25:36

and how much fun you are to work alongside. And

25:39

that should encourage them to wanna be a part

25:41

of your work and collaborate with you. And

25:44

the other thing that you can do is organize a styled

25:46

shoot. So if you have a lot of vendors who

25:48

are working in a similar industry who will need to advertise

25:51

themselves, who will need some photos of their work

25:53

and them at work, you could arrange a

25:55

styled shoot. These come out of the

25:57

fashion industry and the wedding industry,

26:00

but really they apply to pretty

26:02

much any industry. Where people will need to

26:04

be advertising themselves, which it's pretty much

26:06

anywhere now. You're not asking

26:08

people to give you products for free.

26:11

What you're asking is that they bring their expertise,

26:14

bring their products, bring their venue

26:16

or their space, or whatever it is that they have to offer,

26:19

and at the end you produce some photos

26:21

and you give images to everybody of their

26:23

work. It's very time intensive

26:26

on everybody's parts, but if

26:28

you can build up the right relationships

26:30

with people and then offer them a styled shoot,

26:33

it's a great way, again, to

26:35

show your organizational skills. To

26:37

show how awesome you are to work with. To

26:39

show how fabulous your work is and to

26:41

be present and in front of them while

26:44

they are doing their work. That helps ingrain

26:46

you into their brain as somebody

26:48

they wanna do this with again. As

26:50

long as you provide fabulous vendor

26:52

relations and you're fabulous to work with and

26:54

you're fun and you're on point that whole

26:57

entire day. High stress, I

26:59

know, but, you can do it. People

27:01

are a lot easier to work alongside then

27:04

you would believe, and the ones who aren't typically

27:06

aren't the people you wanna be working with anyway. Now,

27:09

one of the keys before you set up a styled shoot is

27:11

to take time to build

27:13

up a little bit of a relationship first before just

27:15

reaching out. If you want to use a particular venue, reach

27:18

out to them first. See if you can go for a tour,

27:21

see if you can show them some of your work and then once

27:23

you have a rapport with the venue manager

27:26

or the hotel manager, whoever it is there

27:28

that does these kind of bookings, then offer

27:30

a styled shoot. There are lots of places

27:32

that will say no. Because they don't need

27:34

it. Hunt for venues that are

27:37

new, under the radar, just

27:39

becoming good places to do, say weddings or

27:42

are places that you think would be amazing and

27:44

haven't been utilized yet. It

27:46

is a tall task but totally doable.

27:49

Now you're going to wanna think of vendors

27:51

who interact with your audience and who

27:54

have a nice symbiosis with

27:56

you and your work. Do lots of research,

27:59

figure out what those places are, and then start

28:02

reaching out. And if you know that you have

28:05

a connection with somebody in that community, or you

28:07

know, you have a connection with somebody who works in a place,

28:10

Definitely use those connections that you have

28:12

or those relationships that you've built up in the past.

28:15

It can be remarkable. Who knows who knows who, and

28:17

where you can get to and get in front of somebody or

28:19

get an email to somebody who you never would've expected.

28:22

So give it a shot. Build up your

28:24

vendor relationships and they will start recommending

28:26

you to either other vendors or

28:29

ideally to the clients you wanna work with. Now, of course,

28:31

there's all sorts of other things that you can be doing.

28:34

There's websites with proper SEO,

28:36

and proper back links and all that good

28:38

stuff. There's trade shows,

28:40

there's putting your work up on display in public

28:42

locations, so coffee shops, galleries,

28:45

wherever your work fits in really well. And

28:48

then there's getting out and talking

28:50

to people when you're on the trail or when you're traveling and

28:52

just saying hi and you never know who

28:55

you might run into or who you might introduce yourself

28:57

to, that things just play out in a beautiful manner. And

28:59

I know that's really difficult, but we

29:01

are in a service industry. We

29:04

need people to want to work with

29:06

us. We need people to like our work and

29:09

we need people to enjoy working

29:11

with us. All right, folks. That's it. That

29:13

is all. I hope you enjoyed the

29:15

first of our real hiking,

29:17

exploring podcasts. See

29:20

how it goes and yeah, if you

29:22

hated this, definitely let me know

29:24

if you have any feedback at all. Definitely

29:26

reach out. I'm always open to conversations.

29:29

If you have more questions, if you have thoughts or an episode

29:31

you wanna hear something about, let me know. I'd

29:33

love to be able to answer any questions

29:35

that I can or find the right person

29:38

to come on board. And thanks so much. Reach

29:40

out to me on Instagram at Robert Massey Photography

29:43

or on my website

29:45

at robertmasseyphotography.ca. Thank you so much for

29:47

taking some time to listen. I really do truly

29:49

appreciate it. Have a fabulous

29:52

day everybody. Bye for now.