143 | A New (& Refreshed) Approach to Your Marketing Strategy

Summary:
In today's episode we’re getting clear on what you need to be focusing on right now in order to book more clients and sessions.

If I had to take a guess – I would bet money on the fact that you’re tired of your current marketing strategy – it doesn’t feel like it’s working the way it should – and that you’re ready to focus on something else that will actually grow your business.

I can say that with confidence because this is something that my coaching clients and community are currently feeling and so I can bet that you’re feeling it too.

We are talking about both mindset and strategy today – and we’re going to be talking about it in a way that you likely haven’t thought about lately. And if you know me, you KNOW that I’m all about taking inspired action and creating momentum in a sustainable way – so grab your notebook and a pen and get ready to take some notes during the episode.

Let's dive in!

Ways we can work together:

• <<Coaching>> Photographers, are you ready to create a sustainable business strategy?
• <<Brand Photos>> Is it time to elevate your business and get updated , gorgeous brand photos?

I'D LOVE TO CONNECT WITH YOU!

• Say hello on Instagram 👋
• Watch/Listen the podcast episodes on Youtube 📺
• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🎙
• Join the email community ✍🏻

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to this episode of the she Calls Her Shots podcast. This is the show that empowers photographers just like you to take inspired action and earn more money as a full-time photographer and business owner. If we haven't met yet, I'm Krista Marie and I've spent the last 15 years as a wedding photographer and in the last year, shifted into serving women business owners with personal brand photography. I've helped photographers all around the world build thriving photography businesses, both through this podcast and also inside of my coaching programs, and in today's episode, we're going to get really clear on what you need to be focusing on right now in order to book more clients and sessions. We're really going to get into the weeds of your marketing strategy and get clarity on is it working for you and, if not, what might need to be tweaked. Because, if I had to take a guess, I would bet money on the fact that you are likely feeling a little tired of your current marketing strategy. Maybe it doesn't feel like it's working, or it's just not working at the capacity that you want it to be working at, and you might be ready to focus on something else that's actually going to grow your business and the reason. I can say that with confidence is because this is something that my current coaching clients and my community are really feeling, and so I can bet that that is something that you can relate to as well and this feels really important to share. So I want to take a minute and ask you this question. I want you to take a guess how much money do you think that I have spent on courses and programs as a photographer throughout the years of growing my business? If you had to take a guess on how much money do you think I have invested in courses, programs, education as a photographer, I can tell you that the number is high, and when I say high, I say it's probably over $15,000, probably even more than that. And I say that to you not to brag or do some sort of weird flex of how much money I've invested, but I say this to you because I need you to know that I have dedicated myself, my time, my energy, my money into putting in the work.

Speaker 1: 2:16

I have made some big, major investments in my business, and I'm going to be honest with you. If I can share one through line, one takeaway that I can from those investments, it's that success in your business is not gauged by how amazing your strategy is. In actuality, most often, the biggest thing that's missing from your strategy, your business strategy, is most often a lack of self-confidence and self-belief. And, honestly, me saying that right now might trigger you, because you might be wanting to tell me that no, krista, there's a certain strategy or formula or system, there's something that I don't have in place, and that's the thing that's keeping me from making money. And here's the thing strategy systems they're all important and we're actually gonna talk about strategy today. So I want you to know that we are going to talk about it.

Speaker 1: 3:11

But the reason I know this is true is because this was me, I, for so long in my business, I wanted to just find what is the thing that I can invest my money in, the program that's going to transform my business right, what's the strategy that I can implement. That's going to be the thing. You know, that feeling, the thing that just changes everything. But I can confidently tell you, after making so many investments, working with amazing coaches and participating in great programs, it's just not how it works right. And so, again, we are going to talk about strategy. So, if you're like Krista, I tuned in because I want to talk about my marketing strategy. Hang with me, we're going to talk about it. But I first and foremost think it's important that we do talk about, and kind of start from this place of knowing that this inner work is actually some of the more important things that we can do and invest in in our business.

Speaker 1: 4:06

Because what I found is that whenever a coach or a mentor would tell me that I needed to do more inner work right, like I needed to have more self-belief or self-confidence I would always feel really frustrated, if I'm being honest with you, because what was happening was I had a lot of drive to succeed, and if you're listening in, you probably feel the same way, right, if someone tells you like you aren't going to do something, you're like watch me, you know that feeling that I'm going to make this work, no matter what. And so whenever someone would tell me I needed more confidence or more self-belief or whatever, I would sometimes feel a little triggered because I'm like but I have it. But what was happening is I was mistaking that drive, that drive for success and the desire for success. I was looking at that as self-belief, not realizing that, while, yes, my drive and determination to be successful. All of that was there, but that inner knowing and that actual believing that I'm not going to be successful. I'm not going to be successful. I'm not going to be.

Speaker 1: 5:04

I didn't need the programs, the systems right. Like the inner knowing that trusted that the success that I wanted to have I already had access to. Like I didn't need to buy the courses or the programs or whatever. Like I didn't trust myself enough to believe that I already had that success in me. And so for a long time, when I thought about the systems in my business or the strategies I used to use them almost as a crutch. I held on to this belief that if I could just optimize my systems and be really efficient and have really solid strategies in place, that they would be the things that would increase my leads and book me more clients. Until I realized the best strategies fall short to your level of self-belief. And what I mean by that is that if you are starting from a foundation where you don't actually believe in yourself, you can implement all of the strategies in the world. Tried and true, this is guaranteed to work, but if you don't actually believe that you're capable of achieving that success on your own, that strategy is not going to work, and so I realized that for a long time, I realized there was a lot more inner work that needed to be done in my business in order for those systems and strategies to work.

Speaker 1: 6:17

So today, in this episode, we are going to talk about your strategy in a way that you likely haven't thought about lately, or maybe ever for that matter and if you know me, you know that I'm all about taking inspired action and creating momentum, but I'm all about doing it in a sustainable way. So I am gonna say you might wanna take some notes during this episode today. So if you're editing, if you have a notepad by you, or maybe you're driving, obviously please pay attention to the road. I don't feel like you need to take notes because you can always come back and listen in, but we are going to talk through some strategy pieces today, and I really am excited and hopeful that you'll walk away with a different approach to how you think about your marketing strategy in your business, and I also just want to share that, as someone who has invested thousands of dollars on programs and courses, I have learned that the most impactful programs that I've been a part of have all included real-time, personalized support, where you're not just a number in a course or in a program, but you're actually deeply connected with a support system and a team. And so at the end of the episode I'll share more on how you can get one-to-one support to help you really create the business that feels supportive and life-giving to both yourself and for your clients. But for now I want to go ahead and let's dive into how you can take real-time action to create that business strategy that feels fully supportive and aligned for you.

Speaker 1: 7:42

So the first question I have for you is I want to do a quick pulse check how are you currently feeling in your business? What's happening? What's there Like? What emotions are present for you right now? And, to take that a little bit further, what is currently making you feel like you're behind? Or what is present that makes you feel like you're not enough or not as far along as you might want to be? And the reason, again, that we want to start here is because we have to address these things first. We have to know and be really conscious and aware of where we're starting from, because otherwise all of the other strategies that you try to layer on top of that foundation will crumble right.

Speaker 1: 8:29

We have to have a strong foundation for our business to grow and so, really honestly, take a pulse check for yourself. How am I feeling? How am I feeling about my business growth? What's making me feel like maybe I'm not as far along as I want to be, like what's really honest and real for you right now in this season, like what's really honest and real for you right now in this season and I want to dive into once you have a baseline of that understanding and an awareness around that.

Speaker 1: 8:58

I want to now kind of dive into this marketing strategy piece of our conversation today and I really want to ask you, and I want you to think about, what type of sharing and marketing strategy currently feels really good for you. Also, side note, there's a little bird that's just having a wonderful time outside. I have my windows open today because it's like beautiful in California. So if you can hear our little friend in the background, I hope it just reminds you to take a moment. Get outside today, enjoy the sunshine. But, coming back to the topic, I want you to ask yourself what type of sharing and marketing strategy currently feels really good for you. And if you're not sure.

Speaker 1: 9:38

We're going to go through a couple of different examples, and so this is where I want to encourage you. If you're able to grab a pen and a piece of paper, if you're driving or if you're doing something where you can't use your hands, that's totally okay. Just listen in and just give yourself a moment to think about, like, which of these feel really aligned and good for you at the moment. So we're going to dive into this little exercise and I want you to think about the, the next three things that I'm going to mention. I want you to think about these on a scale from one to ten. So, and the scale is going to be how much enjoyment do you have when you think about, or when you currently do, these activities? So, on the scale, 1 is I really don't enjoy this at all, and 10 being, oh my gosh, I could do this every day.

Speaker 1: 10:23

So, thinking about it from that scale, I want you to rate the following things. First things first. How do you feel or how much enjoyment do you get out of writing content and I'm not talking about sharing just yet. I'm not talking about actually going through the process of, like, doing the whole sharing on Instagram or whatever. I want you to think about just simply writing the content, sitting down to write content, and this could be for Instagram posts, it could be for blog posts, but I want you to think about on a scale of one to 10, how much do you currently enjoy writing out content for your ideal clients to consume?

Speaker 1: 11:03

Second thing, on a scale of one to 10, how much joy do you get from connecting one-on-one with potential clients, and this can be in the DMs on Instagram. This could be people that you aren't currently working with but would be a dream to work with If you're a wedding photographer. This could be just building relationships and connecting with other vendors. This could be attending live events or connecting with the people in your local community. I want you to rate from 1 to 10 how much do you enjoy the aspect of building relationships and really getting to know your potential future clients?

Speaker 1: 11:41

And then, thirdly, how much enjoyment do you get out of hosting, let's say, like fun pop-up events for potential clients, right? So I want you to think of this category as you really dialing up your skills, right, the thing that you do as a photographer hosting fun pop-up things where you get to like, be in your craft and serve people, but in a way that feels really refreshing, right? Like it's almost like you get to just go out and purposefully do the thing that you love in order to serve your community and then also build potential relationships, connect with new clients, right? So by this I mean, if you're a wedding photographer, this can be things like pairing or partnering with local bridal stores and hosting a pop-up event. If you're a portrait photographer, this could be like collaborating or hosting an event with a local boutique. If you're a brand photographer, this could be going to a networking event and hosting a little pop-up brand photo shoot for the attendees. Like I want you to think about in that capacity.

Speaker 1: 12:45

How much joy do you get from hosting those kinds of events? And then, once you have your numbers for each of those, I want you to just take a moment. And just what do you notice about your answers? Where do you fall on each of those categories? What numbers do you have written down? And I want to just take a moment and recognize that. If you find that in those three categories, if all of those are below a five, I want to just encourage you to.

Speaker 1: 13:16

This might be a good time to take a pause and potentially maybe reevaluate your current business goals, because the things that we just talked about it's not an all-inclusive list by any means but the three things that we talked about are some of the best ways that we can grow our business on a consistent and regular basis, and so if you're in a season right now where you find that none of these are really feeling exciting for you, it might be a time to take a break. Maybe you're feeling some burnout, maybe you just need a little bit of space to kind of recoup, or you might just need to change your approach on how you've been tackling these things right. Maybe the way in which you've been trying to do these things, or the way in which you've thought about doing these things, feels really overwhelming and not fun for you. So this could be a moment to realize oh, maybe I need to rethink my strategy of how I will do this so that I can make it more fun and add more enjoyment to it. But I want you to also understand that all of these things that we mentioned can be incredible ways to book more clients and grow your business, and so I want you to hear two things with that. The good news is, you only need to walk away with a focus on one of those areas today in order to start building momentum. I need you to hear that. I only need you to walk away with one of these things as your focus for these next couple weeks, the next month, because, quite honestly, the more that you are doing the thing that lights you up whichever one of those has the highest number when you can ask yourself okay, I already find enjoyment from this. Now, how can I dial this up? How can I turn this up? How can I really do more of this, if it's currently lighting me up like let's decide to go all in, because when you can set aside time each week whether that's a few hours or a day each week to devote to implementing, participating in that strategy, whichever one you choose, you will find that a you've given yourself permission to go all in on one type of marketing strategy and you're going to feel less, less bad for not trying to do everything at once, right?

Speaker 1: 15:33

I think for so many photographers we have, we overwhelm ourselves with the shoulds. I should do this, I should blog, I should network, I should do this, and all of a sudden, we've got this list of all these things we should be doing and it's overwhelming. And then we feel stuck and we don't want to do any of them. Right, like, how often have you been in that spiral? I'm raising my hand because I've been there before and so, honestly, when you can just go all in on one, you will feel so accomplished because you know you're actively doing the things to grow your business, to create the relationships, to build more visibility and to potentially gain more clients. Right, you're actually doing the things that you need to be doing and you release yourself from the pressure of feeling like you need to be everywhere.

Speaker 1: 16:21

I almost feel like we have this belief that if we can be everywhere and trying to do all the things and doing all the marketing and like participating in all the things, it almost like it makes us feel accomplished in some weird way, even though we're not able to give any one of those avenues the most attention. Right, right, we're so spread thin trying to accomplish all the things, but because we're trying to do so much, it like weirdly gives us this sense of accomplishment but when you really look at it in your business because you're not fully going all in and like really devoting time to doing one thing, nothing really grows, which is where I think we get into this spiral where we feel like we're doing all the things and yet nothing is working. And we're just over here like what is happening, like I'm spreading myself so thin and yet I'm not seeing the results. So the takeaway that I really hope that you get here is that the whole point of this, of doing this exercise, of thinking about your marketing approach in this way, is the point is not to overcomplicate your strategy. Right, and because here's the thing for each, whichever one you choose, whether you choose to do really going all in on creating content and sharing content, or really going all in on connecting with potential clients and building relationships with people, or like hosting events and collaborating with local vendors no matter which one you choose, the bottom line here is to not overcomplicate that strategy, right, like, let's not overcomplicate it. How can we take that strategy that already feels fun for you and just make it more fun? How can you think outside of the box from, maybe, how others are currently doing that strategy in your market and create something that's really unique and fun to you? Because the more that we give ourselves permission to play and experiment and like see how things grow, the more fun we have in our business and we have a different energy right.

Speaker 1: 18:19

When we're having fun in our business, our clients can tell, they can feel that magnetic energy. We're having a great time, we're loving it. We're showing up more consistently because we're giving ourselves permission to ditch the things that we don't currently want to focus on and we're allowing ourselves to go all in on the things that actually do feel really good. And here's the thing you don't have to go all in on the things that actually do feel really good. And here's the thing you don't have to go all in on this one strategy forever. You could do this one strategy for maybe it's a couple weeks or maybe it's a month, and then you can reevaluate and see does this feel fun still? Is there a different way or a different approach or a different avenue that I want to take? You know, engage your energy levels, see how you feel.

Speaker 1: 19:00

But the takeaway here is nothing is static, right, nothing is stagnant. We're not going to just commit to one thing and this is the only way that we're going to do it, but we do have permission to ask ourselves what feels good right now and how can I more fully go all in on that one strategy and release myself from the pressure of feeling like I need to spread myself so thin? So, as a coach, one thing that I've learned from working with photography coaching clients is that we do get really burned out, thinking that we have to be doing everything all the time. Right, and how often does? Our just inner spirit gets crushed when we scroll Instagram and we feel like everyone else is crushing it. Right, because maybe your thing this month isn't creating content. Maybe you're going to push pause on Instagram. Maybe you're like you know what actually the only thing I'm going to use Instagram for is hyping up other local people in my area. Right, let's say you're a wedding photographer and you're like I'm gonna go all in on hyping up the wedding vendors in my area to build connections with them and to like DM with them and, like you know, cheer them on and reply to their stories. But you might push pause on posting, and that's okay. I want you to really decide whichever one it is that feels good for you. Decide to go all in and Stop the comparison game. Right? Someone might be crushing it on instagram. They might be posting all the time. That's amazing. But if your thing right now is not going to be content creation, that's okay. How can you fully Go all in in your other avenue of what it is that feels good and how you want to grow?

Speaker 1: 20:45

And here's another little kind of funny mindset trick thing that I've noticed is that we often and I don't know if this is just like a people thing or I have found that with women especially we just kind of have this thought that building a business has to be hard, right, like we almost believe if it doesn't feel like a challenge, then we haven't earned it somehow, like we really believe that we have to fight for it. It has to feel hard, because if it feels hard, we feel accomplished and then we feel like we deserve the money. And so many of us have these beliefs that have really just been baked into our thoughts, right, like things like well, it shouldn't feel easy, or it has to be hard, or I have to work really hard so that I earn it, or who am I to be successful and make money? Right? There's all these subconscious thoughts that are kind of lingering in our subconscious 24-7. And so I want us to just start to recognize that, normalize that and also not let that lead right.

Speaker 1: 21:45

Decide to write a new story. Choose a different set of beliefs that actually feel like they serve you better and we really do. I said this at the beginning, but we kind of have to start here. If we want our strategies to work, we have to stop believing that our business has to feel hard. We have to stop comparing our strategy to what someone else is doing, and here's the truth. I hope your strategy looks different from mine. I hope that your daily to-dos are different from another photographer in your market. I hope that you're doing things every day and every week that light you up and that really play to your strengths and that leave you feeling good, because that's honestly going to be the only way that you'll be able to stay consistent and keep showing up to then create that profitable business that we're all dreaming about.

Speaker 1: 22:43

So I just want to do a quick recap from what we talked about and as a review. First and foremost, what's the temperature in your business? How are you really feeling? How are you currently spending your time? What are you focusing on and how are you feeling when you're actually doing the tasks and then asking yourself which of the three strategies that we talked about right and as a review. The first one was writing content and not sharing, necessarily, but like really just sitting down to write content for your ideal clients. Or connecting one-on-one building relationships with potential clients, or hosting events and really going out there and practicing your craft and serving potential new clients right.

Speaker 1: 23:23

Which of those strategies in this moment feels really good and really aligned for you, and how can you take advantage of that flow and that energy right now so that you can be doing more things that you enjoy while also increasing the visibility that you have in your business? And if you're ready for more support with this because, believe me, I know, as someone who's invested, as I said, in multiple programs and coaches, I know this is hard. This is the trickiest part of building a business I would love to have you join us inside of Amplify it's my group coaching program, just for photographers and once you're in, we'll dive straight into creating a strategy, one that helps you feel good in your business and one that also will call in those next dream clients. So you can find more information about Amplify in the link in the show notes below and in the meantime, I'm just so grateful for you, I'm cheering you on and I am just so honored to support you along your journey and I look forward to chatting with you over in the next episode.