Original subtitles

Hey team, it's time.

Let's wheel out the branding and marketing, shall

we?

We've got a ton to get through here,

from features of a brand, target client, design

briefs, SEO, social media and even pricing.

So let's crack on.

Now, a very common mistake I see in

a lot of photographers' businesses through no real

fault of their own, is that they just

decided one day to start shooting and there's

nothing wrong with that, but they just run

with it, share everything, show everything, figure it

out when they need to.

But what I hope this module will make

you realise is the benefit and importance of

just stopping and stopping to think, plan and

strategise.

How many of you have ever done a

business plan?

Don't worry, I'm not going to make you

do one just yet, but I do want

you to understand its benefits and if you

decide to write one down, great.

Just because you work on your own doesn't

mean you shouldn't have a brand or marketing

strategy.

Branding and marketing simply helps you control the

direction of your business.

If your business is a ship, the branding

and marketing are the elements that will steer

that ship and the destination of the ship

are your goals.

We're going to explore common mistakes, mistakes I've

made and by God I've made some.

We're also going to talk about pricing mindset,

how to price and when to increase prices

and it's important to remember with pricing that

in this industry you don't go from charging

800 pounds to 4,000 pounds overnight.

It takes time, hard work, constantly wanting better,

but without a considered branding and marketing approach,

it won't happen at all.

Like the rest of this course, I'm not

here to tell you what to do.

Again, these are my experiences, but I've been

on this journey for seven to eight years

now, along with having the experience of working

within a digital marketing role for a multinational

business and I hope I can pass on

some of those lessons and hopefully get you

thinking in a different way and help you

avoid the potential traps.

Before we get stuck into the content and

if you haven't done this already, I want

you to just spend a few minutes thinking

about and writing down your goals.

Destination weddings, a certain amount of weddings, a

certain amount of turnover, a type of wedding,

a type of client, it can be anything.

You might have a few realistic and sensible

goals for the short to medium term, but

I also want you to have something crazy,

something that seems totally unrealistic right now, but

the purpose of that crazy goal is that

you have something to aim for over a

period of time.

For me, that example was in 2015 when

I made the decision to get 20 weddings

for £85,000 turnover.

At a time when I was charging around

£2,000 a wedding, that meant I'd have

to double my rate and average £4,000

a wedding and I only knew of three

or four other photographers in the UK charging

above that price point.

In 2020, so five years after I set

my goal and had it not been for

Covid ruining my business slightly, I was scheduled

to shoot 22 weddings for £83,000 worth

of turnover.

I was 99% of the way to

the goal I set in 2015.

The question to ask is, had I not

set that goal, had I not given myself

something to aim for or work towards, where

would I be?

Would I still be charging £2,000?

And then in 2020, mid-summer, mid-lockdown,

it was time to start making some new

plans.

I'm not going to share exactly what my

plans are for the next four to five

years there for me, but one of the

first was to launch this course, to take

the content I deliver, improve on it and

launch it as an online platform.

From that, it becomes a task of reverse

engineering.

I had the content, but what did I

lack?

Well, first of all, talking to camera.

This.

I was able to present to a room

of people or an audience, no problem.

I'm nervous as hell, but I enjoy it.

Talking and delivering content to a device or

a camera, totally different ballgame.

You don't just flick a switch and pick

these skills up.

Any skill or development takes time.

It takes a process.

This e-course will take me maybe two

to three weeks to record, but it's taken

me six months of learning and experimenting.

I've taught myself how to shoot and edit,

how to colour grade, how to capture audio,

how to script and talk to camera without

feeling like an idiot, all because I set

myself that initial first goal.

So before you get on with the next

video and we start to explore branding and

marketing in more detail, what are your goals?