Recently, my family was lucky enough to be invited on a private tour of the Field Museum in Chicago, which was absolutely amazing asked me about it sometime, if I meet you at a conference or something, it really was just this extraordinary opportunity to kind of dive into the bowels of a major museum and see behind the scenes of a bunch of different stuff. So that was super cool. But probably the highlight of the tour was when we ended up in the paleontology
research lab. So this is like, you know, they've got all these dinosaur bones and things up in the, in the main exhibit area. And then they have this huge research facility under the museum where they've got all of these fossils and bones and all these different things that scientists are using as part of their research. So we got to go in there. And they were showing us the I think the oldest fossil that they had in there was from this 300 million year old dinosaur creature thing. It was
wild. So we got to see all that up close in person and sort of hear all the stories. And the person who was taking us on the tour was not what you would expect, or at least it wasn't what I was expecting. So we show up in that lab, and this sort of small, pierced, you know, sleeve tattooed woman named Jing Mei O'Connor, you know, walks up, and honestly, I took one look at her and figured she was maybe a doctoral student or something
like that. But no, she is. She's a full paleontologist with quite a bit of a claim and accolade. And she is at the museum. She's the Associate Curator of fossil reptiles. So of course, I know nothing about paleontology in the world. But she is widely known in scientific circles as the punk rock paleontologist. This is what I found out at the end of the tour from someone else who was like, oh, man, that's awesome that you got a tour from the punk rock paleontologists. So this woman
was awesome. Like she was unquestionably super enthusiastic, super passionate about what she was showing us. I mean, and the group that I was with, it was my family and a few other people. None of us knew anything about this. And she was just going on and on and on, to the extent and I always have lots of questions and situations like that. So I'm like the nerd who's raising my hand. I couldn't even get a question in edgewise because she was just like, I didn't want to interrupt
her flow. And she was so obviously, in that state of flow, talking about different projects that were going on in the history of various things. And why they thought that, you know, this one feature meant this other thing, it was really incredible. And one of my favorite things about the tour was watching my kids get so involved, and neither of my kids has ever even gone through like a big dinosaur phase. I know that that's a thing for a lot of kids. My kids
never really did that. So this was not something that they were particularly. I mean, they were excited about the tour of the museum, but they weren't necessarily like, oh, gosh, I can't wait to go see fossils and dinosaur bones. We didn't even know that that was going to happen. But as soon as we walk in the door, and this woman just kind of like animatedly starts to talk about what she's, you know, passionate about, and all
that sort of thing. Both of my kids and my 17 year old in particular, were like, absorbed, absolutely interested. And afterward, we were all just like, ah, can you believe that, and we were talking about various things that she had raised. And what was amazing was that after the fact, my 17 year old, who I can barely get to, you know, email, his
grandparents or whatever. He took the initiative to look her up, find an email address for her and send her an email thanking her and asking her a couple of follow up questions, you know, after which they had this cool kind of back and forth where, you know, I think it was his first experience with an educator, certainly at that level, taking the time to answer a question. So anyway, I knew that she had kind of tapped into something. As fun as that was as fun as what she was telling us was all
that sort of thing. The truth is that and when I was thinking about it, it wasn't so much that all of a sudden she ignited a passion in all of her for dinosaurs or anything like that. What kind of hooked him in was
more than just the facts. If those same facts had been delivered by, you know, some old white dude in a lab coat, I have pretty serious doubts that Ali's fascination would have been the same the punk rock paleontologist got her name, she got her reputation and she definitely got my son's attention by just kind of embracing and leaning wholeheartedly into who she is. And that is what leads me to what I want to do. Talk about in today's episode, welcome to this can't be that hard. My name is
Annemie Tonken. And I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it. And I can show you how.
All right, so we've talked about this before, but I want to take a slightly different tack today, when I asked the question, why should someone hire you? Right? We're all good at taking photos. And if you don't feel like you're good at taking photos, that's step one. You got to work
on that first. And when I talk to photographers sometimes about this, and I say, you know, what's your unique value proposition or whatever you want to call it, like what makes you the right person for somebody, a lot of times, and I've done this myself in the past, people will start to say, well, you know, it's my great customer service,
I give great service. The fact of the matter is, your ability to take good photos, and your great customer service should be able to be assumed, I think that if again, either of those are areas where you feel like you are coming up short, you need to put effort into that right away, that should be something that your clients your paying clients can expect from you. So I kind of want to just erase those two things as even a factor in the
hiring process. Obviously, if someone is even bothering to navigate to your contact information, they think your photos are good. And they again should be able to assume that your customer service is going to be good. We all expect great customer service in every situation. Or even if we don't expect it, we want it we hope for it. And the more we pay, the more we feel entitled to it. So we should all be giving customer service at or above the level where we are charging for
our services. Beyond that, you have to start to think outside the box. Right? What is it that you're great at? What is it that you love? And I think that what most of us do is we look at our photography and our niche within photography. And we answer that question with those blinders on. Like, what is it about family photography that I'm great at?
What is it that I love about pet photography, or you know, whatever, whatever your particular niche is, we try and think specifically along those lines about, you know, how we can differentiate ourselves in the sea of wedding photographers out there. But the fact of the matter is, we are all, you know, people who, in addition to photography are interested in and talented at all kinds of
things, right. And, you know, I'm sure that some of your interests and strengths go well with your chosen niche and photography. That makes sense, right? A lot of family photographers are great with kids, you kind of have to be in order to be interested in being a family photographer. But you know, maybe you can go a little deeper than that maybe you are especially great with uncooperative three year olds, right. And you can lean into that in your marketing and talk about how you're the toddler
whisperer. This is a great thing that you you know, can mine any testimonials or letters from clients, things like that, that you have, where they talk specifically about what you do? Well look at that and say, you know, is there a pattern here? What am I really particularly good at? And how can I leverage that messaging in my marketing, extra points, if you can come up with something catchy and sort of arresting to, to call that like the toddler whisperer.
Similarly, you know, just about any pet photographer out there is going to love animals. So I think it's sort of redundant, assumed whatever, you know, on your website, obviously, you're going to talk about like your pets, or what got you interested in pet photography or whatever, that's fine, that's good. But it's kind of baseline. Like, I'm sure that if you're shopping for pet photographers, just about every single website is going to showcase a headshot of that person with their dog or their
horse or whatever. And so you need to come up with like, what's your special sauce? Like? your sub area of expertise or the thing that you particularly What's love? And sometimes again, this isn't something that you're super aware of, because like so much in life, the things that we're particularly good at, they come easily and we don't even think about them being challenging for other people,
right? So maybe there's a particular kind of shot that you always nail on or a particular kind of expression that you always get or routinely get in your sessions, right? I don't, I don't actually know all that much about the nuts and bolts of pet photography. But let's say that you're really talented at panning. And you have this amazing library of great photos of horses where you know, the background is blurry and the
horse is galloping. And it's really full of action and power and all that sort of thing. Like, if that's something that you do, and you love to do it, and you're particularly good at it. And not every photographer has that out there. You can say, well, I'm showing people that because I have those photos in my, in my gallery, or I put them on Instagram or whatever. But like, sometimes you have to
really call it out. Sometimes people in fact, I would say most of the time, non photographers, when they're looking at a body of work, they can say they like it, or they don't like it. And if you drill down if you like ask them, they might be able to start to come up with, well, there's this and I kind of like this, and oh, she has several of
these that I think are cool. But if you're not there asking them what you're not, when they're just perusing your website, they're not necessarily going to connect those dots in their heads on their own, unless you kind of lay it out for them, like this is what I'm good at. And then I want you to think about your strengths outside of photography that still have an impact on your art or your business.
So you know, maybe you're super organized, that puts you in a unique position, or I shouldn't say unique, but a the non standard position of being able to cater to, let's say, busy clients, by making your marketing all about how you take
care of all the details. So by pointing out the fact that you're organized, which may seem kind of tangential to what they need to know about your photographic skill, you can assure that person who's like, I would love to hire a photographer, but oh my gosh, how am I going to plan this session, if you call out the fact that that's something that you do, that's your superpower that's going to relieve that person of that objection, right, or, you know, maybe you have like a unique approach or a
unique skill that you can apply to your photography, maybe you know, all of your wedding clients who book an engagement session, you're, you know, in your past life, or in your current side, hustle job, you are a web designer, and so you put together like a basic wedding website for anyone who hires you for engagement photos, you know, books, your top package that includes engagement photos, or something and then you can build that into a basic
website for them. website isn't even necessarily some I mean, maybe most couples these days feel like they need to have them and whatever. But to have a custom website, you know, all of a sudden, you plant that idea in their mind, because it's a skill set that you have, and like maybe you've got a couple of templates that you use. So it takes you almost no time to add that in. But it's different from what all the other photographers out there are offering. So that's, you know, again, it's
something different. It's it's reaching out to those people who have a bit of like, you know, they want that extra custom kind of experience. But when you're thinking about your skills, and interests and talents, and whatever, that can be helpful to your photography, I want you to be careful about getting tunnel
vision, right? Because sometimes the secret to your marketing may be something that doesn't have anything to do with what you photograph, or it doesn't seem to have anything to do with what you photograph. It's really just who you are. So that could be something totally offbeat. And I want to use some real world examples here. When I was trying to think of like, Who do I know who is a great personification of this, my friend Cheyenne Gill
came to mind. So Cheyenne is if you you know go to her website, she has a self described body and fat affirming boudoir photographer. And she has built an enormous following by really kind of stepping into the role and being her own best client.
So she like walks the walk, she posts nude and mostly nude self portraits on a regular basis and rights these long, very sort of deeply thought out posts of how that you know pertaining to how that practice of being photographed and being seen and carving out that space and time is kind of a ritual that keeps
her grounded in her life. And and I have no doubt that many if not the majority of the clients that she has worked with over the years end up coming to her or finding her before they even decide that they want boudoir Photography is something that her sort of philosophical take on that, you know, kind of brings out in them. And one of my favorite things recently, it has been the fact that she's gotten into burlesque. So she does like amateur burlesque
shows and things like that. I don't know, maybe they're not amateur, I don't really know anything about burlesque. But that, you know, it's like she is out there, she's doing this thing. And then that sort of opens the door for other people to do that as well. But that's, it's like, it's just who she is. And she's very open about that, and it attracts those people to her. Another great example of this are my friends, Matt and Tara Thielen. So they are super
outdoorsy people. Matt was basically a professional rock climber, I know him through my husband who learned both to rock climb and to photograph from Matt back many, many years ago. But Matt and Tara built their wedding photography business in the Lake Tahoe area, largely by sort of being these outdoorsy very Lake Tahoe people who participated in, you know, the stuff that either their clients either did participate in, like they have a lot of clients who
are super outdoorsy people. But also they get those clients who like aspire to be part of that outdoors, the adventurous community, you know, have that vibe, whatever, which is often what draws them to get married in Lake Tahoe in the first place. It's kind of a destination wedding location. And then they found these photographers who kind of live that life. So you know, being a rock climber has absolutely nothing to do with your ability
to be a good photographer. But when you embody, you know, when you're out there, sort of showcasing your passion, and then people find you and share that passion, they're going to be more likely to want to hire you, because you know, you have that in common. So let's take a fake example. Let's say that you used to be a sous chef, or you're just like a really, you've spent a lot of time in kitchens, or whatever.
You could, you know, at minimum talk about the connection between photography and your training as a sous chef, right.
So as a sous chef, you learned the importance of great tools, your knives, like they have to be sharpened, blah, blah, certainly, you can talk about the prep that goes into meal service, like you're there hours and hours beforehand, making sure that everything is ready so that when those tickets start coming in, you're able to produce, you know, top tier food in a minimum of time, whatever, staying cool under pressure,
attention to detail. I mean, there's so many, I've never been a sous chef and I can come up with the connections there. And that's not just going to attract people who are, you know, professional chefs or people who work in kitchens, it's going to attract foodies, and it's going to speak to people who are enthusiastic at home chefs who watch you know, the chef shows on TV, it's speaking a language that you know, is attractive to certain people. And again, it's not going to be attractive to
everyone. But it is going to kind of, at minimum, it's going to be memorable, right? Like it's not when they're surfing around 20 Different wedding photographer sites, most of them aren't going to talk about being a chef or their history as a chef or their knife skills. And so it's going to kind of get their attention, shake them a little bit loose and stand out on their memory. And honestly, sometimes an entire $8,000 wedding contract can hinge on something exactly that small,
right? That photographer who used to be a sous chef could also build that into their
branding, if they wanted to. I mean, if they really wanted to go all in, you could use you know, Chef related language on your website, when you're talking about the process of working with you, right, instead of step one, step two, step three, it could be like the appetizer, the main course and the dessert, you could, you know, create a logo around the fact that you used to be a chef, like all of those things, you obviously want to pick, you do have to pick we all have we
contain multitudes, we have lots of different elements to our personality and things that we're good at, and all that sort of stuff. If you find one that you really want to lean into, it can be the basis for an entire business, right? You're not going to be cooking for your
clients. But a it's going to make your brand stand out and be you're going to pique the interest of the foodies that land on your site, they're gonna pop you to the top of their list just because like that's an interesting, fun fact that is outside the norm. So when I start to dive deep on this, I think that you know, I'm sure that most of you are nodding your heads and be like, yeah, yeah, that's, that's great.
That's good. But when it comes down to it, I think a lot of us tend to want to tread lightly on the areas of our lives or our personalities that aren't either widely acceptable or you know, Maybe not totally relatable, especially if those attributes aren't particularly linked to the work that you do, right.
Like, if you're super into knitting, maybe you don't want to talk about that on your wedding photography website, because you fear that it's going to come off as like, weird or irrelevant, or, you know, at worst, like a turn off where somebody is going to be like, ooh, knitter. I don't know why
they would feel that way. But I would argue again, that in this vast ocean of photographers that we all find ourselves swimming in, standing out is not only going to help you, but if we go back to my example, at the beginning of Dr. O'Connor, the punk rock paleontologist, it's going to be the thing that kind of sets you apart. But I would argue that in this vast ocean of photographers that we all find ourselves swimming in, standing out is only going to help you.
So if we look back to the example that I gave the beginning of the episode of Dr. O'Connor, the punk rock paleontologist, right, I don't really know the story behind that name. I imagine that you know, somebody gave her that, that that nickname ages ago, I doubt that she came up with that herself. But now if you go to her website, it is front and center. In fact, if you that's how we found her, because I didn't remember her whole name. And if you type punk rock paleontologist into Google,
she's what comes up. So when I think about the history of that, I wonder whether the first time that somebody called her that it was kind of in a dismissive way or in one of those like passive aggressive teasing ways I can totally see in the halls of academia that you know, this person who looked different dress, different talk different from a lot of her peers may have experienced some pushback. I mean, this is a woman of color
in a male dominated field. And, and she may very well have been called that as kind of in sort of a derogatory way. But she has just been like, yep, you know what, that's awesome. And she embraced it, and has sort of used that as her calling card. So she's been interviewed for specials on PBS, and NatGeo, and a bunch of other places. And they all use that name, right?
Because it's interesting. It's attention grabbing, and whether or not you personally identify as particularly punk rock, the name is going to stand out in your mind, right? It is not just to her name, it is this sort of title, it's going to pique your
curiosity. And it might be the sort of thing that inspires you to, I don't know, poke around on her website, like now I have done all of which is exactly the sort of thing that over time and with enough exposure ultimately leads to more traffic and more bookings. So as you think about marketing, and you think about how you talk about yourself and your business, I want you to consider your whole self, who you are, what you love what
you're good at. And I want you to consider how you can lean into what makes you you to stand out from the crowd and give people something to latch on to. Well, that's it for this week's episode of This can't be that hard. I'll be back Same time, same place next week. In the meantime, you can find more information about this episode, along with all the relevant links, notes and downloads at this can't be that hard.com/learn If you liked the podcast, be sure to hit the
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