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“Show Notes”
Is your Commercial photography income seasonal? Wedding photographer Nick Church reveals the reality—and huge potential—of offering Photography education. Learn how this strategic service can be the ultimate tool for Photography business growth.
• The Passive Income Lie: Find out why the promise of automated recurring income is false, and what level of sustained marketing work is actually required to make your course profitable.
• The Conversion Secret: Discover the specific type of marketing content that attracts genuine buyers, and why high-spend generic ads fail to generate high-quality leads for your Commercial photography business.
• The Overlap Advantage: Learn the simple branding trick that turns your existing Commercial photography clients and network into your warmest, most valuable source of education leads.
“Show Transcription”
00:02.94
Sam Hollis
Hello Marcus, how are you doing?
00:04.86
Marcus Ahmad
I am terrific, Sam. Thank you very much. How are you?
00:07.54
Sam Hollis
Excellent, very good and we’ve got a guest today Marcus, very exciting. So we have with us today Nick Church from the Nick Church Creative Academy and Nick Church Photography. Hi Nick, welcome to the show.
00:19.61
Nick Church
Thank you very much. Yeah, chilly good morning to you both.
00:22.20
Marcus Ahmad
A truly good morning to you. We’ve both got the same weather. In fact, Sam, you’ve got usa you got the same weather because you’re on in Mozambique today.
00:30.04
Sam Hollis
That’s it, I’m in the Netherlands today, so yes, I think I’m sharing the busiest weather.
00:32.35
Marcus Ahmad
Ah.
00:33.70
Sam Hollis
Sunshine, I had to scrape the car, which I’d forgotten how to do virtually.
00:35.28
Marcus Ahmad
Okay,
00:37.54
Sam Hollis
That was a bit of a shock when I got in this morning.
00:40.15
Nick Church
When I was in Amsterdam, whereabouts in the Netherlands are you?
00:40.17
Marcus Ahmad
well…
00:43.74
Sam Hollis
I was in Amsterdam, I’m now over in the North, i have kids are studying here, so yes, I’m over kind of in rural North East Amsterdam. Oh sorry, Netherlands.
00:51.22
Nick Church
like Zealand type. Zealand, is that right? That though that way?
00:54.30
Sam Hollis
No, near Germany, near the German border.
00:55.54
Nick Church
Further over. Okay, all right. No, when i was in Amsterdam years ago, and it was this time of year it was freezing, people were were skating to work along the canals. it was great.
01:03.64
Marcus Ahmad
Wow.
01:03.99
Sam Hollis
Oh, wow.
01:04.67
Marcus Ahmad
Very cool.
01:04.63
Sam Hollis
Yeah, it’s not it’s not that cold.
01:05.23
Marcus Ahmad
Super cool.
01:08.25
Marcus Ahmad
Okay. So Nick, obviously people our listeners know you probably more for your wedding photography, but we’re not going to dive into that today.
01:08.60
Sam Hollis
Cool. Right.
01:16.49
Marcus Ahmad
We’re going to talk more about your education side and why photograph ah photography education might be a good side hustle for photographers out there.
01:26.10
Nick Church
Absolutely.
01:26.97
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Okay.
01:27.64
Sam Hollis
Cool. Do you want to give us a brief overview as a start, maybe, Nick, about what you do?
01:28.12
Marcus Ahmad
Okay.
01:31.42
Sam Hollis
That could be a good place to start, couldn’t it, Marcus?
01:33.92
Marcus Ahmad
I feel that’s brilliant.
01:35.29
Nick Church
Yeah, well, I think the um my route into photography, I think, you know, Marcus probably has heard this when when I checked in before. the the It was quite late in life.
01:45.41
Nick Church
I had a second career, so I started photography pretty late and complete by accident, in fact, and had photography as a side gig for a while alongside like a corporate software job.
01:53.15
Marcus Ahmad
Hmm.
01:53.44
Sam Hollis
Okay.
01:55.03
Nick Church
And because of all the business development stuff I’d done in my, let’s say, proper job, then I was able to build this business very quickly.
02:00.97
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
02:02.37
Nick Church
And I think that was this that was the entry point into education because going on podcasts and things talking about that, I had people contact me asking if you know I would coach them to do a similar sort of thing.
02:03.00
Sam Hollis
Okay.
02:11.65
Nick Church
So I’ve i’ve started to i’ve always had that running alongside. And I really love that balance of…
02:15.69
Sam Hollis
Right.
02:16.31
Nick Church
teaching and doing the photography itself is just a nice a nice kind of balance.
02:18.04
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
02:18.31
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
02:19.91
Nick Church
um So I’ve always done sort of in-person education on typically with professionals. So flash is always a ah very popular one. Wedding photography masterclass is very popular as well.
02:28.56
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
02:30.74
Nick Church
But also, as we all know, a lot of creatives, we’re dreadful at selling ourselves and so the business coaching stuff is always there as well. So this year has been oh sorry yeah this year hass been a change in that I’ve also had this plan to put stuff to have more online stuff.
02:46.04
Nick Church
Now, coming of going through COVID, I did more Zoom coaching, and it occurred to me that there’s an opportunity here to do more online online content. So I’ve created the Knit Church Creative Academy, which is a whole new platform, which is still does my one-to-one mentoring and that kind of thing, and in-person courses.
02:53.27
Marcus Ahmad
Excellent.
03:01.34
Nick Church
But it adds… like more formal mentorships and also online courses on Lightroom, photography and Photoshop as well. So um so that that’s in its kind of growth stage.
03:10.33
Marcus Ahmad
excellent
03:10.42
Sam Hollis
Perfect. Okay.
03:12.89
Nick Church
And now that weddings are kind of out the way this year, that’s now a big um focus for me for the next sort of six months or so is to regrow that and push that forwards.
03:22.30
Marcus Ahmad
I mean, I guess that’s a real advantage in the work that you do, the wedding photography.
03:22.49
Sam Hollis
okay
03:27.38
Marcus Ahmad
It is fairly seasonal. So that does give you a great thing to focus on during the downtime.
03:33.82
Nick Church
Yeah, it’s always been a nice kind way just to, like, as a business owner, you anything you can do to flatten those peaks of crushing amounts of work that just obliterates all family life and personal life and fitness and everything else and try and sort of even out.
03:40.86
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Yeah.
03:47.90
Nick Church
So I do that a little bit with commercial photography. So I do do some of that as well. And the training stuff is something that I try to sort of focus it in the downside time from weddings, like this time of year, but inevitably,
03:57.82
Sam Hollis
yeah
04:01.08
Nick Church
As most of us probably find if you get an inquiry in the middle of summer for training, um not i don’t I don’t turn it down. So I just ended up doing two two loads of stuff in at the same time.
04:08.92
Sam Hollis
right
04:10.27
Nick Church
So it hasn’t fixed that problem, but it does mean that I carry on being pretty busy through the rest of the year as well.
04:15.60
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, very good, very good.
04:15.59
Sam Hollis
Okay. And then the training you’re doing for professional photographers and for amateurs as well. You’re doing those two different sides.
04:22.20
Nick Church
Yeah, it’s a bit of both really. The the online courses are, because unlike a one-to-one where you can sort of have a chat with people and see where they are, so you start but at the right level, you don’t get the opportunity to online courses.
04:29.45
Sam Hollis
Yep. Yep.
04:33.14
Nick Church
they They do start assuming that someone’s got some kit, a passion to improve their photography. But other than that, they may be shooting and in auto mode, whatever. but it then does go on through to advanced photography as well so it’s a it’s turned ah it’s turned into a much bigger project than i imagined it ever would be and it’s a very in-depth course and it’s yeah i do want it to like like anything you want it to be as but is good as possible and that’s taking a lot more time than i anticipated to make sure that the quality is they’re just kind’ want to do it again i want to do this what get this content right once um and then and then it’s there for for anyone to sort of dip in um as they need and people can like start it and stop it and it’s all at their own pace so I want the content to be there.
04:55.16
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
04:58.42
Marcus Ahmad
yeah
05:12.04
Nick Church
Lightroom have stitched me up because they changed the interface a couple of weeks ago.
05:15.18
Sam Hollis
Oh no, you’ve done the videos and then everything’s changed.
05:15.30
Nick Church
So so that’s been, oh yes, oh yes, yeah.
05:18.55
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. ah but um I mean, I was just thinking when you were talking there, Nick, about maybe this amount listeners might be thinking about getting the teaching, but they might think, oh gosh, I haven’t been doing it for that long, been doing photography that long.
05:31.70
Marcus Ahmad
But I think there’s quite an advantage. coming into the the ah teaching game when you are new to it. Because, for example, you’re musician and I do music.
05:42.04
Marcus Ahmad
I’m a bass player. And I’ve been playing bass for nearly 50 years. And I would find it really difficult to teach somebody bass these days, even though I used to do it. Because I just can’t remember how I did it. But, yeah.
05:51.96
Nick Church
Exactly. That’s exactly right.
05:52.88
Marcus Ahmad
but
05:54.16
Nick Church
Because you remember if you’ve not been doing it for years, and you know, for 20, 25, 30 years, you you can remember what it was like when you didn’t know how to do something. You remember the techniques that you use to pick things up.
06:02.58
Marcus Ahmad
Yes.
06:03.10
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
06:04.83
Nick Church
And I absolutely agree. And I think i think that’s why I have got us a, um to my benefit, the fact that the things that I haven’t got is 30 years of photography experience. But what I have got is I remember when I couldn’t do a bloody thing, you know, and and I had to teach myself from the ground up.
06:18.23
Nick Church
And so that’s all the stuff that I put into these courses. And it’s still relatively fresh, despite my cognitive decline of reaching older age, you know, it’s still there somewhere.
06:27.27
Marcus Ahmad
Interesting, yeah. And of course, the fact that we are now in the digital age with photography, certainly, it’s a lot easier to teach it, isn’t it? I mean, trying to teach it on film, photography, would be quite difficult, wouldn’t it, digital made it easier to teach?
06:43.03
Nick Church
Yeah, absolutely. yeah Yeah, and certainly be able to do things um remotely and that kind of thing is because the the problem with that that anyone that goes into education will find is if you’re doing in-person stuff, you either do it for one person and that’s fine, but then you’ve got to charge a fortune because you’re giving up a day of work or you have to do a group and then it’s the whole marketing of trying to get enough people in to make that that whole thing work for everybody and that that that is tough and that takes a long time.
06:59.69
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
07:09.51
Marcus Ahmad
Well, with that cue, let’s dig into the marketing side a little bit more, Sam. and Maybe you’ve got some questions for Nick about this.
07:15.00
Sam Hollis
Yeah. So well on and the first one, actually, I was going to ask was just about the. So did you start just building a digital course if you started first in training one to one in groups and then moved on to that?
07:24.95
Nick Church
Yeah, I started um one to one and and have over the years built up a, and and I have done groups as well. So I’ve got a small studio here in Agistar side Bristol. So I do do groups up to sort of five or six people.
07:37.03
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
07:37.18
Nick Church
So I’ve ended up with a big list of contacts of of existing clients. What I what i did, but what I knew I had to do, because the the platform that these courses are delivered on, the online courses, is really exciting.
07:41.91
Sam Hollis
Okay.
07:47.84
Nick Church
expensive it’s like two grand a year for the for the course uh sorry for the platform so I didn’t want to just buy that and then start building I had to make sure I did as much stuff as possible beforehand so I’ve been for the last year or so I’ve been building a contacts list in my photography website so I’ve got an education area in there as well which I’ve always used so that I could at least hit the ground running with a good number of people and that and that’s made it much more um cost effective because it means that there’s people there that were waiting for the courses to drop which they now have and then they’ve gone on and booked them yeah
07:49.05
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
07:55.38
Sam Hollis
Yeah, yeah
08:02.35
Sam Hollis
yeah. Okay. Yeah.
08:14.44
Sam Hollis
Oh, amazing. Yeah. Okay. And I think there’s this legend that I think we really need to get people in the ground and a bit reality. There’s this legend that, oh, it’s recurring income. I’ve made a course. I now put my feet up, do nothing at all. And the money just pours in. And there’s lots of people on LinkedIn and Facebook telling you this is the case.
08:35.35
Sam Hollis
But it we were talking about whether language is allowed on this podcast. That’s just a load of crap, isn’t it? Let’s be honest.
08:40.86
Nick Church
It totally is total crap because, and I’ve and i’ve got proof of this because I had, it the wedding season is a funny thing because you get really busy at the start summer when you’re doing loads and loads of shooting.
08:41.51
Marcus Ahmad
Mm-hmm.
08:52.46
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
08:52.60
Nick Church
But then in the summer, you know, you’re building up the editing backlog a little bit, but you’re trying to get through it a little bit, but it kind of levels off a little bit.
08:52.62
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Okay.
08:58.68
Nick Church
And it’s it’s actually like September time year where the editing really crushes in. So there was a period where in the summer I was able to do quite a lot of social media, um podcasts and just ads, Google ads and all these other things to to really, you know, and of course it was selling really well.
09:02.87
Sam Hollis
okay
09:14.46
Nick Church
In the last couple of months that stopped, I thought, right, I’m going to park that because I’m going to come back to it right now. And as I’ve done that, the sales have completely dropped off. So it’s absolute proof that unless you’re really working it hard, you’ve got to you are gonna stop getting income.
09:22.51
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Yeah.
09:27.70
Nick Church
It’s the same that I hear from people that have, you know they they they may be photographers, commercial photographers, wedding photographers, and they think, oh, let’s we wanna retire at some point, wanna stop doing that or move into something else.
09:38.10
Nick Church
and And they’re worried that how will I stop all these inquiries coming in they go, oh, right, yeah, that’s not a problem. You stop posting, you stop you stop social media interaction.
09:44.98
Sam Hollis
yeah
09:45.72
Nick Church
the bookings drop off a cliff immediately. So it’s, you know, it is a full-time thing to do really. And that’s, that’s the problem I’ve got is I ended up with two full-time jobs, but Hey, you know, nice problems to have, I suppose.
09:55.07
Sam Hollis
Yeah. So share with us, how are you marketing the courses? What are you what are you doing and what are your findings working?
10:01.66
Nick Church
I’m finding that engaging and you know it’s like it’s like any sort of marketing, the authentic interaction is always going be better. i mean, i I did run some ads, so i have done some Google ads and they were moderately successful, definitely in terms of signups of people because you can sign up to the Academy website and it’s free to sign up and you get content and stuff.
10:19.45
Sam Hollis
Okay. Yeah.
10:21.60
Nick Church
So it was good for that, but it didn’t work well for conversions. And And I think that’s because all you can do to, if you’re going to do with that convert type post, you know, with a very strong call call to action for here’s some stuff about a course, now go click here to buy it.
10:25.37
Sam Hollis
Okay.
10:31.49
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
10:35.75
Nick Church
You just, however much you dress it up to say, this is genuinely the best course that I’ve seen, you know, I’ve researched the whole market.
10:36.39
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
10:43.21
Nick Church
That’s what everyone says.
10:43.22
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
10:44.05
Nick Church
So you don’t stand out from it. So you need to have more um authentic interaction and a bit of social proof.
10:45.72
Sam Hollis
yeah
10:49.37
Nick Church
And I’m finding that a lot more successful.
10:49.92
Marcus Ahmad
Interesting.
10:51.77
Nick Church
And and also those kind of just um awareness type posts of where you you might just be doing something a bit more um satirical or something not really even photography related, but you’re just getting more engagement.
11:02.57
Sam Hollis
Right.
11:03.14
Nick Church
that that That’s pretty good as well.
11:04.06
Sam Hollis
Okay. Okay.
11:06.46
Marcus Ahmad
interesting
11:06.69
Sam Hollis
Excellent. So you’re finding interesting, those Google ads were getting you visitors and then presumably what you’ve got is like many people do the free signup, try a bit of the course and then you pay. So you were getting what, um yeah, what we’ve had referred to on here before is the tire kickers.
11:19.41
Sam Hollis
The ones who come along, give it a try, but they’re never going to buy.
11:22.52
Nick Church
Yeah, and you use, you know, what I found works really well is lead magnets. So I have got a couple of um really quite valuable PDFs that I’ve created.
11:26.72
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
11:29.32
Nick Church
One one for beginners on manual mode of like, good manual mode isn’t that common?
11:30.11
Sam Hollis
Okay. Yeah.
11:32.96
Nick Church
It’s very logical how you set how you use manual mode.
11:34.26
Marcus Ahmad
No, it’s super simple.
11:34.55
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
11:35.12
Nick Church
So it’s it’s describing that because you see so much stuff on Facebook. This is the other thing that started the Academy.
11:39.70
Marcus Ahmad
Oh.
11:40.61
Nick Church
You see so much stuff in Facebook groups where it’s just plain wrong. and course, if you don’t know, you don’t know what’s right or wrong.
11:44.34
Marcus Ahmad
Yes.
11:45.46
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
11:45.85
Nick Church
So you just take random…
11:46.23
Marcus Ahmad
ah Or overcomplicated.
11:46.63
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
11:47.99
Nick Church
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. so I thought, let’s let’s do that.
11:49.18
Sam Hollis
yeah
11:50.27
Nick Church
That’s been really successful in a way to people come in, they grab that PDF, they have they give they leave their contact details as payment for it and um go into like, you know, my workflow, my my kind of email sequence and stuff.
11:58.30
Sam Hollis
yeah
12:01.98
Nick Church
So they get to learn more about the Academy. And it’s it’s that, it’s also because that was what I was distributing with Facebook and Meta ads as well. And it worked great for getting people to do that, to go and get the PDF.
12:10.02
Sam Hollis
Okay.
12:13.82
Nick Church
um And a few did go through and buy stuff, but obviously, you know you you’re knock you’re looking at um typically for things like online course content, one or 2% is very typical for people that you you know to actually go through and buy stuff.
12:14.42
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
12:24.29
Sam Hollis
Wow.
12:26.67
Nick Church
So you’ve gotta be reaching really big numbers and that is really expensive.
12:27.00
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. yeah
12:27.49
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Yeah.
12:29.95
Nick Church
And so if your courses aren’t that expensive, which mine aren’t, then you’ you’re never getting the the actual, you know you’re not ending up, you end up spending more in marketing costs than you are actually in in getting the course.
12:30.75
Sam Hollis
Yep.
12:41.11
Nick Church
sold. So, um, yeah, it’s a, it’s a tough one, but, um, that, that, those lead magnets have been pretty good and that is definitely, but that’s where I see a lot of tyre kickers. People think, oh, thanks for that.
12:50.58
Sam Hollis
Okay.
12:51.49
Nick Church
That’s great.
12:51.93
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
12:52.54
Nick Church
See ya.
12:52.70
Sam Hollis
And then do you, I gather you, yeah, you follow up those lead magnets then with a email series.
12:53.22
Nick Church
That’s the, that’s the end of it.
12:58.29
Sam Hollis
Do you kind of, they get what five, 10 emails kind of introducing the course and trying to sell it eventually.
12:59.90
Nick Church
Yeah. Yeah. Just, yeah, exactly. yeah Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, a bit more content, bit more of my background,
13:07.59
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
13:07.86
Nick Church
showing the the benefits of signing up to the academy, which is free. you know It’s a one-click thing to sign up and you get free content and there’s community there and everything.
13:14.35
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
13:16.46
Nick Church
um And you get a few more percent that do that, but not you know probably 20% do that.
13:20.85
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
13:21.94
Nick Church
And it is that there’s no cost to them. It’s literally one click. um So I think people are very resistant and ah because they’re being bombarded all the time with with these sorts of businesses and you have got to stand out.
13:28.18
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
13:31.81
Nick Church
And um so what I’ll be doing over this next couple of months is trying to um use that email sequence and and you use the people that have signed up and start kind of just being a bit more focused about giving them content, you know giving them stuff.
13:47.94
Nick Church
I think you’ve got give stuff to to get to do anything.
13:48.52
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
13:49.30
Marcus Ahmad
Yes.
13:49.59
Sam Hollis
yeah
13:50.52
Nick Church
And so so that that’s that’s in the pipeline.
13:50.94
Marcus Ahmad
Yes.
13:53.72
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. you you had on You got your own podcast, Nick, as well.
13:54.17
Sam Hollis
Okay. Brilliant.
13:58.64
Marcus Ahmad
What’s the name of that, just for our viewers, listeners?
14:00.49
Nick Church
It’s the the photography pod.
14:01.25
Marcus Ahmad
our viewers. The Photography Pool, which I’ve been on.
14:02.58
Nick Church
Photography pod. Yeah.
14:03.97
Marcus Ahmad
And you had, um took and in line with education, you had a big guest on recently.
14:04.25
Nick Church
You have been on?
14:09.70
Marcus Ahmad
ah And who’s one of the biggest educators in UK, probably.
14:14.55
Nick Church
Yeah, Carl Taylor.
14:14.68
Marcus Ahmad
want to have a photographer like Carl Taylor.
14:15.96
Nick Church
Yeah, Carl Taylor is very generous with his time and provides some great insights um to his education business and also um some of his branding work as well. So that that was a really great episode. And I find this with um guests on our pod is that you think, oh, I wonder if that person would possibly interested in coming on.
14:33.49
Nick Church
And you assume they wouldn’t be. But then ultimately, we’re all running businesses. However, best photographers in the world are running that they’ve got a brand and a business into any outlet where they can get in front of people.
14:37.85
Marcus Ahmad
Exactly.
14:37.98
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
14:39.10
Marcus Ahmad
Yes.
14:41.69
Marcus Ahmad
Yes.
14:42.42
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
14:43.89
Nick Church
So people are very generous with their time coming on. And it’s amazing. Andy Gotts, one of the world’s photographers celebrity at Hollywood and musicians and so on. You know, he came on and spent a good hour chatting with us about all of his shooting and his process and how he works with people. was really good.
15:03.97
Marcus Ahmad
Just to dig a little bit deeper into this.
15:04.28
Sam Hollis
Cool.
15:05.78
Marcus Ahmad
So you’re obviously offering beginners, a package for beginners and a package also for more seasoned professionals, wedding photographers in particular. Where it’s like Carl is quite focused in his niche, isn’t he?
15:20.22
Marcus Ahmad
It’s basically quite high end commercial photography, isn’t he?
15:24.00
Nick Church
Yeah.
15:24.45
Marcus Ahmad
um it Was that a conscious decision you did or was that there something that’s happened organically or what’s your thoughts on that?
15:24.70
Nick Church
Yeah.
15:31.61
Nick Church
on On what, Marcus?
15:32.79
Marcus Ahmad
on having doing two different markets as it as it were the beginners and the more seasoned professionals.
15:40.41
Nick Church
Well, it’s just that, you know, that that’s the areas that I find are most receptive and most in need of of a bit of guidance. There’s, there’s the, the, the, yeah, but ultimately, I mean, loads of beginners, I’m finding, you know, loads of beginners when I’m more than happy to go through YouTube and just pick and choose the bits that they think is relevant.
15:47.83
Sam Hollis
Okay.
15:48.82
Marcus Ahmad
That’s where the work is.
15:59.19
Nick Church
And,
15:59.35
Marcus Ahmad
Oh man.
16:00.22
Nick Church
And some aren’t and some need more structure and they need that they need a bit more guidance about, right, do this first. Let’s ah let’s get that bit, let’s have that lesson understood completely. Then you can move on to the next one because they don’t know what to search for to, you know, they don’t know how to search for different focus modes because they don’t know the terminology.
16:10.29
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
16:13.99
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
16:18.12
Nick Church
So they they would never notice to find that. And and others…
16:20.76
Sam Hollis
So almost these are people who are kind of feeling overwhelmed because there’s YouTube videos telling them this, YouTube telling them this, tell them Aperture, YouTube telling them about everything else.
16:21.18
Nick Church
Absolutely.
16:24.54
Marcus Ahmad
Yes.
16:25.69
Nick Church
Absolutely.
16:26.71
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, definitely Sam.
16:28.10
Sam Hollis
And it’s too much at once while they really need someone to go, right, let’s just do this.
16:29.81
Nick Church
yeah.
16:30.39
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, it is too much.
16:31.67
Nick Church
Yeah.
16:31.67
Marcus Ahmad
I mean, most of my beginners come to me and they’re just completely, they put on YouTube, they’re just completely confused and understandably so. And yet, as you said earlier in the show, Nick, really, just the shooting manual is really quite straightforward, isn’t it?
16:45.94
Marcus Ahmad
mean, you can teach somebody that a couple of hours on one-to-one really.
16:49.25
Nick Church
Yeah. Yeah. mean, I do a one-to-one course where, um someone comes in is within four hours, we’ve gone through exactly how your camera works, how all the different focus modes work and all the different exposure modes work.
16:58.42
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Yeah.
17:01.33
Nick Church
They they they may have come in shooting on auto and they’ll leave shooting on manual. and It’d be slow to start with, but you only get quick at using manual mode if you use manual mode and then it does become muscle memory, doesn’t it?
17:10.49
Sam Hollis
Okay.
17:10.83
Nick Church
So you’re walking out of a room and you’re already changing the shutter speed because you know going to need it when you get outside. And um yeah, it is really quick if you’ve got logical process. and But the other to answer your question, the the other um that other market segment of professionals, I think,
17:25.24
Nick Church
there’s two types of professional photographers. There’s those that just feel that they’ve nailed it. They’ve completed photography and they’ve got nothing more to learn. And those that are, and I always try to be the second group of thinking, right, what what do I now need to work on to improve, to to keep that relentless improvement to get better?
17:39.26
Sam Hollis
yay
17:40.73
Nick Church
And and often that’s an area where people think, ah my flash is a bit crap. but You know, I could probably do,
17:45.84
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
17:46.17
Nick Church
with a bit more instruction on on that area and and i don’t proclaim to be the world’s best photographer or world’s best lighting expert but i can teach those skills that make people that could well be the world’s best photographer you know just to fill those little gaps of of knowledge and you know it’s it’s everything we do as a business is time isn’t it so if you could spend oh take a week off and learn flash but if you’ve got if you can then pay for a day of training where someone just teaches you how to do it then you’re actually saving quite a lot of a lot of money to do it to do that way and With education being an allowable expense, then it’s bit of a no-brainer, really.
17:57.33
Marcus Ahmad
well
17:58.49
Sam Hollis
yeah
18:19.16
Marcus Ahmad
i put
18:19.26
Sam Hollis
Yeah. So what if we’re going to kind of think about our listeners and if we’ve got some professional photographers out there who are thinking, yeah, this could work for me, kind of add a string to my bow, add a different income stream to my business. You got a recommendation for kind of a good place to dip their toe in to start to maybe give give kind of the education route to go.
18:40.25
Nick Church
Yeah, well, I have got, certainly early on, a lot of the education clients I had was people that I was working with for photography. So if there’s a couple of people that came, they were interested in landscape photography that I shot their wedding. And I said, well, I i could teach you a bit more about that if you want to. And so they came along. And like if it’s if it’s corporate, commercial type photography you do, then a lot of these businesses have marketing departments that, like, okay, they’re not going to be able to, haven’t got the kit or the knowledge to go and shoot like a really big event.
19:10.58
Nick Church
but there’s loads of photography they could do if they had a few more skills. And they’re often the ones that that say, you know, would you be able to teach to use our camera? we let A lot of marketing departments buy a couple of DSLRs for the team without clue without any clue how to use it.
19:20.41
Sam Hollis
And they just, yeah.
19:21.42
Nick Church
So… um
19:22.14
Sam Hollis
That’s really interesting because you’ve just tipped my whole thing on my head because I was just thinking, well, if we’re going to talk about this, the next thing you’re going to talk about was surely your email list and your marketing list they are going to be totally different because theyre totally different clients where you just like tip that old thing and said, and said no, actually people who are getting photography are actually lots, not all of them, but quite a bit of them are interested.
19:40.85
Nick Church
Yeah, and I think that’s right, Sam. i think And I think if you, it depends on your on your branding and how your messaging is. And my branding for wedding photography is about that I’m very, you know i am passionate about photography.
19:48.89
Sam Hollis
Yes.
19:53.29
Nick Church
I’m passionate about art. I like to use light. ah You know, I’m not just rocking up, taking some pictures and, you know, doing it really cheap. So I am not, i I’m not very cheap. And that does seem to attract couples that are keen on photography and often professional photographers themselves.
20:06.37
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
20:07.39
Sam Hollis
Ah, okay.
20:07.86
Nick Church
So so there is more of an overlap probably in in that kind of um branding that I do than there may be otherwise.
20:10.97
Sam Hollis
Yeah, that makes, okay. So you’re thinking if you were doing cheap and cheerful weddings, you wouldn’t get that interest.
20:17.46
Nick Church
i suspect you might be but it’s probably gonna be there’ll be some but probably fewer than than someone that’s been that’s sort curated brands loads of photographers and that and they they love that particular style because for most couples um all of our photography looks pretty similar doesn’t it because it’s it just looks like professional photography so um those that are prepared to pay a bit more tend to be a bit more um fussy
20:21.88
Marcus Ahmad
yeah
20:21.88
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
20:40.79
Nick Church
about but what they’re looking and and have a bit more knowledge about what they are because there’s no point if if you’ve got no interest in photography and and they all look the same there’s no point spending two a grand on wedding photography it wouldn’t make sense so um yeah ah so i think that’s that’s why i’ve got a bit more of an overlap there but um every human person let’s say you know is is generally got a job so they they’ve got you know that they’ve got a network of
20:41.49
Marcus Ahmad
Mm-hmm.
20:41.53
Sam Hollis
Interesting. Yeah.
20:49.46
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
21:05.11
Nick Church
potential commercial photography clients. They’ve got friends and family that they’ll know. Every person will know somebody that’s keen on photography. That’s just starting photography.
21:12.88
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
21:13.87
Nick Church
So that network is there. They’re just people. And and you’ve already done that. Um, the initial thing about building trust within those, within those people. So they, they’re a pretty warm group there, even if they’re not them themselves, they’ll, they’ll be recommending you to other, other people.
21:26.66
Nick Church
So that, that does, that, that that can work really well.
21:27.04
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Okay. Well, I see your existing business is helping you go.
21:34.20
Nick Church
Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah.
21:36.18
Marcus Ahmad
Very interesting. What about um training for the trainers? What do you think about, have you taken it any teaching courses or anything like that, Nick, that’s helped you put it all together?
21:48.65
Nick Church
I, I think I, I, I haven’t, I’ve got no, I haven’t taken formal teaching in it, but I have got there’s people in my network that are educators in, you know, sort of academia.
22:02.74
Nick Church
And so I’ve had a lot of input from them because ah it’s something that I hadn’t done before.
22:06.30
Sam Hollis
Okay.
22:07.70
Nick Church
And the, what I had in my old job was i did a lot of like speaking and talking events and things like that.
22:14.52
Marcus Ahmad
Yes, yes, exactly.
22:15.67
Sam Hollis
Okay.
22:15.79
Nick Church
So I am much more able to do that.
22:15.99
Sam Hollis
So you.
22:17.86
Nick Church
It’s not something that came naturally to me at all. I can remember the first time I did it and I was a sweating wreck, you know, literally unable to remember my name even. And so breaking through all of that was really helpful as well. So if I hadn’t had that experience as a but as a background, I would definitely, be looking for um a way to b just be just able to stand up in front of people because ultimately you have to do that whether it’s on camera or in person it’s a similar sort of feeling isn’t it is that the kind of you know your adrenaline goes up a bit and and to be able to deal with that and keep the information flowing is really useful and the techniques around i learned then about
22:31.10
Marcus Ahmad
Mm hmm.
22:38.45
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
22:43.67
Sam Hollis
yeah
22:49.66
Marcus Ahmad
Yes. Excellent.
22:53.85
Nick Church
if you know your topic inside out, then the idea of teaching of talking about it is actually really easy. Because even if you forget what you’re saying, you’ve got so much to draw. And like a stand-up comic with loads of material is going to be able to pretty much stand up anywhere and do it, whereas somebody starting out would be reading their their hand of of notes.
23:12.56
Nick Church
you know So um overcoming those was something that I found really important. I would definitely advise someone does that.
23:16.92
Marcus Ahmad
excellent And you mentioned speaking and just as we’re coming up to the show up, you have got a speaking gig coming up, I believe.
23:18.90
Sam Hollis
Okay.
23:25.86
Marcus Ahmad
Maybe like to publish this?
23:26.36
Nick Church
Yeah, I’m talking at the Society’s Convention in London in January, on the 14th of January. um And I think the photography show next year as well. I think they’re they’re just finalising the speaker line-up.
23:38.07
Marcus Ahmad
Yes. what dare you speak What day are you speaking at the um one in the SARTIS one?
23:39.29
Nick Church
But that yeah,
23:43.63
Marcus Ahmad
Which day are you on, Nick?
23:44.87
Nick Church
I’m on um the 14th. but so Is that Tuesday?
23:47.91
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, okay.
23:49.69
Nick Church
Yeah, ah the the first ah the first day.
23:49.96
Marcus Ahmad
I’m on the Saturday.
23:51.85
Nick Church
is It’s at four o’clock.
23:52.86
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, the first. I’m on the last day. don’t know which one’s better or worse.
23:58.00
Nick Church
Well, you’re the headline act then.
23:58.18
Marcus Ahmad
Thank you.
23:59.27
Nick Church
So i’ I’ll be up um i’ve warm the crowd up.
23:59.77
Sam Hollis
Okay.
24:02.18
Nick Church
But but that that talk is all all about kind of what we’ve been talking about, which is having a new having an existing business and starting something else and having that run alongside your other business.
24:02.33
Marcus Ahmad
thank you
24:02.78
Sam Hollis
okay
24:13.07
Nick Church
So whether that’s a photographer that’s moving into education or somebody that’s got another full-time job moving into photography, it’s all the same challenges of… how do you free up enough time to do that new thing effectively without getting into that horrible, what I call the death zone, which is the title of the talk, where you haven’t got enough time to do the new thing effectively.
24:21.94
Marcus Ahmad
Yes. Right.
24:30.74
Nick Church
And also if you do put more time in, you actually start to sacrifice the quality and the time you’re putting into that other stuff. So in in um the case of a full-time job that that’s not photography related, it can really be that you’re, you’re, because your head’s almost at the door when you’re, when you’re doing something new like this.
24:36.41
Marcus Ahmad
right
24:36.68
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Yeah.
24:45.97
Nick Church
And so your passion dies away a bit and you you are at risk of getting performance, performance managed by your, by your employer because you’re, you know, and you can end up in a one way street if you’re not careful where,
24:56.89
Nick Church
you know i’ve almost performed so poorly at my proper job that um it may be hard to sort of you know come out this so i and then you’re a bit more desperate to make the photography work and then that that is then a real bad sign because people can tell people can smell it when you when you desperately need something to work so avoiding all those scenarios and i think the same would happen if someone’s a busy photographer making education a side thing um
25:03.06
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, right. Yeah, interesting.
25:12.38
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Yeah.
25:21.72
Nick Church
The challenge will be, how do you put enough effort into the marketing of that without, because you can only market one thing at one time. So you risk the marketing for your photography dropping off. you have to make sure that the two are balanced.
25:35.03
Nick Church
And businesses don’t tend to just come along at the right level. Be great if we got an inquiry for education that was just once a week, but it’s not like that.
25:41.58
Marcus Ahmad
No.
25:44.15
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, it’s never going to happen.
25:44.82
Nick Church
it it It’ll either escalate to a level that you can’t handle or just die to zero, probably probably the latter and if you’re not putting enough energy.
25:50.52
Marcus Ahmad
It is an all or nothing business, isn’t it?
25:51.81
Nick Church
Yeah. yeah
25:52.36
Marcus Ahmad
This have photography, there’s no doubt about it. It’s a feast or famine.
25:54.81
Sam Hollis
right’s the but I think that’s irrelevant to anything Marcus anything you do like that you’re doing in the marketing the leads can come in or they fail that’s not at all unique to photography that’s in any business you’re doing
25:57.91
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Yeah.
26:04.50
Marcus Ahmad
Well, I don’t know. I mean, i think and but I wasn’t going in too much in depth, but I was working with a video crew last night and, um you know, they we were both in the same job. They’ve got three days work out of it. I’ve got one evening’s work out of it. So now mark that evening is done. I need to go and find some more work. Well, they’ve got three days of work. So that’s why you don’t get that. That’s why it happens having in photography, I’m afraid.
26:28.12
Nick Church
Yeah. Yeah, but you can…
26:30.30
Sam Hollis
It’s marketing, Marcus.
26:30.68
Nick Church
Yeah.
26:31.42
Sam Hollis
you get You get the leads in and you fill it up.
26:31.64
Nick Church
Yeah.
26:33.46
Sam Hollis
on it yeah It’s the same whether you’re making websites, you’re taking pictures, you’re doing video, whatever it is. It’s getting the leads in and and filling up your slots.
26:40.98
Marcus Ahmad
Mm-hmm.
26:41.59
Nick Church
And the problem with education, of course, is that when you get that first, say you decide to do a Lightroom course like I’ve done, the first, you get somebody says, yeah, I’d really like to teach you Lightroom. I’m struggling with it. Maybe in your network of photographers, you’re a photographer. Someone says, i’ve really struggle with Lightroom. Then i had to set up the my input work workflows all over the place. i’ve got folders all over the desktop, you know, all this sort of stuff.
27:02.81
Nick Church
And so you you say, well, i’ll tell you I’ll teach you to do that. Then the first time you do it, you could think, ah right, I’ve got to create some content. And that’s a couple of days work to do that before the actual the actual thing.
27:10.23
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
27:11.22
Marcus Ahmad
a
27:11.48
Nick Church
So that can also be something that can sort of, um you know, be a bit of a surprise, the the amount of preparation you need to do. But of course, once you’ve done that once, the next time is is then fine.
27:18.14
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Yeah. It’s done. Yeah. yeah yeah
27:21.06
Nick Church
But if you if you are doing as a side gig, the next one is about Flash. Do you think, I’ve got to do that Flash one? You know, so you’ve got to do enough of them to make to get the repeat kind of benefit of having created the content already.
27:26.42
Sam Hollis
Yeah. as
27:30.63
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Makes sense.
27:32.79
Marcus Ahmad
Perfect. I think that’s a great point to end.
27:33.62
Sam Hollis
Cool.
27:35.13
Marcus Ahmad
What do you think, Sam? but i Do you have something else to say there?
27:36.79
Sam Hollis
Perfect.
27:38.07
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. OK, cool. Cool.
27:39.96
Sam Hollis
Excellent. Sorry. Right. Yeah, that all sounds amazing.
27:41.50
Marcus Ahmad
guys
27:42.40
Sam Hollis
Thank you so much, Nick, for being with us. Loads and loads for our listeners to take away. and Think about whether they want to go into education or think about whether they need to visit your academy and hop on a course.
27:47.16
Marcus Ahmad
yeah good show
27:52.68
Sam Hollis
Where can they find that if they are interested?
27:55.55
Nick Church
That’s www.nickchurchcreativeacademy.com.
28:00.15
Sam Hollis
Perfect. Excellent. Thanks so much, Nick and Marcus.
28:01.95
Marcus Ahmad
beautifully delivered Nick see you next week and thank you very much Nick bye bye
28:03.26
Sam Hollis
I’ll see you next week.
28:06.69
Nick Church
Cheers, bye-bye.
