“Watch the Podcast”
“Listen the Podcast”
“Show Notes”
Want to use LinkedIn to find commercial clients but hate the thought of sending spammy sales messages? You’re not alone. This week, Sam and Marcus are joined by LinkedIn expert Craig Dean to unpack a clear, ethical, and highly effective four-pillar strategy to turn connections into paying customers. This is essential marketing for photographers in the digital age.
This episode is packed with useful content, but we’ve pulled out the three essential takeaways that will most quickly boost your commercial photography business. Stop relying on luck; start implementing a clear plan that converts prospects into paying customers.
Listen to discover:
Three Things You’ll Learn in This Episode
- The Four Pillars of LinkedIn for Photographers: You’ll find out the four core areas of the platform—including profile, content, and comments—that must all work together to make your direct messaging actually convert.
- How to Craft the Perfect First Message: Learn the simple psychological technique to build instant rapport with a busy prospect, ensuring they feel noticed and are compelled to reply to your invitation for commercial photography work.
- The Power of Opinion Content: Discover why sharing a strong, unique perspective on a topic—even if it’s controversial—is essential for positioning yourself as a thought leader and attracting clients who truly value your commercial photography.
“Show Transcription”
Sam: Hi Marcus, how are you doing?
Marcus: Oh, I’m terrific. Thank you, Sam. Terrific. How are you?
Sam: Excellent. Very good. Yes. And we have another guest on this show. So with us today on the show, we have Craig Dean, who is a LinkedIn expert. Hi, Craig.
Craig: Hey there. How you doing?
Sam: Very good, thanks. And as always on the show, we just ask our guests to introduce themselves. So Craig, would you like to introduce yourself?
Craig: Yeah, sure. So my name is Craig Dean, as you mentioned before, and I love LinkedIn with a passion. It’s where I spend what feels like all of my time. But yeah, I essentially help people, coaches, consultants, creators and agency owners to, you know, enhance their presence on LinkedIn and get results from the platform, which usually means helping them with generating leads and booking appointments from LinkedIn.
Sam: Excellent. Sounds interesting. And then with photographers normally kind of say, how did we get that? So I guess we can do a similar thing here. Because you don’t just go to university and study LinkedIn and then you’re an expert or something, do you? So how did you kind of get to where you are now?
Craig: Yeah. So I used to work in recruitment. So, you know, my background actually was I was in the forces for many years. I got into recruitment. I worked in recruitment both here in the UK and in Hong Kong. And while I was working in recruitment, my last job, my last employed job was working with Indeed.com. And while I was working within that business, I was leveraging LinkedIn to find leads. And the reason I was doing that was because I hated making sales calls. I actually hated making sales calls with a passion. And back then I was selling into the hospitality industry. So anyway, I started looking at LinkedIn and ways to use LinkedIn in order to be able to sell socially, social selling, right? And anyway, I discovered this way to find leads and to leverage LinkedIn in order to be able to sell. And then after a short period of time, the sales director approached me. He was like, Craig, he said, I’ve been checking the KPIs. I’ve noticed that you’re booking in lots of sales, you know, lots of meetings, which is great, but you’re not making any phone calls. How are you doing that? So I kind of showed him what I was doing and he was like, oh my God, why are we not doing this as a business for the entire sales team? So he asked me at that point, would I be prepared to do a presentation to the rest of the sales team? And which I was happy to do.
And it was in that moment that the penny dropped. And I was like, hang on a minute. If I’ve got a big blue chip company here that needs my help with social selling on LinkedIn, then I’m sure there’s going to be lots of other businesses out there that could utilize my help.
And so while I was working within that business, I started to side hustle is probably the best word to use. I started my side hustle. And then of course, COVID-19 happened. And so, because I mentioned before, I was selling into the hospitality industry. So it stands to reason that after a period of time, that unfortunately the entire sales team lost their jobs. And so I was like, right, well, I’ve got two choices here. I can either go and find another job in recruitment or I can double down on this side hustle. And that’s essentially what I decided to do. So yeah. So since that was sort of four years ago now. So that’s how I’ve ended up where I am.
Marcus: Yeah. I mean, what I was going to say, Sam, I mean, we’ve had a few LinkedIn experts on the show. And of course, Sam and I are really passionate about LinkedIn. We both use it a lot. And we both believe in its possibilities. But Craig, what we’re going to do with you is I believe we’re going to dive into a very specific area, aren’t we? We’re going to be talking about what you call direct messaging. Is that correct?
Craig: It is, yeah. Direct messaging or the DMs through LinkedIn. Absolutely. And it’s almost got, you know, it’s almost got like a negative connotation. A lot of people avoid the DMs because they don’t… First of all, I think there’s a lot of people that see the word sales as a really negative word. When in actual fact, all we’re doing is helping people, right? Sales makes the world go round at the end of the day. But unfortunately, the DMs has negative connotations, primarily because the vast majority of people who leverage the DMs, leverage the DMs in the wrong way.
Sam: And so you try those big spammy messages you get just as people connect with or, well, yeah, would you like to switch your mortgage over to me? You’ve never met me before, but it’ll be great.
Craig: Absolutely. Absolutely. So it’s, there’s nothing worse than, you know, accepting a connection request and then receiving what appears to be the Magna Carta in your inbox, right? Yeah. And yeah. And, you know, at the end of the day, you know, we don’t, you know, we buy from people that we know, like, and trust, right? So why would you buy from somebody that’s just suddenly rocked up in your inbox after connecting with them after only a few short moments? You, you’re not going to do it, right? So unless of course, they happen to catch you at the right time, right? And, and that’s what, and that’s what they hope for. They hope for this kind of like spray and pray approach.
Sam: So they just go for really, really low convert. They go for really low numbers and just do vast amounts of numbers and they get like half a percent or a quarter percent.
Craig: It’s volume. Yeah. It’s just, just sheer volume as opposed to going at it with, with any kind of like strategy. So, so yeah, it’s what, what I try to help people to do is once we’ve, cause we have some, we help, as I mentioned to your coaches and, and, and creators on LinkedIn and agency owners to ensure that they get the foundations right first, which I know, and I know you guys have just mentioned that you’ve got, you know, you’ve had people that talked about profile optimization and other things before, but important to make sure that before you start attacking the DMs, that you do get those foundations in place first, because of course not having an optimized profile will negatively impact on your connection acceptance rate, for example. And then of course, the more, the more, the more invites that you send out with an unoptimized profile, the lower connection acceptance rate you’re going to get. And as a result of that, the less messages you can send and the less conversions that you got. And if, and if you’re going to just go at it with that kind of connect and pitch approach, you’re just going to burn bridges and churn leads. Yeah. We call it churn and burn, right? You’re just, you’re going to churn and you’re going to burn. So very important to make sure that you have some sort of strategy behind your outreach. And what I always say is like, try to focus on connecting. Of course, that’s the first step. Then building a little bit of rapport. And when I, when I say build rapport, I mean, talk about things, you know, mention content of your prospect that you’ve connected with, mention things that you’ve specifically liked about their content or mention things on their profile that you, you know, that really resonated with you. Or it might be that you happen to notice a recommendation on their profile that really stood out for you. So for example, you might reach out and say something like, Hey, you know, couldn’t help but notice the glowing recommendation from such and such on your profile. Would love to connect with, you know, with somebody with recommendations of that caliber. And not only does that indicate to your prospect that you’ve checked out their profile, but it also strokes their ego a little bit. It makes them feel good. And people will connect with people that make them feel good. That’s the, you know, it just does it. It works, right? And so because it’s complimentary, right? You’re, you’re, you’re effectively complimenting them. And I think it’s good manners, isn’t it? To at least respond in a positive way that gives you a compliment, right? So, so yeah by mentioning things that you’ve spotted on their profile or in their content is a great way to, to get connected. Or it could be that you’ve happened to notice a comment that they’ve left on somebody else’s content. And that’s another great way to connect. So let’s say for example, if, if some, somebody commented on your post and I, and I, and I reached out to that individual and said, Hey, you know, couldn’t help but notice your comment on Sam’s post about X, Y, Z. It really resonated with me for X, Y, Z, for X, Y, Z. Would love to connect with you. Again, it, it strokes their ego, makes them feel good.
It makes them feel noticed as well. And that’s another, another great way to, to get connected once. Yeah, go on. Sorry, Marcus.
Marcus: Can you carry on Craig? I was going to actually just say something at when you’d finished. Please carry on.
Sam: So we’re, so we’re talking here instead of like, just going, right, let’s search for say I’m a photographer and I want to work with accountants. Instead of just going, right, accountants, there’s 50,000. Well, I’m going to connect with, you know, as many as I can a week. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. You’re saying be much more selective, spend your time and work out who they are and speak to them individually rather than going here’s my connection message. How many can I get through a week, a month?
Craig: A hundred percent laser, be laser targeted and be really specific because you know, we’re not, what’s the point in connecting with loads of irrelevant connections. Anyway, there’s, there’s no point, especially if you’re not actually going to reach out to them. If you’re just going to, you know, we’re not trying to build a museum of connections. We want to kind of, you know, that that’s not, that’s not the goal here. The goal is to connect with, with potential prospects who we can help with our products and our services. Yes. But also who we can potentially collaborate with in the future. We could end up in some sort of referral partnership with that individual as well. So yeah, so very important to make sure that you connect in the right way, then build rapport with that individual, nurture a relationship.
Sam: So were you talking about similar sorts of things, chatting about content, you’ve seen chatting out posts or take stuff on the profile or taking that a bit further.
Craig: Oh yeah. But, but ultimately we should always be striving to identify pain points that they’re struggling with because once we understand the pain points of the individual, we’re then in a position to be able to offer our solutions. So one way that you can do that quite effectively is to, you know, and, and guide the conversation in the direction you want it to go in is by using multiple choice. So you could ask a multiple choice question, for example, in the DMs. Now, the great thing about multiple choices is that let’s say if I was to say to Marcus, you know, Marcus quick question, if I may, I’ve got this quick question. You ask the question and you give three options for them to choose from. Not only are you able to align those three options with products and services that you offer. So no matter how the answer you’ve got a way to solve, you’ve got something to come back with, but you’re making it super quick and easy as well for them to reply. One key stroke, A, B, or C, they’ve answered your question. So for super busy people on LinkedIn, you know, that usually don’t have a great deal of time, they can answer you very, very quickly and you can get the response you’re looking for. And, you know, ultimately all you’re looking for is a response. That’s the goal here is to get, is to keep getting responses because you’re, you’re taking them on a journey. You’re just guiding them in the direction you want them to go in to ultimately end up in a position where you can, where you can make some kind of an offer that will help them with that, with that particular problem that they’re struggling with. Permission. Yes.
Sorry, Marcus, go on.
Marcus: Okay. Well, the thing I was going to say was this, because this is just for our listeners, really. And you mentioned earlier about some of the previous guests we’ve had on talking about LinkedIn and I just thought I might refer to them and the people we’ve had on. I think Simon, you might add to this or correct me, but we’ve had Gareth Wax talking about building your profile. So if you’re looking at that, you can check that show out. We’ve had Jeff Brown on recently and he was talking about this new facility of sending out an email marketing or newsletter. Was it Sam or something like that?
Sam: Yeah. Newsletter. Yeah. Using LinkedIn newsletter. Yeah, yeah.
Marcus: And we also had Martin Sloman on and that’s worth checking out again. And he’s a great guy for talking about a very slow, very easy sales process. So thanks for just letting me butt in there, Greg.
Sam: Yeah, we’ll put those links in the show notes.
Craig: Yeah, no problem.
Sam: Cool. So if I can just, because we’ve done through, let me just summarize. So we’re saying do the connections and do laser focused and be very personalizing the connections and then go through to the kind of rapport building and identifying pain points. So then you can start to, and then if we’ve got another stage, are we then going into the starting to offer the services?
Craig: Well, that’s just, yeah, there’s no other stage really. You’ve got to be able to transition into the DMs as well. So I’ve probably gone one step ahead. It’s important to make sure that you’re commenting on their content first before you’re transitioning into the DMs because, and doing that at least three or four times before you actually send a DM. Otherwise, if you’re just dropping into the DMs, again, they don’t know you from Adam, at least you’re warming them up in the comments beforehand and building at least a little bit of that relationship building process is happening before you land in their DMs.
Sam: And then you’re thinking of that before you even invite to connect, or you think in the connection first?
Craig: A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. They need to see that you’ve viewed their profile. They need to see that you’ve liked and commented on their content. And, and yeah, like engage with them in some way before you just drop into the DMs. Otherwise you are just, I can trust there. But if, but remember as well that when you’re liking and commenting on someone’s content, um, liking and commenting on someone’s content tends to be reciprocal. So the chances are that when they see a really good comment on their content, they’re going to be like, Oh, who’s this guy? Or who’s this girl? And they’re going to go and check out your profile. And if your profile resonates with them, and they see that equally you’re creating great content as well, they, and they’re scrolling through your content feed, they start liking and commenting on your, on your content. So ultimately, you know, you arrive at a point where you send a DM to somebody and they’re already kind of warmed up, right? Yeah.
Sam: They know a bit who you are. They’ve heard of you. They’ve had a bit of a look. And so what you’re also saying about all this DM stuff is it’s not just on its own. It’s not like, right, this DM, this, you can just do it. You’ve got to in the background, be doing the posts, be doing the comments, be doing the likes because it all fits together.
Craig: Look, there’s, there’s four pillars to LinkedIn, isn’t there? There’s your profile, which is the foundation, right? So you have to have a profile that’s optimized for conversion, not just a resume star profile, because we all know that resumes are great for getting you jobs, but rubbish at getting you clients, right? So you have to have a profile that’s optimized for conversion. You have to be creating content and putting out content on a regular basis that positions you as a go-to expert in your niche and should also be building trust and credibility with your audience.
Sam: So I’m just thinking about that from photography point of view. So if I’m a photographer now, if my clients photographers and I’m teaching, that’s one thing, but say, you know, I’m a photographer and say like Marcus, my clients are small, you know, businesses in the local area. Obviously it’s probably not that helpful than me putting out content, showing I’m an expert in photography, or is it, or are you better talking about things like how businesses can use their images to grow their profile online and stuff?
Craig: Think of your content as following four key pillars, right? So I always talk about four key pillars with LinkedIn and then four key pillars with content as well. So with LinkedIn, it’s profile, content, comments, and DMs.
Those are the four parts of LinkedIn that all work synergistically with each other, right? They all have to be operational.
Sam: That’s it. So whatever you focus on, even if one’s your primary focus, you’ve got to be doing the others to make that one work.
Craig: Absolutely. 100%. And then with the content, you’ve got personal content, which builds likability, familiarity, and relatability with your target audience. You’ve got sales content, which positions your offer, lets them know what the hell it is that you sell, right? You’ve got to let them know what it is that you do. You’ve got authority content, which essentially is educational content that educates your audience to be able to do certain things within photography that they otherwise wouldn’t know how to do, or would otherwise not have the technical ability or skills to do. But you’re kind of, you’re making it really easy. If you make something really easy for someone to achieve by educating them on how to do it, then that, again, positions you as a go-to expert. But you also want to be backing that up as well with social proof. So that all falls into the authority pillar. And the final pillar is opinion content, because you also need to position yourself as a thought leader in your space. So this is where you’ll be sharing your own unique perspective on specific topics within your industry.
Sam: That’s interesting. And are people sometimes a bit afraid of that? Afraid of kind of giving their opinions in case they’re going to upset some people? I can see some people being quite worried before they put that forward.
Craig: Yeah, so many people are worried about posting content full stop just because how they might be perceived by others. But ultimately, and I say this a lot, your vibe attracts your tribe. Don’t worry about the people that don’t dig what you do, right? Because you wouldn’t want to work with them in a million years anyway, right?
Sam: Yeah, so it’s kind of along the niching line. The key is, it actually is better to find that small group that resonates with you, than you’ll speak with them and get a relationship with them trying to just apply, you know, appeal to everybody and being rather vanilla and bland and not really appealing to anyone.
Craig: Absolutely. Yeah, you can’t win over all of the people all of the time, right? What was that saying? I’m trying to remember. Was it Oliver Reed that said, just be yourself because everyone else is taken? Yeah, it’s so true. It’s so true.
Marcus: Yeah, it wasn’t Oliver Reed, was it? It was, who was that? I can’t remember who it was.
Craig: Can’t remember who it was.
Sam: Anyway, answers on the back of a postcard listeners or on a LinkedIn DM.
Craig: Yeah, yeah, it’s not. Yeah, it’s not Oliver Reed. I’m trying to think who it is. But yeah, get back to me on that.
Marcus: Before the show started, Craig, we were just talking about photography and your experience of it. And we were talking about the LinkedIn banner. And I think that’s a great opportunity for photographers who may be listening to the show to build some kind of expertise about producing LinkedIn banners for their clients because they’re very difficult to put together. They’re very skinny and they’re very long. Maybe you could just share with your experience that you had with a photographer and your anecdote that you had there, you’re telling me.
Craig: Yeah, no, it’s cool. So there’s a real story behind my old banner that was actually not famous on LinkedIn, but it was a very popular banner of LinkedIn because what I did was I wanted to incorporate part of my background into my LinkedIn banner. And many years ago, I was probably about 13 years old, went to Western Superman, nearly drowned in the sea. I was saved by my cousin on a lilo. And as a result of that, I developed a fear of deep water, right? So aquaphobic, basically. Anyway, so for many years, up until about the age of 17, I was scared of deep water. And then I announced one day to my dad that I wanted to join the British army, right? So he was like, well, son, he said, you’re going to have to get over that stupid fear of water. He said, we’re going to get you down to this. So he kind of gave me his version of exposure therapy. He took me to starport swim baths every morning and would kind of take me in a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper, splashing water over me. And eventually over the course of time, I overcame this fear. And I was able to join the British army and had a very successful career in the army. But I wanted to incorporate that into my LinkedIn banner. So I came up with the strap line, helping you make a splash on LinkedIn with a profile from Burt’s, right? And that was all great. And there was a picture of me. I think I used like a caricature image of me kind of popping out of a, I can’t remember how it was. Now I was popping out of a pipe and someone was like pouring water into the pipe or something. But anyway, I wanted to kind of make it much, much better. So I contacted this brand photographer and he came with all his equipment and everything. He came to my house and he did this brand shoot. And the idea I had was to have, if you could imagine this is my LinkedIn banner now, right? And imagine like the water level is here, right?
Sam: Sorry, we’re not doing this in videos here. About your neck level.
Craig: Oh, okay. All right. So try and imagine that about one third of the way up of my LinkedIn banner, there’s like a water level, okay? And he took pictures of me sitting on a wooden block, right? With my knees up to my chest and me holding onto my knees, right? So basically in the dive bomb pose. So yeah, so he took all these pictures and it ended up with us using that photography with this kind of picture. Oh, sorry, I had armbands on, pink armbands on and everything that he took the photos of. And then I took those photos and I sent them to a designer. We designed this LinkedIn banner of me dive bombing into this water, making this massive splash. And there was like gold fish and a rubber duck floating on the water and all sorts. But it got a lot of attention, a hell of a lot of attention. And actually converted for me more times than I can remember just because it grabbed attention.
Marcus: It’s the first thing you look at, isn’t it? You know, it’s like when you design your website, Sam, you know, you got that first bit at the top above the fold. It’s the same with LinkedIn, isn’t it? That banner is so important. And as I said, it’s a great opportunity for photographers to be creative and offer something to their clients there. And I think that’s the thing.
Craig: I think, you know, a lot of people have their LinkedIn banners done and they go with kind of like a, you know, a standard pose of arms folded or leaning against a wall or something. But if you get a really good quality, like profile photo added to your banner, it can make the banner. It can just, you know, yeah. And it really did kind of take my presence on LinkedIn to the next level when I did that. And my followers went through the reef as well since I did that.
Sam: Okay. So yeah. That’s definitely a service photographers could offer, couldn’t it? You know, and yeah, definitely a kind of value add as well as part of a business shoot. You know, I also deliver you some LinkedIn banners, you know.
Craig: I think they could. I think that I think where the real value would come in would be on the creative aspect. Like if they were just taking normal kind of photos and then just having like a standard photo. But if they could offer a little bit of creative direction.
Marcus: Exactly. It’s about having ideas, isn’t it?
Craig: Yeah. In relation to the actual concept.
Sam: So not just delivering it with the other photos, but going, yeah, talking about it and delivering something a bit different, a bit special. Worked on a bit of graphic designing on, yeah, this. That incorporates a photograph and other things. Yeah.
Craig: For example, I worked with a client called, he had a company called Coin Flip Marketing. So we had a, so we designed his banner. We had a picture of him like flipping a, like in a pose where he’s like flipping a coin. And then as the coin kind of flipped, you could see it kind of in motion.
Sam: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Craig: And then back in those days, I don’t know whether you remember, there used to be a profile video that you could have. And so, and so the coin went all the way and got bigger and bigger and bigger to the bit where the profile video played. And the profile video that played was actually a coin flipping with his.
Marcus: Cool, love it. Yeah.
Sam: So again, playing with it.
Craig: Yeah. Just being creative with.
Marcus: A hundred percent.
Sam: And we are.
Marcus: I was going to say the same as you, Sam. We are coming up to the end of the show. I think we’re going to say, but just before we finish, Craig, maybe how long would you recommend people spend on LinkedIn for what you’re doing? You’ll put back quite a lot of stuff there. Commenting, dig, finding the right people. How long would you recommend?
Craig: I think, I think no more than an hour and a half a day.
Sam: A day, yeah. A day, yeah.
Marcus: Yeah, that’s realistic.
Craig: But, but, but don’t, but don’t do it all at once either. I’m not saying sit on LinkedIn for an hour and a half. So for example, commenting, I break my commenting down into three 15 minute chunks throughout the day. So essentially I’m spending sort of 45 minutes on commenting each day, but in the morning, early afternoon, late afternoon.
Sam: But I guess the other thing is being disciplined with that, isn’t it? Because what lots of people find is once they go in to do comments, they’re then scrolling through the feed and they’re just distracted. So I, yeah, I think once you’re in social media, having a very specific aim and a very specific timeframe is so important.
Craig: Well, and being consistent, but also being, being very, to be very focused, you’ve got to have a plan to do that. And it’s actually a lot easier than you would think it. If you’ve got a list of people to go out, you can actually, if you use the search bar on LinkedIn, you can actually create a list of targeted or create a targeted feed, should we say, of prospects to comment on. And you can save that as a bookmark. So rather than just going through LinkedIn and trying to find content to comment on, you could be far more strategic about it by just clicking on your bookmark. And that feed comes up and you comment on that targeted content.
Sam: Yeah, makes sense. Right. I have a few quickfire questions. A new thing on Shoot To The Top, I was going to give these a try. Some fun and some related to what you do.
So you’re only allowed to answer yes or no to these, or if there’s two, if it’s multi to any, you get the idea. Quick answer. So first one, LinkedIn premium or LinkedIn free?
Craig: LinkedIn premium.
Sam: Okay. Tea or coffee?
Craig: Coffee.
Sam: Um, audio and video messages, LinkedIn or just text?
Craig: Audio and video messages.
Sam: Okay. Apple or Android?
Craig: Android.
Sam: Do you need any other socials but LinkedIn?
Craig: Do I what? Sorry?
Sam: Need any other socials except LinkedIn?
Craig: No, just LinkedIn.
Sam: Bake off or strictly?
Craig: Oh my gosh. Oh God.
Sam: Neither.
Craig: Neither. Neither.
Sam: Okay. If you’re taking pictures, do you have an SLR or cam or phone?
Craig: Phone.
Sam: Phone. And a holiday, beach or in the mountains?
Marcus: Oh, it’s the kids, this one.
Sam: That took a bit of thinking. No, mountains.
Craig: I’m going to mountains.
Marcus: Oh, mountains. He’s changed his mind.
Sam: Mountains, sure. Maybe mountains is key down and there’s a beach at the bottom.
Craig: Yeah, mountains.
Sam: Okay. Excellent.
Craig: Yeah, it sounds good.
Sam: Excellent. Right. Thank you very much. It has been, yeah, it’s been a really interesting show. Loads and loads of value there for our listeners, which is amazing. Thank you so much for being with us. And listeners, if you want to make sure you don’t miss any of the value in all of the shows, you need to sign up the Newsletter to make sure that podcast comes to your inbox every week along with extra from Marcus and I for the extra stuff, so just go to the shoottothetop.com website and sign up to the newsletter to make sure that you don’t miss out the podcast and great, Thanks you so much Marcus. I’ll see you next week.
Marcus: Thank you. See you next week.
Craig: Thank you for having me on the show.
