“Show Notes”
Jamie runs Circle networks and he used to be a reluctant networker. Back in 2013 he had to go networking to find customers for his social media business. At the time most businesses were not on social media, so he had to go and find them. But he fell in love with networking and it took him on a long journey. Jamie says the business was providing social media for businesses that weren’t using it at all. It was mainly Twitter. When Jamie started business he wanted to be able to do the school run.
On that basis he never did breakfast networking. One of Jamie’s clients pestered him for weeks and then he eventually went and enjoyed it and got some business. When he started networking he was offered training, which he thought he didn’t need. Then Jamie eventually did some networking training. Using the training he moved from getting £18k of work in a year from networking to £88k a year. Jamie says we have all experienced just going networking and pottering along, but few of us think of training. His business also involved getting video testimonials which he enjoyed doing.
That got busy and took him all over the country, which wasn’t what he wanted to do. And people started to approach him for networking training, He eventually moved his business to doing that. He says it is around understanding what it is you really want. Jamie says before networking, he thought carefully about who he wanted to work with. He decided he wanted to work with a franchisee. His plan was to do excellent work with one franchisee, get referred to others. This worked well and in the end he also ended up working for the head office. All from doing a little planning before going networking. Marcus thinks most people are just “winging it” in networking rather than planning.
Jamie also says what you would wear to networking should be the same as what you would wear to meet a dream client. He says for Zoom meetings many people don’t make any effort at all. He also talks about what people see on the background of your Zoom calls. Marcus has some lighting which shows exactly what he does.
Marcus also says he has made Zoom backgrounds that were slide shows of his work and people loved it at the networking events. Jamie’s top networking tips
1. Prepare. Don’t just jump from one call to another with no breaks and no planning.
2. Arrive early. You would never arrive late for an in person event so don’t online
3. Go networking with one thing in mind. It might be you are looking for support, a recommendation, an accountant or anything else, but go with one aim in mind. If you are going for referrals. Have one in mind and be crystal clear. Treat it like a marketing campaign. You could do it as simple as explain who your latest client is or your ideal client is. You want people in the room to be able to filter all the people they know down to one, who they will introduce them to.
4. Be proactive with referrals. Go out and find people to refer, don’t just refer people you happen to come across. Jamie says for example while speaking to people he asked them if they had business insurance and then when it needed renewing. If the renewals were coming up he would pass them on to a connection who sold insurance.
Jamie has a photographer he works with on quarterly shoots. He says his face is his personal logo. Using photographs of ourselves is not showing off, it’s personal branding. He also says that as he’s used more professional photos he has found his social media reach expand. Most people though don’t know the value they would get from professional photos. It is therefore important that photographers explain what value they deliver with a photoshoot.
So while networking talk about your clients and then the follow up is really important. Jamie said he made a decision to pass more referrals than ever before. And as a result of that he has been passed more referrals than ever before.
“Show Transcription”
Sam: Hi Marcus, how are you doing?
Marcus: Oh I’m very well thank you Sam, yeah very well indeed, how are you?
Sam: Excellent thanks and hello to all the listeners, thank you for joining us. Today on Shoot to the Top we have another amazing guest, we have Jamie Stewart with us. So Jamie, I think I will let you introduce yourself.
Jamie: Yeah hi, so I’m Jamie from Circle Networks, I’m a reluctant networker, so I started going networking and I did not want to, but I had to. At the time my clients in the business that I was in, I had a social media business and none of my clients used social media, we’ve gone back a bit now, I can remember when before people used social media every day back in 2013, and I had to go networking in order to meet people because they weren’t using social media, and then I just fell in love with it and it took me on this huge journey.
Sam: So you’ve gone kind of from not liking it to running a networking business.
Jamie: Do you know what, I’ve done that so many times, I hated social media and then ended up starting a social media business. I never wanted a coach and then I became a coach and I never used to like networking.
Sam: I’m wondering now what you hate at the moment, because it’s going to probably be your next thing.
Jamie: Okay, hate is probably a strong word, but exercise, exercise.
Sam: 10 years you’re going to be the new Joe Wicks.
Jamie: Imagine that, yeah, as I’m knocking on the door of 60, yeah.
Sam: However you can get, encouraging the older population to get out and exercise. I was going to find that and say yeah.
Marcus: well I’ve not only knocked on the door of 60, I’ve bloody gone through it unfortunately, but there you go. What kind of social media were you doing Jamie?
Jamie: So at the time it was for small businesses who were just not using any social media at all. So I was acting as the business doing their Facebook and Twitter really at the time. Pre-Instagram, before you could post videos native into platforms, if anyone can remember that far back.
Sam: So it was really about the kind of businesses becoming aware social media was almost a thing for them and encouraging them onto it.
Jamie: Yeah, I mean, and it was back in the day where if you had a thousand followers, man, people would see a post.
Sam: Yeah, yeah, yeah, not like today. Bit more of a complex game.
Marcus: Cool, yeah, that’s interesting. Okay, so then you just, you got into running this network, you got into networking and that led you to running a networking business.
Jamie: Yes, so one of my clients, a guy called Mike Gilson and pestered me. So when I started my business, when I left corporate, I wanted to be able to do the school run while the kids were still in primary school. So that was really important. So breakfast networking was never on my radar. The perfect excuse. Loads of people asked me to go to it. I was like, no, sorry, it clashes with the school run. And then eventually this guy, Mike, pestered me for four weeks. Can you come along? Can you come along? And I went along. Little did I know, I drove past a networking group on my doorstep to this one that was 25 minutes away that was just starting up. And I was part of the launch of it. And I’d driven past this one that passed 4 million pounds worth of referrals at the year. And I liked it. And I went along and got some business the first time I went and joined. And it took me on a bit of a journey.
And yeah, I think I’m safe to say this here. Typical man. Somebody offered me some training at the start of me going networking. I was like, I’m all right, thanks. I’ve been, it’s not hard. You just speak to people.
Sam: I can drink tea and chat to people. Yeah, yeah.
Jamie: What do I need to learn about that? And so my first year in networking, we tracked all the results that we got. And I picked up 18,000 pounds worth of referrals from that group. And I did okay. Then I lost a big client or a big client was about to start. And I hadn’t done really a great deal of business development. So I needed to up my game. So this guy invited me along to his next training course. And I went along. And within the next 12 months, I picked up 88,000 pounds worth of business from that networking group. So from 18, one year.
Sam: So big turnaround. And that was a lot due to that training, you think?
Jamie: Yes. We’ve all experienced this, haven’t we? Oh, Sam, you build websites. You should come to my networking group. And you go along and you meet some nice people like Marcus. And you think, oh, I like this. I’ll just join. And then you might get some introductions. And we meander our way through it. Nobody really thinks, oh, maybe I should sit some training or get some coaching around networking so that I could get better results. Because we’re not stupid, are we? We know how to speak to people. We know our business. Why would I need some training in that area? But it was a game changer for me. And then that led me on to get involved in a franchise at the time. And one of the things. So we’d moved at that point into a lot of video testimonial work. And as you can tell, I’m quite comfortable chatting with people. So I would just chat with them. Cameraman would film. And we were filming a lot of the time interviewing people who had never been on camera before. So my job was just to make a few facts. We would, if someone was really nervous, we had this secret thing that we would do. Let’s just have a run through. And the cameraman would press record at that point.
Marcus: Right, there’s no filming the camera, don’t worry. Because they didn’t feel like.
Sam: Yeah.
Jamie: And we would record one take and they were completely relaxed because they didn’t think that they were being recorded. And it worked perfectly. So anyway, so then we got really busy with that. And it was taking me all over the country filming, which was the opposite of what I wanted to do. And the opportunity to get involved in coaching around networking, people came to me for it. And pre-Covid, I had an office and people would come to the office. And I thought, this is brilliant. This is the way forward for me. And that’s how.
Marcus: So you’re actually specialising in coaching people for networking skills.
Sam: Very cool.
Jamie: Yeah. And it’s sales and networking, really, and relationship building. So it’s not strictly, it’s not networking in isolation. It’s how to grow their business with relationships.
Sam: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, I guess it is all about relationships, isn’t it? You meet people at the networking there and then it kind of grows and they move towards being leads, possibly, and clients. And it is all, yeah, it’s all a relationship, isn’t it? And it’s managing that and knowing how to move it from one level to the next.
Jamie: And just, so in essence, it’s around understanding what it is that you really want. And for me, the big change that I had, I went from an average client worth about £3,500 a year to winning a client that spent £45,000 with me. So that was a massive change for me. And all I did was, I sat down, rather than just turning up at a networking event and regurgitating the same stuff that I said at every single one, I sat down and did a bit of planning. I thought, what would make a dream client for me? And I went networking and asked for a franchise. I’d like an introduction to a franchise because I thought, if I work with one franchisee, they don’t compete with another one because it’s territory-based. Do a good job with one, the word of mouth will spread, and that’s exactly what happened. And I ended up working for the head office. And it was very, very good.
Sam: Amazing.
Marcus: I mean, those are, oh, I’m sorry, I started off at the same time there. I was just going to quickly say that was, Sam’s favourite word is planning, Jamie. So he’s obviously salivating over what you just said.
Jamie: But it is, I think, you know, I want to get a t-shirt with winging it on, because I think that’s what most people are doing. I had a call with someone the other day, actually, I won’t name them, but they had this t-shirt on with winging it. And I was talking about, what do you wear when you go networking? I said, a lot of people just, because it’s on Zoom, they treat it differently to in-person. And one of the things that I say to people is, if you were going to meet your dream client, what would you wear? And then they’ll describe if they were going to meet somebody, what they would wear. And I said, so when you go networking, you’re looking for introductions into dream clients, what would you wear if you went to an in-person networking event? And it’s largely, not quite as good, it’s 80% of what they would wear to see a client. And I said, what about on Zoom? And we’re on Zoom at this point, and they’re just in their body. And they’re in their pyjamas. And I said, so you’re looking for an introduction to your dream clients. My perception of you is what I say, and I’m not judging you, and it’s different for everybody what they wear, but if you would dress differently for a dream client, why would you not wear that to a networking event such as to show people? And so the perfect segue here is, you wouldn’t turn up for a photo shoot in your casual t-shirt and shorts.
Marcus: No, exactly right.
Sam: Yeah, not unless that was the image you wanted to put across, and that was your brand image, yeah.
Marcus: I mean, Jamie, we’ve gone straight in here, and we’ve gone from your life story into giving you some really solid tips. So let’s keep on this, in this vein. Yeah, I think appearance, when I’ve ever been on Zoom calls, and even in face-to-face networking, I’m a bit of a clothes horse, I know. But I am surprised how people don’t make an effort.
Jamie: Yeah, it’s crazy. So I’ve just repainted this background here. It was a gray-blue beforehand, and this is not the green that I wanted, because it just looks great. So I did it a week ago, and I was like, but it was just white beforehand. There was no bookshelf here.
I moved in here too. It was just a white background, and it looked really bland. And I’ve tried to dress it a little bit. And if this, well, this is my office. Now, it’s the basement, and no one comes down here other than me and my partner if she brings me a cup of tea every now and again. But if it was my office, this is what I would want people to see. And this is the virtual office. Marcus, we can see. We get a good idea of what you do just by looking at your background.
Marcus: You can see I’ve got my lighting equipment behind me. And I’ve done that on purpose. I’ve set the room up so people can see that on Zoom calls.Yeah, definitely.
Sam: Yeah, you can’t see because of the microphone, but I have my brands on the wall as well.
Marcus: He does.
Jamie: And it’s harder. It’s harder if you’ve got a virtual service, at least with a website, perhaps you could screen share and demonstrate it. I can’t show somebody, oh, and here’s your network, and here’s the benefit of having a network.
Marcus: It’s that much harder. Jamie, I’ll tell you a thing that I did, and I just suddenly thought of this, and this will be really useful for our listeners. Well, I hope it is useful. I discovered on Zoom that you can change your background, and you can do it with a slideshow. So what I did was put together a portfolio of all my work, where we play in the background, only when I was doing my pitch, so it wouldn’t be distracting, and people loved it. And I had four or five different slideshows, depending on who the networking group was, and who, you know, what my ideal customer, I was pitching at the time. So yeah, and I did a lot. People would say, oh, that’s really amazing. And it was so easy to do, and nobody else did it. How obvious for a photographer to do something like that.
Jamie: I’ve only, we’ve got one photographer in our membership, John Cleary, who has that. So he’s got a video as a background. So it’s a static slideshow, I guess, that rotates through different things. And it works really well. One thing that I’ve just started using recently is a free thing called Camo Studio, C-A-M-O Studio. And you can have overlays that pop up on top of your screen. So rather than having a virtual background, I won’t do it now, because I don’t want to risk messing up the Zoom recording, the podcast recording. But you could have, so on this side of me, I’ve got an overlay that comes down. And you can have multiple, so like you could have a slide deck, you can have multiple tiles, and you can just click through the different tiles. So you might have a testimonial from a client, or a QR code that pops up.
Sam: It’s almost like you’ve stuck a Post-it note on the side of your screen, something useful on. But it’s kind of pre-done and cool.
Jamie: And it works really well, particularly for virtual networking, it works really well.
Marcus: I love it. We’re only halfway through the show, and already we’re into the gold. We’re digging for gold here, folks.
Sam: Cool, and then I think what would be really good, Jamie, is if you’ve got some top networking tips. You’re obviously a networking expert. You’ve got a huge amount of experience, and clearly gained a lot from your business from it. What do you think for our listeners, they’re photographers, going along to a networking event, and probably, as you know, I suspect being a photographer, they’re not the only photographer in the room.
So have you got some really good tips for them to kind of make the most of their networking?
Jamie: Okay, so I’ll do some general ones first, and then I’ll talk about photography. So one of the things is to prep beforehand. I think a lot of us, particularly with online networking, have got busy diaries. We’ve got back-to-back calls. And let’s say, you know, we’re coming up at 5 to 11 now. So let’s say that we were booked on for an online networking at 11.
We go, oh my God, I’ve got six minutes left. Well, I can let the dog out. I can make a cup of tea.
Sam: Just what I do.
Jamie: I can make a cup of tea. I can ring the bank. I can send that email. And probably for most people, they’re working away. They’re in this low energy state, sat hunched over our keyboard. And then they go, oh, it’s 11 o’clock. I better find the link. And virtually, they burst into the room. A little bit flustered, in a low energy state, a minute late. And they go, it’s only online. It doesn’t matter. We would never, never go to an in-person event and arrive after it had started. Sorry, I’m late. The door squeaks as everyone’s there. You’ve got to shuffle past everybody because the empty seat’s at the back of the room. You drag the chair out. You unzip your bag. Everything’s really noisy. You’re a bit flustered and hot. But we never want to be that person, do we? And on Zoom, we just arrive late because it’s only on Zoom. No one will notice. And we don’t have the embarrassment associated with being late. So arrive early. And I say to most people, look, click on the link 10 minutes early. Then go make a cup of tea. Then come and sit down and think about what you’re going to talk about today. And I encourage people to go networking for one thing at a time. And my networking business is called Circle Networks. We’re not strictly for referrals. Referrals are a large part of it. But we help people in business. So you might go networking for some support. I might be going looking for how to improve my website. Or I might be going looking for how to improve my visibility and need a photographer or some advice or a recommendation. Or I might just be overwhelmed with work and I might need a virtual assistant. So we help people in business with their business by helping them with the connections that they’re looking for. So you might go looking for that. So some help with your business. And you might just want to pick some people’s brains. So Sam, you’re really successful. What did you do at this point in your career? So you could do that. You might go looking for referrals. And for that, I would get crystal clear on one example. So today, and treat it like a marketing campaign. I think I hear a lot of people that go, well, you know, I’m looking for anyone. Anyone who needs photography. And then they go, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: Because it doesn’t make anybody’s thing to mine, does it? Because yeah, you’re not filtering through all those people.
Jamie: Exactly. So treat it like a marketing campaign and target it at one particular person at that networking event on that day. And I’ll give you a good example of this. We’ve got a guy in our network. He builds Amazon Alexa skills. So quite niche. Do you know anyone that would like an Amazon Alexa skill?
Marcus: No. Probably not.
Sam: I know what an Amazon Alexa is. What’s an Amazon Alexa skill?
Jamie: So it’s like an app on the device. And it takes a little bit of explaining. So he was invited to our network by the photographer I mentioned earlier. And he’d been in a year and we did a bit of coaching. He sat one of my courses and I said, why don’t we just narrow it down? I don’t want a niche, Jamie. I said, okay, that’s fine. Why don’t we treat it like a marketing campaign? Oh, I can do that. So he narrowed it down and I said, what would be a great introduction for you? He said, dentist. He said, if I can get introductions to dentists, we can create this app for them that will help them reduce no-shows and last-minute cancellations.
Sam: Oh, because like your Alexa tells you, don’t forget to go to the dentist later.
Jamie: And if you need to rearrange, you can rearrange it. So by narrowing it down from anyone to dentist, turns out the guy that first introduced him a year before knew a great dentist who he introduced to a year later, just because Chris mentioned dentist, he introduced him to this dentist and that has unlocked much more potential than just that dentist because he’s a very well-connected dentist and there’s a much bigger opportunity. So narrow down an example. And what I say to people is, just tell me about your favourite client or your most recent client. You don’t need to prepare that. You guys know who, if you’re listening to this, you know who your favourite client is. You know who your most recent client is.Why did they come to you? What have you done for them? And why should somebody introduce somebody else like that? And I challenge people to, when you go networking, when you’re speaking to somebody, you want to help them filter all the people that they know down to one person that they can leave that networking event with and introduce you to. And it’s counterintuitive because I want loads of introductions. We all do, don’t we? We want loads of clients, we want loads of business.If I’m speaking to you, Sam, and you say, I want to build a website for photographers, any photographers are good for me. I know loads of photographers, Sam. In my head, what I think is, oh, that’s quite a bit of work. I’ll do that when I’m not busy. And I don’t know about you guys, but I’m never not busy. So it means that I never do it. Whereas if I come off this and I go, Marcus is the perfect person to introduce to Sam, I’ll just get that done straight away and I can tick that off.
Sam: So effectively, you’re applying the principle of niching, which we talk about a lot on the show, to networking.
Jamie: Yes, yeah. Nobody wants to niche.
Sam: And we’re not talking about niching your business, we’re talking about niching, just narrowing down what you’re going in for and what the point is of your networking and being really, really targeted. So just like we say with niching, people know what you want and can find the referrals and understand what you’re looking for.
Marcus: Why is that, Jamie? Why is that? Why are people not confident enough to niche it down?
Jamie: I think it’s a bit of FOMO, the fear of missing out. So you might have, well, both of you have got a wealth of amazing connections as a result of this podcast. I don’t want to stop you from thinking of some of those, so anyone that you think would be a good fit for me. But I don’t know if you ever used the LinkedIn search feature. So if I go back to 2013, most people at that point were only just getting started on social media. And I remember at the time doing trainings and people saying, on average, people have got 250 connections.
Right. Can you imagine only having 250 connections now?
Sam: You just got started.
Jamie: If you only had 250 people that you knew, it would be really easy to think of the right one to introduce you to. The problem that we’ve got now is we’ve got thousands of connections and we’re connected to people that we just don’t even know. Someone sends me a connection request, I accept it, I never think about them again, unless they drop me a message. So if you use the LinkedIn search feature and you can, like for me, I looked the other day, I’ve got about 6,000 connections and I might put in, in fact, let me do it now. So I’m going to put in photographer, Just to see how many I know.
Marcus: : I’ve done this before.
Sam: There’s a lot of photographers out there.
Jamie: Right. So if I search for photographer on my LinkedIn, then it shows up and I click on people. It gives me 2 million results.
Marcus: That’s not in the UK. I hate that. That’s worldwide, surely, isn’t it? Hopefully.
Jamie: Yeah, it’s just in Cheshire. Then I click on first. So that’s now going to filter all the people on there to my connections. And that narrows that right down to 94. Right. That’s still a lot. Yeah. I wouldn’t have said that I knew 94 photographers. Now, it’s people that have got photographer in their profile. So some of them might have been in the past. But then I could maybe even filter that even more and put the United Kingdom. So that narrows that 94 down to 84. I could change that and perhaps even put in my town or the nearest city to me. So it becomes much more manageable. Then I might scroll through that and go, right, here’s the top three that I know really well that would be a good introduction for you, Sam.
And I might say to you then, right, let me show you these three. So if we were face to face, I could give you my phone and look at these three. And you might go, first two, they’re not real. I know them. I’ve dealt with them. Or they’re not for me. But the third one, that’s a perfect introduction. And then I only need to go away and speak to one person for you. But most people go networking. I’d love an introduction to anyone.
Marcus: I’ve heard it many, many times.
Jamie: We can’t think of anyone, can we?
Marcus: It’s funny, isn’t it? Yeah. I’ve heard that so many times.
Sam: And I guess the other thing is people say, yeah, I’d like to introduction like you’re saying to somebody who wants a website. Well, I don’t know who in my connection wants a website or who in my connection wants photography. You need to tell me about them, don’t you? Not what they want, because we don’t know what they want right now.
Jamie: So here’s the thing with that that I said to people. So if we’re in a network together and we’ve built a relationship, no leg, trust each other, and you say I’m looking for an introduction to anyone that needs a website, I write that down. This week, Sam wants an introduction to anyone who wants a website. And I think to myself, right, this week, I’m going to listen out for anyone who says that they want a new website. So I’ve got the best of intentions. I like you. I’m happy to refer you. But I’m not being proactive. I’m just being reactive. And I think that’s the majority of referrals that get passed. They’re just reactive. Someone just happens to mention in conversation or post on social media, I’m looking for a new website. Oh, there you go, Sam. Sam, you should speak to Sam, rather than being proactive. And I’ll give you an example of this. The other day, speaking to a friend of mine who’s got an insurance broker business. I’m not doing him any disservice. It’s insurance. It’s not an exciting product. We’re all grateful when we’ve got it, but we don’t wake up in the morning and go, yes, I’m going to go find a new insurance policy today. I think he’s very easy to refer. And I demonstrated that to him. So that day, anybody that I spoke to, I just said, have you got insurance for your business? Yep. When’s it due for renewal? Is it due for renewal in the next three months? One out of three said yes. And I said, would you mind if I introduce you to my friend Neil, just so he could give you a quote and see how they all said yes. It was that easy. I didn’t have to go out of my way to do it. It was just the people that I was speaking to that day. So our job when we go on networking is to make it easy for people to help us. So really, Sam, if I was you, I’d be saying to people when I go networking, so who are you going to be meeting this week? Just have a look at your diary and just ask them, are they generating leads from their website? Are they embarrassed about their website? Is it, when did they last update it? Is it fast? You know the questions they’re picking up. And they just need to ask that with the people that they’re speaking to that week.
Sam: And then similar for people referring photographers. You know, are you happy with your headshot on LinkedIn, the photos on your website, the photos that you’re putting out there?
Jamie: So, but I think most people understand the website that, you know, and I spoke to someone this way, I can’t come networking until I’ve got my website built. And I’m like, it’s a new one. It’s like, I’ve got to get everything ready. Everything’s got to be perfect before I go networking so that I’m ready to take a client at the first event that I go to. With photography, I think a lot of people, because we’ve got one of these.
Marcus: He’s holding up a phone, by the way. We’re all amateur photographers now.
Sam: I thought you were a podcaster, Jamie.
Jamie: I do this all the time. I’m a professional, honestly. So because we’ve got a smartphone, we can take pictures ourselves. So a lot of people just bumble by with average photography that in Marcus’s head, he’s going, oh my God, you’ve got terrible headshots. The lighting doesn’t show you, it’s not on brand. But there’s more than just headshots. I am part of a, so I’ve got a photographer that I work with on a regular basis. We have a quarterly shoot so that I get regular up-to-date shots. Why do I do that? Because I’m just helping people. This, I’m pointing at my face now. This is my personal logo. So I need to show me and not somebody else. So that in the same way that we build our brand by using our logo, by using photography of ourselves, it’s not showing off, it’s branding and personal branding. And we might have customers that we have pictures of, and we’re much better to have pictures of real people and people in our network and people of ourselves. I’ve seen over the last 18 months when I’ve really invested in my own photography, I’ve seen my social media reach massively increase. Because it’s relevant. But I think, Marcus, I think the challenge for a lot of photographers is when they go networking, they just, you know what people need. You know why they need a brand shoot and what they get from it and how they can use it. Most people, I’m going to generalise here, but most people go, let’s say on average a brand shoot is £1,500. It’s £1,500 a lot for a headshot. It’s probably what goes through their head. I don’t know what else I’m going to get from it. And I get these pictures even when I’ve had one and I don’t know what to do with the pictures. So I think from a photographer’s perspective, when they go networking, they want to talk through. So I did, talk through your most recent client. So I did this headshot for, I don’t know, a jockey. I don’t know why that came into my head. But I did a headshot for a jockey. You want a picture of them on a horse, riding a horse, stood next to a horse, in training, all that kind of stuff so that it shows them in their world. And perhaps when they’re not even in their gear and all the different, and why they might want, I’m moving to the side now. So why they might want a picture with them on one third of the shot with two thirds blank space.
It’s a package. You photographers provide people with the raw materials for great social media content and brand it as well on your website. So I think that you’ve got to talk people through, right, here’s what I do. Here’s what you do when you’ve got it and how you can use it afterwards. And I think it comes naturally to you guys. Sam, you’re going to be helping people drive traffic to the website and convert it, get found, that kind of stuff. Marcus is around the stuff that pushes people to their websites. And when they’re on it, that it looks professional. That’s how, if I was a photographer, what I’d be doing, I’d be, so this week I’ve done a photo shoot with, and most photographers will be doing multiple shoots a week, I would hope, or they, certainly within the month that they’re in, they could just talk through all of those. And on Zoom, it would be really easy to, let’s say that we were doing Zoom networking now. You could have a virtual background with it on. You could have a video background. You could have used something like camera where you’ve just got a slideshow showing up and talking through people because you’ve got that visual element. In the olden days, maybe even they would print off some pictures and just hold them up and go, so I did that one for this guy, and I did that one and that one and that one. Maybe even spending a little bit of money on something like that would help you showcase what you do.
Marcus: Excellent. Gosh, you know what? The time has flown by there. That was,
Sam: It has. We could do, I think, another six episodes now, but we do need to finish.
Jamie: So lastly, right, so while you’re networking, talk about your clients. Rather than asking for what you want, just showcase your clients and the work that you’ve done. And then afterwards, it’s the follow-up that’s really important. We’ve, I’ve run, organized over a thousand, well over a thousand networking events over the last three years. Hardly anybody follows up.
Marcus: Yeah, it’s incredible, isn’t it?
Sam: It’s crazy. Even on stuff that I’ve said, I just, just to say I’ve literally got here. What I was doing before we got on the call. Here’s my notes from my last networking event. I’m busy on LinkedIn, following up with every single person who’s on the, who’s on the call.
Jamie: So my, my top tip here, be a hero for somebody else. So if you can, I’ve got a book here called The Go-Giver.
This is like my networking bible its parable based stories really easy to read and that is all about helping other people christmas i’ve made a descision i was gonna pass more referral than ever this year and that’s what i have done oh my god i have been overwhelmed with the referrals that i have received when i go networking i hardly ever talk about me i go networking to meet people to follow up with right ones so get good passing referrals be clear on what is that you want when someones says what can i do to help you oh oh that would be if you just could ask people when was the last time you visit the website when was the last time you foretold your faith give them something easy to do and that that’s it
Marcus: We struck gold sam we’ve struck gold
Sam: We have excellent i think atleast another ten we need to have the tenth podcast now
Marcus: Thank you jamie than you so much
Jamie: Well, Thank you
Sam: Its been an amazing show Thank you so much and for all our listners if you want to make sure you don’t miss an episode which ofcourse is vital then go to the shoot to the website sign up to the newsletter and then it will arrive every week and you need not to worry it will always be with you and we also have a facebook group to if you want chat with other photographers the most of our guests and loads and loads of photographers and alot photography chat going on, so if you got questions for photographers marcus and sam questions stuff head to the facebook group again you can find that on the website and marcus so jamie thank you so so much for being with us that has been an amazing show and..
Marcus: Yess!
Sam: and marcus
Marcus: Oh!
Same: See you next week
Marcus: I guess i will see you next week.
