Founder Stories · 2025-09-22 · 1h 34m
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
55 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Christina Simeon built CS Visual Storytelling to help small and large businesses stand out through strategic visual content rather than generic marketing. She works with entrepreneurs who don't consider themselves creative but need to build their visual presence - teaching them to use smartphone photography and understand their audience before creating content. Her background spans six years in digital marketing (including roles at an inward investment agency supporting Derby businesses and a global tech company), journalism studies, and marketing management education. The core insight: visuals are what stop scrolling first, and emotional, story-driven imagery outperforms plain corporate shots. She offers photography services, social media management with copywriting, and workshops teaching non-designers how to confidently create their own content. Ideal for B2B operators who've underinvested in visual branding or feel intimidated by the creative process.
Visuals are what people see first when scrolling social media, and attention spans are shorter than ever. An eye-catching, emotionally resonant visual stops scrolling; copy only matters after the image has already captured attention.
Yes - modern phones have multiple lenses and you can learn composition principles through workshops and guides. The key is understanding angles, context, and storytelling rather than owning expensive camera equipment.
For social media and standing out online, visuals come first and should complement the copy. For blogs, copy has more power. The visual should convey emotion or story, then the copy reinforces the message.
Instead of plain backgrounds, showing context (like working at your desk or in your office environment) automatically tells the story of what you do and helps the audience understand how you can help them faster.
She started building CS Visual Storytelling and her client base while working full-time, negotiated to go part-time with Fridays off, and made the full jump once she had enough momentum and realized corporate work didn't fulfill her despite good pay and role.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode contains moderate substance around visual storytelling principles (emotion, consistency, brand alignment) but is heavily padded with personal backstory, filler dialogue, and repetitive conversational cycling. Core insights about visuals-first strategy, engagement rates, and persona-based targeting are valuable but sparse relative to 94 minutes of runtime.
if the visual, it's very impactful and actually sends an emotion to your audience, it will most likely make them stop
you need to put yourself in the shoes of that person and think, what are they doing? What are they thinking?
The guest recycles well-known marketing frameworks (personas, brand consistency, engagement rates, 80/20 principle on content types) without fresh angles or contrarian takes. The core argument - that visuals matter and should come before copy - is sensible but mainstream in 2024. No novel methodology, unexpected findings, or first-principles reasoning emerges.
Repetition...people forget what you say. Like you have to repeat a few times
consistency is everything. And um, it's more or less like a rule in marketing
Christina is a legitimate practitioner with 6+ years of digital marketing experience and a functioning early-stage business (6 months in, growing, good reviews). However, she is not a proven operator at scale - no seven-figure revenue mentioned, no case studies with measurable business impact, no track record of transforming mature companies. Her expertise is real but narrow and relatively junior.
I worked in digital marketing for over six years
I got like an average engagement rate of, um, around 36%, which for the industry being 4% in general
Some concrete metrics appear (36% engagement vs. 4% industry average, Represent's revenue trajectory, Heinz campaign example) but most advice is abstract and general ('tell a story,' 'be authentic,' 'focus on visuals'). Few named client case studies, no detailed before/after examples, no pricing breakdowns, and vague descriptions of her own processes ('it depends on the business').
I got like an average engagement rate of, um, around 36%, which for the industry being 4% in general
they did 8 million I think last year, uh, 80 million I think the year after
The host asks relevant follow-up questions (e.g., about client problems, business scaling, sales challenges) and gently probes assumptions. However, many exchanges devolve into meandering personal anecdotes (the host's diet, family life, morning routine, filter settings on phones) that dilute focus. The host rarely challenges vague claims or pushes back; mostly validates the guest's framing.
I'm always curious to know why people don't just stay in their corporate role
If someone wanted to get started with improving their visuals and improving their storytelling, where would you, um. Or what three things would you advise them to do?
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Founder Stories - Episode 23: Cristina Simion The Power of Visual Storytelling: How Branding Through Images Transforms Business Growth What if your business visuals matter more than you ever imagined? In this episode of Founder Stories , Simon Kallu sits down with Cristina Simion , founder and creative director of CS Visual Storytelling , to explore how entrepreneurs can use visuals to transform their branding, marketing, and sales. Cristina’s journey - from Romania to UK entrepreneurship and leaving corporate life behind - offers a powerful perspective on the role of creativity in business. She reveals how to balance storytelling with sales, avoid burnout, and build a brand that truly connects with people.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: The visuals, it's what you see first. So you need that eye catching visual to make people stop scrolling first of all and then go into the copy and see what is it all about. Yeah, but if the visual, it's very impactful and actually sends an emotion to your audience, it will most likely make them stop.
Speaker B: Christina Simeon, who is founder and creative director, uh, of CS Visual Storytelling, a company that helps businesses sell stand out from the crowd.
Speaker A: You need to put yourself in the shoes of that person and think, what are they doing? What are they thinking? What are they scrolling for? Are they looking at something specifically or not?
Speaker B: And it's quite good for this episode to be almost like a mini coaching session because I am the type of person that doesn't understand and never did.
Speaker A: Not everyone thinks they are creative themselves and being intimidated. A bit of taking pictures and stuff like that. That's why I'm trying to help them in this area more. Usually what's working on media in general, it's to focus more on.
Speaker B: Hello and welcome to Founder Stories, the podcast for small business owners. I'm your host Simon Kalu and I created this show not only to motivate and inspire, but to give you actionable strategies to take back into your business, shortcutting your route to success. Each week I'll sit down with real and relatable business owners, uncovering how they've created a business that gives them freedom, creates impact and makes money. So let's get started. Welcome back to season two of Founder Stories. We are back with another episode, as always, bringing you relatable, inspirational business owners. Today we have a very special guest, Christina Simeon, who is founder and creative director, uh, of CS Visual Storytelling, a company that helps businesses stand out from the crowd. We're not going to tell you yet how you do that. Just whet the appetite. So welcome to the podcast. Thank you, thanks for coming down. Um, if you're listening for the first time, guys, Founder Stories is about helping entrepreneurs and business owners with real life actionable advice, strategies, tips and stories to inspire. But practical steps that you can take back into your business after this podcast and improve. You know, not just inspiration, but actually practical steps you can take back and implement. Hopefully today we can share your story. That's what it's all about as a founder. Uh, get some lessons so the viewers or listeners can gain insight from that. Um, and I'm really interested actually. And it's super important for business owners to take visuals more seriously. And when we first spoke, I totally agreed that most businesses overlook or under Invest in that area. So keen to get your advice for people on, even if they're on a budget, how they can improve their visuals and why they should do that. So let's start with you. Let's start with where you're at now. Tell me about your business. What does it do? Who's your ideal client? And then we'll kind of reverse back to tell the story of how you got here.
Speaker A: Yeah. Um, so as you said, I created CS visual storytelling to help businesses stand out from the crowd. And as the name says, it's all through visual storytelling. Um, so, um, the ideal client. Um, it depends. I'm actually happy to work with different people from small businesses to large businesses. But, um, the small ones, usually, um, you know, you are doing everything for yourself.
Speaker B: Yeah. Wearing many hats.
Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And there are studies showing that one person has to wear like three hats. One is the creative or like technician or depending on what they do. Um, one is the manager and one, it's actually the entrepreneur.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, for example, for myself, I'm for sure the creative. And for me, like, being celsi and stuff like that comes harder.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: For others, the creative part comes harder.
Speaker B: Yeah. And that's most people probably.
Speaker A: I don't know. Um, but yeah, that's where I'm trying to help them. Um, those people that are don't, um, consider themselves creative, but maybe they are, they just don't know it yet. Um, and with a few tips and stuff like that, um, that's why I created a free guide as well. They can understand more. And it doesn't seem so intimidating to go outside and take that picture for yourself. And, you know, nowadays with the phones, there are so many lenses on the phone and you just use the normal one.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, and sometimes you see an angle in like you're an event or something and see an angle and be like, oh, yeah, I'll snap a picture. And then you look at the camera. It doesn't look like I want it to look, you know.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: So, um. Um, I started actually business workshop as well, um, to help them understand more how to use their phones and.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker A: It's easier for you to just go outside and be confident in creating your own content.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Usually they create their own content and marketing feels daunting sometimes as well. So there is like a lot of information everywhere. Yeah. On social media, on Google, everywhere you look and everyone says something, do that, do that. That's gonna bring you. That's gonna bring you views and so on. Um, and yeah, it just until you actually practice and understand it's not that intimidating, not that hard. Probably you can be confident in being the creative as well.
Speaker B: So that's what I help people, I guess with the smaller businesses.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: Empower them to be able to create their own content and uh, have support, you know, does this look good? How can I improve this? That kind of thing.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: Why? Why would they want to create more content and better quality content? Why should small businesses be interested in that?
Speaker A: Well, you know, everyone is kind of trying to put themselves out there with any sort of content nowadays. Everything is on social media and so on. And the visuals, it's what you see first. Uh, unless they have like a big text on, on it. So the image goes in the background and you first see the text. The visual is what you see first.
Speaker B: Things like Instagram have been so popular. Right. And now obviously with um, tick tock, you know, moving visuals and things like that, it's so popular because people don't have the patience nowadays.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: To read text.
Speaker A: Exactly. Before attention span goes shorter and shorter. So you need that eye catching visual to make people stop scrolling first of all and then go into the copy and see what is it all about.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But if the visual, it's very impactful and actually sends an emotion to your audience M. It will most likely make them stop. You know, all of those big campaigns, big brands are actually using these um, creative campaigns nowadays as well. Probably saw more and more and I think the last one I saw that was like really eye catching was the um, ketchup and mustard superheroes. Have you seen that one from Heinz? So like one it's yellow, uh, and one it's red and automatically you see those and be like yeah, the superheroes of the table. Like it's. Yeah, just straight away it's basically you
Speaker B: might look at a business even like mine for accounting and you might, rather than me just taking pictures without a thought process, help me understand what story I'm trying to tell.
Speaker A: Exactly.
Speaker B: I remember I listened to a talk actually at an event probably five or six years ago and I heard someone talking about this and like you do as an entrepreneur, you listen to anything that's a great idea and you don't take action on it. And their point was if you create Facebook engineers ads, you should be telling a story. Like they played a three minute Facebook ad and it was so emotional. And at the end it was for uh, like an insurance company or something. But it was about, you know, you maybe being ill and providing for your family and all of these Things to make you realize why it's so important as a business owner to have critical illness cover or whatever it might be, rather than maybe just having a picture of people in an office. Hey, we do business insurance, that kind of thing. Is that the idea? Right. Try and understand what's going to resonate with your audience.
Speaker A: Yeah, um, basically telling the story in with no words, just in the picture. And this is what you mentioned, a very simple example is, you know, the usual business pictures, headshots, um, it's just a plain background.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Behind you. You can just be in your office. But yeah, sometimes they work, of course, and put the people in front of the, the audience. But you can actually just be in your office and you automatically tell the story.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Just, you know, a chair behind your laptop in front of you.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And you, the person gets the idea quicker of uh. Oh yeah, they are working on, they, this is what they can help me with.
Speaker B: So your business kind of pulls people out of just doing what everyone else is doing and helps them create that kind of unique competitive advantage by understanding them.
Speaker A: Right, yeah.
Speaker B: And so you work with bigger businesses, presumably as a consultancy level, and then for the smaller businesses you're offering products or courses or group coaching or that kind of thing.
Speaker A: Uh, yeah, for bigger ones as well. So, um, I'm doing photography. Every package of mine comes with visuals because that's what I'm aiming for. And then if they need help on social media management, I do the copywriting and management and reporting as well.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: But none of the packages would come without the visuals because that's what makes the impact. Yes.
Speaker B: Okay, that's really interesting because I believe, for example, totally different subject, but uh, if you don't have accurate, timely numbers, so your books aren't up to date, then you can't do tax planning or you can't do business planning or everything comes from the numbers.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And your theory, which seems to be true from my understanding, is that everything comes from, I guess, understanding the consumer first and then the visuals and then the copy comes off the back of the visuals. Not write the copy first without thinking about the consumer or the visual.
Speaker A: Um, I know it can work in some of the cases. Um, but yeah, as I said the first time, the visual, it's what, it's eye catching first of all. So you complement that with writing, in my opinion.
Speaker B: Yeah. Or even, I guess if you're writing an email designed to get people to take action. If you think about how you want that to look in your head, even if you're not going to embed a picture into the email that then creates the copy.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker A: Well, um, it depends. Now, if it's for a blog, of course the copy, uh, has more power than the visuals. But in my packages for social media and standing out from the crowd in this online space, um, the visuals would be the first thing that people see. And that's why I put the main, um, focus on these.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, but I worked in digital marketing for over six years and I know all the ins and out. So doing the copy and doing the analytics and everything, they all come together in the end if you want. Um, but people usually tend to write easier about their service than photographing.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, and going back to. Not everyone thinks they are creative themselves and being intimidated, a bit of taking pictures and stuff like that. That's why I'm trying to help them in this area more. Okay.
Speaker B: Okay, cool. So just reversing back then you said that you worked in digital marketing. What were you doing before that? Were you. Did you go straight out. Out of university or exams? Straight into kind of a grad role. Digital marketing.
Speaker A: Yeah. So after high school I moved to the uk.
Speaker B: Where are you from originally?
Speaker A: I came from Romania.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: In 2014.
Speaker B: I thought you were like French or Italian or something like that. I don't know why.
Speaker A: Um, yeah, I've heard that before. We are all close.
Speaker B: Yeah, I guess.
Speaker A: Romans and stuff. Yeah. The language has a bit of similarities as well.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, so yeah, I moved here to study. Um, I've done one year of university back in Romania.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: Didn't really like it. It's all very theoretical and I had this idea of coming here before. I just didn't go through with it. Um, and I studied journalism at the University of Derby. Okay. Um, and then I followed that with a marketing management post. Grad.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, and then I went straight back into working in marketing. But through all my studies, I worked in different departments of the university or like through the student employment agency and kind of covered a lot of areas and understood what I would like. That's why I chose the marketing management postgrad as well, to expand the area
Speaker B: you're still trying to work out at, uh, 18, 19, 20, what you enjoy.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Which is really important for people actually to do something they enjoy doing.
Speaker A: Yeah. I, I think.
Speaker B: What is it about marketing that you enjoyed?
Speaker A: Um, well, honestly, I picked it just because it kind of went hand in hand with the skills I got from journalism. And in Derby, apart from the radio station.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: There was no other job opportunity in, uh, Journalism. Unless I would move to the Media City in Salford, which I would have loved to become a producer, don't get me wrong.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But just, I don't know the time and every decision just went that way.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, so, yeah, and then I like the creativity of. I don't know, you can use videos, photos, uh, the copywriting and everything I learned already. I just needed to put them in practice in a certain way, you know?
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, and yeah, I went into, um, a marketing intern role at the university, working for two of the colleges, promoting the courses, attracting new students and so on. Um, then I joined the inward investment agency for Derby and Derbyshire. So we had a community of bondholders, over 300 businesses, which now I'm one of them. Yeah.
Speaker B: So that's like an incubator type thing.
Speaker A: Startups or it's kind of like attracting investment in Darby but also supporting the businesses.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, a networking group, um, newsletter, um, with where you can send press releases and so on.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: So, um, all getting together to support Derby and derbyshare and attracting new investment in the city and county. That's the main idea of, um, company. Yeah. Worked there for about three years and then went into an agency. Um, learned a bit of more about ads, um, and then joined a. Um, I was working freelance at that time as well.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: Uh, and then I had to go back into working full time and I joined the tech company which, um, I. It kind of helped me realize I'm more creative and just made me take this step.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: For real this time to go on your own. Yeah.
Speaker B: So for the. What were you doing for the tech company?
Speaker A: Also digital marketing.
Speaker B: Were you part of a team or.
Speaker A: Yes, I was part of the global team. They had, um. It's a global company.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Very big technique it's called. And, um, they have different, um, countries. Germany, Sweden, India, um, the UK as well. But I was part of the global team, which is based in the uk.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, and we were supporting the overall company, but also different, um, other groups of marketing, um, executives from other countries as well.
Speaker B: What part of that role? Like why. I'm always curious to know why people don't just stay in their corporate role. You know, entrepreneurialism. Really difficult and it's not for everyone. And you take on the risk and responsibility of bringing in income, paying your bills. You're the accountant, you're your own marketer. Uh, like you said, you've got more than three. You've got three big, uh, hats. But probably each one of Those has another 10 hats underneath what was it that made you have that feel like, I want to go and strike out on my own? And how did you make that decision? Did you save up, uh, money, so you had a bit of a cushion? Did you work freelance, gain enough clients to earn the same as when you were working and then make the move? How did that transition happen?
Speaker A: So I started, um, doing visual storytelling and building my website and building clients and everything whilst I was working full time.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: From January or before January, I can't remember exactly. But at some point I started working part time, just having Friday off.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I asked my manager, um, at that time, um, if I can do this. Other people were doing it already. And, um, he was very, very nice about him. Be like, why? Which I thought it's a strange question at the beginning. And then when I told him about photography, he bought a camera for me and sent me to Germany to take some interviews. A part of their springboard. So I really believe it kind of all arranged in my favor and.
Speaker B: Yeah, happened for a reason.
Speaker A: Putting me this on this road. Yeah, exactly. Um, and he's like one of the biggest support supporters now as well. And, um, I, I didn't really feel fulfilled because the creative ideas I had, you can't really implement them in a tech company.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, it's more serious. The clients are, you know, a completely different target audience than what I would use, um, to send my ideas to. And, um, Yeah, I don't know. I didn't really feel like I'm making the big difference that I, I feel like I can't make for someone.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And helping them in much bigger way and feeling like, I don't know, they can do that on their own and stuff like that. Like, we were helping other, um, teams, don't get me wrong. And I loved it. Working with my team and everything um, that happened there was all very professional. And, um, yeah, they had. They are going through a rebrand as well. I actually felt sorry it actually got implemented when I left because I had these visuals and everything look awesome.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, but I just, I think it just worked out for the best and made me realize I'm kind of like not using my skills the way I could use them to the max.
Speaker B: And, um, you kind of feel a bit. I mean, I know when I was at Thomas cook, which is 12, 13 years ago now, I just felt a bit unfulfilled.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, like it wasn't as challenging as it could be. And yes, we were doing group finance. Yes, Thomas Cook had shareholders, so it's important to create the numbers for the shareholders, etc. But I wanted to be working directly with that business, uh, owner and to be able to do something like you're doing where you can see the before and after and have an impact. Ideally for me, that business owner. So our ideal client owns their business, isn't invested. So if you can help them improve their business, they earn more money that supports their family. Like it's very it. That is fulfillment then.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: So you're willing to take all of the hard work and the stress and the long nights and everything else because the payoff is. Is bigger.
Speaker A: Yeah, I think I was working for like sort of for the money and going into the corporate jobs just for uh, having a bigger role and having more money. But just that mindset of coming from uni and you want to achieve more, then I ended up realizing it's not unfulfilling necessarily. And if you just stayed there but don't enjoy, like, I don't know, you, you have a program for like eight hours a day, right? That's your schedule at work. But some of the days, even if you work less at the end of the day, you would still feel drained and not really having more energy to do something that fulfills you. Yeah, um, and yeah, that's why it's
Speaker B: just like, I think that's really important as well. Even within your business, you should start to when you can anyway. You know, hire people around you for the bits that drain your energy and stay in the bits that build your energy.
Speaker A: Yeah, true.
Speaker B: I think that's so important. Only something I realized recently, like I do, that I might be feeling tired like I am today. I had it. We spoke about, you know, having a busy weekend. When you've got kids, you don't really have any time to recharge on the weekend. You just go, go, go. So by Monday you feel sometimes like I just went back to bed. Yeah, for a few hours. But always when I do the podcast afterwards, I feel energized and motivated and inspired to go on with the rest of my day. So I'll go straight into the office, then I'll do a work block. Usually I won't go to bed afterwards unless I'm ill or something. So then you realize, okay, podcasting is something you enjoy. Like we do this and we have founder stories for enjoyment and not as a lead generation. People always ask me, why have you got the podcast? How are you generating leads? Are you inviting your ideal clients or no, you're doing this. Are you Doing that. And that's not why we started the podcast. We started a podcast with no, uh, long term vision of what the benefit would be. It was just an enjoyable project. But I think sometimes if you operate your business like that, uh, you end up getting the most reward anyway because you're doing it out of passion.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Rather than just trying to make more money.
Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. If you would act on your enjoyment, it would take you somewhere where you love to be in.
Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. I've always wrestled with the idea of do you do something or do you advise people if they're thinking about starting a business to do something that will make them money or something they enjoy? If you can do both, yeah, then I think it's great. It's always good to have a hobby though. Outside, when we spoke about you living in Derby and being able to go for walks and things like that at the moment because you're in that real, uh, growth phase. You started your business, uh, February, March, April, May, June, July. Six months roughly ago.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Right. So are you just work, work, work all the time or do you still like box off time for your own health?
Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I'm trying basically because that's why I was like, well, the full time job for corporate doesn't really bring me that fulfillment. What brings me the fulfillment? Being able to act on my excitement when I want. Yeah, um, of course someday you need to have a schedule and uh, be there for yourself as you would be for someone else if you would be working for someone else. But yeah, I'm trying to follow this enjoyment and not feel bad for feeling ah, sick one day for example and not being able to do, I don't know, work on the website, which is always work in progress anyway. Um, or stuff like that. And yeah, um, it depends on the day. I um, have days where I'm really, really focused on doing something. Okay. Um, editing photos, updating the website. So on, um, and some of the days where I'm like, I should take it slower a bit and balance it a bit more.
Speaker B: And then on those days do you pick your admin that you need to get done? Um, you know, you'll still work but you'll do tasks that aren't necessarily as involved mentally. Or do you just take.
Speaker A: I prefer the creative ones. Yeah, those are the ones on the
Speaker B: days where you're not feeling good though.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And you're not in that creative headspace. Do you still work and do the admin stuff? Bookkeeping or whatever it is, collecting your receipts Giving them to you for me or do you just take time off and go for a walk in the peak district? Like what do you do?
Speaker A: So it depends on the day and how I'm feeling. I could take the whole day off or for me, doing the admin tasks and everything are more draining. So I prefer doing the creative ones.
Speaker B: Oh, for me, that if you're feeling low on energy.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You'd go towards creative. That's interesting. I just assume that actually you need to be fully energized and on it. Like for me, if I want to work in deep focus on something creative. Not creative, like creative. Because you're an accountant for creative. Like.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: I don't know, mapping out a new sales process or at the moment I really want to bring in, um, financial forecasting for everyone, even the smaller businesses that come on board. So I'm sitting and I'm mapping out, like, how could we do forecasting? How could we do cash flow forecasting and make it cost effective for small businesses? Because they need it, but we've never been able to offer it because it takes too much time, so we have to charge too much money, but they need it. So like that stuff where I have to think I can only do that when I'm telling me I'm at like I'm in the green. Right. If I'm in the red.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: I'm just doing team meetings, emails, admin, bits of client work. Uh, and then I'll sign off if that makes sense.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Uh, you're saying you'd go into creative because that would energize you anyway.
Speaker A: For me, the creative part though, it's as you said with the podcast, for yourself.
Speaker B: Yeah. So doing the photo and you'll come out high.
Speaker A: Yeah. And editing the photos and everything as such, it's not really a process of thinking of ways to strategize and think about prices and stuff like that. So. So I understand what you mean with creative. So for you, a creative is actually the creative part? For me.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: Um, even if I feel like as you said with the podcast, if you feel drained at the beginning, but then I go and set up a product photo shoot studio and actually make myself start doing it.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I completely forget how I felt before starting.
Speaker B: Yeah. Cuz you're in flow.
Speaker A: Yeah. But it's just that click of okay, let me go start it.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Even if I don't finish, that's it.
Speaker B: Yeah. If you're feeling like not good and you have a tracker or wearable like me, that Told me I was at 28% this morning, which is like you should rest sometimes. Actually if you just go and take that first step, which I've heard so much, even like going to the gym or working or anything, just take that first little step, go into the office, sit down, get the pen out, start writing. Then sometimes you can find three or four hours go by and actually you've been really productive.
Speaker A: Depends on the task as well and how you feel, of course. But yeah, usually it's working. Um, but I'm not sure. For me it's not a process, at least in my opinion. It's not very much thinking.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Uh, from like coming from the front, uh, brain thinking, mind thinking. It's more from, I don't know, the heart or just letting that intuition basically flow. Um, be like, I don't know, watching through the lens and oh yeah, I need to adjust that angle a bit and stuff like that. For me it's not really thinking, it just comes. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: So if you're trying to do the things that you find easy and natural
Speaker A: and actually bring you enjoyment and if that's a movie for two hours, yeah, I think it's better to take that step and then you'll feel better and be more productive after rather than be like, oh yeah, I need to work and then go and work and spend two hours doing nothing. And then at the end of that time you feel bad that you didn't follow what you wanted to do. Yeah, it's not a word that you want to use and it's just you
Speaker B: lost two hours, your business. I think it's really great that you have that attitude though. Six months in, I definitely didn't. I was work, work, work, sacrifice, friends. It's just time with family or working on the business. Work six and a half days a week and pay no attention to yourself whatsoever. Just get it done. But for you to have that awareness, I just think probably I'm older than you. I'm 42 this year, so I'm 12 years older than you. I think that sort of generation or half generation coming through behind me are, uh, way more self aware than we were when we started. There's still a hustle culture, but there's also a culture of taking care of your mental and physical health in order that you should know if you start a business. I mean some people get rich in one or two or three years and we do have some clients like that. But most people, they're in it for the, it's a long term game. So the longer you can consistently work, Even if that's three or four hours a day versus 10, if you do that for 20 years just consistently.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You're going to be super successful.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: But if you burn, um, out, you could give up.
Speaker A: Yeah. You'll go backwards a few steps and you might feel better.
Speaker B: You're six months in and 50% of businesses in the first year fail. Not to scare you. While you're 97% now fail in the first five years.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: Which crazy stat.
Speaker A: Isn't it horrendous? Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay.
Speaker B: But they fail mostly because they have a lack of a view on their numbers. So that's another. They definitely neglect, which we're not going to talk about today, but they definitely neglect visuals and creative. But they also bury their head in the sand around numbers. So something bad will be coming. Whether it's a big tax bill or lose a client or they haven't done any risk management or if I lose this client, what would I do? Where would I get funding from? Da da da da da. Yeah, that happens and there's no way to unravel it. So they fail.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: They might start another business, but the stat of that business is failure.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Okay, let's go positive again. When you started, before you got on with the business, uh, did you, you know, do a one page business plan? Did you write out a vision? Did you write out your ideal customer avatar? Are you the kind of person that writes stuff down and creates a structured plan like me? Or did you just start doing it?
Speaker A: Kind of just started doing it.
Speaker B: Okay. How's that going?
Speaker A: Um, well, it's always work in progress. M. I'm kind of a perfectionist anyway, so you probably understand how is it being your own creative manager and everything else. You always have something to improve on, which is good. It means you are growing and you can look back and be like, well, it wasn't good at that time. It was the best I could do.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But now I can do better. And let's do it if we, if we can. Why not? Yeah. So, um, my website for example, it's always work in progress. I started with building that.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, whilst I was working, um, and um, I had my Instagram, uh, profile. Just sharing my photos for a while. Um, I started just by sharing my mobile photos. I didn't have a camera on my own at that time. Um, and that's how it actually, um, the idea came up for me. Um, just seeing the feedback and from my friends and everyone just meeting me after I Don't know. For example, a colleague from university, um, she is in China, um, left right after the university finished. And, um, saw her last year, um, during the summer. And she was like, oh, yeah, I was speaking to another one of our old colleagues, um, about your photos. What about my photos? Um, and then another person said something the same and so on, and I was like, okay, maybe I should do this. Um, it's weird because, um, like my partner, now fiance, um, he. The first gift for me on the Christmas day, the first Christmas we had together was a camera. Yeah, he just saw that. I didn't see it at that time. Um, at uni, the first year. The first semester. In the first semester we had a module, photojournalism as well. I got very good feedback, but I didn't find a story with the photos. I just been told, oh, you take really nice photos, but you don't have the story, as in like the clickbait. You know how they are looking for new stories. Again, I didn't take it in consideration and so on. And there were multiple stuff that happened throughout the years that kind of pointed me in that direction. And then again, my manager, m, as I told you, buying me that camera in October, I think it was last year. And then in November, I went to Germany to film those people and take a few photos of them as well. Again, another thing that you should do that. And yeah, I just started building it step by step with, um, being more consistent on Instagram. But just to test the power of visuals, I had no marketing in place. No marketing strategy, no fun or things like that. No. Um, although I work in marketing, um, and I should know what to do. And I always advise people to do stuff based on their target audience and so on.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I just chose to do just share my visuals to test are they, like, good? And, like, is it worth investing in visuals, uh, without having a marketing strategy, which seems to be more complicated for some people. So, like, if you learn the photos and those attract attention.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Then you can, with time, improve on copywriting and so on.
Speaker B: Yeah. Because the traffic's there, but it's not going anywhere. So then. Then you can add that in.
Speaker A: Yeah. But if you only do the copywriting, but you have very plain photos, would anyone read the text you put there? So that's why I thought just first do those.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And then focus on copyright. And. Yeah. With no strategy in place, I got like an average engagement rate of, um, around 36%, which for the industry being 4% in general.
Speaker B: Wow.
Speaker A: Um, it's Very big an engagement. For people that don't, um, really know these terms, it's likes, shares, comments, saves, um, all of these together based on how many followers you have and how much reach you have. Now, for businesses actually wanting to promote themselves on Instagram or other platform, they need to be consistent, they need to have the same message over and over again and so on. Like there are multiple stuff to take into consideration. So the platform actually puts you in front of more people.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And so on. So my reach didn't. It wasn't really high at all just because I didn't have a plan to when to post and stuff like that. But the engagement was. Which actually proved my point.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And then I built the website. It um, was a very basic version at the beginning, all over the place. Just because I have so many ideas and didn't know how to put them all into a page that looks okay. I'm not a website designer by any means. I just done that as part of, of uh, my jobs throughout the year. So I had these few skills there and they're focused, uh, on the visuals because that's what I'm promoting. Um, and yeah, it's. I, um, actually launched just a new version um, a few days ago.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: Um, much pleased with this one.
Speaker B: Uh, so you're not just picking out a uh, squarespace, is it template and things like that. You're building it yourself. So.
Speaker A: Yeah, creative control, a template, but then you pick different, um, sections. Um, I don't know, picture and text. Yeah. That'd be like reviews or stuff.
Speaker B: Webflow.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So you can pick a template but then it's custom designed.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And you, you, uh, custom, um, make the colors, you add your brand colors and so on. I created the logo, um, picked the name as well.
Speaker B: Okay. Um, so you didn't bring someone in to do logo branding, all that stuff?
Speaker A: Nothing.
Speaker B: Yourself?
Speaker A: Yes, everything. I had my partner helping me on some, um, things behind the scenes with um, SEO. Um, stuff that are more like admin sort of for me and I don't really like them. Like whenever it comes a time to do like a contract or stuff like that, I'm like, can you do this template for me? I just, it drains me so much. And uh, yeah, I focused on the creative ones, like even spending hours on those. Yeah, maybe I feel tired at the end, but I'm like so pleased and
Speaker B: so fulfilled because you can see the output. Right. So you already know, I guess as your business scales and you can afford to who you'd hire, be a Person to do those.
Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B: And chase up signatures or proposals that have been sent or press for payment on a big corporate client that might, you know, they might pay 60 to 90 days or whatever it might be, and then you can carry on in your genius zone.
Speaker A: Uh, yeah.
Speaker B: How did you decide? When you sit down at your desk now, I guess rather than did, because you're in it, you're in the first year, how do you decide, because you're full time on the business now, how to split your time between doing the work. Working, uh, on your business, and if you're working on the business, how do you decide? This is just a question for me that I'm always super interested in how people's brains work. How did you. How do you decide what to do first? So, like, in a business, in your business, as probably 30 different things you could do. If you sat at your desk and said, okay, I'm going to work on improving my business, you could split them into attracting clients, converting clients and delivering to clients. But if you take delivery out and say, okay, on Monday, Wednesday, Friday or whatever, I'm doing the work.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Assuming that people only book in photo shoots on those days.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: If you're on the business, how do you decide what to do?
Speaker A: So of course delivering comes first. That's the most urgent task. Always.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, and then the others, I'm trying to think of the outcome.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: So let's just take the example with the website.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, I want to create a new page. Um, but then I also want to post something on social media just because I feel like doing so.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Is which one of them is bringing an outcome faster and which one is more important? And in that case would be the website, because then I have more things to promote.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Or if someone clicks on the website, of course that's more urgent. That would bring probably a lead.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Well, whilst the Instagram is just as I please. Um, or to prove the engagement. Or it could bring a lead. But sometimes, I mean, most of the times the people I'm aiming at reaching.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Are not on Instagram. Or if they are, that's on their own time. So would probably be LinkedIn for me more, for example. Yeah. So that's how I.
Speaker B: Would you develop a routine. Do you think of certain things that you just do daily, like a checklist, like a LinkedIn post that happens every day, or reach out to potential. Uh, you know, do you have that yet or is it just sit down like you said, brain dump down the things that you think you need to do and then circle the top three based on outcome.
Speaker A: It depends. That's what I'm trying to act on, the excitement. But um, at the moment I'm just being consistent with one post with the creative marketing campaigns. I call this series Picture Perfect Campaigns. And I'm just giving once a week ideas for, I don't know, Safari Park. A uh, manufacturer, jewelry maker.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Every week there's another type of business that I'm um, providing.
Speaker B: Oh, so you're giving out almost like a free campaign? Free case study.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Pick up.
Speaker A: Well, I can't do those now, but these ideas come to me. Why not sharing them and if someone likes them, do this on your own. Or if you want to work with me, perfect. If not, just go and do your with your marketing department. But I'm just trying to encourage people to stand out from the crowd. Literally. I feel like everyone is focused on sales.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But not really willing to invest in the creative bit. And if you look at media, everything that's happening with the big brands and so on, those that stand out from the crowd done something that is really.
Speaker B: Yeah, you're totally right. Like if you look at clothing, a brand that I love, uh, of recent years is represent. And they went, um, they ran for six, seven, eight years doing under a million in sales. I think they brought in a new managing director, I think a new creative director. They started creating campaigns. The visuals and the campaign stuff is the most important. And they did 8 million I think last year, uh, 80 million I think the year after. And they're gonna do 800 million. This is all rough. I think they're looking at 888. Right. But they basically 10x'd every year for three years. One of the fastest growing companies in the world. And it is all around like they don't ah, have complex, like they don't have ads running a complex ad funnels like focused on the sales process. It's just all about the visual.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: And telling the brand story.
Speaker A: Exactly. That's what sells. Because people want that authenticity. You want to feel the emotion behind the brand. You want to understand their reason why they do that. And if it resonates with you, you'll buy you.
Speaker B: Yeah. Like even for an accountant you're going to see this is how they do business. These are the type of people that they have in the team. This is how they help people. And then for the owner it's creating that page which reflects who I am as an owner. Right.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: It's really interesting. I'm Just learning as I'm asking you questions. That's why I'm like pausing in between and thinking.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: Because it is a big eye opener. Because businesses will get sold all the time on leisure, uh, activities, email marketing, run Facebook ads, do LinkedIn spam campaigns, which brings sales. But no one has ever emailed me saying, uh, you should work on your visuals and your brand storytelling.
Speaker A: I don't think people are open to doing that that much. It's not really a priority because you don't see it bringing you sales straight away. Whereas an ad, you invest a certain amount, then you can double it or whatever.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And people, uh, if they are going after the money, of course they will choose the option that's most likely to bring faster money.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But I think you need to think long term.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Like you need to invest in your image, in your brand. Just try and build that connection with your audience. That's what visual storytelling is all about.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Storytelling.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: What's a story doing? It's creating something, you know, inside you, an emotion or something that makes you feel something.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And then you feel, I don't know, I remember this one. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And it just starts discussion. And um, you just, I don't know when you think about was a really simple ad from, I think Reiner or someone. Anyway, a low cost, um, airline.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Having a pizza, uh, box open with a pizza and then next to it a pizza box open, empty. But it had a tower of pizza inside of it. Basically the same price.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: For a pizza. Or to go visit a very nice area that everyone speaks about. You can get pictures of and so on.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: And like, you can balance these. And what would you choose? So spend 20 on the pizza or, um, the travel or you can buy both. But the, the idea is.
Speaker B: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're equating like the cost of something that has not much value and has gone really quickly to something where you create memories and all of this stuff.
Speaker A: Yeah. And just by showing the tower, you would already.
Speaker B: Normal routine.
Speaker A: Right. So, for example, in photography, um, you know, the product photography, you can't do much storytelling unless you actually add a person. But you can do a bit of emotion, um, and tell the story, even having a plain background. But you add something on your product or next to your product.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And I know people are using these more and more in product photography. Um, but it can be done, as I said, in, um, just headshots and stuff like that. For example, mine has a plain background, but is the color of My, my brand.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: By half the camera in front of me. Like I would shoot something. So.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I already say I'm a photographer. Right.
Speaker B: Yeah. And the whole thing, I guess you would advise people that there should be alignment between the website, the social platforms.
Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B: What you're posting yourself on your story or on LinkedIn or wherever. Uh, even down to, I guess, how you present yourself.
Speaker A: Yeah. Consistency is everything. And um, it's more or less like a rule in marketing.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: To repeat the same message over and over again. And you might think it's weird. And I thought for myself the same, but then I was like, well, I would advise actually someone to do that. Why am I not doing it? Um, people forget what you say. Like you have to repeat a few times. You have to, even in the copy of an ad, you have to have a hook and then repeat the same and so on, and then end with the same idea. It's the same in social media. Link that with your website, link that with your, um, sales pitch and so on. Repeat the same message over and over again. You might get tired of it, but people don't remember it as you think they would. It's. Yeah. You know, repetition.
Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. And I guess sometimes even with us, we feel like, and I get this from talking to my clients as well, they've got something really powerful to offer business owners. Like for example, look at my start, um, of 96, 97% of businesses fail. And the failure rate of businesses we've been going for 13 years now that we've had as clients is 0.05%. Why is that? Uh, because they implement our system. They have visibility on what's coming down the road. They have access to capital and cash flow and they understand the numbers. To me, I want every business to have that.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: Not just so, uh, I can make more money, so I can help them because that gives me fulfillment because I make enough money already. But I can't get my message out there because probably my visuals, my consistency, my storytelling is not good enough. It's random. Um, the message in there is good. I don't know if my point is coming across, but I know. Can you help business owners who are really struggling with reach and get, getting an impact and impacting more people if what they're saying is actually really valuable? Of course we're trying to understand why.
Speaker A: Yeah. Um, usually what's working on social media in general, it's to focus more on brand awareness.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Assume that most of the people that see you never saw you Before.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And that's why repeating the same message over and over again kind of builds that image, builds that trust.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: They convert into followers. So they're already your audience, but now you have to nurture them. M. So I would say 50% brand awareness of all the content you post.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And then going to uh, 35% nurturing.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And then actually sells the 15.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: So you have to give them value and you are with your content because I saw what you post. It's all very good.
Speaker B: Yeah. It's just really, it's a lot of the most valuable posts that we post, example, get the least amount of reach. So I'll post something that explains literally the formula to grow your business. And it got something like 52 views yesterday. But if there's a picture of me like in an Ibiza nightclub with my top off, like not even dancing, just a static image with some music over it, which is a four second looped reel.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: That got like 170,000 views. So anyway, we don't have to do a coaching session but for us Advice. Yeah. Like I would love to unpack that. Uh, I guess that's how you help people to try and understand. Like we put marketing out and we have a marketing team in the Philippines. Marketing manager, full time video editor, uh, who's an award winning filmmaker actually. She's amazing, uh, and a funnel builder. But what we don't have is anyone. Now I'm talking to you. I'm realizing this and lots of the viewers, listeners will be in the same position, I'm sure. So they have all the executors but the owner themselves is not an expert. They don't have anyone at the top saying this is what we're trying to achieve. This is a story we're trying to tell. Here's the brand guidelines, here's the like, how we take the images, here's how it gets approved. And then every month or quarter or whatever, reviewing what has happened and saying, well, here's how you could have changed that or made it better.
Speaker A: If you look at it really quickly, why do you choose Instagram as your platform for accounting? How many people?
Speaker B: So originally we had health and fitness as a, uh, key niche. Uh, we decided to focus on one niche at a time. Now we've grown to be big enough that we work with um, you know, most businesses. We have eight to 10 key niches that we work in. But now we've realized LinkedIn, uh, is where all of our ah, potential clients live. Not Instagram. But I'm just in that habit now of daily updating my story, daily posting reels. And so we're trying to learn about like. Okay, well for LinkedIn, you can't post a story, can you? So how do I become ever present on LinkedIn? Like how should LinkedIn be? But yeah, it was because, um, we had health and fitness as a niche and that's where all the online trainers hung out.
Speaker A: So if that's your niche, first of all, what's the price?
Speaker B: It isn't. Now our top three now for example would be creatives and creative agencies like yourself. Uh, retail, e commerce businesses like big high growth online retail, for example.
Speaker A: Those would be on Instagram, but, but
Speaker B: they would only be on Instagram, I think to post their own content. The owners are on uh, or in their personal time. Yeah, yeah, the owners are on LinkedIn or let's say those are the top two. Right, yeah. Targeting right now.
Speaker A: But even so, if you choose any platform, um, if you don't say the actual niche.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: People don't really tend to listen because they don't know you're speaking to them.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: So even with the uh, fitness coaches or stuff like that, they would probably be on Instagram more than the other uh, people. But if you just start by accounting and stuff like that, they might not even know they have that problem.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Or I'm not looking at numbers for example. So if you don't start with something, creatives need to look at numbers because, or you know, as simple as that. I might not stop because I'm, I'm not interested in numbers. I'll scroll, you know.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: You need to put yourself in the shoes of that person and think m. What are they doing? What are they thinking? What are they scrolling for? Are they looking at something specifically or not? And I feel like you can find most of the information on Google and you should do a bit of research but if not, it's just a matter of imagination. And yeah, you would like. We would do this. Personas, they're called um, okay. In, in uni as well.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And that's how you, you start a uh, campaign or everything by just identifying that Persona first.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Making sure you know their interest, you know what they're doing, what they are not doing, what they are good at, where they, they just don't like doing at all, you know.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: Um, and they avoid that. And if you can help them with that, that's where you enter and phrase your visual and your copy based on.
Speaker B: I think that's the missing part, because I think that we understand their pain points. We create content around their pain points. We can say, hey, business owner. Or we can rotate week by week targeting different niches.
Speaker A: Exactly.
Speaker B: Business owner is very visual storytelling. That's the missing piece. I think a lot of businesses will be like that. It's all very random.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: It's not curated to understand the importance of the visuals. I just the quality of the visuals. But is that visual actually telling a story?
Speaker A: Exactly. I see a lot of ads, especially on YouTube, um, where people have this sort of setup.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Nice lights, everything looks perfect. And the quality and everything. It's spot on.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But it's just like, hey, business owners. And I'm like, yeah, I'm one, but what else, you know?
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: Just I think you need to be more focused, more targeted. And even if you have to create three funnels. Different ones.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: Um, maybe just the first step, it's different. So you target exactly that person. And then when you have them, your. Their attention already.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: You can have, you can open up then. Yeah, yeah. Uh, one of the content you have can maybe work for all three niches.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But the first one probably doesn't.
Speaker B: To get them in.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: What are some of the biggest mistakes that you see business owners making around marketing specifically related to creative storytelling and visuals?
Speaker A: Honestly, I'm not really looking at what problems they, they have or what they do wrong. Um, but throughout the years I noticed.
Speaker B: Okay, so if you've got, and let me phrase that differently, if you go into a business and they've hired you, what are some of the things that typically you'll fix or you'll do differently?
Speaker A: Well, the visuals. Yeah, of course.
Speaker B: So visuals are not good enough.
Speaker A: Basically, I'm looking at how their social media, mainly because that's what I want to focus on looks like. But if, if it's the website. Yeah, um, visuals on the website, of course. But I'm trying to see if it's consistent, if it's a message told by images, because that's what attracts attention firstly.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: If that message is consistent.
Speaker B: Probably most of the time there's a massive disconnect between a website that someone's created as a really nice standalone project and then they're managing their own, um, social media account. Right.
Speaker A: If it's you posting as the person behind the brand, you could have stuff differently. Um, you don't have to use your logo or stuff every time. It's good to use the colors.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And have a bit of branding, but you don't have to be that branded as the company page would be, you know. Yeah, yeah, there's a difference.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, the company is more professional, the person, it's more personal. Of course. And actually brands nowadays are working towards these employee influencers where they use their employees to promote the life behind uh, the scenes, um, the product, how it came to life or the service or stories of the customers and stuff like that. Because you would trust that like that person already works there. Yeah, it builds more trust probably easier and faster than just the company page because you already look at the company as being salesy and that's marketing for sure.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But then the person can be marketing kind of like tailored into a more authentic story.
Speaker B: Yeah, I guess if you look at represent, the founder of that uh, is called George Heaton. He runs it with his brother and if you look at his feed it's what he's into. Fitness, cars, nice food. But he's always wearing represent or he'll take pictures at a shoot and then every fourth or fifth post will be behind the scenes.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: Linked through but in an authentic way.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well that's it. Storytelling. Right. He's telling a story but he's building that story into his life story.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: It's not just in your face sales. Um, I know people like to invest in cold calling and yeah, everything as such. I understand the power of those. Uh, but I feel like in the long term if you would invest the same amount, I don't know, just make it half. Half. I would say yeah, do this so you can bring the investment in and continue do what you do.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But then also invest in the long term image of your brand and actually building that brand story. Businesses are businesses. Brands is the image of the business.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Like people just focus on the business side, you know and forget that um, branding, um, approach.
Speaker B: When we do budgeting with clients we have two lines. General brand building.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: And then the funnel based stuff. It's really interesting because you might say okay, this business turns over a hundred thousand, they've got 50,000 of free cash flow. So for, for people to understand that they, they've got 50,000 of physical cash flow every month coming in, increasing their bank balance. So if you set a budget for brand building it has to come out of that free uh, cash flow because you're not going to see a return. But if you don't do that, which I now realize, like it's quite good for this episode to be almost like a mini coaching session because I am the type of person that doesn't understand and never did. Mhm. Now from when I first met you, I started and been thinking since that conversation and this one, all the things that we need to do in the next quarters and adding projects on around visuals and the importance of that. Uh, I'm sure we'll work together at some point for sure. It's like I would set a tiny budget of 5% with my clients and with me and it's not enough. So if we set a budget for overall.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: Maybe that goes up to 10 or 15% of income. I mean, which is significant if you're, if you're generating a hundred thousand of sales and you're spending 15,000amonth on brand building. If you can afford to do it. Uh, and at the right phase in your business.
Speaker A: Exactly.
Speaker B: It will mean in the long term actually the leads will start to come through from all of those long term activities and people just finding you ready to buy and not having to be pushed into it. And you can actually probably lower the spend on the short term sales. Funnel stuff.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: Because the funnel stuff, if you budget for that, ultimately it's impossible to budget for. You basically say, okay, well you've got, I don't know, five grand a month to spend for the first three months on the test.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: If the test doesn't work, you have to stop because you've run out of money.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: But if the test works and every 5k you're spending you're generating 50, 15, just go and get more money.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So that's a whole different concept.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: But this is about having faith that if you're working with the right person and you invest money that you can afford to over the long term it will start to pay itself back.
Speaker A: Definitely.
Speaker B: Um, how else do you differentiate yourself otherwise? Like I get excited about this now because I believe we are the best and I'm sure you believe you are the best at what you're doing. But how do you show that unless you're actually putting time, money and investment into showing it?
Speaker A: Uh, well, I'm always trying to improve myself. I'm not by far perfect. Um, I'm thinking the thing that differentiates me is basically, you know, photographers are photographers based on visuals and that's it. The imagery. Exactly. And I have this background in marketing that kind of helps me understand how businesses work. Um, sometimes people invest in a photo shoot and they have the photos but no one tells them what to do with them.
Speaker B: Yeah. Like I just did a four month diet in my head.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: To tell a story loosely related back to business. But it was just for me. I did a bodybuilding competition when I was 17 and I won a junior British championships. And I felt like there was a lack of discipline in my life. So I decided to just uh, bring discipline back by going on a diet where I have to track everything I eat, everything I do, every step I take for four months with the goal of getting in better shape now at 42 than I was at, uh, 41, than I was at 17. Now I'm saying I can tell that story about how hard work still yields results. It doesn't matter what age you're at. And look at me then and look at me now and the, you know, the amount of weight I've put on muscle, all of this stuff just to transformation story. But then relate that back to if you're consistent and you're confident and you do the right things in the long term in your business, it will just incrementally grow. So I've got the photo shoot images. M done nothing with them because I had the idea.
Speaker A: Uh, yeah.
Speaker B: And then in terms of how to execute it around.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: I don't have an idea of how to execute that effectively and I don't want to just give it to my marketing team because they'll do an average job.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: So I just have done nothing with it.
Speaker A: Yeah. That's what people usually do. Or invest 5k in a video.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And then use it once.
Speaker B: Yeah. 100.
Speaker A: And like you can get snippets of it and promote your business in different ways. Not necessarily about that event.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Or the next one that's coming. But I don't know, someone said something at some point or there's an image that tells something and you have to have that. I build into, you know, those two seconds. Oh, we can use this to promote that story. And it's completely different. You think they are not related, but not look at the video as a 15 minutes long journey and that's all we can do with it. Same with the photos.
Speaker B: To have someone else outside your business, whether it's you, ideally it's you or someone that comes in and says you can do this from the outside perspective.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: Like oh, Simon, you could tell a story of how you've been in business for 15 years but 97% of businesses fail. And like how you've applied the lessons from your training to the business and how you use that with your clients somehow I don't know if that's possible.
Speaker A: But yeah. Marketing. It's marketing can be done without the visuals. Um, but if you combine those two, I think that's the winning.
Speaker B: Do you do video as well or is it purely photography?
Speaker A: I try to focus on photography but I'm actually doing a video for an event in November.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: So I'm combining those with um, photo shoots as well. Um, I might see if I introduce it on the website or not.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But I'm not into those, you know, the TikTok short videos transitions.
Speaker B: Conceptually you could come up with the video script and then even if you brought.
Speaker A: Oh, I've done videos from uni. Like our news days were actually to go like that was the assessment day, a whole news day. And you have to go outside, find the news, film me, take the interviews.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: And by the end of the day actually broadcast like one of the producer one would be um, the presenter and so on.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And we would have a full 20 minutes bulletin um, with the stories that we produced. So I, I've done videos since then. Yeah. Um, when I was working at the university I used to do just with a camera handheld. Very shaky at that point. But I was just acting on my creativity and they let me do that and it was super fun then for the company marketing derby as well. But just with my phone, the camera wasn't very good and the phones would just start to have those great camera uh, lenses at that time.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: So I would just use my phone and film their food and drink awards for example and just do something more creative to promote the next one.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um. And yeah, I've done a few. Um.
Speaker B: Because you can tell the story. Right. Like thinking about that insurance company example.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You can use images and I think you get your point across.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: But in a short video, if they'd already seen the image as well, they could see the emotion behind the people even knowing the relief that that person had insurance. They're ill. But yeah, this family are supported in these kind of things.
Speaker A: With the videos though, it's better to keep them shorter.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Again, attention spans are low. The first images need to be the best ones.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And then the next ones your second best and end one with the third best. And then just in the middle half cuz you catch the attention but then at the end make them forget. Remember you, not forget you.
Speaker B: How do you balance being authentic and creating the content that you want to with also content that converts. Because it's a struggle that I always have in my head, I think like oh, uh, effort. Do you know what I'M just going to create the car. I like doing daily vlogs, so I take my phone around with me, take it to the gym. I feel like showing people what supplements I take at 42 to stay in health. So I'll show that. Like, I don't think about why I'm doing it. But you want a balance of both. Like, how do you deal with that conflict, if there is a conflict? Like I would dance around on TikTok, but there was a time when those were the videos that would get the most reach.
Speaker A: Yeah. Um, I would say in my contradict with some other people opinion, but authenticity is the best thing to do over the long term. Yeah. If you don't get views at the beginning, you didn't find your, um, perfect audience.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: But trying to be salesy, it might work for a bit, but then people will see through it. That's what I think. Like it might work. I'm not saying it won't, but for how long? And do you want to build that just for money? If so do those the things that sell fast.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But don't think you can do this for years. If it's a plan to do it because you enjoy it. I would say say be yourself and do something that it's actually something that fulfills you. And um.
Speaker B: Okay, so you can still do the exercise of working out the Personas. Working.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker B: Because actually, if you think about it, those are the things that you should be helping.
Speaker A: Of course.
Speaker B: No doubt my customers needed cash flow forecasting and I'm not helping them. And I'm not talking about. I'm not being authentic really, because I'm not actually offering a useful service.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: And okay, that makes sense.
Speaker A: Find the client, find their problem and everything, but present it in a way that's authentic with yourself.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: And just trust that in the long term, your personality and your service, if it's good, of course. Um, and if you promote it to the right people.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: You will start building your brand and get leads and everything else consistent. Um, yeah.
Speaker B: Give up because you're not seeing results straight away. Set a budget that you can afford in the long term.
Speaker A: Of course. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: And time that you can afford to give in the long term because I think that's one of the biggest. Uni gave me one mistake, but I'm going to give you one back. I think one of the biggest ones is that people might listen to this podcast and think, you know what, I need to do this. I'm going to work out what I'm comfortable with like, I like taking pictures, but I'm not comfortable on video. So I'm going to do pictures. I'm going to invest in you, I'm going to look you up, I'm going to do your course or program or however you deliver it. We'll talk about that at the end. I'm going to get better on my phone. I'm going to create some regular content and then they'll do that for 10, 12 weeks and then because they don't see results or other stresses come in, client, work, family, whatever, they just stop doing it.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And this is the biggest mistake I see in business, other than lack of like looking at your numbers, is you just don't do things for long enough.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You, you want that instant gratification anyway, in general, in everything in life.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But it's not really working the same in business, is it?
Speaker B: No, no, no, no.
Speaker A: Like there's something that works that you've
Speaker B: just been sold, whether it's cold email or the latest ad or whatever. That's transient. Right. It will work for three months, the ad, then it will just instantly stop working. Whereas I think what you're advising people to do, it will never stop working. The medium, I mean, photography will never go away. It's been around forever. It will be around forever. So will video. So will the complimentary copy.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So if you invest in that, you're almost future proofing yourself and almost de. Risking the marketing side of your business because you've got one thing over here. You've been doing it for so long, it's starting to generate traction.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: That is. Does not fluctuate with the algorithm.
Speaker A: No issue. I mean, even with ads, for example, you invest in them. That's mostly to target the. The right person. Right. But if your content is bad, the ad is not working, is it?
Speaker B: No.
Speaker A: So like the end thing that makes the difference. Yeah.
Speaker B: Do you think that, um, where do you sit on the vlog? Style content or deliberate. I guess it doesn't apply to images, but from a video perspective, the deliberate poor editing of video and making it look shaky and vloggy versus Highly polished.
Speaker A: Are people doing that?
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: Like if you look at some people, especially bodyboarders, who have videographers and a budget for a videographer to just follow
Speaker A: that edit with mhm.
Speaker B: Or they'll m. The videographer will say, I'm m gonna come on these days, but I want you to shoot with your iPhone on the other days because
Speaker A: that's what people want yeah, the raw content.
Speaker B: Raw content, yeah.
Speaker A: But why do you think it's also. Because it shows authenticity and you'll get
Speaker B: shots that you wouldn't otherwise get. Right.
Speaker A: It's, it seems more, um, less salesy.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And you can add more marketing techniques into it without people actually catching that idea from the first second.
Speaker B: That could be win, win, because you don't have to.
Speaker A: Depends on the business.
Speaker B: A video. Okay.
Speaker A: What do you, it depends on the business. Like if it's something I don't know yourself, it could work. Um, if it's something like mine, I think the visuals, that's what I'm promoting. Right?
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: I, I, it would be kind of silly of me to use the videos.
Speaker B: Right. Uh, it could work because you could tell your story.
Speaker A: I mean you can go with your phone, like behind the scenes, behind the photo shoot and uh, show that, but not necessarily show your service because it doesn't match your service. You know, the quality and everything is not matching what you sell. But for yourself, it could work. For a bodybuilder, it could work. Yeah, yeah. That's ah, what I'm saying. It depends on the business and it depends on your target audience if they are interested in seeing the raw shots.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Give them that.
Speaker B: And then I guess to come to our other point, it depends on what you want to do and uh, what's authentic to you.
Speaker A: If you like decide on that.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: What you like to do and what you're confident and comfortable with. Because, for example, I'm not really comfortable with stories of me talking about, well, I visited this and that might be interesting for some people.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: However, I think my photos of those places with some text on it would have more impact because I'm still showing my work, you know.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: So that's why for me, and I'm not even feeling comfortable with it, so I'm, I'm okay with not doing it, you know.
Speaker B: Yeah. Would you establish that at the start and almost like your own, um, written brand guidelines, even if it's sort of sketches down in a journal.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: Or would you.
Speaker A: I think I just have it as an idea in my mind.
Speaker B: Yeah. Because you're a thinker rather than like a structured plan.
Speaker A: Right. I have some notes with ideas, but those are just ideas of content really for me because. Okay. Sometimes I tend to have too many and then I have to put them somewhere, you know, and then come, uh, back to them when I'm, I have more time to create them, basically.
Speaker B: Do you do that in a written Journal or do you do that online? But your ideas.
Speaker A: I have a Notion app and oh
Speaker B: yeah, I tried Notion, but I'm just too stupid for Notion.
Speaker A: I uh, was at the beginning as well. I'm still not fully confident in using it and sometimes if it's easier in just my uh, notes.
Speaker B: If you haven't tried it, I'll do that. Definitely check Notion out because if you can work it out, it looks amazing. But basically it's like a database. Right. You have to basically build it.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: So it's cool. I've come back to uh, paper, pens and a journal with different.
Speaker A: If I'm at home. Definitely that's. I sometimes like to do both pen and paper.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: But from Notion, I actually have a. I'm a fan of Grace Beverly, if you know her.
Speaker B: Oh yeah, I like Grace Beverly a lot.
Speaker A: For years. She launched the Gracefield bands years ago. Um, that's when I, I'm heard about her and following her ever since. And um, she built this um, Notion app Schedule. Yeah.
Speaker B: Okay. Cool.
Speaker A: Productivity method I think it's called.
Speaker B: Oh, I saw that.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: She sold out all of those journals before I could get.
Speaker A: Yeah. But I got the online version. Okay. I just thought that's always there.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, and sometimes if I don't have my note pads with me, like it's easier, you know, when you travel or something, it's easier to keep that.
Speaker B: So we ended up using uh, Base, if you've ever heard of that. It's a really cool book actually called Remote, which just talks about which might be helpful for you as you grow and scale your team.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Because you can hire them wherever and it's just they operate a business with thousands of employees. The software company called 37signals. But they have this main flagship project management software called basecamp. Super simple, like good for me. No programming yourself, no templates, no nothing. They tell you how to work.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And you just have little mini projects everywhere.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So like we work in sprints. Three sprints a year for three months with gaps in between and we'll have three projects for each sprint, so. Ah. Each one of those will have a project in Base camp.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: And if you wanted to, you could use it as a day to day.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: I have this little journal called the Productivity Planner. I've seen a few people, you can get it from Amazon and it has like, what am I grateful for? What's my focus today? What are my personal tasks in priority?
Speaker A: I love those. Yeah.
Speaker B: And like have you heard of the Pomodoro method. So basically you do 25 minutes with a five minute break. It asks you like, how many of those do you want to allocate to that task? And at the front of it you put your goals for the quarter.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Things you might want to do with your family, you can split them into personal. It's really cool.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: But if I lose that planner, I'm done. So I don't take it out of my office.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Um, what's been up to this point, I know you're not all the way in, but what's been your biggest struggle or current struggle in running and scaling your business?
Speaker A: Oh, it's probably the sales part, honestly for me, because I don't. Yeah, I'm, um, still working on that.
Speaker B: Well, you can help me with um, all things visual and I'll be happy to help you with sales because I love sales.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's, it's. I don't know, I feel like people need to see the visuals to understand my point sometimes or like just have a broader conversation. Yeah, but just, you know, that cold reach, I'm not comfortable with that and I know I should become. But I'm the creative part. I'm not an entrepreneur sort of.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Person. Yeah.
Speaker B: I think it can work though because I think the message that you have, uh, is almost like people would wake up. You could literally send them one sentence with your signature in on an email if you were, uh, compliant in GDPR and all of these things. Just asking them when was the last time you paid attention to your visuals?
Speaker A: Yeah, I like it.
Speaker B: They call it a nine word email for anyone listening. If you look up nine word email on Google and you were able to build a list, ideally by them downloading your free guide, you've built that, you've got the email and then you're sending them like content emails. Like Gary V. Talks about jab, jab, jab, hook. So if you give them value, value, value, and then you want to hit them with something, then you can ask them a question in 9M words. Yeah, it's really cool.
Speaker A: That's what I'm kind of trying to do on LinkedIn. But I'm going into a retreat for 10 days with no access to my phone from Wednesday.
Speaker B: That leads me into my next question.
Speaker A: What do you do?
Speaker B: What are you doing to optimize mental and physical performance and health right now? So one of them is a retreat?
Speaker A: Yeah, no, this is the first one I'll do and I've never.
Speaker B: What led you to doing a Retreat.
Speaker A: Uh, I kind of worked on myself with. I don't know, um, you act in a certain way and then you think, oh, I didn't like how I did that or stuff like that. So for a few years, I'm kind of, like, analyzing myself and improving in certain areas. And I've noticed my mind, it's very all over the place and I can't quiet it. Like, I can't.
Speaker B: I have that too. That's the mind of an entrepreneur.
Speaker A: Yes. I've heard about meditation. I just can't do that at home.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Unless. I don't know, I put it in my calendar and sometimes I even snooze that and so on. So, like.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um. Yeah. And at some point I saw a video where they. They mentioned some retreats. Um, Vasana Meditation, it's called. And they have centers all over the world. And I was like, okay, I'll just Google it. And apparently they have one in the UK more, actually, I think a couple of. Anyway, um. And yeah, you just have to apply. And, uh, if they approve your application, there are loads of people you get on a waiting list and so on. And if people cancel, you might get into it or not. And I got into one of them. So, um, I'm going, and I'm hoping to come back calmer and more focused skills. Being your own life. Yeah. And just being able to implement this every day. I have, like, waking up and not looking at my phone and, like, trying to improve my diet and sleeping pattern and making sure I have, like, a mental win every day. And, uh, a bit of sport as well. Every day. And then the spirituality side of stuff as well. But some days, you know, are more hectic than others, and you end up missing some of them. And then. Yeah, it's just like a roller coaster. Sometimes you are fine. You're in the middle sometimes.
Speaker B: Yeah. And so it sounds like you're doing a lot. And they're all these little small things that will have a big impact.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: I think you'd really like that productivity planner when you get back as well. Because at the front just reminded me there's, like, a habit. I should use it. There's a habit section. So you can write those six, eight, uh, things in and you can tick them off.
Speaker A: No, I've put them in my Google calendar. I had them on the wall at some point, written on a paper. I had them in so many different areas. But I don't know. I don't think I was that person before then.
Speaker B: That's the most Likely, yeah. You're gonna get them.
Speaker A: Yeah. Like a task and then you just stick them. Uh, but ah, yeah, you need to be comfortable with not doing those someday. Sometimes.
Speaker B: Some days for sure. And now I get up and I check my phone and now I'm like there's a no morning routine. I get up, uh, I reply to all my Google chat messages because some of my team start really early. I quickly scan my emails, quickly scan my plan for the day. Done plan for the day and then I'm off to the gym. So I've quickly looked at that so I know I can go to the gym now which is my meditation for an hour and a half and I
Speaker A: don't need to think about it.
Speaker B: So everyone's different. That's one thing I did learn over the last decade. Don't try and follow uh, the best morning routine in a vertex commerce. Just try loads of different things and work out what's best for you.
Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. You can test it.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But don't feel bad if you can't do it or it's not for you, it's not for you. And that's it for me. I noticed not looking at my phone in the first half an hour or so.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: It's better for the whole day.
Speaker B: Yeah. Okay.
Speaker A: I feel more agitated and more like all over the place when I do that. However, if it's something urgent and I need to hear, hear from someone, speak with someone.
Speaker B: When you've got a big team and they might be working different time zones and things like that, it might change. Right.
Speaker A: And for some people, as you said, you can do that and then go and have your.
Speaker B: Yeah, it allows me to switch off.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Because I've got back to people. Right.
Speaker A: I'm um, the same with businesses. Like I think like everyone is different. So every business is different. Correctly.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: So like I understand people that offer a service that fits all. However you still need to tailor it a bit. Right.
Speaker B: Like yeah. Like for example are we have a standard packages but uh, the way that we would create key performance indicators or a performance report or do cash flow forecasting or like the way we execute the certain thing will be different for each industry. Totally different.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: The budget template that we start with for an E comms retailer, uh and the performance report is totally different to a marketing agency. What they need to track is totally different.
Speaker A: Yeah. Same with photography. Like I know some people like to have their own stuff style and just edit one.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Style and sometimes it's easier to promote that.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: People know what to expect from you. But me doing this for businesses, uh, I feel the need to tailor it according to their brand image. There it's warm. Is it cool? And so on. And I like this. Like I would get bored doing the same thing over and over again anyway. So for me it works best. But for other photographers. Yeah, they have their own style and you know when they have. When you hire them.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And that's why you go to them actually.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: For that style for sure. But yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: I think, um, it sounds like then for you the future will be. And I know you probably don't think this far ahead. You just focus on now more. I get that.
Speaker A: Uh, from trying to. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: Would be actually bringing people in that can work under the same philosophy as you and you train them and support. Support them and you grow an agency almost rather than you just continuing to do it and developing maybe all these like low ticket online courses.
Speaker A: Yeah, probably with the workshops. Could, could work like this in the future. Um, the workshops are basically tailored to uh. Well, you would go and practice photography.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: You uh, would just understand a few rules.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Three or four on the day, depending on the person. Again, those are tailored as well.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, to suit every. Everyone's needs. Um, but you would kind of like have that presentation first and then you remember the rules. You can read them somewhere and then go outside and actually practice. And you would take a shot. I would review it. I would. I don't know. For example, with the phone, if you keep it like this, there's a photo. If you keep it like this, it's completely different photo. You know what I mean? And so on. And this are the stuff that I
Speaker B: think, uh, Christina is angling her phone down. Yeah.
Speaker A: Honestly, for, for tiny people as me.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, when someone takes a photo of me like this because they are taller than me, it's like this. I'm. I look even tinier.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: For me it's like just lower it a bit. Yeah.
Speaker B: Ah, yeah. To eye level. Right?
Speaker A: Yeah, but my eye level, not their eye level.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, your eye level.
Speaker A: Yeah. Like you need to something.
Speaker B: I know that from taking pictures that.
Speaker A: But yeah, see like some people don't know that. And actually if I was able to teach my mom a bit and my partner a bit and they have nowhere, uh, exactly nicer and nicer by time, you know, they improve. But I'm um, not teaching them. Like it's just in time with like, oh, this picture. Oh, you could have taken this way. And so on. So imagine In a day with just like four hours or so going around the city. Better in a busy environment. Such as?
Speaker B: Especially if you're out with your partner and stuff like that and you want to get pictures of you doing personal stuff for your business profiles. Yeah, it can really help.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Yeah. My wife just gives me a dirty look every time I ask her to take a picture of me. It's fine. She does it. Uh, she keeps me on my toes. Okay. I'm gonna rapid fire some questions at you and then we'll wrap things together with how people can get help from you, how they can contact you and what it is your business can provide right now. Um, so try and give. I can never do this, but as best as you can, try and give a short answer to these and then we'll go through. Otherwise, we'll do another two hours, which is fine. We'll get you back in. Um, it'd be really interesting to do another one in a year and see how that, like 0.5 to 1.5 journey.
Speaker A: It would be great.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: See the difference?
Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Um, how are you investing in your own learning? Or are you still operating off the back of recent learning through the degree and everything else?
Speaker A: Both at the moment.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: Of course I'll use my skills. That's why I got them. I think that's why I got to this point. Um, and I'm always trying to see how the trends work, what's up there, what are other people doing, what are, I don't know, new business point pain points and stuff like that.
Speaker B: Um, but do you invest in any courses on photography, on, um, videography, on, um, do you follow people? Like, how do you do your own. Like CPD as they call it, your own learning?
Speaker A: M. I don't have a plan at the moment on, um, doing any courses as such. I think personal development for me comes first in this area because I think I have the skills already.
Speaker B: So, like, the retreat is investing in yourself, right?
Speaker A: Yeah, I think I need that mentality work more at the moment.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I'm not ruling it out. Yes. I'm not ruling it out in the future.
Speaker B: Of course, that makes sense in terms of how do you attract new customers. I guess at the moment you're just putting out great content and they're coming to you.
Speaker A: Yeah, well, referrals maybe. Yeah, it's word of mouth at the moment.
Speaker B: Um, do you have a referral scheme or people just refer and you say thank you?
Speaker A: Uh, it depends on the client. I actually help small businesses, um, startups with some discounts at the beginning. Um, I know they need the help and I'm happy to help them.
Speaker B: Any discount codes for our viewers? Listeners?
Speaker A: Yes. Um, founder stories. Let's make that the code.
Speaker B: Cool. Awesome.
Speaker A: Um, and we'll give a 10%. Amazing on their photo shoot or management on social media or the business workshops, whichever.
Speaker B: Okay, I'll put the link in the code in the description.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Thank you very much. I was only asking that to be
Speaker A: cheeky, but that's cool. No way. I was about to say that anyway, so.
Speaker B: Okay. Whenever they contact me when you're starting, I think for anyone and for you, my advice would be really focus on that. If you're not getting referrals to work isn't good enough. Um, and if you are getting referrals, it's a real nice way of knowing that you're above expectation.
Speaker A: Reviews are everything anyway, and you can use them as content after, afterwards as well to prove that, um, trust and authenticity that you, you can provide case studies. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B: At the time rather than just moving on to the next client.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker B: That's super important.
Speaker A: Social media, um, more or less, depending on time. Of course clients come first, but I'm planning to be more consistent on there when I come back from the retreat.
Speaker B: Okay. Um, what are your, uh, what do you focus on in terms of making sure that that client is really wowed by your output at the end of the project or at the end of the workshop?
Speaker A: Um, well, I'm starting with understanding their brand, their story, their pain points, um, and what they actually want to achieve with the photo shoot. Working, um, planning the actual photo shoot. It's actually creating a mood board, making sure they like that sort of content. Um, I'm not copying that, of course. I, I can't even do that even if I want. But it's as inspo to for them to understand the vision I have and for me to make sure we are on the same page, you know?
Speaker B: Okay. So otherwise understanding their needs, but also you presenting with your expertise, but making sure there's alignment. Right?
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: So you already know what to deliver ahead of doing the delivery, right?
Speaker A: Doing the work, yeah. Um, of course we can actually go through visuals after they are produced and work more on them if they need to. But usually it's. It's working out very well.
Speaker B: Okay, cool. Uh, and what are you selling now? So you've got consultancy to businesses, you've got workshops that help people. Is there anything else?
Speaker A: So there are three main packages. Photography only with the visuals. Um, Might be video as well in the future on the website.
Speaker B: Is that localized or do you, Will you travel across the UK for that?
Speaker A: I do travel, yes. Okay.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, so the visuals package only. Yeah, visuals and social media management. As I said, nothing goes without the visuals. So that would include copywriting and managing and analytics and so on. Um, and the business workshops which are, um, either online or with the in person actually going and testing, which I think it's better, to be honest.
Speaker B: And you can meet and network with other entrepreneurs as well, right?
Speaker A: Yes. I'll actually have one soon with some of the bondholders. We did a giveaway for the marketing derby community and.
Speaker B: Okay, you, um, have to let me know the details of that one. And also, is it possible to come into a business like ours and do a consultancy piece where you say, here's what you're currently doing and here's what I would change and here's my strategy document for you moving forward.
Speaker A: I guess that would be sort of a social media analysis with workshops sort of included. Which on the website it says all the packages can be tailored according to each business needs. As long as it's something from one of the packages, we can tailor it accordingly. Of course. And that's why I said from the beginning, every business is unique. I don't see myself just offering one package, one service.
Speaker B: Yeah. Because we're 13 years in. We already have a marketing team, we already have brand guidelines.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: It's just I might come to you and say, my problem is my message is just not getting through. It's not resonating. I'd love you to come in and give me your opinion on that. Even if you turned around and said, okay, Simon, that's £10,000. And you wrote me one sentence. If the sentence makes a difference.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Made M a 10,000 pound difference, then I'm happy. Right?
Speaker A: Yeah. Even with some agencies, for example, they have the strategy, management and all those, but they don't have the, um, visual part. So I'm just helping them with the visual based on their clients.
Speaker B: Um, okay.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: For sure. Partnerships are really important as well. Um, if someone wanted to get started with improving their visuals and improving their storytelling, where would you, um. Or what three things would you advise them to do? Take better pictures.
Speaker A: Um, I would say don't focus on what equipment you use. I know people tend to think that, but you are making the picture. The equipment just gives you the resolution.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Of the photo.
Speaker B: My friend, he has a phone like you. We, uh, went to a Biza or Bizarre. Recently, every picture he takes, he tells me there's not a filter on there, but it makes me look like a 14 year old girl.
Speaker A: Oh, there's the beauty filter gives me
Speaker B: like really big, big eyes. So in every picture it looks like I'm on drugs.
Speaker A: There is a filter.
Speaker B: He keeps telling me there's no filter, but there is one shape of my face as well.
Speaker A: It's built inside the actual camera.
Speaker B: So every photo, turn it off.
Speaker A: What? No, you should be able to.
Speaker B: Okay. After the podcast, please tell me how to turn it off so I can send it to him.
Speaker A: I know my mom has that turned on a bit.
Speaker B: It changes the shape of my face. Yeah.
Speaker A: Oh, even that.
Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's a, uh, gives me that like face that everyone wants. That sort of alien shaped face.
Speaker A: That should be, uh, There should be for sure to turn it off though. Oh, wow. Okay, I'm curious now.
Speaker B: Okay. So don't worry about your equipment.
Speaker A: Yes. Uh, just experiment, I guess and see which one you prefer, which one you feel comfortable with and do more of
Speaker B: those then in terms of the medium, like video.
Speaker A: Yes. Picture or what sort of picture. Okay. Uh, you can test the lenses on your phone. I prefer the three zoom one or two and then go backwards a bit and then the background, it's more like closer, I would say to the subject. So, um, that's the thing that I actually teach in the business workshops. Which lens to use exactly, for what sort of content. You know, you have the very wide one where you have this zoom ones and so on. Um, so yeah, test a bit. The zoom. Yeah, the ultra wide and so on and see which one fits in which circumstance. Basically.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Uh, and just try and capture emotion, which is all about visual storytelling. Yeah.
Speaker B: Okay, that's great. Um, you have had success because you've been able to start a business. You're six months in, you're growing, you're doing well, you're getting really good reviews. Quality of the work, guys. If you go and go and check it out online, we'll put the links at the end. Excellent. Like really, really, really good. So what? It's not like you can't give people advice just because you're six months in. So what are your three keys to success up to this point, do you think? Whether that's your personal attributes or things that you're doing with the business.
Speaker A: Yeah, consistency probably. Um, don't doubt yourself. Yeah, I know sometimes it happens. Uh, there are days and days, of course, um, our mood changes, but just be confident in your, in your Service or your product, your skills and so on. Yeah, um, and just improve, always improve. Being that mentally your service, your website, your product. Yeah, if you see space for improvement, go for it.
Speaker B: Yeah. I love that our tagline at growth factor is, uh, small changes, big impact.
Speaker A: Sure, yeah. Love it.
Speaker B: Yeah. I didn't really understand it when we did the rebrand. Now more and more. I get it, I get it.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: Just continually improve. Okay, so how can people find out more? How can they get in touch with you? What's the best way?
Speaker A: So I have my website, csvisualstorytelling.com CS is from my name for people that don't understand. Um, um, LinkedIn. Um, I'll be there every day replying to everything. M. Instagram as well. Um, they are all linked in the website. Um, footer anyway. And, um, I have my phone number as well there.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Okay. We'll put the links in the description. You mentioned a free guide.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: Uh, what's that all about? Because that would be something that people could. I love it. If people can take one action today off the back of listening to the podcast. So downloading a free guide and having a read of that.
Speaker A: Yes. So that's available on my website. On most of the pages. You'll find it at the bottom of the page. Um, it's explaining what visual storytelling is. It's providing seven tips that I always try to incorporate based on the business, of course.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: Um, on my visuals. And then, um, there are each of the tips. There are real life examples for a business that's, I don't know, focused on sustainability. One that's a bookstore and so on different industries.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker A: And you would have. Exactly examples of content, how to tailor it to. To, I don't know, um, build more emotion into it or tell a story. Um, and all of these tips are basically to make you stand out from the crowd.
Speaker B: Amazing. Yeah, I love that we ended on stand out from the crowd as well, because that is the point of what your business does. Just to loop back to the beginning. Right?
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: You help business owners stand out from the crowd. Uh, guys, I really hope you know now why it's so important to focus on your visuals. Set a budget for general brand building. Think in the short, short and the long term to protect against, you know, just changes in the algorithm. Um, definitely get in touch with Christina. Ask for help. She's amazing. Uh, she's given you a free resource. You should go and download that for sure. Thank you.
Speaker A: Code as well.
Speaker B: And the code.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Founder stories. Thank you for coming down.
Speaker A: Yes, thank you.
Speaker B: Appreciate you making the trip.
Speaker A: Loved it.
Speaker B: We'll be back, hopefully, for part two in a year or so's time.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: Thank you, guys. Uh, that's been another episode of Family Stories, and we'll see you in the next one.
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