Jamie is passionate about sales strategy, LinkedIn, socialmedia, and sales training to help businesses improve their revenue and processes. Focusing on selling to different personalities! In this show, he talks about setting up an e-learning course, and we could do this as photographers. After being a podcast guest, the host asked Jamie if he wanted to make an e-learning course with him. They used software called Zenler for the course. Jamie provided the content.
When building a course, you need to think about who your target market is. And why do they need your course? You also need to think about the cost of the course. But the real key is what the value and outcomes people are going to get from taking part in this course.

For Jamie’es e-learning course, each module contained amodule made into a video with Jamie talking over the presentation. Sam says that making the videos can put people off doing this. Jamie says to start with the end goal and think of recurring income to spur you on to create the resources. Butit does take time. Sam also suggests running some of the course modules as webinars and then recording them. These recordings can be used for the e-learning course. This way, it’s part of your marketing.

Pricing is another challenge in working out what to charge.Introductory offers are good at the start, but then it’s also getting the affordable price. Jamie’s e-learning course also has an add-on option he sells where they can get some personal input at the end.

Sam asks what you need for an e-learning course. Jamie sayssome guides and workbooks would be good. Video, auditory and written resources for learning. It is also vital that your e-learning course is unique and different to whatever else is out there.

Jamie says creating the course is not enough. Promoting the course is a key part of the success of the course. The course will not sell itself. It’s essential to think about whether the people you already market to are the target market for your course or not.

• Marcus thinks getting some training to help you make the course and understand how people learn could be helpful. Although the course is a passive income, you have to put a lot of time and effort into marketing the course. It will not sell itself or print money for you.
  Final top tips:
  Look at setting up an affiliate scheme so others can sell it
• Get testimonials and use those to promote the course.
• Tap into other networks
• 
  

You can find James on Linkedin here

The first Shoot to the Top Webinar is on the 2nd of April and it’s all about getting higher value clients for your business. Tofind out more and book click here.

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Marcus says street photography is about capturing incidentshappening around you. He also says there is so much to learn from street photography that all photographers should be doing it. He says the need to work at the moment as you see things is perfect training for other types of photography.
Equipment
A street photographer needs to be mobile and discrete. So, no huge camera bags. A camera and a lens or two. He says the lens should be 50mm or wide angle, and the photographer then needs to be close and involved with their subjects. Somestreet photographers use flash for street photography.

Location

Marcus says it needs to be where people gather. Otherwise, it’s landscape photography.Martin Parr photographs in gas stations, country fairs and other places. Tony Ray Jonesisanother street photographer. He photographed a lot of beach towns on the East coast of Yorkshire.
How

Marcus says you need to be invisible as a street photographer.Marcus says one approach is “shooting from the hip”. So, having the camera by your waist. Marcus also thinks pre-focussing also helps. Marcus says misdirection is another approach. He says to get your camera out walk towards them, but photograph off to the side. But with a wide-angle lens, they are still in the shot, but it doesn’t look like you are photographing them. The third option is simply to ask people’s permission to photograph them. They will very often say yes. Sam asks about the issue of photographing people without their permission. Marcussays the law is on your side as a street photographer taking photographs.
Marcus’s final approach is called “pick a spot” This approach is to find a photographic location and wait there for people to go past.

What are you looking for?
To start with, take some photographs. It doesn’t matter what, just warm up. Then, you are looking for people interacting with each other. People interact with the background or environment.

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Abi and Giles have a background in film and TV. Abi as a producer. They met while working on Jonathan Creek. Abi says she does the organising side doing the paperwork, keeping the clients happy and getting the next client while Giles does the creative stuff.

Giles started doing stills photography as an assistant in the movie industry. He then moved into being a movie cameraman. Eventually, they both got tired of the long hours in the movie industry and set up their own business. They ran the company alongside their film careers for about five years.

They now do video. Having done just stills for a long time they are now doing some video. However, they are sticking to short videos and outsourcing to filmmakers for longer work.

Marcus and Giles talk a little about equipment. Marcus says he is quite a technical geek and loves focus-stacking. This also allows him to change the look of an image later on if the client wants it. He uses a Sony mirrorless camera now and thinks they are now good. He has moved from Canon to Nikon to Sony over the years.

Sam’s asks how they get clients. Abi says word of mouth has been key for a long time. There are a lot of connections and conversations with people. Their clients tend to stay with them for a long time. Their oldest clients have been with them for over fifteen years. Once they get new clients in the studio or on location they tend to keep them. Also, they work a lot with marketing agencies and they have a high staff turnover. This works well with them as staff they have built a relationship with in one agency move to another and then they get introduced as great photographers to the new agency.

Abi spent lots of time chatting to clients over lockdown as the clients were feeling low. Her day-to-day job is keeping those connections alive. They are also always suggesting new ideas to current clients. Giles likes to run new ideas with old clients and they really like that and like trying them.

Sam asks about their approach to AI. He says it’s here and they love it and want to embrace it, but also he is keeping the enemy close. Giles did do some talks on it but stopped due to the hate mail he was getting. Giles says the generative AI is so much better if you give long prompts giving lots of technical terms to do with the lighting and style of shoot. Giles says it’s great for generating ideas so you are not staring at a blank page. It helps spark ideas.

Marcus mentions Scott Choucino of Tin House Studio who does food photography. Marcus says due to AI he is going to make his photography more organic and doing things like shooting on film. Giles thinks it’s great to go back to film. You can listen to our show on film here. But Giles thinks commercially it’s essential to stick to digital.

As final advice, Giles says to stick to your rates and value your experience. He also recommends working out how much you need to charge hourly as a minimum to survive with the lifestyle you have.