042: Jenika McDavitt – How to Use Psychology in Your Photography Business for More Clients, Sales & Freedom

042: Jenika McDavitt – How to Use Psychology in Your Photography Business for More Clients, Sales & Freedom

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. Today I have an amazing guest on the line. She lives and works in Baltimore, in the United States, and she studied psychology at Yale University, concentrating on behavioral neuroscience, I'm scared already, where she actually earned a master's degree. And through uni, she started photographing people, and now runs her own portrait and commercial photography business called Jenika's Lens. She also has an incredibly helpful and thriving blog Psychology for Photographers, and that teaches you how to connect better with clients, how to improve your sales, write more effectively and a heap more. And this is the blog where I discovered how psychology fits into everyday business. Jenika, welcome to the podcast.

Jenika McDavitt: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, look it's an absolute pleasure. I'm so happy to have you on the line. First of all, maybe you want to give us a bit of an idea about what you do day to day. Is it more the blog or more the photography side of the business?

Jenika McDavitt: Well, I have started to work more with small businesses with my photography, and so I've started to kind of limit how much I'm doing with that. So I would say day to day, I do work more on, working with photographers and writing education through the blog. But it kind of, it's one of those seasonal things. It just kind of depends on the day.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes, sure. With the psychology side of things, are you going to be assessing me as I'm doing this interview?

Jenika McDavitt: It would be too much work.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, geez, thanks. So well, tell me how, how does psychology actually fit into to business?

Jenika McDavitt: Psychology is just this study it, you know, people think has this mystical power to it. It's really just the science of the study of human behavior and the human mind. And so if you think about it, no matter what kind of business you're running, whether you're photographing commercial clients, or you're doing fine art, or you're doing a typical portrait business, you're working with people. And at some point, a person is going to have to decide that they're going to hire you, they're going to buy what you have to offer, whatever. And so understanding how people evaluate things, how they make decisions about money, how they view things, how they react, all of those things can help you run a better business, because it'll help you understand how to present your offerings more effectively.

Andrew Hellmich: So how are you actually incorporating your knowledge into the actual business? Is it the way you write your blogs? Is it the way you conduct your sales sessions? I mean, do people come in and lay on a lounge to do a sales consult with you?

Jenika McDavitt: Like Freudians? No, well, I mean, it's one of those things that it's, it pervades the business. I mean, this is why I write a blog instead of like, I didn't just write, you know, a book or a manifesto. It's an ongoing process of discovery, how, how psychology and, and photography and business interact. So one thing, for example, I wrote a free eBook which anyone can download. It's called How Clients Make Decisions About Money. And I just kind of summarize some of the research about pricing and how, how to present pricing information in such a way that helps people make decisions that aren't just based on money, and helps them understand what they really want and, and take that bold step to maybe not buy the eight by 10, but by what they actually would be happy with. And I had a person, you know, after I published that, I had a person email me and said "I just earned $3,000 the first time I tried tip number two". Okay, well, you know this, it really does have an impact when you kind of just understand how people think and shape what you're doing accordingly.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. So, so how do, I mean, how do people think, what are they, when they come to see us, let's say for the sales appointment, and we've jumped the gun a little bit. Is it our language, is it our body language? Is it what we have in our process that scares them off?

Jenika McDavitt: No, I think.. so one thing I tell people all the time is you have to remember, "People always care more about themselves and their problems than they care about your business." And it's not like moral thing that it's something that they don't care about to you, but they really are primarily concerned with their problems and specific, specifically the potential for them to lose out on money or lose out on making a bad decision. People are very, psychology terms at loss averse. People are very loss averse, so they want, obviously, to make the maximum, the best decision for them and so, and a lot of that is going to have to do with how effective, effectively your offering solve a problem of theirs. So I have found that, for example, when you are framing one of your products, let's say we want to sell the glorious canvas wraps that photographers are so in love with, because they're wonderful. And you can go on and on about how beautiful it is, and it's so wonderful, it's gonna, you know, look so great. But you know, when you take, when you, you know, step back, that's why the photographer thinks it's great. It might not be why the client thinks it's great. "So if you frame it instead as this is going to solve your problem by, you know, fixing that awkward space in your dining room that you have no idea what to do with. It's going to fix your problem by your next dinner, all your friends are jealous of you. It's going to fix your problem." You know, think about what their problems are, and you kind of reframe how you're describing your products to them. You're going to have a lot more success selling them. Does that make sense?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. So we're looking for the, for the benefits for the client, not so much for us?

Jenika McDavitt: Right. But not just benefit, you know, because it does obviously benefit someone to have, you know, something beautiful in their home. But specifically look for the problems they're trying to solve. I mean, the word benefit gets bandied around a lot in business, and it's, and it's important. But I really like taking a problem focused approach, like, what's the biggest obstacle? Like, when I work with a business client, you know, they have branding and all of that, and I can focus on that, or I can be like, "What's their biggest problem? They want to sell more of this stuff. "So I can talk about how my photos are going to help them sell more stuff. It's going to do a lot more to convince them to hire me or buy from me than just saying, "This is great branding." Do you know what I mean? Like just really taking that problem and talking about that directly.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. So what if the client is sitting there? I mean, they're looking at, you know, ProSelect, and they're deciding between ordering the eight by 10 or the 30 by 40 canvas. You know, that makes a huge difference to me.

Jenika McDavitt: Yeah. Well, so here's, here's something to note is that people always prefer things that are more familiar over the unfamiliar. Just like across the board in general, there's a man who did a study where he showed people random Chinese characters, and then he asked them later, like, "Which one of these do you think means something more positive?" And just the ones that they had seen before. They're like, "Oh yeah, that's positive." People just like, I mean, it was totally made up, and it was totally random, like they had, they didn't speak Chinese, they didn't know what any of it meant. But they just liked and had more positive feelings towards the things seen before. And that's kind of a silly thing to talk about, of course, but it does translate into the real world, where you see something and then you see it again, you just simply like it more. And so a lot of photographers have a problem where, you know, they get they get to the sales session, they get to ProSelect, they put it up, and the client sees it, and they think it's great. But they're still scared to buy it because they're just simply not familiar with it yet. And so what I tell people is "You have to think about it". Like, it's like the idea about politicians and how they want to pound in as many long times as possible to get their name out as often as possible, because that repetition is effective. You kind of have to campaign for your products in the same way. You have to put your products front and center on your website. You have to bring them to your first consultation. You have to get them in their hands as often as possible. When you order something from a client, you know, put, put what you ordered at the bottom, and show what it looks like, show what they got out of the session. Show them these things over and over, so that they're more familiar with it. I mean, that's a big reason people order eight by 10s is it's familiarity, and it also goes back to that loss aversion I talked about earlier, where people are, they're familiar with an eight by 10. They know what it involves. They know exactly how it looks, but if they spend the money to order that 30 by 40, they're taking a chance that it could be awful, or they could hate it, or it could look weird or, or you know, they could pick the wrong image, and then they'd be regretting it forever. I mean, there's just so many unknowns, and they're really afraid to take a risk because they could lose out. So they're going to go with the safe thing, even if it means they're missing out on something they would have enjoyed more. They're still afraid of that loss, so increasing that familiarity is important.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so it's not only the loss of money, it's really just the making the wrong decision and missing out.

Jenika McDavitt: Well, yeah, and, you know, if you think about it like a 30 by 40, it's a big investment. And it's not just, you know, the money, though. It's, it's like, "Well, if my kid takes a Sharpie and climbs on the ground, there's a lot more money that I'm out than just, you know, if I ordered an eight by 10." There's all these other things that go along with it. So increasing people's familiarity with it, it goes a long way to increasing their comfort with making those decisions.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so in talking about increasing familiar, familiarity. That's a hard word to say. I spoke to Brian Chapman, a Sydney based portrait photographer. He's of the opinion "That too many photographers show just photos on their website, not finished products."

Jenika McDavitt: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because we're not selling, well I mean, we are selling our work. But when you think about what they actually receive at the end of it, it's that work is in some format. And whether or not it's going to be on a disc or on canvas or paper or whatever it is you want to be selling is going to depend largely on what they're familiar with. And a lot of people want, you know, tell me, email me, probably this gentleman as well. Like, "Why, why do my clients only want discs?" And I'm like, "Well, what are you advertising?" And most of the time they're advertising digital files. That's all they're showing on their site.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. So, so we should be putting photos up of frame prints in, in lounge rooms and hallways and things like that, and living rooms?

Jenika McDavitt: Yeah. I mean, I have a couple, and you don't have to, you know, go overboard. It can be subtle, like I have a couple photos on my home page slideshow, you know, a little girl on standing on a sofa, but she's standing in front of a Canvas Gallery, and she's in the Canvas Gallery, and it kind of just shows, you know, what, what this looks like in real life. How is the person going to use, use these images in their actual life? And that actually goes back to another thing, especially when you're selling to women, which most photographers often are, women tend to purchase things with the end use in mind, rather than the absolute features of it. So what that means is, you know, women aren't just buying a pair of black pants because they want a pair of black pants. They're buying a pair of pants to wear to work, or they're buying a black dress to wear to the party on Friday. They tend to have a very specific end use in mind. And so finding out what that end use is, is really important during a sales sequence, but also just getting in your client's head from the beginning. Okay, how are these images going to be used in your home, in your everyday life, is very powerful.

Andrew Hellmich: It's really interesting to hear you say that. Because when you were saying earlier that, you know, you got to look at the way people buy and they're thinking of filling a space in the hallway or a space above the dining table. As a guy, I'm thinking, I would never think that when I'm picking a photo, but as a woman, that's something that you actually think about. You want to, you want to solve that problem of that space above the dining table.

Jenika McDavitt: Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I'm sure it could work for men too, but like, whatever irritants that they have, see if you can solve it for them, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: So, as a psychologist, would you, are you happy to see a client, say, just, just the mother, if you've done a family shoot, and not the mother and the father for the sales session?

Jenika McDavitt: Well, first of all, let me just say I'm not like a licensed psychologist, I want to be really clear about that. My training was actually, I mean, I did clinical training, but it was in research. And so I just want to be clear, because..

Andrew Hellmich: Sure.

Jenika McDavitt: I don't want to misrepresent myself at all. But, anyway that doesn't answer your question. The, in terms of who's present at the sales session, I think the people who need to be present are the people who have the buying power, decision making power. And if the wife or the, you know, partner or whoever is enabled, if she can actually buy it and doesn't have to consult with her partner or her husband, then that's great. But if not, I would rather have them both there, because it gives that person out, they can be like, "Well, I really like this, but I'm gonna have to talk to so and so." And then as soon as they leave that session, your prompt, yours, like, whatever that they had in their cart, so to speak, is going to diminish by at least 50 to 70% in my experience. So you really want them to be making the decision right then. And this, this isn't just like, manipulative, you know, it's, it's, you want them to get what's right for them, and you don't want all these other concerns "Well, but we need to, you know, reseed the lawn and all this other stuff." It's just going to get in the way when right at the sales session is the time when they have the most information that they will ever have that is relevant to that decision, and it is in their best interest to make it right then.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so what I see a lot of, is that a photographer will be talking to the wife or the mother, and they'll say, "Now, you really need to come with your husband, because it needs to be decision that you both make. Because you know, you may, you may spend a lot of money. The average sale is, say, $2,000 when people come to buy photos, are you able to make that decision?" And I think that puts the woman on the back foot in this case. And she said, "Yeah, of course, I can make that decision." But when they come to the actual sales appointment, they don't want to, they want to have their partner there.

Jenika McDavitt: Yeah, well, and I don't, I'm not familiar with any research on this, this is more of speculation. But you know, women tend to like going shopping with other women like to get a second opinion. Like, "Well, what do you think?", you know. And so it might not even be like a just like a buying power issue. It can also just be like, she's not sure she just needs that second opinion, even if she doesn't really want to know what the husband thinks, she still wants to be able to bounce it off of someone else, or, like, at least say it out loud. I know, I know I do that, so..

Andrew Hellmich: I've seen that for sure.

Jenika McDavitt: "What do I have to say, honey."

Andrew Hellmich: "That's right, just not say yes." So what about on your blog? You talk a lot about writing, and I know that, you know, you're talking to wedding and portrait photographers today, a lot of the blogs are the same. I mean, I see "Sally and John's wedding was just gorgeous. Her hair was amazing. The makeup was fantastic, the location was beautiful." And just rinse and repeat, just change the names. I can see, I can see you cringing as I say this. What are some ideas to it, to improve our blog writing and, you know, to appeal to the clients that we want to attract?

Jenika McDavitt: Absolutely. Well, I mean, that's a huge topic, and I wrote a whole e-course about that answers that question. So, but I will absolutely just hard to filter through. So the first thing is, photographers, they tend to use a lot of intangible words to describe their services. So words like memory and precious and fun, and these are great words, and I'm not saying we shouldn't use them. But here's the problem, is that a client who reads that like, "What's fun to you is not necessarily the same thing that's fun to me." And so if you say this session was so much fun, and you're saying that every single week, that doesn't really tell them what the session is actually like, or whether they personally will think it's fun. It just says that you're claiming it's fun. And so what I suggest, the first suggestion, and I have actually on my blog, if you go in the search bar and search for the Seven Minute Website Writing Makeover, there's some like kind of an exercise that will walk you through this. But basically, anytime you use a word like fun or precious or whatever, may give a concrete example instead. And the idea behind this is that you just describe what was fun, and then the reader can decide for themselves whether or not it's fun. You don't actually need to say it. So for example, if you did a session where you all went on a picnic and you had watermelon and it was dripping down your chin, and, you know, the dog was trying to lick the juice off of everyone, and everyone was laughing hysterically. If you just describe that, people will get that it's fun. And it also puts a stronger picture, a more vivid picture in people's minds for what it's going to be like to work with you. Because those concrete words are more memorable, like, you know, watermelon and dog and are more much more memorable than intangible words like fun and precious and stuff like that. So it kind of has a double effect, of number one, making you more memorable and stand out, and number two, helping them actually see what it's like to work with you, which gives them more information about whether or not they want to hire you.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, now, I love those tips. So, I mean if I just if I use those in my own business, I know that if I shot the picnic with the watermelon and the dog, that's going to be a different shoot to the one I do you know the next day or the next week, because they're not going to be a watermelon and a dog there. So straight away, I've got two different blog posts.

Jenika McDavitt: Right. And this is something that a lot of photographers struggle with, is that there's their shoots are always pretty similar. You know, you have a family, you go out and it's a wedding, and, you know, they walk down the aisle, they kiss, boom. You know, it's all similar. But if you if you start thinking about those concrete things, it is different every time. You might do a picnic one week, and then the next week you might still be in a park, but, you know, you're flying a kite. Or, or, you know, even if weddings are similar, you can just tell a story about something that happened. You know, maybe , every wedding has its stories. Maybe the bride's mother had to fly in from, you know, England at the last minute, because blah, blah, blah, you know, these people love hearing stories. It's why reality TV is so interesting to people. And it doesn't have to be like all drama related for it to be interesting. You don't have to be digging up like dirt and gossip. It's just interesting to hear human stories. There's the, New York Times has a section called Style, I think. And underneath it there's, if you look, there's always a section called Weddings and Celebrations. And they tell stories from just weddings that happened in New York that weekend. And it's worth for especially wedding photographers, but really anyone to just go look and just see how you know every wedding has an interesting story, and to start to look for those in your own clients. Because they are, it is going to be different every time.

Andrew Hellmich: I think it touched on a great point there. I mean, if you I don't know, if anyone knows, or if you've heard of the blogger, the guy who does the Humans of New York blog, he's just amazing.

Jenika McDavitt: Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: His photos are nice, but, I mean, they're nothing amazing, but it's the stories that go with the photos that make the photos amazing.

Jenika McDavitt: Yes, yes, exactly. And of course, of course, your photos should be the best you can make them, and top notch quality, absolutely. But that's, I kind of want to tell people, that's not all that people care about, and it's not all that's going to make you stand out. You know, most people are visually literate enough to know, you know, when a photo is generally good, but there comes a point at which they can no longer distinguish in quality. Do you know what I mean? And it doesn't mean you shouldn't continue to increase the quality of your work, but just don't rely on just that. Because, you know, if, whenever you become an expert at something, you automatically start getting better and better at distinguishing between, you know, quality. But most of your clients probably aren't experts, so you can't only rely on that. Do you know what I'm saying?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, I think so. I think so. So we need to separate ourselves somehow and not, not just rely solely on the images.

Jenika McDavitt: Yes, I mean, absolutely work on your style. Absolutely have a distinct style, no question. But there's, there's some things that need to go along with that, I guess, is what I'm saying.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so let's say the listener is taking on your advice, and we're going to start telling stories about our weddings and our portrait shoots. Now the fear for me, well, the fear, I think, for a lot of people, is that we're not writers, we're photographers. How do we become a writer, a better writer, without some, without looking like we're trying too hard?

Jenika McDavitt: The first thing is, I think you got to let go of the word writer. Yeah, because I think she carries a lot of baggage with it that just really freaks people out. And when I talk to people, they just get these really sweaty, awkward memories from junior high and some teacher who yelled at them and blah, blah, blah. So just, I guess, let go of that and think of it as talking to your friends instead. So, you know, we all go home, you know, after a shoot and tell our spouses or our partner or our friend, like, "Oh, here's what happened on this shoot. It was so funny. They did this, and this, and this." We're all used to communicating, so we kind of communicate in stories. You know, if I were to say "Hey, Andrew, like, what color shirt did you wear when you graduated from high school?" You'd be like, "Oh, you know, it was blue. I remember because my mom said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." You tell me a story, and that's how you would remember it. We're always communicating with each other in stories. So this is something that you already know how to do. It's not something that's like new or special. Of course, writing is a craft, and you get better at it, and you get better at it when you work on it. But at a, at a basic level, you already know how to do it, so you can just start doing it. And when you start doing something, you automatically start to improve as you go along. I mean, I taught a whole course on this, so you can come take it, and if you want help, I'm happy to help you. But you, I don't think you need to be afraid like, "Oh, I've got to go get a degree in writing to run a better blog." I don't think that's true.

Andrew Hellmich: if we listen to your advice, if we, if we go to describe the shoot that we did after we come back. So, I mean, in my head, I'm thinking, you know, "She's, she steps slowly through the long grass as the sun rose slowly in the misty sky." So we don't need that sort of stuff.

Jenika McDavitt: I mean, no, you don't need it. You can write that way. And sometimes I do. I write very visually, just naturally. It's just how I kind of talk, and it's just how I communicate. But you have to write in your own voice, you know. And because you're, you're writing, communicate something about who you are. And so if you start to put on this fake thing and you're trying to sound like some other author or something that's not you, you're gonna kind of not be consistent with your whole brand, I guess. So, I mean, certainly I think, I think good writing starts with good reading. So I think if you just read a lot and in your spare time, listen to audio books, you know, while, I have people who listen to audio books while they're on the treadmill, while they're in the car or whatever. It just kind of naturally increases your vocabulary for how to say things, and you can think of ways that you might say it. But I think the most powerful tool is really just to read it out loud after you've read it. And if you're like, I would never say this in real life, maybe just change it a little bit.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay.

Jenika McDavitt: But, yeah, so I guess, I think the goal is to sound like yourself, not like an author, I guess.

Andrew Hellmich: That's great. I love that tip, so just read it out loud. That's ,that's the best way to edit.

Jenika McDavitt: Oh, absolutely. I think so.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. So what about for the photographer that is, maybe not at the level they want to be it, or they're trying to attract clients that are above where they're at now. They're trying to build the brand, to look more expensive, to feel more expensive, to appeal with clients, to clients with more money. Do they need to write in a different way? Do they need to write in the language that the client will be speaking, or do they still stay as themselves?

Jenika McDavitt: That's an, that's an interesting question.

Andrew Hellmich: If I speak in slang and you know, it's, you know, like I do with my friends and my mates, do I write like that on a blog, or is that going to turn people away? You know, give them the wrong message.

Jenika McDavitt: Well, I think, I think the first place you have to start with anything is like, stop even thinking about, you know, how am I going to write for a second. Step back and say, "Okay, who am I trying to attract? How does this person talk, what kinds of magazines are they reading? What do they read in their spare time? Where do they get their news?" And just look at what's what kind of communication they are absorbing, and then look at how you personally fit into that. Because I don't think you should ever erase your own voice, because I think the minute you do, not only do you lose something because your photos are also a part of your voice, but you can't sustain it. It's not sustainable like I can't just act like someone else forever. I'm going to start leaking through in some way. So I think it's a non-starter, just to try to change your own personality. But I also think.. I don't think you should ever pre-judge. Just because someone has money does not mean that they're like super high society, whatever you think that to be, or that they talk a certain way. I have a very good friend who works in Canada, and she averages, I think, $1,800 a sales session. She works with a lot of architects and teachers and people who are professionals, but she drops the F bomb like constantly on her website. It's just how she talks, and she attracts people who have money, who talk that way as well. And so I think a lot of people have this misconception that because they're trying to attract people in a different income bracket than them, that they also have to change themselves. When, and I don't think that's a good, I don't think that's true. I don't think that's good advice personally.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, that makes it life easier if you believe that we can just be ourselves. I mean, that that's the easiest thing, isn't it?

Jenika McDavitt: Well, yeah, but if you think about it, like, if, like, imagine for a minute that you were a millionaire. I mean, you might be millionaire, I don't know, but did you not want to hang out with someone because they weren't also familiar. I mean, if you and if that was true, would you really want to have that person as a client? I don't think so. You know, you want to track people you get along with, so I think you should be yourself.

Andrew Hellmich: True and more so I wouldn't want them to act differently around me.

Jenika McDavitt: Correct.

Andrew Hellmich: Just because they're with me. That wouldn't be nice.

Jenika McDavitt: Yeah, and people are very, people are hyper vigilant to cheating and falsehood and kind of like, double like, double standard, double sided kind of things. They, they're, people are very in tune to inconsistency, I guess is what I'm trying to say, so..

Andrew Hellmich: Sure.

Jenika McDavitt: You should be most invested in being consistent, and then just take a really close look at your target client, and their, you know what problems you're solving for them. Now I will say "You can adapt a little bit." So for example, people who shoot high school seniors in the States, you know, there's nothing wrong with saying, instead of saying, you know, "Call me at 616, blah, blah, blah", you know, you can say, "Just send me a text or something like that", because that's how they communicate. So I think you can adapt and kind of tailor your site to that person and how that person interacts with the world, but I don't think that has to come as at the expense of your voice.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, sure. Sorry, if that same photographer was targeting weddings, portraits and seniors, they might set up the seniors page with slightly different language in that case.

Jenika McDavitt: Yeah, absolutely. And again, it's, I don't think that is erasing your own voice, because, you know, you talk to people in business a little bit differently than you talk to your mom, a little bit differently than you talk to your friends. It's all you, but you can just shape, you know, how the words you're using, or the tone you're using a little bit just to suit the audience.

Andrew Hellmich: All right, let me throw a spanner in the works here. What about the SEO gurus that are listening to this conversation right now. And then thinking, "Oh, my God, Jenika, how are we going to rank on Google if we're going to start writing like this?"

Jenika McDavitt: Well, I will, I'm the first person to admit I am not an SEO guru, and I've never really relied on that as a marketing strategy. So I'll just, I'll just say that outright. That said I did hire an SEO guru to go over my website, and he never was like, "Jenika, this is awful. You need to change." So I can't say that it hasn't been awful, you know, I think, I think there's a balance, certainly, but, you know, you can still mention. In fact, I think it's actually a little bit better when you write this way, because you're not just saying, "Oh, this was a fun session" every single week. You know, one week you might be talking about picnics, and you know, photos with families at a beach, and you're giving these concrete details so that when someone is searching for, you know, family photos at the beach, they might be more likely to land on you. But you can still do all the tricks about alt text, and, you know, titling your images and having the location in your title, you know, to your blog post. You can still do all of that. But I think, you know, there's two ways to do a website. You know, there's, you want to get traffic to your site, of course. But once people are there, they have to actually take the next step to actually hire you, which means you have to connect for them, which means I personally don't think you can just write for a search engine. You have to consider the person in the chair who's actually making the buying decision. But I don't think they have to come at like the expense of one of the other.

Andrew Hellmich: I misunderstood what you said about your SEO guy. Did he say, was he upset or was he happy with what you had on your site?

Jenika McDavitt: No. He's happy, he was. I'm saying, he didn't say," Jennica, this is awful." He's..

Andrew Hellmich: Good.

Jenika McDavitt: He's like, "You're not titling any of your images. That's bad, we need to start doing that." "Okay, you know, we need to", you know, he gave me some tips, but he didn't like, tell me I was in some hopeless situation. So I guess, I guess what I'm saying is, I don't think it is like, exclusive of SEO.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah.

Jenika McDavitt: You can do both.

Andrew Hellmich: So let's take, let's go back to the photographer that's come back from a shoot and they want to blog this shoot. Is there, is there a good time to write? I shouldn't use the right word. Is a good time to blog?

Andrew Hellmich: You mean?

Andrew Hellmich: Wait, what time a day, like, should we do it straight after the shoot? Or should we, should we relax a little bit and do it the next day, when everything's settled down. Should we do it when we're excited about the shoot?

Jenika McDavitt: I think, I think you need to do it when you're so excited about the shoot. So whatever, you know, when you right after a shoot, people are in different energies, and people are really excited and, like, "I want to edit the photos right now." Some other people are kind of drained and spent and would rather just go and, like, back up their images and go, you know, take a bath or something, so they can relax, I don't know. So I think you have to keep your energy level in mind, because that will come across in your writing. But one thing I do tell people is to at least, while everything's fresh, and I actually do this in the car, like before I even leave the shoot. I jot down some specific things that happened in this session so that I don't forget. Because, you know, what you don't want is you don't want to be sitting there, you know, a week later, because you had some delay with your images. And, and then you're trying to restructure and recreate the session your head. It's better to just at least scribble down in bullet point form, just some specific details. You're like, "Oh, this would be so fun to tell this story", so at least do that much I think, well, right after the session.

Andrew Hellmich: That's great. That's a great tip. And what about for software for writing? I mean, I think, I think a lot of people tend to write and they're trying to edit as they're going, is there, is there some, is there a better way to do it? Should we just do a brain dump and then go back and edit?

Jenika McDavitt: You know, I.. along, okay, so I'll tell you what the experts say. The experts say "You should never edit while you write. You should just write and then go back through and make tweaks." And for a long time, I really, really thought that I was like, "No, I want to edit as I go. It takes too long to do it the other way." But I found when I self-edit before it's even down. It doesn't.. it ends up taking longer. And it's not like you have to write a whole draft and then go back and write another draft, but just if you just get it all down, because things change as you write, and you think of things as you write. So I do kind of, I kind of use the metaphor like "If you're trying to find something in a purse. Sometimes the best thing to do is just dump the whole purse out onto the bed and then search for the thing you want." So just get it all out and find it, rather than just trying to, like, find it and find just the exact thing that you want. So I don't know if that, that makes sense, but I guess when you're, when you're kind of self-editing as you go, you're stifling your creativity. You're trying to shoehorn an idea into language before you're even sure which idea you're, you want to express. So I do recommend people just start with bullet points. Start with like, however you write bullet points, outline, just brain dump in general, and then go back and fix it.

Andrew Hellmich: And what about for the photographer that there's typing away, that we're doing this brain dump. We're just getting things down and that, I mean, I'm not the best typer, so I'm speaking from personal experience here, and the little underlying words keep popping up as misspelling. Should I just keep going while the thoughts in my head because I want to go back and fix the spelling mistakes as I go?

Jenika McDavitt: Oh, I would just keep going, because you can fix those later. You know it, anybody in the world can go through and correct your spelling mistakes. You can have an intern do that. You are the only person who can do the actual creative process of the ideas. You know that is something that has to come from you. So I wouldn't get too hung up on your grammar especially in the first pass through. You know, here's, here's where photographers get tripped up. Because we're always told, and it's true, "You should get things perfect in camera, right?" You need to get it right the first time. You don't want to be fixing things in Photoshop later. You don't want to be editing out your mistakes later. But writing is a different medium than photography, and it is creative still, but you do not have to get your words out perfect straight out of pen.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, okay.

Jenika McDavitt: Straight out of camera, right? So, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't worry. And it doesn't, you know, it doesn't matter when you said software. My first thought was, it doesn't matter what you're using. You can write in Word, you can write in WordPress. You can use, I use these skinny Crayola markers to write, especially when I'm stuck, I'll just get out a piece of paper and write. So if staring in a blinking cursor freaks you out or makes you feel like you have to live up to some you know, English teacher expectation that is left-over from college, just get out a Crayola, get out a crayon and write in a crayon. I mean, whatever it takes, it doesn't, because it truly doesn't matter. The finished product is going to be the same. It's going to be a WordPress blog post, we all know that. But the creative process, it doesn't matter what you're using.

Andrew Hellmich: All right, that's great. So you said to get the thing down, go back and do an edit and then read it aloud. Is that enough now? Like, should we sleep on it or just, just, let's hit publish and go.

Jenika McDavitt: That's up to you. I think, I wish I could, I read this quote somewhere, and it might have been apocryphal, but I don't I think it was Leonardo da Vinci who said, "Sometimes you have to step away from the canvas and come back to it later." So I think, I think if you write it down, and it's great, just go ahead and hit publish. But if, if you're in one of those situations like, "This is a hot mess. I just, I don't know what I'm doing anymore", just stop. You know, go, take a shower. Go, you know, sleep on it. Like you said, there's a lot of evidence that the brain does a lot of work during downtime, that it's not actually like even sleep is not technically downtime. Your brain is still working. You're consolidating memories. Your brain can work through complicated processes and problems when you allow it space. So sometimes, the longer you sit and try to work and rework and rework that you're actually making it worse for your brain, you need to give it some downtime. So I guess that's my advice. "If you're having trouble, step away. If not just there's no reason not to publish."

Andrew Hellmich: All right, just last little tangent here, and we might jump into a couple of photography questions just to finish off. But we've talked a lot about blogging and getting the language right for blogging. Is the language and the way we portray our personalities, or put our personalities onto paper, is that also important with our marketing material advertising, when everyone tries to cut things pretty short, you know. And you know, should we let our personalities shine through there as well?

Jenika McDavitt: Absolutely. I mean absolutely, because all writing is communication, and you need to be communicating who you are. And when I say, you know, when I'm talking about writing, I don't want people to think about, you know, novel length things. Write just words, and it's all words that you put down as writing. So when I say, you know, you need to have a well-written marketing piece, I don't mean you need to have three paragraphs. It just sometimes the hardest writing is the shortest writing, and any writer will tell you that, so absolutely. And the friend in Canada who drops the F bombs all the time, she's great, by the way. You should check her out. Her name is Nikki McArthur, and she runs Epic Danger Photography. But anyway, she..

Andrew Hellmich: What a cool name.

Jenika McDavitt: Yeah, you can, but she's a great example if you, if you're feeling intimidated by writing or can't get your personality through, she's, she's a great example to be, to go look at and be like, "Wow, there's a place for everyone." No matter what, what style of writing you have, you can get, you can do well with it, but what was they saying..

Andrew Hellmich: About marketing and getting..

Jenika McDavitt: Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Your personality through?

Jenika McDavitt: So she, she ran this Mother's Day campaign here like her first one. And it was it, she went with the standard, you know, "Capture precious moments for mom", or, you know, whatever. And she, the next year, she was trying to do it again, and was like, "This is just ridiculous. I'd never talk this way, I'm not this kind of sentimental person." And she patterned her, her next marketing campaign after a Saturday Night Live Sketch that was like had, I've never seen it. So I'm acknowledging my ignorance here, but it's something like the mother lover sketch or something like that, and it's like, very vulgar and whatever. But she, she, she made it off of that SNL skit that was, like, super vulgar, and took this huge chance. And it was the first time that she ever sold out her mother's day sessions.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow.

Jenika McDavitt: And it was short. I mean, it wasn't like this length. It was just she retitled it according to her personality. So, yes, absolutely, your marketing writing matters, and this is applicable.

Andrew Hellmich: And social media too, I'm thinking. So I'm thinking, Facebook, post, Twitter, anything we can, that's writing.

Jenika McDavitt: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And if I can just squeeze in one last little tip, you know, we get most of our.. as terrible as it is to say, we get most of our writing practice these days from emails and Facebook, and we're very used to writing in the first person. So you, you know, "I did this today, I did that." A lot of times that comes across in people's marketing websites like, "Come book a session with me, I'll make you really happy." It's all in first person. But it's much more effective if you turn that on its head and you use the word 'you'. So instead of saying, you know, "My sessions will be, you know, my style photography is lifestyle" or whatever, if you turn that around and say, "Your photos will have this lifestyle feel to them." Or instead of saying, "I'm usually booked six weeks out", if you say "To get the best date for you, be sure to call me six weeks in advance." You know, just if you change it from I and me to you, it's a lot more client friendly. It makes them feel like the center of your attention, and it'll be a lot more effective.

Andrew Hellmich: I love that. So the listener can go back to their website right now and get back and fix that. That's one easy fix straight away.

Jenika McDavitt: It's a really easy fix, and it is effective. So, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Love it, awesome. I'm giving you two thumbs up. All right, are you ready for these 10 quick questions?

Jenika McDavitt: Let's do it.

Andrew Hellmich: 10 quick questions, 10 quick answers, 3-2-1, go! Canon or Nikon?

Jenika McDavitt: Canon.

Andrew Hellmich: Favorite lens, and why?

Jenika McDavitt: The 35 L. I don't know that I can say why, I just find myself going back to it over and over. I like a lot of elbow room in my images, and I'm very context based when I shoot. And so I like being able to consider the context of the whole background that works in with the person. And I do know that the 35 just works well for that.

Andrew Hellmich: Mac or PC?

Andrew Hellmich: Mac.

Andrew Hellmich: Has, has there been anything in your business that's kept you awake at night as you've been building it?

Jenika McDavitt: You mean, looks like anxiety?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. Have you had any struggles along the way, or has it all been plain sailing?

Jenika McDavitt: Absolutely, and I don't even think I could name one thing, all sorts of things. That's the hallmark of an entrepreneur is that they're constantly thinking about it and worry, "Oh, am I making this", you know. Okay, I'll give you one thing, anytime I sell a class or a course or something like that, especially I'm always, I always have this like, "Are people gonna want to hear what I have to say?", "What if nobody buys it?" and then, you know, they always do. Because if you're putting out valuable things, you know, somebody out there needs it. So, but, yeah, I go through that every single time.

Andrew Hellmich: That's nice, that's nice to hear, because I think we all go through those sleepless nights when we go to try something new. It's scary.

Jenika McDavitt: You know, as Steven Pressfield said, if I can remember that well, you know, "The counterfeit innovator is wildly confident, the real one is scared to death." So I think about that a lot.

Andrew Hellmich: You sound so well read. You read a lot of nonfiction, I saw.

Jenika McDavitt: Yeah, I'm, I'm, I have an issue with novels. And this goes back to that concrete thing we talked about earlier, when I go to a bookstore and I pick up a novel. It's like, "This is a coming of age tale that talks about, you know, that speaks to the human condition." I'm like, that "Is this Twilight? Is it War and Peace?" Like, I have no idea what kind of a book this is going to be from that description. But then you go to the nonfiction shelf and it's like, this is a book about, you know, the history of spaghetti or whatever. It's like, very clear what you're going to get out of it. And so I always find myself buying nonfiction books because, I guess fiction don't know how to market.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. Let me ask you if you, if you had to move to Australia tomorrow and you had to start your business again from scratch.

Jenika McDavitt: Okay.

Andrew Hellmich: What would you do first, what would you do first to get business rolling?

Jenika McDavitt: I would contact, I would, I would get out the yellow pages or whatever. Look at a local website. I would find as many local businesses as possible, and I would just make friends with the owners.

Andrew Hellmich: Easy.

Jenika McDavitt: And I would just, I would just make friends with them, like without an agenda. I would just get to know them, make friends with them, see, what I could do to help them, and from there would come what I need for my business. I mean, if you just make friends with people, success follows, in my experience.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow, awesome. So would you, would you just walk in and say, "Hi, I'm Jenika. I'm new here."

Jenika McDavitt: Yeah, well, I would probably have something to offer them. And I did this when I moved to Kansas City. I would go in, I just went into businesses and said, "Hey, my name is Jenika. I just moved to the Kansas City area, and I'm a photographer. And I was just wondering if you'd let me ask you a few questions about your business, and I'd love to take some pictures and feature you on my blog." And I got to know, you know, 10 women, I think that way, and I featured them on my blog. I gave them some images that they still use to promote their businesses, and I got, you know, thousands of dollars’ worth of marketing out of it. You know, some of them live were in really high-end retail space, and were like, "Oh, I'll put your gallery wraps up on my walls." And they gave me all kinds of free stuff. I mean, they just, and because I wasn't walking in, like, I want to market with you, I was just making friends, like, "Hey, I'd like to do this for you", they reciprocated really beautifully. And it was, it was cool.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow, I'm so glad I asked you that question. That's awesome. What's, what software do you use for your batching, editing, renaming and renumbering?

Jenika McDavitt: I use Lightroom for almost everything. You know, I'm not, I don't even know if it's optimal, but it's just what works for me. I just use Lightroom for pretty much everything.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. You're not the only one, that's for sure. Do you, do you watch what other photographers are doing?

Jenika McDavitt: I used to a lot, but that's tapered off the busier I've gotten. You know, I just, I have less time now, but I still, I still love looking at other people's work, and it's inspiring, and inspires me to go out and create my own stuff. But it's good for me, because it any, anything you do, you know, increases your vocabulary when you know whether you're reading or you're looking at how people are taking images. I read the Strobe Misprompt blog a lot, but yeah, not as often as that like anymore.

Andrew Hellmich: Last question. Now, just before we hit record, you told me that you're married. How did you choose your wedding photographer?

Jenika McDavitt: My wedding photographer, I flew her in from another state because I wanted her so badly. I knew her, her husband attended Yale with me, and I had..

Andrew Hellmich: See now you're showing off.

Jenika McDavitt: Sorry. Well, it's kind of a great story. So we met in Connecticut, and she, like was, she was just starting her business at the time, and I had actually had the opportunity to be photographed by her when she was starting. And I just really connected with her as a person, and I had seen how she grew and her work. Her name is Elizabeth France, and she's amazing. And she just, I saw she had a lot of integrity and was really consistent so, and I was like, "Oh, but it's gonna be, you know, so depressing, because, you know, she's, she moved it to Utah, and I didn't live there." And I was like, "Oh, no, way is this gonna work out." But so I got married in Idaho, and I flew her in to do it. So anyway, that's my reason I brought geography into because I thought it was unlikely that I was really committed, because I really like.. so, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: That's awesome. That's great. You just loved her style and the way she shot.

Jenika McDavitt: Yeah, yeah. I loved her style. And just, I knew that she would deliver. You know, she's a consistent person. She always follows through and so, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. Look Jenika, time has absolutely flown. I've just been enthralled by what you've had to say. How can people find out more about you and where to find you?

Jenika McDavitt: Absolutely. They can visit psychologyforphotographers.com and I mentioned that free eBook earlier, please download it. It's a hopefully going to be a useful resource for you how clients make decisions about money, and you get that by subscribing to my email list. And you'll get, you know, occasional updates. I'm not a spammer. I won't send you that much, I promise. And you can also find my photography work at jenikaslens.com.

Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. I'll add links to both of those and also to your new course as well, the writing course, which sounds fantastic.

Jenika McDavitt: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Andrew Hellmich: It's been a real pleasure Jenika. I hope you have an awesome evening over there in Baltimore, and hopefully chat to you soon.

Jenika McDavitt: All right, take care. Thanks so much.