Photography Breakthrough System

Challenging days in photography Today is a very exciting day in a big, big way. I wanna move my screen out the way so I can now present full screen to everyone. Today is a challenge in many ways for photographers, and today we're talking about the challenge. But before we dive into this today, I want to make a statement about where we are as an industry. It's challenging, and I believe it will get more challenging. So this is why this three-day challenge is so important for us, and why I've called it a challenge versus a workshop. We are in a challenging environment right now, so going forward it's not going to be easy. However, if you are prepared for the shift that's coming, you can not only make it, you can thrive. So that's why we're doing this challenge. Welcome to day one of the Client Conversion Challenge. My name is Matthew Jordan Smith. I've been a photographer for a very long time in this industry, and have seen it go through all kinds of changes, from, from when we were all shooting nothing but film, to the transition. The first big shift in my career was from film to digital, and now we are about to see an even bigger shift. Uh, forgive me also 'cause I'm, I'm fighting a cold, but I do have my tea here. We are about to go through maybe the biggest shift of any of our, our lives in terms of photography. I think photography over the past 200 years, it's only 200 years old, almost 200 years old, so it's still a baby, but I believe photography is about to go through the biggest challenge, shift, shakeup it has e- Ever seen. Way more than going from film to digital. And this, this three day challenge is going to prepare you for the shift. I'm talking about AI. We all know that's, it's not just coming, it's here, and it's making major shifts in our career, and it will, uh, going forward, especially commercially. I've been known for shooting celebrities and covers and advertising, and I believe that world is definitely going to shake in a big, big way. But every part of photography, um, has the potential to shake. So I want to prepare us so we can thrive no matter what. So I say all this from having all this experience of working as a photographer for decades. Also, with decades of also sharing the joy of photography, teaching all over the world, sharing what I believe is the best art form in the world, photography, and I wanna do it for the rest of my life, and I wanna help others thrive. And I have students all over the world who I've helped have success, so everything you're about to hear today is gonna help you have success. It doesn't matter where you are, doesn't matter what you're shooting. If you're working with people in any way, I think this is gonna help you going forward for the rest of your journey to make you successful so you can thrive, not just once, but long term as this industry, as photography changes massively. So I know maybe a lot of us might be feeling lost in the crowd these days. I get it. It's a very crowded field of photography. I think that AI is gonna shake that up as well. But no matter where you are, these three days of this challenge are gonna prepare you to thrive no matter what happens. Because the one thing that can't be replaced is human connection. I want you all to hear that very clearly. The one thing that we all, we all crave is human connection. Remember the pandemic? What do we all crave when it's taken away? Connection with other people. Remember that. No matter what AI does to this industry, people will always crave that human connection. So I get it. You know, it's a crowded field, but over the next three days, these next three days of this workshop, they happen today then Thursday and then the following Tuesday. That gives you time to take everything in, do the homework. There is homework to do. You all have a link in your email to the workbook. You will need that each and every day. If you have not downloaded the workbook yet, after today's session, download the workbook and then do the work that we're going to talk about today so you're ready for day two. This is going to be important. The homework is not for me. It's for you so you can grow. I'm going to share a lot of information. All of it is here to help you not only grow, but thrive no matter what's coming our way through all the struggles that are definitely coming through AI and so much more. We are in the midst of a shakeup, but don't worry, I've got your back and I've been through struggles before in this industry and all you have to do is persevere and do these things that really promote connection. Let's get going. Today, you will discover why talent alone has not turned into more income in your photography. I see a lot of talented photographers and today, this is the shakeup part, talent can be, can be hidden. You can fool people without having any talent simply because of AI. So it will be harder to just make it on talent alone because clients can't tell, is this person really talented or is this something else? Is this AI? They're thinking that. So maybe you're wondering why your hard work hasn't created consistency in terms of clients all the time. We'll go through all that today. You're going to find out the real reason why clients hesitate and sometimes they disappear. And why, more importantly, why none of this is a personal failure. We all work, many of us, we work alone, so we internalize everything that happens and many of us take it personally. You don't have to. It's not your fault. There is a shift that's happening and part of that shift is causing all of this anxiety in our industry. But guess what? There's another way. Something's missing, and I'm gonna help you find that piece and turn things around. All right. Everything I share is to identify your specific photography struggles. We're not talking about the rest of the stuff that's been going on in the world. Today is all about photography, and it's meant to point out what you may be overlooking. You know, when we are stuck in our own head, we tend to imagine all kinds of problems, and thinking that it's, oh, our website or our pictures or we're not posting enough. It's none of that. So don't worry about that stuff. But there is something you may be overlooking, and I want to address that. At the end of these three days, I'll give you an opportunity to go further if you'd like. Now, of course, you're gonna get a lot in these next three days of this workshop. However, for those who want to go further, I'll give you the opportunity to go further with me one-on-one and deeper as you want to go further. But let's dive deeper into this. You'll also have an opportunity, too, to work with me personally if you want those faster results. You know, that's, uh, what I do a lot. I help people really learn how to thrive in this industry, and that's why I'm doing this workshop. Um, I'm calling it a challenge, but it's also, like, really a workshop. The challenge is getting over the photography challenges we have today. So welcome to this client conversion challenge. These three days are designed to help you clarify, um, where you are, clarify where you want to go, and give you direction on how to get there. This is your step forward as our industry changes. You know, there's a lot of struggles in photography. We've all seen them. If you've been doing it for a long time, you've been through several changes in our industry, through struggles, and some people fall out. I don't want you to be one of the ones that falls out. So this challenge is to help you move forward. Let me first talk about who this is not for, because I only work with people, so I don't have any experience in terms of making income when it comes to landscape photography, nature photography, birds, cars. I've got friends who do all of that, but I've never made one penny doing that. Now, yes, I do love doing all types of photography, um, going on safari, you know, shooting, uh, stuff, whatever. But in terms of making a living, it comes from working with people. So this workshop, this challenge, is for photographers who are making a living working with people. Maybe you're not making a living yet. Maybe it's your hobby. Wherever you are, if you work with people in any way, you do portraits, you do weddings, you do, um, boudoir, whatever that is, if you work with human beings, I'm here for you, 'cause I know what you are struggling with, and I'm gonna help you thrive long term. More of my, my tea with my lemon and honey in it today. So this isn't about learning to do more. This, this struggle, you're already doing a lot. I know that. I see that. I see so many photographers online. I hear what you're saying. I see what you're saying. You're doing enough right now, but this, this challenge is about prioritizing what to do consistently. That's what's gonna make the difference. When you know what's missing, you can finally stop spinning your wheels doing all this other stuff that we do that may be wasting time. Today is about understanding, understanding why photography has felt so hard, even though you're a very talented photographer producing great work, doing everything that we've been taught to do. Let's go further. Before we start, I want you to n- I want to name something that a lot of people are carrying around with them, and I don't want you to carry it around or feel ashamed about it, but I hear it all the time. I see it all the time, and that's feeling embarrassed about what you charge or discounting and trying to hide that you're discounting. You don't need to be embarrassed or feel ashamed or, or, or any of those feelings because it's a struggle today, and I see photographers struggling just to maintain, and part of that makes you feel like you're behind other photographers. You are not. You're not behind. It's just part of the struggle today, and everybody, a lot of people are going through it. And quietly maybe you're asking yourself, should you give up on photography? We are seeing that. We're hearing the whispers. Um, I have friends who are constantly saying, "Oh, how is business?" And I know where that comes from. I get it. That doesn't have to be you. So this isn't about more, more hustle. It's not even about motivation. It's not about even you having more confidence. It's about structure. Above everything, motivation, hustle, confidence, structure is going to change your business where you can thrive long term, not just for a week. You can hustle for a while, but then you're gonna burn out. Structure makes your life so much easier. So step one, I want you to use your workbook. For those who have not downloaded your workbook, in each of your emails, there's a link for you to download the workbook and to join the Facebook page. The Facebook page is a pop-up Facebook page that's just for this challenge. It goes into sleep mode after the challenge, but right now it's live as we do this challenge. So step one, if you don't have the workbook, just do this on a piece of paper or do it right after this workshop. Um, I want you to count your clients in the past year. So the past 12 months from today, how many clients have you had? This number is important for us to know. We can guess or we can, like, think, "Oh yeah, I think I had, I had a lot of clients." But that's just a guess. If you don't know the exact number, you're guessing. I don't want us to guess anymore. You need to know this to move forward, especially as our, as our world changes. So why am I asking you to count your clients over the last 12 months? It's not to make you feel any way, good or bad. It's just information. You'll need this information going forward. Okay. Now let's go into questions about this. I'm asking you about your past 12 months so you can hold up a, up a mirror to look at your business to see where you are. Unless you know where you are- You won't know when growth happens, and this workshop, this challenge, is about you growing, getting more clients. How will you know if you've had more clients if you don't know how many clients you've had in the past? That's why I want you to write down... And it's not for me. I'm never gonna ask you to show that number. I want you to write this down for yourself. The workbook is for you to look back on month after month and see whether or not you are growing from where you were. This, this challenge is about growth in your business. Now, out of those clients that you had those past 12 months, how many of them have you worked with more than once? Repeat clients. So that number, I want you to write that number down also. It's important to know how many repeat clients you've had out of all your clients. Now, why is that important? It is extremely difficult to find a new client every single week, every single month. That's a hard, hard road to... A hard, a hard mountain to climb. However, when you have repeat business, then you have a machine working in your business. Now, I want you to think about this. How many clients were referred to you by other clients? These are three really important questions for you to ask yourself. Don't skip this. Don't skip this, or you may find yourself really struggling as our industry changes. We are in the midst of change, so this information, please do not say, "Oh, I'll do this later on." Do it. Don't put it off. You put it off at your own peril. This, this is important information to help you grow. So write the numbers down and take a good long look at them. These numbers, it's not, it's not a math exercise. It's about truth, for you to understand your numbers. AI is lying to us, deceiving people, but numbers, numbers don't lie. Numbers tell you everything about where you are, and they're gonna tell you when you are growing. And when you see yourself beginning to grow one more client than you had last year, one more client that becomes a repeat client, that turns into that client referring you to other clients, that turns into 10 extra clients, and then you see that number and what that one small difference makes, it's a wake-up call. So this, this is a truth exercise, so please don't skip any of this. All of this throughout this entire challenge, each and every day is extremely important. So please show up. Please do the work. This is for you, and it will add to your bottom line. All right, let's keep going. Your numbers are not a verdict of your worth. We've just said that a little bit as well. It's just numbers for you to see where you are. It's a snapshot of where you are. This challenge about... It's about where you want to go, how you're gonna grow. That's what this is all about. Now, the referral part is a big part of our industry, and you being successful long-term, and you having a predictable income. Referral rate. If your referral rate is less than 40%, you do not have a referral engine in place. You've got to have that. Maybe you, you've worked a lot, and then you have a month where there's nothing. That's called feast or famine. I've got a lot of friends who've been through it. I've been through it before. You have to have a referral engine, a way for clients to refer you, and you have to ask. You have to put it in place in your business. Without that, you are wishing and hoping every month for work. You're doing all these things that we're taught to do besides the things that really make a difference. Without a referral engine in place, your business becomes unstable. And the shift that we're going through now, it will become more unstable, so this is extremely important for us to grow. Step two, write how much. We went through numbers earlier talking about how many clients. Now step two, I want you... And this is just for you. It's not for me. Don't show this to anybody else. It's just for you to see. This is a truth exercise, part two. How many of you know how much you made as a photographer in the last 12 months? Look at that number. I know we've all done taxes and all those things. Hopefully by now you should know how much you made as a photographer. Even if it's a hobby you're doing on the side, you have a full-time job and you shoot on weekends or, or whenever you have a break, uh, for extra income, add up that extra income just by itself, not your other work, just your photography income. You should know that amount of work that you've done over the last year. This number is also important. You can't just guesstimate, "Oh, I think I made..." That's not good enough. You need to be exact. To see when you are growing, you have to have an exact number. If you don't know the number now, go back and find out so you're ready for day two of the workshop. So when we're talking about numbers, I want you to do me a favor and notice what comes up in your body. Are you holding any tension in your shoulders, in your neck? I want you right now to all just do me a favor, take a deep breath and release it. Let all that go. There's no shame about any of this. There's... Let the tightness go, let the frustration go. Whatever you're feeling, let all that go. This is just information, and once you have the information, then you can really grow. This is not making you feel bad about anything that's happening, or maybe you're doing very, very good, and you feel great about what your, what your numbers are saying about you. Still, there's room for growth, and this is about growth, moving you forward. Most photographers, you know, they don't fail because they aren't working hard. I see... As a matter of fact, almost every photographer I know personally is working very hard. I see it. I hear it. I see your posts. I see what everybody's doing. People fail because they never learn, they've never learned how to build something that supports them. That's the difference. What we're taught is about using the gear. That doesn't really support you. Buying gear does not support us. We all want all the shiny things. I do, too. Trust me, I want the best cameras, lenses, lights. We all want that stuff, but I'm talking about the business, how you support yourself so you can buy all the new great- latest, greatest. So we have to have business coming in to do that. So let's go into step three. Whatever number you wrote down, be it the number for the clients that you shot, be it the number for the income, I want you to double both those numbers. Take a good look at that number now. This is why it's important to have the workbook, so you can write these numbers down. If you don't have the workbook, if you did not download it, do it after this, we finish today, and do this work. And look at it, look at the numbers and start thinking about what does it take to get there? I know it might feel impossible when we talk about doubling numbers, doubling the number of clients, doubling the number of income, but it's not. This is just powerful information that we all must have. We can't put our heads in the sand and ignore this. It might feel impossible. I get that. But this is not about ability. This is about the lack of something that's important that's probably missing in your business, and this workshop, this challenge is here to help you get this. Let me share a story with you so you know that I'm not just, you know, uh, talking off the top of my head. For those who don't know, um, I live in Japan now, but I used to live in the States. And in the States I made a living, uh, photographing a lot of celebrities, um, some of the biggest celebrities, like Oprah I've shot since the mid-'90s, um, and shot throughout, um, into the 2000s. Um, but now I live in Japan. So I moved where nobody knew my name, knew my work, and didn't care about the celebrities in America that I shot 'cause I was in a new country. So in a big way, it was like starting from scratch for me. It was like beginning my, my career all over again. I had no work. I had no clients. I was on empty. I did not speak the language. I was struggling and I was depressed, wondering if I made a mistake by moving to this other country, thinking that my career in the States would move me forward. It did not. I tried posting more. I lowered my prices. I'm not ashamed to say it. I lowered my prices. I tried other types of photography. Nothing was working. Nothing. I was depressed, ended up getting on my knees and praying to God, asking for guidance, asking for help, asking... Have I made a mistake? Should I, should I move back to the States? Can I make it here? And the funny thing that happened when I humbled myself and asked for help, everything changed. It was there at my darkest hour when I was about to quit photography altogether, that the Creator reminded me how I began my career. It wasn't about the gear. It wasn't about all that stuff that we think about. There was no posting back then. It wasn't all these things that you think help get us work. In the beginning of my career, I had a way to convert a stranger into a client. I call that a client conversion system. And at the beginning of my career, I had one client. That's it. For a long time at the start of my career, there was one client, and that client hired me over and over and over again, and people saw that. And then other clients saw it, and they started hiring me over and over and over again. A client conversion system. Now, moving to another country, guess what? That makes no difference. You still need a way to convert a client, and it begins by having one client first and having that client refer you to other clients, and then it snowballs. So the system didn't change. My environment changed. All I had to do was go back to the system. This system is gonna work through no matter what happens in our industry. Going from film to digital, that shakeup. Now AI, that huge shakeup. A system is gonna make it where you can thrive no matter what. These three days of this, of this challenge are gonna show you that and teach you that. When I realized that success wasn't tied to location, it was tied to structure, my whole world changed. So no matter where you are in the world, doesn't matter, big city, small city, small town, big town, none of that matters. It's about structure. You see, the problem isn't effort. The problem is that no one has taught you how to engineer demand. That's what a s- system does for you. More of my tea here. Being a struggling artist, we've all heard that. Oh, yes, I'm a struggling artist. That's not anything to be proud of. It's a red flag in your business. If you are a struggling artist, it sounds cool, right? It's not. It's, it's not a rite of passage. It's a red flag in your business that something is missing. This is where many photographers realize something uncomfortable as well, and it's not your fault, because I think the industry has taught us this. It's taught us to sell our pictures. That's never been the real way to be successful. We're taught if we make beautiful pictures, if we have great sharp images, if everything's perfect, that we'll sell more work. We'll get more clients, and it's not true. And going into this world of AI that we are in, it's especially not true, 'cause every image will be beautiful and perfect. Clients are not buying perfect pictures. We've been taught they were, but it's not true. They buy how they felt working with you. I want you to really understand that and hear that clearly, because this is gonna be a wake-up call for a lot of people. We're posting more pictures thinking that, oh, we need better pictures, better website, better Instagram, better whatever. That's not what's gonna keep you working. I said it in the very beginning, it's that human connection. How they felt working with you is far more important. Selling photos leads to inconsistent income. It leads to random unreliable bookings, no way to confidently raise your prices, 'cause you're competing against everybody else who's doing the same thing. It's constant guessing, second-guessing. We've been through that before, many of us. I have been through that before, so I'm sure you have, too, and emotional burnout. That's what selling pictures does. But the thing that turns your business around is having a client conversion system, a way for them to come back over and over again, a way to have a referral engine in your business so that clients see your work, they experience you. I'm not talking about the pictures. They experience what it feels like to work with you, and that's why they refer you to others. They talk about what it felt like for them to work with you. The pictures are secondary. Stop selling pictures. The truth, creative talent as a photographer does not equal success in photography. Maybe once upon a time it did, back when there were less photographers, back when it was only film and it was a harder hurdle to become a photographer. That was the past. It does not exist anymore. Creative talent, that can be done at the click of a button now. We all thought that we have to be talented to be successful, and now we're learning that anybody can show talented work by the press of a button. That's machine. What about that human connection? The truth, working hard in photography does not equal success in photography. So many photographers are working hard. Inconsistent income is not a normal thing for any business. Not in photography, not in any business. It's the result of a broken or a missing, missing client conversion system. Every business needs this engine to be a business. Every single one, including ours as photographers. We have to have a way to bring clients in. If we don't, that's feast or famine. Working a lot for two months and then nothing for three months. That's ghosted inquiries. People see your work, they inquire about you, they get your prices, and they disappear, which leads to you undercharging and leads to burnout. That's all the signs that you do not have a system in place. Struggling, limited work, maybe that's where you are today. There's another way that can change all of that. That's consistent work, booked all the time, consistent income, and joy in photography. This is where I want each and every one of you to be, on this side of the equation. Now, if you don't fix that problem, AI is going to make it much worse. And we don't know what's coming down the pipeline, but I can tell you this: no problem stays the same. It usually grows and gets better. So you either fix the problem or the problem gets worse. So how do you do that? Consistently booked, clients all the time, consistent income. You've got to have a proven system where you have a way to convert that stranger into a client, and that client into a consistent client who refers you to others. That's that referral engine I talked about earlier. Now, the reason clients aren't booking you, this is what photographers think, "Oh, I don't have enough followers." A lot of us have, you know, given in to that follower thing. It's not what we think it is. Maybe you're not posting enough, or it's your location, or it's your age, too old, too young, too whatever. Cheaper competition next door, oversaturated market. These are the things that occupy our mind and keep us from moving forward when the truth is there's no client journey. I want you to think about this. What is your client's journey to becoming a client? Maybe you don't have a lead conversion system in place. Maybe you're not doing things consistency, consistently. Maybe there's no emotional connection yet. All this happens when you have structure in place. Without a client conversion system, clients fall through the cracks. That can change. That doesn't have to be. So you've tried to raise your rates maybe, and maybe that's not working yet. Many try to raise their prices without fixing the experience of working with you. A system can fix all that. Without a system that builds trust, they're not going to hire you. People don't hire you if they don't trust that you can deliver. They don't trust that your images are real. If they don't trust that the images that they've seen are gonna look like the images that they get. A system in your business fixes all of that. A client conversion system builds consistency and confidence in you and in your clients. You see, without this, it's like jumping off a cliff without a rope. A client conversion system is your safety net. It keeps you working. It gives you peace of mind. It lets you thrive. At my lowest point in my career, I was thinking I wasn't good enough. I was thinking like, "Oh, maybe I'm too old for this again. Maybe the world has changed, and it doesn't work in this new country the way it did in, in America." It's not true. It's not true. You can thrive no matter where you are, no matter your age. Young, old, doesn't matter. Male, female, it doesn't matter. Race, it doesn't matter. You can thrive by having a system. What changed everything was surrendering what I thought I knew, and this is a big one, because we are by ourselves in our own head and wondering what the problem is, thinking that we know what the problem is, but we're overlooking something that is so simple to see, but we're not holding that mirror up to see it. That's why I had you write those numbers down, and if you did not do that, please do that at the end today. That is important to know those numbers. And then once you have that, you can work on the client conversion system as we go into day two and day three, which is extremely important. So you now know a client conversion system is important. And if you didn't bring in, uh, a way for clients to come back, that referral system, that's not having a system in place. A client conversion system that didn't rely on posting every day or, or hoping for referrals, a client conversion system that made it normal for people to find you versus you going out all the time and searching for new clients. Wouldn't that feel good for clients to find you organically versus you hustling to find clients all the time? But first, you've gotta put that client conversion system in place. The client conversion system will attract clients, convert clients, and deliver repeat clients to you, but you've got to have the system. The system, what is it? It's a framework that helps you do three critical things in your business as a photographer. Attract the right clients. Everybody is not your client. It's gonna help you attract your ideal client. Convert that interest into bookings with clarity and confidence for your clients and for you. And deliver an experience that's extremely valuable, more valuable than the pictures. Remember we talked about that? Clients are not buying photographs. They may think they are, but they're really buying the experience of working with you. People pay more for how great they feel than just for a picture. This framework can change everything. Without it, you may not be in business long as our world changes. So client conversion framework, step one is emotional attraction. I didn't say the pictures. I didn't say posting more. Emotional attraction. Stage two is trust conversion. If there is any doubt, they disappear. They ghost you. Trust conversion is stage two. Stage three, amplify the experience so you are unforgettable. This is what they talk about. This is part of the referral engine. Stage four, that referral momentum. Once you have it going, you put gas on the fire to amplify it. These things change everything, and you have to have them in your business. It protects you. The client conversion system is your protection for your business. It gives your art a container that it needs to thrive in the real world as the world changes. It's never going to stay still. But with this system in place, you can thrive long term. When I put a cl- a client conversion system in place in my business, everything changed. I could raise my rates. I could book more confidently. I could stop living in anxiety and move forward, and that feels great. You don't need more hustle. You don't need a bigger following. We've all been taught that we need that. It's not true, not for clients. Maybe if you want to have, like, you know, a, a sponsor, maybe that might be important, but in terms of your business of photography, you need a client conversion system in place, and that's what changes everything. Let's go over what you learned today. Today you didn't just learn, you saw your truth. Your numbers are your truth. You looked honestly at your past 12 months. You discovered that inconsistent income is not a talent problem. Talent, we're gonna see more and more, we're already seeing it, everybody looks talented out there now. Everybody looks talented. What else do you have? You need that client conversion system. You saw that referrals don't happen by accident. They must be engineered. You realize why working harder hasn't created consistency in your business. Feast and famine, anxiety, clients ghosting. That's by not having a system in place. You identified the real reason clients hesitate, disappear, or ghost, and you learn not to take it personally, and you understood that this isn't a personal failure. None of this is a personal failure. You've got to understand that it's not your fault. This is our world business environment changing, and we have to change with it to survive. Today, you discovered the real problem, and it's not you. It isn't your talent. It isn't your effort. It's the absence of a client conversion system. This is the game changer. Now, your challenge for today. Number one, if you did not fill out your numbers, I want you to immediately after we're done, we're almost done today, as, as soon as we finish, before you do anything else, and this is for you, write your numbers down. Please take this time f- you're gonna thank me for this, not just next week or next month, but for the rest of your journey as photography. These numbers are your line in the sand to see where you are so you can see your growth. So before next session, make sure you have those numbers written down. How many clients that you booked in the last 12 months, please do this. Those numbers, they all, they're all important. How much you made in the last 12 months. I want to know that, and I want you to think about your dream version. That dream version is you doubling those numbers. It's not a dream. This can be real. It may seem like a dream when you write it down. But this is not. This is your challenge in these three days, to do the work all three days. To grow, it takes work. Not just sitting and listening to me, but doing the actual work. That's what brings change. In the next session, we'll open up the system that gets you there. I want to thank you for being here. For those who are seeing this as the recording, if you didn't make it to the live one, I'm gonna put this up for everybody to see who, who's registered. So if you registered, you get the recording of this, so you won't miss a thing. But when you're here live, you feel it differently, right? Make sure you come to part two and part three, because this is important. Day by day, you're gonna see, "Okay, I can thrive long term." That's what this is all about. So what's next? In your next session, I'll walk you through the three pillars of the client conversion framework we talked about. But on day three, I'll show you how to fully install it. Join me on Thursday for day two. I'm so glad you guys were here today. Today's challenge, also join me on the Facebook page. You can ask any questions there. You can go in and put your pictures there. There's a link in your email for the, for the workbook and for the pop-up Facebook group. This Facebook group is only live when I do these, these challenges. So it'll go into sleep mode until the next time I do it. But right now, it's live. Join there, put your pictures up, ask questions. I'll jump in there, answer questions. Make sure you have access to everything before day two. So I want to thank you all for being here. My name is Matthew Jordan Smith. Um, if you're coming in late and you're just seeing it, my name is Matthew Jordan Smith. I've been doing photography for over three decades. I love it. I've seen a lot of change, and I'm doing this challenge for you so you can thrive long term. Thank you all for being here. I look forward to seeing you on day two. Until then, I'll keep nursing my, my voice, and hopefully this, this cold will be gone before Thursday, and we can all thrive together. Until Thursday, have a great rest of your week. Do the work. Make sure, your challenge is to make sure you do the work. Write your numbers down. Write your future numbers down we talked about. Look at them, let go of all anxiety, all stress, take that deep breath, and let's move forward. I'll see you all on Thursday. Take care, everyone. Bye, guys.

Why Your Photography Prices Feel Too High (And How to Finally Fix Your Pricing Confidence) Speaker: Treating your pricing like a math problem is. Well, it's a lot like trying to measure the value of an unforgettable Michelin star meal. Right. By simply adding up the cost of the raw ingredients.Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Like sitting in the back room of the kitchen with a calculator.Speaker: Exactly, yeah. You sit down, you have this incredibly transformative, culinary experience, right?Speaker 2: Yeah.Speaker: And then you try to justify the final bill by saying. The chicken was maybe $4. The carrots were 50 cents. And I mean, there was maybe a dime's worth of salt.Speaker 2: Right. Which completely misses the magic of the whole thing.Speaker: It totally misses the magic. 'cause you aren't paying for raw carrots. You're paying for the atmosphere, the chef's, you know, 20 years of absolute mastery and, and just the way you feel when you walk out of that restaurant.Speaker 2: Yeah. That lingering feeling.Speaker: But yet when it comes to pricing our own creative work, we are constantly just sitting in the back room. Basically counting the carrots.Speaker 2: That is such a perfect way to frame it, because that reduction to, uh, like a sterile mathematical equation, it strips away the entire context of the service,Speaker: right?Speaker 2: We tell ourselves that, okay, X hours of labor plus y dollars of equipment depreciation equals our rate, and it's just a fundamentally flawed way. To calculate valueSpeaker: because it ignores the human elementSpeaker 2: exactly. It completely ignores the psychological weight of what is actually being delivered to the client.Speaker: Which brings us to the core of today's deep dive. We are looking at a really insightful audio essay by the renowned photographer, Matthew Jordan Smith.Speaker 2: Such a brilliant guy,Speaker: incredible work, and the mission today is to explore the deep psychology of pricing creative work. Specifically how to move from that rigid market-based math equation to a model that is firmly rooted in emotional value and client impact,Speaker 2: right?Speaker: But honestly, to you listening right now, I want you to consider your own physical reaction to pricing.Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good point.Speaker: Think about whether you've ever hesitated or maybe felt your chest tighten up or noticed your voice. Go just a little bit soft right before you tell someone.Speaker 2: You're right. Everyone does itSpeaker: right? Whether you are a photographer, a freelance designer, maybe a consultant, or, or just navigating a salary negotiation. Yeah. That visceral hesitation is exactly what we are dismantling today.Speaker 2: Yeah. And that hesitation is just incredibly common. And Smith points out something pretty confronting right out of the gate about why it actually happened.Speaker: Okay, cool. Is it,Speaker 2: he argues that it is not an economy problem. It's not a market saturation problem either.Speaker: Right.Speaker 2: It is entirely a self-trust problem. I mean, independent creatives often put together a quote, send it off, and immediately brace for rejection.Speaker: Oh, the ghosting situation.Speaker 2: Yes. They live in constant anticipation of that deafening silence after the rate is sent.Speaker: It is visceral, isn't it? You send the email, you stare at your inbox, and your brain immediately starts writing this narrative that like you've deeply offended them with your audacity.Speaker 2: Oh, totally. You're like, who do I think I am?Speaker: Exactly. And to avoid that awful feeling, creatives often start looking sideways.Speaker 2: Looking sideways. Yeah.Speaker: Right. They look at what their competitors are charging just to find a number that feels quote unquote safe.Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.Speaker: But wait, I have to push back a little bit on this.Speaker 2: Okay. Let's hear.Speaker: It isn't looking sideways, just, I mean, isn't that just basic market research?Speaker 2: Yeah.Speaker: How do you draw the line between being aware of the market and being totally controlled by the fear of it?Speaker 2: That's a really fair question, but think about your own analogy. Okay. Building your business by looking sideways is essentially like trying to wear someone else's prescription glasses.Speaker: Oh wow. Yeah.Speaker 2: You know, you are trying to look through a lens that is calibrated for their vision, their insecurities, their specific business model.Speaker 2: It's not gonna give you a clear vision of your own worth.Speaker: It just gives you a massive headache.Speaker 2: Exactly. It distorts the whole landscape.Speaker: Yeah.Speaker 2: And the psychological ripple effect of that distorted vision is profound. When you choose a quote unquote safe competitor-based price, your intention is rooted almost entirely in the fear of not being chosen.Speaker 2: Yeah. You are preemptively shrinking yourself to fit into a space where no one can object to you,Speaker: because if you're cheap, they can't say no.Speaker 2: Right. But Smith highlights this fascinating cognitive reality. If you don't stand firmly in your pricing, the client won't stand firmly in booking you.Speaker: Wait, really? Explain that?Speaker 2: Yeah. It comes down to how the human brain assesses risk when a client senses hesitation. And that can be implicit through a price that feels defensively low; their risk-aversion heuristics just kick right in.Speaker: So they start wondering what the catch isSpeaker 2: exactly.Speaker: Like if the price is a defensive posture, it signals a complete lack of belief in the product.Speaker 2: Yes. And that lack of confidence transfers directly to the buyer. I mean, high-value clients are rarely out there looking for the absolute cheapest option.Speaker: Right. They are bargain hunting.Speaker 2: No, they are looking for the surest option. They want the psychological comfort of knowing that the professional they just hired is absolutely certain of their own capability.Speaker: That makes so much sense.Speaker 2: So by softening your tone and lowering your prices out of fear, you inadvertently train your clients to view you as a risk rather than a solution.Speaker: Man, that's heavy.Speaker 2: Yeah.Speaker: So the only way to step out of that fear-based race to the bottom is to recognize that, well, maybe we are totally misunderstanding the product itself.Speaker 2: They definitely are.Speaker: Right. Like if we are stuck comparing the cost of our pixels and paper to someone else's pixels and paper, we've just lost the plotSpeaker 2: completely.Speaker: And Smith introduces this massive paradigm shift here. He states really plainly. You are not selling photos,Speaker 2: which is wild for a photographer to say,Speaker: right? But if the product isn't photos, what is it?Speaker 2: Well, Smith argues that you are actually selling confidence, identity, and legacy.Speaker: Legacy.Speaker 2: Yeah. The client isn't lying awake at night thinking, you know what? I desperately need some high-resolution JPEGs on a hard drive.Speaker: No one has ever thought that in the history of the world,Speaker 2: right. The desire is emotional. They're thinking, I wanna finally feel comfortable in my own skin, or I wanna remember the specific fleeting version of my family.Speaker: It's like, okay. You know that old marketing adage,Speaker 2: the drill one?Speaker: Yeah. People don't buy a quarter inch drill, they buy a quarter inch hole.Speaker 2: Right, right.Speaker: But in this case, I feel like it goes even deeper than that. They aren't just buying the hole in the wall. They are buying the intense feeling of pride when they look at their family, perfectly framed, beautifully lit, hanging right there in their living room.Speaker 2: Yes,Speaker: they are buying a physical manifestation of their own legacy,Speaker 2: and that is exactly why the shift matters so much by moving the focus from technical specifications like, you know, shutter speed, lens choice, lighting setups,Speaker: the nerdy stuff,Speaker 2: right, the technical stuff. Moving from that to the emotional impact changes the entire cognitive framework of the pricing conversation. We are talking about price anchoring here.Speaker: Okay, unpack that for us.Speaker 2: So when a client anchors your service to a commodity, like a standard eight by 10 print, they naturally just seek the lowest price.Speaker: Sure. Paper.Speaker 2: Paper, right? But when you anchor your service to a psychological transformation, the value becomes subjective, and frankly, it becomes infinite.Speaker: Because you can't put a price tag on thatSpeaker 2: Exactly. You cannot put a standard market rate on making someone feel beautiful for the first time in a decade.Speaker: Wow. That is powerful. But you know, it's easy to assume that selling confidence is only necessary for everyday clientsSpeaker 2: like amateurs.Speaker: Yeah. People who aren't used to being photographed. We tend to think that seasoned professionals are somehow immune to that vulnerability. But Smith shares an anecdote that just completely shatters that assumption.Speaker 2: Oh, the Samuel L. Jackson story?Speaker: Yes. It proves that this emotional vulnerability goes all the way to the top.Speaker 2: It is the perfect piece of evidence for this. I mean, Jackson is a Hollywood legend,Speaker: the coolest guy on the planet,Speaker 2: right. His entire life, career and public persona are built on being in front of a camera.Speaker 2: He projects absolute confidence. Yeah. Yet Smith reveals that the very first words out of Jackson's mouth when he stepped onto the set were, and I quote, I hate taking pictures.Speaker: Wait, really? Samuel L. Jackson.Speaker 2: Samuel L. Jackson.Speaker: That is wild. A massive unflappable movie star admitting he hates the process of being photographed.Speaker 2: Yeah,Speaker: it really highlights how universal that vulnerability is.Speaker 2: It's everywhere.Speaker: Every single person who steps in front of a lens is silently asking, can I trust you to see me? Well,Speaker 2: yes,Speaker: but that brings up a really pivotal question. If the client, even a massive movie star is secretly terrified, how can the professional holding the camera afford to project their own fear about their pricing?Speaker 2: They can't. That's the thing. It creates a massive contradiction in the power dynamic of the room. In psychology, there is this concept called co-regulation. Co-regulation,Speaker: okay?Speaker 2: Basically, it's where one person's nervous system responds to and mirrors the state of another person's nervous system. The photographer's primary job is to take the client's fear completely off the table.Speaker: To be the anchor in the room,Speaker 2: to be the regulated, calm presence. And you cannot effectively remove a client's fear if you are simultaneously radiating financial anxiety.Speaker: Like if you're apologizing for your rates,Speaker 2: right? Or overexplaining a line item on an invoice. If you do that, you are introducing chaotic, dysregulated energy into the relationship before the shoot even begins.Speaker: Oh man. And the client definitely absorbs that anxiety.Speaker 2: They interpret it as a lack of professional safety.Speaker: They don't just think, oh, the photographer is just insecure about their pricing strategy.Speaker 2: No, they feel it viscerally and they think this person is unsure of themselves, which means I am not safe in their hands.Speaker: Wow.Speaker 2: Confidence in your pricing is really the very first indicator to a vulnerable client that you are capable of handling them with care and authority.Speaker: Okay. Projecting that quiet authority when you might be secretly terrified of losing the gig. I mean, that requires more than just faking it until you make it.Speaker 2: Yeah. Faking it doesn't work here.Speaker: Right? It requires a fundamental rewiring of how you conceptualize and describe what you actually do. And honestly, understanding this emotional vulnerability in theory is a great aha moment. But how do we practically communicate that to justify our rates?Speaker 2: Well, Smith provides a very specific practical messaging framework to solve exactly this.Speaker: Let's hear it.Speaker 2: It's a simple pen and paper exercise that forces clarity. You have to physically write down the sentence. My work helps people fill in the blank.Speaker: Okay. My work helps people blank,Speaker 2: right? And the way you fill in that blank dictates your entire business model. He contrasts a generic completion of the sentence with powerful, transformative ones.Speaker: Give me an example of a weak one.Speaker 2: A weak version is I take photos for families.Speaker: Yeah, that sounds like a cheap, commoditized errand. It carries the same emotional weight as, I don't know, I file taxes or I restock shelves.Speaker 2: Exactly. It describes the physical action, but leaves a complete vacuum where the meaning should be and nature of whores a vacuum.Speaker: It really does.Speaker 2: When your messaging is vague, your prices feel completely arbitrary to the client because there is no anchor to the value, and honestly, more dangerously vague messaging creates a cognitive vacuum for the creator themselves,Speaker: right? Compare that to Smith's stronger examples. He says things like, I help busy parents finally have photos where they feel present, connected, and proud, or.Speaker 2: I help women who feel uncomfortable see themselves as confident and beautiful.Speaker: It almost sounds too simple though, I have to ask, right? Can changing just a dozen words on your website actually overhaul your entire business model?Speaker 2: It really can because it isn't just a marketing trick. It's about clarity of meaning.Speaker 2: That linguistic shift rewires the freelancer's own self-trust. It creates a cognitive feedback loop,Speaker: so you start believing it yourself.Speaker 2: Exactly. When you articulate the emotional transformation you provide, your brain anchors your own worth to that profound outcome. You read your own copy and realize, wait, I'm doing something deeply important.Speaker: And when messaging is clear like that, your pricing makes logical sense to both you and the client.Speaker 2: Yes. The clarity of the message creates the internal justification for the price. When you believe you are delivering a life changing transformation, your entire posture changes on a sales call.Speaker: You stop apologizing.Speaker 2: You stop over explaining. You stop negotiating against yourself. You know that instinct to follow up a quote three hours later with an unprompted discount.Speaker: Oh, the panic discount,Speaker 2: right? That vanishes because you understand that discounting a transformation actually cheapens the emotional outcome for the client.Speaker: Wow. And to truly internalize this shift from math to meaning, from a mathematical commodity to emotional legacy, we can look at Smith's own body of work as the ultimate proof of this.Speaker 2: He really loves it.Speaker: He does the deep dive highlights, his published books. There's Lost and Found Future American President and Aretha Kool.Speaker 2: Which by the way, he mentions is available @ wrcool.com,Speaker: right? Wrcool.com. But the key takeaway from the source is that none of these books are really, quote unquote about photography.Speaker 2: No, not at all. They are explorations of identity, confidence, and how we see ourselves. They serve as these physical reminders of what happens when a creative fully owns their vision.Speaker: Viewing a creative portfolio, not as a resume of technical skills, but as a museum of human identity. I mean, that totally flips the script on what a creative is actually worth to society.Speaker 2: It really does. You become a documentarian of the human experience and the macroeconomic impact of this mindset shift goes way beyond just a single creator's bank account.Speaker: How so?Speaker 2: Well. By deciding that your work matters and speaking about it as if it does, you don't just elevate your own business. As creatives step into their confidence, the entire industry becomes stronger.Speaker: That makes sense.Speaker 2: And clients are ultimately served better because they get the privilege of working with professionals who create the emotional safety required for them to be seen the way they deserve.Speaker: That is beautifully said. We've covered a tremendous amount of ground today. We moved from the trap of competitor-based pricing through the realization that you are selling confidence rather than a commodity, all the way to communicating that transformation boldly.Speaker 2: It's quite a journey.Speaker: It really is. And to you listening, remember that stepping into your value.Speaker: It means you can stop attracting clients who hesitate and haggle and start attracting those who are absolutely ready for the impact you provide.Speaker 2: And you know, we can actually take this entire framework one step further.Speaker: OhSpeaker 2: yeah. Just as a final provocative thought to mull over, we've talked exclusively about how, my work helps people, exercise applies to professional pricing and business models.Speaker: Mm-hmm.Speaker 2: But what if you apply that exact same, fill in the blank exercise to your personal life.Speaker: Oh, interesting.Speaker 2: If you asked yourself right now, my presence helps my friends and family fill in the blank, what would you say? How am I recognizing your own emotional impact? The transformation you bring just by walking into a room completely changed the way you value yourself in your everyday relationships.

The $800 Decision You’re Avoiding (And What It’s Costing You) Speaker: Have you ever felt that, um, that incredibly specific, just crushing frustration of knowing you are genuinely talented at what you do.Speaker 2: Oh, it's the worst,Speaker: right? But your calendar and your bank account just completely failed to reflect it. I mean, having immense talent, but absolutely zero bookings is honestly like, uh, like engineering, a million dollar sports car, but you forget to install a steering wheel.Speaker 2: That is a great way to put it.Speaker: The neighbors might be, you know, highly impressed by the paint job while it just sits there in your driveway. But. You aren't actually going anywhere.Speaker 2: Yeah. It is a profoundly isolating place to be. And uh, today we are exploring this really fascinating set of notes from photographer Matthew Jordan Smith.Speaker: Yes. Titled, uh, the $800 Decision you're Avoiding and What it's Costing You.Speaker 2: Right. And our mission for this deep dive, it isn't just to talk about the photography industry.Speaker: No, not at all. It's for anyone listening. We wanna uncover the psychological roadblocks that are keeping any creative entrepreneur from turning their passion into a stable, profitable business.Speaker 2: Exactly. And you know, to reveal the exact mathematical and strategic shift that you need to fix it.Speaker: But to understand the solution, we really first have to look at the daily reality for a lot of creatives, because, I mean, the source material outlines this. Very specific, incredibly painful morning routine.Speaker 2: It really sets up why this strategic shift is just so desperately needed.Speaker: Yeah, so picture this, you wake up, reach to your phone and check your dms. Zero new inquiries,Speaker 2: this complete silence.Speaker: Total silence. Then you open Instagram and literally the very first thing on your feed is a competitor posting, you know, fully booked this month with that little prayer hands emoji.Speaker 2: The prayer hands emoji and rationally. I mean, you wanna celebrate their success, right? Rationally, but emotionally, it triggers this immediate internal spiral. It breeds what the notes actually call quiet fears.Speaker: Yeah. Those thoughts of, um. What if this never works outSpeaker 2: or that creeping suspicion of like, maybe I'm just not as good as I think I am,Speaker: and it leads to this moment of sheer desperation where you just think, maybe I should just shoot weddings.Speaker: The notes have this great, painfully accurate joke about this. People don't pivot because they suddenly discover some deep burning passion for weddings, right? Mm-hmm. They do it because they just want the revenue.Speaker 2: The quote is literally, I don't even like cake that much, but I like paid invoices.Speaker: Okay.Speaker: Let's unpack this. Is this comparison trap and you know, this imposter syndrome. Is that unique to creatives?Speaker 2: Well, no, not really,Speaker: because to me, eating the wedding cake represents any like soul sucking compromise we make out of pure financial panic rather than actual strategic growth.Speaker 2: Yeah.Speaker: Is this just a fundamental hurdle for anyone trying to monetize a passion?Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. Anytime someone tries to turn a core part of their identity, whether that's, you know, their art, their consulting, their coaching into a service, this dynamic appears.Speaker: It's so personal.Speaker 2: Exactly. The paralysis really comes down to this false equivalence the brain makes. The brain naturally equates a lack of immediate business with a lack of inherent talent.Speaker: So essentially no money means no talent.Speaker 2: That is the trap. Your booking rate is simply a reflection of your conversion systems, right? It's not a referendum on your worth as a human being or an artist,Speaker: but when you're trapped to that emotional quicksand, you just can't see the difference.Speaker 2: No, you can't. You'll rewrite an email quote 10 times, literally lowering your own price before you even hit send,Speaker: because you're just terrified. They'll say no.Speaker 2: Exactly. You seriously consider compromising your whole vision just to survive.Speaker: But the lifeline out of this quicksand, according to the notes, is remarkably simple. I mean, it is not about burning your portfolio to the ground.Speaker 2: No.Speaker: And it's not some massive life overhaul.Speaker 2: The entire premise from Matthew Jordan Smith rests on changing one single variable in your business. It is the $800 decision,Speaker: right?Speaker 2: You don't need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to figure out how to book one extra client per month at $800,Speaker: not 10, not 20,Speaker 2: just one.Speaker: Let me walk through the cumulative math on this. Yep. Because honestly, this is where the scale becomes staggering to me. One extra booking a month is $800.Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.Speaker: Over a year, that becomes $9,600,Speaker 2: almost $10,000 from finding just one more person every 30 days.Speaker: Yeah. And over three years, that $800 a month turns into $28,800. Wow. And over five years, it becomes $48,000. $48,000 from one additional booking every month. We aren't talking about going viral or you know, becoming a global sensation.Speaker 2: No, not at all.Speaker: But wait, I mean, $800 a month sounds completely achievable on paper, but let me push back here for a second. Sure. If I'm a freelancer who's already exhausting my network and my Instagram reach is virtually zero, an extra $800, might as well be a million dollars. Where is this magical client actually coming from? Are we just assuming some sudden influx of traffic?Speaker 2: No, we aren't assuming new traffic at all. The underlying mechanism here is about capturing the audience that is already looking at your work, but they're just quietly walking away.Speaker: Okay, interesting.Speaker 2: And the reason people ignore this really manageable micro step, and instead they obsess over these massive, exhausting goals like going viral, it comes down to the psychology of compoundingSpeaker: because human beings are notoriously terrible at visualizing long-term accumulation.Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is that our brains are actually evolutionarily wired to react to immediate, massive rewards.Speaker: Like a giant feast or a sudden windfall.Speaker 2: Exactly. We don't have a biological mechanism to get really excited about incremental growth. If you tell an overwhelmed creative, they need to generate $48,000 to save their business, they freeze.Speaker: The anxiety just completely takes over,Speaker 2: but breaking that daunting $48,000 goal down into a highly achievable $800 a month micro step. That bypasses the brain's panic response.Speaker: It makes it safe,Speaker 2: right? It shifts you into a state of actionable focus. We all understand compounding interest in a bank account, right? But we totally fail to apply that same mathematical law to client acquisitionSpeaker: that makes so much sense. But if you just, you know, nod along to this, write one client a month on a little sticky note, and then change absolutely nothing about your daily operations. The notes outline some pretty brutal losses.Speaker 2: Yeah, the literal mathematical loss is obvious that $48,000 over five years, it just vanishes,Speaker: poof, gone.Speaker 2: But the notes argue. The real tragedy is the intangible loss. The opportunities you couldn't afford to take, the clients you never impacted and the confidence you just never built,Speaker: which leads to five more years of exactly what we described in that painful morning routine, guessing, hoping, scrolling, and just wondering what if this could have worked?Speaker 2: Exactly.Speaker: And the main revelation of the text is how to prevent this. To capture that one extra client. You do not need a hundred new marketing strategies.Speaker 2: Definitely not.Speaker: You don't need to figure out the algorithm for a viral TikTok post. Mm-hmm. And you definitely do not need to buy more expensive gear.Speaker 2: No, you really don't.Speaker: Wait. Here's where it gets really interesting, because it's like a struggling tennis player who keeps, um, double faulting on their serve.Speaker 2: Okay. I like that.Speaker: Instead of just practicing their swing. They keep going to the pro shop to buy more and more expensive rackets. They think a, you know, a carbon fiber frame is gonna magically fix their technique.Speaker 2: Yes.Speaker: But the notes point out you really only need one core skill, and that is the ability to convert interest into bookings. That's the swing.Speaker 2: That is the swing,Speaker: but why is conversion the absolute most avoided skill when it is quite literally the only one that actually pays the bills? Why do we keep buying the rackets instead of practicing the swing?Speaker 2: Well, because tweaking your art or redesigning your logo or buying new lenses, those are inherently safe activities.Speaker: Oh, wow. Yeah.Speaker 2: Carbon fiber racket feels like progress, but it is really just sophisticated procrastination. You are in control and there's no one there to tell you no.Speaker: That's so true.Speaker 2: Conversion requires vulnerability. The moment you focus on selling, you introduce the real risk of rejection. You have to actually ask for the business.Speaker: And a no feels like a rejection of you as a person, right? Not just the service you provide.Speaker 2: Exactly. But shifting your focus to conversion is the ultimate act of taking control. It's deciding your success won't be dictated by the mere hope that someone stumbles across your page and decides to navigate the entire hiring process entirely on their own.Speaker: So how does someone actually master conversion without feeling like a, you know, a sleazy salesperson,Speaker 2: right?Speaker: Because nobody wants to be that person pushing a hard sell in the dms,Speaker 2: right? Nobody likes that.Speaker: The notes breakdown Matthew Jordan Smith's three-day client conversion challenge to fix this exact gap. Let's dive deep into the mechanics of this, starting with day one, which is why people aren't saying yes.Speaker 2: Okay, so this is all about understanding the unseen obstacles, stopping your potential clientsSpeaker: unseen, obstacles.Speaker 2: Yeah. A potential buyer might look at your portfolio, absolutely love your work, but then encounter a point of friction that they simply don't vocalize.Speaker: Like what though? Gimme a concrete example of an unseen obstacle,Speaker 2: okay? Um, it could be a really confusing pricing structure.Speaker: Oh, I hate those,Speaker 2: right? If a client has to do complex math just to figure out your packages, they aren't gonna email you for clarification. They will simply close the tab.Speaker: Yep. Moving on to the next person.Speaker 2: Or if you're a consultant, the unseen obstacle might be that your client doesn't actually understand what a strategy session entails. It sounds like work to them,Speaker: like homework.Speaker 2: Exactly. They don't know how long it takes or what they need to prepare, and instead of asking, they walk away to find someone whose process just seems simpler. Day one is about getting out of your own head and identifying those specific friction points in the buyer's mind.Speaker: But why on earth would you start day one with analyzing why they say no? Wouldn't it make way more sense to start with like how to pitch them or how to show your best work? Why start with diagnosing the negative?Speaker 2: Well, if we connect this to the bigger picture, you absolutely have to diagnose the friction before you can prescribe the cure.Speaker: Okay?Speaker 2: If someone is saying no because they're intimidated by your onboarding process, pitching them harder is only going to push them further away. Showing them more beautiful portfolio pieces won't solve their confusion about your pricing.Speaker: Oh, I see. You have to know where the leak is before you start pumping more water into the bucket.Speaker 2: Exactly. Which flows perfectly into the mechanism of day two, how to create an experience people trust. And trust isn't just a buzzword here. It is the actual currency of conversion. It's about making people feel safe and seen before they ever sign a contract or hand over their credit card.Speaker: Okay, but how exactly do you engineer that feeling of safety without even talking to them?Speaker 2: By anticipating their needs before they articulate them. Think about the onboarding experience, right?Speaker: Yeah.Speaker 2: If you are a photographer sending a brief, beautifully designed guide on what to expect during the shoot or how to prepare their wardrobe, that shows the client you have guided people through this process hundreds of times.Speaker: You remove the fear of the unknownSpeaker 2: precisely. A personalized welcome packet, or even just a quick video message, shifts you from being just a vendor to being a trusted advisor in a crowded market where literally everyone has a camera or a consulting framework, empathy and preparation are the ultimate differentiators.Speaker: Trust converts faster than a discount ever willSpeaker 2: always.Speaker: That brings us to day three, how to position your value so they book. And the focus here is eliminating the dreaded phrase. I'll think about it.Speaker 2: Yes, you eliminate “we'll think about it” by communicating the transformation, not just the features of your service.Speaker: Okay?Speaker 2: This happens when the perceived value massively outweighs the price,Speaker: but how do you articulate that transformation clearly, like in a practical sense?Speaker 2: Well, clients don't buy an hour of your time and they don't buy 50 digital files. They buy the feeling of confidence or the preservation of a legacy or the elevation of their own brand,Speaker: right?Speaker 2: Day three is about aligning your communication so the client clearly sees the gap between where they are and where they wanna be, and then they recognize that your specific service is the only reliable bridge across that gap.Speaker: That brings everything full circle back to the numbers. You have a choice between securing $48,000 over five years, which is, you know, gaining stability, freedom, and confidence, or letting it just disappear into the void of “I'll figure it out later.”Speaker 2: Yep.Speaker: The call to action in the notes is very specific. Go to Matthew Jordan Smith's Instagram page and click the link in his bio to join the challenge.Speaker 2: But the brilliant part of the source material really is the meta realization embedded in that call to action. The exact moment you go to his Instagram and click that link, you have already started the challenge.Speaker: Oh, because you are literally experiencing the exact same psychological journey your future clients will go through.Speaker 2: Mm.Speaker: They land on your page, get curious, explore, and decide whether to click your link.Speaker 2: Yes.Speaker: So what does this all mean to me? It's like walking into a meticulously designed retail store. The window display catches your eye. That's the Instagram feed, right?Speaker 2: Great analogy.Speaker: And the lighting drawing you in, that's the clear messaging in the bio. And the layout naturally leads you straight to the register, which is the frictionless booking page without you ever feeling pushed. You don't feel sold to. You feel accommodatedSpeaker 2: exactly.Speaker: By clicking his link, you are walking through his retail store. How does experiencing the customer journey firsthand like that change how a creative views their own marketing?Speaker 2: It forces you to realize that empathy is the root of all conversion. By observing your own behavior in that moment, analyzing what specifically made you pause, what made you curious enough to click, what level of trust you needed to hand over your email address, you decode the exact mechanism that will make your clients click yours.Speaker: So you stop seeing marketing as this aggressive act of persuasion.Speaker 2: You start seeing it as a guided journey. You are just trying to build the same bridge for them that was just built for you. You understand the emotional beats of taking someone from “I'm just looking” to “I'm ready to book” because you literally just walked the path yourself.Speaker: That's incredibly powerful. Let's summarize the core insights we've pulled from this deep dive. Ultimately, business success for a creative entrepreneur isn't about being the absolute most talented person in the room.Speaker 2: No, it's not.Speaker: And it's definitely not about having the most expensive gear or the perfect carbon fiber tennis racket.Speaker 2: Talent is the baseline, sure. But the engine is the mathematical power of small wins.Speaker: One single $800 booking a month compounds into a life-changing $48,000 over five years. And the key to unlocking that math is mastering one singular skill, the ability to move an audience from passive interest to active trust.Speaker 2: Conversion.Speaker: Conversion. Yeah. So whether you are a photographer, a consultant, a graphic designer, or a coach, this $48,000 decision applies directly to you. It's about having the confidence to definitively prove to yourself that your passion actually works as a stable, viable career.Speaker 2: Yeah.Speaker: It's about engineering that sports car and actually installing the steering wheel so you can drive it,Speaker 2: which leaves us with one final essential thought to consider today. If moving someone from looking to booking is entirely about removing psychological friction, look closely at your own process today.Speaker: Step into the shoes of your potential client.Speaker 2: What is the invisible point of friction in your customer's journey? Is it a confusing layout on your website, a delayed response to their initial email, a lack of clear, confident pricing? Find that invisible barrier because it is quietly costing you your own $48,000.

Stop Saying You Capture Memories Adam: I wanna start today by, uh, painting of a picture, and I'm warning you now for a huge chunk of our listeners, especially the creative professionals of photographers. Sarah: Hmm. Adam: This is gonna feel, well, let's just call it visceral. Sarah: Visceral is definitely the right word. We're going right for the nerve ending today. Adam: Okay? So a picture of this, you've just finished editing a gallery. You've been at the computer for hours, maybe even days. You've got your coffee, you're scrolling through and you look at the screen with this, just this swelling sense of pride. Because objectively the work is undeniable. Sarah: Mm-hmm. Adam: The lighting is cinematic. Adam: The composition's perfect. The emotion is raw. You look at it and you think, okay. This is it. This is the level where the calendar should be full. Sarah: It's that moment of creative peak. You feel like you've finally cracked the code on the art itself. You've mastered the craft. Adam: Exactly. You feel invincible. Sarah: Mm-hmm. Adam: But then you tab over to your inbox uhoh and it's quiet. Or you know, maybe there are a few inquiries, but they're lukewarm. You get the classic, Hey, how much you charge, you reply. Heart pounding a little and then ghosted Sarah: Danish. Yeah, Adam: and that is the most frustrating disconnect in the entire industry. Adam: It's the silence that follows all that effort. Sarah: And it triggers the spiral, doesn't it? You sit there and start thinking, is the market saturated? Is it the economy? Do I need to buy that new mirrorless body to compete? Adam: Oh, totally. Maybe if I had better bo of a book, Sarah: we immediately look for external excuses or we blame the gear. Sarah: It's a classic defense mechanism. You know, if we can blame the economy, we don't have to look at our own business strategy, Adam: but today we are diving into a stack of resources that suggests the problem isn't your camera, it isn't the economy, and here is the kicker. It isn't even your photography. Sarah: The problem is your language. Adam: It's your language. Sarah: It's a fascinating premise and honestly, a bit of a relief once you get it. We're unpacking insights from Matthew Jordan Smith today. He's a heavy hitter, world renowned celebrity photographer, Nikon ambassador and host of the Photography Breakthrough Podcast. Adam: And his core argument is that we're basically talking ourselves out of a sale. Sarah: We are accidental experts at it because of the words on our website, in our emails, in our captions, Smith calls this whole process a verbal audit, and I have to warn everyone up front. He warns us too. This is probably gonna sting a little. Adam: Oh, I definitely felt that sting reading through this. It's uncomfortable because he's basically saying, your work is great, but your mouth is losing you money. Sarah: That's a blunt way to put it. Yeah. But yeah, the central idea here is that uncertainty kills bookings. A potential client lands on your page and feels even, uh, like a microsecond of confusion about what they're getting or why it matters. They don't click book. Adam: They click back. Sarah: Yeah. Adam: And they're gone. Sarah: They're gone. Adam: So let's diagnose this. What are we actually doing wrong? Because I look at a lot of photography websites and they all seem. I don't know. Nice. They seem friendly. Sarah: That's exactly the problem. They're nice, they're safe. Smith identifies a whole category of phrases that he says are basically business poison, precisely because they are so common. Sarah: He calls it fluff. Adam: Give us the greatest hits. What are the main offenders? Sarah: Okay, you've got capturing memories. I love working with families. Let's create magic. Timeless images. Adam: Wait, hold on a second. Capturing memories. That's literally the job description. Why is that? Poison. Sarah: It is what they do, but it's a commodity phrase. Sarah: Oh. I mean, if you and a photographer down the street and a college student with an iPhone are all capturing memories, how does the client distinguish between you Adam: Price? That's the only variable left. Sarah: Bingo. You force them to price shop. When the language is identical, the only thing that's different is the dollar sign. Sarah: Smith argues that capturing memories is just vague. It could mean in a blurry selfie, it could mean a vanity fair, spread it. It doesn't convey any real value, Adam: so it's filler. It's what you write when you don't know what else to say. It's like a chef saying, I cook food. Sarah: Yes. That's a great analogy. Adam: Well, I hope so. Sarah: Yeah. Adam: But are you making a grilled cheese or are you making a five course tasting menu? Sarah: Exactly. If a chef says, I cook food, you expect to pay five bucks. If they say, I curate a culinary experience, you expect to pay 200. Language sets the expectation, Adam: and right now most photographers are signaling that they're just service providers, Sarah: like a plumber fixing a leak. Sarah: You do a task, you get paid. But high-end clients, the ones everyone wants to book, they aren't looking for a service provider. They're looking for a guide. Adam: That distinction feels really important. Service provider versus guide, how does that actually play out in the text on a website? Sarah: It comes down to logistics, speak versus transformation Speak. Sarah: Most photographers are fluent in logistics speak. You get a 45 minute session, 20 edited JPEGs, and an online gallery. Adam: I see that everywhere. It's the standard package description. It feels necessary though. Sarah: It is necessary eventually, but it's not what sells the session. It treats photos like groceries. You get 20 apples, but Smith poses this question and it really stops you. Sarah: What are people actually buying? Because they're not buying JPEGs. They don't care about file formats. Adam: They're buying what the photos represent. The feeling. Sarah: He goes deeper. He says they're buying relief from regret. Adam: Oof. Relief from regret. That hits heavy. That sounds. Almost existential. Sarah: It is profound, right? Sarah: But think about the psychology of a parent booking a family session. They aren't thinking, oh, I have some empty wall space. No, they are looking at their toddler, realizing that in six months. That little face will be different. They feel time passing. Adam: They're terrified of forgetting who their child is right now. Sarah: So they're buying an insurance policy against their own memory, failing precisely. They're buying proof that this time mattered. Now, if that is the emotional storm inside your client. That fear of loss, and you meet them with, you get 20 JPEGs. Adam: It's a massive disconnect. You're speaking a different language. Sarah: You're talking specs, they're feeling existential dread. You're bringing a spreadsheet to a therapy session, Adam: right? You're answering an emotional need with a logical product list, and that just creates hesitation. The client thinks this person doesn't get it. Sarah: They don't understand how important this is. Adam: Okay? So we know the problem. We're boring people with logistics and fluff. But Smith doesn't just critique. He offers a fix. He calls it the delete and replace exercise. Sarah: This is the practical part. If you're listening and you can pull up your website right now, do it. Just, you know, visualize your homepage. Sarah: This is where it gets real. Adam: The assignment is to hunt down those vague phrases, capturing memories, has to die, timeless images gone. What do we replace it with? Sarah: We replace it with the truth of the transformation. Smith says to shift the focus from the process, taking photos to the stakes. What happens if you don't? Adam: Gimme a concrete example instead of capturing memories, Sarah: okay, try this. Preserving the season of life you'll never get back. Adam: Wow. Okay. That lands differently. Sarah: Why? What do you feel when you hear that Adam: urgency? Season you'll never get back implies that if I don't do this now, I've lost something forever. Adam: Capturing memories. Sounds optional. I could do that next year. But preserving a season sounds necessary right now. Sarah: Exactly. You've moved from Nice to have to must have. He has another one for family photographers that I loved. Instead of book your fall family session, which just sounds like another chore on my to-do list. Adam: Right. It feels like an obligation. Like get oil changed. Sarah: Totally. Instead, he suggests because childhood doesn't wait, or even better, one day this will be the photo your children hold onto. Adam: Oh, that's the one. One day. This will be the photo your children hold onto. That shifts the whole perspective. It's not about me looking good for a Christmas card anymore. Adam: It's about creating an heirloom for my kids. Sarah: It casts the client as the hero of their own story. And it moves the conversation from, is this worth $400 to, is my family's legacy worth preserving? Adam: And for most people, the answer to that second question is an automatic yes. You can't put a price tag on that. Sarah: You're anchoring the price to something invaluable, not to a piece of photo paper. And speaking of price, this is where photographers get the most defensive. Adam: Well, I've seen this a million times. Investment starts at. Yeah, where packages begin at, usually in a smaller font, like tucked away at the bottom of the page. Sarah: It's so timid. We're signaling, I know this is expensive. Please don't be mad at me. Adam: Smith says, stop being defensive. You need to frame the price as the vehicle for the result. So instead of, my pricing starts at $500, what's the better way? How do you say that with your chest out? Sarah: He offers this script. My clients invest between 400 and $900 to make sure this season of life is never forgotten. Adam: My clients invest. That's clever. It's social proof. It implies other people do this. It's normal. Sarah: And notice the word choice. Invest not cost. Cost is money Lost investment is money that gives a return. The return is the memory saved. It changes the whole psychology of the transaction. Adam: It's subtle, but it completely changes the posture of the photographer. Adam: You aren't asking for money. You're stating the standard. Sarah: Correct. And I know we have listeners who don't do families. Maybe you do branding headshots that feels, you know, drier, right? Harder to get emotional about a LinkedIn photo. Adam: Yeah. It's hard to get existential about a headshot. Relief from regret feels like a stretch there, Sarah: but the stakes are still there. Sarah: They're just different. Smith says, stop saying I offer branding photography. Instead say, I help business owners look like the authority they already are. So clients stop questioning their prices. Adam: Oh, that is sharp. So clients stop questioning their prices. You're connecting the photo directly to the client, making more money. Sarah: You're solving their problem. Their problem isn't that they don't have a picture of their face. Their problem is they wanna stop hagglers. If you can articulate that, you're not a photographer anymore, you're a strategic partner. An asset, not an expense, Adam: which leads to what Smith says is the real root cause because we can change the words today. Adam: We can copy paste these scripts. Mm-hmm. But he argues if you don't actually believe them, it won't stick. Sarah: And this is the sting coming back. He says, this ist really a marketing problem. It's a self-trust problem. Adam: Go deeper on that. Why a trust issue. Sarah: He says, the reason photographers use vague, fluffy language is that deep down they don't fully trust that their work actually changes people. Sarah: They're afraid to claim the magnitude of what they really do, so they soften it. They make it small to be safe. Adam: There was a quote in the notes that just, it really stood out to me. When you don't trust your value, your language gets smaller and small language creates small bookings. Sarah: It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, isn't it? Sarah: If you speak timidly, you attract clients who treat you small. They haggle. They micromanage. They treat you like the hired help because you haven't established your authority. Adam: So the goal isn't to sound affordable or available. Sarah: Mm-hmm. Adam: What is the goal then? Sarah: The goal is to sound inevitable. Adam: Inevitable. I love that word. Adam: In this context. Sarah: You wanna be the only logical choice. You want the client to think, I have to hire you because nobody else understands my need the way you do. If you can articulate their problem better than they can, they automatically trust you with the solution. Adam: It's like when you go to a doctor, if the doctor says, well, I guess we could try this. Adam: I don't know. It's kind of expensive. What do you think? Sarah: Yeah, Adam: you run. Sarah: You run. Exactly. You want the doctor who walks in and says, I know exactly what this is. It's serious, and here's how we're gonna fix it. Photographers need to have that same doctor energy, Adam: doctor energy. I'm writing that down. Sarah: You are the expert on legacy. Sarah: You have to act like it. Adam: Now, Smith makes a prediction about the future of the industry looking toward 2026, and it's not about AI or new gear. Sarah: No. Although those things matter. He predicts that the photographers who will thrive won't necessarily be the ones with the most raw talent. It'll be the ones who are the clearest Adam: clarity wins. Sarah: In a noisy world, clarity is currency. Everyone's a photographer. The person who cuts through the noise isn't the one shouting louder. It's the one making the most sense. Adam: I wanna pivot slightly because there's a really interesting connection in the source material to a book he released called Aretha. Adam: Cool. And at first I thought, okay, is this just a product plug? Mm. But it fits perfectly into this conversation. Sarah: It's not a plug, it's a totem. The book is photos of Aretha Franklin, but in this context, Smith uses it as a physical representation of embodied boldness, Adam: embodied boldness. 'cause Aretha, I mean, she didn't ask for permission to be in the room. Sarah: She owns the room. She owned her voice. She never used small language. Smith talks about having this book on his desk, not just as decoration, but as a reminder. When you're writing that email, when you're setting that price, you look at that book and remind yourself, don't shrink. Be bold. What would Aretha do? Adam: It's a physical anchor for that mindset shift because it's hard to stay in that doctor energy when you haven't had a booking in three weeks and the rent is due. Sarah: It is so hard. Doubt creeps in. Imposter syndrome is real. You need physical reminders in your environment that tell you that you're allowed to take up space. Adam: So let's paint the final picture. Let's say a listener takes this to heart. They do the verbal audit, they rewrite the bio, they stop apologizing for their price. What does their business look like in a year? Sarah: The vision Smith paints is really compelling. He says, imagine waking up to inquiries from people who already trust you before you've even spoken to them. Adam: That's the dream, the pre-sold client, Sarah: it means you stop negotiating, you stop overexplaining your process. You stop panic posting on Instagram because you're desperate. You speak clearly. You price calmly. You attract people who respect that. Adam: It sounds like moving from a frantic hustle to just a calm authority, Sarah: that's the shift. Sarah: And Smith emphasizes this. Clarity spreads. It's not just about you making more money. When photographers start using better language, it elevates the whole industry. It teaches the public that photography isn't just a commodity. It teaches the world that this work matters. If we keep calling it snapping picks, they'll treat it as cheap. Sarah: If we call it preserving legacy, they learn to value it as such. Adam: So we're actually training our clients on how to treat us Sarah: 100%. Your photography was never the problem. Your language was. That's the mantra. Adam: It's actually really liberating when you think about it. Sarah: Yeah, Adam: because you can't control the economy. Adam: You can't control the algorithm, you can't control the weather on a shoot day, Sarah: but you can control the words. You type on your homepage today. Right now, you don't need a loan, you don't need a degree, you just need a notepad and some radical honesty about what you actually provide. Adam: I wanna leave everyone with a thought that really stuck with me. Adam: We talked about how clients are buying proof that their life mattered. That's a massive responsibility. Sarah: It is. It's a sacred trust. You are the historian for that family. You are deciding what gets remembered. Adam: So here's the question for you to mull over today. Does your current bio or your homepage convince a stranger that you are capable of handling the weight of their legacy? Adam: Or does it just say that you own a nice camera? Sarah: That is the question. If you can answer that with confidence, the bookings will follow. Adam: Huge. Thanks to the insights from Matthew Jordan Smith for this deep dive. It's definitely made me rethink how I introduce myself, and I'm not even a photographer. Sarah: Same here. Sarah: It applies to everything. Time to go edit some bios. Adam: Go check your words, everyone. We'll see on the next one. ✍️📸

The Inquiry Moment: Where Authority Is Won or Lost Today, let's talk about what happens when somebody inquires about hiring you. You get a message or a DM or maybe even a call, someone is interested in hiring you. We call that the moment of inquiry. And today's episode is all about why the way you respond matters more than your images, more than your portfolio, more than you think. I want you to think about the last time someone inquired about your work, about hiring you. Was it an email, a direct message, in person, however it happened? Did it make your heart beat a little faster? Now, be honest with yourself. When you replied, were you trying to convince them or were you guiding them? Because in that moment, before pricing, before packages, before availability, your authority was either established or quietly handed away. And most photographers don't even realize what's happening. This is a powerful moment. The moment someone inquires about your work is not administrative. It's emotional. It's the moment where a client is deciding, can I trust this person to take care of me? They're not thinking, are they nice, are they enthusiastic, are they flexible? But will I feel safe, guided, and understood by this photographer? Are they the one for me? And the language you use in this first response answers that question immediately. And sadly, most photographers are not thinking this way. Most photographers respond with something like this: I'd love to work with you. Let me know if you have any questions. Yes, that sounds kind. It does sound polite. It sounds accommodating. But it also sounds unsure. And here's why that matters when your goal is to get the booking. When a client is already nervous about being photographed, uncertainty in any way feels like risk. Permission is a trap. That type of response does something subtle. It asks the client, is this okay? Do you approve? Do you want me? And that puts the client in charge of a process they don't actually want to manage. People don't want to lead their photographer. They want to be led. Now, compare that to this response. Based on what you shared, here's how I'd approach your session and why it works well for people who feel the way you described. What's the difference? One response waits. The other holds. One asks for permission. The other offers leadership. And leadership is calming to your client. You see, there's a journey. Your client or potential client begins the journey, but then they're handing it off to you. And that's when it's time for you to take control and guide them on your journey. Clients reach out because they're uncertain. They don't know what to wear, how to pose, if they'll like themselves in your pictures, if they're making the right choice by choosing you as their photographer. When you step into leadership, you relieve that burden. You are saying, you don't have to figure this out. I've got you. That's not sales. That's care. So why does this feel so hard for so many photographers? Here's the deeper layer. Many photographers soften their language because they don't fully understand or trust themselves yet. They're afraid of sounding arrogant. They're afraid of being rejected. They're afraid of being too much, so they stay agreeable. But agreeableness is not confidence. And clients can feel the difference. I don't want to confuse things because authority is not attitude. Let's be clear about that. Authority is not dominance. It's not being cold in any way. It's not feeling indifferent. Authority gives clarity and does so with kindness. There's a big difference. It's saying, I understand your concerns and I know how to guide you through it. Now we know the problem. Now let's fix it. Here's a structure you can use every single time. Step one, reflect what they said. Let them feel heard. You mentioned feeling uncomfortable in front of the camera. Step two, offer your approach. This is where your authority lives. In sessions like this, I focus on guiding you step by step, so you never feel unsure. Do you see how that feels? It changes things. Step three, recommend the next step. Direction matters. The best next step for us is to dive into a quick consult so I can tailor the session just for you. That's what clients want to hear. Notice you're not asking what they want to do. You are showing them what works. They begin the journey, and you take the reins from there. So what happens when you take the lead, when you shift to guidance? Clients respond faster. Price resistance drops away. Sessions run smoother. Respect for you and your work increases, not because you changed your pricing, but because you changed your posture. And this moment shapes everything that follows. How you show up in the inquiry moment sets the tone for the session, the relationship, the sale, the referral, consistent clients from that point on. If you begin from authority, everything else flows smoothly. This kind of quiet leadership is exactly why clients return to you over and over again. This is the moment when you stand in your authority. Authority doesn't shout. It doesn't need to. It holds. Let me leave you with this today. You don't need to convince people to trust you. You need to give them something solid to trust. The moment when they inquire about hiring you isn't about being chosen. It's about choosing to lead. And when you do that, the right clients don't hesitate. They exhale. They feel held. And they say yes. If you are enjoying these podcast episodes, let me know. If you feel stuck and I haven't touched on your topic, drop me a line. It helps me to prepare future episodes. I want to hear from you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for listening. I look forward to seeing you next week on the Photography Breakthrough Podcast. And yes, I'm Matthew Jordan Smith. You can find me on Instagram simply under that, Matthew Jordan Smith. Until then, lead with certainty, speak with care, and trust yourself enough to guide the process. Bye for now.

Your Portfolio Might Be Working Against YouI've got a question for you. Did you ever think your pictures, your portfolio, your Instagram, that it could be working against you? This episode, it is designed to relieve pressure, restore self-trust, and give clear, actionable guidance, without turning into a technical critique.It speaks directly to photographers who feel stuck, overworked, underbooked, and quietly afraid that deleting images means losing ground. Maybe you already know this. More photos does not mean more bookings. People often ask me, Matthew, how many pictures should I include? How many should I show?I know where that comes from. We think the more we show, the better. And if you've been adding more to your portfolio, hoping this next image will finally be the one that convinces people. I want you to pause with me today, because your portfolio is probably not failing because your work isn't good enough. It may be failing because it's trying to do too much, and that's not a skill problem. It's a clarity problem. Let's get something straight right away.Your portfolio is not a gallery.Have you ever had a friend pull out their smartphone and start showing you pictures, and a hundred photos in, you're wondering, when will they stop? How can I get out of this? That's how clients feel when you show too much, when you keep adding pictures. So let me say that again. Your portfolio is not a gallery. It's not your personal archive. It is not a scrapbook of everything you've ever been proud of.And it's not the thing that proves that you're legitimate. Your portfolio, your images, it has one job. It is a filter. Its job is not to impress everyone. Its job is to quietly say to the right person, your safe. Here, this photo shoot will go well. I know how to guide you. I see you. If your portfolio tries to speak to everyone, it clearly speaks to no one. Most photographers keep too many images in their portfolio for emotional reasons, not strategic ones. You keep images because you remember how hard they were to get. They represent growth. They prove you can do a certain kind of work. You are afraid removing them means erasing progress. I get it. I've had the same feelings in the past. But you've got to remember. All of us must remember, clients don't see your journey. They see a wall of uncertainty.And uncertainty is not what they're looking for when they already feel vulnerable about being photographed. You see, when a potential client scrolls through your portfolio or your Instagram, or your images in any way, they are asking one thing over and over again, will my experience look and feel like this?Not, is this photographer versatile? Can they shoot many styles? Had they worked with lots of different people? Those are photographer questions. Clients want a predictable experience. They want to know, will I feel awkward? Will this photographer guide me? Will I recognize myself in these images? Will I feel respected, calm, and confident before the shoot? During the shoot and after? If your portfolio doesn't answer these questions clearly, well, they hesitate. Let's discuss the three things your portfolio must communicate.Every single image that you show should support at least one of these three things. Number one, emotional safety. Do the people in your images look grounded? Do they look at ease? Do they feel like real human beings, not a performance, not ai, not perfect? For those who are just finding this podcast, you may not know this, but I live in Japan, and there's a phrase here that I love. It's called Wabi-sabi. And what Wabi-sabi means is beauty in imperfection. That's more important today than ever before. Clients are scanning for safety, not perfection. Number two, transformation. Can someone imagine themselves before and after your session? Do your images suggest confidence gained, not just poses? Transformation. Transformation that builds desire. And number three, consistency of voice. Do these images feel like they belong together, or they feel like different photographer is trying on different styles? Consistency creates trust. So the three things you need to show in every picture, emotional safety, transformation, and a consistent voice. Maybe you're thinking, Matthew, but what do I take out? And as we know, a lot of photographers avoid this. So here's what you need to remove. Images that feel like you're proving something. Work that no longer represents how you want to serve people. Photos you keep explaining when asked about them. If your image requires an explanation, justification, it does not belong. Your pictures. Your portfolio should not need footnotes. Photography, great photography speaks for itself. Maybe you're thinking Matthew, but I need variety. Variety is overrated. Clients don't want variety. They want certainty. Variety says, I can do anything. Certainty says I can do this. And I do it well, each and every time. And certainty is far more comforting than range. Let's talk about something you can do this week. Open your portfolio and ask image by image, would I want to be this person? Do I understand how I'd be guided? Does this image reflect how I want clients to feel? If the answer isn't an immediate yes, remove it, not forever, not because it's bad, but because it's not serving the role your portfolio needs to play right now. You see something important happens when photographers edit their portfolio with intention. They stop chasing approval. They stop trying to impress other photographers. They start trusting their voice. And that trust, it comes up everywhere, in inquiries, in pricing, in sessions, and how you speak about your work. This isn't about fewer images, it's about stronger leadership. This simple principle can be found in my latest book, Aretha. Cool. It's not a collection of everything I ever shot on her. It's a curated body of work that reflects trust, consistency, and a long-term relationship built on listening. You can get a signed edition of Aretha Cool at arethacool.com and only there. It's your reminder that editing is not lost. It's authorship. Let me leave you with this today. You don't need a bigger portfolio. You need a clearer one. You don't need to show more. You need to show what matters. Your future clients are not looking for proof that you can do everything. They're looking for reassurance that you can take care of them. Choose images that reflect that truth. And trust that clarity, not volume, is what creates clients. If this episode made you rethink your portfolio, I'd love to hear from you. You can find me on Instagram, under Matthew Jordan Smith, Matthew with two T's. Leave me a message, follow me. Share your thoughts on this episode, and while you're at it, leave a five star review. It helps photographers who are quietly doubting themselves find this perspective sooner. And share this episode with one photographer who's afraid to delete old work, when what they really need is permission to move forward. I know it's hard to take away old images that you love. I've been guilty of it too. But we must, especially if you want to move forward. This is the Photography Breakthrough Podcast, and I'm Matthew Jordan Smith. I look forward to seeing you next week. Trust that less really can be more. Bye for now.

You’re Not Invisible - You’re Unclear Let me start today. By saying something I know many of you are secretly afraid is true, you are not being ignored because you are untalented. You are not unseen as a photographer because the market is saturated. You are not overlooked because you started too late. You are being passed over because people don't know how to choose you. And that hurts because invisibility feels personal. It feels like rejection. It feels like you're shouting into the void while everyone else somehow gets heard. But today I want to take that weight off your chest because what you are experiencing is not failure. It is unclearness, but the great thing is unclarity is fixable. Most photographers who come to me say the same thing in different words. I just feel invisible, but invisibility isn't actually what's happening. What's happening is this, when someone encounters your work, your website, your Instagram. They just don't feel guided. They don't know who you are specifically for. They don't know what problem you solve. They don't know why. Choosing you would feel safe, grounding, and reassuring. So they keep scrolling. And not because you're forgettable, but because your message doesn't give their nervous system anything to hold onto. I also know that many photographers are trying to appeal to everyone, and that is costing you jobs, is costing you clients. It is the most common trap photographers fall into. I hear it all the time. You say things like, I work with everyone. I photograph all kinds of people. I'm open to all sessions. I get it. I know why you do this. Because narrowing your focus feels risky because you are afraid. Clarity will shrink your opportunities. Because somewhere deep down you're thinking if I say no to anyone, what if no one chooses me? But here's the truth that no one tells you. General messaging doesn't create safety. It creates uncertainty. When clients don't immediately recognize themselves in your words, they don't lean in, they hesitate and hesitation doesn't turn into bookings. Your ideal client. It's not browsing photography with excitement. They're browsing with self-consciousness, fear of looking awkward, doubt about their body, their face, their presence. They're looking to see if you can solve a problem with your photography. You see, they're asking silently, will this photographer know what to do with me? I know you took great pictures of somebody else. It made them stop for a second, but what can you do with them if your language as a photographer doesn't answer that question and do so clearly they won't reach out. No matter how beautiful your images are, now here's the coaching moment. Most photographers resist if your message could belong to any photographer. It belongs to no one. And the reason this is hard is because clarity requires ownership. It requires you to say, this is what I stand for. This is who I'm here to serve. You can't serve everybody, and when you try, you're serving no one. When you say, this is what I know how to do exceptionally well, that resonates, and that level of ownership forces you to trust yourself more than the algorithm, the trends, or any of the photographer's approval. Let's stop for a second. I like for you to pause after this episode and complete this sentence. Without softening it, without adding disclaimers. Say this out loud. I am a photographer for people who you fill in the blank and want to feel, fill in the blank. I, let me say that again and say this out loud. I am a photographer for people who fill in the blank space and want to feel fill in the blank. Not anyone. Not everyone, not a little bit of everything. Be honest if you're having a hard time filling it in. Let me give you a few examples. I'm a photographer for people who hate being photographed and want to feel calm and respected, or I'm, a photographer for people who've never liked photos of themselves and want to finally feel proud. Or maybe this one. I am a photographer for people who feel invisible in their own lives and want to be seen clearly. If your chest tightens as you say it, that's clarity activating. I know that feels scary, but here's what no one tells you. Clarity feels like exposure because when you are clear, you're no longer hiding. You are saying, this is the impact my work has, and if someone doesn't choose you after that, it feels personal. But here's the flip side. When someone does choose you from a place of clarity, they arrive pre- trusting you. They show up calmer. They listen to your direction. They value your pricing. Clarity brings you the right clients. Let's do a real time upgrade instead of saying, I love capturing authentic moments. We've all seen that. Try something like this. I guide people who feel awkward in front of the camera, so they never have to wonder what to do with their body or their face. If you're saying something like, I offer lifestyle portrait sessions, try something like this. My sessions are structured so you feel supported, not exposed. You see specific language creates relief and relief creates inquiries. Now, today's episode, it isn't really about messaging. It's about whether you trust yourself enough to define your value without apology. Most photographers aren't unclear because they don't know what they do. They're unclear because they're afraid to claim it. But here's the truth. I want you to hear clearly. You don't become confident after you are booked. You get booked after you practice confidence. Let me leave you with this. You are not invisible. You are in the middle of learning how to speak from truth instead of from fear. The photographers who get booked, they're not louder. They're clearer. They're clear with their message. They don't explain themselves endlessly. They don't try to be everything to everyone. They don't wait for permission to take up space. They decide who they are for and let the right people find them, and that could be you too. Now, if this episode helped you breathe just a little easier . Or see your work differently, please leave a five star review. It helps this podcast reach more photographers who need this message right now. A lso share this episode with one photographer who keeps saying, I don't know why no one's booking me. Thank you for your time today. I hope this helped in some way to make you clear about your message and your value. Until next time. Bye for now.

Why Clients Aren't Booking You Hello everyone and welcome back to the Photography Breakthrough Podcast. I'm your host, Matthew Jordan Smith. Today we're going to talk about something that hurts, but in a clarifying way. Why clients aren't booking you. Many of you know what that feels like. And I want to say this slowly, because most of you have already decided the wrong answer. It's probably not your photos. If your work is strong, but your calendar is empty, this episode is just for you. And if part of you is wondering, is it me, I want you to stay with me today. Because what's missing is not your talent, it's not your effort. You are working hard. It's not visibility, it's certainty. If you didn't know this, let me be the first to say it. Clients are not hiring images. They're hiring how they expect to feel when they work with you. Yes, your photos made them stop scrolling. If they didn't, they wouldn't even be here. That pause, that's proof. You're talented. So if they paused, if they looked, if they clicked and still didn't book, then the question they were asking wasn't, is this photographer good? They already know you're good. The real question was, will I feel taken care of here by this photographer? And that's where most photographers lose them. We live in a time where good photography is everywhere. Now, that doesn't make your work less valuable, but it does change what clients need in order to choose. When someone lands on your website or your Instagram today, they're not relaxed, they're anxious. They're wondering, will I look awkward? Will I hate my photos? Will I feel exposed in some way? Will this be at all uncomfortable? And here's the part that matters. If your language doesn't answer those fears clearly, then they move on. Not because you failed, but because no one made them feel safe yet. Now let's talk about the way photographers talk, because this is where self trust leaks. If I hear one more photographer say, I just love capturing moments. I'm passionate about people. I offer lifestyle sessions. I already know why clients are hesitating. That language isn't wrong, but it's insider language. It's how photographers talk to other photographers, and yes, it's how we've been taught. You hear it at photo conferences and workshops, but get this. Clients don't book insider language. They book decisive leadership. Vague language, even when it sounds poetic, feels like uncertainty to someone who's already nervous. Here's my coaching moment. When you hide behind general, safe, familiar photography language, you're not being humble. You are avoiding the risk of being specific. Because being specific says, this is what I do, this is who I help. This is the result you expect. And that level of clarity requires self trust on your part. So here's the shift I'd like for you to make starting today. Stop talking about what you love. Start talking about what you solve. That's what clients want to hear. Of course you love photography. We all do. You should, but your client isn't hiring your love. They're hiring relief. Here's an example that changes everything. I help people who hate being photographed finally see themselves with pride. That one sentence does more than ten beautiful images. Why? Because it uses their language, not photo language. I'm telling you all of this from experience. The first time I photographed Samuel L. Jackson, the very first thing he said to me was this, I hate taking pictures. Imagine that. He told me it felt like standing naked in front of lights with no lines to say. Awkward. Exposed. Uncomfortable. Now listen closely. That's not celebrity language. That's human language. Maybe one of your clients has said something similar to you. I hate photos. I feel awkward. I don't know how to pose. I never like pictures of myself. If they're already telling you the problem, why aren't you reflecting it back in your message? You see, when a client reads, I help people who hate being photographed, their nervous system relaxes. They think, oh, this person sees me. They understand me. And once someone feels seen, they're far more willing to trust. This is not louder marketing. It's braver language. Here's a hint most photographers miss. Your clients are telling you how to market to them. Every single session, when you listen deeply and mirror their words back to them, you create alignment. That's how you build long term relationships, long term clients. That's how you get repeat work, and that's how you create careers like the one I had photographing Aretha Franklin for 13 years, Vanessa Williams, Tyra Banks, Samuel L. Jackson, Oprah Winfrey for decades. I didn't guess what any of them needed. I listened and then I led. Stop talking about pretty pictures. Pretty pictures are assumed. That's the baseline. The real question is what do you provide beyond the image? How do you guide people? How do you protect them emotionally? How do you help them feel different when they leave? That's what clients are paying for, even if they don't say it out loud. When I created my last book, Aretha. Cool., the idea wasn't just to make a photography book. It is a record of what happens when you trust. Listening, leadership, and presence come together over time. All the original books on Amazon, they're all gone. There are now only original signed copies left, and you can only find them on ArethaCool.com in the US and in Japan. And yes, you heard me right. Every copy is hand signed because this work deserves intention. Today, let me leave you with this. You are not unbooked because you lack talent. You are unbooked because your message hasn't caught up with your ability yet. And that's good news, because messaging, that can change and change quickly. So listen to your clients. Listen to your potential clients. Use their words, lead with certainty, and stop hiding behind pretty pictures. Your work matters, but your clarity. That's what leads people to choose you. If this episode helps something click for you, leave a five star review. It helps photographers who are stuck find this message sooner. Share this episode with one photographer who keeps blaming the algorithm when what they really need is clearer language. I look forward to seeing you all next week, right back here on the Photography Breakthrough Podcast. Until then, live bravely and trust yourself a little more than you did yesterday. Bye for now.

Your Life Could Look Completely Different by This Time Next Year Welcome back to the Photography Breakthrough Podcast. I'm Matthew, and if you are listening to this right now, maybe while editing or on a walk, or even between shoots, I want you to pause for a second and imagine something with me. Imagine it's January 19th, 2027, one year from today. You are waking up and you have a full calendar of ideal clients. People who see your value, respect your time, and love the experience you give them. You are not chasing leads. You are not stressed, you are not worried. You are choosing who to work with. You are not wondering when the next booking is going to come. You are turning people away or you are raising your prices. Your income has doubled from what it was back in 2026. Or maybe more than that, you feel different, steady, respected, confident, and free. That future is not a fantasy. It is not reserved for the lucky ones or the influencers with 50,000 followers. It can be your future, but it starts with a decision and a new way of showing up in your business. Today I want to talk about exactly how you can create that breakthrough year, and what happens if you don't, because nothing actually stays the same. It either gets better or it gets worse. Let's discuss the illusion of staying where you are. Let's talk about something tough but true. Most photographers tell themselves, “If I just keep going, eventually things will pick up,” but here's the truth: waiting is not a growth strategy. You are either building momentum, or you're slowly slipping further behind. Every month you don't have a way to bring in clients, your confidence takes a hit. You start to question your talent. Maybe you've been doing that already. You lower your prices. You take on those shoots that you know drain you even before you do them. And yes, you consider giving up. That's not stability. That's slow erosion. And the worst part, it feels like you're trying. You are posting, you are shooting, you are busy, but you are not moving forward. That's why I created my new training, the Photography Breakthrough System, because you don't need to hustle harder. You need a new approach that actually works. The Photography Breakthrough System is for photographers who photograph people and want real steady clients. For those of you who have been in my workshop, you know right now the doors are open but not much longer. The window to join and be a part of Photography Breakthrough System is about to close. We're closing the doors in a few days because we begin working right away next week with the students who said yes. So what actually happens once you become a member of Photography Breakthrough System? Let's flip the script and go a week ahead. You just logged off from your first session inside the Photography Breakthrough System, and you knew exactly how to start getting new bookings right away, right in your first week. I am not talking about some vague marketing advice. I'm talking about a step-by-step process custom built for people like you, photographers who work with human beings, not products. In that first session, I walk you through the core shift in how you position your photography experience so clients are excited to book you — not just any photographer, but you. The very first week, I give you a simple strategy to use right away this first month of the year so you can start booking clients right away, clients who value what you offer. I've seen photographers go from crickets to consistent clients in just a few weeks because they finally had the clarity, confidence, and a plan that works. Now yes, you didn't get here overnight, and I'm not saying you can fix everything overnight. That's just not true. But in the first week, you're going to know if this is right for you or not. Here's something no one likes to admit. Most photographers are just barely holding on. They're exhausted. They're second-guessing themselves. And they're terrified that if things don't change soon, they have to give up the dream of doing what they love. If that's you, I want you to hear me. There is nothing wrong with you. You are not lazy, you are not untalented. You've just never been shown a path that helps you turn your gift into a business that supports your life. And that's why I'm inviting you into the Photography Breakthrough System right now. Because if you wait another year, how much money are you going to leave on the table? How much of your confidence will erode in the next year? How many almost-bookings will slip away? Or you could be waking up one year from today with your calendar full, your income doubled, and a reputation for delivering a life-changing photo experience. It starts next week. That first session could be the moment everything changes. Your training is live. Will you be there? Inside Photography Breakthrough System, I'm guiding you through every step: how to attract aligned clients, how to deliver a photo experience that transforms how they feel about themselves, and how to build a business where clients come to you and refer you like crazy. As a matter of fact, in the very first week, I'm going to teach you exactly how to do that — a way for clients to come to you and refer you like crazy. This is your turning point, but only if you say yes. We make it very easy for you to join. There are two options. Pick the one that's right for you. The link to join is right here in the show notes. It is also on my Instagram page in the bio. My Instagram page is under Matthew Jordan Smith, and the link to join and change your life is in my bio. Go there and click the link. Sign up today. The only thing is you need to do it in the next few days before the deadline ends. Spots are filling up and we kick off soon. If you've waited long enough, this is your moment. Let's come back to that image. One year from today, you're waking up, coffee in hand, reviewing a calendar full of dream clients. Your bank account reflects the work you put in. Your clients rave about how powerful and beautiful they felt in front of your lens. You feel proud, steady, lit up. That's what I want for you, but nothing changes until you do, and nothing gets better by waiting. So choose your breakthrough. Join us now, and I'll see you inside the first session next week at Photography Breakthrough System. Once again, the link to join is in the show notes or go to my Instagram page, go to my bio, and click the link there. I'm Matthew, and thank you for spending your time with me today. I can't wait to see what you create when you finally step into the business and life you've been dreaming of. Until next week, bye for now.

The Day Before Everything Changes Hello, it's Matthew Jordan Smith, and today I wanna speak directly to you. You're listening to this podcast, on the day it comes out, today is January 5th, 2026, and if you've been listening to this podcast for a while. You already know something big is coming. Tomorrow. January 6th, we begin the photography breakthrough three day live workshop. This workshop is for you if people have seen your work and inquire about hiring you, but you lose them the minute you tell them your price. This workshop is for you if you feel stuck. In any way in your photography, maybe you are afraid to raise your prices because you think if you do, you'll lose the clients you have, or maybe you think no one will pay your price.This workshop is for you if you've been working hard, but income is inconsistent. You see, I know the frustration that comes from all of that. You are talented. I know you care. I know your work has value. But somehow it still feels like people don't see it. Well, my friend, that ends tomorrow because this workshop is designed to help you finally break through the fear that's been holding you back from raising your prices and getting consistent paying clients month after month. You've been guessing and second guessing, but you don't need to anymore. You don't need to keep waiting, and you definitely don't need to lower your value just so you can get booked to do what you love. You just need the right tools, the right system, and the right support, and that's exactly what you wanna get starting tomorrow. So if you haven't signed up yet, do it now This is your last chance to reserve your spot and be there on the first day of this three day workshop. It starts online tomorrow. It is live. Go to the link right now and register. Make sure you are there on time. Do me a favor, grab a pin pencil and something to write with. You're gonna need that throughout this workshop because here's what's waiting for you inside the workshop. A clear path to a system to raise your prices with confidence. A way to show value to your clients so they can say yes. Even at your higher rate.What you'll also find inside this workshop is a clear path to consistent income. As you do the work that lights you up. Every session is live. Every session is practical, and every session is designed to move you forward. Now, here's what's new. After each live session, I'll be heading over to our private Facebook workshop group. Think of it as a popup Facebook group that's just for the workshop. As soon as you sign up, the link to the Facebook group is right there. So join the Facebook group right away.There you can ask questions. I'll be there to engage with you and help you apply what you've learned that day. So don't go on this journey alone. Don't just listen. Take action. Because the truth is, nothing changes unless you change something. And this workshop, it could be the moment that changes everything. You deserve to start your year right. You deserve to feel confident talking about your prices. You deserve clients who respect your work and pay you well. You deserve to build a photography business that gives you freedom, not fear. So let's make that happen. Sign up now and join me tomorrow. Show up for yourself. And after the session, come hang out with me in the Facebook group. I'll be there, ready to connect with you, answer your questions, and support you in real time. This is your time. Don't let fear win another year. Let's build something stronger together. I'll see you tomorrow. All right, everyone, until tomorrow. Bye for now. 

Photography Breakthrough: Year-End Encouragement and Free Workshop Hey there, it's Matthew, and welcome to the Photography Breakthrough Podcast. This episode is a little different. It's just you and me today, and I want to speak straight to your heart. Because as this year comes to a close, I know you're probably feeling a lot. Hope, pressure, maybe some fear, maybe even some doubt. So before we go any further, I want to say this. . I see you. You've shown up, you've worked hard, you've tried, even when it felt like no one noticed, kept going, and that alone is worth honoring. Today is December 29th. Just days away from a brand new year, and as we close out 2025, I want you to take this moment for yourself, not for your clients, not for your family, not for social media, just you. Because if you are like many photographers, I know you've been carrying a lot this year. Maybe you've been trying to figure out how to get more work.Maybe you are tired of wondering if you'll ever be able to raise your prices and have clients who truly value what you do.Maybe you're questioning whether this dream of being a photographer is even still possible for you. I want to tell you something todayand I want you to hear this fully. . You are not the problem.You don't need to work harder. You don't need to hustle more.You don't need to become someone. You are not. You need a better system. You need better support.You need to know how to create a photography business that lets you breathe and thrive. That's why I created this podcast this year. And that's why I'm inviting you to something special in January. But before I get into that, let me share something personal. At the beginning of 2025, I asked myself, what legacy do I want to leave? Not just through my photos, but through the impact I can make in the lives of other photographers for photographers like you. Because even with all the career highlights I've had, I remember very well how hard it can be. It was a year ago. This time when I was struggling One year ago. I had nights when I could not sleep. Leap. I know that struggle. The worry . The doubt that creeps in. It doesn't matter how talented you are, these struggles are real. Not the highlight reel, the real story, not what you see on Instagram, but real life. This year I shared my struggles and how to break through those struggles.I shared that because you may be struggling.And I know you have talent. It's not your talent that's holding you back. You see when you learn how to make your clients feel powerful, beautiful, and truly seen, you stop chasing bookings and start attracting them. And not just once, but again and again. Don't you want that? This year I watched photographers take what I taught and completely shift their lives. They stopped waiting. They stopped wondering. They raised their prices, booked more clients, and finally felt in control again, and now it's your turn.My dream for you is to have a business that supports your life, not one that drains it. I want you to feel proud when you talk about your work. I want you to fall in love with photography again and have the freedom to do it your way. So let me ask you something. Are you ready to create consistent, meaningful work in 2026? , Are you ready to attract clients who pay well and love the experience you give them? Are you ready to stop feeling like you are behind and start building real momentum?. If you said yes to any of that, then join me for my free three day workshop starting this January.This workshop is designed specifically for photographers like you who are amazing at what they do, but want more consistency, confidence, more clients, and charging more. In January, I'm gonna give you an opportunity to attract the right clients without chasing. I'm going to give you the opportunity to raise your prices without the fear. I know the moment you think about raising your prices, that fear takes over. We're going to get over that.And help you build a photography brand that connects emotionally, you're going to discover and experience that leads to repeat business, not just in 2026, but every year after this. You see my friend, everything I teach, I live every single day.It's the same approach that led a new client to fly me to Kenya this month to photograph seven women on Safari. Yes, it really works. I want to help you make it work for you. All you have to do is take that first step. Now is the time for you to sign up. Go and sign up for the January workshop right now. The link is in the show notes and on my Instagram. This workshop. It's completely free. I'm going to be honest with you. At the end of this workshop, you'll have the opportunity to work with me, but even if you don't want to go that far, there's something for you to help you get past your struggles. Again, this three day workshop is completely free, And the link, once again, it's in the show notes and the link is on my Instagram. My Instagram is under my name. Matthew Jordan Smith. This could be your turning point, the one you've been waiting for. Let 2026 be the year you stop struggling and start thriving. Let it be the year you step fully into your purpose with your camera, your vision, and your voice. You deserve that. You are ready for that. I want to thank you for spending this year with me. And thank you for choosing to believe in yourself. Just a little more each and every day. I can't wait to see what you create in 2026. Until next time, have a peaceful new year. I'll see you in January. Stay inspired, stay courageous and keep going. You don't have to do this by yourself. Until then, bye for now and Happy New Year. 

From Stranger to Client for Life Welcome to the Photography Breakthrough Podcast. I'm your host, Matthew Jordan Smith. Since this podcast began, I've shared tips to help you overcome your biggest photography challenges, how to raise your prices, how to make more money, how to build a client base. But one of the most important and overlooked keys to long-term success is this, how to create consistent, lasting clients. Today, I want to do something different. I want to tell you a story. A story about a single shoot that turned into a 13 year client relationship and a friendship that changed my life. But more than that, this story is packed with lessons about connection, about care, about how we as photographers can create transformation, not just through images, but through the experience we offer. Let me take you back. Years ago, I got a call from someone who wanted to work with me. But before I ever met her, I'd already heard the stories. She's hard to work with. She doesn't like anybody. Are you sure you wanna go down that road? I bet you've had something similar happen. When someone's reputation gets in your head, before you ever have the chance to form your own impression, you've heard those voices from others giving you their opinion. And if you're not careful, it will become your opinion. So here's the first lesson. Always enter into every opportunity with a clear head and an open heart. Other people's experiences are not your truth. Other people's experience is based on them. It has nothing to do with you find your own truth. So every new opportunity go in with a clear head and an open heart. So this client, she was famous, very famous, and like many celebrity shoots, I was communicating through managers and assistants. But before the shoot, I did something different. Before I ever met her, I did my research. I found out what she loved and based on that research I sent her yellow roses. That one gesture changed everything. She called me personally and said, no photographer has ever sent me flowers before. And just like that, we had a connection. We still hadn't met face to face, but we had a connection. I could feel it. We started talking about photography sure. But also about food, about music, about life. We bonded before we ever met face to face. This is part of what I teach all my students. It doesn't matter if the client is famous or not, this works on everybody. But back to the story. When I flew to Detroit to do our first shoot, I brought music curated just for her. The shoot went well at the end. I gave her, at the time, my brand new book, which was my first book ever. She looked at the book and said, why am I not in this book? She wasn't joking. I promised her right then and there. When I do another book, I promise you, you will be in it. She smiled, looked at me, and then handed me a piece of paper and said, this is my personal number. If you ever need anything, call me. I stood there, shocked. And I held onto that paper all the way back to New York, staring at it on the flight wondering, is this really happening? I mean, this is the Queen of Soul who gave me her number. Months later I heard she was going to be performing at Madison Square Garden. I didn't have an assignment. I wasn't being paid, but I want to capture her story. I called the number. Expecting a manager or agent to pick up, but no, she answered the phone. I told her my idea. I said, Mrs. Franklin, I'd love to follow you around for three days. I told her exactly what I want to do and my ideas for doing it. The next thing I know, I'm backstage. I'm in the car, I'm in rehearsals. I'm in the dressing room now. There's no paycheck involved in this shoot. It was my idea just to build a bond to build trust. That right there is how you turn a stranger into a long-term client over the next 13 years. I, I photographed Aretha Franklin countless times. We talked about everything, TV shows, recipes, life when she passed. We were planning on our next shoot. She was even sending me text messages from the hospital talking about ideas about the next shoot. You see, she wasn't just a client, she was a friend. This is my dream for you not to chase new clients every single week, every single month, constantly scrambling for the next gig. That's exhausting and it's not necessary. Instead, build bonds. Give your clients an experience that makes them feel seen, special, valued. It doesn't matter who it is. Maybe you're thinking Matthew, oh yeah, that's a celebrity. That doesn't matter. Making somebody feel seen and special and valued. That works for everybody. Who do you know who doesn't want to feel seen, feel special? Many people are not doing this and this is why they're struggling. But this is how you create consistent clients who come back time and time again, and who tell others about you. Aretha's story and our journey together is what inspired my latest book, Aretha Cool is not just a photo book, it's the story from our very first shoot to her last official photo session. It's a visual journey of trust, transformation, and yeah, legacy. And today I want you to experience it in a deeper way. I want you to get the book, Aretha. Cool. I've put the book on sale on Amazon. Over 40% off. To make it easy for you to get this book, because there are a few things I want you to do. Number one, order the book. It's on Amazon, but don't just flip through the photos. Look between the lines, see the bond, feel the relationship. Start by going to page 40. Now I want you to see this through the eyes of a photographer who knows the full story. I want you to go to page 40. The page is not numbered, but the page after is, so you can find it pretty easily. Look at that image as a photographer. Is that the image that a client gives to a photographer they've hired, or is that the image a friend gives to another friend. Take a look at that. You are a photographer. You know what that moment feels like when it's just a moment, and you also know what that feels like when a friend is saying goodbye to you. It's a real moment. That's a bond, that's a friendship. Now go to page 52 and let me share a story that most don't know. This was an unexpected moment. It was the first time seeing her after not seeing her for a few months. And she gets out the car this way to surprise me. Everybody's laughing. I'm laughing. She's laughing. All the bodyguards are laughing. It was a special moment between friends. Look closely at that smile. I want you to understand what it looks like as a photographer when you're photographing a client who becomes a friend, because this is what I want for you. Stop looking at your clients as a client. Create a friendship, create a bond, because when you do moments like this happen organically. This was not a planned moment. I had no idea this was gonna happen. I had no clue. And when it did, it shocked me, and that's the beauty of it. Now look at page 93. Don't laugh. That's a real moment and instant. And I'm sure you have experienced this moment with some of your friends. You are out and about and you bump into a friend. You see them, you recognize them, and that's the expression, right? I think you're starting to get it. You're creating something special that lasts far longer than the paycheck. Now, let's go a little deeper. I told you earlier that I started creating a playlist for every shoot. Now on that first shoot, I made a playlist, and at the time I didn't know her, but after that first meeting, I learned that she loved her own music. So I put a playlist together of my favorite Aretha Franklin music, and I played it for her on every single shoot after that. So every time we were in studio shooting, I played that playlist. Well, guess what? I made a playlist on Spotify and I put all those songs that I made for Aretha Franklin into that Spotify playlist. The playlist is called Aretha. Cool. I want you to play that playlist as you look through the book. This way, you'll hear the same music I played for the Queen of Soul. As you are looking through the book, it's a very different experience. That playlist is the exact playlist I used on every single studio shoot for her. Music sets the tone. As a photographer, you already know this. It creates the mood. It also deepens the connection. It, I just don't do this for celebrities. I do this on every single shoot. The reason why I'm asking you to buy the book. is so you can experience what she experienced, feel what we felt, whether you're just starting out or you've been shooting for years. This story, this book is a roadmap to building not just a career, but a legacy. So here's your mission. Get the book Aretha. Cool. It's on Amazon in the US or you can order@arethacool.com. If you're international, listen to the playlist on Spotify as you look through the book. Number three, start seeing your clients differently. Stop thinking transaction. Start thinking transformation. And if you are one of my students, let's go deeper. Let's talk about how to apply this to your own work. Now, if you're listening to this podcast and you're not a photographer, give it to a friend who is. But first, tell them the story and have them listen to this podcast episode. Help them see what's possible. We don't just take pictures, we create moments. We build trust. We give people the experience of truly being seen. That my friend is how we create clients for life. I'm Matthew Jordan Smith, and this is Photography Breakthrough Podcast. Until next time, stay inspired, stay intentional, and remember, your lens has the power to change lives. Happy holidays.I'M READY

Photography Breakthrough: Teachable to Get Booked Welcome back to the Photography Breakthrough Podcast, the place where struggling portrait photographers transform into confident business owners consistently getting booked by clients who value their work and happily pay their rates. I'm your host, Matthew Jordan Smith, and today's episode, episode number 18, is going to cut through the noise. And get right to the heart of something. I know a lot of you are feeling. Or do you just want to keep doing what you've always done? Hoping something changes. As many of you know. I wrapped up a free three day workshop at the end of November. If you were there, thank you. If you showed up, you listened, you took notes, you are already ahead of the curve. We talked about the real reason most photographers aren't getting booked. We talked about what's really happening when a potential client says, I love your work. We talked about how good that feels for us as photographers. You know that feeling. The first moment somebody. Inquires about your work, and they say, I love your pictures. We all know what that feels like in that moment. Somebody sees us, recognizes our work, and then wants to find out how much we charge, then you reply with your rate and then they ghost you. The moment you send your pricing, they disappear. You don't hear from them. We unpacked how giving your price without the right structure behind it is like handing someone an expensive menu before they've even sat down in your restaurant. No context, no emotional connection, no value built. And I showed you how the problem isn't your price. It's the lack of a system around how you present your offer and guide your clients through an experience. But here's what I noticed. Not everyone who heard that message took it seriously enough to act on it. But some of you did. Those who really wanna change the next 12 months of your life, your business, and I am excited to get to work with all of you! Some of you saw the door open to the Photography Breakthrough System, my live training that walks you step by step through building a business that actually gets clients, but some hesitated. Maybe you said I need to think about it, or maybe next time, or I kind of already know this stuff. And if that was you, I want to say this with love, but also with clarity, knowing and doing are not the same thing. Thinking about change is not the same as becoming teachable. Now, being teachable doesn't mean you are a beginner. Let me make that clear. It doesn't mean you are not talented. It means you are ready to stop doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. You've probably heard that quote by Albert Einstein. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. But let's get back to that question. Are you actually teachable? Because when you are, it truly means you're ready to stop doing the same things over and over and expecting those different results. It means you're willing to look at your current process. Honestly, that's not easy. I get it. During the workshop. I asked you to write down how much you've made in the last 12 months and look at that honestly, what got you here won't get you there.This next one is a big one. Let go of pride, let go of fear, and let go of ego so you can actually grow. Until you do those things, nothing's going to change. I think that's very important. So I wanna repeat it so you actually really hear this. Look at your current process, honestly, except what got you here. Won't get you to your future. Let go of the pride, the fear, the ego, so you can actually grow. You see if you keep posting your work and hoping someone books replying with your price and crossing your fingers, waiting for the right time to invest in yourself. Then deep down you are relying on hope instead of strategy, and hope is a terrible business model. I know taking a step forward can be scary. Investing in yourself can be scary. But let's talk about why structure sets you free. Let me tell you, this structure does not limit your creativity. It protects it. Having a system doesn't make you robotic. It makes you consistent. When you have a client journey that builds value, before you talk price, when you know what to say and when to say it. When you know how to guide a client to see themselves in your work and trust your process, you stop getting ghosted. You stop doubting your worth, you stop shrinking your price just to get someone to say yes, and that is what I'm teaching inside the Photography Breakthrough System. Not a bunch of theory, not another surface level course. A framework that helps you get booked more consistently and feel proud of what you charge. Speaking of which, are you happy with what you're charging? Let's be honest. He is the real question. Do you want to grow or do you want to be right? About why it's not working. Do you want results or do you want to keep repeating what feels comfortable? Are you teachable? Or are you just hoping clients will magically start valuing your work someday? I say all this with deep love because I see your potential. But I also see the trap you might be in, and it's this, thinking your current effort should already be working. Instead of realizing it's time to upgrade the way you run your business. Here's the good news. If something inside you is stirring right now. If your chest feels tight, if your mind is racing with, maybe I do need to shift something, then you are teachable. And today for those people who hear this but hesitated. I am going to give another chance to change your future, But this is only for the next 48 hours. Think of this as a gift to yourself. A gift to your future self. Today, we will open the door to photography breakthrough system, but just for a little while, this is your chance to stop winging it and start building a business that actually works, not one that's built on hope. One that's built on clarity, connection, and confidence. This invitation. It is for those who listen to the podcast. If you know you need to take action, today is your day. The link to sign up and change your life is in the show notes. I will also put the link on my Instagram. Go to my Instagram. Right now I'm under Matthew Jordan Smith. When you click the link in my bio. There, you'll find a special link that's just for you. I'm not telling anybody else. This is just for people who will listen to this podcast, who know you need to take action, but you've been afraid, scared to move forward. I get it. I know what that feels like. But this offer is just for you. The special link will say two words. I'm ready. That's it. I'm ready. Click the I'm Ready link. And come and join us. I look forward to seeing you. Thank you for being here for episode 18 of the Photography Breakthrough Podcast. If this hits home today, I'd love to hear from you. DM me if you have questions on Instagram. As I said earlier, I'm under Matthew Jordan Smith. Tell me what you're ready to do differently now. If you are on the fence, do me a favor. On Instagram, send me a message and let me know. Matthew, I'm on the fence because... I'd love to hear from you. But if you're ready to become truly teachable and build the system you business has been missing, check out photography breakthrough system while enrollment is still open. Remember, click the link that says. I'm ready. This is your time. Until next time. Remember, confidence is built, clients are guided, and the breakthrough comes when you're finally willing to do things differently. Thank you for your time today. Thank you for being here. Thank you for showing up because that alone lets me know you care about your future. Now let's do something about it. I look forward to seeing you very soon. Until next time. Bye for now.I'M READY