Mica: [00:00:00] Welcome to the 63rd episode of The Savory Shot, a podcast about the art and soul of food photography. Y'all know who I be. I'm your host with the most, Mica McCook. I'm a food photographer based out of Austin, Texas. Before I go any further I want to start the show by thanking you, the wonderful and amazing listeners. Y'all, I've said it once, I'll keep saying it, this show would not be here, it would not exist if it were not for you. Y'all are the bomb diggity. Y'all are my besties, and I just want to say thank you.
So, if this is your 63rd time joining us, thank you so much for coming back and supporting the show. If this is your first time here, welcome, bestie. Welcome to the Hot Mess [00:01:00] Express. I hope you enjoy yourself. I hope you stay. But y'all, I wanna hop right into it. I wanna talk about today's episode. Today's episode, it's special.
It's special because for the first time ever, we have a returning guest. What? What? Never thought I'd see the day, but here we are, and I'm so excited. So drum roll, please. What's the sound that you make with the drum roll? The brrrr, drama roll, please.
Please welcome to the show, Jeff Brown. Jeff first joined us in 2023.
For episode 24, I highly recommend you go back and listen to that episode if you need a refresher or you just want to hear a bomb ass episode, [00:02:00] go listen to it. But for those of you who don't know Jeff, allow me to introduce him to you. Jeff is a photography business mentor, best selling author, and former Royal Navy photographer, who's helped Photographers worldwide build thriving brands. With experience running four successful photography businesses, he now mentors photographers in 20 plus countries, helping them become the go to experts in their niche.
Jeff's passion, self belief, goal setting, branding, and LinkedIn strategy. Jeff believes that success starts with mindset and a clear game plan. He's written four best selling books. and is a partner with top photography brands like OM System, Studio Ninja, and the Society of Photographers. He is the president of the BIPP, the BIPP.
Also known as the [00:03:00] British Institute of Professional Photography and is the UK and US brand ambassador for the Shutter Studio app. I love having Jeff on the show. In this episode, y'all, we discuss the changes happening in LinkedIn. Why using the newsletter feature in LinkedIn is a game changer and his newest edition of the book, The Photographer's Missing LinkedIn, which I have, I have the third edition, I just bought the fourth edition.
It is well worth your money. It is an investment worth making and implementing. I believe I've said this plenty of times about how much I love LinkedIn. How I find the decision makers on LinkedIn and the reason why I love that platform so much has a lot to do with Jeff. So I'm excited for y'all to listen to this episode.
So let's get into it. Grab your coffee, [00:04:00] grab a notebook, grab a cocktail. If it's five o'clock where you're at or her when you're listening and let's start the show.
Jeff, it is so awesome to have you back on the show. This is a first in Savory Shot history. You are the first guest to make a return appearance, and I could not think of anyone better than you. Your episode had so much positive feedback from my listeners, and [00:05:00] there were more questions and more curiosity.
So welcome back to this show. I'm really excited to have you back. Since you were one of my earlier guests, what has been going on for you since then?
What exciting things have you been up to?
Jeff: So I've been using LinkedIn to leverage what I call opportunities. So a lot of people think about use LinkedIn to find customers. Which I do, and I get a lot of my work from LinkedIn mentoring other photographers on how to build and grow their business.
But I also want opportunity. And for me, opportunity is a thing like speaking events, sponsorships, affiliates, ambassadorships. And I've been over the past 12 months utilizing LinkedIn to generate passive income. Just the week before Christmas, I got 2000 pounds. So that's what about 2, 200, 2, 400 in affiliates and sponsorship, passive income just come through from some of the brands that I work with.
So I've used LinkedIn to reach out to [00:06:00] brands to become a brand ambassador. And also for speaking events. Now I've been to a couple of really exciting speaking events. I've got one in London this month, another one in Birmingham this month. Then I've got one in Johannesburg in March, another one in Cape Town in March and then one in Calgary and one in Toronto.
And this is all from putting myself out, utilizing, LinkedIn, how can I get more opportunity into my business and my life? And the more opportunity you have, the more people see you in different places. The more authority you have, the more you become more respected, the more followers you grow.
And then ultimately the snowball is the more opportunity keeps coming your way. So that is one of the real magic things. And that's for me as well. We've just been talking about travel and how I love to travel. Anything that gets me a speaking event internationally is a real tick of the box for me, because obviously I'm giving value to photographers, I'm doing my speaking, but I'm also getting paid to go to a fantastic place and experience another country and [00:07:00] another culture and eat really nice food and stay in a lovely hotel.
And for me that's brilliant. I love experience. For me, life is all about different experiences. So that is one thing that a lot of people forget about LinkedIn. It's not just finding customers. It's finding opportunity as well.
Mica: You mentioned how you like to visit different countries every year and you recently went to Germany and Poland. What was your favorite memory from that trip?
Jeff: So I've always been really interested in like the Cold War. We'd gone to Poznań in Poland. I had a look on the train time. So it's only two and a half hours to go over to Berlin and I've never been to Berlin. So we took a train journey over to Berlin, went and did all the touristy things.
And then if we ended up, cause it was so cold, it was like minus three or four degrees. And it was, it had a really bitter wind with a minus seven or eight chill factor that we couldn't walk much further along the street without having to go into a pub. So my girlfriend was like, Oh, Jeff, we'll go into this [00:08:00] pub.
And I was absolutely disgusted because we ended up in an Irish bar eating Mexican food in Berlin. And I was like, we should be in a German bar having big sausages and drinking steins of beer. And we're in an Irish bar eating Mexican food. And I was like, this
Mica: You're in an Irish bar eating Mexican food.
Jeff: A Mexican. They're not a Mexican menu. I was like, what the hell is going on here?
Mica: What? That is.
Jeff: It's absolutely.
But I did get my pint, a pint of German beer a little bit later in the day. And I did manage to get myself one of those big German sausages before with Tom's.
Mica: Oh my gosh, that. I'm going to definitely tell my husband that I was like, okay, we definitely got to, we got to go find this Irish pub so we can have some Mexican food.
So going back to what you said about LinkedIn about how it's not just about finding clients, it's about finding opportunities. In the [00:09:00] last two years, let's say, how has your approach to LinkedIn evolved?
Jeff: So it's funny enough, cause I've just written my fourth edition of my LinkedIn book. I wrote my third edition of my LinkedIn book two years ago. In January, 2022, I had 30, 000 followers. Two years later, I have 65, 000 followers.
I've done no advertising whatsoever. My advertising budget for LinkedIn is zero. I've never spent a penny. But I reach out for opportunity and I connect with photographers and post regular content. So the thing with LinkedIn, you do have that potential to grow much bigger than on Instagram Facebook.
Say you comment on one of my posts, or I comment on one of your posts. You put a post up about some brilliant food photography that you've done. And I comment "That's absolutely fantastic. I love that picture." I have 65, 000 followers.
So in quite a few of my followers news feeds, they will see Jeff Brown [00:10:00] commented on Mica post about such and such. What happens is you can see that knock on effect. They're like, Oh, what's Jeff been commenting about? And you don't have to be connected with those people.
You need to be connecting with people who serve your ideal customers as well. That is the phenomenal growth aspect of LinkedIn. So you don't need a huge following to get a lot of engagement.
LinkedIn is a storytelling platform. Many photographers I work with who have Instagram. They're fed up with it. Might be getting likes or thumbs up, but it's not monetized and not really getting anything.
It's not building relationships. LinkedIn is a comment and content driven platform. The ideal word count or character count is about 12 to 1500 characters. On your personal post on LinkedIn, you have a maximum of 3000 characters.
Sometimes I'll write 3000 characters, but what I do is tell stories. So I do who, what, where, when, why. I always create a captivating headline. Then start telling my [00:11:00] story. At the very end of that story, whether it's a top tip, whether it's a personal story, inspirational story, or something funny, I'll always ask a question because the LinkedIn algorithm is driven by comments.
So what you want to do is you want people to comment. Commenting is the best way to start building relationships. Because if somebody just likes your post, you don't really see that person. You might say, I might look at one of my posts. Oh, it'll have Mica and 200 other people like this particular.
So I don't see all those people unless I click it and open it up and look, but I do see the comments somebody might comment and that's it. Oh yeah. I totally agree with you there. And then they comment back. So you start building relationships. I actually know a lot of people who have never met in person.
But I know them for the comments. And this is where a lot of the opportunity rises and you can start commenting on big brands. Even if it's a big brand, if you want to get in with Nikon or Canon, or a particular food company you want to work with, all those [00:12:00] people posting on LinkedIn are just normal people like you or me, when I got my ambassadorship for OM system, Olympus cameras, That came through just commenting the guy who I was in Zoom with, who was in charge of the ambassador liaison, I ended up doing paid work while creating videos.
I ended up doing a Zoom with him. He was in his bedroom, cause he was working from home and I was in the office just chatting away. How are you doing Jeff? Oh, you live in Northumberland. That's a beautiful place. I go up there sometimes on holiday and walk the dog.
We spent 10 minutes just chatting because that relationship's been built up. And that's the key. You don't try and sell, try and get to know each other. One of the best ways to create content and build relationships is not to try and sell. So I sell more by not selling.
That is the key to success. I would say on LinkedIn, because you don't have to tell people that you're a food photographer because they can look at your profile and see that and they can see content. It's the way that you tell your stories, as opposed to [00:13:00] book me, I'll come and do a food shoot, start telling stories because that really works.
Mica: You've hit on some real deep points there because social media at the root of everything is about relationship building and making friends, thus the term social. I remember when Friendster came out. Was the first social media account I ever joined. I loved it because I made international friends.
LinkedIn is dubbed as this super businessy place.
Where you're not supposed to put your personal business out there or talk about things you might be struggling with. You only address it when you're interviewing for a job.
What would you say to photographers today if they're uncomfortable with posting not just their professional work, but getting personal and showing who they are? How can they show who they are and still appear professional?
Jeff: I think one of the things is you've got to remember that all these people that you're going to be [00:14:00] connecting with, if you saw every person as, you know, very straight list, very self, this robotic sort of figure that it has no personality. It's going to be hard to stand out, but if you want to put a bit of personality, put a bit of humor, I constantly make fun of myself.
I will put up some LinkedIn that, like the LinkedIn police type people would go, Oh my God, keep that on Facebook. Hardly anybody ever says that. A few people roll their eyes and might shake their heads because I put a picture of a cake that I've got or I put a picture of me and my dog or I put a picture of me out for a ride on my motorbike, but I'll tell a story.
I'll also share a lot of my failures and be totally open with it. I've talked massively on LinkedIn about my big failure 10 years ago, where I tried to take my own life and I lost over with about 160, 000 pounds in total when the pub venture that I had collapsed. So I talk about that.
I talk about how I overcame depression and I talked about positivity. I also share lots of pictures from my [00:15:00] local area and I'm currently writing a travel book for Northumberland. Hopefully we're going to publish that by the end of this month, and I've got a series of about four or five travel books that I want to write for my local area because I love my local area so much. It's steeped in history. It's a beautiful part of the United Kingdom. Say for instance, you're a food photographer in Houston. Say for example, if you were connecting with other food businesses in Houston and you were putting out pictures of food, there's nothing to stop you putting out pictures of statues, bridges, iconic landmarks, and telling a bit of a story because those people who you're connected with will instantly recognize that picture.
They'll go, Oh, there's that bridge over the river, such and such. Did you know this bridge was built in 1852 at the time it was started? And tell a bit of a story because that local connection will resonate with a lot of people.
So don't be afraid to post content that isn't [00:16:00] directly within your niche. So if you're a food photographer, don't just talk about your food photography, talk about cookery tips, talk about in season foods and give advice on home baking and healthy eating options.
So you become a bit of an ambassador for food and the food industry and stuff like that. So I've got a travel photographer, Steve Campbell, who's just launched his own travel book for Scotland. He published three books last year with me working with him. And he's basically now branding himself on LinkedIn as an ambassador for Scotland, showcasing the history, what heritage and the beauty of Scotland.
But he's also connecting with a lot of outdoor brands, like Land Rover Defender, North Face, Berghaus, Patagonia camping brands, VW camper vans, that sort of stuff. Those are also brands that would be very appealed to his photographer, having their products and services showcased in the Scottish Highlands, up a mountain or in the great Glen with Highland cows and deer and stuff like [00:17:00] that.
So that is how he's turned his profile and it's becoming, a lot of people are really engaging it with it. But he's also getting a lot of photographers going, Steve, would you be able to teach me to take pictures like that? So the next stage means he's launching a workshop.
He's now selling his presets as well for all these landscapes. So he's creating a passive income through LinkedIn, as well as selling some of his stock image during his prints. So he's an ambassador for Scotland.
He's writing travel books. He's working with outdoor adventure and travel related brands that work well in the countryside and the great outdoors. And then he's selling his presets. He's teaching people how to take amazing landscapes. He's also selling his images. And then this year he's going to be running some in person workshops in the Scottish Highlands.
And this is coming from his big presence on LinkedIn. And he started with, I think it was, I started working with Steve. October, 2023 at 75 [00:18:00] followers. And I think he's now got two and a half thousand. And he hasn't spent a penny on that.
Mica: That is incredible. That is incredible. It's incredible that one site has created multiple different forms of, or streams of income. And it's all centered around things that excite him. For me personally, I just get so caught up in the perfection of building relationships that I've forgotten how to organically build a relationship and to comment on things and not hold this pressure of is this engaging enough?
Will this catch their attention enough? Will I stand out enough instead of just like posting from the heart? I don't know if that's something that your clients have struggled with or if you've heard other photographers talk about that.
Jeff: Yet. I think it's interesting, isn't it? And when it comes to LinkedIn, funny enough, what I do with LinkedIn now is I've got a Facebook business page with [00:19:00] 37, 000 followers. And it gets nothing. I put a post out there. It gets two or three likes. It's horrendous. Facebook just want me to, pay for Facebook ads.
But then last year I switched on Facebook professional mode on my personal profile. So my personal profile, me, Jeff Brown, you can switch on what's called professional mode. And that is for people who are while their own business. So likes of musicians, authors, photographers, makeup artists, stuff like that.
So if you look at your Facebook page, you've got your banner on your Facebook page, just below your banner on the right hand side, if you're looking on a desktop or a laptop, you'll see three little dots, three horizontal dots, click on those little dots and it will say switch on professional mode.
So when you switch on professional mode, Facebook will take you through a few stages on how to become a content creator on Facebook. So what I do, my process is as I write for LinkedIn first, because LinkedIn is a storytelling platform, then sometimes I trim it down. I will put that same content on [00:20:00] Facebook and I'll build relationships through Facebook.
And now I've currently got an ad running on my Facebook page. Me, Jeff Brown, where for 5 dollars per day, I'm attracting followers who are interested in photography. So the way I use that is I get them to come over and follow my page. And then every now and then I'll boost a post for maybe 10, which talks about say goal setting.
But then at the end of that post, there will be a link to my book on goal setting. At Amazon, I sold 44 books on a weekend. So even though it cost me two dollars to boost that post I had 44 times eight pounds profit because it's eight pound per book, so more than paid for the advert, you know. So what I do is i'm not trying to sell to people I don't know, I'm trying to sell to people who are already in my network through my Facebook.
So I write for LinkedIn and I utilize it on Facebook professional mode as well. And for me that's been a great way of doing it, [00:21:00] but being more personal, I've seen so much, I had a guy join my program beginning of December. And he messaged me, he says, Jeff, I'm in, I've been following you for a while, really interested in joining your program.
I know exactly what you do. I know that you get results from photographers. I've been on your website. I know how much it costs. I'd love to jump on a call with you. So we jumped on a call a couple of days later. The first thing he said to me, he says, I've been looking for a mentor for a while.
But one of the things that stood out to me is you're such a genuine guy. You seem like a really good dad. He was a single dad as well. And I do put posts and I share them on LinkedIn about what I've done with my daughter. What I've done. She loves heavy metal.
So I take her to heavy metal concerts, the bands that I used to go and see when I was 16 years old. Or she comes on the back of my motorbike and we go on little adventures together. And it's all about, it's part of how you want people to see yourself and perceive yourself. So I don't try and put a false version of me.
I just put a genuine version of me and whether that's talking about cakes, my daughter, sharing top [00:22:00] tips and advice as a mentor for photographers, it all rolls in and adds to that overall likeability because you've got to be known and to be known, you've got to be visible. So you've got to be out there.
You've got to be putting content out at least three or four times a week to be visible. You got to be liked by not trying to be selling, but by to create content that people enjoy and people start to respect you and go, ah yeah. Yeah, Mica is really cool.
Are you like. So when they need somebody, when they need a food photographer, you'll be the first photographer to think of. Would you go and get business or a service from somebody who was constantly trying to sell to you all the time?
We all want to buy from people or do business with people who we like and who we trust. And that trust element comes across in your content and the person you are. So if your services are a little bit more expensive. It's that element of trust because it's, yeah, a bit more expensive, but she's great.
She's a lovely person. She's genuine. She's authentic. I'm really drawn towards her. I love her style of photography. This is the person I want to work with.[00:23:00]
Mica: Oh, and you said something real important about people hire people they like, but in order to like someone, they have to know them.
We talked about this a little earlier before we started recording. About how I talk to my fellow food photographers that I'm spending a lot of time on LinkedIn. Last year, I actually paid for the premium sales navigator.
And that has been chef's kiss for me, because I have access to a lot of art directors, art producers, like different positions. I have notifications for any time they post, so I can go to their post. This is someone I really want to connect with.
I've noticed that a lot of food photographers are flocking to LinkedIn. Have you seen that too? And why are photographers flocking to LinkedIn right now?
Jeff: As a food photographer, you're slightly different if you're like a wedding photographer or you're a family portrait photographer, but as a [00:24:00] food photographer, if you want to work with brands, photographing products or photographing for restaurants and the hospitality trade, hotels and stuff like that then ultimately it's harder to identify these people on Facebook.
You could do a search for people who are interested in food, but with LinkedIn, you can do a search. So you can go in and type in like chef or you could type in restaurant owner. Or hotel manager or general manager for a particular hotel. Then you can narrow that down to a geographical location.
So you can say put in New York or Dallas, somewhere like narrow that down, and then you can narrow down even further. You could just put a hospitality. Then you narrow it down to the area. So we put New York and then when you go into all filters, so there's a tab on LinkedIn called all filters.
You search, you scroll right down to the very bottom of that tab. And the final tab is keywords. And then it's got title. You don't put people think putting Mr. or Mrs. in that title, you don't put that, you would then put a job title. [00:25:00] So you would put then manager or general manager, then press search.
And what that does is it filters everybody down to who is in the hospitality industry. In New York was the position of was the word manager in that title. So it might be HR manager, social media manager, your general manager, because what you want to do is you want to remove all the people who aren't decision makers.
If you get 20, 000 results back, some of those people might be who work on a reception desk in the hotel. Another one might be a cleaner. They're not going to be the people who are making the decisions to hire a photographer. That allows you to really narrow down on the type of people, the exact people, and also the good thing about LinkedIn You can look at people, you can see their profile picture, you can read their profile, you can see, where they've worked in the past.
You might have some similarities. And then when you look at that profile on the right hand side of their profile, underneath that banner is a little bell, like a bell shape. If you click that bell, you will get a [00:26:00] notification every time that person posts. I have what's called LinkedIn weekly workflow, which is actually inside my.
The latest copy of my LinkedIn book. So the LinkedIn weekly workflow, I would say post four times a week, but maybe do Monday and Tuesday. So you might say Monday, I'm going to do a motivational, inspirational post. So might be talking about goal setting, talk about some motivational quote that you like, tell a story about how you've overcome a failure.
Tuesday, you might do a top tip about food. Wednesday, give yourself a day off. Wednesday is a day for what I call catching up on engagement. So on that Wednesday, what I do is I don't post, I go into all my posts that I've made for the past couple of days and the previous week, and when I look at the comments are filtered in two ways, relevant or most recent, that by default, they click the filter by relevant. I turn those to most recent, so what I do is I go through all my posts for the past seven posts that [00:27:00] I've made.
And I click them all to recent, just to make sure that I've responded to every single comment because somebody might have commented on a post from last week that I didn't respond to. If somebody's been good enough to put a comment on my post, I will always make sure I respond to it.
And I do that on my Facebook as well. On a Wednesday, I go and do a catch up on everything. Wednesdays are for responding to comments, but Wednesdays are also those for going and having a look at the people that you're stalking in a nice way. It's like, the people that you're stalking from these particular brands, you might want to get in with Le Troce casserole dishes, or you might even want to get in with a local Hilton hotel and send photographs for their restaurant.
So you go in and you look at their comments and then you go in, you don't put nice post or great picture. You comment on something. You put a comment in there with, which will let that person go. Oh, yep. And you're building that relationship. I have a friend, Ella, who's a one clients [00:28:00] who's based in Cardiff. She works all over the world now with really high end thought leaders, influencers, sort of people who have lots of money and she gains most of her clients through the comment section. So she looks, she thinks about the brands that she'd love to work with. She finds the key people. She starts commenting on their content. Now, one woman that she did some work for last year, and she's done a lot of work for now. This woman bought herself a castle in Wales.
Because it was the castle that she used to play at when she was a little girl and that castle cost like 10 and a half million. That's the sort of money that this woman has. When ella's commenting on that stuff, she ultimately sent out a message going, I love all your posts.
I love the relationship we're built on LinkedIn. I need some photographs done of the castle that I've just bought and I want some storytelling pictures. Send me a quote. So Ella sent over a quote and it was a, it's a high quote and the woman just went yeah, when can you do it? [00:29:00] Because the money wasn't an object, it was whether it was the right person and Ella would build that relationship and she was never trying to sell, she would always just build in relationships.
Ella picks people who are very similar to us. Ella's very much into, she's a vegetarian. She's very much into issues to do with the planet and sustainability and stuff. And this woman runs a company that is all about sustainability. Ella can comment on some of our stuff and people buy from people who are very similar to themselves and people who share the same values and the same ideas as well.
So that really helps build that relationship. So Wednesday is your day from going back on your comments, commenting on your ideal clients, and also Wednesday is your day to start thinking about opportunity. Where would you like to do business in the next two or three years? Would you like to be a brand ambassador for this particular company?
Would you like to be a speaker doing speaking events and workshops and stuff. Think big because everything that I've written down on my goals, I've achieved. One of mine was to get [00:30:00] involved with all the professional photography associations in the UK. I'm president of the oldest photography association in the world, which is the BIPP.
I was speaking with Peter early last year. I was in America last year. I've got Canada and South Africa booked for this year already. And potentially going over to do some work in India as well.
But this is all because I've had the idea. I've been passionate about the idea. I've thought about it. And then I felt like, how am I going to, how am I going to get to that? Who can help me on this journey? And what value can I give those people? That they will go, yeah, we'd like Jeff on board, so I never try and sell myself. I just put out value, align myself with the right sort of people. So got to remember that we have more opportunity available to us now than ever in the history of the photography industry. We can get in contact with anybody through connections of connections, that sort of stuff through social media.
A lot of people say, Oh, I'd never be able to connect with that person. Or why would they connect with me? Or I'm never going to be able to get in front of [00:31:00] that person. It depends on your approach, right? Because these people probably get bombarded by freebie hunters, people wanting anything for nothing, or people wanting opportunity.
But if you approach from a different angle and you're authentic and you're building relationships and you're thinking. This is what I can do for you. This is how I can help you. See, you approach from a giving as opposed to a taking mentality. Then the opportunity starts to come your way and these people want to work with you because they see you as somebody of value, not somebody who's just trying to click onto them.
Mica: I love the changing the perspective of what can you do for me to what can I do for you? And having that in mind, whenever you reach out to someone or whenever you comment on someone. I love that you said that. That's definitely the way to go on LinkedIn is how can I serve this person?
Jeff: When you fill out your LinkedIn profile. I think you probably touched on this before, you don't sell the photography because people can see that you're a [00:32:00] photographer, and to them, your photos look better than what they can do themselves.
And remember that if you just try and sell the photographs, they might come back with I can take the pictures on my iPhone and you can take really good pictures on an iPhone. The difference between, professionally created and a constructive, designed image as opposed to an iPhone picture is what that will do to your followers. So you saying, yeah, you can take pictures on your phone, but you can't take pictures like this. Pictures that you can virtually taste and smell through the newsfeed. They look that good.
Pictures that get people drooling. Pictures that get people tagging their friends in and going, Oh my God, we've got to go here for a steak. This looks totally amazing. That is what you're selling. Not selling the images. You're selling what the images do to people. Images that get people hungry.
Images that get people excited. Images that get your followers pressing the thumbs up button and sharing them in your posts. That's the difference between their image, half decent images taken on an iPhone from a poor angle to [00:33:00] your image that really sells the dish and makes it stand out. Ultimately what you're doing, you're getting them more engagement.
You're putting more bums on seats in the restaurant. You're selling more products. You're getting them more followers and more fans on their social media. So your whole message should be about, this is what I can do for your business. Not to, I'm a great photographer and I use this particular camera. They don't care. What they care about is what's in it for me.
What can I get from it? So your profile is always customer facing and you always talk about the benefits of what you're doing. Because they don't want pictures because they can create pictures themselves. What they want is more customers, more engagement, more bums on the seats, more money in the till.
And your photographs can do that a lot more powerfully than the photographs that they create themselves. Because you then sell them something they need.
They don't need pictures. They need more money and they're telling them they need more engagement on their social media. And that's the key thing.
Mica: I wonder if it's not even just what you just said [00:34:00] about needing more of an experience because you will remember a negative experience if you go to a restaurant and you just had the worst experience with the staff, it doesn't matter how good the food is.
You will always remember that negative experience. When you have a wonderful experience, maybe the food isn't that great, but you love the staff they know you on a first name basis and you always go there on a Friday when you have a hankering for something.
I'm learning as I go further in my career as a photographer, I'm finding that building relationships, creating this really fun environment when we shoot together, making it a fun day so that the next project that comes to mind, they're like, we want to work with Mica because she's fun.
We laughed the entire time. We got these wonderful photos and she had this wonderful team and it was a great experience. And we're going to hire her over and over versus, we got [00:35:00] these amazing photos. They look fantastic, but the photographer was just so unpleasant to work with.
We're never going to hire them again.
Jeff: That, that is so important because on my own program, a lot of photographers come to work with me and they'll be like, Jeff, I want to jump on and start on my LinkedIn. I want you to go over my website and I'm like, Oh no, hang on. What we got to do first, we got to get the brand right, because brand is the most important thing.
Your brand and your brand message and your brand is everything people think, believe, and feel about you. So if you want to charge a premium price, you've got to have a premium looking brand. So the first thing we do is the colors, the fonts, the message, everything, right? If they're wedding clients, then we don't look at wedding photographers.
We look at high end wedding venues, really posh wedding hotels, and wedding magazines and really fancy wedding dress shops because they've spent a lot of money creating a brand to attract their ideal clients. Their ideal clients are the same clients that the photographer wants to attract, so don't look at other photographers because they're probably doing it wrong.
Look at the businesses that have the big budget and you'll start to see similar [00:36:00] fonts, colors and a message coming across. You always create your brand based around your ideal client. And then the next thing we do, we need to create desire because people they're attracted to a brand. It's the desire that makes them purchase. So all brands create desire, get people excited. We create what's called a desire brochure. It's a brochure that talks about all the benefits your services. The reason we have a really fancy, beautifully designed brochure, which you can do on Canva, is because it's about creating that impact. A lot of people get an inquiry and then get nothing back. They get excited about the inquiry, blast off a reply with a quote.
They haven't done their groundwork. So the first thing is when you get an inquiry in, you want to go and check out the company. Then when you apply, you get really excited about them. About their business. I've just been checking out your Facebook and the type of posts.
I love your brand. I love the feel of this. You really pick them up and then say, however, I feel that this could improve if [00:37:00] we do this style of photography. And we do this and we do some small, short reels and we do some of these attractive bannets. Then you say, I've sent you over a brochure that tells you a little bit more about my services.
So you excite them. You show interest in what they do, then you hit them with a fancy brochure. All the other photographers won't be including a fancy brochure. What that's done is that that's lifted their perceived value of you. These people have taken time to really look at my business and they sent me this fancy brochure.
Even if your prices are more expensive than the competitors, their perceived value of you is a lot more because people don't buy on price. People buy on perceived value. It's got nothing to do with price. If people just bought on price, Tiffany's, Ralph Lauren, Mercedes, BMW, they'd all be bankrupt.
I've never seen customer service like Tiffany's before. Every year I buy my girlfriend something from Tiffany's in Manchester. The minute you order, 10 minutes later, you've got an email saying, thanks for your order.
[00:38:00] Then your order's getting shipped your order's here. Even after you've received it, there's still another three or four emails in the to make sure you're happy with it. In June, I was in New York doing some work with Peter Hurley and took my girlfriend's Tiffany necklace to Tiffany's because you can get it clean for free.
So I took it into their flagship store on Fifth Avenue, went in and they just asked for my email address. And I'm like, Oh, Mr. Brown, come in. So you want to get this cleaned? Yes, of course. They put the white gloves on and cleaned my girlfriend's necklace.
From that email address, the guy knew my girlfriend's name because I've had stuff personalized with her name on. He could see the bracelets and other stuff that I bought over the years. He just, through this conversation, ends up telling me about a bracelet that he thinks would go well with the necklace. So not only did I go in to get this necklace screen that came out with another bracelet. But I didn't think like I'd been sold to. I feel like this guy totally got me, understood me, knew my girlfriend, even though we'd been buying from a store, thousands of [00:39:00] miles away in Manchester.
It's all part of their service. It's that impeccable. If you're truly honest about Tiffany's, it is very expensive for what it is. You probably can get the same value of silver for a third of the price at a decent high street jewelers, but people are buying into the whole experience.
Like how can you make the whole process of working with you more desirable to the clients? I'd start with, you'll give them a social media and website review to give them suggestions. And then when they book a particular package with you, they're there for the whole creation.
So you, you shoot in tethered, they can get to see the images on the laptop as they're being created. So they, is this the direction you were looking at? Oh yeah. You're involved in them in every step of the journey. And then if your competitors are taking seven days or 10 days to deliver images.
You say I'm going to deliver them in 72 hours, but you tell them 72 hours, but you deliver them in 36. It's all about over [00:40:00] delivering of every step. You tell them that particular package includes 30 images. Then you give them 35. So you impress them again. You already knew that you were going to give them 35 in the first place.
It's about giving those little bit more over delivering. And it's not just about the images. It's about the whole service. Even having a guarantee as a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee. We guarantee you'll totally love the images or want to re shoot, but if the person is involved right at the very beginning and through the creation, there's probably no chance that they're not going to love the images because they've been there, part of it all the way along.
You've gone through the social media and website review, you've talked about their business. You haven't just turned up and started taking pictures blindly. You know what they want. You know what their mission is, what their business is about, what their whole brand's about.
And the more involved you become in their business, the more easier it is for you to be able to create images, totally sum up their brand to the point where it becomes they would never think about using another photographer because [00:41:00] you are an asset to their brand and their business. And you totally get them and understand them.
They don't want to go through the hassle of finding another photographer and having to go through this whole process. And I have clients who, who said that to me before, they might have contacted a customer and says, look, this year, I've got to put my prices up by 10 percent and their clients have turned around and says you could put it up by 20 percent and we'll still go with you because we think you're an asset to the business.
You're exactly what we need. You get us totally. So it works. It works perfectly for both parties.
Mica: I want to take it to LinkedIn's newsletters because this is so foreign to me. I didn't even know that you could send out a newsletter on LinkedIn. You mentioned that you're a big fan of that. Why are they such a secret weapon for photographers?
Jeff: Not many people use them. So basically the newsletter function on LinkedIn, you can create from your personal profile and create a [00:42:00] newsletter. What I would do is have that newsletter, give it a name and give it a purpose. What I've done with my newsletter, I've got two newsletters.
I've got one on my company page which is all top tips and advice for photographers about building a successful, profitable business. And then one of my personal page is all about travel photography. Because what I'm actually doing is as I write newsletters, I'm going to use those newsletters to become material for a series of books on Eastern Europe, because I'm going to be trying to get through all 26 Eastern European countries and write a little blog about it.
And then once that's all done, I'll just compile it all together and I'll self publish those books on Amazon. So
Mica: Woohoo!
Jeff: . You'll have people who will have a newsletter. It's a bit like people who have a blog and they'll go, I've got a blog or I've got a newsletter and the newsletter is all about this photography shoot I've done. Is that of interest to your ideal clients? Probably not. Might be of interest to you and the person in the shoot, but not interested to anybody else.
So I'll [00:43:00] give you a few examples of newsletters. So I've got an architectural photographer in Edinburgh, and she does a lot of work for psych hotels, hospitality sort of trade, but she also does some for like conferences and events. So she's created a LinkedIn newsletter, Ben and Mild, all her clients are from Edinburgh and her LinkedIn newsletter is Haunted and Historic Edinburgh.
So it's tales about haunted and historic Edinburgh with black and white photographs, Edinburgh castle. So she might do all blog just on Edinburgh castle, but we get all newsletter with lots of interesting pictures. Now that is really going to appeal to those businesses in Edinburgh because it's about their local area.
It's interesting. It's quirky. And it doesn't move away from her niche, which is architectural photography because all these pictures inside that blog are about buildings. You could be a food photographer and then share some seasonal recipes for a [00:44:00] more happier, fitter, active life. Using food as a fuel to fuel your body and become more happier. So that becomes the purpose, which still ties in with your exact niche. You could be a headshot photographer. And talk about how to do and use that one, how to improve your visibility online, because it wouldn't be of any interest to anybody else about somebody else's headshot. They're not going to be interested in reading a newsletter about how somebody else can make a headshot. So many photographers do that. Wedding photographers creating wedding blogs, but the wedding blog is about Dave and Sarah's wedding or Debbie and Jane's wedding.
It's only of interest to Debbie and Jane and all their guests. It's not of interest to anybody else. But if you create a wedding blog, which was all about how to have the perfect country style wedding in Dallas. So it's all about how to plan and execute the perfect country style wedding. You talk about latest fashion trends.
You review venues. So every couple of weeks, you might talk about a particular [00:45:00] venue and highlight some of the great photographic points and talk about the food and stuff like that. You're connecting with other people within that community.
So you're connecting with the dress shops and reviewing dress shops. So your blog becomes something that's really exciting for somebody who's getting married. I've got pet photographers who don't do LinkedIn newsletters about their pet photography, they're doing LinkedIn newsletters on how to have a fun and happy life with you and your pet.
So you might be a pet photographer in London who writes blogs on the top five dog friendly pubs to go and have a pint. The best three dog walks to do in your lunch hour. Top tips on how to get your dog to sit, top tips on how to get your dog to stop pulling on the lead, reviews on the best leashes and harnesses.
The best non destructive dog toys. So it becomes really interesting for your ideal client type. It's not about you. It's about the value that you can give them. And that's the real power of a newsletter. I think my newsletter now [00:46:00] has about 16, 000 subscribers. When you create a newsletter, all of your connections will get a notification that your newsletter has gone out and would they like to subscribe to your newsletter?
And then subsequently, the more newsletters you create, the more notifications that I'll get. So it's a great way of getting you into a habit of creating regular content. So you could do a fortnightly newsletter, but then think about how could your newsletters be packaged together. Susan here is telling you about, is writing these newsletters on historic and haunted Scotland.
I sat down with Susan and went through our 12 and next 12 newsletter titles. So it looks at them all, create the titles together because when she's finished writing these 12 newsletters, which will be in 24 weeks time, because she's doing one every two weeks, she's going to create a book.
So she's doing that with a purpose. So every one of those newsletters will be the next chapter of her book that she will then. Have a proofreader check over it. I will then [00:47:00] help out upload it to Amazon, cover design, and then that can be monetized. And then she's a published author and she can start earning passive income from book sales.
A lot of people say, I'm going to do one every week and then you find it hard to keep up with them. One of the things I find for writing newsletters, obviously, I've written quite a few books is give yourself a small count. So it becomes, I've got three things to do every single day.
So that three things, right? The three minimums, the three non negotiables. So your non negotiable might be, I'm going to do my post, my social media post. I'm going to write 250 words of my next newsletter, my next blog, on my next book, and I'm going to connect with 20 people on LinkedIn. Those are your three non negotiables, right?
So even if you only do an hour and a half in your business that day, you've got to do those three things. If you says I want to write a thousand words every day, you fail on the first day. Cause you don't get a thousand done because something happens. The full range, you've got to take the dog for a walk, then you fail again.
The next day it's [00:48:00] better to do shorter chunks because it was 2, 500 words in 10 days. There'll be two and a half thousand in 20 days. There'll be 5, 000. In three month you, you might even have a book ready to publish. It's like people who go to the gym and, on the 1st of January and go and do an hour and a half session and kill themselves and get up the next day and they can barely walk.
Mica: They never go back.
Jeff: yeah.
Yeah. So just do that with your business. Don't overload yourself. You're not superhuman. You need to be doing stuff that's working on your business, not just working in it, not just doing the editing. You need to be doing stuff that's going to get you visible. Going to get you more authority, going to get you more opportunity, going to grow your network.
Mica: You mentioned that you can send newsletters from your business page, but also from your personal LinkedIn profile as well.
Jeff: To be honest, you're better off doing it from your personal LinkedIn profiles. The only reason I've got one on my business page is because two years ago, they brought them out for business pages, but you couldn't have [00:49:00] one on your personal profile. So the first ever newsletter I created two years ago was on my business page.
And then when they allowed you to bring one out on your personal profile and they had 60, 000 followers, I thought well, it's, it's worth me doing one on my personal profile because it's going to get to more people, but why don't I do one for the travel photography side, because that would help me monetize my trips and also allow me to put my travels through through my accounts.
Mica: One of the things I do every time I go on LinkedIn, I go see what is Jeff doing? What is Jeff posting? Because I just find value in everything that you share. What's the biggest mistake people are making on LinkedIn right now and what tweak can they make today to turn that around?
Jeff: I think one of the biggest things is people tend to do quantity over quality. So think about that story. Create a headline because you'll have a great image. The image will stop the newsfeed. People will scroll down. Oh, that's a nice [00:50:00] picture. But what you want them to do is you want them to click that, click on that post and open it up.
So that headline is the bit that's going to bring them in there. Think about headline. You can have a question and headline or statement headline. You can say, I never thought this was going to happen when I got up this morning, question mark, and the people go, Oh, that's Oh, what happened to Mica this morning?
So I've got to click off the post and read it. Then you tell a story, who, what, where, when, why, and ask a question at the end, because if you ask a question as the very last thing at the end, people will feel compelled to comment, especially if they've enjoyed what you've written. So try to relax on LinkedIn, speak on LinkedIn the same as you were speaking to your friends on Facebook. Don't be afraid to put personal content in out there.
In fact, I would say if you're going to post four times per week, you should be doing at least one, if not two personal posts per week. Let people see the real person, the person behind the camera, because that will build relationships. Do not use outbound links in your posts because LinkedIn doesn't want [00:51:00] you to send people to somewhere outbound.
So there's a thing on LinkedIn called your featured section. Your featured section is below your about section. So what you can do in your featured section is you can upload media, you can upload documents. So on my featured section, I have a link to my online booking diary, my Acuity online booking diary.
And I also have a link to my my brochure, my full six steps to success brochure. Now, by having those in my featured section, what it means is I can do a post and I can do a post about a top tip. And then I would say, if you're interested in taking your photography business to the next level in 2025, why not book a free call with me using the link in my featured section and download a copy of my brochure.
So in that post, I haven't used any outbound links. I'm just directing people to where they'll find that information. But if I'd said book a call with my online diary and he's relinked to my acuity because it's [00:52:00] now bound linked, LinkedIn will produce the organic reach on that post and hardly anybody would see it.
If you've been featured in a magazine and you've just had some of your images featured, and that's a digital magazine, put a link to that in your featured section, then make a post about it and say, check out my featured section where you can look through my gallery or you can download a copy of the magazine.
Because you're not going to get any organic reach on that. And then the other thing is hashtags. It's not like Instagram. If you're going to use hashtags, use maybe two or three hashtags on LinkedIn. They're not that important on LinkedIn now. It doesn't want to see lots of hashtags. And then the other thing is be aware of when you're going to post. For me, it's not as bad because I work with clients all over the world, clients about 25 different countries now.
But if you are posting to a business community in your particular area. You don't want to be posting at eight o'clock at night because they're not going to be there. The key posting times on LinkedIn is so eight o'clock in the morning, first thing in the morning, lunchtime, because [00:53:00] people are finishing for a bit of lunch and like log onto social media on their lunch break.
And then just before the finish of the day. So think about posting at half seven in the morning, half seven to eight o'clock in the morning, 12 o'clock to one o'clock or five to 6 PM, because LinkedIn works on what's called velocity. So when you post the bot will read your posts, assess how good your post is.
We'll give it like a content score and put it out there. But then it will adjust that content stuff if it starts getting a lot of engagement. So if a post goes out and lots of people start commenting on it, the bot comes back about an hour after your post is created between an hour and 90 minutes.
Very similar to where Facebook works is if you get a lot of comments and engagement right at the very beginning, you'll see that start a snow ball. Same on Facebook, you put a post out on Facebook, you get a lot of comments in the beginning, and you respond to those comments. You see a lot more likes, the bot goes, oh, hang on, people are enjoying this.
We'll let [00:54:00] more people see it, because ultimately social media is only looking out for itself. It wants to only promote content that is engaging and people are enjoying. Because it keeps people on their platform for longer. So you've gotta think I'm gonna create content that the bot's going to love, my followers are going to love.
And it's going to keep people on that platform for longer and get you seen more. I always have that saying, visibility is credibility. The more visible you become, the more credible you are. Credibility leads to authority. So more credibility you have, the more authority you get, the more authority you have, the more opportunity comes your way.
So credibility is done by putting yourself out there and being visible. Being credible is just being yourself and building relationships. And then the opportunity and the authority will start to come your way. And the authority and opportunity come through numbers and come through consistency.
I have clients who join LinkedIn with zero followers, and then two years time, they've got 10000, 12000, 15000 [00:55:00] followers. They've earned those followers by being good with their content, connecting with the right people, but also creating enjoyable content that people want to engage with.
Mica: See this is why I love LinkedIn. It really is my new favorite place. I want to close out today's interview about your book that just came out. My copy just arrived in the mail, so excited to get into it. I still have the third edition. So what sparked this new edition? Was there like a specific moment or realization that made you go, okay, it's time for an update?
Jeff: Yeah, one of the big things is in the third edition talked a lot about creator mode and LinkedIn brought on creator mode in 2021, but then they moved away from creator mode. So everybody now is by default a content creator. So what I wanted to do with this book is you talk about the changes to the platform, but also give people more ideas about how to create content.
Because that is one of the biggest things people sit down at LinkedIn and [00:56:00] think, what am I going to write? Edition four has a hundred and odd more pages and has lots more pictures in because I'm showing content ideas and saying, this is a personal post, look how much engagement it's got.
There was one was an example of me and my daughter seeing Slash in concert, but it's got nothing to do with photography mentoring. But I told a story behind it and I told a story about, how I take my role as a dad really seriously. So that was the big thing with me about educating photographers on how to utilize content and create content. And ultimately to cross onto Facebook as well on Facebook professional mode.
Mica: I'm going to have to learn more about this Facebook professional mode because that's that's exciting to hear. What's one thing you're most excited for photographers to discover in this newest edition?
Jeff: Getting people to get into that weekly workflow. It's not just about creating posts, it's about creating a variety of different types of posts. Also creating a newsletter and thinking about a bigger picture for a newsletter.
[00:57:00] Have you always wanted to write a book? A book is the best business card in the world, and I'm dyslexic. I'd never got kicked out of school with zero qualifications, but I've written four bestselling books. Then I launched my first travel book and I've been co writing a book with a guy in Pittsburgh as well, so it's if I can do it, anybody can do it.
There's so much software out there that can help. I use Word Read Aloud. So I don't use any ChatGPT. I write everything from the heart and then I just use Grammarly to spell check it. And I'll listen to it back on Word Read Aloud. Then ultimately go to a proofreader before it becomes a book. Can you create a newsletter that ultimately might become that book that you've always wanted to publish?
It could be about your local area. It could be about historic and haunted areas. It could be about food recipes. It could be about your passion for cooking and your passion for food or local dishes. Or it could be review of restaurants and places to eat in your local area. A book really stands you out differently as an authority.
Have a look at the workflow and think about, [00:58:00] can I be creating a newsletter that can ultimately become a book? Ultimately become a passive income
Mica: I like the idea of a weekly workflow because it's easy to get lost on a social media site. Let's say on Instagram reels, you're there to check your messages, but you end up watching 20 reels and forget why you're there to begin with.
A weekly workflow feels like a compass. This is how I can best utilize the time that I'm on here and get the most bang for my buck. I love the idea of a weekly workflow.
Jeff: Well as having that, my other book, the Ambitious Photographers Journal, I talk about like the goal set inside of things. And so many people create to do lists. And I say, what do you do is you have your to do list, but then you have a must do list, which goes back to my three things you must do every single day, the non negotiables.
Then you can say I'll do them three things. Then I'll look at my to do list. It's not about working 16 [00:59:00] hours a day. It's working for the right length of time on the right stuff. I can be incredibly lazy, but I can still get a lot of results because I put my time in doing the thing that's going to ultimately get me results. We can all spend time scrolling through social media or spend ages editing photographs and over editing them again. When. if we put more, it's about that visibility, about that opportunity. Where do I want to be with my business?
Where do I want to get to? Am I doing the little things every single day that's ultimately going to get me to that bigger goal? Yeah, if I do a hundred press ups every day, it's not like going to a gym for an hour, but a hundred press ups every day for 60, 90 days.
Mica: That's impressive.
Jeff: Funny enough, you talk about it, just talking about the press ups, I've got a press up app and every day I'm doing the press up apps, doing my press ups and I don't do a hundred in a one, it would be in like maybe four or five sets. But you can get these little apps that you can set into the app what it is you want to achieve, you three non negotiable, and it will give you a right line reminder at eight [01:00:00] o'clock in the morning.
Have you done your social media posts? Have you written your 250 words? So you have that accountability and it's like ticking that little box. Keeps you accountable because you're accountable to yourself. And that's one of the biggest things, when I work with photographers, who join my program, they're like, I like being accountable to you because like most of us, photographers. We'll work on our own.
So when you don't have that accountability, it's so easy to just, Oh, I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it, out forming that habit. And if you've got like a little app or a journal or something that keeps that consistency going, you don't have to do it all in one day. You just do it in a little bite size chunks.
Every step is a step in the right direction.
Mica: I have two more questions. Did you have any aha moments while you were writing this new edition? Anything that surprised you or changed your own perspective on LinkedIn?
Jeff: Probably one of the biggest things is the reaching of opportunity because I did a lot of that work and realizing how easy it is [01:01:00] to get a lot of the stuff that we really desire if, we come from the right mindset, just approaching the right people and, things happening and coming.
Like the South Africa one it's a guy in Sweden Norway who's getting me to go over to speak at this conference, but the amount of stuff they're putting into it. We're going on three days for safari. We're going cage diving with great white sharks. And this is all reclusive in the package.
To go on and speak. And then when I looked at it, I looked at the, looks at the schedule and he says, yeah, Jackie speaking on the Tuesday from two, two o'clock to two 45. And then the next week in Johannesburg. And then the next week he's speaking in Cape Town from two o'clock to two 45.
And I went 45 minutes each time. And he's taking his kids diving and on safari and this magnificent hotel. He was like, yeah, we don't want to burn you out. We want you to have fun, but it's there is that much opportunity out there if you approach stuff with the right mindset, really visualize, think of what you can do and start looking for it.
Cause it's not going to come [01:02:00] to you until you start making, you might have to connect with a few people or a few particular brands, and then people start speaking and then you make people aware of your intentions of what you'd like or somebody, Oh, speak to my friend. He might be able to help you with this.
I know food photographers, one of my good food photographers, Emma, she's now running workshops around the world. She's got workshops booked internationally for this year. She's done speaking events.
She's been in magazines and it's all because we've written down the deep goals for our business that maybe two years ago, three years ago, sounded ridiculous, but now. It wouldn't speak at an event on normal threats to sell out a workshop.
Mica: What would you say to a listener right now who is still feeling hesitant about investing their time in LinkedIn?
Jeff: I would say look at some of the stats. So LinkedIn now is past the 1 billion user mark. So it's a big platform. It is the only professional networking platform, [01:03:00] the biggest professional networking platform in the world. Now look at some of the stats. 41 percent of millionaires use LinkedIn.
The average wage earner on LinkedIn takes home around 86,000 dollars. So these aren't your Facebook marketplace freebie hunters, Groupon, tie pickers, cherubs. These are the people who are decision makers. I think it's 68 percent of decision makers use LinkedIn to decide on hiring somebody for a particular service, because it's easier to hire somebody who you know then go and do a blind Google search. And also remember that your LinkedIn profile is probably a lot more valuable than your website. If I go to your website now, I'll be able to see a static fixed thing in time of when you last did your website, which might be a year and a half ago.
If I go to your LinkedIn profile, I'll see all the posts you've done. I'll see a bit about your about section. I'll see all the information that you've got in your featured section. I'll be able to download brochures, [01:04:00] links to your websites, but I'll also be able to see your posts.
I'll see how you respond to other people's comments, how you engage with people. Your profile is much more personal and a true representation, and has a hell of a lot more information than a website ever would. So many people come to me and join my program or work with me and never been to my website.
There's a lot of never been on your website, Jeff. All they need to know to work with me or have opportunities together is on my profile.
Mica: Jeff I enjoyed this conversation so much. I am such a huge fan of LinkedIn and it's always thrilling when I meet another person you're the one who got me excited about LinkedIn. I just remember, looking for, I wanted to get on LinkedIn. I just didn't know anything about it. And I found your book and bought it and gained so much knowledge from it and revamped my entire profile and love it.
And so I know you're, LinkedIn because you're the reason why I'm excited about LinkedIn. So thank [01:05:00] you so much for coming on the show. Where can the new listeners find you and follow you and learn from you?
Jeff: First of all, LinkedIn, obviously. So just go to LinkedIn, type in Jeff Brown, the photographer's mentor. You'll see me on LinkedIn. Our website is the photographer's mentor. com. And you can also find me on Facebook. So just go onto Facebook and type in Jeff Brown, the photographer's mentor and connect with me on Facebook as well.
And if you do have any questions, just drop me a message, whether that be LinkedIn or whether they're by Facebook messenger, and I always come back with either a written reply or I'll do a little voice chat. So if you're struggling with something, you want somebody to give you a an answer to your question, then I'm more than happy to do that.
Mica: And your book, The Photographer's Missing LinkedIn. It's on Amazon and they can get it as a Kindle or paperback or hardback.
Jeff: It is the most up to date book on LinkedIn. It's only been out three months and [01:06:00] it's the most up to date book on LinkedIn on the planet written purely for photographers. So it, all the examples, everything through there, 250 odd pages is all about photographers and photography.
There's stuff in there for food photographers, headshot photographers, branding, but it's written by somebody who is a photographer, who's very successful on LinkedIn, has done very well. And. I've never spent a penny on it. I haven't used LinkedIn ad yet, and I've had so much business from LinkedIn and opportunity from LinkedIn for free. And that's one of the best things.
Mica: Oh my gosh. Thank you again so much for coming back.
Jeff: Absolute pleasure. Really enjoyed it.
Mica: Thank you.
Jeff: And it's been lovely to see you again. And also, fantastic weight loss journey. 66 pounds is. That's incredible, and that, and that is consistency, isn't it? That's motivation, transistency, setting your goals, thinking about it, visualizing it, and my God, you've got it done.
That's absolutely brilliant.
Mica: [01:07:00] Yes. It's been a journey. It's changed my perspective on everything. I know that as a freelancer, I often find myself feeling frustrated that things aren't happening. This journey taught me that the reason why some things weren't happening is because I just wasn't showing up in the way that I needed to consistently.
So now I'm just looking at different areas of my life, where can I be consistent for changes that I wanna see in my life. And not just personally, but professionally. So it's just been a real eye opening experience so far. I'm not close to my target weight, but I'm very excited about where I'm at right now.
Thank you so much again for being on the show.
Jeff: Absolute pleasure weekend. And and thanks to everybody for listening. [01:08:00]