Are you creating blog content that is compelling for your brand? In today’s episode, Kate Wark highlights the power of blogging as a tool for photographers to rank higher in search engines while also fostering a sense of community within the content and enhancing her client relationships. Listen in as she shares invaluable insights on how photographers can create content that resonates with their target market, positioning themselves as experts in their field.
The Business-First Creatives Podcast is brought to you by CRM and Dubsado expert Colie James. Join Colie each week as she discusses how to build a business that brings you joy and a paycheck! From business advice with fellow entrepreneurs to sharing automation tips and tricks, Colie and her guests are sharing industry trends and resources, along with a little bit of sarcasm.
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Guest Bio:
Iβm Kate, a lifestyle photographer specializing in headshot and personal branding services. Showing the authentic, the natural and the real is my passion, and helping business owners and creatives fine tune their brand positioning is in my blood. While my photography business, Kate Wark Photography, has been thriving for five years strong, I come from a background in PR, marketing and communications where Iβve crafted messaging for clients for two decades. This combination of passions is what sparked Kate Wark Creative, my blogging for creatives service where I help creative business owners write and repurpose blogs that help tell their story and serve their clients.
While Iβm a born and bred New Yorker at heart, Iβm now based in Ridgefield, CT, where Iβve lived with my family and our rescue pup Charlie for the past 11 years. Supporting local businesses and organizations is a passion of mine, along with reading, checking items off of my to-do list and, my fuel of choice, a Starbucks chai tea latte.
If you’ve tried setting up your Dubsado account, yet aren’t actually utilizing all of the features it offers, I want to invite you to check out The CRM Blueprint. My course includes templates for all of the forms, emails, and workflows that you need to get paid in one easy step. Ready to maximize your use of Dubsado, enroll in The CRM Blueprint today! Use the code PODCAST for 10% off.
Mentioned in this Episode
Sabrina Gebhardt’s Mastermind
Simple SEO Series Part 1
Connect with Kate
Website: katewarkphotography.com
Instagram: @katewarkphotography
Hire her: Branding Photography or Copywriting Services
Review the Transcript:
Colie: Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the business first creatives podcast. I am here with one of my CRM blueprint students, Kate, but we are not going to be talking about the course guys. I feel like there is like this movement inside of the photography community where we are starting to do more than photography.
And so Kate is a great example of that. Kate, good morning and welcome to my podcast. How are you doing this morning?
Kate: I’m great. I’m so excited to be here.
Colie: I’m excited to have you. So why don’t you tell the listening audience where you’re located and what you do, like everything that you do as a small business owner, because we’re going to get into the nitty gritties of each one of them later on this podcast.
Kate: Okay, great. So I’m Kate Wark. I’m based in Fairfield County, Connecticut, although I am a born and bred New Yorker. I have lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut for the last 11 years, which is insane. And I, for the past 5 years have run my business Kate Wark photography. I’m a lifestyle photographer. I specialize in.
Branding and headshots, with a heavy dose of family photography, because that’s where it all began. And in the last, few years, I have also begun blogging for other fellow creatives, a lot of fellow photographers, and that’s, I think, part of why I’m here.
Colie: Yeah, guys. Now you know why she’s here. So, Kate, we’re going to talk about the writing and the blogging in just a second, but I do want to ask you about the branding photography, because I feel like the last couple months, You are like one of many that have come on the podcast and started saying something like, Oh, I started in family photography or wedding photography, and then I did a branding shoot and I was hooked.
So tell me about your first branding shoot and why that is now like the majority of your photography business.
Kate: Okay. Well, this is like, this was such a great and really defining experience, I think, in my business. So, a local realtor in my town came to me looking for headshots. And so I said, Oh, let’s, let’s have a conversation about like what you need. In that conversation, I realized that what she was really asking for was a branding session, and I had not done those before.
In fact, I had sort of, like, lamented about the fact that it seemed like branding photography was
And it and I said, well, this seems like actually a branding session. Let’s give this a whirl. She was absolutely phenomenal. She was one of those like rare clients who actually loves the camera. that made it so fun. But the other thing that I really loved about it was that collaboration.
That’s like that strategic. Kind of planning portion of it. It wasn’t just, all right, we’re going to, we’re going to get down to dirty 30 minutes at some outdoor location. We’re going to snap a few shots. You’re going to get three images, which is my typical headshot session. It’s very sort of black and white.
If you will, people need them for a LinkedIn, you know, image. That’s the end of the story. Branding is very different. You’re really, planning out. How people can use the images. Why people need them. You’re trying to reach goals with these images and as a result, you’re getting to know, these creatives or entrepreneurs or in this case, it was a realtor on a really different level and a deeper level.
And as someone who sort of comes from a marketing PR communications background. It was, to me, it was like all of those things in my day job and that, my prior, career that I had done for years and years, I was now doing with branding photography in a visual mode. And I was like, it felt like a kind of a coming together in a way that other types of photography.
It’s just different. It’s not the same.
So I really felt like it was like, oh, this is, this is what I need to be doing. And. It was a little intimidating that there wasn’t a lot of branding photography around at that point in time, but I also knew this is a huge opportunity. And so ever since I’ve been really steadily booking those types of clients ever since and I absolutely love it.
Colie: I mean, show what you want to shoot. Of course, that’s the motto that we all live by. And so after you did that first one, I’m sure that it is just the reason that you’re able to book more of these branding sessions. Number one is that you’re showing more of them. Like, you know, with every single client that you do and you photograph, you have more of a portfolio to show, but Kate, I’m going to guess that your words, also help the situation.
So first of all, what’s your degree in?
Kate: Okay, so I got a degree from a small liberal arts school in New York in the sort of like. Suburbs of New York City as, uh, business management degree with a concentration in English writing. So not like English lit, it was very specific to writing because that’s what I really love to do.
I love to read, don’t get me wrong, but I really love to write. And that’s what my degree is in.
Colie: And the reason that I asked you is because, of course, I know what your degree is in because I asked you before we hit record. But one of the reasons that I like to bring this up is because I feel like with few exceptions, I don’t meet a lot of photographers that actually have degrees in photography.
But I also don’t meet a lot of entrepreneurs that actually have degrees in business. And we’re going to take it one step further with you. Now that you have kind of morphed into this, I don’t want to call it a second or a third career because I feel like it’s very tied to you as a business owner and a photographer, especially now that you are branching out into branding photography.
But now that you are starting to write Blogs for other photographers. I feel like you are truly using all of your gifts that you earned when you got that degree. I it’s very rare to see someone now that still uses like the skills and the degree that they earned in college. Cause I feel like since so many people didn’t actually get photography degrees.
I mean, I get a lot of people on the podcast that are photographers now, but they used to be a teacher or, I mean, they used to do like they. Lawyers. Do you know how many lawyers become photographers? It’s a lot, Kate. So I want to talk now about how you started blogging for other photographers. So did someone just reach out and be like, Hey, Kate, your blogs are awesome.
Will you write one for me? I mean, I know that’s not what happened, but tell me what happened.
Kate: Well, first of all, that’s so cool that you just connected it with college and my degree because, you know, I think we all get so busy and life happens. And that just seems like such a long time ago. But I will say that I have felt that, you know, I have two daughters, they’re 13 and 11. And, Right around the time about five years ago when I started my business, like they were just, they were still so small,
but they were starting to get a little more self sufficient and they had their own lives.
They went to school all day and they had their activities and their friends. And, and I would say that at that time I started to almost, remember these things that I loved even as a kid, even as a young adult, like, I, I loved, I’ve always loved, I, I, I sometimes say I’m like, I was always like the documentarian in my family, like,
and, and that means I would write newspapers.
I literally like gazettes for my family. And I was always the person taking the pictures, even when I was a small kid. No one else in my family took the pictures for us. So. That kind of goes away when you’re like, you’re like a young adult, you’re busy, you’re trying to build some career and you know, then you, maybe you’re a mom and then you’re so focused on that and you forget sometimes the things that like actually make you tick.
And I will say in the past few years, it’s been a little bit of a, like a remembering and it’s been actually really cool. I’m like, Oh, I’m, I’m still in here. Like I’m
actually the same person. I don’t look the same, unfortunately, but I am the same person. So, so anyway, it was cool to have you connect those dots in a way that I don’t even think I really have.
So, It wasn’t one of those things where people saw my blogs and said, Oh, your blogs are great. And, you know, I wish I had all my, you know, what together at that point in time, it was actually really early in my business. What happened was in 2020, I joined Sabrina Gebhardt’s, I think very first mastermind, if I, if I’m not mistaken.
And. In the mastermind, I was for the first time introduced to like peers to friends in the industry. You know, we had a community, we had a Facebook group, we were on zooms every week, we were asking each other questions, we were being vulnerable with one another. And I had never had that before in photography.
And, inevitably, people had questions about things like Like a tough client experience and how to respond in an email to that, or, I’m struggling with my website copy. Can anybody like, tell me how this sounds? Or, you know, I don’t know how to write this package. Like, what should I say?
Am I saying too much? Am I saying too little? And I just found myself gravitating towards helping people. In those instances all the time. And, so I sort of became known as the person in the group who, you know, we’re going to ask if we have a question about about copy or editing something. And, that went on for a few months.
And then that next year, Sabrina actually was the first person who asked me to do blogs for her. And it’s just kind of steadily, you know, continued ever since, which has been. Just awesome. It’s awesome. I absolutely love it.
Colie: I mean, so many of us are now finding like I again, I don’t want to really call it a second career because it’s not really separate from your photography business. You have found a way to take something that you’re good at. And do it for other photographers like you in the same way that I help people with their systems.
I mean, I’ve said this a few times before I went on the, this can’t be that hard podcast. Like I never thought about doing it for someone else and having them pay me money. It was this, everybody knew that I loved CRMs and that I knew almost anything there was to know about each and every one of them, because I just like knowing how things work.
And so people would ask me questions about systems, but it really wasn’t until that podcast interview that I was like, Oh. Like I could charge people. I could do your whole setup
Kate: a thing.
Colie: because this is the skill that I have that is closely aligned with being a photographer. And so now, you know, I don’t want to say that it gives me stability because I feel confident that I could continue to have a profitable photography business going forward.
But as I get older, like, that’s just not something that I want to do. I’ve said over and over again, I don’t want to chase toddlers forever. And. I feel like you though, like you started in family photography and then you started to do branding and now you’re doing blogging. And I just imagine, Kate, if you have not gone this far ahead, I can totally see you marrying those 2 things together in like an all encompassing package for entrepreneurs, like, Hey, you know, I can take your pictures and I can write your blog post to help you with that SEO.
Let’s get all this done at 1 time.
Kate: Yeah, I mean, that is something I have thought about. I, I have very casually dipped my toe into, you know, Suggesting that to certain clients. I actually even did like a little bit of a trial with someone that I just really gelled with. Like she’s a great, she’s a neighbor. She’s a great person.
We had an amazing time on the shoot. I know we’ll do another session together at least. And I, not only did I do blogs for her, but I said, like, I want to try something with you. I want to do like a month of social media content for you. Can I do that? Because I didn’t, Right. I didn’t, I didn’t want to, charge her honestly, because I had never done it.
I don’t want to say I never did it in a professional capacity. That’s not true. My day job I have, but I wanted to prove that I could do it with my photography clients. And I just didn’t really feel comfortable putting some, you know, some number on it before I had done it. And that was awesome too, you know, and, and I think.
You’re really on to something because what I know, and I’m sure you would relate to this too as a small business owner, we like go into business to do this thing that we like love to do. And there’s so many other things that come from that. And we can’t possibly focus. On everything that there is to do in business, like blogging, like social media content, like, you know, taxes, whatever it might be. It’s a little, it’s a little like Easter egg for later.
But like, there’s, there’s almost no time and we don’t have, we don’t have the bandwidth to do it all. So to say to a potential branding client, not only can I give you this library of images. But I can give you the copy and the content, the verbal, the written copy and the content that you can marry the two together
and put it out there into the world because you don’t have time for that.
And I know cause I love this stuff and I don’t even have time for that. So, um,
Colie: I mean, it is a really nice add on, if you will, like, hey, I mean, even if you’re not doing it on like, A continuous basis. If they’re not hiring you on like a recurring status, you can still deliver like a sample of the social media content, like, Hey, you know, I was reviewing your images and these are three that I think that you should use on your social media.
And just to give you an idea, these are the words that I would use. I mean, if you’re not doing that for every single one of your branding clients, like once you decide that this is what you want to do, you want to offer the blogging, the social media content as an add on. If you’re not currently doing this, I would include a sample of one or two.
I mean, you don’t want to spend that much time, Kate, but like, I feel like for a lot of people, if you see that someone’s offers you a service. Sometimes we can’t really decide if that is right for us, but if I’ve already paid you this money to do my images because I’m confident that you will give me these images and you give me a sample of what else I could get from you, if I loved working with you, I’m going to hire you for the other thing as well, because that’s one less person that I have to go out and try to find and like ask people if they have recommendations.
I mean, I love getting recommendations from people that I trust, but if I’ve hired you for one thing. And I loved you and I can hire you for these other things. Oh, you best believe I’m gonna pay you the money rather than trying to go find somebody else.
Kate: And yes, to all of that. And I also think, you know. I always think that, like, branding photography is very, like, soul bearing for, for the person, not, not me, for the person who’s on the other side of that lens, right? Because you’re not, you don’t have any little kids, any family to hide behind. It’s all
about you. And that is very, very vulnerable, and I know that, and I can appreciate that. And I think that, Because of that, as a photographer, I really bond with my clients in a way that, you know, you don’t necessarily bond on a family session, not to compare the two. They’re obviously not apples to apples, but, you know, the family shoot is chaotic and there’s kids and you’ve got to keep everybody happy.
And there’s a lot of dynamics and a lot of personalities. And it’s not as it’s just not one to one, right? It’s not one on one. Branding sessions are super different in that way. And I think once you have a comfort with someone, it’s so much easier too to say, Okay, I already like, know, and trust you. So, can you handle this for me too?
You
have such a great point. Yeah.
Colie: Well let’s talk about blogging now because I know that you are your experienced writer. You love blogging, but I know from experience that a lot of photographers push back and they’re like, no, like my images will sell my work. Like people should just look at my images and know that they want to hire me and actually contact me for a session.
And we know that that doesn’t happen, that doesn’t happen, Kate. So why do you think that it’s so important for photographers to blog on a regular basis and go beyond just the images?
Kate: Okay, well, first of all, I think we all know this, but Google runs the world. Like, they, they, Amazon too. Okay, but in a business, if you have an online presence, Google runs the world, right? And, you know, sometimes I call it like the Google monster or the Google gods or whatever it is. They need, Google needs copy and they need refreshed copy, ongoing updates to copy to know that your website is a viable website that they should be sending people to.
So. A blog is one of the very easiest ways to have a continuing cadence of updated, refreshed copy on your website. You know, there’s only so many times you’re going to change your about page, right? Like your about page can change maybe once a year. Maybe, you know, maybe you had a new baby or you got a new dog and you want to add it to the about page or, or you have a new credential.
Sure. But. Really, those things aren’t happening all the time. A blog is the way to, to do this in, in a manner. I mean, I have a lot of other reasons I think it’s important, but we’ll just start there, right? So, we’ll start with Google. Google needs that copy to know that your website is a viable place to send their searchers.
So, that’s number one. Mm
Colie: that I just thought about that I’ve never really connected. And so, you know, just bear with me. This is like off the top of my head. But I wonder if people wouldn’t connect it better if we related it to podcast episodes. So if you have a podcast that you started, let’s say three years ago, and you did a bunch of episodes and all of a sudden you stop putting out new episodes, it doesn’t mean that your previous episodes don’t still exist for someone to find them, but you are no longer telling apple, Hey, I put out this new podcast episode.
Can you share it? You know, with people who are looking for the same kind of content. Like people can find it, but you have to be really specific in what you’re looking at. And let’s be, let’s be truthful. If somebody else is talking about the same content that you’re talking about on a podcast and they put out a new episode, Apple is going to think that their content is more relevant to today than the podcast episode that you put out a year ago.
And so Apple is going to choose to share that podcast episode of the other person and not yours. That’s how I think about blogging. Thank you. Like, if you blog a couple of times and then you stop, you stop waving to Google and saying, Hey, I’m here. I’m an awesome photographer. Can you share this with people who are looking for photography or whatever your service happens to be?
But like refreshing your RSS feed, like maybe people will get it if we talk about it in that way as to why you have to continuously blog content. Kate, how often should somebody blog?
Kate: Okay. So this is different for everybody. But first and foremost, what I would say is be consistent. If you cannot consistently, you know, add a new blog once a week, which by the way, I can’t, I can’t do that either. I’m just like, whoever’s listening, right. I’m, I’m juggling all the things too.
So, I always say to, my clients start. Like, start small because if you’re going from like zero to anything, you’re, you’re making progress. So, um, I will say too, like my most popular blogging package is just simply two blogs a month because it establishes that regular cadence and it’s doable for people.
It’s, it’s, it’s attainable. The goal that is attainable is always going to be a goal that you smash.
The
goal that is not attainable because you’re thinking, well, I’m going to set a goal. So I’m going to do, I know I’m going to do five or six in a month. That’s it. Like, let’s not set ourselves up for failure.
Like start with something that is very doable to a month. Even one a month is okay. Just get yourself in that regular rhythm. And that’s awesome.
Colie: So let’s back up, because I know from experience of being a photographer of 10 plus years, if you blog every single session that you shoot, most people are going to have more than four blog posts a month. Is that what you’re talking about, Kate? Are you talking about me blogging my client sessions?
Kate: okay. So. I think
that blogging sessions, it’s not dead, but it is not the strategy that I recommend. So blogging sessions is wonderful. Okay. Everybody wants to show the beautiful family and the beautiful setting and the beautiful home, whatever it is. And I think that as photographers, we fall into this trap and you said it already.
You know, we just have to show our pictures and, and, and the people will come. Like, if
I show the pictures, they will come. And, unfortunately, like, the web is just not built like that. So, when you are thinking of blogging sessions, absolutely. Share the beautiful pictures that you want to share. But, you need to think about the content thatβ¦
will be of value to your clients and your prospective clients. So pair valuable information that people ask you again and again with those beautiful pictures. If we just slap on pretty pictures, that’s not a blog. You know, that’s basically an online, you know, photo gallery with some captions. Again, like Google needs copy.
To know that your website is a viable website. The other thing that I would say is that, you know, I think that it’s common knowledge Even if we don’t all understand it so well, we might not be techie. Again, I’m not so techie either, you know? not techie at all. I think you know that, Colie, but
Colie: I do.
Kate: From experience, But what I would say, so we know, right?
We know that we need to like add copy because it fuels SEO and that gets Google to recognize our websites. We know this, right? Like we know this baseline. But I think what a lot of us don’t appreciate is how valuable the content can be for our clients and for ourselves. If you treat a blog like a foundational piece of content from which you can pull, Email copy, social media copy, proposal copy, if you are an educator, if you are a speaker, sales page copy, speech copy, the list goes on and on.
Treat your blog as this foundational piece of content that you can use again and again. You repurpose that content and you’re saving your clients time. You’re saving yourself time. And. Google knows how to find you. So there’s so many benefits beyond Google is good for, I mean, sorry, blogs are good for SEO.
So you got a blog, you know, it’s not that simple. And actually I think if you’re a person who kind of says like, I don’t really get that. I don’t know what that is. Number one, I say listen to your SEO series cause it’s awesome. But
number two, I would say, but number two, I would say you don’t have to understand everything that an SEO expert would understand.
Colie: Absolutely.
Kate: it as a way to provide value for your clients and for yourself. And that’s a beautiful thing.
Colie: And as a student in my course, you know that one of the things that I recommend that you do is if you say, if you keep getting the same question during the booking process over and over again, you write an FAQ.
Kate: hmm. Mm
Colie: But writing that FAQ as a blog post where you can also show off your amazing images is a great way to feed the Google gods and also to create a piece of educational value for your clients so that there’s a chance that someone who hasn’t inquired with you will just find it on your website.
But there’s also the opportunity that if someone inquires with you and they haven’t seen that piece of. Of content and they ask you that question, you can actually give them a link to the blog post and say, you know what, this is a question that I get quite often. I wrote a whole blog post here. It is.
Let me know if you have any further questions after reviewing it. So. I mean, I know that people struggle to figure out what they should write and that’s the next thing that I’m going to ask you. But I think that if you take your sessions and you think about not really telling that 1 client story, because I really think that’s like a sinkhole that many of us fall into is, oh, I just have to talk about this session with these images.
No, you can use those images. To highlight something that you want to say that isn’t necessarily related to the clients that are appearing in the blog post. So, like, if it’s a location and you want to talk about how awesome the location is, that might have nothing to do with the client. You can add in a little bit of copy a little bit of storytelling, but.
You know, in the end you are showing them images with words and that is going to help them connect with you. It’s going to help them inquire with you and ultimately it’s going to help them book you.
Kate: Yep. Exactly. Exactly.
Colie: So let’s talk about the words though, because I already said, if someone keeps on asking you something frequently asked question, write a blog post about it. What is like something else that we should be doing as photographers in order to think about what to write on our website, specifically on our blogs?
Kate: Okay, so definitely I’m just gonna go over again. You definitely said it already, but the FAQs. That’s, that’s A number one. That’s what I always tell people. What are your frequently asked questions? What questions do people ask you again and again and again? Whether it’s in. A DM on Facebook or Instagram, or whether it’s in a first email, what are those questions that you get?
There’s probably like three to five that you hear again and again and again. That’s three to five blogs
right there. So right there. you’re all set. Like, there’s your, there’s some of your foundational content right there. Let’s start there. Let’s not complicate things. If you wanted to get more into the nitty gritty.
Let’s say you’re a family photographer. How do you prepare? Five tips to prepare for your session. Okay, I always like five tips or however many tips,
Colie: likes numbers, y’all.
Kate: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And also, you know, I also think there’s something to on the writing side and on the like ideation side of like breaking things up into these like little bits.
It’s manageable, right? It’s like manageable to put like five bullet points. We can think of five bullet points, right? So, that’s always a great place to start. What to wear. This can be complicated.
Colie: Everybody’s going to ask you that.
Kate: Everybody asks you what to wear, , but I’m going to take it a step further.
I think that if you, want to provide extra value to your clients, if you want to potentially make connections in your own community, and if you want to be even more SEO powered, you can actually link include links to specific stores within your community or the community of your clients. So that way you’re doing all of those things in one.
Again, I love to think about blogs and their benefit and more ways than just SEO. Yes, it’s so important. Yes, it’s so important, but there’s so many other good things that can come from a blog. Like I’m describing, right? You’re connecting with other business owners in the community. You’re, being a champion of other small businesses.
You’re bringing business hopefully to other small business owners in your town. And you’re providing this value to your clients. They don’t have to think about, Oh, I hate online shopping, or I don’t know what’s gonna fit, or no, they could go to this boutique, this shop for their kid, this place for accessories, boom, boom, done.
It’s, you know, you’ve provided all this value for your clients. So this is another thing I absolutely love, and it really applies to like any kind of a session that you have. And if you’re a creative and you’re not a photographer, how to prepare for whatever your service is,
right?
Colie: hmm. Ha ha
Kate: You can sort of apply.
Okay. I also love 5 Reasons You Need a Branding Session.
Colie: Mm
Kate: Okay, like, or five reasons you need a family session this summer and not this fall, right?
You, you can plug in whatever, right? Like, whatever the thing is. Again, five reasons. You know five reasons because this is what you do. This is your passion.
This is why you do what you do. You’re passionate about it. And this helps dispel all of the hesitations. Like, when people say, Okay, well, I don’t, I can’t book right now because of X, Y, Z, or I. You know, I really want a family session, but I got to lose those last five pounds or whatever it is that people say.
Talk about them and talk about why. Actually, no, getting in front of the camera, getting the photos done now is important. And then talk about the things that you do to make people comfortable, right? To kind of set people at ease. This already, if you’re sharing these things already, which actually a lot of the times I do, I have an autoresponder on my email and I say, If you’re interested in this kind of a session, you know, check out this blog.
I’ve got a lot to say about this topic
and I’m going to get back to you in one to two business days. But in the meantime, also read this, right? Again, it’s about providing that value to your clients and has a really nice bonus. You end up saving yourself so much back and forth in time answering the same questions or
addressing the same concerns over and over and over again.
And you look, you have authority, you have credibility, it’s just, there’s so many benefits. So, those are just a few of my favorite topics.
Colie: And the funny thing is now, and I, you and I both know the reason that you do three reasons to five reasons to seven things you should consider all of those things as Google likes them. But also for those of us that are like really into the social media posts, specifically like Instagram or TikTok, those make really great reels and really awesome carousel posts.
So. If you are someone who is actually very active on social media and you’re like, Oh, but I don’t know what to blog. Chances are, if you just go through your Instagram account, like I know I can, I’m, I’m really bad about it. Like I’ve admitted this, I did all the things for my photography business, but when it came to like my new systems business for Dubsato, I did not do the same things to get the SEO to blog, to do all of these things.
But if I run through my Instagram account, I promise you, I could find 10 ideas for blogs like in the last month. Yeah. So do this guys. Yes.
Kate: Yep, exactly. It’s funny that you say that. I have a, I have like a membership client. And, you know, she’s so prolific on social media. She’s so good at social media. And she had this post one day and I said, This is a blog. This is an excellent, this is such a good blog.
And she goes, this is my blog. Like, she had no intention of blogging it, okay? None. But, but you’re right. You, and, and, and I think the flip side works as well, right? If you, if you find it easier to write a story, or write
something in longer form like a blog, and then you struggle with, what, what can I say on social media?
Trust me, you have the content, you can pull one of these bullets that we’re talking about from one of these top three, top five, top seven, top ten blogs that we’re talking about one, one, of them can be one social media posts, you can share one of them every Friday for a month, or six weeks, or whatever it is, and you have yourself a little social media calendar.
So, um, I think the key is to Think about the ways that it can benefit you beyond what we hear about again and again and again Because there’s a lot there’s a lot there.
Colie: Absolutely. Okay. So Kate, I’m going to ask you about taxes now. You already, you already gave us the little hidden. Yeah. You gave us the Easter egg. So guys, I’m asking her the question that I ask everyone. And you already know what the answer is. Hey Kate, what was the biggest fuck up in your business? What did you learn from it?
And how did you grow?
Kate: This is very embarrassing But it definitely goes down in my own personal history is the biggest mess up ever in my business Which is the first year that I sort of legitimized my business and you know Did all the official things. I was paying my sales tax. Oh, no problem. I thought I had this covered.
Okay, and then December came. And my accountant said, Okay, let’s chat about what you’re going to owe. You know, in January. And I, honest to God, didn’t know I was going to owe anything in January before. He told me that and obviously hindsight is 20 20 and of course I should have known that of course it should be obvious That’s how it works in your own personal taxes.
You’re you know with my regular job. Why didn’t I know that? I don’t know why I didn’t know that but I didn’t know and What I would say is that It was this happened in December. It was like the worst holiday season that ever was I was stressed. I was like on the verge of tears. It was terrible, but it taught me the importance of outsourcing and outsourcing to experts that know the things in business that you don’t know.
And anytime another business person says something that they didn’t know, or, Oh, I had no idea how to do this and they’re down on themselves. I. I think about that thing with the taxes, which is probably worse than anything anyone has ever told me, told me. And I, I think to myself, you know, we don’t know what we don’t know.
Like we don’t know until we get to these points in our business and it’s part of the growing pains, but also it’s important, even though their lessons are so hard to learn, it’s important to learn that. Sometimes you’re not, you’re not supposed to handle all of the things in your business. And as you can imagine, I very quickly hired them to do my bookkeeping.
So I was not the one who needed to remember these things or know these things. They, they, they are keeping me on track and that’s a beautiful thing. And I think. The same can be applied to so many things in your business and also with blogging, right? If you’re like, I have no idea what to write or I mean that sounds great in theory But when am I gonna write, you know, if it’s overwhelming to you.
This is one of those things that can People can help, you know, I mean and In doing it you’re feeding your business. You’re keeping your business kind of You know, thriving. You don’t have to do it yourself to see success. and anyway, that was my fuck up.
Colie: So actually, I’m going to ask you one follow up, Kate. I often don’t have follow up questions, but since you mentioned blogging and people can actually hire you to do the blogging, here’s what I think people are probably asking themselves about hiring you or just about any other person. That you could hire in order to write your blogs.
Number one, how are you going to write a blog that sounds like me? And number two, but you don’t live near me. So you already talked about finding like the local boutique that you can kind of partner with or any of those things. Like, how do you do that from Connecticut? If I live in Colorado, like, I think those are two legitimate questions that people are probably specifically thinking about when it comes to hiring someone to write these blogs, which you do want to sound like you.
And you also want it to have like that local flair. So what’s your response, Kate?
Kate: Okay, so first of all, my goal is always to assume The voice of my clients so it’s not to sound like I would sound it’s not to sound like somebody else who’s Blogs all the time and everyone admires in the industry. No, it’s to sound like you. So one of the first things that I do when someone is on board to send them a questionnaire and the questionnaire is filled with questions about things like phrases that you use all the time, or how do you address your friends?
Or how do you say hello to
Colie: Hey, y’all.
Kate: Yeah. Or, or like hi friends or, or whatever it is like. People have these like turns of phrase that they use. I want to know what those are. I mean, I also do my own research a lot of the time. I’m like, okay, I’m watching the reels, I’m watching the stories.
I’m, I’m looking at past, past like written content as well. And I ask my clients to send that to me and I do a deep dive. I also say that. You know, when you’re starting with anyone, a writer, um, you know, a copywriter like me, or, or, or you’re outsourcing anything, I think you need to expect that there’s going to be a little bit more back and forth initially.
And I always say that to people, usually like the first month or two, the drafts take a little bit longer. There might be a few more edits, right? Because I’m learning. What you sound like and what you’re comfortable with and what you’re not. And sometimes my clients don’t even know that until they actually see something on the page.
And they say, you know what? I love this, but I would probably never say this,
this
Colie: Mm hmm.
Kate: But I would replace it with this, right? So. That’s a normal part of the process, but drafts are, like a review draft is included in, in the blogging program. So, I’m not just going to send something and be like, have fun, I hope this works.
Like, it’s, it’s very collaborative, so that, again, we’re getting to a point where I’m really assuming Your voice. Um, and in terms of that local stuff. So this is what I would say. So two things. Oftentimes, I’ll just say, how’s this place or this place? Or I’ll, I’ll simply ask, right? Because, you know, there could be a lot of parks, for example, but maybe four out of the six parks.
My client would never take her clients to shoot at, right? That she would never go, they’re not on that side of town, whatever it is, right? Or it’s not pretty, or the light’s bad, or whatever it is, right? Those, that’s information that I would not know. I can say this, these are the parks that are great, or I notice this baby boutique in town.
How’s this? Is there another one you prefer? Or is there like a neighboring town that I wasn’t aware of that maybe we
want to include something from instead? So these are the things. Oftentimes what I’ll do is I use the comment section. You know, we go back and forth on Google Docs and I’ll say, This is a great area for us to link businesses like X, Y, and Z in this town.
Is this applicable in this town? Do we need to choose another town? Do we need to exact, like, sorry, abandon this idea altogether and replace it with something else? So that’s the sort of way that I work with them. And where you talk about social media as well. Just to kind of like circle back to that, that’s another, I use the margins to say like this is perfect content if you wanted to do a real series, or a carousel post every Tuesday on tips on XYZ, or I always include those kinds of like recommendations or counsel because Again, I, I just think we’re, we’re all very overwhelmed and we don’t always have the time and the bandwidth and the brain space to sometimes think about these things.
And that’s where hiring someone to help can be so valuable. You know, in addition to all the other things we’ve mentioned, so
Colie: Kate, I love that you said all of that, because not just for hiring someone to write for you, because I will be the first to admit, like, I think you guys all know, I have a very particular personality. I talk in a certain kind of way. I cuss like a sailor, like, all of those things are part of, like, my personality.
So I have always worried about hiring someone because I just don’t think they’d sound like me. But bringing that around to what you said, I’m so glad that you tied it to. Thank you. This is applicable to anyone you will outsource with. I mean, the same thing happens with my virtual assistant. Recently she started changing colors.
It turns out she didn’t do it on purpose, but descript defaulted to doing black font on some of my videos on the first couple of times I modified it. And then finally I was like, okay, no, maybe we need to create like. A brand guide for these videos so that I make sure that you are using the color combinations that I prefer because, you know, a couple of times I’ll just go and change them.
But then it got to the point to where I was like, okay, no, like, I don’t know that she realizes that she has changed the colors or whatever this was. And it turns out she didn’t do it. The script did it, but knowing and bringing it back around to almost anyone that you can outsource to, it will not be perfect when you hire someone, there is a grace period.
For every single person that you hire in your business and that you outsource things to, and like, you have to be prepared to communicate with them what you like and what you don’t like and like, in your specific case, Kate, you’re like, you know, my client said they would never say that. Yeah. I mean, I’m real quick.
Like, I don’t want to get anybody that’s religious jumping on me. But when I first hired a company to do some of my social media posts, I had said, Oh my God, or something about Jesus in one of my videos, but I was being completely sarcastic and they did not pick up on that. And so then when they wrote my post, it wasn’t really religious, but it was like it borderline made me uncomfortable. And so I responded to them and I was like, listen, like, I love the clip. I was like, but that can’t be the headline. Like, I will never refer to God or Jesus in any of my stuff. So please don’t ever use that as a headline again. And they were like, oh, okay, this is great. We’ve noted it in your account. But like, Maybe that would have made someone feel uncomfortable.
It didn’t make me feel uncomfortable because I don’t want to remind you every time. Yeah. I don’t, I don’t do religion on my business page, so let’s never do that again. But I just love that you mentioned that because I think that is a good tip for anyone looking to outsource anything inside of their business.
Kate: I would add that, you know, the other thing is in addition to, you know, giving it time for people to get to this point where it’s like a shorthand, which is my goal. Like I said, right. I want to assume your voice. I want this to be really easy. And I believe there’s something to the cadence of. You know, you know, giving me thought starters, right?
Which that’s how I work. I ask people to give me like a full of a few bulleted thought starters on topics, and then I flesh them out. but once you’re on this cadence where you’re doing this at the top of every month, and then you’re getting a draft for the first vlog, and then you’re getting a draft for the second vlog, and then you know, It does.
It gets easier for everybody. It
gets easier to be consistent because you know, there’s, there’s someone that you’re paying that’s waiting for the information so that they can do their job. Me. Right. And also, you know, there’s someone who’s going to make something out of the few bullets that you’ve shrunk together.
And It’s going to benefit your business. So the other thing I would say is that oftentimes things like blogging and anything in the marketing space, the reason why I think you hear a lot of us parroting about consistency is because you can’t do something for like one or two months and expect it to.
Make any more than a tiny little dent, right? No, like you, you do have to commit to seeing something through for a certain amount of time to really say, Has this, has this helped? Has, you know, am I more, you know, visible on a Google search? Am I using this content again and again? Is it in some of my automated emails?
Are, am I getting responses about some of these blogs because it’s been helpful information? All of these things should be happening over time. Am I, do I have more social media content because I have all of this foundational content I can pull from? The answer to all of those questions should be yes, but it won’t be yes right away.
It’s going
to take. Six months, a year, even longer, because you have to do these things over time. So, it’s a commitment, I know, it’s a financial commitment, it’s a commitment of your time, it’s a commitment of your faith, but it’s a, it’s also an important piece of that puzzle, I think, when you think about outsourcing anything.
Colie: it is. Kate, I feel like, I feel like I have gotten everything that I’m going to get out of you. I just, I love ending stuff on outsourcing because I feel like that’s the number one overlook thing when it comes to photographers and really any creative entrepreneur. We do not like giving up creative control over anything in our business.
We are stubborn like that. But if we have convinced even one person to think about outsourcing their blogging, because you’re one of those people that’s. Not good at writing, and it’s something that you keep on putting on your to do list, and it never gets crossed off. Where can people find out more about you and the blogging services that you offer?
Kate: They can come to my website. It’s kateworkphotography. com. They could go to my Instagram at kateworkphotography. You can message me, shoot me an email. I would love to hear from you. So don’t be shy.
Colie: Alright guys, I hope that Kate has given you a lot of nuggets. About this topic. And I do want to say, cause she mentioned it, but I want to highlight this one more time. If you have not listened to the SEO series, it was called the simple SEO series on the podcast. I interviewed four other experts in SEO, and I feel like everything that Kate has said will be amplified and you will be more motivated to do it.
If you listen to all of the benefits to your SEO that come along with it. So there will be a link to the show notes in that series. No. So there will be a link to the series inside of the show notes. Okay. Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s always a pleasure every time I get to talk to you.
Kate: Thank you, Colie. This was so fun.
Colie: All right, everyone, that’s it for this episode. See you next time.
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