Travel & Adventure Photography School

4 of the Best Ways to Find Clients as a Creative

August 21, 2023 Robert Massey Episode 89
4 of the Best Ways to Find Clients as a Creative
Travel & Adventure Photography School
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Travel & Adventure Photography School
4 of the Best Ways to Find Clients as a Creative
Aug 21, 2023 Episode 89
Robert Massey

In today's episode, we're tackling a topic that's on the minds of many in the creative community: how to find work. Whether you're an outdoor adventure photographer, a portrait specialist, or a videographer, the insights we share here are universally applicable. From exposure gigs to word-of-mouth marketing and building vendor relationships, we've got you covered.

Today we're going to cover 4 topics:

  1. Work for Exposure
    • When you should and shouldn't consider doing this
    • When you may want to pitch doing your own work for free
  2. Word of Mouth Marketing
    • How you can influence this in today's market
  3. Playing the Social Media Game
  4. Building Vendor Relationships
    • When and how to reach out
    • Setting up strategic meetings and sessions
    • Organize headshot parties or styled shoots to collaborate and showcase your skills.

Join us bi-weekly as we explore the world through the lens, uncovering hidden gems, and sharing insider tips to elevate your photography game. From capturing breathtaking landscapes to immersive cultural portraits, each episode is packed with practical hacks, creative ideas, and inspiring stories to fuel your wanderlust and unleash your creative potential.

Subscribe now and join our global community of adventure seekers and photography enthusiasts on the Travel and Adventure Photography School!

Find all the show notes and connect with Robert:
Website: robertmasseyphotography.ca
Instagram: @robertmasseyphotography

Show Notes Transcript

In today's episode, we're tackling a topic that's on the minds of many in the creative community: how to find work. Whether you're an outdoor adventure photographer, a portrait specialist, or a videographer, the insights we share here are universally applicable. From exposure gigs to word-of-mouth marketing and building vendor relationships, we've got you covered.

Today we're going to cover 4 topics:

  1. Work for Exposure
    • When you should and shouldn't consider doing this
    • When you may want to pitch doing your own work for free
  2. Word of Mouth Marketing
    • How you can influence this in today's market
  3. Playing the Social Media Game
  4. Building Vendor Relationships
    • When and how to reach out
    • Setting up strategic meetings and sessions
    • Organize headshot parties or styled shoots to collaborate and showcase your skills.

Join us bi-weekly as we explore the world through the lens, uncovering hidden gems, and sharing insider tips to elevate your photography game. From capturing breathtaking landscapes to immersive cultural portraits, each episode is packed with practical hacks, creative ideas, and inspiring stories to fuel your wanderlust and unleash your creative potential.

Subscribe now and join our global community of adventure seekers and photography enthusiasts on the Travel and Adventure Photography School!

Find all the show notes and connect with Robert:
Website: robertmasseyphotography.ca
Instagram: @robertmasseyphotography

Robert:

How's it going everybody? Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. I'm Robert Massey. This is the Travel and Adventure Photography School. Thanks so much for taking a few minutes to join me on the trail this morning. Like I promised, we're gonna be out adventuring while we do some of these episodes and today we are on our way to Helen Lake, maybe up to Cirque Peak, depending how often I stop to shoot. I'm a little bit later this morning than I normally like to be. Primarily just sunrise was so beautiful as I was leaving Banff this morning that I had to stop and go back down to Vermilion Lakes and take some photos. Those conditions I've never witnessed at sunrise. I've seen lots of photos of it, but I've never seen it. And so I had to go and shoot. There was fog just everywhere coming up out of Vermilion Lakes and Mount Rundle was beautiful, but also clouded in and misty. It was stunning. And so I actually ended up spending my first three hours of my morning there filling the cards I brought with me for the walk today. So, getting out on the trail a little bit later than I'd like. But we're here, we're adventuring, we're having fun. And for a Saturday, it's been a pretty good day so far. Alright, so today I wanted to talk about something I've actually had a lot of people message me about something that a lot of the creative community in Banff, we frequently talk about and it's how to find work. If you are looking at becoming a professional photographer of any form, whether it's a travel one outdoor adventure photographer, weddings, couples, portraits, brand, whatever. It really doesn't matter. These tips about finding work are applicable to everybody. So, yeah, let's do this thing. Apologies going up some steep trails and, you're definitely gonna hear some heavier breath every once in a while on this one. All right, so first off, finding clients, finding work, finding a way to push yourself into not even doing this professionally, but maybe just making a little bit more money off of the photographs you like to take, or off the videos you like to take, these tips really apply across the board for creators, there's very few things that are just specific to photography. The first thing I wanna talk about is the way most people tend to start getting their first gigs, and that's being asked to shoot something for exposure. Now the idea of shooting something for exposure is somebody who comes to you with a big following. Somebody comes to you with a big event where there's gonna be lots of people and they say, Hey, look, we're gonna do this thing. Will you do it for free? Like, we'll post your photos and tag you. That's the idea of doing something for exposure. Now, I hate saying don't ever do something. The world is much more gray than it is black and white. So you'll hear a lot of photographers just cut this off and say, no, you don't do this. And I disagree with that entirely. I think that there are times and places where you want to do something for exposure or for free. Because there are instances where that's gonna pop up. So the reasons why you wouldn't wanna do something for exposure. Somebody comes to you and they say, Hey, will you do this? They have a big following or they're having this big event, you might not wanna say yes to'em because the people who are gonna be there aren't your target clientele. They're not people who are going to purchase your work or appreciate it. For example, if you really want to do travel and outdoor work and somebody's asking you to come in and shoot, brand photos for a hair product company for free, that doesn't really align with the people who are going to look to hire you. So in that case, the exposure doesn't actually mean anything. These aren't people who are going to appreciate the work that you do, and it also probably won't represent the type of work that you'd like to do. Don't move forward with that. The other instances are people who are doing that they're typically people who aren't going to appreciate the value of photography. So these are people who will expect things for free or expect little changes or more photos or just lots of things where they won't respect your talent as an artist. And so do you really want to get involved in that kind of a situation? And then even if you say like, I'll do this one for free, but the next one we get paid, they'll probably just go to another person. They probably won't even come back to you to work with you. Or if they do, they'll expect you to do it for free and be like, oh, but you did this before for free. So setting a bad precedent for yourself. Do something for free and then they'll kind of expect it from you in the future. The other reason is it actually affects everybody else in this industry. Doing something for free is going to severely impact everybody else's ability to make money. It's really difficult to show people the value in photography or in creative work in general sometimes. By doing something for free, that person's going to expect more artists to do things for free. And then you're just driving the entire industry down into a race to the bottom. Think about that very carefully. Think about how it affects the other creators around you and how it affects your future prospects for work. Alright. That being said, there are reasons and times you would do some work for free. The main one is because you wanna give back, this is the best opportunity, the best time that I can see for doing something for free for someone. So let's say that there is a not-for-profit that you love, you love the work that they do, you're really involved, you're invested in them, or they're really involved and invested in the community of clientele that you would like to work with. Let's say it's a trail builders association and you're an outdoor and adventure photographer. Trail builders are incredibly important people who maintain our trails. They're the ones who maintain these beautiful places for us. So in that case, the people who are gonna see the photos, the people who you're gonna work with on those photos are people who are going to like your type of work. It's probably gonna represent where you want be and how you work and the type of work you want to create, and you get to give back to an organization who gives so much to the outdoors community. In a situation like that. Go ahead, do the work for free, do it for exposure. Now that being said, if a not-for-profit comes to you, And they're not somebody you identify with. They're not a group or an organization whose work you believe in or care about, or they don't match your target clientele. You can always say no, you don't have to do everything that a not-for-profit asks you to do. But if you align with it, definitely think carefully about it. Another instance where you're probably gonna want to think really carefully about if you wanna do work for free or not is if a brand does step up and ask you to do something and they are exactly who you wanna work with. Now, this becomes a very dicey situation very quickly.'Cause you're setting expectations with that brand and it's really hard to maintain the expectation of getting paid or at least getting paid a substantial amount of money for shoots if you give your first one away to them for free. But if you've always wanted to work with them, if their audience is exactly who you wanna work for, not kind of, not maybe, not look how many people, exactly the people you're looking for, then maybe consider a small partnership with them. Now, you can structure that partnership in a ton of different ways, but the way I'd suggest doing it is not doing a full shoot for free. You could do a mini session. You could do just some brand photos. You could do a quick 30 minute session with them, something that's going to allow you to show off your work, but also not give away everything. Other thing you can do, is if they reach out to you saying, Hey, we'll do this for you for exposure. Try and arrange maybe two or three shoots with them. So tell'em what your typical rate would be and then go. But you know what? If we can arrange three shoots, we can do buy two shoots, get one free kind of deal. You're still discounting yourself. You're still doing work for free, and you're still setting a precedent. But if you negotiate that conversation carefully, it could be a good way to build a relationship and a rapport with them, and if they like your work, who knows going forwards. But be very careful in that conversation. Whew, sorry about the heavy breathing here. Just definitely going up a steep section of the trail here. So there's one other instance where you're gonna wanna work for exposure and you're actually gonna see a lot of photographers and a lot of creatives doing this and doing like work for free, doing work for exposure. Even the ones who say never do it, but they're gonna do it in this instance. And it's, if you're part of a giveaway, if it's part of silent auction or charity auction. You are gonna find that there's instances where it's a really good idea to actually take on those kind of projects. Especially if you're trying to establish yourself. Even if you are fairly established, it looks really good if you say, give a print, give a mini session to people, to a charity auction, to a not-for-profit. It's a good way to give back to the community. So similar ideas. The first one, doing the work for free, for not-for-profits or charities. This is something very similar, is if the audience matches, if the organization matches. Definitely feel free to give your work in that case. Or if you wanna partner with other brands who are within the same sphere as the audience you wanna work with. Recently the photography accessory company Lume Cube actually ran this kind of a giveaway where they gave away some of their gear, other people got involved and gave away some of their gear as well. And a local photographer in Banff actually gave away I believe it was a mentoring session or a spot at one of his workshops, and that's worth a few thousand dollars. But it got his name out there in front of a very large group of people who are exactly the type of folks who will love his work, buy his prints, come to his workshops. So minor little investment in his marketing to be able to reach a ton of people in his target audience. I believe he's also a Lume Cube sponsored photographer, so might have had a contractual obligation in there as well. But it gives you an idea of how people can use those kind of instances to give away work for free, but gain a lot out of doing it. So, like I said, off the hop, never just cut something off automatically. Never say never right off the bat. Because there are instances where doing exposure work is a really good idea. Now there is one other version of doing work for free that isn't actually for exposure. I feel like this is a really good time to throw it in here, and it's you choosing to do that work and approaching people to do it. So these are basically portfolio builders or giving samples to people who, you know, are influential in the community you're trying to work with. For example, I am working on building up a bit of a better adventure portfolio right now. I have lots of hiking, landscapes, lots of brand work, lots of stuff on pretty simple, straightforward trails, but I don't have a lot of mountain biking, a lot of rock climbing. I don't have a lot of those, like higher end adventurey kinda sports.'Cause when I do them I'm typically very, very focused on not getting hurt. So I'm working with people who I know to go out and do styled shoots with them. By working on styled shoots with folks who I know folks who might be influential in the community, they have friends who like to do these kind of things. If they see the work and they like the work, there's a lot of other people who will come and work with me as well. Plus I have more images to be able to show to potential clients to show I actually know what I'm doing. Portfolio building is a great time to do some free work, but should be done on your terms with clients that you like, clients that you want to work with. Don't just take to build your portfolio for free. Do them intentionally and build them out yourself. This will teach you significantly more than just showing up and doing the work that someone else wants done.'Cause you actually have to think about building out the creative side for yourself, and that's a huge part about being a professional photographer or a professional, creative for that matter. So just make sure you're working with the right people, the right audience and working to build things in your portfolio that you actually need to build up and build work into. Alright, that works really well into point number two, which is, word of mouth. This is the classic, the staple of marketing, the age old one. Word of mouth is still the most trusted way that people decide on a product, decide on who they're gonna work with, decide on if they want to actually do something. We still rely on word of mouth and we always will I think as humans. That's because we trust other people who have gone through those experiences, and we wanna know a confirmation that they liked what they did, they liked who they worked with, they liked the product. So think about it, word of mouth is no longer just people talking to each other and chitchatting about products they like. It's a lot bigger than that. People talking one-on-one at the office, over messages and chats and things like that is still a component of word of mouth. But now you also have a large online space where people are passing along information about you and your product. So this can include client testimonials that are up on your website. This can include reviews, which hopefully have a lot of very positive ones, and a lot of those client testimonials are in there. This can include large scale reviews like bloggers or podcasters or anybody like that, talking about you, talking about your products without you being there. And this can also include information on message boards. So somebody looking for feedback from the internet about you, about working with you about pretty much anything. So think Reddit, TripAdvisor even Instagram and Twitter to a degree. And so word of mouth is critical to you gaining recognition as a photographer. And actually it's one of the main ways that a lot of old school photographers still get work. So there's some of the world's best, most famous photographers who work consistently, make a ton of money at it and have literally zero following on social media. They're not playing the social media game. They are living off the word of mouth of their great work. There's a number of adventure photographers who work for companies like Arc'teryk, the North Face, Patagonia,Red Bull, like you name it. They've worked with them and they have two or 300 followers on Instagram. They have zero presence really. Their website and their Instagram and their social just isn't there because they don't need it. Guaranteed. You've seen some of these guys work and you probably don't follow them. You probably don't even recognize their name. And that's because within the industry, they have such a good rep, they have such good word of mouth amongst people that matters that they get work. So all that being said, how do you actually gain some word of mouth from people? How do you actually get people to trust you enough to tell other people that you're a good person to work with? Now, there's a lot of ways to go about that. There's the obvious ones of go get some work. Do really, really well at it. Focus a lot, not just on the images, but on the client relations side as well. So take care of that person that you're working with. Take care of the people that you are messaging with, communicate lots, create great work, have a great time on set. Give them the products they want. Under promise and over deliver. Really make them feel special and loved. And, that will gain you a huge client. Your work could be not quite as good as other people's, but your client relations are spectacular and that in and of itself will make them feel like your work is better because they enjoy the experience more. So don't negate the client experience just to create good images. I've worked with photographers that I will probably never hire again and has nothing to do with their work. Actually. It has everything to do with the fact that the caliber of their work didn't outweigh that they weren't a pleasant human to work with. They were hard to communicate with. We took a long time to get images. We just really ran into a few big barriers on working with them. So yeah, focus on your client relations and you will find that you'll get a lot of work and a lot of word of mouth, because people wanna work with people, they enjoy being around. People wanna work with good people, and if you make yourself a good person and you have good work, you'll become invaluable. There's a few photographers and videographers and other creatives who I keep going back to because their work is spectacular, but they're just good people to be on set with. They're just good people to communicate with and they care deeply about everything that they do. And their reference came to me via word of mouth. So make sure that your client relations are on point, and one of the best ways you can do this is to actually ask. You should be able to get client testimonials and good client testimonials. So building up your Google reviews, super important for word of mouth, building up your own testimonials on your website. Not quite as great as reviews, but also really good for building up trust. If someone is willing to give you a positive review, then you know you've done a good job. But even more than that, people who have had a positive experience working with you don't typically remember to spread good news. A lot of reviews are really done by people who want people to be aware of a situation. They didn't enjoy something, something didn't go right. But if you work on your client relations and you make sure that part of that is telling people, Hey, if you had a great time, even if you didn't have a great time, can you leave me a review? Can you go to Google and put a review in here? And are you okay if I use that testimonial on my website? If they've had a great time working with you, they'll probably say yes, And they'll probably leave you a raving review because they know you're gonna look for it. On the other hand, if you get a negative review, this is actually a really good opportunity for you to talk with that client and be like, Hey. What happened? What can I do? What can I do to improve your experience if there is anything you can do or what can you learn moving forward? So it's a benefit either way to be asking for feedback from your clients and don't be embarrassed about it. Don't be worried about it. People typically are happy to give you a little, tiny bit of feedback. Especially if it's being a positive experience, especially if they really enjoyed it. They're enthralled with saying, oh my God, I love you. Definitely work in client testimonials and client reviews and client feedback into your client services, which will lead to greater word of mouth. The other thing that you can do for word of mouth is this leads us into our third point playing the social media game. I think most of us know this at this point, that social media is probably one of the strongest forms of word of mouth that you can find. And it's not, always about having the most spectacular work. You should be proud of the work that you put up on social media, obviously, but it's a lot more about being consistent with it and posting frequently. Now, I am by no means a social media expert. I have a very small following. And it's just not something that I've put the time dedication into to building to find clients. But I will be bringing on a social media expert who manages accounts that combine to be over 1.5 million followers in the very near future. So he's gonna give us a ton of tips and a ton of great advice for how to grow a following for what's working on social right now and what to look for growing forward. So watch for that in the very near future. If you wanna get into the social media game, it's actually a fabulous way to find clients, especially via word of mouth. Now, when I say that, you just need to be consistent. There are suggested norms for posting on social media. Admittedly, they can be really high if you're working a full-time job. You have kids, you have other hobbies, if you're trying to do a lot of other things, the amount they expect from you is a lot. You don't have to follow that. You can find a cadence that works for you and works for your audience and slowly build up over time. Ooh, a Marmot. Cool. Those of you who don't know Marmots are these cute, fluffy, adorable, mammals who like to hang out in the sun and it's fabulous. I'm just walking over another creek crossing as we chat here. So yeah, look into your work. It doesn't always have to be perfect. This isn't your portfolio. Some people will look at it like that. This isn't just make sure you're posting a little more frequently and getting out there in front of people. Alright, we're gonna move on from social because I promise you we're bringing on a person in the near future to talk about it. My last tip for you today is one that is kind of talked about in marketing spheres, but not as much as I feel like it should be. And that is to work with other vendors in that industry. So what that means is that if you are a wedding photographer, you want to go and communicate venues, hairstylists, wedding planners you wanna be at wedding shows, doing any of those things where you will connect with other people. We're gonna connect with your audience. This works pretty much in any industry. It's pretty obvious in the wedding industry how this works, but honestly, connecting with vendors works. Everywhere. Because it's really about building relationships. I know for those of us introverts, my hand's up right now for that it can be really difficult to do relationship building and to maintain those connections and those ties. But it is critical to finding work. Because people work with the people that they know about. People work with the people they want to work with. So reaching out to vendors in an industry where you want to be working is a great way to build up some relationships. So vendor relations. Vendor relations are a lot like client relations. Except you have to be a little bit more delicate and a little bit more cognizant of the situation that they are in. That's because when you're building, a client relationship, that client has approached you. They want to work with you. They think that you're the right person to be with, and they've already engaged in a conversation with you. So they're already what you would call a warm or a hot lead. Definitely a hot lead if they're already working with you. And a warm lead, if they're somebody that you're trying to convince to hire you. Now when you go to a vendor relationship, nine times outta 10, you're gonna be approaching somebody who doesn't know you and may not know your work, may not know anything about you whatsoever. If you're lucky and you're well known in your area, that definitely helps. But don't let that hold you off from approaching people and talking to them. When you're building a vendor relationship, it's key to keep in mind what that person's needs are. In the role I work in I see people send me emails or message me and be like, Hey, I wanna work with you. This is my work. That's great. Let's do something. And that's it. It's not a cohesive way to build a relationship. It doesn't help me understand what you can do. It doesn't help me. Understand how you can help further the organization that I work for or provide value to the organization that I work for. So the ones that work really well, the ones that catch my interest are the ones that introduce themselves, say, where they're from, the work that they like from us, and then how they can help us capture certain types of content. That is by no means a guarantee for them to be hired by me, but that definitely helps their chances. So I'll put two competing pieces on the table for the way that I've have been approached as a vendor as somebody who somebody wants to collaborate with to create work with. Person number one sends an email going, Hey, I'm so-and-so. I'm awesome. We're coming to Banff in, I think it was three days, four days. We'd love to work on something with you. Reach back out. Thanks. And that was it. No link to their work. No link to anything that they've produced in the past. No idea of what they shoot, how they shoot who they are, anything like that. They just threw out this piece of information at me and kept going and felt almost like they presumed we'd wanna hire them because yeah, they had a ton of followers on Instagram. They had some pretty decent work when I dug in and figured out who they were. They had worked with a few other organizations like the one I work for. They might have been a good fit, but the way they emailed me and the fact they're like, we're coming in three days. We need this, this, and this. If their approach off the bat was demanding things from us, like hotel rooms and pay and all these other things, and demanding it in less than three days. Those aren't creators that I need to work with. They're not organized. They were there to capture what they wanted to do and do what they wanna do, which is great. When you work with an organization, you need to take into account their needs and their wants. There was this huge level of presumption. It's not the right way to approach somebody, especially when you're cold calling them and start demanding things from somebody right off the bat. Because it's not about you, it's about the person you're reaching out to. That's critical in these situations. You need to remember that they come first. Now, on the flip side of it, there was another email that I got recently from a local creator. They really just wanted to reach out and say, Hey, this is who we are. This is the work that we do. They had not worked with our organization before, and they just wanted to reach out, let us know what they did, let us know the work that they had and what they specialized in, and how they think that they could help us produce content. There was no demands, no expectations, no anything like that. It was an introduction to their work. And a small idea of what we could do to work together. This, to me, is a fabulous way to introduce yourself. They actually gave me links to their work and they told me what they specialized in. If you're gonna be working with some organizations, you need to let them know how you shoot and what it is that you like to shoot. So what that means is essentially if you are a action photographer, tell them that. If you're a wildlife photographer, tell them that. Tell them what you specialize in and why what you specialize in sets you apart from all the other emails that these organizations are getting. All right, one of the other great ways that you can actually set up a vendor relationship is to set up meetings or phone calls or coffees with somebody. Most people, if you're in the area and you're a local, are happy to sit down and have a coffee when they have time, especially if they're not paying for it. So tell them it's gonna take 15 minutes. You just really wanna talk to them, get to know them. Introduce yourself. No expectations. You'd love to buy them a coffee. That's it. It's really straightforward. It can be really intimidating to do the first few times. You will get quite a few no's or no responses. And you will get a few people who are like, Hey, I honestly don't have time for that, but it's great to meet you. Thanks for reaching out. You know, reach out if you have work ideas, collaboration projects or anything like that. A simple little offer of being willing to sit down with somebody for 15 minutes and get to know them personally is a huge touch to building a vendor relationship. And finally, the third way that I can see that you can build up a vendor relationship is to run something like a headshot party or a styled shoot. This one is a lot more time intensive, takes a lot more effort on your part, but can be huge. I've seen it work incredibly well for some organizations and for some people. So a headshot party is essentially, most people need headshots. And in a vendor setting, you really do need, as we cross back over a creek again you really do need headshots frequently and you need to vary them up, especially if you have to be posting'em on social media or going to events and conferences. It's nice to have a few different options. So you could run a headshot party for vendors in your area. Make it totally free. Let everybody come in, book some time slots, do the headshots with people, get to know them. It's 10 minutes for you to shoot their head shots. And it's five minutes for you to get to know them. So you're really just booking out a bunch of opportunities for you to show people how professional you are, how fabulous your work is, and how much fun you are to work alongside. And that should encourage them to wanna be a part of your work and collaborate with you. And the other thing that you can do is organize a styled shoot. So if you have a lot of vendors who are working in a similar industry who will need to advertise themselves, who will need some photos of their work and them at work, you could arrange a styled shoot. These come out of the fashion industry and the wedding industry, but really they apply to pretty much any industry. Where people will need to be advertising themselves, which it's pretty much anywhere now. You're not asking people to give you products for free. What you're asking is that they bring their expertise, bring their products, bring their venue or their space, or whatever it is that they have to offer, and at the end you produce some photos and you give images to everybody of their work. It's very time intensive on everybody's parts, but if you can build up the right relationships with people and then offer them a styled shoot, it's a great way, again, to show your organizational skills. To show how awesome you are to work with. To show how fabulous your work is and to be present and in front of them while they are doing their work. That helps ingrain you into their brain as somebody they wanna do this with again. As long as you provide fabulous vendor relations and you're fabulous to work with and you're fun and you're on point that whole entire day. High stress, I know, but, you can do it. People are a lot easier to work alongside then you would believe, and the ones who aren't typically aren't the people you wanna be working with anyway. Now, one of the keys before you set up a styled shoot is to take time to build up a little bit of a relationship first before just reaching out. If you want to use a particular venue, reach out to them first. See if you can go for a tour, see if you can show them some of your work and then once you have a rapport with the venue manager or the hotel manager, whoever it is there that does these kind of bookings, then offer a styled shoot. There are lots of places that will say no. Because they don't need it. Hunt for venues that are new, under the radar, just becoming good places to do, say weddings or are places that you think would be amazing and haven't been utilized yet. It is a tall task but totally doable. Now you're going to wanna think of vendors who interact with your audience and who have a nice symbiosis with you and your work. Do lots of research, figure out what those places are, and then start reaching out. And if you know that you have a connection with somebody in that community, or you know, you have a connection with somebody who works in a place, Definitely use those connections that you have or those relationships that you've built up in the past. It can be remarkable. Who knows who knows who, and where you can get to and get in front of somebody or get an email to somebody who you never would've expected. So give it a shot. Build up your vendor relationships and they will start recommending you to either other vendors or ideally to the clients you wanna work with. Now, of course, there's all sorts of other things that you can be doing. There's websites with proper SEO, and proper back links and all that good stuff. There's trade shows, there's putting your work up on display in public locations, so coffee shops, galleries, wherever your work fits in really well. And then there's getting out and talking to people when you're on the trail or when you're traveling and just saying hi and you never know who you might run into or who you might introduce yourself to, that things just play out in a beautiful manner. And I know that's really difficult, but we are in a service industry. We need people to want to work with us. We need people to like our work and we need people to enjoy working with us. All right, folks. That's it. That is all. I hope you enjoyed the first of our real hiking, exploring podcasts. See how it goes and yeah, if you hated this, definitely let me know if you have any feedback at all. Definitely reach out. I'm always open to conversations. If you have more questions, if you have thoughts or an episode you wanna hear something about, let me know. I'd love to be able to answer any questions that I can or find the right person to come on board. And thanks so much. Reach out to me on Instagram at Robert Massey Photography or on my website at robertmasseyphotography.ca. Thank you so much for taking some time to listen. I really do truly appreciate it. Have a fabulous day everybody. Bye for now.