Pivoting Well During Change

Sarah: The Banowetz Podcast. Welcome back to the Banowetz Marketing podcast. We’re joining you for the first time ever via zoom, since we are all working from a home in today’s day and age, because of the health issues that our world is experiencing right now. Jen and I are super excited to be hosting this podcast with the one and only Jamie Swanson.

So thanks for coming on Jamie. And for those who don’t know who she is, so Jamie is the owner of both of the personal branding photography course and originally prior to that, she was the owner of market tog, which is retired. Is that correct, Jamie?

Jamie: Yeah. I mean, it was a marketing course, mostly everything was at the Modern tog, which is the website with all the stuff on it.

Sarah: Sounds good.

We are super pumped. So Jen and I are like super fan girls of Jamie and we were so blessed to be able to have our first zoom podcast at that too.

So Jamie, why don’t you introduce yourself a little bit and tell us what you’ve been up to lately.

Jamie: Well, I have been learning how to run an online business during all of this isolation stuff. And just trying to figure out what the new normal looks like. Honestly, I had just gotten my business transferred from like a launch model into more of an evergreen model and literally launched my evergreen with a live video the day after everything shut down. So like right as everything was closing and people were being told, don’t go to school, don’t do this. That was just the day that I happened to have on my calendar to do that and was expecting that to really do well, and it didn’t because none of my people could go and work and like, just see, like, I’ve been learning how to live this new normal.

That’s really what I’ve been working on. If you want the honest truth, that’s been my focus for the last month or so.

Sarah: And I think a lot of people can resonate with that.

Jamie: Oh, totally. It Wasn’t convenient! Why can’t we schedule this and plan for it?

Sarah: So Jamie, tell us a little bit about your family.

Jamie: So I have six children ages 14 through three.

I homeschool by choice. I know many of you are crisis schooling or, you know, homeschooling because you have to right now. So I homeschool them in the mornings. And then I’ve got a husband I’ve got a dog. We live in Northern Minnesota, on Lake superior in the woods. So it’s a pretty nice remote place to be, especially right now I can get outside without having to worry about running into any people.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love to quilt. What do you want to know, Sarah?

I like rainbows, I’ve got a little rainbow in my hair left. It’s Corona fading right now.

Sarah: One of the things that I love about you, Jamie, is that, so before you became an entrepreneur, you were an actuary. And you’re also a creative, so you’re a photographer and then a quilter and a business owner. One thing that our audience needs to know is Jamie is amazing with business leadership and marketing.

She is excellent in that. Jen and I both have really been blessed and our lives have been touched by your skills in those areas. So we really are thankful for that.

Jamie: I’ve been trying to get to know you and work with you these last couple of years.

Sarah: And I really like how you balance the two.

So, you know, an actuary has to be very structured and detail oriented,

I’m assuming, and then pairing it with the creativity. And I think that’s one of the things that I really resonate with you is like balancing the creativity with the structure.

It’s just, it’s something that’s really neat about you, Jamie.

So what products or services do you provide? And how is this changing? I’d like our audience to get a little bit of history on how you got to this point today, and then how are things changing with this whole COVID-19 crisis?

Jamie: So I started the online business in 2011 after my photography business grew really fast.

I was a photographer. That’s where I started, and I had other photographers asking me how in the world did I do that so quickly? I was able to go from not being known anywhere to completely, fully supporting our family in 19 months, leaving my actuarial job.

So I started the Modern Tog in 2011 and I just taught any photographer doing business, which at the time was super niche because everybody was doing camera reviews and how to take better photos and whatever.

There is literally 20 people or less just the business side of photography. And over time that became very saturated, super saturated. We grew really fast, and then we started to see our results kind of decline, and started to decline pretty significantly. Like, I think 2013 was our high year, two years after that we had dropped to almost half of what we have been making before.

And then we knew that we had to change something. And so my husband and I were talking and trying to figure out what to do. You know, I kind of wanted to start working with entrepreneurs, but I didn’t know what I would do there or what I would teach there, and it really shook my confidence, but just kept moving forward and taking steps.

Sometimes I think when we’re stuck, we don’t keep moving. Cause we want to figure it all out and you just have to keep moving and trying stuff until something really sticks. And one day I was like, well, okay, what’s working in our market right now. Like the people who are really crushing it have personal brands and they are the face of their company.

Now, being a mom with six kids, I did not want to be the face of my company. You know, there’s all the safety stuff. There’s also that feeling of obligation, of having to show up all the time, every day and always be on social media. And I really like to check out and get out in the woods, but I’m like, okay, well, well let’s batch it. Let’s make this easy. Let’s, let’s go and get a bunch of photos done.

You know, I work with photographers. That’ll be easy to find somebody and we’ll do Instagram. We’ll just schedule it out. And I could not find more than four photographers anywhere who really understood what I needed as an entrepreneur.

And that’s when the light bulb went off like, Oh my goodness, this is awesome. Because like, yeah, there’s thousands who take beautiful photos, but the ones who really understood what I needed for the strategy behind it and who could really tell stories and images.

Because professional photos are nice, but if they don’t have the strategy and the storytelling behind them, they’re never going to capture attention.

And marketing is all about capturing attention. When you can capture attention in a split second, then they dive in and they read the content and they engage with the content or they watch the video. You’ve got to have that image to grab them. And so nobody was communicating that they understood this.

So light bulb went off. I went to my photographers and I said, there’s this new thing you should do it. I ended up launching a beta course on personal brand photography and just totally niched down into that. That was just over two years ago. Basically, I teach a six week course on how to pivot a photography business into personal brand photography, everything from explaining who the clients are, what kind of web assets you need, what the workflow should look like to, how do you actually take a photo that’s going to help an entrepreneur grow their audience and actually get more clients instead of just look good? You know, like, yes, they should look good, but also you should have that strategy piece. And then the marketing, how do you actually do this? How do you price it? How do you find clients? How do you get more clients?

Then on the backend of that, people wanted to continue working with me and I didn’t have anything and I didn’t want to do high end coaching. And so I started a membership where we do laser coaching sessions or 15 minute sessions. I released one to the group per week, so people can sign up for them, we record them, and then we share them with the group.

So I’ve got the course, I’ve got a membership, and the only other thing that I really focus on selling is a contract that photographers can use with their clients. And that’s where I’ve been for the last two years. And I’ve loved it. It’s grown really fast.

We went from this launch model and this big event type thing to just, switching over to an evergreen model. And then the virus hit the U.S. and everybody realized how serious it was and everything shut down. I literally launched my evergreen funnel the day after it all shut down.

My income dropped like 80% and I went into like frantic work mode because that’s what I do when I try to, you know, work harder, work smarter where, you know, do everything you possibly can, and it wasn’t helping because there was so much fear. Photographers couldn’t shoot. So it’s already a hard time for photographers. Many of them have had the winter season, and spring and summer is when they get to start working with clients again. Or a lot of people put sessions off until the weather’s nicer and they couldn’t. So money’s already tight in spring, but then it was really tight.

So even though I was still helping some of them book clients through this funnel, most of them were hanging on to their money and rightly so.

So I’ve basically had to take some time to sit down and say, you know, a year from now, when I look back on this time, what’s the truest and most beautiful story of how I could have handled it, that I want to be able to have lived.

And that’s a question that I modified from Glennon Doyle from her book on teams, but I modified it for business and I just took an entire evening and kind of reflected on that and journaled. Cause I was getting sucked into the story of, oh, we’re going to lose everything. Our income is way lower.

Like how can we go on? And I had to rewrite it and say, okay, what do I want to be? And it’s like, I want to inspire. And I want to use this time to really. Reevaluate where I am, what I’m passionate about, what else could I do? What might be fun to try since working harder doesn’t bring more income in right now.

I’m doing what I need to, to sustain. I’m definitely not dropping the personal brand photography stuff. Cause I do enjoy that very much. And I know and believe that there’s going to be more online entrepreneurs than ever once this is over. So it’s going to be really good for photographers. But in the meantime, I’ve applied for all the help that you can get out there, which has given me a little bit of a cushion, not a ton, but at least enough to be able to sit back and say, okay, well, what can I do that one will inspire people, but also share some of the other stuff that I don’t share.

I’m going to, probably next week because I’m a crazy quick start. And I fully believe that done is better than perfect, and that we can create something better together versus just me trying to make it and shove it on people. I’m going to be launching a beta course, teaching how I build culture in my business and really create clients who want to tell all their friends about you and really have this shared identity and feel like they’re a part of a bigger movement and not just a buyer, if that makes sense.

So that’s where I’m at right now. We’ll see. I’m still trying to scribble out the framework and get everything ready to go so that I can actually launch this, it’s not going to be perfect, but it’s going to be really fun. So that’s where I’m headed.

Jenn: Jamie, I love that you said done is better than perfect.

I’m wondering, do you have fear of failure? I don’t know, I hear fear of failure is better than perfect. But for me, I’m sitting here thinking, well, of course it’s going to be awesome cause it’s Jamie. But if I had to do it, I would be like, well, I’ll try it, but it might suck and then I’ll be really sad.

So tell me, what if it doesn’t go well, or are you like, whatevs, it’s all good I’ll just do something else?

Jamie: Yeah. Well, I mean, the nice thing about this is that I know I’ve got a successful business when this isolation stuff isn’t going on. And I know that everything is going to pick back up when that’s done. Or I assume. I’m trusting that, maybe it won’t, but for now I have no reason not to believe it’s not going to work right when I’m done.

And so that takes away a lot of the pressure. You know, part of the reason I hadn’t gone into this sooner, even though I’ve loved this topic, I have geeked out with friends over this topic for months, maybe even two years, three years, it’s just something that I love. But I there’s some freedom in that.

It’s like, well, I don’t have this huge audience in the entrepreneur space. It’s not really meant for photographers. It’s a totally different audience, but why not try it? I mean, if I get two people, those two people are going to get one crazy experience with me. Like we’re going to work. I mean, for real, maybe two people

Jenn: Maybe Sarah and I will be your two people.

Sarah: Yeah, we’ll at least be your two people.

Jamie: That’s kind of how I look at it is, you know. Right now it can be a really beautiful opportunity. And I know there’s stress and, I mean, I’m not saying I’m immune to the stress and the fear and whatever, but I have learned that if I operate from a place of fear, I just make terrible decisions. I don’t make decisions that are really going to set me up for success. You know, if I’m afraid that it’s not going to work, so I’m not going to put any money into marketing or what, and I don’t do a lot for a beta. Normally what I like to do is the same amount of money that I would make if I sell one person into the course when I beta something, just so like, you know, like this is going to be 499, so I’ll probably take $500 and make that my ad budget and run a few ads, not a lot, just a few, you know, and I’m willing to let go of one so I’ll break even.

If I only have one person in it, then that person and I, we’re going to make it amazing. I’m still committed to serving just one person. It’s okay. It’s a beta thing, but that might also show me that I need to switch my messaging or, you know, I need to change how I market or, you know.

There’s fear. There’s always fear. Like the day two like, I’ll put it out there and, you know, very few people respond on the first day. It’s usually the last day, and that second day, I don’t care how many times I’ve sold something or launch something, I don’t care how many times I’ve done enrollment and  I’ve had over a thousand people take my other course, the story sessions system. When that day two comes along, when I have it like an open cart period, I am always like, everybody hates me, this is never going to go. Nobody’s going to sign up. It’s just natural. When we put ourselves out there vulnerably to feel that like, I call it the hinge moment. It’s like, the door could swing open or could swing close.

You don’t really know what’s going to happen, but it’s just so like uncertain and like vulnerable. You just you’re on that hinge. You just keep going. And the last day it’s going to be like, woo, well, we did this, but it’s scary. And so I try and not have expectations as much as possible coming in. Because when you have those expectations, that’s what causes a lot of that disappointment.

If I was expecting a thousand people in a beta course, I’m going to be disappointed. If I’m just expecting one or two people to come in and help me make something amazing. Well, then I’m going to hopefully crush it, you know, and be excited. If I come into this, just saying, I’m just going to try it, if it doesn’t work, that means I try something else or shift my messaging or I, I find something people actually want.

So I have fear, but I’ve been doing this long enough to know. And I’ve failed. I’ve absolutely failed, but you learn more from the failure than you do from the successes, and it’s not as scary.

You learn that your value isn’t defined by the failures, or at least I’ve had to learn that. That’s been the hard lesson. I don’t know if that helps a lot, but it’s just some point you have to do it. If you don’t take action, you don’t do anything. You’ve got to just keep moving and you can’t move a parked car, you know?

And it is scary to think that, oh my gosh, this could be a failure and what will people say? Whatever. At some point you just got to say, oh well, like I’ll never reach my dreams if I don’t try. And if I try and it fails and we try something else or we pivot again, I think a lot of this is being flexible and just knowing what, you know.

I’m not afraid of not being able to help people get results, because this is something that I’ve done. I’m more afraid of not being able to communicate it well to them. I’m not really afraid, but more, that’s why I love the betas. Because then I find the places where things aren’t clear and then I have to try and explain it again and like, oh, okay, so you didn’t understand that. Let me try and explain it in a different way. And it helps me make better content. It helps me build more relationships. It helps me really, truly understand what people need in order to get results. And I’m doing it to help people get results. So, you know, it’s a win, win, win.

No, it’s not perfect, but even if I thought it was perfect and launched it, it wouldn’t be perfect either. So why not come into it just saying, here’s what it is. We’re going to figure it out together, but then I can serve so much more and I can be reactive. So I love it. I’m excited about it.

We’ll see if we get many people in. So at least it’ll be you guys, I guess.

Sarah: We don’t even know the price yet, and we’re like, we’re there!

I’m just sitting here grinning, because we scheduled this podcast before COVID hit. It’s just amazing to sit here and think, I am so blessed that your message about, cause I had mentioned to you over two years ago, I had said, I really wish that you would teach this to entrepreneurs as a whole and not just towards the photography industry.

And you were like, well, no, I’m really focused on photographers right now. And now you have to. I see this as the start of something really, really amazing. I mean, you’ve been doing amazing things. You are a big name in the photography industry, and I think people need to realize that, Jamie is a big name in the photography industry and to take the knowledge you have there and make it expload into all the people who are not photographers is just, I’m just really blessed and thankful.

To be one of the first people to publicly hear about this. I’m like cheerleading for you and like, yay, go! But then also to have this conversation with you before it starts and everything, and I think it’s going to go amazing.

Then on the other hand, Jen and I have been working on creating our own training and we are definitely stuck in that perfectionistic mode. We have been, we’ve been building this since January.

Jamie: Okay.

Jenn: We cannot get it done. It has to be perfect.

Jamie: What is it that you’re working on that’s getting you stuck?

What’s not done, that wouldn’t need to be done before you launch?

Sarah: We are creating a course that teaches businesses, how to podcast.

Jamie: Okay. Awesome.

Sarah: And we have our sales funnel done. Jen’s a teacher, she has a teaching background, so she’s put the outline together and I have it all right here. Outlines, everything that I need to be teaching and stuff.

I need to record the videos. I do need to record the videos and then we need to launch it. And I just want everything to be perfect. So we keep going over all the materials because we have a bunch of free PDFs that our graphic designer has put together and another marketing person on our team has written a ton of content to add an extra free value.

We just are nuancing it. We just keep going over and over and over again and nuancing it.

We even have people saying when you release it, we want to know.

Jenn: Yes. And the crazy thing is I was building our website for it. We have like a landing page for it and I was on there this morning, and I cannot get the blue to be the exact right hexadecimal number. And it is driving me mad. It’s like off a little bit. And I just keep thinking we can’t launch while these blues don’t match.

Maybe we actually can. I don’t know. I don’t know. I just keep thinking like it has to be perfect, but maybe the blues don’t have to match.

I mean, that’s, that’s the nitty gritty that we’re down to is like these blues are off a little bit.

Jamie: So what’s the fear that’s actually making you want the blues to be perfect.

Jenn: It’s because I think somebody is going to look at it and be like, well, their blues don’t match.

Sarah: And not take us professionally, and it will fail.

We’ve put so much weight into this. If we were building this for someone else, it probably would be a 20 to $25,000 project with all the time and energy we’ve put into it.

We’ve worked so hard on something, we don’t want it to fail, and the reason we’re even doing it is to meet goals. Jen would like to be full time. So we’re trying to build something where we can grow Banowetz Marketing. And so there’s this weight of, this isn’t just for fun, this is for us to accomplish our dreams.

Jamie: If it doesn’t work, you don’t get this accomplishment that you’re looking for. There’s disappointment that you’d have to face, right. To like fight the color blue, throwing it out there and just saying, let’s do this together.

Whenever I find myself hesitating or getting stuck on that stuff, I just have to say what is really serving me in this fear? What is it that not launching makes possible for me to feel comfortable about. Does that make sense? It’s hard to communicate. Normally it comes down to, I won’t be judged or, I won’t have to face this failure or, well, if this doesn’t work, this is the meaning I’ve attached to it, which I don’t want to have to risk.

It’s easier to say I’ve just never done it, so I’m not going to fail or it’s not going to, you know, whatever.

Most of this is blank paper, but I have scribbles. It’s not even like outlined. It’s just like, this is what I’m doing to plan. And it’s just trying to get crap out of my head and figure out even a framework.

There’ll be no website. There’ll be an order form. There will be no sales page. It is an order form. It will be a video maybe and a podcast for sure. It’ll be a Facebook group where I do the videos live. And if it’s like the beta course for the personal brand photography, I did the outline usually 20 minutes before I went live. Scribbled, like, oh my gosh, right now,!  I had the base but what happened was, as I was doing it, I would do a lesson and then people would ask questions.

And it was, oh, I need to add this in. Or that’s what the next lesson should be. I thought it should be this. I’d have less than one, less than two over here, but really they needed lesson one and a half in the middle because otherwise the lessons would never make sense.

My goal is to, instead of giving people everything I knew, which is what I did with market talk, which was marketing for photographers, where people would get stuck the third weekend, because it was all of web design and SEO, like everything I knew about that and content marketing in one module. One of six modules, you know, like I had these massive crazy modules and it was phenomenal, but people would never finish.

They would get stuck because there was so much to do. And I wanted to explain the why. And I think in part it was to show my authority and I thought they needed it, but there’s so much information out there now that I’ve totally shifted into what’s the minimum amount of stuff I can give people to help them get a result.

They don’t care about all the different kinds of software that could, you know, the email list providers, they don’t care that there’s like a hundred of them. I don’t need to compare and contrast. I just need to say, here’s what I recommend. Here’s the strategy you should use. Here’s here’s the minimum amount of stuff you need to do.

And it’s a totally different mindset because we think that people want everything, but nobody has time anymore. We don’t have the attention. And so if I can give them a script and say, post this, and you’re going to book clients and you don’t have to think about it, they’re thrilled because they got what they wanted with as little work as possible.

That’s what all this paper that I’m sifting through is, there’s a ton of junk that I do. And it’s phenomenally effective, but what is the minimum that I need to teach that will make it as fast and easy as possible for people to get through it, for them to understand it and start getting results.

Because that’s what we want. We want shortcuts. But not like, I’m doing this wrong shortcut, like I just want the clearest simplest path. The big stuff that really matters. And it’s changed everything. It’s Definitely got more people to actually do and finish the story session system that I put together, but it also has gotten results better because they’re not wasting time doing stuff that doesn’t matter, keeping busy, so they don’t have to actually be successful.

Does that make sense?

Sarah: Not only does that make sense, but as someone who did both market talk, which was prerecorded lessons that you logged in and did. And the personal branding beta course, I didn’t finish market talk. I did the personal branding beta course. So I can tell a difference.

So what you’re saying, it does make sense. I’ve been the beneficiary of that. And then also what I now remember thinking, you were talking about, at the time, whether you do a beta course or you just take this time to get it all ready? I needed that course. That’s why I signed up for the beta course, because I remember I was with my husband at a hotel, right between Christmas and new year’s that year, you started talking about the beta course and your live video popped up. I was putting on my makeup and listening to it. I was like, I need this. And you were trying to decide if you were going to like release it as a beta or wait, and I’m like, no, I need this right now. I need you to do this as a beta course. And then as I did it, I’m like, I am so thankful she just went ahead and did it as a beta course, because it would have taken you six months to come up with something formalized, I’m sure.

And I needed it then. Six months later, it would have been too late for me. I started Banowetz Marketing on January 15th. I literally started Banowetz Marketing and launched Banowetz Marketing, while taking your beta course. And so I was actually implementing the things that you were telling me to do at the moment to start Banowetz Marketing.

It really gave me a strong start.

Jamie: Yeah. Well, and you know, I wasn’t planning on doing a beta course cause I used to be a perfectionist, which is why everything was prerecorded with Market Tog and the pretty branding and all the stuff. I thought I needed that to have the authority, but really you just need to set proper expectations.

If you tell people, hey, I’m doing this live because I want to figure it out. I want you to be a part. People love this part of what I’m going to teach, but people love to feel like they’ve actually played a part in creating something. They’ll actually help spread the word about it when it’s done. If they know that they contributed in a way that actually shaped the content.

And so the beta courses, the videos were a lot longer. I think there are closer to like half an hour to 40 minutes a day. And what I did is I took that, I had money to invest because I had charged people upfront, and so I took that money, I hired a team to help me manage the groups questions because so many questions were coming through.

We had 167 people go through it. I think we had, it was insane. It was like 16,000 comments within the first couple of weeks. And so I couldn’t even keep up with all the questions. So they actually were grabbing all the questions and categorizing them for me and saying, hey, this has been asked like four times, can you do something?

Cause I couldn’t keep up with everything. So I had money to help actually manage the group. And then they audited the content so that when I went to redo it again, I replayed it one more time cause I didn’t have time to actually redo the lessons. But then in summer, a few months later I have money to hire a video team, and I had this beautiful, succinct outline where I could do much shorter, more succinct lessons because I had had those conversations. And I knew where people were getting stuck. I knew what questions were coming up that I needed to clarify. I knew what people didn’t really need or do, that I could pull out, that wasn’t necessary.

It was a beautiful collaborative experience. It’s so much better to have the money. If somebody wants to do this, they don’t want to invest $25,000 before they make a penny. Why not make 70 grand? And then use that to invest to make it better.

Cause then it’s not like taking out debt. It’s not risky. And you know, that people actually want it, as opposed to yeah. I originally thought about launching a higher end coaching membership. So I said, Hey, I’m thinking about, maybe you remember this Sarah or Jennifer, I think it was after your course, Jennifer, but I had said, hey, I’m thinking about doing this.

It would be like 200 bucks a month or something, or 299 a month, small cohort, very hands on. I said, but I need 20 people to make it worth doing. I think we had eight. So I said, okay, not going to do it, like, great. You know, now I know you guys don’t want the high end membership because we had had a few hundred people at that point go through it.

And so if only eight are interested, then that’s a bad offer. It’s not bad or wrong. It’s just, I would have invested in. Building a website and nobody would have bought. Now instead, it’s like, okay. Well, the next time I ran it, I’m like, how else could we do this? And the new laser coaching method of doing it where not everyone gets a coaching session, but they can apply for a spot. It was different. It was a totally different. Much less hands on intensive for me, but still very helpful for people, kind of model.

That worked really well. I had 30% of the people who are alumni and through the course sign up for it.

So that’s a win, you know. Eight out of a few hundred versus 30% is a massive shift.

When you beta a . Course, you put things out there and say, it’s not perfect yet. Here’s what I’m thinking about doing this. Are you interested? You’ll know really fast and it’ll save you a lot of mistakes and it’ll help you keep that momentum going.

And so, you know, it just makes it easier that way.

Podcasting, you know, there’s people who need help with podcasting. How can you get it to them faster? How can you really make it happen? So you can have some of this money to invest back into your business, to bring Jennifer in full time or, you know, whatever you want to do.

So it’s exciting. It’s scary. I get excited by this stuff now because I’ve done it enough to know that like it’s all about the offer and knowing what people need and getting a real quick win.

Jenn: I think that those are good points. I think we’ve been waiting just for perfection. And again, you said done is better than perfect so maybe this is when we start to launch. We say, this is our first course that we’re offering.

Okay. Join in and enjoy the ride. And I think that, for me, sets the expectations and that feels good. You know, that feels like a win automatically.

Jamie: Yeah. I mean, Sarah, it will force you to do the content every day and do a video.

And people prefer having access to you as opposed to just you on a video.

Jenn: That’s true.

Jamie: They get that relationship with you. They get that conversation with you, and then you can take those and make it into something much more succinct, but there’s something really special. The beta course model is such a beautiful method of doing things.

There’s a book called “The Power of Moments” by Dan and Chip Heath, they’re brothers. And it talks about shared experiences and how they really build that connection with each other, with other people. It’s kind of things that you remember

A beta course is an experience. Of course, it’s like a conversation. It’s not just a one way information dump. It’s literally dynamic. And so that’s why it’s so powerful.

They’re usually less expensive, you know, they do have to spend more time doing it because you are going to be figuring it out. It might not be as polished, but a lot of people really love. And I think more and more people are moving towards that. Having that interaction and that conversation, the access to you, to be able to really figure it out.

I really think you guys have plenty. You could launch it today, if you wanted to, you know, like I can see you’re both laughing, but it’s really good.

Sarah: Especially if we did Facebook videos, live for the recorded. We have everything. We’re all just waiting on me, recording these videos.

Jamie: So do it live, and record them live and then go back next summer and make more succinct versions of them.

Sarah: There you go, Jenn.

Jamie: You’re never going to invite me back again.

Sarah: You’re amazing. You’re amazing. Okay. So we need to wrap up.

So the wrap up, I would love our listeners to get, I know that you don’t have like your sussinct sales offer yet or anything like that but, for next steps, you’re going to be launching this beta course for entrepreneurs.

Give us a brief overview, and then where should they go to find it? Like, should they just go to your Facebook profile or where should they go next to find out about it? Since you don’t have a sales page yet?

Jamie: I don’t have a website. I don’t have an opt in. I don’t have any email lists for them to join. I don’t really have a Facebook page dedicated to this.

Look at all the things I don’t have that I know you tell all your clients to have.

Sarah: We have so much faith in you, Jamie, that we are both like., oh, it’s going to be great though. We know it’s going to be great.

Jamie: Okay. So the best place to go would be to my podcast right now and subscribe, because I’m actually talking behind the scenes of what I’m doing to launch this.

Like you guys are hearing a little bit of it here, but how am I launching something new with literally no audience. So it’s called Personal Brand Journey with Jamie M Swanson. It’s on all the podcast players. You can also go to Pbrand.me and that’ll take you to the podcast page itself.

Follow there, eventually when I have an opt in or whatever, I’ll be able to share, but it’s going to be teaching, how do you do these kinds of, well, the podcast is just the behind the scenes launching of a beta course, but the course itself is going to be about building this culture. Building the Sarahs and Jenns that just like, adore you so much and believe that everything you do is amazing, and really building that connection. Not just with you, but with the community and the greater purpose of what you’re doing in your business.

So helping create a movement around your business that’ll help market for you.

It’s more than just making money. I want to save the photography industry. I genuinely believe that personal brand photography is the future of the photography industry. And so that’s my deeper purpose there. And people get behind that. They want to be part of that. They want to help their friends and their colleagues in the industry and they want it for themselves.

So like teaching all this stuff, it’s not very succinct, still working on the messaging, but it’s how you build this, this identity that people can assume. They can take this identity on and really become a part of a movement that’s bigger than themselves. That’s going to make their lives better, but also gives them the opportunity to help it make other people’s lives better as well. Teaching all that. That’s not very succinct. It’ll get you more sales. It’ll help your retention stay. It’ll help you have this crazy community of people who follow you, even if they don’t do photography, because they’re that bought into what you do. And, you know, whatever it is. So is that clear? I know I said more about it earlier when we were off the record.

Sarah: I have recorded that too, so we can drop in those pieces.

I think it’s great. And if anyone’s listening and, you know Jenn or I, and you don’t know Jamie yet, seriously, our lives have been impacted by Jamie’s teaching. And Jen’s a teacher, so she knows good teaching and Jamie is great at teaching. So, yeah.

It has been a blessing to have you on, Jamie.

Thank you so much for being on the Banowetz Marketing podcast.

Jamie: Thank you for having me. It’s always fun to get like talked up. You guys are the best.

Sarah: Well, you deserve it. You deserve it.

Jamie: Oh, you guys are wonderful too. It’s been so fun to see how you’ve taken this and just ran with it and been growing and how you’re serving your clients.

It’s great.

Sarah: Thank you. It it’s really cool to have two of your students working together to grow something.

Jamie: I love it. I love seeing my people connected and your mine. I have claimed you as mine, just so you know.

Sarah: So as I close this out, just make sure that you like and subscribe to all of our pages, both Jamie’s and Banowetz Marketing. And, we will talk to you later. Thanks for joining us for this podcast.

Bye.