Today's Guest

Jeffrey Shaw is one of the most preeminent portrait photographers in the United States. After 35 years of exceptional service to his exclusive clientele, Jeffrey decided to share his knowledge of business, branding, and marketing to support self-employed and small business owners as well as progressive-minded companies. Jeffrey gave us an insight look at the strategies he employs when coaching clients and the mindset needed to unlock growth in your business.

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Episode Summary

To those on the outside, the journey into entrepreneurship often seems a bit unusual. I worked as a portrait photographer for affluent families for over 35 years. About 25 years into my business I hired a business coach to help me grow the business. After my business coach retired, I began to think about how I could do for others what had been done for me. That’s when I began my coaching business, which I expected would be a nice job on the side but I never expected it would become my passion. 

When I got out of photography school I moved back to my home town and after trying my hardest for 3 years I found myself failing at pretty much the only skill I had. Regardless if you are 23 or 53 years old it is scary to have the business you’ve worked so hard at fail. The problem I uncovered was that my services were completely misaligned with the market. I was charging a premium price in a market that didn’t place the same value on my product. That led me down a path to seeking out those customers that had the same value system I did and were willing to pay a premium for my services.

I believe client acquisition in any business starts with a deep dive into what you are best at and then ask yourself who else would love this. I believe almost anything is sellable to someone, your goal is to find those people that most value what you offer. The foundation of all my work comes down to this one lesson most circumstances in life are uncontrollable, the only thing you can control is the environment you create for the results you want. Who do you want to serve and does your messaging appeal to them? I talk about it in my book as the self-employment ecosystem and it’s broken down into three main elements personal development, business strategy, and daily habits.

The harsh reality of business is you want to be doing your best work when you have the most people looking at you. What I see going on right now is that a lot of businesses are booming and have more work than they can ideally handle. This also means right now is the time to be doing your best work, the referrals alone that come from this season could carry your business for years to come. I encourage everyone to set aside the excuses of why you can’t get things done and instead focus on doing the best you can. The truth is your customers don’t care as much about the why as you but they do care about their experience.

Resources Shared

• JeffreyShaw.com
• Lingo by Jeffrey Shaw
• The Self Employed Life by Jeffrey Shaw
• The Self Employed Podcast
• Thryv
  

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