Communication skills that win clients

7 key takeaway messages from our conversation with Karen:

1. Know your ‘Why”’ and define your artistic identity

2. Treat photography as a Business

3. Authenticity attracts the right clients

4. Talent and adaptability outlast trends. Yes, even AI

5. Portfolio reviews and awards are powerful gateways

6. Be financially honest with yourself

7. Mindset is a make-or-break factor

Full transcript

Emma Alexander  

Hi guys. Well, today's special guest is someone who doesn't just work with images, she builds worlds. Karen Williams,, also known as Black Visual Queen is a force in commercial and editorial photography as a photo director and a producer, creative consultant and now a published author. She challenges norms, celebrates identity, and crafts bold visual language all on her own. In this fireside chat today, we're going to explore how Karen built a thriving career, all on her own terms, and what that really takes in today's industry.

Karen, welcome.

Will Bremridge  

I'm in Lisbon. I moved here four years ago because I hated the weather in England, and also because my work completely doesn't work there, as in, clients want sunny, blue sky, happy stuff, but there's so rarely any sunshine in England. So I decided to move here, and I regret nothing, although I do miss the English sense of humour. So much. Again, various things about English culture that really make me happy.

Emma Alexander  

That's brilliant. So a good dose of sarcasm. We need to send you lots of main sarcasm,

Will Bremridge  

100%. Self deprecation and all kinds of other things.

Emma Alexander  

But delivered really well, of course. Well, let's start with that - you are a communications coach at your own brand Communications Mastery. What does that actually mean? Who do you work with, and what do you teach?

Will Bremridge  

So I coach some creatives on how to pitch better, how to show up less than meetings, how to develop a bit of a brand voice behind what they do, but the majority of my clients are actually CEOs families and all of their teams as well. So I'll get either hired to coach a CEO for a long coaching program, or them getting into a whole bunch of different seminars with the staff that are underneath them, because they want to drag those people up into being better communicators with each other, or much better communicators with their clients. A lot of sales teams I've coached as well. So yeah, lots of people in the corporate world, but it's kind of a little bit more rewarding coaching people from the same industry that I come from.

Emma Alexander  

Yeah. You must understand those those challenges quite intrinsically.

Will Bremridge  

100% Yeah. So still living those challenges. Yeah,

Emma Alexander  

What made you make the shift then, from being behind the lens to kind of leading you down this coaching path?

Will Bremridge  

So I've given lectures at universities in England since quite early on in my career. So back from the time where I started shooting any kind of advertising or editorial stuff, I got asked in by assistants. One of my assistants, or people by hired as an assistant, went to university in London. They said, Can you come in and give a talk? And I realized how much of a massive gap there is between being taught how to be a photographer and taught the kind of ins and outs of the commercial world, which I don't even think you really get taught in a photography degree, and also how to be and then how to communicate your worth, how to show up to meetings and deliver something with competence and confidence, and how to speak to art directors and creative directors, who at that age are quite often, almost always older than you. And when you're 20 years old, you feel like those people. Even if they're 27 they think they're so much older, they feel like adults, and you feel like a child. So it started out coaching those people had to go into the wider world speak about their worth and their work and what their purpose was, and what fires them up, and to light up a room of people who are wanting to work, or at least, got as far as inviting me into that building. And then I realized that absolutely nothing changes in our lives in terms of us being taught how to communicate. There's no unless we seek out that kind of advice or that kind of education. We're just roughly the same person for a long time, and we only learn lessons from making mistakes, rather than preempt preempting those mistakes and actually becoming a better communication communicator off our own back. So I then went on to do plenty of jobs that we don't really sort of preach about, like corporate headshot jobs. And then people, CEOs and directors would say most common piece of feedback I love the most is they would say, you make me feel so comfortable in front of the camera, I usually hate this. You're very, very good at just making the energy of this thing better. So I decided to throw myself at the deep end years ago and start selling my services as a communication coach and a public speaking coach, and just all of a sudden it started working. So the first time it happened was I was shooting headshots at a bank in London, and the person said exactly that, you made me feel so comfortable in front of the camera. And I just lied. And I said, Well, I also work as a public speaking and community Communication Coach, helping teams become so charismatic and confident with the way that they deliver messages and persuade clients and tell stories and get people on their side and on course with whatever that company's mission is. And he went, do you want to do, um, do you want to do a seminar, which about 25 of my staff and next few weeks, yeah, absolutely. And then went in and did it, just flying by the seat of my pants. I knew what I was talking about, but I just hadn't quite figured out how to package it yet. Amazing. That was in 2019 2018 and then, um, and then, bit by bit, during COVID, I started kind of thinking more about how we can make this into a business. Into a business and then and then, while also thinking, much like many of us, during COVID, what am I going to do if COVID if? What if I? What am I going to do if it's not photography like, what can I do to add some strings to my bow or just learn to be a better communicator around my photography career? So while educating myself, I decided to start helping other people as well.

Emma Alexander  

That is absolutely brilliant. I didn't know that part about how it kind of came to life. I loved the balls of that.

Will Bremridge  

I'm a big fan of doing something baldly earlier on in my career, I wanted to shoot for them. It wasn't GQ, something a little trashy, it was FHM and and I sent a stack of pizza boxes with pizzas in them to the office with my portfolio printed on the top. I into intercepted the pizza guy. I ordered these. Please take my book with this envelope on the top address to their art director and creative director. And it worked.

Emma Alexander  

The one golden nugget to take away from this this is also fake, not fake it till you make it. But I do love saying yes to everything.

Will Bremridge  

Yeah, yes, I do. Just have a quick squeaky bum moment! Exactly.

Emma Alexander  

So what are the kind of common struggles that you see then? That you see then and really, among predominantly photographers and creatives? What are the biggest struggles that you find people are facing?

Will Bremridge  

Yeah, I think it comes down to three things. Firstly is learning how to talk about your work in a way that isn't just in your nerdy typical photography bubble. Our clients are all they never know what they want, and they definitely don't know how to describe it. So it's our job to be able to sell what it is that we do and what we what our goals are, what our passion is in our work. So instead of being a portrait travel lifestyle photographer, like so many of us, talk about the emotion that your that your work brings, talk about how that work looks. So for example, I don't tell people I'm a portrait travel lifestyle somewhere down the line. I just see that anyway, I say I should write optimistic and highly energetic work that puts people in a good mood. So find something a little cute to say about your work that you could have at the bottom of an email or even on your website, in your bio. You know, you don't want to be Dan Wilkinson. I hope there isn't someone on the in here called Dan Wilkerson. Just anyway, you don't want to be Dan Wilkinson, the portrait travel lifestyle photographer, because you might be incredibly talented. You probably are, but you've got to find a way of showing your work to people in a way that fires them up. Lights, yeah, lights a fire. You'd want people on the end of that email to go, I love how you just described that work, because that's exactly what's been written in a brief somewhere. Briefs for ad agencies from clients or their treatments are not written in this will be the F stop, and this will be the lighting. It's this is the energy, and this is the emotion that this work is meant to create in this campaign. So go down that route. The second one is we are, as soon as we're on set, we are the director, the person that everybody looks to to kind of manage the day and carry the whole thing up with some charisma and competence. So as much as being an introverted artist is great, and you should never kind of try to change yourself too much, it's really important to think about how it is that you speak to people on set. How do you manage clients who are getting a bit anxious, how you speak to the talents, and how you just keep that whole day, or multiple days, flowing really nicely with a really good edge. And the third thing is just the longer term, longer term. How do you call it client relationship building? How do you how do you get in the room with some people, and even if they're not going to hire you immediately, how do you keep that relationship going? So eventually they do, and I think that's something that loads of us struggle with, because we're so self deprecating and so kind of defeatist that we send out a few emails in a panic in January and then never contact those people again. But we have to remember that we are a business, just like everyone else.

Emma Alexander  

You’ve just, I think you've basically just taken all my questions basically and wrapped them all up there. That's brilliant. It's interesting you talk about niche, though it's or how you describe yourself. Sorry, I think you know, we Wang on a lot about having a niche. And actually, as an ex ad agency art buyer, I actually know, I believe it's really important to have something that you can you know, you can hang on, off yourself, a tagline

Will Bremridge  

behind what you do exactly, really English, heritage, style work, you know, farmers and stuff like that. Talk about it that way. Yes,

Emma Alexander  

yes. It's not just describing your output. It is the emotive quality that can be your your ethics. It can be, you know, I'm a, you know, a vegan, whatever it is, or, you know, I'm a blogger, whatever it is. I work with brands for good, whatever it is. It can be your kind of social causes. It can be all sorts of things. It doesn't just have to be the physical output. I am a food and drinks. It

Will Bremridge  

also help you plan personal projects as well. Does this fit under the two sentences that I use to describe my work and always just go back to that and be like, are we on course or not? Am I starting to deviate because I got distracted by someone else's project? Or does it fit under this term?

Emma Alexander  

Absolutely. And something you touched on there is the idea of professional presence. I've heard you mentioned this before in your fabulous videos that you do on your Instagram channel. What does professional presence actually mean? Like, you know, actually, more importantly, how can you develop it.

Will Bremridge  

So I feel like it opened this one phrase opens up entire world of thought about people's communication skills and how they kind of audit the way that they speak to people and show up the thing, which is, there are two major pillars of how people measure you, and how you get in a room with people, and how you become somebody that people want to invite back. And it's your warmth, which is, how likable, how welcoming, how funny, how how caring you are. And then there's your competence, which is how, how much you seem like somebody who can get shit done. And we have to dial those things up depending on what situation we're in. And most people are always a little higher on one than the other. I am high on warmth and low on competence. It doesn't mean I'm incompetent. It means I have Labrador energy. I have to like I have to work a little harder to make other people think that I do know what I'm talking about. And loads of people have that. And then you've got other people who are high on competence but low on warmth, like Mark Zuckerberg, for example. He's clearly very, very talented and capable, but he's never winning over in hearts and minds while on stage with a microphone. Elon Musk, for example. So there are dangers to being high on one or low on the other without realizing it, and once you learn that charisma and your ability to get welcomed into open doors in your life come down to just those two pillars, and everything about being a person worth having around fits into sub categories on their either warmth or confidence, your kindness or your intelligence, your ability to show up on time, but your emotional maturity. So it's all there under those two pillars. And when you when you leave a conversation, just think, how, what did that person need from me? Because some people need more of one than you than the other. So for example, it gets even deeper when you realize, you know, some of us are naturally people who write emails and messages with a lot of exclamation marks, maybe some emojis, a smiley face, and just be like, Oh, I hope you have the best day. We can all be like that, because we think that's what the person is going to resonate with. But as soon as you realize that they don't resonate with that because their emails are a little bit colder, like a dad text or my dad's text, then resort back to that, because they're not they're not loving they don't need that want from you. They just need competence. But then you might have a chat with someone else you've been talking to, go sorry, talking about going meeting at that ad agency or whatever, and they might be full of warrants. So just dial up your walk, because that's what they resonate with. That's what's that. That's what they want around them. So when you realize your professional presence comes down to warmth and competence, you can so easily assess whether you're doing a good job showing up to meetings, phone calls, virtual meetings, networking events. It all comes down to those two things that's

Emma Alexander  

so interesting. I often say actually, that you know, trust. It's about, how can you instill trust when you're building relationships with with potential clients or clients? How can you instill trust in people really, really quickly? Because, you know, especially in the commercial industry commercial photography, there's a lot of money at stake. Sometimes you know people's jobs Exactly. They're not going to take a risk on somebody that they have any inkling cannot deliver. So how can you quickly unpack that and actually start to instill trust without going in there and saying, I am, you know, speaking like your LinkedIn bio, I am a trustworthy and competent problem solver. You know, it's those little cues in that case, actually something you really picked up and then was about online. Was about online. So many of our meetings these days are done online. Quite clearly, you are in Lisbon and, you know, and we are doing this online. What are there any you? Sorry, I think we show up better on Zoom. Well, I was thinking about body languages, because what you what you mentioned, there was about sort of mirroring, thinking about kind of mirroring people's expectations the way the language they're using, the tone, if they're, you know, bubbly or not. And I think there's little gestures that I've read about that you can do to mirror how people are sitting and things, but we don't get those cues if you've only got this little box. So do you have for online one thing I

Will Bremridge  

so I teach virtual presenting as well to people, the teams of staff. And the one thing that hardly anybody has figured out is that we're all sitting way too close to our computers. Here, for example, you're doing great. I see your elbows, you can just stipulate. But most of us are doing our zoom calls, kind of like, I haven't got my cameras here, and there's, there's something that people are calling this the zones of conversation. So when you have a zoom call with someone, and the box stops here, you're in someone's intimacy zone. That's an area reserved for just our lovers and our mothers. So you're already too close, like no one has a conversation, so close to anyone else, where you can't see their hands. So then the next one on one further out from intimacy zone would be your personal zone, which is a little bit better, but we want to be in the conversational zone, which is like we're at a restaurant talking across a smallish table. You want you've got to be able to use your hands to just stipulate and prove your point, because using your hands make you, make you more believable, makes you seem smarter. So many studies have been done on this. Anyway, every every single TED talk with the most rating, for TED talks with the highest number of viewers, all feature speakers who use their hands a lot. It doesn't have to be ridiculously over the top. You only need to be somewhere in this summer, but if you're not able to use your hands on camera, you're dropping half of your ability to be charismatic and look like some of you can tell a story and win people over. So get away from your push that computer away, and also get in front of a window. So the window light is you don't only light it. I've got some here because I'm doing videos, but if you just get the sun in front of a window and find a half decent room in your house or a not too ridiculous backdrop, but just light yourself nicely. So if you are subconsciously to the other person, at least appealing to talk to, it's not difficult to watch and difficult to listen to. That's any YouTube channel where someone talks about, I mean, I bet you, every single person on here is doing some YouTube channel with this guy being like, Hey guys, today I'm testing out camera on the iPhone, whatever this is iPhone 16, but you can see their hands, and they're really talking, and they're like, No, and that's so much different to this phone, which we've been using for the last month, and we're going to test this out on the road. So they're like, using their hands and truly presenting their ideas and their information. And so many people, almost everyone in the world, is doing a zoom. Call this little box here, and it's too close. It's uncomfortable for us to watch. The

Emma Alexander  

lighting is a really good thing as well. I, or a little bit heart of me, dies when people are backlit, like sitting with the window behind them, and you can just see a shadow of a face with it dead, yeah, especially for, I mean, I don't know if this is unconsciously, but especially for creatives as well, I sort of expect a little bit more like you shouldn't be, and that's a terrible, a terrible bias to have. But I feel like you know, if you are working the creative industry, if you are physically going to be physically making the work that I might be briefing you for almost, have some awareness about your own yourself. And that's a terrible

Will Bremridge  

I guess, like, I think I mentioned earlier, like there's so much that we need to take into account that goes beyond our portfolio, because there's so much talent in our industry, and there's always someone who shoots similarly, or even maybe a little bit better to you. So what can you do in every channel of communication, your social media, your calls, your meetings, to show up and be so representative of your brand? Are you just an introverted, quiet, self deprecating portrait travel advertising photographer, or are you the CEO of a company that provides a product that that company needs. There's all those people at ad agencies or brands are moving incredibly fast. As much as they love your artistic brain, they also just need to know that you are someone who gets shit done

Emma Alexander  

absolutely, absolutely, and I often say, as people, you are providing a service. You know, you're providing a solution for their problem, and you're not the only person doing it, so you have to be the person to you know. How do you just get the get that you want

Will Bremridge  

them? Your job is to fire up people in that room from just that first meeting, that email, that that Zoom call that we're having right now. You have the opportunity to be exactly the same as everyone else who's never thought about their communication skills much the way they use their voice, their body language, the way they sit in front of a camera, the way they walk into a room, if that meeting is in person, or you could be somebody who's thought of all of those things and just upgraded them by 4% would make a massive difference. So what are some

Emma Alexander  

other things that people don't realize that they're doing wrong? Not to be negative, but let's, let's go in for the kill in meetings and and calls. But predominantly, should we go? Should we go in person? Yeah, I think, let's go in person.

Will Bremridge  

I think, um, I mean, there's a lot of a lot of us have so many different kind of minor, awkward cues that we give out and but the easiest thing to do, to upgrade what you do, is just address everyone in the room when, if you're pitching or showing your work, make eye contact and asking questions to everyone in the room. There could be some 26 year old person in that room who's actually one of the highest ranking people in the agency, or one of the people in control of all the money, or the big kind of hire so like, and there's so many egos, everyone's got one in some capacity. So make sure that wherever you go, you get to sit with all people in a room, address all of them, even even the person who hasn't introduced themselves, just to lead that conversation and make everyone feel that you are somebody who knows about their work, knows about their product, and knows what they bring into the table. So a huge amount of being charismatic is just how you make other people feel, and they either notice it on a subconscious level or a fully present level. But they're going to you're either going to leave a building and they go, right, let's get back to work. We've got to work on that thing. Or they go, we really enjoyed meeting that person. And it seemed like someone we want to work with. We need, we need that person around. So so much of it is just being able to conduct ourselves with, okay, firstly, not Firstly, because I just spoke like four minutes, but something I was going to say was, if you want to condense it into a simple phrase, a bit like the warmth and confidence thing, try to seem like the most comfortable person in the world. So instead of being frantic, I'm a naturally frantic and ADA ADHD person. But when I go into any kind of work related thing, I just slow down. I just because people are so much more comfortable seeing someone with calm energy. So just the way you move across the room, the way you introduce yourself to people, just do it with with calm, yeah, like a slowness. In fact, there's almost no there's hardly anyone I've ever met who goes too slow. So just slow down and be relaxed. Make sure your movements are purposeful and graceful, rather than kind of, oh God, can I get a copy before I show you my book, just just go a little slower. People resonate so well. Someone who looks comfortable in their surroundings,

Emma Alexander  

that's, yeah, that's really good advice. You asked me earlier about if I get really nervous doing, you know, doing live presentations. And I must admit, I Yeah, absolutely, I get of it, but taking that minute to just sort of stop and breathe and just, you know, a few deep breaths. Any other tips that you can do, perhaps before you go on stage, if you're public speaking, perhaps

Will Bremridge  

public speaking. I mean, a really common thing that people say is that you should just do some breathing exercises, which do help a little bit. But in terms of being nervous about going up and speaking to people, just transfer all your thought process from, instead of, how do I do this perfectly, which no one's ever done, to how much value can I give these people? What is it that I can educate these people on? And it takes all the ego out of yourself, and it just makes everything about it. What? Yeah, what can I give these people, rather than, how are these people going to perceive me? No one needs you to be perfect, in fact, and no one you put up a poster the other day that said, no one wants you to be shit. And that's the same with the people in the ad agency. They're rooting for you, and they want to learn from you. You've got in through the door because your portfolio is good, and then your communication skills take over. The same in any job interview, you know they if you've invited you join interview, then they know you can do the job. The rest is your communication skills. So just slow down. Slow down everything.

Emma Alexander  

Yeah, that's I know. I definitely have a habit of kind of talking really fast. I naturally talk incredibly fast.

Will Bremridge  

Me too. I'm slowly changing myself.

Emma Alexander  

Yeah, last few years, it's taken a long time, though, especially,

Will Bremridge  

especially relevant to young photographers, because there's so many young photographers with incredible portfolios. But it's even more of a risk for an ad agency or a brand to take on somebody who's not really worked on many big jobs before, and it's great for them when you pull it off, because I'm like, we work with this amazing younger or person, whatever, and, and, but if they're taking a bigger risk, if you're if you're frantic and and you see anything childish, and the easiest way to just see more mature is just slow down and be, have be purposeful in the way that you move, in the way that you speak, oh, and try not to say on Earth too much. Dropping out your filler words is really important. I just am there. We're all going to do it now and again, but it's a really important thing to try and remove it. I've just been doing this personal branding course. I'm still on it, and it's been a whole bunch of different coaches who kind of exploded on different social media platforms, and one of them, in every single video he does, he sounds like this, because I'm so we're gonna go on LinkedIn, and I'm gonna open this new page here. Notion, and it's infuriating. I kind of want to contact the course people and be like, Would you be interested in some free public speaking coaching? You should this is like, drop out your ums and ers as much as you can, and any filler word you know, like, totally. So generally, you know, just things that don't even need to be there, the more that we shorten our sentences and speak in a concise way, no acronyms, no jargon, just be somebody who can put any point into just three parts, point, reason, example, so you could ask me a question next I could go, Well, look, I think this, this and this. The reason is because, in my experience, I have this, this and this. And for example, I've been coaching these people recently who have experienced who, as a result, have completely transformed this, this and this. If you can trans, if you can be asked a question and split it into three parts, then you're nailing

Emma Alexander  

life. It's that trust thinking, isn't it? That building trust? Yeah,

Will Bremridge  

it's all micro blocks build the image in people's heads that you are somebody who can be relied upon. Is trustworthy, engaging, charismatic, that kind of thing.

Emma Alexander  

So it sounds a bit like preparation is going to be really key, you know, to going into meetings. Um, is it? I mean, is there a risk of over preparing, of over, you know, over preparing maybe stopping you from being spontaneous, you know, not, not just letting a conversation unfolds naturally.

Will Bremridge  

I think preparing, prepare all you as much as you can to show your work, have stories in the bag that you can tell about the shoots you've been on. Definitely prepare the hell out of that. In fact, it's really important to prepare what I would call a social pitch, which you could have a 10 second one, a 32nd one, and a kind of one minute one. How do you talk about what you do in a concise way that talks about who you've done it with, where your work's been seen, what your goals are, what your grander kind of purposes in your career. And you can sum that up in 10 seconds, 30 or a minute, depending on what the conversation feels like. But it's our job to be able to light people up quickly with how much we love our work and how much purpose we get behind it. So definitely prepare what you're talking about when we're showing your work or pitching, but then in the behind the scenes, just develop your social skills so that when the conversations happen, you can be concise and you can be funny. You can be, you know, you can sympathize with the things that they're saying, you know, oh, we had to shoot the other day. Oh, my God, we're going down the pan because of this and this. And you just empathize with go and then get the conversation back on track. So yes, prepare the hell out of how you talk about your work, but everything else can be should be fluid and just relaxing and human, that's for sure.

Emma Alexander  

What did you call that? You call it a social, a social pitch? I know in brand and PR, we often talk about having a boilerplate, yeah, it's like a really short, standardized summary of what you do, of what a company did, you used to stamp it on the bottom of things, press releases and stuff like that. I think that's really quite an interesting thing you know, to have at your disposal. And again, it plays into that what people are looking for. If you meet someone and you get the vibe that they are very concise, straight in with a 10 second I do this for these people. There's a lovely lady called Amanda Fitzgerald who is a PR professional, and she talks about nailing in eight, can you say what you do and your purpose in eight words or less? So I, I do, I do this for these people that are and it's, can you really, really concisely. Get what is your value proposition talking about in business, but it's very, very transferable. What is the value you deliver, and who is it for transformation? What probably you solve it, write it as a paragraph, and then cut it into two sentences, and then put it into one sentence, and then practice that. Do you ever record yourself and play it back?

Will Bremridge  

I've made enough, made enough videos of me just in the last year. I only started about a year, and maybe in February last year, it started super wooden, and I was like, I've just got to put them out. Just kind of put them out. And then now they're getting way more fluid, and, dare I say, charismatic, and kind of I sound like how I want to sound now, but I can still go a little bit more silly and colorful, but it's taken some time. But recording yourself, or just if you're someone who listens to voice notes, sorry, someone, you're someone who leads voice notes for friends. I'm a voice note guy, although I do think you should be charged 100 pounds if you do it for over a minute, if you if you're someone who leaves voice notes, then listen to your voice notes and be like, How could, how did anyone else? Did anyone enjoy listening to that? Was I concise? Could it have been shorter because it had been had more warmth to it? Could have more confidence? Am I doing what needs to be done in Am I getting what I want out of this conversation and what the other person wants without infuriating anyone, boring them, making their brain go on, also pilot, that kind

Emma Alexander  

of thing. Oh, it's excruciating, though, I must admit, I'm not I hate voice notes because they always turn into monologs as a, as a, you know, as a person, way rather

Will Bremridge  

my voice and see myself on camera. That's still trouble. That's still difficult.

Emma Alexander  

Yes, I have to say, I do not watch these back. These are, never watch them back. Maybe I should. Maybe there's a lot of learnings in there. Something we touched on right at the very beginning. I'd like to come back to and you, you mentioned about when people are doing cold outreach. You know, often you put things out there as creatives. You know, we have to be pitching to people. And very often you send out the emails, the newsletters, whatever it is, and it's just humble weed back in Yeah. Have you got any tips for staying confident when, yeah, the crickets, maybe this

Will Bremridge  

might not be a confidence thing, but, but focus on the value that you're providing. Don't just scatter bond people with like, hey, available for shoot. You know, between June and August, just if you keep going, this is the whole point of shooting personal work. Shoot personal work constantly, so that you've got something to show people and be a bit more personal with the thing. Hey, Sarah from this ad agency, love that campaign I just saw you guys put out on Instagram recently. Similarly, I've been shooting some work that fits into roughly the same niche, because it's colorful, energetic, and shoot real life stuff just so like you want to start conversations with people, rather than just bombard them with with what you, what you whether you're available or not, or the same portfolio they've seen from you a few other times. So focus, just like making content on social media. If you make stuff that people need, they will keep you in mind. They will you will stay in back of people's heads. And the second thing is, it's all about, and this is something that took me ages to realize, which is, it's about long term relationship building. I have a friend here in Lisbon. She is a nutritionist, but she makes most of her money giving online talks to corporate companies. So learning and development program, they'll pay her a nice chunk to come in or do an online talk about how people can be healthier even at the workplace. How? You know, here's six ways that that we can change our diet dramatically in order to live longer, that kind of thing. And anyway, I was sat in a cafe doing some work with her. She was like, how, how often are you re messaging people that you cold outreach? And I said, I haven't. She was like, well, look at this. I sent this person nine messages on LinkedIn over the course of a year and a half, or no, two years, and they finally just hired me, and this is the first time they've responded as well. They've come back to me and hired me and responded for the first time. So she was like, you have to remove your ego from this entirely, and remember that people are people are noticing you. If you keep going and keep providing some value, they even if they don't respond, I really think people should respond more, because it's we should respect each other's kind of mental health. But, yeah, you've just got to keep on going and just see this. Okay, another really good conversation I had with a friend of mine today. I've got this new friend who lives in Lisbon. He's a DOP, works in England. In fact, I bet you someone on this call minimum knows who this person is. And he said he's doing some call reach out Outreach at the moment, because his diary is pretty empty. And he said, I've completely changed my mindset about what this is for. And he says, I'm I want to fail as much as possible. I want between now and September, I want to have a written down failure. I want 1000 failures that I've done, as in someone not responding within a few days, all of these things, it's like the only way I'm going to get more resilient is embrace the fact that I'm failing. Because every single note is getting you closer to a yes. Every time you screw up shooting something well, you're getting closer to naming it every time you mess up trying to be cool in front of someone who you fancy, you'll probably be better at it the next time in a small increment. So embrace the fact that it is a long relationship building process, and you just got to stick at it. It's really hard to remove your ego from that stuff. And I, of course, sent out 3000 emails in January, not have much of a response and gone. What's the point in a stupid career that actually I should have been sending out an email every six weeks to two months, just, just sparking up a conversation with someone, following people on social media and start conversations, react to their stories. So you're staying their mind without them, without you pestering them, you're actually just engaging with them as a fellow appear in the same industry?

Emma Alexander  

Yeah, absolutely, that is such, such sage advice. And I really, really believe in that there's a whole thing with with PR, when people say, if you want to pitch to a publication, you know you don't just start when you have your press release ready. You know your target publications, and you know you start following the right journalist. The journalist talks about business or fashion or food or whatever it is beauty, and you follow them, and you you start to engage with them, you know. And it's, it's absolutely the same thing. You might not be sending out a press release for a physical product or service, but you are presenting something of value in the same way that you want them to engage with, exactly the same with clients and journalists. And I did this years ago. I had, I had a kind of target list when I started doing more public speaking of events that I wanted to talk at, three big events I wanted to talk at and and I just started following the person that curated the events for this particular company, same thing, not in a weird stalking way, but, you know, when they did something good, I'd be like, that's amazing. Congratulations, you know, or put a message underneath and on LinkedIn as well. And we started to, initially started following me, and then we started to interact together, just in the kind of like little dance. And then when, during the pandemic, she was organizing a big event, a 24 hour kind of speaking event, I saw that she put something on the dots, actually, just to flesh it out. And their community board spotted her name and went straight back and said, Yeah, but I also knew exactly what the audience was, so I knew what her audience needed at that time. And I went back, I've got three talks, you can I can talk about this event. Bump, bump, bump. And she was like, That is the best email I've had today. Oh my god. Let's get Scott on a call immediately. And we went on to work together. And it was like, but it was a long road, and it was a marathon. It wasn't a sprint, and it wasn't weird and stalky. I didn't pop out somewhere and be like, Hey, I'm a massive fan. It was a long game of gaining her trust and familiarity, which, again, sounds very weird when you say like that, a bit a bit strange, like almost became friends. You know, we still message each other. She's moved now somewhere else, and we, you know, we still keep in touch on LinkedIn. And that's, you know, it's great. It was building of a relationship that took a lot of time, but

Will Bremridge  

eventually, yeah, it takes a long time. The guy, the main coach on this personal branding course, he talks about how this, he ran a marketing agency. He wanted to get through the particular luxury brand upon his roster of clients. And it took him years, but years of just chipping away and being part of the conversation and entertaining, being entertaining it, yeah, starting conversations with these people. So it really takes time. And these people aren't they're not necessarily responding because they don't want to work with you. They just don't have anything that they need you to do at the moment. And why would they focusing on something else in a different type of creative so just be, maintain a constant presence in people's eyes. So social media outreach, maybe make a blog or a newsletter that's hilarious about the industry, try and lure them in through something that creates value or hilarity or something they need the people, the people, unfortunately, the people now who do great at developing and following them on social media that giving value and not just showing off their art. They're giving advice. They're showing hilarious moments from the working day of a photographer. They're doing something more than just going this is the thing I did the other day. That's right,

Emma Alexander  

that's definitely true. I remember someone coming in, photographer coming into the agency when I was in advertising, and I desperately wanted to work with them, because they had such great energy. And when it came down to it, we had a huge job, a huge overseas job. It was between two people, and we were like that. You know, this is, this is our agency favorite, 100% these guys are the recommendation. And it was because we had built that lovely rapport, and they had such a unique energy about them, and a unique kind of sense of humor they were. They just thought you'd have a great time on set with them, and they could deliver, you know, importantly, they had amazing work, but you just thought, I have a

Will Bremridge  

great personal brand, yeah, and we've all got to think about it. It's good. I'd like, I mean, I reckon I wasn't shooting 20 years ago, but I reckon you still have to have some kind of personal brand back then, like there were still lots of people messaging magazines and ad agencies trying to get the word so it was still important, even back then, I think so many of us like to think that our work is going to carry us, and that's all we need. If we shoot good enough work, we'll get hired. But it's more than that. We've got to come across as warm, confident, entertaining, charismatic, interesting, worth having around.

Emma Alexander  

That's a really good point. Actually, the work alone, unfortunately, I don't think is enough. No, the work will speak for itself. That was it. I was thinking people think often it's okay, because the work will speak

Will Bremridge  

for itself. But I wish it would. But, yeah, always someone who's doing just as good a work as you. That's for sure.

Emma Alexander  

And final kind of questions, then, how important that we talked about kind of personal branding and brand messaging? How important is it for consistency? And by which I don't mean posting regularly. I mean, your consistent message across all your touch points online, which could be obviously social channels, but also your website or anywhere else anyone can find you, like LinkedIn, I'm guessing consistency in terms of tone of voice,

Will Bremridge  

yeah, I think, I mean, yeah, it's a hard one to answer. Really, you should keep the same tone of voice and step one for your company. Is it really optimistic? Is it really kind of passionate and humanitarian? What is it that you what is the thing that makes you become a photographer? Is it because it's just fun and energetic, and the shoots you do are full of liveliness, that I can think of some great commercial photographers who I'm guessing are as as fun to have around as their work is, that's for sure. So just try to keep your messaging. I mean, no one, no one doesn't resonate with optimism. Really, if you can make people feel good and positive, and that's that's the best way. Don't be complaining. Don't talk shit about the industry. Just stay in your lane and be and put out things, messages, social media, content, newsletters, whatever it is. And behind the scenes footage, just showing that what you do is not only enjoyable to be around, but super engaging as well. Perfect question.

Emma Alexander  

And if you want people to take away one tangible tip that they can put into practice today to elevate the way they communicate. What is your one top tip?

Will Bremridge  

Can I give two quick ones? Well, firstly, the warmth and constants thing should spark enough thinking about what it is that you're bringing to the table. And also just learn to audit the conversations that you have, because every single conversation we have is designed. Your job is to inform, educate, entertain, persuade, apologize, empathize, validate. So you have something that you have to you need to get out of that conversation. So does someone else? Even if it's just like, Do you want a cup of tea? There is a way to deliver an answer that's waffle, or you can just say, Yeah, good. Thank you very much. So when we think about how all conversations have a point and a purpose, you start to get much better at auditing, whether you got that done, whether you did you show up at that portfolio meeting and come across in a way that told people everything they need to know about you and left them thinking that person is great, or were you waffly arming and hurry? Did you just kind of verbally? Were you just monosyllabic and dull?

Emma Alexander  

And last question for me, if you could spend an hour with somebody, if you could have a wiser session for somebody? Who would you choose? I'm not sure.

Will Bremridge  

Arnold Schwarzenegger. I love Arnie so much. In fact, there's rarely a day to go impersonate him, but I just think he's awesome. He's an absolute icon of my upbringing, and he's an incredibly philanthropic and kind of wonderful, warm human being, and he has a lot of good things to say about kind of the planet and politics. He seems to just be a good, good natured dude. And I just think he's hilarious.

Emma Alexander  

I'm guessing you've read his book Seven Tools for Life.

Will Bremridge  

Yeah, it’s actually right here!

Emma Alexander  

The first book I read last year was brilliant, absolutely.

Will Bremridge  

I met someone in a cafe, and he was kind of, I felt like he was trying to take the piss. Be like, are you just like are you just, like a big Arnold Schwarzenegger fan? Yeah, I am. What is he teaching you? Lots about life? Yeah, he is! Back to reading. I was like, you can't get to me, dude. I love Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Emma Alexander  

What I led and where can people find you online?

Will Bremridge  

my, my, what my photography Instagram is @WillBremridge, not Bembridge, not brenbridge, just bremridge. In fact, if you just write Will Brem I'll come up. And then my communication channel is @communication_mastery,

Emma Alexander  

Perfect.

Will Bremridge  

There's a link to it in the bio of my Instagram as well, and my website is, WillBPhoto.com or communicationmastery.net which is in pieces at the moment,

Emma Alexander  

And, of course, on Wisern now. Yeah, exactly. There we go. Oh, look. Thank you so much for sharing all of your insights and your wisdom today.

Will Bremridge  

No worries. I've enjoyed it. I feel like we could have gone so much deeper.

Emma Alexander  

Yes, I know. Thank you so much, Will.