How to Turn Unpaid Work into Paid Work

How can free gigs pave the way for a thriving creative career? We dissect the art of turning unpaid work into meaningful opportunities in this episode. From playing the long game and smartly building your portfolio to balancing effort in free projects and leveraging relationships, we break down how to make every opportunity count. This conversation is meant to be your guide to strategically navigating free work and setting yourself up for paid success. Learn how to give just enough, impress with intentionality, and solidify your creative path!

Expect to Learn:

• How to balance effort and deliverables in free projects
• Why showcasing relevant, high-quality work in your target niche is essential 
• How to tap into your personal network to build a portfolio
• How to frame your work in terms of return on investment
• Actionable strategies for transitioning from unpaid gigs to paid work

Sponsor:

Thanks to WhiteWall for being our lead sponsor this episode! They're the top choice for photographers who want high-quality prints, with a variety of material options, and who want their work delivered fast in 9 days or less!

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Thanks for listening!
Go get shooting, go get editing, and stay focused.

@sethmacey
@mantis_photography
@thephotographermindset

Transcript

00:40.97
Aaron
This is the photographer mindset podcast, a podcast where we talk about a lot of photography things and content creation, but we always try to tie it into a healthy and healthy and

00:57.90
Aaron
balanced mindset. We think that that is a very important aspect to jumping into this game, the game of content creation of social media, of creating business, of starting a business, of trying to deal with rejection, trying to deal with successes, trying to build upon your victories and learn from your mistakes.

01:05.12
Seth Macey
Thank you.

01:25.32
Aaron
It's all part of the game. And that's what we try to focus on. You can find our show on Spotify, Apple podcasts, and the visuals are on YouTube.

01:38.82
Aaron
So if you haven't checked those out, and please check some of those out and leave some reviews, subscribe. So you don't miss stuff that helps us out, especially if you're a fan of the show and you're like, Hey, I listened to this, you know, all the time and I don't really follow them. I don't think.

01:54.04
Aaron
Go check, please. it' so It's a little ask, and it helps us tremendously. So without further ado, i would like to introduce you to my co-host, Seth Macy.

02:08.03
Seth Macey
hi that I felt like I was listening to an audio book.

02:12.47
Aaron
Can we put like really nice piano music under that?

02:12.65
Seth Macey
That was incredible.

02:17.09
Seth Macey
ah There's something about you. You always just want to put piano music under nicely done monologues.

02:23.30
Aaron
I love it. I love It's my favorite.

02:25.61
Seth Macey
Really heavy metal, black metal.

02:29.45
Aaron
but Okay.

02:33.06
Aaron
All right.

02:33.62
Seth Macey
but That was very well said, and I think that ahs just encapsulates the show.

02:36.05
Aaron
Thanks.

02:38.49
Seth Macey
And today I think we've got a unique, interesting episode. After a while, after close to 300 episodes, you have to take different shavings of the same topic and try and spin them in different ways, because I think realistically...

02:54.42
Seth Macey
The amount of things you can talk about are finite. We're not saying we're running out of ideas. We're just trying to not be too redundant, especially for those of you who listen to like 12 episodes in a row on a road trip.

03:07.06
Seth Macey
Because I know a few people like that and I go, oh my God, we got to space out some of the topics. You might be sick and tired of hearing the same thing over the course of your drive.

03:12.10
Aaron
Yeah.

03:15.83
Aaron
yeah

03:16.43
Seth Macey
So I think today we're going to do how to turn unpaid work into paid work, playing the long game, playing the game as you call it, striking the balance between not giving away the farm when it's perhaps the right thing to do to go above and beyond, and some, I think, sheer guidance on this topic because there's a lot of thoughts on this floating in the ether on Instagram, on YouTube, and we're going to join that scramble of thoughts in the ether.

03:53.69
Seth Macey
If the and if yeah you agree with them and you feel like it's reasonable advice, feel free to execute on it and report back. Maybe we have no idea what we're doing.

04:07.00
Seth Macey
But we're speaking from anecdote.

04:08.34
Aaron
Yeah.

04:09.15
Seth Macey
We're speaking from experience. And we're going to hopefully try and clear up some of the confusion or the contradicting

04:24.19
Seth Macey
concepts that are out there. I think the biggest one that people struggle with when, with the whole free work thing is

04:35.25
Seth Macey
How much is appropriate for me to do based on the fact that this time around I'm earning zero dollars, perhaps because I have no portfolio, perhaps because I'm brand new to this. I'd like to be getting paid nicely in the future.

04:50.61
Seth Macey
That's a year from now, three weeks from now. I don't know how fast you work. I don't know what your ambition is. But I think people really struggle with, okay, do I go...

05:04.23
Seth Macey
full out smashing through walls, delivering as many things as I can for pot as possible, or do I do the bare minimum when the work is free?

05:16.23
Seth Macey
I'll stop. Go.

05:19.48
Aaron
Wow, my turn. ah I think a lot of the ah hardship in this concept or this idea is fear-based. So I wanna make sure I touch upon that at least at some point. i don't know if I'm gonna lead with that.

05:35.20
Aaron
But I do think starting off, first of all, let's define I think free work and who this applies to. i think there's two different camps here. I think you're, if you're just starting off with photography and maybe you get to a point where you feel like, okay, I'm, I'm, I feel good. I feel confident and competent and good enough to start offering my skill to people.

05:59.86
Aaron
whether it's for portraits, Airbnbs, real estate photography, product photography, food photography, wedding photography, whatever it may be, there comes a point where you go from never thinking about getting paid to maybe getting thinking about getting paid.

06:16.14
Aaron
Maybe it's because people keep asking you for portraits for free, friends and family, and you you keep doing this for free. Maybe it is a friend that's getting married and they're like, We know you take pictures. Would would you mind doing this?

06:27.63
Aaron
Um, as your wedding gift, things like that. I think it starts to pop up where, huh? People are looking for my services. Even if it's, you know, your parents, your sister, your brother, your cousins, whatever it may be friends, people start looking for your services. They wouldn't probably look for your services if they didn't think that you were competent and capable of delivering decent things.

06:53.59
Aaron
So that's kind of a check mark, I think, where people start thinking about this.

06:57.74
Seth Macey
Thank you.

06:57.95
Aaron
Now, from that point, maybe you start throwing out some tentacles to different companies ah and or prospects or clients or whatever it may be.

07:10.88
Aaron
And you're trying to offer your services. I think there's a first step that's important there, and that's having proof of concept. So there's nothing worse than offering a restaurant food photography and having zero food photography to show them.

07:28.56
Aaron
So that's a first step is whether you're at home doing it or you've done it at a restaurant on your own, or you took some pictures of some, you know, your, your mom's really special Thanksgiving dinner or whatever it may be.

07:44.19
Aaron
Have something to show the person that you're going after exactly what you are capable of doing within their genre. If you show a restaurant portraits and ask them to translate it, like, oh, they took good pictures of people. I feel like they could probably figure out how to take good pictures of food.

08:04.48
Aaron
and think that gets lost amongst people that aren't in photography or aren't in the creative field. So have a good portfolio, at least a basic one of what you're trying to do.

08:18.96
Aaron
I think that's step number one. Step number two, and we had um great ah Nash, what was his first name?

08:26.89
Seth Macey
Ash Hagen.

08:28.27
Aaron
Hagan. ah Nash was on the podcast and follow his handle. I feel like he offers a lot of really good advice in terms of pitching and what's changed over the years. And even as a beginner, he's talking about big,

08:48.97
Aaron
big clients and big paydays. But even as a beginner, the important parts are return on investment. It no longer is super attractive to just say like, I'll take content for you or I'll make content for you or I'll make pictures for you or I'll do some video for you.

09:06.56
Aaron
There has to be a why and what is your reasoning for wanting to do so. And

09:15.52
Aaron
In the example of the restaurant, I'm just going to stay in that theme. Maybe you pull up that restaurant's Google reviews and the most reviewed ah review about their restaurant has really crummy pictures. And it's been seen by a hundred thousand people.

09:33.60
Aaron
You could bring that to them and say, I'm Not only will I take photos, but I will review your restaurant in a positive light and add my photos to this. And within maybe a year, this this this review was done a year ago and it has 100,000 views.

09:44.63
Seth Macey
Thank you.

09:48.96
Aaron
Maybe within a year, 100,000 people will see my review with these photos and be very attracted to your restaurant. Have a sales pitch on why this is a good idea versus just handing over a bunch of photos.

10:07.21
Aaron
I think that is a really key point. if Even if we're talking about paid or free or getting in the door, pitch a reason and they a return on investment for what you are doing.

10:21.34
Seth Macey
Mm-hmm.

10:22.71
Aaron
Give them some sort of case study of how this could work and how could this help their business. Because business people are business people. And if they say, hey, you can spend $10 to $1,000,

10:36.60
Aaron
They're all ears. But if you say you can spend $10 for, I don't know what they're going to go like, I don't really feel like spending $10. You have to give the reason why this is important and why it's a good idea.

10:52.64
Aaron
I'll stop there and let that marinate.

10:53.16
Seth Macey
right other words In other words,

10:59.08
Seth Macey
rather than saying you're paying $10 for these photos, you're paying, you would bre you would say instead, you're paying $10 for this outcome via these photos, videos.

11:14.41
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

11:15.79
Seth Macey
I think that's really important.

11:15.93
Aaron
ye

11:16.75
Seth Macey
I'm actually on Nash's page as you were talking about him. And he kind of puts it, I'm paraphrasing, but brands were desperate for content a few years ago, just for anything. And reaching out was enough is what he says. Now everyone is talking about themselves and brands don't care. They want ROI, not your resume.

11:36.27
Seth Macey
So obviously, we've skipped some steps, right?

11:36.36
Aaron
yeah

11:38.13
Seth Macey
We're talking about once you've... You you mentioned building that portfolio on your own time, that proof of concept.

11:45.16
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

11:45.40
Seth Macey
This comes after that, of course. But I wanted to touch on one thing as well. You mentioned in your... You were describing how often it's a good sign that you you have competence and you have some level of skill when family, friends start coming to you for...

12:00.28
Seth Macey
visual asset services, whether that's video or photo, and that's kind of how you can cue in on, huh, okay, maybe i haven't I'm starting to get a knack for this and I'm i'm maybe in the the league for getting paid for this in the near future.

12:13.70
Seth Macey
I think it's also important to leverage you you leverage your family and friends. You go to them as well. I get a friend who own owns a restaurant. Okay. Hey, can I come in?

12:25.67
Seth Macey
It's if it's beautiful, if it's a beautiful atmosphere and really good presentation on food, Hey, can I come in? Or your, you know, your, your family member owns a, uh, it's a coach for a hockey team.

12:37.24
Seth Macey
Can I come take some photos like rather than I guess what i'm trying to say is rather than honing your craft silently which is and and on your own time, which is, of course, a good thing to do and waiting for people to take notice.

12:49.61
Seth Macey
Also, you go out to those people and leverage people who are in your inner circle, who are in positions that would build a very interesting portfolio. Does that make sense?

13:01.35
Aaron
Yeah, I think networking is probably going to be one of our points in in terms of getting in the door places. That's a key thing. i think putting the value on getting in the door is important and especially beginners. I wouldn't want you to think I deserve to be paid right away.

13:21.06
Aaron
ah and think you got to be careful with that. I think like anything there's, I mean, before my career, I did a full year internship unpaid. So that's, Yeah, I did a lot of free work and maybe that's, that's part of the the process and it doesn't have to be forever, but some of the value is on, okay, ah I'm not getting paid, but I'll tell you what, this restaurant's decent and I'm going to get a really nice sponsorship in terms of like,

13:39.87
Seth Macey
Thank you.

13:54.04
Aaron
Oh, I, I did photos for, whatever, you know, Max's burger. Uh, what a great restaurant. Now I can say that I did that. and Now I can tag them. Now I can show other restaurants that I have this.

14:07.33
Aaron
There's a lot of value in getting in the door in the beginning where you want to make a good name for yourself and then, and then create This ability to show off your portfolio that's more than just your mom's Thanksgiving dinner, but actual restaurants and actual food in an actual place where they don't know if you were paid $1,000 $10,000 to do this just looks now, they trusted him and the photos are

14:31.81
Seth Macey
and yes

14:34.30
Aaron
it just looks now oh they trusted him and the photos are up Good. Cool. I think we feel more confident about doing this. It's not a nobody.

14:43.87
Seth Macey
Yes.

14:44.17
Aaron
So if you decide I want to work in restaurants and food photography, then get moving on. yeah A friend owns a restaurant. A friend knows a friend that owns a restaurant. A friend's a bartender.

14:56.10
Aaron
Get connections. Think about your networking, where you can get in to ah industry that you want to be photographing and get some real life experience, number one, and portfolio work, number two, and leverage for down the road on how to translate that into money.

15:17.05
Seth Macey
Incredible. Yeah. And and i was you took the words right out of my mouth because I've said this so many times on the show that if you did the work for free or you did it for a million dollars, they both look the same as a client on your website.

15:31.40
Aaron
Right.

15:32.54
Seth Macey
Nobody else knows. So the the perception is incredible.

15:35.07
Aaron
Right.

15:38.55
Seth Macey
if like If in your example, you have a connection at a really fancy restaurant. Walk in there, say, I'll take some photos for free. You don't have to do this forever. I think back to the scarcity brain thing. I i think there's this weird trigger that happens where people don't realize, and only have to do this once or twice.

15:57.72
Aaron
Right.

15:58.78
Seth Macey
And then i'm I'm off to the races. This isn't a forever thing.

16:02.45
Aaron
Right.

16:02.57
Seth Macey
We can get caught in that you know short-term thinking.

16:06.52
Aaron
Yeah.

16:06.75
Seth Macey
Or if you're like, this sucks, I'm worth more than this. But if you stretch your horizon you figure out this is just one evening or two evenings, and then I can just i can go do my thing and and start charging.

16:19.89
Seth Macey
it's a very It's a pinprick in the hand. It's not it's a little bit of pain.

16:23.91
Aaron
Wow.

16:25.52
Seth Macey
Right. And we had, I remember we had Chris Howe on the show. Was it two years ago, three years ago?

16:31.84
Aaron
ah

16:31.94
Seth Macey
I can't remember. And he said, cause he's done a ton of work, impressive work with Mercedes. I don't know if he still does recently has recently or or whatnot, but for a while there, he was you know driving the coolest cars for Mercedes and taking them, taking them these epic places like Iceland. And he said on the show, people can go back and listen to this. His first thing with them was shooting golf shirts. Right.

16:52.89
Aaron
Yeah, remember that.

16:54.07
Seth Macey
And he said, I shot golf shirts for Mercedes, and then I could put them as a client on my website.

17:01.23
Aaron
yeah

17:01.83
Seth Macey
So big creators or successful photographers, I feel like, understand this, that it doesn't matter the scope of the work or the payment.

17:01.99
Aaron
um remember

17:10.05
Seth Macey
The value is in the short term. Okay, I'm doing this for free, but now look at this look at this accolade I have that I can now use and leverage as social value or perceived value and go around and I can pitch what I want to be paid.

17:26.69
Aaron
Yeah, absolutely. And, and like my so example on Google reviews, uh, that's kind of a i mean, it's a true story. This was something that came out of nothing. I did an extra for a restaurant and put a Google review with my photos.

17:41.08
Aaron
And now I constantly get dings in my email that your photos have a 80,000 views. This photo has views. i copy all of those so that knowledge wasn't there in the beginning.

17:53.79
Aaron
So I'm, I'm telling you this now, like that's just an example, but a Google review works for any sort of business where you can create what's that?

18:02.67
Seth Macey
Didn't Ian teach us this? Didn't Ian teach us this, Ian Jones?

18:07.21
Aaron
He might've, yeah, he might've, that, that might be where it came from for sure.

18:09.77
Seth Macey
Because knew was going to listen and go, oh, you did credit me.

18:13.39
Aaron
Oh, Ian, sorry. you You've told us everything we know. we We owe it all to you, buddy. We owe it all to you.

18:21.58
Seth Macey
He's already texted me and it hasn't even aired.

18:23.73
Aaron
Yeah, he knows something. He felt it. He felt his name being called.

18:26.48
Seth Macey
Disturbance in the force. He's like, something's not right.

18:29.48
Aaron
something's up. I wasn't credited. Uh, but that was because of a tip. Sure. Now I'll give credit to Ian.

18:40.36
Aaron
Uh, but now I use that as proof of concept. If I ever want to, you know, reach out to a restaurant is like, here, here's what this can do. So I think those are all absolutely imperative and good tips for getting into the door.

18:57.38
Aaron
ah Being not so high on your high horse of I deserve to be paid or ah so what, this is my first time doing a restaurant. I did a wedding for five grand.

19:11.56
Aaron
it's unrelated in a sense. And I think every step is a new step that you have to kind of go through the process of, I need to prove myself, which is annoying. Sure.

19:23.54
Aaron
But I need to get there. And then I can, then I'm off to the races as Seth said, and then I can use this proof. I can use these experiences. I can use the ah credits to get in the door elsewhere and now create my packages. Okay.

19:40.15
Seth Macey
You know what has come to mind as I'm thinking, as I'm as i'm hearing all this, is that

19:48.60
Seth Macey
it'll be difficult to be upset about the fact that you're doing a lot of work for free if it's for family or friends. you'll feel better about giving your time and your expertise to people you care about. So maybe the antidote to all this is build your portfolio, your free work with people who you care about, their businesses.

20:12.20
Aaron
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

20:13.15
Seth Macey
or or their interests. And then it won't feel so shitty doing it for a company that's potentially going to make money. I think that's the rub is when people feel like, oh, the company's going to make money off of it.

20:27.53
Seth Macey
And I don't even know them. It's a stranger. I'm just doing this because i need to I need that portfolio. I need that proof of concept. How would you feel if it was just for somebody you cared about instead? So maybe that's just it. Maybe it's... it's Looking, as you said, into your network and seeing, okay, how can i how can i go to give? How can I give in this relationship in a way that will make me feel good, but will also give me that proof of concept? And then I don't think you feel so bad doing the free work.

20:56.08
Aaron
Yeah. And I also hope that the company does make money because that's, or even not, even if you don't care about them, it's like, that's the goal.

21:02.26
Seth Macey
Right, because it's someone you care about. Yeah, or you're not, right.

21:08.55
Aaron
And if they do, you are golden. Like that's the hardest thing to prove. I think is like,

21:12.70
Seth Macey
Right.

21:14.31
Aaron
Hey, if ah photos are important, marketing is important. Why? ah it attracts more people. Okay. Then what? Hopefully they spend money. Okay. How do we trace it back to your phone?

21:24.76
Aaron
Like it's, it's sometimes very hard to tie all the dots together, connect all the dots to show that my photos created in a slight bump in revenue for the month.

21:30.36
Seth Macey
Right.

21:37.47
Aaron
It's, it's hard to connect to that.

21:37.90
Seth Macey
I think it's lost.

21:39.78
Aaron
Yeah, it gets lost. So if you can, if there's a way to, or there's a big spike or ah something went viral and it created a huge jump in visits to a shop or whatever it may be, then, wow, you have this sort of proof of concept and one that worked really well and was very apparent to see, then then it's good.

22:01.74
Seth Macey
Yeah. Okay. Let me ask you this. How are you, what tools are you using to

22:11.92
Seth Macey
showcase to your clients that this worked or is it kind of up to them at this? Do you know what I'm asking you? Like, how do you, what are some strategies to make that not get lost in translation?

22:23.48
Seth Macey
Cause you're right. There's so many things that can happen from the time you deliver a photo.

22:27.77
Aaron
It's tricky.

22:29.16
Seth Macey
Yeah. I have some thoughts.

22:30.09
Aaron
I think, I think Google, I think Google review is a a really nice way because it's your specific ah photos and it says 60,000 people looked at this review and photo.

22:30.56
Seth Macey
want to ask you first.

22:42.84
Aaron
There you go. Like, Hey, a beautiful review with a beautiful photo, 60,000 eyeballs were on it. There's nothing that's

22:49.94
Seth Macey
And just, and isn in hey, check this out. I thought you'd appreciate this.

22:53.08
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. And there's nothing that would deter them from going to your restaurant. There might be 60,000 eyeballs on a bad review with gross photos. That's not good. So I think that's a really good way to show exact data on what you have done.

23:10.69
Aaron
Now, if you, if they throw up your photo on social media, one of 20 different posts for the month or week or whatever it may be, and you're one of them, it's hard to say that your photo drove any sort of content or, um, people to their product.

23:28.04
Seth Macey
Right.

23:28.82
Aaron
It's hard to say, uh,

23:30.32
Seth Macey
Counting likes and plays, I feel, is archaic at this point as well as a metric of six as a as of ah being a successful photo or video.

23:38.72
Aaron
Yeah. Uh, Hillary who works at Gashow park, she will, she will mention if we do a post on hot dogs or glizzies, as she calls them, uh, there's an uptick in sales for hot dogs and it brings people in for those specific things.

23:55.24
Aaron
So maybe learning from that, if you go to a restaurant that has, they're famous for their signature dish. Maybe focus just on that. Don't spray photos of everything.

24:06.38
Aaron
Maybe you can sort of laser focus it down to like, Hey, I really put a nice spread and I made a creative reel about your special, special X, y and Z.

24:18.40
Aaron
How are sales for X, Y, and Z after that, that's that week, everyone takes stats on their food sales. They need to, in terms of how they're buying food and selling it. And what are they ordering more? How much do they need to order? they Take tons of stats on orders.

24:32.97
Aaron
So even if there's a tick of 10 orders more over the week after that post, 10 times a profit of, I don't know, $15 special. Great. made off of that photo for free so wonderful

24:52.54
Seth Macey
I will say this too. Sometimes the ah ROI isn't money though, right? Sometimes return on investment is something entirely different.

24:57.05
Aaron
sure

25:00.10
Seth Macey
And you know, one thing I like to ask, I actually did this two days ago with one of my summer camp clients. So we made a bunch of cool reels for them. I just said, Hey, what's the response been on that stuff I've helped create for you?

25:14.42
Seth Macey
Because it was the the living space for the content was social media, was Instagram mainly, or I think maybe entirely.

25:19.05
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

25:21.53
Seth Macey
ah Just what's the response been? And I think that question, first of all... gets the other party thinking ah out loud and and has them become aware of actually looking at ways that they can notice that the piece of content is doing its job. I feel like you may have some businesses or individuals, maybe particularly smaller ones,

25:51.26
Seth Macey
who just really don't know whether something has done well or bad because they're not really thinking about it in the right way. So I feel like prompting somebody with that question, number one, gets them to at least start doing a little bit of analyzing.

26:09.54
Seth Macey
ah And don't even know if there's a number two, but I think just that in itself is valuable. In this case, I asked it and and she was like, oh yeah, we're getting tons of messages about this.

26:15.02
Aaron
Yeah.

26:22.56
Seth Macey
ah You know, lots of sends, et cetera. So I think asking that question is another good way that you can go ah just to you know, find out more. And then when someone says it back to you as well, especially in a meeting or a phone call, if you ask that question and someone says, oh, they're doing really well and this and that and X and Y and Z. I feel like that just strengthens their relationship as well.

26:45.80
Aaron
Yeah. I think communication, trying to learn yourself how to help, right? ah Back to another one of our guests, Nooch.

26:57.43
Aaron
The way he approached photography with the band Goose is impressive and should be a book. It should be written. It should a blueprint on, hey, if you want to succeed with any sort of company or whatever it is, whatever.

27:12.27
Aaron
ah read this memoir because it wasn't just about photos. It wasn't just about, it was how can I fucking help you succeed?

27:23.45
Aaron
I'm here for you right now.

27:23.82
Seth Macey
Right.

27:25.84
Aaron
How can I help you succeed? You don't have to pay me shit. I believe in your company. I believe in what you're doing. i want to be a part of it and I want to help. And if you have that attitude and you're willing to get whatever it takes and do whatever it takes to help them succeed to a point, of course, he's not doing this for free anymore, but he's done a lot of stuff for people.

27:53.29
Aaron
just the goodness of the brand. And that's gone a long, long way for him and the band. So I think it's the same sort of thing when you're going in there, trying to make a name for yourself, you are also working for a review.

28:10.16
Aaron
You're also working for the potential rehire. And if you go in with the attitude of like, nah, this is free work. Like I'm going mail it in. They can get 10 photos, like whatever.

28:21.57
Aaron
like Like, they're probably gonna make like a hundred dollars off each photo. Like I'm getting nothing. If you go in with that attitude, they're going to be like, Hey, thanks for the photos. But that wasn't really a great experience.

28:34.78
Aaron
That wasn't, that wasn't, I'm not really going to recommend you to my, We have four other sister restaurants to stay on that theme. We have four other sister restaurants. Like I'm not really going recommend you, but if you go in there with like, Hey, these are my three favorite dishes you do. I want to focus on that.

28:51.55
Aaron
I want to do a real, I want to, I want to give a tour of the place. I'm going to work really, really hard and hand over and, um, and help you with ideas. Maybe they, Hey, do you have any questions about how to post or the best time to post or how to structure things? I noticed a few things, uh, with your, with your social media.

29:10.17
Aaron
If you want any tips on that, I'm willing to help with that as well. If you really go in there with like, I'm trying to crush this, It's only going to be better for you because when they need stuff next time, who are they going to hire?

29:23.12
Aaron
The guy that's like, here's 10. Thanks for the free work. Or the guy that was like, he, that guy put his all in for two full days and, and did everything possible that we asked him to and acted like he was being paid on salary.

29:34.86
Seth Macey
Yeah.

29:39.05
Seth Macey
Yeah, that's a good point. I just think the struggle with... I'm not disagreeing with you. The struggle in people's mind is, how do I know I'm not doing too much?

29:49.54
Seth Macey
I don't think it goes the opposite direction, where it's like, how do I know this? maybe i mean Maybe it does. How do I know that this isn't enough? I think... There's a real struggle to find what is the correct amount of effort and deliverables on this free gig, regardless of whether it's going to give me future work with this business or not.

30:11.47
Aaron
Yeah.

30:11.95
Seth Macey
How do you think you can help people navigate that in the moment?

30:12.37
Aaron
So

30:15.39
Aaron
I think so set the bar of deliverables for free, set the expectation kind of low. So maybe it is, you're just saying like, i could easily get you 10 really good photos and based on Google reviews or whatnot, I imagine these are going to get a hundred thousand views over the next two years.

30:29.70
Seth Macey
Thank you.

30:38.40
Aaron
Okay. That sounds like a good deal for free. Great. Then it's easy to be like, you know what I got, I banged through these pretty quickly. i have probably 30 more that I can edit.

30:50.00
Aaron
I'm going to edit a good 20 and I'll leave 10 good ones just cause I'm not going to, I got to move on to my other life that's paid or whatever else. Like I got to move on, but i'm I'm going to leave room to, oh, I said nothing about video, but while I was there, I took a ah couple of videos and made a ah pretty fancy reel. I'm going to impress that with the reel.

31:11.88
Aaron
So definitely under promise and over deliver to an extent. I don't think.

31:18.05
Seth Macey
To an extent, right. So how do people know here is the stop?

31:19.38
Aaron
Yeah.

31:22.24
Seth Macey
Here's the limit. Here's the limit or this is getting before this is getting ridiculous.

31:24.45
Aaron
Yeah.

31:27.40
Seth Macey
Because I feel like that causes a lot of people anxiety.

31:31.13
Aaron
Yeah. I feel like we're having, I'm having a deja vu. I feel like we talked about this exact thing, but I think maybe you're wearing the same exact outfit too.

31:38.31
Seth Macey
Maybe.

31:38.87
Aaron
Uh, there is, there's a line. I think you have to feel it in your gut. I can't be working for five days straight on a free project when I have a, a career and a kid to take care of and a dog.

31:52.21
Aaron
Like I just can't do that. But if the deal is like, Hey, I'm going to come in Uh, I'm going to make it reasonable. i'm going to make in my mind what feels like this will take me two hours of shooting and in in just this hypothetical world. Okay.

32:09.57
Aaron
I'm shoot for about two hours. If I shoot for two hours, I imagine I'll edit for about two hours. I feel like to me, it's kind of a one-to-one ratio. If you're at it,

32:18.77
Seth Macey
Yeah, I would agree. Right.

32:20.60
Aaron
If you're editing everything that you've gotten, it's not always one-to-one if you're doing just picking like your favorite 10 photos or whatever, but if you can edit everything that you've got, it's about a one-to-one.

32:27.59
Seth Macey
i

32:32.33
Aaron
So I'm spending two hours. Now I can probably spend two hours editing a lot of these photos. That's four hours. Is that four hours worth it for me to truly feel like I can help this company and I'm getting the name, I'm getting the portfolio, I'm getting the experience, I'm getting the connections, I'm getting the review.

32:56.02
Aaron
So those five things off the top of my head, is that worth my four hours of free work? It's not really free anymore when you look at those potential check marks where you can then use them to get paid work.

33:11.91
Aaron
So call it the law of averages where this is free, but that's gotten you now five gigs at a thousand dollars. So you have five over six gigs. You're making just under a thousand dollars every gig because of this one free one.

33:28.17
Aaron
It's the pre-work. It's the getting in the door. It's the creating the relationships that having them know your name when they need something, they're going to think of, Hey, this guy or girl was beautiful to work with.

33:41.84
Aaron
Awesome to work with, did a great job. They worked for free. I wonder what their rates are, if they're really putting into it, you know? And I, I do think, You don't want to be working forever. You don't want to be taken advantage of, but you want to give your best of what you can give in that time slot.

34:01.97
Aaron
Like you don't, again, you just want to kind of feel it and feel like, okay, you know, this is what we kind of agreed on. This is what we talked about. I want to go above and beyond a bit.

34:13.67
Aaron
I don't want to go above and beyond for eight days. You know, I just want to kind of feel it out.

34:17.82
Seth Macey
Mm-hmm. Okay.

34:20.98
Aaron
I also do think the reception helps the reception of content.

34:28.24
Aaron
I'm thinking about this now also determines how much I continue to do stuff. If they get my first 10 photos, if they get my first 10 photos and they're like holy crap, these are, I've never seen photos like this.

34:37.08
Seth Macey
okay

34:42.03
Aaron
I didn't know photos could be this good of our restaurant. Thank you so much. I want to, I want to do 10 more. If they're like, if they're like, oh, thanks. And i'm like, okay, well, you didn't really appreciate the fact that I'm doing this for free.

34:58.57
Aaron
Maybe this is not a client like we're going to completely jive on. Maybe they don't like my style. Maybe they don't, maybe they don't love it, but I'm not going to keep throwing photos down their throat. Uh, just to like, ah yeah, yeah.

35:10.75
Seth Macey
like me like like me like me like me like if you like me like

35:14.72
Aaron
I'm more likely to do it if you're crazy about it. And then on top of that, sometimes you can turn free gigs into paid gigs where we all know we take a lot of photos. We all know we have tons of video clips.

35:28.65
Aaron
Maybe you can say like, Hey, I've, I've edited for a good amount of time. I just want you to know that I probably could make four more reels like this one with different clips that I've taken and different themes.

35:40.02
Seth Macey
Yep.

35:43.13
Aaron
With all due respect, I'm not going to edit those right now because I have to move on to another project. However, if you ever want those, but um because i already did the work, the, uh, the shooting, we can come up with a really reasonable rate for me to edit those.

35:57.73
Aaron
So there's those little avenues to that.

36:00.34
Seth Macey
and You deliver the concept right away and then a quick follow-up, do you want more, which is ah incredibly effective, A, if you've made great content and B, they're ecstatic about it.

36:01.38
Aaron
Yeah.

36:11.25
Aaron
yeah Yeah. So that's, those are a couple more points.

36:13.28
Seth Macey
Great point.

36:16.15
Aaron
I think, I think try to really do your all without overdoing it. But if you give yourself a timeframe, I'm not sure there's much, you like do as much as you can within that day.

36:29.95
Aaron
Like give yourself the full day to kick butt and be done with it. But in a day, 10 hour day, you're you could, you could get a lot of stuff done and really blow their socks off.

36:43.06
Aaron
And again, it's not about the money. There's other things that are of value as well. i Just a small example too, of like bartering a bit. Sometimes there is value in other things. Now,

36:56.95
Aaron
I did something for my favorite restaurant down the street. ah We have a good relationship. They were going to pay me. We were we werere kind of going ah back and forth about price. And I said, hey, would it be better if you paid me in gift certificates for your restaurant?

37:12.92
Aaron
And of course it would.

37:13.42
Seth Macey
Oh, because now you can give them to other people, which gets more new customers in the door.

37:18.83
Aaron
Sure. Or I could use them because I go there all the time now.

37:22.31
Seth Macey
selfish.

37:23.36
Aaron
Yeah, but, but money is money. If I were to spend $500 at the restaurant versus $500 of gift certificates, either way I'm spending $500. Now you paying me different than you paying me in gift certificates

37:41.91
Seth Macey
How so? This is where confused.

37:42.35
Aaron
because for a restaurant paying me $500 in gift certificates, they mark up their food. So their cost is less for what they're doing.

37:54.69
Aaron
They're paying $25 for the steak dinner. I'm paying 50, right?

38:00.04
Seth Macey
Okay.

38:00.80
Aaron
So they're giving me a gift certificate, which is kind of like fake money, not to me, but to them. It's half price for them.

38:11.09
Seth Macey
I don't follow, but I trust you.

38:13.74
Aaron
If they give me a piece of paper that says this is worth $500, but they're paying $250 for the using that $500 to buy their $250 worth of food. So they're essentially paying $250 and receiving 500 because would use it there anyways. My own money, would use there anyways. So they're getting deal just me cost, essentially.

38:29.01
Aaron
two hundred and fifty dollars and i'm receiving five hundred because i would use it there anyways my own money i would use there anyways so they're getting a deal just by paying me in cost essentially

38:44.76
Seth Macey
This is why Aaron does all the accounting for our business.

38:49.64
Aaron
Maybe I'm thinking of that wrong. Please chime in if I'm...

38:51.49
Seth Macey
so we got to turn up somebody is Somebody let us know if this math is mathing.

38:56.15
Aaron
Someone's like, yeah Aaron, you're getting ripped off completely.

38:59.75
Seth Macey
Well, you sound confident.

39:01.98
Aaron
i am confident about it.

39:03.33
Seth Macey
I am not confident. with but I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying I do not follow and I'm being in entirely honest about it.

39:10.53
Aaron
Yeah. Well, look at it a different way. Say you really want like ah a pair of skis and you're like, I would do, I would do these photos of skis for a thousand bucks.

39:16.80
Seth Macey
aye

39:21.11
Aaron
And you're like, well, I'm going to turn around with that thousand bucks and and buy these skis. so The company could go like, can we just give you the skis? Because they cost us 400 versus can we pay you a thousand dollars for you to pay the ski shop a thousand dollars for the skis?

39:36.17
Seth Macey
But doesn't it just cancel out then? Because then they still have their markup.

39:44.55
Aaron
Yeah. If I go there though, if I go there,

39:45.96
Seth Macey
If they give me the skis, they're making zero, right? Because they're giving me the skis at cost.

39:51.04
Aaron
yeah, that, that inquires me to go there.

39:51.64
Seth Macey
If they give me a thousand, oh, I guess so. Right.

39:55.07
Aaron
Right. Right.

39:56.11
Seth Macey
Right. Because you could take your 500 and just not go there.

39:58.89
Aaron
Yeah. I just put it in savings or whatever.

40:00.46
Seth Macey
ah Right. The guarantee is that the money goes back to them.

40:04.54
Aaron
Yeah. And at cost.

40:06.49
Seth Macey
Well, that math's in my head.

40:09.89
Aaron
Sorry everyone for that.

40:11.53
Seth Macey
You might be I don't know.

40:11.57
Aaron
We'll, we'll get back.

40:13.79
Seth Macey
I'm not the math guy. I said it. You're the accounting guy.

40:16.62
Aaron
Yeah. That's why we get letters about our business being shut down every couple months.

40:23.52
Seth Macey
You make it seem like we're doing shady stuff. We just forgot to refile our whatever.

40:28.06
Aaron
No, we just got a reminder to refile. It's a yearly thing.

40:31.24
Seth Macey
Okay.

40:32.13
Aaron
Well, we're good for the next two years, which is wonderful.

40:34.83
Seth Macey
um Okay. Sweet. Yeah, I think all of the just ah again, to say this, I think all the concerns about am I doing too much? This is lame. It's not. It's free work. I'm not getting paid. Just even, you know, even if you have the long term in mind, those short term thoughts can creep in. I think a lot of it goes away if you're doing work for the free work for people you care about.

40:54.77
Seth Macey
I'm not saying that's all you have to do, but I'm saying it's a good antidote to some of those toxic thoughts. And it's a good, another good reason to expand your, your circle and your, you know, talk to people, build relationships, try and really work at, um, seeing if, you know, new people would be good friends.

40:59.90
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

41:12.26
Seth Macey
Uh, you know that's something that I've been considering a lot is just you know Of course, I'm a quality over quantity type person, but I'm always trying to see, oh, is this somebody who I would like like to let into my inner circle?

41:25.67
Seth Macey
just Not for my own personal gain, just for ah better the experience of life, but you know there's positive consequences to that kind of stuff as well.

41:34.14
Aaron
Yeah, I think networking is is huge and in all of this, whether it's the free work or for the rest of your photography career, is talking, letting people know, hearing people, looking for opportunities to, again, help and offer a service, and hopefully in a way that helps them and helps you.

41:56.28
Aaron
And then it's then it's all good. And again, it's not to just... you know, siphon off of people. It's to literally get to know people and just be like, Oh, you, you do that. Like if you ever need this, I'm your guy, you know?

42:13.53
Aaron
And then that opens up some opportunities.

42:14.58
Seth Macey
going to have somebody else to do it. Anyways, you know, why not work with somebody you like on top of it?

42:16.79
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

42:22.82
Seth Macey
that's You know, that's how i feel about most things.

42:25.67
Aaron
For sure. And a warm introduction versus a cold call is it's got, I mean i wonder what the stats are on someone like, Hey, I know this guy. ah He's really talented. If you ever need photography versus a stranger reaching out being like, I can, I can do photography.

42:38.94
Seth Macey
Oh.

42:41.17
Aaron
It's gotta to be.

42:44.08
Seth Macey
I am usually 100% confident about a warm pitch, warm call.

42:51.27
Aaron
Yeah.

42:52.51
Seth Macey
And I'm the not, I mean, rightfully so, not as confident about the cold ones.

42:59.75
Aaron
Yeah.

43:00.34
Seth Macey
Just the hot ones. I'm like, if this makes sense, this is going to happen. If they have a need, it's it's going to happen. um

43:08.90
Aaron
Yep.

43:10.16
Seth Macey
Which I think, you know, having that level of confidence as well is is helpful. ah Did we cover everything today? You think this was a you know good, well-rounded...

43:20.06
Aaron
and I think so, except for my math example.

43:20.99
Seth Macey
so clear um

43:22.33
Aaron
I took us off the rails for a bit, but it's my math.

43:25.42
Seth Macey
With the math? Let us know in the comments if that maths. You can do that on Spotify.

43:29.41
Aaron
It maths.

43:29.95
Seth Macey
You can write in the comments. Just say it math or it did not math.

43:33.55
Aaron
It maths. It maths for me. It maths for me.

43:37.78
Seth Macey
Well, till next time, man, if you like this episode, feel free to leave a rating review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. You can also leave a donation on PayPal for any amount you feel is equal to the value you receive from this or any of our other episodes. Of course, we'll always do these for free, but that option is always there.

43:53.02
Seth Macey
And you can subscribe on YouTube if you'd like to stimulate your eyeballs instead of just your ears. That's all got for today, man. Till next week.

44:00.69
Aaron
Yeah, take care.