Dalton Johnson - Are Photographers Viewing “Free Work” the Wrong Way? Artwork

The Photographer Mindset

The Photographer Mindset is a podcast specifically created for photographers, and those who believe their purpose is to create, inspire and develop into their full potential. The photographer mindset podcast was initiated to help creative individuals understand that their success depends on more than just skill and dedication. In this podcast we learn to develop a winning mindset based on attitude and out of the box thinking strategies so that we can grow our clients, brand recognition & confidence. We want to work smarter towards our goals, not harder.

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The Photographer Mindset

Dalton Johnson - Are Photographers Viewing “Free Work” the Wrong Way?

June 02, 2025 • Seth Macey & Aaron Mannes • Episode 275

Dalton Johnson (@storiesbydalton) is a photographer, adventurer, and journalist who has collaborated with renowned brands such as Patagonia, Big Agnes, and Rivian.

In this episode, Dalton shares his own experiences in an effort to help photographers understand how they can leverage free work as a tool for growth, the importance of persistence in marketing their craft, and the cyclical process of building a thriving creative career. He breaks down actionable strategies for repeatedly turning passion projects into paid opportunities and shares insights into crafting effective pitches, balancing art with personal fulfillment, and creating work that connects deeply with both clients and audiences.

Expect to Learn:

Why free work is a powerful tool to build a portfolio and create ROI
The never ending cyclical process of having an idea, creating a body of work, and marketing it
Why engaging with multiple companies daily, will lead to meaningful client relationships
Practical methods to market creative projects
Helpful tips on creating effective pitches

Dalton's links:

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@storiesbydalton
Website: https://dalton-johnson.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daltonjohnsonmedia/

Sponsor:

Thanks to Tamron for being our lead sponsor this episode! Explore the 18-300mm all-in-one zoom lens for Fujifilm and Sony APS-C Mirrorless cameras and soon for Nikon Z and Canon RF mounted cameras. Right now, enjoy $100 off on this lens! You can visit www.tamron-americas.com or your local Tamron authorized dealer.

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

@sethmacey
@mantis_photography
@thephotographermindset

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00:00:18.22
Dalton Johnson
I was going to ask, I love the how the two of you banter.

00:00:19.62
Aaron
Nice.

00:00:20.32
Seth Macey
What were you going to

00:00:24.04
Dalton Johnson
How long have you known each other for?

00:00:25.90
Seth Macey
say? Too long.

00:00:27.36
Aaron
No, not that long.

00:00:30.06
Seth Macey
Feels like eternity.

00:00:31.43
Aaron
Four years, five?

00:00:33.51
Seth Macey
There's sometimes it's just every week I'm guaranteed to see him and he's guaranteed to see me and I can just know he looks at me and goes, this stupid guy's face again.

00:00:43.31
Aaron
and I never think that I've never thought that once.

00:00:47.43
Seth Macey
That was a test. You passed.

00:00:49.12
Aaron
Yeah. If anything, it's more of a mirror reflection. Like I got to hear myself talk more

00:00:56.32
Aaron
like personally. Okay. Uh, but yeah, five years, I think almost maybe to the date, honestly, it was, uh, probably so it was 2025, the height of COVID I think is when we started really talking.

00:01:03.20
Dalton Johnson
You

00:01:04.83
Seth Macey
yes

00:01:07.56
Aaron
So 2020 right after that.

00:01:10.11
Dalton Johnson
just connect.

00:01:10.16
Aaron
right after

00:01:10.56
Seth Macey
People ask you like where you're like married or dating.

00:01:10.89
Aaron
no

00:01:12.69
Seth Macey
When did you guys meet? Was it a meet cute?

00:01:15.03
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, seriously.

00:01:15.80
Aaron
We didn't meet in person until someone has that footage and maybe I have it. And if I do, I'll put it on the YouTube, but when we Hannah, right.

00:01:22.47
Seth Macey
I know who has it.

00:01:22.45
Dalton Johnson
That's very nice. There's no reason to meet here because someone recorded it.

00:01:25.41
Aaron
and

00:01:26.30
Dalton Johnson
It was like, hey.

00:01:26.55
Aaron
Yeah. Yep. They're like, they knew.

00:01:29.10
Seth Macey
At an airport.

00:01:30.43
Aaron
And yeah, came out of the car, picked Seth up literally and figuratively a big hug.

00:01:36.74
Seth Macey
Yep.

00:01:38.51
Aaron
And, and then it's been history ever since. Yeah. So.

00:01:43.79
Seth Macey
That's the story. Yeah. Somebody has that footage. It's the start of a rom-com for sure. Dalton, thanks for joining us, man. You messaged me. You had listened to the Chris Burkhardt episode and then maybe you went back and heard the episode we did about converting free work into paid work. And you ended up in the DMs in a way which I really liked, which was, hey, I feel like I can add more to this conversation. Let me know if you want to pull the trigger on that. And here we are.

00:02:11.13
Seth Macey
I love short to the point messages. Have you guys found this just ah to go on a tangent right away? Have you found this when you you're emailing a pitch or something like that? Just short, sweet.

00:02:22.76
Seth Macey
Here's what I want to do. It's polite. It's concise. People are like, sounds good. Let's talk more.

00:02:29.44
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, I like it if there's like a link to more. Like, like, let me decide if I want to, or when I'm pitching it to somebody, what I've found success with is like, pitch like, hey, I'm interested in doing this.

00:02:33.31
Seth Macey
Right.

00:02:43.19
Dalton Johnson
Are you interested? if it vibes, here's way more description, follow that. And then I get a follow up because they actually can see, but then they can opt out super quick.

00:02:52.50
Seth Macey
Oh, interesting. So you do the long format email, but you give them the opportunity to bail early.

00:02:59.44
Dalton Johnson
yeah well so it'll be like um like i'll have like a pitch deck that i'll make on my website that i host all my pitch decks on my website and then it'll be a link to the to the pitch deck but it'll just be like two paragraph but i think that comes from a lot of my background is also in journalism and so it's like the amount of pitches from pr people and all those things like that i get inbound are insane and then in comparison i just like learned what not to do from those and then go from

00:03:09.56
Aaron
Yeah, that's smart.

00:03:15.83
Seth Macey
Okay.

00:03:29.07
Seth Macey
Ooh, can you share a couple before we get into the topic I introduced?

00:03:34.21
Dalton Johnson
um of like bad pitches.

00:03:36.96
Aaron
Yeah. What not to do.

00:03:37.48
Seth Macey
Just like some common denominators that go straight in the trash. Because to to my point, I'm not trying to sound like high and mighty here, but we get a lot of pitches for people to be on the show. And that's great. I'm super grateful for that. But sometimes it's like a thousand words in an email and I'm like,

00:03:55.11
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, exactly.

00:03:55.33
Seth Macey
I can't. I can't. And then there's just communication like yours that comes across. It's, hey, ah I can fill some gaps. Are you interested?

00:04:06.65
Seth Macey
So I'm interested to know, as with you mentioned, a background in journal journalism, you kind of learn what not to do.

00:04:06.81
Dalton Johnson
Yeah.

00:04:12.27
Seth Macey
I like the reverse role model type. lessons. Uh, I'm just curious, you know, to know, and it's maybe beneficial for people because a lot of listeners here are sending pitches and it's maybe going tie in nicely to our elaboration on the fruit turning free work into paid work episode.

00:04:26.35
Seth Macey
Some common denominators to look out for, um some things to avoid that will, if you do do those things, will and increase your likelihood of an email going straight in the garbage, which would suck.

00:04:37.24
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, um I would say a subject line really matters, but not like.

00:04:40.81
Seth Macey
Okay.

00:04:43.48
Dalton Johnson
ah Make it so that it's some sort of like what you would title a story or like, you know, something in that manner or like actually the one that I've been getting the best outreach with that because I have a new project I'm pitching is

00:04:50.87
Seth Macey
Thank

00:04:57.84
Dalton Johnson
um is simply just like photo, like photographer intro dash my name. And then it's truly like, hey, it's I think it's it's like two paragraphs. It's like, hey, I'm not trying to sell you on anything.

00:05:09.56
Dalton Johnson
This is who I am. I'm just here to talk. This is how I like to like bring new potential clients on board is like I do these random projects like three, four times a year that are like super low budget for people to buy in We can see how we work together and then we can choose a bigger project in the future if we want.

00:05:22.28
Seth Macey
Right.

00:05:26.59
Dalton Johnson
Here's the link to the the new project or upcoming like easy buy in project.

00:05:33.75
Seth Macey
right

00:05:33.79
Dalton Johnson
But I think it's just like establishing like what's the actual intention behind it, that's that's truthful, not like total lie or whatever clickbait. And then it's also just like like, at a certain point, if it's not necessarily personalized, like you can copy and paste a lot. I mean, that's what PR people do all the time to journalists is you know they just send it out on a newsletter.

00:05:58.66
Dalton Johnson
But it's like making it slightly personal. Like, you know, like I just received an email back from somebody from Garmin and I was like, I was like, yo, crazy name. Like, hey, whatever, like parentheses, like crazy name. Because yeah it was a crazy name to me.

00:06:13.45
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:06:13.50
Dalton Johnson
And then went into it and the person responded like within a couple of minutes, you know.

00:06:16.28
Aaron
Yeah.

00:06:17.65
Seth Macey
Really cool.

00:06:18.58
Dalton Johnson
And so I think it's just like any way that it can be personal, kind of make it personal, even though you're still copying and pasting. I think that's, that's one way to do it.

00:06:26.18
Seth Macey
Mm-hmm.

00:06:28.23
Dalton Johnson
Um, yeah.

00:06:30.44
Seth Macey
It's funny you say that a couple, just to jump in, people might laugh at I don't know if I've shared this on the show.

00:06:30.50
Dalton Johnson
And then,

00:06:35.71
Seth Macey
I was pitching a guy ah few years ago, and I was doing some research, and I found out that he was he could read Wingdings. Do you two know what Wingdings is?

00:06:44.33
Aaron
yeah

00:06:45.05
Dalton Johnson
No, but ah I've heard somebody say, oh, you're wing ding, but i don't know what that actually means.

00:06:46.04
Seth Macey
You don't know.

00:06:46.40
Aaron
yeah

00:06:49.46
Seth Macey
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like one of the wacky fonts in Microsoft Office.

00:06:52.56
Aaron
it

00:06:53.34
Dalton Johnson
That's where it came from.

00:06:53.36
Aaron
Pictures, kind of like hieroglyphics.

00:06:55.49
Seth Macey
Yeah, it's like hieroglyphics. When you press a thing or a combination of certain letters, makes ah i don't yeah it's like that. I found out this guy was fluent wingdings, so I wrote my entire email in wingdings.

00:07:06.50
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, I mean, that's that'd be that would be exactly it.

00:07:10.78
Seth Macey
He answered.

00:07:10.95
Dalton Johnson
like Yeah, 100%. He's for sure going here.

00:07:13.00
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:07:14.31
Aaron
Yeah, that's great.

00:07:14.51
Dalton Johnson
Yeah.

00:07:14.62
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:07:15.20
Aaron
That's a great one.

00:07:16.39
Dalton Johnson
So, yeah, I think, yeah, I'd say that's for sure, like something to do, like what not to do is like send a 10,000 word deal.

00:07:16.49
Seth Macey
Yeah, something like that.

00:07:24.55
Dalton Johnson
um I mean, honestly, no one really cares who you are and in cold emails, cold pitches.

00:07:29.38
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:07:30.24
Dalton Johnson
So like you don't really need to say who you are. Like, just say like, hey, I'm Dalton Johnson, like hyperlink your name to your portfolio and then just like go into what you're saying, you know, like why is it applied to them? If you want want to talk about yourself,

00:07:45.18
Dalton Johnson
Like talk about yourself, but that does nothing. Like they don't care. Like, you know, like I think that's like a big one.

00:07:48.10
Seth Macey
ah huh

00:07:48.13
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:07:50.38
Dalton Johnson
Like PR people, this is going to sound like it's a PR podcast, of but ah like PR people, like when they pitch you, like this is the next best hotel you should come visit.

00:08:00.93
Dalton Johnson
And like, this is the reason why it's so great. You're like, cool. Like, I don't, I don't care. You know, like tell me more of like, how does that apply to like my niche of like adventure travel? You know, if like the Four Seasons opened up and Malibu, like there's, I mean, sure there's surfing, but you know, well, how it apply to adventure travel?

00:08:11.37
Seth Macey
Right.

00:08:18.33
Seth Macey
Right.

00:08:20.54
Dalton Johnson
You know?

00:08:20.62
Seth Macey
Right. Hey, Dalton, I saw you did this project. I feel like you'd be a really good fit for this.

00:08:25.91
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, that would, exactly.

00:08:26.78
Seth Macey
Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like the more i i get the sense, the more you write strictly just in terms of word quantity, the more you're trying to convince people of you and people i feel like at their core don't want to be sold.

00:08:46.58
Seth Macey
Okay.

00:08:47.55
Dalton Johnson
oh 100 yeah i had um one photographer during during covet i was just like reaching out to photographers like hey just like just talking and he was like a really successful commercial photographer in the fishing space

00:08:49.27
Aaron
Yeah. yeah

00:08:56.85
Seth Macey
Mm-hmm.

00:09:02.48
Dalton Johnson
And I was like, what what has been like just like a key to success for you?

00:09:07.16
Seth Macey
Mm-hmm.

00:09:07.29
Dalton Johnson
And his answer was like, only ask questions they'll say yes to because then they get accustomed to saying yes to you. And then you ask them a question that's like a harder question, but you've already ah like made them want to say yes to you.

00:09:19.32
Dalton Johnson
So then they just kind of already are like, oh, yeah, sure.

00:09:22.81
Seth Macey
Right.

00:09:23.20
Aaron
That's interesting.

00:09:24.26
Seth Macey
That is interesting.

00:09:24.34
Dalton Johnson
it's like a whole

00:09:25.40
Seth Macey
i'm I'm sitting here thinking about how can I structure a question that is impossible to say no to. That's a good thought experiment.

00:09:32.63
Aaron
Yeah. Do you want your business to do better next quarter?

00:09:35.54
Dalton Johnson
Thank you.

00:09:36.10
Aaron
Do you like engaging photography?

00:09:38.52
Seth Macey
It just turns into an infomercial.

00:09:39.81
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also I found, you know, if I get wordy, it's, it's honestly harder to edit yourself and like look it over and not kind of lose concentration and focus and have typos and,

00:09:54.16
Aaron
Like you were saying, copying and paste, like leaving in the wrong company in one line by accident. Like I can't say I've never done that before ever. ah But yeah, that kind of stuff. If it's short and to the point, it's much easier to make sure it's okay. That's a good two sentences, so right?

00:10:10.28
Aaron
think that's how I want it.

00:10:10.87
Seth Macey
I

00:10:11.44
Aaron
That's what, that's all I need to tell them. i don't need to waste my time. If it's, especially if it's going to be a no, like, let's just get to the point. If they're interested, they'll click to see more.

00:10:21.55
Seth Macey
ah like it.

00:10:21.80
Dalton Johnson
Yeah. Yeah. I also try to give people permission as much as often to like skip a section. So like, if I know I'm gonna like dive in like I just did this with a client that I'm working with.

00:10:35.16
Dalton Johnson
They're like, right they've never done a mood board. I'm like the first photographer they've like, for they said they're the first real photographer we've ever hired. And so I was like explaining a mood board to them.

00:10:45.90
Dalton Johnson
And then I was like, and so I was like, this is gonna explain how to build a mood board, skip if you want, you know? And then it was like two section or a paragraph and a half of like how to build a mood board to send to me.

00:10:51.90
Aaron
Yeah.

00:10:56.93
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:10:56.96
Dalton Johnson
And so when they're reading, they just know to like, they're already know. And they just can skip it. So.

00:11:02.81
Aaron
yeah

00:11:02.95
Seth Macey
That's important. I've been doing that a lot recently ah because you have as photographers and creators, we have this tendency. We want to explain things to business owners that we feel like they may not know.

00:11:14.02
Seth Macey
we got we got to explain it all.

00:11:14.12
Dalton Johnson
hmm.

00:11:15.26
Seth Macey
I got to explain how the licensing works. I got to explain how a mood board works, et cetera. But you run the risk of a just crafting something that's too long and B, explaining something to somebody that they already know, which is frustrating when we all know when somebody's explaining something to us that we already know. It's like, yeah, I know, man.

00:11:35.49
Seth Macey
So I've gotten in the habit of saying before I give information, I preface it with Forgive me if you already know this. Or I say, are you familiar with? that's The second one is probably more ah pertainable to Zoom calls because you can't really ask that in an email.

00:11:45.53
Dalton Johnson
Mm-hmm.

00:11:52.33
Seth Macey
But I think it's ah it's a nice acknowledgement. um So let's move on. I like that. That good little 10, 12 minute session on how to get to the point.

00:12:03.08
Aaron
Yeah.

00:12:03.80
Seth Macey
So why don't we get to the point about sort of the episode, which was building off of the episode we did on turning free work into paid work. And you kind of mentioned that it's not necessarily a point A to point B process.

00:12:19.30
Seth Macey
It's not, I do enough free work so that I i now do paid work. You mentioned this before we pressed record. Let me just clarify that. You mentioned it as sort of a circular process that just never ends based on specific campaigns that you're trying to do. Correct me if I'm wrong. Help me better articulate that. And i give you the mic. Go for it.

00:12:43.75
Dalton Johnson
Cool. Yeah, thanks for that. And thanks for the opportunity just ah to hop in and talk here. should have said that earlier.

00:12:48.05
Seth Macey
Yeah, of course.

00:12:48.30
Aaron
Yeah.

00:12:50.14
Dalton Johnson
But yeah, so the way I see it, there's kind of like, you can call it four or five stages, but it essentially starts with you have an idea, then you build ah body of work, and then you learn to market it or sell it, and then you learn to market it or sell it, and then it repeats.

00:13:07.92
Dalton Johnson
And the way that slightly different is based off of what if it's a paid gig or personal work. ah And so really what I felt you all kind of talked about in that first one is essentially like it seemed like it was all you had to do was a couple of of shoots, maybe free and then you'd be fine.

00:13:29.87
Dalton Johnson
And so I think you guys leaned on food and weddings a decent amount.

00:13:30.12
Seth Macey
Right.

00:13:35.03
Dalton Johnson
Um, and I think where, you know, I've never shot weddings. I've shot food a little bit, um, or really early on in my career out of pure necessity of like, I don't want to go hungry. Um, but I think there's like the importance of understanding, like if you're moving to a new industry or you're moving to a different part of the industry, or you want to be known for something, you have to always build a new body of work for that.

00:14:01.50
Dalton Johnson
So like, To give kind of some examples, I'm in the adventure travel space. I started purely as climbing and surfing. Like that's all I shot. And so I had a climbing portfolio and a surfing portfolio.

00:14:14.63
Dalton Johnson
And so I'd go out and I would, in the beginning, i would I would build a body of work by photographing with friends for free. You know, we're just all doing that. Then you build a body of work, you eventually learn how to market that work.

00:14:27.50
Dalton Johnson
And then at that point, because you've already shot it, you would then sell it by licensing. And and like that's where, yes, it was free in the beginning, but now you're make money from it.

00:14:40.16
Dalton Johnson
And then the other model is like during that marketing portion of it, now you're maybe a company's coming to you and they're like, hey, we love your surf work. Now we want you to shoot a campaign for us.

00:14:52.49
Dalton Johnson
But you've never like your photos don't show that you know how a wetsuit. because it's like a different ask than like, can you shoot surfing? It's like, can you shoot the product of wetsuit? And you're like, oh, so then now you may have to go find a friend, shoot a couple spec pieces specifically looking at wetsuits and then move and then start marketing that, hey, I can shoot wetsuits. And then all sudden you have O'Neill, Rip Curl, all these people like, hey, they can shoot the wetsuit too.

00:15:21.19
Dalton Johnson
So then now you move into like shooting catalogs and things of that sort. and so it's kind of like that cycle and so i think that is where there's like a big difference um and so i'm going to give kind of one more example and then we can kind of start diving in instead of 10 000 feet um so another example might be

00:15:28.09
Seth Macey
Sure.

00:15:40.86
Seth Macey
true

00:15:46.78
Dalton Johnson
like i once i established myself long enough i moved into the like actually more on the travel side and um the travel industry is like a wild the uc travel and it's so big um of an industry but like i've kind of found my niche within like shooting like expedition cruise ships and so it's like I essentially shot one free campaign, but it was an editorial piece for a magazine. So it was like a writing assignment, but I brought my camera and photographed it solely by myself.

00:16:22.04
Dalton Johnson
And then so I built that body of work. And then now that's turned into the ability to um market that work. out and it landed me a bunch of new clients in the cruise ship aspect and i i think i'm like alex like six or seven cruise ships at this point and then now you're it's like i'm slowly moving into not just expedition ships but into all cruise ships

00:16:40.15
Seth Macey
Right.

00:16:50.07
Dalton Johnson
and so it's it's like they saw the work as expedition so like only expedition ships and then last year did my first like clipper cruise or star clippers and that's just like not they have they have sails so it's slightly still on the adventure side but it it's not like you're going out really doing anything like kayaking in antarctica or anything like that it's just like we went to greek islands you know and so but then now i'm getting inbound messages about like a river cruise things like that and so i think that's like that's kind of the cycle and um i'd love to kind like dive in to what that actually means and looks like for people right cool i'm taking notes

00:17:34.54
Seth Macey
By all means, continue.

00:17:36.00
Aaron
Yeah, I'm interested. I'm taking notes.

00:17:39.55
Seth Macey
We'll save our questions for the end.

00:17:41.01
Aaron
Yeah.

00:17:43.03
Dalton Johnson
and And so I think really where it starts is like, if you're new, it's like going and shooting for fun because you love it to find out what you want. But the entire time, it's like learning how to create a photo shoot.

00:17:57.27
Dalton Johnson
You know, and so because that's like the skill, like a lot of people are good with already taking a photo, but it's like, can you find the talent? Can you do these things? And like the soft skills of like how to create a photo shoot are really important and are like the necessities.

00:18:10.95
Dalton Johnson
And so when you get like a client to come in and ask you like, hey, we want you to do this work. You're like, yes, but then you might be scared because you don't know how to do any of the things. Like you may price it wrong because you've never actually like gotten people together.

00:18:26.32
Dalton Johnson
You've never done those things. And so that's where it's important to be able to figure out how and what to move forward into um that cycle and move from where you're shooting stuff for free to then hopefully license it to getting the actual shoots to become somebody paying you up front.

00:18:47.43
Dalton Johnson
to then land the shoot and then execute and deliver upon that.

00:18:53.23
Seth Macey
Right.

00:18:53.36
Dalton Johnson
So feel like I talked a lot.

00:18:55.63
Seth Macey
Yeah, we'll we'll jump in with questions so you can make sure you have enough o two for the rest of the conversation.

00:18:55.58
Dalton Johnson
So.

00:19:00.37
Aaron
Yeah. Breathe.

00:19:01.57
Seth Macey
ah

00:19:02.06
Aaron
Breathe. Get that wetsuit on.

00:19:05.14
Seth Macey
So I think ice i think the free work process is painful or frustrating for people if you suck at the next step, which is marketing the body of work

00:19:21.77
Dalton Johnson
Yeah.

00:19:21.88
Aaron
That's good point.

00:19:21.98
Dalton Johnson
Right.

00:19:23.13
Seth Macey
If you've made the body of work for free and then you do 10 more cruise ships in your example, you're not crying yourself to sleep over the free work you did. That's an incredible return on time invested.

00:19:35.53
Dalton Johnson
right

00:19:36.56
Seth Macey
Where you're getting frustrated, and I think where most people are getting frustrated and hung up free work, especially if you're a beginner, is what the hell do I do with this now and I'm out my time without a paycheck?

00:19:49.39
Seth Macey
So the question, and this is where I guess we can dive in as you say, what does learning to market that body of work look like as a beginner, as an intermediate?

00:19:49.45
Dalton Johnson
yeah okay

00:20:04.58
Aaron
Yeah. Also Seth, if I could, i think there's a second part to that where it's the free work is, is polishing up your own portfolio and work.

00:20:04.97
Dalton Johnson
Yeah.

00:20:09.39
Seth Macey
Right.

00:20:15.02
Aaron
And there's sometimes I think through messaging and social media and you should photographers are taken advantage of never work for free. ah You don't know what this is worth to the company.

00:20:26.66
Aaron
All that stuff has its place and is true. But there's a little bit of an entitlement that comes with like, I've never shot wetsuits before, but you should be paying me. and and then

00:20:36.56
Seth Macey
right

00:20:37.97
Aaron
then they pay. Let's say they pay 10 grand and you realize, holy crap, the light off of these wet wetsuits is difficult. I don't love this batch. I don't really know what I'm doing.

00:20:49.24
Aaron
I ruined my camera in the ocean halfway through. Like all those things.

00:20:52.58
Dalton Johnson
Thank

00:20:53.89
Aaron
And then the company has a bad taste in their mouth with like trusting someone without proof of work. So I think there's an entitlement too of like, oh, I'm not doing this for free, so I'm not going to do it before they have even tried the but the subject matter or created a portfolio where then they can sell it.

00:21:12.37
Seth Macey
Thank you.

00:21:12.44
Aaron
I think any company outside of photography, ah landscaping, house building, ah guitar building, there's, there's no one that's like not build a guitar that you're going to spend $5,000 for them to build you an acoustic for the first time. Cause they think they can do it.

00:21:30.60
Aaron
right? There's no one that you would trust with that. So there has to be niche specific proof that you know what you're doing. And that's the value in the free work of like building a relationship potentially with someone or selling it even on the backend with licensing, if you really nailed it out of the park, but also being like the value here to do this free work is to hone my craft so that I can prove to people that Yeah, I can do this easy. Look at this example of exactly what you want.

00:22:01.84
Aaron
Let's go do that again.

00:22:03.57
Seth Macey
So you remove the frustration if you're clear with the intent of the time spent.

00:22:09.60
Aaron
Right.

00:22:10.84
Dalton Johnson
Yeah.

00:22:10.90
Seth Macey
do you Do you both think that... content online that speaks about never do free work. You're worth more. Is that an epidemic? Is that a negative thing that people shouldn't necessarily hear? Is it putting the wrong ideas in their head?

00:22:29.15
Seth Macey
Is it a, you know, I, Maybe. i don't know. I'm curious to hear what you guys think. Because if if you really consume that kind of content all the time, you may never get your foot in the door. It's like a server trying to get serving experience, right? If you've never served that classic conundrum.

00:22:46.43
Aaron
yeah Yeah, go.

00:22:48.58
Seth Macey
So I'm curious to hear what you guys think on on that. And then we'll get into what does the learning to market the body of work look like from Dalton.

00:22:58.50
Dalton Johnson
Cool. Um, Aaron, do you want to go or, cause I, I have a, have a take. I, uh,

00:23:03.58
Aaron
I do too, but go ahead.

00:23:04.44
Seth Macey
It's a thing.

00:23:04.70
Aaron
You're the guest after you.

00:23:07.94
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, so I would say for me, i think i think it is bad that people say you shouldn't work for free. um I think you should work for free, but I think if you're working for free, you shouldn't be working for free in the sense that a company has come to you, asked you to do something, and now you're delivering things for free.

00:23:27.30
Dalton Johnson
like It needs to be like, if you're going to do something for free, it's because you're building a body of work. You are... you know, utilizing it because you see this as an opportunity. and and know you all talked about bar bartering in terms of like getting a pair of skis.

00:23:41.33
Dalton Johnson
I kind of disagree with that unless they run the value of their product at 25% what it is.

00:23:44.01
Seth Macey
Okay.

00:23:47.74
Dalton Johnson
and And the reason why is that's like the resale value of of most things. um And so and then also like it costs you things to kind of go from there. And so I really don't think if if somebody is asking you to do the work at that point, you should be doing things for free.

00:24:04.94
Dalton Johnson
But if you personally are doing it to improve your book or to improve your skill set. at that point i do think you should be doing free work all the time and that's why i say it's kind of like a cycle is because that's kind of the process that you have to be doing all the way through even when you're even if you're yeah i guarantee you chris burkhart is doing free work it just looks different like you know um i think he talked about on your guys's podcast i think he talked about the film

00:24:35.86
Dalton Johnson
You know, like he's making those films out of his own pocket, which is essentially, quote unquote, free work that he is then hoping to make money from.

00:24:36.02
Aaron
Yeah.

00:24:43.74
Dalton Johnson
And so like that's like the business model, because it comes like, cool, clients are coming on board, which like they might, you know, he probably has sponsorships for those films, things of that sort.

00:24:54.50
Dalton Johnson
But it's like you're moving the needle forward by doing the free work, which is investing in yourself is like really what it is.

00:25:03.94
Seth Macey
Yeah, I think in that example, he was making the film at maybe cost not and then hoping to make the profit on the tour and from Apple TV.

00:25:14.35
Dalton Johnson
Yeah.

00:25:14.48
Seth Macey
There was no, here's a cash advance to make The Forgotten Coast.

00:25:14.64
Dalton Johnson
Exactly.

00:25:19.55
Dalton Johnson
exactly

00:25:20.48
Aaron
Right.

00:25:21.89
Dalton Johnson
yeah

00:25:22.08
Aaron
Yeah, I agree with that. And I love that if, if companies are reaching out to you because of, because of your work, essentially ah whether it's related or not, they're, you have the ball in your court, I would say, and should really should be valued for your time and effort and the return on investment that, that marketing could potentially do for them.

00:25:36.04
Seth Macey
Thank you.

00:25:44.31
Aaron
I think it,

00:25:44.40
Dalton Johnson
Thank you.

00:25:46.46
Aaron
niche specific. For example, in the in the cabin industry of photographing Airbnbs, there's a lot of people that love to go to Airbnbs for free ah because it helps with vacation costs and whatnot.

00:26:00.94
Aaron
And I have done that as well because it is a It is a lucrative value to reach out easily.

00:26:06.77
Seth Macey
Thank you.

00:26:09.93
Aaron
If I'm going to California and find 10 Airbnbs and just sort of trade my barter versus pay $3,000 for five nights there, saves me and allows me to do that trip because of a skill that I have.

00:26:24.91
Aaron
And it's not in my, it's not in my territory in a sense that can get out of hand, uh, in that industry where, they are essentially making a ton of profit, maybe all their profit on the marketing and social media campaigns that photographers that stay at their places are putting out there and make their places look extremely attractive.

00:26:48.97
Aaron
So when they're asking you to do it for free or just to trade, that's where it's a little bit offensive because it's like, no, you're coming to me for photography. For what reason?

00:26:57.37
Dalton Johnson
Mm-hmm.

00:26:58.01
Aaron
To sell your place for the next however many years.

00:27:01.63
Seth Macey
Thank you.

00:27:01.94
Aaron
No, it's not going to be for free. So it's kind of like, which I agree totally don't like what angle is this coming from gives a lot of the power play. Now, if I've, if I want a pair of skis or something that it's not my niche, it's not my, it's not my typical,

00:27:19.36
Aaron
competitive, uh, commercial photography, but I really want this pair of skis, but I want to drop 1500 on boots and skis. And if I can ask them like, Hey, I have this skill.

00:27:29.87
Aaron
You have these skis. Maybe I could buy them at cost and I can get you a couple of photos and you can market them. And they're like, yeah, that sounds great. Then to me, it's like, um, It's a win-win.

00:27:41.21
Aaron
But I think when you do it all the time and you're you're losing the value of what you're doing because you're doing that all the time and you're just bartering left and right, think if you're case specific, to me, I don't have a huge problem in using a skill and and trading for something that you truly do desire.

00:27:58.14
Aaron
When a company calls out and like, we'll give you a free jacket if you do 40 photos of us and tag us and do two posts. you're like, I i already have 10 jackets. I don't need a jacket.

00:28:08.92
Aaron
ah that's where it's like, no, I'm not.

00:28:10.74
Seth Macey
There's a comedy reel right there for you. You're like burying in jackets by the end.

00:28:15.04
Aaron
Yeah. Tons, millions of jackets. It's 90 degrees out. but I just want to wear them to get the value out of them because I took the photos.

00:28:21.73
Seth Macey
And all the codes pop up.

00:28:23.44
Aaron
yeah um

00:28:25.27
Dalton Johnson
That was great.

00:28:25.87
Aaron
So yeah, I think there's a ah place for it, but also, I mean, to add to it, if someone says,

00:28:26.21
Dalton Johnson
hearing

00:28:33.04
Aaron
if I say, Hey, can I stay at your Airbnb? It's going to help me out tremendously financially for this vacation. Uh, I'm not promising my typical paid package.

00:28:43.77
Aaron
I'm, I'm promising like a, a taste of it. Like let's, you're just going to get a taste of some of my photography. Maybe I'm not going to do a drone fly through because that usually garners big bucks, but Hey, while I'm here, I could do a drone fly through that. You know, you can do like all these little things, but I think being careful with how much you're giving away and what kind of folder you're giving away, because that just sets a precedent for the next time someone comes and you're really values their own work and wants to get paid for 20 photos.

00:29:14.73
Aaron
And they're like, yeah, well, uh, Aaron stayed here for free, just a trade. And he gave us a hundred photos and 1700 videos, you know, it just, it dumbs down the whole process.

00:29:24.67
Dalton Johnson
Yeah.

00:29:26.22
Aaron
So there's just a little bit of knowledge and like thinking about it before you jump into those scenarios is all that I'm saying.

00:29:35.02
Seth Macey
Well, can i ask you a question, Dalton?

00:29:35.10
Dalton Johnson
yeah

00:29:39.13
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, can I very quick?

00:29:39.33
Seth Macey
Just, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

00:29:42.57
Dalton Johnson
i I think, I think, Aaron, the key is to define what that transaction looks like so that you can then make money.

00:29:48.95
Aaron
Right. Yeah.

00:29:50.69
Dalton Johnson
So like you may say, like, hey, like, I'll do that transaction for five photos. you know and then maybe because it's a super rad house you do that drone fly through and then you'd be like hey like if you make afterwards you you know maybe you took 70 photos and have you know a drone fly through and a couple other things and you're like hey you know you can pick 10 of these and then also there's you know

00:30:08.62
Aaron
i

00:30:17.24
Aaron
yeah

00:30:17.65
Dalton Johnson
40 more plus a drone fly through. If you're interested in buying those, we can license those and have a set duration.

00:30:22.88
Aaron
yeah

00:30:24.33
Dalton Johnson
And like, I think that's key because then, you know, you talked about Airbnb's marketing for years. It's like, you know, give them a one year license or give them a two year license. And then it's like, they have to renew if they want those photos.

00:30:36.93
Aaron
Right.

00:30:38.20
Dalton Johnson
So and yes, that go on with what you're saying.

00:30:38.20
Aaron
Yep. Smart.

00:30:40.81
Seth Macey
My question for you is, first of all, I appreciate you saying you disagree with us. That's refreshing. um Not that we say the smartest things 100% of the time, but it's just nice when someone says, you know, don't agree with what you're saying.

00:30:51.71
Seth Macey
I like that. ah So I wanted address that. Second, when would, just I ah want to make sure I understand completely, you mentioned the number 25%. guess were talking about like markup or something. I can't, I'm not really sure.

00:31:04.33
Dalton Johnson
uh

00:31:04.55
Seth Macey
When does it trade and does a trade make sense for you?

00:31:04.61
Aaron
Yeah. So skis. Well, I want to, I want to clarify that too.

00:31:08.27
Seth Macey
If at all.

00:31:09.70
Aaron
So if skis costs a thousand dollars for them, it costs $250. two hundred and fifty dollars So like that's their cost. Is that what you're saying?

00:31:18.55
Dalton Johnson
No, I'm not where I'm going with that is like, like, so I shot a lot for orru kayak a couple years ago and they, they try it.

00:31:29.45
Dalton Johnson
I mean, I don't want to like, they're not a bad company. They're the people were great to work with all of those things. ah Their argument during the negotiations was that I think they were sending four prototypes because we're shooting four different types of uh kayaks their argument was that they wanted to offset the cost of the shoot by saying since we're giving those to you was like if you truly was like one i don't need them so you can have them back i was like don't you can have them back they're well we don't want back um it's good

00:31:57.83
Seth Macey
Right.

00:31:58.92
Aaron
Yeah. Why do I need four kayaks?

00:32:01.11
Dalton Johnson
yeah uh i actually yeah i've gone on to shoot a lot for them and so i think i now have six or seven of them and so yeah but anyways um i like i was like look if if that's something of interest the only thing i could do is resell them because i don't need that many re and so the resale value is roughly 25 of most things and so like you look at like this kayak's a thousand dollars

00:32:02.12
Aaron
Let alone Yeah.

00:32:27.62
Dalton Johnson
realistically, once I go put it out there on Facebook marketplace, really what I'm going to get is 250 bucks, you know?

00:32:34.75
Aaron
Yeah.

00:32:34.77
Dalton Johnson
And so, and that's like, that's like on the higher side.

00:32:34.93
Aaron
Gotcha. du

00:32:37.70
Dalton Johnson
And so it's just like, that's, that's value to me is 25%. Like, so I know you say that the value is a grand, but to me, the value is only 250 bucks. And like, and that's, that's the argument that I have is like, cool.

00:32:48.31
Seth Macey
and

00:32:48.29
Aaron
yeah

00:32:51.00
Seth Macey
yeah

00:32:51.04
Dalton Johnson
Like, I'm like, that's how I can weight it against what I can do. Cause that's how much I'll get for it.

00:32:56.51
Seth Macey
I guess does that does that argument fall through if it's something you intend to keep and really want or you just always see it as something you're going to potentially have to liquidate or get rid of

00:32:56.46
Aaron
right

00:33:09.23
Dalton Johnson
I mean, if it's something I'm going to keep, I'll give somebody full value for it.

00:33:13.07
Seth Macey
Right.

00:33:13.17
Dalton Johnson
may

00:33:13.53
Seth Macey
Okay.

00:33:14.25
Dalton Johnson
you know ah

00:33:14.33
Seth Macey
Fair enough.

00:33:15.15
Dalton Johnson
if i was like

00:33:15.21
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:33:16.36
Dalton Johnson
you know But then I'm also going to charge the industry standard full rate.

00:33:22.22
Seth Macey
Right.

00:33:22.38
Dalton Johnson
like like you know Like, okay, in the outdoor industry, what like a single photo for Instagram is like 150 bucks. You know, so it's like, you're going get a one-time use on Instagram, 150 bucks.

00:33:34.68
Dalton Johnson
And that's what you're going to get because like, you want to play full price, I'll play full price. and And that's just like, kind of like the way it goes.

00:33:41.60
Seth Macey
Right.

00:33:41.93
Dalton Johnson
Uh, so yeah, I think that's like the, the key is like, because I'll discount based off of like things that it just like, I'm like, Hey, like this is what it's worth to me.

00:33:41.95
Aaron
yeah

00:33:52.36
Dalton Johnson
Like, this is what the value the photo shoots worth to you.

00:33:55.46
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:33:55.53
Dalton Johnson
So,

00:33:55.69
Seth Macey
True, true. Let's get back to ah that pesky stage where many people maybe are scratching their heads. How do you market the body of work? I guess you mentioned there's there's two avenues you can really go down.

00:34:06.97
Seth Macey
You can go down the avenue of I've shot a lot of cool stuff during my personal time as passion projects. And now I want to go and license that awesome imagery to companies that already exist.

00:34:21.15
Dalton Johnson
Mm-hmm.

00:34:21.42
Seth Macey
Or there's the avenue of, i have this body of work and i'm hope to dear God that somehow, some way, some company finds it and asks to pay me a million dollars for it.

00:34:37.26
Dalton Johnson
Yeah. Um, I would say like you can throw the like back in the day quotes up. It was a lot easier. um today licensing is getting more challenging, but it still happens.

00:34:48.24
Dalton Johnson
Um, I mean, license some stuff today and had a bigger licensing deal, like 2,500 bucks, um, like two, like a month ago. So like, I mean, licensing still totally happens.

00:35:01.54
Dalton Johnson
Um,

00:35:01.60
Seth Macey
Can you run us through that process? just

00:35:03.97
Dalton Johnson
Yeah. So um the one I had today, it was just somebody inbound. They're like, hey, we found your photos. ah They found them on LinkedIn.

00:35:15.62
Dalton Johnson
And then

00:35:15.69
Seth Macey
Okay.

00:35:16.66
Dalton Johnson
They're like, I really like your work. I would like to like, are these available to license? And then was just like, yes, they're available to license. And it was just like, they're licensing it to put it on their home web page for six months.

00:35:33.44
Dalton Johnson
Yeah.

00:35:34.44
Seth Macey
Now, how are you, and i'm going to interrupt because people are sitting here probably asking this question, LinkedIn. Wow. Okay.

00:35:41.12
Aaron
Thank

00:35:42.11
Seth Macey
ah Are you framing posts on LinkedIn or images on LinkedIn that you're sharing in this example, in a way that invites or suggests that they're available for licensing? How are you treating in that instance, that social media platform as a as a bucket or as an inflow for that potential outcome to happen.

00:36:06.11
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, I think the easiest thing to do would be to slightly back up. I got off of Instagram two and a half years ago and I just came back on in February of this year. So I essentially like left the whole Instagram world.

00:36:16.17
Aaron
hu

00:36:19.26
Dalton Johnson
Somebody offered to buy my account. i was like, sure, you can buy my account. um And so I sold my my last account and now. It's like so all my social platforms and that I've been on have been solely focused on like actually building community and like talking with people.

00:36:26.19
Seth Macey
Nice.

00:36:35.06
Dalton Johnson
So it's like nothing's like a big number, you know.

00:36:37.97
Seth Macey
Mm-hmm.

00:36:39.17
Dalton Johnson
And so it's just like I'm there to like actually communicate with other people in the industry. Um, and so over on LinkedIn, i just like share work, you know, and I, it was like, I shared some old road trip photos from, um, down in like,

00:36:59.49
Dalton Johnson
uh valley of fire area lake mead uh that area and so it was like some old road trip photos that i was actually using to market new project and that comes out or that already came out and it's just like a road trip project but the whole like somebody was just like i like these photos and they fit for they just like they're a travel brand

00:37:02.22
Aaron
Yeah.

00:37:20.48
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, so it's like the they need essentially nondescript, like no logos, things like that, people traveling.

00:37:20.61
Seth Macey
Right.

00:37:29.90
Dalton Johnson
So like that's all it is, you know.

00:37:31.79
Aaron
yeah

00:37:32.80
Dalton Johnson
And so that's really the the entire, like that's how they license them. Whereas like if you look at the other example that I gave that I made 2,500 bucks from, that was like a company that wanted to license images because their product was in it.

00:37:50.11
Dalton Johnson
And so that was like, I shot a video campaign for them. And then they're like, I also shot stills. So I went above and beyond stills were not in the contract at all. And I was just like, I'll shoot these stills because I'm here.

00:38:04.56
Dalton Johnson
And it like flows nicely with like the workflow. doesn't invade the video production, anything like that. um Super running gun production kind of thing. And so then when I delivered the video,

00:38:19.51
Dalton Johnson
i was like also i shot some photos here they are if you guys want them just let me know and then they're like yes we want these photos um they're like our budget is honestly slashed this year uh because of the tariffs and they're like so like that's like impacting our business this is what we can offer and they're like a long-standing client and so i was like yeah we can do that but because you're doing a reduced rate we will reduce the duration that you get to use them

00:38:28.31
Seth Macey
Mm-hmm.

00:38:49.51
Dalton Johnson
And so it's like, that's where it's all like a negotiation. So instead of like, you know, doing their typical package, which they licensed stuff for two years, digital unlimited, uh, non-exclusive, uh, that's like how they typically license stuff.

00:38:52.55
Aaron
Interesting.

00:39:01.40
Seth Macey
Mm-hmm.

00:39:03.74
Dalton Johnson
I think we broke it all the way down to, um some images were six months, some images were one year, some of them were like website only. And so it got way more specific than what they usually do.

00:39:15.38
Dalton Johnson
And that's just cause to fit their budget. That's what we had to do.

00:39:19.03
Aaron
interesting Now, when it's that specific with licensing and it's across multiple clients, how are you keeping track of that?

00:39:20.50
Dalton Johnson
so

00:39:27.42
Dalton Johnson
Spreadsheet. ah i i use I use Notion. And so it's like my Notion, ah have the file name.

00:39:31.79
Aaron
Huh?

00:39:35.45
Dalton Johnson
And then you from the file name, then it has who it's been licensed to. And then it has the expiration date of that license and whether it's exclusive or not exclusive.

00:39:46.48
Dalton Johnson
And the reason that the exclusivity really matters is because if like so i just did some tourism work and so it's exclusive for other dmos like uh like tourism bodies within the region but if i wanted to sell those images as prints or to like hallmark or to um like a medical uh medical licensing um because you know medicine right now or not medicine but like insurance companies right now are really doing they're like they love the outdoors and like if you're healthy you can go outdoors it's like kind of like the marketing right now so it's like they just want outdoorsy photos and it's like super subtle outdoorsy stuff but they pay it much because they put it on a billboard so like those photos could go to them because that's not a competitor based off of the exclusivity that the tourism board asked for

00:40:27.70
Aaron
Gotcha.

00:40:30.57
Seth Macey
Thank

00:40:41.67
Aaron
gotcha But you're are you scouring the internet to see if there's faults in this? like Or does it do you stumble upon it? Have you ever caught something and then had to approach a client and say, like, hey, this is what we agreed on. Now you've crossed the line. What's that mean?

00:41:00.06
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, I've never found it. ah found clients themselves are really on top of it.

00:41:05.72
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:41:05.79
Dalton Johnson
It's people that will just steal your work in general. And that's, it's actually pretty easy. You just like put your photo into Google and be like, where is this on the internet? And it'll pop up all the places that it shows up.

00:41:18.94
Dalton Johnson
And then you're like, cool. And then you just send out an email to those people and be like, Hey, you you you use this illegally. This is what that license would have cost. here's a i think i think in terms of legality you're can charge up to 50 additional as like a like a slap on the wrist bad boy kind of thing and then um you just like they may not pay it but you just send it to their department uh their like their collectibles department or accounting department

00:41:49.80
Dalton Johnson
Most of them won't pay it, but you just write in there like each month it goes up. I think it's like 5% or something is what you're allowed to do. And then you just sit there and then it has to cross the threshold and then you can like actually go to collectible like collections and get your money.

00:42:03.45
Aaron
Wow.

00:42:03.53
Dalton Johnson
Like that's like a very long process for something that like, like,

00:42:08.28
Aaron
Yeah, I'm turned off already.

00:42:10.16
Dalton Johnson
like

00:42:10.61
Aaron
I'm not doing that.

00:42:11.78
Dalton Johnson
For but the most part, like do you ever do that? like No.

00:42:15.53
Aaron
yeah

00:42:15.68
Dalton Johnson
like Usually it's like you just send them a new invoice each month and they see that it's ticking up and they're like, okay, we'll just take it down and send this guy you know whatever.

00:42:19.57
Aaron
yeah

00:42:22.23
Aaron
Yeah.

00:42:26.17
Dalton Johnson
And like that's usually what it happens. I actually had one that people were using all like all my images on blogs. It was like climbing images that they were just using on on their blogs.

00:42:38.14
Dalton Johnson
And I just like called them out and then they're like super nice about it. They're like, Hey, sorry, we're a startup.

00:42:44.47
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:42:44.42
Dalton Johnson
We were trying to just like get around it. And then I ended up writing for him. It was like, just so like people are just like, you know, like, Hey, we're just scrappy and we're trying to do it.

00:42:50.41
Seth Macey
That's, yeah.

00:42:51.21
Aaron
and

00:42:56.05
Dalton Johnson
Like, sorry, you caught us.

00:42:57.04
Aaron
Yeah.

00:42:57.55
Dalton Johnson
And you know, here's, here's what it is like.

00:43:00.37
Aaron
Sorry, he caught us.

00:43:00.67
Seth Macey
ah I had that exact same thing happen to me with the company. I messaged him just being like, hey, this is you know, had done work for this company a while ago and it was just for socials. And then it ended up being, you know, run as advertisements back end and stuff. And I messaged him like, this was not the agreement. He was like, hey man, like, so sorry.

00:43:20.58
Seth Macey
um This was organized by somebody who's no longer at the company.

00:43:20.87
Dalton Johnson
yeah

00:43:25.67
Seth Macey
Here's some money. And like, we're on good terms.

00:43:27.51
Dalton Johnson
yeah

00:43:29.51
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:43:30.38
Dalton Johnson
Yeah.

00:43:30.48
Seth Macey
Crazy.

00:43:30.72
Dalton Johnson
Yeah. Yeah. I find that's usually what it is. like Because it's like, if you look at the outdoor industry, pretty much the only companies that actually have an archive company, like have an art have archivists is like the North Face, Patagonia, like Big Agnes, Cotopaxi.

00:43:47.33
Dalton Johnson
And like, that's about it. like And like what I mean by archivists is like people that are actually paying attention and looking at how that licensing is working and where it's going and what essentially that data.

00:43:59.49
Dalton Johnson
And so like they know. And for the most part, that's because those companies allow you to shoot on spec, which kind of brings us all back to that kind of cyclical cycle of like,

00:44:09.29
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:44:10.71
Dalton Johnson
Like if you're trying to break into the outdoor industry, the easiest thing to do is to shoot spec work, which is like spec is short for speculation because you have the speculation that you'll sell the photos.

00:44:22.32
Dalton Johnson
ah And so you're kind of like, okay, like you go out and you're like, I'll shoot in this, like I'm about to go on an expedition and you see that most the gear head to toe is North Face.

00:44:34.68
Dalton Johnson
So then you're like, well, let's use Patagonia. Patagonia is easier um just because there's Patagonia has a clear submission, open submissions to everyone that you can just ask for the submission guidelines. So like if anyone's interested, you can do that.

00:44:47.14
Dalton Johnson
um So say you head to toe you're going out and you're in Patagonia clothing. You shoot in the Patagonia style, which is like relatively raw, more the like,

00:44:58.39
Dalton Johnson
like side moments, not so much the like, we're like sick athletes, but like, I mean, their famous photos are like, um you know, a baby being thrown over like two rock climbers on one side, baby being thrown over a gap kind of stuff.

00:45:11.32
Dalton Johnson
Like, it's like weird things like that, that are like, yeah.

00:45:12.22
Aaron
Jeez.

00:45:13.69
Seth Macey
I've seen that one.

00:45:14.78
Aaron
Seems dangerous.

00:45:16.61
Seth Macey
We should find out who took that and have them on the show.

00:45:19.17
Dalton Johnson
they That person, you can find them pretty easily. Yeah.

00:45:22.19
Seth Macey
I'm sure.

00:45:23.18
Dalton Johnson
yeah I've listened to a couple of interviews with that person.

00:45:26.40
Seth Macey
oh okay, cool.

00:45:26.48
Dalton Johnson
good Yeah. ah And but like so you would go and shoot that project. And then when you get back, you would edit the images and then you would send them to whoever the editor is, editor.

00:45:41.13
Dalton Johnson
last time I looked patty on you had four photo editors um so they move around kind of kind of deal uh I started submitting to Jane Seaver in the beginning and then it moved to Kyle Sparks and then now I I mean for the most part I would still submit to Kyle but it could be somebody else um because Jane kind of moved on but then it's like they will respond if they're interested in any of those images and be like, hey, we want, or like, usually they put them in an archive.

00:46:14.44
Dalton Johnson
And so they're like, these are the images we're gonna archive. And then maybe six months later, you just get a message from whoever the archive is archivist is, and they go, we're using this photo in this capacity. Is this still available?

00:46:30.21
Dalton Johnson
Just because they have to double check it didn't get licensed somewhere else. You say yes, and you get a check.

00:46:36.84
Dalton Johnson
And that's like, if you're working with Patagonia on spec, that's kind of how it is. ah That's quasi-

00:46:42.75
Aaron
Are you negotiating with those or with a company that big? Are they like, here's your check. This is what it is.

00:46:48.20
Dalton Johnson
ah I guess you could try to negotiate if you want, but they they do have a ah very clear price list.

00:46:52.05
Aaron
Yeah.

00:46:55.09
Aaron
Yeah.

00:46:57.98
Dalton Johnson
And like you can negotiate. like So it's like ah not with Patagonia, but with Big Agnes. I've shopped with them now. I think they might be my most consistent client going on probably like eight years or so.

00:47:10.43
Dalton Johnson
ah And so like they like are every year we renegotiate that contract of like what it looks like to shoot a ah spec piece and submit.

00:47:21.84
Aaron
Yeah.

00:47:21.94
Dalton Johnson
um And that's just like small details that we kind of work out.

00:47:27.62
Aaron
Very cool.

00:47:27.75
Dalton Johnson
um in terms I've never negotiated with with Patagonia but Patagonia also just pays really well so like I've never been um never been offended by like what Patagonia wanted to pay

00:47:35.86
Aaron
Yeah.

00:47:39.36
Aaron
No. I heard if you negotiate with Patagonia, they murder you.

00:47:44.34
Seth Macey
I heard that too.

00:47:45.61
Aaron
Straight up.

00:47:46.98
Seth Macey
We get a defamation lawsuit tomorrow.

00:47:47.05
Dalton Johnson
straight up it's a good thing i never asked Kyle for it

00:47:49.63
Aaron
As soon as you press send on the email, you hear the door knock.

00:47:56.74
Dalton Johnson
oh there it is

00:47:58.15
Aaron
There it is.

00:48:00.14
Seth Macey
ah How can people improve the their inbound funnel? There's a lot of people sitting around waiting for something good to happen and nothing good happens.

00:48:07.99
Dalton Johnson
yeah so i think in terms of like once you get that bolt like that body of work and you start marketing it you can market via email and um via um social i think so like if you look at social the way you're really going to get a company's attention is in the stories it's like you would post them on your stories and then you tag them and tag a bunch of people that it applies to so like in the travel world if you're traveling it's like look at the tourism boards and like the clothing that the people have and like what it fits and so like this is where it takes time of just purely being in the industry understanding what certain companies look for

00:48:51.39
Dalton Johnson
And what I mean by that is like I've shot some images that are like Patagonia style images that have no Patagonia clothing in it, and they'll still license it just because it's like it's a Patagonia shot.

00:49:03.96
Aaron
Hmm.

00:49:04.24
Dalton Johnson
And so like in that context, like that's what they're they're looking for. But that's like specific to Patagonia. um you know, like a tourism board, they don't want big logos and stuff, but what they want is to showcase the destination.

00:49:18.04
Dalton Johnson
And so like, you know, I think about ah some work I did for Visit Homer. Visit Homer, for example, like they just looked at the whole thing and they're like, yeah, like you showcased Homer well, you know, and like I was photographing something completely different.

00:49:32.11
Dalton Johnson
And so like we worked out a deal for Visit Homer and that tourism board to be able to get photos into their hands. And so I think that's where it really comes down to like, truly like just like reaching out and that looks like hopping the DMS and just being super honest, like, Hey, I went out and i shot this piece.

00:49:52.49
Dalton Johnson
I think I have like two or three good images. Um, you know, there ended up being 40, but here's the three best ones. um if you want to see all 40 know here's a link to the folder and just if you're interested let me know and you know for the most part there's probably three people in the photo department marketing department that would be worthwhile for you to like reach out to reach out to those three and you know and send them all the same email just swap their names out because like you know you never really know like does it hit the you know like if you're

00:50:28.43
Dalton Johnson
And then like you're hitting them on email, you're hitting them on the DM, you're also hitting them on the company DM. And so it's like, you have all of those aspects and then like really be able to get in to the companies and start to get your work in front of companies.

00:50:43.65
Dalton Johnson
And like, like my process is like, I would say I'm reaching out to probably close to 10 companies almost every day.

00:50:53.68
Aaron
Yeah.

00:50:54.39
Dalton Johnson
So it's like, like i spent,

00:50:56.74
Seth Macey
300 a month. Mm-hmm.

00:50:58.22
Dalton Johnson
Yeah. And so it's just like, it takes time, but like, once you get in the flow, I mean, money just starts coming in because you're shooting well. Like the assumption is you're shooting well.

00:51:09.26
Dalton Johnson
if If you're not taking good photos, like you'll find out pretty quick.

00:51:13.86
Aaron
yeah

00:51:14.03
Dalton Johnson
But like, if you're shooting good photos, and you're reaching out, like it will work. And the thing is, like nobody's going to know who you are. And as long as you're not being oh like a complete pest, they don't care.

00:51:29.07
Dalton Johnson
you know like It's their job to receive those emails, to look at it and say yes or no. So it is's like it's not like you're being a nuisance. You're helping them do their job.

00:51:40.21
Dalton Johnson
you know, if you email the wrong person, you know, like you get a VP of brand, like that person is not in and charge of like selecting photos. Like they're like, they're in charge of budget, you know?

00:51:51.87
Dalton Johnson
And so it's like you reaching out to the wrong people, hundred percent, they're going like, stop emailing me. Like so this is, you're wasting everyone's time, but like you're talking to a photo editor, that's their job.

00:52:01.57
Aaron
yeah

00:52:05.32
Dalton Johnson
You know, they're there to look at photos and go from there.

00:52:09.16
Aaron
That's interesting.

00:52:09.35
Dalton Johnson
So,

00:52:10.24
Aaron
Seth disappeared for a second. ah Hopefully he gets back on.

00:52:12.06
Dalton Johnson
yeah Yeah, I'd say it's less.

00:52:12.75
Aaron
Yeah. I, the number is interesting. I think that's a good number for people to hear is the 10 a day. It does take time. it does take effort and hit right might be, you know, one out of 10 but you compound that maybe it's less than that even, but in terms of a month,

00:52:34.22
Aaron
Yeah. In terms of a month and how much you can actually shoot, edit, deliver without going crazy. ah You just need a couple of those to hit. And then you potentially have long-term clients. Then those clients have sister brands um like Aura Kayak, like you said, i think Solo Stove.

00:52:49.76
Aaron
Is that under the Solo Stove umbrella?

00:52:51.43
Dalton Johnson
yeah i've worked for solo solo stuff as well yeah and yeah they also have chubbies uh and one other company i'm spacing on right now

00:52:53.60
Aaron
Yeah. as Yep. Yep.

00:53:01.07
Aaron
Yeah. And I started some stuff with solo stove a while back and it did spread to like there, it was right around the time where they had the umbrella of chubbies and, or a kayak. And we did like a whole combined a drone thing. And it was very cool because now you have all these connections to all these subsidiary companies.

00:53:18.74
Aaron
ah So it, it is, it is just a numbers game sometimes in getting on out there.

00:53:18.97
Dalton Johnson
Yeah.

00:53:24.40
Aaron
um I don't know what happened to Seth. Yeah.

00:53:27.74
Dalton Johnson
He didn't like us.

00:53:28.65
Aaron
He was like, i'm I'm good with this convo. As a Canadian, it's his bedtime.

00:53:32.52
Dalton Johnson
Yeah.

00:53:33.70
Aaron
7 p.m. They go to sleep really early ah over there.

00:53:37.58
Dalton Johnson
Yeah.

00:53:40.50
Aaron
Oh, here he comes. He's coming back.

00:53:42.24
Dalton Johnson
Oh.

00:53:43.07
Aaron
He just had to brush his teeth and wash his face. And now he's ready for bed.

00:53:48.28
Seth Macey
i

00:53:49.44
Aaron
So we can he can come back and ah and close up with us.

00:53:54.53
Seth Macey
Did you guys continue?

00:53:55.09
Aaron
Seth, well while you were gone,

00:53:55.45
Seth Macey
it know what how I don't know what happened.

00:53:58.52
Aaron
No, Seth, when you disappear, I freeze up and I am just like, i don't know what to do with my hands. Like, what do we do with my hands? That whole thing. um Yeah, I had no idea. We just sat here in silence.

00:54:12.68
Seth Macey
Oh, really?

00:54:12.84
Aaron
No, I finished the thought and the question and we talked about it just being a numbers game and it's a good number for people to hear it being 10 reach outs per day as a goal.

00:54:24.13
Aaron
That adds up really quickly. The hit rate, he said, is much less than one out of 10. But after a while, you start to get a couple and then you get long-term clients. Those clients have clients that they want to work with and have you work with.

00:54:37.28
Aaron
So ah it's just a matter of getting out there and and reaching out.

00:54:43.02
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, um I'd say in terms of success rate, ah I listened to a podcast between Alex Stroll and Chris Burkhart, and they said that their one in 10 is like what their response rate is.

00:54:57.14
Dalton Johnson
And that's response. That's not yes. That's that's purely a response.

00:55:01.18
Aaron
Wow.

00:55:01.89
Dalton Johnson
and ah My response rates about one in 2025. And then and then um conversion rate to a paid client is right about one in 100.

00:55:14.15
Aaron
range of paper Okay. reverse engineer that. so we're reverse engineer that how many times you have to reach out to get one paid climate client a hundred times.

00:55:25.76
Dalton Johnson
100 times.

00:55:26.78
Aaron
Oh, that that's just the total. Okay. I thought of the one in 25, then one of those out of a hundred, you know, one in a hundred is a paid.

00:55:28.91
Dalton Johnson
Yeah. Yeah.

00:55:33.81
Dalton Johnson
No, um and and that would be like, yeah. So like one in 25 responds, like, and they're like, hey, we're, you know, we might be interested or, hey, we love your work, but it's just not the time for us.

00:55:36.38
Aaron
Gotcha.

00:55:43.25
Aaron
Yeah.

00:55:44.48
Dalton Johnson
Or, you know, like I was talking, I've shot a decent amount of car work and i was talking with somebody that was like, they're thinking about doing ah spec piece for Ford.

00:55:44.57
Aaron
Yeah.

00:55:54.15
Dalton Johnson
And I was like, look, like I've worked for Ford. The thing is, um if they're interested in a location and a zone, they're interested in it. And then that will move because their marketing focus will move.

00:56:06.57
Dalton Johnson
They'll be like, if they've already shot their surf stuff, they've already shot their surf stuff and they don't need it again for another like three to five years. Unless it's like a staple of like, hiking and city, like those two, they're going to shoot every year because they need those.

00:56:20.54
Dalton Johnson
But like, it's, you know, like you have to understand like the company targets an audience and then they live on that for a couple years.

00:56:20.55
Aaron
Yeah.

00:56:28.44
Dalton Johnson
And so, you know, you have to understand like if you're shooting something that's already been shot, they're probably not going to shoot it again. for at least a couple years, unless it's the thing that they have to do every year.

00:56:40.78
Aaron
yeah

00:56:40.97
Dalton Johnson
you know So like that's like mainstays that you would imagine, like best products, things like that. So the that's like the difference on that front.

00:56:49.75
Aaron
Yeah, makes sense.

00:56:52.22
Seth Macey
Can we address one thing?

00:56:56.46
Dalton Johnson
We can address as much as you want.

00:56:58.52
Seth Macey
You were the captain of the water polo team at your college?

00:57:07.98
Dalton Johnson
That came out of left field. Yeah. Yeah.

00:57:11.55
Aaron
You look exactly like a water polo captain if I had to draw one.

00:57:11.72
Dalton Johnson
Yes. i I mean, I'm surprised up in Canada, you even though Orpo is.

00:57:15.98
Seth Macey
Incredible.

00:57:17.84
Aaron
i don't I don't know why, but he does.

00:57:24.06
Seth Macey
I saw it on your LinkedIn.

00:57:25.14
Aaron
That's a hard sport.

00:57:28.30
Dalton Johnson
You're like, this dude just said he got a job from LinkedIn. So I'm going to check out what's going on on LinkedIn.

00:57:33.99
Aaron
Yeah.

00:57:35.27
Dalton Johnson
So when Seth disappeared, that's really what he was doing. was like, hey, going to LinkedIn.

00:57:38.58
Aaron
Yeah. He was deep diving. His internet got bogged up because he was just so deep into your LinkedIn. up see? It's gone again.

00:57:46.28
Seth Macey
and I just switched back.

00:57:46.47
Aaron
no, it's fine.

00:57:47.08
Seth Macey
I was on hotspot cause I was, uh, the internet cut out for whatever reason. And I went to hotspot and I was delayed and I wanted to come back to real time and not try and time my delays.

00:57:56.23
Aaron
There we go.

00:57:56.54
Seth Macey
But yeah, no, I was on LinkedIn when you were, I was curious. I was like, I was typing when you said that earlier in the conversation that you got a licensing deal from LinkedIn and I scrolled and I creeped and it said water polo captain. And I was like, hell yeah. Yeah.

00:58:11.36
Dalton Johnson
Yeah.

00:58:11.44
Aaron
It's pretty cool. Seems like a hard game.

00:58:12.83
Dalton Johnson
Yeah. ah I mean, so I was called an enforcer. So it's like, imagine what you imagine in hockey with enforcer. So like my, my coach told me like, he was like, if you could essentially get an assist, like draw a kick out and do one fight every game, I'd be happy.

00:58:33.31
Dalton Johnson
Like that was like my role. Um, and it's, I mean, it's a lot of fun that you just get to like screw with people the entire time and just like swim around and yeah.

00:58:38.04
Aaron
Yeah.

00:58:42.37
Aaron
In the water.

00:58:44.04
Dalton Johnson
And then it was like, you

00:58:44.46
Seth Macey
At least if you're drowning risk in a hockey fight, holy. I'm trying to picture a water polo fight. That's going to be what I'm going YouTube when I get off here. not i'm not going to send 100 emails.

00:58:51.45
Aaron
Yeah.

00:58:51.73
Dalton Johnson
Oh, they're sweet.

00:58:53.19
Seth Macey
I'm going to look at water polo fights.

00:58:55.43
Dalton Johnson
No, water polifies are sweet.

00:58:55.43
Aaron
It's lot of splashing.

00:58:57.20
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, I had a lot of friends playing in the Olympics. And if you look at like, ah like they show underwater in the Olympics and you're just, it's a constant battle under the water.

00:59:05.80
Aaron
Wow.

00:59:05.97
Dalton Johnson
So, yeah.

00:59:06.44
Seth Macey
Wow.

00:59:08.24
Aaron
That's cool.

00:59:10.34
Seth Macey
That's incredible.

00:59:10.48
Aaron
Cool.

00:59:10.90
Seth Macey
I think this is a good place to wrap up. Dalton, that was very informative. I feel like I went to school today.

00:59:14.81
Aaron
Yeah.

00:59:15.90
Seth Macey
I hope everybody listening went to school and get writing emails.

00:59:21.84
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, ah sounds good.

00:59:23.43
Aaron
Yeah.

00:59:23.85
Dalton Johnson
Emails, DMs, do it. like That's where the test is found.

00:59:25.29
Seth Macey
All of it.

00:59:25.33
Aaron
Yeah.

00:59:26.51
Seth Macey
You just seem like you have your hand in everything.

00:59:26.47
Aaron
Get back to work.

00:59:27.91
Seth Macey
You seem like you're busy. Like there's not a lot of sitting around waiting for good things to happen. I think that's maybe part of the bigger overarching theme of this episode that you do the body of work.

00:59:36.69
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:59:38.11
Seth Macey
You put in the time. Yeah, people will come to you, but you also can't sit around just expecting that that's going to happen.

00:59:45.04
Dalton Johnson
I would say all the art buyers are now so flooded with inbound that they're not really reaching out unless you're like Chris, like, you know, it's like, I've used the same licensing agent as Chris, um, and she's great.

00:59:55.00
Aaron
yeah

01:00:01.23
Dalton Johnson
Uh, but like, you know, like Chris is so big that he has staffed people, you know? And so like, if you're just starting out or something like that, like the whole thing is like, you you have to become known before somebody can even reach out to you and that's where it's like just because you had something go viral doesn't mean you're known like when it was the last time like you saw an instagram post that had you know five million views that you're like even remember who that person was 20 minutes later so yeah so

01:00:27.66
Aaron
Right.

01:00:28.54
Seth Macey
Or it wasn't a comedy bit.

01:00:28.56
Aaron
Very important. Yeah. Very, well, very important point. That's not, that's not the way.

01:00:34.90
Dalton Johnson
Yeah, so Seth, I think you're right. It's just like, like that's that's the whole thing is like, you just have to keep keep it up, but like do it so you build your own work that you're stoked to share. Because if you're not sharing, ah if you're not stoked to share it and you're just like stoked to like kind of like be doing BS work, then you're never you're not going to like last in the career.

01:00:54.46
Dalton Johnson
And like, you know, you should want to last because it's a fun career that opens lots of doors.

01:00:59.92
Seth Macey
We're going to end on that. That's a hell of sound bite. Dolan Johnson, ladies and gentlemen. Until next time, guys.

01:01:05.44
Dalton Johnson
Yeah.

01:01:05.71
Aaron
Thank you. Take care.

01:01:07.47
Dalton Johnson
Cool.