Instagram Mastery: Creating Scroll-Stopping Content with FemForce CEO Stacey Poterson

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Imagine showing up powerfully in every photo shoot, radiating confidence, and creating a magnetic social media presence! This is exactly the journey we embark on with Stacey Poterson, the dynamic founder and CEO of FemForce Photography. 

Stacey provides her expert insight into the power of beautifully branded photos and the critical role they play in your business. You'll gain insider access to her inspiring journey of creating FemForce as a solution for influencers and business owners to get professional content. We delve into the thrilling expansion of FemForce across nine cities.

Plus, we've got news about the exciting upcoming Aligned Business Woman Circle Vision Boards and Goal-Mapping conference- an event not to be missed!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Don't let the fear of high priced photoshoots stop you from having beautifully branded photos for your business and definitely do not let any perceived flaw keep you from showing up powerfully in your branded photos. On today's episode of the Align Business Woman podcast, I speak with the founder and CEO of FemForce Photography, who happens to be our partner in the Align Business Woman Circle Vision Board and Goal Mapping Conference. That is a mouthful. I speak with Stacy Potterson today about showing up powerfully during your photoshoot, why photos are extremely important to build a no-liken trust factor with your audience and so much more, and thinking about having fresh new photos for the year. Then keep on listening. Just now I want you to be getting yourself together to optimize your business performance and results.

Speaker 1: 1:41

Welcome to another episode of the Aligned Business Woman podcast. I am so excited because I have the lovely Sacey Potterson of FemForce Photography, who is so kind to show up with me, and we're doing this great event in Houston, texas, and so if we're gonna be doing this event together, I want you to meet her beforehand, because you're going just to love her energy, you're gonna love what she does with FemForce Photography and you're gonna wanna be able to meet her in person. So welcome, sacey. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 2:14

I'm so excited. Me too. I just love your reels, your Instagram, all the things you make me wanna be better on Instagram. I think I shared this with you that I'm still trying to get on the bicycle of Instagram. I'm still trying to like, learn, like how to be more consistent with that. So I'm glad that we're talking about how to be consistent with your social media and all the things as we dive into today's episode. And thank you for inspiring us. Tell us how did you get started with FemmForce Photography, because it is a brilliant idea.

Speaker 2: 2:49

Yes, yes, thank you. Okay. So I have been a photographer for let's see 13, going on 14 years, photographed a lot of weddings portraits, high school seniors, boudoir, but mainly focused on weddings. And I was getting to the place where I was gone on nights and weekends, which meant I started missing my kids games. I have three kids. They're in sports and I didn't want to be that mom where I wasn't showing up to games. And there was one game where my son he was five at the time he was playing first base. He got nailed in the chest with a line drive, knocked him down. Coaches from both sides were running over making sure he's okay and I wasn't there.

Speaker 2: 3:34

I was out of town, I was photographing a wedding. He ended up being fine, not on pop over there, it was good. But I remember getting that text when I was shooting the reception and I was like trying not to pull up, try not to like tear up, right, I had to go to the bathroom just to like catch a breath. And that was kind of like the point where I was like all right, what, what else can I do with photography, with my talent, that can still support my family? And after that I started photographing a friend who was in the influencer space, so she was a fashion blogger and I started listening to what it was her and other people in the industry were asking for.

Speaker 2: 4:15

And then that's when, like a light bulb hit me and I was like, oh my gosh, there's nothing that's servicing these people. It was either iPhone selfies, which you know they're okay but they're not professional, or it was, you know the professional branding photo shoots, which are great, but sometimes, when you just need content, all the time you run out of photos after you do a branding shoot, and sometimes those are just really expensive and hard to attain every single month. So I was like, okay, well, what if I helped these people and created something that makes it fast, easy and affordable to get professional content so they can always be promoting themselves? And that's basically kind of how FemForce was formed was just listening to what people wanted, and then I just formed the idea around that.

Speaker 1: 5:02

That's amazing. When did you start this?

Speaker 2: 5:05

That was summer of 2019.

Speaker 1: 5:09

Oh, wow, I love that you say that you were just listening, because a lot of times we want to create, and I'm very much guilty of this. I want to create what I'm passionate about and without really asking, without as a generator, I need to respond to things. I don't know if you're into human design. I need to be able to respond to things, but there's like a it's a two-way street. Yes, we want to put out what we're passionate about, but we got to see if that there is a market for it.

Speaker 2: 5:36

Yeah, you can make sure there's a bit of demand for it, for sure, yeah yeah, and I love that you're you're such a savvy businesswoman.

Speaker 1: 5:42

I admire you so much for that. Was it in Arizona, the first location that you started this?

Speaker 2: 5:49

Yeah. So Phoenix, where I'm based, was city number one. Um, ran that for six, seven months and then started getting asked again, listening to what people were wanting, started getting asked hey, do you have this in this city? Do you have it in this city? Are you guys here yet? And I was like, okay, well, what can we do to get into other cities to help other women outside of Phoenix? And so then that's when we expanded to Denver with city number two and now we're in nine cities total.

Speaker 1: 6:18

That's amazing always joke around that I'm a photo whore, like I always had to have new photos, yeah, and I remembered one of my friends who is a photographer here locally. I mean, she has great photos, but for me to be able to have photos all the time with her, that's gonna be so much of my, my marketing budget, right? Mm-hmm, I love you know. She had said, vanessa, you need some fresh, new photos. And that's when I found out about them for us. I was like, yes, this is exactly what is more feasible, more practical for someone that needs that content but also it doesn't want to spend two thousand, three thousand dollars every photo shoot. You know right, tell me why are photos so important for businesses?

Speaker 2: 7:01

Yeah, I think it's really just a great way to Let people get to know the person behind the brand, and we're talking photos of yourself. So we're talking about mainly people who are service providers, who are personal brands. They're the people who are actually providing the service to their clients and we're talking about posting photos of yourself. This is really important so other people your ideal client, your audience can get to know, like and trust you and see the face and see the person behind the brand. So we're like no stock photos and no stock videos. Like show yourself, because that's what's gonna draw people Into you and to actually purchase and use your services. They want to know the person behind the brand. People connect with people they don't connect with. You. Know a cute photo of coffee.

Speaker 1: 7:50

So true, yeah, and so will this work for any type of business?

Speaker 2: 7:54

Yeah, it's more directed towards service-based professionals. We don't really do product photography. So if your product-based Service or a product-based business, typically you're gonna probably use a different type of photo shoot structure. But if your service provider, if your personal brand, absolutely for anybody that is trying to promote themselves, this is for any type of service.

Speaker 1: 8:17

Okay, I love that. Yeah, one of the ladies that always shows up to my events. She is the creator, spicy mama Salsa, and she wanted to be there but she's going to be out of town and I was like, yeah, you could totally. I mean, I know you say that it's not necessarily for products, but you know even someone like her who is the brand of her product that would probably work right, like her and yeah, and we do have people that do have products.

Speaker 2: 8:39

We don't do strict product photography, but if you want to bring your your product in and get a lifestyle type photo with it, then yeah, that's what we're all for, because we're really like creating a lifestyle content. We're creating fun, just showing personality. So if you have salsa, maybe you're coming to a restaurant, we've got some chips in there and you're eating it like that's perfect.

Speaker 1: 8:58

You're so creative to. During the line business woman circle, everyone that attends is going to get a minimum of two to three headshots, and then there's tiers for people to get headshots plus lifestyle photos, and the highest tier people are to get b roll. Can you explain what b roll is?

Speaker 2: 9:14

to us. Yeah, so b roll is basically video content, but it's kind of like behind the scenes type content, so it's not where you don't need to be talking to the camera. You don't need to be dancing. If you don't want to, we can get you working, we can get you. Maybe you're on a conference call. I put that in quotes. If people can't see me, you're on a conference call. You're on your phone. Maybe we have someone else in the video with you and you're doing a consultation.

Speaker 2: 9:42

So we're just getting like a video of you working, of you moving so many different things that we can do with that. Maybe you are jumping, maybe you do have a fun personality and you want to dance. We're going to do something fun with that. Maybe you have something that you are really excited about and you want to showcase that, so we're going to get something like super fun. If you are a business that maybe you talk about trauma or you do set that type of coaching, maybe we're going to get something a little more subdued. Maybe you're reading a book or something like that, so it's just like video of you moving and then you can translate that into a reel, put some text over it and it works out amazing for Instagram content.

Speaker 1: 10:23

Love that, yeah, and so that brings me to my next question. Having these photos and the B the B-roll I was about to say B-roll the B-roll I mean we should call that. That's like a perfect name for it how does that help you show up consistently on your social media feed, and why is that important?

Speaker 2: 10:41

Yeah, well, I don't know if you've ever like gotten to like it's 6 pm at the end of your day and you're like, oh my gosh, I haven't posted anything. You pull up your phone, you're like going through your photos and you're like, oh, I already had that photo, I already posted that, I already did this. Oh man, okay, I'm just going to reuse this one. I already have that outfit, so it just helps. You have fresh visuals to always be posting. That's going to be like step number one. Then step number two is creating a really great caption. The whole point of Instagram is just really giving value-driven content, excuse me. So we're going to have a really great visual and a really great caption, and so we're here to help with those visuals. Absolutely, photos, b-roll, so you always have something fresh to be posting. And now you don't have the excuse of, oh, I can't post today because I have nothing to post.

Speaker 1: 11:30

Yeah, that's been. I've been like that, I'm like, ah, and I think that's another reason why I'm not as consistent on Instagram as I would like to be, because I know that's where my audience is as well. So I kind of make things a little bit harder for myself by being in Facebook groups or different places where there is just not as many of my you know, my ideal clients in there. Okay, so during the conference, you're going to do a portion of like a little segment for us to kind of get our energy moving and kind of just like switch it up a little bit, and it's going to be posing. You're going to show us how to pose during the lifestyle photos. So what is something that people would need to know for this segment and why it's important to understand some of the things that are gonna be teaching us.

Speaker 2: 12:13

Yeah. So the biggest thing that I hear from women, especially of why they won't do a photo shoot, is like I don't know what to do, I'm not ready, I need to lose 20 pounds, I don't know, I'm just not gonna do it because I don't know anything about it. I'm kind of scared, I'm gonna feel embarrassed. So what I have found is if we help female entrepreneurs, if we help these women with some posing fundamentals, they're then armed to go into their photo shoot knowing what to do, and it helps a little bit just kind of ease some nerves and be like okay, I already know what to do, I'm ready.

Speaker 2: 12:49

And, of course, the biggest thing with photography, with getting photos, especially of yourself, is to continue doing it over and over and over again. Repetition is key. This is how you're gonna learn poses that you like of yourself. Everybody likes different angles, right? And if you're not in front of the camera and you don't know what your angles are, you're not gonna learn that. So just getting in front of the camera, doing it over and over and over again, figuring out what poses you love of yourself, and then doing that again. So it's a learning experience. But I have found that when we know some posing fundamentals. It helps when we go into the photo shoot. So we're definitely gonna go over that at the conference and I wanna have everybody fully participate and know that it's gonna feel weird and it might feel awkward and you might feel embarrassed when we're doing it, but we're all doing it together, so we're all feeling it at the same time.

Speaker 1: 13:43

I can already hear and see us giggling and just kind of. You know. And when I did my first photo shoot I think it was Jessica, who's the local photographer here, right, I watched your videos and I practiced and I was doing the thing I probably look silly, but no one was in my home office as I was doing that and what I loved is that the consistency that your photographer's had, like she even kind of reminded me when I forgot do the little snap and do this. And I have been dealing with losing weight after my son he just turned four and I'm like I'm still trying to lose that weight.

Speaker 2: 14:15

Yeah, yeah girl.

Speaker 1: 14:16

I feel, yeah, when I looked at those photos I was like, wow, those angles do make a big difference. It did help me feel more confident and more willing to share those photos. I was like, yes, I love these photos and keep using them. It just I don't know. And then she made me feel good too. She's like girl, she's like you're so gorgeous. I was like, oh, thank you.

Speaker 2: 14:37

Oh, our photographers are amazing, and they're both gonna be there at the conference too. You guys will like love them, but I love that.

Speaker 2: 14:44

The posing is key because we're not gonna post photos we don't like of ourselves. But it is a learning experience. It's a skill that you have to learn and you learn it by practicing it. So you might have a photo shoot and you're like oh, I don't like any of these photos. Instead of taking that like personal and being like, oh, I'm this, I'm that, I need to lose weight, look at it as a very. I always like to say, like how athletes look at film and look at like their performance from the last week and what can they do to tweak it. So tweak it next time. Don't take it personal, don't put anything on yourself, just go oh, that angle not my favorite, I'm gonna try to set this other angle next time. And then just that's how you learn and then that's how you end up mastering it, and then that's how you become quote unquote so photogenic.

Speaker 1: 15:31

Yes, photogenic, love that. Thank you for those tips. And then, how should people prepare for their photo?

Speaker 2: 15:37

shoot. Yeah, have hair and makeup done for sure. Get ready to go and have a cute outfit on, Anything that matches your brand colors. You don't have to be matchy-matchy, but as long as it can coordinate and anything as far as clothing that kind of represents your personality. I know a lot of times when we think about a photo shoot it's like, oh my gosh, I have to wear a plain white shirt or plain black shirt and that's it. No like layer, use some colors, you can have some patterns in there. Whatever is your personality that kind of showcases who you are. Bring that to your photo shoot, wear that to your photo shoot, and hair and makeup done, and then we're ready to go.

Speaker 1: 16:14

Yeah, so I'm so looking forward to this. I'm hoping that I can do a photo. We'll see. I know it's gonna be a jam packed day, but I know it's gonna be amazing. I just know that everyone that, every one name that is over there you can't see them all. I love it. Yeah, we have some more that are going up there, but every name that is up there so far. I'm so blessed that they're going to be joining us and I know that you'll love their energy. It's going to be a fun time. I imagine it a big room, a ballroom of just fun, like friends getting together and setting our goals and creating our content and leaving that conference with so much like taking care of you know what I mean. Like we got that done. We got that done and then feeling like uplifted. So I'm really excited about it. Love that. Thank you so much for being here. Was there anything else that we could touch?

Speaker 2: 17:05

on. I think that's it. Just come ready to might feel a little awkward, but know that it's going to be worth it and just come ready to receive and just to like go for it.

Speaker 1: 17:18

Yeah Well, thank you so much for your time and thank you all for catching this episode of the Aligned Business Woman. We'll catch you next week and make sure that you sign up right now for the conference that is happening January 11th here in Houston, Texas. Last day to buy tickets is January 4th, so make sure that you buy them as soon as possible, because I know that you get busy. The link to sign up is in the show notes or you can go to Vanessaandmillercom forward, slash the circle. We will see you at the Aligned Business Woman Circle vision boards and goal mapping conference. Bye-bye, Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Aligned Business Woman podcast. I'm your host, Vanessaandmiller, and I'm so excited to share some good news with you. Head over to the show notes so you can grab your free gift and make sure to leave a review and join me inside the Aligned Business Woman Facebook group Until next week. Bye-bye, my love.