How to Break The Freelance Spiral and Scale a Business | With Paul Weaver Ep. 21

0:00Chris Cruz:How does a high school kid with his dad's old Canon camera become one of the most trusted business voices for photographers? Meet Paul Weaver and the playbook every creative should be sealing to grow a business. Paul wasn't the art kid. He was a baseball guy who happened to fall in love with a camera. But he notices something nobody else does. Creatives aren't failing because they lack talent. They're failing because they lack business systems. Fast forward and he creates a business teaching the six pillars every freelancer needs. In the killer mood, the golden nugget strategy. Stand out instantly.

0:30Chris Cruz:It's how he landed Pepsi and how he landed retainers worth real money. Paul's story is simple. Creativity gets you noticed. Business gets you paid. And the moment you learn both, you stop surviving as a freelancer and you start building a career. This is Anatomy of a Brand where every week I talk with people shaping culture. Founders, marketers, entrepreneurs, and creatives. And if you're one of those, subscribe to never miss a conversation. This is episode 21 with the freelance photographer founder, Paul Weber. Paul, man, thank you for taking the time with us. Thanks for being on. Thanks for having me, man.

1:01This is exciting.

1:02Chris Cruz:Yeah, bro. You've built something incredible and that's impacted even some of our team. They've followed you along your journey and some of the tools you've taught and your freelance photographer stuff has really impacted a lot of us. So we're excited to dive into this. But what I want to jump right into with you, Paul, is where did you start? So obviously you have a business you've built and that was recently acquired, but you started somewhere in the photography industry. Where did you start? Yeah, yeah. It's so funny because I live in Miami right now, but I'm from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Okay.

1:33And if I look back at even like high school, I was like the jock, the sports guy, but then I was very creative. Okay. So it was this weird balance between like I wanted to be in the MLB someday, but also I knew that I wanted to run a creative business. so how i got started was i picked up my dad's canon t2i camera back in my junior year of high school wow and started dabbling with it just with like the local music scene going to concerts shooting with friends during like lunch period and i just realized wow people like the portraits i'm taking so my start was really yeah using my dad's camera um back in high school uh shooting portraits.

2:16And then that kind of brought me into the music industry, which was really like the first time I actually got paid for my work.

2:23Chris Cruz:Oh, wow. And so that journey, I resonate with that because in high school, my dad got me a stolen copy of Photoshop. And I started designing in high school with my first in design tech class and all of that in high school. So I resonate with starting in high school. So you, but from there, you, did you stick with it for, did it come back to you? Did it stay with you? Were you always in the photography industry from that point on? Yeah. Yeah. So I think at that point I knew I got to go to a four-year college and figure that out because that's what you do. At least in my family, it's like, go to college, get that done.

2:59But it was cool because at the same time I was getting paid for senior photos. I was shooting weddings, which is how a lot of freelancers get their start in the industry. The curveball that my parents really didn't like was not only was I going to concerts, but I was actively trying to pitch to musicians and labels.

3:16Chris Cruz:Okay. Because my dream at that time was to go on tour. And before I knew it, I went to college freshman year and got hit up by a independent artist and was able to go on kind of a Midwest sprint of a U S tour. And it was, um, with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Oh, that's awesome. Crazy. Which one hit you up? Were they the guys that hit you up? It was actually this guy named XP that grew up with Macklemore and was kind of integrated in a lot of their tour planning. Okay. And they'd seen my portfolio and I'm like, let's make it happen. So your first tour, let me just make sure I'm saying this correctly.

3:57Chris Cruz:The first tour you did photography on was a Macklemore tour with Ryan Lewis. Yeah. Not a bad first star. so i shot a few other shows in the midwest um and from there i worked with this r &b artist named somo i went on tour with kevin garrett and then did a lot of one-off shoots with like many different talented musicians um but yeah that was like a big moment for me because i would get the checks sent to my parents house because that's where i was living yeah and they would open up the mail and they're like wait you're actually like getting paid for this so that was kind of like the light bulb moment that i was on to something i was able to say hey i can make money with my camera at that time i was also learning how to shoot video which i saw almost like saw as a need for most clients just not only in the music space but outside of the music space um so that's really how i learned settings iso shutter speed aperture how to shoot in low light.

5:00And it really propelled me when I then wanted to take the leap and start working commercially with brands.

5:05Chris Cruz:And so the, the, the freelance route, did, did that stay long or did you start to establish something else that people were hiring? Were they hiring Paul Weaver and just hiring you directly? Or did you, did you at some point in that journey, make a pivot outside of just going by freelance or did, how was that journey? Yeah, always freelance. I took a year to work at an agency in Minneapolis. Um, I shot all the content for, uh, once upon a child in Plato's closet, they're like secondhand use, um, clothing stores. And that kind of taught me a lot around how to manage and how to shoot on multi six figure budgets.

5:43But after a year at that agency, I realized, man, I want to break out and like, kind of just test things out, be the jack of all trades for a season. So that's kind of how I then, um, ever since have been full-time freelancing.

5:57Chris Cruz:And so then you went from full-time freelancing though, you started to identify something in the market that didn't exist based off of something. What was that thing that you started to identify in the market that didn't exist that led you to starting a different kind of business? Yeah. First year I went all in on my freelance business, shooting photo and video for brands. it's funny because that was like my season where I would jump from like doing a fitness shoot to shooting food to shooting a kid's birthday party to shooting a wedding and my portfolio was all over the place but my bank account was a number that I've never seen before wow so that was like the first year where I'm like I'm burnt out I made a lot of money and now I gotta niche down But in that journey, I realized that I'm really good at the business side.

6:46And I found that most freelance photographers that I was rubbing shoulders with were very creative and not business minded.

6:53Chris Cruz:Yes. So I saw this gap in the market where it's like, not only do I love working with brands and being the freelancer, but also people want to pick my brain over coffee, but I can't share everything over a cup of coffee because it's more than just a 30 minute powwow over, you know, espresso or something. Yeah. So you started to identify, you're getting reached out to. So you're like, all right, I'm crushing this freelancing business. And in that freelancing business, is that when you were working with Lululemon, Garmin, and Ollipop, or did that come later? That came later. Okay. So those brands came later.

7:27Chris Cruz:Go ahead. Yeah. Mentor of mine in Los Angeles was like, dude, you're not moving anywhere outside of Minnesota until you put Minnesota on the map as a photographer. And I'm like, all right, let's go. But I started working with a lot of small to mid-sized businesses. which it's interesting because when I first picked up a camera, I wanted to work with the big national brands that we all know and love. But now that I know a decade into this, those companies are typically hiring agencies that hire freelancers. So in order for me to even get noticed, I need to build a book of work and get paid working with small to mid-size.

8:04so yeah i didn't really work with any big big brands maybe there was a few um i worked with hilton early on uh i landed pepsi or like the majority of my clients on paper looked very very

8:18Chris Cruz:small so okay we're gonna get into a little bit of the the market you saw and how you started to solve a problem there but i want to kind of double tap into something you just said about that agencies um these big brands don't usually hire a freelancer they hire an agency is that still the case? Is that still what you're seeing? Or are you seeing it change and they're going directly to these individuals now? Or is it still very much that? Yeah, I think the national brands that I'm talking about, they have a more developed voice with the content. And they either have an in-house marketing team or in-house content team, or they're working with a big agency that you might be familiar with.

8:58And those agencies are the ones that are going out and hiring photographers, videographers, um, and support. So that's, you know, I felt like that came a much, maybe like five years into my business.

9:10Chris Cruz:Okay. Um, going full-time freelance. And I really think those brands like agencies started taking me a little bit more serious because of my book of work because of my portfolio. Love it. So, okay. So like, I want to hear how you scaled from individual freelancer who's carrying the camera doing the work to then actually did you ever build an agency or was it still freelance mostly and then you built a business around helping freelancers mostly freelancing i will say there's different seasons though okay it went from paul the freelancer that shoots photo to paul the freelancer that shoots photo video to now producer paul where i'm kind of building my freelance business as like a self-agency okay because I want to make sure that I'm able to maintain the client experience, the quality, all that.

10:00And there's people way better than me. So in order to continue to grow and nurture those relationships and be relevant, I've kind of worn this new position of like, I love producing. I love the business side and I'll shoot some projects, but I'll produce others.

10:16Chris Cruz:Okay. And so walk me through how you started your business. Like you, you have a business that serves photographers and videographers, what was the problem you were seeing versus like you weren't teaching them how to take better photos or were you? Like I might have it misunderstood, but you were teaching them a little bit more than that. Not that that's bad. Yeah, so there's kind of these two buckets here. I think people hire people. So when I created my own freelance photography business, I'm like, it's gonna be me. Like I'm not gonna be Shutter Studios. or cold winter studios. I'm going to be Paul.

10:55So paulwishere.com is my website. But the year that I felt like I made the most money and that I was posting the most, and I kind of broke into like freelance and that was my big year in Minnesota, an individual came to me and was like, have you thought about education?

11:12Chris Cruz:And to be honest, at first, I'm like, I hate school. I'm like, I have no interest at all. And he's like, his name's Cole. He's like, what if I helped you with my background and we built like a course for your work? And this was back in like 2018. Okay. Wow. And that's when the freelance photographer was born. Okay. And it started as these little cute in-person workshops in Minneapolis at copy shops where I taught people like the technical side of how to turn on their camera. Okay. Didn't like that. I then kind of tested the waters and like how to increase your pricing, how to pitch better, how to nurture relationships and how to work with brands on retainer.

11:58And that's when the internet and social media was like, well, we want more of that. So that's when I launched the freelance photographer course in 2019. Okay. And that's when that brand was kind of born.

12:10Chris Cruz:but that brand serves that those pillars like you weren't you were no longer teaching people here's how your camera works yeah you're teaching them here's how to build a business you happen to be a photographer but here's how you build the business you start to help them build that their own personal kind of business from that what are those six pillars again you kind of loosely mentioned yeah yeah so the pillars are positioning portfolio which is really marketing pitching pricing production so like all things pre-production day of production and post-production And then the last P is partner, which is client experience.

12:44Chris Cruz:Okay. Can we dive into each one? Can you unpack each one? Yeah, let's unpack each one a little bit more. So a person, whether they're a freelance photographer, or even if they're trying to work with brands, understanding this, and then even for creatives in general to understand this process and up their ability to navigate this market and watching how a business was born, essentially, how you even built this. So let's walk through each one of these. Yeah. And I'll tee it off with saying, as I'm going through these six P's or six pillars, I run this coaching business and I practice what I preach with Paul, like PaulIsHere.com brand.

13:25So it's funny because I really built this around how I've been able to grow my own business. Yeah. So with the first P, which is positioning, it's niching down. Brands right now, they're looking for specialists. I do not think that you can get away with building or scaling a business if you're just a generalist. And I tell people that try to challenge me. I'm like, all right, let's say you're training for a marathon and you need some running shoes. Would you go to the grocery store and buy running shoes from aisle four? Probably not.

13:56Chris Cruz:Probably not. You'd probably go to the running store that has the bandit logo in the window with your favorite runner on the window banner. yeah so positioning is really how do you differentiate yourself in the market that's not new conversation but with photographers it's hard when you come from the portrait and wedding world and you jump into now having conversations with brand decision makers you got to be more specific so in the in the in the niching down and positioning part here you hear it like you said it's not it's not new language i think what there's two main concerns i'd love to hear how you navigate those concerns when they come up in your course.

14:32Chris Cruz:One niching down is going to impact my financials. Do I not take the work that's not in my niche? And then the other one, if you're trying to build a business and you're niching down, is it based off of what? What is the criteria for yourself to niche down with? How do you define that? Totally. I'll first by saying that there's two different ways I feel like you can define a niche. It's either like industry slash genre or it's your style. Joe Greer, for example, his style is recognizable. Let's go. Like people know it's Joe Greer. But for me, I picked a category. I picked health and wellness. Okay.

15:14So I think you got to pick one or the other or both in order to become a little bit more specialized. And then also, I still take on work outside my niche if the budgets are right. But I want to have leverage with pricing. And I found that the more specialized I got and the more I niched down, the less price shopping happened with clients that were coming to me. So I had more leverage and I almost was able to build this voice in this industry.

15:44Chris Cruz:So let me, I'm going to go in a little bit deeper on this because I think this is one that people get, people know, but they still get hung up on. Like, how does this actually work? So when you're saying style or industry, industry makes sense, right? Like you're picking hospitality or in some industries are much more lucrative than other industries. So there's some that have like people who traditionally pick nonprofits. I'm like, it's going to be tough. Or people who pick health and wellness like you did is very competitive, like very competitive. But then there's this you say there's a style element that you say that is also an issue.

16:19Chris Cruz:How do you explain the style one a little bit more? Or like, is that, what's the elements of that that you would unpack? Yeah, I think that one's harder and more difficult to achieve. Matter of fact, I think that one comes more with just years and years and years and years of experience. Okay. I think when I came up on like, let's just say a year, I'm 13 years in. When I came up on year like eight or seven of my business, I started talking with reps and agents in Toronto and LA and in New York. And I was looking at their book of photographers that they were representing. And the majority of them had each of them had individual looks or styles to the way they color graded the way that they shot.

17:03One individual was really good at shooting more intimate, lo-fi, like holiday content, where the other was all about capturing motion, where this other individual is really good at capturing low light film photos. so i think it's almost like famous uh painters and artists when you're walking through a museum and you see a piece of work on the wall and you're like i know who that artist is right yeah it might be an exhibit on one specific topic but if you know art you're able to call out like i know who that is i know who painted that and i think it's the same way with photography and just videography is um more and more i'm able to recognize people's like editing styles and the way that we capture

17:45Chris Cruz:makes sense and so when we translate translate this first pillar outside of the photography industry it's recognizing like hey do you serve a specific industry and then that industry do you have something about you that is distinguishable something about you that whether it's may not be your style per se in that industry but it's that distinguishing point of view that you have that's different than anybody else in your industry but is uniquely you but you've you're doing it in that industry that makes a lot of sense um so portfolio was the next one you said let's dive into that what you said is marketing is that what okay i mean really it's marketing it's your visual resume okay i've seen so many photographers that um you know are very very successful um and you translate that typically with like okay years of experience but really it's their body of work.

18:38And when it comes to being a photographer, you're not only selling visuals, you're also selling your personality, your strategy, your experience. But when it comes to portfolio, you know, the number one thing that I really like to nail down is like, what does a solid portfolio look like for the type of brands that you want to attract? So that's why niching down is helpful because then you become a little bit more clear on like the type of content that should be curated on your website. But I think portfolio is probably the most obvious one where it's like, you got to update your website it can't be under construction and no longer is it just like paul was here.com it's also your instagram it's your linkedin i like behance um i know a lot of directors are looking on there yeah so yeah you got to build a body of work that speaks to the type of brands you want to attract or the people that you want to work with and so in the portfolio building stage of a portfolio building pillar, you, you want these photographers to kind of

19:36Chris Cruz:get out of what mindset, is there a mindset that they're in that they are not doing this? Cause that feels like a, like one of the, like, yeah, man, I need a portfolio, but like, like, is there a mindset that they have there to like, I don't want to show my work or is there something that makes it difficult for them to do this? This is where these pillars bleed into each other. If you're niched down, you have a pretty good pulse on that market. and what those type of brands are investing into asset-wise. So when it comes to your portfolio, you might need to break up with content that you really like, but the industry is looking for.

20:12Chris Cruz:And that's a really weird relationship because you might need to break up with that portrait from your past life in order to speak to that type of brand that you really want to continue working with. Yeah, and I think that's super difficult for even from creatives to businesses where they're like, this was what we've done before, but we know that the market's changing and I want to be in that market. We actually did a rebrand for somebody who had to readjust how they showed up because the work they were trying to get wasn't what they were getting and they had to change. And so you're saying, but I think there is for creatives, this romantic notion of like, I love just showing my creativity across the board.

20:51Chris Cruz:And they're wondering why no one's picking them. Is that, is that a real thing? Yeah, I think that's where the industry needs more transparency. It just we need to be direct. And that's where like portfolio portfolio reviews come in. That's when like show and tell with a successful photographer comes in, because otherwise you might be like really you might be running in your commercial photography lane, but surrounded with a bunch of like wedding photographers. they don't know what a good commercial photography portfolio looks like because they know how to speak to a bride and groom and wedding planner.