Learn how the right messaging can help potential clients connect with your brand in an authentic way that drives conversion.

Hi, this is Matt Stagliano and thanks for being

part of the artists Forge. We're a community of creatives who

help each other think like an artist. By discussing creativity

as a process instead of a skill or a talent. We believe everyone

has what it takes to create something amazing. We just need

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us on the web at the artist forged calm. Now on to the show.

Alright, so welcome back to morning mug and photo

talk with the artists forage. We are so glad to have you with us

on this Friday, as we end the week with a practical exercise

on how we handle messaging for social media. So during the

beginning, and last few days of the week, we talked about social

media, and how we approach it, what our philosophy of social

media is, and how we choose which platforms to use, which

things align with our business with who we are as people,

allowing us to be able to share the messaging for our brand, in

a way that we actually enjoy and doesn't want to make us pull our

hair out. And then we want to end the week today, with a

practical exercise, using the story brand framework built by

Donald Miller would really encourage everybody. If you find

just our bumbling exercise this morning, we've never gone

through this before of us who will be participating. We've

never gone through this before. And so you will get to do this

with us in real time. And just see what it looks like to try to

use this framework to build clear messaging that will help

clients understand why they should be interacting with us

purchasing from us, etc. And so if that becomes something you

think you know what this is really going to help my business

really encourage you guys to go check out story brand, Donald

Miller wrote the book, there's of course, a website with a

whole bunch of great information and books and templates and

worksheets and all kinds of stuff that you guys can engage

with, if that's something that you find works for you. But

we're gonna be doing that today. And in order to kick us off,

Matt will be in the driver's seat today. But Becca also put a

couple things up on social media, in order to help get us

rolling, you did not have the chance, go hop on and have a

look. Becca is taking over Instagram because she's amazing.

And she's got some really beautiful graphics up for us

just to try to get people to engage and give us an idea of

how we can approach this topic this morning. So Miss Becca,

what were our results from the Instagram poll.

Hands are full sorry. Um, okay, so our little

Instagram experiment, I was glad that a couple people were

willing to play. So what I put up, there was a couple options

to define this kind of imaginary brand that we're going to

explore today and who their customers are. And so our genre

of art is going to be fine art that was the winner after all,

and specifically Fine Art portraits. And then the last bit

there is kind of who our general audience and client that we need

to speak to and define as the cover story is. And we didn't

really have a consensus there. But I think my favorite

suggestion was just open it real quick, artsy people with a sense

of humor, who then need Fine Art portraiture.

Okay, rad. So we are looking at building

basically the core of our brand messaging, the things that we

will be putting on social media to speak to our customers aimed

at Fine Art portrait consumers with a sense of humor. So that's

going to be the core of what we're looking at today. And

Matt, who has experience with this framework is going to be

walking the rest of us through how we can try to build it and

what steps we should be taking. And just guide us a little bit

as we walk through the process. And as we go, the moderators who

can be here are going to be bumbling right along trying to

make this thing work. And we will be bringing some of you

guys up also to help us out. So Matt, you are in the driver's

seat. Good sir. Let's end the week with a great promise.

exercise that hopefully people can learn a lot from and maybe

take with them next week, as they move forward with messaging

on social media.

Awesome. I'm looking forward to it slightly

terrified, because I have no idea where this is gonna go. But

we will figure it out together. So in the, in the interim, where

I was not on the microphone, I did spill some magical bean

juice. So I missed a little bit of what Becca you had said, but

we can, we can bring that in the results of the poll as we start

to develop this stuff out. Sorry. So the story brand

framework is all built around the hero's journey, right. And

so, in a very, very quick, nutshell, overall view of it,

you have a character, which is not you. So let's think of this

in terms of your business, right, you want to write

something that is going to clarify the message of what your

business is. But in order to do that, you've got to really

identify who the customer is, what they want, what their

problem is, how you as their guide, not the hero as the guide

understands what they're going through. You give them a plan,

you call them to action. And then you show them what success

or failure looks like. So essentially, what we want to do

is take all of this information that we're putting together, and

we're developing this story, and we understand what this

character's journey is going to look like, and how we as the

guide are going to solve that problem. We're doing all of

that. So that we can come up with a one liner, a one to two

sentence statement about what it is that we do, and how we can

solve the problem for that character. Okay, so that's

generally the overall framework of the story brand brand script.

So the first thing that we need to think about, and we'll try to

get through this in a half an hour, I understand that we're

going to be cutting some corners, we're probably not

going to go as in depth as we've done, as you would do with a

real brand script consultant. It's usually a four to five to

six hour process to really think through all of this and get

through it. But we'll do what we can in 30 minutes. So character,

what do they want? So this is what I missed Becca, from the

polling. Did we define a character a central person and

what it is that they want from? Well, what is it that they want?

So our general profile here is that we are an

artist who sells Fine Art portraiture, to artistic clients

that have a sense of humor.

So that defines who we are, and what we do. So

we are fine art portrait artists, right? So that's our

company, if you will. So Fine Art portraits. Now, if they have

a sense of humor, and they are searching for fine art

portraiture, well, what is it that they want? Do they want?

And I'm asking these questions and looking for participation.

So I'm just going to kind of throw out examples. Do they want

fine art? portraits? Do they want to connect with someone

that has a sense of humor like theirs? Are they looking for

connection over the actual output? Let's think that through

what is it that what is it that the character wants? So think of

it like in the in the terms of Katniss, right? In the Hunger

Games, she wants to get rid of the government and she wants

things to just be nice and happy. Right? So what is what is

it that the, the the customer wants?

I feel like we've got a couple options there. If I

were to put myself in the shoes of the customer, why would I

want that kind of portraiture? Well, either I want to have a

portrait like that of myself. So I can really display my you

know, fun nature, or I want to outfit my space, maybe my

business space with the kind of portraits that will really give

my customers a good idea about the environment that they're

stepping into, and the kind of business that we run. Okay, so

it was a B, maybe my two potential suggestions,

and we want to stay focused on the customer.

Right? Because so in this in this case, they want a portrait

of themselves in that fine art style. Right? So we're gonna say

what is it that they want? They want a portrait of themselves in

that fine art style. Let's make it painterly, if you will,

right, because painterly is just another sub niche of you know,

fine art portraiture.

So I've got a question. Yes, yep. When we're

defining what they want, are we defining it from what goods and

services they want or from what internal I'll need they're

trying to fill

Ah, see. So that comes next. So oh, sorry, no,

no, it's perfect. But these are exactly the questions that need

to be answered. So what they want is a port and you can be as

descriptive with this as you want or not. But let's say they

want a fine art portrait of themselves. That is in the

painterly style. And they want to stand out from all the other

images that they see of their friends and family, right? This

is what they want, they want something that sets them apart

because of their unique personality pool. Okay. So the

next part of that is to define the problem that they have. And

there's a couple of ways that you're looking at this, you've

got think of this, like the villain of the story, right?

This is the the Darth Vader of the story in Star Wars, you got

an external problem, an internal problem and a philosophical

problem. What we're saying is, the, the customer has a problem

finding this fine art portrait. So for example, an external

problem might be they don't find photographers with good images

on their website, they can't find someone that really speaks

to what what they want to be seen as an internal problem

might be a little bit more like they're afraid to get in front

of the camera. The philosophical problem means something like

they can't justify spending the money to get a to get a portrait

like this. So the problem statement really comes down to

you listening to the customer and figuring out, alright,

what's the real problem? And oftentimes, as artists, if we're

being commissioned for something, or if we're getting a

customer in, then what you have is someone that's coming to you,

and maybe not asking you the question that is really on their

mind. Right? They might say, well, I'd love to get some

photos. Well, what kind of photos? Would you like

portraits? Well, what kind of portraits would you like? I

don't know. But I know what I don't like, or I know I want a

painterly portrait. Or they might not be giving you the real

problem as to why they want it, or what their resistance might

be that they're meeting. So let's define the problem. Now,

in a case like this, let me throw out some examples. Maybe

the market is saturated with fine art portrait photographers,

and they don't know where to go. Maybe their problem is that they

want to get this but they can't justify spending the money on

what they know will be a piece of fine art. Or that the

photographers are hard to deal with, or they're intimidated. So

what do we think this person's problem? Really is?

Are we starting with? So you mentioned three

types of problems that we could? Which one are we going to start

with, like philosophical or, or a bad guy,

or you really can go up and down the chain,

whichever way you'd like, right? Whatever seems to be the easiest

for you to define. And then we can look at that and say, is

there an internal problem or a philosophical problem associated

with that as well?

Okay. Anybody have any suggestions? So why what

would what problem is, is our client facing? I know there

definitely could be the potential that they just can't

find what they're looking for. Yep. I mean, find the right fit

for their sense of humor. Like there's a lot of similarity

between portrait artists and they feel like there's nobody

out there who really matches what they're looking for,

find the right fit, it's too many options.

Right?

Maybe they're also a little bit afraid of like,

maybe their personality is the kind of thing that they really

want to be comfortable in their personality, but they're also a

little bit afraid that they will be mocked or ridiculed for you

know, being so different from other people.

So they want essentially a safe space to be

themselves. Right? And they don't know where they can find

that. Right.

I think that people that are looking for

painterly specifically right, but to a create artwork and not

just photo and to don't want their work to look like

everything else. All of their friends are just going to the

lifestyle or location or whatever photographer and

getting the same pretty airy raw images. Like this is really

where the opportunity that we have to set that work apart so

that the work speaks for itself even outside of the

conversation. That I think is a really powerful avenue for Like

the fine art specifically? Awesome.

So maybe. So maybe we need to figure out if

they were to define their version of fine art, how would

it be different than everybody else's definition of fine art so

that we can speak their language?

From our Greek humor was a big one. Right? So

well there is they have a sense of humor. It

doesn't mean that's how they define the art.

Well, that's so when Becca was fine art. Sorry.

Yeah, she was trying to find like, she was asking folks what,

what they were looking for. And humor was part of what they were

looking for. So we'd know at least that would be no

component, but it style wise, right? Like,

no, but I'm coming from the angle of every

Tom dick. And Harry says they're a fine art photographer today.

Right. And that's probably one of their frustrations, even

though they do want, they do want a sense of humor in their

art, I'm talking about the actual definition of fine art

for them. And how it's different so that when we define ourselves

as fine artists, we stand out from the rest. And yes, we have

the humor part of it into it.

Awesome. Yep. And this is the next part of it,

right? So we've defined the problem, it's great that you let

into that person, because this is going to be our

differentiation statement. So we're able to clearly say,

Alright, we've got a person that wants fine art, they want to

have that safe space, they know that there's a lot of options

out there. And they want something that is not like

anything else. Right, and it wants to reflect their

personality. So where we come in as the guide, right as the Obi

wan to Luke Skywalker, we want to come in and say, we've got

empathy for your situation. And we've got authority. Right?

We're subject matter experts in this. So this is where we get to

be a little bit, you know, I don't want to say arrogant but

self confident. So it might be something, for example, from the

empathetic side, saying something like, we understand

that there are a lot of options out there. But we have been

focusing primarily on fine art portraiture, and especially the

painterly style. For the past 15 years, we have created artwork

for some of the leading celebrities in the market today,

or we've got stuff in galleries all over New England, or

whatever it is, this is where we get to establish not only the

fact that we empathize with their situation, we understand

that there's a problem that they have that needs to be solved.

But that we are also the subject matter expert that is going to

guide them through this process. We are the person that they've

been waiting for, because we've got some level of subject matter

expertise. So with that, how do we want to phrase that

empathetic statement? What is it that we understand about their

problem that is going to help us solve that?

I think there's a framework is issued to here that

we can ask ourselves to maybe clarify, is, are we going to

answer this question from our collective perspective with 1520

years in the business where we have accolades and have built

expertise? Or do we want to try to answer this question from the

place of somebody who's really getting started, maybe they only

have a few years in business. And so they don't have a lot of

those expertise, building things that they can pull on. And we

have to be a little bit more creative. When we think about

how we can position ourselves as an expert to help guide them.

Yes.

I'm going to push back on you, Nicole and say

that you're overthinking this, you're you're getting a little

bit into the weeds in terms of who we are, right? Because this

can apply to everybody this can apply to any situation, whether

or not you have a lot of experience or very little

experience.

So right, right, and I understand that. But what

I'm saying is, if you and I were to say okay, we'll say we have

this award, and we've done the celebrity clients, we've done

whatever, the folks that are listening to us in the audience,

maybe saying to themselves, I don't have any of that shit. How

am I supposed to position myself? You know what I mean? So

no absolute like,

yeah, absolutely. And what I'm saying

is we want to keep it at a level that we're solving a problem

where we can say some of these things where we have that

experience or don't have the experience but all of us have,

you know, when we're thinking about the problem that our

customer has, it shouldn't matter if we have one year

experience or 50 years experience, the it's the

empathetic part of us understanding what they have as

a problem. And then what do we have that sets us up as the

authority to solve that and that doesn't have to be experience.

It could be the fact that right you know, This is my specialty.

Alright, so that's all. That's all I'm getting out. So I think

we're filing agreement.

Yes. 100 agree. Yeah, I just was asking, you

know, shows we could very easily just bring in our expertise and

be like, well, that answers that question. People trust people

who know things. But for people who don't have that, when

they're trying to put themselves in the empathetic perspective,

what can they say? That will help convince people sure that

they can be the guide when they don't necessarily have that

additional experience or accolades,

something like this, you know, if I were to, if

I were to, to approach this and try to come up with that

empathetic statement, I'd say, yeah, the market is really

saturated with people calling themselves Fine Art portraits,

what we do, we've only been specializing in Fine Art

portraits our entire career. Now, you don't have to define

how long it is. But we can say, you know, we are are the ones

that only shoot this, we don't shoot families, or babies or

weddings or anything like that. We shoot Fine Art portraits. And

we understand that a story needs to be told a story about you

that needs to be told. And we can do that by keeping your cost

to a minimum, and without sacrificing quality.

Right. Right. So we can basically establish

expertise in several different ways. Right. So we have

accolades, we have years of experience, we have specialty,

we also have process. And I know that that's one thing that

almost everybody could potentially use, is to say, you

know, we're the only or this is the only whatever, where not

only do we style and set up your portrait, but then we hand paint

everything in Photoshop and add whatever, you know, like, we can

all have expertise in our process that other people don't

have. So that's also a potential thing. Yes. We could be using.

Absolutely. So I'm just writing some writing

some notes down, we want to folk that we focus on fine our

portraiture, we do hand painted, and we've been doing it for

let's say, 10 years. We've been doing it and succeeding in a

saturated market for 10 years, we've been doing it for 10

years, right? Again, can I? Yeah, go ahead.

Just on the topic of breaking into something new,

just in my frantic research of what the story brand was

yesterday, one thing I heard said was that this, this step of

positioning yourself as the guide, this is really, you as

the artist or use the business opportunity. This is when you

actually talk about you, you know, this is the one where

you're talking about you and not about the client. So anything in

your past experience that makes you seem interesting or

relatable, or like you can have some level of expertise, this is

where you can drop that. So that can be things even like I come

from a background in museum art curation, so I have a knowledge

of classical painting that then applies to my photography, or

something like that, even if you haven't necessarily been working

in that genre actively things that you've done previously,

that lead to that this might be the opportunity to drop those

facts.

100%, right. Remember, the the goal of this

is to convince your customer, that you are the guy that's

going to help them solve their problem, right, it's all about

their problems. So there's so many aspects to how you can pull

that from your background, or apply it to your business. You

know, we have the best soap for window washing that you'll ever

find. We've got a proprietary formula, because I come from a

long line of chemists, right, whatever the case is, you've got

the ability to brag a little bit here. This is where you want to

establish that authority. And I think with some of the things

that we just we just talked about, I think that gives us

some some good stuff to work on. Again,

when we add the personal aspect as well, sure,

maybe we can say that we have come from our clients

perspective, because for years, we felt like we never were able

to express ourselves, you know, with with traditional portrait

photography, and we never had a photo of us that we felt like

really showed off who we were. And now we want to be able to

give that to other people or something like that.

Yeah, that's great that, you know, our

mission is to give that emotional feeling that we got

when we were able to stumble upon that. Yeah, sure. We want

to give back. Okay, so now, the next thing is we've got to give

them a plan, right? We've got to give the customer a plan to get

to where they want. So they've chosen us congratulations. But

here's where they can start getting a little bit scared

because we're giving them a plan. They can't necessarily see

the road ahead. But if we can help give them plan to solve

their problem and show them what that roadmap looks like. Then

this is where they start to really engage and interact with

us and start trusting us. So, for example, there's a process

and agreement part of this. And now, the process can be

something like, take a look at all of our image images and find

out what resonates with you. Tell us your entire story. Let

us create images that fit your vision, right. And then the

agreement part of that might be something like, we are going to

give you options, so that we can really fine tune what it is

you're looking for. We will make any revisions that you need

along the way, we will keep working on this process with you

hand in hand, to make sure that the images that we create, tell

the story in the way that you want, you can trust us to tell

that story for you. We're going to be doing that by giving you

storyboards, and wardrobe consultations and makeup

consultations. And we're going to design a set for you, right,

we're really giving them the full on experience, right? This

is we're going to lay out our plan for how we do this fine art

portraiture. So how do we want to define that plan for them? Is

it just basically what I said, laying out that experience for

them? Which could very well be? Go ahead.

Oh, I was gonna say, I think this is to kind of

tie back to our general social media topic of the week. I mean,

this is where like a website is going to be a very, very useful

tool, or I know when we did like the email templates a couple

weeks ago, that also establishing that full well laid

out plan to really real people in through that first point of

contact, I think is really great. Or you can even, you

know, tap into that through however you're using social

media, right, like, show people what that process is, so they

know exactly how it's gonna go when they commit to using it as

a artist.

Yeah, and I mean, we also have the option for

things like behind the scenes as well, because that kind of shows

the plan and action, right, like, people get to see other

people going through the plan. That's what I do for my

illustrations, is I let people when they ask me, you know, how

much does it cost? I say it costs this much. And you send me

your favorite portraits of yourself, and you get to see the

sketch and make the approval. And you get approval through the

whole process so that by the end, you have something you

contributed to help make that you love. So, and that certainly

seems to, you know, you talked about building trust, Matt. And

that definitely seems like when they feel like they've got to

say, and how things go, at least with the illustration, because

they don't get to participate in the actual making of it. It

definitely seems to help people feel like they can trust a

little bit more because they know they have a veto card. Yep.

So I definitely think that that could be a positive way to move

forward.

Awesome. All right. So now, so Oh, go ahead

beside.

Yeah, Matt, I just want to ask if you don't

mind for the benefits of at least for my benefit, and maybe

for some others. Um, it's it's 30 minutes in, can you summarize

where we are in the process right now? What have we done?

What's next? Just kind of in about 30 seconds.

Absolutely. So we're about halfway through. But

the rest of this is going to start to move really quickly. So

we've defined a character, which is going to be the hero of this

journey. Our customer is the character. We know that they

want Fine Art portraiture, and they have a sense of humor. And

they want that reflected. They have a problem, which is it's a

saturated market. They can't seem to find the right fit for

them. They're afraid they want to be comfortable. They want a

safe space, and they want a painterly portrait that really

reflects them. They meet the guide who is us, and they find

out that we focus only on fine our portraiture we have a degree

an MFA, we've got we've been doing this for 10 years and

focusing only on painterly portraits. And we've got the

expertise that they need. We give them a plan. This is step

four, giving them a plan where we can say go to our website,

download the PDFs, or subscribe to our emails. And we are going

to show you how this plan works. You get to become a partner with

us throughout this entire process. And we are going to

help you create and craft the story. But instead of us doing

it for you, you're going to be a partner with us in this. The

remainder of this process is going to be calling them to

action, showing them what Success and failure looks like.

And then we're going to come up with our one liner to summarize

all of this together. So we've only got a couple more steps.

And I think we're making some really good progress to give an

overall general view of how we come to that one liner to

clarify the message of what our business does, and how we can

solve this for our customer. Does that summarize I

think, yes. Now that we're at the halfway mark,

what do you all think about grabbing some folks from the

audience and letting them maybe complete this last part?

Sure. Absolutely.

Okay, great. So you're in the audience today,

and you want to come up and fill in the rest of our plan for our

new business and how we're gonna handle messaging, raise your

hand, Oh, I did not make people months today, because I'm a

complete loser. I'm so sorry, guys.

I'm grabbing you right now. And while we're,

while you're going through that, Nicole, Ari shot me a message in

the background? Thank you, Ari, for sending this because it's a

really, really, really good question. And he says not being

in the industry, not your client avatar. So I don't understand

why being a portraiture specialists versus a general

photographer is, you know, a way to brag one genre over another.

And I think, Ari, that the point of this why specialization is

important is we defined at the beginning that the character

wants a fine art painterly portrait type of photographer,

someone that specializes in that. And as a photographer, you

know, you can be broad in general, and know your

techniques and know photography, and be able to provide that as a

general service to as wide a group of customers as possible.

The people that tend to specialize in a certain genre

weddings, or babies or maternity or fine art, tend to only live

in that space, the majority of the time, and therefore can be

seen as more of an expert than someone that knows how to use a

camera, but doesn't necessarily know the finer points and

techniques of fine art portraiture. I hope that makes

sense.

Right? So it's hiring a cardiologist instead of

a general surgeon to talk to you about exactly that exactly that

I see, we've got some hands up, okay, I was having problems, I

wasn't able to grab people earlier. So for some reason, my

refresh is not working, I'm just gonna have to trust you guys

that were snagging the folks who raised their hand.

And I'm

real quick, on the topic of them being you know, in

a niche or not, because this is something you know, that I've

personally, like, struggled with, like, where do I define

that do I don't want to segment, you know, my branding off into

little sub brands, you know, I want to just be me and what I

do. But I feel like keeping the messaging the general messaging

that you put on the world, you know, whether that's your

website, or your ads, or your media or whatever, not confusing

people as to what you do really needs to be the key. So just

because you might specialize, say in, you know, high school

seniors, doesn't mean you don't take other clients. And it

doesn't mean that someone's gonna see your website and be

like, Oh, well, they, you know, their marketing is towards high

school seniors, but I like their style, you know, so I'm just not

going to email them. So just, you know, wanting to really have

a clear message in the general scope of the work that you do, I

think is better than keeping a really, really broad and having

seniors and headshots and landscape all together in one

place and confusing people, and they don't know if you're going

to be the right fit. If that makes sense.

amount of time, you can just quickly quickly

clarify. Sure. I think I missed like it was a little bit

misunderstood. I am the avatar. I am not the creator. And what I

was saying is that I was suggesting that being clear to

the client, why the specialization, why it's

important to have the cardiologist versus the

generalist, because that's not intuitive to me. You explained

it very well, just now. Okay. I was just saying that. That's

what I was trying to say, No, I

totally get it. And apologies for, you know,

misinterpreting, but yeah, I think you get it. That's the

whole point of how we define being a guide. Right. So we take

their problem, whatever it is, and then we distill it down to

how we are able to guide them to their solution. Because of

whatever expertise that might be in in photography. It's, you

know, the specialization is that is that expertise. That's all it

comes down

to, but that's fine, but that's part of

educating. I mean, what are you saying it's educate me? Because

I don't know, right? So it's part of educating them? Just the

same, you would educate them about the difference in two

types of prints that you're offering? You know, why is this

paper better than that paper? Like, why would I want that? And

he's saying, why would I want to, you know, why would I want

to specialize portrait instead of a generalist? Right, right.

So it's just so I guess the question is, in our statement,

eventually when we get to it is educating the client on certain

things is it should it be part of it, can it be part of it?

Right. And And remember, the intent of this is

to come out of this with a like a one to two sentence statement,

that is going to be the top of our marketing funnel, right?

This is going to be the thing that draws people in so that as

they're cruising around and they find our website, we happen to

summarize in one or two sentences, exactly what they're

looking for. And it's extraordinarily clear. And that

is the reason that they're going to interact with us. Right? So

there might be better fine art photographers out there and more

prominent ones, but because we're able to clearly solve

their problem clearly define our messaging, that indicates that

they want to come interact with us. Cool. Okay, so the the next

part of this is the call to action, right? And these are

generally the the similar calls to action. What do we want them

to do? Do we want them to call us schedule an appointment,

download a PDF? What are the things that we want, and if

there's two ways that you can go about there's there's the direct

action, which is, hey, give us a call, schedule an appointment,

go to this link, do this thing. The transitional is, if you want

to learn more, here's a PDF on good fine art versus bad fine

art. Here's 10 things that you want to look for in a fine art

photographer. Here's the real costs of you know, creativity,

here's how to tell a story, right? It's the it's the not

direct stuff to continue to bolster that subject matter

expertise. Me, when I go through this with clients, I tend to go

for the direct action. What is the direct action that you want

them to do? Is it scheduling an appointment? Is it making a

phone call? Is it sending a form on a website? What do we want

them to do? To interact with us? In this, this, don't overthink

this, like do we want them to call us email, website form?

Direct Message carrier pigeon?

So we did bring up gene Ari, if you're also

interested in participating in this part would be great to have

you. So what do we want him to do? Guys?

Well, so I've been working on my, all my

HoneyBook stuff here recently. And so I guess one of the things

that comes to mind, for me, is, you know, definitely, I don't

want, I don't want a call to action, that's going to require

a final decision, or that's going to require some kind of

finality, that might scare somebody away from from

executing that call to action. So I definitely like the idea of

it being kind of a soft call. And because I'm trying to

establish a rapport, and a relationship with this person, I

feel like, you know, I need to get some basic information about

who they are, and what they're looking for. And so I think

asking for more information through either a contact form or

a questionnaire and framing it as a way to get to know them a

little bit better. So that we can come together and, and make

sure that we're delivering exactly what they want. So I

guess, you know, I mean, that, I guess, kind of pre loaded the

question. But you know, it's definitely just a soft call, you

know, to fill out a contact form so that I have some more

information about them so that I can make a decision about

whether this client is a good fit. When I want to talk to the

client, when I'm going to need in order to satisfy them, can I

satisfy them, but not frame it that way with them? For them, I

would want to say, I would want to frame it more like I'm I'd

like to get to know them a little bit better, so that we

can be friends.

Again, and that is brilliant in terms of the I

would also put something in there like you know what

artistic style or whatever it is that that specific genre that

are what are you looking for in this? What are you looking for

in that? Now you're engaging them in what their need is?

That's, that's, you know, that's awesome.

Okay, so we'll say we want them to fill out

this questionnaire, and that will enable us to schedule an

appointment and have a better consultation. Does that work?

And we can have a face to face conversation. Yep. Cool. works.

Okay, so now, we have to define for them. And this is kind of

the last step before we come up with the one liner. So we're

right on time. So we need to define what success looks like

for them, and what failure looks like to them. So for example,

success might be images that tell their story. They want to

stand out from the crowd. If you go with us, you're going to

stand out from the crowd for sure. You're going to stay

within your budget, but failure, confidence, right?

success looks like confidence. Right, like the

confidence to be this weird, weird person that you are and

fly your freak flag. Hi. Yep. Okay. I feel like that success

there.

Okay. And then failure. What does failure look

like? For them wasting money on a photographer that is not fine

art. Boring Botos overpaying. Like, what do you think that

failure looks like?

Maybe continuing to be stuck in the shadows. Okay.

Awesome. Eugene, I saw you're unmuted. Well, so

I guess I'm I don't maybe this is overthinking

it. But I'm just thinking like, mainly because I'm in the

headshot space right now. So I'm trying to like think in terms of

portrait, so I, I think it's a beautiful thing. I don't

remember who said it was cat, or somebody recently said something

about how sad it would be, you know, if somebody went an entire

lifetime and never had a portrait of themselves, you

know, it's like, do they do they really exist? Like, what is

their legacy? What is their? Where's the proof that they

actually graced the world? You know, with their presence and

all that they are? I think it's interesting, it's fascinating to

me to think about why somebody would want to get a portrait

other than vanity, I think that there's a significant number of

really amazing and important and substantive reasons why somebody

would need to have a portrait done. And I'm just wondering if,

if there's a difference between somebody wanting a portrait

because they just, they want to have that, that feeling of

being, you know, dressed up and having it captured and looking

beautiful. Which is something I'm doing today, actually, with

a friend of mine, the whole reason that she wants to do it

is because she wants you know, that that, that she's never had

a beautiful portrait of herself done. So I'm also wondering if

you know that people are doing this because they're, they're

looking for work as an actor, or they're, you know, so So the

success and failure question comes, you know, down to making

sure that when you when you do engage them on a on a q&a, and

as you're getting to know them, definitely, it's important to

understand why, what what made them come in for a portrait,

make that decision so that you can decide, so that you can use

that information to determine what pass or fail looks like,

yeah, Jane, and I think you hit the nail on the

head, which is why we began asking who our client was, and

what they're looking for. That way, when we get to success, we

recognize. So remember, each individual person is going to

have a slightly different flavor of need. But what we're trying

to do now is figure out how We clarify our messaging. And we

can't talk to every single individual person, when we're

putting out an advertisement on Facebook, or, you know, when

we're posting something on Instagram, what we're trying to

do is have a general general brand may be really clear, and

becomes the heart of our social media presence, etc, etc. And

then, of course, we address people on an individual level.

But when you're creating advertisements, you have to look

at, you know, the, the broader scope of your, your clientele,

and not every single individual subset. So it's that that we're

looking at here, which we began the process by defining who was

this person and what do they need. So our hero needs, you

know, a fine art portrait, painterly portrait of themselves

that has a sense of humor, and showcases their personality. And

then when we looked at their pain point, we recognize that,

you know, what they need is to be able to have a safe space to

feel confident in who they are, and have something that

represents the story of their life. So then we get to take

this part and transfer that to the success part, right, man?

Yeah, absolutely. And it's important

to know that the brand script method that we're doing now this

framework, you can apply this to every niche that you do, you can

do it for headshot, like if you do headshots, and personal

branding and fine art and commercial work, you can apply

the same method to each one of those and have a clear message

for each thing that you do. But it's important, like Nicole

said, to be focused on that character avatar, and make sure

that you're talking directly to that person to solve their

problem. And I think if you do that, you can do this as many

times as you want. It's really a framework for you to better

understand what it is that you offer to the customer and why

they should choose you. Right? So with success and failure, we

can now talk about what their character transformation is.

This is the very last step before we define our one line.

And it's just a general summary to say Alright, well, what were

they before and what are they now? Right so before coming to

Acme photography, the Customer felt like they couldn't have

their story told, and they couldn't find a photographer

that they resonated with in the fine art portrait space.

However, after engaging with Acme portraiture company, they

feel way more confident that their story is going to be told,

and that they'll be able to have a timeless portrait of

themselves in this painterly style that they love that shows

off their their humor, his sense of humor tells their story, and

they can really be proud that they stand out from all of these

other images, you know, that they could find anywhere else.

And that is the successful part. Right. So that's the character

transformation. So now, now, we get to put that into one or two

sentences. Now we can do with three sentences, four sentences,

it doesn't matter, you want it to be a concise statement, that

isn't some big long paragraph on your homepage. Right? So start

thinking about this a little bit. So we've got some of the

the topics of storytelling, that we have the expertise, that

there's fine art, elements of this, that we give them a safe

space, that if they choose us, they are going to be part of the

process, they get to direct it, they get to be an inclusive part

in this. And that if they don't go with us, and you don't know

what you're going to get, it probably won't be exactly what

you want, right? You want to make them a little bit scared of

that failure. So we're writing

this Are we are we centering? Are we writing it

from the customer's perspective again? Or are we writing it from

our perspective, from a place of expertise? Like are we, if you

like, yeah, we have, you know, like, like, where do we go?

Sure, sure. So in and we can say something

like, we understand that it's really hard to find a fine art

photographer to tell your story. All we've done is fine art

photography, we would love to tell your story. Write something

to that effect where you're focusing, I mean, that's off the

top of my head, not very good. But it's targeting,

understanding what their problem is, how we solve it, and what

success looks like. So the first line, for example, could be

something like that empathetic statement. Right? When we said,

you know, it's hard to find the right fit when you're looking

for fine art portraiture. We understand fine art. Because

that's what we do. Talk to us, and have your story told through

Fine Art portraiture.

Right. So yeah.

Do you understand what I'm getting to?

Like, I'm trying to try to craft this one or two lines, that

summarizes everything, we cut grass best, you're gonna make

your neighbors jealous. Right, right. Right,

right. No, I totally understand you, I guess

what I was thinking of is, you know, as a, as a writer,

there's, there's a couple ways that you generally look, you

have kind of passive and active. And then you have point of view.

If I'm writing this, from my point of view, as a portrait

photographer, maybe I'm saying, I'm going to take a portrait

that will never make you feel like you're misunderstood ever

again. Right. But if I'm, if I'm writing it from the client

perspective, maybe I'm saying something like, you don't. If

you feel like your personality is too much for other people,

and like you're lost in the shadows, don't worry, because

right. So like, there's a couple of ways that you can approach

writing that sentence,

it really comes down to Nicole, like what feels

best to you, right? So as long as you're staying focused on the

customer's problem and how it gets solved. There are a myriad

of ways that you can go. And I think you being a writer, this

is right up your alley, right, of being able to pull from all

of those skills, you'd be brilliant at this. So I think it

really comes down to what sounds best to you. What do you feel

most comfortable with? What do you think really hits the mark,

but it does need to stay focused on them not we take the best

Fine Art portraits you'll ever see. It's all about them. So

however, whatever voice you want to put that in is perfectly

fine.

Okay, yeah, the only reason I wanted to ask that

was just to clarify for folks who are in the audience who may

be going, if I'm going to go at this, am I going at it from my

expertise perspective? Where am I going at it from? What is the

client's pain? And then how does my expertise solve this

stay focused on the client and how your

expertise solves it? Yes.

So what ideas do we have guys, what kind of sentence

could we put together from this information that we have?

This might be way too simple, but I just wrote

down Fine Art portraits. typography is our world. Let us

introduce your unique legacy to your world.

Choose to focus on us. Yeah. Right. So that's

putting us as the hero. We want to be the gun. Okay? Yep, yep,

yep. Right. So I like we're that was going fine. Our portrait is

our world, but let's introduce the customer first by

understanding what it is that they want. And I think Nicole,

you had you had said something in there, I cannot quote it.

But, you know, you're looking to have your story told or

something to that effect. But, you know, let's, let's think

about putting that problem statement first. And then how we

solve it in the second sentence.

All right, I had you unmuted a moment ago. Yeah,

I

just, you know, again, is as the non creator in

the room, but the the avatar, the one thing that that I just

wanted to add to the sort of problem, but I think it's so

important for the statement is that you're going to not abandon

me that you're going to take me all the way to the finish line.

Because, you know, yes, you're gonna let me be part of the

creative process. But that's also scary to me. And so I need

to know that I'm gonna get end up getting a finished product.

And my example is my PTR picture from my wedding seven years ago,

we still don't have prints because they gave us 10,000

proofs. And how do I pick something out of there? I didn't

have the idea. Face it. So just again, that's part of the fear

that I would suggest, you know, I don't think I'm alone in sort

of being afraid of artistic pursuits when trying to get in

our artistic pursuit. Can't talk today. Sorry. Sure.

So from that, it might actually that might

actually stimulate something really good. Finding a

photographer to tell your story can be overwhelming. How does

that sound?

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. So finding a photographer to tell your

story can be overwhelming. What's the next sentence? What

is it that we do that solves that problem?

We will guide you.

Okay. How?

Well through our expertise, right,

right. So what I'm saying is that the next

empathy, yeah, we like finding a photographer to tell your story

can be overwhelming. Our process involves you directly and

telling your story. We will focus only on that we are

experts in this. This is all we do. Like some of those things

that put us in the position of we are going to guide you to

getting your story told, and not overwhelming you.

Right, that's exactly what was something along

the lines of like finding a photographer to tell your story

as hard. We've been storytelling for 10 years. And we'll guide

you through the process one step at a time until you have a

portrait that represents you to the world. Nope, something like

that.

Something I like the I like the idea way too

long. We're talking like you know, 15 words. So finding,

finding a photographer to tell a story can be overwhelming. Our

portraits will tell your story easily and correctly. I'm

guided, or guided expert process will present your

best version of you.

I like that I like crafting like this

question. Yeah,

exactly. It journey.

Yep. Yeah, the subject of a piece of

artwork. There you go. Now you're talking. You

also raise their hand as well. Attached What do

you think?

I think I think there's always this breaking point back

that's like it's a until now to kind of brace people for what

you're going to say. And I think that so you bring up the the

issue finding photographer to tell your stories usually is

overwhelming. Until now. It's a break in a bridge over into the

next over into the solution. Sometimes the solution right

after is jarring. Not all the time, but sometimes it is. So

yeah, that's just my opinion. Just my opinion on it. But uh,

the next part is, it's kind of hard.

Yeah. And this is you nailed it, Todd. I think

that that carryover is great. It's a it's a great

conversational transition. We're finding a photographer to tell

your story is overwhelming until now. We create photographs.

Because you deserve to be a work of art. Right? I'm trying to

combine cats thing in there as well. Yeah. Yeah. So this is how

you craft this statement. Right and I love where cat was going

because it's that simplicity, you deserve not to be

overwhelmed by a photographer, you deserve to have your story

told, you deserve to stand out from the crowd, you are a work

of art. Let us help you tell your story. Right. So something

along those lines, very short, very concise wraps all of the

elements together. And this is something this is the this is

the issue. It's a big framework, you're trying to boil this down,

we're trying to do it in less than an hour. This takes some

time to craft and think about and brainstorm and put some

things together. But any other ideas that we can kind of craft

this into?

Yeah, and I think really quickly, I just want to

remind people and double down on what you just said, Please don't

forget that marketers go to school and then make a whole lot

of money to come up with these sentences. Like they do this for

big brands. They, I mean, and it's this isn't something that

they get in a room and go, how about this? And everybody goes,

Yeah, nope, this is something you brainstorm over and you

fight with, and you come back and you change words and try to

find words that are more suited. So if you're, if you struggle

here, please don't give up. And please don't be upset with

yourself. This is just a process that takes time and will need to

be refined, and you want to get feedback and all that stuff. So

just know that it's going to be a little bit a little bit of a

struggle, but don't give up.

Yeah, I mean, this is, this is not my

strength. Anybody that knows me, even in this room knows that

concise is not my, not what I'm known for. But you know, I was

going to listen and I came up to talk a little bit to already

kind of said, what I wanted to come up to say, so I wasn't

planning on participating in this, but you guys make me feel

like I can't. So I appreciate that, Nicole, and I'm trying,

but it's not something I'm good at. But what I've written down

here, I've just kind of landed on, I've got a lot of lines

scratched out here. So I'm doing this on paper, but something

like your, your journey is your legacy. We can partner with you

to share that legacy through a fine art portrait or something

like that.

Not bad at all. But you know that that is

something that's a really good base, you've got the intention,

correct. It's just crafting it right. And like Nicole said, and

you're not a copywriter, right. So this is something that you

work out, you bounce off the walls quite a bit. You deserve a

fine art photo that tells your story. What do we do? To solve

that,

I just gotta say, I watched a video on these one

liners yesterday, and then had an existential crisis over how

it was. And one thing that stood out to me that was actually it

was a, like a workshop or conference, something with the

guy who wrote the story Brand Book. And he specifically said,

Leave out the poetry for the one liner. Yep. Which I thought was

very interesting, because I definitely kind of lean into

that also with myself where it's like, I want to get, you know,

philosophical with the art of it, yada, yada, no, no one wants

to hear that in one sentence, you get to that later, once

they're already brought in by your solution. So tossing that

out there for my own crises with this one liner idea.

I also like the idea of you deserve what we know. You

mean, being the singular, and then what we know, the we is it

just gathers and lets you know that collectively, we understand

something as professionals, and the note shows the

professionalism. You deserve what we know. And then I think

there's a dash there, a semi colon, excuse my butt, like,

yeah, you deserve what we know. And know, either italicized or

not too bold or too cheesy or anything like that. But

depending on what the type faces, I guess, but I'm just

saying, like, you deserve what we know. And that is inviting to

is inviting. And that's like it's welcoming to, to your

expertise. It's a statement in itself is like hair there for

the for the person or for the

I love that concept. And I love where you're

coming from with the empathy and how we are the subject matter

experts, we want to make sure that we're not the focus of the

statement, that we want the customer to be the focus of the

statement. And so by saying you want what we know, we're

inserting ourselves as the hero and not the guide. Right? Ah,

that's good. I understand. Right? So we want to give them

the the plan because we're altruistic and we're empathetic.

But we don't want to say you're not going to do anything without

us. Right, because it reverses the roles. So I love where

you're going with that though. So I think you know, your people

are starting to get the understanding of what can go

into a one liner like this and I I really do encourage everybody

to go out and watch the story brand stuff, because I'm

probably not doing nearly the justice that Donald Miller would

want me to do it. But think about crafting these statements

in a very concise way. So thinking about this, we've got a

couple of things. Finding a photographer to tell your story

can be overwhelming. You deserve to be a work of art, you are a

work of art, you deserve Fine Art portraits that tell your

story, we're going to give you a fine art portrait that tells

your story. Fine Art portraiture is difficult to find and reflect

your story. It's Wow, what we specialized all we do something

like that. But thinking about crafting that problem statement

and the solution in one to two sentences. So I'm not sure you

know, Nicole, this might be something in the interest of

time that we craft in the Facebook group. And yeah, we can

write a summary. And we can craft that one liner and give

people a chance to come up with exactly what this one liner

would be. And I think it would be a pretty decent common thread

because we can all start to brainstorm off of each other.

What do you think about that?

Yeah, I love that idea. I think that that's a

great way to go back. You got some All right, that was

clapping. Yes. Yeah. So absolutely. Um, first, just want

to give Matt a big round of applause for this week for

jumping in as the guide. Amazing. You did so beautifully.

Thank you so much for guiding us through. Beautiful. So big ups

to you, my friend, it was fantastic to have you in the

driver's seat to hear that velvety voice every morning,

guiding us through this process, and asking all the questions, so

go ahead. No, that was my mistake.

Okay. Um, all right, y'all. So basically,

let's just do a quick summary. This week, we really focused on

social media on how we engage where we're at what our

philosophies are. And then today's exercise, the point of

today's exercise was really just to help each one of us find a

framework that we could use so that we clarify our messaging.

That way, when we go to post things on social media, we

understand what the purpose of those posts are, and they're

going to fall somewhere within this message that we're

crafting. So some of those posts are going to be we understand

your problem posts, right? Like you have this problem, we

understand it, some are going to be, here's our expertise that

can help you, you know, that will solve this problem for you,

some of them are going to be Look, here's what success looks

like somebody who had your problem showed up. And this is

the success that they got with us. So you know, all of these

things are gonna fall within this framework that we're

talking about here. If this framework does not work for you

don't feel bad. There are lots of different frameworks out

there. We just chose this one, number one, because Matt was

really conversant with it. But also because story brand fits

really well with the overall ethos of the artists Forge,

focusing on storytelling and mindset and things like that. So

it just was really copacetic. But if this doesn't work for you

don't stress about it. There are a lot of other frameworks out

there. You can look at marketing framework, you can look up

messaging framework on Google, like all of those things will

give you different results. But at the end of the day, what we

want to focus on is that when we're engaging on social media,

we have to realize that we are marketing all the time marketing

just means the things that are client facing that help them

understand who you are, what they get from you, etc. And not

all marketing is advertising. But everything else is

marketing. Advertising is just when you pay for placement,

right. And so in order to be able to engage on social media

well, and in a way that is functional and profitable for

ourselves in our business, we just need to have a good idea of

what we're doing. And for some people, the story brand is going

to be the way that helps them engage. So if that doesn't work

for you, don't stress but I think it's clarified a lot of

things for me, I think for the rest of the panelists when we

had to kind of go and do a little bit more research so we

could engage with this today. It clarified a lot of things for us

in general. So think about your philosophy. Why you're engaging

on social media is your business on social media who is the hero,

your client? Who are they? What do they need from you? What

problem do they have that you are going to guide them through

helping them solve with the framework that you have built?

And what does success look like from your clients perspective,

remember that the only reason businesses exist is to provide

value. And so you are out there solving problems in the world.

And that is why people need you. If they didn't, they would do it

themselves. So when we're engaging on social media, let's

keep those things in mind. And then let's get in the Facebook

group, and try to see if we can craft these sentences, you can

use our Acme portrait photography company and what we

talked about today, you can go through this process for

yourself and try to share what your one liner for your business

would be. And we can give each other some feedback, try to help

out where we can, remembering that we're always centering the

client as the hero and ourself as the guide. So thank you for

being here with us this week. Guys, this was a really cool

conversation, I think, hopefully, clarified a whole

lot. And man, I hope that it helps people feel more

comfortable engaging in social media posts, you know,

understanding what they want to post and feeling like they're a

lot more in control of how your messaging is going out into the

world. So one more time, thanks for being here this week. Well

done. Matt, thank you so much for guiding us through all of

this stuff. Hopefully, we will see everybody in the Facebook

group. And then Monday morning, bright and early next week on

Thursday will be our first official post Visual Literacy

Live stream. So we'll be doing that on Thursday. 7pm Mountain

Standard Time. So come show up. Come hang. We're gonna be

getting together again in person and we want to have you there.

Y'all are amazing. Thanks for being here. This place wouldn't

be what it is without you. We'll see you next week. In the

meantime, go make something amazing.

Thanks again for listening to this live clubhouse

discussion moderated by all of us at the artists Forge. We hope

you found the information useful and that it helps you gain a

little bit of insight as to how you work on your craft. For more

episodes, please join us each weekday on clubhouse or visit

the artists forge.com and go make something incredible