Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait photographers to uniquely brand, profitably price, and confidently sell their best work. Allison has been doing just that for the last 15 years, and she’s proven that it’s possible to create unforgettable art and run a portrait business that supports your family and your dreams. All it takes is a little rework. Episodes will include interviews with experts from in and outside of the photo industry, mini-workshops, and behind-the-scenes secrets that Allison uses in her portrait studio every single day. She’ll challenge your thinking and inspire your confidence to create a profitable, sustainable portrait business you love through continually refining and reworking your business. Let’s do the rework.
Allison Tyler Jones: Hi friends, and welcome back to the ReWork. Today’s guest is Seshu Badrinath, a photographer from Connecticut who is also a member of our MindShift membership and alumni of our Art of Selling Art course. And you can kind of think of today’s episode as a little bit of a private coaching call mixed with just talking shop with another photographer. Seshu knows who his ideal client is. He knows who he works with and he has a great business. He’s been in business for 20 years, but he also has some specific questions for me about what do you do to get the phone to ring during slow times. Like if you’re marketing, what are you doing to market right now?
Allison Tyler Jones: So I share with him what we’ve done for some of our recent marketing efforts, how we get the phone to ring, and then we talk about all things business, marketing. There’s some great things that he’s doing. I had some ideas specifically for his business that he could maybe market in some interesting ways. And then we talked about kind of the dream of where he wants to go, some new initiatives, new product lines, and new ways of shooting that he wants to delve into. And so I think that you’re going to really find some good takeaways on marketing, what you can be doing in your business right now that will help you moving forward. So let’s do it.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, I appreciate you taking the time to do this, and you’re just like all over social media all the time.
Seshu Badrinath: Oh, yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: In a big way.
Seshu Badrinath: Keeps me out of trouble. Keeps me busy. And it is interestingly a way I’m hearing a lot of people starting to see my work, and it’s taken a while. I’ll be honest with you, it’s not like an overnight thing at all. It’s been a while. I just received an inquiry a couple of days ago for an engagement event and a graduation event, and I asked her, I said, “Where did you find me?” And she’s like, “Oh, I see your posts on our local parent forums.” So in addition to posting on the main feed, as they call it, I’m involved in the local groups as well because that’s where moms and dads and business people all sort of hang out.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just networking. It’s the public square.
Seshu Badrinath: Yeah, yeah. And there are some rules, of course, you can only post on Thursdays between these hours and all this crazy… It’s a lot of craziness. But once you get into a rhythm and you just say, okay, it’s Thursday, what can I share with these folks? You just post it and hopefully the admins aren’t drunk or whatever, and they say, okay.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s awesome. I love that. Well, I’m glad that you’re finding success there. So for our listeners that don’t know who you are, tell us your name, where you’re located, what you do, all the things.
Seshu Badrinath: My name is Seshu Badrinath, and I usually am referred to as Seshu the photographer in town. I’m a photographer. I’ve been a photographer for 25 years in Avon, Connecticut, small little town west of Hartford. And much of my work revolves around working with private schools, working with usually business owners or business professionals I like to call them, who are either not quite C-level, but maybe a couple of steps below and they’re sort of reaching for the stars. And a good portion of my work also revolves around working with high school seniors. So I do have that diverse portfolio for folks who are interested in working with me versus one thing. ‘Cause I live in Connecticut, it’s cold most of the time, so being able to provide a variety of services throughout the year has helped me and my business, I think over the years. And this has been-
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s great.
Seshu Badrinath: Full disclosure, it’s quiet right now.
Allison Tyler Jones: Of course.
Seshu Badrinath: With exception, of course, with the private school, which thankfully I have a good relationship with. And I go in once in a while to photograph classrooms and sports and things like that, so that’s awesome. But I’m waiting for things to warm up.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, first quarter it’s in the northeast United States, it’s going to be chilly. I love that. Well, so what do you want to talk about today?
Seshu Badrinath: I would love to know maybe the top three, top five things you would recommend photographers, not just me, but other photographers who are all in the northeast waiting for the thaw, the big thaw to come. Be able to say, do this now so that in April or May or June you’re going to be slammed with great work. Maybe that’s where we need to go for this conversation. What do you think?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, I’m happy to talk about whatever. The thing that I love about what you just said is that you really know who your clients are. You have a very clear idea of like you’re working with private schools, business owners, professionals, like you said, just below C-suite, just even that you know that strata I think is really important. And then high school seniors and so. When you know so well who your clients are, you know how to talk to them where they’re at. And where they’re at. And so where are your clients at this time of year? So high school seniors, probably not percolating just yet, but for me with high school seniors, this is the time of year where we are sending out… We just sent out a promotional email to our database that said graduation time is family portrait time. So if you have a senior that’s graduating, because I’m not doing huge contracts of seniors where you have to shoot it in the summer before the year before.
Allison Tyler Jones: So most of our seniors we’re shooting just a couple of months before the actual graduation, and I prefer that. But clients are kind of trained to start looking for photographers the year before. So they might call and say, “Hey, my kid’s graduating.” So right now they might say, “My kid’s graduating in 2026, when do I need to do portraits?” And I’d say I like them to look in the portraits like they look about the time they’re going to graduate. ‘Cause you know boys’ hair is crazy. I don’t know if you know this, but boys’ hair is crazy right now. It’s crazy.
Seshu Badrinath: I’ve got two boys.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know who’s talking about this mullet. I don’t know. It’s crazy.
Seshu Badrinath: They call it the mop, by the way.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes, the mop, the mullet, all of the things. So that might be different if they’re graduating 2026, it might change. I want to photograph the 2025 seniors right now, March, April. I don’t want to be shooting them in May ’cause that’s too close to the time and it’s too rushed and it’s too… I don’t like that. So I want to be February, March. So I’ll just let them know, “Look, we’ll call you in January, we’ll get you booked. Or if you want to book it now, let’s go ahead and book it in March, April, if they’re graduating in May.” So we just sent that out and we probably sent it out about a week late. So normally we would send that in February. And so that’s always good. So I know where the high school seniors are, and then you would ask yourself, okay, where are the professionals at?
Allison Tyler Jones: Where are they at right now? Are they updating their websites? Is this the time? I think first quarter is a great time to get the B2B stuff, the business to business where people are… We have one email that we sent out that has a before and after picture. One client came in and she has the poorly lit with a palm tree growing out of the back of her head photo that somebody took of her professional photo that was on her LinkedIn and then what we did for her. Or we’d say, “When people meet you, are you unrecognizable to the average person that’s seeing your profile picture because it’s 20 years old or whatever?” So something we always kind of have a little bit of fun and funny in our promotion. So definitely if we had a time machine and could go back to January 1st, it would be start promoting all of the headshot business stuff like that first quarter because you’re not shooting it outside.
Allison Tyler Jones: Generally. I mean you have a studio, you’re shooting that stuff in studio. And then business owners, those are people that typically will have families. And so we’re on the phone with our existing clientele constantly and we know what’s going on. We have a database of who we haven’t seen in a couple of years. They have a kid that’s graduating or maybe we contacted him last year and they said, “Okay, call me in 2025.” So we have our tickler file of people that we already know that we need to be contacting. And you know how it is now. You can’t ever get a hold of anybody the first time, so you just got to keep calling them constantly.
Seshu Badrinath: Do you typically have a team member who does that for you or do you-
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely
Seshu Badrinath: Do that for yourself? I mean-
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, both. So I have a client coordinator and primarily her job is just to… Every morning she comes in and that first hour nine to 10, she’s just like have what’s come in input, and then who does she need to contact or follow up with? And so she’s just on that for the first couple of hours and then she’s doing all the other things that she needs to do. If we divide up the list because we have certain clients that I need to be contacting that they won’t respond to anybody but me.
Seshu Badrinath: I see. Okay.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, so sometimes it’s just like that.
Seshu Badrinath: Do you feel though that for a solopreneur like myself, it would make sense to either work with the VA to be able to get those initial calls done and then have them pass it off to me once the connections been made again or reconnections have been made?
Allison Tyler Jones: It would have to be… So you’re saying a VA, which is for those who don’t know, a virtual assistant.
Seshu Badrinath: Sorry.
Allison Tyler Jones: It would have to be the right person. Turning over my calendar and my calls was probably one of the last things I did when I started to hire people. Like I hired for retouching, I hired for design, I hired for a lot of things and I let that go. That was one of the last things I let go, because this is a high touch business. And so they want to know that they’re dealing with Seshu the photographer and you want to be saying things in a certain way and you want to let them feel all the things that can’t just be like, okay, it’s time for your teeth cleaning. So yeah, it could be a VA, but it could just be you, you could just say, okay, on my calendar every Tuesday and Thursday morning for an hour, I’m going to reach out and just mow through it. Most people can handle that, but when you have it in your head that it’s this big thing that I’ve got to make a program or a process or whatever, then you never do it.
Seshu Badrinath: I love that structure though. I think that’s important for people like me who are usually overthinking it. We have all these names that we remember having conversations with and they’ve said in past, “Oh yeah, give me a call about family sessions.” And then they get dropped off, unfortunately.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely. Right. And we’re also the first person to be like, I need a new marketing idea. I just need more marketing. I just need more clients. Okay, well, what about all the people at the last networking event that gave you their cards or that gave you their contact information and you never call them? We all have that and we all do it, but if you just… How many hours a day are we spending on social media or on our phone? A lot, right? So if you’re going to be on your phone anyway, maybe just like, okay, in order to earn my social media time, I have to send 10 texts to either a contact, whatever, you will be booked before you know it.
Seshu Badrinath: Awesome. Great idea.
Allison Tyler Jones: Our phone does not ring. We would not be booked if we were not reaching out to clients because everybody is so busy. They want it, they want to update, they want to have senior pictures of their kids. They want to have family portraits. But how many times, you’ve been in business for a long time, how many times have you run into somebody that you thought basically has been cheating on you for years? That they came to you once and they never came back and you see them in the grocery store with their kids who are now five or 10 years older, and what do they say? What do they say? “I am so sad that we didn’t come back in. We should have come back in and now they’re so much older,” and blah, blah, blah.
Allison Tyler Jones: So it’s not that they don’t want it, they want it, but we have to be the ones to keep on their radar and to remind them and they can tell us, “You know what, we’re going to be in Mexico. We’re going to get some photographer down there to do it on the beach, but next year we will…” They want it. And so then it’s like, “Okay, you know what? We’ll call you next year. No big deal.” So it’s not a pressure thing. So we take that on ourselves to remind.
Seshu Badrinath: So when you talk about sending promotions and emails and things like that, I assume you have a way of segmenting each of those folks at some point they’ve decided… They’ve come in at a certain time in their lives, whether it was right after a wedding or the first baby or whatever. So do you keep tabs on all that in a certain way and how do you coordinate all of that promotional mailing from your end?
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, so again, you’re doing exactly what we all do. You’re making it harder than it has to be, right? We use Monday.com, which is kind of like a project management software, and I have a Monday board set up that is our client calling board, and we just duplicate it every year. So it kind of has all of our clients that we are kind of regulars and then we have notes of what’s been going on there for it’s super messy. It’s not great. So it’s not like I’m not going to go dump this into some big email service provider. This isn’t like Flodesk or MailChimp or Constant Contact or anything like that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now, that email that I just told you about that went out to our entire client base about that graduation time is family portrait time that went to our entire database. But these others, it’s just really one-on-one. I don’t have thousands of customers. We do 80 to a hundred sessions a year, and 60% of those are repeat, so I can keep track of that. When you are a very high touch, low volume business, you can keep track of people and people feel that. They feel that high touch when it’s not some overly produced HTML situation.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s a personal email from Seshu saying, “Hey, I just saw on social media,” and usually it’s a text to be honest. Now, your business people, your business owners, your professionals, they’re going to probably be more email, but all of my moms, it’s all text. So I am ripping off a picture from the last time I’m saying to you, if it was you of your boys. Hey, Seshu, the boys were five. I know they’re 10 now. What’s going on? I need to see them. You need to call me because I know they’re getting older. And then it’s like, oh, she’s thinking about me and we did have such a good time and we do need to do that. Or you know what? It’s too crazy right now. Call me in October.
Seshu Badrinath: Wow. When you lay it out like that, it doesn’t sound very time intensive or complicated at all.
Allison Tyler Jones: You do need to have a place where you have them, but honestly, if you have the bare minimum, which is like a database, you have a list of your clients. Do you have that?
Seshu Badrinath: I do.
Allison Tyler Jones: I know you do. Okay, so you have a list. Literally, I think there is magic in printing that list and laying on your couch with a pen and just looking at it and just thinking, Seshu has those two boys. We did them when they were this age. I wonder what they’re doing right now. Go on social media. What are they doing? Oh my gosh, they’re playing baseball. He’s playing football. Chime in. Saw that he just won an award. So then I’m just making out a note to the side. His oldest just won an award. They just went on a vacation to Paris and just little notes. And it is so weird and that you’ve had this happen, you’ll wake up in the morning, you’ll be like, I wonder what’s going on with Mr. Jones, that family, and then they’ll call you that day. It’s like a weird thing. I really do think there’s power in that of just keeping your clients in your mind, and it’s not like how can I get more out of these people? It’s like, what do they need?
Seshu Badrinath: Yeah, absolutely. I think I have always led with service in mind, and when it comes down to it, I should feel more comfortable calling them or contacting them with that idea that, “Hey, I’m here to serve. Let’s connect or reconnect. It’s been a while.” And so that’s a beautiful thing. I mean, I can see myself doing that definitely on a Tuesday or a Thursday or whatever day. Pick a day and just go for it.
Allison Tyler Jones: When you signed up for… You were in our bootcamp pre ASA and then when you took the Art of Selling Art, what was the most helpful for you that you got out of that whole situation?
Seshu Badrinath: Full disclosure here in a moment of true vulnerability here, I am a bit scatterbrained, and-
Allison Tyler Jones: As are we all.
Seshu Badrinath: I think we all are. I would say your course gave me structure. I think more than anything else, it just gives me sort of a way of going back to either the actual presentation or the PDFs, which are beautifully designed, of course, and just sort of walk myself through the ideas we’ve just discussed. And so some of the things we’ve just talked about, in fact sort of I’m like, wait a minute. I’ve heard this before. I’m not surprised that you’re repeating it to me in the way that I should hear it, but also that I should say, okay, well, this is something that’s already covered in the course. Just go back to the course. Find refuge in the course. I think there’s a ton of gold there. I mean, there’s no doubt about it. There’s a lot of things that just need to be in play, and I am working through it step by step. I can’t claim that I’ve done it fully or anything like that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, of course,
Seshu Badrinath: I’m working through it.
Allison Tyler Jones: I would look at you and I would say… And I put myself in this category too, I think some of us are just education junkies. We just love to learn. We want to know more. Whatever the latest thing is, we’re going to get it. But the problem sometimes comes in as the application. There’s two different things. One is you buy all this education, you never apply anything, which I know that’s not you. Then there’s people that execute too quickly before they’ve really thought about it, and they’re going off in a million different directions following all these different advices. And then they’re like, wait, I don’t even know what works and what’s really me. Is any of that resonating?
Seshu Badrinath: Absolutely.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Seshu Badrinath: Yeah. There’s a point at which I have to sort of look at the coursework and say, okay, how do I apply this to my particular situation? I’m working with a more local mentor to go back and forth on really defining who that audience is, a target client is, working on understanding what motivates them. And then being present for them in that space where they’re ready to say, yes, I need exactly what you have because that’s what I need right now. Help me with this problem. The earlier version of me was rather quick at pitching services and products without understanding what my client’s sort of inner goals may have been. I think that’s a mistake I think a lot of people make in this-
Allison Tyler Jones: True. You’re selling what you want to sell, and it’s like you’re just hoping that everybody can buy it. Yeah.
Seshu Badrinath: And then the other mistake I think I was doing, and this is something that you’ve been very good about helping me correct, is offering everything under the sun, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Seshu Badrinath: This is a huge problem, and thanks to you, I only talk about albums and wall art. That’s it.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love it. That makes me so happy.
Seshu Badrinath: Yeah, it makes my life easy.
Allison Tyler Jones: It not only makes your life easy, it makes your client’s life easy.
Seshu Badrinath: Absolutely.
Allison Tyler Jones: We don’t need to… Oh, okay, we’re doing that. And then of course there’s a million permutations in between of all that, but we don’t need it to talk about the permutations. We just need to talk about this lane or that lane. So if you had a magic wand and you could only shoot what you wanted to shoot, what is that? What do you just love?
Seshu Badrinath: That’s a great question. I just wrapped up going to a local conference, a photography conference, and I was thinking about this very question throughout the conference. And I would say the thing that lights me up the most is probably photographing people in their environment. I know you’re a studio photographer.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that.
Seshu Badrinath: I mean, your work is phenomenal, and I mean not just phenomenal, it is distinguishable. You can say from two miles away, “Hey, this is Allison’s work, right?”
Allison Tyler Jones: Wow, you’re so nice.
Seshu Badrinath: No, no, it’s true. I would say my love is for environmental portraits. They’re difficult, challenging.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, for sure.
Seshu Badrinath: But I really find myself loving that kind of challenge, that kind of stress.
Allison Tyler Jones: That problem solving is addictive, right? It’s like-
Seshu Badrinath: Yeah, yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Because when you figure it out, it’s like… No, I do love environmental portraiture also. Same. But the studio is my true love, so I love that for you. So how can we get more of that, right? So because I think when you’re selling, when you’re really putting out there what is your unique… What you love to do and how you see it, why not?
Seshu Badrinath: Yeah. And as far as who is being photographed, I don’t think it really matters as much as the fact that it is an environmental portrait. It could be a high school senior, it could be a business professional. It could be somebody in the private school sector, whoever it is. It’s just that experience of creative problem solving on the go and trying to do the best you can. It’s not always going to work, but that’s okay.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and I think one of the things that just… And seeing you a little bit on social media that I do, some of the stuff that you post, I think something that would really draw those clients to you is bringing them in to that process, as you’re trying to figure it out. You’ll put up about, okay, we’re doing this headshot thing and we’re doing whatever, and you’re letting them know what you’re doing, but are you letting them know how you’re doing it? Because I think with environmental portraiture, and one of the masters of environmental portraiture is Michael Taylor. The hard thing about environmental portraiture is that sometimes the uninitiated client doesn’t see the difference between some shooting burner and who doesn’t have the skill set and somebody who really does. And so you walking them through that process of like, okay, here’s our shooting environment today, I’m going to try to figure this out. We’ve got a conference room full of crap with some bad drywall and some crap overhead lighting. And so here are my challenges. I’m looking at fluorescent overhead lighting. I’m trying to figure out this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Here’s what happens when you use overhead fluorescent lighting. You show something like that and they see something that looks like everybody else has. And then you show them how you went in and crafted it and kind of did a whole behind the scenes of that, that’s going to attract your C-suite. Because that is where you’re going to be like, this is got to count. And then for the C-suite guy, they need the environmental… The thing that projects power, that projects authority, that’s got, what do you have in the background? You can’t watch… Right now, everything, they’re broadcasting stuff from the White House Oval Office.
Allison Tyler Jones: There’s nothing in that picture that has not been put there on purpose. There is not one book on a table, there is not one portrait on the wall that has not been put there on purpose to send a message. And so you’re saying the same thing. So as you’re consulting with these C-suite guys or these… Right now you’re not C-suite, so now these are the next level, but you’re like, okay, how do you want to look C-suite? That’s where you’re headed, and so you’re helping them get where they want to go using your skillset and then their ideas. So you’re collaborating, right?
Seshu Badrinath: That’s right. That’s right.
Allison Tyler Jones: And then you’re documenting that and showing why you need a professional versus somebody with a good camera and how it’s different that yes, here’s environmental… Okay. And then here’s environmental that’s been crafted. And so I would say, I don’t know if you follow Art Streiber on Instagram, it’s @aspictures. Yeah, he is freaking genius.
Seshu Badrinath: Absolutely
Allison Tyler Jones: Love him. He’s like a photographer’s photographer.
Seshu Badrinath: I’ve actually asked him, “Hey, why don’t you come out with a book so we can all learn from this?” But his Instagram just is my favorite. Absolutely.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. He’s the best. So I think that kind of a shtick, you could look at that and I think you could do something like that with your business purchase, I think would be so interesting. And also with the seniors, because again, that’s environmental portraiture. So to me, if I was going to go back to environmental portraiture and I said, I’m tired of studio, I’m going to go back to environmental portraiture, that’s what I would do. That’s how I would pitch it. That’s how I would sell it. That’s how I would talk about it, because I know I am up against everybody shooting on location.
Seshu Badrinath: So one of the things I’m going to be doing this next season coming up is to work with a local videographer to essentially shoot behind the scenes and give me all his B rolls and go from there essentially to use those things in future marketing. So that’s the plan.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. So you’re already there. You don’t even need me.
Seshu Badrinath: No, no. It’s not so much that. I mean, I think…
Allison Tyler Jones: But sometimes it’s validating what you already know.
Seshu Badrinath: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: You’re on the right track.
Seshu Badrinath: Absolutely. Yeah. What I always say people is that we as humans need to hear things maybe three or more times to really make things happen for us. I’m a married man, so my wife has to tell me at least two or three times before it registers on what needs to be done next, that kind of thing. So I feel like photographers are like that too. They’ve got a lot of wonderful ideas and you got to do this, you got to do that. I mean, we’re a constant state of distraction in a way, but having a sense of, hey, this works. Let’s follow this path, and leaning more and more on creating these behind the scenes videos is definitely on the very top of my list. Making sure that my audience sees me at work, sees the work being made and sort of in process. I think that’s super important. At least for those who are on the fence, they’re like, oh, I don’t know. I mean, he is got kind of a weird name. He’s got some good pictures on the website.
Allison Tyler Jones: No, I think the name is actually a total differentiator. I think it’s-
Seshu Badrinath: It is? Okay.
Allison Tyler Jones: I think it’s absolutely… I don’t think that’s anything to overcome. It’s like Oprah or Cher. I mean, it’s cool. I mean, Seshu that’s a cool name. I would freaking lean into that like there’s no tomorrow. Now I’m just listening to what you just said about that this is coming up, that you’re doing this thing, so I’m going to challenge you. Because I think you are a little bit like me in that the perfect can be the enemy of the good. That, okay, I got to wait until I get this guy with his perfect B roll, so I am going to push back on you and say, okay, in the next 30 days, I want to see a post from you, an Art Streiber-ish post. But obviously it’s going to be with your own flair. You problem solving an environmental shoot, even if you have to make it up.
Allison Tyler Jones: You don’t even have one schedule. I don’t care. Of how you’re trying to figure this out. And then maybe you cut it together and it’s like on your iPhone and it’s down and dirty, and I think that’s perfectly fine. And then have the sexy thing, have the sexy thing, have the sexy B roll, have the real guy, and that’s going to be like website material, but that’s not going to provide your day-to-day social media… I think you have such a presence on social media and you have the habit of continually posting, which most of us don’t, so just what you’re already doing, just wedge something else into what you’re already doing.
Seshu Badrinath: Well, challenge accepted. Especially as-
Allison Tyler Jones: At me.
Seshu Badrinath: … someone who’s not very comfortable on video. I am…
Allison Tyler Jones: But you’re so cute. Why?
Seshu Badrinath: Thank you. I appreciate it. But I feel as most people do feel awkward in front of… I mean, I’m okay in front of a still camera. I can work that a little bit.
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Seshu Badrinath: But video, I’m just like, what do I say? How do I say it? Does that [inaudible 00:30:58]? And so many of these crazy thoughts come through. But I welcome your challenge and I accept it. I’m actually working on a interesting personal portrait project that would… I mean, it involves photographing folks in an environment of their choosing, that kind of thing. So I am excited to just pop up one of my iPhones and just sort of let it play and then do some little talking maybe in the middle. I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.
Allison Tyler Jones: How old are your kids?
Seshu Badrinath: I have a 20-year-old and a 17-year-old.
Allison Tyler Jones: Okay, dude, the 17. Throw him a bone, give him the freaking iPhone. He’ll know how to do it better than you do, and he’ll be like, “Dad, that sounds totally stupid.” Just have him run it, have him assist if he will, or one of his friends or whatever, and just you got to start somewhere. I think this could be so great because the thing is that I do feel like… And I’m going to address the elephant in the room. In my Mind Shift group, I have a darling Ukrainian girl, Polish girl. We have girls that are from other countries that have accents, so they’re not native, they aren’t natural-born Americans. They’re so worried about that accent being not… What is the word I’m looking for? Is a…
Seshu Badrinath: A little bit deterrent.
Allison Tyler Jones: A deterrent, right. So maybe a name that’s hard to say. Deterrent. I really feel like it’s an edge because it’s something that you’re kind of like, oh. Immediately it’s like that’s different, and then you spin that narrative. As soon as you see that, that’s different. Then it’s like, yeah, isn’t that awesome? And then you’ve got this big smile. You’ve got this cute beard. I mean, you’ve got style. I totally see that, but sometimes it’s hard for us to see it because we’re humans and we have all of our neuroses and we’re not good enough or whatever, or things that we think are going to hold us back, but it’s usually never the things that we think. It’s usually the things that are holding us back is all that fear about that thing.
Seshu Badrinath: Right, absolutely.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. So I think Seshu is a superpower. I think the full name is a superpower. I think the Seshu the photographer, I love that. But I think to go to your high end, I think it’s going to be the whole name. I really do.
Seshu Badrinath: First and last name.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, I do. Or it’s just Seshu, you know what I mean? If you want to be Cher or Dolly or Oprah. So I think it’s really special, and I want you to know that I really do see that, and I can see-
Seshu Badrinath: Thank you.
Allison Tyler Jones: I can see the future of how you would just soar in your area with those C-suite executives, with families, with seniors. I think there’s no top end.
Seshu Badrinath: I’ll take that as a blessing and go with it, really. That’s where my mind is as well, is to really use opportunities, like being able to talk to folks who’ve been doing this very successfully like you and listen and learn and apply, and then just continue to move forward. I think of the first time I created head shots in my home studio and they were terrible.
Allison Tyler Jones: Of course.
Seshu Badrinath: Terrible. And I go back to them all the time and just as a lark and just to see what it is that I was trying to do back then and why those will not work, in the least in today’s market will not work. I really truly believe that everyone, including myself, has the capacity to grow and grow small steps every day. Really, that’s how my brain works, is to go, okay, what can I learn today and how can I be of service to people today in a way that I wasn’t yesterday?
Allison Tyler Jones: So true.
Seshu Badrinath: Really trying to reach out to people and help them, but what you’ve said to me today about making a schedule, I think I’m going to take that and put that to work next.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. We gave ourselves all kinds of grace when we’re trying to learn photography, we know we don’t know it.
Seshu Badrinath: That’s right.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s like, what’s the shutter speed? What’s the aperture? What’s the light? What’s the whatever? And then those first head shots turn out like crap, and you’re like, okay, well, but then I learned, and then you looked at it and you applied and you got better, and now you’re doing these professional, amazing, gorgeous head shots. And you’re getting paid top dollar to do it, which is great. But we won’t give ourselves that same grace in the business or the marketing. I mean, if we go back to the learning photography, sometimes we’re like, oh, I need another lens, or I need a better lighting. Or sometimes we can get to where we’re buying too much gear. I think the corollary to that in the marketing in the business is, well, if I just have the right CRM, if I just have the right process, and it prevents us from just doing it. Just get on your freaking phone, text some people and rustle up some business, and then photograph yourself doing your environmental portraiture, put a BTS and start attracting that business.
Seshu Badrinath: Can I push back a little bit?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Seshu Badrinath: I’m curious to know what your take is on… I mean, there are two different mindsets. When you’re starting out, your mindset is not, hey, I’m going to try and make a business out of this. I mean, really, that’s not where my head was. I was hopefully going to be a photojournalist and wanted to photograph documentaries. That was the big dream back then. At some point in that mindset, I think the mistakes that one makes as a photographer are almost welcome in a way, because then you are able to learn a lot faster about what works, what doesn’t work.
Allison Tyler Jones: For sure.
Seshu Badrinath: I think when it became a business, I think there may be that sense of fear of making a mistake at the cost of your client. Maybe that’s it. I don’t know.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Give me an example of what you’re saying. What kind of mistake could you make at the cost of your client?
Seshu Badrinath: An example that comes to mind is this was at least 10 years ago, I photographed a beautiful family in town. It didn’t occur to me to check their last name. I heard it a certain way, and I was like, oh, it’s this, and I ended up printing 150 Christmas cards with their last name completely wrong, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Seshu Badrinath: I delivered it to him thinking that was it. I was like, yeah, let’s go. These are beautiful cards. Then I got a call from the dad. He was like, “Sorry, this is not us. This is not our last name.” So I had to reprint it. So no big whooping really. Just being able to recover from that and make that work for them was sort of part of the service, right? Did it cost me thousands of dollars? No, but at the same time, it was a mistake that made me look a little foolish, maybe.
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Seshu Badrinath: And I feel like that may be why people are a little cagey… Like me and a little cagey occasion and making mistakes now, because we’re like, we want to get every single thing right. Making sure measurements we go… I mean, this is the beautiful thing about going to people’s homes now, is that when they start to talk about wall, I go to their homes and I take a measuring tape, making sure everything is going to fit. Because last thing you want is to order something that’s not going to fit on the space that they have in mind. So really being able to do that has… I mean, those mistakes, early mistakes have helped me correct for what I can do now or what I do now, I should say. But yeah, that’s where I think we are. I mean, I don’t know if that’s an example that works.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Well, okay, so I asked you to give an example of something of where… Because you’re like, I’m going to push back on that we’re not giving ourselves enough grace. And so I’m saying, okay, that mistake, let’s just say here, you’ve delivered 150 Christmas cards with the wrong last name on it. And so I find that some of my very best to the core lifetime achievement marketing is achieved when I’ve screwed it up because it’s how I handle that. When you just deliver it and it’s great and it’s right, then of course they’re going to talk about amazing, great, of course, what do you expect? They paid for it. But when you screwed it up and then you fixed it in a whatever way, that’s really, oh, this guy delivered it.
Allison Tyler Jones: I could tell he was sweating bullets. It was the wrong last name. And then he flew in a helicopter over to our house and dropped us with cheerleaders and balloons on top of our roof, whatever. Whatever the thing was that you went over the top to fix it, and then you also, at the same time as you fix that, you put into your process a way to never have that happen again.
Seshu Badrinath: Absolutely.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right? So you learn, just like you do with the craft of photography. To me, the business is as fun as the craft. I love the business part of it because it’s a game and not in a, like a taking it advantage way, but how can I figure out what will make them the happiest? How can I serve them the best possible way?
Seshu Badrinath: I really love that too. I really love that too. I think-
Allison Tyler Jones: And that’s where your heart’s at.
Seshu Badrinath: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I, don’t know whether it was last year or the year before, I came to a point where I feel like my craft was starting to become like, okay, this is what I can do. This is what I love doing. This is how I do it. And I was getting comfortable, I guess, not that I wanted to stop learning new techniques and things like that, but I felt like I was there. And then it was, I think two years before I was in your course that I first saw something about your course, and I was like, I may have even emailed you and said, “When are you launching this again?” Because I don’t think it was launched in a couple of years or something. And I was excited. And when I got that email saying, “Hey, yeah, we’re opening enrollment.” So only to say that I also enjoy now the idea that business is also something you can be creative about. You have to really think along the lines of, okay, so business is going this way right now and it’s not going well. What can you do to turn-
Allison Tyler Jones: How can I turn around?
Seshu Badrinath: … and pivot into something else? It could be the genres all wrong, maybe, possibly, I don’t know. Or it could be that the environment has changed, and for instance, there’s lots of talk about head shots and how AI is going to take over the world. But the headshot, I don’t think it’s going to happen, but that’s a big concern for a lot of photographers who are even thinking of, oh, I want to be a headshot photographer. So how do you differentiate yourself and do things differently that your clients feel like you’re really there to serve them? I think this is where my brain is right now, is to really think about business in different ways and creative ways.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. And to me, the answer to that is relationship. If you have relationships, like real relationships with your clients… I remember, and I may have said this on the podcast before, but I remember when they shut the whole country down in 2020 for the pandemic and just thinking, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, what are we going to do? We still have rent due. And like everybody else, we were all freaking out. And then I just remember thinking, you know what? I have relationships with every single one of these clients. They’re not going anywhere else. They’re going to come back to me, so we’ll figure it out. But there was just a moment where I just felt like it was almost like I had a million dollars in the bank, even though I wished I really did, but it is like having a million dollars in the bank because those people know your people know that say she was the guy, if I got to look good at it counts, I got to call him.
Allison Tyler Jones: If I have a senior, fill in the blank of whatever your specialty is. And so if you treat every client like it’s a future relationship. It’s not transactional. It’s not efficient. We’re not just trying to be efficient. We’re actually trying to get at what exactly it is that you need and how can my specific skill set intersect with your unique need and how we can work on that together, and then we have a relationship over a lifetime, hopefully. That’s the shtick. That’s the key to everything. For any business, I believe, especially for a high touch custom business like what we’re doing.
Seshu Badrinath: Yeah, absolutely.
Allison Tyler Jones: And I think you have that. You have the heart for that. If you don’t have the heart for that, you need to be in another business because you’ll never get where you need to go in this business unless you have that heart for it.
Seshu Badrinath: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. Every day is a good day to work on their business, and so I always think of it that way. Going back to the pandemic, which I know a topic nobody wants to talk about these days, what did you do for your clients who were in limbo as well? Were you able to reach out to them or did you reach out to them and what did you say?
Allison Tyler Jones: I did, and I’ll give you a couple examples. I have one client in particular who is very, I don’t want to call her a germophobe, but she’s a germophobe. She’s very just clean. She just is. And so whenever we’ve come to her house to install or anything like that, she always has us take our shoes off and she’s wiping things down. That’s who she is, and she’s not apologetic about it. She’s just like, “Hey, this is what it is.” So when this happened, I immediately thought of her and I texted her and I said, “Hey, are you okay?” And she said, “Actually, you know what? Because of how we live, we’re great, ’cause I already know all this stuff. Everything that everybody’s learning right now, I could give you a PhD on it.”
Allison Tyler Jones: So she’s like, “But thank you so much for reaching out.” It meant a lot to her. Then I had another guy that I knew was heavily in the airline industry. He does refurbished airline parts, and I knew they were shutting down all those flights from Europe and all of that. So I reached out to them and said, “Hey, I’m concerned. How are you guys doing?” So just a few people. Again, it wasn’t a Mailchimp blast. It was like me laying on a couch just reaching out to people. My sister, the interior designer, what she did is for her top 10 clients or whatever that she knew had kids at home, she sent them a little bag. They had these little connectors and straws that you could build a fort out of these little straws and connectors.
Allison Tyler Jones: It was like that, and then magnet tiles or something like that, put them in a drawstring bag and then dropped it on their front door, had a video of the girl that dropped it on the door, spraying it with Lysol. Because at the time they were worried about that, and then just sent her a video, “On your front door. Notice that we sprayed it with Lysol, is something for your kids to play with to keep them busy.”
Seshu Badrinath: Wow, that’s great.
Allison Tyler Jones: They all posted that on social media. We’re like, oh my gosh, DDG is the best. So it’s just what do they need? You’re a dad. I’m a mom. I know what people need and I want to check in on them. I’m a human being. It’s not like, “Hey, your kids are out of school now. I’ll give you a two for one on your family portrait.” It just isn’t that. And then also where you’re located, so we’re in the west in the suburbs, so there’s a lot of space between us and everybody else. We’re not in Manhattan. Then we also have a wide diversity of political opinion out here. So we knew that everybody that was pretty far right, was like, “Hey, we’re golfing. We’re doing everything. We’re not changing anything.”
Allison Tyler Jones: So we knew, “Okay, great. You want a book? We’re going to shoot all summer.” But we’re still letting everybody know I’m shooting with a 70-200 lens. I’m 30 feet away from you. We’ll come in separate doors. And then for people that were more cautious, we would highlight, “Here’s all the precautions that we’re taking.” So not to go back to pandemic, but anything that you’re dealing with, where are the clients at? Where are their heads? It’s not what we want to do. It’s what do they need aligned with what we’re good at and how can we help them.
Seshu Badrinath: So for a while, I kept hearing about custom portrait sessions, which is what I think we’re talking about here in a way. Is that a phrase that is now more common with people? Do they understand what custom portrait sessions mean?
Allison Tyler Jones: I’m not sure I understand.
Seshu Badrinath: Or is it too jargon-y.
Allison Tyler Jones: I don’t think it is. I mean, I just say it’s a portrait session. I think it’s kind of implied that it’s custom ’cause I’m not shooting of your neighbor, it’s you.
Seshu Badrinath: True. But do they understand that it is collaborative and it is involved in the sense of how we have talked about in the past, how you talk about in the course being able to go and have a consult and work with them in a certain particular way. Do they understand that that’s what custom portrait session means versus we have day at the Christmas Day at farm and that kind of thing, which is not custom, of course.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Well, yeah. It’s like more mini-session, limited edition kind of thing. Yeah. So I mean, that really is usually conveyed in that first call. So tell us what you’re thinking. What kind of project are you wanting to work on? Where are these images going to live? This is how we work. This is how we can best help you. Our clients that are most successful have the best outcome, do it this way. And then we just bring them into the process and they either like, “Oh, yeah.” Sometimes they’ll say, “Oh, let me just come in for the consultation before I book and see if this is a fit,” which is great. Others will be like, say, “She’s my best friend. I saw what you did for him. Just put me down for May 11th and let’s go.” But we’ll still do a consultation, of course. Or, “I’ve been following you for years, we’ve been waiting to do this.” They know they want to do it. They aren’t on the fence. Yeah.
Seshu Badrinath: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: It’s been fun to watch what you’re doing, and I am really excited to see where you’re going with this environmental portraiture. I think that that could be… Because I think we had this… 2003 was the first year that they sold more digital cameras than film cameras. And then we had the whole industry went digital. It seemed like everybody went to this candid and photo journalistic and that kind of… And everybody’s saying they’re photo journalists, but some really are, and some have really bad lighting and some aren’t that great. And like I said, sometimes the clients can’t tell the difference, but I do feel like it’s time for that to make a resurgence, but with some education on what makes good and what’s not good.
Seshu Badrinath: Indeed, indeed.
Allison Tyler Jones: What’s worth paying for.
Seshu Badrinath: I hope so. I hope so. I really do.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, I think it’s going to be great. I’m excited for you. Anything else before we go? Anything you want our listeners to know or any words of advice for newer photographers that are just starting out?
Seshu Badrinath: Yeah, I think when it comes down to it, in my mind at least, you’ve got to be slightly obsessed with what you’re doing and who you’re doing it for. You have to be constantly thinking about not just your craft, but also the business and understanding that. When we started talking about today, it’s a quiet time in New England right now, and business seems like it’s disappeared practically, but it’s not true. It’s right there around the corner and you have to just prepare for it. And when I say prepare for it, I’m talking about those wonderful sales that come in November and December. Don’t go crazy spending it right away. Invest of course in your gear if you have to before the year ends and things like that.
Seshu Badrinath: As I did, I bought a couple of new cameras, and because I was starting to shoot more sports, I needed something new, but I also made sure that there’s enough or was not a rainy day right now. It’s not raining right now. So here we are, but I’m not worried about things. I’m just keep working and keep marketing and keep going and meeting with people really. This afternoon and about half an hour, I’m meeting with somebody who I’ve never met before who’ve just reached out through a LinkedIn and said, “Hey, let’s have a cup of coffee.”
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s awesome.
Seshu Badrinath: Just do those things. Go out there, meet people. It’s just amazing how absolutely wonderful conversations, even things that are not tied to business can lead to things in business if you just let it happen.
Allison Tyler Jones: So true. Put yourself out there a little bit.
Seshu Badrinath: Yeah, yeah. So I would say that would be my advice to fellow photographers. And last thing I would say is be involved in your community. There are so many organizations that are in need of great photography, and you could just pick one or two that you can actually be of service to. Don’t make it about money. Don’t make it about an exchange of any kind. Just be there for them and help them out. Get them recognized. Inevitably, they’re going to tag you on a post or talk about you in a board meeting and say, “Oh, this photographer just stopped by and said we can use his or her photographs in this particular manner,” and that opens doors.
Seshu Badrinath: And I’ve had that happen with several organizations. I didn’t mean it to go out that way, but it worked out organically that way. I grew up, my parents are huge givers, and so being able to give back to the community has always been in my DNA I think. If someone says, “Hey, I can’t even afford you. Can you take a headshot of me?” I’ve done that for college students who are just graduating. I just feel bad. I remember being a college student. I remember how difficult it was. So I said, okay, let’s just do this. And who knows, five, 10 years from now, they could be a CEO of a company.
Allison Tyler Jones: Sure.
Seshu Badrinath: We never know.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Well, but you’re also priced appropriately and charging appropriately in the other areas of your business. It allows you to have the facility to do that. That’s my free or full price mantra is like I’m able to gift and to be philanthropic at the level that I am because I charge appropriately.
Seshu Badrinath: 100%. 100%. I’ll be honest with you, what’s running through my head. And I say, this is why I can do that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. For sure.
Seshu Badrinath: And I’m starting to let my clients know that this is what I do in my community. I want them to know that I’m not just here to take their money and run off.
Allison Tyler Jones: Absolutely.
Seshu Badrinath: I’m really here to support a community that should be thriving despite the craziness that surrounds us every day, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, exactly. And we will not even go into that.
Seshu Badrinath: No, we won’t.
Allison Tyler Jones: We’re going to just cut it right there. No, but yeah, absolutely. No, I think that’s so fair. So a couple of points that you just made that I want to highlight before we sail off into the sunset, and that is that when the getting is good, you want to make hay while the sun is shining, but you also want to stash a little of that hay for when it’s not. You’ve been in business for a long time, when you know that there’s certain times of year that are less busy than others, that tend to be a little bit of a dip. You can freak out about that every single year. Ask me how I know because I have. Or you can save up and know that, okay, this has got to get me through January, February, and then during that time, that can be your education time. That can be your time to clean your studio. That can be your time to prep, sharpen the saw, to use Stephen Covey’s metaphor and do other things, or just take a break. Just take a break.
Seshu Badrinath: Yeah, absolutely.
Allison Tyler Jones: So it’s not necessarily a bad thing. And then also pouring into community I think is a way, is sharing the hay and then that people want to work with people that are giving back, and that’s a virtuous cycle. So I love that. I love that you were raised that way. Similar, my parents were big servers in church and community. So I agree. Totally agree with that.
Seshu Badrinath: Thank you, Allison.
Allison Tyler Jones: All right. It’s great to have you. I appreciate you so much. Thank you.
Seshu Badrinath: Take care. Bye.
Allison Tyler Jones: Bye-bye. So just to recap this conversation, I just want to highlight some of the concepts that I think were important after Seshu and I chatted today. And one is that don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. So often we think we have to have the perfect piece of software or that we need to organize some big email promotion when really all it takes is just sending few texts to some clients to let them know that you’re thinking about them. And that it really is as low tech as that, as low tech as letting people know that you’re considering them, that you’re thinking about them, that they’re on your radar, and finding ways how we can best help our best clients. So don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And then also the idea of that when times are good, don’t spend all your money. Save up a little and have enough to get you through a slower month so that you can take some time off and rest.
Allison Tyler Jones: Because when we’re really, really busy, we’re really, really busy and it takes a lot out of us. And so that’s the benefit of owning your own business, is being able to take a little bit of time off and have the money to do that. So I hope that you got a lot from this conversation today. I really like Seshu, he’s such a great guy and I wish it was video because he has the best smile and I think he really conveys that energy and he has lucky, lucky clients. So I really appreciate him being here, and I’m looking forward to his future success.
Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison at dotherework.com and on Instagram @do.the.rework.
Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait…
Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait…
Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait…