“Show Notes”
The first Shoot to the Top Webinar is on the 2nd of April and it’s all about getting higher value clients for your business. To find out more and book click here.
Dan started as an engineer and then moved over to running a photography business. Dan got a studio early in his career. When he started, there was a group of local businesses with a shared space where he started with a desk. Then, as others left, he took over more of the space to make it his studio.
Sam likes a few things on his website, especially the call to action “apply to work with us”. Dan said he got the idea from the book “Booked Solid” by Paul J DiGrigoli It gives the impression that he is so busy that you have to apply to work with him as he is so busy. Dan has upended his about page, making it entirely about the visitor, not about him.
Marcus asks about the video and Dan said he got into this due to demand rather than it being something he wanted to do. Dan outsources any work he gets in. So, he works as a creative director, but the sub-contractor films and edits the videos.he says there are lots of freelancers out there who can work with you. Dan says that estimating the edit time is one of the most challenging parts of a video quote. Marcus asks Dan about his style and he says his style develops as you shoot rather than trying to force a style upon your work.
Sam asks Dan about his niching as his work is very niched. Dan says this is largely based on his background and who he knew when he was an engineer. Although initially he was very general, he then focused on a niche. Dan said he found that once he niched, everything became much easier in terms of marketing and getting referrals. Dan said the secret of niching is also that you don’t have to stick to your niche with your work, only in your marketing. Sam also discussed the idea that niching allows you to charge more as you are a specialist, not a generalist. Dan has a group he has put together called fathers of Focus. This is a group for photographers that he runs. Dan wants to help others. He finds that the business side of the business is something he enjoys and has lots of experience with. While many photographers don’t feel confident in this area. So the group is to bring photographers together and give them confidence in running their business. The group is aimed at family focused men. To find out more about the group, you can visit them here.
Dan Barker is a former aerospace engineer who now runs a photography and video production business focused on helping manufacturers.
After picking up a camera in 2012 to help with his wife’s business, he realised how much he enjoyed photography. Making time to teach himself about photography and business while working full-time in aerospace engineering, he gradually began to pick up paying clients.
He has a successful business which supports his family and now he helps others do the same through his mastermind community Fathers of Focus.
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You can connect with Dan on LinkedIn here
“Show Transcription”
Marcus: Well hello there, Sam. How are you doing?
Sam: Very good, Marcus. How about you?
Marcus: I am very well. Thank you very well indeed. And today on today’s show, we have a guest, Sam. We’ve got a fellow photographer. Yeah, we’ve got a fellow photographer, Dan Barker from Dan Barker Studios. Dan, tell us how it is.
Dan: Hello, how are you doing?
Sam: I’m good. How about you?
Dan: Things are good.
Sam: Excellent. Do you want to introduce yourself then, Dan?
Dan: Yeah, sure. So I’m Dan Barker. My business is Dan Barker Studios. I’m based in Ludbury in Herefordshire. So about an hour away from you, Marcus, I think. I specialize in industrial photography and video production. My background is actually in aerospace engineering. So I studied mechanical engineering at university, did that for 13 years. Always wanted to run my own business, discovered photography, picked that up, thought that was a lot more fun and worked for several years to learn and get to the point where I had some clients. And then finally I went part-time with my engineering work for about a year and then jumped in full-time to the photography beginning of September 2018.
Marcus: We first met, didn’t we, Dan, I think, through Jeff Brown, wasn’t it? One of our regular guests in the show. I think we met through his program or in his Facebook group or something.
Dan: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, that rings a bell. I think I did a bit of work with Jeff, yeah, 2018, probably. So, yeah, it would have been when we came onto each other’s radars.
Marcus: If I may correctly, you basically got your studio set up quite early, didn’t you, in your career, Dan?
Dan: Yeah, I mean, I guess I had a bit of luck, if that’s what it is, or I put myself in the right place for a bit of luck. But yeah, when I was first getting going, actually up here where I am now, my friends had a space where they did screen printing, and this was like a shared space, so they did screen printing. There was a ceramicist, there was someone that kept a collection of cinema stuff, equipment and films and everything. And we didn’t have much space at home at the time, so I used to come and perch on the end of their table and do some work, build my website and things like that. And then one of the spaces came available, the ceramicist, she moved out, so I took that on, and it wasn’t very much money at the time, I think it was like 160 quid a month or something, so it was doable. Just to have a bit of space to work from. So, yeah, and then gradually over the years, the screen printing guys moved out, so I sort of took on three-quarters of the space, and then the other guy moved out, and now I’ve got all this space up.
Sam: Amazing. And then you’ve mentioned the website there, and there’s a couple of things on your website I wanted to talk about, because it’s quite interesting and different to a few people in a couple of ways. And first of all, I love the call to action on your website. Apply to work with us, that’s brilliant.
Dan: Yeah, I like it. My new web developers don’t like it, so I actually have a new site development, and I’ve taken that off, unfortunately.
Sam: Oh, okay.
Dan: They felt like it sounded like it was applied to work for us kind of thing, so I don’t know. I might change it back in the future, because it’s good to get your feedback on it, actually, because it was, what was the book? It was Book Solid, I think. How come? The author. Yeah, he sort of talks about putting up a red velvet rope to make sure that you’re working with the right people, and that’s where it came from, really.
Sam: Yeah, and it gives that impression, doesn’t it? You know, I am so popular, I am so busy.
You’ve got to apply. You might have to join a waiting list, but you want to do it. You know, it’s not like desperately, you know, it’s not like, oh, let’s make it as easy as possible, let’s get it. It’s like, right, I’m so busy, you know, I can wait. You know, you’ve got to apply. Yeah, it’s…
Dan: Yeah, yeah, that was the idea, yeah. So, yeah, whether it works or not, I don’t know.
Sam: And then the other one on there was the About page. Now, I’m always talking about About pages with people, and going, oh my God, you’re boring people with your endless history about yourself, and the fact that you’ve got a camera when you’re seven, and yada, yada, yada. But your About page is brilliant, so your About page, you’ve completely turned on its head, haven’t you?
Dan: Yeah, yeah, that was exactly the idea, because I was exactly the same as you, like no one cares that you were born with clutching a camera and stuff, and that you did that, and you’ve always loved it. They want to know, I think, if you can solve their problem, and, you know, a bit further down the line, they might like to know a bit about you, but I think to begin with, it’s got to be about them. So yeah, that’s why I did that.
Sam: Yeah, so Dan’s About page is about the visitor, not about him at all. Completely staged, completely turned on its head, which I think is brilliant. Yeah, really interesting. And then, so the house…
Dan: Yeah, so again, it’s a new site as well. Oh, sorry. I was just going to say, with the new site, that might be out by the time this comes out, they’ve tempered it a little bit, but yeah, I’ve tried to keep it in the same vein.
Sam: Yeah, yeah, cool, excellent.
Marcus: And so, you come from a technical background, an engineering background, as you mentioned, Dan. So obviously, that’s the size of that photography appeal to you. Is that why do you think you got into video quite early on, because of your sort of joy of tech, as it were?
Dan: No, I think the video came along just through demand, really. It was like someone put to me, you know, maybe you should have a go at doing some video. And actually, I don’t shoot myself a lot of video. I generally bring people in, work with video artists on the video side of things. And I always have done, from the beginning, just on the basis that I didn’t have the capacity. At the time I brought video in, I was still working at least three days a week in my engineering job, and trying to build the photography. So I’ve always approached video from that side of things, where I’m more of a producer, maybe sort of creative director type role, I suppose, and work with them to do the video side of things.
Sam: So you’re coming up with the ideas and chatting with the client, but are you just getting in a cameraman and then you’re editing, or are they kind of also putting the film together?
Dan: Yeah, they’ll usually edit as well. Yeah, if there’s small bits and pieces, I might jump on and do a bit. But on the whole, yeah, I’m working with them in that way. And I had employees for a little while as well. Well, about three years I had an employee, but I’ve come back to using freelancers now, which is what everyone told me I should do in the first place.
Sam: Excellent. So in terms of if people haven’t done that before, can you give them a vague idea of the process? How do you get a freelancer? How does it work if somebody’s thinking, oh, that could be for me. It’s a way to expand my business.
Dan: Yeah, I mean, there’s tons of them out there. I mean, I happen to know the first guy I worked with, I knew through a family friend contact. And I saw he was doing some cool stuff on his social media. So I just contacted him and said, look, do you want to work on these projects? And we sort of built it together. But yeah, I mean, there’s tons of them out there. I guess, for me, LinkedIn is my sort of go-to social media. So I would find people on there and now have a good number of connections on there. So yeah, and then in terms of the process, I mean, yeah, you just work with them in a sort of open, collaborative way, really. And if you find people that you can work together with, well, obviously that’s what you want, you know, where you can balance ideas and the ideas sort of go up and up like that.
Sam: Yeah. And then perfect. And how do you make that work in terms of cost? Because obviously you have to give the client a quote. How do you make that work so you don’t end up going, oh, bugger, I’ve ended up with this videographer and I’ve got to pay him twice as much as I’ve charged the client and stuff.
Dan: Yeah. So you’ve got to be careful in terms of estimating your edit time, particularly your edit time on a video project. Got to get right. So usually, you know, the way it works with any industry really, I mean, I know when I’ve had, you know, builders in and people, they’ll be bringing subcontractors in and they mark up their time. So I have a day rate that I charge out and they’ll be charging me less than that. So I’ll be making a mark up on their time during the edit and the shoot and everything. And then also, obviously, if I’m involved on the shoot, which I usually am, then I’m putting in a day rate for myself. And I tend to put in a project management fee as well. So it generally works out okay.
Sam: Okay. Excellent.
Marcus: So looking at your photography on your website and the stuff that I see you put out on LinkedIn, the style is very, very clean, beautifully lit, quite dark as well, isn’t it? I think that’s sort of part of your style, which is very nice. Even looking at you now on your video, you know, you’ve got a dark background, you’re well lit. So that’s obviously a style you’ve got. How do you sort of manage to replicate your photography style with the video style?
Dan: That’s a good question. I think the thing I learned about style when I was learning about photography and everything was that you’ve just got to do and then your style comes through. I don’t know if you agree with that. But I sort of, it was like, right, just go and shoot and gradually you’ll start to look back on things and you have a style rather than trying to force a style or anything. I suppose with the video, I’ve always known how I kind of want it to look. So I suppose I’ve influenced, you know, I’m always there on the shoots and everything. So I’m influencing the lighting and everything like that. So, yeah, I guess that’s how it’s come through. Yeah, it’s a really good question. I’ve never really thought about that.
Marcus: You’ve answered it by saying, yeah, exactly. And he’s answered it by saying, you just built up your style organically. There’s nothing been forced. It’s just what you like to see, what you like to shoot and you just embedded it into your brand.
Dan: Yeah, and I suppose you attract people that like similar things as well. I don’t think they have all the traction. So, yeah, there’s a bit of that as well.
Sam: Okay, excellent. And then I think a niching is a topic we talk about a fair bit on the show. And we’re going to come on to your photography community shortly, which is niche. But the business itself is really tightly niched, is it? So you’re working with kind of heavy industry type of thing in engineering companies?
Dan: Yeah, generally aimed at manufacturers, engineering companies and tech companies, that sort of thing. And yeah, it’s very much based on my background, really. It came about because when I was sitting in my engineering job trying to figure out how to make this thing work, I actually put a post up on LinkedIn, just asking people what struggles they’d had when booking a commercial photographer and someone that I didn’t know, I’m actually now really good friends with, just randomly replied and said he was struggling at the time to get someone to photograph some engineering applications because the photographer just wasn’t, didn’t quite get the product. And, you know, Marcus probably can tell when people are really into something from the photos, you get the portfolio, and you go, ah, you’re really into food. It sticks out. So yeah, I thought, oh, well, that’s interesting. There might be something I could bring to the table here. But I didn’t niche to begin with. Like when I quit my job at that time, I was still very general, doing a bit of everything, and it wasn’t until sort of 2019 that I started experimenting with niching, sort of went down the headshot route to start with, even though I’d already had this conversation about engineering. And then I decided, right now, I want to go for this. And yeah, it was, for me, it was a bit of a game changer, really.
Sam: Right. In terms of what kind of the income for your business and that sort of thing?
Dan: Yeah, everything really. The clarity that it brought for me as well, you know, when you’re doing a bit of everything and you’re a generalist, like I found it really hard to decide what to put on my website. It’s like, well, I’ve done these really cool headshots. Should I put those? Should I put these cool products? Should I put that? I’ve done these cool lifestyle.
I really like it. And you’re like, and you end up not posting anything and not doing anything. And it’s like, right, this is what I’m doing. It’s like, okay, it’s clear what to put on my website. It’s clear what to put on my social media, what to talk about, who to approach. And the other thing I loved about it was, you know, if you go to networking meetings, which I used to, say to someone, I’m a photographer and they go, oh, what do you do? And you go, I’ll do some products. I do some head jobs. I do a bit of this, a bit of interiors and stuff. And they go, okay. And that’s about it. But when I started going in and saying, I’m an industrial photographer and I work with manufacturers, engineering companies, they’d go, oh, I know my mate, Bob, he runs an engineering company. I’ll introduce you.
Sam: That’s it.
Dan: And then some people know who to introduce you to.
Marcus: I mean, I do it.
Sam: because they’ve got a smaller number of people, haven’t you, instead of a lot? You’d say I’m a photographer. They think, oh, that’s everybody I know might need you. Well, if you go, you need to, you know, if they can narrow it down to two people, they can give you their contact details.
Dan: Yeah, exactly. It’s like when people say, oh, I work for SMEs. That’s my niche. And you go, and then you find out that 99% of all businesses in the UK are SMEs. But to know who your ideal client is.
Marcus: I mean, I totally get what you’re saying. And obviously, we’re all really, you know, proponents of the niching down. I’ve got my branding photography. Sam’s got his website for photography. You’ve got your engineering. But if I may just put an argument forward for not niching down, especially in this day and age when maybe work is more scarce, possibly, or maybe there’s more competition, there might be something to be said for having a wide spread of income, not just having your eggs in one basket, so to speak. And we have had guests on the show who have actually sort of done that in a very specific way, but have made, you know, that’s what they do. They shoot everything. Dan, what do you think about that?
Dan: So for me, there’s two aspects to that. One is that the secret of niching is that I think you don’t have to just do that work. So don’t tell anyone. But I shot two weddings last year. I shot some tea towels in the studio. I shot some honey. But it doesn’t go on my website and my LinkedIn or anything. And then that’s the other side of it. It’s all about, you know, it’s all about the marketing. It’s not about what you actually do, you know. So I think, you know, you said about competition, Marcus, but I think if you’re a generalist, you’re in competition with all the other generalists out there, which is a lot of people, anyone that, you know, buys a camera from Currys and starts. But as soon as you’re an industrial photographer, a food photographer, whatever photographer, you’re suddenly in competition with a lot fewer people. So by niching, you’re actually taking yourself out of the vast part of photographers. And by accepting that you can do other work, you’re also sort of, I think addressing that thing that people say that, you know, I need to be able to do lots of different work. Well, you can still do it. It’s just that…
Marcus: You don’t advertise it.
Dan: Yeah. And also, you know, and Sam touched on it. You know, it’s like how many clients do you need to have a successful business as well as a photographer? You know, you don’t need every single business to want to work with you. So if you can find the niche that’s, you know, specific, you’ll have enough that there’ll be enough people within that, you know, unless you choose something, unless you, you know, if I’m in Ledbury and I choose, I don’t know, you know, something to do with the beach or something like that.
Sam: Yeah, you’re a bit too niched.
Dan: Not great. There’s not many.
Marcus: No, I mean, where you are situated, as you say, you’re near Bristol, which is a big tech, you know, big city for tech. And you’re sort of based around the area, aren’t you? I mean, as you say, that’s part defining your niche, your geography.
Dan: Yeah, although it’s surprising, it surprised me actually, because I thought I’d do a lot more in Bristol and Birmingham and everything, and I’m never there, really. What happens is people around here, you know, it turns out there’s actually a lot that goes on here, even in Herefordshire, which is very sparsely populated.
Sam: Yeah, yeah.
Dan: You start to find these amazing manufacturers that are doing things that you had no idea was going on, and they start coming out of the, out of the woodwork, if you like.
Sam: And that’s a bit as well, because your niche, and they can see what you’re a specialist in, aren’t they? And I think what, linked to what you were saying as well about if you’re a generalist, you’ve got a lot of competition. You’ve also got an issue with price. If you’re a specialist, and you’re like, I’m one of only two people doing this in the area or the country, you can put your prices right up, and you are a specialist and people are paying for your skills. If you’re a generalist, and I do a bit of weddings, and I do a bit of dogs, and I do a bit of this, your prices end up being rock bottom, and you’re competing with all the other photographers whose prices are rock bottom, and you don’t make much money, and it’s hard to get out of that without bringing in that niche, bringing in that speciality, being able to charge those higher prices.
Dan: Exactly, yeah, that’s the other side of it, isn’t it? And I think it gives you confidence as well to put your prices up a bit, because, you know, you get to know what the people in your niche need and what the little thing, you know, for me, it’s like simple things like, I have my own PPE that I’ll take to a shoot, you know, so I’m already ready when I get to the factory and I can answer the right questions, and I can check that we’ve got the right PPE in the shoot and everything like that, and people will know all those things for their individual niches and their individual sizes, you know.
Sam: Makes total sense.
Marcus: Okay, let’s talk about that.
Sam: One thing quickly, Marcus linked to that, because we’ve got the podcast to talk about pricing. So, yeah, just about that and Charger Higher Pricing, we do have it, not a podcast. Webinar coming up. Second of April we have Shoot to the Top webinar about charging higher prices, and that’s just, yeah, just like we’re talking about there. Details in the show notes. Sorry, Marcus, carry on.
Marcus: No, that’s all right, mate, thanks for mentioning that. I’m just going to move on now to the talking about your own community that you’ve set up. Is it fathers in focus? Is that correct?
Dan: Fathers of focus.
Marcus: Of focus. Oh, I see.
Sam: Tell us about that.
Dan: Yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, I’ve always loved sort of teaching and trying to bring, and bringing people together and helping people like that. I guess the reason why I went for commercial photography in the first place was I’ve always loved sort of the idea of running a business and running a business and all that sort of things. I decided to, you know, because I did start doing a few weddings and stuff right at the beginning and then decided to go commercial and then went to the industrial. And part of the reason for that was that I wanted to hang around with people that were running their businesses and learn about that because it’s just something that’s always fascinated me. So, the business side of it has always been of a lot of interest to me, you know, at least as much as the photography.
And what I found is that, you know, a lot of people obviously get into photography because they love the photography and then they realize, oh, I’ve got to run a business as well. They don’t feel so confident on that side of things. So, the idea of the community is to help build confidence in the business side of what we do because I think it’s, in fact, I just put a poll on LinkedIn this week about it to see what people thought balance was. And I think it’s definitely 50-50 in terms of shooting and business. Some people are going as high as sort of like 80-90% business and 10% photography. So, you know, it shows the kind of split. So, yeah, the idea of the community really was to bring people together and to help build confidence in that side of things. Because I like a niche, I wanted to make it niche and specific. And I’ve noticed, you know, how that chimes with the right people when I’ve had conversations with people. So, it’s aimed at family-focused men. So, maybe their dads, maybe not.
Sam: And so, Dan, just to confirm, we’re talking family-focused in terms of their life, not their photography.
Dan: Sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s a very good point, yeah, because it’s for commercial photographers and videographers. But, yeah, in terms of their life. Because for me, a big part of changing careers, I really wasn’t happy in my engineering job. You know, I got to the point where I just lethargic when I came back from a day sitting in front of spreadsheets all day. I think I even got to the point where I just wanted to drive my car off the side of the road on the way there. You know, it’s like…
Sam: Okay, thank you.
Dan: But a big part of the motivation for changing careers for me, apart from that, was to teach my kids a good example and show them that, you know, I didn’t have to sit in a job that I hated for the rest of my life, which, you know, sadly, too many people do.
So I guess I wanted to make the group as specific to my own experience as possible so I could add value to people and, you know, help those people that, you know, feel in a similar way.
Marcus: I do applaud you, Dan, in picking up a niche that… or not only a group of people that probably aren’t really that represented that much in… I don’t know, in photography, but in sort of education or as a target market in some way. So, I mean, you’ve all outlined why you are doing that because that’s always who you empathize with. But can you just tell me a little bit more any other reasons for that? Was it to go against the establishment?
Dan: I think the first reasons, as I was going through it in my head, were make this as specific as possible to my own experience so I can add as much value. Secondly, it’s a group that I want to support as well, you know. And yeah, I think there’s an element of that as well, Marcus, in that I think it is… we are slightly underrepresented because, you know, quite rightly, obviously, you know, minority groups and everything get represented all the time and as they should… I’m not sort of… you know, I’m not like anti anyone or anything like that. It’s just a case of trying to help people that are in a similar position to me and yeah, I think maybe don’t get represented as much as maybe they should.
Sam: And then if people want to find out more about it, what can they do?
Dan: So I can head to the website. Again, we’ve got a new website coming out which hopefully will be launched by the time this goes out. I’m not sure when this is going out.
Sam: Which week?
Dan: Oh, is it? Okay, it probably won’t be. It’s fathersoffocus.com and so you can head there or head by LinkedIn where I’m posting about it quite regularly.
Sam: And we’ll put all of those links in the show notes for everybody. But it’s brilliant and we are getting about to time, but yeah, loads and loads of interesting things there about your business and marketing and photography, all sorts of things. Thank you so much for joining us and showing so much with our listeners.
Dan: It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me on. It was an honor to be invited.
Marcus: Aww, mate. Thank you so much, Dan. I’d love for you to see you again and we’ll catch up soon.
Dan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Cheers.
Sam: Brilliant. And then just a reminder again about the Shoot to the Top webinar. So the webinar is on the 2nd of April and it’s about charging more for your photography about how you can do that and move up and improve your business by charging more for your work. To book on, simply go to the Shoot to the Top website and the link is in the show notes. Thank you, Dan, again and Marcus. I’ll see you next week.
Marcus: See you next week, Sam.
