063: Prue Aja – The Importance of a Personal Brand & Having Confidence In Charging Your Self Worth

May 30, 2022

“Set your goals and your visions big, and tap into that feeling that you’re there, and that you’ve achieved that, and bring that into your life and where you are now.”

PRUE AJA

Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is all about Prue Aja.

Prue Aja is one of Australia’s most in-demand portrait and branding photographers and for the past decade, she has helped impact-driven leaders and high profile entrepreneurs visually bring their personal brands to life.

Today, she is sought after around the country for her innate ability to connect and capture the essence of an individual through imagery. She has been profiled in the media and images of her clients adorn the pages of well-known publications.

Prue’s passion for visual storytelling is equal to her desire to help photographers grow a thriving sustainable business and offers mentoring and coaching through her Business Academy – The Go-to Photographer.

Check out some of the biggest points from Prue’s interview below:

Why is it important to have a personal brand?

Well, you just answered it then, because it sells your business for you. And you know photography is such a personal thing, whether it’s for someone’s wedding, or it’s for someone’s business, or taking someone’s personal branding portraits. That connection between the photographer and the client, you’re capturing them in a vulnerable way, or capturing the gifts that they’ve made for the world. And so they want to make sure that they connect with who you are, and your values and your goals, and that everything aligns. I think sharing your story and being really clear and creating a niche, as they say in America, around what you do, allows you to become recognisable and grow your brand a lot quicker as well. And so more work gets referred to you through word of mouth.

And then also, on your social media, instead of just posting photos of what you actually do, sharing why you do what you do, and how you do it, and behind the scenes, that allows people to connect. I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me because they just read my bio on my website and said, “My values in my business align with what you do, and I would love to work with you.” So, it’s not just about the photos, but it’s about who you are and what you bring to the table.

Can you tell us a little bit more about your business academy, the Go-To Photographer?

Yes. So it was a bit tricky to come up with the name for it, and it was when I was making, writing the website copy, and ultimately the goal of the business academy is to make you the Go-To Photographer for what you love to shoot. And because I really believe in the importance of having a great brand message about who you are, as I mentioned before, and what you do, we work through the six modules, and it goes from mindset, so being super clear about what your vision and your mission is as a photographer, weaving in your story and what’s unique about you as well. So, what do you really love to shoot, or it might not necessarily what you love to shoot, but your style of shooting. And then we move into branding, so then weaving that all together with a clear brand message, good copy, and then you’ve got your logos and your colours and those things.

So a lot of people think branding is just that visual stuff, and a lot of photographers just have websites of amazing photos and like a small paragraph as a bio and a contact. And people come to the page and go, “Well, this person’s photography’s amazing, but I don’t know who they work with, how much they charge, what their services are, how do I work with them? Are they busy or not?” I’ve actually got this feedback, so I’m going on a bit of a tangent, but I remember I was a part of this networking group and this guy said, “Oh, your photos look great, but you look really expensive, and it’s a bit intimidating.” And this was like my first year out of uni and I’m like, “Just book me. I need a job. I’m happy to shoot anything, literally.”

And so I really took that advice on. I need to make it … not change my photography, keep it at that high level, but add in stuff to get people to take action to actually work with me and book me as well. So yeah, we do branding, and then we go into money. So, getting super clear on how much it is that you need to make to live, because we want to create businesses that support our lifestyle, just as much as you don’t want to have a business and you’re working 24/7, which a lot of people end up doing, especially in the early years. Because, you become obsessed with what you do.

And then from there, we work out your prices, and we create packages. And they’re not just packages like half day, five shots, that kind of thing. Actually, learning to write your packages that sell on value, so the value you give to your clients and what that means for them, so what they’re going to achieve and how their lives are going to change from working with you. And then we go into workflow, so I share all my backend business, how I’ve just totally streamlined it and Studio Ninja is a major part of that. That was a game changer when I discovered it, almost maybe five years ago. So, I’m obsessed with it, and tell every photographer to join it.

And also, like proofing, editing, doing retouching notes, all those kinds of things. And then all my client communication, my email templates, how to set boundaries with clients, and how to convert them from your website into getting on the phone and booking a job with you, and making that really streamlined. None of this emails back and forth and giving away all your ideas and they run off and do it with another photographer. And then once you know you’ve got all those foundations in place, and then we work on the marketing, from the most effective marketing ways to the least. And Instagram is on there, but it’s definitely not the top marketing platform I find. So, I share all my secrets to how I’ve grown my website traffic and my business that way as well.

So, I pretty much give everything away I’ve learned in 12 years. Plus, I realized a few weeks ago I’ve invested over $100,000 on business development and coaches myself. So, everything that I’ve learned, that I could never find a course that really specialized for commercial and branding photographers, I’ve put into this, just tailored it for photographers. So, I’m very passionate about it.

How do you find confidence in your pricing?

So again, it goes back to creating that niche, and be really known and specific about what it is that you shoot, so that you become memorable. Because becoming the go-to photographer, it then eliminates options. So, they’re not looking at all the other personal branding photographers, because they know that you specifically do personal branding for this person, or shooting food for this person. And growing that, and then there were definitely a few times … I feel like every time I had a bit of a personal growth spurt, or troubles going on in my business, it was because I needed to up my prices. I kind of would get to a stuck stage and I’m like, “Why am I not getting anywhere?” I was like, “All right, here we go. I’ve got to do a bit of personal growth for business growth,” and always resulted in putting my prices up.

So, there’s that aspect as well, so understanding your self-worth. But also, really understand how much money you need to live. Really go back to basics. Do a personal budget. And I actually teach a money master class on budgeting and business, which if you’re in my database, I send out an email about when I run this. And once you understand that, it takes the stress off. So many people are like, “Oh, I want to make more money. I want to make more money.” But, they don’t even understand how much money they’ve already got, and is that working for them, and how much money they actually need. You need to decide how much money it is that you want to actually be making.

And then when it comes to actually pricing yourself, try your best to move away from selling your time for money. So, going “I’m $250 an hour,” instead move towards packages. So for example, I went from having a headshot package, I think it was like $395 for an hour and three head shots. Now, my minimum is $1500 for up to two hours and 10 images. But, I sell that on creating your profile images for your social media, your press kit, any speaking events or conferences you’ve got to go to. Because, I understand what that specific client wants. That’s for like CEOs and executives, and I know what they want, and I just have to make it sound really good. So, it taps into their wants and needs.

And they don’t even budge on the price. It’s pretty much the same thing as I used to charge, but way less effort, and it’s just easier. So, I hope that all makes sense.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Prue for joining us on the show!

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!

That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.

See you soon,

Sally