No One’s Coming | #23

A few short years ago when I was starting my business, I was sitting around waiting for clients to come to me. I’ve been doing photography for a few years and I thought I was pretty good. I built out a website, shared my best work there, and couldn’t wait for clients to start contacting me.

I put all this effort into building my craft, so it was just a matter of time until people and brands were going to line up to work with me, right?

This is something everyone who wants to start a creative business goes through. They think they’re good enough to get clients so they build out a website with all their best work.

Once the website is live, it’s only a matter of time until people start hitting them up via email and sliding into their dm’s...

This is one of the first business lessons creatives learn. No one is going to contact you. You’re a creative with no real client work under you. Agencies aren’t out there googling your name.

For a handful of creatives, this will be it. They’ll assume their work isn’t good enough or the industry is too saturated and they’ll pack it in. They’ll give up at step 1.

If you’re reading this, I know you don’t fall into that category.

Building a website and portfolio is just step 1. It’s up to you to get eyeballs on that website. No one owes you anything. It’s up to you to prove that you offer value to people and brands.

After building your portfolio is when the real work begins. You need to send cold emails to get eyeballs on your portfolio. You need to message brands on Instagram. You need to create organic marketing content to grow your social pages. You can even run paid ads to promote your site.

It’s up to you to get people to your portfolio... No one stumbles across it accidentally.

I’ve worked with 50+ brands in my career and let me tell you, only 2 or 3 of those reached out to me first. Almost always, I’m the one who makes the first impression. I reach out to them with what I have to offer.

If you go into this business with the mindset that no one owes you anything, I promise you’ll come out further ahead.