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- [00:00]
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Am I the only one who kind of remembers where they were and who they were talking to and whatever the first time that they heard about certain technologies? I don't know if that's a normal thing. I know it's normal to remember where you were when big events took place and all that, but of course these all happened and I didn't know that they were big events at the time. But in retrospect, I have this like collection of memories. I remember the first time that I ever heard about Netflix. I was at my friend Katie's parents house and her parents had those red envelopes and I was like, what are these? What's this company? Netflix. I remember my friend Florence working, we were waiting tables, I guess was somewhere in the neighborhood of like 2002. And she was telling me about this website called Facebook that was kind of like MySpace but better. I remember seeing my friend Amanda's smartphone for the first time. It was an iPhone. And thinking, huh, that's interesting. Seems like it would be hard to type on compared to like a BlackBerry, I guess. And then I have this very distinct memory of the first time I ever heard about ChatGPT, which was the first large language model AI that I heard of. I was out walking my dog and talking to my dad on the phone and he, as he often does, brought up what he had been listening to on NPR and told me like, oh, have you heard about this thing called ChatGPT? It, you know, it can do just about anything. You can just type any question into it and it'll give you your answer. And I was like, oh, huh, that's cool. How is it different from Google? Like, my initial response was basically like, who cares? I don't need that. And it is bananas to me to think that that was just a couple of years ago. Right? I mean, at this point you would literally have to live in a cave somewhere to not be familiar with AI. It's here, it's not going anywhere. And although the issues surrounding it can feel complicated and intimidating and even scary, I honestly believe that ignoring them isn't a solution and that doing so at this point is a big mistake for your business. It's very much like all those business owners in 1995 ish who were like, huh, I think the Internet is a passing phase and I'm not going to worry about building a website for my business. Right? So today I want to talk about a path forward with AI that is clear and doable and aligned with your values. This has been sort of how I have thought through my usage of AI and what is and is not acceptable and what I am and am not comfortable with. And even though you may come to different conclusions for your business, I think the framework works.
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Welcome to this Can't Be that Hard. My name is Annemie Tonkin and I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it, and I can show you how.
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All right, so welcome back. We are in week three of our four week Table Technology and Software series, and today and next week we are going to be talking about AI. And I want to start with something that I think is really a real concern for a lot of us in this community. Most artists I know have, you know, big feelings about even just automation, much less AI driven automation. And I get that. We, like every single one of us, I think, has something about authenticity or real or whatever somewhere on our website, right? It's a big part of what we do and what we sell. We are reflecting people's reality back to them. And so authenticity is a big piece of the way that we try to run our businesses. So the idea of using AI to do just about anything, write our content, edit our photos, answer our emails, it can feel off. It can, you know, give you the ick. I get that too. So I am not in this episode and next going to try and talk you out of your discomfort. I think the discomfort is real and what I want to do is help understand what that discomfort is telling you and then what you should do with that. Because the questions that are floating around in your mind, assuming that you have them, are coming from your conscience, right? That little Jiminy Cricket on your shoulder that's trying to help you make sure that your choices and your actions are aligned with your values. And that's a good thing, because a business that is not in alignment with your values is very much the opposite of authenticity. I think it's worth pointing out that if you are struggling with any of these issues and questions, if you feel that friction when it comes to AI, that's a sign that you are a good human, which I appreciate. So thank you. And because you're listening to this podcast, I am also going to assume that you are trying to run a profitable, sustainable business. And you have heard that AI could potentially help you do that in some way, shape or form. So how do we make those two things work together in a way that's not just looking in the opposite direction, in a way that really does honor your concerns instead of ignoring them. And that's where this framework comes in. So I imagine, you know, every single person listening to this podcast can think back and imagine or remember the time that they got their first real camera, right? I got my first camera when I was expecting my son Oliver, who's 20, so it's been a while. And I was living in New York, I didn't have any space in my apartment. And so when people were asking what they could give us as a, as a gift, you know, for this newborn, I was very much like, I don't need clothes, I don't need toys. What I need is some money. And I need money for a stroller, like a fancy New York style stroller. And I need money for a camera because I know that I'm going to want to document this new little person in my life. I got both of those things. I was very fortunate, and the stroller was useful for a handful of years, but, man, that camera changed my life, right? But it didn't change my life instantly. When I first opened the box, I put that camera in auto mode. And auto mode works, right? You get a photo, it's exposed, it's probably in focus. But we all know that when you're in auto mode, the camera is making all of the decisions, and the camera has no idea what you're actually trying to say. So eventually, again, everyone listening to this podcast, most of us who pursue some sort of significant career in photography, we learn how to shoot in manual, or at least how to take the camera off of auto mode. And that learning curve takes time, but once you've got it, everything changes. Once you know how to get your camera to do what you want it to do, the camera is never in charge again. And that's why we all get irritated by the whole, like, oh, man, great photos. What kind of camera do you have? Because we know that the camera isn't the thing making the great photos. We make the photos. The camera is just the tool. AI works the same way. When someone is allowing AI to make all the decisions, they're probably going to be pretty underwhelmed by what they get back. That is the AI slop that we're all familiar with. Because when AI is in control, it basically shoots for the writing equivalent or the output equivalent of middle gray. It's creating this, like, middle gray content and middle gray ideas. And although the tools that you're using. The AI. Tools that you're using do matter, just like the camera matters. The first issue usually isn't the tool. It's the intention, or lack of intention behind the tool. A camera doesn't have any opinion about what you're trying to create, and neither does AI. Both of them are going to faithfully create fine art or total garbage and be totally indifferent about. All depends on what you give them. So the tools don't have the vision or the voice or the intention you do. That's always been your job, and it still is your job. So this is where I sort of got the idea for the framework that I use. When I'm thinking about how I use AI, I want to make sure that I am always operating in manual mode with AI, so that I am the one creating the content, even if I'm using a tool to help me do it. And in order to do that, just like with photography, you need to lead with intention. So the exposure triangle, if you think about, you know, the. This thing that we all know and love, the exposure triangle is made up of three elements that control the look of your photos. Your aperture, your shutter speed, and your ISO. And I have sort of come up with this AI triangle as well that works the same way. So if you think of the triangle with AI, the first point is purpose. That means that you know exactly what it is that you're trying to create before you ever open your Claude window, right? This is like setting the destination in your Maps app. You would never just open up Google Maps and be like, take me somewhere. Before you touch the tool, you need to know, like, what is this for? Who is it for? What are we trying to accomplish? What do you want to make someone feel? That is your purpose. And you should enter into your interactions with AI feeling at least relatively set on what you're trying to accomplish. The second point of the triangle is judgment, and that basically means that you are remaining in the driver's seat throughout the process, not just at the beginning when you set the purpose, but kind of checking in every step of the way and steering it in the direction that you want. So back to our GPS navigation comparison. If you set a destination in your Maps app, and then you're following along with what they say, and all of a sudden you run into a detour or a traffic jam that somehow didn't make it into the Maps app, you know that you need to override what GPS is telling you. If the road cuts off like some sort of bridge in a cartoon, you're not just going to sail off the end of it because GPS tells you to, right? You are going to say, nope, we're going to turn around and make a better choice for this route. You don't passively drive the car. You are examining the process all the way through. You're raising objections and staying engaged. And you want to do that with AI as well. Every time that it gives you the next output, you want to think critically about, is this heading in the direction that I want it to, or is this somehow taking us off track? The final point of that triangle is voice. So that means fine tuning whatever it is that AI is creating for you to make sure that it's just right. Not just with content, but also with tone, pacing, humor, whatever the case may be. And if we're going to just continue the comparison with gps, your map will take you to a building, let's say an apartment building. But you can't just walk into any of the apartments. Right when the map says you have arrived, you're still in the lobby, the destination is close, but you have to go, you know, walk up the stairs to 4B. And that last step, reading, editing, making whatever this AI content is yours. That is your expression of voice. So purpose, judgment and voice. And I would say that you need all three every single time. So let's talk about how this AI triangle shows up in your photography business. Specifically every business, photography and otherwise, has three basic systems. You've heard me talk about this on this podcast before, right? You have your marketing system, which is connecting with potential clients. You've got your sales system, which is converting those potential clients into actual clients. And then you've got your fulfillment system, which is delivering on your client promise. So it's everything from when that person books with you all the way to when you know they're leaving your review on Google. So let's walk through each of these three systems in your business and talk about where AI can actually help, where it is the highest leverage, and then where you actually need to kind of keep it out of the way. There is a long list of marketing tasks that AI is genuinely great for. Blog posts, email marketing, SEO research, captions, real scripts, carousels, website copy. I mean, the list goes on. But the number one highest leverage thing that AI can do for your marketing is to get you out from behind your computer and back in the world of the living, right back in front of people. This is the thing about marketing that I think gets lost in all the content creation conversation, and that is that the single Highest converting marketing activity for a relationship driven photographer isn't your Instagram feed, it's not your blog. Those things are important. They need to be the backup to you being out in the world. But you in the room with people at networking events or community involvement, things speaking, showing up at the places that your ideal clients actually are. That in person connection has always been the thing that gets photographers booked faster. And nowadays with all this AI driven content, I hate using this phrase, but like it's more important than ever and most of us aren't doing it or we aren't doing enough of it because we are buried in desk work, right? So AI isn't going to replace your marketing, it's going to handle that, you know, content creation work so that you can go do the marketing that actually moves the needle and that's the real gift. On the flip side, you don't want to let content creation, whether it's AI or otherwise, be your whole marketing strategy for exactly the reason that I just said. More AI equals more need to create genuine connection. And again, I want you to stay vigilant about creating good content. This is where that triangle really comes into play. Because the proliferation of AI generated content means that the bar for generic is getting lower, not higher. There is more forgettable content out there right now than there has ever been at any point in the history of the Internet. And it is flooding in, right? So more is not the point. Consistent and high quality is absolutely the goal. Your sales system is really where you need to be using AI the least, at least when it comes to our line of work. Photography is a relationship business. Your clients are not buying a product. They are not buying something off the shelf. They are deciding whether to trust you. With their kids in their homes, seeing their bodies, seeing their grief, their joy, you know, being there for them on their most important days. And that kind of buying decision happens in relationship. It happens in conversation. And it happens because of you, specifically. Your warmth, your confidence, your ability to make someone feel seen and safe. AI can't do that and we obviously don't want it to. Right? The way that I think about AI in the sales part of your system is that it can help you build the infrastructure so that by the time that a real human is in front of you, that groundwork is already laid. Your pricing guide is clear. Your FAQs answer the questions that people are thinking, you know, even before they have a chance to ask them. AI does a great job helping you write a follow up email that doesn't sound like a Form letter.
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It can help you do the prep
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work for a call, but you need to do the selling. When it comes to the actual sales consultation, the pricing conversation, those things need to remain human. And again, more than ever, I recommend trying to make it as personal as possible. Face to face on the phone, or at minimum over some sort of video with your face on it. Because this is where you can differentiate yourself by listening, hearing people's questions and objections, and responding to the specific human in front of you. So if something in your sales process starts to feel automated or impersonal, that feeling is being felt by your clients as well, right? And the relationship is the sale, so you need to protect it. Fulfillment is the system that, you know, tends to get the least attention in education or podcasts or whatever. But I always argue that it really is the most important because a great client experience is what turns a one time client into a repeat client and a referral machine. So AI can help a lot here. Client education, emails, culling, what to wear guides, questionnaires, editing, client onboarding, location guides. And the nice thing is that most fulfillment systems benefit from streamlining because the fewer day to day chores that you have to manage, the freer you are to add those special little touches and put out the little fires that inevitably are going to come up somewhere. But far and away, the single biggest way that AI can improve your fulfillment system really is editing. Editing used to cost you either a lot of time or a lot of money, AI assisted editing changes that equation significantly. The tools that exist now are nearly magical in their ability to learn your editing style and apply it consistently and quickly to hundreds or even thousands of photos. So your work still looks like yours, but it gets there a whole lot faster. But, but fulfillment isn't just logistics, right? It's also the experience of working with you and the way that you make somebody feel before, during and after their session. AI doesn't do that. It handles the repetitive stuff so that you have more capacity for those irreplaceable things like the text you send when you know a client is feeling nervous, or the way that you notice that somebody's youngest child is melting down and you kind of pivot the session without missing a beat. That's the stuff that only you can do, and you obviously are not going to try to outsource that. So let me kind of pull all of this together because I do think there's a simple way to do that. In marketing, relationships matter more than computer time. In sales, relationships matter more than polished PDFs and in fulfillment, relationships matter more than the repetitive chores. Basically, I want you to prioritize your relationships in each of your systems and wherever AI can help free up your time to do that. I think that's amazing. The AI triangle is just a tool that I created, sort of a framework that can help you make sure that you're remaining in control. You want to use purpose to make sure that you know what you're building, judgment to keep you in the driver's seat, and then finishing everything with your voice so that what comes out is a reflection of you and your brand. Next week we're going to go a little bit deeper on this because this is kind of a nice framework, but I know a lot of us are thinking about bigger impact issues when it comes to AI, right? The environment, the ethical concerns around AI, your level of authenticity when you're using AI. Those are all real questions and I don't want to brush past them. In fact, I think they're big enough to grapple with through an entire session unto themselves. So next week we're going to take those really seriously, one by one. And I'm going to come back to this AI triangle because it really can help guide you through the bigger issues as well. In the meantime, what I want you to do this week is pick one marketing task that you've been maybe avoiding or handling manually and inconsistently. Maybe it's your email or your Instagram, you know, whatever it is, I want you to run it through that AI triangle as you sit down to work with whatever AI tools you're working with. You start with purpose. So before you open anything, I want you to think about or write down a couple of sentences about, like what am I actually trying to accomplish here? Who's going to read it? What are we trying to make them feel? What's our specific point of view? Then bring that context into your tool. One thing that I think is a pretty popular misconception is that you want to be as short as possible with AI so that you're not using more energy than is necessary. But I keep hearing and reading that's actually a bigger problem than giving it a ton of kind of brain dumped information because then it requires a lot of back and forth. The more context you give up front, the less back and forth you end up doing, which actually ends up using less energy. So brain dump. Absolutely everything. I always like to use my voice, like voice texting. And then as you go through the process, use your judgment and then finally put your voice on whatever comes out at the end. So that's your task, one run through of the triangle, and I would love to hear how that goes for you or whether that sort of gave you any different approach as you sat down to use AI. I will see you back here next week and I hope you have a good one.
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Well, that's it for this week's episode of this Can't Be that Hard. I'll be back same time, same place next week. In the meantime, you can find more information about this episode along with all the relevant links, notes and downloads@thiscantbethard.com learn. If you like the podcast, be sure
- [24:31]
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to hit the subscribe button.
- [24:33]
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Even better, share the love by leaving a review in itunes. And as always, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week.