WANTED

I have big plans. My goal is to create a photography enterprise that is unlike anything out there today. I intend to do this through partnerships with businesses and entrepreneurs who want to invest in families, youth sports, the community, and other entrepreneurs. My organization consists of two brands.  JHR Photography is a high-end portrait studio specializing in exclusive High School Senior photo experiences and Headshots. ISO Photo XP will become a high-volume imaging and media franchise.

But I need your help. 

I’ve been growing this company full-time by myself for five years. I’ve photographed clients in the US and internationally. I’ve worked with sports teams, leagues, schools, business leaders, fashion models, and designers. My work has been published in several magazines, and has won awards.

Plus, I teach photography to other photographers and hobbyists.

Somehow I’ve managed to mostly do ALL the work to get this launched and keep it going on my own. But now the game has changed, we need to scale the ISO brand rapidly.

It is no longer possible for me to create, direct, and engage social media for both brands. I have already hired an agency to take the JHR socials to the next level. Now I’m looking for an in-house marketing solution to kickstart and engage our ISO socials.

I have identified the marketing tasks that benefit the most if someone else was doing them right now. These are tasks that reduce the overall value in my business if I am the only person handling them. I become the biggest bottleneck for growth and it’s holding me back and I’m going to change that. 

So I’ve been brainstorming. What can someone else do as well as or better than me, that will free me up to do the things I do best?

My list includes things like planning social media marketing themes and content, writing social media copy, making TikToks and Reels, posting stories, and tweets. Simple multimedia editing and some basic graphic design work in Canva and Adobe. There are some basic project management skills necessary to prioritize and balance the tasks, such as posting schedules, promotions, and special events. Plus there are some smaller tasks that together take up a lot of my time, and take me away from my core value of connecting with clients and creating photos they love.

If you can help me get a bunch of that stuff off my plate, you’re probably awesome!

Have you considered starting your own marketing agency or consultancy? If you have ever thought about owning your own business, then you can see that what I am suggesting is an incredible opportunity. There is the potential for a turn-key business launch and kickstarter for you if you are the right fit for this vision. I am willing to invest in someone to become one of my strategic partners I mentioned before. Plus I have all the gear necessary to create content 24/7.

All I need is to see who will take ownership of the process while helping me create a winning marketing strategy, develop content, and effectively engage our target audience through social media to grow our client base.  Depending on how motivated you are to pursue this, there will come a point in the near future where you will take on additional clients, ISO would just be your first. 

In a perfect world…

I want to grow all businesses together. Short term, I have a lot of marketing tasks that can be completed but I don’t want to overcommit and hand off too much at once.  So if our initial work together goes well, it will naturally create bigger opportunities for both of us moving forward.

This is realistic and useful for both of us. For me, because I will be developing an in-house marketing engine invested in the organization’s success and you will have a ready made business opportunity that can grow into a stand alone operation.

Now, I’m not going to promise the moon to pay you less today. That’s not what I’m doing. I’m willing to pay competitively for what I ask you to do, but I want you to consider the possibility of partnership. Additionally, I won’t ask you to go full speed right out of the gate. I prefer to start small, get some wins under our belts, and then do more.

My intent is to develop a longer term working relationship with a capable, motivated, and talented marketer who I can help grow and thrive over time while ISO grows into the franchise I intend it to become. The right person will be someone I can trust completely to develop and launch a social media strategy successfully and take content creation tasks off my plate, so I can focus on the highest value tasks of developing new clients.

In the short run, I cannot partner with someone who doesn’t understand, embrace, and enjoy the impact of social media content, especially TikTok and Reels. I don’t have the time for someone who has to ask me what to do next, or needs me to look over every task or post.

I already have several other highly talented team members who cover my business operations, lead follow up, sales, and customer relations. So I’m not in need of any of those capabilities at this time.

I used the Dan Sullivan Impact Filter process to help define this role. I want to share with you what I wrote while developing this because I think it will give you a more complete context to see if you’re a fit. 

Purpose: What do I want to accomplish? To find and recruit a motivated marketing entrepreneur who will create strategy and content so I can focus on my highest-value tasks.

Importance: What’s the biggest difference this will make? I’ll have more time for the highest-value tasks in my business, onboarding new clients, generating more value for clients, and growing my business with less stress. 

Ideal Outcome: What does the completed project look like? We recruit a successful and motivated marketing entrepreneur who eventually becomes a stand alone marketing agency servicing the ISO Franchise.

[This is super important to me!] 

• I’m able to collaborate and mentor in the development of a marketing strategy for ISO and our partners.

• The full JHR/ISO team brainstorms and collaborates on ideas that are consistent with the marketing strategy and theme.

• The social media marketing plan is developed, created and successfully launched within 30 days of initiation.

• Content is posted daily across several platforms with a consistent brand message that encourages engagement.

• I no longer plan, record, edit, and post social media video by myself (but I definitely want to be in them)

• The company has a clear brand and marketing message with a presence on TikTok and IG Reels.

• Social media planning is complete 30-day in advance

• Editing and retouching is consistent and happens at the level I’m doing now or better, without me doing it.

• I have another visual creative who sees my image intent and compliments the creative process.

• I can focus on developing client relationships, securing new clients, and growing the business for 90% of my time.

• The person I’m working with is easy to communicate with, in writing as well as in speech.

• I can expand my value creation through new initiatives, and have confidence I have the right help to make it happen

Worst Result: If I don’t take action. I get burnt out, unable to communicate our brand message, and we fail to gain new clients.

Best result: If I do take action. I experience more flow, ease, success, and opportunity while creating significantly more value for our Clients. I enable the personal and professional growth and success of another creative entrepreneur.

I have a very specific and nontraditional hiring process.  I don’t want to just look at a bunch of resumes, or read one sentence blurbs on gig sites.  Cover letters are helpful, but not always necessary.  And neither of us want to waste time interviewing if it’s not a good fit.

That is why I created an application questionnaire.  This will help me get to know you, specific to the capabilities and skills most useful in this role. 

Fair warning, there are a lot of questions and it will take some time.  But I think investing a little more effort up front will help both of us find if we are a good fit and will work well together. (Plus I’m really offering a business opportunity…it’s worth the time!) This will, hopefully, save potential headaches down the road.

Here’s every question I will ask you to answer in order to be considered for this role (including the simple ones): 

1. What’s your name?
2. What’s your best email address?
3. What are your socials (TikTok, IG, FB, LinkedIn)? I want to learn more about you and see what you’ve already created.  Give all relevant URLs
4. Ideally, how much work are you looking for?  How many hours per week? 
5. What is your target income from this?  (Can list hourly, weekly, or monthly, as long as you’re clear.)
6. Where are you located?
7. Can you be generally available during the workday (8 AM to 5 PM) in the US Central time zone? 
8. Are you currently working with other clients?  Please briefly describe, including # of clients and competing workload/hours per week.
9. Please describe your experience using different photo and video editing software platforms (especially CaptureOne, Lightroom, Photoshop).
10. Please describe your video editing capabilities and experience, and which platforms you have utilized (such as Premier, Camtasia, FinalCut).
11. Please describe your experience with basic graphics editing (such as Canva, Illustrator, InDesign).
12. Please describe your experience in creating and defining systems and processes for repeatable tasks (e.g. checklists, etc.).
13. If part of your job was to create systems that make you 100% replaceable, how would you feel about that and why?
14. What are your favorite ways to learn, who do you like to learn from (e.g. specific authors), and what are you learning about right now that’s not directly required for your job?
15. What are your favorite ways to communicate with clients? (You can describe tools, e.g. Slack vs. Zoom, and mediums, e.g. video chat vs. email).
16. Do you have a daily devotional, meditation, or mindfulness practice? Please explain.
17. Do you use a specific organizational or project management approach or system?  (e.g. GTD, ZTD, Agile, etc.) 
18. Do you have a favorite project management platform? (e.g. Asana, Trello, etc.)
19. What’s one thing about your current work that’s frustrating right now, and what are you doing about it?
20. What’s your favorite part about what you do?
21. What part of this opportunity is most appealing to you?
22. When you apply, you’ll be given a link to a form you can fill out with your answers to these questions. Or you can copy and paste this into your own document.