The Six Figure Photographer's Key To Closing More Sales | With Ben Hartley

Brian Hood (0:00)

This is the Six Figure Creative Podcast, Episode 162

Welcome to the Six Figure Creative Podcast, where our mission is to help you turn your creative passions into a stable, reliable income. If you're in audio, video, design, photography, or really any other creative field, and you just want to learn from other successful creatives, you're in the right place.

Chris (0:22)

Well, hey guys, Chris here. I'm doing a solo episode today because our internet went down, our backup internet went down, our backup, backup, and our backup, backup, backup all went down. So I'm here sitting alone with my dude, Ben Hartley, who believe it or not, hosts a podcast called the Six Figure Photographer.

Ben Hartley (0:38)

Six Figure Photography.

Chris (0:40)

I hate when people do that.

Ben Hartley (0:41)

It's just a lie. It's a lie.

Chris (0:43)

Six Figure Photography. So this is so weird, Ben, because you're here in Columbus, and as Brian and I were doing research to have guests on the show, we're rebranding and launching the Six Figure Creative, and I'm obsessed with photography. And I was like, we want to find business-minded photography people. And as we looked into that, it was like, holy crap, he's here in Columbus with the same show as us, but for a different industry. We were the Six Figure Home Studio originally, and now we're the Six Figure Creative.

And what the crap? How are we not friends already?

Ben Hartley (1:16)

I know. This is cool.

I love it, man. When you said that you were here, I was like, nah, that's not a thing.

Chris (1:23)

Well, that's what happened with me and my friend Andy, too. It's like we met and he's doing a business podcast for creatives, and I didn't even know that. And when we first met and we started to realize like, holy crap, like there's not a whole lot of people in this like business creative freelancery niche.

So we got a whole club going on here.

Ben Hartley (1:41)

That's awesome.

Chris (1:42)

Super weird. Well, Ben, dude, let's dive in. Let's hear the story about your life. Like, how did you get into art and then business and then podcasting?

Ben Hartley (1:54)

Man. OK, so art, let's go backwards all the way to the beginning. So for context to the listeners, I studied oil painting in college.

Chris (2:02)

Amazing.

Ben Hartley (2:03)

So professional oil painter, it reminds me of like when you talk to someone and they get their major in like underwater basket weaving, it kind of feels like it when I'm like, my degree is in oil painting. Now technically it's like two dimensional studies, but all I did in college was just like paint people.

And so photography for me was, oh, here's that phrase again, your audience is going to need to let me know. Photography was a means to an end.

It wasn't about photography. It was about oil painting. I took photographs in order to make a painting. So I use those as references, right? So does that mean it was a means to an end?

Chris (2:39)

I think so.

Yeah, photography was a means to an end. It was a tool. It was not the thing itself.

Ben Hartley (2:45)

Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. So I studied light and composition and color theory and all this stuff within photography behind a lens, but for the end result to be reference files for paintings. Yeah. Well, fast forward.

Graduating in Ohio with that degree, I'm looking around who wants to buy oil paintings. And so listen, my father-in-law, he's got three daughters. I sold him exactly three paintings. And then my pipeline went dry.

So I made good money on this too.

Chris (3:20)

We talk about that so often on the podcast about how you aren't really running a business until you've sold to a stranger. Yeah. And people think like, oh, I've got a business. Like, no, you're only selling to your friends. And when they run out, you're screwed.

Ben Hartley (3:32)

So my wife and I, we were in our first year of marriage, and we're sitting there and we're looking at each other. And we're just brainstorming at this point. Like, what are we going to do? How are we going to make money? Like, good for you, Ben. You're an oil painting mate. You know, like, how are we going to do this? And so it was actually Leslie, that's my wife, by the way, she created it. She like breathed it into existence. Like, and I mean that literally. It's like she spoke it. And then it was like, oh, she was like, Ben, you are decent at making things look good and you love people.