Picking the right influencer

Let’s start from the very beginning. What’s an influencer?

This is a trusted person within the equestrian industry. For example, a show jumping trainer, a tack shop owner or an owner of a local livery yard.

These are people who have built up their equestrian businesses and are trusted and followed by their customers.

A great influencer will also be a successful business person and have many contacts who are your ideal client.

You need to make sure that your influencer has a following who would be your ideal customer.

A common mistake:

You meet a professional equestrian business owner, you think “Great! This is my influencer, they have 4k followers on Instagram and they own beautiful horses” you connect with them and they warmly say “uh, yea sure – we could do a photo shoot, I could do with some nice pics for my Facebook”

Does this sound good to you? NO!

You may get lucky and this person turns into a wonderful influencer but let me show you what have you missed out and this will help save you thousands of hours and worry!

• Do they value photography?
• Would they love a photo shoot with you?
• Will they cherish the images you create for them?

This is the KEY

Believe me when I say, an influencer can bring you £100,000’s of work. I kid you not. If you get this right, they can create your business with you.

Getting it right:

When picking your influencer, it needs to be a natural thing. They need to care about having wonderful portraits of them and their horse. Basically, they need to ‘get it’.

Lets break it down:

1. Create your network of contacts
2. Create your ideal client
3. Where do the 2 mix?

Your influencer will take time to find, this is not a five minute job. They need to tick some important boxes:

• Do they run a successful business?

• Do they have a following who trust them and their recommendations?

• Do they value photography?

• Do they get what you do?

• Do they value YOU?

If you can connect with someone who has the contacts and the followers and nurture them into your business then you have the start to a wonderful business influencer.

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If you’re still a little confused about finding and harnessing an influencer for your photography work, check out the syllabus for the 1-year group mentorship programme, which includes this and tonnes of other great, business-propelling content!