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In this special '12 Days of Business' edition of The Business Owner’s Journey, Nick Berry interviews Daniel Wakefield, founder of Top-Tier Headshots, entrepreneur, and author of the upcoming book Accelerate. Daniel shares how he identifies overlooked problems in the market and turns them into innovative opportunities, such as his groundbreaking approach to keynote portraits. Listen to how Daniel describes solving challenges for his clients, positioning his services to stand out from the competition, and creating a "Hype Tornado".
Daniel explains how he identified an underserved need in the market for professional speaker portraits. He saw that most event photographers focus on capturing the overall event rather than highlighting the speakers themselves, leaving keynote speakers without quality marketing collateral. By solving this problem with tailored solutions, Daniel carved out a unique niche.
Daniel shares his journey of decommoditizing professional photography. His keynote portrait service uses specialized techniques like simulated stage lighting and expressive coaching to create dynamic, marketable images for speakers. His approach isn’t just about taking pictures; it’s about helping clients showcase themselves in the best possible light - literally and figuratively.
Nick describes Daniel's “Hype Tornado”, this virtuous cycle of excellent client experiences that generate buzz, foster referrals, and fuel ongoing success. Daniel attributes much of his growth to a deliberate focus on client satisfaction, strategic networking, and high-quality results.
Daniel reveals how he uses LinkedIn to showcase his work and attract his ideal clients. By consistently sharing examples of his photography and engaging with his network, he’s able to maintain momentum and visibility in his industry.
Through his headshots, branding portraits, and keynote photography, Daniel helps clients position themselves as authorities in their fields. He emphasizes that the right imagery not only enhances a personal brand but also generates measurable ROI by opening doors and creating opportunities.
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The Business Owner's Journey Podcast host: Nick Berry
Production Company: FCG
Nick Berry (00:00)
The Business Owner's Journey. I'm Nick Berry and I've got real business owners telling their real stories, sharing their real lessons and strategies so you don't have to figure it all out on your
Nick Berry (00:12)
I'm wrapping up season one of the business owners journey with a special mini-series, the 12 days of business. We've got 12 days, 12 episodes with 12 of my previous guests. And this is day one of the 12 days. My guest is Daniel Wakefield owner of top tier headshots. He's an extremely skilled headshot photographer. You can take a look at my new headshot and see evidence of that. But photography is not Daniel's only skill.
So let me tell you what he does and then I'll tell you what I think you should take away from this episode. So he's a great photographer, but he calls himself a first impression architect and an expression coach. And he'll talk a little bit about that in the episode. But that's already evidence of the way that Daniel thinks and the way he presents things. It's like through the eyes of his audience, what it means to them.
He's written a book that is coming out in February of 25. It's called Accelerate, How I Took My Creative Business From Zero to Six Figures in 12 Months. And in his book, he talks about what he calls the hype tornado. And it's not the like info marketing, sizzling headline, cringey hype. It's more like the opposite of that. when he's talking about the hype tornado,
He's talking about this virtuous cycle of a fantastic client experience, which creates raving fans who feed this proactive and skilled networking strategy, which then feeds new clients, which then feeds the client experience. And then the cycle just repeats.
it's a simple strategy that he's put together that leverages the things that he is really, really good at to keep a constant state of buzz going on around his services.
He's a good business owner and he's a really intuitive marketer. I mean, like damn good. So listen to this interview and you'll know what I mean.
He's going to talk about this new photography package that he's going to offer for speakers, booking agents and the like. But the way that he talks about discovering a problem that the market needed solved, He has this like really deep understanding of a problem that needs to be solved. He understands the people who need it solved.
and the meaning of that problem to those people. So then he can talk about it in terms of the benefits to them and the language that is meaningful to them. What you don't hear any of is him drooling over the features. I think he mentions bringing a like a giant sport photography lens, but then he immediately says, so that we can get this really up close shot on these speakers from
like the back of the room. He knows what's meaningful to the audience and what's not. He's not drunk on his idea. It's more like consumed with understanding their problem to be solved and making sure that he is like totally in tune with it. And if you listen for that, you'll hear it. I don't have any doubt. That's why now this is the second service that he's basically decommoditized. That's the label that I've given it.
professional headshots and now these speaker portraits, And now having gone through the process with him and having talked to a lot of people who've been through the process with him have a new respect and appreciation for the effect that professional headshots and really any of these images
that he creates for people have on them. It changes the way that you think about yourself.
Another thing that we touch on very briefly here, but that he does really well is how he uses LinkedIn. that's part of his hype tornado. So I recommend go follow Daniel on LinkedIn. it's top tier headshots, top T I E R headshots. This will be in the show notes also. but follow him there because he is fantastic at using LinkedIn to expand his network.
and keep that buzz going. You also get to see his work like front and center If you're in the market for professional headshot or if you're a speaker, if professionalism is in any way a part of your personal brand, yes, I absolutely recommend talk to Daniel, but that's not the big takeaway here. The big takeaway is
You get to see and hear somebody who truly understands what a market needs, how to see it through their eyes, and how to create groundbreaking opportunities out of what's there. And it's what's there. It's the things that everyone else is staring at, but nobody's seeing it. What he's doing is it's a thing that 99 % of small business owners and entrepreneurs think that they're doing, but they aren't.
So this is a heck of a start to the 12 days of business. Now, remember, make sure that you're following or subscribed so you get all 12 days of business, the entire series sent to you. If you prefer, I can email them to you. If I do that, you're also going to get the episode pages, exclusive guest profiles, the additional resources that we're putting together for these episodes, and we're only sending those things out through email. So to get that,
you need to go to nickberry.info slash 12 days. That's the number 12 days. Okay, now enjoy the show.
Daniel Wakefield (05:54)
They kept telling me in one way or another, I can't get a good shot of myself while I'm speaking. So they're looking for marketing collateral and other people are looking for that marketing collateral from them. mean, every speaker, coach and agent that I talk to says we need good shots of our people speaking. And so then these speakers are telling me, you know, we need this and I can't get it.
Nick Berry (05:55)
How are they?
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (06:22)
for variety of reasons. Maybe the lighting is bad in the venue. Maybe, you know, there's a photographer there, but they're not there for them. And so they only take a few clicks and in every shot, they've got like a weird mouth thing going on because they're speaking there. It's in, it's in the moment, but there wasn't somebody there focused and dialed in on them. And so they're missing out on these opportunities or maybe they didn't get one cause
The only photographer there is their best friend in the front row with an iPhone. And we love that best friend, but that's not going to produce really great marketing collateral. So I started to think about, how can we solve this problem in my studio? Can we recreate stage lighting? Can we project their slide deck on the wall? Can we...
Nick Berry (07:02)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (07:16)
put a mic in their hand and get them to start talking and expressing and getting kind of great action momentum going and then find that perfect moment, which will be just, you know, now the banner on their website, you know, all of that. So it's like trying to add this value and solve this real problem and to create more powerful marketing collateral for these folks.
Nick Berry (07:30)
which what you do.
So what are the kind of things that you said that they're trying to use these for?
Daniel Wakefield (07:48)
Well, so I mean, the speaker agents and coaching and coaches that I'm talking to, a lot of times when let's say there's a big conference and the conference organizer is trying to get speakers and then promote the conference through, you know, these speakers and things like that. They want to be able to show shots of these speakers in action. and so.
when you've got horrible photos like that versus really engaging, dynamic, well-lit, well-coached photos like that, which one's gonna influence the organizer in terms of who you're gonna pick? Especially if all other things being equal, you've gotta pick the guy with the terrible pictures or the guy with, this guy looks really professional.
He looks like he knows what he's talking about. So, you know, which one do you want to be essentially?
Nick Berry (08:50)
Yeah. It's the difference in somebody who sends you to their bio typed out in the body of an email versus somebody who sends you a media kit or a one sheet. Yeah. Or like my speaking in pictures, think are all from the side. So I know what you're talking.
Daniel Wakefield (09:00)
Yep.
Yeah, so that was kind of the thought process there was can we create something that adds a lot of values or a lot of value alongside the headshots and branding portraits I was already doing. And so it just started experimenting. don't think I haven't seen other photographers that are specifically trying to solve this problem. And so every single speaker, every single
a speaker coach and agent that I've shown these to and what I've developed so far is like mind blown. Like we got to use this. I want to tell, you know, other people about this, the people in my network about this. So I'm, I'm excited.
Nick Berry (09:54)
Yeah, that's so now you've got, you're not going to be able to take the best headshots in the world because you're going to be so busy taking the best like speaking shot.
Daniel Wakefield (10:04)
I mean, they all go together, right? But, you know, it's kind of killing two birds with one stone there. But I think this kind of goes back to the, you know, the necessity of business owners really trying to think through how do we solve problems for our ideal clients and to solve a problem better than anybody else solves it or to solve a problem that no one else is solving.
And I feel a bit like that with these, I'm calling them keynote portraits and like I don't see any other photographers trying to solve this problem. And so part of what I'm, what's that?
Nick Berry (10:43)
Why Why is nobody else solving it?
Daniel Wakefield (10:47)
I've well, I mean, so I've heard of other photographers getting speaker shots for people. But what they're typically doing is they're going to like an auditorium, putting people on the stage. They just turn the house lights on and then start, you know, taking pictures. But the problem is, is that that lighting is actually very harsh. It's not flattering light. It creates very harsh shadows. It doesn't look great.
And so part of what I'm trying to do is recreate the general look, but make the lighting more flattering to people so that they, you know, when you're using this as marketing collateral, you're actually getting a shot of yourself that puts you in a literally the best light. and so, you know, I've seen people like, yeah, we're going to get speaker shots. We're going to do this, but I've never seen somebody trying to recreate this in a studio.
Nick Berry (11:36)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (11:46)
setting where they can really dial in and optimize all of the factors to make it look as good as possible.
Nick Berry (11:54)
Yeah. And so do you have any idea off the top of your head? Like what percentage of your existing clientele for top tier is this like a perfect add on for?
Daniel Wakefield (12:06)
man, I'm not sure percentage wise, but I do work with a lot of people that even if they're not like full-time keynote speakers that they're doing speaking in some form or other, they're sitting on panels, they're getting asked to speak at more, you know, local events. And so I'd say the percentage is actually pretty significant of people that this could be really useful for them, especially if they have their sites.
set on, I want to speak more, I want to put myself out there. And I think this could be really dynamite for them.
Nick Berry (12:42)
Yeah. I mean, I don't even look at it like it's nowhere near being exclusive to trying to build a career as a keynote speaker. if you are like, it puts you in an authoritative perspective, right? So if you're doing any kind of speaking, and that's part of your brand, you need to have some image that helps convey that. I think.
And this, I've seen the ones that you are doing. They're fantastic, of course. So, or do you have some of those up on your site on top here?
Daniel Wakefield (13:08)
Thank you.
There, we are working on, I think I do have some in the, if you go to the portfolio page and then scroll down to the branding portraits, if you scroll through those, we've added some of those in there, but we are, working on putting together a specific section on the website because I want, essentially, I'm not ashamed to say, I'm looking to have more keynote speakers as clients.
I think this is a great solution for their marketing needs. So we're working on putting together a section on our website that's specific for them, just to show them, here's what we can do for you. Here are the problems that we can solve for you. And this is what it's like to work together. And I should add that one of the things that we're...
planning to start offering in 2025 is basically if you're speaking somewhere that you can bring us in to essentially be your photographer for the day so that we can capture you speaking and then it's not just like the event photographer who maybe gets a couple of shots of you and then is on to do something else, but you have a dedicated photographer at that event. Whether it's, you know, while you're speaking.
while you're on a panel, while you're interacting with the crowd, all of those things so that we can essentially have a day of producing assets for you as well. So, you know, we can do the highly optimized ones in my studio or we can come on location and really knock it out of the park. And I'm not talking about like somebody showing up with a little camera to follow you around. I'm talking about like showing up with one of those giant sports lenses.
Nick Berry (15:03)
I'm
Daniel Wakefield (15:07)
so that from the back of the auditorium, we can get close up amazing portraits of you in action. And so that'll be something we're talking with clients about an offering in 2025.
Nick Berry (15:20)
Yeah, yeah, it's, if you're not sure, if you can't envision this, then you need to see some of the ones that Daniel's done. And I was just thinking, I'm sure the ones that you have on your site will be helpful, but also some of this needs to go to your LinkedIn and follow you on LinkedIn. And because it's basically a feed of examples of clients who you've done headshots or these type of keynote speaker.
profiles for, and also they can learn how to use LinkedIn the way that LinkedIn was designed to be used. But yeah, if you want to see some examples, follow Daniel on LinkedIn. Cause I mean, it is a constant flow. That's awesome. And so is this is a second thing now that you've taken that, that you're kind of like decommoditizing, right? I mean, have you looked at it like that or is it just me?
Daniel Wakefield (15:49)
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's, to me, it's all about value. You know, what, what kind of value are we bringing to the table? And if the value is simply, Hey, just like everybody else, we're going to put you in front of a camera, tell you to say cheese and click. Then. Yeah. I mean, you know, you're probably just going to look for the cheapest price that you can find there. But if we're talking about something that's actually going to benefit your brand.
connect you with more people, help you close more deals, open more doors for you. I I think I talked about this previously, but the client of mine that I photographed her and specifically photographed her for her book cover, and she told me that people at her speaking engagements have come up to her and said, we bought a ticket to your event.
You know, we paid to come in here, you speak, or we bought your book simply because of the photo on the cover. You know, so that, yeah, so that to me, again, you know, think about that from a speaking point of view. That's that's real ROI right there. That's like, you know, multiplying value. So, you know, what's what's a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars for these really engaging, you know, assets that you can put on your website, your LinkedIn.
Nick Berry (17:08)
I you say that.
Daniel Wakefield (17:31)
your social media and really present yourself as the authority in your space, that's going to come back to you, know, 10x more than that over the lifetime of these assets.
Nick Berry (17:44)
Yep. Yep. You know, so this just hit me kind of, I've still got this question in my mind rolling around about like, why, what's the difference and why is nobody doing this? is because there's like, what's happened previously is there's someone there to take pictures at an event, but their subject is the event, not the speaker. And until you have been the subject where you were,
Daniel Wakefield (18:06)
Yep. Yep.
Nick Berry (18:12)
the reason that they're there, you haven't actually had this done. You just used something that was done like it's almost a byproduct of another project and you're kind of trying to shoehorn it in to what you need.
Daniel Wakefield (18:21)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was talking with somebody recently who got to speak at at an event at a university. Same thing. They had photographers there kind of like you said, their subject is the whole event. So, yeah, they got a few pictures of themselves and they went through and showed me and there was maybe like four or five like like OK ones. Nothing was like.
wow, this is amazing. It was like, yeah, I could use that. Like that's kind of like you get what you pay for type of thing. Whereas, if you, number one, if you had somebody dedicated for you at the event who had really everything optimized to capture you in your best light and brought all the necessary equipment to do that, that's one way that we can really elevate that and then give you like a whole ton.
of options to choose from there instead of here's five options, hopefully one of them is good. Then the other thing is, obviously if you're speaking on stage, you want to be focused on your presentation, you want to be focused on the audience, you don't want to be thinking about, have a photographer here. No, obviously we would be very much in the background and not being distracting. But one of the benefits of doing these highly optimized portraits in my studio,
is that I can actually coach you as to how, you know, the type of expressions that you're making and how you are talking. So for example, when I'm doing these keynote portraits in my studio, I will get somebody, you know, once I get the lighting dialed in and get their slide deck projected on the wall, I will get them to start, you know, give me the first few lines of your keynote. Just start walking me through it.
And so they get talking, they start getting loosened up, and I'll be like, stop right there, go back and do that again, but I want you to put some more energy into it. I wanna see your face really, like I know you're passionate about this subject, I wanna see your face really light up. So I want you to like put more of yourself into this. And so then I'm watching for those moments where I can see just the passion just spilling out of them, and that's where the magic happens.
is actually in the coaching where, you know, if you've got somebody there for the event, that's great. And I think we're going to be able to capture some really great stuff. But you have the benefit in the studio of kind of pausing, going back and getting coached through it with my eye looking for those magic moments, which which very well may happen in the moment on stage. Hopefully they do happen if you're a good speaker. But we can be very intentional and coach them out of you.
in a much quicker time span as well in my studio. So that's part of the benefit of that as well.
Nick Berry (21:15)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean, I know that you have it figured out.
Daniel Wakefield (21:23)
Well, it's funny because like I said, I kind of feel like a bit of a trailblazer here and just kind of, you I want to really want to push the boundaries and see how far can we take these shots in a studio setting and what kind of different engaging, you know, kinds of images can we get. And I'm already, I'm excited about what we've got so far and I'm excited to see what happens in 2025.
Nick Berry (21:48)
I love the way that you think about things. It's exciting, it's fun.
Daniel Wakefield (21:51)
Well, I've got inspiring people like you that plant little seeds in my head too, so that's always good.
Nick Berry (21:58)
you can never have too many of those people around, right? It's key. Something's always growing. Awesome. Well, I appreciate you jumping on with me, man.
Daniel Wakefield (22:00)
Absolutely.
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely, great to be on with you.
Nick Berry is an accomplished entrepreneur and CEO, whose track record includes founding and leading numerous companies since 2002.
He is also a mentor and coach to other entrepreneurs and business owners who are looking for a trusted (and proven) advisor.
Among peers, colleagues, staff, and clients, Nick has been referred to as both 'The Business Guy' as well as 'The Anti-Guru', due to his pragmatic approach and principled leadership.
He shares his insights and lessons learned, along with those of his expert guests,
on his podcast, 'The Business Owner's Journey'.
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