We recently connected with Luke O’brien and have shared our conversation below.
Luke, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the toughest parts of scaling a business is maintaining quality as you grow. How have you managed to maintain quality? Any stories or advice?
I chose this topic because I am at a pivotal point in growing my business where I know it is time to look outward and find talented people that can help me continue delivering the services and products that I currently do all on my own. To a degree I have done this in my business as I have hired two people to help me manage social media accounts of some of my clients. It is the outsourcing of the photo and video that I have trouble making the leap on. I believe people hire me for my talent- directing, story telling, people skills and technical skills that I have amassed over the past 12 years of having a camera in my hands. I see the paralels in other industries. Take plumbers for example. At some point, you have a really skilled plumber and he/she begins freelancing which leads to high demand which leads to that plumber having to train other plumbers to go deliver the same (or close to the same) service. And that is my problem! I a) Don’t feel like I have the time to train someone right now and b) deep down I fear that no one can do it like I do it! I know that may sound a bit pretentious but I do have a style and I don’t know if you can teach that. I think there is a “c” to this all and that is, if I start sending others to do my work, I will miss out on doing the work. I do think that in the next year or so I need to start hiring other photographers/videographers for some of my projects.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My first passion was music and since 2007 I have been releasing original songs. As part of that process, i was always working with photographers and filmmakers to produces photos and music videos. I was always learning from them about the technical side of cameras. I got a job in education working at a behavioral and emotional support school in Philadelphia. My supervisor recognized my creativity and gave me my own classroom and made up a title for me of “music guy”. In Mr. Luke’s class we wrote and recorded songs and shot music videos. The school bought me a camera and when i decided to leave to try to make a career out of photography and video, they let me take the camera with me. I began shooting anything and everything that would pay which brought me to what i specialize in today and that is creating marketing materials for businesses. I was approached by a brewery to take up their marketing on a retainer basis and that changed my business model. Today I have multiple retainer clients who I have great relationships with and my goal for those clients is to create things for them that they are super proud to show to their audiences and things that effectively tell their story through media. In addition to creating the materials, i have a team of people who help run social media accounts for businesses and we’ve gotten quite good at taking boring accounts and making them super polished and strong. I also shoot weddings and I am gearing up to launch an RTD vodka beverage under a company i formed with 3 friends. The drink will be called “Not Pizza”!
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
As I mentioned, we are naming our canned cocktail company, “Not Pizza”. If that’s not a risk I don’t know what is. We have sunk a lot f money and sweat equity into our product and brand and it is not even available yet. We came up with this name behind closed doors and when it was time to tell friends and family what we were doing, the reactions were all over the place. Some loved it but there was plenty of confusion, doubt and even hate for the name of our brand. It is hard to stay true to your vision when people’s negative comments are ringing in your head. In the beginning, i was self conscience about the name when I would say it. Now, i say it loud and proud and we are all in on this project. It is risky! However, we believe in this product and the branding and the marketing that we’ve created so far so there is no looking back. It’s up to us now to prove that we were right and I am very excited to do so. We soft launch this winter and then full launch in the Spring.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Social media is such a tricky game. I think the best way to do it and to have longevity with it is to be original with your content. Original does not mean complicated. You can shoot it on a cell phone, the audio doesn’t need to be crazy but it has to be unique and true to you. No two people are the same so no one wants to see you do other peoples trends over and over. it’s gotta have your flavor on it. The other ingredient is consistency. Instagram is like the gym, if you go 5 days a week and you stick to a plan, you’ll see results. If you go every other week, kind of, and you don’t have a plan, you’re not going to be in great shape.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lukeobriencreative.com
- Instagram: @lukeobriencreative
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lukeobriencreative
Image Credits
Luke O’Brien