We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Shawn Paul. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Shawn below.

Shawn , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Any thoughts about whether to ask friends and family to support your business. What’s okay in your view?

My friends and family are very supportive. Especially my loving supportive wife LINDSEY.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was a skateboarder when I was kid. This was of course before camera phones. Whenever we wanted to get pictures of us skateboarding we had to use disposable cameras because none of us had a real one. Looking at the photos all my friends thought that the pics I took were the best. I pretty much got nominated to take pics when we were out skating. If you look back at those pics I’m not on a bunch because I’m the one taking them. Lol!!! As the years went by I started doing photos of more than just skateboarders. A few years later I started my own local modeling promotion team in Baltimore. We did promotions for bars and nightclubs. I hired DJ’s that played great music but I was usually the one talking on the microphone getting the crowd pumped up. I can read the room. I did promo events in very different environments so the music played had to accommodate everyone. I even hired a security team just in case.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

A bunch of years ago I had a business partner. Not gonna mention his name. We set up a big photo/promotions gig with the owner of a Harley Davidson motorcycle shop. They had a huge event coming up and they wanted us to recruit the models and promote it. This was a great opportunity for us because we were pretty much nobody’s. Since we were nobody’s the Harley Davidson people didn’t give us a big cash advance so most of the work had to come out of our pocket until the job was done. That really sucked because we were both pretty much broke. We could have turned it down but again we were thinking about how great of an opportunity this was so we moved forward. Things got a little tough get trying to get things ready for this event. Ok, they got a lot tough but we were getting it done and it was going ok even tho every dime we had went into getting things ready for this gig. At least I thought it was going ok. One day my partner took off. He abandoned me and the project. He skipped town. The only thing going through my head now is “I’m Fu%#ed!” What the hell was I gonna do now? I forgot to mention that we had a place together so not only do I have to figure out how to keep the promise’s we made to the Harley Davidson people, I have to figure out how I’m gonna pay rent by myself. I could have run just like he did but Promises were made to the printers and the models that we recruited for this gig. But most importantly my name is everything to me. Running away would definitely grind it in the dirt. The inevitable came and I had to move into a homeless shelter. I still had meetings with the models every so often and set up promotional gigs for them leading up to the big event. I even had to have meetings with the Harley Davidson people during the course of this and I did it without any of them ever knowing that I was homeless. Finally the big event day came and my part was a success. Harley Davidson was happy, the models were happy and I saved my name. Harley Davidson paid me the rest of the money at the end of the event. After I paid everyone I owed and took care of all the promises I made I was still broke but my name was still good. A wise man once said to me “The only thing that you truly own in this world is your name and your word”

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I started my social media presence while doing photos for aspiring models and promotions for different bars and nightclubs but my social media presence really escalated when I added sports, parties to my repertoire. When I started doing photos of pickleball and volleyball events my social media took off! My advice to someone trying to build a social media presence would be to get involved and know about the sport. What I mean by that is as a photographer photographing pickleball or volleyball is a better advantage for me because I play these sports.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @shawnpaul127
• Facebook: Shawn Paul Promotions Photos entertainment

Image Credits
Shawn Paul