Business Innovators Radio - Why Some Small Businesses Instantly Look Credible — Brian Stanley with JC Soto

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

“Most businesses don’t have a service problem… they have a visibility problem.”Why do some businesses instantly feel trustworthy… while others get overlooked?In this episode, JC Soto talks with commercial photographer and branding expert Brian Stanley about the psychology behind visual credibility, emotional branding, and why many small businesses unintentionally weaken their own marketing.Brian shares real-world insights on:Why branding is more than logosHow emotional storytelling influences buying decisionsThe difference between “taking pictures” and creating marketing visuals that connectWhy visibility and consistency matter more than most business owners realizeHow photography, drone footage, and video shape trust onlineThe conversation also explores how one simple messaging shift helped transform a boat company’s customer perception into something people emotionally wanted to join.If you’re a business owner trying to stand out online, improve credibility, or create stronger marketing that actually connects with people, this episode is packed with practical insights and honest discussion.About Brian StanleyBrian Stanley is a commercial photographer and visual branding specialist helping businesses create stronger emotional connections through photography, video, branding visuals, and storytelling-driven marketing.He works with businesses looking to improve:brand presencecustomer perceptionvisual marketingcommercial media assetsonline credibilityConnect with Brian Stanley🌐 Website: brianstanleyphotography.com📧 Email: [e-mail]📞 Phone: [phone]Mention this podcast episode to receive:✅ A free business review✅ 20% off your first projectHosted by JC SotoJC Soto helps businesses improve visibility, authority positioning, and credibility through media exposure, AI visibility strategies, press releases, and authority marketing. To get featured on our podcast, email us at [e-mail]: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/why-some-small-businesses-instantly-look-credible-brian-stanley-with-jc-soto

Welcome to Business Innovators Radio, featuring industry influencers and trendsetters, sharing proven strategies to help you build a better life right now. Hello, welcome back to my show. This is J.C. Soto. And this is the podcast that aims at helping small business owners have more credibility, more visibility, and the authority in the local market. And today we have a really special type of business owner because he deals with something that is so powerful, which is photography. Images today played such a big influence on especially in social media and all our advertising and marketing that we do. And he has content that works. And I like that tagline. His name is Brian Stanley with Brian Stanley Photography. So welcome to the show, Brian.

Thank you, J.C. Thanks for having me on. You're sure. I was talking to you earlier, and we're talking about any industry pretty much can use your services. But there's some industries that are probably a little more fun than others. Can you kind of mention some of them? Yeah, you're right. Pretty much every industry, there's something that we can help them with, from their websites to their training videos, to their advertising, print, or video. But also, yes,

the fun videos that sometimes are the action ones. We've done a Ford commercial that's on our website. We're working with a boat company. This summer will be out on the lake videoing these boats going by. So just having that action

and being able to take everything that we have from our drones out, flying them right on the water level. right next to the boat to being on the boat or another boat with the cameras trying to catch that perfect picture. That sounds like fun, especially being out in the water when it gets nice and hot. Yeah. You just feel like you're playing not working, right? Yeah, but at the same time, you're also a little nervous because you're carrying, you know,

$10,000 to $15,000 worth of gear in your brain, it doesn't go into the lake. Yeah, and you're actually working, so you get a deliver. Yes, so I've got to deliver something too. Yeah. So how do you get involved in the commercial photography? You know, I started a long time ago in the photography business, and it just was a progression. Being very creative, I'm always trying to create stuff. And, you know, you can create portraits to give people really nice.

I do some creative sports portraits. with the smoke and stuff. But the next step was just working with clients that you can be creative and helping them come up with things that work for their brands. You know, and we tell everybody, what we do is we take businesses and make them a brand and a brand that people recognize and we do it all through visual storytelling, no matter if it's print or if it's video. They both tell a story.

And that's what's cool about working with our client. is that we get to tell a story. That's good. And based on your experience, how big is the need or how big is that gap from business owners to see that this is something that can really help them out? It is a big gap because my other pitch to everybody is, you know, we're not a marketing agency, but we do a lot of marketing for our clients. And the one thing, I tell everybody the three things.

So every business should be doing right. off the bat is marketing, marketing, marketing. If you're not pushing your brand out there, but hopefully you know what your brand is, and if you don't, we help you design that. Or maybe it's a brand that needs to be a little revitalized. But the first thing everyone does when times get tough is cut the marketing out. And we're trying to let people know, you don't have to cut it all out. Let's figure out what was working and just do that. But a lot of times when things are good, everyone's just throwing stuff to the walls, hope and pray it works. Well, if we can stop that process and just really look at what works and what doesn't work,

it could be just changing an ad up to catch somebody's attention that keeps your clients in, but it keeps your name out there too. I mean, some of the best companies out there, you never see them off the radio, the TV, the print. They're never off. even though their markets might go down, they're never off because they know that they've got to keep their name out there. And for small businesses, I know it's hard, but there's ways to do it. Right. And that top of mind mentality is what helps all these companies to stay, you know, have their longevity because they stay on the whole time.

It doesn't matter whether times are good or bad. They're still promoting themselves, advertising, talking about their services and new products. And I think small businesses have, they have. have a hard time seeing that as an investment instead of they see that as a cost. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So when you go to a business or all these businesses that have all these different calling needs because sometimes they have different, it's the same service, but they have different ways of needing it. Right. What is it that you offer as a summary? I know you have a lot of different industries and each one has different budgets, different locations and everything is different. But as a summary, what kind of services do you offer? Well, when it comes to commercial, obviously the easiest one are I at the top is headshots

for their website. But we also do other photos for their website to promote their business because their websites are where they're trying to direct people to in the first place or to their storefront. We offer video. Um, you know, uh, doing video, we do photos. So it's for print work, uh, no matter if it's little print for just the stuff that you're given away to billboard size print. Um, we, we can do it all. Um, and then we also offer our drone work. So we can, we, we can spice it up with drone, give me a different angles, different, uh, unique looks to, to your business. I mean, we've flown a drone through a whole business, did the whole thing with a drone indoors.

So it can be done. But it's a way of catching people's attention. Sounds like fun. Yeah. People's needs, though, or like I said, websites, advertising, sometimes it's just training videos. Sometimes it's, hey, maybe the cost of doing a training video saves you from having two or three people out for a day training all these people. Or it's their onboarding video that now the people can come in and watch that onboarding video and get the same results than having one or two people tied up doing it. So there's

ways that that saves them money in the long run that we can come in and do. Now, are there some misconceptions about your services, the type of service that you provide? I know some of the things that are saying is that people might think is maybe too costly to expend. it takes a lot of time? Yeah, and that varies on what you're looking for and what we're trying to produce. But the nice thing is, I tell people, if we come in and shoot for you, we do want you to put a little bit of time aside to do this. Because not only are we shooting for the maybe the ad or the prints that you're looking

for now, but since we're set up already, it's easier to go ahead and give a little more that we have sitting in the bank that you can call us later and say, hey, can you make me another ad, a 30-second ad off the stuff that you already have? And that saves them from us coming back out, the cost of coming back out, setting everything up and reshooting again

just to produce a 30-second ad. We already have it. And that's something that customers don't realize and some other companies don't tell them. They'd rather come out and give them set up again and again and again. And it's like, No, let's get enough content that we can give you stuff for your social media or anything else for maybe the next four months. Right.

And that saves them in time and money so that they're not thinking it's going to take all day and a lot of their time. Right. And I know you and I talked before we started a podcast, and one of the questions I wanted to ask you was, Do you have any examples of maybe some clients that you work with? The impact that you created that you can talk about, you don't have mentioned any names? Just, you know, an example of before an hour. Here's a really cool example that happened for a boat company. They sent me a testimonial reel that they shot themselves.

They didn't know what to do with it. So I said, give it to me, we'll edit it. And when I got done, I turned around and said, do you know what your brand is? And they were just kind of shaking their head, like, yes, with their head shaking, no. And I said it was in every single one of those testimonials you shot. And the one said, well, they said family. And I'm like, yes, you're the boat family. That is your brand, that you are, everyone comes to you because you are the boat family.

They used to use, and one of them said, well, we put that in small text when somebody got a picture taken when they got a new boat. Underneath their name, we'd say, welcome to the boat family. I'm like, no, we need to bring it bigger. And now, before we even shot anything else with them, their Facebook ads showed, welcome to the boat family on all their shots on Facebook that they did. Nice and big. And I was doing testimony that it was this year for them. and people walked in right away saying, well,

we're here because we want to be part of the boat family. That's just all we did was change where they put it and make them realize what they had. And it's amazing how that works out well. That's really eye-opening just to get kind of a small shift can make a big difference. Yes, exactly. And that's why a lot of companies

think they have a brand. And by the way, logos are not brand unless you're Nike. So, Nike's the only one that's really proven that they can make a logo or brand. But they, but they, but they didn't, they have something and they don't realize what they have or don't realize it completely and then how to utilize it. And, and sometimes it's just making that shift. And that's, and we don't mind. I mean, if that's the only thing we got out of it and to help them, we would feel good about it. Even if we didn't get any business, we helped them shift because we know when they need something later, they'll come to us. And speaking of Nike, I know Nike's been around, it took them a while for that brand, for that logo to become a brand. Yeah. Do you see that with small business

owners thinking that all I need to do is create a logo and I'll be said? Yeah, the first thing is, they think their logo is a brand and everyone's going to recognize it. They're not. Even the ones that are on TV, they just, the logo is something that's recognizable. You want that. But what does that logo state? You know, um,

you've got to, you've got to put that together, which is then becoming part of your brand. And that's what people will remember overall, not just a picture of a plumber up there or a roofer, um, you know, a house that looks because he's a roofer. It's like, well, everyone sees a house.

You know, they're not going to remember that as your logo being a brand. And it takes so much education for people to remember and kind of link the logo to the message. Yes. Yeah, I remember there was some kind of a survey that was done and they asked, I think it was like 5,000 people, do you know the brand that has the bunny hitting the drum?

And it was like only like 20% of people that remember it was Energizer Bunny, but they cannot even name it. Right. Even after all the money they spent in years, they spend marketing that. So it takes a lot of education and remembering and top of mind and reinforcing that brand for people to remember. Right, right. But even getting 20% of them to remember, that's great for them. That's great.

Yeah. But you compare of the money that of the time and the money that is spent, I think that, you know, it's like it's kind of a lesson for small businesses that it's not just a, logo, you got to keep reinforcing that over the year. Right. You know. Yeah. Constantly. It's a con.

And even with the Energizer Bunny, if you look, they revamped it, even though they kept the bunny and they kept them, they found new ways to attract people to watch it. Right. And that's what, just because you have commercials that worked in the past might not work now because they're not hitting people's hot buttons. They're not creating an emotion. Real quick, I have something for you. that people don't really get.

You know the difference between a photo and a pitcher besides the spelling? A picture is just this. If we took this pin and we took a picture of it, we both look at it and go, okay, it's a pin, has created nothing more than just recognizing what it was. If I had a beautiful baby sitting here with a bunny in her lap, we would have a little bit of emotion probably. to it. You know, oh, this is very cute. Oh, look at that. Look at the bunny there. That's the difference between a picture and a photo. Is a picture is just that. A photo creates emotion attachments.

Does it create emotion attachments to every single person looks at it? No. But advertising and what we do is the same thing. We're trying to create an emotion, an attachment to everything we put out there for that customer so that there's going to be a portion of those people that attract to it. They see that hook. And they're like, oh, those are the people I want to work with. Kind of like the boat company. We walked in because we want to be part of the boat family.

It's that you have to constantly keep upgraded and constantly getting and finding new ways to not only get to these people over here, but how do we connect to these people over And that's where changing, sometimes it adds up, changing just a little bit of it, finding the new angle. And now you're connecting not only to these, because they've been connected, now you're connecting to these people over on this side. And it's constant, though. And that's a really important point, because people buy based on emotion. Yeah. You know, that's what links your product to their emotion is what is going to connect that person to making the purchase.

And as long as you don't score it up really badly, they stay linked to that emotion with that product for the longest time. That's a great point that you make that, you know, it's not just a picture. It's an image that connect your emotion. And like you said, also, it's not going to connect with everyone, but it's going to connect with enough people that it will make an impact and it's going to connect and stay with that person. That's right. It's just like referrals. People are like, well, I build off referrals.

well, you referred somebody, that person that comes, talks to you from the referral, feels a little more comfortable because their friend referred them. But you still have to finish the sale out and make them feel good about making whatever purchase that they're doing. If it's buying a car or buying a boat or getting their plumbing done, whatever it might be. That's very important. Now, where do you get your... your marketing background. You have photography, but you're marketing and the branding and everything

else. What do you get that from? Yeah, I have a business degree, but I think a lot of it's, you know, I'm going to say it comes from hard knocks because I've had, you know, being in this side of the business, I got to see the other side of the marketing side. And it was so much that you start learning and seeing what works and you're like, well, why is that marketing company doing this? It's not working. So you start learning over the years about a lot of it also. And I've worked with some great marketing companies too. So, you know, I get to pick their brain and be able to help them out because sometimes all I do is create the image, create the video, and then give it to them and they finish promoting it.

What are you doing your free time besides taking more pictures? What other stuff that you do is fun? Besides, well, I also have a boat, so I'm out fishing or playing on the boat. And so I fish and hunt. But yes, I still take pictures because I'm a big wildlife photographer also. I'm a guide up in Rocky Mountain National Park for photography. For all my wildlife, I teach people the proper way of shooting wildlife. and trying to get those iconic photos

knowing that it's like hunting and fishing. You're not going to get those every single time you go out. If you did, everybody would just be a photographer. But you have to work for it. And you have to be safe about it. You can't just walk up to a bull moose and say, pose for me, please.

Yeah. And you do also videos when you're out there or just mostly pictures? Yeah, no, I do both. I do both. Um, just sometimes I vary it up. You know, one day I'm just looking to do photos. Another day I'm taking the, and switching over to video and saying, all I'm going to do today is video. And with my clients that go out there, I do a lot more video because I'm teaching them

how to do photos. So I sit back and do the video on the, on the side. Oh, wow. So do you also do, uh, I know you do wildlife. Do you do anything with hunters? You go out and take pictures with them at all? Um, I had not done that yet. I've been asked to from a few of them.

The problem is with some of the guys that guide out there for hunting, they want me out there, but they just want me to come and just do it for them. They don't want any cost involved. And I was like, God, if I traded out every single hunting trip, that's all I would be doing is hunting, and I don't get enough permits to hunt that much. So, but yeah, I've done a couple small guys and I've done some fishing guides, fly fishing and just giving them some stuff to put on their website versus them trying to just do it off their cell phone.

You know, we've gone out and been in the distance and got the photos for them to put on their website. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I think you're right because you might be going out there and there might not be any hunting that day. and then you're still not getting paid. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It is a business.

I have to remind people of that, that this is how I make my money. So it's just, you know, unfortunately sometimes people think if you have a camera, you're automatically a photographer, and that's not always, that's not the case. Not the case.

It takes a lot of skills and good eye and experience to get those photos. And understanding your camera, understanding what it does and all the equipment that you wind up buying. Lighting and all that tops. Yeah. And wildlife all the time you spend, even everything else that I do, the time you spend scouting, if you're doing portraits outdoors, you're scouting great area locations.

No one pays you to go out and scout, but you do it because you want your clients to have the best. Right. Yeah. So there's a lot of time and effort besides the expense before the average. before the actual event happens. Oh, gosh, yes. You know, a lot of stuff going on. A lot of times the actual event is an hour to three hours,

and you spent four times out getting ready for it. Yeah, yeah. And then you get to come back and process all that. And then process all of it and get it into something that people can recognize and want to see. Yeah. It's not just taking pictures. with your phone is yeah this is professional photography yeah yeah and so if people want to

contact you what how they can can they contact you uh first my commercial website is brian stanley photography dot com there is a contact page on there but they can also email me at brian at bryan stanley photography dot com so Pretty simple there. Or they can call me at 303-827-5272. And trust me, I pick up my phone. If I don't pick it up, it's because I'm with somebody else, but I'm good at calling people back.

Sounds good. You have anything coming up? Any specials? Anything, any offers? You know what? For this, if they tell me they heard it on the podcast, I automatically do a free review for everybody. But we'll add, if you work with me, we'll take 20% off.

If you've mentioned that podcast, we'll take 20% off whatever we do for you the first time. Sounds good. So I'm going to include that info. Okay. Podcast description with your info and your links and everything else so people can contact you. Any last words, Brian?

This has been fun. I've been opening me and I've been marketing too, but I haven't done very little about photography. I did take course years back, but they didn't do anything else after that. Well, you can always go back to me. I can get you back, created, back up and running again. And so with the course of learning how to work your camera again.

But no, I mean, you know, I guess the last thing is just know that you need to continue pushing your brand out there if you want people to buy from you. If you want your business to succeed, you have to keep pushing your brand. But a correct way so that you continue getting the hook. you push those buttons that people, that emotion button, that they want to work with you. And you said something else now that makes me remember something very important. Remember the phone books when you look at, you used to look at a lawyer and you look at 20 pages later on. The same design was the same. They saying the same thing.

Yeah. They were not staying out from each other. There was no real clear message. It was just the same stuff. And you say right now you got to, you know, promote your brand the right way. Correct. You know, and I think that's a very important point because I think a lot of small businesses, they can get a little lazy and start copying everybody else so they don't have to spend the money on a professional

or do any thinking at all, doing research. Or they try to throw it into AI and AI is going to be some great stuff going forward. But it also doesn't have any emotions itself. it will just say this is what you should do and you're like okay but then it forgets about some of the other sides of making it work and um that's why having somebody that you can actually talk with and and bounce ideas off of come up with something that does work and and you review that work all the time you know and that's the other thing just because you did it for six months we need to review it how well did it work you know and for businesses they got to follow up with that themselves. else. We can't monitor that for them. You know, you asked the question, where did you see us? Did you see our ad? So you know that they work. Yeah. So there's, like we talked earlier, there's some follow-up to the work that you do because, you know, it's not once and done. You got to stay on top of it. It's like a process.

You know, the branding is just not one time. You got to keep on, you stay on top of that. Yep. Yep. exactly. So Brian, thank you. Thank you for coming in the show. Thank you. This has been a lot of fun. And to my listeners, all Brian's info and he's offered to help you out with your own branding, that's what you're going to help him out with. Yeah. Yeah. So all that info, his email and his phone number is going to be just below the podcast description. And like Brian said, he answers the phone. That's a big plus. You don't have to wait for somebody to call you back.

And really thank you for listening to this episode. This is J.C. Soto with Online Media 360. Until next time, bye for now. Thanks for listening to Business Innovators Radio. To hear all episodes featuring leading industry influencers and trendsetters, visit us online at businessinnovators.com today.