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Daniel Wakefield went from $60 in his first month behind the camera to a six‑figure photography business inside a year - then turned those lessons into his book Accelerate: How I Took My Creative Business from Zero to Six Figures in 12 Months', the Amazon #1 new release in advertising.
In this fast‑paced conversation with host Nick Berry we unpack Daniel’s “accelerate equation,” the hype tornado framework, and how creative business growth thrives on genuine connection. Expect hard‑won tactics for LinkedIn networking, client transformation, and magnetic marketing - without a single cold DM.
Daniel’s first month brought in just $60. He quickly pivoted, mixed relentless networking with a premium client experience, and hit six figures within the first year – proof that a clear revenue roadmap beats waiting for referrals.
He breaks growth into teachable pillars - pricing, positioning, and experience - so any creative can copy the playbook and skip painful trial‑and‑error.
Acceleration = (number of connections × felt relationship) ÷ (misaligned values × market irrelevance). Combine them and you get predictable business acceleration instead of feast-or-famine cycles.
A killer product, unforgettable client experience, and value‑first social presence create a virtuous cycle of referrals that feels “inbound‑only.”
Forget spammy pitches. Daniel treats LinkedIn as a digital handshake and says consistent, authentic content turns followers into fans - and fans into paying clients.
“The reality is that it's the consistency over time that's going to help people know, like, and trust you.” - Daniel Wakefield
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“Business acceleration through genuine connection.” - Daniel Wakefield
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“That first month was sixty dollars of revenue. It was a wake up call of I can't just put together a website with a good portfolio and wait for people to find me." - Daniel Wakefield
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“I started to realize that people with really good headshots on LinkedIn tend to get more profile views." - Daniel Wakefield
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“Having this powerful image of yourself actually translates to helping you feel more confident in your career." - Daniel Wakefield
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“People are just craving real human connection." - Daniel Wakefield
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“If you see yourself looking super confident, it actually helps you feel more confident." - Daniel Wakefield
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The Business Owner's Journey Podcast host: Nick Berry
Production Company: FCG
00:00 The Launch of “Accelerate” and Creative Business Growth
05:45 The Journey to Six‑Figure Business Success
10:17 Building Authority Through Real‑World Experience
18:14 Applying the Accelerate Equation for Business Acceleration
28:33 Creating a Hype Tornado for Magnetic Marketing
37:36 Delivering Transformational Client Experiences
Daniel Wakefield (00:00)
The reality is that it's the consistency over time that's going to help people know, like, and trust you. It's the same game as in-person networking. If you do it right, getting people to know, like, and trust you.
Nick Berry (00:00)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (00:14)
And hopefully you as a person are a trustworthy person and you're doing business right and you've got a great product to
Nick Berry (00:36)
Wakefield is a founder, photographer, and entrepreneur, and now a published author. How do you turn 60 bucks, a camera, and determination into a six-figure business that keeps clients chasing you? Today, we dive into the frameworks, mindset, and momentum behind Daniel's rapid rise. Expect to learn how he jumped from $60 in month one to six figures by month 12. How and when he knew he had to write a book.
how the hype tornado turns happy clients into nonstop referrals. What the accelerate equation really means for your network and revenue. How to use LinkedIn without posting cringe sales pitches. Whether in-person networking still beats cold DMs, his take on packaging expertise into high margin coaching, how to keep momentum when your creative energy dips.
the best and worst ways to spend ad dollars on social platforms, what a killer product plus unforgettable experience actually looks like, and much, much more. Enjoy this interview with Daniel Wakefield.
Nick Berry (01:37)
So the book is out. Congratulations on accelerate is out.
So where's it at right now? Where can you get it?
Daniel Wakefield (01:44)
Yeah, so people can go on Amazon and grab a copy. They can get an ebook, paperback, hardcover. Should be up on ⁓ Apple Books, kind of wherever you get your ebooks typically. Should be on there, but yeah, it's available. It's go time.
Nick Berry (02:02)
Awesome. And it's, it's accelerate. how I took my creative business from zero to six figures in 12 months. going to talk about, some of what's in the book, but like, why, why the book? What prompted you to, ⁓ go down this path?
Daniel Wakefield (02:09)
That's the one.
Yeah.
Yeah, so I was just working on my business, growing it and just learning everything that I could. And it was doing really well. had, we were, we were crossing the quarter million dollar a year mark in revenue in the business already, which is like top 1 % of photographers in the country. was, it was pretty big deal.
And ⁓ I was part of some photography groups on Facebook and other places. And some of the groups were just very open ⁓ about sharing about business stuff, wanting to encourage other people. ⁓ And the owner of the group really encouraged people to share their wins and how they were doing so that people who were newer to photography could see ⁓ just what was possible. ⁓
in this industry if you do things right. And so I played along and was sharing about the wins and trying to give credit to people that I thought had really helped me as well. And I just started to have photographers reach out. And basically their first question was, can I pay you to hop on a quick call and just pick your brain about ⁓ how you're doing business and how you've grown so much?
Nick Berry (03:44)
That's how I got started.
Daniel Wakefield (03:46)
Yeah.
Nick Berry (03:47)
Like 20 years ago, that's how I got, yeah, that's a very familiar story.
Daniel Wakefield (03:52)
Yeah. So, at first I was like, sure, you know, and it was a great conversation and being a former high school teacher, being able to take ideas and really distill them down into frameworks and, you know, big ideas and then how to, you know, take those ideas and implement them.
and apply things into certain situations was kind of like what I learned to do as a teacher. And now I was just applying it to in a business sense. And so those some of those people were ⁓ calling me back a month later, two months later saying, hey, can I pay for another call? What you said was working and I'm getting more clients, I'm making more money and I want more going. ⁓
basically to dive in deeper into some of those business concepts. And so this started happening again and again and again. And so I started to think about, should I be more strategic about this? Should I be doing something to actually attract more people? Obviously there was a need for what I was talking about. And so I...
was thinking about it, talking with my wife, Bethany, just trying to think through different things we could do. And I just thought to myself, well, I've always loved writing. Ever since high school, I entered creative writing competitions, enjoyed putting my thoughts down on paper. And I thought, well, let me just take all the things that I'm teaching to these people on these phone calls and kind of
put it down and each topic could maybe be a chapter of a book and then just kind of weave my own story into it of, you know, where did I start from with the business and what were the things that helped me to get to that six figure mark in the first year? And yeah, and so I just really dove in. And so part of it was ⁓ obviously there was a need for help in this industry. ⁓
There's other people doing things as well, but clearly there was still a need. People still had questions that they wanted answered. And so it was partially a, how can I help type of thing. But then also just from a business perspective, just thinking about there were clearly people willing to, you know, pay money to hop on a call to just learn more. And so was...
Nick Berry (06:38)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (06:40)
It was an opportunity to just think about for my own business, could this potentially be another revenue stream that I can be more strategic about? And in doing so help a lot more people with it. So it was kind of those, you know, dual purposes, if you will.
Nick Berry (06:53)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. On top of you enjoying writing this is a project that you would have enjoyed doing even if it didn't have a business purpose, right?
Daniel Wakefield (07:05)
Yeah, absolutely.
Nick Berry (07:07)
I've spoken highly of you, ⁓ in front of you and behind your back as a matter of fact. ⁓ but you know what you're doing. You're, you're really good at with the teaching, distilling down the learning points, all the things that you said, how much of the appeal to the people that have been coming to you, do you think there is to like, they want somebody who's actually done it? Like, is that really the irreplaceable factor that you speak to it from a first person experience?
Daniel Wakefield (07:34)
think that's one of the things that's really drawn a lot of people to me. If I was just some guy showing up and say, hey, I can teach you how to do this, then it's like, well, but can you, you know, there's maybe a little suspicion. when people see, you know, not only did he get six figures in his first 12 months, but then went on to multiple six figures and stuff like $50,000 month and things like that. People are like, okay, yeah.
Nick Berry (07:46)
Yeah.
Daniel Wakefield (08:04)
I want to learn what this guy's doing. I think that's part of it. think it's just, it becomes kind of the authority of experience. that it's not just a, because we're in a day and age where everybody wants to be a coach and is calling themselves a coach and things like that. And we've talked about this before. And to me, I think it's so important that coaching
is undergirded by a foundation of I actually did it. And so when I teach you these things, I'm confident in them because I have seen them work for me and they continue to work for me. They're not just things that I talk about, but they're things that I actually do every single week.
Nick Berry (08:55)
There's also a component to your story that's think it's so it's to six figures in, in 12 months. And the first month was $60. Was that right? Yeah. So it's like from $60 to six figures, which is, think makes it relatable, right? Cause it wasn't, it's not just a pure wins across the board. It's I was at.
Daniel Wakefield (09:04)
Yes.
Nick Berry (09:18)
this low point and it is pretty close to the bottom and then went to here. I think that counts for a lot in the eyes of those people.
Daniel Wakefield (09:28)
Yeah.
And it wasn't, you know, it was, ⁓ the first month was $60. and the months after that were, you know, comparatively speaking quite a bit more than that, but still like not enough to, to, rely on as a sole provider for my family. think maybe month two was like 2,500 bucks. month three was like about 4,000.
actually the next three months were about 4,000 each. And some of those were like zero income for the first three weeks of the month. And that a whole bunch of bookings on the last week that was just like, okay, we've got some income, we can breathe until the next month. ⁓ So it was kind of like touch and go really for about the first six months ⁓ before things really started to hockey stick as they say.
Nick Berry (10:17)
Mm-hmm.
So what clicked
that made things start to hockey stick? Cause I think that's probably like, that's where the framework for the book started to come together, right? It's like, ⁓ you figured out how these things needed to work together.
Daniel Wakefield (10:36)
Yeah. And it
was, yeah. And to be fair, like I didn't even realize, I knew some of the things that I was doing and I was doing them intentionally, but I didn't fully understand ⁓ the impact of how I was doing it. ⁓ And so it, you know, it just started, things started to click and it was kind of looking back, ⁓ you know, from the, ⁓ from the future, looking back.
that I was like, okay, you know, I did these things and really figured out the framework from there. So, yeah, was two of the main things were in-person networking and LinkedIn kind of as an overflow of this networking concept. And the two things together really started to click and really had what I would say is a compounding effect.
Nick Berry (11:12)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (11:34)
over time. wasn't something that you could just say, well, let me try this for a month. I didn't get any clients that month. I guess it doesn't work for me. But it was more of a persistence of doing the things, learning from people who were doing it well, and then modeling that in myself and going and doing ⁓ more of that. So yeah, those two things really started to click.
I think it was maybe two months of work on LinkedIn before I got my first client from the platform. And it was somebody that I didn't know I just kind of had randomly connected with and then they needed some commercial photography done. And I was like, I'm your guy. And then it just kind of started to slowly trickle in from there until it started to really snowball ⁓ after that. But it was kind of a
One of the things I saw people doing on LinkedIn, and I just noticed that it wasn't working at all, is people who were making every post into a sales pitch for their business. And it was like, if I translated that to me, it would basically be like, here's five reasons why you should do your headshots with me type of thing. And it would have zero engagement on their posts and...
Nick Berry (12:51)
in.
Daniel Wakefield (12:56)
Just not getting any traction at all and it would be like day after day or week after week. I'd be seeing their posts No engagement on them, but nobody like it was impossible to get to know that person either from that post and so I just started to think about you know, how do I How do I not do that? But if I'm not doing that, what am I doing? What am I posting about and? getting some insights from some other people and then putting my own spin on it and really just
starting to post and figuring it out as I went along was so, I think, pivotal. A good friend of mine in sales, he says that your first 100 posts are gonna be bad. ⁓ And because you just don't know what you're doing, you're learning, ⁓ but it's through posting, through putting in the effort and showing up that that's how you learn. Like going to the gym, you you're...
Nick Berry (13:53)
Thank you.
Daniel Wakefield (13:55)
First time you ever go to the gym, you're not good at anything. Your technique is bad, you can't lift very much, you don't know what you're doing, and you're just looking around at all these bodybuilders and you're like, I don't even know. I shouldn't even be here. Yeah.
Nick Berry (14:10)
You think everybody who's not you is like
a bodybuilder, right? It's like everybody else is an expert and I'm the only one here who it's my first day, which is totally not true.
Daniel Wakefield (14:16)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But so it's like showing up and committing to just doing it and then learning from other people around you as well. And I started to intentionally follow some people that weren't even in my industry, but they just seem to be having good traction. So I was kind of looking at, what are they doing? And then how can I apply that to my industry? So now when I talk with other business owners that are just kind of
wanting to learn more about LinkedIn stuff, even if they're not in my industry, I'll tell them, go and like look at my posts for the last couple of months and get some ideas because I may be posting from within a certain industry, but the things that I'm talking about or the types of posts that I make are broadly applicable to a lot of different business owners.
Nick Berry (15:11)
And you have, I think it doesn't take long to see with you, like there's kind of, you've got a set of these types of posts that you do. You've figured out the things that work for you that are, you're really good at, and you have plenty of material for, and you do those things well. Is that fair?
Daniel Wakefield (15:28)
Well,
thank you. ⁓ Yeah, there's definitely things that I like to think about. And also the other thing I would say is that everybody wants to have a post that goes viral. Everybody wants to have that one post that just takes off and gets thousands of likes and comments and whatever. ⁓ That personally, that has never happened to me. ⁓ I did have a client that posted her headshot that
went kind of viral. got like 5,000 likes on LinkedIn, hundreds of comments, and it actually did bring in a fair number of clients and new connections and things like that for me, which was wonderful. But personally, I've never had a post go, strictly speaking, viral. But I still have gotten to within four years. I started with two connections on LinkedIn. So, you know, pretty hard to be lower than that. And then within four years,
Nick Berry (16:23)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (16:27)
Like I'm just about to hit the 14,000 follower mark. ⁓ So network has grown exponentially. I get a ton of clients from the platform.
Nick Berry (16:38)
I mean, your strategy
is not about going viral or like you don't need to go viral, right? It's like you're doing something that's sustainable. You're not playing the lottery.
Daniel Wakefield (16:43)
No.
Correct.
Yeah, exactly. And I think that's where, if you're thinking with every post, this needs to go viral, I think what's going to happen to most people is that it's going to paralyze them. They're going to overanalyze every post thinking it has to be perfect if it's going to go viral. And the people that are actually going viral, I don't think are doing that. They're just, iterating, they're ideating and iterating.
and putting out tons of content and then seeing if something goes viral, maybe what they can learn from that and apply to new stuff. ⁓ But they're not like just sitting on a post forever trying to figure it out. The reality is that it's the consistency over time that's going to help people know, like, and trust you. It's the same game as in-person networking. If you do it right, getting people to know, like, and trust you.
Nick Berry (17:31)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (17:46)
And hopefully you as a person are a trustworthy person and you're doing business right and you've got a great product to offer and things like that. Those are all, givens. But given that that's the case, ⁓ people need to know who you are. And that was kind of my thought when I started my business was nobody knows who I am. So how do I go from this state of being completely unknown in the business community?
Nick Berry (18:01)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (18:14)
to being a known entity that people know, and trust. ⁓ And so some of the things that I talk about in the book are how do you get from this, like, unknown place to somewhere where people do know, like, and trust you.
Nick Berry (18:29)
Mm Okay, what parts of that can you share here?
Daniel Wakefield (18:33)
Yeah.
So I think foundationally, ⁓ the accelerate equation that I came up with, ⁓ and just, guess real quick, as I was writing the book and thinking about this concept of, ⁓ to summarize it, was, ⁓ business acceleration through genuine connection. And that kind of became the overall theme. But as I was going along,
Yeah, I'm I'm a very visual learner. ⁓ and when I see something, it just helps me process the information. So I started thinking, wondering, you know, could I come up with some sort of visual for this main theme of, ⁓ business acceleration through genuine connection and being a former science teacher, I was, I immediately thought, well, you know, acceleration is a physics term.
And it's got an equation. I wonder if I could come up with an equation just that's more conceptual, but at least gives us a visual of this concept. So I sat down and I started just kind of pen to paper and scribbling out some stuff and figuring it out. And so what I came up with is that it is an equation. Its acceleration equals
Number of connections times felt relationship divided by.
misaligned values times market irrelevance. So ⁓ number of connections and felt relationship is on the top of the equation divided by, and then you've got misaligned values and market irrelevance on the bottom.
There's a reason for all of that. So number of connections is easy. It's just the number of people in your network, whether it's on LinkedIn, people that you know in real life. And so that's pretty easy to quantify. Some of the other things are not necessarily quantifiable. It's more conceptual than that, but I think that it still provides a powerful analogy. So felt relationship, for example.
Obviously, we want to have real genuine connections with as many people as possible, but that gets capped pretty quickly. I think I had read somewhere that you can only have like 200 authentic friendships or something like that. Once you start getting beyond that, it's like almost not possible to, we just can't do it.
as human beings. There may be exceptions, but for most of us, once we get beyond that, it just starts getting into the realm of acquaintances, people who maybe know about us and things like that. ⁓ So, the whole point of the felt relationship on the top is that as your network grows, if it starts to get big enough, there are going to be people that are connected with you on LinkedIn or maybe know about you in your network in person, but
Nick Berry (21:30)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's no doubt.
Daniel Wakefield (21:49)
It's just not possible to have a genuine friendship business relationship with everybody. It's just, we can't do it. And so I thought about, well, then what's the point? You know, why would you ever want to have a network of like 10,000 people on LinkedIn? And so what I started to realize was you may not be able to have a, you know, a genuine relationship with each of those people.
but they can have a felt relationship with you. And so if you start putting out content that really help people to know, like, and trust you, they may have never met you before, but they may still have some semblance of a felt relationship because they're enjoying following along on your journey, getting to know you, learning about how you're helping people. One of the most common things that I hear
When I go to a in-person networking event and I meet somebody and they say, my goodness, it's you're Daniel. I follow you on LinkedIn. And they follow that up. Almost everybody says this. I feel like I know you. Right. And so, and, so that means that that was working, you know, because they, they felt comfortable enough to come up to me to introduce themselves.
Nick Berry (23:04)
Yeah.
Daniel Wakefield (23:15)
to say something like that. ⁓ And if the time was right, if they were like actively looking for headshots, guess whose door they'd be knocking on because they feel like they know me. So that felt relationship, the felt part is intentional because as your network gets bigger, again, not possible to have a thousand friendships that are active, but you can still help people know, like, and trust you. So number of connections and felt relationship.
And then on the bottom are things that you want to minimize. top of the equation, you want to maximize those things. Bottom of the equation, you want to minimize them. The whole reason for that is because like just for example, a thousand divided by a thousand is still one. You you could be doing really good on the top, but if there's mismatch and if there's like
a bunch of misaligned values or market irrelevance, it doesn't matter how big the numbers are on the top, it's gonna cancel out on the bottom. So the bottom numbers are ones you want to minimize. Again, still pretty conceptual. We're not like plugging in actual numbers here to get a number result, but just to help us visualize what we're trying to do. So the misaligned values,
I think you're just looking for people that are kind of on the same wavelength as you, ⁓ ethically, ⁓ with things like integrity and trustworthiness and things like that. But then also other things like people who are growth-minded, people who have what I would call, quoting some other great authors, ⁓ a go-giver mentality and things like that. So you're looking for people who you're on the same wavelength with, with your...
you know, ⁓ personal and professional values, but then also the market irrelevance piece. And so just kind of as a silly example, if you're trying to build a community of dog owners and you just go and connect with all the cat owners out there, it doesn't matter that you have 10,000 followers if they're all cat, you know, people, but you need to build a community of dog people.
It doesn't matter how big your network is. ⁓ And so you're wanting to make sure that as you build your network, yeah, of course, there's going to be people that you meet and potentially become friends with that are not ideal clients and maybe, or don't even work with your ideal clients and things like that. And that's fine. But in terms of just being intentional, growing your LinkedIn following and things like that, making sure that you're ⁓
Nick Berry (25:40)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (26:06)
the people that you're connecting with have some sort of relevance to the market you're looking to build and work in and make offers to and help and things like that. if we can get those numbers as small as possible on the bottom, it really ⁓ increases the effectiveness of those numbers that you're trying to increase on the top.
Nick Berry (26:18)
you
Yeah.
Daniel Wakefield (26:33)
⁓
and so that, think that just speaks to, know, if you're trying to grow a following on LinkedIn, what kind of content are you posting about that would, you know, potentially attract people, ⁓ who, you know, would be in that correct industry. But then also when you're just going and sending connection requests to people, ⁓ you'd maybe doing some searches, like just be intentional. Don't just be shooting out things, you know, willy nilly all over the place, but.
really take some time to think about who are my ideal clients or who are potential strategic partners and things like that because it'll really have a massive impact on ⁓ the effectiveness of those connections.
Nick Berry (27:21)
So let me see if I can recap this back to the effect that your network can have on the your business's acceleration is going to be determined by the number of deep quality, genuine relationships that you can have.
And the number of people who have a positive familiarity with you, who also have aligned values or mindsets and have some overlap in the problem that you solve. You create some value in that world for them.
Daniel Wakefield (27:55)
I would say that's a great recap. And my book does actually have a visual of the equation. So you can see it. You don't have to imagine it. You can get the book and see it.
Nick Berry (28:02)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's helpful, right? it's all of that distilled down to something that pretty simple that like Nick do this. This is, and you said the word intentionality. I think that's really what it does. It lets you be really purposeful with your activity when you were talking about LinkedIn, but it's not exclusively LinkedIn, right? But, um, that purposefulness or that intentionality is what
gets lost a lot and we can waste a ton of time and energy and just being willy nilly. That's another phrase you used. I think it was good. So we've got LinkedIn and the accelerated equation, and we've touched on the in-person ⁓ networking.
And so let's talk, this all is kind of forming up the hype tornado, right? So let's talk about the hype tornado.
Daniel Wakefield (28:52)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So the, it's another framework that I came up with while I was writing the book. And I came up with that one first actually, uh, before I came up with the accelerate equation. And when I came up with the accelerate equation, I was like, I don't want them to be two separate things. Like I think, you know, I wanted to see, you know, do they actually fit together? And I think they do.
and so the, the hype tornado was a concept that I came up with because I was talking to a friend of mine, ⁓ and she was saying, ⁓ you know, Daniel, you're building so much hype with your business. And we were talking about why that was because I,
I was in the process of ⁓ writing the book and thinking about, I want to teach other photographers how to build a business like this, and realizing one of the things that I've been doing is building hype for my business. And I think people are really excited about the headshots, the photography that I'm producing for them. But I felt like it's more than that. And I wasn't trying to put my finger on it. And so this
⁓ conversation with my friend Nicole kind of clarified some things in my mind about what I was doing and why it was having so much impact. And so over the next month or so, I came up with ⁓ this framework and I started to think about, I had this idea in my head of, you know, a vicious cycle and which is obviously a negative feedback loop. So it's two or more things working together that make things worse and worse over time.
And I was like, it's like that, but it's positive. And there is a positive version of that. It's called a virtuous cycle. And I was just like, well, that's kind of boring. It sounds kind of clinical. And I wanted it like, it is that, but I wanted to have like a specific term for it when it's in this specific ⁓ case. And I immediately just thought of a tornado and I was like, light bulb, it's a hype tornado. And that was kind of the inception of that.
Nick Berry (31:09)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (31:12)
idea. And, and when I boil it down, the hype tornado concept is really about creating FOMO for your business. It's, it's like creating magnetic attraction to your business. So it's not just like finding clients doesn't just feel like pushing a rock up uphill all the time, but people are like lining up like they're.
showing up in your DMs and you know, it's all it's like starts to be more managing inbound inquiries than just like cold outreach and things like that. ⁓ And so I started to think about, what are the elements of a hype tornado? And what I've come up with is that a hype tornado is made up of not three pillars, but three environmental conditions that need to be kind of functioning.
Nick Berry (31:48)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (32:08)
for a hype tornado to form. So the first one is you have got to have a killer product or service. Mediocrity is not an option. ⁓ It cannot be something that your clients are just satisfied with. It needs to be something that overwhelms them, something that they're like, they feel like they're getting more than they paid for. ⁓ So that's really like the foundational thing. If you don't have that, it's never gonna...
startup, you know, it doesn't matter how good everything else is that I talk about. If you don't have the killer product or service, forget it. So that's like, that has to be there. The second thing is you have to have unforgettable client experience. And again, same thing cannot be mediocre. It cannot be something that's like, you know, it was pretty good. It like, it just needs to wow people be something that like they
Nick Berry (32:39)
you
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (33:07)
are never gonna forget this. And really diving into like, how does your experience and your product, your service, how does it make people feel when they come and they work with you? That's huge, it's all about that. And so my book goes into some of those more specific things that I think we need to help people feel in order to achieve that. So that's super important as well. And then the third, environmental condition.
Nick Berry (33:09)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (33:36)
I'm very committed to this analogy, this weather analogy. ⁓ The third environmental condition is I'm calling it a social presence that adds value. And this could be on LinkedIn, this could be on Instagram, this could be in-person networking, all of that sort of falls under that umbrella. But it's essentially having a go-giver mindset throughout all of your social presence.
And that it's not just about, it's all about me, come in like, buy from me and I'm the best and yada, yada, yada. But it's like, how can I through my social presence, add value, make connections, help other people? ⁓ And so that, that's a big part of that. And the interesting thing is that the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized that even if only one of those environmental conditions is missing, it's going to stall out.
Nick Berry (34:21)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (34:35)
the hype tornado, there's going to be something that even if you have the killer product and the unforgettable client experience, if you're missing the social presence that adds value, it's really eliminating part of it that like it does accelerate because that's where the accelerate equation fits in is into the social presence that adds value. It fits into that section of the hype tornado. So if that accelerate part is missing,
Nick Berry (34:35)
Right.
Daniel Wakefield (35:03)
Like you're going to get some clients, you're going to get some word of mouth referrals, but it's not going to snowball. I don't believe, which is really what we're trying to do with the hype tornado. ⁓ and then, so we've got those three environmental conditions and then, this, this kind of developed over the more I think about it, the more deeply it develops. But I started to realize that the hype tornado, it has an eye of the storm. has a center.
Nick Berry (35:09)
Right. Right.
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Wakefield (35:32)
of everything that everything moves out of. And that center, that eye of the storm is that we are helping people see their future self through what we do.
So doesn't matter what it is that you do, it becomes about more than just providing a great service or product, it becomes about client transformation, which really should be true in any business, no matter what you're doing. Even something, you know, ⁓ a good friend of mine, ⁓ Karen Ross, she's an accountant and she'll tell you like,
Nick Berry (36:00)
Yep.
Daniel Wakefield (36:14)
The most boring, like in some ways, you know, people view it as, you know, the most boring job out there, but she really focuses on helping her clients transform to have peace of mind through what she does. And when you, when you market it like that, it totally changes the game. You're not just like, Hey, I'm an accountant and I'm, you know, just going to do your taxes for you. No, I'm going to step in and through all the things that I do, we're going to bring.
peace of mind to your life. That's huge. That's so much better and so much bigger and it hits right here instead of a, taxes, I don't even want to think about that. ⁓ So that becomes the center of the hype tornado. The eye of the storm is this focus on transformation and that impacts every part of the hype tornado. So it kind of emanates outwards.
Nick Berry (36:46)
For most people, that is a transformation.
Daniel Wakefield (37:11)
And yeah, when, when you've got all of those things functioning and happening in your business, like watch out, and then you're going to need your help to help like get more efficient so you can manage all the inbound that you've got coming in. Yep. Yep. Exactly.
Nick Berry (37:26)
Then you build the machine so you can do a lot more of it. Yeah.
That's, mean, what you're talking about is systematically making the whole greater than the sum of the parts.
when you get all three, that's when it becomes like the flywheel or the, love the virtuous cycle, conceptually, it makes sense. And that's kind of what we dream of. ⁓ when
Daniel Wakefield (37:39)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. And if we go back
to kind of what we both talked about with this concept of just being intentional in our business, that if we start to recognize the importance of focusing on client transformation, instead of just, let me provide a good product or service. How do we focus on client transformation in all aspects of our business? That just allows us to, again,
⁓ increase the intentionality that we bring to each of those things and gives us a higher target to aim for rather than, you know, for me, ⁓ I click the button. took a good picture. Therefore my job is done versus how do I help this person transform in front of my camera? Because ultimately that's going to be the thing that impacts them more, which then impacts your business more because they want to go out and tell everybody about
Nick Berry (38:28)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I love your philosophy. think it's being able to, you have a fantastic service. it is, best in class headshots and it would probably be pretty easy for somebody to deliver that product and, and, think, you know, that's, that's the top of the mountain. That's job well done and be very proud of it. And there to those who do that, that's fine. But I admire the way that you've taken it.
several steps beyond that to, this is not just an image, like a digital image of someone that is really well done. is like changing the way that they view themselves for the better. And it does it like, we're not talking about the exceptions here. We're talking about everybody who goes through Daniel to get their headshots done. have this experience and it's incredible. Having that effect on people is like, it was a really powerful thing. And you're.
leveraging that to continue to expand and affect not just the people who get headshots, but also people who are ⁓ trying to build photography businesses. then people who are just in creatives and who are trying to build businesses. now with the popularity, like there are people coming from all types of businesses to Daniel, show me how to do this better on LinkedIn or Daniel, what are some of the things, you know, getting business advice from you?
We haven't talked about it today, but your coaching program, Accelerate coaching group for photographers, like that's off the ground and running, but like, it's not going to stop there because the things that you're teaching are so impactful for business, not just for photography businesses. you're building a hype tornado around that, right? Like it's going to attract people and it should like coming from the business space.
We need more of that perspective. So I think you've done a fantastic job. I think you've got a fantastic mind for this stuff. And thank you for sharing everything and congratulations on the book on number one, because I know we're not finished.
Daniel Wakefield (40:38)
Of course, yeah. Thank you.
⁓ we are not, we are just getting started.
Nick Berry (40:45)
Well, thanks Daniel. I appreciate you being here man.
Daniel Wakefield (40:47)
Thanks for having me, it was a pleasure.
Nick Berry is an American entrepreneur and business advisor, whose track record includes founding, leading, and advising award winning small businesses since 2002.
After his most recent exit he founded Redesigned.Business to mentor and coach to other entrepreneurs and business owners who are looking for a trusted (and proven) advisor.
Among peers, colleagues 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'.
