Boosting Your Speaking Business with Visual Storytelling with John DeMato

The Speaker Lab Podcast

The Speaker Lab

Authors, Public Speakers, Public Speaking, How To, Marketing, Smallbusiness, Coaching, Education, Entrepreneurship, Speaking, Business, Side Gig

4.8 • 575 Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“A photo in general is not going to win you business, but bad photos are going to lose you your business all the time because it absolutely crushes.”

Ever dread getting new headshots or wonder if your photos help your speaking business? On this episode of The Speaker Lab, Grant Baldwin chats with photographer John DeMato about what matters when it comes to imagery and visual storytelling for speakers.

John’s best advice is that your branding photos aren’t for you; they’re for your audience. Every image should invite people into your world and show how you help them, building trust and credibility. This means going beyond stiff portraits and staged shots. John stresses having a strategy: your photos should tell the story of who you serve, how you solve problems, and what working with you looks like. Think candid behind-the-scenes moments, action shots, and authentic glimpses of your process, not just you on stage with a mic.

Additionally, John advises focusing on natural, in-the-moment photos rather than stiff posing. And while iPhone snaps work for everyday social posts, invest in professionally captured images for your website or speaker kit. Bring outfits you’d wear on stage, choose simple backgrounds, and use natural light to keep things genuine. Most importantly, if your brand changes, refresh your photo library!

You’ll learn:

The purpose and power of speaker photos
Definition of visual storytelling for speakers
Strategic approaches to speaker branding
Common mistakes speakers make with photography
Building authenticity and comfort in photos
Dealing with skepticism
Capturing genuine “magic moments”
And much, much more!

“[Branding] photos aren’t for you, they’re for them. They’re for the people that you serve.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Fran, Graham Baldwin here.
0:01.4	Hey, what if I told you that there was a single marketing asset that you could use to book tens of thousands of dollars in paid speaking gigs before you even have a website?
0:10.2	Well, that tool exists.
0:11.4	And Dan Irvin, one of the speakers on our team, used it to book over $36,000 in speaking gigs without a fancy website or any social media presence.
0:19.6	Even better, we're going to teach you exactly how
0:22.1	to create that tool for your speaking business in under an hour. For a limited time, we're going to
0:26.9	be offering a free live training on how to build and use this marketing asset to start booking
0:31.9	paid gigs in just a few weeks. If you want to hear more, go to thespeakalab.com slash marketing.
0:38.5	That's what you got to do is go to the speakelab.com slash marketing and we'll see you there. I think the biggest thing that speakers need to understand is this.
1:03.0	These photos, while they need to be flattering and you need to appreciate them
1:07.7	and you want to be motivated to use them because you recognize yourself in these
1:11.7	photos. These photos aren't for you. They're for them. They're for the people that you serve. And the
1:18.0	most important thing to always keep in mind is that when you're posting these photos, you are
1:23.7	inviting people into your world to learn more about how you can get them past what's holding them back.
1:36.3	Hey, what's that friend?
1:37.2	Grant Baldwin here.
1:37.9	Welcome back to the Speaker Lab podcast.
1:39.4	Today, chatting with John DeMato.
1:41.1	We're going to talk about visual storytelling.
1:44.0	John, how would you describe?
1:46.0	What is visual storytelling? What are we talking about today? Well, visual storytelling is the
1:52.1	strategic approach to putting together an intentional library of photos. And by the library of photos, I'm talking about core assets,
	...

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