Nicole (00:00)
In today's episode, I'm chatting with Vanessa Joy and we are going to talk about all things business, specifically working in your business versus on your business. And we're going to talk about why most photographers struggle with marketing and of course how to fix it. And really we're just deep diving into a full on geek out on business stuff. So if you're running a photography business, you're going to want to take a listen. Stay tuned.

Nicole Begley (00:24)
I'm Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer turned pet and family photographer. Back in 2010, I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six-figure business by 2012. Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses. I believe that achieving $2,000 to $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six-figure businesses;

that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full-time passion or a part-time pursuit, profitability is possible. If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place. With over 350,000 downloads, welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast.

Nicole (01:23)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Bagley. And today I have Vanessa Joy joining me here on the podcast. And we are just gonna geek out on all things business and work-life balance and choosing clients and really wherever this conversation may take us. So buckle up. Hello Vanessa, welcome to the podcast.

Vanessa Joy (01:46)
Thank you for having me. And I love that we're going to geek out because the truth is, I always tell people, I like photography, but I love business.

Nicole (01:54)
Same, % same.

Yeah, speaking of business, go ahead and tell us how long you've been in business, what you shoot, like kind of your background, your business story, all that good stuff.

Vanessa Joy (02:06)
Yeah, I have been a photographer for the past 24, 25 years maybe. I have to think about how old I am every time I make that claim. So I now do a ballpark, but it's been a while. My mother was a photographer, which meant I rebelled and I didn't like it of course, to begin with, but I fell in love with photography in the dark room. I took a black and white film photography class in high school and did not look back.

Nicole (02:14)
You

Vanessa Joy (02:32)
I mean, I thought I had to have a real job at one point, so I did become a Spanish teacher and did photography on the side. But thankfully, I was able to leave that in under three years. So every year around August, September, I get so happy that I don't have to go back to school.

Nicole (02:47)
my gosh. I do like to say that I am completely

unemployable now after like being my own boss now for 15 years. I'm like, yeah, no, I could never go to a job.

Vanessa Joy (02:55)
Mm-mm.

No,

no thank you. That was a horrible experience. You know, it took me a while actually, and maybe I'm curious if this happened to you. I had like business clothes, right? Like my teacher clothes, my corporate clothes. It took me like a good seven years to throw them away. Because I was always, okay.

Nicole (03:12)
Well, I never had any corporate clothes because my job prior,

I spent 13 years as zoological animal trainer. So I had like a lot of khaki pants and like Merrell shoes.

Vanessa Joy (03:18)
Okay.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah. had my khaki pants, also like dress pants and blouses. I'm ironically wearing like the one blouse I own now, but I kept them and I would look at them in my closet every time I wanted to clear it out and be like, but what if I have to, what if that nightmare that I recurringly have comes true and I have to go teach again?

Nicole (03:26)
Uh-huh.

that is funny. And it

does take this actually a good starting point too, because I feel like that's a very common path on entrepreneurship where you're like, my gosh, I'm going to do the thing. And then you start to do it you're like, this is amazing. And then you get some traction. And then when you think that you've like reached the goals you've been looking forward to a whole new set of worry comes in of like, my gosh, now I have to do this again. Now I have to keep this. Can I continue doing this? And I would say,

Vanessa Joy (03:58)
you

yeah.

Nicole (04:11)
Well, based on my subconscious, took about 10 years for me to be like, I'm good now because I used to have a reoccurring dream that I would go back to the aviary, which was my last job. I worked there for about seven years before I left the zoo world and started my own business. And I used to have a recurring dream that I would go back there and I was working, but I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. So I would just like go around trying to look busy, like trying to figure out who I could help or what I could do. And it was really stressful.

Vanessa Joy (04:16)
Mmm.

Yep.

Yes.

Nicole (04:40)
And had that, I mean, probably, at least like eight times a year, like probably maybe monthly. And then, maybe about six years ago or so. I've been business at that point, almost 10 years, I had a dream that I quit. Like in my dream, I quit my job, I turned in my keys. And now when I have that kind of reoccurring dream, which is way less often, I'm going back and visiting the people that are still working there.

Vanessa Joy (04:55)
yep.

Yes, I do the exact same thing where I'm visiting people and I'm like, I, you know, I'm not supposed to be here. I'm just helping out. but it's kind of good that like you got to a place of content because I think that people that love business and like the business owners in general, we almost have the inability to be content. You know, like when we reach whatever said goal, you said there's another set of worries, but which is true. But also there's like, okay, when you get to here, now we take it to the next level. Now it's like, okay, what.

Nicole (05:22)
Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Vanessa Joy (05:34)
monetary goal because I can't stay here at this goal, right? Because I already did that. So now I got to go bigger, go higher, get more clients, make more money. And it's like this vicious cycle of the inability to be content.

Nicole (05:43)
Yes. Yeah. Moving the goalposts, right?

yeah, that's, yeah, that's a whole different set of issues. I think we all are guilty of that too. And also guilty of not slowing down and celebrating the wins as we get them along the way. Yeah. So, you've heard it here first guys, go celebrate your wins.

Vanessa Joy (05:58)
Yes, so true, so true.

Yep, celebrate the wins. I don't

care how you do it, take a minute, celebrate them.

Nicole (06:07)
Yep, yep. So yeah, so you like me got into this business mostly because I loved business and I really liked photography. You know, I think there's a lot of people out there. There's obviously a lot of creatives that are in it for like the photography first and maybe have a little bit of a harder time with the business piece. And then there's people with the business that are business first and just decided that photography was the business choice for them. So in your

Vanessa Joy (06:22)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (06:34)
experience. Do you see kind of those two people approaching business differently? Do you have advice for especially the more kind of forward people that maybe struggle a little bit with business like how to tame this business beast?

Vanessa Joy (06:51)
You know, it's funny, I didn't even think about, and I know it happens, but I didn't even think so much about the people who are like, okay, I'd like to go work for myself. What should I do? I guess I'll do photography because so many of us, know, a camera got put in our hands at some point and we just fell in love and that creative side. And that's what it was for me, even though I actually do like business and marketing more than I like photography, even for me, I did fall in love with photography first. And so most of us are in that boat. If you are a creative,

And you're like, love this, you know, holding the camera thing, but I hate the holding the mouse thing. And I would like to figure out how to do less of that. I feel like that is the majority of people. So the biggest thing, it's a mindset, a mindset shift from I'm a photographer to I'm CEO, and you're going to be a CEO of your own business. So you have to make that mindset shift. And it doesn't have to be like at the cost of your creativity. It doesn't have to be at the cost of

holding a camera more, it just has to benefit you in a way where you look at your business as a whole and understand that there are systems and processes that you can put in place to make it the business that you actually want. But you have to analyze it like a business person, like a CEO first.

Nicole (08:09)
Okay, yeah, what does that look like? Like what could they be looking at and asking themselves?

Vanessa Joy (08:13)
I mean, I'd like to break it up into pathways when it comes to photography, photography aside, not photography, education. I look at the business. I like to look at CEO strategy, which would be everything from how do I run my accounting to what does my client experience look like? Do I hire people? Do I use freelance contractors? How do I scale? That's all.

Nicole (08:19)
Okay. Yeah.

Vanessa Joy (08:37)
CEO strategy. And then I'd like to look at profit plans separately as a separate sort of pillar. And that is, you know, how am I making money? Am I making money? Actually, it's probably a good question. Am I making money? What do my numbers look like? How can I project income instead of guessing, you know, what I'm going to make this year? And then the last pillar would be marketing momentum. You know, what am I doing to get myself out there? How am I getting leads? How am I maximizing the things that are working? And then

cutting loose the things that are not working. So I break it up a little bit. think maybe I'm very compartmentalized that way, but I think it helps, especially for people who are naturally creatives in general. We do tend to look at big picture, but in a negative way, where it's like, my God, all these things. So when I break it into those three pillars, CEO strategy, marketing momentum, and profit plan, I think it helps a little bit.

Nicole (09:07)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

No, I can see that for sure. Um, I think marketing is definitely one of the areas where a lot of people, uh, uh, what's the word I'm looking for struggle. Um, and so many people that I ended up talking to and there may be, know, not getting the leads in their business, not getting the inquiries. And I asked them what they're doing for marketing and they're like, well, I'm posting on social, which, especially now like back in

Vanessa Joy (09:39)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nicole (09:54)
Gosh, even when I started in 2010, like Facebook was still the place. Remember you would like post a picture and tag your client and then all their friends saw it you're like, this is my marketing plan. Yeah.

Vanessa Joy (09:59)
Yes.

Yes, yes. And it worked and you know, it

still works, but you have to, you have to throw a lot more spaghetti at the wall in order to get to something to stick. Yeah. So it has to be more than just social media posting. And even if you are posting on social media, you have to do it correctly. Like there are a lot of nuances, there are correct ways to do it and then ultimately streamline it. Because the last thing you need is to be living on Instagram where we all doom scroll and fall into some black hole of in productivity.

Nicole (10:11)
Uh-huh. Yep.

Vanessa Joy (10:32)
stuck and then you may have found a client or two, but you've wasted the whole day.

Nicole (10:37)
Yeah.

Vanessa Joy (10:38)
Yeah. If you go, if you struggle with that, because a lot, I think a lot of photographers do, especially now that Instagram is one, not the only thing, but also Instagram, you know, used to be so photo heavy and it's not anymore. if you go to my Instagram, which is at Vanessa Joy, V-A-N-E-S-S-A-J-O-Y, Vanessa Joy, and then just message me the words Insta tips, two words, no hyphen in between I-N-S-T-A space T-I-P-S Insta tips. have a whole PDF that

Nicole (10:46)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Vanessa Joy (11:06)
It's not fluffy. It's like, no, you do this. When you post, you do this. How you set up automated replies like the one you'll receive when you actually DM me that, like, here's how you do that. It's very, very tangible information that is up to date that will help anyone struggling in that area.

Nicole (11:14)
Yeah.

nice.

Oh, that's fantastic. That's fantastic. Yeah. Cause I think a lot of people that I talk to, they're just completely overwhelmed by it. And you know, a lot of, especially I have a lot of pet photographers in my audience and, you know, by and large pet photographers are more on the introvert side of things. We're like, well, we love animals. I want to photograph the dogs. I don't want to have to market to people, but alas, we do need to do that. Um, yeah, I always talk about social media really is kind of.

Vanessa Joy (11:28)
It's a lot.

Yeah, just not people.

Mm-hmm.

Nicole (11:50)
For me, it's the icing on my marketing cake. So that it's a great thing to still be doing. you know, really a lot of people that are really just really struggle with it. I believe that you don't even need to do Instagram, that you could potentially have like all your other marketing things like focus on more, you know, business marketing, know, talking people in your market.

Vanessa Joy (11:53)
Yes.

Mmm.

Like what? I'm actually curious. Like what's your

marketing plan that like your well-rounded one? Yeah, go.

Nicole (12:18)
Yeah. Okay. Sure. Yeah. I've, I

love charitable marketing. That's actually how I grew my business. social media, even back in the hay day was never like my main thing. I did get some clients back when it was easier for people to see your work. I mean, it's funny. Now you have a Facebook business page and like, when's the last time you saw something a business posted on Facebook in your feed? Yeah. That wasn't paid, you know, the way, yeah. And, yeah, gosh, forever. anyway.

Vanessa Joy (12:24)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

that wasn't automated from somewhere else. Yeah.

Nicole (12:45)
So I built my business with a lot of charitable marketing. So partnering with rescues or charities in my area and offering special sessions, they were full sessions to their supporters that they got a little bit of a bonus, either a value add or a little discounted session fee. And then part of that session fee would be a donation back to the charity. So it was like a triple win, right? The charity made some money.

Vanessa Joy (12:57)
Okay.

oooo

fun.

Nicole (13:10)
the supporters automatically loved me because I was supporting something they cared about. And I got full paying clients on my calendar. that is, yeah, from them. So basically the charity would market my sessions to their supporters. So it's like, yeah, you don't even need a list. You can grow kind of your list and get that way. so yeah, was really,

Vanessa Joy (13:19)
Right, from referrals or from, okay.

Got it.

Yeah. And then I imagine you do a stellar job serving everyone that comes in and they all tell their friends and

all that.

Nicole (13:39)
Yeah, and they could go through like if you were doing it as a full service type thing, like a full session, I mean, they're getting the full experience. You're doing your full client inquiry experience with them. So you're letting them know what the price points are. Like they're regular clients when they come through the door. And it was regular session averages, which was fantastic. Yeah. And then the other piece of charitable marketing was the silent auctions.

Vanessa Joy (13:51)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Nicole (14:06)
which I would donate to silent auctions and I would say about 50 to 60 % would actually do it like 40%, 50 to 40 to 50 % just would never claim them. and then. Yeah.

Vanessa Joy (14:06)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's like a gift card. There's just billions

of dollars of gift cards around that no one uses.

Nicole (14:24)
Yeah, right. Exactly.

And so yeah, it's like people get upset about it. I'm like, well, you know, the charity made money like you didn't, but but it didn't cost us anything to do. So whatever, it's fine. Yeah.

Vanessa Joy (14:31)
Yeah, that was the point. Yeah, yeah, it's free advertising. But then the people

that did, so I assume you include XYZ in the session, but then they could purchase extra stuff. Is that the idea?

Nicole (14:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So I would always do a, um, like a $500 artwork or album credit. So they couldn't come in and just buy prints. I wanted them. And I didn't do like one particular, like a 16 by 24 canvas because I wanted them coming into the session being like, Oh, I'm to buy artwork or an album. Not like, Oh, I'm going to get an eight by 10 print, or I'm going to get a 16 by 24 canvas. Like I wanted the

Vanessa Joy (14:52)
Okay.

Right.

Love that.

Nicole (15:11)
me to be able to paint the possibility when we started to talk about the session of what they would purchase. And that worked really. Exactly. Yep. Yeah. And I would always say too, like you need to be at the point in your business where your business can afford. Like if somebody came in and just did that and like got like an 11 by 14 canvas or something that you could pay for that and just know that that's a risk of that. I would say of all the people though that

Vanessa Joy (15:16)
Mm-hmm. And then they have $500 towards it. The vocabulary is key.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Nicole (15:41)
the claim to the gift certificate, maybe 10 % had a under $1,000 sale. like either just took the freebie and a little bit of an add on, or maybe it wasn't a great sale of my usual average, which is the time was about $3,000. yeah. Yes.

Vanessa Joy (15:49)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

but the people that are typically at places that do silent auctions are usually more on the affluent side. So

I can see how that makes a lot of sense.

Nicole (16:08)
Yeah, I would say 80 to 90 % of them, I would say 80 % probably were about my session average and the other 10 % were like outliers in the biggest sale direction. Like all of my biggest sales in my first six, seven years of business came from those silent auction donations. yeah.

Vanessa Joy (16:26)
Amazing. I love that. And then

on top of it, those donations are tax deductible, assuming the organization is registered that way. So you have a tax deduction on top of new clients, on top of a sale. This is the kind of like, not that it's total guerrilla marketing, but the kind of unique type of marketing that a lot of photographers really need to think more about.

Nicole (16:30)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yep.

Yep. What were some of your favorite marketing strategies growing your business?

Vanessa Joy (16:50)
you know, I like everything. I like throwing as much as I can and casting a wide net because my primary client to start with were out wedding people. So I would use a lot on Facebook and then as I grew that wouldn't necessarily hit the target market because my price grew. And then, you know, I was kind of above the bell curve of the typical amount that people spend. you know, now

Nicole (17:01)
Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Joy (17:16)
my market is very few people and I have to work a lot harder to get those few people that are going to spend like a top 1 % on luxury wedding photography. So it changed. And that's part of the fun, right? Of marketing is that sometimes things work when you're here in your business, but then a few years later when you've evolved, they don't work anymore. So I had to change and that really is part of the fun for me is to see like what is going to work.

Nicole (17:35)
Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Joy (17:42)
measure how well it works and then come up with new ideas. right now, at least for the wedding side, a lot of it is on the venue and planner and just building relationships. I will say the one thing that's never changed the entire time is relationships are always the number one ROI that I get. It's also the number one hardest thing because it's a long game. It's not a short game. It's not like, I'm gonna run some ads.

Nicole (17:52)
Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Joy (18:09)
And I can in two weeks measure my ROI. How much I spend, how much did I make? No. Relationships, you spend a lot, a lot in time, potentially money if you're paying, you know, to get into rooms with certain people, whether it's to go to conferences, to go to these charity events and actually attend. But it's a lot of time, a lot of effort, and then sometimes it pays off in the long run. But when it does, it's on repeat. So it's lot.

Nicole (18:34)
Yes. Yeah.

Vanessa Joy (18:36)
their relationships, but it works.

Nicole (18:38)
Yeah, no, I agree. The number one thing throughout all the years, no matter what level of business is, yeah, human interaction, relationships, knowing people and yeah, and getting, and I hear a lot of excuses, doubts of people. They're like, well, I don't know anyone in my market or I just moved to new city. It's like, well, get out and start meeting people then. I think it's so important as photographers that we get out from behind the computer.

Vanessa Joy (18:46)
Mm-hmm. So true.

Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Nicole (19:07)
and integrate into our community and start meeting people. there's just so many different ways that that can look like. You can go to networking events, a BNI type thing. Some are better than others. You can work with charities, like I just mentioned. You can do something fun with other businesses. If I was new in a market, I would go out and say, all right, who's my target client?

Vanessa Joy (19:07)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Nicole (19:35)
What age are they? What do they like to do? What kind of business is what they may be taking their dog to? Or what businesses would they be frequenting with their kids? And like, all right, let's create a little digital PDF magazine of the best dog resources, the best places for elementary school kids in whatever city you're in. And go talk to those clients and say, I'm putting this together. I'd like to interview you.

Vanessa Joy (19:59)
I

love that, yeah.

Nicole (19:59)
input there, it's free

marketing, and then they can spread it around. You can spread it around. it's, it's, you know, as an opt-in and just it, you create them these relationships with people and then they are willing to help you once they know, like, and trust you, can offer them a free session so they can experience it. And then they might help you promote different sessions and things that you might have. There's just so many ways. Yeah, that.

Vanessa Joy (20:10)
Mm-hmm.

There are so many opportunities.

And also the thing is why most photographers don't try them is because it does take a lot of time and it is outside of our comfort zone. I mean, we don't like people, right? We like pets. Not me personally, but.

Nicole (20:32)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Yeah. And even the most extroverted

person is still going to be concerned of rejection. So yeah. but yeah, we've got to do it anyway.

Vanessa Joy (20:44)
Yes, yes.

I do. And I mean, even something like that where you're getting, it's twofold what you were mentioning because you are creating the relationship because you found a way to serve someone and that's amazing. But then you also have your marketing material potentially in their store. so you have that, but it's too traffic, but even so let's take just for fun, let's take that relationship building. So you move to a new place, right? You, start to do that. You do that with one malicious or you do one magazine total. Maybe you're going to have five different people that you're going to interview.

Nicole (21:00)
huh.

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Joy (21:16)
I think even getting like driving to all these places, first researching it, like who are these people? That's gonna take you a week. Then driving to all these places and asking people to be a part of it, that's gonna take another week at least, if you're like stacking your schedule. And then you're gonna interview them, that'll take another week, design everything and that'll take another week. So that's like a month and we haven't even printed anything yet. So then you maybe print it, that'll take, I don't know, three weeks, hand delivery to everyone, that'll take another week.

And then you can start offering the sessions, which you know, take, you know, we're at two months right now. That'll take another, like, so we're talking like six months probably before you even can create, like can even potentially get a return on investment for all this time. So it's a lot. And that is why so many people don't do it. So like, maybe I'll just hold my camera instead. And I don't know.

Nicole (21:47)
Yeah.

Right, right.

Yeah.

mean, but that those a lot of times, I think, you know, so much of what we do is, is, thought driven. we, we have a thought maybe where, you know, they might reject us. So I'm not going to do it. So like, can we kind of switch our thoughts around our mindset of, of what is beneficial and yeah. Okay. Maybe there's times where you need to do something a little bit more like I need to do some mini sessions. I need to do something. I need to get, make some money like now I don't have time to do all this.

Vanessa Joy (22:31)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (22:33)
like legwork, but like that old Chinese Japanese proverb of like the best time to plant a tree with 10 years ago, that second best time is now. So if you're not already doing those things, like start because as you go on, they do become, you know, for you and me and so many other people, they become the biggest bang for your buck in terms of your marketing strategy longterm. So yeah, like you're laying that groundwork.

Vanessa Joy (22:41)
Yes. Now.

They do.

Nicole (23:00)
And it just takes time for that tree to grow and the fruit to ripen and be able to grab that harvest. But once you do, I mean, it just continues to give and give and give and grows exponentially. And then then it's a little bit a little bit easier.

Vanessa Joy (23:16)
Yeah, yeah, it does hit a tipping point at some level. And then you're like, how do I do more of this?

Nicole (23:20)
Yep. Yeah, for sure.

I want to talk about a little bit too of the process of growing our business, right? So we start growing, maybe we start to get some momentum, but there's a time where we're just like, I need to take anybody that I can serve. Like, yes, okay. I'm going to serve this client. And I'm sure you have stories because I know I have stories where like a little red flag might come up with the client that is

Vanessa Joy (23:40)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Nicole (23:48)
inquiring and you're like, oh, there's a red flag, but I mean, I could really use another $3,000 right now. So, okay, I'll do it.

Vanessa Joy (23:52)
I need to pay my bills. Yeah.

Yes. Oh man. I you know, I can't say, I don't think, and I'm trying to like be authentic about this, but for the most part, I'm going to say 95 % of any time I have ever had a customer complaint, it was from a client that I had red flags about early. Like I saw it coming very rarely have I ever had.

a complaint that like came out of the blue. wasn't expecting it. Obviously if, you know, myself or my staff did something wrong that obviously I'm not, not, just thinking I'm going to get the complaint. I'm anticipating it. I'm getting ahead of it. But for like the ones that came out of the blue, they all had those red flags.

Nicole (24:23)
Okay.

You're right, of course.

Uh-huh, every single one. Or

it's something that you like, at least for me, I've been a policy for that I'm like, right. That's why I had that policy.

Vanessa Joy (24:48)
Yes,

or you make one like, and we'll be adding a clause to the contract.

Nicole (24:52)
Yep. Yep.

Do you have any advice for people that maybe,

see those red flags and maybe have a hard time like listening to them.

Vanessa Joy (25:00)
telling them to go away?

Well, you know what I think is the holdup? First of all, as a business owner, you absolutely have the right to refuse business. You don't have the right to discriminate, but you have the right to refuse business. And it's not as difficult as some people make it seem to be. So for wedding photography, for example, a lot of people are like, well, if I said I have the date available and they want to book me, then I have to work with them. And the truth is like, no.

And you don't have to come at them and that's the second misconception is you don't have to come out them and be like I don't want to work with you Okay, bye like it doesn't have to be like that a way to phrase it and I did this just recently and it wasn't with a red flag Client like I would have happily photographed this wedding, but someone came to me and it was a South Asian, know Indian fusion wedding Indian American wedding and I would have taken it a heartbeat. I'd love the girl. were no red flags

Nicole (25:38)
Shut up.

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Joy (25:58)
talking to the bride, like totally fine. However, in my area, there is a photographer that is a friend of mine who her flat out specialty is Indian American fusion weddings. Like that is her specialty. That's what she does all the time. So I said to her, I'm like, look, I would love to photograph your wedding, but I feel like I'm being dishonest in some kind of way. If I don't make you aware of this other photographer that's in the area that specializes in it.

Nicole (26:06)
Hmm.

Vanessa Joy (26:25)
And she actually did end up booking that photographer. So I kind of gave that job away. But if you were purposefully sought red flags, you just phrase it the exact same way. Like, hey, you know, I know I do a great job at your wedding, but to be honest, I really think that this other photographer, which you may not have known about, I really do think they'd be a better fit for you because X, Y, And you just refer them elsewhere in a very genuine

Nicole (26:49)
Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Joy (26:54)
on this kind of way. Granted, don't refer crazy people to your friends like that. Don't do that. But it can just be as simple as, I'd have an awesome job, an awesome time photographing you, but I really think you're going to be a lot happier with this photographer, this other photographer, and just send them there.

Nicole (27:13)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Well, this actually brings up two thoughts. Number one is the, um, an abundance mindset of being able to refer a job out and just knowing that, like, by knowing the other photographers in your market and being friends even with some of them that like you can refer to them, they can refer to you, that it becomes this whole big extra referral game. And not even just for, you know, weddings, obviously it's like, oh, I have

Vanessa Joy (27:36)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (27:41)
I can only photograph one wedding that day, but portraits like we don't have a date specific, so usually we can slot a few more in. But I think it's really important for portrait photographers and wedding photographers to to really embrace that that belief that you know there's if I refer a better client to a better fit like there's going to be another client coming for me. That's going to be the right fit for me. Yeah.

Vanessa Joy (28:04)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah,

absolutely. And you're strengthening your relationship, which ultimately is a better goal because the relationships you have, especially with other photographers or if you're doing weddings, other vendors, even portrait sessions, other vendors, those are really very valuable repeat clients.

Nicole (28:10)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, for sure. The other thing that that conversation just brought up to me too was the importance of specialization. mean, there's a wedding photographer near you that specializes in Indian-American fusion weddings. know, it's like, in the past, I'm thinking even when I started the industry, it was enough to specialize in like families or newborn or high school seniors or wedding or pets. But now so many of those genres

Vanessa Joy (28:29)
Mm.

Nicole (28:46)
even have more specialization within the genre, which can really help you just attract exactly what it is you want to shoot. Do you have any thoughts on that specialization?

Vanessa Joy (28:59)
I mean, it's only going to help things like search engine optimization when you can really hone in on that specialty. It actually makes it easier in a lot of ways because you're going to stand out for those people specifically. You know, it's funny. just spoke at a conference and I speaking on the Canon stage about the concept of never niching down. So I don't want to be people who see me there and hear me here. Let me just clarify. I think as a photographer,

Nicole (29:08)
Mm-hmm.

Uh-huh.

Vanessa Joy (29:24)
you can go and expand to as many different genres of photography as you want to. However, when it comes to your marketing, niching down is easily one of the best things that you can do. In a broad sense, someone who's looking for pet photography or newborn photography does not want to see my wedding photography images. So I'm not going to create a website that has all that on there. Like you do have to separate it and probably separate your Instagram and things like that. But

Nicole (29:35)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Joy (29:53)
niching down specifically in your marketing, you're going to get the people you really enjoy working with. And part of that is not just saying, OK, I would like to photograph, I don't know, golden doodles only, like doodle photography only. It could be right, because I'm sure people search that doodle photography. Yes, and there are plenty of doodles around there. So it doesn't even have to be that specific. But, you know, it's going to help you when you find your

Nicole (30:09)
There are plenty of doodles.

Vanessa Joy (30:19)
brand voice too, like the type of client that you want to work with.

Nicole (30:20)
Mm-hmm.

Well, yeah,

I'm thinking too, just even from pet owners, like a lot of people. And when I started, I was guilty of that too. Like, okay. So my target client is anyone with a dog. Okay. No, like, yeah, the person that has their dog, like living in the backyard, that's not part of the family is not going to be spending money for pictures of that dog. Like the dog that I photograph is part of like the family and, you know, a loved pet that's sleeping on the bed. And,

Vanessa Joy (30:33)
Yeah, and money.

the family.

Yes,

Nicole (30:50)
And then even more from that, though,

Vanessa Joy (30:51)
like mine.

Nicole (30:52)
you can start to get into, all right, do I want to photograph like the little tiny kind of toy breeds that are wearing pearls and jackets? Or am I like more, like, let's get your Australian shepherd and get out into the woods. Like even those kinds of things, like you can speak to those types of different owners very differently, and they would be attracted to very different pet photographers. So, yeah, it's really about digging into like

Vanessa Joy (31:00)
Yep.

yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Nicole (31:20)
Who do you want to serve? What kind of images do you want to create? And really doubling down on that.

Vanessa Joy (31:24)
Yeah.

And because too, with any type of portrait client, you're looking at a long-term relationship, hopefully, right? You want them to keep coming back to you, whether you're photographing families and you get the family growing up or you're photographing pets and you know, as the pet ages, you know, they look very different, especially in those puppy years, puppy year, I guess one year of puppy. so those are repeat clients, which means you want to attract the people that you actually want to

Nicole (31:33)
Mm-hmm.

Ha

Vanessa Joy (31:51)
spend your life with because potentially you are going to. When it comes to weddings, we don't have that type of repeat client. I mean, typically, but you do have a long relationship with them. Any wedding client that comes to the door is usually booking you on average a year in advance. But then even after the wedding, you're still working with them for another three months, hopefully not longer than six months. you know, depending on your workflow, it might be longer. So that's like a two year relationship. Like you want to work with the people you

Nicole (31:53)
Yeah.

you

Vanessa Joy (32:20)
want to spend time with. And that's really important. For luxury weddings, I recently came to the realization. In my business growth of never being satisfied, I was like, OK, I want to get to the next level of luxury client. I want to be in vogue. I want to be in People magazine, like level up, level up, level up. And I was talking to a business coach about this. And she was asking me, Vanessa, just describe what's going on in your business right now.

Nicole (32:22)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Joy (32:45)
I said to her, I'm booking the numbers I want. Like I am making a great amount of money per client. The people that I'm working with actually love and adore and have so much fun with them. Like I get to spend my weekend with these people. And like, I love it. And then I'm just a little kind of disheartened because it's not the level of wedding, let's just say, whether it's style or floral or like that is that upper, upper, upper 1 % of the 1 % luxury that ends up in Martha Stewart magazine.

Nicole (33:05)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Joy (33:13)
And she's like, Vanessa, you literally just explained to me that you have your ideal client that spends the money you want and you genuinely love them. Why would you want anything else? And it was kind of like a bring me down to earth moment where I'm like, yeah. You know what? It's not worth sacrificing where I am right now serving the client I want to serve and being really happy with it and making the money. It's not worth sacrificing that to get.

that upper luxury client that will land me in vogue. Like the vogue title is not going to replace like how happy I am with my clients right now. Yeah. And not in a good way. I realized, which I have, I have to thank her because she basically like saved me from, from that and realizing that. So yeah, pay attention, pay attention to who you want your clients to be and what you want the quality of your life to look like, because who you let in the door.

Nicole (33:42)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Now you're moving the goalposts. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Joy (34:08)
will determine that.

Nicole (34:10)
Yes. my gosh. That's a really great advice. And, you know, I like to say to whenever I'm teaching anyone with pricing, I always, you know, cause we can look at all these different things of like, well that's a good way to do it. I'm to totally change my business. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to go from packages to all the cart. Like just, I'm going to do, burn it all down. And before we do that. Yeah.

Vanessa Joy (34:28)
Yeah. God forbid we buy a new preset pack.

Nicole (34:32)
Before we do that, I always like just to ask my clients too, in terms of pricing, are you selling what you want to be selling? So meaning, do you want to sell artwork and are you selling artwork? Are you selling all digital files, but you want to be selling artwork? Like, okay, if you're selling what you want to be selling and are you making what you want to be making for your like revenue goals? And I guess add that third one, are you working with the types of people that you want to be working with? Like if those three are yes, like your business is great. Like don't feel like you need to change it.

Vanessa Joy (34:57)
Yeah.

Nicole (34:59)
and shift it because the one thing I've learned in this 15 years is that everyone's business can look different and there is no like must do it this way because you can have profitable part-time, you can be profitable full-time, you can serve ultra luxury, you can serve kind of like a sweet spot, like, you know, boutique style. There's just so many opportunities. So I don't want anybody to be feeling like the grass is always greener because

Vanessa Joy (35:27)
Yeah, well it is always greener, but not for real. It's just spray paint. It's just a filter.

Nicole (35:29)
Just an illusion everybody. It's just an illusion. Yes.

I love it. Dude, this is totally random, but have you ever like been driving by and you see a patch of bamboo and you look over, you're like who clone stamped that?

Vanessa Joy (35:50)
Yeah.

Nicole (35:52)
It's like ridiculous photographer problems. The other one is...

Vanessa Joy (35:54)
So true. Yes, absolutely. I find myself staring

at people. You ever do that? Like you stare at people or pets and you're just looking at light patterns on their face, but you realize like you're staring at someone awkwardly with your mouth open. I'm sorry. I have to explain myself now. Yeah, exactly.

Nicole (36:02)
haha

I love that. Here's my card.

That's funny. Yeah. No, when we moved into our house, we moved down here in 2018 and we built, so it was a new house and they had all LED bulbs in the house, which is great, except they had like a magenta cast. I'm like, my whole entire house is pink and I can't handle it.

Vanessa Joy (36:25)
Ooh, yeah.

Pink.

What's like, you know, embedded rose-colored glasses?

Nicole (36:37)
Yeah,

yeah. If people were like, I don't see that. I'm like, oh, it's very pink. Photographer problems. Anyway, all right. This has been an awesome conversation. Before we wrap up, I guess, do you have any other kind of parting words of wisdom for all of our photographers out there in all of your years of business? Kind of like the most important things to keep in mind.

Vanessa Joy (36:42)
Yeah, trust me, very much so.

Yeah.

I'm laughing because I'm trying not to say the most cliche thing that came to mind first because I feel like someone in front of the Miss America question, like, yes, world peace. So I'm trying to.

Nicole (37:04)
you

Sorry, the cliche

is cliche for a reason. So you can start with that and then go with something not cliche.

Vanessa Joy (37:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, you know, world peace. But other than that, you know, since we've been talking about it a lot, what we've been talking about is working on your business instead of in your business. So my parting advice would be to make sure that you're spending time working on the things that are not necessarily making you money right now. Invest that time in your business. Invest that money in your business. Sometimes you need that coach that you hire that's going to smack you in the face and tell you.

Nicole (37:17)
I'm not.

Mm.

Vanessa Joy (37:41)
Vanessa, stop reaching for things that are going to make you unhappy. But yeah, take time to invest in your business and work on your business.

Nicole (37:49)
I love it. my gosh. Thanks so much. And before we go, let everybody know where they can find you.

Vanessa Joy (37:55)
VanessaJoy.com is probably the best place. Aside from all of you who I hope have already messaged me on Instagram, those words, Insta tips, but VanessaJoy.com, when you go there, it's splash page, you will see a link to my wedding website, you'll see a link to my portrait and corporate and resort photography that I do. No pets, I haven't gotten into that. But a lot of portraits and no kids. I usually run away screaming from children's photography.

Nicole (38:01)
Thank

Hahaha

Vanessa Joy (38:21)
But most importantly, for most of the people listening here, there is a for photographers page and I have so many freebies because I've been in this business for so long. You just go on that page. You'll find a ton of free stuff. There's paid stuff too, but you know, YouTube channel podcast, all the goodies for free.

Nicole (38:38)
my gosh, Vanessa, thank you so much for being here and everybody, we'll see you next week.

Vanessa Joy (38:41)
Thanks.

Bye.