Finding Success in a Town of 800 People with Courtney Bryson
marketing success storyIN THIS EPISODE:
#041- Just two years into her pet photography business, Courtney Bryson is already turning a profit—and that's despite living in a tiny, no-stoplight town an hour from the closest major market! In this episode, Courtney shares her journey from selling prom gowns to photographing Pomeranians, and how her boutique sales background informs her business philosophy.
What To Listen For:
- The magical alchemy of working with rescue dogs
- Building and servicing a client base when you're in a small market
- What many pet photographers' websites fail to do—but Courtney's nails
- Why it's not your job to act as the "purse police"
- The new direction that's rapidly expanding her client base
Courtney attributes much of her success to her business background, and to investing further in her business education. If you're looking for some high-level business coaching and support to take your own biz to the next level, check out our Elevate program, opening soon for 2021 enrollment!
Resources From This Episode:
- Connect with us on Instagram and YouTube.
- Explore valuable pet photography resources here
- Discover effective pricing and sales strategies for all portrait photographers.
- Ready to grow your business? Elevate helps you do just that.
- Check out our recommended gear and favorite books.
Full Transcript ›
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. I'm Nicole Begley. And today we are talking with pet photographer, Courtney Bryson, about how she found success in a town of 800 people. Stay tuned.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. If you're a pet photographer, ready to make more money and start living a life by your design, you've come to the right place. And now your host pet photographer, travel addicts, chocolate martini, connoisseur sewer, Nicole Begley. Hey everybody,
Speaker 1:Nicole here from hair of the dog. Welcome back to the podcast. I am so happy that you were here with me today. Today, we are talking with Courtney Bryson, who is a pet photographer in a small town outside of Atlanta, uh, with only 800 people in her town. So I hear it all the time. People saying, Oh my gosh, there's no way my town won't support pet photography, or there's too many pet photographers. I mean, I've heard all the excuses guys. You can't get any over on me because I've heard them all. Um, but he refuses to let that be a challenge for her. And instead has built a profitable, incredible business. So in our podcast together, we are talking about pricing marketing. Uh, we're talking about all of the similarities between bridal gown, shopping and pet photography. There's actually quite a few. So stay tuned. You're going to love it. And one other quick thing. Courtney is also one of our students in our elevate coaching program through hair of the dog, a program in which myself and six other incredible coaches help you crack the code to booking clients who can't wait to spend their money with you. So check it out. Our doors open for applications on December seven. So you can get on the wait list now so that you will be the first to know when our applications open. Just go to hair of the dog academy.com/elevate. Hope to see you there in the meantime, enjoy my interview with Courtney. Hey, everybody, Nicole here from hair of the dog and I am here today with Courtney Bryson, from Courtney Bryson photography. I'm so excited to have you with us here, Courtney. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks. I'm excited to be here. Yay. Awesome. So I guess tell everybody a little bit about you and where you're from and yeah, we'll start there. Okay. Yeah. My name is Courtney. Um, I have been photographing animals now or nearly 10 years. Um, but I've only been a professional photographer for the last two years. Okay. What constitutes quick question for you, what constitutes professional for you started taking clients and charging people. Okay, perfect. Awesome. Uh, though I actually opened my photography business right at two years ago now. Okay. Happy anniversary. Um, before that I was really involved in, I'm still really involved in animal and specifically dog rescue. I was a foster mom and still a foster mom and I founded a rescue and realized in my day job where I was photographing from dresses for a catalog that I could apply those same techniques
Speaker 3:To get a great photo, to make somebody want something, do my foster dog. And it kind of really took off from there.
Speaker 1:Nice. So wait, hold on your full-time job before was photographing prom dresses for catalogs. Yeah,
Speaker 3:So I wasn't actually the photographer there. Um, but I did the design and the setup and all the on site though.
Speaker 1:Good have fun. That's awesome. I love talking to people and finding out like what they were doing before they came into this business. Cause it's also incredibly varied and yeah, that does as well is as well. So yeah, I didn't realize you only started your business two years ago, so you've been really ramping it up, um, because I love what you've done with your business and it is such a, a beautiful boutique experience that you are offering to your clients. So yeah, you should be really proud because that's a lot to do in two years.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I really think that because when I wasn't doing the prom things, we also, I worked for a company. We owned a prom store, um, and bridal gown. So I was used to this really boutique experience and selling five to$10,000 bridal gowns. So it just made sense that it should be expensive because it is a boutique experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. What are some of the boutique experience, things that translated from selling wedding gowns to pet photography?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So a lot of it is kind of this one-on-one hand-holding that we do with our clients. So as soon as someone reaches out, it's learning about, you know, really what they want their experience to do. So almost like when you talk to a bride about what they envision their day to be like, and then you start talking about whether a slim fit or a ball gown or tool makes sense. We kind of move instead to, we're going to photograph your dog. Tell me what makes them so special. Tell me about your home. Are we talking about canvases or is an acrylic really what you want or do you live in the city and what you really need is a great album. Uh, it's kind of creating a custom experience for each client.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I love that. I love that so much. So where you are currently living, you're talking about clients in the city, your neighborhood or part of town is a little bit smaller, correct?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I don't live in the city. I actually live on a small farm. We have 15 acres. The entire town that I live in has 800 people that were tiny. We don't have a staff. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh wow. That's awesome. You know, because so many people I hear in, you know, that are trying to build a business. They're like, well, or even not even trying, they maybe just stop before they even start because they say, well, my town's too small. There's no one here that will pay for pet photography. You know? And quite frankly, I haven't heard of too many people in a town smaller than yours. So less than a thousand people. And you have made this work, where do you then pull your clients from?
Speaker 3:I'm about an hour outside of Atlanta. So I do drive for a lot of my clients, although really in the last six months I've noticed an uptick in local clients. We also only moved here about six years ago. So I think trying to get involved in much smaller close-knit community took more time, but there were people out here even I've now had a repeat client. I photographed her now twice. And with her dogs in the two years I've been in business and she's been a fantastic client. So I think there are people here, but I also know that I'm just going to drive a little further.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's a, that's a great point. It's nice that you still have a big Metro area nearby that you can pull from clients from. And you know, and depending too, sometimes clients will want, especially even city clients, maybe they love to go out with their dogs and hiking and out to the mountains or out to the, you know, more natural areas. But they live in the city because of their job. So I bet some of them would be willing to come, you know, even out toward you so that you guys can meet somewhere where they get to enjoy nature. And you're actually in the midst of building a little studio on your property.
Speaker 3:Yes. So we started this project with COVID. We purchased two tiny hunting cabins and thought we were going to just move them. And that didn't work. So we just built them as one, instead of two, but tile finished yesterday, painting happens this week and then I'll get to move in.
Speaker 1:That's so exciting. We've been following along. So Courtney is in our elevate program. So she's been sharing all of her pictures of her studio as it's been being built. And I've got to admit I'm a little, I'm a little jealous of your beautiful space. Part of me has always thought like, man, I would love to have a studio space, but I'm at this point with my commitments, with my family and my kids and all the hair of the dog stuff. I'm like, I wouldn't have time to actually use it, man. Building something right there on your property. Oh, that is the dream for me.
Speaker 3:Totally been a DIY project. So me and my wife and my father-in-law.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's incredible too. You guys are talented
Speaker 3:Because he, you do that and the tile. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well there's certain things. I mean a smart, a smart, uh, person still outsources, certain things. Absolutely. That's fantastic. I can't wait to see it all finished and uh, you're gonna absolutely love it, especially. Yeah. And that Georgia summer heat, are you gonna, I guess the summertime might be a little bit more busy for you, but you can also do like Christmas mini sessions there. Gosh, the possibilities are endless.
Speaker 3:I'm doing my Christmas minis for this year, starting Thursday. And I'm really looking forward to next year when I don't have to pack everything up and I can just host them here. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. That'd be so much easier. And that's fantastic. And then of course, too, for those of you guys with your own studio space, or maybe you're lucky enough to have studio space on your property, like Courtney, you know, a lot of times we do these holiday monies with the charitable component or another business and you can definitely still partner with them in that way, but it's just held it gear location instead of there. So, you know, don't let that stop you guys either from planning, those types of things. Yeah. Super exciting. So Courtney, let's circle back a little bit to your charitable work and your foster dogs and maybe dive a little bit more into how that influenced your business.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So really dog rescue and fostering dogs kind of changed the entire course of my life. We adopted a Def Boston terrier 10 years ago and we're introduced this entire rescue community. And we decided like the guy that came out and did my home visit when he came out, he was like, I have 15 dogs at my house. Why are you driving all the way to Timothy to, without it's like, why? I didn't know you were here. And so, you know, I have a business and marketing background. I was like, well, we can help people know about this. And it just kind of spiraled out of control from there. So we met from fostering a dog to buying Anchorage, um, further out from where we lived. We used to live just outside of Atlanta. So to buying acreage, we built a shelter on our property. That's an emergency shelter for hoarding cases. Oh wow. That's awesome. And then kind of, as things kept going, I realized that I could shift this marketing idea that I had, not only to letting people know that rescue existed, especially breed-specific rescue, because I think that gets lost sometimes, um, to photographing our foster dogs really well. And then you started to see this uptick in adoption. So I started photographing other fosters foster dogs. Uh, and then I started having people ask me about photographing their own dogs. And that's kinda how I got started in one in photographing dogs. And then do the entire reason I kind of built my business or found this passion that I really love is because of dog rescue. So it's super important to me now to continue to give back. So I continue to photograph foster dogs. I photograph all the cats and dogs for my county's humane society for their adoption photos. And then I do a lot of charitable donations and events centered around how I can give back as a photographer.
Speaker 1:Well, that's fantastic. And you know, that's one of those things where we have so much control and ability in our business to build our business around what we love and where our passions are and where we want to give back to the world and looking at our values and our ideals and saying, how can we work this into our business? And I think you've done that masterfully. And, you know, by sharing these with our potential clients too, you know, you're going to attract clients that come and they see all this that you do. And then you become, it becomes more than just a photography experience, I think at that point, because they will be attracted to your business because of the ideals that you share with them. And then they just become a client for life and they just love everything that you do and become like a rabid fan and, and support you and, and share what's going on because of these shared values. So I encourage all of you guys to figure out, you know, what is it that it's important to you? You know, it can be something as related to pet photography as rescue work or something is unrelated directly to pet photography as, um, you know, environmental issues are, you know, really just about anything out there that you can build your business around sustainable products and things like that. So it's just, Oh, it's so fun to see that. And I think that's, that's something that we can really use to elevate our brand from, um, to stand apart from all of the other businesses in our mind.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I can say that of all of the clients that I've had so far, all of my most ideal clients have been people that I connected to through the rescue work and not necessarily just because, you know, they adopted a foster dog that I had, but it sort of all of these connections, I kind of struggle with making connections. I'm an introvert. Um, I don't go out and meet people and become their friends really quickly. It's just hard for me. Um,
Speaker 1:Super common in the pet photography world. You are not alone.
Speaker 3:Having this outlet has really allowed me to make connections, uh, that both are fulfilling on a personal level. And it's been really fulfilling on a business.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I firmly believe whenever you or any of us are drawn to something for like a heart centered. Like we just have this passion, this interest in this, and we want to give to this, whatever it is then like, it just can't help, but give back in different ways. And, and truly like you shouldn't go off and say, Hey, I'm going to partner with all these rescues. If that's not something that, that is truly what you're drawn to and what you feel passionate about, because I feel like that energy behind it really has to be there. And then, and then you see these rewards, which again, don't necessarily turn out from, Oh, the charity or the foul or the foster or rescue group marketed my stuff. And I got paying clients, but it becomes more of the followers of that rescue get to know you. And then they see what happened. And it's just like this magical process where it kind of indirectly happens. And yeah, it's just, it's such a great thing, but you have to, I think get into it with that passion first, you know, to really reap the most benefits out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome. I love it. But you know, the good news is there's so many different things that we can all give back because the world needs lots of us to give back to so many different places and organizations. So definitely all of you guys, I encourage you to look for ways that you can partner with charities, give back to different things going on in your area. Um, because really the benefits are, are so much more. That's fantastic. I love how that really just shaped your whole, your whole business Courtney. And it's brought so many great clients to you. Question about your business. I know that you focus very much on beautiful wall art and you have one of the most beautiful pet photography websites that have seen. And I absolutely love it because you do what a lot of pet photographers neglect to do, which is keep the conversation focused on the end product and not just have a website full of pretty pictures, because it's easy for us to be like, Oh, look, look, I have dog pictures, dog pictures everywhere, but your whole website just speaks to the experience. It speaks to the value and it speaks to what that final product is going to be from the session. So have you always, when you first started, did you start off selling products or did you start off as many of us do kind of with some digital files? I'm not really sure what you're selling, you know, new photographer.
Speaker 3:I started with product, I think I'd always sold product. So it just made, it just seemed easy. Ah, yeah, that's a good point. But like, I didn't start with the products that I have now. Like I think in the very beginning I had like a canvas and matted print and they were never super cheap. Yeah. I think in the beginning I would do like, but I would tell a single five by seven matted print for a hundred dollars and that might be all I would make on the session. Right. So I've definitely learned a lot. And a lot of that is through the hair, the dog Academy, um, how to structure my pricing so that I leave happy making the sale that I want to make and feeling like my time was valued and my client leaves happy taking home. What we've talked about this whole time that we're planning their sessions. Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So one of the things I love is looking at our priceless as how we structure. It really is an art because you know, a lot of people think that by selling products and creating this price list in a certain way, that's going to encourage our clients to spend what we want them to spend or buy certain things that, that we're somehow taking advantage of our clients or that it's going to be really slimy or car sales, many, sorry, at any car salesman out there, um, that like we're making them do things that they don't want to do, but that's really not the case I have found. And I think you have found too that by offering what we do, we are providing an incredible service for them to get this beautiful artwork that they can't get on their own. They can't go to Costco, they can get a canvas, but it's, it's not what we are creating for them. And it's custom designed and in the right sizes. And all of those things in the service that we're giving them, you know, is just in comparable to what they would be doing on their own. So, you know, if anyone's out there struggling with this idea that, uh, I can't, I can't, you know, change my priceless to encourage people to do what I want them to do. That is most beneficial for my business. It's also beneficial for them because you know, you look at something you wanted to purchase in the past and you know, maybe were really, really excited for it. And you couldn't wait to spend your money on it. And that's what our clients feel like. They are so excited to do these things and it's their choice. No, one's forcing them to do business with us. Um, that's the beauty of our free market. They say, Oh man, I want this. Yes, what's the price. Great. Yes. That I see the value of that. I'm going to spend my money on that. So anyone who's struggling with that definitely get out of your own head and realize that you're offering this and people are saying yes, and it is a two way street and they are as excited as you are to create this art. You know, I know I, I struggled with that at the beginning of throwing some of my money projections on potential clients or telling myself, Oh my gosh, no, one's going to pay this. I wanna pay this. You know, all of those stories. Did you have stories like that when you started?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So if we kind of moved back to selling bridal gowns for a second, when someone would come in to purchase their dress, you know, they, they were coming to me for a specific thing. And so, you know, I knew that they wanted to buy a bridal gown and we would serve champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. And you know, we pick out the dress and they're excited about it. You know, they're not necessarily excited about the price tag that goes with it. They want this. And I think that's almost like when people come and contact me about having art for their dog, it's the same thing, you know, they're coming, they've chosen me specifically. And I think if they'd looked at any of my things, they understand that what I'm offering is artwork, not just pictures of dogs, they're excited to come and have this whole experience and the money. Yes. I'm sure it plays a part in it, but it's not the focus of this transaction that we're building.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think there's a lot of parallels between a bridal boutique and a pet photography business. Just like, I think they probably come into the bridal boutique with a certain budget in mind, like, okay, I'm going to spend$1,500 on my dress, but then they end up, you know, wanting to see some different things. And maybe they look at one that's$4,000 and they're just like, gosh, I wasn't planning on spending this, but I love this so much that I think it's worth upping my budget to spend that. And I think that happens a lot, uh, from our pet photography clients too, that they might come in with one idea, but then they see as beautiful images and they see how much more beautiful this particular size will look on their wall. And they're just like, okay, yes, yes, let's upgrade this. I, I, I want that too. And they're still really excited about it, even though they're spending more money than they originally,
Speaker 3:Right. Because it's such an emotional experience. And then once you get in there, you know, you've come and maybe you thought you wanted a piece of wall art for your couch. And then you see, well, I could really do this beautiful gallery and you know, now I need a veil and now I need an album and a pair of shoes. Like, you know, other things that you didn't necessarily plan for, but it's also exciting. And there are all these things that you haven't seen before that you feel like you need them and they want them. And it's not my job to be the police and tell you, you can or can't have,
Speaker 1:I want to show you all of the options. Yes. Perse police. I love that. That is hysterical. I have not heard that before. That's amazing. That's funny. And yeah. And I think a lot of people too, they get hung up on, Oh, well I can't offer anything else. Like, no, no, you can keep offering. They can say, Oh no, I'm not addressed in that. Or no things. I mean, for instance, it's actually coming today. My new Canon are five that I ordered in August is on its way to me today. It should arrive. But when I called, um, Robbie, why am camera and Youngstown, Ohio, which is an amazing camera shop. If any of you guys are looking for some gear, uh, it was on order. And I talked to him on Saturday. It's like, Hey, it's here. Do you need an, uh, an adapter? Um, do you need a memory card? Do you need a battery? I'm like, Oh yes, yes. And yes. So if you, and you know, and I didn't say to myself, Oh my gosh, I can't believe he's upselling me on these things. I am so thankful that he told me about those things because otherwise my camera would arrive later today and I'd be like, Oh, well, I guess I can't use that.
Speaker 4:I don't have a memory card.
Speaker 1:I don't have anything. I can't put any of my lenses on it. So, you know, by offering these, these, you know, I don't want to say upsells, it's kind of what they are, but that, that takes the emotion out of it. These other opportunities to our clients, if you don't do that, I feel like you're doing them a disservice because maybe, you know, they pick something beautiful on their wall, but then they go away and maybe there were five, 10, 20 other images that they loved. And maybe they didn't know that albums were a thing or that they could do like 10 images on an album block and rotate it through. So I think we have a, um, what's the word I'm looking for an obligation to show them all the different things that they can do with their images so that they can find what works perfectly for their home and their lifestyle. Right. They're coming to us because we're an expert in the field. And so they expect us to tell them things that they may not know about. Yeah. And you know, don't be scared out there to give, give recommendations, like when somebody asks, well, I don't know what size do you think would look good? Tell them the truth, you know, like it's okay to recommend things. Cause that's why they're coming to us because that's one reason that in-person sales work. So well, as well as because you know, if you were going to do even a 16 by 24 in your house, a lot of people wouldn't have the confidence to purchase that without you saying, Oh my gosh, this is going to look beautiful. Here's a sample of what it looks like. You know, this is the pro the proper size, you know? Yes, you want that side. So it's anchored over that piece of furniture. Like they just, they need to know that it's okay because otherwise they're going to think, Oh my gosh, this is bigger than anything I've ever ordered before. And it's expensive. And what if I make a mistake and don't like it. So we need to encourage them, you know, to tell them, to give them some recommendations of, of our experience, what they will love. So Courtney, with your business, you have the pet photography recently over the past, I think six months or so you've officially, at least started offering a little bit of some other services too. Tell us about those.
Speaker 3:So I really love being a business owner. Um, and I want to connect with other business owners and I really like pets. That's why I'm a dog photographer, but I want to specifically connect with other people who own their pet related businesses started kind of targeting to do brand photography and product photography, specifically geared towards the other small pet businesses, both kind of here locally in my market. And then moving out closer to Atlanta because I know that's where I'm going to need to pull from. And kind of combining all of the things that I love about business and marketing and creating a visual story for your brand and how do we connect to our clients and tell the stories of our businesses and how can I help other businesses tell their story?
Speaker 1:Yes. I love that. You know, because just as most of us, most of us pet photographers, you know, don't have a background in web design or graphic design, or like these other pieces of our business. So many small business pet business owners have no background in any of those things, either even less than we do. At least we have a focus on visual arts, but, you know, to be able to offer them ways that they can have their brand stand out better amongst others and create these images for them that they can use to market their business is really just fantastic and an untapped market, because gosh, there's so many pet businesses. I forget what the numbers are of how big the pet industry is now, but it, it just keeps exploding. And it's very, very many billions of dollars in the United States every year. So, yeah. So I think that's really exciting.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And not only did this connect me to a new client base it, then interns next to me, to their client bases that are my pet portrait clients. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it just keeps going round and round. I love it. Uh, so brilliant. And um, yeah, it's really great. So yeah, there's so many different ways, you know, a lot of times we think, Oh, we just had, we're just pet photographers. Like we can only do this one thing, but there's definitely so many. I mean, you essentially have three, three legs of your business, even though the foster is not really directly related to your business, it's separate, but you have like these three main areas that you focus your attention and they all like prop each other up and they all work together in such a beautiful manner. And I just love that. Congratulations on building something Epic and awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think we're a lot of people kind of fall short is that we focus on, on one Avenue to market, to clients, whether it's just posting on social media or maybe just doing rescue things or whatever the item is. And we miss that all of the pieces have to be going at the same to kind of support each other and keep the wheel turning.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I always like to say too, that a lot of people are looking for like this one little magical marketing solution, like just do this and you can do this one strategy and it'll fill your calendar, but that really doesn't exist. I don't think. And, um, you know, it's just a culmination of all of these different things that build together and, you know, create awareness in your market and, and create urgency. And, and then finally get clients coming into the door and there's, you know, not this one magical thing. They just, everything needs to work together. And it's really a process, you know, I like to ask people to, so people can see with your business. I know with mine, I mean, I'm just about to completely revamp my Nicole Begley photography website, like from the ground up rebuild. Have you ever reached a point in your business where you're like, I've got it, I'm done no more projects.
Speaker 3:No. I'm currently working on restructuring my packages for next year. I just kind of keep tweaking them. And I, I, you know, I guess you hope you're eventually going to get to that point where like, Oh, this is right. I don't really think so,
Speaker 1:Even though I don't think it does either. I mean, and it can be right. Cause there could be a lot of right things that work, but I feel like we're always, always going to be wanting to improve different pieces and, and tweak different pieces. And yeah. So for all of you pet photographers out there that are waiting till everything's in place and done before you start, that's never going to happen. So just get started Courtney, before we wrap up, are there any, or is there any advice that you'd have for, you know, pet photographers, getting either getting started in this journey or even ones that have been in for,
Speaker 3:I think if you're just getting started, the biggest East is just to keep doing it. So when I first started, even before I had clients that I considered myself book, I just said, you know, I'm going to photograph a dog every week though. Sometimes it was a paid client and sometimes it was a shelter dog and sometimes it was just my dog in the yard, but every week I was going to work on this. And I think that really helped me roast so much. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Uh, Heather, Heather Latina, and she's been on the podcast a lot, you know, her as one of the coaches and elevate in the Academy, she always says that, you know, you essentially have to take 10,000 pictures before there, before you're, you know, feeling really confident and good and you started create good, good, really great pictures. So hurry up and take those 10,000 pictures and take those bad pictures first and quickly because the more you shoot and the more you get out there and practice just the faster, the faster you improve. And I've found the same thing with, uh, starting our business, like the faster you just start, the faster, you're going to get information back. You're going to be able to make those changes. You're going to be able to, to, um, get your business up and running because you know, there's no, there's no better feedback than actually putting it out in the real world and, and seeing, seeing what you got and just reframing that, that failure and that fear of from, you know, that you know, that something's wrong or bad to, Oh, it's just information. It's a test it's information, it's an experiment. Let's see what works, let's, you know, change it up and tweak these different things. Have you, what about, um, any advice, any words of advice for those photographers that are already in business?
Speaker 3:I think if you've been doing this awhile and you were at the point that you can consistently produce technically sound images. Yeah. Really time to get the business education underway. I think having a headstart in business and how to actually run something profitable is why I'm profitable. Now two years in as opposed to having to wait five or six years where you're never making any money before you get to that point, having the business knowledge, investing in that education is really important if you want to run.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes. 100%. Yes. Because so many people, again, get into this because we want to create beautiful pictures of dogs, but running a photography business is a business. And if you want to make money, then you definitely need to run it as such. And, um, that doesn't always come easy for people. I, I like to say I was like, I'm more interested in running the photography business. I love the art and I love the photographs. And of course I love the animals. Um, but I really love the business side of things too. So it's yeah, definitely need to learn and grow and, um, and have that. And that was actually a perfect segue because, uh, you are a student in our elevate program, which I promise guys that was not a canned response. It was not a softball to Courtney. Hey, I'm going to ask you what to do. And you should say education. She came up with that all on her own. But, uh, yeah. So the elevate program, if you guys are interested in some high level business coaching and education support, then the hair of the dog elevate program might be for you. And, uh, we are opening enrollment December 7th of 2020 for our 2021 first half of the year. And, um, yeah, more information could be found at Hare, the dog academy.com/elevate. So Courtney, thank you for being here with us before we leave. Why don't you let everybody know where they can find you on the internet?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Uh, my website is the M bryson.com. You can also find me on Instagram at cm, Bryson, or Facebook at the embracing pet photography.
Speaker 1:Nice. Excellent. Thanks again for taking the time to share your story. And, um, I can't believe, I didn't realize that you had, uh, a wedding and prom gown business before that that's super fun,
Speaker 3:Own it. Technically my sister-in-law owned it, but that was before.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice. That's awesome. I love it. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Thanks again for sharing your story with us. Uh, I know our listeners, um, found some great value in there and if you guys did find value, definitely reach out to Courtney and tell her thank you. And, um, from me and the hair of the dog team, Courtney, thank you so much for spending the time with us. And I will talk to you soon. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Of course. See you guys all next week.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to this episode of hair of the dog podcast. If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute to leave a review. And while you're there, don't forget to subscribe. So you don't miss our upcoming episodes online. If you are ready to dive into more resources, head over to our [email protected]. Thanks for being a part of this pet photography community.
Welcome!
I'm Nicole and I help portrait photographers to stop competing on price, sell without feeling pushy, and consistently increase sales to $2,000+ per session - which is the fastest path to a 6-figure business. My goal is to help you build a thriving business you love while earning the income you deserve.