Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. I'm Nicole Begley. And today we are talking with Alison[inaudible] about moving to a new market. Now, if you're listening to this podcast on the day that it's released, it is election day here in the United States on a very, um, crazy election season and just really crazy fitting into 2020. So some of you might be looking to move now that we're looking to move before, no matter where you stand in the political spectrum, it's just madness. But regardless, even if you're going to stay put, you're going to enjoy this episode. So stay tuned.

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 pets, photographers, travel addicts, chocolate martini, calmness, sewer, Nicole Begley.

Hey everybody. Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. I'm Nicole Bailey. And today I have my friend, Alison[inaudible] with me from Alison chairman of photography now in sunny, beautiful San Diego, one of my favorite places, but, um, previously Pensacola or outside of Pensacola. Where were you? First? Pensacola, Nicola and Florida. Nice. So welcome Alison to the podcast. Thank you. Oh my gosh. I love being here. This is great. Yeah. So excited. Yeah. I wanted to have you on, because, um, I recently about two years ago now, can't believe it's been two years moved from Pittsburgh to Charlotte. And um, you moved from Pensacola to San Diego. Gosh, how long have you been in San Diego now? It's actually been seven and a half years. It doesn't feel that long, but yeah. Oh my God. That's crazy. That's crazy. Wow. I can't remember. Where did we meet? Did we meet it? It was a conference. I was at a conference. I want to say it was imaging USA. It was, it was that, I mean, I think it was the beginning of 2011. Actually they do their conference beginning of the year. Right. Whereas WPPI waits a couple of months, so yeah, I think it was back in January of 2011 when we first met. That's crazy. Yeah. Cause you were still in Pensacola back then knowing you're going to move at some point, but not quite yet. Wow. That's crazy. So yeah. So we'd love to chat today just about, you know, cause a lot of people out there are moving for variety of reasons and it can be pretty overwhelming to look at, you know, to look at moving and being like, Oh my gosh, I've started to build this business and this market and now I'm going to pick up and move and Oh my God. Um, before we dive into that, I guess give us a little bit of information about your business, you know, from when you started to where it is now. I'm sure. Oh, well gosh, when I first started my business, I didn't know that it'd be specializing in pets. I mean I love dogs and we'd just gotten our dog Bailey and she was definitely some inspiration for me, but I didn't realize that you could build a business just about, um,

I think that was what I wanted to do secretly, but I thought to myself, you know, I'll have to do some family portraits off to do some other things. Um, and actually my first love was sports photography. I shot a lot of sports and that kind of thing in college. And I went to a big sports school. So it was very fun, very exciting. And then we moved to Pensacola because my husband was, he was in ROTC in college. And so that's where he got stationed for the Navy. And I just kind of went along because we were married at that point. And let's just like physical is not the kind of place or at least back in 2010 and 11. It wasn't the ideal place. I don't think to start any sort of a photography business, but definitely not pet photography. I can get into the challenges there later on, but that's where I started my business. And then about three and a half years later, he actually got out of the military and we decided to move to San Diego. So, and I got to take everything I learned from Pensacola and bring it here with me to San Diego. So that was,

Yeah, that's definitely, I think one of the awesome pieces about moving to a new market, you get to like basically put your whole business on the table, wipe it off the table and say, all right, how do I want to build this now moving forward because it's a total clean slate opportunity.

That's just really liberating. Like we'll be able to say, okay, this sort of stuff went well and this sort of stuff I didn't like doing. So I'm just not going to do it again. Like, yeah, we're great.

I remember back when I first met you, you were talking about the challenges of building a pet photography business in a community in which pet photography wasn't yet a thing. I mean, guys, remember this is talking, we're talking 2011,

Like

Pet photography world because you know, like, so you have this whole other marketing challenge, which Pensacola in San Diego are two very different markets in that. I feel like the San Diego market, even though still, it's not wide wide spread, but more people there have heard of pet photography where when you're marketing in a place like Pensacola almost 10 years ago, um, you have to first let people know that this even exists before you can even think about marketing, which is yeah, just a whole new set of marketing challenges.

Yeah. I mean, for people not totally familiar with the geography of Florida, Pensacola is on the far Northwestern tip. So that means the other closest big city is mobile Alabama. I would get asked, you know, Oh, do you live next to like Orlando? Like, is that close by? Do you go to Disney world a lot? No, it was an eight or nine hour drive away. It was not central Florida. It was not one of the more populated areas of Florida. It was, you know, dogs, the culture, there is more along the lines of, um, a lot of dogs are outside animals. A lot of dogs are hunting tools, um, for people that like to go hunting and not a lot of people, some for sure, but not a lot of people think of their dogs. I think the same way that you and I do Nicole, like, um, the same way that a lot of my clients do. So definitely moving to San Diego was a huge shift because a lot more of my people are here, a market that didn't need as much education because that's what I focused on in ventricle is educating people that pet photography is a thing worth investing in. It's something you're going to want to do and not just kind of roll your eyes at, cause I got a lot of that in Pensacola. Whereas here my challenge became not so much educating people, but actually dealing with competition and dealing with there are other photographers here because when I was in Pensacola, I was the only pet specific photographer there. And I kind of thought to myself like, Hey, this is so nice, no competition, but there was a reason why there was no competition. It meant that people had to be educated, whereas here, um, you know, there are other people that do what I do, which is great. I mean, it's, it's helped me develop my style a whole lot more. It's helped me become a lot more marketing savvy and we can talk about that if you want to. But like, it's just, it's a totally different struggle depending on if you have competition or if you don't or if your market needs education or if it just doesn't. So, um, you know, it's always a great off.

Yeah, no. And I like to tell people too, you know, everyone feels like, like, ah, I want to be the only pet photographer in my market or they start to get worried when there's other pet photographers in your market. But I look at it this way, if you're the only one you've got a lot of work to do to educate people where if there's a whole bunch of you, then everyone's marketing and someone sees, Oh, pet photography. And before they just randomly look that person they're going to do a little Google search and look at other pet photographers in the area. So you have all of the pet photographers in the area, collectively marketing to this market, letting them know that this is a thing that people like you're casting a wider net by having pet photography community. So that's definitely a, a great bonus and a, a good reframe for any of you guys out there that might be thinking, Oh my gosh, you know, like worried about competition, which exactly right. Yeah. And if you are, I know you, Alison are good friends with one of your main competitors Taryn from Westway studio. Who's been on the podcast as well. And we just had a podcast with Marka Moffitt and Holly cook from Seattle who are competitors and also super good friends. So, um, yeah, competitors are good. I actually meet some of the pet photographers here in Charlotte. Well, before the pandemic, we used to go out and get delicious food. We haven't, we haven't done that since the stupid COVID, but, um, we'll pick that up again one day when it's reasonable to do so.

Yeah. So the difference are we surrounded by like wedding photographers and portrait photographers versus knowing some other pet photographers, you know, that you can commiserate with that you can kind of joke around with because they know exactly what you do and they know the struggle so to speak. So it's a, yeah, it's just a totally different world to actually have people that do what you do as opposed to, you know, similar but different.

Yes. Agreed 100%. And it's also super helpful when like one of you gets a really crazy wacky inquiry and you're like heads up, this one's kind of nuts.

Oh, totally changed. I'm talking about, there's been a couple and it's always kind of fun because we know clients have no idea that we're talking and, and sometimes even, you know, I'll, I'll get on a phone call with a client and maybe they don't seem a hundred, like a great fit. And I ended up recommending Tara and I recommend the other photographers in town. Right. They're always taken aback a little bit, but I'm like, listen, I'm a big believer in finding the right fit for you. And if I'm not that right fit, that's great. Like it's right. I mean, I hope that I am, I would love to be, but if I'm not, I really just want you to have a good experience because I care about the pet photography industry. And if you feel bad, experience that reflects badly on all of us, so that's right for you. Yeah,

Absolutely. Well, let's go back to your, when you were getting ready to move and kind of what was in your head space when you were moving, what were you worried about going to a new market before you got there?

Uh, definitely my fellow pet photographers that were going to be here already in San Diego. I thought they would all hate me.

Could you move there near you? No one else is allowed to move here.

Um, no. I mean these irrational fears and things. Yeah, no, I know for sure what these people would think of me, if they would like totally exclude me from the cool kids club or anything like that. I was also worried about, you know, the difference in culture. Cause I I'd actually never been to San Diego before we moved here, but I knew the culture was going to be different. So I wasn't sure if my approach, my marketing, my style was really going to transfer. And I was also, you know, I, I made friends in the pet industry in Pensacola and I was very in the community there and I was bummed to have to leave these relationships that I had made. And these people that I became friends with and all those connections and all that, you know, trust really that had built up. And really, I felt like the only thing I was bringing with me was my portfolio. And that was a little bit hard.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I get all those fears and I bet, um, you know, I totally, I get it too, cause I, when I left Pittsburgh, yeah. I like, I knew so many people. I knew so many people in the pet industry. I knew so many other photographers that would recommend me when people wanted pet photos. It was hard to leave that network. It was not hard to leave the weather. So I was excited too,

But I'm from cold to warm. I just moved from warm to warm

From humid to not as human. Yeah. So it's definitely definitely a challenging thing. But then once you got there, you know, kind of what were maybe lower, maybe some of the first steps that you did before you moved and then kind of, how did you hit the ground running when he got to San Diego?

One thing that I did before I moved was I started working on my SEO because I knew that was going to be important. That was, um, a great way that I got clients in Pensacola and I figured let's keep it going. So something's going to have to change anyway. So, um, I really started blogging about San Diego before I was even there. Um, I got my, you know, SEO on my website and everything changed over. So that was probably the biggest preparational thing that I did. And then as soon as we moved here, I was really determined to not have it be a weird competition Eve feeling between me and the other pet photographers here. So I actually decided to reach out to the more prominent ones that I could find, you know, just on a Google search. And so I actually called all the other photographers in town and I said, hi, uh, I just moved to town. I am also a bet photographer and I'd love to, you know, buy you a cup of coffee or anything, just, you know, head off to lunch at some point, because I'm betting that if you do pet photography and I do pet photography, we probably have a few things in common and we might get along and I would just love to meet you. So, um, that's what I did and don't get me wrong. It was so terrifying to make those phone calls. Like I remember distinctly the phone was ringing for someone and I was like, please go to voicemail, please go to voicemail, come on. And it didn't thankfully I was like hearing to do that, but I was just so determined for things not to be weird because you know, there was a concern just coming from a place with no competitors. I was like, okay, I don't want this to be weird. I don't want this to be bad. I don't want this to take away from, you know, my life in San Diego. So yeah. Reach out to everyone. And the other thing I did once I got here was I started reaching out to fellow business owners. Cause like I said, I was like, you pretty entrenched in the pet community from where I'm from. So I wanted to kind of restart those connections and rebuild a little bit of a network. So I immediately started talking to vets and boutique owners and, and things like that in the hopes of building up a new network, which I was eventually able to do it wasn't overnight obviously, but it was

Nice. Yeah. Those things take time. And when you're reaching out to those other businesses where you're just reaching out and introducing yourself, or what did that

Look like? Oh gosh, I forget. Yeah. I think a few of them, I probably just reached out to introduce myself, say hi, I'm new to the neighborhood and you know, anything you need, I'm here for you. But I think a couple of the more prominent like boutiques and things I did offer to do photo sessions and hang up artwork in their space. And um, so you know, some of them took me up on that. Some of them didn't and we all had kind of different arrangements for each one, just depending on what they wanted and what I wanted. So yeah. Some of them turn into long-term great connections and some of them didn't, they fizzled out, we just weren't, you know, a great connection. That's all right. So yeah.

Yeah. That's going to happen whether you're new to the market or not just sometimes have to kind of explore the relationship with those. Awesome. All right. So that's good. That's the stuff she did before he moved mine were pretty similar. I would definitely change the SEO on my website. First. I made a Trello board too, before I moved and started doing like massive market research because like you, I had been to Charlotte twice other than the airport. I think I'd been here twice before and moved here. Um, my brother has been here for, he was here three years before me. He's a pilot for American. So he's based here and has no interest in moving. Yeah. And so we had been down to visit him just for like two long weekends and we, like, I knew I liked the weather and there was international airport and there's a big Lake. So, you know, it had all of the boxes checked and we could still drive to Pittsburgh in a day. The other option was moving to Florida, but you know, raising kids in Florida's interesting challenge with the schools down there sometimes. So we ended up, we ended up here. It was between here and Tampa. But, um, anyway, so I started just doing massive market research cause I literally knew nothing. I knew the general part of town we were going to live in, but I didn't know any businesses. I didn't know any place to shoot. I know anything. I actually reached out to another pet photographer that was in this area then, but had moved and was no longer in that area just to kind of be like, Hey, I'm thinking my target market lives in these areas. It's like, is that what you found? And she was so super sweet and nice. And she's like, actually believe it or not, they're up more actually where I'm living up towards the Lake. And I thought it would be more like the young professional part of the city, but yeah, it was. So it was just like trying to get all this market research of figuring out where to even start. So yeah. Did you experience kind of the same thing? How did you get your market research?

Yeah, definitely. Um, by the way, is Trello sponsoring you yet? Because I feel like

I'm obsessed with yellow and Monday I use like monday.com for basically more of the hair of the dog side of my business. But uh, yeah, I'm like obsessed side and truly, I tell everybody to go to cello and they should sponsor the podcast. Trello, if you're listening,

Why you're not making commissions yet, you should

Probably because it's free software.

Um, well, yeah, no, I mean, I didn't have your amazing Trello board set up I'm sure. But it was interesting to talk to the other photographers who did also give me some tips. They were also nice to talk to. It was great. They, uh, yeah, they definitely pointed me in the right direction in terms of neighborhoods and things like that. And then for me, it was just a bunch of scouting that I did with my dog. I just took my dog in the car and we went, and there was one week where we were gone for like hours every single day of that week. It was, it was a lot, but I found some of my favorite spots that I still love. So yeah, it was, um, it was a lot of just getting out there and doing it myself because I've tried scouting for various, you know, commercial projects and things like that on Google maps and Google earth and, and that sort of thing. And while that's great and that works for, if you don't live in the area, it's wonderful. But if you live in the area, like get your butt in the car and go see what you're actually working with. And I think there's no better way to learn, you know, what you might come upon in your session than doing that.

For sure. I did the same as I was here. I definitely did. Um, plenty of time on Google maps before I got here, I actually have on my Trello board a list of like, I don't know, there's probably like 40 random locations. And then I would join like most communities have a general photographer group, like it's, you know, a wedding and portrait and like the whole, all the genres. So I, there was a great group in Pittsburgh. I found a group down here, a Facebook group. So that's been super helpful too, that people sometimes post for session location suggestions, or they might post this or that. And it's just, if you keep your eyes and ears open, you're like, Oh, I had never heard of that spot. Cause it's, Charlotte's kind of weird. Like what's a big Metro area, but it is so spread out. Like it takes an hour to get the other side of town and um, you know, and there's also a lot of, there's a lot of trees and a lot of the parks feel very similar in like even the lakes, the tree line at the lakes go right down to the Lake and there's very few parks on the Lake. Like you drive around like Lake Norman, I think is one of the biggest, if not the biggest man-made Lake on the side of the Mississippi too, it has like 500 and some miles of shoreline. And there are like three little tiny parks and you drive right past it. Like you're maybe a, you know, a 10th of a mile from the Lake and you have no idea because it's just like houses in development straight towards it. And um, it's just, it's crazy. So yeah, I was asking like, where can I get dogs in the water? And it's like really hard to do. You have to, I don't know. The best time I've found is like this time of year, actually a little bit later in November when they drop the water level of the Lake for the winter. And then there's actually like beach areas and shallow water. That's not right up to the tree line. And, um, Zoe is very excited about that. Um, so anyway, yeah, I've definitely found the Google maps and just getting out there and Googling sometimes wedding photography or wedding photography locations in your area. The challenge with that though is not every place allows dogs. Although

My brother beautiful spots. Yeah.

My brother got married on the other side of town a couple of years ago and I was like, man, this will be a beautiful place for a session. Like they probably don't allow dogs, but I just emailed them and said, Hey, I was just in there for my brother's wedding last weekend. Any chance I'm a pet photographer? Any chance dogs will be allowed? They're like, Oh sure. Like, yes, never. It never hurts to ask. Awesome. All right. So once you got to town, but what were some of the best things that you found to like get those clients the first couple of clients and get things started?

Well, ironically, my very first client, when I moved to town was actually a person who is active duty military and she was in Pensacola, wanted to hire me and couldn't and got stationed out here in San Diego. So when I moved up to San to San Diego, she was like,

Perfect.

Yeah, my first one here, a nice transition, but no, I mean, gosh, I didn't have great SEO to start out with because that's not an overnight solution. Right. I think social media helped a little bit. I think that my connections with local businesses started to come together. That was also kind of a slow moving thing. It did help that I had my own physical studio. I got a few people that were walking by that became clients of mine. So that would get your

Studio immediately when you moved.

Yes, we, yeah, we set that up immediately because we actually, I figured it would be far cheaper to get a house with an extra bedroom, you know, like a three bedroom house or something and convert that into a home studio. And I had all my plans ready to go for that. And then we found this space and it was surprisingly affordable and it was small. Don't get me wrong. It was real small, but it was the shape I needed it to be. It just worked logistically. And it was kind of nice to have that separation from like home and life versus business. Um, because when I was in Pensacola, I rented time at a local studio, which was fine. It was totally affordable, but the rental studios out here are all like, you know, half day and they cost four 75 as a deposit or something. And I was like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. I'm thinking I can swing that. So yeah, got my own studio. And that definitely helped, I think, just for people walking by and I think it also helped boost my SEO too, because Google was like, Oh, you're a place. Also give you more, you know, more attention. But, um, but yeah, so I think those were the things that helped the most. It's hard to say looking back, but it definitely, wasn't just an immediate flood of clients. Like it's not like I moved here and I was like, Oh, well, San Diego is kinda more culturally, you know, ready for pet photography. So my schedule is suddenly full. Like, no, it took time for sure, but

That's okay. Yeah. It takes time. And it's still, I always like to say, like, everyone's looking for, not everyone. A lot of people are looking for like the one magic marketing solution and it's really a combination of all of the things, because everything builds together to, to create that momentum agreed. Yeah. So Alison let's jump back back to Pensacola, have a lot of back and forth. Coastal moves for you back and forth, back and forth. Um, but, um, what were some of the differences, I guess when you were marketing in Pensacola versus San Diego, I know we talked briefly about the fact that in Pensacola, you had to do more. I like to call it awareness marketing that like, we need to let people know we exist and then there's make the phone ring marketing. We're actually getting people to book. What were the big differences, I guess, in that awareness marketing versus once you move to an area where they already kind of know that it exists and you wanted to get more actual people in the door.

Yeah. That's a good question. I would say awareness marketing. I like that term for it because it really is about awareness. I wanted to get the word out that I existed any practical way that I could. So I was a whole lot more experimental in my marketing, I would say in Pensacola. I think I also attribute that to the fact that I knew we were going to leave. I knew we weren't going to be there forever, whether it was because of my husband's, you know, Navy career or getting out of the military. I knew that our time was limited. So it kind of liberated me in a way to kind of try things that I wouldn't necessarily normally try or weren't like, you know, on all those photography education blogs of like, you've got to do this for marketing. Like I got to think a little bit more outside the box. Sometimes it wasn't always pretty like, I mean, I hung up paper flyers at local vet's office. So it was like looking for great affordable pet photography called Alison, which obviously I cringe at now, but it got me clients, it got me started, it got me practice under my belt. So I think I was just a little bit more experimental in terms of, I tried the high-end marketing tactics. I mean, I donated to auctions and things like that, but maybe they weren't always the most high-end auctions and that's okay. I just kind of, um, kind of cast a wide net marketing wise, whereas once I moved to San Diego and I knew that the awareness was less of a focus and it was more about why people should pick me as their photographer. I just got a lot more careful with my marketing. I got, I paid a lot more attention to the style of how I was putting myself out there. Whereas in Pensacola it was just like, Hey, get yourself out there. Any which way. But in San Diego, because was asking people to pick me over other pet photographers, it was much more focused on, well, here's why, and here's my brand, here's my style. Here's my work. And it was just a whole lot more careful, a lot pickier because also because I knew we weren't planning on then leaving San Diego, you know, in the next two or three years, like we would have had to had he stayed in the military. So with the luxury that we got to stay here, that just, you know, uh, there was a little more permanence, I guess, to my marketing efforts. Like I felt like I wanted to revert back to my perfectionist ways and make it a little more perfectionist and like, okay, here we go. I'm staying here. It better be good. Whereas in Pensacola I definitely felt more free to just kind of yeah. Experiment.

Yeah. It's definitely, I think freeing to be able to test all those different things, which you know, is also kind of what we do early in our business, whether we're moving or not. But then as we start to drill into exactly how we want to serve our market and how we want to build our business and we start to develop a bit more of our style and more of the details of our marketing, I think whether we're moving markets or not, like we can all take that little bit of, you know, it's time to really curate what we're putting out into the market. And when you are in an area that starting to have other competition, which really is just about every area and these days, because pet photographers are getting more popular, which again is a good thing. Guys, remember then we have more awareness marketing, but then yeah, we're looking for these ways to differentiate our business. And I think it becomes so important to start to really look at what we're creating style-wise and, um, like what services we're offering business-wise and, you know, are we going to be the, you know, a photographer that is focused on digital files? Are we going to be focused on artwork? And there's not, I don't believe there's a right or wrong there. There's definitely, if you're doing very inexpensive digital files, there becomes a, how much are you making per hour with how much time you're spending issue that is just pure math. You need to make sure you're making money, but I have a friend she's a portrait photographer, but she is based mostly on digitals with like some product ad-ons she runs a super profitable business, but her digitals are$1,500. So, you know, again, that's that amount of time versus how much money you're getting paid. So long story short, I think it's just so important as we develop our business to really dive into how we want to serve our clients. Did you have any changes to that aspect of your business when you moved from the type of services you are offering your clients and Pensacola to the level of service you're offering in San Diego

Now? Uh, I think I actually pared back a little bit because in Pensacola, you know, not only was I still kind of portfolio building kind of the whole time I was there. Um, but I was also, you know, kind of seeing what works I was learning about dog. I was learning about what's too much for asking some dogs to do, and what's not too much, you know, so my standard session in Pensacola, believe it or not was actually a three hour, three location session. Wow. Yeah. Right. Wow. So when I got here, I was like, okay, you know what? That actually really does feel like a little too much. Uh, let's pair it back. So I went to a 90 minutes to location session and it worked much better. Nice. It's it's just a more reasonable timeframe. It's, it's just better in so many ways. Plus I had gotten better at the actual photography side of things, so it didn't take me three hours anymore to create a gallery, you know, worthy of sharing with my clients. So, you know, um, things improved and things kind of got narrowed in focus. I think I also, when I moved here, I feel like I felt a little more able to offer slightly higher end products. I don't think I sold metal prints at all when I was in Pensacola, I knew about them, but I didn't sell them. Whereas here they're one of my top sellers. I love metal prints. So, um, yeah, I mean, things just changed a little bit and I think you can attribute that to the culture, you know, uh, Pensacola, just not being a big town, the idea of metal prints only appeals to, you know, a smaller subset of people. Whereas here it just kind of makes more sense than, and a lot of people love it.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's fantastic. That makes a lot of sense for sure. All right. So one more question that I want to dive into before we wrap up is when you were moving to San Diego, um, you know, I know you mentioned that, you know, you started wanting to have a spare room in our house, which is what I think most people just gravitate towards because it feels like it's more affordable. Um, but with the San Diego crazy real estate prices, um, and finding that great studio location, you had those other options, which is awesome. Um, what kind of things did you look for? Or can you give anyone some advice if that's something that they might want to look into?

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Once I wrap my brain around the fact that I might actually be renting out my own space, which I had never done before and sounded terribly intimidating, I looked for a few things. I definitely looked for easy accessibility to a studio. I mean, I can't, you know, have it be somewhere that's hard to get with, you know, maybe some older clients or older dogs. Um, it had to be super, super accessible. I wanted something just like retail storefront. Um, that was very visible, you know, from like a busy shopping sort of an area, but that's not what I found. I found something that was set back a little bit off the main road. It's still turned out to be great. It was actually quieter because a lot of like, you know, big trucks and ambulances and stuff were on that main road. So it was like, okay, let's be a little quieter than that. But, um, what I wanted in that retail space was just the visibility and you pay for that. That's the thing in commercial real estate, they're going to charge a premium for anything they can justify charging a premium for. So the nicer it is in the nicer neighborhood, it is obviously the bigger it is. That's something that's all going to drive up the price deck. So I would say, you know, as you're looking at a different place now since, uh, I moved into that spot about seven and a half years ago, I actually just, this year moved into a brand new studio space. So an upgrade from what I used to have and what I really built my business here. And so I love that old space, but I am super excited about this news place, pleasant new place, excuse me. Cause it's just so much better. It's nicer. And something I looked for this time around was good, easy parking because my last place, it was in a very cool part of town, but like busy, crowded, like commercial and residential meant there was very little parking and it was a constant thing I had to explain to my clients, well, it's street parking only, but you should be able to find a spot, you know, pretty close. But yeah, not the most professional face that I could put forward. I, yeah, the, the, one of the big challenges I think with commercial real estate for pet photography is that we just don't need a 2000 square foot space. Right. If you can find it, I mean, my goodness, I'd love to do that, but you just don't need that much space. My current space is about 600 square feet. It's almost twice as big as my old space.

Wow. What was the, what were the dimensions of your old space?

I forget the exact dimensions. I want to say it was like 11 by 30 feet. Yes. Yeah. It was long and skinny, which was great. Cause I set up my backdrops at one end and my computer at the other end and I had consult area in the middle and it was very cozy, but this new space being almost twice as big, it just feels so much bigger now. Um, but, but no, so we just don't need tons of space. I made that 325 square foot space work beautifully. It didn't hold back my sales, it was great. Versus if you can go bigger, like I think it's always great to go bigger. But the problem with that is there's just not a ton of commercial real estate available in parcels that small, um, a lot of places are just, you know, geared toward bigger stores and, and, and companies that got, that have a whole lot more going on, I think, than, uh, than just maybe a single person or a two person, you know, photography studio. So I definitely talked to commercial realtors, but I turned out to be a pretty small fish for them. I don't think they gave me, you know, a hundred percent of their intention because you know, this place I was looking for was small. Of course I didn't want to max out my budget because hello, I actually want to keep my profits. So I'm not looking to spend a fortune on studio rent, but it was just the sort of thing where, you know, if you keep looking there's commercial real estate websites, and depending on where you live in the country, Craigslist can actually be a really great option. You know, we're not planning to do like a drug deal or anything, but Greg's list can be, um, a good spot for finding real estate kind of, I think just depending on where you are. So I would just kind of use whatever resources you have, whether you know, people that can help you out or whether you just want to browse the internet. There are places where you can find the listings. And I think anything under a thousand square feet for most people is very reasonable and it's, it's more than enough space to put together a shooting area consultation area. So yeah.

Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah. And you know, even when you're looking in your market, you can find out what the average per square foot commercial space is. Of course there's going to be those, um, you know, extra fees for places that are more visible or a high traffic area or things like that. But you can get a general estimate of what that square foot per price is for a rental, uh, commercial rental. So then you can at least have an idea of, okay, how much will a potential rental cost. And then you also kind of have, uh, you know, a price in line as you're starting to look for different spaces to see if it's a reasonable price to pay or not. Um,

I looked at spaces that were anywhere from a dollar, a square foot to$5 a square foot. And when you're talking about a thousand square feet, that adds up real quick. So yeah, the price is obviously something you need to pay close attention to. And the problem with commercial real estate is it oftentimes works different than if you rent your house, for example, because it, it doesn't often include number one utilities, but also something that companies call triple net or cam charges, common area maintenance. That's like if they have nice landscaping around the spot, or if you require, you know, someone to be on security and watching out for, you know, the complex that your studio is in these charges can definitely rack up too. So when you're looking at things, you can't just look at the rent, unfortunately there is more and they may not tell you what that is super upfront. So definitely make sure you're kind of doing your due diligence and asking about any other monthly charges that you might be responsible for it. Cause there's probably at least one,

That's a great point. And usually they, commercial spaces come really as is in any sort of build out you're going to want to do is going to be on your, your dime. Did you have to do much to either of your spaces? Yeah.

My bank accounts are hurting over it actually. Um, no, in my first base I just needed to put down some hardwood floors because it was all carpeted and you can't shoot with paper backdrop, obviously challenging. I put down the hard floors and part of that studio space and I painted the walls and that was about it. But in this new space, yeah, we had to do a lot, thankfully, no demolition, but it had this kind of old, not so nice carpet that was like thin and worn down and just looked terrible. So I was like, obviously this has to go. And, um, I'm really glad I hired a professional to help me take that out and put the new hardwood laminate flooring in because they actually had to kind of grind down the floor underneath it. Like it was slightly even. So they use this like cement grinder to, you know, get things flat. It was pretty intense, but yeah, we, we still, we put in the new floors, painted the walls and um, I also had electrical work done because I needed to install my lights, which, you know, I use Einstein lights to your policy, Buffalo to, uh, um, eliminate my studio backdrop. So we had to kind of get those in and what's actually cool about working with an electrician for that is I was able to get the wires going straight into the ceiling. So they kind of just disappear. There's no wires coming down the walls and I have to tape them up or, or, you know, Mark them off so that people don't trip on them or anything like that. And same with my projector for in-person sales. My projector is sitting on a shelf that's up at above and out of the way and the court just kind of goes into the ceiling. So

Nice. That's fantastic. Um, congratulations on moving up to that awesome, amazing space. That sounds beautiful. Thank you. I'm working on it. Wait to see it. Next time I come to San Diego for my ever allowed to travel again.

I hope you are. And I mean, yeah. My word of advice to people looking at opening studios is that obviously these days people don't leave their house for any old thing. Like people don't live in their house, very selectively. They're very careful. So I guess, you know, do what you can to make it a really beautiful space, a really welcoming, warm place that people actually want to come visit. Because I think that sometimes even just a little extra decorative touches that are not going to cost you a lot of money. Um, but that are just going to help kind of warm things up and make things nice are going to help people feel better about coming to visit you because I know really proud now with this new studio compared to my old one, of course I could draw comparisons all day long, but, um, I feel really good about the space because it's, it's nicer and it makes me feel good to be in and it makes my clients feel good to be in. So I think if you have the resources to work with an interior designer or any sort of commercial space designer, I think it's worth it. I didn't, I did this all myself. I'm not going to lie. It's not like I hired a bunch of people, but at least we did the whole construction thing and uh, and it's paid off at least. So.

Yeah. Nice. Congratulations. That's exciting. So, yeah. So before we wrap up, is there any little bit of advice or last, um, last piece of advice for anyone that is either getting started in their business or maybe looking at starting over?

Oh my gosh. Yeah. I want to speak to the people who are looking at starting over and, you know, I just want to say, it's not as bad as you think it's going to be. I don't know about you, but I have a very like a mine that goes quickly to the worst case scenario. And I was picturing, you know, my business falling apart and all the other pet photographers would hate me and I would be sitting around and I'd have to get a job at McDonald's to make ends meet. And thankfully none of those things came through because I was just, you know, um, careful about, you know, reaching out to other people. And I was, you know, I came in with, with good intentions. It's not like I came into take over the pet photography market. I doubt that anyone in a similar situation has those kinds of aspirations. Your, your job is to join the pet photography market that you're looking at moving to and add your unique flavor to it. You're adding your style. You're giving clients another option to choose from. And that doesn't mean you're going to be the photographer that everyone chooses. But I think if you work hard and, and you really, you know, spend some concentrated time working on your marketing, you're going to be able to different differentiate yourself in a way that makes sense for you and brings to you the right clients, you know, that should be working with you. So, um, how hope, how faith, I know it can be terribly intimidating and a little bit demoralizing to think that you're about to lose a lot, but you're really not a lot about to lose that much. You get to take your portfolio with you. You get to take everything you have learned. You get to take all of your knowledge. You get to take

Just so much with you. So focus on the positives of what you're bringing with you and what you're bringing to your market, not on what you're leaving behind, because maybe you're leaving behind some good friends, but you can always go back and visit. Cause that's what I've done. I've gone back to Pensacola a couple of times, even done some photo shoots while I'm there. And, uh, it's just, it'll always hold a really special place in my heart. So absolutely. Yeah. I agree. A hundred percent, Alison, that is great advice. And you know, just look at it as moving to a new spot is the perfect opportunity to just really rebuild your business with zero expectations and to create exactly what you want and to be able to start over, you know, so many people say, Oh man, I wish I could start over with the information I had now, but way back then, well now is your chance to do that because you have all this experience that you gained from your first market and you can pick and choose what works for you and build your business exactly how you want in the new market, where nobody knows you yet. So you can just make whatever changes you want. Cause I know so many people get stressed and concerned with, Oh my gosh, I've been doing shoot and burn, but I want to move to in-person sales and products, but how do I make that transition? And it's going to alienate all of my old clients and blah, yada, yada yada. And they get all concerned about that, but Oh, so easy to do when you're moving, it's easy and it's exciting. It's a clean slate. And I encourage people to reach out to the other pet photographers in your area as you move, because I know that they will appreciate it. And I mean, Taryn, for example, now is one of my best friends. We even started a new division of our businesses together. Like there are ways that you'll get to work with people, I think in your new community that are going to surprise you in a good way. So yes, I love it. So speaking of all those things, tell people where they can find you on the interwebs. Sure. You can find me on Facebook at Alison Cheryl pet photography or an Instagram at San Diego pet photographer. And you can also find Taryn and I both at professional pooch, nice. The professional coach.com. Yep. And that's what our handle is on social and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Awesome. All around professional pooch. Excellent. Thanks so much, Alison, for being here with us, this was a great conversation and I'm sure people are going to take a lot of, um, great highlights away whether they are moving to new market or not. So thanks again for being with us. It was a pleasure. You're welcome. This was so fun. I'll talk to you later. Bye. See everybody next week.

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