Shownotes
Matt and Brianna originally met at Seniors Ignite and just reconnected at SYNC. Brianna is in Northern California and is most well known for her destination sessions with her high school seniors and her model program. Last year, Brianna brought on 3 associate photographers, to help her photograph her hundreds of clients and bridge the gap between tweens and seniors. Brianna’s favorite part of her photography business is running the business. Brianna decided what she wants her life to look like, then worked backwards from there to make sure her business could provide that. You’ll want to listen in to how Brianna runs her underclassmen program. Brianna’s team does a retreat every year to plan the year based on their mission statement and core values and also their financial goals so they know what to try and whether it’s working. This podcast is full of amazing tips and advice – this is one you’ll want to listen to again and again.
Internet Resources
Megan Dipero’s FB group – Rise to the Top – actionable tips
Books
Profit First
Clockwork
Connect with Brianna:
Instagram @briannagamblephoto
Transcription was done by Temi.com which means it’s an AI generated transcript. The transcript may contain spelling, grammar and other errors, and is not a substitute for watching the video.
[00:01] This is Briana Gamble and you are listening to from nothing to profit.
[00:05] Welcome to from nothing to profit a photographer’s podcast with Matt and Kayak. We’re each week they talk to photographers about what is working in their business now so you can swipe those ideas and grow your business faster.
[00:21] Hey, welcome everybody. Another week, another podcast. I hope you really enjoying these this week we have my friend Brianna gamble from northern California and she sent me a bio but I don’t know if I really need to use it but because we have, we met years ago at seniors ignite and just, you know, had some conversations and I’ve always followed you on social media and your work is top, top notch in the senior world. And so yeah. And we reconnected. Where do, where do we reconnect? Just a few weeks.
[00:50] Um, we were at the sink. At the same conference.
[00:52] Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I’m sorry I’m been to so many conferences lately. I can’t even keep track. I’m like, why would I have seen you in Minnesota? But, um, yeah, so we saw each other at the sink and we talked and you told me what was going on and it sounded like you had, you know, your business is doing great and you’d have some associate photographers and so we can talk about any of that stuff that you want to talk about. But what I guess what our audience needs to know is that, you know, you have an awesome, fun, youthful style around senior portraits and you live in northern California. Um, and you’re probably best known, you know, for your model program and your destination session. So, um, go ahead, cover whatever I missed. Okay.
[01:24] So, um, thank you for the intro. So yeah, my studio is in northern California, so we are kind of writing between Sacramento and San Francisco. So we do a lot of beach sessions and we are probably most locally known for our destination sessions where we take a group of girls and we go out on, um, some trips. You’ve gone to Palm Springs, Vegas, La. Last year we went to Disneyland and Portland, Oregon. Probably the most memorable trip was to Hawaii. And then this year we’re going back to palm springs cause it’s probably my favorite place to shoot. And our senior model team also is something we’ve been doing for the past seven years and people have been following our senior model team locally. And so now we kind of have girls who they’ve been following us maybe since freshman year. And so when they get invited into the CDO, they’re already really excited.
[02:14] They’re already kind of pumped to be a part of it. And like you mentioned, we do have associate photographers. So that’s a little bit, a little bit new. Last year, every year I’ve been shooting around 300 sessions, not all seniors, seniors probably account for about 50% of our business. So 300 sessions a year. That was a, you know a lot for one person. Got It. Yeah. To, to photograph but also to be managing the business and the studio itself. So last year he started bringing on a team of associate photographers. So I have three amazing photographers on my team now and they, they also shoot senior sessions. We offered tween sessions and then we’ve been doing a lot of sessions recently for personal, and then also kind of a bridging the gap between the tween age and the high school seniors. So the underclassmen that actually we just kind of launched a new program specifically for them that’s modeled a little bit after our senior model program so we can kind of get them in as freshmen and sophomores and start working with them in their families.
[03:19] And then when it’s time to sign up for the senior model program, it’s a no brainer. So yeah, we’ve been kind of working on that. And then we have also been revamping our studio to be a little bit more of like a rentable space for shoots and events. So, um, today’s actually our opening day. Um, so it’s a little crazy we have opening today and then a launch party on Sunday. And Yeah, we’ve, I just have had a lot of interest locally from other photographers for my studio space. So we’ve kind of, I don’t shoot a whole lot inside of my studio unless I’m doing blue Duar or personal branding. So, um, we’ve just kind of change things around and got it ready a little. It took a little bit of our personal, um, photography brand out of it so that others can bring their clients into tissue and do meetings and also people are using it for events.
[04:10] So that’s kind of everything we have going on right now. So you’re definitely hitting on all cylinders right now. So, well it’s funny cause I was like, okay. I was looking online going, okay, what do we, what are we talking about here? So, so I had to have a couple of questions for you about your, the scope of your business. So 300 sessions, uh, and then you’ve hired on three more photographers. So how many employees do you have altogether? So, um, in total we have a team of eight. So we have the three associate photographers. Um, I have a studio manager and then we have a production girl who does all of our, so I like to keep my editing in house. Um, and so she does all the editing and all of our print orders and things like that. And we have a couple makeup artists on our team as well, so that we have, we always have a makeup artist available.
[05:01] I don’t like to use too many makeup artists in locally just because like to keep our sal really, really specific and we have really high standards for our team and the experience we want to give to our clients. So I like to have those also kind of in house. So they’re just kind of standing makeup artists on our team. And so is everyone full time or are that some of them contract or how does that work? Yeah, so, um, two of them are full time, the studio manager and our production girl. And then the rest, the photographers and the makeup artists, they are all contracted. And so typically the makeup artists are working a handful of days a week because we do have so many clients that we offer here and make up for most of the sessions. And then the photographers, um, right now they’re each working maybe one to two days a week, just depending, um, how many sessions they have going on.
[05:52] Uh, they associate photographers. We just kind of started having them last fall. So a little bit in a transition period where I’m trying to take, bring on a gamble as a person and turn and bring on a gamble in to more of a brand name for our studio so that people know when they come to us. It might not necessarily be Brianna doing your session, but you’ll still get the same experience no matter who you shoot with. That’s exciting. So how long have you been a photographer? Um, I’ve been a photographer for about eight years and really have just been in business for the past seven. So, um, it kind of started, um, when I was pregnant with my son, uh, just kind of, you know, how to camera documenting life and kind of started getting into it. Um, but really photography for me has always kind of been about the business aspect.
[06:43] I do love photography, but I would say for me, my most favorite part about running my photography studio is the business side. And so that’s also part of why I started getting associate photographers and kind of started outsourcing even the shooting aspect of it so that I could work on building the brand and kind of expanding from there. Um, and then we’ve been in our current studio for three years. We just hit three years in January. So that’s been really exciting. And it sounds like you’ve got a lot of room for growth too as far as number of sessions and that type of thing. Absolutely. I feel like one piece of advice that I’ve heard before that was really great was to grow slowly and intentionally. So I’ve tried to not grow too quickly and adding team members or adding more sessions per year and just growing the business in general.
[07:40] I’ve tried to do really intentionally because I don’t, I don’t want to lose the personal touch that we have with our clients and I don’t want to kind of expand too quickly and then lose everything that people loved about working with our business. But I am excited about the growth and I think we’ll be able to take on a lot more clients every year. And eventually I’m planning to open more studio spaces to kind of expand to other locations. Yeah. Well California is a great area and I feel like there you can develop the business anywhere. Absolutely. Like it did. The Midwest has been traditionally known for having senior photography whereas the coast Dee Dee, you know, don’t necessarily, but I feel like you can, if you go to an area you could just develop it because people want pretty pictures. Yeah. And we’re really lucky because we can shoot year round here.
[08:32] We don’t really, we don’t have to worry about snow. So the only months we don’t, we aren’t really shooting seniors anyway is December and January, but 10 months out of the year where shooting senior session. So it’s really easy to keep that as a year round business. And then even over the winter months we have booed wire and branding sessions going on and um, some in studio tween sessions as well. So it keeps us busy year round, which is really awesome. So what does your like for you specifically, what is your ideal week work look like? I’m assuming when you were shooting 300 sessions, you were shooting a lot of the time. Yes. And so what will it look like now? I’m so now pretty much starting the beginning of this year. I’ve always had a work schedule and um, then really schedule oriented. But the beginning of this year, knowing that we were going into a year where we were going to have a lot of growth and we have some associate photographers on board to take over those clients sessions.
[09:28] Um, I created a schedule where I’m only shooting one or two days per week. And for me that’s really ideal. I last year was shooting like five, five days a week and I usually on a lot of times I had multiple sessions per day and it’s just exhausting and you can’t stay creative and you can’t really give your client 100% of yourself when you’re exhausted. So I’m shooting one or two sessions a week is really great for me. Um, so I have it set up where may work week, looks like pretty much Monday through Thursday are may work days and I’m off Friday through Sunday to spend with my family and helping my son’s class at school. And usually I shoot in the middle of the weekly Tuesday or Tuesday and Wednesday. Um, Mondays we keep for marketing and team meetings and we do a lot of ongoing training with everyone on the team.
[10:23] And then Thursdays I kind of, it’s a little bit of like a, like a flex day. So if we have, if it rains or something and we have to reschedule one of our seniors that can put them on Thursday and I don’t feel stressed out about kind of cutting into my family time over the weekend. But then I also do a lot of stuff just in the studio and kind of planning and things like that on, on Thursdays. So I’ve kind of changed my schedule to be less shooting and more, um, like working on, on the business instead of in the business, which is what I love. Yeah. That’s brave. Yeah, it’s been really awesome. I’m, I’ve, I’m kind of a, um, jump in with both feet kind of a person. So with the whole associate’s char for idea and even renting out our CDO, it was kind of like went from idea into just taking action right away.
[11:12] And that’s probably been my biggest thing is just taking action on things that I really want to do. And I’m, I think Nate from sticky albums said one time, he said, if you take too much time to deliberate about things and go back and forth, you won’t, you won’t be taking action in your business. And I would rather take action quickly and I would rather fail quickly and be able to just recover and move on and bounce back. And so I’ve kind of taken that approach as well after hearing that from him and being like, yeah, let’s just do it. If it’s something we want to do, let’s kind of plan it out. But you don’t need to have everything planned out from a to z to kind of go straight into doing what you want to do. Yeah. Gotcha. Cool. So that leads into my question. Like you’re getting all stuff done, but
[11:54] so, you know, do you have a business coach? Are you modeling after somebody or you know, like where’s your inspiration coming from or are you just figuring out as you go?
[12:02] Um, I do feel like I take a little bit of inspiration from, from people in the industry. I honestly try to, um, I try not to pay too much attention to what other people are doing. Um, I know a lot of people try to kind of keep trying, keep almost like a little bit of tunnel vision on just like what my goals are. And My, my biggest thing is just deciding the kind of life that I want to have and then working backwards to create a plan with my business to be able to give that to myself and my team and my family. And so, I don’t know, I did take a class from Nancy Ray of Nancy Ray photography about team building and leadership and that was really awesome. And she, she’s kind of in the same boat. She is a wedding photographer though. And, um, she has a couple of associate char graphers and a small team. And that was kind of the starting point for me of really adding associate photographers and starting to build on my business without having to sacrifice any family time or any of the other things I wanted to do outside of my business.
[13:10] Cool. Okay. So then my other question is, can you talk a little bit about your underclassmen program? I mean, whatever details you want to share, but yeah, kind of what you’re doing. I mean, I think the concept makes sense to me, right? You’re trying to get people in earlier and earlier, but you know, what are you offering them? What’s, what’s the pitch and stuff like that.
[13:27] Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, we’ve been asked about doing an underclassmen program for a couple of years and I’ve just never really seen any way to go about it without it taking a lot of time and I just didn’t really know the value that we can offer to them. Um, and then David Beckham mentioned he was doing some kind of like a sophomore program and basically the, the girls, they pay a few hundred dollars and they get in and they do a shoe or two and it’s, it’s really a flexible program. It’s not kind of as structured as the senior model program and it just gives them an opportunity to kind of try you out. So for us with our senior model program, they’re committing to doing senior portraits with us up front and they’re paying for that upfront. And for the parents that’s a huge commitment time wise and financially and I wanted to kind of give them, take a step back and say, okay, well what if we just give a program before they even get to that point where they can try us out for a few months.
[14:26] So the program is only six months long. It goes from the spring to the fall. And I did open it up to freshmen as well. Um, we were, I had a lot of parents inquiring about freshmen and so I’m letting the freshmen be involved in it too. And they’re just going to get a couple of photo shoots out of it. And they’re really, they’re really, um, casual shoes. So they’re not styled, we’re not sailing wardrobe. Um, we’re not offering and makeup for these shoots. It’s just a chance for them to get in front of the camera and have a lot of fun and see how, how much fun we can add to their junior and senior year. And I want to make it something where it’s a no brainer that they would come to us for senior portraits because they’ve already worked with us and it was such a small financial investment and time wise that um, it’s just like, well, it’s worth at least trying out.
[15:16] And then what we’re gonna do is we’re, well, here’s another thing, we’re starting a magazine, which I got the idea and a lot of information from a few people at sync when I was there. So the local, it’s going to be a local teen magazine and it’s going to be written by teens for teens. And I’m really excited about that. It’s going to be really just to kind of promote teens in the area that are giving back to their community and reaching goals and doing really awesome things. And um, that kind of goes hand in hand with the program. We’re calling our junior influencer program for the underclassmen. And so they can be part of the editorial team for the magazine and submit articles and interview the people that are going to be in the magazine and things like that. So I don’t know, our, our program, we’re just starting it this year, so they’re going to start next month and we’re going to see how it goes. They’ll do a couple of shoots and then they can do the magazine and we’ll have some community service stuff going on. But I just wanted to keep it really easy going and just get them into the studio at least once a month to just kind of drive home our brand and what we’re all about so that they’re excited to sign up in the fall when they’re a junior.
[16:29] That’s awesome. Okay, so here’s my hair. I think this is the question that this leads to. And if for the everyday listeners of the podcast, you can tell we’re completely off script, but that’s okay. This is, this is going really well. We’re not following our questions, but okay. So you’re tracking all this stuff and you’re trying to get as quick as you can to failure. So talk to me about how you think about something or how you give up something that’s just like not working or like, you know, like the opposite end of it. Trying stuff. I totally get. But when you, how do you just not keep adding stuff and how do you like let stuff go or just, you know, talk about that end of...
