This episode celebrates five years of my photography studio, White Space, and one year in its new location. I'm detailing my journey, from finding the original space in 2019 to moving during the pandemic while five months pregnant.

I'm discussing the ups and downs, including dealing with a difficult landlord and eventually building a dream studio in collaboration with a supportive realtor and builder.

This episode also covers key lessons learned, and the non-negotiable features for my new space. I answer listener questions about finding and furnishing a studio space, encountering challenges, and assessing whether the venture was worth it.

03:46 Ask Me Anything: Studio Space Insights

05:01 The Journey to the Second Studio

07:04 Designing the Dream Studio

07:23 Financial Concerns and Solutions

21:57 Lessons Learned and Challenges Faced

25:58 Joys and Positives of Owning a Studio

29:35 Final Thoughts and Future Plans

You are listening to take it

personally, a podcast for photographers

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about the personal side of business

and the art of standing out.

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Here.

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I'll help you build a business and a

brand that is uniquely you if you want to

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attract dream clients and stop looking at

the competition to decide your next move.

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If you are ready to show up as a

confident branding authority to help

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you serve your clients and consider

your goals and priorities too.

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If you want to make your mark in a

new, underserved niche of photography,

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then this is the place for you.

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I'm your host, Maddie Ashong, South

Dakota brand photographer and educator.

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I'm a straight shooting

Instagram obsessed.

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Diehard Swifty who has built a multi

six figure business on the back of

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brand photography all while raising a

family, and I know you can do the same.

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Let's get ready to take it personally.

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Scarlett Solo USB: In late 2019,

I found a studio space that

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seemed like it could be perfect.

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I had to have a vision because at

the time it had a black ceiling

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and pepto bismol pink walls.

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The previous tenant had just moved out and

they were running a doll clothing store.

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So there were literal doll

body parts laying around.

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The tile was chipped and broken.

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The door handles were not in ideal

condition, there were definitely

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things about the space that were far

from perfect, but there were great big

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Western facing windows and tall ceilings.

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And I thought, okay, this could be it.

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And by February of 2020, we

were moving into the space after

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a fair amount of renovations.

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By March of 2020, we were moving and

grooving and people were starting to

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rent the space and by March 15th 2020

the world shut down and we had officially

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opened a business in a pandemic when

I was about Five months pregnant with

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our third kid so the journey to get to

white space has been filled with ups and

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downs and the fact that we are now five

years Into this space and celebrating

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one full year in our new space feels

like a pretty massive accomplishment.

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Scarlett Solo USB-1: So this episode

is celebrating five years of white

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space and one year in our new, bigger,

better building that honestly, the

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Maddie of five years ago, even the

Maddie of two years ago was literally.

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Only dreaming about like the space that

we are in today, truly only existed in

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my imagination and for as much work as

having a studio space is, which we'll

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get into in this episode every day.

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That I get to set foot in that space

and spend time there and blast Taylor

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Swift and water my plants and see my

clients and host other photographers

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every day that I get to do that.

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It truly does feel like a dream come true.

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And I know like I, that's so cheesy.

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It really is.

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And it's not been without work

and it's not been without many

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months where I'm like, we should

just sell it and cut our losses.

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That two things can be true, but

it really is a dream come true.

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So in this episode, we're going

to do a little bit of an ask me

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anything about having a studio

space as a brand photographer.

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Scarlett Solo USB-2: In the show

notes, I'm going to go ahead and

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link episode 97 of Take It Personally

because I didn't ask me anything about

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my studio in about August of 2023.

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So that episode goes more into the

initial investment that we made into

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the studio, initial changes that we

made, how we found the space, what

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expenses look like, how we make sure

we're bringing in enough revenue.

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How our member system works how long it

took to break even and make a profit.

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And some of that we're going to get

into in this episode, but a lot of

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those foundational type questions we

actually talked about in episode 97.

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So I will make sure to link

that in the show notes.

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For today.

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I took to Instagram and said.

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said, what do you want to know?

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What do you want to know about white

space specifically now that we have

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been in this bigger space for a while?

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So let's get into your questions.

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The first question is how did

you find your first studio space?

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Did you start with a realtor?

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So again, refer back to episode 97, but

yes, we did start with a realtor and I

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would recommend starting with a realtor.

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That was incredibly helpful.

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With our second space.

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I had a relationship with that realtor

and probably about a year and a half,

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maybe even two years before our four

year lease was up on the first space.

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He and I started talking about what the

second space was going to look like.

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Are we going to renew?

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Are we not?

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We knew immediately that

we weren't going to renew.

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I feel like we would have closed before

we would have renewed because we just had

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such a Gross experience with our landlord.

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They were super hands off We had a couple

of really simple issues that they never

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fixed We were promised a lot of things

when we moved in that we never got.

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I told my realtor that, and I also

around that same time took him some

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concepts from spaces that I had

found literally all over the U.

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S.

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I love the studio realm in Denver.

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I had shot there in 2023 I think and they

had this like big cool garage door that

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I was just like, Oh, that would be so

cool to have this like big garage door

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and tall ceilings and there was another

studio that had a balcony mezzanine area.

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That would be really cool.

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I wanted, oh, there was another

studio that had a kitchen set up.

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And as a brand photographer, I'm

constantly having to rent houses for

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my clients that need kitchen spaces.

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So I thought having a

kitchen would be great.

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I knew that I wanted a

bathroom attached to the space.

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I didn't really want to deal

with wood floors anymore.

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I wanted concrete floors.

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Took that to my realtor and I said,

I think that spaces like this could

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do really well in Sioux Falls.

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I think that people would respond

really well, both photographers.

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We have a lot of photographers

in our community and also people

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who want like a really cool event

space or just like a unique.

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Building to rent out for their

business, but it doesn't exist here.

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So if you can help me find something

similar to this on a budget, I'll move in.

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I have to give it to my realtor.

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He really went above and beyond

and ended up looping in a builder.

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And the two of them came to me

and the builder said, we love

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this concept, we want to build it.

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And if you will be our first renter, we'll

give you a deal and we'll let you design

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the space how you want to design it.

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At this point, I'm panicking

because that's what we do

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when good things happen to us.

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But we felt like in the

old space, we were pretty.

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Maxed out on what we could make and

with what we were making We did not

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understand how our expenses could be

higher than they already were, and we

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knew that if we moved into a bigger

space, our expenses would be higher.

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Hopefully, so would our revenue,

but you don't know that when

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you're just like putting numbers on

paper and seeing what might work.

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It's possible that we could move

and nothing would change and

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our expenses would be higher.

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So all of a sudden this started

to feel really real and I start

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trying to come up with reasons

why this isn't going to work out.

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Because this man literally just

said we will make your dream

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studio and here is the price.

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And it was a very fair price,

but it was obviously much

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higher than what I was paying.

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And so immediately I'm like I.

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Don't want to be on this

side of the building.

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I want to be on the other side.

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It was a building with six

suites that were all identical.

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I'm like, I don't want to be on this side.

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I want to be on the other side.

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He's it's fine.

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We don't care where you are.

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I said I want the southern facing wall to

have a bunch of windows and the original

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plan didn't have windows on the sidewalls.

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They only had windows On

the front and the back.

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And he was like, yep, cool.

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We'll add really big picture windows.

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How's eight feet?

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I was like, damn it.

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I said, okay.

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That kitchenette that you're

talking about, I don't want like

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a builder grade kitchenette.

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I want a really cool L shaped

kitchen that looks like a kitchen

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you could find in somebody's house.

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Yep.

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That's fine.

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No problem.

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We'll probably, we can probably work

it into what you're already paying.

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Oh my God.

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And I know that it sounds, it's,

it sounds insane to repeat it back.

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Like I really was so lucky and

the, like this guy is just,

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he's just like a good dude too.

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So I knew that this was going to

be such a better experience then.

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My previous experience and

I'm getting to build my dream

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space and I'm not building it.

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I get to just be a renter and if

there's a problem, like I make a phone

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call, but it still felt really scary.

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And so we went back and forth for a while

and Jeff was really tentative about this.

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So if you listen to the episode

97, Jeff is my husband and

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he's my business partner.

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With white space, and he definitely is

more conservative financially, just like

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in general across the board and honestly,

thank God for that because I Most of

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the time, I'm like, it's just money.

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We can make more and you can't have

two of those people in a relationship.

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Like it's not going to end well.

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So thank God for Jeff.

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And I, we were standing in our bathroom.

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he was just spiraling and I

was like, here's the deal.

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This is how we can make it work.

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We're going to get this many more renters.

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We are going to start offering

events, which is something that we

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wanted to do in the first place.

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Small events, nothing where

we have to manage it, but baby

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showers, wedding showers graduation

parties, that type of thing.

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We are going to do more marketing

than we have done in the past.

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And this is how we're going to make

this extra money every single month.

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I know that we can make it work.

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Let's do this.

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And he was like okay.

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And then part of this was also,

I was going to be increasing.

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So my Maddie Pichon photography

business pays my white space business.

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Like I pay rent to the other business.

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And that was another part of it.

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Like I'm going to increase my rent and if

I need to, I can increase it even more.

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He was like, okay, like we

have three backup plans.

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Great.

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Let's go.

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And we tentatively.

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Signed the papers and

started down this process.

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And let's see, we were able to

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And honestly, it's been

mostly a really good year.

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We knew that moving in

May, March, April, May.

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Are always our lowest revenue

months along with September.

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And that's, I think it's because people

are finally able to go back outside and

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then in September they are also able

to go outside and not be super hot.

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The leaves are turning like those

times of year can be really nice

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to shoot outside as photographers.

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We knew that moving into the space

in May was potentially going to hurt.

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So we tried to have a savings

account as best we could and

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be responsible and all that.

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And I will say that toward the end

of the summer, beginning of fall,

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we were spiraling a little bit.

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September was one of the lowest revenue

months that we had in a long time.

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And we looked at each other and

we're like, we should sell it.

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We should be done.

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Like we just moved in,

but we should be done.

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And by October we had our best month

ever, which I think in retrospect,

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if I would have sat down with my

spreadsheet, I could have probably

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predicted that's pretty typical for.

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The way that this business works,

but at the time I was, like I

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said, I was just totally spiraling.

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And so October picked up massively

continued through the end of the year.

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And now I'm recording this episode in

March and things are going really well.

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So I'm very happy about that.

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I am hopeful and excited about the

future of white space in the next,

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four years that we are in this space.

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And for what happens next, like

after those four years, I don't

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know, but we're going to make

the best of the next four years.

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Okay.

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That was a very long winded answer.

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I don't think that they're

all going to be that long.

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Next question.

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What is the most important thing to

look for when looking for a space?

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This is a great question.

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I would say it's going to be the

things that you can't change or

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would be difficult to change.

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So when I was looking for our

first space, I was looking at

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things like layout windows.

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Yeah, those were the big things.

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Layout windows, architecture.

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And I would say with building the second

space, Obviously, we were building it, so

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we got to put some of the things in place

that we needed, like adding the windows

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and that sort of thing, but it was really

the same, like those were the things that

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I was concerned about, and then the other

stuff you can figure out as you move

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in, but you want to make sure like the

layout, the architecture of the space is

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what you want and something that you can

make work and You have, if it's a natural

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light studio, you have enough windows.

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Something else that I think would be

challenging to know ahead of time,

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but if at all possible, I would look

for a place that has a good landlord.

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Having our first experience

versus this experience has been.

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night and day.

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Our landlord now is like

relatively hands off.

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We do have a property manager

who we communicate with.

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And so that's more his role

than the actual landlord.

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We actually had a very similar

situation like that in the last

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space, but it felt totally different.

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Like we were constantly getting

passed off to the next person.

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It seems like it was a role

that had high turnover.

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There was no empathy.

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They didn't know us personally.

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The very minor issues that we

had, they refused to help us out.

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Whereas in this space, like our property

manager slash landlord is so proactive.

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I literally have his personal cell

phone number and I'll call him.

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He'll call me Jeff and him communicate.

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Like it's just, it is night and day.

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So that's something that's difficult

to know ahead of time, but.

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If you can ask around and just

get the vibe, a good landlord

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makes a huge difference.

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What were my non negotiable

needs with this second space?

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We wanted it to be bigger.

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Our first space was right

around a thousand square feet.

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The actual shooting space

was probably less than that.

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And so we were looking for Probably

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space and we ended up with right

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It's split though.

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We have the majority of shooting space

on the main floor and then we have the

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mezzanine that has a little bit more

square footage, but I think it's right

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around like 2500 3000 square feet.

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So we about tripled our size.

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I wanted windows on more than just

one wall with Western facing windows.

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I really only felt comfortable

shooting in the afternoon.

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I did not like how the light

looked in the morning, but I

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would rather shoot in the morning.

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I would rather go to the studio

early and just get her done and

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then go back and edit or whatever.

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So I really wanted windows on more.

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Then one wall, I wanted a better landlord.

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We also really wanted an

external door in our old space.

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You entered through the door, like

off of the street, went down a

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hallway and then went into our room.

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We just liked the idea of

not having to deal with that.

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Just like having an external door.

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That you walk right into the space just

felt a little bit more like our business

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as opposed to like a room within a

building We wanted our own bathroom.

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We had so many stupid bathroom issues in

the old space my Most annoying story is

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when I was shooting for little sleepies,

which is if you haven't listened to

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previous episodes, they are a pajama

company that I worked for a few years.

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And so there were days that I would

have dozens of kids and parents in

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the studio and I'm shooting for little

sleepies and I've got tons of families

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in the space with their small children

who need to use the bathroom they

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came out and were like, Hey, there's

no toilet paper in the bathroom.

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Okay, great.

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So I text the property manager who

I have no idea who this person is.

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And they're like, Oh, okay.

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Like I'll let so and

so know a third person.

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So not the landlord, not the

property manager, but someone

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who's supposed to come restock

the toilet paper cleaners, maybe.

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I'm like, okay, like they

need to get here soon.

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I have a full studio all day today.

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By mid afternoon, I think it was

still not taken care of, so I

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called again and just chewed him out

because he was like I called them

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and they said they were on their way.

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And I'm like, okay, they're not

here and this is a problem that

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I am still having to deal with,

but it shouldn't be my problem and

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suddenly it's become my problem.

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So at this point, if you're telling

me that you can't have someone here

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within the next 15 minutes, I'm going

to literally run across the street to

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Hy Vee, this grocery store, and get

toilet paper myself, which feels really

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inappropriate because that's not my job.

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And he's like, you're right.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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I'll go to Hy Vee and

I'll get you toilet paper.

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Okay.

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Great.

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Just like the most.

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Irritating thing and stuff like

that happened all the time.

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So anyway, that's my long story

of why we wanted our own bathroom.

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And let me tell you, I have

yet to run out of toilet paper.

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We wanted the space to be

big enough to host events.

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Again, baby showers, wedding

showers, graduation parties.

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I love to host the ladies

in my neighborhood every

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year for a Christmas party.

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I wanted it to be big enough to do that.

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So nothing where like we would necessarily

want to have a wedding there, maybe

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like a very small wedding, but more

opportunity to be able to rent out events.

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I have a community of photographers

and studio owners that I chat with

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on a pretty regular basis, and all

of them have said events are what

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have been the game changer, That's

what really allows them to have

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consistency and keep the studio afloat.

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And I will say, at least in the last

couple of months, particularly March

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obviously we're only like right

now I'm recording it's March 21st.

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So almost through the month of

March, but this has been the

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biggest March that we have ever had.

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And I think that's.

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do heavily in part to booking

events for April and May.

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So events have been a really big

game changer for us, even already.

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And I hope that continues.

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I hope that I don't regret

that in a couple of months.

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And I'm like, Oh, events are a whole other

like headache, can of worms, whatever.

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So far they've been lovely.

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And the people who have rented

the space have been so wonderful.

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So that's been great.

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And then the last thing that I wanted or

had as a non negotiable was to have some

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sort of a lockable storage room or office.

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We were able to do a double door

lockable office, so we can move

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furniture in and out really easily, we

can lock things up, members can keep

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things at white space That is awesome.

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Love that.

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How did we furnish the space?

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So the first time I talked about

this in the previous episode,

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we had a savings account.

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We took out a line of credit.

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We made this big Ikea trip.

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This time we had quite a bit

of furniture, but I knew that

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I wanted to refresh things.

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And I also knew that we were going to

need a lot more furniture because again,

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we're tripling the space that we had.

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We actually ended up working with my

friend, Cassie, who is a designer.

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I've had her on the podcast before.

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Cassie from Made with Grace and Grit.

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She's also a photography client of mine.

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One of my favorite people in the world.

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So I worked with her to figure

out like the floor plan,

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the furniture that we need.

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That was such a game

changer to be able to see.

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The floor plan and furniture

To scale within the floor plan.

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So I knew what we needed and I will say

even doing that When we were like unboxing

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everything and getting the space ready to

go I was I panicked because i'm like this

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is not enough furniture like this space

is so huge Which is a good problem to

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have but also it looks Is it does not look

good and it all ended up coming together.

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I think one of the things that really made

the space come together was adding rugs.

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So once we added rugs and gave that like

base to the furniture, that helped a ton.

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But yeah, it's, it was a lot of space to

fill and we spent a fair amount of money.

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Furnishing it this time around.

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I can't, I would have to go

back into my budget spreadsheet

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to see what that was exactly.

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Last time we spent about a thousand

dollars furnishing the space that was

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in 2019, 2020, and this time we were

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had quite a bit of furniture already.

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Scarlett Solo USB-5: This

is Maddie from the Beyond.

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I'm editing this episode and I went back

to check my budget spreadsheets, and

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we definitely spent more like between

three and $5,000 to furnish the space.

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Plus we had a much bigger deposit

when we moved, so it was a very

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expensive couple of months.

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Actually, I, I take all of this back.

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Scarlett Solo USB-3: Next question.

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What are some of the lessons

you have learned the hard way?

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This is a good one.

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Honestly, I think that for as much good

that has come out of white space and

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getting to work with other people, other

photographers and have a space that they

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can use, like all of the good, right?

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There's also it's.

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Disheartening to see the amount

that people will try to get by with.

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There are some people who just suck.

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And I think that's true no matter your

industry, no matter where you live.

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And I also really try to have

empathy for like, you have no idea

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what people are going through.

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You have no idea how their morning

was or what they're spending.

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I don't know what my spouse said to

them today or how much drama getting

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their kids off to school was like, I

really try to have empathy for that.

404

As someone who tries really hard to

be a good person and give the benefit

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of the doubt to have to deal with

some of the stuff that we have had

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to deal with people just being like

totally unreasonable is kind of insane.

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And sometimes I want to say

what was your expectation here?

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What did you expect to happen if, when

you ruined that couch and expected me to

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not ask you to repair it or pay for it.

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Scarlett Solo USB-4: I really try

to be a reasonable person and I

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don't want to be like fining people

and sending out additional invoices

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like one, it's a pain in the ass.

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And two I just don't want

to have to deal with that.

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I don't want to be that person.

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So a lot of the time if we have

people break something and it's

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something small or it was an accident

or whatever, we're like, no problem.

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Thank you so much for letting

us know we will take care of it.

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We've had chairs break.

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We've had vases break.

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We've had picture frames break.

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Like we have had, there is a lot of

wear and tear in a photography studio.

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And so we are very reasonable when people

tell us as long as they tell us that there

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was damage to be like, cool, no problem.

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We'll replace it.

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All good.

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But when people People almost go out of

their way to ruin something or to not tell

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you about it or just leave the studio in

a huge mess or openly break the rules.

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Like when it seems like they are

genuinely trying to do harm, which

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sounds insane, like who would do that?

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Who would walk into somebody's

house and just destroy stuff?

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People do that.

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People who you think wouldn't do

that or would have more common

433

sense than to do that, they do it.

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That's been, that's just

like so disheartening.

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Cause I want to believe that most people

are good and most people mean well.

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And again, I really try to have empathy

of maybe they are just fricking going

437

through it right now, but it still sucks

to be on the receiving end of that.

438

Oftentimes, as a business

owner, you have to default to

439

the customer is always right.

440

Not always.

441

I should probably do an episode about

that because I have thoughts on that too.

442

But oftentimes, like to Make sure

that you maintain a good reputation

443

and maintain good relationships.

444

It can come at the expense of just

rolling over and being like, okay,

445

we'll eat that cost or we'll buy another

seamless role or whatever it might be.

446

And so there are times that I just

want to scream what did you expect?

447

Like you, you are screwing

us over and you don't want to

448

take responsibility for that.

449

And now we have to take

responsibility for that.

450

And that.

451

Sucks.

452

So that's like a major bummer, but I would

say that's the biggest thing like there

453

are days that it's just so disheartening

to deal with some of the stuff that

454

we deal with and I know other studio

owners feel the exact same way because

455

I've Had these conversations with them.

456

The next question is much happier What

are some of the joys and positives?

457

I would say the people that I get to

meet, like the people who are not unhinged

458

but truly like the people and

the new people that I have met,

459

the new photographers, the baby

photographers, I'm 34 now, almost 34.

460

And so when I moved to

Sioux Falls, I was like.

461

This young, new photographer.

462

I was like 21 years old

and I'm not that anymore.

463

And so much of the photography

community is really young.

464

So that's really cool.

465

Getting to meet this new

generation of business owners

466

and photographers in this area.

467

I also love getting to

help people with the space.

468

I've been.

469

Getting a little bit more involved

politically and to be able to say I

470

have a space, I have a space that we

can host this town hall at, and I have a

471

space that you can hold your meeting at.

472

That's really cool and makes me

feel happy that I'm contributing

473

something in that way.

474

So that's definitely a positive.

475

We've also done like

donations through the space.

476

People will come to us asking

for donations for like events

477

and that type of thing.

478

And quite frankly, like we just

don't have the profit margin

479

to be able to give money.

480

I do from.

481

My like Maddie pong business, but

whitespace, like we just simply don't

482

have the margin to be able to make like a

monetary donation, but we can donate time.

483

And so being able to say we'll

donate three hours that you can

484

give away on your live auction

or silent auction or something.

485

I love being able to do that.

486

Biggest tip that you wish

you would have known?

487

Gosh, I don't know.

488

Probably a couple of things.

489

While it is much better now than it

was when we first opened, it's really

490

emotionally draining to have a studio

space because it does feel so personal.

491

That's where having Jeff as a business

partner has been really helpful.

492

Although I will say there are times

that we both are like very mopey

493

and then that's not very helpful,

but usually we kind of balance each

494

other out, that has been a challenge.

495

It feels personal.

496

It feels like when stuff goes

wrong or when people are mean,

497

like it feels like an attack.

498

We try not to take it that way,

you can't help how you feel.

499

So that is something that's a challenge.

500

I say this a lot, but I wish I would

have known that it would be a second

501

job, like it is a distraction from the

parts of my business that are going

502

really well and that are more scalable

and probably deserve more time and

503

attention than I can give them because

I'm split in three directions right now.

504

I don't necessarily think that

means I wouldn't do it, but

505

we've had very real conversations

about okay when this lease is up.

506

What are we doing?

507

Are we selling the space?

508

Are we closing it?

509

What's that gonna look like?

510

And I don't know the answer to it I'm

a lot more at peace now with selling or

511

closing than I have been before and I'm

saying that from a place of like things

512

are going really well And it's still a lot

of work and I don't know if I want three

513

businesses like that doesn't seem super

sustainable and at the end of this five

514

years, I might be like, okay, we're done

515

we've done what we came here to do and

I would love to sell it like that would

516

probably be ideal, but I don't know.

517

I would have to just

figure out how that works.

518

It's something that I've talked about

with my lawyer, but not like in detail.

519

So yeah, we'll see.

520

I think that those would probably

be my biggest tips though, just that

521

it's more emotional and it's more

work than I thought it would be.

522

Which brings us to the final question.

523

Is it worth it?

524

And would you do it again?

525

This is so hard to answer.

526

Cause like I said, like it's more

work than I thought it would be.

527

It's more of a distraction

than I thought it would be.

528

It's more emotional than I thought

it would be all of those things.

529

And yet I think I'd still do it.

530

Question mark it.

531

It's really hard for me to answer that.

532

I do feel like having the space has

legitimized my business in a weird way.

533

I think because I have a physical

space, people take me a bit more

534

seriously than they did before I had

the space, which is so ironic because

535

when I look at my coaching business

versus my photography business

536

versus white space, white space makes

the least amount of money by far.

537

And that I'm not saying that to like crap

all over the studio, but like the profit

538

margins of a studio space are so slim.

539

I don't, and that's actually,

that's something that I wish I would

540

have known because I don't think

that I knew that going into it.

541

To have a studio space be a

legitimate full-time business.

542

I know that people do it.

543

I don't know how, because I don't

understand how you're making enough

544

money to pay your expenses, have a

little bit of profit, and pay yourself

545

and pay like a cleaner and internet.

546

And I don't understand.

547

Like I said, we have been really.

548

Pleased with moving into this new space

and how it's increased our revenue,

549

but like we're not taking a paycheck.

550

We don't pay ourselves from the business.

551

We have a little bit of a savings

account now, which is really nice,

552

but That's something that you

should probably have as a business.

553

So like we're not really touching that

we usually take ourselves out to a

554

really nice dinner in december talk

about business call that dinner a write

555

off and that's what we pay ourselves

from The business like that's about it.

556

So that feels a little bit vulnerable

to share, but that's the reality of it.

557

We just, we do not have

big profit margins.

558

And I wonder if I would have realized

that if I would have still done it.

559

And I don't know, again, like that's

still just so hard for me to answer.

560

Cause I also know that if I were to.

561

Take the marketing a

little bit more seriously.

562

Take the sales a little

bit more seriously.

563

Do Facebook ads, do more events

where I'm talking about white space.

564

Like it probably would look different,

but I can't do that because I

565

have other parts of my business.

566

That I'm doing that for

or spending time on.

567

So it's a complicated question

or a complicated answer, to what

568

feels like a simple question.

569

Okay.

570

That was a long episode.

571

If you have stuck with me

through all of that, good job.

572

This feels a little bit more of

like a Debbie downer of an episode

573

than the last time I didn't ask

me anything about white space.

574

And again, I love the studio space

and I've learned so much and I

575

do think in a lot of ways it's

made me a better business owner.

576

But I also want to recognize

that like it has made me a

577

more distracted business owner.

578

It has made me spread way

more thin as a business owner.

579

It's presented some of my biggest

challenges as a business owner.

580

Like all of those things are also true.

581

So I'm really excited to see.

582

What happens over the next

four years in this space.

583

And I hope that we're

just like blown away.

584

And I also think that even if we are blown

away by the next four years, it's very

585

possible that those four years will be the

last four years that we have the studio.

586

And I think that's okay too.

587

I think it's okay when something

has run its course, whether it's

588

run its course for the community

or whether it's run its course for.

589

Just like Jeff and I, and

maybe we're able to sell it.

590

Would it make me sad to close the space?

591

Yes, for sure.

592

It would be so sad, but it

would also free up so much time

593

and so much just like energy.

594

That I think I would be okay with that.

595

So it's going to be interesting to see

what happens in the next couple of years.

596

And I'm excited to see where it goes.

597

Thanks for listening to this episode.

598

I'm always happy to chat

about studio things.

599

So if you have any other questions

that you want me to cover in future

600

episodes or conversations that you want

to have, feel free to send them my way.

601

Send me an email, send me a

DM on Instagram, and I will

602

chat with you next time.

603

Thank you so much for listening

to take it personally.

604

If you haven't already, would you head

over to iTunes and leave us a review?

605

This is the best way to let other

photographers know about the show and

606

help keep us creating content you crave.

607

And if you want more tips and tools to

build your personal photography brand,

608

head over to my website, maddie pong.com.

609

Here you can access my downloadable

ultimate personal brand session shot

610

list to get your clients singing

your praises and browse my blog for

611

more trade secrets to help you hone

your craft and grow your business.

612

Love to learn while you listen.

613

Visit maddie peshan.com

614

and click on podcast for all things.

615

Take it personally.

616

From show notes to recent episodes and

incredible guest profiles, remember

617

friend, the most important part of

any brand is the people behind it.

618

Branding and business is personal,

so let's take it personally.