Rose: [00:01] This is Rose Coleman and you’re listening from nothing to profit.

Speaker 2: [00:03] Welcome to from nothing to profit, a photographer’s podcast with Matt and Kia where 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. Today

Kia: [00:20] we are going to be interviewing Rose Coleman and rose has been part of the photography industry for over 18 years. I’m going to say more than that because she’s actually grown up in the industry and I’ve known her for forever it seems like, and I’m so excited to have her on here. She’s a as, as I said, she’s grown up in the industry and been a part of it, but what she’s done as a business owner, after her second child was born, she left behind the boutique studio business model and created a fast paced sports photos, photography company with her husband in 2015. She is known for her clean, beautiful work with dancers, gymnastics and athletes. And if you follow her on Instagram, you’ll see some of that amazing work. And just recently she and her husband purchased a five acre homestead that they are going to live on with their three darling children and they plan to create their dream studio there. So I’m assuming it’s going to go back somewhat to the boutique business model but still incorporate her love of sports photography. Is that true rose?

Rose: [01:31] Yes. We have been looking for a piece of commercial property and rent is very expensive and so kind of our business model has a lot to do with just our financials, like kind of more more of our decisions as we’ve kind of grown and evolved has been majority focused on like is this profitable enough? Like when we were in the large studios space, um, a lot of it went to general expenses and employees and overhead and upkeep of things. And as we continue to kind of move forward and we kind of gotten to a spot where it’s like we’re going to have in two years we’re going to have to have something and we rent only like two months out of the year when we need to have something. So we’ve always kind of known if we can get our hands in something local that has a home property, but also has a place for an exterior building, a metal building barns, something of that sorts with some land that was my ultimate dream and I’m kind of where we’re at those very expensive.

Rose: [02:32] So it’s like either commercial property or just can we evolve that into having it in a space or home. So, you know, most of our expenses would be, you know, linked into together and just be more efficient, be more profitable. So yes, we close actually next week on Friday and move into that building. It has five acres. I’m an older home that we’re going to fix up, but it has um, five acres and it has a barn because it was actually a ranch, like a horse ranch. And so there’s a 40 by 60 large barn, um, that they had stalls in and we’re going to convert that all into a studio space that we can shoot out of, you know, so we don’t have to use rent, we don’t have to continue to look for commercial property. Where are you guys located at? We are on the southwest side of Oklahoma City. Cool. Cool. Yes. This is so exciting.

Matt: [03:23] So one of the things that you mentioned in your bio that we didn’t mention roses, something about, um, kind of, you mentioned something about being debt free type of thing is so, and you were talking about finances when you just talked a second ago. So is, is that something you guys kind of focus on is definitely staying out of debt and does that kind of your thing?

Rose: [03:40] Absolutely, absolutely. We have not. I mean my husband will laugh and tell you that he married me. One of the main reasons is because I was debt free and everyone else has thousands and thousands of college dollar debt, a crew to them. But yeah, debt free is a big thing. Like we bought this and we’ve even talked about the piece of property, you know, it’s actually a 12 acre lot of land and work on a parcel off seven of it and sell it, you know, to cut down our expenses on that and then how we can get it actually paid off in five years. Like is that a doable thing? You know? So yes, debt free is huge to us it is all about the money you get to keep. I feel like when you work, especially when you work for yourself. And so that’s been a huge, huge focus on vest. So I mean we don’t have card debt. I mean we just, we just have our house debt now that we know it’s going to be larger, but we’re like very, very. It’s very, very important to us to have a debt free lifestyle and figuring out how to get those things paid off.

Matt: [04:35] Absolutely. Kind of makes fun of me all the time because when I married my wife Allison, I brought lots of debt to the Chi of, refers to me as the ultimate catch because definitely married up and not only looks but also obviously in the financial world as well. So.

Rose: [04:56] Okay.

Matt: [04:56] So real quick, kind of tell us what your expertise is or what you’re known for. Kind of talked about it a little bit and I’ve been on your website and seen some of your dancing pictures and stuff like that, but tell me a little bit about what you’re known for.

Rose: [05:08] So, um, I would say that I’ve known for shooting athletes and shooting sports. I come from a big portrait background in I love, I absolutely love and adore, but in the last few years it’s all been athletes. So we do a majority of dancers, gymnastics, volleyball players, anything that’s a club level sport, which in my world there’s either little leagues which are just the masses, you know, of like tee ball players. Then there’s club which is, um, a higher level like a parent is going to spend more money to put your kid in a club sport and um, we focus on that and then you have high school, junior high levels of the same kind of things. You could be a baseball or at high school you could be a baseball or in a club or you could be a baseball or in a little league, but we focus on club because there’s generally about, you know, at least 150 to 350 most often in a club sport.

Rose: [06:04] And those are people that have already, their parents are already paying a higher dollar to have their kid be in there. So, I mean, they’re already invested, you know, you’re going to get a sale from that and they all want photos because they’re invested in this. It’s just kind of the, the nugget we go for. So we shoot a lot of those. I do a lot of dance work. Um, my parents have a dance photography business. I still help them quite a bit with that. And um, a lot of gymnastics, a lot of volleyball, but club is really what we, what we’re known for and going for.

Matt: [06:32] And so you don’t photograph like high school sports or little league, you kind of avoid that and you’re just focusing more on the club?

Rose: [06:41] Yes. Um, we do. We don’t do any little leagues. We have done one or two in the past and I’ve regretted it every time we are not set up because because it’s really important to us to operate as efficient as possible. Between Tim and I, we have a few people that will work contract for us to make an event happen. But most shoots, I mean most shoots I can roll out with myself, my husband and one other girl. So it’s like we shoot, he sells in one girl shows. So we tried to target, you know, athletes and clubs that we can fit that and run as efficiently as possible within our business. And that is keeping it as minimal as staff as we possibly can.

Matt: [07:21] So when you go into a club, how many people are you photographing? Sorry, I’m just super interested in this business model.

Rose: [07:26] Yeah. Um, it is really unique because there’s not a lot of people that I, I guess educate on club photography. So it’s, it’s been a big eye opener for me. Um, so when we roll out to a club, like for instance, I can do a, like a good size volleyball, I can shoot about 11 teams and an evening from about four to [7:30] and what each team of those is going to have 10 people on that. Samir, anywhere roughly about 120 to 150 kids depend on how many we squished in there and I can do that in a night and we shoot and show and sell that same night. Boom, boom, boom. Right together.

Matt: [08:08] That’s so interesting to me because I’ve been looking at doing some more volume stuff and figuring out what that looks like and I think it’s so interesting that you’ve like niche to out and just say, Hey, we do clubs because you’re right, you can do, you can do little leagues, you could do all the high school sports and everywhere in between. You’ve kind of found like, okay, clubs is where it’s at because the parents are invested and they’ve paid extra for the kids to be in there. They probably have a couple uniforms and stuff like that, so there’s already this culture that the money is flowing when you’re in club and I think that’s just super, super smart.

Rose: [08:38] Yeah, absolutely. A couple uniforms. It’s definitely true. My son has three different uniforms and he’s forgets them and then we’d get in trouble and all kinds of things. So expensive. I mean. Oh yes. They’re very. And so having them is not something that’s valuable for sure. Absolutely. So Rose Good. Just going back to that, are you the main shooter then for the club events? Yes. I shoot everything. So your husband is just like the male model at the shoe. I mean he has. He has the same job I have where you showed up. It looks good, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. He knows the questions. He is the Schmoozer. He is. It definitely fits into his strengths. He loves connecting with people. He could like make a friend with a wall very easily. He just like, I mean he, he is that person. They asked me about an order or paying a certain price and I’m like, go to Tim. He can, he’ll handle it for you. I don’t want to handle that. I don’t want to hear your story of why you don’t want to order tonight. No, go, go to someone else.

Rose: [09:47] You’re such a bleeding heart rose. It just makes me nervous. I’m like, I feel your story and yeah, I want to make do. And he’s just like, no. Yeah, you’re going to order to. You’re going to see him. You’re going to order him tonight. Right now. Duh, Duh, Duh. Like he, he handles that very well. So yes, I do all the photography. That’s awesome. That’s great. So, so rose been in the business for as long as you have and seeing that from, you know, from your mom being a photographer to being in a family business, to now running your own portrait business. Tell us the story of what is working now for you or share one of your greatest ideas that you’ve had today and how you’ve turned that into a success. Either way, I probably can meld the two together, so when we decided after I had my second child, I took a year off and I did a handful of sessions, but I really did not end up thinking I was going to get back into photography.

Rose: [10:39] I was just like, what’s working? Really? Yeah. I did not think I was. I got. I did not know that part time job at our church and ministry and very part time and when we had my daughter I was working all the time, obviously working with informed my parents and I was kind of working all day, going home at night, eating, schmoozing, talking, put your kids to bed and I would go right back to work because I lived right behind our commercial. I bought a house right behind our commercial space so I would go back there and I was working till midnight and it was a good year and I mean right before I had her that I was just like, this is like I’m working to death. I’m working all the time and if I was making tons of money then I could kind of justify that like okay, do it for a season, rocket hard, do it hard.

Rose: [11:25] But I wasn’t because obviously I was working with my family and we had like four or five employees at that time and I was just like, I’m just, I’m the person that has to say...