Why I'm no longer the cheapest - interview with Jesse from J Lawrence photography - Wedding Pros who are ready to grow

Jesse: 00:00:00

I definitely feel like I had undersold myself

Jesse: 00:00:04

throughout the business and.

Jesse: 00:00:08

Actually having gone through the journey and spoken to people, I've never known

Jesse: 00:00:12

someone who to put up their price that actually regretted it a year later.

Jesse: 00:00:17

And it didn't matter what they started with.

Jesse: 00:00:19

If they put up their price a year later, they were still getting business in.

Jesse: 00:00:22

And so I think actually people, anybody listening to this, give it

Jesse: 00:00:26

a go . If you haven't already got someone shouting at you to put your

Jesse: 00:00:30

prices up, I'm gonna start doing it.

Becca: 00:00:33

I'm Becca Pountney, wedding business, marketing,

Becca: 00:00:35

expert, speaker, and blogger.

Becca: 00:00:37

And you are listening to the wedding pros who are ready to grow podcast.

Becca: 00:00:41

I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies, and real life

Becca: 00:00:44

examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.

Becca: 00:00:48

If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion

Becca: 00:00:51

and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business, doing what you

Becca: 00:00:55

love, then you're in the right place.

Becca: 00:00:57

Let's get going with today's episode.

Becca: 00:01:00

Today, I'm chatting with one of my favorite wedding pro lounge members,

Becca: 00:01:03

Jesse from Jay Lawrence photography.

Becca: 00:01:05

I know, I know I shouldn't have favorites, but let me explain from the moment I met

Becca: 00:01:10

Jesse, I knew he would be a great member.

Becca: 00:01:12

He shows up, he gets involved and most importantly, he takes

Becca: 00:01:15

big action on what he's learning, which means he sees the results.

Becca: 00:01:18

He's a lot of fun and has a really big heart.

Becca: 00:01:20

Jesse welcome to the podcast.

Becca: 00:01:22

It's great to have you.

Becca: 00:01:23

How are you?

Jesse: 00:01:24

Yeah, I'm really good.

Jesse: 00:01:24

Thank you.

Jesse: 00:01:25

Very pleased to be

Becca: 00:01:26

here.

Becca: 00:01:27

It's great to have you, like I said, we can't tell anyone, but you are one

Becca: 00:01:30

of my favorite members, so I'm really pleased to have you here on the show.

Becca: 00:01:33

If people don't know you, can you just explain to everyone who

Becca: 00:01:36

you are and a little bit about your business and what you do.

Jesse: 00:01:39

Yeah, sure.

Jesse: 00:01:39

So I'm Jesse, J Lawrence photography.

Jesse: 00:01:41

I'm a wedding photographer and I basically specialize in working with couples who

Jesse: 00:01:47

absolutely hate having their photos taken.

Jesse: 00:01:50

And that's kind of what I've become known for in the area that I work in.

Jesse: 00:01:54

I also have been on a little crusade over the last, I say 18 months or so of

Jesse: 00:01:59

trying to make sure that both myself and I start with myself, but, but generally

Jesse: 00:02:05

speaking, trying to push with the wedding industry of being much more inclusive in

Jesse: 00:02:09

the language we use, the messaging that we use and a lot of that sort of thing.

Jesse: 00:02:13

Yeah,

Becca: 00:02:13

and it's such an important message and we'll get

Becca: 00:02:15

onto that a little bit later.

Becca: 00:02:17

So let's go right back to the beginning to start with, because I think a lot

Becca: 00:02:20

of people, when they're considering starting a business, they just don't

Becca: 00:02:23

really understand how it happens.

Becca: 00:02:25

So take me back to the moment you decided to start Jay Lawrence photography.

Becca: 00:02:30

How did it happen?

Becca: 00:02:31

Why did it happen and how did you get to where you are now?

Jesse: 00:02:33

So I think the, the starting point was basically an accident.

Jesse: 00:02:38

It's kind of a funny story.

Jesse: 00:02:40

Somebody, who was a friend of my wife at the, at the time, I didn't

Jesse: 00:02:42

really know them very well, wanted somebody to help out with a charity

Jesse: 00:02:46

event, just taking a few photos.

Jesse: 00:02:48

And I was assuming, you know, bake sale or something.

Jesse: 00:02:50

Cause I knew.

Jesse: 00:02:51

PTA stuff and that sort of thing.

Jesse: 00:02:53

And so I said, yeah, I'll do it.

Jesse: 00:02:54

I'm happy to help.

Jesse: 00:02:55

She then explained that it was at one of the big wedding venues in

Jesse: 00:03:00

the new forest where I'm based, and it was a black tie event.

Jesse: 00:03:03

They had a famous news reader coming down as the patron of the

Jesse: 00:03:06

charity red carpet, the full works.

Jesse: 00:03:09

And I was like, are you sure you want me to do it?

Jesse: 00:03:11

You might want someone else.

Jesse: 00:03:12

Cause at the time I was.

Jesse: 00:03:14

Many photographers, photographing flowers in the garden and all that sort of thing.

Jesse: 00:03:18

She said, oh no, no, that's, that's, that's fine.

Jesse: 00:03:22

You, you can do it.

Jesse: 00:03:22

You'll be fine.

Jesse: 00:03:23

So I was thinking I won't be, but ok.

Jesse: 00:03:26

So I basically had four, three or four months and literally outside of

Jesse: 00:03:31

work, all I did night and day was.

Jesse: 00:03:34

Practice practice practice.

Jesse: 00:03:36

I organized photo shoots with people.

Jesse: 00:03:39

You know, I I've got models in to do very relaxed photo shoots, but

Jesse: 00:03:43

just getting used to photographing people, and getting used to using the

Jesse: 00:03:47

camera properly in a professional way, rather than just like I say, taking

Jesse: 00:03:50

pictures of stuff in the garden.

Jesse: 00:03:52

After all of that, it went really well.

Jesse: 00:03:55

And I thought, you know what?

Jesse: 00:03:56

I've put all this time F in.

Jesse: 00:03:58

A lot of what I thought at the time was a lot of money on kit.

Jesse: 00:04:01

I realise now it was small compared to what I spend these days but, what

Jesse: 00:04:06

I thought was a lot of money and I thought, you know what, I'm gonna

Jesse: 00:04:08

make a go of this and, and, and see, see whether I can do this properly.

Jesse: 00:04:13

So I started.

Jesse: 00:04:15

You know, doing the usual things of doing a few free weddings and trying to

Jesse: 00:04:20

photograph everything and everyone, in different events and then I just basically

Jesse: 00:04:24

fell in love with wedding photography.

Becca: 00:04:27

I love that it started by accident.

Becca: 00:04:28

I mean, so many people say to me all the time, I don't really plan

Becca: 00:04:32

to start a business and I've ended up with a business at the end of it.

Becca: 00:04:34

Someone just asked me to do something.

Becca: 00:04:36

And I think that is so often how it works out.

Becca: 00:04:39

Someone asks us to do something, we enjoy it.

Becca: 00:04:41

And then we realize, oh, maybe someone will actually pay me to do this.

Becca: 00:04:45

And I assume they liked the original photos from that first event.

Becca: 00:04:48

Did they enjoy

Jesse: 00:04:48

Yeah, they loved it.

Jesse: 00:04:49

Yeah.

Jesse: 00:04:50

And actually, so one of my best friends now is a magician and.

Jesse: 00:04:56

Our initial friend we got on while we were at the event, but actually

Jesse: 00:05:00

he, straight away, he was like, I love what you did with the photos.

Jesse: 00:05:03

Like I, he struggles to get photos.

Jesse: 00:05:05

And I did that.

Jesse: 00:05:06

Did the thing that lots of photographers forget to do, I think more than

Jesse: 00:05:10

anything, which is actually send all the suppliers, photos and, and he

Jesse: 00:05:14

was like, oh, great, thanks very much.

Jesse: 00:05:15

And then we.

Jesse: 00:05:17

You know what it's like with the wedding industry, you start seeing the same

Jesse: 00:05:20

faces around and we'd seen each other a few times and became friends and yeah.

Jesse: 00:05:24

And, I built a lot of good friends and relationships out of

Jesse: 00:05:28

being in the wedding industry.

Becca: 00:05:29

Yeah, it's a fabulous industry to work in.

Becca: 00:05:31

So lots of people get to that initial stage where they get asked

Becca: 00:05:35

to do something for free, and then they realize they enjoy it.

Becca: 00:05:38

They think they're gonna start a business, but it takes some confidence

Becca: 00:05:42

to then take it to that next level.

Becca: 00:05:45

Where did you find that self-belief from to realize actually people will pay me

Becca: 00:05:49

to do this or was it a bit of a journey?

Becca: 00:05:51

It

Jesse: 00:05:51

was a real journey for me.

Jesse: 00:05:52

Like I, I think I see this a lot and now I look back, back at it.

Jesse: 00:05:57

I don't know if I took the right route with hindsight.

Jesse: 00:06:02

Essentially I was charging, you know, a couple of hundred

Jesse: 00:06:05

quid to do a, a full wedding.

Jesse: 00:06:08

There's a lot of photographers out there doing that, and, but basically, I, I was

Jesse: 00:06:13

charging something that I felt comfortable that if things went wrong, I was only

Jesse: 00:06:19

charging a couple hundred pounds, which is kind of ironic, really, because I.

Jesse: 00:06:24

now I look back at it.

Jesse: 00:06:26

If something had gone wrong, I don't think the couple would've

Jesse: 00:06:29

cared how much they paid for it.

Becca: 00:06:31

That's very true.

Jesse: 00:06:33

So look at, I, I've got, I've got married since starting, and actually you

Jesse: 00:06:38

look back at some of the, the mindset and you think actually from a customer's

Jesse: 00:06:41

perspective, a lot of those things that I, um, that I had in my mind were not really

Jesse: 00:06:48

what the customer really cares about.

Jesse: 00:06:50

That's so true.

Jesse: 00:06:51

And I think that's a really interesting thing to consider actually, because you

Jesse: 00:06:54

are right in that if someone has 200 pound budget for wedding photography,

Jesse: 00:06:57

or if they have 10,000 pound budget for wedding photography, that's their

Jesse: 00:07:01

budget that they can stretch to.

Jesse: 00:07:03

And so they really value that money.

Jesse: 00:07:04

So yeah, even if like, exactly, like you said, even if it had all

Jesse: 00:07:08

gone wrong, they wouldn't have said, well, I only paid 200 pounds.

Jesse: 00:07:12

Because for them in that moment, that probably was all they could afford.

Jesse: 00:07:15

And actually, so often our pricing and our mindset around pricing is

Jesse: 00:07:18

a confidence thing and a belief in our own worth rather than whether

Jesse: 00:07:23

or not the customer will pay it.

Jesse: 00:07:25

So do you believe now that you're charging more, what you are worth

Jesse: 00:07:28

in terms of photography, or do you think there's still room for your

Jesse: 00:07:30

confidence to grow in that area?

Jesse: 00:07:32

I think there will always be room for confidence to grow.

Jesse: 00:07:36

And it's one of the things that I've realized that, and this is kind of why I

Jesse: 00:07:40

said, I'm not sure about I made the right journey, but because I look back now and

Jesse: 00:07:46

realize that actually I'm still in five years time, I'm still gonna look back

Jesse: 00:07:52

at now and feel the same way as I do.

Jesse: 00:07:56

Now, about five years ago, I'm always gonna improve if

Jesse: 00:08:00

I'm doing the right things.

Jesse: 00:08:02

Which I think every business should be self-reflecting and improving themselves

Jesse: 00:08:07

and change the way they do things.

Jesse: 00:08:08

I think if I'm still here in five years time and thinking I'm doing things the

Jesse: 00:08:15

same way, and I'm doing exact and I've got everything perfect, then I've not done it.

Jesse: 00:08:19

Right.

Jesse: 00:08:20

Basically so, I think actually, Ignoring the, the self-belief and the

Jesse: 00:08:26

confidence, and actually just going for it a little bit more is something

Jesse: 00:08:29

that, that I think new people can do.

Jesse: 00:08:32

And I've seen a few suppliers.

Jesse: 00:08:34

Who've had the, I guess in some respect nerves to be a brand new supplier

Jesse: 00:08:40

and, but start charging sensible amount of money and, and doing.

Jesse: 00:08:44

Straight away.

Jesse: 00:08:45

And they're doing just as well as the people who start really tentatively

Jesse: 00:08:50

in fact they're doing better, because straight away they can afford to, to

Jesse: 00:08:54

upgrade all of their equipment and they can afford to get the best marketing

Jesse: 00:08:58

and the best websites and things.

Jesse: 00:09:00

And so the, the, the learning curve, is very quick.

Jesse: 00:09:06

The process is very quick to go from, start to, to where they want to be and

Jesse: 00:09:10

actually if you undersell yourself, at the beginning, it takes a lot longer.

Jesse: 00:09:15

And I know that I could have been here where I am today, three years ago, if

Jesse: 00:09:20

I'd just had the nerve to accelerate.

Becca: 00:09:24

Yeah.

Becca: 00:09:24

And there's so much in that, in that you are on your own journey and you're right.

Becca: 00:09:27

We should always be looking back and thinking, why didn't I make

Becca: 00:09:30

these changes six months ago?

Becca: 00:09:31

Why didn't I do that a year ago?

Becca: 00:09:33

And if we're not self reflecting, we're missing a trick.

Becca: 00:09:35

And I also think you're right, because so many people come into this industry

Becca: 00:09:38

and they think I've got a charge.

Becca: 00:09:41

Dirt cheap prices to get books, and that's the way I'm gonna make it.

Becca: 00:09:44

And you're right, because it becomes a self perpetuating problem because

Becca: 00:09:47

yes, they're getting some bookings, but they're the wrong kind of bookings and

Becca: 00:09:50

they're not making the money and then they don't have the money to reinvest.

Becca: 00:09:53

So I just wanna say, if that's you listening to that and you feel like

Becca: 00:09:56

that's, you stuck in this rut and thinking you're not worth charging more, or you've

Becca: 00:09:59

always gotta charge those low prices.

Becca: 00:10:01

You are on your own journey and there's absolutely no reason why

Becca: 00:10:04

you can't change that journey now.

Becca: 00:10:06

And exactly like Jesse's done.

Becca: 00:10:07

Look back on the time that you're in now and think why didn't I do that sooner?

Becca: 00:10:11

So if that is you listening right now, I encourage you reach out to

Becca: 00:10:14

Jesse, reach out to me and just say, look, I actually need help moving this

Becca: 00:10:17

forward and working out how to get the confidence to raise my prices.

Becca: 00:10:21

So, can you help me do that now?

Becca: 00:10:23

So that I'm not still in this position in a year's time now, Jesse, we've

Becca: 00:10:26

kind of touched on it a little bit, but when we first met, so when I first

Becca: 00:10:30

came across you online, I think it was fair to say you felt in a little bit

Becca: 00:10:33

of a rut with your wedding business.

Becca: 00:10:35

We were kind of in the middle of COVID so that wasn't helping things, but you'd kind

Becca: 00:10:39

of got to a position where you weren't happy with how things are going, but you

Becca: 00:10:43

didn't quite know how to move forward.

Becca: 00:10:45

Do you think that's fair?

Becca: 00:10:46

Tell me a bit about that.

Becca: 00:10:47

That that's

Jesse: 00:10:47

yeah, exactly where I was, I think.

Jesse: 00:10:51

I kind of knew that I had a few things that were important to me.

Jesse: 00:10:56

Talking about the inclusivity side of things.

Jesse: 00:10:59

I knew that was something that I wanted to push as part of my brand, but just

Jesse: 00:11:04

because it's important to me personally.

Jesse: 00:11:06

Also I think the it's the same thing again with what we've just discussed.

Jesse: 00:11:11

It's that being able to project what you want coming in from

Jesse: 00:11:17

a business point of view.

Jesse: 00:11:19

I, realise now that I was very much undercharging, which

Jesse: 00:11:23

meant that I was then getting.

Jesse: 00:11:25

Budget weddings, which meant that my pictures were of budget weddings, which

Jesse: 00:11:29

means that I was getting booked for budget weddings and it was self perpetuating.

Jesse: 00:11:34

Whilst I always, I, had this thing in my mind that I didn't really like

Jesse: 00:11:38

the idea of doing like stylized photo shoots, because I was worried about

Jesse: 00:11:44

something that looked very false.

Jesse: 00:11:46

I had this, without really even researching it.

Jesse: 00:11:49

If I'm honest, I just had this thing in my mind that, that I would do,

Jesse: 00:11:52

if I did a stylized photo shoot, it would look like a magazine shoot

Jesse: 00:11:55

that didn't look like a real wedding.

Jesse: 00:11:57

I couldn't use that in my portfolio.

Jesse: 00:11:59

It wouldn't look like something that a wedding I'd shot and basically

Jesse: 00:12:06

on the journey, working with you, looking at my branding, it was

Jesse: 00:12:09

actually, I found it very weird because I, I guess it's because.

Jesse: 00:12:14

The the, the hardest part of that, because I I've got a marketing background,

Jesse: 00:12:18

but when you're doing photography in particular, but I think this is probably

Jesse: 00:12:25

true of all the wedding industry.

Jesse: 00:12:27

You are, you are trying to get your, if you're trying to be somewhere

Jesse: 00:12:31

else rather than where you are, you know, you want that portfolio, you

Jesse: 00:12:36

want to be doing those nice weddings.

Jesse: 00:12:38

It's how to make that jump essentially.

Jesse: 00:12:42

and actually it also, I think all of us wedding suppliers are really impatient.

Jesse: 00:12:47

It's like, I want, I wanna be there now and so that making that leap to working

Jesse: 00:12:55

out how I can sort my branding out, what that means, how can I be consistent?

Jesse: 00:13:00

How can I make sure that I'm looking like that?

Jesse: 00:13:04

My, my work is good enough to be charging the price that I

Jesse: 00:13:07

really felt I should be at.

Jesse: 00:13:08

And all of those sorts of things.

Jesse: 00:13:10

That's essentially what I used.

Jesse: 00:13:12

I had your help for, and really worked on with you to, to

Jesse: 00:13:18

essentially make it happen.

Becca: 00:13:21

Yeah.

Becca: 00:13:21

And what's great about you and why introduce you in the way that I

Becca: 00:13:25

did is because you realised that you had that problem, or you were,

Becca: 00:13:29

were stuck in a rut and you knew you kind of had all the pieces.

Becca: 00:13:32

And I see this a lot.

Becca: 00:13:32

Everyone has all the pieces, but they just need that help to put them together.

Becca: 00:13:36

Because when you're in your own business, it's hard to look at it from an outside

Becca: 00:13:39

perspective and it's hard to move forward.

Becca: 00:13:43

And sometimes you just need someone to show you what that next step is.

Becca: 00:13:46

So we worked together, you went through my signature program,

Becca: 00:13:48

invisible to irresistible.

Becca: 00:13:49

You've been part of my wedding pro members' lounge.

Becca: 00:13:52

And there's certain areas that we've worked on together, which I'd love

Becca: 00:13:55

to talk a little bit more about.

Becca: 00:13:57

So the first one is your message.

Becca: 00:13:59

So.

Becca: 00:13:59

I love that when you came to me, you had a really clear message.

Becca: 00:14:02

You wanted to talk about inclusivity.

Becca: 00:14:04

You wanted to talk about diversity and you were really passionate about it.

Becca: 00:14:08

And the thing that I identified very quickly when we started working together

Becca: 00:14:12

was that there was a disconnect so that you were saying to me, one-to-one,

Becca: 00:14:17

this is what I'm passionate about.

Becca: 00:14:18

But outwardly in the marketing world, people didn't know that message and

Becca: 00:14:22

that's something you've changed.

Becca: 00:14:23

And I know that's been really successful for you.

Becca: 00:14:25

So what have you changed?

Becca: 00:14:26

What have you done differently to help that come into.

Jesse: 00:14:29

So for a start working out my branding, making sure that from

Jesse: 00:14:35

whether it's sorting out consistent coloring styles, you know, I felt it

Jesse: 00:14:41

was a little win in my book when I, I was doing something, I think it was

Jesse: 00:14:45

even possibly with you, but a couple of times now where somebody's gone,

Jesse: 00:14:48

where I've done something with someone and they've gone, oh, do you have.

Jesse: 00:14:52

Colors or fonts or brand guidelines.

Jesse: 00:14:54

And I've literally gone.

Jesse: 00:14:56

Here's a document that it's a really brief, but it is, this is what I do.

Jesse: 00:14:59

This is who I am as a business, and it makes life really easy.

Jesse: 00:15:04

Actually, once you've got that in place, it's so much quicker because you're

Jesse: 00:15:07

not redesigning everything every time.

Jesse: 00:15:10

So that was a big step because then I knew that you.

Jesse: 00:15:14

What words that I, you know, what I wanted people to get from my business

Jesse: 00:15:19

when they that three to 10 seconds that they initially see my business, I

Jesse: 00:15:24

know what I want them to get from that.

Jesse: 00:15:26

And that was really a really big part of it for me.

Jesse: 00:15:30

The second thing was getting my head over the fact.

Jesse: 00:15:35

Your, the style shoots can be what you want them to be essentially, and actually

Jesse: 00:15:41

it was interesting because talking to other people in your pro members lounge

Jesse: 00:15:45

and, and really getting that feel for people from people who are doing

Jesse: 00:15:49

styled shoots that actually, you know, You're using, you can use real couples.

Jesse: 00:15:54

And I never really even considered that.

Jesse: 00:15:56

I just assumed that we'd get some models, random models in, and they would have

Jesse: 00:15:59

to pretend, but actually it makes such a big difference getting real couples in.

Jesse: 00:16:04

So, so now my, those that styled shoot that I would do would look like a

Jesse: 00:16:09

real wedding, because they're really comfortable around each other, and

Jesse: 00:16:13

then doing the styled shoots meant I had real looking real wedding looking

Jesse: 00:16:18

images for, you know, LGBT couples, mixed race couples, those sorts of things.

Jesse: 00:16:25

So I had images to stick on the website and I could put pages together

Jesse: 00:16:29

about those things specifically.

Jesse: 00:16:32

You know, as, as a person who has a lot of L G B T friends, and as an ally,

Jesse: 00:16:38

it was important to me to make sure that I had a, a page on my website

Jesse: 00:16:42

that literally just talked about that.

Jesse: 00:16:44

And, and.

Jesse: 00:16:46

You know, a year and a half ago, I wouldn't have had any

Jesse: 00:16:48

images to put on that page.

Jesse: 00:16:50

and it's exactly what you were saying.

Jesse: 00:16:52

You know, I, would've put, had a load of, you know, straight

Jesse: 00:16:57

white couples on my website and, and that was it, which is fine.

Jesse: 00:17:00

And I still have plenty of straight white couples on there,

Jesse: 00:17:03

but the idea is inclusivity.

Jesse: 00:17:05

So I've got everything, everyone on there.

Jesse: 00:17:07

Lots of different styles of weddings, people with different

Jesse: 00:17:09

body shapes, everything on there.

Jesse: 00:17:11

It almost makes me laugh, looking back that I hadn't had that outside

Jesse: 00:17:14

view of just looking at my website and going well, you've got none of this

Becca: 00:17:17

yeah, I remember that very vividly because we did

Becca: 00:17:22

a bit of an audit didn't we?

Becca: 00:17:23

And I said, you're saying to me everywhere, you want diversity and your

Becca: 00:17:26

LGBTQ plus friendly and all these things.

Becca: 00:17:28

But when I come to your website, all I see is a.

Becca: 00:17:31

White couple, a heterosexual couple, which is what I see on every other website.

Becca: 00:17:35

And that opens up a whole other conversation because I hear

Becca: 00:17:38

people say to me all the time.

Becca: 00:17:40

Yeah.

Becca: 00:17:40

But I wanna do these weddings, but I haven't done these weddings yet.

Becca: 00:17:42

And you're right, because you have to get over that thought of,

Becca: 00:17:45

I don't wanna do a styled shoot.

Becca: 00:17:46

I don't wanna force the matter because ultimately it's marketing.

Becca: 00:17:49

And at the end of the day, people can't buy what they can't see and they

Becca: 00:17:52

can't believe what they can't see.

Becca: 00:17:54

So it's hard for them to believe.

Becca: 00:17:56

Yeah.

Becca: 00:17:56

Jesse's really inclusive.

Becca: 00:17:57

When they can't see any evidence of that.

Becca: 00:17:59

And as soon as you start showing evidence of that, and that's the

Becca: 00:18:03

same with all sorts of things, if you wanna shoot more weddings in barns,

Becca: 00:18:06

well, you gotta go out there and get more images of weddings in barns.

Becca: 00:18:08

If you wanna shoot in high end hotels in London, you need to show that you can be

Becca: 00:18:12

in those hotels even before your books.

Becca: 00:18:14

And what happens is then people see that and think, oh, they're the person

Becca: 00:18:17

to book for this kind of wedding.

Becca: 00:18:19

And then you have to get over that feeling of, I don't wanna do this, this

Becca: 00:18:24

isn't me and realize actually sometimes.

Becca: 00:18:27

Maybe we've just got to push ourselves a little bit to get those images.

Becca: 00:18:30

And I think you've done a huge, benefit to your business by pushing past that block.

Becca: 00:18:35

And that's hard to do so you should be proud of that.

Becca: 00:18:38

So you talked a little bit about your message and how important that message is.

Becca: 00:18:41

Why do you think it is so important for you to talk about people that

Becca: 00:18:45

don't like having their photo taken or to talk about the diversity thing?

Jesse: 00:18:49

I'm really glad you asked that because.

Jesse: 00:18:52

One of the big things that I think people that I've really noticed since I've

Jesse: 00:18:57

basically sorted all my branding out and everything on is that for, for couples

Jesse: 00:19:04

that have never heard of me before.

Jesse: 00:19:05

So obviously I get referrals from people, but for couples that come

Jesse: 00:19:08

to me via my brand, my marketing.

Jesse: 00:19:11

It is really common now.

Jesse: 00:19:15

Like I would say the majority of couples that come to me, they say, I

Jesse: 00:19:18

really like what you said about this.

Jesse: 00:19:20

I really like that you do this.

Jesse: 00:19:22

And so not, you know, it's not for everyone.

Jesse: 00:19:26

So like not everybody has to do the same thing as me.

Jesse: 00:19:31

But knowing who you are and knowing what you stand for and what you,

Jesse: 00:19:36

what you project and how you work with your customers and your style.

Jesse: 00:19:40

You know, there's some, I know a photographer who, who only

Jesse: 00:19:43

works with like model looking couples for one of a better word.

Jesse: 00:19:48

And they, and they have very, they have a very high end look very, very, they, they

Jesse: 00:19:56

were predominantly a model photographer doing fashion and things like that.

Jesse: 00:19:59

And so, so that was the style that they wanted to go with.

Jesse: 00:20:03

And that works for them, but they were really clear about that.

Jesse: 00:20:07

And so I think.

Jesse: 00:20:08

Couples need you get really good customers for whatever your business is.

Jesse: 00:20:13

If they know that they're the right customer for you and you know that

Jesse: 00:20:16

they're the right customer for you.

Jesse: 00:20:18

And once you start projecting what you want from them and what you have to offer

Jesse: 00:20:22

for them, they'll come, they'll come to you without really any questions.

Jesse: 00:20:32

It's not then a how do I decide

Jesse: 00:20:32

between all these people, they go, right?

Jesse: 00:20:32

I'm interested in.

Becca: 00:20:33

That's so right.

Becca: 00:20:34

And it comes from a place of authenticity as well.

Becca: 00:20:37

So you have to know who you are, what you believe in, what your values are,

Becca: 00:20:42

who you want to attract as a person.

Becca: 00:20:43

And why?

Becca: 00:20:44

Because if you try and do it from a marketing perspective and you see

Becca: 00:20:47

this, especially in the LGBTQ plus space where some people think I'm

Becca: 00:20:52

gonna jump on the bandwagon and I'm, I'm gonna promote this, but they've

Becca: 00:20:55

got no heart or value behind it, then.

Becca: 00:20:57

It stands out a mile off as a marketing ploy, but actually when

Becca: 00:21:01

it's authentically, what you're about.

Becca: 00:21:03

And I see this through you, especially with your piece on people who

Becca: 00:21:07

are uncomfortable in front of the camera, it's an authentic message.

Becca: 00:21:12

And you see that coming through in your testimonials because when

Becca: 00:21:14

people leave testimonials on your website, they say things like I was

Becca: 00:21:17

so uncomfortable in front of the.

Becca: 00:21:19

But Jessie made me feel so comfortable.

Becca: 00:21:21

So it's really important isn't it to come from that place of authenticity?

Jesse: 00:21:25

Yeah.

Jesse: 00:21:25

And like, I, it's funny, sometimes I look at the testimonials and I think

Jesse: 00:21:30

I could have written that for them.

Jesse: 00:21:31

It's so good.

Jesse: 00:21:32

But the reason is because they kind of know what to say

Jesse: 00:21:35

because they've already seen.

Jesse: 00:21:38

That kind of messaging.

Jesse: 00:21:39

So they, that's why they came to me.

Jesse: 00:21:41

And so therefore they appreciated that bit and that's then they write

Jesse: 00:21:44

a testimonial that backs it up.

Jesse: 00:21:46

But also, like you said, about jumping on the bandwagon, I think

Jesse: 00:21:50

there's, if it's important to you, you'll spend the time to research it.

Jesse: 00:21:55

Like I say, I, the L G B T Q plus side of my business was important

Jesse: 00:22:02

to me because I've got so many close friends, like really close friends to

Jesse: 00:22:05

me that are part of that community.

Jesse: 00:22:10

And once I made that decision and started projecting that my branding, it

Jesse: 00:22:16

gave me it actually, you know, I didn't assume that I knew everything about it.

Jesse: 00:22:22

It meant that I actually went and asked the questions and made sure I

Jesse: 00:22:26

got feedback from the right audience, all of these sorts of things.

Jesse: 00:22:29

You can, you can then get, become really good at these things.

Jesse: 00:22:33

It, it doesn't, you don't have to be the expert straight away.

Jesse: 00:22:36

It just needs to be really important to you and then you can work at it.

Jesse: 00:22:39

Yeah,

Becca: 00:22:39

absolutely.

Becca: 00:22:41

So you've been going for a while now, and we've talked about a few different

Becca: 00:22:46

things that have been going on for you in your business and changes you've

Becca: 00:22:49

made as you look back over the last few years, what mistakes do you think

Becca: 00:22:53

you've made that people could learn?

Jesse: 00:22:57

So I would say probably the, one of the things that I've

Jesse: 00:23:00

always struggled with is patience.

Jesse: 00:23:02

Cause I've known where I've, I've always, I wanna be there.

Jesse: 00:23:05

And actually, you know, when I did your course, I actually had a really strong

Jesse: 00:23:10

sense of frustration because then I knew what I wanted, but actually I got there.

Jesse: 00:23:15

It took a few months, which feels like forever.

Jesse: 00:23:18

And actually in the business world a few months, isn't that long, especially

Jesse: 00:23:22

if you are gonna be a business that's running for decades and prospering,

Jesse: 00:23:27

actually a few months in the scheme of things, not the end of the world.

Jesse: 00:23:30

So I had to learn patience, on that side of things, I definitely

Jesse: 00:23:35

feel like I had undersold myself throughout the business and.

Jesse: 00:23:43

Actually having gone through the journey and spoken to people, I've never known

Jesse: 00:23:46

someone who to put up their price that actually regretted it a year later.

Jesse: 00:23:52

And it didn't matter what they started with.

Jesse: 00:23:53

If they put up their price a year later, they were still getting business in.

Jesse: 00:23:56

And so I think actually people, anybody listening to this, give it a go

Jesse: 00:24:02

If you haven't already got someone shouting at you to pick your

Jesse: 00:24:05

prices up, I'm gonna start doing it, and actually I know a lot of

Jesse: 00:24:11

people it's not really about, it's about two things with the price.

Jesse: 00:24:15

It's partly, it's making sure that you show people that you

Jesse: 00:24:18

have the quality because there are couples out there including myself.

Jesse: 00:24:22

When I went to book, it was funny.

Jesse: 00:24:24

I was charging a couple hundred quid for a wedding, but when I went, went

Jesse: 00:24:26

to book a wedding photographer, I was not looking at that because.

Jesse: 00:24:31

I was, you know, I was like, I don't want somebody who's new starting out.

Jesse: 00:24:35

And I'd been doing it for several years by this point.

Jesse: 00:24:37

And I was only charging a few hundred quid and I was thinking, actually, why an earth

Jesse: 00:24:40

what am I charging a few hundred quid?

Jesse: 00:24:42

Because I know that I'm not gonna be looking at that.

Jesse: 00:24:45

I'm just not even starting at that point.

Jesse: 00:24:48

So yeah, and, but also businesses cost a lot of money.

Jesse: 00:24:54

And the more you go on, the more you realize that if you're doing

Jesse: 00:24:57

things professionally and you've got branding and you've got social

Jesse: 00:25:00

media and you've got accountants and insurance and all these things and

Jesse: 00:25:05

websites to pay for it all adds up.

Jesse: 00:25:07

And actually, if you don't put your prices up to a professional level now,

Jesse: 00:25:11

but you are trying to do everything else professionally, you're not

Jesse: 00:25:14

gonna make any money to live off.

Jesse: 00:25:16

And then you don't have the work life balance, because

Jesse: 00:25:17

you're just working really hard.

Jesse: 00:25:20

for not actually really getting any reward out of it.

Becca: 00:25:27

I think that's a really interesting insight where you talk about how, when you

Becca: 00:25:31

were planning your own wedding, you just discounted the people who were basically

Becca: 00:25:34

charging what you were charging, because you didn't think they'd be good enough.

Becca: 00:25:37

And that's a lesson for all of us, isn't it?

Becca: 00:25:39

Because so often we have this mindset, especially when we come into the industry.

Becca: 00:25:44

If I'm the cheapest, everyone will book me.

Becca: 00:25:45

If I'm the bottom of the rung on the ladder, everyone will book me and yet.

Becca: 00:25:50

So often not true because there's lots of people out there that only

Becca: 00:25:53

book the most expensive thing, because they wanna prove that they've

Becca: 00:25:56

got more men than everyone else.

Becca: 00:25:57

And there's other people exactly.

Becca: 00:25:59

Like you were saying, I don't wanna book the cheapest because I think if

Becca: 00:26:03

they're charging more, it shows that they know what they're doing now.

Becca: 00:26:06

We all know that's not necessarily true, but there's definitely

Becca: 00:26:09

that perception out there.

Becca: 00:26:11

So you've gotta have the confidence to charge what you're worth.

Becca: 00:26:14

And that's why it's so important to talk about the numbers.

Becca: 00:26:17

Now, another thing I know we've worked on together as part of the course and in

Becca: 00:26:20

the membership, I talk about it all the time is actually knowing your numbers

Becca: 00:26:24

and planning ahead and thinking about how much this business has cost you.

Becca: 00:26:28

What impacts that has on you?

Jesse: 00:26:29

It's' really good for as a driving force, to know where you are

Jesse: 00:26:32

focusing on, for a starting point..

Jesse: 00:26:35

So, if you are, if you don't know how healthy your business is and what bits

Jesse: 00:26:40

are weak, at what point, then you are just, you'll, you'll just end up doing

Jesse: 00:26:45

the things that you're comfortable with.

Jesse: 00:26:47

And, and that doesn't necessarily mean that's the best thing for your business.

Jesse: 00:26:51

It actually, I found it really helpful because there might be something that

Jesse: 00:26:55

I wouldn't necessarily go to as my, you know, to spend my time on go and

Jesse: 00:26:59

do the X, Y or Z, but actually as part of my business it was really important.

Jesse: 00:27:04

And if, you know, if you've got a good understanding of how your

Jesse: 00:27:07

business is operating and doing like the numbers with you has been really

Jesse: 00:27:11

helpful from that point of view, it means that I could know, oh, okay.

Jesse: 00:27:14

I need to go and do.

Jesse: 00:27:17

I need to go and do this this week.

Jesse: 00:27:18

I need to make sure that I spend some time on this, but I think

Jesse: 00:27:21

there's a more profound effect on.

Jesse: 00:27:25

You as a business owner of knowing your numbers as being, making sure

Jesse: 00:27:29

you've got records of where you are at, because we all see our businesses

Jesse: 00:27:33

on an hour by hour, day by day basis.

Jesse: 00:27:36

We do not see the changes as clearly as, other people and even.

Jesse: 00:27:41

In the last six months of looking at my social media, I've realized that

Jesse: 00:27:46

while I don't think I've grown things.

Jesse: 00:27:47

And even when I have a quiet month, like in last month, I was absolutely manic

Jesse: 00:27:51

and I didn't do very much social media.

Jesse: 00:27:53

It still grew, and I didn't realize that it was growing and how much it's grown

Jesse: 00:27:58

in the last six months has been huge.

Jesse: 00:28:00

And actually you look back at that and from a positive point of view.

Jesse: 00:28:04

Believing in yourself and all of these things is really important.

Becca: 00:28:06

That's so important to track what you're doing.

Becca: 00:28:07

So you can look back and congratulate yourself really, because like you

Becca: 00:28:10

said, we live it day by day and we're always looking forward as business.

Becca: 00:28:14

What we gonna do next?

Becca: 00:28:15

What are we going to do next?

Becca: 00:28:16

And sometimes we forget to look back now that brings me on to my next question,

Becca: 00:28:19

actually, because we talked about business being a journey, and we've talked a

Becca: 00:28:22

lot about how you've got to this point.

Becca: 00:28:24

I'd love to know where you're looking to get to next, what's your next plan, what

Becca: 00:28:27

do you want to see over the next year?.

Jesse: 00:28:27

I still work full time at the moment and I do a lot of different things.

Jesse: 00:28:33

One of the things that I've really wanted to do is focus much

Jesse: 00:28:36

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