Paige’s Entrepreneur Q&A

Let’s get down to business

I don’t got no time to play around what is this?

Eminem, you always say it best. Being a business woman hustler is one of my favorite and least favorite things about myself. I mean, it rocks to run $h#t, but it also takes a toll. I make no apologies though, take my sometimes intimidating, masculine energy (I’m working on it!!), handle stuff or die trying, go getter, positive, unapologetically authentic self or leave it. I bet you’ll take it. 😉 Entrepreneurship is my passion, helping other entrepreneurs, also my passion.

So, skip to ya Lou, while I do what I do best

You ain’t even impressed no more, you used to it

Let’s A these Qs shall we?

Q: No stress is key. How do you make sure you keep enjoying?

A: I can’t say that I stay in no stress zone. Different seasons are heavier for the photography industry as well as the blogging/influencer stuff. What kind of stinks is that they tend to both be over the top busy at the same time. The longer I am in business, the more things seem to run themselves. I. Put. In. The. Work. WHOA, those first few years I was the mayor of Grindtown. Now, at almost 10 years in the photo business, we have such a flow and routine and the clients are so amazing, things have snowballed into what it is today. I delegate every possible thing to keep enjoying the artistry of portraiture. I shoot, I edit, I create. That’s it. Lauren, my manager, has been with me for 7 years and she does every other thing. At first, I felt like I could barely trust her with placing a photo lab order. I just gave her one task at a time, starting with the most minor and now she runs most of it. With the blog, we went into it to have fun and make money. The minute it stops being fun, enjoyable and somewhat profitable, we will bow out.

Q: I have a little whimsical chocolate bark side hustle, but I’m sure I could market it better.

A: Word of mouth is everything for Paige Walker Photography. A close second is social media, specifically instagram. We also get a lot of inquiries and bookings from search engines. I hired a guy to do my SEO, again, delegate anything you can! If you keep clients happy and deliver on time and do a great job, there will be no reason that you won’t be referred again and again. And post the heck out of your stuff on instagram and facebook. It can start to seem repetitive or too much, but it’s not. People love consistency and seeing that you put out a consistent result is money.

Q: How do you communicate your value to potential clients?

A: This is a tough one. When I started out, I knew I was shooting for the upscale crowd. Keyword here though, is starting out. There is only so much you can charge as a rookie. However, your time is worth something and no one should be working for free. I priced myself just high enough that I was uncomfortable with it, but low enough to be consistently booking clients. As I got more and more swamped and my skills improved, I would raise prices. Simple supply and demand. I made sure that the branding was seamless, from the logo, to the website, to marketing materials, to social, to the way I dress, act and communicate with clients at the sessions. There are studies that show 2 identical products, one with janky branding and one with killer branding. Guess which one people pay way more for? Making sure clients have an unparalleled experience with you, whether it’s a service or a product, is so important. It’s all about being a boutique brand, knowing and finding your niche and stay there. I loved the book, Worth Every Penny: How to Charge What You’re Worth When Everyone Else is Discounting. And on that note, Louis Vuitton doesn’t go on sale, it’s high end, it’s heirloom quality and people pay accordingly. Be confident in your product, service and prices, don’t apologize, by all means do not let people wheel and deal with you. This isn’t the streets of Bangkok, show some respect and pay me what I’m worth. As for now, I let my work and word of mouth do the talking.

Q: I want to find a mastermind group. Are you in one? How do you find people who are a good fit?

A: The only groups I really got much out of were my newborn posing groups early on in my career. Lauren and I joined an in person sales mastermind group on facebook and mostly got great joke material from it. I’ve never found a great fit, I do love workshops and really specific courses.

Q: What are the summed up steps of starting?

A: See my nifty little six steps of fun below.

1. make sure your product or skill is ready for public consumption. I’ve seen photographer after photographer go down for not being prepared with both their business plan and their skill set. It’s ruthless out there. Only the best make it long term.

2. Ok so you want to start a biz? Think of a great name and have a graphic designer start working on your branding stuff. I like a simple name over too cutesy. Paige Walker Photography stands the test of time, Kisses, Cuddles and Lovebugs Photography, for example, doesn’t have that same solid feel. I did logo/website/materials all at the same time in a big expensive package deal. Totally worth it. But don’t settle on a business name until you have made sure the domain is available. I use godaddy.com for my websites and email addresses. To me, it looks terribly unprofessional to be tinascakesandmore@yahoo.com, you really need to have tina@tinascakesandmore.com to look more legit. Small change, big impact.

3. Decide on a business structure and register your business with the state. I went to the courthouse in Fort Worth and got my PWP DBA, but when Jeni and I started our business, my accountant just did it. I’m fancy like that now. Have your people call my people, ok? My photography business and Style Duplicated are both LLCs. You also need to get your employer ID number (EIN). After you are all registered, give yourself a fist bump, a dream has been set in motion. Oh also, brace yourself for a crap ton of spammy calls about buying credit card reading machines.

4. Open a bank account and get a business credit card. It gets too messy trying to run any kind of accounting through a personal account, even at the beginning.

5. Make sure you have a business plan. Mine was very basic and to the point and it worked fine. Include what you will be providing, what problem your business will solve for customers, what products or services you are offering and why they will be better and why customers should choose you, check out your competition, how can you be better? What is your target market? Who is your absolute ideal customer? How will you reach them? What is your marketing strategy? It can be as simple as posting regularly to social channels to keep your business in front of people. Budget and sales. This was huge for me, I didn’t want to work for $2 an hour. I wanted to create a lasting career and not just make decent money, I wanted to slay the competition and be the best of the best. I had a salary in mind, then worked backward to see how many sessions I would need to book per week and what sales I would need to make to get to that point. Easy stuff, but it’s good to work through all of this and have a roadmap before you just start walking around in this unknown territory.

6. Work hard, work smart, make a name for yourself, make bank and shake the haters off. Got it? Great!

Q: Is the 200mm f2 worth the cost?

A: All day every day.

Q: I’ve hit the wall on trying to grow my cake business! Help!

A: I need more info! But first, are you posting on social media frequently? Are you easy to find on search engines? Have you done any giveaways or cross promoting with other small businesses in the party/event industry? Do you have a referral program? Do you have professional looking images on your website and social? Have you tried doing instagram stories of the baking/decorating process, real life behind the scenes stuff to give a face and personality to the business? Holler at me if you need to! I’m a never ending fountain of ideas.

Q: How did you get your blog off the ground and gain readers?

A: Jeni and I had a great starting point in that we know a lot of people, have burned minimal bridges, have always been friendly and social, so the buzz started with our innermost circle. We pushed the mess out of it on social media, and blog very regularly. I came out of the gate writing about my boob job and tummy tuck so that got people interested. The main advice I can give is to not try and be just another blogger, what can you do that will give people that personal connection with you? Goodness gracious, you don’t have to be as open as I am, but letting people in on your life in an honest and relatable way helped us to get going super fast. Plus, it’s always been how I connect, make friends and separate my people from not my people. Be how you are in real life, don’t worry about an online persona. Be funny and light hearted, it’s not that serious, I just type how I would talk or how I think. Ask your followers what they want you to blog about, then blog about that. We get asked for personal stuff constantly, so we try to deliver. You got this, girl!

Q: What is the typical % you get for affiliate links on your instagram?

A: We do 99% of our linking through RewardStyle, which is the industry leader in retailer and influencer partnerships to monetize content. You have to apply and be accepted to get in. Then once you are in, you have to reach a certain level to get your own account manager. You have to make it to an even more exclusive percentage of influencers to be invited to the RewardStyle conference. So when you see a swipe up link, it will take you to a product we linked through our RewardStyle network. Most of the the time for instagram, we link to our Liketoknow.it app, but our blog links are straight to the product linked through Rstyle. A great commission would be 10%, sometimes a little more, but usually quite a bit less. It all depends on the retailer, but we are more focused on getting the best prices to y’all even if it means we get a .30 commission vs a $5 one. Make sense? It’s a fascinating industry and I have loved getting to know the ins and outs. Another way we make money is through partnerships. We have a manager now that helps us price ourselves and reaches out to brands that we would love to represent on our behalf. In these partnerships there is usually an agreed upon amount paid instead of a commission. Jeni and I seriously can’t thank you enough for purchasing the things we have found through our links, every penny adds up and it helps us to be able to continue to put in the time to grow this blog and community! Big squeezy hugs!

Q: Best tips to get accepted to LTK?

Click here to see what LTK is if you are unsure.

The picture below is a screenshot of the ltk app. You follow us, you see what you like, all the details are available when you click each picture. It’s pretty genius, I love to use it to shop for myself and to show what we are wearing.

A: LTK is part of the RewardStyle company, in case anyone doesn’t know. Probably barely anyone knows this. ha. I don’t even know what’s common knowledge anymore now that I’m so far into this world. It’s not nearly as exclusive to get in as it used to be. Once you have a decent social media following, a blog that is up and running and looks like it would be a good fit for RStyle, I would apply. If you get denied, who cares? Blog for another month or two and try again. Before we got accepted in, I signed us up for every single affiliate company I could find. It took us forever to link everything through all the different companies, but we still made money quick. RStyle just helps make it so much easier and they have all those lovely widgets that we couldn’t live without now. We got denied when we applied to Shop Style and they said they would reach out again when we were ready. Um hello, we are more than ready and we haven’t heard jack, so buh bye.

Q: Do you make good money blogging?

A: Kind of. I’m not quitting my photography business or anything, but in comparison to other bloggers on our level that we have talked to, we are doing phenomenal. It’s just like any business, slow to start, but when you start to understand the mechanics of it better and what your readers want, the money follows. I have no plans on slowing down and the earnings are continually rising. I would guess that in a few more years, on this same trajectory we will basically be Oprah. We do aaaaight, but it is loads more work than we originally anticipated. Isn’t everything?

Q: How did you know blogging was worth investing in? How do you make time for it all?

A: The good thing with blogging is that you really only have to invest your time at first. You can do try ons in dressing rooms and awkwardly not buy anything in the walk of shame past the dressing room attendant. You can blog about your life, your kids, trips you have taken, your house, anything! If no one cared or read or engaged with us, we would know we weren’t cut out for this. But they did, and we thank them. Making time for it all. Psssshhhhh. I’m the worst. I fit it in when I can, but PWP comes first in my work world. When my kids are home, they obviously take first place. It’s just a constant internal battle and struggle to be juggling 13 balls at once and not do a shitty job with some of it. Sue me. I’m trying. I’m human. I suck at a ton of stuff. Don’t beat yourself up if you struggle with this too, we all do. And don’t get me started on how men don’t really have to deal with the stupid work/life/dad balance debate all the time. They go to work, they come home when they are done, they do what they can and no one is shocked that they can be a dad AND work. But women, we hold the world together, I love us.

Q: What is the best website to use when creating a blog?

A: All I have ever used is wordpress. I heard its best for SEO, it’s not the easiest thing to get in and mess with the design though. Learning curve is an understatement. I’m not sure if I would rather have a stomach bug or go in and mess with my wordpress sites. I’ll go ahead and yack. Don’t call me for your IT blog problems. You will think I’m an idiot.

Q: What kinds of things are you outsourcing? Do you have a CPA, lawyer, marketing person etc?

A: Outsourcing literally gives me life. Or at least life back. I have a CPA that does all my bookkeeping. You are nuts if you think I’m going to mess with quick books or whatever. I will simply pay my invoice and thank him for his service. I have a lawyer, but only have had to use him for lease agreements on my studios. Lauren, my studio manager, is my ace. She does every possible thing I don’t want to do. With a smile on her face, I might add. Just kidding, she doesn’t have a smile on her face until I make inappropriate jokes or force her to have fun with me. I’m the annoying bubbly one, she is a focused work horse. Together we are work wife goals and will not be dominated or told we are anything other than the best two damn business running chicks there every was. We both are overdosed on confidence and I’m here for it. For the blog, Jeni and I split up as much as we can and sometimes we have my assistant Emily work on posts, link things we have tried on and do some dirty time consuming work for us. I like to stick to what I love, planning shoots, shooting shoots, editing photos and creating gorgeous imagery. Otherwise I would burn out and deuces would be chunked.

Q: I literally can’t quit my day job because I can’t afford private insurance.

A: Ew. Been there. There was a time that Zach and I were both self employed and had the crappiest catastrophe type insurance. Everything was so expensive. How did we survive? I have some friends that have done that Christian Ministries insurance pool thing. Worth a look. I feel your very expensive pain.

Q: Recommendations on best newsletter source to create and email blast to clients?

A: I use mail chimp. If you use mail chimp too, then you know the fear and moment of questioning everything when you have to hit that big red button. Anxiety.

Q: How far out to you plan holiday photo session or blog posts?

A: My holiday photo sessions have to be thought about obnoxiously early. Like we hire Santa in June and people start asking about bluebonnets in November. Otherwise my weekends get booked up and I have no room left. Blog posts, this year we weren’t that great about giving ourselves a ton of time because my life caught on fire. Or something like that.

Q: How did you determine pricing?

A: I knew the general pricing in the market I was shooting for so that was semi helpful. I did a formula of cost of goods times a number that I can’t remember, factored in taxes, built all of my collections based on my digital file and gift print price and then kind of trial and error. Now we have it down to a science and Lauren is such a numbers girl so 598765454687 good for her, and good for me! For the influencer biz, we are still learning, which is precisely why we hired a management team. Apparently we were selling ourselves short when we were delivering really great returns. It’s such a weird industry and you can’t just look on people’s websites to see what their rates are for comparison so its like ummmmmmmmmmmmm Idunnnnknow?

Q: How do you manage your follow up system?

A: I told Lauren what exactly I wanted done and she did it. ha! We don’t use a program for that. It’s an actual human following up. And y’all, there is SO MUCH POWER in quick responses and the art of the follow up. We get so much business where other photogs let it slip between the cracks. People love how quick we are at responding and it takes like two minutes or less. If they seem interested but go silent, she follows up in a week and tons of the time they book. So to your answer your question, I manage followupsystemlauren with grace, wisdom from my old age, love and a running to do list.

I wasn’t going to answer all of the questions tonight, but look at me smashing my own goals. If you are a woman in business, you freaking rock. Go you for taking that leap and making it happen. If you are a business running mama, you inspire me! Your kids are seeing you blaze trails and squash societal expectations (don’t get me started on that topic either). They see the hard work you put in, they see how great of a mom you are, they see you can do both. Sure, there are sacrifices, but