EP 33: Adapting To New Markets

00:00:59 [Alison]
I would say I was in Virginia Beach for about a year before I realized there was that same destination family.
00:01:05 [Alison]
You know, that whole Sandbridge area of rental homes where there’s these giant houses, tons of people were coming in.
00:01:11 [Alison]
I was like, hey.
00:01:12 [Alison]
I know there’s people coming here.
00:01:13 [Alison]
Like, they’re coming here on vacation.

00:01:16 [Alison]
Hey.
00:01:16 [Alison]
I’m Allison, military spouse and family photographer.

00:01:19 [Melissa]
Hey.
00:01:19 [Melissa]
I’m Melissa, also a military spouse, lifestyle newborn photographer, and SEO expert course.
00:01:24 [Melissa]
Between the two of us, we have a combined twenty seven years in photography and have lived through nine business relocations.

00:01:29 [Alison]
We’ve coached each other through all these challenges, and now we want to share our experience with you.
00:01:33 [Alison]
On this podcast, we’ll give you actionable steps to help you keep it moving.

00:01:38 [Melissa]
Alright.
00:01:38 [Melissa]
Welcome back, you guys.
00:01:39 [Melissa]
Today, we are chatting all about adapting to a new market.
00:01:43 [Melissa]
So this could be a new location or even pivoting in your current market.
00:01:46 [Melissa]
Allison and I are gonna talk about some of the ways we’ve adapted our businesses for our various moves.

00:01:50 [Melissa]
But before we dive in, we wanted to add a quick segment highlighting some of our favorite tools.
00:01:56 [Melissa]
This isn’t gonna be like an every week thing, but we’re gonna try and do this just because there’s so many that we love and we wanna share with you guys.
00:02:02 [Melissa]
And this week, we’re talking about our favorite email newsletter platform, Flodesk.
00:02:06 [Melissa]
Flodesk.
00:02:07 [Melissa]
Okay.

00:02:07 [Melissa]
Email is not dead.
00:02:09 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:02:09 [Alison]
It’s very important.
00:02:10 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:02:10 [Alison]
Okay.
00:02:11 [Alison]
So it’s not dead.
00:02:12 [Alison]
Email is super important.

00:02:13 [Alison]
I actually just heard a bunch of stats on one of Donald Miller’s other podcasts about how effective and cost effective it is.
00:02:20 [Alison]
Right?
00:02:21 [Alison]
But Flodesk, what my favorite thing about it is that it’s easy and pretty.
00:02:25 [Alison]
The drag and drop, it makes as easy.
00:02:26 [Alison]
All these are basically, like, templates, like, what do they call them?

00:02:29 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:02:30 [Melissa]
They’re templates.
00:02:30 [Melissa]
WordPress.
00:02:31 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:02:31 [Melissa]
But, no, I think they’re they’re template block.

00:02:33 [Melissa]
They’re well, they’re templates because yeah.
00:02:35 [Melissa]
And they’ve got blocks that you can add in so you can create, like, longer stuff and everything.

00:02:39 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:02:40 [Alison]
And if you’ve ever worked with any other email platform campaign provider, they’re almost so powerful.
00:02:47 [Alison]
They’re ugly.
00:02:49 [Alison]
They do themselves a disservice.
00:02:50 [Alison]
They’re ugly.

00:02:50 [Alison]
They’re cumbersome.
00:02:51 [Alison]
They’re not intuitive at all.
00:02:53 [Alison]
I’ve used both Mailchimp and MailerLite, and I’m pretty savvy.
00:02:57 [Alison]
I am pretty savvy.
00:02:57 [Alison]
Okay?

00:02:58 [Alison]
I’m not a genius, but I am not basic about it.
00:03:01 [Alison]
And I just could not wrap my head around it.
00:03:03 [Alison]
And I I’ve tried both of them, and I’ve come back to Flodesk both times.

00:03:06 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:03:07 [Melissa]
I love it with the designs and stuff like you were saying.
00:03:09 [Melissa]
Just having something that’s predesigned that makes it easy.
00:03:12 [Melissa]
And now they’ve got the ability where if you I am not a designer.
00:03:16 [Melissa]
Amen.

00:03:16 [Melissa]
And I know that.
00:03:17 [Melissa]
So I will go look for things other people have designed that they are selling, AKA a template type thing.
00:03:23 [Melissa]
And they now have it where and this is recent, where people can create templates and sell them.
00:03:27 [Melissa]
So you can go out to Etsy, and you can search for templates to just load into your Flodesk, and it’s awesome.
00:03:32 [Melissa]
And then you can customize it for that.

00:03:34 [Melissa]
You know, also, I’ll go in and I have templates that are set up, and then I have, like, emails that are favorited that I’ve got, like, a certain thing and I’ll so that the next time I go to create an email, like, the bones are already in it, you know?
00:03:45 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:03:45 [Melissa]
That’s super sections.

00:03:47 [Alison]
Yes.
00:03:48 [Alison]
That’s new.

00:03:49 [Melissa]
You basically, like, the block.
00:03:50 [Melissa]
So, like, I have a block that’s, like, how to work with us, four ways to work with us.
00:03:54 [Melissa]
And so I have that block favorited.
00:03:56 [Melissa]
So let’s say I go create a new email, but it’s not from my template, then I can just go grab that block and add it in.

00:04:02 [Alison]
It’s like the reusable blocks and patterns in WordPress.
00:04:04 [Alison]
Exactly.
00:04:05 [Alison]
Exactly.
00:04:05 [Alison]
That’s amazing.
00:04:07 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:04:07 [Alison]
I didn’t know you could do that.
00:04:08 [Alison]
And I did notice just this week that you can save a button style.
00:04:12 [Alison]
I just little tips and tricks.
00:04:13 [Alison]
I just duplicate.
00:04:14 [Alison]
I set one email up the way I want it.

00:04:16 [Alison]
I want all my hyperlinks to be pink.
00:04:18 [Alison]
I want all the fonts to be the same color.
00:04:20 [Alison]
Buttons.
00:04:20 [Alison]
And I just duplicate the email so I don’t have to go in and do that tedious work of changing all the font sizes, the colors, alignments, blah,

00:04:27 [Melissa]
blah, blah, blah.
00:04:28 [Melissa]
Yep.
00:04:28 [Melissa]
I do this one thing.
00:04:29 [Melissa]
But now it’s built in.
00:04:30 [Melissa]
Now you can do that.

00:04:31 [Melissa]
And mine has a spot that already is preset for a GIF.
00:04:34 [Melissa]
Like, I have an opening paragraph, and then I have a GIF, and then I have my other paragraphs, and then a button, and then my signature, and all that.

00:04:40 [Alison]
I think I think the day they introduced the GIFs for the image is, like, my favorite.
00:04:44 [Alison]
Like, my favorite it’s, I think, to this day, still my favorite improvement.

00:04:47 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:04:47 [Melissa]
I hardly ever pull my own images.
00:04:49 [Melissa]
I just go and look for fun GIFs.
00:04:51 [Melissa]
And then, you know, I might get distracted for a little bit trying to find a fun GIF Yeah.
00:04:54 [Melissa]
Things.

00:04:55 [Melissa]
But yeah.
00:04:55 [Melissa]
Just it’s something to break things up and everything.
00:04:58 [Melissa]
So yeah.
00:04:58 [Melissa]
I I love Flowdesk.
00:04:59 [Melissa]
You know, there’s all kinds of tools for, like, Alice and I both were saying, you know, we’ve got our lead magnets on it.

00:05:04 [Melissa]
So we’ve got forms set up so that when you fill out a form, it’s usually a Flodesk form whether it’s embedded on our site or sometimes I’m lazy and it’s just on Flodesk site.
00:05:12 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:05:12 [Melissa]
And then that kicks off, like, workflows got set up.
00:05:15 [Melissa]
So, you know, you’re getting the delivery of the lead magnet, and then you’re getting these follow-up emails and stuff.
00:05:20 [Melissa]
And then that workflow will then add you to my photographer’s list, which then you’ll get my email newsletter each week and my other emails, my podcast share emails.

00:05:28 [Alison]
How many segments do you think you have between all the different niches and locations?

00:05:33 [Melissa]
I have three pages.
00:05:34 [Melissa]
I know that of segments.
00:05:35 [Melissa]
I can tell you that.
00:05:36 [Melissa]
I’ve ordered the pages.
00:05:37 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:05:37 [Melissa]
You in.
00:05:38 [Melissa]
You in.
00:05:38 [Melissa]
It’s a lot.
00:05:39 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:05:39 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:05:40 [Alison]
I have a segment for what?
00:05:42 [Alison]
Okinawa, Quantico, Virginia Beach, Hawaii.
00:05:45 [Alison]
I have traveled to have new leads in CRM, like, CRM completions.
00:05:50 [Alison]
And then we have, like, all my freebies each have their own segment.

00:05:54 [Alison]
So it’s really important.
00:05:55 [Alison]
Really powerful, guys.
00:05:56 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:05:56 [Melissa]
We can talk about Flodesk all day.
00:05:58 [Melissa]
Maybe we’ll have to do a separate episode of about Flodesk.
00:06:00 [Melissa]
But

00:06:00 [Alison]
So if you’re curious at all, you can get I think it’s what, half off?

00:06:03 [Melissa]
You can chat off.
00:06:03 [Melissa]
The first month?
00:06:04 [Melissa]
First month.
00:06:05 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:06:05 [Melissa]
At the

00:06:05 [Alison]
link in the show notes.
00:06:06 [Alison]
So go check that out.
00:06:08 [Alison]
Alright.
00:06:09 [Alison]
So adapting to new markets.
00:06:11 [Alison]
Who doesn’t know this better than people who have been moving their businesses all over the country in the world?

00:06:16 [Alison]
So there’s multiple different ways to adapt.
00:06:17 [Alison]
Right?
00:06:18 [Alison]
Be adapting as photographers or where we’re shooting, whether it’s new studios or locations, indoor, outdoor.
00:06:24 [Alison]
Adapting to new target clients, adapting to the demographics of the new town, which is different than your target client, price points and business models, and then, of course, adding in things to your business to adapt to the seasonality that aren’t necessarily location specific.
00:06:39 [Alison]
So those are some of the areas we’ve thought of.

00:06:40 [Alison]
And, of course, there’s probably a dozen other ones that we are gonna be talking about today.
00:06:44 [Alison]
Let’s first deep dive into adapting to a new location.
00:06:48 [Alison]
How has that worked for you, Melissa?
00:06:49 [Alison]
I mean,

00:06:49 [Melissa]
that adapting to new locations is hard depending on what you’re shooting, you know?
00:06:54 [Melissa]
If you’re shooting branding or stuff that’s indoors, you know, or like lifestyle newborn or even documentary family, I don’t think you really have a hard time adapting to another location because it’s usually indoors decorating styles, all of that.
00:07:05 [Melissa]
Everything’s very Yeah.
00:07:07 [Melissa]
But, you know, I went from fields in Virginia to beaches in South Florida.
00:07:11 [Melissa]
And so when I first got there, it was like, I don’t have any beach photos.

00:07:15 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:07:15 [Melissa]
I mean, I had Potomac River photos, which if anyone’s ever seen it, up where I lived at that time, it was brown.
00:07:20 [Melissa]
It was definitely, like, crystal clear Not the same.
00:07:22 [Melissa]
The coast coast or anything.
00:07:24 [Melissa]
I definitely had to adapt on that of, like, getting out, getting a portfolio put together of images that I could share for down there.

00:07:32 [Melissa]
So people are because I did have people sometimes who were like, oh, where’s that field?
00:07:35 [Melissa]
I’m like, that is not here.
00:07:36 [Melissa]
Sorry.

00:07:37 [Alison]
That’s not here.
00:07:37 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:07:37 [Melissa]
I could not find fields.

00:07:39 [Alison]
I did something similar going from Okinawa, Japan where you have these subtropic beautiful beaches, coral, and sunsets.
00:07:45 [Alison]
It’s a tiny little island, so you can be on the East Side or the West Side, whatever you wanna do.
00:07:48 [Alison]
And I mostly shot on the West Side, had these stunning, stunning sunsets, Quantico.
00:07:53 [Alison]
And it was nothing but woods.
00:07:54 [Alison]
Yep.

00:07:54 [Alison]
And I had to drive forty five minutes to find the field, and I was like, I don’t know what to do with woods.
00:07:59 [Alison]
I don’t know what to do with green.
00:08:00 [Alison]
I don’t like it.
00:08:01 [Alison]
This is not my style.
00:08:03 [Alison]
Take me to an open air.

00:08:04 [Alison]
Like Yeah.
00:08:05 [Alison]
No.

00:08:05 [Melissa]
I don’t like woods either, man.
00:08:07 [Melissa]
The woods were the worst.
00:08:07 [Melissa]
And that’s where we met y’all.
00:08:08 [Melissa]
We met at the woods.
00:08:09 [Melissa]
We met in a park in the woods, location.

00:08:12 [Melissa]
We both I’m late in the woods.

00:08:14 [Alison]
In the dark.
00:08:15 [Alison]
It was probably probably dangerous.
00:08:17 [Alison]
But I would drive all the way out to Manassas just to get a sky so I knew what to do with the light, you know?
00:08:21 [Alison]
And then you had the neutral reflection of the tall grass and enterprise orders and went to Virginia Beach.
00:08:25 [Alison]
And I was like, yes, please.

00:08:27 [Alison]
Take me back to the water because I don’t know how to deal with this.
00:08:30 [Alison]
This is awful.
00:08:31 [Alison]
But also, you know, I’m just thinking of this too.
00:08:33 [Alison]
When we went from Okinawa to Quantico, I had to adapt when I was able to shoot because of the traffic.
00:08:38 [Alison]
There was no more Friday night shoots.

00:08:40 [Alison]
Like, bad traffic on 95, it didn’t matter who your client wasn’t gonna get home before sunset, even in October before the time change, but much less after the time change, that wasn’t happening.
00:08:50 [Alison]
So your sessions could only happen on Saturday or Sunday, which is a little bit freeing.
00:08:53 [Alison]
I mean, I had my Friday nights to myself, and we could, like, actually hang out with our neighbors.
00:08:57 [Alison]
But that was something unique to that whole Northern Virginia corridor of of just traffic.
00:09:02 [Alison]
Like Yeah.

00:09:03 [Melissa]
We weren’t going anywhere.
00:09:04 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:09:05 [Melissa]
When you’re moving, you wanna that.
00:09:06 [Melissa]
If you’re used to being out in the country and you’re moving to the city, you’re gonna have to factor some of that stuff in and think about it, like, way ahead of time.
00:09:13 [Melissa]
Like, check out traffic two weeks beforehand of, like, I’ve gotta go to a session at 06:00 in this location.

00:09:18 [Melissa]
What is traffic telling me the average is?
00:09:20 [Melissa]
So that way I can schedule properly and everything because it will catch you off guard depending on, you

00:09:25 [Alison]
know, if you’re not used to it and stuff.
00:09:26 [Alison]
Yep.
00:09:26 [Alison]
I will.
00:09:27 [Alison]
And, you know, maybe that’s a day where you do a special, like, maybe you do many sessions on a Friday.
00:09:31 [Alison]
That way people are willing to change their schedule to get a deal or something.

00:09:35 [Alison]
I don’t know.
00:09:36 [Alison]
But yeah.
00:09:36 [Alison]
And then, again, I had to change when we went from Virginia Beach to Hawaii.
00:09:40 [Alison]
Yes.
00:09:40 [Alison]
They’re very different, but they are both beaches.

00:09:42 [Alison]
I am facing, like, the direction of where the sun is setting is different, but what looks good for my clients with what to wear is completely different.
00:09:50 [Alison]
So I used to tell my clients, especially with big families, like, just do, like, pastels, pinks, and blues.
00:09:54 [Alison]
Like, you’ll be fine.
00:09:55 [Alison]
Everybody’s got some pink.
00:09:56 [Alison]
Everybody’s got some shade of blue.

00:09:58 [Alison]
It kinda goes together and works really nicely.
00:09:59 [Alison]
And for most people, stay clear away from that over here.
00:10:02 [Alison]
The water’s too blue.
00:10:03 [Alison]
If the sky is overcast here in Hawaii and everybody’s wearing pastel blue, everybody looks washed out.
00:10:07 [Alison]
Everything’s blue.

00:10:08 [Alison]
It’s it’s terrible.
00:10:09 [Alison]
I tell people to stay away from the pastels or a whole pallet of pastels out here just because it looks so different.
00:10:14 [Alison]
Alright.
00:10:14 [Alison]
What about your target clients?
00:10:15 [Alison]
How have your target clients changed?

00:10:18 [Melissa]
In South Florida, I had a lot of destination clients.
00:10:21 [Melissa]
So a lot of people coming down with baby moons, vacations, that kind of thing.
00:10:24 [Melissa]
I mean, I feel like the newborn clientele pretty much stayed the same kind of thing.
00:10:28 [Melissa]
Yep.
00:10:28 [Melissa]
But I would get a lot of people who were coming in and just especially maternity.

00:10:32 [Melissa]
Mhmm.
00:10:32 [Melissa]
And it was one of those, like, I like maternity if I get a newborn.
00:10:35 [Melissa]
But I don’t want to necessarily just shoot maternity.
00:10:37 [Melissa]
I feel so.
00:10:38 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:10:38 [Melissa]
I felt like maternity didn’t spend as much as newborn did or whatever.

00:10:41 [Alison]
There’s that.
00:10:42 [Alison]
You know, you want it, but you’re, like, saving up for the newborn.
00:10:44 [Alison]
But then I Yeah.
00:10:45 [Alison]
I feel awkward with just adults.
00:10:46 [Alison]
So unless we get a toddler to to chase and break attention, like, I’m kinda like, nothing.

00:10:51 [Melissa]
Oh, I always joke around when it’s just two adults.
00:10:53 [Melissa]
I’m like, this is gonna be so weird.
00:10:54 [Melissa]
You guys are actually gonna listen to me, and then they laugh, you know, because it’s like, I don’t have to chase a toddler around.
00:10:59 [Melissa]
But yeah.
00:10:59 [Melissa]
So it’s like more destination stuff, you know, just people down there for a weekend.

00:11:03 [Melissa]
I mean, I still get all kinds of inquiries for that kind of thing of, like, oh, hey.
00:11:06 [Melissa]
We’re coming in for a weekend.
00:11:07 [Melissa]
I don’t get that really here in Charlottesville as much.
00:11:10 [Melissa]
I get a little bit.
00:11:11 [Melissa]
I will say that.

00:11:11 [Melissa]
I have no I’ve gotten some extended families, but it’s extended family.
00:11:15 [Melissa]
It’s not we’re coming to Charlottesville for a babymoon.
00:11:17 [Melissa]
Like, they’re not doing that.
00:11:18 [Melissa]
They’re coming here because the whole family’s coming for some kind of gathering around the mountains.
00:11:23 [Melissa]
Family reunion?

00:11:24 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:11:24 [Melissa]
That kind of thing.
00:11:25 [Melissa]
So that’s more of the extended families.
00:11:26 [Melissa]
And then I would just say too, like, we knew we weren’t gonna stay in South Florida long term.
00:11:30 [Melissa]
So it was like, okay.

00:11:32 [Melissa]
Membership clients, how far how far do I take those?
00:11:35 [Melissa]
And I did I had membership clients that were booked when we moved.
00:11:37 [Melissa]
I had to refund a little bit just because I was like, I’m not gonna be here.
00:11:41 [Melissa]
But now that we’re here in Charlottesville, like, I’m like, I want those membership clients again.
00:11:45 [Melissa]
Like, I I don’t have the other.

00:11:46 [Melissa]
I wanna get them in.
00:11:47 [Melissa]
We’re gonna be here for a while, forever hopefully, or somewhere around there.
00:11:50 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:11:51 [Melissa]
So that’s where my clientele changed.

00:11:53 [Alison]
I would say I was in Virginia Beach for about a year before I realized there was that same destination family.
00:11:59 [Alison]
You know, that whole Sandbridge area of rental homes where there’s these giant houses, tons of people were coming in.
00:12:05 [Alison]
I was like, hey, I know there’s people coming here.
00:12:08 [Alison]
Like, they’re coming here on vacation.
00:12:09 [Alison]
I did try to target them.

00:12:11 [Alison]
And I don’t know that anything I did specifically worked other than SEO.
00:12:15 [Alison]
And for me as a family photographer, in the same old way everybody else was.

00:12:18 [Melissa]
But And I’m sure showing images of extended families on your website because Yeah.
00:12:21 [Melissa]
Showing yourself.
00:12:22 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:12:22 [Melissa]
I mean and that’s the thing too.
00:12:24 [Melissa]
Having a page for that can be helpful, you know, so they oh, that’s what we’re looking for.

00:12:27 [Alison]
But I did go through, like, well, there’s all these agencies for rental homes and and none of that really works because they need to know and be prepared well before they actually arrive.
00:12:35 [Alison]
Right?
00:12:35 [Alison]
So but I was really shocked at how big some of these extended families were and how far they were coming from.
00:12:41 [Alison]
We were at Virginia Beach.
00:12:43 [Alison]
I had one family the entire Eastern Seaboard.

00:12:45 [Alison]
We’re talking people from New York, Pennsylvania.
00:12:48 [Alison]
People came in from Georgia and Florida.
00:12:50 [Alison]
Somebody came

00:12:50 [Melissa]
in from the Navy.
00:12:51 [Melissa]
That’s because you need 30 people to rent a house on the beach anymore.

00:12:54 [Alison]
Well, there are some smaller ones too that came in from like, I don’t know, Richmond and whatnot.
00:12:59 [Alison]
But there was one whole family.
00:13:00 [Alison]
He had been former Navy and they had been stationed in Norfolk.
00:13:02 [Alison]
And so the whole family, we’re talking 25 people.
00:13:05 [Alison]
Mhmm.

00:13:06 [Alison]
16 kids at every age from one to 16 came down for to Virginia from Minnesota for a whole week.

00:13:11 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:13:11 [Melissa]
I was shocked.

00:13:12 [Alison]
So that was a lot of fun.
00:13:13 [Alison]
And that’s when I really honed in my extended family experience, how much I love them, and really, like, targeting them as a clientele.
00:13:20 [Alison]
And then it kinda pivoted a little bit more when I came out to Hawaii.
00:13:23 [Alison]
I just assumed extended families weren’t gonna be coming out here because of the sheer expense.
00:13:28 [Alison]
But they are here, and they are coming.

00:13:29 [Alison]
They’re not necessarily 25 people deep.
00:13:31 [Alison]
I think I had one of, like, 17 people, which was more than I would have anticipated.
00:13:35 [Alison]
But it’s still that destination location.
00:13:37 [Alison]
I get a lot of families, like, a lot of nuclear families, and I still get quite a few extended families.
00:13:42 [Alison]
I would love to do more honestly, though.

00:13:44 [Alison]
More extended families.
00:13:45 [Alison]
So you

00:13:45 [Melissa]
really gotta think about your location.
00:13:46 [Melissa]
Are you targeting vacationers in your new spot?
00:13:49 [Melissa]
Is it it’s not really a destination place.
00:13:51 [Melissa]
It’s just gonna be normal, you know, families and stuff like that.
00:13:54 [Melissa]
But until you know where you’re going and what’s gonna happen, like, you don’t know.

00:13:58 [Melissa]
And if you are going to kind of like a beach town or a destination place, like, think about that stuff ahead of time.
00:14:03 [Melissa]
I’m like, do I wanna shoot extended families?
00:14:05 [Melissa]
Like because I’ve definitely seen where people are like, nope.
00:14:07 [Melissa]
I don’t wanna do that.
00:14:08 [Melissa]
And make sure you add an FAQ to your website that says Yeah.

00:14:11 [Melissa]
Do not sorry.
00:14:12 [Melissa]
We don’t shoot extended families.

00:14:14 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:14:14 [Alison]
And I think something else that changed pretty heavily was newborns.
00:14:17 [Alison]
You know, I switched everything over about newborn, but I think I’ve done maybe two newborns here this in this year that I’ve been out here.
00:14:24 [Alison]
And I’m up in the rankings for SEO, but I get the impression that there’s not as many people looking for my either my approach to it, maybe my, I don’t know.

00:14:33 [Melissa]
But there’s

00:14:33 [Alison]
a lot fewer.
00:14:34 [Alison]
There’s a lot fewer.
00:14:34 [Alison]
And in the local, you know, people are coming out here to have a baby.
00:14:38 [Alison]
Like the newborn clientele are the people who live here, right?
00:14:40 [Alison]
And that’s a pretty strong mix of local Hawaiians, local military, and non like local people who are not like born and raised here, who have like relocated out here.

00:14:52 [Alison]
And the cross section of those people that are actually having babies and want to have babies and then pay my price point for those newborn photos, much slimmer than I thought it would be, actually.
00:15:02 [Alison]
That’s been an Edugyny lightning realization.

00:15:05 [Melissa]
And then for you, you have demographic shifts between like military and civilian because of being you’re on a base or near a base everywhere you guys move.

00:15:12 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:15:12 [Alison]
The very first time I ever moved my business was from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina to Birmingham, Alabama.
00:15:20 [Alison]
And that was the first time I realized that this wasn’t as easy as I thought it was gonna be.
00:15:25 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:15:25 [Alison]
And it took me about a year to figure that out.

00:15:28 [Alison]
I we moved with a six week old, so I wasn’t, like, full on, like, balls to the wall from my competitor term, like, moving my business.
00:15:34 [Alison]
I just thought, like, hey, word-of-mouth, it’ll pick up.
00:15:36 [Alison]
Like, we’ve got kids.
00:15:37 [Alison]
I’m you know, I am my ideal target.
00:15:39 [Alison]
It’ll it’ll happen.

00:15:41 [Alison]
And about six to nine months into that, I realized, it wasn’t happening at all.
00:15:47 [Alison]
Come to realize that there was not one military base around me.
00:15:50 [Alison]
And so for the first time in my life, I was the new person and nobody else was.
00:15:56 [Alison]
So, like, I, you know, these this this town was exactly how I had grown up.
00:16:00 [Alison]
Everybody knew somebody from high school.

00:16:02 [Alison]
Everybody knew somebody who did hair, was a photographer.
00:16:05 [Alison]
Name anything.
00:16:05 [Alison]
Right?
00:16:06 [Alison]
Was a realist.
00:16:06 [Alison]
So they didn’t need people.

00:16:08 [Alison]
There was no, like, rotation of of people, referral.
00:16:12 [Alison]
It just didn’t exist.

00:16:13 [Melissa]
Everybody It’s kinda where I’ve moved.
00:16:14 [Melissa]
Like, because it’s so small town, like, heck, people went to high school together and stuff.
00:16:19 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:16:19 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:16:20 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:16:20 [Alison]
And so that’s when I really put a lot more emphasis on that online presence and getting that cold inquiry and and working hard.
00:16:27 [Alison]
I did a lot of things to, like, network and and markets and bears and promotional things.
00:16:32 [Alison]
I don’t know that I would have repeated all those.
00:16:35 [Alison]
But that was my first realization that where I was landing affected my business because the place was different even though my business hadn’t changed.

00:16:44 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:16:44 [Melissa]
Because I had to adapt with, like, the idea of where we live is very small town.
00:16:47 [Melissa]
Like I said, people went to high school together.
00:16:49 [Melissa]
It’s very tiny.
00:16:50 [Melissa]
So I’m not marketing in the town I live.

00:16:52 [Melissa]
I’m marketing to the two cities that are about forty five minutes away from me kind of thing.
00:16:56 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:16:57 [Melissa]
So

00:16:57 [Alison]
That’s on opposite directions.
00:16:58 [Alison]
Right?

00:16:59 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:16:59 [Melissa]
Opposite directions.
00:16:59 [Melissa]
So we’re and we strategically pick that.
00:17:01 [Melissa]
So that’s another thing to think about when you’re moving is, you know, doing that research ahead of time.
00:17:06 [Melissa]
We were looking for I knew I wanted to be between Richmond and Charlottesville, so the both areas.

00:17:10 [Melissa]
We also were looking at on the outliers outside of that, my husband was working in the top of Charlottesville, and our boat is on the an hour on the opposite side of Richmond.
00:17:20 [Melissa]
So we were really trying to, you know, factor all of that stuff in on, like, how far of a commute was he willing to do every day versus, you know, how far of a commute were we willing to do to the boat.
00:17:30 [Melissa]
And it’s funny because, actually, since we’ve moved we’ve moved the boat twice now.
00:17:33 [Melissa]
It’s the furthest away that it’s ever been kinda down.
00:17:36 [Melissa]
But we’re right at the Chesapeake and the Rappahannock.

00:17:39 [Melissa]
So, like, we can pop out and we’re right.
00:17:41 [Melissa]
We’re actually not that far from Virginia Beach and all of that, like, for sailing wise and stuff.
00:17:45 [Melissa]
So it’s kinda funny.
00:17:46 [Melissa]
But yeah.
00:17:46 [Melissa]
So you wanna think about where you’re moving, you know, those demographics too.

00:17:49 [Melissa]
If you’re moving to a small town, like, you’re not necessarily gonna be able to market to that small town and get Yeah.
00:17:54 [Melissa]
You know, you can get you can market to them and get clients, but it may not be enough to fill your calendar.
00:17:58 [Melissa]
You may have to look outside of that and broaden your your reach on, like, where you’re willing to go and stuff.
00:18:03 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:18:05 [Alison]
Hey.
00:18:06 [Alison]
Yes.
00:18:06 [Alison]
I’m talking to you.
00:18:07 [Alison]
How are you feeling about this move?
00:18:09 [Alison]
It’s a lot to process, but I’ve got something for you.

00:18:12 [Alison]
I want you to pre move checklist to make things a little easier.
00:18:15 [Alison]
Even if you’re not sure where you’re going yet, it’s not too early to start.
00:18:18 [Alison]
But you could be losing time on that SEO juice if you dilly dally.
00:18:22 [Alison]
So head over to alisonbell.co, that’s alisonwith1l,bell.co, to get your pre move checklist.
00:18:29 [Alison]
You got this.

00:18:30 [Alison]
What about price points and, like, your business model?
00:18:33 [Alison]
How have how has that evolved and changed over the years or with moves?

00:18:38 [Melissa]
So I would say for me, I actually had done that big shift from all inclusive pricing to collection pricing before we let you.

00:18:44 [Alison]
Which In the same place?

00:18:46 [Melissa]
Yes.
00:18:46 [Melissa]
In the same place.
00:18:47 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:18:47 [Melissa]
I hit that point where I was like, I wanna make more, but I don’t wanna work more.
00:18:51 [Melissa]
And so I was like, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to just raise my prices here.

00:18:56 [Melissa]
And so I switched to collections, which then I realized, oh, I could raise my prices like that.
00:19:01 [Melissa]
It was more of like a, oh, now I have the confidence to do it, and I raise my prices up and everything.
00:19:06 [Melissa]
So then it set that bar for when I got down to South Florida of, okay.
00:19:10 [Melissa]
Well, I’m making this here and it’s working.
00:19:13 [Melissa]
So let me let me move that pricing down there.

00:19:16 [Melissa]
And I kept it down there the same way.
00:19:18 [Melissa]
I think I did tweak, like, the numbers a little bit Mhmm.
00:19:21 [Melissa]
Just to, like, get settled in and everything.
00:19:24 [Melissa]
And then coming here, I’ve definitely kept that same structure, but I know now I’m not in like, South Florida is very expensive.
00:19:31 [Melissa]
I mean, you talk about, like, Hawaii being expensive to live in and travel to.

00:19:33 [Melissa]
South Florida is very expensive to live in and travel to.
00:19:36 [Melissa]
People who are down there tend to make more money and stuff because it is, like, a higher cost of living and everything versus where I’m at now is considered, like, rest of The US.
00:19:44 [Melissa]
Like, we’re, again, we’re forty five minutes from two major cities, and those major cities are not huge major cities.
00:19:50 [Melissa]
They’re bigger on the map than what I’m currently in.
00:19:53 [Melissa]
So I’ve had to adjust.

00:19:54 [Melissa]
I’ve kept that same structure, but I’ve had to adjust, like, what that pricing model actually is.
00:19:59 [Melissa]
But, again, that’s something where you gotta go back to your cost of doing business.
00:20:02 [Melissa]
So, obviously, my cost of doing business was higher in Northern Virginia.
00:20:05 [Melissa]
It was higher in South Florida.
00:20:07 [Melissa]
It’s lower here.

00:20:08 [Melissa]
So I was able to readjust that cost of doing business and bring my pricing down a little bit and still make sure that I’m profitable and that I’m making good money.
00:20:18 [Melissa]
But, you know, it was one of those where I’m like, I know the area I’m at.
00:20:21 [Melissa]
I need to adjust things.
00:20:22 [Melissa]
And as long as you’re profitable, that’s totally fine.
00:20:24 [Melissa]
Just don’t adjust your prices to where you’re not profitable.

00:20:27 [Alison]
And using your numbers to do that.
00:20:29 [Alison]
Like Yeah.
00:20:29 [Alison]
Hard math.
00:20:30 [Alison]
Hard math.
00:20:31 [Alison]
Not guessing and feelings.

00:20:32 [Alison]
Right?

00:20:32 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:20:32 [Melissa]
And it wasn’t a huge shift.
00:20:33 [Melissa]
I mean, it’s like a couple $100, you know, just bringing things down a little.
00:20:36 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:20:36 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:20:36 [Alison]
For me, I did the same thing.
00:20:38 [Alison]
When we moved from, I think it was Quantico down to Virginia, Virginia Beach, I did go from, like, super all inclusive to some tiered all inclusive.
00:20:46 [Alison]
You know, this level gets you so much.
00:20:48 [Alison]
And it was all to do with the same amount of shoot time, but how much how many images came with it.

00:20:51 [Alison]
Because it was a clean-cut.
00:20:52 [Alison]
Right?
00:20:53 [Alison]
But it was also while I was in Virginia Beach that I switched entirely, like because we we moved during COVID.
00:21:01 [Alison]
That first year was very slow, very, very slow.
00:21:03 [Alison]
I was not working hard on my business at all.

00:21:05 [Alison]
I was, like, forcibly homeschooling my children Yeah.
00:21:08 [Alison]
From in public school and my my homeschool children that were always homeschooled.
00:21:12 [Alison]
And so before I really kicked off, I switched to a, in person sales model, but virtual IPS, if you will.
00:21:20 [Alison]
So it’s a la carte system with a single collection and buy what you love at the gallery room deal after you’ve already seen them as my tagline.
00:21:26 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:21:27 [Alison]
And so I did that while I was there as well.
00:21:29 [Alison]
And I’ve actually kept that in here in Hawaii as well.
00:21:31 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:21:32 [Melissa]
I mean, just refining it and stuff.

00:21:34 [Alison]
Refining it.
00:21:34 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:21:34 [Alison]
And Yeah.
00:21:35 [Alison]
I do pivot I do pivot the one collection based on what I find people are wanting the most on.
00:21:41 [Alison]
And and it is very customizable.

00:21:43 [Alison]
And I don’t they’re not even hard changes.
00:21:44 [Alison]
Like, I recently had somebody who was like, well, we want the 20 images, but we don’t want the album.
00:21:49 [Alison]
We just want one giant print.
00:21:51 [Alison]
And I was like, let’s switch it out.
00:21:53 [Alison]
What if I just give what if we keep the price point and we switch down and you get what you want?

00:21:57 [Alison]
Right.
00:21:58 [Alison]
And they love that.
00:21:58 [Alison]
And so that’s that’s a new thing that here I am two and a half years after switching to that one collection that that’s the first time somebody’s asked.
00:22:06 [Alison]
So Yeah.
00:22:07 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:22:07 [Alison]
Keeping it flexible.

00:22:09 [Melissa]
Hey there, photographers.
00:22:10 [Melissa]
Struggling with what to blog about?
00:22:11 [Melissa]
Tired of staring at that blinky cursor, waiting for inspiration to strike?
00:22:15 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:22:15 [Melissa]
We’ve all been there.

00:22:16 [Melissa]
That is why I created the blogging club.
00:22:19 [Melissa]
Imagine this.
00:22:20 [Melissa]
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00:22:22 [Melissa]
No more guessing games or frantic googling.
00:22:25 [Melissa]
Each month, I’ll walk you through SEO friendly blog post outlines with examples, teach you the latest SEO and marketing tips in a master class, and support you live in a monthly q and a for all your blogging questions.

00:22:37 [Melissa]
Plus, we’ve got a community to cheer you on after every post.
00:22:40 [Melissa]
Let’s take the guesswork out of blogging and start driving those dream clients to your site.
00:22:44 [Melissa]
Head to the bloggingclub.com and use code t b c trial to get 50% off your first month and join us today.
00:22:53 [Melissa]
And that’s the thing.
00:22:53 [Melissa]
So, you know, when you’re moving and stuff, think about that.

00:22:55 [Melissa]
Do you just need to adapt your pricing to that new spot, adapt your style?
00:23:00 [Melissa]
Or it could be a time where you’re like, I’m just gonna throw it all away and just start over from scratch.
00:23:05 [Melissa]
You know?
00:23:06 [Melissa]
It’s just it’s a Pennecdale.

00:23:07 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:23:07 [Alison]
Well, as long as you’re using those numbers to to justify everything.
00:23:10 [Alison]
And then what about adding in services that aren’t location specific?

00:23:14 [Melissa]
So especially if you’re moving often or Mhmm.
00:23:17 [Melissa]
If you have, you gotta think of I think we do ourselves a disservice as small business owners.
00:23:22 [Melissa]
We wear a lot of hats.
00:23:23 [Melissa]
You know?
00:23:23 [Melissa]
Yes.

00:23:24 [Melissa]
I was actually talking with my marketing girl today.
00:23:26 [Melissa]
She was sending me some, SEO memes for our Facebook group.
00:23:29 [Melissa]
And one of them was a guy looking all crazed with, like, a flow a chart behind him where he’s, like, trying to, like, tie things in together, almost like a murder board type of chart.
00:23:36 [Melissa]
But yeah.
00:23:37 [Melissa]
And he was talking you know, explaining SEO to your family.

00:23:40 [Melissa]
And I was like, it should be explaining what you do as a small business owner to your family because they think it’s photography and it’s actually email marketing and bookkeeping and all of this stuff, you know, that you do.
00:23:52 [Melissa]
Design.
00:23:53 [Melissa]
Website design.
00:23:54 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:23:54 [Melissa]
And so thinking about that, though, what are you good at with that?

00:23:58 [Melissa]
You know, if you’re moving and Allison and I have talked about this before, and we have an episode about I think we we have at least one on what are some other ways to make some money when you’re

00:24:05 [Alison]
Stabilizing your income.
00:24:07 [Alison]
Stabilizing your income.

00:24:07 [Melissa]
That’s right.
00:24:08 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:24:08 [Melissa]
And so think about this.
00:24:09 [Melissa]
Editing, maybe you could edit for someone else.
00:24:11 [Melissa]
Maybe you could add a page to your website and you could open up just it doesn’t have to be big.

00:24:16 [Melissa]
You don’t have to turn it into your full time thing, but it could be another source of revenue.
00:24:19 [Melissa]
Knowing people who are bookkeepers, you know, that they start off as photographers and now they’re doing bookkeeping for other photographers along with a blog writer.
00:24:26 [Melissa]
Like, we’re always

00:24:26 [Alison]
looking for blog writers.

00:24:28 [Melissa]
Blog writer, email marketer and stuff.
00:24:31 [Melissa]
Or like we were talking about with signask earlier, you could create templates for Flodesk and sell those, like, on Etsy or something like that or offer that service.
00:24:39 [Melissa]
Like, maybe you talk to some photographer.
00:24:41 [Melissa]
Hey.
00:24:41 [Melissa]
I wanna send a weekly newsletter.

00:24:43 [Melissa]
These are the the topics or the things I need to cover, the sections I need.
00:24:47 [Melissa]
Can you create me a Flodesk template that would look pretty that they can use?
00:24:51 [Melissa]
And so Yeah.
00:24:52 [Melissa]
There’s a lot of ways of, like, adding in services.
00:24:54 [Melissa]
Obviously, I do SEO education.

00:24:55 [Melissa]
Allison does coaching.
00:24:56 [Melissa]
You know, so we’ve added some of that stuff in because I think you’ve talked about it before.
00:25:01 [Melissa]
The number of streams of revenue you need to have in a business.

00:25:04 [Alison]
So yeah.
00:25:04 [Alison]
So seven so average millionaire has seven streams of income.
00:25:07 [Alison]
Whether that’s rental properties, actual brick and mortar, you know, jobs or investments.
00:25:12 [Alison]
Even as a like, we do Yeah.
00:25:13 [Alison]
Do so much for ourselves in our own business.

00:25:16 [Alison]
We can apply those same skills either directly or in general for other people

00:25:20 [Melissa]
to

00:25:20 [Alison]
help stabilize and

00:25:21 [Melissa]
and And expenses.
00:25:22 [Melissa]
Honestly, you drop in any any Facebook photographer group and you say, hey.
00:25:27 [Melissa]
I’m moving.
00:25:28 [Melissa]
I’m a photographer who has all this experience in, like, weddings or portraits or blah blah blah.
00:25:32 [Melissa]
Mhmm.

00:25:32 [Melissa]
And I’m gonna have some free time.
00:25:33 [Melissa]
Like, who’s looking for a virtual assistant in this or this?
00:25:36 [Melissa]
You’re gonna get a flood of replies.
00:25:38 [Melissa]
Yep.
00:25:38 [Melissa]
Like and you can figure it out from there because my the girl that I hired for marketing and stuff, I like the fact that she has been a photographer in the past.

00:25:45 [Melissa]
She’s had her own business.
00:25:46 [Melissa]
Now she doesn’t.
00:25:47 [Melissa]
She homeschools her kids and stuff, but she was wanting to get back into, you know, having a part time job.
00:25:51 [Melissa]
And I’m like, you would be great because you understand photography, you understand, and so you can help me with marketing to photographers on the SEO side of the business and everything.

00:26:00 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:26:00 [Alison]
Absolutely.
00:26:01 [Alison]
That’s awesome.
00:26:02 [Alison]
Alright, guys.
00:26:03 [Alison]
So that’s our conversation about adapting to a new market.

00:26:06 [Alison]
Again, add in services that are not location specific.
00:26:09 [Alison]
Think about your price points and business models when you’re adapting, the demographics of your area, your target clients.
00:26:15 [Alison]
Who are they?
00:26:15 [Alison]
Are they somewhere new to this area?
00:26:17 [Alison]
And then, of course, your locations, whether that studio or on on location.

00:26:21 [Alison]
So that’s our conversation here.
00:26:22 [Alison]
Thank you for listening.
00:26:23 [Alison]
As always, if you have questions, hit us up in the show notes.
00:26:26 [Alison]
Bye.
00:26:26 [Alison]
Bye bye.

00:26:28 [Melissa]
Thank you so much for listening.
00:26:30 [Melissa]
If you’re enjoying the show, would you do two things for us?
00:26:32 [Melissa]
First, leave a review.
00:26:34 [Melissa]
Just stars would be awesome.
00:26:35 [Melissa]
And two, forward this episode to a biz bestie, no spouse, or anyone facing moving their business.

00:26:41 [Melissa]
We’d love it if you shared this episode with even just one person.
00:26:43 [Melissa]
If you have questions, you can reach out to Alison on Instagram at Alison Bellefotog, or you can find me, Melissa, in my Facebook group, Picture Perfect Rankings.
00:26:53 [Melissa]
Check the show notes for links, and we’re so excited to have you guys here.

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