305 - Using a Studio to Grow Your Photography Business with Michelle McAfee

way to keep costs down. However, when there are a lot of photographers out there, and the competition is fierce. One way that you can set yourself apart is by having some sort of dedicated physical space. Now, if you are not a studio photographer, right? You're not making photos inside a studio space, then a studio can seem like an excess that you just

don't need to take on. But my guest today, Michelle Lindsay, of Michelle Lindsay photography has owned a studio for several years, and that studio has gone through a handful of different reincarnations, two basic reincarnations, but has since become used for all kinds of different purposes. And I wanted to have her on the show today, because I know some of you have studio space that you're paying rent on or you have access to, but you're not really utilizing

it to its fullest. Others of you are looking for creative ways to market your business, and I think this is an idea worth considering. But Michelle has really used her studio and kind of squeezed every last drop of goodness out of that opportunity. And I'm going to use the word opportunity, because that's really what a studio is. When it is a blank canvas, you can create all kinds of things with that that can feed your photography business from all different kinds of

sites. So I'm very excited to introduce Michelle to you. If you have not heard of her before, you will enjoy not just her words today, but her work and then learning a bit more about the different opportunities that a Studio provides. Welcome to this can't be that hard. My name is Annemie Tonken, and I help photographers run profitable, sustainable

businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it, and I can show you how Michelle it is so wonderful to

have you on the show. This is we've talked many times, but this is the first time that we have talked with the record button flashing, so no pressure, but I am so excited to have you on the show. How are you today?

out of this as she did. I don't know if that's fair, but no, it is a lot. Well it is. It has been a really wonderful kind of conversation to continue on, and I am excited to bring it to my wider audience. So let's just start. I'll have you introduce yourself as I as I typically let my guests do, and give a little backstory. You've actually been in business, I think, longer than I have. I

like, Sure. So I did start in the wedding world, and spent a fair amount of time in the wedding world, but pretty quickly knew that it was not going to be sustainable for me personally, long term, I knew that I wanted to eventually have kids and have my weekends free.

So pretty early on, I started making plans to like transition, and there was a very large chunk of time where I was in both the wedding and the portrait world, really building up my portrait business, until I felt comfortable to be like I can say no to every single wedding that comes from the way and I got there. And so that's the world that I live in now, which is portraits, kind of specializing in motherhood, maternity.

Babies, and eventually, you know, most of those people want to continue to work with me so families as well. It's

operating a studio. Because I I love the thing that I love about this. I had a studio for a period of time, and it was actually I was using it almost more as like a sales room and like a place to meet with my clients, because I was still doing mostly either wedding at that time. It was like wedding work and on location, family stuff. But I love sort of how your thought process around starting a studio is different, really, from a lot of people's

exactly what you described. It was essentially a sales room where I would meet clients and show products to them. I did. I in person sales for a very long time, and the very first studio I ever built was literally in, like, it was, like an apartment. It was 100 square feet of my living room, you know. And like, a walk up apartment, yeah. And I completely decked it out with my, you know, photos and everything. And, like, when I look back at photos, I'm like,

Oh my gosh. But I mean, at the time it was, you know, it was like I was, at least, you know, I had a vision, and I just did it, and I went for it, and then over the years, I would, kind of, like, I bounced around. So eventually I started renting, like, commercial space. And it wasn't until, I want to say, Was it like 2012 2013 when I had a space that I could actually, like, photograph in. But even then it was, like, still really,

really, really small. It had really low ceiling, so, like, any type of, like, lighting that was just not really easy to do. I was always knocking into things. It was, it was in an old historic building, so I had these mobs with strollers trying to navigate up the stairs with strollers. And it was, it was a good, it was a great, again, a great starting point, but I, like, kind of knew I wanted more. So I always knew I wanted to build, like a studio, like I wanted, like the dream studio.

And I had the vision from pretty early on, and I kind of just kept, like, chipping away at it and saving for it, and randomly, one day the I was just driving, and I knew that I wanted to get out of the current studio I was in. So it was too small. It's the one that was way too small. And I saw a sign for commercial space for sale. And I, like, drove by, and I kind of looked at it, and I was like, Well,

this is interesting. And then, like, less than a month later, I bought it, which was kind of wild, that it happened all so fast, but I just, I've been thinking about it and planning

it for it for years. So when the opportunity came up, and it was an empty shell, so it was the opportunity for me to build it from the ground up exactly the way I wanted it, which is the studio that I'm in now and my forever home, but the studio now as it is, I still photograph in it a lot, but where I've really started to see the power of the studio is beyond photographing

clients. It's allowed me to create this incredible experiential touch point for my clients whenever they come in, where I can design it exactly the way that I want them to feel about the photo shoot and about their photos. And I don't know if you would agree with this, but I have personally found that almost more important than the photos themselves, the way the clients feel about the experience of being photographed

matters more. Yeah, like you could take two photographers, one whose work is incredible and amazing that gives a terrible experience, and a photographer who has mediocre images but gives a very personalized, high touch experience where the client feels so seen. And I feel like this, the photographer who provides that over the top experience is the one that's going to continue to see the repeat clients, the word of mouth exposure, everything like

that. So experience has always been a big thing for me, but the other area of the studio that has been really cool to start to utilize and grow more is using it for marketing purposes, hosting, like client appreciation events here, creating content. Just having the space to, like, be able to go in and create content, has

been huge. So there are so many other avenues that I've been able to kind of, like, open up with how I utilize this space outside of just while a client books me, and so now I'm going to do the shoot at the studio. Yeah,

and they participate. We participated in, like a First Fridays, kind of a thing where, you know, the first Friday of every month was an open studio, kind of an opportunity, and just that one little thing brought me clients that for sure, I never would have connected with, because they were walking around downtown Durham and, like, stopping into the different places, and then, you know, saw my work on the wall, got to sit

and chat with me. And in a couple of cases, I had those people reaching out years later, like, hey, we just had a baby, and I had your name in my whatever, like my Google Docs or something, yeah, or I've been following you on Instagram ever since, so, so yeah, just that one little piece, I can definitely attest to the power of that.

powerful for our businesses. And I also think that combining that with in person, physical kind of like connection experiences, is such a compliment to that. And if there's ways that you can bring that into your business, in addition to the Online Exposure, your marketing explodes, yeah,

without a studio. I haven't had a studio in years now, but it's definitely I feel like, because I had that early ish in my career, it was really helpful in kind of establishing that legitimacy earlier on, then it might have been easy for me to do otherwise,

particular, specific things. So if I was there for a client shoot, if I was hosting, like a networking or. Vendor or client appreciation event, if I was, you know, recording marketing materials or content. And so the space was sitting empty, and it

felt like such a waste. And I started kind of thinking like beyond my uses for it, and beyond also just my own personal need for it, because I saw so many photographers, creative small business owners who I would like talk to, and they would be like, Yeah, I'd love to do that, but I don't have a space. Yeah, I'd love to do that, but I don't have a space.

And it kind of prompted this idea that, like, people need space, and they need, in a sense, almost like, like, blank space that they can come into and transform into their needs.

And so I really saw both an opportunity for my business to diversify its income, but also to answer a real need that was in my community of small business owners and photographers for space to actually start propelling their businesses forward, because I had seen such growth and elevation in my business and even just in my brand, kind of what we were talking about before, like, kind of that legitimacy of it, that I knew that other businesses could come into the space if I rebranded it

properly, outside of, you know, my name And my photos on the wall and allowed them to come in and have and have their clients have that sort of like high end luxury experience that I was offering. And so that's actually what I did with the studio, was I ended up taking my name off of it. I got a new sign. It went from Michelle Lindsay photography to studio at four to eight. I took my pictures off the wall, which was, like, the hardest thing, I bet, yeah,

shoots. So you can kind of have kind of clients over in the lounge area, like hanging out and waiting, and then it's got a shooting Bay Area with natural light. And so you can be, like, photographing on that side while your clients are kind of waiting over there. So we have a lot of clients photographers using it

for mini sessions. And then I also, in the holidays, always will put up styled sets for the photographer, so that way they don't have to worry about, you know, going out and buying all of that, yes, you know, it's they can just walk in and have a beautifully styled set and just be able to easily provide that to their client, all just for like, a low price of renting a studio. So outside of photographers, though, people have recorded podcasts here. I actually one photographer. She's

using it. I love how she's using it. She has started doing co working days for her clients. So she is a brand photographer, yeah. So she works, she works with a lot of small businesses, so she wanted to start bringing them together. So she's been hosting, like, as kind of an appreciation to them, where she'll host these coworking days where they can come in and they can just kind of like, talk and meet, and it's great exposure

for them. And then she'll usually do at the end, just like this little extra thing where they'll all, like create content together for their businesses. So I love that idea and how she's using that. We did a book launch here in the fall, which was really, really cool. They did like, their big book launch party. So that was really fun to

see. I've had a couple of small businesses just do like, like client appreciation events, workshops, a lot of like, different meetups and masterminds and things like that. It must

well. I feel like I think we all start out in our businesses because it's such an uphill climb to get to a place where we even have any breathing room to think about anybody but ourselves and our own businesses, it can be sort of hard to envision, but once you do get to that place of stability, you know, we all talk about, this is kind of a lonely business, and you're working by yourself, other than the small amount of time, the small percentage of time that you actually spend with clients, and

I feel like what you've done so beautifully over time with your. Video is really sent, like, create a sense of community and shared. It's the, you know, it's the rising tide in real life, like, that's, it's worked exactly like that.

the cake. But yeah, I do feel like a very big driver for me in really moving this part of the studio forward, opening it up to the wider community where I live was just to be honest, like COVID, because I felt very connected in the wedding photography world. Then I became a portrait photographer, and I never really invested the time in finding a network of portrait photographers to connect with. I mean, I met a few here and there, but it just wasn't the same way that I was connected in

the wedding industry. Yeah, and then when COVID rolled around, I just felt like everything stopped and I just was sitting on this island alone and trying to make all these decisions, double, triple, guessing myself, thinking that my ideas, you know, weren't worth anything, and that I was doing it all wrong, and like, you know, going down the rabbit holes, like going on social media and comparing yourself right, and it

just was not a good place. And I was like, there's gotta be, like, a better way to do this than, like, all of us just sitting on our own island and trying to figure out how to do

it on our own. Because anytime I've seen my business propel and, you know, over 16 years, I feel like there are very key turning points where I've been like, Yes, I can point to that and say that was like a turning tide for me when it sort of elevated my business to whatever that next level was, you know, whatever, whatever it was that I was trying to do. And the sort of defining factor around all of that was always having people around me to, like, bounce my

ideas off of and support me. And so with the studio that really is kind of like in the photography community, the next rendition for the studio. So we actually, in the fall, just launched a photography collective. So it's a membership that photographers can join, and with it, they get hourly access to the to the studio that they can use however they want throughout the year. So they can use it for client appreciation events, client shoots, mini

sessions, things like that. But beyond that, it's meant to be a place where photographers can essentially share resources and resources including the studio, but also resources like knowledge and education and ideas. We actually had one of our first meetups yesterday, and it was so cool to hear some of the photographers going around, and they're being like, well, I have some some dresses, you know, can I bring them to the studio and I'll house them there, and then anyone can use

them. And that really has always just been my vision. I when I look around, I see so many photographers working so hard by themselves. And I think that when we come together and we work together collectively, you move your business forward 10 times faster.

And then there's going to be the biggest proportion of people who have no idea like where they would even start with something like this. What would you say to those people, maybe they're not even close to being able to purchase a building. But like, where, you know, you started with an apartment, a space inside of your apartment, if you were starting back at the beginning, what would you be looking for, or would you take it in a different direction? That is a

So like, you can use them for photography, but like, they're like, I think content creation, because it's become so important, right? These sort of like places that you can come and create content, which. Is part of what you know, studio 428, is it's just also has a community piece of it, but the access to that is greater. So back when I was getting started, I don't feel like that existed.

I feel like the studios that I would have had access to would have been like sterile, techie type Studios, which is the complete opposite of what my studio is. It's very like a it's very approachable. It was designed with like, kind of like the client and the experience in mind. It almost looks like the lounge area, almost looks like it, you know, like you're walking into like an interior design showroom type thing, right? Like it has like that

vibe to it. So I still think I would have done it the same way. I've actually never thought about that until you've asked this question, but I still think I would have done it the same way. Now, though, if I was starting today, all over because some of these options are available, I would absolutely find a space that I could start getting into to start utilizing for even if it's for marketing purposes. So a lot of times when I'm talking to photographers, and they'll be like, Oh, your

studio is so cool. Your studio so cool. I just only do outdoor photography. And it's a valid point. It's a totally valid point. And there are so many ways to utilize a studio beyond just a client shoot. And when you really start thinking about those, that's when you start to see all of these other doors. And even, I would say, like, revenue streams start to open up for you that you know, if you want that, that you can then

choose to step through. So a lot of times, we operate kind of like within our own four walls, and we put on our blinders, and we're like, this is what I do. I photograph families, you know, at parks and gardens, and I do mini sessions and things like that. And I'm just going to stay focused. I'm going to stay

focused here. And if that completely fulfills you, and you feel as though financially, that is hitting the mark very easily for you, and that, you know, you you're not having to, like, ever say, who I kind of wish I, you know, I kind of wish I could pay myself a little bit more. I wish my sales were a little bit higher. I wish I had a few more bookings. Or, for me, even, honestly, you know, what the Studio does, it evens out my

workflow. So that way, like my my workload, so that way fall doesn't have to feel so chaotic, because you can actually be shooting in like January and February and March, maybe they're not your main genres, but so all that to say that I think if you can remove the blinders and say, Okay, I'm an outdoor photographer, but how could I use A studio space to either bring in new warm leads to maybe shoot some genres that I don't normally shoot in the off season, so that way I can

take less families in the fall and maybe have a little bit more time for my family. Could I throw a client appreciation event? I mean, I you know what I always think of for photographers, even if you're an outdoor natural light photographer, you and let's present your like, let's say you're doing families, those families, the parents, guarantee they need hot shots, absolutely like an amazing client appreciation event that you could throw. Hey, you're one of my top 10 clients. So I'm

offering, I'm doing this day. If you want to come in to this the studio space, and I can do a professional headshot for you that you can use for LinkedIn or your business or whatever, like, what an amazing client add on and value boost for them. So I think just looking outside of a studio as well, I only shoot outdoors, so I don't need a studio space, I think if you can remove those blinders and the walls that you're operating in and say, but how could I use it?

That's when you really start to see the power of a studio and just how it can help your business grow in different ways that you maybe didn't imagine. Yeah,

one that you've set up. I think that for anyone who is worried about the cost, I get that, but sitting down and mapping out how you are going to, you know, knock the ROI on that investment out of the park. It's, there's just so many different opportunities. And, you know, it's like my head is just ping, ping, pinging with ideas here, this idea of having, like, a headshot, mini marathon type thing for as a client appreciation could be strictly

client appreciation. It could also be a fundraiser, like donate $100 to the, you know, whatever is something, especially if it's something local and important to your. Regular client base, they're going to love the opportunity to support that thing and get something that they need to get anyway, with you, cementing you as their go to photographer who they love and recommend and all

those kinds of things. I mean, I just, I feel like the marketing potential all by itself, if you're creative enough about it. Could cover that ROI and more, but you've got lots of ideas about this. I know we've talked about this, and I think that you've turned that into a freebie, right?

we'll do that another day. This was wonderful, and I am looking forward to checking out your your 10 ideas and comparing them to my 10 ideas. So well, have a wonderful day. Thank you so much.