EP 131: Reinventing your Business with Melissa Arlena

this time next year. This is a must listen episode. She is sharing her very personal, not always super easy story about the course of her 13 year photography career, and it is one with a very happy ending. So without giving away too much, I am going to cue the music and let you enjoy. 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. Hey, Melissa, it's so great to have you on This Can't Be That Hard. How are you today?

such a great story. And in this season, I'm trying to like fill people with inspiration and things like that while they're burning through the busy time.

just being with them. So at that point, I decided Alright, well let me go ahead and make a switch to like lifestyle newborn photography. I like that. That sounds cool. And I will tell you starting you know, making a transition like that is incredibly hard. Yeah, we're basically starting your business over from scratch. And you forget how hard it was the first time, especially when it's been

10 years. Yeah, yeah. I listened to one of your recent podcasts with a lady who talked about transitions, and that that really hit home. I was like, I know exactly what she meant by that transition where you're not getting that many clients and the credit card bill is going up and up and you're just like, what am I doing, I don't have a plan. I'm throwing things at the wall. And in my case, I found myself throwing lots of money at every miracle photography course

that was pitched at me. And to the tune of like $20,000 in debt with no income coming in, really. And having a come to Jesus with my husband of like, yeah, your business is not working. And I you know, that's my baby like, what do you mean it's not working? No, I can make it work. And he's like, No, we've got to figure something else out right now. Right? And so I had to put the business on the back burner, which pretty much I thought was like the end of my life.

website and just just trying to keep things going and it just was not ...not working.

vulnerable. I was working still during that first 15 to 18 months in my business so I had it was like the training wheels right like I still have income if somebody didn't book me it wasn't the end of the world and it wasn't until I really did have that volume of inquiries that I was like okay it's time

and I'm good to quit my job. But if you don't have that if you're making a transition like that and your your your finances aren't prepared or you're you're not mentally prepared which is like 85% of it right yeah to like sit around with crickets that's it's a super hard time

good point. Um, I immediately went back to what I had done before photography, and I had to say okay, no, think about what you have learned in photography. And then I started thinking about like, even though I was not feeling successful at marketing, I had marketed a wedding business for a while absolutely and I had done business management stuff and social media and obviously photography and so I ended up building out kind of my resume

as like a digital marketer. And I lucked out I found a job with a local jewelry store a part time job that worked great with my hours and paid well and and I did pictures of their jewelry and I did all there so I was hired as their social media manager and in three days in they were like, Oh yeah, this is our marketing manager and I was like, wait, I'm sorry, what?

same stuff. Yeah. So if you are in a position where you have to go find a job right now, like don't forget to utilize the skills you've learned in your business.

supplement your income. There's so much stuff and a lot of it can be done entirely online or remotely.

year of Tavi. And I just went through and any extra expenses that I could cut, were done. And then I just kind of let it sit at that point. I mean, I had spent the previous two years shooting portfolio sessions and blogging and doing all of the stuff. And it just was not there. It was not ready yet because it takes time. And so by letting it sit it, it just kind of was on its own. And now when an inquiry came in, I was like shocked because I was like, I'm not even doing anything on that

side of the business. Right? He hired and then somebody booked and like, Wow, this is great. And then it just in the stress level for me, like no more panic attacks. I had money coming in to contribute to the household. And I and I was paying off the business debt too. So it wasn't like, Oh, my husband's gonna pay that off. Don't worry about it. No, I was very specific about making sure that the debt I accrued I was paying off and I

was treating like a house. And so I think I was about 18 months in I actually had about a year into the job and doing this my I was booking up like I was having four or five, six sessions a month plus doing the part time job. And my husband looked at me and he was like, Alright, it's time to say goodbye to the part time job. And I was the one that held on for another six months, because I was scared of falling back in to, "Well what happens

if it all goes wrong?", right? I felt like even those during those two years, and I'm sure a lot of people feel this way. You're not sitting on your butt eating bonbons you are trying your butt off, you are doing as much as you can. I mean, and like I said to I mean, I was buying the courses, I was doing the work, just not changing the needle. And so it's just it was so frustrating at that time. And so, you know, I got everything

paid off. My husband at this point, who was like 'get a job' was like 'quit that job'. Oh, I love that you have such a like, it's I don't feel like everybody's partner would necessarily give them timely information on either of those things. Like, it may take too long to tell them like pull the plug and it may take too long to say, Okay, it's time to go again. So that Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah,

yeah. So it was awesome. So you know, I waited another like six months, and I actually put in my notice, like two weeks before COVID shut everybody down. Oh, oh, Lord. I bet that was a panic attack inducing kind of a It was a little bit because I remember that April, I had like six or seven sessions scheduled and I keep I keep my schedule so that I'm only doing like six to eight a month. So I was

basically fully booked up. Yeah, and at that time to my photography income had way outpaced my part time job income. So right. And like my husband's point was he said that part time job is now holding you back from making more money. So it's got to go. But that month. Yeah, I mean, everybody, everybody bumped to the next month. So it just ended up being super busy after that. So I don't feel like COVID affected me as much as it affected like wedding photographers. Sure.

Yeah, there was one. But um, but yeah, I don't feel like it. It had that effect. But I mean, it was amazing. In 18 months, I was able to reset. And then when I went back into the business, I had no debt. And I had a whole lot more rules in place about how I spent my money and what I did with my money. Which I totally want to ask you

about. But I before we get into that, I want to back up for just a second and ask you and maybe you don't know, but what do you think the difference was between those two years where you were like trying, trying, trying taking all these courses, whatever, and nothing was hitting nothing, you know, you weren't able to get traction. And then while you kind of let your business just run on autopilot, all of a sudden you you started getting more and

more inquiries. What do you do you have any sense as to what? Yeah, you can attribute that to? It comes down to SEO, Search Engine Optimization. I built my entire wedding business off of SEO, I was page one, for all the keywords, all the venues, all the stuff. I've been doing it for 10 years, I knew what I needed to do. But SEO takes time to bake. Like, as much as we all want to go change our keywords and get on to page one, it takes

a while to do that. It takes a while to figure out which keywords you want to be on page one for. Yeah, which I'm going through, you know, now having moved to Florida of like figuring all of that out again. But yeah, it just took that time for those blog posts to take effect. It took time for those

keywords to get in. And then you know, some of the clients I had initially coming were past wedding clients that were not having babies that wanted to have me back and stuff so but yeah, I've always attributed SEO is like my number one way clients find me. And so it's just you got to do the work. And then you got to be patient for a while. Yeah, for sure. And I yeah, I feel like that is very true. In many ways my photography

business. I mean, maybe by the time this episode drops, I will have gotten back on my personal or not my personal like my photography businesses Instagram page that has really taken a giant backseat for me recently. And I'm like anybody who looks at this would think I'm not working, which I am like, I'm working like crazy. But um, but it is, but I am you know, I'm completely booked for the rest of this year into March of 2022.

But I'm getting inquiries like crazy, and it is all 100% I am sure to do with that like long baked SEO. I mean, it just, you know, it's good news. And it's bad news for someone who's new, it's good news. Because if you put in the time and you put in the effort, and you have like a long game in mind, it will happen. But it definitely is hard because there's no like silver bullet about it. Yeah, unfortunately there isn't. I would say Instagram is more of like a short term with hashtags.

But yeah, I mean, that's a onesie twosie for me, you know, one a month, maybe kind of thing, it's not enough to sustain for, and I'm just I don't have as much time to devote to Instagram, as I would rather do SEO stuff. Yeah, well, I think the payoff in the long run is bigger. For a lot of people. It just it does

take more time. I imagine too, that the pressure that you felt during like before you went and got another job was probably making I always feel like the less and the less I need a job, the more likely I am to land the job. It's like, yeah, yeah, there. It's like people can smell that desperation a mile away. And like, maybe you're the job and the security and they're like, okay, I don't actually need to book every single

inquiry that comes in. I wonder if that contributed to like maybe a higher booking rate? Yeah, and if you think about it, too, when you're desperate for those inquiries, whatever, somebody comes at you Oh, that's too high. Okay, well, how much would you pay kind of attitude to that, you know, then you're setting yourself up for for

worst case scenario. I mean, even when I even during the so and I do remember what the reset too, I was able to raise up my prices a little bit, because the income didn't matter at that point, because I had the income covered by the part time job. I went from charging, you know, like, $300 or $400 for a portrait session to getting to a point of charging, like $600 or $700. And it was like, Well, if they don't book, I've got income coming in. And it just takes time to get to those clients who

will book and yeah. And so I think, for me, just that, that, that just taking that stress off, like just made me a happier person. And yeah, at first I was like, embarrassed that my business is failing. And you know, I'm calling my family and, and best friend and like, I gotta go get a job, and I don't know what I'm going to do to, you know, really coming back and then being like, it's wasn't that big of a deal. You know, obviously, they're gonna support

me and stuff. And I recently had a conversation with my sister where I was talking to her about how far I've come in three years with this. And she was really sweet. And she left me a message and she was like, I think I've forgotten to tell you like how proud I am of you. And I was like, Thank you like, that's who I want to hear it from. Like, I don't care with clients and stuff. Like I want to hear from my family. And I'm not a failure, even though I felt like one at the time.

Yeah, totally. And, in fact, I would say that sometimes. It's then that like, willingness to admit to yourself to the world that like what I'm doing, what I have been trying to do isn't working. That's not to say that it's a bad idea. It's not to say that I'm not talented, it means that my offer right now isn't like sticking for some reason. And I'm going to reevaluate

that. That's not failure that's opening yourself up to growth, but when we're in it, like anybody can look at a friend and say oh no you're not failing you're just pivoting or whatever and when you're in it like it's so hard to convince yourself that that's not failure so yeah that is that is we that your sister was able to like articulate that because it's i think that that sometimes doesn't get said out loud so that's awesome.

Yeah and um just for me that timeframe then it let me just do a hard reset on everything ya know, by cutting expenses like that was huge now I was able to set myself up to be profitable because I didn't have a laundry list of expenses that we all know can get out of hand. absolutely it's a sneaky business.

It is! I love that Schitts Creek thing where the guy's like, "It's a write off" and like "Well, what's a write off?" "Well I don't know you just write it off!" And I think we all feel that way during those first couple years of business yeah until you realize well i i wrote off more money than I paid myself because I spent it on business stuff which was acceptable at the time but turns out it's really not acceptable right? You need to pay yourself.

I was going to say yeah, writing something off doesn't equal Money in Your Pocket unless you are making so much that your tax burden is right is greater Yeah, there is a there is a balance

there. I'm not an accountant nor do I play one on TV but I know that much so the okay so you're coming up on two years of being back in business full time tell me how that evolution has gone and also for sure I'd love to maybe start out with what these like here it's hard reset we're going back into photography full time what are the rules?

So the big thing for me was no purchasing something unless it solved a problem in my business and I could not find another way to solve hmm so like I had to do a camera upgrade last year and it was one of those Okay, do we

just not like our camera? Or what you know is it because there's a fancy new one coming out we just want to buy that and it was like, no the problem was my camera was actually having some malfunctions and I was like okay well what if I just replaced it with you know a used version of the same thing and there I had wanted to get more into video and doing family films and stuff and so with the camera was using it was not it was not working well for that on the focusing stuff because I had

a mark 3 and you couldn't like touch and drag Yeah. And so I was like alright, I know I'm having this issue and I know I have this need that I want to do that will make me more money in my business so these fall under that criteria but then also to do that I was like okay, I pulled out my bag of gear and I was like what am I not using? What can I sell to offset the

cost of this? so I've tried to become incredibly like thrifty we've done Dave Ramsey stuff and so like paying off debt and like finding money in other ways is like a huge thing and so I just started taking some of those principles and applying them to the business setting a budget for the business of I love the book Profit First and he has a comment in there of you pay yourself first and then and then thought is well what if there's not enough enough leftover for expenses well then you cut those

expenses and I was like whoa what?! cut expenses?! Yeah, like I never would have thought about that before but going through all of this I was like yeah, you cut expenses, you get rid of the expenses that aren't necessary that you don't 100% need but yeah, making sure it solves an issue in my business and making sure I couldn't find another way to do it. Without purchasing whatever it was. Courses are always a hard one for me. I love

education. But even with courses, I have to do a ton of research now to justify it in my head. It was like I think I spent like six weeks researching Simple Sales System before I actually sucked up for it because I know I missed the bonus because I spent so long I watched the masterclass like twice I was looking for reviews everywhere. And so now I try to like protect my money a lot

more. Yeah. I hate the idea of wasting money on a course that's going to sit somewhere I also have to be able to complete it soon. Yeah, I'm not saying like soon as six months I'm talking Do I have time in the next two weeks to to see this education through and implement it in the business? I think that's really smart. Um, I feel like when I and I am also like a real education addict I can my brain does something where it can talk me into spending money on education over

almost anything else. Like I'm pretty thrifty when it comes to gear and all that sort of stuff. But oh no, even if I get one idea out of this, and I do believe that. But in order to get that one idea, you actually have to sit down and go through the course and for sure I have purchased things being like I'll do these next month and then I forget all about them because life is busy. And that's what happened. So I think that that is a really great like golden

nugget of information. Like if you're gonna invest in education, have it, if it's not in the next two weeks, put it on your calendar and like have it this is when I'm doing this course. Yeah, and I remember in simple sales, you talked about that in the beginning of like scheduling it on your calendar, and I was like, Oh, that's brilliant. That's exactly what I need to make sure I'm doing with this. You know, that's what I know, I'm gonna have the next two

weeks. But let me go ahead and put actual hard deadlines on my calendar, I finished this module by this time and implement this. And when you think about big businesses, like businesses that make a ton of money, they are absolutely like spendthrift when it comes to like, where are we losing money? What is what is going on? And how can we stop

the bleeding. And they are also really like results driven, where they will spend a lot of money to solve a problem or whatever, but they have to have like, this is how this is gonna work. This is why we need it if they're not just sort of like willy nilly putting money out there. So I mean, I know we don't like to think of ourselves in line with, you know, the big businesses of the world. But on a small scale, you know, there's good lessons to be taken from

that. And it is, I mean, what you're doing is smart. That's good, because after, you know, from my past, sometimes I don't always feel like am I making the right decision? Am I making the smart decision, but it's like, once you start putting those rules in place for yourself, it does help you get

out of that hole. And that's what helped me too with leaving the part time job of going, I'm not just jumping back in and going to have the same behaviors, I'm changing up the foundation, and I'm changing up the behaviors so that I don't repeat that mistake again.

Right? That sounds really awful. But I want to let you know, it sounds really reasonable. Yeah, I was like, I can do six to eight. That's what works that allows me to have that one on one with my clients. But I need to make more money from this. And so I had already, like I said, fixed my my habits, I had already fixed my expenses. So now I needed to up my pricing. And so I researched the crap out of Simple Sales and got on board

with that. And then that it's so funny the confidence that when you get your pricing and you understand all of it, and it's profitable, and people are booking it, that it just makes you feel like a completely different business owner at that point, like, and so with that year, even the clients that I was worried about losing, they ended up coming back to me for mini sessions, and I had and some of them still came back and paid my new pricing for newborn

sessions. But I had plenty of new clients coming in that didn't have a problem with the pricing. So I didn't even have to worry if someone was like, Oh, that's too expensive, right? And just having that, that confidence to say, and not being in that desperate place anymore. Then I'm like, okay, it was easy to bless and release kind of thing, let them go versus, you know, just wanting to take anything. And then now we're at a point where we moved to Florida like three months ago.

And so I'm restarting again from scratch. But because of all the things I put in place before, you know, I have a business emergency fund to get us through, I know the steps I need to take on getting my SEO set up, I started that in February, like the moment my husband found out we were moving, I was like, bam, keywords the next morning. And getting all of that set up.

And so even though we're restarting down here, I've already had four clients book, and then I upped my pricing for down here too, because we're in a very high end area and stuff and I wanted to work even less. Indeed. And I you know you said before, like that's awful of me Yeah, yeah, absolutely. to say that I wanted more money, but I didn't want to work more. And I, I just want to acknowledge that I think a lot of us feel that way that we have to in order to make more we have

to work more. And this is actually something that I am working on in my own mindset. And that that's not true. Like there is certainly a certain amount of work that goes into making money. But when you start to scale that up, it is not a one to one equation. And we have been sort of culturally taught I sometimes think that women even more so than men that like in order to deserve more you have to be doing more and and there are so many examples out there in the world where that's not

true. I mean your skill level and everything else like. It's really just about you being will ng to ask for more and then you now do the work to put your elf in front of those peop e. But other than that, like it that can work just as well

ways. But like, both came to a place where, on the other side, it wasn't just okay, it was quite a bit better. And, and so...

new area. And I'm going to set the work balance that I want to have. And I've got I know what I need to do. And then on the flip side of that, too, even though I am anxious and stressed at times of like Okay, okay, when am I gonna get more clients, I also can tell myself, you know, if you do this, this and this, that it will pay off. And you know what, if you have to go get a part time job down here for a little while, it's not going to

kill you. And you know, it puts you in a better place later on, then racing to the bottom. And so I'm not anywhere close to needing to get the part time job. But I did call my jewelry store manager before we left and I was like, hey, if I need a reference, will you give me one? And he was like, Yeah, of course. I love that so much. I yeah, I really do. It's such an empowering thing to know that just Well, just exactly what you said like you could you could go get a another part time job or

something like that. Without getting into that cycle of just like racing to the bottom as it were. Yeah, it is. I feel like it's, it shouldn't be looked at as failure. It should be looked at as like, I'm being smart. When I was new I was before I quit my job I was. This has come up a couple of times, I was on creative live as a student and it was when creative live was brand new. And if you are just dying to go see Annemie from 11 years ago, it's the Bambi Cantrell posing and lighting

episode. But, or class, but um, so I went out to Seattle, and was at this thing. And at one point, she was offering these like, I don't know, we were having coffee in the morning, and she was doing portfolio reviews. And I was talking to her and she was like, yeah, your work is good. Um, the, I don't know, she talked to me about a couple of things. And she said, Well, where are you in your business? I said, Well, I'm thinking about quitting my job. And you know, I was getting to

that point. And she was like, Can I give you a piece of advice without you taking this the wrong way. I was like, sure. And she goes, don't quit your day job. Too soon. That's what she said. And she was like, you know, this has nothing to do with your work, it just is that the longer you can, or the less pressure you put on your business in the beginning, the more it will allow it to sort of bloom and and it was smart. And I waited for another six months after that. At which point I

really was much more ready. And and it was great advice. But I don't think it's the most popular advice out there. You know, I feel like everybody's like, you can do it full time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think the other thing too is, just as one of your previous guests was talking about transitions when you're, if you're transitioning your business from one genre to another and you're starting over completely, like you need to plan for that as if you were starting your business from

scratch. Yeah, and if that means taking more of the previous clients, then you're you know, basically that then that previous genre could kind of become your previous day job, your day job that you you might need to take a couple more of those to keep things going while you work on the back end of other stuff, where you might just say I literally cannot shoot another wedding to save my life. So I'm gonna go find something else that will bridge

that gap. Well, You're really good at blogging, you could go blog for somebody, people are dying for that stuff. So Yeah, I just actually hired someone to help for me to try and help with my SEO efforts down here. And yeah, there's so many skills even though I know I can blog. I just, we just moved I'm still unpacking boxes. Right? But I don't want to wait six months and then be like, Oh no, now I'm in panic mode. That's awesome. Well, Melissa, this has been an amazing

conversation. I just I love your story and it's I feel like if more photographers could like come out of the woodwork and say this is how I became successful and I think that that would be great so I really appreciate you taking the time and being willing to share your story yeah thanks for having me on and I hope like I said that this will help someone else who's struggling to you know know it's okay to take a step back and you're not a failure for doing it.

So just get all of that straight and get your foundation straight. Awesome. We'll have a great day and I will look forward to talking to you again soon. Yeah, thanks.