EP 154: Navigating Niching Down with Tavia Redburn

out on anything. When a restaurant promises that they can do it all chances are none of it is being done particularly well. And I think we all understand that on some level. So why is it so difficult, so scary, so painful for us to take our photography business and get rid of all of the stuff that is not truly what we do best? That process is called niching down or if you are steadfastly American, it is niching down, but I can't, I can't make myself

say it that way. And today on the podcast, I am bringing my friend Tavia Redburn. On to chat about how she niched down into one of the smallest and most esoteric sub genres within photography, and has built a huge business out of it. Tavia is a birth photographer in the Oklahoma City area. And today she's talking to us about not only how niching down shouldn't be scary, but how it can really, really benefit your business. 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. Tavia it is so great to finally have you on this can't be that hard. Welcome to the show. How are you today?

niche. And you've done it like in exponentially well. So without me diving too further, much further on that. Let me turn the microphone over to you. And have you introduced yourself.

for a hot minute. And I'm super excited to share with you guys just about niching down and how to change your mindset around niching down so that you can actually get books not only more frequently, but easier. Yeah, yeah, certainly. I will said easier. Lee more easier.

whole story. But it was that experience when I was dabbling that led me to think maybe I should try to specialize in birth photography so that I can be somebody that people can rely on because just like a wedding, you don't get a second chance to photograph somebodies birth, right? And I missed out on that personally. And so my cousin was having a baby about six months later, and I was like, Hey, can I come? Take photos of your birth thankfully She was on board. And I photographed her

birth in January of 2012. And after that, I was like, Okay, this is what I've got to do. Like, I love this so much, nobody is doing this, nobody is talking about this, like, this is what I want to do.

process. And it is a very, it for a long time, it held a lot of lore for me as a specialty, but it's a that's a tough business, because you really are on call a lot, you are dealing with people who are like, I think I'm going into labor, like you, it's like signing up to photograph a wedding in terms of potentially the amount of time involved and all that sort of thing. However, you don't know when the wedding is gonna, you have like a month long range of

like, potential wedding. So, so my hat's off to you for going, you know, deep into birth, because I do feel like, especially with birth, maybe the the focus, that level of focus really does give you a lot more ability to be there and sort of give your clients the assurance that you are going to be there in a in a tougher situation. So that was off. Yeah.

don't know the time. So it's like, it could be the middle of the night could be eight hours could be four hours can be 20 hours. But what I always loved about it was that I got to strictly be someone who documented what happened. Like, I didn't have to pose anyone, I didn't have to like orchestrate. I didn't have to be like energetic with toddlers, like I literally could just photograph everything as it was happening. And so that was that was what I loved about it. I love it.

steps did you take? Once you made that decision? You know, what was the process of starting to say no to people when they were contacting you and saying like, I want my, you know, son hasn't seen your portraits? And can you come take them?

wasn't blogging about them. I didn't have portfolios of senior photos on my website. I was photographing them, giving them a great client experience, blah, blah, blah. But I wasn't positioning myself as like a senior photographer. And eventually I did stop shooting those things. Once I got busier with birth and babies and that niche, I stopped photographing things like seniors, but just because you want to choose one specialty doesn't mean you can't

photograph other genres. You just want to be known for something specific. So when people say birth photographer, they think Tavia. And that was really intentional on my part. So I had a unique challenge of getting the word out about genre photography that not a lot of people knew about. And I know that branding photographers specifically, I've had to do this boudoir photographers have had to do this, or you're kind of like creating a new niche of

photography almost. And so not only do you have to be good at not Nisha photography, but you have to explain to people why they need it. And so that was a unique challenge that I had specializing in birth was like, Hey, not only do you want to hire me, but like I have to convince you as to why you even need and want birth photography,

right? And so but when you do that, no matter if it's birth, or boudoir, or branding, or whatever your specific niches, whenever you convince someone or can show someone like why they need this, you then become the expert like you then become the person that everybody goes to for that thing. So that makes it really exciting and a lot easier to stand out.

social media. And on my blog, is one way to get this idea in front of people, even though I was like I said, still photographing newborns and still photographing maternity, and families and other related genres. I was pushing birth publicly, like, this is what I want to be known for. The next thing was really getting involved in my local birth

community. And so if you're a boudoir photographer, or if you're a branding photographer, and you're thinking about like, Okay, where's my ideal client, already hanging out and trying to get some of their problems solved? That's what I did thinking about pregnant people. Okay. She's thinking about hiring a midwife. She's looking at where to give birth? Is it like a birth center? Is that

home? Is that a hospital? How can I connect with these people that she's already thinking about an already relating to, and get in front of her that way. So definitely content, reaching out and connecting with these vendors who already served my ideal clients, and SEO, which kind of goes with blogging, but I was really intentional and strategic about SEO, so that if on the off chance somebody was googling birth photographer, Oklahoma City, I wanted my name to be the first one to pop up,

for sure. And

powerful. But I do feel like the difference between 10 years ago, and now is that we have some other activities that are similarly Good. Are there are there any things if someone was like, I don't want a blog? Or I don't only want a blog? Are there other things that you see as being really high value ways to educate and sort of establish yourself as an expert in a particular niche?

chiropractors, and midwives. And we would interview them. And we talk about, like, local things happening in Oklahoma City for pregnant people, like we did a lot on that podcast. And that was a way that we could put out content and connect with our ideal people without selling and push it, you know, we're just like making ourselves available.

So YouTube podcast, of course, blogging live video like Facebook, live, Instagram, live, tick tock, live, wherever your ideal person is already hanging out, and you have something that you know can help them just think about what the best way is to get that information to them that also you actually enjoy doing and will be consistent doing right.

post. So like, now you can make a video or I love the idea of doing a more locally focused podcast, that's not even something that I had thought about before but like other vendors, that helps them that helps you it's so brilliant, super, super good. So you You niche down, you started really focusing on birth. And obviously, your business did not dry up and float away on the

wind. So I think a lot of people when faced with the prospect of like choosing, you know, okay, I photograph families and newborns and seniors and weddings, and we'll also take maternity or engagement, you know, that sort of thing. Like, that's a lot of sub genres. And they're afraid that if they niche down too much, I think they're afraid of two things. I think that there's the fear, obviously, that their

business will dry up. And then I think a lot of photographers are afraid of getting bored, like, what if I pick the wrong thing? And then I'm just stuck doing that one thing all the time? What are your thoughts on those?

inquiries are not there. So my business is going to dry up. But the truth is, if you really look at so let's use birth photography as an example. But this is true for any genre of photography. So how many babies for me and Oklahoma County are being born every year like this information is publicly available? It's about 12,000

babies in 2019. Were born in Oklahoma County, which actually served counties outside of Oklahoma County, but for this example, 12,000 babies being born, how many of those babies do I need to run a successful business? Just worth photography, right? So if I'm charging even, let's say $2,000, which is between my middle and top package, let's say $2,000, for birth photography, and I get 50 birth clients, that's $100,000 a year. And that's just

birth. And we actually like have a process to upsell them on newborn and maternity. So our average client spends more like $5,000. But if they just booked us for birth, that's $2,000 for 50 clients. Well, that is point oh, 4% of all the babies being born in Oklahoma County, that I need to hire me to have a six figure a year photography business. Yeah, point zero 4%,

not even 1%. Right. And so when you think about it like that, you start to realize that you can get super, super specific with who you're talking to, and intentionally repel everybody else, to build a really successful business. And I have an example of how I did this. And I didn't even realize I was doing it at the time. But this was like 2014, I posted a photo of like the baby attached to the placenta, which I hadn't, I hadn't really seen at the time, and I thought, oh my gosh, this

is so cool. People are gonna love this, you know, and I posted it. And so many people were like, Oh, that's so gross. Oh, why would you post that disgusting, but freaking out. But then there were also people who were sharing it and love it. And oh, wow, life is amazing. Look at this, like check this out. And it got like hundreds, maybe 1000s I can't remember, of shares, it blew up in both a

negative and positive way. And because I was being polarizing about something that I loved and wanted to be known for, it attracted a huge group of people to me, who also loved that thing. So if I had photographed a birth and posted a generic photo, that's just like, oh, this baby so sweet, love this beautiful, like what photographers so often do, you're not attracting anyone and you're not really repelling anyone, you're just sort of

being neutral. And so when you can be polarizing, you'll naturally start to attract your people. Yeah. And you only need point zero 4% of them to have a successful business. So you can repel 99 plus percent.

exciting. totally do that. And if you want to You know, splicing new different things that, you know, it's like, oh, you're a boudoir photographer and you have this like specific process that you follow. But you saw this new idea that you want to incorporate every once a while, do something like that to mix it up. But ultimately, I'm here to run a business. And my clients want to know what they're going to get from me.

Yeah. And so in order to provide a consistent product, I have to be consistent in how I shoot and what I do, and I can be creative within that. But to an extent, I'm not here to be entertained by my business, I'm here to run a successful business,

have a cool job. But at the same time, if you are too busy chasing shiny objects, you're never going to a run a successful business, but be give your clients the consistent and professional experience that you that they need that they want to really feel confident about when they you know, hand over their credit card. I I think that that is amazing advice. I also believe that the more systematized and sort of like when you know your business like

the back of your hand. And when it runs in a very, very consistent fashion, it gives you a lot more space to get creative on the margins. Like, if you want to try something out artistically, if you want to try a new offer or something like that, you have a lot more headspace to kind of play around, then if you are just constantly chasing your tail trying to keep up with your own ADHD business. Like it's the, it

seems fun at the beginning. And at the beginning, it all feels like that, because you're learning everything new. But once you settle into, you know, a routine that it should not be seen as the as the enemy, like, you know, I think that within that consistency, you can actually find deeper creativity. So

That that's another drawback to having all these genres, like you said, is like you're expending so much energy trying to do different things that you can't really focus on the one thing like you said that you do have that extra energy to be creative. So

business. But I took all the wedding stuff off of my website, I stopped talking about weddings, I still took weddings from time to time for like, I think that that petered out after about a year and a half. And then at some point, I was like, Yeah, I don't want to do this anymore. Because exactly that what I would find is that when somebody would contact me and say, Oh, you shot my sister's wedding, and now I'm

getting married. And I'm hoping that you'll I know that you don't, you know, it doesn't look like you take weddings anymore. But I'm hoping you'll make an exception, I would get really stressed because I was out of practice my I used to have this really pretty wedding PDF guide thing. And every time somebody would contact me, I'd have to go, like adjust it, because it wasn't up to date. And so it was I would, I was doing all this

extra work. And it finally occurred to me like, I'm ready, I don't need to do this anymore, I can let someone else take it. And that is such a it's a freeing thing as well to really be able to focus your energy in one direction. So anyway, so what I love is that now you have gone through this whole process, and now you have turned around and you have like taken it another level and you've created

this certification process. So obviously, I'm trying to think I don't know that every genre has a certification process available. But I think that that's exceptionally smart and probably important in birth photography, because that's a whole different set of liabilities and responsibilities and all that kind of thing. So I would love to hear even though that's not having to do with the umbrella niching down it is sort of the ultimate way to niche down. So talk to me about certification.

photographer mindset. And birth photography is like this unique combination of both because you're not a portrait photographer, but you're not the birth support role, either. And so it's like finding this balance. And so what I realized was there was something like lacking in our industry of certifying birth photographers, just to help them understand what their role is, as a birth

photographer. And that label of certification allows the photographer to confidently put themselves out there because they have gone through this training, they've gone through this education, they submit galleries to be approved for the photography side of things is checked, as well as do they understand how to behave in a birth space, do they understand when to go to the birth Do they understand how to treat after delivering the images and all of that differently for a birth

client than they would for a portrait client, because, you know, if the birth client had something traumatic happened to them, or their birth didn't go as planned, what does delivering the photos to them look like differently than, you know, a newborn session or a wedding or something like that. So there's just a lot of like intricacies that are different for birth

photographers. And so I saw certification as a way to kind of put a bow on all of that, and kind of just say, like, when you're a certified birth photographer, it means that you have reached these milestones, you've achieved these things, you have this code of conduct that you follow, so that hospitals and providers you can present that to them and say, this is the code of conduct I abide by, it just I think raises the bar for birth photography, as a professional genre of

photography that is not going away,

would be interesting. I want to go see somebody have a baby, I'll say I'm a birth photographer. I think that that's, I think it's great. I'm glad that you're providing that service. And helping people, especially coming from the medical side of things like it is, you know, there's a lot to know about, like, when to be where and when to get out of the way and all that sort of stuff. So, so that's super cool. Well, Tavia I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and

chat with us. And I know that especially our birth photographers who are listening are gonna be like, I want to check out more so tell everybody where they can find you.

interesting. I want to learn more about what that looks like. It's all about how to beautifully photograph birth so that you can become a high demand photographer that is at birthphotography.school.com/training.