But I like to try and put aside a percentage of what I know I'm going to earn to invest back into the business. So that's firstly how I get the money in the first place. I think when I first started out, I didn't want to spend any money and I definitely noticed when I started to spend money on the business carefully, I grew quicker.
So it's definitely worth investing in courses or workshop days or networking events, or even if it is you just need more equipment or gear, but really planning out exactly what are my goals for the year. What do I want to develop in? Yeah, I think my process is, is basically like that.
I'm Becca Poutney, wedding business, marketing expert, speaker, and blogger. And you're listening to the wedding pros who are ready to grow podcast. I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies, and real life examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level. If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business, doing what you love, then you're in the right place.
Let's get going with today's episode. Today I'm chatting with wedding photographer and all around great person, Georgia McGilley. Georgia and I first met a couple of years back when we realized we had a number of mutual friends, both inside and outside of the wedding industry. Since then we've worked together, I've spoken at her event, she's been a student on my signature program, and she's taken some fabulous branding photos for me.
Georgia is the queen of multiple income streams and has many strings to her photography bow, some of which we're going to dive into later in today's episode. I know you're going Absolutely love her. Georgia, welcome to the podcast. Hello. Thank you for having me. I am so happy to have you on here. I know, as I said in the intro that people are going to absolutely love hearing from you. You've got so much to offer, but before we get into all of those details, let's go right back to the start.
So first of all, as I mentioned in the introduction, you are a wedding photographer. How did you end up in the wedding industry in the first place?
Yes, so I ended up in the wedding industry kind of almost by fluke, slightly fell into it. So I got married in 2014, so nearly 10 years. Yeah, so I, I kind of I've enjoyed photography my whole life, I did photography throughout my school years, but kind of never considered it as a career. Married very young, fell into kind of having children young, and all that sort of thing. So I ended up just kind of getting a job to make ends meet, basically, initially.
And was just photographing things in the background. And then, quite quickly after I got married, a few of my friends got married, and... A couple of them asked me to photograph their wedding because they knew that I had a decent camera and that I enjoyed photography.
So I thought, yep, why not help them out with their DIY weddings, which was brilliant and very quickly I realized I loved it and I was spending all my spare time watching every possible YouTube video and every possible thing to learn more about becoming a better wedding photographer. So that's how I started off.
That is definitely a common story. People always say to me that they fell into the industry. So what were your next steps then? Because obviously you worked and you did some weddings for friends. At what point did you realize, okay, this is actually going to become a business now?
Yes. So I think I did that for nearly two years where I was kind of Doing some I did my first two weddings. I did for completely for free.
They were for really close friends Just to kind of help them out because I had very low wedding budgets and things and obviously at that point I wasn't a professional photographer So I didn't feel like I was ready to start charging But then as I started to learn and develop my skills in the background, I thought right I can start charging for this So I started Getting a few sort of family photo shoots again, mostly friends, but then as that started to grow, I thought, you know what
I can actually make a business of this. So I, I dropped my hours down to part time in the job that I was in just so that I could focus a little bit more on building the business and sort of started. Instagram account, started building a website and all that sort of thing and, and then just continuing to grow in that. And I worked part time for nearly three years before then I decided to go to full time. So it was quite nice because it meant that I had quite a few weddings under my belt.
I'd been able to work with other photographers and get to the point where I felt really confident to charge a decent amount and, and put myself forward as a professional photographer.
I love that. It's a really organic journey from being in a business working for someone else through to dropping down your hours to part time through to just being totally independent. Was there some fear along the way? Because I know a lot of people really struggle with the thought of dropping hours in their regular job, as it were, because they're scared about losing money or not getting their business to work.
Did you feel that along the way, or did you feel confident that you could make it work?
Yeah, I definitely felt, had moments of feeling a bit, I guess, intimidated, that kind of imposter syndrome, seeing other photographers in the industry being really successful, or at least looking like they're really successful, and, me not really feeling 100% sure of what I was doing. But I did really, really enjoy it, and I saw, I think, a lot of us in the wedding industry being naturally creative. you realize that that's your passion.
And I, I realized kind of whatever spare time I was, I had, I was using to try and build the business and to try and grow my expertise and stuff. Whereas if, if I wasn't spending all that extra time on it, I think I wouldn't have grown as quickly as I did. So yeah, I, I definitely did have moments of feeling nervous and not sure. And then when I did drop my hours going, Oh, what am I going to do? But, but yeah, I was very blessed to.
Have great support from my husband who's self employed himself and very good at running his own business. So lots of kind of the behind the scenes he helped with, with kind of building the business side of things and me learning how to do my accounts and all the boring admin stuff that we have to do. So that really helped as well. Yeah.
Yeah, all of the fun things that come along when you realize, Oh, this is my passion. I want to make money from it. Oh, and now it's a business and I've got to do all of the exciting stuff that comes with running a business as well. Now, I know there'll be people listening that are thinking that they want to get into photography or they want to. turn their passion into a business. Do you have any advice for up and coming photographers around how they should start getting that experience?
Do you think the route you took was right? Do you think they should second shoot for other people? If there's people listening that are kind of wanting to go on this journey, but not quite sure about it, what would you say to them?
Definitely. So if I could go back again, I would definitely do it very differently. I don't, I didn't have very much awareness of the industry at all when I first started out. Now, knowing what I know, I think I would go back. I would. Yes, exactly like you suggested. do as many second shooting jobs as I possibly can. I still second shoot very regularly for a couple of photographers that I've actually met, mainly through you, I think, Becca.
And, and I still regularly photograph for them because I just love working with other photographers and learning from them and seeing how they do things because we all do things slightly differently. So I've learned more, probably more.
from second shooting than I have from specific photography courses and things because you're really there in the action learning how the wedding day works, learning how other photographers kind of plan out their day, making sure that they're successful and organized and all that sort of thing. And then I would also, if I was starting again now in 2023, go to as many styled shoot workshops as I possibly could to build my portfolio in a relaxed environment.
So when I started in Well, I probably didn't fully start until about 2015, and then I went full time in 2018. They didn't really exist. I think there was probably a few out there, but very few and far between, and I wasn't aware of them. Whereas now, there are so many styled shoot workshops, and if you don't want to do that, you can even start connecting with other businesses and create your own styled shoot as well, where you can.
Get a model couple and set up a kind of fake wedding and build your portfolio that way in a way that's not as pressured in the environment as a real wedding day.
Yeah, really, really great tips on both counts. I think again, lots of people start and think, yeah, I can take photos, but people don't realize the ins and outs of the wedding day unless they been to a few wedding days and kind of experienced it and definitely with the styled shoots building that portfolio as well.
One of the barriers I come across myself when I talk to people who are starting out in their business is that they don't necessarily see the value in attending something like a styled shoot workshop or they're scared about investing money. Obviously now you're looking back, you're saying you can see the value in those things, value in education. Why do you think it's important or why do you wish you'd invested in that kind of thing earlier?
There's several different reasons for, definitely for the styled shoot workshops. You don't just gain your portfolio, you're obviously learning from other photographers who are there because you're likely to have a photographer running the workshop themselves who is experienced and knows what they're doing and can kind of share their expertise, but then there's usually several other photographers who are quite experienced who have paid for a ticket and are attending as well.
So you can pick people's brains, you can find out how they do things on a wedding day, but then also the thing that I found really valuable from Styled Shoot Workshops is building relationships with other wedding suppliers. And I think in our industry, we can be very lonely, can't we? Because we're, most of us are sole traders, most of us run our own businesses and are just kind of at a computer at home day to day and then out.
setting up our own things at weddings but not necessarily interacting with other people within the industry.
So days like this is purely for that, for building your portfolio and then building those relationships as well and they are so valuable for general support in the day to day knowing that you have friends who do jobs similar to you and you can kind of speak to them and pick their brains but then also for future ventures if you wanted to do a styled shoot in the future Got some relationships there with people who might be up for working with you and kind of collaborating on different things.
So, yeah.
And as I always say, you've got to speculate to accumulate at some point, you do have to invest in different areas. Yes. It's about making wise investments. Actually, if you don't have that portfolio, then it's worthwhile investing some time, some money, some energy, some effort into getting those incredible images. Now I was fortunate enough to come and speak at your recent style shoot workshop and It was fabulous.
Like the amount of work that you and all the other suppliers have put in to creating that day for new and upcoming photographers who wanted to grow their portfolio was amazing. And having seen it on the day and then being privileged enough to see the photos that have come out of that event. Afterwards from the various photographers, like you can really see why it's worthwhile being at one of those things.
Now, why do you think just generally, not necessarily inside of a workshop, but just generally when we're talking about style shoots, why do you think they're so beneficial to people and how can people be making the most of those images?
Yeah, definitely. So for photographers, for the photographer who's doing a style shoot, I think. It's huge for building your portfolio. If you're at the point where you don't, haven't had many weddings, or maybe you've had some quite small, low budget weddings, and they're not necessarily. Who you want your ideal end client to be. They're really good opportunity to get some imagery of. You get a chance to just, like I've already said, build those relationships.
For other suppliers, you can use those images that have come from that style shoot in so many different ways. You can use them on your social media. You can create reels with them. You can put them on your website. You could use them in...
Brochures or welcome guides, anything that you're kind of creating for your clients, they're a really good way of getting those, those kind of wow images into your portfolio, onto your website so that you kind of look like that a slightly more high-end supplier.
Absolutely. And the other great thing about it is the collaboration. So the amount of different people that were involved in your style shoot workshop and all of the different people that you're tagging in those images, if you wanna get seen on social media, then that's a great way to do it. Because if you're tagging other people, other people are sharing you, it's all kind of working together to get more visibility on your brand.
And I don't know if this is your experience, Georgia, but I definitely find that people don't make the most of being part of those shoots. So they might be part of it. They put a lot of work in upfront. They supply their dresses or their makeup services or whatever it is for the shoot, their photography skills. And then those images just sit on a hard drive somewhere and they're just not making the most of it. Is that a similar experience that you've seen?
Yeah, 100%. And I think as, as I've kind of grown over the last couple of years in doing styled shoots and built the team that we work with regularly on the styled shoots, I think people have started to kind of. understand how valuable it is. And so I've got a few. So my hairstylist for my workshops, Bridal by Coral, she's absolutely brilliant at using all the images.
And I think that's kind of grown from day one, day one, getting the images and thinking, ah, maybe not necessarily using them straight away to the point where she now uses images from the first ever styled shoot we did years ago, still on different reels, where she's going, look at the examples of. these different hairstyles you could have or you can use them in so many different ways. They don't just have to be, hey guys, look, I did a styled shoot last month. Here's the picture.
You can use them for so many different things like giving your couple's tips and inspiration and all that sort of thing as well. So yeah, like you said, if you can. keep using the images as much as you possibly can, then that's brilliant. And especially if you come to a styled workshop, a style shoot workshop like ours, we tend to try and have more than one model couple at most of them.
So again, you're just expanding the kind of possibilities of what you can do with your images because then it looks like it's more than one wedding or that sort of thing.
Yeah, absolutely. And if you're listening to this and you are thinking, I am guilty of this. I've got all of these styles, shoot photos. I've been part of, and they're just sitting on a hard drive somewhere. Let me encourage you take George's advice, take them out of that hard drive and start using them in blog posts. You can still pitch them to other wedding blogs, get them featured right. about them on your own, your own website, put them on Pinterest, put them on Instagram, use them for tips.
Don't let them just sit there. It's an absolute waste of your time and effort, and you really should be getting them out there. Now, Georgia, some people might be thinking, well, why don't I just go and organize my own style shoot? Why do I need to do it via a workshop? What do you say are the main benefits to someone coming to a workshop? over just organizing something themselves?
Yes. So the first benefit is the really obvious one is that you don't have to do any planning. You can just turn up, which is brilliant. So that's obviously very obvious and that's what you're paying for. But the other things are things like building relationships with suppliers that you've never worked with before.
So if you are creating your own styled shoot, it's, you're more than likely to work with people that you already know, that you already think are going to probably say yes when you present them with the idea. So if you are reaching out to different suppliers at a workshop, then they're usually going to be people that you haven't met before. So again, you're just expanding that network. And then from a photographer's point of view, again, just building relationships with other photographers.
So if you do your own styled shoot, you'll very rarely have another photographer there that will be the only photographer. So being able to come and attend a workshop.
There'll be several other photographers there that you can build relationships with and I think in our industry we need to be, we need to support each other and I think people can very easily go I don't want to get to know another photographer because I don't want them to steal my work or or that sort of thing but actually having strong relationships within, within that industry who people who've got the same job role as you is so valuable when it comes to needing a
second shooter or if you have a couple who approach you and you've already got that date booked and you want to recommend somebody you can trust. All those sort of things are really, really good when you already have some great friendships that are built upon and days like this are a great place to start those.
Yeah, they absolutely are. As I said, I thought your workshop was fabulous when I came along to it to speak. It was great. The models were great. The people there were great. And I think just the fact that people can turn up and not have to do all that work is just like we said earlier on about, you know, you think you can take photos, but then you go to a wedding and then you realize there's a whole lot more involved in it. It's the same with style shoots. People don't realize the amount.
of work and effort that comes with building a concept, with finding great model couples, with coordinating everyone together. And if you come to one of your workshops, all of that is done for you. And you can literally just pitch up on the day and get the best bit, which is all of the photos. I know you've got another workshop coming up, Georgia, just give us some details about when that is and what. is the theme.
Yes, so we've got a workshop coming up in September. It's on a Monday afternoon into evening. It is one model couple for this one, but we are aiming to have a golden hour, if the weather permits. It's at Floor House in Northamptonshire and the whole theme is. It's based on Golden Hour, so we're going to have lots of lovely oranges and yellows and golden colours all set up.
The house is a really beautiful house, it's sort of a grand staircase, huge chandelier, big halls, there's a billiards room that's kind of your very much your, your gent's parlour cigar room with your leather Chesterfields and things like that. So it's a really beautiful venue that we're able to use with gorgeous grounds, but then also we've got a fabulous team who are going to set up some beautiful styled areas. in the house and then a lovely model couple as well.
So exciting. I love golden hour. I really keep thinking I should get some branding photos taking golden hour. Maybe I'll just pitch up and see if any of the photographers want to take my photo while I'm there. Definitely.
Just turn up. You'll be fine.
Love that. I will make sure that I put the links to that workshop in the comments. So if you are interested in finding out more about being part of that, you can find out more.
In the show notes below now, Georgia, I think it's really important to say at this point I'm hoping you don't mind me going here, but with with the kind of honesty hat on when we're having this conversation about investment, I know, because me and you have spoken a lot over the years that you yourself are very careful about what you invest in, in your business, and that you make really kind of informed decisions.
So, I know we've just talked a lot about your workshop and why people should invest, but I think it's important people understand that you yourself are really careful about what you invest in. So, just talk to me a little bit about that process. How do you decide what you should invest in? What's worth your time and money?
Yeah, definitely. I think for me, I... I like to be organized and I found during the years that I've run my own business, the times when I'm not organized and I allow everything to kind of speed over me, if that makes sense, I kind of fall into chaos and then, and then things get dropped. And so I'm quite clear at the beginning of the year, usually sort of November time, I will plan.
ahead for the following year, plan what my goals and kind of aspirations are going to be for the each quarter and kind of really look at what are the things that I want to develop in myself and in the business in the following year.
And so that's a really big part of Where I then choose to invest my actual physical money because I'll have decided right okay this year I really want to learn for example how to use Photoshop better So I'm going to sit and research and find the best possible Photoshop course out there for exactly what I want to learn And then I'm going to spend my money on that or for example any any business I might need to upgrade my equipment and that's the thing that I'm
going to spend my money on that year. So I do tend to budget out my year. Obviously you can't always guarantee what's coming in when you're self employed. For me with my branding, a lot of my branding only gets booked in a month in advance. So you're not, you don't know in November what you're going to be getting in July the following year. But I like to try and put aside a percentage of what I know I'm going to earn to invest back into the business.
So that's firstly how I get the money in the first place. I think when I first started out I didn't want to spend any money on the business and I definitely noticed when I started to spend money on the business carefully I grew quicker. So it's definitely worth investing in specific courses or little workshop days or networking events or even if it is you just need More equipment or gear, depending on what you do. But really planning out exactly what is, what are my goals for the year?
What do I want to develop in? Say for example, you know your website has needed redoing for years and you've always done it DIY and then suddenly you think actually, this year I'm going to invest in hiring somebody to design a new website for me. Whatever it is. Yeah, I think my process is, is basically like that. Hopefully that helps.
Yeah. I think that's a really wise way of people doing it. I think so often people can just come across something and get involved in the hype online about something launching or a new course or a new program or a new event and just book it or pay for it without even really thinking about. Why they're doing it. And I think your approach is really sensible. And I think lots of people can learn from that to actually sit down. And this is an exercise.
If you're listening, you could do right now where you sit down and you think, okay, where are the gaps in my business? What is it that I need help with? Do I need help with the foundations? Do I need help with a certain social media kind of account? Do I need better portfolio images? Do I need help with Google analytics? Do I need help building a network and actually work out where the gaps are and then find the right fit for you rather than the other way around.
So Georgia, thank you for sharing that. Cause I think it really is smart and I think more people should be doing it that way. Now that being said, it makes me even more thankful that you chose to invest with me. So a couple of years back you did my signature program at the wedding pro business builder and. I know you enjoyed going through that. How did that help you in your business?
Yeah, it massively helped. I think for me, I've always enjoyed doing my social media and marketing. And that's something that I think naturally I'm, I'm all right at, but your course was so good in getting me to practically walk through the steps of exactly figuring out, okay, Who, what's my ideal customer? Who, who are the people that I want to reach?
Where do they start and how do they gradually get to the point where they're going to invest in me or buy from me or whatever, whether you've got products or services. And just kind of walking through that process and making sure I met the deadline each week and I filled out the workbook and I did all those sort of things. That, that is absolutely brilliant for me. And sometimes that's the motivation that I need.
I've invested in something, I'm not going to waste the money, and I'm going to sit there and make sure that I've set aside time each day or each week, depending on what the course is, to complete those tasks and actually come out the other end with my business being better. And I think a lot of people can quite often invest in a course like yours. And go, oh, I'll just watch it on catch up and then never kind of work through all the individual steps and then I think, well, what was the point?
Whereas for me, you physically having like, get this in by this day, get a screenshot of you having finished this. page and put it on the, on the thing by this day. That really, really helped me to kind of get my bum in gear and make sure that I completed each task and came out the other end with the result that I wanted. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. There's no point taking or paying for something and then not completing it. And for me, you know, as the person who runs these things, I don't want students that are going to pay, pay me for it and then never do it because. That's kind of not why I do it. I'm running these things because I want you to have more success in your business. And I actually have now, I don't know if you've seen it, Georgia, I have a new bonus.
I always include in all my programs and I call it the Ohana bonus, which is from Lilo and Stitch, which is Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind, which basically is where I incentivize people to complete it. together within kind of six to eight weeks of buying the course. And then I send them something in the post to say, well done, because we all need to complete these things.
If you've got courses out there that you've paid for, whether it's with me or with someone else put in time into your diary and go ahead and complete them because you're not going to see any results unless you take that action. Georgia, you were a model student. You got everything done.
Thank you. Yeah, you're exactly right. I think, I, I think that's the danger in when you jump onto free courses, which there's some incredible free courses out there that some brilliant masterminds have created and allowed people to access for free. But if you haven't invested in it, sometimes people just. Just kind of let it fall by the wayside. And that, that, that planning and scheduling is where it, what it comes down to.
Same with me planning my goals for the year and knowing what I want to invest in for the year. Also, when you know you've got a course coming up, planning in specific days to work on those individual things are what's going to mean that it was actually successful. And there's been a few times where you've had a course pop up. that's kind of a limited time only or run over a certain amount of days.
And I thought I would love to do that, but I know that this is a really busy season for me and I'm not going to be able to give the time to it. So I'm not going to do it right now. I'll wait until the following year or whatever.
Yeah, absolutely. Very, very wise advice. Now, Georgia, at the beginning, I introduced you and said, you're the queen of multiple streams of income. Because whenever I look at your Instagram or your website, you're always doing something different. And I love that about you've got not just your wedding photography, you've got lots and lots of different arms to your business, lots of things that you do all in the world of photography. Why?
Is having those different streams of income important to you?
I think COVID really helped me with that. So before COVID, I was focusing mainly on weddings and then I did a bit of lifestyle. So I did some family shoots, maternity, newborns, what a lot of photographers do. And then COVID hit and all of that stopped. So I think, The reason I kind of then started branching out into branding and I started to get some product based businesses invest and they were kind of sending me their products.
I was able to photograph them from my home studio and then send the images back. That was brilliant during COVID because it meant that I didn't drop from a decent wage to zero pounds in my bank, but it also meant that. it kind of opened my eyes to the fact that it's really good to diversify your income.
And so from, from then onwards, really, is where I've kind of grown the different aspects of the business, or actually, some of them are kind of completely separate businesses, but all they all kind of relate with each other. But yeah, I think having different businesses really, really helps you know that kind of be more secure in your income. So especially when you've got online businesses or businesses that are slightly more passive, then they're not bound by your physical time.
So when I do my wedding photography or when I do my branding photography, they are bound by the specific dates that I have available that I can provide for my clients. Whereas when it comes to things like my workshops, I can decide how many tickets I want to sell for that one day. So it's the same amount of work, but it's then going to provide multiple amounts of income in for the day.
And then I also have a stock photography subscription service, which again is a huge amount of work to set up initially. But then once it's sorted, I just top it up, keep it going, keep advertising it. And the kind of, almost the limits are endless, because you could have thousands subscribe to it for the same amount of work.
I've definitely learned to find different ways of kind of sourcing my income so that if something goes wrong, I've also had things go wrong with my health in the last couple of years as well, and that can get in the way of being able to do physical work. And so actually being able to have those other streams of income has really helped with. my financial security.
Yeah, really smart. And I think the pandemic was a wake up call for lots of people with service based businesses when they realize, Oh, if something happens, I can lose everything overnight. And, you know, you always hear millionaires saying that if you're a millionaire, you've got seven different streams of income and all this kind of thing. But I think there's something in that, in that it's smart to just. diversify.
And also, if you're anything like me, you get bored of doing the same thing all of the time. So it's quite fun to have your fingers in lots of pies and to create new ideas and be creative in different outlets. Now you mentioned your stock photography membership. Just explain to me, what is this stock photography membership? What, like, what is it and why do people need it?
Yeah, of course. So I think I kind of started to see that there's a big gap in our wedding industry for a huge amount of suppliers who are not photographers.
to be able to have decent imagery for their social, especially social media, because social media, we're expected to put several posts out a week to keep being consistent, keep being seen, and if you're not a photographer... you're not going to have necessarily regular images unless you happen to have excellent relationships with all the photographers that you work with and they always send you all the images which I know isn't the case.
So yeah, so my stock photography subscription service it's Styledstock. co. uk and it is aimed purely at wedding business owners. So it's a huge library of images, little video clips that are real orientated, so their portrait form and then also Canva templates for social media graphics. huge library over a thousand images on there and you just pay a monthly, quarterly or annual subscription and you just have access to all of it.
There's no contract or anything so you can cancel whenever you need and you just have access to this huge library of professional images that have been photographed by me.
Fabulous. And what kind of things are in these images then? Is it like pictures of people working? Is it pictures of weddings? Give me more information.
Yes, all sorts. So there's a lot of wedding content on there, which is also always great for every wedding business. But then there's also office pictures, pictures of hands working, so they could be anybody's hands. There's pictures of people having consultations. There's pictures of other lifestyle sort of things.
So if you're, you and your business talk a little bit more about yourself and things that you enjoy, we've got a package that is coming out very soon, which is kind of healthy eating and nutrition. And so it will be photos of smoothies and clean eating things that are going to be cooked. We've got some collections coming out over the summer that are all about summer celebrations and summer picnics and things.
And so if you want to talk about your kind of life at home, but still have professional images. That's a really good way of being able to access that.
So I could pretend that I'm really healthy and I could just share all of your gorgeous pictures of smoothies whilst eating my McDonald's drive thru. No, seriously though, Georgia, like how do we make these work from an ethics point of view. So obviously we need stock photos. There's definitely a need for it because I see the same photos that people use off of Canva all of the time. People need a portfolio.
But how do you suggest ethically people use the photos wisely whilst not making it look like it's their work, if that makes sense?
Yeah, definitely. So with all of these images, I think they're a really, really good way to give inspiration to your couples or provide tips and tricks and things like that. So then you're not saying, hey look at this wedding that I created and these are my flowers, even though you didn't create those flowers. You're able to kind of do a reel that has several different images of several different bridal bouquets.
Yes, you didn't create them, but it's giving inspiration to your, your brides and just saying, hey, look, here's some inspiration of different bridal bouquets. You could choose which one's your favorite. And I think things like that. It's really really helpful to have that extra content and in the library you can just type in bridal bouquet and that loads will come up from loads of different weddings.
Yes they were made by loads of different florists but I have permission to use them and give them out to you guys and it's a good way that you can kind of just... Encourage your, your couples to interact more on social media and, and that sort of way without actually saying, pretending that it was yours. And like you say, you don't want to start pretending that you're really healthy if you're not really healthy.
You don't want to start pretending that you have some like luxury manor house when you don't or, or that sort of thing. But those Those images are really helpful as long as you use them within the right context.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah, exactly. We don't want to pretend we're something we're not because we're the people that people want to buy. But I can see that there's definitely value in it. And I think especially if you're looking to add things to your content, which aren't necessarily what you're doing.
So for example, if you're a florist, use the stock photos of the stationary or of cars or of a. Makeup or all of those things so you can talk about it and give tips rather than showing the same thing that you do yourself. There's definitely value in it. Do go and check out more about Georgia's stock photo membership. Again, I'll make sure all of the links are in the show notes. Georgia, you have got so many things going on for you. I don't know how you have the time.
As you look over the next couple of years, what's next for you?
I just want to continue building this stock membership and the workshops. I'd really love for the workshops to become something that is more than just building your portfolio. So like you said, you came and joined our workshop and taught our lovely attendees back in May, and I'd love to kind of grow the workshops to become.
More than they are become something that's really educational for photographers so that especially photographers who are starting out in the industry that they'll be able to attend and kind of come away really feeling like they're so much more confident in their job and they've come out with a beautiful portfolio as well.
So, yeah, the workshops and the stock are things that I've only started in the last few years and I just want to continue to grow my also my aim within my branding photography is to start getting some more. So clients that I can work with who want to have seasonal imagery done every year. And those, so I just want to continue to build kind of building relationships with my clients so that I can kind of get those people who really want to just continue to keep working with me year in, year out.
It's exciting to watch Georgia. You have so many fresh ideas. I love watching what you're up to next and I know you're going to do some really great things in the industry over the next couple of years. Now I always end these podcasts with the same question, Georgia, which is this, what's one thing you wish.
I think, which probably sounds really boring, but the main thing is something that you talk about a lot, Becca, is knowing who my ideal client is. So from the very beginning, I think I just sort of, because I fell into wedding photography, I didn't really know what I needed, what I wanted, didn't necessarily have a vision for where the business was going. And so then wasn't. investing wisely in certain courses or workshops or whatever it may be.
I think when you know your ideal client, you know how to write your copy on your website. You know how to write your social media posts. You know what they need because you're providing them, you're able to provide them with the information that they want to learn and want to see. And you also know how to create your, you know, grow your business specifically for those clients. So yeah, that would be the thing that I wish I'd Learned earlier.
Absolutely. Get that sorted out and everything else will start to fall into place for sure. Now, Georgia, I'm going to ask you a question, which I know is going to have an overwhelming response.
So we're going to give the most simplified response because I know you have so many different things I'm going to link to in the show notes, but if people want to talk with you, find out more about you, get involved in some of the things, or just ask for some advice, where's the best place for people to find you?
Yes, I think my website is probably the easiest place because that's where you can see everything, so you'll feel free to go and head over to the website. You can fill out any of the contact forms on any of the pages and that will send an email straight to me. You can also find me on Instagram at branding underscore georgiabethphoto. And that's my branding photography page.
Fabulous. As I said, I'll make sure I put all of the links to everything we've been chatting about in today's episode in the show notes. Do go and reach out to Georgia. She's lovely. She would love to chat with you more, I'm sure. So if you've found this episode interesting, inspiring, if it's given you food for thought, or if you want to get involved in any of the things that she is doing in the industry, then go find her on Instagram and drop her a direct message.
Georgia, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for being here.
Thank you so much for having me. I've loved chatting to you, Becca.
Isn't Georgia fabulous? I told you you were going to absolutely love her. She is so smart. I love how wise she is when it comes to making decisions, thinking things through, planning ahead, planning where she invests, and making the most of each and every one of those investments. And she's always forward thinking and thinking about fresh new ideas. So do go check out her website, go and follow her on Instagram, and let's see what she does next. I'll see you next time.