S15E06 | Using a move to set up a profitable pet photography business, the right way
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I’ve asked many photographers what they’d do to start their business if they moved to a new place.. And today’s guest has actually done it. She completely transformed her business from shoot and burn family photography in South Africa, to a profitable, full-service specialised pet photographer in New Zealand. She studied and implemented what she learned in order to make that transition successful and now she’s consistently booking clients who typically spend $1800. I’m talking about Salome of Yellow Pet Photography.
We covered:
Moving from South Africa to NZ
Website
Shoots per month
Home studio
The impact of working with a coach
How Salome decided which coach would be best for her
Printed reveals and In-Person-Sales
Working with an SEO expert
IN THE MEMBERS-ONLY EXTENDED EPISODE:
Salome's best marketing strategy
IG & Tik Tok Strategy
Collaboration marketing and auctions
Pricing structure
Salome's strategy to sell more to clients, months later
Offering hair and make-up
MENTIONED LINKS:
Sue Bryce Education: The Portrait Masters
Jono's SEO business: https://noursemen.co.nz/
Yellow Lab: Instagram
Yellow Lab:Website
ONE WEEK ONLY
FREE ACCESS
8th- 15th November 2023
Salome Nourse
Yellow Lab, New Zealand
I'm Salomé from Yellow Lab Pet photography and I photograph dogs and dogs with their families in Auckland New Zealand. The dog is the star of the shoot, but its the perfect time to get the humans in the photos too for updated family portraits. I hold a photo reveal for my clients a week to 10 days after their photo session where they choose their absolute favourite portraits for the wall so they don't end up with photos that only make it to a social media post and never get enjoyed again, or once a year when it gets shared as a memory.
Transcript
I've asked many photographers what they'd do to start their business if they moved to a new place. Today's guest has actually done it. She completely transformed her business from shoot and burn family photography in South Africa to become a profitable full service. Specialized pet photographer in New Zealand.
She studied and implemented what she'd learned in order to make that transition successful, and now she's consistently booking clients who typically spend $1,800. I'm talking about Lummi of yellow pet photography. Tune in to hear all about it.
Welcome to the Pet Photographers Club. Tune in as experts share their insights to help grow your business with higher sales, creative marketing, and kick arse business strategies. Now onto the show.
Hello and welcome back to season 15, episode six of the Pet Photographers Club. I'm your host, Kirstie McConnell. And today I'm chatting with Salumi of the Yellow Lab Pet Photography. Welcome to the club, Salumi. Hi, Kirstie. Thanks for having me here today. I'm so chuffed to be here. And I've got you here all the way from New Zealand, I believe.
Auckland, right? Yes. I've just woken up. It is like 6. 30 in the morning. Oh, well, well, I can't tell that you've just woken up. You sound great. You look great, by the way. So we are going to get. Straight into this. So for the listener who has, you know, maybe never heard your name before or heard of yellow lab before, can you just give a brief introduction?
Like, yeah, who you are, where you are in the world and how you got started and ended up with this beautiful business that you have today. Thank you. That's a whole lot of questions in there, but I'm going to do them all. So I'm Salome from Yellow Lab Pet Photography and I photograph dogs and dogs with their people in Auckland, New Zealand.
I really like to photograph people in studio or people and their dogs in studio because it's kind of it's a controlled environment and it's a safe space with not so many outside influences and you can really. Focus on getting a nice connection in between people and their dogs. And how I got into pet photography is a really long story.
I went to art school as a student, like when I was studying and after art school, I studied graphic design and eventually I got into the newspaper business as a artist and designer. And then eventually as a photographer as well, but it didn't quite, photography didn't. Make me happy just yet. And then what had happened was that it was only later when I was married.
And then when I had my own dogs that I picked up the camera with my Labrador and my retriever, that I really saw the connection. Like I took the photo of the two dogs sitting in the kitchen and it was just. Bam, you know, like I knew that was something that I had to do again and again, it was just, it made my heart so happy.
And then I tried to photograph the dogs and it was really tricky and it was really hard. We had two little kids and I started going and started into weddings and started photographing all kinds of family photography, which is good, but you know, it just, it doesn't light you up. And then after a while, I started specializing in dog photography, but then our world was turned upside down because we changed our life by moving to New Zealand, but a dog stayed behind, right?
So they stayed with my mom in law on in New, in South Africa. And it was a very sad time, but we came to New Zealand to start our new life because we knew we couldn't stay in SA because we wanted a better life for ourselves. And then. So we're in New Zealand, I've got two little kids, they were one and almost three, and I don't know what I'm going to do with my with my life.
What am I going to do with my hours? You know, what's the purpose of my life? And we really miss the dogs, but every single time we're out for a walk, the dogs just light us up. So I thought, well, maybe, oh, and I photographed, I meet a couple of friends here and I start photographing their dogs and it just fools me with so much happiness to actually be around dogs again.
So I was scared that I wouldn't be able to photograph dogs because I'd miss my own dogs too much. But it turns out that I have to photograph dogs because it just, it just, it's that connection that you need with animals. It just makes you really, really happy. And That's how I got into photography. So give us a bit of a timeline then Selumi, like when did you make the move from South Africa to New Zealand?
That was 2016. Okay. And then how much, you know, how, how soon did you get into, you know, photographing your friend's dogs? Almost immediately. No, it was probably about six months later. Well, still early on, like pretty early on. And then when did you decide that you could take that and form a business from that?
When did you start Yellow Lab? So I started the, the name started in South Africa already under the family. Because my dog inspired me to pursue photography, but it was in 2017 that I sat down and I said, okay, well, I really need to make, I want to make this work because this makes me happy. Okay. And how did you go then from, I mean, you've moved to New Zealand, you barely know anybody, you've.
Yeah. Okay. Nobody, you've refocused your business and started again in this foreign country. What did that journey look like from the middle of, or, you know, six months after you moved to today, how did you get to, you know, to doing this as a business? I found Sue Bryce because she was, she was a Kiwi as well, but I, I found Sue Bryce online and she has this model where you sell artwork off to it, off to your photo shoot, and you tell people about What your product menu is and all of that so that they purchase the prints afterwards and That really caught my eye.
I wasn't sure that it would work. So I said, okay fine I'll do this for a month or three months and I'll give it everything. I've got I studied everything like from her mindset how she did the reveals and Because she also she does glamour photography. So I had to take all of that and see how I could adjust it for dog photography.
So it was a tricky one, but it was really big learning curve and to kind of make something out of nothing or something that no one is doing at all. So let me get this right then back in South Africa, you were already a photographer. Were you doing like shoot and burn style though? You were delivering digital files.
Okay. And then you've moved to New Zealand. You really have started the business that with purpose, you know, with direction you've started focusing on dogs and then you've done the in person sales. So fast forward a little bit for us then, and just give us a bit of a snapshot, what your business looks like today.
Is it a full time income for you? You know, Okay. Tell us about it then. Okay. So my yellow lab is, I shoot about five photoshoots a week. Oh, sorry. Not a week. I shoot about five photoshoots a month and I do this full time. I do this full time. And when people come to me, so I still shoot in a home studio.
We, so they pay a booking fee. We do like a two hour photo shoot. In my studio at home and we, we photograph just the dog and the dog with their family or them and their dog. And then if time allows, we go outside for a little bit, but most of it's indoors and then about 10 days after the photo shoot, we meet up again.
And then they see the photographs printed. So I print them as a eight by 10 photo and inside a 11 by 14 max. So that's a risk for me, but that's okay. But that's the first time that they see their photos and I print about. 13 to 15, depending on the people, sometimes 20. And then at the photo reveal, they buy the photos that they, that they don't want to live without.
And there's no pressure for them to buy that already have. Once I've booked a photo system, they already have 200 print credit that they can use and works really, really well. When people see their photographs, they, they love it. They. I have a little slideshow video that I show them with the best photographs that I printed, but also a lot of the outtakes.
So the photos that weren't good enough to print, but they're too special to delete. And then when they watch this video, A lot of people actually cry and yeah, it's at that photo reveal that they choose the favorite photos. And then sometimes they take my middle package and they get a art bound with it and that works really well for me.
And that's where they pay. So, okay. So this is really the Sue Bryce model through and through. I
think I've adjusted it slightly because Sue Bryce has a reveal wall. Where she puts all the photos on the wall, but I actually meet my clients in coffee shops and we have usually have like a table of four. We, we, we sit and we try to, I show them the video first and then I open my folio box and then they'll have a look through the photos.
And then we lay out all the photos and then They choose their favorites. This is awesome. It works well. Okay. This is awesome because anybody that's listening, that's thinking I can't do in person sales because I don't have a space to do it. You've just already said too bad. That's not an excuse.
Exactly. Okay. I want to get into the nitty gritty a little bit. I have so many questions that I know the listener does, but go on first. Sorry. I also didn't mention that. When I do my photo shoots, I sh I don't shoot on the weekends, I only, I mainly shoot on Mondays and Fridays. And people take time off work to come and shoot with me.
So, when I, if I do shoot over a weekend, people pay a surcharge fee to come and shoot over a weekend or public holiday. And I think that's also something that took me a while to get my head around, but it works. Okay. So I want to get into the pricing, marketing, all of that, but I'm going to save that for the members half.
So we'll get into that shortly, but first I want to ask you a little bit more about kind of your journey. So it sounds like you followed Sue Bryce. I mean, I know this is hard to say because you can't really go back, you know, you didn't live it, but what kind of impact is that made? Where do you think you would be if you decided not to it?
Cause you said initially you didn't want to spend money on coaching. So if you followed that thought process and you didn't invest in, in education, what would your business look like today? And would it still be a business and would it be profitable? I wouldn't have a business. I think I'd have a hobby and I'd be shooting over weekends and I'd be working somewhere else.
I would just be for fun and I'd probably still be shooting and burning. Okay. And, and so why Sue Bryce of all the education options that are out there, what resonated with her style of teaching or her methods, or did you not find any, anybody else? I think it was probably the fact that she was from New Zealand and she had a lot of.
self doubt when she first started out. And I think that re that really resonated with me was the fact that she had to go through a whole lot of self self talk and the way that she talks to herself and the ways that she taught you, but Hey, your art is worth it, or it is a photograph, but it's still art when you make the change or when you make the shift to see your photographs as art.
And when you start to believe it, I think good things happen after that. In the beginning, it would, I would cringe when I'd say my prices out loud, or if I would tell people what I charge per print. And you know, I would literally shake. But eventually you get used to it. And if you tell, tell someone my prints cost or they cost 200 each.
And when you buy this artwork, you get the matching digital file. So it's also in the words that you use that really resonated with me. And I think because I came from an artistic background, maybe that made it easier for me to connect with her. Mm hmm. And it sounds like the, from what you're telling me now, the kind of mindset work that Surya Brice focused, always focused on a lot through her education, that's something that maybe you needed.
And so it spoke really strongly to you. Yeah, that makes sense. Certainly. Certainly. I must say, Slimmy, when I landed on your website a few weeks ago, whenever it was, I immediately knew that you had done training with Sue Rice or that you at least listened to her talk or something, because you have the reveal sessions with the Matted Prince, which we don't see many.
Pet photographers doing because like you said, she, Bryce is a, I mean, not a glamour photographer. And then there was a few other things on your website that like the wording and everything and I was like, ah, okay, I got it. But I want to say your website is really impressive. I mean, I can tell, I can tell that you're running.
This is a business and not as a hobby, 100 percent because, you know, the banner at the top and guys, if you haven't already checked it out, jump on your computer or your phone now and have a look yellow lab. co. nz, but at the top of the like notice banner thing, you've got a thing about after pay, you know, so already you're planting the idea that you're going to spend money and you're probably not going to have that money available, so I'm going to help you with that.
Yeah. You've got the, you, your award winning and then, you know, samples of your work, but also wall mock ups with artwork on the wall. It's like, you've gone along and you've really ticked all the boxes that I would tell all of my coaching students to do. You've done it. Like there's no hesitation.
Everything is there. It's clear. It's easy to navigate and you've. You know, you've really put great stuff in there. So I can tell you the kind of person that goes ahead and implements what you learn. Would you say that that's correct? Thank you, Kirsty. That is a big compliment. Yeah, definitely.
Definitely. It's taken me years to get it to where it is now. And I didn't build that whole website on my own. That was also. Someone who helps me, I had someone help me with all of my ACO and to make sure that everything is very optimized for it. Yeah. So before we carry on, I better ask you about that because I'm sure the listener is thinking like, wait, Kirstie, hold up, find out more about that.
So when you say you had somebody help you with your, with your site, did you also have somebody help you with like the design and that kind of thing? Or did you design it? No, that was a whole script. That's a squeeze space website that I'd signed myself. Okay. Yeah. And then you had somebody come and help you with the SEO.
So what kind of things did they, what kind of changes did they make to your site that maybe, you know, you wouldn't have done otherwise? They had a look at keywords and to make sure that the right keywords are in the right places. I know there were a lot and lots of blogs on my website. I had way too many blogs.
So we may, we took that all the way down. It actually worked against my favor with Google because it was too much information or maybe it didn't seem important enough, so we took some of my blogs away and there's certain parts like in the blogs that you get hitting one, hitting two, hitting three, and a lot of our blogs had more than one hitting one, which is also something that Google will penalize you for.
And it is in diff certain parts inside Squarespace where you need to be putting in extra metadata and tags inside the photos and descriptions and All of that, that I had someone help me with, but it's not because I'm a photographer, I'm good at that. I can't be amazing at building a website too. Well, I can be, but only up to a certain point.
Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. So have you seen a big impact since you've had this expert come along and make those changes? Yes. Oh, yes. I get a lot more Google Google inquiries. Okay. That's really interesting because, I mean, some of the things you said, for example, things that we're told a lot of the time is for SEO, like you need to blog more, but that's really interesting that something that people forget to say at the end of that sentence is often blog more with quality content.
Right, exactly, exactly. But I was, I was blogging. Well, years ago I was blogging every, every session that I would shoot, but Google doesn't like that. Instead Google would want you to take all of the photographs that you've taken of yellow labs and make one big blog with just the yellow lab or just the Labradors that you have photographed because they already have Labrador.
Google knows that Labrador is a dog and. That is really good. And you've got to add in your location as well. So how did you find this person that you worked with for your SEO? It's actually my husband. Well, that's easy. That's easy, right? My husband is in marketing. And he runs his his own marketing company.
Perfect. Are we allowed to plug his marketing company or does he not want to do work for us? No, no, definitely. Definitely. It's called Norsemen Marketing. Okay, I'll make sure, guys, that I put a link in the comment. Salumi. Jono.
Okay. We'll definitely link to Jono guys. I had no idea that that was a plug for Jono, but I think it was a pretty good one and you did it very smoothly and nobody like, I know you didn't. It was perfect. It was funny. Listen, I want to talk to you more about marketing and cause you just mentioned that, you know, you're seeing, you're getting a lot more inquiries since you've put that effort into your website SEO.
I want to talk more about other places that your clients have. You know, finding you and where you're converting them. So we'll go into marketing a bit. I'm going to save that for the second half, which we'll get into shortly. So probably before we wrap up part one, it might be nice to let the listener know a little bit about where they can find you is the best place.
Your website. Yes. The best place is my website. It is yellow lab. co. nz. And I also like to hang out on Instagram. It is, my handle is at yellow lab pet photo. Perfect guys. Don't worry if you missed it, I will put the links in the show notes. So just head on over to the pet photographers club. com slash the dash podcast, and you can search for 15 or six and you will find this episode.
Then that is it for part one of this episode. If you're a member of the club, you can continue listening to part two in the member zone or better yet via your private RSS feed in your favorite podcast player. Don't forget if you're not a member yet, you can join today. It's just 10 bucks a month and club membership includes loads of perks and bonus content.
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