S15E08 | Know what makes you happy and center your business around that
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Today’s guest is the proof that following what makes you happy, can also lead to financial success. She’s big on diversifying and multiple income streams, but her main business is helping fellow pet photographers improve their craft, which aligns perfectly with the lifestyle she has.
I’m talking about Emily Abrahams of Inspawration Photography and in this episode we covered all of that and in the members half, we got into the details of income options for content creators, particularly breaking down the difference between user generated content vs promotion, and what are media kits. We also chatted all about Social Media strategy which is full of tips for pet photographers.
We extended the episode to also discuss teaching and the education realm so if you’re thinking you’d like to get into education.. Stay tuned for that part!
And to wrap up, we had a little extra chat about AI.
Yes, we covered a lot, and absolutely you don’t want to miss this episode!
WHAT WE COVERED:
Emily’s journey
Why Emily went straight to teaching instead of growing a business shooting for clients?
What are Emily’s income streams
The importance of diversifying your income
IN THE MEMBERS-ONLY EXTENDED EPISODE
Content creators: What is a media kit & what are engagement rates
What if you don’t have engagement
User generated content Vs promotion on your IG
Knowing your audience on Social Media in order to create relatable content
Teaching isn't for everyone
Emily’s tips for someone who wants to get into education
Should we be using AI for client work
MENTIONED LINKS:
Rates calculators for UGC and promotion: https://collabstr.com/influencer-price-calculator/
Rates calculators for influencer accounts: https://inzpire.me/instagram-pricing-calculator
Emily’s links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspawrationphotography/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@inspawrations
Website: https://inspawrationphotography.com/
Learning Journey: https://inspawrationphotography.com/learning-journey
Emily Abrahams
Inspawration Photography, Germany
I'm Emily, from Inspawration Photography, and my goal is to teach pet photographers how to take and edit beautiful, captivating and storytelling photos of pets!
Originally a teacher in schools, after flying from Australia to Europe with my border collie Loki and travelling all around in a small van for 2 years, I was a bit stuck with what to do. I'd taken so many photos, and heard that "pet photography" was becoming a thing, so I started pet photography professionally in 2019, and it wasn't long until I was being asked for editing tutorials.
It made sense for me to move into teaching, given my background, and in 2021 I launched my pet photography membership - the Learning Journey.
Since then, I've taught hundreds of pet photographers - both professionals and passionate pet owners, put together dozens of editing tutorials, invited guests on board, and turned my membership from just teaching the art of pet photography into something a bit bigger - with a big focus on inclusivity and embracing our creative brains (as someone diagnosed with ADHD in 2020, the way my brain works fascinates me), and now moving more toward supporting photographers as they start or grow their businesses... all while still taking occasional client shoots.
It's been a crazy journey for someone with no business background, and 99% of my clients coming organically from social media.
Transcript
Today's guest is the proof that following what makes you happy can also lead to financial success. She's big on diversifying and multiple income streams, but her main business is helping fellow pet photographers improve their craft, which aligns perfectly with the lifestyle that she has. I'm talking about Emily Abrahams of Inspiration Photography and In this episode, we covered all of that and in the members half, we got into the details of income options for content creators, particularly breaking down the difference between user generated content versus promotion, as well as what our media kits.
We also chatted all about social media strategy, which can help you as a pet photographer. We extended the episode to also discuss teaching and the education realm. So if you're thinking you'd like to get into education, stay tuned for that part. And to wrap it up, we also had a little extra chat about AI.
Yes, we covered a lot and absolutely you don't want to miss this episode.
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
and welcome to season 15, episode eight of the pet photographers club. I'm Kirstie McConnell. And today I'm chatting to Emily Abrahams of Inspiration Photography. Welcome to the club, Emily. Yay. Hello. Thanks for having me Kirstie. Thanks for joining me. It's so nice to actually chat with somebody in the same time zone.
It doesn't happen all that often for me. And so it's like a normal time of the day for us. How good is this? I think the funnier thing is you've got two Aussies talking from Europe, like how did that happen? Yes, that's actually, you're right about that. So let's go back a bit for the listener who's like, what are you two girls even talking about?
Can you give us a little bit of an intro, Emily, into who you are, where you're based in the world now, how you ended up there, and what it is that you're doing today in the realm of pet photography? Yeah, so I'm Emily. I am born and raised in Australia, but currently living in Germany. I came over to Europe six years ago with my border colleague Loki and had an Instagram account then that people were kind of following our travels.
I was taking a bunch of photos along the way and then at the end of that kind of traveling period, I sort of didn't really know what to do with myself. And an acquaintance of mine from Australia was like, I'm a pet photographer now. And I saw her photos and I was like, I mean, I take pretty good photos too.
So then I kind of, you know, learned, leveled up, skilled up my photography and was like, yeah, cool. I can do pet photography too. And, you know, it was going down that route and really quickly people were like, can I have an editing tutorial? Teach me how to edit like this. And I was like, Oh, I mean, okay, because backstepping a little bit, I was, I have a master's degree in teaching from Australia.
I was teaching in a primary school for five years. It, I was a teacher. I didn't necessarily want to go back into schools after I finished my traveling and ended up in Europe. Although that was an option if I couldn't figure out what else to do with my life. And so when people started asking for tutorials and stuff, I was like, I mean, maybe I could.
Could teach that would make sense for me. And then COVID happened and I saw all these people taking not great photos of their pet dogs. And I was like, I'm going to put together a free course to help people take better photos. And the free course turned into a paid course, which turned into four courses, which turned into my membership.
And now I have this membership with a community and lessons and videos. And that is kind of my whole deal. And recently have kind of come to terms with the fact that. The photography and client side of things is really my side hustle. And my main gig is the membership and the online courses and the tutorials and lessons and teaching and stuff that I do.
So that's, I know I'm in Germany. If I didn't mention that, I think I did. Okay. I think that's really interesting that, and we were saying just before we started recording, I said to Emily. You know, if you look at the, let's say big names, I'm using like air quotations for the, you guys that are just listening on audio, of course, the big names in the pet photography world who are also helping other pet photographers, especially if we look at just craft, like just.
Shooting and editing, typically the way that they end up doing that is they became, become like a well known pet photographer working for clients, whether or not they're making much money or not. I don't know. That's a different story, but they become known that way or from winning a big award or something like that.
And then eventually. They start offering coaching in terms of, you know, helping other people improve their photography, find their style. I mean, I pictured, you know, Jess McGovern or Charlotte Reeves, you know, these, these two in particular who definitely that's the way they went first, you know, they became known as a pet photographer and then they started coaching and that's really interesting and it works really well for them.
And then it's really interesting to see you've done really the complete opposite and you've done it equally as well. And what we were saying before we started recording is that, you know, there are lots of pet photographers out there who kind of like you, like many pet photographers, we kind of found ourselves with this business all of a sudden of being a pet photographer, even if the passion was really not business, but was photography.
And It's really nice to see that just because that's where you end up, it doesn't mean that's the way that you have to go. And so that sounds like that's what happened with you that you realized almost kind of quickly that, you know, trying to run a business that worked with your lifestyle, which was kind of.
iT wasn't going to work that well for you. And so you found another way. Is that right? Is that how it all came about, Emily? Yeah, I think a bit in terms of, and I, you know, even now I'm still, I'm always asking the question. Also because I have ADHD, so I'll put that out there and I'm very open about that and how that affects me and I've learned and I got diagnosed with that in 2020 as well.
So I'm, you know, this is all quite new for me as well. And part of that has been learning how my brain works and what I do and what my limitations are a bit. And part of that is I. Like to do stuff that I enjoy doing and I will really avoid stuff that I don't like doing. And so like a big part of figuring out how I want to run my business is asking myself, like, what do I enjoy?
Like, what do I want to do more of? And how can I make that? Into, you know, what I'm doing and part of that was like, yeah, I like teaching people. I like sharing my skills. I like making editing tutorials, even though sometimes I'm a bit like I'm so sick of making editing tutorials. I like taking photos of my dogs.
So, you know, like one thing this year I've been doing a lot more like product. photography and that kind of thing. You know, getting sent stuff, taking photos and getting paid for taking photos of my own dogs wearing a coat or lying in a bed, you know, great. I don't have to go far for it. I don't have to, I just take photos of my dogs.
I'm just chilling on a dog bed and I get paid, you know, like for me that made a lot more sense than the pressure that I was feeling about finding photography clients, particularly because I'm so nomadic and like for two years I was living in the UK and then I was living in Germany and I moved so often.
That I am never in one place long enough to kind of network very well, or, you know, SEO or establish connections in the real world. I have a lot of connections in agility world. And if I have photography clients, they tend to come from that. So that is my little niche is like dog agility people. So that works quite well in terms of being nomadic, because I'll be like, I'm going to this competition in Poland.
And someone would be like, can we do a photo shoot? Sure. You know, so that still works. For how I live as well. And yeah, so I've, I've, I've really built everything around just not being in one place very often. The competitions that I do, even just, you know, I don't, I didn't wanna go back to a school nine to five and like when I was first starting my coaching and the courses and everything, I was working as a substitute in a high school in the uk and I was getting paid 90 pounds a day.
anD, you know, really quickly, I was getting paid about 90 an hour for doing a lesson. And they're like, can you come and work in the school? And I'm like, hell no, not doing that. Like, I'm not in a high school of UK teenagers. No, I would way rather just be teaching photography. Like, this is what I am enjoying.
So yeah, it all kind of came about like that. And I'm still asking myself, like, okay, what else? Like, how can I diversify? And I think diversifying is really important whether you're coaching or a photographer. And I think there's a lot more streams of income that a lot of photographers don't necessarily look at.
They're just like, I have to get clients for portrait shoots. And like, that is the only thing we can do. But I think like, it's so important to diversify. Yeah. In order to not just rely. That, I think that went a bit off topic of your question, but okay. No, no, that's perfect. This is a conversational kind of podcast, so it's actually nice if we go off anyway.
So on that note, Emily, can you just give us a bit of a breakdown, if you know it, of what percentage of your income is from now? Coaching, what is from these smaller jobs that you said, like a product photography where people are sending you beds or whatever, and what percentage is from, from clients, you know, when you're going to these agility shows or something like that.
And if there's any other, other streams that I've missed at the moment, like what's the breakdown of those? So the majority is from my membership. And you know, that is absolutely a full time job. Just with the community and making new lessons and all of the marketing that goes into that. And you know, like 90 percent of it is marketing.
And. You know, just keeping the website where it needs to be and making new, like I need to update the Lightroom Chorus and, you know, that kind of whole cycle of keeping all of the kind of online lessons relevant, not to date. And I mean, if Adobe could stop putting out updates, that would make my life a lot easier, but you know, I appreciate what they've been doing.
So it's fine. Stop it. I need to update everything again. And then, yeah, it's. It's a smaller percentage now of private lessons, which is really interesting, or like zoom lessons or, you know, workshops I think being in Germany makes. It's doing stuff in person a little more difficult. My German is okay, but absolutely not at the point where I feel very comfortable to be teaching in German, particularly if I need to explain like the rationale of why I want the dog looking in this direction because of this and that.
Just as soon as I have to like explain my reasoning for something, like all the words leave me, I can explain how to do things. I just cannot explain why to do things in German, but okay. So yeah, so a smaller portion from like one to one sessions. And that's interesting. It always seems to come in waves.
Like sometimes I won't do much with that for a while and then there'll be like five bookings at once. I'm like, what is happening? I think it must be an SEO thing or something happening on social media, some posts popping off or, you know, I don't know, something like that. And then, yeah, and I, like a very small percentage for the product photography, like, that's just like a nice little bonus.
And I have a couple of clients there that I work with regularly and otherwise get some stuff from Fiverr sometimes. And, you know, I think I could do more with that. You know, cause when you have a social media account that has a decent following like mine, you get a lot of messages from people being like, Oh, can we do a collab or whatever?
And some of them are legit and they're willing to pay you and you need to send out your media kit and send out your engagement rates and everything. And this is one job that. The old ADHD brain makes very hard because it's like, Oh, talking about money. Yeah. I don't want to do it. So those messages often just get pushed to the side a little bit.
So there is for sure more potential there for me, or if I wanted to do outreach to companies being like, Hey, yo, I noticed your dog coat company and your website. It looks like you could do with some better photos. Here's examples of what I could do. Like, I think there'd be a heap more opportunity there if I had the time and energy, which I currently do not.
And then. photoshoots. And I mean, I, I charge a reasonably high rate for my photos and my photography. So it is, I wouldn't say it's like a luxury service. But it is, you know, priced that if I do it, it's worth my time. It's worth the time that I put into the editing. And so when I get those clients and do those photoshoots, it is a nice little portion of income.
But, you know, if I. If I do it, but one photography client a month, that is enough because then it's, I, you know, I will work all day on the membership and the courses and the website and the blog posts and the whatever, whatever social media captions, blah, blah, have a few hours off to walk the dogs and eat and and then come and edit for the last two hours before I go to bed.
So, you know, like there is, it's, and I think that that is an interesting thing that I think a lot of people see coaching as like an easy way to money. And maybe, you know, it's a nice, it can be a nice way to earn some passive income if you just put up an editing tutorial and leave it and, you know, hope people will find it and buy it.
But I am very hands on in, you know, that is the business for me. So that is where my time and energy is rather than on the other stuff. And so you're, yeah, you're really right when you said, you know, your photography, I can't remember if you said this on recording or before, but that your photography is really your side hustle.
Like your portrait photography is almost a side hustle. So you've done kind of the flip side of what I would say most people are trying to do, but you've done it. Kind of strategically. I mean, you've done it or at least intentionally. You know, you, you've worked out very quickly that that's what works for you, for your brain, for your enjoyment and, you know, this kind of work life balance that we're all trying to achieve these days.
So I think, I mean, yeah, I think it's really interesting that you do it that way. And it's really nice that. You don't have to, it sounds like correct me if I'm wrong, you're not having to rely on these portrait clients for your income. They're kind of it's bonuses when it comes along. Is that correct? Yes.
Yep. Okay, cool. That's really nice. And is that the same as well with the product photography and with the, the collaborations and that kind of thing? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So that's like, I mean, you know, like I, one of my clients that I work with often this Austrian guy, super lovely dog beds. I have so many dog beds in my house.
It's insane. But you know, like we have a little deal. I'll do a few photos and a couple of videos for him. And you know, With him now, he always wants the same types of photos, same angles, same videos, you know, throw the bed on the couch, pour the water on the bed, lift it up, show it's waterproof, different angles of, you know, so I can like run through this pretty quickly now, get my lights downstairs, set everything up.
And you know, that, that'll be 450 euros and a few hours work. So, you know, it's not like, and I know that I could charge them more because it's product photography. Griffey and you can really, but you know, he was one of the first clients that I had. We have a nice little arrangement. His is regular work.
I don't mind. It's fine. And it's like, you know, yeah, a nice little bonus for that month or, you know, whatever. And whenever he gets new stuff, he's like, I'm sending you this. Can you do some stuff? So yeah, that's always just another little kind of bonus on the side. Sorry. I was going to say, I think he could make like Easy full time income, if you were to be reaching out to companies and charging appropriately for that user generated content, like that's such a big thing now.
And if you do it well, like, you know, I know there's a bunch of people on Instagram that I follow that do a lot of that. I mean, they posted on their feed, but there's also ways that if you don't have a big following on social media, you can easily be generating content that the company itself is using in their ads and their social media ads.
And, you know, all that kind of thing. And you don't have to even have a following you just have to make. Good content, good quality content, essentially that shows the product. So Emily, what would you say to somebody who's like, maybe they're one year into trying to do their pet photography business and they're finding dealing with the client really stressful, or I don't know, they just.
Maybe not enjoying the business side of running a portrait photography business, pet photography business. What would you say to them in terms of their options for making money? To let them know that there is more than just that, that Avenue. Yeah, I think that's the thing. Like you. You know, and I don't think necessarily coaching or teaching is for everybody.
It's, it's been a really interesting experience for me that, you know, I think I had a pretty good understanding of a lot of concepts before I went in, maybe instinctually, and then the more that I've taught it and the more I've talked about it, the more I've really understood the reasoning behind things and can articulate that now.
And I think like, yeah, it's somebody that had a really good. understanding of the craft and the artistry and whatever, whatever their thing is, could go into the teaching if they enjoyed that. Like, and I don't think teaching is for everybody either. And I don't think everybody should teach cause you know, sometimes just being able to show somebody a workflow isn't necessarily enough if you can't explain the why behind what, why you're doing what you're doing.
But you know, like, I think just. Like I said, kind of thinking like, what do I enjoy taking photos of? Do you enjoy taking photos of sport dogs doing duck diving? You know, is there a market there for that in a way that you can make profitable? And that's always like the question. You know, sport dog events, they often sell the photos for 10, 15 years each.
Is that going to be profitable? Can you make it profitable? Can you set it up in a way that could be profitable? My friend does like agility photo days. She'll rent out a field booking about like mini sessions, but for agility specifically, and then it's like a little bit more of a, bespoke service, I guess.
And she has like one to one time. She can kind of guarantee that they get like the running contact shot that they want or the jumping, you know, from a backseat, you know, like all agility stuff. Don't let me nerd out about that. But like, you know, she can kind of guarantee in a way that they can get those agility photos showing the dog how they want, rather than.
Like mass producing, I guess, competition photos, or like I said, you know, do you really like just taking photos of your dog? How can you make that profitable? Is there ways that, you know, what about stock photos is another one? Do you just like taking a bunch of photos of your dog running around at the park?
Is there an opportunity for stock photography there? Do you like, I don't know, dog birthday parties? I saw somebody's Facebook post today that the owner was booking in for a grooming appointment for her doodle dog and was like, okay, I need him to look super cute for this weekend. I spent over a thousand dollars on his birthday party and I need him to look cute.
I'm like, this lady has spent a thousand dollars on this dog's birthday party. Like there is no way she won't spend. Money on photos. If you know, you pitch that, right. You know, so I think it's just about being, I mean, not just about, it's not as easy as that, but like being creative, seeing an opening of where people want or need photos.
And again, like diversifying, like, I don't think that you could go, I am specializing in dog birthday parties and I'm not doing anything else. You know, like, could you do? Seasonal photos and that's your whole deal or, you know, and then the clients can come to you if you want to get out of clients completely, then it's gonna either be, I guess, about teaching, photographing your own dogs, but you're still going to be dealing with clients just in a different way.
Maybe you want to serve as businesses, like I think that there could potentially be some space for like photos of photographers. Like, cause you know, I was talking to my friend, Sabrina, who's one of my coaches now and being like, I don't have a lot of photos of me holding my camera for my like website and stuff, because I'm always taking photos of me with my camera and I can't have it in my hand.
So we did a bit of a thing where I took some photos of her with her camera. She took photos of me with my camera, you know, and like, there's not a lot of people who are kind of specializing in that. And I think we are often afraid to kind of niche down. Into these more specific markets but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing.
Like, the more that I've centered myself as a neurodiverse slash ADHD pet photography educator, the more my people have found me and the more that that's resonated with people. And I'm not out there being like, we are only for ADHDers and ADHD pet photographers, but you know, like, I feel like people gravitate toward their people and They find the things that they need.
So, yeah, I think it's worth looking at like what you enjoy. And I think there's really a market for anything. If you know how to put it out in the world and how to market it, even if you haven't seen it before, it's like, you know, I'm always like, I come up with all these business ideas cause I'll Google something and I can't find it.
I'm like, I cannot be the only one searching for this. Palace does not exist. And then, so it sounds, it sounds to me, Emily, like you're saying. First of all, what do you even like doing? Understand that first, also open your mind to all the different avenues that might be available to you. Like it's, there are way more ways to make money than being a pet portrait photographer.
That's what you're saying. And then don't be afraid to niche into 4 of those different things, but maybe make one like your primary focus and then have some other things trickling in the, in the background. And that sounds like that's exactly what, what you've followed. You've done that for yourself as well.
Is that right? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say so for sure. Look, Emily, there are so many little things that you've mentioned and you just kind of skipped on through that. I want to dive into deeper. No, it's great. For example, you mentioned very briefly about collaborations, media kits, engagement, race, this kind of thing.
You also mentioned about teaching isn't for everybody. There's something else I want to talk to you about if we get time as well at the end about AI. Especially cause that's It's definitely in those light room updates that you mentioned. But I am going to save all that nitty gritty for the premium members.
So why don't we wrap up part one now, but before we do that, can you please let the listeners know the best place to find you and how they can learn from you as well? Yeah. So you can just Google inspiration photography or it's just inspiration photography. com. Cause you'll have all the links. So it should be pretty easy.
Find I've got a bunch of courses and tutorials. I'm in the process of making a whole bunch of new kind of mini courses on different topics. Although by the time you listen to this, they might already be done, but honestly, my like crowning glory is my membership, which is the learning journey. Cause it really has something for everybody from complete beginners through to I'm putting together business course.
Lessons. We have guest speakers, we do critiques, we kind of got everything and the community that I've built and that is building itself is just amazing. Like they're so supportive and everything, but just message me or email me and I can talk more about it. It's all on my website as well. learning journey.
I really, really stand by it and believe in the value of what I've built and everything that's in there. And if you want to learn about pet photography or get better at pet photography, whether it's like the artistic side, and now I'm moving a bit more into the business side, but mostly it's like. Taking photos the way that I take them and beyond essentially.
So yeah, you can find that all in the membership and thanks for letting me talk about the learning journey. Perfect. And as Emily mentioned, I will put all of the links to all of those things in the show notes as always. So if you're looking for those, just head on over to the pet photographers club.
com slash the dash. aNd you can search Emily or you can search 15 zero eight. And this will come up. That's it for part one of the episode. If you're a member of the club, you can continue listening to part two in the member zone, or as always 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 is just 10 bucks a month club membership. Includes loads of perks and bonus content. So head on over to the pet photographers club.com/join to find out more.
Thanks for listening to the Pet Photographers Club. To subscribe to the podcast, check out other episodes, and keep up to date, head to the pet photographers club.com.