Sandra Henderson (00:00.126)
AI blew up in 2023. And I think it’s pretty safe to say that it was the most talked about topic in the entire photography industry. I know there are a lot of people who love it, there are a lot of people who hate it, and I completely understand and respect everybody’s opinions, and everybody’s hesitations, but personally, I am embracing the shit out of it because it truly makes my life so much easier.

My friends Cameron and Tia feel the exact same way, so I wanted to have them on the podcast to talk all about different ways that you can use AI for things like content creation, editing, how it can improve your client experience, where to start, and so much more. If you’ve never heard of Cameron and Tia before, they are wedding photographers and photography business coaches based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They met in second grade at Jonathan Elementary School, and 16 years later, Cameron proposed to Tia at the same elementary school.

Can we please pause for a second and talk about how freaking cute that is? That is the most adorable story. Cameron is an ex-attorney and Tia is a past dance teacher who transformed their passions into a career that allows them to have a life together filled with independence and tons of travel. Now they teach others to create the same flexibility and freedom in their own businesses. This was such a fun interview and Tia’s energy is contagious. I know you’re going to love it.

So sit back and enjoy after the intro.

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Transcript of my interview with Cameron & Tia

(Intro Music)

Welcome to Keeping It Candid. I’m your host, Sandra Henderson, an international wedding and family photographer and business coach. I help wedding photographers use systems to build out the backend of their businesses to gain control and continue to thrive no matter what life throws their way. And on a more personal note, I’m a strong Enneagram three-wing too who’s obsessed with tacos.

And my love for travelling combined with navigating chronic illness life are just two of the many things that drive my passion for all things systems, workflows and beating burnout as a business owner. Join me every week for a candid behind-the-scenes look at what it’s really like working as a wedding photographer, where I’ll give you actionable steps to take your business to the next level. Absolutely no fluff here friends, so go grab your favourite notebook and pen and let’s dive into this week’s episode.

02:15 Introduction of Cameron and Tia

Sandra Henderson (02:15.702)
Before I dive in, Cameron and Tia, I would love it if you guys would quickly just introduce yourselves and let everybody know a little bit about what you’re all about.

Tia
Yay. Yes, Sandra. We are so excited to be here. It has been long overdue. We are pumped. It’s going to be so freaking fun. So to introduce ourselves, it’s complicated because we’re husband and wife, so our story actually starts in the personal realm, but it’s very intertwined throughout there. So Cam and I actually met in second grade. We went to school all growing up together. It’s insanity.

We started dating at the end of our senior year of high school. So we’re barely high school sweethearts, but we rep it. We make it a freaking thing. You know the deal. And so post-college was when photography started coming into play. Cam had been photographing here and there, high school, college, but like elective kind of vibes. And all of a sudden I was like, what if you made this a business? How freaking fun would it be to make like a logo or like an email address? We had no clue. We thought that would be the highlight of our existence.

But we really did not make it side-hustling. We were photographing high school seniors for almost three years, so part-time. We do not even call it a side hustle. It was like we would photograph a senior and it would fund our date night afterwards. That was the vibes until we got married. We got into the wedding industry and we’re like, wait, this is freaking fun. Why have we literally not been considering this?

And it was just because we were doing our own careers. Cam was actually in law school at the time. He was going to become an attorney and I was a dance teacher, a dance coach. And we were just on our own pathways until we were like, hey, let’s try to book like three to five weddings for the following year. Let’s see what’s up. We quickly found out we are not “dip our toes in the water” kind of people. We are like “dive head freaking first.” And so we ended up booking 18 weddings. It just kind of snowballed. That was literally Cam’s first year as an attorney. So it was like burning the candle on both ends.

And we really quickly figured out that, hey, we do not get time together. We were working two different careers where Cam had something very standard, typical work hours, nine to five, but it was also like first-year attorney. So like, let’s get after it. And if you’re not getting after it, you’re not going to do well. Whereas I worked with a school schedule. And so I was starting 2pm and I worked till 10.30 and we did not see each other as this first year married when we were building our lives.

And I think we didn’t know it then, but photography became something where it wasn’t out for us. It wasn’t out of careers where we didn’t get to spend time together and it became something where it was full of freedom and flexibility. And so that’s why we latched onto it. We dove headfirst and we haven’t looked back. So we’ve been working from home together since 2017. We’ve both been full-time since then and it’s so fun doing it together.

Sandra Henderson
That is so amazing. I am a dive headfirst in the water kind of person too. I mean, unless we’re talking about actual water, I don’t like anything cold. And so like to get into actual, I am a very slow and steady kind of person. But for everything else in life, I like to dive in head first. But I always love hearing stories about couples who work together because my husband and I, we’re on the same page that we were never going to work together like to keep our marriage healthy and keep us sane. We’re never going to work together. And we both are in agreement on that.

Tia
So it’s always so interesting to me to hear just like how other people have come together and made it work. And in full transparency, day to day, like working from home, Cam and I do not work together. We are fully CEOs of our own things and all the divisions within the business and we really only go to each other when there are like anomalies in the protocol of like, oh, what would we do for this? Or how do we want to restructure this? Then we’re working together. Obviously, we’re in shoots together. But the rest of the time I’m like, no, no. We could not be sane if we were constantly…

Well, actually… In 2017, I tried to get us a long desk where we sat right next to each other. It didn’t go well. It’s not my long desk. Now it’s just Cam’s long desk.

That’s so funny. But yeah, it doesn’t matter how much you love a person. Every second of every day together is too much. You need some time. So I totally relate to that. I thought about getting a long desk once to like, my husband’s like, maybe I can help you out. Or like every now and then he talks about getting involved with video. I’m like, go for it. I want nothing to do with that. I have no issues admitting that videography is way harder and I want no part of it.

And so, yeah, there’s been times that I’m like, we could just work side by side. And then I’m like, no, that’s not a good idea. The dream is okay, but then the reality sinks in. I’m like, no, that would make for some really uncomfortable work days.

Tia
Yes. I was like, oh, we’re going to sit next to each other and chat. And then I’d want to dance and sing along to the music. And Cam would be like, I cannot focus. I cannot get a single thing done.

Sandra Henderson
That’s so funny. My husband is just like you, Tia. He would be singing and like doing all the things. And I just feel like, can you stop while I try to work, please?

Tia
Yes, and you need that balance.

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, exactly. There’s times that I’m trying to like get one last email done and I just kind of like side-eye him if I’m trying to do it from the couch. And I’m like, I love you, but how do I politely tell you I need you to go away just for 10 minutes and then you can come back but like while you’re here, I’m never gonna get this email done.

Tia
Oh, hilarious.

07:42 The Excitement and Hesitations of AI

Sandra Henderson
Oh, it’s so funny. Well, today we are talking all about AI, which I am so excited about. I think it’s been like the number one talked about topic in the photography industry this year. And so I am excited to hear what your take on it is, and how do you feel about it, about this new wave of AI coming into the industry?

Tia
Freaking exciting. I think we’re at a really cool point because, so listeners, if you’re listening to this later at the time of recording, we’re in the fall. And I think we’ve hit this wave where in the spring, so many people were chatting about AI and it was like, if you’re not talking about it, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And now there was like a lag of like a lot of people going through a busy season and maybe just like resting on their laurels. Is that what the phrase is?

I tried to pull that out and I was like, I’ve never said that in my life. But just like their standard workflows that they’ve been using for years upon years and maybe AI fell by the wayside or maybe they couldn’t quite figure out how it worked into the workflows. And so we’re going to be able to chat about that today as people start heading into maybe an off-season for them, a lot of people seasonally and how that could kind of look. And so, so excited. I will say in retrospect, I was the person who was very not into AI. I was just… Okay, pretty close. Spill the tea cam. What was the vibe?

Cameron
Yeah. I mean, so our personalities in this respect are very different. I am very techy, very much wanting to be on the leading edge and test out new products and new software and all this stuff. Tia very much is not. When obviously this huge wave is coming and Tia’s like, I don’t think AI is something we should be using or I don’t know. I was like, why? Yeah, it’s too much work to do something like Tia. In our daily life, you use AI all the time. You just don’t realize it or you’ve come to accept it and the role it’s playing in your life.

You like that in our car, every time we navigate somewhere, you’re using AI to help do that. Our car itself has some AI driving features. It will self-drive.

Tia
Cam and I literally have a Tesla that self-drives and I self-drive 90% of the time.

Cameron
We have tools in our house that will automatically close the lights at certain times or when certain things like these different automations, various AI tools. Like, I love that all of our shades are automated to automatically close a half hour after sunset. Like, it’s a vibe and like the laziness in me is living for that. And every time you’re asking Siri to do something for you, you’re using AI. So just like all these things in your daily life, over and over again, you’re using AI to help improve your life, make it a little easier, make it a little better. This is a bigger scale, granted, but it is the same.

Tia
So any listeners that are sitting on the fence feeling like, I’m still not sure, or I don’t even know how this actually integrates into my business with my clients. That was me. That was 100% me. And now you’ll hear me throughout this. Like, I am the number one cheerleader of AI tools. I am a proponent. Like, let’s freaking go. So anyone who’s feeling like that, let’s get you off that fence.

Sandra Henderson
Yes, I love that. I was so excited about getting involved in AI in my own business. But I’m kind of like a combination of the two of you where I like I was super excited for that tech side of things because I hate culling, I hate editing. So I was like – anything that’s gonna take this off my plate, I’m so here for it! I hate saying anti-mirrorless camera, but I was just like, if it’s not broken don’t fix it. I can use my camera perfectly. Well, why am I gonna run out and buy a new mirrorless camera? Just because it’s the newest tech on the market.

And then last year, a local camera store had an unbelievable deal where I could trade in equipment and then get an extra 30% on top of that if I spent in-store. So I got like a whole mirrorless kit for like $1,300 Canadian, which would be under $1,000 American. It was just unreal. And now I use my mirrorless and I just even yesterday I was editing photos and I was like, what was I thinking? Why did I not do this sooner? And like, I’m totally the person who doesn’t think the camera makes the photographer. But photographers who’ve been in this a while, you know, like, sometimes that one little change in your gear can be the missing piece of the puzzle. And so that was totally what happened when I switched over to mirrorless and leaning into AI this year to get all the rest of the work done has really just been like the icing on the cake for sure.

Tia
Yeah, Sandra. Okay, the mirrorless is a really good example because when we first got mirrorless and started using eye tracking, I felt, and I think this is going to lead into our conversation later, I felt like it was kind of cheating. I was like, this is so easy. Like I’m not refocusing. I’m not recomposing. Like, wow, this is just like, I’m cheating. I’m chilling. But you know what it allowed? So much more time for everything else on a shoot.

So much more time to actually have composition nailed, have picking out locations, posing, all of our attention to clients. It allows so much more capacity for that because of something, a little tiny part of the puzzle that became so much easier. And so I think AI and a lot of tools that we’ll talk about today, they don’t need to be revolutionary. They don’t need to take a huge part of the weight off of you, but I think some will.

But some of these little ones can take little pieces of the puzzle out of there so that you have more time and energy to allocate to everything else that is in your wheelhouse.

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, absolutely. I think what you just said is the biggest takeaway that I hope people get in terms of overcoming any hesitations they have about giving up control when it comes to using AI is that AI is just another tool in our toolkit. It’s just like Photoshop, just like our flashes. It’s not meant to just completely take over for you. And I know a lot of people that I’ve talked to have had that hesitation. So I’m so glad that you brought that up.

Tia
Losing the personal touch element to it, losing the, hey, how is this going to be customized for my clients? And if I don’t have this hand in it or if I don’t have this personalization to it, is it going to feel like something that they don’t necessarily want? But two concerns that are two like arguments to that. I think number one, I was really resistant to using a scheduling tool for a long time, especially for our client-facing things. This business-to-business like scheduling for a podcast interview, I was like, oh, 100% because I know that client or whoever I’m interacting with is used to that. But I was really resistant for our engagement sessions using a scheduling tool.

And that was so counterproductive because I was just thinking, oh, they need this personalization. What if they really need a Sunday? And I know we have limits on our Sundays and we don’t want to shoot on Sundays, but what if they really need it? Then somehow we switched over to a scheduling tool and never scheduled a Sunday ever again. And it’s because I was making assumptions about what clients wanted.

And clients are really living in an Amazon era. They’re living in this era where people know that they need answers and they want answers immediately and they want to be able to book things immediately. They want to be able to buy things immediately. And I was making these assumptions for them just, I don’t know, resting on my laurels of what I thought they wanted. And so I think that it’s really important that we really assess, is this just something that I’m used to and that I want to make assumptions about them? Versus what do they really need, what do they really want? And then there’s also what’s gonna save me time.

Cameron
Yeah, I also think there’s a mindset shift that needs to happen with AI tools in accepting that these are tools to help you rather than like people replacements. I mean, I think so often, especially early on, it became, okay, well, this is going to entirely replace human editors or it’s gonna entirely replace human copywriters. But if we step back and treat this as a tool that can help us get more done or help us focus on other things on our shoots or focus on other things while we’re driving, let’s say. Like all these little things, AI is a tool to help you refocus or put your focus somewhere else that you would rather have or that is more money-making for you, to be honest.

Sandra Henderson
Such a great point. So what are some of your favorite AI tools that you’ve been using throughout this last year?

10:31 Favorite AI Tools for Content Creation with Cameron and Tia

Tia
So here’s where I fear that we’re going to get deep and we’re going to get meaty in here. And I don’t want to… because I want to give listeners not just the tools, I want to give them a little bit about what you can do with them because otherwise, the reality is no one’s going to spend time investigating them, doing trials, anything like that. So please interrupt, Sandra, at any point because we want to hear your experience too, especially you already mentioned some culling, some editing. We want to chat through things like that.

And I want people to be able to leave here thinking, “oh, hey, this tool could be a good fit for XYZ in my business, so I actually want to explore it.” So I think there’s three big categories that Cam and I categorize AI tools in. Content creation, photo video, and then home, like Cam already mentioned a little bit. So content creation, let’s start there.

Chat GPT. I think everybody knows it now. We don’t need to run down what are the basics of it, but let’s talk a little bit about what you can use it for. Email subjects, email copy, putting together… literally when you’re like, hey, I’m in my off season. I actually don’t have a workflow. I don’t have a whole bunch of email templates for this new type of session that needs something. Start at ChatGPT. Start with your first draft and then probe it and probe it and prod it so that you can get a third draft and a fourth draft that really is speaking in your voice, that really has a tone so that you are getting something meaty there with ChatGPT.

So I think that’s a basic one that I just wanted to highlight. If people are not using it yet, get in there, and start exploring. I know it’s hard and it feels like, “oh, this is something extra that I need to explore.” But off-season, oh, what a time for it. What a time to just spend some time here and there. Hey, let me try it for writing my blog post. Hey, let me try it for writing my meta descriptions. These little minute tasks might not take a lot of time, but compound, right?

If you’re doing a blog post for every single family session or every single wedding recap, writing a meta description in ChatGPT where I literally don’t need to tweak the meta description, I can tell it what my keyword is, I can tell it how many characters it needs… Boom, it’s done. That time is going to compound and that time could be spent, for me reading a spicy novel, for Cam watching Netflix, like whatever that is, spending time with your spouse, spending time with your children. That can be really important in the end game. So content creation, that’s a big one.

17:53 Favorite AI Tools for Photo and Video Editing

Tia
Let’s get deep into photo video since a lot of your audience are photographers.

Cameron
Let’s get into it.

Tia
So let’s talk editing, let’s talk culling. Cam and I use AfterShoot. What are you using, Sandra?

Sandra Henderson
I’m using Imagen.AI right now. I did play around with AfterShoot and I loved it. I had no complaints, but there was just, at the time there were features that Imagen.AI had that AfterShoot didn’t. And I know, I keep tabs on both of them and they are pretty neck and neck in terms of what they offer, but it was just kind of, I was saying earlier, talking about mirrorless cameras, it’s kind of like, it’s not broken, so I’m not going to fix it. I absolutely love Imagen.AI, but I’ve heard incredible things about the changes that Aftershoot has been making too.

Tia
Totally, which is so valid. And I think it is shocking the amount of time that you save. You can speak a little to this too, Sandra. What do you think, Cam? How has it been this busy season?

Cameron
Hours and hours of editing work. So specifically to Aftershoot versus Imagen.AI, we’re using both. We’re training both because obviously, we want to keep up with this and like make sure that we’re on the right track, but at the same time for us specifically, we love to do same-day slideshows at weddings and a lot of times we’re at venues that either don’t have wifi, that hasn’t given us access to their wifi, but we don’t want to try to use our hotspot randomly because we don’t have cell service either. Like all these random things, Aftershoot works offline. And so that’s a big reason that we absolutely love it. And we push it hard.

But as far as time-saving, it’s incredible. I mean, it’s like all these topics or this conversation we are just having about saving time and energy. It’s definitely not perfect. Like every single time we edit a gallery, there are photos that are just wrong that I wouldn’t want to deliver as is, but it is saving me 80, 90% of my work. It’s putting me at this amazing starting point that I’m just going through and individually tweaking photos and that’s it, and then it’s ready to send.

Tia
And I think a testament of growth from the time saving that we’ve seen with editing, culling tools is that Cam and I had put off having… So Cam and I primarily photograph weddings and we had put off having an associate team for years upon years for myriad of reasons. Myriad of reasons. Sandra, I’m like pulling out crazy words, things I have never said in my life. I love it. I love it. I’m saying. Whole bunch of reasons. One of them being is that editing isn’t necessarily something that we’re passionate about. Cam does all of our editing and that isn’t something that he’s like, oh, I’m so pumped about so let me take on a lot more work with an associate team where I can just edit and crank out those edits. Aftershoot has made that possible for us.

And so this past year, we started booking up with a team. We started booking next year with a team and our income, it is crazy the difference. People talk about teams all the time and how that looks and we’re still in the baby stages of it, seeing how it’s going to look and how it’s going to flesh out for us.

But because of the time-saving power of AI tools with editing, is a big reason why that made it possible for us to now three times our income, just not doing anything extra, anything extra with our time. So kind of crazy. Are you doing culling in an AI tool as well right now?

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, so Imagen.AI has had a beta of their culling, which has been great. That’s actually what kind of started me in the whole world of AI for photo and video was I was an Aftershoot user for culling for absolutely ever like, I think within the first year of it launching, and just it’s unreal the amount of time it can save. One thing that you guys have mentioned, and I think is really important for listeners to remember about AI is a lot of it does take some drafts like you mentioned with ChatGPT, you go in and like make some tweaks and make sure that tone matches what you’re looking for. And these AI programs like Aftershoot, Imagen.AI, they have a learning process with them as well.

And I know that’s another hurdle that I’ve spoken to some photographers about where they were like, it’s just adding more work onto my plate, which, it can happen, but thankfully I know Imagen.AI and I think AfterShoot have added the ability to tweak your profiles. So I think that will help with that learning curve. But yeah, it’s important to remember that it’s a tool that has to learn your process. And so I’ve been using Imagen.AI long enough now that it’s had a chance to kind of like refresh my profile a few times. And like you were saying, Cam, it’s like it takes my photos to about 90 percent. I go through, I add in some masks if I need to do spot removal and things like that.

Sandra Henderson (22:09.49)
But I did like 35 photos in a mini session in half an hour this morning because all of the work was already done for me. Crazy.

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Tia
Yeah. So I think that the first draft, second draft, and third draft are really important. We need to have the mindset shift that not only are we going through how can we learn to use this tool better, but the tools are continually getting better. So getting in like Sandra, at the ground floor of like, hey, I’ve been this Aftershoot user. I am an OG. Like, let’s get after it. She’s seen it evolve, she’s learned how to utilize it as it evolves and gets to reap the benefits of it evolving.

Cameron
Yeah. And having the mindset of, yes, you do have to put in maybe a few hours of work to get these programs up and running, even a bit like what you want. And that is daunting, especially during busy season. The idea of like putting in another five hours of uploading all my past galleries to this to make sure that I can learn how I like to edit is very hard and daunting. But I have to say also that next wedding, instead of spending 8 to 12 hours editing the whole wedding, I’m spending two to three now. And every single wedding moving forward is going to be that same thing, which is incredible. We always like to say it’s like a step to the side. Don’t consider it a step backwards. It’s like a step to the side in your progress, but it’s going to catapult you forward 10 steps. You’re merging into the fast lane.

Tia
Yeah, it’s nuts. And so holler at that off-season again. What a perfect time to spend this time right now when you have a little bit more white space. If you can dig in and like, hey, I’m going to train my editing profile and let’s get after this. That is the perfect time.

Sandra Henderson
You guys already mentioned a little bit about how this has helped you kind of triple the income that you’re bringing in and start building out your associate team. What are some other ways that photographers can use AI to help them better, like grow their businesses, thrive in their businesses, and even better the impact that it’s having on their lives?

Tia
Yeah, 100%. Okay, the lives, all of these are going to circle back to the impact it can have on your lives. I mentioned spicy novels that I love to read.

Sandra Henderson (24:10.346)
Me too.

24:10 Using AI to Increase Productivity and Improve Client Experience with Cameron and Tia

Tia
How much more time (are you going to have)? So increase productivity. You’re going to be able to increase your productivity. We already heard Sandra and Cam talking about just editing. Let’s talk about, I love a tool called Descript.

Descript is what we use for kind of making any of our reels. We do weekly content that is YouTube, which is education for other photographers. So there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes. There’s a lot of business tips there for repurposing that content to reels, what I can do is pop it in a tool called Descript. And at the base level, Descript does an entire text transcript of whatever you’re talking about. It auto-populates that. And it is scary good. It is crazy. I’m going to be honest.

In the past, I saw people making videos like this and I thought that they were hand typing out their script. I was like, huh? How did they have time for that? I was so concerned. Descript automatically will do that entire text script. And then you can, if I was going to repurpose something, so maybe you have a behind-the-scenes video from your family session that you want to repurpose and you want to make it a reel and it was recorded landscape, you can take it into Descript. It can make it vertical for you and it can make that ratio and then it can do what’s called dynamic text. And so it will pop up the text on the screen following along.

So here’s the deal with that. I love to use it. We use it for all of our reels now, and anything that we’re repurposing. In the past, I would have tried to do anything like that, so let’s say I was trying to change the ratio just in Final Cut Pro, that takes time. Let’s say I was typing out the script. I did not make a script for this. That takes time. Let’s say I was making dynamic text popping up on the screen while I was saying these… Holy cow, the time there. So I think not only are these tools allowing you to do things that you might not have ever had the capacity to do, or it’s taking things off of your plate that are allowing you productivity in your zone of genius.

It’s getting the mundane, repeatable tasks off of your plate and it’s allowing you to just focus on the things that need your human touch or that need your specialty, your special sauce. It’s allowing you to get those out of there and then you to just focus on those. So increased productivity allows you to focus on your zone of genius. And I would argue 10 out of 10, it’s allowing for a better client experience.

I get it. I get the hesitation like we already talked about that you don’t have these tiny sentences of personalization that you might have elsewhere without an automation. But I think in this age of Amazon and this age of instant gratification, having a seamless client workflow, that is fast, that gives them immediate responses trumps everything.

And so all of those three categories then circle back to allowing you more time for life. It’s allowing you more time for your hobbies, more time with your significant others, more time with children, all of those things. And that is freeing. And that’s what we’re all chasing as entrepreneurs. We’re trying to take off all those mini hats and put a hat instead on ChatGPT and now allow me more time to read.

Cameron
Yeah, and in addition to that too, like for those of you who maybe really enjoy working, like in addition to that time savings, you can use that time savings to deliver better product also. I mean, you’re talking, Sandra, about using Imagen.AI, getting 90% of the way and then now you’re going and adding masks or spot removing. There are some times when I’m editing a full wedding and it’s taking a long time. It’s a weird day for some reason. It’s taking an extra long time. I don’t want to go through and do that extra work. But now if AfterShoot or Imagen.AI is doing 90% of that work for me is getting me there, all of a sudden it’s like, oh, okay, I’m a little freed up to actually put in a little bit of extra work to make these photos incredible versus just deliverable.

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, absolutely. The possibilities like I know it sounds so lame, but the possibilities are endless of what you can do with all of this extra time. Like it, I wish I had my Imagen.AI open right now. But the love that it keeps track of the number of hours that you’ve saved. Because it’s just – every time I open it, it’s just like this calming wave washes over me. Like that’s 35 hours of editing that I didn’t have to do.

Tia
Yeah, so fun. So exciting.

28:48 Advice for Photographers Hesitant to Use AI

Sandra Henderson
Do you have any words of advice for wedding photographers who are hesitating to get on board with AI in their business?

Tia
Yeah. Okay, we’ve hit this a little bit, but as we enter off-season, I think there’s going to be like three camps of people. Like one, the people who have literally not touched AI. Two, the people who hit it hard in the spring and they’re like, I’m trying to ChatGPT for everything. And then they got into their busy season and it just fell by the wayside. They didn’t have it integrated into workflows or the people who are using it regularly but it’s not in their workflows at all. You know what I mean?

Like it’s like, hey, I have to circle back to this. Oh, I forgot that I should be using this for this. Let me go over here and like use it for that meta description but I don’t necessarily have that in my Asana workflow, like my project management tool where I check it off. Busy season is the opportunity for this. For all three of those camps, you can just take one step forward to move to the next camp or heck, get after it and put it in your workflows. I think that there’s power to getting into a tool. So let’s just use ChatGPT. Getting in a tool, exploring it, and then saying, oh, I do really like it for putting together my email subject lines or for putting together just like my slugs at the end of my blog post. That feels really good to me and it feels like a really easy way to use it that makes sense and I’m seeing success in it.

Okay. So now I go back to my workflow that already exists and every time I do a family blog post, I am now going to have a line item where I head over to ChatGPT, it’s bookmarked up top there, and I put together a slug, and it puts together a really great slug that’s hitting my keywords for me. And now it’s integrated into my workflow so that I am armoured up when I go back into a busy season, I am already integrated into using these AI tools.

And so I just want to encourage you to take whatever that step to the side is for a hot second to then take those steps forward so that you can go into a busy season armoured up, ready to use it, taking dedicated time to just be curious. Take time to see what new is out there, and what tools could help you influence your business or improve your business in some meaningful way.

Cameron
And sometimes it’s a flop too. I know that too. I spend every Friday, I have an hour set aside that I just research. Sometimes that’s just an hour that wasn’t super productive this time, but it was fun and it was enjoyable. Other times I’ll find a tool like Aftershoot or Imagen.AI or something else that improves our lives in some way that saves countless hours in the future or literally thousands of dollars because we found this tool in beta and now we’re getting it for free for life because we invested time in them. All these little things, just taking a little bit of time to get curious and see what’s out there can pay you back tenfold in the future.

Tia
Yes. So we call it a curiosity hour. Cam just said it was an hour on Friday in busy season, and off-season, it’s like a day. That’s like in his batch working schedule is curiosity hour. But we encourage your listeners to set aside time to get curious. I think it’s really hard because it doesn’t feel like there’s an ROI on that initially. It feels like, why would I just kind of like search around for new tools or like search around for solutions to problems I’ve been having when it’s not immediate? It doesn’t feel like, oh, this is on fire. I need to solve it right now.

But we would encourage you to just hop on and start searching around, start exploring, start looking into things that maybe you’ve screenshotted but never spent the time to dig into the tool or dig into what people are using for this. Because there can be a lot of power and the ROI can be what Cam says. It can be that you find something early on and that you’re paying a founder’s rate forever or you paid $200 and now you use this CRM for life for free. Those things are huge ROI.

So off-season is a great time to start a little curiosity hour. Start it, allocate it in your schedule, block it off and use that time for it. And I know that can be challenging, so we actually have a link that we’d love to share with your audience, Sandra. It’s cameronandtia.com/keepingitcandid. On there, it’s a page full of AI tools. So right now, like we talked about, I don’t know, like four today, it is full of it. It has probably like 30 tools on there that if you set aside a curiosity hour and your listeners want to dig into that page, you can click on them, you can explore them, you can see, oh, is this something I need? Is this something I want? Does this make sense in my life? And it can be a really great starting place for curiosity hour.

Cameron
Yeah, and also use that to test out tools too. Like, spend that hour uploading photos to Imagen.AI to see, hey, maybe this tool can save you time and money moving forward too.

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, absolutely. That is amazing. I will definitely make sure to include the link in the show notes for that so everybody can go and check it out. And I definitely will be as well because there’s nothing that I love more than digging through new apps. It’s become a new love of mine over the last year. I’m sure Cameron, you’ve probably heard of AppSumo. But I just switched to a new online calendar for like booking my clients, like mini sessions and stuff like that. I paid $30 US for a lifetime deal and like that’s replacing $144 US a year for my calendar. So I’m like, it’s so addicting. I’m like, bring me more startup companies.

Cameron
Yes, that’s so fun.

33:06 Dream Weddings vs. Automated Weddings with Cameron and Tia

Sandra Henderson
Oh, it was awesome. Well, I have one last question for you guys. This one is a fun little would you rather question… So, would you rather have 10 absolute dream weddings where you cannot use AI to do any of the work that goes along with them? Or would you rather have 10 just-okay weddings but you can fully automate every part with AI imaginable?

Tia
Ha ha ha. That’s hard. 10 is a lot. 10 is what got me, Sandra. I’m looking so hard now to go back and have to almost relearn certain things. I’m thinking about eye tracking, and how much we rely on that just every day. And then we just had an issue with a camera at one wedding, so one of our backups doesn’t have eye tracking. And so I was shooting, literally moving the focus point again. I’m like, oh my God, this is so hard. And it’s just so much more work. And so to have to do that for an entire wedding, like that alone, on top of the editing… Wait. Is eye tracking AI?

Cameron
Yeah.

Tia
I’m choosing the 10 average. But the eye tracking would get me. I also think I would not want to start with a blank screen to type up a blog post. I would also have to relearn that behaviour. That’s not a huge time suck, but I just dread waking up in the morning and looking at a blank screen for a blog post. I’d be like, oh, this feels like the bane of my existence. I choose the 10 average. What do you choose?

Cameron
I might still have a dream. I might put in the extra work, but… For only 10 and never again. 10 is the best. We never have another dream client.

Sandra Henderson
That’s like when you see things online that’s like, you know, you have to live on this remote island with no cell phone service or laptop for a year, but you get a million dollars. I’m like, guys, it’s only a year. Like, I’ll be fine. Give me the million dollars, please, and then give me my cell phone back when the year’s over.

Tia
There you go. Yeah. So you would choose that?

Cameron
I would definitely have to, I think I would do the 10 dream weddings and have to fully automate it and then like just suck it up for the 10 and then I’ll be done with it and go back to AI from there. And I can catapult your business moving forward too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, but you would choose to live on an island with no laptop, cell phone for a year for a million?

Sandra Henderson
Oh, I mean, in 2023 standards, we might have to up that up. Like that million better go up with inflation a little bit. But yeah, I could totally do a finite amount of time with all of my luxuries. I think I could do that. But if it’s just like you have to give them up forever. I’m like, no, there’s not enough money in the world for me to give all that up forever.

Tia
No, no, no. A year. I don’t know if I could do a year. So I was going to mention this earlier when you were talking about diving into water. Are you a Survivor fan at all? Survivor the TV show?

Sandra Henderson
I haven’t watched it in forever, but it used to be like way back in the day. My photography teacher when I was in high school had a Survivor, almost like a fantasy football type thing where we had to pick who we thought was gonna win and like rank them and things like that. And I ended up winning. I had a good guess.

Tia
Okay, Cam and I are diehard Survivor fans. Our friend group has watched together for years and we watch it every single Wednesday. We do a draft… actually do multiple different versions of drafts. We bet every episode. We’re very into it. It’s very fun. I’ve currently decided that I am auditioning for Survivor. I am going to audition this off-season. That is my off-season task. So obviously you go without a laptop, computer or anything like that, but it’s only 29 days, so it’s no big deal.

Cameron
Yeah, I’m a little worried about that, to be honest, but I’ll get after it.

Tia
For a million dollars, that’s the grand prize. And we still have other people. So I mean, like that’s something that we all learned back in 2020. Like having just people around can really fix a lot of things. As long as there are people that you like, you get your little like alliance and then everybody else.

Sandra Henderson (37:24.962)
Well, that’s awesome. I am so excited for you. I hope that it all goes well, and I can’t wait to say that I know somebody on Survivor.

Tia
Okay. Hold your horses. People apply for like 10 years, or 20 years, and then they finally get selected. So I’m starting at 32. We’ll see what’s up.

Cameron
But you’re still expecting to be selected.

Tia
Oh, I will be selected. I should be selected.

Sandra Henderson
I love that.

Tia
Okay. We’ll report back.

Sandra Henderson
Amazing guys. Well, thank you so much again for joining me. This conversation was so much fun and I know listeners are going to have a million takeaways to dive into AI in the off-season. It was great connecting with you and I hope our paths cross again one day soon!

Tia
Yes, cannot wait.

38:18 Closing Remarks and Encouragement

Sandra Henderson
Okay, how fun was that interview? I absolutely loved talking to Cameron and Tia and the interview went so well that I honestly didn’t have to edit it. I had to trim off some at the very beginning and very end where we were just talking about random things, but the conversation flowed perfectly and you were literally hearing an unedited version of that from start to finish.

For all my chronic illness friends who are listening, I really want to encourage you to lean into AI this year. It’s important to remember that AI is not meant to replace you. These services and apps are tools for your toolkit to help you work more efficiently and when you have a chronic illness, working more efficiently means you have more time to rest.

Remember, it’s entirely possible to run a thriving business within your limitations. So here’s your permission this year to lean into whatever tools you need to make that happen.

Sandra Henderson
Thank you so much for listening. You can find full show notes from today’s episode at simplysandryvonne.ca/keepingitcandid. In the meantime, let’s connect. You can find me on Instagram and TikTok, just search @SimplySandraYvonne. And if you love this podcast, I’d be so honoured if you’d go ahead and hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Until next time.

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About Cameron & Tia

Cameron & Tia are wedding photographers and photography business coaches based in Minneapolis, MN. They met in second grade at Jonathan Elementary School. Sixteen years later, Cameron proposed to Tia at that same elementary school. Cameron is an ex-attorney and Tia is a past dance teacher who transformed their passions into a career that allows them to have a life together filled with independence and tons of travel. Now, they teach others to others to create the same flexibility and freedom in their own businesses.

Instagram | Website

00:00 Introduction and Importance of Accessibility

Accessibility should be a top priority for all business owners, but let’s be honest, it is something that is overlooked more often than not. It’s something that I really hope we start to see changing in 2024, and that is why I knew I had to have my friend Erin on the podcast.

Erin is a deafblind accessibility educator and the owner of Mabely Q. Her mission is to make the world a more accessible place one business at a time. She loves getting to teach businesses how to do just that by leaning on her life experiences that she shares with others to foster true inclusion at all levels. This is a do-not-miss episode. So absolutely make sure that you grab your notebook and pen or if you’re busy and listening to this on the go make sure you come back to it because there are some really, really important takeaways for you in this episode that you’re gonna be able to apply to your business and start delivering an even more incredible client experience every step of the way.

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Transcript of my interview with Erin from Mabely Q

(Intro Music)

Welcome to Keeping It Candid. I’m your host Sandra Henderson, an international wedding and family photographer and business coach. I help wedding photographers use systems to build out the backend of their businesses to gain control and continue to thrive no matter what life throws their way. And on a more personal note, I’m a strong Enneagram three-wing too who’s obsessed with tacos. And my love for travelling, combined with navigating chronic illness life, are just two of the many things that drive my passion for all things systems, workflows, and beating burnout as a business owner.

Join me every week for a candid behind-the-scenes look at what it’s really like working as a wedding photographer, where I’ll give you actionable steps to take your business to the next level. Absolutely no fluff here friends, so go grab your favourite notebook and pen and let’s dive into this week’s episode.

Sandra Henderson
Erin, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I am so excited for this conversation. But before we dive right in, I would love it if you would give listeners, just introduce yourself and give them an idea of who you are and what you’re all about.

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
Sandra, thank you for having me. I really like genuinely appreciate you inviting me on this podcast. I am Erin Perkins and I am the CEO of Mabely Q. Mabely Q is all about creating accessibility education for small business owners because unlike in the corporate world, which is where I came from, like a lot of these things, they already have the budget, they already have all these things built out for them, so they’re able to do that. But when you’re a small business owner, you don’t have access to these resources, you don’t necessarily understand…

And to be honest, accessibility is very dry. It’s very misunderstood. It’s vague. Like all those things that you can think of that I found that I ended up teaching people because I, myself, am deafblind. And I’ve always had resources given to me growing up. You know, my parents had to make sure that their kids had access.

But not everyone goes to have that fortune. So I just ended up doing it and I really enjoy it. And it makes me very excited to just be able to help people really lean into the values of their business.

03:08 Challenges for Small Business Owners

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, absolutely. I love that so much. And I think that is so, so important. And you brought up a really good point that bigger companies and corporations have so many resources at their fingertips to be able to approach different aspects of incorporating accessibility into their companies. But for small business owners, we don’t have those same resources. And I think when it’s just us, it’s such a complex and nuanced subject as well because there are so many different groups of people that need accessibility. It’s not just about one group of people and I think that is something that I know from conversations I’ve had with other people. It’s something that kind of hinders them from going forward because they’re worried that they’re gonna do something wrong.

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
I want people not to be scared of… We’re all gonna make mistakes. I’ve made so many mistakes. I mean, my first branding was completely not accessible with the script font. And I kind of had to learn because it’s not something that is taught in school. And it’s just like, and here’s the thing. Corporates grew up big time as well. I would like to use Meta and Instagram as the most recent example, they launched Threads. And it was completely inaccessible to screen readers, people who use alt text and all of that. They could not use it at all. And if a company that had this system set up in Instagram and Facebook screws up on Threads, you as an independent business owner, are allowed to screw up.

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, I totally agree. I think we all need to just get more comfortable with making mistakes because we are imperfect people and the important thing is not to be perfect right now and never make a mistake going forward. It’s to be open to like owning up to those mistakes and correcting whatever that mistake was and learning from it going forward.

Erin Perkins
Yeah, and that’s like really all I teach is like, you know, you make a mistake, okay, how do you correct? However, I will 100% say if you do it over and over and over again, that means you don’t really care. And okay, I don’t want to be part of your world then.

06:16 Improving Accessibility Online for Wedding Photographers

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, I completely agree with that. So what are some ways that you think that wedding photographers can improve their accessibility online when it comes to their websites, their social media presence and things like that?

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
I think this is like really tricky because a lot of disabled people… (Missing transcript)

One, they already don’t see themselves in the wedding arena. They don’t see themselves represented. However, it’s also like, they don’t want to be the token of that wedding photographer. So it’s very hard trying to find that fine line of being able to showcase that you do welcome them, you do want them to be represented. But at the same time don’t make them feel like it has to be a part of their story. Like for me, I got married 13 years ago, so Pinterest was still brand new at that time. So it was interesting because I do not want my hearing aids to be shown in the wedding pictures and stuff like that, just because I don’t think it’s aesthetically pleasing.

But it didn’t mean that my being deaf is not part of my story. So it was like tricky, like trying to find that fine line. I think a lot of photographers could, they can change their language a little bit and like make sure that people feel like, oh, you know, I feel included in this. It doesn’t matter if I have any sort of disability, but the reality is most disabilities are invisible. So, it’s like, how do you represent that? And I think it’s by language and representation on your website.

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, that is so, so important. One thing that I started doing, I think in 2021, that… (Missing transcript)

08:05 Using Questionnaires to Understand Accessibility Needs

Sandra Henderson
It unfortunately doesn’t make an impact on the outward presentation because it’s for the clients that I’ve already brought in. So I’m working on making some changes to not tokenize people for my social media presence and things like that. But for people who have hired me and want to work with me, I send out what I call a welcome questionnaire and I ask them things if they need any accessibility, if they have any limitations that they don’t want stairs or lifting people or sitting on the ground or anything like that. And I think that is so important, just making sure that every person that you’re working with is comfortable and not being put into a situation where they don’t feel safe or don’t feel comfortable going forward.

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
Yeah, I mean, I think a questionnaire is a great place to start because it allows them to disclose things that they want to disclose. They’ll be like, if they ask that question, it will be comfortable. If a photographer had asked me like, what are some things that I can do to create more access for you during the photo shoot? I would say one of the things like use a little bit more hand gestures because I’m not seeing your face when you are counting three, two, one or something, or if you’re like telling me something…

It’s funny because I did a brand photo shoot and the photographer was great, but there were certain things that I was like, this is interesting because they will be talking to me behind the camera and I would have no clue what they’re saying. So sometimes it’s like, all right, we need to kind of set up the scene before we take pictures so that I’m kind of aware of what I need to do. So I think communication is really essential.

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, that’s a really good point that you brought up about requiring things like gestures and things like that. I personally am terrible at verbalizing my posing instructions. So I always like to do hand gestures. But that’s something that I’ve never thought of is that some people when they can’t hear and things like that, that those are going to go a really long way.

And I love that you said that the questionnaire allows them to disclose things that they want to disclose. I think that is a really important takeaway because we shouldn’t be putting our clients into a position where they feel like they have to give us this information. But if they want to give us that information and they’re comfortable, then it’s really important to use that.

09:46 Effective Communication and Adaptability

Erin Perkins of Mabely Q
Yeah, like especially nowadays, I feel like more and more people are saying, you know, have ADHD or stuff like that. And like that’s cool. Maybe their partner has ADHD, but their partner doesn’t necessarily want to disclose that. The other one is like, I just want them to be aware of like, they will lose their patience if you don’t keep it moving. Yeah, they get distracted very easily. I think it will help the photographer be able to adapt pretty quickly.

Sandra Henderson
If there’s one thing that you hope that wedding photographers start doing the minute they finish listening to this episode, what would that be?

Erin Perkins
Update your questionnaire for sure. And then the other thing is giving multiple ways for people to contact you.

Sandra Henderson
Oh, good point.

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
Because a lot of people have their preferred method of communicating. I hate it when people just call me and say, oh my god. I have like serious anxiety about that. So you need to set up some sort of workflow that allows them to contact you the way they want to originally, but then funnel them into like your questionnaire and stuff like that.

But like, if they say they would rather just talk to you on the phone, like the client, like you do have to adapt for that. If they prefer to communicate through email, adapt to that. Or if they want video chat, you do have to adapt to that. So it’s like, flexible. I know in this day and age where people are like, oh god, I gotta go on video? I prefer video more than anything. Video gives me that human connection. But if someone wants to talk on the phone, I will do it. Not my favorite though.

Sandra Henderson (12:26.214)
Yeah, completely understandable. And such a great point about being flexible. I think that business owners as a whole, but being in the wedding photography industry, I see it so much with wedding photographers is they get set in their way of doing things, which I think is important to have your boundaries and the way that you like to do things because that’s your zone of genius and you can excel that way.

But you do have to have flexibility. There needs to be a little bit of wiggle room. It can’t just be all about you. And if people aren’t willing to meet me where I am, then we’re not gonna work together. Like you need to be more open and welcoming to the different types of people that you’re gonna be working with.

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
Yeah, like I know so many people, they just generally have like so much anxiety about being on the phone. And like my husband, he’s different. He would much rather call than write an email. (Missing transcript)… an hour to an hour and a half typing an email on my dude did not need to be that long. Yeah. He would rather talk on the phone, though we have different things there. But it’s very interesting how people are.

(Missing transcript) … everything on the phone and it pushed me so far out of my comfort zone, but it’s just one of those things that you got to step up and do sometimes, unfortunately.

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, for sure. So I’d love to jump back to some of the things that we were talking about at the beginning of the episode when we were talking more about websites and social media and things like that and the accessibility that wedding photographers are putting forward online.

You brought up a really good point about your first website and branding with script fonts. This is something that I see so much in the wedding photography or wedding industry as a whole – everybody wants to make everything look pretty… and I wear glasses, but my vision isn’t that bad I can see without my glasses on but I really struggle to read a lot of fonts that are scripted on people’s websites.

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14:01 Considerations for Website Design and Color Contrast

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
Oh Yeah. I mean, it’s almost stereotypical. For weddings, like anybody in the wedding industry, it’s almost mandatory to be very light, very scripty, and very pretty in the stereotypical way. And I’m not saying you can’t use script fonts at all, but keep those to like the headers.

Like maybe only two headers, like header one and header two, that’s it. Um, but like, I know a lot of people are guilty. I was guilty of this when I built my website. I’m not a web designer by any means, but I have a background in graphic design. I wanted my script font to be kind of like represented on the website, but it wasn’t like what it wasn’t part of the font choices.

So I would create a graphic and put it on the website, but then I would forget the alt text because I was still learning at that point. At that point, I was more focused on graphic design and working for other people as opposed to creating accessibility. And I realized that those images are not readable when you have your script font that is embedded in the image. It’s not readable. So you have to make sure you have alt text for that.

And then the other thing is the colour contrast. Oh my God. So many people like pink and gray or pink and white. Don’t get me wrong. Pink is one of my favourite colours. (Missing transcript) … when it’s like low contrast like go to cooler.co and check your colour contrast you will find that your colour contrast is not good at all. Like I’m questioning if people can read some of that I’m like can you read your own stuff? I know you’re trying to keep that aesthetic but shouldn’t we like kind of like throw that aesthetic out the window and create something that really feels like you?

Sandra Henderson
I completely agree. And going forward, or going off of what you were saying about if people can even read what they’re putting up there, I think the same thing when I see people’s Instagram stories and they have their text so teeny tiny that I’m like, with my phone here, I cannot even read what they’ve written.

Erin Perkins
I’m like, I understand you’re trying to condense things into one screen, but like, that’s just not realistic. You need to spread that story out over several pages and I will read it. I promise you I will read it. But if it’s all crammed into one, like, nope, I’m skipping ahead. There’s nothing wrong with having multiple screens to share a story.

18:05 Proper Use of Alt Text

Sandra Henderson
You were talking about alt text and it kind of gave me a light bulb moment. Something that I see a lot in the wedding photography community when they’re talking about blogging and things like that to help with their SEO. A lot of people have the idea that alt text is just an SEO tool where they put in keywords. So I would love it if you could take a second to just kind of explain the proper way to use alt text.

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
(Missing transcript)… actually designed for people who have vision limitations or maybe even they would rather consume things through the screen reader audio but they’re still looking at the image and if you just say wedding couple um something I don’t know what photographers do for their blog. But if you just like basically keyword stuff, you are hurting your SEO, because Google knows. Google knows what you’re doing. And then you’re hurting yourself because the people who are on your website, they’re listening to it through the screen reader, they’re automatically leaving. 85% of the people leave their website when it’s not accessible to them.

So the minute they hear something and they get this frustration, I feel like we all do it. Doesn’t matter if we have a disability or not. If there’s a problem with the website, we automatically leave it and we’re like, nope, not going back to that. It’s just like we do not have the patience. So imagine what it’s like for a person with a disability. You’re adding layers of problems to that. Like, sorry, I’m going to leave.

So when it comes to curating your blog, yes, you do have to write a brief sentence. I’m not saying it has to be a million sentences long, but one of the things I learned from somebody else who has a line, he said that we were doing alt text wrong. And he had a point. He said, I don’t care why… let me just use myself as an example. I would describe myself, I’m a white woman with a short haircut, Bob on one side, and I’m wearing a blue, dark navy blue and pink top. He’s like, I literally do not care what you look like or what you wear. I wanna know why you’re wearing that blue dress.

So he’s like, he actually pointed out he wants us to be more intentional about how we write out our alt text and why we’re doing it in a sense. So I think we have to find that fine line of being descriptive enough so that people feel like they can envision the image. But at the same time, not just throwing images in just for the hell of it. Like I think we want to, when you’re putting together a blog, you want to be intentional about what images you’re putting in there, like why you show that image.

21:42 Alt Text vs. Image Descriptions on Social Media

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And when it comes to using alt text on social media, some people put it in like the alt text feature that’s in behind the photos the same way it would be on a blog. And then some people do an image description at the bottom. Do you think that there’s one that’s more beneficial than the other when it comes to people using screen readers and things like that?

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
I mean, alt text is definitely designed for screen readers. Image description is more so for people who might not. I would never use a screen reader. But sometimes an image description kind of helps me get a better idea, especially if I can’t read the font text or something, and the image description kind of explains it for me. So there’s no wrong way of doing something, but I think one of the most missed opportunities that people have is that when you are posting something on Instagram, you need to be very…

I want people to think more about what they’re posting. You’re not just posting at random, and a lot of people, they’ll post some kind of graphic, and then not even say what that graphic is saying. That is such a missed opportunity because you know that graphic cannot be read by screen readers. So, and I guarantee you, most people aren’t putting stuff in alt text.

So like, make sure what you put in the graphic is also being written in the caption. Like, it’s just such a missed opportunity for so many people.

23:02 Inclusivity and Accessibility without Limitations

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, that’s such a good point. And it kind of leads to one last question that I wanted to ask you. This is something that I think came up a lot during the pandemic because we saw that Clubhouse was a really popular platform. I’m sure that was a topic of conversation that you had a lot. Um, but the thing with Clubhouse for anybody who doesn’t know is almost like a social media platform, but only audio. So it heavily excluded a huge community of people who can’t hear.

And I know there was a lot of like blowback from that with the company and things like that. We’ll save that for another day. But one thing that I noticed when all those conversations were happening, there were a lot of people that were saying, we’re inclusive, but, or we have accessibility, but, where like there would just be this group of people has to be left out, but that’s really not inclusivity and accessibility if there are buts that go along with it. So I would love to hear your thoughts on something like that.

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
Yeah, because the word but, actually, I remember somebody explaining this to you, if you’re apologizing to someone and then you add the but. It almost eliminates the first sentence, to begin with.

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, I say that my husband and I say that all the time.

25:21 The Impact of Inaccessible Platforms

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
Yeah, it’s like you have to be like really thoughtful in how you’re saying it. It’s like yeah but I’m like everything you just said you just negated it with that word but. And that’s like really hard for people because we’re used to that. I am that person that is very much like a grey area about everything. And it drives people in that. I’m the middle child in my family. So like, I see my older sister’s point. I also see my younger sister’s point. I’m like, you’re both right, but you’re also both wrong. So figure it out.

And I think that’s like the issue is like, we’re never going to get it… We’re never going to get it right. You are going to eliminate somebody unintentionally and you need to be okay with that. However, when you think about a platform like Clubhouse, they knew what they were doing in the first place. They are 100% knew what they were doing. The reason why I say that is because the founder, one of the founders, I know for a fact, had a child with a disability. And yet they knew what they were doing with the setting up Clubhouse. They knew exactly. It’s like for me, like with podcasts, like I still have this extreme frustration is like, I know how much stuff I’m missing out on.

But yet anybody who is not deaf, I challenge you to actually go to your favourite podcast and tell me how many clicks it takes for you to find that transcript. I bet you it was gonna take you a minimum of four or five clicks. Which is why, like, you know, I want that access. Like, I want it to be one or two clicks to get to the transcript or have it captioned and I don’t like it when I watch videos. I don’t have a problem with turning on the caption, but I have no problem with that because that’s just one click. But when you ask me to do four or five clicks, and it doesn’t even guarantee that I can find that transcript, I’m just not going to do it.

Sandra Henderson
Yeah. And you mentioned a lot of people with ADHD earlier, and that is something that comes into play when you are kind of giving people the runaround, and they have to click five, six, seven times. People who are neurodivergent are going to get distracted along the way or they’re not going to be able to find their way around. So it’s super important to just make sure that we’re making things as easy as possible for everybody that we’re working with.

27:44 Moving Towards Genuine Inclusion

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
So I just launched a campaign called Hello Genuine Inclusion. And the thing is, I’m trying to get us away from this whole superficial accessibility because we need to get away from that. It’s so easy to do so many things I’ve taught. But like, I’m asking people to really take a look at what you’re doing in your business. And like, let’s figure out how to make it much more inclusive without you feeling, you as a business owner, feeling like you’re doing 10 times more work.

Because to be honest, when I have to transcribe my video, my video takes me three, to four times longer for me to edit, than it does for a hearing person. So like, you don’t have the right to complain in a sense. I’m just asking you to genuinely, truthfully include people with disability, because we are a huge infrastructure of people in this world. We are 25% of the US population. If you get rid of that 25%, you’re going to see how much support we have provided for everybody else. You’re going to notice that we are missing.

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, that’s so true. You brought up a good point earlier too, that most people who have disabilities, it is invisible. And so I think that a lot of people kind of overlook the fact that the disabled community is a solid foundation for everything that happens in our world. And I completely agree with you. If we were to eliminate that 25%, I think it would be a real eye-opener for people.

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
Yeah. And I think that happened during the pandemic too. Like noticing people who are actually such a strong support, not able to be that support anymore. People with disabilities, like we are so strong. But man, we are tired. Yeah. So tired.

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, understandably for sure. Well, I hope that this episode starts taking some of that workload off your plate and inspires everybody to go out and make some changes to their website, their social media, how they’re approaching their clients in person. And do you have any final takeaways you would love to leave the listeners with?

29:39 Starting from Where You Are

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
My biggest thing is just start from where you’re at now. Don’t feel like you have to go back, backtrack and like redo everything. Start from where you’re at now, once you are aware, start trying to incorporate accessibility throughout your business from this point on.

Sandra Henderson
Oh, I love that. That’s huge because I think a lot of people get… They keep pushing it off because it’s like, oh, it’s so much work for me to go redo my entire website, but just start where you are. And then when you have time, you can go back and do little things here and there, but it’s more important to start doing it now and make it a habit for going forward.

Erin Perkins
Yep. That’s true.

30:28 Fun Question: Snowboarding vs. Stand Up Paddling

Sandra Henderson
Awesome. Well, this has been an amazing conversation. I have one last question for you. Just something fun that I’m doing for this season of the podcast, a little would you rather-question.

And so since we have connected earlier this year and I’ve had a chance to kind of get to know you through social media a little bit, I wanted to ask, would you rather snowboard a mountain or go stand-up paddling in the ocean?

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
Snowboarding a mountain.

Sandra Henderson
Snowboarding in the mountains?

Erin Perkins
Yeah, when I’m paddling boarding in the ocean now. There’s too many unknowns in that ocean. No.

Sandra Henderson
It’s so true. I went kayaking for the first time last summer and it was in a very shallow lake. And then I was in Florida and I was looking at kayaking and I was like, I don’t know, there’s bigger things in this water. The water’s a lot bigger.

Erin Perkins
I know. With the mountains, I feel like I have a little bit more control. While with the ocean, it’s like, I don’t know what’s under there. It’s humongous and things that live in it that like, I have zero desire to go, well, I can’t anyway, scuba diving, snorkeling is already like pushing it for me.

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, I’m the same way. I am not like, I don’t mind being on a boat for a short period of time or like in water where I can touch. But I like I went parasailing one year and I had so much fun being up in the air. But then I was just in shallow water on the beach and a little fish touched my foot and I screamed. I was terrified from this tiny little fish, but being up in the air was no big deal.

Erin Perkins from Mabely Q
Yeah, it’s just like that, like, oh God, what just touched me? And you can’t see it and it’s just like, no, no.

Sandra Henderson
Yeah, I totally agree. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Erin. It was so great chatting with you. And I hope that our paths get to cross again soon.

Erin Perkins
Yes, for sure. Thank you for having me.

Sandra Henderson
Thank you so much for listening. You can find full show notes from today’s episode at simplysandryvonne.ca/keepingitcandid. In the meantime, let’s connect. You can find me on Instagram and TikTok, just search @SimplySandraYvonne. And if you love this podcast, I’d be so honoured if you’d go ahead and hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Until next time.

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About Erin from Mabely Q

Erin is deafblind, though she can still hear with the help of her hearing aid & cochlear implant (without them, she’s profoundly deaf). She can see only 50 degrees (most people see 180 degrees)… if you’re waving to her, and she doesn’t wave back…the chances are pretty high that she didn’t see or hear you!

She started Mabely Q under the guise of being an operations manager and graphic designer. It wasn’t until she worked with business owners and mentors that she realized how few actually understood what accessibility was. She pivoted right into accessibility education.

She loves that she gets to teach businesses how to be accessible by leaning on her life experiences which she shares with others to foster true inclusion at all levels, and also teaching in a way that feels good. Her mission is to make the world more accessible one business at a time.

Instagram | Website

This week’s episode of Keeping It Candid is a fun recap of some of my favourite things from 2023. I hope you enjoy it!

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Sandra Henderson (00:00.174)
Welcome back to the podcast, friends. Happy 2024. Happy New Year. I am so excited to finally be back after an unexpected hiatus in Q4 of last year. I started November going to San Diego for a retreat with my business coach and some of the amazing ladies that I’m in a mastermind with. And it quickly turned into me catching the flu when I got home. Then my husband and stepson both got COVID.

I got a sinus infection, I lost my voice, I got bronchitis. It was just one thing after another and after about a month and a half of being sick and losing my voice, I knew that I just had to throw in the towel on the podcast for the rest of the year and take some time off to rest and finally feel better. So.

I am finally back recording this episode for the beginning of January and it is going to be one to start the year off with some easy listening. Normally I encourage you to go and grab a notebook and pen so that you can take notes, but today I’m going to be diving into my top threes of 2023 so you can just sit back and enjoy. Welcome to Keeping It Candid. I’m your host Sandra Henderson, an international wedding and family photographer and business coach.

I help wedding photographers use systems to build out the back end of their businesses to gain control and continue to thrive no matter what life throws their way. And on a more personal note, I’m a strong Enneagram three -wing too who is obsessed with tacos. And my love for traveling combined with navigating chronic illness life are just two of the many things that drive my passion for all things systems, workflows, and beating burnout as a business owner. Join me every week for a candid behind the scenes look at what it’s really like working as a wedding photographer.

where I’ll give you actionable steps to take your business to the next level. Absolutely no fluff here, friends, so go grab your favorite notebook and pen and let’s dive into this week’s episode.

Sandra Henderson (01:57.046)
Alright, let’s get started with some of my top three photography related things. The top three things that I had in my camera bag in 2023. First is my mirrorless camera. I bought a Nikon Z6 II in November of 2022. Yes, I said Zed because I’m a Canadian and that’s just how you roll. And I will be totally honest, I was really hesitant to get on board with mirrorless cameras.

When it comes to most things, especially technology, I’m an if it’s not broken, don’t fix it kind of girl. And so I just had no reason to replace my camera. I also think it’s so much more important to know how to use your gear really well than it is to always have the newest camera bodies and lenses on the market. But I had a chance to do a trade in deal that I could not pass up and got this mirrorless camera and I am obsessed.

The capabilities that it has for low light conditions, the quality of the photo that is coming directly out of camera, it is incomparable to the camera that I had before when I was using the D750. It was a great camera, but this one is, it just blows it out of the water. So I’m super happy that I made this switch. Next, number two in my camera bag for 2023 is my 70 to 200 lens.

It’s a beast. I literally have to go to Cairo and massage therapy regularly to get my wrist adjusted because the weight of this lens is just unreal after a really long day, like after eight hours of carrying this around at a wedding, my wrist is pretty much done. But it’s worth the trade off for me because I absolutely love the depth of field that you get with this lens. The bokeh on it is absolutely beautiful.

and I just haven’t found another lens that compares and gives me that same quality that I’m looking for. I used to use an 85 all the time, like I’ve tried all the different lenses, but I’m willing to take the weight of the 7200 because it is just my favorite. And then number three is the color -coded memory card cases that I have. So I have three different cases that I keep in my camera bag. One’s yellow, one’s blue, and one is red.

Sandra Henderson (04:09.294)
The yellow and blue are used for my 32 and 64 gig memory cards. I do use smaller cards because I try to change them out throughout a wedding day. That way, if worst case scenario, anything were to happen to one of my cards, then it would only be the getting ready photos or a small section of the day rather than the whole day being lost. So I just have never had a reason to upgrade to like 128 gig cards or larger. The 32 and 64 work perfectly for what I need them for.

And then the red case is for any cards that I have just finished using that need to be uploaded. Once they bring them into my office, I do actually have a fourth case that stays in here.

And that’s where I put all of my cards after they’ve been uploaded, but before they’ve been delivered to the client. So I never reuse them until long after my client has downloaded their photos and we have finished our time working together. And I thankfully have enough cards that I just used one at the end of 2023 that had photos on it from fall of 2022. So having enough cards is how I make that possible, but that’s a little side tangent.

Anyway, let’s keep going with some of my favorite extras in my camera bag. I’ve had a Buzz Patch stickers for quite a while to use on myself and on my clients because they’re really small citronella stickers that are easy to hide in people’s clothes. But I did some sessions in September that were in a park and we had more mosquitoes than I have ever dealt with on any given day, but especially in this park.

So my first client of the day actually said that she had citronella wristbands in her car and she ran to get them and it was a lifesaver. So I’ve actually bought more to put in my camera bag because I was able to just wear it around my wrist and with the time of year that it was, my clients were all wearing long sleeves in their photos and so I was able to actually tuck them up inside the sleeves for the kids and things like that to help protect them from the mosquitoes during their session.

Sandra Henderson (06:07.182)
I don’t know if anyone else out there feels the way I do about mosquitoes, but mosquito bites are one of my least favourite things in the entire world. There are not enough expletives in the English language to really appropriately describe how much I hate mosquito bites. I’m not allergic to them, I am just hyper sensitive to the itching and I won’t sleep for days until they go away and it’s just…

I hate it so much. So anything that will save me from the mosquitoes and save my clients from the mosquitoes, I’m going to take it. Now, number two in my camera bag is the shower curtain that I always have. Seems pretty random, but I use this because it is really easy to wrap around a few people or a big wedding dress when you’re needing to move from one location to another on a wedding day.

I always have umbrellas too, but as we all know when we’re using umbrellas, it’s really only doing a great job of protecting our heads, our shoulders, and then some of our torso. But our legs are pretty much at the hands of nature. And so I want to do what I can to try and keep my clients dry in between photos. And the shower curtain is just a great way to do that, especially with big ball gowns and things like that are a little bit more difficult to move quickly in. Okay, my top three systems for 2023.

First should be absolutely no surprise to anybody who listens to the podcast, but that would be HoneyBook. HoneyBook is the CRM system that I use for my business. I’ve been using it for more than six years now, and I truly don’t know how I would manage day to day without it. I’m not gonna go on a huge tangent about all the features or anything like that. There’s lots of other episodes on it, and I just wanna keep things nice and quick and easy today, but if you’re looking for a new CRM or new management for…

or new management for your client files, then you definitely want to go and check it out. Next is PickTime, which if you go back a couple episodes on the podcast, I actually did a whole episode on PickTime’s integration with HoneyBook. So now you can easily get all of the information for your client galleries inside your client’s HoneyBook file. And you can do things like automate when someone makes a payment in HoneyBook, it’s automatically creating a gallery for them in PickTime.

Sandra Henderson (08:22.414)
Little things like that are going to be such a game changer and I’m super excited to start playing around with those automations and see what kinds of things I can do for 2024. Then last but not least, we have Imagine AI, which I may or may not have been fangirling about all year because it has been the biggest game changer for my post -session and post -wedding workflow. I’m able to get things done so much faster and especially after a wedding when my body really needs a lot of time to rest and recover.

It gives me so much peace of mind knowing that my photos are being edited while I’m resting on the couch taking a nap. One thing that I think is always important to remember about AI is that it’s meant to be a tool to help you work more efficiently, not replace you all together. So I am able to get through a wedding in a fraction of the time, but I’m just going through and making little tweaks.

The base editing for my tones and white balance and things like that is all being done by Imagine and it’s honestly like having my own in -house private editor. Speaking of editing tools, let’s talk about my top three of those for 2023. First is AI Select in Lightroom. This came out at the end of 2022 and it has been so much fun to play around with. It saves so much time from having to like zoom in with a brush and try and get all those individual little pixels.

If you haven’t played around with the AI select people yet, definitely check that out because you can literally get as specific as just selecting their lips, just selecting someone’s white of their eyes, just selecting their shirt, and it really will make your life so much easier for making those fine tune adjustments in Lightroom and not having to pull those photos into Photoshop. Next, we’re still in Lightroom for the number two spot, and that is the denoise feature.

I did some holiday mini sessions in studio at the beginning of December and I intentionally decided not to use a flash because I really wanted the lights on the trees to glow. And I know that I could have done that with flash but I was just in the studio for a short amount of time. It’s a rental studio so I didn’t have a lot of time to really play around with my lighting and so I just decided to make the best of it with my manual camera settings and the natural window light and worry about the rest.

Sandra Henderson (10:36.182)
When I tell you that these photos were so fucking grainy like they were almost unusable but I ran them through Lightroom Denoise overnight because my computer is slow as shit and They you never would have known that there was a single bit of grain in them when I looked at them the next morning They were still sharp. They were smooth and they were everything that I needed them to be When it comes to things like low light wedding receptions nighttime weddings and things like that. I

This feature is going to be a game changer for so many different scenarios. And then last, in the third spot, we have Topaz Sharpen AI or possibly Topaz AI Sharpen. Either way, you get the idea. I forgot to look up and double check what order those words went in before I started recording. But what this does, I use it as a last step after I’ve exported my photos.

after I’ve exported my photos out of Lightroom, but before I upload them into a gallery to send to my client. If there are any photos that I have missed focus on or somebody has moved, I’m able to run those through Topaz to have them sharpened so that you would never know that there was any issue with them. It’s different than the sharpen feature that you’ll find in Lightroom with the slider because the slider is just sort of trying to make the best of what you already have.

When you put it into Topaz, the AI feature is actually able to modify the pixels of your photo to make them more sharp. It’s really kind of hard to explain, especially because I’m not a super technical person, but if that’s something that you think would be helpful to you in your business, I highly recommend going to check it out. If your photos are completely out of focus or have huge motion blur, it’s not going to be able to save those. But for anything that is just subtly off or if you zoom in, you can notice the difference, maybe,

you focus on a tree behind a couple or something like that, those types of photos are definitely going to be saveable with Topaz. All right, that’s all I’ve got for…

Sandra Henderson (12:37.548)
All right, that’s all I’ve got for the… All right, that’s all I’ve got for photography related top threes. Next, I wanna talk about my chronic illness toolkit and what my top three for 2023 were in there. First is the Moody app. If you’ve seen me in person anytime over the last few months, there’s a good chance that I’ve talked your ear off about this. I’m not affiliated with the company in any way. I am just genuinely obsessed with this app and the information that it can give you.

when you’re tracking your menstrual cycle. There’s free and paid versions. I just use the free version, but I use it to track my cycle and my symptoms. And it has features like graphs to show you how your symptoms are fluctuating with your hormones. It gives you tips on things that you can eat during your cycle to support your body and your hormones. It also gives you things like suggestions on different foods and nutrients you can provide your body at different parts of your cycle. And…

It gives you tips on exercise. It gives you tips on getting a better sleep. There’s so much information in this app. And for someone like me who has endometriosis, tracking my cycle is the only way that I can feel like I have some sort of control over my life. So being able to get that in depth in the information around my hormones has been a total game changer in planning how my work week goes.

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Sandra Henderson (14:55.598)
Number two is my ergonomic seat cushion. And again, if you have seen me in person at any point over the last few years, you have definitely seen me walking around with a cushion clipped to my back and I bring this with me everywhere. I actually have a few different ones. I have one in my office, I have one in my car, and I have one that I bring with me on the go. These seat cushions are because I have a lot of pelvic pain from endometriosis and I can’t really sit.

on regular chairs or hard surfaces for more than about five, 10 minutes before I start getting really uncomfortable. And the longer that I’m having to sit there for, the worse the pain starts to get. And it does get to the point where I start having trouble walking and it takes me days to start feeling better again. So using these seat cushions has been a game changer in managing that pain and just helping me stay comfortable when I’m out and enjoying my life.

I used to be in agony after a long editing session in my office. So if that is something that you struggle with, even if it’s not endometriosis related, if you’re having back problems or anything like that, definitely pop on Amazon and get an ergonomic seat cushion because you will definitely notice the difference. And then number three is my running shoes. And I really hated putting this at number three. I’m not gonna lie to you. I’m not really ready to be in this sensible shoe era of my life.

I’ve always been a cute flats kind of girl and runners were something that I only ever wore if I was going to the gym. But here we are. I’m 36 now. I have chronic illnesses. My joints and my body is not what it used to be. And so I’m trying to embrace this running shoe life. It doesn’t help that my running shoes are so ugly and they don’t match anything that I own.

They were cheap $20 runners that I bought at Walmart one day just because I needed them. And they are like gray and purple. Not only do like they’re not tones that match one another, but purple is my least favorite color. They were just the only ones that Walmart had in my size that day and I was in a jam. So I bought them and they’re comfortable. Give them that. But they’re just so ugly. So I definitely need to buy some new runners.

Sandra Henderson (17:16.174)
If you have some recommendations for cute ones, I want you to slide over to Instagram, hop into my DMs and give me some recommendations because it kills my soul a little bit every time I have to wear these shoes. That being said, my joints feel better, my limbs feel better, my body overall just feels so much better after I’m working. So I’m gonna have to make peace with it. And any tips you guys wanna give me, I’m here for it. Next, let’s talk about some…

Top Culture Favorites. My top three favorite shows for 2023. Two of the three are Bravo shows and I easily could have made all three Bravo shows because that’s pretty much all I watched last year. Nobody really warned me that it quickly becomes your entire personality when you watch Bravo. But here we are learning that lesson and having no regrets about it because it’s just the kind of entertainment that I need in my life right now.

I started watching Real Housewives here and there in 2022, but it wasn’t until a scandal broke in early last year that I really just needed to know what all the hype was about. And so I started watching Vanderpump Rules and I’m obsessed. I can’t help it. I know there are definitely going to be some listeners who feel the same way. And it really just spiraled me into watching more and more and more Bravo shows. So number two, also a Bravo show is Below Deck Sailing Yacht.

And then number three was the summer I turned pretty. That was the show on in Canada. Anyway, it was on Amazon Prime. I’m not sure if it’s the same for any of our US listeners, but it was just a super cute show. I really liked the storyline. I liked the actors. I loved the soundtrack so much T Swift and it was just really fun to watch. I tried to read the books and just a couple of days ago decided that it was going to be the first in my didn’t finish trial of 2024.

The show I just enjoy more. So this year I’m not forcing myself to read books that I’m not into and I got about halfway through and just decided I’m gonna hold it and find out what happens when the next season comes out. For my top three favorite movies, Barbie obviously gets the number one spot. I was so excited for this movie to come out long before they released a trailer or anything. I had no idea what to expect.

Sandra Henderson (19:40.75)
but I just knew that it was going to be fun. So I was super pumped for it. And then when it came out, I was blown away by the storyline. I was blown away by how well it was put together. America Ferrera’s speech at the end makes me cry every time I watch it. It was just such a well done movie. And I’m so, so glad that it turned out to be better than I was expecting it to be. It would not have surprised me even a little bit if it turned out to be a super ridiculous and something that turned into a cult classic.

I would have been really happy with that too. But as a feminist, I’m just loving all the messages behind Barbie and I can’t wait to see what happens if we get more Barbie or if people take this as inspiration for new storylines. But we need more of it. Now, my next choice is a movie called After and some of the subsequent movies that came in the series After it, not the very last one because it is so far from the original storyline.

makes no sense at all. But anyway, these movies and I’m going to talk about them again in books, I just really enjoyed the way they depicted the relationship between the main characters. In full honesty, one word that you could describe it is toxic. It is not a relationship that people want to model theirs after whatsoever. But the reason why I really liked it is because I appreciated that it showed

dynamics of a relationship for both the main characters and some of the sub characters that weren’t all sunshine and rainbows. And I’m always a really big fan of things that are realistic and relatable. We all know it doesn’t matter if it’s your relationship with your partner, if it’s a relationship with friends, if it’s a relationship with family, even a relationship with your kids. Relationships aren’t easy. They all have ebbs and flows and ups and downs.

And so it’s just really refreshing to see things that are not all sunshine and rainbows all the time. And then last but not least, this movie called Love at First Sight that came out on Netflix at the end of last year. Again, thought it was super cute. 2023 was definitely a year of romances for me. I really liked that the storyline for a romance movie was different. It wasn’t the same thing that has been done over and over and over again.

Sandra Henderson (22:02.232)
I would like if you watch a Hallmark Christmas movie over the winter, you know it’s the same framework for the storyline for every single movie. And so it was really nice to have one that had its own flow. Jamila Jamila’s in it and she’s always fantastic. So if you haven’t seen it, definitely go and check that one out. Just a couple more to go. So let’s talk about my top three favorite books for 2023.

These are actually book series because I couldn’t narrow it down to just one book. So first we have the after series, which I was just talking about that movie. There are books and movies. Normally if I watch the movie or TV show something first and then I read the book, I won’t get through the book. Just like I was saying with the summer, I turned pretty. And a lot of times if I read the book first, it ends up the movie just can’t hold up to it. So it’s…

It’s usually a toss up, but with the after series, I definitely equally loved the books and the movies. One didn’t take away from the other. And even though they are fairly different, they’re still consistent enough that it doesn’t throw you off across the whole story. Next for number two is the Things We Left Behind series by Lucy Skor. There were three books in this series, each one about the first two were about brothers and then the third one was about their friend.

These books as well as the after series books are a little spicy so if that’s not your jam you may want to take a pass on these. But these Lucy score books were really really well written and I couldn’t put them down. I got through them so quickly because all I wanted to do was keep turning pages. I can’t tell you how many nights I stayed up way past when I normally go to sleep because I just couldn’t put it down. Number three is the Brown Sisters series by Talia Hibbert.

These books were so funny and so enjoyable to read. And I really loved that there was a culturally diverse cast of characters, plus storylines that revolved around things like chronic illness, neurodivergency, and navigating both family and personal relationships. They were so incredibly relatable. Like, Get a Life, Chloe Brown, which is the first book in the series, is about a woman with a chronic illness who adopts a cat named Smudge. And I have…

Sandra Henderson (24:21.102)
chronic illnesses and a cat named Smudge, so definitely, definitely relatable for me. But just really enjoyable read and I’ve been recommending these books to everybody. Now to wrap up my top threes, I want to talk about the top three trips that I took for 2023. And first, I’m going to start with my trip to San Diego that I took in November.

This was a retreat with my business coach, Candice Coppola, and a bunch of incredible women from the mastermind that I have been working in for the last few years. These women are all so amazing, so inspiring, and being able to spend a few days with them brainstorming about our businesses and coming up with goals and supporting each other on how we’re going to get there was just the most amazing experience.

If you have any opportunities this year to participate in any sort of group coaching or retreats or anything like that, I highly, highly recommend you do it because there isn’t really a proper way to explain how incredible it is until you experience it yourself. Number two, speaking of going to conferences and things like that, last January I went to Dallas for the Creative Educator Conference.

I’m unfortunately not going to the 2024 conference and I have major FOMO about that, but it was just such a great opportunity to get together with other creative educators to better our businesses and the offers that we’re creating for people like you listening. And then number three was a trip to Niagara Falls that I took with my husband last March. It was my 10 year anniversary for my business in…

It was my 10 year anniversary of my photography business on the same day that Niagara Falls was turning yellow for Endometriosis Awareness Month. So we got a hotel and we went down for the weekend. I’m obsessed with Niagara Falls. It’s one of my favorite places in all of Ontario to go to. And we got dressed up. We went out for a nice dinner. We got some.

Sandra Henderson (26:21.952)
amazing cake boss cake from a vending machine which sounds sketchy but oh my god it was so good and i’m still talking about it almost a year later and then we watched the falls change from the comfort of our hotel room so we didn’t have to go down and freeze over by the water it was just such a nice relaxing weekend and still kind of surreal to think that we were celebrating 10 years since i had started my photography business back in 2013 i had to give myself a few moments

while we were there to just kind of take it all in and let myself celebrate such a huge milestone that I don’t know if I ever actually thought would happen. Like it was something that I hoped would happen, that I dreamed of it happening, but I don’t know if Sandra back in 2013 really thought that it was possible. So that was an awesome experience for sure. Now, as we head into 2024,

I’ve decided that I’m going to be tackling my goals quarterly this year rather than trying to come up with a full forecasting game plan for the entire year. There are some things that I want to do in Q3 and Q4 that are really dependent on some factors happening in Q1 and Q2. So it just doesn’t make sense for me to try and plan things out that I know are very likely going to have to change. So I’ve come up with some sales goals for Q1. I’ve come up with some personal goals and some fun goals.

but I also took some time to really think about the kind of impact that I want my businesses to make this year. So here’s what that looks like for Q1. I want to focus on creating content that will help photographers, especially my chronic illness friends, simplify the way they do things behind the scenes. I want to continue to build and foster communities where everyone feels safe, seen and heard. And I want to have fun because running a business shouldn’t always be stressful.

Having these impact goals in mind has really given me perspective to filter everything that I’m doing over the next few months. It’s helped me think about how I wanna show up for my clients and how I wanna show up in online spaces. It’s given me so much clarity. So if you’ve never taken the time to think about the kind of impact you want your business to make, here’s the perfect time to do it. We’re now in off season. You’ll have a little bit extra time compared to what you do in the summer. So take some time and really think about not just,

Sandra Henderson (28:41.742)
what kind of money you want to make this year or how many weddings you want to book, but how you want your couples to feel and what kind of impact you want to make on them in the time that you’re going to be working with them. And that wraps up everything I have for this episode, friends. Thank you so much for listening and thank you for coming back after this unexpected hiatus. I’m going to be back next week with our very first interview of 2024, where my friend Erin from Maybelline Q &I are chatting all about accessibility in your business.

Thank you so much for listening. You can find full show notes from today’s episode at simplysandryvonne.ca/keepingitcandid. In the meantime, let’s connect. You can find me on Instagram and TikTok, just search SimplySandraYvonne. And if you’re loving this podcast, I’d be so honored if you’d go ahead and hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Until next time.

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About Sandra

Sandra Henderson is a wedding photographer, business coach, and podcast host based in Ontario, Canada. She specializes in helping wedding photographers create strategic systems for their businesses to help them get their time back so they can spend it doing the things they love most. As an entrepreneur who also navigates chronic illness life, Sandra also takes a unique approach to using systems that will help businesses thrive no matter what life throws your way.

On a personal note, she loves tacos, 90’s music, travelling, and spending time at home with her husband, step-son, and two cats!

Instagram | TikTok | Pinterest | The Unfiltered Community

You’re at a place in your business where you’re ready to start diving into coaching or workshops, but it’s nerve-wracking, right?! Laylee Emadi spills the tea on this week’s episode of Keeping It Candid, unpacking red flags, beige flags, and green flags to look out for before you work with an educator!

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Sandra Henderson (00:00.342)

When you’re investing in any sort of education in your business, whether that be working with a business coach or attending a workshop or a conference, there’s a lot of anxiety that goes in behind it because it is expensive and it also takes a lot of time and you want to make sure that this investment that you are putting into yourself and your business because it is an investment that you want to make sure that it’s actually going to pay off going forward and be worth all the energy that you put into it.

And then you also want to make sure that you can actually trust the people that you’re working with, right? Unfortunately, we have all experienced things where we have paid for something and we just don’t feel like we got the service that we were looking for from it. And my first experience trying to work with an educator in my business, unfortunately, was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had. And something that really set the tone for how I was going to invest in my education going forward, but also how I was going to be doing things as an educator.

Welcome to Keeping It Candid. I’m your host, Sandra Henderson, an international wedding and family photographer and business coach. I help wedding photographers use systems to build out the back end of their businesses to gain control and continue to thrive no matter what life throws their way.

And on a more personal note, I’m a strong Enneagram 3-wing too, who is obsessed with tacos. And my love for traveling combined with navigating chronic illness life are just two of the many things that drive my passion for all things, systems, workflows, and beating burnout as a business owner. Join me every week for a candid behind the scenes look at what it’s really like working as a wedding photographer, where I’ll give you actionable steps to take your business to the next level.

Absolutely no fluff here, friends, so go grab your favorite notebook and pen and let’s dive into this week’s episode.

Sandra Henderson (01:49.186)

Today on the podcast, we are talking all about red flags, beige flags, and green flags when it comes to educators in the wedding photography industry. But before we get into it all, I wanted to set the tone of the episode by telling a little bit of a story of my very first time getting involved with an educator and how it shaped where I am today as in the education space myself.

So I had been in business for about three years when some local photographers that were about a couple hours away from me, so local-ish, started advertising a workshop series that they were gonna be hosting every Sunday from May through October. They had different topics for every week and I was so excited about this because these photographers were huge in this area. I had been following them my entire time coming up as a wedding photographer all through college. I’m not gonna name any names here. They’re not in business anymore.

And honestly, they get all the bad karma that’s coming to them. You will see as this story continues on. But I just don’t wanna set myself up for any sort of legal bullshit coming my way. So I’m not gonna name who they are, but these photographers, they set up this workshop. I paid $450 upfront. You had to pay in full for the workshop and that was for a June date and then I was going to be taking one in August as well but I hadn’t put the money down on that yet, thankfully.

So after I submitted my payment and everything, time went on and I had never actually received any sort of information from the photographers that were hosting this. But because it was my first time working with an educator, this didn’t seem too off base for me. I knew that they were super busy with their own wedding clients and everything from what I was seeing online. So I just figured I would get something eventually.

And then it was the weekend of the workshop. And on the Saturday, I actually had a wedding and I was gonna be going to the workshop on the Sunday. And as we are on the way to the wedding, my assistant was driving and I checked my email and there was an email from these photographers saying that due to unforeseen circumstances, the workshop…

Sandra Henderson (04:08.962)

that was to happen the next day was cancelled and that they would be in touch within the next couple of days to get everybody set up with refunds and everything. So I was so disappointed but I had to go about doing the wedding and after a few days I still hadn’t heard anything so I went onto Facebook and I noticed that the events had been deleted and then I tried to find the website that didn’t seem to be around anymore either.

This is when I started getting red flags. I wish I’d had them sooner, but this is definitely when alarms were going off, red flags were popping up. I decided to send an email to the hosts of the workshop and ask them if there was any sort of update on when we would be receiving this refund. And I got an autoresponder email back saying that they were out of the office for a wedding and they would get back in touch with me as soon as they were back in the office on Monday.

So I wait another about a week, week and a half, and I still haven’t heard from them. So I decide to send another email to check in, and this time I get an autoresponder email telling me that they’re out of the office for a couple of weeks for vacation. So I again wait until they say that they are gonna be back in the office. I send another email, they still don’t hear anything.

And so I decide at this point to go into another email address. I was actually planning my own wedding at the time. So I went into the email address that I had for planning my wedding and I sent them a fake wedding inquiry. And wouldn’t you know it, within 15 minutes I had a response back asking if I wanted to set up a consultation. So I went over into my business email account and I sent them yet another email that didn’t get responded to.

Surprise, surprise. So a few days later, when they followed up with my fake wedding inquiry asking if I was interested in setting up a consultation, I decided to let my pettiness fly and I responded telling them no, I was actually just submitting a fake wedding inquiry to see if they were ignoring my emails, which apparently they were. So thanks for confirming that and I’ll be filing a fraud complaint with my credit card company. So that was actually the route that I had to go. And it took another…

Sandra Henderson (06:27.466)

I want to say month or so of the credit card company doing a fraud investigation and eventually I did receive my refund. And then that fall I was actually at a wedding at the wedding venue that these workshops were supposed to be hosted at and I was talking to one of the staff at the venue and explained the whole situation, told them about the workshop and they looked more and more shocked the longer I was speaking because here’s the real kicker.

These photographers had never actually booked this wedding venue for the workshops that they were advertising eight weeks of workshops for. Me talking to the staff was the first time that they had ever heard of these workshops. So I found out that it was a scam right from the very beginning. And let me tell you, it left the worst taste in my mouth when it came to these photographers, to whether or not you can trust your peers in the industry, if you can trust educators in the industry, like it was just the absolute worst experience to start off with.

Now, thankfully, every educator I’ve worked with since then, every coach I’ve worked with, every conference I’ve gone to, it has all been built with integrity, with people who know what they’re talking about, with people who are looking to help and serve you and not scam you from the very beginning.

And so I hope that story doesn’t scare you away from taking the leap yourself if you have not worked with an educator this far in your business. Aside from the impact it’s had on me with working with educators in the future, it has also had an incredible impact on me as an educator because there is no way in hell I will ever, ever get into a situation where something like that happens with somebody that I’m educating.

I want every client that I work with to walk away feeling confident, feeling like they not only got their money’s worth out of it, but got more than what they paid for out of it, that they are singing my praises hopefully, and that they just have a more simple streamlined approach so that they can go into their business and keep building this dream that they’ve been working towards for so long.

Sandra Henderson (08:42.334)

And it’s also what inspired me to reach out to my friend, Laylee Emadi to talk all about red, beige, and green flags that you see with wedding photographers in the industry, like I was mentioning back at the beginning. If you’ve never heard of Laylee, she is an educator, a speaker, and conference host with a heart for serving clients and fellow entrepreneurs through her coaching work, as the host of So Here’s the Thing podcast, and as the founder of the Creative Educator Conference.

She believes in leading with heartfelt encouragement and honest guidance. And as a long time entrepreneur, she’s not afraid to dig into tough topics or transparently share her own experiences, both the good and the bad. She’s passionate about her goal to equip you in your ability to make a difference, create impact, and build a life doing what you love.

Now, the person that I think about when I want real talk when it comes to the creative industry is Laylee. She is not kidding when she talks about being transparent and her own experiences, both the good and the bad. And so I cannot wait for you guys to listen to this interview so that it can better prepare you as you head into 2024 and start making those investments in yourself too.

Sandra Henderson

Thank you so much for joining me. It feels a little bit surreal after listening to your podcast for so many years. I absolutely love it.

And when I was thinking about doing this episode and I knew I needed someone to come on with like their real talk, unfiltered opinion on things, the one person I thought about was you. So Laylee, I would love if you could just quickly introduce yourself and let people know a little bit, wow, a little bit about what you’re all about before we dive in.

Laylee Emadi

Yeah, absolutely. First of all, that’s so kind. Thank you. I feel like, I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but a lot of people associate me with like just the brutal honest truth, and I try to be kind when I share it. But I think it’s a good thing.

So I appreciate that and I’m so excited to be here. Yeah, like you said, I’m a podcaster. I’m a coach for educators and speakers, so it’s very meta, but I get to work with people on sharing their skillset really well and impacting their industry really well. And so I love doing that as well. And I also host the Creative Educator Conference, which does the same thing, but with guest speakers.

Sandra Henderson (10:55.198)

which I had the pleasure of attending earlier this year and it was absolutely incredible. You never would have known that it was the first time hosting this conference because it was perfection from start to finish. If anybody listening is interested in dipping their toe into the water in education, I definitely recommend checking it out because it was 10 months later now and I’m still pulling things that were so relevant and so helpful, so cannot recommend it enough.

And I totally agree that it is a good thing to have everybody associate you with the blunt opinions because you do, you don’t like, you’re not mean about it, but there are things that, you know, they need to be said and too many people dance around it and don’t wanna talk about it. So I love it, I think it’s a great thing.

Laylee Emadi

Thank you.

Sandra Henderson

So today we are gonna be talking a little bit more about coaching, but from the wedding photographer perspective of people who are going to be investing in coaching, whether it be for the first time or continuing their education. And we both know that there are educators of all kinds out there. I mean, you can say that about everything, but there’s definitely educators of all kinds out there. So today I wanted to kind of do a little like red flag, beige flag, green flag, and talk a little bit about what people should be keeping their eye out for as they are investing in education.

So why don’t we get the bad out of the way? Let’s start with the red flags, which I think is the real juicy one.

Laylee Emadi

Yeah. I mean, I think you’re right. First off, it’s really tricky when you’re investing in education in the wedding industry or in any creative space because I say this all the time as somebody who I started my education for educators with the Creative Educator Academy.

Which is like a program that kind of gives you the foundational tools for all different types of education in the creative space. And the reason that I did that and the reason I’m talking about that is because when I started in this industry 10 years ago, and I started in the photography industry in particular, there was, and there still is no regulation on who can call themselves an educator. There’s no kind of licensing or certificate or anything that takes you through.

You could literally tomorrow say, or today, you could right now go on Instagram and be like, I’m now an educator. And people do that. And they do it and it’s great. And maybe they have the knowledge and they have what it takes to actually call themselves an expert. But to call yourself an educator. And again, maybe it’s because this is kind of like my background is in actual education. So I was an actual teacher for just shy of a decade and I wrote curriculum for my school district.

And so I worked really hard to become an educator. And now, you know, seeing all these people out here calling themselves coaches, speakers, educators, course creators, but they have no qualifications to do so. Sometimes it’s fine. Sometimes you’re a natural teacher, but sometimes it’s not. And so I’m glad that we’re talking about this. So I want to get that out of the way by saying like that’s kind of the premise of what I base these like red flags and green flags off of that we’re going to be talking about is that there just is so little out there that will qualify somebody to be an incredible educator.

So you have to do like you the investor, you have to do like the research and the due diligence and look beyond Instagram followers to determine who is actually going to be like a good coach for you. So red flags I would look for right off the bat is people who are out here, like just stirring the pot just to get traction on social media. I think it’s great. Obviously, I based an entire podcast for the past five years off of like, quote unquote, unpopular opinions, but they’re not opinions that really stir the pot. Half the time an unpopular opinion is an opinion that everybody has, but nobody wants to talk about. Yeah. So I think that’s one really big red flag is just looking for people who are just attraction and followership and all the things. So that’s one red flag.

Another red flag is I think people who are only teaching and not doing what they’re teaching. And this is debatable. Like I feel like a lot of people, I don’t know how you feel about this, but like there’s a lot of educators out there. Like wedding photography is a perfect example of coaches who they get into coaching and they scaled back their photography and then they just stop doing photography, but they’re still teaching. And to me, there’s a certain timeframe where that’s okay. And it depends on the topic you’re teaching too, I think. But if you’re teaching marketing to book, and it’s been two or three years since you’ve booked, I mean, the tactics are not going to be the same. We just went through a global pandemic. There’s no way that it’s like this economy is completely different today than it was three years ago. Your marketing tactics and tools are likely outdated.

So that to me is a red flag.

Sandra: Yeah, for sure. I totally agree with you on that.

Laylee: Do you? Okay, that’s good. I’m always like, I don’t know how you feel about this.

Sandra Henderson

No, I think it makes a lot of sense. As you were saying that, I was thinking about educators that I know who started off in one industry, started teaching in it, and then kind of scaled back. The things that they’re teaching on focus on things like email marketing or systems or whatever the case may be. They’re not teaching you how to be a wedding photographer when they haven’t shot a wedding in 10 years. So I think that that’s super important.

Laylee Emadi

Yeah. I think if they are, that’s something I would question. But otherwise, I think, again, it’s topic dependent 100%. I agree with that. I could teach a wedding. I could coach a wedding photographer tomorrow and I haven’t shot a wedding since 2019, but I would never coach them on something that I’m not currently doing. So absolutely.

Sandra Henderson (17:03.542)

or systems or whatever, hiring, things that I’m still doing in my daily life. But I wouldn’t teach them on the newest gear or in particular, booking brides in this economy. That’s so specific and it’s something that you really have to be hands-on about. For sure. It’s giving me flashbacks of when I took photography in college. And it was like…

There was, I don’t regret it. There were great takeaways from it, but I will never forget being in a portrait class and having the teacher had like a string that was tied to the camp, like the tripod that he pulled out to meet up with our chins to make sure. And like, that’s how they used to do like school posing in like the seventies, eighties, nineties. I was in school in 2010. Like there was no need to still be teaching us that way. And like that.

served me no purpose. The only reason I remember it is because of how ridiculous it was, not because it like, you know, came in handy as I was getting into the photography industry. Oh my gosh, that’s so funny. I’m like remembering seeing that happening. Right. Yeah, so that’s what we were taught. So good. Okay, so I guess I’ll give like one more red flag. Okay. Yeah, sounds good. Okay. I’m trying to think of the best one.

I think probably the biggest one is people who are like being just cautious and conscientious when you’re doing your digging about like the people who are offering coaching is seeing how long have they actually been doing this because it’s so hard to tell like I tell people all the time when you want to start marketing yourself as an educator. I mean this is something I teach so I want people to be successful at it. I’m like okay so start sharing on the things that you know. But the red flag here and like the misstep that I see is when people…

start sharing what they know and they immediately start trying to charge what the coach is charging who has been around for years and years and has helped hundreds and hundreds of people versus like, I’ve helped one person and now I’m just getting started. So I would just look out for the red flag of people are always going to look their most confident and put their highlight reel on the internet. So it’s your job to see like, hey, how many people have you actually helped? Like, where are your testimonials and are they real people? Are they like, you know?

Sandra Henderson (19:21.814)

friends and family or the actual clients and other industry experts? Just digging into the show versus the proof. Yeah, absolutely. I think something that you said in the very beginning is super important in trying to just differentiate that as you were saying like an expert versus an educator. And the educator is going to have more than just the highlight reel that you’re going to be able to find to validate what they’re putting out there.

Yeah, absolutely. I think there is such a difference. For sure. All right. Why don’t we get into beige flags? Some things that maybe aren’t the worst thing, aren’t the best thing, but we’ll accept them if they happen. Yeah. I think a beige flag is people offering up their educational content on social. I always tell my students, nobody’s really thinking hard about what you’re putting out there.

start putting your content out, see what sticks. And so I think a beige flag is seeing somebody who’s sharing a lot of different educational content on a lot of different things, because they’re likely trying to figure out what their audience wants from them. Like it’s something that they’re likely qualified to talk about or to teach about, but they’re just trying to gauge like, okay, does my audience, if I’m a wedding photographer, does my audience wanna learn lighting from me, or do they wanna learn booking from me, or marketing from me? And so if they’re sharing a lot of tidbits here and there,

I don’t see that as like a red flag. I definitely see it as like a beige flag. Like they’re at an intermediate point and they’re just trying to figure out what’s gonna stick, but they’re not unqualified likely. I mean, you never know, but that would be for me a beige flag. Another beige flag I would say is, and this is kind of interesting. This also could be related back to like photography and the way that we price for photography. And you know how, you know, like the adage of like, oh, you’re gonna price yourself out or you’re gonna like price yourself under. Looking at…

I’ve worked with coaches who have charged like $400 for an hour long call. And then I’ve worked with coaches who have charged like $2,000 for an hour long call. And I guess some people would say pricing is a red flag. But to me, I just think it speaks to like, if I’m doing the research and it matches the experience that to me is a beige flag, like it’s fine with me. And I think just knowing what you want to invest and what you’re hoping to get out of it as a return.

Sandra Henderson (21:48.986)

it’s on you. So that’s why that’s probably why I would categorize that as beige. Yeah, I agree with that one too. I think what you’re getting out of the experience factors into the price that you’re paying.

We all know that feeling of like putting that money up and not getting what we were expecting out of it. And so that research comes along with it, but I totally agree that like price isn’t always a red flag. Some things are absolutely worth every penny when they’re really expensive and like I would still pay more for them. So.

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What do your taco choices reveal about your wedding photography business? Click here to take the quiz and find out!

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Friends, I am interrupting this interview because I am so excited to tell you that I just launched a brand new quiz called Let’s Talk About It, what your taco preferences reveal about your wedding photography business.

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So if you are like me and you love taking quizzes or you’re just interested to find out what your taco preferences reveal about your wedding photography business and what the hell the two of them have anything to do with each other at all, I want you to head over to my website, simplysandryvonne.ca/quiz and you can find out. And then don’t forget to pop over to my Instagram @simplysandryvonne and let me know what your results are.

All right, let’s move into the green flags. What are some things that are like, yes, we love it when educators and coaches do this and we want more people to do it too? Yeah, I think one is just transparency. Like that to me is like the greenest of the green flag. Just less showmanship, less like showiness and more like I’m so confident in myself as an educator that I’m okay for you to see the rest of the behind the scenes.

Sandra Henderson (23:48.854)

Like you look at some of the top, not even in like wedding industry or photography industry, but the top like online educators and the top even like professional level, like professors, they’re the ones out there who are saying like, hey, I don’t know everything, but here is what I know and I’m really good at what I know. And so that’s kind of, I feel like I try to be really transparent and say like, you know, this is a season where I’m not doing X, Y, and Z.

because I’ve done X, Y, and Z to get here. And there’s, I have no shame in that. Like, I think that to me differentiates so much a beginning educator and an established, seasoned, experienced educator who can say like, I don’t need to be out here showing off like, how much money I make, what I’m doing to do it. You know, I just feel like the transparency of like, hey, this is what I’m great at. This is…

but I’m probably not, but I’m willing to connect the dots for you as well as I can and connect you to people who are even better than me. So that’s actually kind of a few green flags. I feel like the secondary green flag to that is just confidence in your ability and the willingness to say when you’re not great at something too.

Yeah, totally. I have never been in this situation where I’ve asked a business coach a question and they said, I don’t know, or I haven’t respected the hell out of them for it because I don’t want them to give me some sort of bullshit answer where they’re making something up. Like just own up to the fact that you are human and you don’t know everything. That’s totally fine. And like that to me is like I just respect an educator so much more in that sort of scenario. Yeah, same. And I think that it just shows experience.

I know as most educators who are entrepreneurs and most entrepreneurs who are successful are likely somewhere in like an Enneagram 3 vibe of like the achiever, they’re highly motivated, they really want that success. And so it is really difficult in the beginning to be able to say, I don’t know the answer to this, like I’m not great at this.

Sandra Henderson (26:04.87)

It is far more helpful to the person that you are being paid by to be honest and transparent about what you know and what you don’t. So if listeners are thinking about getting into the education space themselves, what advice would you give for them to encourage them to show up with integrity? Oh my gosh, I have so many things I would say. Probably the first thing I would say is if you want to become an ethical educator with integrity, which I highly suggest doing. You know, one…

I mean, a higher coach, hire somebody who has done it before, somebody qualified. I mean, you can hire me, but that’s not really where I’m going with that. It’s more so like finding somebody who has done it in the way that you respect and that you admire, not just the person with 200,000 Instagram followers who’s like churning out kind of lackluster education. So one, pay for the help, invest in the help, show up to things where other educators are.

I know there’s not a lot out there. I’m doing what I can to fix that with the conference and things of that nature. But like, you know, make the connections when you can and where you can. And then start showing up to serve instead of to sell. I know a lot of times we say selling is serving, but in this scenario, I would suggest giving before selling. So like giving some education, seeing where it lands. We talked about it in the beige.

flags, but like that truly is a base flag to me. If you’re getting started, you’re giving out that education and seeing who wants it, what they want with it, how they’re succeeding when using it, and then that will help guide you into paid offers. It’s a win-win, you know? Yeah, absolutely. One thing I’ve always thought as I’ve been getting into the education space, I’ve heard a lot of people bring it up to me, like if it was something that I was concerned about and hearing other people talk about how they have that concern is…

that they’re worried that they’re going to teach people to do it better than them. But the way that I see it is if you’re coming into the education space, that’s what you want essentially. That means that you’re a really good teacher and you want them to be successful in what you’re teaching them. So I think that it’s super important to kind of wrap your head around that too. Yeah, it’s actually really funny. When I first started offering education in the creative industry, I was doing…

Sandra Henderson (28:23.658)

workshops for wedding photographers. So like 15 to 20 people at beautiful venues with style shoots, you know, like back then. Sounds old. Back then that was like not every on every corner or whatever, but style shoots were not like, it was like kind of a big undertaking to do it. So I ended up doing it with a workshop and I’ll never forget one of them, one of my attendees was selected for like front.

Front page style me pretty and like, you know, it was huge and it was from the workshop styled shoot and I had to like sign off on it because style me pretty at the time was like, I don’t even know if they’re still around, but it was a big deal at the time. And I had never been, I had maybe once and definitely not like the front page, not like a big feature. I had maybe even featured on there once. So this student of mine was a hundred percent outperforming me at my own workshop. I mean, to be fair, I didn’t submit, but that’s…

That’s how it could have felt. I was elated. I was like, this is incredible. Because the mindset shift, like you mentioned, I completely agree with you, that you have to shift your mindset from, if you want to be an educator, that means you want your students to outshine you. If you wanna be the expert in the industry, in the top of your industry, then stay there. There’s no shame in that. There’s no reason to join another industry. And education is its own industry.

if your goal is to be the top of your industry only and to never have competitors. So you have to shift your mindset. And for me, I was like, my initial thought was, well, this is great publicity for me as a teacher, not, oh no, this person outshined me as a photographer. I didn’t even think as a photographer in that moment. I thought as the workshop host, I thought what an incredible achievement for my student who showed up and invested in my

at her level will see how beneficial my workshop is. I can help them, I can help more people, I can impact more people and I can make more change as opposed to, oh, her photography is better than mine, way, like, you have to choose, like what’s more important to you? Yeah, absolutely. And it is honestly the best feeling when a student comes back to you to tell you how well they’re doing. Like I was guest speaking to the college that I…

Sandra Henderson (30:43.67)

went to for photography. And I was just like, I think I was talking about social media. I was definitely that like, you know, expert wanting to turn educator that was just dipping their toe in the water and teaching all the things and going to the college photography program is kind of a great way to do that because they need to learn all the little bits of all the things. And I had one of the students about a week later message me on Facebook telling me that in four days they had more than doubled their Instagram following.

And I was just like, oh, I was so proud, like proud mama moment. And I was like, this gives me so much life. Like I need to keep pursuing this. So it’s just the best feeling. I want my students to come to me and be like, I’m doing so much better. Yeah. I think that’s something that you’ll know when you start offering education, like if it’s a good fit for you or not, be able to see like, how important is it to me that these people are thriving based off of my guidance, you know?

It’s funny how I kind of think of different educational experiences that I’ve had. I remember going to a workshop that had a styled shoot as part of it, and the host photographer gave herself the lead spot during the whole portrait session. And I was like, are you here for you? Are we a thing for all of us that are paying to be here? So yeah, things like that. It’s funny. You think back on it, and it’s like, oh yeah, there was a red flag for sure.

Yeah, if they’re placing their body in front of you, that’s a red flag. I mean, there’s a difference between like, I have to get this one shot for the vendor and then you go versus I’m going to shoot the whole time and you’re going to have to shoot around me. Yeah, exactly. All right. That was so helpful. I know that everybody listening is going to have such a better perspective heading into booking their next educational experience. But I do have one last fun little would you rather question.

So if you had to go back to one of your past careers, you already mentioned that you did wedding photography and for everybody that doesn’t know, Laylee was also a dance teacher. So would you rather go back to teaching dance full-time or go back to being a wedding photographer full-time? Oh my gosh, that’s the hardest question I’ve ever been asked. I like put together these would you rather questions. I’m like, I almost feel a little mean. Like I’m trying to make it really hard to choose from. That’s like, I mean, I’m not kidding. That’s the hardest question I’ve ever been asked.

Sandra Henderson (33:04.002)

because there’s so many things I loved about each and things that I really didn’t love about each. Yeah. I think at this point in my life, I think today I would choose dance teacher. Yeah. I liked the freedom of wedding photography, but I also didn’t like the lack of freedom of wedding. It’s such a toss up, but…

Teaching dance was so rewarding in so many other ways too. I mean, they both are. This is why it’s so hard. That was a… It’s like 1% dance teacher, 49% wedding photographer. For sure. I love that though. That’s a great answer. Well, thank you so much, Laili. This was such a fun conversation and I know it’s gonna be so helpful for everybody. Actually, before we jump off, could you just let everybody know where they can find you online so they can give you a follow?

Yeah, you can find me on Instagram @laylee_emadi, all the E’s in my name, or @thecreativeeducatorconference, also on Instagram. Perfect. Thank you for having me. Of course. So now that you know what to look out for as you head into off season and all of the educators are going to be launching tons of new offers because they always do this time of year.

I hope that you feel confident that you are going to get your money’s worth out of whatever it is that you’re paying for. Now this episode is dropping the middle of November just before Black Friday. And if you are listening to this around the time of recording, definitely keep an eye out because my coaching calls are going to be going on sale. Little spoiler alert, you can find all of that information on my website, simplysandriavon.ca.

And if you’re interested in checking out the Creative Educator Conference that Laylee was talking about during our interview, I want you to head over to the show notes or the description for today’s episode, and you’re going to find a link there to get all of the information. Unfortunately, I am not going to be going to the conference in 2024, but please don’t think that speaks negatively to the experience at all. A lot of times you go to a conference and you feel good when you’re walking away, but almost like…

Sandra Henderson (35:13.442)

were things that were missing. There’s something that you were hoping to get from it that you didn’t. But when I went to the Creative Educator Conference in 2023, it’s still 2023 in January, I left feeling like I got absolutely everything that I needed out of it. And this little birdie just wants to jump from the nest and try to fly for a little bit. When the conference happens in 2025, and I’m saying when because lately you have to keep doing this conference.

So when it comes back in 2025, I will definitely be there. And if any of you listening are looking to get into the education space, I can’t wait to connect with you there. Anyways, friends have an amazing rest of your week and we will talk again soon. Thank you so much for listening. You can find full show notes from today’s episode at simplysandryvonne.ca/keepingitcandid. In the meantime, let’s connect.

You can find me on Instagram and TikTok, just search SimplySandraYvonne. And if you’re loving this podcast, I’d be so honored if you’d go ahead and hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Until next time.

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About Laylee

Laylee is an educator, speaker, and conference host with a heart for serving clients and fellow entrepreneurs through her coaching work, as the host of the So, Here’s the Thing Podcast, and as the founder of The Creative Educator Conference. She believes in leading with heartfelt encouragement and honest guidance. As a longtime entrepreneur, she’s not afraid to dig into tough topics or transparently share her own experiences—the good and the bad. Laylee is passionate about her goal to equip you in your ability to make a difference, create impact, and to build a life doing what you love.

Instagram | The Creative Educator Conference

This week on Keeping It Candid I’m talking all about a game-changing question that can seriously up-level your client experience without breaking the bank or causing you extra stress.

I’ll give you a hint: it’s all about involving your clients in the process. By asking them this specific question, you not only make the experience more enjoyable for them but also avoid any future surprises. It’s a win-win! So head over to your fave podcast player, or keep scrolling to check out this short-and-sweet episode and take your photography business to the next level while keeping your clients over the moon with their results!

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Sandra Henderson (00:00.13)

Friends, I’m here today with a short and sweet episode for you to talk all about the one thing that I do during every single session and at several points during a wedding day to make sure that everybody is on the same page about what photos are being taken. And there’s no surprises for my clients down the road when they receive their gallery. This is a simple way to level up your client experience without spending any money or putting any extra work on your plate. Welcome to Keeping It Candid.

I’m your host, Sandra Henderson, an international wedding and family photographer and business coach. I help wedding photographers use systems to build out the backend of their businesses to gain control and continue to thrive no matter what life throws their way. And on a more personal note, I’m a strong Enneagram three-wing-two who is obsessed with tacos. And my love for travelling combined with navigating chronic illness life are just two of the many things that drive my passion for all things systems, workflows, and beating burnout as a business owner.

Join me every week for a candid behind-the-scenes look at what it’s really like working as a wedding photographer, where I’ll give you actionable steps to take your business to the next level. Absolutely no fluff here friends, so go grab your favourite notebook and pen and let’s dive into this week’s episode.

Sandra Henderson (01:14.258)

I know it sounds too good to be true, but I promise you it’s not. This one simple thing can uplevel your client experience without spending any extra money or putting any extra work on your plate. No matter what I’m doing behind my camera, whether it be a mini session, a full engagement session, if it’s a wedding day, I never move on without asking my clients, are there any specific shots or poses you were hoping for that we haven’t done yet that you’d like to do before we move on?

I want you all to steal that word forward. You don’t have to put any sort of creative spin on it if you don’t want to. But the reason why this works so well is first, it lets your clients participate in their photos, aside from just standing in front of the camera and receiving your instructions. It makes it more enjoyable for them to be a part of the entire experience. And a lot of times people have ideas, but they don’t know how to articulate them in the right way.

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Nothing ruins your client experience like missing an important shot on a wedding day. CLICK HERE for your free wedding day checklist and take some of the stress off the next time you’re behind your camera!

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Or maybe like if it’s the hustle and bustle of the wedding day, there are a lot of times that a client will tell me as we’re shooting, oh, I would really love if we could use this spot. And then my ADHD brain gets going and I forget, but I always, always ask them, is there anything else you want to do before we move on? Because then they can remind me.

But it also gives you a little bit of extra security going forward that if for any reason because it does happen sometimes, you have a client come back to you and say they were hoping to see X, Y, and Z photos, and these were photos that you had never heard about being important to them in any capacity, you took the time to check in with them and say, hey, is there anything else that you want? And they said no. So you have that to support you in any sort of interaction that you may have where a client thinks that photos are missing.

Now, hopefully that doesn’t happen to you frequently or at all, but we know working in the wedding industry and if you work in family sessions like I do as well, anything can happen. The world takes all kinds and that means clients and photographers alike. So I hope that you will use this to uplevel your client experience, but also give you a little bit of security and peace of mind that you know you did everything you could to make these clients happy.

Sandra Henderson (03:22.686)

I hope that this has been super helpful for you. Enjoy the rest of your week, and I will be back again next Wednesday with another episode.

Thank you so much for listening. You can find full show notes from today’s episode at simplysandryevan.ca forward slash keeping it candid. In the meantime, let’s connect. You can find me on Instagram and TikTok, just search Simply Sandra Yvonne. And if you’re loving this podcast, I’d be so honored if you’d go ahead and hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Until next time.

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Check out more of our favourite podcast episodes:

The Freedom of Outsourcing For Wedding Photographers with Sara Monika

Why I Stopped Doing Wedding Shows

The Best Kept Secret To Booking Wedding Clients with Rob Greene

On this week’s episode of Keeping It Candid, Sara Monika and I talking all about the freedom outsourcing can bring to your life, both personally and financially. This is one you absolutely don’t want to miss! Keep reading for the Show Notes, and head to your favourite podcast player to give it a listen.

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Sandra Henderson (00:00.322)
Friends, it’s October 18th and fall busy season is officially underway up here in Canada. How’s everyone feeling? If you are anything like me, you’re probably feeling the weight of all of it right now. The overwhelm of everything that’s going on has really been setting in, but I am so, so happy because I actually just sent out my final wedding galleries for 2023.

I could not be more excited about that and to think that I’m not gonna have the weight of that carrying over as I head into some travel plans in November and then taking some time off for the holidays in December, it feels so good. I’ve literally never experienced this before in the 10 years that I’ve been in business, so I am definitely celebrating over here.

That being said, I am still super overwhelmed. I have a ton of portrait sessions happening. I already mentioned I’m getting ready to travel in November and there’s just so much going on with my husband and my stepson and all the things at home. So if you can relate, I want you to pop over into my DMs on Instagram at simplySandrEyvon. Tell me that I am not completely alone feeling this way and let’s support each other through what is.

definitely most trying time for any photographer at any point in the year. One way that you can take some things off your plate so that feeling of overwhelm doesn’t completely take you over is to start outsourcing. But I know that it’s a scary thing to wrap your head around for a few different reasons. There’s the cost, there’s the idea of giving up control.

But trust me when I tell you that there is so much freedom that’s waiting for you on the other side of those blocks in your mindset. A few weeks ago, I had the chance to connect with Sarah Monica, who is a fellow wedding photographer and educator based in Ontario, Canada, just a couple hours away from me, actually. She gave one of the best intros that I’ve ever had on this podcast, so I’m gonna let you hear what she is all about from her own words, because I am not gonna do it nearly as much justice.

Sandra Henderson (02:05.954)
but she is the go-to expert for all things outsourcing. During her interview, she shared a really transparent and unfiltered look at the impact that outsourcing has had on her business, both financially and in the bigger picture. And I know you are gonna have so many takeaways from this episode. Whether you’re ready to start outsourcing to an actual person, supporting another small business, or if you wanna start incorporating things like AI into how you do things, you deserve the freedom that comes along with taking things off of your to-do list.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Imagine AI, the best addition to my post wedding toolkit this year. I’ve said goodbye to long hours of culling and editing because Imagine AI has learned my preferences and knows exactly what photos I want and how I want them to look. I just get to go in afterward to add my finishing touches with masking and spot removal, and then everything is ready to export. Friends, please do not keep sleeping on incorporating Imagine AI into your workflow.

To get 1500 free edits, head to the episode description or the show notes to grab my affiliate link.

Welcome to Keeping It Candid. I’m your host, Sandra Henderson, an international wedding and family photographer and business coach. I help wedding photographers use systems to build out the backend of their businesses to gain control and continue to thrive no matter what life throws their way.

And on a more personal note, I’m a strong Enneagram 3wing2 who’s obsessed with tacos. And my love for traveling combined with navigating chronic illness life are just two of the many things that drive my passion for all things systems, workflows, and beating burnout as a business owner. Join me every week for a candid behind the scenes look at what it’s really like working as a wedding photographer, where I’ll give you actionable steps to take your business to the next level.

Absolutely no fluff here, friends, so go grab your favorite notebook and pen and let’s dive into this week’s episode.

Sandra Henderson (03:58.038)
Thank you so, so much for joining me, Sarah. I am so excited to have you here. So excited to have another fellow Canadian on the podcast. So before we get into all of the goodness that I know we have in store, if you could just take a quick little second to introduce yourself, that would be amazing. Let everybody know what you’re all about. Yeah, of course. Oh my gosh, all about, all the things. Okay, let’s go down the list. No joking. I’m like, it’s so funny. Sometimes I’m like.

Okay, let me just talk about my likes and dislikes and personality. I’m like, oh no, but maybe first let me talk about what kind of photography I love to do and all of that. So my name is Sarah Monica, but you can just call me Sarah. I used my middle name for my business name instead of my long ass Polish last name, which is too intense for anyone to remember. So it’s just Sarah. It’s not like a double whammy first name with two names. And yeah, I’ve been a photographer for 12 years now. I specialize in photographing.

free-spirited and adventurous couples on wedding days in more of a documentary style way where they can be super free on their wedding day and that’s the priority. And then I’m also an educator, I don’t know, educator guide, kind of all those things put together. I have a podcast, the Shine and Thrive Photography Podcast for about three years now. And yeah, it’s just been so much fun.

Like as soon as I hit that point in my business where I felt like everything was running like a well-oiled machine and I figured out so many things that I was like trying to figure out for so many years, I was like, oh my gosh, I just want to like share this with as many people as possible because it’s so helpful for me. So it just like naturally came about and it just feels so fun and organic to have kind of both of those pillars to my business right now. And I’m also a new mom, relatively new. Ben is a year and a half now.

and I’m engaged to my fiance Rory. We’ve been together for nine years and just some random things. I love dancing to EDM. I love anything to do with freedom, doing what I want when I want, traveling and having a ton of spaciousness in my life. And yeah, that’s a little bit me in a nutshell. I love that. That was easily the best introduction I’ve had on this podcast. That was so good. I feel like we could be best friends.

Sandra Henderson (06:18.178)
One thing that you said, I know we’re going to be diving into all the things about outsourcing and things like that, but one thing that you said during your intro that I want to dive into a little bit is something that I actually saw on your website when I was reaching out to invite you to join me for this interview, was that in your contact form, you actually specify specific types of weddings that you prefer to do and prefer not to do, and that you don’t take on weddings in dark venues. And I thought that this was…

amazing to see on someone’s contact form. So I would love to pick your brain about that a little bit. It was just kind of like a light bulb went off as you were saying that. Because I think that there are so many, I mean, in any career, there are so many different mindsets, but especially like in photography, you have people who are like just will take anything and everything because they want to work with everyone and they want the money to come in. And then on the like, polar opposite side of things you have

unfortunately, people who are discriminatory and only wanting to take on certain weddings, but there’s this middle ground where we have this creative freedom to say what we do and we don’t want to shoot without it being discriminatory. And so I would love to hear just like what brought you to a point to say, there’s nothing wrong with your wedding, but for my expertise, this is how I can best serve you. Oh, that’s such a great question. I love it. I love it. I love

I was totally that photographer that was more of a generalist for many years where I was like, I’ll take on anything and everything firstly because I was still exploring what I wanted. Secondly, because I really just wanted to be full-time ASAP. I just wanted to have my own business, not have another job. And so I did go through that chapter. And then when I realized when I went full-time, I was still kind of saying yes to certain types of weddings out of obligation.

of obligation and there was this like also guilt associated with it if I was gonna say like no I’m like am I being too much of a diva now is that like a thing to do where it’s like no I don’t want it and I had some conversations with other photographers in the industry many people felt that way too but a handful of them actually gave me some advice and oh my gosh who was it I don’t remember I think her name was Kayla but she this was so long ago.

Sandra Henderson (08:41.606)
I’ve been doing this for a while now. She said, well, I think our couples, if they hire us for their wedding, I think they deserve someone who fully 100% wants to be there, is so excited, and isn’t in the background thinking, oh, I wish I was shooting an outdoor wedding right now, or I wish I wasn’t in this hall. I could be so much more creative in a different place.

Because if our minds, if we’re not fully present and our minds are elsewhere, we’re actually not showing up in the best way possible and they deserve a photographer that gets excited about a church wedding or a hall wedding and there are photographers that want that. There are literally photographers that see things creatively and differently and are more than happy to shoot in those locations. So that’s what really like shifted that for me. And I realized there’s actually no point to feeling guilty.

and there is a way to like communicate this in a way where it’s beneficial for them. And so yeah, I have it on my contact page. I just write, I don’t accept weddings in dark spaces like churches and I say dark spaces because I mean, sometimes I take weddings on a dark space. It just depends on the venue if I’m creatively inspired. So but in general, I’m like, I don’t accept weddings in churches, banquet halls, golf courses because they’re not.

they’re not as conducive to my creative and candid approach. And it’s actually true in the sense that when I did photograph, let’s say at banquet halls, I shoot with a 50 millimeter and a 35 millimeter, literally 95 percent of the time. And so if I heard laughter and I shoot with those lenses because I really want the viewer to feel like they are right beside where that moment happened to feel that closeness. So that’s intentional. So if I heard laughter at all,

the other side of the freaking room, I would like run over but then people would be like, wait, what? Like she’s running, go to catch their attention. I wouldn’t be as stealth as I am now in like smaller spaces. And the moment would stop or I would miss it. Like it’s just like, it was affecting my joy, my happiness, my… And so I’m like, there’s nothing wrong with me just being more selective and saying, yes, this place is where I want to shoot. And I’m not going to lie, sometimes like…

Sandra Henderson (10:59.026)
Most of the time, it’s not like I tell couples, I actually ask about the venue in the contact form and then when they contact me, then I reply back saying, sorry, I don’t photograph in those spaces or sometimes I just say, I’m booked that day and that’s it. It keeps it easy. No one has to know, but the times that I did reply saying, it’s actually not a space that like I would photograph.

I would create the work that you expect from me best in because I would need different lenses. I say that because I care about you having the best experience possible. I think I want you to find a photographer that does create well in those spaces.” And they actually respond back saying, oh, wow, we appreciate your honesty because people would assume a business owner is a business owner. They want business. And so for them, it’s like this extra level of like…

customization experience and wanting the best for them, that they’re like, we really appreciate that, thank you. And then sending off referrals, like they’re well taken care of. So that’s my approach with that. And I really think that it just also like speaks to the fact that these people that are hiring us, they don’t have a photographic eye more often than not. They’re not in this industry. And so it’s up to us to educate them and say, these are the photos that you want, but it’s literally not possible to do in this space.

until we educate them with that information, they’re never gonna know about it. So I think that’s super important. And I love that you take that approach of just being like fully upfront and disclosing it all right from the get-go so that nobody’s disappointed down the road, including yourself, because there’s nothing worse than being in a space where you don’t feel creatively fulfilled. And also with that, I save my time too, because I used to notice that without me saying that on my contact page, I used to get so many inquiries for…

church weddings and church weddings for me specifically, again, I don’t like the vibe of like quiet must be on your best behavior. Like my branding who I am as a person is very like free spirited. I like being silly. I like again freedom being able to do what I want when I want. And so for me a church, although it’s like it’s a space that people other people gravitate to and feel at peace in and that’s amazing. I love that for them. It’s not a place I feel creatively inspired in.

Sandra Henderson (13:20.322)
So I’m like, I don’t want to be in a place where I feel like everyone has to be on their best behavior and quiet. And that’s just my perspective, right? And so it’s not that I’m like against, oh, churches are not cool or whatever. Like I genuinely, it’s just, it’s just a different vibe, different experience. And we all get to feel pulled to like the locations and vibes that we feel creative in. So, but yeah, it saves me time because I don’t get those inquiries.

anymore really. So I don’t have to spend extra time sitting at the computer being like, no, with like my template email, right? Also not on the backend too. That is the perfect lead into what we are actually connecting to talk about today is all about outsourcing and ways that you can save time and energy in your business, which is just like 1000% my jam. I could definitely relate, we were talking a little bit before we started recording.

just about trying to do all the things and how it can just leave you feeling so unfulfilled and How powerful it is to take things off your plate so you have more freedom in your life So yeah, I’m super excited for this topic What do you think are some hesitations that wedding photographers have towards outsourcing and getting started in the beginning? Oh my gosh I know them so intimately because I was that photographer that I was so hesitant I

I literally was so proud. It was this like proud like hustle and grind like badge of honor in a sense where I was like I give you guys a boutique experience which means I do everything myself like no one else touches it. It’s all done by me right? And I thought that was like…

The only, for some reason I had this illusion in my mind, that’s the only way to run a business that is successful, that is good, because if I have control over every single part of their experience, that means it’ll be exactly how I want it, that means I’ll get more referrals, and I’ll get booked more and I’ll be successful, right? I don’t know why I thought that, because there’s clearly so many examples in the world of successful businesses that have employees and get support.

Sandra Henderson (15:34.398)
like high-end restaurants or Apple, for example, right? And so I don’t know where that illusion came from, but I think possibly it could have come from the culture within the industry of everyone simply doing it themselves, right? Because I think I didn’t have anyone to shed a light on me as a small business owner, but that’s even a possibility to get help, to do things the way that I wanted them done. And when I was taught in school,

Sorry, when I learned photography in school, I went to a photography school in college. I have to ask where you went because I also went to Fanjia here in London. Oh, you went to Humber? Oh, yeah. We have these Canadian connections. I had looked at the Humber program, but I originally applied to Algonquin because they had film and I was doing film in high school.

And then I applied to, I think I applied to Humber and to Fanshawe as well. But as soon as I got my Fanshawe acceptance, I was like, that’s where I’m going. That’s awesome. Oh my God. That’s so funny because I looked at Fanshawe too and I’m like, well, which one’s closer to home? And so I did that. See, I was looking for the one that was furthest away from home. Oh, that’s amazing. I would have wanted that experience, but I was I was in a situation where I didn’t have a car. My parents were living paycheck to paycheck. I had to they both lost their jobs at some point. I had to.

literally it was a rough time in my life. Yeah. Plus, serving on the weekends, going to school full-time, I had to opt out of being part of the, what’s it called, volleyball, um, volleyball team in college. And they were actually doing so well. They were like number one and two in Canada and I got on the team, but then I couldn’t because my parents lost their jobs. Oh, it was a rough time, but I think it gave me that like grit that I have within me of like, I can do anything if I

Sandra Henderson (17:21.902)
probably ended up in Fanshawe because I’ve been like, I want that dorm experience, that like community experience. I’m so happy you got to experience that. Yeah, it was great. It’s definitely a great program. So any listeners that are Canadian, we definitely recommend some of our Ontario colleges for photography, which is so strange because like there’s so many people who are self-taught. And I definitely think like I’m glad that I went because it’s my learning style to just be in that sort of environment to learn things like lighting and flash and things like that.

I definitely by no means think that you absolutely have to go to post-secondary for photography. And so yeah, it’s always just so interesting to see the different approaches of how people got into the industry. Yeah, it’s so funny. It took me, it took, it was a two-year program. And I actually think I would have learned way faster not in the program. So I actually do the opposite. I like don’t recommend it. I’m like,

I had to also take English on the side. That was bullshit. I didn’t want to write essays. Like, oh, just so, it’s opposite. And what I was sort of, what I was going to say is like, we didn’t learn how to actually like have a team in college. Like they didn’t, they didn’t teach, they taught a lot of the photography skills, but those could have been taught in a so much less time. I don’t know what took them so long, honestly, because then they could have introduced other.

aspects like, okay, so you want a photography business, here’s how you communicate to train someone here, so you put a job application together. Like that wasn’t taught. And so that’s why I think I went into it with the illusion that I have to do everything myself. Right. So I think some of the things that pop up for photographers, like for them to hesitate even thinking about or starting to outsource is number one, it’s uncharted territory. Anything new that we’ve never done

And that’s just natural with growing our businesses. It’s natural, just like first learning our camera on manual. That was terrifying. I didn’t do it for a year. I procrastinated for a year. And then I’m like, what was I so scared of, right? So it’s just uncharted territory. It’s also counterintuitive because you’re thinking, wait, but I just shot this wedding and now I’m supposed to let go of like 100 bucks or 200 bucks to get it edited? Like…

Sandra Henderson (19:33.75)
what? That’s my money. Like I earned it, right? But what I’m noticing and what I’ve noticed so much over time, time and time and again for myself, my own experience, my students’ experience is successful photographers buy back their time in the areas that drain their energy so that then they can spend more of their time in the areas that excite them and give them more energy. And that is exactly how you grow your business.

faster but in an also sustainable way where you’re not burnt out. So it is counterintuitive and you it kind of what it requires of you is to take a leap of faith like all right I’m investing this money just like when you took a leap of faith of buying your first camera it was like thousands of dollars for the camera the lenses it’s like okay leap of faith here’s my money but then it’s an investment because it actually makes money for you right. Anyway I think I’m getting too ahead of myself but yeah another reason is

like obviously, so the money, they’re scared to let go of the money, but also loss of control. So assuming that if someone else takes over your editing or culling and it takes over is the wrong word because that’s what I used to think it would be. But you have final say, you get to quality check everything, but photographers assume that they will just like have a loss of control over the quality of what they get. And they’re also scared of being seen as less of an artist.

or even seeing themselves as less of an artist if they’re getting that support. It’s like, well, shouldn’t I be the one to finalize the look of the image, right? But what I’ve learned over time is that it’s literally a formula. Once you get your editing to a place where you’re like, okay, I kinda get it, now I know what I do to each image to get it to where I want it to be, I was just sitting there being like, this amount of warmth, this amount of exposure, add this. And it’s just like a formula. I felt like a robot. And I’m like, okay.

This is teachable to someone else. But those are the things that I think are holding photographers back. So uncharted territory, it’s counterintuitive. You don’t want to let go of your money. You feel like you’re going to lose control or nobody can do it as well as you can. Or feeling like you’re not as much of an artist or like an actual quote unquote business owner because you’re not doing everything yourself. Those are some of the things that come to mind.

Sandra Henderson (21:49.318)
I have definitely experienced all of those myself more than once over the last 10 years. So yeah, I can totally relate to that. And the idea of the like that we have to do everything ourselves. It’s something that actually just earlier this year, I realized is not just us who thinks that way. But there are other people who think that way too. And I’ve it’s been how many months since April and I’m still trying to wrap my head around the words that somebody had said to me, because photographers outsource their blogs to me.

And I do the writing and they’re like, well, how are their clients going to feel if they find out that somebody else is writing the blog? I’m like, but the blog literally has nothing to do with their capability of using their camera and producing great photos. And like we look at corporations and hospitals and all of these places that have somebody at the top and all of these people doing all the things below them.

I hate to say below them, but you know what I mean? Like in that system. Supporting the vision. Exactly. And so it’s so crazy to me that we think that artists and small business owners need to be doing everything all by themselves to be a legitimate professional. Yeah. And I think it’s also this illusion that you know how we can all be our own worst critic when it comes to, for example, our looks, the way we look, right? We can dissect ourselves. We know in the morning when I first wake up,

I think I look like this, I’ll fill in the blank, right? But then if I like do my hair and I do this, I’m ready to go out, I look like this, like fill in the blank, right? And so what I think we’re experiencing, but then on the outside looking in, if there’s another human like looking at you, they’re more drawn to what you have to offer with like your energy, the conversation, just the connection. They just want to be there for the connection. We don’t really care about that.

extra pimple you have right underneath your chin that someone can’t notice but you notice and it’s flaring out at you, right? So of course when we are in our business, we see everything. We know every single detail. But someone, just keep in mind someone looking in from the outside, they are literally just focused on your energy, the energy you’re showing up with, and your photos. Like, oh cool, cool photos, art, oh I like what I feel in the photos. They do not care about the how.

Sandra Henderson (24:05.846)
like a restaurant, what do you care about, right? And what comes to mind for me is I wanna go there, have a nice experience where I feel well taken care of, my needs are taken care of, which is my thirst and my hunger. But I also, whoever I’m going with, I just wanna have fun and connect. Do I care how the kitchen cooks the meal? Do I care like who sat me who didn’t? If I look at things the opposite way, if…

literally there was one person working at that restaurant and it was just the chef and the chef had to seat me and the chef had to get me my drink, the chef had to take my order while also making 20 other orders while then also somehow making sure that the quality was intact. It’s like, well, then I would notice that something is off and then I would be unhappy and then I would like never go back to that restaurant or recommend it and then that’s when that business feels that chef feels burnt out and that’s when he wants to quit and there’s no other way and business dies.

So it’s like that, it’s like if you get support in your business through outsourcing, the things that you think people will notice and judge you on and think you’re not a true artist is a total illusion. But the opposite, if you are overworked, burnt out, you’re constantly delivering things late and you’re working 12 to 15 hour days, you can’t catch up even when you’re working 12 to 15 hour days. That’s what people notice. They notice

the lower level of your energy. They can get upset because they paid you money and they’re not getting the level of attention they need. Or they were super excited for a date night and they didn’t get the images on time and they had to reschedule and who knows what went into that. Maybe they had a babysitter come, but then you’re like, sorry, I need two more nights. Those types of things are what people notice.

Sandra Henderson (25:53.938)
outsourcing can positively impact both your life and your business other than obviously like the taking work off your plate? What are some things that surprised you as you started alleviating all of your duties? Oh my god. Okay, first of all, you said duties. I’m so glad you just said that. I do that to my husband all the time. So good. For anybody that doesn’t know Chandler Bing from Friends. I love it. So good. Oh, that made my day. You know how many times I say that at a wedding?

And someone just looks at me like, I don’t get it. And I’m like, okay. Oh, that would make me so sad. There’s nothing worse than making like a solid reference at a wedding and nobody gets it. And you’re like, okay, I’m just gonna walk away. So now we’ll kind of get back on track. So those, yes, back to the duties. Perfect. So, okay, I love this question. I think before I dive into it, I mean, this is partially answering it. I did want to like paint the picture of like what happened to me.

with when I was hesitant to outsource and then when I actually was like, I’m, you know what, this isn’t sustainable. I can’t do this anymore. I’m going to try something new. So I, I’ve, what I found was I was shooting 15 weddings a year. This was back in 2015 and about 20 sessions or so. And I’ve just felt like I was hitting my head up against a wall, like over and over. I’m like, I want to grow my business, but boom, I can’t.

because I literally don’t have the capacity to take on any more weddings or sessions. And so that meant that I gave myself an income ceiling because I couldn’t actually get paid more, but I was still working, working on all the backend stuff. But when I finally was like, okay, I’m gonna let go first of the thing that I hate most, which was spending so much time editing. Well, like, I mean, let’s be more specific. I loved editing.

for an hour or two, because I got so creative and I got to see my images, but then the rest I was like, oh my god, I’m just a robot sitting here. I don’t want to be here. I want to be out there in the summer sun. You know what I’m saying. So I was like, okay, let me outsource the rest. Right? So that was like a freaking, it took some time to learn and figure things out. And I didn’t have it optimized then as I do now. But the result of me starting to

Sandra Henderson (28:11.122)
making, by the way, I like being super open to my numbers. So back then I was making $27,000 in take home income. So this is after taking away my expenses, my taxes and all of that. So it was only 27,000 and I was working 80 to 90 hour weeks from like May to November with 15 weddings and 20 sessions. I’m like, what the heck? Because I was also trying to grow the business and market like everything, right? Network. And so then

This is my result just one year later, one season later after beginning to outsource just my editing. I actually doubled my income. So I went to like, I think it was like $55,000 in take home income. And I cut my working time by like 30 to 40%.

huge. So I was literally experiencing just a year into outsourcing, working less and making more. And that’s when everything started shifting.

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Sandra Henderson (30:28.466)
So again, head over to share.honeybook.com forward slash Sandra to get 50% off your first year of HoneyBook. And so this is a lead in to you’re like, well, what are some of the unexpected things that come with that? So actually, let me just even paint the picture a bit further. So that was my experience a year later. I had to, it was a whole journey. I’ve never been taught how to do this. So there was like bumps in the road I had to figure out.

I had to switch editors many times, I had to hire a VA, then let go of a VA, get a new VA many times. But now I’m at the point where I’m working 25 to 30 hour weeks and this includes shooting. So this includes shooting even if I have like a 12 hour wedding day or two eight hour wedding days in a row or sessions. And I make a minimum $80,000 in take home income just from weddings and sessions.

So this isn’t even my education side of the business. So imagine that I went from working 80 to 90 hour weeks, making $27,000 take home income to 25 to 30 hour weeks, making 80,000 in take home income from like one pillar in my business. So that is just like- That is such a huge difference. Exactly. That is the picture that I wanna paint of like, if it’s possible for me, it’s possible for others.

And I’m really excited to talk about the ripple effect that creates in our lives because it’s not, yes, you save time in your business and you get to work on the things that like light you up more, that gives you more energy. Yes, you make more money, which is obviously we know that ripple effect. It like lowers our stress levels. It allows us to experience more experiences with our loved ones. It creates safety, that feeling of safety and security. I grew up in a household

intense debt and fights and arguments and my parents almost being divorced twice over it and this like scarcity and it was terrifying and it’s like I know how that can break up a family and affect relationships and the well-being of everybody and so I want to paint the picture of you can feel that safety around money you just need to buy back your time first and so

Sandra Henderson (32:48.166)
It’s really hard to unlearn some of that, like when you live with that as a child too, because that’s something that I realized as I was getting older is like, it’s hard to kind of put your like wrap your head around not having scarcity mindset around money. But I think that when you do like you’re saying start to see that ripple effect, it kind of starts to make it a little bit easier. I think it’s interesting because for some reason, I mean, everybody

like adopts these different beliefs. Mine was if I work hard enough, I’ll make enough money and then I’ll be secure and safe. But then what I realized is that at working hard, like actual grinding, working hard, yes, it gets you to a point. It got me to having a business in $27,000 in income. But then what I realized is to get to the next level of making even more money to feel extra safe.

it’s actually working smart that shifts everything. And so I wrote, I really wanted to like express everything that you can create in your own life intentionally when you do make the decision to buy your time back and be more intentional and proactive in your business and life. And so I actually, this is something I’m so excited about. It’s like the first time I’m actually saying it out loud and it’s a…

Manifesto that I created around the vision of the new lifestyle of the like the pretty much the free photographer like so if you think about the overworked the underpaid the burnt-out photographer like Let’s let’s help transition you into the liberated like free photographer So I’m gonna read this and I think this is literally when I read this Everyone will feel exactly what ripple effects are created through this. So here I go hustle and grind

No thanks. Starving artist, not into it. I’m stripping away the shoulds, the industry standards, and anything else that leaves me feeling constricted and small. I’m here to protect my greatest gift, my energy, my creativity, my presence, my flame, and I’m paid abundantly for it. My life feels like fun on Friday night and easy like Sunday morning. I choose pleasure over

Sandra Henderson (35:11.126)
beingness over busyness. I believe asking for help is sexy. The freedom to do what I want when I want turns me on, like taking a long spontaneous nature walk in the middle of a Wednesday just because I feel like it. I trust and dance with my intuitive nudges and flow through life like a calm and peaceful stream. I put my well-being first because when my cup overflows, it ripples to those I love.

Working smart is my superpower. If I want something, it’s already mine. I’m going to do things my way, the Omi way. I love that so, so much. Thank you for sharing that. That is incredible. I literally have goosebumps listening to you. So happy about that. Yeah, that was amazing. And it definitely paints the picture so, so perfectly. Yeah.

I’m like, that’s been a work in progress for so long. It feels so good that it’s all come together and that you got goosebumps. I’m like, yay, the intention happened as intended. Good, yeah, it definitely resonated with me for sure. I’m sure listeners will have that resonate with them as well because that was really good, really powerful. Thank you. I remember years ago, I have like…

I spent the last 10 years in my business trying to find the right person to credit this quote to but Google has served me no help in this situation. But the quote was something along the lines of nobody ever got into business for themselves to work more. And I think it’s so easy for us to get caught up in that because we’re hustling and we want to build that business and get our name out there and bring in all the clients. But

ultimately, like we could have worked less and made more money at a nine to five corporate job, like with your example of $27,000 take home for 90 hours of work, like that’s two paychecks, they’re like two weeks worth of work in one week. So like, you’re not that boss to your boss anymore. Why do we let ourselves treat that way? Right? Exactly. Yeah.

Sandra Henderson (37:17.666)
So for listeners who are just getting started in their outsourcing journey, is there any specific place that you recommend getting started? Yeah, so I have like three answers that come up for me for this. So first thing that pops into my head is what I did, which was like, pick the thing that takes away the most amount of your time and energy. And for that, that was like the big, I think it’s the big rock for most photographers is the editing.

And again, don’t hold on to the illusion that if you start outsourcing your editing, that means you have no creative say and even if you love editing, because there are photographers that love editing, there are photographers that are like meh, there are photographers that hate it, right? Everyone’s so different. And what I always suggest is like, do it your way. Like, you get to keep what you love and let go of what you hate, but pay attention. Get curious when you’re editing.

Is there a certain section of the day like, hello, probably portraits? Like most photographers are like, I love editing portraits and I want to let go of the rest, right? Then do that. Like that’s a beautiful place to get started because if you can just get started with getting more of your time back, a bigger chunk, that’s when you can like really feel it. It might be like there’s so many different ways like I teach this to my OMI students like there’s so many different ways you can go with outsourcing or editing and it could be like…

super budget friendly or if you want to invest a little bit more. So it also don’t hold on to the illusion that it’s expensive. It is not. There are options that I teach where you can literally get your editing outsourced for like $90 a wedding if you want, $80 a wedding. And the second idea that came to mind was if your nervous system isn’t yet feeling like regulated to like taking that big chunk of your business and like letting go of that.

then I would say go the opposite way and try with something small and digestible where you’re like, okay, well, yeah, I can like let go of that and then see how it feels. See that just have the experience of, I have my time back. There’s like a double of me right now in this moment. Like I’m doing this and there’s someone else doing that. It’s like, whoa, I want you to just like experience that because as soon as you do experience that, it becomes a game you start seeing how beneficial it is. And so with that,

Sandra Henderson (39:41.954)
Do something as simple as being like, I don’t wanna do my laundry or clean the house as much or cook and you can literally just put up a job posting for a side gig for someone to help five hours a week to start locally in your area and just let go of those five hours, get that time back, get that energy back and start there. And then the third answer, and this is like me, if I’m being honest, straight up, I would be like, I would suggest what, so what I have done throughout my career,

is I rather instead of figuring something out from scratch, I rather just like go to the person that has the answers that knows exactly how to do it. They figured it out through ups and downs and making mistakes and having wins and then they have the actual step-by-step process. I’d rather save my time and energy from that and then just like learn from that person. So I would suggest if what we’ve talked about in this episode resonated a lot with you and you’re like,

I’m ready, I’m so done with the overwork, with the burnout, with not making as much money as I want, then I would invite you to sign up for my Outsourcing Made Easy course because that is literally the fast track. Like I mentioned before, it took me freaking years to figure out how to do everything properly and that is all just figured out for you. You get to copy and paste my systems into your business, but doing it in a way that works for you. Again, it’s a lot of work.

We are all such unique beings that I would never say, this worked for me, so this needs to be, like how every photographer does it. No, I teach things in a way where you’ll learn the principles that are timeless, and that you can literally apply for the rest of your entrepreneurial career. That just work across the board in different areas too. So that’s what I would suggest, because why spend all of your time and money figuring it out when I can just literally show you how, so, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And I know from my own experience, like when I first started outsourcing, it is stressful in the beginning. Like you do have to find that right fit. You were saying back at the beginning of our interview, you had to hire and rehire editors and VAs a few times and I definitely had my fair share of bad editing experiences. But just like everything, there’s the right fit for everybody. And when you find that person or that business, that’s the right fit for you to outsource to.

Sandra Henderson (42:08.098)
that freedom that you get for me anyway, I was almost addictive. I was like, okay, what else can I find to outsource because now I want to get rid of all of it and I don’t want to do anything that I don’t like doing. Yes, exactly. Oh my gosh. And then when you hear us talk about how we had to start and like we found someone we had to let them go rehire, try find someone new, like we both experienced that, right? What I, for those of you listening, I don’t want you to feel put off that you’ll have to go through that process.

because that is exactly what I just call it, owe me in short, outsourcing made easy, owe me. That’s what owe me eliminates. Like my students don’t have to go through that process because they know how to put together the job posting, how to know exactly what to look for in an interview, to look for red flags and to look for what actually aligns well with them. And then they are literally happy with the person right away 80% of the time. I can’t say 100% of the time, right? That’s impossible. I think.

But 80% of the time my students come back to me and be like, oh my God, I found this person in 24 hours and they’re killing it right away. At what? They like work on shit when I sleep and I wake up and it’s done and I’m happy. Like that’s what I’m talking about when they talk about the fast tracks. So you don’t have to go through that whole process that we did. Yeah, oh, I love that. There’s, I mean, when we were just starting out in the industry, there was nothing in terms of like education. I think that’s probably a big reason why we both ended up in post-secondary for photography.

there was somewhere that I was going with this and I just totally lost my train of thought. That’s okay. Anyway, we’ll just we’ll just skip that. It might come back to me. But yeah, I oh, that’s what I was gonna say. Like, when I when we were both starting out and going to post secondary back on that train of thought, there was not a lot.

out there in terms of education online and we felt like we had to do everything ourselves and we had to go through those trial and errors. And if I could go back and change anything, it would be that I would kind of start my business when there was all these other resources around because it really just makes so much sense to have people who this is their expertise handle the things that are not your expertise. I remember

Sandra Henderson (44:19.826)
going out for coffee with my business teacher from the Fanshawe Photography Program. And he was I was telling him how I was just going to learn to do my own taxes. I’m like, my mom’s an accountant. I can handle it. I do my own bookkeeping. It’ll take me a little while, but it’s not a big deal. I can learn it. And he was like, you know, when people say that their uncle is going to shoot their wedding for them like they probably shouldn’t.

And so just because you can do your taxes, you probably shouldn’t. And I was like, OK, fair. I really can’t argue with that logic. So I will not be learning how to do my taxes. I love that you had that injected and installed so early on because right. That’s amazing. He did that for you. Yeah, he’s the best.

So do you have any final takeaways for listeners to either motivate them to try outsourcing or maybe someone who has had a bad experience with outsourcing and you want to encourage them to keep going? Okay, so what comes to mind is imagine it’s winter time and you’re standing on top of a hill and there’s a ton of like powdery soft snow and it’s perfect for sledding.

and you look to the right and you see there’s like a path perfectly like cut out, carved out for like Christian people clearly sledding down it, having a blast, enjoying it. And it’s easy, it’s smooth. It’s because it’s already been used, the path has already been figured out. And then I want you to think of that path that you see to your right as like a new

neuropath as like a neuropathway in your brain that has been created over time. And those things in your brain now come to you easily like habits like brushing your teeth, you don’t even have to think about it. It’s like you tobogganing down that hill, I’m brushing my teeth, no big deal. It’s so smooth, smooth ride. Just like you now know how to use your camera on manual. It feels like you’re driving a car. And then you’re standing at the top of the hill and you’re like, yeah, I’ve been down that road many times and I know how to like do all this.

Sandra Henderson (46:27.358)
the tasks in my business, I figured them out, but I’ve reached a point and I just don’t want to go down that path anymore. I’m exhausted. I want to make more money. I want to actually truly be freaking free. I actually want to be free. I don’t want to be working in my business. I want to be working on my business. So when you look to the left, there’s just snow. No one has toboggan down there yet. And

You’re like, you know what, what’s the worst that can happen? I’m just gonna sit down and shimmy my butt and like keep shimmying and shimmying and shimmying and there’s resistance, there’s resistance. And you’re like, this isn’t fun yet. Okay, but you get all the way down after some time, you go back up the hill, like, okay, I’m going to go again. And every single time you go again, the path gets smoother and smoother and smoother. So this is me illustrating how you doing something a little bit differently.

will feel, you’ll feel resistance initially. And it might not feel as fun. It won’t be feel as fun as you shooting the most epic, like sunset moments of like, whatever you photograph couples, families, weddings, whatever, right? Like it might not feel that way. But as you keep going, it’ll become more fun and fun and smooth. And just like Sandra said, it becomes addictive, it becomes like a game, it becomes fun, because you’re actually creating the reality that you’ve thought was farfetched. But then it becomes

happens in front of you. So I would just keep that illustration in your mind and just know that just as well as you have figured things out up until now, if you desire this new lifestyle, this new quality of life, really, you are able to make it happen. You have it within you. And just remember that what got you here to this point is great. And you’re here and you did it. But what got you here won’t get you there.

And so something needs to change. And that is just the actions you take and the decisions you make. That analogy was incredible. I love how you use storytelling to paint pictures about things like this, because for me anyway, and I know for a lot of other people, like I resonate so much with stories. As you were saying that, I was like, I knew exactly where this Hill analogy was going. And I was like, oh my God, that’s the best way to explain it. I loved it. That was so good.

Sandra Henderson (48:51.094)
So I have one final question for you. This one is totally off topic, but just a little kind of fun would you rather question. So I want to take us back to like the early, late 80s, early 90s of photography. And would you rather bring back selective color in photos or hazy pose glamor shots? Oh my gosh. Okay, honestly, easy answer.

the hazy pose glamour shots and only because my mom actually, I think she went, she tried to do some modeling in her early 20s. And I remember randomly going through old photos and these popped up in like this grid format, which looks like film, but not film, it was printed and all these options for her. And I’m like, Mom, is this you? And she’s like, yeah, that’s what I thought I would be modeling. And I’m like…

These are so cool. This is amazing. It was like a peek into like, wow, my mom in her early twenties when I was in my early twenties and it was just so cool. So now it’s nostalgic for me. Yeah. Like the selective color. I’m a very like sentimental person. So yeah, selective color. I definitely, we all did it. I mean, I did it, but not for like, we’re all guilty creatively, but not for, I didn’t, I wasn’t around as a pro photographer and people were doing it for weddings, but I played around with it. We learned it in freaking Humber.

Right? Yeah, I definitely had like, this is how you do select color. Yeah, I learned it too. I used to like, I used to love doing pictures of bands. And I remember like, I had so many pictures where I flipped it into black and white. And then I’d like bring just the guitar back. Yeah. That’s awesome. So often I did that. But I actually, I remember growing up, so my mom didn’t have these glamour portraits from when she was like in her 20s. But

When I was, I want to say like late childhood years, early preteen years, somewhere in there, I remember my mom always talking about how she wanted to go and have these Glamour photos done and so one day her and a couple of her girlfriends did and I remember seeing it like framed up in her bedroom where they like had like a green feather boa on. Yes!

Sandra Henderson (51:06.566)
Awesome. Well, Sarah, this was such a fun interview. Thank you so much again for joining me. And I hope that we’ll get to connect in person one day soon since we’re not too far away from each other. Of course. And could I also just share a handful of resources that I have? Oh, yes, absolutely. I’d love that. Okay, awesome. So I have a handful of them because, you know, podcasts, they come out, people listen to them right away. Then other times it’s like a bit later and everyone has different needs too and they’re different chapters of their business.

So firstly, you can also, I also have a podcast, you can tune in at Shine and Thrive Photography podcast. And if you’re listening to this episode, the week it comes out, the following week is I am hosting something I only host once a year, which is a free live masterclass. And it’s called the Four Secrets to Having More Time, Freedom and Money While Avoiding Burnout as a Photographer.

Sandra Henderson (52:05.922)
going to, so you know how I was like giving you some numbers of like how much I made here and there and all of that. In this masterclass, I go really deep into like the nitty gritty like how much money I’ve spent on outsourcing in different years and how much time it saved me and I show you graphs. And so it really paints the picture of like what’s possible in different areas of your business. And I think it’s super helpful to see that.

So I definitely illustrate that. And in general, you’re going to learn a lot more about how you don’t have to choose between being overworked and making great money or having more free time and making less money. You’ll get to actually visually see, because we all love visuals as photographers, right? How to make it happen. And yeah, like past people that have attended the class said, like, it was just so nice to see real examples of actual numbers.

And I do want to be, I’m all about transparency and stuff. So for those of you that are literally like thinking, okay, I need a course like this and it sounds amazing. I would highly suggest that you sign up for this masterclass because you’re going to learn a ton during the masterclass and at the end, I’ll introduce the course to you and give you all the details on it and you can decide, oh yeah, this is perfect for me or maybe not yet. Or like, no, this isn’t for me. And so yeah, literally if you show up, you don’t get the,

course, you’re going to learn so much. And then if you show up and get the course, amazing. I’m so excited to support you. So you can find that at, you can sign up for the masterclass SarahMonica.com forward slash masterclass. Keep in mind that it’s best to show up live because you’ll actually be able to ask me questions live. There’s also going to be an exciting show up bonus or two. One of them is worth 500. So it’s just really exciting like to keep things exciting like that.

But if one of the times and dates don’t work for you, make sure to sign up anyway, because I’m going to make sure to take care of you. You’re going to get the replay. I don’t want you to miss out on learning or getting access to the course just because the date and time doesn’t work. So sign up anyway. And then also for those of you that are listening to this outside of the availability of the live masterclass, I also have another free resource, which is my actual three-hour post-wedding workflow checklist.

Sandra Henderson (54:25.546)
So it only takes me three hours of my time personally to get to work on a wedding after I’ve shot it. It’s game changing. It saves like 70% of your working time behind a computer. So you can get that at sarahmonica.com forward slash freedom. And then lastly, if you are listening to this episode specifically on October 23rd to October 26th, 2023, that means the doors to my Outsourcing Made Easy program are open.

and they’re only open for that four short day sign up window for, and I only open them once a year. So that’s why I’m like, you need to know about this. So you can go to sarahmonica.com forward slash freedom. All the information is there, everything you’re going to learn. And you can just DM me on Instagram with any questions you have. My Instagram is Sarah Monica photo. That’s Sarah no H Monica with a K photo. And I always only

ask clarifying questions to make sure it’s the right fit for you in this chapter. I have turned people away that were like too early in their business that it just didn’t make sense yet. So I’m always super honest, just part of my values. And that’s pretty much it. Those are all the resources. I like to take care of my community. I love that. Well, thank you so much for sharing and I will definitely make sure to have all of those links in the show notes as well to make it super easy for everybody to access. Of course. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again. This was such a fun interview.

And yeah, we’ll definitely connect again in the future for sure. 100%. Oh my gosh. Wait, where are you in Canada? I need to know. Yeah, I’m in London. Okay, that’s so amazing. I came here for college and then I just never left because I love it here. Amazing. I’m originally from just outside of Barrie though. Okay, cool.

Oh my gosh, we’re so close. This is so rare. I know, it never happens. There’s been a couple times recording interviews for the season. I’m having to navigate people’s Wi-Fi connection in Paris and things like that. So it’s so nice to be like, oh, our colleges, we actually know where that is. Oh, that’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for listening. You can find full show notes from today’s episode at simplysandryevon.ca forward slash keeping it candid.

Sandra Henderson (56:38.206)
In the meantime, let’s connect. You can find me on Instagram and TikTok, just search SimplySandraYvonne. And if you’re loving this podcast, I’d be so honoured if you’d go ahead and hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Until next time.

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About Sara

Meet Sara Monika! She is an intuitive documentary wedding photographer, photography educator and host of the top-rated podcast, The Shine + Thrive Photography Podcast. A rebel at heart, Sara’s mission is to shift the paradigm of the photography industry, both for her wedding couples and her fellow photographers. As a photographer, she seeks to give her couples the gift of true candids, so they can be free and present on their wedding day. As an educator, Sara empowers photographers to build freedom-driven businesses on THEIR terms, so they can live fully and freely as artists while working smarter instead of harder. She does this through her transformative programs Intuitive Storytelling, Crystal Clear Marketing, and Outsourcing Made Easy, which have so far helped hundreds of photographers from all over the world on their journey. When she’s not working, you can find her dancing up a storm, enjoying some wine + cheese, spending time in nature, binging her favourite personal + business development podcasts and making lifelong memories with her fiance Rory and her little boy Ben. To find out more about Sara and her work, head to saramonika.com or follow her on IG over at @saramonikaphoto.

Instagram | Freebies | Masterclass | Outsourcing Made Easy

No matter who you are or how long you’ve been in the wedding industry for, self-care is so important. But for all of my friends who are wedding photographers with chronic illnesses, self-care is even more important than you would think.

When I first started my business back in 2013, I didn’t know that I had endometriosis. And even though since my diagnosis, I’ve been able to trace it back until I was about 12 years old, which realistically means that I was likely born with it, I didn’t actually start noticing any sort of impact on my life until 2017. And it wasn’t until 2020 that I started having to actively manage it day in and day out. So the decisions that I had to make when I was starting my business, even part way through my business, are entirely different now than the decisions that I have to make managing a chronic illness day in and day out along with my business.

So today I’m going to be talking all about self-care practices for wedding photographers with chronic illnesses and things that you can do to make your daily life better and to make sure that your schedule isn’t overwhelming you.

Welcome to Keeping It Candid. I’m your host, Sandra Henderson, an international wedding and family photographer and business coach. I help wedding photographers use systems to build out the backend of their businesses to gain control and continue to thrive no matter what life throws their way.

And on a more personal note, I’m a strong Enneagram 3Wing2 who’s obsessed with tacos. And my love for travelling combined with navigating chronic illness life are just two of the many things that drive my passion for all things systems, workflows, and beating burnout as a business owner. Join me every week for a candid behind-the-scenes look at what it’s really like working as a wedding photographer, where I’ll give you actionable steps to take your business to the next level.

Absolutely no fluff here, friends, so go grab your favourite notebook and pen and let’s dive into this week’s episode.

Sandra Henderson (01:56.042)
So my first recommendation for self-care for wedding photographers with chronic illnesses is to incorporate Epsom salt baths into your routine. Now, like most natural remedies, there are widely varying opinions about the impact that Epsom salt baths have, what magnesium can do for your pain and things like that. But personally, I’ve seen a huge improvement in my life since I started doing this. And so that’s why I wanted to talk about it a little bit more.

I think what’s most important is not actually even using the Epsom salt. So if that’s not something that you want to do, then that’s totally fine. But taking the time to just press pause is so important and taking a bath is the perfect way to do that. Now pre-2022, I actually hated baths. I would always get so bored. It was like torture for my ADHD. I would get really hot in the water. Like I just, I hated baths.

But when I started just keeping it short and sweet, under 10 minutes, bringing a good book in with me, all of a sudden, I just really started enjoying taking this time out for my day. And for most people, hot water, regardless of the epsom salt, can help manage your pain levels. Now I say most because my best friend, actually, she doesn’t have a chronic illness, but she does deal with chronic pain from a past injury. And because of that, because of nerve damage that’s happened,

heat actually does the opposite for her than it does for me where I find heat and hot water to be a really relaxing thing and it helps my sore muscles. It actually makes her pain worse. So that’s something you obviously want to keep in mind when you’re figuring out what works for your pain and what doesn’t. No matter if you are looking for the temperature of your bath water or the way that you break down your schedule every day, I fully support doing things that work.

for you. If it doesn’t work for everybody else, that’s totally fine because they don’t matter. You need to just focus on yourself. So if that means taking a few minutes to have a bath, then I highly, highly recommend that. Now there’s this idea that using any sort of natural remedies for anything involving health doesn’t work. We all know that it exists. Some of us, myself included, have probably had those thoughts before, but here’s the thing. Even if it is all in our heads,

Sandra Henderson (04:17.682)
If it works, what the fuck does it matter? It’s not hurting anybody else, it’s helping us. So if you are thinking to yourself, oh, it’s all in my head, it’s not actually gonna work, or some person said this, some person said that, I want you to push all of that out of your head and just give it a try. You never know until you try it, right? I hate when people feel the need to share their opinion on things like that, when they’re trying to almost negate the fact that.

it’s working for you and take that away from you, but it’s not impacting them. So don’t let them take that away. If something works for you, then let it work for you and just embrace that. Now, next, I highly, highly recommend massage therapy, chirophysiotherapy, acupuncture. If these are accessible to you, then I highly, highly recommend taking advantage of them.

I personally see a massage therapist and a chiropractor. My massage therapist helps me with my back and my shoulders with hip mobility. And my chiropractor is adjusting my wrist for me because my favorite lens is a 70 to 200. And if you’ve ever used that before, you know that bitch is heavy, especially after an eight, 10, 12 hour wedding day. So my chiropractor is always adjusting my wrist for me, also adjusting my hips and my back.

to make sure that I am keeping my pain levels down and that I am as mobile as possible for a highly physical job. I also am going to be starting pelvic floor physiotherapy. If you are familiar with endometriosis and you know that this is something that people say, can be really helpful and I’ve never done it before. I’m a little bit concerned, or I shouldn’t say concerned, that’s the wrong word to use. I have a little bit of anxiety about it just because I’ve never worked with a physiotherapist before.

but I’ve heard good things, so we’ll see how that goes in the new year. Now also making sure that you are eating properly on a wedding day. This is a huge, huge factor when it comes to self care. On a wedding day, you are pouring so much of yourself out for your clients. And so it is really important to make sure that you are not also forgetting yourself along the way. When I was first starting out as a second shooter, I would wake up and I’d probably have some pop.

Sandra Henderson (06:34.558)
as I was getting ready because I was really, really healthy. I lived off of ginger ale and Coca-Cola and I wouldn’t eat breakfast, I wouldn’t eat lunch, I would get to the wedding and I’d be carrying around my bottle of ginger ale with me. And then sometime around, family photos and wedding party photos, my blood sugar would crash. I would start dry heaving behind my camera, I would start shaking, I would just get so, so sick. And so I would have to run.

find some juice or something to get my blood sugar back up. And the only meal I was eating all day was the meal that was being served during the reception. And so a lot of times it was actually six, seven o’clock before I was eating for the first time all day. And it is just mind blowing to think about that because I now many years later, 12 years later, like I need to have snacks with me all day long. I am.

I bring multiple bottles of water with me. I have to eat before I leave. If I have more than a like a couple hours of sessions in a row, I bring snacks with me. But making sure that you are eating properly and drinking lots of water and making sure you’re hydrated. These are things that are so important to your self-care. There’s nothing worse than the wedding hangover, right? I talked about that a lot at the end of the last season of the podcast. I think that was episode…

31 if you want to go back and check that out. But the wedding hangover it’s going to happen regardless, right? But if you’re not eating and drinking properly, it is just going to hit you that much harder. And so yeah, there’s a million reasons why that’s just so important. And then speaking of the impact that eating and drinking has on your body. We’re talking a little bit about our physical limitations here. Being realistic about your physical limitations is super important.

We’ve all seen those really gorgeous leather double harnesses, but personally I went with one that I found on Amazon that had a wider shoulder strap that was more foam because I just found it to be more comfortable. It definitely isn’t as aesthetically pleasing, but the purpose here is just because I needed to work within my physical limitations.

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Another thing that’s really important for wedding photographers with chronic illnesses? Systems and automation. Spend more time taking care of yourself and less time in your inbox with HoneyBook!

Click here to get 50% off your first year’s subscription!

(Then, CLICK HERE to grab my wedding workflow freebie to help you get started!)

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Sandra Henderson (08:52.958)
I’m interrupting this episode for a quick second because I want to tell you all about something that I have used in my business day in and day out for more than six years now and I truly do not think that I could run my business without it. And that is HoneyBook. HoneyBook is an all-in-one CRM system that handles all the things that are client-facing. Sending contracts and invoices, receiving payments, sending out questionnaires so you can get all those details to get ready for the wedding day.

as well as having workflows and automations to start taking some of the work off of your plate, which I’m always a huge advocate for, there’s truly not enough time for me to talk about all of the incredible features that HoneyBook has. And if this is something that you’ve been thinking about trying out, or if you’re wanting to make the switch over to HoneyBook, this truly is the absolute best time to do it, because HoneyBook is currently 50% off your first year.

All you need to do to take advantage is head over to share.honeybook.com forward slash Sandra, and that will be applied to all new subscriptions. There are both monthly and annual plans available, and annual plans, as always, will save you a little bit of money on top of that. And I hate saying these words, but in this economy, we know that every little bit counts. So again, head over to share.honeybook.com forward slash Sandra to get 50% off your first year of Honeybook.

Now I used to have two cameras on each side of that harness, each with a lens on them. And one of those lenses was a 70 to 200. So we’re already adding so much more weight. And then once the reception came, there was also flashes on each of those cameras as well. So after about five, six hours of already being on my feet, and now I’m at the reception on my feet again, and I’m carrying around that much camera gear, it really starts to take an impact on your body. Even if you’re not.

really feeling it because you’re running on adrenaline and the excitement of the wedding day. So this year I actually scaled back. I switched back to just using a single camera. I do have a backup camera in my bag, but I’m actively just using one instead of having one on each hip. I also years ago decided to get a camera bag on wheels, so I’m no longer carrying everything around on my strap, so I’m no longer carrying everything around on my shoulder.

Sandra Henderson (11:08.462)
And years ago, I also bought a wagon. And if you’ve ever done a wedding with me before, you know how much I love this wagon. But it’s one of those four-wheel all-terrain wagons that you see a lot of parents using for their kids. And it is an absolute miracle on a wedding day. We can put my camera bag, my assistant’s camera bag, a cooler with water and all of our snacks and lunch and everything, light stands, tripod, jackets.

everything we could possibly need all fits inside this wagon and so my assistant and I can just wheel it around all day rather than having to move all of these bags and everything and we can just easily tuck it into a corner inside the venue so that it’s completely out of the way and not taking up too much space. I actually think I’m going to include the link to my Amazon storefront in the show notes because I got my wagon on Amazon.

and it has been with me for, I want to say maybe close to five years now. Those pandemic years really make everything a blur, but I’m pretty sure about five years now and honestly it’s one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. Another way that you can be realistic about the limitations that you have physically is just to keep an eye on the amount of time that you’re spending on your feet if that’s something that impacts you physically.

So when I’m standing around for long periods of time or if I’m walking for long periods of time, I usually start to have a lot of pain and tension in my pelvis and my lower back. And so I bought myself a pop-up stool, which you’ll also find inside that Amazon storefront I already mentioned. This stool can easily fit into that wagon. It can fit into a pocket in my camera bag. And I’m able to pop it out when I need to sit. And I just usually put it in the center aisle during the ceremony.

It’s a quite tall stool and I’m a pretty tall person as well. So when I’m sitting on this, not only am I completely unobtrusive to all of the guests, but I’m also able to still take photos from roughly the same perspective as I would if I was standing. So I’m not, you know, getting weird angles where I’m looking up everybody’s nostrils and things like that, and it’s super easy and discreet to just pop it open and then close it and pack it back up so I have seating available to me wherever I am going.

Sandra Henderson (13:21.726)
I also always carry around an ergonomic seat cushion. I have one that I’m sitting on right now that’s always in my office. I have one in my car and I have one that I bring on the go because these are an absolute game changer if you have any sort of hip, back or pelvis pain.

I highly, highly recommend getting an ergonomic seat cushion. And so I will put that on my stool if I need to, and I’ll also put that on my chair for the reception so that I am a little bit comfortable there, a little bit more comfortable there as well.

You can also put limitations on the number of hours that you’re working on a wedding day. I know a lot of photographers who put a limit on the amount of coverage that they offer at six hours because doing eight and 10 hour weddings just isn’t conducive to them physically. They won’t be able to give back to their couple in the way that the couple deserves and the way that the couple is expecting. And so that’s another really important takeaway from this. And again, driving that point home that you can do things the way that you want to.

and the way that works best for you. Every photographer might be offering six, eight, 10 hour packages, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t offer packages that look different. Earlier this year, I changed my packages to be four, six, and eight hours instead, because that’s more conducive to me, and it’s more in line with what my clients have always been looking for. And that leads me into one last takeaway. I want you to be realistic about your schedule.

We were just talking about the number of hours that you’re working on a wedding day, but what about all the other days, right? It’s super important to know what your limitations are, to set boundaries and not to overwork yourself. It is the absolute epitome of self care. For myself, in my photography business, I only do one wedding in a weekend. And if I have a wedding on a Saturday, I am not booking anything on a Sunday. Sunday is 100% a wedding hangover day for me. If I have

Sandra Henderson (15:15.298)
portrait sessions, I limit myself to three in a day, unless it’s a day of mini sessions, and then I kind of treat that as I would a wedding. So for example, this is airing in October. Next weekend, I have my fall minis coming up and I have those booked all in one day and so we’re pretending like that’s a wedding day and there’s nothing booked for the following day. Things like that are super important to me to make sure that I’m able to stick with my

post wedding and post session workflows, getting sneak peeks out, getting those galleries delivered and things like that. If I’m overworking my schedule and I am burning myself out day in and day out, then I have nothing left in me to get all of that other work done. So that is super, super important. When it comes to freeing up your schedule, I cannot recommend things like outsourcing or utilizing AI resources enough.

It’s all about working smarter and not harder. And there’s absolutely no rule, no matter what anybody tries to tell you. There is no rule that says you as the photographer physically have to be the one who does every single thing in your business. If anybody has ever told you that this is your permission to laugh at them, share some expletives, whatever you need to do.

to feel better about telling them that this is not working for you and you’re gonna just keep doing your thing. But before I carry on too much into that tangent, it’s actually what next week’s podcast topic is all about, so I’m gonna save all of that goodness for then. But to quickly recap my recommendations for self-care for wedding photographers with carotid illnesses, first was pressing pause on your day, taking a bath, whether or not you’re incorporating Epsom salts, just doing something for you that presses pause on all of the…

things is super important. If it’s accessible to you, also taking advantage of massage therapy, chiro, physiotherapy, acupuncture, and other holistic ways of treating your pain. Making sure that you’re eating properly regularly, but especially on a wedding day and having proper amounts of water. Being realistic about your limitations on your feet, on the number of hours you’re able to work, on the amount of camera gear that you’re carrying around and the impact that is putting on your body.

Sandra Henderson (17:34.206)
and being realistic about your schedule, knowing your limitations, not overworking yourself, and utilizing resources like AI and outsourcing your work so that you can work smarter instead of harder. Now, a few seconds ago, I talked about next week’s episode, and I am so excited to be joined by Sarah Monica, who is another Canadian photographer. She actually just lives a couple hours away from me, and we talked about all things outsourcing. Sarah is truly the number one person I think of when it comes to this topic,

The value that she gave in this episode is absolutely unreal. Like I don’t have the words to explain it, but she shares real numbers of what it looks like in her business before she started outsourcing and what her numbers look like now that she’s only working about 20 to 25 hours a week as a multi-business owner. Amazing, right? So if that is something that interests you, make sure you check back next Wednesday for all the goodness.

Until then, I would love to invite you to come and join the wedding photography unfiltered community on Facebook. This is a space for wedding photographers to come in, learn, support one another, and just embrace what it means to be a part of a community because that is so important as an entrepreneur is having a community that you can lean on and people to talk to who just get it.

So I would love to have you come over. You can find the link in the show notes and you can also go to facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash wedding photography unfiltered. All right friends, that’s it for me this week. I will see you next Wednesday.

Thank you so much for listening. You can find full show notes from today’s episode at simplysandryvonne.ca/keepingitcandid. In the meantime, let’s connect. You can find me on Instagram and TikTok, just search @SimplySandryYvonne. And if you’re loving this podcast, I’d be so honoured if you’d go ahead and hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Until next time.

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About Sandra

Sandra Henderson is a wedding photographer, business coach, and podcast host based in Ontario, Canada. She specializes in helping wedding photographers create strategic systems for their businesses to help them get their time back so they can spend it doing the things they love most. As an entrepreneur who also navigates chronic illness life, Sandra also takes a unique approach to using systems that will help businesses thrive no matter what life throws your way.

On a personal note, she loves tacos, 90’s music, travelling, and spending time at home with her husband, step-son, and two cats!

Instagram | Wedding Photography Unfiltered Community | Freebies

Michelle Harris joined me for a short, sweet, and incredible interview all about a problem wedding photographers everywhere deal with all the time – getting ghosted by potential wedding clients.

It’s frustrating.

It’s disheartening.

And today on the podcast Michelle and I are talking all about why it happens and what you can do about it to help improve your booking strategy before engagement season.

Sandra Henderson (00:00.318)
No matter who you are or how long you’ve been in the wedding industry, I know that this one scenario is something that every single wedding photographer can relate to. You get an inquiry and it is from a dream client. You could not be more excited. It’s the perfect venue and a couple that you think that you are going to click with perfectly. You send your pricing information. You may even have a consultation with them and then it’s crickets.

Ghosting has become a huge problem that we deal with as wedding photographers. And today I am diving into that very topic with the one and only Michelle Harris. You’re listening to episode 33 of Keeping It Candid.

(Intro Music)

Welcome to Keeping It Candid. I’m your host, Sandra Henderson, an international wedding and family photographer and business coach. I help wedding photographers use systems to build out the backend of their businesses to gain control and continue to thrive no matter what life throws their way.

And on a more personal note, I’m a strong Enneagram 3-wing two who’s obsessed with tacos. And my love for travelling combined with navigating chronic illness life are just two of the many things that drive my passion for all things, systems, workflows, and beating burnout as a business owner. Join me every week for a candid behind-the-scenes look at what it’s really like working as a wedding photographer, where I’ll give you actionable steps to take your business to the next level.

Absolutely no fluff here, friends, so go grab your favourite notebook and pen and let’s dive into this week’s episode.

(Music fades out)

Sandra Henderson (01:32.522)
That’s right, friends. Today on the podcast, I am joined by the one and only Michelle Harris. If you have not heard of Michelle Harris, then you may have been living under a rock for the last few years, but she is a destination wedding photography industry leader based in Washington, DC and is renowned for her expertise in couples posing. Her exceptional skills have garnered features in prestigious industry publications like Martha Stewart Weddings, People Magazine, and The New York Times and her unwavering dedication to inspire and empower photographers worldwide drives her passion to help them achieve six-figure businesses through innovative marketing strategies and advanced photography techniques, all while avoiding the burnout of a relentless hustle.

So you can see that Michelle and I, our vibes totally align. I’ve had the pleasure of taking some of her workshops, both online and in person, and let me tell you guys, you’re going to have so many takeaways from this conversation.

Like I was saying earlier, ghosting is something that’s happening more and more in the industry and it can be really frustrating and disheartening. I know all of you are pouring your hearts and souls into the business that you’re running and so it’s frustrating when you don’t hear back from people, especially when you’re just really excited about the potential of working with them. So that’s why I was so excited to dive into this topic with Michelle.

She and I talked about some of the main reasons why people are ghosting their wedding photographers and other wedding vendors that they’re reaching out to. And we talked a little bit more about things you can do in your business to make sure that this is happening less. We both agreed that it’s something that you really can’t prevent from happening altogether, but there are definitely steps that you can take in your business to make sure it’s happening less and give you a little bit more success in your booking strategy.

I don’t know if maybe we’re just more aware of it now or if it really is happening a lot more than it used to, but photographers everywhere, we’re getting ghosted all of the time by our clients. And I would love to hear from your perspective, what do you think is like the biggest reason that keeps happening to wedding photographers?

Michelle Harris:
Well, I do think that it is something that is getting more and more popular because I feel like people are reaching out to more and more photographers before making a decision as of late. I also feel like people are planning their weddings a little bit on the shorter range because of COVID. I think they’re scared to plan things too far out. That is the main reason why they’re like, okay, let me just inquire with a whole bunch of different photographers and then whichever ones we can’t afford or we don’t like, they just don’t say anything. And I think it’s just because nobody really wants to admit that they can’t afford something. Like it never feels good. So I feel like that’s the number one reason is because they literally either can’t afford it or like something else has a little bit more value for the same price, whatever it is, it’s typically price. All based on, excuse me, it is all based on the fact that they don’t wanna have that negative feeling where they have to say, hey, I can’t afford you.

Sandra Henderson:
Yeah, that’s such a good point. And then I always feel like too, in the times that I have had to have that conversation and being like, sorry, this is out of my budget. I worry that people are gonna like counter it. And I don’t wanna have to have like a back and forth. So I think that possibly comes into play as well for these couples too.

Michelle Harris:
Absolutely, because I mean, it’s just not a good feeling. You might even just say, hey, you know, we just decided to go with another photographer due to budget. And then when the photographer says, says something back, then they’re going to be like, oh, well, maybe it really wasn’t price. We won’t really know, but it’s just going to make everybody uncomfortable. So they just won’t say anything. Yeah, that is so true. So what do you think are some ways that photographers can stop this from happening? Do you think that’s even possible? Do you think that it’s just kind of something we have to embrace as part of the job now? Well, I mean, I do. It’s definitely not possible to just eliminate ghosting.

Sandra Henderson:
Yeah, I agree.

Michelle Harris:
It’s just what it is to respond to everyone. But I do think the number one way to avoid that is by getting your clients on the phone as soon as possible. So not just saying, oh, send an email back immediately saying, let’s get on the phone and do this. It’s calling them. Because if you have a problem with any company, if your internet goes out and you’re calling Verizon and you’re like, hey, my internet is out. We go online and you say, hey, my internet is out. What’s going on? If someone picks up the phone and calls you, you’re gonna be ecstatic because someone cared enough to solve your problem. That’s what clients are having. They have a problem. Their problem is they need photography. So they go and they say, hey, I’m getting married on this date, can you help me with this? And the first person to pick up the phone and call them is gonna stand out over anybody else. And it’s really that simple.

It doesn’t matter how great your email template is, it is not going to make you stand out over someone who actually had a genuine connection on the phone with somebody.

Sandra Henderson:
Yeah, that’s one thing that I’ve always loved in following your education and things that you teach other photographers is how you push this connection over the phone. I think it’s so different from what everybody else is teaching. So why do you think it is that it works so well?

Michelle Harris:
Just because we want everything now. Okay, like we want to order things online and we want it like in our hand immediately. Like as soon as you press the button, we want it. Now we’ll wait a day or two now, because we’re spoiled. We can’t film that fast. But like ultimately we want everything when we want it. So the faster you can respond to an inquiry, which is all different types of different studies out there saying like, you know, if you get to them within an hour or 30 minutes or whatever, that they are more likely to go with you.

and that’s just talking about email or any other way that you respond. But when you have a personal touch, which is very rare nowadays, actually genuinely connect with a human, then it’s definitely gonna make you stand out.

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Sandra Henderson:
Yeah, that is so true. And do you think that there’s any benefit to the way that you’re reaching out to them? Like should photographers be just making that phone call? Do you think reaching out by text to set up a time works best? Do you think there’s any like right way to approach it?

Michelle Harris:
I mean, I don’t think there’s a right way for anything, because there’s a million ways to do all the things. Yeah. But I’ve found that picking up the phone and just calling them, step one, is already exactly where you need to go. But if they don’t answer, don’t leave a voicemail, because nobody likes voicemails. Nobody likes having to listen to a voicemail. So at that point, you can text them and say who you are and that you tried to give them a call. And you can either try to set up a phone call within that text message, or you can say Look out for an email that I sent in response with all of the things that you asked for, whatever, depending on all the information you collect in your contact form.

Sandra Henderson:
I love that because it really gives you an opportunity to show the couple that you’re actually reading the things that they’re putting in their inquiry, and they’re actually not just another faceless couple to you.

Michelle Harris:
Right. I mean, and that is why I think it’s so important to make sure that you have certain questions on your contact form so that you don’t have to ask them.

So like a lot of people just have names and then email or message or something like that. But if you have both of their names, if nothing else, you have both of their names, you can at least call them and say, hey, it’s so-and-so, I’m calling for so-and-so. And then when you start the conversation, oh, how did you and so-and-so meet? Cause you have their names. So that’s already like a little bit more personal and just helps you connect with them faster really would help, I think, build into that know trust factor that we’re all achieving or striving for in our businesses, that chance to just kind of have a quick little chat. And again, just letting them know you actually read their inquiry, they’re like, oh, this person actually, we can trust them to pay attention to those little details.

Sandra Henderson:
Absolutely. So do you think that when you’re able to make these connections over the phone as the couple is first inquiring that it’s still important to have in-person consultations down the road?

Michelle Harris:
I personally don’t. I mean, my in-person consultation down the road is engagement session. Yeah. And then the wedding. And then if you want to do in-person after, then yeah. But I mean, it’s just the day and age right now. Like people are not wanting to get in their car and drive somewhere and go speak to people when they know that they could right after making dinner, sit down and turn on Zoom and talk to somebody. Yeah, that’s so true. A lot changed after COVID. We realized how easy it is to connect virtually and how not everything is completely lost if you don’t meet someone in person.

Sandra Henderson (10:36.518)
Oh, that is such a good point. I can’t remember the last time I had an in-person consultation. I give people the option, but they all just want to hop on Zoom. And I am totally fine with that because I’m in my house. I can just roll on upstairs, put a nice shirt on, and we’re good to go.

Michelle Harris:
Absolutely. I mean, and then it’s really easy. When you’re on Zoom or Skype or whatever anyone’s using, you can easily share your screen and show them different galleries or walk them through your price guide, different things like that.

So I mean, with the technology we have, I don’t personally think that it is a big deal to me in person, because you can absolutely feel someone’s energy and their vibe through the computer.

Sandra Henderson:
Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with that. Well, that really was short and sweet, but covers all the questions that I had. Do you think that there are any, like if listeners are gonna take one thing away from this episode that they’re gonna apply to their business as soon as they are done? What would you hope that one takeaway is for them?

Michelle Harris:
It would actually be something right before we get to the point where you pick up the phone. So I have a lot of photographers, there’s a lot of different information out there where they say, oh, well, someone told me to put all of my pricing on my website. Someone told me to just put my starting price on my website. Anywhere you look, you can find different advice for that.

I personally believe that you should put your starting price or average price, either one or both, choice is yours. But the most important place to put it is right above your contact form. Because people may go to the investment page that you have set up somewhere, or you may have it in a dropdown that they didn’t click. And you’re like, how did they not know how much I cost? I have the investment page. Well, they didn’t go. Because in 2023, your Instagram is your portfolio. So people meet you, they’re like, Hey, what’s your Instagram? Not what’s your website. And so they’ve already seen your work. They’ve already maybe even gotten to know you a little bit like virtually, and then they clicked on your website. They’re probably just going to go to the contact page. Yeah. And so if they just go there and you don’t have Hey, I start here or my average, you know, collections are this, and then they fill it out. You’re way more likely to get ghosted because they had no idea where you started and just filled it out. And then when you start at 5,000 and their budget’s 1,500, they’re not gonna respond because there’s no meeting in the middle. If somebody only has 1,500, the likelihood that they’re just all of a sudden gonna have five is relatively low. So they’re gonna feel uncomfortable and they’re going to not respond most likely. So if you have that right above there, they’re not going to fill it out. So like, yes, it’s our job to show value in what we do and maybe upsell them from where we start.

But it is not our job to get someone to triple or quadruple their budget because they inquired. So that’s my take on that. That’s such a good point. And I think it helps to just have that information. It feels redundant to us, but we have to remember you brought up that good point. If it’s on the investment page and that’s the only place that they can find it, there’s a high likelihood that they’re not going to see it. And so when you have it in all of these places…

It attracts the people that you want. It repels the people that are not going to be able to afford you and helps eliminate that ghosting factor too. Yeah, because I mean, not having it on there at all, no matter where you are, like where you start, can be problematic. So, and another colleague of mine, we started exactly the same, but he did not have his starting price on there. And he’s like really, really popular on Instagram and things like that. He’s like two or three times the amount that I have. And so this girl inquired and she was like, hey, I’m inquiring because I know that I can’t afford him. And, you know, made some sort of joke, but like, here I am, you know, inquiring with you. And I’m like, we’re the same price. Yeah. I was saying nothing. But like that just deterred her because she was too afraid to have to have that awkward conversation of I can’t. So she avoided it all together and inquired with me because it says where I start.

Sandra Henderson:
Yeah, that’s so true. I would totally be the same as her in that situation for sure. If you don’t even realize how many people don’t value themselves, so they may have a lower price than you could have afforded, but we’ll never know. You never know, right?

Sandra Henderson:
Yeah, exactly. Those are such great points. Well, thank you so much for that. And I have one final question. That’s just a little kind of like fun would you rather question.

Sandra Henderson (15:20.135)
So I was wondering would you rather book a local wedding at your highest package or book a dream wedding at your lowest package?

Michelle Harris:
That is so hard. That’s insane. I wanna say my highest package down the street from my house. Yeah. But I think that comes with me having done this for eight years now. I’d rather just make a lot of money and go home. I can take some of that money and go travel to wherever that dream wedding would have been. Right. But I mean, I know a couple of years ago, if you’d asked me, hands down, it’d have been the destination, but it all just depends… definitely close to home.

Sandra Henderson:
Yeah, I have to agree with you. Like I love to travel. I love destination weddings, but it is so nice when I only have a five-minute drive home from a wedding at the end of the day.

Michelle Harris:
I mean, people don’t realize how much extra work it is and more often than not, how much more you sweat. And all of the things that come with it, it looks glamorous maybe on social media, but it’s like, oh, we’re gonna do it on the beach. Like, yeah, you’re sweaty and covered in sand and it’s disgusting.

The pictures will be great though! It’s not that fun sometimes.

Sandra Henderson:
No. I don’t know if this happens to you, but it seems when I do destination weddings in the tropics that the hottest day of my week is the wedding day. Without fail. Every single time.

Michelle Harris:
100%. That is always how it’s going to go. You gotta be mentally prepared for that or stay home.

Sandra Henderson:
Yeah, for sure. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Michelle. This was amazing. All of these tips were incredible. I know they’re going to be so helpful to listeners. So thank you so much. And I hope that our paths cross again one day soon.

Michelle Harris:
Girl, they better.

Sandra Henderson:
We love a short, sweet and powerful interview around here. And this conversation with Michelle was just that. We aren’t very far away from engagement season right now, which means booking season is just around the corner too.

Sandra Henderson (17:20.698)
I hope that you got some takeaways from this interview that you can use to make this the best booking season that it can be. Now if you want to hear more from Michelle, there are a couple places that I want you to go and check out. First, the M. Harris Education Community on Facebook. I have been in Michelle’s communities on Facebook for years now and they are such a friendly community to be in where people just genuinely are there to help and support each other and cheer each other on and that is 1000% my vibe so I highly recommend going to check that out.

And then the next place is the Hustle Vault, which is Michelle’s monthly membership. And this is filled with so much education in terms of posing, client experience, running your business, so many things. So if that’s something that interests you, head over to the show notes and you will find links for both the community and for the Hustle Vault in there. Now next week on the podcast, I am gonna be back to talk all about self-care practices for wedding photographers with chronic illnesses.

It’s a topic that’s near and dear to my heart because it’s something that I deal with day in and day out. Whether you also have a chronic illness or if you are a parent or a caregiver, have a full-time job or any other sort of responsibilities that takes you away from the business that you’re running, this is an episode that I think is going to be so valuable for you. Especially heading into October, they say that October is sweating photographers what April is to accountants.

In my experience, that couldn’t be more true. So this is the time of year that I really, really like to drive home the importance of self-care and taking time out for yourself as a business owner. As I was recording this, I almost started going off on a whole tangent because I’m just so passionate about it. But I’m going to save all of that for next week’s episode. So make sure you check back next Wednesday.

Thank you so much for listening. You can find full show notes from today’s episode at simplysandryvonne.ca/keepingitcandid. In the meantime, let’s connect. You can find me on Instagram and TikTok, just search @SimplySandryYvonne. And if you’re loving this podcast, I’d be so honoured if you’d go ahead and hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Until next time.

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About Michelle

Michelle Harris, a destination wedding photography industry leader based in Washington, DC, is renowned for her expertise in couple’s posing. Her exceptional skills have garnered features in prestigious industry publications like Martha Stewart Weddings, People Magazine, and The New York Times. Michelle’s unwavering dedication to inspire and empower photographers worldwide drives her passion to help them achieve six-figure businesses through innovative marketing strategies and advanced photography techniques, all while avoiding the burnout of a relentless hustle.

Instagram | M Harris Education Community | Freebies | The Hustle Vault

Sandra Henderson (00:00.318)
It feels so surreal to be saying these words, but we are officially back for season two of Keeping It Candid.

(Intro Music)

Welcome to Keeping It Candid. I’m your host, Sandra Henderson, an international wedding and family photographer and business coach. I help wedding photographers use systems to build out the back end of their businesses to gain control and continue to thrive no matter what life throws their way. And on a more personal note, I’m a strong Enneagram three-wing two who’s obsessed with tacos, and my love for travelling combined with navigating chronic illness life are just two of the many things that drive my passion for all things, systems, workflows, and beating burnout as a business owner. Join me every week for a candid behind-the-scenes look at what it’s really like working as a wedding photographer, where I’ll give you actionable steps to take your business to the next level. Absolutely no fluff here, friends! So go grab your favorite notebook and pen and let’s dive into this week’s episode.

(Music fades)

Sandra Henderson (00:56.15)
Now, if you’re new around here, I want to take a quick second to introduce myself. My name is Sandra Henderson. I am a wedding and family photographer, a systems expert, and your host of Keeping It Candid. We’re back for season two, like I mentioned, and this year it is going to be even better than ever. If you’re a podcast listener, I’m sure you hear that all the time. I know people are always saying it, but I promise you around here, I really mean it.

Last year, I was just winging it. I was having fun. I was showing up messy and just trying to learn all the ins and outs of what it means to have a podcast and be a podcast host. And I loved every second of it. But this year or this season, I wanna show up a little less messy. I wanna have a little more fun and things are going to be way more unfiltered than they were last season. But before we dive into all the goodness that is coming along in the next few months, let’s take a quick second to catch up.

Since May, it has been wedding season up here in Canada. I have had weddings on the go. I’ve had many sessions on the go. I ran the beta round of my very first boot camp program for wedding photographers, and that was absolutely amazing. I’ve launched a ton of freebies and a ton of new services, including VIP days, HoneyBook housekeeping, HoneyBook moving day account setups, and so much more. I’ve really loved diving into.

just different ways that I can serve other wedding photographers to help them take some of the work off their plate and just make running a business a little bit easier for them. It has been amazing and I didn’t ever think I would be able to find something that I love to do as much as I love photography. And I’m so happy to have proven myself wrong with this. So if I’ve had the chance to work with you over the last few months, I wanna give you a huge thank you for being a part of that because without you then I wouldn’t have found this new love.

On the personal side of things, my stepson turned 16 in June and he’s learning how to drive. So I have decided to start researching retirement homes because I feel like that is essentially the next step that is happening at this point. Because I’m pretty sure I blinked and he turned from 2 to 16. So now the next time I blink, that logic says that I will be moving into a nursing home. So.

Sandra Henderson (03:12.63)
That’s kind of how things are feeling here. I’m feeling a little old these days, but I have to say, I like I’m gonna knock on wood as I say this, but raising a teenager has been the total opposite of what I expected it to be. Now he is only 16. We’re not out of the woods yet. We’ve still got a few years left to go, but so far it has just been so much fun having him a little bit older and watching him just

grow into his personality and figure out who he is and starting to develop a style and things like that. It has been awesome. So I’m really enjoying that aside from the part where I feel so old. Now for my husband, Matt, for anybody who doesn’t know back in 2021, he was diagnosed with type two diabetes. And since then he has been working so hard to take control of his health. And we were so excited to find out that he has gotten his

blood sugar levels back down to pre-diabetic levels and is officially on his way to remission. So that is super exciting and I’m so proud of him for all the work that he’s done to just make things better for himself. And then for me, if you are a new listener, you may not know this already, but if you have been following along for a while, you know that I have stage four endometriosis. We are a household of chronic illnesses around here.

I finally got in to see a new specialist for endometriosis back in July and I had been waiting for about two years for this appointment so I was really happy when it finally came. We are on a new management plan right now and that I am not taking any sort of medication or hormone for symptom management. We are trying to get my body back down to a baseline to see exactly what’s going on and to help prepare us to go in for another surgery hopefully in 2024.

It has not been a fun time going off all these medications. They were all hormone medications. And if you’ve ever had to take hormone medications yourself or if you’ve ever had your hormones go completely out of whack, you know, it’s not easy. It’s not the same as like when we were going through puberty and things like that. Like there’s definitely similarities, but it’s a little different. There was a lot of sleepless nights. There was a lot of days where I just haven’t felt like myself, but.

Sandra Henderson (05:33.482)
It’s getting better and better each day. And when it comes to my health, I’m always fine to do things and to push past hurdles if it means that we’re working towards something bigger and that’s what we are doing now. So it’s just kind of a pain in the ass that we have to get through, but it’ll be worth it just to prepare to go in for another surgery down the road. So that’s kind of.

a little update of what’s been going on over the spring and summer months since season one of the podcast ended. Now I mentioned at the beginning of this that season two is going to be so much better than season one was. So I want to give you a little bit of a sneak peek of what you can expect. So I already said that we are going to be more unfiltered, we’re going to have so much fun along the way. And one way that I’m going to be doing that is that I am ditching the script.

In season one, I definitely typed up my episodes ahead of time, aside from the interviews, but when it was just me talking, I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what I was going to say, exactly how I wanted to say it, and wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss a thing. And I loved it. I think that it all went really well. But I want the episodes where I don’t have a guess to be just as conversational as the ones that do.

So this year I am ditching the script and let me tell you guys, I am so freaking nervous about this. I have a feeling that I am going to be doing a lot more editing than I ever did last year, but I think it’s gonna be worth it. And so speaking of those interviews, some of the guests that we have lined up, I’m not gonna tell you who they are, but some of the topics that you can expect for us to be talking more about.

We’re going to be talking about using AI for your business. We’re going to be talking about consistency and marketing, accessibility in the wedding industry. And of course, all the workflow strategies and tips for your systems processes of automations that you could ever need, because that hasn’t changed at all since the last season. I am still your systems obsessed bestie. And I want to share all the ways that you can just make work easier for yourself as a wedding photographer.

Sandra Henderson (07:49.09)
So this season you can still expect weekly episodes every Wednesday. Last season they were released every Tuesday. Well, I shouldn’t say every Tuesday because like I said, I was kind of just winging it and having fun. And so the episodes definitely did not drop every Tuesday. But this year they will be coming out every Wednesday. And if you’re looking for a little bit more in between those episodes, I would love to invite you to come over to the wedding photography unfiltered community on Facebook to hang out there.

It’s been a little bit quiet during busy season because I honestly just didn’t have the time. I had a lot of editing and things like that on the go. A lot of other things going on personally that I had to take care of. And so it’s been a little bit quiet in there, but things are going to be picking back up again now that fall is here. And I know that you are going to love this space as much as I do. If you’re all about community and all about learning from one another and supporting one another and just making the wedding photography industry a better place, then

this group is 100% for you, head over to facebook.com forward slash groups, forward slash wedding photography unfiltered and come and join because we would love to have you there. Okay friends, those are all of my updates. We are gonna be back next week with our very first guest, the one and only Michelle Harris, join me to talk about the number one reason why people are getting ghosted by potential wedding inquiries and what you can be doing to fix the problem.

something that I know I go through all the time. And so I know that other photographers are definitely gonna be able to relate. So if that’s something that you need a little help with as we head into this year’s engagement season, then definitely make sure you check back next Wednesday and I will have all of that goodness ready for you on whatever your favorite podcast player is. And then what kind of podcast host would I be if I didn’t take a quick second to ask if you could head over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review for keeping it candid.

It means so much to me to have your support and to hear what you have to say about the show. You will find the link in my show notes or you can just type Keeping It Candid into your favorite podcast player. Okay friends, I am gonna wrap things up here. This went so well as I was recording without a script and just some notes to go by. We’ll see how I feel about it once I get started with editing. But welcome back and thank you so much again for being here.

(Outro Music)

Sandra Henderson (10:10.094)

Thank you so much for listening. You can find full show notes from today’s episode at simplysandrayvonne.ca/keepingitcandid. In the meantime, let’s connect. You can find me on Instagram and TikTok just search @simplysandrayvonne. And if you’re loving this podcast, I’d be so honoured if you’d go ahead and hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Until next time!

(Music fades)

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About Sandra

Sandra Henderson is a wedding photographer, business coach, and podcast host based in Ontario, Canada. She specializes in helping wedding photographers create strategic systems for their businesses to help them get their time back so they can spend it doing the things they love most. As an entrepreneur who also navigates chronic illness life, Sandra also takes a unique approach to using systems that will help businesses thrive no matter what life throws your way.

On a personal note, she loves tacos, 90’s music, travelling, and spending time at home with her husband, stepson, and two cats!

Website | Instagram | TikTok | WPU Community