PhotoSpark

Join host, Julie Ferneau for candid conversation about all things photography and business. Talks about networking, workflow, client relationships and so much more. Not afraid to share the ups and downs of entrepreneurship and help you tackle yours. Incredible guests and experts join in while giving you tips & tricks to help get you through the year and level up in your business.

Episode 122: Diversity, Inclusivity, & Allyship 06/17/2020

Episode 121: PhotoSpark Updates & What's To Come! 06/10/2020

Episode 120: Front Porch Sessions- Do or Don't? 04/04/2020

Coronavirus Series PART 2- Contracts, communication, & cash flow 03/19/2020

Coronavirus Series PART 1- Survival Tips for Photographers 03/18/2020

BONUS EPISODE: Website launch & rapid fire questions w/ Julie! 03/04/2020

Episode 117: Surviving WPPI 2020 02/24/2020

Episode 116: Beach Photography with Amy Gray 01/15/2020

Episode 115: Prepping for 2020 12/04/2019

Episode 114: Website Copy for Photographers with Rachel Greiman 11/22/2019

Episode 113: The Best Time to Rebrand (Featuring Launch Your Daydream!) 11/06/2019

Episode 112: The Do's & Don'ts of Second Shooting 07/31/2019

Episode 111: Growing Your Instagram Following 06/26/2019

Episode 111: Growing Your Instagram Following If you've been in business for awhile, you'll know how often marketing methods change. When I first started, search engines were really the only way people would find your business. If you weren't paying for advertising, chances are you were struggling a bit. Then Facebook added business pages and that became the new place to be to nab new clients. Now, Instagram seems to be the way to go! Is anyone else here having a hard time growing your Instagram following? Julie & I have been working on upping our Instagram game lately (have you noticed?? Be sure to !) & couldn't help but notice friend of the show Melissa McClure's amazingly successful Instagram account. This girl has 11.2k followers and gets HUNDREDS of likes and comments on her posts. We invited her to join us for a chat about growing your Instagram following! Key Takeaways Follow & Observe. Follow accounts that are doing what you want to be doing. Watch what they do! When do they post? How often do they post? What are their captions like? What type of content seems to be getting engagement? If you can watch and emulate your favorite accounts, you'll likely be on the right track to growing your Instagram following too! Quality over quantity. The most important aspect of Instagram is engagement. You want to have a LOT of likes and comments, and ideally you want to spark conversations in your comment section. Be sure to reply to every single comment you receive; that DOUBLES your comment number just by itself! DMs also count as engagement, so be sure you're messaging people back when they message you. You should also be messaging others... introduce yourself & let them know what you like about their content! Make sure your captions are fun & add calls to action... it's the best way to get people to comment! Get over your fear of stories & just do them already! We get it... stories are SCARY. The best stories usually involve other people seeing your face, and that's something most of us are terrified of. Do we have enough makeup on? Is our hair done? Are we a sweaty mess after a 10 hour wedding? NONE of those things matter... what matters is people seeing YOU & getting to know you beyond your images. Stories are a great way for potential & current clients to see glimpses into your personal life and they DON'T CARE if you have makeup on. In fact, the more real you come across, the better! Melissa has about 30 million more amazing tips during this episode regarding everything from hashtags to sketchy ways to grow your Instagram following, and more. Be sure to tune in to hear the rest! Also, be sure to check out Melissa at as well as . And if you haven't heard her previous episodes, you can find them here: /episode/index/show/photosparkshow/id/10302122

Episode 110: Legally Launched 06/05/2019

Episode 109: Creating More Revenue via Client Gifting & Upselling 05/29/2019

Episode 108: Julie's Destination Wedding Travel Nightmare 05/11/2019

Episode 107: Getting the most out of styled shoots 04/24/2019

Episode 107: Getting the most out of styled shoots What's more fun than a styled shoot? You not only get to take pretty pictures, but you get to meet new vendors, and basically design your ideal shoot! We always preach showing off what you want to shoot more of, and this is a GREAT way to do it! Sarah Kay Love joins us on today's episode! Sarah is a Creative Consultant, specializing in content strategy and digital marketing, devoted to helping companies build brands that differentiate themselves and increase business. She chats with us today about ALL things styled shoots, especially how to set them up, WHY to set them up, and how to get the most out of them! Here are a few of our favorite takeaways from this episode. Styled shoots help build vendor relationships: If your business comes through a large amount of referrals, this is ideal way to connect with industry leaders and gain recognition and make friends! It's also a great way to get to know the people you'll likely be working on future weddings with. You want to make the process as easy as possible for them, so we suggest explaining the expectations of the shoot clearly beforehand, as well as making the file delivery/download process quick & easy as well. If you're easy to work with, they're likely to refer you to their clients in the future! Market towards your ideal client: Again, this goes back to showing what you want to shoot. For example, setting up a high-end styled shoot will help you get into the high-end wedding market. It will give you a plethora of awesome images for your Instagram & blog, which will help you attract the right type of client. If you're wanting to go for more boho weddings, setting up a boho-themed shoot will attract that type of client. Basically, a styled shoot is a great way to showcase the type of work you want. Exposure! Ok normally "exposure" is a bad word in our industry. People often ask us for free stuff in exchange for exposure. Usually, that's not going to help you a ton, and we have always advised against it. However! Doing a styled shoot will get you in front of potential clients; they can see that your work reflects exactly the aesthetic they're looking for. It will also increase your SEO as you're tagging & being tagged by multiple vendors on Instagram, blog posts, etc. Styled shoots are also a great for publications. Focus on making your shoot as attractive & unique as possible, so it really stands out to publications. /episode/index/show/photosparkshow/id/9518120

Episode 106: 5 ways to update your website TODAY 04/10/2019

Episode 105: It's not always sunshine & butterflies... 03/20/2019

Episode 105: It's not always sunshine & butterflies... One of the hardest parts about running your own business and not having co-workers is the lack of water cooler conversation. We don't really have anyone we can vent to or ask advice from on a daily basis unless we connect with other photographers who understand! While we all LOVE our jobs, I'm sure, there are definitely times where it's not all rainbows & butterflies. In this episode, Julie & Kate commiserate a little about some of the less awesome parts of our jobs and common photographer pet peeves. We chat about frustrations & we help each other solve issues & work toward preventing them in the future! Here's just a quick sneak peek at some of the stuff we chat about on today's episode! "Reasonably priced" photo shoot seekers: I'm sure we've ALL received inquiries looking for a reasonably priced photographer. What does that even MEAN?! Do we cave in and give a discount if we're desperate enough?! The correct answer, of course, is NO... but when we receive these emails it can at times be tempting to negotiate with people. The solution to this is to make sure we know our value by figuring out our cost of doing business, goal-setting, and deciding how much our time is worth, and then stick to your guns!! Crickets upon file delivery: What's worse than delivering a gallery to a client and never hearing back?! NOTHING! It sucks! If you're anything like me, it makes you question whether or not they're happy with the photos, which in turn can make you question your talent & your work. Here's the thing... most people are really busy. They might not think that they need to reply. They know your work is good & they hired you because of it. They're going to assume that YOU know your work is good, and they don't need to tell you so. The solution? Reach out & follow up with past clients! Pop into their inbox & tell them you want to check in & make sure they received their gallery/prints/album and everything is good! This is a great way to tie your session up with a bow & ensure they have a good feeling about their shoot! Taking the blame for situations out of your control: Dad's late getting home from work, traffic on the way to the shoot is horrible, & baby spit up on their outfit, and by the time they arrive at their shoot, everyone is stressed beyond belief. And now it's up to you to take the reins and wrangle everyone into some awesome photos. There's only so much you can do. It's certainly frustrating when this happens, but you really want to do your best to manage expectations before the shoot even starts. Tell them about anything they need to know about the location (dog poop, flies, sand, etc). Try to emphasize the importance of picking outfits ahead of time & leaving work early... anything you can do to manage the stress of photo shoot day for your clients. "Can we just get like... ONE photo tomorrow for our Christmas cards/birthday invites/business card?" Nope. Hahaha, basically that's the gist of it. The best way to handle this situation is to have a rush policy/fee. Something like "gallery will be delivered within 48 hours for X amount of money," Make it high enough that most clients won't want to pay it (because it's definitely stressful), but high enough that if they DO pay it, it's worth it for you. We have a few more points in our vent sesh/brainstorming sesh, so be sure to tune into the episode. You can listen by clicking the link below. Be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes as well! Hugs, & /episode/index/show/photosparkshow/id/9083741

Episode 104: Profit for Keeps with Amber Dugger 03/06/2019

Episode 103: Niching Down with Launch Your Daydream 02/06/2019

Episode 102: How to manage anxiety 01/24/2019

Episode 101: Email Organization 101 01/09/2019

Episode 100: What we've learned over the past 100 episodes 12/26/2018

Episode 100: What we've learned over the past 100 episodes This is a SUPER exciting and important episode you guys! We're all sorts of celebrating today! This is our 100th episode which is SO incredible. Of course we're poppin' bottles for that one... We're doubling up the poppin' because it's Julie's birthday week. She is celebrating her New Years Eve birthday this year from Paris and she couldn't be more excited. She'll be sure to Instagram story the heck out of her trip so be sure to follow along @julieferneau. She's been known to pop ALL the bottles on her birthday. And the 3rd thing we're celebrating today is the early arrival of Kate's baby! She was born on Christmas Eve and she is truly perfect in every way! When we get photos we'll be sure to share them. Stay tuned for that! This is also the last episode of 2018. Let's talk about how fast the year went. It flew by so we're take a dive back into the past episodes and sharing 10 of our favorite tips that changed our businesses throughout the year. Favorite Tip 1 Erin Brant of was a guest on . She taught us to prioritize play over posing during photo shoots which is her wheelhouse. Her style is very candid, playful and fun. Favorite Tip 2 Meghan Brown of joined us on and shared so many valuable tips on getting published. A few of our reasons to get published are: Julie has now been published - which is a big deal for her! It establishes Credibility The backlinks from other blogs help your SEO You have additional things to share on social media. Who doesn't love getting published!? People love seeing themselves on blogs. Favorite Tip 3: Tracy Petrucci of shared a wealth of knowledge in all about social media. One of the biggest takeaways was that Twitter has a big effect on SEO. Favorite Tip 4: with taught us to show what you want to book. Her episode was all about the modern couple. We as photographers and other creatives need to showcase and feature diversity on your website if you want to book more. Favorite Tip 5: is a LInkedIn expert. She was our guest and she served up bite-sized tips for us. With 460 MILLION people on LinkedIn, we listened up. Update your LinkedIn account right now by updating your headshot, bio and making sure you have a well-established page. Favorite Tip 6: Going way back to this oldie but goodie to , with Melissa Mitchell of Melissa & Co where she dished out so many SEO tips, you have to go listen! It's a good one, we promise! BONUS: What we've learned over the the past 100 episodes: Done is better than perfect Sound quality does matter If we curse and offend someone, it's ok- 37 Setting a set recording schedule works and setting boundaries Planning meetings are essential Change will happen - embrace it We want to thank each and every one of you for listening and being a part of our family over the last 100 episodes! You are the best and give us the motivation to move forward and continuing this incredible podcast ride. Here's to the next 100 episodes friends! XO, Julie & Kate /episode/index/show/photosparkshow/id/8035835

Episode 99: Creating an Overwhelm-Smashing Marketing Plan 12/12/2018

Episode 98: Business Entities with Braden Drake 11/28/2018

Episode 97: Six ways your business can run itself during the holidays 11/14/2018

Episode 96: 10 Things We Wish We Knew When We Started 10/31/2018

Episode 96: 10 Things We Wish We Knew When We Started Ok... I don't know about YOU guys, but there are DEFINITELY some things I have learned in the past ten (TEN!) years of running a photography business that I wish I knew when I started. We were chatting about these randomly last week and decided there's no better topic for our podcast! Whether you're a veteran photographer or just starting out, there are always changes you can implement in your business... it's NEVER too late! In our episode, we talk about TEN things we wish we knew when we started our photography business, but in the interest of keeping our blogs brief, we're just going to list our top five here. Tune in to Episode 96 to hear more! FIVE things we wish we knew when we started our photography business: Blogging really IS that important: Keeping your blog up to date is not only important for SEO purposes, but it also makes sure that potential clients can see that you're A) still in business and B) have your sh*t together (pardon my french!). Kate chooses to batch blog... she saves up images from each shoot in a folder on her computer & does a week of intensive blogging every 3-4 months or so. She post-dates if needed so blogs look consistent, and pre-dates posts for the months to come, to get her to her next batch blog date. It's easier for her than sitting down to blog on a daily or weekly basis, and still looks pretty consistent on her website! Be legit from the get-go: We mean this!! Get your business license, ficticious business name, DBA ("doing business as" registration), insurance, etc. File your taxes. PAY YOUR TAXES. Even better, SAVE money for your taxes!! Research locations you want to shoot in and see if they require a permit. Setting yourself up to be a 100% legitimate business as SOON as possible will not only relieve stress from your life, it will save you from penalties, and potentially losing your business. It will also garner respect from other, established photographers. Do this NOW if you haven't yet! It's not that hard!! Cut things you don't enjoy shooting: So simple, and yet so hard to actually do. Figure out your niche! Stop being a wedding/graduation/family/newborn/pet/red carpet/fashion/real estate/product photographer. Find what you love & what you're naturally good at and roll with it! Life is too short to spend time doing things you don't enjoy. The best part of running your own business is having the ability to eliminate stuff you don't want to do. So just do it already! Be consistent on social media: Post on Instagram daily. Share your favorite sessions on Facebook. Make sure you're reminding your clients that you're alive, and ensure that they see your recent work. There's nothing more sketchy than visitng a photographer's social media only to see they haven't posted in 2 years. Are they still in business? Are they still any good?! You have no idea because they haven't been consistent on social media. This is huge & important. You can even hire someone for this if you really aren't good at it. Invest in education over equipment: Nothing is more exciting than walking into a camera shop with $2k in your hand ready to spend on a new fancy lens. But at the end of the day, if you're not investing time (and possibly money) in education & learning HOW to run a business, it's not going to matter how pretty that lens makes your clients look, because you aren't going to have any. YouTube, CreativeLive, and podcasts are just a few avenues of FREE education in our photography world; you just have to invest the time. And there are a million other PAID education opportunities to jump on as well: workshops, mentoring sessions, online courses... it's SO worth your time and money to invest in learning both the technical and the business side of running your business! We hope you liked this quick recap of our episode... please tune in to hear us elaborate more on these topics & hear 5 MORE things we wish we knew when we started! /episode/index/show/photosparkshow/id/7365416

Episode 95: Let It Go, Let It Go! 10/17/2018

Episode 95: Let It Go, Let It Go! Hellllooooo listeners! This episode is a doozy! I'm NOT going to give away the big announcement here; you have to listen to the episode. But let's chat a bit about letting things GO & reducing workload. As business owners, we have to constantly be assessing whether or not things we are doing are right for us. This could be everything from niches of photography we're specializing in, to how we run our businesses, to side hustles, to personal projects. There's nothing worse than expending energy on something that isn't beneficial to us in some way. These decisions can be really hard. Sometimes we don't feel like letting go is the "right" thing to do, but when your gut is telling you that something isn't working anymore, it's very important to listen to that and explore it further. This episode is all about us letting go of things that aren't beneficial to us anymore. Whether it's due to extra stress, or it's just something we aren't interested in, the three of us chat about things we've had to let go, both in our business & personal lives. Here are some questions to ask yourself when you're dealing with a tough situation, and facing the possibility of letting something go. Is this benefitting me financially? At the end of the day, if you're looking at a business decision, money talks. Is what you're currently doing benefitting you financially? Is the time you're putting into it worth what you're getting out of it monetarily? If not, move to question 2! If it's not benefitting me financially, is it helping me build my business/brand? Good things take time. Not everything is going to have a financial return early on, and sometimes it's worth it to put in the hours & the grunt work because you're building your business & working toward that point. If it's not helping you build your business/brand, move to question 3! Does the joy that this adds to my life outweigh the stress this adds to my life? This is probably the deal breaker question! If what you're doing is stressing you out more than you think it should, and if it's not adding joy to your life to counteract that stress, it's probably time to let it go! We can't WAIT to have a Facebook group conversation about this topic & hear the things you guys have had to let go of over the years of building your businesses! Stay tuned for the official Facebook group announcement coming soon! /episode/index/show/photosparkshow/id/7200863

Episode 94: Ready for Takeoff: Working Remotely 10/03/2018

Episode 94: Ready for Takeoff: Working Remotely One of the COOLEST parts of our job is being able to travel & work at the same time! Whether we're taking destination shoots, or just bringing along our laptop for some on-the-go editing on the family vay-cay, working remotely is a huge benefit to photographers! During this episode, we'll cover some tips & tricks to working remotely, and share some stories of our experiences, trials, and tribulations. Key Takeaways: Eliminate distractions: This is probably the HARDEST thing to do while traveling remotely. In Julie's most recent experience, she was visiting family, so getting them to understand that even though she was physically in the room, she was not available to chit chat was a challenge. Sometimes you can solve this issue by heading to a coffee shop, library, or other comfortable, fairly quiet spot, but then you have the issue of privacy (especially when it comes to using the restroom... do you trust your neighbors to watch your stuff or do you pack everything up/take it with you only to risk losing your table? It's a hard problem to solve!). Setting boundaries with your family/friends is absolutely key to being successful at working remotely! It's probably a good idea to lay some groundwork ahead of time and let them know what to expect, so they aren't planning full days of activities when you're planning on working! Bring backup gear: This is crazy obvious for us, as we bring backup gear to every single shoot we do. But sometimes while traveling it's tempting not to! Extra gear is bulky & heavy, and it's SO easy to just say "eh, I probably won't need that, let's travel light." But that seems to be the time you need it the most! Just ask Kate, whose tripod broke literally SECONDS into the start of the most amazing northern light show in Iceland, and who ended up with one or two photos by balancing her camera on a trashcan lid in the middle of a field. Don't risk it!! Carry your gear: Don't EVER check your gear if you can avoid it by any means. For one thing, baggage handlers aren't gentle, and for another there's really no guarantee it's going to end up in the same city as you. This is true for personal vacations as well as destination shoots. It's just not worth it! We always use our camera bag as our "personal item" on the flight. At the very least, make sure your ESSENTIALS are with you. Camera, batteries (use the caps on the bottom to prevent a fire hazard!), charger, memory cards, flash, and 2 favorite lenses. If you have to check your tripod or reflector, those are fairly easy/inexpensive things to replace when you land if they get damaged or lost. We have TONS of tips for you guys in the podcast, so be sure to tune in! And stay tuned for the awesomely rad Facebook group we're creating... it's going to be SO much fun to get to interact with you guys on a daily basis! We can't wait! In the meantime, like us on to stay posted with updates on the group's progress & launch date! /episode/index/show/photosparkshow/id/7123174

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