148: Real Women, Real Stories with Genevieve Arjal

Sabrina: Welcome to the Shoot at Straight podcast, where honesty meets heart and real talk actually means something. I’m your host, Sabrina Gebhart, and each week we get vulnerable, practical, and just a little bit bold so you can feel seen, supported, and ready to take the next step in your photography journey.

Let’s go.

Welcome back to the Shoot at Straight podcast, my friends. Today we have another episode of Real Women Real Stories, and in case you’re new here, I wanna tell you what these episodes are all about. A few months ago I was recording a solo episode and I found myself sharing a story about a student’s transformation, and when I finished recording, I realized.

I have so many powerful stories like this to share about women that I’ve had an honor to witness and be a part of. And most of those stories are actually living like behind the scenes in my mind, and they don’t actually get shared. And so that’s where the idea for this series was born. And I. If you’ve been a listener of the podcast for a while, you know how much I love lifting women up, and that’s what these episodes are for.

So welcome back to Real Women Real Stories. This is a candid series where I’m sitting down with women who have gone through the Root to Rise mastermind. And these conversations are honest and vulnerable, and they’re gonna share their growth stories. And my hope is that by hearing their stories, where they were, what shifted for them, how they’ve evolved, that you, the listener, will feel less alone and more inspired and maybe even see a piece of yourself in their journey.

So let’s dive in today. Today I have my friend Genevieve here and she participated in Route to Rise 2023 when we went to San Diego. And Jen, I wanna start off this episode. Just give us a little introduction of who you are.

Genevieve: I am a family portrait and preschool photographer in San Luis Obispo, California, and when I started the retreat, I had lived here, gosh, maybe 18 months, so I’ve been here about three and a half years.

Right now I have been in business total now. Wow. Maybe 10 years. Prior to moving, I had a photography business in Washington State and then moved my family here, and then 18 months into my new city decided to join Route to Rice.

Sabrina: I remember when you started Root to Rise, you came in through a friend and so I, you were new to me.

We were just getting to know each other, which happens sometimes. Sometimes women join the program who I have had ex exposure to and sometimes I have brand new friends come in and you were that you were brand new to me and we were getting to know each other, and that was the biggest thing that I remember you came into the program with is you were like.

I’m basically new to my area. It’s not taking off like I’d hoped. How do I get my business going with a totally new location, new audience, like, what am I doing? I need help. Is that what you remember the most about your challenge coming into the program or do you remember other things about kind of where you were When we started,

Genevieve: um, no, a hundred percent.

That’s what brought me into route to Rise Ahead. Never done a program like that before. And so my backstory into entering was here’s, here’s the whole story of the challenge. I, like many women, mom photographers, you start photographing your own children that grows, and I used to work as a neonatal nurse practitioner, and a lot of my peers were around my same age having babies.

I photograph them while they’re pregnant. I photograph their babies. Then as my babies turn into preschoolers. I photograph the preschool families and I start doing the preschool portraits. And so my business just was able to grow very organically in my last community, which was wonderful. And then when you move to a new place, you realize that growing a business totally based on a referral based business.

Leaves you with a lot of holes in your understanding of how to attract the right clients when they had all just fallen in my lap previously. I moved to the central coast of California. I take about the first year to just get settled and start to understand things. And I found that even after I started to understand the local market of photography, I found myself even more discouraged.

I had had an outdated website. I realized I’d had a referral base only business. I did not know anything about SEO. And then as I started to learn about SEO, I realized I didn’t even want people to land on my current website. I found that the local market, I, I know a lot of people feel this way. I feel like everybody here is a photographer.

I found that they were charging less than I was charging, so I really came from a place of. Gosh. I mean, I just was not confident in how I was going to launch this business in this new place from you. As you can see from so many different angles, as I was reviewing this in my mind about my goals for Root to Rise, I mean, I am still two years later completing and working on some of those goals.

I just had so, so many. So that’s, that’s a very long story about where I came from, but that’s how I landed at Root to Rise. I really needed. I really needed the push and I needed ideas from you and also the community to be, to encourage me to push forward and do it.

Sabrina: I think that’s, it’s such an interesting story that I think a lot of people experience there.

Let’s say, let’s call it what it is, lucky enough to get to start a business that kind of just falls in their lap. Clients just fall into their lap. When I started my business 14 years ago, it was a very similar situation. Like, I sent a blind copy email to a bunch of friends and was like, Hey, I’m in business.

And I never had to struggle to find clients, you know, because of our preschool and our church and our neighbors. And it just, I was one of the lucky ones too. And so that’s great when it, when you’re in it, but then you get to a season where you move or you’re changing your niche, or you wanna, you know, double your rates or you’re making some big change.

That means that you need to be marketing and attracting new people. If you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s not your fault. You just don’t know what you don’t know. Because all you did before was hold up your camera and you were in business, you know? And now you actually have to do some work to make it happen.

And um, like I said, you don’t know what you don’t know. And, uh, root rise is great for that because we walk through the steps of making sure that your business is buttoned up. For optimum performance and marketing and your website and your messaging and all of those things. But then like you said, you also had the mindset stories of imposter syndrome and fear and doubt and all of that because you had been successful and then you came and you moved.

So not only are you going through a huge life change and supporting your kids and your house, your husband, through that life change as well. But then you’re also, you could set your business down and then you’re picking it back up and you’re like, wait a minute, where am I? What’s even happening? The whole world has shifted, and so there’s a, there’s a bunch of mindset junk behind it too, of what am I doing wrong?

Should I be doing this? Am I good enough at this? That’s the other part of Roots Rise is the mindset piece behind all of our decision making and all of the pieces of our business. And that’s why I created the program to touch on both parts because you can’t, you can’t see the best version of your business without working on both pieces.

Right. Working on your business and also doing the mindset stuff that supports it, which is so fun. Um, I’m curious, my friend, when you joined the program. What was the mo? What do you think surprised you the most about the Mastermind?

Genevieve: I didn’t know how enjoyable it was going to be to work as a team. Mm. I previous to the mastermind, did have a couple friends within the photography community, but being in the Mastermind, I did know a couple of the people, but then I met the rest of the group.

So I love that. I love working as a team. I feel like there’s so many, one, it’s very, it’s motivating. You feel so much less alone. I mean, photography really is a pretty lonely profession. I mean, I think all of us, most photographers are fairly social and you love the time with your clients, and that ends up being about 10% of this whole business.

You know what I mean? 90% you are on your own to run the business, to edit the photos. So I loved working as a team and I really enjoyed the accountability of both the group and of having a mentor, somebody like you, I, I could go on and on about all the things that, that I was surprised by. So, but I think those are the, the main highlights.

I think the other thing I guess would be. It’s hard. I think when you view your own business, it’s very easy to get caught up in the minutiae of the day-to-day tasks and not take the time to think about the broader picture about where am I going in six months? Where am I going in a year? Most of the time you’re thinking, where am I going between today and Monday?

I’m doing two photo shoots. I’m gonna edit them, I’m gonna turn them around. But it’s like, it was a very nice way to. Have some of the bigger picture ideas seen from other people’s perspective about my own business.

Sabrina: Yeah, and I think that’s a really important thing to, to point out. You’re right, so many just people in general, moms, whether you’re in business or not, we do live moment to moment.

What’s for dinner? We, what homework projects do we have? What do, do the kids have clean clothes for their sports tonight? You know, it’s very moment by moment, day by day, but. What is often missing in big transformational growth is that bigger picture thinking. Okay, all that day-to-day stuff, it does need to happen.

It does need to go that way. You do need to be aware of what’s coming next. I. But what’s the bigger picture? Because when you don’t look at that bigger picture and take that, that kind of higher level view, that’s where you find yourself in a business that’s the same year, over year, over year. Your prices never change.

You’re, you’re dealing with the same annoying clients. You never update your website. You’re just kind of ho hum going along, and you never get to experience any of the fun goals or dreams or expansion that you want or that are out there for you. Because you have to have that big picture vision to do that.

So yeah, that is, that is a big part of the program. But I love the, I love the impact of the group too, and that’s something that I talk about on like the welcome kickoff call at the beginning of the program is, yes, I’m gonna be your guide and your leader and the host and the facilitator, but this is, this is a group effort.

And that’s why I require women to participate and come to calls and answer questions and support each other because it creates that team spirit of we’re all in it together. We’re all working on our things separately, but together and supporting each other and cheering each other on. Honestly, Jen, that’s why every run of the program is different.

Every run of the program is totally different because the group, like the people are different, right? And so I, you know, I have a lot of women who’ve done do the program more than once. They have a completely different experience each time because the team is different, right? The dynamic is different and they get different things out of the experience, which is just really, really cool.

So yeah, people come for like the education and the guidance. But the community and the accountability is, is definitely a fun, a fun perk, a fun surprise. I’m curious, can, can you think back to your experience and is there a particular breakthrough that was really impactful for you or like an aha moment or a really big shift that you went through?

Genevieve: The one thing I, I can’t remember necessarily. Maybe this is an aha moment. While I was in the Mastermind, I had decided I was going to do a model call for children so that I could market my preschool photos. And the reason I needed updated photos of that was because I had decided to switch from a black background to a white background.

All my preschool photos previously were black background. So I did this model call, went around to different people’s homes. I didn’t do a public one. I asked individuals and I spent a Sunday driving to people’s homes with my white background. Took these photos at some point, either during the Mastermind or shortly after I.

It was like, I can do these sessions as their own thing. This doesn’t just have to be for preschools and it is one of the things that I enjoy most. Last year I just, I came, I had done a couple sessions and then I was thinking very hard about a name for them. I believe you call yours personality portraits, and I call mine Candid Kids, and I adore portrait work.

I adore children. I love doing preschools, but this is a way for me to offer it year round. I think that was an aha moment for me. Was that like, oh, this is something. Also, I feel like the, the other part of that aha was that. I, if I was going to grow my business, I needed to generate some of my own ideas, some of my own offerings, which was not something I had done previously.

It was just that people hired me and they did whatever I was hired for. So it’s a multifaceted thing. One I mentioned, I love doing these candid kids portraits. The other thing I really enjoy about them is that I’m in control of the time, the number of hours, the number of families, the number of times a year that I offer them.

I think that that part of my business is one of the most enjoyable parts right now, and so that, that whole vision came to me. I attribute that to participating in Route to Rise and sort of getting that going for me.

Sabrina: Yeah, it’s been fun to see that blossom for you and and how big it’s gotten to be. And just how that one little thing that, oh, I need to do a model call to get updated images.

Like, it’s kind of like the popular reel that’s going around on Instagram right now, the Butterfly effect. It’s like if you wouldn’t have done that one thing, it wouldn’t have led to all these other things that are now, um, a big part of your life and your business, which is so fun. Um, do you wanna give me a kind of a general overview of like, so when you came into Roots Rise, you were needing to get clients and basically start your business over again.

So here we are a couple of years later, how are things going? Do you feel like you’re as busy as you wanna be? Do you feel like things are going really well and you’re seeing like the snowball effect of all of your hard work kick in?

Genevieve: Yes. I, last year I had a very exciting year. I think another thing about starting the business over and doing Route to Rise is that I a little bit, I feel like when you’ve been in business for a long time, you feel very comfortable saying no to things that you don’t wanna do, and I very much felt like being new to town and basically starting my business from the ground up again.

I needed to be a yes person, which is actually the most natural state of my personality anyway, is that I am a yes person. I prefer not to be asked to do things very often because I will say yes to almost everything. Last year I did a big commercial job for a winery, which is something I had never done before, but I really loved, I got hired for a dance studio to do also their portraits for the company side of the dance studio, and that was great ’cause I love portrait work.

I have successfully made it into a preschool that’s had me multiple times now. I was trying, my candid kids, as we were talking about, has really gotten quite a bit of traction and I find that people print those photos maybe more than any other work I’ve ever done. So I really enjoy that. I do still feel like in growth mode.

The other thing I said yes to that was, was that I take the sports photos for my, for my kids’ school. And those are not candid sports photos. It is mostly, it’s pri, the school hires me so that the sport photos, the team photos end up in the yearbook, but I can still sell them to parents. And that’s again, portrait work, which is ended up being more fun than I thought it would be.

And maybe a job previously, I would’ve said no to. But it’s not only is it fun, I get to know all the kids at school and they know me. So I feel like things have grown and I’m very happy with where they’re at. I would still like to do a little bit more family work. I could use a little more business, but I couldn’t probably handle too much more because I do still have three kids and I’m 58.

Sabrina: It’s been fun to see all of the opportunities that have come your way and how much you’ve enjoyed doing new things, and I think it’s also been a beautiful opportunity for you to meet other people and put your deeper roots into your new community. It’s been really a win-win for you and your family, which has been a.

Really, really cool. And when you say that you’re, you definitely still feel like you’re in growth mode. Totally. This, we’re talking about something that was just eight, like two years ago. Like this is still, so for all intents and purposes, you’re in the first two years of your business, you know, and you’re just doing incredible things, which has been really, really fun.

I’m curious your experience in the Mastermind and getting support. What do you think that really felt like and looked like for you? Did you felt like the coaching calls were the most valuable, or the Voxer or the like the time in person at the retreat? Where do you think you felt most supported?

Genevieve: I think it’s hard to pick just one.

I’ll speak to each one individually because I enjoyed. All of them. I was new to Voxer. This was my first time, uh, through a route to rise to learn about Voxer. And I am obsessed. I tell everybody about it. I’m like, this is the coolest system. You don’t have to ring your friend’s phone, you can just leave them a message.

Now I have multiple people who I Voxer and I love it. It’s a nice way to have a direct conversation with you. I thought that was the best, um, communication with you directly. It’s a nice way to say, I have this thing on my mind. I love when you can hear people’s tone of voice. So I like that over an email communication or a text message.

So I really enjoyed Boxer for communicating with you over specific ideas. The coaching calls I thought were phenomenal ’cause you see. You are, you know, this group of now colleagues that you get for this period of time. You get to see each other, hear what’s going on for other people, you’re all learning the same thing.

So I enjoy the coaching calls and I enjoy the accountability of the coaching calls. And then of course, who doesn’t love a good retreat? I mean, we went to San Diego and I love San Diego and I, I knew actually probably maybe half of the women in my cohort prior to going to San Diego. But it’s always so lovely to meet people in person.

Everybody in my cohort has ended up becoming my friend. I still Voxer with these people regularly. It’s hard to say. I think the support is great through all different aspects in different ways. I particularly liked how we had the retreat and then we still had calls afterward after you’ve gotten to meet people.

Like I thought it was perfectly timed. I like all those avenues. I thought they were all great.

Sabrina: That actually what you just said about the retreat timing, that is something that was new to your group because your group of roots rise was the, the second time I’d done it. And so the first group, we actually had the retreat at the very end of the program because my thinking when I timed it that way was we will all have spent four months together and gotten to know each other and then we’ll get together in person at the end as like a hurrah at the end.

And then we’ll have like one more call and be done. It was great. We all got to the retreat and it was fantastic and we loved it, but then everybody was pissed that they got so much closer at the retreat and the program was over. So then we moved it to like the midway point so that you get to know each other enough.

So that when you show up to the retreat, you’re old friends with everybody already. You’re not learning names and all of that, you know, it’s just hugs. I can’t wait to, I’m so happy to finally see you in person and then you still have half the program of calls to take the friendships even deeper afterwards.

So that was a, that was a change that I made for your group. Um, that’s been better for sure. So we kind of talked about the, like the team group accountability and energy, and you touched on it a little bit, but I’d love to know a little bit more about how you feel kind of being in a room of women with big dreams.

Did that surprise you? How it changed your energy or the goals you set for yourself, or maybe even the trajectory of where you’ve gone since then, like what it felt like to be quote unquote in a room with women who are dreaming big, like that energy

Genevieve: is infectious, right? I think in root to rise, the energy is very positive, and that feels good.

I know prior to this I tried to surround myself in general with positive people, positive experiences, but I hadn’t had that quite for my business before. So I think being in a room with everybody who has. Not just they have positive energy for their own business, but also for yours. That feels good.

Everybody cheering each other on, and this is what I still keep in touch with people about is like, what is your growth? Where are you going? What are you doing? I mean, and I feel like the energy, the positive energy from the people in my cohort has continued beyond root to rise. We’re still cheering each other on, we still wanna see each other win.

That really feels good. So, and it is, it’s great to see what other people’s ideas are. Some of them vastly different than what I would be trying to accomplish. So really great to just see what other people are up to.

Sabrina: So you kind of maybe just answered this question, but I was gonna ask how you have stayed rooted in the growth you had during the Mastermind.

Now that it’s over like two years later, here you are, you’re still growing, you still have forward momentum. Is it because of the community that’s carried you through or just deep changes that you made? Like how are you still gaining momentum from something that finished two years ago?

Genevieve: Primarily through the community that was created through Route to Rise?

So specifically, I have a couple people who I boxer with regularly bounce ideas off of. I also participate in. In the round table. Um, I enjoy that group on Facebook. If I, particularly when you have a detailed question that you wonder, should I, I’m doing this job. I, I did it last year. I, I reached out to multiple people that have done root to rise.

Not all necessarily part of my cohort, but when I did that big commercial job, it was for winery. I was out of my own wheelhouse. I reached out to numerous people who gave me great feedback on how they price their commercial jobs, how to do the contract. I. So as far as maintaining that now, going forward, it is primarily the community I’ve maintained.

And I actually have another person from my cohort who’s at a similar spot in business that as I am, and we check in pretty frequently, ask each other what we’re up to and when you, I think when you have this accountability still to your other colleagues or friends. You are still cheering each other on and you still have this accountability even just to your friend to say, oh, I did do this.

Or share ideas. And because we’re all over the country, it doesn’t matter if we all do the exact same thing, we’re not competing with each other. Not that I feel like I’m competing really with anybody here anyway, but yeah, no, we all are still cheering each other on.

Sabrina: It’s such a beautiful community and what’s cool and you know, ’cause you’ve been to the alumni retreat, but now that we have an alumni retreat every year, women from different cohorts come together and they get to meet each other.

And so the community just gets bigger and bigger, which is so cool that it grows beyond, its each individual cohort and this bigger thing. There’s something so powerful about having women support you that understand exactly what you’re going through because, you know, our, our spouses support us, our best friends support us, our moms support us, but nobody gets it.

Nobody understands how painful it is to get a client email where they’re upset with you, or how much we stress about hitting send on a gallery that we weren’t quite sure how that shoot went, or how worried we are that we’re not gonna get this job. We sent a proposal for that we really, really want. You know, nobody understands that stuff.

Nobody understands the unique struggles that we have and how to market our business and how to, there’s just so much nuance. And then when you throw in, we’re all moms, so we all understand the stress of like motherhood and business and balance and all of that. It’s so cool to have a place where you know that everybody gets it.

You know, I

Genevieve: could not agree with that more. I would say that my communication with the people who were in my cohort, my, my newfound photography friends, it’s probably 50 50 business and personal life because we all understand the juggling and I could not agree more that even though you are supported by other people.

Nobody understands your own frustrations or wins in your business more than your peers.

Sabrina: Genevieve, what would you tell someone who’s listening to this and they’re intrigued by root to rise, but they’re kind of on the fence? What do you have to say to her?

Genevieve: You’ll never regret giving this a try. I think that if you feel on the fence, maybe you don’t know what there is to gain.

But there’s something for everybody to gain from a round of brew to rice, and I am a hundred percent sure of that. Even if you didn’t change one single thing in your business and you came out with two friends, it would be worth it. Everybody comes out with friends more than two. But I just think the whole, it’s invaluable and you don’t always know what the outcome is going to be.

But here I am still two years later still. Loving the, the group of friends that I have made and still checking boxes off of goals that I made two years ago. So I say, if you have, if you’re on the fence, just go for it.

Sabrina: I love that. I love that. Okay, my friend, I’m gonna, we’re gonna end the podcast with a fun question and because we’ve been talking about the Mastermind, it’s gonna be around that.

I wanna know from San Diego, what was your favorite retreat memory?

Genevieve: I mean, the San Diego was an amazing retreat. You get to go to all of them. I’ve only been to a couple and I think they’ve all been wonderful. I loved meeting the new ladies and then I got also got to reconnect with Nancy, Christine, and Kelly, who I had known previously, but hadn’t seen some of them in a few years.

So I love that. I would say for me that my favorite memory is mostly the social connection. I also distinctly, I. Enjoyed the, um, the portfolio reviews. That is a strong memory for me, but I’m very social, so I also love, you know, drinking wine and hanging out. A funny memory that I have is that I am a big candy lover and I don’t have a very sophisticated candy palette.

And this retreat was the first time that I had ever been introduced to gummy nerds. And I have remained obsessed. I went on a big kick afterwards, gifting ’em to everybody. Like if I got my kids, it w, it could be a kid’s birthday party or an adult. I’d be like, I better put a bag of gummy nerds in there.

Everybody must now know about gummy nerds. But that was the first time I had tried ’em.

Sabrina: That is so funny. And also you are not alone in that because I feel like, so side notes. Jen knows this because she’s been to an alumni retreat in San Diego, so she’s, she’s done this more than once. But part of the planning process is that my retreat coordinator, Cheyenne and I, we get to the city wherever the retreat is, a day early, and we stock the house and get everything ready.

And so we do this massive grocery run every time, and it’s literally like two carts. It’s wild. It’s just so much food. A huge part of the list is like candy and snacks, because obviously if we’re gonna be sitting around spending all weekend together, we need to be happy and fed. And gummy nerds are a non-negotiable on the menu for every retreat because they, everybody loves them so much and it’s never fails.

There will be at least one person at every retreat who’s never had them, and then they leave with this gummy nerd addiction. So you are not alone in that. Yeah,

Genevieve: they are delicious.

Sabrina: Yeah, your, your retreat was a really fun one. Um, San Diego was a really, really fun group. For some reason, like I said earlier, that was the second run of the program and the first run of Root to Rise.

I sold out really quickly of seats. A lot of the women who joined that run had been in my world before, so I had had interaction with these women. And so when they all joined, there was no nerves on my part. Like I just knew what it was gonna be like to interact with these women, and I knew it was gonna be successful, but San Diego was the first time taking it to the next level where I had people join the program like you, who I did not know.

And I, there was a little bit of nerves going into that run of the program of like, is everybody gonna like me? Are we gonna get along? Are they gonna get along? It was almost like I had this energy of the first retreat and, and program was so insanely wonderful and impactful and magical. I wasn’t sure that it was gonna be recruitable.

I almost thought that was a. That was a unicorn. It’s never gonna be that good again. So San Diego and your run was basically the test of, is this a repeatable experience? We had a great time on the calls leading up to the mastermind retreat. But the retreat is where it’s really like, are we gonna jive?

Are we gonna like each other? And it was magic right from the beginning. We had the most fun welcome dinner we had. We laughed so much as a group. We had such a great experience and that’s what solidified for me. Oh no, this is just, it’s a magical container. This program is magical. This is something that’s repeatable and that’s where I as a host, gained the confidence of like, oh, I’m gonna keep doing this over and over and over again.

Well, that’s good to know

Genevieve: about our group. I don’t know if I realized it was only the, the second run, but I do feel like our group got along so well, had so much fun and. All the photo shoots that we did were also phenomenal. I feel like every family and location worked out so well that everybody, it just, the whole thing was so fabulous.

We should really do it again. Yeah.

Sabrina: Yeah. Okay, my friend, this has been such a great chat. Thank you so much for being here and sharing your story and your experience and giving me your time. Will you tell the listeners if they wanna come follow you on Instagram or check out your work online, where can they find you?

Genevieve: I can be found at Genevieve Kathleen Photography. Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed our time chatting.

Sabrina: Yeah, it was great to catch up. That’s it for today, my friends. We will see you next time. Thanks so much for listening to the Shoot at Straight podcast. You can find all the full show notes and details from today’s episode@sabrinaebhart.com slash podcast.

Come find me and connect over on the gram. At Sabrina Gab Hart Photography, if you’re loving the podcast, I’d be honored if you hit that subscribe button and leave me a review. Until next time, my friends shoot it straight.