155: How To Grow Your Business – Audience Asked Question

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 earlier this summer. When I was asking you, the listeners and also my Instagram audience for questions for an A MA episode, it aired last month, so if you haven’t heard it, go, give it a listen. I was asked a question in particular, and I immediately knew that it really did need to be its own episode.

There was so much depth and nuance to her question that I thought it would be kind of a cool opportunity to do almost like a mini mentoring session on the podcast. So I’m gonna share what she asked and then I’m going to kind of respond and give feedback and suggestions again from that vein of mini mentoring hot seat type coaching.

In the question box, she asked me how to speed up her growth in her business. And it didn’t give me a whole lot of detail and I was honest and I said, I’m not quite sure exactly what you’re asking. Can you expand on this? And I’m gonna read you her response. This is exactly word for word what she told me.

She said, so I’ve been in, I’ve been doing this for seven years, and I’ve slowly grown the whole time, which was fine because I had babies at home. But the last, let’s say two years, my kids have been in school full time and I’m wanting more clients. I’d say most of my clients are from church and word of mouth, and from there I get very few from Google or my website, depending on what I’m doing with SEO.

That’s just my primary family business. She also has a new branch of boudoir, and she says my boudoir side is growing slow. I think it’s because it’s a new audience. I’ve done two model calls the past two years, and I’ve gotten two paid clients for it, only like 50 followers on Instagram and 16 to my boudoir newsletter.

So I have two questions on growth, really. One, starting a new offer and two, boosting growth in an already good business. I just have more time now that my youngest is going into kindergarten, my friends, whether or not you have the same two offers that she does. I think you can gain some really great insight from this episode and what I’m about to say.

So I don’t want you to think about the niche specifically if, especially if they don’t apply to you, but I want you to think about the general questions that she’s asking. Essentially, she’s asking for two types of growth strategy. Number one, how do I build momentum for a new offer? In her case, boudoir.

And number two, how do I accelerate growth for an existing business that’s solid but slower than she would like? Two separate questions. Okay, so I’m gonna give you a few suggestions and tips to speak to each of those questions. So number one, let’s start with the faster growth for your existing business.

Okay. She already has a well established business. She’s getting referrals, so how does she grow faster? This is gonna be about increasing visibility outside of her existing circle, and then converting into consistent leads. So increasing visibility beyond the existing circle, and then converting those people to leads.

How can she do that? There’s a lot of ways. I’m gonna give you a few suggestions. Number one would be to really go hard on the local visibility piece, okay? So Google Business Profile. Make sure it is fully optimized and that you are posting to it regularly, that things are tagged with locations, that all of your information is updated and that you’re getting client reviews posted to Google every single month.

Google business profile that really moves the needle with your Google ranking and visibility, honestly, faster than I think anything does. Two, blogging with local SEO blog topics, writing things that are location-based content like Best parks in Blank City for family photos or what to wear for fall photos in blank Town.

Or things like what to do in the summer in blank area with your kids, or the best bookstores in blank city, et cetera, et cetera. Think about location specific content that you can create that will serve your ideal client for whatever your niche is in. It does not all have to be photo related. Yes, you can tie photos in again, best parks for family photos, best locations for family photos, what to wear for family photos, et cetera.

But you can also throw in local specific things that serve her. So if you are a, a photographer for families with, you know, primarily the five and under crowd, think about what do toddler moms need to know? Where do they want to go? What are they buying? Okay. Those kinds of things. So really going hard and heavy on the SEO of blogs, okay?

Making sure that you’re doing keyword research, making sure that you are intentionally creating this content. That’s what’s gonna increase your Google ranking. That’s what’s gonna get you from page eight to page two, ideally to page one. And if you want to really drastically increase the amount of visibility you have and the amount of leads coming from Google, you’ve got to be on page one.

Ideally you’re number one or number two, or number three. Beyond that, you’re really not gonna get a whole lot of traffic. Okay. People gone are the days where people are clicking two pages worth of links. Okay. Especially now that AI has jumped into the conversation with Google. You know, you do a search now and you get an AI response that takes up a lot of space on the page before they even start showing, uh, recommended links and websites.

Okay? So you’re fighting with that too. You have to do the SEO work. I don’t care how long you’ve been in business, if you’re not doing it and you’re not seeing the traffic you want, you need to double down on that work. Best practice for somebody that is wanting to increase Google traffic every single week.

A keyword rich, location-based, uh, blog posts every single week on your website. Another thing you can do for local visibility is networking with like vendors. Uh, and I’m, I’m saying the word vendors ’cause that, that word feels very like masculine and gross, but like people who come in contact with your people.

So think local preschools, boutiques, pediatricians. Hair and makeup artists, doulas. It depends on what your niche is, but think about the other people, the other services and businesses that they’re supporting and they are hiring. How can you network with those people? How can you connect with those people?

Can you create a referral program for each other? Can you create a collaboration in which you get in front of their audiences? Okay. Think outside of the box. Think outside of, again, your existing circle, your existing church, your existing playgroup, your existing preschool. Go beyond that. Yes, it’s gonna take research.

Yes, it’s gonna take hard work. Yes, there’s gonna be a little bit of cold calling and cold emailing involved. Do it anyways. It’s absolutely necessary. And then consider something like, uh, partnerships with mini sessions. Like, can you co-host a mini session event with a local business? Could you host personality portraits at a children’s boutique?

Could you do motherhood sessions at. You know, think about that. Like could you host something in collaboration with another local business to, again, kind of do that cross-promotion thing where you’re getting in front of another business’s eyes. Okay. Those are ways that you can kind of double down on your visibility within your local neighborhood and community.

Again, another tip for faster growth with your existing business, maximize the referrals you’re getting. Ask for, um, very specific referrals. So, you know, can you have your, when you work with great clients, you know, let’s say you just photographed a family for the first time and you guys jived so well, the kids adored you, mom and dad, like you, you could have gone to coffee with them afterwards.

You just connected. You really felt like, man, I could be friends with these people. It was so great. They’re your ideal clients. Can you ask them to help you? Can you say, Hey, I loved working with you guys, and I would love to work with more people like you. Next time your friends are asking about a family photographer, a newborn photographer, whatever.

Will you mention my name? You would be surprised how far that simple, simple request goes. You can ask them in person. You can ask them in text afterwards. You can ask them when you send off their gallery or send their post session. Thank you. But simply mentioning it and maybe even adding a little education behind it.

You know, you’re a small business and you really lean on referrals from people like them, and it would mean so much. Asking them to do that work for you. You’d be surprised how far that goes. What I’ve seen happen personally is when you put that idea into your client’s heads, when they’re like, oh, Sabrina really refers or relies on word of mouth.

We loved her. Anytime anybody’s asking about, you know, looking for a photographer, I’m gonna mention her name, but what they also end up doing is. When they see people ask questions in like neighborhood groups or forums. Okay. Then they’re sharing my name in that capacity too. So asking your people to help with referrals is, it seems so silly, but it really, really does work.

And then you could also create an actual referral program if you wanted. There’s definitely some organization and some logistics involved to do that really well, but. It works. It works. So this can look like a lot of different things. The most common way that a referral program works is it’s like a, a two, four situation.

You know, ask your people to refer new clients, and when those new clients book with you. The new clients get a discount and then the people that referred get some sort of kickback. So either they get a bonus print credit or they get a discount on a future session, or they get something surprise mailed to them, or they get a $50 Amazon gift card.

So it ends up being on the kickback on both sides of the referral. But those things go really far as well. So if you want to really go hard on this and really lean on your referrals, creating a referral program can work really, really well. My tip is that you need to keep it organized. You’re gonna need to keep track of it somehow in a spreadsheet.

’cause it can get a little bit messy, but it really can work. Okay? And then email. Email. If you are not emailing regularly, this is your sign. Okay? Sending monthly updates to your clients. I really think twice a month is better and not the, Hey, I’m booking sessions. Do you wanna work with me? Here’s a link to pay.

Not those kind of emails. Connection based emails. Sending them updates, sending them reminders. Telling them behind the scenes story, behind the scenes stories, giving them content about what your favorite stuff is, where you went recently. That was amazing. A funny story that your kid told you. I mean, let’s just connect with our potential clients and not just try to sell to them all the time.

Yes, you need to sell to them, obviously. But let’s focus more on connection. Okay. And let’s have people fall in love with you so that they can’t even consider hiring another photographer because they’re obsessed with you. How do they do that? It’s not just through your photos. I’m so sorry. It’s through feeling connected to you.

How do they do that? What are you talking about? What do you both love? What do you both laugh at? What? What connects you to this other person? Okay. Think about those kinds of things and send those emails to your list regularly. And then like side note, if you don’t have a list or your list isn’t large enough, you need to focus on growing it.

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Those are the recommendations I have for pushing growth for an existing business. Now let’s talk about, what about kick-starting a new like branch of a business? Okay. You’re basically starting from scratch, especially in her example, right? Yes, there may be some overlap in clients, but it’s a totally different thing.

It’s not as simple as newborns and families. Those naturally just go hand in hand. Boudoir specifically, and family is two different things. You may have some client overlap, you may have completely different clients. Okay. It’s the same thing as if you had, you know, family and brands. It’s two different things, and so you’re basically starting from scratch.

So this means it’s gonna be more about building trust and awareness and that desire than selling right away. Okay? You are starting from the bottom up. You’re basically starting from zero, so you need to think about that. Build your brand voice and your positioning. Who is this offer for? Who is this offer for?

You need to have such a clear picture of this woman so that you can speak to her. Because if it’s just for quote unquote any woman, you’re gonna have a real hard time. You need to know exactly who this is for. Do you specifically want it to be for moms? Do you want it to be for newlyweds? Do you want it to be for older women that are celebrating bigger milestones, like turning 40, 50, 60, whatever, you need to have a very clear vision of who you’re speaking to, and then you need to talk about why you’re so passionate about this new genre.

Talking about your why behind it, whether it’s partially your story, but then also the women who you have served and their experience that is going to make a huge difference in connecting with the right people. Raising your hand and saying, I am now offering this type of session does not cut it. You need to know exactly who you’re speaking to, and you need to share the passion and the why behind it.

Okay. I would really think about creating a way to grow that email list faster. Uh, the most obvious way is going to be some sort of freebie. So can you create some sort of freebie for women who are maybe curious about what boudoir is or who it’s for? Maybe it’s, you know, five myths about boudoir or how to know if you’re ready for a boudoir session or something like that.

Can you write it? And tell even more of the story there so that it’s a lower lift so that people who are kind of intrigued by it grab the freebie. Okay? You now have captured their email and you can add it to your email list without asking them to jump all the way from not knowing what it is to paying you in, hiring you for a session.

Again, this, this gets them on the list so that they can hear about it without necessarily being ready to book. Remember, we need to hear about things. It used to be eight times. Now I’ve heard it’s closer. It’s in the twenties, let’s say 25 times before you are going to hit purchase. And then think about something as intimate as boudoir.

She’s gonna need to hear about it a lot of times. A lot of times, and not just on social media. Being able to write. Deeper, more heartfelt things in email that connect with her is probably the best way. Okay? So I would really focus on growing that email list. When you think about growing on social media, think about what types of content is shown different ways, right?

So stories are shown to your existing followers, reels and carousels are shown to new like people who don’t follow you yet. So growing that account, your reels and your carousels are going to be how you gain new followers, but your stories are going to be how you connect with the people who are following you.

Okay? So they’re both important. But when you’re thinking about your growth strategy and the type of content you create, it’s important to think about who is this content for? Is it to get a follower or is it to connect with my existing clients? Okay. And that should determine where you’re sharing on social media, showing things like behind the scenes and client reactions, confidence boosting tips.

Maybe like cool places to buy beautiful lingerie for your session. Stories of women and how they felt before and after. I mean, there’s a million things you could talk about, but all of that type of content is gonna help grow that account. And then I would probably share some, like anonymous testimonials.

I say anonymous specifically for boudoir. Uh, if, if you are listening to this and you’re, you’re thinking about growing another niche, and it’s not boudoir. Not anonymous, okay. But bourgeois is so intimate, right? It’s so intimate. I think you’re more likely to get impactful testimonials if you reiterate and reassure these women that you will not be sharing their name.

So I, I think you’ll have less hesitation and they’d be more willing to do it. So maybe just telling the story of why they did it, how they felt, what they felt like on the other side. All of that in an anonymous type way could be really, really cool. And then you can leverage your family clients for this by again, kind of softly cross-promoting to your existing clients every once in a while.

Did you know that I offer B boudoir style sessions? Really talking about them from the motherhood perspective of a lot of moms would love bourgeois sessions, but maybe don’t realize that you offer them, or maybe they need a nudge to see if it’s for them. Again, that’s where that freebie could come into play potentially, or some blog posts or some special content just for them to try and get them to crossover.

And if not, book a session with you. At least get on that particular boudoir email list, okay? So that you can start connecting with them in email more regularly. If you decide to do another model call in the future, which, let me just pause right here and say there’s no shame in doing another model call for this.

There’s not, I don’t know if I’ve told this story on the podcast before, but when I introduced first 48 sessions, gosh, let’s call it nine years ago, maybe 10 years ago, at this point, they weren’t really a thing in our area. They weren’t really a thing. Anywhere. At the time, birth photography was a thing and it was getting more popular, but first 40 eights wasn’t really a thing yet.

It took me over a year of doing them for free for all of my newborn clients so that I could build up enough awareness and enough interest. I just kept doing them over and over and over again because I was committed to making them work because I was obsessed with them. I still say to this day, it is my favorite thing to photograph.

If I photograph nothing else for the rest of my life, that’s it. And so I was okay with doing them for free because I was gonna make this work. And so I photographed over and over and over and over again until it caught on and I had enough awareness and I was getting Google inquiries and people wanting to add them on and all of that, and it finally took off, but it took some time.

This could be similar. Boudoir is still a newer offering. A lot of people don’t know what this is, okay? So it may take a minute to take on. So if you need to do another model call or one every quarter or whatever, there is no shame in that whatsoever. But I would maybe adjust how you are marketing it and kind of the language behind it.

I would definitely position it as an empowering, limited opportunity, you know, like a limited spot kind of a thing. Um, and I would really focus on the testimonials from your previous clients, and then I would follow it up with a limited time offer for everybody that applied. So hopefully you’re gonna share a model call.

You’re gonna really lean into the empowerment. You’re gonna really utilize the testimonials from past clients. Hopefully you get a flood of people apply for that model call. You’re gonna pick a couple that you wanna actually photograph for free. Everybody else gets a thank you for reply, but you know you haven’t been chosen.

But then give them a limited offer. Give them, you know, 50% off of a session or, I don’t know, come up with something that you can offer them to get you working with them, that’s gonna warm up that audience from your list of model call applicants. Instead of just having them be, you know, they, they cold applied, they didn’t get it, and then they’re still cold.

Let’s, let’s warm them up. So I would kind of have a little bit more strategy around that model call if you decide to do it again. So those are my tips again for both faster growth in your existing business and then kick starting a new branch of your business. Again, this came from an actual question.

This was a question I received in a DM and I just thought there was so much, so much depth here that I wanted to coach on it a little bit in case you needed to adhere it to in case you had one or both of these problems in case you needed this. And here’s what I want you to hear. If you are in the same shoes for one or both of these questions, you are not behind.

You are not behind, okay? Things are just shifting for you and my friends. They’re always gonna shift. You’re just in between a shift right now and it feels a little bit uncomfortable. You’re gonna make the shift just fine, and then the dust is gonna settle and things are gonna get really comfortable, and then something’s gonna shift again and it’s gonna feel uncomfortable again.

I promise. This is how it goes. You’re not behind. Things are just moving with more time and attention. You really do have an opportunity to scale both sides of your business or multiple sides of your business, however many, you know, genres or branches you have. I really want you to focus on tapping into what’s already working and how can you amplify it.

And then the other side is planting seeds and cultivating a new audience with patience. Patience, but also with strategy. So I would love to hear from you if this episode resonated with you. If you feel like you are in the same seat as this listener, I would love to hear from you. Come send me a message on Instagram at Sabrina Ghar Photography and let’s chat.

And that is it for today, my friends. We’ll see you next time. Thanks so much for listening to the Shoot It Straight podcast. You can find all the full show notes and details from today’s episode@sabrinagehart.com slash podcast. Come find me and connect over on the gram at Sabrina Gehart 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.