You're listening to Take It Personally, a podcast for photographers about the personal side of business and the art of standing out. Here I'll help you build a business and a brand that is uniquely you. If you want to attract dream clients and stop looking at the competition to decide your next move. If you are ready to show up as a confident branding authority to help you serve your clients, and consider your goals and priorities too. If you want to make your mark in a new, underserved niche of photography, then this is the place for you. I'm your host Maddie Pachon, South Dakota brand photographer and educator. I'm a straight shooting, Instagram obsessed, and Diehard Swifty who has built a multi six figure business on the back of brand photography all while raising a family. And I know you can do the same. Let's get ready to take it personally.

This episode is part of my quiz series where we are talking about the four different types of brand photographers. If you still don't know your brand photographer, archetype. I want you to go to Maddie. Dot com slash quiz there. You're going to take the, are you ready to be a brand photographer quiz? And I will be able to tell you what type of brand photographer at you are on this episode. We are talking all about the elite brand photographer. This is one of the more rare photographers that I have come into rebrand. Typically when photographers come into rebrand, they are either a dual position photographer or an exclusive. Brand photographer. And then by the time we are done working together or they renew for another round of rebrand, that is when they identify as more of an elite brand photographer. But an elite brand photographer who has the proper systems and business foundations in place when you're on the newer side of being an elite brand photographer, there are a couple of things that you might be struggling with. And one of those is that you have had success with brand photography before. Okay, hold on. Because I know. That I just said that there are things that you're struggling with. And then I'm talking about how you've had success with brand photography in the past. But one of the biggest frustrations that I hear from my clients who are elite brand photographers, is that they have booked brand photography in the past, but they don't really know how it happened. They have no idea where these clients came from. They don't know where they found clients who said yes to a four figure price tag. It feels like they can't replicate it. And they don't feel like they have the consistency in their business. So oftentimes when they're coming into rebrand, that is one of the things that they want to work on. These brain photographers are really skilled. They have really solid portfolios. They're working with great clients. And they're at this point where they're thinking that they probably need to raise their prices again. But that brings up a whole host of feelings of if they can even do that. And if it makes sense for their business and if they raise their prices, are they going to book fewer clients? And do they want to book for your clients? There's a lot of mental turmoil that can come just from that one thought and that decision. These clients also want to attract a more luxury clientele, and that's kind of where they start to think about the whole raising your price thing, because they find that as they've been in business a little bit longer, they just want to attract a client that's a little bit further along that has a bit of a bigger budget and they desire more consistency throughout the year. They want to be able to depend. On brand photography. They also want to make sure that they're delivering a really great client experience every single time, but they don't want to do that by working harder or working more. So this is where their systems come into place. And I encourage elite brand photographers to really focus on setting up workflows and their business. There are a couple of workflows in particular that I really recommend. What these do is set your business up so it can function at least a bit without you. So you don't need to be responding to every single email. You don't need to be sending every single invoice. You're able to kick off a workflow and just sit back. So your business does not get more complicated the more business that you book. These photographers are also ready to kick it up a notch when it comes to their positioning, very likely their website and social media presence that they have been working with is not working for them anymore. They feel like their old brand does not match their new brand and all that is coming. They want to be seen as more of a thought leader in their industry and their current brand just isn't quite there. So these photographers are thinking about things like updating their website with a new look, a new feel, maybe hiring people to be able to do that for them for the first time in their business, whether it's someone who's designing a new website or working on copy. These photographers are really figuring out who they are as a brand and as a business and what they want to be known for. And they are also realizing that the type of brand photographer that they are now is maybe not the brand photographer that they started out as. And so they're figuring out, Hey, what does this look like going forward? What does my brand look like? As I move into this new era of business? Elite brand photographers are in a really fun space because oftentimes, they are working to not necessarily charged four figures, but to get to the point where they are a six figure brand photographer. So it's really about finessing and perfecting the parts of the business that already exist and getting them to a place where they can scale with ease and not burn themselves out in order to hit that six figure mark. If you are an elite brand photographer. I would love to hear from you. This is one of the least common types of brand photographers that I see come into rebrand. Like I said, a lot of the time our brand photographer has come in as dual positioned or as exclusive. And then once they've been in rebrand for around, they will often identify as elite brand photographers and they will renew for a, another session of rebrand. So we can start working toward the next school, which is a six figure photography business. These clients always present a really fun challenge for me. I also remembered this point in my photography career. So clearly, and I get a lot of joy in working with photographers who are at this place in their business and just ready to rock and roll. If you still don't know what your brand photographer type is, you can go to Maddie Pasha. Dot com slash quiz. You're going to take the, are you ready to be a brand photographer quiz? And then I will tell you what your brand photographer archetype is. Once you take the quiz, you're going to be invited to listen to the private podcast. And on that private podcast, I'm going to go into more detail about all the different archetypes, their strengths, their weaknesses, and what you should be working on to get to the point where you can charge four figures for brand photography and scale your business to six figures. So again, that's Maddie. dot com slash quiz to take the quiz.

Thank you so much for listening to Take It Personally. If you haven't already, would you head over to iTunes and leave us a review? This is the best way to let other photographers know about the show and help keep us creating content you crave. And if you want more tips and tools to build your personal photography brand, head over to my website, MaddiePichon. com. Here, you can access my downloadable ultimate personal brand session shot list to get your clients singing your praises and browse my blog for more trade secrets to help you hone your craft and grow your business. Love to learn while you listen, visit MaddiePachon. com and click on podcast for all things. Take it personally. From show notes to recent episodes and incredible guest profiles. Remember friend, the most important part of any brand is the people behind it. Branding and business is personal, so let's take it personally.