Perhaps a better title is “What to take to a bridal show if you’re cheap and lazy and want to put in minimal effort” lol! It’s bridal show season, and whether you are a participant or a vendor at one, you know that people will be taking home information that will hopefully make an impression. It’s importantly to clearly and quickly show not only your work at a bridal show, but perhaps MORE importantly, a memorable brand. People walking through the hall will see hundreds of images, but they will only meet one YOU! If your brand is “you” and it’s memorable, they will remember to reach out when the event is over or be able to put a face and conversation to the email when YOU reach out to them.

Remember, a brand is so much more than a logo and colors, or a specific instagram filter. A brand is how your product looks and performs, how you talk, and how you interact with your clients. It influences the gear you buy or processes you use. its literally the filter through which everything you do, think, and say, about your business passes through. It’s REALLY important, and its pretty important to get it right the first time since clients start to develop a relationship with you and your brand right away.

The aesthetic part of branding is important too, but still leaves you room to refine and evolve. As you begin to create your website and social media presence, it’s great to have a place to start so you have a cohesive and consistent look. I’ve had people recognize my logo and colors who have never met me or seen my picture that tell me “oh, I’ve seen your business before I recognize the G and the mint green!” Down the road you can absolutely tweak your colors, and even your tagline if you feel like it doesn’t represent your business anymore. But likely, it will be evergreen because it reflects YOU as a person!

What I give to clients at a bridal show or meeting:

Branded folder to hold all the following goodies:

• Pricing Sheet

• Sample Contract

• Handwritten thank you card for one-on-one meetings

• Business card

• Custom stickers (I love Sticker Mule’s die-cut stickers! You can design yours here!)

• Bridal Magazine

For clients that live far away, I will mail this entire folder and tuck in a $10 Starbucks gift card, that way both the clients that live close to me that I get to meet over coffee and the clients I get to meet over zoom have as similar as of an experience as possible, and definitely receive the same value from me.

I am fully aware that my display above is not the most glamorous or impressive, I spent maybe $100. But I know that my advertising strategy doesn’t rely on bridal shows, and most importantly I’m confident in the strength of my work and my personality to make connections! I’ve found that bridal shows are less about the huge displays and flashy pieces of gear and more about showing quality work and presenting a memorable, relatable brand. Even with my rinky-dink display, I’m the one that gets 3-4 wedding contracts because of the personable connection Im able to make. I hope this helped to ease some guilt as you prepare for your bridal show and encouraged you to put on your extrovert pants and get out there and make friends!

How do you set goals and know what to invest in as a small business owner? If you photograph weddings or engage in other “seasonal” work, the impending “off season” can be both exciting and terrifying! Photographers typically spend time and money investing in their business and in education to improve their skills, but no one really tells you WHAT that entails. Until now - here’s 10 things that small business owners can do in the off season to push their business forward!

That question of “what” is one that nearly every photographer thinks about at the beginning of the year once the Holiday hustle has died down and you’re left with more time to work ON your business with less things to occupy your time IN your business.

I’ve always been a person that is internally motivated and a bit of a perfectionist, and I habitually feel guilty if I’m not “doing” something or producing something. Setting specific goals is very daunting and feels rigid for me, in part because I can’t directly control my consumers’ behavior, and also because I will feel like a total failure if I don’t meet those goals. My motivator is fear more often than not, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing if you learn to set loose goals and have a whole lot of grace for yourself.

Instead of buying the cute paper planners for my daily, weekly, and monthly goals or and making trendy graphics for a vision board of 3 and 5 year benchmarks, I’m a “list it all out on my phone” type of gal. I have a master “ideas” list in my phone and every time I’m feeling uninspired or am at a loss for what to do next, I can pull out that idea list and start DOING.

As long as you’re making one small step a day towards progress, it’s enough.

Your list of ideas will look very different than mine, but to get my brain in the right mode to make business “goals”, aka think the next project I want to work on, I ask myself things like:

1. What do I feel like my weakest skill is? (invest in education in that category!)

2. What part of my workflow is the most time consuming (then work on streamlining or automating it!)

3. What’s something I dread with my business? (Network with others to learn other possible ways to do things!)

4. What can I outsource? (aka what’s taking up so much time that’s not something specific to YOU completing!)

5. What’s costing me the most money? (research alternatives!)

6. What’s a question that customers ask me over and over again? (work on clearer communication!)

7. What is my competitor doing better than me? (reach out to them for a mentor session!)

8. Am I reaching the customers I want to? (If not, switch up your branding or blog with those specific customers in mind!)

9. What’s something I can invest in to make my product better? (is it new gear? Maybe an educational course?)

10. What’s a resource or platform I’m not using yet, and is it feasible to incorporate it into my workflow? (Pinterest, Instagram reels, etc)

Of course there’s the daily tasks for any small business owners like taking care of clients, producing product, posting on social media, etc. but this list will help you with those projects both big and small that move the needle in the direction of progress! Here’s some things that I complete every year that are on my project list:

1. Branding

   • Update any digital or printed materials with new product shots

   • Get updated headshots

   • Take the time to update any color, logo, or text changes to your brand across EVERY platform (Facebook, website, google, linkedIn, Instagram, email signatures, etc.)

2. Website

   • Update your website with new images

   • Update your pricing, packages, etc.

   • Go through your website with “customer eyes” and make sure everything is organized with clear “call to actions”

3. SEO

   • Blog. Just do it.

   • Brainstorm a list of topics for blogs

   • Add alt text to all of your images to help with SEO

   • Add page titles and descriptions to all pages that are SEO friendly

4. Data Collection

   • Figure out what months have the most leads, most sales, etc. (This can be helpful for planning out what time of the year to invest into paid marketing)

   • Conversion Percentage: Do you know the percentage of “fans” that you convert to clients? Track how many leads against how many bookings to get a conversion percentage! Aim for 30% or more!

   • Raise your prices! If most of your sales are for your most expensive package or product, then it’s time to raise your prices! Look back through your sales to figure out the percentage of sales each price point is bringing in.

5. Financial Workflow

   • Research options for tracking your expenses easier (I recommend a business credit card linked to accounting software to make it automatic!)

   • Get organized for tax time! Research a reliable tax professional to help you get the most out of your money.

   • Pay yourself! Develop an easy system to pay yourself from your business income (A business checking account and a personal checking account with unlimited transfers back and forth helps BIG TIME!)

6. Social Media

   • If you hate doing it, learn how to batch-post automatically with services like Later.com

   • Brainstorm a list of reels ideas that aren’t cringey and feel like “you".” (and it’s OKAY not to do reels. It really is.)

   • Plan a monthly photoshoot of products or create an exporting system in Lightroom for when you edit photos so you can build up content to use on social media over time.

7. Network

   • Reach out to someone in your field that you admire to just get coffee and make a new friend!

   • Join Facebook groups for your expertise area to learn new skills and ideas, or just to meet people to understand and encourage you!

   • Get together with other small business owners in your community to learn how you can all support each other!

8. Client Communication

   • Start collecting emails in a Google Sheet for an email list!

   • Brainstorm ideas for and pre-draft email newsletters.

   • Do you send the same emails out over and over again? Make it a template!

   • Create and/or tweak your contact forms to collect ALL the info you need and also to pre-screen your clients! (It’s absolutely okay to require clients to specify their budget, and it’s absolutely okay to say you’re unavailable if their budget is way too low)

9. Education

   • Ask your mentors or peers for resources that they used to get where they are.

   • Offer to shadow or assist other professionals for free to gain on-the-job skills.

   • Buy my course! (But seriously, we cover SO MUCH of these things in detail!)

10. Define Success

    • Ask yourself what you REALLY want to get out of your business? Is it a number? A lifestyle? A state of mind? Get specific so you know when you are achieving it!

    • Figure out your monthly personal living expenses + your monthly business expenses to see just how many weddings you have to book or products you have to sell to meet your needs. (My finance planning tool can help!)

I’ve spent 10 years completing project after project, making and testing systems, and figuring out ways to automate everything to make my life easier and my business more streamlined. I’ve had so many people ask me about how I did certain things along the way, and I am always happy to help, because I definitely would not be here myself without the help of others and the audacity to ASK them! If you’ve found this information useful, I promise you it’s just the tip of the iceberg of what I can offer you as far as help! I spent two years putting together an online course to help small business owners just starting out have the knowledge, systems, and confidence to grow their business and “catch up” to the rest of the industry. If that sounds like something you want in on too, you can click the photo below to check out the course!

When planning your wedding, do you rely on your friends recommendations, a google search, local magazines, or maybe bridal shows to find the best vendors? How can you be really sure that you are getting the best of the best, while still getting a good price for your area? It's become more and more popular for photographers and other local vendors to participate in "styled shoots", that is, a fake wedding that pulls together the best local wedding vendors to show off their services in as "real" of a setting you can get!

Styled shoots are great for you to look out for and pay attention to because it literally shows you a "trial run" of all the best, hand selected vendors in your area. Who better to pick a team of super services that those that are in constant community with each other in the wedding industry? As wedding professionals, we have worked with nearly every local vendor there is and can recommend the best to you through our styled shoots - because we picked them ourselves! For the guys reading this - think of it like your fantasy football draft of all the best wedding vendors in town, and they are facing off to show you their stuff!

The idea is that local vendors all come together in collaboration, donating time and services, to show you, the bride to be, the best of what they can do or offer. It's better than a recommendation, search engine session, perusing a magazine, or waltzing around a bridal show because you can see exactly what your wedding would be like if you were to hire them.

My great friend Jackie and I have been planning this styled shoot for months! We were over-the-moon excited when vendors one by one gave enthusiastic "yes!"s to help us pull off an unforgettable day! Be sure to check out the local vendors, hand selected by us for their excellent services, for your wedding, and be sure to like them on facebook and give them a follow on Instagram!

Photographers: J.Jae Photography + Jill Gearhart Photography

Venue: The Barn at Rayne Run

Rental Furniture: Penn Rustics

Gown: White Lace Bridal featuring Stella York

Shoes: Jewel by Badgley Mischka

Tuxedo: The 700 Shop  featuring Stephen Geoffrey

Jewelry: Luxenberg's Jewlers

Florals: The Flower Gallery

Calligraphy/Invitation Suite: Victoria Fiaretti

Hair: JC Penney

Models: Adam + Tara Maruca

Evergreen Swing / Assistant: Ryan Anderson