We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kristina Ebert a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kristina, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.

I had a client who’s brand was completely disconnected with his ideal market and not representing his branding words, vision and not authentic to the experience. His branding was misaligned.

As a personal branding photographer I work with business owners to understand their brand, their vision, their voice, their mission, their ideal clients and their vibe. I want to help them show up as their authentic self to support the know, like and trust factors, because when we know like and trust businesses and people we are more than happy to support that business and/or refer them.

As business owners, many times we just want to share the end result, but we also need to share the journey we take our clients through. Most importantly we do this by showing our faces to our clients, we connect with people and with their stories.

This client is a palm reader, a male palm reader in a misunderstood industry. Most people when they think of palm readers they fear having their life line read and being told they are going to have a short life and die. James Divine has developed his own palm reading method and reads the life line as the age of your soul. If you have a short life line than your soul is a newer soul, if you have a long life line then your soul is an old soul.

His branding values are love, integrity, empowerment. He wants his ideal clients, women ages of 35+ to feel unafraid, intrigued, curious and inspired. He wants to create a space of trust.

However, his images on his website were dark and moody, while they were still beautiful images they created a feeling of question and unsureness. His client model in the photos were of his husband. His images created a disconnect with what his client experience truly was. His client experience was laugher, joy, excitement, amazement and having these “ah ha” moments of self discovery with what he revealed about yourself.

For his images I brought in the light, we shot in the exact same location, in his house, but I added light. I directed him to ask a woman friend 35+ to be his “client” and I also directed her to wear an outfit that was light in color and neutral. We wanted to show his ideal client working with him. During the session I let me him work and I caught real life moments of the two of them interacting.

After the client portion of his session, we then brought in the brighter outfit colors and took headshots that added a whole lot of his big personality. We showed his laughter, his sass, his joy that he brings to clients. And still adding lots of light to the whole session.

Once he added his new personal branding images to his website his got immediate bookings for his palm reading service. His business coach and friends confirmed that now his photos matched his brand, his vibe and his personality.

His review
“As an owner of a spiritual business, it is my job to be very in touch with the needs of others. And yet, here I was, finding myself with a blind spot. The joy and fun that people experience when they meet me was not conveyed in the serious (though elegant) images on my website or social media. This mismatch wasn’t something I was that concerned about, but it should have been. People who knew me mentioned it, in ways that I couldn’t hear at first. “Wow, you are not what I expected!” was a common one. You know, in retrospect, that was an indication that I had a branding problem. I had taken it as a compliment! Working with Christina was like a spiritual awakening of my own. I learned that I could emerge from what I was thinking, into who I was really being. Kristina’s special skill is in seeing who you are and intuiting your full self expression, and capturing this on film. without changing anything except the images on my website, everything is bright, cheerful, and joyful – a key tenant of my work. I am thrilled with the results, and with how the whole process pushed me to learn about myself, and find even more freedom in my self expression as I pursue my mission with my business. ”

Before his session, he had talked 6ish months before and he wasn’t ready. It isn’t an easy decision to make a change and invest in your business, but when you make those right decisions and find the right guide to help you through the process, it is life changing.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Kristina owner of Kristina Pearl Photography and I only work with businesses for personal branding and I also take event photos for businesses. My main focus is solo businesses or small teams.

While many local photographers that you may know advertise working with all of the clients, baby, maternity, family, seniors, wedding, headshots, branding… I don’t! Yes, when I started my hobby photography I was trying it all! It took me 10 years of dabbling in all the genres trying to decide what I wanted to niche for my business. Most successful photographers recommend focusing on one genre, because when you try to speak to everyone your really speaking to no one.

In the spring of 2019, I put together a for fun project with 2 other friends. I was going to photographer my friend Alexis working on her hand-stamped jewelry business and Anna was going to be practicing her phone video skills on Alexis. It was this fun round robin of photos, videos and a whole lot of laughs and fun.

The day left me jazzed and inspired to seek out what was this type of photography? It has to have a name so I could learn about it! Another photographer gave me 2 titles Environmental photography, which wasn’t fully fitting the look I was going for and then Branding photography. And this was it! I was hooked. I went down the rabbit hole of learning all I could about it and then making the fearful decision of finally started my photography business that I had been dreaming of for years!

On January 1st 2020 I registered my business and launched into personal branding photography. However, as we all remember that year was full of fear and craziness. I then realized I may understand photography, I didn’t know business nor how detailed personal branding photography was. I took that year to learn! I made 2 of the most important investment in my business. I invested into a personal branding mentor course and really learned how to set up a personal branding session from first call to delivery of images, branding is a very detailed pre-process to pull together before we shoot.

I also invested in a group coaching for business owners. I learned how to build the foundation of my business so I could succeed in this industry.

All of this to get to the point that I specialize in ONLY working with business owners. I love getting to know and understand my clients and guide them through the whole process. They are never alone and I’m here to help them with outfit, props, and location suggestions. I know the lighting and how to pose them. We’ve brought in the ideal clients and dressed them to suppport their brand. The stories and images that we are capturing are for their specific brand and tailored to meet their needs.

My education and learning is geared towards how I can help serve my clients. I’ve since invested in a 2nd branding photographer mentor course to help me elevate my service, we always need our own guides, even the guides!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The lack mindset!

The fear of there not being enough for me. The number of clients is limited. If I don’t get that client to work with me then there will be no one else.

We all have our own personal money stories that go along with the lack mindset and I’ve been unlearning and rewriting those stories.

I have a few amazing books that I’ve gone through that have helped me understand where those young money stories from my childhood stem from. I’ve done the journaling work and forgiveness work and I’m constantly redoing the work as well. It is a never ending process. I get to one level only to go back through the process to work past that ceiling.

I personal love the books
Overcoming Underearning
Get Rich Lucky Bitch
You’re a Badass at Making Money
I’m currently listening to Secrets of a Six-Figure Women and I’m constantly finding more books by women to learn and grown from.

While I still sometimes hit that lack mindset I now have the tools to help me through it like journaling and affirmations.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Networking.

People connect with people! The best way to create connections is to get meeting them in person. Finding the right networking groups are also important, not all groups are created the same.

I personally love women groups. The ones I’m in not only are there to connect for referrals, but also want to support, learn and grow together. We want to uplift and help others, maybe that is through a direct referral or connecting them with someone else who will help them.

My advice with finding the right networking groups is to ask local businesses where they go to events and try them out. Do you connect with them? Do the group vibe feel good or are they only there to push cards in your hands to take? Feel it out before you make a commitment to any groups.

Go with the intention to make a few quality connections and not to try to collect everyone’s card. Everyone isn’t going to be the right fit for you and that is ok. Find the quality connections vs quantity connections.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kristinapearlphotography.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristinapearlphotography/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KristinaPearlPhotography
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristina-ebert-3654681a0/

Image Credits
Clients: James Divine Elevated Home Remodel Burnout Coach Ellyn H. Bero Interiors Limitless Chiropractic Rooted Flow Wellness The Aspen Connection