We recently connected with Bethany Forest and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Bethany, thanks for joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

By the time I created GloHo Photography, I had created, managed and run four other businesses. My experience being an entrepreneur really prepared me for building a photography business. Our main focus is real estate photography, in which I was formally trained, and with a background in Interior Design, it’s a great fit.

Breaking into the real estate market is incredibly difficult, and it presented a bit of an extra challenge during COVID19. It requires great networking skills, grit, and a desire to continually improve yourself and your offerings. Being a woman in this field has also been incredibly challenging and frustrating for me personally, as a surprising majority of male realtors typically won’t hire me, or they want a deeply discounted rate from me. I’ve had to really learn to set boundaries and find my niche, only working with realtors who value my work, and it has expanded organically from there.

I think the most important lesson I’ve learned as a business owner has been to hone in on the ability to pivot – when faced with challenges or failures, it’s how you look at these that determines whether or not you’ll be successful. Failures are lessons, and if you choose to learn from them, they can be fantastic teachers, pivoting you toward future wins.

Shortly after starting GloHo, a personal move required us to relocate over 100 miles away from the network I had begun to build. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this move opened up a world of possibilities for me to expand and grow my business. I knew I didn’t want to leave my existing network behind, and leave the realtors I’d built relationships with without a talented photographer. Before we moved, I hired and trained a photographer to take my place, and this expanded my revenue stream immediately, showing me a way to expand my business in a simple and practical way. I now have plans to expand into other markets utilizing the same approach and credit this idea to relocating. I took on the challenge, pivoted, and opened up revenue streams that currently contribute to 30% of my overall revenue.

As an entrepreneur, I’m always keeping a lookout for ideas or an out of the box approach to business. I love creating in all aspects, whether it’s creating a beautiful photograph, creating ideas, or creating a team – I’m happiest when I’m creating.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My business journey has been a long and interesting one. I started my first business in 2009, shortly after the housing market crash, offering yoga classes online and in person, and unfortunately it wasn’t very successful. I didn’t know how to market myself. In 2012 I decided to teach in a local studio, and it was through that studio that I developed relationships and an idea began to take shape.

As a yogi, I was very in to natural products, foods, and remedies for life. I was deeply interested in Ayurveda, and was utilizing it to manage my chronic struggles with severe endometriosis and PCOS. It was also during this time that I developed horrible cystic acne, and I started making my own natural products using the concepts of Ayurveda. Needless to say, the products healed my skin and I decided to launch a products business in 2014. What a wild ride that was!! It grew rapidly, and I decided in fall of 2017 that I would quit my regular paycheck to pursue entrepreneurship full time. I was so excited to be stepping into this and couldn’t wait to see what was next!

Unfortunately, my body had other ideas, and in January 2018 I had a radical hysterectomy, which came with its own surprise: the nerves to my bladder had been severed during the procedure and I no longer had any bladder function. I was sent home with catheters to use several times a day, and it was incredibly difficult.

While I was trying to navigate this new way of life, my younger sister suddenly passed away in February of 2018. To say those first few months of 2018 were severely traumatic would be an understatement! I was told the condition was likely permanent, and I hit my lowest point in August of that year. My sweet boyfriend proposed to me after a trip to the Mayo Clinic confirmed it, and we celebrated choosing each other in our lowest moments. In the fall of 2018 I decided to rent a studio for my skincare line with a large, beautiful yoga studio attached, and another business was born. I hustled hard, and it was during this time that I learned how to use a DSLR camera, providing high quality images for my yoga studio and skincare line.

2019 was a year of hustling, navigating infections brought on by catheter use, hiring a team, running a yoga studio, getting married, and hitting my best year ever in terms of revenue.

And in 2020, we all know what happened. I had to close my yoga studio. But this is where I earned the title, “Queen of Pivot.” I knew that we had to keep going somehow, and I knew that most studios were going to be turning to the online world. We did it fast, and we were the first in our community to be running online. But it wasn’t enough. We needed connection more than ever during this difficult time, and I could see the need! My team and I came up with the idea for an Urban Yoga Series, where we’d meet up once a week for an outdoor yoga class in different spots in the city, and once it was safe, we resumed offering Yoga Hikes, which were a big hit.

I was so happy to be offering people connection in a safe way, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough to keep my studio afloat, and we had to close it down. It was heartbreaking. I needed to find a way to earn an income, and that’s when real estate photography basically fell into my lap. I was in LOVE. And I was really good at it.

I believe it’s within all of us to seek out and find our passions, but I think there’s something truly beautiful that happens when your passion finds you. Real estate photography was the thing I never knew I needed. I find so much joy in architecture and design, and creating beautiful images is immensely satisfying for me.

But I still wanted to teach yoga and connect with people. During the pandemic I took the time to process my grief and psychological trauma, working to find my way to acceptance of my disability. This showed me that healing is so important, and that it’s a path, not a destination. My team and I got together again, and we decided to host a yoga retreat, just to see what it was like. Just like with real estate photography, it was love at first sight. It’s really hard, and requires a lot of grit, but it fills my soul cup every time. I’ve been able to utilize my photography skills at each retreat, and it just feels so right to be doing both. My team is amazing and I’ve enjoyed growing with them. Last year, we sold out 2 retreats back to back, and my photography business grew by 30% year over year.

It feels so good to be doing this work, and ever the entrepreneur, I have plans to keep expanding both in business and on my healing journey, finding balance and beauty in both.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I think that the ability to pivot is what defines success. Not all pivots equal success, but the ability to do so is key.

Pivoting is part of my regular routine in business. If something isn’t working, you’ve got to find a way.

I think the biggest pivot I took was during the pandemic. Having a yoga studio that couldn’t operate was a huge challenge. I got my team together via Zoom, and we reviewed our Brand Compass for the first time, asking the questions, “Who Are We”? “Where do we live”? “What makes us different”?, etc and it was so interesting to come together and find that every single one of us was also an outdoor junkie. We had already started offering Yoga Hikes prior to the pandemic, but having this commonality between us all sparked a fire and a desire to utilize that to offer more. Yoga is connecting body, breath, and mind, and we find that in nature as well.

We brainstormed several ideas, initially coming up with the Urban Yoga Series, which operated similarly to a speakeasy may have: No one knows the location unless they’re in the know (signing up) and the location isn’t announced until the day before…. all very secret and just fun. We needed fun during those initial months, and it WAS fun. It was all outdoors, and we embraced that piece of ourselves. We were outdoor yogis. Once it was safe, we expanded our offerings, from Yoga Hikes that included sunset Yin on a mountaintop, to Yoga, Bikes, and Beer, SUP Yoga on the lake, etc. From there we pivoted into hosting yoga retreats, which is what we do exclusively now, and we incorporate outdoor adventures in to all our retreats as we truly recognize the impact nature has on the healing process.

Would we have found our way here without something like the pandemic to push us in that direction? I’m honestly not sure…. I did love that yoga studio.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Almost everyone who knows me will tell you I’m quite resilient. I honestly don’t know how I feel about that word, truly – because it illustrates a hardness in us that makes us strong. I have learned that there are two sides to that coin, and resilience encompasses both strength and softness.

Waking up from surgery with a new disability is hands down the hardest thing I’ve ever had to encounter. And not just the surprise of it all – the surprise wears off, and then you get to learn all the complications that come with it. Having had endometriosis from a very young age, and not being officially diagnosed until I was 27 years old, I was familiar with educating myself. I naturally wanted to learn everything I could about what happened to me so that I could heal, or find a way to heal. The most frustrating thing was that there really weren’t any options. My nerve was severed, there was a 7 cm section missing, and it was likely permanent.

Learning to self-catheterize while healing from a major abdominal surgery is a bit difficult. So difficult in fact, that my sweet boyfriend begged me to let the nurses teach him to do it so that we could go home. He catheterized me every 4 hours for the first 2 weeks, and then 5 times a day for 2 months after that. I was depressed, hopeless, and so, so sad. Losing my sister at the same time compounded that. I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t necessarily want to wake up most days either. I just wanted to sleep through all the pain and suffering and wake up on the other side.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. I knew I had to do something to get through this. So naturally, I started a new business. At the time, it’s what I knew how to do, and working kept me busy enough not to think about how hard life was. When I was working, I was okay. When I wasn’t, I couldn’t function. I realized this wasn’t going to work, and I hired a “brain doctor” (psychologist). I commited to the healing process and it took a reallllly long time. In fact, 6 years later I’m still working through healing and accepting my disability.

I think the resilience piece here is not that I was strong through this whole experience, but that I recognized the need to heal in order to move forward. That I can accept the broken pieces of myself, take them to an expert, and ask for help. Resilience is choosing to keep going when you want to give up.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.glohophoto.com/real-estate
• Instagram: @glohophotore
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/glohophoto
• Other: For information on yoga retreats: www.healyogastudio.com

Image Credits

Bethany Forest
Cierra Madill
Arthur Wood