We were lucky to catch up with Margaret Bryant recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Margaret thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?
Too many people getting into the pet photography business fail to realize it is a business and it is much more than taking pretty pictures of dogs. People getting into the business don’t know about figuring their cost of goods, pricing for profit, and managing their expenses.

Margaret, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Pet photography is my second career. I started part time while I was still in the corporate world and went full time when I couldn’t do justice to both jobs. I create fun and whimsical imagery of people’s pets, as a lasting memory of the love they had for their pet. My work is in the studio, where I take the time to get to know the pet, and create a comfortable environment to capture the personality of the pet for wall portraits and storybook albums.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
I was working full time in broadcasting as a radio engineer. I knew I wanted to start something different and started photographing dog sports, because that’s what my dog and I were doing as a hobby. It was not long that I realized that there was no money in dog sports photography, so I changed to pet portrait photography.

The first thing I did was to get an education in the business of photography. I enjoyed the comfort of having a full time job while I grew the photography business. When I was ready to go full time, I made sure that I had at least a year or more of money saved so I didn’t have the pressure of having to make money from the very start. Since I had been part time for a while, I had a customer base. When the 2008 financial crunch happened, I was prepared and go through it with no problems.

Question not found
I think one of the things that non-creatives don’t understand is that I can’t turn on the creativity like a light switch. Sometimes it takes some time to come up with creative ideas/solutions. Mostly it is freeing your brain up so the creativity flows.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bryantdogphotography.com
• Instagram: www.instgram.com/margaretbryantdogphotography
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/bryantdogphotography
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaretbryantdogphotography/