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

Alright, Wesley thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know.

If I was starting over today within my industry, I probably would’ve spent even more time studying my craft. I started the videography portion of my business right at the beginning of the pandemic essentially. I think even though I did take time to study using platforms like YouTube and skill share, and just following people who were more into the industry than I was at the time I think I would’ve taken more time daily especially during the beginning of the pandemic. I probably would have made a schedule where I studied things from YouTube and skill share, and other platforms like those and then taken what I’ve learned and would have gone out even around my neighborhood more and just trying things in different ways so I can try to become a very skilled videographer and photographer a lot more efficiently. Essentially I would have made studying photography and videography my pandemic 9 to 5.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Well, for those who don’t know me, my name is Wesley Scott Sandiford, also known as Scotty Aura I have a photography and videography company called Scotty Aura Media where I provide media content for events, parties, social gatherings, conventions, podcast, and all types of content for everybody from individuals to companies and everything in between.

I actually started doing photography maybe five years ago after a friends birthday party. We all were taking pictures on our phones and that night I fell in love with the process of taking photos.

When it comes to video I actually started doing video because I met my mentor who I was playing basketball with at LA fitness at the time. Her name is Phillana Greene. So I was following her on social media because she’s an accomplished photographer, videographer and content creator, and she posted that she wanted to help people become videographers so they can build a career and to send their portfolios. I had no idea what a portfolio was(at the time ) so I dm’ed and asked her what is a portfolio how do I send it. She told me she had seen my business page already which was my photography page and she said that’s essentially a portfolio and that she thought I had potential. She then sent me her number to see if I wanted to learn the art of videography.

I think that the problems I’m looking to solve within this space is that I’m trying to capture the moments that you remember forever when you look back 20, 30, 40 years from now, and you have these events in your life that you remember and you want to look back and see things you might not have even seen the first time. I want to capture those moments for people because I know how meaningful those moments are when we sit down and we look back at their photo albums from the past I want to help create those photo albums for people whether that be digital or hardcopy. I want to help create those home videos that we watch whenever we remember where we were at that time that bring us laughter and joy so that we can see how far we come. On top of that I I want to capture the times. I want to add to the story of society in the city that I live, in the cities that I work in, in the countries that I am working in at the time. I have had the pleasure of traveling to 4 countries thanks to my camera and capture these cultures and I want to show my perspective of these cultures during my time there . I also want to tell stories using my camera. I want to tell stories of love,friendships, heartache, coming of age etc. I want to give an artistic interpretation of the things Ive seen growing up. I want to show the world the things that I’m able to see and hopefully they will appreciate those things in the way that I’m able to appreciate them in the moment.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

As far as growing my clientele the best strategy has been for me to be just myself because I feel like I’m naturally a social person and when people feel that energy and then see my work they are eager to work with me. Whenever I’m at an event, I engage in conversations with and network with people. I also think my clients also help me to grow my clientele. I have worked with some great people who believe in me and my dream and who are enthusiastic about promoting me to potential clients. Social media is such a huge platform and my clients not only share content I make for them but also a lot of my content I post and I’m grateful for them. I think the combination of all of those things has helped my clientele grow to the level that I’m at right now and I know it will to continue to push me forward.

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

I think the lesson I had to unlearn was you can’t skip the steps. A few years ago I was making some great progress had a decent amount of clients at the time and I felt like my trajectory was taking off. I was ready to invest in some very expensive equipment and just as I was about to the I had a slow week that turned into a slow month, and I kinda went into panic mode for a few days . See I had in my mind already started counting my eggs before they hatched, and then realized that I couldn’t skip the steps. As Rick Ross once stated “ I don’t want to move fast I want to move correctly” and I think as entrepreneurs of a small business sometimes you’re so impatient with the steady growth because we want the big jump. I have learned that the steady growth is what builds that connection with clients. We grow together to create, and do things on a bigger scale as we all grow, and I was so anxious for the big jump that I was overlooking the importance of the steady growth of the small steps. I think I had to unlearn that so that I can take my time and grow in my business so that when it’s time for a big jump I have such a strong foundation that nothing can shake that.

Contact Info:

• Website: Scottyauramedia.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/scottyauramedia?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ScottyAuraPhotos
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottyauramedia?s=21&t=IzfMcWx7eXwArjtEkMYvhA

Image Credits
Scottyauramedia