We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ashia Mosley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ashia below.

Ashia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

It’s rare that a business becomes hugely successful overnight, especially for a small business. Many of us have to grind and pour our heart and souls into our dream of making our business become a reality. For me, I decided once I graduated college in 2017 that I would do anything it took to make my wedding photography business become my full-time career. I accepted a normal 9-to-5 job, right after graduating, doing tasks that weren’t exactly my favorite. Yet, I knew that job would be the stepping stone to support me until I could become a photographer full-time. I would come home after work to start working my “second job”— scheduling photo sessions, editing, working on promoting myself on social media, etc. It was a lot of late nights with little time to myself or free weekends, and a lot of determination.

Eventually, something told me it was time to leave the job that was financially supporting me and this small business I was beginning to grow. After being at my job for almost a year and a half I decided to quit cold turkey and pursue my dream. Was it terrifying leaving the security of a consistent paycheck? Absolutely. Yet, I was so excited to dive in head first and I knew I was not going to let myself fail.

The thing about relying fully on yourself, like income or success, is that you hold the power to decide whether you continue to grow and force yourself to be successful, or allow defeat once it gets too hard. I knew I wasn’t meant for a normal office job and without anything else to fall back onto I pushed to see myself become a booked up wedding photographer like so many I admired and looked up to.

When you enter a new industry, it’s so important to get yourself familiar with everything about it. Educating myself was probably the number one factor at getting me to where I am today. I invested in a lot of education courses to teach me how to best use my camera, the best lenses, how to set up a business from the ground up, and even investing into myself. I never went to school for business, but I was slowly understanding how other people were running their business, and this helped me figure out my own process to get my business started.

2019 was the year I quit my 9-to-5 job to pursue photography full-time. I only had about 8 weddings on the books (which isn’t a ton for someone who wants to be full-time). After immersing myself in education, creating a brand for myself, pouring a lot of time and energy into my social media accounts and websites, and relationships within the industry I almost tripled the amount of weddings on my books the following year in 2020.

Of course there were a lot of mistakes and lessons to learn along the way, but all of those things helped shape and push me to reach the place I am at today in my career. I’ve been able to grow a following, meet other incredible creatives in the industry, and continue pursuing a successful business creating precious memories for amazing couples on their wedding day. It was never the easiest journey— 3 years in and I’m still always learning— but I wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything. The freedom you get when being your own business owner is incredible. It’s a blessing getting to live this type of lifestyle and I hope you find encouragement knowing that your hard work will pay off. It doesn’t always happen overnight like we are led to believe, but the work you are doing now is going to propel you far into the future!

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

My name is Ashia and I am a wedding and elopement photographer based in Dallas, Texas. I help capture and re-create special moments for couples celebrating love through the lens of my camera.

My approach is capturing more candid, in-the-moment photographs of events on a wedding day. I think a lot of times on wedding days we tend to forget and focus heavily on moments we are “supposed” to have that may not be authentic to ourselves. My goal is to allow space for the unique aspects my couples want to incorporate into their day— I want to attract couples that can trust the process, live in the moment and that crave more candid moments throughout the day.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Instagram!

Social media is a very powerful resource for small business owners. If you aren’t implementing the power of social media into your business you are absolutely doing yourself a disservice. Doing market research to figure out which network supports your business the best will really help you figure out how much time and energy to spend where. Whether you do the heavy lifting yourself or invest in out-sourcing, social media can really change the game for you and your business!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I’ve mentioned before how important investing into yourself and your business are, and investing your time into your industry is huge.

When I was just starting out I was doing a lot of things on my own. I didn’t have many friends that understood why I was working so hard to become a wedding photographer, and it became very lonely. I began looking at joining local Facebook groups to get to know more people in my area and that was one of the best decisions I could have done so early on. Because of those groups and reaching out to people on Instagram and other social media platforms, I was able to form amazing relationships which, in turn, helped me become more known throughout the industry with other photographers.

I’ve been able to recommend friends when I’m not available, and they equally do the same for me. I also try to keep a heavy presence on social media- like my instagram stories, for example- to show my followers and clients that I am a real and genuine person!

It’s taken years to get to the place I am at today, but it’s all been because of intentional work I’ve sown into my brand and business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.amosleyphoto.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashiamosleyphotography/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashiamosleyphotography/
• Other: TikTok: @ashiamosley