We were lucky to catch up with Brayley Josephson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Brayley, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

The most important lesson that I have ever learned is the important of persistence.

The summer I was 17, I decided that it was time for me to get my first job, and have an income stream of my own. For some reason, I loved the idea of working at a specific local hardware store that was about 5 minutes from my childhood home. I remember walking into the store and asking the cashiers for an application. They sent me to a back counter where a man (who I thought was just a manager but later came to realize was Dave, the new owner of the store) came to great me. He handed me an application, and I asked him for a pen. I wanted to fill it out for him then and there. We chatted for a couple minutes, I handed him my application and told him I looked forward to hearing from him.

Fast forward a couple days, I get a text from him with an interview and schedule it immediately. It goes really well and Dave tells me that he should have an answer for me that week after he had a couple more interviews.

What did I do then? I waited until the day after he told me he would have an answer before I reached back out to him checking in, telling him how much I would love to work with them. We repeated this about 2-3x before Dave told me that he was so impressed by my persistence, dedication and professionalism, that he knew he had to give me a shot, even when I had 0 formal job experience.

This is the same dedication and commitment that has allowed me to grow my business, even when I didn’t have any formal experience. I used the same exact tactics to get my first clients, and then my first wedding very shortly thereafter.

Your persistence, hard-work, and follow-up can get you anywhere. You just have to take the time and put in the hard work to get yourself there.

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?

Hi there! I’m Brayley, the owner of Focused On Life Photography (FLP) LLC, a Full-time, Traveling Lifestyle + Wedding Photography business. From births to weddings, and everything in between, we capture all different kinds of milestones, people, and memories in a natural, earthy, classic and candid style, so our clients have photos they can cherish for a lifetime.

For as long as I can remember I was fascinated with cameras and taking photos of literally EVERYTHING. I was so infatuated that I annoyed nearly all of my loved ones from taking so many photos and videos, trying to save every memory possible for later. I knew then that I wanted to be a photographer, but never knew how I was going to be able to make it work. Fast forward to now, I’m living my dream and loving every minute of it.

Here at FLP, our entire business structure is based around our clients and doing our best to ensure that everyone can have beautiful, authentic photos that they love and can cherish for a lifetime. We believe that everyone should have as many photos of their life’s milestones as possible. As a result, we offer no maximum number of photos taken, edited and delivered* for ALL of our photography sessions/packages,

What else makes us different? We LOVE to reconnect, which is why we created our rewards program, so you can decorate your home with your memories, for years to come, AND get discounts on documenting other milestones in the future.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

My rewards program is a huge one! I realized that reconnecting with people for different milestones can be a HUGE way to keep the income flowing and to foster brand loyalty. It incentivizes clients to come back as well as to refer other clients by getting discounts, additional point bonuses, etc.

I then also have an email list that I can send automated follow-ups to wishing them happy anniversary, checking in on them, etc.

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

Doing my absolute best 100% of the time for my clients so they have the best experience possible and then incentivizing them to refer more people to me (i.e. via a rewards system bonus). Without an exceptional experience, people are not going to be as inclined to share with other. However, the more reasons you give them to want to share, the more likely they will. This is the most organic and free way to market that will also help you to consistently grow your clientele.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://focusedonlifephotography.com
• Instagram: @focused.on.life.photography
• Facebook: Focused On Life Photography LLC

Image Credits

Brayley Josephson (Me)