We were lucky to catch up with Britleigh Wechsler recently and have shared our conversation below.
Britleigh , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
When 2020 and covid came around, I as well as many others got locked inside and not able to work. I wanted to check in with my artist and entrepreneur friends to see how they were holding up. I would set up an “Instagram Live” video chat with them and talk to them about what they were doing to stay positive, and productive. Every week I had a new guest on. I did this for about 6 months and I surprisingly had so many people personally messaging me to tell me how much they enjoyed what I was doing. Some people request that I start a Podcast. Surprised by all of the feedback, I was determined to turn it into a podcast. I knew nothing about audio or podcasting so I spent hours learning and figuring out how to start one.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a freelance photographer and Podcast host. I have been a visual artist and photographer my whole life– with a camera in my hand since I was 6 years old. Over the years as an adult I have been able to meet so many incredible people in my photography career. My superpower is to connect with people and listen and relate to them. I have always been fascinated by people’s stories and I’ve always done photography because I enjoyed capturing people. I started a Podcast called Excelsior! that shares the stories of artists and entrepreneurs that I meet along the way. With that I, I started hosting mixer/arts/ music/ comedy shows every other month to bring inspiring people of the community together.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
One of my first Instagram Live guests was my good friend, Bobby Brown. Bobby was a truly talented artist and maker. We had done a few photo projects together and spent a lot of time together just talking about life. I came to Bobby’s home in January 2021 and we recorded a live video together. He was one of the friends that I bounced ideas about my podcast project with a lot– his face was going to be on my logo from one of the photo shoots I ended up going with another model.
Summer of 2021 came and I had locked down a studio, got my recording gear, editing programs, I was almost ready but I just needed a name. I made plans to meet Bobby for Pho lunch and chat and he sent me a message that morning that said, “Are we still meeting for pho?” I replied, “Yes!” and he responded, “Excelsior!!!”. Right then and there, something about that message clicked– that was my podcast name!– Excelsior! Although, I took away two exclamation marks for the title and left it at one. We met that day and we had so much fun talking about the beauty of life that we ended up at the restaurant for 3 hours. – I will always remember that being the beginning of my podcast. That was also the last time I saw Bobby.
In November, I took a break from having guests in the studio because I had an accident while training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu that caused me to break my foot pretty seriously. I was not able to walk for 3 grueling months– it was a difficult time for me to have to put everything on hold. Christmas 2021 rolled around and I had tried calling Bobby to wish him well and he didn’t answer. Almost immediately after I received a call from a mutual friend telling me he passed away from cancer. Finding that out gave me a gust of motivation to continue my podcast from my home. I hooked up my gear and I started calling people for interviews over the phone and I did that until I was able to walk again and get into my recording studio. I now have a special memory of Bobby because he influenced the name of the podcast and he was my first guest on.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
I keep in touch with clients many ways– I have a Patreon membership, email list, and art shows every other month. My petrean members receive gifts from my podcast guest and free tickets to the art shows. I also do a live show every morning and chat with people live and get them excited and involved.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.britleighp.com
- Instagram: @britleigh_photo
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/britleighphoto
Image Credits
Portraits of my provided by Justin Baysinger, Pam Kreuger, and Alexander Just