We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Channa Brouk a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Channa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.
Without a doubt I am surrounded by some of the most inspiring and creative photographers in the industry. You can then see why brides may have a tough decision to choose a photographer for their wedding day. Recognizing this as a business owner challenges myself to want to be able to deliver something unique to brides that connect with my style. I strive to deliver more than just pretty images. On your wedding day, you spend the majority of it with your photographers. It’s super important for myself and team members to grow a relationship before the day and go the extra mile for them on the day.
I have created the EvCo Wedding Experience for my couples that starts even before they book. I continue to show them how special they are to me even after their wedding day. It starts when they inquire and I learn about the details about their wedding vision. I give suggestions of what timeline I feel may be best for them based on their date, sunset time, and locations. Natural light is super important to create our bright and bold style so the timeline is huge component to our day. I create the official wedding timeline for all of our couples. I love making recommendations to them even before they book if they mention needing or looking for other wedding professionals. I have personally created many relationships with other wedding pros that know how to spoil our couples like we do. After the couple books our team they are officially an EvCo Bride and Groom. To me. all my couples are apart of a little community. “Always an EvCo Bride” I even add my brides to a group where we can wedding chat and recommend between past and future brides, celebrate one another, and hoping to plan a get together in the future is a goal.
Creating a relationship with my Brides and Grooms are a huge part of how we deliver our best. I always include a complimentary engagement session and make it a must have. This allows us to be able to meet our couples beforehand, get to know them and their vision, and also coach them on very light-easy posing techniques where by the end of the session its a natural thing. This makes it easier for them on the wedding day for portraits too. Arriving on the wedding day and getting the greeting from our couples makes me know we are more than just the photographers to them. It is kind of goal since we want our couples to trust us full-heartedly to help them have their dream wedding day. I want to be that person for them. It’s so much more than just the photographer.
You can always guarantee that on a start to finish wedding day you will see 2-4 team members on-site. Having multiple photographers is truly the answer to any what if questions. Don’t worry we have a team to help and be there! We can be more places at one time because so much can be happening at one time. In the past year, we officially added a day of coordinator from Aray of Events to our photography team. This coordinator does not have a camera in hand, but can run errands, help setup, and save the day! It’s nice giving the maid of honor and mothers a chance to be more present as our coordinator can do all the running and checking on things.
Taking care of our bride and grooms as much as we can is key to deliver an EvCo Wedding Experience and their full timeless wedding gallery.
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?
Fun fact, I do not have photos of the first 9 months of my life. I was adopted from India and came over to America to be with my family at 11 months old. My arrival took place at the St. Louis Lambert Airport where my whole family was waiting for me. I am so thankful for the camera and footage my parents have so I have a visual of when my story started here with my family. My mother from the time I arrived took so many photos of my life. I thoroughly enjoy going through them and even more so since I have two little children of my own. It wasn’t until I had my daughter Evalyn that I realized I was carrying down a family legacy. Just like my mother, I now try to capture as many of my kids milestones and family memories. I truly believe having digitals or prints of the past helps tell a story in the future.
What started as a hobby in middle school turned into a growing business. I am forever grateful to be able to capture important seasons and dates of my wonderful families and couples.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
Networking and education has played a huge role in my success. There is always room for growth and change. At some point of growing your business, you have to take scary leaps and do things you are not comfortable with. For me, that was taking the chance of losing some of my favorite repeat clients and raising the prices of my services. As the economy has changed, raising prices has been an overall thing for most businesses, but still scary. I reached a place in my business where I saw that I have to give myself more credit on the backend. Though I may only spend a minimum of 15-30 minutes with my clients, there is so much time on my business in between the sessions and wedding days with education, editing, and marketing. I spend hundreds of dollars, monthly, educating myself on how to properly pose my clients, learn about lighting and location, and how to better my business. The post-session process takes lots of time for editing to match my style and doing touch ups. Marketing and advertising is a never ending process and I spend the most time on the computer planning and coming up with new engaging material to showcase what I can offer. Also keeping social media and website material up to date.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
Having a team of photographer shapes my business. Sometimes I am unable to be present at every wedding or full days and my team of photographers will take over. I am very open and direct with the other photographers of how I want to run my business and treat my clients to deliver the expected EvCo Experience. They have their own photography business and when shooting for me they treat my business like their own. I am so grateful for these associate shooters. These wonderful photographers are truly amazing and will try to deliver nothing less than what I can offer. I have openly said they are better than me, but all jokes aside I only want the best for my couples. We have grown together since I started weddings a few years ago and they deserve to be overly told and shown how much I appreciate them. Our relationship makes it easy to communicate all things so we can continue to learn and grow together.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://evalynandco.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/evalynandco/
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/evalynandco