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

Alright, Julie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later?

I’ve actually been asked this quite a bit. I didn’t start my business until I was in my mid 40’s. I graduated college with a social work degree, was a youth counselor for a few years, then a stay at home mom with my 3 kids and then a preschool teacher for several years before I took this leap. I have no regrets starting when I did. I truly believe my past experiences and past jobs have made me better in my business. Each experience taught me something that still resonates and helps me in some way today.

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?

I fell in love with taking pictures when my kids were in sports. And then when I was teaching preschool, I loved taking pictures of my students and making a little photo book to give parents at the end of the school year. I would “dream” about someday doing photography but I don’t think I ever thought it would really happen. A coworker’s niece asked me to do her wedding and I thought she was nuts lol. How could I ever handle a wedding?? But after talking with my husband, he encouraged me to go for it. He has always been my number one supporter, and believed in me more than myself! I said yes to that wedding and then actually ended up doing a couple more that school year and I was hooked. I also started doing senior photos and within a year I quit teaching to go full-time in my business. I did as many as 25 weddings some years, but have been taking less the last couple years as I have fallen in love with branding photography.

Two of my favorite things about my job have been first, the people I’ve met and spent time with. I absolutely love the moments that I get to experience with them. Them inviting me in to share their life experiences, whether with a newborn, a high school senior, or the crazy, fun chaos of any age in between, is such an honor. From the excitement, nervousness, love and so much more, the emotions of those moments are what I thrive on. So many of my clients have been with me for years. And that is honestly the best compliment ever.

The other favorite thing about my job is capturing my client’s unique personalities. This is one of the reasons I’ve fallen in love with brand photography. There are so many small businesses out there, and if you can show your personality through the imagery you use in your marketing and branding, then your ideal clients will connect with you, and most importantly, want to hire you. No one else is like you, so use that to your advantage. Brand photography isn’t just about headshots like it used to be years ago. It’s so much more personalized and fun today.

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

I would say giving my clients a truly wonderful experience has led to referrals. Making sure that they have a wonderful experience from start to finish and beyond is so important to me. My clients always ended up being my friends. I joke that it’s a disclaimer when they hire me, “yeah sorry, I’m your bestie for life now!” Haha. No, but seriously, I really love my clients. I have been so lucky to have such amazing people trust in me, and return to me. Just being genuine and building relationships off of that, has led my clients to refer their friends to me. And if your ideal clients refer their friends, usually those turn into ideal clients as well.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

It’s not necessarily that I didn’t know about it earlier, but I didn’t trust in it earlier. I would hear about how important it was to make connections in the industry with other photographers. And to be honest, I was terrified to do that in the beginning. I honestly had a hard time calling myself a “professional photographer” and not just a mom with a camera. And I felt other photographers would feel the same about me. I reached out to one person a couple times and was completely ghosted. So that just confirmed my thoughts in my mind. But then I met others at workshops and conferences, and realized there are so many amazing individuals in this industry. And honestly, when Covid hit, I don’t think my business would have survived without the text stream that my closest photographer friends and I had going, about how to handle all of the cancelled weddings, contract questions, refunds, reschedules and everything else. To this day, they are such a huge support system for me. Bouncing ideas off of each other, collaborating, supporting one another, cheering each other on…I am lucky to call some amazingly talented photographers my close friends.

To this day, I am a huge believer in “community over competition”. Building each other up only improves our industry and makes us stronger. I will always cheer other photographers on.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://juliegreerphotography.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliegreerphotography/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JulieGreerPhotography
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-greer-219a2552/