We were lucky to catch up with Kelsey Messinger recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kelsey thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. 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?

Scaling my business is one of my favorite topics because I watched how my mindset and small actions were able to transform my business from a hobby, to a side gig, to a small business, and how a full-blown operation. Part of scaling is to live in your business long enough to understand that it’s a living, breathing thing. If you scale too quickly, you can choke it out. If you wallow in your current place, you’ll never take the leap to create the business of your dreams. My advice is, don’t scale too quickly. So much of scaling your business is doing it in a timeline that your business requires. If you scale too soon, you won’t have the foundation built to sustain it. Start small, do that really well… then add little by little.

I personally scaled based on necessity and the fact that I had a long term goal of ultimately WHO I wanted to work with as a photographer. In order to find that clientele, I had to make moves to release the old to make room for the new.

Scaling is only possible if you’re doing what only you can do, and giving the rest away. Outsource, outsource, outsource and automate absolutely everything you can. If there is something you do more than once in your workflow, automate it.

Here are some of my favorite tips:
– Save your general responses with links in the boards app. You can link it to your keyboard and have them ready to go when people reach out.

– Let clients schedule calls/appointments using acuity scheduling or calendly.

– Create email templates with links ready to go so you’re not sending the same email over and over.

– Outsource literally every task. I advise to outsource services instead of bringing on interns/employees especially as you’re scaling.

– Sometimes you have to pick things back up, and that’s okay, but you can’t scale if your hands are in the weeds.

– Raise your prices every quarter until you’re sick. You can’t scale your business if you’re running around like a chicken with your head cut off taking every client that comes your way.

– Work from a CRM. Don’t keep every detail on your head, and work from a general workflow so you can stay on track with each client.

– Take opportunities as they come and build your framework around it. Don’t wait, when opportunity comes knocking, be ready to level up.

– Find someone who is farther ahead of you and ask for a mentorship.

Kelsey, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Creating art, working hard and loving people have always come naturally to me. As a kid, I would sing, draw, dance, build and adventure. Well, not much has changed, except now I get to put my passions towards creating beautiful images and helping people feel their absolute best.

I’ve always been someone who likes to invest in others. It wasn’t long into my 9-5 “big girl” job that I realized that if I didn’t make a creative outlet for myself, I would quickly drown in administrative tasks. It was at that time that I picked up a camera and started to photograph people.

On my own time, outside of working 50 to sometimes 80 hr weeks, I started to take courses to build my knowledge around photography, my camera settings, composition, lighting, etc., and started to build a small portfolio, with a borrowed camera I might add.

I got pretty good, pretty fast. I had a way with kids and families as well as a gift of bringing out the best in the women I was photographing. I never thought that this could be a full-time gig, I just really, really enjoyed it.

After 5 years of photographing on the side, I decided to really take the business seriously and revisit the way it was operating.

The response was indescribable. In just 6 weeks, I went from making not even enough to over my gas for the week, to making more than my entire year’s salary at my full-time job over the next 2.5 months. I couldn’t even fathom how this was possible!

I realized that the effort that I was putting in was being rewarded and I needed to listen to where I was being led and decided to jump with both feet into my business.

The past 1.5 years of being FULL TIME has afforded me the flexible schedule I’ve always wanted, and opportunities to be in the same room as people I could have only dreamed of at the start of last year. I’ve been given the gift of pouring into people’s lives from behind the camera, and I get to watch them light up when they finally see themselves in the way that they’ve never seen before.

I get to be the guide that shows men and women how truly worthy and beautiful they are through timeless images.

The Olive Grey community has grown into the most beautiful family of people that have all chosen to level up in life in some way. Being part of this community has been the catalyst for so many people to finally follow their dreams and make big moves!

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Building a reputation in my market has been attributed to a few things. 1, genuine connection, and 2, a great service experience.

My dad always said to me “Kelsey, no one can deny great work.” As a business owner, it’s important to develop a conversation and a culture around your brand. Maintaining your integrity as a brand and providing a top-notch experience is something that can’t be denied.

Building my business on genuine connection has transformed the way people view not only themselves in the photographs, but it’s allowed them to step into more of who they are. Clients feel that connection the moment they reach out and that is a gift that I could never plan for, it just happens. I personally take time to care for each and every story that I have the honor of hearing and photographing. It’s this connection that creates a higher quality experience that can only happen here at Olive Grey.

A great service experience is one of those things that I believe is a lost art these days. Gone are the days of “the customer is always right.”
When a client steps into my world, I make sure to emphasize that this isn’t just a photoshoot where you show up, I photograph you, and you never hear from me again. I take every client on a journey and curate a session that is meaningful for them and their family. This is what sets us apart. When clients see their images, they don’t just see pretty photos, they finally see themselves in a truly different light.

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

I was able to crack the code on finding qualified clients which in turn, allowed me to scale my business so I was able to go full time.

Again, coming from a place of genuine connection, I wanted to bring my leads into a process where they would either see themselves as a client of Olive Grey, or they would disqualify themselves as they knew that they weren’t ready to step into this powerful space. I love working with clients who know they need to level up in life in some way, to step out to become all that they are, and working me is just the push they need to get there.

I set up Facebook ads that targeted the audience I was looking for, and then allowed them to click on a link that walked them through a series of questions that would get a little more in depth of who they are. If someone went all the way through the questions, and submitted it would show me a lot about how they are willing to be invested in the process.
After reading their responses, I would reach out and select people based on their stories as well as what they were hoping to get out of the process.

This would automatically build a list of qualified clients for me that I then could reach out to and start the process with.

Contact Info:

• Website: olivegreyphotography.com
• Instagram: @olivegreyphotography @kelsey_messinger
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kelsey.long.566
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelsey-messinger-a978b2225

Image Credits
Olive Grey Photography