We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mark Collett a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Mark, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you tell us a story about a time you failed?
Failure is both a cruel and kind teacher; one that we hate to learn from in the moment but one that we are grateful for later in life. The lessons we take away from failure stick with us stronger — and longer — than anything we think we learn from wins.
My wife and I started our journey towards our current business back in 2016. Working a full time job as an engineer, but with a background in music, I felt that a part of my skills/ambitions/desire were being left by the wayside by a highly technical job. As both left brain / right brain thinker, the highly technical aspect of my day job was interesting but I craved a way to “feed” the creative side of myself.
I always had an interest in photography and videography, and with it still being the relatively early days of YouTube an entrepreneur friend of mine encouraged me to dive in and try and make a side hustle out of it.
This started one of the most exciting parts of my journey towards the current incarnation of our business. I was learning so many new things and trying them out, being creative and having fun doing it. I experimented with trying to make a YouTube channel that people were interested in; and when that didn’t take off quite as I had hoped I set my sights on being a service provider for photography and video production.
What I learned trying to make my way into the YouTube space became directly applicable to creating content for small businesses. I pivoted from trying to be a “YouTuber” and concentrated on finding ways to serve the local business owners I knew. A fellow business owner (who owned her own marketing business) referred me to clients; at the same time I started dabbling in weddings, and then I was feeling like I was getting somewhere! I still have the first (paper) check from my first “job.” It felt amazing to be creating & getting paid for it.
Then, business started to dry up. Looking back I can see where I made lots of mistakes; the biggest one is that I misunderstood a little bit of success as a trend for the future. I had no idea that I didn’t really have a clue what I was doing. If there was one thing I could go back and tell myself, it is that I needed to become familiar with Robert Kyosaki’s “BI Triangle.” I had no business systems, nor a marketing machine for generating leads; I was assuming my “product” was what the market wanted but I hadn’t taken the time to learn what that might actually be. This ignorance caused this small business to nearly grind to a halt.
I had failed to do my homework on what it took to start a small business and keep it running. I made the mistake of thinking that — having been successful in my day job — I could just “jump in” to being a successful entrepreneur.
This next phase was a darkness that overshadowed (for a time) the excitement of the earlier phase. I prayed for direction; sought counsel from a few friends who had been in a similar journey; and had many nights of anguish over not knowing what to do next. I had also been changing as well — initially this was a side hustle that I had started just to have a creative outlet, but over time I grew to want to be an entrepreneur, a business owner … to call something my own.
Through a series of events I can only describe as divine intervention, I started to discover what was next for us. And I mean us, because things morphed from what I wanted to do in a business to something that both my wife and I could do together. Realizing that a photo/video business is far more than just the ability to work a camera, I started from naught and (ironically) fell back on my engineer training to simply ask “how does all this work?”
At nearly the same time, my wife and I renewed our vows in Glacier National Park. We worked with a local photographer to choose a location in the park, plan out the day and all the other details. This exposed us to a niche inside weddings; a.k.a. Adventure elopement photographers. This was quite the revelation for both of us as we had actually wanted our wedding (25 years ago) to look something like our vow renewal. It’s just that back then, there wasn’t anyone who “specialized” in that kind of thing. Fast forward a couple of decades, and we were learning that it actually “was a thing” these days!
The next few months went by in a blur. I found an entire community of elopement photographers on social media, and started learning everything I could from one of the leaders in the space (especially Maddie Mae of Adventure Instead). I ate up all of her education and my wife and I shared an excitement of this new direction. Looking back on my past failures to keep a small business going, I learned how to build the right foundation, with a strong “product offering.” I learned how to communicate what we could do for people. We discovered our shared mission: to create amazing experiences for couples on their best day ever, out in the wild.
The lesson I want to share here is to encourage those who are in a dark time of building their own business to keep going. What that looks like for everyone is different. It might be taking a big step back and working a part time job to make ends meet while you work on your passion a little at a time. But whatever you do, keep moving forward. There was a time in our transition to discovering adventure elopements that we almost shut down the business entirely. I was literally staring the “delete website” button down, wondering if that was what we were going to do. But I felt that we had a calling to do something and what that something was just hadn’t completely materialized.
Today, I think of all the shared experiences we would have missed out on, all the great relationships we’ve made over the years, and all the wonderful couples we have had a chance to work with. To think that there was a moment in time, a decision point, where I almost turned my back on all of it. That I almost gave up. I am so grateful that we kept going!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I need to start out by saying (again) how thankful we are for where our business stands today. From my “failure” story you can see how things took a major pivot when we shifted over to adventure elopements. There were a lot of people in the industry we took inspiration from, but it was definitely learning from Maddie Mae & Adventure Instead that got us to where we are today.
Our business started out initially in photography and videography, being a generalist service provider. We created content for small businesses (mostly for websites and social media ad placements) and shot weddings as well. The problem with being a generalist though, is that it keeps you from specializing. Not being able to niche down keeps your services at a commodity level. It’s a problem I see across many industries; when a business (small or large) cannot communicate its unique value proposition to prospective clients, it will struggle to be profitable.
Pivoting into the niche of adventure elopements, we saw this as an opportunity to:
-Shift into a part of weddings that was actually growing (according to market data)
-Specialize in a niche market that aligned with our passions (we had always wanted to get married this way; we love the outdoors; we discovered that we love smaller, more intimate wedding celebrations)
-Provide a service to couples who craved this kind of an experience but couldn’t find anyone to help them create it (the experience we wanted 25 years ago!).
One of my favorite “target market” exercises that I’ve been taught (and that I love to teach others when mentoring) is to write out the unique things you bring to the table for clients. It’s an easy exercise to quickly pass over in general terms (e.g. I create epic photography). But when you really dig in, it can uncover some really big insights into how to communicate to your target market.
What my wife and I learned about ourselves that could speak to potential clients:
-We are a husband and wife team.
-Our marriage of over 25 years inspires others to know it can be done!
-With our backgrounds in engineering and teaching, respectively, we are hyper organized.
-As a family (with our two kids) we have taken cross country trips ever since they were young (as far as Hawaii, California, Montana…). We’ve become quite skilled at trip planning!
-We’ve lived in the area of the Blue Ridge Mountains for over 25 years and have explored it extensively
Coupling the opportunity to niche down in adventure elopements with what we felt like we bring to the table, one could describe StoryBright Films as this:
Our mission is to create & capture personalized intimate wedding day experiences for couples in epic outdoor places, with a carefree vibe supported by our planning expertise, inspiring them towards a future of even more adventures together.
That is a bit long for a mission statement, but there is a lot going on there! How about we unpack that a little bit below by speaking about what problems we are solving for our clients.
First, a quick mention about elopements myths; there is still a misconception that elopements are for those who want a cheap wedding, or last minute, or — in general — an undertone that an elopement isn’t nearly as special as a big traditional wedding.
For us, that could not be further from the truth.
Our couples come from a place where they want something more special than what the traditional wedding industry shows them. They just aren’t feeling the big wedding with all the Pinterest accouterments. Beautiful barn backdrops or ornate venues don’t inspire them. Wedding day timelines (where they are expected to socialize with 100+ people they don’t really know) make them feel super uncomfortable.
They know they want something smaller, more intimate, with nature as the ultimate backdrop; and extensively tailored to their needs and wants.
After that is where their biggest problem arises and what we aim to solve the most for them — what exactly does the day look like?
Anyone who has attempted to solve a problem at the point of the Google firehose will quickly realize that there is an abundance of information out there on everything in the universe. We have had countless conversations with couples who have tried to plan out their elopement and quickly realized that they have no roadmap to making it happen. Or even if they are able to get over the first hurdles of deciding on a general location, they realize the next ones increase in difficulty. Not only is it hard to find out the options out there for planning a day, but to make an educated decision and be confident that those decisions are the right match for what they are looking for in their day — it is quite the challenge!
One of our favorite analogies when speaking with couples is that we’re like that personal trainer that keeps you on track with your fitness goals. Sure, anyone can download a weight training plan from the internet but if you want to “know that you know” you are doing things right for a specific goal, nothing beats having a coach at your side.
We are like that personal trainer, but instead we are working together with couples to create a beautiful, adventurous wedding day. We take their initial vision (often described in ethereal, whimsical terms with a touch of lucidity) and help guide them towards placing more definition around it. As the vision comes together like a painter’s canvas, we lead them through practical decisions like choosing outdoor locations that are a match for the scenery they want; organizing the logistics of the day between the various experiences they have planned; booking other service providers, and so on. By the time we’ve finished our planning stage, we’ve taken a high level vision and “boiled it down” to an elopement day timeline with all the specifics written out.
However, we don’t stop there. Another pain point we observed from our days in big weddings is that the “day of” wedding coordinator makes all the difference in a couples experience. The right one will take the worry off of the bride’s shoulders so she can simply relax and enjoy her day. It’s this lesson we take into elopements as well; from our experience we are able to anticipate multiple ways a day could go and handle all the small things behind the scenes. Said another way, having a plan for the day is just one part of the puzzle; being able to adjust it on the fly and keep the day feeling organic is another important piece.
Which takes me to our ultimate goal for our couples: We want them to feel cared for and celebrated throughout the entire planning process & throughout their wedding day. We want them to feel at the end of their day with us, that their wedding day experience was not only what they always wanted together, but beyond their expectations as well. When they look at their photos and video for years to come, we want them to remember all the great things about their wedding day, to feel awesome about their decision to elope, and to be inspired to take even more adventures with each other.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
By far, discovering the power of SEO has been the best source of new clients. The first stages of our business were by referral and word of mouth and for some that can be a great sales funnel. However there is a ton of power in digital marketing, because of the wider reach it affords businesses. Especially in a space like ours which has parallels to destination weddings, we need to be seen by potential clients across a wide geographical area.
One big lesson I’ve learned from SEO is that it dovetails nicely with an intentional strategy of defining client avatars, target market and your customer journey. Once you map out who you are serving and what questions they have, it becomes a treasure trove of content you can put on your website to show them that you have the answers they are looking for.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
Oh there are so many books I’ve read that have brought us to where we are today. Some of the high points are: Anything by Robert Kyosaki. My current favorite is “Before you quit your job”
Donald Miller’s “Building a StoryBrand” has been foundational.
“Blue Ocean Strategy” is another great read, to be thinking about ways to disrupt & also be aware of how one’s business could be disrupted. In a way, the growing space of elopements are creating a “blue ocean” vs traditional weddings.
“Permission Marketing” by Seth Godin
“Living Fearless” by Jamie Winship
“The Artists Way” by Julia Cameron
Contact Info:
- Website: https://storybrightfilms.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/storybrightfilms/
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/storybrightfilms
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQTKXrwIG-Sm80Ty-x-pm-w
Image Credits
The photo of us, credit to Joanna Adams (https://www.joannaadamsphoto.com/). The rest are our own work.