We were lucky to catch up with Natalie Finley recently and have shared our conversation below.

Natalie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

Being a mom and running a photography business wasn’t a easy task like I thought. It truly started as a hobby to get me out of the house, creatively thinking, and meeting new people. When I made the switch to start a business my main goal was to navigate my own schedule, make a little extra money and see where this took me until my kids get into full-time school. Little did I know I would be mom-ing during the day and working at night. There were (are) long days, big deadlines, and things I want to be apart of creatively that’s worth the long days and nights. The work was really hard (still is) but worth navigating my own scheduling and showing up for my kids and family the way I wanted too.  I scaled my photography business by shooting everything and everyone possible. I wanted to step into the wedding industry so I second-shot a lot (for free) and started small. My first wedding paid me $1,500 and I WAS SO NERVOUS! I made a lot of mistakes but learned a lot. I gradually grew my weddings by 5-10 books each year and focused on my camera settings, preset colors, and client experience. My client experience has probably been my biggest jump to fostering those relationships and reaching my ideal clients. Not only did my photography get better within the last 6 years, my clients & their friends trusted me. To gain that trust, I have multiple client calls before booking, I create a wedding day checklist and timeline to ease the pre- wedding stress of all the moving parts.

Natalie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

What do you need to know about me? Well, I love coffee and breakfast food… shirley temples, live music… and anything fried! I’m tall, blonde, and dress like Meg Ryan from “You’ve Got Mail.” Quirk is my jam. So is Netflix. If you want to win my heart just throw on some “New Girl” or “The Office!” I was born and raised in small-town Iowa — moved away, made some cool memories, gained some experience, and found my way back. Now I live in the Midwest with my wonderful husband, two growing boys, and a camera that’s seen it all.

As I mentioned, I’m going into my 7th year of owning my own photography business. I photograph intimate weddings, families and in-home lifestyle sessions. It started as a hobby and I scaled my skills, website, and coloring to reach ideal clients over the last few year. I worked weekends, and multiple nights to get where I’m at today. My biggest advice for beginners is to know your finances and how you want to live, what’s your competition around you, and if you are willing to be consistent and put in the work to navigate your own schedule. Specifically for photography, my main goal was to know my camera, and computer settings and find my editing coloring. I’ve tried and used about 3-4 different presets, took about 2yrs to understand Lightroom on Youtube, and get Honeybook up and running to navigate my books, finances, and contracts. Honeybook is my lifeline, they are my VA and I will never not use them! I highly recommend them!

Last year I made a really big financial jump and decided to invest in my website. I took out a small business loan to reach more of an ideal client, fix my SEO, and have a more established and professional presence online. I probably should have done this earlier but I wanted to make sure the designer was the right fit and it was right financially for our family. I was really happy with the news site and with that, it has increased my bookings substantially.
For beginners, if you choose to make this financial gain, make sure you trust the designer, view their portfolio and read through the agreement submitted and ask questions if you don’t understand it. Having a good website and brand truly makes a difference!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn that I was worth getting paid for. My art is worth something! When I first started I didn’t think I was worth getting paid even though people were booking me left and right, especially families and they are hard with young kids. It took me about my third year to start turning a profit because of my fears of raising my prices and losing clients. Little did I know that by raising my prices I would attract more ideal clients and gain more consistency with my income. Now, my family sessions are exclusive and people don’t want to miss out on them.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I have a love-and-hate relationship with social media. I love the fact that 95% of my clients find me on Instagram but hate the consistency and hard work that goes into it. I used to think the number of followers reflected the amount of $$ I made and that truly isn’t the case. I have less than 3k followers and already have my book of business filled for 2024 and some for 2025. With my audience, I take a personal approach. People love seeing my family, silly videos of my boys, photos of my clients, and me being a real human. My growth really came from consistency and posting real content. Be vulnerable and yourself and you’ll be surprised how far that takes you!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://natfinleyphotography.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nat.finley/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NatFinleyPhotography

Image Credits
Nat Finley Photography (me)