Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Rachel Greiman. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Rachel, appreciate you joining us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

I just assume that any business owner, happy or not, applies for a full-time job at least once every few years.

It is so unbelievably hard to run your own business. Everything lives in your brain and your brain alone. Unless you’ve scaled a significant amount, you are the only one who cares about growing the business in new an interesting ways. All the ideation and execution lands on your shoulders. I adore my job and it’s still exhausting. Sometimes I crave being able to go to an office, brainstorm with other creatives, and share the load of responsibility. More than anything, I crave not being in charge. 99% of the time, being in charge is amazing. But the 1% of the time it isn’t, I crawl to the job boards, “just to see.”

On the flip side of that, I recently applied for a job. Not because my business isn’t going well but because it IS going well. For the first time in 8 years, I can see a world in which Green Chair Stories runs itself. I have people that I trust and I know I could hire even more help if I wanted to step in-house somewhere. I’m always wanting to know how larger companies run and getting to work at one would teach me SO much that I can’t teach myself. It was a fun exercise in updating my resume, but it’s not something I’m actively pursuing. At the end of the day, I love being a business owner and no matter where my career takes me, I think I will always have a business.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I run Green Chair Stories, a small copywriting collective in Denver, Colorado. We write websites for photographers, that’s it. (It being 400+ websites over the past 5 years!)

We love helping photographers discover what makes them different from the other photographer down the street. Our process focuses on taking what makes them different and selling it to the kinds of people they adore working with. Great copy isn’t just about getting more leads. It’s about getting enough of the right leads.

A lot of copywriters will tell you that their job is to make their clients more money. While that’s a piece of what we do, our larger goal is to help photographers work with people they love to serve. The way we spend our days adds up to the way we spend our lives and we want to make sure our clients love every day they run a business.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Instagram Reels.

As a business who works exclusively with photographers, Instagram has always been a really important piece of our marketing strategy. We use it to sell our services, but also to build trust. Wherever people find us, they end up on our Instagram at some point. They want to check out our vibe and see if we actually know what we are talking about.

When Instagram pivoted hard into Reels, I drug my feet big time. I felt too old for it. I would cringe at some people attempting to be relevant. Not in a judgmental way at all. More in a “OMG please don’t make me do this” way. But the longer I resisted, the more it became apparent that I needed to jump on the bandwagon or find a new way to get clients.

Eventually, I jumped. It’s been working really well from a business perspective. But I would be lying if I said that I don’t cringe when I hit “Share” on some Reels. I roll my eyes at myself a lot, but I’m also not going to stop. It very obviously has made us money and resonates with our core market, so catch me lip syncing I guess?

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

More is not always better.

When I first started my business, I said yes to everything. I didn’t care what you needed photographed or written, I just said YES. I thought that casting a wide net would bring me the opportunity to make as much money as possible. But I was so wrong!

Eventually, I learned that specializing in something paints you as an expert. It allows you to charge more, work less, and become better at what you do. Specifying a niche felt scary because I thought I was saying no to a lot of potential work and money. But what it actually did was create an exclusivity to working with me that skyrocketed the business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.greenchairstories.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/greenchairstories