We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ryan Kanaly. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ryan below.
Hi Ryan, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
I’ve always believed that if you can find what you care about, you can do your best work. At Smallhands Creative, we all care about mental health, environmental health and the health of our community. We try to do 2 pro-bono projects a year that not only give us life, but can impact one of those three pillars in a positive way. I always get caught up in the work flow and forget how lucky I am to be a part of a company that tells visual stories. The most rewarding projects we work on are the ones where our visual stories help an audience get introduced or support a brand we love!
Ryan, 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?
Smallhands Creative is a brand imaging agency. We specialize in photography and social management. One thing we hate being is, bored. So, our clientele is anyone with a brand! From health/wellness, tech, food, beverage all the way to apps and services, we serve everyone! Our approach is quite different from how the photography industry has worked in the past. We take our clients on a discovery journey to find their visual identity. If we create a visual guideline of how a brand interacts and communicates to their audience, we’ve found that they are far more successful! We also help manage social media accounts, applying this same process to how a brand positions themselves. We create a caption guideline so each brand has an authentic type voice.
We believe, as a consumer generation, that brands have to be true and honest to stick out. Being able to understand the heart and mission of a product/service is the best way for people to not only buy in, but be a proud community member!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
How to price! This one is hard for most people. When I first started shooting in 2014, I had absolutely 0 experience with running any sort of business. I read articles, blogs, newsletters, or anything else I could find on this subject. Every person had a different reason of why to price higher or lower. Through the years, I’ve realized there isn’t a cookie cutter approach, but there is a healthy baseline where you can start!
Find your margin, whether that’s a product creation overhead or an hourly cost. Then think about how much realistically you want to make on top of that to sustain and grow. “How much is your service or product worth to people? Okay, now add on top of that to sustain yourself.” Think of the variables- “How experienced am I in this field? How good am I at my craft? Does this service/product enhance the lives of my customer?” All of these questions lead to how you should position your cost. Some of the most valuable pricing advise I’ve received is, “If you aren’t a little uncomfortable when you’re pricing something, then you’re too cheap.” Your ideas, product and services matter!
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
We are a fairly small team, so it’s really important to me that our communication is clear and our environment is on point. I’m super fortunate to work with people that I can consider close friends, but I do care a lot about how they feel at work or about their work. High morale isn’t just a one time fix, it’s a consistent curation of making people feel welcomed, cared about and pushed to be better. If I had to give a play-by-play of what I find important when managing a team, it would be in this order:
-Make sure to be honest and communicate the needs you have as the leader/director from your team.
-Reward not only monetarily, but with affirmations and responsibility.
-Have an understanding of your team’s goal(s) and be clear on how they can accomplish them.
-Work hard, play hard. Celebrate and champion the accomplishments of each person!
I’m sure a lot of folks have more concise ways they manage. For me, these have been the big winners so far!
Contact Info:
- Website: smallhandscreative.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smallhandscreative/?hl=en
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/smallhands-creative
Image Credits
All images created by Smallhands Creative