We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sabrina Gebhardt. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sabrina below.

Hi Sabrina, thanks for joining us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

Simply put, willingness to do things differently.

Looking at creative entrepreneurs and, specifically, photographer, it is easy to see that many people do things the same as everyone else. And I think that is a common misconception amongst creatives. “They are successful doing X, so therefore I must do the same thing.”

The truth of the matter is that being brave enough to write your own rules, create your own unique spin on things, build a business that works for YOU and doesn’t look like anyone else’s is what will offer you the most success in the long run.

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

I have been a family and newborn photographer in the Fort Worth/Dallas area for almost 12 years. I don’t take traditional portraits because I believe that they don’t tell a story and life is too short for boring photos. The style of photography that I focus on is called lifestyle photography and it captures real moments that matter. A typical gallery from me will include lots of playing, laughter and snuggles. Depending on the ages of the children involved, there will also likely be jumping on the bed, dancing and reading favorite books. My goal is to capture the essence of a family and go so much deeper than the smiling portrait. I want families to look back on their images and remember how much fun they had.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

The best piece of advice for building your social media presence is to be yourself. Social media is a platform that is built around community and connection. If you look at it from that perspective, social media is like one big cocktail party. You would never walk up to a stranger at a party and immediately start pitching them on a sale. No, you would start with small talk. Get to know you type talk.

Social media is the same thing. Share about yourself. Your life. Your likes (and dislikes). Act like a normal human who is out in the world meeting people. And then connect with others in a genuine manner. Respond to posts. Share others comments. Answer questions.

When you treat social media like a community, it becomes fun. And you will gain followers who genuinely like you. And when they genuinely like you, they will eventually buy from you because they want to support you and work with you.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

Email. Email. Email.

Social media might be more “fun” but email is where you build deep connection and loyalty. And yet, so many small businesses don’t utilize email. Or maybe they only send an email when they have something to pitch.

Email is a great way to take those relationships you started on social media and make them go even deeper. So for a new business, that means setting up a way to legally capture email addresses and then doing something with them.

a 1-2x per month email is a great way to start. Don’t worry about it being a marketing pitch. Just connect. Think about it as a way to deepen a friendship, just like if you had a digital penpal. What are you loving right now? What life hack is making your day? What is a great book or podcast you heard recently? Do you have a funny story from your vacation? Or maybe you wrote a personal blog post. Those are all things you can share in email.

And just like with social media, the more people get to know you, the more they will want to support your business when it is time to market your product or service.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sabrinagebhardt.com
• Instagram: @sabrinagebhardtphotography
• Facebook: facebook.com/sabrinagphoto