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

Talia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you take vacations? How do you keep things going – any advice for entrepreneurs who feel like they can’t step away from their business for a short vacation?

As someone who works a lot, I love vacations. They are critical to my creativity, well-being, and productivity. I am a big advocate of “work smarter, not harder” and one of the ways I bring that into my life is by understanding when I need a break from my routine day-to-day. By avoiding ruts and staying at maximum productivity, I feel like the overall quality of my work is better, I am happier, and I get to take advantage of cool opportunities to see and explore the world.

However, I will say that my vacations tend to be less “vacation-ey” and more along the lines of doing something completely different and outside of my routine for a week – though no less busy or active (in fact, most times more busy and active).

For example, my last three vacations have all been side hustle active escapes: 1) In April, I took a week off to attend the Bitcoin Conference in Miami, 2) In January, I took two weeks off to attend a yoga retreat in Costa Rica, and 3) From May to August of 2021, I relocated to Hawaii, which felt like it’s own extended vacation.

I am also a huge fan of three-day weekends – like mini-vacations throughout the year.

All of this to say, I am a huge advocate of vacation! Foregoing vacation does not equal success. In many ways, the rejuvenation vacation provides is a multiple for success.

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’m a social impact entrepreneur, a videographer, and an AI Strategy Consultant for Deloitte Consulting. As of now, I am based out of San Diego but, camera in hand, I let work dictate where in the world I go – and make sure I take time to capture the adventures along the way.

My full-time job is a corporate 9 to 5pm role as an AI Strategy Consultant that specializes in health care and Vision AI. I absolutely love the impact I can make and the problems I get to work on. However, there isn’t always a ton of room for project ownership and creativity, which is why I started a side hustle…

On the side, I pursue my passion for videography, where my specialty is event reels, promotional videos, and drone/aerial footage. I love capturing the excitement and hype of events. I’ve shot everything from motivational business conferences and international yoga retreats, to hackathons and incubator weekends. Most recently I shot the Bitcoin 2022 Conference in Miami!

My passion for videography grew rapidly once I dove into it, and I dove headfirst. There is something so incredible about being able to capture the spirit of an event, a place, a person, or an idea in the complex integration of sound and motion.

I love experimenting with new techniques, immersing myself in the Adobe suite universe of Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, & Lightroom, and making the vision in my head become a reality. I focus on immersive sound design, vibrant color-grading, seamless transitions, and, most importantly, powerfully communicating the message behind it all.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In order to be successful, you need to turn feedback (especially negative feedback) into opportunities – and I believe this requires quite a bit of resilience. It takes resilience to take your work and actively look for flaws or to accept and be open to someone else pointing out flaws in your work, especially if those flaws are “subjective”.

At multiple points as a videographer, I have had people provide all different kinds of feedback. Some feedback I agreed with (“yes, that transition was a little awkward”), some feedback I flat-out disagreed with (“I think that color combo you’ve picked out looks atrocious but you’re the client and if that’s what your eye likes, that’s what we’ll do”), and some feedback that was never voiced aloud but was probably the best feedback I ever got (i.e. are people buying from me? Because if they’re not, that is a HUGE piece of feedback that what I have to offer may need some improvement).

I think learning how to transform feedback into actionable insights is very important, especially for unspoken feedback.

I remember when I shot my first wedding. Afterwards, I had the promo video that had taken me weeks to make (I took way too much footage at the first wedding – what a slog going through 15 hours of footage), and all I heard was “I love it!” from friends and the wedding couple, who had not paid me since this was my first foray into wedding videography and I was doing it for free. I felt proud of the video and I was only receiving compliments.

However, as I started trying to use this video to book a paid wedding job, I was having trouble. People were not biting on my offer (and I was offering what I considered a discounted wedding videography package)…. this was feedback. Feedback I didn’t love – but feedback nonetheless. Though the couple liked the wedding video (who wouldn’t like something for free), I would need to work on a few things in order to book true business.

But every challenge is an opportunity to be better! This mindset has really helped my resilience in situations when I recognize that the feedback I’m receiving (whether direct or indirect) is not exactly what I would hope to hear.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

The most effective strategy for growing my clientele has been high-quality free work for, and this last part is very important, the right people. The first thing you need to do is determine your prices (are you budget pricing, premiere pricing, etc.), which will feed into who the “right people” for your business are.

Since videography is a side hustle for me, I wanted a business model where I did one high-paying job (think $5 to $10K) per month. I wasn’t trying to get a ton of little clients – I was going for the one big fish. That being said, I knew I needed to get in front of people that were able to pay the premium price I was hoping to charge for my services.

As I started doing free work, I was very specific with who I did free work for. As a business person, you are not doing free work just to do work. You are doing it to build your portfolio, develop your clientele, and gain experience. My first free job (videography for StartUp Deloitte) gave me a great portfolio piece. I used that video to trade my videography services for free attendance at a conference I wanted to go to, which cost $1,000 (not exactly cash in the bank, but still, there’s value). Out of the second conference, I got two $1,500 job offers, one of which ended up working out (the other did not, thanks Covid!). From there you continue working up. As your portfolio becomes bigger, you gain confidence, can increase your price, and can be more selective about the clients and projects you take on.

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: taliaaagrace
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talihaller/

Image Credits
Daniel Zelinger (@zelingerphotography)