We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tawny Laney a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Tawny, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear how you think where to draw the line in terms of asking friends and family to support your business – what’s okay and what’s over the line?
Asking friends and family to support your business is always a hard situation if you aren’t looking at it from the right perspective. Whether it is a MLM, brick & mortar business, or a service you provide, it can be uncomfortable for some people to ask for support. However, asking for support doesn’t just come in the form of your friends and family spending money with your business. I genuinely believe it comes from building those relationships. Have you ever had someone friend you on a social media platform only to start bombarding you with their business posts and slide into your private messages for the sole purpose of trying to get you to buy something? I have and personally speaking, that’s not for me–it’s actually a turn off. This doesn’t encourage me to want to purchase or use a product/service and sometimes it becomes downright annoying. One of the many things that differentiates our business from others is our ability to provide an experience that people WANT to talk about and re-live the memories from.
Years ago I read a book called “Raving Fans” which discussed how happy clients are the core to the success of a business. While that sounds cliché, it is true. This goes beyond being friendly on the phone and responding in a timely manner. It focuses on the importance of providing a fantastic customer oriented experience from beginning to end. As a small business owner, we all know that clients have the ability to make or break a small business. So how do we do it? We provide a photo booth experience that is unforgettable. From initial contact to the end of the event, we work with the client to make sure their personalized experience is just that… personalized. In turn, we find them sharing and raving about our services, recommending us to friends and colleagues, and returning to us when in need of such services again. As a business owner, no amount of marketing dollars can achieve what an over-the-top word of mouth recommendation can accomplish.
This is exactly how Picture This! Photo Booth Rentals was able to grow without asking friends and family to spend a dime with us. Our very first event was for the local Chamber of Commerce. Guests loved the interactive experience, the variety of props to enhance their session, and the keepsake photo as a takeaway from the event. They were all talking about the fun they were having. After the event, these same guests were sharing their photos on social media and expressing their personal opinions on the experience. From that one event, we gained two new clients and this process has continued since 2013 allowing us to grow exponentially with thousands of events being completed. Did we ask our friends and family to support our business? Not at all. They did it without asking and may have not even realized the positive impact they made.
Tawny, 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?
Photo booths have always captured some special and fun memories for our family, leaving behind photos that are still cherished today. I have photo strips from date nights in Dallas, The Aquarium in Corpus Christi with our daughter on her first beach vacation, the crazy ones with both the kids at Chuck E Cheese, and I’m pretty sure the TSA personnel are still laughing when I mistakenly thought the passport scanner that prints your ticket and photo at the airport was a photo booth and decided a good ‘duck face’ was fitting.
While attending a fundraising gala in 2012, my husband and I once again took part in the photo booth fun. Soon after, I decided a photo booth was a must-have for our next event. Exploring the options for photo booth rentals, we found the rentals were cost prohibitive, provided a webcam pixilated photo, took forever to print and many were using ink-jet printers, and didn’t allow for any personalization or customization to the experience. Now I understood why everyone didn’t have a photo booth at their events. It was at that point we knew there had to better options out there and we were on a mission to be the ones to provide it. In 2013, we started our research and had our first photo booth built. Picture This! Photo Booth Rentals was born. We opted for a professional grade DSLR camera to provide high quality, crisp images and chose a specialty printer that auto cuts and produces archival quality prints with a protective layer to keep the photos looking great for the next generation to enjoy. We also researched all of our costs and the market to be able to price our services so that photo booths wouldn’t be limited to just high-end or commercial events but could now be part of all types of Weddings, School Events/Proms, Birthday Celebrations, Quinceaneras, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Family Reunions, Corporate Events, Fundraisers, or anywhere you had a gathering of people and wanted a memorable experience. Our first event was a Casino Night for the Aubrey 380 Area Chamber of Commerce–we booked two more events that evening. From there, our business grew exponentially almost overnight through word of mouth recommendations. We had raving fans everywhere!
In 2014, we were recognized with the prestigious “Best of Denton County” award for Best Photo Booth. When we received a note from Texas Senator Jane Nelson congratulating us for this honor, we were jumping for joy! This was so exciting…people loved us and our business. We had created an opportunity that allowed us to meet so many wonderful people and have more flexibility in our family time. This was the motivation to grow beyond our first booth.
Fast forward to 2022…we have six photo booths and have won Best of Denton County for the last eight consecutive years. Our five star reviews and thousands of photos show how much fun we can make your next event. Just like all events are not the same, neither should your photo booth experience. We now offer enclosed photo booths, open air red carpet photo booths, and our newest addition is the BOHO Glamper– a cute little vintage trailer with a photo booth inside. We customize each photo strip template to coordinate with the color and theme of the event and provide high-quality assortment of props to enhance the photo booth experience. Each party-goer in the session gets a photo strip too (because it’s not fun or fair to make a group of people share two strips). One of our most popular options is the keepsake photo booth scrapbook. We print an additional photo for the book and ask guests to write a message, give a piece of advice, or even just caption the photo. It’s just another great way to preserve your memories from the event.
Picture This! Photo Booth Rentals specializes in providing a photo booth experience that will keep your guests talking about it for years to come. There are several features that separate us from others. The first is our sole dedication to the photo booth industry. This includes participating in continuing education classes, attending expos for the advancements in photo booth offerings, and consistently testing and perfecting our equipment with the latest technology Next, while it’s quite common, we don’t provide complimentary services such as DJ, wedding coordinating, party rentals, photography, etc.–we focus on making our one service the best instead of trying to wear multiple hats. If a client needs a referral for another service, we have plenty to share. Lastly, our client reviews and comments typically revolve around the experience. From themed props to a fully interactive attendant, guests continually rave about how our services are budget friendly without a compromise anywhere else. One of the best things we are known for is our photo strip designs. We don’t use stock templates but create a unique strip for every event.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
In March 2020, almost everyone I know had to pivot in some way or form as we faced an unprecedented time and the unknown of a pandemic. With businesses being abruptly halted, venue capacities, and sudden restrictions, we faced a plethora of calls from clients seeking advise on upcoming events. While a good majority of our clients simply rescheduled to a later date, others preferred to press forward and embraced the social restrictions the best they could. This led to the explosion of micro-weddings and zoom weddings. So how do you create the memories you may have dreamt about when people can’t be physically present? You go virtual. Picture This! Photo Booth Rentals pivoted during this time to offer our selection of 18 beautiful backdrops for rentals in spaces not necessarily accommodating of weddings and added a virtual photo booth option. The virtual photo booth option allowed for us to set up a remote event and provide service to anywhere someone was able to send a text from. A designated phone number was acquired for each event and shared with the guests beforehand. This allowed guests to text a photo to the designated number and about two minutes later, it was returned to them with a customized frame on their photo commemorating the event along with a personalized message from the couple. Our smart system was able to distinguish from a vertical, horizontal, or square photo and apply the appropriate overlay all while saving all the photos to provide to the couple as a keepsake after the event. We continued to create memories even during a time of limitations. With restrictions now lifted, we have resumed our traditional business model.
How’d you meet your business partner?
My business partner is actually my husband. We are a great team and work well together–an absolute must in business. His strengths are my weaknesses and vice versa. Our love story goes back to 1997 when he became my upstairs neighbor and we introduced ourselves as we were both headed to the parking area. It was like a movie with love at first sight. We dated for about three months before deciding each one of us was the other’s forever and got engaged. We have now been officially married for 22 years and have two beautiful daughters. Our oldest is attending Abilene Christian University and our youngest will be attending University of Texas at San Antonio starting in the fall.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.PictureThisDFW.com
- Instagram: @Picture_This_DFW
- Facebook: @PictureThisDFW
- Other: www.BohoGlamper.com
Image Credits
Picture This! Photo Booth Rentals Lynn Schwab Photography