We were lucky to catch up with TaylorRae Schnepp recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, TaylorRae thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

The Origin Story

When someone asks me how long I’ve had my photography business I always tend to say something along the lines of, “Do you mean when I originally started my photography business or when I started doing a good job with it? The answers are very different.” I first started a little photography business with my first camera and a Facebook page, I charged $25 for senior photos and would uncharge prints that I’d order for my clients from Costco. Don’t get me wrong, I think God made me with a natural eye for photography but I had no idea what I was doing with either my camera or my business. Fast forward a few years, I’m newly married, about to graduate from a four year university and my husband and I are looking at a pile of student debt so I decided to start taking my business more seriously to add some more income.

Client Experience

While I didn’t know a lot, I knew that when I took someone’s photo, they tended to like it so if I wanted to grow this side hustle and quickly, I had to focus on more than just the pictures themselves. Via free podcasts and “YouTube university” as I’ve heard it called, I learned how to create an amazing client experience so I could justify that I wasn’t just charging people for nice pictures but created an experience for them to invest in. This meant I had to create and utilize effective systems for communicating with my clients prior to them booking, streamline the session planning process, make my clients feel confident and comfortable in front of the camera, and over deliver images, among many other aspects.

Finding My Niche

As I was working to create an experience that my clients would love and want to invest in, I, myself, was also investing a lot of time and finances for them as well. I learned that I would be able to feel better about my investment and in turn do better work and love my job more, if I was shooting the type of work I liked of clients I loved to work with. So, I stopped sharing any work that wasn’t the kind of work I wanted to be shooting. This meant even if I took on the occasional family or senior session, I wasn’t posing them to Instagram and leaving a portfolio section on my website for those categories. Not only does this make a better experience for me as I get to shoot what I want but it’s compelling to potential clients. The best example I’ve ever heard to explain the importance of “niching down” as a business owner is this: If you’re having a problem with your heart, you likely don’t want to just see you family doctor, you want to be referred to a cardiologist. You know that your heart is really really important for the proper functioning of your body so you want to talk to someone whose entire job is to understand and care for the human heart. Their specialty is a comfort to you. The same is true in business. If someone wants to invest in a wedding photographer who they can trust is an expert at what they do, they are going to be more greatly compelled by someone who shoots weddings almost exclusively. The same goes for family photography, senior photography, etc. Niching down put me in the position to be the expert with my clients and built greater trust for them to invest in my.

My Ideal Client

While I niched down to couples and wedding photography, I also realized that not every couple that’s getting married is the right couple for me, just like I’m not the right photographer for every couple. Identifying the qualities of the type of people I want to work with, marketing to those couples, and turning away potential clients I don’t feel fit that “avatar” has helped me to grow my business. I know it seems backwards that turning clients away could grow my business but it really did. I was working so well with the clients that I vibe with, they would refer me to their friends who I also vibed with, and my clientele grew exponentially. On the one or two occassions that I didn’t catch or ignored the red flags that said “hey, this couple, is not your ideal client” it left the clients dissatisfied and me extremely frustrated.

The Best Job Ever

Ultimately, I know that the timeline of my business could have grown so much more quickly had I implemented these steps earlier on, however, this was God’s plan for my life and my business and the timing of it all has been so sweet. At the end of the day what has grown my business is the grace that can only come from God and the passion He’s given me for my work. One day, on a flight home from our Christmas trip to see my in laws, I sat next to this really sweet college girl. I talked her ear off about the sweet life God has given me, how much I love marriage and supporting my couples, and how faithful He is in all seasons. She told me her older sister is in a serious relationship and will probably get engaged soon so she will send her my instagram. A year and a half later, said sister reaches out to me to say that she’s engaged and wants to hire us for her “best day ever”. From that couple alone, they have referred us to four other booking clients. Sometimes it feels like it couldn’t be easier to grow this business because my clients know that we love them and we love this work, they just have to tell others about it. I have the best job ever.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

TaylorRae Photo and Film is a wedding photo and video team based out of Arizona and Oregon. We love to capture people as they are. We want our couples to look back at their favorite moments and remember the joy from that moment in their life, not just being posed by a photographer. We put the most care into ensuring our clients feel confident and comfortable with us every step of the process so they can not only like the way they look in the final products but feel loved along the way! Not many people get the chance to be a part of moments like pre-ceremony prayers, first looks between the bride and groom, marriage certificate signings, and many other important moments that we possess first row seats. Our jobs mean we not only get to be quiet flies on the wall but also a place of both peace and excitement as we capture the forever reminder of the foundation your marriage was set in.
When it comes to capturing other people’s love stories, we are reminded that all love stories point to the best Love story of all: the one where Jesus pursues His bride so passionately that He lays down His life for her.
Photography and videography mean unlimited creative potential and the honor of being trusted to capture the most special moments of people’s lives and the gift of this is never lost on us.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Just months before I quite my full time job (though I definitely didn’t see that coming at the time), I had decided I wanted to get into shooting more than just the few weddings I already had under my belt. I knew that if I wanted couples to trust me with their wedding day, I had to have work that showed I was trust worthy with a wedding day. I also wanted to shoot a wedding that reflected my style and brand so I couples with a similar taste could find me online. This all led me to my very first styled shoot. What started as me just going to take photos of a couple I found on social media in their wedding attire turned into a full blown styled shoot with several vendors and paying photographers to participate as well. I posted on a local Facebook page that I was going to take photos of a couple in wedding attire to grow my portfolio and if there are any wedding vendors who find themselves in a similar spot that would like free photos for their marketing in exchange for their participation, I would welcome it. I was hoping to maybe get a makeup artist and florist for a bouquet but that was just the starting point. I ended up connecting with multiple event planners, rental services, a wedding venue, hair and make up artists, florists, as well as other photographer that wanted to participate so we charged ticket prices to cover the few expenses we did have.

Not only was the shoot so much fun but it built connections with some amazing local vendors, that years later have become friends and we’ve all continued to refer clients to one another.

I think a step that a lot of photographers forget as their trying to grow their business as a wedding vendor, is connecting with other wedding vendors! Since that day I’ve worked with some of those vendors at countless weddings and several other styled shoots.

If a couple has trusted an aspect of their wedding day with one vendor, that vendor’s opinion on other wedding vendors bears a lot of wait with said couples. So I am always intentional to build good relationships with other vendors. While leading styled shoots doesn’t benefit my business like it did when I was first starting out, I still am intentional to share wedding galleries with vendors, tag them, and hype them up on social media. This creates not only a great reputation for our business but promotes a healthy and happy community of local wedding vendors who all support one another.

Does your business have multiple or supplementary revenue streams (like a ATM machine at a barbershop, etc)?

Not only do I create an incredible client experience for each of my clients, I teach other photographers to do the same. At the beginning of last year, we launched TaylorRae Education, to teach other photographers how to to build a profitable business through meaningful connections and exceptional service. My primary focus is one on one mentorships as well as my internship program. I know that learning better posing, creating valuable social media content, crafting an awesome website, can all come down tocliendt experience and when it does, you can create a healthy business with consistent clients you love to work wit. So that’s what I teach.

Over the past several months, I, and my team of interns, have been working on putting out online digital resources including guides, templates, and video courses to help even more photographers and create a passive revenue stream for us as our family grows and our business evolves.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://taylorraephotofilm.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taylorraephotofilm/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taylorraephotofilm
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/taylorraephotofilm/ https://vimeo.com/taylorraephotofilm