Running a small business is no easy task. It's messy and thrilling and terrifying all at the same time. But no matter what, it's definitely a journey worth taking. As a mom of two littles, I know the daily struggles, and I'm here to walk this journey with you. If you're ready to feel empowered, encouraged and on fire for the things you truly love, and you're in the right place. I'm Rebecca Rice, a pizza loving hot chocolate drinking family photographer and educator and this is the business Journey podcast.
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the business Journey podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca and I teach family photographers how to gain A life of financial freedom through a thriving photography business. And today, you guys, I'm so excited because we have an awesome guest with us, we have Rachel grime and on with us. She is the founder and copywriter in green chair stories. And we're so excited just to be able to dive into all things copy. I know she and I were talking a little bit before we hit record. And copy is one of those things that family photographers are just behind on that we for whatever reason it's you know, late in the education space where we just don't talk about copy as much as we really should. And so we've got Rachel on she's gonna kind of walk us through what is copy? What kind of copies should we be focusing on and things like that. So Rachel, we are so glad to have you. Thank you for coming on with us.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm pumped to talk to you. Yeah, it's
gonna be great. So if you would, can you kind of introduce yourself a little bit, tell our audience where you're located and what you do a little bit about your team, and then we can dive into all the things about copy?
Yeah, so I started Greenbrier stories about eight years ago, and it was a family photography business. That's what I started as. Because I was always a copywriter. For nonprofits. That was like my career. And, and a photographer, I always did both. But in my head, it was like, oh, writers don't make money. So I'll just do the family photo thing. And then I was in all these Facebook groups and asking my own questions, you know about how to run a business, I had no idea. And people would ask a lot of questions about copy. And you know, what they should put on their websites. And it was mostly family photographers. And so I started helping people out and helping people kind of figure out their messaging a little bit on their site. And I realized I could take my career in copywriting for nonprofits and kind of translate into this photography space. And so yeah, that was 2014. And in 2017, I started really focusing on copywriting more and more. And then I hired my first team member in 2018, second one and 2020. And now we are a team of me and my assistant and four associate writers, and we exclusively write websites for photographers, but it used to just be kind of like an about page here and there, because that's what people really wanted help with. And now we do the whole thing. So yeah, that's kind of the background of how we got started.
I love that. That's awesome. And you know, I'm a big fan of having a team. So yay, for that. It's a great way to grow in a healthy way. So that's awesome. So let's just jump right in. If you know, family photographers are listening, they may not know what copy is. So we can we first talked about the difference between you know, copy versus content versus messaging, we have all these words that float around in our industry. Tell us what is copy and why is it important in our business?
Yeah, so I think this is really important, because a lot of people just think about words, and they think they're all the same. Like all words are created equal in their business, and they're absolutely not. Content is what you use, is what you write to warm up your audience. It's blog posts, it's social media posts. It's your newsletter, that's all content that you're creating, to just kind of educate and warm people up copy is the words that you use to sell. So that's the words on your website. And both of those things can be the root of both of those things, is your messaging. So you figure out your messaging first. And then you build on that to create content and to create your copy. So what we specialize in is copywriting. So we start with the messaging. Who are you reaching? Who are you talking to? How can you get really specific about who that person is, and what their desires are, what their problems are, what their questions and hesitations are when it comes to booking a photographer at all. And then we can dive into the specific words that we use to convert them so copy is what you see in any advertisement anywhere in the world. You know, when you look at a magazine ad that's copy when you'll get a billboard that's copy when you are on the anthropology website. That's copy. So and that I think that those are some of the most important words in your business because they're What are what that is? What's going to take people from? Maybe to? I want to hire you?
Absolutely. So when you're, you know, writing and thinking through your copy, you're talking to your ideal client through that information. Right? You're Yeah, that's why it's so important to nail down your ideal client, I was just onboarding a new timber team member today. That is starting part time with us eventually coming on full time as an admin, and we were talking about who do we serve this as our ideal client, you know, for my associate team, we serve a different client than we serve for my photography. And so it's good to know like, who is your client, so you can talk to them and use words that they would resonate with? Right?
Yeah. And I feel like ideal client is part of messaging, you know, because you want to have that person in mind when you're creating your core message and what's going to resonate with them in their soul. And then I like to take it one step further and call it, your ideal client becomes the one reader of your copy. So one reader is a very old term in copywriting, where you literally pick one person, and you'd speak directly to them. So rather than casting a really wide net, with the words on your website, and kind of trying to appeal to a couple different people and avatars, you're literally talking to one person. So if Rebecca is my ideal client, my one reader, I want my website to read like a love letter specifically to her. Because if you're my favorite person that I've ever worked with, and that's how I tell people to define their one reader, just pick your favorite client you've ever worked with and write the whole site to them. Then if I write something to you, people just like you are gonna flock. So people are afraid of getting specific in their copy because they think they're alienating business. Quite the opposite is true. And my business, I use my business as an example, all the time, when I first started writing, I was casting a really wide net with my copy for kind of any creative business owner. The second I said, I'm a copywriter for photographers, that's when my business took off. So specificity can be the number one thing to bring you more clients, not less. I know it feels counterintuitive, but it's so so so important.
Yes, no. And I love that that's something that I, you know, teach to my students all the time. Yeah. Where if you can niche down because like, for me, I don't shoot weddings. And I started out I was that person that had everything on my website, wedding seniors, events, family
started out that way. Yeah, do whatever you want to pay us to do,
literally. And then I remember so vividly, like the day that I decided to take all the things off my site and just have families. I was like, terrified to hit publish. And then I did it. I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I'm gonna say no to wedding clients. And I did say no to wedding clients, you know, a few times, but I can say my business grew drastically. At that very moment that I said, I don't shoot weddings, I serve families, like this is the person I serve. If you're not that person, here are some photographers that do serve you. And man that zoning in really, really makes a difference. So you
can't do it halfway. And you're able to have that you can't just say, Okay, I'm mostly going to shoot the Emmys. But if you still want to shoot weddings, I'm going to have this little corner on my website for that. That's like worst case scenario. And so many of my clients, I have to fight tooth and nail to get them to specialize. But once they do, they feel so much better and clearer about who they're talking to. And if you're talking specifically at someone's heart, they're so much more likely to say, hey, I want to contact them, then like, okay, so you're vaguely talking about me, but
right, because the way I'm going to talk to a busy mom is super different than the way oh my gosh, you a millennial bride. So
100% I am a busy mom and I relate almost zero to a 24 year old bride.
Yes, yes. And I'm not that far out, like removed from a 24 year old bride. Right? Because your life is so different. So different. Yeah. Love that. Okay, so when we're looking at photography, websites, I know that you work a lot with different photographers on their full website copy. What are some of the biggest mistakes that you see on their website and I can say I'm probably like, I hit all of them because my website copy at the time of this recording is awful. But we're in a complete total at website video. So guys, don't look at my website right now. For examples, go check it out a little bit later, and it'll be up to par. But what big mistakes do you see on photography websites?
So it's funny that you asked that because I literally just answered an inquiry response right before we hopped on to a family photographer and I will tell you what I told her. Five years ago, all of the templates for specifically family photography sites, were mostly galleries, you know, it's one scrolling gallery at the top, and then no words on the site and just a navigation bar or a really long scroll. In gallery of your best images, and while that was, you know, the user, the expected user experience and it worked, then it is so different now, since Instagram has really blown up and now tick tock like an even Facebook, an app on your phone, think about all we do all day long is scroll, we're so used to scrolling. So rather than just giving somebody a static gallery of images that are going through, that's no longer intuitive for a user, what's intuitive, is having a scrolling homepage, that gives people a little taste of everything they're going to find on every other page. So when we we write a website, there's one hero image at the top, and then you're going to scroll on your phone five to 10 times until you get to the bottom of that website. And I know that can feel especially for family photographers, because I have noticed that we are all a little bit older than the wedding photography bunch, because most of us are moms and or we our parents, and we just picked up a camera later than most wedding photographers, or we were wedding photographer, and we've transitioned. And so I think for us, you know, 30 Somethings or older 20 Somethings, it's a little counterintuitive to have such a long sight because you think people are gonna get bored, you think they're going to click away. But what that long site does is it gives them an opportunity, every single call to action button on their way down to click to whatever they're interested in to get the answer to whatever their specific hesitation is. So that's the number one issue that I see with family photography sites is that it's kind of that like old guard template and model versus this like scrolling heftier, more text heavy site. Copy is not your enemy. It's your friend, but only if threatened.
Yes, for sure. Okay, so that doesn't make me feel as bad because my site is like that. Yeah, we're good.
They're good. That's like, that's a bigger problem than what you have for sure. I think your website isn't nearly as bad as you think it is.
Thank you. I appreciate that. Cool. Well, so, you know, let's, let's tease apart some of the pages of a site. I know you mentioned the about page as one that you guys got like a lot of questions about can we talk a little bit maybe like a couple tips about the about page for people that are still writing their own copy? And we'll get to you know, when they should hire and things like that in just a second. But what are some like a couple quick tips of things that should be included on about page? Yeah,
yeah. And you can listen to seven different copywriters talk about an about page, and we're all going to tell you something different. And that's where like your own intuition about your clients needs to kick in a little bit. A common thing that you'll hear is your about pages, not about you. And I agree with this to a point. But I also think that because especially family photographers, I know for myself, I do documentary families on with a family for six to 12 hours. It's an extremely intimate experience. So I like for them to know a little bit about me. So I'm not going to make an entire about page with no information about who is asking to come into your home for that long. So especially for people that are going to be with your little kids, I definitely think that an about page needs to when they first get there, it should be about how who you are serves them. Like if you're going to talk about yourself, it needs to be in a way that feels like it's still relevant to them. I always say people like to put a list of the things that they like to eat and drink. And while that's a fun way to build the like know and trust factor of your brand is not your personality, and it doesn't serve that client in any way unless all of your clients enjoy the same things. So your about page, I like to lead off with the first paragraph being more about the client. And then there's always a second section that's more about the photographer, and more about either the story of how they got to where they are, or the story of who they are and how that makes them better at their job. So the homepage should always start with this big idea of what makes you different. And what makes you unique. And every page on your site is another way that you can prove that point. So whatever point you make on the homepage should be proven throughout the site. And your about page is just another touch point to do that. And another thing is people think that there only needs to be testimonials on one spot on their page. Stop doing that. Make sure you have a testimony on every single page sometimes too, if you can. Remember if every page is a long scrolling one, then you have an opportunity for at least to crammed in there somewhere there nice visual design break. And it's a nice way to get people reading nice things about you without them even knowing that they're doing it rather than putting them on the same page like love notes or testimonials are kind words I see that all the time. Don't have that page just put them everywhere. So your about page is no different. There should be at least one if not two testimonials about how lovely you are and how much people love to work with you on that. Ah,
yes, I love that. That's something that I just told my associate team, our marketing director, I said, I want testimonials everywhere because they have so many awesome testimonials. But we can't we branded that. We branded them in 24 hours. So like, created a website for them a CRM, literally everything in 24 hours. Wow. It was wild. And that is wild. They became a six figure business in 10 months, which was also wild. So it like happened by accident. It was crazy. But all that to say their websites not that great because it was made in 24 hours. And well, one thing that I told my marketing director is like, I want testimonials everywhere, because we have amazing ones. And there's no reason that it shouldn't get every single page. So I absolutely really love that one for sure. Cool. So at what point in your business? Would you say it's a good time to hire somebody like you who is a copywriter? Versus like, do it yourself. I know, for my team, we hired a copywriter for our brand last year. Maybe a little over that. But it was an amazing like, turn for us. But I don't want to encourage people to do so too early. So when would you say is a good time to hire somebody there?
Well, you mentioned earlier how when you started you kind of did a little bit of everything. And I think that is such a familiar story. It certainly is mine. And I don't I think that's a really valuable step in business for a lot of people like even though it's not ideal to end with. I think that's a really valuable learning time to figure out what you like to shoot and what you don't, you know, sometimes you need to shoot a senior session to be like, I never want to do that. Again, it is not my jam, and or a wedding or whatever it happens to be. It just helps you kind of focus your attention on what you love doing. And I say the same thing about copy, I think it's really important to own your message in the beginning and to be in control of it before you invest 1000s of dollars in a copywriter. When you don't know what you want to do. If somebody comes to me, and they have seven different offerings on their site of seven different kinds of photography they shoot, that shows me that they haven't figured out what they love yet. And if they haven't figured out what they love, there's no one reader to write to. So until you have figured out what your soul is drawn to, I don't think you should invest in a copywriter. Now, most copywriters I know including myself have a DIY option to help you get there that you can spend, you know anywhere from 50 to $500 on a guide or a template to help you figure out how to get the right words on your site. I think that especially in the first couple years of business, it's so important to do that yourself, just to see how it works and what feels good. And then when you're at the point where you're looking solidly, you're getting too busy to kind of DIY everything in your business, you have a much clearer idea of who you want to work with every single weekend. That's when you reach out to a copywriter. And you're like, Okay, I've got some good clients I know, right out, I know who I don't like I know who I love. And that's when there's research to dig into, you know, good copy is grounded in good research. And if the client doesn't have any research, it's not worth the investment at all.
Yeah, I love that. And as you're talking it kind of I was relating it to when somebody is looking to hire an editor where if you don't know your style, you can't hire an editor because their job is to match your style. And so that's a conversation I have with people all the time where they're you know, I'm all for hiring and outsourcing your editing. But you can't do that if you don't know what your style is. So you have to nail down your style first figure out like you're saying what you love what makes your heart sing and when you do that then you can bring somebody in to help and so the same goes for your copies what I'm hearing that 100% Get to the point where you know yourself you know the heartbeat of your business because I know for me the first probably a year year and a half that I was just shooting my business wasn't like official yet at that point I was shooting practicing had my you know, cute little Instagram, whatever. I was shooting everything and I didn't know the heartbeat of Rebecca rice photography that I it took me trial and error to see do I like shooting weddings? Did a couples like nope, sure don't do I like shooting seniors. I was a youth pastor at the time, full time. And I was like, Oh, perfect. I have access to all these teenagers did one shoot. And I canceled the whole thing.
I was like so funny that that's the example I used to.
Yes. And so I was like no hate seniors not my thing when I'm doing it. And so I took it off my website really quick. But it took that time to really just try it out, see what I like and I've really honed into my client, but that just takes time. So I like what you're saying Be patient, like bootstrap it for a little bit because I know like I know some people who are super eager to hire and I have to kind of pull back and be like, Listen, go through the hard stuff. First. I know you want to just hire and have the expert do it. But there are some things that need to be boot strapped first, before you can bring somebody on just for those reasons, if you cannot figure out who you are as a business and who, you know, your heartbeats for before you can do anything effectively.
So the other thing is, is that you don't want to wait too long, because some people in, they kind of have transitioned to they want to be working with. But they're just shooting the people that they used to photograph, because they're the ones that are coming in. And if you don't change your website, copy, you're just going to keep getting the same people, even if you have emotionally moved on, from whatever that was. So there is that balance, too. Like if you find yourself getting frustrated with the inquiries that you're getting, even though you're getting a lot of them, that is a messaging problem. And that means the copy needs to change. So you were in this is the other thing, this is not a copy suggestion, but stop posting photos of things that you do not want to shoot all the time. And like, especially when I'm writing so much something for a photographer, and they've told me in their questionnaire that they hate doing blah, blah, blah. And then I see that on their hero image of their homepage. I'm like, Excuse me, miss, like, of course, you're getting these inquiries, this is what you're showing. So the design and your portfolio that in your messaging it all, they're all holding hands, and they need to work together to get your point across to your one reader and your ideal client.
Yes, and you can't do that if you don't know who that person is. So if you get nothing from this episode, I hope you leave at least thinking through who you want to be serving. And I want you to think long term don't think about money, because it's always scary to be like you me, I have to turn down these 1000s of dollars and people that want to work with me. Yeah, yeah, that's what it means. But by doing that, you'll be opening the door to so many more people that you'll be able to serve. So yeah, that's
just money. It's like your life. Yeah, you spend your days working is how you're spending your life. So stop saying yes to things you don't want to do. Yes.
Oh, that is so good. I feel like I could do a whole podcast episode about stop saying as things you don't want to do. Because I mean, I that's something that I took really seriously last year. Just as a whole in my personal life and my business life. I'm like, I want to do things that bring me joy if I am because last year was my first year full time for the whole year, while I was part time, my business by choice for years, because I loved being a youth pastor. But when we moved when my husband and I went full time together, we really had this opportunity before us of what life do we want to design? Right? What kind of day do we want to have? What kind of schedule? Do we want to say, you know, how, what time do we want to spend away from our family? And you know, doing all the things and so we were really picky? We weren't quite as picky as we should have been over the things he said yes to so even this year, we're getting even more picky to say, we're traveling less than we traveled last year. Last year, we went crazy, because we had like all the freedoms or like we're gonna do all the things. And then this year, we're like, okay, we don't want to travel quite as much to do like being home. And so we're adjusting there. But still, I mean, we get to design this life. And so what clients do you want to serve and work with and what clients do not want to work with. If you're like me, and you hate weddings, don't take weddings, if you hate or even seniors, don't take seniors. So now like the clients, I work with our families that are incredible that they are my ideal client that we've you know, nailed our messaging, we nailed all that stuff. But it's taken us time to get here. But once we're here, man, it feels so good. Knowing that every time that I walk out of my house with my camera to go shoot, that I'm gonna enjoy my time, because that's time I'm spending away from my kids. And I want it to be worth it. And so I really enjoy that time. And so your messaging is important to think long term of where do you want to be? Don't think about the money you're going to be, you know, saying no to at this point, but think two years down the road, where do you want to be? Do you want to be serving the clients that you're driving currently? Or do you want to be serving totally different clients, and now would be the time to make that change? So good. Cool. Well, Rachel, is there anything else that you want to tell our audience about leave them with? In the copywriting World Of course we'll share like where they can find you and stuff. But if you had any, like last words for our friends, what would you say to them?
I mean, honestly, what is like truthfully on the tip of my tongue is like Well done to all of you. I feel like we are at a point in the pandemic and in the world that it's like all, all the moms that I know and I'm talking to moms, I know not all of your audience is moms but like I know Rebecca and I both like made a lot of adjustments to even make this episode happen today. And we're like going on your three of like, knock insistence stuff. And I just want to encourage you that you're doing a great job. And yes, I think copy is important. But I also think sanity is important. So I would just encourage all of you to just invest in the things that are going to make your life better and don't feel pressure to invest in something that doesn't feel exciting to you, whatever it is, copy, not copy, like, just well done. You're doing a great job, keep it up. I'm like talking to myself, because I'm like, Okay, we got to be done with this madness soon. Like it's coming. And I'm just really impressed that people have kept their doors open. And we're all still listening to business podcast, trying to make our lives better.
Yes, it's so funny because like, as you're saying that I like muting my kids, right outside my office door, like, and I'm so impressed.
And so many moms are doing that so many moms are listening to this right now. With our air pods and doing dishes letting their kids scream at them because they're like, I just want to learn about copy today. And like, good job, but like wait to make that time for yourself.
What a great message. So good. Yeah, and just like give a dose of reality guys. I literally like my kids that I had to pause our recording because they were screaming literally screaming they're fine. They're just having fun. Screaming past my office. They weren't always screams they were saying yes. But that's like the reality of sometimes this absolutely like working with kids. And our you know, our childcare is out right now. And so it is what it is. But I Yeah, good job to everybody. I appreciate the good job. yourself today. I'm like soaking that in. I was.
I'm like talking to myself, like you made it happen an hour ago. You didn't know if he could do this today. And we did it. So
yes. So good. Okay, cool. Well, Rachel, can you share with our audience where they can find you if they want to learn more, or just follow along and all the things?
Yeah, so I am really active on Instagram. It's just at green chair stories, my business name. And I always respond to DMS. So if you want to chat spied on in there, and then my website is just green to your stories calm if people want to see what's in.
Perfect, and we will link all of that in the show notes for you guys to grab really easily. And we I'm honestly so excited for this episode to go live. I know it's gonna be really helpful for a lot of photographers. And what a great time for, you know this episode to go live where it's kind of a slower season for photographers, it's a really great time to dive into stuff like copy. So absolutely,
absolutely. Now's the time to do it.
Yes, for sure. Well, Rachel, thank you so, so much for sharing everything that you did. I know you're just a wealth of knowledge, you have so much more to share. So you guys really reach out to her go check out what she has to offer. And I know that you're going to love it. Thank you so much for having me. This was so fun. Yeah, great. Alright guys, we will end it there. And we'll see you at this time next week. Bye.
