Ever wondered about the world of photography education and its potential for passive income? Prepare to have your curiosity piqued as we traverse this fascinating landscape with Laylee Emadi, the visionary behind the Creative Educator Conference!. We'll equip you with the skills and mindset needed for this exciting venture, tackle the realities of passive income, and reveal how a keen sense of education can be a game-changer in your professional journey.
Get ready for a deep dive into online education formats and the debunking of common myths surrounding passive income. Not for the faint-hearted, this episode will challenge your preconceptions and push you to hone your teaching skills. We dissect the impact of funnels, explore the difference between being a professional speaker and a professional who speaks, and examine the potential pitfalls of gatekeeping information.
To round things off, we'll delve into the realities and rewards of pursuing a career in photography education. Laylee, a veteran in the industry, shares her journey from novice to seasoned educator and highlights the emerging trends that are shaking up the industry. Whether you're considering becoming an educator or simply curious about the world of photography education, this episode promises to enlighten, engage, and inspire. Be sure to join us for this exciting exploration into the world of photography education!
ROB'S QUICK LINKS
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/square8studio
Course Creation Acceleator: https://www.square8studio.com/course-creation-accelerator
LAYLEE'S QUICK LINKS:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laylee_emadi
Website: layleeemadi.com
Creative Educator Conference: https://layleeemadi.com/conference
Ever wondered about the world of photography education and its potential for passive income? Prepare to have your curiosity piqued as we traverse this fascinating landscape with Laylee Emadi, the visionary behind the Creative Educator Conference!. We'll equip you with the skills and mindset needed for this exciting venture, tackle the realities of passive income, and reveal how a keen sense of education can be a game-changer in your professional journey.
Get ready for a deep dive into online education formats and the debunking of common myths surrounding passive income. Not for the faint-hearted, this episode will challenge your preconceptions and push you to hone your teaching skills. We dissect the impact of funnels, explore the difference between being a professional speaker and a professional who speaks, and examine the potential pitfalls of gatekeeping information.
To round things off, we'll delve into the realities and rewards of pursuing a career in photography education. Laylee, a veteran in the industry, shares her journey from novice to seasoned educator and highlights the emerging trends that are shaking up the industry. Whether you're considering becoming an educator or simply curious about the world of photography education, this episode promises to enlighten, engage, and inspire. Be sure to join us for this exciting exploration into the world of photography education!
ROB'S QUICK LINKS
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/square8studio
Course Creation Acceleator: https://www.square8studio.com/course-creation-accelerator
LAYLEE'S QUICK LINKS:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laylee_emadi
Website: layleeemadi.com
Creative Educator Conference: https://layleeemadi.com/conference
You're listening to the Bop the business of photography podcast with Rob Green, a photographer to contagiously positive clients and fierce believer in building people-focused businesses that leave a lasting impact. If you're an entrepreneur with dreams in your head, ideas in your heart and passions burning deep down in your soul, this is the perfect place to be, because this is where dreams come to thrive. So are you ready to build your business while your clients and make photo magic? Here's your host, rob Green.
Speaker 2:Coming at you from DFW Texas. You are listening to the Bop. So happy to be back with you. Friends.
Speaker 2:Hope everyone had an incredible Thanksgiving, ate way too much food, had way too much fun with friends and family. I know my crew. We kind of do this. I kind of just started this tradition of merging Thanksgiving and Christmas together because we don't always get to see each other every year at both Thanksgiving and Christmas. So whenever we get the whole family together for Thanksgiving, we just throw some Christmas fun in there. We put the tree up, pass a few gifts out. We also do this thing called the Christmas Olympics. This was just a fun little series of games we started that are just really fun for the family and fun for the youngest to the oldest. Very, you know, like blowing cotton balls into cups off of tables and dropping things off of second floor balconies down into small cups below. It was just an amazing time to hang out with the family, catch up, share a few laughs, share some great food. I hope your family and loved ones had an incredible Thanksgiving as well.
Speaker 2:Speaking of incredible, today's interview is going to be amazing. I cannot wait to share this conversation with my friend Laili and Madi. This is for everyone who has thought about getting into the world of education. I know in all the Facebook groups I'm in right now there's a lot of buzz right now amongst photographers about this whole idea of passive income and education and there's this sense of like it almost feels like. For some people, it's this natural next step that, hey, you shoot for a little while and then you do education because that's what everybody else is doing. We're going to dive into all this with Laili today and help you figure out is this for me? If it is for me, what do I need to be like, cultivating in terms of skills and abilities and heart posture to be able to break into education and do it well? So incredible interview lined up.
Speaker 2:But before we bring Laili on, I want to share with you today's bop bite. Bop bites, for those of you that are not familiar, are just these little bite sized nuggets of goodness that, if all you've got is a few minutes in your car or on the way to work or school, today I want you to be able to take away something actionable for your business. And so today's bop bite is this tomorrow's successes are planned today. Tomorrow's successes are planned today. What do I mean by that? I mean you can be one of two people. You can be somebody that life just happens to, or you can be somebody that makes life happen for you on purpose. Everybody I know that has succeeded has succeeded because of prior preparations and planning that they've put in. Since we're talking about education today, I'll just share an example from my own journey into education.
Speaker 2:My first course I ever created is called the flash course. It's a plain language version of how to learn flash that people can watch on a Wednesday, go shoot a wedding on a Saturday and take the most amazing flash photos they've ever taken. I recorded this course the day our city was shutting down for COVID back in 2020. My roommate worked in television. He gave me a heads up that the mayor was going to be closing down the city at midnight that day, and they hadn't announced it yet, but they were about to. So I called up some friends and ran into a natural light studio in our area and dumped all of my flash knowledge onto camera before the city shut down. I could not have had all of this information organized and ready to go if I had not been, for over a year, prepping and planning live workshops to teach photographers how to shoot with flash. I had been working through this process, answering their questions, working out the kinks in my delivery of the teaching of this content, making these plans long before I ever knew that COVID was going to be a thing, certainly long before I ever knew that the mayor was going to shut down our city for a couple months. But because of the planning that I had done, I was ready for the success that would soon come.
Speaker 2:But the story keeps going because, once everything was recorded, I still had to figure out how to organize it, edit it all down, get it uploaded into a course hosting platform. I had to figure out things like how do I grow an email list? I don't even have an email list. There was so much planning that went into this that, even though I recorded the course in March, I mean we were doing months of beta testing, getting more feedback from people, letting people in at discounted prices to give us their feedback on the course, then going back and re-recording at home some additional content to round out everything that went into this course. And then, finally, in November of 2020, I was able to release the flash course, and that week alone, in our very first launch of the flash course, we generated over $12,000 in revenue.
Speaker 2:That day's success was planned over months prior. The $12,000 part sounds great. Who doesn't want that? That's the part people hear about when they hear about education, when they hear about passive income. But what you don't hear about is the planning, the months of work that went up to that moment and y'all. Whether you want to break into education or you just want to keep being a really amazing photographer that takes killer photos, the success you're looking for tomorrow, the success you're going to experience tomorrow, is predicated on the planning and preparation you put in today. So take time today to start looking at your calendar, to start looking at your budget, to start looking at your marketing plan, to start forming a game plan for the things that you want to achieve in the year ahead, and start taking baby steps towards those goals, towards those dreams, today, because tomorrow's successes are planned today.
Speaker 2:I'm going to get into this a ton more in next month's episode, but we've got an amazing interview for you today with Leila Madi coming right up after the break. You know what no photographer ever asks how can I make less money? As small business owners, we're always looking to make just a little bit more, and most of us just need someone to show us how. What if I told you college and sorority photography could give you not one, not two, but seventeen different ways to make more money in the months ahead. To download my free guide, visit square8studiocom. Slash 17ways today. Welcome back On today's episode. We're going to talk about how to dive in and thrive in education.
Speaker 2:When I started mapping out my dream guest for season two, I knew the guest for today's show had to be someone special, someone who not only had a heart for educating others and had done so successfully, but someone who was willing to go one step further and become an educator to educators. That qualification alone really kind of narrowed my list pretty tremendously. But then you know, we love bringing guests on the bop who are incredible people first and foremost, and today's guest ticks that box big time. We've met on a few different occasions now and I have instantly admired her unfiltered spirit and humor, her deep rooted passion and her heart for helping others grow and succeed. And when I asked one of her besties, hope Taylor, what she loved most about Lailia Madi, I knew she would be the perfect guest for this episode. Hope said.
Speaker 2:I've been lucky to call Lailia a friend for over eight years and the reasons to love her are endless. She's undeniably wise, passionate about her people, fiercely speaks about her passions and is the biggest cheerleader I know. She's always ready and willing to be a listening ear on a bad day, a sounding board for a new idea or make you cry from laughter if you just need a smile. She's one of the greatest and you guys are lucky to hear from her. Wow, what an endorsement y'all Lely. Welcome to the bop. How are you friend?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me. I'm tearing up over here, but I'm good.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, how long you all been friends now.
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, like over eight years at this point.
Speaker 2:Eight years of friendship Give us a funny story that when Hope is listening to this, she's gonna be like, oh my gosh, she did not just go there.
Speaker 3:Well, I can say this I don't know how fun, I don't know like a specific story I can share, really, but the anecdote that I'll share is that when we met, I was teaching high school and she was either in high school or just left high, like I could have been her high school teacher. And since then since then we have had a great time together, but it's like one of those things that I'm like one of my best friends. I could have been her high school teacher and that, to me, is a little insane.
Speaker 2:That is wild. Wow, I would love to know, because you and I we've chatted several times now, but I feel like you're gonna be new for a lot of our audience. There's a lot still I'm learning about your story. Everything I learned about you is so fascinating. But give us a quick rundown. What is the Laelia Madi story? How did you wind up in the education space? Cause you actually you didn't just jump right in starting as the education role you have right now. You did some other things first, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. I mean my listen. I'll give you the quick rundown because it was a long journey, like it's definitely not something that happened overnight. But I actually started in this industry as a photographer, like yourself, and at the same time I was a high school teacher and curriculum designer for our district, and so basically I it was a very full circle journey. For me, it was a really natural progression to go from education full time with the side gig of photography to photography with a side gig of education, to now helping other creative educators learn how to teach their craft and teach their skillset and create transformations for their own students. And so education's always been a part of my journey. It's just been in different formats.
Speaker 2:That's cool and I know in the education space, especially the online education space, you can't talk about that with also also hearing this phrase passive income. I know especially photographers love talking about passive income. In recent years, you know it's like I need to get more passive income or I need to figure out how to start generating passive income in my business. So first off, for those that that's a new term or maybe it's a vague term and they don't quite get it like, can you help us define what passive income actually is and then maybe help us understand, like, what are some of the misconceptions? Cause I hear a lot of misconceptions out there when it comes to passive income.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I think passive income is it's kind of what it sounds like, with a few caveats of you're creating revenue streams within your business where you're not having to kind of trade money for time or you're not having to be hands on 100% of the time.
Speaker 3:The caveat there is that nothing is truly passive in the world. I mean there will become a point where sometimes that the work that you put in on the front end is making you money throughout time periods where you're not constantly having to update or be hands on about it, but you are having to do certain parts of the business to keep that passive income generating money for you. So there are so many different examples of passive income, but some of the misconceptions that you were asking about that I see are one that passive income has to be educational or education based. It absolutely does not. In fact, I think a lot of photographers leave a lot of passive income opportunities on the table because they don't quite understand that it doesn't have to be education. It can just fit so well into what you're already doing. Another, I think, misconception is kind of what I had already said about it being 100% passive. I don't think anything is 100% passive, 100% at the time.
Speaker 2:There's no free money out there.
Speaker 3:No, I know it's shocking. It's shocking information.
Speaker 2:Oh man. Well, obviously, like you said, it's not always education. There are things, especially for photographers, that you get left on the table. But I know online education is this booming like multi-billion dollar year industry and with that comes a lot of growth, a lot of change. Things are always. People are trying new ideas, innovating with certain things. Can you kind of walk us through, just so people understand what's out there that are thinking about getting into education, like, what are some of those most common formats that online education takes the form of and what are the ones that you really see like these are working in today's market?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean there's again. Possibilities are endless here, but the main formats that I see and that I teach on are online courses. Obviously, first and foremost I think that is what we've seen such a boom around for the past couple of years is online courses. Online education memberships, digital products are another way and those are kind of a gateway, I guess, into like passive income for educators, if we're focusing on that. And then there's obviously things like summits and events, and these can be virtual, online or in person conferences, retreats, workshops. Those have been around from the dawn of time. Mentoring or coaching is more, I think, more popular to call it coaching now.
Speaker 3:But I'm one and the same Mentoring and coaching, one-on-one education, basically like really hands-on, and then small groups like masterminds. Those have grown in popularity over the past few years. It's funny. I remember like when I launched my first mastermind was years before, like it wasn't huge and popular, and now the word mastermind is thrown around to mean so many things, whether people are actually talking about group coaching or actual masterminds or whatever. So there's group coaching, there's masterminds, small group and then speaking, which I think again it's kind of like taking on a life of its own in our industry, where speaking is not just speaking on stages anymore, it's speaking virtually, it's speaking on your social media, it's speaking through podcasting, through YouTube. So utilizing speaking to gain visibility, I think, is even more prevalent for all entrepreneurs, not just educators, but it's definitely a huge platform for education.
Speaker 2:Very cool and, as you're saying that, I'm thinking, okay, online courses. You've got masterminds. You've got group coaching. You've got these high level one-on-one things you're talking about. You've got memberships, more of like a recurring lower ticket thing. You've got I think you mentioned summits, other speaking opportunities. Then you've got the more like micro-level speaking opportunities. There's a lot of different things and opportunities there. There's also I feel like you just rattled off things that require a lot more skills than just how to take a great photo. So let's start with, just like from a heart level and from just like an organic personality level here, what in your mind makes someone a great potential educator? Not necessarily like the skills side of it, just yeah, we'll get there. But if someone's looking at their life and they're looking at their business and they're trying to figure out, am I someone where education would be a good fit for me to explore? Adding this, what are some of those qualities that great educators just kind of bubble out of themselves, that like it's just who they are?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love this question because I feel like there is this overwhelm when you hear the list I just rattled off of, like how can I ever do all those things? But they're learned skills, like you mentioned. But if you're listening to this and you're kind of in a place of deciding like is this for me, I kind of feel drawn to it in some way. I have kind of a twofold answer. And you mentioned, you mentioned in my intro that I'm a little unfiltered, so you're gonna get what you're gonna get, but here we go.
Speaker 3:So one. There is the heart side of it. So a lot of creatives in general, we're compassionate and we're passionate. We care so much about what we do. We care about people. We wanna help them succeed, and so if you are starting to feel like, wow, I am actually doing really well at this first thing that I do, let's using photography as the example. So I'm feeling really confident in my skills as a photographer. I can see that this is impacting my life so, so well, and I feel really drawn to help other people experience that same success, the same freedoms, the same amazing things that I'm able to now provide for my family and my friends, and all the things, and you're wanting to kind of share that gift with others. That's your first indicator that education in some format might be great for you.
Speaker 3:Now here's the unfiltered part. Some people don't feel that way. Some people are just really good at what they do and they really want some extra income. Education also might be for you. I mean and again like that's kind of the unpopular way to approach it but I really, especially as a woman in this industry, I feel like it's really important to say that there is nothing negative about being motivated by financial gain and financial, you know wealth and building your wealth and helping your family succeed and being a really positive contributor to your family and to your community as well. I don't think there's anything negative about that, so I wanted to put that out there too, For those of you who are listening and you're like well, I'm not really like down to sit around a fireside and play guitar for people, but I really am good at what I do and I know I can help people succeed and I really would love an additional revenue stream. Yeah, education might be for you too.
Speaker 2:Totally the thing that, as you're saying that I'm going, yeah, like I don't have a problem with somebody wanting to earn additional income, I think that's great.
Speaker 2:But I thought it was interesting because, even as you're describing that you're going, at the end of the day that person too still does have a desire to help.
Speaker 2:If you're trying, from what I've seen, the amount of work that goes into this and you could probably attest to better I can't get at your level, but like the amount of work that goes into education to get those passive income streams going is so great that if your only motivation is trying to add money, you're probably going to at some point see the like mountain of work involved with it and go, ah, maybe there's another way. But if at the underneath that desire for earning additional income for your family is also this desire to help people, that can be like what pushes you through some of those like long nights where you're up like outlighting courses or mapping out strategies for things or writing out email sequences and you're like really. But then you start thinking about okay, but one, this is going to put food on the plate for my family and help me support my family. It's also going to help a lot of other people do the same for their families. Then it's like, okay, I'll lose a little sleep for that. Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:Oh man. So that's kind of the like underlying element of things. What about, though, those skills we talked about, how there's all these skills that start bubbling out when you talk about all those opportunities for coaching. What are some of those skills that you know if somebody's ticking all those boxes and it's like I'm going to go for it? When you look at people that are thriving in the education space, what are the skills that they are working on and developing and refining and improving or building in that didn't exist? To start out, with things that you can acquire as you go, that you just see like as a common thread running through a lot of the successful people out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there's like two sides of the skill sets around online education. One is the actual education itself and that, in my perspective, is the most important aspect. The tech, the building things out, that's kind of the other side. The funnels, the sales, the, you know, the copy, the marketing, that's all the other side. So it's similar to your service-based business of photography, of like, okay, well, I have to have the craft first, like my work has to be there.
Speaker 3:The work has to be good, it has to be excellent, and then I can market and bring in clients and charge them more and do all the things. So the skill sets that you're going to want to grow are on both sides. But I always suggest and that's you know, that's why I started my academy several years ago is there's just like no one really teaching. That it's kind of hard.
Speaker 3:I feel like a lot of people who are naturally gifted at teaching have this advantage over people who maybe have amazing skills to share but they don't have a natural ability to teach.
Speaker 3:It's a skill set, just like anything else, and it needs time to grow and to be cultivated and to be perfected over time. And so I always suggest start with the education side first and making sure that you're able to promise and deliver on the transformations that you're telling people that you're able to create for them. So the actual skill of teaching is number one, and then, of course, learning how to technically deliver these things. So, whether it like, let's say, it's a course figuring out the course platform you want to use, figuring out the marketing, the funnels, the copy, like you were saying, like you're up at midnight, you know, like writing email copy, those are all. All of that stuff kind of adds up. And I would say also this is I like to think of this as a skill, honestly, but it's it's knowing when to bring in external help versus when to try to figure it out by yourself, I think.
Speaker 3:I think for a lot of us who are entrepreneurs, and who are successful entrepreneurs, we're a little type A, we're a little possessive of our work. We really want to be the ones to make it happen on our own and we're scrappy and that's beautiful and that's wonderful. But at a certain point you're like, okay, I might need to tag in an expert here and there.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. And there's the message. It sounds like the core what are you teaching, what are you promising to be able to help people repeat what you've been able to accomplish? And then there's kind of the mechanics of it as well, All those nuts and bolts behind the scenes. You said several things in there that I think could be potentially new terms for audience. I want to zero and on one to start out funnels. Talk to me about funnels. What is a funnel? Because I feel like that's a word that if you're a photographer and you're thinking about this, you've probably heard that word ping ponging around in conversations or in Facebook groups, but you're like I don't know quite what it is Explain to our audience. What is a funnel?
Speaker 3:I feel like, in simplest terms, like if I'm just going to like make it as user friendly as possible, it's like the steps that you take to get your person who you want to work with, from not knowing you at all, or from the top, from the very very start, point A to point like E or F you know what I mean or like take them down your road wherever you want to take them.
Speaker 3:It's like you're guiding them through communication, so like an email funnel, for example. Someone may not know you, or they may know you generally, and then they sign up to get emails from you, right, and so you're funneling them through. Think about like an actual funnel that you're using in your kitchen or whatever. You're taking them from the top, guiding them through to wherever you would like them to end. Is that a product? Is that just knowledge that you exist and you have offerings for them? It doesn't have to be like a massively complicated thing to do. It's literally just like how can you get them from point A to whatever point you want them to end at?
Speaker 2:And typically like a real funnel. Point A is very wide casting and you're trying to connect with a larger audience that's where a lot of your traffic's coming from and then you're narrowing that down to just like a real funnel, very narrow. At the bottom you have a very specific subset of people that's your audience that you're connecting with, that are connecting with your education, investing in your education. Yeah, no, that's great. That's great. I love that. Now you've done something that I think is absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 2:A few years ago you saw and you've kind of alluded this a couple times already you saw this need within the education space. You saw man, just like there's a lot of photographers that take great photos but have no idea how to run a business, which is a lot of the heart behind. Why we started this podcast was because it's like you know, we talk about it like in terms of working out. Like you've got a person that goes to the gym and only works out one arm and leaves the other totally unaddressed, and then they get one arm that's like swole, you know all the ripped muscles and the others just like flimsy, wimpy and that's the business arm for a lot of photographers.
Speaker 2:You saw the same thing in the education space. You saw some really talented educators with really great messages, really great hearts, really great potential to earn revenue through their education and yet they didn't know how to build up that other side of it that you were talking about, that the mechanical piece there, the funnels, the back end of things, the all the peripheral stuff that goes beyond just the message. Help me understand. How did you discover this? What brought this onto your radar and then what does it look like for you to start helping address that over these past few years?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think honestly for me, this is just my unfiltered. This is lately unfiltered again. I was going. I always believe so strongly in investing in your own education and I was doing that. So I was showing up as a photographer to photography conferences from like day one of my career ten years ago, when I started my business. I was showing up wherever I could. Even if it wasn't like the best fit, I would still go. I would invest my money in my time and I would go.
Speaker 3:And I, from day one, when I was a part-time photographer and full-time educator, I was like, wow, this education is awful for not all of it, not all of it, I Gotta say it, you know it wasn't all of it, and and what I realized because I'm able to see this and this is something that I thought kind of everybody saw, but I guess I was wrong Um, I could see that it wasn't awful because the educators were bad at what they did. They weren't, it's just that they were. I make this, I make this Differentiation a lot within my creative educator Academy of hey, you need to decide Do you want to be a professional speaker or do you want to be a professional who speaks on their profession? There is a huge difference there, in my opinion, and so what I was seeing at these conferences were phenomenal Photographers who were not trained educators. And so what happens when you have that? You have messy messages, you have messy education, you have lackluster Transformation that never actually hits the mark. They're sharing what they think somebody needs to know in their audience, but they don't really know what the audience needs to know, because how would they? Nobody ever taught them to do that. And I started looking around and noticing like there's nothing that's teaching these people how to teach. The online education space, the in-person Educate, the creative education education space, in particular, is not regulated whatsoever. There are no certificates. There is nothing teaching you how to do this thing.
Speaker 3:And in fact, at that point in time a decade ago, the educators, the speakers, the people on stages they were gatekeeping every bit of what they needed to get to those stages, like they weren't gonna help you figure out how they got. They got to where they are in terms of education now. They were there to sell you on how they got to where they were as photographers, but they weren't about to hold your hand and take you through. Hey, how did I get this audience? How did I get on this stage? How did I get selected to speak? How did I sell millions of dollars worth of courses? They're not talking you through that.
Speaker 3:At the time and I started realizing like I Want to help these people, these people on the stages who have brilliant minds and amazing Skillsets but they just don't know how to actually teach the thing you know.
Speaker 3:And I mean, even if they could figure out the funnels, even if they could figure out the course platforms, even if they could figure out the tech in the marketing, their Messages were messy and I wanted to help them, kind of like, create those transformations. At my conference I always tell I have a conference for creative educators, and I talk about the ripple effect. It's like part of our brand, it's like an image of these ripples, and I wanted to create that ripple effect for people of I can help you Learn how to help your community and then, when you're helping your community, they're going out and helping their communities, and so the beauty of that is that, like I can visually see transformations happening, you know, worldwide, and and I think that's kind of what motivated me to get started Back in like 2017, 2018, creating this and then putting it out into the world, and so it's just been. That was kind of like the background of the origin story.
Speaker 2:Wow. So so you saw a bunch of people that were doing something but not showing people how to do it, and you're like man, I could show people how to do it, I can help make that happen. And and it's so funny because, like I think about conferences I've attended and I remember I showed up at Show it's unite I think I was at the last ever show it united and I remembered as people were going up, I noticed there was a consistent quality of the people communicating from the stage. And I come to find out later as I'm asking around, they had invested in someone for that conference guy named Mike that was Educating and coaching all of those speakers and helping them work on their talks. And so as I went to other conferences afterwards, I was like wow, there's a radical difference in the Consistency and the quality of the communication from the stage when you make that investment.
Speaker 2:So I that's why I think what you're doing with this is so Brilliant, because it's like one of my buddies always talks about the gold rush of like what it was 1848 or something. It's like you know, everybody was trying to go strike rich and hit gold. Some people did, some people didn't, but the people that consistently made money were the people selling the picks in the axes, and You've basically positioned yourself as somebody selling picks and axes where it's like, hey, I want to help the educators that are trying to educate others. You, you have gone and said there's nobody helping those people. Let's help make sure the people that want to pursue this, that want to go for gold, have the tools they need To to make that effort and put their best foot forward with that. So you've been at this now since 2017. You've got six years. You've been doing this. I'm curious, number one what has this meant for you in your business? How has your business transformed over the past six years? Where did it start out and what does it look like today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think, honestly, the biggest shift for me was that I I mean this happened to me when I was teaching as well and I started in photography. We are as humans, we have finite time, right. And so I think the biggest shift for me was that I unintentionally had to decide like, do I want to continue on as a full-time photographer or, as my education gained traction and there was a true need for it and people really were enjoying it, do I want to just go full-time into education? And I, as I said before, we're creatives were passionate. You don't get into photography because you don't love photography like. You have to love it like it's fun and it's beautiful and it's a creative outlet.
Speaker 3:And I didn't mention, but when I was teaching, I was also the dance director, so it's fine arts have always been a huge part of what I do, so I never wanted to give that up. But that's probably been the biggest shift is that I've had to step back from it and now I only shoot basically for my like Coaching clients. I'll do brand sessions for them here and there, I'll do like a creative session for myself here and there or for family. But my photography has definitely taken a backseat to my education Over the past. I mean every year more and more and I, like I, retired from weddings in 2019 and that was just a huge shift, absolutely.
Speaker 2:One of my buddies always tells me like the life you want will always cost you the life you have, and I think that's an important. When you're talking about that like this is an important thing. If you're a photographer and you really love shooting, keep in mind the life you're saying you want, with all this education stuff, is going to cost you the life you currently have of doing all these shoots. You're not going to have the same amount of time that you have always had to do these shoots. So just because it is more revenue potentially coming from one angle, it's also going to mean less revenue in another angle and less of something that you love. So make sure that trade-off you know another one of my friends always talks about like everything you say yes to in life Means less of something else. So make sure your yes is worth the less. And it's like yeah, make sure saying yes to education is going to be worth it for you to do.
Speaker 2:And and that's gonna be different for everybody some people like yeah, I'm ready to do less shooting. You know, like in your case, you're going, I'm ready to let go of weddings, I'm ready to do less of these other things. For some people it's like no, I really love shooting. I don't know if I could let go of doing all these. You know nights and weekends that I'm doing with stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and I love that you said that, because, although my entire like ecosystem of my business is helping people get into education, I feel like I turn. I turn people away from it just as much as I bring people into it, because I want the people who are Wanting to do education, I want it to be fulfilling for them. And so just know, if you're listening this and you're like I'm just trying to be the best photographer, I can be, listen, like, climb that ladder, like be the best in your industry. You know what I mean and you can give back through education Without having it be like a huge part of your business. If you want to help others succeed, you can do that and still be a full-time photographer, like you just have to. You just have to. Not You've got to double down on one you know what I mean and then let the other come as you have the capacity for it now You've talked about your ecosystem.
Speaker 2:You've got these different offerings, these different formats and structures that you have built over these past six years for helping educate educators. What does that look like? What is the landscape of your business now? What are the things you're offering and and how do these? How does somebody know? Is that for me?
Speaker 3:Honestly, it's insane. I'm not gonna lie like I don't know. I don't know how it got to this point. I mean I do know how, but it's, I'm gonna tell you. My offerings and education run the gamut like I mean, I do everything but I don't do it all at once. This is literally my tagline for all my students is you can do everything, but you can't do everything at once. But at any point in time throughout the year you'll find some different type of offer. So I do one-on-one coaching and mentoring, which is how this all started. I have online courses, I mini courses and my signature academy for creative educators called the creative educator Academy, which then spiraled into the creative educator conference, which is an annual conference for higher level entrepreneurs who are also educators. Um, I have a podcast.
Speaker 2:So I want to pause you right here. You have an annual conference for people that want to educate others. Yes, not, not an annual conference that's helping photographers go and get better. And as educating photographers which, you have, an annual conference that educates educators. Yes, like our people talk to me about this.
Speaker 3:It's. I mean, it's my it's, it's. We've only done this is our second one, so annual, for who knows how long I'm gonna be real about that, Cause it is a lot of work. But, um, I love it because it is the only place I've ever been and, honestly, this is kind of how all of my stuff starts is I'm like I would love this for myself. Okay, I'll just create it. I mean, who doesn't think that way? So I, I just have never been somewhere where everybody in the audience could very well be on the stage and they are of the same caliber. And so the conversations you're having with the people next to you I mean I've got attendees who I'm fan of. Like, I'm a huge fan of many of my attendees and when I see their names coming through registration, I fan girl over them and I'm like, how are they coming to this? This is insane. Um, but that's why it's created, right Is?
Speaker 3:I wanted a place for people to come together and share strategies and share real life hardships but real life successes, cheer each other on and also have high quality, high level education, because most people, after a few years, you're going to start to go to these events and you're going to start. I've heard I cannot count the number of times that I have said and heard yeah, this was a great conference. I mean, I didn't really learn much, but I got great connections, and blah, blah, blah. I want people to learn a lot when they come to my conference. Um and so because of that, I wanted to create a space that was for the more established, like a very well established entrepreneur. This is not for bennett, for beginners. It's people who know what they're doing and are already offering education or starting to maybe pivot into different types of education or whatever. So I love that.
Speaker 2:I think so much of that comes down to, like when you're talking about man, creating the thing you want for yourself. I'm thinking like that's for me when I'm sitting here in this studio space right now, where we will invite other educators to come in and record their courses with us and take a lot of those mechanical things you're talking about, like when to bring somebody in. I was going, man, what if we could eliminate thousands of steps in the course recording process for somebody by creating a studio that you can walk in and have a blank canvas to sit down. You walk in with a dream, you walk out with a course, our team is shot and edited the whole thing by the time you leave, like I wanted that for me. And then it's like, oh well, there's. I start talking to other educators, like, oh, there's actually more than just me that needs this. So I did something just because I knew it would be helpful for my business to start out with. And also, and I realized, man, there's a broader need out there, seeing a lot of what you're seeing, there are educators that need something more. They are trying to take something to another level and you have a skill set and you have a resource and you have a heart to help bring them up and elevate them to that level they're trying to reach. I think it's amazing.
Speaker 2:So, as we're starting to land the plane here with some of this stuff, I want to hit on a few different audiences, because you got the people that are trying to get in the space, trying to break in, figure out is this for me? How do I get started? You got the people that are in it and some are having some success, some are struggling. They're trying to figure out how do I become the next Lele Amati or the next whoever? And then you got the people that have seen consistent success in their business and they're trying to look to what's next and look to where's the future of the space going.
Speaker 2:So I want to hit on each of those three audiences, if we can, and let's just start with those folks that are just getting started. They're thinking about jumping in. Maybe they're feeling some of that overwhelm that you were talking about earlier. They're like this just seems like a lot. I like the idea, but I don't know where to start. What are some practical first steps for that person to help get the ball rolling with their pursuit of an education platform?
Speaker 3:I would say number one first and foremost, take your time and understand that, as I mentioned before, education is its own skill set.
Speaker 3:So I always say, like people, always, you know they want to know how much time is this going to take?
Speaker 3:And I'm like a good rule of thumb and this is not always going to be the case but a good rule of thumb for the norm, not for the exception, but for the rule is give yourself the amount of time it took you to perfect your skills that you're trying to teach on to become an expert educator. If you're an expert in your field, give yourself that same amount of time to become an expert educator. Step one. And then step two is kind of perfect your self-awareness over everything else. So make sure that you have that you're looking at things with that self-aware eye of am I actually able to like do this thing and be patient with yourself and be kind to yourself, because nothing happens overnight and it's it might be a bumpy journey, but it's going to be worth it in the end. So I would say just kind of give yourself the time and the patience and the grace to actually try something without the pressure of expecting an overnight success.
Speaker 2:Well, and, as you're saying, some of that I'm also it's reminded me. You know you were talking earlier about like, what is the transformation you're promising? And I'm imagining some of that self-awareness needs to be rooted in what is the transformation that I'm going to be promising the people so that I can be aware of. Can I actually deliver on this promise to people, really getting crystal clear on what is it I'm trying to help people to do.
Speaker 2:What about the folks that are already in the education space but they're struggling because I feel like this is a rapidly growing audience size, which is what makes what you're doing so perfect as a resource and a tool for these people. But you know, maybe it's somebody that the passive income streams. They're just not quite flowing with all the abundance that they thought would happen when they hear other people's success stories. Or maybe they've got this educational offering, but they're like, how do I get it in front of people? Now? What's your encouragement to the person that's? Or wisdom to the person that's got something? But they're just feeling stuck in the mud right now.
Speaker 3:I think number one, my encouragement, is that you're not alone and I don't know one educator, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't had a failed launch or launches or some kind of offer that fell flat and they had to recalibrate and reframe it and try again. So that's my encouragement. As far as like wisdom goes or any kind of advice, it would be to really take the time to pick apart what it is that you've done and see where the gaps are, see if maybe is this too similar. I mean, the thing is, one of the biggest fears of educators is like everybody's already doing this, okay. So what is my answer to that? It's how can you differentiate yourself?
Speaker 3:So take a look at what you're doing. Have you differentiated your education enough? Your delivery enough? Are you just copy and pasting what you're seeing out in the world already? Can you make it unique in any way? And then, of course, this is what I say to everybody, no matter what level you're at bring a coach in, bring an expert eye in, hire a certain like, get somebody in. If you can afford to hire somebody, great. If you have a business bestie, great. Have somebody. Take a look at it with fresh eyes and see like hey, be blunt with me, be honest with me, like tear it apart, where do I need to make this better? And then try again, try again.
Speaker 2:Yep, you definitely. You've got to have thick skin in the education space. There's just not time. That was one of the biggest shocks to me when I got into education is there's just because I'm like a recovering perfectionist and there's just not time for that when you get into education, because there's always another thing coming. It's like you've got to put it out there imperfect, incomplete, learn from it, grow from it and move on to the next thing, because there's going to be another launch coming or another something coming and you've got to be ready to just take the feedback, take the lumps, take the lessons along the way and jump right back in.
Speaker 2:I also love what you said about differentiation in there, because, man, I remember when I was first doing my first course, I did a flash course and it's like, man, there's 50 flash courses out there already and there's also way better educators than me. I had that imposter syndrome that I feel like we all wrestle with when we're starting out, you know, yeah, and I realized, man, all these flash. I've taken a lot of these flash courses and I didn't like them, because everybody used all these fancy words and had to know five syllable words to be able to pay attention to what was going on in the course. I'm just, I'm not that guy. I'm no rocket scientist, I don't have any PhDs. I'm like man. Three syllables are less if I'm going to learn it. We got to keep this thing simple. It needs to be so simple. My mom, who's in her 70s and doesn't do technology, needs to be able to learn flash that way, and so that was what I did.
Speaker 2:I was like let's just do flash for ordinary people. You know the people that aren't the rocket scientists and and we've been able to resonate and anytime I have somebody that's a rocket scientist kind of learner that tries to come in, I'm like, look, this course is not for you. Like, we got plenty of great people that are teaching rocket science. Flash over here and over here. If you want flash for ordinary people, come talk to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the differentiation is a great way to really stand out, even if a market feels like quote saturated or whatever. I think that's great. And then I guess, finally, lately, because you've got this really unique vantage point, because, as the educator to educators, you know how meta that idea is right you get to pull up out of the weeds that so many of us are in with our funnels and our email lists and our sequences and all these things that we're doing, and you get to look at this industry for more of like a 30,000 foot view. And so I'm curious when you look at the state of the industry today, you look back at the past six years of where it's been, where it's at today and where it's heading. What are a couple of the emerging trends? You see that you think man, today's educator, really needs to be mindful of this as you're thinking About where your business is headed next.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think number one is kind of what I call like the quick shift. So I'm seeing a lot of it's a bit it's been a weird couple of years in education. Honestly, like a lot of my students, a lot of my clients have had a hard time selling as much as they have sold in the past or Reaching as many people as they have reached in the past, and I mean the reasons for that I think are really nuanced. But I mean there's like state of economy and you know, or are people spending money or people around, are they already getting like an influx of education from other places? There's a lot of questions that go along with that.
Speaker 3:But I think the misstep that a few of my clients have made and we've since recalibrated has been the quick shift of like okay, well, I need to change everything right away, like, I just need to, like I just need to add Something new, I just need to do something new. And sometimes that's true. But sometimes it's like a decision you make out of out of fear, of scar, of like, you know, having that scarcity mindset, of Feeling like you've got to do something to make it work. But what I see Work out for more people If they have the ability to kind of like weather the storm is that consistency usually pays off a lot more than a quick shift Will pay off. So that's something that I've noticed a lot of.
Speaker 3:I think we're kind of in a weather the storm kind of front in this past, in this past two years, and I think we're starting to see things kind of pick back up. So that's exciting and I think that just the feeling of is there room for everyone? I mean, truly I do believe that there is. I think our world has a lot of people in it and a lot of people who don't know who you are, no matter how big you are, no matter how small you are, how big your audience sizes or your quote-unquote Followings or how small. There are so many people who don't know the people you know and look up to, and there are so many people who haven't met you yet. So I think just using that, that mindset, will really help you kind of show up consistently and show up without the fear of a failure.
Speaker 2:No, that's so good. I remember when I was breaking into education, I had sent our friend Jordan an email and I was just asking him all these questions about you know what that looked like and just some of the imposter syndrome that I felt. And he said to me Rob, you've got a heart to help people. I know you talked about some of that as you were getting started here with this as well. Said, as long as your heart is to help people, and that's your aim You're never gonna be an imposter a day in your life.
Speaker 2:So don't worry about fearing failure. Get out there and help people. There's billions and billions of people to your point on this planet. Not all of them are gonna resonate with everyone the same way. The, the person that connects with you and your message may not connect with me and my message. The person connects with me and my message may Not connect with you and yours. If you want to help people, help people. Don't let your own fears and insecurities hold you back. I love that you have positioned this creative educator conference and you've got it. When's the next one coming up?
Speaker 3:It's in January. It's coming up so soon, january 20th or are there tickets left? There's a few.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a few okay, so so if so, I'm just curious because I'm going in. If I'm Somebody who's not heard you and I'm hearing all these opportunities, I'm going wait, there's somebody that educates educators? I would think, hey, I need to check out this creative educator conference, see what it's about. So how does somebody keep in touch with you? If they want to continue this conversation, if they want to jump into the creative educator conference, if they want to jump in on one of your work stuff? It's like what? How do people stay in touch? Because I just I have a feeling Photographers and educators listening to this today are gonna go. I Got to hear more from this girl.
Speaker 3:Oh, my gosh. Well, first of all, I hang out on Instagram, I'm on there at Lely underscore and body. But, honestly, if you want free resources, if you want some guidance in your journey, lely moddycom, we've got a bunch of free resources on there and you can also find the conference and the academy and everything on there as well.
Speaker 2:I will warn you guys, she likes cats.
Speaker 2:I love you're gonna have to deal with some cat posts. Yeah, I'm a dog person. I give her a hard time about this all the time. Just know you're, you're getting into a cat person with Lely. It's gonna be a thing, and we'll link to all of this in our show notes as well. So you guys, if you're like, how do you spell Lely? Well, we'll have all that in the show notes so that you can click over and link to that as well.
Speaker 2:But, lely, thank you so much for spending some time today with us just helping us understand how this education space works. I am a huge believer that what you are doing is Absolutely raising the tide, not just for educators but, like you talked about that ripple effect, as you're raising the tide for educators, you're allowing all of us to raise the tide for our audiences as well. So thank you for what you're doing. It is making a huge impact on this industry Y'all. Isn't she fun Like I. Just you cannot be around Lely Amati, and not laugh and not walk away. So inspired, so encouraged. She's just got so, so many things she knows and is passionate about. That just will light a fire under you. So I hope, if you are on the fence about doing this education thing. I hope you will take what she has said to heart. I hope you will jump in and grab one of those remaining tickets to her creative educator conference coming up in January.
Speaker 2:Like I mentioned, we will have links to that in the show notes for this episode. I'll also put a link in those show notes for our course creation accelerator. You heard me talking about how we record courses for other educators. We had just this past year we did about a half dozen courses for other educators where they come in. We have everything set up for you to be able to record your content. We help you, guide you, coach you through the process. We edit everything while you are in there in the studio. You're recording module two. We're editing module one so that when you leave you've literally walked into this space with a dream and when you leave you walk out with your course ready to go upload it into your course platform. It's incredible. So we'll have a link to the course creation accelerator as well.
Speaker 2:That's it for today's episode. Next month we've got something that I think is going to be really beneficial for you, because I just walked through some of it with my mastermind group and y'all watching their eyes light up, watching the light bulbs go off as we talked through the topic of next month's conversation. It was just inspiring for me, and so I want to be able to share it with all of you as well. It's going to be three ways that you can begin planning for the year ahead to make sure next year's successes Happen on purpose and not by accident, not by blind luck. So thanks for tuning in folks. Until next time, keep learning, keep loving and keep chasing those dreams you were made for you.