040. Robert Peterson: Managing Stress as an Entrepreneur

As entrepreneurs I think we all dream of that BIG pinch me moment. Achieving a certain revenue milestone, working with an ideal client, receiving an accolade or award. What isn’t talked about often is what comes after the big win— do we stop and celebrate or just move on? Today’s guest has a pinch me list a mile long, working with clients like HGTV, Magnolia Journal and tv personalities like B. Patrick Flynn. Yet our conversation today centered around learning to enjoy the journey, celebrating small wins, and how to manage stress as an entrepreneur. It was refreshing for sure and I cannot wait for you to listen in on my conversation with Robert Peterson, interior photographer and co-founder of Rustic White Photography.

WILDFLOWER SHOWNOTES : shannaskidmore.com/robert-peterson

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Robert Peterson (00:00):

I always carried a lot of weight and a lot of tension about making sure we delivered on what we needed to deliver on. And I did that way too often at the expense honestly, of my own joy at Tiffany's Joy in our job because of course, being my partner and being my wife, she had to deal with my anxiousness the most. Because again, when you're in front of the client, you're, a lot of us were very good at turning it on and being happy and upbeat, but it's in the shadows when the stress hits and the worry hits that those closest to us kind of see that come to the surface. So I, I've ruminated on that a lot lately and really wish going back I would've spent the time to enjoy the process more.

Shanna Skidmore (00:38):

You are listening to Consider the Wildflowers, the podcast episode 40. As entrepreneurs, I think we all dream of that big pinch me moment, achieving a certain revenue milestone, working with an ideal client, receiving an accolade or award. What isn't talked about often is what comes after the big win. Do we stop and celebrate or just move on? Today's guest has a pinch me list, a mile long working with clients like H G T V, Magnolia Journal and TV personalities like be Patrick Flynn. Yet our conversation today centered around learning to enjoy the journey, celebrating small wins and to stop stressing so much about reaching the destination. It was refreshing for sure, and I cannot wait for you to listen in on my conversation with Robert Peterson, interior photographer and co-founder of Rustic White Photography. If you dig professional bios, here goes. In 2010, Robert Peterson began photographing weddings with his wife and business partner Tiffany, while capturing memorable moments worth treasuring for newlyweds, he was deeply inspired by the slower pace that food and interior photography offered.
(01:40)
He now spends most of his working days photographing interiors for clients like House, beautiful, Magnolia Journal, Lux Magazine, H E T V, and Home Depot, working with designers such as Matthew Quinn, Phoebe Howard, and Brian Patrick Flynn to name a few. Robert and I have known each other since the early days of our businesses and it was such a treat to catch up with him on today's show. Without further ado, let's dive in. Hey, it's Shanna and this is Consider the Wildflowers, the podcast. For the past 15 plus years, I've had the honor to hear thousands of stories from entrepreneurs around the world. As a former Fortune 100 financial advisor, turn business consultant, I have a unique opportunity to see the real behind the highlight reel. I'm talking profit and loss statements, unpaid taxes, moments of burnout, and those of utter victory. Or as my husband says, the content everyone is wondering but not many are talking about. And now I'm bringing these private conversations to you. Hear the untold stories of how industry leaders, founders, and up and coming entrepreneurs got their start, the experiences that shape them and the journey to building the brands they have today. Stories that will inspire and reignite encourage to redefine success and build a life in business on your own terms. Welcome Wildflower. I'm so glad you're here. Hey Robert. Welcome to the show. I'm so excited to chat and catch up. We have five years of catching up to do. Robert Peterson (02:56):

I know, right? I'm not sure if it's five or it's 15. It's, there's a big gray zone there in the middle, but I haven't talked to him forever, so I'm so excited when you reached out.

Shanna Skidmore (03:04):

I know. I truly, let's think about it. It has to be, I want to say it was like 20 16, 5 to eight years ago. So much has changed in that season of life. I'm just excited to hear. Okay, tell everybody who you are and then I just want to throw it way back to life before business. How did you get started as an entrepreneur? Let's go all the way back.

Robert Peterson (03:30):

Okay. Well, I guess to jump in where I am right now, my name's Robert Peterson. I'm an interiors and architectural photographer based out of Atlanta. I would say I probably spend a good 40% of my work traveling for projects, but I'm based here locally, which is always nice. Anytime I have a project in Atlanta, because I love sleeping in my own bed, I love using my own shower and traveling is fun, but you quickly realize when you do it for work, it gets overrated really quickly. So that's where I am now. Where I started with photography. I am not a trained photographer or did I study photography in school or anything. I actually stumbled through studying media communications, which I call Mike, BS and Bs because I didn't know what I wanted to do. Shortly after graduating, I met my wife Tiffany, and we got married in 2009.
(04:20)
Right after that is a birthday gift. I bought her a camera. She was working as a kindergarten teacher. She would babysit kids on the side. I stumbled into being a personal trainer, which I was also not qualified to do. I just was at a gym one day and somebody was like, you look fit, do you want to be a personal trainer or not? And I was like, I need a job. And I was a personal trainer, so I'm working as a personal trainer. She's working as a kindergarten teacher. It's 2009. I bought her a camera and she started taking pictures for families and kids and things like that on the side. And then I believe it was early 2010, a dad actually reached out to her and was like, Hey, I've seen some of your photography. My daughter's getting married. I would love to talk to you.
(05:04)
We knew nothing about wedding photography, we had only attended our own wedding together. And so we were like, great, let's go to this. I went along for moral support. We're sitting there with the table with the dad and the daughter, the fiance, the mom, and we kind of had this little spiel we had tried to put together and Tiff's talking to them. And then the dad's like, okay, great. So what do you need 50% now? And we're like, yes. And I remember he wrote us a check for a thousand dollars and we're like, that's the most money anybody could ever make in a day. And so we photographed that wedding. I mean first we went home, we immediately had to look up on Google, what do you photograph on a wedding day? And made it through that one. And that first year I think we ended up booking nine more. And then next year I think jumped to 24 and then it was like 33 and it just kind of took off from there. And all of a sudden we found ourselves being wedding photographers in the Atlanta market.

Shanna Skidmore (05:58):

This is incredible because, okay, so it's 2010 ish it sounds like just coming out of a recession. And how did you start photographing with Tiffany?

Robert Peterson (06:12):

So we took that thousand do dollars. She already had a camera. I went and we ended up, I remember we started on Nikon because my dad actually had a few old Nikon lenses, which would still work on today's DSLRs. And we were like, great, we have some extra lenses we're going to photograph on Nikon. And so I went, bought a inexpensive Nikon camera body. We bought two flashes. This was right around the same time. There was a lot of education platforms coming out online right around 2009, 2010. I think the recession really turned a lot of people into, pivoted into these other businesses and education platforms, especially for creative starting to get really popular. There was one called Creative Live, I know there were a few other ones as well. There were Zach and Jody Gray out of Tennessee who were doing workshops. There was Jasmine Starr out of California doing workshops, Jose, via all these different photographers really starting to put this education source out there.
(07:06)
I remember Emily from once we was creating education information that she was putting out there and it really just kind of hit at the perfect time that we were able to deep dive and use all of that to grow our knowledge base really, really fast. And that allowed us to tackle this with an industry that we knew nothing about going into, not only did we not know photography and really even how to use our cameras, but we didn't know the what and world, what the expectation was, how a day would unfold working with other vendors, working with the bride. And it really became a really quick crash course in that. And the one thing I will say, and I always say to anybody who's moving into photography now, I feel like everybody should have to do a staple as a wedding photographer because it teaches you so much about how to operate quickly on your feet and pivot.
(07:54)
And it really teaches you how to smile and have a great personality even when everything around you is falling apart. Cause I would always joke with Tiff all the time and with our couples, I'm like, if you ever see me tell you to hold hands and just walk away from us, it's because I'm freaking out and I don't know what to do. And I'm looking at Tiffany going, tell me what to do. I'm out of ideas. And because nothing on a wedding day really goes how you want it to go, the weather won't cooperate. Sometimes things will be set up where you didn't want them to set up. They'll have mowed the grass, they'll just be something going on that throws off your original plan and you have to learn how to pivot and you have to learn how to pivot with a smile on your face because you already have a bride who is under a degree of stress.
(08:34)
You have a mother of a bride who's under a degree of stress and you don't want to add to that stress. We always said when it came to wedding photography, we prided ourselves as much on the experience with us as we did the final photos because imagery, photos is nothing more than bringing you back to that memory of that experience. So we always said, you could have the most amazing wedding photos, but if photographer was a jerk to you or snapped at your grandma, every time you look at that photo, that memory's going to trigger in your head

Robert Peterson (09:01):

So it's always really important for us to let us be a part of the joy of the day. And I always kind of approached it as like I'm there to be a court jester. I am there to make people smile, make people laugh if I have to say stuff, whatever it needs to be, I just simply want to diffuse the stress of the room and bring out the joy. So I just think it was such a beautiful business for teaching us not only photography, but teaching us people skills and really manage it and personalities. And so that's always super important. I think that translates going forward to any business you do all the time. And it also teaches you how to really be buttoned up in your business because you get one opportunity on a wedding day to get it right. And you can't have mistakes.
(09:42)
You can't miss an image. You can't have, I mean, camera cards fail. SD cards fail, things can happen and you always have to have a backup plan. So that's always something I've been able to carry through the rest of my business. So we did that and we photographed wedding. The last time we photographed a wedding would've been 2021. We had a few booked the year of 2020 with Covid, and then a few of those got moved into 21. And at that point we had decided we were stepping out of the industry. I really feel one, that world of wedding photography is such a young person's game and you kind of just aged to a point where you're like, I don't want a 26 year old telling me what to do anymore. You just kind of get there and it's wonderful. I'm so grateful for our time doing it, and I will say I wish I would've enjoyed the process more over being so stressed out. And that's one thing I'm taking forward in life here is just really trying to enjoy the process more. 

Shanna Skidmore (10:34):

I actually want you, Robert, to expand on that a little bit, if you would be willing to, in what ways do you feel like you carried stress in that kind of, it sounds like 10 years of the wedding photography business, one or two things kind of stand out that were maybe the most stressful for you or that you wish you could have laid down that stress a little more?

Robert Peterson (10:56):

Yeah, I think I put a lot of pressure on us very heavily that at this point going into 2013, 2016, at 2016, we'd had our second daughter. So now we have two children. We have a mortgage. This is our sole source of income. This is what we do. This is kind of became part of our identity of who we are. We are what in photographers. And it really became a bit nerve-wracking in the sense that all of our eggs are in this basket. This really needs to go well because we support our family off this. And so going into every wedding, going into every session, I carried a lot of stress about making sure we delivered for the client because I always felt at the end of the day, the bride doesn't care mean she does care, but from my point of view, she's not going to be concerned with any excuses.
(11:46)
I can't go to her later and say, oh, well the weather was bad. Oh, they set up the bar over there and they told me it was going to be over here. So we didn't have backdrop. They're not going to be concerned with our excuses for why we didn't deliver the imagery they wanted. It's just the fact that we didn't deliver the imagery they wanted. So I always carried a lot of weight and a lot of tension about making sure we delivered on what we needed to deliver on. And I did that way too often at the expense, honestly, with my own joy at Tiffany's joy and our job because of course, being my partner and being my wife, she had to deal with my anxiousness the most. Because again, when you're in front of the client, a lot of us were very good at turning it on and being happy and upbeat, but it's in the shadows when the stress hits and the worry hits that those closest to us kind of see that come to the surface. So I've ruminated on that a lot lately and really wish going back, I would've spent the time to enjoy the process more, enjoy the people I worked alongside more. I definitely enjoyed everyone. I enjoyed working with Tiff. I enjoyed working with all the other vendors, but not to the level I could have if I would've let myself relax and breathe a little and trust that it's all going to work out. That is a Yeah.

Shanna Skidmore (12:54):

Oh, that's so good.

Robert Peterson (12:56):

Big thing I've been, now that I'm in my forties and I can ruminate about my thirties and my twenties, a big thing I've really even now in life been working on is, and we can talk about this more later, but just personally, my faith, my faith as a Christian and my faith as the process and just trust in the process will work out. And even if the process doesn't work out how I envisioned it, chances are very often it works out better than how I envisioned it and stressing about it doesn't change it. It doesn't make any of it better. It just takes the joy out of it. And I think it's definitely one of those things you experience more and more as you get older. It really is the process. There's no in destination. And if you get to whatever you think the in destination is, you get that job, you make that certain amount of money it it's true. I mean there's a reason. It's a cliche statement, but it's true because it doesn't bring you that joy. You get there and all of a sudden you need to find another rung on the ladder next. Shanna Skidmore (13:48):

Yep.

Robert Peterson (13:48):

Yeah, because the joy is not in the end, it's in the process.

Shanna Skidmore (13:52):

Yeah. Ooh, that's so good. Something I'm learning myself. Okay. I'm going to ask you, I'm going to go off script and ask you an interesting question. So have you ever done any personality test or are you into any Graham Myers Briggs, any of that? Because I'm so interested if this ties into a personality trait or was it just the job fit?

Robert Peterson (14:15):

So I haven't done the igram and I haven't done any of those personality tests. I've done a tremendous amount of self-evaluate, and especially this past year, I just kind of stumbled into it. I will tell you, I actually attended, I went to a Tony Robbins event was, I don't want to say it was on a bucket list because it wasn't that big for me, but do you know who Tony Robbins is? Kind of the, okay, so thank you. I did his date with Destiny down in Florida back in November, and it was something else. And it definitely pushed me outside my comfort zone. I haven't held onto some of the things I wanted to change quite as great as I have. But it gave me a tremendous amount of insight. And he talks so much about the six core human needs and then your guiding question.
(14:52)
And I think when we take the time to really slow down and really figure out, we all have the same six human needs, but which ones am I hidden? And then when we slow down and go, what is the question? What is that internal dialogue? I am constantly operating off of this internal script that is driving all my decisions. And for a lot of us, it can be a very similar one. I know for me it was sort of this, and I almost cringe to say it out loud because it kind of sounds like self-pity, but it's not. But it's this, why am I not good enough this question? And it's a self-proclaimed question. And the more I dove into it, it's one that's really lived with me my entire life that I can always kind of think back on. But that question drives how you approach everything and this desire to have to prove to be really great at this job or I personally, I like to work out, I do CrossFit for fun, but I have to just unnecessary need to be competitive in there.
(15:49)
And I think part of it that's just CrossFit personality types, but I, I'm at the end of the day when I'm hurt and I'm limping around my house, I'm like, why am I so competitive with 26 year olds? I cannot compete against 26 year olds. I need to stop this to say all that today. I haven't dove into the personality types, but I've done a lot of introspection about my guiding questions that guide my life and reevaluated those and created new questions to drive myself so that life is a little more fun and a little more relaxed and not having to be so structured. Because the one thing I definitely have realized lately is I've held everything so tight when we're scared we hold things tight, when we're scared, we want control. And especially when we have kids, really our biggest fear is something happening to our kids, our kids being sick. And at the end of the day, we really don't have any control over that. So there's been sort of this release and letting go of my grip on everything and it's been very freeing and it's brought a lot of calm. And I was scared if I ever did that, would it take away some of the drive to work hard? And you still have the drive, but now you enjoy it a little bit more and it's not coming from a place of stress, but it's coming from a place of excitement.

Shanna Skidmore (16:58):

Yeah. Ooh, I love that. Okay, so this is such a random story, but I grew up around cars. My dad, my stepdad, my grandfather, they're all into cars. And so I was taught how to drive a manual transmission when I was very young and I was just taught a lot about cars. So it's funny because I like to drive fast and I used to drive a lot faster than I do now, but it kind of made me think of the analogy. But my biggest pet peeve probably in life is someone to tailgate me because I don't like to be pushed. And it's so funny to me, just this idea and how I relate of I'm such a naturally competitive, naturally ambitious, naturally overachiever, perfectionist. But if you try to push me, I slow down. Oh, that's funny. And it's just, yeah. And so when you're talking about this, if I slow down or if I take it easier, if I relax while I lose that drive and it just makes me think of I don't need somebody on my tailgate to make me drive fast. In fact, if they're on my tail, I slow down. So that's kind of what it made me think of. You are a naturally driven person and getting learning that you can relax doesn't lose. That drive is so big and so huge.

Robert Peterson (18:21):

Yeah, I, and I think we're definitely coming into a phase as a fight as a whole. We're becoming a bit more introspective. And I think part of it might be almost narcissism was on such a rise and we were just between, of course, I mean it's easy to point out, but social media and this just idea of massive narcissism out there that it's kind of just hit a point with a lot of people that it's like it's enough. And we all have narcissistic traits. It's just a matter of where we can tell, taper those off and bring in our empathy. But I think it's really beautiful that culturally as a whole, I think a lot of people are starting to become a bit more introspective, looking at themselves and realizing that the things, and to me, I always get a visual of the eighties where it was big and more and greed is good.
(19:07)
Yeah. We're seeing kind of a new take on those things and really seeing that's not going to fill us up what's truly going to fill us up. And it's going to be relationships, it's going to be connection, it's going to be a deeper serve purpose. And I think it's really nice that a lot of people are starting to reevaluate things and look at that. And I think that Dr. Will just bring us all a bit closer. I was listening to this psychologist speak the other day and they had asked her, what is the one thing you could teach your children if you could teach them anything, if there was one thing as a psychologist with young children that you could impart on them? And her answer without missing a beat was empathy. She said, there is nothing more important to an individual and how they will connect to society than empathy.
(19:47)
And she said she would prefer that over getting into the right school. So them being incredibly smart or well driven or anything else of that nature. And it hits such a note for me and it really has resonated with me that I want to make sure we've kind of always pushed that pedal a little bit on girls to slow down and talk with them and try to get them to be empathetic and mirror them with their emotions. And I just think that's such an important drive. And yeah, I'll diverge for one second where I saw that in my own life, going back to my personal training days, and this is where I feel like we are not creatures meant for selfishness. And anytime we are very selfish, I find for myself, I get very unhappy. And I went through, man, this is going way back when I was late teens, early twenties, I had a short stint where I worked as an actor and I kind of have burned the internet of any evidence of this.
(20:36)
But I worked enough that for two years I had my health insurance through the Screen Actors Guild and Tiffany and I were dating, we lived together in an apartment and this was my job. And I would go to auditions and I would book and I would travel and do some commercials, do some spots on TV shows and stuff. And it was the most unhappy I had ever been. And I could not figure out why. And I thought like, oh man, I just like, I'm SAG eligible, I'm getting my health insurance through the union. This is what I've been wanting to do for several years. And I was just so unhappy. And right around this time was when Tiffany and I got engaged and I stumbled into becoming a personal trainer. After about six weeks of personal training clients, I was like, I'm done with wanting to be an actor.
(21:19)
Because there became this moment where when you're an actor or working in a job space like that, you were so I woke up, everything was about me. It was about me going to auditions, how I would do it was so me centric. And then when I went and became a personal trainer, it became you centric. It was about my client. It was about who I was spending time with. Now granted, I should not have been a trainer. I was not certified to be a trainer. But simply spending time with people, listening to them and focused on them brought me to such a healthier head space than where I was when I was trying to pursue an endeavor that was all about me. And so I think when it comes to any business, I know Tony Robinson has talked about it, there's a few other people, I don't remember if Jay Shetty has talked about it, but if you want to really create a great business, serve others because yeah, it will drive you, it will fulfill you. And there'll always be a need for serving others in some capacity. So if you can find a job or a passion or something of yours that serves others, and it obviously doesn't have to be the nonprofit space, it can be a profit job, it will drive you forward.

Shanna Skidmore (22:24):

Yeah. Oh, I love that so much. Okay. I want to, Robert, have you speak to, and I'm wondering if there's a connection here. So when you were doing wedding photography, feeling this stress, feeling, putting so much pressure on yourself, tell me when you started getting interested in commercial photography, interior photography, making that transition, I would love to hear about that transition and then also if you feel like that has been a better fit mentally, even just with the fact that you can take a photo a few times. Yes. There's not so much pressure there. Tell me about that shift when you started thinking about getting out of wedding photography and how you moved into interiors.

Robert Peterson (23:09):

Yeah. Well I'll tell you first of all, I'll just start with this and people are going to be like, is he creating a religious podcast? Now I can tell so much, especially looking back the hand of God over my life and moving me in places I needed to be that I didn't know I needed to bet. And I are probably two, three years into wedding photography. I'm still personal trained and a handful of people on the side because I just enjoyed it and it gave me to do during the week as well. Cause we would photograph weddings on the weekends. During the week maybe I would train four or five different clients. I'm training a client at her house in her driveway and this car pulls up in her driveway real fast and now hops this designer Brian Patrick Flynn, who is doing a interiors project at our house.
(23:46)
And he comes over and he's like talking to me real fast. And anybody who's ever met Brian Patrick Flynn, he's full of energy talks really fast, six four. So just all over the place, but great guy. And yeah, he's like, I need a personal trainer because he was bouncing between LA and Atlanta for projects. And so I'm great trade information with him. I start training him probably a week or two later at his house. During the course of this, when you're personal training people, you spend a lot of time talking, just getting to know each other. I was sharing how we do what in photography, my wife and I and things that are going on in our lives. And I would found all of a sudden one day I'm going down to training him and he's like, Hey, bring your camera. I just redid a room at my house.
(24:20)
I want to take some photos of it. And so I go down and instead of personal training him, I find I'm taking photos of this room. And from there it started to become this pivot where all of a sudden I'm not personal training him anymore. I'm typically showing up to take photos of different projects or different, we called him step outs at the time he was doing a lot of like DIY stuff or HGT V. And so I would show up and when you go on, you Google something like how to turn a shelf into a bar cart and there's going to be all these step outs of how to do it with photos. He was basically creating content like that for the HGTV website. So I would show up and basically almost like how people do hands and pan, I'd be shooting closeups of hands or the bar cart or different things to create these stories.
(25:05)
So all of a sudden I'm starting to do more and more of this with him. And I'm starting to photograph more and more rooms, spaces, houses as he's doing them. And that probably went on for, I would imagine it was probably two, maybe three years. And all of a sudden I would start getting these one-offs of other designers who had seen my work with Brian and would be like, Hey, I have this project, would you be interested in photographing it? And it wasn't until probably I'd have to go back and look, but I want to say, I believe it was like 20 18, 20 19 where I was like, I'm starting to be pretty busy on this interiors photography. It hit the point where we were bringing in revenue wise as much from interiors photography as we were from photographing weddings on the weekend. I was like everything.
(25:47)
I was scared to let go of personal training when we started wedding photography because I wanted that backup. And then I was scared to let go of the wedding photography when interiors was taken off because I wanted that backup. And I just kind of kept rolling with both. And it would get hard because it would be hard sometimes, you know, would shoot an extended interiors pro project that might fall into a weekend, but that means then you can't put a wedding there that might have inquired. And so it became a lot of different juggling of aspects. And our lives were just getting busier too at this point. We have both daughters there getting bigger. Tiff was homeschooled teaching both of them, spending time with them. And the one thing with wedding photography people don't realize is it's not really a weekend job. You are on it all week long, whether you're doing pre-pro and basically working with brides, working with vendors, trying to coordinate, create scheduled timelines, everything like that, answering emails or in my case, I would handle all the post-production.
(26:40)
So you have to edit all these images at some point, do the photo album and turn all that those deliverables in. And so our lives were just getting busier and busier. So we really kind of just started to organically phase out the amount of wedding photography we were doing and the amount of interiors photography kind of kept ramping up. Where we really saw the change was of course 2020 when Covid hit. It was by the grace of God mean I had been doing a good bit of interior photography and when Covid actually hit, a lot of people know everybody was stuck in their homes. And there was this massive shift towards, especially people who have money, who typically hire interior designers, hiring interior designers, hiring architects, builders doing renovations at their homes. And so 2020 saw the biggest year we had ever had on interiors photography when there was no wedding work.
(27:31)
So yeah, it carried us through. And it's funny, I mean just always looking for the pivot. I always call us my granola. I mean we worked from home, we homeschooled our kids, we had a little garden in the backyard and a lot of things with HGTV and what they share online is SEO based of course. Yeah. Well when Covid hit, we were already kind of homebodies, like semi hermits. So things we already had around the house were pretty perfect. And we had just done a kitchen renovation. So I turned the camera on our own house and photographed our home office, our girls' homeschool room and photographed all these things and we were able to pitch them as a deck of images to HGTV that they purchased from us. So it, it's always been this combination of random happenstance being in the right place at the right time, which doesn't really feel good because if that is something you have no control over, which makes it scary. But at the same time, it's always been aware and open to that pivot of when you can create something, when you can move on something. And honestly just saying yes a lot of times to opportunities and just seeing where they take you.

Shanna Skidmore (28:39):

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I have this boiling question in the back of my mind. I'm going to blame it on my job description. How did you figure out the money side of all of this personally, but also pricing such different, I mean even the fact that you sold your images to H G T V, I mean, let me ask it this way. What do you feel like you did well when it came to business finances and then what would you say were a couple of pain points?

Robert Peterson (29:08):

Ooh, it's funny cause I still feel, I mean I'm the constant saver and warrior in our house. I would just be like, we don't ever need to buy anything. We need groceries and we can all sit on the floor and we'll be fine Cause we have a roof over our head then. And so I've learned lately even to let go a little bit of that as we moved recently, we moved three minutes from our old house but into a slightly larger house. Cause our girls were growing, we needed the space, but I would've been like, we can all make it work 1400 square feet with two teenage daughters in the future, which would've been terrible, but you know, kind of have to look around at the market around you and it's really tough because you can't just call up other interior photographers and be like, Hey, I'm coming into your business and I want to compete with you.
(29:49)
What are you charging? Yeah, so early on it was really, my original price points were of course guided by when I was working with Brian Patrick Flynn and what he would pay, it was like, I'll pay you this. And it was like, okay, great. I mean I have no say so yeah. Then gradually as your clientele grows and grows and grows, you can kind of bring those price points up more and more. And I'll be honest, even to this day, I don't know what other people in the Atlanta market charge for interiors photography and everybody prices their structure so differently. Some people may say, oh, my day rate is $1,500 and then I might say, my day rate's double that. But that person who says their day rate's $1,500 might charge another $700 for their assistant might charge $50 per image for post-production, might might charge a rental gear fee.
(30:38)
Everybody has their own way of working with their price structure. And so it, it's been kind of a learning curve. But I can tell you how I raise prices is I usually reevaluate them once a year. And what I do is, and I remember hearing this years and years ago and I don't remember who I can contribute it back to, but they were basically like, when you're ready to take up your price, you take it up on all new inquiries. So any new designer who reaches out would essentially get my new price point. Then when you've got into a place where enough new people have come in and booked at your new price point, now you can start bringing it up on your past clients because the fear is of course, if you bring up your price point on everybody across the board, what if they all go, well, we can't afford that new price and they all go away.
(31:22)
So it allows you to have that steady base of clients you worked with while simultaneously working and bringing that price up with new clients. I know I can, I probably sound very all over the place creatively and with myself. I don't take myself very serious. I take my job very serious and I'm very numbers focused at the end of the day for myself and to provide for my family to what I need to do. I basically have broken it down to I need to photograph a hundred days a year. If I'm camera in hand on a job a hundred days a year, I'm going to be right where I want to be. And yeah, if I fell down to 80, I would still be okay, but a hundred's, my goal and what that allows me to do is go, okay, I need to basically take photos a hundred days a year.
(32:03)
A lot of projects, the vast majority are going to be one day photo shoots. You will have some two day photo shoots and then you will have these kind of unicorn jobs that can be 5, 6, 7 day photo shoots, which are fantastic because that allows you to check off a big chunk at one time. Yeah, most designers are going to hire you anywhere from, if you have a good relationship with them, one maybe to three times a year. So that's not very many jobs per client because designers typically are only able to wrap out so many projects in a year because when they're working with a client, it could take them anywhere from six months to two years to finish a project dependent on so many variables. So if I'm saying I'm looking at one to three shoots per client, well now I'm saying I probably need somewhere in the range of 40 to 50 individual clients that are coming back to me year after year.
(32:52)
So that's kind of how I approach it is I am trying to get my name out there Now, is there a tangible way I'm really trying to get my name out there. In the past I've done yearly sort of gift boxes out to clients I've worked with and then out to prospective clients I hope to work with. Social media of course is a big one. Instagram is basically just my portfolio sitting out there, word of mouth is really important and that's where I approach interiors the same way I still would approach wedding photography. The experience on set with me to me is as important as the final images. I hear horror stories all the time of photographers with ego or attitude, which always cracks me up because I'm like, dude, not only are you not like curing cancer, you're not researching cancer, you're not wearing a t-shirt about cancer. Our jobs are not recession proof. Yeah. We are taking pretty photos of homes, be a team player. And so I'm really big on collaboration, a great experience so that when a client leaves, hopefully they're super happy with the photos, but they really enjoyed their eight to 10 hours with me and there's somebody they would like to spend their time with me again.

Shanna Skidmore (34:02):

Yeah, I love that. Okay. I love that you said about your financial need for a family and how to back into how much work you need to take on. I think that's always so helpful. And that was my next big question was on the marketing front, how are you sustaining that calendar? But I'm going to ask Robert, have there ever been any moments in your business where you saw a big shift or a big windfall or something in regards to marketing where you've really seen your brand grow and how did that come to be? Because that's the thing I heard, not even with just the interior photography, but with your wedding photography as well. If you're going to go from 10 to 20 to 40 that quickly, you're doing some things. And so I'm just wondering, was it always word of mouth or did you have some big projects that got noticed that got you a lot of work? I'd love to hear one to two marketing wins I think would be helpful. 

Robert Peterson (35:01):

Think a lot of it has really been word of mouth. And I'll tell you, I have one client, I mean they're not like my sole client, they work with other photographers, but it's live, which is a rug company based here right outside the suburbs of Atlanta. And I got my first photo shoot with them and maybe early 2021 and it was actually a referral from another photographer who I think the world of to me, she is the preeminent interiors and architectural photographer, and I'll plug her name's Lisa based in Dallas, Texas. She does pretty much all the photography for Magnolia Joanna Gaines. Her work is just stellar to me. I look at her work and it is just so beautifully perfect. It is. It's just gorgeous. I just really admire her work and I had booked this first shopper JPO and photographed it. I had been sharing some of the images on social and I get a message from her saying, Hey, I love your images of Jaipur.
(36:00)
Basically just complimenting saying they're fantastic. And I was like, oh my God, thank you so much. It was such a weird happenstance. I don't know how they got my name and how they reached out to me, but I'm so happy they did. She goes, I gave them your name. And I thought, what a class act she is that not only did she share another photographer's name, but she never felt the need to reach out to me and be like, oh, hey, I referred you for a job. There was no need. Yeah, she didn't need that self praise, which to me just spoke of how amazing she is because I mean, part of it is to me nobody I know is Lisa's competition. I'm not Lisa's competition. Lisa is beyond me as a photographer. Her work, like I said, it's just gorgeous, but I thought it was so beautiful.
(36:41)
But it was Lisa and we had talked a little in the past on direct message on Instagram just showing compliments on each other's work, asking camera questions, things of that nature. But it was just like even that, just having that kind friendship, and it was in 2020 I, I don't remember if the job happened in 2020, but the inquiry happened because they originally wanted to hire Lisa and then they didn't want to have to bring anybody in state because of Covid did everything. And she's like, I know someone in Atlanta, and she referred me and yeah, so cool. I think word of mouth is so important there because even between designers, I'll say very often when I get a new inquiry, it'll be very often, Eric Ward referred you or Matthew Quinn referred you. And that's so nice. And it's such a testament to not just the quality but the experience you're bringing to your clients and just the type of person you're being around your clients that they want to see you succeed and they share your name.
(37:38)
So again, I think who you are, how you behave on set is so important. I've had some great projects recently. I shot a house beautiful, every year does a big show house. And they did one this year in Atlanta and they actually, I'm not sure how they found me, but they inquired through my website when they actually first inquired. I thought it was spam because I was like, there's no way this big New York magazine's reaching out to me to photograph this job. And I was almost going to ignore it. And then I went ahead and responded and it was one of those unicorn jobs. It was an amazing paying job, five day photo shoot here in Atlanta. It was a tremendous amount of work, but it was an amazing creative team to work with. And I really, that came out, it was on shelves for two months and I thought, this is going to take me to a new level and I haven't booked anything because of it. And I'm proud of it. I'm proud to have it in my portfolio. I'm so grateful for the experience I had working with those people and I might get to work with them again in the future, but it didn't deliver. I thought it would, but word of mouth very often has delivered beyond what I would think it

Shanna Skidmore (38:37):

Could. Yeah, yeah. I think that's so interesting, Robert, that you said that because I feel like sometimes you think the things that are going to make the biggest impact maybe don't, like you expect and some things you never would've expected. The Lisa Petro really just friendship over Instagram produced an incredible job. And I love, for me, the message I hear is just doing good work, being a good human that people like to be around just showing up continually and doing that good work. I love that because I think so often I talk a lot about strategy, especially with numbers and understanding data, but sometimes thinking too much or trying to be strategic just feels like you were saying originally, youth centric. And I love, of course, I love strategy, being smart, working smarter, not harder, but also just doing great work. I don't think there's much more we could do better than just showing up and doing our best work.
(39:36)
And that pays off and it pays off. And I think we always want the easy button and the fast way and it's just kind of one step in front of the other. So I love that so much. Okay. I want to ask you before we go into a quickfire round, I would love for you to speak to how you have found the harmony of work life and home life. And it sounds like especially with the girls getting older, Tiffany homeschooling, I'm assuming she's transitioned out of photography now. So how would you say are some ways that you as a family have found that work life harmony?

Robert Peterson (40:12):

I am still struggling with that mean, part of that was doing the math and going, do I need to say yes to every job? And it's hard because when you're, and I'm sure so many people listen and no, you feel like you have to say yes to every job because also you don't know what job could be that one job that creates that client that rehires you 15 or 20 times a year. You don't know which client could be that client that's going to place the big order. You don't know. So there's such a tendency to want to say yes going forward. I'm looking at my personal calendar in a certain way where I'm trying to structure, when I offer days to clients, I'm offering kind of a Monday to Thursday based schedule to the clients. If they can't do that, I'll of course be flexible, go outside that.
(40:54)
But I'm really trying to protect Friday, Saturday, Sunday to be with my family. And so that kind of guarantees me three days. One of the big things I did, and it's been a huge financial investment, was I outsource my post-production. I still have to touch every photo. I don't get to get anything back and just send it to my client as is. But my goodness, the amount of human hours it has saved me to outsource it. And it's been so worth it. And it took my goodness at this point, it was probably four years ago, I came back from just a big photo shoot. We were still photographing weddings. I was photographing one of the large giveaway HGTV homes. I was flying back and forth between Atlanta and Montana, I think three or four times. And I, about a month later, all of a sudden got this just terrible burning rash on my head and my face, and I just went blank, what is it called that chickenpox can turn into shingles?
(41:47)
Shingles. I developed shingles from stress and I got misdiagnosed what the first three times because they're like, you're too young to have shingles. And I was like, I'm at least 73 internally. And sure enough, it was shingles. And that was such just a revelation moment for me that you can't burn the kennel of both ends all the time. And literally I got on Upwork, started just trying to work with different creatives on there. Found one guy that I kind of clicked with and it actually created his own business for him. He got off up Upwork and now basically does post-production for interior photographers. And I've referred several other people his way, and I'm not spending quite six figures a year on paying him to do post, but I'm paying him a very significant amount of money every year. And if he's too booked up, I have a second guy who I send stuff to.
(42:34)
But all that to say, I just learned there's places I have to carve out time. And there's things that if it's not a, I don't want to swear on your thing, but if it's not a hell yes for me at this point, it's a no. Being on set, working with clients is a hell yes. Paying attention to my bookkeeping, I paid attention to it enough to keep me out of getting in legal trouble. Other than that, yeah, I outsource it. I outsource my post-production. I would outsource my emails if I could, but I feel like I really need to talk with clients. And I've actually pivoted from doing emails to when I get an inquiry, I ask if we can hop on a five or 10 minute call because it's much easier and faster for me to talk through everything with a potential client on a five minute phone call than to go back and forth on several emails that are going to take me significantly longer to type out. So there's been a lot of strategies like that put in place and trying to now navigate what days are my photography days, what days are my days to be home with my family.

Shanna Skidmore (43:26):

I love all that. Robert, thank you so much for sharing. You are such a talented photographer. And I remember when you came and photographed a workshop that I hosted. You were j, I think you were just starting to get into the interior photography world. I remember you had just started Rustic White interiors, I think Instagram handle. And so it's been so neat to watch you photograph these really high profile jobs. And I just have been on the sideline cheering you on. So now I get to really cheer you on. Robert Peterson (44:02):

No, thank you so much,

Shanna Skidmore (44:03):

Much you, thank you for sharing so much of your story and so much wisdom. I feel like I could just chat, chat with you, but I want to go into just a quick fire round and put you in the hot seat. And it's just really fun little questions. You ready? Sure. Okay. So question number one. What is one thing you would be embarrassed if people knew?

Robert Peterson (44:21):

Oh, well, originally it would've been the getting shingles from stress, but, oh man, these are supposed to be quick answer questions. I'm very open. I have a hard time feeling embarrassed about some. I definitely, and I don't like the word imposter syndrome cause I think we all suffer from a degree of imposter syndrome, but I think at time the degree of self-doubt I have is unnerving. And it makes me nervous almost if that would come out in front of a client and cause them to feel less assurance in me. But again, I think a lot of us struggle with that. I think that's a normal human, that would be the closest I think I have. I, I'm typically hard to feel embarrassed.

Shanna Skidmore (44:55):

Yeah, it's funny you said that. I don't have a ton of embarrassing moments either. I mean, I could for sure have some embarrassing moments, but I just kind of laugh and make sarcastic jokes about myself. Yes,

Robert Peterson (45:06):

That's my default. But

Shanna Skidmore (45:07):

That, yes, that's exactly what I, but you know what? I have the same self-doubt. I, and I don't know if that's just a byproduct of being an achiever, a perfectionist. I, and I think most people probably know this at this point, but I have a email folder on my computer. I call it my sunshine folder. And any time I have testimonials or kind words, I put it in there because I have to often be like, Shannon, you're good at your job. And when I tell people that, they're like, no way. You feel that way. And I'm like, truly, I have to speak truth over myself. I am my own worst, the opposite of cheerleader. So thank you for sharing that because I struggle with that too. Okay, second question. Any regrets or wish you could do over moments?

Robert Peterson (45:57):

I wish I would've been just calmer and honestly, and this feels, you want an embarrassing moment? This would be an embarrassment moment and cover that too. But I think I'm human so I'll be open to it. But I just could have been a better spouse and a better partner on wedding days. I could have just been a more enjoyable human to Tiffany to tolerate my stress behind the scenes and my worry. And if we're doing a good enough job and all of that, I could have been better there for sure.

Shanna Skidmore (46:27):

Yeah, we're the same human pretty much because right, I'm like, Kyle is the most steady, calm, thank the Lord for him. Cause I'm just like a yo-yo. And he's just my calm in the storm. So if there's any moments where Kyle gets stressed, I'm like, I mean, what? What's happening right now? You can't be stressed. The only one who's allowed.

Robert Peterson (46:51):

Yeah. Oh yeah, TIFF. I mean, it's so funny because I, we probably all had a mutual friend, Claudia and the wedding world who was a hair makeup artist. And hopefully I'm not oversharing for her, but her and I would always bond over being anxious and being stressed. And we would talk about our significant others and they just don't get that. It's like to talk to Tiff about being anxious or stressed. It's like she just doesn't get that. She's like, don't be stressed. And I'm like, oh, I hadn't thought of that. But it's like my brain just, their brains are calm and comfort in and it's like mine's not, mine is in this constant state of what is the doomsday scenario. So then I'm always, when we go back to some of those things we talked about earlier, that's a big one for me to pivot on and really start trying to relax a bit about.

Shanna Skidmore (47:34):

Yeah, it's like perfectionism is such a great gift. It makes us detail oriented and it also is such a hard, for me, control is my kryptonite. The need for control. Okay, this is so good. Third quickfire. What is a big win or a pinch me moment?

Robert Peterson (47:54):

Oh man. So Tim Ferris, who I've always been a big, I'm not going to give you short answers, by the

Shanna Skidmore (47:58):

Way. I love it. It's great.

Robert Peterson (48:00):

Tim Ferris has shared before. I love listening to him. And he wrote the four Hour Work week, and he has the Tim Ferris podcast and he shares, if you're not good at celebrating the little wins, you'll never be good about celebrating the big wins. And that kind of self-deprecating orea part of me was never very good at celebrating the little wins. And people will compliment me and they'd be like, that's so great. Da. And even tips, you'd be like, I'm so proud of you, da da, da. And then I never really let hit. And then you go and you have the bigger wins and you book the five figure job, or you get that client that you've been dying to work with, or for me mean some of these designers who've hired me, who've worked with some of the biggest names we have around, and now they're hiring me to photograph their next book, I'm, I'm so flattered and I'm so excited, but it's not hitting me, this pinch me moment I wanted to.
(48:48)
So, and I think part of that was never really learning how to celebrate and enjoy the good moments. Being really good at worrying about the bad moments. And sometimes I think too often we believe there has to be this homeostasis where it's like, if it gets too good, then a shoe has to fall to bring me back to homeostasis. And I'm sorry, it doesn't have to be that. It can just be good and there will be hills along the way, but there's nothing other than our own built in cognition that says, oh, I'm going to just sit here and wait for the shoe to drop. There is no shoe that has to drop. There can just be the good moments. And then any struggles or just learning opportunities. So I don't have one. I mean, definitely this last year get into photograph, the house, beautiful house was huge for me.
(49:30)
There's a couple designers who reached out to me to photograph their next books. I have a big shoot coming up down in Florida with a designer I've never worked with, but I'm really excited to, and Matthew Quinn and a amazing builder. And it's going to be just a huge, beautiful project that they could have hired these other interior and architectural photographers who are double my rate, triple my rating, and having longer stand in portfolios. And it wouldn't have been the money for them or anything else, but they like my work. They trust me. And so I'm really flattered about

Shanna Skidmore (49:59):

It. Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. Years ago I was asked on a podcast, how do you celebrate? And I just went blank. I was like, Ugh. And that was, yeah, I think that's what happened. And that was my moment for me of being like, wow, take a minute and truly celebrate. So something Kyle and I have done for a few years now is we, if we launch our program, the blueprint model is our main course. When we launch that, we'll set little small. When we get five students, we go bowling. When we get 15 students, Shannon gets a massage. And it's just this really sweet way of forcing yourself to celebrate, even if you're not good at that. And so I never heard that quote by Tim Ferris, and I love it because it's so true. If you don't celebrate the small wins, you won't celebrate the big ones. So good. Okay, fourth question. What is the best advice or just really good advice that you have received?

Robert Peterson (50:57):

Oh man. Well, I guess one I kind of shared was that Tim Ferris one, because that to me is a bit more emotional and sort of driving your joy in life. I would say the best finding financial advice I got early on in business was the moment you book your first job set, 25% of that money aside for taxes. Because especially when you start out, a lot of us start out under a sole proprietorship and you know, make $2,000, $5,000, $10,000, whatever your rate is off your first photo shoot or creative endeavor. If you are not setting that money aside for taxes, you are going to get scarily caught off guard. Yeah. Come next year. And I remember we heard that early on and I started doing it right away. And thank goodness, because I could not have expected the tax bill we were going to get slapped with. And we've pivoted our business twice. I mean, we went from silver proprietorship to LLC, to now we function as an S-corp. And so basically we pay ourselves monthly payroll. And I pay taxes every month, which is by far our biggest outgoing expense every month to pay. Because I was like, we could live in a significantly larger house if I did not have to pay that bill anymore. Exactly.
(52:03)
And even that, it's like I still my account every year she'll come to me and she'll be like, I think we should take your monthly payments up. Do you think you're going to make the same next year? And for the last three or four years, I'm like, no, no, no. I think this was a fluke year and it's not going to be as good, so let's not take it up. And then every year ends up being better than the year before, and then April comes and she's like, okay, well now you still owe this much. And I'm like, oh God, I should just listen to your accountant and do the things she says. But that definitely was the best financial advice we ever got because you don't want to mess with the government, those taxes. So just obviously write off everything you can, but plan for doomsday 25% at least get you in the ballpark. And hopefully, obviously it'll be a lot less, or it could potentially be more, but it gets you in the ballpark at least having some money set aside as a safety net.

Shanna Skidmore (52:50):

Yeah. And isn't it so eyeopening when I do these exercises with my students or clients where it's like, okay, what would you have to do to make a hundred thousand dollars personally? And I'm like, okay, a hundred thousand dollars. Then we add taxes, and then we add overhead, and then we add cost of goods. And it's like, you need 250,000 in sales. And they're like, what? I'm like, I know. You feel like you make a lot of money until all the things come out.

Robert Peterson (53:16):

And I appreciate my accountant. I, there's times I wish maybe she was a little more aggressive for me, but I'll put all these things in there and I'll be like, it's a business expend. And she's like, that's not a business expense. And I'm like, so then it's like, I thought I had all these write-offs and they come way, way down because she keeps me doing the right thing. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I remember back in winning photography over a decade ago when it was like, oh my gosh, we made a hundred thousand dollars this year. And then by the time the expenses and taxes and everything else, she's like, we should go be two elementary school teachers because at least then we get insurance.

Shanna Skidmore (53:48):

Oh, the joys, the ups and downs, the journey. So good. Okay, last quickfire question. What are you working on now or one resource that you would like to share?

Robert Peterson (54:01):

What am I working on now? Right now? Nothing. January was insanely busy. I only had four days in all of January where I was not actively on a job. February, I photographed one job, and that's just kind of the flux too that you have to learn to live with. As far as resource, oh man, I, I'll say there's been a big pivot in my life recently towards paying a lot more attention to friends and family and relationships. I've been kind of a big Jay Shetty nerd lately in his podcast. And he is all about relationships. His book just came out, he's actually going to be in Atlanta tomorrow night for his tour. And I decided to try to look to buy tickets today. And of course it's sold out and I was way to procrastinate. But I think even though it's like this is business centric, I think one of the most important things, if I could go back and redo things, don't ever sacrifice relationships at the expense of business.
(54:53)
Now, I will say, and I listened to Tyler Perry. Tyler Perry shared this, and I agree with it too, but he said, don't, don't be afraid to let relationships go, because he said, think of it as a rocket and the rocket go into space and it has boosters and those boosters, eventually they fall off. And that can be certain relationships because maybe they're not going to the altitude you're going to, maybe their destination isn't where your destination is, and that's okay. And it doesn't mean that relationship failed, but that friendship was bad. It just meant you were going in different directions. And I completely agree with that. I also feel very strongly that we can be driven. We can have our creative endeavors, we can have our businesses, but we have to, as we're building that support those relationships around us, our family, our friends, those that matter the most.
(55:39)
Because if you get to where you're going first off, it's the journey. It's not the destination. And if you get there and you don't have anyone to celebrate it with, yeah, it's going to be incredibly unfulfilling to celebrate it. So yeah, I think my personal big growth lately has just been relationships and fulfillment in that part of my life. Granted, that's also, I spent the last 10 years working really hard to try to build up photography to feel established enough, and I still work hard on it. I still stress about it, and I still constantly educate myself on it. But if I was to send listeners with something, it would be the importance of relationships.

Shanna Skidmore (56:12):

Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. Okay, Robert, what a good conversation. Thank you for coming on the show today. It's been fun to catch up because I haven't got to hear about the interior photography side. I mean, that's grown since I've seen you last. So that was so fun. And I just want you to send it off. And this might be similar honestly to what you just shared, but if you were to look back now day one of becoming an entrepreneur, starting businesses, what would you tell yourself on day one?

Robert Peterson (56:43):

Oh God, enjoy the process. Yeah, enjoy it. Because I look back and I'm like, it's so often it, well, at least for me, every single thing has worked out. It's all worked out, but how much more enjoyable it could have been along the way to enjoy it, working out, not losing sleep over it, not stressing about it. You could still work just as hard and enjoy it and have a smile and celebrate with others. So just like I would look back and just calm that kid down and be like, enjoy it. Shingle sucks. You don't want to get it. Just enjoy the process.

Shanna Skidmore (57:17):

Yeah. Oh my goodness, what a joy you are. This has been fun, and I hope to see you I r l sooner than later. I

Robert Peterson (57:25):

Know it'd be really nice to actually cross paths and we could ramble for two hours at dinner.

Shanna Skidmore (57:29):

I know. That'd be fantastic. Rather

Robert Peterson (57:30):

Than me for ramble an hour on your podcast. But no, thank you so much for having me on. I'm always flatter when people reach out and ask me to do these things. So yeah, seriously, thank you a bunch, and I can't wait to cross paths with you soon.

Shanna Skidmore (57:40):

I know. Okay, we'll talk to you soon.
 
Hey, wildflower, you just finished another episode of Consider the Wildflowers the podcast. Head over to consider the wildflowers podcast.com for show notes, resource links, and to learn how you can connect with Robert. One final thought from today from Tim Ferris, if you aren't good at celebrating the small wins, you aren't going to be good at celebrating the big wins either. I'm up to create my jar of awesome. Thanks, Tim Ferris, I'll catch you next time.