SCALING SERIES PT 1: Scaling Isn’t the Answer If THIS Isn’t in Place First

Summary

In this episode, Christa shares her journey of scaling her photography business and the lessons learned along the way. She emphasizes the importance of understanding the motivation behind scaling, evaluating the scalability of one's business model, and building a strong foundation for growth. Christa also discusses the value of mentorship and staying focused on personal goals rather than getting distracted by industry trends. The episode concludes with a teaser for the next discussion on outsourcing to facilitate growth.

Takeaways

• Christa is excited to share her journey of scaling businesses.
• She has achieved multiple six-figure businesses through various strategies.
• Scaling should not just be about money; it should align with personal values.
• Understanding the motivation behind scaling is crucial for success.
• Many photographers overlook the scalability of their business model.
• A strong foundation is necessary before attempting to scale.
• Mentorship played a significant role in Christa's business growth.
• Focusing on personal goals helps avoid distractions from industry trends.
• Scaling a broken system will not lead to success.
• Outsourcing is essential for managing growth effectively.

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Transcript

Christa (00:00.748)
I don't know if I've ever been more excited for a podcast episode and this is actually going to be a mini series on scaling. And I'm really excited these are gonna be bite sized, bingeable episodes, one right after the other in a matter of a few weeks. And I want to dive into what it takes to scale. And I had actually a one-on-one intensive student tell me that I helped her scale her photo business and then I helped her scale another offer where she was like, I am so intrigued by what you do.

I wish you'd pull back the curtain a little bit more. And so I want this to be very transparent in my growth, but the reason I'm sharing this is at this point in my career, I have now grown two multiple six-figure businesses. I'm a mom of almost two. I'm about to have my second as I'm recording this when it comes out, I hope. I hope easier. But I've made a lot of mistakes in the process, right? I want to be very transparent coming in here. I have scaled in ways.

that weren't aligned. My highest income month, I remember laying on the floor crying. But then I've also skilled in ways that had a lot of alignment, that have worked really, really, really well for me. I've made really good hires. I've made not so good hires. I've spent my time on things that didn't pay off. I've done other things that did, right? You get the gist. Like I want to share what I've learned because I see a lot of the industry focusing on things.

that aren't going to actually scale in a sustainable way. And I also want this to be for you, even if you're not running a photo business, maybe it's an offshoot of photography or you're running something else. So like when we dive in, we're on full CEO business mode. This is not a time where we're doing constructive criticism or lighting tips, like we're past that. We are just talking about the business side, which is the side I am most passionate about. And I wanna talk about what it takes to scale, what that looks like, and what I think are the key things.

to get you to that end game, to that place that you want to be. So I'm really excited. It's gonna be Mike's House episodes. So this first episode is really looking at if you have a scalable business, okay? And then over the next coming weeks, we're gonna be looking through other things such as outsourcing, such as time management, such as, I'm scrolling through my notes here, marketing and what that takes and how to just expound that.

Christa (02:26.123)
The very first thing, you're like Krista, I want to scale, you need to know what that means. What are you wanting to scale and why? So if it's just to look really cool on Instagram of, my gosh, I'm booking all of these people. This is so great. I wanna be like, she's so busy. That's not a good reason to scale. And I know because I've coached so many photographers like that. If you went on their Instagram, you would say, cream of the crop, they are killing it. They're probably in the top percentage of photographers.

but they come to me for coaching because they see this isn't working. This isn't scalable. I know everything looks great and that's why it's taken me so long to connect with you, Krista, but I know what I'm doing isn't worth it in the long run with what I'm pouring out and I love what I do and I love my clients. So you have to look at, then why do you want to scale and what do you wanna scale? So maybe it's...

I really want to scale my average and I want to have the same amount of clients no matter what space I'm in, the coaching space, the photo space, but I want to make more per client. Maybe you are in a spot where you do want to scale what you're doing and you want to do more of it and have the bandwidth to that. There's a lot of different ways you can look at like how to scale, but you have to know why do you actually want that? I have a very good friend, I don't know if she might be sharing this story, who

built to in a seven figure company. And we have very open conversations of this since she's actually pulling back. And when we've talked about it, she looked at this is the cost. This is what I'm missing out on. I want things to look differently even though I know I could do multi, multi seven figures. That's just not the direction I wanna head at this season in my life because I know what it takes and I see the worth, okay? So it's not all just about.

the money and getting bigger and getting better. And I am not the coach, like I help photographers make a lot of money, but there's more to it than that. There's more to it than money. I believe where my faith aligns, I can't take it with me. And so if I scale something really big just to be paid a lot and that's it and I don't enjoy it and I'm running myself ragged and missing time with my family, to me that's not going to be worth it. So let's look at is what you're doing scalable, okay?

Christa (04:44.148)
And the reason I wanna start here is I see so many photographers actually skip over this step. About every other ad I see for photography is about marketing. Why? Because photographers click on it and they buy it. I get it, right? I would too. I would think that's the problem if I was having a business that maybe isn't doing great. But where I come in is I start with looking at, is it actually a marketing problem? If you have more volume, is that actually going to solve anything? Have you actually looked at your costs?

of what this is costing you and your time. So right now, charging, I'm just gonna shoot very straight on these episodes, charging $300, $400 per shoot. Often those photographers haven't looked at what they're actually left with and just booking more more and more and more of those really leads to a lot of burnout and eventually resenting your work, possibly resenting your clients.

and I see this so often running to the bottom in Facebook groups. I think we're one of the hardest working but underpaid industries, but we have to see that and change it, okay? So, and there's a way to do that, and I'll share a bit at the end about this episode of what I would do if that's where you're at.

And so if we're just creating a volume-based business where we don't have, we're not making very much per person, it's gonna be much harder and just not as worth it to scale. I know that there's models. You could build out a huge team. So even though you're profiting very little on each one, there's a lot of them, that's a lot, managing a team.

That's a lot to have going on, especially with something like photo sessions. So we have to make sure, is this actually doable? And an exercise that my coach gave me once, is she said, and this is kind of a well-known thing, could what you're doing double and you'd be fine. Or would that just be like parallelization of like, Krista, I wouldn't be able to handle it. Like there's no way I could do that and sustain it.

Christa (06:51.198)
And if that's the case, then we have to look at like, why is that? And we're gonna be talking about team and outsourcing soon, but the point of this episode is to really understand is what I'm doing scalable? Is what I want to scale something that I should be scaling? Because if I just try to start scaling something that's broken, that's not going to solve it. If you have a system that's broken and you're shooting and burning for a few hundred dollars and you think scaling it's the answer,

you're gonna hit a point and I've seen it happen where things hit a wall. And so instead what we have to do and even though a lot of people say, well scale and then do this, no, why would you do that? Like start with the main structure of your offer and build something that you want to scale first and then focus on scaling it. Not the other way around. And while I know there's different things you can put out there like, well it's good for exposure and all these things and then I'll go up on pricing.

Okay, at what point are you going to go up on pricing and B, if you want return clients, how's that gonna look when every time they come back to you, things are so drastically different for the same level of service. So as a coach, I always say, foundationally, you have to build something scalable. Now, it's not to say you can't shift things as you go along. So again, I told you I'm gonna be very transparent about the businesses I run. So for instance, for coaching, I have more people on my team now coaching than I did.

at the beginning when I first launched Uncapped. It was me and my photo assistant, okay? So even in my photo business, I have a wonderful photo assistant now who helps me, but I didn't start with her. So I'm not saying go out, hire the full team, spend all this overhead and it'll eventually catch up. I'm not saying that. But what I did start with Uncapped is I've actually not had an exponential price increase when I put it out into the world.

and an exponential change in support, even though I have others help me when I put it out, because when I created my coaching program, I created it with the idea of I want this to scale, so I'm not gonna take on 10 one-on-one clients to start off with. I created a group, so I could say the same thing once and then support them in other ways. Same with my photo business. So when I shifted to full service, because I realized shoot and burn was not getting me where I wanted to be and I didn't wanna take that many weddings,

Christa (09:10.801)
I built a really strong foundation and even though I didn't have a ton of clients at first, I still kept that strong foundation and built towards that. Okay, so we have to look structurally the soundness of our offer scalable. If not, what do I need to do to make it that way? So I'm actually gonna be wrapping this episode up. So hopefully you can look at it and see it right now if you need some prompts.

you can go ahead and write down what would it look like if my business doubled tomorrow? Would I be able to sustain that? And if not, why not? And the second of all, really dig into like, why do I want to scale? If it's just to look cool, it's not worth it. If it's only to make more money, which obviously I run my business to make money, I wouldn't run it if I didn't get paid. That can't be the only reason. like what deeper meaning does this have for you? And I even asked photographers that I coached this like,

Why are you actually here? What does building the successful photo business do for you if you're looking at another business? So what does that do for you? And I wanna go ahead and end with this. I am gonna end with this plug for Uncapped because I can't think of any other way to end this other than if you're a photographer out there and you are wanting to scale, but you are seeing exactly what I'm talking about, like Krista, what I am doing.

I don't know if I want to scale. I don't know if I want to be gone from my family more weeknights than I am and more weekends than I am getting paid too little. That is why I created Uncapped because I get it. I was there. And what happened for me is my husband and I had just gotten married. We bought our first house together. And I remember in January paying out my taxes and it felt like I had been shot where it was like,

this isn't working, why is this not working? And I had spent my college years building up my business, we dated a few years after college, I was doing it full time, and I had shifted to weddings because I was told that's the answer. That is the answer on how to be a high paying photographer and be quote unquote successful. Now on Instagram, you would have thought I was doing great, and would have people reach out to me like, Krista, you're doing awesome. But I knew this wasn't working with how much I was pouring out.

Christa (11:29.672)
And when I looked at the numbers of what it would take to get to my goals, it was daunting, right? And so this is what I would encourage you to do. I hit that level where I said, I need help. I need a mentor to help me with this. I am all about doing free education, diving in, but actually from the beginning, when I saw a paid opportunity, I jumped at it.

A lot of you guys follow Caitlin James. I did one of her wedding workshops when I wanted to expand into weddings. Why? Because it helped me grow and I saw that investment pay off because I needed help. And so that's what I did that year. And that was the year I hired my first coach. It was such a big investment for me with where I was at. Really big with what I had in my Bing account. It was something my husband and I really talked through, really chatted through. He is very supportive, but we both felt like I think this is the next step for us.

And that's what changed everything. it wasn't, notice I didn't say it wasn't because I hired someone, okay, because there's a lot of bad coaches out there. But I found someone that was in alignment with where I wanted to head. And she helped me see what it looks like to actually plan out goals based on what I wanted instead of looking at what all everyone around me was doing, all the photographers around me, the industry as a whole was doing.

And so when I dove in and got clear on that, I could then keep my head down and not scroll on Instagram and be like, I should probably go do this now. I should probably go do that now. She did this. I should probably launch that. Or gosh, she launched her mini sessions and they've already booked up. Should I do a Christmas in July? Like all of these things that gets us off track, I could stay hyper focused on what I wanted to build towards and what I was doing. And I realized there was a much more sustainable, scalable way to grow your business. And I troubleshooted things.

I worked through things and it wasn't easy and it wasn't overnight. Any coach to say like, join and overnight you'll do XYZ. Like, I don't know how they could promise that because whenever you make, I believe, a really big leap in business, those often are the ones that you work hardest for. And that's exactly what happened is I got super crystal clear on my goals and I worked hard at finding a way to get there that was sustainable and it changed everything. And no, it's not an overnight success story.

Christa (13:52.199)
But it's a story that allowed me to go from being a very low paid, hard working photographer to a very high paid, hard working photographer. And now I get to show other photographers how, because that's how passionate I am about it. It changed our lives. My husband quit his second job he had for insurance. We started real estate investing, which has helped us leap ahead in a lot of different ways. We paid for my cars in cash, the last two vehicles we've had.

And it's made a huge difference now that we're having kids in this season. But where that had to stem from, I'll shoot you straight, there's no way I could have gotten here doing shoot and burn. Where that had to stem from is really just looking at is what I'm doing going to work with where I want to be. And so if you think uncapped could be a good fit for that, I have two levels. This is like, I think the OG that every photographer needs to get going. I will talk about the more intensive level as we go along in case you're already full service or already.

doing something that you're like, yes, I have something already scalable. We can skip that, but I did want to start by sharing about Uncapped because it's the framework on how you can actually offer more to clients than just Digitals. And you can actually offer further support than all of your competitors. And instead of seeing what all of your competition is doing and the price ranges they're at, you can keep your head down and instead focus on sharing the value and out serving them and have four figure and multi four figure portrait sessions. So if that's something you're interested in,

go ahead and DM me coach on Instagram. I'll link it in the show notes. My handle is Krista with a C-H underscore Renee, R-E-N-E. DM me the word coach. Mention you heard about it from this podcast and we will send you all the details to Uncapped. But I wanted to end with that, but what we're gonna look at next time when you come back is what are the outsourcing steps that you need to scale? So.

We can't do it all ourselves, but I also know when you build a business, it is your baby and it's really, really hard to have someone else help you take care of your baby, right? And we're gonna be looking at all of that next time. See you then.