SCALING SERIES PT 4: Behind the Curtain of MY Businesses

Summary

In this episode, Christa shares her journey of scaling her photography and coaching businesses. She discusses the importance of outsourcing, building a solid coaching framework, and the strategies she employs to engage clients and market her services. Christa emphasizes the significance of having a supportive team and the need for sustainable business practices, especially as she prepares for maternity leave. The conversation highlights the duality of her business model and the various income streams she has developed.

Takeaways

• Christa shares her current business practices and scaling framework.
• Outsourcing is crucial for managing multiple business aspects.
• The transition from one-on-one coaching to group coaching can enhance scalability.
• Building a supportive team is essential for growth and efficiency.
• Marketing strategies should evolve as the business scales.
• Sustainability in business practices is key for long-term success.
• Christa emphasizes the importance of education and digital offers.
• Preparing for maternity leave requires a solid team in place.
• Scaling can lead to multiple income streams and business opportunities.
• Coaching is a two-way street that requires commitment from both parties.

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Transcript

Christa (00:01.23)
We made it to the last scaling episode and I am so excited. I hope you've enjoyed this as much as I have on this episode. Whew, y'all, I'm a little nervous about this. I'm gonna pull back the curtain a bit to what I'm currently doing. I actually had an intensive student say like, Krista, I'd be just so curious to see kind of more of a backend of your business. And I feel the same way about my coach, because I was invested in coaching, because I always wanna grow and get to the next level. So on this episode, I am gonna share a little bit about what I'm doing now with that scaling framework I went through in mind and how I implement it in my own business like Wheels to the Ground.

But then I also wanna share an invite on how we can take this a step further for your specific business. So I'll be sharing about that as well. So in the outsourcing episode in the scaling series, I did talk a lot about how I outsourced to scale the photo side of my business. So I don't wanna go in and repeat that. But just know if you're curious what I did like at the pinnacle of my photo business when it came to outsourcing and scaling, that episode covers it. But the reason I bring that up is I want to share now

I still shoot. So right now I actually run both a photo and a coaching business and I love both. I plan on continuing running both hopefully. And I would like to start more businesses. I already have one in the backlog in mind that I've started to build out that hopefully I can share with you guys soon. But I think it's always a little nerve wracking sharing about the coaching side of my business since some of you guys listening are like potential clients. It feels a little bit like standing in front of someone in your underwear, right? But I hope that this can encourage you because

The reason I wanted to share about this is I've seen that as I've coached photographers, when they uncap their averages, uncap their sales, start scaling, they logically just look for that next progression of what's next. And often it is education or a digital offer or something like that, a branch off of their photo business into another income stream. I did that and I've actually helped multiple photographers do the same, only when they had a really solid foundation in place first. So if you wanna hear all of that, listen to these episodes in order, but this is the last one.

Let's go ahead and break this down. When it comes to my photo business, I still take on sessions and like I referred to marketing as a train beforehand because I got the wheels turning so rapidly. I'm still reaping the results of that even though I don't do tons and tons of photo marketing now. So I still do some marketing. I still wanna show up and still show like, hey, I'm here. I still wanna have fun testing things and trying things. And I just love being outside and I love, love, working with people still. It's just so fun to me.

Christa (02:26.133)
I still do that and also since I still teach it, I still want to do the thing that I'm teaching. So that being said, I talked about how I grew that and scaled that. Laura is still with me. We aren't doing as anywhere near the volume that we were like at the pinnacle of our business, but she still helps me where I still talk to potential leads, photograph it, handle the sales meeting while she handles all of the backend stuff and has been wonderful with that as well as like any other little photo things I throw at her. So sending to and from the retoucher.

uploading to the gallery, ordering products, all that good stuff. Just today I had her call UPS about tracking for an order and just was very competent in that side of things, sending invoices and stuff. Okay, I wanna go ahead and move to the coaching side. So this is where I do spend most of my time and this is where most of my income comes in now and I love it. I love it so much. I love teaching photographers. And so basically I started it in...

Oh gosh, y'all was it 2022, I think end of 2022. Like last quarter was I did my first launch and it was very successful. I hired a coach to help me cause I always want to fast track my education. And I was like that front row kid in class that's all in anything you could possibly get to like, I'm here for it. But I also like him very much. keep my head down and work really hard to a point. Like she actually reached out to me like, how's it going over there? I was like, Oh, I had this really huge launch. She was like, Oh my gosh, amazing. And I ended up coaching more intensively with her over the next year.

But that being said, it was just me and Laura at that time when I started coaching. So I built it out and did it on my own. as I grew, y'all I wanna fast track this to kinda get to what's important. I started off my coaching program in a way that I did know it could be scalable. That's why I started it. I had done one-on-one mentoring sessions and different things. And the problem with that is they're not scalable. I was saying the same thing over and over. I even had like the same slides over and over. So.

I went ahead and wanted to create a group space for it and it was wonderful. I still keep tabs with and keep up with multiple of the girls in that first round. It was so special and been wonderful seeing them go on to other things. But as that was finishing up, I wanted to do it again. And so I started doing it evergreen record take on students each month and help them and coach them in a setting that was conducive to that. And that is what I still do. And it's called uncapped. It's been our signature offer.

Christa (04:45.79)
I've added a lot to it since then. I've made it longer since then. I've added more value, more touch points. It's just a wonderful container that I think any photographer wanting to get past shoot and bring to full service, like this is perfect for you. And I'm incredibly passionate about it and believe truly from the bottom of my heart, every single photographer needs this. So that tells you how passionate I am about it. And so as that was going on, I started coaching an inner circle. So what happened was after that first round of uncapped,

I reached out to a few and said, hey, if you want to keep coaching together more intensively, we can ramp this up a level. And many of them stayed with me. And now I still run in our circle. Again, it looks very different than it did then. But the reason I'm sharing this is I had built this out basically on my own with some of Laura's help too, but she was really busy with like doing stuff on the photo side. So we hit a point where we needed more help. And like I talked about in the outsourcing section, you know, you can bring someone in and train them in what you need them to do. Or if you need expert help, you can go.

and find someone who's already equipped in that field and bring them in. And that's what we did. And so we had a wonderful lady come in who really helped us set up the backend system, the funnels, checkout links, hey, if they pay this, this contract goes to them, all of those logistics platforms. I think we even switched where our modules are being hosted onto another platform, like all of these backend tech things. And I cannot stand tech stuff. I'm so bad at it. It takes me so much time.

And so having someone who literally that was their wheelhouse has been wonderful and she is still on our team. And so even now that we've been together for multiple years, she still keeps an eye making sure students are good. If there's any troubleshooting, which there is just at the volume that we're at, like there's going to be links that sometimes fail or hey, I to your credit card or different things like that, as well as onboarding, offboarding students, basically anything in all things tech. And it's been so wonderful. So.

About a little over a year into coaching, we had that system going. And even then we hit another scaling block where I realized we were doing a lot of marketing and selling in the DMs. And I realized I needed some help with that. So I made another hire. And what's really cool is she came in and now actually does a very different job than what she did when I hired her. She still has some of the same stuff, but it's grown exponentially. And so,

Christa (07:12.233)
Because I was clear on what to do, it wasn't an expert. And again, in the outsourcing section, I talk a bit about hiring, but I brought her in to help me with some things and it really catapulted things. And then I shifted her to other roles. And now she is our operations manager where she basically knows everything going on in the business. And let me tell you all that has been so wonderful and life-giving to have. She has been such a wonderful fit, has grown with me, has changed with me, adjusted with me, been so flexible.

So I wanted to talk through some of the things that she does every week, some of the stuff daily, just to really re-idify when you scale, can't all be on you because I couldn't have the time to do all of this. So I will batch create content. She's the one who will put it on a reel or a carousel and push it out each week, sometimes even onto stories. Our podcasts are done in house. You probably heard my phone ringing in a couple ago and it's cause it's like, well, this is where we're at. We had an agency do it for us for a while. We started doing it in house.

Now Hannah pushes out these episodes, which is great. Same with email marketing. I use ChatGBT to help me with emails and social media, but she's the one who pushes that out. When we do launches, she's the one who makes sure all the links are there and working and everything's connected. They're getting the text message reminders, the email reminders. The calendar event is set up right. There's a lot that goes into this. I made a list here because I knew I'd forget stuff, and I know I'm still forgetting stuff. She still manages DMs. She still pushes out content even on the portrait account.

what is really, really cool about what she does as well, and I know I'm missing stuff, sending a welcome packet to people who join Uncapped. And I actually have a full list because before maternity leave, I need to make a full list of everything. And I was like, this is a lot. And so where I would love for her to come is she's already at a higher level with me and has helped me make very informed executive decisions because she's so in it and sees what's going on and so motivated to help me. That's her goal, which is wonderful for me.

So as we get going and grow even further in scale into these big dreams that we have, she will come up with me even more. And we can eventually as, you know, her time gets limited and less scalable, I want her to be focusing on the tasks that drive the business forward the most. And we can even see bringing in someone else to take some of those daily tasks off of her plate. So again, I want to be very transparent about where I see us heading.

Christa (09:32.628)
So that's that part of it. Now, let's talk about a couple other sides of it, okay? Because this isn't just our full team. There's more, y'all, it's crazy. So as I brought Hannah in, I started handling and I started doing all calls before our programs in containers. I love that, I teach it in my photo business, my photo coaching that the best way to connect with someone is just talking to them instead of a fancy PDF or...

I don't know, some video or sales page, like, yes, those things are really good and effective, but at that point in my business, I was handling all of calls with potential buyers and that was starting to stack up so much so I felt like this is gonna take away from my coaching. And my core competencies are I need to be a good coach and we have a very high resign on rate for our highest level group. And I want to be able to facilitate that and coach them so well that they want to stay with me and help them so much and have the energy and the gusto to do that. But if I'm on the phone all day with

with people over here, I can't do that. So I was getting really burnt out and was hitting a point where I'm like, this isn't aligning. And remember when I said in the outsourcing one where often it's the things you really are hesitant to give up that make the biggest difference? So around that time, I would have an option where if a student chatted with me, potential student chatted with me, and they were like, hey Krista, I wanna chat with someone else who's been through it, I would connect them. And then this girl who I had coached and would talk to potential students.

came to me and said, what if I just handle this full call for you, Krista? What if you don't even have to get on the phone? And I was like, that would be great. And then I could spend my time coaching, I could spend my resources marketing, attracting more of the right people, and she could help me with that. And that has been a wonderful thing. It's been wonderful for students coming in to actually chat with someone who has truly been through it, who knows what it takes, who went from a few hundred dollars to a few grand.

and for them to chat with someone other than just me, the creator, who's obviously incredibly passionate about it, but someone else as well. And so she was able to take that off of my plate. And since then, we've even hired a second-pass student who I also helped go from a few hundred to multi-thousand dollar sessions and get past six figures and all that jazz. She now chats also with potential students. So it's been so wonderful and so helpful on my end and allowed me to scale and add in different things like.

Christa (11:51.208)
showing up to this podcast every week instead of like what was before maybe once, maybe twice a month, right? Things like that that I can show up better, nurture people more, get in front of my ideal clientele more, build even more trust and continue to think of other ways. And we're about to launch something like new to people, which I'm super excited about. I wouldn't have time for if I was doing these other tasks. So that, I'm trying to think if I'm missing anything. Oh yeah. Another piece of the puzzle.

is we hired on an ads consultant. And so we've had different ad agencies come through when it comes to our coaching business. What was a really good fit is the mastermind I pay to be a part of, I connected with a wonderful gal named Lauren, who does ads management. And now we hire her, she's on a month to month retainer and does consulting for us. So she helps coach us through what ads are doing, are these working, are these not. So it's like a good middle ground between running them completely in house.

but not having to have a full on agency. So we've loved her, she has been so wonderful. Let me know if you want me to connect you to her. But other things I've outsourced besides that. Again, I was very scrappy when I was putting this together myself. And so I had some different website templates I used, but eventually got to a point where I did build out a separate website for coaching. I did not do that. It would look like a dumpster fire if I did it. So I went ahead and hired professionals. Davy and Krista have now built out three different websites for me at this point.

and I actually want to start another business. And so I've already sent them the plans for a fourth website. Don't ask them what the business is, because I haven't gotten it off the ground yet. I'm still working on the back end of it. But, you know, because I have them do things like that is how I can escalate getting businesses going and how I can make sure I show up with a really strong brand presence, which is really important. And so the branding side of things, obviously they've come up with that design. Now, when I want to add on other pages, we have we have another

another contractor who can do pages for us for launches or for a course or something like that. I don't do all of these things. Okay, so you can see like that's a lot of ground that I just covered. And again, I can't do it all. But what I can do is I can coach really well. And I wanna make sure I stay working on the business, not in it of like what's ahead, what's coming forward. And having these different experiences, because I've done things really well.

Christa (14:10.663)
And very poorly as I've scaled, I've seen what gives energy, what depletes energy, what makes me a better coach, what takes away from, you know, my gusto coaching. I can really, you know, use that experience to help my students who are at that level where they're wanting to add in different offers and what that looks like. And so just to kind of give you a few examples, I coached a girl last year in the senior space who added 40 grand to her income in the photo space from coaching with me and was able to launch

some senior education that was a great first launch for her. was wonderful. I helped another student who we did uncap together. She made her ROI back very, very quickly. She jumped into Inner Circle together and had five to 10K portrait session sales and then started another business where she takes care of albums for luxury wedding photographers for their clients. And that's been incredibly lucrative. Right now she's even more passionate about that. So,

there's a lot of different ways you can take it when it comes to scaling. So I wanted to just level even with you guys on the different containers that I have. So Uncapped is my signature program. It is like to me the best of the best place you could start if you're like, don't even know Krista. And it just shows you how to create a very sustainable photo business that's not volume based. You can do volume. I did do volume. I did do over hundred shoots a year at a four figure and multi four figure average.

but this will show you how to add in products in a way that's scalable and that aligns and that allows you to just have more of what you want, more income, more freedom. It's what literally changed the game for my husband and I. could not have gotten to a $400,000 photo business doing shoot and burn. Something had to change and now it's set us up for success in so many different ways, especially now as parents and just having wealth built up. This was the key and I'm incredibly passionate about it. Now.

Again, as I mentioned before, I had photographers go through that ready for more, or I've had photographers come to me already with a very, very strong foundation for their photo business, where they surpassed what we were learning in uncapped. They're great with where they're at, their average is fine, we're good to go. I can still help them scale that average, and that's what we work on there. We're not gonna scrap and start anew, let's work on scaling that average and...

Christa (16:28.121)
Does it look like scaling to other facets of your business? Are there other income streams that you want to bring in? And that's where Inner Circle comes in and it's a more intimate space. We have some really, really cool things for it in the works. We're gonna bring in some really great speakers and even support coaches to help on that scaling journey. So the point of that is really to scale, to refine, figure out the kinks in the system. Again, we have to have a solid system first.

but what does it take to get us to the next level in there? And so I intensively coach in there. It is, we have our own little group, we have our own calls. It's so wonderful. So we have a couple spots opening up in our inner circle. And if you DM me inner circle to Krista on Instagram, at Krista with a C-H underscore Renee, R-E-N-E, we'll put you on the wait list. You'll be the first to know. But as I mentioned before, we always offer to get on a call because I think that's really important.

for you to know what you're getting into, and to know what you're stepping into, and also to know what it takes and if it really is for you. We never wanna drag anyone into working with us, that never ends well, but we want it to be an empowered decision, but we do hold you to a certain standard when we're coaching, right? Coaching is two ways. If you expect someone to ring your alarm every morning to get you out of bed, we're not a good fit. But if you know, hey, I'm gonna do the work, I just need help with what it takes, I'm a great coach for you, okay?

So DME Inner Circle on that. You're watching this, listening to this. I might still be on maternity leave, so that's why we're gonna be just kinda watching those come in to see who's a good fit. And again, the focus of that is going to be scaling, whether you wanna scale an educational offer, a branch of your photo business, or what you're doing that's strong within your photo business. And if you're not sure which container you fall into, reach out to us and we will help you navigate that through. So even from here on out, y'all, I am actually prepping for my maternity leave.

When I had my first daughter, yes, coaching was a wonderful to have and definitely filled in some gaps with photo for time I wanted to take off with her that I could work from home, but sales basically stopped when I stopped and I hadn't really built something around that. But now that I've scaled in a way that has the team in place, like y'all, the more I've studied about business and how to scale it, like my coaching business, if I went.

Christa (18:50.201)
back to photography, I could have scaled it even more sustainably. Like business is business. And what happens is when you start running a business that's completely reliant just on you and you have to shut it down, and when you go on vacation, you have to put up the vacation thing on Instagram of like, we're not in the office, which is like my pet peeve. Things could still be running, but you have to have the right team in place, even if it's getting people on the queue for when you get back. Where it's not, just letting people fall off the grid.

So I'm incredibly passionate about scaling. I think anyone can be successful at running a business. I think we just need the right tools to get there and the right support to get there. So if that sounds like you, if it sounds like we could be a fit, I would love to help you do that. So in Uncapped, I've helped photographers go from a few hundred dollar sessions to regular four figure, multi four figure sessions. I've helped students who have unexpectedly lost their corporate jobs, build up something sustainable.

I'm just trying to give different examples. There was one girl who joined Uncap the same month. She turned in her teaching notice. I coach a lot of past teachers. And then Inner Circle is the place to then scale what you've learned on how to be sustainable and have a successful groundwork. So let me know if you have any questions and thank you for joining me for this scaling series.