Freedom Focus Photography

Turning Shelter Shoots Into Income with Adam Goldberg

• Nicole Begley, Adam Goldberg • Episode 308

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Today I’m chatting with my friend Adam Goldberg of AGoldPhoto, a studio pet photographer, shelter-dog hype man, and the brain behind “Second Shot.” He started in shelters back in 2013, built a thriving studio, and is now circling back to his roots with a model that funds adoption photos through brand sponsors. It’s smart, generous, and wildly scalable.

If you love the idea of photographing rescue pets but struggle to find the time with your adulting responsibilities and bills, this one’s for you.

What to Listen For:

  • The surprising reason Adam first picked up a camera at the shelter (hint: it wasn’t about the dogs).
  • How pit bulls changed the course of his career—and what he discovered that the news never shows.
  • Why he refunded $100,000 in bookings overnight…and what he built from the ashes.
  • The single question that sparked the idea for Second Shot.
  • How a casual social media post turned into brand sponsorships that now fund adoption photos.
  • The behind-the-scenes of what sponsors actually want, and why some don’t care about analytics at all.
  • What makes this model irresistible to shelters (and why Adam warns photographers not to ask for money too soon).
  • The unexpected pushback he faced from other photographers and how he handled it.
  • Why Adam believes photographers shouldn’t have to choose between paying their bills and saving lives.
  • Where he sees Second Shot going next and how you might be able to join in.

Adam’s “Second Shot” model proves you can serve shelters, create real adoption momentum, and still get paid for your craft. If this lights you up, go follow Adam, say hello, and tell him Nicole sent you. Then hit play and take notes—you’ll walk away with partnership ideas you can action this month. CTA: Subscribe, share this episode with a rescue-loving friend, and leave a review so more photographers can find it.

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Nicole Begley (00:00)
In today's episode, we're flipping the idea of volunteering at the shelter on its head. What if you could walk into your local rescue, create portraits that truly showcase the dog's personalities, and instead of doing it for free, you got paid. The shelter benefited and more animals found homes. That's exactly what we're talking about today with Adam Goldberg about his new project, Second Shot. It's a game changer for shelters, the sponsors, and photographers alike.

In this episode, we're going to unpack how we went from shelter volunteer to creating a model that saves lives and pays the bills. Stay tuned.

Nicole Begley (00:34)
I'm Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer turned pet and family photographer. Back in 2010, I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six-figure business by 2012. Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses. I believe that achieving $2,000 $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six-figure businesses.

that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full-time passion or a part-time pursuit, profitability is possible. If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place. With over 350,000 downloads, welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast.

Nicole Begley (01:33)
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the freedom focused photography podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Begley. And today I have, one of my favorite pet photographer friends on here for, our guest that is Adam Goldberg from a gold photo down in Tampa, Florida. and his new project, second shot, which we're going to get there, but first Adam, welcome.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (01:54)
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I've followed you even before we met in person, many, many years ago. So to know you personally and to be invited on here is an honor. So thank you for having me.

Nicole Begley (02:04)
thanks so much. I'm so excited to have you here. yeah. my gosh. It's so funny how big, yet small the pet photography community is. And, so many, yeah, so many people that I've met in this community. I'm so honored that they were just like the kindest people because well, we love dogs. that, that, makes us usually only kind people love dogs. So that is, that is helpful.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (02:22)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah. I've noticed a lot of people, you know, go into pet photography. One of two reasons. One is they don't want to photograph people, ⁓ you know, and they prefer the company of animals. Or they got sick of what they were photographing and thought, hey, this could be fun. Maybe I'll try this instead.

Nicole Begley (02:34)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. When did you start your business?

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (02:45)
So, technically the business started in 2016, but I started photographing shelter animals because I worked at a humane society in 2013. So that's why I'm so passionate about shelter animals, because that's why I started. It was never a business. It was adoption photos and then turned into a business.

Nicole Begley (02:49)
Okay.

Okay.

I love it. love it. Now we're bringing it full circle. Yeah. I mean, back in the time, even 2016, it was still a fairly small, segment of the industry and it just continues to grow and grow, which is just really exciting. but anyway, yeah, I would love to chat with you kind of how this started. Basically what we want to talk about today is how you've kind of gone full circle with your business and back to your original mission of helping.

helping shelter animals. And that's something that, that, I have a strong passion for as well. I have my two dogs that I've had have both been, random Island stray dogs, one from Puerto Rico. The current one now is from Tortola ended up coming through a rescue here in Charlotte. and yeah, I just, there's so many wonderful, amazing animals in our shelters. so yeah, I would just love to know kind of.

how you started and what that kind of journey looked like from starting at the shelter to starting your photography business. And then we can talk about how it's kind of circling back to its roots.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (04:01)
Yeah. And you know, I'm biased. I think it's a cool story, but it is a pretty neat pathway. So let's rewind to 2013. I saw a job posting for a humane society, a marketing specialist. And at the time shelters weren't hiring for that position by itself. Usually marketing was a second hat for development or fundraising professional or secretary or receptionist, something like that.

So this was the first time that this particular shelter was hiring a marketing person. So I jumped at the opportunity. Marketing is my first love. I'm really passionate about marketing. Really just seeing immediate results, especially with social media, you can like put something out there and know if it's working right away is just really exciting to me. Anyway, so I got the job there.

And the photography program there was not great. was volunteers that had been doing photos in the kennels and using the flash on their camera. You know, the eyes were turning red and I was, yeah. And it's hard like getting in the kennel and with the dog, was just the dogs didn't look like themselves at all. So, but at that point I didn't know anything about photography. I didn't even have a dog growing up. So I finished the website that they had me redo.

Nicole Begley (05:00)
Animals are like, my God.

Yeah.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (05:17)
Took about six months and they said, you do photography? Can you teach yourself photography? Because the website looks great, but the photos aren't matching the quality of the website. So essentially just watched YouTube videos online and there was a, you may even be familiar with this, but there was a program called one picture saves a life. The website's still there. Seth ⁓ Castile did it. ⁓ He does the underwater dogs and series of five or six videos and just watch them over and over and over.

Nicole Begley (05:34)
wow, yeah, no, I didn't know that one.

Uh-huh. Yep.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (05:46)
and just had endless amounts of dogs to practice on. Unlike, you know, most people start photography, they just practice on their own dog and they don't get enough skills from different colors, different sizes, that sort of thing. So I had just had trial by fire essentially and worked there for two years. And a pivotal moment for me was photographing pit bulls there. The shelter I worked at just was inundated with pit bulls and didn't know much about them prior to meeting them.

Nicole Begley (05:54)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (06:11)
in person working with them and they're usually the easiest to photograph and they aim to please and they have these huge smiles and I was like, you don't hear about this on the news, you hear about the bad stuff. So I just fell in love with taking pictures of them, changing people's minds about not only pit bulls but just pet adoption in general. One bullet point on the timeline was friends of mine drove to Atlanta to adopt an Australian shepherd by an Australian shepherd.

from a rural farm in Atlanta, I'm like, you guys, I didn't say this to them. I'm like, you guys, I'm working so hard to get these dogs adopted and you're driving to Atlanta to buy a dog. So was like, there's gotta be a better way to incentivize people to not think poorly of shelter animals or pit bulls for that matter. So using photography and marketing, I was able to do that. then, so I worked there for two years to get us back on track.

And you don't unfortunately make a lot of money working at an animal shelter. And so I took a corporate marketing job here in Tampa and a software company and worked there for two years and just honestly got bored. And I, which tends to happen. I think that's why I became an entrepreneur. Cause I can, I get bored easily with jobs. so I started volunteering at the human study here on the weekends, cause I would just really hated what I was doing just to have some fulfillment. missed it so much.

And eventually the shelter said, can you host a fundraising event? we love your pictures. I'm sure it would sell out in it. And fast forward a little bit. Those events sold out. And I thought, let me leverage Facebook advertising to have these like, and I've heard you talk about this on your podcast before just shoot and burn for style of photography. was like a hundred bucks. would donate 50, but at the time I didn't need the revenue. It was just like a side hustle. I had a good market and good gig on the, during the week.

Did that from 2016 to 2020, honestly. Did a hunt a long time. Didn't know anything about in-person sales. had one or two people say, you you might want to consider in-person sales. So we, my wife and I, Mary, we're traveling around the country from 2016 to 2020, hosting these fundraising events. And we raised 250,000 over 50 plus animal shelters and charities.

Nicole Begley (07:59)
wow.

Amazing.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (08:22)
It was, it's hard to believe when I look back at that, that we did that. We didn't have any major responsibilities. Our mortgage was low and we didn't have any kids. We have a son, we have a son now, he's three. So COVID hit in March of 2020, as everybody knows, and we were scheduled to be all over the country that year and had to refund about hundred thousand dollars in like pre-sold photo shoots. Luckily we like put that money in a separate account. So we, we had it to get back. And.

Nicole Begley (08:41)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (08:48)
I didn't know what we were going to do because we were setting up in public spaces, right? Breweries, stuff like that. And everyone, everything was closed. So we regrouped, we did a front porch project, which is like a small thing that a lot of people did. And then came across some photography education for in-person sales. This was in August of 2020, we decided to go all in and open a studio, an in-person sales studio.

Nicole Begley (08:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-mm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (09:15)
And we still have that studio, we've been there for five years and we were really successful doing in-person sales, photo shoots. And to bring it to where we are now, we were spending about seven hours with a client, right? From initial phone call to let's say, by the time I got their artwork on the wall. And I thought, man, I'm spending so much time and it takes, we were closing about maybe 20, 30 % of the people we talked to. That's maybe a topic for another time.

Nicole Begley (09:39)
huh.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (09:41)
But I was spending so much time on the phone, so much time with these clients and was still only volunteering at the shelter once a month. But I loved volunteering at the shelter. And I said to myself, how can I do this more? But I have to pay the bills with these private clients that I'm spending so much time with. And as time went on, you know, and we wanted to spend more time with our son. That was a big part of it too. So I thought, well.

Nicole Begley (09:48)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (10:08)
How can I get paid to do adoption photos? I think everybody's thought is to have that, know, who wouldn't want to be paid to do adoption photos? So I thought, well, some of our videos on social media get millions of views. It leads to adoptions. Let me see if I can get sponsors, companies that will pay me to do these photos and just put it out there. Posted about it once and nothing came of it. And then maybe a month later, brand company saw it. I think the Humane Society shared my post.

And then this company who works with the Humane Society saw it. And they reached out and said, Hey, we saw your post. We'd love to explore this. I was like, Oh my gosh, I totally forgot. even posted about this. So again, the power of social media. And then I just went all in on that idea. So I went from photographing volunteer not paid once a month to finding enough sponsors to do one a week. And I was still volunteering and then the other three were paid. So now I'm trying to ramp that up.

Nicole Begley (10:44)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (11:06)
to do it full time. We were 100 % private clients. Now we're probably about 50%. And I want to grow, and the program is called Second Shot. My best ideas come to me in the shower. ⁓ So we give them a second photo to replace that scared, blurry, poorly taken intake photo with a second photo. That's their second shot. And then they're getting a second shot at adoption also.

Nicole Begley (11:18)
All of us!

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (11:34)
And, you know, if, if, if I get ahold of the decision maker at the brand or the company I'm trying to reach out to, it's usually a no brainer for them. It's just getting to that, that person. So that's what I'm going to be focusing a lot of my time on. But we were talking before we hit the record button about how people love doing adoption photos, but then they don't have the time because it's volunteer and you have to spend your time on money making money. So my goal is to eventually hire and train photographers all over the world to bring second shot to their community, to be able to pay them.

Nicole Begley (11:43)
⁓

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (12:03)
So take in money from brands, pay photographers to do this, grow their brands reach on social media, because it's feel good content. The photographer is going to get paid. Maybe it's a weekend gig for them. And they could go more often. And the shelter gets more photos. The dogs get more media attention. And everybody wins. So that's

Nicole Begley (12:22)
Yeah. The

first time I heard about you doing this was maybe, like a year and a half ago. And I saw it and I was like, ⁓ my gosh, that is freaking brilliant. So I built my business on charitable marketing. I will screen charitable marketing from the tops of the Hills, which, know, is more than just silent auction donations, but like partnering with rescues, nonprofits who don't always have to be dog charities, but something that you feel that you want to support. And.

basically making a special offer to the supporters of that charity of usually for me, it was like a regular full session and I would still have my normal process. So they'd still often be like my normal average client, several thousand dollars. It was a win for me. I got a great new client. We had a donation to the rescue. So it was a win for them.

It was a win for the rescue to get the money. And then the supporters got great photos of their dog while still being able to support something that they care about. like, truly it was everybody won. It was such a great thing. So something like this can bring so much positive change. And I know for me, I used to photograph in the shelter. gosh, when I first started, I started my business in 2010. I started as a family photographer because at the time I was like, well,

I can't be just animals because that was unheard of way back then. And by 2015, I went all pets. But during that time in between that, like 2011, 2012, 2013, I was doing a lot of, volunteering with my local shelter. And then I was doing, I kind of morphed into doing more of this charitable marketing because I found the same thing as you. like, man, I love helping in this way, but I need to pay my bills.

and I just don't have the time to do this. had two young kids at the time. Like time was very much a scarcity. so it became a way for me to sort of give back. but yeah, I, I love, absolutely love this piece of it. so yeah, so kind of break it down just a little bit of what it looked like. So you're going to the shelter where they're getting the, the new, the new marketing images for these dogs.

The photographer is getting to take photos of these dogs feeling great about it. And the brand is then assisting. Is some of that money going to the shelter? Some of that money is going to the photographer. And what's the brand getting out of it? How are they winning in this situation too?

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (14:47)
Yeah, so right now I'm the only photographer doing it, but the goal is to bring on more photographers. I always, if I can photograph, this is just a personal goal, once a week, maybe twice a week, I'll be happy. And then the rest I would hire and train out. That's, you know, I might listen to this a year from now and this can be totally different, but so it depends a little bit on who the brand is. So we are working with like pet industry specific brands, like

Nicole Begley (14:51)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I'm

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (15:12)
dog toys, stuff like that, which we'll go into, but we're also working with local attorneys and real estate agents. So the needs are different. So for a pet brand, it's a little more easy to explain. Let's say, so we have a partnership with Nerf Dog. They sent us photos. They paid for a rescue to have photos taken at our studio. And then we used photo, excuse me, we used dogs from the rescue to basically play with the toys. So the brand gets their photo assets. The rescue gets

Nicole Begley (15:18)
⁓ huh.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (15:41)
photos of their dogs to market for adoption, and then I get paid to do that. So, and we get, when people see that, we get outreach from tons and tons of rescues, because who doesn't want that for their rescue? But, so we'll say, well, do you have a, you know, do you have a sponsor? We can help you get a sponsor. We'll put you on our list of interests, and, you know, I could put every rescue on our list, obviously, because who wouldn't want that? But then, then we create a series of, you know, content pieces for social media.

Nicole Begley (15:43)
Yep.

Right.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (16:08)
and we're showing behind the scenes of the photo shoot and then those sometimes do go viral and then the brand gets tagged and mentioned so they get reach. Some brands don't care about that, some do, it just depends on what their needs are and why they're wanting to sponsor. But then eventually the goal is just to pay for target, like have enough brands and sponsors coming in so if your brand are a sponsor and you're listening and you want to get on board with this, that would be incredible. But we would be able to pay photographers to do this because it's hard for photographers to volunteer.

Nicole Begley (16:34)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (16:35)
Not me. I could never volunteer as much as I am without getting paid just because I would go out of business. ⁓ yeah, yeah. So I think that answers your question, right. On what's in it for everybody. and then the brands that are like pet specific, they get assets if they so choose, to use in marketing and through storytelling around it.

Nicole Begley (16:39)
Right. Life, adulting.

Yeah.

So yeah, so like the local businesses are getting some good local PR kind of marketing pieces to it. And then is the shelter probably sending out some things to their supporters, their email list of thank you to whatever local business, know, all those pieces.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (17:10)
⁓

believe it or not, they probably would, but I haven't asked them. ⁓ I'm doing, I'm trying to do it all myself. So when I do ask, you know, they're more likely to do it. They've, they would have seen this like elbow grease put in, but I've worked with the same shelter for this, the main one that I go to. So for going to 10 years, it'll be 10, 10 years coming up. So we have a lot of trust. ⁓ if you're, if you're listening to this and you'd be like, I could do that with my, you know, there's a shelter in my community. Let me try it.

Nicole Begley (17:13)
wow, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (17:38)
My advice to people is don't walk in the door and say, I want to do this and I'm going to find sponsors. You have to be willing to do it without any money, which I did for 10 years. And that's where I have all this equity built up in my community that people like, I've seen you do this for so long. I'd love to support you. And they, lot of it is me. by all means try it, but I think just wait until I start hiring photographers and then let's do it together. Let's, let's do it together.

Nicole Begley (17:47)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (18:03)
Let's do it together because I think it'll be easier and you won't have to worry about finding your own sponsors. And then like, for example, Realtor is one of them sponsors. So she volunteers at the shelter. She's an existing volunteer and just saw what we were doing and wants to support. Doesn't really have a need for assets, but she actually gets to come to the shelter and interact with the dogs during the photo shoot. She's going to get a tour of the, well, she doesn't need a tour because she is a volunteer there, but some people have never been there. So they get a tour, they get to hand out treats, they get to interact with the dogs.

Nicole Begley (18:30)
Yeah.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (18:34)
And they love that. And we have an attorney as an example. Some of these are just community lay people that have the desire to help and maybe the funds to help. Those are a little bit easier, but then when you're dealing with larger companies, those are much harder because there's a lot of red tape and yeah, a lot of layers. So sometimes it takes months to lock someone in. Sometimes it takes a day. So it just depends on.

Nicole Begley (18:58)
Yeah. ⁓

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (18:59)
Really, I just need

to scale me and I'm going to maybe hire a sales team to essentially do the outreach, but I'm not quite there yet.

Nicole Begley (19:04)
Yeah.

No, it is exciting. And actually you're speaking to us right now. You mentioned from a, a business incubator program, at the local university, which is super exciting. So congratulations. ⁓ but I did want to mention one thing that you said in there that I think is really important that people might gloss over. and that is that you put in the work to create the relationships with your local community. And that's how, how this kind of helped to get started.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (19:17)
Yeah, thank you.

Nicole Begley (19:35)
You know, I, I found the same thing when I was doing that volunteer work in Pittsburgh, that a lot of people, like it didn't translate to private clients immediately. think a lot of people are looking like, okay, I volunteered at the shelter and I didn't get an immediate return. Or I did this one thing on social. I didn't get an immediate return or this one marketing strategy and I didn't get an immediate return, but it's all cumulative. And, um, even years later, I would have people that said, Oh my gosh, like.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (19:58)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole Begley (20:03)
They followed me, they chose me because of the work that I did for these nonprofits before. And even if I wasn't able to still be physically going down there photographing the dogs myself, I was still doing things to share their mission, to donate to their silent auctions, to do my session fee fundraising things that I would do to find other ways to give back. So I think when it is driven from that place of like, I believe in your mission and I want to serve you and

the way that works best for both of us, then it's coming from this, you know, passion fueled place where people can see that and are attracted to that. And then, you know, you come up with these other ideas and they're more apt to be like, ⁓ wait, we need some, sponsorships here. And they'll say yes. And that really goes for gosh, any of our marketing in our business for private clients, commercial clients, shelter sponsorship, like literally everything is about relationships.

which is a bad spoiler alert for people that got into this just because they wanted to hang out with dogs.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (21:01)
Ha

Yeah. Well, think, you know, I come and I think it comes across, but I echo everything you just said, but I think it comes from a genuine place of just wanting to do what I love and getting paid for it. Or because I need to versus I think people see this and they're like, I can make money from taking photos of shelter animals. And if that's the mindset, think it's my advice is that's the wrong mindset. You have to love doing shelter photos and be willing to never get paid for it. And then maybe six months, a year of that.

Nicole Begley (21:12)
You

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (21:33)
prove to yourself and prove to the shelter, build that relationship and then maybe start asking for sponsorships. But if you go into a shelter that you've never worked with and ask them to marry you on the first date, you wouldn't do that or you shouldn't do that. I think it's, it also came from, just honestly got, was thinking, I can't remember if we were recording this before we were recording, but I just get bored. So I've honestly gotten bored of private clients. It's just, I'd like to try something different.

Nicole Begley (21:56)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (22:03)
I eventually, I think I'm going to get rid of or me being the one to take on private clients, just because I love the shelter stuff. And I've been doing that for 10 years and I haven't gotten bored of that. So I think that's going to stay. But yeah, I, and I also, I, you know, want to get some of my time back because I've just spent the time I have.

Nicole Begley (22:26)
Yeah, no, for sure. Absolutely. That's, that's a definitely a fixed affixed a variable that we all have. We need to make sure that we're spending it in the most alignment that we can. yeah, no, this has been really, really, really good. had something else I wanted to ask you and I don't remember. I don't know. It'll come back. where can people find out like more? Are you ready to start having

a wait list of pet photographers that want to do this because something tells me there would be a lot all of a sudden. Or kind of where are you in the process? Where are you in the process of wanting people to let you know they're interested? How's that all going to work? Do you envision? You might not know yet.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (23:04)
Yeah,

I have some ideas. I definitely will be a forum on our website. You know, I can imagine my first thought, maybe we could workshop this might be interesting for the people listening is there's another photographer and I'll give him a shot. His name is Peter Hurley. You may know of him, but he has this thing called the headshot crew. And essentially people pay him a monthly fee for ongoing education. And then he lists them on their website.

Nicole Begley (23:13)
Yeah.

Uh huh. Uh huh.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (23:30)
on his website as a potential headshot photographer. initially I was like, I'll just get all these photographers to pay me a monthly fee to be part of this group and then I'll train them on going. you know, I don't know, I thought through that a lot and I thought, I don't want to be beholden to photographers paying me. How amazing if I flipped it and I could pay them. ⁓ And then they have to meet some sort of standard of

Nicole Begley (23:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (23:55)
photography to be able to it's going to be exclusive you know it's if they want to be part of this so that's the route I'm going to go but I'm curious your thoughts on those two things versus me paying them I mean who doesn't want to be paid versus paying into something but for me I was like if I get a hundred photographers paying a hundred dollars a month you know that would add up but I don't think I'm gonna go that route what are your thoughts on that

Nicole Begley (24:07)
Yeah, right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I love to look at things of kind of questioning the status quo. I recently just did a podcast episode on basically doing the same kind of thing for our inquiry processes as a general rule as photographers, because I think the old inquiry process is broken. Like people want answers. They want answers now. They don't want to get on a phone. They don't want to come to your studio until they know like what's involved.

so I just kind of talked a lot about that. And I think, I think anytime that we can look at something from a new, a new perspective and ask, like, could it be done this way? I think there's just so much possibility there. So, I mean, I, I love that idea of the, you know, people basically applying to be one of the photographers that could do this.

And then you paying them for the jobs. Like you would, if it was me, it's like live brainstorming on the podcast. ⁓ yeah, I would definitely have like an application thing where people submit, you know, and you can even have it so you don't get too many, maybe there's like a $50 application fee. So you don't get completely inundated. And if you can't accept them, you know, it's refunded or something like that. Like, I don't know something just so you're not completely inundated with people that aren't.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (25:16)
Yeah, let's do it.

Nicole Begley (25:37)
totally serious about it. and then if they're accepted, then I guess it would be like, what comes first, chicken or the egg? You're like, we have sponsorships in Atlanta or Charlotte or Omaha, and then are you looking for a photographer there? So would you reach out to photographers in the area and invite them? or is it, we have some interest here. Should we go look for sponsors in this area here?

Like I think that's going to be the big question of like where you have to figure out like where it's going to demand the drive. Cause the drive from the shelters will be everywhere. So it'll be like, where's the demand from the sponsorship going to want the focus.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (26:19)
Well, think, yeah,

think that's a good, I think that's a good point, but I think that there's gonna be demand everywhere from shelters and rescues. That part's easy. And I think demand from photographers, that's gonna be easy too. The hard part is the sponsors. So pricing it in a way to give them options. So let's say the company has, let's just say $10,000 budget.

Nicole Begley (26:27)
Yep, 100%.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (26:42)
Here's what you get for that. get 10 shelters to support, you get X amount of content, and then it would be probably on a round robin, honestly. If you're in the group, you get, it's like a referral program. You get assigned. And then if you're next in line, here's the money, you're here to go do it.

Nicole Begley (26:57)
What if there was also an option for, because that's kind of the bottleneck, right? It's how much money is coming in for it. What if there was also, once they were accepted, they had access to a little bit of training from you of how they could also secure sponsorships for the second shot thing. And if they secure the sponsorship, they would get to shoot it. But then you could have other people potentially helping bring in more sponsorship.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (27:03)
Mm.

Yeah, and that's an interesting thought too, because then, you know, at the end of the day, people could do this on their own, you know, in theory. They don't need me, but...

Nicole Begley (27:28)
Yeah, but, it's nice

to have the framework and it's also nice to be like, let me just make a couple of connections and then like pass it off and focus again on what we love, which is just taking the photographs.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (27:39)
Yeah, I think, I think this will attract people that don't want to have to find their own sponsorships in my head. But that could be wrong about that. So let's say I'd have to look up a precedent, like sales. SOP, like if I'm selling and bringing in inbound leads and you bring in your inbound lead, like maybe there's more of a percentage for you, but I don't know. That's a good question too. I have to think about that. ⁓

Nicole Begley (27:45)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Yeah. I guess I don't think

it would be everybody. Not everybody would want to do that, but you would have maybe 10 % of people that would be like, I am so excited about this mission that they would want to support it in that way as well. And, here's the other kicker. When it's a lot of us know, and I've talked to so many photographers that were like, I used to be a salesperson for widgets. I could sell widgets to like, to the cows come home.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (28:14)
Yeah.

Nicole Begley (28:27)
But when I'm selling now my services, it's like, my God, no, I'm like, you you get all in your head and feel like you're pushy and slimy and all those things. But this like allows them to be looking for funding for something that's not directly them. Like they're not saying, hey, sponsor my business so I can do this. It's like, hey, there, look, there's this, this organization that does incredible work that

I think could be a really great fit. So it would actually, I think, be easier for some photographers to sell or help hook up. And I guess you'd have to figure out at what level, how much support to kind of like, here's the type of sponsors we're looking for, here's their benefits to them, here's kind of where the process, do they just introduce the lead, bring it into your team that they could follow up with, or do you give them more support to like?

Take it 90 % of the way there.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (29:20)
Yeah, what was thinking was like, hired, it could be similar to this model where we, hired a dog trainer and it's a, people have mentioned franchise to me, but I don't think I want to do that, but we hired a franchise dog trainer for our dogs. We didn't get to talk to the actual dog trainer until we talked to like a central office, a booking office, and then they paired us with a trainer. So let's say photographer in Charlotte has a lead of a

Nicole Begley (29:37)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (29:46)
sponsor, they would feed them to me or whoever's doing the selling. And then they would maybe get a little bonus for bringing in the lead and then we would do the closing. I could see that happening. Some of this we'll figure out as we go, but these are all great questions. I'm part of this incubator program. I get to meet with a hundred different mentors in different industries, which is incredible opportunity. So these are all questions I'm going to float to them. But now that I think I told you too, that I've offloaded my content creation.

Um, so now I have 15 hours a week to extra to think about this versus I was just in my phone creating reels all the time, which I do love doing, but just not, uh, not going to move the needle in the way that I want. So by the end of December, I will hope to have. Right now I'm scheduling two a week, shoots a week, and I'm doing them. The goal eventually, not by December, but, um, at some point it's to get to 20 shoots a week, which is a lofty goal. recognize that, but.

Nicole Begley (30:14)
Great.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (30:40)
having a whole team, having a machine that basically runs this whole thing, then being able to just, that'll photograph 10,000 pets a year, scaling up to 20 shoots a week. And then who knows, could do it more. But that would be incredible. Nothing is in the way. The only thing that is gonna get in the way of that, I think, is just the sponsors, getting the sponsors.

Nicole Begley (30:49)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But no, think what a great, I mean, it's such a great PR move for any, for any business. And I think we're seeing a big shift in that back to, I mean, there was still a shift and I think that shift, the demand for that shift is still going to increase, for socially responsible, businesses that, that support things that align with our values. I don't think that's going away anytime soon.

So I think there is going to be a, door is going to be open for big brands to have some funding for projects like this, especially if there's something that they can then get back in some tangible things. Yeah.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (31:40)
Yeah. Well, and

the other asset, the other thing we hadn't talked about, which is this is something I would say to a brand, but anyone can go to us. And I know you have dabbled in it a little bit with stock photography versus, you know, commercial photography and that sort of thing, but anyone can go to a stock photo website. And then, which means brand A can get access to that stock photo and brand B and C and D. So I was trying to create stock photos from shelter animals.

Nicole Begley (31:52)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (32:08)
And I thought that was really going to take off. However, it's not taking off like I thought. However, if I can pitch it to individual brands and say, Hey, we're going to use shelter dogs in your marketing. They're going to be unique to you. They're going to have your products, the photo products aren't going to be Photoshopped in. And then you get to tell the story that this is a shelter dog. So that's a selling point too, but not everybody needs that. You know, the attorney doesn't need that. But that's a selling point too, that they can opt into or opt out of. ⁓

Nicole Begley (32:16)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Right. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (32:34)
So that's exciting too, but ⁓ my, had one.

Nicole Begley (32:36)
That is you can have, I'm

sure you do have several different levels of sponsorship. ⁓

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (32:41)
Yeah, but

there's, I'm learning a lot, like what the threshold is and you know, will people sponsor more than once one time or like we have one sponsor. I should shout them out forever. Lon. They're an artificial turf company, but they've, started this in November of 23 and they've been a sponsor since every month, since the beginning. And so they, have a vested interest in us because they supplied the humane society with their canine grass. It's like unique to them.

Nicole Begley (33:07)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (33:09)
So then they have an interest in reaching pet owners. So they don't make like a pet toy or something, but their goal is to reach pet owners to sell them, you know, artificial turf for that. So that's their kind of value add and they're great people and super supportive. Some, some brands really care about the content. Like, Hey, you promised me 10 reels and you know, they want it. Some brands like not, I mean, maybe more as we go on, we'll care, but some of them don't care.

Not so for Everlon, saying like some of the, the attorney is just, I just want to do it because I want to support. I don't owe her like a analytics report necessarily. ⁓ But some brands do want that and they want to make sure that they're, you know, getting, getting what they're promised, which is fine. I would want that too.

Nicole Begley (33:39)
Yeah, right. Yeah.

Yeah, right, right, right.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. my gosh. This is so good. I hope my goal with this, this conversation for all of you guys listening out there is to, two things. Number one, cause you to look at really could be anything in your business in your life. And just like question, is there a way that works better for, for everyone involved that could be more beneficial for everyone. And just like explore that just because something's been done a certain way. If you ever heard the story, Adam of.

I'm going to totally mess it up, but it was something like, you know, why a woman is like putting a meatloaf or, know, some sort of roast in the pan for Thanksgiving. And she's like, you know, I cut the one side off and the kids like, why do you always cut that off? And she's like, I don't know. We just always cut that off before we cook this roast. And then they asked like the grandma and the grandma's like, because it didn't fit in my pan. like you have this.

this behavior, kind of superstitious behavior that's been going down because it's just like, that's how it's always been done. But have we ever asked ourselves why? Yeah.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (34:57)
Yeah,

I haven't, I resonate with that, but I haven't heard that story in particular. But one of the other lessons that I got from this incubator program was when everybody's zigging as business owners, you need to zag to get people's attention, which is really, I've been doing that my whole career these last 10 years is just trying to get people's attention in different ways, zigging when other people are zagging. But going back to there's

I think I didn't answer a question we got on the tangent of the brainstorm. If photographers are interested, know, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram. I'm going to build a list. This is very informal and this could certainly change. I probably should just put a form on my website, honestly, after this, a preliminary form. Because as you said, going to get inundated with requests, but I think just reach out, say hello. I'm willing to field your messages if you're interested.

And we're designing a logo. There's a chance we might turn this into a separate business unit, you know, make a gold photo, the parent company, then second shot, a secondary company. That's, that's something we're floating. And we also thought about making a nonprofit. know you have a foundation, a foundation, but I don't think we're going to go that route. I haven't gotten much pushback from like, I heard it once recently. thought you were a nonprofit.

And then we lose out on money from foundations because they only donate to other nonprofits. But I don't think we're going to do that. just, companies just write it off as a marketing expense and then we don't have to have meetings and notes and officers and, that you could probably speak to that. That's probably a whole nother podcast episode. And there was something, ⁓ when I first started this, this was in November of 23, I got some hate messages, not many, but hate messages like

Nicole Begley (36:18)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Hahaha

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (36:42)
How dare you? I've been doing this for 10 years and I never asked for a dollar. you know, there's always going to be someone out there that doesn't like what you're doing. But it really took a toll on me and, you know, had to really just take a deep breath and be like, she's just upset that she didn't think about this idea, honestly. But I don't think anyone's ever done this before. Not that I know of. ⁓ Yeah. So I think, and I feel like I would have heard about it. So I'm excited to be the

Nicole Begley (36:47)
Mm-hmm.

No, not that I've heard of.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (37:08)
really the first one to come up with this and hopefully that, you know, has enough equity in it. And the name is so great that people will want to come on board my ship versus again, you're anyone who's listening can do this on their own, but you don't need my help. But I think we want to do something cool together. You know, let's do it together.

Nicole Begley (37:17)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I love it. I absolutely love it. And, yeah, no, think the speaking of the pushback that you got, I think it, it, it strikes into like a, a belief system that a lot of people might have that like, I mean, a lot of us were growing up raised with the, know, you're, you shouldn't get paid for something that you love. like there's a lot of like just BS beliefs that we've all been raised with as a society that I think it's like,

When you first hear this, you're like, well, wait, but then you actually look at it. You're like, well, no, but by bringing the sponsor on board, which the sponsors doing so willfully, you're not like extorting money from them. They're willingly doing this because there is a benefit for them. And that is allowing you then to serve more, to help more dogs than you would otherwise. So it's just like, know, I worked in the zoo world for 13 years, which is another career that you don't get into for the paycheck.

But we always had a saying that there was no money, there was no mission. And the mission of so many of these zoos is conservation work first and foremost. And the amount of projects they're funding and supporting all over the world to help save these animals. And then also the education piece, because if people don't learn about these animals, have a connection with the animals, then nobody cares.

Like we would always had the same because you we would do, when I was at the aviary, I, created our, you know, like little penguin interaction program and just more programs to give, bring people into like interact with the animals. And, you know, at the time it was also kind of, no, like, that's not our job. We're here to take care of the animals. I'm like, no, no, no money, no mission. Like we need to bring people in. And that also.

underlines our mission of helping them connect with these animals and caring about them. And then when there's an oil spill in South Africa and the critically endangered African penguin is, you know, impacted by it, it's like, matters, you know? so anyway, that was a long rant. but I just, I love the beauty of this, of it just allows you to serve more and yeah, and bring more people on board to help.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (39:30)
Yeah. Well,

and I think some of the other aspects of it were, get, I think I was telling you, I get messages, not only from photographers, but just from organizations all over. Hey, and from people that know those organizations, Hey, go to Miami. They really need you or go to this place in middle of nowhere, Texas. They really need you. Vice versa. These organizations, like, how do we work with you? You know, that sort of thing. And I was like, man, I can't be flying everywhere all at once traveling.

Nicole Begley (39:57)
Right, right.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (39:58)
traveling with gear all the time and you know there's a similar idea but somewhat different is the Tilly Project which I'm sure you're familiar of. Tilly Project is, if you're not familiar, it's a website basically that lists photographers who will do end of life sessions for free. And so I thought about that as a model, just listing photographers and there's also an organization called Heart Speak which I would be remiss if I didn't mention them but

Nicole Begley (40:08)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (40:24)
They're a nonprofit and I think they just provide resources. I know you can list your name on their website, that sort of thing, similar to the Tilly project. But I think this is my zag to that, that I want to be able to pay photographers and link brands to photographers and this mission. And I haven't seen it done before. So I think that's kind of big part of it.

Nicole Begley (40:35)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. When I think the key to it

is you're willing to do and enjoy the heavy lifting piece that a lot of photographers maybe don't enjoy, which is the connecting with the brands and the like, bringing everybody to the table. I mean, that does that, that is a, a much needed piece of this that a lot of people maybe don't want to spend their time doing, or if they are, they just want to spend the time doing that for their for-profit business, like on their own, which is fine. so yeah, so I think.

that makes it really, really unique and marketable.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (41:15)
Yeah. Cause it, my pitch, if you're a photographer, let's say you're either you're a professional and you want to do this on the weekends or, maybe on a day off or something, you can make a little extra money. Once we get the funds there to do this on the weekend, but let's say you're a wedding photographer and you want to do it because you probably are photographing, I don't know, Friday, Saturday, maybe Sunday. You could do this during the day when you're slow and use that to maybe build up your portfolio.

and get clients, know, no guarantees obviously, but you know, the more you put out there that you're starting to do pet photography, especially if you practice on shelter animals, you're going to get better at private clients. So there's a lot of potential avatars from the photography standpoint, but also maybe people who'd never done photography. There's so many opportunities that I'm excited to pursue. So I think, I don't know when this will air. You'll be able to tell me at some point.

Nicole Begley (41:51)
Yes, yeah.

Yeah, probably at the end

of the end of September ish. So what's his early September now we're recording. So in the next month.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (42:09)
Yeah, so maybe, I

don't know. Yeah, it'd be interesting to see where I move really quickly. So I've who knows where we'll be in September. But once I start pitching brands, that's really the bottleneck to get through is just get the brands on board and then I can start bringing photographers on board.

Nicole Begley (42:25)
Awesome. Well, where can people find you online, Adam? And where should they reach out to you?

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (42:29)
Yeah. So I spent a lot of time on Instagram, which is a gold photo. Um, my website is a gold photo.com. Um, we do have a Facebook group that is geared towards like studio photography help. Can I mention that? Um, actually the name of it is called studio pet photography help. Um, and I didn't, and there's about eight, 8,000 people in it. Um, which is great, which is crazy. Um, and I.

Nicole Begley (42:43)
Sure. Yeah.

No, I'll. Yeah.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (42:57)
know, comment and give people tips on their studio pet photography. It's not necessarily in relation to the shelter pet specific. It's just studio pet photography in general, but it's growing like crazy. So then that's the other idea is leveraging the people in that group, which are all over the world to do this. So I have like a really strong base of people who know who I am in that group. So really just, all I have to do is pull a lever and then we'll, we'll be off to the races with this. But yeah, the brands are, that's the first step.

Nicole Begley (43:12)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I love it.

Amazing. my gosh. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. You guys reach out to Adam. Yeah. Let him know if you're interested or just reach out and tell him how awesome this idea is and just how great it is that he's found such a unique way to give back. And yeah, thanks again for taking the time to chat with us, Adam. And I'll be, I'll be watching to see, see where this goes. really excited for you.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (43:49)
Yeah, thank you. And thank you for having me again. know, things change so quickly. hopefully by the end of September, who knows, I'll be hiring my first set of photographers.

Nicole Begley (43:57)
Yeah.

Love it. Awesome. All right. Thanks guys. We'll see you next week. Adam. again.

Adam Goldberg (AGoldPhoto) (44:03)
You're welcome.