Episode 234 – From Airstream Adventures to $11K in Sales: How Jess Curran Restarted Her Photography Business

Sarah Petty: Mom of three, Jess Curren, put her photography business on hold to travel with her family full time in an Airstream. But after five years, they decided to pull over and settle down again. She picked up the camera and officially relaunched her business as a digital file photographer in August of 2023, and after a month and a half she realized she hated the business model. She reinvented herself as a boutique portrait photographer and made $22,000 fast. Welcome, Jess. Will you share a little bit of your backstory and how you came to be this photographer? Jess Curren: I started photography 18 years ago in 2005. I had my first kid and just graduated with my bachelor’s degree in something completely unrelated, and I was a brand new stay-at-home mom, and I was bored. I wanted to photograph my new baby and so I learned how to do it. I just ran with it from there and ended up with a wedding business. I even had a mentor back then that did a little bit of the same boutique model where we were encouraged to sell prints. I had an ordering appointment and I was trying to help get prints even on the walls of my wedding clients. So I was a little bit familiar with that process, but it was really new and also very different from what a lot of my friends were doing, so it was scary. Then,  we decided to sell everything and bought an Airstream travel trailer and traveled the country for five years. We loaded everybody up and raised our kids in an Airstream on the road, and it was amazing. I sold all of my beautiful Canon gear. We really focused on family adventure. Sarah Petty: So then the kids grew up and you got them back in high school. Jess Curren: Yeah, and they didn’t fit in our Airstream anymore. So we ended up in a small town in Idaho. When we moved here I had no intention to go back to photography. It was going to take way too much work. But I feel like God worked on me for a couple of years. And then by the time my kids were back in school, we owner-built a house , and I was at this point wondering what I was doing with the rest of my life. Sarah Petty: How did you decide on photography and what did you do next? Jess Curren: It actually was my kids. My daughter went to her first dance and they didn’t take any dance photos. There’s not a photographer at the school. So I was like, “Dude, I’m going to get you amazing photos.” I remember going to prom and all of the parents are there with their cell phones and they’re so excited. And I literally just went into wedding photographer mode. It just clicked and I started posing the group. I remembered how much I loved it and how much I loved working with clients and creating beautiful artwork for people. Sarah Petty: Did you just jump in and what did you do? Jess Curren: I called some friends in Utah and she told me that they’re all shoot and burn photographers now. And I was like, “Oh, that sounds really boring, but okay, if that’s what everybody wants, that’s what I have to do.” And it took me less than a month to be like, this is the worst business plan ever. It wasn’t satisfying to me as a photographer to send off a gallery and then crickets. I knew there had to be a better way. Sarah Petty: I love that you didn’t want to suffer. What did you say to yourself after a month? Jess Curren: There’s got to be a better way. And then God puts people in your life right when you need them and you show up. Something of yours caught my eye. You had the free pricing challenge and I remember telling my husband that these are the people I want to be with because they’re doing what I want to do. I really just want to run a profitable business and I didn’t have the time to mess around. Sarah Petty: I got chills. I love that. We shared the opportunity of the class we had called,  Boutique Breakthrough. Did you just make the decision? Jess Curren: I made the decision and my husband was like how are we going to pay for that? I didn’t know but I was determined to figure it out. I think one of the suggestions you made was reaching out to people who care about us and love us. I reached out to my parents and I was like, “Hey, I’m doing this thing. I would love your support. We don’t have a lot of money right now because we just finished building our house.” And they were like, “100%, we’ll support you.” And my parents actually gifted me over half the tuition, which I am so incredibly grateful for. Sarah Petty: It makes me teary thinking of us as parents when our adult children who have children can come to us and say, “I have something I love and I want to make my life better. Can you help me?” I think that’s a cool place to be as a parent. Jess Curren: And that’s where I want to be. I want to be in a place financially where I can do that for my kids as well. Sarah Petty: In our system, the place you want to start is with the plan, which is the “what”. The “what” is the first step in figuring out how to make money. We scrub through your brand, but we get pretty quickly into pricing and products. How did you feel going through that process? Jess Curren: I was terrified and overwhelmed. I was like there’s no way I can charge that here. There was a very big gap between what I was charging and what you were telling us to charge. Sarah Petty: Why didn’t you quit? Jess Curren: Because I wanted it. I think a lot of it is trust too. I told myself that if I do Boutique Breakthrough, I am going to do every single thing Sarah asks me to do because if I don’t, then I don’t know if it’s going to work. Sarah Petty: So you got through that and you knew what you were doing and selling. Then, we get into step number two, the “promote”. This is the who, who is going to hire us? How did that go for you? Jess Curren: The biggest thing for me was reaching out to people personally. I do have connections at the high school, and I really wanted to photograph seniors because that’s the age of my kids. A lot of it was just starting to talk to people and letting them know what my business model is. Sarah Petty: Step three is the “process”. The process is the how. Talk about that part because it’s holding your client’s hand each step of the way and spending more time with them. How did all of that feel for you? Jess Curren: It was empowering. I love the consultation because you know what they want. It’s not guesswork anymore. Then we can plan out the photo session. Having that plan gives you confidence going into the photography session. Sarah Petty: So you’re sitting down with your first client in the sales presentation. When the client got there and you sat down, what were you thinking? Jess Curren: I was pretty excited. I loved the images and I was excited to show them. These were senior photos. We went through them and we narrowed them down and I helped them pick which ones they wanted. Sarah Petty: You get to the end, you add it up, and what did they end up purchasing? Jess Curren: I’m freaking out in my mind. They ordered a four series with all the percussion instruments, and then they got a bunch of 8x10s for family and friends. I write it all down, I get to the bottom and I just slide it over to her and say, “here’s your total.” She looks at it and she’s like, “Great, can I write you a check?” Jess Curren: And I was like, “Okay,” and it was $1,100. I got my Julie on my first ordering appointment. I walk out the door to my car and immediately I’m texting my Boutique Breakthrough buddies. Sarah Petty: I love it. What did your husband say? Jess Curren: He was pretty excited. I told him, “I want to retire you. You have been working for so long. You need a break, so it’s my turn.” And I think he has so many side hobbies and things that he wants to do, so to be able to try and get to the point where I can give him some financial freedom and flexibility in his time. Sarah Petty: Oh, that feels so amazing, and didn’t it feel good that they were so happy? Jess Curren: Yes. They are so excited to hand over the money because you just provided an amazing service to them. Sarah Petty: That “Julie” didn’t stop you because you made $11,000 like that. What happened to you? Jess Curren: I just kept going and a lot of it was just being not afraid to talk to people. I think my biggest one that I love the most was that I did a photo session for a friend in September that was under my digital file policy. She got all the images and she mentioned at the time that she would love artwork. She came back to me at the beginning of December and she was like, “I’m ready to redecorate my house. We have these beautiful photos we took, but my son is coming home from the military over Christmas. Can we do a quick photo session with him so that he can be in the big photo I want to put in my house?” We did the session and had the sales appointment and she invested $2,200. Sarah Petty: That is awesome. Jess, thank you for sharing your story. I know it’s going to impact and motivate and inspire so many photographers. Download the Episode Transcript Here