Sarah Petty: After years of building her portfolio full of images she was proud of and investing $6,000 in photography education, Tacoma, Washington, photographer Danica Williams was still stuck with barely any clients. The business model of $400 for digital files wasn’t serving her time or money needs. Today I’m talking with Danica about the decision she made that led to her making more in the last three months than she had in three years combined of her photography business and what she did to make that happen. Welcome, Danica. Share your backstory with us.
Danica Williams: I work full time, I’m married and we have three kids. I’ve always been the one with the camera and been interested in taking photographs. In 2015, my husband bought me my first DSLR, which I still have and I still shoot with, so it’s not about the equipment. From there I just started figuring out how to shoot in manual mode and what that looks like using a digital camera. People started asking me to take photos for them and I would charge $100. When I had kids, I wanted to stay home, but financially we couldn’t do it. In 2020, I gathered the courage to start a business to try to make money for this that could eventually replace my 9-5 income.
Sarah Petty: How many hours were you putting in editing and retouching?
Danica Williams: I feel like one photo I would spend a minimum 30 minutes on. It was stressful.
Sarah Petty: So what changed for you?
Danica Williams: My friend sent me this Booking Boost Challenge last October. I joined the challenge and I was floored and knew I had to do this.
Sarah Petty: How did you make it fit into your life to do the program?
Danica Williams: I had to buckle down. Time management is not one of my strong suits, so I just put time aside.
Sarah Petty: Were you working a full-time job during that?
Danica Williams: Yes.
Sarah Petty: What opened up as you learned this model of boutique and got the support?
Danica Williams: I think the biggest thing is building as you go and not waiting until you have it built all the way up. And then just realizing my lack of self-confidence. My Julie came after Boutique Breakthrough. My previous co-worker reached out to me and asked me to do her family photos. I explained that I had just changed my business model and I am really serving my clients now. She ended up ordering a large frame and two storytellers, and her order came to $2,657.
Sarah Petty: That’s awesome. I love that story. So don’t you feel like after you got that Julie, something clicked in your mind because I think once you do it once, you know you can do it again. So how were you feeling after you got that Julie?
Danica Williams: Yeah, I was feeling really good. I will admit, I was still feeling a little like, is she going to call me back and be like, “I take it back.” There was a little hesitancy. It was this weird, I was so excited, but did this really happen? Is this real? Can this really be? So it was great. I felt really good and excited.
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