Turn a hobby into a business, with Gail VanMatre

In this episode, Gail VanMatre tells the story of how she turned her photography hobby into a full-time career... with lessons learned (and mistakes made!) along the way. Tune in for ideas and inspiration on transforming your passion into an income stream.

• Visit the Show Notes for links & resources

Promotional offers:

• 📷  This episode is sponsored in part by Gail VanMatre Photography.   
  • Raleigh NC area: 💁‍♀️ Update your professional image with a headshot session.
  • ✨ Mention this podcast for a special offer!

Transcript

All right, today I am joined in studio by Gail VanMatre, who I first met through a local book club and later came to learn that she is an extraordinarily talented photographer. If you are listening to this in the future, she was my first podcast sponsor. So you may have heard mention of that as well. Gail's here today, for episode 24, to talk about her journey. because she has done something that a lot of women tell me they want to do. She's turned a passion or a hobby into a business. So welcome to the show, Gail. 

Gail VanMatre: Thank you, Rebecca. I am so glad to be here. I really appreciate that you asked me to join you on your show. I've learned so much from your podcast. And it's just such an inspiration. I really feel very honored to be with you today.

Rebecca Fernandez: Welcome to the show. I want to kick us off by asking you what's bringing you joy right now.

Gail VanMatre: I just last night returned from spending four days in Louisville, Kentucky at Imaging USA, which is a phenomenal photography conference. I think about 10, 000 photographers go and the topics range from pretty much anything you can imagine that has to do with photography and photography business.

So I had so much fun learning connecting with friends I already have, meeting new friends and just becoming very inspired. So I have come home just full of a lot of ideas and inspiration and I guess I have a joy hangover from the exhilaration of being at such a big, exciting conference.

Rebecca Fernandez: Sounds like a good time. When did you first become interested in photography?

Gail VanMatre: Well, I guess I always was interested in photography from a young age, but not the technical or artistic side at that point. I was just interested in documenting starting from middle school. I was that person that always had their camera around for you know, anything really, outings with friends but I was not really interested at that time in, the technicalities, anything like that.

Just, I just felt it was really important to take pictures so that we could remember all the things that were happening in our lives. 

When I had my first son in 2009, I thought, well, you know, he's a really cute baby. It shouldn't be that hard to take a nice picture of him. Um, I was wrong. It was actually quite hard to take a nice picture of him.

But it got, it kind of got the wheels turning like, all right, why are the pictures I'm taking? Really not looking like what I see in my mind that I would like the pictures to look like. as soon as I had the opportunity a bit after that, I took a class in person locally, and I was like, well, this is just really cool.

I have so much interest in this.

It was more of an intro. Class and it was also just hard logistically to go to something in person with the way that my life was at that time. And I've always learned really well from books. So I got a lot of photography books and I just started working through them. 

Rebecca Fernandez: So you made like a full study of it. 

Gail VanMatre: that's kind of a long, I'm encompassing a journey that was a couple of years in the making really. 

Rebecca Fernandez: So when did you start moving in the direction of thinking, Hey, this could be an income stream or did you think of it as a career right away or was that kind of a, journey over time?

Gail VanMatre: no, it was a hobby. Um, something, honestly, I had gone from working full time, to to staying at home caring for young children and I needed something to focus my creative energies on. It gave me something to do in terms of studying and learning and practicing that brought me a lot of joy and fit well into my life at that point in the early years of photography and the early years of parenting.

At that time, I never, ever could have imagined it being a business.

After I had been doing photography for about Four or five years as a hobby, the word got out and friends asked if I could take photos of their families. And initially I did a few as just for free, just to practice on other people.

And I believe it was in 2014 that I had my first paying clients. I made a lot of mistakes, not on the photography. I did a phenomenal, I have to say, I looked at this right before speaking with you. It was 2014.

The images hold up was 10 years ago and I'm still proud of them. They were quite good. But I'll tell you the mistake that I made which was I thought, well, gosh, I'm not really in this as a business.

I, it's first time everyone, anyone's ever hired me. I don't know what seems like enough, um, 100. I kind of pulled it out of thin air. So they said, okay. And I, we planned the session. For a day that my husband could be with our kids and then of course as these things happen it rained that day So we had to reschedule. The reschedule date,

I needed to hire a babysitter I went took the photos. They went fantastic. I got home. I paid my babysitter Probably at least a third of what I had collected from the client then I got done with editing the photos and realized I needed to send them to the client So how do you send a large number of large files in 2014?

I had no idea and I discovered a thing called Dropbox and you have to pay, I believe it was around a hundred dollars to get a subscription to Dropbox. So I had paid to work to top things off. I'm a rule follower. And I knew that you were supposed to declare your income on your taxes. So I'm pretty sure I declared that 100 and paid tax on it that year.

Thus I paid to work and then some. So it was a great, honestly, a great learning experience on many levels. One of those levels was, okay, if I'm actually going to do this for money, I need to charge more than a hundred dollars because that was just stupid. So I went on from there. to charge a bit more, make a little money.

It was a more of a casual thing. I also realized quickly that there are different levels of photography equipment and I had the entry level equipment. I wanted to buy the better equipment as my skills improved so that I could take better pictures, create better art, and I wanted to earn the money.

Doing photography to be able to pay for that nicer camera and those better lenses so that I wasn't taking those out of the family budget. So that was an early motivation to turn photography into an income stream. But for the first couple years, that was really my only goal. Just you know, earn the money to keep the hobby going and perhaps a little bit more so that when I took that time away from my family and maybe needed to pay for a sitter, I felt like, well, I'm making money doing it.

Rebecca Fernandez: So fast forward, here we are 10 years later and you have a full fledged business that keeps you busy. How did you get there? 

Gail VanMatre: When both of my kids started elementary school, and I had more dedicated time, to myself during their school day, I really had a reckoning with myself because I knew I wanted to be working more and I wasn't sure if I wanted to return to my previous career, start something new, or if I could really go for it with photography and turning that into a full time career.

And I thought about how much joy photography was bringing me and how much I love being a business owner, being self employed, having a lot more control over honestly, everything about this business. I've grown it from scratch and it brought me a lot of pride and joy and I realized this is the direction that I'm going.

So it was, I believe around 17 that my mindset switched from stay at home mom with a side hustle to professional photographer doing this full time as my business. And it's it's just grown from there.

Rebecca Fernandez: Okay... say more!

Gail VanMatre: It wasn't like, like just flipping a switch to go all in a lot of work had to get done, but it was it was a mindset switch as much as anything else. A great thing that also happened around that time is that another professional photographer who I knew of and really admired began an in person get together that was monthly where other photographers would meet for networking and education.

And prior to that, I didn't really know a lot of other professional photographers. I was in some Online classes and online groups, but I had very few, if even any in person friends that were photographers doing this professionally and going to those meetups changed my life. I'm actually now a co leader of the group, which is still going, but meeting other women.

Business owners doing this full time professionally really opened my eyes to the fact that it is very possible. And there were just a lot of things that I didn't know about running a business that I learned from the friends and colleagues that I made in the group. And that really helped me to just know what was possible.

A bit later is actually in, I believe it was at the end of 19, I joined our National Professional Association, the Professional Photographers of America, who is, who put on the conference that I just came home from, and again, it opened my eyes to even like that next level of what are people achieving at the top of our industry, artistically, business wise what is this all about, what, it just opened my eyes to higher level goals and aspirations and helped me to see To forge a path, towards those goals and aspirations.

So those, those groups have helped me so much.

Rebecca Fernandez: Can you talk a little bit about the spectrum of from hobbyist to full blown, and maybe I own a enormous studio and run a business with multiple employees, what does the spectrum look like for people who are working in the photography space? 

Gail VanMatre: I would say you've just encapsulated it very well. There are, as you mentioned, there are people that are newer to the industry that are working as a hobbyist, making a bit of money and Many of us start that way. A lot of people, including me, went to school for something other than photography and had another career first, and this is a second career for many people, and a lot of people do start with it as a side hustle.

A lot of them are quite good as artists, and what happens, most people either realize that actually this is a lot of work, and some people are like, you know what, this is actually not for me.

It's just going to be a hobby or they get burned out. Totally, unfortunately, normal. That does happen a lot. And other people do take the path that I did and say, okay, this is where my heart is and this is what I'm going to do and to get to the next level. And so I would say I I'm not sure how you'd measure scope or scale, but I primarily work by myself at this point in time.

I do have a studio office space, and I sometimes hire people to help me with things as I need them. But I don't have any employees, I don't have like a studio manager or a dedicated editor or an assistant of any sort at this time. There are people that are running really large studios that might mean large in terms of the physical space, the number of clients that they serve.

They might have associate photographers that work for them that, you know, they can then contract multiple jobs at the same time because they have other photographers on their team that can go. They might have a manager, people filling different roles, or they might have people that they outsource significant amounts of work to.

And that's, I think, really how someone scales their business up. Honestly, I'm getting to about the top of what I can do by myself. So now I'm sort of at another inflection point of like, Am I good or do I want to be able to grow my business that much more?

And how does that look like having an employee outsourcing more things? I just noticed when I go to the education that the people speaking and leading our industry are not saying that they do everything by themselves. They're talking about leading a team. So there's there's really a whole spectrum and there are also a bunch of different genres within the photography as a business realm. 

Rebecca Fernandez: Let's talk a little bit about that. Can you tell us what are your specialties and how did you decide what those were going to be? What was for you and what was not for you?

Gail VanMatre: Oh, sure. I think that a lot of photographers, myself included at first are like, oh my gosh, I photograph everything and anything, if someone asked me about a job and I was like, I'm pretty confident that I can do a good job, I would take it. And in time, I realized that I'm just not honestly the greatest with newborns.

And I'm also really not that interested in doing the studio newborns. So I don't do it anymore. I will do more of a documentary newborn style at the client's home. It's totally different genre, even within newborn photography.

I find now that my specialty is working with families with teens and tweens. I Really connect well with these families probably because of the stage of life I'm in my family's in.

I do a lot of bar and bat mitzvahs, which means I'm working with families that have 12 and 13 year old kids. Then a lot of times they might have a younger kid who, a little while later I can do their bar and bat mitzvah. They might want family portraits. They might have an older sibling that is needing senior portraits done.

Those are my main genres. I do also really love a wedding. The way that my life logistics are, I'm not the primary photographer for a whole lot of weddings.

That's intentional. And I plan to keep it that way, but I do a few per year and I'm regularly a second shooter for a good friend of mine. on her weddings. 

Rebecca Fernandez: It sounds like you've really found your niche. And then I know recently you've gotten into doing headshots and I have to say having had mine done by you, they came out lovely.

Gail VanMatre: Thank you. You were delightful to work with. For headshots, those can be a lot of fun.

Oftentimes, people need headshots when they are changing careers starting something new, and might be starting to turn a hobby into a business and need some materials to go along with those. I really enjoy getting to know the client, what their goals are. And crafting a session that's designed to help her feel confident and really show whatever side of herself she's looking to show.

So I greatly enjoy working with my headshot clients. 

Rebecca Fernandez: What's it like communicating with perspective clients in a space where there are a lot of hobbyists and where a lot of people do feel like, well, I could take pictures. Anybody could take pictures. Do you find that's a challenge 

sometimes?

Gail VanMatre: do. I really do. I think that is especially a challenge in the family portrait genre because often it's just, well, we just want something decent for our holiday card and we might just not want to spend very much money and maybe just take a chance on someone that. Is newer and is a hobbyist so unfortunately, while I really, really love working with families, I do sometimes lose those inquiries.

But, you know, I'm not going to be for everyone.

And that is okay. I think a way that I'm able to get around those. Challenges are one. I've been doing this a long time and my reputation is more established. Now. I a lot of times get clients that they were referred by a friend or a relative. They know I did good work for that person and they saw the results.

They liked it. They want that for themselves. And so part of the work was done by Previous me delivering a great experience and product to the previous client. It's not I don't have to convince the incoming person as much of my value because they're familiar. I also work a lot with The bar and bat mitzvahs that I do that is a very significant event and it's happening once and it can involve a lot of family coming in from out of town just for the weekend.

There might be, there's usually a party. I photographed casual to elaborate events, but they're all very significant to that family and there is no do over. They want someone who really knows what they're doing. And, I think that's usually why they come to me is that I have the expertise, the experience, and I know how to run that session and run the photography portion of the day.

Also, I think by the time people have high school seniors, they may have worked with someone that was less experienced at some earlier point. And a lot of times they're like, this is really important. We're doing this once. We want to do it right.

Another way that I've been able to differentiate myself is that when I started, I just delivered digital images and that's how many people start.

I honestly didn't even know that there was another way to do things. But as I got more advanced in my career, I learned that, of course, We live in a day and age where people do value and want to have digital images, but many people also really want to have tangible artwork that might be in the form of something to go on the wall or a photo album, but they really do want those things.

A lot of people do not want to do it themselves because they know that can be very time consuming, perhaps frustrating. These people are busy with their careers and their lives and they sometimes would just like to pay someone to do it correctly and do it for them. So I have become very good at being able to help clients make selections and to narrow down what will look great on their wall or And I do all that for them.

So I tend to attract the clients who are looking for a full service experience from the first inquiry to having artwork on their wall. I will walk them through my process and just make it easy for them. And those are the 

clients who see value in what I do.

Rebecca Fernandez: Makes sense. So I hear a couple of takeaways there for another woman who potentially wants to follow in your footsteps. One is, don't try to be all things to all people, but actually follow what you enjoy and learn how to establish your own niche, even within a crowded marketplace.

One thing we haven't talked about is where did childcare factor into the picture for you?

Gail VanMatre: I do have a wonderful husband who is a very supportive person. He doesn't have a flexible job.

He has long hours that can at times be unpredictable, and that has been a challenge, especially when my kids were younger, in terms of figuring out what is the right amount of work for me to do what happens if child care falls through and now it's, about the childcare because my kids are older.

But I do work with a lot of event clients. And they're often hiring me a year out. So I don't know when I'm booking something a year away, will that be the same night as my you know, son's Sailing regatta that he's in. This actually happened when I booked the gig.

I, my son was not even into sailing yet, so I had no way to know that. Or will it be the jazz band concert that I'll have to miss? So I believe that most working parents, especially mothers deal with trying to figure out the balance between work and family, but when you're self employed and you work nights and weekends routinely, I feel like I just, I see it really magnified those concerns.

I'm not saying it's easy. It's constantly a push pull. We have a few babysitters and honestly, they feel like part of the family now.

One of them, I was a guest at her wedding. She was at my studio opening. She's been a huge. gift to my family. And I still, even though my kids are 11 and 14, I may ask her, can I pay you to take my son to his music rehearsal? Because I'm working and my husband's working and I just can't do it. 

Rebecca Fernandez: built your own support system. 

Gail VanMatre: When I started working, I didn't have any family locally, but now I'm very lucky to have my husband's aunt living in town. I try really hard not to abuse. The privilege of her goodwill, but when I need help, I ask her and if she can, she says yes, and I'm very grateful for her, but when I started my business, I did not have family here. It's also a personal challenge for me to ask for and accept help, because I just like to be that person that has it all together and does not want to ask for help. But sometimes you just have to. And then when I can, I pay it forward when someone asks me for help. all need help and we all need to help each other.

Rebecca Fernandez: Isn't that the truth. What other advice would you give to a woman who wants to follow in your footsteps and turn a hobby into a business?

Gail VanMatre: Oh, I have so much advice, probably too much. Um, one, the first thing I really want to say, I think it is fantastic to turn a hobby into a business. Clearly, it's what I've done. But there is absolutely no shame in being fantastic at your passion and keeping it a hobby. If you consider going down the path of making it a business and you realize That's just not what I want to do.

There is no shame whatsoever in excelling in your hobby. You can take it to a very high level. There are people that are award winning photographers who do this not for money, but they are phenomenally talented. 

if you do decide to make it a business, it is very important even from the beginning to get set up correctly as a business.

And that involves some things that many. People who are passionate about their hobbies find super boring, but they are still necessary. Those are things like, do you need insurance for your brand new business? Do you need a business license? Do you need to get a permit to do what you do? Do you need to set up something like an LLC or another entity for tax paying purposes?

And along those lines, You definitely need to be paying tax, certainly income tax. And depending on where you live and what you do, you very likely may also need to collect and remit sales tax to your state. So those things are not the glamorous side of running a business, but they are important and I would really encourage people to do it right from the beginning and go ahead and get those things set up.

So take your time, do your homework. 

Rebecca Fernandez: Okay, so what else you got? Any other advice?

Gail VanMatre: I shared this story with you of how I dramatically undercharged for my first paying gig and ended up paying significantly to do that gig. mistake. So setting prices is a real challenge . So to do that, you really want to think about not only where you are in this very moment, but what you might need over the next. So there is a first requirement that you must be at least in the short to intermediate term to run this business.

You might already have equipment, but it might wear out faster if you're using it for work, so you may need to budget for repairs or replacement of your gear. As I mentioned before, it's important to get set up as a legal business and you may need to consult with an accountant . So those are expenses that you will need to take into account. Also do not neglect your continuing education. If you are in a field like mine. You're really never done learning. Things are always changing. And as you get into this as a business, you might realize some areas in your knowledge that you need to improve your knowledge.

Gail VanMatre: So do budget for continuing your education. 

Rebecca Fernandez: That's good insight. What are some other lessons learned? 

Gail VanMatre: A huge mistake I made when I was new is I thought, well, gosh, I'm new. This is just a hobby. I'm just, doing it casually. I don't want the real photographers to think that I think I'm as good as them. So I don't want to charge as much as the real photographers do.

I'm just going to be really cheap. That was a mistake for me, but it was also a mistake in my industry. You mentioned that I'm in an industry where there are a lot of people that are newer or doing this as a hobby. And Actually, if people are good and they are really cheap, it actually hurts the industry because it sets client expectations that, Oh, this should be super cheap.

There are people doing it for super cheap. So. That's what it should cost, right? And that is not good for our industry. So I recommend to make sure that your work is at an appropriate level before you start charging for it. And then when you do charge for it, charge appropriate prices.

Rebecca Fernandez: I really liked that framing. Any other advice?

Gail VanMatre: I really recommend connecting with people that you admire . Who is already doing what you want to be doing at a high level, people that you admire in terms of their work and also the way they run their business and their ethics? And connect with those people. It could look a lot of different ways.

Someone could be your mentor. You could work for them. You could be in a group or an association with them. 

And then as soon as you can pay it forward, there might be things that you're already really good at and other things that you need to learn. So it could be that you are having someone else mentor you, or you could be purchasing classes or education, but you may then be able to be helpful to someone else in your industry on the things that you're already good at.

Each of those relationships has been 

Really important to me on my journey.

Rebecca Fernandez: So if someone is looking at you and they're like, Wow, Gail's run this successful business for, you know, seven, ten years now, what might they be surprised to find out didn't come easily to you, that actually took you a lot of learning and effort and practice with?

Gail VanMatre: I would say mindset. When I was newer, I didn't have the confidence to think that I was good enough to consider myself a real professional. That held me back from it.

Even looking into or joining associations for professionals because I didn't think I was good enough to even be in those groups. And that was a mistake. I was wrong.

And of course, as time goes on, your business needs change, your talent develops.

It might come to be that you do need to change prices. And at each point along the way, when I've needed to do that, I have felt lingering senses of doubt. Gosh, what will my clients think? Will they stick with me or will they think I'm too expensive and just having the confidence to move forward in ways that I need to move forward I've sometimes been afraid to take a risk.

But sometimes by not taking any risks, you just stay stuck in the place that you are So sometimes saying yes to an opportunity that sounds cool, but also a little scary i'm trying to be better about Saying yes to those things and feeling like it'll work out. 

Rebecca Fernandez: Well said. Well, Gail, I don't know about you, but this has just flown by for me and we are out of time, so I'm going to close by asking you, what have you been reading lately?

Gail VanMatre: Well, I am reading love marriage by Monica Ali. I'm actually listening to it on audible and it is delightful. I'm really enjoying it. I'm also really into the Tana French Irish murder squad mysteries and I'm reading one right now called Broken harbor and I'm enjoying it as well.

Rebecca Fernandez: I'll put some links in the show notes so that folks can check it out if they want. And I just finished reading The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, which I can't even describe in two words that will make it sound as amazing as it was, but it was probably one of the best books I think I will read in 2024. 

All right. Well, thank you Gail for joining us today.

Gail VanMatre: Thank you so much for having me on, Rebecca.