Brands that Book with Davey Jones

Today’s guest is communications coach and strategist Lauren Carnes. Lauren helps creative and lifestyle brands bridge the gap between imagery and copywriting. And her marketing, PR, and social media background includes experience working alongside some major brands. Today she is sharing the recipe for a successful pitch. We chat about what exactly that means, and everything from setting yourself up for success through tips for the actual pitch itself. With a background in public relations and social media marketing, Lauren has always been a lover of telling great stories. For 6 years she worked alongside international brands including Nike, Airstream, the John Maxwell Company, and Chick-fil-A in defining unique elements of their stories and serving as their brand voice through digital, print, and in-person engagements. In 2014, she made the leap to launching Lauren Carnes Photography serving couples, creatives, and foodies through wedding, branding, and food photography. After successfully growing her photography business, she focused on merging her two creative passions into one business by coaching creatives on consistent brand voice, marketing & sales strategies, and imagery. Since then, she's worked alongside brands like the Rising Tide Society & HoneyBook, Natalie Franke, Megan Martin Creative, Rachel Allene, Creme Brands, Creative at Heart, and more, infusing communications strategy and consistency into a variety of brand elements. When she's not in the office, she can be found cooking, hosting friends, or exploring new cities with her husband, Chip, son, Oliver, and their fur-baby, Sophie. For the show notes and more resources, head on over to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-lauren-carnes-episode-40.

Today’s guest is Stephanie Thacker, the founder of Steadfast Bookkeeping, a company that provides full service bookkeeping, tax planning and preparation, and outsourced CFO services. Stephanie shares about how to find a bookkeeper if you’re looking for one, tips for bookkeeping if you’re tackling it yourself, and what to do if you find yourself in over your head this tax season. For show notes and resources, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-stephanie-thacker-episode-39.

Today’s guest is Julie Paisley, a destination wedding photographer and educator based in Nashville, TN. Julie’s work can be found on every major wedding blog, she's been published countless times in print, including a feature on the cover of People, TWICE. And she has a client roster featuring some names that you probably recognize. Today we’re chatting about how to increase word of mouth referrals—both from clients and other businesses—by keeping things personal. Before we get started: If you are hybrid photographer—you shoot both film and digital formats—there’s a conference I think you need to check out that’s hosted by Julie along with Jonathan Canlas and Belinda Olson. It’s called The Hybrid Collective, and this is year it’s happening in Nashville from May 6th-8th and registration is currently open! Head on over to the hybrid co dot com to check out the speaker line-up, styled shoots, breakout sessions, and master classes. I’ll be there teaching… and I’ll be giving out some awesome bonuses during my classes—I hope to see you there! For show notes and other resources, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-julie-paisley-episode-38

Today’s guest is Charity Maurer of Charity Maurer Photography, a luxury level Photography business serving the Phoenix area. What’s interesting about Charity’s business is that she didn’t start out as a luxury brand. It wasn’t until a few years into business that she decided she wanted to go after the luxury market so that she could create more margin in her life. We walk through steps that Charity took in rebranding her business and entering that luxury level market focusing on everything from finding new networking groups to changing up the copy and imagery she was sharing on social media to making big pricing increases. For show notes and other resources, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-charity-maurer-episode-37.

Today’s episode is a bit different: In this episode I am being interviewed by Catherine Guidry, the host of the Mistakes Make Magic podcast for an episode of Mistakes Make Magic. Cat was kind enough to let me also air this episode here. Today we’re chatting all about podcasting. If starting a podcast is one of your goals for 2019 or if you’re just interested in a little behind the scenes of the Brands that Book podcast, you’ll want to stay tuned! Afterwards be sure to check out Mistakes Make Magic. Catherine’s podcast provides business advice and lessons learned from failure, and she’s had some pretty awesome guests on her show. Show notes can be found at http://catherineguidry.com/blog/051-davey-jones/.

Today’s guests are Lauren and Rachel, the founders of Sweet Root Village, an event floral design company in the Washington D.C. area. Lauren and Rachel chat with me about starting Sweet Root Village, and their journey from an ‘all-in-one’ event shop to specializing in high-end floral event design. Their story is such a good lesson in narrowing one’s focus, and intentionally growing a business with the resources you have. In addition to that we talk about how to engage an audience with Instagram stories. Everyone I chatted with that is familiar with Sweet Root Village has brought up their Instagram stories, so dive into how they create engaging stories and use that platform to grow their business.

Today’s guest is Petronella Lugemwa of Petronella Photography, and we’re chatting all about strategies for connecting with your ideal client. Petronella has an incredible background—she was born in Uganda, moved to the states from Zimbabwe, has an MBA and undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering, and she worked with big brands like Cover Girl, Advil, and Splenda. That's all before becoming a wedding and marriage proposal photography specializing in helping multicultural couple celebrate their love in a modern way. We dig into how Petronella figured out who she wanted to serve, and then she shares steps for figuring out in your own business. For more resources and the show notes, head on over to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-petronella-lugemwa-episode-34.

Today’s guest is Stacey Krolow of Pepper—a business admin outsourcing company for creatives. We have personally found that outsourcing different tasks has made us more productive, efficient, and has freed up our time for other things that we enjoy spending time on. So I figured it was about time I record an episode on outsourcing. I chat with Stacey more specifically about the benefits of hiring a VA or administrative assistant. We cover how to get over my fear of giving up control, when you know you’re ready to hire a VA, what you should expect to pay, and how to make sure you set up the relationship for success. Head on over to Davey & Krista for the show notes and more resources.

Today’s guest is Pinterest Marketing Strategist, Vanessa Kynes. Vanessa needs no introduction because she was our guest back in episode 17, where she talked about using Pinterest to increase brand visibility and website traffic. After we recorded Vanessa’s episode, we actually hired her to do some work on our Pinterest account and we have been so happy with the results—including increasing our referral traffic from Pinterest by 1600%. In this episode, she’s sharing about few of the things she did in our account to get us those results and she’s also sharing tips for being successful on Pinterest in 2019. If you haven’t listened to her first episode, I highly recommend going back to listen to episode 17, because it was one of our more popular episodes of 2018, and then of course, come back and listen to this one.

Today’s guest is Natalie Franke Hayes of the Rising Tide Society. This is an exciting episode because it brings me back to the very first podcast I was ever a part of, The Coffee Commute, which I actually started with Natalie. Natalie is an entrepreneur, mobilization marketer, community builder, neuroscience nerd, and of course, she’s one of the co-founders of the Rising Tide Society, alongside myself, Krista and her husband Huey. She’s also the head of community at HoneyBook. Natalie and I chat about growing a platform, which is something she has successfully done across so many life transitions. We talk about how she’s been able to do this so effectively and advice she has for others also trying to grow a platform. For more resources and show notes, check out https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-natalie-franke-episode-31.

Today’s guest is Abby Grace of Abby Grace Photography, an international wedding and anniversary photographer based just outside of Washington D.C. Abby’s background in communications and PR is on full display in this interview as we discuss client communication, and specifically we talked about instances where you have to say no to clients or prospective clients. We walked through all sorts of different scenarios from unreasonable client requests, to how to turn someone away who’s not a good fit, to dealing with requests that are just outside the scope of work that you usually do. What stands out in this episode to me is how Abby sets boundaries and educates our clients from the very beginning of their correspondence and how she does her best to find ways to say yes to clients even after having to say no. For show notes and more resources, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-abby-grace-episode-30.

Today’s guest is Chip Dizard of Chip Dizard Weddings. Chip is a wedding photographer and videographer based out of Baltimore, Maryland. He provides photo and video services to creative businesses in addition to offering mentoring and consulting. One of the things that Chip consults on is Facebook advertising, and that’s what we’re chatting about in today’s episode. We chat specifically about the mistakes people commonly make, the different aspects of running Facebook ads, and some tips for getting the most out of the ads that you run. For show notes and additional resources, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-chip-dizard-episode-29.

Today’s guest is Gavin Wade, the founder of CloudSpot, a photo gallery solution for professional photographers. CloudSpot makes it easy to load, organize and share your images with clients, and it's actually what we used in our photography business. In the episode, we get to hear about Gavin’s journey from fitness professional, to wedding photographer, to founder of a software company, and the challenges that Gavin and his team have faced and overcome throughout the last few years. One thing you’ll pick up about Gavin is that he’s not scared to take a risk and pursue an idea, even if there are some serious challenges to tackle.  For the show notes and additional resources, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-gavin-wade-cloudspot-fs.

Today’s guest is Laura Joseph, the Founder of Paper & Honey, an heirloom wedding stationary and letterpress studio. In today’s episode, we get to learn about how Laura started her stationary and letterpress business. I know next to nothing about stationary, so it was really interesting for me to learn more about her business. I think one of the most fascinating parts of the discussion is hearing about the letterpress machines that she has. These are machines that are over a 100-years-old. We talk a little bit about what went into adding that into our business, the process, and by process, that’s probably an understatement of researching, acquiring, transporting and maintaining those machines. One of the most important parts of the episode, however, is a discussion that we have about mental health in the latter half of the conversation. Laura opens up about her journey with depression, anxiety and ADHD, how that’s impacted her business and what she’s done to deal with those things. I really, really appreciate Laura sharing about this, because I think it’s something that so many of us deal with, but often don’t talk about. I hope people find encouragement and hope in listening to this episode. For show notes and more resources, head on over to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-laura-joseph-episode-28.

Today’s guest is YouTube strategist, Trena Little. As you probably guessed, we’re chatting about how to utilize YouTube in your business. I heard about Trena from a mutual friend but I got the opportunity to meet her in person at a conference we recently spoke at. I’m glad I did because she knows her stuff. This is one of those episodes where you’ll want to have the notepad ready. Trena is an MBA graduate who has built the two YouTube channels of her own. She served clients like Heather Crabtree, Think Creative Collective, The Contract Shop and Jessica Rasdall. She also speaks at various conferences about YouTube strategy. You’ll want to check out the show notes at daveyandkrista.com for the resources we mention during this episode. Trena provides a number of freebies to help people get their YouTube channel started. Check out the show notes at https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-trena-little-episode-27