FULL TRANSCRIPT: Please note this transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors. 

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You’re listening to the Portrait System Podcast.

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You have to take a breath and know that if you do the work and you show up for it wholeheartedly, you’ll get there. You will get there. So just be patient.

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This is the Portrait System podcast, a show that helps portrait photographers and people hoping to become one, navigate the world of photography, business, money and so much more. We totally keep it real. We share stories about the incredible ups and the very difficult downs when running a photography business. I’m your host, Nikki Closser. And the point of this podcast is for you to learn actionable steps that you can take to grow your own business and also to feel inspired and empowered by the stories you hear. Today’s guest is Kelley Norcia . And this is such an exciting time for her because this is her first year after 17 years of teaching that she will not be going back to school.

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Kelley set goals for herself to become a full time photographer and to quit teaching. And she reached that goal this year. Really excited for you to hear her story and how she grew her business large enough to feel comfortable to quit her day job. Kelley is very inspiring and I’m extra happy to have her on the show because I actually mentored Kelly many years ago. And seeing her achieve her dream is just pretty incredible. OK, let’s start the show. Hi, Kelley. Welcome to the portrait system.

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Hey, Nikki, how are you? This is so exciting.

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This is exciting for me, too, especially because I want to let people out there know that you and I did a couple of hour mentoring session and this was back. And let’s see, you did your last modification to the the mentoring forum that I had you fill out June 4th, 2016. And we’re recording this on June twenty second twenty twenty one. So five years later, almost to the day. And I know that one of your goals back then was to quit your teaching job and do this full time, do photography full time.

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And when I saw your post in the Facebook group that this was your last year of teaching, I was like, oh yes, hell yes, you did it.

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I sure the hell did like these five years have gone so fast. And yet when I stop and think about how things have progressed in my business, it feels like some days it goes really super slow. But then I look back on my work from five years ago and I’m like, wow, I’ve really evolved. And I look at my body of work now and I think, like, did I take that picture? It’s just it’s crazy. You know, I just became such a sponge.

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Yeah. I love the way that you said that. Like, it can go in the blink of an eye. But then there are some parts of us that are so slow. That’s such a good way to put it. And I feel the same even just about my life in the last five years. Yeah. It’s just it’s so interesting. OK, so obviously this did not happen overnight and, you know, it was five years in the making or even longer because you started doing photography before that. I don’t know. Yeah, I know there are so many people out there who are where you were five years ago thinking I want to quit my job.

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So let’s go through exactly what you did and how you did it and start kind of from the beginning, like when you were a teacher and then when you started photography. So start there.

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Yeah. So, I mean, I went to school to learn how to be an educator, and after around 2010, I picked up… I had put my camera down for a long time. I mean, as a kid in high school, I learned how to be in the dark room and how to get this the film out of my camera and learned how to mix the solution and that I just loved that. And I just I was always drawn to textures and leading lines. And, you know, I just I wanted to just always have my little Nikon.

00:03:55:10 – 00:04:25:15

I had I still have it. Actually, it’s a little FE2. And it’s sitting in my studio. It does. The shutter doesn’t work on it, sadly. But one of these days I want to get it fixed so that I can put some film in it again and just try and see what happens with it. But that was a gift from my parents back when I was about twelve. So I always had a camera in my hand and then like sort of life took over and I got married and had a baby and, you know, all, started working. And I just sort of put the photography, just sort of went on the back burner big time.

00:04:25:23 – 00:05:06:14

And then in 2010, I ended up running across a blog and she took landscape and floral photography. And I just remember thinking, like, this is so beautiful. Like, I could I could totally pick up my camera and start playing around again. And that’s what I did. And so I went out and bought my first DSLR and just literally just walked around. I remember I dropped my daughter off at sailing one summer and I just walked around, like and just took pictures of, like, anything that just was interesting to me.

00:05:07:06 – 00:05:42:21

And then I slowly started evolving into pet photography, actually, and did some courses. And I’ve just I’m a dog lover and. Really started wanting to take pictures of pets, not just their pets, but I really wanted to do pets with their owner, because I really loved seeing that connection between, you know, that bond between the dog and the and the owner, and really I did that not just because I love dogs, but honestly, looking back, I was just afraid of photographing people.

00:05:43:18 – 00:05:58:20

I was like, I would have people come up to me like people, like teachers who come up to me like, oh, I saw you post your dog pictures and everything. You just think you could do like a picture of our family. And I was like, oh, no,

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no, I can’t. And I, I mean, I just didn’t know what to do with people. I didn’t know how to pose them. I didn’t know I didn’t know what to do. And so I really shied away from it completely. And then around 20, I want to say, was around twenty, fourteen, twenty fifteen. Somewhere in there, I ran across a talk that Sue did. I want to say it was she was like their keynote or something from clicking moms.

00:06:34:07 – 00:07:05:23

And I purchased the, the, the talk and I had never heard of, of Sue and I watched her and I listened to it and I was like, all right, hang on a second. Who is this woman, first of all? Because she just like everything that she said was like it just hit home to me. And then I looked up her work and I was like, wow, this is like her work is incredible. And around that time, I believe she had started her education site in bed with Sue.

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So I immediately joined and I just I saw all of the different tutorials and videos and things that she was starting to post and teach. And I bought twenty eight days on creative live and I realized that this was something that I could really learn how to do. And I just like the rest was history. I just dove in headfirst and again just became that sponge and just absorbed everything that I could and started a little home studio and kind of the rest is history.

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I mean, I’ve evolved big time since then, but yeah, that was kind of how it evolved. But I was really quite scared of people. Posing anyway.

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Yeah, I remember back back when we were doing the mentoring, this was twenty sixteen. A lot of what you had said and written as well in your, in your document was that you were afraid that people wouldn’t pay. For industry standard, for higher pricing, you thought people would think you were crazy for trying to charge that much, it was like this almost like like value. You didn’t quite value what it was yet, or you are afraid other people weren’t going to value it.

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Or maybe a combination of both.

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Absolutely.

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And so where are you at now with that, as in terms of how you feel about your pricing? Do you feel really good about it or are you still nervous about it?

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I think there’s always a little piece of me that’s that’s nervous about it. I mean, I just I think looking back, I was really there was this whole imposter syndrome happening and it still creeps in, although I really try to squash her when she comes through the door.

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You’re not welcome here anymore. Go away. But I really think that there was an imposter like I was I was I went to school to be a teacher. And who was I to turn around and say, OK, now I’m a photographer because I hadn’t gone to school for it, like I was self-taught. And, you know, I’m much more like my prices have definitely gone up since since I started for sure. My pricing is not where it was.

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I was never shoot and burn photographer. I just I wanted to come out of the gate swinging and and my lowest package at that time was nine hundred for I think it maybe was like seven or eight images. And, you know, I was all over the place with my session fee. I didn’t know if I should keep my session fee really high or if I should keep it like that barrier to entry really low and get people in the door. So I was all over the place. And I think the value that I, I know that I have now and particularly as you start to build a body of work that you really love, which I am at that place now, I’m still evolving.

00:10:04:29 – 00:10:37:04

But I look at my work now and I’m really happy with what I’m putting out there. And there was definitely a lot of self-value work that had to happen along the way. Otherwise you just don’t get the nerve to or the gumption to to say, OK, I’m actually really worth this. Like, you know, Sue talks about that equal value exchange and it’s so it’s so true. You know, I’m giving people portraits that are going to outlive them, that are going to be in their grandkids hands someday.

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And at no time in the future can I go back to them fifty years from now and say, I’d like to buy this portrait back like it’s priceless by then.

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Right, right. And no one ever regrets it. No one’s ever like, I’m so mad. I did those photos twenty years ago, you know, Why didn’t I

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do those right. And no one ever says I wish I had gotten a smaller print. Right.

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Right. No one. Totally. Yeah. So I know there’s a lot of people out there. And I was the same. I remember saying to Sue like I don’t know how… this is my goal, like my goal when I first met. So my goal was to quit my school social worker, you know, same as same schedule, pay everything as a teacher. And I remember saying, I want to quit within one more full year of doing this, then I want to go down to half time for one year and then I’m done. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I really want to do it.

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And then I remember thinking, wait, but how am I going to do it?

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Yeah, but, how

00:11:39:24 – 00:12:11:23

you know, a lot of people will say that. But how but how did you do it? So. And I know this it’s it’s been a journey and a process, but things like, you know, did you fully quit or do you just take a year off? Did you do you have a savings? Do you have, like, lots of clients coming in through the door before you made this decision? Like, let’s kind of talk through your mental space of where you felt you needed to be before you made this decision and what what it kind of looks like now.

00:12:12:08 – 00:12:44:03

Yeah, well, I’m a planner at heart, like I’m an over-packer and I’m a planner. And so I kept saying I would text my husband from my desk at work and I would be like, I’m ready. I’m ready to do photography full time. He’s like, I know, but you need to get your clients and the like. At that time, I was only shooting a little bit here and there and I wasn’t getting like a steady stream of clients coming in the door yet. And he’s like, you really need to think this through. And I said, I know, I know. I really need to get a plan in place. And my husband is self-employed.

00:12:44:20 – 00:13:27:27

So the biggest thing that was keeping me from jumping was the health insurance, because I knew I was going to lose health, my health insurance, because I don’t you don’t get benefits. And so I just got to a place where I was like, OK, if I can figure out how to just make that a cost of doing business and make sure that I have enough clients coming in, like, you got to put that as a line item somewhere. And that was a big one for me. And once I figured out that I could get clients in the door, then I realized, OK, well, if I’m making X number of dollars, then I can afford to purchase my health insurance.

00:13:28:11 – 00:14:02:21

And it really kind of started back in the beginning of twenty twenty was when I really started turning the corner to realizing that I could eventually quit like for real. I decided to do a fifty over fifty campaign and that completely took off and I ended up earning more in twenty twenty than I or just about the same amount from that campaign in twenty twenty as I did in teaching.

00:14:02:24 – 00:14:37:23

And I was like wait what, what just happened here. And that was during a pandemic and three months of shut down completely. Yeah. And so what I started doing was I just started banking that money. And really trying not to touch it as much as I possibly could, and I just started saving as much as I possibly could because I knew that once I made the leap, I wanted to have a cushion or I would just feel really nervous. And so I just I really started saving as much money.

00:14:37:25 – 00:15:03:24

Like, I would love to just buy every beautiful dress I see for my studio, but I just had to be like, OK, stop, this is not good. This is not going to make the ship go faster. It’s going to be really pretty, but it’s not going to make the ship go faster. And so I really had to keep my eye on the prize, which was being able to finally say, I’m done with teaching and I’m going to really go for doing this full time, could just go for it.

00:15:05:09 – 00:15:24:25

So having that plan for the health insurance, knowing how much that’s going to cost me going forward and really just making sure that I save as much money as possible so that I know that, you know, when times are lean, I have some money in the bank. So I think that was the biggest the biggest way.

00:15:25:18 – 00:15:58:08

I think so many people have different risk tolerances and different levels of comfort for when to make a big change like this. And health insurance, I cannot tell you how many times even not even photographer friends, just friends who are in a job that they don’t like. But I have like I have a friend, one of my very best friends. Her husband owns a skateboard shop and a very successful skateboard store. But she has a health insurance and she hates her job. I don’t think she will ever quit because of that health insurance. And I’m like, oh, but you could budget budget it in.

00:15:58:21 – 00:16:23:19

It’s like, yeah. So I love that you said that. And imagine, Kelly, if I decided I can’t quit being a school social worker because I, I need the health insurance. I never I would still be an angry, depressed, bitter school social worker because of health insurance. It’s like one of those things that if you want to make the change, just you have to just budget it in and don’t let something like health insurance stop you.

00:16:24:03 – 00:16:36:14

No, you got to find a way. You got to find a way around it because it the benefits of living the life that you really are dreaming of living, you will find a way to do it if you want it bad enough. Totally. I believe you

00:16:36:22 – 00:17:06:22

always will find a way if you want it bad enough. That is exactly right. And you and I are quite different. I am not a planner. I was not then. So back when I had my last let’s see, my first full year of school social work was 2012, 2013 and then half time part time 2013 2014. And I at the time had no idea how to save money. What I did have was clients coming in the door. So that was good.

00:17:07:07 – 00:17:40:02

But I did not have anything saved. I was still in debt and I was like, I don’t even care. I’m done, so. So everyone has just a different level of comfort. Now I would know now I’m a totally different person when it comes to money mindset and, you know, my ability to keep money and make money and all of that, I mean, my energy toward it. I’m like it’s night and day when it comes to where I was. But at the time I was OK with that. I was OK with quitting without having a nest egg where you weren’t. And if you’re out there listening, like, you just have to decide what your risk tolerance is.

00:17:40:04 – 00:17:53:11

Now, we don’t recommend being dumb about it and like, you know, quitting before you have clients coming in and you have a great business built, but everyone just has a different level in which they’re comfortable with, you know.

00:17:53:19 – 00:18:24:03

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You have to do what’s right for you for sure. And, you know, the other thing that I did was I really wanted to be debt free before I made the jump. So I knew that in twenty twenty I was going, you know, when I started getting money coming in, I made sure that I paid off any remaining debt that I had because I didn’t want to just have the money in the bank and go, oh, well, I have X number of dollars in the bank. It’s time to quit. But but then you also have X number of dollars of debt.

00:18:24:05 – 00:19:03:00

And to me, I just like there’s a real like when I paid off and I didn’t have, like, you know, crazy amounts of debt, but, you know, that credit card debt, like, I knew that I had to get that cleared up because I knew I would sleep better and rest easier knowing that I could go full bore into a business, knowing that I was debt free. And that became so freeing for me emotionally and just. I was just in a totally different headspace knowing that I did not have that revolving debt happening and so many people do and I did for years, like for years, I was a spender.

00:19:03:21 – 00:19:32:13

And just like I couldn’t I couldn’t hold on to money. It would come in. It would just go right back out. I’d be like, well, how come I have debt, you know? And because I keep spending beyond what I’m bringing in and now that I start to see my bank account from my business go up, up, up. Now it’s like there’s a light that switch that happened. All of a sudden I’m like, don’t touch it. Yeah, yeah, keep it, keep it, you know? And I’ve become quite the saver now.

00:19:32:24 – 00:20:05:25

It’s awesome. Same. Before I move on to the next question, I want to just touch on two things. One, when it comes to this shift in money, like I didn’t I didn’t know what it was like to not have credit card debt. Yeah. And it stressed me out so bad, but I just didn’t even know what it was like. And I don’t know about you. The Money Wheel of Misfortune talks that Sue and Tiffany Angelas did on the Sue Bryce Education website. That was like a revolutionary for me. That light bulb that went off in me is just like so amazing with money mindset and the things that they talked about as they were going through.

00:20:05:27 – 00:20:39:23

I was like, I basically have all of these, except one is guilt and shame, avoidance being resentment, overspending, having no boundaries over giving, not receiving. And all of this will make sense if you if you listen to it. But all of these things are just totally related to money, having guilt and shame around money, avoidance around money. The only one I didn’t have was Tight-Fisted, which is around not spending money. Yes. But now I’m like I’ve shifted into the tight-fisted. But yeah, for me, going through this whole, like, workbook and everything that they talk about, it’s on Sue Bryce Education website.

00:20:40:05 – 00:20:45:09

It just changed so much for me. I don’t know. Have you watched it? You know what I’m talking about.

00:20:45:22 – 00:20:58:02

I watched it when it first came out. I haven’t revisited it, but it’s something that I, I want to go back and watch again because I can probably identify where I am now versus where I used to be. Oh yeah. So that would be kind of cool to see.

00:20:58:05 – 00:21:31:17

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. For me personally it has made all the difference in my life, in my world to kind of like this is going to sound probably really cheesy, but like heal the wounds I had around money and not feeling like I deserved to have this life that I wanted. If so,  it’s all interconnected. Absolutely. And yeah. Yeah. So OK, another another thing that I wanted to just touch on really quickly is you had mentioned that you did a fifty over fifty campaign. And I just I just wanted to say that I just interviewed Shelly Franklin.

00:21:31:19 – 00:21:56:23

She talked all about of doing a 50 or 50 campaign. She was episode eighty one. So if you’re out there wondering about 50 over 50 campaigns and then Sue also on the website, interviewed eight or nine people who have done really successful campaigns and how they did it and how much they made. And it was really, really cool to listen to everyone and just how they did it because everyone did it so differently. Will you just briefly go over how you did the campaign?

00:21:57:04 – 00:22:09:25

Sure. So I ended up doing a Facebook ad and I got hooked up with a photographer that really knew how, like the ins and outs, because I’m sort of a big dummy with what it comes to, that kind of stuff.

00:22:09:27 – 00:22:10:22

So same.

00:22:11:07 – 00:22:46:02

So I ended up doing a Facebook ad and ran it at the beginning of twenty twenty January, I think. And within about two weeks I had about twenty five women that had reached out to me. And it’s funny because they had a little form that they needed to fill out and I would get in touch with them after seeing their form. And it’s funny because I would wake up to like three or four new leads and they were all coming in at like two a.m., four thirty eight, which cracked me up because it’s like and I’m fifty three and I’m like in menopause.

00:22:46:04 – 00:23:21:07

And so all of them are out there not sleeping like me instead they’re filling out my form. But essentially it really struck a nerve. And so they would fill out a form and I would get in touch with them and, you know, start that connection process with them and talk about what was involved, which was basically that they could come in for, you know, a really empowering experience, hair, full hair and makeup with my hair and makeup artist. And they could bring in four to five different looks and we would work through different different looks.

00:23:21:09 – 00:23:51:15

And then right after they are done. At that time, I was actually doing a reveal, a digital reveal a couple of within the within that week. And then just recently I’ve started doing same day reveals, which is just amazing. And they would get with that, they would get one image complimentary. And then I’m going to be doing an exhibit probably this fall with the women that have participated. And I have well over 50 at this point.

00:23:51:17 – 00:23:54:17

I’ve got sixty. Sixty. Women, so so

00:23:54:19 – 00:23:59:24

I can hear I can already hear people, but what if they all just take the one complimentary photo?

00:24:01:24 – 00:24:02:26

Talk a little bit about that.

00:24:03:03 – 00:24:34:09

Well, first of all, you’re going to I mean, it’s just a law of averages that you’re going to get some people that are going to take their one photo. But if you the goal is to show a lot of variety in outfits and colors and textures and posing and light so that each set of images that you do is going to draw them in in a new way. So natural light is going to look really different than that.

00:24:34:11 – 00:25:09:18

Vanity Fair overhead lighting. So there’s there’s going to be different poses and different light setups and different energy, frankly, that’s going to come through. And I always say to women in consultation, you know, not any one outfit is going to showcase who you are as a woman. Like, we are so multifaceted and you want variety when you see your images and women fall in love with their images. And I’ve had some women take one and I had some woman by 50 images of herself.

00:25:10:02 – 00:25:20:12

And, you know, I left my studio after she was done like shaking because I was so excited. Like I was like she bought 50 images. I couldn’t even get over it.

00:25:20:18 – 00:25:22:01

So awesome. Yeah.

00:25:22:03 – 00:25:52:09

So, I mean, you’re going to get you’re going to get the whole gamut. And I’ve started learning how to tease out through the consultation process or at least through the initial phone call where they stand like, are they price sensitive, are they not? Because I make sure that I go over pricing verbally at the consultation and I have a little PDF that I show them. I talk it over. I make sure that if my like, my lowest package is fourteen ninety, but I don’t say fourteen ninety, I say one thousand four hundred ninety. I want them to hear the word thousand.

00:25:52:11 – 00:26:25:23

And for a long time I could not get that word thousand out of my mouth. It would not leave my lips. I really get forty nine and I would just sort of glide over it like yeah they can see the number. But I started realizing that there’s power in me saying my, my prices out loud and being proud to charge those prices because I’m worth, you know, when you come into the experience we are giving you are all we’re giving you everything we’ve got to make you feel the best that you can be.

00:26:26:16 – 00:26:31:15

And those images are are worth what I’m charging.

00:26:33:07 – 00:27:05:23

They’re they’re worth not just the experience, but it’s not just about the experience, it’s also about the portrait. And if I know this, someone is price sensitive and they’re like, oh, well, that’s a lot of money. I’ll say, OK, well, you know, if she may say, well, you know, if I only want one or two, then I’ll say, OK, well, we can make this more of a mini session, if you would like. And then I’ve had some people say, OK, that sounds that sounds better because I’m I think I’m only really going to want one or two.

00:27:05:25 – 00:27:19:20

But then I’ve also had women say, well, no, no, I really want the full experience. And I’m like, OK. And then a lot of times those women surprise themself and they’re like they come in with a budget and then they blow it because they realize that they’re in love with more images than they realize they were going to be.

00:27:20:01 – 00:27:52:05

Yeah, yeah. That’s so great. I think a lot of other people have done it similarly. And I love what you said, too, about just kind of getting into their head. And there is little part of me that’s like even if they say they only want one or two, they might get more. But I mean, you can kind of get a pretty good read on people for sure. Absolutely. So that’s awesome. Now talk to me about time. So when people are you know, I’ve heard people say I don’t even know when I would build my portfolio or when I would work on my website because I’ve got this full time job.

00:27:52:07 – 00:28:04:15

So how am I going to do it all? Did you have a specific schedule for when you worked on your business versus when when you were teacher versus when you were a wife and when you were a mom? And how did you manage all of that?

00:28:04:17 – 00:28:35:12

Yeah, I mean, I had the benefit of of my daughter, like she graduated college in twenty eighteen, so I don’t have any little kids. So that was definitely an advantage. And so I can’t really speak to what it’s like having little ones. And she’s out of the I’m a I’m an empty nester now, so I have nothing but time to to work on my business when I’m not spending time with my dog and my husband. So I think I worked on my business whenever I was not working on school.

00:28:36:06 – 00:29:07:01

I mean, literally, I like I was I learned to outsource my retouching and I gained about a third of my life back because that was taking me so long. And so I was shooting on weekends like Saturday and Sunday, and I haven’t had a free weekend in I don’t know when. I mean, going forward, I’ve now learned to make sure that I am carving out time for me.

00:29:07:03 – 00:29:37:14

Like Sundays are like nobody’s going to touch Sunday, you know. But I literally, because I had my eye on that goal of wanting to quit teaching, I knew that I had to hustle as much as I possibly could. And there were days like at the end of the school year, holy God, that was just insanity, because you’ve got so many balls in the air, you don’t want to drop any business balls.

00:29:37:16 – 00:29:58:24

You don’t want to drop any school balls. And I ran on not much sleep and a lot of anxiety, but I just pushed through and I would literally just take my Sharpie and just keep marking off the days on the calendar when I could just focus on my business, which is where I am right now. So this was my last year of of teaching after seventeen years. So.

00:29:59:03 – 00:30:01:20

Oh, so awesome. It’s awesome.

00:30:01:22 – 00:30:02:17

It really is.

00:30:03:04 – 00:30:33:06

And I think, I think it’s important to for people to remember that. Yes. You’re going to be stretched for time. Yes. You’re going to have to work off hours, evenings, weekends. If you’ve got a full time day job. Yeah. You’re going to have to do it. If you want it bad enough, that’s what’s going to have to happen. That is one hundred percent what I did. I did not every spare minute I had. I was working on my business every day for a minute and it was a sacrifice I made for a couple of years there.

00:30:33:25 – 00:31:07:21

And now it’s not like that anymore. And you’ll see, too, I mean, Kelly, I can’t wait for September for you when you’re watching all of your teacher friends on Facebook talking about going back to school and counting down the days, only ten more days of summer. And then it’s back to work. like, yeah, it is just like, oh. We don’t have to be going back, I still it’s been, like I said, six years now. Yeah. That I didn’t have to go back to school and it’s still is just so satisfying when I see all my teacher friends going back.

00:31:08:16 – 00:31:09:05

I know

00:31:11:05 – 00:31:23:08

I know about July. They start with the back to school ads. And I’m always swearing at the television like, stop interfering with my summer. It’s not time yet. Yeah, not this year. Not this year, totally.

00:31:23:10 – 00:31:48:29

It is just so liberating. It is so liberating. Yeah, it’s absolutely amazing. And I’m so, so, so excited for you. Thank you. OK, let’s talk a little bit about your pricing. Kelly, I know you said you never really were shoot and burn and that you started at nine hundred, so I did. Let’s talk about that. Did you use gift vouchers where you just like. Nope, this is my pricing and this is what it is. And also, I want to hear about your pricing, what it is today.

00:31:49:05 – 00:31:58:21

Yeah. So I started with my lowest package was nine hundred. I want to say it was about seven or eight images. I was kind of across the board

00:32:00:15 – 00:32:31:15

and I like I said, I did not do shoot and burn. I really I watched I don’t remember when Sue did a talk about pricing specifically and she talked about industry standard. And I was like, well, heck, I’m just going to be industry standard. Then we’re just going to do this and I’m going to have to trust the process that she knows what she’s talking about. And of course she does. So that’s where I started. And then my lowest package now is eight images for one thousand four hundred ninety.

00:32:31:17 – 00:32:32:21

So I’m still practicing my pricing.

00:32:34:13 – 00:32:43:12

And then I have a middle package and then my top package is twenty five images, and that’s at thirty six ninety. So.

00:32:43:20 – 00:32:46:09

Yeah. And what’s your average sale at this point.

00:32:46:11 – 00:32:50:05

You know it’s about eighteen hundred. Sweet.

00:32:50:13 – 00:32:51:29

Yeah. That’s awesome.

00:32:52:01 – 00:33:19:25

Yeah. It’s gone up actually over the past couple of months when I started doing in person like same day reveal, like I went from fully retouching my images and having people come back like two weeks later to see their images fully retouched. And I would do like twenty five. And then I was like, I can’t spend all this time retouching, I’m just losing hours that just leaking out.

00:33:21:28 – 00:33:52:13

And then I started doing unedited. I would have them come back, I wouldn’t do same day, but I would have them come back like within a week or so and I would do non edit, unedited reveals, digital reveal. And I was really scared. The first time I did that, I was like, they’re not going to like themselves. They’re not going to. But, you know, you have to tell me, first of all, people know what they look like. And second of all, you have to prep them and just say, look, I haven’t done any retouching. These are straight out of camera.

00:33:52:18 – 00:34:23:02

I need you to focus on your pose and your expression, because just literally about just about everything else I can I can edit. And if you don’t love the pose and you don’t love the expression, it’s not a keeper. So I would take them through a process where I would bring them into Lightroom and we would go through the images and we would whittle them down and they would choose whatever package they they would land on. And sometimes they would continue to to go cut further.

00:34:23:07 – 00:34:24:10

Sometimes they wouldn’t.

00:34:26:14 – 00:35:00:05

But I started showing lots and lots of images like I show probably it depends on the session and how many people are there. But if it’s like a 50 over 50 woman, I probably show somewhere between 60 and 80 images or so. Yeah. And I used to shoot a lot more images, but then I realized I’m just over shooting and it’s the same pose and like I like I hear Sue get in my head like move your body or move her stop clicking the shutter at the same image.

00:35:00:19 – 00:35:36:24

And so I’m much better about knowing when I’ve got it. And so I take her through that process and and we just start culling right there. And I think clients feel really empowered knowing that they’re helping to take out the ones that they don’t like and keeping the ones that they do because they’re the ones that they’re left with they really love. Yeah, I used to go through and get rid of the blanks, and I don’t even do that anymore. I just keep I keep everything in because I want them to really fall in love with the ones that they they say, oh yes, I love that one.

00:35:37:00 – 00:35:37:27

Right, right.

00:35:38:08 – 00:35:42:29

So, yeah, that makes sense. I still could never I still could never do.

00:35:45:02 – 00:36:16:03

Well, now to do it same day, like, I don’t even have them come back because I didn’t want to make another appointment. I have I actually have them do while they’re cleaning up and changing back into their driving attire. I literally will in the studio. I will literally get my MacBook out and slide the card in and load them into light room. And I might do a quick little like if something was a little bit on the darker side, I might just brighten it a little bit. And they they come over and they sit down and they pick them right then and there.

00:36:16:07 – 00:36:19:10

And it’s they love the fact that they don’t have to come back.

00:36:19:21 – 00:36:44:18

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, that’s awesome. And you know, just goes to show there’s so many different ways to do things like totally. Yeah. I’m not comfortable doing that, but I know a lot of people are and also like so I know you sell a lot of prints whereas I’m not focused so I just do my reveals on Zoom. So everyone just has a different way. Let’s talk a little bit about your prints, because I know you’ve you’ve been selling a lot of them lately, right?

00:36:44:27 – 00:37:07:12

I have. My biggest seller is so I’ve been doing portfolio boxes. There’s beautiful portfolio boxes from three XM and I do a five by seven print in a white eight by ten matte and they’re perfect desk size. Yeah. And I and I call them desk size because I don’t want them to be confused with something you could frame and put on the wall.

00:37:07:28 – 00:37:10:14

Is that a selling technique so that now.

00:37:11:05 – 00:37:41:21

Yeah it is. I mean I have, I have different samples in my studio of wall art, so I make sure that I, you know, show them the different sizes that they can get for for wall art. Wall art is an area that I really want to start focusing more on. And I’ve I’ve I mean, I’m in a new studio now, so I need to put samples up that are nice and big and beefy and, you know, inspire people to want to go big. I used to shoot in my home studio.

00:37:41:23 – 00:38:20:05

I literally, like, woke up one morning and I told my husband we were going to move the dining room table out of the dining room. And I painted it white and and adjoining to the dining room is my office, where we would do like literally hair and makeup next to my desk. And it was a total of like three hundred square feet, including the office. And we have a barn on our property and the upstairs of the barn. We dormered it out about three years ago and my husband was thinking that maybe he could do like this man cave office entertainment area.

00:38:20:07 – 00:38:20:22

And I was

00:38:20:24 – 00:38:21:29

like, I know where this is going.

00:38:22:22 – 00:38:45:15

Yeah, that’s adorable, but I really think it would be a great studio. And so it became my new studio. So now I have a nice nine foot ceilings and I have like a reveal area where I have a nice big, big screen TV where I can mirror my laptop, a little half bath and I have two makeup stations now and

00:38:47:08 – 00:38:54:27

plenty of wall space to show a nice big prints and framed images. So it’s really it’s a it’s such a happy place.

00:38:55:07 – 00:38:58:29

Oh, that’s so awesome. I love it. And now you don’t have to be in your dining room anymore.

00:38:59:03 – 00:39:01:00

I don’t. Yeah.

00:39:02:00 – 00:39:11:09

So OK, Kelly, talk to us a little bit about how do you focus on selling or upselling, I should say, wall portraits and wall prints. How do you, what’s your strategy for that?

00:39:12:00 – 00:39:44:13

I find that for and it’s honestly, I’m not an expert at this and it’s an area that I really know that I need to get better at. I find that I am most successful upselling wall art to a mom if it’s their kids or if it’s a family session or if it’s a couple. I don’t have a lot of women who were part of the fifty over fifty getting wall art of just themselves. And I think that not that they’re not deserving of that.

00:39:44:15 – 00:39:55:16

And I say to them, which ones are your favorites? And you know, would you like to choose one of those and do you have a place where you could hang that

00:39:57:08 – 00:40:28:22

Some women will take some women, most women don’t bite. Some women say, well, let me think about it. So clearly, I have some work to do in this area, but I find that a lot of times it’s because these women are not feeling like they should hang something, quote unquote, that big of just themself. So it becomes a it’s really a self-value issue on their end. And I’ve even struggled with that.

00:40:29:24 – 00:40:34:16

And I really want to order like I did my own photo shoot back in twenty eighteen,

00:40:34:21 – 00:40:35:22

which I love, by the way.

00:40:36:03 – 00:40:54:22

Yeah. And I, I have my Folio box and I go through those images and I relive that day and it was wonderful. But I’ve never taken the time to say you know what I want to turn this one into a piece of art. And I think I need to do that and hang it in my studio.

00:40:55:00 – 00:40:56:08

That’s not a bad idea,

00:40:56:16 – 00:40:59:19

you know, because I can say, look, this is me.

00:41:01:18 – 00:41:31:29

And so I think that’s I think it’s important. I think as women, we need to give ourselves permission to say, you know what, yes, I am worth you know, I’m worth having prints of myself and 50 of them if I want them, like I bought thirty four of myself. And some women would just think, like, that’s crazy. But yeah, I think, I think women need permission to say, you know, I’m I’m beautiful and I’m worth it. And why not. Yeah. Yeah. You know, why not.

00:41:32:13 – 00:41:54:21

Yeah for sure. I think, I think there’s this, this idea that it’s like vain or something to have portraits of yourself and. Exactly. It’s back in the day. It was not vain. It was something people did, you know, way back when our grandparents or great grandparents before that. And I mean people will post selfies. It’s like, what’s the difference? Right. Right.

00:41:55:29 – 00:42:26:16

So it’s true. And I’ve had women who who will say this feels kind of vain. And I say, well, do you feel vain going to get a massage? And they say, now, do you feel vain going to get your nails done? No. OK, that’s a form of self-love. This photo shoot is time for you and you have portraits that are going to last 50 plus years like, you’re going to be back at the nail salon in a week and a half. Totally. You know, so this is to me, this is a no brainer.

00:42:26:18 – 00:42:41:29

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, I’m so excited for you, Kelly. It just seems like, oh, my gosh, you’ve just come so far and here you are. I mean, if you could go back five years ago, what would you say to yourself back then, knowing what you know now?

00:42:42:08 – 00:43:08:23

Yeah, I think I would say be patient. It’s going to happen, but you have to go through these different learning experiences and phases of learning your business because it’s not just about shooting and retouching and learning posing like there’s a whole business side that you have to start wrapping your head around like you’re in this to

00:43:10:09 – 00:43:40:17

make money and earn a living, you know, in addition to doing what you love. I’m not I’ve always sort of suffered from like a little bit of anxiety and and wanting things like immediate gratification, like I want it now. Yeah. And you have to you have to take a breath. And know that if you do the work and you show up for it wholeheartedly. You’ll get there.

00:43:41:27 – 00:43:44:25

You will get there, yeah, so just be patient.

00:43:45:05 – 00:43:46:08

Yeah, it’s so true,

00:43:46:10 – 00:43:51:24

but it’s hard to hear. So I probably at that time would have said, oh, what do you know, whatever

00:43:52:24 – 00:44:22:15

when you’re in it so deep and you’re in the weeds and it’s just like you can’t see the end. It can be it can be tricky. Totally. Well, I’m really proud of you and I’m really excited for you. And it’s thank you. It’s just so cool to be able to have you on here and and to know that come September, you don’t have to go back. Yay. So awesome. Yeah, it is. All right, Kelly, I have a couple more questions that I always ask at the end of each episode. And the first one is, what is something you can’t live without when you’re doing a photo shoot?

00:44:23:00 – 00:44:49:03

So I was going to say. I had this little spider holster hand grip that I put on my camera, that I discovered that when I saw Sue’s spider holster that she was wearing, I bought one of those. But then I saw they have these little handgrips and it looked like my camera is now like an extension of my arm because I could not I just feel so secure holding on to that. But that’s sort of a boring answer. So

00:44:51:14 – 00:45:21:21

while it’s true, I think really and truly what I couldn’t live without would be music. I, I make sure that I have the music that my client loves to listen to playing when they arrive at the studio, because I want them to feel like they’ve can totally relax. And so when we have music playing in the studio during the shoot, some songs we’ll turn up and they start dancing. And it just lets people everybody loves music of some sort.

00:45:21:23 – 00:45:34:22

And so when when I can get my clients to relax and I love music and I think it just it adds a whole dimension to the shoot that just makes things so, so much happier.

00:45:34:28 – 00:45:43:03

It does. It sets the tone for sure. Sure. Yeah, it’s awesome. Yeah. OK, number two, how do you spend your time when you’re not working?

00:45:44:02 – 00:46:15:26

So I am in the process of I love to garden flower gardening. So I really I’m in the process of we put a walkway in a few years ago and I’ve just started really putting my plants in the ground and we’re going to be doing a beautiful patio in the back and I’m going to be putting like an English garden back there. So I really love to garden, but I’m also I really love cooking and I’m starting to do more baking and I love spending time.

00:46:16:07 – 00:46:33:21

My daughter’s twenty five and she’s up in Boston now. So whenever I can see her, especially now that things are relaxing a bit with pandemic stuff, spending time with her and my husband and take. We never said where you’re located. I’m in Clinton, Connecticut. OK.

00:46:33:23 – 00:46:35:07

I just want to make sure we cover that. Yeah.

00:46:36:03 – 00:46:37:01

Right on the shoreline.

00:46:37:15 – 00:46:55:28

Awesome, very cool, it’s and there’s just something so freeing, like you’re going to be able to bake whenever you damn well feel like it now, you know what I mean? It’s not like like you can go to the grocery store in the middle of the day and run to the bank and have lunch with friends. You know, you can do whatever you want.

00:46:56:00 – 00:47:12:09

Now it’s empowering. It’s so freeing knowing that I can structure my day any way I wish to. And the thing is, it’s like I feel like I’m going to have to learn how to structure my day, because as a teacher, your day is structured for you like lunches at 11:50, you know,

00:47:12:16 – 00:47:13:08

30 minutes

00:47:13:10 – 00:47:35:12

and then. Yeah, and then you better be at recess because that person who’s been doing your lunch duty is now waiting to go eat their lunch. So it’s definitely a structure that I have always had put in place for me. And so learning how to sort of time, block and chunk my time is going to be a little bit of a learning curve. But yeah, well, I’m sure it’ll be fine.

00:47:35:27 – 00:47:41:20

Yeah, very cool. OK, next question. What is your favorite inspirational quote.

00:47:42:02 – 00:48:12:29

So my favorite quote. This is something I’ve always held on to, and it’s by Maya Angelou and she has said that I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. And it’s a quote that I have held on to throughout my teaching career, because kids for sure don’t usually listen to what you say, but they always remember.

00:48:14:14 – 00:48:58:11

how you make them feel, and I think it’s true for clients to like when I get on the phone with people for their initial conversation, I get on the phone like we’re already friends. I have a smile on my face and I want people to feel my positive, kind energy coming at them because I want them to feel like they already know me on some level. And I just think that it’s so like I used to teach my kids, like kindness really matters more than so many other things, and I just want people to always think of me as someone that made them feel good on whatever level.

00:48:58:24 – 00:49:03:05

Absolutely. That’s one of my favorite quotes of all time. It’s an amazing quote.

00:49:03:17 – 00:49:05:23

Yeah. By an amazing woman. Mm hmm.

00:49:06:20 – 00:49:15:13

OK, and then last question, Will, second the last question is, what would you tell people who are just starting out? And I know you kind of covered that, I think, a little bit, but is there anything that you would add to that?

00:49:15:25 – 00:49:39:02

I think I would again, I would say that, you know, just being going back to just being patient, it takes time. And while you’re building your portfolio, I think it’s it’s important to really, you know, shoot what you love to shoot. Like, I love photographing children. There’s something really soulful about kids and

00:49:40:24 – 00:50:12:08

I think that when you build a folio that you love, then you get excited to to sell it and to talk about it. I mean, people have always said to me, when you talk about teaching versus talking about your photography, like when you switch your whole face lights up, like your energy shifts. And there’s a reason for that, because I love I love my body of work and I love what I do. And thinking about that, like it’s like climbing a mountain.

00:50:12:10 – 00:50:47:17

Right. Like and I’ve heard this analogy on on SBE like you’re going around the mountain and every time you come around again, you’re a little bit higher. You’ve learned a little more. The view is a little different because you get more perspective. Right. And so just know that you’re on this journey that there’s no top of the mountain. You know, I don’t think there should ever be a top of the mountain because I think if you’ve gotten to a place where you think you know it all and you’ve done it all, then you’ve stopped learning and you stop being creative, you should always be stretching yourself in some way.

00:50:47:28 – 00:50:55:10

So awesome. Yeah, very cool. Well, thank you again. Oh, where can people find you online if they’re looking for you.

00:50:55:21 – 00:51:18:15

Oh so my website is www. KelleyNorcia.com. I’m on Instagram which is Kelley_ Norcia_ Photography and then on Facebook I’m at Kelley Norcia Photography. So that’s where you can find me.

00:51:19:05 – 00:51:31:21

Sweet. Yeah. Awesome. Well thank you again, and I will see you online in the Facebook group soon and enjoy your summer. Enjoy your summer knowing you don’t have to count down the days.

00:51:32:28 – 00:51:40:24

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Nikki. This has been such an honor. It really has. And and I have loved chatting with you and catching up.

00:51:41:04 – 00:51:43:06

Awesome. All right. Thanks, Kelly. Take care.

00:51:43:17 – 00:51:44:14

You too. Bye bye.

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