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The secret sauce to standing out in a saturated Market - Catalina Bloch
121 Plays4 years ago
Happy Woo Wednesdays! Catalina is a badass boss babe!
The funny thing is that Catalina used to hate photo-booths. She thought they were hideous and she wasn't about to put a wig on her head as a prop, ewe.
When she was introduced to Brandon Wong's (episode 8) Photobooth Supply Company at WPPI she was amazed at how stunning the photo-booth looked. She bought her 1st booth with her parents emergency credit card, named her company MDRN Photobooth Co. and hit the ground running turning his biz into a 7 figure business in less than 6 years.
She charges a lot more than average for her photo-booth packages but clients pay her prices because she stands out from the rest of her competition. She teaches us the secret sauce to standing out in an overly saturated market.
Catalina is the founder of MDRN Photobooth Co., Canada's leading photobooth company. She has grown her business from a side hustle to a company that now employs 12 full time staff in 3 different locations in just under 6 years.
Follow Catalina here:
https://www.instagram.com/catalinabloch
https://www.instagram.com/mdrnstudiorental
https://www.youtube.com/user/photoboothsupplyco
https://www.instagram.com/mdrnphotoboothco
https://www.instagram.com/brandon_wong
Follow me here
http://instagram.com/carissawoo
download my free guide
https://carissa-woo.mykajabi.com/lead-generating-machine
Purchase your own Salsa booth here:
http://photoboothsupplyco.com/carissawoo
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey guys, it's Carissa. Thank you so much for listening to my podcast. If you guys are enjoying all these episodes, please subscribe to this channel and also leave me a review. If you can, tag me on Instagram with a screenshot. So today I speak with Catalina from Modern Photo Booth and she is a wealth of information. She turned her company into a seven figure business in less than six years.
00:00:28
Speaker
And if you check her out, you're going to love her website. It's beautiful. And she employs 12 people. Crazy, right? Enjoy this episode.
Carissa's Photography and Coaching Journey
00:00:42
Speaker
Welcome to Get a Heck Yes with Carissa Wu. I'm your host, Carissa, and I've been a Los Angeles wedding photographer for over a decade. I've traveled the world, built my team, and seen it all. I now coach wedding photographers hit 10K a month and build a thriving business. In this podcast, we are going to deep dive into how top wedding creatives get that heck yes from their dream clients. We are not holding back on the struggles of the business and how to push through the noise. Some healthy hustle, mindset shifts, up-leveling your money story,
00:01:10
Speaker
time hacks because I'm a mom of two, a little bit of woo-woo, and most importantly, self-love and confidence are just a few of the many things we will talk about. I want to give you a genuine thank you for following along my journey. I hope to inspire you every Woo Wednesday so that you say heck yes to listening to this podcast. See you guys soon!
Catalina's Business Growth Story
00:01:33
Speaker
I'm so excited to introduce you to Catalina Block
00:01:36
Speaker
She is a founder of Modern Photo Booth Co., and she's from Canada. It's a leading photo booth company, and she has grown her business from a side hustle to a company that now employs 12 full-time staff in three different locations in under six years. Hi, Catalina. Hello. Thank you so much. How are you doing? I'm good, thanks for having me.
00:01:57
Speaker
Good. I've been stalking your Instagram and your website for an hour this morning, and I got to say, your website is freaking amazing. It really tells you what you do, and it's so eye-catching. Yeah, I couldn't take my eyes off of it, and your Instagram is just so beautiful too. Thank you. It's really hard this year to revamp everything.
00:02:19
Speaker
that is very nice to hear. Yeah, so just a little backstory about me and you, like how we're meeting for the first time right now. But Brandon Wong, he's the owner of a photo booth supply Co. And you actually bought his photo booths. He sells photo booths to photographers. So kind of tell me like, how you
00:02:40
Speaker
And he told me like he referred me to you, so he told me you're like crushing it for so long and you help him out a lot too with education side. So kind of tell me like a little bit how you got started. You don't have to tell me like all of a sudden the photo booth, but even go like way, way back how you got started in like photography.
00:02:56
Speaker
All right, yeah. Well, I mean, I'd always done photography, but like everyone, I was like, I want to be a photographer when I grew up. And of course, I went and got a real job. Well, I shouldn't even say it. I shouldn't say a real job. I went and got like, quote unquote, real job, but most people say it's a real job.
00:03:11
Speaker
Anyways, so I went to insurance. I actually was in insurance for 14 years. It taught me a lot. Yeah, that's a whole story for another day. Yeah, that's boring. It really is. But while I was working for an insurance company, doing business development and stuff, I actually was doing a second shooting for a wedding. I was going to do wedding photography. I love styling weddings.
00:03:41
Speaker
I loved everything about weddings and so I worked with a lot of photographers and then I decided to go out on my own.
00:03:47
Speaker
you know, the usual flow of how to get into photography.
Catalina's Early Challenges and Inspirations
00:03:51
Speaker
And yeah, my first year, I guess of like really doing stuff on my own, I was like, it's really hard to make a profit as a wedding photographer, like you a lot, right? Like, totally. Yeah, I totally agree. I don't understand how some people charge like $500. I'm like, you're Yeah, anyway,
00:04:11
Speaker
Yeah, you're losing money. You really are. I was a little lost and I was like, okay, I need to go hear the experts talk about this. I went to WPPI and I want to say it was literally the most epic experience I've ever had in my entire life. It kind of went downhill. WPPI went a little bit downhill after that. I hope it comes back to that glory.
00:04:34
Speaker
Have you been to WPPI? Yeah, so I went like three years in a row, my first. So back in the day, but I think I hadn't plateaued, but what year did you, were you talking about? So this would have been 2014. It was the last year of the Silver Rush party for that, where you got to like dress up all fancy and go to the hotel and stuff. Oh, I miss that. So yeah.
00:04:59
Speaker
That was an amazing party. So I went and I was super broke, even though I had been working full-time. I still was not in a good financial position. I remember I shared a room with two friends at the Excalibur. The rooms are like $30,000 a night. It smells like Axe body spray.
00:05:20
Speaker
But we went on free expo passes, so I didn't even get to go to the big classes, but back then they used to have, like, Richard's Photo Lab used to have really big names that would come and do little talking points, and one of them was Jose Villa, and he actually did one on how to find your ideal client, and I think there was another one with
00:05:42
Speaker
Oh, shoot, his name is escaping me right now. But Elizabeth Messina, I want to say, was there too. Anyways, I got free education just from being on the floor, right? About like how to price myself, how to find out. Wonderful. And that's where I saw the photo booth. So on the trade show floor, I saw this photo booth and I actually never liked photo booths. If I saw them, I'd never go in them because I'm like,
00:06:09
Speaker
Well, it to me, aesthetically, it was horrendous, like being buying glasses and like, you know, wigs that I don't know where they've been. Like, I didn't want to touch them. That's funny. I know it's terrible to say now, but that's also what led me to this, right? Because I was like,
00:06:29
Speaker
I would want this photo booth at my wedding because it's super modern. It's a studio quality print. That was the other thing. Most photo booths that you would see is a webcam. The print's all crooked. The lighting's terrible. I'm like, I don't want that.
00:06:46
Speaker
This one. Totally. Yeah. It was a mobile studio and I'm like, if there's people like me who are going to be this picky about a photo booth and be like, I would want this. That means like if I want it, then somebody else is going to want it too. So it just clicked for me. Like, wow. I don't know what happened. I bought the photo booth with my parents' emergency credit card. I was probably too old to have a parental emergency credit card at that point. I love it.
00:07:36
Speaker
That was an emergency, you have to buy it.
00:07:43
Speaker
Profit margins were so much better a lot less, you know work if I think if I would have had like a roster of like weddings Like that would have been crazy. This is why like I think every wedding photographer needs to have a photo Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you like I don't really do this But we're talking about like how you started and now but just we talked a little bit about before we started recording but tell me like where you are now with your company like
00:08:11
Speaker
your employees and how much you're making, blah, blah, blah. You don't have to disclose if you don't want to, but I want the listener to know the end game a little bit. Yeah, for sure.
Business Expansion and Pandemic Resilience
00:08:23
Speaker
So my first year of business, which was six years ago, sorry, my first year and a half, because the first three, four months didn't really count because I was just building it up, but that year we ended six figures and profit margins are 70% at that point, especially if you're owner-operator. You're one person to six years later.
00:08:42
Speaker
We have three locations. So we're in Ottawa, Toronto and Calgary in Canada. And we have like, I have two studios essentially. So I have like a warehouse where we do all of our testing, but it's all like pretty and stuff. And then we have our photography studio and 12 full-time staff. And before the pandemic hit, we were well on our way to hitting seven figures. But even during the pandemic, we managed to stay like
00:09:09
Speaker
pretty well in our 2022 is like, we're going back to those seven figure targets. So damn girl, you're a badass boss, babe. I know we're talking about photo booth today. But how did you start that studio? What was like the vision? And is it for wedding photographers? They rented out? Well, we actually needed more office space as our team grew. And so originally, the warehouse that I have downstairs was my vision studio. It has this beautiful glass garage door.
00:09:38
Speaker
And it's all white and it's like, you know, open concept and stuff. But then with all the stuff that we had coming in, obviously we're starting to get a little crowded and all the equipment. And so like I was already starting to think, you know, as we grow, we need more space. My friend actually had this as her studio originally. And when the pandemic hit, she was like, I don't want to keep the studio, but I don't really want to just give it away. She's like, will you take it over? Wow.
00:10:05
Speaker
which is probably not the smartest decision to do during a pandemic, but thinking to the future, I'm like, yeah, you know, so I was very lucky in that, you know, I was able to take it over from her and it's enabled us to do a lot of styled shoots, but we do also rent it out. So there's a huge need for
00:10:26
Speaker
natural light studios here in the west side of where I live. So it's done quite well. And we rented out to local photographers, brand photographers, like really anyone who wants to come and shoot. So yeah, it's been great. It's gorgeous. So you do you shoot weddings to or you just mainly focus on the photo booth and the studio?
00:10:47
Speaker
Yeah, I don't shoot any weddings anymore. Not at all. Yeah, I'm trying to get out. I mean, I got out of it years and years ago, pretty much after a year, after I'd done the weddings I had already committed to that year, I was done with wedding photography and just focused on photo booths. So we just only focus on our photo booths. And even the studio is kind of like, again, just a side thing, right? We don't, we're not usually here on the weekends, we're either at an event or
00:11:17
Speaker
you know, the office staff is at home. So it's like might as well someone might as well use it. It's such a beautiful space. Yes, it's gorgeous. Okay, so I want to ask you some powerful questions. So let's start with what is your biggest accomplishment in business in the last six years? Whoo. Um,
00:11:39
Speaker
And I mean, I think growing our team during the pandemic was pretty huge. Yeah. You are amazing. How did you do that? As an events company, you know, at first it was pretty scary. We were, you know, coming into the pandemic, we had a healthy bank account, which really helped out. We had, like I mentioned before, you know, we were kind of in our explosion phase at that point after like years of hustling and
00:12:08
Speaker
you know, anyone who owns their own business, you kind of go through a couple years where you kind of don't make money because you're just putting it all back into the business. Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, waiting waiting for your big payday and then the pandemic hit. So we kind of had to like surf the wave for a little bit. And you know, Brandon was actually a big influence in this because, you know, he really said, like, you can't really just
00:12:35
Speaker
stay where you are and go with the flow and these kinds of things. You really need to like have a goal and go for it regardless of what gets thrown at you. And that really resonated with me on all levels. So I just said, all right, well, we're going to do everything we can
00:12:52
Speaker
to make it through and then that's where we kind of pivoted. We went to virtual, we went to doing like virtual tours to help some of our partners out. We have like a 3D camera and so we partnered with a lot of venues. We gave them free tours for like six months so that they could have their clients still see their venues and build those relationships with them, but also help them. And we did everything we could, you know, and we just
00:13:19
Speaker
It worked. So here we are. Wow. I know. I just had the interview with Brandon and I was like, wow, if I had this conversation with him 10 years ago, my life would have been very different in a good way. Yeah. He's really great when it comes to like big vision stuff and yeah, definitely.
00:13:39
Speaker
Yeah, so what has been the biggest struggle of your business and what is your woo factor? I call it my woo factor. What makes you stand out? I mean, I kind of know because I stalked your freaking website for an hour at Instagram, but in your words, what was your biggest struggle and then how do you stand out the most or why do you stand out?
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah, they both are kind of the same in the sense that like the biggest struggle is a lot of people don't take photobooth seriously. You know, they think of it as an afterthought. We are the last thing that's considered at a wedding. It's like, oh, if we have budget, we're going to do a photobooth.
00:14:13
Speaker
And people expect it to be cheap because they're still used to the cheaper looking photo booths. So that was a struggle to get out of that mindset for people. And I think that is also what set us apart is that even from day one when it was my husband and I hustling photo booths out of our front closet,
00:14:38
Speaker
We had the, our website looked like we were a bigger company. We had like a business. We had a 1-800 number, you know, the we, we were a team of people that would do it. So kind of like a fake it till you make it.
00:14:53
Speaker
Totally. And that's what I feel has really set us apart from everyone else because, you know, even in our first year, we landed some really big commercial clients just based on the fact that they were like, you guys are so professional. We decided to go with you even though you're three times, sometimes four times more expensive. How much do you guys charge for an event? Our average wedding right now is $17.50 for three hours. Okay. Okay.
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah, so that's a little more than others, but your backdrops are amazing and all the features no one else has.
00:15:31
Speaker
Yeah, well, and I mean, we've poised ourselves in the industry too, like again with that professional side of things where like we show people the process that we go through, like we test extensively, we have in-house designers, we really try to get to like the end goal of our clients. Even if it's a wedding, it's like, you know, are you getting this wedding photo booth because you want to entertain your guests? Is it a wedding favor?
00:15:57
Speaker
Is it something for you? Why do you want to have a photo booth at your wedding? And then we try to really build around that. So we really want to integrate ourselves in every event that we do, whether it's a wedding or a giant corporate experiential marketing thing. We want to work with our clients to make sure that they're really happy with it. We want them to be just as excited about their photo booth as we are. Yes, that's awesome. So I'm in the stage of my career where I'm really
00:16:25
Speaker
into creating teams and automation. So I'm generally curious, what are the roles of your team members, your employees?
00:16:34
Speaker
Yes, I love automations, by the way. One of my friends was all about how to automate your photo booth business. And that, again, that's how we stayed. Well, one, I ran the business while still working full time for almost three and a half years before I hired my first admin person. I had like event staff. But right now, we have an events team which is made up of
00:17:00
Speaker
Four people, four full-time people. One of them manages just our weddings. One of them manages just our corporate. We have an assistant. And then the other one is an outside salesperson. So they are in charge of the bigger clients, that kind of stuff.
00:17:16
Speaker
I have an activations team which is made up of one person who manages just the equipment and making sure that the event staff is booked and trained and all that kind of stuff, and then I have a programmer. And his job is solely to program photobooths. Oh, that's so cool.
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah, that was probably one of my favorite hires ever because that used to be me. I hate that part too. I really loved it, but it takes so much time. Whenever you get a really out of the box idea and we say yes to everything, literally, we'll figure it out and I love that.
00:17:54
Speaker
you know, I love figuring stuff out. And then we have a bunch of like, like, not contract, but part time staff that actually do our events for the most part. But yeah, that's pretty much the structure. I think I got everyone. Oh, shoot, I forgot the design team. Yeah, full time graphic designer. He also does a lot of of our 3D stuff because we do like Instagram filters as well as an addition. And then we have a motion graphics
00:18:20
Speaker
person slash video person. So he does a lot of our, we're heavy on video production for advertising and stuff. And so this year I was able to hire someone to like do that full time instead of, you know, me on my iPhone. Wow, this is amazing. You run a full on legit business. I'm so happy and I don't even know you. Thank you. You're so inspirational. Okay, one more question before we go into our hot topic. It's a fun question, but what's the best part of your job?
00:18:49
Speaker
or your career, it's being you. Yeah, I mean, I love it. I love all of it. But I have to say, I mean, obviously it has its downsides or some days where I'm just like banging my head against the wall going like,
Creative Freedom and Client Relationships
00:19:02
Speaker
what's happening? But it's more like day to day stress. I still wake up every morning super excited to go to work. I love that. I think the challenges that we get presented with nowadays from our clients, like
00:19:19
Speaker
We've managed to really build that trust, even with our wedding planners. We work pretty exclusively with wedding planners. And nowadays, they literally will just be like, all right, girl, this is our decor. This is what they want to do. Here's their budget. You tell me, what do you think would be best for them? So there's a lot of creativity that's
00:19:44
Speaker
given back to us. So it's not, you know, through the trust. Yeah, which is really nice. I love the creative direction side of things and just being able to like, come out with new visions and you know, the stylist side of me, which is something else I also did for a little bit, enjoys creating that kind of stuff. Yeah, you're definitely creative. Yeah. Cool. I love it. Okay. So what is our hot topic today?
00:20:12
Speaker
The hot topic. Well, let's talk about why every wedding photographer needs to have a photo booth because I want to go back to that comment. Yes. Yeah. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that.
Integrating Photo Booths in Wedding Photography
00:20:27
Speaker
Okay. So one of the, again, I told you like I was doing wedding photography and all that. And although photo booths did take over, you know, I remember thinking back then, like if I had a full season of weddings,
00:20:40
Speaker
And then I bought a photo booth. Like that's like an extra anywhere from like 700 to $1,500 I could have been making on those weddings, right? And if you're not bringing the photo booth as a wedding photographer, then somebody else is. Like I know the wedding photographers in this city and we generally end up working with the same ones over and over again. And I'm just like,
00:21:05
Speaker
If I was you, I would just buy one. Totally. You know what I mean? There's always going to be a niche market for people who want a dedicated photo booth company and all that kind of stuff. But at the same time, there's so many people who just want the simplicity of not having to have multiple vendors. And it goes hand in hand. If you're a wedding photographer, you can just buy a salsa booth, which is one of Brandon's photo booths.
00:21:34
Speaker
And you know it's really easy to set up like we generally just drop them off at that when we drop off at weddings and then we come back six hours later right so like those ones are easy and you can just upgrade your packages by
00:21:48
Speaker
Good chunk of money and a lot of that is gonna be like I'm not saying it's like that easy that it'd take you like three seconds to do but yeah Our total to set everything up including like correspondence back and forth that kind of stuff And then you set up the photo booth let them run with that you're off doing photography You know and and it's also a really
00:22:08
Speaker
great way to attract new clients as well. Yeah, with the email list, we were talking about that on Brandon's episode. It's crazy. That blew my mind. I actually bought a photo booth from him a long time ago, and I booked out photo booth, or I sold the photo booth package before I even got my photo booth. Yeah. But you do wedding photography, right?
00:22:32
Speaker
Yeah, but now I'm more like a wedding photography coach. So I was kind of thinking about you last night in my dreams, not to be creepy, but just kind of like asking you questions after even this in this episode about like how I could start photo booth.
00:22:49
Speaker
course, it's funny, because like, almost every, so I've done like two other podcasts with people and they've both bought photo booths, right? So crazy chat with you. Yeah, because we're me and Brandon, we're talking a lot about the liability of wedding photographers, having associates and I trust my people like they're my best friends and I love them and they're talented. But you know, it is a lot of pressure. That's just the photographer but photo booth is not as nearly as much pressure.
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it definitely, it just depends on like how you structure your company, right? Like if you really want it to be super hands off. Like I know some photo booth company is that they have multiple photos and they literally don't send people out to any of them.
00:23:34
Speaker
on a Friday night, they'll go, they'll drop them off and then they come back at midnight and then they pick them all up or they come back the next day. Oh, that's so interesting. Right? That's our weekend. I mean, how easy is it to hire someone to just drive and drop off and drive and pick up? Oh my God, that's so interesting. Wow. I love that. Okay, so I think that was like why we should buy a photo booth bar. Our hot topic is
00:23:58
Speaker
The secret sauce is standing out in the saturated market.
Niching in a Saturated Market
00:24:02
Speaker
So you're going to give us some tips for that. So what is your tip number one?
00:24:09
Speaker
Shout out to our sponsors! Photo Booth Supply Co. helps entrepreneurs start and scale their businesses by creating meaningful experiences with a photo booth. Living in a digital age, anywhere people gather is an opportunity for an experience, and what better way to capture those memories than with a photo booth? There has never been an easier way for photographers to scale their businesses, increase their marketing efforts, and maintain cash flow during off-season than with a photo booth like the Sasso booth.
00:24:36
Speaker
Increase revenue $600 to $800 per event by adding a photo booth to your services so you can make more and work less. If you don't provide a photo booth, someone else will. So stop leaving money on the table and get yourself a salsa booth today. Okay. So tip number one is to niche. Okay. I'm going to write this down. Yeah. Okay. Tell me more. Tell me more. A lot of people are like, they get a photo booth and they're like, it does everything, you know?
00:25:07
Speaker
It's like saying, you know, you're a photographer and you shoot everything. It's not gonna be easy for people to be like, oh, you know, that person is that photographer. Like, you need to go to that person if you want your wedding photography. So the go-to person. So, you know, with any business, you wanna pick your niche. And I always tell people, like, figure out what part of the photo booth you love doing. Like, if you love black and white, then be the black and white photo booth. It doesn't mean that you're never gonna do a color photo booth.
00:25:35
Speaker
But because people will still ask you for things just because you're a photo booth company, they'll ask you like, oh, could you do this? So you don't need to advertise it, but you need to figure out what it is that you want to do and not you need to advertise really, really hard. Right. Yeah. Either be the black and white company or be the glam company, you know, like the one that does only glam booths and
00:25:57
Speaker
or be like the green screen expert. So what is your niche, Catalina? So ours was all about being the styled photobooth. Oh, interesting. Yeah, nobody, for weddings at least, nobody did styled photobooth. So we really talked about
00:26:17
Speaker
A, the quality of our boost being studio quality, and then it evolved into the styling because then we added like Boomerang boost and iPad boost and like all the, I have a lot of booths now, but it's all about styling it to blend in with that event. So we'll never be the eyesore in the room. Yeah, I know. They're gorgeous. I was like, is this a styled shoot or a photo booth? But I guess it's both. That's why you can start 1700.
00:26:45
Speaker
Yeah. I have a lot of backdrops. Let me tell you. I have a problem. Where do you get those backdrops, the pink one?
00:26:54
Speaker
Oh, okay. I actually helped them design a couple of them. My favorite color is black. So I'll let you guess which one I designed on this. And your black shirt with your black shirt. I know. I'm all black. I don't wear black at all. That's so funny. Okay. What is your tip number two? Tip number two is probably going to be fake it till you make it. Love it.
00:27:19
Speaker
explain your little Brandon Wong Jr. But he said the same thing. Really? I should have listened to his podcast. Yeah, so I mean, just portray what you want, right? Like, who is your ideal client?
00:27:36
Speaker
like really think in their shoes and then your website, your social, everything should be speaking to that.
Balancing Authenticity and Professionalism
00:27:43
Speaker
Whether you, like, and if you operate out of your house, this might be an unpopular opinion. I am pretty against that whole, like,
00:27:53
Speaker
super authentic movement when it comes to business in a lot of ways. When I was starting out, I wouldn't overly post about setting up the photo booth in my house or anything like that.
00:28:07
Speaker
You know, to me, if I'm, if I'm looking to hire someone, that's a photo booth. And, and I'm trying to get like big corporate clients and really like big high end clients. I don't want someone doing that out of their house, you know? It doesn't mean you don't have, like you can't share anything. It's just, you just don't talk about necessarily that kind of stuff, you know? And it wasn't really until like, if I did post something, it was like in my basement. My basement looked more like a, like an office.
00:28:36
Speaker
And I posted a lot about being in like venues and all that, but I kind of always made it look like we were bigger than we were. So that's how you make it. I love it. I know. I just I did that with, you know, my photography business. You just kind of you see that big vision and you're like, hey, I'm doing all these shoots, but you're really doing style shoots. And then people think you're like shooting the most amazing weddings, but maybe you're not yet.
00:29:04
Speaker
But I feel like you always had this like professionalism in your heart. Like does it come from insurance side or like, does it come from corporate? How did you, how did you have like that not mom and pop shop mentality of like, Oh, come to my home guys. Like, you know, let me get you some tea, like, but more like professional and, you know, we're professional so we could charge more. And so how did you, how did you become like that? Like, was it a book or a mentor?
00:29:32
Speaker
I think it's a combination of a lot of stuff. My years in the corporate world, I worked in business development for one of the largest insurance companies and also one of the largest insurance brokers. My background was very much in quote unquote sales.
00:29:52
Speaker
Okay. But the funny thing was that I hated sales. I hated that forced sale. So when I got introduced, I guess, to integrity selling, that has a bit more to do with the professionalism of stuff. For that, it was not so much focusing on me, but focusing on the clients was one of the big things that really helped me.
00:30:18
Speaker
But then also really understanding how bigger corporate clients work obviously helped us from the corporate side of things, you know, like, yeah, you're not going to get paid the same day, you're probably gonna have to wait three months to get paid. But that background definitely helped me. I was always obsessed with like marketing and business and like, you know, any coach out there that you can imagine I've taken their course like even for like,
00:30:47
Speaker
wedding side of things. Like I went to, I don't know if, do you follow Joy, I think Pin at all. Oh yeah. So I went to like her workshops. I went to Jose's workshops. I went to all the workshops I possibly could go to and just like any type of business books, like Gary Vaynerchuk's books were a big one for me. I didn't even know who he really was. I just knew I liked his books and then. Oh, interesting. Before he got big. Yeah.
00:31:18
Speaker
I mean, curiosity. I'm a lifetime learner. I'm still going to workshops and doing the coaching. I'm a coach, but still continue to learn, learn, learn. Yeah, absolutely. Learning so much from you. Okay, so what's our tip number three for a secret sauce is standing out in the saturated market.
00:31:39
Speaker
Oh my goodness. Tip number three is to definitely know your target client. I think I kind of touched on this a little bit in the last. Okay. Another mistake I see is people are like, I'm going to service everyone. You know, that doesn't work. You, you can't focus on everyone at the same time. If you're going for higher end clients and your target should be wedding planners.
00:32:03
Speaker
exclusively. You know, I'm not saying turn away business. That's not from a wedding planner, but your voice should be talking to weddings.
00:32:10
Speaker
because they're the ones that have repeat business. They're the ones that have clients that can pay that kind of money. If you're looking for corporate, you should be speaking as if you're talking to a corporate person. What are their pain points? What are you doing to help them? But if you don't know who your target client is, your message is just going to get lost. Pictures and social media can only do so much. For us, what really
00:32:37
Speaker
We were doing good and then really spiked us was doing that, was really focusing in on our voice and who we were talking to and putting all of our effort into those people. So figure out who that person is and only talk to them. So our target really is wedding planners. We actually just recently split our Instagram account so that we have one that's only for weddings and then one that's for corporate slash private because they're two totally different voices. Yeah.
00:33:06
Speaker
And our wedding Instagram account talks predominantly to wedding planners, knowing also, though, that these couples are going to be looking at this as well. But at the end of the day, we want them to go to their planner and be like, I want a photo booth. I want modern photo booth, first of all.
00:33:27
Speaker
minimum I want a photo booth. And then our planners, we've gotten in with them to the point where they will not refer anyone else. It's like if you want a photo booth at your wedding, you want me to book it for you, you are going with this company. I love it. Right? Because wedding is really hard to get repeat business. So planners are your best friends. Yes. For me, I mean, I'm a coach. So planners are your best friend and also venues are your best friends.
00:33:54
Speaker
Venues are a bit different here in Canada. I know a lot of photo booth owners like around the world that I talked to and they Yeah in the US you guys have a lot of really great partnerships with venues that will actually refer out clients to which is really great but here yeah here it's not something that has Overly where it's worked in a couple of instances, but not like blanketed
00:34:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's so cool. I mean, I'm learning so much from from you. Okay, so I'm going to just recap a little bit. So number one is to niche down. So you could be like the black and white like photo booth, or you could be you do like the style of photo booth. So really, like, hold in on your features and hone in on why your photo booth stands out. I would call that my who factor niche. And number two is fake it till you make it so you kind of act like bigger than you already are. But this is kind of
00:34:46
Speaker
Technique you're gonna use for a lifetime. You're always gonna be growing and you're always gonna be like looking at that next big vision so just acting as if I love that and Number three is about your ideal client. So I think how you speak your marketing messages For you. You guys are really all about like connecting with wedding planners So, you know all your marketing and copy like really target the wedding planners because those are the people that are going to refer you
00:35:16
Speaker
most. Any last tips before we go into our rapid fire questions? Yeah, one last one, which is just like give exceptional service. Even if you can't give them the answer they need right away, just let them know that you've gotten their email. Like they will appreciate that so much. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exceptional service. Yeah.
00:35:38
Speaker
Yeah, I don't like to leave people hanging too. It's just like, I'm here, I'm here. I'm like, I'll help you. I'll see emails coming at like 11 o'clock at night. I'm like, this is not professional to answer at 11 o'clock at night. You schedule it for 7am the next morning. Totally.
00:35:56
Speaker
We got to have boundaries too, with exceptional service. Okay, cool. Those are all great tips. Thank you, Catalina. Okay, we're going to go into the fun rapid fire question. So first one is, what is your biggest tip for self care and self love? Oh, boy.
00:36:16
Speaker
Mine is Hallmark movies. I'm obsessed with them, especially if I'm having a really hard day or something. There's just nothing better than turning on something so unrealistically perfect. What's your favorite one? I'm curious. I don't have it. I don't have Hallmark channel.
00:36:41
Speaker
So, well we actually don't hear in Canada either, so I only get like bits and pieces of it. If anyone ever wants to get me a gift, you know, you're in the U.S., feel free to send me a subscription to the Hallmark because I can't use it here in Canada. My favorite one ever? I do. God. I don't know that I...
00:37:03
Speaker
have a favorite one ever. There's a lot that I enjoy, but I think outside of Hallmark movies, it just kind of goes into those really sappy, romantic comedy movies. Probably La La Land, I think was- Yeah, yeah. I love the You're Hopeless Romantic, and I think sometimes you just need to cry it out.
00:37:26
Speaker
Yeah, I just you'll feel a bit much better after like, okay, next question. I'm a coach. So if you had a magic wand, where would you see your business in three months? In three months. I know that's a little bit of time, but six months a little bit too long for me.
00:37:45
Speaker
In three months, I would love us to be back to just doing quote-unquote normal events because here in Canada, we still have restrictions on everything. We're still navigating a lot of, not only restrictions, but new way of doing things.
00:38:05
Speaker
all these things we have to do to be COVID safe. And like, it's a lot of regulations that you need to keep track of. So it's like, I kind of miss the days of just showing up, having a good time. I'm able to talk close to people. So that's where I'd like to be. Back to not having to question, are these people gonna book or are they waiting? They don't know what's happening. Are we gonna get locked down again? Yeah. That's unfortunately out of your control, but.
00:38:34
Speaker
That would be my magic one too. What do you like to do for fun and what is something that we don't know about you that's kind of cool? What I like to do for fun. I used to love to travel. Yes. It's something I really, really enjoyed doing. But like at home, I'm really like, I love
00:39:01
Speaker
playing with my daughter. She's really fun. How old is she? She's three. So like, she's like, everything is like really cool. And like, you know, boxes and stuff. I have a one and four year old daughter. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. I mean, they're just at that age where it's like magical, right? Like everyone, it's just so nice to see them play. So that's probably my favorite thing right now. Yeah, that's the best. That's really the best.
00:39:28
Speaker
And it's something we don't know about you. Something else. Let's see here. Well, I mean, there's probably a lot, but I'm kind of an introvert now a little bit, which is kind of interesting when you run an events business. But like, as years have gone on, I'm
00:39:51
Speaker
I enjoy my alone time now, which is interesting. I feel like nowadays I need to be alone a little bit more to recharge, but I used to be that person that was always out and about. I mean, I think after a kid and after a pandemic, you get more introverted naturally. I'm definitely more introverted with two kids. I need to just go home and do nothing. Exactly. Cool. And where can we find you?
00:40:20
Speaker
Oh boy. Um, well, Instagram, probably the place I'm most active on, which is at MDRN photobooth company, uh, or sorry, at MDRN photobooth co is our handle there. And then our website, www dot.
00:40:34
Speaker
And if you are a photo booth owner or you're looking to get into photo booths, uh, check out the photo booth supply, go YouTube channel. Cause you will find me dropping a lot of education in there. Tons of videos. I love creating content for helping other photo booth owners, you know, be successful in their business and try to not make the same mistakes I made. So I love it. And you rock that like tight ponytail with the glasses. Look.
00:41:02
Speaker
This is literally the I woke up too late. You look amazing. Thank you for this conversation and stay on the line. But thank you so much, Catalina. You're the best.
00:41:18
Speaker
Thanks for joining me this week on Get a Heck Yes with Carissa Wu. Make sure to follow, subscribe, leave a review, or tell a friend about the show. Take a screenshot and post to IG. Tag me. Also, don't forget to download my free guide on how to become a lead generating machine. See you next time, wedding pros.