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Episode 022: Nancy Ray - Building a Team
138 Plays6 years ago
Today’s guest is Nancy Ray of Nancy Ray Photography. Nancy has built a thriving photography business in Raleigh, North Carolina area, so much so that a few years in the business she realized that something needed to change for her to be able to both continue to grow her business and for her family to live the life they wanted to live.
She built a team. That’s exactly what we’re chatting about in today’s episode. Nancy shares with us how to know whether you’re ready to build a team, what she’s learned from her own experiences, insights into how to decide who to hire and how she evaluates candidates.
Before we get to the interview, I want to mention that Nancy is launching another platform for creatives over at nancyray.com, where she’ll be sharing all of her best resources on life, work, home and faith. If it’s anything like the resources she’s made available in the past, you’re going to want to check it out.
Also, if you’re interested in building a creative team, but would like someone to walk you through the process step-by-step, Nancy is opening the doors to her popular team-building course this fall, and you can find a link for that in the show notes. Be sure to check out the show notes at daveyandkrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode. I like to hear from you about what kind of content you like to see on the Brands that Book Podcast as we move forward. I’d also like to know what episodes you’ve enjoyed so far and why. To leave your feedback, head on over to Davey and Krista Facebook page and send us a message.
The highlights:
04:35 Nancy shares about her photography business and how she eventually got to the point where she needed to hire someone.
09:31 How Nancy determined what role to hire first for her business (and the value of starting with an internship).
17:00 The differences between an employee and independent contractor.
19:53 Where your business should be at before considering hiring somebody.
23:22 Creating and sharing a job listing.
25:23 How Nancy sorts through the applications.
28:23 Why Nancy uses a multiple interview process when hiring.
31:04 The training and on-boarding process when someone is hired (and the importance of feedback).
35:31 Making sure employees are in the right fit.
37:42 Communicating with clients about associate photographers and marketing their work.
47:43 How having a team enabled Nancy to take a three month maternity leave.
Nancy is a believer, wife, mama, photographer, blogger, and speaker. She owns Nancy Ray Photography and leads a small team of wedding and family photographers. Nancy speaks regularly at several conferences and retreats, sharing her inspiration and foundations in building a successful business and a balanced life.
She is passionate about her faith in Jesus, financial stewardship, strong marriages, and seeing small businesses thrive for God’s kingdom. She lives and works in Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband, Will, daughters Milly and Lyndon (with another on the way), and great dane, Winston.
Find the show notes at https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-nancy-ray-episode-22.
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Transcript
Testing Leadership Skills through Internships
00:00:05
Speaker
Try an internship because it's a great place to just start kind of testing the waters as a leader, as teaching them, delegating them and really realizing like, hey, there are some things I need to offload off of my plate.
Introduction to the Podcast and Guests
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show where we help creative service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
00:00:33
Speaker
Today's guest is Nancy Ray of Nancy Ray Photography. Nancy has built a thriving photography business in the Raleigh, North Carolina area. So much so that a few years into business, she realized that something needed to change for her to be able to both continue to grow her business and for her family to live the life they wanted to
Building a Team for Growth and Balance
00:00:50
Speaker
live. So she built a team and that's exactly what we're chatting about in today's episode.
00:00:55
Speaker
Nancy shares with us how to know whether you're ready to build a team, what she's learned from her own experiences, insights into how to decide who to hire and how she evaluates candidates. Before we get to the interview, I want to mention that Nancy is launching another platform for creatives over at NancyRay.com, where she'll be sharing all of her best resources on life, work, home and faith. And if it's anything like the resources she's made available in the past, you're going to want to check it out.
00:01:21
Speaker
Also, if you're interested in building a creative team but would like someone to walk you through the process step by step, Nancy is opening the doors to her popular team building course this fall, and you can find a link for that in the show notes. Be sure to check out the show notes at davianchristo.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode, and I'd like to hear from you about what kind of content you'd like to see on the Bransetbook podcast as we move forward. I'd also like to know what episodes you've enjoyed so far and why.
00:01:48
Speaker
To leave your feedback, head on over to the Davey and Krista Facebook page and send us a message. Now, onto the episode.
Team Building and Business Scaling Focus
00:02:03
Speaker
Welcome, Nancy, to the Brands That Book Show. I'm really excited to have you on. We have so much to talk about in terms of building a team and scaling your business. You're also expecting your third. So you're pro-parent. I'm a rookie parent. Oh, goodness. I'm hoping to get your best parenting advice, not to put you on the spot. Oh, goodness. But at some point, you're just going to have to drop your best parenting advice for me.
00:02:24
Speaker
I will do my best. But thank you so much for having me here. It's such an honor. I'm so excited to talk to you about things I'm super passionate about like my team. And yes, even parenting if we get there. Well, we do have lots of ground to cover in terms of building a team, I'm sure. Yeah.
00:02:39
Speaker
And we recently met for the first time, but it was one of those situations where, you know, I think so our mutual friend Caitlin James had introduced us. She's also mentioned you on her podcast episode a couple episodes ago, and said, Hey, if you're if you're thinking about building a team, you got to talk to Nancy Ray. So here we are. But when we first met, I was like, have we met before?
00:03:00
Speaker
You know is this one of those moments where you're so familiar and i realized i follow your photography work and i've followed your i've heard so many good things about your course in team building and you have plans on relaunching that again sometime this year right. Yes definitely so the plan is to relaunch it coming up in october.
00:03:19
Speaker
and we're super excited because we've put a lot of time and energy into making it more robust and even appealing not just to photographers but to any creative or business owner because what we've learned is a lot of people just need kind of a roadmap to starting like
00:03:36
Speaker
We need some help. We want to grow a team. And what does that look like? So I'm super excited. It's definitely spoken from the perspective of a photographer who built a photography team. However, it's definitely geared towards anybody who's in business that's ready to scale a little bit or get some extra help and grow their business beyond themselves.
00:03:54
Speaker
And I have to be honest, one of the reasons that we're really excited, both Chris and I, for this conversation is because we've been talking about hiring somebody ourself. So, I'm really excited to dive into this topic with you because one of the things that I realized, having become a father, is that all the different things in business, all the cracks, so to speak, in business before parenthood, they've become very apparent since becoming parents and just realizing, if we needed help before, we definitely need help now.
Nancy Ray Photography: Origins and Growth Decisions
00:04:23
Speaker
For sure. I'm excited to dive in and talk about scaling your business by building a team. But first, can you tell us a little bit how you got started and what led you to starting the team? Definitely. I started my business, Nancy Ray Photography, almost 10 years ago. Actually, it has been 10 years ago now. When I started, I was in college and just dove right into the world of weddings. I loved weddings. In the first five years, it was
00:04:51
Speaker
Like anybody starting out a photography business, I'm learning by experience. A guy then slowly building my pricing. I wrote my husband in along the way to be my second shooter. He had no intentions of doing that, but he quickly became an amazing photographer. So it's the two of us for the first five years and we hit a crossroads. And during that time, we were really praying and discussing and talking about, okay, we feel like there's two
00:05:18
Speaker
paths to take. At that point, five years in, we were at full capacity. We were turning rides away. I was very overworked, shooting around 25 weddings a year, and he was on staff at our church. So our weekends were just nuts between weddings and church and all of our obligations with work. So we felt like the crossroads was either you can go the direction of
00:05:44
Speaker
you know, he quit his job, we're a husband and wife team, we're all in, like, I need some help, I'm overwhelmed, we share the load, and we do the thing that most photographers do, the husband and wife route. The second option that we started discussing and considering was, okay, well, what would it look like if we built a team? We only knew of like one or two other photographers at the time.
00:06:06
Speaker
Going that direction and like okay well that's a little scary because we don't know how that's going to go it's not as like tested and tried and true but what we found in our discussions was.
00:06:17
Speaker
Number one, something had to change. Like something had to give. I had to get some help or I was just going to burn out and be done in a few years.
Balancing Personal and Business Aspirations
00:06:25
Speaker
As we started talking about it, like the second thing I was going to mention is my husband also had dreams of his own. Like he had, he's gifted so much. He's such a great photographer, but he's so gifted in business and finance and ministry and coaching. And he had these other.
00:06:44
Speaker
gifts and dreams in the back of his head that would serve our photography business very well. But also I didn't, as we talked about it, he was like, I just feel like there's something different for me. So in all of those discussions, we said, okay, like we felt like it was time for us to go the direction of building a team, which meant hiring a few associate photographers to help
00:07:06
Speaker
take the load off of me so I'm not shooting all of the wedding and then also hiring someone in the studio to help me with the editing load and the packaging and mailing and all of that and so that was like our big picture vision but it scared us to death at first like
Overcoming Delegation Fears
00:07:24
Speaker
I was like, okay, I'm terrified to lose control of my business. I think that's one of the number one fears. I want to control over my editing. I want to control over the weddings. What if they were to screw something up and mess up something? That's my name and my business. That was terrifying to me, but it was a leap of faith that we decided to take.
00:07:44
Speaker
All in all, I can tell you the whole story, but basically we hit that crossroads five years in and fast forward five years later. Now we do have a team. I have two associate wedding photographers as along with myself with the three of us shoot weddings and I have one family photographer and she only shoots families. She also second shoots for us on the weekends.
00:08:03
Speaker
And two of those girls who are photographers also work with me as employees in the studio. So that's kind of what the picture looks like now, five years later, after that crossroads decision. And my husband is thriving in a job that he loves. He still speaks into the business and is part of it and owns it with me. But he has another full time job that he absolutely loves is perfect for his gifting. So I'm thankful that we went that route for sure.
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah that's awesome and I feel like just recently photographers especially are realizing that they can scale their business by growing a team. I think that associates at one point were popular and then you know kind of the personal brands took over and now people are realizing oh I can I can still have this personal brand but then I can scale my business by building a team. And I think what you said about the fears of hiring people I certainly resonate with me I just think okay well can someone really do what I'm doing you know.
00:08:57
Speaker
And then add in all the other stuff you have to think about like, okay, well, you know, what do I need to do in terms of is there certain like workman's comp and what are the all the other things that I have to make sure to do just so that I'm doing this legally in the right way and you know, without a ton of liability. So I'm excited to dig into this with you. How did you go about and you have a team of how many people now you said?
Strategizing Hires and Internships for Business Needs
00:09:23
Speaker
So three photographers, and then myself and my husband, as well as three interns that come in and rotate through the year. Seasonal. Did you hire all of them at once? Like, how did you go about even figuring out who would you hire first? I mean, I think that's one of the things that Chris and I are struggling with right now. Like, we have a couple different roles that could be filled, but we're not sure really where to start. So how did you navigate that?
00:09:46
Speaker
That is a great question. So the first thing I did was I hired an intern kind of to test the waters. So when I was just maxed out,
00:09:56
Speaker
working alone, long hours in my studio. My husband was on staff at church and I had no help. I hired an intern and said, it's seasonal, it's for three months. It's an unpaid internship. If you do an unpaid internship, side note, just make sure you look up the laws in your state because it has to be in exchange for some sort of educational or some sort of added value to them. And some states don't allow unpaid internships and others do according to criteria.
00:10:23
Speaker
just side note legally there make sure you're doing it the right way but I hired the intern first and what it showed me in the three months time that that sweet girl came and helped me was that I really was doing way too much like as the owner and leader of my business I should not I was wasting so much time and energy on writing out mailing addresses and packaging up things and taking them to the store and going to the bank and
00:10:50
Speaker
Like little things, even like blog post prep, pop populating links in the blog post, all that stuff takes a lot of time. Pinterest, Facebook, like there's things that you can easily train someone to do that you just think, oh, well, this is my task. This is the thing I have to do. This is what I've always done. And so it takes kind of thinking through all of the tasks in your day. And then in what I did, I made a two column list and I wrote out everything that only I could do.
00:11:18
Speaker
Like actually writing the voice of the black post right but then the things she could do uploading pictures populating the links things like that that's just an example packaging materials taking them to the store running errands you know all those things she could do and at the end of those three months when she left.
00:11:34
Speaker
I was like hurting for some how i was like this made a big difference not only in my work but in my quality of life i can turn off at the end of the day and not feel so overwhelmed like i still had a million things to do because she had helped me do that a lot of those things first step and after i realize it was almost like i always recommend people if you're unsure try an internship because it's a great place to just start kind of testing the waters of the leader as
00:12:03
Speaker
teaching them, delegating them, and really realizing like, hey, there are some things I need to offload off of my plate. So after that internship with up, I had a conversation with my husband and was like, okay, I think I need to hire like a studio assistant, like $10 or $11 an hour at the time, 10 hours a week, like basically the same as an internship, but there's no end in sight. That's when we hired Cali.
00:12:28
Speaker
And Callie came on board. I took her through an extensive interview process, which is hilarious because literally it's like a $10 an hour job. She went through six interviews. I interviewed so many people and I could tell you all about that later, but her dad is like a big CEO of like a big company or he had like a big role. And he was like, Callie, this is ridiculous. Like what, what kind of job is this, you know?
00:12:50
Speaker
But here I sit, six years later, she's still with me as one of my photographers. I really believe in having a very thorough interview process. So I brought her on as a part-time studio assistant. She basically did all the intern tasks for me. And about five or six months into her working with me, that's when my husband and I said, okay, let's approach her about being a photographer for us. And where she's actually starting to generate some of that revenue too.
00:13:17
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. So why did you start with the studio assistant? Just because you knew that those tasks needed to be started. And one thing about those tasks too that you mentioned, they're certainly not complicated tasks, right? But like you said, they require time and it's a lot of starting and stopping, you know, like getting on Facebook and, you know, requiring your mind to transition between a bunch of different tasks instead of actually being able to sit and focus on something and, you know, build in your business instead of just working on it, right? Right.
00:13:46
Speaker
I can totally see how that would be helpful. And again, I think I'm in that place right now where I'm like, I just, we need to find somebody to do some of these things for us. But did you know that your studio assistant was going to transition into being a photographer? Was that always kind of the plan or did you think I'm going to get a studio assistant and then I'm going to go out and find associate photographers? Yeah, so the studio assistant was more of an immediate need for me because
00:14:10
Speaker
I said my husband had a full-time job and I was doing everything and I just felt like I was drowning every week with the amount of weddings I was doing and so That was more of an immediate need. The plan was not to approach her about being a photographer from the beginning It was like she is a great fit for the studio and then let's see how things go and if we want to reach out to other people or if we want to approach her and just
00:14:34
Speaker
It was more like, let's fix this problem right here, right now in the studio, and then let's go on to build the team and bring in more revenue through photographers. So what happened was in this journey, what I learned was if you have someone who fits your team culture and your business and has integrity and a passion and fits the character that you want, that is so much more important than someone who is technically gifted in being a good photographer.
00:15:04
Speaker
And so Callie demonstrated such a love and passion for photography and wedding photography. And she had the humility and the character that I wanted in a team member that I knew I want someone like you as a photographer and I can train you in the technical stuff, right? Like anybody can learn. Obviously you have to have a lean or like an eye towards that creative gifting, but
00:15:29
Speaker
I think that we put a little bit too much weight on the technical. Are you good enough and little weight on the character? And I flip flop that in it. I think you need to put all the weight in the character and know, hey, you can train anybody to shoot like you and to do that. And so I've trained all my photographers from scratch.
00:15:47
Speaker
And I really love that because I hire for character, not for talent. And I think that's one of the biggest pieces of advice that I can give is hire someone who is gonna fit just your style of working, who you like. That's one of the biggest things I tell people when they're interviewing someone, yes, ask them if they're hardworking and have integrity and all those things and learn that about them. But man, do you just like them? Do you like hanging out with them and being around them?
00:16:16
Speaker
If you don't like don't I don't know. I think we get in our heads. We have to hire them because they check off these five boxes. But if you don't like being around them, good luck with that. Like you're about to spend a lot of time with them, you know, so just you have to think big picture but but that's kind of what happened with Callie and at the same time we approached her to be a photographer. We approached another
00:16:35
Speaker
Girl her name was Elizabeth and she's not with us anymore. She was with us for five years. She's wonderful She just had twins six months ago. And so that was when she left our team But we approached Callie and Elizabeth at the same time to be wedding photographers and so Callie was an employee and she would continue as an employee but Elizabeth was a contractor independent contractor and so at that point we launched them and started growing the photography side and
00:17:00
Speaker
And for people listening, can you just kind of explain some of the nuances between having an employee and an independent contractor working for you? Absolutely. So this is actually almost an entire lesson that we devote to in the course because it can get a little bit confusing. So we have a whole lesson in the course that's just about the legal preparation, the financial preparation, and what that looks like.
00:17:20
Speaker
In short, an employee is someone that typically comes to a place of work for you. You get to determine their hours of work. You're a little bit more in charge of what they're doing and how they're working, their start time, their finish time, what all of that looks like. An independent contractor is someone that you're basically contracting with to do work for you, but they are independent of you and your business.
00:17:43
Speaker
I hired Elizabeth as an independent contractor and what that means is she was a photographer. I hired her to go, show up, shoot the sessions and return all of the film or CF cards, all the equipment back to me and then she was basically done. There were some other things we asked her to take care of like obviously client correspondence and emails and things like that and that was a given. When she hired, she knew that because another thing with an independent contractor, a lot of times they determine
00:18:10
Speaker
how much work they want to take and what times it's like all based on their schedule, what time they can do it. And an employee you just have a little bit more control over if that's true. And did you did Kelly, did she remain doing a lot of the studio work even after she became a photographer?
00:18:27
Speaker
she did. And that actually, her responsibility there has increased over time. And so she's no longer packaging stuff and mailing stuff. She's a lead editor now. She really runs Nancy Ray photography in a lot of ways and deals with all of our clients. She's incredible. But you have to think as our weddings grew, the more weddings, the more brides you're able to serve, the more bookings we had, the studio work grew too. So one of your biggest fears is
00:18:52
Speaker
Oh my gosh, can I afford to pay someone? Can I afford to bring someone on? Is this even, I mean, and there is that gap in the, in the beginning where there's some investment right on your end of the owner. Like you have to train, you have to work, you have to wait. But the idea is when you hire a team, they actually bring in money and pay for themselves over time. So it's scary at first, but in the long run, like our revenue has increased so much because of the work that they're bringing in.
00:19:18
Speaker
Well, kind of like your story, I was Krista's second for a while. She kind of had to wrestle me to get to weddings in the beginning. Yeah. And then, you know, eventually, eventually I love doing it and then wanted to come on full time. But there was that gap, you know, in the beginning where it's
00:19:33
Speaker
We couldn't quite replace my salary yet, but we knew, okay, if I had all of my time to devote to this, that we could eventually replace my salary and we went on to do that and much more. But even with that said, is there a certain place that you should be operating at before you start considering hiring somebody? Yeah, I think so because you want to go about it in a wise way. I think we've seen people who are so
00:20:01
Speaker
vision driven and they're like, this is what I want. I want all these things and they want everything and they want it super fast. And a lot of times those businesses just kind of crumble really quickly because they haven't been wise and really slowed down and thought through and made a plan. So a couple of things that I definitely recommend. First of all, make sure you're at full capacity.
00:20:21
Speaker
You need to make sure that you have work to give off to someone, right? Like if you're from a wedding perspective, if you're shooting five to eight weddings a year and you want to hire a team, well,
00:20:33
Speaker
Do you think that you can get them more weddings like at the point that we were at we were shooting twenty five weddings a year and turning tons of people away so i knew there is this. Rich well to pull from people who are ready to book work that looks like mine so making sure your full capacity with booking but also making sure your full capacity with time like that's one thing i mentioned.
00:20:56
Speaker
you know i would work i was definitely more of the workaholic where i would work right when i got up all the way until six pm i would have a hard time turning off my computer i was working late in the evening it was around the clock on the weekend and i needed help just to get my time back in my life back and so.
00:21:14
Speaker
making sure full capacity with your bookings or your services and your time so that you're ready to give work off because you want to hire someone and then say i don't know what you can do for me today or you hire someone and you're like sorry like i don't have any. Bookings to give you like you want to love your people well by having work for them because i think it's unfair if you promise to think of someone and you don't have work for them.
00:21:38
Speaker
And then the second, I guess third, so full capacity with time, second would be full capacity bookings, third would be just being financially ready. And for us, we really believe in running a debt free business. And so we, a couple of things that we really encourage people to do, and it's not, you have to do these things, but for me, it gave me such peace of mind. We really encourage people.
00:21:59
Speaker
Be debt free or have your debt at such a small manageable level that you know you're going to pay it off soon. Also, have cash in the bank. One thing that I did was when we hired Callie, we knew, okay, this is our first hire. We're paying here $10 an hour for 10 hours a week. What does that look like? How much is that a month? Then how much is that for the next three months?
00:22:20
Speaker
Let's total that up and make sure we have that and some more in the bank ready to go. So that over the next three months, we're not questioning, can we pay her? Can we pay ourselves and her? Like there's not that question in the back of your mind. So I think it's important to be debt free and also have extra cash so that you're not stressing out about paying yourself and paying them, but that, you know, like, okay, we're ready to go. And that's just like any change in business. When you go through a major change, you kind of have to pile up some reserves and get ready to make that initial investment right in the beginning.
00:22:50
Speaker
then over time, they will start generating that revenue for you.
00:22:55
Speaker
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I love what you're saying about running a debt free business. I know a book that has been super influential for us is Total Money Makeover, Dave Ramsey, Krista listens to his podcast non stop every day. So a little plug for that book. For sure. Also plug for Dave Ramsey's entry leadership book because his chapter on hiring is really what changed our minds about really doing the thorough hiring process. But we're big fans of Dave Ramsey and totally believe in that.
00:23:22
Speaker
I'm excited to get into that hiring process with you because I really want to hear about the six interview process that Callie had to go through. Also, as you start hiring people, did you sit down and put together a job listing specifically or did you just throw it out there on social media? Is there anything you did the first time around that you quickly improved upon for later hires? Definitely.
00:23:48
Speaker
The way we went about it, I didn't have a huge following at the time. This is five years ago. Instagram was pretty small. I mean, I had a pretty loyal following on my blog, but what we did is I blogged about the position and
00:24:02
Speaker
When I blogged about it, I definitely wrote down like, this is what we're looking for. On the blog post I put, this is what we're going to pay. I said, these are our expectations of the job. And then this is the kind of person we're looking for. And so you can even, it's an old blog post, but feel free to go on nancyreblog.com and just kind of search for studio assistant. And you'll find the really old blog post that I wrote back then, but it kind of lays that out. And then there is a link.
00:24:29
Speaker
for people to click on and fill out some questions and that's how I kind of got applications and so we do the same thing now when we hire so you can also search for associate wedding photographer position or our internship program we always clearly layout like is this paid or not and what you're getting paid here are the tasks that you're responsible for the responsibility is basically a job description what this job looks like
00:24:54
Speaker
And then lastly, the type of person we're looking for. And then the type of person we're looking for, we always say, like, eager to learn. Humble likes big dogs because I have a great saying, you know, like little things like that. I'd hate to go through the whole hiring process and then have someone that's like highly allergic to dogs, right? Like you need to fill in all the gaps. And so, and then there's a link at the bottom and we gather so many applications. Every year we do an internship program and we gather them, we sort through them, and then we start our interview process once we kind of narrow those down.
00:25:23
Speaker
So how do you sort through the initial round of applications? I assume you probably get a decent amount. And again, just something that's striking about what you've said so far is that some of your employees here have been around for five plus years, you know, and that's that speaks to I think whatever you're doing, it seems to be it seems to be the right way to keep people around for that long. So how do you go about just from the applications you receive deciding who's going to get an interview, who's not going to get an interview?
00:25:51
Speaker
Definitely. So we usually make three piles. The immediate yes pile, the immediate no pile, and then the like question maybe pile. And we try to get a number. So we'll say okay for this
00:26:04
Speaker
position, we want to narrow it down to 10 yeses and then we're going to start there. And so we just really go through them. Honestly, we pray over them beforehand. We ask just for wisdom. I brought my team in to kind of talk through some things. Yes, we will look people up on Facebook or Instagram because we always ask for those social media handles. That's very telling of people. But more than that, we just look for the tone
00:26:29
Speaker
what they're trying to offer and there's usually two types of people there's people who want to get a lot out of the internship and then there's people and I'm talking about internships just because that's the most recent one but for any position there's people who want to get a lot out of it and then there's people who want to give a lot to it and there's
00:26:45
Speaker
People who want to serve and show up and give a lot and say like i want to contribute to the work that you're doing and serve those people immediately fit more of our culture because one of our core values is serving head and so we really look for that kind of tone and then once we get those ten people or whatever number we decide we start out with our interview process and we really start with about eight to ten people and take them all through several rounds of interviews and kind of do different rounds along the way.
00:27:14
Speaker
So tell us about Cali's. I want to talk about interviews in general. Tell us about Cali's six interview. So you had a bunch of other applicants that you were also interviewing. And so you went back to Cali. And was it all in person? No. So not all in person. So we start out just doing like a phone call interview where I can just kind of get to know them a little bit, see how easy they are to talk to. And I think we started out with like eight people. And it's so funny. This is terrible. It sounds terrible.
00:27:38
Speaker
I don't even remember my first conversations with Callie. Like I had already decided on someone else, which is the point that I want to make because you can't decide in the first few conversations on who you're going to hire. You just can't. So I think we did like a phone interview with her. So with Callie, as she made it through, like I remember
00:27:57
Speaker
The third interview, I had my heart set on like a different girl. And then the fourth interview, I had my heart set on like another girl, like a better girl. And then it wasn't until the fifth and sixth interview that Callie started to just shine in a way that the others didn't. And so really interesting how that worked out because she's still here. She's incredible. But yeah, I really, I don't remember the first interviews with her hardly at all, but I really remembered about the last two or three very well.
00:28:27
Speaker
So how does that influence this interview process? It sounds like you still have multiple interviews with people. Yes. Is there a key number? Have you found that four or is six the key number? For us. I think that every business needs to decide on what's the key number for them. Speaking of Dave Ramsey, I think they go through 17 interviews.
00:28:47
Speaker
I mean, it's very thorough. For us, I think we usually land around six or seven for someone who's coming onto our team in a more permanent position, like an associate photographer or someone who's an employee working in the studio. For our internship program that's unpaid and it's for three month increments, I think we usually do four or five interviews there.
00:29:07
Speaker
Okay. And so during the interview process, are you zeroing in on different things for each interview? Or is it more just to get kind of giving people another shot and another opportunity like Callie to just get comfortable and in their zone and really see what they have to offer? Yeah, the goal of having that many interviews is to see the person as they really are, and see if they're going to work well with your team. And so there's always this initial
00:29:33
Speaker
nervousness, there's this initial, I got to put on this front, I want to make the best first impression. And we almost have to wait and get through that in the first two to three interviews to see who they really are in the last three to four interviews. And so there's no like we definitely zero in on certain questions for different interviews. And we're focusing on different things. And we kind of go deeper as we go. But overall,
00:29:57
Speaker
It's less about the questions you ask and more about listening and getting to know the person in their heart and who they really are.
00:30:05
Speaker
I think there's probably so much wisdom in that. And I really, I really like what you said about seeing the person as they really are. And because it's true, you know, I mean, I think anybody who's ever been in the interview that first, even second interview, it's you're nervous, you know, you don't want to say the wrong thing. So I think there's probably a lot of wisdom in going through so many different, so many interviews. And for you all, again, like you have people that have been around for years now. So there must be something about that that's working. Yeah.
00:30:34
Speaker
So moving on past the interview, you decide on somebody, you offer them the job. One of the things that kind of stresses me out about, because we're getting ready to go through this process, is the training process. I know, you know, I know that once you get through it, that's where, you know, it starts paying dividends, right? That's when, you know, the person starts being able to pour back into the business. But it's just that process of getting there. So have you laid out like a standardized training or onboarding process? What does that look like for you guys?
00:31:04
Speaker
Yes, we have. This is something we talk about more in depth in the course, but basically we always start, first of all, as the leader, you have to know that it is a time investment. Like it is scary and hard. And at first you feel like, oh my gosh, I have a million things to do in the back of my head. And here I am answering questions about this thing that I could do in two seconds, right? Like there's this frustration almost like, why don't I just do this myself? But that you have to think long-term and think like,
00:31:33
Speaker
If I can just get all of these things off my plate, I'm going to be able to really focus on what matters in my business. First of all, in training, we always go over our core purpose as a business, our core values, and we go over just our business as a whole. We tell them the story of the business, the heart of the business, and the why behind what we do. That is so incredibly valuable to do first and then to also repeat over and over and over again.
00:32:02
Speaker
Talk about me keeping these people for five six years and that's so true but that's the hiring process is an important piece but it's even more important to continue to speak to the why continue to recognize and reward the things that they're doing to build a culture that they want to continually be a part of and so
00:32:20
Speaker
When you're training them, it's a lot of time up front, but it's always important to come back to the why, to the purpose. Why are we doing this? These are our values. This is how we see everything in our work, whether we're emptying the trash, sending a gallery, whatever, serving on a wedding day. This is how we do work here in this business, and not just empowers them. It excites them. It gives them something bigger to be a part of. It's not just like, hey, I'm really overwhelmed. Can you do this list of things for me? There's a bigger thing that they're part of.
00:32:49
Speaker
That's the first thing that we always go over and the thing that we come back to over and over again. Once we get through that foundational training of this is why we exist and who we are and what we're doing, we go through the technical training of this is how you actually do the work. That takes a few weeks and you have to be okay.
00:33:11
Speaker
with being interrupted a little bit right like they're gonna ask you questions they're not gonna know how to do things personally and another key thing i tell people you have to give feedback and this is part of our culture that we've established that was honestly super hard for me in the beginning as a leader because i don't want to hurt feelings i'm like
00:33:31
Speaker
super sweet person who like does not want to step on any toes. But I also realized to have a business of the caliber and integrity and excellence that I wanted. I can't let things slide. I can't just say, Oh, sure, go ahead and do it that way. And I'll go back and fix it later. That's not the thing like
00:33:49
Speaker
I'll never forget Callie packaged something. She was so proud of it and she thought she did such a good job. And bless her heart, she like crammed like a photo order that was like $50 into this little thing where definitely be wrinkled for like pulling it out. And I just was like sweating in the back. Like, do I tell her, do I fix it? What do I do? And it just was like, this is, I have to own this as a leader and just say, Callie, like, great job. This is wrong. The way that you did this, let me tell you why. And let me train you in like how,
00:34:17
Speaker
I'm thinking about it so you can think this way in the future and really own this and you have to give feedback I mean even them shooting weddings I was like let me can you tell me about this picture and why what I would change about it like always asking them questions but constant feedback has to be part of your culture from day one I say give them some sort of feedback like on the first day like positive and negative like change you know make that part of your culture so
00:34:42
Speaker
No, I think people want to know where they stand too. And there's nothing worse than giving no feedback and then it all coming out at once, months later. And then somebody thinking, okay, so have I been doing this wrong for the last year or so? I think that's probably great advice is on day one to make sure that you're setting that tone like, yeah, you're going to get feedback in this job. But at least people know where they stand and they're both being supported and challenged.
00:35:09
Speaker
And we talk about that in the interview process. I'm like, this is the kind of people we are. We're going to tell you when you're not doing something right. And it's not about emotions. It's about excellence. You know, we're not trying to step on your toes and we will always point you in the right direction, but you need to know that's the kind of culture that we have.
00:35:24
Speaker
So to transition a little bit out of the onboarding process here, have you had a hire that hasn't worked out? Not really, but I do want to tell a story about Elizabeth. So Elizabeth was the girl that I hired first alongside Callie to be a wedding photographer.
00:35:39
Speaker
And it was more, not tumultuous kind of navigating her journey, but a little bit more difficult because what we found out is she is so gifted as a photographer. She also has the character that totally fits our culture, very humble, like hardworking, shows up. We love her. Her personality is very laid back and very relaxed. And so on a wedding day, she started booking her own weddings. I think she shot four or five.
00:36:08
Speaker
And we both felt like there was something off. And so as the leader, I approached her. We were like driving in the car home. I think after wedding, she was second shooting for me. And I just said, like, hey, can you be honest with me? Like, how are you doing? Do you like this? Like, how how are you?
00:36:25
Speaker
She was like, okay. She's like, I'm really glad you asked. I don't know that my personality is best suited for weddings. And I've been terrified to tell you because I love this job and I love this work. But the high, strong, high pressure nature of weddings is very stressful for my personality. And so that goes to just having the right people, but also having them in the right seats. And so we figured out that she was just in the wrong seat.
00:36:52
Speaker
And so we actually transitioned her at that point to be our family photographer, which she got to decide it's more laid back. There's not that high pressure, that timeline that you have to stick to. And we ended up hiring Olivia as our other wedding photographer. And so that was a transition that it's not that it didn't work out, but that we learned kind of in retrospect, like maybe we should have
00:37:15
Speaker
Talk to her more or done some more personality test or really thought through this on the front end of things because i knew her really well she was my college roommate so i thought we're like good to go but even in that even in knowing her super well we had to kind of walk through that and learn she was in the wrong seat and so once we got everyone in the right seats.
00:37:35
Speaker
It was great. And then eventually she got pregnant with twins and ended up leaving the kids to be with her babies. But yeah. Yeah, sure. I think there's probably a lot of value in checking in with people and getting them in the right seat and not just saying, okay, they're not working out in this position, so they're not going to work out in any position. Like you said, it was just a matter of finding, kind of navigating what seat she should be in within the business.
00:37:57
Speaker
So I want to wrap up here by talking about your brand in general, because it is Nancy Ray photography. And this is actually something this is how your name came up in my interview with Caitlin was we were talking about maybe Instagram presence or something like that. But your situation you have a team.
00:38:17
Speaker
I feel like you lift up your team. It's very apparent that you have a team, but at the same time, you still have that personal brand feel. It doesn't feel like the people who hire you are like, yeah, I'm hiring XYZ photography and it's just this team of people and I'm not really sure who's who. It's Nancy Ray photography and it seems like you market it as you would market just even if you were working alone.
00:38:42
Speaker
So can you tell us a little bit about how you balance that? Like, hey, when you hire us, I might not be the one at your wedding and what you do to make people comfortable with that idea? Definitely. So one quote that I heard that has really resonated with me is,
00:38:58
Speaker
Leaders don't produce followers, leaders produce leaders. And so I have always believed from the start, I want my team to feel empowered and to almost have their own personal brands within the overarching Nancy Ray photography brand. I never want them to feel like they don't have an identity or
00:39:21
Speaker
personality that they can bring to the table because everyone of my girls who works with me is incredibly valuable incredibly gifted and their own person and so you know there's two ways you can do it when you're hiring a team that you're kind of looking out you can do it where.
00:39:38
Speaker
They don't know who really the team is or maybe they see pictures of the team, but you just assign whoever to whatever wedding or whatever service it is that you're in. But I went kind of a different direction where, especially in my field, I think it really depends on your field, but especially as a wedding photographer, what I saw was brides want a personal connection with their photographer on their wedding day.
00:40:00
Speaker
They want to feel like they know that person. They want to feel like they love that person and they want the style and the personality. It's all together. And so from the time we launched this team, I wanted to lift them up as their own people. I wanted to give them platforms. I really encourage them. Build your own Instagram and show your life.
00:40:21
Speaker
Show who you are on your Instagram account in the website. I want to show give them a platform They write their blog posts, you know, they have their own gallery pages It's not just here are our associate photographer work like they each have their own place and so I just want to empower them to be leaders even within this business and then while maintaining my own sense of
00:40:43
Speaker
personality in my own brand as well and so you know i think it depends on what line of work that you're and what's the best thing is for you to do because it's a totally different service based business it would look very different but for me for brides on a wedding day i feel like people want to really know and connect with their photographer so that's kind of the angle that we took.
00:41:05
Speaker
do they have to have any sort of kit like their Instagram profile, for instance, does it have to say that they're a member of the Nancy Ray photography team? Do you put any guidelines in about that? Or is it kind of like, you know, they know the aesthetic that you know, we're going for? Because I'm sure you want it to be cohesive on some level. So how do you do you manage that at all?
00:41:24
Speaker
Yeah. So one of our other core values in our business is communication. And that goes for us communicating with our clients, but also with each other. And so we talk about everything in detail. I mean, we don't leave anything untouched. And so in their onboarding training process, when they're first coming on and I'm trying to set them up for success, I tell them a few things. I say, this is a joint effort.
00:41:45
Speaker
I can't just guarantee you that I'm going to have all these bookings for you. Like we both have to be working towards this or it's not going to work. And so these are some things that you can do that are really going to help your success. You don't have to do them. Instagram is a personal thing. If you don't even like Instagram, that's fine, but it's going to affect your booking. So it's going to affect your success here. And so the best way to approach this is if we both are working towards the same goal. And so here's some things you can do.
00:42:11
Speaker
We all have really great professional profile pictures. We say, we're part of this team. Here's the website. Link to your work. And then in your Instagram feed, you have to be active on it. You have to be posting to it. And you have to post a mix of personal things as well as your work. And if you do those things, people are going to start to identify you with who you are, but also the professional quality that you have to give.
00:42:35
Speaker
So do you have any issues where a bride comes to you and says, hey, I want to hire you? And you're like, yeah, OK, so here are a couple of associates that are available. And I'm not sure how you go about handing off work to your associates. And they're like, no, I really want to hire you. How do you work through that situation with that bride? Do you find that in those cases, the bride generally is like, OK, never mind. If it's not you, I don't want to work with you guys. Or do you find that they're very happy to work with any member of your team?
00:43:02
Speaker
So what I found is they've really become very grateful for the options and because I've trained them, not only in the work and style of photography that we offer, but even the way that we work and serve on a wedding day and serve our clients throughout the process.
00:43:18
Speaker
I found that it actually pleases more people versus lets them down and I always feared like, oh gosh, you know, they're hiring Nancy Ray photography and they don't get Nancy Ray. What are they going to think? That was a big fear in the beginning. And now like one of the things that we do this just very practical is my price point starts much higher than theirs. Sure. So there's this automatic filtering that happens. Basically someone will say, Hey, this is when we're getting married. Are you available?
00:43:43
Speaker
And we'll send them, here's my pricing, Callie's pricing and Olivia's pricing. These are the ones of us who are available on that day. And so there's kind of a self filtering process because of budget for one. But then if people really want me, then they can have me and that's fine too. Another thing that we do is like I limit the amount of weddings I take every year.
00:44:05
Speaker
And so brides that really come to this business and they want to work with me, I tell them, I take seven weddings a year. I have two little girls, another little girl on the way. Like this is my magic number right now in my life because I just want to be home more on the weekends. But Olivia takes 25 weddings and Kelly takes 15 weddings. And so we've all kind of worked out those numbers and what we're most happy with. And like, it's kind of like a self sorting process now, which is nice with the pricing and then the availability. And we just
00:44:33
Speaker
Just kind of lay that out and say, OK, take your pick.
00:44:36
Speaker
Yeah, that makes total sense. When you send over that pricing, do you do it in like, is it three different? Is it all part of like one PDF or one page or is it like here are three attachments here? Three attachments, three different links that they can click on. And again, going back to the personal brand, each PDF that we send over has like a very personal welcome letter from each of us with each of our pictures and then they're full of each of our own
00:45:05
Speaker
images yeah galleries and so it's very personalized for that photographer so even in the beginning we're saying like these are the personalities and the people in the different types of work that you're looking at and they can kind of choose for themselves.
00:45:20
Speaker
Yeah, I really like that. And again, I just really like how each individual team member has their own identity within the Nancy Ray brand. And I think that's going to be a relief for people to hear because I would assume I know if we were to start an associate photography business, that would be one of our concerns is
00:45:37
Speaker
you know, how do we when people when people inquire, you know, certainly at first that you they would think oh, they're getting Krista or they're getting Davey. But there's probably that's probably one of those fears that we have as business owners that actually doesn't play out how how we think it would. Right, right.
00:45:53
Speaker
Well, I really, really appreciate your time today talking through all this stuff. I know that I feel a lot better about and actually excited about going through this process of hiring. And I wish I always and I just get to talk to so many amazing people like yourself that we could talk in series, you know, that we could do like a 10-part series about this because we just scraped the surface. Right. Exactly right.
00:46:17
Speaker
Yeah, we probably talked about a couple different lessons that are that are within the course. But there's just so much there's so many more questions that I even have right now. But want to respect your time to for sure, since we're coming up on an hour. But if you're interested, if people are interested in your course, where should they go right now so that they can be among the first to hear about it?
00:46:35
Speaker
Definitely. So growacreativeteam.com is the website you can go to. And like I said, the course is going to launch in October. But you can go there and click on Learn More and just sign up to be on the wait list so that you can be the first to know when it does launch. And you will get the best prices and all that jazz if you do sign up for the wait list first. And that's the best way to just know about the course in general when it launches.
00:46:58
Speaker
Yeah and I think the benefit of going through a course like this is that you're going to save yourself the headache of just maybe throwing yourself out there and going through this process sort of halfway or in a lazy way and then having a terrible experience and then potentially that turning you off from hiring somebody or
00:47:18
Speaker
you know, just delaying getting to the point where you eventually got to, which is now, you know, you feel like at the end of the day, you can turn off the laptop, trust that things are getting done, trust that the business is running, and maintain and scale your business even when life is changing for you. You know, you have, you're gonna have three kids by December, right? And but at the same time, you're still you're still able to you don't have to shrink your business because of that, right? You can see
00:47:44
Speaker
I took maternity leave last year when i had my second and i was laughing because a team also enabled me to take three months off three and a half months of work completely and that was the best quarter revenue wise than we've ever had in our business.
00:47:59
Speaker
And I was like, well, maybe I should just take a hike because I'm not even here doing anything. And it was the most amazing year, the most revenue we've ever brought in because they just kept on going. Right. They just kept on shooting weddings and surveying and they ran everything while I was away. So I'm planning another three month maternity leave just to like paint a picture and let you dream a little like.
00:48:19
Speaker
I work three days a week and that's it and i shoot seven weddings a year obviously along with some sessions and so that was like my ideal and i think i might even go back to two days a week or who knows what the future will look like but just super grateful like that my business doesn't have to stop working and producing when i stop and that's what the beauty of growing a team is all about.
00:48:41
Speaker
Yeah, and that's awesome. I think I might have to move this clip to the front end of the interview just so people can can realize, you know, what's possible there. And I think, you know, in this, I'm not gonna let this we're gonna wrap up here in a second. But I think when people think about scaling their business, they think, Oh, I have to do it through, you know, like digital products or education or something like that. And that's not the only way if you love being a photographer, you can scale your business by growing a team. So
00:49:07
Speaker
Anyways, I'll get off my pedestal there and we'll wrap up. So besides finding the course at growecreativeteam.com, right? Where can people learn more about you? On Instagram, I'm Nancy Ray. And so you can just get to know me and my family and my team there, of course. And online, nancyrayphotography.com is probably the best place just to find me, my business, my blog, my work, and even more about my team. All right, awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us today.
00:49:58
Speaker
Thank you so much, I'm so grateful and honored to be here.
00:50:04
Speaker
you