Private 1:1 coaching for pet photographers
Create a sustainable and profitable pet photography business that is built around your life.
Over twelve weeks I look at your actual business, we agree what matters most, and I stay with you while you change it. You bring the real numbers. I help you work out what to do with them.
Book a call with meA free 15 minute chat. Booking it does not sign you up for anything.
Where most photographers are when they call me
You have heard why this will not work.
Some of that comes from other photographers. Some of it comes from people at home who love you and are being careful with your money, which is harder to argue with.
And underneath it sits the part that is actually yours:
- You get compliments on your work constantly, and almost none of them turn into a booking.
- You know your prices are too low, and every time you go to raise them you talk yourself out of it.
- You have bought a course before. You learned things. Not much changed afterwards, and now spending again feels like a risk.
- You have had a good month and no idea how to make the next one happen on purpose.
These are what photographers in my community are saying:
The question I get most
You have paid to learn this before. Why would paying again change anything?
It is a fair question, and here is my answer.
A course hands you the same material it hands everybody, and then you go away and apply it on your own. That works for some people. If it had worked for you, you would not be reading this.
Here, I look at your business and we build the plan around that.
- I start with your actual numbers. Your price list, where your enquiries come from, what you charged last time and what they paid. Before our first call, so we do not spend it on background.
- We agree what to fix first. Not all of it. The thing that is costing you the most right now.
- You make the thing, and I look at the real one. Send me the campaign before you launch it, the price list before you print it, the consultation before you run it. I tell you what to change while it can still be changed.
- When something does not work, we work out why. A course cannot do that part.
You still do the work. I am there while you do it, and I have run all of it in my own studio.
What actually happens
How the twelve weeks run.
So you know exactly what you are committing to before you book a call.
Before we start
You fill in an intake with your current pricing, your enquiries and your numbers. I read it before we meet, so the first call starts on your business rather than your history.
All your calls go in the calendar
You choose twelve weekly calls of 45 minutes, or six fortnightly calls of 90 minutes. I recommend weekly, so nothing stalls between calls. Either way they are booked up front, so the twelve weeks have a rhythm. If something happens and you need to move one, give me 48 hours and we move it. Life does not disqualify you.
The calls
45 minutes weekly or 90 minutes fortnightly, on Zoom, or in person if you are close enough, and recorded so you can go back to it. We look at what you did since last time, what happened, and what is next. You leave each call with one or two things to do, not twenty.
Between calls
You have me on Telegram, Monday to Friday, 10am to 6pm AEST, and I reply within 24 to 48 business hours. You send me things before they go out. A campaign, a caption, a price list, a reply you are not sure how to write. I come back with what to change. This is where most of the value actually sits.
When something does not work
A campaign gets six entries instead of sixty. Someone goes quiet after the consultation. That is normal and it is not the end of anything. You send me what happened and the numbers, and we work out whether it was the offer, the audience, the message or the timing, and change that one thing. You do not sit with it alone for a month.
Week six, and week twelve
Halfway we look at what has actually moved and change the plan if it needs it. At the end we go through what you built and what happens next without me.
Free, 15 minutes, and you have not enrolled in anything by booking it.
What we work on.
We start with whatever is costing you the most right now, and work through from there.
Your pricing
We go through your actual price list together, line by line, with your costs beside it. Then we work on you being able to say the new number out loud, because a price you apologise for is a price nobody pays.
Where your enquiries come from
Active: giveaways, complimentary sessions, partnerships, projects. The campaigns you run when you need to fill a month. We pick one that suits you and build it.
Passive: your website, your Google Business Profile, your social media and your email list, so you are not starting from zero every time.
Turning an enquiry into a booking
The consultation and the ordering appointment. What you say, when you say it, and how you present your prices. I have a script I use in my own studio and recordings of real ones, and I will watch how yours are going and tell you what to change.
The bit in your head
The specific moments. The pause before you say the price. The follow-up you keep meaning to send. The discount you offer before anyone asked for one. We work on those as they come up, because they are what stops a good plan from getting run.
Your systems
The workflows and the automations, so the admin does not take every evening and the whole thing does not fall over the first busy month.
How I work out where to start
Bookings usually stall in one of three places.
Your message, so the right people know you are the one for them. Your visibility, so enough of them see you. Or your conversion, so the ones who do enquire actually book and spend.
Most photographers are solid in one and missing the other two, and that is the feast-or-famine cycle. Fixing the wrong one is why marketing feels like it is not working.
Working out which one is yours is the first thing we do together. It is also the first thing I will tell you on the call, for free.
Included
The AI tools I built for my own studio.
You do not need to be technical, and there is nothing extra to buy.
The one you will use most is my campaign builder. You tell it the campaign you want to run, and it comes back with the plan, the landing page copy, the social posts and the email sequence, written for your business and in your voice rather than generic.
A real example. You decide to run a giveaway to fill November. Instead of a blank page, you get the offer and the entry mechanic, the landing page copy, five social posts, and the four emails that take an entrant from signing up to booking a consultation. You edit it to sound like you. What used to be a fortnight of stalling is an afternoon.
I set it up with you on a call rather than sending you a folder of prompts, and you keep it. You also get the prompt library I use in my own studio.
Two clients
What this looks like when it works.
Yunet came to me with no studio and no real paying clients. Three months later she had her own.
Where she started. Yunet had run a photography business for three years and closed it right before COVID. She had spent heavily on education, backdrops, lighting and cameras. Everything she thought a successful business needed. Then she started again in a new city, a new state, a new genre, capped at $1,500 on digital-only packages with a huge editing load and no real paying clients.
“I invested a lot of money on education, on backdrops, props, lighting systems, cameras, everything that I thought I needed to make a business successful. That of course was not it.” Yunet Solorzano, Olive and Fable Pet Photography
What she did differently. This time she invested in the part that did not come naturally to her, which was the marketing and the business. She found me online and started one to one.
What happened. She started with me in June. By August she had opened her own commercial fine-art studio in Kirkland, Washington. She stopped running outdoor sessions and handing over files, and started selling in person.
“My biggest change has been my mindset, that this business can be sustainable, that I can do this full time, that I can make this work and make a living out of it.” Yunet Solorzano
Yunet joined my Mastermind partway through that first year and has had support from me since. The pricing, the positioning and the sales process were built in the one to one, before the studio existed.
Michelle Marchant, Captured Hearts Photography, Melbourne. Michelle has worked with me one to one in individual sessions, on her lead nurture, her consultation and how she presents her pricing. She told the story on my podcast in August.
Where she was, and it is the same place Yunet was:
“I had the lead, but then I didn’t know what to do with them. I didn’t know how to nurture them. I didn’t know how to get them through and make them into booking.” Michelle Marchant, The Pet Photographers’ Journal
What changed once she had a consultation process and put her full pricing in front of people early:
“often people will start off by saying, I’m just gonna get the minimum package or I’m just going to do this, which I’m looking at a thousand, but by the time we actually get to the sale it’s more like two to three thousand.” Michelle Marchant
And on handing over the price list, which is the moment most photographers dread: “when I’m handing over that pricing brochure now, I’m not feeling yucky.”
About Ina
I teach what I am doing right now.
I run a pet photography studio in Canberra and I am a Sony Australia brand advocate. I still photograph dogs every week, still run the campaigns, and still test everything I teach in my own business. When I tell you a campaign works, it is because I ran it last month.
I did not start knowing any of this. My first year I made $40,000. I built the whole thing while working a full-time government job, and there was a year in there where I did 140 sessions, charged too little, did all my own editing, and nearly ran myself into the ground proving I was busy.
What changed it was learning to price properly, running campaigns on purpose instead of hoping, and selling in person without feeling like a fraud. Last year the studio turned over $305,000 AUD.
I started this after I lost Mac, my heart dog. He was diagnosed with heart failure in 2017, given six months to a year, and fought for two before he passed in 2019. What I had left of him was photos, and I could not find an outdoor pet photographer in Canberra when I needed one, so I started doing it myself.
I have also invested in my own coaching every year since I started, and I still do. I know exactly what it feels like to hand over money and hope.
How many people I take at once.
I take a small number of one-to-one clients at a time so that each of you gets a proper look at your business rather than a slot. Weekly or fortnightly calls, all yours, plus Telegram in between that I answer within 24 to 48 business hours.
When the spots are full, the next one opens as someone finishes. If there is a wait, I will tell you on the call rather than let you sit wondering.
Is this the right fit?
This is for you if
- You photograph pets, part time or full time, or you are starting again after it stalled.
- Something specific is stuck: your pricing, your enquiries, or what happens after someone gets in touch.
- You have learned plenty already and want someone to look at your business and tell you what to do with it.
- You will do the work between calls. It is a few hours between calls, and it is the part that makes the difference.
This is not for you if
- You want someone to run your marketing for you. I coach, I do not do it for you.
- You want me to build and manage your ads. That sits outside this.
- You are after feedback on your photography rather than your business.
- You would rather learn alongside a group over six months. That is my Mastermind, and it is a genuinely good option for some people.
The investment.
The short version
- Twelve weeks, private, just you and me.
- 12 weekly calls of 45 minutes, or 6 fortnightly calls of 90 minutes, on Zoom or in person, recorded.
- Telegram in between, weekdays 10am to 6pm AEST, replies within 24 to 48 business hours.
- Your campaigns, pricing and consultation reviewed on the real thing before they go out.
- Business audits as you need them.
- Built around your business, in the order it needs, rather than a set curriculum.
Everything below is included in all three options. The only difference is how you pay.
- 12 weekly 45-minute calls or 6 fortnightly 90-minute calls with me, recorded
- Telegram access for the full twelve weeks, weekdays 10am to 6pm AEST, replies within 24 to 48 business hours
- Your pricing, campaigns and consultation reviewed on the real thing
- Business audits as you need them: website, pricing, offer, positioning
- My consultation script and templates
- The campaign builder and prompt library, set up with you, yours to keep
Pay in full
USD $4,500
One payment.
Three payments
USD $1,650 /month
3 payments. Total USD $4,950. First payment upfront. Payments finish with the program.
Six payments
USD $850 /month
6 payments. Total USD $5,100. First payment upfront. The program runs twelve weeks, so the last three payments fall after it ends.
All prices are in US dollars. Payment is due in full, or your plan started, before the program begins. Fees include GST for clients in Australia. For international clients the supply is GST-free.
Frequently asked questions
I have done courses before and nothing changed. Why would this be different?
Because a course cannot see your business and I can. You send me your real price list, your real campaign, your real consultation, and I tell you what to change in yours. And when something does not work, we look at what happened together rather than you deciding you are the problem.
If you tell me on the call that you have tried a lot of things already, that helps me. It usually tells me where to start.
What if I get stuck, or I fall behind?
Tell me. Calls can be moved, and getting stuck is normally a sign that the plan needs changing rather than that you need to try harder. That is what the messages between calls are for.
Can I do this alongside a job?
Yes, and most people do. I built my studio while working full time. Weekly calls are 45 minutes, and the work between them is a few hours, not a second job. If weekly is too much alongside your job, choose six fortnightly calls instead.
Am I far enough along?
Yunet had no real paying clients when she started. What matters is that you are photographing pets and you are willing to do the work between calls. If you are genuinely too early, I will tell you on the call and point you somewhere cheaper.
What if it does not work for me?
There is one way out, and it is written into the agreement rather than being something you have to ask me for. After your first call, if you genuinely feel it is not a fit, tell me in writing within 48 hours and I will refund your remaining instalments, less the value of that first session and any materials you have already had. After that the twelve weeks is committed and payments are non-refundable.
Before any of that, there is the free call. Fifteen minutes, where you tell me what is stuck and I tell you what I would fix and whether twelve weeks with me is the right way to do it. If it is not, I will say so then rather than take your money.
How is this different from your Mastermind?
This is twelve weeks, private, with a plan built on your numbers. The Mastermind is six months in a group working through the full curriculum. Some people are better off in the group, and if that is you I will say so on the call.
Will you run my ads or write my copy?
No. I will review your campaign before you launch it, tell you what to change, and help you build it. I do not run your ads for you or write your content for you, but I do give you the AI tools to get you started.
I am not in Australia. Does that matter?
No. Everything runs on Zoom and most of my coaching clients are in the US, Canada and the UK. We find a time that works.
What if I cannot afford it right now?
There are three ways to pay, and the six-payment plan brings it to USD $850 a month. If that is still out of reach, I also run a one-off Strategy Intensive at USD $500, and it credits off the twelve weeks if you move across within 30 days. Ask me on the call.
Let’s work out what is actually stopping you.
Book a free 15 minute call. Tell me where your business is now and what has already been tried. I will tell you what I would fix first, whether the twelve weeks is the right way to do it, and what it would look like for you.
Booking the call does not enrol you in anything. If it is not right, I will tell you.
Book a call with me