Building a Team for your Photography Empire with Ayla Quellhorst
In 2018, I was a single mom, a medically retired Airman, going to school full-time, working at Target and trying my hardest to make my dreams come true. The same vision I had for 11 years. The same goal you may have. To build a photography business so I could do what I love while supporting myself and my daughter.
Then along came Rob, my now partner. The man who shed light on so many things that would slingshot my dreams into reality. One of the biggest things I have learned from him is that I can’t do it all. It takes a team to make things happen. That team is critical to your success.
Your team can take many forms, from the contractors you hire to vendors or even employees. No matter who they are, it’s essential to build your team around three simple ideas.
1. Share Your Vision
The first step to building a reliable team is to find people who share your vision. Our studio works mostly with H&H Color Lab for client products. It’s not because they are the cheapest or the best quality, although they kill it in both areas! We work with H&H because they share our values.
Look at the lab’s core values: “Truthful communication, building people, integrity, honesty, team success before individual success, and only a right thing done in a right way is right.” You can see that the lab stays true to these values because they offer education to photographers. Heck, they put together Project Obscura and are a massive supporter of ShutterFest. I have seen their communication and ability to build people because David Drum himself is at some of these events and takes the time to talk with photographers to find out what they need. Our studio has also received calls from the company to find out how they could better serve us.
