Opening a photography studio had been on LaJune’s vision board for years before she ever opened BLK STRY Studio. She knew it was part of her journey to living out her purpose. In today’s episode, LaJune King joins us to share how she found her perfect studio, what she invested to make it her dream, and why it was important to create a space for people of color to be seen.
The Business-First Creatives Podcast is brought to you by CRM and Dubsado expert Colie James. Join Colie each week as she discusses how to build a business that brings you joy and a paycheck! From business advice with fellow entrepreneurs to sharing automation tips and tricks, Colie and her guests are sharing industry trends and resources, along with a little bit of sarcasm.
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Guest Bio:
LaJune King is an accomplished personal branding and family photographer, based in Frisco, TX, whose work goes far beyond just taking pictures. Her passion for elevating the representation of Black men, women, and people of Color in photography has made her a leading figure in the industry. LaJune has a unique talent for capturing the essence of her subjects and telling their stories in a way that resonates with audiences of all backgrounds.
Today’s episode is brought to you by my Love Your Leads private audio training! Are you providing an experience for your leads that sets an expectation on when they’ll hear from you, provides them with tools that will help them easily say yes and book you, while also making them feel seen and heard? In my private audio training, you’ll learn how to love your leads and get more booked clients through an automated booking process.
Here are the highlights…
[1:22] Get to Know LaJune
[3:35] Opening Her Studio
[12:01] Favorite Part of Decorating the Studio
[12:12] Least Favorite Part of the Studio
[13:52] The Timeline of the Studio Opening
[14:18] Pricing & Knowing the Worth
[22:15] Marketing the Studio
[24:14] LaJune’s Degree
[28:41] LaJune’s Journey to Motherhood & Photography
[33:23] Best Investment in Business
Mentioned in this Episode
Connect with LaJune
Today’s episode is brought to you by my Love Your Leads private audio training! Are you providing an experience for your leads that sets an expectation on when they’ll hear from you, provides them with tools that will help them easily say yes and book you, while also making them feel seen and heard? In my private audio training, you’ll learn how to love your leads and get more booked clients through an automated booking process.
Review the Transcript:
Colie: Hello, hello and welcome back to the podcast. My guest this morning is LaJune King. She is a fabulous family photographer out of D F W area. She’s gonna tell you exactly where, but we have this fight every time we say it. So, good morning, LaJune, how are you this morning?
LaJune: Good morning.
I am trying to wake up for you.
Colie: And you know, I’ve been awake for hours. It’s
okay guys. This is, I warn people when I invite them onto my podcast, I’m like, I record first thing in the morning when I am fully caffeinated and happy. If you need a later time, please let me know, but just know that I will probably be dragging. So why don’t you tell the listening audience, exactly where you’re located and who you serve.
LaJune: Okay. Hello everybody again. My name is LaJune King. I am a personal branding and family of color photographer based in Frisco, Texas. If you don’t know where Frisco is, just think of the Dallas
Cowboys. They practice where I lay.
Colie: Mm-hmm. That part. Uh, so
you are a personal branding and. Photographer for families of color. Now, LaJune, I just feel like you are one of the people who has the most
specific clientele in mind when you market. So how did you land on that particular area of specialty?
LaJune: Now, uh, 2020, uh, 2020, we were losing a lot of black people, as you know. And, George Floyd stuck out tremendously to me. So in that moment, I had to kind of be the change that I needed to see, and so I decided to. Go balls to the wall and let clients know who look like me, know that somebody looks like them and is willing to take their photo and push out their joy.
So if ever they became a hashtag, I have the joy to push out because we know what the media, how they would
spin it. So,
Colie: I mean that’s such a good point cuz in general I feel like, I mean everybody has iPhones now. Everybody constantly takes pictures of their own family. But in terms of actually hiring a photographer, I do feel like in a lot of ways our people don’t do it as frequently as I would like them to. And so I do love that you put that message out.
Today we are gonna talk about how you branched out in your business. And so one of the things that I find fascinating is when I hear of one of my fellow photographers opening a studio, because I think we all know, I don’t do outside. I don’t do studio. I wanna come to your house like, like Lajune says, where you lay and I wanna get you as natural as possible.
But I have literally been obsessed with watching you and your business grow through the studio. So tell me what prompted you to open a studio.
LaJune: Well, I don’t know if you think like I do as a photographer, but I thought that in order to become a successful photographer you had to have a studio. So I have put this studio on my vision board. I moved to Frisco, Texas, and I said, okay. I’m gonna add it to my vision board because why it’s something cool and I’m supposed to have it.
So yeah, I put it on my vision board every year since 2015 and then, January, 2020, that vision board I created. I took it off. I was like, okay, you know what? It’s been a long time and I haven’t gotten it. It’s cool. And I’m like, I don’t need a studio to, you know, validate what I do, why I do all this stuff.
And that same year we got Covid and it’s like the world shut down. We didn’t think we were gonna go back to work. At least I did not. And so, was like, okay, yeah, fine, whatever. And then my husband had actually started looking for studios, but again, the world shut down and the few people who did call us back wanted crazy prices or whatever for their studios.
February, 2021, we had the. Crazy snowstorm for two weeks or whatever around Valentine’s Day. And, we looked at a space, and the space that we looked at happened to be a space that he inquired about the prior year and mm-hmm. She said, I knew his name sounded familiar. I just, you know, couldn’t remember what happened to him.
Well, they had a bot system. It wasn’t set up properly to go back to them. So it was just in the wind, our contact information and saw it. I loved it. I cannot show on my face that I loved it because he’s like,
listen, they gonna,
Colie: We gotta negotiate.
LaJune: Yeah, they’re gonna charge us a billion dollars if you sit up here and act like you like it.
So I was like, walked down. I was like, Hmm. This is nice. I like this. Okay. And then, so he already knew that I had just fallen in love with
it, and here we are today. We made it work out
Colie: So the studio has been open for a little bit more than two years now.
LaJune: Uhhuh. We are walking into year three on May
1st.
Colie: Nice and so beyond. Okay, so you didn’t need the studio for validation anymore, but what benefits have the studio brought to your business and maybe to yourself?
LaJune: Well, I wanted to still have the studio because I was try tired of traveling to Dallas, going 34 minutes one way without any issues on the toll road. I just wanted to be able to have something closer to home, but also something to generate its own income. So, When that is a separate business, it is a separate business.
It is something that I do with my kids. So they know, okay, well this is how you have to work to do things. You don’t have to work hard. So I’m probably setting a terrible example of that because literally it does what it needs to do for itself. But it’s also me changing the way I would need the world to see us.
And shaping that narrative to what Black excellence looks like and generational wealth for them. I just needed something close by. I, that’s it. And when I was going through this journey, We were doing our Daniel Fast and we were reading this book called Draw the Circle, and there’s a Kroger li literally I could walk to Kroger from my neighborhood.
Well, next to Kroger is another studio, was an open studio space. I said a studio space. It used to be a nail spa, but I was trying to figure out, oh my God, how I could turn this into a studio, right? it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t for me. It was smaller. It. They took forever to get back to us and then finally when they did, it was way more than the studio we had that was double the square footage.
So I was like, Hmm, okay, well this isn’t gonna be it because I already know going into it, when you start a business, you’re gonna lose a little bit of money. So we took money from Photos bail JK and from our savings and kind of put that together
to get what is now Black Story Studio.
Colie: I mean, but, and I don’t, I mean, actually I do know what the space looked like because I followed you on Instagram. Like, you know, I followed you forever. We’re gonna talk about those Instagram reels in a minute, but, I mean, I do remember what the space looked like, and I feel like even when the space was empty and before you guys did everything that you did, it still felt very much like a LaJune King space.
It really did. I can’t imagine you opening a studio next to a Kroger that just doesn’t give the LaJune vibe. I’m sorry. Like I don’t care if it was cheaper or how much money you put into it to make it nice. I can’t imagine you owning a studio that’s next to a Kroger, like that would just bring the wrong element.
LaJune: I mean, you could be right that there could have been a whole bunch of reasons why that just did not work out for us. But it also falls into those you think, you know, until you know, you have no idea. I just knew that that was gonna be the studio. Like I just knew it. Knew it and the one that we actually got had never been leased.
So it was, it was perfect.
Colie: LaJune, if you don’t mind me asking, how much money did you put into the studio? Not how much your, your, your lease is, but like in terms of buying the flooring, the props, all of that. Like how, how much did you have to put in? And then how much, how much time passed until the studio was making a profit for itself?
Because I feel like a lot of people, like even if they can find the space, I want them to have a realistic idea of, you know, it’s not just finding a space and opening the doors and being like, come to me, that it doesn’t work that way.
LaJune: Um, first I would say, If you give yourself a budget for your studio, you need to double and a half that budget. Um, no lie. So we spent upwards of 75 K to get everything going. Mind you, you know, there are things that you don’t think about before you become a studio owner until it happens to you.
So like that beautiful sign that is outside.
Colie: Mm-hmm.
LaJune: Okay. If you pay attention to the shopping center that people’s studios are in, or maybe, maybe now y’all will pay attention to, signs. Your sign has to be a particular height width it has to have lights for it to be on. And also Black Story Studio is black in the day and it’s white at night because the lights are on.
It can, it can only be a specific type of sign to fit
the theme of the entire shopping center. A lot. So I think that the sign put the nail in the coffin for me because I’m like, I thought I was gonna get, oh, let’s no lie. I thought I was gonna have a banner. Just get a Black Story studio banner.
Put that up there. Cool. That’d be great. Right? Because you see it all the time and I’m not thinking whatever and No, absolutely not. Okay, cool. Well, we’ll just get like the basic,
I don’t know what they would be like. Wired type
sign. Put it up. Cool. Nope. Mm. Like it had to be a certain height, width, depth, and I think the thing has to be nasty.
Okay. I’m just gonna say it had to be big and nasty, and then they only give you 30 days from signing your lease to getting your sign up, so.
Colie: Wow, I didn’t know that.
LaJune: Mm-hmm.
It was,
it.
Colie: So let me ask you LaJune, cuz it seems like, it seems like you
got some feelings towards this side. Was, and was that the most difficult part? Like, let’s, let’s actually, let’s flip it. What was your favorite part of decorating the studio?
LaJune: I guess during the floors we, we laid the floors, because it was like a family affair. Like we had our neighbors come out helping us put the floor down. It took us four days. My least favorite part, but we, we found out that we had to add heating and cooling and get the ducks. And then there’s this thing, you know, called black taxi.
Y’all. If you don’t know what black tax is, it is simply, um, someone coming out for a business and crying about, you know, you c you’re inquiring about services. They come now looking at what, what you have going on, and they’re asking who the owner is. Then you may say that you are the owner and then all of a sudden, You have a black tax that’s gonna be added to your situation.
So you may start to do something with that person and they may fall off for whatever reason, and then you have to find someone else who’s not gonna add a black tax to what it is you’re doing. So we had two separate people come out to do like even our ducks for the studio because the first one was a black tax and then we learned it was a black tax by the price that we got for the second thing.
So that was probably my least favorite thing to do because who budgets for extra 15 k with that when you’re thinking, oh, it’s just ducks
Colie: Mm-hmm.
LaJune: be bad, you know? So, That would be my least favorite. The sign was actually very exciting. The sign for me kind of like validated, oh my God, it’s really here.
People can find it. I don’t, I can now take how to find us outta, you know, their emails because I’m literally walking you step by step on how to get to it.
So you know, but now we don’t need that.
Colie: Awesome. So in terms of getting people, like, how long did it take you before you got your first renter, because that must have been exciting.
LaJune: Oh, we got somebody in before we opened. So I got the keys in March and we did our soft launch on our anniversary April 25th, and then we opened to the public on May 1st. Well, we had already had someone using the studio before we opened in April. But we decided the first month. We gave everybody like a lifetime grandfathered clause of what the price was at that time, because I knew that we needed to increase the price because of all the beautiful things that we had in the studio.
It was just frightening to do because you don’t see any other studio in D F W charging this much to be in a studio. So I’m like, well, we’re probably. Not gonna book anybody, which at that time I was okay with it. I’m like, well I could just use it myself and you know, be okay. And we did like, it was hard, like when I tell you I was going back and forth like, oh my God, cuz it, it was already at like $85. And I’m like, okay, $85 is $10 more than what everybody else is doing. Okay, LaJune, you can do this. Cool. And I would just gradually go up to 90 and then I went up to 105 and then I brought it back down to a hundred, and then I finally stuck at one 10. I was like, okay, cool. Great. So now it’s easy. It’s easy for me to charge by worth. But that is things that we have to find as business owners. We have to understand our worth and find the value in what we do. And unfortunately, I had to go through that cycle all over again with Black Story Studio.
But I got it. Not only that, I got my husband on board with who our, who our ideal clients are for Black Story. He thought he didn’t care. He was like, I don’t care. I’ll take anybody’s money. Anybody. I don’t care. Oh.
Colie: No
LaJune: That tone changed extremely fast when we got a little hate inside the studio.
Not gonna say what they, drew on one of our window panels, but let’s just say he turned it, he turned it into love. He was able to turn it into, a triangle, diamond, rather kite looking thing with love in it. Uh, yeah. So in that moment, I think
he realized, yeah, this is it for everybody.
Colie: Now Lajune, I find it
very interesting that you still had the gradual increases and the up and down, because I feel like in your actual portrait business, like photos by LJ K, I feel like, I mean, see, look, look at your face. You guys
LaJune: she don’t care.
Colie: She don’t care.
She charges what she wants.
So why did
that exactly, why did your confidence from your portrait prices not translate into setting the prices for your studio? Because I will say, I mean, you know, I have two sides to my business. There’s photography and then there’s Dubsado. And like, I mean, I was never cheap as a photographer, but I was certainly never cheap as a system strategist.
Like I learned my lesson from one side, I, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t then do that on the other side. So why didn’t you have the same confidence in setting the price of your studio that you have for your portrait prices?
LaJune: I failed. Everything that I speak to about personal branding, I failed because I was worried about, my competition. I was worried about, oh, they’re not gonna book us. I was worried about us being too far. I was worried about all the things that makes it unique and makes it great for them to wanna come and work with us.
I had to adjust my ideal client for the studio space. I was afraid to do that because the ideal client for Black Story Studio is not my ideal client for Photos by LJK.
Colie: Mm-hmm.
LaJune: So I had to be okay with that. I had to go through the motions of, oh, well do you have a discount? Cause we did try to do $75 Tuesdays
Coley.
Colie: Mm-hmm.
LaJune: No,
Colie: I mean, LaJune, the word discount is not in your vocabulary for your portrait business. So again, I don’t know why you would try to put a discount
LaJune: don’t know. Those Tuesday clients would try me. And you know, being a black woman in business, I can’t just say what I wanna say about how you treat the studio, even if you are trash. I had to be kind. I have to get pink starburst energy, and I just got to the point where I was like, it’s gone. It, it, we are no longer doing $75 Tuesdays.
It’s just, it’s just done.
Colie: Righty then, so you finally landed on your clientele. What’s your booking rate for like the studio? Like how many other photographers do you have coming in either on a weekly basis or on a monthly basis?
LaJune: So we are typically 40 to 60% booked depending on the time of year we actually went. Mm, a full 16 months without having to come out of our savings. That is another thing people need to understand
when you have high am I, am I allowed
to say bad words?
Colie: Oh, you’re, you’re allowed to cuss as much as you want. Lajune.
LaJune: When you have high ass rent, that also goes into why you charge what you charge, right? But when you have really, I, it could be low rent for all our care, you just need to make sure that you have money set aside for moments where you can cover the rest of your rent. That would’ve been great. My husband’s really good at business, so, but it would’ve really been great to, Receive that from people because the world will make it look like everything is great and people are coming to these studios left and right, booking and all that.
But the thing is, everybody might not be charging what you and I are charging for their sessions. And they may not know, okay, well I could just charge the client to do this rather than me do this. No, they don’t know any of that. And so sometimes it does get hard. Our really popping seasons are,
October through December, obviously, because Christmas and stuff like that.
I’ve learned that our slower seasons are January and February, unless they’re purchasing in December to go into January, then you know, you have some leeway, but it was really slow. January and February. And so whenever it is slow, we do get really great bookings. So if it is slow, you may have some content creators who wanna come into the studio and create their content.
So I’m like, oh, this feels good. Okay, great. You know, which helps push out our agenda, which is for every, every creative to be seen,
you know, within Black Story Studio.
Colie: No, that’s awesome. And I mean, I do love that you are willing to talk about the numbers because like you said, I mean, and this isn’t just about opening a studio. I feel like this is what everybody thinks. Opening a photography business is like, you open a photography business and all of a sudden you’re just gonna be booked with all these people wanting photos.
That shit doesn’t happen.
LaJune: Right.
Colie: And so why would we expect it to be that way for any other business that we open? But yes, definitely having like a cushion. And I mean, I would say the same thing for like your photography business, of course. Fall season for anyone who photographs families is always going to be your busiest season.
And you have to make sure that you are taking the money that you make in the fall and stretching it out over winter. Otherwise, you might be able to pay yourself a lot of money in fall and like early winter. And then when you actually get into winter, early spring, like your bank accounts are empty. And it’s like, okay, most people would just be like, oh, well, you know, I just won’t pay myself.
But for a studio, you don’t have that option. You still have to pay that lease to them every single month. So let’s talk about marketing because I know that you are a great marketer for your portrait business. How do you market the studio or do you market the studio?
LaJune: When I do, I kind of market it the same as I do my own business. You are gonna look me up anyway. You’re going to figure out who owns Black Story Studio. You’re going to fall into the trap of, you know, you may even make your way into TikTok and just follow me. You can either be in shock and awe, or you can be like, oh my God, this is amazing.
You know, I’m so happy to have somebody who is authentic, but she. On this end and on this end, she’s like dominating. So I show up how I show up. The bad part is I probably forget to show up a lot more for Black Story Studio. But even creating that content is always fun as well because it gets people to see the real faces behind Black Story Studio.
I get to incorporate the kids coming in, doing what they’re doing or lack thereof. When Demetrius is involved, he’s like the Easter bunny. So I get to have him dress up and for an hour he’ll take photos with the kids for Easter and things like that. So I try to capture that kind of stuff. But I also want it to feel like a family establishment.
So, If they do see my kids, or if they do see messages, my kids eating or running around the studio, one is on his game and one is actually swiffering, that’s real life. So, you know, I want them to see like, okay, this is a space for me to bring my kids so I don’t miss out on a photo session. Or if I don’t miss out on money, whoever’s on the opposite end of
that, because I have kids and CA couldn’t get a babysitter, so,
Colie: Mm-hmm.
LaJune: mm-hmm.
Colie: No, I mean that’s definitely one of
the benefits of having the studio, and I love how in your studio you have the separate spaces and they all look so different. And of course, you do have a place for your kids to hang out if they’re not with a babysitter, which is super, super awesome. So I just wanna, I guess I just wanna give a shout out to your supportive husband.
I feel like those of us that have supportive partners tend to make it further in our, you know, solopreneur businesses than others. And I do love that, you know, I mean, I. It is y’all’s family business, but I do love that you know, he’s in there and he gives you what you need. And it’s always great to have a supporting partner like that.
Now my husband has absolutely no business sense, guys, so please don’t think that I’m saying that James really does anything in my business. He does not, but he is very supportive of everything that I do. My husband is definitely e lab rat. He knows how to, you know, do his biochemistry things and I don’t really ask much more of him than that.
I wish I could. Which Lagoon brings me around to, let’s talk about, cuz we’ve known each other for longer than these photography businesses. I know that you went to U T A tell me what you studied because I think it’s so interesting that it has absolutely nothing to do with either of your businesses.
LaJune: Let me just say before we get into that, the best thing that came out of UTA was my husband. Okay. Um, he and I had the same major. Not the same minor.
Colie: Okay.
LaJune: He’s, but same major. So that means that we had almost every class with each other. So the good, the, yeah, the good days were good. The bad days were terrible.
And he wouldn’t buy his books, so when he wouldn’t buy his books, he would borrow mine and if he didn’t come to class, he didn’t take notes, he would borrow mine. And when we were fussing and fighting at each other, guess what he got neither. So, uh, he just found a way not to get around the system and not have to buy books.
But my major was criminology
and my minor was in Spanish.
Colie: I mean, LaJune, I just, I literally
don’t understand. How do you go from that to having a photography business and then opening a studio? Like what was your transition from I’m in college studying criminology. Like, did you wanna be a CSI person? Like, what did you
LaJune: I did.
Colie: do?
Okay.
LaJune: did. I did. I wanted to be, well, I eventually, I wanted to be a corporate investigator. However, I got profiled a lot in college to the point where I said, I’m just gonna finish this degree and be done with it. Because that I think about it, back in the nineties,
early two thousands, I could have been a Sandra
Colie: Bland.
Hmm. I mean,
LaJune: about.
Colie: went to Prairie
View, so you know, that hits rather hard, so.
LaJune: I, I, I, I literally think about that. I got harassed so many times by one officer in particular, to the point where I had to report him, my husband the same way. But it was just something that I was like, yeah, I can’t respect it. I’m sorry. I’m not gonna do it. And
the good thing is I was, I was fluent in Spanish.
Colie: Nice.
LaJune: even three years outside
of graduating college.
Not anymore.
Colie: Anymore. It’s okay. Sometimes we just let those college things just fall by the wayside. It’s okay. I mean, I will say for us, I mean James, his degree, he has biology and then, biochemistry, PhD and he still uses his degree in his like daily job. And I was math and
statistics and then education. And so technically I don’t really use my degrees either.
But I do feel like they gave me a foundation for
LaJune: Yes, of course.
Colie: research and data and, I mean, I took a lot
of business classes in school even though I wasn’t a business major. But I just think it’s so fascinating when I’m talking to my guests and I’m like, okay, but like, where did you start? And like, how the hell did you end up here?
Because that just don’t, that just don’t make no sense. So why did you branch out into photography?
LaJune: So, the year that we got married, I decided to take a break from working. I used to work for The Limited, that’s how I paid for school. I was a manager at the Limited feel like I worked at every last one of ’em in D F W, just about. And once we got married I said, okay. I’m gonna take a break cause I had just closed the last one I was gonna be at.
So I was like, okay, I’m gonna take a break about a month just to chill out because I’ve literally been working since the day after I turned 16.
I would’ve worked on my birthday, but the guy said,
enjoy your day. So I was like,
Colie: ma’am. I cannot imagine you working on your birthday.
LaJune: Yes. That is how hungry I was to have some money. And so I took off for a little bit and I started traveling with him for work cuz at this time he was doing catastrophe claims where we would go to Louisiana for 21 days, do the claims for them, come back home, go somewhere else.
And his uncle had gotten sick, I wanna say the beginning of the next year. January-ish, February-ish. Mind you, we wind up going back in April and I found out I was pregnant and my, when we got married, Colie, I did not wanna have
kids. Let’s back up. I did not wanna be married. I wanted to just live my life and a boyfriend, which is cool.
But I, I didn’t expect to get married. Okay. I definitely didn’t expect to have kids like, No, absolutely not. Don’t want ’em. Right. So got pregnant. Everybody’s excited, and I’m just bawling. I am just boo cooling because I’m like, how is this big old thing gonna come out of my body? Like it’s like a watermelon coming out of a sink hole. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around that, and I’m like, it has to come out. And so I’m terrified the whole time. The, oh, you should have saw me the, the, the last month that I had him. but I just, I’ve taken photos of Drew would be, you know, my way to peace, sanity, just to have photos of my baby. And then that’s when I started charging people about $50, for all of their digitals.
And the good thing is I did have a contract that I would send them over to scan, print off and bring back to me. So I always had a contract. I don’t necessarily know what it all had in it, but I gave them all their digitals for $50. And I had some type of system in place because I would always send the email, like I would try to make up this pre, how were we doing it back then?
I don’t remember, but maybe it was Photoshop, make a little pretty sheet and it had, you know, me on there and what the session entailed. And then they signed for a model release, which was separate, but I did it. I created it, and that’s what they would do. And they would, and I used to keep a folder of all of
my contracts. I probably still have it, but I thought that was, the cutest little
thing. And here we
are.
Colie: I was, what I was about to say, we have grown so much. I
mean,
it’s funny, every time I have a guest on that, it’s like, you know, I was charging $50 for all the digitals, and they’re like, you know how that goes? I’m like, no, actually, I don’t know how that goes. But I hear it. I hear it quite often cuz my starting price was 700.
LaJune: Oh my
Colie: I mean, I was just, you know, I was very different. Well, I didn’t think.
I mean, coming back to when you were talking about charging rent for your studio, you have to remember I live in a very different place. I don’t live in dfw. So like here, charging a hundred dollars for our studios is actually quite common.
So I mean, I know that there’s like a price differential even though you live in a very nice area of DFW let’s just, let’s just leave that there.
But no, I didn’t think we were gonna
stay here because I shot everyone for free. Like absolutely for free while I was building my portfolio. And then I was done and I was just waiting for James to tell me where we were going next because he was finishing his postdoc and then when he got a job in Boulder, I was like, oh, okay.
Hold on.
That night I was in, you know, I filled out my DBA A for the state of Colorado. I was open, I was charging my $700 for a session with all the digitals included,
LaJune: Mm-hmm.
Colie: And then it just, you know, it just went from there. But I do love hearing people’s stories of how they started, because while you started charging $50, For all of the digitals or whatever.
I mean, now you charge thousands and you have your studio and you know, you’re just like, like, this is what it can be like when you put all your shit together and get your ducks in a row. And so, I mean, you know, lagoon, I just, I love chatting with you about all these things because,
just because you started.
With cheaper prices and not really knowing what you are doing. If you put in the effort and you learn, this is where you can go, which actually, let me ask you this now that we’re on this topic. What is the best investment that you made in your business? And it can’t be your studio.
LaJune: my mastermind, um, with Tamaya, like I feel like. It’s the point where you get as far as you can go in business and then you just can’t do anything. Like you can search all the things, but you don’t know what you don’t know. I say this all the time, so if you don’t know that you can automate your systems.
What does that look like? What is an automation? What is a workflow? Like the papers and emails that I was sending out manually. That was a workflow.
It wasn’t automated, but it was an, it was a workflow. Somewhat of a workflow. Yes.
Colie: Girl. Yes.
LaJune: So, It’s just finding out, being in a room of like minds and people that want to educate, not just say, oh, I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna charge you a billion dollars, but you’re gonna get the same stuff that you can find on the internet for me and yay and I have your money.
It wasn’t anything like that. Like I feel like when I joined, That program, it’s got me to where I am today. You’d be surprised at how many other photographers I had voiced that I wanted to open the studio up and they were pretty much speaking their own insecurities with what they had going on onto me.
Colie: Mm-hmm.
LaJune: And it’s so bad. I wanna be like, but I’m not you. I mean,
Colie: There you go.
LaJune: what makes, what about me? Makes you think that I’m set up to fail. A or B would not have a plan, B, C, D, E, F, or G, you know, so I learned to, move in my own light and, I don’t . Care. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care if I mention something. Just be glad that I’m, you have the honor of knowing that I’m doing this before I’m about to do it. But my biggest takeaway was joining the Mastermind group. The only thing I could just say is like, People will people, okay. If I waited to, if I opened the studio based on what everyone else thought I should do, what everyone assumed I could be comfortable with, I
wouldn’t be at Black Story Studio.
Colie: Mm-hmm. No, and I mean many, many, many people have said this on the podcast in that, you know, mentoring, coaching, masterminds, all of that was their best investment because like you said, there is only so far that you can go and then you need to ask for help. You need to like put your dreams out there and get some feedback so that you figure out the direction to go in next.
But it’s also important to find your people, guys because, just because Tamara’s. Mastermind work for Lajune doesn’t mean that’s the right space for you, but there is a space for everyone If you look hard enough, like you will find your people that are invested in you and are willing to push you and can help you get to the next level, just like they’re trying to get to the next level.
So, I mean, it’s so nice to hear that that was like their turning point for you. What changed after joining the Mastermind? Like, do you have one or two specific things? Because I mean, you know, you opened the studio, we’ve talked about that, but is there anything in like your portrait, business that you can point to that was like different from before you started the Mastermind and then after you started the mastermind?
LaJune: I started making money. I Imposter syndrome. No, like for real. Imposter syndrome will make people think that, okay, I’m gonna charge $150 and I’m gonna give them 10, 15 images. And not only that, when it’s time to view their images, I’m gonna edit all of them. Just so they can see them and I’m hoping that they’re gonna buy them now.
That’s not what I do. Like I showed up online. I was, I was showing up in 2020 cuz I was like, yeah, whatever. You know, it is what it is. I’m not going back to work, so I’m just gonna show these people my real self. When that helped me. But because I was able to have a streamline. Focus of what it is that I needed to do to grow my business.
I’m able to make money. I made the most money, most of my money in March of 2021 from TikTok,
TikTok
Colie: Okay.
LaJune: So I get, I am on here showing my entire behind. To people and they love it so much that they wanna come work with me and make sure she is who she is and she’s really gonna give me a great experience.
Something else I became, I, I guess I would say an educator, a speaker of conferences. I don’t like to call myself a teacher cause I’m not certified for that or anything. Um, That’s not my ministry. But I’m able to educate people on how I’ve gotten this far, how I’ve grown my brand, how it is, what it is today, and share my successes because there are times, as a photographer, a creative, we forget to celebrate how far we’ve come.
Colie: Mm-hmm.
LaJune: And on the flip side, there are people saying that you’re not doing enough, whereas you’re doing way more than they were. So I don’t even understand it. But yeah, so I’ve just learned to be in a space of celebrating, celebrating every single moment, and helping people, helping people grow, helping people break the stereotypes of being like myself, a black woman in business.
And just spreading joy. I spread more, more joy because I’m happier in my
business.
Mm-hmm.
Colie: No, I get that. And like what you said, like a lot of it is gatekeeping, like we feel like. We feel like there’s something that we should have and that someone else is like keeping it from us. And so by joining like, you know, a mastermind, getting a coach, doing those ki, going to conferences, doing those kind of things, you can get access to, you know, what it is that you think is being held behind doors from you.
But I mean, in all honesty, guys, you just have to find someone and ask them. Most people. Most photographers, most entrepreneurs want to see other people succeed. And so if you just ask them, you know, Hey, what was your biggest mistake? You know, what would you suggest that I do next? People are willing to impart that information to you because you know, at the heart of it, I wanna see every entrepreneur succeed.
It breaks my heart. When like local restaurants close because they don’t have enough business, it breaks my hearts when photographers can’t make, you know, a sustainable income from the business and they end up going back to a nine to five. Now granted, there is nothing wrong with getting a job, but if that’s not what you want, I hate to see it for you if that’s what you end up doing, because you can’t figure out how to make the business work for you, your lifestyle, your family. LaJune’s taken a selfie of us.
LaJune: I.
Colie: LaJune.
LaJune: mind, your business.
Colie: Oh, okay. LaJune. So I that’s all that I have for today. where can everyone find you on the socials in case they wanna get a dose of LaJune on TikTok because it is a sight to see y’all.
LaJune: Okay, great everybody. You can find me at photos by LJ K on TikTok, on Instagram and on Facebook. If you would like to find my studio, or if you’re in the Frisco area and you need a space to rent, we are here for you. It is Black Story Studio. It is B L K S T R Y studio. Dot com. It’s amazing. You can check us out on
Instagram as well, and thank you, so much for having
me, Colie.
Colie: That’s it for this episode, guys. See you next time.
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