As entrepreneurs and business owners, we are constantly designing our own lives. Many of us dream of having plenty of time for passion projects, moments spent with family, and most of all to spend our time however we want to. In today’s final episode in a series on workflow, I’m speaking with my good friend Colin Coleman about how we can gain back our time to make a full-time salary on part-time work.

The Focused Photographers Podcast was created based on the idea that the most incredible tool for learning is a deep dive into any given topic from multiple perspectives. Join us every other week as we explore important topics, with host, Daniel Moyer and a variety of guests offering different perspectives! Make sure you’ve hit that follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast player to get notified each week as we air new episodes!

Subscribe on Your Favorite Podcast Player

Apple Podcast App | Spotify

REVIEW THE SHOW NOTES: 

Colin’s journey in photography (2:29)

Making the full-time shift to weddings (9:10)

Communication is the most crucial part of your success (17:18)

Making a full-time career part-time (19:08)

Hustling vs. grinding and taking back your time (30:00)

How the pandemic created new possibilities for photographers (36:46)

How Colin pared down his work (43:20)

Making money without trading your time (50:11)

Creating unnecessary work for ourselves as photographers (53:17)

Setting boundaries with your work (1:01:13)

Connect with Colin (1:09:52)

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

My 2022 Work/Life Balance Experiment 

Printographers’ Society 

CONNECT WITH COLIN COLEMAN

Instagram: @moonhoneyphotography | @fourdadtographers 

CONNECT WITH DANIEL MOYER​

Website: WWW.DANIELMOYERPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

Wedding Instagram: @DANIELMOYERPHOTO

Business Instagram: @GETFOCUSEDPHOTOGRAPHERS

REVIEW IN APPLE PODCASTS​

This podcast is about giving to others in knowledge, joy, insight, and (hopefully) humor. You can help too! The more reviews and ratings in Apple Podcasts, the higher the Focused Photographers Podcast will rank and ultimately the more people will listen to it. So if you’re getting value from this podcast, will you consider leaving a rating on Apple Podcasts? Just click below!

LEAVE A RATING IN APPLE PODCASTS!

Thank you!

-Dan

Review the Transcript:

Dan Moyer
Hey photography friends, I’m Dan Moyer and welcome to the focus photographers podcast where photographers gather. This episode is the final episode in the series on workflow so if you didn’t listen to the other ones before this after this go back and listen to it there’s some really amazing episodes one with Colie James on CRMs, and and how to choose them and how to set them up and all that kind of stuff. Another one on really building efficient workflows and how to think about them with Sam heard. Today’s episode though, is with a very good friend of mine, Colin Coleman, it was actually really fun to record this episode because it was just like recording a conversation on the stuff that we always talk about on a regular basis. So we did formalize it a little bit and, and created this episode around this idea of a full time salary on part time work. We’re all designing our own lives and outside of the wedding world, we all have things that we’d love to do. And for Colin and I, that’s one of the things that we always talk about, which is giving ourselves the space to do things outside of just running a wedding business, doing things like passion projects. For me, that’s things like this podcast, and that’s like the focus five newsletter that I send out every Thursday to my subscribers, and that’s also working one on one with photographers to allow them to build a business that serves them and looks like how they want it to look not by fitting into exactly how I want them to do it, or how the industry says they need to do it or anything like that. So I can’t wait for you to dive into this episode. Colin is somebody who never ceases to amaze me with his wit his ability to generate ideas and just being one of the funniest people I know. So without further ado, please welcome my good friend Colin Coleman.

Dan Moyer
So you’re the last person of the dad photographers group to be on this podcast? Why is that?

Colin Coleman
Cuz I don’t have anything interesting to say.

Dan Moyer
All right, and there’s the podcast episode. Great. Thanks, Colin. No, man, you got a lot. Actually, I was originally going to talk to you about IPs, you were on the IPS list. And now I feel like we’re on this like macro view. And IPS is just like one piece of the puzzle of the life that you’re designing.

Colin Coleman
I want freedom.

Dan Moyer
Before we before we dive into that, yeah, tell me a little about your life story and how you got to where you’re at and like, and we’ll get into like, the whole like idea of this episode, which is full time salary on part time work. But like, who is Colin Coleman? What’s your story?

Colin Coleman
senior year of high school, I saw an ad for Nikon D 40. It was a cool ad. It was like just taking photos of like things around your house. But yeah, it was just just kind of a hobby thing. And my parents got me that camera as a graduation president and like, I literally just did photos of like, my my dogs and like flowers and maybe friends. And then what happened was what inspired that was last semester of high school, I needed a blow off class, you know, senior writers I was done. Yeah, do and the guy who was teaching photography, I knew he wouldn’t really put tons of effort in and I could just sit there and probably get like an A or B or something. And it’d be fine. But I basically started, you know, being in the darkroom, because it was film at the time. I think I think I got the last glimpse of film before it died for everybody. But basically, I started skipping my on my lunch in high school to be in the dark room. And, you know, you don’t really skip like, you know, nachos Friday or spaghetti Wednesday. It’s tough. You know, it’s it’s grown boy back then. But yeah, basically, that’s the beginning. And then it became like a little hobby for the longest time. And I remember I remember thinking, like, I’ll never ever take photos of people. Like that’s too scary. Yeah. And, you know, that’s all I do now. And then going forward a little bit. And in at Penn State, that was our main campus. And so I play the ukulele. So that’s the other part. So I play the ukulele. It was like this funny, this weird thing that I wanted to do in college. And it just kind of turned into like one of my things. And it just, it just kind of grew on me really fast and repay instruments never do anything. But it’s a really like, easy way to get into music. I joined a songwriting club, and then eventually, the head of marketing at Penn State wanted to learn ukulele. And I was the only ukulele player in the club at that time. And I was barely a musician at the time, like barely. And I was like the youth guy. And then there was like 18 guitars and like singers and drummers and keyboards, stuff like that. And there was me with my lower ukulele. And I started teaching the Head of Marketing at Penn State, and eventually somehow, the topic led to photography because she did photography and Penn State marketing didn’t have a big budget for like this new website they wanted to do so they hired me to do it. What It was my first my first real job with photography was doing Penn State’s new website for their, for their health center I think it was. So like, like landing page stuff like photos of students like cutting out people and put it into it was like every time you would go would be like a different student and yeah, like I kind of weaseled my way on there with my like my ukulele and, you know, little little easter eggs. And I had no idea what I was doing. A couple years later, I found these guys on YouTube, who were they were all playing like 90s Hip hop on ukuleles. And yeah, there was like it was a Filipino ukulele band from Cherry Hill. I found these guys in Cherry Hill went down. I remember thinking like, music sounds awesome. The video looks awesome. What’s going on? And I go in and meet everybody. And they’re all photographers and videographers. Hmm. So just spur the moment what kind of stuff and we became friends and two of those guys, Ryan and Josh, they kind of took me under the wing and just took me on all these shoots. So Ryan took me on lots of weddings, he works at CHOP, and he would just only do weddings of chop nurses. That’s all he that’s all he ever did. He never advertised he does like 1015 weddings a year. They don’t have to do anything. And Josh was like the studio guy. So he kind of taught me just how to shoot in the studio and how to use lighting and like what different lights do and they both kind of taught me the fundamentals. And then I just kind of branched out off from there and just met people that were cool with teaching me I got lucky a couple of times, winning like internship at a magazine that I worked my way up up to and became one of the main photographers.

Dan Moyer
I’m trying to think at first, the first time I saw your work was that like Lehigh Valley style, or something was usually a bunch of them early on. Yeah, that

Colin Coleman
was that was it. So that was my, I have a degree in psychology. But the BS, which lets me when I went to need an internship, instead of like working at a in a clinic or something like that, which I actually didn’t want to do that let me work with businesses. So I was just walking down on my last semester of college. It’s like, it’s like a theme again, like, oh, I need internship, but I’m not gonna graduate. And I looked at the job post board, and it was like boring stuff. And then like, photographer needed for magazine, and we’re just like, okay, perfect timing, like, that’s me. And the next day, I emailed on that day, and the next day, I had the job. And that was that was sort of a lot of stuff. And that got me in front of a ton of businesses and gave me perspective on how, like all the way back into business works with photography and running a photo shoot, just being the face of something because like you show up at these little shoots, these little commercial shoots and like you’re the face of like, the client interaction between the magazine and you and then I got lucky and got to be with two really awesome photographers and learn from them. One, which is Allison, Allison caughlin. Yeah, and the other one. Yeah. And the other one is Donovan Whitmer. Who’s in Lancaster. He’s a commercial guy.

Dan Moyer
Allison is like, She’s somebody who, if you don’t know who else and Caitlyn is and you’re listening to this,

Colin Coleman
go look right now. Those don’t. I think we say from here on out, like it’s not gonna be as good as like, what you’re learning just looking at her photos.

Dan Moyer
Yeah, like, take a pause for a second. But then like, like, Alison, I think well now she’s was sponsored by Fuji, right and like a bunch of stuff, but she was like, the biggest person you’ve never heard of ever for the longest time, like just hustled did like an insane amount of weddings per year had like covers of Martha Stewart weddings magazine, and like constantly spreads in there and just like folded underneath industry radar

Colin Coleman
that was never never doing anything crazy. Never doing like these crazy offI flash things or like just, you know, nose to the ground grinding, doing job after job getting like being humble. Like she’s so humble. It’s crazy. Nice. And like she’s she’s goals really it’s it’s people like there’s so many other people to like her. I feel like these these these groups we find ourselves saying and it feels like like that’s like the industry but it’s not like there’s so many awesome people like her. And she’s like one of the best that are just under the radar and just like loving living life and you know, doing the job and like not being too concerned about like, all the noise.

Dan Moyer
Yeah, speaking of noise, when did it go from? Like, alright, I’m shooting at this magazine. And going out to all these different like mini shoots to Okay, I’m gonna go out on my own and do weddings. Yeah.

Colin Coleman
I think that was my last semester of college I got my first wedding gig and that’s after like being basically in a presence for weddings for like a year and a half with with Ryan and Josh. So I remember this this lady called me up and I was in class. I just left class to answer the phone. And it was the weirdest thing though. Because like nowadays, if you got a call like this, you’d be like, lady, this isn’t gonna work. But she she basically like, wouldn’t tell me it was a wedding until like, she knew how much how much I was gonna charge and I was like, I just I just want to get the job. I don’t care. four bucks, five bucks. I probably charge something like that. Yeah. I had Ryan was my second shooter which he basically made sure that my head was on straight. I was glad I had Ryan there. The couple I don’t think. I don’t think they were super excited at the guy I remember like, didn’t shave that much. I remember he had like, he had like a five o’clock shadow from like yesterday. So long. Yeah, it was it was kind of interesting. But I mean, it was a good first one because expectations were super low. And I think that the couple was doing it to appease the mom,

Dan Moyer
photographer just to appease the mom.

Colin Coleman
Yeah, that’s it. So it’d be like they would have probably just went to City Hall and did it but it did it for her did it for her. But they did it at Waterworks before waterworks was chess cafe.

Dan Moyer
Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Colin Coleman
That was my first wedding.

Dan Moyer
It’s a nice spot to have your first wedding at cheese. Yeah,

Colin Coleman
yeah, it was nice. It was super cloudy and kind of gloomy. But you know, really, really put the, the ambiance you want for your first wedding. But um, yeah, I mean, survived it survived hundreds of weddings since then. And kind of surviving a pandemic. Still working on that.

Dan Moyer
Sorry. All right. So go back to like, are you make the full time leap and stuff? And then like, are you get this first wedding, but then there comes marketing and, and all that stuff. And so like, what was like the height, right? Because there’s a point I think we’re at least in my own business, where it’s like, all right, like, you get it and you like, dip your toe in and like no, like, I got a couple people hire me. It’s like, I will all the people to hire me. Now. I’m just gonna go balls to the wall. I’m gonna get all these people. And then you’re like, holy crap. This is a lot of work. Yeah. Now, what do I do?

Colin Coleman
I think, for years, I just didn’t realize that at all. And I just kind of plow through it. You know, I remember one of the first years that I really started shooting and also second shooting, like I’ve taken jobs from anyone just to get any experience and meet people. I remember, I think Kenzie, cuz he’s 12. Now she was probably like, four or five, around then. A little one than two. Yeah. And she just, it affected her. Like, like, she was not happy that I was doing I was gone so much, because me and her mom aren’t together. And at that time, we weren’t, like getting along, as well as we are now like, now it’s just like, you wouldn’t even it probably looks so weird the outside from from people, the views our family, but like me and her are just like really good friends. So but then it was just like, it was, you know, I was getting Kinzie you know, every other weekend and like, when I would get her I would come home and I would go to a wedding or I would have two weddings that time so I would barely even see her. So I remember one specific time I was at my parents house and she was in bed I thought and I was downstairs in the kitchen table in stark and that was trying to edit and do whatever else I was going to do. And she must have snuck down and I saw all I saw as I was doing this doing editing and I saw like two little hands from under the table come and just like basically remove my my hands from my laptop. That’s terrifying. Yeah, yeah. She’s you know, she’s creepy, so it’s fine. She doesn’t know any better. She used to do this thing sometimes where like, she wanted to come into like the bedroom or something when like nighttime she was scared but what she would do is she would kind of slightly open a door and then just stand outside the door until we would see her so just imagine like It’s like dark and then she would just be like this. And then he didn’t use us all the time. I’d be like just like

Dan Moyer
daddy now man if that yeah, sometimes else will will just like appear at the side of our bed monitor like we can hear the door open like everything, but she will just like up here there. Or should like do like tickle arms like oh, you won’t like tap you she’ll like just like put her hand on your arm. Yeah, yeah, terrible.

Colin Coleman
Kids are Christie they’re sneaky. Ruthie just figured out how to open doors.

Dan Moyer
We’re not the ones well, that’s early. Holy moly. You had to put the gotta put the things on, you know things

Colin Coleman
outdoors or like the rectangles so like it’s a weird thing the

Dan Moyer
lash like goes down. Yeah, it’s like a little like

Colin Coleman
little plunger first Yeah. So she just tall enough now it’s more of like, oh, I can touch this. She’s actually and then she realizes that she can open the door. So it’s a new level of freedom. Yep.

Dan Moyer
Back to what we were talking about, which was making this like transition and like working a lot and and Kenzie being like just not liking the fact you weren’t around and all that stuff that that automatically changed. You said okay, I’m gonna pull away back or what happened then?

Colin Coleman
It stopped me from second shooting. I don’t really second shoot at all anymore. Except for maybe you Yeah, it’s up for you, Joe Matt and like a few others. It takes me it takes a lot to get me a secretary just because of that. And I think of like Ruthie now too, so I’m already leaving a lot of my own weddings. So it’s like, almost not worth it to shoot other people’s weddings. But yeah, I mean, that definitely went down a little bit, I would say I definitely, like, got organized as a business person a little bit. Which helps, which helps. Well, I think what photographers do a lot is like they fix little problems and then just like coast for a while, and then another problem comes up. And then they figured out how to fix it hopefully in the Coast again for a while.

Dan Moyer
And what do you think photographers coast on? Fold out?

Colin Coleman
Jeez. I mean, I’m one like social media, like, I’m terrible at doing my social media. Unless I can say that. No cross advertising. I’m terrible at that. I mean, website, people, like people will have the same website for years, just because they don’t want to do it again. I think client communication is usually probably pretty bad. I know. I’m not the best at it. That’s probably my next venture actually. You know, it’s really freed up some time for me. Yeah, I think like, just, oh, I look back end stuff, you know, like, you know, doing an album consultation and getting the sale and then doing like, the a bunch of stuff afterwards to like, finish it out. You know, I think I think it all kind of adds up, and just photographers naturally let things pile up. Yeah, and that’s another thing, it feels overwhelming and crushing. And like, if you don’t feel it, now, if you’re a new photographer don’t feel yet you’re going to feel it. Because you’re undoubtably doing stuff that is making like, like, it’s what’s the phrase, like, when it’s at a funnel, but it like stops, what’s it called? Something following words, bottlenecking, any bottleneck yourself lots of places. And also, like, you’re like, I wasn’t, I’m not good at every aspect of my business. So like,

Dan Moyer
nor shouldn’t be, but you have to, you have to, like chop those areas out. If you don’t enjoy them, give them somebody else.

Colin Coleman
Yes, 100%, don’t do it, or just don’t do it. And then and that’s the other thing too, is which if you don’t do it, so like a lot of people will not do like album sales. And that’s like, that’s leaving a salary on the table by not doing it. Or they won’t, they won’t, like hire like, like somebody to take care of the blogging or social media and like have your table if you’re not good at it, it’s gonna hurt you because it’s gonna make you look like you’re out of business like like having like, no social media presence, or like not being consistent with it. Unless you’re like, very few amount of photographers that like that stuff doesn’t matter for you know, that can kill your business.

Dan Moyer
There’s two things you’ve mentioned communication. And another one, I can’t remember what the other one is right now. But communication stuck out because I’m thinking about this exercise that I did from this book. So Mike McCalla wits book, but he like has people do this exercise where they like write down all the things that may are necessity or necessity for their company to run, right? There’s writing like, post it notes, he has like, helped, like just write it down, come up with and put it on the wall and write it down. And they start going through these things like, which is like absolute crucial first is like you, you take all of them, you look at all of them, and you match them all up. And it’s like, alright, well, this is kind of same as that that’s kind of same as this. And you like sit with us, like our, here’s the core tasks that we’d like me to do for business be successful. And they like sit on, it’s like, Oh, you got to remove one, like every day for the next week or whatever, and you get it down, then you’re down to like 10, then you have to like keep going, which is like the most important one that if it didn’t happen, your business would fail. So you get down to this, like, you keep getting like low or lower. And I was like, No, you have to like, you can’t get rid of this. You can’t get rid of that. It’s like no, no, you have to get down to this one single thing. And I think a lot of times would say it’s photography, it’s taking pictures, it’s whatever it is communication.

Colin Coleman
Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s the first thing that will piss off your clients. If you’re bad communication. They’re emailing you about like, when the makeup artist just asked what time? You’re gonna get there six months before the wedding? Yep. Yeah, like that kind of stuff. And then photographers who got that 30 of time this year are like, come on. Yeah, it’s all kinds of things. And that’s stuff I’m still working on to like, and it’s this day and age. There’s ways to like automate that kind of stuff. You know, so working on that. But yeah, communication, first thing that goes like that’s what, that’s what scares people. Yeah.

Dan Moyer
What was the other one? You said, IPS. And like, I think, oh, and like social media and all that stuff. It’s social media is tricky. Because like, it’s just such a, I don’t know, it’s a time suck.

Colin Coleman
It is a time suck. So all right, so we’re talking

Dan Moyer
about, like, all these things that like photographers drop off and do. And then But then you get back to like, okay, you can like, get some of those things out of there that you don’t need to do and you don’t want to do even though they’re important to your business, you can hire other people to do it. And I’m assuming that you started doing that because of all so we were talking about before about spending time with Kenzie. And now having a wife and being married and having another like new tiny baby. Yeah. But like, what was like that? Was there like a catalyst for change that you were like, Oh, this is the thing that I’m seeing right now. That like I am tired of doing or like what was the what was the catalyst for you to go with Mikayla? Like just like yeah, me. How’d you make that jump?

Colin Coleman
It was it’s been pointing this way for a while just like things weren’t there yet. Let it happen. And I don’t I don’t think it even occurred to me right away that it’s possible. So basically, like, my goal this year, is to make this full time career part time. I still want to make the same amount of money, but I wouldn’t spend, like, all the time that I actually put into the business, like, into the stuff I’m good at and stuff that I enjoy, which is, yeah, shooting, meeting people, you know, all of the beginnings, stuff of the business, just like bigger, bigger picture thinking, like, what am I going to do next? What’s What’s some projects I can work on? Like, I felt like I haven’t. You know, I’ve been a wedding photographer for like, seven or eight years now. But I remember really felt like a photographer, if that makes sense. Like, I love weddings, they’re still like, my favorite thing to shoot, especially when it’s like a good couple in a cool place. With a good story with a good family, like, those days are so easy, they don’t feel like work. Like it goes, like goes so quick. But then there’s days that you know, aren’t so easy. And those definitely feel like work. And those definitely, like make you schedule fillers. Yes. We’ve all gotten them no matter who you are. And no matter who you are, you’re still like dealing with a lot of shit. So like, you know, one really bad wedding can make you question what you’re doing with your life. And you know, I love you know, finding those people that definitely get my approach and get my best clients or the people that don’t get whichever call. They don’t get swindled by the industry. They don’t they don’t like need all the things you know, they’re very easygoing

Dan Moyer
pause there, because I want to come back to that because you like, I think it’s right to be like, oh, I want people to, like, choose me, for me and that kind of stuff. I think like the way I’ve designed my client experience is a game and I want people to play my game. Yeah. Like, and I’m not trying to cheap, cheap or fi cheap it. Yeah, that’s what I’m looking for that. She’s, that’s that rain. It’s late at night, folks. So like it, I want people to play my game, I want people to like come in and play by my rules. If people don’t have a long message in the first like message to me on my inquiry form and tavae It’s like our it’s already a little bit of a flag for me, like I put those questions. Reason I put

Colin Coleman
one of my little form parts of the form contact pages where it’s called, and in real life, is telling me a joke. And that’s like, that’s like a test. Because if they spend time and actually, like come up with a joke, even if it’s like a stupid little one, that they take two seconds, and like he will have a better chance of booking those people. And then people who leave the joke, field blank. It’s really weird. I’ve been doing that for a while.

Dan Moyer
But isn’t it interesting, though? Like, because everybody’s like, Oh, no, just get the lead in you. And then whatever. It’s like, no, no, I’m setting the bar high.

Colin Coleman
Right? Like those, those people haven’t had a client make you question what you’re doing. Like, I just don’t want that feeling. I want to stay away from that, you know, no one likes confrontation. And there are some people who are just built for it built to do that. And I’m not that’s why it’s really important to like find the right kind of clients for me that just like, let me go. And they also they also want their photographer to be let go. And just like, you know, enjoy their day.

Dan Moyer
Yeah, I mean, I think that was just part of it. But like, yeah, like client experience and all that stuff. But you said you were liking all of this. All this like pre stuff about meeting people and shooting, but then there’s a lot of other shit that you’re not that you’re saying like, Oh, I don’t want to do that. What do you do?

Colin Coleman
So I mean, the biggest, the biggest thing that anybody can do right now is AI, everything through AI and it’s the best thing ever. It literally saved me last year, I wedding started piling up. And you know, it takes time to go through a wedding even even when I was not only time, but also a lot of money because I was editing a big portion of it myself. But then I was sending it to somebody to edit and like each wedding, anywhere from two to three $50.23 or $30 per wedding will take about a week and a half to two weeks. And then eventually they actually got too busy because like they just had so many other photographers they were working with. It’s 2021 Everybody had more weddings, and I kind of knew that was gonna happen eventually. So I was looking for a solution. And imagine AI came into my life and basically saved

Dan Moyer
it. It’s so like gaming the system. Yeah, so that’s really

Colin Coleman
what it is. That was that was the first block. So instead of you know paying that money and waiting that time to get these photos finished, I was getting a full wedding gallery back in like 25 minutes. Like it was crazy.

Dan Moyer
And then how much time do you spend on it after that? Maybe an hour.

Colin Coleman
I’m still I still haven’t like fine tune image AI enough where it’s like, gray area right out of the gate. So I’m still working on that and like just, you know, small little tweaks through the whole gallery and then like one last call up. That’s like an hour so yeah, but it’s done like I’m right now. I’m doing a wedding on Saturday and it’s finished by Tuesday every time doing

Dan Moyer
in our little dad group like that is probably the most inspiring thing that like I only had a couple small weddings. And it’s not small weddings, but I’ve had a small amount of winnings like three so far before like, you know, now it’s May and I’ve got a bunch coming up and I’m like, like ration I already talked, I’m just like I’m coming back. And but literally like Monday the calls happening and then like send it out by like Tuesday night like Monday, Tuesday calls and things happen with the kiddos forever. Because then like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, like my brain is just in such a great space,

Colin Coleman
my work is 100 times better, because I have no no strain of going into a wedding. Think about my last wedding that shit done. Yeah, it’s gone and out. And like they either already have their photos, or Mikayla has it. And they’re already prepping the albums and stuff. Like, add the whole. So basically, I see it as three parts. There’s pre booking, during your booked and then post production. So the biggest thing is like, first of all, I hate editing too. So like I like editing the good stuff. I do not want to edit the whole wedding.

Dan Moyer
Everybody says, like, I want to edit the good pictures that I love that are gonna go on social and whatever 18 or

Colin Coleman

20. Time on, and like the two or three that might make it to a portfolio or something like yeah, I can I can now spend a ton of time on those and make them perfect. But like I said before, like also, I’m going to each one of these weddings like completely empty like there’s no like queue behind this wedding. That’s going to take this wedding longer. It’s crazy, Molly. So Molly now knows and her mom like so if I have a wedding Saturday, Sunday, like Monday babysitter, so we usually get the babysitter, and I just knock the whole thing out. I wake up at like five or 6am I already start calling if I didn’t call Sunday or the night of the wedding. And I’m trying to do that to like if I can get back and it’s not dead. I’ll call the wedding that night. So that part’s done in the Senate. And then all it is is just readjusting and kind of like doing like a quick coal. Just to finish it through that

Dan Moyer
that like calling right after the wedding. I was I was so angry, because I shot this wedding like March 19. And then like early May happened and I still had this freakin wedding on my plate. And in my brain. I was like, Oh, I’m gonna do remember a. And I was like, I haven’t seen it. I was like, Oh, I can’t wait to get this wedding out. And you were like, when was it in our little group? And I told her about it like, early, or mid March and you’re like, holy shit. Surprised emoji faces or whatever. Yeah. And then I got that wedding out. And I was like, like, I was like, Oh, my plates clear. Like, and I there’s somebody that I follow on Facebook somewhere, or Instagram somewhere. And they always post this story of their editing queue literally, like the names of everybody that’s coming up so they know where they’re at. And I always want to be like, how do you feel if you’re number 14 out of 15 in that and you know, like how long it’s taking everybody? And and like just like do the thing just do imagined AI or whatever it is because like, I don’t know, there. There’s so much other stuff out there that like you and I are working on stuff that now because like you don’t have all this extra post production. You’ve got this brain capacity to do other stuff that you want to do.

Colin Coleman
Yeah, I can I am that guy before before this I was like editing, watching Ruthie editing, putting me through the bed editing, doing chores. I’m the stay at home dad, you know, I’m doing all the house stuff. So like in between that and editing like it’s crazy. Like, in the day, I’m like, totally drained. And you can’t, you can’t think about your next thing you can think about you know what else you can think about bigger picture stuff. You just can’t even listen to this podcast called How to take over the world. And it’s this guy. He’s actually the guy that helps Sean and Sam on my first million, keep them straight in his podcasts. It’s gonna be big eventually. But he basically just Chronicles like real lives of these like big name people like Walt Disney and Napoleon and like Alexander the Great Steve Jobs and some other people and like these people were basically they just really did a good job of like, putting their life in a way with all they can do they have time to think you know, they figured out what has to happen to make this outcome and then they figured out how to delete the Delete themselves from it and put something in its place to take care of like what they were doing it’s kind of like automation a little bit or just something in place where like they don’t have to spend all their time there now that that they’ve developed how to do it. We’re just kind of like you mentioned AI like you already developed your editing style and like the cool thing about it is it can learn this totally sounds like an image net image and AI ad but it’s it’s always a game changer.

Dan Moyer
Yeah, if you’ve only there’s there’s phyto like from from what’s it called? Like they’re also really good. There’s a couple of AI ones that’s just the one that imagine AI is just the one that Colin I use, but like that is

Colin Coleman
the one that that that worked the best at the time. Yep, I think it still does. It was the only one to that like learning your style. Yeah, it’s a no brainer, so much more time to do all kinds of things or to do nothing, which is cool too. I saw I saw this thing somewhere. I think it probably tick tock. It was like I worked. I didn’t when working nine to five so I started a business so I can work 24 hours a day. That’s that’s everybody.

Dan Moyer
There’s All right, let’s let’s have a definition here. Oh, yeah. Because, yeah, I’m gonna clarify this because I think it’s important. Do you? Well, actually, let me ask you first. Do you think

Colin Coleman
the answer right? Okay, great.

Dan Moyer
I don’t think there’s any right or wrong answer. But like, I think there’s a period in the beginning. Well, I think there’s a period in the beginning like those first couple years, where you gotta hustle. Yeah. Right. You agree? Yeah. And then, and then if you keep hustling after that, the same way, you haven’t taken enough time to learn, like, the systems are put systems in place, you’re doing things efficiently. Yes. Okay. And then I also want to make this like idea that I think a lot of photographers, like hustling is good, um, way for like, you’ve got these periods of bursts energy, Kyle and I are working on a project together that like that, like we’re trying to, like, put together and all this stuff, and we’re like, it’s a lot of activity to like, get it up and go, and really, a lot of that fun stuff. A lot of not fun stuff, right. But then like, you know, and it’s gonna be a lot of like hustling and moving on. But I think that that is, it is short, focus bursts of energy towards like, achieving a specific goal. Yeah, right. That’s hustling I think if like, if you’re a photographer, and you have like those a couple first couple of years where you’re hustling, and you don’t learn after that you’re in the grinding stages, or I like to call it

Colin Coleman
Yep. And that’s when you turn bitter.

Dan Moyer
That’s when you turn bitter. What does grind mean? It literally means to wear away to nothing, right? And there’s a huge difference between hustling and grinding is like, coarse and unrefined. And you’re just like, sloppy. And even though I’ve been in business for 13 years, I definitely think that there’s these times when I’m like, like, I texted you a couple of weeks ago. And I was like, does it feel weird to you to like, not

Colin Coleman
be on the talk about this? Yeah. Oh, all right. Oh, yeah. Yeah, honestly, it feels super weird. I feel like I’m missing something. Or maybe I should be somewhere doing something. Yeah.

Dan Moyer
I was like, I’ve been doing so much busy work. Like my brain has been doing so much busy work for the past, like, however many years that also now, because I’m on top of stuff. My brain is just like, oh, yeah, cool.

Colin Coleman
Yeah. Yeah, it’s weirdly freeing. I’m still I’m still not used to it. I’m still, you know, I’m still trying to think of ways to make it faster and to you know, delete more me out out of the stuff. But I gotta say, like, you know, the time it’s given me like, everybody is getting, like a better version of me.

Dan Moyer
What was the book we read? Right before? The Psychology of money? It was other one that was like the study of all the different millionaires. Oh, God, richer, wiser happier.

Colin Coleman
That’s it? Yeah,

Dan Moyer
I’m pretty sure in that book, they talked about, like, how all of these people design their lives in such a way that they can, like, they have like hours just to think and just like, shoot, like, shoot the shit and, and all that stuff, right?

Colin Coleman
Yeah, yeah. That’s where I was going with the take over the world podcast, it was the same thing. Like they just figured out ways to think like, like, like Napoleon wouldn’t. Like he never drove anywhere. He never like, you know, got on a horse and went places, unless he was doing a battle. So like, he just had people to take care of everything. Like he would literally not even take time to throw stuff out, he would just throw it on the floor. So like, at the end of the day, he would have all this shit on the floor all over his his desk, because these people would come in and clean it up. Because it he was super organized. The point it was on the floor meant trash. And then he actually designed his desk in a way where there was like a skinny part in the middle. And then like, the left and right side were like round and big. And basically he would he would keep papers and things he had to look at on the left. And then when he was done and he wanted to keep it or like whatever he was doing it would be it would be put on the right. And then while the part in the middle was skinny, so he could have meetings and talk to people and there wouldn’t be papers and stuff in the way.

Dan Moyer
An amazing, awesome strategy who just talked on the floor,

Colin Coleman
everything was trash, we just truck on the floor. And when we wasted time, same thing with like Steve Jobs with Steve Jobs would do it. And it’s kind of like goes back to your point about figuring out like a couple of like, putting the 10 things and figuring out this stuff got to keep what he would do. I don’t know if you do it every morning or every week, or how would work. But basically, he would have meeting with all the engineers, and he would have a list of 10 things like well, what do they need to work on? Tell me right now. 10 things, why not? And he would he would put them on 10. And then like people would keep chucking ideas because they would want to be on his board. It was just like, you know, you want to have Steve Jobs like acknowledge you and like you. Yes, you need to do this thing and see if Steve Jobs agrees with me. So they would fight to get on his board. And what he would do is he’ll start with 10 and then he will start deleting stuff and add new stuff and eventually they will get down to only three things and that’s the only thing they will work on everything else. So like he was very good at deleting everything that didn’t matter. And this laser focused on things for everybody that matters so they can you know, get ahead faster.

Dan Moyer
So freaking smart. This is like there’s these people who are like on another level you That’s like, I want to listen to more of those people.

Colin Coleman
Yeah, yeah, I love listening to it, check out the podcast we have, what’s it called, again, it’s called How to take over the world. Just power to be able to delete stuff. And, you know, take back your time, so you can do other stuff. I don’t think that I’m supposed to be just a photographer, I think it’s, I think the one thing I realized is photography is one of those things, that’s kind of a cheat code to life. Kind of like how copywriting is, like we can, we can make any business we want right now. And automatically look better than a lot, a lot of the competition. It’s kind of like what happened when I started the photo booth, like I was, I was competing, I was of type photographer, competing against people who weren’t photographers in like foot in like, on like, the night or on like other places like that. So it was super easy to, you know, appear better. So like, I feel like with photography, like you, with me, I just think there’s more to me than just that. And that’s kind of what I’m trying to figure out. Now.

Dan Moyer
Did the pandemic have anything to do with that? And everything to do with it? I

Colin Coleman
loved all that time. Yeah, dude, it was it was. It’s hard. It’s terrible to say, but like, we had a good time, like, we got engaged. We got pregnant, we sold our house and moves we, you know, went to Savannah, Georgia and got married. We had all the time in the world with each other. And I had Kenzie, like, every week, like for a full week, which I never got her life ever and I had it for like a full year. You know, we’re awesome. Yeah. So like,

Dan Moyer
yeah,

Colin Coleman
no, not at all. No, not gonna do it. I’m waiting. I’m sweating. That’s where all my, my, my liquids going right now.

Dan Moyer
So, I mean, that the pandemic had a huge part and right, you got to do a lot of fun stuff and all that. But did you like getting off of the hamster wheel of weddings? Or like because for me, the very beginning part, right? Like, the big change for me was that I had a huge tie in of like, Here’s Dan, here’s wedding photographer, those two things are very madly in or whatever, right? And I was like, Oh, like this is me. Everybody knows me is this I’m very good at what I do. I have these like unbreakable bonds with so many married couples. And then like all sudden, it’s like, no, no, you have to You’re taking all that away and you can’t do any of that you have to figure out all the sudden you have to expend all this energy to keep everybody happy and everything’s just gets messed up and there’s big letdowns and all sudden that part forced me to look and say, Well, what am I outside of

Colin Coleman
this? Yep. Yeah, apparently you’re a bread Baker now.

Dan Moyer
I am a bread Baker.

Colin Coleman
I was too for a little bit until we moved in my in my stutter spoiled. Now right now, Chloe is a great example of this. Chloe Dawson if you don’t know her, Chloe Dawson photography, check her out,

Dan Moyer
shout out she’s probably listening.

Colin Coleman
But yeah, I mean, she she’s a new photographer coming into the industry. And with everything, the way everything’s going like you can, there’s so many opportunities for like remote jobs, or like studio manager jobs, or all kinds of different things. And she’s kind of been in this unique place to like, she works for an awesome like a really big studio, awesome studio in Philly. I think she’s gonna work with like, you know, one of the biggest changes to the photography industry soon. I think she’s gonna be part of that. And she does her own stuff, too, with photography, weddings, engagements, family stuff. So she has all these streams of revenue. And like she can work from anywhere in the world right now. You know, like, I talked to her. So she was working at a restaurant beforehand. And she told me how much she was being paid, and how much how much time she was there. And all of that stuff. And it was like, really, like, just, she needed to find another job. And she did. And like, once she eliminated not only the restaurant job and enjoying this other job, but just like the time savings, and that she gets back every single day. I think she’s working like 40 hours a week, full time at this place. It’s a ridiculous amount of like actual, I don’t think she realizes realizes yet but it’s like, it’s like a huge raise for everything. And not only that, but she has like freedom to go anywhere she wants. She can she she just I think she just flew down to Florida to visit her mom and she like worked down there. And she, there are pages and change. Like it’s, it’s one of those things so like, if you if you have like a, like a photography, business yourself like that, like, you know, maybe you look at how I’m doing it and see what changes you can make. That’s what Dan’s doing, too. If you’re newer, you know, you had I think you’d have more options because you can work for other people and and the same kind of thing that you can kind of work on your own time. I think there’s so many opportunity because of the pandemic and because of so much is remote now. It’s it’s like a no brainer.

Dan Moyer
So so let’s talk about this though that you are like coming back from a wedding and you’re just like hustling on it and getting the wedding done in like a super short period of time. Which also there was another podcast that I had with Sarah Monica. It’s the number of the Odd cast is escaping me right now. But she’s the same thing. She could take more weddings because she also didn’t have any kiddos yet at the time. I think she just had a kid Oh, shout out to Sarah Monica, who just had a kiddo and crushing it. But like, there’s this like, adding kids to It definitely changes the game a little. Like imagine being no kids. Yeah, shooting like a crap ton of wedding. And then like just editing like maybe Monday, Tuesday and having Wednesday, Thursday, Friday to do everything you want.

Colin Coleman
You could do 1520 weddings a year make make easily six figures and have four days of the week off. Yep, let’s do it.

Dan Moyer
Imagine, imagine being like, Okay, I’m going to shoot 30 weddings because I don’t care. Like I don’t have to like worry about going to soccer games or finals or whatever.

Colin Coleman
I can’t I wish I was 10 years younger. And that I could go through this, like, knowing what I know now. Like, oh my god, it would be so easy to be in my 30s with like, a good question of just money just just sitting there. Because you kind of hustled and you had the time to do it. Like it’s so much harder. Now. Like Like having Knuth, who was my was my other thing. I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how you do a business and then podcast. And you know, you build stuff all the time. And you bake. That’s and sometimes you make rules on Instagram. Like, I don’t know how you and you and we exercise and also do exercises from books. Like how do you do it all? You have twins and one extra that’s a little older. Like it’s insane. Insanity. I’m barely surviving with like, one at home. So yeah, if you don’t have kids, huge, huge, huge advantage right now. Because like, I think a lot of people with families will just kind of hold on. For the best.

Dan Moyer
Yeah, there was definitely a period where I was just holding on to, but like we’re getting out of that. But actually, one thing you said, made me think of my therapist. Shout out. He’s awesome. He’s not listening to this. That’s okay. I pay him to listen to me.

Colin Coleman
Pay him to listen to us.

Dan Moyer
Super awesome guy. Like he’s all tatted up and stuff. He moved to Texas from Philly recently, and we’ve just been talking about like a lot of this stuff. Like, where do you want to go? What do I want to do? Like, what was like, it was hard, letting go some of the pandemic stuff and everything. Yeah, it’s just, um, it’s interesting, like, watch some of our conversations also have an effect on him to where like a lot like two weeks ago or something we hopped on together and we just do it zoom like virtual. It’s why we’ve always been doing it, especially because middle of pandemic that’s we were we had to do it. And he’s like, he’s like, I’m in a hotel room now, man, I was like, What do you mean, he’s like, I don’t know, he’s like, we were talking about like, like getting like a Houston about getting like a, like a school bus. And like redoing it, the inside are thinner, like getting like a camper. And just like living that it’s like I don’t need to be, I don’t need to have a space anymore. I don’t need to have like, whatever. It’s like, I got this little stupid hotspot thing I like walked in bought that. Like I was like, I just tested it out. I was like, I’m gonna go to the mountains. I’m gonna drive now I’ve got Dan at 9am on Thursday, and, and I’m gonna, like, do my thing. I’m gonna mountain bike in the afternoon, then I’m gonna come back and like drive for a little bit, sleep in a hotel wake up next morning to like, whatever he’s like, and he’s like, I can do that. We do that now like, and it’s just, it’s just getting out of your own way. So how did you go about going through like the process of saying, was it just saying, Oh, um, I don’t really like doing this thing. I’m not gonna do that. I look for a way to get rid of it. Like, how did you pare that stuff down and start getting rid of

Colin Coleman
a kind of just happened naturally. I think like I’ve been I’ve been I have to stop. I have to get other people to do this part of the business, but I just never did. Because it just what we it’s what I’ve been doing forever. So what’s the difference? Like the AI came out, and it just was naturally the right time. They I don’t know if they were waiting for a pandemic to happen. So everyone would like get like, up again, and we doubled here, but it was perfect timing for them. I’m sure they are swimming in money right now. But like that was the first thing it just kind of like let it happen. It just it just happened naturally. And I knew I saw right away like that’s the savings. It’s one like 1617 the price of a normal thing and like, I don’t know how many how much times faster but it’s a lot. And then the next thing was Makayla Jade. She runs the print ographers society and like she’s one of the people she’s she’s one of the best business minds ever, and I think in industry and if she’s not already running a $1 million business, she’s really really close like this is definitely gonna put it over. She’s an insane person and I’m happy that I just have her in my presence like every once in a while. I’ve learned so much already. But I she started. I don’t know if you would call it consulting or like bass. She basically started like a design team for other people’s studios. She runs Pantocrator society which basically teaches you how to do IPs. So like I learned IPS through Who heard through another another workshop a couple of years ago and like basically talking to people, like I never did a Steve separado workshop, but I’ve talked to enough people who have that it feels like I was there. Thanks for everybody else paying a lot of money to learn so they can relate to me. You didn’t one of those people. But that was the other thing. So I saw it, talk to her a little bit, talk to somebody who was using it. And basically they said, it was a no brainer, like they leave. And she handles all of the post production for me for for products for products, albums, wall art, prints, and she does it in a way that I could, I’m just not that good. Like I basically, when it was for me, I was simplifying everything, I would only do albums, I didn’t offer wall art for years. And you know, it’s a time suck to like, there’s the designing of the album, which is even the first part you have to you have to figure out what goes in the album first, then you have to design it. And then you have to, you know, schedule with with the people and get a man do design meetings. Some meetings are like 2030 minutes, some are like three hours, you don’t know. So then you add family and little kids that and I’m in my daughter’s room, while one kids yelling out out there because she won’t go to bed. times really fun times helps for sales. Totally. But now, yeah. So now, we restructured all of my post production stuff. And what we offer and she handles it all. And it’s you know, I now it’s it’s booking the people hanging out with them learning who they are shooting the wedding, editing within like two, three days, and then just sending it to Mikayla. And the coolest thing is like these couples are already picking their design dates, like weeks before the wedding. So like that everything’s already in place. So yeah, it’s crazy. Again, way more efficient than I was, you know, way, way better customer customer experience. Yeah. So like, they basically before the wedding happens, they reach out and they frame it in a way that’s like, sign up for your meeting now, because you’re picking the day you’re gonna see your your photos. Oh, snap. Yeah. So it’s they sign up to get they’re already in the door. Within like a couple of weeks of the wedding. They’re doing the design with Mikayla or one of her people, which is like two other people. And it’s a small team. And they’re, they are, you know, trained by Mikayla, who’s like one of the best. And I think the one of the girls had not for me, unfortunately. But she had like a $20,000 sale for a studio, which is insane.

Dan Moyer
So there’s like two things there was like Mikayla, that’s it. The album design for other studios is new. Yeah. But then she had the print ographers society, which is like a community that she ran that she would like do education and like do webinars and you could buy her like her iPad still there. Right? Yeah. Okay. And then there’s like the other thing that you’re talking about, which is like this.

Colin Coleman
This is new. Yeah. So this is one. She This is brand new.

Dan Moyer
She’s like, they want it out like nobody can not anybody can just sign up for it. Yeah, nobody

Colin Coleman
can sign up now. Because they’re too they’re too they’re too busy. I got lucky. I got super lucky that I got in before she raised the prices. But basically, I had a I have a friend Anna who was was like, I think she was like the experiment. Let’s see how it goes. Yeah, we go with Mikayla and they’re crushing it and, and it was like yeah, I don’t I don’t even like see some of the album’s before they get printed. Like they just just happens. I’m literally say, she goes, I’m literally sitting on my couch. And Mikayla just sent me this this screenshot of like the invoice and it’s like, a $4,000 invoice or something like that. With on it done. Yeah. And it was like, she told me that and like no brainer. And yeah, Mikayla just basically does it all, even even if like she has. So we the very first client that we had, through this process, which, you know, all of my clients are before Mikayla, like sign on to me. So there’s a little bit of like, translation that has to happen to make it a smooth transition. She was in general kind of a rougher tougher bride to deal with in general. And I guess they had, you know, a couple little issues they had they had to work out and they did but I didn’t. I didn’t do a thing. Like they handled it handled the customer service for me, they made it a good experience for the girl. And they they had answers that were better than what I would have had anyway. And that like that first client was worth like the onboarding fee and all that kind of stuff. And now like it’s just so efficient and such a machine that like once the wedding’s like done I know in like two or three days I am totally finished. I am totally done and out. So the whole third of the process is over for me. Like, that’s it. So I’m, I’m only doing booking and the wedding and everything happens in between there. And I’m still working on stuff to take out on those parts. That’s

Dan Moyer
the amazing part about that is like, yes, like, you know, editing is totally great. And like, that saves you time. But the thing that I, and this is something that we you and I have been working on so much is like, like, how do you not trade time for money and still make money? Right? Like, like, I talked to this guy years ago, at this, like men’s retreat thing that I went to is freaking awesome. And he owns like an insurance company. But he’s just he’s, he’s like a guy that you like, just want, again, somebody who is operating on a different level. And I’m just fascinated by him. And I just asked him like about money, like, how do you deal with it? Because he was talking about like his now son in law, who was like maybe late 30s. He was about to retire. Because he just makes a crap ton of money. He’s Yeah, stable, blah. But like, he just like, they’re just wired differently. And he’s like, he’s like, You got to start looking at, like, how do you make money while you sleep? Yeah, that’s Oh, right now, and like, like, just working in a photography business, like, I totally expected to just be like a photographer for as long as as I was going to live. And I also realized, like, if you just, like, calm down some of the noise and some of the Bs, and you, like, stop focusing on all like, the busy work that you have to do, you just get like, hyper focus on the stuff that you like, and stuff that doesn’t matter. And get rid of it. Like, you just it opens up, like all these different opportunities, like, that’s the thing that pandemic had for me, and like, talk about the dad group and all that stuff, is that it opens your eyes to like, oh, I can, like do this photography business. And that can be a revenue stream. Yeah. But like, you could have other revenue streams, because I firmly believe that there are people who are like, we’re able to have a business, and like, do your thing and crush it, and people who are not business brained, but if you own a business, if you’re a photographer, you can do those tons of other kinds of businesses. Yeah. Like get outside of your comfort zone and just like, taste some stuff and just start tasting a bunch of other things. Because there’s so many different ways to make money. Yeah. And

Colin Coleman
honestly, like, that’s what was that was one of the other realizations is like, because I can take away all have this time and make this a part time thing. Like, that’s all becomes is another revenue stream. And I have time now to make another one. And then another one, and hopefully another one. Yep. And I think with the pandemic, like once, we couldn’t do anything, I think all of us realize shit, like, all of that all of our income can just disappear that quick that easily and something that no one would ever thought of what happened. You know, it’s one of those things, it’s like diversifying your investments, I guess it’s usually thought of being a good thing. Not if you’re is if your assets were were kind of mechanical all in, which is which, which, you know, can help or hurt. But yeah, I think people just assume they’re gonna be doing all this stuff. And it’s normal to do all this to wear all these hats all the time. But sooner or later, it’s going to catch up to you. Whether it’s like because you’re starting a family or because you can’t work like 60 hours a week for eight years anymore. Yeah,

Dan Moyer
it was there. Stuff that you were doing, you know, pre all this stuff, pre pandemic, everything. That was like making more work for you.

Colin Coleman
Yeah, I mean, I feel like how often do you hear about like, photographers taking like days to call a wedding or editing a wedding? You know, spending like, a whole week editing a wedding? How do you how do you get anything done? How do you progress yourself at all? When your life is is and this is the thing that they don’t they don’t tell you before you become a photographer that the photography parts a small part of what you actually do, you know, it’s like 10% Maybe it’s one of those things that, you know, no one thinks about it keeps keep doing it, just keep doing it. And it’s, it’s normal.

Dan Moyer
I was just thinking about, like, like, I love to be in touch with my couples all the time. But like I used to, and this is really ridiculous. I used to go to rehearsals.

Colin Coleman
You’re one of those.

Dan Moyer
I started rehearsals all the time on my own like I would just be like, Hey, you have to just like go there like meet and talk to everybody and like just have them see me for the first time not on the wedding day without my cameras wherever and I’m just like introduce myself and giving that up was really hard. But then like now I look back and I’m like what the heck

Colin Coleman
was What were you thinking? I would do I would

Dan Moyer
like a wedding that was like maybe an hour and a half two hours away. I would stay in a hotel for

Colin Coleman
Yeah, I would just I would just add an expense no no big deal all the

Dan Moyer
time. I was like oh I don’t want to wake up like there’s too much that could go wrong and like a two hour drives like then I don’t want to just leave a half hour earlier. And that’s it work for myself.

Colin Coleman
Yeah that all the time all the time it because this is why we all majority Have photographers who are wedding photographers start this as a hobby. Even like, I still can’t believe somebody, some people pay me money to like, do what I do, just because like it was a hobby, it was something that I picked up and it just became a thing. So I think like none of us, almost nobody who enters this has like a business mind. In the beginning. It’s just because they like doing it and one job turns to two turns the four

Dan Moyer
plus you’re more than your best. Unless he’s episodes early episode two.

Colin Coleman
He’s, yeah, he’s one of the he’s one of he’s one of the business guys for sure. Yeah, that’s a guy that’s gonna delete himself in business in a good way. For sure. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there’s there’s a billion things. Procrastination in general, is, I think, a thing a thing with a lot of photographers.

Dan Moyer
Yeah. But having twins really makes you need to be efficient. I spent over a year or more in the pandemic, trying because we had our kids like 2019, like late July 2019. And so they were like early. They were they were in daycare, I think for for like, two weeks before we pulled them out for the pandemic. And we’re just getting into that routine or whatever. And we were paying, literally a mortgage $2,400 a month for three kids to go to, to go to daycare. And I was like, There’s no way like, I have no time to be able to no time to do this stuff. And now it’s like I again, like I’m literally like, outside, like hanging out, like working on our deck. And I was like, Yeah, I feel like I’m missing something right now. Yeah. I’m not, like super efficient or whatever. But it’s just like, I feel like I’ve Yeah, audited our businesses. Yeah. So much. It’s like, no, no, I know, this is the stuff that I need to do and works. And here’s the stuff that like I can pass off or that like everybody says you need to do, but you don’t really

Colin Coleman
that’s the thing, too. That’s okay. You may remember what I was about to say because I forgot. Like, I think a lot of people just think you need certain things to be like, seen as professional or like to level up or like, make more money. So like, like pre pandemic, I had a studio in Philly. wasn’t big. It was right. Yeah, I remember that little shitty place. I was, it was great. It was good. It was it was great. It was a good experiment, pandemic killed it. But it was for like 400 square feet. And I use every inch of that place. And it was like, super expensive for what it was. And I had a photography studio, like right next to me. Like, it was a whole thing. Yeah, it was a whole thing. And I thought like, this is the next thing I need to bring people in and being able to sit on this couch. I need to give them snacks and like fancy waters. And probably like always have beer and cocktails stacked and I’m not a bartender or a cocktail person. I don’t know what I’m doing. And I don’t even I’m not even a good host. I’m not even good. Like, it’s clearly like thinking about now. I don’t know what I was thinking. Like, it’s, it’s, it’s I didn’t eat any of that I didn’t eat any of it. Now, I run my entire photography business out of my daughter’s room, half of her closet and my kitchen island. And you know what, it’s way more efficient and making way more money than it was in 2019. And it’s just because of cutting all the fat and understanding like, you know, it’s almost a rite of passage. Like you kind of have to drink the Kool Aid to realize that the Kool Aid is isn’t the best drink for your for you. Yeah, I think once it cut it out, once that stuff got cut out, we had to move because the pandemic Yep. Like, it just it made me What’s that show on? Netflix where she goes? She goes you thank your clothes, then you throw it out.

Dan Moyer
Oh, Marie condos tidy app?

Colin Coleman
Yeah, that’s basically what I did. I did that. And it’s been it’s been way better. And I think just think there’s so much that you can cut out that it’s not only a like the time, but it’s also like the expenses that you’re doing, you know, if you if you’re bringing in $300,000 but your expenses and everything and taxes, you know, add up to like 260 Like, what’s the difference? You know, you’re not making you’re not really making money? Yep. I think buying a big house and being house poor.

Dan Moyer
Yep. Yeah, that is, um, that is a very good description of like, like, my business makes less money. Now on the whole, then then 29, but that’s okay. Yep. But one I mean, like, we’ve also worked like crazy to pay off debt and all that kind of stuff. But I am my hourly rate. And the amount I pay myself is much higher, because I’m doing such less work and I have other things that are working on bringing me money, right. And you have the ability to work on other things that are going to bring you money so you’re not going out every single Saturday when you know when you want to swing in a hammock in your backyard.

Colin Coleman
Right, right or go to my daughter’s basketball game that’s an hour and a half away and you know, it’s a three hour drive. I can do that now. Without even thinking twice about it. Yeah. It’s just, it’s just cutting out the fat, basically, I don’t know, I’m still I’m still doing it, I’m still trying to figure out other ways to do it. I just think, if you can figure it out how to still give, like a really good product, like, I feel like what I’m what I’m now giving the people is way better, just because they’re getting me at my best, like, I am healthy minded, I am, like, energized, I am not like, in I haven’t been in my cave for 25 hours this past week editing. And also, like, if I have 20 weddings, my 19th wedding, I’m still gonna be fresh for you know, by October weddings and stuff like that, that’s gonna be a breeze now, you know, and just just, you know, figuring that kind of stuff out and from from the shooting to now they’re going to professional designers. You know, with an experience, that’s a real experience that are trained by one of the best people in the industry for this. It’s just, it’s so much better than than what it was and what I was giving people and I think it taught me to, like really just be like, super honest. And like, you figure out like, what I don’t want to do or what I’m not going to be good at and just hand it off. You know, just give it to someone, you have

Dan Moyer
boundaries that you kind of like have in place like, I don’t do this. I don’t work on this day. I don’t try to take this any wedding. So yeah, you already told obviously said about like our Monday I like call, you know and edit but like what else

Colin Coleman
certain things. Um, so I try not to take anything on Sundays. It’s definitely not like, unless it’s a wedding, maybe. But like navigation sessions, I won’t do engagements on weekends anymore. And I’ve had couples like try to like, but what we work on on the weekdays and like, I work on the weekends, like you gotta you gotta adjust for me, like a lot of photographers, you know, just like, yeah, we’ll do whatever you want. Not it’s not the best idea. I don’t take weddings on any birthdays. suffer. I used to take one on my own, but I try not to anymore. And then first weekend in June, I go to Indiana, and I just get a cabin with some friends and we play play ukulele in a field with hundreds of people from all over the world. So that I never I never told you about that. I think I

Dan Moyer
think you did. But I’m just like, I didn’t know about the field and hundreds of people think it to hang out. It’s

Colin Coleman
It’s like my dinner last night. Right? everything right? I did it. So I did it in January. Because of COVID. The, it admits two years in a row. So I think got it. So this so 2022. So I think like 2009 might have been the first year of 2010. And I’ve gone to it’s wrong like 13 I’ve gone to 11 of them. And basically every first weekend in June, these people from all over the world come to this field in Indiana and the middle of nowhere. It’s called it’s called Brown County. Lean more in Indiana. It’s just like this little cute town. But then just like the sticks, like people like just like people living in the country and it’s like the country country. And this this guy whose name is Mick hater. If you look at him, he looks like a cross between a hippie and hillbilly. So he’s got like, he’s got like the overalls on with like the big bushy beard, and kind of half long hair. But then he has like the John Lennon glasses. And he always has like, he always has like, little like I don’t have you can you can he has like all these little little little things in between his folds of his dollars. That’s like his, you know, this his stash for for his smoke stuff. And he always he’s always drinking PBR. But he’s, he’s a beekeeper. And he owns like one of the biggest ukulele manufacturers in the country. And he has a store there and he owns his giant field, which doesn’t make any sense. It’s a big field with just this big stage on it. And it’s been going on for so long that there’s traditions now like there’s like the only thing that’s ever scheduled is like the open mic which is like from 4pm to like 3am every night. Other than that, it’s just like people make it wherever they want and people give back so like one of the ways I give back is I document it other people like you know there’s a chef that comes and like makes breakfast everyone just like just pounds out tons of breakfast cereal Mazouz people that come and massage the massage you there’s people that will make bread and give you bread cookies. There’s a big potluck there’s whole lots of drinks there’s a there’s a like a whiskey bourbon tasting on Thursdays that gets messy I say this bring they bring this from all over the world they just put it on a table and you get a shot of each one and you just go with for as long as you can. But it’s like it’s awesome and that’s like that’s like something that I will not miss holidays obviously but like the biggest thing too is like I don’t let people like just talk to me whenever they want anymore. Again, like I’m not doing anything or like it’s important I always get back to them but like there’s also times where like I just need to not do you think Anything about, you know, wedding timelines or, you know, logistics or things they want me to shoot, I don’t know, just just normal stuff just so that there’s a separation now between time off of being the professional photographer and just being like I want to be.

Dan Moyer
Yeah, that’s an interesting distinction to make an episode earlier this year 2022, I had this episode called migrate 2022 work life balance experiment. And in that, actually, one of the things that said that Matt said stuck with him is, is the idea that like, so much like, not even that long ago, I remember having like an engagement session on like, a Tuesday night get cancelled. And I was like, Oh, snap, I got this, like, engaged session canceled, like, let’s have a date night. I was like, no, no, it’s the opposite. Like date nights come first. Draw over top of that shit. Like, that’s a

Colin Coleman
massive problem. And your brain already had it as Oh, that business first business not happening, that we can do family stuff that no one knows. No one understands it.

Dan Moyer
And it took me literally, I’m in this for 13 years full time. And it took me I don’t know, like eight years to finally be like, no, no, it’s, it’s the opposite. Like I’ve known this, but maybe this is the year that I really put it into place. Also, because I’m in a place where I can put it in place. That’s a lot of places. Yeah.

Colin Coleman
But like, what the hell you’re saying anymore.

Dan Moyer
I literally started off from the standpoint of Listen, all my time is mine. Every single part of it is mine. And I am renting my time to my couples are renting my time, my time to this client. And like, like I I’m, it’s actually interesting. I’m more proactive about reaching out to my clients early. And then it just like it just quells all their fears. Yeah. Because once I realized that communication is the most important part that like, like, I don’t get random stuff and actually let couples text messaged me by tell them flat out. I’m like, thanks, guys, for me, but get back to you. Like I hate. I love actually I love conversation. Yeah. long emails. Email me. Yes. And I’ve found for me, it’s actually easier for people to text me. I have like stuff on my phone that it shuts down at 530. Like nobody can get through all of my family. Yeah, it’s awful. It’s built right into this, I called the Do Not Disturb thing. And it comes on every single night at 530. And then, like, you can’t see anything unless I open the phone. It’ll come on and that kind of thing. But only my family gets on only Rachel come through 5:37am. And I’m like, I’ll go through the next morning. And it keeps everything like short and succinct. And like, Hey, Dan, we have this question about like the church, or like this question of the timeline, or whatever. I was like, I just got one as we’re sitting here recording a meeting the other night, they like text message me? Hey, we’re wondering about like, can you send this like price thing over? And how much is it to also do the photo booth with it? So that was an email that have been like, Hey, Dan, hope you’re well, and have thank you so much for the meeting the other night, it was so great to talk with you and hang out and talk together. We had a couple of questions then like bullet points for me. Yeah.

Colin Coleman
And that’s, that’s a good example of like, things are changing. Like, we don’t have to be like that anymore. We can be more informal and like, laid back and that in turn is like a time saver. I don’t know. I’m the same way like I always thought emails are silly. You know, you have to do the whole thing. Hey, hope you’ve been well how’s Lassman wedding planning and going

Dan Moyer
sorry for the delay every email in adult life just starts with Hey, sorry for the delay. Oh, God,

Colin Coleman
I should just have that like, macro into like my keyboard and just go so far. And sorry for the delay. It’s like, it’s as simple as like, seeing that email come in, read it be like, I don’t want to answer that right now. And then like two days go by and then you’re like, shit, crap. Yeah. I’m in m&s. And it’s Yeah, yeah, it’s just now I’ll be able to put more time in the front end of stuff. I should really started looking into like automating or like just like doing things that like keep me like keep me in like the front of their their view like I’m always there if they need me you know, a lot of times to with with these weddings now. Definitely more common now post pandemic we’re like we’ll look someone and like not not knowing them as well or like not have as much interaction just because I think we’re all kind of used to like being in our own right now. I think it’s I don’t know I think people kind of enjoy the whole like having to be away from people in some in some way. You know, also and also like, you know, it’s awesome to be with people and like when we got together with the guys every day yeah, we’ll do it again soon. You know, post production some reels together. Oh, yeah.

Dan Moyer
All right. final parting thoughts things you thinking about? Um, Korea. What do you think is next on the chopping block or next on the adding block

Colin Coleman
out In Black, I would love someone to answer my emails for me. Like somebody, like, honestly, it would probably be the same amount of work, but like somebody to like, literally keep me up on that. It’d be like, hey, they asked for this, we want me to say, I would actually, that would be it that way, I wouldn’t do that more than actually having to do with myself. So I’m gonna sound really lazy during this episode. I’m not just, I’m not, that is definitely the thing I need to do. Also, like any social media slash, like blogging, basically, all I want to do is shoot and like, talk to people and hang out and come up with like, bigger projects and things like that, you know, I’m working on my commercial site, because Joe was making all the money doing his commercial stuff.

Dan Moyer
Seriously. I was random messages from him in the group. I made some CIA dog sniffing robot to me to do product shots for them. And it goes in and sniffs bombs out and stuff is like, oh, cool, man.

Colin Coleman
Probably can’t talk about that on the podcast. Yeah, I mean, like that. I want to

Dan Moyer
knock on my door.

Colin Coleman
Get swatted? Yeah, I want to I want to work on that stuff. Cuz I’ve done a ton of commercial stuff. And I’ve never advertised for it ever. So I think there’s a missing that. I want to do dumb stuff like we’re doing on Instagram reels. Like that’s, that’s fun. And you know, you don’t know what’s gonna come out of that. And the stuff that we’re working on, it’s gonna be fun. I would also love like a boring business, if I could figure out how to do a boring business that I don’t have to be like, in front of people. Like, like, Joe looked into vending machines. Yeah, man. Or like an ice machine that like sits out into like, traffic, basically in traffic, but has like a little plot of land, you put an ice machine on it. And this guy this guy makes like, I think 60 grand a year by just owning this ice machine. And all his only expense was the machine and the backs and mortar. That’s it. What? Yeah, I guess I didn’t you think it’s from a website? A price has showed it to you? It’s like contrarian thinking or contrarian businesses or something. Yeah. But she just she just finds like boring businesses that make money. And that’s one of them. The guy he has, like two is maybe one or two these, but he just has it’s like in like, next to any kind of busy road and it’s an ice machine. So going into the store and buying your ice and coming out and picking it up and put it into your car. You just go to this machine. You know, I think you put money in obviously and then you just get a bag and get the ice and go he doesn’t do anything. You know, awesome. Yeah, small stuff like that. I don’t know. I’m just enjoying the time. You know, trying to do some stuff.

Dan Moyer
Wow. Well, I can we got a quote to finish it off that goes because I’m thinking about this the whole freakin episode. It’s a fancy one. It’s by LAO to do you know that is? No. Okay. You could have faked it I don’t know, to attain knowledge, add things every day to attain wisdom. Remove things every day.

Colin Coleman
That makes total sense. I love you be a little sensei to

Dan Moyer
so where can people follow you and learn more about you and all that stuff?

Colin Coleman
which people can people can follow me at Moon honey photography on Instagram. Or for the like the word and then dad and then typographers

Dan Moyer
you think I’m curious? I mean, people are gonna listen to this years from now I think for Dad tougher is going to be this huge thing.

Colin Coleman
No. I hope so. I hope I hope we become the next Impractical Jokers for the photography industry, but you know, funny. If not, at least we’ll you know, get some laughs and get you know a little bit of an ego boost.

Dan Moyer
Oh yeah, man, thanks so much for sharing about all the goodness with me.