Nicole Begley (00:00)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Begley. Today we have a conversation with Heather and Michelle Crandall and we are breaking down a real life experiment that Michelle did in her business about joining a networking group. We're talking time, revenue, opportunity cost, and whether or not it was actually worth it. If you've ever wondered if those early morning meetings are moving the needle in your business, well, this episode's for you.

Stay tuned.

Nicole Begley (00:27)
I'm Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer turned pet and family photographer. Back in 2010, I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six-figure business by 2012. Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses. I believe that achieving $2,000 $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six-figure businesses.

that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full-time passion or a part-time pursuit, profitability is possible. If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place. With over 350,000 downloads, welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast.

speaker-0 (01:27)
Tell me when you joined your first networking group. I guess this is a multi-part question. When you joined your first networking working group, what were you thinking?

Why were you there? Just take us back to that.

speaker-1 (01:41)
You know, I started the networking group in January of 2025. The reason that I started the networking group was actually kind of funny. My financial advisor who saw me not contributing to my 401k said, Hey, you know, I'm in this networking group. might be a really good fit for you as a pet photographer. He was like, there's a lot of dog lovers in there and a lot of people who love their pets. So

Why don't you come? So I said, all right. So I started to come. ⁓ was, yeah, it was January because, know, I'm in that mode. Like, let's do this. It's a new year, new me. I'm going to really, you know, kill it in my business this year. know, a networking group seemed like a really good way to do that.

speaker-0 (02:29)
Yeah, you're gonna meet people,

speaker-1 (02:31)
I'm gonna meet people, I'm gonna tell them what I do. And literally it's in the bylaws, I guess, that you have to make an offer every week. And so I was like, if nothing else, it's gonna force me to get out of my comfort zone to go through that whole process, which it did do that.

speaker-0 (02:47)
Which is okay, good, right? That's a win, that's success. Yes. How many clients did you end up getting? So that was about a year ago. So you've been in it a year. How many clients?

speaker-1 (02:58)
I had five total clients. ⁓ Four of them were mini sessions slash gift certificates. You know, they were like 25 % of my hoped hopeful average sale. ⁓ So I wouldn't say necessarily they were my ideal clients, but they were just people from the group who wanted to support me. And then I did have one really good sale that also came from the, from the group. ⁓ A gentleman.

I did a presentation one of the times in the groups because you get to do like two to three 10 minute presentations each year. And I talked about how pet photography can help people connect to small business owners. Actually somebody who may have been on this podcast before Michael Puck. I did a lot of research with him and when he was really active in starting his global dog wall art gallery, I paid

really strong attention to what he was doing. And so I kind of did a modified similar presentation. And so that one client, it was great because he was setting up a new office for his insurance agency, which, know, those people, people in, I don't want to say those people, but people in insurance, they don't, you know, they don't always have a high level of trust right off the bat. So they're always looking to make connections with their clients and, hopefully bringing them into life insurance and car insurance and all that. So he was totally on board.

And then what made it a great sale, even greater sale than normal was his wife also wanted some ⁓ artwork for their home. So he was an outlier, but a happy one for sure.

speaker-0 (04:39)
was that sale do you remember?

speaker-1 (04:41)
It was about $5,000.

speaker-0 (04:43)
And the other sales, would you, would you be able to estimate what I'm looking for is total number of clients, total number of sales. Sure. You can trace back to the networking group.

speaker-1 (04:55)
About $1,400. Additional.

speaker-0 (04:59)
total of six little over six thousand with five clients over the course of the year you show is it this meets weekly.

speaker-1 (05:10)
Yes, every Wednesday morning at 7 a.m. One hour away from my home.

speaker-0 (05:16)
okay, well, that's a commitment.

speaker-1 (05:18)
It's a four hour commitment. Yes. I did all these. That's why these numbers, I can just rattle them off because when I was trying to decide if I was going to continue through the group for another year, I had to justify it somehow. And so I broke down the numbers. And if you work on average 40 hours a week, 10 % of every week of mine was spent either commuting to and from, attending this networking group.

speaker-0 (05:43)
gosh, I love that you measured all of this so that you can really like objectively look at the data without any type of emotions attached to it like right? What are the numbers because there's how we feel and then the actual numbers. Okay, so if you did all of that, what was your objective conclusion?

speaker-1 (06:04)
My objective conclusion was this was a giant waste of my life.

speaker-0 (06:09)
Okay, all right, there it is. It was not as fruitful as maybe you had it. What would have been worth it, do you think?

speaker-1 (06:20)
I would have loved to break even. So I mentioned that it was an hour away, just going back and forth to the group. put almost 3,500 miles on my car. So when I look at the time and actual cash money in the gas can, like, you know, dollar signs, I didn't even break even for the group. And so I think that was my goal was to get enough referrals and to have enough clients that it would at least break even and start these

relationships that would hopefully continue on.

speaker-0 (06:55)
And

lead to more to lead to more clients that a ripple effect of those relationships, right? Yes. So can you trace any other clients back to these people that like so someone at the networking group? Did anyone refer you to a person that then booked?

speaker-1 (07:16)
⁓ the short answer is no. I had one person in the group purchase a gift certificate for her neighbor. So kind of, but the answer is no. Like there was, you know, they call them in the group, they track everything in the group as well. And so they call them first degree referrals. So that's like me to you. And then a second degree referral would be you told your husband or something like that. So, ⁓ there were no second degree referrals for me at all in the group.

speaker-0 (07:44)
Okay, because I would need about six degrees of separation, you know, from Kevin Bacon. Do ever hear that saying? Yeah, yeah, I need, I need many, many more. I don't even want just one degree of separation. I want I would hope joining a network. Well, let me ask you, because it's my goal. Yeah, your your goal, not just to break even, right? I mean, your goal is to grow your business to meet people.

speaker-1 (08:08)
Yes.

Absolutely. Yeah. The first year, my goal was to break even and then I hoped to continue on and to expand.

speaker-0 (08:16)
Right. But that that's a slow burn at that rate. It's not like, I got 20 clients and, know, then I got 10 more with the first degree of separation and then five more with the second degree. know, I can trace $30,000 in revenue back to that. And it keeps growing. Yeah. Then maybe, right. It would be worth my time because

speaker-1 (08:22)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (08:42)
Everything you say yes to is saying no to something else. So you say yes to that four hours a week on Wednesday mornings. Then you are saying no to something else, whether that's something in your personal life or professionally, you know, working on your marketing or doing whatever, whatever you would want to do in your business. You were saying no to that in that time slot in order to say yes to the networking group. And these were the results.

speaker-1 (09:07)
Right. I gave it my best effort. really, I showed up every week. I did, you're supposed to do one to ones meetings with everybody in the group. So I can get to know you and your business and they can get to know me and my business. did one with almost every single member. There were 18 members total. So a lot of that, you know, so I say four hours, but also like sometimes it was more. Right. Yeah. And I didn't really count those.

speaker-0 (09:10)
We did. I know you

speaker-1 (09:37)
So, you it wasn't all gloom and doom and shame. Like it was, I met some really, really good people, you know, and I do now have a network of people, you know, like I know a home maintenance guy and I know a painter and I know a financial advisor and all of this stuff. ⁓ The one thing that was difficult about this group in particular, ⁓ because of the drive, many of the members in the group don't actually come to my area.

So for example, like the home maintenance guy, I know him. He's a great guy. I would refer him to anybody, but he doesn't come to my home. And so I know the reason that I went up there is because this area is a highly affluent area that I really wanted to target in my business.

speaker-0 (10:17)
makes no sense.

So this was an experiment.

speaker-1 (10:31)
There absolutely was a reason that I was driving north every time. It wasn't just because my financial advisor said I should show up. It was strategic. It just didn't work.

speaker-0 (10:46)
It didn't work. It was a year long experiment. And so are you going to continue?

speaker-1 (10:52)
The networking group? Yeah. Not this one. No, I won't. I don't think all networking groups are terrible. I think this one wasn't a great fit for me. I don't know if another one would be or not. ⁓ From speaking to other pet photographers about this as through Elevate, well as through like in my own area, it's a pet photography specifically isn't necessarily an easy sell.

I guess. When I say that, like in my opinion, I think everybody needs a financial advisor. Cause I don't know what's going on with my money. And you know, there are a lot of people that, you know, need a new tax person. So, you know, everybody seems to know somebody that's selling a house. like those types of professions in a networking group are pretty easy referrals. ⁓ a pet photographer.

speaker-0 (11:43)
Yes.

speaker-1 (11:47)
is not necessarily an easy referral. So I spent the whole year educating all of the members on like what my ideal client looks like, the sort of things that you can talk to, the sort of things that you can hear from your friends. Like, my pet is aging. You know, ⁓ well, let's do something to celebrate their life. You know, something like that. But ⁓ I don't know. I don't know if I wasn't saying it clearly. I wasn't saying it the right way. Who knows?

You know, it just might not have been a great fit.

speaker-0 (12:19)
I actually, you might be surprised because I tend to be contrarian with you in particular, but I am in agreement on this. Yeah. Because I typically think, well, I can make anything work. I can meet people and you know, in whatever environment and, and make it work. you know, maybe, maybe it is harder, maybe it's not, but I could figure it out. But I actually agree with you. I, from my data gathering experience,

I would say that most networking groups are full of the wrong people for photographers. I'm saying this in general because I wanted to talk to you about networking groups because a lot of people in Elevate, you we talk about meeting people and going out into your community. And this is a seemingly viable way to do that. But in 23 years of working with photographers, I have never talked to a singular one

who has said it was a smashing success. They loved it and it was where they got most of their clients. Never, not once. In fact, predominantly what I hear is that it was a waste of time. didn't get any, I mean, I think you're actually an exception that you got five. Yeah. That most people get zero. It doesn't work. costs them time and money. And it's just like, really, really, I don't hate to say failure. You just, you just learn that it's not the right thing.

And so I really have puzzled over this for a while because you think, well, you're meeting people, right? You're in a networking group. That should work. I think, I think it's just skewed. The room is skewed different and there's, there's a mismatch between a photographer and the people in a networking group. Because of what you just said, it's like, you're not, you know, the financial person or the dentist or

the roofer or whatever. I hate to say it's different because again, I'm like, you can make anything work, but maybe not. I don't know. What do you think as I say that?

speaker-1 (14:22)
Yeah

I agree with you. Here we are. Look at us, agreeing. In my experience, and I only have experience with the one networking group, right? So what I've found is that there's little groups within the group. ⁓ like there's a lawyer, a tax person, and a financial advisor. Like all of them work really well together. Because if you're coming to a financial advisor,

speaker-0 (14:34)
Look at us agree

speaker-1 (14:57)
Hey, do you need to get your will and trust set up and somebody to work on your taxes? Like we got people. And so those folks easily pass. Yes. referrals a month between each other. ⁓ yes. And like there's a mortgage guy and a realtor. Well, like, duh, of course they're going to work together. You know what I mean? It's easy. So those sorts of things tend to, they're just easier referrals to each other. So when somebody

like me comes into that networking group and is like, I'm a pet photographer. How many of you have dogs? Let's take pictures of them. You know, they don't get it. And it's not, they have to work for it. And I'm not accusing anybody of being lazy or anything like that, but like you have to actively go out to somebody and be like, Hey, have you ever thought about taking photos of your dog? Right. Most people are going to say no. And then there's that additional like, Hey, let's spend two grand on artwork.

Like, you know, that just doesn't flow off the tongue as easily as, ⁓ I'm thinking about selling my house. Do you know a guy?

speaker-0 (16:04)
Right,

right. I need a financial advisor. Do you know? Yeah, somebody's in my networking group that I agree. These referrals are very in line. They align and they're simple and they do just roll off the tongue and that maybe photography in in the traditional networking group science. Maybe it's not a good fit.

speaker-1 (16:26)
Yeah, that's been my experience. don't want to, you know, blackout at all, but like, yeah.

speaker-0 (16:32)
Well, the reason I wanted to talk to you is because you have the experience. I don't. I just have the data of my photographer friends all telling me that it just doesn't work. And at first, you know, when you guys tell me something doesn't work, did you know that at first I don't believe you?

speaker-1 (16:48)
Yeah, I do know that, because you've told me.

speaker-0 (16:51)
I don't believe you. I'm like, well, could there be a way? And maybe it is difficult, maybe. But I just have too much data. I mean, I can't ignore it any longer. And there's a lot of people in the photography industry who really, really strongly encourage joining networking groups. And as soon as you can show me the data, I will believe you because it currently says that it doesn't work.

speaker-1 (17:19)
Well, and here's another thing too. When photographers out there are looking for networking groups, one thing that was really attractive to me in the beginning, especially, was the numbers that they show. Yeah. So I'm actually like, have the pull, the data pulled up right now. And the networking group that I was part of has been in business since 2020 and it's not affiliated with any national organization, but they run very similar. And so they,

promote, we are a $2.6 million business that we have passed $2.6 million between each member, you know, between the all of the members. And we have 4500 some odd referrals every like since 2020. But what I didn't realize was that

For example, and I'm going to pick on this guy because I know him and he's super nice and I know he understands what I'm saying. If he ever hears this podcast, if he's a roofer, right. And he puts a roof on a commercial building and it's $60,000. Then in the membership, it says in January, we did $60,000. ⁓

speaker-0 (18:31)
Right, right.

speaker-1 (18:33)
It doesn't, you know, so it's not, and divide that by, you know, 20 members or whatever. doesn't mean everybody has got $3,000. It means one guy had a really good freaking month, you know, but when it's, when somebody is trying to convince you to join the group, you need to kind of check that out first. Because to me, a referral is, I know that my friend is a struggling photographer and she really wants to.

make her business a much better business, I think she should join Elevate. I'm gonna warm email you both and introduce my friend to Heather. And then that's what I consider referral. I don't consider tagging your business on a Facebook group a referral. But I learned that the definition of referral is different.

speaker-0 (19:18)
Yes!

So it was, okay, so first of all, are these guys accountants and did they work at Enron for the way they're cooking these books? You can make these numbers look however you want them to look because you're right. That sounds like amazing, those numbers. So you see those numbers and you have your thoughts and your definition of a referral and you're excited and you're hopeful. You combine those things and you're like, this is great. This is going to work. Then you start to figure out, wait,

I think we might have slightly different definitions of what a referral is. Wait, are you adding those numbers? that one guy did a route. ⁓

speaker-1 (20:04)
Yeah. The other guy sold a house. So now you've done $130,000 worth of business in one. Yay. For those two guys.

speaker-0 (20:12)
But what about the rest of us? What about this pet photographer over here? Yeah. Okay. So I just, I've never been able to in good conscience, encourage photographers to join networking groups. I've not, if you go back in all time of all of my education, I have never once encouraged it because I only had not great data. And, and I think that

speaker-1 (20:16)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (20:41)
I never want to squelch someone's excitement because it might work. might work. Right. And here's here are my thoughts. I don't know. I still believe this, Michelle, that you will never go wrong meeting people ever.

speaker-1 (20:57)
I still agree with that too.

speaker-0 (20:59)
You will always, always meeting people will always produce something. Whether that's just a relationship that you currently have or something in the future. So I believe in that. That doesn't necessarily mean that that immediate meeting of people, you know, in this room at 7 a.m. an hour away is going to produce revenue. Yeah, and I'm in it for the long game, but come on. I mean, you know, I want to I want to make the best use of my time.

Yes. Again, I think, I think if somebody wants to test out a networking group, would absolutely support that. Yeah. And see what, see if they maybe find one that's a good fit. Yeah. Because that's possible that there's a different maybe type or style where, where it's more, you know, photography is a very emotional purchase. It's, it's just so different than the roof guy. It's so different. It's the same type of transaction at all.

So I think that most networking groups are potentially ill-fitting.

speaker-1 (22:05)
Again, it depends on your goal. Mine was revenue. It wasn't a good fit. Because I signed up for a year and I committed to a year and anybody who's listening to this podcast and has heard me in the past knows integrity is my number one. So if I say I'm going to go for a year, I'm showing up for a year. And I did. so, the way that I did that was I shifted the goal.

speaker-0 (22:34)
Mmm.

speaker-1 (22:35)
was frustrating because the goal was always revenue. But I shifted the goal to learning how to better represent my business, how to talk about my business, how not to stumble over my words. I say Michelle from Pets and Focus, where love becomes art, you know, like I can say that stuff now with, know, in my sleep, right. Which is really helpful. Yeah. It, you know, I don't have to like,

worry that I don't have my index card with my 32nd elevator pitch on it anymore. Like I can just talk about it. So I've grown a lot in that sense.

speaker-0 (23:11)
So worth it?

speaker-1 (23:15)
no.

speaker-0 (23:16)
Because that's a non revenue victory. And yeah, and those are very important. I mean, you will have that forever. And it will just make you sharper, you know,

speaker-1 (23:19)
It is a non-rep.

Well,

and I would say again, and I think I may have said this to you before we started recording, if this group was five minutes from home, I probably would stay in it. But the ability, like I also, as a member have a responsibility to give referrals to other people, right? Just like I'm sitting there waiting on my little referrals. They're doing the same thing. But when, you know, and I don't know the exact percentage, but when many of the people in that group,

won't even come to my town, that severely limits the referrals that I'm able to give out as well. And so it just wasn't a good fit on so many different levels, not because people were mean, you know, most of them were fine. it's not like I'm not going to refer the painter or, you know, the financial guy anymore. They're still good people. It just didn't fit.

speaker-0 (24:19)
Not a good match. Will you look for something different or did you already say that?

speaker-1 (24:22)
Right.

⁓ I don't know if I said this not yet or not. I would look for something that was nearby home and not a weekly mandatory attendance, like responsibility. Yeah. ⁓ I'm, have no problem getting somewhere at 7 a.m. on a Wednesday if it's working. Right.

speaker-0 (24:50)
I'd have to be making a lot of money to do that. It's not because I'm not up and ready to go. I get up very early. But yeah, that's treadmill time.

speaker-1 (24:59)
Yeah, well, it's, it's, it's respecting my business and the time that I have put in, like where is my time best spent? Is 10 % of my week best spent sitting in my car, driving on snowy back roads.

speaker-0 (25:07)
Yes. Yes.

⁓ maybe not. No matter how good the podcasts are, right? mean, like I love to learn in my car. So I listen to podcasts, but even then you're like, yeah. Right.

speaker-1 (25:27)
Yeah, right.

speaker-0 (25:29)
I want to make sure for photographers who maybe have struggled with this, I just want to make sure we're not confusing. think the real issue for some of them is they've confused visibility with attendance. Like we check this psychological box. It's like I'm putting myself out there. I'm doing something and I'm visible. Right. But that visibility only works if if it's a match in that environment was not a good

speaker-1 (25:43)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (25:59)
fit. But I can see where photographers would feel discouraged because in people said this to me, you've been on these calls where they've said, I did everything right and nothing happened. I didn't get any clients. And then they feel like there's something wrong with them. And I don't think that's it. I think the environment is misaligned.

speaker-1 (26:19)
I agree. So, yeah.

speaker-0 (26:22)
I don't know if some again, if somebody asked me, should I do this? I would say, well, you could. And that's up to you. I have no problem with running experiments in your business and meeting people. think both of those things are very good moves and you will always learn something like you did. If you're open to it, you were open to receiving those lessons.

speaker-1 (26:44)
I yeah, I had to be because I wasn't getting the other thing that I went for

speaker-0 (26:50)
when there was no revenue.

speaker-1 (26:52)
Right. How am going to make this work? How am going to make this work? Yeah.

speaker-0 (26:57)
What would you think? I don't know. Maybe that or even now you're like, okay, what would, what would I do with that time if I could pick?

speaker-1 (27:06)
I know what I'm going to do. ⁓ I've already got a plan. I'm going to be working more on ⁓ a social media visibility plan. Yeah, I hate doing it. But really, I didn't exactly enjoy going to the networking group either. So it's just one swap for the other.

speaker-0 (27:15)
Nice.

Well, hey, you did learn that it's not like that difficult to be uncomfortable. You're to be uncomfortable no matter what you do and you won't die. So you can manage being uncomfortable, but now you won't have to drive an hour away to do it.

speaker-1 (27:39)
Exactly.

speaker-0 (27:42)
Yeah,

I'll do that all day long. Yeah. Okay. Any last minute words of wisdom or thoughts?

speaker-1 (27:48)
No, this is great. But you know what I would love is I would love to hear a photographer who it has worked for. So if there's anybody out there, let's figure this out because

speaker-0 (27:55)
Good idea.

Let me know.

get

you on the podcast so we can talk about it. I would love to hear a strategy that does work. You are absolutely right. Because I, I, I always believe anything can work for anyone everywhere at all times. There's no right or wrong way to do anything. And I will never believe that I know the right or wrong way because I don't. I think that anything can work and I am open to all of it. Where can people find you?

speaker-1 (28:25)
Yes.

on my website, petsandfocusphoto.com, which is also my social media handle. And I will be posting more since now I have Wednesday mornings open to do so.

speaker-0 (28:39)
Okay, great. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing all this information.

speaker-1 (28:43)
Thank you.

speaker-0 (28:45)
I hope you can see from this conversation that not every strategy is a good fit for every photographer. And data is always more useful than guilt or shoulds. And inside of Elevate, these are the kinds of conversations we have all of the time. These are real experiments, honest evaluations and clear decisions about where your time and energy are best spent. The link to join us inside of Elevate is always in the show notes.

I hope that you found this useful.