***All images in this post are copyright Mary Marantz.***

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Mary,  you have done really wonderful things in the past couple of years.  You were on your way to a completely different career when you realized you weren't following your heart.  Since deciding to do what you love and join Justin in photography you've grown your business, helped many other photographers with your Spread the Love tour, and started the Portrait House charity all in a short period of time.  At the same time you are a caring and genuine person who is so good about giving to others.  I've love the your approach to the industry, your business, and life.  Thanks for being on Women and Business!

You were going to law school on your way to being a fantastic lawyer…what happened?  What made you decide that you wanted to be a photographer?

For me, it wasn’t so much that I knew I wanted to be a photographer as it was  that I knew I definitely didn’t want to be a lawyer. I knew that I wanted this business with Justin. I knew that I wanted our lives to be different and Un-Ordinary and to follow the road less traveled. But for the longest time, I didn’t know whether I would ever pick up a camera or not. In our company, I was the business side of the business. I was contracts and pricing and marketing manifestos. Because that stuff has always come easy for me. And it was an easy win. But photography...well that was a whole different beast. That was something that I could try and very easily fail at. And failing is NOT something I’m a big fan of. :) I did, of course, eventually end up picking up a camera and “Justin & Mary” was born. But if I’m being totally honest, it took a long time before I could bring myself to say the words “I am a photographer.” I would always say “We own a photography business,” or “We shoot weddings,” or “My husband went to school for photography.” But to call myself a photographer, to make a claim like that when I didn’t have any of the background or formal training that I thought was necessary to say something like that, well... I felt like a fraud. And I was embarrassed. But I am not embarrassed anymore. Hi, my name is Mary and I AM a photographer!! :) :)

What do you recommend women do who are just getting started in the industry? 

If we had to start all over today back at zero, I know exactly what we’d do. We would price ourselves on the lower end of that “juicy middle” of the market for wherever we were (but not fall outside of that middle and go totally budget) and we would book as many weddings as we possibly could that first year out. We would also take care though, to make sure that the couples that we were booking were a good fit for us and that we would actually be able to make them happy. Then we’d just go crazy! We would rock out that year taking the best care we possibly could of all those clients, their vendors, and their friends & family. We would do the work to come up with a bangin’ customer experience, to get discs and cards out to all the vendors and locations quickly, and to give the friends & family a reason to come check out the pictures afterwards, so that they could start referring us too. When we were booked we would also give the best referrals possible to other photographers in our area that we respected. We would use that year to create a firestorm of word of mouth momentum from clients, vendors, and other photographers and get our name out there. And then we would start steadily raising our prices until we got to the price point & volume that we wanted. If there is just one word that can be gleaned from this advice, let it be this: Momentum. Because if you can build up a freight train of word of mouth momentum you can do pretty much anything with your business. For Justin & I, although we have set our prices to be more on the high end now, we still love doing high volume. Because we love our couples. And the more awesome people we get to work with, the more awesome people we have out there referring us to everybody!

What does your workflow look like?  Do you outsource or keep everything in house?

Our workflow looks a lot like a pyramid, with Justin at the top (and OHH how he loves hearing that!) When we shoot a wedding, he takes it and downloads it and backs it up to our Drobo. Then he also puts it on three Lacie rugged drives. One comes to me for blogging, one goes to Julia for our vendor edits & discs, and one goes to our in-house editor for all the bulk adjustments. I will end up blogging somewhere around 100-150 images per wedding (which is a LOT, but here’s why...) and then that folder also becomes our favorites on Pictage and the set for our first mock ups of our albums. So then it’s all done! And then all of the edits (the blog, the vendors, and the bulk edits) go back to Justin to be backed up on our Drobo for the final folder. The whole process can be turned around in a week.

I’m sure many women see you and Justin and this fantastic marriage and business set up and they wish they could have the same thing but their husband is very happy in his job or wants nothing to do with joining their photography business or they are unmarried, etc.  What advice do you have for them?

I think my answer to this question is the same one I would give to anyone who is just getting started and doesn’t feel like they have everything they need to run a successful business (whether that be the equipment, a studio, or a good support team), which is: you start with what you’ve got and you build from there. You start with you. How you view life & love & the world. Market that. Have a vision for your business and find good people who care about you and could catch that vision. You have to be careful with who you allow into your business, but once you do find someone who is the perfect fit don’t ever let them go! That’s how it is for us & Julia (who is a past bride of ours). We never could have imagined a more perfect fit for our company than her, and now that we have her we’re going to do everything we can to keep her! So work to build a team, even if that just means you have to start with yourself.

What do you do to keep your marriage fun? How do you keep your marriage safe from the stresses of your business?

You draw the line. Ask yourself, “If I could have all the worldly successes I ever dreamed of for my business, but in doing so it would mean that I would have to give up my marriage...would I do it?” I think all of us would obviously say no. But the thing is, those choices are made everyday when we aren’t even looking. It’s putting an album design above date night, an editing job before dinner. It’s staying on the computer just a little bit longer, which turns into all night. It’s losing who you are as a couple because of who you are as business partners. For the record, I think you can have both success in your marriage and success in your business. It doesn’t have to be either/or. But just remember the priority goes in that order. A good friend of ours, John Sanderson, twittered this: Married Photographers...remember it’s the first part that counts. It’s so true. So when the business is getting too stressful and it’s taking too much (and it will....it will take as much as you are willing to give it), we draw the line. We go and lay in the hammock, we hit up a movie, we take a walk with Cooper. We get away from the computer and away from business so that we can just be us again.

How do you fit so much into your life?  You have a business, a tour, a charity you run, and more…

We are definitely guilty of taking on too much, and we are trying to be much better this year about leaving space for our lives. Of “making every last one of our choices, from the food we put in our mouths to the commitments we put on our calendar, something that moves us toward the life we love.” That being said, we are totally those people who would rather be busy than bored! And we love having a lot of irons in the fire. The best solution we’ve ever found for balancing those two is just being really structured with our time. I am not a person who naturally eats at the same time, works out at the same time, answers email at the same time. But what I’m finding is that the more structured we are with our routine, the more actually gets done. And it happens when it’s supposed to during “work hours,” instead of the time when we should be home relaxing together.

You have a “Spread the Love” tour and workshop that you’ve created.  Tell me the basic idea of the tour and how it came about.

The basic idea of “Spread the Love” is that you have to go to work and build a business with Momentum, a business that actually works for you rather than it always being the other way around, in order to carve out a real and lasting space for getting your life back. We show you how to build that momentum and how to create the systems that will put your business to work for you, so you can start taking those steps back toward having a life. The dream for this workshop actually came about two and a half years ago when we were on our honeymoon. It just felt like something we had to do. Two years later, when it feels like we are at an all time epidemic scarcity of Hope...it just felt like now was the time.

I’ve gotten to chat with you on several occasions about keeping it real even when a person’s popularity gets bigger than life.  You and Justin have certainly become extremely popular within the industry.  I don’t know if I’ve met someone who doesn’t know you!  What does it mean to you to keep it real and what steps have you taken to make that happen?

What does it mean to keep it real? That generally means taking a risk that you’ll look stupid. Or weak or scared or flawed or vulnerable. But you do it anyway because it’s the truth. And you know that a lot more good can come from telling the truth and risking looking stupid, than pretending to be more or better than you really are just because it makes you feel good. Because you start to realize that other people are listening to what you say and acting on it. And that if someone is going to go out and makes choices for their lives and take risks for their family based on what you said, it had better be the truth. So we try to just put it all out there- the good, the bad, the dirty laundry- on our blog and in our talks. If you see me in person and ask, I’ll be the first one to tell you we don’t have it all together. And we don’t. But we have figured out some things that work for us. And we’ll be happy to tell you about that too.

You are an excellent writer and you constantly post on your blog.  What do you do to keep up with that? What’s your secret to being able to post so often?

Oh how I WISH there was some secret to posting often or quickly!! The truth is that it is a full time job. Every wedding post that goes up takes me about 8 hours or more to do. It’s a commitment! But it’s something that drives our business and is so responsible for any success we’ve been having. So I’m happy to commit to it. It’s also something I just love doing. Especially when we’re all caught up (not like the 24 posts we fell behind last year!) and we can blog things as they happen. When you’re still really excited about whatever it is you’re posting about, that makes it a lot easier!

What five suggestions do you have for women who are trying to have a more whole, content, and blissful life?

Be willing to let go. Whatever you’re doing that doesn’t fuel your business or your soul, be willing to let someone else take care of it.

Be authentic. Spend the time to figure out who you really are & what you really love. Then only be & do those things. Don’t let anyone else tell you it’s not good enough.

Be the CAN in your life, because there will always be an abundance of people willing to tell you you CAN’T

Take care of your financial house. Nothing is a greater enemy to bliss and contentment than stress over money.

Live life Un-Ordinary. Because extraordinary after all and when you think about it, really just breaks down to extra ordinary. More ordinary. And who wants to live a life like that?

To see more of Mary's work:

blogsite

spread the love

***All images in this post are copyright Mary Marantz.***