**All images in this post are copyright Jodie Otte.***

NEXT WEEK: Karen Wise

{To nominate women you'd like to see in this series please list them in the comments-or if you have a question you'd like to see in the interviews--make sure to include your info in the comment fields so that I can get in touch with you- or write to me at: davina at davinafear dot com }

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You can check out the rest of the series by clicking here. Tell a friend!
 

Jodie,  I love how straight forward you are about your life and business.  There are so many things that photographers need to know and I appreciate that you are willing to put it all out there.  You are a busy woman who just makes things happen.  You recently put together a big workshop in Maryland and remodeled a gorgeous studio.  Your work is gorgeous and your approach to off camera and studio lighting are fantastic.  You have so much to offer the industry and I appreciate you being here on Women and Business!

How long have you been in business?

Almost 7 years

 How did you get into photography professionally?

I briefly worked for another photographer way back in 1995 while I was pregnant with my first child.  As digital technology got better and could begin to compete with film, I knew I would finally have control over my images without having to rely so much on labs or invest in the darkroom, so it felt right to finally go into business, switching from film to digital.

What do you wish you knew when you started out?

I wish when I started out, I began at higher prices.  So many women cut themselves short when they first get into this.  If you do not begin with prices that belong in this industry, you will end up with angry clients when you eventually realize you are not charging enough to sustain a business and need to raise prices.  And don’t forget, if you don’t really NEED the income, this is the perfect time to create a reputation of being exclusive and of high worth.  Price high, have only select bookings.  Why not?  Wish I would have done that at the very beginning.

Are you married?  

Yes, my husband Dean and I have been married for just over 15 years.

Do you have children?  If so, how many?

Two children – Barrett age 14 and Erynn age 11.

Were you always in a retail space?  What made you decide to have a retail
space?

The bottom level of my house was once dedicated as a studio.  However, when I acquired my first high profile client, I realized it was time that I move into a studio away from my house.  My house is in the cornfields and not convenient to any highways.  Very few people in Maryland have ever heard of my town.

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

My workflow is simple and right to the point.  Get it right in camera, brighten the image, add contrast, dodge and burn, done… I show 40 images per client, and it takes me an hour or less to edit the entire session.  If it was an especially difficult session that required head swaps or major skin touchup, it could push me to 1-1/2 hours to edit, but I never go longer than that.  I don’t do extensive composites and such.  Time equals money.  This is a business first and foremost.  This isn’t a game to me.  It’s business.

What do you do to help your clients be so comfortable with you during a
photo shoot?

I’m friendly, joke around a little, and always reassure them that the session is going normal, and we are getting plenty of images.  

What do you recommend women do who are just getting started in the industry?
I cannot stress this enough.  TAKE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT COURSES (some courses are even free at your local Small Business Development Center).  I’m very passionate about this.    There are loads of women getting into this industry that are dragging the industry down with prices that are so incredibly low.  When you do the figures, many of them aren’t even making minimum wage.  I’ve done figures with new photographers and pointed out that they were making $2 and $3/hour.  They genuinely didn’t realize it.  Business management skills are so important to building a sustainable and successful business.   I’m proud to be a woman, and as a woman, I know that we are strong, and with our multitasking skills and strength in general, we should be excellent business owners.  There is no reason why we as women cannot run hugely successful businesses.  I’ve actually started a website that will be announced soon on my blog, that is devoted to helping women in our industry run their businesses.

How do you manage having a business and children?

My children are older.  There is no way I would do this full time if my kids were not school-aged.   A note to all moms – enjoy your little ones for those first five years before they start school.  Any time away from them to run a photography business, charge what makes it worth it!   J  They are only this little once!

How do you organize your day?  Your week?  Your month?  Your year?

I’m full time, so my schedule is loosely based on this. 

Monday – home office day (and catch up on a little house cleaning)

Tuesday, Wednesday – open session times at 9 a.m., noon, sunset

Thursday and Friday – open session times at 9 a.m. and noon – keep evenings free for my daughter and I riding our horses together on Thursday nights and son’s football games on Friday nights or date night with hubby ;)

Saturday and Sunday – no sessions.  This is my family time.  Occasionally during very busy times, I will schedule a weekend day – one session at 9 or 10 a.m., twice per month, but that is rare and must be a very special situation.  Family time is hugely important to me.

I don’t necessarily fill up every slot every week.  During the summer when my children are home, I do spread out the sessions, but during the school year, I like to stack them, several a day, to give more time for office/admin/editing time on certain days.  Hey, I’d rather be in my home office a few days than at the studio every day.

How do you make money all year round?  There are natural lulls in the portrait world, how do you make it through those?  Do you have other streams of income?

I don’t typically have lulls in portrait work during the year.  If I do, I may go from 6-8 sessions per week to 2-4 for a few weeks and you know what?  I embrace that. I’m okay with that, because I’m still working, I’m working on administrative items.  I always have something to do.

As women we get easily stressed when there's not enough money for our family.  How do you avoid that kind of stress?

I avoid it by charging enough.  I set up my pricing based on worst case scenario – worst case and what keeps my business running is 2 sessions per week.  I don’t have any problems having that year round.   If you base your prices on meeting your bills with 8 sessions per week, and you can’t guarantee 8 sessions per week, you need to rethink your pricing.   I’m a bit no-nonsense when it comes to running my business and pricing.  Business is very black and white. It’s based on facts, not emotions.   Do the figures, it’s very clear what you need to charge and do to keep yourself flowing smoothly in business.

What do you do for fun...that has nothing to do with photography?

Ride our four horses with my daughter.  We love to do hunter paces together.   We also love to kayak as a family and just find adventures to do together.  We’ve gotten ourselves into quite a few odd situations over the years – if you follow my blog at www.jodieotte.com you may have gotten some peeks into that… 

What are you most proud of as a business woman?

Being able to have a stable thriving business.  It’s work, but anyone can achieve it by running a business as a business, and making decisions based on facts and not emotion – which is very hard for us to do as artists, but it has to be done to be successful.

What do you do to keep your marriage fun? 

We set time away from the kids, just the two of us… we are best friends, and I thoroughly believe if you don’t put your relationship first, it will start falling apart.  My husband is also incredibly hilarious, and our days feel like Seinfeld episodes most of the time complete with close-talkers, dental hygienist Nazis, and bizarro worlds… LOL!

What are the top three things you did when you were first getting started in
business to bring in clients?

1.       Website. 

2.      Business Cards. 

3.      Produced work that my clients would talk about to their friends.

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

Schedule time together with my husband, and not working weekends.

What is the best thing you've done to make your business successful?

Take the emotions out and treat it as a business.  When clients want to negotiate or have complaints about my pricing, I just stick to my guns, explain that I am running a business, and this is what I have to charge to keep my business afloat.  I offer no apologies.  I’ve found that if portraits are something that the client values, they don’t have any complaints about pricing.  I’ve been known to mention, the new flat-screen TV, new furniture, or the new four-wheeler just purchased will need to be replaced one day, but these images are once-in-a-lifetime moments, that will be forever cherished.

You are a mom, how old are your children?  What do you do to help them feel
part of your business life? Or do you keep it all pretty separate?

My kids are 11 and 14, and I keep my business separate from family.  There is no need to involve your family in your business in my opinion.  There are reasons why there is separation from church and state – and I feel the same applies to business and family.  There are, however, some times when I need a model or two to try out something new, and I treat my kids like paid models.   I ask them if they want to do it, and they get paid for it.

How do you think your business and being a photographer helps your kids?  your family?  

I think it sets a great example to my kids that anyone can be passionate and succeed in something.  I hope that with the way I run my business, it helps my kids realize that they don’t have to be pushovers either.  I know they hear me vent about certain aspects of it, so I often wonder what they will pick up from living with it.

What do you do to keep your family strong?

Again, clear boundaries on what is family time and what is work time.  For me, it revolves a lot around keeping my weekends devoted to my family.  The children need to feel like they are more important than my business as well.  If I constantly took up my weekends with sessions, what does that show them?  That they are in school all week and evenings tend to be pretty booked up with errands and such, they finally get a weekend, and mom doesn’t care enough to hang out with them.  Well, at least that is what it makes me feel like…

Do you travel quite a bit.  If so, how do you make this easier on your children?  How
do they feel about how often you travel?

I don’t travel much.  When I do travel, they come with me, and they seem to have fun with it.

Have you always lived on a farm?  What brought you to choosing where you live now?

Actually, I don’t live on a farm.  I live in the cornfields and rolling hills of Northern Maryland.  We have a little bit of land and have chickens, but it definitely isn’t a farm.  We board our horses in Pennsylvania at a great little riding stable – very down to earth and nothing but fun.  I love where I live – it’s so beautiful, peaceful, and quiet, but I do plan in the future to build a house on more property and eventually bring my horses onto my property, but right now, I don’t have time to take care of them, so it’s great having a full-care boarding situation.

What do you do to make sure you're living the life you want to live?

Hmmm... never thought about it.  I just try to keep things happy and I always have goals.  Accomplishing goals is a way to keep this train moving!

Was there ever a time you were so overwhelmed you wanted to quit photography because it just wasn't fun anymore?  What did you do to get the love back?

There are plenty of times I feel like that.  There is no doubt that running a business is work.  It can’t be rainbows and ponies all the time.  Yes, I do love what I do, but it does become work.  Those are the times I raise my prices again, add some more policies to my contract, and wait until I happen to get a little subject that gives me some inspiration because there’s always one that gets me super motivated again…

How do you keep from being burned out?

I don’t.  I do get burned out, quite a bit actually.  Have you seen me venting on Facebook?  I’m sure it gets quite entertaining when Jodie starts to flip her lid…. LOL!

How do you keep from feeling like everyone needs a piece of you all of the time?

I’m not sure how you can keep from feeling like that.  I feel like that a lot… then I get pissy.  ;)  That’s when me-time is needed.  A little shopping therapy works wonders.

Do you home school?  If so, how do you fit that into an already busy schedule?

No way.  I tried to home school my son for Pre-K/K and it wasn’t working out.  The best thing I ever did for my kids socially was to send them to school.   They thrived.  I grew up in a very sheltered home, and I wasn’t well adjusted to the real world when I got out into it.  I didn’t want that to happen to my children.  I’ve always left the option open, that if we ever needed to home school, we can, but I now have a high-schooler and a middle-schooler and we’ve never encountered a problem.

What do you do to keep from feeling overwhelmed?

Yoga and eating well (taking the time for myself).  Seriously.  When I’m not doing yoga and eating well every day, I’m overwhelmed.  When I am doing yoga, I feel like I can tackle anything.

 

What three products or things help you stay organized?

1.      My white board with post-its.

2.      My planner

3.      6 cubbies that are built into my desk to hold physical files as we go through the process from booking to filing.

But who said I was organized?  Most of my days, I feel like I am flying by the seat of my pants!

What is something that you think women in the industry should not do?

Run their businesses with emotions.  (Allowing friends and clients to walk all over them and make them feel bad for their business decisions such as scheduling and pricing and if they didn’t have the perfect session that was beyond their control).  Business is business, keep it that way.   If someone senses you have a weak link (because you are working with emotions), they are going to try to break you.

What is something that you think women in the industry should do?

Be honest with yourself.  You may think that’s a $200 profit and get excited about it, but be honest with yourself about your figures.  That $200 in reality is probably only $20 you made for that 8 hours of time you put into it.  Be honest, get to those figures, and be honest how long you are spending on sessions – that may be what you need to work on, cutting your editing time.

 

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

1.      Take time for yourself!

2.      Set clear boundaries – don’t get walked all over by anyone – clients, friends, or family.

3.      Schedule time for your kids and especially your husband.  Your relationship with your husband will give you a strong foundation so that you and your kids can thrive.

4.     Be proud of your work.  Stop nitpicking your work.  You are too hard on your own work.

5.     Price yourself appropriately.  If you don’t, you will burn out or your business will flop.  

To see more of Jodie's work:

Website

Blog

Photographers 

**All images in this post are copyright Jodie Otte.***