Navigating the Challenges of Photography | Lesle Lane

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of the Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim interviews Leslie Lane, a third-generation photographer and owner of Studio 13, a corporate photography business based in Indianapolis. Leslie shares her journey of taking over the family business at a young age, the challenges she faced, and how she adapted to technological changes in the photography industry. The conversation delves into the importance of understanding client needs, the role of customer service, and the strategies Leslie employs to identify her ideal customers. Additionally, they discuss delegation, compensation structures for photographers, and the ongoing challenges of business development and marketing in a competitive landscape.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Leslie took over the family business at 23, facing many challenges.
• Adapting to digital photography was crucial for survival.
• Understanding client needs is essential for success.
• Customer service plays a significant role in photography.
• Identifying the ideal customer is key to business growth.
• Delegation is important for managing a photography business.
• Compensation structures should reflect the value of work.
• Business development is a major challenge for Leslie.
• Experience in photography helps in handling difficult situations.
• Building relationships is more important than just selling services.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.428)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. A special shout out to our one listener in Aberdeen, Idaho. Never been to Idaho. Closest I've got was Jackson Hole on the border there. I'd like to visit Idaho, Snake River. Beautiful it looks like, so I wanna go. Anyway, my guest today joining me,

is Lesle I'm gonna have to edit this I can't see Lane is that your Lane okay I'm sorry the the the font with your it's purple and your sweater is blue and my old eyes couldn't read that okay so there we go joining me as guest today Lesle Lane from studio 13 Lesle welcome

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (00:38.7)
Yes, Lesle Lane.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (00:56.408)
Thank you so much, Christian, for having me.

Christian Brim (00:58.5)
Absolutely. So why don't you tell the listeners who Lesle Lane is and what Studio 13 does.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (01:06.126)
Certainly, Studio 13 is a corporate photography business based out of Indianapolis, Indiana. We do have a national reach, but we got our roots here in Indianapolis. I'm a third generation photographer going all the way back to my grandparents, but they did portrait wedding photography. And then my mother and I moved to Indiana where she married Joe McGuire, who was a commercial photographer for many years here in Indianapolis. And I took over his business and I'm still running a

incantation of that business today 30 years later.

Christian Brim (01:38.686)
That is highly unusual. You do not see a lot of intergenerational businesses anymore, for sure. So did you work with your father at some point?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (01:41.121)
Yes.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (01:46.168)
Correct, yes.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (01:52.071)
I worked with both of my parents. So my mom is a fine art photographer in her own right. The first woman to ever take photographs in the pits of the Indianapolis 500 and then my stepfather as well. So he was the lead photographer over three photographers. He had a huge staff at the time.

Christian Brim (02:08.86)
Wonderful. That's fascinating. So I'm going to come back to that because I'm always curious about the family dynamics in business. So when did you take over Studio 13?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (02:20.046)
So I graduated from college in 1991. That dates me. I look way too young for that, I'm sure. But I came into the business full time at that time. And my stepfather really wanted me to be a portrait wedding photographer. He wanted to corner the market in Indianapolis to cover every kind of photography. And I just did not have the personality for that. And so I really kind of dug my heels in. But there weren't a lot of female commercial photographers at the time.

Christian Brim (02:24.818)
Yes, absolutely.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (02:47.606)
And so unfortunately, my stepfather got taken out with a stroke and I had to take over the business. So I took over when I was about 23, didn't know enough to be taking over a business at all, but I did. And that's kind of how I got here today.

Christian Brim (02:57.035)
my.

Christian Brim (03:04.276)
So did he ever come back into the business or were you? No.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (03:06.988)
He did not know he was completely paralyzed on one side of his body and could not do it. I got about two years working full time with him, but we ran our business out of our home. so we, was in the, yes, well, yes, they built this. It was an amazing facility. And so I was in the business from the time I was a child.

Christian Brim (03:17.18)
Right? Before there were home based businesses.

Christian Brim (03:28.872)
That is that okay. that's also another fascinating event to taking over a business at, you know, your, your mid twenties. what, were some of the challenges there?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (03:41.134)
Well, first of all, I didn't know what I was doing. That would be the very first thing. The second thing is that, you know, at 20 years old, you really don't think that your parents are as brilliant as you know they are by the time you're 50. And so I felt like that there were lots of things that I could do better. And just speaking from a profitability standpoint, I just didn't understand. Even though I had learned about money at a very young age,

Christian Brim (03:53.939)
Right?

Christian Brim (04:05.843)
Mmm.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (04:08.396)
I just didn't understand what it meant to run a profitable business. So getting the clients to take me seriously in my 20s, when I really didn't have a ton of photographic training, we would come in at night and I would shoot whatever the job was the next day. So if I had portraits, I would get somebody to pose for me. I would take the headshots and then my lab technician would run them at night so that I would be ready for the shoot the next day.

architecturally, I'd stand out in the driveway, shoot film until I got it right, run it, and then make sure it was okay. So it was quite the challenge. yeah.

Christian Brim (04:43.164)
And this is pre digital, so you were burning you were burning through film.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (04:47.384)
burning through film and burning the midnight oil to get it done before the client came in at eight o'clock the next morning.

Christian Brim (04:54.27)
So what were the business aspects? You said, you know, not getting the, or the customers not taking you seriously. What were the business aspects of that, that, that were the biggest challenges initially?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (05:11.65)
Well, my stepfather was bigger than life. So in the city of Indianapolis, he was it. He had three other photographers on staff with him at the time, two lab technicians, an office manager, and a salesperson. So you cannot take that personality. And he was adept at all kinds of corporate photography. And so you can't take that kind of personality, and he was 64, and roll it into a 20-something. You just can't do it.

Christian Brim (05:36.573)
Really? No. No.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (05:39.584)
And so my mom was going back and forth between, you know, where my stepfather was, because they were in Florida at the time when it happened. And she was coming alongside me to kind of help me run the business. But again, just trying to learn photography, learn, learn the money management. I've got two other, three other photographers on staff. Everybody's significantly older than me. I have no idea how to manage people at all.

Christian Brim (05:56.583)
Right.

Christian Brim (06:08.542)
Yeah, yeah.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (06:08.652)
And then I've got to try to get business because my stepfather was making 50 % of the producible money in the business. And so we dropped, you know, half of our income was gone within the first year. And so I started sending out, you know, let's shoot a day for a half day rate, these flyers to try to get people in. And that's when my other competitors, people in photography were like, hey, you don't want to do that. That is minimizing the craft. That is...

Christian Brim (06:16.722)
Yes?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (06:38.434)
you know, reducing the ability of what people see in us. And so I'd really had, I actually had one of my dad's cohorts call me and he gave me some strict talking to about, you know, just because you're trying to figure this out, don't diminish our services. And it was a very eye-opening conversation.

Christian Brim (06:43.452)
Your competitors told you that.

Christian Brim (07:03.634)
Yes. Yes, we've talked about that a lot about how price drives value. And, you know, in a lot of ways, the value is self realized in the price. Like if it's if it's cheap, people don't value it. If it's expensive, people value it. That's not to say that people are not going to value something that's good. But the quality, especially in intangible things,

like we service providers and well I mean I guess you're a service provider too so you know whether it's professional services like accountants or attorneys or whatever that if you don't value yourself enough to price it well it's hard to get your customer to perceive the value.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (07:40.439)
Is it?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (07:58.702)
100%.

Christian Brim (08:00.966)
So you bop along, you've had to have some pivots, definitely technology, how did you adapt to those changes? What were some of the highlights after you got your feet under you?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (08:18.796)
Sure, one of the positive things about taking over the business at such a young age is I really wasn't scared. I wasn't old enough to be scared. And so my stepfather and my mother both had already started understanding that digital was coming and it was a thing that it was going to take over the whole entire industry. And especially because in what we did,

Christian Brim (08:25.556)
You didn't know enough to be scared.

Christian Brim (08:36.414)
Mm-hmm.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (08:42.732)
you shoot a transparency, they scan the transparency and it becomes digital anyway. So we knew that that stopgap measure was gonna go away. And so I had a client come to me, one of the clients that worked me in and they were like, okay, you can do this, this will be great. And they said, you either buy this digital camera or we're gonna buy it and we're gonna do it in house. And it was $200,000. you...

Christian Brim (09:08.638)
Holy cow! When was this?

Christian Brim (09:14.908)
Okay, wow, all right.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (09:15.49)
1996. And you had to replace all your cameras, all your lenses, all your lights, and you had to do it. And I was 26, 27. I'm like, why not? And so I did it. And I was able to procure a loan. And I was able to get it done. And I learned it over a long holiday weekend, believe it or not.

Christian Brim (09:18.94)
Mm-hmm.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (09:36.81)
and I started shooting the very next Monday and never looked back. So that was not a hard transition because I was too young to be scared.

Christian Brim (09:45.342)
Well, and you were at the forefront of it. mean, like, there weren't a lot of people that could invest that kind of money in photography equipment at that time. There wouldn't be that many now.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (09:47.683)
Yes.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (09:56.43)
Correct. Well, and that was only because of the legacy and the platform of my family that I could do that, that I was the second person in the state of Indiana to invest in that equipment specifically.

Christian Brim (10:03.304)
Right.

Christian Brim (10:10.888)
So as the technology has changed, obviously the cost has gone down. How have you seen that transformation in your industry and in your business? What, I mean, like just the broad sweep, what do you see has changed most significantly to you?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (10:14.466)
Yes, thank goodness.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (10:30.542)
You know, the change from film to digital wasn't as disruptive, in my opinion, as the change from large format digital to small format digital. So as we're moving, you still needed your photographer. You still needed the creativity, lighting, and the nuances that a professional photographer could give you. And then all of a sudden, during the Great Recession, that was when camera phones became more prevalent.

that really impacted because it came at the time when the economy was tanking. And so you've got two cataclysmic things happening at the same time, one that's industry specific and one that's economic. And that really was the larger of the two disruptors in my career. And it took a long time because people took a long time to recover from that big recession.

Christian Brim (11:04.595)
Right.

Christian Brim (11:13.683)
Right.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (11:25.868)
before people started to say, my phone or my small format camera, I'm still not a photographer and I really do need a professional. So that was probably the biggest thing I felt in my career.

Christian Brim (11:32.179)
Right.

Christian Brim (11:38.856)
So this is an outsider's perspective. You know, with the ubiquity of phone cameras, obviously everybody's taking more pictures, but it didn't necessarily change the fundamental need of the commercial photographer in the sense that

You know, just because I now have access to a camera doesn't make me a photographer. The analogy in our industry is QuickBooks. And it's like, just because you can buy QuickBooks for $60 a month doesn't make you an accountant or a bookkeeper, right? So from your perspective, did it change the fundamentals of what you do?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (12:23.31)
Correct.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (12:36.78)
No, I don't think it changed the fundamentals of what I do specifically, but I definitely had to pivot my business away from customers that are less concerned about how their audience perceives them. So those are the people that will use the cameras to capture images. Their marketing department might do it, or they may have someone in their office that likes photography. And so I had to.

Christian Brim (12:53.694)
Mm-hmm.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (13:06.698)
understand that it's not personal, that if a company is not willing to invest in quality, that that is their problem. And my problem is finding the customers that it matters. And a lot of that is becoming more more industry specific.

Christian Brim (13:09.971)
Right.

Christian Brim (13:17.106)
Right.

Christian Brim (13:25.236)
You mean the, the, the, the professional needs. like, uh, manufacturing versus food service, or is that what you mean by? Okay. Yeah. And, we, we talk a lot about that on the show, uh, around really understanding what it is, the value you bring, um, rather than the skills that you have. Um, it sounds like you started out without a lot of skills period.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (13:32.782)
Correct, yes.

Christian Brim (13:55.124)
I don't mean that in a belittling way, but you know, right? So you were an entrepreneur first, right? I mean like, okay, I gotta figure out, I gotta solve the problem. one of those keys that I think every entrepreneur has to figure out and creatives in particular, is they have to understand what the value they bring to the table is.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (13:58.966)
Let's just be real.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (14:04.526)
Correct.

Christian Brim (14:22.452)
And that value is driven by what problem they're solving for their client or customer. So in layman's terms, what problem do you solve?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (14:38.904)
Well, especially right now where corporations are squeezing their employees tighter and tighter. They're expecting less people to do the same amount of work. So obviously, I am a very good photographer. It's taken me 30 years to get where I am today. You look at my website, it's excellent. But when it comes down to it, sometimes my clients just need help getting everybody scheduled for a headshot.

Christian Brim (14:47.988)
Mm.

Christian Brim (15:05.844)
Mmm.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (15:06.188)
You know, sometimes it's that basic thing. And so I have an administrator that sets up a link. We send it to their company and that link is company specific. They send it out to their employees. They set it all up. So sometimes it's being as much a production manager. Let me help you produce this job so that it's easier on you. Do you need me to shop props? Do you need me to find your makeup stylist? Do you, what do you need me to do?

Christian Brim (15:23.444)
you

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (15:36.01)
so that you can go back to what you do every day. So those are the things that I continue to add more and more, either services or customer service to make sure that I'm just rising to the top every time.

Christian Brim (15:50.398)
So who is your bread and butter customer? Who's your ideal customer?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (15:55.736)
My ideal customer, it matters less about size, although they need to have the marketing budget. So size does matter, but it's less about that and more about clients who, what I do aligns with their overall brand strategy. So they're trying to go out there and their audience cares if they look like they are trustworthy, if they are consistent in what they do, are they doing outreach? And so that,

brand alignment of excellence and transparency and likeability, that all kind of goes into it. So I know that that's a very broad answer that might need narrowing, but we do such a wide variety of work, doctors and lawyers and professional services and architects and multinational companies that send me across the country to shoot.

different sales teams. It's just all about what is that strategy and how do we fit into it.

Christian Brim (16:58.9)
So when you work, do you always bring your own photographers or do you contract out to others that are geographically located there?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (17:09.664)
It depends on the location and it depends on the kind of work. The more complicated the work is, the more likely that I'm going to have somebody on my team shoot it. If it is less complicated, then I might contract that out to somebody in a local region. So I'm lucky enough, not lucky enough, whatever you want, during the Great Recession, I taught photography for seven years part-time.

and those students have dispersed around the country. And so I do have lot of resources to reach out to those people. And a lot of those people are now assisting me and working alongside with me. So I am very fortunate.

Christian Brim (17:46.13)
Well, yeah, I mean, that's kind of built in. That's that's a built in network there. So let's talk about employees for a minute and delegating. so how do you how do you approach that? Like what you personally do versus what you delegate when you hire or when you don't hire like just talk about that a little bit.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (17:51.054)
Mm-hmm.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (18:14.456)
Sure. Well, everybody on my team, except for myself, is a contract. So they're 1099 employees. And I am the only W-2 employee for the corporation. I will be very frank, because that's just who I am. When I delegate has a lot to do with the intensity of the work schedule. So I fill my schedule first. And then I start filling my associate's schedule, unless it's something I don't.

Christian Brim (18:18.622)
Okay.

Christian Brim (18:24.35)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (18:38.484)
Mmm.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (18:44.056)
do. So I do not shoot corporate events. I'm not good at them. I lose my attention span very quickly. And so I have a team of people that do those for me. I don't do drone and I don't do video. And so I have people that do that for me as well. So unless it is specific that I don't do it, I fill my schedule to where I'm satisfied first before I delegate.

Christian Brim (19:09.126)
When it comes to your compensation of those folks and or your pricing, how do you approach that? Like, do you give them a percentage of the gig or do you pay them an hourly rate or and how do you determine that based upon the pricing?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (19:12.918)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (19:29.442)
Yeah, that's been an interesting part of this type of business. So I just transitioned to this type of business about four years ago was when this transition happened. It's something my mom had in mind back in the early 2000, but she wasn't able to make it quite work. so getting those pricing structures has been a lot more challenging than I had expected, mainly because I refused to pay my photographers less than they're worth. And so

Christian Brim (19:56.468)
Mmm.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (19:58.67)
knowing that there are brokerage firms out there that are paying people pennies to take pictures. So, and I don't mean to dog people, but the Uber Eats that are sending out food photographers for $30 an hour and oh gosh, it is. And then there's these apartment brokerage firms that they pay you $75 to shoot an entire complex. I mean, it's just, and it burns the photographers out. They're miserable.

Christian Brim (20:12.513)
is that a thing? I didn't even know that was a thing. Okay.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (20:25.814)
And so I just made this philosophy that I'm gonna hire the best people I can find and I'm gonna pay them a wage that is worthy. And so then once I came up with a standard rate for what the jobs are, I give myself a percentage. So like they get the majority of the fee and then I take a percentage as kind of my finder's fee.

Christian Brim (20:35.304)
Yes.

Christian Brim (20:44.18)
Sure.

Okay.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (20:52.854)
I do all the administration, I do all the invoicing, I do all the editing. I take the images from them raw, produce them, deliver them. So it's a little bit backwards from that. I take the smaller percentage, they take the larger percentage.

Christian Brim (21:05.117)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that is interesting. So, and it's just a different business model. I mean, I guess it depends on what the business or the service that you're delivering is. When we talk about pricing in service industries and employee compensation, we use a concept called direct labor efficiency. And

That's a concept that was developed not by me, but by Greg Crabtree, author of Simple Numbers. Brilliant, brilliant CPA, good colleague of mine. Anyway, I told him though that the book is, it's actually not simple. It's actually a very dense book, but it probably seems simple to him.

But the direct labor efficiency basically is taking out your marginal or your incremental, your variable, however you want to define it, except labor. So in your instance, you probably don't have a lot of direct incremental costs, maybe travel, know, whatever, incidental things. And that is your gross margin.

not as an accountant defines it, as for this purpose. And then you divide that number by your total labor costs. And with a service industry, your target is to be above two to one. So if you're receiving $100, your labor can't be more than 50 for that. But it sounds like you're

Christian Brim (22:56.984)
you for that particular segment of your business. That's not the case. It's it's it's lower than that percentage. Okay.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (23:04.206)
Correct. Yep. Yep. And that's just for my associates. So that's just because to me, that's an additional revenue stream. And I can make larger margins on my work, which is also the work that requires a higher market value to begin with.

Christian Brim (23:15.155)
Right.

Christian Brim (23:19.292)
Of course.

Christian Brim (23:24.668)
Right. But do you get to a point where, so you get to a point where your schedule's full, and it's something that you would do, but you just don't have time to do, you hire an associate to do that as well. You fill them, but it's that same pricing structure or compensation structure, correct? Where they're still getting the higher percentage. Interesting. And so in a lot of ways, that part of your business is more like a brokerage model. I mean, yeah.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (23:43.374)
Correct.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (23:52.93)
Yes, yes it is, except that I know my photographers personally. I've trained them myself in many occasions. And I also have standard operating procedures for each type of business that I do right down to lens selections and f-stops and shutter speeds and lighting and all those things. And so they're following my business model where a lot of the brokerage firms, they're hiring people that they don't even know. I mean, they're just going to different cities and they're like, here, take this job where

Christian Brim (24:18.547)
Right.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (24:22.84)
For me, part of what we do is serve the client and fill a need. And so that's the other reason why, yes, my margins for their work are lower, but I want to make sure I keep them. I want to make sure that when I call and say, hey, I have a need, they want to work for me. And I think they should also be able to support their family with what they do.

Christian Brim (24:41.62)
Sure.

Christian Brim (24:45.426)
Yeah, you know, that brings to mind there's there's a an accounting firm, stick with me, it'll make sense. There's an accounting firm. I believe they're called Dark Horse accounting. And they started a few years ago. And essentially, they're doing what you're doing for accountants. They created this this infrastructure of support.

to and marketing to clients. And then their model is to go and find a CPA that wants to own their own business, but they don't want the hassle or they don't know how to do all of those things. All the marketing and administration stuff. And they bring them in, their structure is more of a corporate model. So they actually make them a shareholder.

But it's still the same business model, the same concept is they're growing the business by essentially empowering the professional. So it sounds like that's a model that is worth looking at if you're in a service industry.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (26:05.656)
Well, and especially after 30 years in the industry, I have grown this business. Obviously, I took over the family business and I had a platform to start on. But then after 30 years, I've had to dig in to Indianapolis and the surrounding areas. And most photographers and creatives for that matter, they get into it to do their craft. They don't get in it to sell, to network, to do the bookkeeping, to do the accounting.

Christian Brim (26:27.464)
Yes.

Christian Brim (26:32.115)
Right.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (26:32.332)
You know, and so all those things I'm really good at and I love it. love the entrepreneurial side where most of, you know, photographers, they just want to take pictures and they really hate editing on top of it. And so, you know, I, I kind of take care of all the things they don't like to do.

Christian Brim (26:50.546)
Yeah. Yes. And I think that's, I think that's a lot of professionals period. Like they're good at their craft. but they don't want to run a business. They don't want the headaches of it. And I've run into a lot of business owners, professionals over the years where I'm like, dude, you're not a good business person. You should just go work for someone else. and, and this

this model that you've created and Dark Horse has created is kind of a bridge there. like you're not an employee, but you're not on your own either.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (27:30.572)
Right. And I just think that from the customer side, so it is getting harder and harder to find a photography business. You can find photographers, but they're normally going to be gig people. They do them on the side, hard to get in touch with. They don't respond to emails quickly. And so by me coming in and say, let me help you, let me take care of this, you've got four different types of photography you need.

Christian Brim (27:42.452)
Right.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (27:59.468)
I've got three different photographers that can handle that. So it just is a way to extend the customer service one more level so that they're not going through website after website after website trying to find one photographer to shoot their events, one photographer to shoot their architecture, one to do their product photography. So, so far, I mean, this, I've only been in it for three or four years trying to make this model work. It is doing well. And the customers seem to be thrilled with it.

Christian Brim (28:26.58)
Well, yeah, no, I mean, because you're talking about businesses, know, sizable businesses, however you define that, they don't want to go chase down hustlers. You know, that's not what they do. They expect that they engage somebody to do it and they do it and they don't have to go chase them and, know, yeah. Excuse me. So what would you say, do you...

work with a lot of marketing agencies or you usually hired by the direct customer.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (29:04.97)
say it's about 95.5 directly with the customer. So only about 5 % of agency work. I like doing agency work. There's nothing wrong with it. My dad just had kind of that corporate mentality of working directly with the organization and I just kind of fell in line and that's where I've kind of stayed in my lane.

Christian Brim (29:09.555)
Okay.

Christian Brim (29:18.321)
Okay.

Christian Brim (29:25.544)
Well, yeah, and then you also cut out the margin. you know, you're not... Yeah.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (29:28.366)
Cut out the margin, I get paid really quickly. mean, sometimes agencies are 90, 120 days where I normally get paid within 15.

Christian Brim (29:35.89)
Yeah, yeah. What is your biggest challenge right now? Like what's keeping you up at night? What do you what do you wake up thinking about?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (29:44.13)
business development. There's just not a question about it. There's not enough of me to go around. So I am super grateful that over the past four years, I now have a administrator. I now have a social media director. I now have these associate photographers and it's great. But I need somebody to grasp onto this business model for sales and business development. So, and that's a little bit harder. You don't really find gig people that want to sell part-time.

Christian Brim (29:49.81)
Hmm.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (30:13.814)
because in my business, it's really not selling, it's relationship building. And so you can't just go out. And one of the biggest mistakes I made as a young person thinking that, you know, I had to go out and sell. No, I had to go out and build these relationships, become integrated into these different networking groups so that when somebody has a photographic need, they think of me. So now I'm trying to clone myself.

Christian Brim (30:14.088)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (30:37.267)
Right.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (30:39.788)
and find somebody that can come alongside me and help promote the business from a relationship building standpoint.

Christian Brim (30:47.826)
Yeah, and that ain't cheap. And to your point, it can't be a side hustle kind of gig. I mean, it's got to be full time. It's got to be professional and it is expensive. I think marketing in general is expensive, but when you get into professional services where there's a high barrier of trust, AKA relationship,

it is uber expensive because it takes time and those people that are good at it are cheap. So how are you approaching it? you looking to hire somebody to do that full time or?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (31:35.328)
Not right now, what we're looking is a contract worker. So I had several people interested in it last year. I actually gave one a try and she got overwhelmed that there was just too much to do for her that she could not keep up with it. And so I just replaced my administrative assistant who has a background in recruitment. And so she has come alongside me and after my last administrator finished up the

Christian Brim (31:50.195)
Right.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (32:03.618)
job description and making sure that we had all of that stuff in writing. Now my new administrator is just now starting to dig in and list that ad out in the public because I haven't done that yet. You know, I've kind of been, do you know somebody? You know, I have a huge network of both clients as well as just, you know, relationships with other businesses. And so now I'm actually getting out there in the public and putting an ad out and see, see if we can find somebody.

Christian Brim (32:32.51)
What do you think you're gonna have to pay for that?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (32:35.16)
Well, I'm hoping to do it by the hour, quite honestly, because you can't make it commission based because it takes so long to turn a sale. And so I'm hoping to make it hourly. So I don't have that price range yet. Just kind of putting the feelers out there.

Christian Brim (32:41.394)
Right. Yeah.

Christian Brim (32:47.728)
Okay. Do you, do you have an expectation? Like I'm, I'm just curious, like what, what the market would be because if I'm sitting there saying that, on a full-time basis, it'd probably be in the 60, $70,000 range would be my guess, but I don't know.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (33:06.924)
No, haven't. I'm not saying you're wrong, because you may be completely right. But I'm hoping to actually not do full time. Like, I'm hoping to. So because I've been doing this for so long, I know where the business is. So I know what network groups that need to have a person go there. And I'm not going to spread this person too thin. I'm going to say, I want you to go here. And I want you to invest your time here.

Christian Brim (33:16.073)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (33:30.163)
Right.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (33:35.886)
and this is how much time that should take. So I'm hoping it's actually part-time, I'd say 50 % time.

Christian Brim (33:41.8)
Okay, interesting. What do you think your most valuable thing is that you do for the company? What's the most valuable thing that you do?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (33:59.278)
It's not the same as what I like to do, the most valuable thing.

Christian Brim (34:01.372)
No, no, no, no, no. What creates the most value?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (34:06.882)
think my experience, I think that when I go on a job, it is very, very difficult to trip me up anymore. So photography, especially corporate photography, it is different every single day. I've got a client sending me down to Atlanta to shoot headshots in a building nobody's even seen before. And so they want environmental headshots of their people in an environment nobody knows what it looks like. And I won't know what it looks like till I get there.

Christian Brim (34:25.801)
Right.

Christian Brim (34:29.587)
Right.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (34:34.592)
And so it's very, very difficult to truly trip me up so that I'm struggling to make it capture. And then the other thing is that I can pretty much get along with anybody. And so when you're talking about putting someone in front of your camera or in Atlanta, the client that's hiring me is out of the East coast. The people I'm going to be photographing are in Atlanta. And she knows that when she sends me down there, I'm not going to embarrass her. I'm not going to, you know,

Christian Brim (34:35.08)
Yes.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (35:02.37)
I'm not this egotistical photographer that has to have everything my way. My job through and through is client satisfaction. And I think that I've had some very difficult people in front of my camera. I've had some very challenging people. And no matter what, I can come away with a smile and end up connecting with them on a personal level. And that was because my stepfather said at a very young age, you have to be able to talk to the janitor and the senator.

Christian Brim (35:27.348)
Yes, yes, I might be one of those difficult subjects to photograph. Just because I don't like to photograph. I don't like my, I mean, when I get a professional to do them, I end up liking them. But like, you know, these candid photos that friends want, know, hey, you want to, or even my family, I'm like, I hate it. Yeah, yeah. There was a thought that I had that it just escaped me, the question.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (35:32.015)
really?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (35:47.692)
You're not alone.

Christian Brim (35:57.044)
Let's see if it comes to me. Oh, I remember what it was. It was stupid. I think it was, I can't remember the actor's name. I'm gonna say this and you're gonna know who it is, but I think it was Zoolander with the photographer. No, no, no, no, it was Austin Powers. It was Austin Powers, the photographer in Austin Powers and Mike Myers and he goes, I'm spent.

you know, do you know what line I'm talking about? Okay, I'm sorry. That's that's one of my that you said difficult photogra photographers, you know, being one of those egotistical and that was the image that came to my mind because he was just a complete ass and taking photographs and then when he's done, he's like, and I'm spent. All right, nevermind. It's one of my strange quirks is I am fluent in movie quotes. Yes.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (36:28.884)
No, that's hilarious.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (36:53.484)
I saw that t-shirt, I love it.

Christian Brim (36:55.698)
Yes. I can't help it. It's just the way my brain works. I, know, something comes to mind and it associates and then I'm like, okay. And then I have to say it. It's kind of like Tourette's. just have to get in. All right. Lesle, how do people find out more about working with you and studio 13?

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (37:14.402)
Well, of course you can find me on the internet with a terribly awkward website name that I have, which is studio13online.com. You can also reach Studio 13 on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn, Lesle Lane, which is spelled very uniquely, L-E-S-L-E, L-A-N-E. And I'd be happy to talk to anybody that wants more information.

Christian Brim (37:37.182)
Well, it's been a pleasure hearing your story and hearing your journey. Congratulations on all fronts. Listeners, if you like what you heard, please subscribe to the podcast, rate the podcast, share the podcast. If you don't like what you heard, shoot us a message and I'll replace Lesle. Not gonna replace me. Until then, ta-ta for now.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (37:42.702)
Thank you.

Lesle Lane, Studio 13 (37:59.798)
you