355: Heidi Hapanowicz – Everything you wanted to know about personal branding photography

355: Heidi Hapanowicz – Everything you wanted to know about personal branding photography

Andrew Hellmich: Today's guest is a headshot lifestyle and personal branding photographer, but it's clear personal branding is where her passions lay. Her ideal client is someone who needs more than a headshot photographer, someone looking for a complete online image makeover. She says, I'm a personal branding photographer and designer for entrepreneurs. I help small business owners level up their confidence and sell authentically with on-brand headshots, lifestyle photographs and branded websites for their businesses. In addition to shooting, she has a number of online courses, business mentoring and everything you need to get started as a branding photographer. I'm talking about Heidi Hapanowicz and I'm rapt to have her with us now. Heidi, welcome.

Heidi Hapanowicz: Hi, I'm so excited to be here. This is one of my favorite topics.

Andrew Hellmich: Business or branding and headshot photography.

Heidi Hapanowicz: Actually more the business side of it. I love the business side of what I do. Absolutely love it.

Andrew Hellmich: Well, you will feel at home with the questions I'm going to throw at you today. I guess firstly, I mean I said there headshots, I said branding photography, branding photographer. How do you brand yourself?

Heidi Hapanowicz: So I do call myself a personal brand photographer. When people ask, I do shoot headshots. I started off as a headshot photographer, but now when people ask, I simply say I'm a personal brand photographer and I think you know, it's a great open air and conversation starter for people. People love to hear about what I do.

Andrew Hellmich: Is that because people don't know what a personal brand photographer is?

Heidi Hapanowicz: So people are learning what it is. It depends on the crowd. Years ago only people that were very, very deep in the entrepreneurial like female entrepreneurial world and knew what it was and I stood, when I say years ago, I mean like 2014 was when I started shooting personal brand exclusively. Now though, it's definitely becoming more a part of the language for anybody who owns a business and I think we're going to get into that quite a bit more later.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. Do you feel it's something that people are actually going out and searching for when they're looking for a photographer?

Heidi Hapanowicz: I know that that's what they're going out and searching for because I have all of the analytics on my backend and you know when I do an intake form with my clients to prove it.

Andrew Hellmich: So when you say that, are you suggesting then that people actually searching in Google for personal brand photographer?

Heidi Hapanowicz: People are absolutely searching in Google for personal brand photographer? Let me give that a little bit of a caveat. When I first started, that was not the case. When I first started in 2014 the vast majority of people that I photographed, I did meet in, you know, female business groups and even if they didn't know the language, personal brand photographer, if you said it, they're like, Oh, okay. I didn't realize that was what I was looking for. But yes, that has changed. It has changed a lot this year especially I've seen, I think my organic search went up 1200% for that term. I used to only book clients that were referred to me or clients that found me through looking for a headshot photographer and then I converted them on my site. Now, about half of the clients are actually searching for personal brand photographer and they're not the kind of people that you would normally think.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow. That's cool. What do you mean by not the people you'd normally think?

Heidi Hapanowicz: One of my recent client I had was a high school principal at a big school in the Bronx on the side. She was doing coaching. She did, you know like leadership coaching and speaking and things like that. And then she had another side gig writing theory, romantic fiction novels under a pen name, which I thought was hilarious.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice

Heidi Hapanowicz: And so she came to me for photos both for her book and for speaking and coaching. Now she's not what you consider like a typical online entrepreneur. You know, somebody that like is putting up their website that I'm meeting at these like, you know, social media marketing world or a place like that. This is a woman that was a high school principal and still is. And just, you know, she said, I asked her like, so you know, where did this term come from in your head? And she said she was watching some YouTube videos on how to grow her business and somebody on that video mentioned personal brand. So she went searched and she found me. And like I said, that's happening not just a little bit more but a lot more in the past year, like a huge amount more.

Andrew Hellmich: That's encouraging to hear that particularly for anyone. Thinking about moving into this genre, what do you think someone like this principal would have been searching for, you know, five years ago or even less last year?

Heidi Hapanowicz: Yeah, even last year. Well I know, cause again this is something that I saw in groups all the time. I would be in Facebook groups with people and they would say, Oh, you know, I need a photographer in my area and I'm looking everywhere. And then I would, I'm like, you live in Boston? And I'd go on and I would search and I'd find somebody in five minutes. I'm like, there's a million. They didn't know what to search for. So back then, what I would suggest to people is, yes, search for personal brand photographer, but also look for things. You know, maybe they would just look for regular generic photographer and they would take them hours to go through all of the babies and families and wedding photographers in the area. You know, I used to suggest using terms like, well maybe lifestyle photographer, things like that for them, just to kind of get a feel for who is in their area.

Andrew Hellmich: So when you got into this kind of photography, you said you were originally shooting head shots.

Heidi Hapanowicz: I was.

Andrew Hellmich: What led you down the road of shooting lifestyle or branding photography?

Heidi Hapanowicz: Well, well, let me back up a little bit more. Again, actually, like most photographers, I was shooting everything. So I had trained to do headshots in about 2012, 2013 and I actually thought I was going to become a boudoir photographer interestingly enough. And then I joined a chorus with a bunch of female business owners to grow that boudoir photography business. It was an online course and then there was a local group, like a local Facebook group in the area that I lived in and I invited people over to my house and we ended up having these weekly, you know, just like business brainstorming meetings, a bunch of women and these people started to ask me to take their photos even though it was kind of moving into boudoir, I still had a headshot site up. I had trained to do headshots and when they first came I was doing more of a headshot slash little bit like that studio Sue Bryce thing that was happening, you know, in 2014 that she was teaching. Like that's all I really knew. I knew that they wanted something more than just a standard headshot. So I started doing that and then it just progressed from there. I did not search out this kind of photography I could not have at the time. People came to me for it and then I just adjusted with request and I realized how much I loved it. And here I am five or six years later.

Andrew Hellmich: So back then, were you referring it to..were clients referring it to as lifestyle photography or were these business portraits? What were people calling them?

Heidi Hapanowicz: In that particular group that I joined, people did know the term personal brand photography. That was the first I had heard of it. That was like late 2013 very early 2014 and this was a group that was primarily female business owners and yeah, they were calling it personal brand photography. So it's been, you know, a part of the language for a lot longer than people realize. People think it's just this like new things just kind of jumped out there, but it's been around for awhile.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. Okay. Fast forward to today and it looks like, are you only focusing on photographing women? I mean I saw one or two guys on your side, but not many.

Heidi Hapanowicz: Yeah, that's a great question too. So initially I did, initially my market was women. I love men. Men are great, they're easy to shoot, but I just felt like I was, I just enjoyed shooting women. They needed it so much more than men. I've found that when men go to promote their business, they don't care if their picture's good, they don't care it they're half. If said something they're very comfortable asking for what they're worth. Women are not and they just aren't. There are a lot more shy about it. They're a lot more shy about being self-promotional. They could be 10 times as talented as a man and in general it feels a lot more uncomfortable and they hold themselves back and limit themselves in growing the business much more than a guy would. And so I just really enjoyed helping the women and to be fair, I was also in a group with a lot of women.

Heidi Hapanowicz: I think that at the time more women needed this kind of photography, like men didn't really see what they needed beyond headshots. So I was still shooting a lot of male headshot clients, but it was the females that were coming to me like the female health coaches and life coaches and fitness instructors and people like that that came for the actual lifestyle packages. I now seeing a transition there and I now seeing more men and in areas of work that you wouldn't necessarily expect start to want to shoot branding photography. But to be fair, most of them are still women. It's definitely like a woman heavy market.

Andrew Hellmich: For you personally or you feel like the branding photography market is predominantly women?

Heidi Hapanowicz: I think that the majority of the people that are searching for personal brand photographers right now are women. I think also, yes for me, I think that men are slowly becoming educated and understanding what they need. Um, would you like me to give you an example of like a new emerging market that I'm seeing coming through?

Andrew Hellmich: Sure, yeah.

Heidi Hapanowicz: Okay. So what I'm getting now is men that are, you know, maybe in their late fifties they worked for corporate for many years, super smart, know what they're doing and now they're going out and they're doing, you know, maybe consulting for a software company and they have absolutely no online presence. They may be have, you know, one really shitty, sorry,

Andrew Hellmich: That's okay. It's all good.

Heidi Hapanowicz: Really crappy LinkedIn picture and that's it. And what they need because the people that are hiring them are maybe you know, 35 year old guys that are running these companies. They need like a little bit of what like sexier sort of an image, like something where they look a little bit more hip, a little bit more together so that their online presence is equal to their knowledge and their talent and what they have to give to the company. So I would say that that's one of the really big ones and I think it's a really big untapped market and I think more people should go after it.

Andrew Hellmich: So is that something you would do or you found your niche with women and that's what you're going to stay focused?

Heidi Hapanowicz: No, I do that. I do shoot that there are men on my site, they probably are hidden a little bit, but I absolutely shoot that and I love photographing them. I think they're great. They're easy to photograph, they just kind of go along with the program. Yeah, men are pretty easy.

Andrew Hellmich: We do what we're told. We do what we're told.

Heidi Hapanowicz: Yeah. Most of my guys just come in and say like, just tell me what to wear. Like here I brought my whole closet. Women always think that they brought too many clothes. My men bring more clothes often than the women. They're like, I brought it all. Just tell me what to wear. Like I just tell me what to do and that's just easy, you know? So

Andrew Hellmich: I love it. I want to get into the business and marketing side of things, but I'd love to just cover the, I guess a big reason I invited you onto this show and then reached out to you was because I had a thread inside my members Facebook group asking for US branding photographers and the first bunch of recommendations were all people with courses and these people with the courses weren't often actually shooting branding photography. They were just selling courses and your name got thrown out there by a fantastic photographer, Anita Watkins who I've interviewed on the show a couple of times. She's super successful herself. She said that you are killing it as a branding photographer. I went and had a look. And you have a bunch of courses online as well, you mentoring and all kinds of things. Is there a bit of a, I don't want to call it a stigma, it's this weird thing happening where branding photographers are making more money selling courses and they are shooting branding photography?

Heidi Hapanowicz: Well, I think that just by nature of how we sell courses online instead of one to one services, it's easier to scale your business that way. You know? That just makes sense. But I will say that I never ever, if you had told me four years ago that I'd be teaching branding photography, I would have told you that you were absolutely crazy. I did not go in to teach anything. I don't consider myself a teacher or I didn't consider myself a mentor to photographers. But what I found is that every single day I was getting photographers coming to me saying, how did you do this? I really want to break into this market. Can you teach me? And so my course evolved from there. And I think that there's a need for it. And I've since had workshops, you know, I'm coming out with several different product lines and you know, there's a need for it.

Heidi Hapanowicz: I'm getting a lot of burnt out wedding and family photographers who maybe shot one or two brand sessions and are like, this is fabulous. I love it. I love working these smart, you know, amazing intelligent women. And they can shoot on a Monday or Tuesday. So they have their weekends and their afternoons free for their children or whatever, or to travel or whatever else they like to do. Like they love the people that they work with. My clients are just the best in the world. And so they were coming to me and so, you know, I started teaching, I gave them what they wanted and I found that I absolutely love it. Like I love my students. I have so much fun with them. I enjoy it. I love watching them grow.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you think you have to be a successful branding photographer to be able to teach branding photography?

Heidi Hapanowicz: Oh, that's such a tricky question. So I think it helps. So I think that what I'm teaching is actually how I grew my business. I grew my business on my own, nobody was teaching it and nobody told me what to do. You know, I have this on my website. I wasn't funded by a husband or you know, wealthy parents or anything like that. I had two teenagers and I had to, it was ride or die, you know, I've got to make my business work or not. So, you know, I really, really dove into it and everything that I'm teaching is things that I've learned on my own and tried and you know, tried something different and I test packages myself and teach them to the students. And you know, I've done it all on my own. So I think I know what I'm talking about.

Heidi Hapanowicz: I haven't seen what other brand photographers are teaching. I've heard good things about some of the courses and I think, you know, I'm a big online course fan. I'm not going to lie, Andrew, like part of me being able to grow my business with being a little bit of an online course addict. And I do think that not everybody teaches. Exactly. You don't have to follow exactly what each teacher says, you know, let me give you a really great example. I love content writing courses. I don't consider myself a writer, but I enjoy it. But I've taken, you know, five or six content writing courses. If any of my favorite writers put out another course, I'm going to take it. And I get a little bit from one and a little bit from another. I don't think that either one of them are right. They just all have their own style and I feel the same way about this.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. Okay. Then so for someone thinking about moving into branding photography, is there a big enough market to survive on branding photography alone?

Heidi Hapanowicz: I absolutely believe that there's a big enough market. Yes. And I think that the market is getting bigger. I think it's actually, I think if you are smart in business, you pay attention to the market and how it's changing. And I think that the market is changing and getting in right now is the best time. It's like, you know, I always compared to like imagine being one of the first YouTube makeup artists 10 years ago.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes.

Heidi Hapanowicz: You know, where would you be now? And I think more and more people are starting businesses. More and more people are recognizing the need for quality images on social media, on their website. They recognize the ROI of these images. They understand that they need to invest, they want to put it in the hands of somebody that they trust that's not going to get any less. That's just going to get more.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, I believe that.

Heidi Hapanowicz: The market is only going to get bigger. And so back to the, you know the SEO portion. Gues what if you live in a small town somewhere? Maybe it is true that right now you're not going to get a lot of hits for personal brand photography and you know, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. But you know what? If you get in there first and you get that content up, you will be able to rank. But when it starts getting bigger in your area a lot more quickly, you will be ahead of the game and you're going to, you'll find that people find you that you are just not expecting. There's not a lot of competition out there right now, so why not be one of the first ones?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, I love that. Should you or do you need to be a headshot photographer before a branding photographer?

Heidi Hapanowicz: No, I don't think you need to be a headshot photographer first. I will say that one thing that I have always taught my students, and this is one of the things that I did in the beginning and I know that other people discuss this, is I do believe that it's helpful to optimize your website for headshots and corporate photography and things like that. At this point, I've definitely had people who said, I was searching for a headshot photographer. I got to your website and then I realized, Oh, I would love to, you know, shoot it, do branding. Instead they go through a nurture sequence on my website. They were reading my blogs, you know, they watched some webinars and things like that that I've had. So they went from being, you know, $500 headshot client to you know, a much, much higher end, multi thousands of dollars worth of brand photography.

Heidi Hapanowicz: And they weren't always people that you would expect. These people would never have searched for that in the first place. So I do think that there's value there. Absolutely. However, I don't believe that that's the only way now, I think three or four years ago, absolutely. The only way people were really finding you online is that they were looking for headshot photography, maybe like some social media photography and maybe by optimizing blogs for your past clients, which I can get into if you want me to. However, now, 50% of my business and 50% of the traffic to my site is coming from organic searches.

Andrew Hellmich: That's awesome. So you mentioned earlier that you see a lot of photographers moving into brand photography who are domestic or let's call them portrait or wedding photographers. Let's say you're talking to me, I'm a wedding and portrait photographer. I want to get into brand photography. Should I start a brand new website or can I have a portion of my existing website for branding photography? What would you say to me if I was getting started?

Heidi Hapanowicz: I would say the most optimal thing to do is to start a brand new site for that.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. Okay it makes sense.

Heidi Hapanowicz: Yeah. I mean, I would suggest that. Here's the thing, everybody's at a different point in their journey. Everybody has a different amount of energy and time that they're willing to invest. I'm certainly not going to tell one of my students, you know, don't do anything. If all you're ready to do is put up personal branding on your site right now, then do that. However, please work towards getting a separate site just for branding.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. Okay. I know just from talking to you the last 20 minutes or so, you are all over your analytics, your'e over SEO. I can see on your website that you know you're targeting keyword phrases like lifestyle photographer, headshot, photography, all those things. I totally get that. The SEO side of things. I know the listener is pretty good with that as well. Is there anything that you can do that's more proactive to bring clients in for branding shoots?

Heidi Hapanowicz: Oh my gosh. So many things.

Andrew Hellmich: You can't wait.

Heidi Hapanowicz: So, and I wanted to mention the SEO thing because this conversation that we're having right now, I wouldn't have been so passionate about it had I not seen the change myself in the past year or so, but I don't believe that we should just sit back at our house, you know, unless you can, unless you just need a side business right now and you are willing to sit back and wait for the business to come. Absolutely not. You need to be proactive in your business. You need to get out there. I started my business before people were finding me online and I started it by making connections with people. I joined business groups where there wasn't a business group. I created one, you know, I joined courses that had other entrepreneurs in there and I didn't join them to poach clients. I joined them just to have relationships, to meet people that were like-minded, that were the kind of people that I wanted, even my friends.

Heidi Hapanowicz: And then I'm also following people, like I've seen people online, I'm like, Oh, I would love to work with them. And so I've gone about in a very like, you know, classy way, you know, maybe connecting with them on social media or just saying hi like I, you know, I love your work or you know, I don't encourage people to like reach out and be the like, Oh, I can do all of this stuff here. I don't love when people try to sell me right in my DMS. But I don't mind someone that's established a relationship with me. If you see somebody that you'd love to work with, like start following Instagram stories, start commenting on their stuff, start sharing their tweets, like let them know that you exist and then allow it to come more in a natural conversation. So I think that that's one really good way. It's just relationships and I don't care where you are in the world. I've photographed all over the world. Women especially and men, they're dying to meet other people that are small business owners. There are groups everywhere. You can't leave your house. There's online groups that you can join. They're everywhere.

Andrew Hellmich: So, are you talking like BNI groups or do you think something more specialized just purely for entrepreneurs, small business owners?

Heidi Hapanowicz: Either or. I've never been in a BNI group, but I've been in, um, I mean I've been to workshops where, I went to a workshop in Italy. This is the brilliance of this business. I went to a workshop in Italy just because I wanted to learn how to write from my website and where there was about 50 other women who all had businesses that came to the workshop and we sat around and on a coastal town and learn to write in a little castle and drank wine at night. And I made friends and many of them became my clients. Like how is that not just the most fabulous business ever?

Andrew Hellmich: That is the dream way to get clients, a little town on the coast of Italy doing a writing course in a castle.

Heidi Hapanowicz: True story.

Andrew Hellmich: Does it get better?

Heidi Hapanowicz: And that's what I love. That is why I love to share and I'm so passionate about it because I want other, you know, photographers to be able to experience that.

Andrew Hellmich: As amazing as that sounds, and it's for me personally, I'd say, yeah look that's achievable. I sign up for a course, I get on a plane and go to Italy and I do it and I meet these people.

Heidi Hapanowicz: Right? Why not?

Andrew Hellmich: But I know there are listeners thinking, come on, I've got three kids.

Heidi Hapanowicz: I understand that.

Andrew Hellmich: I've got a husband to look after. I've got a wife to manage. Sorry, not sorry, I didn't mean that or what I was going to say a mortgage to manage and I said a wife to manage.

Heidi Hapanowicz: That's okay. Many people have that too. I get it.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh man. I'll just remove my foot from my mouth. But yet some people are thinking that is totally unreasonable. Heidi. So you're saying that online groups or local community groups, like what's the one thing you would do to try and help bring clients to your business?

Heidi Hapanowicz: Okay. So let's say you have a bunch of small children at home and you don't have a passport and you have no desire to leave your town. Great. So why don't you start with the small businesses that you frequent? Do you know? One of my biggest clients, my number one return client locally, our local spas, like you know, med spa, stylist, things like that because they know the value of being on social media all the time and they always want new photos, you know, go to the lady that gives you your facial, your peels and ask her stop by the coffee shop that you, you know, and let them know do they need photos for social media? There's like so much low hanging fruit out there with people that, you know, businesses that you're working with. I get that realtors are amazing right now. That's another great market. They have always been notorious for having like very, very bad, you know, bench kind of headshots and very cheesy. Well I'm finding that that's changing, that they are also understanding how the market's changing.

Heidi Hapanowicz: They're really becoming educated in social media and things like that and I think they're great clients. I get a ton of them and I think that it's our job to teach, to kind of share a little bit with them and offer them more value so that they recognize the worst that we have to give and giving them ideas of things that they can do. Let me give you some examples. If I were to shoot a realtor locally, you know, let's say I live in a small town in Georgia, you know I or let's say I live in Atlanta, I would find, I would say yes you need headshots, but also let's take photos of you through social media that talks about the neighborhood that you live in. Like Oh my gosh, I had this amazing ball field. If you're in a marketing to families, maybe on your social media you'd like we have the best ball field in the state, you know, I'm hanging out with here with my kids and we all get pizza afterwards because people that are buying homes in the market, they are buying a story of their future. Like, where are they going to with their kids? What are the schools like? You know, and that's going to be different if you maybe are a realtor that's selling something in Tribeca in New York.

Andrew Hellmich: I kind of, I love that, that scene that you've already painted for me, you're already selling me on the idea of moving to that community and I can see the real estate agent would be crazy not to take you up on that. So just talk me through that. Just go back a step. Let's say you cold calling on a real estate agent. Have you already checked their website? Have you checked their headshots before you make that cold call or are you just going in there and trying to get business?

Heidi Hapanowicz: No, I wouldn't. I personally would look at their step if I were going to cold call on somebody and I don't even, I mean I know that there is value to just showing up at a realtor's office. I get that, but I don't even think we need to do that. I think that's very awkward for a lot of people. We have friends. If your kids are in school, I can guarantee you know one or two moms or dads and that's well that's a realtor. Let them know, Hey, I'm starting to shoot brand photography. Post on social media. One of the biggest issues that I'm finding with photographers who are not getting business is they're not telling anybody what they're doing. It's like, it seems so obvious, but they'll say, Oh, like I really want to grow my business. I want to do this, and then I go on their social media accounts.

Heidi Hapanowicz: Nothing. It doesn't say a single word about the fact that they're shooting brand photography and it's not just that business. I see it in other businesses. I helped a friend who's a makeup artist started course for makeup artist. I go on there and like there's nothing that says you're a makeup artist. If you're a makeup artist, start putting out there like put on your Instagram on your Facebook and everything. I'm a makeup artist. Start posting pictures of makeup that you're doing. Start talking about it. Let people know what you do and put an offer out there. Give them something to buy.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. I love that you clarify that it would be awkward for a lot of people because it would be doing a cold call. So let's say I get an inquiry from a realtor who is one of the parents of one of the kids at my school and he or she are thinking about headshots. Is that when you had the conversation about, Hey, let's think about going to the local ball park, let's go to the pizza parlor after a, you know, with the kids, let's go and shoot in front of the local school. Is that when you present those ideas?

Heidi Hapanowicz: I think that that's a great time to present it. Um, but I think even better than that, if you've done the work even before they contact you. So they have been watching you on social media, sharing other stories and things like that, or maybe sharing a post on social media saying, Hey, I've been most amazing ideas for, you know, realtors and then kind of listing that out. And then they're already seeing you as a valuable investment in their business and as something more than just a regular photographer, they're coming to you as someone who can help them grow their business. I think it depends on where you are. I personally am not the kind of person that wants to go knocking and cold calling. That would just be really awkward for me. I know some people are amazing at it, I get it, but I'm more, I want to like go down a little bit more of a subtle road and just kind of, you know, establish relationships with people and everybody is starting a business nowadays.

Heidi Hapanowicz: And that's not an exaggeration. Just everywhere I go, moms, grandmothers, I mean it's just, it's easy if there's an easy point of entry now to start a business. So make it part of the conversation. Have people when they think even if they're not, when they think of images for their social media accounts, make sure that your name is the one that they're thinking about. And I can't tell you how many people that hire me that have been following on social media for years. I don't even know who they are and then they book. It's never the people that you think is going are going to, it's never like your neighbor that's like I'm dying to work with you and then they never do or your best friend from you know, eighth grade. It's like people that have been following you that you didn't even know or like a random person that maybe your kid went to kindergarten with 10 years ago and then they've just been silently watching you and waiting.

Andrew Hellmich: I love it. I am absolutely loving you and what you're sharing and your passion for this and I think you glossed over pretty quickly an idea that I have never seen another photographer do, which I think would work wonders. You said...

Andrew Hellmich: Just one last thing before I find out some details on where listeners can find you. I didn't clarify, with the makeup artist and hair hairstylists, are they coming with you for the day or they do their one set up in the morning and that's it and done.

Heidi Hapanowicz: It depends on the shoot. So for a headshot and for like a smaller lifestyle shoot, I just have them come and you know, show up, do the hair and makeup and then leave. And there's a reason for that. I actually have found that, I find that that they get in the way a little bit. Like I love the makeup artist and things like that, but at some shoots I feel like they're constantly, they're trying to touch up my client.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes.

Heidi Hapanowicz: Like, well, I'm trying to shoot.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes.

Heidi Hapanowicz: I don't know. I think you guys or everybody has seen this before. And my hairstylist and makeup artists, they're used to doing makeup for brides. They can put something on that's going to last all day. Sometimes I'm doing like a longer higher end shoot where people do want multiple hair and makeup changes. And so I will have somebody stay for the day. Um, it depends. So, but for the most part, I think that you can just kind of be a little bit of a one and done. And I also have been trained to touch up a bit on my own.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, I love it. Everything you've shared has been absolutely amazing. Heidi, I am so thankful to Anita for putting your name out there and yeah, so grateful for you for saying yes. I think you would be amazing to learn from the fact that actually doing this day in, day out, you know you're walking the walk where you talk the talk. Where's the best place for the listener to learn more if they want to get into personal branding?

Heidi Hapanowicz: Yeah, so well, my website for my photography is heidihapanowicz.com and there's a link at the the top of that website that goes directly to my course academy or they can just click on personalbrandingphotography.academy.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, I've got that one.

Heidi Hapanowicz: It's very easy to find it. You could spell my name wrong online and still find me. Cause people do it all the time.

Andrew Hellmich: And what about Instagram? Where do we find you on Instagram?

Heidi Hapanowicz: Yeah, I'm @heidihapanowicz on Instagram as well. HeidiHapanowicz everywhere.

Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. I'll add links to all those in the show notes. So it's very easy for the listener to find you, to your Insta accounts, your teaching accounts, everything. It'll all be there in one spot.

Heidi Hapanowicz: Yeah. Please reach out. If you do link through there, reach out, send me a DM. Let me know where you heard me and I love to connect with people.

Andrew Hellmich: Unreal, unreal. I'm going to ask one last question before I do let you go. With the clients or students that come through with you, what do you think is the or what is the one big thing they struggle with? What prevents them from actually making it if they don't?

Heidi Hapanowicz: Are you talking about photographer students who want to become brand photographers.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes, yes.

Heidi Hapanowicz: Themselves, their own head.

Andrew Hellmich: So really it's not the marketing, it's not getting out there?

Heidi Hapanowicz: Yeah, just getting out of your own way. It's mindset. I mean I can give you everything in the world but if you are not willing to have the competence to get out there and just do it, there's nothing that I can do.

Andrew Hellmich: So you have to do it.

Heidi Hapanowicz: And there's so many talented people out there that are not making money. So many. Because they're just not, you know, willing to kind of step into the next level version of themselves.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. Heidi said it before, you're amazing. Thank you so much for sharing everything you have.

Heidi Hapanowicz: Thank you. I'm so excited I've spent this time with you and thanks Anita.