There's more to building a photography business than what happens behind the camera. In this episode of Business Edge, entrepreneur Mindi Westhoff shares how she transitioned from financial journalism to pursuing her passion for photography, adapted when unexpected challenges arose, and learned valuable lessons along the way. Discover how flexibility, resourcefulness, and professional growth can help you navigate a career that doesn't always go according to plan.
Mindi Westhoff [00:00:00] Being flexible is really important, but also being willing to, and I almost hate this word, but being willing and to hustle a little bit when necessary.
Intro/Outro [00:00:07] You're listening to Business Edge, the podcast for professionals looking to excel in the workforce. In each episode, our guests take a deep dive into their personal and professional experiences to give you an edge in the marketplace. This podcast is brought to you by the Commonwealth Leadership Alliance.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:00:21] Hi, welcome back to another episode of Business Edge. I'm Chrissy Vasquez and with me is Nicole Klemp. How are you doing, Nicole?
Nicole Klemp [00:00:27] I'm doing well, Chrissy. Good to see you again.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:00:29] Absolutely. It's been a while. Happy New Year. It has been a while since we've been in Miami. I wish we were in the warm location right now. We're expecting what? Seven inches of snow this week?
Nicole Klemp [00:00:38] Yeah.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:00:39] Well, welcome back. We are so excited to have Mindi Westhoff with us. If you have ever been to an AKPsi event, you have seen her behind her camera snapping those beautiful pictures. But she is also the business owner at Time and Place Photography. Welcome, Mindi.
Mindi Westhoff [00:00:54] Thank you.
Nicole Klemp [00:00:55] We are so excited to have Mindi with us. As a recovered newspaper and financial journalist, Mindi made the jump in 2017 from her East Coast roots in Virginia and Washington D.C. To the warmer weather and taller boots of Austin, Texas to start her own photography business. Time and Place Photography is a one-stop shop for events, headshots, family photos, and all things love from proposals to 50th wedding anniversaries. Mindi prides herself on her candid, natural style and ability to put clients at ease during her on-location shoots. Mindi is a two-time photographer for the AKPsi National Conference in both Dallas and Miami. Plus she's done her fair share of PBLIs as well. And she's perhaps most proud of her recent induction as an honorary brother of the Nu Psi Chapter of James Madison University, where she studied media arts and design while also honing her sports and event photography skills. Thanks for joining us, Mindi.
Mindi Westhoff [00:01:51] Absolutely.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:01:52] So why don't you start off a little bit by telling us how you even got into photography?
Mindi Westhoff [00:01:58] Yeah, it's actually, I started very young. So some of the, this is gonna be interesting, I think, for some of a lot of listeners who are actually still brothers and still students, but it would have started about 19, let's see. How old am I? 1997. My mother had a film, Minolta, and I was always really fascinated with it. So I kind of picked it up one day, and again, no digital photography in 1997 or... It was kind of still burgeoning, certainly not something people had. And I kind of played around with the idea of ISO and aperture, shutter speed, but because it was the kind of thing where you would send off the film and wait a week to get it back. Each frame I had to write down the settings and wait to get back and kind of see if I did it right. So that was the start and I just fell in love with like the technical and art side of photography. Started working for the high school yearbook and the high-school newspaper, and then of course in college, kind of taking that into the college versions. The Blue Stone at James Madison University was the newspaper. And then the yearbook as well. And yeah, just became a sports media relations photographer for the school as well, and really went like full into it with the college. And then when I graduated, I... I actually used my back-up major of journalism and became a reporter with photography on the side. So after that huge amount of work in high school and college, didn't do it for a while professionally.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:03:36] Gosh. And that's a whole other story after that. I was going to say you just took me back to, do you remember how exciting it was to get your pictures? Like you'd go into the pharmacy and you'd get up and you're like, oh God, I cut everybody's head off or this is too dark.
Mindi Westhoff [00:03:50] Absolutely, absolutely. And then the disposable cameras as well. Oh, yeah. The little yellow ones. Everyone had them.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:03:57] Speaking of that, I have seen more disposable cameras lately in event photos and I thought they got phased out.
Mindi Westhoff [00:04:04] It's a nostalgia thing. People are bringing it back. It's very funny.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:04:09] Are the photos any better than they were?
Mindi Westhoff [00:04:11] I don't know.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:04:15] So talk to us a little bit about what made you change from journalism.
Mindi Westhoff [00:04:18] Yeah, so in 2003, I'm sorry, in 2007 when I graduated, I was very fortunate. I had been a photo intern at the Daily News Record. Oh my gosh, this early in the morning, I'm gonna have to remember the names of these papers, but the Daily New Record in Harrisonburg gave me my first photography internship while I was still in school. When I graduated in 2007, there weren't photography jobs available, but they brought me on as an editor of their journals. So outside of the city, there were different counties. And they brought me on to kind of be a one stop shop writing, editing, photography for the county journals. I thanked them by six months later, leaving to work for a daily where I actually got to work every day on a larger newspaper, but by no means a large newspaper. And that was the Staunton News Leader in Staunton, Virginia. And as you guys know, there was a little bit of a recession in 2008, the housing market crumbled and it kind of hit everything. Newspapers started furloughing reporters, I was one of them, but fortunately there was a financial news organization that was picking up on the flip side of that with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. They actually needed a lot of reporters and they did not care much at the time whether you had a financial background. So I applied there when things were looking a little dicey at the newspaper and was fortunate enough to be hired. So for six years, I worked as a financial journalist. And as someone who wanted to be a photographer, I don't think I need to say why that didn't last forever. It was a wonderful job and was very fortunate to be in it. But my mid 30s were like knocking at the door and I just sort of. Um, realized I wanted to make the jump from the East coast where it always lived. And finally try the very scary risky move of, of starting my own business. And I'll be honest, as far as the biggest impetus, it was, um, living in DC and, um, the very, very surprising to some election of, uh, Donald Trump. And I think it was a desire to leave DC in general. And this fear. I hate to put it in these terms, but this fear that the world was kind of burning down, and why not? Why not do the thing that I'd always wanted to do? And fortunately, financial journalism paid well for a journalism major, and I saved up some money and just made that leap. It's a long story, but I think that it's important to mention how much I did love working for newspapers and how great the financial news organization was to me. It was the time in 2016 when everyone was sort of feeling tethered untethered. And yeah, it was, it wasn't the time to make, to take a risk, I think.
Nicole Klemp [00:07:17] That's awesome. Um, we're so happy that you did because you're so talented.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:07:22] Absolutely.
Nicole Klemp [00:07:23] Um. So talking a little bit about, you know, running your own business and you know I'm sure there are so many great things about that and there I'm sure there's also some really challenging things about that. I think for example would be, you know, I would be curious how you kind of handled, you know, the 2020, uh, you know, the pandemic and having people having fewer weddings or in-person events and how that impacts. How do you kind of think about these types of ups and downs and kind of the good, bad and ugly of running your own business?
Mindi Westhoff [00:07:53] Oh, it was it was such as I mean, like, I mean everyone was, you know, taken by surprise, to say the least, but I had, you know, I had been in Austin since late mid 2017. And things had been going so well, to the point where I actually in January, end of January, 2020, I have moved into a larger space in my home and had out outfit a second bedroom for headshots, right to have people come in and have like a little in home studio. Of course, that was not going to happen after, after March of 2020. And so it was, it was a lot, it is a lot to take in. Um, I will say I was very fortunate to be able to get a PPP loan, um, which isn't, which is a whole other story in and of itself. I did not think initially that as a small business owner, as a one person LLC, that I would have even been eligible for a PPP loan, but I did get it in it and it helped a bit. However, I think the biggest, other than that, I think, the biggest thing that needed to happen was just being able to be flexible about what I offered. I had always been a person who took pictures of people, whether it was family photos or engagements or even just events, right? It's still people-focused. I got into a couple different things that I could do in my home or that I can do in homes that had nobody in them. And a great example was real estate photography. I had never done it before. But I applied to a few different real estate companies that hired out photographers and paid them very, very little. But there was a lot of work. There was a a lot work in real estate at that time. And also, people got a lot food delivered. So I worked for Grubhub and did food photography for them. So I think it was just the... Yeah, yeah. So again, very low pay, but a high volume of work and... As someone who, you know, when you own your own business, being flexible is really important, but also being willing to, and I almost hate this word, but being willing to hustle a little bit when necessary. And I think that was a good example of having to turn on a dime and do things you didn't think you were going to be doing before.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:10:04] I never thought about people photographing food for a grab-hub, so.
Mindi Westhoff [00:10:09] Oh, I mean, you have to, then they need it. I got a lot of free food, which was nice too.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:10:14] It makes sense. I want to back up a little bit. So you moved from D.C. to Austin.
Mindi Westhoff [00:10:19] I did.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:10:20] What was that? Can you do you have some tips for the listeners based on your experience? How did you really immerse yourself into the community and start making contacts and, you know, more importantly, friends and, you know a part of the community so you could help your business thrive? I think that's a big prop to you for taking a huge risk, not only moving to a new city, but also moving with your small business.
Mindi Westhoff [00:10:44] Thank you. I think that, you know, it's two different questions there and as far as the business, with photography, yeah, obviously, you have to build a client base and it's one that has to be local, right? So it was tough. I did a lot of research and work on organic SEO. It was the kind of thing, starting a new business that I refused to pay for. And I don't know that that was necessarily the right move, but I very much wanted to build my SEO on my own. It took a long time. But kind of doing some research on how to do that, I would definitely recommend regardless of what your business is. But I think the bigger thing that helped me find clients was the willingness to be a contract photographer for other companies. I'm very torn when I say this, because I do think that there are a lot of companies like, you know, I'm not even gonna mention their names, but there are lot of company that you will find when you go online and you Google, you know, portrait photographer in my area, the first four or five things that are going to come up are large companies that pay photographers $40, $50 for a shoot to go out. They do the work of finding the clients and they send them to you. I'm torn in recommending that as a new photographer because you don't get paid very much. However, you do meet new clients and as long as there isn't a heavy non-compete with the company that you work for, it is a great way of meeting potential new clients. Because often, especially with family photography, people need you more than once. So yeah, being willing to put your ego aside a little bit and say, you know what, I'm worth $200 an hour, but I need to find clients first. I think that was the biggest way I found clients, is again, being to work for other people as a contractor first.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:12:32] Mm-hmm. Yeah, I hear the walk before you run kind of theme.
Nicole Klemp [00:12:37] Yeah Now that's great advice. Mindi, talking a little bit more on kind of the other aspects of running a business. So you talked a little about kind of the relationship building and the marketing. Tell us a little but about how you've kind of learned how to manage kind of the financial side. You know, knowing you studied more on the media arts and design. You know finance probably wasn't your maybe forte or maybe it was, maybe you're great at it. How did you manage that side of the business knowing that that's such an important piece?
Mindi Westhoff [00:13:08] That's a great question. Yes, finance is not my forte, but being very anxious about money is my forte. So I think that, first of all, moving to Austin, I know it seems like a very huge jump. And I suppose in a lot of ways it was. But I did save for a year and a half. Everyone talks about having six months of emergency funds in the bank, but I cannot stress enough how important that is. And that's what I did. So that was step one. And as far as keeping track of your finances, I made a lot of mistakes at first, but I did a lot research into the LLC side, which isn't necessarily the finance, but I do a lot a research into how to set up an LLC, business insurance, all that, what you should have, what you don't need. Probably paid for a lot insurance I didn't need it at first. But as far the biggest thing I can recommend is if you're starting your own business, go to a tax seminar. And they offer them for free. The cities will almost always offer a tax seminar for free, get an accountant at first. I do my own accounting now, but to start out, I definitely found a small business accountant to answer all of my questions. Shout out to Aaron. He probably was so annoyed at the beginning because I was so, I had so many questions for him, but so hire an accountant and go to a couple of tax seminars to learn what you what you need to do and I did learn the hard way after a year of not realizing that photographers have to charge sales tax. That's a good example. So take advantage of the free information that is given to you by the city you live in.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:14:48] Did you reach out to any other small business owners to kind of get these tips or was it all pretty much figuring it out on your own?
Mindi Westhoff [00:14:56] Funnily enough, when I first moved here, I did end up meeting through, oh gosh, meetup. It was initially helpful in meeting new people. And I did meet some other photographers. And to be quite honest, most of them... They're probably not listening to this podcast, but most of them were a little more, oh my gosh, I'm being so careful about what I say, even though they're not listening to this podcast for this very reason. I think the business side of being a photographer wasn't something they were particularly focused on, but I did meet one who brought me to the tax seminar and who talked to me about these things. So all you need is really just one person to kind of guide you. But I will say most of it was was fueled by anxiety and fear of being audited or something like that. More so than advice from other people. But I will say that there was one person in particular who really kind of guided me along. And being in a new city obviously makes it really tough. But there are ways. We've never been more connected. So there are definitely ways to people in your industry.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:16:09] So that's a great, great point. And if any of our listeners are willing to reach out to you, are you willing to field some questions if they're interested in small business or photography?
Mindi Westhoff [00:16:19] Absolutely. Absolutely. Be prepared to hear all the things things not to do.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:16:23] Those are sometimes the best way to learn. What is it like? Talk to us a little bit. I've heard this from people that do creative jobs like photography and marketing. What is like having to create your own content on top of that? I'm sure social media plays a big part into your brand and into recruiting new clients and being able to share your work. How do you approach building content for your own platforms?
Mindi Westhoff [00:16:49] That is a great question. And I don't know why I wasn't expecting it to come. I am not one who adores social media, if I can put it that way, but especially as a photographer, my God, Instagram, you just have to use it for now. I mean, until the next thing that's cooler than Instagram comes around. I think it's already, I already am like... In the back of my head wondering why I'm not on TikTok, but, you know, Instagram is obviously very important for photographers. Some people, I mean photographers who have Instagram accounts and don't have websites, right? So it's obviously very important. And I do wish I could say I was more consistent. But the HootSuite is a great tool for, you get into a mood where you want to post a lot, but obviously spacing out your posts and everything is very important. If you're someone who creates content for Instagram and you're somebody who has a hard time keeping up with the consistency, Hootsuite is very, very valuable. And you can time things for 11 a.m. when people are messing around on social media instead of working or little tips like that. I won't lie, it's not easy. You also have to be the kind of person who is okay with self-promotion, which doesn't necessarily come naturally to me. It's just a constant effort, I think. It is hard. I can't bring myself to hire someone to do my social media just because I'm a little bit, and I don't recommend this, but a little of a control freak about things. So I can bring myself to hire somebody to do social media. But it's just constant reminder that it's something you should be doing. And honestly, following people who are doing something on their accounts that you wish you were doing is a little bit of a, so when you get into that mindless scroll on social media, you're coming across people who are doing what you know you should be doing, and it helps, it's a good reminder, if you're going to mindlessly scroll anyway, it's good reminder to work on your own, on your content.
Nicole Klemp [00:19:03] That definitely makes sense. Yeah, that is good advice. I know I struggle with that, too, having, you know, my own business. And I know, I should be posting on LinkedIn, but I really don't want to. So it's a balance. Well, Mindi, so we have a signature question that we ask all of the guests on the Business Edge Podcast. So tell us about a time when your personal values were challenged. What happened and how did you handle it?
Mindi Westhoff [00:19:28] So this is such an interesting question. And I feel that you think about your personal values being challenged. I love the way you word the question because the question is how did you handle it? And I think that there's so much opportunity to talk about times when your personal values were challenged and you handled it so well and you're so proud. But all I can think about is a time in college when I did not handle it well. Um, so I'm, you know, and it's actually a thing, 20, oh my gosh, how old am I? 15 years later that I still, it's still a source of so much embarrassment for me. And so I am going to go ahead and talk about it.
Nicole Klemp [00:20:10] Well, it is a safe space to share that.
Mindi Westhoff [00:20:13] So when I was in college, I mentioned I worked for the yearbook, the newspaper. I worked for the sports department as a sports photographer. I also did, I worked as the photo editor for the Feminist Literary Journal. And I forgot to mention that I studied women's studies in college which was almost more fun than media arts and design. But I did work for the feminist literary journal. And when I the photo editor for the yearbook, it was actually the second year I'd done it. I'd it two years in a row. And there was such an overflow of photos that I had taken over the year, or in this case, over the semester, that would never see the light of day. So that's the first point. And I worked for the Feminist Literary Journal, which as you can imagine, had like four people working on it, me being the only photographer. And we had decided that for our fall issue, we wanted to do for the cover, we wanted it to be a collage of powerful women from the college, right? Think presidents of sororities, captains of different sports teams and all of that. And of course, I had these images because I went and shot everything for the yearbook. And so I had so many beautiful, in my opinion, beautiful photos of women who were in leadership positions at the school that would never be seen. So my thinking was... Even though technically the yearbook owned the photos that I had been shooting because they paid me to do it, my thinking was, why would they care? So I wanted to kind of double dips the wrong word. It implies I was being paid for the feminist literary journal, which we all know is probably not the case.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:21:56] Mm-hm.
Mindi Westhoff [00:21:57] But I wanted these photos to see the light of day. And so I used the photos for that cover and it came out and it turns out they did care. They cared very much that those photos had gotten used for not their stated purpose. It ended up being a very uncomfortable situation and one that led to me just out of like, I'm gonna be honest, pure shame, because I didn't realize how much this mattered, right? To me photos deserve to be seen. And that was in my 20-year-old brain. That was what mattered. And also, the work had been done and I felt like it needed to be shown. But in reality, I signed contracts that said that I wasn't supposed to do that. And in the end, I felt that the right thing for me to do was step down as the photo editor from the yearbook for the second semester. And... Fortunately, the journal had already been published and those photos did see the light of day. But I spent a lot of time thinking about that situation. And two things sort of came of it. One, I was so relieved in retrospect that I learned that lesson in college. That's a very different lesson if you learned it in the professional world, very, very different lessons. So I'm really, really glad that that was something that happened in college with very low stakes. And in a time when you're supposed to make those mistakes and you're suppose to learn those things, right? It is a training ground. And secondly, I learned the lesson I would learn over and over again that sometimes you're doing too many things. And if you have to do things like that to complete your work, then you're probably doing at least one too many thing. And I did learn that lesson for the first time and had to learn it many more times before I actually did anything about it. But don't overextend yourself And Non-competes are a real thing and they matter. So, yeah, that was the hard lesson I learned there. And it made my values of sticking to those non-competes a lot stronger, to say the least.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:24:01] Well, thank you for sharing and being vulnerable because you know, as you were talking about that, I was thinking about different times in my career where I've outright made a mistake and there's nobody else to look to but myself. And I think those agreements that we all sign very early in our career, like when you first come on to a project or to a company, sometimes we forget all the little nuances that are in there. So that's a great reminder that we need to be aware of those. And I am glad that you were able to share that with our listeners.
Nicole Klemp [00:24:29] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Every mistake you make is always just makes you better in the long run.
Nicole Klemp [00:24:34] Absolutely. And making them early is always advised.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:24:38] Yes. Yes.
Mindi Westhoff [00:24:39] Make them on all now. Make them all now if you're in school.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:24:41] No, and I think you, you know, your great point about living laboratory, right? Like that was a living laboratory for you to make mistakes and to learn from them. And so, uh, that's, you, know, what we always say Alpha Kappa Psi all about is being able to have that space to do that. Well, thank you so much, Mindi, for joining us. We really appreciate you sharing your story and your time with us today.
Mindi Westhoff [00:25:00] Absolutely.
Nicole Klemp [00:25:01] Yes. Thanks so much Mindi. And we look forward to seeing you at another event.
Mindi Westhoff [00:25:06] Oh, I'll be there. I'll be there, right.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:25:08] Take care.
Mindi Westhoff [00:25:09] Thank you.
Intro/Outro [00:25:12] Thanks for listening to Business Edge. If you have questions, comments, or topic suggestions for us, contact us at mail at businessedge.org.