Attorney Shutters Day Job In Favor Of Photography

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

In the very first week of this podcast, or maybe it was week two, but very very early on, January 2017, I told the story of Oliver Asis, the Craigslist wedding photographer. I also wrote about him in the Side Hustle book, and I love that story. A lot of people have talked about it since then. Oliver was a skilled photographer, but he had never done weddings before. So he put an ad in Craigslist offering to shoot a wedding for just $250. And from there he was actually able

to go on and build pretty significant side business, even as he continued with his day job. So he really diversified his income. And actually since then, we've heard from several people who have emulated the same kind of model, followed his lead and done something similar. If you'd like to see what he's working on now, he's got a new project. Check it out on Instagram, Oliver_Asis. Oliver_ASIS. So here we are some, I don't know, 1380 days later. And in today's story,

when an antitrust attorney loses interest in her day job, she captures the moment in profitable portrait photography. So she too is able to build a really significant side income. In fact, she's able to equal the income that she has in her day job. And it ends up serving as an off-ramp for her. So different paths for different people. I'm always interested in the nitty gritty. How does

somebody get their idea? How do they make it happen? And that's what this show is all about. So welcome. I'm so glad you're here. The story is called Attorney Shutter's Day Job in Favor of

Photography. Now I'll bring you all the details after this short message from our sponsor. It was 2017 when Emily Jenks first began to become disillusioned in her day job. On the outside, things seemed great. She was a well-paid antitrust attorney in San Francisco.

But on the inside, Emily was losing her spark a little more each day. She'd even wake up and tell herself, I'd rather die than do this for the rest of my life, which she now admits was a little dramatic. But these feelings are real. A lot of people have them. Despite her annoyance with work, Emily continued to do it. She felt like there was no choice.

Living in San Francisco is expensive. And she'd only recently given birth to her second child. Beyond that, though, she wasn't sure what else she'd do. And it seemed too much of a risk to leave a well-paying job without a plan for what came next. So instead of quitting, she set herself a big goal to find out what she really liked to do and then figure out a way to make money from it.

She proceeded to try everything from blogging to beach body coaching, none of which panned out. In the end, a chance gift from her husband brought her passion into focus. It happened in a flash. He bought Emily a day-long traveling photography course for her birthday. And it turned into the best day she'd had in years. By the end of it, she had what she

calls a "this is it" moment. This is what she wanted to do with her life. This is what might help her escape her day job misery and produce more happiness. Emily would start a photography side hustle with the stretch goal of turning it into a full-time gig. She was so convinced that this was the right next step that she immediately bought equipment, confident the money would not be wasted. After all, she already knew she loved photography, so if the business

side of things didn't work out, she would still use the gear for personal enjoyment. But still, that number one goal was to eventually quit her job as an attorney, so she had a lot of income to replace. Emily began looking for her first client, and she turned to Yelp for help. Yelp is a huge platform for people to find local services, and they offer an advertising product called, well, Yelp ads. Basically, you give them money and they put ads on their site. Using those ads, Emily soon had her first client booked

for a family photo shoot. The client agreed to pay her $275, which seemed way overpriced, given her level of experience. To feel better about charging so much, Emily quickly set out to increase her skills. She homed in on local Facebook groups for moms and found someone looking for a family photographer. Emily quoted a cheap $75 so she could use the shoot as practice for the main event. She also photographed some friends' families to familiarize herself with

how a shoot like this might go. Lastly, she went and scoped out the location, so she was prepared to act quickly on the day, which it turns out went very well, and not just for the client. For Emily, it was her second "this is it" moment, and it improved her focus on working to become a full-time photographer. She had a logo created on Fiverr, built a website using Squarespace, and made a tablecloth banner. These business editions cost her a few hundred dollars and had an immediate purpose. She attended a mother's group fair in October 2018, where she quickly

snapped up more business. In addition to the fair, she spent money on Google AdWords, which developed positive results too. Soon, she had several bookings each weekend, and then appointments began creeping over into her work week. Luckily for Emily, lots of people wanted sunrise or sunset shoots, so she could squeeze them in before and after her job. She also booked the occasional gig during her lunch break. Within another year, all that hard work was paying off,

as she was earning as much from her photography work as she was in her day job as an antitrust attorney. That's right, it was more than six figures per year. For her, this was the tipping point. With a family and a thriving new business, it was time to make the jump and go full-time. Emily hasn't once regretted the decision to leave the workforce behind. Her business has only grown,

and now in addition to family portraits, she does wedding photography and elopements, often bringing in upwards of $20,000 a month. Finding the link between your passion and the marketplace may not be a snap, but with the right motivation and that hard work, everything comes into focus. Well, did you know, here's a fun fact, the first color photograph was taken in 1861, and that photograph was of a colored ribbon. Compare that photograph to today, where an estimated 100 million pictures are uploaded to Instagram every single day. That is a lot of selfies and avocado toast, like 100 million pictures a day. Amazing. Well, congratulations

to Emily. Thank you for letting us share your story. I love the idea of going out to increase your skills and getting this gig and then realizing, oh, I need to improve my skills further. So I'm going to go and do something for free or low cost and then feel more confident in charging a higher price to get that value that you really need to be able to, you know, in Emily's case, quit her job and go all in. So good work, Emily. And listeners, I hope you found this helpful. Inspiration is good,

but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes for today's episode are at sidehustleschool.com/1396 or also known as 1396. Thank you so much for listening. If you've got a comment or question for the show, we'd love to hear from you. Just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions and do come back tomorrow as well because much more is on the way.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Sawdustleschool. From the Onward Project.