000 : BONUS EPISODE! We Just Launched Apparel / Ask Us Anything
Once a week just isn’t enough, right? Well this week you get to hear from Maddie and Kait TWICE with this BONUS episode where we get to hear from our hosts on a Monday–and they have BIG news. APPAREL IS LAUNCHING AT 11 AM EST. This apparel is something that Maddie and Kait got to work on together and they have both been really excited about. In this episode our co-hosts tell us where to order the apparel at, some ideas of what it is going to look like, and they even give exclusive information on where to look for Maddie and Kait’s mini try-on haul. And, as if that wasn’t enough, the co-hosts also answer listener questions and allow listeners to get to know them on an even deeper level.
In this week’s episode we get to know our co-hosts even better through a Q & A style episode where they answer questions from listeners!
BUT. Before they get to that they drop a BIG announcement on listeners: APPAREL LAUNCHEs TODAy, February 7th, at 11am est. This apparel comes in different shapes and sizes for women & babies and it can all be found on The Refined Sisterhood website beginning at 11AM EST. and If you’re like a lot of us and want to see what it looks like on someone before purchasing, hop on over to The Refined Sisterhood YouTube Channel to see Maddie and Kait’s mini try-on haul:
The Refined Sisterhood - YouTube
Question and Answer Style:
KAITLIN: “Maddie, what does a typical day look like for you?”
MADDIE: “I have an 8 month old and every day is different but I like to have a general routine.”
For instance:
-Wake up around 7AM.
-Eat Breakfast
-Play with Keegan
-Get some work done while he naps
-Keegan starts going to bed around 6:30PM
-Maddie and her husband, Shaun, have a little in-house date night every night after 7PM.
Kaitlin offers that her routine with her own son, Beckett, looks very similar:
-Wake up
-Eat
-Play
-Random House Stuff
-Work while he naps
-Beckett goes to bed around 7pm
-Kaitlin and her husband, Hunter, spend time together just resting or watching a movie.
MADDIE: “What are some things you do to pour into your clients?”
KAITLIN: “Okay, so, me and Maddie both do lots of things to pour into our clients so we are just going to give a list of some of those.”
Handwritten notes– any sort of heart-felt message to the clients on their wedding day, session day, whatever it is.
Encouraging texts–throughout the entire process of getting to the shoot.
Client gifts–whether that is on the day of, whenever the client books, whatever it is.
Ask clients their coffee order in the beginning and keep it in their client profile–if there is time on their wedding day, Maddie will take their coffee order to them on that day or on the day of their shoot so that they feel special and like their photographer is their friend.
KAITLIN: “What is some engagement advice?”
Three things:
Premarital counseling–something both Maddie and Kait did with their now husbands. The co-hosts share that going to premarital counseling does not mean that your relationship has issues or is bound to fail, it is just a way for couples to get to know each other on an even deeper level before getting married.
Enjoying the season that you are in–being engaged is one season of life that you do not get back and being engaged is short lived. It is easy to be very excited, or very stressed, and to wish away the wedding day because you just need it to be over with. Enjoy the season of engagement and think “whatever is going to happen will happen.” Ultimately, Whatever is causing you stress is NOT going to matter in the grand scheme of things.
Evaluate the posture of your heart–something a lot of women struggle with. As women, most of us naturally want to get engaged and married and move on, but we forget to evaluate our own hearts and think about after the wedding and what that is going to look like.
Maddie: “That night, after your wedding is over, you are left with you and your husband and you have to know who you are. Because, there is not another wedding day the next day. There’s not another wedding planning coming up where it is distracting you. You have you and your husband and you need to know yourself and really evaluate the posture of your heart. The things that bring you joy, the things that steal your joy, the things that you need to change or focus on.”
MADDIE: “What does your off season look like?”
Kaitlin explains that she and Maddie both like to look at off season as kind of a re-set, which is nice because their off season really begins in January so they get to start over and work to really prioritize rest.
Kaitlin tells listeners that there are weeks where she puts her computer down and realizes that she has been working on her computer for sixteen days in a row and she has not truly rested. Maddie chimes in and lets listeners in on what it is like for photographers: if they aren’t photographing they are sending emails to clients, inquiring with clients, + being present for their clients as well.
Kaitlin continues on to share that they like to spend off-season praying for the year ahead–for their clients, shoots, weddings, families. Every aspect of their careers is prayed for in the times that they are not physically working. Maddie shares that every year, around this time of year, she notices the Lord presenting things to her that she needs to work to refine in her life.
Maddie shares that they both try to spend off-season planning for the year and changing things they need to before the season starts. Such as, updating prices, revamping things, figuring out how much they will make that year and the dreaded one: taxes.
And lastly, our co-hosts like to spend this time being normal humans. Having coffee dates with friends, catching up with people, re-editing old photos to fit their current styles, and finding new inspiration for the new year.
KAITLIN: “How do you set yourself apart in a saturated industry?”
Kaitlin explains that the two co-hosts will talk a little bit about this now and that they will also be doing an entire podcast on this later on. But, for now, Maddie and Kait share a few ways to do so which include the following:
Be yourself–the most cliché answer but genuinely the best way to reach the clients that you want to be serving. People want you for YOU. They don’t want just a photographer, or whatever it is you do, they want your brand and what it is YOU have to offer.
Maddie shares that when she mentors other photographers she always tells them that being yourself, and showing up as yourself, is going to stand out because you are the only you that there is.
Don’t copy someone else’s brand–you want to set yourself apart. You don’t want to be just like someone else in your industry. It is normal when starting out to use other people’s work as inspiration, but there is a difference between that and copying someone else’s work. Your brand is your brand, and you are your own person, so when you take someone else’s stuff and copy them you may be setting unrealistic expectations for yourself and it is unfair to the person that you steal from. In the long run, copying someone else’s brand is not helpful to you and you get to be your own person and people will love your work because it is YOU who did the work.
KAITLIN: “If your brand has to change because your personality changes, that’s okay, too.”
KAITLIN: “What is something fun or new your child is doing right now?”
MADDIE: Says that her son is at a really fun age right now where he is starting to get his personality. He has started doing a nose scrunch that is SO cute and he likes to scoot backwards across the whole house.
KAITLIN: Beckett has had a lot of changes over the past few weeks but he has been trying to reach for her food and babbling more–it seems like there is something new every few days.
END OF Q & A.
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Thank you SO much for being here. We hope you leave today feeling more encouraged than you were when you started listening and like you are a welcome part of this community— because you ARE.If you want to connect with us and other listeners in the Refined Sisterhood community, join our Facebook group here.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/therefinedsisterhood/
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Music : better than life by oliver dodge