Check Out Savannah Herr’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Savannah Herr.

Hi Savannah, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Our business, Authentic Collective, was founded in 2018. Savannah started the business after moving to Georgia from British Columbia and pursuing her passion for photography. After a successful first year, and bringing Greg as a second shooter to multiple weddings, Savannah had maximized the potential of the business with one employee and booked enough weddings to allow Greg to join the team. It was not easy making this decision, as Greg was in an extremely competitive role with a leading consulting firm, with great growth potential and stable income. We had many sleepless nights but once we hit some budgetary goals, the decision was much easier. Clear planning and milestones led what was initially a wild dream into fruition. Along the way we have learned the value of clear communication, and clear roles. Spending virtually all of our time together may seem challenging to some, but our open line of communication makes our relationship stronger than ever.

We would come out to Denver each summer for work as we thought it was where we wanted to eventually end up. During a visit in 2022 we hiked up Grays & Torreys and at the top had shared our dreams with some people from Michigan. They also visit frequently and told us if we don’t commit and make the move soon, we never will. That brief conversation was a turning point for us.

After that we fully committed that we were going to move out to Denver and made the transition with our business, both in changing locations and transitioning from shooting both big weddings & elopements to just shooting elopements. We’ve happily been running our business in Denver ever since!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Anyone who tells you that being an entrepreneur is a smooth journey is lying. We all face challenges from the basics of learning how to sign up for and pay sales tax to understanding how to properly market your business. Initially everything felt harder than it should be and that’s because it was. We didn’t know much of anything beyond what Savannah already knew from a previous business she ran and what Greg could apply from his business degree.

One of the hardest things for most photographers to figure out is how to attract their ideal clients outside of posting on social media and hoping the right couples resonate with the work. In early 2020 Savannah started to really dig into SEO and understand how to create blogs that couples were actually searching for on google. It was this revelation that skyrocketed our business and transformed our relationship with how to market from feeling a need to post on social media every single day to now when we may not post for an entire month (not what we recommend but things get busy) and still having over 70 people reach out that month for our services.

We’ve increased our depth of knowledge on the subject to the point that we now help other photographers leverage blogging, combined with social media, to generate more leads every month. We teach photographers how to do this in our online course, the Lead Generation System.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We are Colorado elopement photographers. We specialize in taking couples into the wilderness (either alone or with a select few guests) to get married in the breathtaking scenery of Colorado. In the words of some of our past clients, we both capture the beauty of the scenery and the couple’s love, at the same time.

One of the things we are most proud of is our dedication to our clients. We do everything we can to ensure that we answer all questions they may have and some that they may not have even thought of asking. From the moment a client contacts us, we aim to remove any stress and concern about planning their event. The fact is, as an elopement photographer, most of our couples have never attended an elopement, let alone planned one so it’s our job to be as supportive and helpful as possible. Elopements are supposed to be fun and stress free and we pride ourselves in making that the case for our couples.

Along the same lines, something that sets us apart from others is the level to which we ensure locations will work for our couples. What we mean by this is even if we’ve been somewhere 20 times before (take Twin Lakes for example) we will still drive the 3 hour round-trip the week of to confirm that at the time we recommended, the lighting is perfect and there are no surprises along the way. We do this not only to ensure our couples have a stress (and surprise) free day but to confirm that what we are suggesting is the right/best/only option for perfect photos on our couples day. While we know our peers also scout their locations at some point, we ALWAYS go the week of to ensure everything is perfect for our couples.

What are your plans for the future?
Along with being photographers we have recently taken a big step forward in the education space, with the Lead Generation System. We KNOW there are enough couples searching for photographers and there are plenty of extremely talented photographers who just aren’t being found. We’re helping bridge that gap and helping photographers create content that their ideal clients will find, so we can connect the right photographers with the right couples and make everyone have a better experience.

That’s the biggest change we are in the process of undertaking at this time and will continue to create opportunities for other photographers to join our course and learn how to have more inquiries than they could ever photograph themselves.

Pricing:

• Elopements start at $10k
• Engagements start at $2.5k
• Proposals start at $2k

Contact Info:

• Website: https://authenticcollective.blog/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/authenticcollectivephoto
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authenticcollective.blog/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@elopementphotographers
• Other: Lead Generation System -> https://authenticcollective.mykajabi.com/lead-generation-waitlist