Life & Work with Rachel Greiman

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Greiman. 

Hi Rachel, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
I started Green Chair Stories in 2014 while working as a writer and photographer at a local nonprofit. I thought I would just do some family photos on the side, every few weekends. The business came quickly though and less than 6 months later, I left my job to pursue family photography full-time. But there was another shift coming two years later: one into copywriting! On my journey to become a family photographer, I met lots of other photographers who worked for themselves. And every single one had the same frustration when it came to their job: they hated the writing. 

Half of running a successful photography business is having a great marketing plan. And you need a great website as a home base for any and all marketing. So in 2016, I started helping photographers with their websites. And by 2017, that’s almost all I was doing. I hired my first writer in 2018 to help with the influx of clients and so I could take a maternity leave. Then I hired another in 2020. Then an assistant this summer. And we just hired two more writers this month. We haven’t changed all that much since 2017, we’ve just grown! We still write websites and only for photographers. We want to stay specific so we can stay helpful. 

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I think there’s always bumps! Anyone who says different about running a business is probably lying. I’ve had to learn how to go from the “doer” to the “manager”… I’m very lucky to have gracious writers who have been patient and honest with me, helping me grow and get better. 

Covid was a bit of a bump too. Just the unknown was very scary. It took guts to stick it out and to trust that we would still have work on the other side. But we saw our clients, photographers, modeling that bravery so we borrowed some! 

And personally, just having really little kids at the exact moment my career and business are experiencing such exciting growth is … exhausting. It’s so much to juggle and balance and some weeks feel just a step above impossible. But we’ve made it this far so I think we’ll keep going :). 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Copywriting is more of a science than an art. It’s compiling information, not stringing words and story together like an author does. It’s based in research, but not data. Let me explain … 

The research we do is often grounded in a relationship: between our client, the photographer, and their clients, couples, or families. We ask our clients to allows us to interview their favorite people they have ever worked with. Then we research those people. Their emotions when searching for a photographer and what propels them to hire someone. We ask them questions about the process of working with a photographer and how that may have been different than their expectations. Then we use those words and that research to write copy that attracts more people just like them. 

We are so proud that we spend so much time getting to know our clients and the people they love to work with. It gives us a unique perspective when writing their websites and grounds everything we do in reality. We aren’t assuming what their potential clients want or feel. We already know. And then when we deliver a first draft of copy to a photographer, we show them where every single line came from. We don’t pull an idea out of our heads: we use the research. Our copy works because we aren’t inventing a theory or guessing. And I get to be confident in what we do not because I’m cocky, but because it’s a system and a formula. 

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
There are three ways for photographers to work with us: 

– A guide that walks you through how to write your copy yourself 

– A copy audit where I, Rachel, evaluate every page of your site and give expert feedback 

– A full-service, done-for-you website where a writer from our team writes your entire site. 

Pricing:

• DIY Guide $199
• Audit $2,000
• Full Site $4,500

Contact Info:

• Email: rachel@greenchairstories.com
• Website: www.greenchairstories.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greenchairstories/

Image Credits
Emily Wehner Brands